Midway 1976

Midway (1976)

Runtime: 132 minutes

Directed by: Jack Smight

Starring: A great all-star cast

From: Universal

Everyone can probably guess which theatrical movie I'll be reviewing next; Midway 1976 was viewed Tuesday night and Midway 2019 was watched last night. I'll do most of the comparison talk in my next review but I can say the two are different looks at this battle.

I have known of this movie for many, many years; a parent is a big fan of Midway and I recall them watching it on television when I was a child. No, I did not view it then at the time, although perhaps I should have. This being a movie of old w/ a great all-star cast and the topic being an old battle is in my wheelhouse so keep that in mind when judging for yourself how valid you think my rating is.

From what I understand, this follows rather accurately the real life events of the Battle of Midway, the 1942 naval combat where the United States did battle w/ Japan and the result was so unexpected and decisive, it changed the tide of the war taking place in the Pacific and allowed for Japan to eventually be defeated. While '19 is more focused on several soldiers and their heroics, this was mainly centered on various commanders on both sides as they try to outwit each other and attempt to use intel or just plan intuition to put all the troops in the right spot or in one important early moment, American codebreakers broke through the gibberish & realized the Japanese were planning a surprise attack on the Midway islands.

As referred to already, this movie has a great cast and while names like James Coburn and Robert Mitchum have glorified cameos, there is still Toshiro Mifune, Charlton Heston, Hal Holbrook, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Robert Wagner, and also some people that would become famous later, such as Tom Selleck, Erik Estrada, Pat Morita, and James Shigeta (the last two have bigger roles that Mifune did). I do understand the complaints... there is drama involving Heston's son having a relationship with a Japanese-American girl, actual stock footage is plentiful, whether it be from previous movies or from the actual Midway battle-and it doesn't match the footage shot for this movie-and some may not like its deliberate pacing or all the talking.

For me, I was never bored as I was a history nerd so all the machinations and strategy was interesting to me... not to mention, the action you do see was fine and I did appreciate that plenty of time is spent with the Japanese side; those who have seen '19 and thought there was a large focus on Japan's viewpoint, it is quite a bit stronger here.

Glory

Glory (1989)

Runtime: 122 minutes

Directed by: Edward Zwick

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher, Cary Elwes

From: Tri-Star

It seemed appropriate to view this today when it played on Turner Classic Movies; today in the United States is Veterans Day and other places call it Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. This is a movie I have checked out before, albeit at least twenty years ago or so. To the movie's credit, I did remember more than one powerful scene through that long gap between viewings.

In essence it is a standard movie based on true events (although not entirely historically accurate) during the American Civil War where Robert Gould Shaw is a Colonel and he is tasked with leading the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, only the second-ever all black regiment in the Union Army. A ragtag group of people have to come together and while the training was harsh, it was still fair and as Shaw was the son of abolitionists, he does support his troops. Naturally there are conflicts-even among the soldiers-but through all the trials and tribulations, it is a compelling story and when there are combat scenes, it is a smoke-filled hellish landscape which can leave soldiers shell-shocked due to all the chaos & brutality.

I know some have criticized how the movie is framed around Shaw; well, it's based on letters written by Shaw at the time and plenty of time is spent with the troops. You get to know the main players and the most memorable performance was from Denzel Washington, as an antagonistic person mad at the world. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for such moments as when he was captured after going AWOL; later you see he did this not because he was deserting (his intentions were more noble) but his punishment was... being whipped. Yes, this was one of the scenes I recalled from long ago.

Matthew Broderick and Cary Elwes are fine as Shaw and his second in command, but what left the biggest impression was Washington, Morgan Freeman and Andre Braugher; of course they were all distinctive as they played wildly different characters. Mix in the typical quality James Horner score and I was relieved this was a good as I recollected it being.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: H.C. Potter

Starring: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas, Reginald Denny, Sharyn Moffett, Connie Marshall

From: RKO

While I am still trying to get back in the swing of things when it comes to watching movies, this was something I viewed on Friday night: 

Yeeeeppp.

I did need to see something different from the norm that was the past several months so I went with this, which was on Turner Classic Movies last night. Blandings is an amusing home improvement comedy where Cary Grant is an advertising executive in Manhattan; he is doing well as he lives in a downtown apartment w/ wife Myrna Loy and two daughters (they look to be around 14 and 12)... and they even have a black maid, but let's gloss over that bit of awkwardness. Actually, she does contribute something to the plot so it is not as uncomfortable as it could be. The apartment is crowded so Grant gets the ingenious idea to buy an old house in rural Connecticut. Well, the place is ancient & run-down so it needs to be torn down and a new house had to be built... from there, calamity rules the day as they seemingly have to deal with all the complications and the realization they are all over their heads.


Comedy is of course subjective but I got a decent amount of laughs from the various misunderstandings and the family poking fun at each other. Thankfully both of the daughters were not only non-aggravating characters, but I can't carp about the performances either. This was the inspiration for The Money Pit, something I saw like 30 years ago and recall nothing about; I'll presume this is the better of the two, even with a silly subplot where Grant plays a jealous husband just because his lady and his lawyer friend are pals. Mix in memorable supporting characters who all have various trademarks & a movie that is far from bland... the movie works for me, and it has still relevant takes concerning house ownership and how damn expensive it is.

A Nostalgic Update

Wednesday night I revisited the great 80's teen comedy/drama Lucas; one reason why was so I could talk about on Letterboxd how there was a time that liking this movie was awkward as the guy who played the fat kid that got killed in the beginning of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning accused Charlie Sheen of doing horrible things to Corey Haim during filming of this movie... but once that guy (Dominick Brascia) passed away last November, it turns out that it was Brascia who did those horrible things. With that out of the way, Lucas should be viewed by everyone.

Parasite

Parasite (2019)

99% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 267 reviews)

Runtime: 132 minutes

Directed by: Bong Joon-ho

Starring: Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Cho Yeo-jeong

From: It was released in the United States by Neon

For much of 2019 I had heard how tremendous this motion picture was. It took awhile to make its way to the United States; finally I was able to check this out, and... it does live up to the lofty hype: 

My old school (Illinois State University) getting namedropped in this movie... rather unanticipated by me.

Those that read my scathing review of Terminator: Dark Fate may wonder why I went and saw a dumb Hollywood product that I suspected would be dumb when there are independent movies I could be checking out instead... touche, I say. Central Florida is not like Los Angeles or New York... but various indie/foreign movies usually don't require too long a drive to see. As I mentioned while talking about Dark Fate, some of those pictures do come off as pretentious and even a little bit intolerable to me. Snowpiercer was a big letdown for me, yet The Host was a very good Bong Joon-ho movie so I was hoping I would agree with most film fans and think this was worth checking out theatrically. As you can see with my highest of scores, no one has to get out the pitchforks and hang me in the town square! Those elsewhere around the world, it was only this past Friday that Parasite made it to mainstream cineplexes in the United States and is in more than select locations. I understand that many people got to see this months ago.

I never even saw a trailer for this so I only went into the picture hearing that it dealt with a pair of families, one rich and the other poor, and those two interact with each other. That is indeed correct, and I'll attempt to be vague here to avoid giving away anything important. Naturally, the poor family is desperate so they do some things to try and help themselves-this includes a few little white lies-but... unexpected complications occur. Parasite has plenty of content concerning inequality between the haves and have nots, along with capitalism in general and “fake it until you make it”... this is done as various genres are mixed in together. I'll just say that there are laughs of the satirical and dark humor variety along with some suspenseful moments and yeah, a few bloody ones also.

Perhaps Parasite is benefiting, re: that it was the first thing I viewed after experiencing something I found to be awful... be that as it may, I was very happy to see something that was unpredictable yet not ludicrous or devoid of logic... a picture where the audience can decide how they feel about the various main characters, as nothing is black or white and you can damn the rich family for being naive or not comprehending how “common folk” live... or knowing at least once that things are likely to go wrong... you just don't know when or how this will occur.

I haven't viewed all of the director's movies by any means but this is the best and favorite that I have seen; what a ride this was. I was very happy to see something original that did not insult my intelligence or was overly smug or was way too arch for me to enjoy. Everything about the movie was great, from the story and the performances to the cast and everything behind the camera; if you enjoy what Bong does or even if you want to see a story that deftly maneuvers between several different genres and can view this theatrically... Parasite is a must-see.

Terminator: Dark Fate

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Somehow, this got a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 248 reviews)

Runtime: 128 minutes

Directed by: Tim Miller

Starring: Some series regulars who should feel embarrassed or angry... along with some new faces

From: Some companies who should feel embarrassed or angry at this tanking at the box office

Sponsored by Carl's Draperies & Ruffles Potato Chips

I realize my rating is overly harsh, but at the same time it is not unwarranted. I think one issue is that not just in movies but in other fields also, they used to make them better than they do now... music, sports, television, etc. In the future I'll have to extrapolate more on the topic-for now, I will say that whether it's the pretentious indie/foreign pictures or how lame and boring too much of Hollywood has become, I tend to prefer the older movies or the modern pictures that don't try so hard or aren't insufferably smug. Because Hollywood is too scared to try old ideas, they brought the T-800 out of mothballs yet again, even though many believe that the same time the series was worthwhile, it was almost 30 years ago and the subsequent sequels have just been a waste of time.

The trailers did not inspire confidence and even though I haven't even viewed all of the sequels, I do love the first two, the true Sarah Connor has returned and how bad could this be? Oh did I ever find this out! The movie was even worse than I first realized after I saw some videos on YouTube and discovered that the story makes no damn sense in the least; it was devoid of logic, and such things usually aggravate me to no end. In hindsight, some of the stupid Hollywood pictures I've seen in recent years... I was way too kind to them and more deserved a bottom of the barrel rating like this does.

Like most Terminator movies, an unstoppable force from the future has come to try an assassinate a target and a less powerful force has also arrived from the future in an attempt to protect said target. By now, talk about lame and unoriginal; this is rather close to T2 and believe me, T2 is MUCH better than this crap. The characters, the effects (too much of which looked rather ropey and not convincing), the action beats, the plot, the logic behind the plot, having sympathy for the protagonists... massively inferior to Judgment Day. Not only do important plot points crumble into pieces once you apply a modicum of common sense to them... I swear there is a scene which was supposed to be included but was missing! A bomb goes off, killing various people and knocking down our heroes... suddenly, it immediately cuts to our heroes in another location, captured yet I have no idea who or what brought them there. It was like the movie went from A to D and skipped steps B & C.

Not only I am penalizing the movie for that, but to me far worse was how the character of Sarah Connor was treated. While watching the movie she came off as unappealing with her attitude and that made me mad due to how great the character was in the original movies and how inspirational she was as she morphed from a down on her luck waitress to a badass who was taught by great warrior Kyle Reese and she passed on those traits and general leadership to John Connor... and here she was jut an angry old lady who kept on arguing with augmented human Grace, because both are women (?!)... hell, I dunno.

By now many people know that a shocking moment happens in the opening minutes and I dare not spoil that here... even though by now it is easy to accidentally stumble upon this spoiler; thankfully this realization did not occur until after I viewed the film yesterday. I don't agree with that decision, especially after the rest of the movie happened and I realized this was a crap movie which told the same story but in a poor way where there are massive plotholes & like with too many movies these days, there is unnecessary humor and most of it was terrible. Hell, I say that the fact that T2's critical message of “Choose your own fate” is tossed away here and the movie teaches us something entirely contradictory just for the sake of “being different”... thankfully I'll be happy to ignore this in my personal canon and keep on pretending that only the first two movies happened, where fate is what you make it is still a thing.

I could go on and on but I'll close this out by saying that both the new and old cast do try their hardest, I suppose... “generic teenage girl” is no John Connor and there being more diversity here does not matter too much for me when I am not sure all the right people were chosen for the roles and broached topics of “technology intruding on modern society” and “Mexican immigration” are only addressed superficially. This stupid movie makes me better appreciate actual worthwhile big budget modern action movies... look at how awesome Mission Impossible: Fallout turned out. Doctor Sleep being different in style compared to The Shining won't make everyone happy... be that as it may, I imagine more would have been unhappy if King wrote the Doctor Sleep novel as adult Danny Torrance returning to the Overlook Hotel w/ his family and the exact same scenario occurs... I am glad that went in a different direction, and thankfully that was done well. Look at The Predator (one of those movies I'd rate far lower now) as it's an original story involving the property... but was not good as there was WAY too much humor and way too many illogical moments.

I guess this is what I get for actually giving this money and wasting part of yesterday with another example of a piss-poor Hollywood product.

A Skynet-Sponsored Update

I have just now returned to being in the swing of things and on Saturday night I revisited the original The Terminator... which is still incredible. In a few minutes I'll post a review to Terminator: Dark Fate; that was incredibly bad.