December 27th, 2021

The Matrix Resurrections: When I was seeing a couple of the trailers for this sequel, 20 years after the original cutting edge first installment, I thought to myself that “I hope that it doesn’t suck”. The puzzling aspect was that in the original trilogy, which progressively got worse from one sequel to the next, ended with our Christ-like Neo figure is dramatically killed and enveloped by the computer city existence. Trinity had died earlier in the crash with Neo in the craft to get him to meet with the supreme being in charge of it all. I give away nothing in this sequel to state that up front. The mystery was for me, “how are they going to deal with bringing these two central characters back to life?” For me, the answer wasn’t very compelling. I won’t explain further for fear of spoiling the plot but it is confusing. I think it makes a lot of sense to have a refresher course in the previous three episodes. There are tidbits as they talked about this system of control for humans to act as a power supply for the machines, in short humans are enslaved to becomes batteries, with their minds occupied with the alternate reality for their minds. In many ways, it is all just a computer with programs and associated firewalls. I attended in the theatre on Wednesday. The theatre was about 55-60% full. The beginning is a replaying of the first Matrix movie, with a call being traced and a woman who looks a lot like Trinity being surrounded by heavily protected and armed SWAT-like police, as opposed to the ordinary police in the original. It is those inconsistencies which troubled me. So the suggestion is that one can watch a replay of the first episode and learn more as we are introduced to Morpheus, another confusing character since Lawrence Fishbourne is nowhere to be seen, but this computer-image look alike fills in for him. A very John Wick looking Neo with a beard and longer hair is questioning his reality as he works in a software company. Further details I will save. But it takes a while for things to get going, and for Neo to finally meet Trinity once again. We learn about their connection, in a way that for me is different than what was explained in the first trilogy. In the original, Neo was The One, the singular presence who would be the saviour for all humankind. He is the second coming of a man who could manipulate the matrix, and was the recruiter for people like Morpheus before he was killed. Morpheus had been searching for The One, as predicted by the Oracle, and we later learn is a glitch in the programming that creates such a creature periodically. If much of this sounds like jumbled spaghetti logic, that’s because it really is! This movie has sections in it where they speak a gobbleygook, techno babble that goes right over my head. I don’t design and make computers. I understand the basics to make it run, much like my car, but I can’t deconstruct one and rebuild it. There were audience members who walked out of this showing. I didn’t. I did find it long, and confusing. There were moments were I checked my watch and wondered “is this going to be resolved in the next minutes left?” It does. But sadly, it shows abilities in characters that we have never seen before, much like Star Wars decided to do. That becomes part of this Neo-Trinity connection. Neil Patrick Harris (aka Doogie Howser) explains much of this as the story unfolds. I do think that there was a new tangent created by the now female director and writer Lana Wachowski, who was part of the Wachowski Brothers team before her sex change. The Matrix is no longer a male dominated world, waiting for a male Messiah. For me it was often much ado about nothing. I will say that you need to know the first three movies pretty well to understand anything that is going on. When the French character shows up, you need to recognize him and understand how he has changed from episode 2. Further, the realities and separation of the two realities, the “real world” versus the created Matrix world (and which programming is being run in what partition) become muddied. So, this was confusing and disappointing. It often made little sense. There is too much shooting of people using automatic high powered guns. Maybe that is a first person shooter game impact on it, but it is difficult to watch. One wonders why the agents, and those that become agents are such terrible shots with such powerful weapons? But nevermind. There is a part of me that thinks the pile of money for Carrie Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves had to be pretty tall to make them do this one. I am not sure whether the film makers will ever recoup this money for actors and production. See this one at your own risk. I likely need to see it again to catch some of the subtleties. I will note that Alison liked it a lot better than I did.

Bad Santa: This 2003 movie was seen as a joke this Christmas Eve. It is not really a Christmas movie. Rather Billy Bob Thornton (Santa) is a jaded safe cracker who has teamed up with a black little person (Tony Cox), who plays an elf, for malls and then steals from them during the holiday shopping season. Thornton is constantly drinking and profane, much to the chagrin of the elf side kick, who really runs the show, and in truth is the best part in the movie. By chance, Santa meets up with a local structurally-challenged kid (aka chubby kid) who gets picked on while he lives with his Grandma (Cloris Leachman) while his Dad is in jail for embezzlement. Santa meets a woman who seems to have a Santa/Daddy sexual fetish who adds to the plot. In short, the two have some funny scenes interacting with children at the mall in a totally inappropriate manner, and then fighting with the store’s security manager who is figured out what they are planning, and wants a cut on the action. It was light entertainment. I laughed a couple of times. It was successful enough to merit a sequel, but that I haven’t watched and wouldn’t need to see these guys again travelling down a similar path. Fun to spend some time during the holidays but I wouldn’t seek it out.

P.S> Note that this was John Ritter’s last movie. Also Bernie Mack who plays the Security Manager didn’t live too many years past this release either.

December 20, 2021

Power of the Dog: I started the week thinking that I would be seeing a quality Western starring Benedict Cumberbatch. He has done a number of projects that I really like, including his on stage performance of Hamlet a few years back. In this movie, newly released on Netflix, he is a wealthy rancher in Montana in 1925 that lives with his brother, played by Jesse Plemons. Plemons’ real life wife Kirsten Dunst plays a local town hotelier and provider of meals to patrons. Cumberbatch plays a complex man on a number of levels; he is educated, chooses to be a rancher, acts gruffly and irrationally at times, and seems to keep a distance to those around him. His brother is quieter and seems to be the financial brains of the two-man operation. We see Cumberbatch be cruel to Dunst’s teenage son who is helping as a server in the restaurant where she feeds the men. In another scene, Cumberbatch is cruel to a horse, never a way to make friends with an audience. Plemons meets and likes the hotelier Dunst and they end up married. Then things happen. Jane Campion directed this movie. In 1993 she had Oscar nominations for The Piano with Holly Hunter. This for me was slow. Too slow. The son was a character that just screamed to be picked on. In many ways, this is a movie uses 2020 sensibilities and attitudes and looks to impart them on the 1920s. Many concepts that we take for granted, like autism and the spectrum are more clearly understood and would be foreign to someone in the 1920s. So it just doesn’t translate well. New Zealand where Campion is from, also doesn’t play Montana very well. Yes there are mountains, but they are too high and too close together. I didn’t believe it. When it ended, I could only summarize it with the gif attached and leave it at that. I cannot recommend.

Reaction gif tagged with what the fuck?, Jack Black — In three words the summary of this film for me

The Unforgivable: Sandra Bullock produces and stars in her latest movie on Netflix. In short, I cannot recommend it. It was a downer and depressing. Bullock’s character is released after twenty years in prison for what we learn was killing a local police officer. There are snippets of the past that are shown through flashback. To start, Bullock is being released from prison and is a woman unto herself. She has to make her own way and no one is there to help her. One wonders how anyone can get away from the rut of prison and the system with the working conditions and living conditions that they need to endure. The setting is dreary Seattle in its grey best with rain and overcast and sketchy neighbourhoods. The story follows Bullock as an older sister who is seen trying to protect a young girl that we learn was her sister. Mom had died and it was up to the older Bullock to take care of the little girl. Fast forward to the release from prison and we see that Bullock is trying to track down her now older sibling. Things happen. She meets up with a lawyer, played by Vincent D’Onofrio and he is married to Viola Davis. This is a good cast. But they aren’t given really compelling material from which to work. Bullock has so very few lines, and she appears so very hard which is to be expected. That is the role. But the plot gets very predictable, up to a point and then sets out to deliberately be surprising. As the credits roll, for me it was a letdown. The storylines with competing interests, the prisoner, the sister, the relatives of the police, the lawyer who lives in the old house just don’t add up. This was too bad as I was hoping for more and the trailer made it seem more compelling than it turned out to be.

14 Peaks: After two rather disappointing and depressing stories it was good to have a feel good story to watch. My eldest son had recommended 14 Peaks, and I knew very little about the premise. It was a story of a young Nepalese man who was looking to climb the 14 tallest mountains in the world in 7 months. He called it Mission Possible. Each of these mountains is over 8000m tall, which to a laymen like me is 8km all up! Here is a man and his small team that were going to do this 14 times, against some of the most dangerous mountains in the world. Alex Honnald showed the world about free climbing in Yosemite National Park, and the Dawn Wall. Nimsdai and his team showed the world that people are capable of remarkable things. He made the seemingly impossible, possible.

New Netflix Film on Nirmal Purja Climbing World's Highest 14 Peaks in 189 Days - Gripped Magazine — Nimsdai on a peak

Has the summit of Mount Everest become an overcrowded tourist trap? - New York Daily News — Crowds at Mt Everest up and down

On his trip back down from Mt Everest, he showed the dangerous crowds of people looking to climb the world’s tallest peak. His picture of the Disney World-like lines at Everest were shown throughout the world. But for me, his actions in leaving no man behind, which reflect his elite military training were quite remarkable. His attitude is infectious as evidenced by him and his team arriving at K2 where other teams were resigning themselves not to reach the summit that year. He rethinks the climb, and he leads 20+ people to the summit in a few short days. In his words where those around him said that the mountain wasn’t going to be climbed, and that he was “fucked”, he responded that “fucked is only 45% fucked”. Brilliant. He wouldn’t listen to naysayers and was committed to complete his ambitious project. I cannot imagine three of the tallest peaks in a matter of days. After a while you see less mountain climbing and hear more about the surrounding story. This was remarkable, and exhilarating. Nimsdai made his point that had a European or North American done what he had, that it would be world news and the top story in news media everywhere. He and his team of Nepalese, didn’t get that attention. Perhaps this documentary can help provide the recognition and respect that this man and his team deserves. Who knows what can be the next task for this group. Well worth watching, if only for the breathtaking pictures from the top of the earth and those mountains!

December 13, 2021

The Virtuoso: this is a typical hitman movie that stars Anthony Hopkins in the periphery. It stars Anson Mount in the title role with an otherwise forgettable supporting cast. I hadn’t seen Abbie Cornish since she played along side Russell Crowe in the 2006 A Good Year. This isn’t worth your time. I can readily say that. The story is fairly formulaic with the principal assassin being asked to take on a hit from a reclusive boss (Hopkins), but without being given much more than sketchy information. The assassin needs to figure it out and report back when the job is done. In this instance he needs to head to a small town. There he is given a time and place from which he must figure it out. Let the drama begin. I won’t delve further into the plot, because I would expect that a seasoned movie watcher will anticipate more than a few of the moves that take place. What may come as a surprise to some, won’t be for others. The acting was pedestrian for the most part. Hopkins gives one speech to the principal that tries to make this better than it is. Avoid it if you can.

The Way Back: Ben Affleck stars in what purports to be a basketball movie. In some ways it can mirror quite a bit from the much better 1986 Gene Hackman movie called Hoosiers. In that earlier story the disgraced coach is invited to a small Indiana town called Hickory that found itself coachless in a basketball crazed environment. He has a small team, and he works them hard. They come together. They learn and succeed. Hackman has a really good side story with the father of one of the players, who battles alcoholism, and another with a player that had the most skills. in this 2020 movie, Affleck plays a role that hits pretty close to his real life it would seem on the surface. I say that because the early part of the movie shows Affleck’s character working on a construction project with rebar, but dealing with an obvious alcohol problem. He drinks on the job, in the car and in his life. He is separated from his wife, and yet out of the blue he is called by his old high school looking for him to coach. Hackman’s disgrace was physically assaulting an active player in a game. Affleck’s character checked out as a superstar player for reasons that are explained later. Do I believe them? Not sure. For me, being offered a full scholarship at a top university would be the ticket away from parents (eg: if you live in LA, go to Villanova in Philadelphia or to Kentucky or Kansas). But I digress. Further details are revealed about his situation which are meant (I think) to tug at the heart strings, but they aren’t as effective. It feels like manipulation. This isn’t an uplifting story, quite the contrary. You would think that the title would suggest that there is redemption and to some extent it is there, but not in the way that you might anticipate. Again, this falls flat for me. I am not a big Affleck fan. This doesn’t change that fact at all. His is a character that struggles and can’t seem to turn a corner. Was there a feel good story for one of the young players? Yes, somewhat. In the end is it worth seeking out to see all the details for yourself? I can’t recommend it. There are other movies with coaches and sports involved that are more compelling and better all around.

Succession (Season 3): Sunday night was the last episode in Season three for the well reviewed and excellent Succession. The story of an older father figure, a media mogul worth his billions, with his senior staff and his children, who have their own challenges. Season 1 he had a health crisis. Season 2 there was the challenge by his second son Kendall. This season was a continuation of the Kendall challenges but also dealing with internal Board and adult child strife. The final episode was the wedding of the children’s mom, who had been divorced long ago to the father. Everyone descends to Tuscany in Italy for the wedding, all the while trying to put together a merger with a betting, online company on the rise from their newspaper and TV media empire. It is intriguing. Fun to watch. The writing is excellent throughout and despite the excessive use of profanity, it is clever and cutting. I laugh at least a couple of times an episode with what one of the characters say, usually Roman played by Kieran Culkin. Others chip in as well as the rats collectively turn on one another in a bid to try and get a step up on another of the rats. It’s all good fun as you can see how a group of adult children that could potentially be a formidable force if they chose to utilize their strengths and build a collective front seem incapable of working together and supporting one another. Logan Roy, the father, played expertly by Brian Cox shows time and again his resilience while navigating through the larger issues that seem never-ending for him. This was one of the best series of the past season. It is worth watching and binging.

December 6th, 2021

Tick Tick Boom: I have admitted as recently as last week in talking about Get Back with the Beatles that I am fascinated with the creative process. This is a movie brought forward by Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) which tells the story of Jonathan Larson. Larson is played by Andrew Garfield. This movie is another reason to dislike Garfield, and I say that in jest of course. Amazingly Garfield admitted on Late Night television that he didn’t sing. Garfield shows that not only can he act, but he can sing and play the piano so it seems. Jonathan Larson is a young aspiring NY playwright and musical creator who was still looking for his big break. He struggled to make ends meet, living with various friends and other creative people. In his life he had always felt that he was in a race against time. As he was about to turn 30yo, he spoke about how he felt like a failure. He wrote a song about it, in fact. Writing music for musicals is different than songs in a band. The songs are telling the story, and moving the plot along. But it also needs to have an emotional punch, and be something that (in a perfect world) your audience wants to hum on the way home or listen by buying the soundtrack. Many musicals are like this. The story has Garfield telling his own one man story through song, which was a Broadway play in its own right (Tick Tick Boom) but told the story of his earlier musical that never really got off the ground. In the performances you can see a who’s who of Broadway (like Bernadette Peters, Judith Light, Lin-Manuel himself and many others). They are very good. All the while he is dealing in the story with his relationship. He and his girlfriend who cared deeply for each other were at odds because she wanted to move on. Start a new a career. But his life was living in NYC and Broadway. So there is an emotional underpinning to the story which is effective. If you know the history of Broadway, the Tonys and musicals then know that he went on to write Rent. So this I can encourage people to watch. Watch because you can see the absolute talent of Andrew Garfield. Watch because you can see a quality cast doing what Jonathan Larson was born to do, through and through. Watch because you can set aside some time and feel good about a story well told. I enjoyed this.

Belfast: This movie won the People’ Choice Award this year at TIFF. Usually that means that the Academy will come calling. Often this can mean a Best Picture award. But we will see. For me having been to Belfast back in 2019 and sitting through a guided tour through the locations where many stories of The Troubles are told, it brought back thoughts of how it would be to live during troubled times. Kenneth Branaugh directs and wrote the story. It is more or less autobiographical, as he was 9 years old in 1969 when the story is set. There are quality performances by Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Ciaran Hinds and a young boy, Jude Hill who is excellent. It is a story of a poor Protestant family living in Belfast where there is a move afoot to rid the neighborhood of the Catholics. This isn’t ancient history. The young boy at one point is playing with Hot Wheels kept in the plastic box with trays to keep the various cars. He is innocent. He likes a girl in his class. All the while Dad works near London and spends a lot of time away from home. He has grandparents that he is close to. The young and innocent ask direct questions. They want to understand. Events are happening around them that seem so foreign. Adults are angry and confused. I have never lived through strife. I have never lived in a war zone, and make no mistake that living in a barricaded block with a burned out car and cement slabs and armed soldiers nearby is a war zone. As an outsider, I didn’t and don’t understand. They speak the same language. They share in struggles, and have common history. And yet there is that religious chasm between the peoples, and ongoing discrimination that ensures that the issues continue. As a writer, you write what you know. That very line was delivered to a young Jonathan Larson by his agent. Branaugh has brought forward a poignant story that shows a place in time which even today, while there has been peace in recent years, still has some underlying tension. I wish that I had spent more time in Belfast. It doesn’t have the vibrancy and energy of Dublin, which is just a short drive away. This story personalizes it, in the eyes of a young boy with his parents trying to make difficult decisions on how to best serve the interests of the young boys. The Irish may be born for leaving, but is it best to have your population split and forced to make these decisions so very young. I am thankful that I have never had to endure any of these situations. I haven’t had to fear my life walking down the street. I have been safe with people who generally respect one another and allows for everyday tasks to take place. We’ll see about Academy Awards for this movie, but I won’t be surprised if there are more than a few levied here. I think Hinds as the Grandpa was excellent, and the work from the little boy. Another film worth checking out.

Get Back: I finished the first of the three episodes in this series by Peter Jackson. At the end, very casually George decides that it was time for him to leave the band. He casually walks off. The other three after lunch return to the studio and try and put in some work, but they didn’t manage much. Again in the creative process, you can hear Paul “putting in some piano work” while the others talk through an inane idea about where to hold the future concert. Remarkably, everyone seems quite alright with talking about the daily events, without pausing and listening to the piano and singing of “Let It Be” and later “The Long and Winding Road”. Paul doesn’t have all the words yet, but the structure is there. It is interesting too to see Paul and Ringo work away while the others roam in much later and try to catch up. However much we have read that it was Lennon and McCartney, you see that for these songs anyway, the documentary seems to show that it was more McCartney. You also see the real affection that these guys had for one another. Yes they had rows, and George was frustrated by being the third wheel with two musical geniuses, but they had one another. They were pretty tight for many many years. This is a really cool glimpse into some of that life, in pictures that aren’t grainy but rather vivid and you can see just how young that they are. It is fun to watch.