I'll make permanent this "brief" version for previews, with just one entry per month. Not that I'd like to get rid of it quicker, but because there's really not much choice for more titles that show some promise. Maybe I'm getting too old, grumpy & picky, but well... that's life.
For December I tried to find something else that's more interesting than the last episode of the "Star Wars" saga, but I couldn't (really, I watched 12 more trailers having their release set for next month until I gave up). And unfortunately not because "The Rise of Skywalker" is very interesting - given that there are enough spoilers, and even seemingly more enough cliches in it. I said that I'm old, grumpy & picky. But let's keep some hope...
January has a better offer, but by far the title that seems to be the choice to watch is "The Gentlemen", or finally Guy Ritchie's return to the genre that made him a great director.
I gave up on horrors since some time. A while ago a director was saying in an interview that this is the most accessible genre that allows you the largest boundaries on creativity (ironically this was in a "making of" for a very poor movie). There are some studios that got specialized more or less on this niche (Blumhouse, Screen Gems, etc.), which keep repeating a couple recipes where they just change some ingredient. In February we have "Fantasy Island", which seems though to bring at least a setting that's a bit different. Not much, but at least we move out of the ghosts and other evil area which is lately beyond overused.
As I said it in other years, for the usual weekly entry I'm choosing what subject I can pick (if I can pick) from what I've seen in the days nearby, but for each blog anniversary and end-of-year I'm trying a bit more to find a title that's worth to be watched. Unfortunately, if in the beginnings of this I was reserving some time to see at least 3 movies, for some years I'm more focused on carefully choosing, hoping to find "the lucky one" from the first try, because there's no time for a second one. Now, I realize that I even got late to the "carefully choosing" part. Ergo: no chance for a 5/5. But "Extra Ordinary" is still a bit more than "ordinary" :)
Somewhere in Ireland: Rose Dooley is an auto instructor and the daughter + apprentice of the famous Vincent Dooley, ghost exorcist and paranormal expert. Former exorcist actually, because during a badly ended session he got crushed by a truck. So Rose, traumatized by the event, tries to focus on her more domestic job, although the community seems more productive in restless spirits and rising the number of scared potential customers than in people needing a driving license. And like that we get to Martin Martin who still lives with his late wife, deceased since 10 years. "The plot thickens", to directly quote the character, when Christian Winter, a "one-hit wonder" singer, having moved to Ireland to evade taxes, and becoming an expert in satanic rituals to find his way towards the 2nd-hit wonder, sets his eyes on Sarah Martin, the daughter of Martin Martin.
There's enough I guess to not get into spoilers. The movie is something like "Ghostbusters" meets Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg, but without Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. We have the same feel and dark humor as in "Shaun of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz". Sometimes it might seem a bit silly, but everything is forgotten when we reach the final crescendo, getting more & more crazy by each scene, reaching its climax at the end (really, even for the VFX, where there's a major contrast with what you'd expect for the low-budget you just watched). It's not a masterpiece, but the actors are ok, the script is ok, we have a minimalist score that fits well, and most important: I laughed. And that doesn't happen often lately when seeing comedies (that's why I'm actually typically avoiding these).
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
So, that's it for the 12 year anniversary. I still persist in continuing with probably the most unread blog in the country as views/days of existence :) (presumption not verified but highly probable). But well, moving on ;)...
I watched "Deadwood", the series, much more recently than their production date (2004-2006). Which offered me some decent continuity for "Deadwood: The Movie", released this year by HBO. I'm not gonna make some complete description of all the story - despite the fact that's a relative short TV show at 3 seasons, there's still plenty of content there. However, I thought it deserves an entry, especially for the movie set at 13 years after the initial ending, which in the very narrow niche of "extra closures" for various series it's probably an example of "how to do it". Or at least a very interesting approach in an impossible context, out of which many screenwriters could take some lessons (not that I'm watching many series, but I felt the need for a while to make some counter reference to the last episode of GoT... especially after being nominated for an Emmy for best writing...).
So, to make it short, the context of the series is the life in a small settlement near some gold mining area, Deadwood, somewhere in South Dakota, close to the end of the 19th century. And in the last episode from 2006, everything is ended in what's pretty much the series semi-gloomy tone, something like: life is tough and happy-ends are fairy tales. More precisely, one of the main characters, Al Swearengen, owner of a "saloon" and a pillar of making things working in the community, has to kill one of his "world's oldest profession” employees, an innocent woman, in order to save another who tried to murder a wealthy businessman, George Hearst. A magnate, who using some unorthodox methods (= via contract killers) wants to take over the entire place. As I was saying, there's no time to get into much more other soapy details, but one thing is essential: Deadwood is real. The place exists. The history of the place exists. Many of the series characters were real. And if the life and ending of some got lost in time, leaving room for "romancing" it on TV, in some other cases doing that is not easy. George Hearst in particular, the main villain towards the series ending, was one of the richest men in the US at that time, getting to be a senator, and being the father of probably the more famous William Randolph Hearst, a press tycoon, and the inspiration for "Citizen Kane". If he was so evil as "Deadwood" suggests, I have no clue... But that's what the screenwriters chose, and the last series had to end with Hearst doing well and leaving the community smiling, while the people left behind are more or less agonizing after his actions. If you're not Tarantino in "Inglorious Basterds", it's hard to rewrite the history radically and put in the movie a happy end vendetta vs. somebody who lived many more years after briefly passing through Deadwood.
Unfortunately, this total lack of happy-end yearns for some other kind of closure, which as I was saying, in the historical context, seems somehow impossible. Well, after many years, the same screenwriters found a way, and like that we got "Deadwood: The Movie", where suprise, surprise, 10 year in the movie after the latest events, the villain is still George Hearst, coming back to Deadwood, still for business and still using the approach of "who doesn't breath anymore, cannot say no anymore". Only that this time, we have the payback. Without rewriting history, although probably that part is not in the history books :). I won't give spoilers, but the way the movie manages to close some narrative threads is... let's say surprisingly pleasing, and it's not about a happy-end, because there's not 100% like that. And again, this works in a context adapted from real facts with limitations, not in a fantasy where you can write whatever you want ( couldn't help it :) ).
T6 aka "Dark Fate" is indeed dark. Despite not being shot in 3D, the luminosity coefficient in some scenes makes you wonder if you should remove some invisible stereoscopic glasses. But that's not the biggest problem. Sorry, spoilers will follow...
All the "Terminator" series, except "Salvation", has pretty much the same story. We have a terminator sent back in time to terminate somebody, and somebody else struggling to stop the killing machine. And despite the repetition factor, the story works. How? Well, we have variation. The first one is man vs machine, the second is machine vs machine where the good machine = the bad machine from the first, the third is Kristanna Loken vs machine, etc, and so on. But variation moves forward than what vs. who/what. We do have a story. And even in this last part we have some story, until we realize it's a bit too much... the same. Linda Hamilton returns from T2, the target is a new Linda as in T1, on the good side we have a sort of a female terminator like in T3, which is actually an enhanced human, almost like in T4, and Schwarzenegger is an aging terminator who started developing something close to feeling (almost) like in T5, and we wrap up with an ending which wants to be a sort of reboot of the metal melting onw in T2 using this time some EMP and electrical discharges, totally stupid and inspiring a feeling of cheap copy - after more than 20 years of VFX evolution. So, we don't have much innovation in the story.
Even so, it wouldn't have been that bad if the production level would've been decent. But we have piles of cliche lines in the script, we have a lot of bad acting/overacting, we have poor camera work, we have an excess of VFX to supplement the lack of narrative material, we have the first situation when the screenwriters were actually lazy to try finding a connection point that would make some sense in relation with the previous production, and they've cut the story and resumed it immediately after T2. Which purpose is canceled from start - John Connor dies, so Skynet would win, but well.. Skynet is not Skynet in the future anymore, it's Legion, and we don't know why Skynet is Legion since John Connor died, but there's no problem, we'll just turn the public's attention to deadly fights in depressurized planes. The idea of an enhanced human protector brings though some original elements, and also Rev. 9 - the evil terminator model, comes with a doppelganger mode, completely inexplicable and not explained, but which looks cool. And of course, there's the old T-800 announcing that this time he'll "not be back" ( pfff... what a way out... :( ).
Rating: 3 out of 5 (= 2+1 - I'm nostalgic and subjective, but the review was objective ;)...)
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