The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was an animated, sci-fi romance/coming of age Anime from Japan directed by Mamoru Hosoda. As you can probably gleam from the movie title, this deals with time travel.
Time travel is always a challenge because of all of the different manners in which it has been executed in movies over the years. In this case, the time travel has been called “team leap” and it allowed the time traveler to go to a location in the past and relive everything again and make adjustments to the time line.
Once the form of time travel is established and the rules are stated, it is important to remain consistent with them, otherwise you can mess up your story.
According to IMDB: “A high-school girl named Makoto acquires the power to travel back in time, and decides to use it for her own personal benefits. Little does she know that she is affecting the lives of others just as much as she is her own.”
Makoto, Chiaki and Kōsuke and their relationships are the key to the film. Everything that Makoto does using her time travel powers was wasteful and she was slowly learning what was important.
The animation is beautiful and the story is creative and wonderful. The three characters could be whiny at times, but that was pretty typical for the style.
I did enjoy the film and it was an enjoyable animated time travel flick.
Another live action short, in fact an Oscar winner in 2016, Stutterer is written and directed by Benjamin Cleary.
Greenwood (Matthew Needham) has a terrible stutter that affects his life every day. He can’t make a phone call to check on his bills because he can’t get the words out in a proper time. He goes through the day watching people around him and making judgments about the people, running through silently in his head what he believes they are thinking about.
It should be of no surprise that Greenwood feels more comfortable talking by using text messaging. For six months, Greenwood had been exchanging messages with his online girlfriend Ellie (Chloe Pirrie). Ellie surprised him with the fact that she was coming to his city, London, and she wanted to meet him.
Greenwood was nervous about meeting her and having her judge him because of his speech impediment. He finally went to meet her and discovered a big surprise.
The short was well done and shined a light on a problem that many people suffer with. The character of Greenwood personified the fears and worries of stutterers everywhere. It was a well done short.
Since I watched the film, My Breakfast with Blassie, this morning, and it is a parody of a film that had been on the watch list for the DailyView for many months now, I figured it was a good time to go ahead and watch My Dinner with Andre.
Featuring actors Wallace Shawn and André Gregory playing fictionalized versions of themselves in a film that sees the two creative people meeting for dinner and conversation at Café des Artistes in Manhattan. Their conversations included the bizarre life led by Gregory, the world of theater, and the way of life.
Wallace Shawn will always be Vizzini to me, from the Princess Bride no matter what he is in. He is one of the most intriguing actors around with his distinctive voice and original appearance. I am unaware of André Gregory. The film was directed by Louis Malle, French director.
The philosophical dialogue and conversation being carried out by “Wally” and Andre was, at both, fascinating and challenging. It ranged all over the place. I found it most interesting when the pair of them were going back and forth. André Gregory had much more dialogue written for his character and he delivered it well, but there are a lot of concepts and ideas in the script that can be hard to follow.
This is a film that absolutely requires focus to understand what is happening. It is amazing that this film is so dominated with the language between two friends.
There is a really interesting shot in the film when Wally is speaking and the camera focuses on his, we can see Andre’s reflection in the mirror behind him and his reflection is looking directly at Wally’s head. It is a totally original way to look at POV. It is interesting as well that when the camera is on Andre, all we see is the back of Wally’s head. Maybe I am looking into it too much, but it is just something I noticed.
My Dinner with Andre has some great dialogue, but it does tend to be a little dull, especially if you have lost track of the conversation. It is extremely well written and deep, but it requires a perfect time to watch it.
Wrestlemania 38 night one was tremendous and the DailyView is continuing on with another wrestling film that I had not heard of before that featured former professional wrestler/manager “Classy” Freddie Blassie and comedian Andy Kaufman at a restaurant, meeting and eating breakfast while offending customers everywhere.
This was also found on YouTube, much like yesterday’s Kayfabe film.
This took place at Sambo’s restaurant around the time when Andy Kaufman was involved in Memphis wrestling and Jerry “The King” Lawler. The film is a parody of “My Dinner with Andre” as Kaufman and Blassie had a discussion over breakfast.
Reportedly, this was mostly an improvisational film with the two men interacting with each other and the other customers, mostly of whom are real people. There are a few exceptions such as Kaufman’s friend and “co-conspirator” Bob Zmuda.
Fred Blassie is quite a character, and, while Kaufman was playing, I am not sure if what we saw was anything but exactly what Blassie was like. He was outspoken and some of his opinions were certainly not 2022 opinions.
It was funny and totally like one of Kaufman’s performance art pieces. It is a weird experience featuring two of the biggest characters of the 1970/80s.
Technical issues delayed the Friday night program on YouTube until Saturday morning. While I understand that things happen, the Movie Trivia Schmoedown’s new program Friday Night Titans cannot afford to repeat these tech troubles. If you want to make the Movie Trivia Schmoedown something more than just another YouTube show, then you must be able to show the episode when you promote it is going to be shown. I’m sure that everyone behind the scenes at the MTS was frustrated, and I do not mean to pile on, but I am saying that this needs to be an exception.
Putting that behind us, the full episode came out Saturday and featured a major storyline.
Ben Bateman came out to the set and challenged last year’s rookie sensation Rick “The Rager” Raddus, the best 3-0 competitor. However, The Rager came out and instead and said that he would accept the challenge only if Ben found himself a partner and took on himself and his partner Brother Lomis in a teams match. Raddus was sure that Ben would never be able to find a partner because of the number of bridges he had burned. Ben had until the second part of the episode to find someone.
I knew immediately who it was going to be. I have seen this story happen in wrestling several times over the years and there was only one competitor who fit the bill and who was most likely there. It was Andrew Ghai, Bateman’s former partner in Team Action.
The seemingly one time reunion of Team Action was fun and reminded everyone what great jerk characters Team Action was. Ghai, who was always the B-player on Team Action, played the best game he had ever played (with the possible exception on the match with Dan Murrell), secured his first ever perfect round one and showed his personality throughout the match. It had to be disjointing for The Reckoning, the team of Raddus and Lomis.
Andrew Ghai has been doing a ton of Schmoedown podcasts, looking at questions and discussing proper strategies and you could tell he was a stronger competitor than when we last saw him. Bateman looked remarkably calm and relaxed, something he had not been in awhile. Together, they were in complete control and The Reckoning looked like they were deer in the headlights.
Team Action got the big TKO victory and celebrated as they were wont to do.
including with some selfies…
I do not know if this is a total return to competition for Andrew Ghai or just a one off. Ghai has been a sensational member of the hosts at the desk and that seemed as if it was going to be his future involvement in the Schmoedown. However, he definitely looked good today and he and ben were able to easily step right back into the jerk-chemistry that had taken them so far a few years ago.
This is something that could not have happened last year during the faction race and it supports the idea to make the season more scripted and less real sports (even though the matches are completely competitive). These kind of surprises certainly are a benefit of the new format for Season 9.
There was an Innergeekdom undercard match with Brandon Hanna’s new gimmick, The Hornet. Hanna’s new incredibly friendly and nice persona is begging for a heel turn at some point in the season. If he can have some success before that re-turn, it could be huge. Hanna won in a average performance against Jesse Swift.
And the building of the heel faction The Stars continued as Nick and Jacoby from Chaos Theory tried to talk to Roxy, but it led to Nick turning on his partner and joining the Stars. Nick Hundley reminds me of WWE superstar Kevin Owens and when he turned his back on Jacoby, DON’T TRUST ANYONE.
Next Friday, Bateman vs. Reddus is scheduled and should be epic.
This is the start of Wrestlemania weekend in the WWE and I looked through some of the other films that feature the world of professional wrestling. I discovered a film that was shot as a mockumentary called Kayfabe: A Fake Real Movie About a Fake Real Sport.
Kayfabe is a pro wrestling term for treating everything as real, the characters, the rivalries, the injuries. For decades, wrestlers protected kayfabe above all else. If you were feuding with someone, you could not hang out with them after work.
This mockumentary looked at the world of the independent wrestling company, TCICWF (Tri-Cities International Championship Wrestling Federation). The mockumentary took you backstage and showed what the world of pro wrestling was like at the level of wrestling in the churches and bingo halls with a promotion that was on its final legs before folding.
“The Rocket” Randy Tyler (Pete Smith) was the promotion’s top heel (bad guy) who helped the legendary former wrestler Al Thompson (Travis Watters) book the TCICWF matches and storylines. “The Rocket” is the champion after defeating top babyface (good guy) Steve Justice (Michael Roselli). However, Thompson delivered Randy bad news. The promotion was going out of business after the final two shows that had been scheduled.
The film focused on the bizarre characters, not only inside, but outside the ring. You had the hardcore wrestler who always bladed and bled in every match, the suspected gay wrestler who walked around the locker room completely naked, the rookie who was having sex with Thompson’s daughter, play by play broadcaster with a fetish for midgets, among others.
If you are a professional wrestling fan, this is a mockumentary for you. They use plenty of insider terms (many of which are defined for you in the first scene of the film) and they show many of the tricks of the trade.
There are fascinating and eccentric characters to follow and the way that the matches are set up are fun to watch. You can tell that there are plenty of types of real wrestlers being used as inspiration of the weird, behind-the-scene world we are introduced to.
The whole film is found on YouTube and is certainly a film any wrestling fan should watch. I do think there is enough humor and intelligence in the script and the execution that non-wrestling fans could find enjoyable aspects of it as well.
With tonight being the start of Wrestlemania weekend and another episode of Friday Night Titans, I decided to finish Oscar week with another Academy winning short, this time a Live Action short from 2012 called Curfew.
This one kicked off in a massively powerful way, with our main character Richie (Shawn Christensen) in the bath tub, in the midst of killing himself when the phone rings. It is his estranged sister (Kim Allen) calling in desperation. She needs someone to watch her daughter Sophia (Fátima Ptacek). The request was a surprise to Richie who seemingly cannot say no to his sister, Maggie.
Sophia is distant from Richie at first, but as the evening continued, she begins to warm to her unfamiliar uncle and we learn some truths about them both.
Wow. This one was really good. It immediately gripped me with the bathtub scene and it dove deep into characters with very little screen time. Performances were vital and the three main actors involved here do a fabulous job.
The dance scene at the bowling alley is phenomenal and just came out of nowhere. The fact that Richie was seeing things happen that were not there speaks to the isolation of the character and led directly to Sophia discovering the cut marks on his wrist.
This was a fantastic live short and it used its time brilliantly to tell its story.
It has been a long while since Morbius was supposed to come out. Sony has been working this for years and it has been delayed for several reasons. However, this film, the Living Vampire from Marvel Comics finally came out, and, sadly, it is a huge step down.
Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) had a lifetime debilitating disease that would eventually kill him, but, the genius doctor, was determined to find a cure for himself and his childhood friend Loxias “Milo” Crown (Matt Smith). His idea was to match up his human DNA with DNA from bats.
His plan had an unexpected twist, giving him vampiric powers and a desperate thirst for human blood. Realizing the sad fact that, as a doctor experimenting on himself, it ALWAYS goes badly, Morbius tries to hide himself away until he could reverse the curse.
Little does Morbius know that his best friend Milo has other thoughts on the situation.
This movie, for a super hero-vampire story, was really quite boring through most of it and devolved into a unsatisfying slugfest at the third act. Morbius certainly learned his powers quickly, and he developed interesting uses of them without much effort.
Jared Leto was fine, but not very interesting. Matt Smith seemed to be hamming it up all over the place, which did not feel like the same character we saw during the childhood flashbacks. Good old Milo became certain ways depending on what the plot required of him, which is a drawback to the character.
Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal play FBI agents called in on the case and are there for… reasons. They brought little to the story. Morbius’s lady friend was played by Adria Arjona and she was about as uninspiring as you are going to find. She was attractive, but lacked in the character department.
The special effects were pretty bad. There was a ton of shaky camera that led into frozen shots that looked just terrible, like weaker video game quality. Though the character design of Morbius looked pretty decent most of the time, any sort of action was terribly filmed and was not engaging for the audience.
The film also seemingly had edited out any references to the Spider-Man universe from the main film, despite there being a heavy push in trailers to link Morbius to Spidey. There were several scenes from trailers involving Michael Keaton as the MCU’s Vulture, Adrian Toomes and he is nowhere to be seen in the main film. They tossed him into two of the worst mid-credit scenes you are ever going to see. The mid-credit scenes are so desperate that they were clearly taped recently and tossed into the film in hopes of connecting to No Way Home. They were sloppy and rushed.
Morbius is a terrible disappointment as I have always enjoyed the character in the pages of Marvel Comics and he would have fit well in with several of the new characters being introduced in the MCU (such as Moon Knight or Blade), but I do not want any part of this Morbius in the MCU. Keep him in the Sony Spider-Man-verse. This does not inspire confidence in all of the other projects that Sony has been preparing that does not have Marvel Studios there to help with creative. Morbius is a mess.
With Morbius scheduled for tonight, I needed to do the early morning DailyView today, which meant I needed to pull from the short category. Since I have been doing Oscar winners this week, I decided to look into the list of Oscar winners for Best Short and I found a film that was intriguing in the Best Animated Short category. It had the title The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
In the short, a hurricane levels a city leaving Morris Lessmore alone and confused. He saw a flying woman, supported by several books and this led him to a library with a portrait of the woman on the wall.
Morris becomes the proprietor of the library, taking care of the magical books and giving out books to those members of the community still suffering from the storm.
Morris begins to rewrite his memoir, completing it years later. Satisfied with his life’s work, the books swirl around him again and he becomes young once more, flying off much like the woman he saw originally. When a new young girl arrived at the library, Morris’s portrait has joined the wall.
There are lots of connections in this animated short to past films. There is a definite Wizard of Oz flare here, including a use of black and white/color scheme. Jules Verne’s book, From the Earth tot he Moon is referenced during the film as was the children’s rhyme Humpty Dumpty. Morris himself was modeled after Buster Keaton’s character in Steamboat Bill, Jr.
The animation is beautiful, as one could expect in an Oscar winner, and, according to IMDB, it used several techniques in its animation (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation).
The importance of books and stories in a person’s life cannot be overstated in this film, clearly a major theme. There are plenty of ideas swirling around the film and it is worth a watch.
This Best Picture winner from 1946, All the King’s Men, has some distinct connections to the present day politics and made me think of a former president of the United States as I watched it.
Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) was running for treasurer in his Southern state, and newspaper man Jack Burden (John Ireland) was on hand to report about the race. Stark lost that race, but he had learned a lot along the way and looked to campaign for the Governor of the state.
This time. Stark does not lose, and he begins to grab power through deals and corrupt plans. Stark became a shadow of the former honest man he was seen to be as he continued to carry through with misbehaviors and criminal dealings.
When his son (John Derek) got drunk and crashed his car, putting his girlfriend into a near death state, Stark arranged for the girl’s father to disappear.
The power that Willie Stark had come to find had corrupted him completely, unable to see the horrendous human being that he had become.
Almost 80 years later, this whole story of this governor (who was reportedly based on Louisiana Governor Huey Long) draws quite a parallel with Donald Trump, right down to the impeachment attempt and the chanting crowd protesting the impeachment.
This made this film even more difficult to watch. It was as if I’d been watching this for the past six years.
Oscar Isaac has entered the MCU with his portrayal of Moon Knight, one of the myriad of characters from Marvel that just a few years ago, seemed to never have his own TV show. Yet here he is, with a huge name star playing him.
We are introduced to Steven Grant (That is Steven with a V) and it is clear that he has been having sleep problems. Little did he know how many problems Steven was going to have.
Steven worked at a museum in London, with an Egyptian exhibit. Steven knew a lot about the Egyptian mythology, but it could not get him any further than the storage room. Steven was a sad, bumbling man who seemed very disoriented. There were moments when he was unsure about things that have happened.
When Steven awakes, face down in a field of grass with a dislocated jaw, he is even more confused. Then, people started shooting at him, chasing him over a gold scarab.
Steven winds up in a group of people who were watching judgment being laid out by Arthur Harrow, a cult-like leader who crushes up glass and puts it into his sandals to walk on in the morning. Harrow had a tattoo on his arm that moved when he was judging a person, not only what the person had done, but what they may do in the future.
Harrow is the avatar of Egyptian deity, Ammit. Harrow pursued Steven back to his museum and unleased a jackal to attack him.
We learn that Steven has D.I.D. (Dissociative identity disorder) and that one of the personalities is a mercenary named Marc Specter, who is a clear bad ass and who jumps back into control of the body when Steven found himself in several major problems.
The DID was shown in serious light. You could see how scared Steven was, how confused he was as the strange things continued to happen to him and he could not explain it.
Oscar Isaac is a sensation actor and he shows it with every scene, not just the over-the-top spots. There was a quiet moment where he had lost time and thought it was Friday night, instead of Sunday. He was supposed to meet a woman at a steak house for a date (a date he did not remember making, by the way) on Friday and he waited for the woman to show up on Sunday, thinking it was Friday. This is an impressive performance in this small point.
Ethan Hawke is sinister too. I can’t wait to see more from him as the season progresses.
The visuals of this show are amazing. There are a lot of practical effects for the show, with a limited amount of CGI/green screen. From that, the show looks wonderful. It is extremely cinematic and some of the shots are exceptional. There are some frightening moments in the show, most dealing with Khonsu, the Egyptian deity that speaks in Steven’s head. Voiced by F. Murray Abraham, Khonsu is incredibly designed and looks just stunning.
The Moon Knight costume, which we do not see until the very end of the episode, is beautiful. It works so well with its practical design. An all white outfit should not work outside of the comic book page, but this costume design is spectacular. The wrapping cloth around Moon Knight is a great visual and brings up an amazing image.
There was so much character development in the first episode, and it did not lack excitement. The car chase scene through the winding mountain was expertly shot and carried out perfectly. Directed by Mohamed Diab, you can see how talented he is with the camera and the visual picture of each scene.
The use of mirrors in the episode is a great way to show the contradiction between the identities. The confrontation between Steven and Marc in the bathroom at the end of the episode was thrilling and led to our reveal of the titular hero. Another key to the episode is that everything was shown through the POV of Steven Grant. Every time Marc would take over, we would see Steven’s eyes go white and the scene would jump ahead to when Steven retook the body. It was very effective and helped to build the character of Steven.
The mystery of the show and what is going on is going to keep the audience guessing and Moon Knight feels like something different in the MCU. It is fascinating that there was no mentions of the greater MCU that usually happens in these shows. It builds a new section of the MCU and I look forward to learning more.
We go back to 1945 for tonight’s DailyView Best Picture Academy Award winner. This is a film noir drama directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. The Lost Weekend not only won best picture but it also won for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director.
Failed writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland) has been sober for 10 days, but he was finding it impossible to stay on the wagon. After avoiding a trip out of town with his brother Wick (Phillip Terry), Don went on a four day bender where he had flashbacks to his early days as a drunk and his meeting with his girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman).
Oscar winner Ray Milland is exceptional in this role as the obsessed alcoholic just after his next drink. Watching his spiral into chaos was riveting and powerful. Milland carries it off brilliantly. This film does not work without his epic lead performance, but work it does.
We see the heights to which Don will go to get another drink. The desperation in his face and the shame hidden behind it. The passion of another drink juxtaposed with the anguish and distress of Helen as she struggled to find any way to help the man she loved.
I have to say, the scene with Don in “Hangover Plaza” at the local hospital after he had fallen down the stairs was a frightening scene that made this film almost a horror film. It was about as unnerving as it could be. Fascinating that it did not have that much of an effect on Don, showing exactly how far gone he was.
Having said that, the ending does feel a little pat, with things being ended with a nice little bow. It felt as if the ending was not deserved for this picture. There should have been more of a battle at the end, something more powerful to accomplish what happened. I’m not sure what it should have been, but it just felt as if the end just happened.
While the ending may not have been perfect, there is so much more in this movie that works well. It looked at some of the real horrors that alcohol can bring upon a person and how it can change a person’s path in life.
I am continuing the Oscar winning Best Picture films section of the DailyView in honor of the Academy Awards last night. Today, I watched the 1955 Best Picture winner, Marty, a romantic movie starring Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. It was the directorial debut of Delbert Mann in which he won an Oscar for Best Director.
Marty (Ernest Borgnine) was a lonely 34-year old butcher whose brothers had all gotten married and people were on his back about when he was going to get married. He lived at home with his Italian mother (Esther Minciotti) and tried to think of something to do with his friend Angie (Joe Mantell).
When they go out one night to a club, Marty meets up with a shy teacher Clara (Betsy Blair). Clara was plain looking and called a “dog” by many of the men at the club. However, Marty and Clara connected with their shared low-self images and spend the night talking and walking around the neighborhood.
Marty’s mother, afraid that Marty would toss her aside if he got married, told him she did not like Clara despite only meeting her for a few minutes, and Angie was jealous of the time Marty spent with her and told him she was a dog. With everyone in his life telling him to end this with Clara, Marty was unsure what he was supposed to do.
Ernest Borgnine was great in Marty as he brought a realism to the part. Marty was a character that you could relate to easily, with his doubts and his loneliness. Borgnine would win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in this film.
The story was simple and sweet, based solely on the connection between the two main characters. And I loved the way the ending of the film went.
Marty was a quick watch, only around 90 minutes, and it gives several true life performances of a couple of characters that you can’t help but root for. Marty was a wonderfully charming film.
The third Best Picture winner of the day for the DailyView is the musical An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly.
According to IMDB: “Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), a struggling American painter in Paris, is “discovered” by an influential heiress (Nina Foch) with an interest in more than Jerry’s art. Jerry in turn falls for Lise (Leslie Caron), a young French girl already engaged to a cabaret singer. Jerry jokes, sings and dances with his best friend, an acerbic would-be concert pianist, while romantic complications abound.”
I have to say that I was not in love with any of the songs in this musical, but the dance routines are spot on, including the long 20-minute dance routine at the conclusion of the movie. The one exception I would include was “I Got Rhythm” with the kids singing the “I Got” part.
Jerry and Lise are also just a pair of jerks here as they string along their own partners as they fall in love with each other. Lise accepts a marriage proposal even while she is secretly dating Jerry. Her fiancé seemed to be a great guy and was a friend of Jerry which makes it all the worse. Am I supposed to support these two people who are downright cruel to the people they are with?
I was entertained with the dancing. The romance does not work as well for me. I did not hate the romance, but I thought they deserved each other at the end. An American in Paris is a classic, and an enjoyable watch.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 