DailyView: Day 220, Movie 307

One of the movies listed on HBO Max’s leaving in December queue was an Oscar winner, Gods and Monsters, a semi-fictionalized story of the last days of the life of director James Whale, who directed classic movies Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein.

James Whale (Ian McKellan) had retired and was facing poor health, including strokes that affected his mind. Openly gay, James would still have younger men in his home for a variety of purposes. James’ housekeeper Hanna (Lynn Redgrave) disapproved but she loyally remained by his side, helping the old man through his life.

James took a liking to the gardener, Clayton Boone (Brendan Fraser), a strapping young man, and he struck up a friendship with him. Clay was uncomfortable with the homosexual lifestyle, but the ambiance of the movie director intrigued him and, despite some outbursts, began to bond with James.

During the time with Clay, James was suffering flashbacks to World War I and the loss of loved ones in his past. The memories would cause serious repercussions to the old man’s present.

In the real world, James White was found dead in his pool, which is dealt with in the movie, but it is one of the parts, along with the relationship with Clay, that has been fictionalized.

The film dealt with uncomfortable feelings and the pain of loss and trauma that existed in the lives of men. It also handled the importance of compassion and seeing someone for who they were.

Ian McKellan was amazing as the troubled artist/director. Being most famous as the director of the first two Frankenstein movies, the film was able to place James into several “monster” metaphors that could look at the real monsters of the world. I have never been impressed with Brendan Fraser as an actor outside of the Mummy-type action films, but he does an outstanding job here as the gardener who felt uncomfortable at first and developed into someone who could see past the surface level of behavior by James into the pain beneath.

Gods and Monsters was tough to watch at times, but the underlying text is important for people to understand.

DailyView: Day 219, Movie 306

Tonight’s DailyView comes from Disney +, and it is a movie that is the answer to the question, “What if Treasure Island The Swiss Family Robinson had a baby?” The answer is Shipwrecked.

A Norwegian film based on Oluf Falck-Ytter’s book Haakon Haakonsen: En Norsk Robinson stars Stian Smestad and Gabriel Byrne. Yes, that Gabriel Byrne.

Haakon (Stian Smestad) was a young boy whose father came back from sea with a terribly injured leg. He would not be able to go back out to sea and, because of that, the family would lose their farm. Haakon volunteered to head out on a two year voyage to make enough money to save the farm.

Once on the ship, however, he came across Lt. John Merrick (Gabriel Byrne) who had plans to kill the captain and take over the ship. Merrick was successful in his attempt, but the ship gets wrecked in a storm and Haakon is stranded on a deserted island.

On the island, he discovered a treasure left there by Merrick and he began planning for the day when Merrick would return.

He was accompanied on the trip by family friend Jens (Trond Peter Stamsø Munch) and a stowaway they met named Mary (Louisa Milwood-Haigh).

The film was a family adventure with reasonably likeable actors in a story we have seen 100 times. There are very few surprises in the plot (although the strange appearance of a gorilla in the middle of the film was odd- especially since we never see the gorilla again), and the acting was so so.

Still, it is a quick watch and fun enough as a film for the whole family. There are certainly worse films made for young viewers that are pretending to be family films. Shipwrecked has a few moments and is not a waste of time. Maybe that is not a rave review, but still…

DailyView: Day 218, Movie 305

The unexpected death of The Princess of Wales, Diana, was a moment of tragedy felt across the entire globe, and the movie The Queen looks at that time period that could have threatened the very state of the monarchy in Great Britain.

It was well known that Diana and Queen Elizabeth had a tempestuous relationship, especially after Diana left the Royal family and divorced Prince Charles. So when Diana was involved in a fatal car accident in France, there were a gamut of emotions stirred up in England, not only from the people of the country, but also the Royal family.

This biopic focuses on this time of British history as Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) struggled to understand the reaction of her country to, not only, the death of Diana, but the Royal family’s seemingly cold response, or lack thereof, to the tragedy. We also meet and follow new Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), who sees the Queen in a different light than everybody around him and who helped to advise Elizabeth she needed to reconsider her stance on the death.

The film used real life news footage and archived video featuring the real Princess Diana interspersed with the film’s exceptional performances, in particular from Helen Mirren, who won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her role in The Queen.

Helen Mirren was outstanding as Queen Elizabeth II, a woman who had never been a fan of Diana and who had become out of touch with her subjects. The connection between Elizabeth and Tony Blair was impressive, especially since the pair do not share screen time much.

James Cromwell and Sylvia Syms played Charles and Queen Elizabeth I respectably and both are impressive. Other cast members of the film included Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, and Tim McMullen. The side characters are wonderful, helping to build the isolation of the Royal Family from their subjects which showed them as uncaring and separated.

Yet Helen Mirren is the reason to watch this movie. She is amazing in the role and gained remarkable praise, even from Queen Elizabeth herself. It is a solid film that is elevated by some powerful performances and some intriguing use of news footage.

DailyView: Day 217, Movie 304

As the calendar changes over to December, the DailyView will be doing some selected holiday flicks during the month. I do not expect that we will watch as many Christmas movies in December as I did horror movies during October, but I will be doing some. The first one is today on Disney +. It was a film that I was going to do last week, but I pushed it back until December. It was A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa.

The Muppet Christmas Carol is perhaps my favorite Christmas movie of all time. I absolutely love that film and I watch it every Christmastime. So, when this popped up on Disney +, I was intrigued. I had never heard of this film, which felt like a made-for-TV special. Even still, I usually see a new Muppet project, so I was surprised when this showed up.

It is about what you would expect from a Muppet film. The typical group of Muppets, led by Kermit the Frog, had to go on a mission to help deliver a letter to Santa Claus after a mess up at the post office prevented Gonzo from mailing the letter as he promised he would do.

Of course, there are songs. These were, once again, written by Paul Williams, who wrote the classic songs from The Muppet Movie, including Rainbow Connection. Williams was also in the movie in a cameo role.

Cameos were a huge part of any Muppet film, and this had its share too. Whoopi Goldberg, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Nathan Lane, Jane Krakowski, Richard Griffiths, Tony Sirico, Steven Schirripa, and Jesse L. Martin (from Flash and Rent) all had roles in the movie.

The story does seem to be rushed and could have been stretched out to allow some of the emotional beats to hit more than it does. Still, you can’t ask for much more than the Muppets at Christmas.

DailyView: Day 216, Movie 303

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors of my lifetime. Of any lifetime, actually. He is a master at his trade. Spielberg is capable of turning any genre into a classic film. Science fiction? Adventure? Horror? Thrillers? He can do it all.

Back in 2005, Spielberg directed a film that wound up being nominated for several Oscars and yet it was one of the few Spielberg films that is criminally underrated. If you were listing off Spielberg movies, how long would it take you to reach Munich?

Munich is a historical thriller that tells the story of a group of assassins organized by the Israeli government to track down and kill the 11 terrorists from the Palestinian organization Black September responsible for the horrific events during the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics where members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered.

Although the Israeli government denied their connection, Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana) led the group of four Jewish men with specific skills in the attacks on the terrorists. However, the group had reservations about exactly what they were doing with arguments among each other between missions.

Daniel Craig played Steve, a South African driver. Mathieu Kassovitz played Robert, the toy maker who was also a bomb expert. Ciarán Hinds played Carl, the former Israeli solder and ‘cleaner’. Hanns Zischler played Hans, the forger. Geoffrey Rush was in Munich as well as the go between with the team and the Israeli government.

There are some tense moments in Munich and the last act of the film was truly the best part. Seeing how the events that occurred and the knowledge of what the group had done burrowed into the mind of these characters is fascinating. Eric Bana does exceptional work. I have never been a huge fan of Bana, but this is easily one of my favorite performances of his.

I did think Munich a a tad long and could have used with some fewer moments in the first two acts, but that third act pay off is very strong.

This is based on a book Vengeance by George Jonah, who recounted the Israeli Operation Act of God in retaliation of the events in the Munich Olympic Games. There have been some questions raised about the authenticity of the book in historical accuracy, but that does not mean anything. This is not a documentary and total accuracy of the events is not a requirement.

Spielberg continued to show his directorial skills that cross so many genres. Munich is another example of his talent that simply can not be denied. He is one of the greatest directors in movie history.

DailyView: Day 215, Movie 302

I enjoyed the animated Disney film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire very much. It was an underappreciate Disney classic featuring the voice work of Michael J. Fox. So when I came across a sequel of the movie while scanning through Disney +, I was excited to watch it. Sadly, this does not come anywhere near as much fun as the original film.

In fact, this is one of those Disney straight-to-DVD films like The Return of Jafar and Simba’s Pride, and, sadly, the quality is at about that level.

You can tell that some of this was meant to come from an animated series that had been scrapped when the original Atlantis movie was less than successful. This feels like something that should appear on one of the Disney networks instead of the movie theater.

There are three basic segments in this movie that are weaved together with some transitional animation. The segments were “Kraken”, “Spirit of the West” and “Spear of Destiny”. One a battle with a sea monster, one in an old west confrontation and then an appearance of Odin, of a sort.

Quite the disappointment with this film. I was hoping for so much more with these characters.

DailyView: Day 214, Movie 301

This is flippin’ insane.

And I loved every second of it.

Yes, we have seen the crazy killer toy that comes to life and kills everyone, but we have never seen one as insanely funny as Benny Loves You.

Benny Loves You played the hilarity over the horror and what we get is an hour and a half of pure ridiculousness that is a joy to watch.

Jack (Karl Holt) was a loser, who worked as a failed toy designer. When his parents died accidentally on Jack’s 35th birthday, his life took a turn. He attempted to reorganize and renew his life path, which begun by throwing out all of his things from his childhood… including his favorite stuffed bear, Benny.

Mistake.

Benny immediately came to life and begun killing people in Jack’s life who was giving him trouble or that he could care about, all because, as the bear would say, “Benny loves you.” It became a slaughterhouse, leading Jack to try and manage the people Benny killed.

To complicate matters more, Jack began to fall for a co-worker, Dawn (Claire Cartwright), which gave Benny a new target and a new motivation: jealousy.

This was one of the goriest films I have seen in a long time, and every moment filled me with laughter and happiness. It’s not often that you see a stuffed toy present the heart of someone he just murdered to his friend as a present, but that happened here. There were more intestines in this movie than I have ever seen before.

Whereas Chuckie or Annabelle are played for fright and scares, Benny Loves You is a straight up British comedy and works so well as one. The story is simple. We do not spend time trying to discover a deeper meaning behind how this happened (although we do visit another instance where a toy that has been discarded returned to kill this bratty little girl).

The way Benny moves is just hilarious. He sort of bounds back and forth, as you might expect a stuffed bear might do. The character design is fantastic. There is nothing sinister about benny, until there is.

I enjoyed this movie a ton. It made me laugh and grossed me out at the same time, a true feat.