Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three

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Next up is Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three, the third in a series of animated movies from DC focusing on the iconic comic mini series. The previous two films leading up to this were weak. I do believe the finale is a little better, but it does not reach anywhere the levels of the previous DC films.

It was kind of fun watching the wave of Anti-Monitors killing all of the animated TV show earths.

It was also great to hear Kevin Conroy-Mark Hamill once again together. This was the final voice performance of Kevin Conroy, prior to his death. Conroy is the iconic Batman voice of a generation.

The story is paced poorly, and it does not feel the sense of grandness that it should. Part of that is probably the previous installments in this trilogy, but this final one is not a huge step up either.

The animation here is fine and the voice cast is vast and full of solid work.

Here’s hoping the next DC animated films are back to the storytelling of the past.

2.6 stars

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

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We have another documentary for the 4F as I am on Hulu/Disney + watching Road Diary, following a recent return tour from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. I do not mind his music, but I am just not as familiar to it than I am in some other music. Because of this, I was not as filled with joy and wonder as some might be.

Having said that, there are some cool moments of watching how this band of musicians can come together after five years of inactivity and create a tour of American music.

Listening to the E Street Band discuss their music making as well as Bruce and his mastery of the form is interesting. I did not know that Steven Van Zandt was in the E Street Band. Van Zandt is a musician I had heard of and the only other musician I was aware of in the E Street Band was the late Clarence Clemons. It was intriguing to discover that Clemons’ nephew, Jake, replaced Clarence in the band.

I feel as if you are a Bruce Springsteen fan, this would be like candy to you. For me, it was an okay look at a powerful musician who I have had a healthy respect for over many years.

3 stars

Don’t Move

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The next film of the 4F is once again on Netflix. It is produced by Sam Raimi and is another tense thriller with a fun hook. It was called Don’t Move and it was a surprisingly entertaining film.

According to IMDB, “The grieving Iris (Kelsey Asbille) wakes up early in the morning and goes to the memorial in the park where her beloved son Mateo died falling off a cliff. She is thinking in committing suicide jumping off the same cliff when the young man Richard (Finn Wittrock) dissuades her. She returns to the parking lot with Richard, and he kidnaps her. He injects a substance that will shut down her body in twenty minutes, but she succeeds in forcing him to crash his car into a tree and to flee to a river.”

I was impressed with how this film was able to build as much anxiety in so many different situations considering the main protagonist was unable to move, speak or do much of anything. I guess it was lucky that this substance she was injected by did not stop the muscles that were required for Iris to breathe, even though it basically shut down everything else. Minor gripe I guess. You have to ignore certain details for this movie to work.

However, if you can get past some of the logic leaps here, Don’t Move makes for a decent thriller with a villain worth hating. This villain, played by Finn Wittrock, does a good job of portraying this monstrous person who has a secret life. I would have liked to have known more about his background with his wife and daughter. How did the mysterious Chloe fit in?

Either way, there is enough good work here to recommend this as a fun, leisurely Netflix watch. It may not hold up to a ton of scrutiny, but it is a fun “watch it on the couch” flick.

3.2 stars

Woman of the Hour

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I went to Netflix for the next Friday Fabulous Film Fest movie. It was a film that starred and was directed by Anna Kendrick called Woman of the Hour. It was based on a true story of a serial killer who appeared on the Dating Game in 1978.

Sheryl (Anna Kendrick) was a struggling actor whose agent booked her on the Dating Game. Little did Sheryl know that one of the bachelors she could choose from was a serial killer who had been involved in a killing spree.

It is an amazing true story. How brazen can you be as a serial killer to flaunt yourself on a national game show? He clearly felt untouchable at the time.

The film had plenty of moments of tension, especially with the scenes between Anna Kendrick and Daniel Zovatto, who played Rodney Alcala, the serial killer. It was unclear how it would turn out as the tense scene played out, and I really liked this.

Sad point was that Alcala was recognized by someone in the studio audience during the Dating Game taping and she was ignored by those in charge at the show and eventually the police. This character, Laura, played by Nicolette Robinson, added that feeling of helplessness that all of Alcala’s victims must have felt.

I enjoyed the direction by Kendrick, though my one complaint was the narrative structure was a little hard to follow. The timeline of the movie was not as clear as I would have liked it. Otherwise, this was a very engaging film.

4 stars

Piece By Piece

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The first official movie in the Friday Fantastic Film Fest is one of the strangest documentaries you are ever going to see. This movie, Piece By Piece, is the biography of music producer Pharrell Williams, but it is told as a Lego movie style.

Huh?

Honestly, this is weird.

I am not that familiar with Pharrell Williams, outside of “Happy,” but the Lego part of the film is what attracted me to see this movie. I probably would not have watched a straight up movie with interviews centered around Pharrell, but the gimmick of the Legos drew me in.

The Lego animation was original and, at times, beautifully transcendent in Piece By Piece. Even times when it did not feel like it worked for the moment, the color and the imagination shone through.

Unfortunately, the story did not match the originality of the format. The story was basically just interviews and lacked that special oomph that the visuals provided throughout. I know it was a biography, but something that was so creativity special in one aspect, was fairly mundane in the other.

I enjoyed the music, even if it wasn’t my normal type of music. It worked for me it the bits in the film.

I found the most fascinating part of the film was the post-“Happy” stuff, how the creation of one of the biggest songs in recent memory caused a challenge for the artist in ways you would never have expected.

Overall, Piece By Piece is an interesting animated film that gives some insight into an artist that I did not know much about, but I just wish the story was told in a more outside the box manner, to match the visuals.

3 stars

The Substance

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Very disturbing.

I have never been a big fan of body horror films, but The Substance has a few things going for it that a typical body horror film does not have. Namely, one Demi Moore providing one of the best, albeit horrific, performances of her career.

According to IMDB, “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? You. Only better in every way. Seriously. You’ve got to try this new product. It’s called The Substance. It changed my life. It generates another you. A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you. And there’s only one rule: You share time. One week for you. One week for the new you. Seven days each. A perfect balance. Easy. Right? If you respect the balance… what could possibly go wrong?”

The dialogue was limited, but the performance from Demi Moore was so great. It was impressive how much she was able to emote from her face and her reactions.

The effects are unbelievably creepy and frightening. The imagery of the movie is horrific and mostly practical.

I do think the ending was not good. The last fifteen or twenty minutes felt truly more silly than most of the film and did drag down my feelings overall. Most of the movie was really good and creepy. It just did not finish well. However. Demi Moore should be recognized for an astounding performance.

3.8 stars

Brats

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Next up on the Pre-Show 4F Binge is a documentary on Hulu that took a look back to the 1980s and a group of actors who had been dubbed as the Brat Pack.

One of the actors of the 1980s who had been included in the Brat Pack was Andrew McCarthy and McCarthy was the director and driving influence behind the documentary.

McCarthy was looking to discuss with the group of actors the feelings of the name of the Brat Pack and how it influenced their careers.

McCarthy traveled around to try and talk to the other “members” of the Brat Pack, including Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Jon Cryer, Leah Thompson. He tried to talk to Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson, but they seemed to rebut him not wanting to look back.

The term “Brat Pack” was dubbed in a magazine article about Emilio Estevez written by David Blum, and the actors really took the name negatively. One of my favorite parts of the doc was when McCarthy went and spoke to David Blum. There was a feel of tension between them and Blum was seemed very arrogant in this interview.

The discussion with Emilio Estevez was also amazing. He looked so much like his father during the interview that it was wild.

This was amazing as it felt like a big therapy session for Andrew McCarthy as he talked through his anxieties and memories of his past with others who could relate to the feelings that he was having.

I wouldn’t say that I was a big fan of any of these actors, but I found it utterly fascinating to watch how they worked through their own issues over a named given to them when they were young and hot actors and how the negative feel of it affected them.

3.7 stars

The 4:30 Movie

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The pre-showings of the 4F kicked off with Kevin Smith’s latest film, The 4:30 Movie.

This is a cute coming-of-age movie that feels fairly biographical as the filmmaker leans into a young kid who loves movies and is obsessed with a girl. The boy, played by Austin Zajur, and his friends try to sneak into a rated R movie and deal with their friendship.

This is a cute film. There is a sweetness to it, even though there are several moments of Kevin Smith’s raunchy writing that feels in contrast to the film.

The film features several of Smith’s usual cast members including Ralph Garman, Justin Long, Harley Quinn Smith, Ming Chen, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Jason Biggs, Diedrich Bader, Jason Lee, and his wife Jennifer Smith.

It also features Ken Jeong, Sam Richardson, Method Man, Kate Micucci, Reed Northrup, Nicholas Cirillo, and Logic.

The three young boys are kind of obnoxious in much of the film, but there are some real solid relationships and the chemistry between Austin Zajur and Siena Agudong was real and very easy. They carry this movie with their scenes and their dialogue.

Overall, a nice little film to kick off the pre-show 4F.

3.5 stars

The 4F Binge

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It is starting.

The Friday Fabulous Film Fest is our brand new binge watch. It is actually starting right now, as The 4:30 Movie is playing as I type this.

I am starting with the Pre-4F night and then tomorrow will be as many movie as I can cram into the day.

Friday Fabulous Film Fest

Thursday night

Pre-4F: The 4:30 Movie

Pre-4F: Brats

Pre-4F: The Substance

Friday

  1. Piece By Piece
  2. Woman of the Hour
  3. Don’t Move
  4. Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
  5. Crisis on Infinite Earths-Part Three
  6. Skincare
  7. Pedro Páramo
  8. Robot Dreams

EYG Favorite Comic Cover of the Week

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Week of November 4

A very difficult week is brightened by a bunch of new comics. Unlike last week where the books were all of the independent variety, this week all medalists are from DC and Marvel.

Bronze Medalist

Absolute Superman #1

Rafa Sandoval & Ulises Arreola

The first of two DC books is the brand new Absolute Superman. The Absolute books have been good so far and this gives us an indication of the power and the capability of our new Kryptonian. Striding through the wheat fields of …Kansas? I think. Looks great.

Silver Medalist

Plastic Man No More #3

Cover art by Alex Lins & Marcelo Maiolo

The new Plastic Man series has won a medal for each issue, I believe. I love this one that makes me think of Doctor Strangelove with Plastic Man wrapped around the bomb. Of course, the bomb is more than just a bomb.

Gold Medalist

Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds #1

Cover art by Afua Richardson

The Marvel debut of the original character that appeared in What If…? season two is here and the cover is beautiful. Kahhori looks as she did in What If, but the background is lovely as she moves through the woods.

MCU Disney + Series, Ranked

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With the recent conclusion of Marvel Television’s Agatha All Along on Disney +, I thought it was a good time to rank the Marvel projects on the streaming service.

I chose to include the two specials along with the series for this list. I also included the animated shows that appeared on the platform since the debut of WandaVision. I took the two series that had a second season, Loki and What If…?, and I kept them together instead of ranking Loki season one and Loki season two separately.

That gives me a total of fifteen shows.

Of course, these are my opinions and art is subjective. Perhaps you have a different list and that is fine. Everyone has a right to their thoughts.

So… here we go.

#15. Secret Invasion. This is easily the show in the last position on this list. I have never disliked an MCU project as much as I disliked Secret Invasion. This show started okay, but the story just did not work despite such a strong cast. The finale of this show was perhaps the worst finale of any Marvel show and I feel as if they just want to forget this ever happened. In what could have been so great, Secret Invasion was a colossal disappointment.

#14. I Am Groot. These little animated shorts actually also had two seasons and they were fun. They were slight and unimportant to the overall MCU, but they were fun to watch and Groot is always an enjoyable character to watch.

#13. Echo. Some people disliked this show, but I thought it was pretty decent. I definitely like Echo here more than I did in Hawkeye, as she was the weakest part of that show. However, some of the scene involving Kingpin were awesome and Echo brought a corner of the MCU into the light. This was the only MCU series to drop all episodes at once in a binge format.

#12. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Another show that has its share of haters, but I enjoyed it a great bit. I loved the weird finale where She-Hulk destroyed the fourth wall. The Daredevil episode was a highlight. The origin episode that kicked off the series was a lot of fun with cousin Bruce. Tatiana Maslany was excellent as Jen Walters, I don’t care what the internet says.

#11. Falcon & Winter Soldier. The second of the MCU Disney + series suffered from the pandemic as it caused a chunk of the story to be re-written. What we got was a lot of fun and kept us involved in Sam and Bucky’s bromance the whole time. There were some epic action scenes in this show and the moment when John Walker used the shield to decapitate a villain was a chill-inducing moment.

#10. Guardians Christmas Special. The first of the specials, which was the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special that was the bridge between the end of Endgame and Guardians Vol. 3. We learned Mantis was Peter’s sister. We learned the Guardians were the new owners of Knowhere. And we kidnapped Kevin Bacon. There were a lot of laughs and some truly warm moments between characters that we loved.

#9. What If…? Two seasons of some really great episodes. I personally loved the Doctor Strange episode from season one, the 1602 episode, the Guardians of the Multiverse crossover, the Christmas Die Hard episode with Happy, the Blade Runner-like Nebula episode, the new character Kahhori, and Zombies! The Watcher is an awesome narrator and gets involved at times too. Great animation and some wonderful writing.

#8. Werewolf by Night. The second special on the list is a wonderful tribute to the old time Universal Monsters movies as this episode is mostly in black and white. I actually have never watched the color version as I felt that was unneeded. Including Man-Thing, aka Ted, was a great use of a character we probably never expected we’d get in the MCU. The aura of the episode was so well done and the transformation of Jack Russell to the Werewolf by Night was cinematic. Excellent special.

#7. Hawkeye. This is a great series, bringing back Clint Barton while introducing Kate Bishop into the MCU. It also dealt with Natasha Romanoff’s death as her sister, Yelena came to kill Clint. The series focused on Clint’s background as Nomad and how that tied into the life of Echo. It reintroduced Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin to the MCU. While some disliked the way Fisk was brought in, I did not have that issue. Hawkeye was a wonderful Christmas series with some of the best action in all the MCU Disney + series.

#6. Moon Knight. I think Moon Knight episode 5 is one of the best episodes of Marvel television ever. It was as emotional as you are going to get. The finale was a bit of a step down with the giant slugfest going on, which brought this down a couple of steps. Oscar Isaac gave a thrilling and outstanding performances in this series as the multiple personalities of Moon Knight.

#5. Ms. Marvel. The super hero stuff of Ms. Marvel was the weakest part of the show (except the finale, which I loved). There is no doubt the strength of this series was Kamala Khan and the Khan family. The family dynamic of this series was unlike anything we had gotten before. It was emotional, caring, loving, funny and charming as could be. It was also some of the most creative imagery of any MCU show. If the villains were a little stronger, this could have been even higher. Plus, we have our first MCU mutant.

#4. X-Men ’97. Speaking of mutants, there is no way that a sequel to a series that ended in the mid-90s was going to be anything special. However, we could see immediately that this show was going to be more than we ever thought it would be. This show did Cyclops right (unlike any of the live action versions). And Remember It with Gambit was, arguably, the best single episode of MCU TV on Disney +, animation or live action.

#3. Agatha All Along. The latest MCU series was so great, but no one thought this was needed. It was a secondary character from WandaVision and a group of other characters that were unknown. And it was wonderful. It was full of twists and turns and some exceptional acting. Again, I would say episode seven of this series could be considered one of the best episodes of Marvel TV ever. Kathryn Hahn is amazing here and the introduction of “Teen” was unbelievable.

#2. Loki. Two seasons in, Loki was amazing. I love Tom Hiddleston and his chemistry with Owen Wilson, who played Morbius, was off the chart. The show was funny, dramatic and enjoyable. The writing was extra wonderful as things truly felt planned out over the years. Loki’s end as the God of Stories was something I never thought I would see. That finale and episode four of season two were some of the best episodes ever. I almost had Loki at number one, but it was just slightly behind.

#1. WandaVision. The first is still the best. One of the most original series ever. The whole sitcom stuff in the first few episodes made us all wonder what the heck was going on. Then, things became more sinister than you would expect. People were speculating week to week, bringing into question if our expectations were the real problem. Yes, there was no Mephisto. Or Reed Richards. And Pietro turned out to be Ralph Bohner. We all had our own theories, but the show was driven by the magnificent performances and chemistry of Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany, as well as Kathryn Hahn. Some complained about the finale, but I do think that this was about our own expectations. WandaVision has set the bar very high and no Disney + series have been able to reach it… yet.

The Penguin S1 E7

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Spoilers

“Top Hat”

The penultimate episode of The Penguin gave us some holy crap moments once again.

Flashback to when Oz was young, before his brothers died. We see what happened to them. Unbelievably, Oz locked them in a tunnel as the rain was coming in, and they drown. Oz does not actually murder them, but he does leave them to die, and all because he was jealous of the attention that his mother gave to them.

Sofia has taken Oz’s mother captive. His mother is as brutally vicious with her words as ever, although her oncoming dementia messes things up as well. Sofia feels sympathy for the woman, you can see, but her desire for revenge on Oz may be winning out.

Maroni arrives to kill Oz, but Oz and his crew stage a rebellion. Maroni ends up dying of a heart attack, making Oz mad that he couldn’t be the one to kill him. Oz plugs the dead body with several bullets after.

Sofia sends a bomb into the meeting with Oz. Oz thought it was his mother dead in the back of the car and uncovers the bomb. He takes off and climbs down the same tunnel where his brothers had drown. Oz left everyone who had his back to fend for themselves as the car exploded. Above all else, Oz is out to survive, screw anyone else.

Except for his mother, of course. I can’t see his mother making it through next week’s finale, but stranger things have happened, I guess. We are gearing up for the big Oz vs. Sofia showdown in next week’s finale. The Penguin has been exceptional crime TV so far.

Music by John Williams

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John Williams is one of the masters of film music. He has had more classic scores that exist in your head than practically any composer. From the music of Star Wars to Jaws to Schindler’s List to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the themes fill you with emotions every time. And each score provides something extra to each film, something that makes the film more than it was before.

This is why John Williams has been in such demand over the last fifty years. His music brings that final oomph to a film, and it does not matter what the genre is. John Williams is capable of delivering something magical.

This weekend saw the drop of a documentary featuring the iconic composer in a film entitled, perfectly, Music by John Williams, on Disney +.

The doc does touch upon his life and family, but most of the runtime is focused on the music and the films that he scored. We hear about John Williams’s thoughts from John Williams himself, as well as from his dear friend Steven Spielberg, whom was one of his most ardent supporters.

We hear from tons of people expounding on the amazing talents that John Williams would bring to their films. We saw Ron Howard, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Chris Columbus, Seth MacFarlane, James mangold, Kathleen Kennedy, Chris Martin and Itzhak Perlman all provide insight into their times working with Williams in whatever capacity they could give.

One of the more powerful moments was Kate Capshaw, wife of Steven Spielberg, describing when she and Steven went to hear the score for Schindler’s List, played by Williams on the piano, and how she began crying immediately.

The amazing footage throughout was awesome, much of it coming from Spielberg’s own recordings over the year. Being able to hear the words and the thoughts of Williams about the work that he had done is truly special. I will admit that seeing the scene from E.T. where the bike flies in front of the moon brought a few tears to my eyes. It provided us with so many memories from years of amazing work.

The doc is fairly straightforward, but if anyone deserves it, John Williams is it.

4.5 stars

Here

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Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright have reunited on screen once again for this new film called Here. Zemeckis, Hanks and Wright were all together for Forrest Gump, and now they are focusing on a specific house.

This film has a specific gimmick to it. The camera was stoic, steady and unmoving for the entire movie. There was one angle that the movie had and it told multiple stories through the life of the house (and the plot of land that it was built on) with that single shot.

The main story that was told was the life of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. We saw Tom Hanks, who played the character Richard, grow up, fall in love, get married and become a father in this one room of this house that we see. Robin Wright played Richard’s wife Margaret and she was involved in much of the main story.

One of my favorite characters involved was Richard’s father, Al (Paul Bettany). His wife was Rose (Kelly Reilly) and they were shown throughout their lifespan inside this house.

Using these postcard like boxes, the movie transitioned between stories. Other stories included a Native American family, the man who created the La-Z Boy recliner, a recent black family, a early aviator whose wife hated the airplane, and the illegitimate son of Ben Franklin. None of these extra stories had much if any impact, outside of just continuing the life of the house. These were pauses from the Richard-Margaret family story meant to simply break from those characters.

I liked the format of this movie, but there were some issues with it. The main story had my attention every scene they had, but all of the other ones were so slight that they were a distraction. This movie did feel too long and a couple of these extra stories could have been dropped to shave off some time.

The CGI was decent in the movie, especially the de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Some of the background CGI was obvious, but it did not ruin anything. I did like the music of the film as it helped show us the advancement of time.

This is a interesting movie with a gimmick that I have not seen before, unless you are a fan of stage plays with the single location setting. The film was too long, but the main story was likeable because of the excellent actors.

3.5 stars