The Boys S2 E1

Posted on by

SPOILERS

After binging the first season yesterday, I started season two of The Boys tonight in what is going to be more extended of a time frame. The story continued with all of the favorite character from season one still around and stuck deep in their individual troubles,

The Boys, aka Hughie, Frenchie, MM and Kimiko are on the run, hiding out from a public that sees them as the most wanted fugitive in the country. We do not see Butcher at this time and they struggle to try an determine exactly what their next step will be.

Meanwhile, Homelander has started to assume more of an alpha male role at Vought since he killed Stillwater. The world at large believes that Butcher killed Stillwater with his bomb, even though we all know that Homelander was the actual killer. There was no mention of Becca Butcher and her son’s living status. We see her eight near the end, but we have no idea what has happened from the cliffhanger at the end of season 1 episode 8.

I’m just here to say… I want more Black Noir.

We see more of the downward spiral of The Deep, living in Ohio. The Deep had another minor breakdown at a water park and wound up in a jail cell. When he was bailed out by another minor hero, Eagle the Archer, who brought The Deep back to his place and introduced him to what looked to be a super hero cult, The Church of the Collective.

We meet our newest member of the Seven with Stormfront. That was after Homelander rejected a potential new member who was blind with super hearing. And rejected in a extremely vicious manner.

This show is incredibly violent as always, including another head exploding in this episode, and The Boys continue to be excellent. I do worry a little bit about the story continuing to be “we’ve got to find the Compound-V” again this year. It feels like this was played out by the end of season 1, but I am here to see what the series has in store for me.

Of course, the episode ended with Billy Butcher back and rejoining the Boys. What happened to him? Where has he been? He does not look any worse for the wear. I guess we’ll find out next episode.

The Boys S1 E7-8

Posted on by

Spoilers

Ah, Elisabeth Shue, we hardly knew ya.

The Boys have two sides to the same psychopathic coin in Homelander and Billy Butcher. Neither of them are heroes in this series. Butcher may have been with our protagonists, but he was more of a conflict among them than he was another protagonist. I love Karl Urban, but truthfully, I found myself tired of him by these episodes too.

Meanwhile, Hughie showed us what a character who was easy to root for, an underdog who was likeable and provided us with a heroic individual. He wouldn’t even leave A-Train to die on the ground after the heart attack. Even Starlight considered just leaving him there, but Hughie refused to just let him die.

I’m not sure I loved the ending of the series. It felt as if there was a huge switch between episode 7 and episode 8 without a lot of explanation.

I also guess my thought that Elisabeth Shue was Homelander’s mother was incorrect, since she had sex with him. I kept waiting for her to drop the incest angle, but it did not happen.

The whole “Butcher’s wife is still alive” twist at the end was interesting. It feels kind of cruel, but in the best way possible.

The Deep is truly paying the karma back over the last few episodes, including getting a feel of what it is like to be on the other end of the sexual assault.

I am looking forward to see where season two takes me. I will be starting that some time this week.

The Boys S1 E5-6

Posted on by

Spoilers

Episode 5 took a huge dive into religion, especially Christianity. Starlight went to speak to the Believe Expo in her home town and to see Ezekiel, a preacher (who we saw in a bar scene in a homosexual encounter) who is also a supe who can stretch. Starlight delivered a speech standing up for herself and making her points about how she did not believe in the messages that were being preached at the Believe Expo.

Hughie came to the Believe Expo as Starlight’s guest, but he had a separate assignment. He had to go to Ezekiel and blackmail him to reveal everything that he knew about Compound-V.

There is a ton of great character moments here too. We learn some info on Rebecca Saunders Butcher (Butcher’s missing, presumed dead wife), Maeve was having some problems, and we started seeing some signs of Homelander had some kind of issue with Madelyn Stillwell’s baby. It looked later in the episode that the answer is that Homelander was Stillwell’s son.

With the info from Ezekiel, Butcher and MM found their way to a hospital where they discovered that they were injecting babies with Compound-V to give them super powers. There was a ridiculous use of a baby with laser beam eyes.

Black Noir battled the Asian woman and left her dead…except she did not die. She healed. However, Popclaw did not heal since A-Train killed her by injecting her with heroin.

Episode 6 Vought began to attempt to revitalize the image of the Seven through a series of vignettes.

The episode had more wonderful character moments including

  • Learning the Asian woman’s name (Kimiko) and her back story
  • Mesmer, a psychic, helped reveal her past and then betrayed them to Homelander
  • We learned what had happened to Becca Butcher
  • The Deep was revealed as the sexual abuser of Starlight to the public
  • Frenchie and Kimiko continued to bond
  • Starlight dropped out of view, hiding out with Hughie
  • Hughie and Annie bond, but Butcher played cockblocker
  • Starlight stood up to Stillwell
  • Vought is making Compound-V boosted terrorists to push militarization of supers

The Boys S1 E2-4

Posted on by

SPOILERS

There were some serious events that happened in these three episodes. It has been a great three episode arc so far. The capture and eventual murder of Translucent, the race for A-Train, the failed attempt to save the hijacked airplane, blackmail of a Senator by a shape shifter, Popclaw popping the head of her landlord with her vagina…

Yeah, that one was shocking.

The team of Butcher, Frenchie, Hughie gained a fourth member with Mother’s Milk. The four of them were investigating A-Train and his use of a performance enhancer called Compound-V. Meanwhile, Hughie is getting closer to Annie, aka Starlight while he was having guilt and flashes to some of the things that he had done.

This continues to be a fantastic deconstruction of the superhero genre and it is doing it with some excellent characterization and storytelling. Vought’s efforts to get superheroes allowed to join the military of the United States, all led by Elisabeth Shue keeps one wondering what is going to happen next. Hughie is getting further away from the supervillain that I thought he might become after episode one.

There is a new and mysterious woman involved heavily in episode 4. She was very brutal and violent, tied somehow to the Compound-V.

The Deep has gone from a horrible sexual predator in episode one to a comedic presence with one of the most unbelievably chaotic scenes of the series involving an attempted escape of a dolphin from a water park. I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

There really are a ton of irons in the fire. I haven’t even mentioned the continued behavior of Homelander, who feels as if he is heading toward big bad status of the series.

This has been excellent so far and I am excited to see where it goes next. There are a lot of storylines underway and I expect that they will intersect before too long.

The Boys S1 E1

Posted on by

SPOILERS

“The Name of the Game“

I have heard a lot of positives about The Boys on Amazon Prime. It has always sounded like a series that I would like, yet I have not gotten into it. Today, as I was working on the month banner for June, I came across the fact that Season Three of the Boys will be coming out in June this year. Going over to Prime, I saw that each of the first two seasons had 8 episodes around an hour-ish each. I figured that I could easily blow through those before the debut of season three so I decided to give it a chance.

Episode one grabbed me right away.

The set up was extremely intriguing, especially with Hughie and Robin and their shocking scene. I did not see that coming and my jaw dropped. I also loved how Hughie did not move forward as I expected him to. I saw this as the origin story of a supervillain (and it may yet be for all I know), but the fact that he is my protagonist, and the easiest character to cheer for in the show, that takes what seemed obvious and made it uncertain.

I enjoyed how this show seemed to be breaking down the superhero tropes and playing with the genre. The Seven, the group of heroes idolized by the public, are actually a group of self-centered, selfish, asshats.

The show smartly gives us Starlight, a new member of the Seven for the audience to follow. She has the general qualities that we look for in our heroes which makes the scene with The Deep all the more disturbing.

I am unfamiliar with the Dynamite comic book this show is based upon, which is great. I do not have to worry about expecting what is next and just enjoy the ride.

I also loved Karl Urban and his arrival on the scene. I have no idea the background of Billy Butcher, but I am excited to see.

Blade 2 (2002)

Posted on by

Do Over: EYG Sunday Morning Revisit Week 1

With the DailyView concluded, I am beginning one of several new features at EYG. Every Sunday morning, I will be watching a film that I had seen before, but did not like. Many of these will be loved by others and I am going to do a Do Over to see if my thoughts on the film have changed since the first viewing. It has happened several times (Seven, Fargo being two major examples). Starting on May 1st, I have revisited Guillermo Del Toro’s sequel to the Daywalker himself, Blade 2.

I really enjoyed the first Blade and I had high expectations for the movie. I remember going to see it in the theater with a bunch of my friends down in Iowa City and coming out of it very disappointed. We had spent time before playing video games, particularly a fight video game, and I could not shake the feeling that Blade 2 was nothing more than just another video game. I thought the graphics were terrible and that it looked no better than the animation in the video games that we had played prior.

Unfortunately, I felt that way still after watching it this morning. There are just so many moments that are so rubbery in the fights that it takes me completely out of the movie.

Of course, Wesley Snipes is perfect casting. He personified the character of Blade beautifully, even in the moments of this movie that I did not like.

The return of Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) was ridiculous. They just wanted him back after his impactful death in the original and I am not sure I bought how they brought him back.

Norman Reedus was there too as a Whistler-lite replacement. His story arc made no sense and was there just for the predictable swerve. Reedus does much better work in The Walking Dead and, hopefully, gets a chance to play Johnny Blaze in the MCU because that feels like perfect casting. Here…not so much.

The villains are dull and reminded me too much of the Ubervamps from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. To be fair, this movie looks to have been released before (right around the same time) the Ubervamps made their appearance on Buffy, so this is most likely coincidental.

The story was lackluster and simplistic. I did like the idea of Blade being forced to team up with the vampires to face a greater threat, but, in the end, that plotline fell apart. There were plenty of moments that made no sense. It was just included in the film because the plot needed it to be there. There was very little in way of character development.

Leonor Varela was an interesting addition to the cast as Nyssa, but she was the only one of the entire vampire team that had any personality at all. The rest were all just characters there to look cool and to get picked off. Even Ron Perlman’s Reinhardt was the bad ass that you knew eventually would face off against Blade. And then that confrontation was anticlimactic.

Overall, I did not find much more enjoyable about Blade 2 than I did the first time. I am hoping that Marvel Studios will do better with their upcoming Blade film.

Ambulance

Posted on by

I have to admit that I get tired of the excuse, “It’s a Michael Bay movie, what do you expect?”

I found that Ambulance was available to rent on Vudu this weekend. I had actually considered heading to the theater tomorrow to see it, but now I did not have to. I could watch it at home.

I’m not a fan of Michael Bay, but there have been a select few movies of his that I have liked and with a talent such as Jake Gyllenhaal in the film, I had some hope.

Did I mention that it is a Michael Bay movie?

Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was desperate. His wife needed a surgery, but the insurance would not cover it. So he went to his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) for help. Unfortunately, Danny is getting ready to rob a bank and needed his brother’s help.

The robbery goes terribly wrong and Will, Danny a paramedic named Cam (Eiza González) and a cop that Will had shot (Jackson White) wind up inside an ambulance being chased by the police.

This is very much a Michael Bay movie. It is loud, stupid, has characters of little to no substance, dialogue that is laughable at times and a plot that makes little sense.

Sure, there are a few scenes of action that can be exciting, if you do not let yourself think about what is happening, because it rarely makes sense.

Jake Gyllenhaal is doing his best, but even he is too over the top. One of the issues is that none of these characters are worth rooting for. They are horrible and, despite the film trying its best, I just could not find anything redeeming about them. Even the heroic Cam is anything but likeable. Even if you could like her, she does some things that are just not possible or that make any sense at all. Cam’s last few scenes almost make her bearable. Almost.

By the way, I found the driving and pounding score to the film to be obnoxious and loud.

Some people will be happy with this. It is nothing more than ridiculous action with explosions and gunfire and car crashes. It had a minimal story with a group of actors giving what they had despite there not being much. Some will say that it is okay since it is just a “Michael Bay movie and why would you expect more?”.

2.4 stars

Marry Me

Posted on by

I have had Marry Me on my list of 2022 movies to watch for quite awhile now. I was not interested in watching this movie while it was in the theaters, but once it started streaming on Peacock, I figured it would be just a matter of time.

I have become a huge fan of Owen Wilson since his turn as Moebius in the Loki series. He remains charming in this film. Jennifer Lopez is absolutely gorgeous and remarkably talented.

Marry Me is completely ridiculous and about as improbably as you are going to find, yet there is something about this rom-com that makes it enjoyable. If you think about this as a fairy tale/fantasy instead of a regular rom-com, it helps.

J-Lo played an international pop superstar Kat who is planning on a social media sensational wedding with her boyfriend Bastian (Maluma). Normal teacher Charlie (Owen Wilson) wound up at the wedding concert with his daughter (Chloe Coleman) and his friend (Sarah Silverman). Just prior to the wedding, Kat discovered Bastian had an affair with her assistant. She came out on stage and spoke to the world about the problems, and she spotted Charlie holding a “Marry Me” sign, (her new big single) and she called him up and they got married.

It turned into a whole publicity stunt, but the pair of them began to grow closer as they learned about who the other person was.

I have to say, the ending was surprisingly effective. Was it overly sentimental? Maybe. It is just a couple of likeable characters who you want to see get together. It is far from a perfect movie, but I liked watching it.

The music was good. Sure, it is not the type of music that I would listen to on a regular basis, but in this context, the music was enjoyable. Jimmy Fallon had a funny cameo. It worked as a rom-com.

I am glad I finally got around to Marry Me. For what it is worth, it is a fun time in a movie that shouldn’t work at all.

3.3 stars

Friday Night Titans #9

Posted on by

Spoilers for Friday Night Titans

They talked about the main event slot of this episode being Kristian Harloff pulling the numbers for tomorrow’s Free-4-All, which sounded incredibly dull and it was potentially ruining one of the best parts of the Free-4-All, the mystery of who was playing in the match and when people were coming out. The entire idea sounded like a poor idea and would require a bunch of shenanigans to make entertaining.

Little did I know that it was all a ruse.

Paul Oyama came out to the stage and cashed in his Free-4-All win from last season and challenged Samm Levine, the Singles Champion, to a match.

Before making the challenge, Paul teased that he and his new partner, Adam Collins, could challenge Shazam. Oyama and Collins? What a powerhouse team that is. That could be a true challenge for Shazam, but more about them later.

Doing what Samm had done years before when he challenged Dan Murrell on the spot, Oyama brought out Levine and they had a championship match.

The match was entertaining, but it took a massive turn in the third round when an Action/Adventure question about Jason Statham led to Samm gaining 3 points in the betting round after he got the question correct and Oyama losing 3 points after missing it. That took a reasonably close match up and made it a ten point deficit and essentially ended the match.

It set up Samm for a chance to get a KO in the speed round. Samm Levine has got to be considered one of the best speed round players in Schmoedown history, and he showed it once again. Samm did not rest back on his laurels with a strong lead. He came out aggressive and was able to end the Speed Round up by 11 points, triggering the KO.

Samm Levine, who has not gotten a question wrong since he came back to compete in season 9, was not going to lose a ten point lead after round three without some major bad luck, and, of course, they never got to the 5th round.

Samm Levine continues to be dominant and announced that he will be playing in the Free-4-All tomorrow, which allows him to perhaps miss a question or two without being placed in a situation where his title could be taken from him.

The undercard of the show was another title match with Shazam playing for a third time versus Korruption, Mike Kalinowski and Chance Ellison. The match had a stipulation added to it where if Korruption lost this match, they would be forced to break up as a team. High stakes for sure and it was a much more entertaining (and competitive) championship match than our singles match.

Korruption started off fast, grabbing a lead after round one and they increased the lead after a 2 point steal in round two. When both teams answered the betting round question correctly, it was looking as if Korruption was going to unseat Shazam.

However, William Bibbiani had a brilliant speed round, taking a couple of massive risks to get to questions first and wound up answering the final four questions correctly to pull to within 2 heading into the championship round.

It all came down to a 5-point question. Shazam answered all three of their 5th round questions correctly, leaving Korruption with their five pointer. Unfortunately for them, they came up one short for the number of times that Tony Scott directed Denzel Washington, and Shazam retained their team titles for the fourth time.

The studio was filled with a lot of emotions over what had happened, with Korruption now forced to no longer play together. Mike Kalinowski was already known as an emotional player and he took the defeat hard, taking the blame for the five point error.

It is nice that these players are working now as Faces because they were able to really embrace that emotion without having to play it off. Korruption is certainly one of the best teams ever to compete in the Movie Trivia Schmoedown.

Which made me think, what are the best teams ever? Here is my list:

  1. Shazam.
  2. The Patriots
  3. The Shirewolves
  4. The Odd Couple
  5. Korruption
  6. Above the Line
  7. Top 10
  8. The Schmoes
  9. The Founding Fathers
  10. Team Action

Shazam is on a historic run and has faced considerably tougher competition than the Patriots ever did. Shazam is 14-2 and has four title defenses. Two more and they tie The Patriots title defenses. Fact is that every team Shazam has faced have been bangers. I placed the Odd Couple ahead of Korruption because of their victory over the Shirewolves. Above the Line did not last long enough. Had they struck around longer, they surely would have been in the top 5, maybe the top 3.

This was one of the few times that we have seen Shazam back on their heels, but the fact that they were still able to come back and get the win should finally put to bed the question of which team is best of all time.

Big Titans this week. Free-4-All is tomorrow and is always one of the best events of the year.

DailyView Finished: April 29, 2021-April 28, 2022

Posted on by

365 days in a row. Complete!

After 365 consecutive days and 523 movies seen, today marks the end of the DailyView here at EYG. I will say that I am very proud of the accomplishment and, honestly, I can’t remember what it was like prior to the DailyView’s origin.

Inspired by several of the YouTube reactors who watched movies that they had never seen before, I wanted to do something like that for EYG. So I decided that my summer vacation from school in 2021 would be spent watching classic films that I had never seen before, to fill a few of those gas in my viewing. My thought was that it would be a fun summer activity until school started again.

I started making a list of movies to watch including some of those that were beloved such as Saving private Ryan, The Sound of Music, Apocalypse Now, Heat, Do The Right Thing- just to name a few. Films that a true cinephile would have seen.

As I started to put together the list, I was getting excited and I started to think about starting before the summer arrived. I had to think about whether or not this was a legit possibility with school still underway. I did not want to derail the binge because of a busy career. I decided that it was possible and so, taking a personal day on April 29, 2021, I began the EYG DailyView Spring/Summer Unseen Classic Binge about a month plus early.

Things went smoothly and soon I was in June and July watching a bunch of movies that I had never seen before. Not all of them were classics, mind you, but I was getting to those excellent films as well. As August was getting close, I began to weigh the possibility of extending the binge through the end of the year. I had pretty much decided that I was going to do this before I officially made the announcement.

There were challenges, including my responsibilities as student council leader, that might cause some issues, but I was determined to see it through. So any time I felt as if there was going to be an upcoming conflict, I was forced to really do some planning. A big help was the decision to use some Charlie Chaplin shorts on HBO Max as films on those days when the schedule may not permit a full film (without me staying up really late and compromising my classroom teaching.

As I got close to December, I was in a groove with the DailyView, never really having any major issues outside of a few scheduling items, that I started to think about the chance of extending the binge one more time, for 365 full days, which would mean the binge would continue until April 28, 2022.

I loved the idea and it felt right, so I made the decision to make one more adjustment to the DailyView.

Along the way, I had set some unofficial goals (although I never officially said they were goals, if I had not accomplished them I would have been disappointed). One was to make sure that I had at least one movie a year from the earliest year through 2020. I accomplished this with at least one movie from every year between 1915 to 2020.

The second goal I wanted to reach (unofficially) was I wanted to break the 500 movies watched barrier for the 365 days, and I did that as well, several weeks ago. I was guessing we would end up somewhere in the 520s for films seen, and, sure enough, we got to 523.

I had some internet problems during the 365 days. With so much of the binge depending on the streaming services, if the internet went out for any extended period of time, it could have ruined the DailyView. However, I had a plan. I knew I had some DVDs of films that I had never seen (There are still a few Studio Ghibli films that I have not seen despite having them all on DVD) and they would be my back up. It actually happened twice. The first time I watched The Rite, with Anthony Hopkins, which was terrible and a second time I watched The Tale of the Princess Kaguya from Studio Ghibli.

Although Disney + is my personal favorite streaming service (thanks to the Marvel shows basically), it was not the MVP of the streaming services for the DailyView. That would be HBO Max, which brought me a ton of films that I could use, including the Charlie Chaplin shorts that were so valuable. Second place would go to Amazon Prime, which would include a bunch of the “channels” such as Shudder, Paramount Plus, Showtime, Cinemax, Epix etc.). Then I would go with Disney + followed by Hulu, Roku, Peacock… wow I have a ton of streaming services.

The year with the most films included in the DailyView turned out to be 2020 with 22 movies. The group of Small Axe films helped put 2020 over the top. The second place year was 2006 with 20 and then third place is 2005 with 19. 2007 was next with 18. The decade of 2000-2009 had the most overall in the decade with 130 movies. 2010-2019 is the next largest number if films watched with 97. The least amount was, of course, 1915-1919 which had 10 films.

So, with that, the DailyView is officially closed. Will I ever do this again? Never say no, but if I were to do it again, there would need to be some kind of hook. I can’t just decide to do 365 again. Going to 366 does not make much sense. However, I do have some ideas going forward. The Do Over: Sunday Morning Revisit begins this Sunday, May 1st and will be a weekly event. At some point, I will schedule a Saturday Short day when I will watch a bunch of short films on a Saturday. Then, in June there will be the month-long daily binge of movies I missed from 2021. Some cool stuff still coming from EYG.

No movie tomorrow. It’s going to feel strange.

List of all the movies during the 365 day DailyView

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Posted on by

DailyView: Day 365, Movie 523

A Beautiful Mind, an Oscar winning Best Picture from director Ron Howard, turns out to be the final film in the 365-day DailyView.

This film is a biopic of mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe), who started his rise to relevance at Princeton arrogant and socially awkward. Even his peer group found some of his behavior off-putting. John struggled to find his “original idea”, but, after a confrontation with his roommate Charles (Paul Bettany) and a specific occurrence at a bar with some women, a spark came to him.

With his success beginning, he met and married his sweetheart Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and he was approached by government agent Parcher (Ed Harris) to become a code breaker. Everything seemed to be going great.

However, things changed when he started to become paranoid about Russian spies and his mental status is called into question. Turned out, John had schizophrenia and he was having delusions, imagining people who were not really there, including Parcher and Charles.

I will say that the first 45 minutes to an hour of this movie, I was checked out, preparing myself to give this an “Overrated” score for the review. I found the beginning pretty boring and I was not invested in what was happening.

However, when the whole schizophrenia plot point started to come into play full steam, I was much more interested and intrigued by what was happening. I actually would have liked to have seen more of that section of the movie. I would have liked to have seen more of his struggles when he decided to try and overcome the schizophrenia on his own. That part of the film seemed compressed down to a scene or two (albeit a very solid scene).

Russell Crowe played his role beautifully, even in the sections of the film that I found dull, Crowe was always outstanding. Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany both were excellent in the film too. Paul Bettany’s character always brought a breath of fresh air, particularly in that beginning part of the film that dragged for me. I loved Bettany’s inclusion in that part and I looked forward to when he was on screen.

A Beautiful Mind won the Oscar for Best Picture (although I wouldn’t have given it this film – Moulin Rouge or Lord of the Rings were better choices) and it took home four total statues, including Ron Howard’s best director. I found A Beautiful Mind to be messy at times and not a consistently great movie, but the individual parts of the film make it to be a decent watch.

David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988)

Posted on by

DailyView: Day 365, Movie 522

The third movie of the final day of the DailyView is found on Cinemax on Amazon Prime and it is a psychological horror/thriller film from David Cronenberg entitled Dead Ringers. It featured a creepy dual role performance from Jeremy Irons, which is definitely the standout aspect of this film.

According to IMDB: “The Mantle brothers are both doctors – both gynecologists – and identical twins. Mentally however, one of them is more confident than the other, and always manages to seduce the women he meets. When he’s tired of his current partner, she is passed on to the other brother – without her knowing. Everything runs smoothly, until an actress visits their clinic, and the shy brother is the first to fall in love. Will they be able to ‘share’ her ?“

There are some distinctly disturbing concepts going on in Dead Ringers, with a close look at the relationships between twins and how they are connected. Jeremy Irons does a fantastic job of creating two clearly different characters while maintaining a “sameness” that led to plenty of confusion, even for the audience at times, of which twin was which.

Much of the film leaned toward the disturbing and parts of it dragged on for my tastes, but there is no denying the level of performance given by Jeremy Irons. I also appreciated the dark ending for the twins.

I would most likely never watch Dead Ringers again, but it was worth the watch, if only for the oddness of Jeremy Irons’ work.

The Raid 2 (2014)

Posted on by

DailyView: Day 365, Movie 521

Movie number two on the final day of the DailyView is a sequel to one of the top action movies of the last decade or so. The Raid 2 is an Indonesian crime/action film that is about as brutal as you can get.

I enjoyed the Raid quite a bit, but I have to say that I feel as if The Raid 2 is a step down.

After the events of the first film. Rama (Iko Uwais) was hoping to settle into a normal life, but that would not be in the cards. After his brother is killed, he is roped into going undercover to suss out the corrupt police from the Jakarta criminal underworld.

The premise is straightforward and simple. It is a revenge plot with a side of family drama. The characters are reasonably shallow because the characters are not what attracts us to this movie. This movie is here to show off the amazing martial arts fighting and showcase the Indonesia fighting style known as pencak silat.

Admittedly, the fights are astounding and the martial arts maneuvers are amazing to watch. There is such an easy flow to the moves and the violence that it can lull you into an ease that is then shattered by the splatter of the blood.

Still, this was my biggest issue with the film. The fights are so long and dragged out that it just does not seem as if anyone is really affected by them. They do not seem to ever get tired and our main characters appear to be able to shake off wounds and moves that would cripple or murder the canon fodder all around. When Rama took a bladed weapon to the back of his leg, and it barely seemed to register to him, I began looking at this movie like it was a pro wrestling match where the two wrestlers would not sell for the other. It really broke the illusion.

Not being tired is one things (although wearing down during a fight is what made the Atomic Blonde fight scene so effective) but the resiliency against knife wounds and gunshots really cancelled the illusion of the scene.

It also felt too long and I had some difficulty following who was who.

Still, the film was exciting and fun to watch. At its best, the martial arts look so fluid and amazing that you forget how implausible it is. However, the film takes the violence too far for my taste.

It Happened One Night (1934)

Posted on by

DailyView: Day 365, Movie 520

Well, here it is. Day 365. The EYG Daily View is completed with the final day of the binge. The first film of the final day is an Oscar winner from 1934 starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night.

The Frank Capra classic was on the DailyView list from day one, but it was one that I just never got around to watching. However, it felt like the properly huge film to help wrap up this year-long journey.

According to Rotten Tomatoes: “In Frank Capra’s acclaimed romantic comedy, spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) impetuously marries the scheming King Westley, leading her tycoon father (Walter Connolly) to spirit her away on his yacht. After jumping ship, Ellie falls in with cynical newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who offers to help her reunite with her new husband in exchange for an exclusive story. But during their travels, the reporter finds himself falling for the feisty young heiress.”

It Happened One Night shines because of the charm and skills of its lead actors, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Their chemistry and connection is undeniable. While some of the ways that Gable spoke to Colbert may be out of fashion, most of the dialogue was crisp and sharp.

The story is simple. The path along the way on the road to New York is fun. The performances are solid. There is a good feeling to the whole film.

It Happened One Night is considered by many to be on the list of greatest films of all time. While that might be a bit exaggerated, there is no denying how wonderful the parts of this film come together. You can see several things that happen in this movie that are used in other shows and films. “The Walls of Jericho” idea was used on General Hospital with Luke and Laura when they first were getting together. There were other moments that were used again, all because of the success they had here.

It was a great film.

Melody Time (1948)

Posted on by

DailyView: Day 364, Movie 519

It is the penultimate day of the DailyView, and, on this day, I have went over to Disney + for one of the films that has been on my watchlist for several months. It went all the way back to 1948 for an animated film (with some live action mixed in) called Melody Time.

The film featured seven shorter segments with popular music of the time illuminating several stories. Much like Fantasia and Fun and Fancy Free, there was great color, fun animation and entertaining music.

The segments included Once Upon a Wintertime, Bumble Boogie, The Legend of Johnny Appleseed, Little Toot, Trees, Blame it on the Samba, and Pecos Bill.

Some of the stars of the day involved in the film was Roy Rogers, The Andrew Sisters, Dennis Day, Freddy Martin, Buddy Clark, Ethel Smith, Fred Waring, Bob Nolan, The Sons of the Pioneers, Bobby Driscoll, The Dinning Sisters, Frances Langford, and Luana Patten. There was also a segment including Donald Duck.

It is fun. It is a short film. The music may not be as contemporary today as it was when it came out, but it is still enjoyable to listen to and the visual are full of color and engaging.