The follow-up to Team Thor Part 1 was more of the same from writer-director Taika Waititi and Chris Hemsworth.
Thor has taken an apartment with a human named Darryl (Daley Pearson) and Thor has been enjoying his time away from battle. Darryl struggled to get Thor to pay his rent because Thor did not understand the use of money. He believed that Asgardian coins he brought would suffice.
Instead, Thor hired a servant to help him with the tasks of polishing the hammer, making money and paying rent.
This is pretty much the same idea as the first one, which was so popular that they decided to make more.
Taika Waititi has a great grasp on the character of Thor and he brings out the fun in the situation unlike anyone else. Chris Hemsworth is extremely talented in the area of comedy and he shows his remarkable timing here.
I was incorrect when I said that the last Marvel One Shot was All Hail the King with Trevor Slattery. I did not know that this series of Thor shorts with his roommate Darryl were from the Marvel One Shots series, but that is how they were listed on Disney + so I thought I would watch them next.
Chris Hemsworth has a remarkable comedic timing. He is very funny and he has taken Thor in a much different direction than when he started out in the first Thor film. He has truly revitalized the character and he has said that he is much more interested in Thor now than he was before.
This short takes place after Civil War and it is Thor moving into an apartment in Australia with a man named Darryl (Daley Pearson). Thor is upset that neither Cap or Tony Stark called him during the conflict between them and he is trying to go on with his life.
Written and directed by Taika Waititi, this short gives us a definite flavor of how Waititi was going to take the character of Thor with Thor: Ragnarok.
This is a really funny little bit that I assume is outside of the typical MCU continuity. Watching Thor desperately trying to convince us that he was still relevant is so very funny.
This was the final of the Marvel One Shot series that Marvel Studio produced. It was in response to the remarkably infamous twist from Iron Man 3 where the Mandarin, as played by Sir Ben Kingsley, turned out to be nothing more than an actor playing a part. To many ardent fans, this was a twist that they used to hate on Iron Man 3. To me, it was quite a wild thing for Marvel to pull off.
However, they used this short to bring Trevor Slattery, the name of the actor who pretended to be the Mandarin, back to the forefront. The fact that an actor of such renown as Ben Kingsley would be willing to do this short speaks a lot to Marvel.
The character of Trevor Slattery is a ton of fun, almost in a world of his own. The main purpose of the short was to tell the world that there was still a character known as the Mandarin in the MCU besides the one being played by Trevor Slattery.
We see Trevor in prison banking off his reputation and his ability to do the scary Mandarin voice.
In fact, this one shot would eventually lead into one of the best Marvel films of 2021 in Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where we get to meet the actual Mandarin (though he does not go by that name) and we get a chance to see Trevor Slattery return to the MCU stage and we discover where he has been for all of these years.
Also in All Hail the King, look for a great cameo from Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer.
Following in the footsteps of Captain America: The First Avenger comes Agent Carter, a Marvel One Shot that proceeded a short run TV series on ABC starring Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter.
That TV series on ABC is one of the most underrated shows in the Marvel canon as it took a character and made her beloved. Hayley Atwell is charming and exceptional as an actress and every bit of it comes through in the series, as well as this one shot.
Peggy is working in the post war age in the intelligence business, a business that did not take well to a woman doing anything of the sort, and Peggy was becoming bored with the monotony of her position. Knowing she was more suited for the field, Peggy wished for an escape from the reports and the behind the scene paperwork she was being given.
When she had a chance to go take care of a mission on her own, she does so with flair and style becoming a special agent who fought side by side with Captain America.
There is a reason why Hayley Atwell keeps coming back to the MCU, most recently in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as Captain Carter. She is just awesome and she gets a chance to show that special oomph in Marvel One Shot: Agent Carter.
This was the first one shot to exceed double digits in minutes, and they use every second to highlight Peggy Carter and to provide reasons why we love her.
And I have to say that I felt touched when she pulled out the picture of Steve Rogers as thin, skinny Steve that we saw on her desk in Avengers: Endgame. It is one more awesome connection and a reason why we love the MCU continuity.
I thought I had seen all of the Marvel One Shots before, but then I came across Item 47 on Disney + and I realized that I had not.
Set after the events of The Avengers (2012), Item 47 was a piece of alien tech left on earth that was discovered by two people who started using it as a way to rob banks. This drew the attention of SHIELD and Agent Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernandez) and his boss Agent Blake (Titus Welliver).
It is hard to watch this short which made Agent Sitwell into the hero knowing that this could have been Agent Coulson (who died in Avengers) and that Sitwell would be revealed as a mole inside SHIELD for Hydra in the upcoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
It was kind of fun, but with the lack of someone who I really cared about, this one just felt like it was going through the motion.
These short four minutes show you everything that we love about Phil Coulson, and of course, the amazing Clark Gregg who portrayed him.
Stopping for gas as the erstwhile Agent of Shield was on his way to see the unmovable hammer that had appeared on earth in New Mexico, Agent Coulson crosses paths with some dimwits trying to rob the gas station.
It was a pity for them.
Phil Coulson was funny, calm and absolutely kick ass.
I am certain that this is one of the reasons why Coulson was brought back to head up ABC’s Agents of Shield TV show.
The first ever Saturday Short is off and running with the first of the Marvel One-Shots currently on Disney +. It was called The Consultant and it featured the ever awesome Clark Gregg as SHEILD Agent Phil Coulson. I have missed Phil Coulson since the ending of the Agents of Shield and getting a chance to see him again is one of the main reasons why the Saturday Short binge does not have to be shorts that I had never seen before.
I saw this on the DVD of Thor and the short explained the reason why Tony Stark met with General Ross (RIP William Hurt) as the post credit scene from the Incredible Hulk.
This short has very little to do except show off Clark Gregg and Maximiliano Hernandez (who played Jasper Sitwell), both of whom would play bigger roles in the beginning of the MCU.
The Marvel One Shots include more substance as they continue so the next ones will be more than a short scene with two cool actors reprising their characters.
The second week of the Do Over is here and this week we are revisiting the 1993 Nora Ephron film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle.
I remember watching this film for the first time on VHS and being truly bored by it. In fact, I remember being so bored that I fell asleep during part of the movie. Despite enjoying the work of Tom Hanks, I haven’t been interested in revisiting this.
However, with the Do Over series, I gave Sleepless in Seattle another chance and I found it to be much more enjoyable than the first time.
Recently widowed, Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) moved with his son Jonah (Ross Malinger) away from Chicago where everything reminded him of his lost wife to Seattle for a new start. Jonah was seeing that his father was not moving on and he called into a radio show designed to help people with their love lives.
Jonah is able to get Sam on the phone to talk to the “doctor” and his story went out across the nation. Annie (Meg Ryan), engaged to a man (Bill Pullman) who was steady and kind, but who was not magical, became obsessed with Sam and Jonah, finding the pull of the pair to be irresistible.
Using the romantic movie An Affair to Remember as its backbone, Sleepless in Seattle is a romantic comedy that looks at the fantasy/magical side of love, how some loves are destined to come about despite distance or implausibility.
There is certainly a ton of implausibility inside this script. Just the idea that Jonah could get himself to the top of the Empire State Building from Seattle alone is implausible enough. There is the apparently live broadcast of “Dr. Marsha Fieldstone” on Network America that went live across the whole nation instead of being taped and recorded earlier. Not to mention that Jonah set this whole thing up because he read Annie’s letter that talked about Brooks Robinson. Oh, and there has never been a man like Bill Pullman’s character in the history of the world.
Sure, there are plenty of moments that are just not realistic, but that works in this movie. The movie depends on the unlikely to pull the viewers into the magic. We know that Annie is not a creeper and that there is some unspeakable connection between the two of them and you root for them to overcome these unlikely odds to find a way together. And the ending scene on the top of the Empire State Building is both amazingly romantic and downright weird at the same time.
Sleepless in Seattle is considered one of the greatest rom-coms of all time by many and I have a much more appreciative opinion of the film than I did before. It helps that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are exceptionally likeable actors and that Ross Malinger is as charming of a kid in the movies as you are going to find.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
There have been several John Grisham novels adapted to the big screen. The Rainmaker was adapted to the screen by Francis Ford Coppola, bringing another level of crime gravitas to the movie.
In the end, The Rainmaker was an enjoyable courtroom drama that included a top notch cast and a satisfactory conclusion.
According to IMDB: “Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is a young attorney out to make a difference in the justice system. He is also the only hope of an elderly couple after their corrupt insurance company refuses to pay out a claim that could save their child’s life. In this judicial drama, Baylor rails against corporate lawyers, corrupt judges, and abusive husbands, all with the help of a fellow lawyer who hasn’t even passed his bar exam. He is facing long odds in the courtroom – and this is only his first case.”
Matt Damon does an excellent job of playing this young lawyer, who was way over his head, unsure of how to proceed with the case or what steps he should take in the procedural process of the court case. Even with a supportive judge (Danny Glover), Rudy Baylor was clearly a greenhorn.
This is the reason why I believe that the real heart of this movie was Deck Shifflet, the character played by Danny DeVito. DeVito was exceptional in every scene, keeping Rudy balanced and helping find his way through the case, despite having failed the bar exam multiple times. Deck knew where to look and what to do, even if it is not necessarily the most up and up move. Danny DeVito had great chemistry with everyone that he interacted with and brought a realness to the role.
There were some other excellent characters, some bordering on eccentric. Mickey Rourke played J. Lyman “Bruiser” Stone, a bar owner and ambulance chaser who gave Rudy his first job. Virginia Madsen was here as Jackie Lemanczyk, a witness that Deck found whom may have major testimony. Dean Stockwell played a crooked judge originally assigned to the case who tried to railroad Rudy to a early settlement. Jon Voight played the opposing counsel, Leo Drummond, and the fact that Jon Voight can be an unlikable real life person helped play into this rotten character. He was certainly easy to hate.
I will say that there was a secondary plot involving a battered wife (Claire Danes) and her abusive husband that felt like it was included just to fill out the run time of the film. It had very little (if anything) to do with the main story, only providing a distraction for Rudy. While there was an exciting fight scene included, this entire story beat could have been removed without losing anything of value to the overall story. It would have helped with the length of the film as well.
The Rainmaker was a solid courtroom drama and some excellent performances.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 