DailyView: Day 270, Movie 379

The crime films have never been my favorite genre, so I have missed out on several of the big name films in that style. The Martin Scorsese directed film The Departed was a little different because I have seen the ending of the movie, but had never seen the bulk of it. I am not sure how that happened, but it did. It has been on my queue at HBO Max for awhile now, and I decided to finally watch it for the DailyView.

This was a tense, violent thriller with some awesome acting and a bunch of characters that were lowlifes and scumballs. That was on either side of the law.

South Boston police were waging a war against the criminal underworld of the city, led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). The police recruited a young cop out of the academy with some shady background, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to go undercover in a complex set up, to try and bring Costello down. However, there was a mole working for Costello inside the Boston police, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Both of them attempted to uncover the undercovers as Costello continued his reign of terror and bad behavior.

Extremely bloody. Violent. There are some shocking moments throughout. As I said, I knew of the shocking ending, which would have been unbelievable if I had not have known about it prior.

The cast, besides our three main (Nicholson, DiCaprio and Damon) was stellar. It included Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Anderson, Ray Winstone, Mark Rolston, and Kevin Corrigan.

The film strings you along as you are never quite sure what is going to happen next. It makes you feel as if you could not trust anybody because they all may have been involved.

Jack Nicholson was crazy good as this moral-less criminal who believed that he was untouchable. Nicholson gave off an evil as this character that made you want to see him brought down, although it was a tad underwhelming when his fate was revealed.

The film was beautifully directed, the imagery framed perfectly. Scorsese won an Academy Award for his work on The Departed, and the film was the Academy Award winner for the Best Movie. This is a film that had a lot going for it and it was worth the wait to finally see.

DailyView: Day 270, Movie 378

Once again, we are going back to the very beginning of the DailyView and the first list of films that I wanted to include in this binge. Honestly, I had intended to watch The Right Stuff early in the binge, but the runtime of 3 hours and 13 minutes kept me from watching it. I carved out the time this morning to schedule the final viewing of the astronaut film.

I have to say, I was somewhat disappointed.

Don’t misunderstand me, I liked parts of the film, and I appreciated it, but I just did not find the movie that engaging.

The Right Stuff tells the true story about a group of pilots to become the first astronauts to be sent into space. Some of the classic astronauts that were included were John Glenn (Ed Harris), Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward) and Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin). There was also a big part of the film dedicated to Chuck Yeager, played by the Oscar nominated Sam Shepard.

There were moments that I enjoyed in The Right Stuff. I enjoyed how the seven main characters were so connected with each other that they supported each other no matter what came up. The film did not feel the need to toss in some convoluted conflict just to create some kind of drama. Another thing I loved was how much John Glenn loved and supported his wife, who was embarrassed by her stuttering issues, no matter what. There was a scene involving Vice-President LBJ (Donald Moffat) that was tremendous.

However, it was very long and several of the bits of the film felt disjointed. Performances were excellent, but there was just too many moments that did not feel vital or succinct enough. Lots of the film felt repetitive or did not fit in with the overall film.

I was thinking that this was going to be a great but it turned out to be a little over average for me. I was disappointed that The Right Stuff did not hit home with me as much as it could have.

DailyView: Day 269, Movie 377

Last year on Netflix, there was an animated movie called Bigfoot Family, and I was interested because I have always been a fan of the Bigfoot. I did not like the movie that much, unfortunately. It was during the writing of the movie review that I discovered that the film I was watching was actually a sequel. Wild. I could not find the original anywhere though, and, of course, since I did not like the film that much, I did not give too much effort to find it.

The original film, called Son of Bigfoot, went on the DailyView list way back at the beginning, but I was still having issues finding it. It was low priority so I kept going. Nine months into the DailyView, I found Son of Bigfoot on Vudu. And do you know what? This was much better than the sequel.

Adam is a bit of an outcast at his school, especially since his hair has seemed to suddenly be growing out of control. Despite this, he has gone about his life with his mom, living together. He had never known his father. However, one day, Adam discovered a bunch of letters that were written to his mom by his dad, who was very much still alive.

Adam became very mad at his mother’s lies and he ran away in an attempt to find his absentee father. Little did Adam know, there was a bigger secret that his father had been hiding from him. So when Adam’s efforts led him to the middle of the forest, he found himself in danger. He was rescued by a bigfoot, who turned out to be his father.

HairCo was a multimillion dollar company that had been pursuing Adam’s father and who he was hiding out from, but with the new publicity, head of HairCo Wallace Eastman resumed his search for Bigfoot.

The voice acting was solid here, despite not having any recognizable voices. In fact, that may be why it was good. There were a bunch of voice over actors who had experience with voicing animation working on the film and doing quality work. The animation was really good too, as well as the designs of Bigfoot and Adam.

The story was fun, if not difficult to believe. I felt more of a connection with Adam than I did anytime in Bigfoot Family. The secondary animal characters were enjoyable and added to the comedy of the film.

Wallace Eastman was a menacing villain and does some terrible things to try and get the DNA of Bigfoot so they could master the ability to regrow hair quickly.

This film is light weight for sure, but I enjoyed watching it. It provided a strong father-son story/relationship and some engaging action sequences and funny moments.

DailyView: Day 269, Movie 376

I was watching Fatman Beyond with Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin this week and Kevin told Marc that he was grateful for a movie recommendation that even his wife loved and she told him to call Marc and thank him. Then he talked about Riders of Justice on Hulu, a Danish speaking film starring Mads Mikkelsen. I have done some other foreign language films for the DailyView so I went to Hulu for the revenge flick.

After a tragic accident on a subway, Markus (Mads Mikkelsen) returned from his military assignment to be with his daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg) after his wife/her mother died. When mathematics geeks show up with a theory that it was not an accident and that a group called the Riders of Justice were responsible, Markus decided to kill them all.

There is more to this movie than just a regular revenge movie though. Part of the difference is the side characters, played by Lars Brygmann, Nicolas Bro, and Nikolaj Lie Kaas, are so eccentric that they are almost cartoonish. They add a weird tone to the film, but they are more than just comedy. There is a depth to each of them that comes through the longer they are in the film. At first, they felt like something that was not going to work, but as the film continued, I grew to enjoy them more.

There is also a great twist in the film that I will obviously not spoil, but the storyline turned out to be more than just The Punisher in Danish.

However, there is a bit at the very end that I never like. It was something that kind of messed up the ending of The Peanut Butter Falcon for me as well. It is a misdirection that I dislike and it made the ending of the film, which was looking to be a solid end, lesser in my opinion. Again, no spoiling, but I did not like that trope.

Mads Mikkelsen is fantastic as always. He brings a lot of depth to this soldier who has plenty of anger issues. Mikkelsen holds the entire film together and is the heartbeat of the plot.

This was a excellent revenge film that was unlike most revenge films. It worked very well and I enjoyed the film. It goes to show how great foreign films can be and, just because you have to read the captions, you should not skip it.

DailyView: Day 269, Movie 375

City of Ember is one of the many young adult novels that was adapted into a movie, but never became a big hit despite a strong cast and interesting setting.

The human race built a city below ground when the world was ending and they set up a way to leave in 200 years when they hoped that the earth would be in a better situation. The secret was passed along to the mayors over the years until one of the mayors died unexpectedly.

Decades later, Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) was discovering what her job was destined to be (although she apparently could easily switch it with another so it wasn’t that much of a destiny). She ended up being a messenger. Her friend Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) wound up working in the pipes.

Lina discovered the box with the escape instructions and she started to try and figure out what had happened and her father tied into the history of the box.

I was shocked to see Bill Murray show up as the Mayor, and he is always great, but the character did not feel like a character that fit for Bill Murray. Toby Jones was there too as the Mayor’s henchman, which felt more concise of a role than the Mayor.

Tim Robbins was Loris Harrow, Doon’s father, but he was not given much to do in the story. He felt shoehorned into the plot and he was terribly underused.

The plot of the movie was dumb. The whole idea of the builders setting up this way to escape from the underground city centuries ago and expected it to still be fine and work. The worst part was how they got a message to the underground city afterwards. It was so ridiculous and improbable that it tainted the remainder of story.

Saoirse Ronan showed that she would be a top line actor with this early work. She was very solid for what she had to work with in City of Ember. She was certainly the highlight.

This was watchable. It would fall right into the category of other YA films with Divergent, The Host, Maze Runner, The Giver, Jumper etc. Nothing special, but nothing horrendous either.

DailyView: Day 268, Movie 374

This evening, I took a trip into the world of street art and found a documentary that was one of the oddest documentaries that you will ever see,

It started out with French immigrant in LA, store owner and amateur filmmaker Thierry Guetta, running around trying to record street artists and their work. He started with his cousin, who happened to be street artist Invader, and worked his way to the mysterious Banksy, who was the director of this documentary. Oh, it gets weirder.

Guetta followed Banksy around, in order to create a film about the street artist, a man who goes out of his way to hide his identity. When the final film was brought to Banksy, he was shocked at how unwatchable it was. Banksy realized that the footage of the street art was valuable and so he decide that he would make his own film, following Guetta. He then suggested to Guetta that he put together his own “little’ art show.

Guetta went wildly all out, creating a massive show, featuring his own brand of art that certainly was influenced by the art of Banksy.

Guetta was an unbelievable character that was about as eccentric as they come, and this includes a director shown in shadow to protect his identity. There has been some speculation that this entire documentary was staged and that Guetta was just created by Banksy.

The doc was funny, not only by the oddball lead character, but also with the lines of dialogue. It is visually attractive and has excellent pace. Some of the scenes were shockingly bizarre and hard to believe, which is why, I am sure, some think it is not real.

Worth the watch for sure.

DailyView: Day 267, Movie 373

I was watching 10 Things I Hate About You on Disney + and I was about half way into it when I made a realization… this movie was basically William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. I have never actually read the play, but I have seen other adaptations over the years (especially Moonlighting’s Atomic Shakespeare) and I recognized the story.

I was unsure about this movie. I liked the beginning of it, but it felt like it was going to end in ways that I really did not. However, I think the film nailed the ending without damaging the female characters, which was something that I was worried about. Julia Stiles’s Kat Stratford and Larisa Oleynik’s Bianca Stratford came out looking strong and anything but weaklings.

Bianca cannot go out with anyone until her older sister Kat does. This is the rule placed on them by their overprotective father Walter (Larry Miller). New student Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has fallen for Bianca, and he sets a plan in motion to have rebel Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to try and date Kat so Bianca could be free to date whom she wanted.

Of course, there are a lot of issues that mess the plan up, but when Patrick and Kat start to hit it off, you start to root for them as a couple.

There are funny moments, but the best aspects of 10 Things I Hate About You is the relationships between the characters. Are there ridiculous things that happen? Of course. But I have to say that I think that this is one of my favorite rom-coms around. Heath Ledger is great and charming. He and Julia Stiles had chemistry for miles. Joseph Gordon-Levitt may have gotten away with his role in the action without any real consequence. Larisa Oleynik showed so much more depth than it looked as if she was going to have.

I found this fun and was happy I got a chance to add it to the DailyView.

DailyView: Day 266, Movie 372

Paul Rudd is really a treasure.

He is the star of the 2016 film The Fundamentals of Caring which is just fabulous. Is it sentimental and pull on your heart strings? Absolutely. However, it is so charming and warm that it completely feels sincere and deserved.

Paul Rudd played Ben Benjamin, who was a retired writer trying to get over a personal tragedy. Ben applied for a job as a caretaker for a teen boy named Trevor (Craig Roberts), who was wheelchair bound because of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and was a handful of attitude.

Ben was able to throw attitude back at Trevor as well and is able to convince Trevor’s mom (Jennifer Ehle) to let him take Trevor on a road trip to the Deepest Pit. Along the way, they pick up Dot (Selena Gomez), a teenager on her way to Denver, and a pregnant woman name Peaches (Megan Ferguson) who was going back to her parents home after her husband was deployed back to Afghanistan.

Yes, there are contrived moments that you would expect in this type of movie. We’ve seen it before, but it is so good because of the chemistry with Paul Rudd and Craig Roberts, as well as Selena Gomez. The interactions with these characters, especially during the road trip are what makes this a special movie.

Paul Rudd is exceptional in this movie. He brings every ounce of charm and warmth that he has, as well as a serious dose of shenanigans. He is a major reason to watch this movie.

The film avoids the major trap doors that a movie like this could fall into and is just an enjoyable piece of entertainment.

DailyView: Day 265, Movie 371

So I decided to watch another short from the early days of movies tonight for a specific reason. I found the Three Stooges in a short called The Sit Downers from the year 1937. The reason I chose this was because of the year 1937. I had not seen a movie in that year for the DailyView yet. With that year now checked off, I have watched at least one movie from every year from 1929-2020. There are only four more years remaining (all in the 1920s) and I will have seen a film from 1915-2020. Those final four years are a goal for the final 100 days of this binge.

Anyway, this is the first time I used The Three Stooges in the DailyView. I have seen Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, The Marx Brothers, but Larry, Moe and Curly had not made the cut. Until tonight that is.

This film was very funny, filled with Stooge-y humor, slapstick and plenty of “nyuck, nyucks”.

Larry, Moe and Curly wanted to get married to three sisters, but the sister’s father refused to give permission. So the Stooges staged a sit in protest in order to change the father’s mind. After weeks of sit downing, and plenty of support from fans across the country, the father gave in.

So they got married, but they discovered that the free house they thought was donated to them had to be constructed by them before the honeymoon. Weird premise, I know, but it was really funny. I think every slapstick crew has done the construction gags, but this one worked well. The Stooges had great comedic timing and made the unavoidable accidents very funny.

Some of this film is believed to have been inspired by Buster Keaton’s film, One Week, which was one of the DailyView films watched.

The Stooges worked well together and I laughed several times during the film. It was an easy watch and a fun time.

DailyView: Day 265, Movie 370

Officially 100 days remaining in the DailyView as of today!

I watched the new trailer last night for Marvel Studio’s next Disney + series, Moon Knight, debuting at the end of March. The actor starring as Moon Knight is the ever awesome Oscar Isaac. In honor of the great trailer, I found a film on the list featuring Mr. Isaac. That turned out to be Inside Llewyn Davis.

Ethan and Joel Coen wrote and directed this film about a down on his luck folk singer in 1961 named Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) as he struggled to try and find his way through the difficulties life threw at him.

And it seemed as if life was spending the entire movie throwing difficulties at poor, sad-sack Llewyn.

This was a fantastic film. It was extremely funny as everything seemed to be collapsing around his life. Oscar Isaac is amazing in the lead role, both in the acting and the singing areas. It is a complicated and deep role. Llewyn has so much go against him, but you still want to root for him, no matter how poorly he reacts to the situation.

There was also a brilliant performance, albeit a short one, by John Goodman. Goodman steals every scene he was in and provided some of the best laughs of the film. That character was such an original and exceptional part of the movie.

The film does not really have a plot, as it is more like a series of scenes involving Llewyn Davis strung together. I found a quote from Joel Coen on IMSB that said “the film doesn’t really have a plot. That concerned us at one point; that’s why we threw the cat in.”

I was thoroughly entertained by Inside Llewyn Davis and it only makes me even more excited for Oscar Isaac is the MCU.

DailyView: Day 264, Movie 369

Here is one that was a tough watch.

Elephant was written and directed by Gus Van Sant. It tells the story of a group of kids at the fictional high school of Watt High School in the days before and up to a school shooting.

Based tentatively on the 1999 events at Columbine, Elephant followed several students, played by mostly unknown and non-professional actors, reliving several scenes from differing POVs. Much of the beginning of the film was slow and focused in on the characters, their typical lives of high school students. The over-the-top nature of some high school movies were kept at a minimum and set up the eventual slaughter carefully. If you did not know that this movie had the events in the third act, you might be wondering what movie you were watching.

Although I had not ever seen this movie and I was not aware of what the topic was, I had first heard about this on the Top 10 Show and, I think it was Matt Knost, who said that it was a good movie but it was one where he didn’t feel the need to revisit it because of the topic. I do not remember him mentioning the school shooting aspect, but that did put me on guard for this and, as a teacher myself, the signs were there if you knew what to be watching for. I assumed that this would wind up to be a school shooting film and when I saw the one shooter looking online at a gun website, I knew I was right.

There was controversy surrounding this movie a few years later as the shooters behind the 2005 assault on Red Lake supposedly had seen the film and was inspired by the third act. How accurate that is may be up for question, but it brought some controversy to Elephant.

It is difficult to classify this because the topic is one so close to home as a teacher, but still something that is important to see. The production of the film was well done and the actors did a great job, especially for the lack of experienced actors that were involved. It is definitely a rough watch, but I think it is a valuable experience.

DailyView: Day 263, Movie 368

I have never been a huge fan of Will Farrell and because of that, I have never seen Step Brothers. Last year, I had never seen Elf for the same reason and, when I watched it, I loved it. So the hope was strong for another iconic Will Farrell movie being better than I thought it would be.

Hope was fleeting.

I hated this movie.

So much.

I couldn’t stand either of the lead characters, the humor was the lowest form of humor around, and I found this so stupid.

Some of the quieter moments was better, but they were few and far between. I did enjoy Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen as the parents of the step brothers. Kathryn Hahn is always great.

I gave it a chance, but this is just not for me.

DailyView: Day 262, Movie 367

A Kind of Murder is a 2016 psychological thriller with some noir tendencies with an interesting performance from Patrick Wilson. After that, there is not a whole lot remaining.

Patrick Wilson played architect Walter Stackhouse, who wrote stories on the side. He was fascinated by the idea of murder and he collected clipping of killing from the paper. When bookshop owner Marty Kimmel (Eddie Marsan) has his wife murdered and the police suspected him, Stackhouse was intrigued. He approached Kimmel to see what he could see.

When Stackhouse’s wife Clara (Jennifer Biel) wound up dead after several suicide attempts, the police were suspicious of Stackhouse, especially when he would lie about seemingly anything.

Detective Corby (Vincent Kartheiser) was convinced that Stackhouse was a copycat killer to Kimmel and that they both had killed their wives. He was determined to prove his theories true.

The film had a nice visual component to it. It looked great and the tone of the film was benefitted by the look of the film.

One of the issues was that the characters were not well developed, outside of Stackhouse (and that was mostly because of the performance of Wilson). There was a whole adultery angle involving Stackhouse and a singer named Ellie (Haley Bennett) which was of no consequence. We saw Clara had mental illness, but we did not go into any details on it or let it become a key component for the story. It was just a reason why Stackhouse was unhappy.

We knew almost nothing about Kimmel. He felt like a creepy little guy, but other than that surface level, we do not see anything from him. Detective Corby was nothing more than a stubborn cop who was sure he was right.

The film was not a terrible watch, but it was far from good. I did not hate watching it and there were some technical aspects of A Kind of Murder (dumb title too, by the way) that were positive. Overall though, this was not a standout.

DailyView: Day 261, Movie 366

This was a film that I found on Netflix and has been on my queue for a few weeks. It sounded intriguing and I had never heard about it back in 2017 which is strange since I was watching a ton of movies at the time. 1922 was an adaptation of a Stephen King novella featuring Thomas Jane, Molly Parker and Neal McDonough.

To prevent his wife Arlette (Molly Parker) from selling the land she had been given by her father and taking their son Henry (Dylan Schmid) away, farmer Wilfred James (Thomas Jane) conspired with his son to murder her. After they buried her in a well on the farm, strange things begin to happen. Is the land cursed?

1922 was an excellent film with some amazing tone. There is a grubby, down and dirty feel to the film that really worked well with the story that was being told. The use of the rats in the film was simply unnerving and kept me on edge. I would not define this as a horror movie, per se, but it has the tension and anxiousness that many top horror flicks do have.

There are plenty of great looking shots on this small farm, through the corn field and the cinematography was beautiful.

Thomas Jane is outstanding in the role of Wilfred James. He seems so unlikable at first, but Jane does such a strong job in his performance that you can’t help but feel for him as so many things start to go wrong for him.

This was a well done, but kind of uneasy film to watch. I enjoyed the tense storytelling and the characterizations of the different actors.

DailyView: Day 260, Movie 365

With the new Scream out tonight, it was time to bring up another short from the past of cinema to fill the DailyView and today we find a Laurel and Hardy short on YouTube called Unaccustomed As We Are.

The set up was simple. Oliver Hardy brought Stan Laurel back to his apartment with the promise that his wife (Mae Busch) would cook Stan a wonderful steak dinner (with nuts). However, when they arrived, Mrs. Hardy was anything but cooperative, tired of Oliver pulling this surprise on her all the time.

Mrs. hardy left Oliver, so he decided that he would cook the dinner himself, leading to all sorts of hilarities.

They tossed in a misunderstanding with the neighbors as well to add to the slapstick fun.

This was Laurel & Hardy’s first “talkie” film and it used several techniques of the medium that would become staples. Across the hall, Mr. Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy) was getting smashed by his wife, Mrs. Kennedy (Thelma Todd) and all we heard was the crashing and the breaking of objects, something that they could not have done in the silent films that preceded it.

This was a simple short and it was entertaining. Their work would become stronger over the years, but this is solid for what it was.