One of the bigger rom coms from 2023 is the entry for the June Swoon 3 today. Anyone But You was a very successful film, coming seemingly from nowhere. I would not be opposed if it were sent back there.
According to IMDB, “In the aftermath of a captivating first encounter, Bea and Ben discover that their initial fiery passion has inexplicably dwindled to frosty misunderstanding. However, fate intervenes: Thrown together again at a dreamy Australian wedding, they opt for a charade of coupledom. But sparks reignite amid the sun-kissed scenery, forcing them to confront their true feelings and embrace a second chance at love.“
Okay, so this is really dumb. It is the essence of a disposable film that means nothing. The plot is a poor soap opera story that I have literally seen before.
The only thing that makes this stand out is the arrival of two of the hotter stars in Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.
Both of them have better films ahead of them. They are clearly charming and attractive. They have some comedic timing that would probably work much better with a better script.
Today’s June Swoon 3 entry is an action film featuring Nic Cage in all his Nic Cage-ness, and it is a a lot ridiculous fun.
According to IMDB, “In The Retirement Plan, when Ashley (Ashley Greene) and her young daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell) get caught up in a criminal enterprise that puts their lives at risk, she turns to the only person who can help – her estranged father Matt (Nicolas Cage), currently living the life of a retired beach bum in the Cayman Islands. Their reunion is fleeting as they are soon tracked down on the island by crime boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) and his lieutenant Bobo (Ron Perlman). As Ashley, Sarah and Matt become entangled in an increasingly dangerous web, Ashley quickly learns her father had a secret past that she knew nothing about and that there is more to her father than meets the eye.”
Is this movie more convoluted than it needed to be? Absolutely. It felt pretty messy in a lot of ways. Does it require a suspension of disbelief? 100%. Perhaps more than most movies. None of that ruins this film from being a hoot. It knows the type of movie it is and Nic Cage is totally in for a ridiculous good time.
I did like the little girl Sarah, played by Thalia Campbell, and her relationship with her kidnapper Bobo, played by Ron Perlman. I really thought this was going to go in one direction, but it takes a different path, which I found refreshing.
The action is great, if not difficult to believe. There just felt as if there were too many threads getting pulled and it was unnecessary.
I am not sure I liked the way the film wrapped up either. I think I would have preferred for the end of the third act to feel less like it was nothing more than a deus ex machina.
Still, if you love Nic Cage, this will be fun. I wish Thalia Campbell’s role would have been more in the second half of the movie because she was one of the standouts in the first half.
This morning’s June Swoon entry comes from Australia and I found it on Hulu. It was called The Royal Hotel.
According to IMDB, “Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called ‘The Royal Hotel’ in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture, but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that rapidly leaps out of their control.“
Now, that is what the synopsis on IMDB says, but that is not what this movie is like. It is listed as a psychological thriller, but there is nothing psychological about it and very little thriller.
It takes way too long for anything to happen. We spend way too much time with the drunken reprobates in the bar without any sort of character development.
The ending sequence was just nonsensical and does not wrap anything up outside of the basic result.
This was very boring for most of the film and anything that it tried at the end did not work at all. I was very disappointed with this one.
The format of today’s June Swoon 3 is one unlike I have seen before and it takes a revolutionary director in order to make this work. Ava DuVernay is just such a director.
Origin adapts the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, a book that laid out the idea that racism in the United States is a part of the concept of caste system, connecting racism in America to the attempted extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, the caste system of India as well as other atrocities across the globe.
Such an undertaking was going to be difficult to attain, but DuVernay skillfully weaves the information, at times, in a documentary style, while mixing it with the drama of Isabel Wilkerson’s life during this stretch of working on the book when she lost her husband, mother and cousin.
The combination of docudrama is a difficult one to reach, but DuVernay does a masterful job of making this fully engaging while providing ideas that challenge the thoughts of a generation.
The lead role of the film was played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, showcasing an emotional arc for Isabel Wilkerson from early on in the film when she lost her husband, Brett (Jon Bernthal). The use of flashbacks and memories throughout the movie helped us see important aspects of Wilkerson’s life and relationships with her family and friends. Ellis-Taylor made these life moments extremely relatable and touching as we see her deal with loss and pain, as well as a love of life.
The film may be a little long, but there are so many great moments throughout that help us see the central point being made by the film. There are stories that are told such as the tale of Al Bright, a young boy whose baseball team just wanted to swim together as a celebration for a big win, but who was denied because he was black. Another story told the tale of a German Nazi and a Jewish woman’s relationship that broke all the rules of Nazi Germany and led her her eventual encampment at a concentration camp. These stories are important to the overall narrative of the piece and help highlight the concept of the book being written.
You wouldn’t think that a film could be made about a journalist writing a book about the caste system, but Ava DuVernay accomplished just that and it was compelling and amazing, even if it could be tough to watch at times.
It was Netflix again for this June Swoon as I pulled up The Book of Clarence, a retelling f the story of the crucifixion through the eyes of a down-on-his-luck loser named Clarence.
According to IMDB, “Struggling to find a better life, Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence.“
This movie was very up and down for me. The biggest issue I had with it was that it lacked a consistent tone. There were deadly serious scenes that were well done, particularly with the strength of LaKeith Stanfield’s performance, but other scenes that felt like it was pulled right out of a Monty Python skit. I was not sure if this was meant to be a serious movie or a satire. Or was it meant to be some kind of amalgam between the two? This uncertainty hurt this film in my eyes.
As I mentioned, the performance of LaKeith Stanfield was excellent, as he went from a disbeliever to one who exceeded belief. Stanfield was believable in every moment he was on screen and he gave the film a credibility that I do not think it would have had if it were another actor in this potentially divisive role.
There is an excellent cast in this movie including Benedict Cumberbatch (whole role felt as if it were one of the most satirical of them all), Omar Sy, Anna Diop, RJ Cyler, David Oyelowo, Alfre Woodard, Caleb McLaughlin, James McAvoy, Nicholas Pinnock, Marianne-Jean Baptiste, Teyana Taylor and Michael Ward.
I can see this film stirring up the audience, depending on who was watching. For me, there are some good ideas in here, but the film can’t decide what exactly it wants to be, and that demeans the positives that are here.
Another horror movie highlights today’s June Swoon as I watched the Australian film Run Rabbit Run on Netflix.
Run Rabbit Run is more of a psychological thriller than it is a horror film as there are not many scares and it really does focus on the mental state of the characters involved. It was effective in this manner as I felt a connection with the two lead characters as they went through their memories of tragic events from the past.
However, it does take a while to get rolling. The film seemed a bit long and the pacing was not the best. Some of the beats felt as if they were repeated during the story and it seemed that this could have been a tighter film with some of this narrowed down.
The lead performances are the reason to watch Run Rabbit Run. Sarah Snook played Sarah, the mother whose past was coming back to cause trouble with her daughter. The daughter, Mia, was played well by young actor Lily LaTorre. She provided many of the film’s creepiest moments as she was seemingly being possessed by the spirit of Alice, Sarah’s missing sister.
These performances overcame the weaknesses in the plot, which included a predictable outcome, and made this a film I would say that I enjoyed watching. It is not a perfect horror movie, but it does enough things well that make it interesting.
I have yet another Oscar nominated film for the June Swoon 3 today. This nomination went to Colman Domingo for Best Actor in Motion Picture. He did not win the Oscar, but he gave an electric performance that carried an average film to new heights.
There have been a lot of examples of an amazing lead performance elevating a movie before. Rustin is just the latest example in a long line. Many of these tend to be biopics. This is yet another.
Bayard Rustin was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and a driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington. He was also an openly gay man. His leadership and charisma shone through the struggles his life presented to him.
Colman Domingo is absolutely amazing in this film and he overshadows the rest of the movie. Without him, this movie would be considerably lesser. The way the film is present is fairly pedestrian outside of the main performance.
There is a solid cast supporting Domingo including Chris Rock, Gus Halper, Jeffrey Wright, Ami Ameen, Glynn Turman, Johnny Ramey, CCH Pounder, Michael Potts, Jordan-Amanda Hall, and Lilli Kay.
But Domingo leads the way, bringing to life this man who had such a hand in creating this seminal point in history. He is a name that is not as well known as Dr. King or John Lewis, but he should be.
As I was searching for movies to put on the possible list for this June Swoon, I came across this horror film on Shudder. It sounded interesting and so I placed it on the list. I had no idea that this was the fourth film of the series, with the first Hell House LLC being released in 2015. I guess I have some films to watch during The October 13 this year.
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor looks to have built on the previous installments (though I can’t say that for sure) and provided a found footage horror film that was extremely creepy and had its share of effective scares.
According to IMDB, “A group of cold case investigators stay at the Carmichael Manor. After four nights, the group was never heard from again. What is discovered on their footage is even more disturbing than anything found on the Hell House tapes.”
The three main characters that went to stay at the Carmichael Manor did a great job of selling the mysterious feel and the fright that this situation would entail inside a person. The story of the events really work well here, as Margot (Bridget Rose Perrotta) ties the story into her background. The film does this in a very strong manner, not bashing the audience over the head with it. In fact, it is possible that some may miss the connection to Margot if they are not paying attention.
Then, I enjoyed the way the film kind of makes this found footage/haunted house film into a sort of documentary, with a couple of people commenting about the footage that was found of these missing people.
The film goes to great lengths to build a mythology, which I can only assume included a bunch of Easter eggs from the previous three movies.
I found this extremely creepy and a little unnerving as I watched it this morning in the dark. That means this horror film did its job. I was entertained and I look forward to going back and seeing some more of this franchise.
Today’s June Swoon 3 movie was one that I actually had tickets for this past year, but I left the theater after seeing another movie first because I was not feeling well. After being unable to see this (Along with Ferrari too), I decided that I would wait for the June Swoon to watch this movie directed by George Clooney.
The Boys in the Boat is the true story of the Washington Huskies rowing team’s unlikely ascension to the 1936 Olympics with a junior team that lacked experience. Led by their coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), the group of eight young men exceeded all expectations in quest for an Olympic medal.
I enjoyed the actual rowing competitions filmed during this movie as they brought some real dramatics to a sport that might not have as much as some others. The races were well filmed and created suspense in scenes that were fairly predictable.
The film lacked a lot of characterization for the cast, focusing on Coach Ulbrickson and Joe Turner (Callum Turner), one of the crew. The rest of the crew of the row team were fairly simplistic, one-note characters, with a few minor traits tossed their way. Ironic how a sport that is so much about the team does not spend much time with the parts of that team.
The story itself was basic, taking most of the sport movie cliches into play. This was a basic, by-the-numbers sports flick that did not stray from the pattern much.
Having said that, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t inspired by the finale of the film, especially the final Olympic race. There was one final conflict that was tossed in at the end that felt rushed and did not pay off in the end.
If you come into The Boys in the Boat with the idea that this is a basic formulaic sports movie and that it does not go above that, there are things to enjoy here. I think this story could have been more than what was here, but there is something to say for formula.
It is a busy day today so I had to get the June Swoon 3 going early this morning and I had another Oscar winner on the list. This was the Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short and it was entitled The Last Repair Shop. I watched it on YouTube, but I see that it is available as well on Disney +. This is just over thirty five minutes long and is a joyous expression of love for music and for those for whom music has changed their lives.
The focus was on a instrument repair shop from Los Angeles that provided a service to the schools of the area to repair damaged or broken musical instruments for free. The film profiles four members of the shop: Dana Atkinson, Paty Moreno, Duane Michaels and Steve bagmanyan.
The film also had words from students who gave quick stories about how they wound up playing the instrument they played. The passion and the joy came through each child’s words as it helped us understand how important these musical instruments would be in their lives.
The stories were very emotional and compelling. The stories of the workers at the repair shop ranged from a man who an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan to a woman who tried to give her children a better life in America only to struggle to a man who played on the same stage as Elvis Presley.
The film ended with a performance of a song called “The Alumni” which featured many of the voices that we heard during the film.
If you love music, or if you ever played an instrument, you will be inspired by this documentary short film. It is a love letter to music and those people who make it or allow other people to make it.
The fourth day of the June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback brought me to HBO Max and the first animated film of the month. It is also the first disappointment of the month.
At first, I felt that Justice League: Warworld was an intriguing concept. Seeing Wonder Woman in the old West was a neat concept and watching her square off with Jonas Hex opened a lot of possibilities. I was thinking this was much like Westworld and seeing the Justice League involved in this setting would be cool.
However, it was not just the old West. After her short bit was done, we came across Batman in the world of Warlord. Wonder Woman was there too. I did not understand what was happening and, if this was the case, why was Batman not in the old West. and where was Superman?
Eventually we came to Superman as an agent of the government in a black and white alien invasion film where both Batman and Wonder Woman would appear as would King Faraday. It also borrowed heavily from a Twilight Zone episode I saw last summer during the Daily Zone rewatch.
All of these side bits seemed to be nothing more than time wasters as the real plot started up in this episode as they came across Mongul, with Lobo, who has some weird sci-fi storyline. Apparently, Warworld is a massive weapon against the multiverse and he was in search of a key. Why he brought the Trinity into the story made no sense, but that was not unlike most of the rest of this movie.
J’onn J’onzz was here too and played a role in the end of the film, but the movie made the entire thing feel unnecessary as it was being used simply to introduce the idea of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The movie brought in what I assume was Harbinger at the very end to rescue the Trinity and set up the next animated film. I am only guessing that this is Harbinger since the look of the character is nothing like I remember. She looked more like Marvel’s Frankie Raye aka Nova than she did the Harbinger from Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Jensen Ackles lead the voice cast which included Stana Katic (formerly of Castle fame) as Wonder Woman, and Darren Criss as Superman. Other actors included Ike Amadi, Troy Baker, Matt Bomer, Roger Cross, Brett Dalton, John DiMaggio, Frank Grillo, Teddy Sears, Kari Wahlgren, and Robin AtkinDownes.
The animation was fine, but did not standout in any instance. The characters did not feel right. Even in Elseworld type stories, the characters needed to feel like the characters we know in order for us to relate to them. Much of the story was convoluted and only felt as if it existed simply to put them in these specific settings. Worse yet, was it simply felt like a commercial for the next DC animation film.
Usually, the DC animated movies are very well done. This was quite a step down.
Eli Roth’s holiday slash-fest is the next film in the June Swoon 3 as I pulled up Thanksgiving on Netflix this morning.
Slasher movies are not my favorite sub-genre of horror film historically, but I have to say that I fund Thanksgiving to be a decent film with plenty of scary (maybe gory is the better word) moments and a film that avoided a lot of the typical stupid behaviors associated with slasher films.
I liked how this film started off, setting up suspects for who would eventually be the John Carver murderer. There were a ton of red herrings in the film and I really liked how they went through these methodically.
Some of the kills were really gruesome too. A couple were so bad that I actually had to avert my eyes once or twice. I know I am a wuss, but I am not big on the gore.
The Black Friday scene was absolutely over the moon and set this craziness up perfectly. It also introduced us to some eventual victims who I was looking forward to seeing get their comeuppance for their crazy behavior during this riot.
The film does a great job of taking comments or incidents from the beginning of the film and pay them off in the finale. That was some solid writing and made everything feel important.
Thanksgiving was a lot of fun and brought a new flair to the slasher sub-genre.
The next film in the June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback is the second consecutive Oscar winning international film. The Zone of Interest is a look at a slice of life among a career driven man, his wife and happy family as they deal with the daily events of their lives.
Oh, did I mention that he was a Nazi commandant?
Oh, not just any Nazi commandant, but Rudolf Höss of Auschwitz?
I knew the film was a Holocaust setting, but I was unaware what I was about to watch. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), along with his wife Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller), were our main protagonists. I did not figure out who they were until a bit into the film and to say that I was shocked when I figured it out would be an understatement.
There were a couple of times where I had to stop and say to myself that I was not feeling sorry for Rudolf Höss. The film did a great job of showing the entire person that this evil man was and displaying that even evil men and women have sides to their personality that you may not expect.
I do not think the film humanized Rudolf Höss as much as it showed how real life has plenty of shadows and moments where even the worst of us have quiet times.
Sandra Hüller appeared in her second consecutive film in this year’s June Swoon with her role as Hedwig. This was a wicked woman too as the film showed her being soft and loving, as well as moments when she would switch immediately to cruelty and a savageness that was unexpected. There was a scene where she told her Jewish servant that she could have her husband scatter her ashes across the land. I literally gasped at that comment.
As an A24 film. The Zone of Interest did not really have a laid out plot. It was more of an exploration of daily life just outside of the worst concentration camp in the Holocaust. It did not feel as if anything was building to a climax. It was just a series of scenes that were very powerful in their own.
One of the most effective techniques used was the management of sound. The film would have scenes with the happy family or of the beautiful home they enjoyed, but in the background, you could hear the sounds of gunfire, or dogs barking, or the suffering of Jewish prisoners. The sound cues of the film made this a truly haunting effect, without ever having the visual imagery on the screen. This juxtaposition is clearly why the film was able to win the Best Sound Oscar at the Academy Awards.
I have to say that the beginning was an odd experience for me. The film began with an extended black screen, though I could hear sound going on. I honestly thought that there was something wrong with MAX. I almost stopped it so I could see why it was not showing a picture. I was able to determine that this was intended.
This was the Academy Award winner for Best International Feature Film (although it was not up against Anatomy of a Fall) and received a nomination for Best Motion Picture as well as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jonathan Glazer. This is one of those films that could stay with you for awhile and the image of the ending with present day Auschwitz was extremely poignant.
The third annual June Swoon got underway this morning with an Oscar winning foreign film that I had missed from 2023. Anatomy of a Fall received a lot of Academy buzz earlier this year as it was nominated in several major categories, oddly enough except for Best International Film.
Anatomy of a Fall tells the story of a couple and their 11-year old son. The couple had been having troubles since an unfortunate accident that led to their son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner),when he was four years old, losing much of his vision. Moving back to his hometown, Samuel (Samuel Theis) struggled to write, battled his guilt over Daniel’s accident and resented his wife, Sandra (Sandra Hüller).
So a day after an especially violent fight, Samuel was found outside of their home, dead from a fall out of the third story window. Isolated as they were, Sandra became the prime suspect in the death of Samuel and she is placed on trial for the murder.
This may be a spoiler, but I do love how the case is resolved (or not so much), storyline wise. I find that an intelligent manner of storytelling and allows you the viewer to add to the tale being told.
There were some excellent performances. Sandra Hüller received an Oscar nomination as Leading Actress in a Feature, and it was well deserved. Hüller brought plenty of emotions to the role, from an icy response to passionate rage. Milo Machado-Graner was just as excellent as the visually-impaired Daniel. Daniel had to go through a lot of pain and anguish during the film, and had to perform as a visually-impaired child too. He may have been the I See Child Actors Award winner at the EYG Year in Review section had I seen this film last year instead of during the June Swoon. His work was exceptional and every bit as compelling as any of the adults in the film.
The film may be slow for some, but I was engrossed from the first moments of the film, wondering the whole time what the truth of the story would be. The court scenes were fascinating too, as this was the first time I had ever seen a court case portrayed from a French court. The differences were striking from the US courts that I am more familiar with.
Anatomy of a Fall is beautifully constructed as a mystery, as a courtroom drama and as a personal story of a family filled with pain just trying to get by. Great performances fill the two hours and thirty minutes of the film and I can certainly understand why it had received as many Oscar nominations as it did.
The June Swoon 2 comes to an end today with a bizarre real story that plays with perspective and feels as if it couldn’t have really happened. It did though.
My Old School is a documentary on Hulu that told the tale of 16-year old Brandon Lee who enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school at a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. Set during the mid 1990s, Brandon was an excellent student who made friends, starred in the school musical and lived with his grandma. Brandon, though, was not what he appeared to be. In truth, Brandon Lee was a pseudonym of Brian MacKinnon, a 32-year old man who had attended Bearsden Academy during the 1970s.
This alone was wild, but the doc, directed by former classmate of ‘Brandon Lee’ at Bearsden, Jono McLeod, included such amazing things as an actual interview with Brandon/Brian himself, who is implied to have had plastic surgery. Brian refused to be on screen, so instead they had actor Alan Cumming (star of stage, Schmigadoon, and X2: X-Men United as Nightcrawler) play Brandon and lip synch the interview that had been given. Cumming did an astonishing job with his lip synching and I never would have guessed that it wasn’t his own voice had the doc not told this at the beginning.
SPOILERS- at this point, if you want to watch this, you may want to skip the next section as I am going into some details on the craziness that this documentary covered.
This was still not the weirdest aspects of this story, as Brian befriended another teenage boy in his class that had the same name, Brian MacKinnon. Brandon/Brian said that he had the ability to hypnotize people, a skill he used on teachers and admin in order to avoid a birth certificate. He stayed with his grandma, who supposedly died at one point, only to be found alive, and then to be discovered to not be his grandma, but his mother, who was supposed to be an opera singer that had died before he came to Bearsden Academy.
The documentary interviews a bunch of the kids and teachers who knew Brandon Lee and who even spent time with him. Some of the teachers had actually been at the school when Brian MacKinnon was there in the 70s and when Brandon Lee was there in the 90s. The doc showed us a recording of the actual play that Brandon Lee starred in and a kiss that he shared on stage with with co-star, a 16-year old.
It was fun to listen to the adult version of these kids who all had differing ideas and POVs of what happened, some even still not 100% sure what he had done. It seemed to have developed into an almost urban legend.
There were actual footage from the time as well as animated reenactments of things that happened. Some stories were told several times because some of the students saw things in a different light. The animated secti0ns of the film used voice actors Lulu and Clare Grogan to create the reenactments.
I found this story entertaining and downright unbelievable. The story is told extremely effectively with the animation, the interviews and the amazing Alan Cumming. Truly a mind-blowing documentary.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 