DailyView: Day 302, Movie 428

I was going through Netflix tonight, looking for something that I would enjoy. The Jungle Book 2 was hardly satisfying tonight and I was hoping for something better. I found it.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture was a film from 2018 about Douglas Kenney (Will Forte), a comedy writer who was one of the founding forces behind National Lampoon. The film followed Kinney through his younger days with his friend and co-creator Henry Beard (Domhnall Gleeson) through the rise of National Lampoon from college magazine to major comedic force. Kenney was a writer on Animal House and Caddyshack and his life took a turn of excesses.

Based on Josh Karp’s book of the same name, A Futile and Stupid Gesture was howling funny, wittily written and surprisingly deep. The film was as much of a character study of this hilarious individual who proved that comedians are likely to have come from pain.

Douglas had to deal with feelings of inadequacy from his parents, especially his father (Harry Groener), as Doug believed that his brother, who had died, was the son that his father loved the most. The relationship with his father was one of the most troubling one of his entire life.

The film is narrated by an older version of Douglas, played by Martin Mull. Mull spends much of the movie breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience about choices that he had made and commenting on the situation.

The writing of this film, I found, was exceptionally witty. The constant one liners coming from Doug were very funny and pushed the level of comedy. The dialogue was quick and biting, but truly funny.

There are a lot of comedy legends portrayed in the movie. We see actors playing John Belushi, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Tom Snyder, Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, Rodney Dangerfield, and Tim Matheson. None of these performances really catch your eye as these famous actors, but that is part of why they were successful. Plus, Martin Mull is able to use that as a joke early in the movie.

I really enjoyed the chaotic nature of the narrative structure. I thought the use of Martin Mull was inspired, especially with what the end result of the movie turned out to be. There are several wonderful meta moments that made this movie a lot of fun to watch. I was impressed with the work of Will Forte, bringing to life a person with whom I was not at all familiar, and making me care about him. It might have tried to cram too much into the film, but I enjoyed what they gave me and I laughed throughout. What more can you ask of a comedy?

DailyView: Day 302, Movie 427

I was watching the YouTube show Charts with Dan, featuring Dan Murrell and he was looking at a Box Office chart from years before. On that chart was The Jungle Book 2, which I had no idea was a theatrically released Disney film. Having seen the listing on Disney +, I always assumed that it was just another one of the direct to DVD sequels such as The Return of Jafar or Lion King 2.

Of course, after watching it, that is exactly what this movie reminded me of.

With a new voice cast, The Jungle Book 2 felt like a considerably weaker retread of the much better original animated film. And, of course, it was far inferior to the “live action” Jungle Book that was released a few years ago.

Mowgli (Haley Joel Osment) was feeling homesick for the jungle, now that he was in the man’s camp. The little girl Shanti (Mae Whitman) and the little boy Ranjan (Connor Funk) were there too. Baloo (John Goodman) was also missing his man cub so he took off to find the kid, followed from the jungle by tiger Shere Khan (Tony Jay).

Once he got there, the people of the camp panicked when they saw Shere Khan and Baloo and Mowgli, who had reunited, retreated into the jungle. Shanti and Ranjan followed to try and save Mowgli from the wild bear Baloo.

The film used Bare Necessities or some version of it three times. There was no doubt that the film was desperate for music. The other songs in the film are unremarkable and hard to remember. It is why they kept going back to Bare Necessities.

John Goodman made a decent Baloo. Haley Joel Osment was clearly not much of a singer. He was fine the rest of the time, but not a real standout.

The film is harmless, but needless. Maybe a little kid would enjoy the film, but it is such a drop in quality from the first one, it was quite a disappointment.

DailyView: Day 301, Movie 426

I have always been a fan of serial killers in pop culture. I was an avid reader about Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer when I was younger and I was intrigued by the type of person who could do such heinous actions against other human beings. All that means is that I have a soft spot in my heart for movies dealing with serial killers, and there are no shortage of them. Even those that are average to below average interest me.

The January Man falls right into that wheelhouse of films. It has Kevin Kline as former police detective Nick Starkey, who had been forced off of the force two years before due to a scandal. His brother Frank (Harvey Keitel) had become the Commissioner, and he had a contemptuous relationship with Nick. The city had been frightened for the last year as a serial killer had strangled one woman every month. There had been 11 murders so far.

The Mayor (Rod Steiger), desperate for some resolution to the case, brings Nick back to help find the killer.

I liked some of the parts of the story that were involving the actual murder case. Watching the unconventional Nick figure out details of the serial killer’s personality was fascinating and made Nick look smart. Most of the rest of the movie was pretty lame.

There was a whole subplot involving Nick and his brother’s wife, Christine (Susan Sarandon) that is just ridiculous. The rest of the cast, from Harvey Keitel to Rod Steiger to Captain Vincent Alcoa (Danny Aiello) spent the whole movie just randomly yelling.

Alan Rickman is in the movie as Ed, Nick’s painter friend, who really has no other reason than to get Alan Rickman into the movie. He is totally underutilized. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio played the Mayor’s daughter Bernadette, who forms a relationship with the older Nick. I liked her character although she went from a scared young girl to a tough woman pretty quickly.

The dialogue is not good. The performances are fine, but the film does not really have a tone to it. The third act changes from a more serious serial killer movie to an almost slapstick finale that felt out of place in a story that had a murderer of 11 women.

By the way, the murderer wound up in blackface, which may have been okay to have portrayed in 1989, but in 2022 it felt irresponsible.

Nick and Bernadette had a sweet relationship that could have been expanded. The killer’s signature and victim choice was interesting and I enjoyed how Nick worked his way through the clues unlike most people could have. There was just so much more than did not work or was out of place here. Great actors such as Alan Rickman and Susan Sarandon were wasted and other great actors just spent too much time screaming. What I hoped would be an entertaining film in the serial killer genre turned into mostly a mess. Kevin Kline was engaging as always though.

DailyView: Day 300, Movie 425

I was about halfway through this movie this morning, Sparrows, a silent film from 1926 starring Mary Pickford, when the internet went out. That, of course, put the viewing of this movie, the first one from 1926 which leaves only 1924 as the year where I have not seen at least one film from during the DailyView sating back to 1915, on hold.

Later tonight, the internet finally came back and I was able to finish the silent picture.

Most of the silent pictures that I have watched during the DailyView have been comedies, from performers such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Sparrows, however, is not a comedy. It would be a drama, or perhaps a melodrama, where Molly (Mary Pickford) a young girl at a baby farm, has to help a baby (Mary Louise Miller) that had been kidnapped from her wealthy parent, Dennis Wayne (Roy Stewart).

Molly had been taking care of the crew of children at the Baby Farm, which was being run by the cruel Mr. Grimes (Gustav von Seyffertitz) and his wife (Charlotte Mineau). When the kidnappers brought the little baby girl to hide at Grimes’ baby farm, Grimes started to become nervous. He decided it would be a better deal to get rid of the baby by throwing her into the swamp.

This sent Molly into a protective state as she led the baby and all of the other children on an escape attempt from the baby farm.

There are actually a couple of harrowing scenes in the film, including several uses of alligators in the swamp. Mary Pickford created a character that was so easy to root for and would do anything to help these children. She was a hero who found herself in some over-the-top situations but who always did what she could to save the children.

Here are the children actors who played the parts (Source: Wikipedia)

• Billy Butts
• Jack Lavine
• Billy “Red” Jones
• Muriel McCormac
• Florence Rogan
• Mary McLain
• Sylvia Bernard
• Seesel Ann Johnson
• Camille Johnson
• Monty O’Grady

It might be a touch too long for a silent melodrama, but Mary Pickford is great and the bravery her character showed was heroic as could be.

DailyView: Day 300, Movie 424

Our internet provider went down today, causing a disruption with the plans for the DailyView.  I was about two-thirds through 1926’s silent film classic Sparrows when the signal went out. 

After waiting for a while to see if it would come back, I had to make an adjustment to keep the DailyView underway.  I pulled out the DVD copy of the Studio Ghibli films and picked out one of the remaining animated movies from the EYG Hall of Fame studio that I had yet to see. 

The choice was The Cat Returns from 2002. 

I watched the English dubbed version of the film, which featured Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Tim Curry, Elliott Gould, Kristen Bell and Peter Boyle.

Shy high school student Haru (Anne Hathaway) saved a stray cat from being run over by a truck.  Haru was surprised when that cat stood up on two feet and thanked her for her bravery.  Turned out, he was a prince named Lune (Andrew Bevis).  Lune’s father the King (Tim Curry) decided that Haru would be brought to their kingdom and would married Lune, despite the fact that she did not want to marry him.

A mysterious voice directed Haru to find the Baron (Cary Elwes) who would help her to avoid the marriage of inconvenience.  

With the typically beautiful animation that Studio Ghibli always used, The Cat Returns is a great animated film.  The hand drawn look is always something special among animated companies and few did it better than Studio Ghibli.  Shorter than many of the animated films from the studio, The Cat Returns has a magic about it that is aided by the shorter run time.  It felt more like a fairy tale than some of the other Studio Ghibli films. 

The film seemed to be a mixture of The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, The Wizard of Oz and The Neverending Story.  The whole film had a wonderful vibe to it and was completely entertaining.  The English voice work was exceptional as everybody seemed to be on their A game. 

The only drawback I had was the constant fat shaming directed toward Muta (Peter Boyle).  It was played as a joke, but it was unnecessary and made some of the characters appear mean.  Muta was a loyal friend, albeit a grump and he did not deserve such treatment.

Other than that, I loved The Cat Returns.  Being a cat person, I love the use of them in the animation.  Many times they are shown as the evil or henchmen of animated villains.  Here, they are all shades of cats. 

Now, I just hope I will be able to post this on the site sometime tonight.

DailyView: Day 299, Movie 423

It’s President’s Day! To honor the day, I went looking for a movie featuring a president that I could use for the DailyView. One of the most tense and fascinating time of in history was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the film Thirteen Days gives a look at the Kennedy Administration and their anxiety-filled two week period that could have led to World War III.

Based on the book “The Kennedy Tapes – Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis”, Thirteen Days starred Kevin Costner as Ken O’Donnell, special adviser to the President, Bruce Greenwood as John F. Kennedy, and Steven Culp as Bobby Kennedy. The movie told the (mostly) true version of the story of how JFK dealt with the fact that the Soviet Union had placed intermediate-range ballistic missiles carrying nuclear weapons in Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the USA and the USSR within a hair’s breath of nuclear war, and it was only from the strength of President Kennedy and his staff that kept that from happening. The film indicated that there were plenty of military officers who were pushing JFK for an invasion of Cuba when the photos of the missiles in Cuba were discovered. President Kennedy knew that an invasion of Cuba by the United States would start a slippery slope that would eventually lead to a larger conflict with the Soviets and he did everything in his power to prevent such an occurrence.

Bruce Greenwood does an amazing job translating the frustration and the utter desperation the situation brought to the White House. Kevin Costner was the eyes and the voice of the audience as he struggled with every possible choice. His influence on Kennedy was second only to Bobby.

The film does a magnificent job of creating tone of anxiousness and tension with every minute of the film making us think that, despite the fact that we know the ultimate historical result, the world was truly in jeopardy.

This film was great and it certainly showed the arguable high point of JFK’s presidency.

DailyView: Day 299, Movie 422

I have watched concert films from Elvis and Queen over the last few days, and so I decided to add one of the more controversial one to the DailyView, Michael Jackson’s This is It.

It took awhile for me to listen to Michael Jackson songs after the documentary series Leaving Neverland. The allegations against Jackson of sexual abuse of kids stuck with me and made listening to his music difficult. Since the time has passed and some of the allegations have been questioned, it has made it a little easier for me.

But that is not the only controversies with this movie. This is It was a documentary that was pieced together from personal films of the rehearsals for a comeback tour of the same name. In fact, the film itself is almost exclusively Michael’s rehearsals for the show. However, the show was cancelled because of the untimely death of Michael Jackson. There were plenty of people, including family members of the Jackson estate, that believed that releasing the movie was just an attempt at a cash grab and that Michael, being a perfectionist, would never have wanted it released since he was not giving it his all. There were also accusations of the use of body doubles of Michael because he was not in good health, an accusation denied by Sony. This led to protests and boycotts of the film by fans.

I will admit that I did not notice any obvious examples of replacing Jackson with body doubles. It seemed pretty clear that it was him. There may be one or two places where a body double could have been used, but it would not make sense in the grand scheme of the film to do so. As for not giving his all, he says multiple times through the movie that he is not singing to save his voice for the performance. There are moments when he breaks into song and he chastises himself and others that he should not be singing. I found this as Jackson’s desire to create an epic show and protecting it, despite the times when the music’s feel overwhelmed him.

No matter what you think about the person Michael Jackson, it cannot be denied that the man was a musical genius and one of the greatest onstage performers we have ever seen. The complicated dance routines involved in the plans for the show was amazing and how fluidly he moved through them was astounding, especially with the fact that he was not fully healthy and would die weeks later.

Jackson’s perfectionism came through in the film as well as he was constantly stopping people for specific reasons, to hold a beat or to let the music breathe, that some would not be able to hear, but it was how Michael had the sound in his head. His musical brilliance was definitely shown here.

The film is an amazing look at an artist in the process of creativity and how so many people were behind the scenes in support of the man. This is It exists in opposition to Finding Neverland, the dark side to the legend that was Michael Jackson.

DailyView: Day 298, Movie 421

What the hell did I just watch?

At first I thought it was a horror movie. Then, I thought it was an amalgam of Stand By Me and The Wonder Years if they were a ghost story, with some racial undertones tossed in. However, there were so many other weird things that happened that I just was not sure what was happening.

On HBO Max, there is a movie called Lady in White. The synopsis on the streaming service said the following: “A little boy who loves to tell ghost stories has an encounter with a real ghost that marks him as a child-killer’s next victim.” That intrigued me, but it does not come close to what this movie was.

The film started following the life of Frankie (Lukas Haas) and it felt as if it was going to be a 1980s kid adventure… but then Frankie’s friend Donald (Jared Rushton) dropped the N-word, shocking the crap out of me. This was the first time that I sat up straight and yelled at the screen. It was not the last time.

Donald and Louie (Gregory Levinson) tricked their friend (although the film made them out to be friends, I think the jury is still out on that) Frankie to go back into the school after hours and they locked him in the coatroom as a joke. Nice friends.

However, then Frankie started to see the ghost of a little girl (Joelle Jacobi) calling for her mother and then get strangled, though the killer was invisible. A few moments later, a real man entered the coatroom and saw Frankie (wearing a Halloween costume that covered his face) and the man began to strangle Frankie too.

We then come back and Frankie is coming to with his dad (Alex Rocco) on the floor beside him. The police were here and Frankie was saved. The police arrested the janitor Harold Williams (Henry Harris) because he was still on site at this time of night and because he was black.

Okay, I’m not going into any more plot than that because there are so many things that I may miss because there is a hugely convoluted story going on. There was also a Lady in White who was supposedly wondering the cliffs calling for her daughter.

This film’s tone jumped all over the place. There was a joke made about Frankie’s older brother Geno (Jason Presson) and masturbation, there was a running gag about their grandfather Popa (Angelo Bertolini) and his attempts to keep his smoking a secret from his wife, and we also found out that the person who tried to strangle Frankie might be a serial killer who had killed 11 other kids in the town.

HUH?

Wouldn’t that be something that you would lead with? Not here. Here it is just one more bizarre moment.

Katherine Helmond was in this movie too as a weird piano teacher who I was not sure was alive or dead. The story of Harold Williams took a rather tragic turn. The third act was just totally crazy.

I don’t know how much more I can say about it.

The effects was absolutely from the 1980s, the worst green screen effects you could expect. Yet it felt as if it were in perfect place in this movie.

I was thoroughly entertained by this, because I had no idea what was going to happen next because I really think that they just kept tossing elements into the film whether it fit or not. It went from comedy to supernatural thriller to horror movie to revenge flick. It was all of these but none of them as well.

I loved the experience of this movie. It was not a good movie, but I was engaged and thrilled by it at the same time.

It absolutely earned the following category:

DailyView: Day 297, Movie 420

Scanning through Starz this morning, I came across a film called Bottle Rocket, which featured Owen and Luke Wilson. I was not aware of this movie before, but I discovered that this was the feature film directorial debut of Wes Anderson, who has had plenty of quirky and eccentric films since including Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

This started as a short that also starred the Wilson brothers. Anderson expanded the short into this feature length film.

From Rotten Tomatoes: “In Wes Anderson’s first feature film, Anthony (Luke Wilson) has just been released from a mental hospital, only to find his wacky friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) determined to begin an outrageous crime spree. After recruiting their neighbor, Bob (Robert Musgrave), the team embarks on a road trip in search of Dignan’s previous boss, Mr. Henry (James Caan). But the more they learn, the more they realize that they do not know the first thing about crime.”

Bottle Rocket is an odd film with the typically strange group of characters that come above the story. That can work extremely well to not much at all. For me, Bottle Rocket falls somewhere in the middle. I did not love this but it was watchable.

The biggest issue I had was probably the character of Dignan. I have not been a big fan of those types of loud, blowhard types in films and this one is no exception. I am not sure why someone would want to spend any time with him. Since that is the case, why do I want to spend time with him.

Admittedly, Anthony was not a regular guy wither. Out of a mental hospital and falling in love with perhaps the first woman he saw in Inez (Lumi Cavazos), Anthony was just a little quieter than Dignan. He was certainly not more balanced.

The film is only around 90 minutes, but it did feel long. There is a section in the middle where Anthony and Dignan split up and Anthony goes to set up a new life for himself. I am unsure why that was included because 10 minutes later, he was right back involved, as if he had never left. There was no purpose for that part of the story. It simply might be an attempt to extend the film from the short.

In the end, this was okay. I do like the Wilsons and James Caan stole every scene he was in. I just wanted a little more than what was here and some of what was here was not relevant.