Category Archives: Movies/Films/Flicks

Here Comes “Novocaine”, the Man Without Pain!

March 24, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Closeup of Jack Quaid's face glaring and bleeding.

Meet THE NUMBER ONE ACTION HERO IN AMERICA till that new Jason Statham flick opens next weekend!

Fellow Gen-X-ers may recall the hubbub back in the day whenever an upcoming action flick would star an unlikely hero we couldn’t possibly imagine punching out baddies or doing acrobatics or reeking of the slightest machismo. Folks were skeptical about Moonlighting wisecracker Bruce Willis starring in Die Hard and comics fanboys all but rioted when Mr. Mom funnyman Michael Keaton became the new Batman. Soon after release, most naysayers shut up and enjoyed the redefinition of terms of big-screen engagement. The era of the bitter, growly, musclebound manly-men had to make room for the unlikeliest of butt-kickers. They didn’t put Schwarzenegger out of work, but more than a few guys with low charisma and dimmer people skills were increasingly relegated to Blockbuster shelves or adapted to new lines of work, such as Academy Award-Winning director Dirty Harry Callahan.

Fast-forward to today and anyone can be an action star thanks to recent advancements in movie magic, and not just via Paul Blart spoofery. All you need is the right combination of precise fight choreography, brilliant stunt people, way too much julienne-sliced editing, and actors willing to throw themselves into the physical challenges to the extent their somatotypes and insurers will allow. I for one applaud the democratization of action heroism, from Bob Odenkirk in Nobody to Allison Janney in Netflix’s Lou, among numerous others whose past roles never implied the slightest interest in winning at shoot-’em-ups. Our latest combatant who won’t be appearing in a Super Smash Bros. sequel is Jack Quaid, star of the bloody indie dramedy Novocaine.

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The Academy Awards 2025 Season Finale

March 3, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Conan doing photo ops on a black stage with a giant Oscar statue behind him. He's grimacing and holding a large jar of cotton balls or something resembling them.

He’s written for comedy shows, starred in talk shows, and hosted other award ceremonies and events. Some of that might’ve prepared him for tonight!

Oscar season is over at last! Tonight the 97th Academy Awards were aired live on ABC and streamed live on Hulu, once again held at ye olde Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and hosted for the very first time by beloved funnyman Conan O’Brien. This year’s soiree clocked in at 229 minutes, twenty minutes longer than last year’s and fifteen longer than The Brutalist with intermission. O’Brien was his usual uproarious self, taking more potshots at himself than at anyone or anything else and (mostly) refraining from hot-button politics. Anyone who needs more political debate can go overdose on any given social app anyway. Most such netizens generally avoid the Oscars anyway, or spend the evening replying to Oscars fans with such scintillating pearls of Oscar Wilde brilliance as “Who cares.”

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Oscar Quest 2025 Final Scorecard: 47/50

March 1, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan sit in character in the back of a limo. Strong glares at Stan, who's on the 1980s car phone.

“Look, Bucky, you’re gonna get me into the MCU right NOW.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 is over! I did my best to catch all the Academy Award nominees I could in every single category before the big ceremony Sunday, whether in theaters or on our household’s available streaming services. Last year I managed a 100% completion achievement, but no one gave me a trophy for my amateur hobbyist efforts. My wife Anne was relieved to know our routines could get back to normal, but that’s about it for prizes. Oh, and it was a great excuse to catch some fantastic films I might otherwise have missed…as well as a few pieces of garbage.

This year I earned no real bragging rights. Of the fifty different works up for honors this year, I’ve seen 47 in all as of Saturday morning, with no chance of getting any farther. Per my completionist tradition, the following are capsule summaries of the other ten nominees I watched over the past six weeks that I hadn’t previously written up. The services that granted me access to each of them are provided as well, though at least one has changed since I watched it.

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The MCC 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue

February 28, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
2-D animated woman asleep on a floor mat in light shadows with sunlight pouring in through a narrow rectangular window. Next to her on a table are components of an elderly relative's daily medicinal regimen.

Don’t sleep your life away! There’re always cool new things to see!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my annual Oscar Quest continues! I’m still trying to catch all the Academy Award nominees I can before the big ceremony regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family will care in the least bit.

Each year since 2009 (except for 2021’s pandemic lockdown marathon) I’ve ventured out to the few Indianapolis theaters carrying the big-screen releases of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but I appreciate the opportunities to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether I agree with their collective opinions or not. My wife and adult son usually accompany me on the journey and we make a family outing of it, even though Oscar Quest is not their problem. Since 2019 I’ve also given myself extra credit for catching as many nominees for Best Documentary Short Film as possible, depending on their availability online, for the most complete shorts experience possible.

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Yes, There’s a Family Photo Album During the “I’m Still Here” End Credits

February 25, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A Brazilian mom poses on outdoor stairs for a photo with her five kids. All but two are smiling. Dad is not around.

We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! Me, Mom, and…oh.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. That includes any and all works I never heard of before they were nominated. I have no fear of subtitles — I relish them, in fact — and I’m always happy to learn more about the world history they failed to teach me in school, which was nearly all of it.

One of the interesting side effects of AMPAS’ membership diversification efforts of the past few years (contrasting with all their many other years of existence) is the Best Picture nominee lineups offer more surprises from other countries — works that only film-festival attendees could’ve possibly seen in their official year of release. Nominees about dictatorships are sadly commonplace across several categories, which is understandable considering our sinful humankind has spawned far too many tyrants throughout the millennia and on most continents. Most of those works used to be Holocaust films, but in recent times filmmakers from other countries have been taking turns sorting their own tragic histories. Next up is Brazil with I’m Still Here, following in the footsteps of recent-vintage, Oscar-recognized tales of South American regimes such as Argentina, 1985 and (technically) El Conde.

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“No Other Land”: The Oscar Nominee THEY Didn’t Want You to See

February 23, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster in a black case hanging on an exterior brick wall. Poster image is a young Palestinian man fallen on a rocky plain and a bulldozer parked on the distant horizon.

Now playing in 54 theaters this weekend, as opposed to Captain America 4‘s 4,100+ screens.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, assuming the filmmakers can afford a release wide enough to reach us Midwest film fans in time.

As of February 17th my Oscar Quest scorecard was down to the final five unseen works, all of which I’d assumed would remain out of my grasp for the rest of the season. Then up stepped Indy’s own Kan-Kan Cinema, an eclectic nonprofit who frequently hosts tiny new films that the major chains overlook or think aren’t worth their time and space, because they really really need a dozen screens showing Dog Man for the rest of the year. Of all our theaters, I should’ve known they’d be the first (and as of this weekend the only one) to jump at the chance to bring us No Other Land. In a true rarity for recent Oscar history, it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature without a preexisting distribution deal. The filmmakers themselves have had to foot the bills for a slow rollout because all the studios passed on it (major and minor), possibly because it contains that magic hot-button word guaranteed to start a riot whenever it’s dropped into a conversation among two or more people: “Palestine”.

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“The Girl with the Needle”: The Case of the 37-Week Abortionist

February 22, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Black-and-white poster for "The Girl with the Needle", featuring a glowering young lady in old-time sewing factory togs. A large sewing needle is stabbed into the film's title.

Not just another Lisbeth Salander mystery.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, no matter how dark or disturbing or draining.

The Substance and Nosferatu are the highest-profile nominees from the realm of horror, but farther down the ballot is a smaller tale of terror out of Denmark — The Girl with the Needle, inspired by the true story of a serial killer with a very specific, defenseless prey. Its nightmares are measured not in buckets of blood, but by the breadth of its unhealed psychological scars.

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“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”: Your Father Worked Very Hard for His Promotion to Death-Sentencer

February 20, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
An Iranian mom stands at a window with her two daughters, one college age and one high schooler. Nobody's happy, everyone's shadowy.

Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, some of which have had me driving all over Indianapolis to catch fleeting, one-week-only releases and sometimes having entire screens to myself.

Case in point: for the Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig on a late Tuesday afternoon, it was just me and one other fat, four-eyed white guy sitting in the way back who was hopefully not my evil twin. I’ve no idea whether or not he found it as chilling as I did, because we pasty introverts don’t run up and share our opinions with just anybody. The travel effort (to the other side of the city) and the social awkwardness were the least I could “suffer” for the sake of witnessing the work of writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had to flee his home country so he could safely take a stand against it through his art.

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“A Complete Unknown”: Deluxx Folk Explosion

February 18, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster with Timothee Chalamet onstage, playing acoustic guitar and harmonica holder around his neck.

As seen on Saturday Night Live!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, regardless of whether or not I’ve previously connected with the subject matter in the slightest, and whether or not I’ll sound like a philistine to said subject’s biggest fans who outnumber me 500 million to 1. It wouldn’t be my first time speaking as an ignoramus who’s willing to learn.

Over the years James Mangold has directed films of all sizes and accumulated enough goodwill among studios and audiences alike that he’s now alternating between them — not exactly the vaunted “one for them, one for me” model of project selection, considering the last time he spent under $20 million on a film was 1997’s Cop Land. A steady career of dramas (and one fantasy-lite rom-com, the underrated Kate & Leopold) segued into blockbuster franchising with The Wolverine and Logan (still in my superhero-film Top 3), returned to true-story territory with Ford v. Ferrari, then was handed the golden keys to the Indiana Jones series and…uh, lost a lot of Disney’s money, but at least he helped the old man live down the one with Mutt and the aliens in it.

Mangold manages to do more with a little less in A Complete Unknown, technically another biopic in the manner of his Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, though it only covers a five-year period — the early years of Bob Dylan, which seem enough to convey his impact on the world of folk music and stopping short of…well, the last five decades of his career that fell within my lifetime. Hence why I procrastinated seeing this ever since its Christmas Day release until after it was a confirmed Oscar nominee rather than a presumptive one: folk music is generally not my thing.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Captain America: Brave New World” End Credits

February 16, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 22 Comments
IMAX lobby poster of Red Hulk towering menacingly over Anthony Mackie's Captain America.

Every heart bleeds true under Red, fight and BOOM.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our family keeps up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe line of comic-book screen adaptation and transmutation products! Yes, we’ve even watched the ones that show up at the low end of every “Every MCU Movie and TV Show, Ranked” listicle whose criteria change whenever new interns update it. Someone needs to sort those with an “Every MCU Ranking Listicle, Ranked” listicle, but it won’t be me. Between the Marvel Zombies that give every release an A only because they have the “Marvel” cattle-brand stamped on them, and the four-hour YouTube anti-“woke” tantrum-throwers who think hate-watching is a wise use of their limited lifespans, I’d never get more than halfway through most of the contenders without developing listicular cancer.

I was perhaps a tad less cranky than the pro critics who groused about the MCU’s 35th film, Captain America: Brave New World, and the curious decision to devote Anthony Mackie’s first solo Marvel marquee to sewing up dangling threads from previous works. I can’t say it’d go in the top half of my own MCU rankings, but it got some things right, though part of the plan involved pleasing Disney’s superiors by forcing the MCU to diverge into a completely different political backdrop, quainter than our own reality.

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