Tag Archives: movies

Yes, There’s a Capybara After the “Encanto” End Credits

December 15, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Disney's Encanto!

Not many family photos could double as a cover for their own superhero comic.

Once upon a time, new Disney and Pixar animated films were an automatic “see in theaters” category for our family. (Well, generally speaking. Maybe someday I’ll get around to The Good Dinosaur.) Works from other animation studios were not so guaranteed and were judged on a case-by-case basis. Our last animated theatrical experience was Pixar’s Onward, which was back in March 2020 and just-okay. For non-Disney fare (not counting shorts) I’d have to go clear back to the third How to Train Your Dragon in 2019, which was likewise just-okay.

Then along came a pandemic that interrupted our traditions and our rhythms. Some studios kept releasing new cartoons anyway, albeit on a protracted schedule. We ignored all of them, even after getting our shots, because of inertia. I recently caught up with a few 2021 releases on streaming services, but they haven’t been a top priority. (Maybe someday I’ll get around to Raya and the Last Dragon.) Amidst this current holiday season my son and I noticed the oversight and revived our tradition at last with an outing for Disney’s Encanto — apropos of the occasion, a film about family, tradition, and ruination that we think comes from without when in fact the disruption is coming from inside the house.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Eternals” End Credits

November 14, 2021 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Celestial Arishem!

“Kneel before your new god, the great and powerful d6!”

Hi, I’m a longtime comics reader who always thought the Eternals sucked.

Among the tenets of staunch dogma handed down by elder comic book fans is: Jack “King” Kirby was a saint and every page he breathed upon was perfection incarnate. To find fault in anything Kirby ever did is to sound like an edgelord poser and betray Comics. Kirby indisputably drew legendary comics and was one of the most significant co-inventors of one of our greatest American corporate mythologies, but his heyday largely ended a few years before my time. His pages could be wondrous panoplies of dynamic, majestic, blockbuster imagery, all the more mind-blowing if you can see the original, full-size art in person.

Then there were the other components, from the peculiar scripting in his post-1970 Stan-Lee-less bombastic productions to his predilection for pun-filled character names that could sound like their own MAD Magazine parodies. Multiple short samples of his mid-’70s Eternals, arguably a rehash of his DC “Fourth World” work with new nametags, left me cold. Later revivals by the likes of Walt Simonson and Neil Gaiman — yes, that Neil Gaiman — likewise did nothing for me. I didn’t even finish reading Gaiman’s version. I tried. Alas, I’m not proud to be a longtime heretic barred from the Eternal Orthodox Church of King Kirby the Konsummate Kreator.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “In the Heights” End Credits

November 6, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
In the Heights!

How you doin’?

Usually whenever an entry dawdles in my head unwritten for such a ludicrous time span, I don’t preface its procrastinated release with hyperbole to the effect of “It’s an entry five months in the making!” as if I’ve been toiling away on it day and night, tinkering with every last clause and syllable with a mental toolkit until I achieved self-expressive perfection. Sometimes that is my writing process in my mind, till I unveil the end results and then spot three typos and six flat punchlines. That isn’t the excuse here.

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“Last Night in Soho”: Eloise’s Adventures Through the Looking-Glass

November 4, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Last Night in Soho!

The Doctor vs. Illyana Rasputin: who wins?

As a kid I spent a lot of summertime Friday nights with my mom and grandma at the drive-in down the street. For a poor family like ours, drive-ins were cheaper than indoor theaters, especially if you stayed late and caught two or three films for the price of one. The concession stands served fried grub as affordable as any contemporary fast-food joint. Until the feature presentation rolled at sundown, free preshow entertainments abounded. Audience members could set out lawn chairs and mingle with folks they know in the next parking space over. Kids could goof around on the playground in front of the screen. And in the years before some entrepreneur figured out how to patch the soundtrack into a short-range FM signal, you could hang one of the drive-in’s own heavy, tinny, awkward mono speakers on your window, crank up the plastic white knob, and listen to the prefab radio program spinning the exact same songs at every showing for years until the drive-in closed in 1982 and was demolished to make way for boring medical offices.

The track listing in general — borne from the post-disco days of “easy listening” lullabies, country/western crossover hits, and ’60s leftovers-turned-standards — was a parade of inoffensive AM-radio earworms cultivated for my elders who liked their sonic backdrops as plain as a pus-colored Tupperware cup of sugarless lemonade on a wind-free porch. In the years ahead I’d come to develop my own musical tastes as the opposite of all that. To this day they’re why I respond poorly to slow jams, twee ballads, and somnambulist Starbucks-CD jangle-pop. Despite my youngster’s apathy, one single would catch my attention above all others every time: Petula Clark’s “Downtown”.

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Yes, There Are Scenes After the “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” End Credits

November 2, 2021 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Shang-Chi!

If Shang-Chi throws less than 50 punches an hour, the bus will explode.

Midlife Crisis Crossover has dozens of unwritten rules and three or four written ones. Among the latter that longtime readers might recall: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry. Some entries get procrastinated longer than others, but sooner or later their turn will come, no matter how much I curse myself for establishing that stupid rule.

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“Dune: Part One”: The Half-Gospel of Saint Paul

November 1, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Dune Rebecca Ferguson!

Prophecy chic, the latest trend in fashion and interior decor.

For the record, prior to 2021 Dune and I had never been friends. At all.

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Yes, There’s an Inevitable Message After the “No Time to Die” End Credits

October 17, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
No Time to Die movie poster

The Weekend Guy! Now in theaters!

The pandemic isn’t over, but the long waits for the films it delayed are ending, one by one. Seventeen years after completion and on the anniversary of its fiftieth trailer, Daniel Craig bids farewell to those lovely James Bond paychecks (though not the residuals) as his fifth and final outing No Time to Die is now permitted in American theaters. Exhibitors are next looking forward to the day they can stop showing the same trailers over and over and over for the last major COVID holdout remaining, The King’s Man. This interminable era has not been a fruitful one for British action spies or Ralph Fiennes.

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Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” End Credits

October 3, 2021 By in Comics/Lit, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Venom Let There Be Carnage!

Rated PG-13 for high body count, one shrewdly placed F-bomb, and splattering more food than blood.

A lot of Tom Hardy fans were looking forward to the new film where he plays a thickly accented schlub possessed of too much power who can’t deal with its consequences and, after leaving too much death in his wake, hits some major obstacles and faces the possibility of living out the rest of his life in powerless mediocrity. That was 2020, and we all agreed never to speak of Capone again. One year later Venom: Let There Be Carnage reminds us why Hardy rules, sometimes despite his surroundings.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After “The Suicide Squad” End Credits

August 21, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Suicide Squad Movie Poster!

Unquestionably the bloodiest film I’ve ever seen on an IMAX screen, or likely ever will see on one.

Sure, I could’ve been a better blogger and rushed to type my thoughts after being flabbergasted (at IMAX size, no less) by James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad while it was still cool on opening weekend and before everyone decided it was “over” because it didn’t make $400 million at the box office, as if the HBO Max day-and-date release was never a mitigating factor. What else is there to say about a film so nakedly audacious about its primary objectives, so cocky about its body count in all the trailers and interviews, and so thorough in exceeding its dark-humored, extreme expectations? Besides adding that, yes, I too said “wow” and “YUCK” more times than I could count?

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Yes, There’s a Scene After “The Green Knight” End Credits

August 5, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Gawain in "The Green Knight"!

For standard heroes, yellow is not a good look…

Some Hollywood adaptations go through the motions of the full original story, typically regarded as a boon for new viewers unfamiliar with the original. Some of your more challenging renditions assume everyone knows the original text backwards and forwards, thus giving the filmmakers leeway to invert, subvert, satirize, or otherwise frame it through a cracked lens from an askew angle. With the visually majestic misadventure of The Green Knight, writer/director David Lowery (whose riff on Disney’s Pete’s Dragon was straightforward and exceeded every expectation) opts for the latter treatment and avoids the easy way out, the road taken by far too many King Arthur flops. The tale of Sir Gawain and his verdant nemesis recently came up in the BOOM! Studios series Once and Future, which benefited me as an advance refresher. Other viewers who came into it cold might have questions and argue about it with the driver the entire way home. Which is fine! Arguing about cinema is much more fun offline than on-.

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Our 2021 Road Trip #2: Sandburg History Theatre

July 29, 2021 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Carl Sandburg bust.

Kudos to the pedestal maker who saved me the trouble of researching the sculptor credits on this Carl Sandburg bust.

Sometimes we stop at historic sites that celebrate figures or events with which we’re well acquainted. Anne the history buff is far more versed and versatile than me in this regard. Oftentimes she’s read multiple books on a given subject and offers her own supplemental trivia as we walk along, especially where Americana is involved. Also oftentimes, I’m reminded of that episode of The Office where Ryan Howard, living avatar of skin-deep youth culture, anguished over premature reports of the death of Smokey Robinson and scolded others for not grieving as intensely as he, only to reveal he only knows one Smokey Robinson song. Sometimes in our travels, I can be kind of a Ryan.

At our next attraction, we were both the Ryan. We were faintly familiar with the subject, and “faintly” is an overstatement, but we were curious to see what was to be seen. Bonus trivia for the skin-deep youths out there: our subject was a strident socialist. It’s not the source of his renown, but it’s something that a fair number of the internet’s Ryans can latch onto and add to their idol collection.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Black Widow” End Credits

July 16, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Marvel's Black Widows!

Never, ever mess with war Widows.

Nearly a decade in the making and fourteen months in the releasing, the next chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is here at long last, two years after Spider-Man: Far From Home capped off Phase III in theaters. Fans had to content themselves with Marvel’s new above-average TV fare on Disney+ (or, I guess, some comics) until the world was ready for Black Widow…or at least a lot of the world. Calling them “most of the world” might be an overstatement considering the pandemic has not yet been called off in numerous countries and states. Alternatively, Disney+ subscribers who can’t wait for the home video release in October can cough up thirty bucks and slightly expand that virtual library of above-average TV fare.

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“A Quiet Place Part II”: Prolonging the Silence

July 8, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
A Quiet Place Part II

Sometimes it’s just nice to get out of the house.

If you and your loved ones are still debating whether or not it’s time to return to theaters and leave the safety zone where you’ve been harbored for the past year, might I suggest starting with the simplest of creature comforts? Emphasis on the “creature”.

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“Final Account”: Minutes from the Nazi-Occupied Neighborhood Association Meeting

June 6, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
"Final Account" movie poster.

A relic of the Before Times: a movie poster made of actual paper. I remember those!

Anne and I saw the new documentary Final Account in a county where masks were required of all patrons regardless of inoculation levels, in an auditorium where the A/C was on the fritz. Posted signs and the clerk warned us, but we insisted on proceeding anyway despite any consequences ahead. The environment was livable at first, but our comfort levels fluctuated as time went on and the air quality went from breathable to stifling and back again. Eventually we convinced ourselves to overlook our nagging concerns, but at no point could we simply sit back and pretend everything was fine.

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“Godzilla vs. Kong”: When Humanity’s Doom Was Super-Sized, Not Microscopic

May 18, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
King Kong Waits.

“Waitwaitwaitwait — they signed me up to fight WHO?”

Once upon a time at the cinema, the deadliest monsters weren’t lurking in our own airways, weren’t infiltrating nursing homes to murder our loved ones, and weren’t other humans screaming in our faces about their hallucinatory conspiracy theories. In our shared realm of pure imagination, creatures fifty feet tall or more threatened our lives, our livelihoods, our close-quarters societies, and our very infrastructure that is the ultimate status symbol of superior lifeforms. In each rueful tale humankind was brought low by its hubris and its denial of its own frailty, screaming at the heavens as our deathblow came not from ironically itty-bitty microorganisms, but from amazing colossal oppressors who deemed us just as squashable as ants. Though they were arguably empowered by humanity’s sins, at least we could see them coming from a mile away and escape them if we had a cool enough car. In those days, dire threats to our entire species were much more fun.

Blame nostalgia for old-fashioned monsters, as opposed to today’s monsters outside our windows, as the primary motivation that drove me to see Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters and break my own rules.

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MCC Live-Tweeting: The Oscars 2021 Pandemic Dinner Theater

April 26, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Oscars 2021 telecast title card.

At least not all the awards went to white folks this year, so there’s that.

At a cozy and snappy 217 minutes (two minutes longer than last year’s), the 93rd Academy Awards went hostless for its third straight year in its very special pandemic edition co-produced by director Steven Soderbergh. A maximum of 170 guests were allowed into an auditorium furnished like a company Christmas party inside L.A.’s Union Station, while all the European nominees who cared to participate holed up in a rented UK theater, and someone let Bryan Cranston have the Kodak Theater all to himself. In pre-show interviews Soderbergh insisted strict COVID-19 protocols were in place, same as they’re using for current Hollywood productions, and AMPAS president David Rubin swore from the red carpet that everyone was “100% safe”. Here’s hoping all the scaled-down glitz and glamour wasn’t for the sake of an awkward super-spreader event.

(Occasionally a mask could be seen in the crowd. At one point the camera lingered on a seated, masked Frances McDormand glowering in repose. She was among the few celebs I spotted taking measures for the public to see. In that one moment, at least.)

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Oscars Quest 2021: All the Other Viewing I Could Fit In Before the Big Event

April 25, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Promising Young Woman, Carey Mulligan

Do you…like to watch?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Longtime MCC readers know this time of year is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, 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 have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee from 1988 to the present, many of which were worth the hunt. The eight nominees for Best Picture of the Pandemic Year may pose more of a viewing challenge…

Whenever I’ve been away from here over the past six weeks, I was either hiding out in Skyrim again, getting a good night’s sleep because I’m needing those more than ever, or seeing how many of this year’s Oscar nominees I could watch. Many were on streaming services to which I already subscribe. Two were released on Redbox for us old folks who like physical media. Some were available for rental on Vudu or YouTube, though those were lowest priority. Five nominees were sadly, annoyingly beyond my grasp on services not in our household (three were exclusive to Amazon Prime, two to Apple TV). Otherwise, I was willing to let myself get carried away. I arguably did.

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The MCC 2021 Oscar-Nominated Documentary Revue

April 23, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Ann Cupolo Freeman from "Crip Camp".

Retired social worker and physical rehab specialist Ann Cupolo Freeman, among the many campers who grew up to become activists in Netflix’s Crip Camp.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Longtime MCC readers know this time of year is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, 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 have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee from 1988 to the present, many of which were worth the hunt. The eight nominees for Best Picture of the Pandemic Year may pose more of a viewing challenge…

In my youth and young-adulthood, seeing any of the Oscar-nominated documentaries before the ceremonies was usually impossible. Or after the ceremonies, for that matter. Streaming media changed the game and broadened access and opportunities for ordinary viewers even before the pandemic turned the convenience into a lifesaver. I’ve yet to enjoy a year in which all the nominees for Best Documentary Short Film or Best Documentary Feature were universally clickable, but the percentages have been generously high. It’s been fun seeing how many I could chase down legally without overpaying for the privilege.

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The MCC 2021 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Short Film Revue

April 18, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
"Two Distant Strangers" short film

Two strangers from “Two Distant Strangers”, but not the actual distant ones in the title. Points for dramatic irony.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover

Each year since 2009 my wife Anne and I have paid a visit to our city’s singular, fully dedicated art-film theater to view the big-screen release 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 we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.

This year’s environment threw a wrench into the works. On the bright side, by the end of the pandemic Indianapolis may have as many as three such theaters to its credit if our old standby and the two hopeful newcomers can stay solvent till then. On the downside…well, there’s that notorious pandemic. Unlike certain Best Picture producers we could denigrate here, the folks at Shorts.tv, which packages the nominees for theatrical release each year, realizes not everyone is ready for theaters yet, and won’t be for a good while to come, not even for Oscars season. In their benevolent cognizance they made special arrangements to let email followers of participating theaters rent streaming access to this year’s shorts for a limited time and a fair price, with the respective theaters receiving a cut of our proceeds. Those theaters get a little help living a little longer, and in exchange so do we…

Our annual shorts rundowns continue with the Live-Action Short Film nominees, ranked from Most Adrenalizing to Most Side-Eyed. Relevant links are included where applicable. As a value-added bonus, the following week after the Oscar Shorts were released in theaters, our first two nominees hit Netflix and increased their potential audience hundredfold.

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The MCC 2021 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Film Revue

April 15, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Mole and bunny from "Burrow".

In my mind the mole is lecturing the bunny about his code violations in the voice of John Ratzenberger from House II: The Second Story.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Longtime MCC readers know this time of year is my annual Oscar Quest, during which I venture out to see all Academy Award nominees for Best Picture, 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 have ever heard of them. I’ve seen every Best Picture nominee from 1988 to the present, many of which were worth the hunt. The eight nominees for Best Picture of the Pandemic Year may pose more of a viewing challenge…

Each year since 2009 my wife Anne and I have paid a visit to our city’s singular, fully dedicated art-film theater to view the big-screen release 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 we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.

This year’s environment threw a wrench into the works. On the bright side, by the end of the pandemic Indianapolis may have as many as three such theaters to its credit if our old standby and the two hopeful newcomers can stay solvent till then. On the downside…well, there’s that notorious pandemic. Unlike certain Best Picture producers we could denigrate here, the folks at Shorts.tv, which packages the nominees for theatrical release each year, realizes not everyone is ready for theaters yet, and won’t be for a good while to come, not even for Oscars season. In their benevolent cognizance they made special arrangements to let email followers of participating theaters rent streaming access to this year’s shorts for a limited time and a fair price, with the respective theaters receiving a cut of our proceeds. Those theaters get a little help living a little longer, and in exchange so do we.

Our annual shorts rundowns begin with the Animated Short Film nominees. I’d offer links to watch them if I could, but nominees in this category are traditionally removed from their previous posts until sometime after the awards are over. I also usually rank them, but this year’s lineup were so apples-and-oranges that I’m sticking with unhelpful alphabetical order because no one’s forcing me to rank things and in this case I don’t feel like it. Onward!

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