Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Director: Patty Jenkins

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal

Have I Seen it Before: How would one?

Did I Like It: No review of the film would be complete without spending a moment on its distribution. For a major release, the idea of going simultaneously on streaming and in theaters is certainly unusual. The reasons are well-founded, as are the objections of the movie theater industry.

That all being said, it’s a different animal to watch a movie like this from the couch. In a theater, all that exists is you and the movie, and maybe some popcorn*. You don’t even talk to the people you came with, unless you’re some kind of sociopath. At home, I’m tempted to work on some writing, or thumb through a book or play a game of chess on the phone. At one point I grabbed an orange, peeled it, and then spent several minutes of the runtime debating whether I should get up to throw away the peel.

It’s a different thing. I sure would like it if people got serious about the everything of the current era and the vaccines keep (or truly start) a comin’ so that I might sit in a movie theater once again before I die.

It seems like a lot of my review descend into a similar rant these days. Anyway.

I came to the film a full week after its premiere, and had to work extra hard to not let the somewhat negative word-of-mouth clutter or prejudice my thoughts.

And I think I mostly succeeded.

I hesitate to make some kind of prediction with my first review of 2021, but I think that despite the grumbling, this one will age better than the average superhero film. 

Yes, it doesn’t really feel like a superhero film for much of its runtime. If you cut out all of the scenes were Diana (Gadot) is in full Wonder Woman regalia doing Wonder Woman things, you’d still have a movie that feels about twenty minutes too long. I can see where people feel like they might have been sold a false bill of goods, especially in a year when the last new superhero film we had was Birds of Prey (2020) back in February.

Other parts of it feel like a less-frantic remix of some of the same themes examined in Batman Returns (1992), which would automatically elevate the film’s standing in my view. 

And where that previous film was a fun-house mirror reflection of that earlier film, this film is so quintessentially of its time that it will be hard to completely dismiss in the years to come. The promises of shallow wish-fulfillment by Maxwell Lord (Pascal) will immediately sound familiar, and after all of the time we’ve had, the way Diana unravels those plans feel more satisfying than they have any right to. In a few years, the film may feel quaint, but I’m really looking forward to that. 

* Please, don’t at me with Raisinets. I’m aware of them, and they are not a proper movie snack. I will not be taking questions at this time.

Walk Hard (2007)

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows, Kristen Wiig

Have I Seen it Before: Yep. Somehow, I once had the DVD on my shelf, but I got rid of it at some point, and I can’t quite account for it.

Did I Like It: I really did, for the most part! I liked it so much that I was mystified that the movie had so conclusively dropped off my radar in the years since its release. I even bought tracks of the soundtrack off of iTunes with some long-since abandoned, a fact that I only realized when I self consciously started singing along with some of the songs.

The film itself is in the best tradition of spoofs like Airplane (1980) and The Naked Gun (1988), which is also pretty surprising. For one thing, the Apatow pedigree would be a more realistic comedy like The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007). For another, By the time this film has been released, I had mostly written off the joke as machine gun spoofs, largely because the experiment that was the Scary Movie franchise got out of the lab and flooded us with unwatchable dreck.

As much as the film might entertain, especially in its opening minutes when the tragedy of Cox’s childhood (and the trappings of similar biopics) is writ large, the film does run a little bit out of gas. Call me a sucker for absurdism but redeeming Cox and grounding him back in reality saps the film of its best laughs. A little bit of that manic energy remains until the end, but you can’t quite measure up to a game of chicken with a tractor and a bull.

But that the music in the film works on its own grounds is what makes it a treat to revisit after all this time. Just as soon as the runtime ended on Netflix, I put the soundtrack back on my Apple Music list. Welcome back, Dewey. It’s been a while.

Ghostbusters (2016)

Director: Paul Feig

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, indeed. More on that in a minute…

Did I Like It: It’s a Ghostbusters movie. Just go with it, guys.

In lieu of my normal write-up, I’m re-printing the blog I posted shortly after originally seeing the film in the theaters. I can’t say any of my original assessment has changed since that initial screening, except for in one element. Home video presentations of the film allow elements of the frame—especially in big effects shots—to leave the frame, seemingly in an attempt to extend whatever 3D work was done in post. I’m not sure if other films have attempted this, but it’s objectively lame. Let a film’s frame be the film’s frame. We’re just now pulling out of the dark ages of pan-and scan, and now we have to deal with this. Ugh. The movie itself is still enjoyable, though…

“Let’s Talk About Ghostbusters, shall we?”

WARNING: Some spoilers ahead.

All this week I went to various older movie theaters, catching matinees and jotting down my thoughts as I went. I’ve got a solid five weeks worth of blog entries out of my little travelogue, and I meant to put the first part of the series out this week…

But my movie theater pieces will start next week. I really want to talk about the last movie I saw this week.

Ghostbusters (2016) is fantastic. It is easily the best movie of the summer (and I spent the last week seeing pretty much everything), and it is without a doubt far superior to the depression shit show a direct-sequel Ghostbusters III would have been had it come to pass.

It’s bright, colorful, and occasionally startling*. The special effects are on point. It’s filled with awesome variations on the original gadgets, and several cool additions to the arsenal. It’s also a completely workable adventure story about four unlikely heroes saving the City of New York from imminent disaster.

In short, it is everything that a Ghostbusters movie needs to be.

Which also means that it was undeniably and consistently funny. Deal with it.

Now, I’m not going to say that the only possible reason you could have to dislike such a film is that you are so blinded by your misogyny you can’t see two feet in front of your face. You’re just going to have to deal with how much you hate women on your own time. 

Okay, some of you may be so attached to your childhood memories of the original that you worry this film will somehow break down the purity of those memories. Let me reassure you. Somewhere around the time that I heard the familiar whine of a proton pack booting up, I felt like a kid again and that feeling didn’t let up until the final post-credits scene**. The movie won’t ruin your childhood; if you’re lucky, it’ll bring you back to it. 

There may be a few quibbles with the movie, but they are so minor as to not warrant reference here. Go see Ghostbusters. Go see it twice.

That all being said, Hollywood: Please don’t remake Back to the Future. I don’t think my mortal human heart could take it.

*Anybody who insists that the original Ghostbusters is actually scary is lying, or was a child when they first saw it and has refused to develop beyond that point in the ensuing thirty years.

**Speaking of that post-tag scene: While I really hope the mentioning of Zuul isn’t meant to telegraph the jumping off point for their next adventure, an amusing exchange happened after the scene that works as a perfect microcosm of the bullshit controversy this movie has attracted just for existing.

Just as the scene ended, one girl, no more than seven years old screamed out with geekish delight, “THAT’S THE VILLAIN FROM THE FIRST MOVIE!”

Immediately, some meathead douchebag right around my age turned his nose up and said, “Uhh… Actually, Zuul was the villain in the second movie.”

This is the problem with guys like this. They’re not only assholes; they’re wrong. For a flash, I thought about defending the child, but then I realized: both she and the movie didn’t need me to defend it. Just go see it.