It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)*

Director: Stanley Kramer

Cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Literally Everyone

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. It was one of my parents’ favorite films. At the tender age of ten, I was entranced both by anything with the Three Stooges in it, and by the fact that it could only be contained by two (count them, two!) VHS tapes, which obviously meant it was a movie meant for grown-ups.

I’m sad to report that the Stooges show up for all of five seconds, do absolutely nothing*** it bored me to tears—such is the relationship of a ten-year-old to a grown-up movie.

Did I Like It: Spoiler alert: I must have dozed off—and at that for maybe a moment—and missed The Three Stooges entirely.

That doesn’t exactly bode well for a revised take on the film.

If comedy really does live in a close-up, then nobody bothered to tell Mr. Kramer. The scope is too epic, and the pace doesn’t speed up to justify such things.

Maybe I’m still just a ten-year-old at heart.

*Really, that thing runs a couple of weeks and it careens wildly into a few weeks where no one felt like laughing for any reason whatsoever. Thank goodness the President wasn’t a character (they probably could have fit Vaughn Meader in there, right?) or they would have had to burn the negative.

**I being in that time of life where a boy ought to find them fascinating; a boy is never truly a man until he realizes that The Marx Brothers are so much funnier than the Stooges that it isn’t really even a contest

***Is a Stooge even a Stooge without slapstick? They’re firemen who appear in one shot, and it only hints at a dumber, but far more entertaining movie. Incidentally, this review is having almost as many footnotes as this movie has cast members.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo

Cast: Robert Downey Jr. (why you got to do me like that?), Chris Evans (or as he shall forever be known, Creepy Uncle Steve), more Gwyneth Paltrow than I thought we were going to get, and Jake Johnson as Thor.

Have I Seen it Before: Opening weekend. Man I wish I had seen it months ago, but that’s a completely different question.

Did I Like It: As I’m typing this I’m a little emotionally compromised. For any number of reasons. I’m reasonably sure I liked it, but let’s find out together.

Well, we certainly have a new way station for any future games of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Come to think of it, after the additional name drop in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), I’m a little surprised we didn’t get an appearance by Mr. Footloose himself. Michelle Pfeiffer is in it. Tilda Swinton is in it. Rene Russo is in it. Robert fucking Redford is in the picture, and he said he stopped acting. I’m relatively sure that anyone with an active membership in the Screen Actor’s Guild (with the notable exception of Edward Norton and Terrance Howard) is in this film. It might single-handedly explain the recent dip in unemployment.

One might get the sense that as packed with characters as it is, this (final?) Avengers picture is the final realization of that famous scene improvised for Parks and Recreation by Patton Oswalt, but every minute feels earned, and successfully pays off ten years and twenty-two films previous set up. It’s 

Some of it’s time travel doesn’t quite pass the smell test, primarily when we are considering the ultimate fate of Captain America. Even if one were to sufficiently explain these apparent plot holes, how he managed to get the Soul Stone back to Vormir beggars all belief.

And then there’s the finality of it all. I’ve already dipped into a few minor spoilers above, but if you haven’t seen the film by the time you read this (and something about the early box office figures tell me you have), go see it. We’ll mourn our permanently fallen heroes later. Now, I kinda want to go back to the beginning with Iron Man (2008).