Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Director: Edgar Wright

Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There are two forces at work here in the film. The first is the creative force of Edgar Wright at the height of his cinematic inventiveness, amidst a Hollywood system that would still allow him to let loose those talents. He comes here as close as anyone will to translating any kind of non-superhero comic directly to the screen. The influences seep in through every moment of the film, from the 8-bit tweak to the Universal logo, to the floating tiles, all the way to using the coins that appear after defeating an enemy for the bus. One would have been forgiven for assuming a property like Scott Pilgrim was never going to be adapted with any kind of faithfulness, but we were all* pleasantly surprises.

What’s more, I wondered if Wright’s magic could be implemented outside of his collaboration with Simon Pegg, but I was pleasantly surprised, just as I continue to be.

Then there’s the matter of the material itself. Enjoyable, yes. But how much can we root for a hero like Scott Pilgrim? He’s insensitive to the point of psychopathy. He’s just barely on the right side of some statutory stuff for most of the film. His grand catharsis doesn’t really make him much of a better person, it just makes him slightly less of an asshole, no matter how many special swords he might get for his efforts.

It’s almost as if the film is more about the characters surrounding Scott than Scott himself. Some might complain that makes the story about a callow jerk, and refuse to engage with it.

I’m not bothered by those problems.

*At least, those of us who knew what we were doing and watched it during its theatrical run.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)*

Director: Cathy Yan

Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Suicide Squad (2016) was a muddled mess of editing and miscasting. The fact that Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn was able to be a bright point in one of the more boring wide-release films in recent years definitely warrants her welcome return under different creative stewardship.

And the film is terrific. It brings the sensibilities of someone like Shane Black into the DC Universe. It’s a film that’s funny, the characters are likable (even when they are gleefully being unlikable), and there isn’t one point in the writing where I wonder how this thing got out of the studio. This would automatically put it above most DC films released in the last ten years.

Like Wonder Woman (2017) before it, Birds of Prey manages to bring a DC character to life without making large swaths of the audience alternately bored and uncomfortable. Now, granted, there are choices in this movie that will piss off the contingent of movie internet who have spent the last several weeks telling anyone who would listen that Parasite (2019) stole something very precious from <Joker (2019)>, but those types of people have enough to occupy their time so their tired complaints about the film aren’t worth acknowledging, to say nothing of dwelling upon.

It also may be the most sensuous breakfast porn I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I’m less than an hour past my screening of the film and I’ve wanted nothing but an egg sandwich ever since.

I do have two thoughts that I implore you, dear reader, to not take as complaints, but more as missed opportunities to my particular taste. There is a prolonged action sequence in the impound locker of Gotham City Police Department precinct, and it looks like any other impound lockup from any other cop movie you’ve ever seen. The film could have had a menagerie of thing taken from many of the Rogue’s Gallery. Harley could try to fell the mercenaries with an umbrella gun, and—in keeping with the themes of the film—find it utterly lacking in destructive power. A similar moment could be played out with a hand-grenade made out of a set of chattering teeth. There are other suggestions I have, but I won’t trouble you with them now. The film’s title has already received a revision since its opening, we don’t want this to be a Cats (2019) situation. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife strenuously disagrees with this though. It’s not an objective note about the film.

The other qualm I have with the film? No Barbara Gordon! How can you have a Birds of Prey film without including Barbara Gordon? Now, I understand DC may be angling for her own film sooner rather than later, but the question remains. For that matter, how has no live-action DC film even attempted to bring the once and future Batgirl to the screen? It boggles the mind.

*I set a minimum word-count for these reviews, and awkwardly long titles like this certainly help matters.

Sky High (2005)

Director: Mike Mitchell

Cast: Michael Angarano, Danielle Panabaker, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kurt Russell

Have I Seen it Before: More time than I would have thought I would have for a live-action Disney film.

Did I Like It: Is it surprising? Is it showing me anything I haven’t seen* before? Is it going to down in history as one of the greatest films of all time?

Probably not.

However, one cannot deny that the film has no illusions about its ambitions. It aims squarely at its audience and efficiently delivers exactly what it promises. That may read as damning with faint praise, but far too many films lack the focus to know what they are, and more than a few of them have been lately produced by the Walt Disney Company. The film is intermittently funny, deals in appropriate levels of cuteness, and couldn’t possibly offend the sensibilities of anyone who came to the movie with the right level of expectations.

So, why have I watched it so many times? Why do I own it on DVD?

My wife really likes it. For all the times she has patiently sat through RoboCop (1987), accepted that I view Die Hard(1988) as a Christmas movie, and accepts that I’m likely not going to get rid of my special-edition Blu-ray of Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), it’s important to watch movies that she likes for no other reason than she likes them. That may sound at odds with my lukewarm praise for the movie, as if I don’t think she has good taste. She has the best taste, and I’m pretty sure if I’m not 100% on board with this movie, the problem lies with me.

Therefore, I’ve decided I like it quite a bit. But please, don’t make too big a deal out of that. She might make me watch Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) again. Which I would do. For her.

*Or made…