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OT: Thoughts on a Few Coming 2019 Summer Movies

posted 6 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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I can't say I've seen too many movies in the past coupla months. Been busy, but also: nothing I particularly wanted to see. I saw Tim Burton's disappointing version of Dumbo(which I call The Big Dumbo Bust-Out; its a prison escape movie, you see; I posted on its board if you're interested) and though it WAS great to see Keaton and DeVito together again and Burton's vision is still pretty cool....nope.

Here's what's intriguing me as summer 2019 begins:

AVENGERS: ENDGAME. I'm just waiting for the crowds to die down on this one and to commit 3 hours to it. For The Godfather, that was easy. For this? not so much. But yeah, I want to see the Endgame, and I'm little "pre-moved" at the idea that Robert Downey Jr. may figure more importantly in this movie than in recent ones -- he really is the human tentpole for the whole Avengers franchise, it started with Iron Man in 2008( a role Tom Cruise TURNED DOWN -- ouch.) RDJ has spent 11 years making a personal billion(give or take) in the role.

JOHN WICK 3. Its out this weekend, and I saw a full four-star review on Ebert's page. Does that matter as much as when I read the Newsweek review in 1972 for Frenzy("Hitchocck has fooled us again with supposed decline. This is one of his very best.") Nope. But its the same KIND of feeling -- the idea that whatever it was that I personally really really liked about John Wick the Original(not JUST that they killed his puppy, but also that the Russian gangster father had to protect the son he despised, and also Keanu's line "People keep asking me if I'm back -- YEAH I"M THINKING I"M BACK!)..is paying off bigger and bigger and bigger. And mainly for a guy I don't know but have always liked: Keanu Reeves himself. I like how he gave a lot of his Matrix money to his stuntmen. I like how, in John Wick, this rather sweeet and kindly looking child-man is a physical and merciless killer(but only of bad guys.)

I continue to see Keanu Reeves as who I would have cast as Norman Bates in a 1998 Psycho(he's too old now), and that kind of informs John Wick, too: the handsome and kindly boyish killer. Reversibly: I saw a long-haired Tony Perkins in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean(1972) the other night, and with longer hair and a few post-Psycho years on him, Tony Perkins reminded me of...Keanu Reeves. Can't say why. Maybe I'm just obsessed, here.

Anyway, I hear John Wick 3 is wall-to-wall killing again -- and without the soulful human stakes of the first one -- but, it sounds like this one is better plotted and lingers nicely on that nifty "rules of the Continental Hotel" motif. Also, I always enjoy Ian McShane and this one has Anjelica Huston and Halle Berry in it, too.

But this: Keanu Reeves will now have 3 John Wicks, and I gotta say: its 3 better movies together than all three Matrixes(which was one classic for the ages and two misfires.) Someone wrote that John Wick is "the best current franchise this side of Mission:Impossible" and I'm glad Keanu has it. He seems to bomb in everything else, but now he has his franchise moneymaker. I hope he does make 4, just to stay rich.

GODZILLA,KING OF THE MONSTERS. I getting all messed up trying to keep track of this franchise. I think this one has an all-star cast (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and that Hydrah thing)...all building up to King Kong showing up eventually. That Kong movie with Brie Larson(hah) a few years ago is part of this franchise, as was a Godzilla movie I saw a few years back that ended with the Big Guy breathing fire into another monster's mouth in SF and killing him. I watched that one and thought: the hell IS this?

Me.. I like going back in time and reminiscing about The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms(my favorite movie of 1953) and how it inspired the Japanese Gojira(sp?) which became the American Godzilla(with insert footage of Raymond Burr as "Steve Martin": this in the year of Rear Window!) and...all these new monsters have me confused. Still, I'm going. Hey, I really liked the 1998 one with Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

ROCKETMAN: Months ago, this looked like a "cute little idea" a biopic about Elton John, with all his great songs and a "fantasy" outlook to defeat the "biopic curse" of incorrect information.

But then Bohemian Rhapsody came out, made a billion dollars worldwide(almost) and won an Oscar for the guy playing Freddie Mercury.

All a sudden, man...the pressure is ON. Can an Elton John biopic outgross a Queen biopic? Or even come close? Can a guy playing Elton John win the Best Actor Oscar the year after the guy playing Freddie Mercury did?

On balance, one would think the Elton John movie should be the bigger deal. Didn't he have more hits than Queen? Didn't he have more mainstream fans(he's "the soundtrack of the seventies" for Boomers.) I'm very intrigued to see what's going to happen here, and because I like Elton John songs, I'll go.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

And if Rocketman DOES make a billion dollars, we'll have our new "billion dollar franchise movies": rock star biopics. I mean, they haven't really done the Beatles yet (though "Yesterday" this summer certainly uses them.) How about one about the Monkees? (Jack Nicholson hung out with them.) Or the Stones. Or the Who. Or Fleetwood Mac -- bring the ladies on screen.

And this: with Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, do we have the first two billion-dollar movies about gays? I think that's important. They e worldwide entertainers with massive followings...

ALADDIN and THE LION KING

I thought Mary Poppins Returns was my favorite of 2018, (mainly because I loved the size and emotion of the trailer), but the farther away I get from it, the less magical and meaningful it looks to me. The Legend of Buster Scruggs is now my favorite of 2018(principally for one episode, The Gal That Got Rattled.)

And Dumbo was a disappointment.

Comes now live action versions of more "recent"(30-25 years ago) animations and, uh...whatever. Aladdin and The Lion King. They just look like knock-offs to me. Corporate non-entertainment with CGI. So where's that live action hottie Little Mermaid, might I ask?

And: Will Smith. Too "over" to match Robin Willilams as the Genie? Or: a comeback?

And: I must say. Whoever they have cast as the Princess in Aladdin is certainly a beauty. They just keep finding these people when they need them.

--

TOY STORY 4: I certainly liked the first one, though I was too old for it. The second two merge together -- though one of them had a tearjerking song about giving up your toys. 4? 4 is too many -- unless its John Wick and Nice Keanu Reeves gets to be richer. Also, Don Rickles has passed, so the Toy Story franchise has a big hole in it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Which brings me to:

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

I'm pleased to know, at my age, that one filmmaker out there can still "get me interested" like Hitchcock did with NEW movies. ("Oh, Hitchcock is making a new one, Frenzy -- I hope he lives to finish it.") As with Hitchcock, I probably am liking QT past his best days(I mean, I anticipated Topaz -- and liked it. Same with Frenzy. Same with Family Plot.) Unlike as with Hitchcock around the time of Topaz, I think QT is still a powerful force -- he's attracted Brad AND Leo AND Margot AND Al to this one. He still matters.

QT has had my favorite movie of the year with Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Django and The Hateful Eight. In fact those last three favorites were his last three movies. So maybe its as automatic with me and QT as it was for me and Hitch(who got my number ones for 1951, 1954, 55, 56, 59, and 60.) That said, Frenzy was Number Two(behind The Godfather ) for me in '72 and Family Plot (behind The Shootist) was Number Two for me in '76 and Jackie Brown(behind the great LA Confidential) was Number Two for me in '97(and would have been Number One in any other year.) Bottom line: I LIKE these two guys. Face it: they both make thrillers almost exclusively, though QT's sometimes look like Westerns and crime stories.

In fact, if thrillers are the game, I'd say between Hitchcock and QT chronologically, its not Spielberg and its not Scorsese. Its: Don Siegel. Nothing but crime thrillers for that guy(The Killers, Madigan, Coogan's Bluff, Dirty Harry, Charley Varrick, The Black Windmill, Telefon, Rough Cut, Jinxed) with a few Westerns(The Shootist, Sister Sara) and a war movie(Hell is for Heroes) thrown in. (Hey, just like QT! Maybe Don Siegel is QT's true muse.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I suppose this richoshet through time of Hitchcock to Siegel to QT is my way of reminding myself of the TYPE of movie I love. QT is making them right now. I can't wait for the new one, and it is my default Number One for 2019. Though Rocketman is enticing..Elton John sure was MY soundtrack of the seventies...

PS. Though I think Don Siegel's claim to fame is all those great crime films(not to mention the SciFi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers), I think he also lays claim to directing just about the greatest string of American male macho actors in history. Take a look:

Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Lee Marvin, Ronald Reagan(as a gangster in The Killers, with Marvin), Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Clint Eastwood(four in a row as Clint's "house director" and then one more after those), Walter Matthau(yes, he could be tough) Michael Caine, John Wayne(Wayne's final film, the great Shootist), Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, and Rip Torn(as co-star in Jinxed, which was, starring Bette Midler, and Siegel's final film.)

Look at that list!

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

YESTERDAY.

Forgot this one. I guess it DOES connect a bit to the Queen/Elton John movies because I assume it will have a lot of Beatles songs. The fantasy hook sounds contrived(VERY contrived) but delightful: a young guitarist-singer enters an alternative universe where nobody knows who the Beatles were and nobody knows their songs -- except him. So he starts playing those songs and becomes a megastar.

Clever. But where does it go?

And this: "From the writer of Love Actually." See , my most indefensible of favorite movies(2003 AND the 2000's), has its own cachet. But why didn't Curtis direct this one?