Saw The Bone Temple and thought it far better than the first movie. No, I'll go further: in my book the best by far 28...Later movie to date. No, I'll go even further; best film of the entire franchise, and yes I haven't seen the as yet nonexistent third installment-- calling it here and now, a year or so early.
No-- backtrack. I'll go even further than that: Bone Temple is the first movie in the entire franchise that I actually like.
As if anything could actually kill the franchise-- comes Jurassic World: Rebirth, and this time it's all dressed up in basic retro: reuse, refurbish, reboot.
New characters, same strategy: bunch of people on island, well equipped well organized; things go pearshaped, and what used to be a mission (fact-finding, creature-hunting) is now an escape drama, the survivors doing best with what they got, mainly wits and guts ready to spill at moment's notice.
Charles Dickens got it right.
Some hundred and eighty years ago, he wrote a passage in Oliver Twist describing a haunting:
He could trace its shadow in the gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff and solemn it seemed to stalk along. He could hear its garments rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with that last low cry. If he stopped it did the same. If he ran, it followed--not running too: that would have been a relief: but like a corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell.
That sentence-- not running too: that would have been a relief-- is key. The undead are not in a hurry, they are never in a hurry; if they ever for once hurried that would break the tension.
Movie begins with Cruise climbing an impossibly sheer cliff. He slips; he recovers; he hangs ten several thousand feet off the ground. This being a John Woo film, credibility is not a very big issue, but “cool” is--as it turns out, the entire elaborate rock-climbing sequence was staged just so Cruise can rendezvous with a pair of telecommunicating Ray-Bans, shot at him via rocket launcher from a hovering helicopter. The shades instruct Cruise on what he is to do for the next two hours…which, come to think of it, pretty much sums up how Cruise has handled his acting career to date.
Run, Ethan run!
Gotta hand it to Tom Cruise: he took a nifty little TV series about a group of low-key intelligence operatives that work together as a team to solve near-impossible problems and turned it into a gigantic one-man showcase where a star-producer reportedly risks his life again and again on bigger more elaborate stunt setpieces, in gargantuan productions that, y'know, celebrate the beauty of self-sacrifice and teamwork.
(WARNING: plot of Gladiator 2 discussed in close and explicit detail!)
Coming out of the multiplex after a screening of Gladiator ll:
A: What do you think?
N: Wasn't a fan of the first Gladiator. Not a fan of anything Scott since Blade Runner.
That's entertainment
Saw Joker: Folie a Deux and-- well I liked the ending.
Todd Philips can't direct traffic to save his life and the movie still looks like a recycle bin of older better films, among others Umbrellas of Cherbourg, One From the Heart, Pennies from Heaven, and (a Scorsese, can't not have a Scorsese) New York, New York and you can feel the droplets of sweat showering down like a morning thunderstorm from Joaquin Phoenix's brow as he strains to make a profound statement out of yet another $200 million comic book villain movie-- but I did like that ending.
How to do a proper sequel? Used to be a silly question but in this age of endless remakes, reboots, recycling in one form or another it's almost become a major artistic question, if art can or has ever been considered major (was there a time in the '60s and '70s, or were we just fooling ourselves?).
One thing I loathe almost as much as summer heat is summer movies. "So don't go," I'm told, but at the moment it's 97 F in the shade and the easiest way to beat soaring temperatures is to duck into a movie theater, so...Deadpool & Wolverine. At least the poster looks colorful.
X had Mia Goth's Maxine shooting a porn flick on a farm owned by elderly Pearl (also Mia Goth) the same time she's being stalked by a serial killer; Pearl as prequel to X sketches the eponymous woman's life as a young farmer's spouse in 1918, uncovering her dreams and frustrations and why Maxine's barebones film production outfit fascinates her so.
Aaaand just because it's summer and we're all entitled to a bit of fun, thought I'd drop in and check out how Pixar's doing.
Blade 2 doesn’t so much improve on the first one as it does evolve-- like the creatures at center stage-- beyond. Both movies are based on Marvel’s comic book series, about a half-human, half-vampire hunter who uses a stylish mix of whirling chrome knives and state-of-the-art tech to hunt his bloodsucking brethren.
I HAVE SEEN THE FILM THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER AND it's actually not bad. I liked it, go figure.
Leftovers
(Warning: plot of Once Upon a Time in China 4, 5, 6 discussed in explicit detail)
Folks who aren't already diehard fans or are belatedly catching this on DVD or streaming usually watch only the first three installments but Tony Rayns in his Criterion appreciation insists Tsui Hark's total vision doesn't truly unfolds until you've seen Part 5.
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(Warning: story discussed in explicit detail)
Cantonese folk hero Wong Fei-hung has no real equivalent in other cultures -- what if Abraham Lincoln could kick so high hard fast his leg would leave no shadow? What if Jose Rizal was not just an accomplished healer and martial arts master (he's both, plus naturalist, sculptor, poet, and popular novelist) but bald as an ostrich egg? What if writer-producer-director Tsui Hark retold Wong's long-popular exploits in epic form, arguably one of the high points if not the high point of Hong Kong cinema's golden age?
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Some folks may find it hard to believe (having trouble myself) but The Meg and its present sequel Meg 2: The Trench are adapted from a pair of science-fiction novels by Steve Altern, with a possible six more books if this installment makes money (indications suggesting it will). Adapted by three writers no less, which raises the question: can you even tell?
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Aren't you glad you used Dial?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny feels like your last high school class reunion where you spot old faces and gossip about missing ones. O look Harrison Ford with his Traveller hat! Yanking on his leather whip! O look John Rhys-Davies as Sallah driving a yellow cab! O and isn't that--? Yes it is now shut up we aren't meant to spoil anything (that's a job for TikTok).
Gagamboy
In Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, celebrity singer and TV host Jason Taverner passes out in a medical facility, having been treated for an attack from a 'Callisto cuddle sponge,' a dangerous parasite (alien, judging from the name) thrown at him by a former lover. He wakes up in a cheap motel, learns he's not only not famous but his friends don't know him, and he has no identification papers-- dangerous situation in Dick's version of 1988 United States, where if you can't prove who you are to one of many police checkpoints in Los Angeles you can be arrested and sent to a forced labor camp.
With Kill Bill: Volume 2 Quentin Tarantino completes what for better or worse represents his vision for the new millennium-- a three-hour chick-takes-revenge flick with obscure allusions to martial arts movies, gunslinger movies, pulpy genre fare of all kinds.
