2014 monthly movie list: August

1. The Lego Movie
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Saving Mr. Banks
4. The Infidel
5. Bad Milo!
6. Mary Poppins (never seen entirely before and interesting: so much of the story was plot-unrelated spectacle; and the real protagonist of the story--in one reading--is Mr. Banks, who hardly gets any screen time at all, but has the biggest arc, from caring about the bank to caring about his children*; but a lot of this is still very enjoyable and engaging)
7. Brave
8. Turner and Hooch (so 80s, so young Tom Hanks)
9. Pontypool
10. 20 Feet From Stardom

This was a good month. Even the lower rated movies were still pretty solid. 20 Feet From Stardom is a documentary about back-up singers that was very interesting, but not quite for me; Pontypool was a strange horror film that didn't entirely work, but at least it went for something a little different with its language virus and limited setting (a radio station under siege).

Special note here for Bad Milo!, which is a very particular type of horror-comedy film--and that particularity is a lot of anxiety about the ass. And anxiety in general. Ken Marino plays an anxious husband and employee who swallows all his anger and other ugly feelings: when his overbearing boss makes him fire people--swallow it; when his new office is a repurposed bathroom and his new cubicle mate tries to use one of the (non-functioning) toilets--swallow it; when his dad who abandoned him can't bother to help him through crisis--swallow it; when his mom's young new husband is very demonstrative about their sex life--swallow it.

In a move worthy of J. G. Ballard and David Cronenberg, these bad feelings that Ken swallows cause/exacerbate a medical situation: he has a polyp in his rear that is actually a Dark Half. This is somewhat archetypal Jungian/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde material (or at least our modern form of that story): when someone upsets Ken's character, Bad Milo comes out to kill them--but since Bad Milo is a part of Ken's character, he can't just kill it, but has to reconcile with it.

Of course, given that premise, this isn't a philosophical film about accepting your shadow--or it is a film about that, wrapped up in a lot of jokes about things coming into or out of Ken's ass. As you can tell by the fact that I don't even know Ken's character's name, the film is not a masterwork of narrative storytelling. (I mean, if the main couple is waiting to have a kid, why are they seeing a fertility expert?) But it is a fine execution of an odd premise.

I'll talk more about the film du summer, Guardians of the Galaxy, at a later date.

2014 monthly movie list: July edition

1. Enough Said (amazingly real rom-com about older people looking for love)
2. Pain & Gain (a fascinating and fun true-crime story)
3. Blue is the Warmest Color (very realistic in its fashion--that is, it's long and there are boring moments, but it really immerses you in the main character's life)
4. Oblivion (at least it looked sort of interesting, with the post-apoc landscape and the shiny shiny toys)
5. The Conjuring (some good old school scares, but almost a self-parody in parts)
6. Now You See Me (some fun character interactions in this over-stuffed magician-heist film, but hard to take seriously on any level and not all that fun)
7. The Ice Harvest (not a good Harold Ramis comedy-noir, but an interesting attempt)
8. Solomon Kane (cheesy ending with monsters galore)
9. The Raven (not a good movie, but saved by the over-the-top acting of John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe)
10. R.I.P.D. (a lazy and poorly done re-tread of various cop + weird stories)

The film I saw most recently was Now You See Me, which takes its heist plans to a ridiculous level of planning. That is, heist films now often have a moment where the good heisters get caught or where something goes wrong in their plan--but, surprise!, that seeming setback was all part of their plan. The real difficulty with something like this is that the screenwriters want to fool the audience by having the characters act a certain way (disappointed, scared) when they're really feeling fine. OK, sure, maybe they're acting out their disappointment as part of the con. Now You See Me hits this idea so hard that characters are constantly acting for us without any real explanation of what they're actually feeling.

They are also pretty shallow characters.

But it did get me thinking about what little role entropy plays in this long-term heist films. There's usually some pretense towards chance--"oh no, the guard is coming back early from his break"--but heist films by-and-large take place in a very mechanistic universe.

2014 (well, from June on) monthly movie list: June edition

Inspired by friend David Steffens and his list-making over short fiction podcasts (like this), I thought I would start keeping track of the movies I watched in 2014. There'll be minimal commentary here--I'm just interested in keeping track of what I saw and about how much I liked it. And since I rarely get out to the movies, most of these will be rentals and Netflix.

Also, to be clear, this is not a list of "best" but rather a list of "most enjoyed."

1. Kill Bill 1 & 2
2. Her
3. Edge of Tomorrow
4. The Emperor's New Groove
5. World War Z
6. The Wolverine
7. We're the Millers
8. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

June surprises: I was a little bored with I saw Kill Bill the first time, but now I thought it was not only enjoyable, but clearly a work of incredible craftsmanship.

Her was very interesting, as a rom-com (sort of) about a guy getting over his ex with a new girlfriend, who was able to help him reconnect with his joyousness--only this new girlfriend is a computer OS (rather than a manic pixie girl) and there are certain missed connections between a human and an OS (which is what really sets her off from the MPG, since she has her own arc); in many ways a tone poem to depression and recovery, and by "tone poem," I mean I was occasionally bored.

Emperor's New Groove is one of the not-very-much-talked-about Disney movies from after the 90s Renaissance but before the Pixar salvation. Apparently it had a very troubled making, but I thought the movie was enjoyably meta and strange, from the non-linear telling and interruptions to the setting of a pre-Columbian Incan Empire (with plenty of anachronisms).

Emperor's New Groove also demonstrates something that Incredible Burt Wonderstone failed at, which is making your unpleasant protagonist fun and/or identifiable: Kuzco and Burt are both self-centered, but Kuzco has a sense of humor, whereas Burt is a joyless jerk; and while Kuzco is introduced in contrast to the really evil villain, Burt's sad introduction with bullies and an absent mother don't actually build to anything.