Some Dude Reviews Movies

I've heard a lot about Ari Aster's 2018 smash debut, Hereditary . It's been hailed as a masterpiece. It shocked audiences. It built a word-of-mouth campaign of success at the box office, despite being an independent horror art film. I missed it when it came through my local theaters. I held off watching it on streaming platforms. I am not sure why. I wasn't sure I wanted to take the leap, yet. Maybe I wanted to hype to die. So as to afford myself a level reaction when I did finally see it. But then the trailer for Midsommar (2019) dropped. And then the Rotten Tomatoes reviews began to trickle in. Ari Aster appears to be the horror auteur of our time. So, after noticing Hereditary streaming on Amazon Prime, I decided to sit down on a summer day, in advance of heading to the theaters this weekend to see Midsommar , and check out the film that started all of the hubbub in the first place. I sat down with Hereditary . I. What Is It? This is...

Most of the people my age know Michael Caine as a kind of lovable grandpa, who shows up in silly roles to have fun, but also turns in powerful secondary parts in serious dramas. The man is a legend. So it was a bit of a shock to see him assaulting women, throwing men off balconies, and brutally murdering dudes with knives, guns and shotgun butts. I watched Get Carter  (1971). Holy shit. I. What Is It? This is the story of Jack Carter (Michael Caine), a London gangster who heads back to his hometown, Newcastle, to unravel the circumstances of his brother's mysterious death, and swears vengeance on those that carried it out. II. Swingin' 60s Noir I've watched a lot of noir. I've watched classic film noir, 70s noir, neo noir, foreign noir, and the list goes on. One subgenre that I hadn't ever expected to experience was what I'm calling Swingin' 60s Noir. Get Carter came out in 1971, but it still has the 60s vibe: there's f...

Pixar doesn't need the hard sell. When they drop a movie, people go to see them. After the hat trick of the Toy Story trilogy, I must admit that I was a bit curious about Toy Story 4 , and not because I was so excited to see more Toy Story. I was curious, because, for all intents and purposes, the toy story had ended. Toy Story 3  (2010) had put a pretty neat bow on everything. And, considering how hard it is to do good sequels, much less a complete trilogy, one would have had to assume that Pixar wouldn't go back to that well. Right? Right?? I. What Is It? This is the story of Bonnie's toys. On her Kindergarten orientation day, she creates a new toy out of some old bits and bobs from a trash can. This toy keeps trying to escape, convinced that he is trash. Woody takes it upon himself to save this new toy, and runs into an old friend in the process. This is a story about identity and freedom. II. Beautiful Animation The animation in this f...

Today, I watched a silly murder mystery film. So I figured I'd follow it up with a serious one. And Netflix came in clutch with Gosford Park  (2001). What's not to like: upstairs and downstairs drama; gorgeous period piece; every famous British actor from the early aughts. Gosford Park has all of that in spades. I. What Is It? This is the story of a hunting weekend at the grand Gosford Park estate. There's a curmudgeonly old bastard that winds up dead and a host of characters with ample motive. II. The Anti-Christie This is, on paper, your standard Agatha Christie murder mystery. There's a murder, and a cast of colorful characters who almost all could have done it. There are clues sprinkled throughout the opening acts, and there's even an inspector called in from London to suss out whodunnit. But the devil's in the details. Director Robert Altman and screenwriter Julian Fellowes are more interested in subverting classic tropes and ex...

I grew up watching Adam Sandler movies. Happy Gilmore (1996) and Billy Madison (1995) helped define my sense of humor as a young man. In the years since, however, it seems my tastes have grown up, and Adam Sandler's have not. I have stayed away from most of the man's work because most of it is trash. But I have always maintained that the man is a good actor. His dramatic turns in Punch Drunk Love (2002) and Funny People (2009) prove that when he's on, he's great. So I was a little wary of his newest, Murder Mystery , which just dropped on Netflix. But we stayed through the trailer on Netflix' homescreen, and ya know what? I was intrigued. In fact, I was amused. And so my wife and I decided to give it a spin. I. What Is It? This is the story of Nick and Audrey Spitz, the European vacation they always dreamed of going on, and the series of murders that complicates it in hilarious fashion. II. Ode to Christie I am slowly becoming ...

I have now watched 209 minutes of Soviet era film from the auteur, Andrei Tarkovsky. Previously I viewed his masterpiece, Stalker  (1979), and recently I finished Solaris (1972). Three and a half hours of crises of faith and humanity and identity. And what have I learned? I. What Is It? This is the story of an observation station orbiting the ocean planet, Solaris. The mean there report hallucinations and strange occurrences. Psychologist, Kris Kelvin, is sent to do an evaluation and get to the bottom of what is happing above Solaris. II. What is Humanity? If the psychological crux of Stalker  was a dissection of faith and the lack of it, Solaris  is a film about the nature of humanity and what counts as "human." The seething ocean on Solaris taps into the minds of the astronauts aboard the space station and creates beings made of nutrinos out of their memories. These beings heal quickly, and are thus immortal, unless they are separated fr...

I'm taking a break from Tarkovsky, but don't worry, I'll be back with Solaris (1971) fairly soon. On the first Monday of my Summer Break I decided to fill in some of my cinematic blankspots by venturing into the work of a certified genius and widely well regarded filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. And if you're going to do Bergman, you do 1957's The Seventh Seal . The film is legend. It is required viewing in film school. It is spoken of in reverential tones. It even inspired the portrayal of Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey  (1991). I. What Is It? This is the story of a  knight (Max Von Sydow) and his squire, returning home from the Crusades. Death comes for the knight, but the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, in a last ditch effort to escape death and come to grips with his own faith. What follows is a story of life and death and faith and fate. II. Bear Witness to a Man's Warring Psyche The most impressive thing ...

I didn't see Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) because it looked cheap. While I love Queen's music, I didn't find the movie absolute viewing. I can, after all, turn on a Queen record at any time and just live in that music. But after I saw the first trailer for Rocket Man  (2019), I knew I had to get out and see it. The moment Elton, at The Troubador, lifts off the ground, his hands anchored to the keys on the piano, and his audience slowly floats into space with him, I knew that the movie was headed into the realm of the fantastic, and that I would enjoy it. And that's the right tack to take with Elton John's music, that leans into the fantastical and celebrates magicality. So how was it? I. What Is It? This is the story a the rise of a genuine rock and roll icon, Elton John. The film travels from his early years as an awkward boy raised in an emotionally abusive home, to the height of his musical stardom. II. Pure Magic There were multiple ti...

It is the start of my Summer of Art House. I am going to take my time combing the depths of The Criterion Channel's archives to catch up on all of the classic and esoteric cinema that I've been lacking. We begin with a trip to Soviet Russia, with Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 sci-fi fable, Stalker . I've never seen a Tarkovsky film, but understand that all of my favorite filmmakers have, and revere his work. So here we go. I. What Is It? This is the story a Stalker, a man who leads the worthy to The Zone, a forbidden place at whose center is a Room that grants the pilgrim's deepest held desire, and the two men that he shepherds to its core. The film is a meditation on faith, art, and truth. And what a world without those things is. II. Have a Little Faith This movie is Russian as fuck. The three main characters, The Stalker, The Writer and The Professor, are each emblematic figures prone to long  pontifications on the nature of faith, art an...