Weekly 10: 7/24-7/30

So far it hasn't been all that hard coming up with 10 things each week. When the TV schedule starts back in full, I'm worried that 10 won't be enough.

Dr. Who Season 8
I watched this in two days. That might've been too quickly. "Listen" certainly didn't have the impact on men that it should've. I've determined that this is my favorite of doctor-companion pairing since the '05 reboot. Pete Capaldi is having such a wild amount of fun. You can virtually see his giddiness between takes.

Hannibal "The Great Red Dragon"
I'm so glad that we got the European vacation out of the way. Ending the series on the Red Dragon seems appropriate.

Southpaw
Jake Gyllenhaal tried so hard. I just wish it was worth the effort.

Battlebots Finale
I thought Bronco will be able to handle Tombstone. I nailed Biteforce winning the whole thing. The simple bots aren't as sexy, but they tend to be more effective. That final match though. That was close.

Halt and Catch Fire "Kali"
Brilliant payoff with Cameron bugging the system with Gordon's virus. I'm still so bored with Gordon's story though.

Harry and the Hendersons
Certainly one of those movies that I didn't have to see to know everything about it. It was charming. I'll leave it at that.

True Detective "Church in Ruins"
I hate will a bad plan gets pulled off successfully. After that sex party, I'm turning my brain off for the rest of the season. It'll make it a lot easier to enjoy the parts that I do like.

The Jim Gaffigan Show "A Night at the Plaza"
Vintage sitcom structure with a few tweaks to keep it from feeling tired. If you are going to over-direct a story, including recurring gags (like the door being broken) that are versatile is a nice touch. More than anything, I like that all the craziness isn't conspiring to turn Jeannie against Jim. The handling of their relationship is the best thing about the series so far.

Girl Meets World "Girl Meets Fish"
Boy Meets World wasn't immune to a theme night. That doesn't mean I have to like them in Girl Meets World.

Singin' in the Rain / Weekend / Stranger Than Fiction
I did a favorite movies night with some friends. That was a great triple feature.

Delayed Reaction: Mr. Peabody and Sherman

What I Guessed It Was About: Mr. Peabody and Sherman travel back to somewhere in time where they get stuck and have to journey to repair their time machine and get back to the present.

How I Came Into It: I only vaguely remember Mr. Peabody and Sherman from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, a show which I barely remember as a whole. This promised time travel and a healthy dose of the "this will go right over the kids' heads" humor that Dreamworks loves to do. Ty Burrell is oddly perfect for the voice of Mr. Peabody too, which is a good start.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This was a more touching movie than I expected. All the stuff about adoption and the bond between Mr. Peabody and Sherman as father and son was great. The voice casting all around was quite good. The jokes were as good as they needed to be. It didn't exceed my expectations, but meeting them isn't so bad.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: It's probably good that I don't remember the original show well. I looked up some reviews for this movie and it's totally a sacred cow for people. Almost any negative review had the poorly concealed subtext of "This isn't as good as the show. Nothing could be" which is defeatist and not fair.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Unlawful Entry

What I Guessed It Was About: A home invasion movie about - is that Kurt Russell on the poster? - and whoever his family is being trapped in the house by some criminal. The 'unlawful' part makes me think the cops are involved somehow. Not sure if they are pro- or ant-agonists though.

How I Came Into It: I knew nothing about this movie. I've liked the cast in different things though. Kurt Russell was coming off Backdraft. Ray Liotta was coming off Goodfellas. Madeline Stowe, well, I'm sure she was doing stuff before that (that was her in Stakeout, right?). This was a good time to be any of them.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is a simple movie that's effective at what it does. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Stowe's character believed Russell well before the end. In fact, Liotta's partner was on Russell's side too. I can't stand when a movie like this becomes conspiracy-like where only the main character knows the truth and everyone assumes he's wrong. It's such a plot-driven move that makes the supporting characters impossibly dense. Unlawful Entry didn't do that. Bravo!

Why I Wish I Hadn't: This is a fringe movie at best. It's been done before and since so many times that your favorite one is most likely whichever you saw first. It's also in that sub-category of movies that have probably been done better as a Law & Order episode. It doesn't make this movie bad or anything. I means that in a few months, I guarantee the my response to it will be "which one was that one?".

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: G.I. Jane

What I Guessed It Was About: Demi Moore works out for 2 hours and cuts her hair.

How I Came Into It: I remember all the fuss about this when it first came out. Demi Moore was huge at the time, the biggest actress in the world as far as I knew. She just did Striptease and followed it up with this. There was so much coverage about her chopped off hair and how ripped she got. Most people forgot that there was an actual movie amongst the transformation.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I'll admit, a lot of me was curious to see just how ridiculously cut little Demi Moore got. That does take over the movie, no doubt about it. In general, it does a good job portraying the difficulty of the SEAL training.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Almost all of the movie tries too hard. The training is ridiculously tough (can it really rain that much?). Like, super amped up. I'm not super "hoo-rah" about the military to begin with, so a lot of this movie just strikes me as comically ridiculous. For example, there's that whole mission they go on at the end that I'm pretty sure is there because the studio made one pass through the screenplay and said "No. There needs to be a battle scene".

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Southpaw

Formula: Rocky + Rocky II + Rocky III + Rocky V + Rocky Balboa

Why I Saw It: I like Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams enough to give it a chance.

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal is the through line character with people like Rachel McAdams, Forrest Whitaker, 50 Cent, and Naomi Harris showing up for parts. Oona Laurence fills the cute kid role.

Plot: Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) is a champion lightweight boxer. One day, he gets in a brawl with another boxer (Miguel Gomez) and his wife (McAdams) ends up dead. He spirals out of control, then works to put his life together. (Note: I'm only spoiling what the trailer already does)

Thoughts:
This is a referendum on Jake Gyllenhaal first and foremost. Southpaw isn't a good movie with a strong lead performance. It's a strong lead performance with an OK movie. If you don't like what Gyllenhaal is doing, then it's going to be a long two hours. Luckily, he's very good. Not Nightcrawler level. Expecting that would be greedy.
I'm not sure how this movie could be more familiar and predictable than it already is. It's like they rolled every Rocky movie into one and then took away his kid (Laurence) for a while. The story simply goes in every direction I expected it to. At no point is there a surprising decision and it is riddled with cases of showing instead of telling. Don't worry about missing a thematic element, because as it's happening, someone will comment on it.
There's too much story as well. The arc is too big and the focus too scattered. There's establishing Billy's relationship with his wife enough for it to matter when she dies, his downward spiral, his posse and manager leaving him, the litigation for custody of his daughter, the career redemption story, learning to be a more responsible man. Many of these things are tied together, sure. But, this many years after Rocky and Raging Bull and Ali and Cinderella Man and The Fighter, you really have to pick a focus to be memorable.
That's not to say this isn't without its small charms. Gyllenhaal, as I mentioned is very good and ably holds up the movie most of the time. McAdams is much better than what was on the page for her (The fact that I cared at all for her by the time she dies early on is remarkable). Except for a couple annoying reminders that he's the "bad guy", the movie doesn't make the rival boxer antagonist into a monster. He's a loud-mouthed competitor, which is only natural, but he gets a few grace moments that prove that he's as respectable a guy as Gyllenhaal. In fact, I would've loved to see a version of the movie that was more about that rivalry.

Elephant in the Room: How's the boxing though? It's kinetic enough. Anthony Fuqua has an interest in being as close as he can to the fighting. It isn't very consistent though. There's a change in how the fighting is shown that is less about showing and evolution in Hope's style and more about "let's try this now". Especially at the end, the fighting moves into a silly "video game" style of intensity that got in the way of my appreciation of it.

To Sum Things Up (In 57 Words or Less):
Jake Gyllenhaal holds this narratively and thematically scattered movie together as well as possible. There's genuine moments of heart and excitement that don't come often enough to make up for how much of the movie drags. I can only recommend it to the most diehard boxing movie or Jake Gyllenhaal fans.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed reaction: Saw IV

What I Guessed It Was About: A man or woman gets trapped in a serious of puzzles and challenges that puts his or other people's lives in jeopardy. Meanwhile, some detectives try to investigate this. Timelines don't quite match up, although we don't know how until the end. In short, it's a major departure from the first three movies.

How I Came Into It: I caught a few minutes of this movie a few years back and had no desire to continue. My thinking was that maybe with context, the torture porn would be more watchable. This is the midway point in the series. Jigsaw just died. Unless they started taking the prequel angle, I was having a hard time seeing how they were going to continue this.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) They didn't quite make a prequel, but this gives you enough glimpses of the past to have a good amount of Jigsaw (I'm not learning his real name). I liked seeing Scott Patterson all over this movie. He wasn't especially great. I just like more Luke Danes in my life.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Other than Luke Danes and Jigsaw, I didn't care about any of the characters. By the fourth movie in a series, the audience knows the beats and tricks of the movies. All that's left is the visual thing that most people recognize about the movie. Normally, it's a monster like the Ghost Mask in Scream. For Saw, it's the inventive torture. If you get a thrill out of squealing through those things happening to people, this will maintain your interest. That's exactly the reason I avoided the movies for so long. Thankfully, the box office returns fell off a cliff after the fourth, so I have no reason to continue with them.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Parenthood

What I Guessed It Was About: The series is set in Berkeley, California on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay area, but is filmed primarily in Los Angeles. The show revolves around the Braverman family covering three generations. It features patriarch Zeek Braverman and matriarch Camille Braverman, and the families of their four children Adam, Sarah, Crosby, and Julia. Adam is married to Kristina and has three children – Haddie, Max, and Nora. Sarah is divorced and has two children – Amber and Drew. Crosby marries Jasmine in season 3 and has two children – Jabbar and Aida. Julia is married to Joel and has two children – Sydney and their adopted son Victor.*

How I Came Into It: I really enjoyed the TV show with the same name (in case the previous section didn't suggest that enough). I like Ron Howard as a director. I like Steve Martin and I'm generally favorable toward everyone else I knew was in the cast. This has the odd distinction of being the highest grossing movie of my big list that I couldn't get through Netflix at all. That fact doesn't play into the movie at all. It's just weird.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I assumed the Parenthood TV show was based off the movie in name only, not from the entire structure of the movie. It was fun playing "who wore it better" with all the roles (the TV actors won in nearly every case due to having way more time to develop than the movie). This still works really well, distilled down two two hours of family dramedy. I was frustrated by most of the characters most of the time, but I understood why. Larry is a complete screw up, and I'm supposed to be annoyed by him. Gil is stressed about everything in his life because there's so much of it. Helen has to be everything (good and bad) for her kids because their father is an asshole who wants nothing to do with them. Ron Howard was on a roll for about a ten year stretch in the 80s and 90s.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: After watching the TV show, it's hard to not feel like the stories in the movie are under-cooked. Had I watched the movie first, I'd be pleased with how much they fit in. Instead, I'm thinking "season arc" or "they're only giving that one scene?". I'm kind of torn on the ending too. It's a nice and satisfying ending, but I can't help but notice that the solution to everyone's problems is to have another baby.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Weekly 10: 7/17-7/23

A lot of movies. A lot of The Wire. A healthy mix of new shows.

Ant-Man
Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World were disappointing. The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy were pretty good. I have mixed feelings about Age of Ultron. I think this favorably tipped the balance of whether or not I found Phase Two of Marvel to be a success.
(Side Note: I love that I've been doing this blog long enough too have Reactions for all those movies)

Girl Meets World "Girl Meets the New Teacher"
Last week was one for them (young viewers), even with the return of Eric [and Tommy]. Bringing back Mr. Turner, with heavy referencing of old episode was definitely one for us (The Boy Meets World fans).

The Wire Season 1
My god! This show is great. I forgot how well the seasons wrap up. I'm even finding what I've seen of season 2 less imbalanced than I originally did.

The Dead Pool
While I don't much care about Dirty Harry, seeing a young Liam Nesson and Jim Carrey was worth it.

Battlebots
Witch Doctor put up more of a fight against Tombstone that I expected. That ultimately didn't matter. I was right about Bronco beating Stinger the Killer Bee. I didn't see the KO coming. I called Bite Force beating Overhaul barely. The only thing I missed was that Ghost Raptor somehow beat Icewave. To be fair, how was I supposed to see the de-icer (or whatever it was called) coming?
Let's see. This week...Bronco is going to find a way to flip the crap out of Tombstone and end in a KO. Biteforce is going to handle Ghost Raptor in a runaway judge's decision. Bite Force will then handle Bronce, although it will be close.

Trainwreck
Amy Schumer is pretty much sitting on top of the world right now. I wonder how quickly she gets another chance at a screenplay. I'm still waiting on Kristen Wiig's follow up.

The Jim Gaffigan Show "Unnamed Red Velvet If You Please"
I want to thank this show for reviving my slight obsession with Ashley Williams. She sure is delightful. Jim's pretty nice too.

True Detective "Other Lives"
I'm officially watching this for the actors and performances because I really have a limited understanding of what is going on.

Halt and Catch Fire "Limbo"
Well, shit certainly hit the fan no that Mutiny is essentially no more. And, again, I saw this wit no ill will for Scoot McNairy but Gordon is a drag every time the story shifts back to him.

Like Father, Like Son
It makes me miss the subtleties of Freaky Friday.

Delayed Reaction: Glory

What I Guessed It Was About: Black soldiers in the American Civil war struggle with opposition from both enemies in the South and the allies in the North.

How I Came Into It: I could not have been any more zeroed in on discovering that this was another lame White Savior movie. It had the plot, the cast, and the setting for it. While I wasn't looking to dislike this, I was definitely prepared to need some "Yeah, but" reasons to explain that I liked it.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) As it turns out, I don't need any qualifiers. This was a good movie and simply that. It has Denzel Washington with an Oscar winning performance, post-Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick, post-Princess Bride Cary Ewles, Morgan Freeman in the same year as Driving Miss Daisy, and pre-anything Andre Braugher. The story doesn't deify the unit or ignore the importance of it. Things aren't cured with a montage either. There's a bunch of moments overtly intended to be uplifting, but they were earned. The movie looks great too, like they used their budget well, not like they kept throwing money at it.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Matthew Broderrick's parts were never as interesting as the parts with all the training soldiers. I'm not sure whether to put that on him or the role for being a thankless one. A couple moments lean into cliche or feel emotionally manipulative, but never at a level that derailed the movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Trainwreck

Formula: Good Luck Chuck * Knocked Up

Why I Saw It: Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer) and Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, Funny People, This Is 40) both interest me as creative forces.

Cast: This is absolutely a star vehicle for Amy Schumer. Other prominent roles go to Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Lebron James, Mike Bribiglia, John Cena, Tilda Swinton, Vaness Bayer, Ezra Miller, and many others in about that relative order of importance.

Plot: Amy is a successful writer for a Maxim-like magazine in New York. From a young age, her father instilled in her a desire to love living the single life and it really stuck. She moves through a series of one-night stands until meeting a sports doctor, Aaron (Hader) who she starts to seriously date. At the same time, her father (Quinn) is going to a new nursing home and her sister (Larson) gets pregnant (on purpose with her husband, much to Amy's disapproval). From there, Amy must decide if the relationship route is really where she wants to go.

Thoughts:
I would be remiss to not start by saying this is very funny. Schumer's script is packed with jokes and Apatow lets it breath. If nothing else, if you are looking for laughs, you'll find plenty here. Anyone familiar with Schumer's show or standup will easily recognize her comedic voice in this. Hader plays it mostly straight, as does Larson, who are both sounding boards for Amy most of the time. Colin Quinn seems to be playing older than he really is, at times looking very out of place in the nursing home, but he's brings his Colln Quinn-iness to the part. All the people at Amy's work (Swinton, Bayer, Miller, etc.) are one-not but effectively used.
This is a romantic comedy. Don't mistake it for anything else. Like, think of this as a dirty Sandra Bullock or Drew Barrymore movie and you'll have the right expectation. So, like most RomComs, the best jokes are in the first half and the ending struggles to land comfortably. That's how the genre works as a mainstream product.
While it's definitely Schumer's voice that defines the movie, this definitely feels like Judd Apatow directed it too. There's a much tighter cut possible for this movie. As with his other movies, when the choice is between cutting a joke and keeping one, Apatow always goes with keeping it. There's a lot of riffing and I don't think he's ever said no to a cameo. That's the nature of his movies. If you don't have an opinion of them by now, then you're not trying very hard. Personally, I dig it. I'm in the tiny minority who thought Funny People was great though. I'm clearly team Apatow.

Elephant in the Room: How about Lebron James? He's fine. He's no worse than Michael Jordan was in Space Jam. Overall, I like how he was used  even though he is nowhere near as good as the rest of the cast. I'd really like to know how this role came about. Was the script always calling for a sports celebrity best friend or did an initially small part get bigger when he signed on? It's probably some of both. I'm both a basketball and a Lebron James fan, so I enjoyed it. Then again, I can see how people who aren't fans of either could find it completely intrusive.

To Sum Things Up (in 57 Words or Less)
You should see this because you like Amy Schumer or are a sucker for RomComs or never miss a Judd Apatow movie or can't get enough raunchy comedies. I like it for all these reasons and more. It's not a perfect movie, but I laughed a lot. Does there need to be more to it?

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Contact

The Pitch: A more plausible alien contact movie than ID4, because, why not?

How I Came Into It: This is one of those movies I've technically seen before. In this case, it was super late at night and I didn't catch it from the beginning, so I wasn't sure how much I actually missed. It turns out, a half hour. Regardless, I love Zemeckis, especially 90's Zemeckis. I'm more hot and cold about 90's Jodie Foster (On one hand, Silence of the Lambs. On the other hand, Nell) and 90's Matthew McConaughey (McConaug-HEY).

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is an enjoyably underwhelming movie. It's a big movie where nothing really happens...I need to find a way to talk about it that doesn't sound negative. There's a lot of archetypal interesting characters. Scientists, believers, skeptics, bureaucrats. It aims to be like what would really happen if something like this actually happened. And, the effects of Foster's space tour still look pretty good.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: It's shot like a blockbuster but isn't meant to be one. That tone gets a little confusing. A stupid small gripe that I have is that I'd rather they left out the part about Foster's tape recording 18 hours of static. Without it, the movie leaves it up to you to decide if it really happened. With it, all reasonable doubt is removed. I feel like that undercut the whole vibe of the movie up to that point.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Ant-Man

Formula: Any Marvel Movie + Shaun of the Dead Bring It On

Why I Saw It: Even though I don't love any of the individual Marvel movies, I love that the Marvel Cinematic Universe exists. That makes me on board for any of these movies.

Cast: Paul Rudd is the titular Ant-Man. Michael Douglas was the titular Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly wants to be the titular Ant-Man. Corey Stoll wants to stop the titular Ant-Man. Michael Peña, David Dastmalchian, and T.I. are friends of the titul-you get the idea. Bobby Canavale is married to Rudd's ex-wife. Judy Greer is the ex-wife. Abby Ryder Fortson is the daughter that kind of motivates this all to happen.

Plot: Scott Lang (Rudd) gets out of prison for a very illegal but completely nonviolent crime (he wants you to know that). He can't get a job and falls back to his old burglaring ways. This leads him to discovering the Ant-Man suit, which can shrink him down to the size of an ant. He ends up working with the creator of the suit, Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Lilly) to stop Darren Cross (Stoll), the CEO of Hank's former company, from giving the Ant-Man technology to the highest bidder (aka bad guys).

Thoughts:
Ant-Man is a tough sell. Unless you read comics, there's very low awareness of the character. Visually, this is as hard as Marvel's ever had to work to make a hero look cool and not ridiculous. He is a fringe character in the cinematic universe. I, for one, going into this was dreading how I would find a way to spin this movie as a success.
It turns out, it wasn't very hard at all to come out of this liking it. Paul Rudd is the best. I can't think of the last movie I didn't like him in. He has leading man looks and can certainly get in shape to play a superhero. He's so funny though and it works really well for the character. Evangeline Lilly nailed this too. Considering how much of a drag Kate was at times in LOST and the intrusiveness of Tauriel in the Hobbit movies, it's surprising how much goodwill I have toward her. I think it's because I realize that the problems with those characters weren't her fault. Hope, on the other hand, is served nicely by the script. She's ready and willing to do the dirty work. She's every bit as capable as Scott and the main reason she isn't Ant-Man is an understandable one. Stoll is comfortably the heel and Douglas thrives in a supporting role that I worried his presence would overdo. Even Judy Greer comes off looking pretty good, which isn't normally the case for the "ex-wife refusing visitation" role. Oh, and how did I forget to mention Michael Peña? I love Michael Peña. He is good in everything he does (Look it up. It's true). His character doesn't get much to do but he makes him into someone interesting. I'm going to go ahead and award Peña the Phillip Seymour Hoffman Best Complimentary Player and Chronically Underused Award.
This story exists on the fringe of the larger universe very well. There's some small ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers (including one amusing scene), but this is largely independent. It's a heist movie at heart, only with super powers. The Ant-Man shrinking powers play really nicely into the size of the story this is trying to tell. The world isn't in [direct] jeopardy. It's almost just a family squabble. As the previews show, there's a big fight at the end that happens on a child's train-track set, which nicely calibrates the stakes. This could've worked entirely as a stand-alone movie, and that's really nice in this increasingly complex Marvel landscape.

Elephant in the Room: It's a shame Edgar Wright didn't direct it. 1) Shut up already. Get over it. 2) I'm not sure I would've preferred the final product with Wright. For those of you who don't know, Edgar Wright (director of Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) was originally set to write and direct this. He left due to creative differences (which makes sense because he is a very distinctive and Marvel's larger concern is maintaining the universe, not an individual product) but not before writing a script for the movie. Adam McKay (writing/directing/producing partner for most of Will Ferrell's movies) and Paul Rudd then took a pass at the script. Finally, relative journeyman director Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Yes Man, The Break Up) took over in that capacity. Now, I don't know exactly how everything would've turned out otherwise, but this is a good formula:
Super talented guy to form the backbone of the script + Star of the movie and prolific script writer (along with other input from people already signed on to the movie) + director who isn't going to get in the way.
Maybe I'm too much in Marvel's camp at this point, but I didn't mind the final product.

To Sum Things Up (in 57 Words or Less)
With Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, and Michael Douglas at the core of this movie, it works as well as anything in Marvel's Phase 2. It is funnier than most superhero movies without undercutting the stakes. Not remarkable in any way. It’s just fun.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Air America

What I Guessed It Was About: Good Morning Vietnam. I thought it was Good Morning Vietnam. I looked at that poster and I immediately thought it was the exact plot of Good Morning Vietnam but with two Robin Williams-s. There was no plot guessing. In my mind, I was certain it was Good Morning Vietnam.

How I Came Into It: Obviously, I didn't know much about it. It's from a period when Mel Gibson was still quite beloved*. I haven't seen nearly enough pre-1995 Robert Downey Jr.. This has great "buddy movie" potential.

*I would love to read a study on the mechanics of his career deconstruction some time, because he's damaged his career in a way that few have. I mean, remember Hugh Grant? He came back from that mess unscathed but not Gibson?

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) The most fascinating thing about watching this movie is that Mel Gibson is playing the exact character that RDJ plays now. If you cast that movie today, or even in 2000, RDJ gets the Gibson role without a second thought. I guess that's not really complimenting the movie. It's just the thing that dominated my thoughts the whole time. It was a nice little alt. narrative of the Vietnam war, but in Laos, and not a war.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I'm not sure what movie they were making. It's part buddy comedy, part action movie, part drama. It struck me more as inconsistency than an attempt to be multi-faceted. And, any point when I didn't think about the Gibson/Downey, I thought about Tropic Thunder instead. There's no way to watch this movie in a vacuum and what has followed it has been problematic for it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Weekly 10: 7/10-7/16

A nice, busy summer week, only slightly propped up by a DVR purge Thursday.

Saved by the Bell "Jessie's Song" / Showgirls / Saved by the Bell Vegas Wedding
Yeah, I had an Elizabeth Berkley night. Jealous?

True Detective "Down Will Come"
I feel bad for this season. So far, everything about it is compared to last season. For example, last week's big gun fight with that infamous tracking shot was better. But, you know what, this season's episode 4 gun fight was pretty spectacular. When was the last time you saw modern warfare this good on a TV show? I guess you could quibble over "Of course the only three survivors were the main characters", but isn't the point of the season that it's their story?

Battlebots
Let's ignore my picks last week. It was a fluke. This week though, I'm sure I'll nail every pick.
Tombstone over Witch Doctor in seconds.
Bronco over Stinger The Killer Bee not in a knock out although in a one sided match.
Bite Force over Overhaul in a nail-biter.
Icewave over Ghost Raptor slowly and decisively.

Girl Meets World "Girl Meets Mr. Squirrels Goes to Washington"
So far, this show has followed a "one for us, one for them" approach to episodes. Up to now, season 2 has been far more for us (Boy Meets World fans) and, despite Eric's return looking like an "us" move, this was very much for them (the Disney Channel target demographic). It was an awful episode in nearly every way. I'm done talking about it.

Married "Thanksgiving"
I wish I didn't like Judy Greer and Nat Faxon so much. Otherwise, I'd be done with this show. They are giving good performances (I loved the opening tag where they dog on their daughter's clothing), but I don't enjoy the show. Odds are I'll give it another season due to inertia.

Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll "Don't Wanna Die Anonymous"
Nope. I'm done with this. I don't have affection for anyone in the cast. The plot is beyond contrived. I don't believe the timeline the show is putting forth. It wasn't funny. I won't go as far as calling it bad. I will say that I'm absolutely not a fan of whatever it's doing.

Bob's Burgers Season 1
A friend of mine keeps referencing the show and I'm running into other random podcast reviews about it. There's not point in trying to fight it. I can't promise I'll keep up with it. I like what I've seen so far.

Minions
I hate the minions. This confirmed that. That has value.

Halt and Catch Fire "Working for the Clampdown"
Seriously, I was all ready to give up on this show. Except for Gordon though, I'm completely sucked in. I hate the Mutiny business model, but I love the characters.

The Wire
I'm starting a rewatch. I realize that I was so lost when I watched it originally that it's like I'm seeing the first couple episodes for the first time since I recognize everyone immediately.

Delayed Reaction: Predator 2

What I Guessed It Was About: The Predators comes back to Earth. Last time it was in the jungle, so this time it should be more populated. Arnold isn't back, so it's probably an unrelated story entirely. I'm going to guess the only similarity is that it's a bunch of people with weapons who stumble onto the Predator and have to fight it.

How I Came Into It: The first Predator is pretty clearly a movie that works by itself, not as a launching pad for a franchise. The Predator character is original and fun, but the plot of a bunch of people trying to fight it with lesser technology isn't all that easily repeated. In other words, I had my doubts about this.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Danny Glover is an interesting replacement for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He wasn't an up or downgrade. Rather, he changed the tone more so than the setting change did. The action scenes were similarly well executed as the first movie, although in a far less exotic location.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Predator is more Commando than True Lies. You see, True Lies can be redone with another actor. Sure, some of the charm is lost, but someone else (Bruce Willis, for example) could add something new and equal to it. Commando is Arnold Schwarzenegger. His very specific presence makes it work. Predator worked due to Arnold and Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura. It was a testosterone-fest and that's why it is a fun movie. The producers of Predator 2 made the mistake of assuming that the Predator was the star of the movie.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Siege

What I Guessed It Was About: I have no idea what this is about. I assume that it is in no way related the Under Seige with Steven Seagal. I assume it's a military movie about some troops who are cornered and trying to get out alive from a heavy assault, the eponymous seige.

How I Came Into It: Guys, I might be an Edward Zwick fan. I didn't realize it until now. He directed Glory, Courage Under Fire, The Last Samurai, and that movie with Anne Hathaway getting naked all the time (Love & Other Drugs). I'll ignore Legends of the Fall and say that this is a very favorable sign going into The Siege, a movie that I knew absolutely nothing about.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) It seems that I have spent most of my first 27 years on this Earth seeing virtually evey big movie that didn't have Denzel Washington in it. I'm scared to even count the number of his movies that I only watched because of my Club 50 project. Again though, he's a god damn movie star in The Siege and most of it works because he's at the center of it all. I was still pretty young when 9/11 happened, so I forget that we were already making movies about Arab terrorists doing exactly that sort of thing years before it happened. I'm not sure what my point is about that. I just know that I checked the release date of this numerous times while watching it.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: It's a pretty infantile understanding of terrorism. I believe in one scene, Annette Bening explains that if you stop one terrorist cell, two more come to replace it, soon followed with her saying that there are four cells in New York that they need to stop to end the threat. That's called trying to have your cake and eat it too. The movie wants to appear savvy about terrorism and still have a threat that can be handled on binary terms (active or neutralized). It's one of those movies that makes me feel icky about Hollywood's depiction of Arab people, even with Tony Shalhoub's character there to try to diffuse the perception.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: That Awkward Moment

What I Guessed It Was About: Three incredibly handsome dudes go through relationship problems.

How I Came Into It: Here's what I know. Miles Teller is possibly my favorite actor under 30 right now. Michael B. Jordan isn't far behind. I've liked the career choices Zac Effron has made even if I'm still undecided about him. Imogen Poots was the only worthwhile part of Need For Speed. Mackenzie Davis is great in Halt and Catch Fire. Hell, even Jessica Lucas and Addison Timlin pop up all the time in things that I like. From a casting perspective, I had no reason to dislike this movie...

Why I Saw It: ...and that cast makes this work much more than it should. On paper, I don't like any of these characters. I don't care about their problems, because they aren't even real problems most of the time. Teller, Jordan, and Effron are so damn charming though. It's nothing short of incredible how much I enjoyed this movie, and it's because of what those three (and Poots and Davis etc.) were doing. They made this watchable.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: If I met any of these characters in real life, I would dislike them. That's a bad starting point. Then there's the "story" of the movie, which is that none of them would get in a serious relationship because Jordan's character is going through a divorce. It's not said as some big pact. It's barely made as a suggestion, yet somehow that motivates all of them to be dicks to the perfect women they meet. At least Tomcats had a cash incentive to motivate the stupidity. And the fallout for Teller and Effron falling in love is essentially "Dude, but you said you wouldn't get serious. Oh, well. I'm happy for you". It's a stupid movie, the kind that is only worth watching if, say, you are a huge Miles Teller fan and want to watch something with him that you haven't seen before and you've already seen Whiplash and The Spectacular Now and Rabbit Hole and Divergent and 21 & Over and and Footloose and Two Night Stand and you are certain that watching one of those first three or four again isn't an option. On a related note, I've seen way more of Teller's filmography than I thought I had.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Minions

Formula: Despicable Me * Penguins of Madagascar

Why I Saw It: It's not like I was going to see The Gallows.

[Voice] Cast: As expected, there's a lot of Pierre Coffin doing the minion voices. Sandra Bullock is the next most prominent person with Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, and Steve Coogan there too.

Plot: The minions have been around a very long time and they exist solely to find a boss. This didn't work out for a few hundred thousand years, so they put themselves in exile. Around 1968, they are nearly perishing from listlessness, so three of them, Kevin (Coffin), Stuart (Coffin), and Bob (Coffin) head out to find a new boss. After a brief stay in New York City, they stumble on the aptly-named Villain Con in a pre-Disney World (See "Desolate") Orlando. There, they find a prime candidate to be their new boss, a super villain named Scarlett Overkill (Bullock). She takes them back to England where they meet her genius husband, Herb (Hamm). Scarlett then tasks them with stealing the Queen of England's crown before she agrees to keep them around full time.

Thoughts:
This reminded me a lot of the Penguins of Madagascar movie. That too was a movie that I didn't hate, but I also thought was stretched too thin and limped to the end. I get the reasoning. People love the minions. I don't remember the last time side characters broke out from a movie to this level. There's a lot of humor to be mined from them and it's not like Illumination is worried about trying to play down to their audience.
On the surface, Minions is everything it's supposed to be. It's lively. There a lot of funny moments (some jokes, some slapstick, some visual gags). Unfortunately all the best moments have been used in the previews. The surrounding voice cast is great. Bullock has a lot of fun and I was surprised that I didn't recognize Hamm at all. The three main minions are distinct characters. I honestly don't recall how different they were in the Despicable Me movies, but they managed to feel like three developed characters.
The story streamlines directly into Despicable Me (it's hard to see how they do another one of these without Gru) and they need every minute of that story. Believe it or not, there's not a great deal to the minions. They were designed as side characters and that's how they function best. At times, this movie was like watching Forrest Gump if he wasn't so chatty, since the minions are mostly watching other people give speeches around them. The internal logic of the story is sound enough (by that, I mean prone to anarchy and absurdity). I got bored pretty quickly though. Even just 91 minutes felt too long

Elephant in the Room: I hate the minions. This is nothing new. Let's see. I've referenced it here, here, and here at the top of my head. It's rather remarkable that I even bothered to see this in theaters given my minion-fatigue and that the theater was a lock to be populated by loud, unruly children (I'll say this. The children could've been much worse). So, anything I say about this movie needs this section as a disclaimer. I find them more annoying than just about any characters in cinema right now. I tried so hard to get over it for this viewing experience and I couldn't.

To Sum Things Up (in 57 words or less):
For fans of the minions and/or Despicable Me movies, I'm sure there's plenty to enjoy. There weren't enough laughs to justify all the wasted plot in it for me though. They brought in the right supplemental voice actors to level my opinion of it, especially Sandra Bullock. Still, a mediocre effort.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Logan's Run

What I Guessed It Was About: Logan lives in a futuristic society. One day, he decides he's in the mood to go for a run. And run he does, from one coast of Oceania to another. Like John Galt's motor, he goes on an on, relying only on milk from milk bars and soma for sustenance and burning books for warmth. Eventually, he dies, because everybody dies in a dystopia.

How I Came Into It: I didn't know much about it beyond a stray Family Guy reference here and there. I knew it was a futuristic dystopia (before the Young Adult market got a hold of the genre). I was also aware of the more general assessment that it's an uneven movie.

Why I Saw It: Logan's Run does great work in building the world. I won't say it's all that plausible or holds up, but it is very much its own. The idea of no one living past 30 reminided me a lot of the godawful In Time movie, which continually made Logan's Run look better.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: The second half isn't nearly as engaging as the first. Once they are outside, the visuals are less striking and there's a lot of lulls. If not for the old man with all the cats, I'd call that half a complete bust.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Negotiator

The Pitch: Samuel L. Jackson is a negotiator who finds himself holding people hostage and - get this - needs a negotiator.

How I Came Into It: I believe this is what they call "vocational irony". There's always an apetite for good guys, backed into a corner taking hostages. It's such an easy conflict to make engaging.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I like Jackson and I like Kevin Spacey. I was raised on 90s thrillers like this so regardless of the quality of them, I'll always find them watchable.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: This is like a dozen other 90s thrillers. The plot points might be different, but gaps in logic, sensationalism, twists, and performances are the same. Something like Jackson not actually killing the one hostage should be a surprise, but at no point did I doubt if he left him alive. That's a problem.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Weekly 10: 7/3-7/9

This was a pretty lame week in terms of new shows and movies. Thankfully, god and/or revenue streams created reruns.

Halt and Catch Fire "10Broad36"
Is it weird that I both think this is a strong season and hope that it doesn't get a third season? They've been doing a lot of great stuff this season. Cameron and Donna are somehow the emotional core of the show, which is fitting since they are the best characters by far. Joe is great this week, embracing being the antagonist even though he's really on Mutiny's side. I'm done with Gordon for now, so the more they keep him on the sidelines, the better.

The Leftovers
I finished rewatching the season and damn does it hold up. It's at times oppressive and deeply nihilistic. It's also darkly comedic with powerhouse performances from Carrie Coon ("Guest"), Christopher Eccleston ("Two Boats and a Helicopter"), Justin Theroux, and Amy Brenneman (Despite saying exactly one word for 9 of the 10 episodes). I love the hell out of this show!

Terminator Genisys
Since seeing it, I've felt that critics are using this a bit too much as a punching bag. It isn't a great movie. It has major flaws, no doubt. Still, there's things to like about it. The action scenes are competent and I actually thought Emilia Clarke does well in a role that Linda Hamilton casts a large shadow over.

Battlebots
Let's just run down this week's matches:
Bite Force over Hypershock decisively.
Lock-Jaw over Overhaul pretty easily.
Overdrive over Witch Doctor barely.
Tombstone over Radioactive quickly.

Roxanne
I'll have more to say about this whenever I get my delayed reaction up. This movie is charming as hell and one of my favorite Steve Martin roles.

True Detective "Maybe Tomorrow"
I should've known they wouldn't be bold enough to kill off Colin Farrell, and that's probably for the best. It's pretty clear that this season isn't coming out as strong as the first season but it is growing on me. I've already determined that the season will live and die by how it does by Rachel McAdams. Thankfully, I'm a big fan of shots of the LA freeway system, so that will hold me over for a while.

Review with Forrest MacNeil
Ok...um, I wasn't ready for "Best Friend; Space".
For the dozen people who have seen this show, you know what I'm referring to.
For the vast majority of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, all I can say is watch this and you'll know. This is a strange show: one that I very much enjoyed.

Parks & Recreation Season 7
I haven't even finished rewatching the season and already it's better than I remembered. You know in 2010 when Parks and Rec, Community, 30 Rock, and The Office were all on one night on NBC? I miss when NBC was so in the toilet that it could keep all of those on.

American Ninja Warrior
More inspirational stories. More me hoping all of those people will fall on their face. I stand by my stance that they need a comedian as one of the announcers.

What's Love Got to Do With It
They very smartly saved that for the end of the movie.

Delayed Reaction: Monster-in-Law

The Pitch: Jennifer Lopez goes toe-to-toe with the mother of her fiance played by - who - Jane Fonda? - Really? - I don't need to read a screenplay. Greenlight this movie.

How I Came Into It: I don't particularly like Jennifer Lopez although I've found her RomComs to be very watchable. I don't have the right viewing history to know why, but I am at least aware that Jane Fonda was a big "get" for this movie. I was expecting Maid in Manhattan-level entertainment.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Jane Fonda is solid, despite playing a familiar character type. Lopez gets to take charge of her character a lot more than the previews suggest (I was prepared for her to mostly be a Fonda punching bag). Wanda Sykes, as is her specialty, shakes things up by bringing it her Wanda Sykes-ness to it all.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: God, people were really into laying into Jennifer Lopez when this came out, weren't they? A couple years removed from Gigli, she still didn't get all the Ben Affleck off of her and rode this to a Razzie nomination. This isn't Razzie-bad. Nothing ever is. The award is more about where public ridicule is swaying at the time rather than finding the actual worst thing. Don't confuse this with an endorsement though. The movie isn't funny, clever, or well acted. It's just not unwatchable. When I say that this isn't even my favorite Jennifer Lopez RomCom, I want you to stop and think about the severity of that indictment.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Ernest Saves Christmas

The Pitch: Ernest Saves Christmas.

How I Came Into It: Ernest P. Worrell. That was a thing, for a long time. Crazy, right? He started by appearing in regional commercials and managed to expand that into nine movies (five released in theaters). That's amazing. There must be other cases of this happening, but I can't think of any. I remember loving Ernest Goes to Jail as a kid. Ok, "love" is a strong word. Rather, I was fascinated by it. Something about Ernest, when I was a kid, I couldn't look away. I never sought his movies out, so there's still a couple I had yet to see. This was a great opportunity to see how Jim Varney's shtick holds up.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Well, this was exactly how I remembered the character. KnowhutImean? He's still rubber-faced and wacky. Still tormenting poor Vern. Still hard to look away from. Ernest fits perfectly in a world where Santa Claus is real.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Whatever it is about Varney's performance that is so special also doesn't translate past adolescence, I'm afraid. It's a big and oafish performance. I can see the appeal to the right age bracket. I am oddly curious to go back and watch some of the commercials that made him famous. Maybe I'm not as over Ernest as I thought.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Rules of Engagement

What I Guessed It Was About: There's a near-war conflict going on somewhere. The Middle East is a safe guess. The movie follows land troops caught in the middle of something, trying to stay alive, and a general who keeps telling them not to engage. Tensions rise. I'm pretty sure that if I continue this guess any further, I'll turn it into Behind Enemy Lines, so I'll stop here.

The Pitch: Courage Under Fire, but we know what really happened.

How I Came Into It: This blended in with several other war movies from this period. Behind Enemy Lines is the main one I confused it with. There are much better comparisons I now realize. A couple times, I thought of The Rules of Attraction instead, which then lead me to Laws of Attraction...It's a cluster fuck of stream of consciousness.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Every once in a while I like a good reminder that every level of government is dominated by people more concerned with covering their ass than searching for the truth. Not knowing where the movie was going, I didn't make notes of all the specifics of the inciting event when it happened, so I felt like I was being interrogated by the movie as well. That was pretty cool (or a sign that I need to pay more attention when I'm watching movies. It's best not to dig too deeply into this).

Why I Wish I Hadn't: This has the unfortunate structure of the most exciting scene is at the beginning of the movie. Sure there's courtroom tension and outbursts as the movie carries on. It's a letdown though. There's no fixing it either. Like, say, The Impossible, it's the story they are telling. It's still good, but the build is more difficult.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Terminator: Genisys

Formula: The Terminator * The Terminator - The Terminator ^ The Terminator / The Terminator + The Terminator

Why I Saw It: I like The Terminator

Cast: The film is populated by a mix of journeymen actors, up-and-comers, and veterans with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger (THE Terminator), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and no relation to Emilia, that I know of), Jai Courtney (I've seen far too much of his filmography - this, this, this, this, & this - to not have an opinion yet), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, commercials, and everything else), and Matt Smith (Dr. Who).

Plot: Ok, let's give this a try. We start in the future, in the moment when John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect his mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). For a while back in 1984, we see some familiar scenes from the original movie recreated. Then, things change. For a variety of reasons, I won't get into how things change, but here are the things you should know: Sarah is a badass already, Arnold is old but not obsolete, we haven't seen the last of John Connor, and the timeline is very different.

Thoughts:
Mileage will vary. The biggest determining factor for if you like this movie is how much you care about the mythology of the Terminator series. This is heavy on that. It leans into every Science Fiction element it can: time travel, alternate timelines, advanced technology. It's all there and historically, that's more niche than general audiences are ready to follow. What pulled me into these movies historically is the chase. The first two movies are great chase movies. This is not about the chase for very long. It's more of a ticking-clock, which interests me far less. In this case, the clock is a literal countdown and it's an arbitrary one.
This is clearly a summer action movie though. And it's a messy one. A little too messy for me. One of my major pet peeves is when chance becomes the star of a fight scene. When a character is hiding on one side of a wall and a blade comes through that wall, missing him by inches, that means the whole movie came down to dumb luck. The more times this happens without an explanation, the less interested I am. It wouldn't even take make to draw me back in. Add a beat to the scene where the character acknowledges the dumb luck and maybe I can forgive it. Don't play it straight though. Perhaps most people won't even notice this, but it's a major distraction for me.
All that said, there's a lot to like. I think Clarke does a wonderful job with Sarah Connor. It's both a great Linda Hamilton impression yet very much her own take on the character. I had concerns about if I'd be able to see her as anyone but Daenerys. She puts that to rest immediately. Arnold is still able to have a lot of fun with this role even if he's physically not there anymore. J.K. Simmons gets a refreshingly lighter role than he's normally given. I don't know the last time he played a genuinely nice and not imposing guy. He does it well. Jason Clarke has a thanklessly broad role that I forgive him for not pulling off. Jai Courtney I still haven't made up my mind about either in this or in general. I'll go ahead and say that he and Emilia Clarke have no chemistry. That isn't debatable.

Elephant in the Room: Can you explain how the new timeline works? No. I am not smart enough to understand the changes in the timeline. It's absolutely reached the point where any casual fan will be bewildered by tracking what's going on. I gets the broad strokes, enough to follow the movie, but that's about it. They've moved from one paradoxical timeline to infinite non-dependent timelines which can be interpreted one of two ways: 1) Complete narrative freedom or 2) Now no movie has any real stakes.

To Sum Things Up (in 57 words or less):
This is an easy movie to watch. There's action. There's humor. If you have no investment in the series, then it's a fine movie (think Jurassic World). For fans of the series it’s a mixed to empty bag. It touches on too many things that irritate me specifically to embrace it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

What I Guessed It Was About: Some orphaned kids move in with their great uncle who is just an awful dude. He does some cruel things to them. He's also probably involved in their parents dying or disappearing, because of course he is. They get back at him by pranking him to near death. Then the oldest daughter grows up and gets super attractive (Seriously, did you see her in Sucker Punch?).

How I Came Into It: I'm familiar with the book series as a thing that exists, although I didn't really know what they're about. I listened to a podcast once with the author and he talked about them a little. Jim Carrey and Emily Browning being in this was all I really knew though. And that it was intended for kids - I mean - families.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is a much better cast than I expected. Jim Carrey gets to do what he loves the most in comedy: play strange characters and do funny voices. Meryl Steeps has some fun too. I can't say I expected Billy Connolly, Catherine O'Hara, and others to show up although I was pleased to see them. The kids are fine too, mostly playing the straight man (men, women, whatever) to the bizarre adults. There's a wicked, dark sense of humor to the whole thing that I quite appreciated as well.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: The down side of gallows humor for kids is that it isn't allowed to get as dark as it wants to. I get why this is, but there were several points where a joke let up a beat before it got really dark, which would've played to my tastes more. Then there's the fact that the plot is pretty thin. It relies on the performers to make it seem more nuanced than it is (luckily, they hired the right cast for that). I didn't love the film because it wasn't intended for me. It's not much more complex than that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend