Delayed Reaction: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Premise: Three men succeed in prospecting for gold then must hide and survive long enough to collect their riches.

I'm not sure why, but there's something satisfying about watching a movie in which people slowly lose a fortune. I knew from the opening frame that the three men weren't all ending the film with the gold. I didn't know if they would lose it a little at a time or all at once, but it was inevitable that they wouldn't keep it. "How" is what keeps the movie interesting.

This isn't my favorite Humphrey Bogart performance. It might be the one that surprised me the most though. I don't remember him ever being this pathetic. He isn't even that cool in this. He's a loser; paranoid and guileless. It was kind of nice to dislike him the whole time. The real star of the movie is Tim Holt as the old prospector. I love that laugh. It cuts the tension so well. I love that instead of ending the movie distraught, he turns it into "oh well, that's life".

I have to say, I don't get why the badges line became so famous. It's not that important to the story. It's a fun delivery, I suppose. There is a simple pleasure to saying "stinkin' badges", but how did that become one of the most famous (and misquoted) movie lines ever? The movie was a decent hit; not a blockbuster. I can't imagine the film was that ever-present. Anyway, it's nice to have some context for it now.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The House of the Devil

Premise: A babysitting job turns into something much more nefarious for a college student in the 80s.

There's something to be said about doing something familiar really, really well. The House of the Devil is an early 80s horror movie that just happened to be made in 2009. It's striking how perfectly Ti West mimics the beats and look of the era. Jocelin Donahue could just as easily be Jessica Harper in Suspria. The story of a satanic ritual during a lunar eclipse plays like it was written from an 80s horror mad libs. It's all familiar. Instead of playing against expectations, it leans right into them. And I loved it.

I really loved the patience of this movie. In the first hour of a 95-minute movie, the only actually frightening thing to happen is the demise of the best friend (Oh yeah: This movie has a super young Greta Gerwig), and even that comes pretty late in the hour. Before things finally escalate, it's all mood setting; tension building. The climax is then sufficiently scary, long, and exciting.

I'm going to need to track down the rest of Ti West's movies now.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Lovebirds

Premise: A couple on the rocks go on the run after unintentionally getting tied to a murder.

I've been on something like a hiatus from this blog the last couple months. I haven't entirely stopped writing things. I've just slowed down a lot. If you haven't heard, this COVID-19 thing has really shaken things up. My pipeline of new movies has dried up. My weekly streak of seeing movies in a movie theater that went back to 2012 was forced to end, meaning I haven't had a proper Movie Reaction in a while. In addition to that, my response to all this has been to go back to a lot of familiar movies rather than branch out to new ones. I've picked my own Blu-ray collection pretty clean and even binged the entire MCU in less than a week. Like most people, my "normal" has been thrown out of whack.

The same goes for The Lovebirds. This isn't the fate it expected. I was looking forward to seeing this movie in theaters. A comedy starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani? Sign me up! Then COVID-19 happened and this got shoved to a Netflix release. That's less exciting than a theatrical release, but I'll take anything at this point. Besides, this isn't the kind of movie that would lose that much from theater to streaming.

The Lovebirds ended up being exactly what it promised to be. Nanjiani and Rae are two of the most likable performers I can think of. I've barely even seen Issa Rae in anything, and I'm still a big fan. Nanjiani I'm a lot more familiar with from Silicon Valley, The Big Sick, and countless other appearances. He reteams with his The Big Sick director, Michael Showalter, for this. The movie leverages Nanjiani and Rae's innate likability and talent a lot. I can't say any of the jokes are inspired, but those two know how to sell them. They play off each other well too. I had my concerns going in that it would be a bickering couple movie. It's really not though. It's easy to see how they've been in a relationship for so long. They are a team throughout the movie, even though they are figuring out if the romantic part of their relationship is going to work out. The movie is entirely worth seeing on the strength of their performances.

That's good, because the plot is pretty forgettable. On the way to a party, Leilani (Rae) and Jibran (Nanjiani) are in the process of breaking up when a man commandeers their car, saying he's a cop. The man proceeds to kill a man and flee the scene before bystanders find Leilani and Jibran standing over the body. They panic and flee the scene. Figuring it's their only way to prove their innocence, they try to find and catch the real killer on their own. And the investigation goes all the way to the top. Senators and "Eyes Wide Shut" parties. It's some crazy stuff. Thankfully, the movie isn't trying to sell verisimilitude, so there's no need to worry about the plausibility. Except for one delightful twist toward the end, the story plays out in very familiar ways.

Look, it has two appealing leads used well. I laughed a couple times. It clocks in at a refreshing 1h26m. While I'm waiting for the next Tenet or Mulan that will get me into a theater, this was a charming distraction.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Queen of Katwe

Premise: A poor Ugandan girl turns out to be a chess prodigy.

By now, we all know the catalog of movies Disney makes. MCU, Star Wars, Pixar, Disney Animation, Live-Action Remakes, Pirates and other movies based on rides. It doesn't leave a lot of room on the schedule for the odd swing, but I'm glad they still make the effort occasionally. Queen of Katwe isn't such a departure from the Disney model either. Inspirational sports movies have been a favorite of theirs for 2 decades now. They may have peaked too early though. Since Remember The Titans became a massive hit (especially in its video and syndication life), they really haven't found the same success. Moderate hits like Miracle and Invincible made enough for them to keep making more. In the 2010s though, it was movies like MacFarland, USA and Million Dollar Arm that no one saw, so it makes sense that Queen of Katwe in 2016 is the last of these movies that they've tried.

Queen of Katwe is a perfectly pleasant movie though. Madina Nalwanga is a charming lead. David Oyelowo gets to smile more than I've ever seen him smile*. Lupita Nyong'o is great in a fierce mother role. I'd say that she was too young for that part, but the realities of that culture are that maybe she's the perfect age. I don't know enough to say for sure. Either way, she's plenty convincing. The rest of the kids they found are energetic and likable too. It's hard to be all that negative about this movie. Disney does a pretty good job of depicting the poverty of Phiona's village without looking down on it. I think it helps that we get glimpses of nicer parts of Africa during her assorted tournaments. And I've certainly never appreciated ketchup more.

*Granted, I need to watch a lot more David Oyelowo movies.

My only real complaint about the movie is that I could really feel the length. Even finding a way to chop off 10 minutes would've helped the pacing a lot. One of the things that's nice about a lot of the live-action Disney movies from the 90s was that they were surprisingly brief, despite the amount of story covered. Even Remember the Titans, which is a movie with a rather huge supporting cast, is 10 minutes shorter than Queen of Katwe.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Unfriended: Dark Web

Premise: A friends game night is ruined when one of their computers turns out to be previously owned by someone on the dark web.

The internet scares the shit out of me. I block all the negative possibilities out of my head as best I can, because, well, I couldn't function if I didn't. However, it's incredibly easy to scare me about the internet. Unfriended: Dark Web is a great example of taking a good idea and finding a better way to use it. Similar to the Ouija movies in that way. Unfriended is ok. It's the same general idea: a bunch of friends on a Skype call have horrible things happen to them. It takes a supernatural turn though that's harder to take seriously. Whenever I think of that blender scene, it makes me laugh rather than get chills. Unfriended: Dark Web is more grounded. Instead of the spirit of a dead classmate haunting them, it's people on the dark web targeting them. "Powerful internet cult" is an increasingly common idea (The Den, V/H/S) in horror and a not-too-distant cousin to home terrorization movies like The Strangers or even The Purge. While the deaths in this movie have some scares to them (except the friend who is shot down by the FBI. That one was so excessive that I had to chuckle), it's the different ways that their information could be accessed and used against them that's what really unsettled me. I'm more afraid of someone seeing my internet history than I am of being robbed. I can't be alone in that thought.

I won't pretend that Dark Web is a model of constraint. The setup is farfetched and more than a little contrived. Some of the visualizations of the "dark web" are pretty silly. None of the characters really pop. At times, the friends felt like a Benetton ad of horror character representation. Not all the twists really tracked. I'm certain the final twist would fall apart under even moderate inspection.

Still, I found the movie mostly effective. While I feel like it was mainly done for plot contrivance, I really liked the inclusion of the deaf girlfriend. That allowed it to have some beats that I don't normally get to see in a horror movie, like how easily the first Charon could follow her. The same with connection dead spots while he was on the subway.

I was expecting this to be a completely laughable effort, so the fact that it's reasonably scary and kept me off my computer for the rest of the night I saw it is a pretty nice turnaround. I'm not sure where else the Unfriended concept can go from here, but I'll be along for the ride if they come up with something else.

Side Note: This was not a great movie for having a spotty streaming connection. I watched it through HBO Now on my 32" TV. Every time the connection dipped enough to lower the picture quality even a little, it got hard to read what I needed to on the screen.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend