December 2024 Movie Reviews
Music Movies and Kitties!!!!
This is an introduction to the movie review article. I need to write an introduction to a movie review article because it looks weird if I just start out with the movie reviews. I like writing movie reviews so here are some movie reviews.
Music Movies
Babymetal Legend 43 – The Movie
I loved this movie. Babymetal is my new hyper-focus. This is a pretty straightforward concert movie from their 2024 Okinawa concert. I hope it comes out on DVD or streaming soon because I want to see it (hear it) again and again. I don't know why but they snuck it into movie theaters without promotion. It played 7:30 Wednesday and 4:30 Sunday and that was it. Was this some kind of a magic number like Stephen King with 19 and Taylor Swift's 13? I don't know. I wouldn't have known about it had I not checked showtimes that week. I managed to see the Sunday show and still expected a bigger audience.
I had assumed that Appetite for Destruction was the last great metal album. I might have enjoyed the odd Korn or White Zombie song, but I was done with the genre. I even enjoyed the odd Babymetal video but after 85 minutes I again love heavy metal. The draw is the three cute hyperactive Japanese women singers, but the whole band is amazing with the most hardcore drums and guitar riffs in modern music.
Beyond the hits, this is a testament to over a decade of evolution and experimentation. Babymetal has incorporated everything from Japanese drumming to disco into its catalog. I barely knew their song catalog going in, but I did recognize the hits like “Gimme Chocolate” and “Ratatata.” When this comes to streaming watch it. You might be able to find the concert on YouTube, but I don't know if that's legal and this band should get all the royalties.
A Complete Unknown
Biopics gets hate for their simplistic narratives, hagiographic overtones and gratuitous time skips, which is a little like criticizing opera for being melodramatic. A Complete Unknown avoids some of those pitfalls by confining the narrative to the early years, ending when Dylan went electric at the Newpor Folk Festival, with the requisite reference to Pete Seeger's axe story. It's also taking cues from Don't Look Back by portraying Bob Dylan at his most dickish.
Unlike I'm Not There that used Christian Bale for folksinger Bob and Cate Blanchett for smartass rocker Bob, this movie has Timothee Chalamet playing Bob Dylan as both earnest and full of shit. Joan Baez calls him an asshole in almost every scene they share. His girlfriend has to remind him to take out the garbage when she leaves New York. Of course, the place is going to look like a college dorm room when she gets back. He even keeps popping up long after they break up. Instead of explaining his behavior with a dead brother or a drug addiction, the movie just plays up the fact that he was in his 20s and extremely famous before his 22nd birthday.
The movie's not perfect. Almost every woman besides Joan Baez gets sidelined (especially Toshi Seeger). There are too many easy coincidences and the Newport Folk Festival organizers come off like one note villains. Doesn't matter. The music is great. The movie sticks to a limited time period and Timothee Chalamet is incredibly fun. For all of Bob's growth and evolution, he's still an hilarious smartass. Chalamet captures that aspect perfectly. Perhaps we can see sequels about Dylan's motorcycle accident, divorce, western movies, Christian phase, We are the World contribution, Chabad Telethon appearance, Victoria's Secret ad and Xmas album.
Kitties!!!!!
Nosferatu
Speaking of sexism, all versions of Nosferatu have ended with the Mina character sacrificing herself to kill Count Orlock. Robert Eggers gives her more depth and agency, but that almost makes it worse. Count Orlock seduced her with his mind. Lily Rose Depp is great. You really feel for her dilemma and pain. This is a slow deliberate movie that will haunt you for days, even weeks.
There's a great deal to love. Like all Robert Eggers movies, it's beautiful if a little boring in places.The acting is great. Nicholas Hoult looks like he's going to fall apart every time Orlock talks. Orlock is used spraringly but Skarsgaard plays him with a bullying power that dominates everyone. He even has that novel specific mustaches. Willem Dafoe is working his hardest as the Van Helsing character. The character is not nearly fleshed out in Nosferatu as he is in Dracula. He's still a powerful presence that never meets Orlock but can definitely anchor the movie.
The more I think about it, the more I like it. Happily as Willem Dafoe makes his final speech, he steals the cat from Mina and Harker. (Yes, I know their names were changed from Dracula) It's an adorable cat.
Kraven the Hunter
Due to bad press, I enjoyed this movie. No one wanted the Sony Spiderman Extended Universe. Only the Venom movies managed to overcome the “come on just give Spiderman back to the MCU” resistance. I went in prepared to laugh at a terrible movie with bad cgi, ridiculous dialogue and silly accents. The lion looks silly but the bear at the end was the funniest part.
This is mostly a standard action movies with great set pieces. Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola (as Rhino) are both having a great time and it's infectious. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is serviceable as Kraven. Every time the action lags, something ridiculous pops up. Some subplots are origin stories for Marvel characters that I don't recognize. In the last scene Kraven puts on the lion vest and stares at the mirror. I suspect that the original screenplay went “he puts on the lion head vest, like holy shit, he puts on the vest and looks all bare chested and cool just like Kraven. The audience is going to freak the fuck out!!!!”
I'm actually sad that Sony is halting these ridiculous movies. For all the embarrassing scenes and plot points, this movie is still much better than Deadpool vs. Wolverine. The characters aren't winking at the camera every scene and going oooh look at us we're sooooo cute with our edgy humor and boring no stakes battles. There is only one Whedon quip and it passes by without notice.
Also Kraven's biggest fear is spiders. How is that never going to pay off?
Flow
A black cat lives in an abandoned house full of cat sculptures. Apparently the cat was once loved but the house owners either died or abandoned it. Then the floods come. This is a cartoon from Latvia and the animation is beautiful. Whether its in the future or the distant past is unknown. The floods are coming. The cat runs to survive and finds friends, which it befriends like a cat – lots of hissing but eventual affection. I love that this is a cartoon cat who actually acts like a cat. I don't mind cartoon cats with big eyes who sing and go shopping, but it's nice to see a movie with a cat that actually likes like a cat.
Either way, it's adorable. There is no dialogue and since we are with the cat, we never get an infodump explanation. It's just a cat and its new animal friends on a boat trying to survive in a world where the waters are rising. My phone's trending stories gave me a story about Bill Hader declaring it the best movie of the year. I might have to agree with him.
By virtue of New York tenant laws and my landlord’s reluctance to file eviction papers (and do repairs), I am not homeless. However, I really could use help as my main income stream mostly died last year so if you could get a paid subscription or contribute to my gofundme, I’d be most grateful.
As the Sesame Street song goes you should keep Xmas with you all through the year, so buy a Kindle book entitled Sugarplum Zombie Motherfuckers.
Finally, Toshi Seeger got relegated to Pete Seeger’s very supportive wife in A Complete Unknown when she really did a great deal and should get her own movie. Read more about her here…
