August [All]
Fly Away Home, Bad Boys, 13 Assassins, Penny Dreadful S3, R.M.N., The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Monolith, Arachnophobia, All of Us Strangers, Brooklyn, The Promised Land
- Fly Away Home [1996] - 73
A film oft seen around the Cacciatore household during the mid-late 90’s, Fly Away Home is a surprisingly good family-weight adventure film featuring baby versions of Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels, among others. I tossed this on because my animal-loving partner had never seen it, and I was impressed at how well it delivers the adventure genre within its PG rating. I don’t think this is quite good enough to be anyone’s favorite movie but, all in all, Fly Away Home manages to stand as an engaging and touching film nearly 30-years after its release.
- Bad Boys [1995] - 55
Only from one year before Fly Away Home, comedy-classic Bad Boys uh… doesn’t stand up so well. It’s fun enough if you like this sort of comedy [or comedy in general], but so much of the plot is centered around this “mistaken identity” theme that any of the action or police-procedural parts feel at war with the jokes, rather than the mix of genres gelling into something that’s both funny and intriguing like Hot Fuzz or Knives Out [the first, not the second, because two was awful]. I’m still intrigued to watch the second film in the series, as it seems to be the one most people talk about, but 1995’s Bad Boys was more something you’d keep from your mother because it’s a bad-time than because it’s edgy and breaks the rules.
- 13 Assassins [2011] - 82
A remake of a 1963 film by the same name, Takashi Miike [Ichi the Killer] has created a faithful reimagining using more modern tech, incredibly detailed sets and costumes, and cinematography that mirrors 60’s filmmaking while still feeling current and fresh. The storytelling in the beginning of the film is uh… let’s say “rocky”, but if you stick through it everything smooths out and becomes very clear fast enough, leading into a really excellent samurai-action film that is well worth your time.
- Penny Dreadful S3 [2016] - 80
And then we finally finished Penny Dreadful, and what a bitter-sweet ending this show has no matter how many times you’ve seen it. Though it’s ending is clearly rushed and the show had obviously intended for at least another full season, Penny Dreadful S3 still manages to put a stake right through your heart despite it’s demise coming at an overly accelerated rate. Driven by your love for the characters over the first two seasons and the impeccable performances of Rory Kinnear and Eva Green in particular, Penny Dreadful manages to send you off both wishing there was more and being sadly satiated with what you have. For a show centered around public-domain literary characters and gothic-horror violence, the writers manage to forge characters more deeply meaningful and moving than most multi-season dramas or hours-long films. As I’ve said before: If you’ve never made time for this show, I cannot implore you enough to do so now.
- R.M.N. [2022] - 87
The most recent film from creator, Cristian Mungiu [4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Graduation], R.M.N. spins the tale of a small Transylvanian village as its residents spiral into a xenophobic fervor over the new year holiday. The film is subtle, it’s quiet, and it’s absolutely brilliant. While R.M.N. is technically a drama, one would be fair to also categorize it as a “horror” of sorts as the writing put on display here and the attitudes of the characters within are almost too redolent of our own world to be entertaining. This is certainly not a film everyone will like as it does meander a little and is extremely patient and calm in its delivery, but I do think that it’s an important one in terms of perspective, intelligence, and depth of storytelling. This is a film that could be dissected scene-for-scene to find the intricacies of what Mungiu is saying, but also doesn’t need to be to gather the larger and overall message. While I think parts of it are a little too wandery and certain elements either don’t get resolved or are a bit obscure, R.M.N. still struck a rich and meaningful chord.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [2003] - 64
Having finished Penny Dreadful, I was reminded of this early 00’s action-adventure movie that I quite enjoyed at the time. Revisiting it, it’s still enjoyable enough, but it’s also got that undeniably early 00’s spunk about it. Everything character is edgy, every set and costume is either immaculate or derelict, almost all the lines are quirky quips, and every piece of CGI has that look to it that belongs wholly to the period. While I certainly don’t think that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is bad the way that online reviews would lead you to believe, it’s definitely very silly and entirely frivolous. That said… so is just about every Marvel film put out, and I genuinely cannot see the different between 90% of that material, and this movie.
- Monolith [2022] - 62
I was drawn to 2022’s Monolith because of how much its visual aesthetic reminded me of the 2018 scifi-indie Starfish [my #23 of what I watched in 2022, oddly]. Turns out, visual aesthetic is about all the two had in common. Monolith is a [mostly] single location scifi, which I tend to love. It centers around a single character trying to solve a mystery that ends up revolving around them… which I also tend to love. And it has a cold patience to its storytelling that draws you in and keeps you engaged, which we all tend to love [except maybe the cold part]. Somehow though, it manages to take all these pieces and do very little with them. It’s got a lot of hints of other great films inside of it, but seems to have missed all of their lessons and sparks, instead going for a tower of kindling and hoping to watch it self-ignite… which it doesn’t. Certainly not a bad film, it’s just a very bland one. As a debut piece, I find most of what’s going on inside of Monolith to be very exciting and I look forward to what creators Lucy Campbell and Matt Vesely do next.
- Arachnophobia [1990] - 86
Speaking of “Cacciatore Classics”, Arachnophobia genuinely holds up nearly 35-years later… and just in time for a remake slated around the corner. An engaging mystery spun around super-deadly creepy crawlies manages to avoid overdosing on camp while still being both fun and tense. It’d been over a decade since last I’d sat down with this one and I enjoyed my time with it immensely.
- All of Us Strangers [2023] - 83
All of Us Strangers is a 2023 drama/ romance centered around internal struggles and the ways we hold onto them; the ways they linger and fester and infect our relationships with those around us. I mostly really liked this and the performances are excellent across the board, I just wish the intro had been given a little more context so that the conclusion felt more grounded. Not a bad journey by any means, I just wish there’d been a few more clues along the way hinting at the ultimate outcome to facilitate a truly crushing ending like that of Linoleum, rather than a simple “and then this one more thing became true and you are sad about it” climax.
- Brooklyn [2015] - 68
A coming-of-age/ leaving-home-for-a-land-far-away romance, Brooklyn succeeds at having characters and events that you want to care about, but doesn’t do a great job of contextualizing either thing within a clearly communicated timeline, which ultimately makes them difficult to relate to. The foundation of the events in the film are strong enough that I’m intrigued to read the book on which its based, but the film struggles with translating the stakes of said events in any sort of way that ended up connecting with me.
- The Promised Land [2023] - 82
Writing this mini-review many months later [December 28th to be exact], I don’t remember many details about The Promised Land, but I do remember that everything about it was high quality, and that Mads Mikkelsen is always a joy to watch. Like all historical dramas, this story hinges hugely on relating the basic facts of what happened while spinning an interesting yarn for the viewer — something many biopics get hugely wrong, but one I remember this getting quite right. Not likely to land terribly high on my list for the year, but a film I’m glad I watched.
