"Top Ten" List - #7

 7. I Respect a Wild Swing

Most of these movies are pretty flawed – perhaps hopelessly so – but I still respect the bold moves these filmmakers are making, even if it doesn’t always work.

Doctor Strange in the Multitude of Madness

This turned out to be something very different for Marvel and I was kind of here for it. It gets a little lost in the weeds, and I’m still not sure how I feel about making Wanda some mega-villain (her arc in WandaVision is understandable, but this movie takes her into straight-up supervillain territory and I just kept wanting to scream at her “THOSE ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN”). I love the little continuity details, like Wong being Sorcerer Supreme because Strange disappeared for five years. Loved seeing Rachel McAdams again and getting some closure to that story. Loved the introduction of America Chavez and that the whole story is essentially about her. And I loved that Sam Raimi just said screw it and went full-on zombie!Strange. I liked the Illuminati scene at the time, but its power lies in the surprise of who we’re seeing and looking back I’m less fond of it. Not perfect, but certainly not boring. (I also have no interest in comparing this to that other multiverse movie from this year.) (Available on Disney+ and to rent on other streaming services.)

Elvis

I wrote a bit about this on FB, but I loved a lot of this, even as some of it made me cringe. Austin Butler is flawless and he’s the entire reason the movie works at all. Tom Hanks could not be more of a head-scratcher, though. His non-surface character work is actually quite good, and he successfully weaponizes his long-running audience goodwill to create this incredibly manipulative man who pulled Elvis’s strings for so long. But he leans far too much on the accent and voice, which makes him very difficult to take seriously. Also, I don’t have a problem with the movie leaving certain things out, because a movie cannot be about every dang thing (even though Priscilla’s age and Elvis’s predation is a pretty huge dang thing). And I cannot imagine faulting the movie for being a gaudy mess because so was Elvis. Plus, it’s a Baz Luhrmann movie, so if you’ve seen literally any of his other movies, you should know to expect a tacky tiara of a movie. Ain’t nothing wrong with a tacky tiara. Tom Hanks, though … yeesh. Also, the oft-memed “he’s white?????” sequence is truly hilarious. (Available on HBOMax and to rent on other streaming services.)

Halloween Ends

Hoo boy, the Discourse on this movie was exhausting! I liked the 2018 movie, though I somewhat agreed with the complaints about Laurie’s character and her entire life revolving around Michael. I was less enamored of HALLOWEEN KILLS because it sidelines Laurie and other legacy characters (killing most of them, actually) and focuses on Tommy and the town mob. (Also because they’ve now turned Michael into more of a Jason Voorhees. Yes, there’s a difference.) And I was kind of dreading HALLOWEEN ENDS as a result. But it was actually pretty darn good. Seriously. I kind of loved that, knowing what the fans undoubtedly expected for this final chapter, they decided to go the SEASON OF THE WITCH or FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART V route and focus on a whole new character. They give us a Laurie who has finally moved on and done some healing (the grocery store scene with Frank actually made me cry). Don’t get me wrong; there are some sketchy moments, but this might have been my favorite of the trilogy and I feel certain it will be reappraised in a decade or so. (And for what it’s worth, that kid in the opening sequence had it coming.) (Available on Peacock and to rent – not cheaply – on other streaming services.)

Men

So weird, so unexpected, and maybe a lot on the nose, but I mostly dug it. Jessie Buckley plays a woman who rents a beautiful country manor house to take some time away after the (probable?) suicide of her husband. Between this movie and BARBARIAN, I wouldn’t be surprised if Airbnb’s (and the like) business has gone down a bit. The movie’s schtick is that every man in the town is played by the same actor (Rory Kinnear) and they are each an embodiment of negative male characteristics. There’s a lot of beautiful English landscape to look at, and there’s also a lot of disturbing and unsettling imagery. The “birthing” sequence is quite a lot to deal with, and the ultimate meaning of it is perhaps not as smart as it’s trying to be. Still, it certainly gives you something you’ve never seen before, which is what horror should always try to do. (Available to rent on streaming services.)

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

We’ve seen this kind of story before (which is one reason I’m not ranking it higher, despite enjoying it quite a bit) – movie star plays themselves (or sometimes a fictional facsimile) and skewers or otherwise examines their public image. The story around the star’s performance is usually fairly boilerplate and this movie is no exception. I could take or leave the CIA plot, which boils down to “person who has no business getting mixed up with spy shit gets hopelessly entangled in spy shit,” but the relationships are where this movie’s juice is. The relationship between Cage and Javi (played by Pedro Pascal), the relationship between Cage and his movie family, and, weirdly, the relationship between Cage and “Nicky,” an avatar of himself that is younger and more successful. With Javi being such an obsessed Nic Cage fan, we get tons of fun details and references to Cage’s previous work – like the lifesize statue of Cage’s FACE/OFF character (complete with matching golden guns). Perhaps the greatest part of the movie, though, is the well-deserved lovefest for PADDINGTON 2. (Available on Starz and to rent on streaming services.)

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Like many children of the 1980s, I grew up with “Weird” Al and his parody songs. I can’t say I was the hugest fan of his, but I did enjoy him and have a good deal of affection for him. He always seemed to have such a different life and career than everyone else on the radio, and that has always fascinated me. So I loved that, when someone decided to make a biopic (of sorts) about him, it followed the pattern of his best known songs and was a straight-up parody of everything we’re used to seeing in these kinds of stories. There are a few things in this movie that hew closely to the truth, but none of it is meant to be taken seriously and I love that. A lot of it is not my particular brand of humor, but there are unmistakable notes of genius here, especially the pool party with all of the celebrities, and the idea that Al wrote “Eat It” as an original that *Michael Jackson* then parodied. Daniel Radcliffe seems oddly cast to me (Weird Al is so TALL and bless him Dan is not), but then perhaps that was exactly the point. (Available on the Roku Channel.)