Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 41 - July 2022
By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar
Howdy everyone. I had originally written a different introductory paragraph but decided to scrap it in light of recent events so that I can - unfortunately once again - offer my condolences to anyone and everyone affected by the state of the country. I try to walk a line between not being preachy or condescending while still standing for what I believe in and, in what should not be a polarizing statement at all, I believe in human rights. It’s that simple.
But I am not here to bum you out (any further), in fact I’d like to do the opposite! My personal opinion is that, when things are awful and you feel like doing nothing, you should try to make something that could bring a little joy into the lives of someone else, someone who might be feeling like you are. So I keep putting out these silly columns in the hopes of giving y’all something fun to read, and maybe bring your attention to a movie or show you might not have been aware of, and maybe THAT will bring you some joy. To that end:
Hello again and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again, my monthly column where I search out all the entertainments coming to screens big and small in the coming month and focus on those that are based on some previous intellectual property or another. This means Remakes of older films, Adaptations of books/comics/etc., and Legacy Sequels that pick up where a movie or franchise left off a while ago. Also down at the bottom I’ll have a Spotlight for something that meets EOINA criteria but is available at home if like me, you’re not comfortable to be back in theaters just yet.
Alright? Let’s do it to it.
PREMIERES
Brand spankin’ new and awaiting your attention
July 1st
Minions: The Rise of Gru (dir. Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson, Jonathan del Val)
Where: in theaters
Let’s talk about things that everybody knows for a moment. The minions first appeared in 2010’s Despicable Me as henchmen in the service of Gru, a bumbling megalomaniac voiced by Steve Carell. Much like Nuprin, they were little, yellow, and different. Unlike Nuprin however the minions took the pop cultural landscape by storm and the world was never the same I guess. People seem to love the little gibberish-speaking, occasionally buttock-bearing creaturoids, enough to warrant their returns in two Despicables Me follow ups in 2013 & 2017, and their own spin-off in 2015 which explains their very odd origins. Specifically the fact that they’ve always existed alongside “normal” humans, for some reason always finding the most evil of masters to serve.
Which brings us to something everyone may not know: the sequel to the Minions spin-off is coming out July 1st! This entry, subtitled The Rise of Gru will apparently answer the question that we’ve all been just frothing at the mouth to ask: What were the early misadventures of Gru and the minions like? Well if the trailers I’ve seen are any indication (and they aren’t always, let’s face it) they look actually pretty fun. Fart bombing packed movie theaters in the ‘70s, using cheez-whiz guns, etc. Then young Gru, who the minions refer to as “mini boss” - showcasing a metatextual awareness that borders on a truly mind-shattering understanding of their place in the world - is kidnapped by a group of I’m guessing also villains for some reason and the minions must learn karate to save him. There’s shenanigans, animal transformations, training montages, and kaiju so all in all I’m probably solidly on board for this. I’ve always had a good time with the Despicable Mes even if all the sequels and spin-offs have left very little lasting impression on my life (more like Disposable Me, amirite?)
My big qualm with these trailers is the use of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” - or more accurately a remix of it - a music choice that is not only bafflingly anachronistic, but also feels …wrong? That song was written for and made famous via Eight Mile. It is specifically tied to that film. So unless you’re parodying or referencing it, you shouldn’t use that song. They might as well have scored the trailer to the song Eminem did for Venom, the lyrics of which as far as I recall are “Venom… ren-ren-ren-ren-renom” and then something about “denim”. But I digress.
Now very quickly let me tell you something that almost no one knows about: The secret origins of the minions! They were obviously inspired by one single moment in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho which finds infamous character actor Udo Kier wearing big goofy goggles and riding a cyclopic yellow motorcycle in the desert. Here I present to you the genesis for minionkind:
Is this a coincidence? A mere echoing of form and design that would, on a long enough timeline, all but HAVE to reemerge? Maybe. Or maybe Udo Kier is the alpha minion; the omega minion. Cut me a check, Universal/Illumination!
8th
Thor Love & Thunder (dir. Taika Waititi)
Where: in theaters
Picking up where we last left him, Thor has shed his Avengers Endgame weight (a second training montage!) and found that his once kinda-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is now actually Thor, or at least she’s the current wielder of the mighty magical hammer Mjolnir and therefore now possesses all of its powers and responsibilities. Weird timing because who should show up but some yassified Uncle Fester named Gorr (Christian Bale) who’s got a grudge against all gods (in the comics, his sobriquet is “the God Butcher”) and is going to endeavor to wipe them all out.
Marvel Comics have always had an odd, anything goes approach to theologies, with most being explained as “they were aliens who primitive humans worshiped and called gods” so it’s not surprising to me to see that other pantheons of space-gods will be showing up. Notably, Zeus as played by Russell Crowe. Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and a bunch of the Guardians of the Galaxy also seem to be appearing. This God Butcher storyline comes from a comparatively recent run of the Thor comics that was pretty well received but will obviously have to be handled a little differently in the movie for brevity of both time and content.
I like Taika Waititi. He seems like a decent guy, he’s a snappy dresser, he stands up for marginalized people, and he makes fun movies. He kind of single handedly revived the MCU’s Thor franchise after the floundering of The Dark World by injecting color and humor into things (and not just the snarky, tryhard cleverness that has become Marvel’s house style). Therefore I look forward to seeing Love and Thunder.
13th
What We Do In the Shadows: Season 4 (series)
Where: Hulu
Returning for its fourth season, What We Do in the Shadows promises to somehow be even crazier than in previous seasons. This show, based on the 2014 faux documentary horror comedy from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, has only gotten more complex and it builds on centuries of (often conflicting) vampire lore, while also creating its own. That’s not a bad thing by the way, because of the show’s breezy tone and deft hand at catching the audience up (the faux documentary format allows for characters to directly address the camera, which helps).
This season promises horndog Laszlo (Matt Berry) attempting to raise the now toddler-aged energy vampire Colin Robinson (played by Mark Proksch as an adult, and maybe also by him as this kid?) and make him “the most interesting adult there has ever been”, which is just patently not how it works for energy vampires. Meanwhile Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), who I believe is still head of the vampire council (?), opens a nightclub in an attempt to lure wealthy humans to feed on because “(they) are like veal; conceptually repulsive but so buttery on my tongue”, and warrior/wife-guy Nandor (Kayvan Novak) is on his quest to find a new wife that includes magically resurrecting his previous 37 wives, aided by his manservant and default bff, the great vampire killer Guillermo (Harvey Guillén).
This is a favorite show of my house, Mt. Mausoleum. We will be watching.
15th
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (dir. Mark Koetsier, Rob Minkoff, Chris Bailey)
Where: in theaters
Though this computer animated samurai tale starring anthropomorphic animals voiced by some of Hollywoo’s most notable voices isn’t directly adapting any one thing, it further underlines the connection between the so called far east and wild west by being inspired by Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles! That’s right. Westerns have always shared a lot of DNA with tales of samurai or ronin - they’re both about dangerous warriors, sometimes loners, who have strict moral codes and are guided by honor, usually in contrast to the villains of their tales, who hunger for power and money.
But it’s still w-i-l-d that Brooks’ 1974 parody of the western genre is the basis for this story about a wimpy dog (Hank, voiced by Michael Cera) who must train (a THIRD training montage!) with a once great samurai (Samuel L. Jackson) to defend his town against bad dogs. It brings to mind (MY mind, anyway) the problem of video game movies. The draw of a game like Tomb Raider was that it was LIKE Indiana Jones, but you could play it at home, the same way Mortal Kombat was similar to something like Bloodsport. But then when you try and translate these things back to the format that inspired them, they just feel trite. I guess we’ll see how universal the tropes and clichés of film westerns are when applied through the milieu of samurai story AND animated talking animal farce. Well, somebody will see, but I’m not personally very excited for this beyond the oddity of its origins.
Where the Crawdads Sing (dir. Olivia Newman)
Where: in theaters
Though I’ve never read Delia Owens’ 2018 novel on which this film is based, it was covered on a special bonus episode of the Disney Deviants podcast, which I’d be remiss not to mention (I *am* podcast czar afterall). The story follows Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) a.k.a. The Marsh Girl who, as some narration from David Strathairn informs us, was abandoned by her family and lived alone in the marsh, shunned by the local non-marsh townies. Despite this, she grows up to be very clean and pretty with all her teeth and whatnot and she even has a potential romance with some generic handsome guy. BUT. A murder happens in the swamps and she’s to blame, since she’s a weirdo outsider.
Also, I am disappointed to announce that there does not seem to be a training montage of any kind (in that Kya seems to learn how to do stuff on her own, without the aid of a mentor) thus breaking the streak (WWDIS got a pass because it’s a series).
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (dir. Anthony Fabian)
Where: in theaters
Y’know what I hate in a movie trailer? When a character makes a joke that’s (probably) funnier in the context of whatever scene it’s in, and then the trailer editor cuts to characters laughing in some completely different scene. It’s fucking insulting. As though whoever has final trailer approval thought “if we don’t show people laughing, the audience won’t know it’s ‘funny’”. It’s the same theory as those sitcoms that use pre-recorded laugh tracks and fuck them too.
Anyway, the plot of this movie is essentially that episode of Simpsons where Marge finds a Chanel suit on a crazy discount and her chic look helps get her and her family invited into Springfield high society. Mrs. Harris (Manville) is a cleaning woman in London during WWII patiently awaiting the return of her husband from the war. One of her patrons has a beautiful and very expensive Dior dress which ignites a fanaticism in Mrs. Harris, so when it is revealed that her husband had died and that she should have been notified long ago, and been collecting her war widow benefits, she decides to use the money (a gift, she feels, from her beloved dead husband) to go to Paris and buy a Dior dress.
Of course the hoighty toighty French Dior employees try to upper crust her right out on her ass before a gentleman (who I believe is played by Lambert Wilson, but don’t hold me to that) invites her to be his personal guest. Things after that seem to get a little bit The Devil Wears Prada, with Mrs. Harris being privy to the inner workings of the Dior company while also doling out life advice and maybe finding love?
This looks super cute and, similarly to Where the Crawdads Sing, I’ll be awaiting the day I can watch it from my couch but I’m not itching to get my Mrs. Harris on.
29th
DC League of Super-Pets (dir. Jared Stern, Sam Levine)
Where: in theaters
In the comics, last I checked (admittedly not that recently) the Legion of Super-Pets were a group of DC animals that were connected to the Superman family of titles and characters. There was Krypto the super dog (Superman’s dog on his home planet of Krypton who Superman’s scientist dad shot into space to test the escape rocket that would eventually save baby Superman’s life), Beppo the super monkey (who had stowed away in baby Superman’s rocket), Streaky the super cat (Superman’s cousin Supergirl’s pet cat who was exposed to some rare kryptonite that gave it superpowers) and Comet the super horse (which, strangest of all was a former centaur now in an all horse body). Later there was also a shape-changing alien named Proty 2.
When I first heard that they were planning on making an animated family comedy with Rock ‘The Dwayne’ Johnson voicing Krypto, I was (no pun intended) super excited because: c’mon! Go re-read all that crazy shit I typed above! There’s so much goofy/weird Superman lore in there and THEN there’s a horse that used to be a centaur! I couldn’t wait to see them explain all this and work it into some kind of continuity (even if it was just for its own sake and wouldn’t be part of a larger DC cinematic universe).
But alas, they have elected to instead create a bunch of easier to understand new characters, all from the same pet store and with the same origin (something also involving a kryptonite shard). They all get discrete superpowers: a turtle that’s ironically fast, a pig that gets big, a different dog that is also indestructible, and an electric squirrel. The plot appears to be a guinea pig (in both senses of the word: a rodent from the species which originated in the Andes that has apparently been used in scientific experimentation) named Lulu which has used kryptonite to weaken and kidnap Superman and only faithful dog Krypto (Johnson) and his ragtag group of pet shop refugees can save him.
Good voice cast in this one, though. Aside from The Dwayne, there’s his ubiquitous real life buddy Kevin Hart, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna as the Super Pets, Kate McKinnon as Lulu, John Krasinski as Superman, Keanu Reeves as Batman, and apparently Marc Maron as Lex Luthor (who I would presume to be behind the who Lulu kidnapping Superman plot).
This looks fun enough, but I’m not gaga over it. It is unclear from the trailer if there will be a training montage, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. And hopefully if this gets a sequel, they’ll introduce Supergirl and her weirdo pets. I want to watch them to explain that Super horse to kids.
SPOTLIGHT
Raves from the EOINA grave
What We Do In the Shadows (seasons 1 - 3) (series)
Where: Hulu
I can’t recommend WWDIS enough. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. The movie from 2014 seems to only currently be streaming through Kanopy, but it really isn’t a necessary part of the prep for the series. It’s great and I love it, but very little of it carries directly over. Instead watch the first 3 seasons, all available on Hulu, and get to know the ever-expanding cast of characters. Aside from the main stars, last season added Kristen Schaal as an aid to Nadja in her vampiric council duties and previous seasons have featured tons of guest stars and strange characters including vampire dogs, sentient puppets, and half a Doug Jones ancient vampire Baron. It’s wild, funny stuff that is also quite sweet. I literally can’t recommend it enough, but it does get a little complicated as the series rolls along, so I strongly recommend a series re/watch to prepare or refresh yourself before the new season hits.
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Thank you as always for reading and thanks to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. If you’d like to check out the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast, which I co host with fellow Jawnie Allison Yakulis, we have two episodes which exemplify the diversity of the films we are willing to cover. First on July 13th we have an episode on the truly abysmal Foodfight! (2012) famous for its troubled production, followed by an episode on Gus Van Sant’s 1991 Shakespearean update My Own Private Idaho (the origin of the minions!) dropping on July 17th!
I hope July is a better month for us all than June was but no matter what happens, I’ll be back with a new column next month for August’s releases. See you then!
Until next time - Long Live the Movies!
