"GLORIOUS" (2022)

Glorious (2022)
Directed by Rebekah McKendry
Written by Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry, Todd Rigney
Starring Ryan Kwanten, J.K. Simmons, Sylvia Grace Crim
Running time 79 minutes
Currently unrated but contains violence, malevolence, existential dread
Glorious is available on Shudder beginning August 18th

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

The concept of a Horror/Comedy is to be a hard one for some people to pin down. They seem to want to know what one definitively *is* and *is not*. The problem with that is how easy it is to slip off of that razor thin forward slash separating the two categories. Then you have people arguing that a film isn’t a “Horror/Comedy” as much as a “Comedy with Horror elements” or conversely “a Horror movie that is funny”. The thing is, these are all just degrees of Horror/Comedies. Shaun of the Dead, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Scream, Idle Hands, Scooby-Doo; they all qualify. The argument for any of them could be made. It’s just a matter of degrees where they fall on the spectrum, and a matter of taste as to what a viewer personally enjoys.

The overall success of a Horror/Comedy in my eyes mostly depends on how well it establishes and maintains its tone. Glorious, I’m happy to say, does a pretty damn good job of maintaining its tone once it has laid the foundation for it, though that takes a minute. The film starts with Bing Crosby and the Bell Sisters singing “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie” which, while idiosyncratic for a film set in the current day about a cosmic horror inhabiting a truck stop bathroom, doesn’t in and of itself scream “comedy”. We then see Wes (Ryan Kwanten) emotionally distraught over an apparent breakup, pulling over at said truckstop and having a brief interaction with a state trooper (Tordy Clark) who serves as the harbinger, saying enigmatic things that make you question Just What Is Going On Here?, before watching Wes get blackout drunk and burning a bunch of stuff in a nearby fire pit.

The film firmly sets its tone the next morning, once Wes uses the men’s room and begins his interaction with “Ghat” (J.K. Simmons). A lot of the humor in Glorious comes from the absurd and when you really think about it, that absurdity is compounded. An ostensibly normal human man having a conversation with a creature so fundamentally alien and unlike mankind that it may as well be a god - there’s nowhere in our world where that meeting doesn’t feel completely insane. However, there are certain places that would make just a hair more sense than others. Places long unventured by mankind, like an abandoned church reclaimed by nature, a cavern in the sea so deep it has never seen sunlight, or Quibi headquarters. The fact that Glorious’ meeting takes place in adjoining stalls of a rest stop men’s room makes all the forthcoming conversations about cosmic destiny and the fate of mankind even more ridiculous.

Just as none of us can decide where and when we are born into the world, Ghat has no control over where he has begun to manifest a physical form. He also has no say in his nature: he is fated to destroy everything; was created specifically for the job. Of course, there may be a way for Wes to prevent it, or else why would they be talking? On top of that, Wes has to wrap his head around this while recovering from a hangover on the heels of a pretty serious seeming breakup. It’s not an enviable position, and Ryan Kwanten projects just how miserable and out of his depth Wes is at any given time. He’s irritable, desperate, afraid, scheming, and hurt all while being given a perverted version of the hero’s quest ultimatum in order to save the world.

J.K. Simmons has shown across pretty much his entire storied career that he can handle different tones. He can be stern, cold, mean, or downright evil just as easily as he can be sympathetic, despondent, supportive, or genuinely loving. He draws on all these emotional states in a performance that is purely vocal here, as it would break Wes’ - and likely our - brains to look upon Ghat’s form in our world. And I have to say: J.K. Simmons makes a great eldritch deity. He’s surprisingly warm and friendly for an unknowable beast destined to smite all of existence.

Working with a slim budget, especially when tackling a concept that could lend itself to a huge one, is always going to be a challenge. Glorious is helped somewhat by its single main location, but I’m sure that was an additional challenge for director Rebekah McKendry. She makes the most of it with interesting visual asides that break up the monotony of the setting: shots focusing on details present in the bathroom like grimy surfaces, a cracked mirror, and later, blood on the tiles. These visual breathers when combined with the occasional flashback, vision, and even animated sequence (!!!) help keep viewers invested in what mostly boils down to a dialogue-heavy two-hander.

Glorious kept me guessing, kept me off-base, and kept me smiling for its entire (relatively short) runtime. It builds to a very intense climax, both emotionally and viscerally, but in a way that feels inevitable, and not like a cheap bid for shock value. Along the way it plants seeds in your mind that you’ll be turning over in your head afterwards, all while falling firmly on the much debated spectrum of Horror/Comedy. Exactly where it falls is up to you.

Below I’ve included my version of a popular iceberg meme to help give you some idea of what I view as the spectrum of the Horror/Comedy genre. I encourage you to make your own! It’s fun!*

*Note to self: Remove this line if it is not, in fact, fun to make.

Glorious is available on Shudder beginning August 18th

"BULLET TRAIN" (2022)

Bullet Train (2022)
Dir. David Leitch
Written by Zak Olkewicz, based on a novel by Kôtarô Isawa
Starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, (Michael Shannon)
Running time 2 hours, 6 minutes
Rated R for bloody violence, pervasive language
In theaters August 5th

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Boy howdy did I have a good time with Bullet Train! While it’s not going to leave any lasting emotional imprint on you, or win accolades for its stunt work or choreography, David Leitch’s latest is a big, candy colored actioner with hit after hit of instant gratification, like pumping dollar after dollar into a gachapon machine. It does some really interesting things with music, and running gags and in its best moments genuinely approaches the avant-garde. BUT. Fair warning (and my biggest point of criticism) There’s not enough Michael Shannon. Not by damn sight.

Brad Pitt plays a mercenary returning to the job after some time off while he’s been seeing a therapist and generally trying to self-actualize past his belief that he is cursed with unending bad luck. To that end, his handler has christened him Ladybug as his new codename, drawing on the belief that Ladybugs are lucky. He’s non-violent and only took this particular job because A) it’s supposed to a basic Grab-The-Briefcase-And-Leave job, and B) the other guy called out sick.

Unfortunately for him, the briefcase is located on the titular bullet train traveling to Kyoto which is positively bursting with other, much less pacifistic mercenaries. As they make themselves known to the audience, and/or Ladybug, the film jumps around in time explaining how and why they’re all unknowingly convening on this train. Some are working, some are seeking revenge. The twins, Lemon and Tangerine (Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson respectively) are escorting the son of a crime boss, recently rescued (by them) from kidnappers. The briefcase Ladybug is after was the ransom money, but he doesn’t exactly know that.

Also on the train is Kimura (Andrew Koji), a father whose son was pushed from the roof of a department store. He was lured to the train by the person responsible, who intends to use Kimura as a weapon against the same crime boss whose son is now on board. This crime boss is Michael Shannon, a Russian who rose through the ranks of a Japanese crime family due to his sheer brutality, despite his outsider status. His name is White Death, and his shadow looms large over the entire film but, despite getting a bunch of his backstory early on, Bullet Train is disappointingly light on Shannon.

Michael Shannon, as the folks at the bus stop are tired of hearing me say, is one of our greatest living actors. He chooses projects sparingly, so any time he shows up in something, I crave a full film’s worth of the man some call “Big Chicago”. By that metric Premium Rush, The Shape of Water, and Take Shelter are all great Michael Shannon movies while Bullet Train is a great movie with a Michael Shannon deficiency. And hey, I get it: White Death is a great, extremely fun role to see Shannon play and the story is structured in such a way that he shows up the perfect amount for the character. It’s also just not the right amount of Mike Shannon. Both of these things can be true.

The flick isn’t lacking in characters by any means, and they’re of the big, colorful variety that all but demand trading cards. As opposed to something like Atomic Blonde (also directed by David Leitch) where the characters are a little more grounded in a reality, everyone in Bullet Train could almost have wandered out of the world of The Venture Bros. The Wolf (Bad Bunny, né Benito A Martínez Ocasio) for example, is a Mexican knife pervert still wearing the bloodstained suit from his wedding, seeking revenge on the persons responsible for the death of not only his wife-to-be, but the entire wedding party. He has about ten minutes total screen time, yet I have a good handle on his character and motivations. There doesn’t need to be any more of him in the movie than there is, but he’s such a fun character that I wouldn’t have minded if there was.

The same goes for pretty much all the characters. Some get more development and screen time than others, but only one feels underserved - Zazie Beetz as The Hornet. She serves more as a plot device than a character which would be a problem in any case but here, it’s doubly so for wasting Beetz, though I presume that her cameo is more of a favor to David Leitch who directed her in Deadpool 2.

There’s a certain visual flair to Bullet Train that really works. It’s not something wholly original, it’s just being done here better than in a number of similar films that attempt it: the totemizaton of objects. Certain items become tied to the characters and can be tracked throughout numerous interactions and fight scenes so much so that, late in the film, there’s a ten second break where we follow the adventures of a particular inanimate object from its boarding the train to the then-current moment. It’s a sequence that really shines and feels like something you’d expect from more narratively experimental directors like Daniels, for example. And somehow, despite happening in the middle of a semi-climactic battle, it doesn’t do anything to upset the flow of the movie or the dramatic build of the scene.

If there’s one thing that I can say Bullet Train did better than most any other film I’ve seen this year, it’s creating pleasantly modular action sequences. In an era where big, messy, sprawling (heavily CGI) fights are the soup du jour, Bullet Train relies on clever choreography and contained spaces. For example, Ladybug and Lemon have a fight where they never leave the booth they’re sitting in on the train’s quiet car, but it’s fun, and inventive, and the action is easy to follow and unpredictable. The geometry of the train lends itself perfectly to choreographic reinvention and creative camera work.

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the gravity of the last few years, but 2022 has already had so many Big Fun movies released. With that as a barometer, Bullet Train fits nicely alongside things like Everything Everywhere All at Once, RRR, The Princess, The Lost City, and even Elvis. Regardless of their differing aims as far as meaning, you’ll find yourself smiling and engaged the entire time. In execution, Bullet Train comes off somewhere between James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021) and any of John Woo’s ‘90s output (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, etc.). I’m a physical media supporter, so when I tell you I can’t wait to own a copy of this, I hope you know how much I mean it.

Bullet Train is in theaters Friday, August 5th

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 42 - August 2022

Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 42 - August, 2022

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Howdy everyone, and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again, my monthly column covering Adaptations, Remakes, and Legacy Sequels coming to screens great and small! This month we’ve got a few streaming series, another attempt to make the Predator “a thing” again, and my sweet Satan - so many prequels. Ugh.

It’s oppressively hot here in Philadelphia, so there’s no better time to stay indoors with icy drinks and check out a new show, or retreat to the air conditioned sanctuary of a darkened theater - but please do so safely as we’re not even close to out of the pandemic woods yet - and spend the afternoon taking in a film (or two). In this column, I round up an assortment of appropriate projects, check out their available trailers, and try to give a run down of my thoughts on them. What are they based on? Do they look interesting? Will I see them?

Find out below! I’ll also include a SPOTLIGHT near the bottom on some films or series that aren’t necessarily new but do meet EOINA criteria and will be streaming this month, in case you haven’t seen ‘em.

<>

PREMIERES
New content coming to theaters and streamers new you!

August 5th

Bullet Train (dir. David Leitch)
Where: in theaters

Based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kôtarô Isaka, it was a done deal that I’d want to see this because: Michael Shannon is in it. True, he’s not the lead. That would be Mr. Brad Pitt playing a former mercenary (in a bucket hat!) returning to the job with a new, non-lethal outlook on life: “If you put peace out into the world, you get peace back”. Of course, despite this being a seemingly easy job for his return - retrieving a briefcase from the titular bullet train - things quickly spiral out of control when a whole rogue’s gallery of also mercenaries seem just as dead-set on collecting the case. Joey King, Karen Fukuhara, Zazie Beetz, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tyree Henry, Masi Oka, and Bad Bunny all seem to be playing various contract killers with codenames based around mostly bugs and fruit, with Sandra Bullock as the voice in Pitt’s ear, his “guy in the chair”, the Maria Beetle of the film’s source novel’s title.

And then there’s Our Boy, Mike Shannon. “Big Chicago” some call him, or “One of our best living actors”. All I know is: his character is named White Death, he is covered in Yakuza style tattoos, he wields a katana, and he’s barely shown in the trailer. This could either be good or bad: either they’re burying him in the edit so as to not give away that he’s the Big Bad -OR- he gets taken down without much fanfare, perhaps in the style of the flashy swordsman unceremoniously shot in the market in Raiders of the Lost Ark (allegedly because Harrison Ford had food poisoning, but I digress). Either way, If You Put Michael Shannon In Your Film, I Will See It. On top of all that, this is very colorful, looks silly (and vaguely surreal) and action packed, and overall feels like a good time.

Note: I will be covering this for MovieJawn, so keep an eye out for that if it hasn’t dropped already.

The Sandman (series)
Where: Netflix

Based on the classic comic books series from DC’s alternative imprint Vertigo, this original series from netflix will run for 2 seasons, fail to “make Stranger Things numbers” and be canceled leaving a sub-Stranger Things amount of fans flabbergasted in its wake.

And that’s fine. It’s fine. Because you know what? There’s no way any adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus could have the effect that reading the thing would. I know this. I’m not precious about things like that, but the important legacy of The Sandman isn’t what happens in the story, it’s how all of it makes you feel.

It’s entirely possible that this series, which will undoubtedly stray from the source material, as it should, will be able to evoke similar feelings in a whole new swath of people, but for me personally - I’m fine. I’ll give it a spin, and will most likely enjoy it, but with the dusty, washed out visuals I’m guessing it won’t grab me quite the way I want it to and I’ll just have to go visit my mom’s to pick up my collection and re-read them. And that’ll be magical.

8th

Prey (dir. Dan Trachtenberg)
Where: Hulu

This latest attempt to keep the Predator franchise in folks’ minds comes from the director of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a modern masterwork of tension AND franchise structure (that has somehow fallen by the wayside, I feel?) which is a good sign, right? That combined with the unique take on what could be thought of as “the traditional Predator narrative” could mean we’re in for something really fun! And this *does* look fun!

A Native American woman (Amber Midthunder) sets out to prove she can hunt as well as anyone, and encounters the Predator, a huge space alien with advanced technology that allows it to become invisible (well, mostly), track heat signatures, shoot lasers, and (famously, climactically) self destruct when necessary. As the text in the trailer says, Predators “Live to Hunt” while Naru (Midthunder) and her tribe “Hunt to Live”, so it appears that they all unite to hunt down this intergalactic menace and kill it.

Why, though? That’s the question. Traditionally the Predators being the intergalactic big game hunters they are, come to Earth for a challenge: a bunch of soldiers in a jungle, or one of the guys from Lethal Weapon in New York. Occasionally they even abduct folks from Earth and take them somewhere else to hunt them, like when you kidnap a homeless man and then let him loose on your property with a 20 minute head start and the promise that if he makes it to sun up, you’ll let him go free. What’s that? You don’t have The Most Dangerous Game parties? Hm. Your loss. Before you ask - no, you’re not invited to mine.

10th

Locke & Key (series)
Where: Netflix

The third season of Netflix’s honestly quite engrossing adaptation of the Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez comic series looks… I mean it looks very good, but it’s been a little while since I’ve watched L&K so, I’ve gotta be honest with you, I completely forget where we left things. Was Kevin Durand in the last season? I don’t recall Kevin Durand.

The story follows a troubled family and their lineage involving a mysterious house and an array of magical keys found within. This is the final season of the series and it looks like we’re primarily getting the history of the keys and/or the house and/or the family - or more likely we’ll see how all of those things are intertwined. If the series wraps up anything like the books, expect a bittersweet ending.

I’m very excited. I’ve really enjoyed Locke & Key and can’t wait to see how the show ties things up. And I’ll definitely be rewatching some episodes as a refresher first.

I Am Groot (series)
Where: Disney+

In the Marvel MCU films, Groot is the sentient tree-creature alien voiced by Vin Diesel that pals around with the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the first GotG flick, he sacrificed himself to save the rest only to reveal that: being some kind of plant alien, he didn’t exactly “die”, and we were collectively gifted Baby Groot. At some point between movies he matured somewhat into a sullen, moody teenager who had to relearn to be a team player. Which he did (spoilers).

This series seems to take place in that gap space between pocket-sized Baby Groot, a pouty teenage jerkoff Groot. There aren’t any proper trailers for this yet but the only footage I think is new to this project is of Baby Groot in a car driven by a lady and they are both being pursued by some kind of technological drone things that look like- remember when the iMac came in different candy colors in the ‘90s? The orange one of those.

I’ve seen some things saying this is a short and NOT a series, but I’m also seeing a series listing. It could be that both things are true and the series and short are both named after Groot’s catchphrase. Either way, I guess we’ll see where this falls on the “Fun” v “Required” scale that the MCU’s side projects have necessitated.

12th

A League of Their Own (series)
Where: Amazon Prime

I love Penny Marshall’s 1992 film upon which this series is based. It’s a masterpiece. The story of the WWII era All-American women’s baseball league, told via the trials and tribulations of the Rockford Peaches, it’s also about sisterhood (biological and otherwise), friendship, determination, and love. The storytelling, characters, performances, and most magically the editing are all top notch. It should feel manipulative in how it vascillates from tear jerking to rib tickling, but it doesn’t. It works. I’m very excited for it to get a full series treatment.

The teasers don’t offer a ton of details, but one thing I’m quite glad to see is that it looks like the series is really elaborating on moments from the movie. Notably, there’s a scene in the original where a ball rolls to the feet of a black woman watching the Peaches practice (baseball was still segregated at that time) and when she throws it back, the pitch has some real heat on it. It’s the movie acknowledging that, while it is spotlighting women it wasn’t spotlighting *all* women.

In the teaser there are a few brief shots of Chanté Adams in a non-Peaches uniform, and one of her sharing a beer with Abbi Jacobson (in a Peaches uniform) so the series might be following more than one team, or perhaps Jacobson’s and Adams’ teams will play against each other. Either way, a wider spotlight is a welcome addition. I can’t wait to watch this.

17th

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (series)
Where: Disney+

She-Hulk is the Hulk’s cousin. In the comics, she was injured in an attempted mob hit and needed an emergency blood transfusion, which Hulk could provide… BUT AT WHAT COST? Well, I’m glad you asked: after recovering (faster than usual, if I remember correctly) Jennifer Walters also can turn into a Hulk, but like, a sexy lady Hulk. In the mid-2000s, writer Dan Slott reintroduced She-Hulk as a top lawyer in the Superhuman Law department of a prestigious law firm who had to learn, essentially, proper work/life balance (but also Jen/Shulk balance). The tone of that series was funnier, more self-aware and comics-literate than the usual Marvel fair and featured a character actively embracing her sex appeal

That seems to be the approach this MCU spin-off is taking: a super hero-y twist on the half hour legal drama, with Jen taking on a new case each episode. There’s a car accident in the trailer, but it’s not clear if this is the event that necessitates a blood transfusion or if she comes by her She-Hulk powers through some other means.

There are a bunch of quick cut shots of characters scattered throughout the trailer including Frog Man (who has a suit that allows him to jump quite high), Titania played by Jameela Jamil (who has powers that rival She-Hulk but come from alien science/magic), the return of Abomination played by Tim Roth (an also giant brute who appeared in the original Hulk MCU movie in 2008), and a few allusions to the Wrecking Crew (a group of super criminals who used to work construction and utilize those types of tools - wrecking ball, crowbar, etc - for crime). This could be not only a lot of fun, and feature a sexually empowered character in the largely sexless MCU, but a great way to backdoor pilot a bunch of characters to expand the universe a little bit.

19th

Orphan: First Kill (dir. William Brent Bell)
Where: in theaters, Paramount+ (pay tier)

Based on the 2009 film Orphan from (more recently) Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra, this prequel (cuz as of the end of the original, she dead) follows a previous, murderous misadventure starring Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman - returning to the role). If you haven’t seen Orphan I recommend it, but the gist of it is that Esther is not quite the sweet little girl that her adoptive family thinks.

This is a problem with making a prequel to a perfect little one-off horror movie: you can’t do anything too radical with the character because she has to end up exactly where she started the original flick and to that end, they seem to be treading exactly the same ground here as in the original.

From what I can gather, four years ago a little girl named Esther disappeared. She returns, but needs to reacclimate to her family. “Four years is a long time” some child psychologist or another says, which will be used to explain away all her weird behavior for at least the first ⅔ of the film. But slowly the family realize something’s up: “Esther” (read: definitely not actually Esther) is much better at art than she oughta be, and she’s making green smoothies for her mom (Julia Stiles) that are laced with something or other. Somebody definitely knows this girl is Wrong, so there’s someone doing a fingerprint analysis and yadda yadda yadda

I’m torn on this one. In general, prequels rarely do it for me because they have a foregone conclusion which can dampen tension, but I am staunchly in favor of new horror franchises. I’ve previously gone to bat for the long-gap sequel to The Boy (which shares director Willaim Brent Bell with First Kill) with this same logic: Give me long term horror characters à la Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc., but with The Boy, Ma, The Empty Man, and sure Esther from Orphan, why not. I just don’t know if a prequel is the best idea.

The filmmakers seem to be playing Esther’s greatest hits a little bit, notably aping a reveal from the first Orphan involving her disguising her more deranged artwork by painting in black light reactive paint that is otherwise invisible, which leads to a reveal that works just fine in the first movie. But if the black light paint trick gets discovered in First Kill, why would she do it again later on? It would make more sense for her to have hidden these drawings in a different manner (even as simple as just drawing on the back of her more family friendly art, or drawing on a separate sheet of paper and pinning it up behind the cutesy stuff) which, upon getting found out would necessitate her coming up with a new strategy.

Overall I’m a little lukewarm on this conceptually, but I have an affection for Esther as a character (again, in the same way I feel about someone like Jason Voorhees) and the presence of William Brent Bell is notable to me. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Orphan: First Kill has half the wild left turns that Brahms: The Boy 2 did, which would truly be something.

21st

House of the Dragon (series)
Where: HBO

In what can’t be a coincidence, this Game of Thrones spin off prequel series drops a few short weeks before Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel series. It’s the battle of who can make me care less! Seriously, and not to yuck anyone’s yum but I just find it hard to give a damn about a lot of prequel things (see above). If the backstory to Game of Thrones was so interesting that it deserved adaptation, then that’s where the adaptations should have started. Same goes for LotR. Same went for Star Wars, but - like Star Wars - I’m sure this series will be some folks’ jumping on points for getting into GoT, and as such it’ll be someone’s favorite thing for opening the door for them. I’m not saying it’s never a good idea, but rarely.

On top of that, since the San Diego Comic Thing is happening, all the creators for these various films/series are giving interviews and someone attached to HotD dropped a doozy the other day. Apparently this series will be “dialing back” on the sexuality, BUT NOT on the sexual assault, which whomever it was said shouldn’t be shied away from. That’s a fucking disgusting decision and honestly my already somewhat low interest in this project is now fully in the toilet. Obviously “dialing back” doesn’t mean showing none, but even if one of every five instances of sexuality is consensual, that means the other four aren’t. And there’s no puritanical, prudish hand-wringing over that?

Who is this series aimed at? What is the target audience that can mentally and emotionally handle depictions of sexual assault but not of consensual sex? And that’s not even to mention the general swords-and-such violence. Who do they think they’re protecting by only showing the worst aspects of entertainment? Also, as the show goes on, wouldn’t this edict be a constraint upon the writers as well?

Entertainments like this are supposed to be an escape from the problems of the larger world, but when I can see the creators catering to the priggish moralistic pearl-clutching of that world, it stops being an escape and starts feeling like a trap.

It is fully possible that this quote was taken out of context or otherwise manipulated (I was not privy to the actual interview, just selective recounting of talking points) or that it could be walked back by the time this column drops. They might say “We’ve heard your disappointment, and luckily we happened to film a bunch of really hot consensual sex scenes before that decree came down, so we edited them back into the series! Huzzah! Three cheers for consent!”. In that case I might be slightly more interested, but as of now, I’d rather watch a show where people enjoy fucking.

I hope there’s a lot of steamy lovemaking in that Lord of the Rings series. And as long as I’m on my sexual soapbox (sexual sopabox - new band name, called it): There should be more cunnilingus in entertainment. Not explicit, or at least not any more explicit than your average blowjob scene, but: c’mon. Don’t be a killjoy.

31st

Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller)
Where: In theaters

Based on the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt, this looks w-i-l-d! The story of a lonely woman (Tilda Swinton) who brings a trinket home from a trip to Istanbul and accidentally releases a djinn (Idris Elba - now with elf ears!) who, wouldn’t ya know it, offers her three wishes. But Tilda’s no dummy. She knows how these things tend to go, saying “There’s no story about wishing that isn’t a cautionary tale.”

The majority of the trailer is the two of them in bathrobes in what is presumably her apartment, though hilariously when he is first freed, the djinn is enormous and has to resize down to almost-normal human scale (he still towers over Tilda). There’s a lot of imagery from, if I had to guess, his past? Maybe his djinn origin story (oridjinn story?) or possibly he’s telling her fables? I would assume they were from some wish-related misadventure she goes on but I couldn’t catch Tilda in any of those clips, which are full of mystical, magical imagery. There’s a man hanging upside down at the end of a corridor whose head falls off and becomes a weird spidery critter, there’s a giant bird (a roc I would guess), and some infinite seeming tower? It looks rad!

The combination of what is undoubtedly a love story starring two fantastic actors, directed by the great George Miller (director of your assorted Mads Max) and with the kind of scope and visuals that really appeals to the D&D nerd inside of me, this one is a foregone conclusion. I cannot wait for this!

SPOTLIGHT
Older stuff, but still EOINA friendly material.

August 1st

The Devil Wears Prada (dir. David Frankel)
Where: Hulu

This flick, based on the 2003 novel from Lauren Weisberger about an aspiring fashionista (Anne Hathaway) struggling to Have It All while working for a real beast (Meryl Streep) in NYC has no right to be as crowd-pleasing as it is. I’m not usually interesting in the fashion world, or NYC really, but watching soft-hearted Hathaway have to find the steel inside of her to stand up for herself, as well as watching Meryl chew scenery like the world’s most beautiful termite, not to mention the occasional pitch perfect interjection from Stanley Tucci; it all just works. It’s absorbing, engaging, funny, sweet, and a joy to watch. If you haven’t seen it - check it out. If you have - aren’t you due to rewatch it?

19th

Uncharted (dir. Ruben Fleischer)
Where: Netflix

This adaptation of the quadrilogy of Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunting video games from Nuaghty Dog Studios came out earlier this year and I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen it. I love the games (the three that I’ve played) but think Tom Holland of current Spider-Man fame is not a great casting choice for the lead role of adventurer Nathan Drake. Of course, his casting was more motivated by potential box office numbers and franchisability than character, so: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Regardless, I’m curious to actually see this one, and hope that at least it’ll be big, dumb fun watching Holland pal around with costar Mark Wahlberg, solving ancient puzzles, avoiding a primordial traps, and seeking treasures of yore! Also Antonio Banderas is in it? How bad could that be? Probably kinda bad maybe.

<>

This was a pretty well-packed month, but as I mentioned above: in this weather I’m glad for the wealth of things to keep me entertained that don’t require actively being outside. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. If you’d like some more from me, you can find my various articles on MJ of course, but I also cohost the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast with my fellow Jawnie and partner Allison Yakulis. This month we’ve got an episode on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with special guest my mom, Lynette Notte, where we discuss aliens and similar conspiracies. A lot. We’ve also got a special episode that drops on Allison’s birthday! She chose to discuss one of her favorite pictures, the 2016 feature debut from Daniels (of Everything Everywhere All At Once fame) Swiss Army Man, and invited our frequent guest Bryan Bierman on for the chat!

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!