93/2102. The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
Must all Hollywood biopics be commercially compelled to warp facts to fit their desired narrative? We're led to believe that Holly was a diva and The (racist, sexist) Crickets' careers died with him, neither of which is true. Good music, though.

Hit the road with Coca-Cola!

94/2103. The Westerner (1940)
Gary Cooper's usual "gee, shucks" cowpoke is alternately persecuted, befriended, and persecuted again by a caricature of infamous lawman Judge Roy Bean. Given that there is never any doubt that Cooper will win in the end, I found the experience punishingly boring.

95/2104. Mystery Train (1989)
Anthology movies can be real hit or miss, but everything really works here in a setup that presages (in style and function) what Tarantino will bring to prominence a few years later with Pulp Fiction. If you like indie cinema (or Elvis mythology), this is totally worth a watch.

96/2105. The Bronze (2015)
This movie answers the unasked question, "What if Kerri Strug grew up to be a total bitch?" Forced to train her successor, not-Strug's story is a gymnastics version of Kingpin told by less competent filmmakers. There are a couple of genuinely funny moments, but they are far too few and far between.

97/2106. Hollywoodland (2006)
This movie avoids answering the much asked question, "Did Superman kill himself?" That's the question the fictional protagonist detective is investigating, but the whodunnit is only superficial. The real subject is the more metaphysical question of what gives a man's life meaning. It doesn't answer that question, either, but it does rule out some commonly held possibilities. Not bad.

Up, up, and down the hatch!

98/2107. Alice's Restaurant (1969)
What's most surprising about this anti-war comedy movie (based on an anti-war comedy song) is how cynical it is about counterculture. Society is so rotten, even those who would try to escape it are already corrupted, and all we can do is keep a sense of humor about it. Obviously, I liked this.

More to come.

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Two word review: Very bad.

Three word review: Very, very bad.

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87/2096. Internal Affairs (1990)
Does it take a bad cop to catch a bad cop? This movie suggests "yes." (It's that age-old story where the protagonist's pride leads him to dig his own hole and you just want to slap the bastard and scream "you're doing this to yourself, you dipshit!") Far and away, the highlight is Laurie Metcalf as the straight-arrow lesbian cop.

88/2097. The Spoilers (1942)
Worth watching if only for the giant fistfight at its climax, John Wayne plays a naive but noble prospector who turns to violence when the system is rigged against him. The "spoilers" in this case are the bad guys, who like most Western villains, realize too late the errors of their ways.

89/2098. Ford v Ferrari (2019)
Vroom, vroom! 'Merican muscle cars rule the world! Fuck yeah! Matt Damon and Christian Bale put a human face on this marginally fact-based nostalgic love letter to a post-War America when men were men and Capitalistic oligarchs ruled the world. To its credit, this film is very well crafted.

Just like a classic Coca-Cola!

90/2099. Posse (1993)
This opens with a frame story in which Woody Strode hectors viewers about how the Black man was written out of the history of the American West, but the movie that follows is just writer/director Mario Van Peebles giving his own version of his father's blaxploitation films. I'd much rather have watched whatever movie the frame story was talking about.

91/2100. Sid and Nancy (1986)
Want to spend two hours with two idiot losers killing themselves with heroin? Me, neither. Good music, though.

92/2101. Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Friend Mike describes this as "the third best Bill & Ted movie," and he's right. Too much CGI makes this movie's universe feel small, but the unapologetic platonic loving relationship between the middle-aged protagonists makes up for all other shortfalls.

More to come.

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81/2090. The Sandlot (1993)
I'd seen this in bits and pieces over the years, but I decided to make myself sit down and watch it all the way through before the Little League World Series this year (because the kids there always list it as their favorite movie). It's heavily influenced by Stand By Me (with a pinch of Field of Dreams), but it's no crime to borrow from great movies.

baseball and apple pie

82/2091. How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)
Ah, 1960s sex comedies. They always make the repressed sexual politics of the 1950s seem reasonable by comparison. Dean Martin tries to make his friend give up his mistress, but picks on the wrong girl. Somehow, everyone has a happy ending... except the wife. *shrug*

83/2092. Orlando (1992)
Yes, this is weird, but I like weird. The narrative is really several episodes in the life of a 400-year-old gender-fluid English noble. I'm sure there's a lesson in here somewhere about discovering one's true self. It's certainly a counterpoint to that last movie.

84/2093. Johnny Guitar (1954)
This is no comedy, but it does showcase the typical 1950's viewpoint of how every strong woman amounts to nothing without a strong man backing her up. While the lead villain(ess) is a female Snidely Whiplash sans mustache who hates Joan Crawford's protagonist because they both want the same man, the mob of men that support her are motivated by a very sympathetic cause: maintaining their land and lifestyle against the coming railroad. Sometimes I forgot who I was supposed to be cheering for.

85/2094. Thomasine & Bushrod (1974)
Blaxplotation Bonnie and Clyde. I think this is marginally superior to Bonnie and Clyde, but that's mostly because I really don't like either Bonnie or Clyde. The moral here is that neither love nor insanity is more powerful than the law, by which I mean crazy white racists with guns.

86/2095. Magic Mike (2012)
Everyone talks about all the beefcake, but this is mostly a coming-of-age movie for the two dynamic male leads on opposite sides of the same journey. It's pretty good shlock entertainment, mostly on the strength of Channing Tatum's' screen charisma.

More to come.

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Have a Coke and a smile:

I should have held up an original 1980 UGA Championship Coca-Cola bottle (with the Jack Davis art) for scale. This one was painted specifically to hang on the wall inside the house beside the tv, so use that to frame it in your imagination.

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51/2060. Five Minutes to Live (1961)
The sensationalist title is a very good indicator of the style of this low-budget thriller, but it's a poor description of the plot itself. What you need to know is that Johnny Cash plays a psychopathic killer during a bank robbery gone sideways. You will believe that he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die! While Cash has the starring role, the kid in the movie is played by none other than li'l Ronnie Howard! What a weird pairing.

52/2061. Siren of the Tropics (1927)
This silent movie starring Josephine Baker careens madly through genres: adventure, slapstick comedy, topless sexploitation, murder thriller, romantic melodrama, you name it. Obviously, it has its moments, but its mad mood swings really irritated me.

53/2062. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Another Marvel movie with insultingly stupid plotting. But you're supposed to watch these things for the character interactions, and I won't deny that it is a lot of fun when there are multiple Spider-Men on screen at the same time. But that's the only nice thing I'll say about it.

54/2063. On Golden Pond (1981)
I'm old enough that I can now relate to Fonda's existential dilemma, which could make this movie a real slog. Fortunately, I like Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn. It'll never be a favorite, but it was worth a watch.

Drink fast, old man!

55/2064. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)
The life story of a husband (storyboarder, art director) and wife (researcher) who worked behind the scenes on many a Hollywood movie. It's told largely through home movies and on-camera interviews, so it's essentially an autobiography with plenty of anecdotes and famous faces.

56/2065. 15 Things You Didn't Know About Bigfoot (#1 Will Blow Your Mind) (2019)
This movie was released at the wrong time and has had a hard time finding distribution, so you may encounter it with a different title. I watched it because it was set in Georgia, and my mind was indeed blown. It is without a doubt the best lampoon of VICE-style clickbait journalism, social media influencers, and Bigfoot hunters you'll ever see.

More to come.

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In hindsight, do I watch a lot of movies about death?

39/2048. Death on the Nile (2022)
There's a lot in this that sequel to The Orient Express that will feel not quite right to hardcore Christie fans, but I was more bothered by the CGI used to replicate 1930s Cairo than the anachronistic cultural mores or addition of Poirot's backstory. Don't get me wrong, I still liked it and would definitely keep watching Kenneth Branagh Poirot movies.

40/2049. The End (1978)
In this blackest of comedies, Burt Reynolds plays a man so afraid of pain that he is determined to kill himself before his terminal disease can. When this film works, it's usually because of Burt's natural charm, though it does squeeze some good comedy bits from very real human situations. (I found the third act slapstick to be too broad given the dark matter that preceded it. Your mileage — and tolerance of Dom DeLuise's over-the-top antics — may vary.)

Drink Coke and die!

41/2050. The Green Knight (2021)
The classic legend is about a knight on a quest to have his head chopped off, but this modern telling is more acid trip than road trip. Every line of dialog only makes the story more confusing. It might be more tolerable if it wasn't all filmed in a dark forest without lighting. Blech.

42/2051. The New Mutants (2020)
Whenever someone wonders what "studio interference" is, point them to this movie. The writer and director were very clearly using trying to make a horror film about adolescence and sexual awakening, but the studio wanted more traditional superhero fare. The actors seem completely confused (disinterested?) about what they're supposed to be doing, and the result *is* a nightmare, just not one that anyone would want to see.

43/2052. Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022)
The old footage and glowing interviews about Hawk's early days are cool. Unfortunately, Hawk is unable or unwilling to examine his adult life outside of the world of skating, so in the end, he seems almost a victim rather than a champion, especially as the story ends wallowing on his inevitable physical decline. Was the intention of this documentary to make him a martyr?

44/2053. Closed for Storm (2020)
Another documentary, this time about the doomed New Orleans Jazzland theme park, from its conception to its destruction by Katrina to its abandonment by Six Flags to New Orleans' continued inability to do anything with it's remains. Honestly, it's the last part that I found most interesting because that was when the film veered from mere morbid nostalgia to something bordering on political activism against corrupt governance. Rage against the dying of the light, indeed. Of course I liked it.

More to come.

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When I'm not reading fan mail, I'm watching movies!

33/2042. Turning Red (2022)
The movie that did so well, they made its writer/director a vice president of the studio! I'm on record as a fan of coming-of-age movies, so of course I liked this one. Its a nice change of pace where the "villain" of a story is a well-intentioned (if overprotective) parent.

35/2044. The Go-Go's (2020)
The Go-Go's heyday was just slightly ahead of my time, and I didn't know much about the individual members. It's pretty clear that a lot of their very worst behavior to one another and former members and managers got whitewashed out of this documentary, but that's probably the price you pay to get them to speak on the record in a project like this (which is really a promotion for a reunion show).

36/2045. When We Were Kings (1996)
Another documentary, this time an Oscar winner about the Ali/Foreman Rumble in the Jungle. It is an interesting time capsule of news footage, but I never got the impression that we get in the heads of the actual boxers so it feels glossy and distant, like a Life Magazine cover story.

37/2046. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
I don't quite understand why this romcom was the sensation that it was. The pacing is uneven, the protagonist is painfully over-awkward, and the obviously contrived confusion about the two love interests drags on far too long. Maybe it's an English thing.

There is no wrong day for a Coke!

More to come.

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At last count, I'd seen 39 new-to-me movies so far in 2022. At the current pace, I'll finish the year with 145 movies seen. That's... not the worst number. But it is about the dumbest thing I could be worrying about these days, so let's just move on.

29/2038. The French Dispatch (2021)
I've heard this called "the most Wes Anderson of all Wes Anderson films," and I think that's a fine description. It is an anthology, and the short run time allotted to each story combined with the usually unusual Anderson mannerisms means most characters are little more than refuse cans of half-baked quirks. In the end, it feels slick and thin, like the glossy pages of a magazine. But I also think that is kind of its whole point. That said, I really do enjoy me some Wes Anderson films, and I have already watched this one three times.

Enjoy a highly abstract re-imagining of a whatever they call Coca-Cola in 1968 Ennui-sur-Blase, France.

30/2039. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
I'd never seen this before — don't judge me! — and I decided it was past time to correct that oversight. For the most part, it is (literally) boilerplate slasher-genre thriller with a unique and clever twist on the slasher himself. The ending doesn't really work for me, but I can certainly understand why it's an enduring classic.

31/2040. X-Rated: The Greatest Adult Movies of All Time (2015)
This purports to be a documentary of "great" x-rated movies but is sadly little more than a promotional brochure for the modern skin-flick industry. I won't say that it has *no* intellectual value, but anyone who tells you they watched this for the articles would be lying to you. (Except me of course; I'm a paragon of prudishness!)

32/2041. Nobody (2021)
Imagine a slightly-more-grounded-in-reality John Wick and you've got this. I really enjoyed it, especially because of how lean it is. The film knows exactly what it is and cuts everything else down to the bone, requiring heavy lifting from the actors and stuntmen to sell the fantasy. And they do. Heartily recommended to action fans.

34/2043. Cut, Color, Murder (2022)
Hallmark's latest detective franchise movie series is mostly just silly. The killer is exactly the person that the police would have identified in the first 15 minutes if they hadn't been too busy falling over themselves to get the local hair salon owner to do their work for them. This one really feels like Hallmark is running out of new ways to re-combine their romance-murder mystery Mad Libs.

More to come.

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