We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Christmas drama, Christmas action, classic rock, and some horror.
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
I don't think I had ever sat through the entirety of Frank Capra's 1946 classic It's a Wonderful Life before. I knew a lot about it, of course. It's tough to be a fan of cinema and not know a lot about It's a Wonderful Life, there are moments in this film that get referenced all the time, and since it lapsed into public domain clips from it have been shared a lot over the years. Certain moments were already so familiar that it felt like I had seen the movie before... but I really don't think I had.
The basics that most people know is that James Stewart plays a man named George Bailey, who has hit such a rough patch in life that he wishes he had never been born. In an effort to earn his wings, an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) visits George and shows him just how bad life for the people around him would have been if he had never existed. Clips from the happy ending that results from Clarence's visit are unavoidable... But I was surprised to find that those basics don't make up the whole movie. It's a Wonderful Life is over halfway through its 131 minute running time before it reaches the Christmas setting and the night Clarence visits a despondent George Bailey. The fact that half the movie is spent setting up that scenario, giving back story on George Bailey, following him through around thirty years of his life, that's something I did not expect.
We first meet George as a young child and see that he's a good kid, capable of heroism. He has a wanderlust, he wants to travel and see the world. As we follow him through the decades, we see circumstances hold him back from leaving on his travels again and again. He gets stuck in his hometown of Bedford Falls. He takes an important job he didn't want. He gets married to Mary (Donna Reed), a girl who has loved him since they were kids. They build a family. At several points in his life, George has to deal with the schemes of Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a man who seeks to run everything in Bedford Falls. Then a mistake opens the door to Potter being able to ruin George. And that's when Clarence finally has to step in.
There are some goofy things in It's a Wonderful Life, like the way we're shown God talking to Clarence before the angel heads to Earth, but for the most part this is a fascinating character study of a good man doing his best to make his way through a life that hasn't been what he wanted it to be. Something many of us can relate to. There were times when I felt like the back story stretch of the film was going on too long, but it serves to strengthen the impact of what happens in the second half.
Most of us know what happens at the end of It's a Wonderful Life, I've seen those clips many times out of context. Finally seeing them in context, I understood why they get referenced so often. I had seen and heard so much of this before, it would have made sense if it hadn't been effective at all by the time I watched the movie. But there I was, having followed George through this journey, watching the end of It's a Wonderful Life with tears running down my face. It worked. It got me. And now I know why people love this movie.
DEAR GUEST (2020)
I don't usually watch shorts, but I made an exception for Dear Guest because it was directed by Megan Freels Johnston, and I was very curious to see what she would do after The Ice Cream Truck. While she has features in the works and probably would have been in production on one this year if not for the pandemic, one thing she did manage to get done before everything shut down was this short, which was inspired by the style of The Twilight Zone.
Noureen DeWulf and Ashley Bell star as Jules and Maria, a couple taking the rare opportunity to go on vacation. They book a stay in a rental home, but have only been in this place for a few minutes before they realize something very strange is going on here. The owner has left a note for them (that's why the short is called Dear Guest), and does not intend for them to have a pleasant stay.
Dear Guest's 11 minutes go by quickly, with the first half being an intriguing, creepy set-up and the second half bringing thrills and suspense. The ending left me wanting to see more, making me wonder if Johnston might be able to expand the story of Jules and Maria's ordeal into a feature at some point down the line.
Whether or not it has anything to do with Dear Guest, I'm looking forward to Johnston's next feature. This short was a nice way to kill some time while waiting for that.
RUN (2020)
I had seen a little bit about director Aneesh Chaganty's horror-thriller Run in the build-up to its release on the Hulu streaming service, but I didn't pay much attention to it until it was announced that the movie had broken Hulu viewing records, becoming their "most watched feature title ever" in just its first weekend, as well as the "most talked about Hulu Original Film to date on Twitter". Even Stephen King was tweeting about it, saying it delivers "nerve-splintering terror". Well, after seeing that, I had to watch the movie.
I can see why people were checking it out and encouraging others to check it out. This is a great thriller, one that is very engaging right from the start.
Sarah Paulson stars as Diane Sherman, who we're introduced to while she's giving birth to a premature baby. A baby we're told is going to be living with arrhythmia, hemochromatosis, asthma, diabetes, and paralysis. Jump ahead and that baby is now teenage Chloe (played by Kiera Allen), who has made her way through a homeschool education and is about to leave her sheltered life - she doesn't even have her own phone and her internet use is strictly monitored - behind, as she's hoping to go off to college. Diane says she's relieved that Chloe is about to become independent, but we can tell by her behavior that she really wants to keep Chloe at home for as long as possible. We're not far into the movie's 89 minutes before Chloe starts to suspect that her own mother is sabotaging her health and forcing her to stay home by giving her medications she doesn't really need.
You hear about mothers like that from time to time, and it's always shocking and appalling. Could Diane be one of those mothers? We join Chloe in her suspicions, we come to care for her because of the situation she's in and because Allen gives a strong performance, and we root for her to find out what's really going on with her mom - and with her own body. It's not an easy endeavor for a girl who's in a wheelchair and has very little contact with the outside world. And if Diane really is the monster Chloe fears she might be, what will she do if she realizes Chloe is figuring out the truth?
Run is really thrilling and exciting, and I was totally wrapped up in it for the majority of its running time. As it neared the end, I started to take issue with some twists the story took, and then I did not like the ending at all. The ending doesn't ruin the movie, but it's not nearly on the same level as what came before it. The final moments are ridiculous, but Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian take viewers on a good ride up to that point.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (2018)
Although a biopic centered on Queen frontman Freddie Mercury sounds like something I would check out right away, it took me a couple years to come around to Bohemian Rhapsody because it seemed like director Bryan Singer and writers Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan had missed opportunities, and I had heard they took a bit of dramatic license that didn't sit right for me. The idea from the start was to have Queen's performance at Live Aid in 1985 be the climax of the film, so they show major events that occurred in Mercury's life after '85 as if happened before Live Aid. It just didn't seem right that they would juggle around the person's life like that so they could end with "We Are the Champions" at Live Aid - nor did I like the fact that the movie skips over Queen providing songs for Flash Gordon and Highlander.
But after a couple years I was able to set aside my Flash Gordon / Highlander disappointment and enjoy the movie, while still shaking my head at the inaccuracy of the final minutes. Bohemian Rhapsody still provides an interesting viewing experience as it follows Queen band members Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) from the time they came together to that triumphant performance at Live Aid. There are great moments, like when we watch Queen create songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Will Rock You", and "Another One Bites the Dust", and there are sad moments as we watch Mercury's life spiral out of control. His relationship with long-time love Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) falls apart, he gets into drinking and drugs, he trusts the wrong people, and his reckless lifestyle leads to an AIDS diagnosis. Malek did great work in the role of Mercury, and deservingly won an Oscar for it.
It's well known that the studio ran into trouble getting Singer to report to set, which is ironic given that he was making a movie about a guy who would behave irresponsibly and show up late for work, and had to replace him with Dexter Fletcher for the final weeks of production. Fletcher had been attached to direct the film earlier in its development, and later went on to direct the Elton John biopic Rocketman. After watching Rocketman, I couldn't help but wonder how much better Bohemian Rhapsody could have been if Fletcher had been at the helm from the beginning, instead of having to step in and finish Singer's job. Still, the movie is quite good as it is.
THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996)
If The Long Kiss Goodnight were released today, it would be described (and probably written off by some) as a "gender-swapped The Bourne Identity". The set-up is rather similar: a woman wakes up on a beach to find she has amnesia, lots of scars, and some badass special abilities the average person doesn't have. She doesn't have to put any thought into putting these abilities to use, either. They just come to the surface on their own. With the help of a civilian, the woman hits the road to unearth the secrets of her past - and soon discovers she was an assassin in a shady government agency where Brian Cox held a prominent position. That's the Bourne movies, but this one came along several years before Matt Damon became Jason Bourne (although it was released sixteen years after Robert Ludlum's novel The Bourne Identity).
Geena Davis stars as Samantha Caine, the woman who woke up a pregnant amnesiac eight years earlier. She has settled into a domestic life in a small town with her daughter Caitlin (Yvonne Zima) and boyfriend Hal (Tom Amandes), and while she says she's putting her mysterious past behind her - the title comes from a line where she says, "The woman I was, I kissed her goodnight" - she does have low-rent private investigator Mitch Henessey (Samuel L. Jackson) digging into the mystery.
Mitch has a breakthrough in his investigation right around the same time a maniac from Samantha's past shows up at her door with a shotgun, so she figures it's time to get to the bottom of all this and hits the road with Mitch to check out a place she used to live in and contact people she used to know. Her first night on the road, Samantha discovers her suitcase has a hidden compartment that contains a knife and a disassembled rifle. I'm not sure how she didn't notice that extra weight before. The people she used to know turn out to be government agency higher-ups Nathan (future Bourne tormentor Cox) and Mr. Perkins (Patrick Malahide)... that explains why Samantha named her daughter's teddy bear Mr. Perkins. Unfortunately, her search for answers catches the attention of the last targets she had as an assassin, the people she was after on the mission she didn't finish before the event that caused her amnesia: munitions dealer Daedalus (David Morse) and his enforcer Timothy (Craig Bierko).
With Daedalus, Timothy, and an army of goons after her, Samantha is reminded that her real name is Charlene Elizabeth Baltimore. Charly. And she starts to take on her old Charly personality.
There are twists and turns and double crosses along the way, a lot of action scenes, a lot of dead henchmen, plenty of laughs courtesy of the in-over-his-head Mitch, and some heart, especially once Timothy kidnaps little Caitlin. By the end of the film, Charly and Mitch will have to not only rescue Caitlin (or "Cathead", as Mitch calls her), but also thwart a major terrorist attack Timothy is planning to carry out in the Niagara Falls area. During a Christmas parade.
The Long Kiss Goodnight was written by Shane Black, who previously wrote the Christmas action classics Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, and directed by Renny Harlin, whose previous credits include the Christmas action classic Die Hard 2, and together Black and Harlin turned out another Christmas action classic with this one. Oddly, it has turned out to be a somewhat lesser-known film. Seeing that it was receiving positive reviews and knowing what the director and screenwriter had done before, I was there to see this movie on opening weekend in October of 1996, but there weren't as many people there as the movie deserved. It under-performed at the box office, and while it has a lot of appreciative fans out there, it still doesn't feel like this one has broken out in the way it should have.
Black wrote an interesting script that's packed with fun dialogue, and Harlin brought the action to the screen in an entertainingly over-the-top manner. Davis and Jackson are a great duo in the leads; Davis basically got the chance to play dual roles here, with the Samantha and Charly sides of her character's personality, while Jackson is a blast to watch as Mitch. This ranks high up there as one of Jackson's best roles. When Davis is in Samantha mode, Mitch is the questionable character of the two; his approach to the world doesn't mesh well with Samantha's. Then when Charly takes over, Mitch grounds the film while she's doing badass heroics.
Maybe The Long Kiss Goodnight wasn't a hit because Harlin and Davis were coming directly off making one of the biggest box office bombs of all time (Cutthroat Island, a pirate movie I still haven't seen myself), maybe it's because there was some resistance to a female being in the lead of a movie like this at the time (JoBlo.com managing editor Chris Bumbray has said people mocked him for seeing The Long Kiss Goodnight in '96 because it was a "chick flick"). Whatever the case, The Long Kiss Goodnight is awesome and should have made more money and gotten more attention over the years.
A bit of trivia: a clip from The Long Kiss Goodnight is featured in The Final Destination, presented as being a 3D movie called Love Lays Dying, which some of the characters go to see (The Long Kiss Goodnight was not a 3D release). The lead character chooses not to go to Love Lays Dying, brushing it off as a "chick flick", which seems ridiculous when we see the clips of action and explosions on the screen. As ridiculous as it was that some movie-goers brushed The Long Kiss Goodnight off as a "chick flick" back in the day.
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