Seven Days in May | Week of 3 July 2022

What I've Been Listening To

I'm still listening to the same Ocean Blue album from last week, but this week I started a new Echo and the Bunnymen album: Reverberation. It was a surprise.

As much as I love Echo from younger days, I wasn't familiar with their career after around 1987, including that lead singer Ian McCulloch left the band for several years. While he was out, the remaining members recorded Reverberation with new singer Noel Burke. Burke's voice is intentionally different from McCulloch's, so it caught me off guard when I started the album, but he has a cool, gothic quality of his own. And it still has Will Sergeant on guitar, so there's some continuity there. 

I like the album and would have listened to more from the group; it's just jarring that they called themselves Echo and the Bunnymen. I get why from a marketing point of view; but it raised questions for me about when is it okay for a band to retain its name after a lineup change. Is the band a collection of specific, particular individuals? Or is it like a corporation that keeps going under its legal name regardless of who's in it? Are some members more exchangeable than others? 

What I've Been Reading

I made progress on the couple of novels I'm currently reading, but the only book I actually finished this week was Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Volume 1. After David Petersen finished his Mouse Guard saga (or the first couple of volumes in the trilogy anyway; I forget the exact timing), he brought together some of his favorite cartoonists for an anthology of stories set in the Mouse Guard world. 

Petersen wrote and drew a framing sequence about a storytelling contest in a tavern, which is an effective, simple frame to put these stories in. I like how it gets around the question of whether or not the stories are canonical since the rules of the contest are that each story has to contain some element of falsehood as well as an element of truth. Like with any anthology, I didn't love each story equally, but I love how curated the collection feels. Petersen clearly invited artists whom he liked and respected and several of them are favorites of mine, too: people like Mark Smylie, Guy Davis, Ted Naifeh, Jeremy Bastian, to name just a few.

What I've Been Watching

The second season of Rutherford Falls dropped all at once, but it was only eight episodes and I binged through them in a couple of days. The first season came out around the same time as Reservation Dogs, another comedy show focusing on American Indian characters. It was impossible not to compare them and I loved Reservation Dogs while enjoying Rutherford Falls a bit less. 

Reservation Dogs is about life on the reservation as seen through the eyes of a group of teenaged friends who've been through a recent tragedy. It's hilarious, but also eye-opening and heart-breaking. The first season of Rutherford Falls tells its story mostly from the perspective of its white lead character, Nathan Rutherford, played by Ed Helms. It's still trying to do the honorable work of giving its audience insight to the lives of American Indian characters, but it's Nathan who's holding the spotlight on these lives and the issues important to them. It's a well-meaning show, but Reservation Dogs is better (and funnier).

Rutherford Falls Season 2 makes a couple of needed adjustments, starting with decentralizing Nathan himself. It does this very intentionally and organically, which is great. Nathan learned some things in Season 1 that put him into listening mode rather than always trying to make himself understood. I love that growth as much as I love that it gives some of the other characters a chance to do more. 

Most of the time that works. I love non-binary character Bobbie Yang who gets a major plot arc this season. I also feel like we get to know Michael Greyeyes' Terry Thomas better this season. He went from being a nicely layered villain (or at least antagonist) in the first season to being just a plain ol' complex character in the second. Unfortunately, the one character that's not working for me is the other lead (besides Nathan), Reagan Wells. I enjoyed her in the first season when she was a history nerd trying unsuccessfully to get a cultural center going, but this season she's achieved most of her goals and is annoyingly perfect. She needs some new flaws to make her fun and interesting again.

I'm enjoying the show and think it's headed in the right direction, but I'm really looking forward to the second season of Reservation Dogs starting next month even more.

I finished Obi-Wan Kenobi and didn't love it. I actually don't have a lot to say about it. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that I enjoyed seeing some familiar characters and the action was all pretty good. But the story was unnecessarily convoluted. Characters seemed to be making decisions not because they were smart or even made sense, but based on what surprise revelations or other cool moments they would eventually lead to.

What I've Been Recording

Planetary Union Network took the week off for US Independence Day, so we'll be having a double episode next week to catch up. The only other podcast I was on this week was an After Dinner Lounge episode of After Lunch. This time, highlights of the rambling conversation included Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the history of the Nerd Lunch podcast, Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury, and Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang.

What I've Been Thinking About

Our Fourth of July holiday was pretty low key this year. My parents and one of my brothers came over and we grilled some steaks, but that was pretty much it. I've never been super celebratory about the Fourth, but was feeling it even less than usual this year. I love the ideas that my country was founded on, but we've never figured out how to make them reality and we still have so much work to do. I'm optimistic that we can do it. It's just that this year's anniversary came so very closely after some disappointing setbacks.

Nerd Lunch's Last Jedi Drill-Down

Last Jedi was a Top 5 movie for me last year, so it's no secret that I loved it, but if you're in the mood to hear me gush at length, then Nerd Lunch's latest episode is for you.

OR... maybe you're in the mood to hear a variety of opinions on the movie. If that's the case, you should also listen. I loved it, Carlin hated it, and everyone else is somewhere in between. Jeeg has the perspective of someone outside of the hardcore Star Wars fandom, Pax comes at it with a heavy love of Luke Skywalker, and Kay brings knowledge of and passion for the Extended Universe. It's five friends having a heart-felt, but rational discussion about the most divisive movie of the year. It's almost like we've brought balance to the Force.

My 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2018

It's fun to think about what's coming out and which movies I'm most interested in, then compare that at the end of the year to what I actually enjoyed.  Of my 20 Most Anticipated last year, 12 of them turned out to be Top 20 movies for me, so that's pretty cool. One of them (Hostiles) was pushed back to this year and another (Jumanji 2) I just haven't been able to schedule yet, so that leaves 6 that were disappointing in some way.

Of those, I've seen and was underwhelmed by three (The Beguiled, The Mummy, and Justice League) and thanks to trailers and reviews, completely lost interest in three others (Dark Tower, Ferdinand, and Pitch Perfect 3) before they hit theaters.

So here's what I'm most eager to see this year. As always, these aren't the movies that I'm predicting will be the best; just the ones that I most want to see. Tell me what you're looking forward to in the comments!

20. Tomb Raider



I'm a mark for treasure-hunter movies and have enjoyed even the Angelina Jolie movies on some level. The trailer for this one is visually impressive and Vikander is a talented actor, so I'm just hoping that the story is up to snuff.

19. Mary Magdalene



One of the most fascinating characters in the New Testament, even without the Dan Brown nonsense. It's about time someone made a movie about her.

18. Mary Poppins Returns



I enjoy the classic adaptation, but it's not holy ground and I'm glad to see that the rest of the book series will get some attention, too. Not that I've read the books. And these movies will see that I don't have to.

17. Mowgli



I don't really need a new Jungle Book adaptation, but I'm interested in almost anything Andy Serkis does. And it'll be interesting to see what he does to avoid comparisons with the Jon Favreau Disney remake.

16. Incredibles 2



I've cooled off on Brad Bird after Tomorrowland, but I've still loved 80% of his movies and am interested in what he's able to do with this. I'm especially curious how a new Incredibles movie compares to the modern landscape of superhero movies. The first one was released the same year as Spider-Man 2, when we were just starting to figure out that great superhero movies were possible. The bar has been raised a lot higher since then and I'm not 100% confident that Incredibles 2 can clear it.

My Top 10 Movies of 2017

10. War for the Planet of the Apes



This is the weakest of the new PotA trilogy, but the other two are so strong that War doesn't have to top them to be amazing. I love how the overarching story builds and explores the conflict between compassion and hate, with each entry looking at it from a different angle.

Rise sees compassion and hate mostly from the human point of view as different people have different feelings about the apes (and by metaphor, about anyone who's different from them). Dawn transfers the conflict to the apes as Caesar and Koba struggle with the proper response to humanity's abuse. But in War the conflict is within Caesar himself.

His ongoing battle with the human Colonel (Woody Harrelson) has led Caesar down a dark path and threatens the beliefs that he holds most dear. War handles this in a beautiful, emotional way and it's a great conclusion to what's easily my favorite science fiction trilogy of all time (at least until the current Star Wars trilogy is done... fingers crossed).

It's this low in the Top 10 only because of particular plot points that I don't care for, but that's about me, not the movie.

9. Wonder Woman



It's awesome. The first DCU movie that's about an actual super hero. I love that Wonder Woman goes on a character journey that is never about whether or not she's going act heroically. It's about her world view changing from simple and naive to complicated and mature. It shakes her to her core, and there's a Zac Snyder moment that made me worried about what she'd do, but she recovers quickly and gets back to the work of fighting evil. Just beautiful.

And I love that the movie is able to introduce her to the world as a fish-out-of-water without sacrificing her confidence. She's learning a new culture and there are funny moments that result, but she's never the butt of the joke.

I do want to point out one thing though that bugs me a little. Not about this movie as its own object, but what it reveals about the wider DC movie universe. In Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman has clearly been gone a long time. No one knows about her or remembers her. It's a major plot point that Batman figures out that she's not a brand new hero, but someone who was around a long time ago. And BvS implies that something happened when she was first here that sent her into hiding. She may or may not have fled back to Themyscira, but she certainly disappeared from the public eye. And that made me concerned - especially in the shadow of Man of Steel and BvS - that Wonder Woman was going to be another dark movie about how heroism is punished.

Watching Wonder Woman, I can still see that movie in there. Diana goes through the ringer. And I can imagine a Snyder-influenced ending where she gives up her mission and just goes home for 100 years. I am so glad that the folks in charge decided not to do that and instead had Diana stick around to keep working, but it does create a large discontinuity with BvS. Making a movie about a hero is a great course correction for the series, but it is a course correction and not a flawless one.

The real thing keeping Wonder Woman out of my Top 5 though is the Ares battle. It's not bad, but I have a hard time with the transition from David Thewlis to full-on, battle-mode Ares. That whole fight is too much CG splashed across the screen. It doesn't ruin the movie in any way, but it's a weakness in an otherwise flawless production.

8. It



I've never read the book or seen the original mini-series adaptation, so I have nothing negative to say about restructuring this first film to be just from the kids' point of view. It was an awesome move and created a movie very much in the vein of Stranger Things and all the '80s kids-on-bicycles movies it's an homage to.

The kid actors are all great and the characters are mostly all great. There are one or two who could be superfluous, but I'm not complaining. None of my favorites were cheated of any characterization because of the others.

It's an entertainingly scary movie. Not completely terrifying, but chilling enough. And I like how the human monsters (bullies and certain parents) are just as nerve-wracking and horrifying as any of the supernatural ones. In the end, the strategy for defeating both kinds of monsters is the same and I love that, too. Can't wait for the sequel.

7. Table 19



I wanted to see this because I like Anna Kendrick, Craig Robinson, and Lisa Kudrow and the trailer looked pretty funny. I generally like wedding comedies because weddings are pretty funny anyway, but I wasn't prepared for how funny and touching Table 19 is.

It's the Breakfast Club of wedding movies. The concept is that at every wedding there's a table of misfits whom no one really expected to come or knows what to do with. Kendrick is the ex-girlfriend of the bride's brother. Robinson and Kudrow are a married couple who have a business relationship with the bride's father. There's also a former nanny, the solo teen-aged son of some family friends, and a disgraced cousin.

But where I expected a revenge comedy about these misfits' taking over the wedding, Table 19 is interested in the characters as people. It discusses why they all decided to come in the first place, forces them to confront their status as outcasts, and lets them bond in a really beautiful way.

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming



Amazing. Spectacular. The ultimate. Web of, even.

I'm not going to call it my favorite Spider-Man movie, because there's some apples-and-oranges going on, but it's exactly the Spider-Man movie that I needed right now. No origin story and not even any universe-building. In fact, it's the opposite of universe-building, because the whole point is to explain why Spider-Man needs his own special corner of the MCU. And I love that the explanation is built on the phrase, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man." It makes sense, it's what the character needs, and it's exactly where I want to see him go.

Also, what a great, funny, diverse cast of supporting characters. And Michael Keaton is brilliant. Best movie interpretation of a Spider-Man villain so far. And I'm not forgetting about Doctor Octopus.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2



I liked it better than the first one. It's just as funny and visually interesting and the music is just as cool, but it has a more complex villain and some really great (and truly touching) development for Rocket, Yondu, and Nebula. Mantis is an awesome new character and my love for Dave Bautista is now fully stoked. Also, some excellent cameos that were genuine surprises.

4. The Last Jedi



The short version is that I love it. It's a Top Three Star Wars movie for me and I appreciate it more with each viewing. Five times as I'm writing this.

I'll give you the long version on an episode of Nerd Lunch next week, but feel free to discuss with me in the comments below if you want. This is a controversial one and I'm interested in talking it out.

3. A Cure for Wellness



Gore Verbinski's latest film is the best Hammer horror movie in 40 years. It's weird and gothic and so directly aimed at a particular audience that I understand why critics were largely down on it. But I'm fully in that intended audience.

It's about a young man (Dane DeHaan) who's sent by his company to retrieve their CEO from a Swiss wellness center that he's disappeared to. After being stonewalled by the spa's director (Jason Isaacs), DeHaan begins to suspect that something sinister is going on. Not just with his boss, but with all the patients and a young, not-quite-a-patient named Hannah (the impossibly awesomely named Mia Goth). I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for you, but it gets strange and lurid while still holding together as a story. The weirdness isn't for its own sake; it's part of a mystery that makes sense, even though it's wild and imaginative.

2. Hidden Figures



Hidden Figures is as powerful as everyone says. It's simultaneously uplifting and frustrating in exactly the ways that it's trying to be.

What's cool though is that it's also frustrating in some surprising ways. In addition to stories of casual, systemic racism (which are always more powerful to me than the overt, aggressive kind), the movie makes a rather depressing statement about what spurs the white characters towards progress. Since NASA is literally about reaching for the stars and making scientific progress, I guess I expected the movie to depict social progress as some kind of natural result of that.

That's very much not the case though and the film spends quite a bit of time reminding us that the '60s space race was a product of the Cold War. Whatever justice the main characters experience by the end isn't a product of compassion, but fear. It takes the common enemy of the Soviets to motivate the establishment and help it see the value of its non-white allies. Progress is made and that's why Hidden Figures is an encouraging story, but I like that the movie complicates, rather than romanticizes what sparks that change.

1. Kong: Skull Island



I love the 2014 Godzilla, but I also understand the complaint that the monster's not in it enough. I completely disagree, but I understand it. That's definitely not a problem with Kong: Skull Island though.

This isn't the familiar Kong story, but that's for the best since that story is well defined by now. It was time for something new and this is it. The island and its inhabitants (human and monsters alike) are all cool and the film spends plenty of time on them. More importantly, it also spends plenty of time on the invading characters so that I absolutely cared what happened to them, too. Even when I disliked what someone was doing, I totally understood why they were doing it.

It's a great companion piece to Godzilla and I cannot wait for the eventual showdown between the two monsters.

N3rd World | More Blade Runner Than Blade Runner

On the latest N3rd World, we dig into both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 before discussing the final trailer for Last Jedi. The Blade Runner discussions are spoiler-filled, but I think we did a good job articulating why we all love both movies. And I also think we get a pretty good handle on deciphering what expectations the Last Jedi trailer wants us to have for the movie.

7 Days in May | Big Golden Child in Little China

Brimstone (2016)



I'm gonna mention this on an upcoming Hellbent for Letterbox, but even then I'm not gonna say too much out of fear of spoilers. I watched this only knowing the IMDb summary and that was a pretty great way to go into it: "From the moment the new reverend climbs the pulpit, Liz knows she and her family are in great danger."

Learning why Liz is afraid pulled me into the movie, but what kept me there were the powerful performances, the gorgeous cinematography, and the intriguing, non-linear way that the story unfolds. It's a dark, disturbing tale, but it's so engrossing.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of specific moments as the film's wrapping up that I just couldn't stick with. Just quick things, but they were unbelievable enough that they ungrounded a movie that was otherwise all too real and scary.

Rogue One (2016)



This was the last of my rewatches of favorite 2016 movies.

I liked it quite a bit the first time, but I'm enjoying Rogue One more every time I watch it. This time it got me interested in watching it in context of the entire Star Wars series, so I'll probably try to do that before Last Jedi comes out.

The Golden Child (1986)



One of my favorite Eddie Murphy movies. A fun fantasy-adventure story with a hilarious and cool hero, an awesome villain (Charles Dance), and tons of memorable lines. And I'm still in love with Charlotte Lewis.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)



Rewatching The Golden Child got me wanting to see Big Trouble in Little China again, mostly because of the shared actors. I'd never made the connection (not even in 1986) how similar they are and certainly didn't know that Big Trouble in Little China rushed production to beat Golden Child to the theaters.

I still think that the similarities are superficial and I'm a fan of both. Big Trouble in Little China takes more chances though and is a crazier, more fun experience for it. It's hard to tell if the movie knows how awful its dialogue is and is in on the joke, but I like to read it that way. It's certainly aware of its tropes, because it's playing with them and turning some of them upside down. I was afraid this wouldn't hold up, but it totally does.

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)



I really wanted to like this because of how much I love all three of its main stars, but unfortunately it was another reminder that I really don't like screwball comedies that aren't What's Up, Doc?. This one almost entertains me (it certainly has its moments), but...

Look, any complaints I make are going to be about things that are specifically related to the genre. It would be like complaining about a horror movie because it's too scary. You would be perfectly justified telling me to just avoid the genre in the future. And one of these days, I'll remember to follow that advice.

Lured (1947)



A brilliant thriller. I love I Love Lucy, but I love Lucille Ball in these early, serious roles (see also: Five Came Back) even more.

In this one, Ball plays a dancer whose best friend goes missing, most likely as the victim of a serial killer. When Ball contacts the police, she's offered an undercover job. The killer lures his victims through personal ads in the paper, so the cops send Ball out to answer various ads and see if they can sniff out the murderer.

What I like is that not every ad leads to the murderer (of course), but that they're all interesting. It becomes almost an anthology, with Ball involved in multiple stories and situations. Boris Karloff plays one ad-placer (not telling if he's involved in the larger case or not) and George Sanders is a nightclub owner whom Ball would love to work for once the case is solved. The rest of the cast is great, too, especially Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke, and George Zucco. And Alan Napier (Alfred to Adam West's Batman) has a small part as one of the police detectives.

Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947)



I didn't care for the one Dick Tracy serial I saw starring Ralph Byrd, but so far his feature movies are great. In this one, Boris Karloff plays the title villain who takes over a gang of bank robbers that uses freeze gas to commit crimes. Karloff feels dangerous, Byrd is charming, and Anne Gwynne's Tess Trueheart is resourceful and helpful to the case. There's actual mystery-solving and some cool twists. I'll be seeking out more of these.

7 Days in May | Planet of the Apes and Noir Galore

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)



Wanted to rewatch this and Dawn before seeing War. I'm still amazed by how much this works. Which is to say that it works completely and wonderfully, fully connecting me to its characters regardless of species. And what a great, cathartic finale as everyone gets their comeuppance. In the best Planet of the Apes movies, I should always feel conflicted about where my loyalties are and this is probably the best at accomplishing that in the history of these movies.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)



I still care about the humans in Dawn - especially Keri Russell, Jason Clarke, and Kodi Smit-McPhee - but they're ultimately MacGuffins in the movie's real conflict between Caesar and Koba. It's a brilliant clash of ideologies and what I love most about this trilogy is the battle between compassion and hate. Which leads directly to the third film...

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)



In Dawn, the compassion-hate conflict is between Caesar and Koba, but in War it's within Caesar himself. His conflict with the human Colonel (Woody Harrelson) has led Caesar down a dark path and threatens the beliefs that he holds most dear. War handles this in a beautiful, emotional way and it's a great conclusion to what's easily my favorite science fiction trilogy of all time (at least until the current Star Wars trilogy is done... fingers crossed).

Grease (1978)



Rewatching Back to the Future for an upcoming Mystery Movie Night got me in the mood for something else from the '50s. And this has been on the list for a while since a couple of shots from it are in that great 100 Movies Dance Scenes Mashup video that my family and I can't stop watching.

And it really is all about the music in this one. The story is mostly bunk and I don't like Danny, Sandy, or really any of their friends except Frenchie. The ending is stupid. But dang those are some great songs and I always forget how awesome Olivia Newton-John's voice is.

The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)



Trying to clear out some room on my TiVo. I recorded this on a lark, because there's a John Denver song with the same title and I'm nostalgic for John Denver. That's a dumb reason to watch a movie, but I also like Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon, so what the heck.

I love this movie so much. Oberon plays a wealthy, young woman named Mary Smith whose widowed father is trying to get a Presidential nomination. Mary's not especially troublesome, but she's under especially tight scrutiny, so her dad sends her to the family's house in West Palm Beach to get her away from the New York paparazzi. There she cute-meets a rodeo cowboy named Stretch (Cooper), but she's pretending to be a lady's maid at the time and... well, you've seen a romantic comedy before, so you know how that goes.

There are some modern romcom tropes, but I found that refreshing in a '30s film. And I love that the story is told from Mary's point of view with Stretch being the love interest. The movie also has some nice things to say about the value of people, with both Mary and Stretch needing to adjust their ideas about what kind of people they're interested in.

Five Came Back (1939)



This one popped on my radar because a bunch of people crash in a jungle. And it's very early Lucille Ball and I'm always interested in her serious roles.

I love this one, too. It's sort of a proto-Lost with a varied group of passengers on a downed plane trying to survive until they can rescue themselves. There are three airline personnel, a young couple in love, an elderly couple in grumpiness, a bounty hunter (John Carradine) and his prisoner, a man escorting a young boy for mysterious reasons, and Lucille Ball's character: a beautiful, but ostracized woman.

What's great is that every one of these characters finds themselves challenged and changed by the ordeal in the jungle. Some for the better, and some not so much. As the title spoils, not all of them make it out, but that's a fascinating and touching story, too.

It was remade in 1956 as Back from Eternity with Anita Ekberg and Rod Steiger, so that also just went on my list.

Murder, My Sweet (1944)



I'm a huge fan of The Big Sleep, both the Raymond Chandler novel and the 1946 movie based on it. But I'm enough of a fan of the movie that I haven't been that interested in seeing other actors in the role of Philip Marlowe.

And here's another thing: my love of the novel is all about the mood and the dialogue. Chandler's an awesome writer, but - at least in The Big Sleep - he's not an awesome mystery writer. There are huge dangling plot threads and red herrings that don't make sense. Maybe he fixed that in subsequent books, but I haven't read them yet to find out. If Murder, My Sweet (based on Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely) is faithful to its novel, though - and I understand that it is - I still have concerns. For most of its run time, the story spins around without going anywhere. It relies on all the things I like about Chandler (mood, dialogue, and Marlowe himself) to keep me going, but the central mystery is kind of dull.

Phantom Lady (1944)



After enjoying The Web, I started looking for other Ella Raines movies to watch and this is a big one. She plays another secretary, but this time her boss is the one who's in trouble for murder, not the one trying to cover it up. And she's great in it, but neither her boss nor the story itself deserve her. The villain is easy to deduce as soon as the character is mentioned, but then the movie still confirms it way too early. The villain's motivation is super flimsy, too, and the scheme to cover their tracks is even shakier. This is a classic only because of Raines herself and an unforgettable scene with a ridiculously lewd drum solo.

Frontier Gal (1945)



Before she was Lily Munster, Yvonne De Carlo had a prolific film career. She made a lot of Westerns, so I wanted to check some of them out. I shouldn't have started with Frontier Gal, though, because hoo boy. Her character's unlikability in this movie is only surpassed by her co-star's.

Rod Cameron plays an outlaw who visits a saloon run by De Carlo. He takes a liking to her, but she insults him, so he kisses her against her will. She slaps him, so he kisses her again. She slaps him again, so he kisses her again. Repeat several times until she falls in love. And that sets the tone for the entire movie, which might as well have been called No Means Yes.

I'll watch more De Carlo Westerns, but yikes... this one.

Spellbound (1945)



One of my favorite Hitchcock films, partly because I love its two leads, but it's also a great story that keeps turning into something new. Showed it to David this viewing and he wasn't that interested to begin with. I asked him to give it 15 minutes and then decide if he wanted to keep going. We kept going.

That awesome dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali is a highlight, but it's the central mystery and the plot twists (and Bergman and Peck) that make Spellbound so rewatchable.

Shock (1946)



Phantom Lady wasn't the only movie I watched this week inspired by The Web. I wanted to see some more Vincent Price noir, too, so that's where Shock comes in. Price plays an adulterous psychologist who accidentally kills his wife. Unfortunately, he's seen by a woman (Anabel Shaw) who's already under a lot of mental stress. Watching the murder sends her into a catatonic state. When Price is called in to minister to her, he discovers that she's a witness to his crime. Under pressure from his girlfriend, he realizes that if Shaw never recovers, he's off the hook.

It's not my favorite kind of Price role. He's still great, but he's too much a victim of circumstance and his girlfriend to thoroughly relish his performance. Give me wicked and conniving - or at least charmingly caddish - any day.

Song of the Week: "Seagulls! (Stop It Now)" by Bad Lip Reading

This doesn't just crack me up; it gets stuck in my head for a week and I don't even complain.

Nerd Lunch | Star Wars Panel: Ewok Movie Drill Downs

Pax put the Star Wars panel back together this week to cover the two, made-for-TV Ewok movies. I'm glad he did for a couple of reasons. First, we hadn't gotten together since talking about Rogue One and I'm glad not to have to wait until Last Jedi for our next get-together. I love talking Star Wars with this crew.

But also, I'd never seen the Ewok movies and this was the push I needed to finally do that. As I explain on the episode, I missed them when they came out and would have been too old to enjoy them anyway. It was fun to finally see them; especially Battle for Endor, which I liked more than the rest of the group did. It's not a great movie, but I see its charm, especially for people who were kids when it came out. Caravan of Courage is a whole other story, though.

So we talk about that and weird fan theories and where these fall into continuity and Burl Ives and Wilford Brimley and all kinds of other stuff. It's a fun episode.

You can't take the 'cast from me

A whole lot of podcasting going on this past week, On Hellbent for Letterbox, Pax and I dove back into the world of spaghetti westerns with Lee Van Cleef in the bonkers Sabata. We also discussed Gregory Peck in The Bravados, Matt Wagner and Francesco Francavilla's Zorro, and Robert Conrad and Ross Martin in The Wild Wild West.





Then over on Dragonfly Ripple, we talked sci-fi and politics. Carlin and I start with a discussion of how we introduce our kids to politics and then get into some sci-fi TV with political elements with the kids. We start with the two V mini-series from the 1980s and then move on to Firefly. Plus, on Jetpack Tiger, Carlin and Dash talk about their experience with Star Wars Celebration.





And finally, there are a couple of recent Starmageddon episodes I have't told you about yet. In the first one, Dan talks about finally finishing Clone Wars, Ron and Dan discuss their addiction to the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes mobile game, and we share our thoughts on the most recent Star Trek: Discovery casting: Jason Issacs as the captain and Rainn Wilson as our favorite Star Trek rogue, Harry Mudd.

Then in the latest episode, we're joined by David Spell to discuss all of the exciting news from Star Wars Celebration, including the Last Jedi trailer, the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront II video game, and the girl-friendly Forces of Destiny.

It’s Time for the Jedi to End

Shortly before The Force Awakens came out, I wrote an article trying to get my head around the Star Wars saga up to that point. It's a long read, but the brief version is that I rethought a lot of things, including my feelings about the Jedi and my interpretation of the prophecy about the Balance of the Force. For the Balance, I realized that as portrayed in the prequels, the Light and Dark sides of the Force are not actually about Good and Evil, but about Reason and Passion. Which means that the Jedi of the prequels were not the defenders of Good, but advocates for Reason. And as it turns out, rather complacent, arrogant, and narrow-minded ones.

Seen this way, balancing the Force starts to make sense as a worthwhile goal. Why would anyone want to balance Good and Evil? That's ridiculous. We want that scale tipped all the way over to the Good side. But balancing Reason and Passion isn't just beneficial, it's crucial. And as I argued in the previous article, that's what Luke does.

The teaser trailer for The Last Jedi supports this idea and makes me extremely excited for the new movie. It not only prominently mentions the Balance as a theme; it also suggests how Balance might be achieved.



If the Jedi aren't champions of Good, but of Reason, then theirs is just one way of relating to the Force. It's been the dominant way for however long (I'm not clear on the timeline since it was rebooted), but  Rogue One in particular goes to great lengths to show that the Jedi Way is not the only "good" way. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.

The Force Awakens does this too, but more subtly. For better or worse, it comes out especially clearly in interviews with JJ Abrams when he talks about going back to a vision of the Force as suggested in the original Star Wars.

"I’m not someone who quite understands the science of the Force. To me Star Wars was never about science fiction — it was a spiritual story. And it was more of a fairytale in that regard. For me when I heard Obi-Wan say that the Force surrounds us and binds us all together, there was no judgement about who you were. This was something that we could all access. Being strong with the force didn’t mean something scientific, it meant something spiritual. It meant someone who could believe, someone who could reach down to the depths of your feelings and follow this primal energy that was flowing through all of us. I mean, thats what was said in that first film!"

We see Rey tap into that with no Jedi training whatsoever (that she can remember, anyway) and Leia's another good example with her raw supernatural connection to Luke in Empire and Return of the Jedi. There are also suggestions that Finn may be Force-sensitive if you want to read some things a certain way. And Kylo has also taken an unconventional approach to mastering the Force. He rejected Luke's Jedi teaching, but it's also clear that whatever Snoke's teaching him isn't precisely Sith, either.



With all that in mind, the very title The Force Awakens takes on an added layer of meaning. Until recently, I assumed that the Force had been sleeping only since Luke shut down his failed Jedi school. But what if the Force has been sleeping for much, much longer than that? Like, since the Jedi codified it and turned it into something specific and scientific. It's not that the Jedi weren't using the Force, but they'd limited it. And now, with Rey's awakening to it, we're seeing the Force awakened as well so that it can be used in new and different ways.

In the Last Jedi trailer, Luke tells Rey to reach out and tell him what she sees. "Light," she says. "Darkness." And finally, "The Balance." And Luke says, "It's so much bigger." Because the Force encompasses so much more than just the traditional Light and Dark sides. The Balance negates the extremes and throws off the limiting definitions that the Jedi imposed on it, so that Force is not just awakened, but now also allowed to grow and flourish.

Luke recognizes this, which is why he also says, "I only know one truth. It's time for the Jedi to end." He's not training Rey to be a Jedi, he's training her to use the Force in this new way, balancing Reason and Passion. Thanks to the way that the Last Jedi was titled in some non-English translations, there was some speculation that the Jedi in the title is plural, but Rian Johnson has clarified that - for him at least - it's singular. "They say in Force Awakens that [Luke] has gone to find the last Jedi temple and Luke's the last Jedi."

And I couldn't be happier about that.

My 20 Most Anticipated Movies of 2017

It's fun to think about what's coming out and which movies I'm most interested in, then compare that at the end of the year to what I actually enjoyed. For example, last year, seven of my Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies for 2016 actually made it in into my Top Ten of the Year. That sounds pretty good, but I listed 20 Most Anticipated Movies last year and only half of them were in my Top Twenty.

Two of them (Underworld: Blood Wars and Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) got pushed back to 2017, so they don't really count, but three I didn't even bother to see after learning more about them (Warcraft, Jason Bourne, and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back; though I'll likely decline its advice and go back for that last one at some point). The remaining five (Hail Caesar, Fantastic Beasts, Ghostbusters, TMNT 2, and X-Men: Apocalypse) were all over the map in terms of how much I enjoyed them.

Which goes to show that we need to underline the words "interested in" in describing this list. These aren't the movies that I'm predicting will be the best; just the ones that I most want to see. That could be out of genuine excitement, but it might just be irresistible curiosity. I'll try to specify which as I go.

Tell me what you're looking forward to in the comments!

20. The Beguiled



Sofia Coppolla directs this Western (I don't like calling them Southerns, but technically that's more accurate in this case) about an injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell) who's imprisoned in a Confederate boarding school for girls and tries to charm his way out. Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, and Kirsten Dunst are the primary occupants of the school. I like all of those people, the setting, and the drama of the situation.

19. Ferdinand



One of my favorite children's books. I have way more in common with the character of Ferdinand than I should ever admit. I have no idea if this is doable as a feature length movie, but I generally like Blue Sky's stuff, so hooves are crossed.

18. Hostiles



Another Western; this one with Christian Bale as an Army captain escorting a Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) and his family through hostile territory. I'm concerned that Studi gets like 12th billing right now on IMDb, because I'm most interested in seeing the relationship between his and Bale's characters. Hopefully that's not indicative of his actual importance to the story.

Lots of other great people in this thing, too. Rosamund Pike and Stephen Lang, for instance, but also Ben Foster in his second Western with Bale after 3:10 to Yuma ten years ago.

17. Jumanji



I'm not crazy about the original, but it had a cool concept, which means that it's ripe for a remake. And I couldn't be more excited about The Rock and Karen Gillan as the leads. Hoping it's more focused on high adventure and less schmaltzy than the earlier version.

16. The Dark Tower



Never read these books, but they've certainly captured a lot of imaginations and I usually like fantastical Westerns. I also like Stephen King, though movies based on his work are a mixed bag. I guess I'm pinning my hopes on Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey in this genre instead of on the source material.

15. Spider-Man: Homecoming



I like Spider-Man and boy that was pretty cool in Civil War. But I don't love Spider-Man and there are some things about this that just make me tired. Young Aunt May and the look of the Vulture aren't thrilling me, for two things. Another is that I already feel like I've seen all the Tony Stark/Peter Parker interaction I want to in Civil War. And as much as I trust in my heart that Marvel is going to make a good movie, this is still another Spider-Man reboot in too short a time.

On the other hand, I've learned not to bet against Marvel. If this is the fun, teen comedy that it looks to be, I expect to be much more excited coming out of it than going in.

14. Pitch Perfect 3



'Cause I love these movies. The humor is always pretty uneven, but there's always a good character arc and I do like me an a cappella mash-up.

13. Table 19



We've been rewatching Friends and I'm totally ready to see Lisa Kudrow do something more than a cameo in a movie again. And I always enjoy Anna Kendrick and Craig Robinson. The trailer made me laugh and I usually enjoy seeing outsiders push back against their oppressors, so this has a lot going for it.

12. Justice League



I have no idea if I'm going to like this or not and that lack of expectation is partly what's attracting me to it. But mostly, it gets my money because it's our first real look at Jason Mamoa's Aquaman.

11. Murder on the Orient Express



They don't really make straight-up murder mystery movies anymore, so this is cool. And it's cool that Kenneth Branagh is directing it. And it's cool that Daisy Ridley, Penélope Cruz, Josh Gad, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, and Derek Jacobi are all in it. I'm a bit more nervous about Johnny Depp and especially about Branagh's playing Herucle Poirot. Either (or both) of those could be goofy, caricatural performances that will ruin the movie for me. But I'm glad someone's adapting some Agatha Christie again.

10. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales



I love the opening trilogy (even At World's End), but On Stranger Tides needs making up for. This will either bring the series back in line or prove once and for all that we're done. Really hoping for the former, because there's so much potential for a lot of fun movies in the Pirates world.

9. The Mummy



As a huge fan of the Universal monster movies from the '30s and '40s (and '50s, when you add in Creature from the Black Lagoon), I'm all for the studio's trying to make a Marvel-style, connected universe with those characters. In fact, Universal was already doing that 70+ years ago. Marvel just revived the idea with superheroes.

I don't know if it's going to work this time, but they're starting in a pretty good place with a Tom Cruise action movie that's also trying to be legitimately scary. Working in Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll feels like a great idea, too, especially since they're not knocking people over the head with that fact in the trailer. Nowhere is this being billed as Mummy v Mr Hyde, which already puts it on a better track than Warner Bros.

8. Thor: Ragnarok



Speaking of Marvel, Thor is one of my favorite superheroes, Chris Hemsworth is one of my favorite actors, and I love the pitch of Ragnarok as a buddy road trip movie with Thor and Hulk. I've liked the other Thor movies, but they aren't as strong as the best Marvel films, so I'm not expecting to be blown away by this third one. I just want it to be a good time at the movies and don't see any reason to expect anything else.

7. Kong: Skull Island



I'm hoping that the trailers are leaving some surprises, because I've always thought it would be cool to have a movie completely focused on Skull Island. It's an awesome setting for adventure and Kong: Skull Island has a great cast to put in it. I just don't like feeling that I've already seen most of the film in ads.

6. Logan



I like Wolverine best when he's mentoring a young girl or woman. And I'm super excited by what I've seen of Patrick Stewart's portrayal of Charles Xavier in this. Logan appears to be a movie about relationships. That was the best thing about The Wolverine, too, so yes, more of that.

5. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2



"Obviously," indeed.

4. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets



Luc Besson and I don't always get along, but if we learned nothing else from my excitement about Jupiter Ascending, it's that I'm always on the lookout for the next, great space opera. See also: Guardians of the Galaxy. My excitement for Valerian edges out Guardians because it's new. It looks insane and amazing and both Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan are fascinating people whom I'll enjoy watching go through whatever lunacy Besson has planned.

3. War for the Planet of the Apes



I'll always have a special place in my heart for the Planet of the Apes movies of the '60s, but I don't think there's any denying that these new versions are way better films. (Except for maybe the original Planet of the Apes, which totally holds up.) There's still a part of me that can't believe I like these new ones as much as I do, but I've learned to shut that part up and just let myself be excited. This is gonna be great.

2. Wonder Woman



We've waited so long for a Wonder Woman movie and this one has the right ingredients - and the right trailer - to promise a good one. It's still concerning to me that the folks behind Man of Steel and Batman v Superman were allowed anywhere near this thing, but I have my fingers crossed and am holding my breath that their influence will be minimal and that we'll get the film we hope for.

1. The Last Jedi



Rey! Finn! Poe! Luke!

I have crazy high expectations for this, but I trust that Rian Johnson in the one to meet them.