Book adaptations – Page 12 – Yesterday's Movies

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

August 7, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

So maybe this will be the lighter film I was hoping for last week. This is definitely sold as a feel-good movie and I think a romantic comedy? It can’t be too serious with Whoopi Goldberg playing the best friend.

I always have this movie’s plot conflated in my head with Peggy Sue Got Married, for no other reason than the vaguest of similarities in the title (“past-tense complete sentence that refers to the female protagonist by name”). Obviously they are very different movies.

So anyway, this is the story of a 40-something (who looks like she’s in her early 30s) having a fling with a 20-something on a vacation and… embarking on a journey of self-discovery? Rediscovering a youthful spirit she’s lost in the rat race? ~~Telling her boytoy to stay the hell away from her daughter?~~ I’m not entirely clear on what this groove is, but it’s obviously a good thing, not something to beware.

Continue reading →

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

July 24, 2015July 24, 2015temporalparadox1 Comment

Before watching the movie: When I ask someone new for a movie recommendation, there’s a high likelihood they’ll suggest something I’ve already seen. There’s a very slim chance they’ll recommend something I’ve never even heard of. Not every movie I’ve ever reviewed is obviously to my taste, but the ones that aren’t are pretty much the cinematic canon. And now there’s this. Possibly the first small drama I’ve seen outside of a film festival. I might have passed it by without the strong recommendation of a new friend. The closest reference point I have is something like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? for reasons that become less clear as I explore what they might be (for one thing, I remembered that one as a period story and it’s actually contemporary). This seems to essentially be a story about a housewife supporting her children by writing for prizes. So it’s more like October Sky (intellectual skills lifting people out of bad situations), only probably not at all. Continue reading →

The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming!

July 10, 2015August 13, 2015temporalparadox1 Comment

Before watching the movie:

I’m pretty sure my father recommended this to me some time ago, but it wasn’t in a comment on the blog and if it was an email, I don’t have it anymore. In going through old comments I realized I’d been remiss in adding suggestions to the list, but I’ve updated it now. As a reminder, any reader can suggest movies to me for review. You don’t even have to be related to me! The regular format of this blog limits it to films I haven’t seen before, but if I get enough suggestions that I have seen, I may be able to put together a Reader-Request Rewatch month.

This appears to be Cold War satire/farce concerning a Soviet boat in distress in American waters and the attempt by an unfortunate officer to try to solicit help in a small town without starting World War III. It puts me in mind of 1941, only I think that was a real invasion. For pretty much no good reason, it’s also got me thinking of The Ship with the Flat Tire and Jaws.

Continue reading →

Supergirl

June 26, 2015June 26, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Similar to how the Batman franchise spun off Catwoman, after three Christopher Reeve movies, the Superman franchise spun off Supergirl. However, while Catwoman was basically made because the next proper Batman movie was in development hell, my understanding is that Supergirl was a pure spinoff attempt riding on the success of Superman. While Catwoman is generally considered awful, it was followed by the acclaimed Dark Knight Trilogy, and I get the sense Supergirl is considered okay but forgettable, and it was followed by Superman IV.

I know exactly what to expect from the plot because this is the introductory movie of a superhero, which has been required to be the rote origin story for around 40 years, if not longer. As for a villain to slot in, I’m not sure what to expect, since I don’t know of Supergirl having any villains that are “hers”. I’m really not that familiar with her at all besides the basics of her relationship with Superman, so maybe I won’t have lore bogging down my enjoyment.

Continue reading →

First Blood

June 19, 2015June 19, 2015temporalparadox2 Comments

Before watching the movie:

The problem with Sylvester Stallone’s franchises is that they were really never meant to be franchises. But then I say that having never seen any of the Rocky or Rambo sequels. However, I get the sense that the Rocky movies did better at retaining its emotional center than Rambo.

As I understand this, the original Rambo film is a fairly faithful telling of a story contemplating what happens to Vietnam veterans with difficulty adjusting to civilian life (in this case, get triggered and start shooting people), while the later movies recast the character as a warrior put in contexts that need a warrior for the sake of letting him shoot more people. So I expect this one to be thoughtful on a level somewhat beyond a typical gritty action movie.

Stallone gets typed as an action star, but it’s clear from Rocky that he can portray human vulnerability, and I hope to see that on display here in the pacing scenes.

Continue reading →

Mean Girls

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I’m fairly certain there were girls’ clique stories before Mean Girls, and of course many more after and because of it. So my impression is that this is extremely generic. But that’s probably unfair. Especially because of the influence this has had on the ten years since. And there’s always room for the writing to rise above a generic story type. I know there are a handful of lines that have become memetic.

This is also likely the most in-depth look at the girls’ clique trope. I seem to recall an idea that this is nearly anthropological in its study of catty high school girls, but that may be an argument beyond the depth of this blog.

Continue reading →

Aces High

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

World War I doesn’t get nearly as much attention as any other major war of the 20th century (that registers in American history education). It’s sometimes treated like a forgotten prequel to everyone’s favorite war with Nazis and atomic detonations. While it’s a mentality I’m not at all immune to, it’s worth remembering as the horrific tragedy of old-fashioned warfare at an industrialized pace. There are few symbols more powerful to me than the Douaumont Ossuary, a memorial built to house the remains of over 130,000 young men killed in a single (massive) battle, and that number is just the ones that couldn’t be identified. Small wonder it was thought at the time that this war would make any future wars unthinkable. As centennial anniversaries of milestones in the war are remembered currently, it might be gaining back some respect.

I went into all of that because this movie is positioned as a drama concerning the toll aerial warfare took on RAF pilots, and so hopefully the above paragraph is relevant, even if it was more concerned with terrestrial battles than planes. The big names by today’s standards are Malcolm McDowell and Christopher Plummer, though Peter Firth (whom I don’t think I’ve heard of) gets top billing on this poster. I know McDowell is a major character, but I’m not sure about Plummer.

Continue reading →

Total Recall

April 10, 2015April 10, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Why is it that Hollywood seems to like Phillip K. Dick more than any other SF writer? Off the top of my head, there’s Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Looking it up, I was surprised to learn that the recent The Adjustment Bureau is another adaptation of his, as well as almost as many more I hadn’t even heard of, including two television series.

I recall the short story this is based on “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” as a cerebral thriller, while this movie seems to be positioned as an action-packed blockbuster. To be fair, I can certainly see the room to open up the plot with action sequences.

I feel like this is one of those movies that if it wasn’t rated R I would have seen it ages ago. It came out only two years after I was born and its staying power has only been diminished by having a recent remake. If I’d been 17 in the 90s, I probably would have been invited to watch it with someone before the decade ended, or been invested enough to make the effort myself. However, in the last ten years it’s just been on a shelf or digital shelf somewhere, with no particular reason to make “I’ll watch it someday” into “I’ll watch it now”, until well, now.

Continue reading →

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

March 6, 2015March 6, 2015temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I don’t normally like to see remakes before the original. When I do see the 1956 version, hopefully this won’t color it too much. However, the reason this is line-jumping is because I wanted to respect the death of Leonard Nimoy and this has turned out to be pretty much the only work he was involved in available to me that I haven’t seen and is a movie.

At any rate, this is billed as a “reimagining”, and appears to do a decent job at making the story relevant to the late 70s, which is always a problem when remaking science fiction decades later. I take it from the recommendation that brought this to my attention that Nimoy’s role is fairly significant, though I don’t know much about his star capital between Star Trek leaving television and entering theaters to judge whether he was a big enough name to get on the poster for minor roles.

I don’t want to make this post all about Nimoy, but it occurs to me that I may never have seen him play an onscreen role besides Spock.

Continue reading →

Stand By Me

February 12, 2015temporalparadox1 Comment

Before watching the movie:

I mainly know of this movie because it was apparently the biggest thing in Wil Wheaton’s child acting career besides Star Trek, and as I keep up with his internet presence, it comes up a lot. I only know the broadest strokes of the plot, that there’s a group of boys who have some kind of adventure that leaves them all changed, like The Goonies, though more mundane. Everything else I think I know comes from the Simpsons episode that I think is based on this.

I’m not normally drawn to coming of age films, as I’m neither young enough to appreciate them as a child nor old enough to absorb the nostalgia of childhood adventure. Indeed, I’m from after the era where children commonly wandered freely outside of school to make lasting friends and life-changing discoveries, so this kind of film is somewhat foreign to me. But I have the impression that it’s a classic from the mid-80s, even if it doesn’t have as strong or visible a cult following as many others.

Continue reading →