2026 - YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING - on the big screen

The 3000 pound monster in the documentary genre which is sucking up all the space not to mention all of the money.  You Can See Everything presents itself as an intimate portrayal of the convicted and I would emphasize again convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes the head of Theranos.

Using the term documentary extremely loosely the film essentially boils down to this. Three grifters attempt to out con each other for about three hours.  A month before she begins her sentence Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans allow comedian and satirist Nathan Fielder into her home to document her life.  The purpose of this documentary is for Holmes and Evans to rehabilitate her image and proclaim her innocence.  

But Holmes and Evans may have meet their match in Fielder a comedian known for staging elaborate charades at the expense of people stuck in his little games. Yes this film is very compelling to watch.  Holmes and Evans are a couple of bizarre characters to put it mildly.  However Fielder clearly knows a thing or two about manipulating people himself.

There is no point getting into the specifics of this film with it's twists and spoilers but you can't not be impressed by how Fielder and his co-director Lance Oppenheim take footage they shot in 2023  and managed to stretch it into a three hour film.

After viewing this film and spending a morning on the internet the seams do start to show.  It's implied that Fielder had exclusive access to Holmes and Evans.  The reality seems to be that she had a constant stream of reporters she spent time with.  The film also questions the sincerity or insincerity of Holmes towards the end.  It implies that she may not be as guilty as we have been led to believe.  However the reality is that this sociopath committed fraud to the tune of 700 million dollars which makes her sound pretty darn guilty to me.

The running time of this film is 174 minutes 

2026 - VISITING THE MONTMARTE CEMETERY - Paris, France

While on vacation in France for a couple of quick weeks I had a limited amount of time to walk through the famous Montemarte Cemetery.  This is a popular tourist stop and is absolutely loaded with the gravesites of many famous French figures.  Since this is a film blog here are just a few of them

You can hardly be in this movie buff film watching business without stopping to view the gravesite of Francois Truffaut one of the French New Wave's best directors.  At the age of 52 Truffaut was diagnosed with a brain tumor and passed away in October of 1984.   I suppose most Americans will remember Truffaut for his role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  A part he partially took to study American film production methods.  After his work on Spielberg's film he made the decision to to not get involved in making any film in the United States a very smart man.

Located near Truffaut's gravesite is that of actor Jeanne Moreau.  She had a long career as a performer appearing in her first film in 1949 and her final film in 2015.  She's practically a history of French cinema.  She worked with many famous directors, Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Wim Wenders, Louis Malle Jean-Luc Goddard and Jacques Demy to name a few.

Here is the headstone of writer/director/actor Sacha Guitry one of the French cinema's most witty filmmakers.  There is a very good box set of Guitry's films from Criterion.  The Pearls of the Crown and The Story of a Cheat are excellent films.

British filmmaker Gabriel Pascal seemed like an odd place to be interned.  Pascal managed to get playwright George Bernard Shaw to sign over the film rights to some of his plays.  Pygmalion was probably his best film adaptation of a Shaw play.  Pascal produced and directed Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945.  At the time this was one of the most expensive films ever made in England.  It was also a notorious box office bomb.

Here's the gavesite of  Henri Georges Clouzot frequently called the French Hitchcock although you could argue that it should be the other way around.  The Wages of Fear, Les Diaboliques and The Mystery of Picasso are excellent films and highly recommended.

Finally one of the strangest sites in Montemarte is the grave of new wave director Jacques Rivette which is literally unmarked.  Rivette was one of the most fascinating of the French New Wave directors.  Not really much of a successful commercial director he did made some interesting films.  I can remember sitting through La Belle Noiseuse a four hour opus about a guy painting a picture, whew.

2026 - THE HISTORY OF CONCRETE, on the big screen

I suppose you could classify The History of Concrete as a documentary but it's really an extended version of one of John Wilson's episodes from his HBO series How To With John Wilson.   It's well known that Wilson decided to end his HBO series after three seasons.  After that he opened a repertory theater in Queens, New York and somehow got it into his head to make this oddball film.

The premise of this alleged documentary has Wilson deciding to make a film about concrete.  We see him attempting to get financing from friends and partners who understandably have more than a few doubts.  In a particularly amusing scene, Wilson decides to use the plot structure of a Hallmark film to make his film.  This is just a jumping off point as Wilson travels around NYC and the country where he encounters one quirky person or situation after another. 

There are a couple of tattoo artists who frame skin tattoos from dead people to sell like they are posters from a museum gift shop. Then there is the only man in New York City who has a chewing gum removal business since apparently the streets of NYC are covered with people who just spit out their gum anywhere

Moving on, Wilson makes a strange visit to an Ohio town to look at the oldest concrete road which somehow finds him spending time at a driver's training school.  I also have to mention a foot race where the runners race around and around a city block endlessly. To give out any more of these vignettes would really ruin the film.  

Wilson was at the Sundance film festival with this film and got good reviews.  Unfortunately the 3000 pound monster in the room that he is competing with is the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything which is really sucking up all the air in the room.

This is a very entertaining film.  I'm not exactly sure what the point of all of this is but if you are looking for something different and frankly very funny it's well worth a look. 

The running time is 101 minutes.  

2026 - DISCLOSURE DAY, Steven Spielberg at 79

I guess you can add Spielberg's Disclosure Day to the list of films made by old guy directors. Hitchcock's Family Plot, John Ford's 7 Women and Fritz Lang's 10000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse come to mind.  What all of these films have in common are that these oldesters make not exactly uninteresting films but clearly are not at the peak of their film making abilities.

 

Disclosure Day is frankly an ungodly mess of plot points and muddled ideas.  Mixed up in this film are UFO's, space aliens, ESP, mind control, magic crystals, World War III, invisible man type magic tricks, nuns and stuff about god.  To say this film doesn't have a clear narrative is an understatement.  Spielberg fires it up for a couple of decent action scenes and at one point he breaks out the old razzle dazzle light show stuff towards the end.  It kind of reminded me of his similar and frankly a lot better alien encounter film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  However it all seems a lot less this time.

With a Spielberg film the production values are top notch.  The cinematography is once again by his go to guy Janusz Kamiński.  Kamiński and Spielberg like to favor photography where the color is sort of de-saturated giving this film a documentary look.  There is also a lot of camera movement in Disclosure Day, the camera zooms in, pans left, pans right and zips around with that hand held effect that's become a cliche in every action film today.  It's annoying and after a while distracts from the narrative. 

This film was a big summer tent pole release for Universal Pictures.  Their marketing department did a good job with creating anticipation primarily using Spielberg's reputation to sell it.  However this was not a joy ride summer film the audience probably expected.  In short it's not an Indiana Jones film because it never was intended to be.  Unfortunately nobody bothered to tell this to the audience.  For Spielberg those days are past. The film probably would have played better if it had been released in the fall or winter where expectations for films are kind of low.  Disclosure Day also would have benefited from a more streamlined story.  This film is an unending two and a half hours.  There are a few good things in the film but overall it's a disappointment.

The screenplay was written by Spielberg's frequent collaborator David Koepp, the running time is 145 minutes.   

2026 - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, a very strange film

This is not a good film, in fact it's a very stupid film.  Mattel owns the rights to the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe characters. They were looking for a studio to make a live action version of their cheesy syndicated cartoon series. Mattel managed to get MGM/Amazon to sign on to create a feature film.  And what brought this on?  Well one word Barbie.  Barbie another Mattel character made so much money that all these corporate interests thought they had a potential money source converting plastic toy doll characters into actual films. 

Unfortunately nobody seemed to understand the success of Barbie.  The film had an excellent screenplay, good direction and casting.  Barbie also pitched a message of female empowerment and you can rest assured Masters of the Universe really had no such message just a cowardly tiger called Cringer and a floating magic guy called Orko.

As poorly as this film turned out there was the gem of a decent idea in it.  Add the usual action and fantasy stuff but also stick in lots of self deprecating humor with a wink to the audience that all this sword and sorcery stuff is actually mighty silly.

Half the time the actors look like they can barely contain the smirk on their faces while playing these silly characters.  The action scenes are the usual bunch of overblown computer graphic animations. After a while it just looks so outrageous it ceases to be remotely believable even for a fantasy world.  But maybe that was the point. 

The director Travis Knight had primarily been associated with animated cartoons. I suppose he was considered to be a safe choice for what is essentially a live action animated cartoon.  But in the end the whole thing just came off as another  flop that ended up on streaming almost immediately after it was released.  If you are for some reason interested in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe world I would recommend watching the Dolph Lundgren version.  Released in 1987 by the Cannon Group who at least recognized this was B-Movie junk instead of the wasted $170 million dollar budget that this film spent.

 The film went through a lot of screenwriters but only four got credit.  Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee and David Callaham.  The running time is 140 minutes for a film that is an updated toy commercial, 

2026 - THE LAST HOUSE, is B movie stuff

The B movie genre lives on particularly on these streaming sites.  The Last House has a reasonably decent idea for a story.  A family has to survive inside their suburban home.  The film sets up this situation but unsurprisingly can't really find a way to resolve it satisfactorily.

In brief, because the movie sure isn't.  A family starts their day by getting ready to leave their home.  The trouble is they can't get out of the house.  The doors won't open and windows won't open.  Even attempts to break the windows and doors down fail.  The family is trapped inside of their home without an explanation.  Not that I want to point it out but this is the same situation that arose in Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel.  However Bunuel's film was a satire of the upper class.  The Last House is strictly a science fiction film with horror moments stuck in it and yes there are monsters involved in the plot.

At first the idea of being permanently trapped in your house is kind of a clever one.  How do you survive when you start to run out of food.  How do you communicate with your neighbors?  How does this family keep from driving each other crazy?  More importantly what will they do when they lose access to the internet  Well you have close to two long hours to find out.

I  really don't have a problem with B-movies like this.  The premise can make for a fairly entertaining time killer of a movie.  What I do have a problem with is the drawing out of the premise.  In the good old days a director like Roger Corman could have taken an idea like this and knocked it out in 72 minutes.  The Last House just goes on and on until it finally has to find a contrived explanation of what is causing this phenomenon and then figure out a resolution for it.  I'm fully aware that with a high concept like this there will inevitably be a let down with the explanation of the story.  It's just the way these kinds of movies go.

The cast kind of does what it can in the acting department.  In films like this the dialog isn't exactly Shakespearean, we are in the B-movie tradition of very lame dialog. There's lots of talk about what it means to be a family and how this situation bonds them together even closer.  The Last House's family situation kind of reminds me of the Space Family Robinson from Lost in Space who only had each other to count on when they were trapped on an alien plane also loaded with strange monsters.

Is this film worth viewing?  Well probably not. As usual this is just another made for streaming movie that will end up in the abyss of all the other streaming films that are viewed once and never heard of again.

The film was written by Mathew Robinson the writer of Love and Monsters who in this case is really just reworking the same plot as that film.  The running time is 112 minutes. 

2026 - THE ODYSSEY, on the big screen is long and very loud

This is the big summer movie filmed in 70mm with a big budget and a big Hollywood cast.  It has it's good points and not so good points.  As a high school student who along time ago was forced to read the Robert Fagles translation of Homer's poem I can say that Christopher Nolan changed a lot of stuff.  But there have been so many translations and interpretations of this epic Nolan certainly has the right to create his version.  The biggest change is the addition of the Trojan horse and the siege of Troy which I believe are not mentioned in the poem.  Odysseus is also now a doubting leader racked by guilt about his role in the war and haunted by the deaths of his men  He's a candidate for some serious mental health counseling and maybe a prescription of Prozac.

The film includes all the greatest hits of The Odyssey.  The encounter with Polyphemus the cyclops (probably the best scene in the film) who munches on his crew like they were after dinner mints.  A battle with the Laestrygonians, some giants that attack and destroy his ships. We are spared the scene from the book where they also eat some of Odysseus's men.  Apparently one cannibal scene was enough for this film.  Circe and Calypso are here and there's a side trip to Hades.  The final slaughter of the suitors in the banquet hall is for the most part unchanged.  About the only mythological character Nolan missed was Bobo from Clash of the Titans. 

The cast much to my surprise was fairly decent.  Matt Damon isn't bad as Odysseus and doesn't look to silly with that broom helmet on his head.  Anne Hathaway is his wife the faithful Penelope.  She's actually very effective in her scenes.   Robert Pattinson is one of the suitors of Penelope he makes a good hissable villain in the great tradition of these "sword and sandal" epics.  Tom Holland an actor now in his 30's is also good playing Odysseus's young son Telemachus.  Every time he refers to Odysseus with the anachronistic name of "Dad," that played a little cringy for me.  Tom Holland's wife Zendaya is Athena the muse of Odysseus.  However Zendaya makes absolutely no impression in this very small role. 

Yes the production is impressive considering the challenges of filming with 70mm cameras.  The Odyssey does have plenty of fighting and battle scenes to satisfy the action fans.  For a 2700 year old poem a lot of the story still works fairly well.  The soundtrack on this film is very LOUD.  I actually sat in my car for a few minutes after the film to wind down.

I will give Christopher Nolan credit this guy isn't afraid to think big and go over the top in his film making.  If he doesn't always succeed with his approach at times at the very least he is trying to go there with his large scale approach to storytelling.  Nolan's in the great tradition of super epic filmmakers like David Lean and Sergei Bondarchuk, directors who worked on a large canvas. 

 The running time is 173 minutes, screenplay by Christopher Nolan.

2026 - THE SHEEP DETECTIVES, bah bah (what else).

Hugh Jackman is a sheep herder who lives in a caravan in some rural town in England.  He spends all  his days tending to a flock of sheep.  In the evening the sheep gather round and Jackman reads mystery stories to them.  Well surprise surprise when the sheep are by themselves they talk in the Queen's English.  Jackman is murdered and suspicion falls on his estranged daughter from America who has come for a visit.  It's up to the sheep to solve the murder of Jackman and somehow communicate to the police whodunit. 

This is sort of a family film which has a lot of whimsy make that a whole lot of whimsy.  The sheep all have individual personalities and they are voiced by actors British and American actors.  Besides Jackman, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun and Conleth Hill are the actual human actors. 

Obviously the sheep are animated.  The director Kyle Balba started his career in film working for Industrial Light and Magic and had animated films like A Bug's Life, Mars Attacks and Monster's Inc. so he knew his way around integrating computer animation with live action. 

There's nothing particularly bad about this film although I have to say I didn't particularly care for it.  The Sheep Detectives just seems to have a very serious case of "the cutes.''  The film at times wallows in it's own sentimentality and cleverness.  Yes it has some funny stuff in it.  However you also have to endure a lot of sheep talk about their place in the universe.  I enjoy fantasy films as much as the next film nerd but even I have my limits.  And come on, this is a film about talking sheep.

 As an aside, I've spent some time around actual sheep and I can state that they are very stupid creatures.

 The film was written by Craig Mazin, the running time is 109 minutes.  

2026 - VOICEMAILS FOR ISABELLE, rom-com time

Zoey Deutch races around San Francisco like a "manic pixie dream girl" (do they still use that term?) bemoaning that she can't keep a boyfriend.  Never mind the fact that she looks like a movie star with makeup and a wardrobe that would be the envy of any single woman living on an assistant chef's salary.  At one point you want to scream at the television set and tell her to calm down and take some Adderall.

Well let's get the synopsis out of the way.  Zoey is a chef working for a Hitler like master chef.  She has a terminally ill sister who she talks to on the phone all the time.  When the sister passes away, Zoey continues to call her sister's phone and leave voicemails to cope with her grief.  Little does Zoey know that her sister's phone number has now been reassigned to a cute real estate salesman who listens to the voicemails and falls in love with Zoey.  He arranges to meet her and we get the usual falling in love montage between the two of them.  Will the cute guy fess up to Zoey about the voicemails so we can get to a happy ending as quickly as possible?

 

 While viewing this I could hardly believe Zoey Deutch was the same performer who did such a good job playing actor Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague.  Deutch's over the top performance would probably keep any normal guy from ever getting involved with such a disturbed nutcase.

  

The plot owes a lot to You Got Mail and the Ernest Lubitsch film The Shop Around the Corner.  I will give the writer/director Leah McKendrick credit for injecting enough humor and clever moments to make this film watchable.

The running time is 118 minutes.  

2026 - OFFICE ROMANCE, standard rom-com stuff made for streaming

I watched this because why not.  Nobody is going to confuse this with a classic romantic comedy.  In fact nobody is going to confuse this with anything.

 

Jennifer Lopez at 56, still looks great in a two piece swimsuit but probably getting a little old for this stuff, is the head of an airline that is being sued for some reason.  British actor Brett Goldstein remembered for playing Roy Kent in Ted Lasso is the attorney who is representing her company in the lawsuit.  They fall in love, the road to a happy ending is sort of rocky but it will all work out.

 

Some of the jokes are funny most are not.  A few interesting actors show up like Bradley Whitford, Edward James Olmos, Amy Sedaris and Betty Gilpin.  They manage to steal the show from the two leads but that didn't take much.

 

For a "watch with your significant other rom-com" there is a level of raunchy and not particularly funny humor throughout the film.  The photography is pretty.  This film will slide into the abyss of streaming films that show up for a week and are then forgotten.

The film was written by Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly.  The running time is 115 minutes is should have really been shorter.

2026 - REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES - the talking octopus movie

In the great tradition of talking animal shows such as Francis the Talking Mule, Mr. Ed the talking horse and I suppose, My Mother The Car the talking 1928 car comes Remarkably Bright Creatures. It features a taking octopus as the narrator of this film.  I guess there is some precedent for this as Shakespeare had a narrative chorus in Henry the Fifth and Romeo and Juliet.  Into the Woods features a narrator as does The Big Lebowski.  Although there is only one voice in Remarkably Bright Creatures, I could have seen a chorus of octopuses (octopi?) telling this story.  The name of the octopus by the way is Marcellus.

The film follows people living in a small Pacific Northwest town with a particular emphasis on Tova Sullivan an old woman played by 79 year old Sally Field.  She is about to transition into a senior living facility and still dealing with the death of her son and husband.  She works at an aquarium where she pours out her troubles to Marcellus the octopus who listens attentively. 

Also featured in this film is Cameron Cassmore a young drifter who Tova meets and begins to form a bond with.  Cameron is played by Lewis Pullman the son of actor Bill Pullman.  Lewis Pullman gives a decent performance as a confused young man although this role is a big step up from his appearance in that Marvel film Thunderbolts where he played the idiot member of the team.

Frankly the drama and situations in this film are nothing you haven't seen in any other "relationship" film.  Let's bring a couple of very different people together and have them find things in common so they can "bond."  Secrets will be revealed and heartwarming lessons will be learned.  The talking octopus shtick is really just a gimmick and doesn't add anything to the story.  There's also a surprise twist towards the end of this film which as far as I'm concerned is also another plot gimmick.

 This film was based on a popular book and I guess Netflix should get some credit for making a film that doesn't feature aging action stars in some improbable "shoot em up" film.  Remarkably Bright Creatures is a nice safe and boring film to watch with grandma or an elderly aunt.

The film was written by Olivia Newman and John Whittington, the running time is 111 minutes. 

2026 - SHELTER, this year's Jason Statham film

With the inevitability of a returning season this is the yearly Jason Statham action film no better or no worse than any of his other films.  In Shelter, Statham is a man living alone on a deserted island with an abandoned lighthouse on it.  Washing up onto the beach is a teenage girl who has survived a ship sinking.  It turns out Statham is an ex special ops agent skilled at killing a lot of people all at once or one at a time.  His cover is now blown and so the chase is on.   Will Statham be able to stop the army of assassins sent out to kill before he can save the girl and get her to safety?  Have you guessed the very obvious answer to that question?

The teenage girl is played by somebody with a tongue twister of a name called Bodhi Rae Breathnach she interacts with Statham fairly well.  Award winning actor Bill Nighy (as in what am I doing in this film) is the leader of the assassins and since this a Jason Statham film you know he's going to get it.

 

The director Ric Roman Waugh was a former stuntman who had worked on The Last of the Mohicans, The Last Action Hero and the bizarre meta universe film The One, so he knew his way around staging the action scene stuff which is for the most part fairly well done. 

 

Shelter is the usual time killer of a film.  It keeps the viewers interest from beginning to the end or at least until the next Statham film comes rolling along in 2027.

The film was written by Ward Perry, the running time is 107 minutes.

2026 - SOLO MIO, okay romantic comedy

Unlikely leading man Kevin James is a school art teacher who proposes to his long time girlfriend.  The plan is for them to get married in Rome.  During the wedding she leaves him at the alter and he is understandingly depressed.  He meets the owner of a coffee shop named Gia who he bonds with.  Do I have to paint a picture about how this plot is going to end up? 

This is a very mildly pleasant rom-com.  The actors are decent, Kevin James has spent years on TV sitcoms so he has his comedy sthick down fairly well.  The actor playing Gia, Nicole Grimaudo is likable even if she does overdo the excitable Italian woman character thing a bit much.

 

Really the best reason to see this film is the on location filming in Rome and the Italian countryside actually the only reason to sort of sit through this thing. This is one of those films that was made for streaming at home, you don't need to have any emotional investment in the story.  All right I'll say it, it's the perfect film to watch with your significant other.

 

The film was barely written by the directors, John Kinnane, Dan Kinnane and Kevin James, the running time is a brisk 96 minutes. 

2026 - DISNEYLAND HANDCRAFTED, how they built Disneyland

The granddaughter of one of Walt Disney's most important contributor's Ub Iwerks, has assembled this film about the construction of Disneyland in Orange County, California during the 1950's.  First off who was Ub Iwerks?  Well he was with Walt Disney at the very beginning helping to develop the Mickey Mouse character.  Iwerks was responsible for many of the visual effects that showed up in Disney's films in particular Mary Poppins, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Sleeping Beauty just to name a very few.  Iwerks also handled the special effects for Hitchcock's The Birds.

Anyway, Ub Iwerk's granddaughter Leslie got access to some rarely seen 16mm films on the construction of Disneyland that Walt Disney had commissioned during the building.  The films had for the most part had never been seen and were in perfect condition. They were edited into a narrative and are interesting to watch.

 

Disneyland was one of Walt Disney's most important creative endeavors and he spared no expense in building it.  Amazingly the park was constructed in one year,  a real pressure cooker of a time table.  The film has voice over narration from the actual participants in the construction of Disneyland and they clearly had their doubts about the whole project. 

Obviously this film is going to appeal mostly to nerds groupies of the Disneyland Park.  However it is kind of fascinating to see the construction of one of the seminal theme parks in the United States and the near perfect color films shot during the construction are pretty cool to look at.  This documentary can be viewed where else, on the Disney plus channel.

The running time is 79 minutes. 

2026 - PROJECT HAIL MARY, it's really long

Extreme over length finally kills what could have been a good science fiction story.  The directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have been very good providers of crowd pleasing entertainments with films like 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie. They were fired off of the Star Wars spinoff Solo because they thought they were hired to make a comedy which apparently isn't what Disney wanted.  Believe me considering how Solo turned out their approach would have made a much better movie.

 

For Project Hail Mary they were working with a big budget based on a novel from the author of The Martian.  They mounted a very elaborate science fiction epic with a screenplay by a top writer Drew Goddard.  Ryan Gosling was cast as the hero astronaut who has to save the planet earth.  Current flavor of the month German actor Sandra Huller is the scientist in charge of Project Hail Mary  She plays the usual stoic who secretly has a heart of gold.

 

Even with all the elaborate and at times dazzling visual effects, Ryan Gosling is the whole show.  He has to virtually deliver a monologue throughout the whole film and act next to some kind of puppet rock creature.  He does this very well and keeps the film watchable for about an hour.

 

However Project Hail Mary is cursed with all of the problems these current big screen films have.  It has a very meandering script with a lot of plot exposition.  In this case there's lots of jumping back and forth in time and a whole lot of screen time hanging out with the space alien.  This finally drags the film into major boredom.  It also has one of the worst issues all these recent big budget films have as well, the inability to know when to end the damn story.  There are at least three endings in the last half hour.  This film isn't bad it's just tedious.

Project Hail Mary runs 156 minutes.