Queue Tips: Civic2R

I once had a friend named Victor.  He drove a Honda Civic.  He had a custom license plate that read: CIVIC2R.  Just a random thought that entered my mind when watching "Victor Frankenstein".  I was reading up on Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" and learned that Charles Dance was also in this other Frankenstein movie, so I decided to check it out.

Victor, of course, means "winner", in Latin, I think.  If I remember correctly.  As stated before, I had never read the novel by Mary Shelley, but I think it's an interesting choice for a character name.  Was he actually victorious?  Was it meant to be ironic?

Maybe because I watched them one after the other, but I wasn't crazy about this film.  I thought the performances were a bit much.  James McAvoy was all crazy he could spit.  And Daniel Radcliffe was supposed to be Igor, and his hump was just a large cyst.  They soon fix it, and he is no longer a hunchback.

A lot of the movie was just talking and arguing and yelling.  There was not much philosophical thought or reason to what they were saying though.  And nothing much happens during most of it.  The monster appears very close to the end, and - spoiler alert! - dies fairly quickly.

I wonder what they were actually trying to do, because the monster was actually supposed to be just a prototype.  Perhaps the filmmakers were hoping to launch a franchise and create more installments.  That is probably why nothing much happens.  In that case, they should have gone more into the background of the scientist.

I know he was supposed to be obsessed with his work, but I didn't really buy the motivation.  If you look at films like "The Prestige", you can really understand why the characters would be so fixated in what they are trying to achieve.  Maybe they should have given him a rival scientist also trying to animate dead creatures.  What would his name be?  Professor Champ Winnerman.

Speaking of champions, do you remember the Steiner Brothers?  They were professional wrestlers who I think were brothers.  Their finishing move was the Frankensteiner.  I think one of them carried their opponent on his shoulder, and the other jumped from the rope and clotheslined him.  If I remember correctly.

Okay, I just googalized it - that is, I youtuberized it - and I realized I was wrong.  The move was actually, one of them jumping up in the air, putting their legs over the opponent's shoulder and flipping backwards.  Wouldn't it be cool if the monster did something like that?

Queue Tips: Let's be Frank.

Every year, I have to call PSE&G to repair the heater.  There's always some part they need to change.  The first time someone came and fixed it, I gave him a tip because that's what you should do.  The next year, something happened again, and I tipped the guy also.  But then a day or two later, it broke again, so the guy came back to do some more work.  I don't think I tipped him the second time.  Then it still wasn't working so they had to bring in a couple of more expert guys.  And they seemed to fix it.  So I tipped them.  But then something else broke so another guy came a few days later.  After that, I was like, nah, I'm keeping my money.

Anyways, last year one of the guys said it was time to replace the whole thing and get a new one.  We had replaced so many parts at that point.  He called it a Frankenheater.  And this year, it broke again and the PSE&G guy said he couldn't fix it.  The property manager sent over his HVAC guy and found the issue to be the rollout switch this time.  He was a Devils fan so I tipped him.

Anyways, coincidentally because it was recently Halloween, I had been watching a lot of scary movies, including a bunch of Frankenstein films.  I kind of somewhat saw that there was another new one that was made recently, but I had seen so many already that I wasn't interested.  Then I somehow learned that it was directed by Guillermo del Toro so I decided to check it out.

It turned out to be great.  It was about two and a half hours long, and I enjoyed the whole thing.  It was certainly different than all the other previous films.

I didn't expect it to be set in the North Pole, for example.  I don't believe there was an Igor character, unless I missed it.  And in this one, the monster turns out to be well spoken.  Oh, spoiler alert, by the way.

With all the snow in the beginning, I think it's interesting that there is a lack of ice during these stories.  You are dealing with rotting cadavers, after all.  Freezing them in some way would probably help.  Although I don't know what the capabilities were in those days.

I didn't realize Christian Convery was in this.  He was the kid in "Sweet Tooth".  I didn't recognize him and then just saw his name in the credits as the young Frankenstein.  (Not to be confused with the movie "Young Frankenstein".)  Of course, he had grown a bit.  And his voice also changed.  Not sure what his natural hair color is, but it was also darker.  I thought he had a good performance.  I also liked the decision to just keep him as the same actor even though some years should have passed already.  In a way, it looks like his character just stayed short during his teen years.

I have never read the novel by Mary Shelley, but I have read summaries of it.  I don't remember every detail though.  So I don't know the whole story about the old man in the cabin.  Whether it was in the book or made up by the filmmaker, I liked where they went with it.  It made so much more sense than just a random visit like they show in other films.

The way it ends certainly makes a sequel possible.  But I like that they didn't make it seem like something more was coming.  It still seemed like that was that even if you do wonder what happens to the characters after.

Queue Tips: House it going.

Apparently, "A House of Dynamite" is not a spinoff of "House of Cards".  Or "House of the Dragon".  Or "House".  It's actually a movie about a nuclear missile attack on the United States.  Only nobody knows who is attacking and why.

So there's all these military people and politicians involved, and it's all tense and everything.  Maybe I wasn't really paying too much attention, but I didn't notice there were much scientists or mathematicians or scholars being consulted for their expertise.  Like, for one thing, they seem to know the trajectory of this missile and where it would land.  Now I'm not a rocket surgeon, but couldn't they then track where that missile came from?  Wouldn't that give them a clue?

I would hope that if this were to - God forbid - happen in real life, firstly, there would already be intelligence and warnings about it.  Secondly, there would be competent people handling it and quickly investigating.  Again, I guess I wasn't really paying much attention but it seems like all these characters are just shrugging their shoulders like iono.  

It's supposed to be all tense and everything.  And I guess that's why the director decided to use the shaky handheld camera as a style choice.  It's moving around a lot, panning from one side to the other and sometimes it goes out of focus.  And there's a lot of cuts.  Death by a thousand cuts.  I just found it annoying.  It can be good for some films, like in the Bourne series of movies, I thought it worked well.  I didn't check the credits but I wonder if this is the same director.

Anyways, apparently they decided to intercept this missile, I think by shooting another missile at it.  And apparently it missed.  And that was the whole plan.  There was no Plan B.  Like, really?  Not even an inkling of what you might do next?  A shot in the dark?  A wild guess?  Now, it wouldn't be me, but wouldn't somebody out there have been willing to jump in a jet and fly into this thing and save the country and potentially the world?

One thing I did notice right away though is the Prudential Center in Newark. specifically, the Citizens Tower entrance.  That was pretty cool.  That is where the New Jersey Devils play, and I recognized it right away.  We go there quite a few times a year for hockey practice and games for my kids, and of course, to watch NHL games.  So that was pretty cool.

I think ultimately though, I couldn't really get into this movie, to be honest.  I could not suspend my disbelief.  It was hard for me to forget that these fictional characters were not actually in charge of the country and that the real people are actually out there in government.

And lastly, do we really need end credits to be over ten minutes long?

Queue Tips: We don't need no education.

I saw "An Education" many years ago when it first came out.  I remember it as being one of the films that year that was being considered for awards and stuff and that is how I heard about it.  It was kind of a bit perplexing to me because it is about a relationship between a young girl and an older guy.  What was puzzling to me was that all the characters in the movie were just kind of okay with it.  And what was even more disturbing was that the audiences at the time didn't seem to care either.

In the beginning, the girl's dad started off being against her being with this guy.  And then he just kind of decided that it was okay.  And the mom was mostly just silent about the whole thing.  I don't think they even asked much about who this guy was and how they met and what his intentions were.  Not that they should even have had to.  She was in high school, and the guy was like ten years older than her.

They met because one day he coincidentally saw her standing in the rain with her cello, and he was so concerned about the instrument that he offered to give her a right.  Like he would do the same if she wasn't attractive or young.  And she just goes in this stranger's car.  Her character was supposed to be sophisticated and I guess mature for her age?  But she couldn't look past this lame pick up attempt.

Anyways, she then goes to a concert with this guy.  They are there with a couple of his friends.  They are a couple, of the same age.  So you juxtapose that with this guy in his late twenties or early thirties going to the same event with a high school girl.  But you see nothing wrong with it.  And this couple is constantly suggesting they do more stuff together and that the guy will take her to do all sorts of things with her.  They don't question why he is with this girl.  She was fifteen.

When I first watched this in 2009, I kept wondering if this was a normal thing in England?  Or at least at that time period?  Rewatching it now, it is even more cringy.  What am I missing?

One of the films I watch every fall is "Rushmore".  This film is also about a fifteen year old who falls in love with an adult.  Here, the adult tells the child that they should not be together.  Attraction has nothing to do with it because of their age difference.

Looking up info about the movie, it seems like it may have been based on a true story.  Someone wrote a memoir of her affair with an older guy.  And I guess that kind of makes it more acceptable?  Or maybe the point is that we are supposed to feel uneasy watching it.  And we are supposed to wonder why no one is putting a stop to it.  That it might actually be possible for this minor to be failed by so many adults around her.  This is supposed to be a coming of age story, and in the end when she finds out the truth about him, she learns a life lesson.  She gets an education first hand even though her parents and the other adults should have looked out for her.

Queue Tips: The brutal list.

I was watching "The Brutalist", and yeah, it was pretty brutal.  It's an over three hour long movie about an architect.  Not only that, but one who practiced with the least style and design.  It would be like watching paint dry, except brutalist architecture often don't even use paint.  As far as I know.  So watching paint dry would probably be more entertaining.

I liked Adrien Brody in "The Darjeeling Limited".  You should check that out if you haven't seen in.  I liked Guy Pearce in "Memento" and "L.A. Confidential".  You should check those out if you haven't seen them.  I liked Isaac de Bankole in "The Limits of Control" and "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai".  You should check those out if you haven't seen them.  Or even if you've seen them already.  Actually, I usually watch the latter every autumn, but I haven't done so this year.  I probably will view it again soon.  It was filmed in Jersey City.  But I digress.

Anyways, apparently this was a critically acclaimed film.  The director also made "The Childhood of a Leader" and "Vox Lux", two films I couldn't get into either.  What am I missing here?  Maybe I'm just not that sophisticated.  In any case, these three films all are in my brutal list.

Also, the director, Brady Corbet, was an actor in two of my favorite films, "Mysterious Skin" and "Funny Games".  That's cool.  You would think he would learn some things from Gregg Araki and Michael Haneke.  If he did, I don't see it.  

Also, apparently, he was in an episode of "King of Queens" many years ago playing the role of a little brother.  That was during his childhood, of course.  And then later on, he grew up to be a leader of a film crew.  

It's perplexing to me that this film seemed to have made funny and was a critical acclaim.  Maybe I'm just out of touch now.  Maybe I just don't have enough attention span.  Maybe it's just too deep for me that I don't get it.

In any case, it's November and I'm getting ready to be watching Thanksgiving movies soon.  One of those is "Planes, Trains and Automobiles".  To paraphrase Neal Page, when you're telling these little stories, have a point.

Queue Tips: Six seven

I watched "Mickey 17" recently, and I surprisingly wasn't that much lost even though I haven't seen the first sixteen yet.  It must be very popular to make it to this many installments.  The challenge is how to make sure it doesn't get stale.

Anyways, it turns out this is not a Disney movie.  Nor is it a documentary about a teen film star who was born around 1917.  Nor is it a sequel to "1917".  That would probably be "1918".

I don't typically like narration in films.  I get that it's necessary sometimes.  Maybe they really did need it in this movie.  But I don't know.  I kind of prefer figuring stuff out instead of being laid out for me.

Overall I liked it.  I like Joon-ho Bong films.  Or is it, Bong Joon-ho?  Not sure.  The Korean guy.  "Mother" is probably still my favorite.  "Parasite" maybe ties it or a close second.  This one was more of just a fun watch, kind of like how I felt about "The Host".  I did not really like "Snowpiercer" and "Okja" though.  (Okja keeps being autocorrected to Okra lol.)

The performances were pretty good, I think.  I didn't instantly recognize Robert Pattinson, even though he somewhat looked familiar.  I try to ignore or forget credits and posters, but I remembered it was him after seeing the names at the end.

The storytelling was good, too.  The problem with stories where anything can happen is that inevitably something has to happen.  So you have all these expectations of sort of wondrous possibilities and then you end up with just this specific string of events.  Which in this film is I guess okay.

I liked the diversity in the cast.  It was cool seeing Stephen Park in a film.  I would like to see more of his wife Kelly Coffield Park though.  It would be awesome to see them in the same project.  Maybe someday in the "In Living Color" movie.

What do you call those frozen creatures that can withstand suspended animation?  It definitely looks like the creepers in this film were based on that.  Can you remind me what they're called?  Its nickname is something something bear, but there's a more official term.  Anyways, I thought that was a good choice.  There was sort of a scientific basis to it.  They also addressed potential viruses and diseased they might encounter in foreign lands so I liked that aspect of it.  The VFX itself though was not that great, just as in the director's other films.  They were just all right.

I wasn't crazy about Mark Ruffalo in this, either in his performance or the character itself.  He just seemed like a one dimensional bad guy type.  Toni Collette was just kind of there.  Should have given the role to Kelly Coffield lol.  

Spoiler alert in case you haven't seen it, but the reason the character is numbered is because he is a clone.  Kinda sad that so many others had died before him.  Many they should have had not that many.  Only like, Mickey six, seven maybe.

Queue Tips: No Kidding

I saw "Kidding" at some point many years ago, in our last place before we moved.  We had cable then, and I don't remember if Showtime came with it or if it was during some kind of a free promo week.  I didn't know Jim Carrey was in it.  I'm not sure I actually had even heard of it.  I was just channel surfing.  I may have mixed it up with "Crashing", which I also saw when I was flipping channels.  There were a couple of comedians in that latter show, so I think that's probably what led to my confusion.

Anyways, I didn't really watch the whole episode.  I just recall thinking it would be funny but not really laughing.  And then I probably looked for something else to watch.  Or one of my kids probably bothered me to put something else on or something.

I checked out the series again recently.  It was kind of depressing, actually.  I'm glad I didn't have this on during the pandemic five years ago.  Thankfully, I had cut the cord after we moved so we no longer had cable.  There were a bunch of shows I checked out during that shutdown period, which didn't turn out so good for my mental health.  Among them were "The Twilight Zone" and "Mad Men".  

Why was I watching these cynical shows at that time?  I should have put on something more upbeat but for some reason those were what I chose.  I think they affected me really negatively.

The show is all right.  Obviously, Jim Carrey has shown that he can be a dramatic actor.  I just don't really identify with the characters or the storylines.  And I didn't really care what happened.  That is, after each episode, I wasn't curious to find out what would happen next.  The actors all had really good performances, but I just could not really get into it.  It was nice to see Kelly Coffield Park in it, and I wish she had been on more or had a bigger role.

And it's not exactly like I'm not interested.  Nor do I find it boring exactly.  It's kind of like I guess having a conversation with a random acquaintance.  They tell you a story and give you details and talk about people you don't know and what happened to them.  And you kind of entertain them and don't want to be rude.  And you're kind of invested enough to want to find out how it turned out.  But after you go your separate ways, you pretty much forget about it.

But yeah, we no longer have cable.  Or even regular TV.  When we first moved here, I didn't get around to scheduling the service right away.  And the kids managed great without it.  They were reading books, playing outside and interacting with each other.  So I decided we should just stay that way.  Little did I know their mom would subscribe to Netflix and get them devices.  That's probably worse than sitting in the living room watching the boob tube together.