Cavalcade of Awesome

So all my favorite lists (books, movies) are out there for the world to see.  I even talked to you about my favorite novelizations on I Read Movies as well as provided you some honorable mentions in books and comics.  So I guess I should come up with some honorable mentions for movies.

This list will be some movies I wanted to talk about, good or bad.  These aren’t all “just missed the favorites list”.  Some of these were never going to make the list.  But maybe I had something more to say about them.

Let’s go.

Bill & Ted Face the Music – I want to start with two nostalgia bombs that I watched last year.  First, Bill & Ted 3.  I was one of the ones that was pretty excited about this.  I love the first movie.  I really enjoy the second movie.  I’ve read a ton of the comics that have come out in the intervening years.  I was so ready for this.  And it was great.  Fun and fast paced.  Lots of fun twists and turns.  I feel like some of the story sort of covered the same ground of what’s been done before.  I love Samara Weaving as Bill’s daughter.  Bridget Lundy-Paine as Ted’s daughter took some getting used to, but she’s fine.  I like the story tries to bring in the Princesses more, but ultimately it doesn’t really amount to much.  I enjoyed returning to this world, I enjoyed seeing Reeves and Winter back in their iconic roles, I enjoyed that they tried something a little different (and a lot the same).  As a Bill & Ted fan, I had a lot of fun.

Jay & Silent Bob Reboot – This was the second “nostalgia bomb” movie I watched last year.  I’m a fan of Jay and Silent Bob.  This movie was really a sequel to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I’m mostly a fan of.  I always enjoy seeing these View Askew characters in another movie.  And Kevin has a lot of famous friends and pretty much all of them try to make an appearance in this movie.  And that’s ultimately my problem.  This movie doesn’t feel like one continuous movie, but a collection of scenes, filmed separately, with no one interacting with anyone except Jay and Silent Bob.  I know this is due to stars’ scheduling issues, but I feel it in the film.  However, I do appreciate the effort to bring people back.  Jason Lee.  Joey Lauren Adams.  Even Ben Affleck makes an appearance.  But all of their appearances are clearly walled off from everything else that happens in the movie.  The fun of all the interactions is lost.  We only see Jay and Silent Bob reacting.  So, I was a bit disappointed.  But I’m glad I watched it.  I hear Kevin is back on getting Clerks 3 written.  I’m a little wary about that.  I heard Jeff Anderson doesn’t want to do Randal anymore, but if he’s back in, then more power to Kev.

Rambo Last Blood – Okay, I guess technically, this would be a third nostalgia bomb that I watched.  I’m a Rambo fan.  I love 1-2, forget 3 even exists, and love the 2008 Rambo movie.  So I was excited to see “one last ride” for this character.  And what a great title.  You know what, I would have really liked this movie if it wasn’t Rambo.  It’s a pretty solid action movie.  It’s just not a great Rambo movie.  It takes some time to get going.  I don’t like the middle section where he goes to Mexico.  The last part is pretty good, but it’s not lit well and it’s very hard to see what’s going on.  I saw another movie last year very similar to this called Close Range with Scott Adkins.  It was from 2015, and while I have a few issues with that movie, it’s a better version of the story in Last Blood. This just didn’t feel like a great ending to John Rambo’s story.

High Rise – From 2015, based on a 1975 novel by JG Ballard.  I watched this for the incredible cast; Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Elizabeth Moss, Luke Evans, and Sienna Miller, all directed by Ben Wheatley who is directing that new version of Rebecca with Armie Hammer and Lily James. I was pretty pumped.  And it’s terrible.  I was so disappointed.  It’s very stream of consciousness.  It reminded me a lot of Roger Avary’s Rules of Attraction.  Very weird and hard to follow.  It’s definitely an artsy type of film, which is totally not my bag.  So I realize that mileage may vary greatly with this.  But I did NOT like it.

Anna – Saw the trailer for this last year and it blew me away.  So I marked it “to watch”.  Finally got around to it last summer.  It’s pretty awesome.  Reminded me of a grittier Salt.  Anna, trapped in the slums of Russia, in a twist of fate, is offered a job within a special division of the KGB.  She becomes a deep undercover operative, posing as a fashion model while accomplishing missions.  She is caught by the CIA, agrees to work as a double agent, then maneuvers both the CIA and KGB in an effort to get her out of the spy business.  But neither agency wants to let her go.  The movie gets pretty tense and has some major action set pieces.  I very much enjoyed it.  The girl who plays Anna, Sasha Luss, is pretty great.  She handles the action well and I believe it when she wants to get out of the business.  Also in this are Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, and Helen Mirren.

And those are some of my movie honorable mentions!  Hope you found something interesting in all of my 2020 lists I gave you.

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