ETERNALS (2021)

Seldom has the boredom of immortality been driven home so pointedly.

 

So, it took three staggered tries, but I finally made it though INTERMINABLES, er, ETERNALS. 

 

It was dull, overlong, the characters were mostly ciphers about whom it was impossible to care, and the tragic choice of favoring Neil Gaiman's latter day take on the characters — which I failed to make it all the way through — at the expense of removing about 99% of creator Jack Kirby's creative DNA proved its undoing, so much so that I won't even bother with a recap of its plot or its place in the overall MCU. The film ends with a setup for more, but considering its well-deserved audience apathy/dislike, I very much doubt we'll get another Eternals film, despite a blurb at the end promising "THE ETERNALS WILL RETURN."

As usual with MCU movies, we get stingers at the end, the first of which introduces Pip the Troll (voiced by Patton Oswalt and poorly rendered in CGI) and Starfox, then at the ass end if the credits, we get setup for the inclusion of the Black Knight, played by GAME OF THRONES' John Snow himself, Kit Harrington. The Black Knight has always been a nothing of a character, so I don't see him progressing much further if another Eternals film does not happen.

Bottom line: This one is majorly skippable and, if you ask me, it edges out THOR: THE DARK WORLD as the MCU's biggest dud. It tragically squanders a vast canvas of concepts and visuals laid down by Jack Kirby, as well as wasting an impressive cast on a plot and dialog that I would not give to a two-by-four. Seriously, watch an old Cecil B. DeMille epic instead. You'll get far more enjoyment and entertainment.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: GOODBYE TO THE UA COURT STREET MULTIPLEX

An auditorium at the now-defunct Regal UA Court Street in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill. Once a cinema house of audience madness, now a lifeless tomb of movie memories, some good, some not so good.

The day has finally come when the Regal Court Street Stadium 12, more recently the Regal UA Court Street, dimmed its lights for the final time, and I cannot say I'm really all that shocked. The 12-screen multiplex in downtown Brooklyn was a management disaster and the audiences there were sometimes nightmarish. Seeing animated films there was the worst, because ghetto parents used it as an excuse to let their kids run around unsupervised while they sat back and got their drink on while devouring Popeye's (from the one a few doors up the street) and littering the floor with its bones and boxes. After my experience of seeing Ratatouille there, a cartoon that isn't a kid's movie at all, I swore off seeing animated films anywhere other than an arthouse like the Film Forum. 

Probably my most cherished memory of the place and its annoying audiences was when I saw STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES with my lover at the time. We were seated to the right of an overweight, bespectacled guy in his mid-thirties who kept his gaze locked on the screen while saying aloud to himself, but which all present could not help but hear, comments like "And THAT...is why he is a MASTER...of THE DARK SIDE," and my favorite, when Yoda whipped out his lightsaber: "And NOW...You shall see why he is called...THE MASTER." He threw out comments like that from the start of the film to the end (when he stood up, thrust both fists into the air and whopped "WHOO-HOO!!!") and it was simultaneously annoying and hilarious. I don't know if the guy was just socially awkward or on the spectrum or what, but I swear to whatever gods there may be, I would give my left arm for his commentary to accompany the film's DVD as an extra.

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME was my last movie there. I went by myself a couple of weeks back and found the place damned near deserted, so it was obvious that the end was approaching. That said, for my money, as a theater, it was pretty much the most palatable of the mainstream Joe Sixpack ones I've been to in Brooklyn during my 25 years living here. It was convenient to get to and, if you caught a movie with a civilized audience (a rare occurrence), it could be quite pleasant. 

Requiescat en pace, Court Street Stadium 12. If you ran more exploitation films, you would be remembered as a solid grindhouse.

A MUSING ON ROADHOUSE (1989)

Ben Gazzara as crime boss Brad Wesley.

Just thought of something: Considering how ROADHOUSE (1989) ends, the citizens of Jasper, Missouri could have simply murdered uber-asshole crime boss Brad Wesley at the get-go, instead of hiring Dalton as the Double Deuce's cooler. That simple act of singular homicide would have saved several lives and untold millions in property damage. But then I guess the movie would be only two minutes long, so there you go...