WICKED (2024)

Defying gravity.

I just finished watching WICKED (2024), and when "To Be Continued" flashed across the screen at the end, I said aloud "That was excellent."

I went into WICKED cold. I read the source novel when it came out — Mildred gave me the hardcover first edition for Christmas in 1995 — but I gave it a miss during its Broadway run, thanks to it being hyped to death, so I knew nothing of how the story would be handled when translated from the page, and the only songs from it that I had heard were "Popular" and "Defying Gravity," the latter of which I recall being partially heard in the commercial for the Broadway production. Now I regret missing the original production, because I love Idina Menzel — Hot Jewish chick alert!!! RRRROWR!!! — Kristin Chenoweth, but what's done is done. Anyway, the movie adaptation...I initially intended to give the film a miss until next year, when the second half is released, but I was granted the opportunity to watch it at home, so I took it.

Upon seeing a considerable amount of the promotional lead-up to the film's release, I was concerned that casting a Black actress in the role of Elphaba might be too on the nose, considering some of the plot's themes, but short of time-traveling back to 2003 and press-ganging Idina Menzel to the present, I could not have asked for a more perfect Elphaba than Cynthia Erivo. She was tremendous, simply tremendous in the role. She has an incredibly expressive face, and she can belt out a showstopper like nobody's business. She perfectly conveyed Elphaba's loneliness and anger, and arch villain though she is destined to become, I totally rooted for her from the moment of her birth. And do not get me started on "Defying Gravity." That song is a modern classic for a reason, and when she took to the skies during it, I felt the same thrill that hit me when Christopher Reeve's Superman swung into action for the helicopter rescue back in 1978. In short, Elphaba is in no uncertain terms completely fucking awesome — and I do mean AWESOME — and I will be there on opening weekend for the second half of this story.

My new favorite anti-hero.

Everything else about the film is superb across the board, and though I now regret missing the original Broadway production, I'm glad I waited for the movie, because no matter how much the stage design may have rocked live, I personally needed cinematic special effects to properly bring the vistas of the land of Oz to vivid believable life, and not make all of it look like, well, a stage musical. The realization of Oz and its denizens is terrific, and the voice casting of my man Peter Dinklage as Professor Dillamond was inspired. (When the character first spoke, a spark of recognition ignited in my brain, but it took maybe a minute before I twigged to it being The Dinklage.) I was initially leery of the casting of Ariana Grande as Galinda, but she sold the vapid rich and popular girl seemingly effortlessly. She made me hate the character instantly, and I only hated her just a tad less after Galinda and Elphaba became besties. But the real surprise was Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. I have always enjoyed his work, but for what seems like close to thirty years he's pretty much played his roles with a quirky delivery a la Ian Malcolm in the JURASSIC PARK franchise, and frankly that schtick has worn out its welcome with me. (Though he does get a pass as the Collector in THOR: RAGNAROK.) And of course the always welcome Michelle Yeoh completely slew as the elegant Madame Morrible.

So, yeah, I loved WICKED, and it immediately joins my roster of favorite movie musicals. If they stick the landing with the second half, we're looking at a timeless classic. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

                                                          Poster for the theatrical release.

THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (2018)

 The magic of Santa Claus.

Those of you who know me outside of the internet and social media are aware that I am famously a curmudgeon when it comes to all things Christmas. The holiday just brings me down for many reasons, most relating to family dysfunction and childhood trauma, with this past Christmas being my worst, most depressing Christmas ever. So it was with some trepidation that I watched Netflix's THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (2018), solely to see what I heard was Kurt Russell as the best Santa Claus in movie history. Well, I just finished watching the film and I just have to come out and say it: THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES gets my sincere vote as the best, most fun Christmas movie ever made, and Kurt Russell is everything I ever wanted in a Santa Claus. 

Kurt Russell, one of my favorite actors since I was a kid, as a surprisingly perfect Santa CLAUS.

It's a Christmas movie that I would write if tasked with coming up with a Christmas story that featured no violence and other scabrous elements. I loved everything about it, from its dysfunctional sibling protagonists, to its examination of the lore of the how-to of Santa's magic, to ordinary people encountering the real Santa and being presented with concrete evidence that he's EXACTLY who he appears to be, to arguably the best Christmas elves yet committed to celluloid. (Extra points for them being Nordic and speaking with subtitles.) In short, it's the movie I wish I'd had at my mother's house this past Christmas.
It made me feel good, even to the point of making me believe in this specific Santa.

All my life I have believed in the power of stories and storytelling, and when I really get into a story and its characters, it moves me, and by the time THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES reached its very satisfying climax, I felt genuinely Christmas-style good for the first time in ages, and I was shocked to find out that I had tears running down my face. The film offered me a much-needed dose of fun and emotional release without being cloying or nauseating in the way that far too many holiday films are.

Final verdict: THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES will be added to my DVD collection as soon as possible, and it will become a Yuletide perennial alongside VIOLENT NIGHT, KRAMPUS, and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, only wholesome instead of savage or scary. Even a dyed-in-the-wool Christmas bah-humbugger like me can get with the spirit when a story truly speaks to my head and heart.

 Promotional image from the original release.

HARUM SCARUM (1965)

 

Leave your brain at the door for this one.

Finally saw HARUM SCARUM (1965), one of the top contenders for the dubious distinction of being Elvis’s rock-bottom worst film, alongside the equally maligned KISSIN’ COUSINS (1964). While KISSIN’ COUSINS very much played into its era’s trend toward “cornpone” comedy, HARUM SCARUM harks back to the B-movie genre of “exotic” Arabian-set adventure/romances of the 1940’s and 1950’s, with California unconvincingly standing in for Middle Eastern locations. 

Originally released as a double-feature with the classic Toho kaiju flick, GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, 

I swear this actually happened. Talk about tonal whiplash... 

HARUM SCARUM finds Elvis starring as Johnny Tyrone, a nightclub entertainer and movie star on a goodwill tour of the Middle East, who is kidnapped and tasked to use his karate skills to murder the king of an isolationist desert nation that has kept Western influences at bay for two millennia. If he does not murder the king, a league of assassins will kill a troupe of performing thieves and orphans that Elvis has befriended. (Why the league of assassins don’t just dispose of the king themselves is never addressed.)

Elvis as Johnny Tyrone. Rudolph Valentino he ain't.

 There are escapes, double-crosses, mild derring-do, Michael Ansara (I DREAM OF JEANNIE's Blue Djinn and Klingon captain Kang from the original STAR TREK and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE), the always welcome Billy Barty, and romance with the king’s gorgeous daughter, all accented with a steady roster of forgettable musical numbers.

When compared against KISSIN’ COUSINS, I have to say that I find HARUM SCARUMto be the superior film. Yes, it’s incredibly stupid, but it’s as mindlessly entertaining as any of the many faux Arabian exotica flicks that Hollywood had cranked out for the previous twenty years, and Elvis and company all look like they had a blast filming it, unlike the somnambulistic performances in KISSIN’COUSINS. The comedy, though stupid, does not insult one’s intelligence in the way that KISSIN’ COUSINS did, and the songs are all definitely better (though it's an admittedly low bar). However, the one disturbing trend of several Elvis films of the early/mid-1960's that pops up again here is Elvis engaging in a musical number with a pre-pubescent girl that, though intended to be "cute," comes off as douche-chills-inducingly borderline-pedo. (You'll know that scene when you get to it, so have your thumb on your remote's fast forward button.)

Seriously, this sequence made me squirm.

When you add it all up, it's a lot more breezy and fun than KISSIN' COUSINS and I would actually recommend it as a passable waste of 85 minutes. So, for now in my estimation, KISSIN' COUSINS retains the crown as the worst Elvis movie that I have endured. Will I find one of his other works to be somehow even worse? I intend to make my way through all of the King's cinematic oeuvre as the mood strikes me, so STAY TUNED.

Poster for the original theatrical release.

KISSIN' COUSINS (1964)

Twice the Elvis, infinite awfulness.

KISSIN’ COUSINS (1964) was Elvis’s fourteenth film in eight years — he averaged two or three films per year from 1960 through to 1969 — and by this point his movies were virtually interchangeable, distinguishable from one another only by the setting and Elvis’s vocation in the story. This time around he plays a U.S. Army lieutenant who is forced into helping the Army  obtain permission to use an area of Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains as the location of a top secret ICBM missile base. He’s pressed into this task because the area is owned by an ornery hillbilly stereotype who hates outsiders, especially representatives of the government, but Elvis’s character’s family were once native to the area and he’s related to the hillbily’s family because one of his elder relatives married one of the hillbilly’s relatives, so Elvis is kin and therefore not a target for murder upon entering hill country. 

With a small platoon of fellow soldiers and his commanding officer in tow, Elvis attempts to broker the land deal while fending off the hostilities of his blonde lookalike cousin, and also contending with the attentions of two cornpone cuties, one of whom is played by a pre-BATMAN Yvonne Craig, who spends much of the film running around in a yellow bikini. Oh, and the cuties in question are his cousins.

 

 The all-natural, puberty-enflaming wonder that was Yvonne Craig.

 

There’s a time limit on making the deal, and if it does not go as planned, Elvis’s commanding officer is threatened with getting reassigned to Greenland instead of the cushy Pentagon gig that he aspires to, and if he fails he’ll take Elvis down with him.  

 

The old hillbilly proves to be stubborn about relinquishing the land, even for good compensation and a number of accompanying perks, so Elvis has his work cut out for him. And while all of this is going on, there’s romance, assorted hillbilly shenanigans with moonshine and revolting country vittles, terrible musical numbers that Elvis pretty much sleepwalks through, and, my favorite of the film’s many stupid elements, the “threat” of the Kittyhawks, a roving band of hot man-starved nymphomaniacs who roam the mountains in search of men to knock them up so they’ll have boy babies. All these idiotic elements come together at the end, when every problem is solved by a massive drunken party, with the Kittyhawks getting it on with the servicemen.

 

Elvis versus the Kitthawks. The hills are alive with the sound of nymphomania.

Considered by many to be the rock-bottom worst in the lengthy Elvis filmography, and definitely the worst that I have seen thus far. KISSIN’ COUSINS is aggressively brain-dead but is fun to sit through for its we-don’t-gove-a-fuck utter idiocy. Like most other Elvis films of the 1960’s, it runs out of steam about halfway through, but stick with it just to see the ridiculous conclusion.

 

 "You gals ever hear of buggery?"

When I ran the film for Lexi and Ginna (Lexi’s older sister and Bad Movie Night regular), Ginna noted that she, like me, had received her education on the cinema of Elvis via the times when the late, lamented 4:30 MOVIE would do an “Elvis Week” showcase, and though she had seen and enjoyed many an Elvis flick for their sheer mindless entertainment value, she had never seen KISSIN’ COUSINS. When it was over, she remarked that it was likely the worst one she had ever seen, thanks to its stagebound visual cheapness, terrible dialogue and performances, and a roster of unlistenable dreck that passed as songs.

The next Elvis outing that I plan on subjecting the sisters to is HARUM SCARUM (1965), in which Elvis goes to Arabia and engages in Arabian Nights shenanigans. It’s another strong contender for the crown as Elvis’s worst, so I can't wait to endure it.

 

 Poster for the original theatrical release.

HERCULES (2014)

Dwayne Johnson, making for an impressive Hercules.

Finally got around to checking out HERCULES (2014). Taking place after the completion of the famous twelve labors, this gives us a Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) who leads a band of mercenary heroes, including Ian McShane as a skilled spearman who sees visions of his death,  

and the athlete Atalanta (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), here reimagined as an Amazon archery badass.  

Though widely lauded for his amazing feats and status as a demi-god, Hercules bears the guilt of having killed his wife and children, a state of mind that holds him back from true greatness, but he nonetheless leads his companions when they are hired to lead the army of Thrace against savage marauders. But all is not as it seems, with neither Hercules's culpability for his family's murders nor with the people he and his stalwart crew were hired to rout. And, interestingly, there is question as to whether the mythic hero is actually the son of Zeus, or is he just a figure whose legend grows with each retelling?

Basically a matinee popcorn muncher, I can see why this flopped, as it's little more than a throwback to the seemingly endless Italian mythological muscleman flicks of the 1950's and 1960's peplum wave, only with the production values to make it look quite lavish. It's nothing great, but lovers of ancient world epics and mythic adventure will find it an agreeable way to pass just over ninety minutes. Dwayne Johnson makes an appropriately beefy Hercules, and his band of mercenaries are all a lot of fun. It's the kind of thing I would have absolutely loved if I'd seen it at age nine, and even at my current age of fifty-nine, I was entertained. Recommended as a minor diversion for mythology goons and peplum addicts.

Poster for the theatrical release.

RED ONE (2024)

Who knew I needed to see a slap fight between the Rock and Krampus?

It's just before Christmas Eve and Santa is kidnapped for a scheme that will usurp his annual duties and find all on the naughty list imprisoned forever, thus making the world a nicer place. It's up to Santa's hulking bodyguard and an amoral, world-class cyber-tracker/thief who can find anyone who doesn't want to be found to retrieve Santa and save Christmas while weathering all manner of obstacles, both fantastical and all-too-human, before the world must face a year without Christmas.

Since it was free on Amazon Prime Video, I just watched RED ONE (2024) and it was absolutely NOT what I expected going in. I anticipated a treacly Christmas movie for the kiddies, but what I got was a two-hour mashup of a TAKEN-style kidnapping rescue thriller, mismatched buddy movie, an examination of family dysfunction, monster movie, and PG-13-level violent superhero action flick. It's tonally all over the place and it's definitely not for the little ones, as it can get rather intense for a seasonal item, and that's why I'm going to wager that it will eventually find an audience of tweeners and older on home video. It's an antidote to nauseating Christmas family fare, despite wielding a number of heartwarming elements, and at its heart it's more of an action film than anything else.

I don't have kids but I would bet that at just over two hours, it's likely a tad too long for the endurance of the average moviegoing child, plus some of the concussive action, eerie visuals, and superb creature makeups may be a bit much for the really little ones, so know your kids' ability to handle such material before sitting them down with this.

Chris Evans is a lot of fun, playing a character who's the moral polar opposite of Steve Rogers, and Dwayne Johnson is his usual superhero self as the veteran head of Santa's security. They work well as a mismatched duo, and I enjoyed their dynamic quite a lot. Also, extra points for the diverse crew that populates the North Pole. There are humans (apparently), elves, trolls, and anthropomorphic polar animals, including my favorite, a polar bear security enforcer named Garcia.

 

The depiction of "Santa magic" is arguably the most interesting that this fan of fantastical tales has yet seen onscreen, and the tactical deployment of size-changing/reality-warping tech reminded me of how the Atom fights in the comics.

RED ONE is a flawed piece, but I was entertained because I took it in as a superhero movie about supers who are tied into the mythic lore of Christmas. It's definitely not for those who like their yuletide cinema to be all sentimental and sugary, though it does feature bridge-building to salve inter-familial rifts. Bottom line: At heart, this is a Christmas superhero flick, complete with powerful supernatural supervillain, and as such I say it was better than the past several MCU efforts (an admittedly low bar). Smoke a bowl, down some spiked eggnog, and enjoy it for the weird genre chimera that it is.

Poster for the theatrical release.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (2024)

FOLIE A DOO-DOO, more like.

Just made it through JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX (2024). Talk about a slog...

This turd has already been dissected to death on the internet, so all I have to say is that it's a would-be opera that instead ended up as a bad, pretentious catalog of movie musical cliches, or it was intentionally crafted to troll the audience that so lauded the inexplicably overrated first film. It's a musical where the vocal performances should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention, the romance between the protagonists depends on the audience more or less taking their love as a given without really doing much of anything to sell it (which did not work for me at all), and the damned thing felt as long as BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. 

I didn't like the original, so whether this sequel fails or not matter not at all to me, as the only reasons I saw this were that it was free, and solely so I could see what the hoopla was about in order to be able to comment on it from an informed point of view. That said, it's a well-crafted disaster across the board. It's pretty and professionally realized, but a gilded turd is still a turd.