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We wish it weren't so, but the recent Lincoln car campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey has completely transfixed us. One commercial in particular offers that perfect blend of slick imagery, decadent mood, and dreamy music (by Amon Tobin). When it pops up as we do a DVR-fast-forward we always stop and soak it in.
It's called "The Feeling: Night Out" (directed by none other than indie film legend Gus Van Sant) and shows McConaughey going through his evening ritual getting ready for a night on the town. We understand what agency Hudson Rouge is doing here. McConaughey's surrounded by plush affluence - the camel hair shaving brush, the walk-in closet full of pressed suits and shirts and neatly folded towels, the expensive watch - and also owns a Lincoln, ergo the Lincoln is the car of the wealthy and influential.
Knowing that doesn't make it any less effective. Rarely do guilty pleasures extend to a 30-second spot. It's a fully-realized fantasy world... one we want to be a part of.
Bonus points to that moment in the car when McConaughey reaches to push the ignition button, then gives that one brief hesitation, savoring the quiet before he revs his engine, gives that sly self-satisfied McConaughey smirk, and takes off on some grand Malibu adventure surely featuring champagne and caviar.
Plus the car shines the logo onto the pavement!
Author Dave Addey may just well be a genius. His fascinating blog "Typeset of the Future" dives deep into the fonts and graphics used by science fiction films. The level of obsessive analysis and attention to detail are nothing short of amazing.
So far, he's examined Moon, Alien, Blade Runner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. His blog reports that next year he'll be publishing a book with even more analyses.
As but one example of his OCD focus on the minutiae of film, Addey created a video to try and understand the resolution and enlargement numbers in the famous sequence in Blade Runner in which Harrison Ford uses a machine in his apartment to zoom in on a photograph to look for clues.
Mrs. Cheese Fry decided to screen the 1982 classic Blade Runner in anticipation of watching the new sequel. It was the first time she'd seen it. Mrs. Fry delivered the expected dose of skeptical shrugs and eye rolls.
Here are some samples of her commentary.
"I don't know if I can take another hour of this narration" regarding Harrison Ford's noir-inspired voiceover. We explained in detail the infamous history of the narration and she did a great job pretending to be interested.
"Why is it so dark?" asking about the purposefully bleak cinematography - all but one scene takes place at night - suggesting an ecological disaster.
"We're not going to see him naked even though we saw that other woman show everything" stating in a nutshell Hollywood's longtime aversion to male nudity. For the record, Harrison Ford did take his shirt all the way off moments after this criticism was leveled. But he definitely didn't have the sort of nudity rider in his contract that costar Joanna Cassidy had in hers.
"What's with all of the old TV sets?" noticing that the filmmakers in 1981 failed to properly foresee and include flatscreen displays in their production design, opting instead for clunky, boxy CRT displays that were dated as of 1991.
"Of course she'll do what he wants - she's a robot" referring to the now-controversial moment when Harrison Ford refuses to let Sean Young leave his apartment and throws her against the wall for a forced kiss. Replicants still have free will, we explained, which is one of the reasons why Blade Runners have jobs.
"So... where'd they get all of that blood?" asking about the bloody deaths of Replicants, not yet getting that Replicants aren't mechanical, but altered biological lifeforms. Again, she feigned interest but mostly got annoyed that we kept pausing the movie for a geeked-out discussion of the minutiae of Replicants and Blade Runners and director Ridley Scott's rainy, neon-soaked vision of 2019 Los Angeles.
"Where the heck's that Gaff guy during all of this?" referencing the climactic fight between Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer and wondering why Ford didn't have backup. Gaff's the Edward James Olmos character - a Blade Runner rival - who appears in three short scenes total. It's not like they're Glover and Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies, you know?
But did she like the movie? "I could have not seen it."
Once upon a time, the Cheese Fry meticulously posted "Knee Jerk" reviews to each and every film we saw in a theater. As the Fry family grew and extra-curriculum responsibilities expanded, that level of commitment became harder and harder to maintain.
We want to turn over a new leaf. Whether that's actually possible remains to be seen. But we would like to at least play catch-up on the movies we saw in 2017 that lacked a "Knee Jerk" review.
Split is far more entertaining and satisfying than it has any right to be. We've all seen this sort of thing before: the sociopath kidnaps pretty girls and locks them up, forcing them to dig deep and plot their escape, yadda yadda. But the villain has multiple personalities, only a few of which are the "real" kidnappers. This is surely not medically accurate, but it gives the female victims a chance to work the other personalities to get out. More importantly, writer-director M Night Shyamalan gets us out of the basement with a whole other subplot that shows the kidnapper out in the real world interacting with his kindly, if slow-to-catch-on, therapist. A home run movie, even before the clever tag that links it to Shyamalan's 2000 film Unbreakable.
Logan stands out in a marketplace completely crowded with loud, noisy, cookie-cutter superhero movies. We used to loved superheroes, but Hollywood has just about worn us out. The Wolverine character - and Hugh Jackman's clenched-teeth, bad-boy-with-maybe-a-heart-of-gold performance - was always one of the best things about the X-Men movies. This sequel - looking ahead to Wolverine's last days in a bleak, dead-end future - can only be described as feral. It's a gritty, ferocious R-rated cry of pain (and splattering of blood) as Wolverine begrudgingly decides to be a hero one last time. For those who always wanted to know how deadly those claws could be.
Captain Underpants is no Pixar classic, which one might surmise from the title. The film's got a fun and distinctive cartoon style, sure, but it's a mostly manic and silly story about a mean vice principal who thinks he's a superhero. Or something like that. The movie lurches and careens forward with a palpable desperation to be exciting! and fun! and hilarious! Without question, the unending string of bathroom gags means it's squarely aimed at young boys. We actually dozed off halfway through it. Probably not a pull quote the studio would want to use.
Wonder Woman is a joy. Many of the familiar superhero origin tropes are there, but there's no way to shake the feeling that this is a movie directed by a woman. It just feels... different somehow. The World War I setting certainly helps in the way casual chauvinism of that era underscores how far women still have to go in 2017, as does the matter-of-fact way Wonder Woman is presented. She's attractive but the camera doesn't leer and linger. She's more a symbol of strength and goodness (if only the Superman of 2013's uneven Man of Steel had taken that approach) than sex appeal. The winning, charismatic performance by Gal Gadot is how a movie star is born. Yes, the ending is way over the top and goes on way too long. But of the movies on this list, it's our favorite by far.
War for the Planet of the Apes is the first Apes movie that we paid to see in theaters. The first two we watched at home. We picked poorly. The first two are vastly underrated films, surprisingly effective thrillers that offer layered and thoughtful commentary on freedom and prejudice and warfare. And while this sequel is certainly a technical masterpiece - it's simply amazing to imagine that these creatures live only inside a computer server - it's ultimately a big disappointment What begins as a fun sort of primate take on a traditional Western (small group of apes travel rocky plains looking for revenge) soon turns into a dour POW movie as the apes suffer under the heel of warden Woody Harrelson (always love him). If that's not bad enough, the apes' climactic escape involves a most unsatisfying deus ex machina rescue. Sigh.
We came late to the "Big Brother" guilty-pleasure party. Our first season was Season 15 (summer of 2013) when the ultimate do-nothing floater Andy Herren won. But even in this short amount of time, we've grown quite weary of the in-game lingo that the houseguests lean on so often. We suspect they just want to give the whole ridiculous thing a more serious, strategic vibe.
1. "My game" (e.g. "I need to do what's good for my game")
2. (tie) "Flip the house"
2. (tie) "The other side of the house"
4. "Blood on my hands"
5. "My ride or die"
6. "Comp" (short for "competition" which is just obnoxious - what, you don't want to say those other three syllables?)
7. "Showmance"
Honorable mention goes to host Julie Chen's ubiquitous "but first" phrases used during every live episode.
We've also started noticing a new one. It's not yet ready to crack the list, but we have our eye on it. "Jury management."
