Monty Python and the Holy Grail
BLLLAAAACCCKKOOouughhhh couuuffffff huuuuuuuuHHHHHHHHH AAHHHHHooooooOOOOO HOOOOO HOOOOO HUUUUUUUHhhhhhhhhhhhh!
[I have seen Holy Grail more times cumulatively then possibly any other movie ever. It’s not really that funny anymore and it’s dated HORRIBLY (just look at that camera focusing), but it holds a special place in my heart after seeing clips of its most famous scenes in various places over the years as well as sitting through the whole thing a few times (just a few?); AND beating the PC game, which is TOP-loaded with clips. I’ve seen it so many times that I was able to notice the narration was different in the Flashback screening I went to at Cineplex, which sounded like they used a different take of Michael Palin during the storybook sequences (but didn’t have him come back in and rerecord it at 80-years-old, for example). This could have been because a remaster of the original audio track was impossible (I have seen the movie in mono many times) but there was no mention of a remaster on the posters or in the film itself so it was jarring hearing inflections I wasn’t used to. I liken it to hearing a popular song and then finding out it wasn’t the first version they recorded: even a classic takes more then one try.]
bbbbaaaaaaHOOOOOOO HAAUGHHH HAUGH HAUGH HAUGH …. hhhhaaaCCCKKKK HAUGH HAUGH HAUGH HAUGH!
[They changed the music in the Castle Anthrax skit too, and yet left in the forgettable 30-second deleted scene they put in a few years back where Dingo breaks the fourth-wall (and the transition to the new footage is still sloppy, like the only place they could pull it from was a workprint). But even though I didn’t really laugh at the movie the same way I used to, seeing it on the big screen was nice and revealed some amusing details I had missed the first thousand times around (the mustache on King Arthur’s sun crest; the chicken on Sir Robin’s shield; the peasant burying the goose in hay in the witch burning scene). Holy Grail was introduced to me by my father and though the movie’s humor comes from a different place and time I’m sure that I will introduce it to my own children down the line, if it doesn’t become irrelevant by then with this new hubris of Seth Rogan/Paul Rudd-led comedy.]
Second Act
Excuse ME! I’m jussss…. haugh haugh HAAAAAUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHH! aaahh CHOOOO CHooo hauffffffpppppppppffffTTTTTTTTTT!
[Like “Falling Inn Love”, Second Act is candy for the feminine persuasion. Jennifer Lopez is an undervalued supermarket employee who decides to change her career (by lying on her application) and work for a cosmetics firm. Leah Remini is her best friend and Vanessa Hudgens is her workplace rival/daughter given up at birth; to say that everyone gets along just fine by the end of the movie and that female empowerment is alive and well is an understatement. Lopez still looks good at 50 (although she would do well to put her boobs away once and a while); it’s great to see Remini still has a career after Scientology (she’s funny) and Hudgens will always have my heart: she’s just so cute and plays the disenfranchised young woman role well. Special mention also goes to Treat Williams who shows up to remind you that he’s still alive and looking for work, and Milo Ventimiglia as the Hunk. Biggest criticism is the length! Too long! Another broad rom-com saved by its cast.]
Rocketman
… uuuuuuuuuggghhhhhhhhhhhh I don’t feel so good … I think I’m gonna… mmmmm … mmmmbbbBBBLLLEUGGGHHHHHHH! BBBBLLLLLLLEEEUUGGGHHHHHHHHH! … uuughhhhhh …
[Have you seen Bohemian Rhapsody yet? How about The Rose? A Star is Born (any of them)? The Dirt? The Doors? Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch? Lisztomania? The Rutles? Rocketman is a music biopic about the early years of Elton John, with dream sequences used to interpret and narrativize his music. Taron Egarton has a great voice and does his best balding Levon impression (which is more then can be said for Rami Malek’s lip-synced performance), while Billy Elliot-wunderkind Jamie Bell plays better-half Bernie Taupin. The music is timeless and carries the film through palpable and conspicuously-dull scenes of the “artist-at-work”, including the Tiny Dancer number where the homosexual Elton contemplates at a pool party and the obligatory “I don’t need you anymore Bernie!” breakup with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I appreciated that they treated John’s story as transparently as possible through his drug use and bad choices as opposed to Queen’s distinctly-whitewashed take on Freddie (which would have been a far better movie I feel if the original project with Sacha Baron Cohen had gone through), but it’s still a biography. A good one-time watch but it didn’t stay with me or cause me to change my life or live life to the fullest or any of that other inspirational celebrity bullshit.]
… Phew, how embarrassing! Thanks for holding my hair back while I vomited! But I’m feeling dizzy now and going back inside. Appreciate y’all coming by for a visit! You come back soon now, you hear?
//jf 9.11.19
theory of a daskeman 