Category: 2024

Dub’s Take: Ordinary Angels (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

An uplifting, faith-based drama, with the religious rhetoric dialed way down; and believable performances from a multigenerational cast? Who knew?

At a breezy two hours, “Ordinary Angels” makes for an above-average date night, with some tears; some smiles; some “are you kidding me’s”; and sincere characters making choices based on compassion alone. It’s recommended, despite being completely predictable.

Some notes: Amy Acker should be rescinding the gift basket for her agent. The actress who so-effectively played Root on TV’s “Person Of Interest” has a starring credit as Alan Ritchson’s terminally-ill wife, but only shows up for five minutes right at the start before she dies – we only see her again in photographs. I found this disappointing, because Ritchson – who we know from Amazon’s “Reacher” series – is really good here, but a bit stiff in the prologue with Acker.

What I wanted were more flashbacks between the two, so I’d know if the walls Ritchson put up around his character were maintained consistently with his screen-wife (which would tell viewers either he was always the stoic everyman – even when she was alive – or he was a total suck around his wife when she was living). Even though such a scene never materialized, and his relationship with Hilary Swank’s Sharon remained platonic throughout, Ritchson is still credible as a father willing to do anything for his daughters.

Meanwhile, Swank is as reliable as ever. Regardless of how you feel about “awards”, she’s still won two Oscars and is an intense, committed actress – though not necessarily the first person you think of as a philanthropic hairdresser. Her Sharon Stevens is perpetually propelled forward by an unencumbered desire to help Ritchson’s family and less by the regrets of her own life, though she does have one or two things she is willing to share. Once you get used to the lack of a deep, dark history, Swank as Stevens is the rock that keeps the film from flying away on the wings of apathetic humanitarianism.

Also nice was the film’s excellent use of REM’s “Losing My Religion”. In fact, I’d wager to say it’s so well used here, that the scene it plays over sheds light on Michael Stipe’s otherwise-inscrutable lyrics. Good choices all-around!

4 out of 5

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Will you be watching this anytime soon? Are you wondering why I would give this a 4 out of 5 when “Dune 2” only got 1.5? Do you think there is more merit to the aesthetics of modern cinema as opposed to small-scale, done-to-death inspirational stories; or should critics continue to respect the basics of the medium like acting, dialogues, and direction? Comment down below!

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Dub’s Take: Dune Part Two (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

“Dune: Part 2” is the poster-child for “anti-climactic”, in ways other than it being the middle-child of a trilogy. There were fleeting moments when I really thought director Denis Villeneuve had pulled it off (finally), such as Jessica drinking the Water Of Life, or Paul breaking a sandworm. But these sequences of visual & auditory awe are constantly at odds with Villeneuve’s unrestrained desire to cut away from the action, and bring the audience back to the small-scale drama of its core characters: a drama by its very prophetic nature tensionless.

All of what I liked and didn’t about the prequel is back in-force: it’s well framed & shot, but its production design is too distilled for a Strange New World; Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is campy and borderline plagiaristic of the music from the 1984 movie; and Timothée Chalamet’s “Paul Muad’dib Usul Atreides, Duke of Arrakis” is a blank slate of whiny flippy-flop onto whom the audience can vicariously live out the experience (although credit goes to Timothy’s fight double, who does a pretty-sweet triple roll off Feyd-Rautha in the climax).

This round, however, Villeneuve refuses to allow his action scenes the same breathing room he gives the human story. Yes, there are breathtaking individual shots of the conflict, but no magnifying glass brought up to it. The spectacle is only present long enough for viewers to recognize it as the canvas in which the drama is played out, but not long enough for it to be felt emotionally at the same extent Villeneuve treats the dialogues. Like the prequel, the scope that the story insinuates is lost in favour of the myopic problems of its celebrity actors. For a three-hour, $200-million movie in this day and age, audiences should demand more.

As much as I’m a softie for the ’84 adaptation, I’m the first to admit its patchwork second half (which was never properly finished) is probably not a good representation of the first Dune novel’s denouement. Here, Villeneuve had a limitless opportunity – financially & corporately – to actually conclude some of the story without struggling to condense too much one deemed “narratively important” into a studio-mandated running time. Instead, we got Frank Herbert as sifted through Denis’s litter box.

1.5 out of 5

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you just looking for eye-candy the same way the theatre full of seniors at my IMAX screening were? Are you sort-of, kind-of interested to see what happens in “Dune Part 3”, considering the only other adaptations were the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries’ from the early 2000s? Did you also get big “Star Child” vibes when Paul talked to his sister? Comment down below!

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after hours

A poem about The Power.

when i was a babe,
i used to dream of having
The Power
to make any girl sexually attracted to me.
oh yes.

more than all the social anxiety
that fame could potentially bring me,
sex is
was
has always been my One Thing –
thank the evolutionary progression
of having it broken down on a napkin
while i was still in my single digits.

i wasn’t looking for a reverse gangbang –
as a teenager, that’s unrealistic –
but i thought it would be nice
if they all lined up outside my door
in a clump,
bottlenecking just to be the first.
ain’t gonna happen, Warren.
ain’t gonna happen.

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Dub’s Take: Dune (2021)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

Biases in the open: David Lynch’s 1984 movie adaptation of “Dune” is a childhood classic of mine, and I’ve never seen a Denis Villeneuve movie that I’ve liked. Denis’ films are “aesthetically pleasing” and favour “showing” rather than “telling” (all the Film School buzz words), but their runtimes are artificially inflated with superfluous texture, narratively esoteric, and none I’ve seen have satisfactory endings. “Dune Part 1” will impress Gen-Z yuppies who prefer style over substance, but it lacks the “space oddity” of Lynch’s version. Gone is grim but lush production design that suggests the evolution of man through the spice, and in its place sleek, clean CGI and “practical effects” you won’t notice surrounding a bunch of dusty celebrities.

In Lynch’s Dune, Kyle MacLachlan plays Paul as a young man who accepts his destiny and leans into myth: not the most considered arc, but there is never any question that he wasn’t ready for his responsibility. Timothée Chalamet’s Paul is an emo teen burdened by his birthright, who has no control over his actions because why bother if his future is already written? Timothy could have laid the angst on thicker rather than being so rigid and passive: look at the scene between Paul and his mother in the tent between performances and it’s clear who comes out as the born leader.

While I’m complaining: for a guy who said he’d stop scoring superhero movies, every Hans Zimmer-composed soundtrack since 2016 sounds like Batman music. Here, Zimmer layers on the tribal throat-yodelling that lets you know what you’re watching is really, really important (including such instant classics as the “I Will Miss Water” theme when we leave Caladan) while simultaneously sounding way too similar to Toto’s music from the ’84 film. And the movie’s final third of fishing for a good spot to put a cliffhanger ending is disrespectful of the viewer’s time: I’d have much rather had the fight with Jamis held-over, thus leaving the under-developed spiritual angle of the story for the sequel.

Frank Herbert’s original book came out in 1965. It’s ignorant to think that the movie industry isn’t going to remake or reboot properties for subsequent generations. It’s equally ignorant to think that new generations won’t latch on to what’s current and trending, and discount what’s old and lame. Dune Part 1 is acceptable, but it’s cold & distant in ways Lynch’s interpretation is not. If I had my way – rather than going with the wife – I would be skipping Part 2.

2 out of 5

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you a big Denis Villeneuve fan, and his making a Dune movie a dream for both him to make, and you to “experience”? Do you want to tell me to go watch “Enemy” or “Polytechnique” and then come back and still say I don’t like his movies? What else could you do to convince me that it wasn’t dumb as Hell to tie up “Blade Runner 2” with A.I. Sean Young & Harrison Ford? Didn’t Harrison say he hated working on “Blade Runner 1”? Comment, comment, comment!

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assorted simple adjectives

(for mild-to-moderate foot fetishism)

A random poem about a sexy pair of socked feet.

some folks like it between their pits
and others like
the smell of their own shit –
as hard as i try,
i just can’t fight this feeling anymore:
i want you first with your socks on tight.

yes that’s right:
little pink ankle socks
for a grown woman’s lady feet,
bought wholesale
because they were cheap –
to see you soleless without your flats
left this man right out of breath.
i’ve never been a foot guy
but yours’ can’t be beat –
i want to watch you take them off
to turn up this winter heat.

can’t be beat,
up this heat,
this is a poem
about your cute feet.

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