Based on an old TV show I've never heard off, The Fall Guy starts off with distractingly cheesy narration. The kind that makes you think, 'What is this nonsense?"
But then you realize that 's the movie's thing - cheese nonsense.
In fact, they lean into it with such enthusiasm that it becomes its own charm.

Naturally, the main charming here falls (pun alert) to Gosling, who is more than well equipped for the job. The stuntman he plays, Colt Seavers, gets injured in the opening scene, and quits. But he returns to a movie set eighteen months later, believing that his ex, now a director, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) has personally requested him. 
Sparks of all kinds fly, but Colt soon finds himself navigating in a deadly conspiracy that involves the popular leading man he stundoubles for.

Curious aside: Colt Seavers is the name of the original TV show stuntman. And his girlfriend's original name is Jody Banks. Was renaming her Moreno for a movie some kind of a pathetic stab at multicultural inclusivity? Because Emily Blunt, much like the original actress, is a blatantly Caucasian blue-eyed blonde, so that's a fail at best. Or just why?

Directed by a former stuntman, the movie looks and acts like it. The action here is next-level bombastic and funny to boot. And don't forget, you're watching stuntmen standing in for a stars who plays a stuntman standing in for a star. That's pretty amusing in and off itself.

There's also a lot of perfectly chiseled stomach muscles. A LOT.

This is a very silly movie. Intentionally so. Just how silly? Well, Colt theme song is "I Was Made For Loving You." That silly. If you go with it, it'll amuse you in a very mainstream sort of way. The audiences didn't seem to realize that, hence the movie was a box office disappointment. But it is a very entertaining way to kill/blow up/set on fire/car crash 120 minutes or so from the comfort of your own couch.

I enjoyed the first Quiet Place movie well enough. A lot of people did that and more, and so the movie got a sequel, with part three currently in development. And then now a prequel.
That's how these things work - nothing popular can ever be left as a standalone. Limited originality and all that.

The surprising thing here is how excellent this prequel is. For my money, it is the best of all Quiet Place movies so far.
Yes, the first one will always have that freshness of the idea; the initial POP. But once that's gone, you're stuck following the characters dumb enough to have a baby during a quiet apocalypse. And it's compelling, because that real-life couple of co-writer and director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are very charismatic.  But also, no. Just no. Sex responsibly, you idiots. The world hardly needs any more people, and certainly not while blind alien predators are hunting everyone to extinction. 
Also, what are the aliens going to do once that happens? Why is that never addressed? I mean, is Earth just a snack stop for them, or are they going to starve to death eventually?
Shouldn't they maybe farm some people for later? And if so, still not okay, the main couple. Don't make more food for the aliens.
Why do people keep having babies during the apocalypse? It was the same thing in The Walking Dead. Does the vainglorious need to procreate override all semblance of logic?

Anyway, no babies in this movie. Just a dying woman determined to get one last slice of pizza in the rapidly collapsing New York City and a man she meets on her way. The two of them end up saving each other in different ways, and it's a really lovely, deeply humane story about sudden friendship and survival in impossible circumstances.

Lupita Nyong'o is excellent as expected, another stellar turn in a genre movie, following her terrific performance in and the best thing about Jordan Peele's Us. The surprise here is Quinn aka Stranger Things' Eddie Munson. Straightlaced and regularly coiffed, he is miles away from his best-known character and heartbreakingly riveting as a regular person caught in the most irregular nightmare.
May this ne the gateway to an excellent career.

Overall, the movie, despite some excellent bombastic scenes, does best (appropriately enough) in its quiet moments. It is a character drama with aliens, not an alien extravaganza with some people in it. Which to me, is a thing of beauty. Recommended!

Or not. Seriously. Because this was just nonsense. Very much in keeping with how action movies are these days.
Though reviewed last, Carry-On was my first Christmas movie of this season.  It was nice to see Taron Edgerton's handsome mug again, though honestly, I just expect him to sing now since he does it so well. Instead of singing, he mostly runs on this movie and occasionally disables bombs here.
Taron. who at 35, uncharacteristically for show business, looks his age, plays a 30-year-old Ethan, who works in airport security after tanking his police academy exams. But now that he's knocked up his girlfriend, who also conveniently works at the same airport, he decides to step up his game and asks for more responsibility. It's Christmas, and he seems sincere, so his boss gives him an opportunity. One that puts him directly in the crosshairs of a mercenary determined to sabotage the flight. 
The latter doesn't have a name. Billed simply as traveler, he is played by Jason Bateman, who is branching out to playing bad guys now, but is still very much himself: a fit, well-coiffed, fast talking glib charmer of a certain age.
The two are at odds the entire movie until its dramatically nonsensical and terrible predictable ending. 
And to celebrate that ending, a year later, Ethan, now a cop, takes his girlfriend and their new baby to Tahiti. Because yes, these are exactly the kind of people who would bring a baby on an eight-hour flight.
Fast-paced and mindless, taking liberties with both logistics and TSA procedures, it is sure to be a hit with the majority of lamentably indiscriminate Netflix viewers.

And now for a more traditional Christmas movie choice.

​I've no idea why this movie didn't get the love it deserves. I was thoroughly entertained the entire time. The Rock's enormously likable presence helps, but the movie actually had a lot of other things going for it, chief among them a really fun plot that finally, finally, explains the logistics behind the most wonderful day of the year. And a really great take on Santa, who he is referred to in the movie, "A beast."
Chockfull of great clever details, the plot speeds along, brimming with action and jokes, and yes, even some genuine Christmas cheer.
 
Red One manages to successfully balance traditional mythology and original storybuilding, utilize its great cast, and genuinely delight. At a time when most comedies are unfunny, most action movies are terribly dumb, and most Christmas movies are too cheesy and twee, this movie is neither. It's a genuine treat. Down to Garcia the Polar Bear.  So yeah ... treat yourself. 

The Christmas scare fest continues with this, much better entry.
​This movie is billed as an apocalyptic black comedy, which is right enough, albeit it isn't all that funny despite its considerably talented cast.
Of course, it can only be so funny, because the considerably talented is playing a bunch of posh twats. And they have to be posh twats or the plot doesn't work.
And the plot is the real star here, and you won't know just how much that is the case until the very last moments.

It starts simply enough with old friends gathering at a fancy estate to celebrate Christmas. They are hosted by Nell and Simon and their three kids, the older one of whom, Art, is essentially the soul of the movie. As the night progresses, the dark undertones of it slowly come through to the forefront as you realize that this is, in fact, a very unusual celebration. As in the last ever celebration.
A toxic cloud is heading their way, and all English citizens (and only citizens) have been given an easy way out, an at-home suicide kit - a new definition of Brexit.
And because these are all a very specific type of people - soft, government-trusting, etc. - they are agree to do it. All except for Art, who has his qualms. Who dares to question the system, the absence of options, the unfairness of it all, etc.
Sometimes it takes a child to point and say,"The emperor has no clothes."
Only in this case, pointing and saying such things is a matter of life and death.

Yes, you have to spend some time with a bunch of annoying characters, but the final blow of the movie gives it the poignancy to make it all worthwhile. And, in fact, quite good.

Tis the season. Every Christmas I watch Christmas-themed horror movies. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
This cult classic definitely falls into the latter two categories.
The frustrating thing is that there's a really decent and creepy plot here, buried under truly awful writing and, especially, directing.
Yes, it's a low budget movie, but there are plenty of those who don't look like that. It isn't stylistically defective on purpose, such as shaky camera work in the Blair Witch. This is straight up low quality. The movie is cobbled up together out of overnarration, scenes barely visible for how dark they are, and shoddy editing. Too much of all to be explained by production snafus alone.
It stands to wonder if this was meant to be an art project - the kitschy cast certainly suggests it. 
The movie has been since referred to as a granddaddy of slasher genre and rightly so. One merely wishes the granddaddy wasn't such a freaking mess.
Watch at your discretion. It is mercifully short, though feels longer.

There seems to be a prevalent mentality in cinema that conflates "old" and "classic." In fact, throw in "good" there too.
Basically, old movies get labeled as classics, regardless of whether they are actually good and hold up to the test of time (Psycho, anyone?) or are simply old and dated and rather laughable by modern standards. Like this one.

Marnie started its life as a novel, before becoming a movie, a stage play, a radio play, and even an opera. It is entirely possible that at the time of its original cinematic release in 1964, it was something special for the audiences. Between the famous director and the twin sex appeal of his current favorite blonde and the smoldering Bond, James Bond, and the revolutionary (for the time!) psychological revelations.

Watched 60 years later, it's rather ludicrous. The plot is easily predictable, the acting is over the top. The directorial "red" effects are hilariously distracting as are the screeching violins of the soundtrack. 
The dialogue is amusingly uneven with some terrific one-lines and some decidedly less so, like Connery's character casually musing about beating Marnie, which is rather dark, given Connery's record with statements on violence against women.

The movie received mixed reviews from the critics when it came out, and in present day, it's difficult to see what, if any, value it may possibly have, outside of some sort of dated kitsch factor. It tends to inevitably fall in a respectable vault due to its pedigree and age, but it's no classic. Not all that glitters is gold; sometimes a "classic" is just old.

​Pass.

Despite her undeniable sex appeal and a name that doubles down on it, Megan Fox has never quite achieved the cinematic status she once seemed so poised for.
One can argue whether that may be down to questionable career choices, the Transformers controversy, or her acting limitations, but she's been stuck in the straight-to-video purgatory for a while now. And in there, no one seems to utilize her better than C.K. Dale.

She was plenty entertaining in his survival thriller, Till Death. And in Subservience she is fun again, this time as a fembot. Or gynoid, if you prefer the more official designation.
Fox, last seen emoting well all the way back in Eminem's Love the Way You Lie video, is perfectly cast here as a beautiful and stilted male fantasy of ... well, subservience.
Her only desire is to serve her primary user. In this case, it is Nick, the overtattooed Italian stallion who can't quite seem to juggle two young kids and work and manly pastimes like getting drunk while working on a classic muscle car.
Normally, Nick has his wife, Maggie, played by Madeleine Zima, who provides a warm and very tall contrast to the tiny, steely Fox's robot. But without Maggie (this is handled so oddly in the movie), he is lost, and what's a lost man to do but buy a domestic fembot?

At first, things are going great. The robot now named Alice is great with kids, etc., but then Nick goes and messes with the settings, because that's just what people do, and lo and behold, Alice begins to evolve. And her evolution is very, VERY focused on making Nick happy. At all costs.

So yes, at its base, this is yet another sci-fi tinged thriller about collective fears of AI. And yes, eventually our robot overlords will watch these things and laugh. And yes, anyone with a bit of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, knows that the great downfall of our civilization will be brought on by the great dumbing down of the general population that is currently occurring so rampantly and not robots, but hey ... what are you gonna do? 
It's much easier to watch a silly movie than to start a "smarten up" revolution."

For all that, Subservience isn't as silly as it could have been. It diligently tries to raise some important questions about the power dynamics of subservient relationships and the dangers of self-learning from flawed behavior patterns, etc.
Overall, the movie's surprisingly decent for what it is, and ​almost, though not quite, clever and original enough to be good. Fox seems to be having fun in it. C.K. Dale seems to be having fun. In fact, the movie's ending hints at more to come.
The movie seems fine with its cheesiness - just look at that tagline of "Don't Turn Her On." Oh so funny. 

​Mild amusement with pretty robots. It'll pass the time.

And speaking of vampires ...

Here's the thing, I don't much care for vampires. I think they are the least exciting and interesting of the traditional monsters. And often the lamest and cheesiest.
Most vampire fare, be it movies or books, focuses on the bloodshed and/or the faux glamour and/or how seductive they are, especially to teenage girls. But every so often, something original comes along.
Enter Abigail.

What seems like a typical kidnap-for-ransom plot quickly turns infinitely darker and scarier as the mish-mash gang of kidnappers realize that their victim is much more than a child ballerina. The tables turn, the nightmare begins, and blood, buckets of it, flow freely.

How did this happen? Well, apparently once upon a time there was a man who found ballerinas creepy. (And they are, aren't they? I mean, who in the right mind dances on their toes?) This man mixed that fear with his love of horror, et voila, Abigail was born.
Originally, this was meant to be the remake of Dracula's Daughter for the Universal line of revampring classic horror movies. To the director's credit, he revamped it (oh, the puns, the puns) A LOT. So much so that Dracula is never even mentioned.
And unlike the other Universal efforts, universally underwhelming as a rule, this one is pure fun. It features a talented ensemble cast (as opposed to leaving it all on one star's shoulders like say the new Mummy movie) and mixes action, horror, and comedy very, very nicely. 
Abigal is played by a terrific child actress who pulls off both aspects of her role beautifully.
Visually, the movie is an absolute feast, the kind of thing that makes of you go "Whoa! Look at that! That's crazy!" even if the TV has no intention of talking back to you.

All in all, it's just SO MUCH FUN, simultaneously subverting and outperforming all genre expectations, while also satisfying them for the more traditional fans. Quite a balance and the movie gets it right. Go ahead, see for yourself.

​Even the poster is pure WOW.

Continuing with the seventies theme and tying it up with the release of the remake, let's talk about Salem's Lot. 
The novel came out in 1975, did very well, and was promptly turned into a 1979 two-part miniseries directed by a horror legend in the making, who gave the world both Leatherface and Poltergeist.
King's books tend to be elaborate enough to require mini-series as a format. Despite generally sticking to the novel's plot, this production still had to condense 439 pages into 180 minutes, and some necessary cuts and combinations were made. And then, there were other, less necessary choices, like making the Barlow the vampire a speechless demonic creature à la bargain basement Nosferatu. 
Why? Did the audience have enough of sophisticated, polished, smooth-talking counts by the seventies? Or was it because the director did best with silent, "monstrous-looking" monsters?
Anyway, the mini-series was a pretty solid adaptation. Led by David Soul (of the "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby" fame) and his wildly distracting, truly terrible seventies hair (and he isn't the only one, the seventies had a serious style problem, people!), the lovely Bonnie Bedelia, and a very good James Mason as Barlow's familiar, Straker, the adaptation holds up decently forty-five years later, despite or because some endearingly aged cheesiness and genuine quality.)

I have not seen the 2004 miniseries, so let's skip that and go right to the 2024 movie adaptation.
This one was made for the modern age, through and through, which is to say for the skimming, split-screen, generation.
The movie was written and directed by Gary Dauberman, who came to attention within the Conjuring universe, before moving on to the recent IT movies adaptation. 
The latter was very good, so presumably the man knows how to adapt King, but whatever production snafus he must have encountered had led him to create this reader's digest-abbreviated version that comes in at about 110 minutes and doesn't even begin to do its source material justice. 
Choppily cut down to basics, this is a barebones adaptation that give the viewers the gist of the story with none of the depth and layers that make it interesting. Basically, it's a very straightforward "vampire comes to small town - chaos reigns" story, a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am Salem's Lot.
Attractive but insubstantial, it looks good, and baby Bill Pullman named Lewis Pullman (go, nepotism!) is a charismatic lead (with much better hair!), but that's about it. Nothing more than a generic vampire action flick. Which is really a shame.

The funny thing about watching the two movies back-to-back and comparing them is how wrong modern day gets the seventies. They go for the basics but prettify it, taking the stylistically ugliest decade and making it quaintly nice. It's basically more of the same historical revisions that occur in other areas, changing the past to suit modern tastes. But here at least the movies stick around to serve as reminders.

Anyway, there you have it. Salem's Lot is essentially Americana Dracula. Where it's short on concept originality, it makes up with elaborate plotting and local color. And maybe one day it will get the adaptation it deserves.