BuysHaven't been investing time in video games for months, so for under 12 bucks, I nabbed some Marvel Lego games - Marvel Super Heroes, MSH2 and Avengers, with all the bonus characters and levels. Just to faff about when I'm bored, you know.
"Accomplishments"
In theaters: Ferrari is at a bit of a crossroads in terms of my film tastes. On the one hand, while I'm absolutely not a car guy (can't even drive!), I do like a good racing movie. On the other, the biopic is one of my least favorite genres. And Ferrari is more biopic than it is about racing, making it perhaps the quietest, least exciting movie Michael Mann ever made. Being a period piece seems to also rob it of Mann's trademark neon style, at least until the final race (final? ONLY race) starts at the top of Act 3, on a rainy night. We catch up with Enzo Ferrari at the most depressing time in his biography, and most of the film is people whispering at each other with Italian accents (while also be adverse to casting ANY Italian, by which I mean even Italian-American, actors in any part of substance), all of very variable quality. I could spin my web of literary criticism here, and say it's about a man with a vision when it comes to racing failing to implement it in his own life, where he is stuck in the past, paying for past mistakes, also unable to streamline it like one of his cars. But I'm not sure the film really makes that resonate strongly enough. Maybe you're just too distracted waiting for vroom vroom sequences to really see the family drama in those terms, and it's better appreciated on a second viewing. Certainly, Penelope Cruz deserves that second look as Ferrari's righteous, embittered and justifiably unreasonable wife. Her subplot uncovering Enzo's secret mistress seems a distraction, but it's actually the most involving part of the film.
At home: Barry Keoghan puts his mouth on all sorts of things he shouldn't in Saltburn, Emerald Fannell's follow-up to Promising Young Woman, which is the name of the estate he is invited to for the summer after he catches the eye of one of the pretty people. The rich aristocrats are drawn as benign and generally nice, but don't put the same value on life that we do. The little people are disposable. In fact, except for a judgmental butler, we don't see any servants or other commoners unless they're guests (just hands or noises), and there's an interesting moment when Keoghan's Oliver leaves Saltburn where the staff is suddenly there and you wonder who ARE all these people?! Oliver has a particular knack for manipulating these people to stay in their golden aura, but there are many moments of otherness or separateness to remind him that he ISN'T one of them. There's a banal evil to being privileged, but to covet privilege is also evil, so I'm not sure there's anyone to root for here. In any case, the ending is rather facile and obvious considering the psycho-sexual depth that preceded it. It wants to be shocking, but I find it rather ordinary. And the final final ending? I've seen too much Downton Abbey to believe it.
It works very hard to make Jason Bateman's crime forgivable - and some still won't - but The Switch's heart is in the right place and manages to charm despite its eyebrow-raising premise. Basically, dude is Jennifer Aniston's best friend, filled with unrequited feelings for her, and when she decides to try artificial insemination to get a child, he swaps his semen for the donor's. Not entirely on purpose, and he doesn't really remember he did, until the chick comes home to roost 7 years later and he can't help but see himself (and not the athletic bro who was supposed to be the bio-dad) in the kid. That's where the film really lives. Their relationship, which is very sweet, and it makes sense that neurotic Bateman would have some advice for the equally neurotic boy. He's been there. He's STILL there. As a fellow neurotic, the film is certainly relatable, and Bateman and Aniston are very good together, with an easy chemistry that makes you believe in their friendship and potential for romance. Personally? I think it gets away with it.
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis each have Horrible Bosses, so there's your title, evil in fact, and they undertake to pull a Strangers on a Train to kill them off and get away with it. You don't want these hapless fools to kill anyone, of course, but you still want them to succeed in some way. They mostly do, and the movie has some clever story mechanics at times, though for the most part, mistakes happen because the characters are stupid and punching their own plot holes (Sudeikis' foibles feel particularly random). Interesting that they chose to make the sexual harasser the woman (Jennifer Aniston taking it to ridiculous lengths), as it seems to take the edge off, but at the same time, it's hard to find this funny (2011 was another world, I guess). Jamie Foxx comes out of this the best as their "criminal consultant", and the movie takes a lot of twists and turns to avoid predictability. A little dumb, but its darker vein brings it up to... fine.
It's perhaps unfortunate that the theme music for Horrible Bosses 2 is "How Do You Like Me Now?" because I don't like you much at all, actually. It seems that when it comes to modern comedies, directors' cuts and sequels tend to be indulgent and lazy. There's no call for HB2 to be as long as it is, or for bring back so many characters from the first film aside from the three leads who here are going into business for themselves and get screwed over by corporate types. It's a fun twist on the title, since these bosses are horrible because they're incompetent, while also providing a similar "revenge against bosses" story for us to root for. I like the heist element in the third act, but there's a lot of tedium getting us there. At some point, someone calls out their their yammering and cross-talk, and yeah, there's just way too much of that. It just feels like everything is improvised and the script girl and the editor went out to lunch together.
Despite having a lot of comedy stars in its service, Christmas Office Party doesn't really work, chiefly because of T.J. Miller. I'm not simply docking it points because he's a terrible person, but really because he's such a non-presence in the movie. And he's in it A LOT. He's essentially playing the dumbass for whom Jason Bateman is the straight man (so the Charlie Day character, relevant seeing as it steals a couple gags from Horrible Bosses), but no way can we muster warm feelings for this off-white wallpaper of a man. Bateman is of course watchable, but you never really believe in his romance with Olivia Munn. The plot requires them to plan a giant office party to woo an investor before the Scrooge-like CEO (Jennifer Aniston) closes the branch down, so lots of stupid drunk/high comedy going on, sex jokes, etc. That's fine, but the movie sort of realizes it doesn't have much of a plot in the third act and throws a bit of a crime element there at the end. By that point, the Wicked Witch of the West is ready for her unearned turn to the Light Side of the Force, and so on. Replace Miller with someone with an ounce of charisma and you MIGHT have an average half-improvised comedy.
I hate to be this cynical about You've Got Mail, but its formula feels quite artificial to me. After Norah Ephron's success with Sleepless in Seattle, it makes sense that Hollywood would team her up once again with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in a romcom inspired by a Golden Age classic, this time The Shop Around the Corner. And then throw some product placement into it, and essentially tell us that the big superstores deserve to win against small businesses. It's more or less fine until the third act - I mean, if you can believe at all that Mr Nice Guy Hanks is a corporate big wig - with a a lot of acting talent (even many of the bit parts are, or would become, recognizable faces) on screen, and Ryan and Hanks being charming as usual. The third act makes makes a painful mistake, however. It thinks that Hanks holding all the cards and manipulating Ryan to get her to fall in love with him is somehow "cute". And further, though there's the mention of a "special project" which you think will save her little bookstore, no such solution materializes, and so a final rejection is required. That's of course not what we get. The movie is completely wrong-headed and lacks a moral compass, so it's going into my spam folder.
When new couple Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk decide to surprise each other by going to the other's family Christmas, they end up stranded with the wrong lot in Your Christmas or Mine?, a fun switcheroo holiday movie that heightens that old feeling of estrangement even when your loved one is there to parse matters. And of course, discover the other person's secrets (also conveniently heightened). So the working-class girl goes to the cold aristocratic country house, and the upper-class boy goes to the boisterous "all-in Christmas" family. It's not British cinema if it doesn't address class warfare. The movie has a lot of heart and while it's not entirely unpredictable, there are enough original moments to make the time pass pleasantly. As for the fact that both these kids would forget their heads if they weren't attached, I find that particular plot device entirely believable. Cute and amusing and probably a cut above all those Hallmark offerings.
Even though the two families go on Christmas holiday together in the Alps, they still find a way to respect the premise promised in the title, but Your Christmas or Mine 2 just doesn't really commit to it. Or to much of any plot. Sure, there's a comic misunderstanding surrounding a wedding ring, and it does lead to a very sweet ending, but generally, this is a hang-out movie where the characters from the first film are on holiday (yes, it's the dreaded "European Vacation" sequel) and do holiday things, or perhaps have moments that evoke the first film. In the mix for American audiences(?) is Jane Krakowski, playing a shade of the self-absorbed character she's been playing for years, but then, Asa Butterfield might as well be his character from Sex Education. This isn't too demanding a movie from any of the particulars. If you invested in the characters from the first film, then you'll probably like spending more time with them, but unlike the first chapter, events don't really build one upon the other.
Books: A sort of a chaser for the Living Land Sourcebook, Ruins of the Living Land provides 30+ pages of material cut from the main book and is a pretty good lesson on how to do smaller settings for Torg Eternity. The bulk of the book focuses on three American cities caught the dinosaur-filled Living land reality - Atlanta, New York and Washington D.C. Each has its own particularities, mysteries, factions, luminaries, and potential missions, usually built around landmarks, and I found myself spinning ideas for adventure scenarios throughout. I kind of wish the document had gone longer, and given us similar rundowns for at least one more location. The mega-adventure does cover the northern Midwest and the Yucatan, but the Caribbean and the West Coast (perhaps Vancouver?) would have made nice additions. The book also has a few new perks and two new player races, but these are really weird (in fact, only one such PC can ever exist in any campaign, according to the Unique designation), so weird they sort of throw any infiltration mission out of whack, but those Ground Sloth are hella cute. I expected this to be a book of Wonders, but what's here is surprisingly useful.
RPGs: We're very close to the final act of When Cosms Collide in Torg Eternity, and while I had hopes we'd get to the Snow Ball (it's a dance, not a fight) in synch with the Holidays, we lost a session due to illness a few weeks back and it'll have to wait for January. So this was all set-up and loads of exposition to get the players ready for 1) the Ball (which is a big affair with very specific rules and strategies) and 2) the climax on the ghostly island, both of which will decide the fate of this area in Aysle, as well as that of one of the PCs as his player starts to think of exit strategies to bring in a new character (as is his wont). Oh and 3) the promised quest for our lycanthrope character to get rid of his curse. Now, normally, I'm sure a Quest should be contained in Aysle, but I felt differently. If he's ever going to use this method to solve his problem, he'll need to go to different Cosms for the ingredients/tasks. Big rewards at the end, if ever. But the players were rather timid this week, rather unsure that they even wanted to go on quests, get involved in fights, etc. The dice weren't rolling in their favor, and there's a definite lack of trust in the GM there, but I think it may be Aysle fatigue. It's a big plot and all the chickens are coming home to roost, and it's normal to be a little like "wait, why is this important again?". I dropped the dancing rules in our common chat and they players have vowed to strategize before the next session, so there's hope they'll make this a night to remember. It IS a pretty neat puzzle, but it'll only get more complicated when they see just who all the guests are.
Best bits: Realm Runner disconnects, Cosm card play, and bam, his gun is a cursed item. He throws it at an NPCs' feet (she had given it to him in the first place), which I felt was a good role-playing way to get rid of it, and from then on, she keeps stumbling into things and taking falls. The Wrestler bear hugs a giant wolf. The PCs, unwilling to face the Cyberpapacy in a rowboat, row it to a fishing boat, who give them a ride. Paladin finally gets to use his giant armor when the boat is tipped over and he sinks to the bottom of the lake in full armor. It's not too deep, so his giant self has his head above water. He'll right the boat again; the Church Police's sailboat sinks thanks to the Monster Hunter's Demon's Breath grenade. In the romance department... We like to joke that the Realm Runner and the Tharkold representative are "flirting" and it's giving us the chills, but it's really more of a cold stare down. Paladin couldn't help himself and played a Romance card on the Baroness, feeling a real dilemma because he'd already decided WHICH of his many romances was going to be "the One". Wrestler's Lycra tuxedo.
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