Johnny Wickenstein

Hey, it's another action movie with Keanu Reeves.

It's more action... with even less plot. Everyone is an assassin and they have a whole code of ethics thing they work by, so it leads John to going to kill someone even though he wants out. Also, he wants his car, so there's that as well.

This is just as slick as the first movie, so there are amazing moments to watch. But that's really all there is. There is a thin veneer of a story to link these together, but it isn't worth thinking about too much.

Keanu is still good, he's clearly keeping up his fitness training. Ian McShane is the other big reason to watch this, not because he's a fighter, just because he's always smooth as ever. There is a woman in this... but because this is a male fantasy movie, she's mute, although she is able to kick a lot of ass.

There is a set up for a third movie, so we have another set of movies starring Keanu and fighting that didn't need to more than a first movie.

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Black Girl

This is actually two movies from director Ousmane Sembene. The first, main, movie is Black Girl.

This is about Diouana, a young woman from Dakar. She gets to be a children's maid for a white family, then leaves that life to go back with them to France. However there, there are no children, and she is expected to be the maid for all their whims. She's not happy about that, and takes her leave.

This get very dark at the end. It's not a happy-go-lucky film by any stretch, but I can't say I was expecting that. I don't know if this is supposed to be a typical experience, or just a one off, but I'm hoping others have it better? The more likeable moment is when the Dakarians refuse to take the white people's money.

With this was shown Borom Sarret, which follows a taxi driver (well, a cart with horse driver) who doesn't have the best of luck. Ousmane isn't the cheeriest of people, but it isn't quite as down beat ending as the other movie (although it definitely is not a happy ending).

Upcoming is a documentary about Ousmane, so having seen this will help.

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Doctor Who 10.7

And Stephen Moffat continues to be involved... and thus this continues to not appoint (the opposite the disappoint?).

Again, not a huge point to this episode. The whole bit about the pyramid and the armies are completely pointless and take up time while the main point of the episode, getting Bill to give over her consent and get the Doctor unblinded, is basically done in a side plot.

Again this is just set up for the next episode. It isn't tense, it isn't subtle, the set up is obvious, and then the only few minutes where anything surprising happens is when the Doctor sort of saves the day and the clock goes backwards, but that's just to finish getting things in place.

In fact, I've just realised, the Doctor is assuming a lot that the aliens are using the cameras and that no other place happens to get their cameras up and running quickly. And then let's hope that the virus isn't sticking to anyone's clothes or in Nardo's lungs, but then the clock went backwards, so let's never reference that problem again. (I would complain that the character doesn't think that 118.9 is odd, but they go out of their way to point out he's got a hangover and she can't see properly.)

Doctor Who has never been shy of convenient coincidences, but when the whole episode is based around setting it up, screw it, it's no good.

NEXT TIME: What a hodge podge of images. I refuse to make anything of it, aside from this possibly being worse than Wedding of River Song.
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Seventh Marx

This is... nearly two hours! Quite the long movie. This is almost going back to the original movie of mix of performances and comedy. This is A Day at the Races.

The Standish Sanatorium is having trouble, so they get Dr Hackenbush in as the new chief of staff, although he happens to be a horse doctor. Judy Standish is trying, and her beau Gil has picked up a new horse. Tony and Stuffy want those crazy kids to get together, and after, eventually, Hackenbush fails, everything is pinned on the horse to win. And the hijinks they go through to get the horse into the race is a thing.

This is... quite good actually. We get a decent story happening that allows for comedy, and it mixes it up enough to keep it interesting with first the doctoring part, then the horse racing part. We also get some entertainment as Gil sings, and there's a ballet show. And, rather oddly it feels now, a dance sequence with a group of African Americans that ends with the Brothers going into blackface. Hurm.

A good mix of a movie, well worth watching.

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Wonder Sixth Falls

Ah, speaking of guest stars.

Jaye lives in a trailer park, and one fellow member is Fat Pat, who is extremely overweight. Another member is Marianne Marie. Jaye gets embroiled in their lives and it turns out that Fat Pat isn't fat at all. She tries to help him, but comes across as too nice. Which is a theme for this episode, whereby Jaye is Jaye, but while doing what she's told ends up saving babies and such. We also get a great spiel from Pat about how hard it is to be fat.

Fat Pat is played by... Eddie Kaye Thomas, who I watch a lot in Scorpion (yes, I can actually stand watching that series). And Marianne Marie is Beth Grant who has... been in so many things.

It's always amusing to watch a series and go "hang on, I know that person, they are now famous", and I was surprised when I saw Eddie.

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Got Eut

It took several months, but this movie finally got here. In the mean time, I heard nothing about it, outside of minimal talk... and that was worth going in blind!

Chris is a black boyfriend to Rose's white girlfriend. She takes him home to meet the upper class white parents, and he's not sure about this at all. We get to meet the parents and their black help, but it's fine, it's fine. It's not creepy at all. Despite all the many, many moments that come off as amazingly creepy.

And I don't want to say any more.

This is very well done. My big key point for horror style movies is "atmosphere!". And this builds it up so well. And even I could follow along with all the unspoken moments and get what it meant. Although do expect a lot of shots of Daniel Kaluuya looking askew at a lot of parts of scenes and other characters. Even the IMDB page has it as the video frame. Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener are great as parents, Stephen Root is fine as always, and Allison Williams reminded me of Jennifer Carpenter.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, definitely see it, probably preferably before reading this review.

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Throne of Blood

Well, I can't say that I haven't seen MacBeth (which I have seen before), because I've now seen Throne of Blood.

Returning from battle, two generals encounter a spirit that foretells their fortune. In particular, one general shall become lord of the manor, but the other's son will secede him! The general gets paranoid, aided by his even more suspicious wife, until he makes the fortune true by blood, but then by blood shall he pay.

Another Akira Kurosawa movie and... I have to admit, I got severely bored during this. Despite what people say about Shakespeare being the end all and be all of plays and such, he can't engage me with his prose. Even when translated via Japanese. I do want to watch more of S's plays, but can I please have a version that actually tries to do more than present actors indulging themselves?

(It seems that for actors, if you haven't done Shakespeare, you aren't a real actor. And if you have done Shakespeare, then everything else is rubbish in comparison. So why do we have anything other than Shakespeare then?)

Anyway, I'll take The Hidden Fortress over this.

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