Another week, another set of movies watched in Chateau Steelypips:
Terminator 2: Judgement Day: This was Friday night’s fare, settled on after a bunch of debate— SteelyKid demanded one of two movies The Pip wouldn’t watch, then we fell back to scrolling through recommended movie on streaming services. That never goes all that well, and didn’t here, either.
SteelyKid was pretty checked out on this from the start, largely watching phone videos instead, and was eventually banished for singing along with TikTok. The Pip was not blown away by the majesty of the effects, and decided early on that he didn’t like John Connor (there’s probably a blog post in the way my kids react to “cool” adolescent rebellion from old movies). He was pretty much completely lost by the slow period between the asylum escape and the Cyberdyne assault, though he did like the final showdown.
For me, this held up reasonably well, though I was a little surprised by just how slow the slow patches of this were. The bits where John is trying to teach the Terminator to be more human were cheesy in 1991, and are really bad now. The action sequences remain impeccable, though.
Venom: This was one of the two movies SteelyKid asked for on Friday (the other was John Wick), so I agreed that we’d watch it Saturday. The Pip watched his own videos for a while, then went upstairs and sat with Kate.
SteelyKid was really into this, chattering happily all the way through. It spends a good while setting up Eddie Brock as a nice loser, but mixes in enough menace from Riz Ahmed to keep a near-teen engaged. Tom Hardy’s accent is, um, interesting, but he’s clearly enjoying himself.
This has all the characteristic problems of the genre— absolutely nothing about the premise makes the slightest bit of sense, and in the end the fate of the world comes down to two dudes punching each other in front of a green screen. It’s less burdened with nonsense continuity than the MCU proper, though, and thus worked better as spectacle.
Summer of Soul: This one was just me, watched while riding an exercise bike because the weather was too crappy for actual outdoor exercise. This is the highly acclaimed new documentary directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (who I almost met once, but alas…), about the Harlem Cultural Festival concerts in the summer of 1969. These were filmed at the time but nothing was ever made of the footage until now, despite a couple of attempts to sell it as a “Black Woodstock.”
The documentary intercuts footage from the performances with archival footage and modern talking heads discussing the political and historical context of the event. This is largely standard modern documentary fare (done at a very high level), but produces a few transcendent moments, especially the bit where the surviving members of The Fifth Dimension watch themselves performing. Mavis Staples talking about how she wound up singing a hymn with Mahalia Jackson is also a highlight.
This was excellent, and generally deserves the buzz it’s gotten. My only serious complaint is that there were a few too many places where I found myself saying “Oh, shut up, I can’t hear the music.” The historical and political commentary was fine, but not at all surprising, so it was an unwelcome intrusion at times. I’d kind of like to see a more performance-focused presentation of this material (I haven’t yet looked to see what the inevitable soundtrack album is like).
As a programming note, we’re planning to go visit my parents next weekend, so there may not be any Movie Nights to report next Sunday (though the weather sucks today, so I’ll likely watch something while biking to nowhere). Here are the obligatory big buttons:
And if you’d like to complain about my kids’ tastes in film, the comments are open.