I forgot to do a Movie Night recap at the end of February, so this one is really long. Though there were a couple of potential Movie Nights that we missed because I was working or traveling; there’s also one that Kate and The Pip watched that I caught part of, but not all.
Many of these were really good and went over well, others… not so much.
Romancing the Stone:
This was a VHS classic for us, recorded off illicit HBO very shortly after we got a VCR, so my dad has suggested it a bunch of times. It mostly holds up pretty well; extremely 80’s, but in a good way.
Money Train:
This is the movie that Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson made together after White Men Can’t Jump, which is why The Pip picked it out of a list offered by a streaming service. I dimly remembered that this was not well received, but had never seen it, and, yeah, it doesn’t really work. Some okay bits here and there, but very forgettable.
Bullet Train:
The movie podcast I listen to (The Big Picture from The Ringer) really didn’t like this, saying that the tone was too uneven, so despite it showing up on streaming a little while ago, I didn’t suggest it. The Pip asked for it, though, and having seen it, I have no idea what the Big Pic crew were complaining about. This was great fun, and I didn’t have any issues with the tone.
Labyrinth:
This is beloved by nerds of A Certain Age, but somehow it missed me and Kate both, so when The Pip picked it out of a list of recommendations, Kate joined us to see what it was about. And I’m pretty sure the answer is “Cocaine.”
RIPD:
This was being pushed hard by whichever streamer has it at the moment, and The Pip jumped on it. It’s a kind of buddy cop thing with Jeff Bridges doing a weird-ass voice and Ryan Reynolds before he figured out that the key to his movie success was not dialing back from 11, but turning it up to 14. It’s not the worst thing we’ve watched, but it didn’t really work.
Johnny Dangerously:
For a very long time, this wasn’t streaming anywhere, but it finally showed up, so I insisted on watching is, because this was another illicit-HBO classic for us. Michael Keaton in zany mode, spoofing 30’s gangster movies. I’m not sure The Pip was as impressed as I would’ve liked, but it holds up well for me. There aren’t a lot of movies with throwaway jokes I like as much as the headline “Moronie Deported to Sweden: Says He’s Not From There”.
Rocky 3
Rocky 4:
The Pip asked about one of the Creed movies, but I explained that they wouldn’t make sense without some knowledge of the Rocky franchise. The original is the best of the lot from a movie perspective, but it’s a little slow for our Little Dude, so we went for these two. Which are highly entertaining, but also really dumb.
Casablanca:
We went down to my parents’ a week or so ago, which knocked out one Movie Night, and the second night we were there we were a little late getting started, so The Pip suggested watching an old movie, because old movies tend to be shorter, and my folks have this on DVD. It’s not actually that short, and the DVD was a mistake because we couldn’t get the subtitles on (the kids prefer watching with captions), but it remains an absolute classic.
Creed:
I hadn’t seen this, but we went to the trouble of watching two Rocky movies to set it up, so it was a clear choice. And it is, in fact, very good as an updating of the first Rocky.
John Wick Chapter 4:
The Pip was supposed to have a late baseball practice, so this was a Movie Afternoon: the two of us went to a matinee show. This movie is completely ridiculous, and absolutely fucking rules. I’m just very happy that they’ve created a series whose premise is to give stunt guys a dump truck full of cash so they can build a giant murder disco and stage elaborately choreographed axe fights in it.
Realistically, it could’ve been a little shorter— the Japan sequence ran a bit long— but everything looks so cool and the fight scenes are so good that I didn’t really mind. Donnie Yen is great, Bill Skarsgaard is perfectly hateable, and Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne are having a grand time hamming up their supporting roles. 10/10, no notes.
Bonus Movie Content:
I had a work dinner thing one weekend in February, so Kate and The Pip started a movie without me, and picked Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio. I came in late and had had a few beers with dinner, so I don’t remember this super well. Definitely a distinctive look, though.
So, yeah, that’s a whole bunch of stuff. We’ll almost certainly go for Creed 2 in the near future, and I should probably offer the Romancing the Stone sequel. We’re traveling to Florida next week, though, and then baseball season will begin in earnest, so I’m not sure how the Movie Night schedule will hold up. If you want to see where this bit goes, here’s a button:
And if you want to call me a fargin’ icehole for any of these takes, the comments will be open: