After The Griswolds went on a round trip around USA (National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), my review here) and went to Europe a couple of years later (National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), my review here) it seems like the people behind these movies have asked themselves “Well, what else can they ruin?” and somebody said “I know! What about Christmas! People love Christmas movies, and we only have sappy ones, let’s give them a crazy one!” And that is what they have done. And to be honest, it’s definitely the best out of the National Lampoon’s films I have seen (I might come around to watching the Vegas Vacation (1997) eventually, it’s just not on my immediate list of things to watch) even though it’s still not as funny as comedy should be. But, it’s got a few other things going for it.

First of all, out of all of the previous ones, this film does have the best casting – as a trademark, the kids have been re-casted again, so this time, brace yourselves for Juliette Lewis as Audrey and Johnny Galecki as Rusty. And, just alongside for the ride, as a neighbour’s wife/girlfriend (?) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who’s done probably the best she could with such a limited time (but then, it was just before Seinfeld (1989 – 1998), the TV show that made her the star we all know and love today). And if those three actors are not enough for you, may I interest you in another TV legends, Doris Roberts or Mae Questel, the original voice of Betty Boop AND Olive Oyl! All I am saying is with such a strong casting, they had much easier job to sell me on the actual movie, which had another thing going for it.

I actually “felt” the heart I was missing so desperately, especially in the first movie. Maybe it’s easier to “sell it” with Christmas movies, maybe it’s something to do with all the talented people involved, but somehow, towards the end, I actually felt sorry for Clark, for probably the first time. And I have also felt that all the people involved in this movie could actually be family. I know! All it took was 3 movies and third set of kids for me to appreciate it, to some level 🙂 I am still not on board with Randy Quaid‘s character and that particular side of his family “unit” and I will tell you why. They always (and by that I mean the first movie and this one) felt like the “low hanging fruit” that’s not so hard to reach for and make a joke out of. Which I found lazy in both movies. I know, he’s supposed to be the “idiot character with a golden heart”, I get it. But he’s too dumb and plenty of times too gross to sell it for me. I don’t think he’s ever in any of these movies had any “breakthrough” moment, where they would actually show him as human being, rather than the idiot.

I know that especially in USA, this movie is one those Christmas classics, that some families play every year and I get it, but I won’t be joining them. Yes, it might (finally!) have a heart and it does make you feel a bit fuzzy towards the end (when the big bad boss realises how big and bad he is being towards his employees, like that would ever happen) but I come to the same issue as with the other two previous movies – I didn’t really laugh all that much. So, it doesn’t work for me on the comedic level and when comes to the “Christmas movie” level, I have different favourites (Home Alone (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) or new and recently seen animated movie, Klaus (2019, my review here, just to name a few of the more famous ones) and I will not be adding National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation anytime soon. But who knows? Maybe, in couple of years time, I might re-visit these movies and find something there…? Never say never.

Overall, I do recognize the importance of all National Lampoon’s movies to the American cinematography, I mean after all, entire generation grew up watching this family and their adventures and I get it. I just feel like these movies don’t stand the test of time on their own merits. Which is fine, it’s perfectly fine if a piece of art no longer works, because not everything is immortal. On the flip side of the coin, not everything works for everyone and I might just be the exception that confirms the rule, by not understanding why are these movies so beloved. Would I recommend for you to watch them, if you haven’t? I would, because I can see how somebody might enjoy them, I wish I had, trust me. Go give these movies a shot, they might be your cup of coffee! And if not, welcome stranger, we already have one thing in common, care to grab a drink? 😉

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

I have a weird past with this franchise, as I didn’t grow up watching any of them, at least fully, but I did see bits and pieces from all of them, therefore, they all blended together for me. But I know it’s considered one of the most classical comedies in the USA, so I thought I might as well fill in some gaps in my “movie education”. And… yeah. It’s good enough, but National Lampoon’s Vacation definitely must have been funnier when it was released.

Let me explain – for me, comedies from (mainly) the 80’s can be split into two categories – either they still work, or they don’t. I know, shocking right? But I am being serious – I can enjoy bad, cheesy action movies from the 80’s with no issues. I can enjoy dramas, basically anything from that decade with no issues, but comedy is such a specific genre, that it either works no matter the decade you are watching it in, or you are just watching a movie, that sometimes can be kind of funny, but most of the time, you are just there to see how the story unfolds. The latter unfortunately described this film.

I am not saying it’s a bad movie by any means, or that you won’t laugh. I am also not comparing it against comedies made nowadays, because that would be just unfair. What I am doing is comparing this film with others from that area (such as Ghostbusters (1984), Airplane! (1980, my review here) or The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)) where all of them are different sub-genres of comedy, but they all still work within what they are. National Lampoon’s Vacation is trying to be a “family road-trip” comedy and I think it works good enough. That’s the main issue with this movie for me – most of the jokes seemed like were they were “alright”, but not one made me genuinely burst out laughing. They almost felt like it’s all setup, but barely any punchlines.

I was still kind of enjoying the movie, don’t get me wrong, but you do want to get some laughs out of a comedy movie. And this is where this film failed. Also, it tries to have the “heart” of family comedy, but it never worked for me too. All characters are borderline stupid or sometimes even mean, which should at least by funny, but turns out it doesn’t have to be. Because in this movie, the characters were just there and that was it.

National Lampoon’s Vacation is for me one of those comedies I wish I could have experienced in a theatre, when it opened back in 1983. Because it must have been pretty great. But that’s the thing – I think most people who consider this film to be “great” were brought up on it, so I would question how much the nostalgia comes into their ratings. Because as I have mentioned before, I didn’t grow up on this movie and as a comedy, it didn’t hit me. And as a movie, it was “just” good enough.

I have actually watched the first three of these films and I might be (yet again) in the minority, but it seemed like with each sequel, the movies got slightly better, but I will write about the other ones too. 😉 Overall, National Lampoon’s Vacation is one of those “wild” 80’s comedies, that doesn’t stand the test of time for me and it seems quite tame today. But luckily, it’s fairly watchable as a movie on its own, so even if you are not going to be laughing all the time, it’s not a bad watch per say.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

I realise this might be slightly controversial view, based on what I have read about this movie right after seeing it, but… I need to say what I feel. The ending didn’t work for me the way it (apparently) worked for most of the people on the Internet. Which slightly hinders my enjoyment of the movie overall, as I thought it was going one way and the movie went the other way. Which, reading all the different reviews/reactions, was probably smart decision, as I am definitely in a minority of people, who thought the ending didn’t work as well. But we will get to it…

For the vast majority of Ready or Not, I really liked it. Even though some of the things/scenes I could see coming miles away (and by others I was pleasantly surprised) I still had some fun this movie, and will definitely remember name Samara Weaving from now on, because she absolutely rules this movie. And yes, she looks like what would happen if Margot Robbie and Emma Stone somehow had a baby, but holy shit, this woman can act! Put somebody else in this film, who might scream less, or has lesser presence and the movie loses a lot of what Samara is bringing to the table. I will definitely need to watch more films with her and be on the lookout for her name in any movies and TV shows from now on.

The film overall felt like it wanted to be Get Out (2017) so bad, but it didn’t have the complexity or symbolism of that movie, which is why they decided to go with that ending. I need to discuss it in some length, and obviously that can’t be done without going into the spoiler territory, so…

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

For the entire movie there is this idea, that if the family doesn’t succeed with killing Samara’s character by the dawn, they will all die, because, as you learn, their grandfather made a deal with Mr. Le Bail (who could have been called the Devil just to simplify it, really) so they don’t have any other choice, which is something a few characters say (like Andie MacDowell, who I don’t think I have ever seen playing a villain character!) And I was really looking forward to either them realising it was wrong and them truly understanding how wrong they were all these years, or how Samara’s character will kill them off one by one, but only because they tried to kill her first, therefore it would have been this ironic situation, that yes, they would all be dead, but only because they believed in such bullshit in the first place. But then the movie decides that the curse is a real thing, they even show a flash of “Mr Le Bail” and… to me, it doesn’t work. Because it justifies the family’s actions to really shitty extent, where that crazy, satanic shit they are doing/worshipping, actually exists and they actually need to do it. And I know it should have been more of “yey, her soul was pure, that is why she didn’t blow up and they did, fuck the rich fucks” hoorah, but honestly if anything, that made me feel (a little bit) sorry for them, because they were right. They were still crazy and insane for going through with it, no questions about that, but I feel like part of the “dark comedy” this movie wants to be so hard is lost, when the main crazy thing turns out to be true.

Let me put it this way, I can handle a movie that justifies villain(s) in a way, because as the old saying goes, “there are always two sides to every story”, but with this one, that side/secret/the reasoning behind it is just so ridiculous, I can’t get over it. It’s maybe because up until that point, movie is trying to be realistic about everything, it puts Samara’s through hell and back and I thought even most of characters make logical choices that are aligned with their characters, no matter how sane or insane those choices are. So yeah, I just couldn’t get over that curse being a real thing. And don’t even get me started with the true darkness of that ending, where she’s totally and utterly fucked. She’s going to jail or some sort of mental institute for a long time, because what else would happen? What’s her defence? “I had my wedding here yesterday, but as you can see, there are splashes of DNA all over the place, but not because I killed anybody, but it’s this ancient curse, see? This family worshipped Satan and I try to sacrifi- Wait, where are you taking me??!”

Who really surprised me in this movie was Adam Brody. I have seen him in couple of movies, but never in something where I would say “he’s pretty good”. But in this movie, he’s pretty good! You can tell on his character how affected his entire life was by what happened to his brother and him when they were children (I will get to that in a second too). Pretty decent performance, I thought.

The other issue, even before the ending, was the opposite, actually. Yes, the beginning. And the reason I had an issue with that is simple – the movie totally undercuts itself. Let’s presume you are like me, never seen a trailer for this film, don’t know what the story is about, you just wake up one day, and decide to watch Ready or Not. When the movie starts with the scene of the brothers being kids and seeing the “hide and seek” game, the surprise is really out of the window within a first minute. Then, once we get to the wedding and see the groom more nervous than usual, it doesn’t take a genius to put 2 + 2 together to figure out what is about to happen. Just imagine this movie starting with a wedding, maybe some “cliché” opening credits, to trick you into thinking you are about to watch something else. That’d be awesome! And you can still have the “opening” scene later on, as I understand why it’s there, we need to understand especially Brody’s character and his reasons for… well, everything he does in this film. You could have it later on, in form of flashbacks, and I think it would actually improve the flow of the movie. It would also give the audience the chance to catch their breath, before another horrible thing happens to Samara’s character.

Overall, Ready or Not is a pretty good movie, that could have been better. Your enjoyment of the movie really depends on how much gore you can take, because there is a fair amount of it in this movie and how tolerant are you to see a movie, where the villain(s) are justified dicks. They are still dicks for doing what they are doing, but given they are correct in everything (what would happen if they won’t do it), can you REALLY blame them? I mean, yes, of course, but really? Oh, and it’s definitely worth seeing it, just so you remember the name Samara Weaving.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

First of all, the full title of this movie is Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (but in the UK it was released only as Birds of Prey, so let’s go with that) is a mouthful, even though I do kind of like it. Why am I mentioning this? Because, the same as the actual movie, it is a bit messy and bit all over the place.

What I don’t understand is, how can you make a movie about Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie, (whose performance was one of the best things about Suicide Squad (2016)) and make it so… dare I say boring? Maybe boring isn’t the right word, predictable…? Look, this film is kind of (and by then I mean really) all over the place. Take Birds of Prey. And I don’t mean the title of the movie, I mean the group Birds of Prey. I had no idea, what the title meant before watching the movie. I didn’t know it’s also “a group thing” similar to other comic books groups like Avengers or, Suicide Squad. But in this movie, it only starts to get interesting when they get into the “Birds of Prey” thing which is… 20 minutes before the movie ends…?

I think the biggest mistake was to trying to do two things at the same time – have a standalone story about Harley Quinn breaking up with Joker, therefore becoming a target for everybody in the Gotham could have been a great standalone story on its own, with possible minor involvements of the other members of what would then become Birds of Prey. But this movie is supposed to be about the group and if you spend 70% of your movie’s time on Harley dealing with not only the break up, but also the fact everybody and their assassin mother is after her, then you are faced with two options – either make the movie over 2 hours (which probably wouldn’t work) or shorten the “B” story, which in this case should have been the “A” story though…?

Or, you know, make two movies, one fully focusing on just Harley Quinn (let’s face, if there is a character who can carry the entire movie by herself, it’s Harley played by Margot, as she’s not only having fun playing the character but I feel like she understands her really well) and then make your Birds of Prey, where we get to learn more about “the others”, where Harley can be the “side character”. As if you were to do that, you might have two decent films on your hands. But we have gotten a movie, with a big potential, but where most things felt off.

Let me give you couple of examples – Ewan McGregor is in this movie and I thought he was good enough. You know why? Because I felt like I didn’t get enough information about his character to know how well is he performing, I wasn’t sure where he’s coming from, what his motivations are… They did slightly better job with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who almost managed to steal this movie, which is close to a miracle, given how little she had in this overall! And that is a shame, as her character was great, funny, cool and I wish we could spend more time getting to know her. Or another example – Jurnee Smollett – what happens with her character towards the end felt really out of place. I understand, that is what her powers are in the comic books, but in the movie, where we don’t really have anyone with any kind of powers, or supernatural being (yep, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash etc. took a COVID vacation together I guess?) her big reveal at the end almost took me out of the movie completely, because I have completely forgotten that one tiny scene from the beginning, where they hinted at her powers. And that wasn’t Jurnee’s fault, because I thought she did a good job, but if your audience forgets something like this (“hey, she might have superpowers”) you might have not done such a great job of setting it up. And then it takes you out of the most enjoyable part of the movie.

Yes, as I have mentioned before, the last 20 minutes, where they actually (and finally) get together and fight the bad guy(s) are entertaining, but even those can’t redeem the 70/80 minutes prior, full of mainly Harley being all over the place and us not getting to know, you know, the Birds of Prey properly. At this point, people in charge of the DC universe should just take a hint from Marvel and actually plan stuff, trying to introduce, and hype characters, rather than throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks. That is how most of their movies feel like to me. Unfortunately, Birds of Prey is one of them. And like with most of the DC stuff prior, I am not saying it’s a bad movie. What I am saying is plenty of things just didn’t stick to that wall for me, sorry. It’s especially sad for this movie, that has really intriguing characters I would love to know more about. This could and should have been DC’s Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) where we could have been amused and possibly fall in love with quirky and unique characters in a really unique movie. What we have gotten instead are quirky and unique characters in a movie, that is mix of standalone movie about one character we knew quite well and tiny bit of setup to this super hero group she is part of. Shame, because the potential was there.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

I am not going to lie, yesterday I had no idea this movie existed or what was it about. But, as soon as I saw the name Denis Villeneuve, I knew I needed to watch this (without even knowing this is his feature movie debut!) just to see how the director behind movies like Prisoners (2013), Arrival (2016) or Blade Runner 2049 (2017) started his journey. And August 32nd on Earth is a really tiny movie, that’s definitely slow, yet beautiful.

This movie is 100% as indie as it gets. You can tell there was little to no budget, and yet, this movie looks stunning. What I like about directors like Denis is even though he dips in different genres and no two movies of his feel the same, he’s got his style, his own almost “feel”. The same way you can tell when you are watching a Spielberg movie, or a Scorsese movie, I can always tell I am watching a Villeneuve movie, as no matter what’s happening on screen, it’s shot beautifully, yet with certain distance. I always thought he’s a really subtle filmmaker, whose movies are stunning “almost by accident”, where the way his film are shot doesn’t feel “flashy” or in you face. I really, really like his aesthetics.

August 32nd on Earth is a strange movie, where “almost nothing happens”, but at the same time, a lot happens. To me, I was slightly confused when the movie was over, as I was expecting a little more from the ending, but the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I understood nothing was missing. Because the story is about second chances, life and death and how circumstances beyond our control (such as car accident) may shape our life.

What I was also struck by was the fact you can’t really fit this movie into one genre/category. The first 10 minutes reminded me a lot of Mulholland Dr. (2001), which is one of my favourite movies of all time, as we have a car accident, possible memory loss, etc. Then, all of the sudden, it gets more upbeat and the movie shifts into a third gear, where it almost feels like a comedy, but without any laughs. And towards the end, it turns into “romantic” drama of sorts…? But neither of those genres I’ve just named describe this movie correctly. It’s been a while since I have seen a movie that’s simple to describe narrative wise, but hard to describe genre wise, as it shifts between couple of them fluently. And the word “fluently” is the important one in that sentence, as plenty of smaller indie films do this, but not successfully and as a result, the films can feel all over the place. But this film never felt like that. Everything felt natural, every shift that happened felt earned, every decision one of our main characters made felt in line with the story and their character.

As you can tell, it’s quite hard to describe this movie, so I will tell you this – if you don’t mind indie movies, that move at their own pace and you (like me) admire Denis Villeneuve, give August 32nd on Earth a shot, because the chance is, you might enjoy it. It’s not something that will change your life, but at the same time, it is a movie that gets to you in a weird, subtle way and you will think about it for a bit (or at least, that’s what happened to me). For a debut, not bad at all.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

We all have those moments in life, when you feel like the dumbest person in the room. That is how I felt while watching Vampyr, to a certain extent. I truly love these old horror movies, because they had to do so much with so little, but this one had me in the first half, where the tension seems to be building towards something and then… I hate to admit this, but I thought it was kind of all over the place and ultimately, it went nowhere interesting…?

I know we need to give films that will soon celebrate their release date in triple digits a break, as they helped establish the genre to a degree, and I honestly enjoyed this film, in its first half, as it starts in pretty straightforward way. A foreigner (or drifter, as the official plot synopsis says) arrives to an inn and quickly discovers, there are strange things happening. So he decides to investigate. And when you think you know what is happening, the movie takes a weird turn, that made me question whether I missed something obvious, as I thought it was going to go one way and it went the other way. I had to read a full description of this movie afterwards, to make sure I didn’t miss something crucial (when I blinked I guess?), but no, even the description of the film confirmed that I didn’t miss anything. Maybe I am too “conditioned” to think more logically about a story structure, narrative and things of that nature we take for granted nowadays, as obviously, really old movies had only a few storytelling rules, as they were creating the rules, without realising.

One thing I need to acknowledge, Vampyr is a beautifully shot film, which you can see even though the English dubbed copy seems to be lost forever, so the filmmakers who restored this film didn’t have everything available as censors in different countries would cut out different scenes. Hearing (and seeing) something like that makes me appreciate how movies are stored and maintained today, because it is a shame that we can’t fully appreciate some of the older movies in the way they were meant to be seen/appreciated. Especially when comes to old fashioned horror movies, they are almost always shot in such almost creepily beautiful way, where directors play around with (mostly) shadows and orchestra music. Today, that might seem cheesy, but again, we can’t judge these movies by today’s standards, where today, even a low budget movie can have half decent CGI effects. Plus, there is something charming about those long shots, minimum cuts, it’s almost like watching raw film, without all that (modern) glitter around it.

It was also interesting to see how many “vampire rules” this movie follows, as they (vampires) have been “around” for centuries, long before there was any celluloid around, so of course, the myths differ from place to place, from book to book. What today’s pop-culture takes for certain, might have not been established almost 100 years ago. What surprised me, for example, was the steel rod to the heart, as nowadays all movies and TV shows usually go with “wooden stake” as the weapon of choice, at least for a close combat. What I also found interesting was the fact we don’t actually see anyone getting bitten by a vampire, we always see the victims afterwards, but never the act itself. I guess back then it wouldn’t fly because of the censors…?

Overall, Vampyr is an interesting piece of movie, that (for me) is hard to put into one genre. Sure, technically it’s a horror movie and throughout the film, you do get this haunting, chilling feeling, but it ultimately leads to nowhere, so I would classify it as more of adventure/drama/ a bit of thriller…? For example, when I watched Nosferatu (1922) there were still some scary(ish) scenes, so I had no problem understanding people being terrified, especially back in 1922. But I just can’t see it with this film. I am not saying that’s a flaw, I would still watch this movie, if you are at all interested in old vampire films, just don’t expect “full blown horror”, even by 1932 standards, this is as mild as Korma.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke