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Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

Knull is played by Andy Serkis, the director of the previous Venom movie. I like that. My problem with Knull is that I wish he had been introduced as a character in the earlier Venom movies. He just sort of appears out nowhere, as does the plot point for the third movie. We always kind of knew a lot more of Venom and his kind were out there, ready to invade Earth. But you think that over the year Venom and Eddie (Tom Hardy) have been partners, Venom would have told Eddie what was out there.  The second problem with Knull is: All he needs is the Codex, and the Codex -- the key -- is too simple -- it's just the full-bond of man and symbiote. When Knull has that, he can send a tracker to retrieve the Codex, which then ends the universe. Big threat, too simple.  Even if you can overlook the simplicity of the plot, the writing is pretty lazy in parts -- just telling us what we need to know rather than taking the time to let it develop more naturally. This movie treats its viewers l...
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Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

While the first Venom received mixed reviews, I ended up liking it. Was it deep? No, but I liked the humor, and it the pacing was good. The weird thing I noticed was that the run time was 107 minutes, but by 90 minutes, the film was running credits. Then it had a sneak-peak scene for the sequel. Then it played the full credits. And THEN it played a Spiderman multiverse clip. Yes, I know that Marvel movies do this "show a clip after the credits" business, but this somehow felt excessive.  Anyway, I wondered if the sequel, which also received mixed reviews, would be able to sustain my enthusiasm. Tom Hardy is back as Eddie and Venom, and he also received a co-writer credit. No doubt he loves this film series. And the way this film is approached is interesting. For lack of a better term, Eddie and Venom are a "couple," and in some respects, the film comes off like not just a bromance, but a full-blown romance. Eddie and Venom "break up" and then, just like in...
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Venom (2018)

So the Venom reviewer on Ebert.com called this a "minor entrant" in the Marvel Universe, for people who only care about Venom because they care about Spiderman, and Venom is a Spiderman villain.  Venom in this movie, of course, is not a Spiderman villain, and, in fact, he seems like a pretty cool symbiote. "Cool" in the sense that he becomes "friends" with Eddie (Tom Hardy). He wouldn't have to be friends with Eddie, but he for some reason says he has grown to like him, and in the end, Eddie must like him too -- "We are Venom." Other symbiotes completely take over their human host. They don't "share" the space, and they don't seem to care about who they eat or what happens to the host when they decide to move on to someone else.  I'm interested, then, in this relationship. I'm interested in this Venom and its willingness to fight the symbiote who has taken over Carlton (Riz Ahmed). Lots of these symbiotes are out the...
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A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982)

Not all of his movies end at 90 minutes, but I've noticed that many of Woody Allen's films end just about at 90 minutes. Maybe a bit less. I wonder if he thought 90 minutes was the perfect length for a film, that he never wanted to be accused of overstaying his welcome.  In this one (run time just 88 minutes), three couple end up sharing a country home together on a vacation. They don't all know each other, really.  Andrew (Allen) and Adrian (Mary Steenburgen) are married, but their marriage is kind of hit a sexual draught.  Maxwell (Tony Roberts), a doctor, is a sort of Cassanova who doesn't believe in marriage -- "Marriage is the end of hope." He asks one woman to go away with him on this trip, but when she declines, he immediately moves on to his nurse, Dulcy (Julie Hagerty), who says yes, and agrees that sharing one room will be just fine.  Ariel (Mia Farrow) and Leopold (Jose Ferrer) are the third couple. They are about to be married. He's a professor...
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Husbands and Wives (1992)

Much of Allen's work on DVD is available in boxsets. This is a film that didn't make any of the boxsets, and so I left it unviewed for a long time. It's also the film that Allen and Mia Farrow were working on when they separated and Allen started dating his current wife. I was curious to finally track down a copy and watch it, not only because I wanted to see it, but because I was curious how Allen and Farrow would "act" while the drama of their personal life was also playing itself out in the background. To be honest, if anything "bled over" from their personal lives, I couldn't tell. They act just as much like they always do in previous movies. Not every Woody Allen movie needs to be funny, but I did feel like this one lacked the humor of some of his better films. The thematic material is the standard choice: Is it better to suffer through a bad marriage, or is the grass greener on the other side? And the related idea: People are "happier...
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Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Woody Allen would later do Midnight in Paris (2011), another fantasy film where Gil (Owen Wilson), in a way never explained, transports back to the Hemingway period of Paris that he finds most ideal.  In The Purple Rose of Cairo, we have a couple of "transports" happening. First, Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) leaves his film to join "the real world." Later, Cecilia (Mia Farrow) will join Tom in the film world. This is a little bit different from Midnight in Paris, because these transports are actually happening, whereas in Midnight, I guess it's at least arguable that the fantasy is only happening inside Gil's mind.  I like the exploration of concept here. Tom is a film character. He follows a script and "does" only what his character is supposed to do. The way it's laid out, every time the film plays, the characters come to life, but they cannot ever change or adapt. They do the same thing in the same way every time. As I was watching, I thought a...
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Radio Days (1987)

Storytelling technique always stands out to me for some reason, and in Woody Allen films, especially, since he tends to change approaches from film to film.  In this one, the narrator is Joe (Woody Allen -- Seth Green as the child in the film). This is okay, except he ends up telling us things that he, as a child, wouldn't have any first-hand (and sometimes, probably not even second-hand) knowledge of. I know if you just accept the conceit of the storytelling device, it's not a big deal, but little stuff like that is hard for me to ignore. The fix? Make the narrator omniscient.  Other than the characters, the real star of the film is the music. Now, this is 1940s music, so big band stuff, mainly. It plays throughout the movie. It's the soundtrack of Joe's childhood. I know if the movie was set in the 1970s or 1980s, or even the 1990s, I would appreciate the music a lot more. As is, I hear it, but it doesn't register the same way for me as it does to Joe or someone w...
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