Before delving into the recent viewings, some of the recent works we’ve checked out include Call of the Wild and Birds of Prey, the theatrical release of The Rhythm Section, and some catch-up recently on A Quiet Place and Cold Pursuit. This past month also had Darius stepping in to provide a review for The Photograph.
This past week didn’t have me jumping into new movies – hoping to hit the theater this week for a couple of showings – but I did get to watch some older stuff. One of my favorites came up on random with the original Karate Kid. This movie still works near perfectly for me in recreating a lot of what the early 80s was like. It’s got all the best lines and while there’s plenty of dorky material that doesn’t hold up well, it simply clicks with all the right elements, from the amusement park to the kind of training that Daniel gets during it. And, my god, young Elisabeth Shue. Forever in my dreams. I really love the second movie for what it attempts to do as well in changing things up, but I stopped at that point with the series.
I took a slight turn down semi-musical lane and rewatched Enchanted this week as well, which is just so much fun as Amy Adams is delightful in this sendup and love letter to the princess animated films. It’s got a lot to love in how it loving skewers itself but reinforces a lot of familiar cliches and tropes, which isn’t always the easiest of things to do.
Comedies are always fun background movies and I had two Steven Martin delights come up this week. I have a real love for the modern interpretation with Roxanne and the cast does such a delightful job. It’s fully about Martin as you’d expect but the devil is in the details and his performance just makes me grin throughout. Similarly, Bowfinger is an absolute treasure trove of laughs since it works the full cast as more of an ensemble piece and I love how Eddie Murphy just plays against himself in so much of this. I think it was the last Eddie Murphy film I saw in theaters and that I really enjoyed.
I still need to update my MCU rankings…
What have you been watching this week?
