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Merry Culkin Keatmas begins its third act with the mostly beloved Tim Burton Christmas classic (not that one…), Batman Returns. Does a 1992 Batman movie starring Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito, Christopher Walken and Paul Reubens hold up in 2017? There’s only one way to find out and it’s nearly going to kill one of us.
Jim and I have seen Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: No More Subtitles, We Promise, and surprise, surprise! One of us like it and one of us wanted to like it more than they actually felt the love. On the other hand, the film is receiving almost universal praise so don’t let that dissuade you from seeing and enjoying The Last Jedi. Haha, as if wild falthiers could drag anyone away from seeing a new Star Wars.
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Merry Culkin Keatmas! This is of course our follow up podcast to the LiveWatch of Home Alone, in which we take issue with our old pal Roger Ebert’s dour review of the film, trade trivia about the film, and in general talk about why it’s one of our very favorite Christmas films. We’re not done! Not by a long shot. Come back next week as we put the Keaton back in Keatmas with Batman Returns!
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Merry Culkin Keatmas! Our second movie is the 1990 holiday classic / child torture porn flick Home Alone. We think it’s awesome and holds up like a champ, others who are wrong disagree. Use our LiveWatch to sync up our commentary with your copy of Home Alone and laugh and groan along with us!
We have seen The Disaster Artist, the behind the scenes look at the creation of The Room, which is quite possibly the worst film ever made. Based on the book of the same name, the brothers Franco play Tommy and Greg in a way that manages to feel honest, sympathetic, and most of all very funny. It is frustrating that there is so little there, there. There is no big revealing answers that make any sense about the deeply weird and enigmatic Tommy, and the friendship between him and Greg also feels like the barest sketch possible to make the film work. But it does work, and like Ed Wood before it, manages to make an amazing movie out of a dog turd. It’s an amazing alchemic work, spinning gold from lead. Go see it, regardless of how familiar you are with the source material. You’re going to be in for a good time.
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The Merry Culkin Keatmas rages on with our podcast that brings the Keaton to Keatmas, 1998’s box office bomb, Jack Frost. The film isn’t great, but we managed to extract a surprising amount of fun and holiday cheer from it. Enjoy! And don’t forget Lunch coming this Friday! Next week we’ll tackle Home Alone with both LiveWatch and podcast. See you then!
Cecily and A.Ron discuss the latest DC comic book movie attempt, and one with a lot of hopes riding on it, Justice League. It’s a real who’s who of comic book movies, does it manage to build on the momentum of the very good Wonder Woman, or is this another Superman vs Batman level disappointment? Well, we’d have to say it falls right in between those two extremes. It’s not great, but it’s also not terrible, and does just enough to hopefully give DC some room to breathe and establish these other presumably great characters in their own films and organically setup their universe for the next time the League has to assemble.
A.Ron and Jim saw the most recent film adaptation of the Agatha Christie mystery classic, Murder on the Orient Express. Directed and starring Kenneth Branagh, as well as a baker’s dozen other stars, is lush and lavish and maybe missing a few pieces it needs to be assembled into a fully functional whole? It’s like an Ikea bookshelf with a few screws and dowel rods missing, is what we’re saying. We discuss our general, non-spoiler thoughts before talking about upcoming films, before getting to our Club Member only spoiler section. If you want to hear our full thoughts on this and many other first run Bald Movies, consider joining the Club today!
Once again commissioner Fernando Rodriguez (you may better know him as FernNYC17 on our forums) steps up with a choice selection, this time the oft maligned Return of the Jedi. Often dismissed as derivative or childish when compared to A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back respectively, we have nothing but love for the climax of the story of Skywalker. It’s got the best space battle, the best lightsabre battle, and the best puppets in all of Star Wars. The Special Edition changes? Not so much love.
Jim and A.Ron have seen Thor: Ragnarok and let us be the millionth person to tell you that it is fun and colorful. There isn’t much else there, but, you know, but director Taika Waititi ensured that it’s really fun and really colorful. It asks some big questions about Thor, and Odin, and even the Hulk, but isn’t really interested in the answers. It’s not a bad thing, because it is really, really fun. Cate Blanchett is clearly enjoying being a vampy big bad with a flair for irony and the dramatic, Jeff Goldblum is a delight as an eccentric gladiatorial slave owner. The premise and resolution are quite clever. We just are a little puzzled at some of the over the top early buzz hailing it as the new benchmark for comic book movies.