Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - James Mangold - 2023

★★★★-Pretty great sendoff for my favorite character of all time. I'm a guy that thought Crystal Skull wasn't bad, so this was pretty much awesome. Crazy, again, but awesome. Still no Raiders or Last Crusade, but one of them is perfect, and the other nearly so. 

Stuff I liked: Great opening. The deaging is fine, but he sounds 80. Got over it pretty quickly. Chase scene is fantastic. As is Harrison Ford. Mads Mikkelsen makes a hell of a Nazi big. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character is a pretty solid irritated daughter-type figure. And Boyd Holbrook's character was interesting, although unexplored. 

I like that he feels old. At one point he says, “what am I doing? I'm 80 years old! I shouldn't be climbing a cliff. What the hell is wrong with me?” So, yeah, no more “LOVE YOU” written on a coed's eyelids. Now he's a boring old professor that can't keep Ivy Leaguers' attention. 

Also like that it answers the question of who would stop someone from going back in time to kill Hitler. 

Stuff that wasn't so great: This one, of course, is no where near perfect. Definitely convoluted, and the ending is insane. Nazi should be dead. Jones sounds 80. Shouldn't have deciphered the shit. Didn't need the child. The way they barely feature the couple of legacy characters that appear in the film was irritating. Antonio Banderas was underutilized and the character played by Shaunette Renée Wilson was pretty pointless. Make you feel like you should care about her and her motivations, which all goes nowhere. Third act isn't great and is a problem that you can't get into without spoilers, but the very end is great. 

All that said. Love this final adventure. Several times I was transported back to childhood. The red line going across the map was perfect. Not great, but plenty good enough. 

Vengeance – B.J. Novak – 2022

★★★★-A dark Blumhouse comedy written, directed, and starring B. J. Novak, sign me up. An impressive directorial debut. He's come a long way from his intern days. In addition to Novak, it stars Dove Cameron whom I don't recognize, Boyd Holbrook (the blonde guy in Narcos) as the bro, Ashton Kutcher, and Issa Rae (from The Lovebirds and Insecure).

Gist is Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and podcaster from New York City, gets a call in the middle of the night from the brother of a girl he was casually hooking up with. She has died from a opioid overdose which the family finds suspicious. Convinced his sister was in love with this Ben fellow, the brother more or less demands he come down to Bumfuck, Texas to attend the funeral. While there, he begins to investigate circumstances of her death, discovering a compelling story along the way... This has me written all over it.

Underneath all this stuff going on, the film has some interesting things to say about modern society, storytelling, biases, journalistic ethics, addiction, the rural poor, and casual internet sex. Deep down it is a story about a storyteller who is creating a story about how stories are created. Don't see that too often, but that is obviously my brand. It is a clever take on a kind of morality play. Also, I'll never drive past a Whataburger without thinking of this film. Supplanting Infinite Jeston that front.