Haunted Mansion's talented cast can't outrun gimmicky plot

Haunted Mansion - Justin Simien - 2023

★-A Disney supernatural horror comedy based on a ride. I know, sounds like trash. And it is!

Yeah, looked bad, but I was intrigued by the star-studded ensemble cast and the director, whose work I like. Talent includes LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Dan Levy (whose in the movie for like 15 seconds), Winona Ryder (also barely appears in the film, but is quite the comedic heat check), Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jared Leto. Directed by Justin Simien. He also directed the movies Dear White People and Bad Hair, both far superior films. 

A movie that spent over a decade in development hell, which shows. Guillermo del Toro was originally attached in 2010. Gist of it is one Gabbie (Dawson, who is so pretty) and her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) seek help from a team of experts (Stanfield, Haddish, Wilson, and DeVito) to exorcise their haunted mansion and kill the sinister ghosts that haunt them.

My issues with the film. First, it is obscenely long for what it is. Neither scary, nor funny. I'm not really sure who this movie was for, as it's a little heavy for the kids in my life, though I would have hated it back then. I also couldn't imagine an adult liking the film. Overall, it was a hard movie to get through, especially with its over two-hour run time. 

Knives Out is the greatest movie of all time

Knives Out. This is a twisted web, and we are not finished untangling it, not yet. A donut hole inside a donut hole. Love a Agatha Christie style whodunit. Gosford Park. Fucking great. Manhattan Murder Mystery. Get the fuck out. Murder Mystery. That was supposed to be trash. Loved it. The Ghost Writer. Ate that shit up. Shit, I'd put The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which also stars Daniel Craig, in that boat as well. Movie was tits. This one, better than those even. Greatest movie of all-time you say? I do.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Knives Out sharpens old murder-mystery tropes with a keenly assembled suspense outing that makes brilliant use of writer-director Rian Johnson's stellar ensemble.

Gist of the movie is that famous and massively wealthy mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (played wonderfully by Christopher Plummer) is found dead of an apparent suicide at his massive estate the day following his 85th birthday party. But there are issues and someone has anonymously hired famous private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to investigate. Everyone of Thrombey's horrible and dysfunctional descendants are suspects after they all get cut out of the will. Then there is his beautiful and seemingly kind nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), whom the family finds suspect. Thats about all you need to know. Don't want to spoil the surprise.

Directed by one Rian Johnson, he also did Brick (which I saw way back when and don't remember caring for, little dark for my taste), Looper, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (meh). He is married to Karina Longworth, the host of this podcast that I fucking love called You Must Remember This, you have to check that shit out if you are into old movie stars and Hollywood history, which is pretty cool. The movie stars de Armas (Blade Runner 2049) who is just perfect, Craig, Evans, Plummer, Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Michael Shannon, and Lakeith Stanfield. In case you don't know, that cast is fucking sick.

This movie is so in my fucking wheelhouse. No way I wasn't going to like it. But I genuinely loved it. I wait for years for these types of movies and lose my fucking mind when they come out. This was fucking great and I loved the experience of it (even though it was a packed house and the guy setting behind me smelled horrible). I'm definitely going to see it second time, no fucking doubt.

Something super clever I noticed was how no one listens to "the help." There are three times this hilariously comes to light. In one, every time the family mentions Marta's family, they say that they come from a different country, never getting it right. By the time they make the third reference to it, you are definitely LOLing. The second time, the housekeeper, the one we see deadish with the spider on her face in the trailer, is trying to explain the whole murder plot to another character, which would totally have ended things way sooner, but the person doesn't even try to follow along. This was subtle and low-key the funniest one. Then there is when she straight up, point blank says who the killer is and no one really gets it. A bit about the woman that plays this character Fran. Her name is Edi Patterson. Before a couple of months ago I had never seen her in my life. Now, I can't get enough of her. She is legit hilarious and is kind of having a moment between her work on this and in the television show The Righteous Gemstones, which I cannot recommend enough.

MVP goes to Chris Evans. That guy is really something. In a movie with all that talent, I think he probably won the movie. His performance is complex and layered. No Captain America, that is for sure, this guy is a douche-bag. It's obvious that Evans loved it and it shows. Plummer and de Armas are solid honorable mentions, though there isn't anyone who isn't just amazing (have heard some shit about Craig's ridiculous accent but I think it works and I loved hearing yuck it up about how the case was like a donut, no a donut hole, no a hole within the donut hole, and so forth).

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story is the worst movie of all time

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story. Jesus. Like the off brand for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Loved that movie. Was expecting David Fincher or something in that vein. But this movie doesn't have the same vibe even. Make that clear from the get-go with the shitty intro music instead of that hot Trent Reznor/Karen O "Immigrant Song" from the original movie. Also, replace all the actor with far less talented sort of look-a-likes. Like instead of 2011 it girl Rooney Mara, 007 Daniel Craig, and the classic beauty and icon Robin Wright we get Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, and Vicky Krieps, respectively none of whom I'd ever heard of. Plus the movie was based on the first book in the series not written by Stieg Larsson. Despite that Larsson, at the time of his death, had a fourth book in the series most of the way complete and outlines for several more, this work by David Lagercrantz does not use the Larsson book as its source and completely does its own thing. Yeah, read the book, you can tell. Last that I'll be reading in the series unless Larsson's longtime partner, Eva Gabrielsson, finishes the series that Larsson had mapped out. Anywho, little surprise, after some shitty internet research, that this is indeed the worst movie of all time. This movie fucking sucks.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: The Girl in the Spider's Web focuses on the action elements of its source material for a less complex -- and only sporadically effective -- franchise reboot.

Pros: Occasionally (unintentionally) hilarious. Love that LaKeith Stanfield guy.

Cons: Pretty boring. Impossible not to compare it unfavorably to the Swedish and David Fincher movies that came before it. Not crazy about the cast. Lot of magical internet bullshit that is ridiculous (hacking into an airport's security system by planting a cell phone in the vicinity of its router [which I might add is all run through the crappiest consumer-grade home wifi version]). Must have forgotten to change the router password and username from admin admin. Also, some very fortuitous shit happens that Lisbeth seems to psychically just know will happen. Also, why the fuck is Stephen Merchant like a serious actor all of a sudden. He was solid in Logan but it's a hard pass after this one but wish he'd focus his time on the shit that put him on the map like Meet Ricky Gervais, The Office, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which is a true gift to the world.

Sooo... Gist... Once again, hacker woman Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are in the middle of some shit. This time Lisbeth has stolen a missile control program from the US's National Security Agency that gives whoever has said program the power to launch any nuke in the world. Turns out the key to unlock it is the program creator's son (the programmer guy is played by Steven Merchant by the by) who has some horribly explained number magic that makes little to no sense since they dropped the whole autism angle that was in the book. Various spies and government people and Lisbeth's sisterand her gang are trying to steal it from her and shit whilst pinning the murder of Steven Merchant on Lisbeth. Directed by some guy named Fede Álvarez, it is supposed to be a direct sequel/soft-reboot of Fincher's film. Starring in the film are never seen her Foy as Lisbeth, never heard of him Gudnason as Blomkvist, Stanfield from Sorry to Bother You as some NSA agent come to get his program back, and Sylvia Hoeks (no idea) as Lisbeth's sister Camilla. This film is fucking trash.

Fucking lame

Oh boy is there some shit with this movie. There was little to enjoy about this flick. Lisbeth was the tough but vulnerable feminist antihero in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In The Girl in the Spider's Web she is a fucking superhero. Also, lots of not only right place, right time, it's like Lisbeth is psychic when it comes to this. Example...In the ridiculous airport prison break, Lisbeth leaves a suitcase in the middle of a crowd. Security grabs it. When they open it it is full of dildos and a cell phone. That cell phone gets her access to all the computers on the network and access to the cells in the airport holding. Stanfield's character gets broken out as a result of this and she has a person get on the PA and tell him go to such and such a gate via a popup message. When he gets there, in a trashcan waiting for him are a cell phone and what I thought was another dildo. It turns out this is a conk device that he uses on a security guard after he gets out that appears out of nowhere pointing a gun at Lisbeth. No fucking way would she know this guy was going to be there. Finally, the white paint on Lisbeth's face when she punishes some over-the-top evil wife/hooker beater at the beginning of the movie looks fucking stupid. Fuck this shit.

Nothing stood out as far as best line goes. Best scene and best kill are one and the same and was basically the only part of the movie I legit enjoyed. This was towards the end, spoilers, when the male douche villain guy gets stabbed with this neurotoxin that he had scientists whip up that causes permanent blindness. He was going to use it on Blomkvist but shit went down and Steven Merchant's kid stabs him in the ankle with it. What happens from here is all fucking hilarious. First he falls out of a window, breaking his leg compound style when he hits the ground 40 feet below. From there he gets up and feels his way to a nearby forest. Meanwhile, Lizbeth's sister is making her escape with her driver heading down the road. Something miraculous basically has to happen for her to not get away. Enter this idiot stumbling around on the road, blindly feeling his way around. The driver, of course, doesn't see him and nails him which causes the car to spin out of control and hit a tree so that the bad guys don't get to make it away scot-free. This was obviously ridiculous. I couldn't stop laughing. Luckily there were only three other people in the theater, all of whom where likely equally hating this, most of whom where also laughing. Not good.

MVP is Stanfield whose talent was so beyond this movie it was fucking unbelievable. He does cool/nerdy well here like he did in Sorry to Bother You. He wasn't really given much to work with but does his best, adding little flourishes like a "pow" and finger guns when he knows he is on camera. He adds a bit of comic relief to what is supposed to be a serious movie. These things he does well. That was all it really took for an MVP on this piece of garbage. The sooner I forget this, the better.

Sorry to Bother You is the greatest movie of all time

Sorry to Bother You. Fuck. Wow. Not the mind fuck I was expecting, that's for damn sure. All I knew about this flick was that a black telemarketer adopts a white voice while selling shit and it fucking works. What this was was an acid flashback unlike anything I've ever seen. It was part Puttie Tang, part Get Out. But way crazier than either one. I wasn't sure if I hated it or loved it but am pretty sure that it was the greatest film of all time. Since it's new, few spoilers and none of shocking stuff will follow.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Fearlessly ambitious, scathingly funny, and thoroughly original, Sorry to Bother You loudly heralds the arrival of a fresh filmmaking talent in writer-director Boots Riley.

Pros: Well, it certainly isn't like anything I've ever seen before. Solid message. Solid acting. Especially from that Tessa Thompson who is in everything (Annihilation, Creed, Thor: Ragnarok, Westworld, so forth) and isn't bad to look at, and that Lakeith Stanfield who was the guy in the sunken place in Get Out. Forces the viewer to question their own ethical limits. Definitely a solidly anti-Trump era flick that never overtly gets political. I'd consider it the best socialist movie I've ever seen.

Cons: It's a little much at times. It's also hard to get over.

Remember this guy?

Gist of this film you want. Yeah, well... It's Oakland in maybe the future. Broke protagonist Cassius Green, living off his uncle, played by Terry Crews, who is also broke, lies his way into a job as a telemarketer where he quickly excels and moves up the corporate ladder all thanks to the use of his "white voice". As he moves up said ladder, into the mythical realm of "powercalling", the people that helped get him there get repeatedly shafted while he is forced to make progressively morally sketchier decisions which usually directly shit on the people he once called his friends. The movie stars Lakeith Stanfield as Cassius and Tessa Thompson as his on again, off again female companion, Detroit, who seems to be some kind of allegory and works as a performance artist/sign twirler. She also heads this group of artists/activists trying to overthrow the parent company, WorryFree, of the group that Cassius works for that has some pretty nefarious intentions and the douchiest CEO of all time in coked up wild man Steve Lift, played by Armie Hammer, who offers Cassius his wildest material dreams if he just sells out a little more and becomes a little less human. The shit with WorryFree, an ever present presence on the electric TV machine like with the crooked preacher on the tube, reminded me of Repo Man and the social commentary that film had specifically with commercialism and televangelism. Written and directed by Boots Riley, the first-time filmmaker was previously known for his talents in hip hop as the lead vocalist in The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. Others in the supporting cast include David Cross as the white voice, Jermaine Fowler, Danny Glover, Omari Hardwick and his white voice played by Patton Oswalt, and Steven Yeun who was Glen in The Walking Dead. Know that there is a lot going on with this movie.

Again, since this is new, I'm not going to go into many of the details. Most of the really memorable scenes are super uncomfortable. The one that I can talk about without giving anything away is the one when Detroit does her performance art which is just brutal. In that scene she stands on-stage, nearly nude, wearing only a bikini of leather gloves, one of which is flipping the bird, while people in the audience chuck bullets, cell phones, and water balloons filled with fake blood. During this she recites the words "And in the end Eddie, you know what? You’re nothing but a misguided midget asshole with dreams of ruling the world … yeah also from Kew Gardens … and also getting by on my tits!" Cassius eventually stops it, asking why she would subject herself to that. That's really... something. Lot of irony there. Yep. But Cassius doesn't get it and continues on his path toward evil in following his dream.

Another crazy little thing is when Cassius becomes a meme. After adopting this whole have-to-play-the-game-to-get-ahead mantra that leads him, to among other places, selling out the working folk as slave labor, he has to be escorted into the same building that he worked in as a telemarketer to the elevator that takes him up to the penthouse along with the other powercallers (whom you think is a pipe dream for the first third of the movie). They have to be escorted because all of the entry level telemarketers are striking and making it nearly impossible to get into the building. When that is happening and Cassius is getting taken into the building, some chick pops him in the head with a can of cola. Someone gets this on film and on the internet it goes. After that we see a bunch of kids wearing afros with cans stuck to their heads. It becomes a symbol of the movement eventually.

Favorite scene though comes at Lift's party when the CEO sort of parades Cassius around as his new form of entertainment. In front of this huge group he regales everyone with how he shot this rhino to death with an AK or something when he stops and has Cassius tell a story. Cassius, on the spot, says he has none. Lift is like rap for me. Cassius is like, "I can't rap, it's embarrassing really." The next thing we see is Cassius with a microphone in front of the whole party. He tries, briefly, and it is terrible and you are embarrassed for him. That is when he starts repeating, "nigga shit, nigga shit, nigga, nigga, nigga shit" over and over again. And the crowd gets into it. It is, again, super uncomfortable but a super funny social commentary typical of the humor of this movie.

MVP of the flick is hands down Thompson in her roll as Detroit. This chick is good. Sexy, crazy, smart, cool. She is practically an angelic type being in the movie. They even play this like mystical music whenever she is on screen. She wears earrings that say "murder, murder, murder" and "kill, kill, kill" on them and shirts that say "THE FUTURE IS FEMALE EJACULATION".  It's hard not to read her as an allegory which I think might be a treading on dangerous ground. You can't really take the film or her character literally, but how to interpret all of it is obviously up for interpretation. Yeah, great roll in a great film. Everything she does is fire right now. She is the it girl. The breakout star, however, is obviously Stanfield, who became a leading man with this performance. Check this shit out.