Caught Stealing

The trailer was definitely leaning towards lighter fare.

Now admittedly, did I go see this movie purely to see Matt Smith punked out from head to toe? Yes! Was I happy with the final film notwithstanding his presence? Oh absolutely! But maaaaan, this is some heavy shit. It has moments of comedy and enjoyment but it's a serious tale with very realistic serious consequences. Set in the great year of our lord nineteen hundred and ninety-eight we follow everyman Hank who upon being tasked with watching his punk neighbor's cat gets embroiled in a stolen money caper with several interested crime parties pretty much going at him non-stop to get it, leading to an array of chases, deaths, and making peace with the past in the process. Once again, Austin Butler our friggin' guy, has yet to miss! The entire movie is carried on this performance, great supporting cast though without question, but he plays it pitch perfect in my opinion! Hank is a very damaged man and you see great pain throughout and not just from the gruelling scars he accumulates, it really is gonna be one of those sleeper performances of the year in my estimation! Zoë Kravitz gets some time to shine and while admittedly I wish she got involved more in this dangerous situation she still did good work. Do I even have to talk about Matt? He's in the movie roughly as much as Zoë, but needless to say I was revelling in every minute of it and of course being the nerd I am it's funny how easily I see things like his stride or his little finger twiddling and just think yep that's Eleven, just with soooo much more swearing and aggression. He's a true punk, he's a cat person, he's a family man himself, pure 10/10! Oh yeah and we get to see a wee baybah the whole movie, ho ho ho ho he's a fluffy boy and I must pet him! You know me and cats, you don't fuck about with them in my presence unless you want to eat lead and...yeah they hurt the little one's paw so I was craving blood to the climax. Though I will admit the movie threw me for at least two loops, I caught one mere seconds before it was sprung, but yeah it's nice to be surprised at the movies from time to time considering the obelisk of media I've consumed. It's very solidly directed, the cast brings it all the way, the action though limited is more candidly shot truth be told with a wide enough angle to where you can see everything which I like, soundtrack was pretty good but I just wanted to hear more punk songs, it's got a very good pace and the time flies by, you do get invested and it keeps you invested till credits, so I can sure fire recommend this. 3 stars, 7.5/10, and that about does it for this month. What will next month entail? Who knows, not me, I make this up as I go along.

Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse

Yeah after all the hype and seeing the new Miles Morales game I figured this was the first stop to better understand it all.

I mean, for a character that hasn't even been around for a decade and yet even for a non-Marvel fan to know how beloved such a character is like Miles Morales is kind of rare. But how was the movie? Pretty good. I still say Isle Of Dogs should have won at the Oscars, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this movie. It's just such a fresh take on the superhero genre and if anything fun and light to where people of all ages can enjoy it. I have to say it already got me just by bringing up so much of the Sam Raimi movies which I watched as a kid and was my first exposure to the character, and after that I was rolling with everything. So our story starts with Miles as he goes about his daily life before the ususal radioactive spider, yadda yadda, you know this but things get crazy and things get nuts, when a cross dimensional experiment occurs and pulls 5 parallel universe spider people into Miles' world and they have to go save the day and get everyone not so far from home. Fun plot, but still has it's moments. It's a lot for Miles sometimes and the movie doesn't shrug off the emotional bits for any of the characters, I mean after all that was kind of the main thing about Spider-Man, a superhero with a relatable life and dilemmas, to which this movie sticks with. I'm not entirely sure how they picked the incarnations of the various web slinging crimefighters but I like it. We got Spider Gwen which is cool, easily my favorite of the bunch the all black trenchcoat wearing Spider Noir, friggin' anime girl with mech suit included (Nice!), and the pig. I don't think I need to say much more about the pig. We also get a good medley of villains, with Kingpin who I know zero about and Doc Ock who I know a bit about and is voiced by complete wife material Kathryn Hahn. Oh my. There's a lot to talk about in this movie so I'll keep it brief but there's at least 2 more points I want to make. I dreaded the animation style, the first time I ever experienced this dropped frame rate style was in Tron Uprising, because of course it was, and...I hated it. I could not for the life of me get over it. It looked so stilted, unnatural, and a touch lazy if I was being unusually cruel. Yet surprisingly, I barely even noticed it here it looks so fluid and has that rich comic book look to it, text boxes and all so I am honest to God thrilled I didn't hate it and maybe it will grow on me in other media. The soundtrack while very modern and almost entirely unknown to me still worked, though you can bet your ass when Biggie Smalls and the f***ing St. Elmo's Fire theme started playing I was jammin' like nobody's business. And yeah, we have to talk about Stan. Turns out I was wrong about the Teen Titans Go movie and this was the last one he had, and holy hell even to a person like me it still cut a bit. Just because I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Marvel or the MCU doesn't mean that I don't like Stan Lee, I have too much respect and admiration for the man to do such a thing. He always said that anyone could wear the suit, and the message at the end that anyone can be a superhero is incredibly true even if you're not inspired by the stories superheroes have. One of my favorite reviewers, like ever, said that superheroes are the modern day knight errants. They go out and do good deeds, help people, and right wrongs. And I will fully say there is not enough stories out there about the positive impact of superheroes, it's either about heroes punching one another or some ultra super mega earth shattering event, and that just isn't the right thing to focus on. This movie did it right though. And really and truly, it has my deepest respect for that. 4 stars, 8/10, I'll see you tomorrow.