My Time With Moviepass – A Retrospective

As I mentioned at the tail end of last week’s post, my time with Moviepass has unfortunately and finally drawn to a close with the removal of the only theater near me that supports E-Ticketing.  Given that the service has funded what has to be the lion’s share of hot (and cold) takes I’ve dropped on here, I want to take this week to dole out some high-school-yearbook-style superlatives to the 30 films I have listed in the app’s history.  If you want, you can also consider this a year in review, since I’ve had Moviepass for about 14 months now, but I make no claims about the exhaustiveness of my moviegoing over that span.  First, some statistics:

Total Movies Seen: 30 (I think – I swear I also saw Justice League using Moviepass, but it doesn’t show up in my history.  Given my Justice League experience, though, that’s probably for the best).

2018 Best Picture Nominees Seen: 3 (Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

2018 Oscar-Nominated Pictures Seen: 6 (I, Tonya, The Disaster Artist, and all of the 2018 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts, in addition to the three films above).

Comic-Book Movies Seen: 5 (Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2)

Horror Movies Seen: 3 (IT, Hereditary, A Quiet Place)

Comedies Seen: 2 (Game Night, Blockers)

Action Movies Seen: 3 (American Assassin, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Skyscraper)

Heist Movies Seen: 2 (Logan Lucky, Ocean’s 8).

Animated Movies Seen: 1 (Incredibles 2).

Remakes/Sequels/Franchise Films Seen: 12 (too many to list)

Documentaries: 1 (Won’t You Be My Neighbor – I really wish this number were higher).

Movies in Which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Fights a Skyscraper: 1 (Skyscraper).

Obviously, there are also a number of other movies that I saw that don’t really fit into any of these categories.  And now, a few superlatives:

Strongest Movie Month: It looks like there were two months during which I saw 4 movies: September 2017 (Wonder Woman, IT, American Assassin, Kingsman: The Golden Circle) and April 2018 (Love, Simon, A Quiet Place, Blockers, Avengers: Infinity War).  Timewise, the September boom was likely more a function of my newfound love for the service than anything else, and furthermore, American Assassin was very not great, whereas April 2018 had a couple of pleasant surprises (Love, Simon, Blockers) in addition to some of the year’s harder hitters (A Quiet Place, Avengers), so it’s gotta be April 2018 here.

April of this year was a great month for movies.

Weakest Movie Month: Numerically, this was a four-way tie between October 2017 (Boo! A Madea Halloween, which I only reserved a ticket for to see if the app was still working – I think the service was on the fritz in some way around this time), March 2018 (Game Night), August 2018 (BlacKkKlansman) and September 2018 (Searching).  I’m not counting August 2017, during which I only saw Logan Lucky, considering that I didn’t even have Moviepass for that whole month.  Either way, the clear winner of Weakest Movie Month has to be October 2017.

Maybe the creepiest character in any of the movies I’ve seen with Moviepass, and that includes the multiple horror movies in the mix.

Last Movie Seen: With a title that perhaps signals the rough fortunes ahead for me and Moviepass: Bad Times at the El Royale has this honor.

Take notes: if you’re stuck outside in the rain, at least you can look cool while getting soaked.

First Movie: Not really due to anything other than luck (pun intended), Logan Lucky was the film that kicked off my passionate Moviepass romance.  It was pretty good, if not strongly derivative of the Ocean’s franchise.

“I am in-car-cer-a-ted.”

Worst Movie: I’m not gonna give this to Boo! A Madea Halloween, given that I didn’t actually see it and that doesn’t seem fair.  I’m also too lazy to look up which of these movies has the worst Rotten Tomatoes score, but I also don’t really think I need to do that.  American Assassin takes this one by a healthy margin.

This poor guy – his franchise never had a chance.

Best Movie: This is a much more difficult choice.  I’m not gonna go with The Shape of Water, because I’m not a joiner, and frankly I think it’s an overrated movie as it is.  Flying in the face of serious film critics everywhere, I’m gonna go with Avengers: Infinity War instead, simply because it sticks out as the most enjoyable filmgoing experience on this list.  It’s a cinematic achievement in little more than cramming a billion characters into a movie and creating some truly bananas special effects, but it certainly lived up to the massive amounts of hype surrounding it, and had a truly jaw-dropping ending.

Three of Earth’s mightiest heroes – and Wong.

Most Unique Movie:  This is also a tight race.  Searching and A Quiet Place are the two clear finalists, but I think I’ll have to go with A Quiet Place for nerdy aspiring screenwriter reasons.

Sorry, guy.  If it makes you feel any better, your movie was probably the more impressive technical achievement.

Most Surprising Movie: In this category, the movies that stick out are Blockers, Game Night, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor, probably because they’re all films in genres that I don’t typically seek out or enjoy, but I think Won’t You Be My Neighbor takes it in the end.  Sorry, comedies – I’m not willing to cross Mr. Rogers.

Fred Rogers and his main man Daniel.

Most Underwhelming Movie: This is this post’s hot take, and I’ve nestled it at the end for those brave enough to find it.  They’re far from the worst on the list, but I have to say that I expected so much more from both The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.  If I have to bestow this honor to only one of these films, I’d go with Shape, because the acting showcased in Three Billboards is downright incredible, but I think I overhyped both of these movies too much.  In other words, it’s my fault.

One of the many blue-green saturated shots from The Shape of Water.  Admittedly, the film’s sometimes out-of-control use of color was probably my single favorite thing about it.

For those out there doing the math, 30 movies over 14 months is a little over two a month, and given that the service cost me $9.99 a month over the duration of that time, yeah, I definitely took Moviepass for a spin financially.  The business model still makes absolutely no sense to me, but I hope somebody figures out something similarly priced (but in some way economically viable) soon.

Time to change the blog’s sidebar!

Skyscraper Review

This past weekend, I did something I don’t usually do, and by that I don’t mean that I went to a theater purposefully to see a movie that by many indications is bad – that’s certainly something I’ve done more than a handful of times.  What was interesting and unique about the experience was that I went alone, and let me – a person who has literally always suffered from a fear of heights that typically induces an absurd amount of sweatiness – be the first to admit that choosing to test drive that experience with a movie about the tallest building in the world may not have been the greatest choice.

Go ahead and try climbing that, Tom Cruise.

Skyscraper is that movie you all know from the ridiculous poster/trailer and the accompanying memes.  It’s the movie that pits Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – a man who seemingly can do little wrong in Hollywood, even if that means making a number of mediocre-to-bad movies in the past couple of years – against literally a building.  The Rock vs. a hard place, provided the building is made out of construction material that’s, well, hard.  What a matchup.  So let’s get right into it – no matter how you slice it, The Rock is one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars these days, but I think if there’s one thing that Skyscraper does well, it’s defining the limit of its star’s acting abilities.  To put it a different way, if Skyscraper is anything, it’s a reminder that The Rock may still be nothing but a wrestler that can passably – and only passably – act.

The scene you’ve all been waiting for: The Rock jumps from a crane into a burning building.

Look, I love The Rock.  The Rundown, one of his earliest ventures from the wrestling world into the world of cinema, is one of my favorite guilty-pleasure movies, and that’s not just because it allows us to watch Johnson smash through brick with a slightly altered version of The People’s Elbow.  It’s also because – well, OK, it’s mostly because of that.  But while he also occasionally thrives in pure action movies, I think where he really belongs is in the realm of action-comedy (Central Intelligence), or even a family film (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Moana), or perhaps an ensemble driven movie (his various appearances in the ridiculous but also ridiculously successful Fast and Furious franchise).  What all of those movies – movies he has been in that have been fairly well-rated – have in common is that their scripts feature some jokes that actually land, whereas any attempts Skyscraper makes at humor could only be characterized as wide misses.  On top of a misuse of overt humor, what Skyscraper also fails to do – and something I would have loved to see it do – is lean into the ridiculousness of its own premise.  Sucking the movie dry of all levity in either of those forms is one way to go, yes, but is also causes any charm that Dwayne Johnson may have to fall flat.  He’s at his best in this film when he’s climbing out of a billionth-story window with nothing but a curtain-pull to support his immense weight and saying what we’re all thinking – “This is stupid.”  He’s at his worst for pretty much the rest of the movie, unless he’s punching something or someone, which is admittedly a decent chunk of runtime.

Me when someone else in my apartment complex uses all the hot water.

Indeed, any time that I laughed during Skyscraper, it was at something that I’m sure the writers didn’t intend for me to laugh at.  Johnson jumping from a flaming wind turbine and bouncing multiple times on the side of the titular skyscraper, suspended only by the aforementioned curtain pull attached to a prosthetic leg that’s affixed to his upper leg with what is apparently the strongest adhesive/mechanism known to man, comes to mind immediately, as does the film’s casual and repeated misuse of the word “subroutine” – though admittedly that’s a pretty nerd-driven concern, and a mistake that countless action movies have made to boot.  With all of this in mind, it’s probably a good time to stop bashing Johnson (who, this may be a good time to mention, also served as a producer) and start bashing the script, which was unconscionably rough around the edges at times.  To be fair, it does a few things well – it serves as documentation of some great fire safety protocols, and could also function as a nearly two-hour long commercial for duct tape.  The weakest sections have to be the climactic ending sequence, which is equal parts unsatisfying, intentionally absurd, and visually confusing, and the beginning sequence, which begs the unfortunate question: who wears a bomb vest in a rural Midwestern hostage situation?

Yep.  I’m getting sweaty just looking at this picture.

But maybe this is all just me being overly critical.  After all, as I mentioned, this was my first (maybe ever) solo moviegoing experience, and as I walked out of the theater without anyone to commiserate with on any visible finer points of what I had just scene, I may have just reflexively soured to it immediately.  In the negative sense, what’s clear to me is that it’s a cautionary tale, a parable about what the seemingly endless extravagance of Hollywood can lead to: a mindless movie packed with little to no character development or growth and a whole lot of CGI. In the positive sense, it’s an original concept (which is rare these days) that perhaps valiantly attempts to recreate the glory of some of cinema’s stronger action features of yore. And yeah, it missteps quite a bit, but it still manages to be fun at times.  At the end of the day, it was still undeniably enjoyable watching Dwayne Johnson and some other beefy guy completely destroy an apartment in a matter of seconds with their bodies and their bodies alone. Seriously, that must have been a tough scene to shoot and reshoot given that they seem to have gone out of their way to destroy all of the furniture in the room.

Neve Campbell (Scream) plays Dwayne Johnson’s character’s somewhat badass wife in the film.

It’s pretty crystal clear that Skyscraper is a film made as an homage to the 1988 classic Die Hard, and in spite of all of the bad things I’ve said about it, it’s not the worst attempt at that in the world, and it’s an attempt worth making.  The score (Steve Jablonsky‘s work) isn’t half bad, some of the fight sequences are pretty well-choreographed, and the CGI – though there are nauseating amounts of it – is decently done.  It all almost works, especially as a summer popcorn movie.  The key to recapturing the magic of a movie like Die Hard, though, is not only getting a leading man like Bruce Willis – which I’m sorry, but Dwayne Johnson is just a different type of actor – but it’s also getting an adequate foil for him in the form of someone like the late Alan Rickman, and this is something that Skyscraper doesn’t even attempt to do, at least not visibly.  Skyscraper shows that there’s more to a movie like Die Hard than action setpieces, and it also shows that great movies like that may have been a function of the time in which they were made – a time when smart writing, and maybe a classic casting of good vs. evil, outweighed (but didn’t totally eliminate, in all fairness) the glimmering promise of spectacle.

Just some vintage 1988 Bruce Willy for you all.

Anyways, that kind of turned into a rant, but this is all to say that Skyscraper probably isn’t worth your ticket money, unless you like almost any action movie.  With that said, it has its few merits – merits that delegate it not to the “never watch” pile, but rather to the “get it at Redbox for a dollar in a few months” pile.