🎬 “I like my blood. I’ve grown accustomed to it.”

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I liked the visual design of Elysium and I didn’t mind its simplistic politics — but this is a movie with a lot of unrealized potential that misses too many opportunities to ignore.

In 2154, we’re told, Earth’s wealthy people have fled their polluted home planet to an exclusive bougie satellite, leaving poor factory workers like Max (Matt Damon) behind, and denying them access to magically futuristic medical care. The similarities to our own world are subtle with a capital B, but I wish the movie had leaned harder into the philosophical question of what to do about this inequality, which it does only briefly.

Instead, it falls back on mustache-twirlingly evil villains (Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley, although only the latter has an actual mustache) and devolves in its third act into an over-loud action-packed showdown. I didn’t hate this movie, but … agh! I hate to see a good premise go to waste. ★★★

I watched Elysium on Blu-Ray, but it’s currently streaming on fuboTV, Epix, and Sling TV.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is one of those really rare, special movies that has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It is the worst movie I’ve seen this year, and I have seen M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender.

I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this notorious film, and the funny commentary made the movie more bearable. Nevertheless, I greeted the ending with a big sigh of relief. Sometimes, a bad movie like The Room or Troll 2 can be enjoyable on its own momentum; I can’t imagine myself watching through this one without the commentary.

The acting, editing, soundtrack, and everything else is so bad, that it’s only right that this movie is one of MST3K’s most famous episodes. Skip it, unless you’re also watching that version. 𝟎 ½

Manos: The Hands of Fate is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Hoopla. The MST3K version, which I watched on DVD, is currently available on YouTube.

On the complete opposite end of the quality spectrum: Dick Johnson is Dead is a brilliant documentary that confronts the ultimate taboo with both honesty and deception.

Here, longtime documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson chronicles her father’s deepening dementia and gradual loss of independence, filming him with his permission over several years as he closes up his psychiatry practice and moves in with her family in New York. She also uses Hollywood tricks to visualize his death — and in one charmingly weird scene, his afterlife.

Although she doesn’t sugarcoat the reality of what’s happening in front of the camera, Johnson reclaims her wonderful father’s legacy by making this film so entertaining. This is pointedly not misery porn; it’s something far more difficult, far more specific, and I loved it for that. This movie may make you cry, but it will also make you laugh, and, in a brisk 90 minutes, fall in love with the world’s cutest 80-something-year-old man. Highly recommended. ★★★★★

Dick Johnson is Dead is currently streaming on Netflix.

The Irishman starts off strong and finishes even stronger — in fact, I’d go so far as to say the last half hour is damn near perfect. But on this re-viewing, I felt much the same about the movie as I did the first time around: This is a beautifully shot and directed movie that probably shouldn’t be a movie.

Featuring dozens of characters over three-and-a-half-hours, it’s stuck in an uncanny valley between film and television; everyone involved (including director Martin Scorsese and stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci) turns in great work, but the epic story frequently loses focus and gets bogged down in minutiae in a way that makes its runtime a liability.

On Netflix, you can pause the movie when it has 90 minutes left and return to it the next day. This time, I did, and I enjoyed the movie’s final act much more as a result. But then that leads me to wonder: If this was meant to be watched with interruptions, why not push it to five hour-long episodes? As it is, I recommend The Irishman … but maybe not all at once. ★★★½

The Irishman is currently streaming on Netflix.

(new additions in bold)