First Time Watches: February 2019

February is the shortest month of the year. Most of the time, it only has twenty-eight days. That’s two or three less than any other month. Once in four years, it gets an extra day, but that’s still not enough to match the other months. That doesn’t mean that the movie watching has to be any less. And, by that logic, it doesn’t mean that there will for sure be fewer first time watches in February.

If February of 2019, I still managed to have fourteen first time watches. There were fourteen movies I had never seen before that I saw for the first time. They were from many different genres and many different years. There was a western from the 1930s, a musical from the early 2000s, and an animated family comedy from that month. I watched whatever I felt like watching, like any other month. I had a good time doing it, too.

Now, I’m going to once again preface this by saying that I know this is over a year out of date. I’m still catching up on these posts. Give me a little bit of time and I’ll inch closer to the present day. I need to get through these earlier ones, first. That’s all. Why don’t I start that with the 1930s western I mentioned?

The Terror of Tiny Town

One of the things I like to find in movies are things that have some sort of unique gimmick to them. The Terror of Tiny Town was a western with a cast consisting entirely of little people. They rode ponies instead of full-sized horses. There were sight gags like the little people walking under saloon doors instead of pushing them open. It was a pretty offensive film that was completely of the times. This sort of thing probably wouldn’t fly as well in the modern film landscape. As a story, it was okay. It was the basic western story. It just had people of a smaller stature playing the main roles.

In Bruges

I’m not nearly as big a fan of this one as other people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a solid character piece. But it’s one of those movies that didn’t quite pull me in the way that it had so many other people. I liked it. I enjoyed watching it play out. Yet there was no deeper connection to what was happening outside of me watching it. I didn’t feel it. You know? I was watching In Bruges, but I wasn’t in Bruges. Oh well.

High Flying Bird

This was another one where it was a solid film. I enjoyed what I saw. It was well done on a technical level. Soderbergh’s work with the iPhone over the two movies he used it for was masterful. But there was no deeper connection beyond admiring the work that went into it. I watched the movie and knew I watched something good. I didn’t feel anything for it other than praising the work. That’s a shame. I’ll rewatch it at some point and maybe my opinion will change.

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

I wasn’t expecting this to be a musical. I knew that Everything is Awesome was going to come back since it was such a hit in the first movie. I didn’t expect Tiffany Haddish to start belting out musical numbers. I didn’t know that there was going to be a Catchy Song in the middle of the movie that was going to get stuck in my head. Aside from the music, the movie was a whole lot of fun. Watching everyone get brainwashed only to find out that they weren’t was a great twist. Everything was awesome in this movie. It was a delight.

From Justin to Kelly

When the first season of American Idol concluded, the producers behind the show took the top two contestants and threw them into a romantic musical together. Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson starred as two people on spring break who had a meet cute and decided to fall in love. The vocals in the songs were good, though the production of the songs wasn’t anywhere near that level. The acting was worse. That was to be expected, though. The two stars weren’t actors. They were vocalists who just broke into the business. A bad movie, through and through.

Upgrade

Leigh Whannell, as much as James Wan, has been responsible for shaping much of the horror landscape over the past two decades. He had Saw, Insidious, Cooties, and Dead Silence under his belt before going out on his own to direct Insidious: Chapter 3. His follow up was Upgrade, which blended Whannell’s horror roots with science fiction and action. He made a movie that felt like pure adrenaline. It didn’t quite hit all the highs it could have, missing the mark just slightly. But it’s a well done, action packed B-movie.

Happy Death Day 2U

If you were looking for more of what Happy Death Day brought to the table, you got that. But you also got something completely different that took the concept and flipped it on its head. Not enough can ever be said about Jessica Rothe’s performance. She played every possible emotion as Tree.  She was scared during the slasher stuff. She was bittersweet during the mom stuff. She was tough in the fighting back stuff. And she nailed each of them. The way she can project emotions is among the best out there, and it’s a wonder she’s not a huge star. It also set up a third movie that, as of yet, hasn’t even been announced.

Lion

This came out of nowhere, was nominated for awards, and disappeared back into that nowhere land. It was about a kid who was separated from his family in a city he didn’t know, deciding twenty-five years later to seek out the family he lost so long ago. Dev Patel was great, as he almost always is. Things got a little emotional near the end, too. It might not be a movie for everyone, but it was definitely one that worked for me.

The Marine 6: Close Quarters

It was always going to be difficult for this one to live up to the expectations I had after seeing The Marine 5: Battleground. There was no way that it would reach those highs. And it didn’t. It was still a solid direct-to-video action movie, though. It saw The Miz and Shawn Michaels team up to stop Becky Lynch and her group of kidnappers. The action was good, as it tends to be in any of the Jake Carter installments of the franchise. The characters were fun enough to watch. Maybe, on a rewatch, I’ll enjoy it even more. It was a step down, but only from the top step to about two steps from the top. It’s still a good one. That ending was a little self-indulgent, though. I didn’t like the ending. That could be why I had a sour taste.

The Square

All I knew about the movie going in was that there was a scene where a guy tormented some diners with his physicality. That was because of an incident where they tried to recreate the scene at a film festival screening. I heard all about that. What I didn’t know was how well made the movie was. The story was something that took some time to wrap my head around. It was the craftsmanship that really impressed me, however. The Square was an art exhibit, but it was also a motif used throughout the film. There were squares and hard edges in many of the visuals. The shape kept coming back, and not just in the exhibit. I fell in love with the movie early, and that love never faded.

Deadly Detention

The Breakfast Club might not be the first movie someone would think about when they consider movies that have been ripped-off and riffed-upon for generations following their release. Yet, it has slowly been building up a rogues gallery of movies and television shows that play off of the five stereotyped characters in a detention situation. Deadly Detention took that concept of five stereotyped teen characters and put them in a slasher situation during their detention. The problem was that none of the characters had any depth. It wasn’t a good movie. Moving on.

Deadly Scholars

This one is also known as #SquadGoals. It was a teenage murder mystery lacking any charm. Other than a thankless appearance by Sheryl Lee, there was nothing of note about the movie. That’s even more apparent a year out from watching it when I remember absolutely nothing about it outside of being disappointed. Oh, it was a Netflix watch. That was probably the only reason I saw it at all.

Crimson Peak

I have an interesting relationship with Guillermo Del Toro. I either love his movies or they do nothing at all for me. This was closer to the nothing at all camp. The first half of the movie didn’t grab me in any way whatsoever. The second half picked things up a little bit. In the end, though, I was left feeling like it could have been more. It could have connected with me more. It’s just one of those Guillermo Del Toro movies that didn’t really do it for me, and that’s a shame. I quite love some of his other movies.

High Desert

This was a super low-budget biker revenge movie. A biker gang took some campers hostage and one person was out to fight back against them. It wasn’t too bad. There was effort put into the movie to make it look like a little more than the low budget action flick that it was, which culminated in some hilarious or well-done stuff. Sometimes both at once. There was an early scene where a pool game was shown. That pool game was shot more cinematically than anything else in the entire film, as if their whole budget for equipment rental went into that one scene. I love that the movie dropped that scene in there as if people wouldn’t notice the change in quality.

February came to a close with that trip to the High Desert. It was a month packed full of insanity and mundanity. There were cowboys, bikers, and basketball players. LEGO showed up to toy around with my emotions. There were even some deadly horror movies thrown in there for kicks. I enjoyed the month, even if I didn’t enjoy every movie I would see.

That would transfer into the next month as well. I always enjoy watching movies, so March would be another month with another bunch of movies I enjoyed seeing. From Skate Kitchen to Captain Marvel to Zardoz, there were a lot of interesting things in March. There were some duds, too. That’s for the next First Time Watches post, though. That’ll be coming up fairly soon. These are staying semi-frequent for now.

Before we all head off back to our pandemic-ridden lives, let me toss in some plugs. As always, you can find me on Twitter here and here. You can find me on Instagram here and here. I write about bad movies over on the Sunday “Bad” Movies blog, and I write about Power Rangers here. I’m nearing the end of the Mighty Morphin era. Only a few episodes left. If you’re sick of me, check out my pal Jaime Burchardt on Twitter. He’s a great guy. Also check out Talk Film Society. Manish Mathur recently wrote an article on their site about American Psycho, which recently turned twenty years old. That about does it. See you soon for another post.