The Naked Gun

I'm having a nostalgic moment right now, thinking about my three high school buddies who went with me to see the original, Leslie Nielsen-era Naked Gun movie in a theater when it came out in 1988. I was just 16 years old! We had a blast. We sat in the back row and laughed so hard, we were falling out of our seats. I can't think of many times when I had so much fun.

Well, that's a tough act for this year's Naked Gun reboot to follow, I suppose. But I'm not holding any hard feelings against it. Liam Neeson turns out to have the chops to pull off the deadpan comedy act, loaded with sight gags and ridiculous non sequiturs and a paradoxically mature-yet-immature brand of humor. Pamela Anderson seems to have it, too. And although the villain's nefarious plan is perhaps a bit too derivative (I also saw Kingsman, you know), it's all in the execution. And like all the best executions do, this one kills.

Frank Drebbin Jr., played by Neeson as the son of Nielsen's character (who makes a cameo appearance as, um, an owl), is an ethically challenged representative of Police Squad. Pulled off a bank robbery case because of his slapstick brutality, he finds himself on crash detail ... only to recognize that the victim of a fatal crash is connected with the heist. And the link between them is a tech mogul who plans to unleash The Purge on mankind, in order to cash in on the ruins. Anderson plays the crash victim's sister, who is equally determined to solve the guy's murder and who, by the way, is a mean scatter. By "scatter," I mean that jazzy gibberish that Mel Tormé specialized in. By "mean" I mean bloodcurdling. It's one (1) of the Three Scenes That Made It For Me, of which the other two (since I mention them) are (2) the romantic montage involving a psychotic snowman animated by black magic, and (3) when the villain (played by Danny Huston of Yellowstone) goes "Ow" after taking the first punch in his climactic fistfight with Neeson.

There, I haven't given away too many of the gags. Go and fall out of your seat with laughter, and my blessing.

Sketch

Last Friday, I drove all the way to Detroit ... Lakes, Minnesota ... to see the movie Sketch, which was playing at the multiplex movie theater there. It's a family movie, marketed for kids, about a girl who deals with her negative emotions by drawing violent images in a notebook, and her brother who discovers a pond that restores broken things ... and what happens when the notebook accidentally falls into the pond. No, actually, it's about how it takes a rampage of scribbly monsters to get a widowed dad and two "m'orphan" kids to grieve properly. And also how a dad and a brother unsuccessfully try to help a troubled girl only to discover that they, not she, need help. And also how a "b-hole" of a tomboy uses aggression to try to tell the girl she likes how she feels ... and stuff.

It plays more like a horror movie than you'd expect from the pre-release marketing. You might be a little surprised by the tone of the movie, considering that it's aimed at kids. And in case you doubt that it's aimed at kids, wait for the mid-credits ad blitz about an app that turns kids' sketches into 3-D animated monsters. Which is maybe, after all, what this movie is about. I'm a past master at not spotting what a movie is about. Remember Healer? I thought it was trying at some kind of inspirational, Christian message, and it turned out to be a commercial for a line of camps for kids with cancer. But despite the mercenary aspect of this movie's apparent mission, there's definitely something in it about facing grief as a family.

It has some heartstring-pulling emotional bits, with relatable kids experiencing some tough feelings. It has thought-provoking bits, like how the brother sincerely wants to help his sister but ends up blowing up at her (because she resents being treated like she needs help) and immediately feeling ashamed. I think the actors, particularly including the hero kids, do a great job. I think the writers did a great job, writing dialogue that snaps with tension and character conflict and leaves enough unsaid that you have to figure out, at times, what the characters are trying to say. Like the line where the realtor aunt/sister says to the dad/brother whose house she's trying to sell, "I noticed something interesting about the family pictures on the wall. Something was ... Was that intentional?" I forget exactly how she said it, but I remember that there was an element of "extrapolating from incomplete information" and "hitting very close to the heart of the whole thing" in that line. It's a script that goes from hilariously funny to heartbreaking to spooky to downright disturbing in a few heartbeats, and circles back again.

The sketchy monsters are a unique visual spectacle, too. There's a tragic sensibility about them – the girl drew them in her notebook after being assured that once put there, her bad feelings could never hurt anyone; but now that her brother's magic pond has touched them, they totally can hurt people, and lowkey probably do. (We are spared the gore and death, however. One more thing uncomfortable, squirming parents can take comfort in.)

Like I said, the cast does well, though I don't know from any of them except perhaps Tony Hale, as the dad. I'd drop names to watch out for in the future if I hadn't learned that my doing so is almost a curse on young actors' future careers. So here, without further palaver, are the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The son tries to warn his father that he thinks his sister's drawings are coming to life. The father is like, "I don't know what you're dealing with, but when you're ready to really talk about it, I'm here." The kid's look of mixed incredulity and betrayal is priceless. (2) The kids fight off a swarm of piders – or are they eyeders? – in a battle that pretty well trashes their house. (3) The girl brings her kind-of-terrifying, drawn-on arm tentacles to life. She's a trooper in an unapologetically scary way. Honorable mention: The father realizes what his kid is trying to do with his mother's ashes, just when the kid realizes he can't do it. The result is kind of the emotional catharsis of the whole "dudes need to mourn" storyline, with acting worthy of it.

The Bad Guys 2

Last weekend, somehow, sometime, I managed to squeeze in a viewing of the DreamWorks Animation film, The Bad Guys 2, because it was either that or The Naked Gun and, well, I flipped a mental coin. I liked(ish) the first movie, and had read one or two of Aaron Blabey's kid-sized books on which this series is loosely based, and so there I was. And it was OK.

The movie features a wolf, a shark, a piranha, a tarantula and a snake who are trying to go on the straight and narrow after a career in crime, but not doing particularly well. The wolf wants to prove himself to a foxy fox, who happens to be both the governor and a crook-gone-straight herself, but these guys can't catch a break. Then they get framed for the heist of a Lucha libre championship belt and are basically blackmailed into joining a nefarious plot by an all-female criminal gang to steal, um, a space shuttle and then, um ... It's an animated movie, so I could say anything at this point and you'd have to believe me, but I don't want to say it because then there wouldn't be anything left for you to find out if you decide to watch this completely OK, not great, sometimes funny and often exciting animated adventure.

I do have a reservation about this movie before I get to the bit about scenes that made it for me. In the middle of the movie, I grew a little concerned by the sense that the storyline and character dialogue were making a persuasive case for choosing robbery and theft as a path to self-empowerment. And I guess I should mention the voice cast here, which includes Sam Rockwell, Craig Robinson (The Masked Dancer, The Office), Anthony Ramos (In the Heights), Awkwafina (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Renfield), Alex Borstein (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Family Guy), Zazie Beetz (Atlanta, Invincible), Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black, The Color Purple), Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Poker Face) and Maria Bakalova (who played Ivana Trump in The Apprentice).

So, here are the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Mr. Snake realizes that his girlfriend has betrayed him ... and is completely turned on. This joke actually came around for a second try and got a laugh both times. (2) Diane, the fox, goes to visit Prof. Marmalade, the guinea pig villain from the first movie (voiced by British comic Richard Ayoade), in a scene cleverly patterned on Clarice Starling's initial encounter with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs ... up until he challenges her to a game. (3) Snake is trapped in a space suit with piranha, who becomes hideously flatulent when nervous ... and that suggests a hilarious form of propulsion when the pair get separated from their spacecraft.

524. Penitence & Sanctification Hymn

I've been over the Seven Deadly Sins at least once before, but I was feeling a penitence/sanctification hymn coming on (the line "Amend my heart" came to mind in a flash) and it seemed like a convenient structure for the thought. Also, my thoughts were stirred by this past Sunday's Epistle lesson, Col. 3:1-11, and mental association with Matthew 15:16-20. As usual, and despite my record as a hymn-tune maven, I have no particular tune in mind, but this meter (7676 D) is lousy with choices.

Amend my heart, O Savior,
From whence comes every sin;
For all my misbehavior
Stems from misrule within.
Since You have paid to free me
When once for all You died,
Reshape me as You see me:
Both just and sanctified.

Head over heels I've tumbled,
Tripped up by selfish pride:
Now let my heart be humbled,
O Lord who meekly died!
My greedy heart refashion,
Now fixed on gain and fraud;
For You are all compassion,
My freely giving God.

Let envy not pervert me
My neighbor's good to hate,
Nor gluttony subvert me
To gorge and never sate.
From out my body banish
Foul lust, on pleasure bent,
Who when in wilds You famished
With God's word were content.

Of wrathful temper cure me,
Whose grudges never die;
With pardon reassure me,
That I the same apply.
My idle, cold devotion,
My slothful ways correct:
My footsteps set in motion,
In tireless love direct.

O Christ, lest I should harden
Against Your saving word,
Pour out Your blood-bought pardon
Till faith and love are stirred.
From sin my soul unshackle;
With favor full and free,
Rebuild the tabernacle
You set aside in me.

ART: Peter Paul Rubens, Christ's charge to Peter. Public domain.

523. Wedding Anniversary Hymn

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that my parents' (dad and stepmom's) 40th wedding anniversary is coming up in a year or so. And 40 is the number my grandparents (on my mom's side) got to, before my grandma's cancer took center stage. I've known people to pass bigger milestones. I actually interviewed a couple, once, who had been married for over 70 years. Wedding annivesaries are pretty cool, even when the number before the "-th" isn't very high. Something so delicate enduring is to be celebrated. And here is a small attempt to do that in the form of a hymn. In the Common Metre. So, lots of possibilities for tunes; I'm not attached to any of them at the moment.

Rejoice, give thanks, and praise the Lord,
So well disposed to bless,
For joining two in one accord,
In wedded faithfulness!

Through all their years of toil and care,
Shared hours whose memories shine,
Such bracing testaments they bear
As age like choicest wine:

That two were made from thenceforth one;
And giving all in love,
They show the marriage of God's Son,
His blood the cup thereof:

Two made one flesh, each giving all
To serve the other's good;
God's throne of grace their wedding hall,
Their honor servanthood.

Forgiveness is the air they breathe
And patient love their bread;
The blade of pride they meekly sheathe
And cut vainglory dead.

Let all who see their union know
The impress of Christ's love,
And shape their footsteps here below
Toward festal joys above.

ART: The Marriage Feast at Cana by Juan de Flandes (1450–1519), deeded to the public domain via Creative Commons CCO 1.0 license.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

The local movie house gave a preview screening of this movie last night, along with a sneak preview of Disney's trailer for the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash. Regarding the trailer, meh. I've still never seen the original Avatar and I continue to hold myself to the challenge of never seeing it in the future. There was a time, not too many years ago, when it was actually difficult to avoid seeing it because it was EVERYWHERE. But I digress.

This Fantastic 4 flick is approximately the fourth attempt to turn this team of Marvel superheroes into a blockbuster movie franchise. I say "approximately" because the first Fan4 film I know of was really made just to keep the film rights and wasn't really commercially released, and the next reboot (the one with Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd) actually managed to get two movies deep in what was supposed to be a trilogy before it was quietly canceled. And nobody, but nobody, wants to talk about the most recent, tonally inappropriate, disastrous outing featuring Miles Teller, Michael B. Johnson and I'm not going to look up the other two because I frankly don't care. Though the Gruffudd-Alba foursome made some fairly decent movies that were relatively successful at the box office, I've noticed a growing consensus among fans and critics that there just hasn't been a good movie adaptation of the Fantastic 4 comics, and maybe there can never be one. Well, never say never. I think this movie was pretty darn good.

First of all, F4FS is set on an alternate earth, Earth-828, part of Marvel's cinematic multiverse (I guess), which has a 1960s-ish, retro-futuristic look – kind of like the Jetsons, or more to the point, like the original comics – in contrast to the Alba-Gruffudd era's cutting-edge modernism and the gritty expressionism of the Teller-Johnson, um, instant. Despite the dark threat looming over all life on earth, and the earth itself, it has a cheerier, more color-saturated look. It has visual character. It has exciting special-effects sequences, big sci-fi spectacle, action, thrills, property destruction on a massive scale (you actually see a whole planet, 13 percent larger than earth, go through what's essentially a gigantic rock grinder) ... but it also offers sharp dialogue, a thought-provoking storyline, relatable characters with real chemistry and touching relationships, and the rather weird experience of being able to see exactly what's going on instead of motion blur and mud, like you get in (say) Zack Snyder's type of movie, cross myself and spit on the ground. It also skips, thank God, the otherwise seemingly inevitable rehash of the superhero origin story, other than in a sort of bullet-point summary to bring the audience up to speed.

As Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards), it stars the current face of movies right now, Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, The Last of Us and Gladiator II) portrayed as a ruthlessly logical scientific savant who is so heartbreakingly aware of his shortcomings as a relatable, sympathetic human being that he goes full circle and becomes relatable and sympathetic. There's Vanessa Kirby of The Crown and Pieces of a Woman as the Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), his wife, who is already pregnant with their first child as the story begins, and whose fierce protectiveness of their child brings out both her immense strength (my goodness) and her vulnerability. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, a guy I've seen in other things but whose face never sticks in my memory, gets the motion-capture CGI treatment as The Thing (Ben Grimm), a lifelong friend of Reed's who has become as good as family, and whose ability to emote (or grow a beard) isn't much hampered by his transformation into an anthropomorphic boulder. Finally, in the role of the Human Torch (Johnny Storm), there's an up and coming young heartthrob as usual – in this case, Joseph Quinn, late of Gladiator II and Warfare – as less of a womanizing hotshot than as played by Chris Evans and more of a tragically eligible bachelor (he finally meets a girl who interests him and she's, like, the Silver Surfer) who's always proving himself to be smarter than he looks. But yeah, still good for comic relief.

Also in the flick are Sarah Niles (Ted Lasso), Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai), Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), Julia Garner (Ozark), Ralph Ineson (Nosferatu, The Office) and the voice of Matthew Wood ("General Grievous" in the Star Wars franchise) as HERBIE the robot. It features gorgeous, emotionally stirring music by Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Star Trek 2009, Up, etc.) And its director, former child actor Matt Shakman (Just the Ten of Us), also directed MCU's WandaVision.

So, before I forget to drop a bit of synopsis in this review, here's the idea of this movie. The F4 are already established superheroes when the tale begins, a family unit entrusted with a glitzy skyscraper, lots of technology (such as a reusable rocket that can pair up with an orbiting faster-than-light drive), and the responsibility of protecting the world. So, it falls on them to answer back when a shapely alien on a silver surfboard drops in from outer space to announce that the earth has been marked for destruction by a devourer-of-worlds named Galactus. They stand no chance of stopping him, but they try to reason with him. The only offer he's willing to make, in exchange for sparing Earth-828, is for Sue and Reed to give up their not-quite-born-yet son, Franklin, who is apparently the only being of sufficiently godlike powers to take Galactus' place in a personal hell of world-devouring, eternal hunger.

"Hard no" is the obvious answer, from the Fan-4's point of view, but not everyone on earth sees it that way. At first, the planet kind of turns against them. But then Sue makes a really terrific speech, and folks pull together again on a plan to stop Galactus from devouring Earth. But as the saying goes, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and a lot more stuff happens but at the risk of spoiling the ending, the Richards-Storm-Grimm family will be back again, at least for an upcoming Avengers movie – or so the card at the top of the end credits claims. Who knows? Marvel has promised many things that it didn't deliver. But if the promised Avengers flick never materializes, I don't think it will be due to this movie. It's too good and, I trust, the viewing public will recognize it and reward it as such.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Franklin Richards becomes the first human being born in faster-than-light space flight. My, what a thrilling scene, with so many moving parts and emotional beats that all hit their target! (2) The Silver Surfer interrupts whatever Johnny Storm is doing as he yells, "Tell Franklin his Uncle Johnny loves him!" (3) The look Ben Grimm gives Sue Storm before he says, "You're pregnant, aren't you?" For a heap of rocks, that dude has an expressive face.

522. Bride of Christ hymn

Here's an attempt to adapt Song of Songs chapter 2 as a hymn. It doesn't say so explicitly, but the hymn is meant to suggest that the subject matter is the Holy Church, of which all faithful Christians are members. Metaphor, don'tcha know. I would like to have colored it in with more circumstantial detail, like lilies and raisin cakes and whatnot, like the original poem by Solomon, but metrical constraints etc. prevented me. So, with that excuse, please view the following kindly – and suggest a tune if you will, because I have none in mind.

Bride of Christ, as fair and pure
As a maiden all demure,
How your heart will soon rejoice
At your Bridegroom's loving voice!
Scented praises upward yield,
Sweetest flower of the field!

Husband gently, Lord, this flow'r,
Planted, pruned for just this hour:
Let no thorn her hue o'erwhelm,
Nor the apple tree by elm.
Stay Your Bride with ev'ry good;
Cheer her heart with heav'nly food.

Cherish her, Lord, with Your hand;
As her wall and bulwark stand.
Let the banner of Your love
Fly before her and above;
In the secret clefts be seen,
Where she'll dwell, safe and serene.

Till day breaks and shadows flee,
Keep her Yours, and hers still be.
Draw her to Your banquet hall;
With a voice of singing call,
And when all is made complete
Set her on a queenly seat.

IMAGE: King Solomon and his wife, Pharaoh's daughter. Public domain per Wikimedia Commons.