Oh, that’s some cast…

Anyway, I got this movie because I watched Harold & Maude the other month, and this is another movie by Hal Ashby. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this before.

But! I read the Mad Magazine parody of this many times as a child. I don’t really remember the parody either at this point, though, so I basically know nothing.

Sure, phones have a light in the handset…

Goldie!

Is Beatty wearing a wig? That’s a lot of hair.

Is Christie wearing a wig, too? That’s a lot of hair!

This is extremely Robert Altmanesque. But I guess that entire thing was a more general 70s movie thing — lots of people talking across each other; people constantly being interrupted; people changing their minds…

They put her in a new wig!

Oh, he’s wearing a wig, too; right.

They hid Carrie Fisher’s wig under a scarf…

Oh my god! Christie’s wig keeps on growing! Is this a comment on er something?

It’s very political.

Is Beatty’s character supposed to be like 25? His acting is all over the place… I don’t quite get what this movie is, like, about? I mean, I’m kinda enjoying it on a scene by scene basis, but it seems so unfocused. Perhaps that’s the point.

I guess the election in 1968 was when the US went off the rails.

Well, at least they didn’t spend half the budget on these wigs, because they look cheap.

THEY GAVE HER AN EVEN BIGGER WIG

It’s like Big Helmet big.

Hey, I found that Mad Magazine parody!

Oh! That explains so much.

I’m a bit torn on this one… on the one hand, I like the general feel of the movie. On the other hand, I found the third to be deathly dull.

Shampoo. Hal Ashby. 1975. ⚂

This is a fun way to start a movie… but… is this referring to the previous Venom movie or the Spider-Man multiverse movie? I don’t know!

So here’s the problem — I like movies that doesn’t explain things at us. But I’m not at all sure whether I’m just supposed to get references to previous movies (that I don’t remember at all) or other movies (that I don’t remember, either), and that’s just frustrating. That is, I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be confused (complementary) or whether I’m just not getting some fan service (derogatory).

That’s a normal amount of mascara and eye shadow for a top scientist.

I love how they commit to the dirty t-shirt bit. Tom Hardy is a hero — most other leading actors would have insisted on cooler clothes.

This is like a perfect super-hero movie.

Oops! Just after I said that thing about the t-shirt he changes into a dinner jacket.

The first third of this is a lot of fun…

… and then the last two thirds are just a long fight scene, mostly CGI in the dark. These are choices.

So…

I understand both the tomatometer and the popcronmeter here: If you’re a professional reviewer having to review this thing, you’re not going to like it. It’s pretty oddly paced, and lacks all the things that make a “good movie”. On the other hand, if you’re an audience member who’ve watched two of these movie before, and you choose to watch this one — you’re not going to be disappointed, because it’s more of the thing you liked in the first two movies… only even more so.

Myself, I liked it. I think it’s better than the first two movies — it’s really focused. It’s mostly just one fight scene after we get past setting the scene? It feels like you’re watching a stupid super-hero comic book, for better or worse.

Venom: The Last Dance. Kelly Marcel. 2024. ⚃

Expectations can be difficult. I mean, everybody knows that this is the worst movie ever made ever (to summarise the reviews and the general feeling on Twitter)… and should give me low expectations, right? Noooo! That means that I’m now betting on this being some kind of genius, future cult movie, because people are usually wrong.

So I’ve got unreasonably high expectations for this, which means that I’m going to be disappointed, and then hate the movie, and then agree with everybody else, which I don’t want, so I’m trying to lower my expectations.

Which I’ve failed at!

Let’s roll the movie and see what happens.

Oh man, these “zooms” done in post processing are brutal. And they do it all the time! To add some excitement, but it looks so bad…

I am actually enjoying this this far. It’s been pretty charming, and they’re good at establishing the characters. And look! It doesn’t look like total dog shit! It looks like they actually filmed this scene on location? Instead of greenscreening it like everybody else does?

Hey! It’s a real cat! OK, a location shoot and a real cat — this is already better than 95% of other super-hero movies.

OK, not all the shots look equally good.

Dakota Johnson is really good.

Such web symbolism.

That was probably half the budget.

This is funny!

(And pretty exciting.)

Why did they give the blond(e) one such an unsightly and huge wig? It’s really distracting… Wigs are a lost art form — back in the olden days, they knew how to make ones that looked good on people, but now they just order Maximum Hair Ever and drop it on some poor person’s head in a way that will cover most of the places the wig meets the skin.

Dakota Johnson’s also wearing a wig? If not, they’ve somehow perfected the art of making real hair look like a wig.

OK, I can see why people are saying that Johnson is sleepwalking through this — there’s certain scenes where she could have done a bit more than “I’m kinda bewildered, bemildred and bemused”?

OK, there’s a couple fight scenes that are pretty risible, but on the whole, this is fine. It’s neither a future cult classic, and it didn’t deserve all the ridicule it got. It’s entertaining! It’s a bit oddly paced? Somehow it feels both rushed and too slow? But it’s fine. I’ve seen heaps of super-hero movies that have been worse than this.

So grading this on a super-hero scale, we get:

Madame Web. S.J. Clarkson. 2024. ⚃