A mind bender of a movie

If you were to scour the more than 3000 posts here on RoundSeventeen (not an endeavor I suggest unless you suffer from some demented sadomasochistic streak) you'd have a hard time finding much in the way of movie reviews. 

Critiquing movies happens to be an art unto itself. I know this because during my college years, that, in retrospect cost way too much money for way too little in the way of actual education, I took a course in Cinema Review. 

I never had any real interest in it, other than getting an easy A. I wanted to be the guy writing the movies not the poor schmuck writing about writing the movies. Neither really came to pass. But advertising and vanity self-publishing been very, very good to me.

All that notwithstanding, I would highly recommend a visit to your nearest theater for 2 & 1/2 hours of a singularly fascinating movie-going experience and a tour de force performance by Emma Stone. 

This is where it gets difficult. 

If you're like me, and you have all my sympathies if you are, you like walking into a movie completely blind. So when Ms. Muse offered to give me the logline on the picture (I like referring to movies as pictures and always hear those words coming out of the mouth of Robert Evans*) I held a finger to my lips and said, "Mebs, mebs, no speaky."

That said, I will not divulge any of the details, suffice to say there are myriad details that still haunt me, three days after viewing the picture. And that includes everything from the acting, the writing and the art direction which sits at the intersection of Steampunk and Wes Anderson.

Cinematic aside: I've never been a huge fan of Wes Anderson. His movies leave me cold and unengaged. I always leave the theater thinking, "feh, what am I missing here?" Only the Fantastic Mr. Fox, with the underrated George Clooney, had me wanting more. 

Why not FMF 2?

Cinematic aside II: Upon our egress we couldn't help notice one sheets (that's Hollywood-speak) for many upcoming new movies. All, almost-new movies. Maybe it was due to the Writer's strike but there's a slew of uninteresting sequels in the overpriced popcorn and fizzy sugar water pipeline. Remakes of everything from Dune to Spiderwoman. 

Because the underserved superhero crowd demand another Spiderman regurgitation.

If the braintrust (Sony Pictures) up the street from my Culver City home want to do another redeaux, why not Stay Tuned II? 

I know John Ritter has passed but he has a talented son. And the media landscape, which now includes streaming and the glut of lame reality TV shows is ripe with potential. And I haven't even mentioned the resumption of mailbox money.

Mmmmm, mailbox money.

* Another recco: Watch The Kid Stays in the Picture, a fascinating documentary on the life and mischief of one Robert Evans.