Ghosted plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

One Hell of a Second Date

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to movie theaters, even as I’ll have to sacrifice seeing wonders like The Pope’s Exorcist (Julius Avery).

 Before we start, though, here are a couple of follow-ups from my previous posting, taking us back into the realm of pro-basketball along with some sad commentary about Oakland, CA professional baseball.  First, as for the (San Francisco) Golden State Warriors, I was a bit hasty in bemoaning their demise last time as the NBA playoffs continue with the teams first tied at 2 games apiece (need best 4 of 7) with the neighboring Sacramento Kings so I’ll just have to patiently wait to see how it all plays out over the next week, but it's looking good for the Warriors who now have a 3-2 lead.  With revived hopes for the Warriors, I’ll toss in a couple of links I forgot about last week when reviewing Air (Ben Affleck) about Michael Jordan and Nike: this one exploring how the 1984 setting connects with our branding obsessions of today, plus comments by screenwriter Alex Convery.   But as for my beloved Oakland Athletics baseballers the situation’s not looking good at all as their skinflint (where players’ salaries are concerned) billionaire owner, John Fisher (who inherited The Gap fortune from his parents), is set to purchase land in Las Vegas to build a stadium there, move the team in the next few years.  Certainly the A’s need a new ballpark (the Coliseum’s been around since 1968) and bigger crowds, but when you’re fielding a team with little hope of success (current record’s 5-20, absolute worst in the Majors) in a facility with sewage problems you can’t expect more than the dedicated core to show up.  We’ll see how this plays out, but the A’s seem headed to the desert in a few years.  👉ALERT!  I’ve quite a few things I’m trying to keep up with this coming weekend so there may not be a Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark posting next week (5/3/2023).  I’ll try to get something in if I can, even if very short, but if not I’ll be back the following week.

   Ghosted (Dexter Fletcher)   rated PG-13   116 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Cole Turner (Chris Evans) lives somewhere near Washington, D.C., on a farm he runs with his parents (Tate Donovan, Amy Sedaris) and sister Mattie (Lizze Broadway), then sells some of their crops in a local farmers’ market where one day his plant-seller-stall-neighbor, Claudia Yates (Anna Deavere Smith), asks him to watch her stuff while she goes off on a pot break (not what you put plants in, but with enough relaxation from this kind of herb she might occasionally break one of those plant pots accidently).  Up comes Sadie Rhodes (Ana de Armas), looking for a plant that needs little attention because as an art curator (her story) she’s often not home for days at a time, sometimes on projects around the globe.  Their conversation quickly becomes a bit caustic, he finally says she should just buy a cactus, but she takes something else from the plant proprietor when Claudia returns from her break.  However, as Sadie walks away Cole goes with her, they keep chatting, end up spending the afternoon, evening, and night together, so when Cole gets home he’s convinced he’s found the love of his life, although that doesn’t seem to be panning out when she doesn’t reply to his texts.  His sarcastic sister thinks she’s “ghosting” him (rejecting connection), but his more-optimistic-parents say he should travel to London to surprise her as he knows she’s there from the inhaler he accidently left in her bag (Huh?) which has an active tracker on it (Double huh?).

 He goes, follows the signal to the Tower of London/Tower Bridge location, but when he arrives he’s kidnapped by 3 thugs who think he’s the “Taxman” who has the passcode for Aztec, the biochemical weapon of mass destruction they’ve recently stolen.  However, just as he’s about to be tortured for info he doesn’t even have, Sadie bursts in, dispatches the thugs, admits she’s with the CIA and she’s Taxman, working with Agency resources to recapture the dangerous device.  Leaving the torture room, they run through an underground tunnel before more assassins arrive, yet when they exit they’re in Afghanistan.  (OK, now we can reasonably assume the screenplay’s a result of sections of various drafts cut and pasted together with no final editing, so at least we don’t have to pay much attention to plot points [always a welcome situation when you’re having cocktails at home during streaming].)  After escaping more trouble they learn their chief antagonist is Leveque (Adrien Brody), who reminds me a bit of Belloq (Paul Freeman), the chief villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981) which Ghosted seems to draw allusions from, though to considerably less success.

 In a nearby town they meet Marco (Marwan Kenzari), Sadie’s former lover who quietly tells Cole she’s much more committed to her career than any relationship, but before Marco can take Cole safely back home they’re attacked by a pack of bounty hunters as Leveque’s put a price on Cole’s head, still mistakenly thinking he’s Taxman.  Basically, the bounty hunters kill each other in the ensuing chaos, then Sadie uses Cole as bait to get Aztec, turning him over to Leveque who puts them on a plane with the locked Aztec briefcase.  More fighting follows with Cole parachuting off the plane with Aztec and wounded Sadie.  They land on Socotra Island (part of Yemen in the Indian Ocean) where Cole uses local plants to nurse Sadie back to health before more of Leveque’s thugs arrive, make off with Aztec as U.S. Marines rescue our stars.  ⇒Back at CIA HQ Sadie’s taken off the case for endangering Cole, but he helps figure out the passcode, agrees to continue as Taxman to meet Leveque at a revolving restaurant on a tower, seemingly to sell the passcode but truly to retrieve Aztec.  While there he also meets Leveque’s deadly buyer, Mr. Utami (Stephen Park), who’s planning to kill all involved if he doesn’t get the weapon.  Leveque has his thugs kill the CIA agents secretly backing up Cole, Sadie appears and sells the passcode to Leveque for $10 million, then immediately puts it all as a bounty on Leveque so bounty hunters arrive (of course), seemingly out of thin air.  More chaos (of course, but Cole turns into quite a combatant as this plot progresses so maybe he’s somehow channeling his unknown Captain America heritage), Leveque kills Utami, bullets damage the restaurant greatly speeding up its revolution, the killer device is out of its case tossed around a bit like a football until Sadie catches it, throws Leveque through a window to his death.  Later, Sadie and Cole are having dinner with his family as they’re now clearly connected.⇐

So What? As I slightly detail in the next portion of this review, despite near-consistent-critical-warning to stay away from Ghosted I had a couple of reasons to be intrigued by its premise: One is the star-quality of its lead actors with Evans always a determined force to be reckoned with in the many Avengers movies and de Armas very successful (at least in my opinion, despite some critical distain) as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (Andrew Dominik, 2022; review in our October 6, 2022 posting [begins with other Oakland A’s commentary about a more-positive-situation]) which earned her Best Actress/Female Actor in a Leading Role noms from both the Oscars Academy and the Screen Actors Guild (Brody’s always a delight as well, with his sophisticated-villainy fun to watch at least until all hell breaks loose in the fight scenes); two is a recent interest in seeing something about government spies after watching an episode of a PBS TV miniseries, My Grandparents’ War, where actor Kit Harington talks about/researches one set of his grandparents who were spies for Great Britain during WW II's horrid conflict, so even though Ghosted uses a secret-agent-premise largely as an excuse for Evans and de Armas to dispose of a small army of attackers (but not in a gruesome fashion, in order to preserve that family-friendly-rating) it still was mildly satisfying in more of a James Bond-saves-the-world-race-and-battle-to-the-finish than something more sophisticated in the premise of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011; review in our January 6, 2012 posting).

 Sure, there’s a lot of convenient coincidence here (as if omission of that trope wouldn’t shut down a vast majority of what we see on any size screen) beginning with a tracker on his inhaler that gets Cole to London in the first place, along with (as I’ll note from another review below) that absurd scene where Cole and Sadie run through a tunnel in London, then emerge far across the planet in Afghanistan with no attempt to explain how in the hell that happened—unless they first came out in London, somehow took transport to the Middle East, then went back into another tunnel (?).  But logic and proportion aren’t exactly key elements here; it’s more about dangerous surprise on his part followed by how he’ll survive horrible situations, set-ups for interpersonal combat scenes for both of them, then a resolution that reminds me in small ways of how Bond (with crucial help Sadie and Cole could have used here) lives another day in his triumph in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964). Those fight scenes and the finale in the revolving restaurant are all well-choreographed, the whole thing moves along at an energetic pace, and Sadie becomes a more-complex-character than you might first assume as she struggles with herself about using Cole to accomplish her critical mission while trying not to be caught up in an attraction to him.  Yes, it’s fair to say this movie is the very definition of escapist fare, but if life is running you ragged maybe a respite like this will be welcome, in the vein of Billy Joel's "You May Be Right" (on his 1980 Glass Houses album): “You may be right / I may be crazy / oh, but it just may be a lunatic / You’re looking for.”  No, you don’t have to be a lunatic to find some redeeming value in Ghosted, you just have to be willing to settle for much less than marvelous.

Bottom Line Final Comments: A new COVID variant's now in CA (and other parts of the world), further limiting my interest in a theater auditorium filled with other patrons (most likely not-masked), so even though it breaks my heart to not watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic) and Evil Dead Rise (Lee Cronin) I’ll just have to soldier on without them—speaking of soldiers, though, at some point on streaming I’d be interested in Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant and maybe the latest Dracula rendition, Renfield (Chis McKay), just to see how Nicholas Cage (a seeming natural for a contemporary-twist on his role) conveys the undead Count while Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster) is mildly interesting due to the always-intriguing-presence of Joaquin Phoenix, yet I’m not sure I really need to see a minute short of 3 hours of him.  Therefore, it was back to the streaming options last weekend which didn’t offer much in my interest-realm (a few things that could be possibilities from theatrical release haven’t come to streaming yet), so what I ended up with was Ghosted with a grim OCCU response of almost-off-the-charts-negativity—Rotten Tomatoes with a mere 29% positive reviews, Metacritic with their marginally-better 35% average score—not because I wanted to waste my time with such a maligned-movie but because I’ve always enjoyed the work of its primary stars (along with the little-spy-connection I've noted in the previous section of this review).

 I can’t say that there’s a lot of substance going on here, although I find the chemistry—once it reconnects from that first date—between the principals to be plausible (with, if nothing else, consistent reason to keep looking at either of them), despite rejections on that topic as well (say several including Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle [another reason I decided to give this movie a try, in that I often find some value in material he dismisses]): “Obviously, ‘Ghosted’ is not a movie to see — unless you are absolutely in love with Chris Evans or Ana de Armas or both (the two also appeared together in 2019's ‘Knives Out’). They’re attractive and charming, but here they play characters that make no sense, and sometimes, even in a throwaway entry like this, sense matters.”

 This makes yet another time when I feel that Mick and the rest of the OCCU have gone overboard with rejections, but in that you can only access this movie through Apple TV+ streaming (no extra charge beyond the subscription fee) it won’t cost you anything (even if you’re not a subscriber you can get a 7-day-free-trial) except about 2 hours of your time, so I’ll leave it to your curiosity if you want to consider watching it.  Or, you can just listen to my usual end-of-review-Musical Metaphor, which could be “You Don’t Know Me” (written in 1955 by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker, recorded by dozens) which is what Cole quickly finds out about Sadie, but I’ve already used it 5 times (OK, if you must hear it again, how about #6 being Willie Nelson's version, from his 2006 You Don’t Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker album) or George Harrison's "Taxman" (from The Beatles’1966 album Revolver), both of which you’re welcome to hear, but the official selection has to be Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man” (on his 1966 … And I Know You Wanna Dance) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=6iaR3WO71j4 because it’s as upbeat about doom and death as this movie is about beating up or killing a parade of would-be-assassins, so these moods'll harmonize effectively for me.

         

SHORT TAKES

               

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Air plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Slam Dunk

Review and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to movie theaters, even as I’ll have to sacrifice seeing wonders like The Pope’s Exorcist (Julius Avery).

                         Air (Ben Affleck)   rated R   112 min.

Here’s the trailer:

      (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;

      activate  the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

What Happens: (No spoiler alerts in this posting because all of the substance of this movie is in the public record; in fact, if you want more details on the ongoing line of Air Jordan shoes you can consult this site [scroll down through that big gap at the top of Product history].)  After Air's montage of 1980s footage accompanying the opening credits (quick clips from the Jane Fonda’s Workout video, Ghostbusters [Ivan Reitman, 1984], many more recognizables that ran by too fast for me to note or remember; the era further reinforced within the movie with constant shots of people talking on telephones attached to long, curled cords, as seen in many of the photos in this posting) we get graphics to tell us we’re in 1984 Beaverton, OR (near Portland) at the headquarters of Nike, Inc. where talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Demon)—who spends a lot of time watching high-school basketballers to see who might be worthy of continuing to follow as they go onto college (then, hopefully, the NBA)—learns from Nike founder/CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) Vaccaro’s basketball unit may soon disappear as their market share for basketball shoes—unlike their success with running shoes—is in a dismal third place notably behind market domination by Converse and adidas.

 In trying to decide who to spend the $250,000 budget on (likely 3-5 rookies recently drafted into the NBA, with hopes their careers will be solid enough to convince customers to buy shoes being endorsed by these players), Vaccaro’s interested in Michael Jordan (who made the winning shot for the U. of North Carolina to win the 1982 NCAA Championship game, then played for the U.S. Olympic Team in L.A., summer of 1984).  Other Nike decision-makers, though, think Jordan’s too expensive for their meager resources plus he’s already more inclined to sign with adidas, who makes his preferred shoe.  Despite getting encouragement to follow his intuition (largely to help keep the basketball division alive) from Marketing VP Robby Strasser (Jason Bateman) and Field Representative Howard White (Chris Tucker), Vaccaro gets no support for the Jordan quest from Knight, nor from Jordan’s powerful agent, David Falk (Chris Messina), so, encouraged by what he sees of Jordan in footage of that NCAA final and a TV ad from tennis star Arthur Ashe (promoting a racket he uses but can be bought by anyone), he breaks NBA protocol, after encouragement from George Raveling (Marlon Wayans) who coached Jordan in the Olympics, by traveling unannounced to Wilmington, NC to introduce himself to Michael’s parents, Deloris (Viola Davis) and James (Julius Tennon), to make his pitch that Michael would be promoted more successfully by Nike than its rivals.

 Despite angry responses to this bold move on Vaccaro’s part from Knight and Falk, the Jordon family agrees to travel to Oregon to hear Nike’s offer.  In the few days they have to prepare, the Nike team gets shoe designer Peter Moore (Matthew Maher) to produce a snazzy, colorful mock-up (which has more of the red, a color connected to Jordan’s new team, the Chicago Bulls, than the NBA allows [according to their “51% white rule”], but Nike offers to pay the $5,000 fine every time Mike wears them on the court) while Knight finally agrees to spent the entire $250,000 budget on Jordan, the final enticement being the shoe named Air Jordan.  The meeting goes well—after an impassioned, impromptu speech by Vaccaro—but later Vaccaro’s crestfallen when he learns adidas matched the money along with promising Mike’s desired Mercedes Benz 380L car; his hopes are revived, though, when Deloris calls him, proposes a final option: Michael will get a percentage of every Nike shoe sold with his name on it.  Sonny tries to explain to her that’s not how this business works, so he assumes the deal’s dead; however, when he updates Phil on the situation Sonny’s shocked that Knight agrees to Deloris’ requirement, leading Michael to make a lucrative deal with Nike that provided the company with over $160 million in sales of the shoe the first year of release (they anticipated $3 million); it continues to generate about $400 million to Michael Jordan annually.

So What? Unlike docudramas that create composite or fully fictional characters to mesh in with historical personages being presented in a given narrative, as best I understand about this current movie the main cast members in Air are all based on real people (some quick details on them can be found at this site, although I’ve seen nothing that would clarify any substantial exaggerations of how they’re presented here).  Further, this fact vs. fiction video (12:54 [ads interrupt at 3:00, 4:00, 8:55]) verifies most of what we view in Air with the exceptions that Vaccaro overcame his gambling habit in 1978 instead of continuing with it as we see in opening scenes of the movie where he goes for high stakes (wins some, loses some) in Las Vegas (implying he needs the Nike job—along with sudden success—to support debts as they arise); Michael Jordan met with Vaccaro individually before the pitch to him and his parents at Nike headquarters; it was Falk who convinced the Jordans to travel to Oregon for the Nike meeting more so than an impromptu appearance by Vaccaro in North Carolina.  One thing that’s clear in the movie is the original Air Jordan shoe was crafted by Peter Moore, verified by some sources on the history of the shoe yet others also credit Tinker Hatfield and Bruce Kilgore as part of the foundational design team.  However, Jordan himself insisted Hatfield be taken out of the movie script as the namesake of the shoe claims Hatfield had nothing to do with it at that point, so I’ll leave that dispute up to your inquisitiveness if you want to probe it further (apparently, Jordan’s only other major request of the filmmakers was Davis cast as Deloris). 

 I will note, though, that in the link above giving foundational Air Jordan credit also to Hatfield there’s the further claim Kilgore designed the Air Jordan II in 1986 while Hatfield was responsible for Air Jordan III-XV (1988-1999), but this is the sort of historical trivia that doesn’t factor into the story Affleck and debuting-screenwriter Alex Convery wanted to tell, even in the graphics updates at the end about Air’s principal characters—as well as adding in a quick indication of Michael Jordan’s vast realm of accolades—preceding the final credits; the filmmakers also don’t want to undercut the close connections that Vaccaro and Strasser are presented as having with Nike, even though in reality Vaccaro was fired in 1991, went to adidas where he rejoined with Strasser who went over to the same noted rival in 1987.  (Minor diversionary note: official citations of adidas spell it with a lower-case initial “a” while many otherwise-informed-references use a capital “A” so I’m going with what the company seems to want, even if sharp-eyed-readers think I need better editing [which I often do].)

 If you want more actual history about Michael Jordan than you get here—as this story’s about faith in his future, how that future could become a financial windfall for Nike (both of which proved to be accurate, the shoe brand having generated about $5 billion in sales by 2022)—with only a passing presence of him during the Nike pitch (he’s played by Damian Deland Young, but we see him only from the back or with images cropped to eliminate his face so the story can focus more on the conflicts/resolutions between Vaccaro and Knight, Sonny and Deloris) you might want to explore the 10-part documentary miniseries The Last Dance  (Jason Hehir, 2020; streams free on Netflix, available for purchase from other platforms), which I haven’t seen but it’s proved its value in the industry by winning a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.  You might also want to ponder whether the top honor given to Jordan in Air’s final pre-credits graphics as being the best basketball player of all-time is defendable given the arguments you might get on behalf of Bill Russell, LeBron James, or a few others, but it’s clear he rose extremely high over initial pro-expectations from the folks at Converse who pitched their shoe to him with the realization back in 1984 they’d never show Jordan the kind of promotion they were already giving to Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (a point Vaccaro makes in Air as part of his argument to Deloris about how her son’s image would be better celebrated at Nike).  There's another aspect from Air that’s not in contention, but was a surprise to me, which is the revelation Nike’s famous slogan of “Just do it.” comes from convicted murderer Gary Gilmore’s death by firing squad in 1977 when he hastened his departure by telling the shooters “Let’s do it!”  Knight picked up on that phrase, gave it a completely new context.

 While Michael Jordan can easily be defended as the Greatest Of All Time (the GOAT as the term has come to be known ["goat" not being used in a pejorative sense in this context, unlike older uses of the term to note someone who causes a loss in a sporting event]) in professional basketball, though, it’s going to be a tougher challenge for Convery to win the next Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (sort of an oddity in itself given how much of what we see on screen here is adapted from fact, yet the specific dialogue interchanges which drive the success of this movie can likely legitimately be credited just to Convery’s fertile imagination), given his probable competition almost a year from now.  Still, if there’s any solid consideration to be made on behalf of Convery’s talent, it comes during the Nike meeting with the Jordans when Sonny stops the flow of the planned pitch to go into a spontaneous argument directly to Michael about how fame will be inevitable, followed by the cruel reality of society then determined to bring him down requiring enormous self-control on his part, hopefully helped by caring partners at Nike (all the while during this stirring speech we see actual images from Jordan’s life, of his triumphs as well as failures [his unsuccessful attempt to switch to pro-baseball, 1993-‘95] and tragedies [his father randomly killed by would-be-thieves in 1993]).  Seemingly, this was inspired (at least in the movie) by what he heard from Coach Raveling (another real-life-encourager to Michael to go with Nike) about a speech he once heard the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give, in which this famous orator completely deviated from his intended script, went spontaneously into what would later become his famous “I have a dream” speech.  Throughout Air, though, there’s a constant flow of well-crafted-dialogue, delivered by people who seem to believe what they’re saying rather than actors accomplished in delivering lines (at times this is spoken as people are quickly walking around in the Nike offices, reminding me of the polished writing/active delivery of Aaron Sorkin’s words in NBC TV’s The West Wing [1999-2006]), with a visual style of many closeups of the various characters, giving this whole experience the sense of a documentary in the mode of The Last Dance, sort of a prequel to that miniseries on Jordan’s pro basketball career.

Bottom Line Final Comments: While COVID concerns have largely kept me out of theaters so far this year and Air seemed like its own slam dunk to stream on Amazon Prime (a major player in the production of this movie) in a month or so, I decided to use the so-far-successful-strategy of waiting a week after its debut, going to an early Saturday afternoon matinee where attendance would be minimal, wearing a mask the whole time, etc. because the CCAC reviews seemed very encouraging (Rotten Tomatoes 91% positive responses, Metacritic 73% average score) as well as this basketball-themed-movie fitting in nicely with the later afternoon last Saturday beginning of the local NBA post-season with my (San Francisco area) Golden State Warriors playing the (merely 90 miles away) Sacramento Kings who hadn’t been to the post-season since 2006 while the Warriors have won the Championship 4 times in the last 8 years (lost in the Finals in 2 of those 8 to boot), including in 2022, so it looked to be a most entertaining day.  Well, it was at the theatre where I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (Damon is clearly the focus, but all involved play their parts well, especially Affleck, Messina, and Davis); however, the Warriors have yet to regain their previously-domineering-mojo, losing last Saturday by 3 points, lost again on Monday by 8, so I’ll just have to hope they can get back on track when these best-of-7-games move to San Francisco this Thursday.  (Kings are aided by recently-voted [unanimously] NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown having spent the last 6 years as the main assistant to Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr [who was also on some of those Championship Bulls teams with Jordan; Kerr still has the record for highest percentage of successful 3-point-shooting] so Brown probably already has responses planned for any evolving strategies the Warriors might attempt; to further hamper the Warriors desperatelly-needed-wins, their defensive standout Draymond Green is suspended for Thursday's game 3 in SF after having stomped on the chest of King’s player Domantas Sabonis during a fracas in Game 2, which resulted in Green’s ejection that night.  Our would-be-dynasty’s just slipping away by the day.)

 Air’s just now in its second week in theaters so if you’re interested in seeing it you’ll have to go out in public, but it’s in 3,507 of them domestically (U.S.-Canada) so it should be relatively easy to find (however, if your passion’s more focused on-court-action than shoes the players are wearing, you can probably find an NBA playoff-game on some TV channel just about any day of the week for the next couple of months); it’s taken in a modest $34 million domestically, $55 million worldwide, with interest possibly growing as teams work their laborious way to the Finals.  While I’m anxiously waiting to see if my own local (and well-respected nationally) superstar, Stephen Curry, will have much of anything further to add to his own future-Hall of Fame-career this year, I’ll think back on the amazing exploits of Michael Jordan (wish I’d seen him more on TV, but I never paid much attention to basketball until the Warriors suddenly a few years ago made like the Kings now in turning years of frustration into surprising success) which are only hinted at in Air (as this story’s about “the shoes” as shown in a few [of endless numbers] TV ads for Air Jordans such as from 1990-'91 [be patient; lots of dead air in this clip, but also the ads] with Jordan, Little Richard, and Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon from She’s Gotta Have It  [Lee, 1986] and "It's Gotta Be the Shoes" with Spike and Mike in 1991).

 I’ll wrap this up with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, this time Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” (on his 1984 album, same name as the song) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ which may seem like an odd choice but it’s referenced in the movie when Strasser notes to Vaccaro he finally listened closely to the lyrics (rather than just the chorus which many sing along with—possibly half-drunk—but then lose connection to the rest of the words) to realize it’s not a patriotic paean, despite its pounding beat, but instead is a sad recounting of a Vietnam War vet whose stateside story wasn’t ever great, then when he returns from combat his society has no place for him (“Born in a dead man’s town / The first kick I took was when I hit the ground/ You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much / Till you spend half your life just covering up […] I’m ten years burning down the road / Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go”).  The song’s used again toward the movie’s end, noting Michael finally got the car he wanted as part of his Nike deal, but it’s more in context with what becomes the real theme of this story which kicks in toward the very end when Deloris makes her surprise demand about Michael getting a cut of Air Jordans' sales.

 Some would dismiss all this as greed from an already-well-paid-athlete as well as a lucrative gamble on the part of Nike (where Knight expected maybe $3 million in sales the first year, then everyone was overwhelmed when the total exceeded $160 million), but the point is made forcefully by Deloris: Yes, Michael’s already getting a lot of cash ($250,000) just for signing on (plus his Bulls’ salary), but whatever profit Nike makes with these shoes is because he’s wearing them so it’s only right he should get some of that cash too.  (A radical idea in 1984, but one that’s become much more of an industry standard today including college athletes now able to cash in on their names, images, and likenesses [not from their schools—who can still offer scholarships—but from outside sponsors], resulting from a 2021 Supreme Court decision that was supported by Vaccaro.)  Springsteen’s song makes clear (even for fans who don’t really get what it’s truly about) that even those who think they are privileged because they’re “Born in the U.S.A.” often don’t realize what’s truly the way the deck is stacked against them as decisions are made to benefit the top earners/corporate investors (“Hiring man says ‘Son, if it was up to me’ / Went down to see my V.A. man / He said, ‘Son, don’t you understand?”) so even though you may have a lot of prestige in the public eye, as famed athletes do, you still should be allowed to share in how others make money off of you, especially as you batter your body for years trying to succeed in professional sports where often only the lucky few of the actually-talented find acclaim, as shown in the new documentary about my Warriors hero, Stephen Curry: Underrated (Peter Nicks), to be released in theaters as well as Apple TV+ on July 21, 2023.

            

SHORT TAKES

            

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for you to investigate further if you wish or ignore if you prefer: (1) Writers Guild authorizes a strike after May 1, 2023; (2) No Netflix DVD service after September 29, 2023.

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

            

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

          

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 14,957 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Creed III plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Is the Past Really More Important

than the Present?

       

Review and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters even though I’ll have to sacrifice seeing such wonders as Cocaine Bear (Elizabeth, Banks).

Creed III (Michael B. Jordan)   rated PG-13  117 min.

Here’s the trailer:

      (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;

      activate  the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: In Creed III (this link's not much of an official site but it does lead you to theatrical and streaming options for the movie), after his dramatic winning of boxing’s World Heavyweight Championship in Creed II (Steven Caple Jr., 2018; review in our November 29, 2018 posting), Adonis “Donnie” Creed (Jordan as actor/director)—son of former Champ Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), an opponent/then-close-friend-of-also-Champ-Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone)—Donnie has retired to stay healthy, spend his life with wife Bianca (Tessa Thompson) and little daughter, hearing-impaired Amara (Mila Davis-Kent), yet while managing new Champ Felix “El Guerrero” Chavez (José Benavidez Jr.), set for a challenge from Viktor Drago (Florian Munteanu), with a heritage from some of the previous Rocky and Creed movies.  But then Donnie’s old friend, Golden Gloves Champion Damian “Diamond Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), shows up after 18 years in prison (flashbacks reveal how these 2 chums years ago in 2002, who’d shared time in a group home, went to a liquor store where Donnie got into a fight with a guy named Leon [Aaron Alexander], then ran away while Dame was arrested, sent away for much of his life).  Dame wants a title shot which becomes viable thorough Donnie when Drago is injured at a party; Dame wins the match, becomes Champ, but Donnie realizes Drago’s assailant was set up by Dane, who’s turned from friendship to public media assaults on Donnie.  ⇒This leads to Donnie coming out of retirement to fight Dane, leading to Donnie’s victory as a once-again-Champ, then a reconciliation with Dane.⇐

So What? While my viewership-interest has generally waned over these many decades in the progress of the Rocky/Creed franchise (Rocky [John G. Avildsen, 1976], Rocky II [Stallone, 1979], Rocky III [Stallone, 1982], Rocky IV [Stallone, 1985], Rocky V [Avildsen, 1990], Rocky Balboa [Stallone, 2006], Creed [Coogler, 2015; review in our December 2, 2015 posting], Creed II [Steven Caple Jr., 2018; review in our November 29, 2018 posting], and this current edition), I very much enjoyed the launch of these movies in 1976 (although I’ll never see Rocky as more deserving of Oscar’s Best Picture prize than the magnificent All the President’s Men [Alan J. Pakula, 1976]) and have found some inspiring moments in the various sequels especially the first Creed, although I’ll admit it’s getting a bit tiresome seeing such similar situations in movie after movie where the protagonist has to keep pumping himself up to take on a seemingly-unstoppable-challenger, with both Rocky and Adonis winning most of their bouts or at least showing themselves to be worthy contenders even if a split decision might not go their way.  This latest episode has some interesting moments about how circumstances impact the former friendships of once-close-friends (along with the sad situation so frequent in this franchise of an admirable character dying), but the outcome in the ring is no surprise while the scenes of interpersonal combat are reasonably-brutal as this “sport” continues to show how vicious it can be for the boxers while patrons revel in the physical poundings, living out vicarious fantasies of beating up antagonists in their own lives or applying observations of every second of body-beatings as another step toward a prophesied-payday.  It all works out functionally-enough in Creed III, but for me none of this Rocky/Creed depiction of in-ring-brutality nor the passions that drive a would-be-champion into constant-combat can begin to match what was so astoundingly-done in the docudrama of Middleweight Champion Jake LaMotta (Best Actor Oscar winner Robert De Niro in Raging Bull [Martin Scorsese, 1980])—but note that first item in Related Links below which has a different opinion on what could be called the best boxing movie ever made.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Creed III’s been in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters since March 3, 2023 making to date $153.5 million in grosses—#7 last weekend after 6 weeks in release ($267.5 million worldwide), but now can also be found for $19.99 rental streaming at Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc.  It’s well-supported by the CCAL, with 89% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes and an encouraging (for them) 73% average score at Metacritic.  For me, this Rocky/Creed series is running its concepts about as far into the ground as can be expected when your only dramatic conflict is who’s going to fight whom for a boxing championship, who’s going to win with whatever impact that will have on the primary characters.  The filmmakers of these stories manage to keep them interesting enough while they’re on screen, but, more so for me than the overall CCAC, this is just becoming a bit of a tiresome repetition I likely would have avoided if there had been anything else more interesting to watch on streaming (I’ll be going to Air [Ben Affleck] in a theater sometime soon, so please just bear [but not Cocaine Bear, even as it’s now an option for $19.99 rental streaming] with me as streaming options—and COVID-seemingly-safe-venues—become available).  I acknowledge that Creed III deserved more attention (even as I’m basically underwhelmed) than I’m giving it here, but it’s been a long week for me with notable time paid to my local Golden State basketballers (now finally in the playoffs after a lackluster season following their NBA championship last year), my struggling Oakland Athletics’ miserable baseball season beginning (now 3-9, with underpaid pitchers and batters who just can’t retain leads), some marvelous hours over Easter weekend with family and friends, and a miserable waste of a day this Tuesday with phishers who almost reeled me in with a clever attempt to gain access to one of my email accounts.

 With all of that alternative-investment of my focus and energy over the last few days this is the best that I could do, so if you want more info on Creed III you might check out this site.  My tank’s about empty, encouraging me to just close out with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor, this time inspired by my Tuesday night re-watching of a Netflix disc, the marvelous (but sad in many aspects) Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978), the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time” (on their 1966 Aftermath and 1967 Flowers albums in slightly different versions) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXP1 MSFwMnc, which originally is about a romance gone wrong but now could be both Donnie and Dame telling each other—if you de-gender the original a bit—“You don’t know what’s going on / You’ve been away for much too long / But you can’t come back and think you are still mine / You’re out of touch, my baby / My poor discarded baby / I said Baby, Baby, Baby, you’re out of time.”  As this conflict resolves itself we’ll see who’s truly “out of time,” when their inevitable pounding begins.

            

SHORT TAKES

            

 In my previous posting I admit I was a bit snarky about how ABC TV always seems to run The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)—a flamboyantly-Baroque episode of cinema if there ever was one—on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday, seemingly mixing up when to show a major Old Testament/Torah story rather than an more-appropriate New Testament narrative, although this year such a broadcast might have been more well-placed given that last week we had the rare-convergence last Thursday with the start of Passover and the Last Supper remembrance on Holy Thursday, although ABC still seemed to be off-balance a bit by running … Commandments a couple of weeks ago. Further, I was perplexed that none of the major networks ever seem to run an actual Jesus movie on Holy Saturday night, only to find that my local San Francisco-area PBS station actually did schedule The Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, David Lean, Jean Negulesco, 1965) for last Saturday night (not that I cared to watch it again as, being raised Catholic, I’ve had plenty of exposure to these Gospel accounts [also not needed again was John Wayne as the Roman centurion verifying Jesus on the cross as the Son of God], with Creed III my choice for the night), which I wish I could take some credit for on our local channel 9 but that schedule was published a month ago so maybe they were just on my wavelength rather than responding to a brilliant Two Guys ramble.  Anyway, I hope all of you had a happy holiday, whatever you might have been celebrating (including another globally-impactful-monotheistic-religion, honoring Islam's holy month of Ramadan, which began the evening of Wednesday March 22, 2023, then continues until Friday April 21, 2023—but here in the Western world you’ll not likely find anything cinematic focused on this tradition unless it’s imported from another country where it was made to appeal to devout Muslim audiences).

 I’ll also note that while staying at my brother-in-law’s on Easter Sunday night I watched Don't Worry Darling (Olivia Wilde, 2022)—with him and my wonderful wife (of almost 33 years), Nina—on Netflix disc which was a bit hard to follow for me, mostly because across the length of the day I’d had maybe one-too-many-tasty-beverages so I sort of dozed during some crucial moments early on as we learn about this strange Southern California desert community in the late 1950s with an overall attitude that sort of merges The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975) and the recent Apple TV+ streaming series, Hello Tomorrow, into a story-flow that I missed a bit of at the start while dozing off so Nina and I watched it again on HBO Max on Monday where I could acknowledge all of the plot details, even as I still don’t quite know what’s going on in this not-quite-real-community (so there’s also aspects of Disney+’s 2021WandaVision miniseries), nor do I have any clue how it ends up even after seeing it twice, but you might find it somewhat fascinating if for nothing else to see on screen what’s been extended beyond necessity regarding on-set-conflicts between director Wilde and various members of the cast.  I considered sticking a short review in here but decided to stay with my earlier decision to not give any further attention to 2022 releases, especially this far into 2023, but you’re welcome to explore it on your own although the OCCU won’t support you with a 38% positive response at RT, a 48% average MC score (I don’t find it to be nearly that repulsive, though).

    Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

17 sports movies nominated for Oscar's Best Picture, ending up with Rocky and Raging Bull.

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us at that site in order to do it (most FB procedures are still a perplexing mystery to us old farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

               

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 14,957 (as always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):