My better-late-than-never movie reactions

In addition to straightening up my physical office, this morning I took a minute to organize some digital files. In the process, I found a piece on two movies: This is the Night and Really Love. An updated/finished version of the June 2022 original is below.

I also came across some photos of pumpkins (top), which go even further back. I know this because last year was a bust squash-wise. Still, it was only recently that I used the last of some frozen puree to make pumpkin and black bean soup. I found the bee balm (below) in the same place, in a folder marked “Garden.” So, not so disorganized after all.

This is the Night (2021)

Spoiler Alert: Reading this before you see the movie This is the Night might lesson your enjoyment of discovering the various plot points on your own.

While I liked This is the Night (TITN), a movie written and directed by James DeMonaco, it pained Brian. However, it should be noted that he never nodded off. Not once. And that’s something. Nevertheless, the critics — at least those who bothered to review the movie — appear to be with Brian on this one. They hated it. 

Ignorance might have bolstered my enjoyment of the movie. One, I’m unfamiliar with DeMonaco’s previous work. So, warnings about how this movie is nothing like the Purge series are lost on me. Two, I know Rocky as a cultural phenomenon but I don’t know the movies, let alone Rocky III — the movie that’s at the center of TITN — specifically. In other words, I know the Rocky theme music and could pick out a movie still, assuming that Sylvester Stallone is boxing in it. Finally, I don’t presume to know the creator’s intent.

I know the Rocky theme music and could pick out a movie still, assuming that Sylvester Stallone is boxing in it.

If ever there’s a whiff of a contrived plot or hokey dialogue that points to the same, I will bail within twelve minutes of a Netflix movie. And as not to throw good time after bad, I can easily quit a movie halfway through it. Three-quarters. More. However, though TITN gave me pause at various points, I stuck with it. I’m not sure why. Nor can I find a review that captures it for me.

Where some critics saw a failed tribute to a popular movie, I saw a story where a popular movie served as the backdrop for characters who needed to wage their own fight and who — yes — were inspired by said movie. But it would be wrong to say that this movie was about Rocky, no matter what a superfan might post on a YouTube channel.

The movie was cartoonish and regardless of whether that was the intention, it worked for me. Nevertheless, I had my doubts along the way. For example, we begin with teens splashing around in a public pool, which I loved for the memories it evoked. That I could almost smell the chlorine promised a nostalgic style and the film delivered. But then a stock bully (Steve Lipman) is introduced when he razzes the protagonist, Anthony Dedea (Lucius Hoyos) (one of the protagonists, which I’ll explain later), for wearing a t-shirt in the pool. It’s cheesy. Fine. But the bully’s girlfriend (Madelyn Cline) sticks with him even though she disapproves of his mean behavior. And I have no love for a movie where a supposedly nice woman — even a naïve sixteen-year-old — is hooked up with a jerk just so we can see the part where she realizes that she likes the kind of self-conscious guy who wears his shirt in the pool.

Nevertheless, I stuck with it. Was it because of the way Rafe the Handsome Mailman (Constantine Rousouli) flirted with Anthony’s/“Shirty’s” older brother Christian (Jonah Hauer-King), hinting at a juicy side story that turned out to be much more than that? Was it wondering about whether the family restaurant could be saved? Did I just want to see how the Dedea mother (Naomi Watts) looked as a blonde or whether she would liberate herself from that cranky husband Vincent (Frank Grillo)? Or was it some other basic character-wants-x-will-she-get-it hook? Whatever kept me engaged, there was a definite moment when I decided to roll with it, despite the guy next to me who was sighing with every Rocky reference that went straight over my head.

It happens right after the Dedea family watches Rocky III in the theater. This is where our bully from the pool returns and makes it look like “Shirty” yells out, “Rocky is a pussy!” Now a mob is after the kid, including some out-of-place biker dudes whom DeMonaco must have resurrected from — as it happens — the 1986 Gary Busey film Eye of the Tiger. It’s ridiculous, just as some critics have complained. But then the manager of the movie house appears just in time to whisk the imperiled “Shirty” down a secret hallway and to a back door where he escapes. From that point, for reasons I can’t explain, I was on board. It’s possible that I wrested the wheel from the story’s creator. Either way, I enjoyed the ride.

So, when critics say that the fervor surrounding the premiere of Rocky III is unrealistic, pointing to the ticket lines that wrapped around the building (It’s surprising that no one took issue with the size of the theater. You could have filmed it in my living room.), or that it was laughable when an entire town turned on someone for hurling insults at “the greatest hero of our time,” or that the movie was overly sincere with one critic warning us not to give DeMonaco any credit by taking any of this with a grain of irony, I say phooey. I don’t care how DeMonaco would have me take it. I thought it was funny when the cops kicked “Shirty” and his friends out of the squad car when they realized that he’s the one who questioned — or supposedly questioned — Rocky’s manliness.

And now for an intermission…

… and we’re back!

There would be more cringey parts to come. The worst was when “Shirty’s” mother tells his brother Christian that she knows that he (Christian) is a cross-dresser. In fact, she insists that he put on a dress. She helps him put on a wig… and lipstick… Acceptance? Great. But this was a bit much. Maybe someone could pull off “blurry boundaries” without “incestuous” coming to mind. But this was bad. Cut to gratuitous nightclub scene (Every movie! Come on!) and more blurry boundaries where mom lurks after  dropping off her freshly-out Christian. I suspect that DeMonaco just needed “a moment” to extract an emotional response from his audience. He should have either smoothed over the rough edges of this scene, in which case he would have needed to start with a monster belt sander. Better yet, scrap it and try another approach.

Despite this, I stuck with the movie and discovered that all of these odd little parts — save a few that left even this sympathetic viewer scratching my head — add up to a satisfying and surprising and lovely ending. But wait! This only worked because there were accomplished actors who were able to wring water from a rock. Fine. The battle that the mother has with the father at the end of the movie is worth it. And when you consider that she was standing up for her non-conformist son who likes to wear dresses, it seems to me that Rocky is the perfect backdrop to this movie. And given the shift in the social climate where we are just beginning to see a transgender world, maybe even timely. It’s not a matter of giving anyone too much credit. It’s a matter of what I picked up on, regardless of anyone’s intent.

This brings us back to the idea of the multiple protagonists in this movie. The main character is obviously “Shirty,” right? That is to say Anthony who faces down the enemy and gets the girl. I’m not convinced. Though a small character by comparison, I would argue that it is the father who makes the biggest transformation when Mister That-would-be-stupid finally says yes. Or is it his wife, who finally puts her foot down? Or is it Christian who — at last — comes clean with his dad? I like a movie where you can make the case for multiple characters, even if the writer must choose one. For example, realizing that Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke) is the protagonist of Reality Bites as opposed to the obvious choice, Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder), made the movie better for me. As for who Lelaina “ends up with,” I have strong opinions. But I’ll leave that debate between the generations for another time.

I don’t know if it will be worth it for you to get there, but I have no regrets about spending my time with This is the Night. Nevertheless, this is one case where I won’t be able to convince Brian that he might like this movie if he approached it with the right mindset. And judging from the comments elsewhere on the Internet, he holds the more popular view.

Really Love (2020)

We also didn’t see eye to eye on Really Love, directed by Angel Kristi Williams. I thought critic Roger Moore had it right: “…beautiful people doing beautiful things set to a silky smooth jazz score all do their best to atone for a script seriously thin on originality or conflict,” whereas Brian found a lot more to like about this film. There was something about a realistic evolution of a young romance that he liked, whereas I was bothered from the start. Again, Moore says it best: “They meet at a gallery show. He’s forward, fingering her necklace. She makes a lot of eye contact and allows it.” He also makes note of some “clunky dialog,” quoting the exact phrases that hung me up as well. The writer might have benefited from that belt sander — working up to super fine steel wool — once DeMonaco finished with it.

The ending of Really Love is predictable. It’s also lovely and it almost makes me forget the weird beginning and the glossed over middle where we are to accept without any evidence that there are real barriers to these two lovebirds to be together. I can’t recommend it. However, it is beautiful and it was fine to have on while I untangled some yarn and rolled it up into a ball. It kept my interest in that I wondered if the slow pace of the movie, which was great, was going anywhere. Alas, it was not.