Now Watching: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Directed by Rian Johnson
Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright

Synopsis: A young priest is sent to help a charismatic older priest in a small church. A seemingly impossible murder brings in Detective Benoit Blanc to solve the case. Every parishioner is a suspect.

Rating: 8/10

Released on Thanksgiving in 2019, Knives Out felt like a breath of fresh air. This was just before Covid kept us all home and right in the middle of Trump’s first term in office. It was a cozy little blanket that kept us warm from all the trouble brewing in the air. It was a lovely little Agatha Christie-esque mystery with an incredible cast and a terrifically twisty plot. I loved it. I still love it, as I watched it last week and found it to be just as delightful as ever.

Its sequel, Glass Onion, wasn’t quite as good. It felt a little too modern and a little less cozy, but it featured another great cast, and Daniel Craig had slipped perfectly back into his brilliant detective’s slippers.

I’ve been excitedly waiting for the third film ever since. Sadly, because Wake Up Dead Man is a Netflix film, it only got a limited theatrical release. The only theater anywhere near me that was showing it was an old, broken-down theater half an hour away. I really wanted to see this on a great big screen with an audience, but that didn’t happen.

Still, it was worth the wait. We get another great cast and a mostly great, twisty mystery. Josh O’Connor is terrific as a young priest with a dark past but a passion for compassion who comes up against a firebrand more interested in calling out the sinners than loving his flock. There are some interesting reflections on faith and the importance of finding your own calling.

At 142 minutes, it runs a little long, and not everything worked for me. The original is still my favorite, but I hope they keep making these movies for years and years to come.

Now Watching: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed and written by John Huston
Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Rating: 9/10

An absolute classic. I love this film. I’ve seen it many times. I’m hoping to do a Top Five Bogart in Film Noir list this month, so I’m watching as many of those as I can. This is often considered the very first film noir, and it is one of the very best. I don’t really have the bandwidth right now to do a full review, but since I watched it, I wanted to at least mention it.

It was the first film directed by John Huston and the first film Sydney Greenstreet ever played in. It made Bogart a star and set the template for untold detective stories to come. It is a terrific film and I higly recommend it.

Now Watching: A Better Tomorrow (1986)

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A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Directed by John Woo
Starring: Lung T, iLeslie Cheung, and Chow Yun-Fat

A reforming ex-gangster tries to reconcile with his estranged policeman brother, but the ties to his former gang are difficult to break.

Rating 7/10

John Woo’s breakout film contains most of his hallmarks – balletic gunplay, slow motion action, big emotions, and goofy comedy—but in slightly lessened form. There is some very good stuff here, but it feels like a trial run for later films like Hard Boiled or The Killer. Also, I’ve never been a big fan of the outsized emotions his characters have in these films. Maybe it is the difference in cultures, but it always feels cheesy and fake to me. But those action scenes are still top-notch.

Now Watching: City on Fire (1987)

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City on Fire (1987)
Directed by Ringo Lam
Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sun Yueh, Carrie Ng , and Roy Cheung

Synopsis: An undercover cop infiltrates a gang of thieves who plan to rob a jewelry store.

Rating: 7/10

City on Fire is now mostly known as one of the inspirations for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. There are certainly similarities there, but Tarantino more than makes his film his own. Chow Yun-fat plays the undercover cop who doesn’t really want to be there. He’s ready to quit, but his uncle (who is also a cop) pushes him to complete the assignment. He kind-of, sort-of befriends one of the robbers, which makes the whole thing more complicated, especially when it goes bad.

There are some terrific set pieces and some very goofy romantic angles. I’m not super soaked in Hong Kong action movies. I’ve seen several, but not enough that I can claim any sort of authority on them. It always throws me off how weird the romances are in these things. Our guy here comes home, more or less harasses his lady by following her into the bathroom, then jumping into the shower with her, pushing into her space, and then giving her a ring. Then he postpones the wedding, then he doesn’t show up…etc. It’s probably a cultural thing, but so many of these films play the romances off with the weirdest bits of humor.

But Chow Yun-fat is amazing.

Now Watching: Drug War (2012)

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Drug War (2012)
Directed by Johnnie To
Starring: Louis Koo, Honglei Sun, and Huang Yi

Synopsis: A drug cartel boss who is arrested in a raid is coerced into betraying his former accomplices as part of an undercover operation.

Rating: 8/10

This is the type of film that will keep bringing me back to Johnnie To. The plot is convoluted and a little crazy, but also endlessly interesting with cops, informants, and bad guys switching allegiances and sides like a roulette table. The action is fierce, chaotic, and meticulously staged.

There is a scene late in the film where a cop handcuffs himself to a guy’s leg. Then the cop gets killed, so the bad guy has to run around dragging the cop’s corpse along with him. If that doesn’t make you want to watch this film, I don’t know what will.

Now Watching: Breaking News (2004)

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Breaking News (2004)
Directed by Johnnie To
Starring: Richie Jen, Kelly Chen, and Nick Cheung
Synopsis: After a disastrous failure to stop a robber gang, the police attempt to redeem themselves through a series of publicity stunts and shootouts.
Rating: 7/10

I’m quite behind on these. They are easy to write and I always mean to write them right after I watch, but then something comes up and I forget. I watched this one five days ago. I’ll try to play catch-up this weekend.

Johnnie is a Hong Kong director whose name gets tossed around quite a bit in my circles, but I’d never seen one of his films until now. The Criterion Channel is running a whole bunch of them, and I chose this one pretty much at random. It was good enough to make me watch another one the very next day and then a third a couple of days later.

It begins with an incredible 7-minute-long one-take shot. It follows a man into a building (the camera cranes to a top floor and into a building, then back out again), followed by a shootout with the cops. This goes poorly for the cops, and they decide they need to put on a “show” for the media. Basically, they start using their own PR department to create videos to send to the news to indicate how awesome they are.

The action scenes (and there are quite a lot of them) are all staged really well. The media stuff feels very dated and has not aged particularly well. But as I said, there is enough to love here that I immediately watched another film from To.

Now Watching: Wallace & Gromit:Vengence Most Fowl (2024)

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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Directed by Merlin Crossingham & Nick Park
Starring: Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, and Diane Morgan

Synopsis: Top dog Gromit springs into action to save his master when Wallace’s high-tech invention goes rogue and he is framed for a series of suspicious crimes.

Rating: 8/10

We’re big fans of Wallace & Gromit here at The Midnight Cafe. They have this wonderful blend of nostalgic conservatism and modern progress. The claymation is all handmade, which makes it both not quite exactly perfect and absolutely beautiful.

The setting of all these films and short films is intentionally opaque, with much of it feeling like the 1960s but with plenty of modern technology. Wallace seems like an old-fashioned, traditional conservative, while Gromit, his dog, is much more modern. I’m making it sound like these are political films, and they are decidedly not. It’s more like an updating of a British Norman Rockwell, but with anthropomorphic animals, Rube Goldberg machines, and lots of cheese. Anyway, if you’ve never seen a Wallace & Gromit film, I highly recommend them.

This one finds Wallace inventing a robot gnome that can do your household chores. When one of them gets switched to “Evil” mode by a malevolent penguin, things get a little bit crazy.

It is wonderfully funny, boisterous, and filled with loads of action. I have a hard time ranking any of these films because I just lovely them so wholeheartedly.

Now Watching: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

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The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Directed by Wes Anderson
Starring: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Bill Murray, and Danny Glover
Synopsis: The eccentric members of a dysfunctional family reluctantly gather under the same roof for various reasons.

Rating: 10/10

I remember watching this movie in the theater, having no idea what to expect. I can’t remember if I’d seen Rushmore more this or not, but if I had, I hadn’t really connected it to Wes Anderson. He’s one of the most famous auteurs these days, but this was just his third film, and he wasn’t so well known outside of cinephile circles.

I was completely knocked out by it. I loved every minute of it. The film is so assured in its style, its rhythms, and its own sense of existence. I never wanted to leave the theatre.

Anderson is now beloved for his signature visual style, but this is the first film that truly perfected it (Rushmore got close, but isn’t quite there). Every inch of the screen is filled with interesting things to look at, and their placement is well thought out and conceived. The music is exquisite and I’d argue this is the best script he’s ever written (it was co-written by Owen Wilson).

The entire cast is brilliant. Every single actor does some of his/her finest work. I’ve seen it half a dozen times since that initial theatrical viewing and it remains a personal favorite.

Now Watching: Captain Blood (1935)

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As I just mentioned, I’m gonna try to do a better job of posting around here. Again, I’ll have more to say about that in a day or two, but as part of that plan, I’m starting a new series I’m calling Now Watching.

Quite a lot of folks do that on social media. They will mention what they are currently watching, or reading, or listening to, and maybe say just a few words about it. So, I thought I’d turn that into a full-on blog post.

The idea won’t be to do full reviews, but to just mention what I’m currently watching (and maybe listening to or reading) and to say a few words about it. Later on, I might do full reviews of some of these things, but maybe not.

Tonight I watched:

Captain Blood (1935)
Directed by Michael Curtis
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Lionel Atwill, and Basil Rathbone

Synopsis: After treating a Monmouth rebel against King James II in 1680s England, a young Irish doctor is exiled as a slave to Jamaica, where he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the most feared pirate of the Caribbean.

Rating: 7/10

Thoughts: Me and the wife wanted something fun to watch tonight, and she suggested a pirate movie (she was aiming for the Muppet pirate movie, but we landed on this).

It takes an awfully long time to get to the piracy. Captain Blood starts out as an ordinary citizen, minding his own business. But when he applies his physician’s trade to a rebel fighter, he’s arrested and sold into slavery. Yada, yada, yada, an hour later, he finally becomes a pirate. There is a romance subplot with Olivia De Havilland and Basil Rathbone shows up for a couple of scenes as a rival pirate.

All of that is okay, not great, but watchable. It is the last half hour where things pick up, and the final battle is pretty terrific.