Government Shutdown on the way? Horrors!
For once it’s the Democrats who are threatening to shut down the Government. Having learned nothing from their 2024 electoral loss, they think the public will turn against the Republicans is the world as they know it comes to an end. Refusing to vote in favor of a GOP Continuing Resolution needed to keep all the agencies and departments and bureaus and NGOs running is an option they believe will paralyze the nation until Trump can be made to see sense. Which could take a long time, because he never has seen sense yet. Brilliant, eh?
As we all know, Government Shutdowns don’t stop the checks from going out to recipients of Social Security and Medicare payments, and the troops will still get paid. What always does get shut down is the fun stuff, like National Parks and federally funded and staffed historical museums. What to do with all the free time you have after you’re done for the day with the two or three jobs you have to put food on the table and gas in the car? Here’s an idea…
I’m in a position to help. I can even help people who have largely sworn off movies in recent years. As an old guy in his Seventies, I’m practically required to sit on my ass full time and gripe about everything that contributes to my aches and pains and my sour disposition. Why I spend so much time watching teevee, almost always on the streaming services rather than the poisonous cable lineups (24/7 reruns of Law & Order SUV, Criminal Minds, and NCIS…). I have pretty strict rules for what I watch in the increasingly filthy streams as well. No movies at all made in 2023 and 2024. Whatever other merits they might possess, they are doomed to failure by stunt racial casting, foul language not meant to shock but to represent authentic human discourse, and the tedious bur mandatory inclusion of some subplot featuring g homosexual romance. Sex scenes have also made a comeback in these movies, also meant to be “real” rather than romantic, lots of hard humping and grinding, twisted facial expressions, sweat, and, you know, slappy sounds to remind us all that sex is mostly about fucking.
You don’t have to be a prig, a racist, or a homophobe to think that all this dreck is offensive. Why? Because it’s so formulaic, so contrived, so presumably now and politically correct. It all has to be there before the producers get down to the business of telling us some derivative story about a relationship, a murder, or a professional conflict of some kind. Why I do my movie shopping mostly in categories the streaming services offer as search options. I stay away from comedies, which have been unfunny and increasingly gross for more than a few years. No dramas as such because if they’re any good they tend to show up in other categories. No teen/high school (young adult?) for same reason, but the barrier to entry is tall. That leaves the categories of Action, Horror, and Sci-Fi, Disaster flicks, and Documentaries.
Action and Horror are problematic for many because it’s hard to anticipate levels of gore involved. I, personally, have a high threshold for gore, although I first became aware that there was a level I could not accept when I saw Schwartzenegger’s Total Recall. There was a scene in which his attempt to escape assassins turned into a bloody gunfight on an escalator that killed multiple innocent bystanders (including, I believe, the three-breasted woman), and Schwartzenegger at one point actually used a bystander as a body shield. That was too much for me. There are horror movies that are unwatchable for their gore, including the “Saw” franchise and a trilogy called “Centipede” that progresses from unpalatable to unspeakable over the course of the series. And you never know, going in how bad it might get and how much it might offend someone who hasn’t been desensitized by a lifetime of blood and guts on the screen and in video games. Action movies have also been drifting annoyingly toward invincible female martial artists and gunsels who can survive eight or ten kayo punches to the jaw without getting killed or even mussing their makeup. Disaster movies are their own thing and so numerous you probably have no difficulty finding them in your own. Bad science, bad acting, bad CGI, and rote plotting can be fun, don’t get me wrong. Not much point in putting a lot of thought into thoughtless amusements though, is there? You’ll do fine in this category with no guidance from me. (Sam Baldwin is usually a keeper, however.)
Which leaves Sci-Fi and Fantasy, often grouped together by the streaming services. I don’t care much for sword and sorcery flicks set in some imaginary timeless but Iron Age universe. Loved Lord of the Rings, but the derivations are boring. To me anyway. Just telling you my biases to justify the options I’m listing here. Time travel movies are all over the place, with the biggest problem they present being the time paradoxes they love to play with until you are hopelessly lot. The old, good ones everyone has already seen. The new ones are getting weirder.
The reason Sci-Fi and Fantasy are so often combined in one grouping is that they are basically flip sides of one another, some leaning toward scientific questioning, others toward allegorical dramatizations of authentic emotions in impossible contexts. The following list tends to list toward the latter of these forks in the road. They generally share the attributes of minimal gore, unsightly sex play, and foul language. Best of all, they’re products of the intent to make a good movie, not a social Justice informercial. And at the moment, they’re free to watch. Here are thumbnails about the titles and their trailers. Finding them is up to you. The order is alphabetical, not a quality ranking. That would be your choice.
Great Fantasy Movies you can see for free
AI: Artificial Intelligence (Pluto)
It’s a Spielberg movie, described critics as a combination of the cinematic styles of Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick. Its plot is an epic reimagining of the story of Pinocchio, but you’ll be swept away by the spectacular visuals and the kaleidoscopic changes in setting, mood, and scale. You’ll like it or not, but it seems a lot of people missed it over the years, and it’s impressive moviemaking on a vast Spielberg-sized budget.
Camera Obscura [Chambre Noire](Freevee)
A movie about one photograph. Which is ironic in that there are multiple movies and short features using the title ‘Camera Obscura,’ a complication in making sure you’ve found the right one. The movie worth seeing is French, dubbed (not badly), and slow getting started. Hooked yet? That’s because you haven’t seen the photograph not taken by the photographer developing his own film. It’s a life-changing presence. What that picture does to transform the photographer protagonist is the story. The name of the French director is Arnaud Malherbe.
Code 46 (Pluto)
I found this movie because I always want to see anything with Samantha Morton in it. She’s a great actress, beautiful without being at all pretty, just immediately under your skin with the fascination of whatever persona is inside her skin as you’re watching her. She doesn’t even need words to play her roles. I’m not overstating. She was nominated, at the age of 13, for a best supporting actress Oscar in a part in which she was uniformly speechless This time she’s the victim of a science fiction premise about mind control. She needs all her chops here, and maybe you’ll agree she carries off a nearly impossible task here too.
Hugo (Pluto)
A handsome movie. An opening sequence that pulls you in and propels you into its world like the historic minutes-long opening shot in Touch of Evil by Orson Welles. An orphaned boy is living inside an immense clock in a Steampunkish shopping plaza in Paris. A Coming of Age tale in Edwardian costumes and action by turns rambunctious (even slapstick), touching, infuriatingly mysterious, and dramatically technological. Overall it’s a romp, well played by the boy at the center, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee, and Chloë Moretz of “Kickass” fame!. A fun couple of hours.
Inception (Netflix)
An excellent blending of CGI sci-fi wizardry and an interesting philosophical premise based on allegorical what-iffyness. I’m recommending it in spite of the distractions inherent in the casting. World champion climate change hypocrite Leonardo DiCaprio costarring with Ellen Page (a rare exception here to the IMDB rule that the given name of Page must always be ‘Eliot”). Doesn’t matter. Easy to understand that the characters being shown are stand-ins for an idea that is being explored with varying degrees of acuity and absurdity. But the special effects are entrancing.
Monsters (Freevee)
One of those movies that grows on you after the experience of watching it. Not that it was bad or that I didn’t approve of it the first time around. Rather it’s the fact that you remember it for more than a day or so and regard it in memory differently than you saw it initially. I thought it was a genre “alien movie,” a haphazard but inevitable progression to a final climactic showdown in which the fugitive couple we’re rooting for will have to fight furiously for their lives against barely imaginable predators. That’s not really it. The movie is not so much a flight as a journey toward a confrontation the journey itself is preparing them for together as they grow closer together. Worth the trip for me, even with a no-name cast. See what you think.
Mortal Engines (TUBI)
A while since I watched this one, so I can’t provide a definitive assessment of the gore level. Don’t remember it as shockingly bloody, but I was so blown away by the visual imagination of the CGI, which was not an added flourish but intrinsic to the premise of the story, that I’d probably have glossed over a severed hand or head or two if they’d been there. What is that premise? “A post-apocalyptic world where cities ride on wheels and consume each other to survive.” Cool, huh? Great scenery chewing by an illustrious cast including Hugo Weaving, Colin Salmon, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang (always teeth gnasher), and an army (fittingly) of others.
Rango (Pluto)
Johnny Depp looking good. But I’m a guy, so what do I know about when a guy is looking good? Just kidding. Like this delightful animated joyride that unfolds in a parallel universe of some kind. Via IMDB: “Rango is an ordinary chameleon who accidentally winds up in the town of Dirt, a lawless outpost in the Wild West in desperate need of a new sheriff.” Funny. So explaining it is a waste of time. What you do with good comedy is watch it.
The Secret of NIMH (TUBI)
An artifact of a lost time in cinematic history. Actually, more accurately, a footnote to the Golden Age of Disney animation, which began with Snow White, hit successive new heights, and then gradually faded away. This movie might be the closed thing to a period concluding an era that was no longer economically tenable. It was conceived, written and produced by one of the greatest of Disney animators after he resigned from the home where he had made his career. In its creation process and appearance, NIMH is a Disney movie, though critics were harsh about the script, and the project did not succeed at the box office. Watching it now is a poignant reminder of the artists who drew the great cartoon characters many of us grew up seeing in hometown theaters that no longer exist as they once did. I have written about this movie elsewhere, and if you need more incentive to give it a look, you might find my post about “The New NIMH” helpful.
BONUS: Vintage Tomorrows, A Steam Punk Documentary
Steampunk, which is an esthetic component of several of the listed movies, is a fascinating subject in its own right. What is its history, its curiously magnetic appeal to a variety of audiences, and what impact has it had on other genres of art and entertainment? This documentary includes conversations with cultural critics and artists who may not be household names but who have articulate and even contradictory perspectives on the meaning and value of the steampunk esthetic. It’s off-Broadway enough that the streaming version has two different soundtracks, one of which is music without human voices some reason. The soundtrack that works can be found in your TV settings however. It’s well worth watching, instructive and thought provoking. In my humble opinion.
There you have it. My nominations for alternative media during the rhetorical excesses and other inconveniences of a Government Shutdown. You don’t really have to wait for that eventuality if you don’t want to. But you already knew that.
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