Ty Watches "Dune: Part 2"

I have just returned home from seeing "Dune : Part 2".

I have been really anticipating the release of this movie. I watched the first, new "Dune" during the pandemic. It was released to streaming, and I took advantage and watched that movie in my home. I loved it. I was glued to my screen. I did not look at my phone once. My wife would come in and out of the room and ask questions and I would answer, and then rewind and rewatch what we may have missed. The first new "Dune" was also my first time I found myself cheering for Timothee Chalamet. That movie made me a fan, and I have not looked back. I also watched David Lynch's "Dune" during the pandemic. I did not like that version at all. It was a slog. It was boring. And it was nonsensical. So I've done the necessary homework. My dad joined me this morning, he watched the first new "Dune" on Wednesday, and we set off for a 10am screening.

I want to say, the theater was as clean as I've ever seen a theater before. The crowd was delightful and pleasant. The staff was dynamite and helpful. The Galleria 6 Cinema here in Saint Louis did their job perfectly. There were only two previews, only one commercial, and by about 10 after, we were in the world of "Dune". And from there on out I was in awe of what I was watching.

First off, this cast is incredible. Chamalet is back and does an even better job in this movie. Zendaya is given much more to work with in this sequel and she does amazing things. I was rooting for her character the entire movie. Javier Bardem was more involved, did a great job and even provided some laughs. Rebecca Ferguson did a phenomenal job with her arc in this movie. The whole Harkonnen family was terrifying in all the right ways. Stellan Skaarsgard is back and he is even more scary as the head of the family. David Bautista is back and he is cowardly and in over his head. And Austin Butler is the nephew who is the villainous of all the villains in this movie. He was scary as hell. Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken do some pretty good things here. Pugh figures to have a much bigger part in the third installment of this franchise. Josh Brolin returns and he is having a great back half of his career. And there's all the side characters and minor part actors who do some wonderful things in their very minimal screen time.

Then we have the direction. Denis Villenvue is the best sci fi director in the game right now. I trust him with any material he decides to work on from this moment on. And then there's the stuff on screen. This is an epic in every sense of the word. It was close to three hours but never felt long. The scenery, being pretty much nothing but sand, was mesmerizing to look at on a big screen. The sandworms were the coolest thing I have seen in a movie in a long, long time. I was enamored with those things. The CGI and the massive amount of people in the movie was a triumph all its own.

The story was pretty great too. The majority of the movie is a war movie. There are a bunch of battles. There are moments of strategy. There are training moments. There is hand to hand combat. There are soldiers hiding and attacking from everywhere. It was awesome. And, near the end, although it is what I consider to be the main story, it becomes a religious story, and the problems that lie within following one person. It was interesting to see the movie take this turn and everyone involved pulled it off with grace and professionalism.

I loved this movie. My dad did too. I couldn't believe that they exceeded my high, high expectations. I cannot recommend this movie enough. That is why I left my review so vague. I think you should try and see it in a theater too. I'm not a big theater goer, but this movie needs to be seen on a big screen to get the full effect. "Dune: Part 2" is amazing. Go see it. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Better Never Than Late on "Don't Worry Darling"

A while back I wrote about all the off screen drama involving the movie "Don't Worry Darling". The trailers and the cast and then all that nonsense had me pretty hype to watch the movie. I also loved "Booksmart", Olivia Wilde's first movie, so I figured she was due for another solid outing. I was on board to see this movie. And it is now streaming on HBO Max. My wife also wanted to see it, it was her turn to pick the date night movie and she picked "Don't Worry Darling". We sat down and were both excited.

The movie, for me, did not deliver. Now, my wife liked the movie. She enjoyed her viewing experience. And Florence Pugh and Chris Pine did a very good job with little material to work with. Those are the things I enjoyed about the movie. But everything else fell very flat for me. It was not worth all the hype. The story and most other performances just didn't work for me. The direction felt clunky and forced. Some of the acting was very blah. And the stuff that was left on the cutting room floor, according to internet research, probably would have helped. But I was not feeling it.

Pugh, as previously stated, was solid. She did a great job in fact. She is very good in these horror/psychological roles. She knows how to do that. But Harry Styles is not a great actor. He tried very hard in this movie, but I just didn't buy his performance. He has a scene where he has to cry and act upset and it looked like a first time actor trying way too hard. He did some things well, but most of it was very forced and not so good. At least he can sing. Nick Kroll was underused. He did not get a chance to shine in a role that is very different for him. I wanted more. I could say the same for Kate Bertlant, who I also like very much. She had moments where it looked like she was going to go through some stuff, but they cut her off or cut away from her character. I wanted to know so much more about her. Her husband, played by Asif Ali, only had a handful of lines. He was not fleshed out at all. Kiki Layne had a very juicy role, got to do some decent stuff, but she was the person who was cut the most. Her role was, seemingly, very important to the story, but she was more under utilized than Kroll. That was a bummer. Pine's wife, played by Gemma Chan, had this eeriness to her, but she never got fleshed out either. That seemed to happen a lot in this movie. Wilde gave herself a supporting role, and it felt like they wrote her character more than any other supporting actor. She had a backstory and stuff that happened to her, but I was not given enough time as a viewer to really care about her. What happened was sad and devastating, but they did not reveal any of it until the very end. There was no time.

Therein lies my biggest problem with the movie. They had a great idea, they had a solid cast, they had people game for this movie, the set pieces were dope, but they did not go far enough with this story and these people living in this world. The movie was a shade over two hours, but it felt unfinished. It felt rushed. It felt like they were all trying to not get COVID, this movie was filmed during a surge from what I read. It just did not tell this interesting story in an interesting way for me. The way they got to the twist was slow, but once they were there, they went too fast. Pugh tried her best to pull it off. Pine was a great villain, but the rest was just too bland. When they flashed back and forth, Styles looked like a bad guy from an early 2000's indie movie, and not in a good way.

I don't know. The movie had all this press and all this build up, but it just didn't hit home with me. And that bums me out. I really wanted to like this movie. Or, at the very least, I wanted this movie to give me a story. I wanted it to be memorable. But it was just a very bland and boring movie that did not deliver. Oh well, at least I have the off screen nonsense to look back on in the future. What a bummer.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Now I Really Want to See "Don't Worry Darling"

A while back I watched the preview for Olivia Wilde's new movie "Don't Worry Darling". I saw a ton of stuff online about how horny it was. It was an okay enough preview. It wasn't crazy or anything, but the premise of the movie caught my attention. I was intrigued. It felt and looked like an updated "Stepford Wives" type of movie.

Then I saw more previews and got even more interested in this movie. I still want to see it. It helps that I loved "Booksmart", I like the actors in this, I like the dystopian nature of the previews and it seems highly intriguing. Early reviews are out now and they are kind of tepid. That doesn't matter to me, if I want to see this movie I will, I just may not go watch it in a theater. I will wait for it to be on VOD.

This past month or so the intrigue involved with the making of this movie and now all the stuff at the Venice Film Festival has definitely ratcheted up my interest. For those that may not know, there have been a plethora of stories and "scandals" that have come out during the lead up to the movie's release. The first notice I got was the whole Shia Labeouf thing. This is an actor I used to like, but now I am over it. He is too much. He is an asshole. He is pretentious. He is out of his mind. He is a hurtful person. So when I saw that Wilde said she fired him from the movie to protect Florence Pugh it made sense. He is a volatile person. But then he came back and said he quit. Then there was this back and forth between him and Wilde all done over social media. It was nuts. I lean more towards Wilde's side in this whole story, but I will never truly know what happened. This is a classic he said she said scenario, but with the he being an insane person.

Next some stuff came out about Pugh and Wilde. I guess they did not really get along, that Pugh was blowing off press meetings, that Wilde had some minor complaints. It was all very minimal stuff, but it still made the entertainment news. It was enough of a story to push it all ahead of the upcoming release of the movie.

I also saw, right after the Pugh thing, that Wilde said she wanted the previews to be even hornier. I guess she wanted to show more of the sex scene stuff that is in the movie. This is so pointless, but with the Labeouf and Pugh stuff, then the Pugh and Wilde stuff, this story was pushed to the front of most websites.

And now we have the whole Venice Film Festival stuff. This has been off the charts wild. Every story that is coming from the film fest just gets nuttier and nuttier. I guess Pugh didn't want to do press with some of the cast, so she did it on her own. She also wore a dress, this is according to Buzzfeed so take it as you will, to criticize some of the people who worked on the movie. Then we have all this Chris Pine stuff. He was seen zoning out during interviews. He has been walking around with a disposable camera and taking massive amounts of pictures that need to be developed. His choice of clothes is nuts. There was a whole story about if Harry Styles spit on him or not at a press thing, and if it was intentional or not. And then you got the tepid response at the festival and the early reviews are not great. The only person in this movie that I am seeing normal stuff from is Nick Kroll. And I am a fan of his and think he is absolutely hilarious.

All of this is to say that I still want to see this movie. I am still into the whole story and I want to know how the movie unfolds. But all this extra stuff that has been going on is making me question everything. I do not know who is wrong and who is right. I know who I side with, but that means nothing. I have been questioning if all of this drama is just being made up to get people talking about the movie again. Maybe they are all involved and they were told by managers and publicists to really blow it all out of proportion. That is a bit conspiracy theory of me, but anything is possible, right? Either way I will see this movie someday. I will probably not see it in theaters, but who knows. But what I do know is, when I eventually see it, I will think back to this past month and how nuts all the surrounding noise was at the time, because it has been pretty wild.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Ty Watches "Black Widow"

My wife and I watched "Black Widow" like most of the rest of the country this Friday. It was her turn to pick, but had it been my turn I would have picked it too. We have wanted to see this movie for two years now.

"Black Widow" was the first really big movie I remember being postponed due to COVID. I was bummed when it got pushed, but of course I understood. We also did not go to the theater to see it. We rented, or maybe bought it, on Disney+. I guess a lot of other people got it on Disney+ as well. Apparently they made something like 60 million plus dollars this weekend on people using Disney+.

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed this movie. I get some of the criticism that it is getting. It seems awkward to make a movie about a character whose outcome we already know, but it is a flashback in its essence. Scarlett Johansson was outshined by other people, but I like when other actors step up in movies that they are not the focus of. And the plot and twists were pretty easy to get, but it is a Marvel movie so the plot twists and whatnot are usually easy to follow. So the criticisms, while valid, I can find reasons to refute them. Otherwise, this movie is solid. One of my wife's friends at work said it was a spy thriller with "Mission Impossible" style action scenes. He was right on the money. Black Widow herself is a spy, and she comes from a family of spies, so that works. The action was rad, and had crazy stuff like helicopters and big planes falling from the sky. The fight scenes were also really well choreographed and expertly done by the actors.

As for the actors, they did good. Scarlett Johansonn was very solid as Black Widow. She played her like she has in all of the other MCU movies she has been in. We have come to know that character so well that any change would have been unnecessary. Rachel Weisz was very good as the surrogate mom who is a brilliant scientist. Weisz has had such a good and solid and sometimes exceptional career as an actor. She has seemingly played every role, and she usually does a very good job. The villain was cheeky and over the top and exactly what I want from my Marvel villains. I thought Taskmaster was cool. I liked the look of the suit and her never ending desire to do as informed by her father and creator. But the stars, by a wide margin, were David Harbour and Florence Pugh. Harbour was the father figure and Russia's version of Captain America. He was so funny. He was so goofy. He said the wrong thing at the wrong time. He was so fantastic in this role. This is such a great role for him. He looks like a regular dude and acts like one too. This was an exceptional performance from him. But Pugh was the absolute star. She was simply perfect. She was funny, but also very tough and a great spy. She had a great Russian accent. She acted the most like a child when being around Weisz and Harbour. She had the most moving moments in the movie. She made fun of all the stuff we have come to love about Black Widow, and it made me laugh. When she did Black Widow's pose and then scoffed, that was incredibly funny. I hope, and assume, that she is going to be around the MCU in this new phase, and I am here for it.

All in all I enjoyed myself while watching the movie. I recommend other people check it out too. Do not listen to the comic book nerds and misogynists that are bad mouthing this movie. They are punks and children. "Black Widow" is a good movie. It is a nice second step in the new MCU phase.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

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SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.