Compound Fracture (2014) – An adult son, with his fiancee and his orphaned teenage nephew, finally goes home to the compound where his estranged father still lives, his lifelong paranoia about the supernatural exacerbated by his declining mental faculties. But it turns out that something else “came home” with him, something that turns Dad’s supernatural defenses against them.
It’s an intriguing movie, although I can’t say it’s altogether successful. It’s certainly a mature script, performed well, but it somehow seems to end up as a different movie than what it started as. In the plus column, the star/co-writer/co-producer didn’t take the occasion to make this a fantasy paean to himself.
The Astronaut’s Wife (1999) – Johnny Depp is an astronaut brought home safely after a mysterious space “accident.” Charlize Theron is his wife, who wonders if there’s something wrong with him, or whether it’s the mental illness she suffered from previously rearing its head.
Great lengths are gone to in order to support plausible deniability. Unfortunately… well, yeah, no one’s gonna make a movie where it turns out all to be Charlize Theron’s imagination, are they?
Interesting to note that Theron plays essentially the same character here are she does in The Devil’s Advocate (1997) — a southern wife, dragged to New York by her husband who’s getting involved in things beyond her ken — but in this case, she’s the protagonist, not a supporting character.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012) – A cheeky stop-motion comedy from Aardman Productions places a mediocre pirate captain (named “Pirate Captain”) and his heterogenous crew in the path of both Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin as he tries a longshot win for the Pirate of the Year Award. Because it’s from Aardman, every scene is replete with inspired sight gags. And it takes a certain chutzpah to have Queen Victoria be the scenery-chewing antagonist.
Most surprising: There’s an obviously female member of the pirate crew, hiding behind a false beard — and she’s never outed. [spoiler, I guess]
Vis: Pirates:
“There’s an obviously female member of the pirate crew, hiding behind a false beard — and she’s never outed. [spoiler, I guess]”
Yeah, that’s how you can tell it was made in 2012 and *NOT* 2022.
“The Pirates! Band of Misfits” is the American title, as the international title was “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!” Although Hugh Grant said that the title was changed under the assumption that contemporary American audiences dislike long titles, there are theories that they didn’t want to use “scientist” because they thought religious Americans would see that word as an endorsement for Evolution and would not want to see it.
Meanwhile, Jurassic World Part XVIII is coming….