#Bill Smitrovich | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mitochondriaandbunnies · 2 months ago

Text

Miami Vice S2E1&2: The Prodigal Son

The DEA asks Sonny and Rico to track down a family of Colombian drug dealers, leading them New York City. (This is a long one-- be warned.)

I have officially made it to Season 2! Much like with Evan, I got a little stuck on this one because I feel like I've already said a lot about it (and giffed a lot of it.)

The episode opens in Bogota (doubled for by, I believe, a state park in New York), which I forget every time I watch it. It's an episode very grounded in New York City, so the Bogota part feels like a surprise every time.

Fucking love the panflute music, though. Damn Jan, damn.

The DEA agent who orchestrates the whole thing is played by Bill Smitrovich, who uh. Was also Crockett's ex-partner Scottie Wheeler in the pilot. Vice likes to repeat actors, but this one feels especially "wait we 100% know that guy." (He is also Danny Krycheck in Crime Story, so Mann and/or Bonnie Timmermann must just really like the guy.)

While I don't recommend actually putting your entire cast in a swamp at night, the scene where they bust Revilla looks so damn good, so I guess I won't argue with results.

There's a series of comments and conversations starting with the swamp bust-- Sonny says the entire thing reminds him of Vietnam-- another agent calls the whole thing a mess and says there are no wins-- Sonny calls drug busting a "cold war" and Rico points out the he has the "Vice Cop Blues;" given that ultimately, the theme of this two-parter is "the system is corrupt and no matter how much you push back you'll always be fucked in the face of money and power," no one here is really wrong. Rico's implication that ultimately, it's just a job, will have later echoes as well-- while Rico starts to consider his options outside of Vice in later seasons, Sonny remains focused on his idea of justice and spirals out of control and into depression.

The scene before Gina gets shot is incredibly unsettling and very proto-Twin-Peaks. Later, when Sonny sees she's been shot, he delicately touches her shoulder like she's a porcelain doll-- very much in opposition to the way, a few episodes later, he will throw himself over Rico when he's been poisoned. There's a sense of caution between Sonny and Gina-- it's like, given their history, he's afraid even under these circumstances to be too hands on, lest it be taken the wrong way or hurt her emotionally on top of her physical pain.

No one on Gene Simmons' Sex Boat knows how to dance

In NYC, Rico refers to his city as "the core of civilization" and Sonny says it's just "gridlock-- as much fun as watching paint dry." They then walk around grinning like children and gently touching one another, set to music. I hate them

When Rico tries to pull the "I used to be an NYC cop" card the sergeant they speak to says that "rape season is in full swing," which goes unremarked upon but has to be one of the most jarring things I've ever heard on television. There is... a season? For sexual assault?? What the everloving fuck?

Rico calls Val while the sergeant complains about not wanting to babysit him and Sonny; I wonder if the fact that both Rico and Val have their badges still is supposed to be commentary (cops love a bad egg and both of them did crime in the service of "justice") or just bad writing (what are they going to do, not bring Pam Grier back when they have the opportunity?)

Rico spells Tubbs by saying he is "Tough, Unique, Bad, Bold, and Sassy." Rico baby are you secretly a drag queen

Quoth Sonny Crockett, coolest man in the world, "Bolivian nasal dust." THAT'S NOT EVEN A EUPHEMISM

So much second hand embarrassment at Rico and Val meeting at Club Delirious. Val just looks SO disappointed and inconvenienced by his presence, and he gives her the WORST stink-eye and whines about her not returning his calls. They are so bad for each other. The most toxic on-and-off-again-cowboy-cop-exes ever.

The drug buyer is ridiculously racist; he clearly only wants to talk to Sonny, calls Tubbs and Val "nice bookends," and orders them to go dance together. This leads to a deeply insincere exchanging of "I missed yous" on the dance floor, and Val vaguely referencing that "Sonny helped her after what happened down in Miami." Why does Sonny have the power to convince the NYPD to magically erase murder

Rico, eternal suggester of threesomes, suggests to Sonny that the three of them "party together," and Sonny is like "weird, bye"

The music choices in Prodigal Son are so fucking good. The lyric "do you believe in love" plays during Sonny and Maggie's meet-cute scene, and abruptly cuts off before the word love and the visual cut to naked morning-after meat-platter Sonny being heckled by a bunch of gay photographers

Then, we cut immediately from Sonny muttering to himself that he doesn't even know Maggie's name to Tubbs creepily stalking Val and watching her kiss the drug dealer man. I wonder if maybe Paul Michael Glaser had something to say about the bad relationship choices Sonny and Rico were making in NY or something

Sonny's little smile at Rico in the mirror over the cigarette machine followed by the intensity of him yelling TUBBS (breaking cover) will never not kill me

I am so serious about Rico and Val being the absolute worst for each other. Tubbs asks Val if she "forgot how to use the phone" and then says "at least your sister was upfront about turning tricks" to her. Like. BROSKI. What. The fuck. Is wrong with you. You just called your ex-girlfriend AND HER DEAD LITTLE SISTER a whore?? And that's, what, your plan for getting her to get back together with you??? Like, Tubbs is not always nice-- I've said before I think he has to work at being a good person, and his calm, affable demeanor is often a put-on. But this goes beyond bitchy into downright cruel, something he really only ever does in Val's company. Rightly, she slaps him.

I've written at length about the Sonny/Maggie business, but jesus he is dumb about her. They've known each other for what, two days? And he's like "if only I could tell you the truth about myself..."

Sonny.

You've known loaves of bread longer than Maggie.

It's fine, just let it be a fling, baby. Not everyone is a future wife, even if you ARE mostly doing this because you're upset that you think your partner is back with his ex

After a silent (except for an obvious single overdubbed line that definitely wasn't in the original script), mooning car ride, Sonny asks Rico if he's "been thinking about staying in New York after we're done here, haven't you?" He is pained here; even if you don't interpret it with a romantic undertone, it's clear that he is not prepared to lose another partner. Rico's response, vague, is simply "I've been thinking about a lot of things."

Rico kills a man in Val's house and Val pulls a gun on him. Were they like this before Rafael died and Tubbs moved???

When confronted, Maggie cries and says she didn't expect to fall in love with Sonny. I do not for one second believe her; she is absolutely doing the "burst into tears in the principal's office" thing because she got caught and it's scary now.

When she says she's in Public Relations Sonny says "is that me? Like a public park? A public toilet?" Honey bunches you need so much therapy. You have the self-esteem of a moldy welcome mat.

Johnston, the evil old man who runs America, a) appears to actually be dead, and b) says Rico has $600 to his name. WHAT ARE YOU BUYING WITH YOUR SALARY, RICARDO. Because it's certainly not a house, given that you don't have one.

Rico responds to Johnston's threats with, frankly, impotent joking. He gets what's happening here-- says to the man that he knows he can just make "some call to an ivy league friend, and two Dade County cops become tin ducks." Sonny, on the other hand, responds as if he and Johnston are remotely in the same league of power-- threatens him, states that he's "patient" and will eventually figure out how to take him down. It's difficult for one man to be "patient" enough to dismantle capitalism, the drug trade, and the entire justice system; Sonny's insistence that with enough elbow grease he can is part of why he burns out so badly.

Sonny and Rico sit in silence in their hotel room after the meeting with Johnston and implication they are going to be murdered; in contrast to the finale, where they try (and mostly fail) to talk to each other about the danger and what this all means, here they simply cannot summon the words.

They are saved in the final shootout by Val coming in guns blazing, which raises a number of fascinating questions like "how did she know about this meeting"

Rico watches Sonny run after the helicopter and does not look at or make eye contact with Val as he somewhat emptily consoles her

Sonny shoots down a helicopter. It appears to be full of paper. I don't know.

OH the weird feet-rubbing shots in the final Rico and Val sex scene. I would argue that it's actually a fairly well-done and genuinely sexy scene up until that point, and then it's just like. Are you a pair of crickets? And then we get a shot of Val's like, dead-eyed stare into the distance as Rico is kissing her, and any remaining eroticism is drowned out back in a bucket of dingy water.

The Sonny/Rico Airport Meet Up is still literally the most romantic ending to anything ever, to the point that I'm always like "wait, there's another minute left in the episode?"

The last minute is in fact dedicated to reminding us that no one has brought up poor Gina since she was shot. She is in a sling and has an awkward exchange with Sonny in which she lends him a pencil and he picks up the phone and ignores her while Rico puts his hand around her like "oh baby don't go chasing the white boy again"

I am so sorry, Gina

Rico is right and you deserve someone who will not ignore you for a work phone call after not seeing you since you were SHOT

There's something to be said for the thematic resonance of ending on "Sonny casually dismisses his friends because he only cares about the job" but like. Maybe we could've just stopped at the airport

#miami vice #miami vice s2 #the prodigal son #s2e1 #sonny crockett #rico tubbs #s2e2 #my gifs #pam grier

16 notes · View notes

mlobsters · 6 months ago

Text

rewatching dune (1984) which i've seen a handful of times, fallen asleep during the desert scenes more than once, and have a fondness for but also haven't watched it in at least a decade. i want to watch the new movies but wanted to refresh my memory on this movie again first

something very brazil (1985) about this

talking giant brain creature has a vulva mouth, how could i forget

the shields and the slow knife live rent free in my head

let 👏 characters 👏 sweat👏

uh oh paul's gotta fight the spiky dick

paul's dad gave me willem dafoe double take

i think what was so effective for me in this movie was how memeable it was. i read the book and for some reason it was a slog for me, but that plus the movie really drilled these phrases into my daily thoughts. the sleeper must awaken, arrakis dune desert planet, fear is the mind killer, the spice must flow etc.

so i wonder if one of the main issues with this movie that people have is how much it relies on voiceover. i don't know about the complaints, just that it's generally not liked

👄

sweattty

"you are so beautiful, my baron. your skin, love to me. your diseases lovingly cared for, for all eternity." and they say romance is dead

i remember the heart plug pull vividly but the implied sexual assault while he's bleeding out by the baron, not so much. the gays are evil, guys

i feel like jessica and rachael from blade runner (1982) occupy the same place in my brain. another movie that put me to sleep a lot, with that afternoon sun and the smoke. knocks me right out

pulsating, then squirting for spacetime folding, got it 📝

is this not what hentai jizz looks like?

3 squirts and we made it to arrakis, dune, desert planet

i genuinely like how they do the shield effects

i had to go find clips of dean stockwell as al in quantum leap because i was so sure his voice was so much lower in that compared to this. and yes, it is! good job, brain

duke: "damn the spice!" *gasp*

you know, it's been a long ass time since i watched this. and the constant voiceover of characters voicing their thoughts is really getting heavy handed. show not tell, amirite 🤪 maybe it's because i know the story already, but for the most part i feel like the voiceover specifically to the character thoughts wasn't even explaining anything that wasn't already expressed in the scene anyway most of the time

the effects were nice having the sand blowing off, really helped give it scale

and now paul's gotta deal with the itty bitty flying dick of death!

so they make the bad guy fat with visible illness on his face, a murdering gay rapist and he wears nail polish. oh, and red hair. really hitting it out of the park

i think about this poison gas tooth thing on the regular

captain picard shouting "long live duke leto" while holding the pug and rushing into battle, i started cackling

womp womp with the poison tooth fail ;(

jack nance as nefud / bill smitrovich in life goes on (1989-1993)

i keep thinking he's the dad from life goes on

for whatever reason, the thumpers are what always captured my imagination. i think i just like the sounds.

paul: "Remember, walk without rhythm and we won't attract a worm. It will go to the thumper."

youtube

anyway, walk without rhythm and it won't attract the worm how did i not realize until this very moment that song was a reference to dune! haha. walk without rhythm is such a strange turn of phrase

tell me of your home world, usul!

also forgot the lusting after his nephew, sting. they really went all out making the harkonnens the most grotesque

baron: "A poison has been introduced into your body, Thufir Hawat. By milking this, this smooth little cat's body, you receive your antidote. It must be done each day."

i think this must be past the point when i usually fell asleep watching this. i know i've seen it all the way through more than once but apparently milking a cat???? didn't leave an impression. also this just never comes up again. but bro made it to the end of the movie so i guess he was successful in milking it

the truly unfortunate green screening is consistently the worst effect, a shame

reverend mother: "There is a place… terrifying to us, to women." paul: "This is the place they cannot look. Traveling without moving."

lol what. silly girls are afraid of teleportation 😔

pacing is all over the place. it was going okay but then paul's making out with chani, his sister is born and is like 8 years old now (heyo baby alicia witt), we gotta zoom through 2 years of war and boop boop now paul's drinking the blue water and going where no woman can go while they all bleed from their face parts

space cigarettes, no problem. but then they gotta go try to make this glowing golden thing and it's terrible

would be remiss to not include the dick shaped harkonnen ships but i ran out of images ;<

this big showdown with the emperor etc i am hanging on by a thread to not fall asleep/close :p truly lost the plot. way too much worm action, way too long of boring repetitive action sequences

using my image last slot for having the baby kill the baron/send him on his way to become a worm snack

LOL the pug is in this big fremen gathering! captain picard managed to survive and keep the dog alive! good god will this ever end. now we're gonna have the world's slowest knife fight with sting

and now it's raining somehow. sure

oh my god. that took forever. ok well, i can see why this movie has put me to sleep more than once and panned. and there's some really memorable and interesting things about it, and i think it goes fairly strong (with some issues like excessive voiceover) for the first 2/3 or so. but oof. i definitely liked it more 20 years ago :p anyway, i'm glad i watched it again so i could take off the rose tinted glasses before watching the new movies

#dune 1984 #rewatch #first time in a long time lol #fatboy slim #weapon of choice

12 notes · View notes

popentertainment-moviereviews · 2 months ago

Text

JOKER: FOLIE Á DEUX (2024)

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Harry Lawtey, Steve Coogan, Ken Leung, Bill Smitrovich, Jacob Lofland, Leigh Gill, Sharon Washington, Gattlin Griffith, Mac Brandt, Tim Dillon, George Carroll, Mike Houston, John Lacy, Sam Wren Vincent, Troy Metcalf, Jimmy Walker Jr., G.L. McQueary and Brian Donahue.

Screenplay by Scott Silver & Todd Phillips.

Directed by Todd Phillips.

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. 138 minutes. Rated R.

I know I’m kind of in the minority on this point, but I can’t even start to tell you how much I hated Todd Phillips’ 2019 movie Joker.

Five years later, here comes the follow-up, and it’s like Phillips said to himself: Hmm… how can we make this story even more annoying? I know! Let’s make it a musical. Better yet, let’s not even completely commit fully to the genre and make it sort of a stealth musical. The cast will start singing inappropriately, but mostly in a relatively subdued manner. None of the other trappings of the style – the dancing, the frenetic movement, the wild visuals, the boisterous chorus lines – need to be used. And we won’t even write our own music, we’ll just dust off some 60s and 70s pop songs and overly familiar standards from the Great American Songbook.

On the plus side, this time around, I don’t think I’ll be all that lonely in hating Joker: Folie à Deux. Because I really, really did hate it. If possible, this sequel is even more unbearable than the original. Imagine that.

I can’t imagine anyone actually liking Joker: Folie à Deux – then again, I felt that way about the first one, too, so maybe I’m not the best judge. Nonetheless, early buzz on the sequel seems pretty negative, so hopefully it’s not just me.

I take no joy in saying that. I actually was rather looking forward to the original Joker movie until I saw it. Because the truth is, Batman is a relatively dull superhero, but the one thing he always did have going for himself were the best villains. And a movie about arguably the most interesting of Batman’s villains could be amazing.

It’s just not this series.

At least the first Joker had something of a storyline. Granted, it was a pretty blatant rip-off of Martin Scorsese’s 1983 cult favorite The King of Comedy – they even cast that film’s star Robert De Niro in a major supporting role to make the connection even more obvious – but it was something of a plot.

Joker: Folie à Deux, on the other hand, is nearly two and a half hours (!!!) of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) being psychoanalyzed and mistreated in an insane asylum. (Like we didn’t know he was mentally deranged from the first time he appeared on screen in the first film.) Then it switches to being a courtroom drama about Arthur’s criminal trial for the mayhem he committed in the first film, although it plays out like an episode of Law & Order: Super Villains Unit.

While in the asylum, he meets his one true love, Lee Quinzel, who becomes Harley Quinn. (Of course, in the first Joker movie, Arthur imagined Zazie Beetz’ character – who reappears here as a witness for the prosecution – was his one true love, so Arthur isn’t too reliable in matters of the heart.) Lady Gaga is okay, if way too subdued, as the future Harley. She certainly won’t make anyone forget Margot Robbie’s powerhouse performances in the same role.

My biggest problem with Joker: Folie à Deux is the same as my problem with the first film. In both of these films, the Joker is played as a sad, pathetic, miserable loser who has life take a massive dump on him throughout the entire running time. Is this really supposed to be the guy who is going to be Batman’s greatest nemesis?

At least in the original film, Arthur eventually snapped and went on a violent killing spree, which was not a great, moral or relatable storyline, but at least he did something. In Folie à Deux, any violence or mayhem which he commits is mostly done in fantasy sequences, which just makes him seem even sadder and more impotent in real life.

After it was over, someone who apparently enjoyed the movie much more than I did tried to convince me that Folie à Deux is a movie that shows the depths a man will go to for love. However, his relationship with Lee is so dysfunctional, so toxic, so driven by mania, that it’s hard to root for a happy ever after for these two crazy kids. They – and the world – are probably better off with them separate. We know that is not the case from the comics, although the ending does put that in doubt.

As I said in the original review five years ago, Joker has been known to inspire many complicated emotional reactions. Pity has never really been one of them.

However, even more than I pitied the Joker in these two movies, I mostly pity myself because I have now wasted about four and a half hours of my life watching this sad saga.

Jay S. Jacobs

youtube

#joker: folie à deux #2024 #Movie Review #Joaquin Phoenix #Jay S. Jacobs #Youtube

3 notes · View notes