Friday Grab Bag

Just a few odds 'n' ends, no big whoop

We made it to another Friday, dear reader. Why not talk about some dorky crap?

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They remade The Crow, and I’m working through my feelings about it.

If you’re a nerd who remembers when the original premiered in 1994, you know how sad it was to watch an actor’s star-making performance that was also his last. Before this, Brandon Lee had done a handful of “wisecracking karate bro” roles, but there was nothing to indicate he could give such a harrowing, indelible performance. It was both a revelation and a eulogy.

It was all a bit silly — a spooky goth kung-fu Joker rises from the grave and mows down a parade of cartoonish thugs in rain-soaked alleys — but Lee proved that, while he didn’t have his father’s martial arts wizardry, he could genuinely act. He showed you a broken man’s pain, and he made you glad you weren’t the focus of his wrath.

After Lee’s death, Hollywood made a bunch of sequels I’ve never seen. It just didn’t feel right. That movie works because of Brandon Lee, and they exploited his death for a quick buck.

But it’s been almost 20 years since the last attempt, and over a decade since the thankfully scuttled Bradley Cooper remake. (Can you even imagine? Yuck!)

After all this time, is it possible somebody actually got it right again?

I haven’t been very impressed with Bill Skarsgard in the few roles I’ve seen him in, but he looks the part here. Clearly he hasn’t eaten a carb since the pandemic hit, and this role lets him focus on his greatest skill: glowering.

Plus, bad guys get shotgunned in the face. Yeah, okay, I’m in.

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In other movie news: Insane Australian stuntman Grant Page has passed away at the age of 85. If you know anything about him, you know he should’ve died decades ago.

Here’s why:

I learned about him from Not Quite Hollywood, a terrific documentary about the Australian film industry in the ‘70s and ‘80s. There were no rules, and it was just right.

Page seemed like a good bloke. That’s what they say down there, right? Bloke? Yeah, he was one of those.

This looks like a good flick, or at least a fun one:

And now I’ve got my weekend planned…

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If you’re stressed out about the election, now that it’s too late for either party to pick an acceptable candidate, you just need to relax. My friend Jarvis has the right idea:

It’s a win/win. No matter what happens, I will be swimming in schadenfreude. So I got that goin’ for me.

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TGIF (Tormund and Gareth Imbibe Ferociously), and thanks for reading.

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