Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind

A streaming review from The Movie Snob.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind (B).  Despite a bad concert experience some years ago (review here), I do love me some Gordon Lightfoot. This ninety-minute 2019 documentary about the Canadian singer-songwriter is not bad.  After an intro in which the elderly Lightfoot complains that he hates one of his early songs (because it’s about a love-them-and-leave-them jerk of a fellow), we start a more-or-less chronological look at his life, starting as a young man trying to break into the folk-music scene in 1960s Toronto.  There’s plenty of old footage of Lightfoot playing his songs, and other notable musicians like Glen Campbell and Peter, Paul, and Mary playing his songs too.  I must say, young Gordon Lightfoot looked quite a bit like Chris Pratt.  Lots of folks (mostly musicians but also Alec Baldwin (Rock of Ages), for some reason) appear for a few moments to say how great Lightfoot is or how much his music means to them.  Then there’s a short bit about when “If You Could Read My Mind” became a hit in the United States.  Then a bit of old footage of Lightfoot’s parents and his hometown of Orillia, Canada.  A bit about how he moved to Los Angeles at age 18 to go to music school.  A bit about his friendship with Bob Dylan.  A bit about his trouble with alcohol and his decision to quit cold turkey.  I wish the filmmakers had asked Lightfoot to reflect more on how he came to write some of his best songs, but there’s not much of that aside from “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Still, not a bad way to spend ninety minutes, if you like his music.

Rifftrax: Planet of Dinosaurs

A DVD review from The Movie Snob.

Rifftrax: Planet of Dinosaurs  (B).  I don’t know when I picked this DVD up, but I’m surprised to see on the internets that the Rifftrax boys issued it way back in 2009.  Anyhoo, the movie itself is a dull 1977 release featuring a bunch of hirsute yet hapless space travelers that get marooned on a prehistoric planet full of stop-motion dinosaurs.  The movie is padded out with endless scenes of the polyester-clad astronauts hiking through some rocky, arid wilderness, punctuated with the occasional dinosaur or large-spider attack.  The riffing is good, with lots of fun being poked at the facial hair, costumes, and general 1970s aesthetic of the film. The disc also features the original version of the movie without the comedic commentary, but I cannot imagine why anyone would watch it.  I certainly didn’t!

Despicable Me 2

A new review from The Movie Snob.

Despicable Me 2  (C).  I saw the first film in this franchise a long time ago and then recently rewatched it with the family. It was, just as I recalled, pretty good, with some scenes at the end that really tugged at the heartstrings. (Click here for my review.)  Then we watched this sequel from 2013.  I would say it’s mildly entertaining.  Former supervillain Gru (voice of Steve Carell, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) has gone straight, trying to raise the three orphaned girls he adopted in the first movie and working on a new business making jams and jellies.  But a new supervillain is on the loose, and the Anti Villain League taps Gru to help sleuth out who the new criminal mastermind is.  This requires Gru to go undercover as the proprietor of a cupcake shop at the local mall where the new supervillain is supposed to be hiding out.  And perky AVL agent Lucy Wilde (voice of Kristen Wiig, Paul) is assigned to be his partner in anti-crime.  Lots of stuff is going on in the background—oldest daughter Margo (voice of Miranda Cosgrove, School of Rock) has her first crush on a boy, minions are getting kidnaped, and Gru submits to going on a date with a pushy neighbor’s friend.  A few amusing moments here and there, but pretty mediocre overall.

The Sea Beast

From the desk of The Movie Snob.

The Sea Beast  (B-).  Here’s a newish animated fantasy from the good folks at Netflix, and it’s pretty good.  In this world (of roughly Napoleonic era technology), giant sea monsters are real, and heroic hunters set sail to hunt them down and keep the sea lanes and coastal towns safe from their depredations. And the greatest monster hunters of all are Captain Crow (voice of Jared Harris, TV’s The Crown) and the dauntless crew of his ship Inevitable.  While the Inevitable is in port, an orphaned girl named Maisie (voice of Zaris-Angel Hator, Morbius), the daughter of two hunters who went down with their ship, attaches herself to Captain Crow’s right-hand man Jacob Holland (voice of Karl Urban, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).  Then they’re off to hunt the greatest sea monster of all, the fabled red bluster.  But are the sea monsters really as wicked and bloodthirsty as the history books say?  There’s more than a whiff of How to Train Your Dragon about this movie, but it’s still a fun ride, with lots of authentic-seeming nautical jargon getting spouted left and right . . . I mean port and starboard.  I just wish they had excised the small handful of curse words that pop up here and there.