The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 25 Round 2)

 

Two rounds down, eight to go. Here's The Roundup....

3. Soundtracks
This round actually had one, so I'm putting it in the top three. I like the Sherman Brothers music in The Young Heiress, although I didn't think it worked in a modern movie.

2. Collapse
Collapse was 2/3 of a great movie about dealing with loss. Ryan Gosling gave a great performance, but I did have some fairly big issues with the film that kept me from fully enjoying it.

1. Batgirl
I don't know what I was expecting from Batgirl, but this film certainly was better than what I was expecting. It was darker and more serious than I was expecting, that's for sure. Combining JJ Gordon and Hush into one villain worked great. While some comic fans may object to Hush appearing as a villain for anyone other than Batman, he isn't a big enough villain for a solo Batman film so using the role in combination with JJ Gordon was clever.

3. Collapse
On to my issues with Collapse, which mostly only take place in the 3rd act. Gosling's daughters randomly rooting through their aunt's iPad? Police sirens arriving at the end? Why? Gosling's one crime would be domestic violence, which anywhere in the US has at most a 6 year statute of limitation, but the events he confessed to Theroux's character seemingly happened over a decade earlier. I know Mo is Canadian, but I doubt you can be arrested for allegedly assaulting someone decades earlier who has died of unrelated reasons. Unless Mo is trying to suggest Gosling's character is responsible for his wife's death somehow? The ending raises more questions than answers and doesn't pass the logic test. Also, was anyone else completely annoyed by Theroux's character? I liked Collapse a lot up until these issues started popping up late in the film, but unfortunately these issues really took me out of the story.

2. The Young Heiress
With old timey songs and a long running time, did Jacob Jones really expect today's children to latch onto this one? 50 years ago, this one would have been good alongside Disney films like Pete's Dragon and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in today's marketplace.

1. Box Office
One out of three films making a profit isn't ideal.