Wilfred: It’s the final issue, and Molly and I are so glad you’ve joined us throughout the year! As a final get-to-know-you, we’re going to review and critique each other’s favourite movie.

CLUE

Molly: I discovered Clue in grade nine, back in the good ol’ days when it was on Netflix, and immediately fell in love. The movie is based on the board game, and tells the story of six people invited to dinner by a mysterious host. The host’s butler is played by Tim Curry, and he is in peak form.

If you know the board game, you know that somebody ends up murdered. Who did it, where, and with what? It doesn’t really matter because, keeping in line with the board game gimmick, there are three different endings. Each one feels like a big middle finger, since it relies on information about each character that’s never previously alluded to. Any evidence is useless, because each shot purposely hides the murderer’s identity. I suppose that’s the appeal of a whodunit mystery, but the endings are frustratingly unsatisfying after the tension that’s expertly built up. The fact that the murderer’s identity is different each time means that the characters are deliberately superficial.

Clue is a comedy, and its main draw is slapstick humour, which the cast (particularly Tim Curry) is excellent at. It’s well-executed and cheesy in the best way possible. Clue also loves a good sexual innuendo, though these are less subtle and slightly unwarranted. Despite a little anti-Communist patriotism and a gay character who could’ve been treated nicer, you’ve got good laughs for Clue’s 1985 audience.

Clue struck me of as a Scooby-Doo for adults: not terribly clever, and a lot less G-rated. All things considered, though, Clue sets a pretty high bar for childhood game-related movies, especially compared to cinematic swill like Super Mario Bros. and Battleship. It’s no Fargo, but it’s one of the better movies you can finish in just over 90 minutes.

I consider myself a comedy snob most of the time, but there was just something so fun and watchable about a cast of comedy greats being in a goofy board game movie. I know well enough that comedy is subjective, but I just want a favourite movie that makes me smile and that I can quote along with.

FROST/NIXON

As for me, I fell in love with Frost/Nixon after watching it on a plane, which is a testimony to how compelling the performance is. It tells the story behind the televised Nixon Interviews, during which President Nixon was questioned about his role in the Watergate scandal, and it’s one of the best historical dramas ever.

I’ve reached the conclusion that I don’t particularly like historical dramas. Frost/Nixon is by no means a bad movie. In fact, it’s objectively a very good movie, but there is nothing about actors recreating true events that doesn’t bore me.

This is not to say that everyone involved didn’t do a great job. The performances are fantastic, and Frank Langella is obviously great, but in a way, I was more impressed with Michael Sheen’s ability to go toe-to-toe with him in the interview scenes.

Ron Howard’s direction is what it always is, in my opinion: simple but not necessarily slick. And it works, Howard isn’t trying to be David Fincher or Paul Thomas Anderson, and this isn’t a film that is trying to demand that of him. Howard is relying on his actors and the compelling story to get him through. Not as an insult, but rather, because, in my mind, the purpose of a historical drama is to tell an interesting story that happened a few decades ago and give an old person a vehicle to an Oscar. I can’t fault it but I won’t seek it out, either.

That said, I am looking forward to the spiritual sequel to this about Trump’s phone calls with Maggie Haberman (I don’t care about the cast as long as John Goodman plays Bannon).

I’m admittedly a sucker for historical drama and sometimes life is crazier than fiction (especially when you take creative liberties)! A well-done historical drama is much more than Oscar-bait. I’ve enjoyed doing this column, but frankly, as your writing partner, I’m shocked that you have such a different opinion on the things that I know are good.

Frankly, as your writing partner, I can’t believe you don’t always agree that I’m right! That’s the last column from us, because doing this review has torn our friendship apart!

(Best of luck on exams and thanks for reading!)

Cover image courtesy of  Outside the Frame