The Beekeeper is the best movie of the past 6 months
and "I HAVE the two tone!" (bit nsfw)
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Greetings Sternal Journalists,
I watched three movies this week. Or perhaps you could say two films and one movie. The films are films that many of me peers are watching and talking about right now: Poor Things and The Holdovers. The first an alternative take on the Barbie movie. The second a nostalgia bomb for people who went to or dreamt of going to an elite private school in the 70s. Both have the thing called Oscar buzz.
The movie. The movie, though, is called The Beekeeper. It stars Jason Statham. He plays a beekeeper. A man who actually keeps bees. Aids them in their quest to create honey.
But he is also a retired Beekeeper with a capital B. In the world of this more-outrageous-and-less-polished-John-Wickian action film, a “beekeeper” is a one man government agency whose sole job is to “protect the hive,” which at different points throughout the movie means entirely different things but for the most part means “make sure nobody does anything bad.” He’s a one-man marine squad who literally takes orders from nobody and can do whatever he wants.
In terms of governance, this is a nightmare. He’s not even on the org chart, he just kind of buzzes about it, making sure that everything is as it should be. Org chart of what, you ask? The US government? I think. But I’m not sure. The Beekeeper doesn’t care about that.
What it does care about, just as this retired beekeeper cares about, is justice and breaking the Guinness world record for most extended metaphor. So this beekeeper, who is a retired Beekeeper (in the film The Beekeeper), is just trying to live his quiet life keeping the bees. Unfortunately, in a turn that is as tragic as it is cinematically hasty, he finds out that a network of cyber scammers who are cheating the elderly out of their bank accounts, pensions, and anything else that can be accessed with a password.
He then uses his particular set of skills to destroy the means and occasionally the perpetrators of this scam via bullets, chains, gasoline, subterfuge, krav maga, and a really cool posing-as-a-secret-service-agent-gambit-which-I-think-is-worth-the-price-of-admission1.
I remember when I watched the movie Cradle to the Grave, I thought “they didn’t say cradle or grave ONCE. What was that about?” This is the opposite of that.
All of this is to say that Poor Things and The Holdovers will take home Oscars. They are better movies. But I did not have more fun in the theater this week then when I watched Jason Statham dispatch hordes of zillenials and a few special ops teams while all but 3 of the actors around him either phoned it in or did way too much, and the writing both phoned it in and did way too much.
And I hope I’m not turning into a dumbass in my ever-enveloping middle age, but I do want more people to see The Beekeeper so I can talk to them about it. I will absolutely go with you if you’re in LA.
Recommendations
Poor Things and The Holdovers. Films. They are really good. I do think I numbed my dopamine receptors by watching The Beekeeper earlier in the week because they both started a little slow to me, but still—both great.
If You Didn’t Want Me Then. Special. Beth Stelling is one of the “whose that again?” greats of comedy. This special is sharp and silly and I love that combination.
Sex Sells. Television Show. I’m making my TV debut this week. I will be on Sex Sells, which is a Fuse network show (“Fuse! It’s kinda real tv!”). It is, as the title implies, about sex businesses as well as sometimes sex adjacent stuff. I am part of a roundtable of men talking about penises generally and specific penises (our own). If that’s not something you want to see me do, don’t watch it. But if you do, I would say that I think the conversation was entertaining and educational and tender (and I’m only a little worried about how it’s all going to be edited). Here is the promo they shared with me:
If you can’t handle that, don’t watch it. The childlike sweetness with which I say “I- have- thetwotone” is gonna take a while for me to shake off. It airs Wednesday.
Homeless Count. Volunteer Opportunity. If you’re in LA, there are still plenty of locations to sign up at and a few spots left at mine in Mid City West! Hit me up if you have any Qs!
Alrighty! That’s all! Much love!
Julian
P.S. WAIT! I entirely forgot to update about the mental prison of healthy routines. Last week I wrote about how I’ve been consistently adding one week to my weekly running mileage for a couple months and how that was a really good thing for me, but that I then entirely shat the bed and took a week off (but that this was not shitting the bed, it was just actually taking care of myself and I hoped I would be able to get back to my routine this week instead of just never doing it again). Sure enough, I ran 20 miles this week. Not all the way back to where I was but very much in striking distance. All of life will likely be juggling activities and desires as they distract from each other, and I think I’m starting to enjoy that. Yay!
Unless this was lifted from another action movie which is entirely possible because I am quite cinema illiterate.
P.P.S. I am putting this image here because otherwise the post would have been blank, but also because “I HAVE the
