In Which I Briefly Review Movies

[909]

Ford v. Ferrari (2019), directed by James Mangold

One of my most anticipated movies throughout the year Ford v. Ferrari, and I realize when writing this sentence that I should probably list some of those in these reviews as time pans out. Maybe I will going forward and maybe I won't. Ford v. Ferrari is one of my favorite kinds of movies, this is a blockbuster made with the intent of creating a good film even though it's unlikely the film will turn a profit. Those are usually very good, and it's always surprising when they're made, like Ad Astra was. I anticipate that with Disney absorbing Fox this will happen much less often and that is not for the best. My greatest takeaway after seeing Ford v. Ferrari is that if you want to watch this, you definitely should do so in a theater where it is very loud. Another thing I was thinking is that we were able to put people in the air and send them to the Moon with such brutal technology, much less race cars. This is the kind of thing I consider when sitting in a theater watching 60s era cars go at super speed for a few hours. There are other films needed about technological achievement in this era, preferably with more race cars, but failing that pretty much anything will suffice. There are many ways in which Ford v. Ferrari could have been a screwed up film, but I didn't find it was. Even though there are many factual inconsistencies, this film is very careful to not paint the American instituion as a paragon of virtue. That, to me, pretty much makes the entire film work the way it needs to.

Ford v. Ferrari is a title that speaks for itself, but if you know nothing of the story, you may not know why the two manufacturers were ever in competition with each other. Read on if you would like to know how the film presents things. Things start with Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) in the process of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959, and subsequently kick over to the doctors office where it is explained he can no longer race because of a heart condition. Carroll Shelby did not leave racing because he could no longer drive, though. Instead, he became a constructor and pushed on in that field. We move forward a little bit to a race in the Mojave Desert, where the other lead in this film, Ken Miles (Christian Bale) is going to drive a car he's made on his own. He has brought his son Peter (Noah Jupe) to the track, his day job is at his garage and he lives with his wife Mollie (Caitriona Balfe). Of course, Shelby is there, and we get a taste of both their personalities and how they work in the context of the film. I don't recall if the film tells you that Miles was driving for Shelby or not, but in reality that's how things worked. Anyway, Miles doesn't have a good enough racing career to earn a living. He wins, but he isn't paid like a winner and his garage is seized by the IRS. He could use a good ride.

At the same time, Ford's sales have plummeted and they are in need of a jump. Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) is a VP at Ford, and he proposes to Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) that they need to conquer a younger audience. The way they should do this, he says, is to buy Ferrari because they are near bankruptcy. This is not a bad idea, because Ferrari is synonymous with world racing and sports cars. When Lee heads to Italy, this deal does not go very well. Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) is initially receptive, but Fiat offers him a better deal that allows Enzo to keep control of his racing team. Ford will not offer him such a deal. Enzo is the kind of figure there should be a biopic about as well. All he cared about was racing, and the sports cars were an avenue that allowed him to have money to race. So, Enzo accepts and says some very bad things about Ford, which leads to Henry saying that they need to build a car that will bury Ferrari at Le Mans. So, the journey begins, and Shelby has to team with Miles in order to get the Ford GT40 up to snuff. There are major issues though. The consistent bureaucracy that goes with making an American car? That's enough to drive someone crazy, but it seems that many of these concerns have been funneled into one character, Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas). This movie makes Beebe out to be a piece of shit.

I have to admit that I waited two days to write this review and that was a mistake because I did not leave any notes. What I was thinking is that the inaccuracies in the film are too much for me, even though I very much enjoyed the movie. The film presents the idea that Miles was left home in 1965 instead of going to Le Mans, which was not true. Regardless of things like that, the adversarial relationships in the movie really make this work. The constant push and pull is exactly how working with a large corporation like Ford really is. Nobody gets autonomy to do anything and a project like this is no exception. As far as this goes, Matt Damon puts in a good performance, but the real performance here is from Christian Bale and he felt like more of the lead. Certainly he must be considered more of the lead. The ending of the movie is very much not what I think people were expecting it to be, but that's another thing I found value in as the story feels much more real this way. The race scenes are positive in this way as well, they're all very strong and I was wondering how much money that part of the budget cost alone. There seemed to only be CGI in the crash scenes and every other piece of car action was done with actual cars. I could be wrong, but this stuff looked good.

I wish I had more to say, but because I waited to write this review I do not. I think there's a chance Ford v. Ferrari will be nominated for Best Picture, but I wouldn't go quite that far. The inaccuracies annoyed me too much, but I do think this is almost a great film. This is also a bit long even for my taste and I don't usually care about that kind of thing. Ultimately, hopefully this makes a decent amount of money and we get more risky high budget movies like this one. We probably won't, but I can hope!

8/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Farewell
6. The Lighthouse
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
12. Us
13. Ford v. Ferrari
14. Gloria Bell
15. The Beach Bum
16. The Art of Self-Defense
17. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
18. Arctic
19. Spider-Man: Far From Home
20. Rocketman
21. High Flying Bird
22. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
23. Paddleton
24. The Peanut Butter Falcon
25. Doctor Sleep
26. Hustlers
27. Blinded by the Light
28. Captain Marvel
29. Long Shot
30. Shazam
31. Ready or Not
32. A Vigilante
33. Late Night
34. Crawl
35. It: Chapter Two
36. Hotel Mumbai
37. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
38. Zombieland: Double Tap
39. Hobbs & Shaw
40. Official Secrets
41. Always Be My Maybe
42. Cold Pursuit
43. The Laundromat
44. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
45. Shaft
46. Happy Death Day 2U
47. Ma
48. Terminator: Dark Fate
49. Annabelle Comes Home
50. Greta
51. Aladdin
52. Triple Frontier
53. Fighting with My Family
54. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
55. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
56. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
57. Brexit
58. The Dirt
59. Velvet Buzzsaw
60. Stuber
61. Little
62. Alita: Battle Angel
63. The Current War: Director's Cut
64. The Kid
65. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
66. Good Boys
67. The Upside
68. The Lion King
69. The Dead Don't Die
70. Dumbo
71. The Hummingbird Project
72. Escape Room
73. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
74. Brian Banks
75. Tolkien
76. Captive State
77. The Highwaymen
78. Pet Sematary
79. The Intruder
80. Child's Play
81. Gemini Man
82. Brightburn
83. Black and Blue
84. Never Grow Old
85. Rambo: Last Blood
86. Angel Has Fallen
87. Yesterday
88. Anna
89. What Men Want
90. Them That Follow
91. Unicorn Store
92. The Curse of La Llorona
93. Miss Bala
94. Men in Black: International
95. The Red Sea Diving Resort
96. The Perfection
97. Hellboy
98. Glass
99. Dark Phoenix
100. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
101. The Kitchen
102. The Hustle
103. The Best of Enemies
104. The Prodigy
105. Polar
106. Serenity

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Saw it tonight. Got my father to a movie theater, which never happens, and this DELIVERED. Goddamn, what a straight-up love letter to the automobile and the now mythologized era of the 1960s. I was marking out for 2 1/2 hours at the mere sight of the *background* cars, much less the racers which gained beauty with accumulating grime.

 

[909]

Midway (2019), directed by Roland Emmerich

Did you ever want to see a World War II movie directed by the man who brought you Independence Day: Resurgence? If so, this is made just for you! I was initially thinking that I would absolutely never watch this movie, but one of the reasons I did is because this almost certainly meets my standards for a budget size that demands I inevitably view this film. Midway is at the same time not great while also not anywhere near as awful as I thought it was going to be. Knowing the director, if you know him as well, you know exactly how bad this movie can actually be. I did find some mild amusement here in addition to the film itself. In this movie you have a character from Alita: Battle Angel who killed another character from that movie, who is now the mentor of the character that they killed. I did laugh at this as soon as I noticed it. Honestly, I don't know what a person could expect from a movie like this other than exactly what they got. It could be Pearl Harbor, which I think is one of the worst films ever made, but it isn't quite that. Instead it's a campy World War II movie that feels like it was made in a time before 9/11, a time before people became more cynical and had anti-war feelings burned into them the way that I have had them burned into myself. This is a return to a time when characters in these movies all had terrible dialogue, to a time before Dunkirk. What I'm trying to say is that this is not inventive or any attempt at all for a talented person to direct a film.

This not being inventive, and being very much like campy war movies of the past, you have a lot of roles that should be played by recognizable actors because it is difficult to associate everyone with their historical character. You really need to shove a lot of A-listers into this movie. Instead, because this is Roland Emmerich and not Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan , you can't. With some exceptions, of course. The main hero of the Battle of Midway, as this film plays it, is Lt. Dick Best (Ed Skrein). Lt. Best was a dive bomber pilot who sunk one Japanese aircraft carrier and damaged another at Midway, the film intends to show you the maturation of this person and how they got to Midway. There's also LCDR. Edwin Layton (Patrick Wilson), an intelligence officer who is dispatched to Tokyo many years prior to the war so that we can also meet Tamon Yamaguchi (Tadanobu Asano), a rear admiral with the Japanese fleet. The point of meeting Yamaguchi is, well, I genuinely cannot figure this out. Anyway, let's continue. I should probably have mentioned earlier that LCDR. Wade McClusky (Luke Evans) is Best's superior, so of course he's in the movie too. Lastly, as far as this group of pilots goes, you have Eugene Lindsey (Darren Criss) and AD. Bruno Gaido (Nick Jonas). You just have to watch this fucking movie because I don't even know what to tell you. All of these people besides Layton are assigned to the USS Enterprise, and their admiral is Bull Halsey (Dennis Quaid).

Now I am beginning to decipher a point to this madness as I write things out, but I'm not done yet. The film does do a good job of putting all their pieces in a few specific places, but there are other scenes that don't fit in the movie at all. Let's go with Jimmy Doolittle's (Aaron Eckhart) raid. I assume that a lot of people know about the Doolittle Raid, yes? The government wanted an attack on Tokyo, and the Enterprise was tasked with escorting the USS Hornet, which had these planes on it. This mission was a failure because of what it led to, as after the raid the Japanese took reprisal on Chinese citizens for hiding Doolittle. The reason this is in the movie at all is because Midway was almost entirely financed by Chinese interests. This, however, is the only scene pertaining to what has become a forgotten ally. I don't know if they're forgotten because they were stomped or because people just don't care. The last cast member I need to bring up is Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson), who was brought to command after Pearl Harbor. I suppose that, as they say, is that. If you want to know the rest, read a history book.

A history book is probably needed in order to decipher the narrative of this movie, which presents some serious problems. There are also issues with the look of each character that makes it difficult to tell who is who. Nick Jonas, Darren Criss, and Keean Johnson all played similar characters in similar roles while these guys all look somewhat alike. You can't and shouldn't make a movie that way. Midway is the kind of movie that has good action, but you can't say that it's a good movie or that it features good performances. On the subject of that action, the CGI is acceptable, it's more how things are framed that makes it into good action. We have finally found something that a bad director like Emmerich is pretty good at. Allowing his lead to do a bad New Jersey accent, on the other hand, is not so good. I will also say this, that Midway is actually faithful to history and isn't a movie where people go around making shit up. The dialogue just sucks and the director cannot create a good drama out of these events.

Midway is a rather mindless movie, so I've said just about all that needs to be said, but I was also surprised that the Japanese sailors were treated with some sort of humanity. That is the lone exception to what I said about this being a pre-9/11 movie, which is good as I'd have absolutely shit on this movie otherwise.

5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Farewell
6. The Lighthouse
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
12. Us
13. Ford v. Ferrari
14. Gloria Bell
15. The Beach Bum
16. The Art of Self-Defense
17. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
18. Arctic
19. Spider-Man: Far From Home
20. Rocketman
21. High Flying Bird
22. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
23. Paddleton
24. The Peanut Butter Falcon
25. Doctor Sleep
26. Hustlers
27. Blinded by the Light
28. Captain Marvel
29. Long Shot
30. Shazam
31. Ready or Not
32. A Vigilante
33. Late Night
34. Crawl
35. It: Chapter Two
36. Hotel Mumbai
37. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
38. Zombieland: Double Tap
39. Hobbs & Shaw
40. Official Secrets
41. Always Be My Maybe
42. Cold Pursuit
43. The Laundromat
44. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
45. Shaft
46. Happy Death Day 2U
47. Ma
48. Terminator: Dark Fate
49. Annabelle Comes Home
50. Greta
51. Aladdin
52. Triple Frontier
53. Fighting with My Family
54. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
55. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
56. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
57. Brexit
58. The Dirt
59. Velvet Buzzsaw
60. Stuber
61. Little
62. Alita: Battle Angel
63. The Current War: Director's Cut
64. The Kid
65. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
66. Good Boys
67. The Upside
68. The Lion King
69. The Dead Don't Die
70. Dumbo
71. The Hummingbird Project
72. Escape Room
73. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
74. Brian Banks
75. Tolkien
76. Captive State
77. The Highwaymen
78. Pet Sematary
79. The Intruder
80. Child's Play
81. Gemini Man
82. Brightburn
83. Black and Blue
84. Never Grow Old
85. Rambo: Last Blood
86. Midway
87. Angel Has Fallen
88. Yesterday
89. Anna
90. What Men Want
91. Them That Follow
92. Unicorn Store
93. The Curse of La Llorona
94. Miss Bala
95. Men in Black: International
96. The Red Sea Diving Resort
97. The Perfection
98. Hellboy
99. Glass
100. Dark Phoenix
101. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
102. The Kitchen
103. The Hustle
104. The Best of Enemies
105. The Prodigy
106. Polar
107. Serenity

 

[909]

Harriet (2019), directed by Kasi Lemmons

I did not know until around an hour or so before going to see Harriet that there was a boycott issue surrounding the film. You know, if you have nothing nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, and that's exactly what I have to say about that. It seems like a lot of this shit is driven by astroturfing as an attempt to hold back projects made by certain kinds of people who those in the world feel should not be making movies. I do not know why people get off on tearing each other down. I digress. Anyway, I was thinking that it's about damn time someone made a movie about Harriet Tubman. I didn't know why it didn't happen before, but it comes out today that a studio head wanted to make a Harriet Tubman movie in the 1990s with Julia Roberts playing Harriet Tubman. So, this all now comes into clarity and makes absolutely perfect sense. I do think this is a script that has some issues, but at the same time I think the movie properly captures the spirit of Harriet Tubman and gets the most important things correct. Of course, I will eventually talk about the more baffling things in this movie, but a lot of them are related to the filmmakers wanting Harriet to be a PG-13 movie. Of course the film has to be commercially viable in some sense, and the rating allows that to be the case, but I think it's unfortunate that something so arbitrary has such a large impact on the content of a film. It may not surprise you if you've seen the trailer, but this is also a film that someone like Harriet Tubman deserves, shot like one of the best of the year. What about the rest though?

Harriet is of course based on the life of Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo), but before she was Harriet Tubman, she was a slave named Minty who lived in Maryland. The film introduces us to Minty with her laying in a field having visions in her mind. Since she was beaten by her captors, she believes she has visions of the future that are messages from God. After this scene, her husband John (Zackary Momoh) arrives at the plantation. John is a free man who has good news, he has gotten a letter from a lawyer that proves Harriet's mother Rit (Vanessa Bell Calloway) is supposed to be a free woman. They decide to talk to Mr. Brodess, the plantation owner, and he has some epithets for them and tells them he doesn't care about the letter. His son Gideon (Joe Alwyn) is pretty much the same as him. He heard Minty praying after this incident, and she had said she wished God would strike his father dead. Oddly enough, his father is dead shortly after that, and the stupid idiot is quite pissed off. This leads to him saying that Minty should be sold down the river, away from her family and husband. That's not something Minty wants to have happen, so she's going to run.

First, John talks to her and wants to help her run, but this will not do. She says that if he's caught helping her, he'll lose his own freedom, so she leaves without him. Her father Ben (Clarke Peters) is a free man who works in a nearby town. He directs her to what would become the Underground Railroad, to a preacher named Reverend Green (Vondie Curtis-Hall) who preaches hellfire and brimstone for runaway slaves. The man does not practice what he preaches. Of course, Gideon eventually catches up to Minty, who is left with a dangerous choice. She can jump into a river even though she cannot swim, or she can go back to live on the plantation. Clearly she would jump in the river. Everyone believes she died, but it turns out that she did not. Instead she travels to Philadelphia alone and meets with William Still, an abolitionist. I think everyone knows about Harriet Tubman even though they don't know all the details, right? One thing's for sure though, this woman is not going to stop trying to go back to get her family. Doesn't matter what the risk to herself is.

Now I suppose I do need to get into the boycott of this movie as my criticism is directly related to it. I have an issue with some of the invented characters in this movie, namely the black slave hunter. I know that black slave hunters existed, but I don't think the director did a good enough job of making clear why there were black slave hunters. Instead this character isn't well rounded in any sense at all and is like a caricature. The director also said that they nearly removed the character from the film and I think they should have followed their first instinct. The crowning achievement of this film is of course that there's finally a movie about Harriet Tubman, but secondly it's Cynthia Erivo's performance as Tubman. I also think this movie does not have enough scenes where she liberates slaves from the pieces of shit they were forced to be with, but I suppose in this case we have to take what we can get. Ultimately, this film does capture the spirit of Harriet Tubman and that's what matters most, but there's extreme creative license taken here that I'm not sure was my favorite thing in the world. However, it seemed that most of the other people in the theater liked that stuff.

One thing I was thinking as I watched this movie was that it was similar to last year's movie about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex. These movies were both distributed by Focus Features, and they were good movies about interesting subjects that left me feeling like they could have been so much more. I probably shouldn't be complaining like this about this movie, because I thought it was good, but where's the John Brown scenes? I am also, as an aside, wondering how a movie like this is pitched to the white actors in it and how they feel about the language they have to use. Because, you know, I don't know how to think about that and need some help with it. Anyway, there are plenty of very strong scenes here and you really feel Harriet's ties to her family and how important every person was to her.

7/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Farewell
6. The Lighthouse
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
12. Us
13. Ford v. Ferrari
14. Gloria Bell
15. The Beach Bum
16. The Art of Self-Defense
17. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
18. Arctic
19. Spider-Man: Far From Home
20. Rocketman
21. High Flying Bird
22. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
23. Paddleton
24. The Peanut Butter Falcon
25. Doctor Sleep
26. Hustlers
27. Blinded by the Light
28. Captain Marvel
29. Long Shot
30. Shazam
31. Ready or Not
32. A Vigilante
33. Late Night
34. Crawl
35. It: Chapter Two
36. Hotel Mumbai
37. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
38. Zombieland: Double Tap
39. Harriet
40. Hobbs & Shaw
41. Official Secrets
42. Always Be My Maybe
43. Cold Pursuit
44. The Laundromat
45. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
46. Shaft
47. Happy Death Day 2U
48. Ma
49. Terminator: Dark Fate
50. Annabelle Comes Home
51. Greta
52. Aladdin
53. Triple Frontier
54. Fighting with My Family
55. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
56. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
57. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
58. Brexit
59. The Dirt
60. Velvet Buzzsaw
61. Stuber
62. Little
63. Alita: Battle Angel
64. The Current War: Director's Cut
65. The Kid
66. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
67. Good Boys
68. The Upside
69. The Lion King
70. The Dead Don't Die
71. Dumbo
72. The Hummingbird Project
73. Escape Room
74. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
75. Brian Banks
76. Tolkien
77. Captive State
78. The Highwaymen
79. Pet Sematary
80. The Intruder
81. Child's Play
82. Gemini Man
83. Brightburn
84. Black and Blue
85. Never Grow Old
86. Rambo: Last Blood
87. Midway
88. Angel Has Fallen
89. Yesterday
90. Anna
91. What Men Want
92. Them That Follow
93. Unicorn Store
94. The Curse of La Llorona
95. Miss Bala
96. Men in Black: International
97. The Red Sea Diving Resort
98. The Perfection
99. Hellboy
100. Glass
101. Dark Phoenix
102. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
103. The Kitchen
104. The Hustle
105. The Best of Enemies
106. The Prodigy
107. Polar
108. Serenity

 

[909]

Hotel Artemis (2018), directed by Drew Pearce

I have been meaning to watch Hotel Artemis for a long time, and after doing so I found myself so unbelievably bored that I can hardly put a review together. I'll try my best. What I was thinking while watching the film was that it was completely derivative of a John Wick movie, perhaps more than any other made to this day. What's really crazy is that there was no other way to really look at this film and it's impossible to see it differently from where I sit. There's also the fact that a fair amount of critics really liked Hotel Artemis. I cannot explain why, I don't have any real answer. The visuals are okay, I guess. The film also presents a lot of interesting ideas, almost all of which are ripped off of a John Wick movie, with the exception of some science-fiction medical techniques. I also, I'm afraid to say, do not find Charlie Day remotely amusing in this context. It's fair to say that the film was boring enough that I don't know how to make it better, but this is also a very short film and needs something that Hotel Artemis just doesn't have. The story is not what I would have wanted in a movie like this, and I don't understand what enticed Jodie Foster to return from a very long hiatus for this.

Hotel Artemis is a film set in 2028, in a version of Los Angeles currently suffering from a riot over water privatization, but much like everything else in the story, this doesn't go anywhere. During this riot, Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) decides that he and his brother Lev (Brian Tyree Henry) should go rob a bank. In the process of doing so, they steal a very nice looking pen, but while escaping Lev is wounded very badly. At the same time, Jean Thomas (Jodie Foster) is opening up the Hotel Artemis for the night. This place is a secret hospital that only treats criminals, and she goes by "the Nurse" for some reason I can't figure out. I guess criminals shouldn't have names. This becomes an issue for me throughout the film. Anyway, this hotel has rules. Nobody is allowed to bring in weapons, only a few people may enter with a patient at any given time, only members are allowed, and killing other guests is not allowed.

At this point I suppose it is time to introduce the other patients. When Sherman and Lev are admitted, we meet Everest (Batista), who is the Nurse's assistant. Makes sense that she would need muscle as an assistant. When people are assigned to a room, they are given the name of those rooms. Lev becomes Honolulu, and he is going to be given a 3D printed liver should the machine work well for him. Of course, Sherman goes around touring the rest of the hotel, at which point we are introduced to Acapulco (Charlie Day), a very loud and very stupid arms dealer. There's also Nice (Sofia Boutella), an international assassin who has apparently checked into many of these sorts of hospitals. Surprisingly, that's it. Nice is also old friends with Sherman. As the events of the night play out, the Nurse is notified that "The Wolf King" is headed to the hotel. I didn't know who was playing this guy, so I was surprised at the end result. Anyway, he's the biggest mobster in Los Angeles, and he also owns Hotel Artemis. What's more is that there's a cop that the Nurse knows, and she has found the hotel and is seeking aid. Thing is, cops aren't allowed, so there's going to be an issue going forward.

To say this film is a jumbled mess is an understatement. My rating is largely going to be based on the quality of the cast and their attempts to elevate horrible material despite Charlie Day's attempts to bring it down. I've largely said everything I was going to say about the story, but I will say that my mom liked this movie and she likes everything. So, at the very least, no doubt Hotel Artemis won over that group. This is a movie where someone throws a lot of ideas out there and never decides to deliver on any except one. The lack of true resolution is also not one of my favorite things in the world. There's one thing heavily in the favor of this movie besides the cast, and it's a science-fiction movie that actually delivers with the idea that people can benefit from enhancements like 3D printed organs. That's not so unrealistic that you can't believe at all that this could possibly happen. I will also say that this movie was better in the first half before Pearce failed to deliver on all these ideas, but the most egregious idea not followed up on is the water privatization riot. You can tell that this was a film made on a budget, so I suppose it is what it is. It is very boring and I do not recommend this.

5/10

2018 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Roma
2. A Star Is Born
3. First Reformed
4. The Favourite
5. Widows
6. First Man
7. BlacKkKlansman
8. Blindspotting
9. Leave No Trace
10. Black Panther
11. If Beale Street Could Talk
12. The Sisters Brothers
13. A Private War
14. Avengers: Infinity War
15. Stan & Ollie
16. Green Book
17. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
18. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
19. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
20. On My Skin
21. Private Life
22. Climax
23. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
24. Mid90s
25. Eighth Grade
26. Sorry to Bother You
27. Suspiria
28. Vice
29. The Old Man & the Gun
30. Vox Lux
31. Bad Times at the El Royale
32. The Other Side of the Wind
33. Searching
34. A Simple Favor
35. The Hate U Give
36. Unsane
37. Disobedience
38. Boy Erased
39. Bumblebee
40. Mary Poppins Returns
41. Creed II
42. Hold the Dark
43. The Land of Steady Habits
44. Halloween
45. Ant-Man and the Wasp
46. Blockers
47. Beirut
48. Roxanne Roxanne
49. Tully
50. Mary Queen of Scots
51. Aquaman
52. Ideal Home
53. Outlaw King
54. Overlord
55. Ready Player One
56. Ben Is Back
57. Monsters and Men
58. The Mule
59. On the Basis of Sex
60. Bohemian Rhapsody
61. White Boy Rick
62. Papillon
63. Game Night
64. Sicario 2: Day of the Soldado
65. Ocean's Eight
66. Alpha
67. Come Sunday
68. Instant Family
69. The Front Runner
70. The Predator
71. Apostle
72. Uncle Drew
73. The Cured
74. The Commuter
75. The Angel
76. Tag
77. Beautiful Boy
78. The Nun
79. Operation Finale
80. The Equalizer 2
81. The Spy Who Dumped Me
82. Cargo
83. Yardie
84. Bird Box
85. 12 Strong
86. Venom
87. Skyscraper
88. The Meg
89. Assassination Nation
90. Backstabbing for Beginners
91. The Girl in the Spider's Web
92. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
93. 22 July
94. Tomb Raider
95. Rampage
96. Hotel Artemis
97. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
98. The Little Stranger
99. 7 Days in Entebbe
100. Night School
101. The 15:17 To Paris
102. Peppermint
103. Mile 22
104. The First Purge
105. Hunter Killer
106. The Hurricane Heist
107. The Cloverfield Paradox
108. Breaking In
109. Mute
110. Kin
111. Hell Fest
112. Proud Mary
113. Robin Hood
114. Traffik
115. Winchester
116. The Happytime Murders
117. The Outsider
118. Slender Man

 

[Hawk 34]

I didn’t read the review but I hope you talked about how Jodie Foster emotionally bullied Batista during the filming to the point Batista almost quit.

 

[909]

I didn’t read the review but I hope you talked about how Jodie Foster emotionally bullied Batista during the filming to the point Batista almost quit.

I didn't and WTF

 

[909]

Jojo Rabbit (2019), directed by Taika Waititi

About thirty minutes into Jojo Rabbit, I realized I was going to be the person who liked this movie way less than everyone else who seems to have absolutely enjoyed themselves. Jojo Rabbit isn't a movie I hate, and it is a movie I like, but I need to explain myself. When Taika Waititi's Nazi satire was announced, I was curious to see how this would work and if it was possible for all the satirical elements to land the way I felt they needed to. Obviously, judging from my above sentences, I believe they did not. I also believe there's an issue with the things that people are laughing at. Full out guffawing at anti-semitism is totally inappropriate and in the process validates what some people believe about Jojo Rabbit in the first place, that it is a movie which should not have been made. It is a good thing that there is more to this movie than its comedy, as I strongly feel Jojo Rabbit would be complete, misguided garbage if the satire here was all it had. The jokes in this film aren't successful enough at lampooning the hatred consistent with Nazism, and because they aren't, there's an issue with how that all plays out in context. I feel like a movie such as this needs to absolutely scorch the ideas presented here. It does not.

Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a young boy who seemingly lives in Berlin during World War II. Like most boys of the time, this kid is part of the Hitler Youth. Let me backtrack a bit. Jojo lives with his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), who doesn't seem to be the biggest fan of the war effort. His father is supposedly serving in Italy, but it is clear he is not, and Jojo's sister Inge has recently died of the flu. Jojo has also been brainwashed by the time, like so many other children who do not know better. His best friend is an imaginary one, that of Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi). This Hitler, however, has the thoughts of a child because these are Jojo's thoughts. Anyway, Jojo is supposed to go to a Hitler Youth training camp, which they do and which we find out is run by a Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell). His assistant is a man named Finkel (Alfie Allen), and another of the instructors is Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson). This camp is pretty much a playground where children are indoctrinated by stupid ideas, but there's a bit more to it than that.

Anyway, as the film plays out at the camp, Jojo is ordered to kill a rabbit by older Hitler Youth members. He cannot do that because he isn't completely sick of mind, that being said, it is not inherently sick of mind to kill a rabbit as long as you're going to eat it. That's not what they were going to do anyway. After the older boy kills the rabbit, Jojo is subsequently called Jojo Rabbit and that explains the title of the movie. Hitler is needed to pump Jojo up, so he runs and throws a grenade without permission to do so, which explodes in his face after it bounces off a tree. When he gets home, he has scars on his face and has a harder time walking. Klenzendorf is demoted, but Rosie comes around to tell him to make sure to include her son in their activities. This all made sense to me later. Jojo doesn't feel so included, so he spends much more time at home. While there, he hears a noise and discovers Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish girl who used to know his sister. What is this young Nazi going to do? Is this why Rosie foisted her son off to the Hitler Youth camp? You can watch the movie if you want to know, of course.

The earnest nature of the child is where this movie actually has value, because he doesn't know better than to think these stupid things. I do think that this movie is effective as a deprogramming study, but I have to go back to what I said about people laughing at this movie. There were people laughing at the most pernicious parts of it, and that's what makes me very uncertain as to whether or not this should even have been made. The lack of emotional maturity in audiences is something I knew existed, but a movie with this kind of humor brought it out of people like I'd never seen before. The only scenes that didn't have someone laughing were the scenes where people had been hung for being traitors to the state. That is literally it. I think this also may have ruined my own ability to judge the film fairly. Usually when I go watch a movie I'm able to pay little attention to what other people are doing, but it's very hard to handle some of the laughter here. Yes, the movie is satirical, and maybe it is the point for people to laugh, but people are laughing at the wrong shit here.

What I would say is that this is a good movie, and that's largely because of the impact that the Jojo and Elsa characters have more than anything else. The short version of my review is that the light humor here fucking sucks, but the realism of the situation absolutely does not. Of course I think the overall point of this film is a salient one. It is that we live in times where people easily become indoctrinated by bullshit. It shows that hatred is born from not knowing the people that one harbors blind hatred of. Of course, I think this is the kind of concept that should have gone all the fucking way with bringing modernity into the fray. Of course, nobody is going to do that because they don't want to alienate consumers. Without the guy laughing at all the Jew jokes in this movie, you'd never be able to turn a profit. Perhaps we should consider that as another fault of society. I do not think it is the fault of the movie that someone is genuinely laughing at those jokes because it is made clear that those jokes are wrong. The thing is that there are too many of them in general. Much of the other material lands and if you want to know what it is, beyond what I've written down, again you have to watch the movie. One other thing I will say is that Jojo Rabbit is very effective in displaying how these kinds of societies are able to indoctrinate people. The film, it also should be remembered, is from the perspective and life of a 10 year old. I liked this, to a point. It is just difficult for me to reconcile that with idiots laughing.

7.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Farewell
6. The Lighthouse
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
12. Us
13. Ford v. Ferrari
14. Gloria Bell
15. The Beach Bum
16. The Art of Self-Defense
17. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
18. Arctic
19. Spider-Man: Far From Home
20. Rocketman
21. High Flying Bird
22. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
23. Paddleton
24. The Peanut Butter Falcon
25. Doctor Sleep
26. Hustlers
27. Blinded by the Light
28. Captain Marvel
29. Jojo Rabbit
30. Long Shot
31. Shazam
32. Ready or Not
33. A Vigilante
34. Late Night
35. Crawl
36. It: Chapter Two
37. Hotel Mumbai
38. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
39. Zombieland: Double Tap
40. Harriet
41. Hobbs & Shaw
42. Official Secrets
43. Always Be My Maybe
44. Cold Pursuit
45. The Laundromat
46. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
47. Shaft
48. Happy Death Day 2U
49. Ma
50. Terminator: Dark Fate
51. Annabelle Comes Home
52. Greta
53. Aladdin
54. Triple Frontier
55. Fighting with My Family
56. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
57. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
58. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
59. Brexit
60. The Dirt
61. Velvet Buzzsaw
62. Stuber
63. Little
64. Alita: Battle Angel
65. The Current War: Director's Cut
66. The Kid
67. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
68. Good Boys
69. The Upside
70. The Lion King
71. The Dead Don't Die
72. Dumbo
73. The Hummingbird Project
74. Escape Room
75. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
76. Brian Banks
77. Tolkien
78. Captive State
79. The Highwaymen
80. Pet Sematary
81. The Intruder
82. Child's Play
83. Gemini Man
84. Brightburn
85. Black and Blue
86. Never Grow Old
87. Rambo: Last Blood
88. Midway
89. Angel Has Fallen
90. Yesterday
91. Anna
92. What Men Want
93. Them That Follow
94. Unicorn Store
95. The Curse of La Llorona
96. Miss Bala
97. Men in Black: International
98. The Red Sea Diving Resort
99. The Perfection
100. Hellboy
101. Glass
102. Dark Phoenix
103. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
104. The Kitchen
105. The Hustle
106. The Best of Enemies
107. The Prodigy
108. Polar
109. Serenity

 

[909]

The Good Liar (2019), directed by Bill Condon

When I first saw the preview for The Good Liar, I was curious as to how it would be possible for this film to make money. I was proven right in the end as it did not, and this movie is also headed out of a lot of theaters, so it never will. What I will say in this opening paragraph is both that I didn't expect the film to be about this specific subject as it was entirely left out of the trailer, but I knew exactly where The Good Liar was going as things were coming to the closing events. This is often a major issue for a movie like this one, where the viewer is relied upon to retain a lot of information. In this case, it is so obvious where the movie is going at the end, yet some of the events are surprising enough on the way there. This movie also strongly tests how far one can go at the box office with only two recognizable actors. Being in Downton Abbey, as one of them was, is not quite enough for this viewer. Regardless of what I just said, this is also a plot that isn't very reliant on other actors and entirely rests on their stars. The other fact is that old people just don't go to the movies anymore, and because of that, studios can't rely on older actors to bail them out. Despite whatever I may say from here on out, The Good Liar is a fun movie and that should be kept in mind.

The Good Liar has a rather simple plot, or at least it's simple until you learn things about one of the characters. Roy (Ian McKellen) is a con man who has been doing this for many, many years. At the start of the film, he and Betty (Helen Mirren) set up dates with one another as their spouses have died and they both need companionship. However, rather quickly you learn that Roy does not need companionship and is looking for something else entirely. His target, such as she may be, is Betty. First, we have another issue and we get to see how Roy works. With the help of a business partner named Vincent (Jim Carter) and some other associates, Roy is able to swindle two businessmen out of £100,000 each. Of course, this does not leave the businessmen broke, but swindled they have been and they were tricked into believing that Roy and Vincent were arrested. This is clearly someone who knows what they're doing, and as evidenced by a scene at a butcher shop (not what it sounds like), he is rather evil (also not what it sounds like) as well. Being capable in these sorts of cons leads to someone having an extreme amount of confidence.

Betty, such as she is, has a grandson, Steven (Russell Tovey). This is pertinent because Steven is always hanging around, drives her around, and for that matter drives Roy around as well. The reason Steven drives Roy around is because Roy has made a sham of the whole situation. He believes that Betty has around the same amount of money already swindled from the businessmen in her own possession. Betty taught at Oxford and lost her husband a year ago, she also lives in a nice neighborhood and the windfall is such that Roy believes there's a decent amount for the taking. The issue is that Betty suffers from minor strokes, so Roy really needs to get a move on with it. He's gotten his way into staying at her house because he has presented the fiction that he cannot climb up a flight of stairs to get into his own flat, and the next step is to introduce her to Vincent, who plays as an accountant. Maybe he is an accountant. In any case, people like Roy weave a lot of webs out there. The one this man has woven for himself is patently ridiciulous, yet I did find it fun to a point anyway.

The point, such as it is, is something that I found rather tasteless yet cannot spoil. The twist at the end is very predictable and I've probably already given it away on accident, but I did get some satisfaction out of it because of how tasteless the scene prior to that was. The Good Liar is a movie with two great older actors but the movie they're in simply doesn't measure up to their talents. That isn't the case for the majority of the film even though there are things here that are too obvious, but in the end, that's the feeling I'm left with. The Good Liar is also the very definition of an averagely made film. The music is just there, the cinematography is just there, and that's also the case with the locations used in both London and Berlin. There are some positives here beyond what I've already said, but the flashbacks just absolutely kill the pace of the movie. Meanwhile, when you see a very old person kill someone, it is as jarring as I assume the filmmakers wanted it to be. Unfortunately this movie is not befitting of Mirren and McKellen's talents, but these are the scripts that older actors get.

6/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Farewell
6. The Lighthouse
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
12. Us
13. Ford v. Ferrari
14. Gloria Bell
15. The Beach Bum
16. The Art of Self-Defense
17. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
18. Arctic
19. Spider-Man: Far From Home
20. Rocketman
21. High Flying Bird
22. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
23. Paddleton
24. The Peanut Butter Falcon
25. Doctor Sleep
26. Hustlers
27. Blinded by the Light
28. Captain Marvel
29. Jojo Rabbit
30. Long Shot
31. Shazam
32. Ready or Not
33. A Vigilante
34. Late Night
35. Crawl
36. It: Chapter Two
37. Hotel Mumbai
38. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
39. Zombieland: Double Tap
40. Harriet
41. Hobbs & Shaw
42. Official Secrets
43. Always Be My Maybe
44. Cold Pursuit
45. The Laundromat
46. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
47. Shaft
48. Happy Death Day 2U
49. Ma
50. Terminator: Dark Fate
51. Annabelle Comes Home
52. Greta
53. Aladdin
54. Triple Frontier
55. Fighting with My Family
56. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
57. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
58. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
59. Brexit
60. The Dirt
61. Velvet Buzzsaw
62. Stuber
63. Little
64. Alita: Battle Angel
65. The Good Liar
66. The Current War: Director's Cut
67. The Kid
68. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
69. Good Boys
70. The Upside
71. The Lion King
72. Dumbo
73. The Hummingbird Project
74. Escape Room
75. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
76. Brian Banks
77. Tolkien
78. The Dead Don't Die
79. Captive State
80. The Highwaymen
81. Pet Sematary
82. The Intruder
83. Child's Play
84. Gemini Man
85. Brightburn
86. Black and Blue
87. Never Grow Old
88. Rambo: Last Blood
89. Midway
90. Angel Has Fallen
91. Yesterday
92. Anna
93. What Men Want
94. Them That Follow
95. Unicorn Store
96. The Curse of La Llorona
97. Miss Bala
98. Men in Black: International
99. The Red Sea Diving Resort
100. The Perfection
101. Hellboy
102. Glass
103. Dark Phoenix
104. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
105. The Kitchen
106. The Hustle
107. The Best of Enemies
108. The Prodigy
109. Polar
110. Serenity

 

[909]

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), directed by Marielle Heller

I'm sure that many people have already said this, but when I was a kid there were two daily staples of my childhood. There was one other, but I did not watch this every day. As with most kids our age, I watched Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. You don't realize this until you're older, but even if you don't remember watching shows like that, these are the kinds of things that form your mind and develop your ability to process things properly. Or, at least, they should be if you have good parents who didn't traumatize their kids. I'm not saying that these shows are essential to learning how to do shit, what I'm saying is that these shows are specifically geared towards aspects of education. Sesame Street was a show that specialized in ensuring that children were prepared to go to school. That the show was funny was part of it, it being amusing ensured that children kept watching, so on and so forth. But, this is about Mr. Rogers and I'm getting distracted thinking about how formulative PBS used to be. I don't know if it is now. Watching Mr. Rogers was like being at school for those who didn't have pre-school. The lessons that you learned were ones you remembered even if you cannot remember that Mr. Rogers was the one who told you those things. His reinforcement also helped our parents, so on and so forth. But how do you make a movie about that?

The answer to that question is that you make Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks) a supporting character in his own movie. This is a bold decision because I get the feeling that almost everyone in the theater was there to see Mr. Rogers at all times. Instead, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood kicks off with the opening of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Again, this is rather bold because a generic biography film would milk that moment as long as possible. Also, a generic biography about Mr. Rogers would not be good. Instead, during this episode, he begins to talk about a friend, Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys). Lloyd is a fictional creation, but he is based on another journalist that Rogers became friends with. As he's introduced, we flash back to why he's on Rogers' picture board. Lloyd writes for Esquire and has recently won a national award. He lives at home with his wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) and their infant son Gavin, and they seem to be a bit happy. It turns out that Lloyd has heavily compartmentalized his life in order to make things that way. Plans change. He has been invited to his sister Lorraine's (Tammy Blanchard) wedding. There is no way to get out of it, and to make matters the absolute worst, his father Jerry (Chris Cooper) is going to be there.

Jerry is a father, yes, but he's not a good one and as a result Lloyd is estranged from him. I don't think I'm going to give any details about that. When they get to the wedding, it's only a matter of time before things combust, which opens the window to the entire rest of the film. Lloyd is sent by his editor to Pittsburgh, the intent is to interview Rogers for a very short story about heroes, which will be part of a greater piece about American heroes. A puff piece. I should also note that Lloyd is an investigative reporter who thinks Mr. Rogers' show is hokey. So, he plainly does not want to do this, but Andrea encourages him to do so and he does. During the interview, Lloyd naturally asks more pressing questions than Rogers is willing to answer on a first meeting. He also begins to ask Lloyd some personal questions, but they're very hard to answer. The thing is, what's wrong with Lloyd? What did his dad do, and why won't he talk to him? Someone like Mr. Rogers, with the kind of image he has, is the kind of person that can usually coax answers out of people, but that isn't quite the case with Lloyd. Yet.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is the kind of movie that very much lacks in cynicism, which is different because nobody makes movies like that anymore. The point is to make a movie in the image of Mr. Rogers and if you don't accept that, it's a certainty that you will not enjoy this movie. What I was thinking as I was watching this, is that this is a film largely reliant on the director to overcome what could have been a weak script. I have read before that many people looked at the original script and didn't care much for it, so A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood sat on the shelf for five years before production was started on the movie. This is also not Heller's first biopic. Her first was a strong film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and I'm having difficulty deciding which of these movies I liked more. I need to rewatch that, but in all likelihood that means I'm going to give them the same rating. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is built on the strength of directing, with lots of neat choices and interesting decisions that I was surprised to see in a movie like this one. You aren't exactly expecting surreal dream sequences in a PG rated movie about Mr. Rogers. That's what you get here though.

Of course, the two actors (Rhys and Hanks) are the most perfect people to be playing their respective roles. Hanks doesn't sound exactly like Mr. Rogers in sound, but certainly in spirit and with the anecdotes chosen for this portrayal to relay on screen. Of course, because this movie does capture the spirit of Mr. Rogers, the conclusion is rather predictable. When the ride is this good, you just don't care. The recreation of the sets from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is absolutely incredible. I believe I also said this about the sets on Heller's last film. They are damn good. Quality production design is a very big deal to me. When I see it, I feel compelled to say something. This kind of movie usually isn't rewarded because they are usually recreating something that has already existed, and it's possible to copy that because everyone has video tape of it. I should also note A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, features a lot of moments that brought a lot of people in my theater to tears. It's not specifically because of the nostalgia related to what Rogers does, either.

I realized in the process of writing this how much I actually liked the movie, as I'm having a hard time coming up with real negative points. Hopefully this movie can break out and be a box office success of some sort. Old people are also fairly slow going to the theater and this movie is definitely not for people who didn't watch Mr. Rogers when they were kids.

8/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. The Farewell
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
12. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
13. Us
14. Ford v. Ferrari
15. Gloria Bell
16. The Beach Bum
17. The Art of Self-Defense
18. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
19. Arctic
20. Spider-Man: Far From Home
21. Rocketman
22. High Flying Bird
23. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
24. Paddleton
25. The Peanut Butter Falcon
26. Doctor Sleep
27. Hustlers
28. Blinded by the Light
29. Captain Marvel
30. Jojo Rabbit
31. Long Shot
32. Shazam
33. Ready or Not
34. A Vigilante
35. Late Night
36. Crawl
37. It: Chapter Two
38. Hotel Mumbai
39. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
40. Zombieland: Double Tap
41. Harriet
42. Hobbs & Shaw
43. Official Secrets
44. Always Be My Maybe
45. Cold Pursuit
46. The Laundromat
47. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
48. Shaft
49. Happy Death Day 2U
50. Ma
51. Terminator: Dark Fate
52. Annabelle Comes Home
53. Greta
54. Aladdin
55. Triple Frontier
56. Fighting with My Family
57. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
58. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
59. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
60. Brexit
61. The Dirt
62. Velvet Buzzsaw
63. Stuber
64. Little
65. Alita: Battle Angel
66. The Good Liar
67. The Current War: Director's Cut
68. The Kid
69. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
70. Good Boys
71. The Upside
72. The Lion King
73. Dumbo
74. The Hummingbird Project
75. Escape Room
76. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
77. Brian Banks
78. Tolkien
79. The Dead Don't Die
80. Captive State
81. The Highwaymen
82. Pet Sematary
83. The Intruder
84. Child's Play
85. Gemini Man
86. Brightburn
87. Black and Blue
88. Never Grow Old
89. Rambo: Last Blood
90. Midway
91. Angel Has Fallen
92. Yesterday
93. Anna
94. What Men Want
95. Them That Follow
96. Unicorn Store
97. The Curse of La Llorona
98. Miss Bala
99. Men in Black: International
100. The Red Sea Diving Resort
101. The Perfection
102. Hellboy
103. Glass
104. Dark Phoenix
105. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
106. The Kitchen
107. The Hustle
108. The Best of Enemies
109. The Prodigy
110. Polar
111. Serenity

 

[KOAB]

Man they need to do a movie with someone who I grew up on and taught me the real ways of the world like Maury Popovich.

 

[909]

21 Bridges (2019), directed by Brian Kirk

I really didn't want to be the guy to say this, but I haven't seen anyone post about 21 Bridges yet. This feels like Chadwick Boseman was stepping up to do a standard role that Denzel Washington would do. You'd have to watch this movie to see why, but you can probably tell from the trailer. Anyway, my first reaction after going to see this was that 21 Bridges is a movie that's too short and as a result too predictable. I did decide to read a review before watching this though, and saw that someone from the New York Post had said this was one of the worst depictions of New York City in history. I suppose there's a good reason for that, too. This was filmed in Philadelphia. I know what you're probably thinking right now, and it's laughable that a movie wouldn't just film in New York City, but those are the breaks. I think the release of Black and Blue and how utterly absurd that was allows 21 Bridges to look a bit better in the light of day, as far as cop movies go. There are so many other ways in which this could have been a better movie though. This plot is so generic, and Boseman is given the most cliched lines that you could possibly imagine. On some level I find this very endearing and wanted to like the film. At the same time, everything is extremely rushed and that leads to confusion that we do not need.

21 Bridges starts with a police funeral, with a young Andre Davis there as his father sits in a closed casket. We move forward some years with Andre (Chadwick Boseman) now a detective himself with the NYPD. Andre has 8 bodies on him, all of which were legal shootings, all of which he was comfortable with doing. He is now in front of internal affairs because they don't understand how one cop can kill so many people. Of course, with the focus on a cop killing people, we know exactly where this film is going. Michael (Stephan James) and Ray (Taylor Kitsch) are criminals who went over to Afghanistan with the military. They are very, very trained. They take a job to steal some cocaine from a winery in Brooklyn. Some cocaine has apparently turned into 300 kilos of cocaine. This is far, far more than they were expecting to rob. Police officers have also showed up in the middle of the robbery. For some reason this film doesn't present matters as what they obviously become by the conclusion of the film.

After police officers show up, it's a natural assumption that someone called the cops, but Michael and especially Ray have no intention of going quietly. Ray is a rather violent sort and decides that he's going to get his way out of the store regardless of what has to be done. This doesn't make Michael happy, but he didn't want to go to jail forever either. It is what it is, and the two cop murderers flee to Manhattan with the coke so they can sell it. Of course, Andre is going to be assigned to this case otherwise we would never have seen him. Andre has a reputation of killing cop killers and that's why he's shot so many people, but he's not a big fan of this reputation. He also needs a partner for tonight, and Captain McKenna (J.K. Simmons) assigns him a partner from Narcotics, Detective Burns (Sienna Miller). If you can't see what's coming from here, you are totally stupid. Anyway, the two detectives come into contact with an FBI Agent and someone from the Mayor's office, both of whom want the case transferred to the FBI. But, because it's the middle of the night and all, Andre is able to come up with a suggestion that suits everyone. Maybe they should just close Manhattan down and concentrate the manhunt there.

21 Bridges proves to be a rather generic cop movie with issues that are rather inherent in a lot of generic cop movies. The first and most noticeable critcism I have is that the gunmen should have immediately been aware they were being set up when the police knocked on the window. They're trained, they're smart, but apparently not smart enough to know that. This also would have provided reasoning for the film to focus so much on the shooters, to round out their characters and make their actions slightly more justifiable, but a generic police movie isn't going to provide anything like that. There are other issues as well. The film is called 21 Bridges and there's a big deal made of shutting the island down, but at no point do Michael and Ray attempt to escape Manhattan. In addition, the "twist" is entirely too predictable, and if you watch this and don't realize it, you're pretty stupid. I do find it interesting that Sienna Miller was entirely removed from the marketing as far as I could see. Impossible to remove her from the movie, but this also would have been better if Boseman was going at this by himself.

The movie just isn't good enough to stand on its own, and it's also a lazy effort in that no consideration is given to what would happen if Manhattan was actually shut down like this. No random shots of civilians, nobody getting angry. Absolutely nothing.

5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. The Farewell
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Toy Story 4
10. Joker
11. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
12. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
13. Us
14. Ford v. Ferrari
15. Gloria Bell
16. The Beach Bum
17. The Art of Self-Defense
18. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
19. Arctic
20. Spider-Man: Far From Home
21. Rocketman
22. High Flying Bird
23. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
24. Paddleton
25. The Peanut Butter Falcon
26. Doctor Sleep
27. Hustlers
28. Blinded by the Light
29. Captain Marvel
30. Jojo Rabbit
31. Long Shot
32. Shazam
33. Ready or Not
34. A Vigilante
35. Late Night
36. Crawl
37. It: Chapter Two
38. Hotel Mumbai
39. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
40. Zombieland: Double Tap
41. Harriet
42. Hobbs & Shaw
43. Official Secrets
44. Always Be My Maybe
45. Cold Pursuit
46. The Laundromat
47. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
48. Shaft
49. Happy Death Day 2U
50. Ma
51. Terminator: Dark Fate
52. Annabelle Comes Home
53. Greta
54. Aladdin
55. Triple Frontier
56. Fighting with My Family
57. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
58. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
59. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
60. Brexit
61. The Dirt
62. Velvet Buzzsaw
63. Stuber
64. Little
65. Alita: Battle Angel
66. The Good Liar
67. The Current War: Director's Cut
68. The Kid
69. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
70. Good Boys
71. The Upside
72. The Lion King
73. Dumbo
74. The Hummingbird Project
75. Escape Room
76. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
77. Brian Banks
78. Tolkien
79. The Dead Don't Die
80. Captive State
81. The Highwaymen
82. Pet Sematary
83. The Intruder
84. Child's Play
85. 21 Bridges
86. Gemini Man
87. Brightburn
88. Never Grow Old
89. Rambo: Last Blood
90. Midway
91. Angel Has Fallen
92. Black and Blue
93. Yesterday
94. Anna
95. What Men Want
96. Them That Follow
97. Unicorn Store
98. The Curse of La Llorona
99. Miss Bala
100. Men in Black: International
101. The Red Sea Diving Resort
102. The Perfection
103. Hellboy
104. Glass
105. Dark Phoenix
106. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
107. The Kitchen
108. The Hustle
109. The Best of Enemies
110. The Prodigy
111. Polar
112. Serenity

 

[909]

Queen & Slim (2019), directed by Melina Matsoukas

2019 is finishing with many "very highly anticipated" movies on my end, and Queen & Slim was certainly one of those movies. There's also 1917, Uncut Gems, A Hidden Life, Waves, and last but not least Star Wars: Episode IX. The last alone would be enough for me, and I neglected to mention some movies that were already released on Netflix, but this could be considered a very stacked year. Trust me, I'm working on knocking all those out. Anyway, Queen & Slim is a movie that I thought I was going to compare to If Beale Street Could Talk, and it turned out that the films are comparable to one another. It turns out that Queen & Slim has already nearly equaled the box office of Barry Jenkins' masterpiece, and I wish I could say that I'm surprised, but I'm not. A film about a Bonnie and Clyde story is naturally going to draw more people into the theater than a trailer that was very unclear in showing what kind of movie If Beale Street Could Talk actually was. But, I think it wouldn't matter because of the story of the two films. If Beale Street Could Talk is a better film, and that's going to be something I consider throughout this review although I don't intend to bring it up again. Queen & Slim obviously has hit a nerve and with good reason because the most important things in the plot would play out exactly as they did in the film.

Queen & Slim is a movie that I would consider to be very strong until it begins to reach its conclusion, at which point I found it to be merely a strong film. Queen & Slim begins in a Cleveland diner, where Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) is having dinner with her Tinder date, Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). This date is not going all that well. Slim works in retail and Queen is a defense attorney, and she had a bad day at work. One of her clients was sentenced to the death penalty, and she has a discussion with Slim during which she says that the state shouldn't have the right to take the life of her client. After this very lackluster date, it is time for everyone to go home. First, Slim decides to check for maps, and Queen takes away his phone. He swerves while grabbing it away, and a dickhead cop decides that's something to pull him over for. He probably would have done that anyway. The traffic cop, suffice it to say, does not go well. I won't give all the details because all the details don't matter. The facts are that Queen gets out of the car because Slim's rights are being violated, because the cop pulls a gun on him for no reason. When she says that she's going to record the incident, the police officer shoots her. Slim tackles the pig so that he does not kill his date, which leads to him also getting the police officer's gun and shooting the pig before the same happens to him. Now it's time for them to run.

It isn't my intent to be short, but the movie is set up so well and so quickly that I see no purpose in making a second introductory paragraph. It needs to be pointed out that at no point does anyone call these characters Queen or Slim. This is supposed to be a tag like Bonnie and Clyde, but they have real names and you find those out when you need to. I think the way the film turns out is rather appropriate, with the characters dying the way that they need to in order to be celebrated the way that people are celebrated in death. I took it upon myself to look up some of what Lena Waithe (screenwriter) said about her script, and I agree with and posted her opinion of the situation. Of course, I am a white guy, so you can take some of my critiques for what they are. I do think this is a strong movie, but I feel that scenes near the end meandered a bit. One coming to mind is the scene where they're driving with their heads hanging out of the windows. I get what this scene represents, but I saw two groups leave during this one. So, there's an anecdote.

I also found that the sex scene was very poorly placed in this movie and should have been its own moment. The cuts back and forth between that and the police riot were very bad. I also think that the riot scene mentioned here was not a very good scene at all. I do fully understand why these scenes were juxtaposed with each other. You have pleasure and pain on the screen one moment after the next. The riot, however, very much hurts the strong themes of this movie. Now, there's another movie this year that featured a large riot and that's Joker. The overall takeaway from both riot scenes is the same from my perspective. You have people in Joker that took the Joker's message to the extreme having been inspired by him to do dumbass things. But in Queen & Slim, you have a kid deciding to shoot a black officer in a moment of anger based on falsely perceived messages from people who did something in self-defense. I'm not sure the message that people needed from Queen & Slim is what can be derived from the riot. On the other hand you could take that scene as being one where youth need to be taught the proper message. Anyway, I don't like it and that's how I feel about that scene.

The rest of Queen & Slim, on the other hand, I thought was great. I'm able to make the decision to pretend that the riot scene never happened because I thought the rest of the movie hit pretty hard. It is usually something I do to point out what I thought didn't work, but now I need to talk about what did. First of all, there's three great performances here. Obviously, there's the leads that I already mentioned. I am very much struggling to think of a better performance from an actress (that I saw) this year. Awards voters are weird as fuck though and I expect nothing. Bokeem Woodbine would be that third performance, but if you looked at the cast list you probably expect that. His character brings complexity to this movie that is very much appreciated. I am also struggling to think of many movies this year that do so well at staying true to their plot from point A to point B. There are some great movies that didn't have any real plot, where they're great (better than this) but you can't see where the story was going. Queen & Slim on the other hand, it's easy to see where this is going and the ride is good despite the ending being so inevitably bittersweet and frustrating. It was frustrating enough that I heard some dude smacking the wall next to his seat at the end of the film.

I know that I said I wouldn't mention If Beale Street Could Talk again, but Queen & Slim is very evocative of that and I just can't help but do so. It is a very good thing for a film to evoke those thoughts, but ultimately Queen & Slim is not the same level of masterpiece. I can't call a movie a masterpiece when I think a moment in a film is unwarranted to the extent of the kid shooting the officer. The thing is that the filmmakers do a very good job of making the characters relatable to all the people who could go see that movie. Queen & Slim is also stronger in its first half, one of the best half movies of the year for certain. The look and feel of this movie is so right too. There are some other things I'm thinking about as I write this, but I think I have to cut myself off before I spend all night talking about this movie. There's definitely a lot here to digest.

I'm trying to keep my ratings down because I know I was previously overrating a lot of stuff, but as the movie came to its conclusion I was also thinking about how last year's Best Picture featured two people driving a green car through the South. I was also thinking about how I gave that movie too high a rating and that I shouldn't do that again. Then, I was thinking about what that movie made me feel in comparison to this one. Did I ever really care about Viggo Mortensen's character? No. Did I care about these characters? Yes. Is Green Book more amusing? Yes, but only just. The conclusion, however, did not leave me with any sort of feeling at all. That is something I feel I can judge a movie by, and Queen & Slim left me with that feeling. Regardless of my complaints (which are mostly about one scene I can't stop droning on and on about), the film is bookended by a great beginning and excellent conclusion.

8.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. The Farewell
7. Booksmart
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. Queen & Slim
10. Toy Story 4
11. Joker
12. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
13. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
14. Us
15. Ford v. Ferrari
16. Gloria Bell
17. The Beach Bum
18. The Art of Self-Defense
19. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
20. Arctic
21. Spider-Man: Far From Home
22. Rocketman
23. High Flying Bird
24. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
25. Paddleton
26. The Peanut Butter Falcon
27. Doctor Sleep
28. Hustlers
29. Blinded by the Light
30. Captain Marvel
31. Jojo Rabbit
32. Long Shot
33. Shazam
34. Ready or Not
35. A Vigilante
36. Late Night
37. Crawl
38. It: Chapter Two
39. Hotel Mumbai
40. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
41. Zombieland: Double Tap
42. Harriet
43. Hobbs & Shaw
44. Official Secrets
45. Always Be My Maybe
46. Cold Pursuit
47. The Laundromat
48. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
49. Shaft
50. Happy Death Day 2U
51. Ma
52. Terminator: Dark Fate
53. Annabelle Comes Home
54. Greta
55. Aladdin
56. Triple Frontier
57. Fighting with My Family
58. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
59. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
60. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
61. Brexit
62. The Dirt
63. Velvet Buzzsaw
64. Stuber
65. Little
66. Alita: Battle Angel
67. The Good Liar
68. The Current War: Director's Cut
69. The Kid
70. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
71. Good Boys
72. The Upside
73. The Lion King
74. Dumbo
75. The Hummingbird Project
76. Escape Room
77. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
78. Brian Banks
79. Tolkien
80. The Dead Don't Die
81. Captive State
82. The Highwaymen
83. Pet Sematary
84. The Intruder
85. Child's Play
86. 21 Bridges
87. Gemini Man
88. Brightburn
89. Never Grow Old
90. Rambo: Last Blood
91. Midway
92. Angel Has Fallen
93. Black and Blue
94. Yesterday
95. Anna
96. What Men Want
97. Them That Follow
98. Unicorn Store
99. The Curse of La Llorona
100. Miss Bala
101. Men in Black: International
102. The Red Sea Diving Resort
103. The Perfection
104. Hellboy
105. Glass
106. Dark Phoenix
107. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
108. The Kitchen
109. The Hustle
110. The Best of Enemies
111. The Prodigy
112. Polar
113. Serenity

 

[909]

Knives Out (2019), directed by Rian Johnson

Time and circumstance meant that I had to delay this review for longer than I had initially wanted, but last night I went to see Knives Out. I realized almost immediately that I should not have waited so long. A very vocal group was very pissed about Johnson's last movie and I'm sure everyone has their reasons why they think those people were mad, or in some cases they agree with them. Knives Out is the kind of movie that decides to take a bit of a piece out of a large portion of those people who were mad at his Star Wars movie. I also have a shameful admission here and it's that I've never bothered to watch Clue. So, any similarities or ripoffs or improvements or unimprovements are completely lost on me. Maybe that's part of why I liked this movie so much. On the other hand, it seems like a lot of people really loved this movie and judging by the reactions in my screening I wasn't the only audience member who did. What we have here is a movie with a strong mystery where everything at the end of the film is wrapped up rather logically. In the last twenty minutes prior to the great explanation, everything becomes more clear, enough at least that you should be able to understand what happened before the character goes into that explanation. Now, with that being the case, usually I would have a problem with a movie that has an obvious mystery. The thing is that the explanation is one of the best I've heard delivery of, cementing Daniel Craig's character as one of the best in this genre.

I don't even know how to start this review, but I guess I'll try. Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is a very wealthy man as a result of being the Stephen King of crime-mystery novels. He intends to invite his family to his mansion for his 85th birthday, which has passed at the time this movie takes place. The morning after the party, Harlan's housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) discovers that Harlan has presumably slit his throat and killed himself. With this being the case, an investigation is launched. I should also note that Harlan has a nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas). Subsequently we are introduced to a large group of family members. Harlan had a fair few children, not all of whom are still living. The eldest is Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), a real estate mogul who started her own business at the behest of her father, who wanted the children to be independent the way he was. Harlan built this himself and believes everyone should have done the same. Richard (Don Johnson) is Linda's husband, he supports her company but doesn't have any part in it. They have a son, Hugh (Chris Evans), and he's a spoiled trust fund piece of shit. Walt (Michael Shannon) is the youngest and only surviving son, who runs the publishing company. He has a son of his own, Jacob (Jaeden Martell). Jacob is an alt-right troll who can't keep himself off the internet. Joni (Toni Collette) is the wife of Harlan's deceased son, and she is an influencer of the funniest kind. In addition, Harlan gives her a large allowance because his son died and pays for the tuition of his granddaughter, Meg (Katherine Langford). Harlan also has a living mother (K Callan), old as she is. She doesn't talk.

Now that I've introduced all the family members, I can get to the nuts and bolts of this thing. They are questioned by a detective named Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield), a state trooper named Wagner (Noah Segan), and last but most definitely not least, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Blanc is a private detective of great renown, but he largely sits in the background at the start of this thing before revealing why he's there in the first place. It is, however, rather obvious that foul play is suspected. Why though? The suicide is rather clear as the blood spatter was uninterrupted. The rest simply does not make sense though. We are shown flashbacks to encounters that everyone had with Harlan over the course of his birthday party. It turns out that people have not been telling the truth about Harlan's last day on this planet. What's more is that they do all have the same story about the last time they saw Harlan. So, if you want to know what's going on here, you need to hit up the movie theater or Wikipedia. Because I'm not going to tell. Blanc is going to get to the truth of this, though. No matter what it takes.

I don't know what else I can say to sell someone on Knives Out other than that it's absolutely hilarious. Daniel Craig is probably the biggest factor in this element, and that isn't surprising if you've seen Logan Lucky. I think this kind of character is Craig's real element, not playing James Bond. He'd be the only one who could tell you that, though. Not only is Knives Out a funny movie, everything makes sense and ties together in great fashion. I've been more and more into spoiling plot elements over the course of this year, but this is a mystery and I don't really want to do that. The film is excellently cast and there are so many moments in it that would make any reasonable person laugh, this is also a film that has such a good group of suspects who could conceivably have played a part in the death of their patriarch. Even when you know what happened, and inevitably you will, there's still much more to come. It's hard to single anyone out other than Craig, particularly when everyone is so excellently fit into the movie.

In the end, you can single someone out other than Craig even though they don't appear in the movie. Rian Johnson is really good at these mystery movies, and even moreso at introducing the proper element to make everything tick. There are so many ways in which this could have been wrong and absolutely none of them happened. I will also say that part of what makes this movie so good is that it meets the expectations that the cast and trailer would lead you to believe the movie actually is. There's not much more to say. This was fun.

9/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. The Farewell
7. Knives Out
8. Booksmart
9. Avengers: Endgame
10. Queen & Slim
11. Toy Story 4
12. Joker
13. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
14. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
15. Us
16. Ford v. Ferrari
17. Gloria Bell
18. The Beach Bum
19. The Art of Self-Defense
20. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
21. Arctic
22. Spider-Man: Far From Home
23. Rocketman
24. High Flying Bird
25. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
26. Paddleton
27. The Peanut Butter Falcon
28. Doctor Sleep
29. Hustlers
30. Blinded by the Light
31. Captain Marvel
32. Jojo Rabbit
33. Long Shot
34. Shazam
35. Ready or Not
36. A Vigilante
37. Late Night
38. Crawl
39. It: Chapter Two
40. Hotel Mumbai
41. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
42. Zombieland: Double Tap
43. Harriet
44. Hobbs & Shaw
45. Official Secrets
46. Always Be My Maybe
47. Cold Pursuit
48. The Laundromat
49. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
50. Shaft
51. Happy Death Day 2U
52. Ma
53. Terminator: Dark Fate
54. Annabelle Comes Home
55. Greta
56. Aladdin
57. Triple Frontier
58. Fighting with My Family
59. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
60. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
61. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
62. Brexit
63. The Dirt
64. Velvet Buzzsaw
65. Stuber
66. Little
67. Alita: Battle Angel
68. The Good Liar
69. The Current War: Director's Cut
70. The Kid
71. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
72. Good Boys
73. The Upside
74. The Lion King
75. Dumbo
76. The Hummingbird Project
77. Escape Room
78. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
79. Brian Banks
80. Tolkien
81. The Dead Don't Die
82. Captive State
83. The Highwaymen
84. Pet Sematary
85. The Intruder
86. Child's Play
87. 21 Bridges
88. Gemini Man
89. Brightburn
90. Never Grow Old
91. Rambo: Last Blood
92. Midway
93. Angel Has Fallen
94. Black and Blue
95. Yesterday
96. Anna
97. What Men Want
98. Them That Follow
99. Unicorn Store
100. The Curse of La Llorona
101. Miss Bala
102. Men in Black: International
103. The Red Sea Diving Resort
104. The Perfection
105. Hellboy
106. Glass
107. Dark Phoenix
108. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
109. The Kitchen
110. The Hustle
111. The Best of Enemies
112. The Prodigy
113. Polar
114. Serenity

 

[909]

Honey Boy (2019), directed by Alma Har'el

There is one aspect of Honey Boy that I immediately found interesting as I was typing out the first line and the director's name. It is that this is the second movie I've watched in a week directed by a female making her narrative feature debut. I am not sure how to put together my thoughts on this specific subject other than that in the case of Honey Boy I could genuinely not tell the difference. I think that's a good thing too. The point when you start judging films based solely on that the way some people do is a bit of a problem. Anyway, Honey Boy. This is certainly one of the smallest budgets for any movie I've seen this year, coming in at around $3.5 million. You can certainly tell in the way this is filmed, the choice of scenes, and in pretty much every way in general. I think Honey Boy also has one of the smallest casts this year. I decided to watch a little video on YouTube about this movie because I found myself needing a little more background in order to craft a full review out of this. The film is very short, but it features one particularly great acting performance, in a year full of many great acting performances. I need to try to get around to everything before awards nominations, but I know that isn't going to happen. This kind of movie that's drawn from someone's personal experiences carries a fair bit of power because you know these things actually happened. There's release that certainly comes across through the subject material, but the question I found myself asking was how much cinematic merit Honey Boy has. The answer is that there's a fair bit. The movie is also very funny, to a point.

Honey Boy takes place in two years, in 1995 and 2005 centered around one person. First, we should talk about 2005. Otis (Lucas Hedges) has been an actor for a long time, and his story is based on Shia LaBeouf, who we know has not had the best personal life in the world. Otis has an alcohol problem and is very violent. He has crashed his car and fought with a police officer, and this incident has forced him into rehab when he does not want to be there. Otis thinks that there's nothing wrong with him, but of course, as these movies go, there's something wrong with him. I think it's interesting that Amazon released Beautiful Boy last year, because this is a much better version of that film. Otis has a counselor, Dr. Moreno (Laura San Giacomo), and she makes clear that Otis is not allowed to leave the facility before he is deemed to be ready. Otherwise he's going to the pen for four years. She also thinks Otis has PTSD, which he denies, but now we must head into his past...

Otis (Noah Jupe) was once a child in 1995, and of course he was an actor because I already said that. Shia LaBeouf also wrote this movie, so it can be assumed these experiences are true as well. He is accompanied on set by his father James (Shia LaBeouf), who he has hired to be his guardian because his mother will not quit her job due to the potential failure of her son. James wants to be there, but you know, it's mostly about the money. Some backstory is required. James had spent four years in prison for a crime that he nearly committed, or he went that far and can't remember, but either way it isn't good. He is also mentally and emotionally unstable, very aggressive, prone to telling stories and thinks he knows everything. He was once a rodeo clown, I assume before the incident, and he's also now four years sober. James and Otis live at a seedy motel in Los Angeles, of which there are many, and there's an assortment of hookers and other sorts that live across from them. One of them (FKA Twigs) looks at them pretty much all the time. Otis is also in the Big Brother program at his mother's behest, and his Big Brother is Tom (Clifton Collins Jr.). James HATES Tom. So, the movie is both about what happened to Otis to make him this way, and how he can recover from it. But much more the first.

The scenes with Lucas Hedges just aren't as good as the ones set in 2005. That's just the fact of it and that alone will explain the rating I'm going to give. What we have here is a pretty good movie though. To see Shia LaBeouf playing this part is extremely weird, especially considering his role earlier this year in The Peanut Butter Falcon. I don't find the scenes with Hedges to be particularly cathartic in any way, but rather they explain how someone recovers from trauma and abuse. That's cool, but I'm enough of an asshole to admit that those scenes don't have the power of the scenes that come before that. What we have in the childhood scenes are the makings of someone needing help from somewhere and not getting it. To be abused by the person you need and for nobody to care. The film centers around James to the point that he becomes a fully well-rounded character that you can see the negatives and positives of. You can see how someone could become a better person and you can see how they remain the same way. In addition, this is one of the only movies I can immediately think of that addresses some of the inevitable problems that come with being a child actor. Otis basically doesn't have a childhood. There's the set and there's that shitty motel. That's his life.

I have seen some reviews saying that this is a shitty movie because it's indulgent and self-centered, and I couldn't disagree more with that. This isn't a shitty movie but one aspect of the movie is far superior in terms of cinematic value. It should also be said that this movie probably only appeals to people who know of Shia's life and his problems, but that's okay. This is a good movie that makes you feel different things from scene to scene. Things are funny until they aren't. If not for the quality of supporting actors this year, LaBeouf would be receiving an awards nomination for his film, but he probably won't.

7.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. The Farewell
7. Knives Out
8. Booksmart
9. Avengers: Endgame
10. Queen & Slim
11. Toy Story 4
12. Joker
13. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
14. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
15. Us
16. Ford v. Ferrari
17. Gloria Bell
18. The Beach Bum
19. The Art of Self-Defense
20. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
21. Arctic
22. Spider-Man: Far From Home
23. Rocketman
24. High Flying Bird
25. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
26. Paddleton
27. The Peanut Butter Falcon
28. Honey Boy: I know exactly how lame these two rankings are.
29. Doctor Sleep
30. Hustlers
31. Blinded by the Light
32. Captain Marvel
33. Jojo Rabbit
34. Long Shot
35. Shazam
36. Ready or Not
37. A Vigilante
38. Late Night
39. Crawl
40. It: Chapter Two
41. Hotel Mumbai
42. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
43. Zombieland: Double Tap
44. Harriet
45. Hobbs & Shaw
46. Official Secrets
47. Always Be My Maybe
48. Cold Pursuit
49. The Laundromat
50. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
51. Shaft
52. Happy Death Day 2U
53. Ma
54. Terminator: Dark Fate
55. Annabelle Comes Home
56. Greta
57. Aladdin
58. Triple Frontier
59. Fighting with My Family
60. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
61. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
62. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
63. Brexit
64. The Dirt
65. Velvet Buzzsaw
66. Stuber
67. Little
68. Alita: Battle Angel
69. The Good Liar
70. The Current War: Director's Cut
71. The Kid
72. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
73. Good Boys
74. The Upside
75. The Lion King
76. Dumbo
77. The Hummingbird Project
78. Escape Room
79. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
80. Brian Banks
81. Tolkien
82. The Dead Don't Die
83. Captive State
84. The Highwaymen
85. Pet Sematary
86. The Intruder
87. Child's Play
88. 21 Bridges
89. Gemini Man
90. Brightburn
91. Never Grow Old
92. Rambo: Last Blood
93. Midway
94. Angel Has Fallen
95. Black and Blue
96. Yesterday
97. Anna
98. What Men Want
99. Them That Follow
100. Unicorn Store
101. The Curse of La Llorona
102. Miss Bala
103. Men in Black: International
104. The Red Sea Diving Resort
105. The Perfection
106. Hellboy
107. Glass
108. Dark Phoenix
109. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
110. The Kitchen
111. The Hustle
112. The Best of Enemies
113. The Prodigy
114. Polar
115. Serenity

 

[909]

Waves (2019), directed by Trey Edward Shults

I should immediately note that it is absolutely for the best that you know nothing about Waves before you watch it. Turn around now if you don't want to know. I was surprised by the events in the film but I was not surprised by the quality of the film. If people here haven't watched Krisha, they definitely should. In addition, you should also look at who Shults has interned for. If you're Terrence Malick's intern and you don't learn good things from that, you have serious problems. What we have here with Waves is two movies in one. The events that happen in both halves of the film are so drastically different from one another, and I'm not intending to spoil the movie although you should know better because I've said so. The issue I am having when thinking of how to tackle this is that the first half is one of the greatest pieces of storytelling that even exists. I'm definitely going there. The second half is good, but it isn't that. I tried to watch this on Monday night, but I had an emergency and had to leave. So, I'm saying that I've seen much of the first half two times now and I still feel this strongly about that portion of the movie. This borders on a masterpiece as a result of the first half and I'm sure in the years to come many people will consider this to be one. I can't go that far. Waves is a movie that hits super hard, but you don't expect any of this because the trailer is crucial in not telling you this. Also, for as much as I say the second half is merely good, there's an aspect of it that I find to be excellent. If you read on, and you don't want to be spoiled, you get what you deserve.

Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is in high school, it is his senior year and he's having a good time in life. He's a wrestler, his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) makes him happy, and that's all a senior really needs. Yes, they get in trouble like everyone that age does, and in some ways I was reminded of my own self as I was watching the film. At home, Tyler has a sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), his stepmother is Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry), and his dad Ronald (Sterling K. Brown) runs the house. What I'm telling you when I say that he runs the house, is that he RUNS the house. Ronald wants Tyler to be a certain way, to be successful in anything and everything, because Tyler has to be more successful than everyone to have a good life. In the process of this kind of parenting, Emily slips by the wayside. The issue with Tyler is that while he's a successful wrestler, he also has a SLAP tear in his shoulder. His shoulder is ruined and he needs surgery, but the doctor agrees to allow Tyler to tell his family. He should tell his family, but he won't. Instead he's going to steal the pain pills that his dad has for his knee. Tyler is also going to drink, and even though he shouldn't do this, he's going to keep wrestling. The way the film goes from this point is entirely unexpected.

After the thing that happens that I'm deliberately being vague about in case you're a dumbass who kept reading when I told you I was spoiling this movie, the movie changes radically. I'm going to give you one more paragraph to close this. The perspective changes over to Emily, who was previously neglected and not part of this story much at all. There's a good reason for that. In the aftermath of one of the most shocking things I've seen in a movie for a long fucking time, the Williams family must learn how to push on. Emily begins to date Luke (Lucas Hedges), Tyler's teammate from the wrestling squad. The family is left to pick up the pieces of whatever it is that happened, which is obviously very difficult.

What we have with Waves is a movie of two halves as I already stated. The first is about the destruction of a life and the second is about reconstruction in the aftermath of a tragedy. However, in this case, most movies do not feature what seems to be a protagonist that spirals towards killing someone and ruining their life. This first half of the movie is incredible on all levels. There weren't a lot of people when I went to see this movie, but everyone in the theater gasped when Tyler did what he did. There aren't enough words for the first half of the film and there's nothing I can say to illustrate how shocking this was. I saw this last night and have been thinking about it all day. The movie is unique enough to be memorable without being experimental. The soundtrack bangs, songs chosen perfectly for each scene they're placed in. They seem like songs that teenagers would choose to now set the moments of their life to. To this extent, this is why movies about younger people should only be made by people a few years older than them. You can tell this one is and that's part of why it's so strong. The end of the first half also hits about as hard as a movie can hit. The ramifications of that lead to some boring scenes afterward, much like in real life where people have to learn to cope.

The second half has a building problem because it no longer focuses on Tyler, but focusing on Tyler would have ruined this movie. We do not need another depressing movie about people in pain, and what he did was so wrong that it wouldn't have been right for the film to follow him anyway. Harrison's performance as Tyler is excellent and is awards worthy although I'm certain that'll never happen, because movies like these don't win awards no matter how good they are. This was also one of the only movies I've seen that received unanimous applause from a theater with people in it. That's a rarity as well, and so is a movie that has this sort of narrative. Overall, yes, I liked this a lot. The second half is something I can willingly excuse when the start of the movie was this strong. The cinematography, the color, everything here is just so strong. This could have been overdone very easily, but Sterling K. Brown is the glue that keeps that from happening. Again, no surprise. This movie is also definitely not for everyone, I should note.

9/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Booksmart
10. Avengers: Endgame
11. Queen & Slim
12. Toy Story 4
13. Joker
14. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
15. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
16. Us
17. Ford v. Ferrari
18. Gloria Bell
19. The Beach Bum
20. The Art of Self-Defense
21. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
22. Arctic
23. Spider-Man: Far From Home
24. Rocketman
25. High Flying Bird
26. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
27. Paddleton
28. The Peanut Butter Falcon
29. Honey Boy
30. Doctor Sleep
31. Hustlers
32. Blinded by the Light
33. Captain Marvel
34. Jojo Rabbit
35. Long Shot
36. Shazam
37. Ready or Not
38. A Vigilante
39. Late Night
40. Crawl
41. It: Chapter Two
42. Hotel Mumbai
43. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
44. Zombieland: Double Tap
45. Harriet
46. Hobbs & Shaw
47. Official Secrets
48. Always Be My Maybe
49. Cold Pursuit
50. The Laundromat
51. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
52. Shaft
53. Happy Death Day 2U
54. Ma
55. Terminator: Dark Fate
56. Annabelle Comes Home
57. Greta
58. Aladdin
59. Triple Frontier
60. Fighting with My Family
61. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
62. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
63. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
64. Brexit
65. The Dirt
66. Velvet Buzzsaw
67. Stuber
68. Little
69. Alita: Battle Angel
70. The Good Liar
71. The Current War: Director's Cut
72. The Kid
73. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
74. Good Boys
75. The Upside
76. The Lion King
77. Dumbo
78. The Hummingbird Project
79. Escape Room
80. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
81. Brian Banks
82. Tolkien
83. The Dead Don't Die
84. Captive State
85. The Highwaymen
86. Pet Sematary
87. The Intruder
88. Child's Play
89. 21 Bridges
90. Gemini Man
91. Brightburn
92. Never Grow Old
93. Rambo: Last Blood
94. Midway
95. Angel Has Fallen
96. Black and Blue
97. Yesterday
98. Anna
99. What Men Want
100. Them That Follow
101. Unicorn Store
102. The Curse of La Llorona
103. Miss Bala
104. Men in Black: International
105. The Red Sea Diving Resort
106. The Perfection
107. Hellboy
108. Glass
109. Dark Phoenix
110. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
111. The Kitchen
112. The Hustle
113. The Best of Enemies
114. The Prodigy
115. Polar
116. Serenity

 

[AA484]

Are you going to watch The Irishman?

 

[909]

Are you going to watch The Irishman?

Yep, but carving out time is proving to be quite difficult. Probably next week.

 

[909]

Jumanji: the Next Level (2019), directed by Jake Kasdan

I am feeling really demotivated to write these because of the things going on with me, so you'll have to forgive the brevity of this review. It was rather surprising to me that the last Jumanji movie was a real box office success. I didn't want to see it and was actually rather offended that the movie existed, but it was funny enough and justified its existence. The blatant sequel grab, however, is no surprise. What is surprising is that Jumanji: the Next Level is at the level of the first film with this group of actors. There are some instances where the bits wear thin and I really hope everyone involved knows that they should not triple-dip into these waters. The film also eschews the corny stuff from the second movie where the characters grow up in the process of their adventure. Instead, we seem to have a bit where Frank Reynolds accepts growing old. It is much less thickly laid on and I thought this was for the best, but again, we have the issue where a movie has to live up to what came before it. I didn't give the first sequel a very high rating, but I do think that everyone involved did their best and that is also the case here.

Jumanji: the Next Level is set three years after the last one, with Spencer (Alex Wolff), Martha (Morgan Turner), Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), and Bethany (Madison Iseman) have all went their separate ways. The holidays are coming, so everyone's headed back home and it turns out they're all going to meet up. Everyone's in different stages of their life now, but Spencer is feeling very depressed and having a hard time dealing with how lame his life is. Upon returning, we meet his grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito), who is recovering from hip surgery. Eddie is best described as a stubborn old man. Milo (Danny Glover) is his friend, and Milo shows up on the day that everyone's there so he can hash some stuff out with Eddie. But, before that, Spencer is at his mom's house at night with Eddie. He has an epiphany and decides that playing Jumanji again will spice up his life. So, in he goes to play the game again. When his friends show up the next day, they don't know where he is...but they discover that he has gone into the machine to play Jumanji in. They think that he will be stuck in Jumanji without their help. So, in they go.

The thing is, because there were adults in the house this time, things have definitely changed. The characters each person would have liked to use again are not given to them, with one exception. Martha once again becomes Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). This time, Spencer did not become Dr. Bravestone (The Rock). Instead, Eddie has become Dr. Bravestone. Fridge has become Professor Oberon (Jack Black), which makes for some really good lines. Perhaps most importantly, Milo has become Finbar (Kevin Hart). These changes are very welcome, and some events later in the film lead me to believe this wouldn't have worked if the changes were not there. Their goal this time is to deal with Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann), who lives high in the mountains at a fortress. Their job is to retrieve a stone called the Falcon's Heart, which was stolen from people who used the stone in order to provide fertility to their land. In order to do win the game, they must show the stone to the sun and shout Jumanji. This time, they will have to go across much more than the jungle. But where's Spencer?

Jumanji: the Next Level is a movie I had a hard time writing a review about because the nuts and bolts of it are so similar to the previous movie. So, I dropped all that information at the start of this and don't know how to continue. I will say that Kevin Hart's performance is probably the highlight here. You may be surprised by that, but I laughed a lot at his lines and I'm not the only one. This movie is in many ways more amusing than the last, but the story feels too similar and I could see myself getting very burned out on this franchise very quickly.

6.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Booksmart
10. Avengers: Endgame
11. Queen & Slim
12. Toy Story 4
13. Joker
14. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
15. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
16. Us
17. Ford v. Ferrari
18. Gloria Bell
19. The Beach Bum
20. The Art of Self-Defense
21. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
22. Arctic
23. Spider-Man: Far From Home
24. Rocketman
25. High Flying Bird
26. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
27. Paddleton
28. The Peanut Butter Falcon
29. Honey Boy
30. Doctor Sleep
31. Hustlers
32. Blinded by the Light
33. Captain Marvel
34. Jojo Rabbit
35. Long Shot
36. Shazam
37. Ready or Not
38. A Vigilante
39. Late Night
40. Crawl
41. It: Chapter Two
42. Hotel Mumbai
43. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
44. Zombieland: Double Tap
45. Harriet
46. Hobbs & Shaw
47. Official Secrets
48. Always Be My Maybe
49. Cold Pursuit
50. The Laundromat
51. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
52. Shaft
53. Happy Death Day 2U
54. Ma
55. Terminator: Dark Fate
56. Annabelle Comes Home
57. Greta
58. Jumanji: The Next Level
59. Aladdin
60. Triple Frontier
61. Fighting with My Family
62. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
63. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
64. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
65. Brexit
66. The Dirt
67. Velvet Buzzsaw
68. Stuber
69. Little
70. Alita: Battle Angel
71. The Good Liar
72. The Current War: Director's Cut
73. The Kid
74. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
75. Good Boys
76. The Upside
77. The Lion King
78. Dumbo
79. The Hummingbird Project
80. Escape Room
81. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
82. Brian Banks
83. Tolkien
84. The Dead Don't Die
85. Captive State
86. The Highwaymen
87. Pet Sematary
88. The Intruder
89. Child's Play
90. 21 Bridges
91. Gemini Man
92. Brightburn
93. Never Grow Old
94. Rambo: Last Blood
95. Midway
96. Angel Has Fallen
97. Black and Blue
98. Yesterday
99. Anna
100. What Men Want
101. Them That Follow
102. Unicorn Store
103. The Curse of La Llorona
104. Miss Bala
105. Men in Black: International
106. The Red Sea Diving Resort
107. The Perfection
108. Hellboy
109. Glass
110. Dark Phoenix
111. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
112. The Kitchen
113. The Hustle
114. The Best of Enemies
115. The Prodigy
116. Polar
117. Serenity

 

[909]

Dark Waters (2019), directed by Todd Haynes

When I saw that Todd Haynes had directed a movie like this, I was curious to know what twist it would have in order to feel like a movie with his trademark. In this case, surprisingly there is not one. I suppose you could say that this movie is very, very much opposed to big business. That's a good thing though. It also turns out that the reason Haynes took this movie is because it is not his usual kind of work. In any case, what we have here is a movie the likes of which hardly any are made anymore. Who makes movies about whistleblowers and the fight to get corporations to do what they're supposed to do? I feel like I should talk about why this kind of movie matters. It matters because these companies are going to attempt to control society at any cost, including that of our own health. They don't care about our environment, and in this stupid country we still have to fund our own healthcare. These companies will try to make people deal with their health issues even when those issues are caused by large corporations. In addition to that, we have a President who is deregulating these corporations and allowing them to wantonly pollute the environment. They're allowed to do whatever they want, and this idea that they care enough to self-regulate is completely stupid bullshit. So, that's the significance of the film. I think First Reformed is a better movie that tackles this sort of environmental libertarianism from a different perspective, but Dark Waters is a worthy entry and something to be applauded. However, if you don't like these kinds of movies, you will certainly be bored.

Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) is an attorney at a major lawfirm, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP. Bilott has become a partner when this movie begins, in 1998. His newfound partner status comes with certain perks, and it can be assumed that one of them is to not drive the shitty cars that he drives. Yet, he still continues to do so. This is not explained but one can assume that he does not want to be extravagant. He is married to Sarah (Anne Hathaway), and they have a newborn that requires the care newborns need. Sarah was also an attorney and quit so that she could take care of the child and any future children. Now that I've gotten through that, let's get to the nuts and bolts of the movie. Bilott is from Parkersburg, West Virginia. His grandmother still lives there while he lives in Cincinnati, defending chemical companies from those who dare sue them for wrongdoing. His grandmother has apparently referred someone to go see him. Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) is a farmer and prospective client from Parkersburg, he is having some issues with his cattle dying. It turns out that many of his cattle are dying. His brother had to sell some land to DuPont, who turned the land into a landfill. Once that happened is when his cattle started eating it.

Wilbur is what you would call a persistent client, and his persistency has positive aspects in the sense that he knows when wrong has been done. Wilbur has saved parts from his dead cattle, of which there are 190. There are teeth that have turned black, tumors, and enlarged organs. Bilott's firm, however, is not a plaintiff's firm. Until now. It takes some convincing, but Bilott is convinced to take Wilbur's case. Wilbur's case sprawls, as you may know if you know anything about DuPont. When it comes to Bilott's firm, this is a firm that has a somewhat cushy relationship with DuPont and a strong relationship with other chemical companies that could be damaged by Wilbur's lawsuit. Tom Terp (Tim Robbins) is Bilott's boss. There are other partners at the firm, but Terp seems to not care. Like, at all. In the end, this becomes Terp and Bilott's crusade (but mostly Bilott), no matter how far they must go to make it work. Initially, DuPont is receptive to the suit and seems like they'll pay to make this go away. Bilott keeps digging. He knows how to push the right buttons. Best of all, during discovery when he is given hundreds of boxes of files in an attempt to make him go away, he does not. In the end, we learn that one of the chemicals used in the process of making teflon (and other things) is...highly toxic. It is also in all of our blood. By our blood, I mean like...your blood.

There are a few things that really make Dark Waters work. One is Haynes' usual approach to filming and with that his longtime cinematographer, who always does a really great job. Another is Bill Camp's performance and the accent he decides to use. This is very much a country person's accent. There were things that nearly initially took me out of the film and I feel obligated to bring them up. First was that this film was set in the late 90's and there were cars from this era in the opening shots of the movie while Bilott was driving to West Virginia. I didn't like that. I also don't know why Anne Hathaway took such a small role as a housewife. This movie does have something though, in terms of the presentation of the evidence and what corporations like DuPont do to this country. It is also interesting to see Bilott's behavior when Sarah is pregnant with their second child. This is how a lot of people act when they learn jarring information, but it is different to see this kind of paranoid behavior in a film.

What we have in the case of this movie is a great director who with the exception of the cars that I already mentioned, pays great attention to detail. You can see this in how people look as time passes on, the way that people treat women from scene to scene, so on and so forth. There's more than just that of course. This movie is also very frustrating in the sense that these corporations get away with this and so much worse, just because they can and nobody can stop them. There simply aren't very many of these movies anymore, and I think I can count the number of them this year on one finger. Just like Westerns, this is a genre which had its time and no longer seems to fit into the cinematic landscape. This kind of unabashedly liberal look at things is obviously right up my alley, and I would recommend this movie to those who feel the same way about things as I do. One of the best things in this movie is Bill Pullman's character, which I neglected to mention until I was done with this. My President is a very convincing West Virginian attorney to say the least.

8/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Booksmart
10. Avengers: Endgame
11. Queen & Slim
12. Toy Story 4
13. Joker
14. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
15. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
16. Us
17. Ford v. Ferrari
18. Gloria Bell
19. The Beach Bum
20. The Art of Self-Defense
21. Dark Waters
22. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
23. Arctic
24. Spider-Man: Far From Home
25. Rocketman
26. High Flying Bird
27. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
28. Paddleton
29. The Peanut Butter Falcon
30. Honey Boy
31. Doctor Sleep
32. Hustlers
33. Blinded by the Light
34. Captain Marvel
35. Jojo Rabbit
36. Long Shot
37. Shazam
38. Ready or Not
39. A Vigilante
40. Late Night
41. Crawl
42. It: Chapter Two
43. Hotel Mumbai
44. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
45. Zombieland: Double Tap
46. Harriet
47. Hobbs & Shaw
48. Official Secrets
49. Always Be My Maybe
50. Cold Pursuit
51. The Laundromat
52. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
53. Shaft
54. Happy Death Day 2U
55. Ma
56. Terminator: Dark Fate
57. Annabelle Comes Home
58. Greta
59. Jumanji: The Next Level
60. Aladdin
61. Triple Frontier
62. Fighting with My Family
63. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
64. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
65. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
66. Brexit
67. The Dirt
68. Velvet Buzzsaw
69. Stuber
70. Little
71. Alita: Battle Angel
72. The Good Liar
73. The Current War: Director's Cut
74. The Kid
75. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
76. Good Boys
77. The Upside
78. The Lion King
79. Dumbo
80. The Hummingbird Project
81. Escape Room
82. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
83. Brian Banks
84. Tolkien
85. The Dead Don't Die
86. Captive State
87. The Highwaymen
88. Pet Sematary
89. The Intruder
90. Child's Play
91. 21 Bridges
92. Gemini Man
93. Brightburn
94. Never Grow Old
95. Rambo: Last Blood
96. Midway
97. Angel Has Fallen
98. Black and Blue
99. Yesterday
100. Anna
101. What Men Want
102. Them That Follow
103. Unicorn Store
104. The Curse of La Llorona
105. Miss Bala
106. Men in Black: International
107. The Red Sea Diving Resort
108. The Perfection
109. Hellboy
110. Glass
111. Dark Phoenix
112. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
113. The Kitchen
114. The Hustle
115. The Best of Enemies
116. The Prodigy
117. Polar
118. Serenity

 

[909]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), directed by JJ Abrams

It turns out that it is very hard for me to properly review a Star Wars movie. There are many reasons why this is. There are things in every Star Wars movie that I feel like I had better ideas for, the way that everyone thinks they do. In addition to that, the things that Star Wars fans want run exactly counter to what I want to get from movies. I want to be challenged, I want to see different things. I do not care much for movies that have insane coincidences. The thing is, this is Star Wars. The series is built on those coincidences and I like it anyway, but there are levels to these movies. I thought The Last Jedi was a good movie, but a lot of fans did not for various reasons that I'd rather not get into. I thought it was a challenging film that presented a lot of ideas unique to the franchise, and almost none of those are followed up on in The Rise of Skywalker. I must admit that does bother me. What's worse is that this movie consistently takes shots at The Last Jedi even though on no level does The Rise of Skywalker come anywhere near that offering, or any offering from the Original Trilogy. These kinds of things add up against a movie that I liked and become things I cannot ignore. Unfortunately, there is also more, but I think there's one last thing to say before I get into reviewing this movie. The way people reacted to The Last Jedi ensured that nobody will ever take risks with this franchise again. You may like that, or you may not. What I do think in the aftermath of this movie is that I liked it because of the characters, but I fucking hate JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. So much.

The Rise of Skywalker ignores the end of The Last Jedi, which you already know because you've seen this and realize this film tries to dump on The Last Jedi. You may or may not agree that this is worse than The Last Jedi, but I'd go so far as to say much worse. The distress signal, such as it is, seems to never have even happened. The film begins with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) gaining possession of a Sith device that allows him to travel to the planet Exegol. Upon arriving on Exegol, Kylo discovers Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Palpatine was dead, but he's a Sith, so you know, there are ways and means to this shit. He talks about how he created Snoke to control the First Order and attempt to lure someone to the dark side. In this case, that is Kylo. Palpatine also shows Kylo that he has a fleet of Star Destroyers, then tells Kylo that he must find and kill Rey (Daisy Ridley). When you know that Palpatine was modeled after Richard Nixon, some of these scenes are a lot better and it is easy to ignore issues with them. It turns out that Rey is receiving Jedi training from General Leia (Carrie Fisher), on a planet that Abrams may genuinely have been too lazy to name. I cannot remember the name.

Anyway, the Resistance is on this jungle planet. Some characters like Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca, and C-3PO feature much more; while Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is basically sidelined. Yes, this is the kind of movie that marginalizes the Asian chick because some white boys got mad. I genuinely do hate the filmmakers here. Now that we've caught up with everyone, we can talk about what they need to do. After everyone is told by a First Order spy that Palpatine has returned, Rey goes into the Jedi books that Luke Skywalker gave to her. When she finds what she needs to know, it's time to depart. BB-8, C-3PO, Rey, Poe, Chewbacca, and Finn all must head to the desert world of Pasaana, attempting to find someone who Luke may have known. The reason? They must locate Exegol for themselves, kill Palpatine, and end his attempts to aid the First Order. Upon arriving on Pasaana, they encounter Lando (Billy Dee Williams), who tells them where the artifact is located. Problem is, Kylo and Rey have a bond and are able to locate each other through the Force, as everyone who watches these movies knows. What if the Resistance can't read the artifact they need to find?

The first thing, and probably most important thing I always need to keep in mind when it comes to these films, is that this is Star Wars and it is 2019. What I'm saying is that this couldn't have been as good as a movie from the original trilogy because of when this was made. In the aftermath of the last two movies, the primary goal of this one seems to have been to prevent people from complaining too much on the internet. They played the middle road and played it safe. The Rise of Skywalker is not inherently creative as a result of that. The thing is, there is some attachment to the characters that I was feeling here. Palpatine is one of those characters. I know that using him in this film is a prime example of playing it safe. When they talk about Rey being his granddaughter, everyone in the theater laughed and with good reason. It is too ridiculous. Everyone seemed to get past that anyway because it meant Palpatine was in the film. A lot of people really like Palpatine's performances as he's a constant in this series. So, I accept that. There's another thing later in the film that everyone laughed at, and I'm certain everyone knows what I'm talking about, but the next thirty seconds saved that from being one of the worst moments in the entire series. At least Kylo died. Now, how do you reconcile that with Anakin failing to save his family in Episode III? The answer is that you can't. Also, fuck JJ Abrams.

When someone comes this close to ruining something that I really enjoy, I usually hate the material anyway, but in this case I know the film is better than two of the films from the original trilogy. I also think I liked this more than Episode VII no matter what I said when I first watched it. That's it though. This is nowhere near the level that I feel the movie should have been. I don't get a lot of things about this, but there are a lot of things I do get. Poe wasn't in Episode VIII anywhere near enough. If the decision is to sideline Poe or sideline Rose, it's an easy decision. It was a big mistake when Poe wasn't a big part of that film. The fake death of Chewbacca was also good. People in the theater were really feeling this and it sounded like people were getting upset. The reveal is just late enough that people would start getting over it by the time they saw Chewbacca alive. The kiss between Kylo and Rey is also really bad, but what's good is that Kylo never speaks a single time after his redemption. There are some huge logical inconsistencies in the film, but it is entertaining. Is entertaining enough? Considering the franchise, and considering the movies that we know are bad from this franchise, yes. This isn't bad. It's barely good and could have been more, but it's good. I still fucking hate JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. My reasoning for this is that the trilogy doesn't flow in any way. Concepts introduced in each movie are completely ignored. Abrams also barely pays off some of the stories that he introduced in the first movie. And the point when he almost takes a total shit on his own ending by having Rey bury the Skywalker lightsabers? Fuck this guy. Almost fuck this movie. But not quite. The absolute best thing in the film and possibly the entire sequel trilogy was when the girl sitting next to me got hyped because Kylo kissed Rey only to be absolutely devastated thirty seconds later. That alone, dude...that made the fucking movie.

7/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Booksmart
10. Avengers: Endgame
11. Queen & Slim
12. Toy Story 4
13. Joker
14. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
15. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
16. Us
17. Ford v. Ferrari
18. Gloria Bell
19. The Beach Bum
20. The Art of Self-Defense
21. Dark Waters
22. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
23. Arctic
24. Spider-Man: Far From Home
25. Rocketman
26. High Flying Bird
27. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
28. Paddleton
29. The Peanut Butter Falcon
30. Honey Boy
31. Doctor Sleep
32. Hustlers
33. Blinded by the Light
34. Captain Marvel
35. Jojo Rabbit
36. Long Shot
37. Shazam
38. Ready or Not
39. A Vigilante
40. Late Night
41. Crawl
42. It: Chapter Two
43. Hotel Mumbai
44. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
45. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
46. Zombieland: Double Tap
47. Harriet
48. Hobbs & Shaw
49. Official Secrets
50. Always Be My Maybe
51. Cold Pursuit
52. The Laundromat
53. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
54. Shaft
55. Happy Death Day 2U
56. Ma
57. Terminator: Dark Fate
58. Annabelle Comes Home
59. Greta
60. Jumanji: The Next Level
61. Aladdin
62. Triple Frontier
63. Fighting with My Family
64. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
65. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
66. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
67. Brexit
68. The Dirt
69. Velvet Buzzsaw
70. Stuber
71. Little
72. Alita: Battle Angel
73. The Good Liar
74. The Current War: Director's Cut
75. The Kid
76. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
77. Good Boys
78. The Upside
79. The Lion King
80. Dumbo
81. The Hummingbird Project
82. Escape Room
83. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
84. Brian Banks
85. Tolkien
86. The Dead Don't Die
87. Captive State
88. The Highwaymen
89. Pet Sematary
90. The Intruder
91. Child's Play
92. 21 Bridges
93. Gemini Man
94. Brightburn
95. Never Grow Old
96. Rambo: Last Blood
97. Midway
98. Angel Has Fallen
99. Black and Blue
100. Yesterday
101. Anna
102. What Men Want
103. Them That Follow
104. Unicorn Store
105. The Curse of La Llorona
106. Miss Bala
107. Men in Black: International
108. The Red Sea Diving Resort
109. The Perfection
110. Hellboy
111. Glass
112. Dark Phoenix
113. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
114. The Kitchen
115. The Hustle
116. The Best of Enemies
117. The Prodigy
118. Polar
119. Serenity

 

[909]

I would like to take this review back because in hindsight I hate this movie.

5/10

 

[Brooklyn Zoo]

Damn bruh I think 7 is about right

 

[909]

Damn bruh I think 7 is about right

Every time I think about it afterwards it's bad thoughts though. Too much shit that was lame shit. People want these movies to be some Maury Povich shit where the most important thing is who is related to each other. Mad tired of it.

 

[909]

Richard Jewell (2019), directed by Clint Eastwood

There is one thing that everyone keeps talking about as it relates to Richard Jewell, and it's the scene where Olivia Wilde's reporter insinuates that she wants to have sex with Jon Hamm's FBI agent in exchange for information. I completely understand this controversy even though we need to understand that the media completely railroaded the subject of this story and continues to do so to good people every day. Just because they accurately report bad stuff about Trump does not change this fact. I think the media is getting crazy about this because it's hard to refute anything else in the movie, and to some extent they're right to get crazy about this, but I took their criticism for what it is. I also believe that we should account for the reality that the media will always cover for their own no matter what kind of bad shit that they do. I seem to remember there being a defense force for a political reporter (Mark Halperin) who got busted for sexual assault. If you do any research into what Kathy Scruggs wrote about Richard Jewell you probably wouldn't feel so bad for her. Or, I guess that guy doesn't matter. She didn't fuck that fake FBI agent in the story of this movie, but it is alleged that she had sex with cops who she reported on. What I'm saying is I don't think people should automatically believe everything they read. Anyway, let's move on. I haven't looked at any of Clint Eastwood's interviews about the movie so I'm not sure what he was intending to do with Richard Jewell and how he wanted to portray him. I have my own opinion on what I think he was trying to do, or rather, what this movie did do. What this movie does is display the ineptitude of law enforcement in all facets, including those who hired Jewell to do his jobs in the first place. It seems that Eastwood is well aware of this as the other characters treat Jewell the way it seems someone would be treated when they're a bad law enforcement officer or worse. What I do think is that this is a good movie that isn't great because the subject matter precludes the film from being that. But worse is that the reporter feels way too much like a cartoon villain even though she said very bad things that were not covered in this film.

Richard Jewell begins in 1986, with Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) beginning his adult life working as a janitor at a law firm. He brings office supplies to the lawyers, almost all of whom make fun of him for being fat. One of the lawyers does not. He is Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), and eventually he and Richard become friends. Richard does move on because he wants to become a police officer though. We pick this back up after he has been a police officer and after he has been removed from that job. He is now a security guard at a college, but many students complain about Richard acting beyond the scope of his powers. So, he is fired. This causes Richard to move back to Atlanta with his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates), not something that he wanted to do. During the 1996 Olympics, Richard is going to be a security guard at Centennial Park. As you might expect, the real police officers at that place make fun of him a lot and with good reason. He's pushy, doesn't care much about what regular people's rights are, and constantly gets into people's business because he's suspicious of everyone. In 1996, you'd think this would make someone a model cop, but it was bad enough that he was fired.

In his job at Centennial Park, he is assigned to watch the tower and make sure nobody goes up there when they aren't supposed to. Simple stuff, you'd think. At the same time, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is also assigned to the park. That isn't the assignment she wants during the Olympics, and truthfully nobody else would either. Such is life. FBI Agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) gets the same shit gig. Now, all the pieces are there and we get to put this all together. During a concert on July 27th, there are some drunks in the park causing nonsense that Jewell sees fit to break up himself. In the process of doing so, the drunks tip over a backpack underneath a bench. Someone calls in a bomb threat, which apparently happened all the time then, so nobody cared. The backpack is large and suspicious, so Jewell reports it. He also complains so much that an explosives expert shows up, and the guy says that there is a bomb in the backpack. Then, it's time to back everyone up to get them away from the bomb. That's an impossible job. They do their best, but in the process of moving people, the bomb detonates and injures many people, killing two. In the aftermath, someone gets the bright idea that Jewell should be investigated. If you know anything about the story, you know about the rest.

When it comes to Richard Jewell, I think people are too fixated on Eastwood's politics when the main political statement in the movie is staring people in the face. It would also seem to be something that doesn't align with Eastwood's politics. The FBI is an extremely conservative organization. It certainly was in 1996 as well. This organization devised a way to derail Richard Jewell's life and was going to stop at nothing in order to do so. Consistently they attempted to violate Jewell's constitutional rights. People are just so opposed to the idea of hating things that Trump also hates that they decide they're going to neglect when those institutions do wrong things. Maybe this isn't the right movie for the time or some shit like that, but I don't agree with that at all. This is a similar movie to Dark Waters where a group does something to hurt someone just because they can fucking do it and nobody is going to stop them. The amount of fuckery they attempted in order to make things fit their narrative is crazy. At the same time, there's what the reporter did. Yes, she did not bang someone in order to get her story. Her story was still grossly wrong. She quoted Jewell's lawyer as saying Richard had souvenirs of the bomb itself. It's in the story. Jewell did not. He took a piece of the fence so that he couald have a memory of what happened. I know full well how weird that is and the film makes clear that this guy is a weird and kinda stupid kind of fucking moron.

I liked Richard Jewell as a film because it hit all sides of the problem with this situation. The man shouldn't have been a cop or a security guard, but he kept getting jobs. The reporter shouldn't have written what she wrote. The FBI agents were insane and trying to pin the crime to someone so they could be absolved of failing to be correct in the first place. That about sums it up. This film would merely be alright if not for the performances in the movie. There are also a lot of good laughs and a few nostalgic moments that actually work when they rarely do. This is much better than Eastwood's last effort, in large part because these actors adapted to his crazy shooting style that usually leads to a lot of bad scenes. In this case there are very few. The film also for some reason does not include that Jewell sued everyone who smeared him and nearly won all of them. There are a few things that I got out of this movie. First is that people should never willingly speak to the police in any context. Second is that the film does a great job of ensuring that the viewer understands the facts of the time. Jewell was painted as the fat loser fake cop who bombed Centennial Park in order to get a taste of fame. That is what everyone thought. If you ask an older person about the bombings, if they cared anyway, most of them will think that Jewell did it. I think that's part of why this film bombed at the box office. The other thing is that the marketing is blatantly slanted towards appealing to Republicans. It turns out that these people rarely go to the movie theater unless the content is outright religious. Films released this year like Rambo: Last Blood and Midway have bombed in this country.

The funniest thing about said marketing is that while the message is something a lot of conservatives would tell you now, most real liberals would also tell you that the media and FBI fucking suck. The media consistently allows Republicans to get away with doing whatever they want to do under a faux standard of fair reporting. The one in this movie made up shit about someone and accused him of bombing an event without proof. The FBI are fucking pigs. Fuck em. Yeah, I'm gonna feel bad for any of them because someone wrote bad shit into a movie script about them. They definitely deserve it.

7.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Booksmart
10. Avengers: Endgame
11. Queen & Slim
12. Toy Story 4
13. Joker
14. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
15. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
16. Us
17. Ford v. Ferrari
18. Gloria Bell
19. The Beach Bum
20. The Art of Self-Defense
21. Dark Waters
22. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
23. Arctic
24. Spider-Man: Far From Home
25. Rocketman
26. High Flying Bird
27. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
28. Paddleton
29. Richard Jewell
30. The Peanut Butter Falcon
31. Honey Boy
32. Doctor Sleep
33. Hustlers
34. Blinded by the Light
35. Captain Marvel
36. Jojo Rabbit
37. Long Shot
38. Shazam
39. Ready or Not
40. A Vigilante
41. Late Night
42. Crawl
43. It: Chapter Two
44. Hotel Mumbai
45. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
46. Zombieland: Double Tap
47. Harriet
48. Hobbs & Shaw
49. Official Secrets
50. Always Be My Maybe
51. Cold Pursuit
52. The Laundromat
53. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
54. Shaft
55. Happy Death Day 2U
56. Ma
57. Terminator: Dark Fate
58. Annabelle Comes Home
59. Greta
60. Jumanji: The Next Level
61. Aladdin
62. Triple Frontier
63. Fighting with My Family
64. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
65. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
66. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
67. Brexit
68. The Dirt
69. Velvet Buzzsaw
70. Stuber
71. Little
72. Alita: Battle Angel
73. The Good Liar
74. The Current War: Director's Cut
75. The Kid
76. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
77. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
78. Good Boys
79. The Upside
80. The Lion King
81. Dumbo
82. The Hummingbird Project
83. Escape Room
84. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
85. Brian Banks
86. Tolkien
87. The Dead Don't Die
88. Captive State
89. The Highwaymen
90. Pet Sematary
91. The Intruder
92. Child's Play
93. 21 Bridges
94. Gemini Man
95. Brightburn
96. Never Grow Old
97. Rambo: Last Blood
98. Midway
99. Angel Has Fallen
100. Black and Blue
101. Yesterday
102. Anna
103. What Men Want
104. Them That Follow
105. Unicorn Store
106. The Curse of La Llorona
107. Miss Bala
108. Men in Black: International
109. The Red Sea Diving Resort
110. The Perfection
111. Hellboy
112. Glass
113. Dark Phoenix
114. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
115. The Kitchen
116. The Hustle
117. The Best of Enemies
118. The Prodigy
119. Polar
120. Serenity

 

[909]

Uncut Gems (2019), directed by the Safdie Brothers

It's hard to open a review when you've been looking forward to a movie so much simply based on the names of the people who made the movie. Nothing else really mattered about Uncut Gems beforehand, it's a movie that the Safdie Brothers were making, and that was good enough. Also, because Adam Sandler was in their movie, a lot of people were going to go to the theater to watch their movie. It does turn out that a lot of people did not like Uncut Gems and I'll attempt to get into that. I haven't seen an audience reaction like this one in some time. A lot of people do not understand that there are different goals to be gained from making a film. In the case of these directors there is only ever one thing, and they are great at accomplishing it. They want you to feel nervous, which is something a lot of people are uncomfortable feeling when they go into a theater. They want to laugh, and maybe they want to get scared or see something blow up. Nervous? Nah. A lot of people are also unaccustomed to seeing characters that they dislike take up so much of the screen time. I wouldn't say that I disliked Sandler's character, but I can see why a lot of people would absolutely hate him. These kinds of things add up and in the end you have a movie a lot of people don't like. That's never the case for me though as I believe a real protagonist is not necessary in a film. What we have here is a movie that can only end the way it does. A movie that builds tension better than pretty much any other this year. Yet, because Sandler is the lead character, there are moments that don't work and we have a great movie that isn't as great as I thought it would be.

Uncut Gems is a movie that I'm sure everyone knows features Adam Sandler's character, who is named Howard Ratner. They may not know what any of this stuff entails as the trailer does not give that much away. In 2010, there is an accident in a mine in Ethiopia. There are men who decide to peel away from the accident and venture down a tunnel, inside which they discover a rock that contains a black opal. Two years later, Howard is running his jewelry store in the Diamond District and struggling to deal with some bad decisions he has made. Many of those bad decisions are related to gambling, the greatest issue is a debt of $100,000 he owes to Arno (Eric Bogosian). Howard's other problems are more domestic, with the exception of an issue he's having with one of his employees, Demany (Lakeith Stanfield). Demany has brought in some watches that need sold, but it appears that everything is not on the up and up. Unbeknownst to Demany, Howard is giving these watches away to settle debts or as gifts that allow him access to other people. As for the domestic problems, Howard is married to Dinah (Idina Menzel), who he has three children with. He also has a mistress, Julia (Julia Fox). Howard and Julia have an apartment in Manhattan while Howard lives with Dinah somewhere in the suburbs. The thing is, Howard is going to get a divorce after Passover. One of the successes of this film is in the way Dinah knows everything wrong with Howard and there is no pretense of this relationship breaking down because it has already done so.

So, what is this movie even about? Uncut Gems has a great plot, and it's pretty easy to explain, but I didn't want to do that right away. Unlike Good Time, this film does some meandering before we get to the point. The film picks up in 2012, on the day that Howard receives the opal from Ethiopia, which he believes to be worth around $1,000,000. Howard is going to auction this rock off, but first, Demany is bringing in a new customer. You may know Kevin Garnett. This is one of the loudest, most chaotic scenes of the year. Howard makes the mistake of showing Garnett his opal, which leads to Garnett becoming obsessed with it. He wants to hold onto the rock for good luck at his game against the Sixers that night, which is a playoff game. He is convinced that this rock brings good luck. Howard is able to demand collateral of course, and in this case he is given Garnett's championship ring. In case you needed to know how fucked in the head Howard is, he immediately pawns said title ring in order to bet on the game. Howard's bookie is Gary (Mike Francesa), and Howard is going to be on Garnett to lead the game in points, rebounds, to win the opening tip, and for the Celtics to win the game. The thing is, there are people following Howard around because he owes them money. There's things that these people may do in order to really hurt Howard. Best of all, Garnett doesn't bring the rock back the next day. Now what is Howard to do?

Uncut Gems is pretty much engineered to make the viewer feel stress, and there are tons of examples of this. Not every scene in the movie is great or even good, and most of the ones that aren't good feature Sandler delivering dialogue that isn't believable. However, to some extent, he does make this movie. The scene where he hits rock bottom the way that all gamblers do is fantastic. It's equally fantastic for this script to have him immediately forget about it and place another bet. That is what these kinds of people do, they are degenerates. This movie is also funny, but not in the way that Sandler's movies usually are. Good Time was funny too, you know. I think Uncut Gems is a movie that does immediately remind the viewers who saw Good Time of Good Time. The film does not shy away from that at any point, but this film isn't as quickly paced or as frenetic. The tension level is so high though. The ending is completely realistic and I think that's what would actually happen, but it seemed like the audience didn't realize or accept this when I was sitting in the theater. That isn't a problem to me as I don't understand why someone wouldn't accept that as the end result of Howard's lifestyle. Money existed to this guy so that he could make more. I guess people probably thought that the guys would get the money if they were patient, but psychopathic goons are never patient and they had been disrespected countless times.

I've said pretty much all there is that I usually say about these movies, but I have a few more things. This kind of movie is the sort where you are supposed to feel dread the entire time, and you do. I also appreciate that the Safdies use new actors in their films. When you see certain character actors in a movie, you know what they are probably in the movie to do, but the script is flipped here and I don't know who some of these people even are. The soundtrack is also excellent, again that isn't a surprise. It is also easy to forget that this is Adam Sandler as these events are playing out. He so easily becomes the character that it is actually quite disturbing. I am looking forward to watching this again. I am also very, very impressed with this script and the way that a lot of these roles went against convention. You'd expect things like Julia's character taking advantage of Howard and treating him like shit. That, however, is very much not the case. This is a pretty strange film all things considered, and I did like it a lot. The ending is one of the best of the year. This is not as strong an effort as Good Time, though.

8.5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Uncut Gems
10. Booksmart
11. Avengers: Endgame
12. Queen & Slim
13. Toy Story 4
14. Joker
15. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
16. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
17. Us
18. Ford v. Ferrari
19. Gloria Bell
20. The Beach Bum
21. The Art of Self-Defense
22. Dark Waters
23. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
24. Arctic
25. Spider-Man: Far From Home
26. Rocketman
27. High Flying Bird
28. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
29. Paddleton
30. Richard Jewell
31. The Peanut Butter Falcon
32. Honey Boy
33. Doctor Sleep
34. Hustlers
35. Blinded by the Light
36. Captain Marvel
37. Jojo Rabbit
38. Long Shot
39. Shazam
40. Ready or Not
41. A Vigilante
42. Late Night
43. Crawl
44. It: Chapter Two
45. Hotel Mumbai
46. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
47. Zombieland: Double Tap
48. Harriet
49. Hobbs & Shaw
50. Official Secrets
51. Always Be My Maybe
52. Cold Pursuit
53. The Laundromat
54. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
55. Shaft
56. Happy Death Day 2U
57. Ma
58. Terminator: Dark Fate
59. Annabelle Comes Home
60. Greta
61. Jumanji: The Next Level
62. Aladdin
63. Triple Frontier
64. Fighting with My Family
65. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
66. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
67. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
68. Brexit
69. The Dirt
70. Velvet Buzzsaw
71. Stuber
72. Little
73. Alita: Battle Angel
74. The Good Liar
75. The Current War: Director's Cut
76. The Kid
77. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
78. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
79. Good Boys
80. The Upside
81. The Lion King
82. Dumbo
83. The Hummingbird Project
84. Escape Room
85. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
86. Brian Banks
87. Tolkien
88. The Dead Don't Die
89. Captive State
90. The Highwaymen
91. Pet Sematary
92. The Intruder
93. Child's Play
94. 21 Bridges
95. Gemini Man
96. Brightburn
97. Never Grow Old
98. Rambo: Last Blood
99. Midway
100. Angel Has Fallen
101. Black and Blue
102. Yesterday
103. Anna
104. What Men Want
105. Them That Follow
106. Unicorn Store
107. The Curse of La Llorona
108. Miss Bala
109. Men in Black: International
110. The Red Sea Diving Resort
111. The Perfection
112. Hellboy
113. Glass
114. Dark Phoenix
115. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
116. The Kitchen
117. The Hustle
118. The Best of Enemies
119. The Prodigy
120. Polar
121. Serenity

 

[909]

Bombshell (2019), directed by Jay Roach

When Bombshell was first announced, I was very much looking forward to seeing the movie. My assumption was that certain Fox News personalities would be hit far harder than they were over the course of this film. Somebody is going to have to explain why Jay Roach was given the job of directing this movie. I understand that he's directed some good TV movies, and those were also about politics, but this kind of movie needs to be much more consistent in tone. At the same time, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe movies like Vice and W. show that portrayals of horrible people are difficult to get right. It is hard not to laugh at these sorts. In that sense it is hard to make a movie serious when it really needs to be extremely serious. The direction doesn't help with this, but to include portrayals of Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera makes a serious movie impossible. You know, whatever. It's clear that I have an issue with the tone of the movie and that I don't really know what I should say. Maybe I need to watch the Showtime show about Roger Ailes. Maybe its simply been so long since the scandal that it's hard to really find value in a movie like this one. Also, we now know that nothing changed at Fox News in the aftermath of this scandal. Now there are anchors who can go talk this kind of shit on television and get away with it.

Bombshell is a movie that juggles three separate narratives, and arguably four of them, as best as it possibly can. First, and perhaps most importantly, you have the story of Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) and how he ran Fox News. You then have the story of two of the most prominent female anchors at Fox News, and a composite character that is used to make everything hit home just a little bit more. Of course, the most important of those anchors is Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron). The film does a bad job of making time really work for it even though the dates are displayed on the screen. This film tries to cover Donald Trump treating her like shit, Roger Ailes trying to get Trump to back off of her, and Roger Ailes sexually harassing her. Perhaps that's too much for one film to do, and I think one of those elements could have been removed. The director does a poor job of tying her reluctance to name and shame Ailes to her one-sided feud with Trump and Ailes trying to get Trump to stop shitting on Fox News. You know what, this movie is kind of fucking bad. Typing all these things out makes it more clear to me.

The other two narratives center around Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and Kayla (Margot Robbie). Kayla is the composite character I was mentioning, and while the movie is very ambiguous about what happened to Gretchen that is not the case with Kayla. We can assume that Ailes forced other women at Fox News to give him oral sex, and they aren't important enough to name in this movie or that information is secret. Which, it really should be because I wouldn't want that shame tied to me either. The way this movie tells it is that Gretchen started pushing more of her beliefs into her program and those beliefs aren't compatible with Fox News groupthink. So, she was fired, but she kept receipts on Ailes. Perhaps she was trying to get fired. That's pretty much what this movie is. It's tonally inconsistent and meanders too much. There are a lot of cameos of other Fox News personalities and almost all of those are what keeps this movie feeling like it's worth watching. The content itself does not.

When I watch a film like Bombshell, it takes me around a day to get frustrated and that's why I waited to write this review. If a movie meanders like this one, eventually I'll realize how shitty it is and put that down into writing. I realized how shitty this was last night while I was struggling to put anything down. That's in near record time for me. It's still hard to write about this movie because it's so frustrating. It's about an issue that deserves a good movie, but it's hard for me to conceive a way in which this could be a good movie. I will say that the portrayals of Fox News personalities are very amusing. Charlize Theron and John Lithgow put in great performances here. Theron's Megyn Kelly voice is so good that it's rather horrifying. The best of the minor portrayals is Richard Kind as Rudy Giuliani. That ghoul really deserves to be lampooned, and this is a great job of doing it. I'm also surprised that this cast is so large while the film doesn't do anything. That being said, I did find some cinematic value in the ending. The way I took it, Megyn Kelly was objectively a bad person which we already know from some of the statements that she's made. That's rally all I can take away from the movie.

Bombshell doesn't even make the statement about good ol' boys culture that it should be making, because Ailes is very largely the only featured subject said culture pertains to. This movie should have been taken far more seriously as a piece about Ailes needs to be serious. This isn't a good film and isn't tied together the way that it needs to be. Sorry if this review doesn't sound comprehensive, but this is a very difficult movie to recap, there are too many characters, and I don't really care for it anyway. This shit isn't really funny to me.

5/10

2019 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
2. Parasite
3. Midsommar
4. Ad Astra
5. The Lighthouse
6. Waves
7. The Farewell
8. Knives Out
9. Uncut Gems
10. Booksmart
11. Avengers: Endgame
12. Queen & Slim
13. Toy Story 4
14. Joker
15. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
16. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
17. Us
18. Ford v. Ferrari
19. Gloria Bell
20. The Beach Bum
21. The Art of Self-Defense
22. Dark Waters
23. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
24. Arctic
25. Spider-Man: Far From Home
26. Rocketman
27. High Flying Bird
28. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
29. Paddleton
30. Richard Jewell
31. The Peanut Butter Falcon
32. Honey Boy
33. Doctor Sleep
34. Hustlers
35. Blinded by the Light
36. Captain Marvel
37. Jojo Rabbit
38. Long Shot
39. Shazam
40. Ready or Not
41. A Vigilante
42. Late Night
43. Crawl
44. It: Chapter Two
45. Hotel Mumbai
46. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
47. Zombieland: Double Tap
48. Harriet
49. Hobbs & Shaw
50. Official Secrets
51. Always Be My Maybe
52. Cold Pursuit
53. The Laundromat
54. Where'd You Go, Bernadette
55. Shaft
56. Happy Death Day 2U
57. Ma
58. Terminator: Dark Fate
59. Annabelle Comes Home
60. Greta
61. Jumanji: The Next Level
62. Aladdin
63. Triple Frontier
64. Fighting with My Family
65. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
66. Pokemon: Detective Pikachu
67. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile
68. Brexit
69. The Dirt
70. Velvet Buzzsaw
71. Stuber
72. Little
73. Alita: Battle Angel
74. The Good Liar
75. The Current War: Director's Cut
76. The Kid
77. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
78. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
79. Good Boys
80. The Upside
81. The Lion King
82. Dumbo
83. The Hummingbird Project
84. Escape Room
85. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged
86. Brian Banks
87. Tolkien
88. The Dead Don't Die
89. Captive State
90. The Highwaymen
91. Bombshell
92. Pet Sematary
93. The Intruder
94. Child's Play
95. 21 Bridges
96. Gemini Man
97. Brightburn
98. Never Grow Old
99. Rambo: Last Blood
100. Midway
101. Angel Has Fallen
102. Black and Blue
103. Yesterday
104. Anna
105. What Men Want
106. Them That Follow
107. Unicorn Store
108. The Curse of La Llorona
109. Miss Bala
110. Men in Black: International
111. The Red Sea Diving Resort
112. The Perfection
113. Hellboy
114. Glass
115. Dark Phoenix
116. Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral
117. The Kitchen
118. The Hustle
119. The Best of Enemies
120. The Prodigy
121. Polar
122. Serenity

 

[909]

I will properly split this out once I watch four movies from 2020.

The Grudge (2020), directed by Nicolas Pesce

Luckily for me, if this film was any indication, I have not seen any of the other entries into this franchise. I'm glad I didn't and after watching this movie I really don't want to. Writing a full review about something this boring is rather difficult, as I nearly fell asleep twice and was barely hanging on after a mere 85 minutes. When the movie was over, everyone laughed, and that wasn't the first time during this movie that happened. Not a particularly good sign for a horror movie. This is also barely a horror movie now that I think of it. There are two or three jump scares in here mixed with someone attempting to make a sad and poignant dramatic movie...and none of it works at all. One of the scenes here has the most horrendous choice in music, and that was one of the other times everyone in the theater was laughing. I don't know what to say here, I'm at a loss. I gues sI should explain the movie.

The Grudge attempts to tell its story in a non-chronological way, similar to Westworld although in the case of Westworld, you don't realize that the events are told that way while you're watching them. Or you aren't supposed to. The film starts out with a focus on Fiona Landers (Tara Westwood), who is leaving a house in Tokyo that I can only assume is the house from the original movie. Whatever. She tells someone that she is returning to America, and subsequently she arrives on her home at 44 Reyburn Drive. This is in Pennsylvania. After this, we move forward to a different story focusing on Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough). Muldoon has moved to this town in Pennsylvania with her son after her husband has died from cancer. She was a police officer wherever she came from, and her new partner is Detective Goodman (Demian Bichir). Goodman and Muldoon are called to the woods, where they see a corpse of someone who had written down in their glovebox that they were visiting...44 Reyburn Drive. I can barely bring myself to finish the rest of this, but Goodman says that he thinks the house is cursed. After that, we see how and why the house is cursed, and that's pretty much the entire movie.

I don't know why there are good actors slumming it in this film, but in addition to the two I already mentioned there's also Frankie Faison, Lin Shaye, Jacki Weaver, and John Cho. Look, this movie fucking sucks and it's boring. Boring things are hard to hate enough to work up the gumption to talk about them. The horror in this movie is decent, but it's also few and far between. This movie is so tiresome, the back and forth cuts between plots just don't do it for me at all. I understand that I'm also tired because of stuff that I have to do at home, but I've never been this close to falling asleep in a movie theater. I don't understand what this movie was really trying to accomplish, but I feel like the director was not attempting to get people to laugh at everything. I do think this was all rather easy to understand, but perhaps it was too easy. If I had to pay attention I assume I wouldn't have been so bored, but the film isn't engaging enough. Perhaps the worst thing in the movie was the dead pregnant woman. So, there you have it. This is probably a good way to start off the year and properly readjust my rating scale.

2.5/10

2020 Films Ranked

Spoiler

1. The Grudge

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Re: Re: 2019-20 Movies Review Thread: There Will Be Spoilers

I was baffled when I saw an ad for that. Why the hell would you make a reboot/remake of a non superhero movie (that is another remake btw!) that is less than 20 years old!?!

 

[909]

Re: Re: 2019-20 Movies Review Thread: There Will Be Spoilers

I was baffled when I saw an ad for that. Why the hell would you make a reboot/remake of a non superhero movie (that is another remake btw!) that is less than 20 years old!?!

The thing that really got me is how this was even released knowing how boring it was. Perhaps they knew it wasn't salvageable from a test screener, I see no way that a screener could ever have ended without the audience laughing at it.