Tag: review

Here’s one of those blog posts which was in my queue and died there. I should’ve finished it weeks ago. Better late than never.

Keanu means cool mountain breeze in Hawaiian. And it was the name of the kitten in Key and Peele’s first movie, Keanu. Now like all sketch shows which spin off a feature length movie, sometimes it feels like a too long stretched out skit. Keanu has that feel. One note played over and over for laughs.

I feel this one may be a cult classic like Fridays ended up being. It’s not too funny at first but when high you’ll laugh. And like pot I think I forgot all about this film.

3 of 5 stars.

Back in the 80s whenever a movie concept hit it big, they made a dozen or more copycat B movies and and straight to video movies. It was knock-off city. The plots were similar to the inspiration movie and feature C grade actors and double D actresses. The Huntsman: Winter’s War seems to revive that tradition. If you ever wanted to see a live action Frozen then here’s something similar. But they actors are not D grade. There’s a few Oscar winners and nominees in the cast. And also Chris Hemsworth. This film is also a double dipper — it’s a prequel and a sequel to the first Huntsman movie. It was also a very terrible movie.

Like those B movies of yore, it had a derivative plot, one which doesn’t make any sense. It starts with the Frozen rip off. Hey, we need an Ice Queen because FROZEN! Emily Blunt plays the Ice Queen Freya; she uses here power to take over other lands and taking the children from them because she believes that they will be her army of Huntsman. Imagine if Elsa from Frozen took a decidedly dark turn instead of the sunny Disney treatment. Freya keeps the children and nurtures an army but for what? Who knows? Does she challenge her sister with her army? Nope. She just mopes because she does not love.

Like those B movies of yore, it had funny sidekicks. There was the dwarves both male and female. The males hated the females and the females hated the males. These dwarves answered the question from the Lord of the Rings movies: what do girl dwarves look like? They had to answer. Who cares?

Like those B movies of yore, it had quests. Get the mirror back, because why would the mirror not have been destroyed at the end of last movie. For sequels! And what happened to Snow White from the last movie? Why did she not want to cash in like everyone else on this sequel?

This movie is just made for cashing in. I wish I never decided to watch it. Movies such as these are why its the golden age of storytelling on television.

2 of 5 stars.

10 Cloverfield Lane was several movies in one.

It started out like a horror film — the tortured, imprisoned girl. Is her captor a savior or someone else quite menacing?

Then it turned into a slice of life in the bomb shelter. What to do when the world has collapsed?

Then it returned to horror. Dear god, this guy really is crazy and he did imprison and kill some other girls. I’d rather go out into the mist.

Finally, it became a science fiction film where she had to defeat alien invaders. ALIEN INVADERS! Like a crazy War of the Worlds.

It was alright. A good experiment, but one you quite soon forget. I started this two weeks ago and had to finish it up because I need to talk about Batman and Superman.

3 of 5 stars.

Tina Fey in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot reminded me of the soul searching woman of Wild. Fey’s character looking for fresh start, wanting to throw the old self out, heads to Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent. She is looking for a new her, because what she was already was not cutting it. She has to find it out in dangerous country. That is exactly like Reese Witherspoon in Wild.

Afghanistan. The war there is unmemorable. We have forgotten. And it looks as if those covering wanted to forget why they were there: parties, drugs, sex, and rock’n’roll ruled their lives in the land of danger. Into this world, the journalists need to make a news story. They have to make war their business. They want to show the world the war, but no one cares. No one cares.

It’s another one of those movies that come and go then get show on FXX. Not interesting at all, but not terrible. Tina Fey looking to broaden her horizon.

3 of 5 stars.

The horror in The Witch permeates every scene. It’s not like a slasher flick wherein the antagonist shows up off and on to butcher everyone. This one plays psychologically. It’s inside your head until it isn’t. It never lets you know safety. It’s always dangerous.

The antagonists, the witch, is real. She nibbles around the family farm before striking, then you know true fright.

The Witch is about a family of New England settlers who exile themselves from the safety of the village. They find themselves on the outskirts of the wilderness plagued by evil of the New Country. This takes place several decades before Salem and let’s you know that the madness was real. And you will all know how real it was.

I watched this during the day, but later that night, I woke up to a bright full moon flooding my room with pale moonlight. Then I thought about the witch and wish I hadn’t.

3 of 5 stars.

I thought Zoolander 2 would be an enjoyable fun time at the theatre watching a dumb movie. Instead it was the suck. So was the movie.

Zoolander 2 finds Ben Stiller reprising his role from a decade ago. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as funny the second time around.

Do not watch until they show it on Comedy Central…

1 of 5 stars.

The Coen brothers have made 17 movies. Hail, Caesar! is another one.

It deals with a man buffeted by fate as he navigates a tricky world to do what is right and correct the wrongs of injustice which had been done against him or his family.

No this isn’t Raising Arizona. No this isn’t No Country For Old Men. No this isn’t A Serious Man. No this isn’t Barton Fink.

This isn’t one of those which are much better films than this one. Although I would argue that it does kind of remind me of A Serious Man. Not the best, not the worst. It fits right into the Coen oeuvre.

3 of 5 stars.

Spotlight is one of the nominees for best picture of the year. I am not sure why though. It is at best a good example of investigative journalism like The Insider, but it lacks any dramatic elements to make it seem important. Yes, given the subject matter it is an important story to tell, but it doesn’t carry the weight of a best picture nominee. It looks as if the Academy was needing to put substantive films into that category and just grabbed for whatever is out there.

Spotlight is the story of the investigative news team of the Boston Globe that published the infamous Catholic Church sexual predator priest coverup. This is important in the sense that they made the Church acknowledge its problems; but they couldn’t make the Church pay for its actions. The Church is still run by dudes who would wish away evil than confront it, and is still supported by millions of followers that want to believe that the goodness the Church does outweighs the fact that it still harbors and abets sexual predators.

The major problem with the movie I had is that their is no drama. There may be characters that search deep in their soul for a way to rectify the good Church and the bad priests, but that all seemed to be rote — needed to establish that good Christians struggle with faith, too. There definitely wasn’t any drama in terms of where the story was heading as this is all old news. There could’ve been drama in the way the reporters, all relapsed Catholics, approached their loss in faith, but they didn’t really touch too much on that.

The actors were fine. I’m glad to see Racheal McAdams in movies again. Ruffalo was excellent, but his character was the least interesting — a relapsed Catholic abhors the Church because of its penchant for hiding its sins?

The best that this can be is a nice TCM diversion during its annual 31 days of Oscars. That’s where I would catch it.

3 of 5 stars.