Asteroid City

Asteroid City feels to me like Wes Anderson’s Barton Fink. Completely baffling upon first watch. Perhaps it needs several in order to understand it. I know if I was to figure out what I watched I need watch it again.

It was a meta-movie. A film about a stage play. And it looked like a stage play but as a movie. It also had the entire cast of every Wes Anderson film in it, too. Except for Bill Murray. It was a family reunion.

I guess I’ll have to watch again, but this one left me cold.

3 of 5 stars.

Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

Across the Spiderverse made me sad. I thought the implications of what the Spider Corps was doing was plenty dark. I thought the joy of having Spider-Gwen, Peter B Parker, Spider-Noir, Peter Porker, and Penny in the previous installment was washed away with this more serious, high-stakes story. I am still trying to come to grips with it. Most every review I’ve seen or read believe this to be a great film. For me, I’m not sure.

I wanted more of the same — fun adventures with Miles Morales. Instead, this one’s very much got some high stakes. The rejection of Miles from the Spider Corps was a heavy moment. He thought that he had found like minded friends and colleagues. Add to it that the head Spider thought he was an aberration. Imagine what darkness that is. Rejection. Finally, imagine falling into the darkest timeline from which we’ll have to wait for the story to be concluded next year. Multiverses are filled with madness.

It left me sad. Do I need to wait? Why do I feel Mile’s rejection?

Anyhow, they animation in this film continues the previous style even more so. Finally, animators are finding a richer way to tell animated stories. Gone is the cold perfection of CG rendering. It is now getting expressive. I wonder if we are entering the WGA style for CG animation? I like this style as it is something that shows us that animation is art for everyone.

4 of 5 stars.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

I should’ve posted this soon after I saw it, but better late than never. I’m going to try and get one more post for the month in. I’ll let my review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 be the last one.

Not bad for the closing of the trilogy. Seemed a fitting way to end. A new team!

I guess that’s really all I have to say. It seems I forgot a lot. Go watch it. It’s not that bad.

3 of 5 stars.

Air

Air is a big Nike commercial. A peon to the sports apparel company that was dominant for quite a long time.

One of the weird things about this movie is how it wants to evoke the 80s. Is it enough to remind us of the 80s by just throwing things of the time into the movie? There was a scene that had a skateboarder doing kickflips. I’m not sure that at that time the kickflip was as common then as it is today. Certainly not done with the flick seen in the movie. But there were other things too thrown in to remind us of the 80s. It certainly had me thinking about when a particular thing on the screen showed up if it was correct for that time.

I had a pair or two of Air Jordans and I skated in them totally ruining them with an ollie hole. I had the original white and a pair of red and black. It’s amazing that they are still around. It is an iconic shoe. The movie? Not so much.

3 of 5 stars.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves

Should I start watching movies again? It’s a question I ask myself all the time especially when I am sitting home bored out of my mind. I guess I’ll go check what’s playing at the local cinema on this holiday weekend.

Well lookee here! Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves!

It’s something.

Because I needed to watch something, I ended up watching this. It’s a mindless caper set in the D&D world. It was a classic caper for a small band of adventurers to steal the macguffin in order to do the thing that advances the plot towards the end. Like a game of D&D, there was plenty of random stuff happening — plans made, plans failed. If you need it to happen, role the dice it happened.

Chris Pine was classic smug Chris Pine. Michelle Rodriguez was classic Letty mode but with an axe. The group also had a wizard and a shape-shifting druid. Fun was had and the adventure was completed.

I too had fun. It isn’t the perfect movie per se, but it satisfies the itch to go to the theatre and gobble a bucket of popcorn for about 2 hours.

3 of 5 stars.

Ticket to Paradise

There was a moment during the romantic comedy (?), Ticket to Paradise, where I wondered where have I seen this Julia Roberts, George Clooney pairing before? It hits me that they were the central couple in Ocean’s Eleven. That classic heist flick upon which Clooney was trying to win back his ex-wife Roberts. So they’re the same in this movie except Clooney doesn’t want to reunite with his wife. If anything, he wants never to see her again. Yet, their daughter is getting married to a Tahitian seaweed farmer after a real quick romance.

Clooney and Roberts are there to stop this marriage. In paradise. So they have to get a ticket there. To stop it. But doesn’t the beauty of the place make them decide to get back together? Yup. Or maybe because it was an ambiguous ending? I don’t think I liked the ending.

Anyhow, it’s another movie seen in theaters. Maybe I am getting back to watching films? Maybe not. It’s an ambiguous ending.

2 of 5 stars.

Black Adam

Sometimes you just want to watch a movie. That’s how it came to be that I ended up watching Black Adam.

Black Adam stars the Rock. It’s just one of the many this year he appears in. He’s seemingly in everything. One of the things Hollywood seems to be doing is not making any movies without the Rock and I can’t stand it. There are no more movies. There is just the Rock on screen.

Anyhow, I have no idea who Black Adam is in the DC Universe. I do know he’s sort of Shazam’s enemy. That previous sentence barely makes any sense to me. I go with the flow anyway.

Yadda yadda yadda. Black Adam must save the world. He does. Justice League. Justice Society. Etc.

2 of 5 stars.

“Why is it that everyone’s solution to everything around here is some sort of covert plan?” “That’s a secret.”

Remember when I decried the lack of movies to watch this past Labor Day? Remember that I did say that I did watch a movie that weekend? Well the film we watched was The Invitation, one of those low budget horror movies that always seem to be a staple of the end of summer movie releases.

This one starts with a lady who had just lost the last member of her family, her mother. She conveniently takes a DNA test and is connected with a branch of her family from England. They invite her to their home for a family reunion as well as a wedding. Things start of fine, but then we never meet the bride and groom. Later we find out why.

It turns out that her long lost relatives were a cabal feeding the last vampire. The head vampire has three brides. They had lost one. Guess who is the third?

I didn’t want to watch this one, but I really wanted to watch a movie. I guess it was something. A lot of this was easy to see coming. There were a few jump scares, but overall it wasn’t too frightening.

2 of 5 stars.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday is the Pinoy Friday. It supposed to happen on one Easter Sunday amongst the Filipino community in the SF Bay area. It stars comedian Jo Koy and a bunch of other Filipino actors. Did you know Lou Diamon Philips is partially Filipino? Also Tia Carrera?

Back to the Friday’s analogy. The movie had it all. It was meant as a Filipino family film — look at the funniness that is Filipino family life. Then there was a subplot involving gangsters. What?

I guess they didn’t think a film about Filipino family life would’ve been enough. What a missed opportunity. I wonder what happened in the writers room? Did the studio step in? Jo Koy made his name as an observer of Filipino life. He should’ve stuck with what he knew. It is such a disappointment.

2 of 5 stars.

Thor: Love and Thunder

Taikiki Waititi returns to direct the fourth movie starring the Norse god of thunder, Thor in Thor: Love and Thunder. In his previous Norse god movie the really, really good, Thor Ragnarok, he revived the character and the Thor films. In the fourth installment, he went a bridge too far. It sort of reminds me of the third Spiderman film — ambitious.

Doesn’t it feel like the MCU is spinning its wheels? Like where is the Big Bad who will make these films and movie shows worth it? What is the point of it all?

Anyhow, Thor the character is still great. The return of Natalie Portman and her character is welcome addition. Valkyrie is still very cool. But even then it fell short of being a fine superhero film. It is what is is.

3 of 5 stars.