Nope - Movie Review

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea and Keith David.

Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

★★½ 

Jordan Peele knows how to take a benign setting and make it sinister, be it a WASPy dinner party in Get Out or Hands Across America in Us. Here, he points his camera at the outskirts of Hollywood. We follow the Haywood siblings (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer), who train horses for TV shows and commercials, and we have Jupiter's Claim, a third-rate theme park centered on Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen), a child actor now making his living exploiting the projects of his youth.

If you've seen the preview, you know at some point aliens come into play. I'm glad that's the extent of what I knew about them, so I won't reveal more than that. This movie is about how these people on the ground deal with what's up in the sky. It's hard to pin down one theme of the movie. "Spectacle" is one. "Bad miracles" is another. There's also a theme about animals who can go wild, be it the horses who get spooked, or as we see in the opening scene, a chimpanzee gets triggered on a TV set and attacks the crew.

The chimp was on a 1990's sitcom where Ricky was one of the actors, one of the only ones the chimp didn't attack. It's obviously affected Ricky, but I thought the movie would tie the past and present together in some "everything falls into place" way in the third act, and that moment never came. Peele leaves a lot up to the audience to interpret. 

While it had some decent scares in the middle, I'd say Get Out and Us were more suspenseful overall. This is his Signs. Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's third movie, and while it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it was still okay. There's a lot I liked about this movie, but whenever I think about it, its problems are what I think about first. About coincidences, and characters jumping to conclusions that only movie characters would do. And that shoe. We see a shoe unnaturally standing upright in a scene, but it's never explained what made it stand up and why that matters. But it apparently does, because they refer to it a couple times. For some reason...

I think my expectations were too high. 

Elvis - Movie Review

Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomas, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey and Dacre Montgomery.

Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce & Jeremy Doner.

Directed by Baz Luhrmann.

★★★½ 

Baz Luhrmann is nothing if he is not a showman, and so it seems the perfect marriage of someone like Baz to take on the larger-than-life Elvis Presley in a biopic that's exhilarating and tragic. I don't know how much Elvis has to say to the 21st century, but in a time where carny-type con-men control so much behind the scenes, it feels timely to tell this story now.

Austin Butler, currently best known as the murderous cowboy-hippie Tex from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, gives a star-making performance here. I eventually forgot about him and felt like I'm just watching Elvis.

Our narrator, however, is not the King himself, but his Svengali manager Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). "There are some who might see me as the villain in this story," he foreshadows in his odd Dutch accent. As soon as you see and hear him, it takes a moment to decide whether or not to accept what Hanks is going for here. I accepted it, and I saw it as a tightrope-walking performance. Parker feels like an anti-hero con-artist at first, and his ambition did help get Elvis into the national spotlight, but Parker is also one who stayed latched on to Elvis's back like a tick, sucking his meal-ticket dry.

Baz bounces through Elvis's childhood, his instant stardom, his unlikely fame, his hypnotic performances that frightened a Greatest Generation of Dads watching their daughters lose their minds to this hip-swiveling greaser. Who was this southern white boy hanging out with Black entertainers in the segregated 1950's, making their rhythm 'n' blues sound go mainstream? (I was glad his friendship with BB King got as much screen-time as it did.) As we get deep into the 1960's, the movie slows down and we get a better idea of who Elvis really is.

I sat there as the credits rolled, grateful for Elvis's place in music history in a way that I hadn't felt before, but also sad at the lost potential. What if Elvis had figured out around 1965 that Parker was a vampire holding him back more than he was helping his career get to the next level? He's the greatest-selling solo recording artist ever, and yet, if he hadn't been filled with drugs and thrown on the Vegas stage every night while filming C-grade movies during the day, how much higher could he have soared?

It's a movie that asks people to examine their own lives. Who really loves you for you vs. who lets you self-destruct because of how they selfishly benefit off of you? Sadly, Elvis didn't figure out the answer soon enough, and he died alone of a heart attack at age 42.

Every 2022 Movie I've Seen

Here's how I'd rank the 43 movies from 2022 I've seen so far.

1. Best of the Year So Far

2. Thumbs Up

3. Thumbs Sideways

4. Thumbs Down

5. Worst of the Year So Far

===BEST OF THE YEAR SO FAR (5) ===

1. TOP GUN MAVERICK

Starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Val Kilmer, Ed Harris, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell and Monica Barbaro.

Written by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer & Christopher McQuarrie.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski.

Pretty amazing what they've pulled off here. They revisit a movie over 30 years later, use many of the same story beats, and yet they improve on the original in just about every way. That never happens.

Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is still just a captain well into his 50's, through his habit of angering too many admirals. When he's on the verge of getting kicked out of the Navy for good, Admiral "Iceman" Kasansky calls on him to train the Top Gun pilots for a new and deadly mission. Can the famous authority-bucker instill discipline into students that remind him of himself? And among the pilots he's training is Rooster (Miles Teller), son of his late friend Goose.

I have some nostalgia for the original, but pretty much everything works. The mission and its stakes are clear, we get to know the pilots, and I did tear up at the reunion of Maverick and Iceman, and at the thought of my late father if he'd lived long enough to see this reunion. This is exactly what summer movies are supposed to be.

2. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan.

Written & Directed by Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert.

I admire this movie's chutzpah, its creativity, and its balls-to-the-wall willingness to thrown everything out there. It does more with the multiverse concept than Doctor Strange ever thought of. Had a blast, and good for Michelle Yeoh to finally be the star of an action comedy.

3. THE BATMAN

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis and Peter Sarsgaard.

Written by Matt Reeves & Peter Craig.

Directed by Matt Reeves.

A brooding ponderous take on Gotham's favorite marsupial-based superhero, this one takes its time establishing the city as its own character. I didn't mind the running time at all, as it was willing to linger on those shots of dark shadows, forgotten pages, and so forth. Each villain gets their own scene to shine; I hope next time around they give Robert Pattinson a little bit more to do.

4. ELVIS

Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomas, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey and Dacre Montgomery.

Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce & Jeremy Doner.

Directed by Baz Luhrmann.

Baz Luhrmann is nothing if he is not a showman, and so it seems the perfect marriage of someone like Baz to take on the larger-than-life Elvis Presley in a biopic that's exhilarating and tragic. I don't know how much Elvis has to say to the 21st century, but in a time where carny-type con-man control so much behind the scenes, it feels timely to tell this tory at this time.

Austin Butler, currently best known as the murderous cowboy-hippie Tex from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, gives a star-making performance here. I eventually forgot about him and felt like I'm just watching Elvis.

5. PREY

Starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro and Stormee Kipp.

Written by Patrick Aison & Dan Trechtenberg.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg.

It was never intended to be Best Picture material, but a really well-done genre picture can be just as fulfilling. Predator is a basic classic from 1987 that's seen many inferior sequels and spin-offs, but this prequel is easily the best follow-up of all of them. This takes place in 1700's America, and Amber Midthunder plays Naru, a young Comanche who first sees this Predator and must warn her people about this thing she saw she can't fully comprehend.

===THUMBS UP (18)===

THE OUTFIT

Starring Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Johnny Flynn and Simon Russell Beale.

Written by Jonathan McClain & Graham Moore.

Directed by Graham Moore.

This puzzle-box feels like it was adapted from a stage play, and that's not a bad thing. Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, Dunkirk) is front and center as a cutter (maker of fine suits) in 1956 Chicago whose main clients are in the mob. Over the course of one night, the mild-mannered shop-owner must deal with increasingly cagey gangsters who believe they have a rat in their crew. I really enjoyed watching the layers being pulled back and seeing which characters have ulterior motives.

MAD GOD

Starring the voices of Alex Cox and Nikita Roman.

Written & Directed by Phil Tippett.

This dialogue-free stop-motion animated picture is like being trapped in a nightmare written by HP Lovecraft & George Orwell, produced by David Cronenberg, and directed by Terry Gilliam. This descent into madness is not so much a movie as an Experience, one you have to see to believe. There's nothing else out there quite like it.

THE SEA BEAST

Starring the voices of Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Dan Stevens and Jim Carter.

Written by Chris Williams & Nell Benjamin.

Directed by Chris Williams.

Netflix has been improving its original animated feature offerings. This straightforward action-adventure has a real Master & Commander flavor to it, following a crew who hunts sea monsters, but an orphaned girl stows away on the ship to watch the crew in action. It's predictable but the creatures are fun and it has a grittiness not usually felt in children's fare.

TURNING RED 

Starring the voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse and James Hong.

Written by Domee Shi, Julia Cho & Sarah Streicher.

Directed by Domee Shi.

Pixar's latest is like a caffeinated gender-swap update on Teen Wolf. Meilin is a good student, good daughter, good friend whose life gets turned upside-down when she learns the hard way that the women in her family occasionally transform into a red panda once they hit puberty.

DEATH ON THE NILE

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Emma Mackey, Armie Hammer and Annette Bening.

Written by Michael Green.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Kenneth Branagh's second outing as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is a slight improvement over his previous effort, so I therefore hope we eventually get a third. 

THE BLACK PHONE

Starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies and James Ransome.

Written by Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill.

Directed by Scott Derrickson.

From the guys who brought you Sinister and Doctor Strange! This is based on a short story by Stephen King's son Joe Hill, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's been a rash of kidnappings in a small town in 1978, and we follow Finney (Mason Thames), the latest victim of the masked man known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). He is kept prisoner in a basement that has a rotary black phone on the wall. The phone supposedly doesn't work, but when it rings, he answers it, and he's able to converse with the Grabber's previous late victims.

This does a good job of blending realistic-feeling horror with supernatural elements. Hawke could just let the mask do the work, but he adds a level of malevolence that makes us truly fear for Finney's safety.

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong.

Written by Michael Waldron.

Directed by Sam Raimi.

Sam Raimi puts his stamp on the MCU, with elements more resembling his horror efforts than his Maguire Spider-Man trilogy. The good doctor finds himself battling against one of the universe's most powerful Avengers, and he has to hop to different universes to figure out how to stop her.

THE NORTHMAN

Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke and Bjork.

Written by Sjon & Robert Eggers.

Directed by Robert Eggers.

Robert Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) likes things dark and mystical. Here we get the story of Amleth, a Viking prince whose uncle kills his father. He escapes and spends years vowing revenge. Alexander Skarsgard shines as the determined, eternally angry prince, and Eggers regulars like Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe show up to keep things interesting. It's one of the most brutal movies I've seen in a while. It's said that this tale was inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet, and I can see that.

THE BAD GUYS

Starring the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Zazie Beetz, Richard Ayoade and Alex Borstein.

Written by Etan Cohen

Directed by Pierre Perifel.

I'm not familiar with the source material, but this is based on a series of children's graphic novels about the "bad guys" in the animal kingdom who get the opportunity to be good for a change. The breezy plot is easy enough for kids to follow, while it heartily winks at the heist films of Soderbergh and the crime films of Tarantino for parents. I'd see a sequel.

THE MAN FROM TORONTO

Starring Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Jasmine Mathews, Kaley Cuoco and Ellen Barkin.

Written by Robbie Fox, Chris Bremner & Jason Blumenthal.

Directed by Patrick Hughes.

Mistaken identity comedy with genuine laughs thanks to the chemistry between the two leads. Kevin Hart plays a hapless salesman who is mistaken for a world-class assassin known only as The Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson). He then has to keep pretending he's the hitman in order to stop a terrorist plot.

SCREAM (2022)

Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jenna Ortega and Jack Quaid.

Written by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett. 

It's technically Scream 5, and I find it obnoxious they just named it Scream so from now on we have to put the year after the title when referring to this in relation to the original. Anyway, Ghostface still has it. It's about as good as any other Scream sequel, and I like the new rules for the reboot.

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan and Ike Barinholtz.

Written by Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten.

Directed by Tom Gormican.

Nicolas Cage's most meta movie since Adaptation. He plays himself, a hard-working actor who nevertheless keeps losing his money, so he agrees to spend a weekend with his biggest fan for $1 million. Trouble is, his biggest fan is suspected to be the head of the cartel. The more Cage movies you've seen, the more enjoyable it is.

FRESH

Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan.

Written by Lauryn Kahn.

Directed by Mimi Cave.

This darkly funny horror flick feels like a send-up of the pitfalls of modern dating. It starts out like a bland meet-cute rom-com, but once the girl goes to the boy's home, we get to the first big twist, and her evening turns into a nightmare. There is sufficient gore and queasy parts, and the movie sails by based on the charisma of its two leads.

DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Hugh Dancy, Allen Leech, Dominic West and Sophie McShera.

Written by Julian Fellowes.

Directed by Simon Curtis. 

We return to 1920's England in the second film chronicling the life of the Crowleys, and I enjoyed this one a little more than the first one. The twin plots involve Lady Grantham (Maggie Smith) inheriting a villa in the south of France from an old beau, and then a Hollywood film crew desiring to use Downton as a location. Doesn't sound like much story, but when you have 30-something characters to juggle, it doesn't need much more than that.

CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH

Starring Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Leslie Mann and Brad Garrett.

Written & Directed by Cooper Raiff.

Quirky dramedy about a 22-year-old who hasn't figured out what career path he wants who gets a side-job as a bar mitzvah party-starter who gets the shy kids out on the dance floor. While doing this, he falls for the mother (Dakota Johnson) of an autistic girl. As writer, director, and star, Raiff hogs a lot of camera time but he's able to balance it out by giving his co-stars chances to shine, in particular Johnson.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2

Starring Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Ben Schwartz and Idris Elba.

Written by Pat Casey, Josh Miller & John Whittington.

Directed by Jeff Fowler.

About as good as the first one, and I kinda liked the first one. Sonic is getting used to life on Earth, but a porcupine-looking warrior named Knuckles has crossed the galaxy to find him, believing Sonic holds the key to ultimate power. Dr. Robotix (Jim Carrey) hears this and offers to help. They find a way to sideline James Marsden for most of the film, like an Alvin & the Chipmunks movie that doesn't want too much Dave to get in the way.

HUSTLE

Starring Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangomez, Robert Duvall, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Anthony Edwards, Jordan Hull, Heidi Gardner, Jaleel White, Willy Hernangomez, Jordan Clarkson, Doc Rivers and Julius Erving.

Written by Will Fetters & Taylor Materne.

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar.

This is good Adam Sandler. While he's put out a bunch of very skippable comedies on Netflix, Sandler has also appeared in some genuinely good films lately, like The Meyerowitz Stories and Uncut Gems. Here he's in the mode for quality, and it's decent. Super predictable, but still entertaining.

Here he plays a longtime scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. He'd like to fulfill his dream of becoming an assistant coach, but he has one more season to find a gem for the team. He stumbles upon a green player balling in a park in Spain. The Utah Jazz's Juancho Hernangomez plays Bo Cruz, not asked to do too much but nails the scenes where he needs to stretch. I was even more impressed by the Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards as the movie's cocky villain, projected lottery pick Kermet Wilts.

The movie is FULL of NBA vets, current and former. I got a kick out of Kenny Smith playing an actual character, but there also being a scene from the NBA on TNT with Ernie, Chuck and Shaq (but no Kenny!) As I said, you'll see every twist and turn coming, but it still hit the emotional beats just right.

THE LOST CITY

Starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt.

Written by Oren Uziel, Dane Fox, Aaron Nee & Adam Nee.

Directed by Aaron & Adam Nee.

It mostly resembles an update of Romancing the Stone, but if Michael Douglas' character was really the cover model for Kathleen Turner's adventure-romances books. Sandra Bullock is the author here, and she and her books' cover model (Channing Tatum) get kidnapped in order to look for a buried treasure that an eccentric millionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) is convinced is real, as it was in one of her books. I liked it a little more than Uncharted, but it feels like the exact same genre.

===THUMBS SIDEWAYS (9) ===

X

Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Martin Henderson and Kid Cudi.

Written & Directed by Ti West.

The first half of this movie is very clever with its playfulness in 1970's slasher-horror tropes, but once the killing starts, it just becomes a string of clichés. Plus I couldn't get over Mia Goth playing two roles. Seeing her in old-age make-up yanked me out every time.

NOPE

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea and Keith David.

Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

Jordan Peele knows how to take a benign setting and make it sinister, be it a WASPy dinner party in Get Out or Hands Across America in Us. Here, he points his camera at the outskirts of Hollywood. We follow the Haywood siblings (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer), who train horses for TV shows and commercials, and we have Jupiter's Claim, a third-rate theme park centered on Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen), a child actor now making his living exploiting the projects of his youth.

If you've seen the preview, you know at some point aliens come into play. I'm glad that's the extent of what I knew about them, so I won't reveal more than that. This movie is about how these people on the ground deal with what's up in the sky. It's hard to pin down one theme of the movie. "Spectacle" is one. "Bad miracles" is another. There's also a theme about animals who can go wild, be it the horses who get spooked, or as we see in the opening scene, a chimpanzee gets triggered on a TV set and attacks the crew.

The chimp was on a 1990's sitcom where Ricky was one of the actors, one of the only ones the chimp didn't attack. It's obviously affected Ricky, but I thought the movie would tie the past and present together in some "everything falls into place" way in the third act, and that moment never came. Peele leaves a lot up to the audience to interpret. 

While it had some decent scares in the middle, I'd say Get Out and Us were more suspenseful overall. This is his Signs. Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's third movie, and while it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it was still okay. There's a lot I liked about this movie, but whenever I think about it, its problems are what I think about first. About coincidences, and characters jumping to conclusions that only movie characters would do. And that shoe. We see a shoe unnaturally standing upright in a scene, but it's never explained what made it stand up and why that matters. But it apparently does, because they refer to it a couple times. For some reason...

I think my expectations were too high. 

THOR: LOVE & THUNDER

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe and Taika Waititi.

Written by Taika Waititi & Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Directed by Taika Waititi.

This film doubles down on the humor from Thor: Ragnarok to uneven results. It became so silly and unserious that it grew tiresome. Christian Bale brings some real gravitas to Gorr the God Butcher but every scene he's not in might as well contain a laugh track. If Thor had started singing to cartoon birds, it wouldn't have felt out of place. I did enjoy sections of the movie here and there, but when you look at weaker MCU fare, if Eternals was too ponderous, this was too empty-headed.

THE GRAY MAN

Starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Arnas, Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Henwick, Rene-Jean Page, Alfre Woodard, Wagner Moura, Dhanush and Julia Butters.

Written by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely.

Directed by Joe & Anthony Russo.

The action scenes are competent, the dialogue is quippy, the cast is charismatic, but the ingredients never add up to a satisfying whole. It doesn't feel substantive enough to have been based on a book. Ryan Gosling plays Six, an off-the-books assassin for the CIA who learns his latest target was an ex assassin like himself who had evidence that'll bring down the top brass in the CIA. Six goes on the run, and he's being targeted by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a scruple-free assassin in his own right who has no problem torturing and killing to accomplish his goals.

The Russos have directed Evans in some Captain America/Avengers movies, and he's having fun here as the villain. Everything on paper says this movie should have worked. It just evaporates as soon as it's over.

AMBULANCE

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza Gonzalez, Garrett Dillahunt and Keir O'Donnell.

Written by Chris Fedak.

Directed by Michael Bay.

Well, it's certainly better than 6 Underground. Michael Bay is at his Bayest in this movie about a bank robbery that goes wrong, and two of the thieves take an ambulance, including a paramedic and a wounded cop, on one long, long car chase through Los Angeles. Most of the chase is entertaining, as is Gyllenhaal clearly having fun as the more-unhinged robber, although I had a hard time believing this ambulance could just keep finding clear roads to drive on in the famously gridlocked city of LA. Not to mention, did it really need to be 135 minutes? Spoiler: never at any point does the ambulance transform into an Autobot.

SPIDERHEAD

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollet.

Written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick.

Directed by Joseph Kosinki.

Kosinki reunites with his Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller to tell a smaller tale of a low-security prison in the near future that gives its inmates a lot of luxuries in exchange for their voluntary participation in drug-test trials that affect their emotions. Hemsworth is the smiling yet sinister scientist running the experiments, while Teller is the main inmate who starts to wonder what these tests are really accomplishing. It's based on a short story, and if it had been pared down to an hour, it would made for a pretty cool Black Mirror episode. As is, it's fine. Like most Netflix movies these days, it goes down pleasantly without much that sticks on the bones once it's over.

THE ADAM PROJECT

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldana and Walker Scobell.

Written by Jonathan Tropper, TS Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin.

Directed by Shawn Levy.

Ryan Reynolds in straight-to-Netflix mode, as a man who goes back in time and meets his 12-year-old self. There were enough twists to keep me interested, but corners were definitely cut when it came to the special effects.

JACKASS FOREVER

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ehren McGhehey and Eric Andre.

Directed by Jeff Tremaine.

I haven't seen the others, but I think y'all know what these are. Friends get together and torture each other with pranks and stunts that involve more than one groin injury. Sometimes the laughter is infectious; sometimes you just want to cover your face.

UNCHARTED

Starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas and Sophia Ali.

Written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Jon Hanley Rosenberg & Mark D. Walker.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

It's about as deep as a National Treasure sequel but it's light-hearted and fun for a lot of the time too. Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) knows how to keep things moving, even when the logic doesn't matter.

==THUMBS DOWN (7) ===

JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION

Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, BD Wong, Omar Sy and Justice Smith.

Written by Derrick Connolly, Emily Carmichael & Colin Trevorrow.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow.

The filmmakers wanted to make an epic conclusion to this Jurassic franchise 30 years in the making, and there is some clear global Mission Impossible style ambitions here. The problem is that it largely forgets about what we're all here to see - the dinosaurs!

Lewis Dodgson, the guy who wanted to steal some dino DNA and handed the fake shaving cream can to Nedry (Wayne Knight) in the first Jurassic Park movie, has managed to become the CEO of Biosyn, the global leader on dinosaur DNA research. He's now played by Campbell Scott, and of course he's also hired the scruple-free Dr. Wu (BD Wong) to help him out, but this time they may have gone too far. They've engineered some killer locusts with dino DNA and they've broken free and are destroying crops on a massive scale. And Wu might feel bad this time.

But that's really the third subplot. We have dinosaurs running loose all over the world thanks to the events of the previous film, and Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are living a secluded domestic life keeping human clone Maisie Lockwood from being found and exploited for her genes. Eventually though she gets kidnapped by mercenaries, and they go on the run to try to save her.

Meanwhile, Ellie (Laura Dern) has hunted down Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to help her study these giant locusts and track down proof that Biosyn is somehow behind it. They have an 'in' at the company. Turns out Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is a paid consultant at Biosyn.

There's a lot of globetrotting, chase scenes, run-ins here and there with the dinos, but nothing for the first 100 minutes or so really gets the blood pumping. The special effects aren't any better than they were since the first trilogy, and the dinosaurs are such an afterthought that the entire marketing campaign feels like a deception. It's really the last half-hour when all of the characters meet up and we have a sustained rollercoaster of outrunning dinosaurs while trying to keep Maisie alive and keep the proof safe so Biosyn can be exposed for what they're doing.

It's not the worst Jurassic movie (that honor still belongs to Jurassic Park III), but as epic conclusions go, it's certainly a letdown. Then again, it's making so much money they could make another one if Universal so wanted.

BIG BUG

Starring Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Claude Perron and Youssef Hajdi.

Written by Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Bizarre French sci-fi flick set in the near future when AI robots run the government, resulting in oppressive rules for human citizens. It all takes place in one house and its low budget shows. Some of the robots look like cast-offs from MST3K. 

THE BUNKER GAME

Starring Gaia Weiss, Lorenzo Richelmy, Mark Ryder and Tudor Istodor.

Written by Manuela Cacciamani, Francesca Forristal, Davide Orsini, KT Roberts & Roberto Zazzara.

Directed by Roberto Zazzara.

A group of people role-play as Nazis surviving in a post-1945 bunker, but when their game is over, people actually start dying, possibly by the hand of ghosts of Nazis past. Features a lot of characters wandering off by themselves to get offed one by one.

WINDFALL

Starring Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons and Jason Segel.

Written by Charlie McDowell, Jason Segel, Justin Leder & Andrew Kevin Walker.

Directed by Charlie McDowell.

Felt like it was conceived and shot during COVID. One man (Jason Segel) trespasses at the vacation home of a tech billionaire and holds him and his wife hostage when they come home early. A lot of talking ensues. It stays on the same level until the abrupt climax.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)

Starring Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Alice Krige, Jacob Latimore and Olwen Fouere.

Written by Chris Thomas Devlin, Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues.

Directed by David Blue Garcia.

This wanted to be what the latest Halloween movie was, complete with bringing back original survivor Sally (played by a different actress since Marilyn Burns died a few years ago), but it doesn't distinguish itself enough from any other Chainsaw reboot/remake/sequel. 

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 4: TRANSFORMANIA

Starring the voices of Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kathryn Hahn and David Spade.

Written by Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo & Genndy Tartakovsky.

Directed by Derek Drymon & Jennifer Kluska.

Adam Sandler and Kevin James didn't return for this one so it went straight to Amazon Prime (although it did go to some theaters later). This franchise has never been that strong on the quality side and it was so frenetic I felt like pausing it just to relax my heartbeat.

THE PRINCESS

Starring Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko and Ed Stoppard.

Written by Ben Lustig & Jake Thornton.

Directed by Le-Van Kiet.

A princess must battle her way to safety after she's been kidnapped. And as fun as it is to see Joey King (The Conjuring) dispatch villains while in her gorgeous white dress the first few times, the novelty wears off after a while. But the whole movie is pretty much one long chase scene with set pieces that seem straight from Kevin Sorbo's Hercules. The acting by everyone else is about that level too.

===WORST OF THE YEAR SO FAR (4)===

40. THE 355

Starring Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, Sebastian Stan, Bingbing Fan, Edgar Ramirez and Jason Flemyng.

Written by Theresa Rebeck & Simon Kinberg.

Directed by Simon Kinberg.

Amazing cast wasted on a third-rate 007 script that features female spies who can't hit the broad side of a barn when they shoot, and a lot of people get shot here. It's merely mediocre for most of it, but then the main villain does something so staggeringly stupid that it yanked me out for the rest of the movie. Simon Kinberg may be a really good producer (The Martian, Deadpool) but he's now directed Dark Phoenix and this, and my guess is he sticks to producing for a while.

41. FIRESTARTER

Starring Zac Efron, Ryan Keira Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Gloria Reuben, Kurtwood Smith and Michael Greyeyes.

Written by Scott Teems.

Directed by Keith Thomas.

The original wasn't that good, so I didn't see an issue with remaking it, but they weren't able to update the dated plot points for the 21st century in a way that made the story better. In fact, in many ways they made a worse movie. No supporting powerhouses like George C. Scott and Martin Sheen are here to lend gravitas to the film, and while I think she can have a future in acting, Ryan Keira Armstrong doesn't have the instant child-star-power Drew Barrymore did in the 1984 version.

42. MORBIUS

Starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Adris Arjona, Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal.

Written by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless.

Directed by Daniel Espinoza.

The central problem with this movie? Jared Leto, the screenwriters, and the director forgot to make the main character remotely interesting. He's a doctor who infects himself with something that make him vampiric, and Matt Smith is along for the ride to at least try to have fun as the villain, but it's all paint-by-numbers predictable from beginning to end.

43. THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD

Starring the voices of Utkarsh Ambudkar, Sean Kenin, Aaron Harris and Simon Pegg.

Written by Jim Hecht, William Schifrin & Ray DeLaurentis.

Directed by John C. Donkin.

This straight-to-DisneyPlus sequel is as bad as any random early 1990's straight-to-DVD animated sequel Disney used to cynically crank out. If Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo won't come back to the do the voices, just don't do the movie.

Morbius - Movie Review

Starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Al Madrigal and Zaris-Angel Hator.

Written by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless.

Directed by Daniel Espinoza.

★½ 

Sony just isn't as good as Disney when it comes to the MCU, and Morbius is Exhibit A. Take, for example, the writing team. Yes, Sazama & Sharpless know how to write special-effects movies, like Dracula: Untold and The Last Witch Hunter and Gods of Egypt. But there's nothing on their resume that suggests they can deliver anything better than a thumbs-sideways flick you're better off renting rather than seeing in a theater. I mean, did anyone even see their Power Rangers movie?

The script never really breaks through from its origin-story beats. Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has a rare blood disorder he's trying to cure; the cure gives him vampire-like powers but also a taste for human blood; his surrogate brother Milo (Matt Smith) takes the cure too, and while Morbius feels bad about his powers and doesn't want to kill, Milo has no problem feasting on humans and enjoying his new lease on life. And so on.

Leto is uninteresting as Morbius. This film reminded me of Venom a lot, if Venom had no charismatic star and no attempts at humor. I could liken it to the Miles Teller/Kate Mara version of The Fantastic Four, where the body horror isn't engaging and the movie forgets to give us a reason to care about these characters. The imminently watchable Jared Harris is here in the father-figure role but they give him nothing to DO. 

Most good action or sci-fi movies have scenes that elevate the story to the next level, or have that memorable chase sequence. Something. Not this.

Side note: The first trailer for this movie made sure to have a scene showing Michael Keaton, reprising his role as Vulture. But he doesn't actually show up until the middle of the closing credits.

X - Movie Review

Starring Mia Goth, Jenny Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, Owen Campbell and Stephen Ure.

Written & Directed by Ti West.

★★½ 

Ti West's horror movies have always been more about atmosphere than actual scares. I was reminded of this during the second half of the movie, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

His House of the Devil was homage to satanic-panic films like Rosemary's Baby, and his The Innkeepers was homage to haunted-hotel movies like The Shining. This is his homage to 1970's slasher flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It's set in 1979, and West uses stock changes and quick edits to give it that grindhouse feel. The scene is set when we see some Texas police officers surveying a bloody scene at a farmhouse. Dead body in the front yard, blood all over the porch, more gruesomeness inside. Then we rewind 24 hours to see how we got here.

We meet aspiring actress Maxine (Mia Goth), her adult-film producing boyfriend (Martin Henderson), auteur-wannabe RJ (Owen Campbell) who believes smut films can be made artfully, and three others along to help. They've rented a guesthouse on a farm in rural Texas to make their own porno The Farmer's Daughters. They haven't told the old Christian couple they're renting from what they're doing, and the first half of the movie is about building the tension, but once the killing starts, the suspense and atmosphere masterfully woven gives way to tongue-in-cheek gore.

I can't say it's ever scary. Suspenseful, yes. Scary, no. When I think of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there's that scare of the first kill, and the scares build from there. Here, these young people get separated too easily, going off one by one to look for the others that are missing. I was also distracted the entire movie by one baffling decision. Rather than get an older actress to play the wife, Mia Goth plays the role in heavy old-age make-up. Why? It's obvious it's a younger woman in old-age make-up. Could never suspend my disbelief on that one. (The answer actually comes in a hilarious post-credits stinger).

So... I admire the craft. The cast. The editing. The music. I suppose we're in a new era. It seems like it's not possible for slasher flicks to be scary anymore. Maybe I'm jaded. At least the occasional supernatural horror movie can still land.

The Batman - Movie Review

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jayme Lawson.

Written by Matt Reeves & Peter Craig.

Directed by Matt Reeves.

★★★½ 

There are several familiar elements that get swirled together in this dark walk through the irredeemable Gotham City. It honors the Nolan trilogy while borrowing just as much from David Fincher, particularly Se7en and Zodiac. I liked Matt Reeves' desire to emphasize the detective elements of Batman. This has always been a strong trait of him in the comic books, but maybe it hasn't been emphasized as much in the films.

Batman is allowed into crime scenes. Somehow this masked vigilante, who's only been doing this two years, has the trust of Lt. Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), though most of the other cops think it's out of line. Gotham is being plagued by a serial killer named the Riddler (Paul Dano), leaving clues along the way as to whom his next victim will be. 

The theme of Gotham is rot. It's a metropolis where too many cops, lawyers, and politicians have been corrupted, to where a known crime boss like Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) can peddle his wares without fear or retribution. Batman deals with criminals his way, and they're usually ground-level thugs, but the Riddler wants to expose and kill the biggest targets he can find.

The screenplay doesn't let Pattinson do much besides brood as Bruce Wayne. In many ways, he's more in character as Batman. The suit does a lot of work, but he has the "presence" one needs in a suit like that. Every supporting actor has at least One Scene where they go toe-to-toe with Pattinson and are allowed to shine. Batman's felt a lot like the host of the coolest rogue gallery out there and that's true here. 

Dano is nice and creepy as Riddler and it's deep into the movie before we see him out of disguise. His showdown with Batman really does it. Behind his glasses, he has an unnerving serial killer smile. Farrell is terrific as Penguin. If you'd just told me "someone famous" is playing him, I don't know if I could have figured out it was him. The makeup's tremendous, and under that disguise, Farrell most resembled DeNiro's take on Al Capone from The Untouchables. It really is a shame they wouldn't Penguin smoke in the movie. This guys "needs" to be chomping on a cigar while he does business.

I'll be curious how it holds up under a second viewing. It'll be on HBOMax in about 35 days, so that's when we'll see.

Uncharted - Movie Review

Starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Steven Waddington and Pingi Moli.

Written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum & Matt Holloway.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

★★½ 

Uncharted follows the tradition of National Treasure and Red Notice, of people hopscotching around the world looking for valuable treasure in a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, nor does it try to elevate the genre. It is what it is and no more.

Tom Holland plays Nathan Drake, a young man who studied Magellan with his brother but is now a bartender/petty thief. He gets a job offer from Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a treasure hunter who knew Nathan's long-lost brother. He wants Nathan to help him find Magellan's treasure. 

There's a lot of double-crosses in the film, and they never really explain why Nathan's so good at hand-to-hand combat. A brief shot of him exercising covers it, I guess. The final chase scene / fight showdown would have been comfortable in Jungle Cruise.

It held my interest throughout, and it's fun to watch Tati Gabrielle (You) play a heavy. It leaves itself wide open for a sequel with two mid-credits stingers at the end. It's fine. It's okay. I've never played the game so can't speak to how faithful or unfaithful it is with the source material. Catch a matinee or wait for it to stream.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Netflix Review

Starring Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Jacob Latimore, Olwen Fouere, Nell Hudson, Alice Krige, and Jessica Allain.

Written by Chris Thomas Devlin, Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues.

Directed by David Blue Garcia.

★★

Well, I guess it's about as good as any other TCM sequel. Which isn't saying much. I've see almost all of them. The only one I haven't seen is the one with Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. 

The original had that creepy surprise, not just of Leatherface, but there was this whole family of messed-up psychos. This outing is claiming to be a sequel to the original while ignoring all the other ones, like Halloween did a few years ago. It tries so hard to copy the Halloween model that they give Sally, surivvor of the original, the same long white hair Jamie Lee Curtis sports. But it also misses on being an actual sequel. In this one, Leatherface was in an orphanage. Huh?

This one centers on four idyllic college students who are seeking to resurrect a ghost town in rural Texas and turn it into some sort of utopian commune. Naturally the locals lay their accents on thick so that these city-slickers know their kind ain't welcome here. The trouble begins when they dfind that one resident, the old owner of the orphanage, has not vacated, and she has a silent giant who stands in dark shadows in the background. When the old woman dies, the giant loses it. He removes someone's face and wears it as his own, then goes to find his long-hidden chainsaw.

The gore is as extreme as gorehounds could hope for. There's one scene on a bus where passengers are sliced in every way one could be with a chainsaw. 

It's not the worst of the Chainsaw sequels/remakes, but this franchise to me is like Terminator. Just let the thing die already. Unfortunately it'll probably do well enough on Netflix that we'll get another in 2024.

Big Bug - Netflix review

Starring Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Stephane De Groodt and Claude Perron.

Written Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

★★

French sci-fi is so weird. Picture a movie that decides to combine The Fifth Element with the Black Hole Sun music video, but with a $7 million budget and largely in one setting.

The garishly colorful comedy takes place in a near future where humans have abdicated most of their daily chores to AI robots, including government. A group of people find themselves trapped in a house when the robots in charge detect a threat level outside, and now two of the humans with a plane to catch can't get out.

There are plenty of ideas bouncing around here, but for every clever one, there are two that are obnoxious. It's the kind of movie where you'll know in the first few minutes if you're going to like it or not. Director Jeunet usually has a fun flair visually (Amelie), but here he goes gaudily overboard.

At least it tried to be original, but I really can't think of to whom I could recommend this.

Hotel Transylvania: Transformania - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Brian Hull, Fran Drescher and Brad Abrell.

Written by Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo & Genndy Tartakovsky.

Directed by Derek Drymon & Jennifer Kluska.

★★

It wasn't until I was a few minutes into the movie when I realized Adam Sandler and Kevin James were not providing their voices this time around. Oh, no WONDER this skipped theaters and went straight to Amazon Prime!

These movies have always been frantic, but compared to the crack-fueled kinetic speed of this one, the first three movies look like models in subtlety. This movie is for kids who put sugar on their Fruit Loops in the morning. It makes Ren & Stimpy look like Studio Ghibli.

Here, Dracula is looking to retire, but he can't bring himself to leave his hotel to his daughter and son-in-law Jonathan just yet. In fact, he lies about a clause that says he can't transfer ownership of his hotel to a human. Jonathan then decides the best way around that is to turn himself into a monster. Hijinks ensue.

My kids laughed a few times; it's so hyper-obnoxious I kept hoping it'd find some scenes where it would calm down. It never did. It's funny though, cuz Brian Hull does a decent vocal job of mimicking Sandler, so I can't say he's sorely missed. 

P.S. A couple days later I watched the first half of The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild on Disney+, and that movie made this one look like Moana by comparison.

Every 2021 Movie I've Seen

I've seen 82 titles from 2021 so far. With each new one I see, I'll add to this post.

==My Top Ten==

1. DUNE - Denis Villenueve is now the king of epic sci-fi. He takes Frank Herbert's dense novel about intergalactic war and makes it grand and intimate at the same time. It's only the first half of the novel, so we'll have to wait until 2023 to see how he wraps it up.

2. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME - The Avengers: Endgame of Spider-Man movies. The multiverse means that bad guys from previous iterations, including Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus, show up here to torment Tom Holland's Spider-Man, and the whole thing is a blast from start to finish. This is Marvel at its most fun.

3. TICK TICK... BOOM! - Before he wrote Rent, Jonathan Larson wrote this autobiographical rock-opera about his struggles to write the next Broadway hit. Andrew Garfield's had quite the year, and he caps it off with his endearing performance and surprisingly good singing voice.

4. LICORICE PIZZA - Paul Thomas Anderson's back in rare form in this seductively playful romance between a 25-year-old lost girl (Alana Haim) and a 15-year-old hustler (Cooper Hoffman) in 1973 Los Angeles. It's the acting debuts for both of them, but PTA gets such natural chemistry out of them, it's hard to believe they're not old pros. And we get fun extended cameos like Sean Penn as William Holden and Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters.

5. THE BOY BEHIND THE DOOR - Low-budget thriller about two abducted boys, but one escapes and hides in the walls of the house. The tension is high for nearly the entire movie. Worth seeking out.

6. KING RICHARD - Will Smith is definitely a character here, and he may get an Oscar for this, which I wouldn't mind. One of those biopics that doesn't feel like it's hitting all the required rise-and-fall notes; just a dad with focused dedication to his talented daughters.

7. THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES - Disney and Pixar tend to put out the best animated movie each year, but for me, I think I liked this one the most. Picture the Griswold family having to fight off an alien invasion. It's silly, colorful, and never takes itself too seriously.

8. THE POWER OF THE DOG - Tightly-wound Western about a cattle rancher (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his increasing conflict with his brother's new bride (Kirsten Dunst) and her quirky son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Tension builds with every scene.

9. WEST SIDE STORY - Steven Spielberg improves on the original 1961 film with this vibrant update.

10. CODA - Child of Deaf Adults is the acronym. This little drama is about a high school girl who navigates the trouble of being the only hearing member of her deaf family, and she discovers she has a real talent for singing. Emilia Jones (Locke & Key) is great, but I can see why Troy Kotsur as her dad is getting award buzz.

==Alphabetically, 11-20==

THE BEATLES: GET BACK - Basically an eight-hour documentary movie where we get to hang out with the Beatles right before and leading up to their final live performance together. It's fascinating to watch the genius of Paul McCartney pull "Get Back" out of thin air.

CAVEAT - Creepy tale about a man hired to check in on a landlord's niece, who lives by herself on an island. The catch is that he must wear a chained harness while there. One of the most effective slow-build thrillers of the year.

THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE - Jessica Chastain loses herself in the role of the naïve Tammy Faye Bakker, and up to the task is Andrew Garfield as the oily Jim Bakker. Tammy Faye was always a walking cartoon to me, but now we get to see a little more of her humble Midwest soul. This feels like a good prequel to The Righteous Gemstones at times.

FREE GUY - Ryan Reynolds as a background character in a video game has an existential crisis when he learns exactly who he is. It's a good premise that they could have gone the easy-joke Pixels route, but it has more creativity than that, and the film's secret weapon is Jodie Comer.

GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE - The best Ghostbusters movie since the original.

IN THE HEIGHTS - Lin Manuel Miranda's first Broadway hit gets the big-screen treatment, and the movie does a decent job of capturing the play's spirit.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY - Guillermo Del Toro's lush noir thriller is a journey. At first it feels like a big-screen remake of Carnivale, but it becomes its own thing as Bradley Cooper's conman Stanley learns the ropes of being a carny and mastering the techniques of being a mentalist. His ambition is bottomless, and he keeps building to bigger marks. Suffers a bit toward the end - it didn't really need to be 2 1/2 hours - but it sticks the landing.

SHANG-CHI: LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS - I'm a sucker for Marvel or DC done well, and this is done well. This has two of the best fight scenes of any comic-book movie. Very impressive.

STREET GANG - Doc about the early days of Sesame Street. Might not be as insightful as Won't You Be My Neighbor was about Mr. Rogers, but it's still full of behind-the-scenes pleasures, and it gives justice to songwriter Joe Respero and director Jon Stone, who deserve as much credit for Sesame Street's success as Jim Henson and company. It made me wish it had been twice as long.

ZACK SNYDER'S JUSTICE LEAGUE - It still has its flaws but this 4-hour version is miles better than the 2.5 hour bastardization Joss Whedon threw together when Snyder had to leave the original 2017 movie. The heroes are deeper, the villains are better, and the story arcs all have time to resonate. I watched it when I had Covid so I just laid there with no energy and let it wash over me, and it did the trick.

==The Middle 51==

21. FLEE - Animated foreign documentary about a gay Muslim man in Afghanistan who must flee for his own safety. It's a harrowing journey, well told.

22. SPENCER - Kristen Stewart does for Princess Di here what Natalie Portman did for Jackie Kennedy. Makes sense, as it's the same director. Stewart is able to capture Diana well here.

23. RAYA & THE LAST DRAGON - If Disney made Avatar: The Last Airbender, it'd be something like this.

24. SUMMER OF SOUL - A look at the lost story of the 1969 Harlem Musical Festival, which happens merely week sand a few hundred miles away from Woodstock. It's a treat to see performers like Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight in their primes in one of the most pivotal years in American pop-culture history.

25. THE HARDER THEY FALL - A stylized spaghetti Western that'd make Sam Raimi proud, this features a host of talented Black actors shooting guns and having fun. Jonathan Majors (MCU's Kang the Conqueror) shows real star power, Lakeith Stanfield elevates every movie he's in, and I never knew I wanted a fight scene between Zazie Beetz and Regina King, but hey, we get it here!

26. THE LAST DUEL - Ridley Scott knows how to do medieval combat, but here he takes a Rashomon approach to this true story of the last legal duel in France. Jodie Comer stands out as the pawn, a victim of a rape whose accusation must be proved by her husband fighting the perpetrator to the death.

27. BELFAST - Kenneth Branagh's personal story about life in 1969 Belfast, Northern Ireland. Good performances, albeit lighter on plot than I thought it'd be.

28. THE SUICIDE SQUAD - James Gunn's nihilistic R-rated semi-sequel is much more in line of what a Suicide Squad movie should be than the Will Smith-led dud. Margot Robbie naturally stands out as Harley Quinn, but there's some good stuff from Idris Elba as Bloodsport, John Cena as Peacemaker, and Peter Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man.

29. VACATION FRIENDS - Speaking of John Cena, he is much better in comedic roles than straight-forward action.

30. MY HEART WON'T BEAT UNLESS YOU TELL IT TO - Intriguing low-budget take on vampirism, in which two siblings must seek victims in order to keep their younger brother alive.

31. ENCANTO - Beautifully animated movie about one young woman trying to fit in a family where everyone else has special abilities.

32. BLACK WIDOW - Scarlett Johansson gets her own movie, and she's good, but the movie gets stolen by her younger sister (Florence Pugh).

33. A QUIET PLACE PART II - Not an unworthy sequel. It just ended more abruptly than I'd anticipated. 

34. THE NIGHT HOUSE - Rebecca Hall gives a powerhouse performance as a woman struggling with depression who loses her husband to suicide and then starts hearing things going bump in the night in their house. Is he trying to communicate from beyond the grave? Has a couple good scares, but it's more of a psychological thriller.

35. DON'T LOOK UP - Dream cast put mostly to good use, in this biting satire about two scientists trying to warn the world about a meteor headed toward Earth than will wipe out all of human life... if only they could get the media and politicians to care.

36. THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH - I'll never miss a chance to watch Denzel Washington deliver the Bard's words. Joel Coen's decision to film in black and white, with lots of shadow and fog, amongst cold sets reminiscent of a cross between De Chirico and Erich Lessing paintings... well, it doesn't make the material more accessible, though I was tickled how he managed to make it end with a supernatural twist.

37. THE LOST DAUGHTER - Fantastic acting from Olivia Colman as a woman on holiday who finds herself obsessing with a young mother vacationing with her family. Most of the tension it builds winds up wrapping up too neatly, but Colman's work is award-nomination-worthy.

38. THE TRIP - Entertaining dark comedy about a husband and wife who plan to kill each other during their weekend getaway, but they have to work together when they face a bigger threat. Gets cartoonishly violent toward the end.

39. CRUELLA - Emma Stone vamps with the best as a classic Disney villain reimagined in her own Devil Wears Prada setup.

40. BEING THE RICARDOS - Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem don't do impressions of Lucy & Desi but seem to catch the essence of the people they're portraying. Aaron Sorkin writes and directs, which means there's plenty of witty dialogue and distorted history. I marveled how much it reminded me of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, where he shows the creation of comedy to be so... joyless. Nevertheless, it's a good movie when it's focused on the behind-the-scenes steeliness of Lucille Ball.

41. RON'S GONE WRONG - Technology with a heart. In the very-near future, every child will want a b-bot, an AI machine that operates as an iPhone/My Buddy, but hijinks ensue when our protagonist's b-bot malfunctions.

42. THE GREEN KNIGHT - Dev Patel is good as Gawain, in this dreamlike adaptation of the Arthurian legend that combines a few different myths, which works sometimes, and other times, does not.

43. THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS - Probably the best of the Matrix sequels, with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss returning for some meta reimagining of what the Matrix actually is. It leaves itself open for a sequel, but I'd urge Lana Wachowski to leave it where it is. Some franchises need to end.

44. NOBODY - Bob Odenkirk gets the John Wick treatment, and somehow it works. 

45. LUCA - Lighter fare from Pixar; perfect for a Disney+ debut.

46. BAD TRIP - A series of hidden-camera pranks strung together with a paper-thin plot. Eric Andre is fearless with some of the places he dares to go.

47. CANDYMAN - Okay revisiting of the Tony Todd classic.

48. V/H/S 94 - This horror anthology is gory as ever, but the cleverness of different filmmakers making use of the found-footage tropes finds new effect here. I enjoyed it overall.

49. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

50. VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE - Silly, fun, and doesn't wear out its welcome at only 95 minutes long. A little better than the first one.

51. ANTLERS - Director Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace) knows how to make grim drama, and he brings that sensibility to this horror movie about an abused boy covering for his possessed father. It's more like a bleak gory thriller than actual horror.

52. HOUSE OF GUCCI - It's a 2 1/2 hour epic, and it does drag in parts. The tone also shifts. Some scenes we're supposed to take seriously; other scenes, well, you half-expect JR Ewing to stroll in to buy a piece of the Gucci empire.

53. THE FRENCH DISPATCH - Wes Anderson's most precious film to date. Some good writing and an amazing cast, but Wes is in danger of self-parody here.

54. THE KING'S MAN - Ralph Fiennes' central performance is what makes this prequel to Kingsman worth watching, but it's tonally all over the map. The shifts from comedy to action to tragedy can be jarring, and about forty minutes in, I was like "The filmmakers haven't given us a reason to care yet."

55. COPSHOP - Joe Carnahan's latest machismo-laced actioner finds a conman (Frank Grillo) who gets himself arrested on purpose in order to escape a hitman (Gerard Butler) who gets himself arrested on purpose as well so he can be in the same county jail with him, but more hitmen and corrupt cops are descending upon this jail and it's up to one officer to hold them all off. It's fun for what it is.

56. THE MANY SAINTS OF NEWARK - A really good prequel to The Sopranos as a TV show, like a two-episode special. As its own movie? Ehh, not so much. If you've never watched The Sopranos, this movie will mean nothing to you.

57. MALIGNANT - James Wan lets his hair down with this off-the-wall horror flick that goes some daring directions, even if it makes less and less sense as it goes.

58. NO SUDDEN MOVE - Crime caper that should be up Steven Soderbergh's alley, but it had so many twists that it stopped mattering.

59. THE TOMORROW WAR - Chris Pratt fights aliens in the future. It's fine.

60. SNAKE EYES - This GI Joe origin story plays like a low-end Marvel wannabe, but it never really gets off the ground.

61. OLD - Admirably diverse cast buoys this picture for a while, but after an hour I was anxious for them to just get to the twist ending already.

62. ETERNALS - The MCU's weakest entry to date. Too long, too ponderous, too many characters where we don't really learn enough to care about them. The best thing about it is what the post-credits scenes portend for the Marvel Universe going forward.

63. GAIA - I'll give someone bolting-upright-from-a-nightmare once or twice in a horror movie, but not twelve times.

64. MORTAL KOMBAT - It's okay, but we don't really get a tournament. Feels like one big setup for the next movie, if it happens.

65. ARMY OF THE DEAD - Zack Snyder's zombie heist movie didn't really need the epic 2 1/2 hour treatment, but there are pleasures to be had in the different take on zombie mentality and seeing how Tig Notaro was edited into the movie at the last minute.

66. BARB & STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR - It's like if Zoolander 2 starred two middle-aged women instead. The humor gets a little too bizarre sometimes.

67. SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW - If I ranked all of the Saw movies, this one would land in the bottom half somewhere. It has some of the most gruesome traps in the franchise's history, and the final reveal is kinda cool, but it's not really concerned about being scary. Just gross. Jigsaw's traps always allowed his victims a chance to live if they followed his instructions precisely, but the copycat killer here doesn't have that ethos, which makes it less interesting.

68. THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW - All-star cast can't save this Rear Window-wannabe about an agoraphobe who sees her neighbor murder his wife. But when she calls the cops, they can find no body.

69. RED NOTICE - Exists solely for Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot to sleepwalk through buddy-comedy and heist-movie clichés. Pretty forgettable.

70. BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS - Brothers Ted and Tim are now grown-ups but they have to take a special baby formula to help them return to their infant bodies on a secret mission to take down a sinister daycare service. Unnecessary, noisy sequel.

71. THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT - Least effective of the Conjuring movies, though not as bad as Conjuring-verse movies like The Nun.

72. GODZILLA V. KONG - They have their showdown, but they're surrounded by uninteresting humans who are there to marvel at the greenscreens where monsters will be added later.

==The Bottom 10==

10. CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG - The CGI never quite works, and that's a big problem with a movie like this.

9. THE VOYEURS - Two young people spy on their sexy neighbors in this lurid Hitchcockian knock-off that goes to some uncomfortable places when people start dying.

8. PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE - Strictly for kids with one digit in their age. It is what it is.

7. JUNGLE CRUISE - Cheesy, predictable "fun for the whole family" Disney shtick. At least Jesse Plemons has fun playing a German.

6. TOM & JERRY - The animated parts are fine. Unfortunately this movie is mostly about the live-action humans around them.

5. COMING 2 AMERICA - Falls flat in just about every way. Eddie Murphy waited too long to revisit this material.

4. THE HITMAN'S WIFE'S BODYGUARD - Loud, dumb, cluttered, and completely unnecessary. The first one wasn't that great, and the filmmakers decided to double-down on having everyone yell their lines at all times.

3. HALLOWEEN KILLS - All the goodwill from the reboot is killed by a sequel that returns to every horror cliché crutch there is.

2. LAST MAN DOWN - A Norweigan action film that tries to ape 1980's style of Sylvester Stallone-Chuck Norris flicks and fails miserably.

1. SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY - Lame overload of all Warner Bros IP thrown into one movie. LeBron James has played himself before to better effect (Trainwreck), but he can't really save this cynical cash-grab.

House of Gucci - Movie Review

Starring Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, Jack Huston and Salma Hayek.

Written by Becky Johnson & Roberto Bentivegna.

Directed by Ridley Scott.

★★½ 

This reminded me a lot of Ridley Scott's other terrible-rich-people drama All the Money in the World. Instead of the Gettys, he's focused on the Guccis, and he decided to ramp up the camp factor in doing so. It's like he decided the Guccis needed a little more Dynasty flavor to it.

The protagonist is Patrizia (Lady Gaga), who marries into the Gucci family and has that Vanity Fair determination to make something of herself via social climbing among multi-millionaires. Patrizia has a meet-cute with Mauricio Gucci (Adam Driver), who falls in love with her and marries her. Patrizia sees once she is in, the dysfunction with Mauricio's dad (Jeremy Irons) and uncle (Al Pacino), who come across as Italian versions of the Duke brothers from Trading Spaces. Also around is Mauricio's cousin Paolo (Jared Leto), portrayed as a talentless idiot, with Leto somehow overacting in a movie that encourages Mommie Dearest level Jon-Lovitz-with-a-hankie capital-A "ACTING!"

This takes place over the course of 20 years, with legal maneuverings and backstabbing that makes Succession's Roy family look stable. It's a 2 1/2 hour epic, and it does drag in parts. The tone also shifts. Some scenes we're supposed to take seriously; other scenes, well, you half-expect JR Ewing to stroll in to buy a piece of the Gucci empire.

Lady Gaga, through it all, is terrific as Patrizia, and Driver, who is terrific in everything, doesn't disappoint as the stiff Mauricio. It strikes me as a movie that would work just as well with a home viewing, with some wine, and maybe some rare cheeses, and a vintage rug in front of a crackling fireplace to one side. And the two guys from Lady & the Tramp performing "Bella Noche" in the background.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife - Movie Review

Starring Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Bokeem Woodbine, Logan Kim, Celeste O'Connor and Annie Potts.

Written by Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman.

Directed by Jason Reitman.

★★★

Another movie continuing the tradition of being a sequel to the original without really counting the other movies as canon. I can't think of anything it used from Ghostbusters II (and the Paul Feig Ghostbusters was a remake destined to be a forgotten footnote). And while it did feel like its own movie for most of it, it relies a lot on familiarity/nostalgia from the original to hit those emotional chords.

It centers on single mom Callie (Gone Girl's Carrie Coon) and her two teens Trevor (Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Annabelle Come Home's Mckenna Grace) who've inherited a rickety old farm in Summerville, OK, from Callie's father, whom she never knew. Context clues early say that her father was Egon Spengler, who died officially of a heart attack but there are larger, spookier forces at play. Trevor tries to get in with the local teens while brainiac Phoebe is too intrigued by all the research and gadgets her grandfather left behind. Meanwhile Paul Rudd is a nearby teacher who catches Callie's eye.

It had some late surprises I was expecting and a couple that I was
n't. The star of the show is Grace, who's been bouncing around in some good projects (Gifted, The Haunting of Hill House, young Carol in Captain Marvel, young Tonya in I Tonya) but this feels like a role that can boost her into Dakota Fanning level of Best Teen Actress roles.

Stay through the credits. (But avoid looking at the IMDB cast list before you see the movie so certain things don't get spoiled. Glad I didn't look until after the movie.)

The Harder They Fall - Netflix Review

Starring Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Idris Elba, Lakeith Stanfield, Delroy Lindo, Regina King, RJ Cyler, Edi Gathegi, Danielle Deadwyler, Deon Cole, and Damon Wayans Jr.

Written by Jeymes Samuel & Boaz Yakin.

Directed by Jeymes Samuel.

★★★

This stylized Sam Raimi-esque gun-totin' Western is cooler when you realize that most of these characters were real people. Sure, liberties have been taken to allow certain body counts to happen in a certain order, but for the most part, yeah, let's have some fun with real people.

Here we get Jonathan Majors (Loki) as Nat Love, an outlaw in his own right, but he's seeking revenge against someone badder - Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) , the man who killed his parents right in front of him. Turns out Buck has a gang that's sprung him from prison, so this is Nat's chance to find him and kill him himself.

Tons of other actors show up to have some shoot-em-fun. Never thought I'd want to see Zazie Beetz (Deadpool) and Regina King (Watchmen) dressed as cowgirls fighting to the death, but we get that here and that's what makes cinema fun, right? Lakeith Stanfield (Judas & the Black Messiah) is an actor I'll never tire of seeing. Delory Lindo (Da 5 Bloods) is that welcome old man who has one last gunfight in him. And so on.

I'm not really sure how Jeymes Samuel got to get this movie made - maybe there was some Jay-Z money behind it (he directed Jay-Z: Legacy) but his directorial debut was also a wild Western with an all-Black cast called They Die at Dawn, which I now want to hunt down.

This movie's a hoot.

The French Dispatch - Movie Review

Starring Benecio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright, Liev Schreiber, Elisabeth Moss, Fisher Stevens, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, Lois Smith, Henry Winkler, Cecile de France, Steve Park and Mathieu Amalric.

Written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness & Jason Schwartzman.

Directed by Wes Anderson.

★★½ 

There are plenty of actors I didn't even list above; the movie is bursting with recognizable faces. This ode to long-form journalism of a certain time is lovingly crafted by Wes Anderson, he of the very distinct flavor of films like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom and Isle of Dogs. While there is plenty to admire here and be entertained by, it's one of his most self-indulgent efforts to date, and I doubt it'll convert any newcomers not already on board with his sensibilities.

The movie is basically three stories attached with the narrative device of a magazine similar to The New Yorker. The French Dispatch is edited by Arthur Howitzer Jr (Bill Murray), and he has dedication to his writers. We learn at the beginning that he has died, and in his will, he wishes publication of the magazine to cease, so in this final issue, we get the last articles by JKL Berensen (Tilda Swinton), Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand), and Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright).

The first story is the strongest of the three, about a convicted murderer (Benecio Del Toro) who happens to be a genius painter. The second revolves around a French student rebellion led by Timothee Chalamet, and the third is about the kidnapping of the son of the Commissaire (Mathieu Amalric). Toward the end of the second story, I was ready for it to be over, and toward the end of the third, I felt the same way. And with so many good actors, I have to wonder why they were willing to sign on when they only had one or two lines?

I'm trying to think of anthology movies I liked, and they tend to be horror (Trick R Treat) or from different voices (New York Stories). This is one I'm glad I saw but unlike the majority of Wes's films, I have no desire to see it again. In fact, the couple next to us said it was the worst movie they'd ever seen. But if Benecio Del Toro's story was on TV, I'd watch for a few minutes.

Eternals - Movie Review

Starring Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington, Kumail Nanjiani, Salma Hayek, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan, Lia McHugh, Lauren Ridloff, Don Lee and Harish Patel.

Written by Chloe Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo & Kaz Firpo.

Directed by Chloe Zhao.

★★½ 

This is the 26th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and some of the seams are showing in keeping such a franchise together. How many more new superhumans can be introduced without it feeling like we're going through the motions of the usual superhero origin story?

The Eternals are a group of ten immortal beings (though they can be killed) who were sent to Earth in 5000 BC to watch over it by Arishem, the leader of a gigantic god-like race called the Celestials. The Eternals are led by Ajak (Salma Hayek), and only she can communicate with Arishem. They have been told not to interfere with human conflict, as conflicts are what help a race of sentient creatures evolve. We see them throughout history and get to know their personalities a little. Ajak is the wise one who can heal. Ikaris (Richard Madden) closely resembles Superman in his abilities of flight, super-strength, and the ability to shoot fire-beams from his eyes. Sersi (Gemma Chan) can transform elements, such as turning solid rock into water. Druig (Barry Keoghan) can control minds. Thena (Angelina Jolie) was the inspiration for Athena, the goddess of war in ancient Greece. She is a master fighter and can generate weapons from energy. Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) can focus energy and fire it in blasts. Sprite (Lia McHugh) appears eternally 12 years old and can create illusions. Gilgamesh (Don Lee) has super-human punching power than puts Iron Fist to shame.  Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) is the intelligent inventor who can perform telekinesis. Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) has superspeed, and the MCU's first deaf superhero.

Game of Thrones' Kit Harington? Oh he's Dane Whitman, the regular human boyfriend of Sersi. I was amused when Ikaris and Dane meet, as if they weren't brothers from a fantasy world.

The Eternals' main task is to rid the world of the Deviants, mutant magical creatures that seek constant destruction on Earth. We eventually learn that 1521 AD is when the last of the Deviants was killed, and that point the Eternals parted ways and lived amongst the humans, waiting for Arishem to let them know their job was done and they can return to their home planet.

But 500 years later,  in "Present Day", a Deviant appears in London and attacks Sersi while she is hanging out with Dane and Sprite. She decides they need to find the other Eternals and figure out why the Deviants are back.

This massive ensemble - ten Eternals - means that few of the characters really get to stand out. It did have a couple plot twists I wasn't expecting, so that was nice. I'm not spoiling much by saying one of them dies within the first hour. But there's a lot of wheel-spinning as this character or that gives exposition and flashes back to different points in time. It does ultimately answer the questions of "Why didn't the Eternals help the Avengers? Or stop slavery or genocide?"

The fight scenes are fine, but where Shang-Chi found ways to make them feel original and exciting until the final CGI-heavy battle, this one is nothing but CGI-heavy battles. They feel like battles we've seen a hundred times before.

The best part of the movie for me is the last twenty minutes or so and the post-credits scenes, with its implications for the rest of the MCU. And I think it'd be fun to see these characters pop up in the next Avengers movie. I love the MCU. But if I'm ranking all 26 movies, this one would be closer to the bottom of the list than the middle.