The Gentleman - Movie Review

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Tom Wu and Eddie Marsan.

Written by Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson & Marn Davies.

Directed by Guy Ritchie.

★★★

I first fell in love with Guy Ritchie with his gritty, blue-collar crime capers Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels and Snatch. He’s since been diverse in his choices. The Sherlock Holmes movies, The Man from UNCLE, his better-than-expected Aladdin, and here, he’s returned to those gangsta roots, and we as film-lovers are blessed by it.

It’s not great, but it’s good. It stars Matthew McConaughey as Michael Pearson, the marijuana king of Great Britain. He’s looking to retire, as it’s expected that marijuana will be legalized soon, country-wide. He’s looking to sell.

BUT a local reporter (Hugh Grant) is in on what Pearson has going on, and he serves as our skeevey narrator as he explains to Pearson’s right-hand man Ray (Charlie Hunnam) how he knows what he knows. In Ritchie tradition, he has interesting actors show up in supporting roles to keep the gangster ball rolling. I don’t even want to spoil what Colin Farrell is doing here.

Tiger King - Netflix Review

Starring Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, Doc Antle, Jeff Lowe, Howard Baskin, John Finlay, and Rick Kirkham.

Directed by Eric Goode & Rebecca Chaikin.

Netflix has put out this seven-episode series, and it is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. The most bizarre true-story crime docudrama ever made. This is DYING to be made into a Danny McBride movie. 

It's about Joe Exotic, owner of a big-cat zoo in Oklahoma. His biggest rival is Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue, and she's dedicated her life to shut down zoos like Joe's. And she's rich, so she has unlimited resources to go against Joe. You see Joe get crazier and crazier in his rivalry with her, and things escalate.

Some questions raised.

Spoilers......

Did Carole Baskin murder her first husband? The editing would certainly seem that way. Millionaire who wants to leave his way suddenly disappears and is never seen again? Hmmm…

Did Joe Exotic really order a hitman to kill Carole? Sounded like they had all the evidence. The final episode was the spottiest. I thought we’d get more time dedicated to the trial, but there was hardly any. The timeline of events needed to be studied a little more closely. 

Thing is, by the time you get to the trial, you just know Joe needs to be in jail for something. Screwing over his business partner and his own mother with fraud. Highly likely he blew up his own studio to hide evidence and screw over the documentarian who’d been at the zoo for years. Supplying meth to his straight husbands.

I got to the end of S1 of Making A Murder positive that there’d been a miscarriage of justice. I got to the end of this and thought, I should read up on what the facts actually were, because everyone in here is an unlikeable, unreliable narrator.

The Hunt - Movie Review

Starring Hilary Swank, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Ike Barinholtz, Ethan Suplee, Wayne Duvall, Amy Madigan, Glenn Howerton and Reed Birney.

Written by Nick Cuse & Damon Lindenof.

Directed by Craig Zobel.

★★½

This movie was supposed to come out in September 2019. After a mass shooting, it was delayed. It finally opened in March, and then the coronavirus outbreak meant it was crushed before enough people could see it. Should people see it?

Yeah, why not?

A group of stranger wake up in a field. They find an arsenal of weapons in the middle of said field. Feels very Hunger Games-ish, right? It turns out a group of rich weirdos are hunting “regular people” for sport. Or revenge? Who knows. The plot eventually reveals itself, and it doesn’t take too much time to do so. It’s a lean, mean 95 minutes of killing and mayhem.

The casting is clever. Let’s just say some characters I thought would be around a while are killed off pretty quickly. We don’t know who’s going to survive for the final showdown, or who exactly the main hero and main villain are until said showdown. I wish it had been a little more clever with its basic message, and yet I don’t want to give away spoilers on what its main message is. I will say that it has this red-state vs. blue-state mentality which I found gleefully subversive.

Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey - Movie Review

Also known by its original title:

BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN)

Starring Margot Robbie, Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco and Ali Wong.

Written by Christina Hodson.

Directed by Cathy Yan.

★★★

First, the business. Much has been made that of this being the lowest opening for a DC comic movie in over a decade. To that, I’d say considering that the production budget was only $84 million, that’s okay. I’d also say the marketing for this was poor. The trailers didn’t look good. As I watched the actual movie, I sympathized with the marketing department a little more. It’s a good movie but how can one cut a trailer for it? Anyway, it did $200 million worldwide and probably would have squeaked out more if it wasn’t for the coronavirus killing all box office.

So, let’s get to the actual movie. It’s fun! They took the best character from the choppy, underwhelming Suicide Squad and gave her her own movie. It’s not groundbreaking or anything, but Harley Quinn seems to be DC’s answer to Deadpool.

Margot Robbie owns this from beginning to end. Robbie’s shown great range over the years, from The Wolf of Wall Street to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood to Bombshell, but THIS is her signature character. And she’s great. The surprise for me was how enjoyable Ewan McGregor was as the villain. Black Mask is dramatic one moment, neurotic the next, light-hearted the next. He really embraces his chance to be a comic-book villain here.

So now that we’re all quarantined, is this movie worth seeking out on streaming? Worth the $3.99 digital rental? Yes it is.

My Top Ten Films of 2019

I’ve seen 73 movies from 2019.

Honorable mentions (My 11-20 alphabetically):

APOLLO 11 - A you-are-there documentary that really makes you feel like you’re watching the moon landing as it happens. Brilliant blending of old footage.

EL CAMINO - A Breaking Bad epilogue. Better Call Saul is still in prequel territory, but here we get closure to Jesse’s story. After Walt dies, Jesse has to figure out how to survive. It’s the usual brilliance from Vince Gilligan, and while it’s nice to see Aaron Paul shine again, it’s another chance for Jesse Plemons to return as the polite sociopath Todd.

HONEYLAND - A documentary from Macedonia so good it was nominated for Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film. I was pulling for it to win Best Documentary. It’s the story of an extremely poor beekeeper whose life gets upended by a family who moves in next door and keeps bees of their own.

THE IRISHMAN - Leisurely paced, which is fine with me, as this’ll probably the last Martin Scorsese movie that’ll be like this. Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci are all in top form, and the de-aging CGI is done better here than any previous attempt I’ve seen. Nice to also see Scorsese alum like Harvey Keitel and Bobby Cannavale stop by.

MARRIAGE STORY - A very well done but bruuuuutal drama about a couple getting divorced. Should come with a warning label for anyone who’s in an insecure relationship or is a child of divorce. But the acting is terrific, and it effectively packs its emotional wallop with some unexpected humor. I also would have preferred Scarlett Johansson beating Renee Zellweger for Best Actress for this.

MIDSOMMAR - The slow build is very effective. And while most horror movies take advantage of night and shadow, this is almost all in the bright sunny day in a happy, ominous commune where things start to go bad pretty quickly once our heroes arrive.

PAIN & GLORY - Colorful semi-autobiographical tale from Pedro Almodovar, about an aging director (Antonio Banderas) reconciling with his past while having several flashbacks to his childhood with his determined mother (Penelope Cruz).

TOY STORY 4 - Pixar sequels are hit-and-miss, but not the Toy Story sequels. Woody and co. return for another adventure we didn’t know we wanted. It caps off the series beautifully.

THE TWO POPES - The set design alone is amazing, but this generous story of two men (Jonathan Pryce, Anthony Hopkins) who both happen to occupy the most powerful religious position in the world is great acting and great character work.

YESTERDAY - A high-concept “what if” comedy where a global blackout causes everyone on Earth - except one struggling musician - to forget all about the Beatles. He releases their songs as his own and becomes a global sensation.

I also really liked Alita: Battle Angel, For Sama, Good Boys, Harriet, Hustlers, Jumanji: The Next Level, Little Women, Shazam!, and Us.

I haven’t seen The Lighthouse, The Farewell, Waves, The Peanut Butter Falcon, Richard Jewell, Uncut Gems, and some of these other movies making top-ten lists everywhere, 

but of what I saw, 

... these were my top ten.

10. AVENGERS: ENDGAME - The season finale to the past ten years of Marvel movies. Everything comes together in the grandest possible way, and most of the core Avengers are at the center. Several surprise appearances from characters we didn’t think we’d see again, and the time-travel aspect allows for some inserting into previous scenes from different angles. (Captain America facing his old self is particularly fun.)

9. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Liked it better the second time. The assuredness, the tension at the ranch, the amazing suspense of the final ten minutes. Plus the balancing act of Leonardo DiCaprio’s insecure Nick Dalton bouncing off of Brad Pitt’s cool-as-ice Cliff Booth.

8. FORD V. FERRARI - Name a better car-racing movie. I don’t think there is one.

7. 1917 - It’s a simple story, shot as if in one take, but more importantly it’s a remarkable technical achievement where we’re treated to two hours of cinematographer Roger Deakins being on top of his game.

6. ROCKETMAN - Dexter Fletcher, who cleaned up Bohemian Rhapsody after its director Bryan Singer was dropped before post-production, gets to direct this Elton John musical biopic from the beginning, and it’s great. Taron Egerton (Kingman: The Secret Service) has never been better.

5. KNIVES OUT - Rian Johnson’s gigantically clever murder mystery is brimming with sparkling characters, and actors who seem delighted to embody them. I loved Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc, and I hope he become the new Hercule Poirot, but this movie belonged to Ana de Arnas, the maid to this eccentric, rich family where everyone else is a suspect.

4. BOOKSMART - Smart, funny teen comedy about two brainiac girls who decide they want to party on their last night in high school. John Hughes would be proud of what Olivia Wilde’s done here.

3. JOJO RABBIT - Hilarious, yet poignant satire of Hitler’s youth, through the eyes of a naive German boy named Jojo in 1945 who discovers his mother’s been hiding a Jewish girl in their house. Writer/director Taika Waititi also co-stars as Jojo’s imaginary friend Adolf Hitler, and he walks the tightrope just right.

2. JOKER - If Martin Scorsese directed a comic book movie, it wouldn’t be much different than this, and to hit the point how much this story owes to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, Robert DeNiro himself co-stars. Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix owns this character with every inch of his body. Truly exceptional work.

1. PARASITE - Bong Joon Ho’s made his masterpiece, a comedy-drama about the class divide in South Korea, where a poor family ingratiates itself into a rich family’s home. There are unexpected twists and major tonal shifts, and it all works.

Sonic holds off Call of the Wild to stay #1

For the weekend of February 21-23, 2020, Sonic the Hedgehog held on to stay #1. It’s the highest opening ever for a movie based on a video game, and it’s on track to be the highest-grossing movie in the same category. Got to think Nintendo’s looking at this and figuring out how to make a different Super Mario Bros. movie. (It’s in development, but now they really have to be encouraged.)

The Call of the Wild was the winner of the new releases. It didn’t have a lot of competition besides Sonic, but maybe it’s a testament to Harrison Ford and the classic title that got people to come out. Most of the reviews I’ve read that were positive still had a problem with the CGI dog.

Brahms: The Boy II wasn’t screened for critics and fell flat on its face. 

Out of nowhere, the Impractical Jokers movie came out on 357 screens and had the best per-screen average of anything in the top 20. What?

Among the limited releases, Emma. did the best. Yes, the title has a period in it.

Opens February 28

THE INVISIBLE MAN with Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

Birds of Prey is #1

For the weekend of February 7-9, 2020, Birds of Prey was the easy #1. Can’t help but think WB expected more from it, but the marketing wasn’t great. Good thing the reviews are. Word-of-mouth should help keep it afloat, but this is a movie that should have opened to $50 million.

Bad Boys for Life keeps dominating, absolutely terrific for Will Smith. 1917 also has long legs and should get a boost next after it wins an Oscar or two tonight. Some of the other ones still hanging on by their fingernails in theaters (Parasite! Jojo Rabbit!) are hoping for some award boosts too.

Next week, the #1 spot should go to Sonic the Hedgehog.

Opens February 14

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG with Jim Carrey, James Marsden and Tika Sumpter.

FANTASY ISLAND with Michael Pena, Lucy Hale, Maggie Q and Portia Doubleday.

THE PHOTOGRAPH with LaKeith Stanfield, Issa Rae and Courtney B. Vance.

Bad Boys 3 bests Dolittle at box office

For the weekend of January 17-19, 2020, Bad Boys for Life was the hit Will Smith needed after Gemini Man flopped, and Martin Lawrence has got to be happy to be there. It’s another hit for Sony, which had another Jumanji movie, and it’s getting steady legs for the heavily-nominated Little Women. (Meanwhile let’s forget their Grudge reboot dropped 75% in its third week.)

Dolittle had been originally envisioned as a new franchise, but after disastrous re-shoots and a bloated budget, Universal saw the stink bomb they had and moved it to January. Meanwhile they added more screen for 1917, which is that studio’s bright spot. (Universal’s Christmas release? Cats.)

The Rise of Skywalker has crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide.

Opens January 24

THE GENTLEMEN with Matthew McConaughey, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant.

THE TURNING with Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince.

RUN with Sarah Paulson, Pat Healy and Kiera Allen.

THE LAST FULL MEASURE with Sebastian Stan, Ed Harris and Samuel L. Jackson.

List of Oscar Nominations for 2019

BEST PICTURE
"Ford v Ferrari"
"The Irishman"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Joker"
"Little Women"
"Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"
"Marriage Story"
"Parasite"
"1917"

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Antonio Banderas, "Pain and Glory"
Leonardo DiCaprio, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"
Adam Driver, "Marriage Story"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Joker"
Jonathan Pryce, "The Two Popes"

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cynthia Erivo, "Harriet"
Scarlett Johansson, "Marriage Story"
Saoirse Ronan, "Little Women"
Renée Zellweger, "Judy"
Charlize Theron, "Bombshell"

DIRECTOR
Martin Scorsese, "The Irishman"
Quentin Tarantino, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
Bong Joon-ho, "Parasite"
Sam Mendes, "1917"
Todd Phillips, "Joker"

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Kathy Bates, "Richard Jewell"
Laura Dern, "Marriage Story"
Scarlett Johansson, "Jojo Rabbit"
Florence Pugh, "Little Women"
Margot Robbie, "Bombshell"

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Tom Hanks, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"
Anthony Hopkins, "The Two Popes"
Al Pacino, "The Irishman"
Joe Pesci, "The Irishman"
Brad Pitt, "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"The Irishman"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Little Women"
"The Two Popes"
"Joker"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Marriage Story"
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
"Parasite"
"Knives Out"
"1917"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
South Korea, "Parasite"
Spain, "Pain and Glory"
France, "Les Misérables"
North Macedonia, "Honeyland"
Poland, "Corpus Christi"

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
"How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"
"I Lost My Body"
"Klaus"
"Missing Link"
"Toy Story 4"

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
"American Factory"
"The Edge of Democracy"
"Honeyland"
"For Sama"
"The Cave"

ORIGINAL SONG
"I'm Standing With You," "Breakthrough"
"Into the Unknown," "Frozen II"
"Stand Up," "Harriet"
"(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again," "Rocketman"
"I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away," "Toy Story 4"

ORIGINAL SCORE
"1917," Thomas Newman
"Joker," Hildur Guðnadóttir
"Little Women," Alexandre Desplat
"Marriage Story," Randy Newman
"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker," John Williams

PRODUCTION DESIGN
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
"The Irishman"
"1917"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Parasite"

CINEMATOGRAPHY
"1917"
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"
"The Irishman"
"Joker"
"The Lighthouse"

COSTUME DESIGN
"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"
"Little Women"
"The Irishman"
"Jojo Rabbit"
"Joker"

VISUAL EFFECTS
"Avengers: Endgame"
"The Lion King"
"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
"The Irishman"
"1917"

FILM EDITING
"The Irishman"
"Ford v Ferrari"
"Parasite"
"Joker"
"Jojo Rabbit"

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
"Bombshell"
"Joker"
"Judy"
"Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"
"1917"

SOUND EDITING
"1917"
"Ford v Ferrari"
"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"
"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"
"Joker"

SOUND MIXING
"1917"
"Ford v Ferrari"
"Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood"
"Ad Astra"
"Joker"

ANIMATED SHORT FILM
"Dcera (Daughter)"
"Hair Love"
"Kitbull"
"Memorable"
"Sister"

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
"Brotherhood"
"Nefta Football Club"
"The Neighbors' Window"
"Saria"
"A Sister"

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
"In the Absence"
"Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl)"
"Life Overtakes Me"
"St. Louis Superman"
"Walk Run Cha-Cha"

1917 is #1 at box office

For the weekend of January 10-12, 2020, the expansion of 1917 was the big winner. I can’t help but think all of the award buzz helped, but I think mainly audiences were ready for the next “good movie” to go see.

The Rise of Skywalker should cross the $1 billion mark worldwide sometime this week.

Of the brand-new releases, Like A Boss bested Underwater.

Opens January 17

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE with Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and Vanessa Hudgens.

DOLITTLE with Robert Downey Jr., Antonio Banderas and Michael Sheen.

Golden Globes Winners

==MOVIES==

BEST PICTURE - DRAMA

1917

BEST PICTURE - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

BEST ACTOR - DRAMA

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA

Renee Zellweger - Judy

BEST ACTOR - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Taron Egerton - Rocketman

BEST ACTRESS - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Awkwafina - The Farewell

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Brad Pitt - Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Laura Dern - Marriage Story

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Missing Link

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Parasite

BEST DIRECTOR

Sam Mendes - 1917

BEST SCREENPLAY

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

BEST SCORE

Joker

BEST SONG

“Love Me Again” - Rocketman

==TELEVISION==

BEST DRAMA

Succession (HBO)

BEST COMEDY

Fleabag (Amazon Prime)

BEST ACTOR - DRAMA

Brian Cox - Succession

BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA

Olivia Colman - The Crown

BEST ACTOR - COMEDY

Ramy Youssef - Ramy

BEST ACTRESS - COMEDY

Phoebe Waller-Bridge - Fleabag

BEST MOVIE/MINISERIES

Chernobyl (HBO)

BEST ACTOR MOVIE/MINISERIES

Russell Crowe - The Loudest Voice

BEST ACTRESS MOVIE/MINISERIES

Michelle Williams - Fosse/Verdon

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Stellan Skarsgard - Chernobyl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette - The Act

CECIL B. DEMILLE AWARD (Film)

Tom Hanks

CAROL BURNETT AWARD (Television)

Ellen DeGeneres

Rise of Skywalker still #1 at box office

For the weekend of January 3-5, 2020, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker continues to rule. It’s now made over $915 million worldwide and should cross the $1 billion mark sometime next week. It’s not the force that Force Awakens was, but it should wind up grossing about as much as The Last Jedi. I also think the decision to not have another Star Wars movie for a good three years is a smart one. People can get their fix from DisneyPlus.

The only new wide release was The Grudge, a reboot that critics hated it, and so the quick $11 million opening it got means it should sink quickly, and so studios have tried and failed again to revive a horror franchise. Meanwhile we have reboots of Saw and Candyman coming this summer.

Of the holdovers, Jumanji: Next Level is doing quite well, thank you, at over $600 million worldwide, and if they want to make another one, the box office receipts are there to justify it.

Frozen II has passed $1.3 billion worldwide.

1917 is doing great in limited release. Just Mercy is doing decently, but it could use more award buzz around Jamie Foxx to bolster its box office potential.

Golden Globes are tonight!

Opens January 10

LIKE A BOSS with Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne and Salma Hayek.

UNDERWATER with Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick and TJ Miller.

(wide) 1917 with George Mackey, Dean-Charles Chapman and Colin Firth.

(wide) JUST MERCY with Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larsen.

My Worst Ten Films of 2019

Normally my Worst Ten movies lists will all be truly terrible movies, but that’s when I see 100 titles a year. For 2019, but my count is currently at 62, and I avoided a lot of movies I was iffy on. So I didn’t see a lot of truly bad movies. For instance, I never saw such universally panned titles as Replicas, Miss Bala, Hellboy, The Intruder, Poms, Brightburn, Shaft, Stuber, The Kitchen, The Goldfinch, Rambo: Last Blood, Jexi, Gemini Man, Playing with Fire, Charlie’s Angels, Playmobil, Black Christmas, or Cats.

So of what I have seen, these are the 53rd to 62nd best I’ve seen, i.e. the Ten Worst:

10. GLASS - I loved Unbreakable, I liked Split, and I had high hopes this would work. And I really enjoyed the first half or so. But man, that third act.. It became disjointed and self-indulgent the way the worst of M. Night Shyamalan can. He should have asked for another $10 million for his budget so he could have had a better ending. One should not leave a movie going "Man, I really wanted to like it..."

9. CHILD’S PLAY - It’s nice and grisly, but it also doesn’t quite capture the campy charm of the original. Instead of demonic possession involved, Chucky is a doll with an AI chip that goes haywire. Thing is, in the beginning Chucky doesn’t look like a doll any sane person would buy.

8. UNDER THE SILVER LAKE - There’s undeniable talent behind this movie written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, who made It Follows. It’s a swooping David Lynch type mystery, with strange characters, off-kilter angles, and weird stuff that happens for no reason and is never eluded to again. At the center is Sam (Andrew Garfield), a slacker who gets a crush on a neighbor girl who promptly disappears. The finale is a letdown, and even then it doesn’t wrap up half of what’s going on. So if this is all it was, why is it 2 hours and 19 minutes long?

7. ANNABELLE COME HOME - Not as bad as the original Annabelle, but not as good as Annabelle: Creation, this is another Conjuring spinoff where the jump scares all feel the same. And with this, we go for almost an hour before it even tries to be scary. I’ll admit I’d enjoy a Ferry Man spinoff, but I also thought I’d like a Nun spinoff, and that was awful.

6. DARK PHOENIX - The final X-Men movie (with this cast) goes out not with a bang but with a whimper. I loved First Class, liked Days of Future Past, and found Apocalypse to be meh, and this is the weakest of the four. It centers on Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), and it redoes the Dark Phoenix plot that X-Men: Last Stand tried. Also weirdly, this takes place in the 1990’s, so Xavier and Magneto are supposed to be just 5-6 year away from looking like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, but they haven’t aged much.

5. CAPTIVE STATE - Intriguing premise poorly executed. Aliens have occupied the Earth, and they demand allegiance in thought. The movie is mostly about a possible resistance against them, but when we got to the last five minutes, I realized that’s what the halfway mark should have been instead of most of the earlier stuff we wasted our time on.

4. GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS - Most of the original cast didn’t return, and this has one of the lamest terrorist motivations yet. They want to unleash all of the titans to destroy the vast majority of humanity in order to… save humanity? Bradley Whitford gets the thankless role as the sarcastic guy who’s actually in charge of giving tons of expository dialogue, Kyle Chandler is in permanent grimace mode, and while some of the titans’ special effects are cool, we don’t care about the characters. 

3. THE DIRT - Since we’re supposed to treat Netflix like real movies…. This Motley Crue biopic is ultimately a paint-by-numbers lazy approach to the music band biopic formula. It’s cool to see Game of Thrones’ Iwan Rheon (Ramsay) as Mick Mars, Machine Gun Kelly as Tommy Lee, etc., but it’s a really a relay of “this happened, then this happened, then this happened” while subplots like Lee’s domestic violence problems or Vince Neil’s daughter dying barely get mentioned so as to avoid emotional impact. We’re left wondering why Crue was ever a big deal. Or were they even?

2. THE PRODIGY - Cliched horror movie that betrays its own logic. It’s about a boy possessed by a serial killer, but it takes everyone else in the movie an hour to catch up to this while the audience is shown this in the beginning.

1. SERENITY - The movie sets up itself as a potboiler, a thriller about an old flame (Anne Hathaway) who’s come back into the life of her fisherman ex-husband (Matthew McConaughey) with a favor to ask - that he kills her current husband (Jason Clarke) and makes it look like an accident. The first half of the movie is about this… and then it changes into a completely different movie that feels like a cheat. It’s a crazy twist that might have worked in the final five minutes of a movie, but to do it halfway through, we get 45 minutes to contemplate how stupid this is.

Screen Actors Guild Nominations 2019

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”)
Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)
Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)
Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:

Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”)
Lupita Nyong’o (“Us”)
Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”)
Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:

Jamie Foxx (“Just Mercy”)
Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”)
Al Pacino (“The Irishman”)
Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role:

Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”)
Nicole Kidman (“Bombshell”)
Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”)
Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:

“Bombshell” (Lionsgate)
“The Irishman” (Netflix)
“Jojo Rabbit” (Fox)
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Sony)
“Parasite” (Neon)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:

Mahershala Ali (“True Detective”)
Russell Crowe (“The Loudest Voice”)
Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”)
Jharrel Jerome (“When They See Us”)
Sam Rockwell (“Fosse/Verdon”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:

Patricia Arquette (“The Act”)
Toni Collette (“Unbelievable”)
Joey King (“The Act”)
Emily Watson (“Chernobyl”)
Michelle Williams (“Fosse/Verdon”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series:

Sterling K. Brown (“This Is Us”)
Steve Carell (“The Morning Show”)
Billy Crudup (“The Morning Show”)
Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”)
David Harbour (“Stranger Things”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series:

Jennifer Aniston (“The Morning Show”)
Helena Bonham Carter (“The Crown”)
Olivia Colman (“The Crown”)
Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”)
Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series:

Alan Arkin (“The Kominsky Method”)
Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”)
Bill Hader (“Barry”)
Andrew Scott (“Fleabag”)
Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series:

Cristina Applegate (“Dead to Me”)
Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)
Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”)

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series:

“Big Little Lies” (HBO)
“The Crown” (Netflix)
“Game of Thrones” (HBO)
“The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu)
“Stranger Things” (Netflix)

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series:

“Barry” (HBO)
“Fleabag” (Amazon)
“The Kominsky Method” (Netflix)
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
“Schitt’s Creek” (CBC Television)

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series:

“Game of Thrones”
“GLOW”
“Stranger Things”
“The Walking Dead”
“Watchmen”

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:

“Avengers: Endgame”
“Ford v Ferrari”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Golden Globe Nominations 2019

==MOVIES==

BEST PICTURE - DRAMA

1917

The Irishman

Joker

Marriage Story

The Two Popes

BEST PICTURE - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Dolemite Is My Name

Jojo Rabbit

Knives Out

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

Rocketman

BEST ACTOR - DRAMA

Christian Bale - Ford v Ferrari

Antonio Banderas - Pain & Glory

Adam Driver - Marriage Story

Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

Jonathan Pryce - The Two Popes

BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA

Cynthia Erivo - Harriet

Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story

Saorise Ronan - Little Women

Charlize Theron - Bombshell

Renee Zellweger - Judy

BEST ACTOR - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Daniel Craig - Knives Out

Roman Griffin Davis - Jojo Rabbit

Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

Taron Egerton - Rocketman

Eddie Murphy - Dolemite Is My Name

BEST ACTRESS - COMEDY or MUSICAL

Awkwafina - The Farewell

Ana de Armas - Knives Out

Cate Blanchett - Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Beanie Feldstein - Booksmart

Emma Thompson - Late Night

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Hanks - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Anthony Hopkins - The Two Popes

Al Pacino - The Irishman

Joe Pesci - The Irishman

Brad Pitt - Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Kathy Bates - Richard Jewell

Annette Being - The Report

Laura Dern - Marriage Story

Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers

Margot Robbie - Bombshell

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Frozen II

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The Lion King

Missing Link

Toy Story 4

BEST FOREIGN FILM

The Farewell

Les Miserables

Pain & Glory

Parasite

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

BEST DIRECTOR

Bong Joon Ho - Parasite

Martin Scorsese - The Irishman

Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

Sam Mendes - 1917

Todd Phillips - Joker

BEST SCREENPLAY

The Irishman

Marriage Story

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

Parasite

The Two Popes

BEST SCORE

1917

Joker

Little Women

Marriage Story

Motherless Brooklyn

BEST SONG

“Beautiful Ghosts” - Cats

“Love Me Again” - Rocketman

“Spirit” - The Lion King

“Stand Up” - Harriet

“Into the Unknown” - Frozen II

==TELEVISION==

BEST DRAMA

Big Little Lies (HBO)

The Crown (Netflix)

Killing Eve (BBC America)

The Morning Show (Apple)

Succession (HBO)

BEST COMEDY

Barry (HBO)

Fleabag (Amazon Prime)

The Kominsky Method (Netflix)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime)

The Politician (Netflix)

BEST ACTOR - DRAMA

Brian Cox - Succession

Kit Harrington - Game of Thrones

Rami Malek - Mr. Robot

Tobias Menzies - The Crown

Billy Porter - Pose

BEST ACTRESS - DRAMA

Jennifer Aniston - The Morning Show

Olivia Colman - The Crown

Jodie Comer - Killing Eve

Nicole Kidman - Big Little Lies

Reese Witherspoon - Big Little Lies

BEST ACTOR - COMEDY

Michael Douglas - The Kominsky Method

Bill Hader - Barry

Ben Platt - The Politician

Paul Rudd - Living with Yourself

Ramy Youssef - Ramy

BEST ACTRESS - COMEDY

Christina Applegate - Dead to Me

Rachel Brosnahan - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Kirsten Dunst - On Becoming a God in Central Florida

Natasha Lyonne - Russian Doll

Phoebe Waller-Bridge - Fleabag

BEST MOVIE/MINISERIES

Catch-22 (Hulu)

Chernobyl (HBO)

Fosse/Verdon (FX)

The Loudest Voice (Showtime)

Unbelievable (Netflix)

BEST ACTOR MOVIE/MINISERIES

Chris Abbott - Catch-22

Sacha Baron Cohen - Spy

Russell Crowe - The Loudest Voice

Jared Harris - Chernobyl

Sam Rockwell - Fosse/Verdon

BEST ACTRESS MOVIE/MINISERIES

Kaitlyn Dever - Unbelievable

Joey King - The Act

Helen Mirren - Catherine the Great

Michelle Williams - Fosse/Verdon

Merritt Wever - Unbelievable

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin - The Kominsky Method

Kieran Culkin - Succession

Andrew Scott - Fleabag

Stellan Skarsgard - Chernobyl

Henry Winkler - Barry

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette - The Act

Helena Bonham Carter - The Crown

Toni Collette - Unbelievable

Meryl Streep - Big Little Lies

Emily Watson - Chernobyl

Joker - Movie Review

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Robert DeNiro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleschler, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham and Marc Maron.

Written by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver.

Directed by Todd Phillips.

★★★½ 

This is unlike any DC “comic book movie” that’s come before. This has taken the skin of the Joker and placed over the aesthetic of a late 1970’s-early 1980’s Martin Scorsese movie. It owes a lot to The King of Comedy, but its main inspiration would be Taxi Driver. It’s fitting that DeNiro shows up here.

The film centers on Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), an obviously disturbed man with mental illness, on seven medications, but facing a cruel 1981 Gotham where the gap between rich and poor has never been more stark. This isn’t an origin story so much as a journey, and the series of unfortunate events that befall him feel like a hindsight explanation of how we’re going to end where we know we’re going to end.

1981 Gotham feels just like the New York we see in Taxi Driver, the New York you could believe would turn into a prison-state when Kurt Russell went to go help someone escape from it, or would have Popeye Doyle beat up suspects.

The cinematography is top-notch, the score is spot-on, and the screenplay takes us down this dark, bleak hole, where we watch a man decide that the only way the world makes sense is if he stops caring about right and wrong.

I can’t praise Joaquin Phoenix’s performance enough. He embodies every inch of the character. He commands the screen the entire time and there’s not one wasted gesture or glance. I would argue in the third act, he becomes the scariest on-screen Joker we’ve ever had.

I can see why this is getting mixed reviews, but some of it is unfair. The “buzz” around it inspiring copycat killers was ridiculous. The political statements it makes are ones that you’d think “woke” critics would agree with. Also, it’s a feel-bad movie. It’s one you respect or admire but it’s not “fun.” Which is why it reminds me of Taxi Driver. It’s unilaterally considered a classic, but it’s not one anyone wants to watch over and over again.

Side note: My wife pointed out some problems with some revelations from Arthur’s childhood, but I can chalk those up to “Gotham in 1950 was really messed up.”

Joker opens to $93 million

For the weekend of October 4-6, 2019, Joker opened to $93 million, the highest October opening ever, breaking the record set by Venom last year. Joker was unafraid to go for an R rating and eschew many conventions of “comic book movies” in this take on the Joker’s origin. It’s the highest opening ever for Joaquin Phoenix as well. In fact he hasn’t been in a movie that passed the $93 million domestic mark since 2005’s Walk the Line.

In limited release, Pain & Glory starring Penelope Cruz did well, while Lucy in the Sky starring Natalie Portman bombed.

Joker will have some competition next weekend but it’s still expected to hold on to the top spot while Gemini Man and The Addams Family duke it out for #2.

Opens October 11

THE ADDAMS FAMILY with the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron and Chloe Grace Moretz.

GEMINI MAN with Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Instead and Benedict Wong.

JEXI with Adam Devine, Rose Byrne, Michael Pena and Wanda Sykes.

Good Boys is #1, Hobbs & Shaw #2 at box office

For the weekend of August 16-18, 2019, Good Boys managed to emerge from a crowded field as the #1 movie. The “Superbad for 12-year-olds” comedy gives Jacob Tremblay (Room, Wonder) his first hit where he stands on his own two feet, and it showed an audience for comedy can still be found.

Of the other new releases, The Angry Birds Movie 2 fizzled out of the gate, despite better reviews than its predecessor. 47 Meters Down 2, which doesn’t have anything to do with the first movie, didn’t perform well either, though the low budget means it won’t lose money. Blinded by the Light didn’t go anywhere. I can’t help but think this movie should have been pushed to next year after Yesterday was a sleeper hit. Where’d You Go Bernadette was going to flop no matter when it was released.

Of the holdovers, Hobbs & Shaw had a respectable third week. Its global haul isn’t as much as previously tracked, and it looks like it will be profitable, but not as big as Universal needed it to be. The Lion King will cross the $500 million domestic mark later this week. (It’s over $1.4 billion worldwide.) Why is Disney doing live-action remakes of all of their animated films? This is why. It may feel like the cash-grab of all the late 1990’s-early 2000’s straight-to-DVD animated sequels they did, but same result. Profits.

Opens August 23

ANGEL HAS FALLEN with Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Piper Perabo.

READY OR NOT with Samara Weaving, Andie MacDowell and Adam Brody.