Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE FAREWELL (no spoilers)

If there is one thing to truly remember about this movie if it ever comes across the topic of conversation…well, two things, is that Awkwafina can truly act and isn’t just a one trick comedy pony, and the ending. If you don’t want the ending of THE FAREWELL spoiled for you, DO NOT go into the trivia section of IMDB or look this up on Wikipedia. The ending brings a whole new light to the entire story and makes you think about deeper meanings and messages of what it means to lie and keep something hidden from someone. It’s a pretty good little film, a dramedy that manages to avoid all the pit falls and cliches of other situational dramedies/comedies that HAVE to have those typical confrontational scenes at the end. But other than Awkwafina and the ending, I do feel that the movie ultimately is going to be pretty forgettable down the line.

The set up is simple, it’s based on an actual lie/actual true story and follows a Chinese family, who find out that their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide not to tell her and instead use a cousin’s upcoming wedding as a front for a family gathering, so that everyone is together one last time before she dies. Awkwafina is front and center, playing the granddaughter Billie. At first the family doesn’t want her to go to the gathering as they think her emotions give her away, but Billie goes anyway and manages to keep the secret to herself. From then on, we get countless scenes before and during the wedding with Billie spending time with her grandmother and the entire family together, and then scenes without the grandmother where Billie is still debating whether they should really tell her or not. Even though the scenes discussing whether the lie is good for everyone or not get quite repetitive, the scenes adds natural and laugh out loud moment to balance the tide. Word of warning, while this is an American film, all the dialogue is really a 70-30 percent ratio of Chinese subtitles and actually spoken American dialogue, which doesn’t bother me at all, just warning you that you might be doing more reading throughout this film than what the trailer online makes you believe.

Like I said above, if there is any reason to watch the film, it’s Awkwafina’s performance, which I think could garner her a well deserved Oscar nomination come awards season (her real name is Nora Lum, which I actually really like and hope that eventually down the road she does a changing back of her name a la The Rock/Dwayne Johnson). Her performance is unlike anything you have ever seen her do before, playing an actual layered mutli-dimensional character, stripped away of all her over-the-top zanyiness you’ve come to recognize her from crazy roles in Ocean’s Eight and Crazy Rich Asians. She is really spectacular. In the acting department, every one does a good job, from all of the unknowns to Tzi Ma, who plays Billie’s father. The director, Lulu Wang, who mostly directs shorts and music videos, and has only done one other feature, is clearly an actor’s director, getting natural and realistic emotions from everyone involved. Stylistically though, it feels as though she watched one too many episodes of Mr. Robot, as all the shots have characters all to one side of the frame where there is too much space for blank walls and static boring backgrounds. The scenes between Billie and her grandmother are the best, giving the best emotional weight to the narrative.

However, there is one perfect scene in the film, no wasted space or filler, that I’d like to mention. When the cousin groom & his bride are getting pre-wedding pictures taken, Awkwafina and I believe her mother and/or aunt are having a meaningful conversation about “the lie” and the bride & groom taking weird pictures in the background that manages to elicit laughs from the audience but also just enough to not distract from the dialogue taking place. Very well done scene, and I wish there were more than that in there, as all the Mr. Robot cinematography felt kind of bland. I know you are looking for me to talk more about the ending, but since I said no spoilers in the title, all I will say is the ending makes you think even after you are on your way home and you’ll want to do some research on the film once you’ve gotten there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good film, I just think down the line it will ultimately be pretty forgettable. If it gets Oscar nominations, I’d be fine with it as long as Awkwafina was included in the mix. This is the film that is going to make me take her seriously as an actress from now on (as you can tell, I know nothing about her rap career).

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: HOBBS & SHAW (no spoilers, and no, I’m not putting Fast & Furious Presents before the real title)

Remember when this series started out by dude bros just stealing VCRs? Then by installment 5 we got a giant bank safe being pulled by cars down a highway, installment 6 we got Vin Diesel being tossed out over a highway during a military tank sequence then catching Michelle Rodriguez in midair and landing safely, then in the 7th installment you have cars going out of airplanes in parachutes and then later having a car jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, and then in the last one you have Dwayne Johnson being able to steer submarine missiles mid trajectory in the ocean using just his foot. Needless to say, if the franchise ever lost you at one point, you’d have plenty of pretty damn good excuses as to the reasons why. It hasn’t lost me…but with Fate of The Furious and now HOBBS & SHAW, I feel like the franchises good ole’ days are officially behind them, and that it may be finally time to wrap everything up.

That’s not to say Hobbs & Shaw isn’t a half way decent installment in the franchise, it just isn’t a very good one, and doesn’t get anywhere in the ballpark of greatness. But at least it was better than The Fate of The Furious (I’ve only seen it twice, and can’t remember much of what happens in it other than Charlize Theron is the bad guy, that submarine sequence, and Vin Diesel’s baby and other small snippets). The real big problem with Hobbs & Shaw is very apparent, even before you buy your ticket to see it: you’ve already seen the movie. The marketing for this film, ever since the Super Bowl, has been fucking insane, with long ass trailers revealing EVERYTHING in the film, save for two surprise cameos and a bunch of mid and end credit sequences (stay thru ALL of the credits, even when it seems like the mid credits thing is it). There are literally no other surprises in the movie, which kind of bummed me out, as I very quickly pieced together what was going to happen with what sequences I had already seen in trailers and TV spots as the story went along.

It also doesn’t help that the plot elements are ripped straight out of Mission: Impossible 2, and in some ways it is basically the same exact film, albeit with a lot more insane vehicle action sequences, but without people pulling off masks to reveal themselves as different people. The real story? Not much of one, just know that it deals with a virus that Jason Statham character’s sister has, and that he and Dwayne Johnson must go after it before Idris Elba’s villain and whoever he is working for steals it and use it to “cleanse” the Earth (**yawn** sound familiar). As you know from the previous films, Johnson and Statham’s character still hate each other even though they have fantastic chemistry; that chemistry still there and strong being one of the only things that make this a decent one time watch. However, they don’t really have much character development, the only bit of it is that they predictably realize that even though they hate each other they at one point MUST work together in order to seize the day.

Yes, their banter is great and funny and all, and Statham and Johnson know how to act and be a great physical presences in action sequences, but unless you have story/plot arcs to fully back them up, it’s all just hollow shells. And nobody else has character development either, which is another big problem. Vanessa Kirby, who does a great job with physical demands for the role and her acting ability is a little above average, doesn’t do much arc wise but make faces as Statham and Johnson when they are bitching at each other. Idris Elba is one of the most yawn worthy villains in the franchise, and seems to be phoning it in, especially in the part of the film when he is touting himself as a “black superman.” He looks like he is just going through the motions to get this movie done and then go onto the next one. You’ve probably seen what was so effortlessly given away in the trailers that Dwayne Johnson goes to visit his Samoan “family” at one point (none of this should’ve been shown in marketing as it would’ve been a nice surprise). But any kind of character development and intrigue is thrown out the window with a couple of sentences of cliched “I’m sorry” dialogue.

Let me touch on Elba’s villain sci-fi element that has become so controversial to Fast & Furious fans because they want the films to stay a bit grounded. GROUNDED?! Are you fucking kidding me? The series waved bye bye to grounded with 2 Fast 2 Furious. So if you are mad that a new character got some kind of spinal surgery upgrade where he can see combat statistics in his eyeballs and be a helluva lot stronger physically, you can literally blame yourself. How did you not see it coming? If each installment needs to be more insane than the last, and you’ve already done what you could do bat shit crazy wise with vehicles, at some point, they are going to introduce sci-fi, and you just have to accept it. I have. I love the lunacy of it all. It is actually trying to do some shit different than just be the same film over and over and over again. Granted everything else about the film (like dialogue and story) is tired and true but at least none of these films have been a soft reboot of the first film or any of the previous installments. And if you think any of the previous installments action scenes are ridiculous, every single scene in this tells the previous films to hold their beer.

Before I end my review, let me give you some more positives (other than just the banter and chemistry of Statham and Johnson) to prove that I really do think this film is decently an okay one or two time watch. The action (there is a tone of it, almost every 5 minutes for a 2 hour and 10 minute run time) is crisp and clear, no shaky cam, you see every punch, kick, shot, and crash. You have to appreciate films and directors like that. They aren’t hacks that fix boring, slow shots and shoddy camera work by filming it all shaky cam and then editing the shit out of it in post production to try make you think what you are seeing is cool. WE KNOW BETTER. But a steady cam on Statham, seeing all the choreography up close, personal, and flawless? I loved that here. The director is David Leitch, who did Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, and was an uncredited co-director on the first John Wick. Solo wise, Deadpool 2 is still his best film, and at least Hobbs & Shaw is a helluva lot better and more fun than Atomic Blonde. Also, the two cameos in the films were a nice surprise, and one of the extended ones was really really funny (even though it ruins the ending of Game of Thrones) and I hope that he continues to pop up in the franchise moving forward.

And while the last vehicle sequence was fucking unbelievably ridiculous but fun and while the other action scenes throughout the movie were very elaborate, ridiculous, and entertaining, the problem boils down to that the marketing ruined this movie. All of the action scenes in this are shown in all the previews, LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. There are no surprises other than the two cameos; you are basically paying a theater $9 to $15 dollars to watch a film where someone just edited all the marketing footage together. Did the studio not have any confidence that the film could survive on its own? They already ruined the title by putting Fast & Furious presents before it, but did they literally have to spoil every fucking action sequence just to get people’s butts in seats? You already had my butt with Statham and Johnson in a movie together. I love those guys and you should have put a little more faith into what you had. It could’ve been one of the top movies, instead, it’s just going to fade into the middle (quite literally, see below).

Rank of the Fast & Furious Films:

Fast 5
Fast & Furious 6
Furious 7
The Fast & The Furious
Hobbs & Shaw
The Fate Of The Furious
Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: ANNA (no spoilers)

So ANNA came out in June and I skipped it because the Rotten Tomatoes reviews were bad and basically cut off any waning interest I had in seeing it. The trailer looked to me like Luc Besson just trying to copy elements of Atomic Blonde and John Wick and while I thought it would maybe have a couple of exciting action sequences it would ultimately just be a shrug and a mind wipe away from obscurity. I’m writing this review knowing that you probably can’t see this in theaters right now, and is probably still a month away from being released digitally/Blu-ray, but I got the chance to see it the other day, and thought I’d put in my two cents because it is actually a decently solid flick, albeit a couple of distracting flaws.

I took off this past Friday because I was just really needed a day off work and wanted to just have a relaxing day before I saw Once Upon A Time In Hollywood that night. I had a friend staying over for a couple of days (she just came down to see Leo’s new movie because she’s obsessed with his Dic…Caprio) and was trying to find us stuff to do while we waited for the new Tarantino movie, and since I’m a very closed minded individual and think the only two things to do in Texas is shop and see movies, I chose the latter. Since I have either seen everything already in first run theaters or had 0% interest in everything else there, I looked up the only $1 second run theater we have in any sort of close proximity to us, and saw that Anna had only one showtime left playing it, and it was at the perfect time to waste some time. (Fun fact: I didn’t realize until yesterday but the day that we saw Anna was actually the last day that dollar theater in Plano was going to be open for awhile, it’s been closed and remodeled to turn itself into a first run theater since the idea of a dollar theater is essentially dead because media comes out digitally less than 3 months later after initial release nowadays). So I paid a measly three bucks for us both to see it, and came out expectantly surprised.

From director Luc Besson, who has done some classic films such as The Fifth Element or Leon The Professional, and some not so classic films like Lucy and Valerian, comes well, another actioner that is maybe somewhere in the middle between all those past projects of his. Again, if I talk too much about the plot, it will lose some of the edge it has on you if it sounds interesting and you eventually rent or buy or illegal download it sometime in the future. All I will say is that it stars a real-life model named Sasha Luss as a girl named Anna, and she’s strong, badass, and works for the KGB while moonlighting as a well…model, during the day. The whole movie she keeps on telling other characters and the audience countless times that she wants out of the life and just wants to rest and be left alone, so we know what the end goal is. Whether Anna reaches that goal and how is the whole basis of the story. The movie also co-stars Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, and the great Hellen Mirren, as Besson and the studio knew well that the movie couldn’t garner interest for Luss alone as she is a no name for right now.

Acting wise the movie is very solid. Sasha Luss, even though she is a real-life model, is actually pretty great as Anna. She displays all the ranges of emotions asked from her and didn’t think she was over acting one second of the film. The only problem is that her character is sort of one note, as she’s just complaining about wanting her own life the whole film but the screenplay doesn’t really give her much of an arc to actually earn that sympathy from the audience. Luke Evans is convincing as a KGB agent that recruits her, Hellen Mirren is great as both of their bosses, and Cillian Murphy is effective as a CIA agent trying to go through the motions trying to find out what the Russians are up to. Oh, did I mention this takes place in the late 80’s, early 90s with Russia and the U.S. still kind of trying to figure shit out after the Cold War? Probably should’ve started with that so it didn’t sound like a futuristic movie where we are against the Russians (maybe that wouldn’t been cool though?).

Where the movie kind of stumbles is that it tries to pull the wool over the audiences eyes one too many times and the constant switch of the passage of time. At the beginning of the film it felt like every few minutes we were getting a new title card that says, “Five years earlier,” “3 days later,” “4 hours earlier,” “Three Months Later,” so on and so forth. It wasn’t hard to keep up with per say, it was just kind of annoying. Also constantly throughout the movie and more so near the end, the movie double backs on itself and reveals to the audience certain events that “happened to be left out” of scenes that we saw previously. So when anything bad happened to Anna or any other good character, at one point I sort of stopped caring/believing, knowing that the film would just double back on itself and reveal a happier point of view. The movie is the literal definition of the phrase, “Fool me once, shame on you…”

Also, the beginning of the movie is kind of slow, but I appreciated that it kept my interest more and more the further it went out, most movies are usually the opposite of that. There were a couple of things to even out the beginnings pacing and the time passage annoyances, such as the action wasn’t over done and when it was happening on screen it was well shot and effective. Luc Besson knows how to direct movies for sure, the problem is his stories. He’s got good ideas, it is just the executions are a bit off. This includes his writing only credits such as the Transporter series and the Taken series. Valerian and the City of A Thousand planets is almost the exact same thing, except that movie isn’t that great because of the acting of the two leads. But Anna is a pretty solid movie, much better than I was originally giving it credit for. It is the definition of a perfect rental, perfect streaming film, and a perfect lazy afternoon at the movies. Just shut your brain off before you start viewing.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: GOOD BOYS (no spoilers, comes out Aug. 16th)

Time to ask the age old question: Is elementary school aged kids repeatedly saying fuck and other curse words while telling endless dick and fart jokes still funny? Why yes, yes it is. What if that is the film’s entire 89 minute run time combined with being an almost exact remake of Superbad, does it still work? Yes, why yes it still does somehow. That’s what the new movie GOOD BOYS is, just pure, stupid, dumb, crude, crass, hilarious escapism, turn off your brain fun. It’s short, sweet, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Is it the greatest movie in the world if picked apart scene by scene? Of course not. Probably won’t even be on my twenty top films of the year list. But will it somehow be a film that I just put on one boring afternoon with nothing else to do? Multiple, multiple times yes. There haven’t been a lot of comedies this summer, unless you count the great Long Shot that literally almost no one saw, so if there is a funny bone you are needing to pick soon, and are still trying to recover from the vast Once Upon A Time In Hollywood or a binge-able weekend of Amazon Prime’s The Boys, Good Boys fits that bill.

The plot? Three elementary boys that are close friends, who are just a couple of weeks into the sixth grade, must get ready to go to a party that one of the popular kids invited them to, and it happens to be a kissing party, and none of them have kissed a girl before. Sound familiar? Replace high schoolers with elementary school kids, replace a drinking party with a kissing one, keep 1/4 of the booze, keep the friendly camaraderie and chemistry between the male leads, keep the road trip like adventures but replace the other 3/4 of the booze trying to replace one of their Dad’s expensive drones, and you’ve successfully turned Superbad into Good Boys. But it still works, because all the road trip adventures are quite different, it has a really smart and really funny ending/third act, and I literally laughed almost every ten seconds from beginning to end. If a comedic film makes you laugh a shit ton of times, it has done its job, no matter the context (well…there are exceptions).

Kid actor Jacob Trembelay, who has had a hell of a career after starring in Room with Brie Larson, is the main character named Max, and although he said I think one F word in the recent Predator movie, to hear a bunch of curse words and dick and fart jokes constantly was quite jarring, but also quite hilarious. And I can see how he is getting a lot of work, he stretches his talent considerably here, seeing he has already been in a depressing drama, a dramady, and an action film, and now with this, a straight comedy, kid can literally do anything. It helps that his chemistry with the other two boys, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon, is so good that you believe that they have been friends for years. They are the stars of the show, but the supporting characters that surround them, like two teenage girls trying to get their drugs back from them, Will Forte as Max’s father, or even Stephen Merchant playing a weird sex doll crazed nerd do their small parts well to bring even more laughs to the party.

There are a couple of scenes that don’t work, and you may have seen this in the trailer, but where they are crossing a highway to get to a mall has been done so many countless times where that’s the only part that put a halt in my laughter a little bit. Otherwise, anything with the drone, a sex doll, the drug Molly, the two teenage girls, the cop that just wants his shift to end, the actual party, beer sip records, etc, etc, etc are hilarious and almost had my belly hurting laughing so hard. And I mentioned it earlier, but I thought the 3rd act/ending of the film was really, really, really smart and inventive and kind of made the film go from just a dumb young kid crude cursing movie into a pretty good dumb young kid crude cursing movie. I won’t spoil any of it, but it has to deal with the passage of time and how it relates to younger kids. You’ll see, it’s brilliant.

What really surprised me was that it was written and directed by two guys that haven’t really done all that much and what they have done is kind of meh. Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg wrote Bad Teacher, which was meh, they wrote a couple of decent episodes of The Office (but none of the great ones IMO), but they also wrote Harold Ramis’ terrible last film with Jack Black and Michael Cera called Year One. It’s because of that movie that you didn’t see a Ghostbusters 3 when Ramis was still alive (they were writing the screenplay and it kept getting rejected). This is honestly their best work. Maybe I would look forward to their future projects if they can keep this momentum, there is only improvement from here. So if you are looking for a pretty damn solid hilarious comedy on the weekend of August 16th (when it comes out, I saw a sneak preview), Good Boys gets a solid B/B+ from me. Looking at what all comes out in August, it might be your only decent option for the month (jury still out on Hobbs & Shaw, review this Friday).

Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: THE BOYS (Amazon Prime, no spoilers)

Were you expecting something else? Maybe a review of the wildly and negatively talked about 4th season of Veronica Mars? I’m in a mood to review decent things today, so my scathing review of that time wasting trash will have to await a different mood for a different day. Let’s talk about something that was just released last week and I watched all 8 tightly woven narrative episodes within a three day time span, THE BOYS, where you can catch it on Amazon Prime Video. The Boys is the refreshingly different comic book television show based on a comic book that has a drastically different take on superheroes and how they would be perceived in our modern day. I want to underline the word drastically a billion times. It is up there with Bosch and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as one of the streaming platforms best shows.

The different concept? The Boys is about superheroes and the real nitty-gritty behind the scenes of their ‘heroic’ endeavors. In this world, super people are downright negligent, daft, create a shit ton of collateral damage and sometimes, are really evil sons of bitches. How evil? Murdering and rape evil. Yeah, scary right? Anyway, one day a young adult named Hugh Campbell (played by Jack Quaid, son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid no less!) is walking down the sidewalk with his girlfriend Robin when she suddenly disappears in a cloud of blood and guts with Hughie still holding her hands. A fast travel superhero named A-Train just ran through her in a hurry, stops for a second to just say he can’t stop, and keeps going. Hughie wants payback, but the huge company named Vought, that sponsors a bunch of superheroes including The Seven (imagine a corporate owned Justice League), wants to just give Hughie a $48,000 check in damages as long as he signs a non-disclosure agreement. Distraught, Hughie runs into Billy Butcher (played by the great Karl Urban), a guys who claims he is FBI tasked in bringing down these negligent super people once and for all by making them actually responsible and atone for their giant mistakes.

Hughie joins him but little does he know that Billy is more of an unconventional tactic freelancer with an unconventional team (hence the title, The Boys) doing whatever it fucking takes to bring down these inept super people. Hughie actually starts to befriend one of The Seven, the newly initiated Starlight (who isn’t like the others) and Billy has his own reasons why he wants to take the supes down, but the lesser said about those two story lines, the better. In fact, I’m really not going to talk about plot anymore, as the pot boiling story is a great journey and is better left unspoiled. Other than Billy and Hughie. The Boys also include Frenchie, a French mercentary; Mother’s Milk, a dangerous yet polite and well spoken man that doesn’t really want to rejoin the gang after past exploits; and there is a female member of the boys, but the less about Kimiko, played superbly by Karen Fukuhara, with more to do her than her role in DC’s Suicide Squad, the better.

I want to go off track here for a second and say how much I love these new television series that are only 8 to 10 episodes. Almost literally no filler to get it to 13 to 16 episodes, it really is refreshing. You can get a very tight story and a bunch of fully developed character arcs without having to add inane filler D, E, or F subplots or any repetitive narrative dialogue. You either pay attention to the show or have to rewind, there is no recap. Now while 8 episodes can seem rushed like Stranger Things Season 3, with The Boys, it’s absolutely perfect. It was fun, fresh, didn’t feel bloated yet had me craving more in a more conventional healthy way unlike say infuriating cliffhangers such as Veronica Mars Season 4 or even aspects of Stranger Things Season 3.

When watching The Boys, you might get the feeling that this depiction of real superheroes in our modern day world hits a little too close to home. All the capitalism, corporate sponsorship, red tape, lies, manipulations, secrets, and political agendas, feel very similar with what we are going through now. And that’s the great part about it, that feeling of realism this television series brings even though you have more than 200 superheroes flying about. It certainly depicts things better than Hancock with Will Smith did. I love how all the superheroes in this are satires of the ones in real DC Comics. For example, Homelander is a satire on Superman, The Deep is a satire on Aquaman, A-Train is a satire on The Flash, Queen Maeve is a satire on Wonder Woman, and so on and so forth. And the action in the action scenes is realistic too. When Homelander uses his laser beams heat vision to slice through ‘bad guys’ he really does ‘slice’ through them. You get flying blood, dismembered parts, the works.

And the acting is all there too. Like I said, Karl Urban is fantastic in this and is the linchpin of the series. But EVERYONE does a good job, such as Laz Alonso’s cool yet calm demeanor as Mother’s Milk, Jack Quaid is phenomenally nervous yet bold as Hughie, and Erin Moriarty sizzles with new found bravery as the newest member of The Seven, Starlight. All of the acting and action always teeters the line between over-the-top comic book-y to abstract realism and the tone is perfectly balanced. If you are sick and tired of the formula that Marvel and DC films have brought time and again to the theatrical experience, this show slaps you in the face with a new twisty take on the genre. These 8 episodes are certainly worth anyone’s time if interested. Hey, the show was already renewed for season 2 before the premiere of this first season and they start production soon, so if that doesn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what will. You will have a fun time with The Boys, I guarantee it.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD (no spoilers)

I have a word of warning for all you would be review reading warriors: you are going to either love ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD or your going to be underwhelmed. And that depends on what kind of a movie watcher you are. Are you like me, and like to dig so deep into a film that you can debate all of its contents for days and years to come. If you are, congrats, you will probably love this movie like I did. Or are you a….casual moviegoer? Do you go for the plot/story and really only look at movies on a surface level, not digging deep as to why a film truly might be a masterpiece? If you are one of those, sorry to say, you will be underwhelmed. For me, Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood is easily the best film of 2019 so far. That’s right, even better than John Wick Chapter 3 right now. Call me Tarantino biased all you want, when I was watching this film, Quentin sucked me into his fairy tale where I started seeing every frame for what it was truly meant to represent. This film is true artistry.

If I had to call this film anything, it is a film about film making and film careers in general, while spinning it into true events, while also being a comedy buddy hangout film with some minor horror elements near the end. That’s a giant mouthful right? Well, the tone completely works. Imagine if Quentin Tarantino re wrote and re made American Graffiti but set it to the film industry around the time of the Manson Murders, and you can maybe see what you’d get. Some of you will come out of this movie saying: this movie hardly had any plot, it was just different scenes of people going to and from work and other places and they were just talking about their careers the entire time or filming a TV show. Well, you are just looking at the surface level of the story. The surface level of the story is that an actor named Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double named Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) navigate a Hollywood industry and try to stay relevant during the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles. Oh, and Rick happens to live next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie).

Before seeing this movie, I would really encourage you to look up Sharon Tate and see what happened to her via Charles Manson and the Manson Family. It’s really horrific and might give you nightmares for days, but knowing her life and what the Manson family was up to will help you dig deeper into the philosophical aspects of the story/film. The movie isn’t just a couple of layers, I have a feeling that Tarantino has an infinite amounts of points of view on how you are supposed to appreciate and look at this film. After watching it, it is definitely a Quentin Tarantino movie, but then again it isn’t. It’s aspects pulled from everything that he’s done before, but maybe not so much of that over-the-top gritty unique dialogue that you’ve been accustomed to getting. Some of it is still there though. But that’s okay, because I have a feeling that bombastic dialogue might not have went as well with this film as it has some of his others.

Let’s dig quickly into the two controversies in the film without spoiling anything of what happens: that Margot Robbie is only in a handful of scenes and doesn’t get that much dialogue, and the really, really violent last act. I can completely see why Margot Robbie doesn’t have that much to do in the film. As Tarantino has said, he didn’t want to paint her as a victim of what happened to her, he wanted to show that she was an ordinary person like you and I caught up in the glitz and glam of Hollywood. The scene that I’m sure you’ve seen in the trailers of her watching herself in the real film The Wrecking Crew and getting so happy by the positive audience reaction in the theater is an amazing scene that Margot Robbie pulls off masterfully just based on her facial expressions. Her having a lot more scenes and a lot more dialogue I think would’ve hindered the impact of the ending and made her sort of a false representation of Tate. What Tarantino did with her character is perfect and I stand by that. I won’t get into any details, but the violent last act is perfect. It pays homage to films that will eventually be made in the upcoming decade of the 70s while also showing and visually explaining why that true life event would change everything in Hollywood industry forever, a true loss of innocence. That’s all I’m saying to not ruin anything, but I LOVED LOVED LOVED what the ending brought to the film.

I don’t need to tell you that the other aspects of the film are perfect. Tarantino made 1969 Hollywood alive again. The cinematography needs to win an Oscar here. The direction and dialogue are crisp, clean, and masterful as always from Quentin. But let’s get to the acting. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, two of the biggest movie stars in the world, display some of their best acting here, with both of them sure to get nods for leading and supporting, and Pitt to probably just take the trophy home early next year. They are the perfect comedy buddy pair, and I would love to see them do something else together, although drastically different. Leonardo commands the first half of the film, while Brad Pitt mostly shines in the climax and on his character’s visit to Spahn movie ranch. And while Margot Robbie is fantastic with the handful of scenes she is in, I think she is overshadowed by Margaret Qualley, who plays Pussycat, a Charlies Manson follower. Their scene in the car heading to Spahn Ranch is pitch perfect with every aspect of movie making you can think of.

Unlike Tarantino films, I don’t want this review to be too long. I could honestly talk for hours about it. I could talk about Rick Dalton’s scene with the method acting little girl, or the great scene of Dalton talking to Pacino’s character about his older stuff and that he possibly has a career in doing Spaghetti Westerns, or what goes down in Cliff Booth’s visit to Spahn Ranch all the live long day. But I won’t. If you’d like to discuss those scenes, I’m just a text, call, or Facebook messenger away. I would love to talk this movie with you, because I am going to be singing its praises for awhile, probably until Tarantino makes his 10th and Final Film. I’m going to rank his writing and directing gigs below this, and while this might seem like it is in the middle to you (it’s exactly in the middle right now), just know that I don’t think Tarantino has ever made a bad film, maybe just an underwhelming one with Death Proof. The rest all have a little bit or a shit ton of my love. I loved taking a trip to Hollywood in Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. I think that if you gave this film the chance and the proper magnifying class, you could too.

My Ranking of Quentin Tarantino Films (only ones that he both wrote and directed):

Pulp Fiction
Inglourious Basterds
Django Unchained
Kill Bill (both volumes are one movie)
Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood
Jackie Brown
Reservoir Dogs
The Hateful Eight
Death Proof

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE LION KING (2019) (spoilers, because IT IS THE EXACT SAME FILM FROM 1994!!!)

For those out there saying that critics like me giving THE LION KING (2019) bad reviews, and that we are just “complaining to complain,” listen up: We do not hate all live action remakes. You’ve got some really, really good ones out there such as Pete’s Dragon, Cinderella, and the glorious The Jungle Book (directed by Jon Faverau, who did this, so there is one point of disappointment). We have reasons for not liking this movie. We can’t be like some of you casual movie goers that just loved this because you eat God damn member berries everyday. We just can’t. This film is completely unnecessary. It is literally a shot by shot, dialogue by dialogue remake, with some silent moments or action beats stretched out to also make this film somehow 30 minutes longer than its 1994 counterpart. This movie absolutely adds nothing new. And those of you saying that if the movie added different shit, we wouldn’t have liked it anyway. Not true as well, case in point: the new Child’s Play was a completely different remake, and I enjoyed it mostly for what it tried to do. This is the worst abomination to shot-by-shot live action remakes since Gus Van Sant’s version of Psycho.

And yes, I keep calling this a live action remake when technically it’s all just photo realistic computer generated imagery, and not one God damn human being is in it. But you know what I mean, it’s just easier to say that it is. And I cannot argue, the film looks absolutely beautiful. It is really hard to tell that all of this was completely made on a computer. It looks like they shot on location and just added really masterful looking CGI animals to the mix. I’m not saying it looks bad at all. It will probably end up winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (which I’m fine with). It’s just that we really really really really really don’t need this movie. Gun to my head: when my son sees The Lion King for the first time, will I show him this or the 1994 Animated Version first? If your answer is not the 1994 film, every, single, time, I’m officially calling you out for being a dumb shit. #sorrynotsorry

The 1994 version will ALWAYS hold up. It is still has beautiful animation of its time, and the story, themes, emotion, drama, will always, always, always hold up. So why do I need to see a photo realistic carbon copy? The answer is: I don’t and the reason is maybe something you haven’t thought about. Look, with 1994 animated version, all the characters faces and expressions are in your face, making sure to give that look that will have any you or any other audience member smile, laugh, bawl, etc. etc. Combined with fantastic voice talent, it completely brings those characters to life even though they are obviously fictional. In 1994, I choked up when Mufasa died, I grooved to “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King,” I was terrified when Simba battled Scar at the end, my pulse raced with the stampede, I felt the love between Simba and Nala in “Can You Feel The Love Tonight,” I beamed and sang my heart out to Hakuna Matata. Did I do any of that to the 2019 version? The answer isn’t just no. It’s a hell no.

Mainly because I can’t tell what the animals are expressing or feeling because of all the photo-realistic bullshit. Sure, Donald Glover and James Earl Jones’s voices are supposed to add support to what is playing out on screen. But since all the animals look like expressionless robots, since they barely have any bombastic CGI to make their lips move or to tell what is going on with their faces (I get it, they don’t want to Baby Genuises’ it), I literally couldn’t care less for what was going on. I was BORED. I almost fell asleep several times, and I almost never fall asleep in theaters. I was seeing the exact same story I saw 25 years ago and multiple times since then on video. I wanted some new beats added or maybe something entirely different. Watching the 1994 version and then watching this back to back is exactly if I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and then watched Gus Van Sant’s: A waste of fucking time.

I said they added nothing new. That is not entirely true. I can count what they added new on one hand. 1. There is a new Beyonce song that plays over Simba and Nala racing to Pride Rock to stop Scar (they don’t even sing it, it’s just background race against time filler noise). 2. The Ed hyena now, to make everything politically correct, is no longer mentally challenged, he’s just annoying. 3. The girl hyena, once voice by Whoopi Goldberg, also gets several more lines showing she is the leader. There are other small things as well, such as Nala getting a couple of more lines, Timon and Pumba getting to finish that song lyric in Hakuna Matata that lets them say the word fart, and they also rip off the beginning of a song from a different classic Disney film in order to force the audience to elicit a member berry laugh (I rolled my eyes). But all of it is not enough to make this live action remake really stand out. It’s all unnecessary, and instead of providing enough different content to be more of a companion piece to the 1994 film, it’s just the same movie but with all the emotion stripped from it. All but one emotion, I did almost laugh once. I uh… literally almost cracked up when Mufasa died. For me, it was that bad.

The voice casting is at least half way decent. James Earl Jones still has got it as Mufasa. I thought Timon and Pumba were the best part of the film. Billy Eichner didn’t just yell his lines like he does on his television program Billy In The Street and even though Seth Rogen did his signature laugh, it was ultimately forgivable because he did a pretty grand job the rest of the time, wasn’t just Rogen being Rogen. He made Pumba an actual character. And John Oliver as Zazu was a nice treat as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Donald Glover did that great a job unless he was singing. Him yelling at Scar or trying to express any kind of heightened emotion just felt like him reading off the page. Beyonce was fucking distracting because it was just Beyonce reading lines, didn’t really give Nala any unique characteristics, it was just a CGI female lion that happened to have Beyonce’s voice.

For some reason I don’t blame director Jon Favearu for this. It is possible he wanted to do something different like he did with The Jungle Book and the greedy money hungry executives at Disney told him he better not change a thing or they’ll kill him off in the MCU and he won’t be able to direct anything for Disney again. The film looks beautiful, and he did a fine job trying to re create the story shot by shot. I blame Disney completely on this. If they aren’t going to own up and do some original content soon, they need to get bold and do something special with these live action remakes, or all of us, including critics and modern audiences, are going to get tired of it super fast. I’m already tired of it, especially after the one two punch of this and May’s Aladdin (Aladdin is the better of the two believe it or not, and you see how much I hated that one). This whole thing was just a waste of my time, I really wish I had stayed at home and watched the 1994 version with my almost two year old, even though he’d have no idea what the fuck was going on. The Lion King (2019) is one of the most unnecessary remakes of all time, and one of the worst films of 2019.

P.S. The real best part of the movie was not the film itself, but during the trailers, where they showed the new preview to CATS. People were booing, laughing, and pointing negatively at the mo-cap face bullshit horror show that we’ll be getting in December (for which I’m not going to see). One drunk guy up front half way through it shouted out, “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?” giving me one of the best laugh out loud moments of the week. That question the drunk guy yelled out during Cats was exactly what I was thinking during the Lion King, however I was more serious, and didn’t laugh after thinking it.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: CRAWL (no spoilers)

CRAWL is better than it probably had any right to be. I guarantee you that this film was projected for a straight to VOD release. But then they probably test screened it for audiences, which let them know that they had something a little more special than originally intended, and at the last minute got theatrical distribution. This is the exact opposite of what should’ve happened with Stuber, but if you want my critique on that film, read my previous review I just posted a couple of hours ago. Crawl is easily the best alligator/crocodile attack film ever made, outing Lake Placid, which really wasn’t even all that great to begin with. In fact, they probably could’ve changed the title to this to Deep Blue Quarry and made it a real official sequel to Deep Blue Sea and gotten away with it, minus the chemicals that was supposed to cure Alzheimer’s and of course, the sharks. In any case, it definitely can be added to your awesome creature feature marathon you got brewing in your blu-ray case or digital collection at home.

Crawl’s premise is simple but effective. In Florida, during a large hurricane, a swimmer goes to check on her father at their old home when he doesn’t answer any of his phone calls. She finds him unconscious in the giant crawl space (after writing this sentence I finally get why they titled the movie this, I still find the title mediocre though) under the house, behind some low hanging pipes. Turns out he was attacked and was hiding from some vicious alligators that have come out of the storm to play and going behind the pipes was the only thing keeping him alive as they were too low for the alligators to crawl under and get him. But again, huge problem, there are numerous alligators everywhere, not a definite number, and could be lurking anywhere in the shadows. Not to mention, because of the hurricane, things are flooding fast, and they might not have enough room in that crawl space to breathe much longer. Obviously, the father and daughter (and their dog) need to outmaneuver them all and somehow get to oxygen and safety.

Crawl works because it is so simple. It doesn’t try to think it is smarter than its audience and bring something to its screenplay that tries to make you think, such as experimenting with sharks and their brains to make some kind of cure for Alzheimer’s. These are just regular vicious alligators in a storm, and they are either defending their territory and/or hungry, and the humans have got to escape my any means necessary. Point A straight to point C. No filler. Exactly as it should be. It also gets points but not numbering the amount of alligators in this mess. In Deep Blue Sea, there were three sharks, and the characters even counting down after each was killed, you know, just to remind the audience for some reason not to expect a random shark to come out of nowhere. But that problem is no problem in Crawl. It lets you know early on that there are plenty of alligators to go around and killing them off one by one ain’t going to do jack shit.

The film has jump scares that are actually earned, and a couple of gruesome alligator bites and kills. There are a couple of other things that makes this film stand out and save it from VOD hell. The cinematography. The cinematography in this film is absolutely gorgeous, from the dark blue and black outside shots of the storm, to the gritty darkness of giant crawl space under the house. The sets are nice and realistic, only adding that impending doom that the audience needs to feel for the characters in their predicament. Any scene in that crawl space is masterfully shot and there is one awesome scene dealing with the eye of the storm that I dare not reveal any details on here. What I am trying to say with all this is that, the film earns its scares and tense scenes, from the filmmakers paying very close attention to detail. Director Alexandre Aja has easily made his best film here, along with his classics such as High Tension and one of the only horror remakes I approved of, The Hills Have Eyes.

Oh the acting, I forgot to mention the acting. It is basically a two person show, Barry Pepper playing the father, and Kaya Scodelario as the daughter (there are others in this but they are all basically just alligator fodder). Barry Pepper is the best he has ever been here, easily. I didn’t think he could pull off playing a father, not because of his acting, but because I still think he looks young for his age, but then I looked on IMDB of the years between Pepper and Scodelario and smacked my head realizing that the filmmakers knew what they were doing. But he plays the sage father role very, very well. But the real star is Kaya Scodelario, her convincing us of the terror with her yells, shrieks, facial expressions, and determination to get out of danger. In any horror film/thriller you have got to have actors/actresses that can pull that off, and Kaya does in spades.

My only real complaint is the CGI with the alligators. While better than the SFX for Deep Blue Sea, there were only a handful of times where the alligators actually looked real and weren’t just cheesy computer generated creations. But I forgive this for three reasons. 1. Sometimes you just gotta have some cheese to have fun, that’s why Deep Blue Sea still works so well. 2. The budget, no way did they have enough money to perfect those creations. 3. There is no fucking way in hell you could train alligators to do what they do here, absolutely can’t be done. I would’ve maybe liked a few just establishing shots of real alligators in the film though, just to have that, but I realize nowadays it probably costs to do something like that and you might have your hands full with a bunch of unnecessary PETA complaints.

If you like edge of your seat creature features, Crawl easily fits the bill. It’s tense, scary, fun, and entertaining as hell. It runs a brisk 88 minutes, with no unnecessary scenes, even the ending, which I thought was going to be stretched out to hell, subverts expectations and ends when it needs to. You know what the perfect little creature feature trilogy marathon for you to watch if you have the time? Deep Blue Sea, Snakes On A Plane, and now, Crawl. Definitely going to do that once I have the chance to own it. Well done.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: STUBER (no spoilers)

Unfortunately I don’t think anything else can be done with the buddy cop formula after the mediocrity that is the movie STUBER. I even groan thinking about the possibility Rush Hour 4. In fact I would go so far as to say that the first Rush Hour is the last great buddy cop film (please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not thinking too hard on this). And while Stuber tries to do something different, although you could argue its a reverse Collateral, it ultimately fails because it doesn’t do the one thing it needed to do in order to work: be funny. I maybe chuckled twice during the film, but there was in no way any hearty belly hurting laughs. And it certainly isn’t the actors fault, in fact, the only decent part of the film was that Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani did the best they could with the script they were given and maintained a decent chemistry. The fault is entirely upon the director but more so, the screenwriters. This film felt like it should’ve been released as a Netflix original. Not terrible, but not near theatrical experience worthy.

If you haven’t heard of Stuber, although I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have, they are marketing the shit out of this movie. But it stars Kumail Nanjiani as a guy named Stu about to go into a cycling business with the woman he’s desperately in love with but who doesn’t share the same sentiment. To get enough money to be an investor, he works two jobs, one at a sporting goods store, and the rest of his time is spent as an Uber driver. Hence his name Stu, mixed with Uber, is Stuber, the title of the film, the film makes sure you get it about a thousand times with character interactions. On the other side of the coin you have Dave Bautista, a cop named Vic trying to bust a drug dealer named Oka, who once killed his partner, and is about to execute a giant drug deal worth millions. So Vic can drive, so why does he need an Uber? What the marketing doesn’t tell you is one of the only other interesting things about the film: Vic just underwent laser eye surgery and is told that it is going to take 24 hours before he can really see again. And he gets a call that the bust is going to go down during this time period, and he doesn’t want the Feds to have the case. So he essentially makes Stu his permanent Uber driver until the case is closed.

Hi-jinks ensue, action beat, action beat, action beat, they argue and yell at each other every two minutes, male penis in the background that is supposed to bring a big laugh, betrayals, to sum it up, the film is as predictable as you can imagine. Other than Vic and Stu just yelling mean insults at each other and overdone physical comedy to try and get a rise out of the audience, the film tries to have an action set piece every couple of minutes to keep moviegoers eyes open. Unfortunately, this director is definitely not an action director, because when the movie switches to bullets and explosions on the drop of a dime, the movie also switches from steady cam, to some of the worst shaky cam I’ve seen in a film since Captain Phillips. You can’t tell what the fuck is going on its so bad. Shaky cam is often used when a director knows he can’t frame and set up an action shot well, so that maneuver combined with some lightning fast editing is supposed to make everything look cool and too smart for the viewer, when it is actually trying to hide the mediocrity.

Like I said, the film isn’t the fault of Dave Bautists and Kumail Nanjiani, they actually make some of the really stiff dialogue when they are getting onto each other work and play off their comedic strengths. They are meant to be the shaky cam that covers up the mediocre directing and screenplay. It might work for modern audience, but it doesn’t work for this reviewer that goes through everything with a fine tooth comb. Also, there is a lot of talent wasted here. Karen Gillan is in this film for less the 5 minutes (I really believe they brought her over at the last minute because she was filming Jumanji 3 near by and they wanted to cash in on a wink wink Guardians of the Galaxy team up) , I thought she would pop up again at the end, but once her scene is done at the beginning, you don’t even see a picture of her the rest of the film. Betty Gilpin is wasted being on the other end of a Facetime call for the whole picture. Natalie Morales tries her best to give her role as the daughter of Vic some kind of levity (although the end squashes it), Iko Uwais martial arts ability is again completely wasted because of the shaky cam bullshit, just like it was wasted in Mile 22, and Mira Sorvino is abysmal in her handful of predictable scenes as Vic’s Captain Boss.

I don’t understand why this film wasn’t just released on Netflix. Who in their right mind thought this was theatrical material? Somebody should’ve second guessed themselves. My next review after this I’m going to talk about a film who is really think was meant to go straight to VOD, however test audiences pulled it from that shallow grave and gave it a theatrical distribution, and it actually worked. This…Stuber…I just don’t understand. It’s not one of the worst films of the year due to the chemistry of Nanjian and Bautista, it just reeks of mediocrity. And it’s entertaining enough to be a one time watch thing, but more of a background film on Netflix while you are cleaning the house or paying your taxes. The film isn’t funny, and it tries too hard to be. It brings absolutely nothing else to the buddy cop formula other than the Uber driver story premise, and that is proof right there that the whole genre just needs to be a sweet memory. You can bring back that sweet memory with visits to films from the 80s and 90s every couple of years, but any new ideas need to be Lyfted away and never given the green light.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE (no spoilers)

If sometimes like your comedies like you like your coffee, dark but refreshing, then THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is one beverage that must be tried. Without giving anything away it has one of the funniest, darkest, bold, and unique climax’s of any comedy I have seen in quite sometime. Jesse Eisenberg completely shines in what is probably his best performance since The Social Network. I think it also makes up for Dawn of Justice. Be warned though, this film has some really dry and dark humor in it, and if you like your comedy all nice, cheery, and fluffy, this film is definitely not for you. Oh, and definitely not for animal lovers either. But what makes The Art of Self Defense really stand out, is that in a year filled with endless superhero film or franchise sequels, it is nice to get something as engaging while being totally original. It’s unfortunate it is getting a limited release this weekend and then an expansion next week, but I have a feeling it will gain some cult status down the line.

The film’s premise is simple. A weird, always nervous, weak accountant (Jesse Eisenberg) named Casey is mugged and beaten one night while he is on the way home getting his dog some dog food. His immediate reaction is to buy a gun but on his way home stumbles into a small (almost abandoned looking) building complex that holds day and night karate classes. The Sensei (Alessandro Nivola) takes a liking to him at once, trying to make him more masculine and turn him into the intimidating person that Casey wants to be. But within this dojo, filled with odd behavior and feisty tempers, something is lurking beneath the surface, and it is only a matter of time before Casey learns that not all is as it seems, and that these classes may be more than he bargained for.

That’s about all I’m going to say about the plot film, because to say literally anything else, ruins all the weird, hilarious, dark and fun surprises. And it all works thanks to the screenplay by writer/director Riley Steams, who has done one other film that I had never even heard of or seen. The whole movie, with a brisk pace of 104 minutes, holds no punches, and none of it is filler. If I had to compare it to any movies, I’d say take Napoleon Dynamite and have it make a baby with School For Scoundrels, except that this film is a whole lot better than those two combined, and a whole lot more sadistic. The movie is completely filled with dry and awkward humor, so if you’ve never been one to have an acquired taste for those kind of movies, this probably won’t break you into the fold.

The only thing keeping this film from being masterful is of some of predictability. Early on the film gives away a couple too many clues as to what is going on that I picked up on almost immediately, even without having watched a full trailer for this. Those scenes though are evened out by the unpredictability of other things, such as the balls to the wall funniest climax I have seen in quite some time. Even with some of the predictability, the movie has a bunch of set ups earlier in the film that pay off beautifully toward the end. The other reason why this movie work is the incredible acting from all those involved. Like I said above, Jesse Eisenberg hasn’t been this good since The Social Network. Alessandra Nivola as just named The Sensei (a brilliant end pay off as well) is masterful and Imogen Poots, while not a love interest, has an interesting character arc, as her being the only girl in the dojo, The Sensei thinking that girls are weak in general (the film has a lot to say under the surface about sexism).

Other little things like not knowing but getting little subtle clues on when exactly the film takes place make this film a nice treat for movie goers after the pretty sad sack of shit film month we had in June. It’s films like this that should be keeping the movie industry alive and original, but instead we are now just getting Disney Live Action remakes like the abysmal Aladdin and the not so well received Lion King, which hasn’t even come out yet. Films like this show that there is a lot of original talent out there begging for their voices to be heard. If you find a theater playing this, and this sounds like something right up your alley, go see it immediately. It’s good weird and it takes you places that these types of comedies normally don’t go. I have a feeling if we listened a little more often and Hollywood took a little more risk, we would stop complaining about un-originality and we wouldn’t have to defend ourselves by pointing at franchise films and saying, “but…but look at all the money that movie made!”