THOR: RAGNAROK is easily the best Thor film out of the three, no question. Let’s get my rank of them out of the way: 3, 1, 2. Let’s also call out the elephant in the room: Thor The Dark World Sucks, in fact, I can’t decide whether that or Iron Man 2 is the worst Marvel MCU film. But that doesn’t mean that Thor Ragnorak even ranks close to that low. It’s wonderful. Wonderfully fun, and is in the top tier of Marvel movies such as the first Avengers, the first Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s the funniest MCU film since Guardians of the Galaxy. It is just an ingenious soft reboot of a character that even Chris Hemsworth admitted was starting to get scale. In this film, Hemsworth finally gets to release his inner charm and comedian, and it works wonders.

Here’s the thing we all know about MCU movies, they usually all fall under a consistent formula, I mean, why stop what is working? And they still have a minor villain problem. The villains this year, including Michael Keaton, the secret villain in Guardians 2, and Cate Blanchett are a step in the right direction. Since we have those two minor faults with MCU movies, it is the journey and execution that MUST matter. With Thor: Ragnorak, the journey is so incredible that you forget the formula and the fact that Cate Blanchett (has she aged in the past 15 years? I don’t think so, she still looks incredible) should’ve been in the movie much more than she actually is. Everybody in this movie looked like they had a lot of fun, and that probably had to do with the director.

You don’t know him, or if you are a film geek like me, you might actually know him quite a bit, with this, he is going to be thrust in to the big leagues. Taika Waititi, he has done movies such as The Hunt For The Wilderpeople and What We Do In The Shadows, brings his unique weirdness, quirkiness, and charm to Thor, and boy did it need it. The Thor movies were taking themselves too seriously. The first movie was colorful if really stale in terms of plot. The second movie was dark and super stale, but with this third film, everything is bright, energetic, a giant needle filled with adrenaline kicked up to the max. The jokes, action, story beats, are a mile a minute, and it doesn’t even stop until the end credits roll. The movie basically takes Thor versus his sister Hela who is trying to take over Asgard and then starting to rule everything in the universe that she doesn’t. Pretty simple.

But then we add multiple worlds, some great A-lister cameos (including some that aren’t just other Avengers), Jeff Goldblum going ultimate Jeff Goldblum, a cool trash world, some excellent action, great soundtrack and really great special effects. Chris Hemsworth has completely, I guess you can say retooled Thor, where he isn’t all serious and brooding the whole time, he has some, pun intended, major spark, and charismatically comes into the forefront of Marvel superheroes. Hulk is awesome here too. Tessa Thompson steals every scene she is in as Valkyrie, Tom Hiddleston does his thing to melt women’s hearts everywhere, and Jeff Goldblum was basically told by the director to just be himself. If you love Jeff Goldblum going bull Jeff Goldblum, look no further. I think he was having the most fun with this film. Anthony Hopkins is the only person in this that screams paycheck. And Cate Blanchett is a great villain in this, unfortunately a little halfway into the films she disappears for a little too long. Would’ve liked to see more of her, because she was menacing in this. Karl Urban is almost unrecognizable and Idris Elba, while not in this much, makes his presence known.

If there is one thing I didn’t like is that the movie does kill off several minor characters we have seen before like it is no thing, and I didn’t really appreciate that much. Granted those characters were not too much in the other MCU movies, but  it’s like the writer of this film was just trying to find a way to never have to worry about them again. You’ll know it when you see it. Just a little disheartening.

Anyway, you know you are going to see it. Especially if you are a Marvel MCU completist. If you are on the fence…I can see why. You didn’t care for the first two. This one will completely change your mind, I promise you. Everything about it is great, and so much fun that this is one of the Marvel films you could watch over and over again without ever getting tired of it. Thor: Ragnarok rocks. ‘Nuff said.

I love STRANGER THINGS. I love the fact that I binged watch all 8 episodes of the first season the day it came out, and discovered it before it got really big. I could explain how I love it a million different ways, but the plain and simple truth is that this series is magic. Magical. Magically perfect. Magically beautiful. Magically acted. It just gives off that aroma that it is something special when you are watching it, because you are completely engrossed is what is happening, and when the episode ends, you just want more. You could watch it for hours, even if it overstays its welcome (which thankfully it doesn’t). And you think I’m just talking about Season 1. Oh no no my friends, I’m talking about all the episodes released thus far. I think Season 2 is on par and in some ways I like it even more than season one, and it made me fall in love with the entire series even more than I already am.

Why? Because it doesn’t have that sophomore slump that we normally associate with television series. Don’t know exactly what a sophomore slump is? Try watching Heroes Season 2, Mr. Robot Season 2, Lost Season 2, The Walking Dead Season 2, etc, etc, etc and you’ll get what I am saying. Not only does Stranger Things Season 2 up the ante, it does so in a way that fixes whatever problems the first season had, without getting too big for its britches a la (Star Wars Episode 1). What exact problems did the first season had? It really only had one, in that it relied wayyyy too much on nostalgia for not only the time period, but copied a lot of film/television/pop culture beats of the 80s. I mean if you didn’t think of E.T. when Eleven was on the bike with Mike escaping from the government, I don’t know where your head was at.

Now, while there is some nostalgia this season, such as the the Pollywog reminding me of Gremlins a little bit, this season doesn’t hit you over the frying pan with it. Stranger Things did something a little strange, it has now become its own thing with homages to things that inspired it instead of completely ripping them off. It also vastly improved on characterization, even though the characterization was one of the reasons why the first season is so magical. Let’s be clear, the child acting in this as a whole is incredible. But that acting can go to waste if you don’t have characters that you come to know and care about. And the characters have to grow. In this season, they very much do. All of them. In fact, if you felt spurned by season one and felt that some of the kids (mostly Mike’s friends) got the short stick when it came to characterization/storytelling, it is completely fixed here.

I don’t know how they did it in 9 episode, but everyone gets their own full rounded, well developed storyline and equal screentime. I can’t believe they juggled all that but they did. You get Caleb and newcomer Max, you get Dustin with his Pollywog, you get Mike and his longing for Eleven and trying to reestablish his friendship with Will, you get Will trying to wrestle with the Upside Down demons still living inside of him. You get Hopper wrestling with secrets (those exact secrets are spoilerific) and you get Joyce with a new love in her life, Bob. And hell, you get Jonathan and Nancy trying to get Justice for Barb! All with equal screen time, it was incredible.

In fact, the only person that you could argue gets the short stick of storytelling this time is shockingly Eleven herself. Even though her journey gets its own episode (#7), most of the time, even though she is onscreen an equal amount just like everyone else, she mostly isn’t doing anything. But thankfully, episode 5 changes all that and even though we don’t get much, I have a feeling it is setting something up even bigger for season 3. Plus, I liked the fact that they didn’t forcefully just shove her into the action. They tried a slower organic way to do it, and even though it takes its time and its a little frustrating, it works. Another character, who plays newcomers Max (a girl) older stepbrother seems to not get much development, there is a big scene near the ends that plants something that could be truly cool yet sinister in season 3, we will see how and if that plays out.

The truly great episodes in this are 6, 8, and 9.  The pretty good episodes are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, with episode 7 being sort of the weakest link. HOWEVER, episode 7, just like Max’s step brother, sets up several seeds that could pay off in a later season, so we’ll just have to see if episode 7 gets more attention and love the farther into the series that we do get. But everything here is magical. I even think Winona Ryder managed to get better this time around. There is this one scene she has with Will that almost had me teary eyed, so again, I say give her a nomination this year please. And give David Harbour and Millie Bobbie Brown another nomination while you are at it. Even though Eleven didn’t really have all that much to do, Brown still knocked it out of the park.

And I loved the way the season uped the ante a little bit without going overboard. Yes, the upside down is back, but it is expanded upon and really is given great context in episodes 6, 8, and 9. And I loved the fact that the CGI in this was so, so, so, so, so much better than Season 1. I guess since their success they got a bigger budget? But yeah, great visuals that actually had a story to go with them.

But yeah, in conclusion, if you loved Stranger Things Season 1, you are more than likely to love Season 2 the same if not more in some areas. It still has its magic, and certainly is not fading at all from what I can see. I love the fact that there are only 8 or 9 episodes each season, keeping everything tight and not bloated at all. Hopefully they continue this trend and not add any more episodes to each order. It might’ve been a strange thing, seeing about 90% of the country binge watch Stranger Things Season 2 this weekend, but if you are part of the 10% that didn’t, or has never even seen a single episode of this series, well, that might actually be stranger.

 

I haven’t the faintest fucking clue what SUBURBICON was trying to be/accomplish/etc. It is not only one of the worst films of the year but I fail to see if it even had a point. It is also horribly mis-marketed. I know that George Clooney a month or so ago was quoted in an article saying that the trailer makes it look like a comedy but that it is only a soft couple of comedic beats and it is mostly dead serious. I kind of want to tell Clooney that the reason why it was marketed the way it was is that your movie sucks and that it was the only way to possibly get any asses in the theater. If the movie was sold to the audiences the way it is in the final cut, no one would’ve had a clue what they were supposed to make of the movie, and no one would’ve seen it. I don’t think the movie is getting bad reviews because it was sold to audiences as one movie and in actuality it is quite different. I think it is getting bad reviews because the movie is fucking terrible.

Suburbicon is horribly structured, horribly paced, horribly plotted, completely tone-deaf, and doesn’t have one likable character outside of the kid who plays Matt Damon’s son in the movie and the African-American family that lives next door (we’ll get to the problem with their story line in a second. Characters do things in this movie that makes absolutely zero sense. It is hard to explain without getting into spoilers so just trust me on that. The movie is marketed as a film that has a dark tone that slightly parodies suburbia life in the 50’s/60’s. Yeah, I didn’t even get a hint of that here. It’s like the movie couldn’t settle on a tone and didn’t know what it wanted to do, so it comes off as the most confusing tone-deaf experience I have ever probably had in the theater. There is one critic whose review on the Suburbicon poster said, “You’ll laugh till it hurts.” I don’t know what fucking movie he was watching, but I didn’t even chuckle, and from what the movie was trying to sell me, I don’t think I was supposed to either.

I know it seems like it is really hard to pin point who is to blame for this disaster but I’m probably going to have to put it all on Clooney. I know that the script said it was co written by him, Grant Heslov (who are both responsible for their trainwreck The Momuments Men) and the Coen brothers, but honestly, I think the Joel and Ethan’s name is just on it for show to get Coen fanatics into the theater (that’s how I was duped). I am willing to bet my life savings that their script was completely different, unfinished, and that Clooney and Heslov completely changed almost every aspect of it. I am willing to bet that the Coen’s script really did have a good Coen-y parody on life in suburbia and that it had a clear and concise tone. I don’t know what Clooney and Heslov were smoking when they were writing this.

I really can’t even describe the plot to you. I guess I could say that Matt Damon plays a business man in the 50s/60s who owes a lot of money to people with mob ties. Goons kill his wife by accident, and leave his sister-in-law (whose a twin so Julianne Moore plays two roles for some reason other than the fact that it is a meager plot device to be able to explain why Damon eventually fucks his sister-in-law mid movie) and son alive to pick up the pieces of the family tragedy. And there is a very underused subplot where an African American family moves in next door and racial tensions are high and most of the neighborhood wants them out. But then after that, the movie just takes some weird directions where I started to suspect they really didn’t have much of a story after all.

If any of the Coen’s script is in this, I have a feeling it is the only two good parts in the film, which is Oscar Isaac’s seedy insurance agent, and the African American family that lives next door. Now, Oscar Isaac is brilliant and gives his A+ game in everything he does, just like Tom Cruise, and this film is no exception. Even though his agent is an unlikable character, Isaac gives a quirky quality to his small role where we are actually invested in the movie for about 10 minutes. And while the subplot of the African American’s movie in is interesting and heartfelt whenever it is on screen, it is so underused and on screen for only about 15 minutes, it is criminal. In fact, I would’ve just liked to see a movie about that family mixed with a parody of suburban life. Now that actually sounds like it resembles a movie.

The characters here are completely unlikable. The acting is fine, but everyone is so murky and evil and vain that I just ended up hating Matt Damon and Julianne Moore in this. I know it isn’t their fault but the movie is just written that terrible. As for the direction from Clooney? What direction? Without a clear and concise tone the movie just ends up being a point and shoot kind of affair. Nothing whatsoever is artistic about this movie. And since I’m so tired of talking about this movie, I’m abruptly stopping this review. Sorry.

ALL I SEE IS YOU has a interesting concept, good acting (especially considering Blake Lively is in it) and is a visual feast on the eyes…which unfortunately also has a very poor execution of that concept and all the visual flair completely tries to hid the fact that the movie is quite boring and doesn’t have a very good story structure.  We already know that just visuals don’t make a movie (see any Michael Bay movie almost ever) And I should mention that you can’t just have concept either. Only concept does not make a movie and many filmmakers have experienced this plight. So is this movie bad? Not exactly. But it could’ve been so much more and because of that notion, it will get completely lost in the crowd to where if anyone ever mentions the title, scratching heads will soon follow.

All I See Is You is about a pretty much one second from being totally blind woman with her husband living somewhere in China and she gets the opportunity to get complete sight back in one of her eyes (she wasn’t blind from birth, a car accidental involving her parents made her almost totally blind). Once she gets the surgery and it works, their marriage starts to unravel as she sees and experiences things she wouldn’t normally see when blind. I do admit that this is an interesting concept. Heck, it would make one hell of a thriller if done correctly. However this is more of a psychodrama that only has fat and not much meat on its bones.

The visual flair I was talking about earlier is that we see the world at times through Blake Lively character’s eyes, which turns out, since she isn’t totally totally blind, kind of like a weird permanent Pollack painting. It is beautiful, and like I said, if done in a thriller it could’ve built a lot of tension and had some good real jump scares. Here, it’s just like Marc Forster is screaming “Look what I can do!” and just bukakying all in our faces. Don’t want to get into any spoilers, but once she gets the surgery and their marriage starts to unravel, it doesn’t unravel in a very interesting way. And the movie tries to play off certain things we knew were happening as twists, which is just treating the audiences as if we didn’t know what we were watching. A little bit insulting.

The acting is good here, with Blake Lively giving one of her best performances and Jason Clarke doesn’t his underrated thing he doesn’t seem to mind doing. And I did appreciate that they did hint how Jason Clarke’s character might be a tiny bit unhinged before his wife got her surgery. But the fact that everything could’ve been solved with a sit down conversation is frustrating. And the fact that neither character is really likable. Blake Lively’s character is very  sympathetic at the beginning, but then she gets her surgery, starts to act differently that seems ungrateful, and then she does something in the third act to completely ruin any amount of sympathy she had garnered at the beginning of the film.

Marc Forster is a talented director. He made Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, The Kite Runner, Monster’s Ball, and some would even chock World War Z to a somewhat liable success. But he has had his clunkers. He also made Quantum of Solace (some would agree this is the worst Bond film ever made), Machine Gun Preacher, and another visual film with no substance, Stay. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a clunker, but it is definitely doesn’t reaches even near the highs of any of the films at the top of this paragraph. A shrug worthy effort that is not likely to ruin any careers.

So this is the other brutal movie I saw last night. Well, brutal in a different way. Brutal in the sense that it was very, very hard to watch. And not just Amy Schumer’s scenes (yes, she is in this, look at the credits on the poster), I’m talking about being brutal watching the story of soldiers coming back from their tour of duty in Afganistan and having major, life threatening PTSD. I should point out that the movie didn’t suck brutally either. It is actually quite good, with another solid standout performance from Miles Teller. But I could never watch this movie again. And the title is appropriate. Seeing what some of them half to go through, not only PTSD wise but also trying to get help getting back into normal life, anyone who has been in the military , anyone who has ever served. I really, truly THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.

This movie is very very depressing. And even though I can only watch it once I would say it is required viewing when you can see it, only to see what some individuals in the military have to go through when coming back from a war zone. The movie hits deep, even though I’m sure there are worse situations for some veterans other than what the three main characters went through, what they go through here is weighing on my mind. And be warned, this isn’t a war film at all. We barely spend time with them, maybe 10 minutes in an hour and 50 minute run time, in the war zone, this is all aftermath.

And it’s not a anti-war film either, which some people are misrepresenting. It’s a “we need to do better as a country to help our military once they get home” type of film. The film is screaming, “we aren’t doing enough.” And if even half of what is shown on screen is happening with our veterans, I completely agree, we aren’t doing near shit enough to help. The story is completely about three men who come home to Iraq with several PTSD and three different situations. Our main protagonist Adam, played by Miles teller, comes home to a wife and two children, one a newborn, who had a mishap saving someone’s life in Iraq. Another soldier, comes back home, but wants to get back out there as soon as possible, even though he has a wife who wants a child and he is starting to lose his memory. And the last trooper comes home to find that his fiance has left him and cleaned him dry.

All three stories are heartbreaking and feel true. Then again, it is based on a true story so I don’t know why it wouldn’t have been. The way they deal with their PTSD is at some times really hard to watch, and you just hope in the end each one of them get through it okay.

And while the movie is good, I want to talk about the elephant in the room (metaphorically not physically you butthurters) and that would be Amy Schumer. She is in this movie, but she is not in any of the trailers and the only way you would know that she is in this is reading the credits on the poster. She is so awkward in this, playing the wife of a dead soldier, that I literally cringed every time I saw her or she opened her mouth. While she is hardly in the film, maybe less than 10 minutes (and I have a feeling there are a lot of her scenes on the cutting room floor) Amy Schumer cannot act in a drama. Some would say she can’t act at all. I think she is fine in comedies, but as a grieving widow, she was so distracting. Especially when they try to hide her with a brunette wig. This movie proves that I can’t take Amy Schumer seriously.

Other than that, Thank You For Your Service is haunting, but a good wake up call to what our troops sometimes have to go through. I would say a once required viewing. I’m sure there are other PTSD military films out there to watch, but this one is more recent, so it hits home a little bit more. This weekend, all theaters are offering free tickets to veterans and current military personnel. If you are reading my review and are one of those brave soldiers, I would suggest using that free ticket to go and see this film. It’s a wake up call that we who are living the free life because of honorable people like you, we need to help you all more. Much, much more.

“If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw.” That was basically the tagline every year from 2004 to 2010. And every year I looked forward to hearing that tagline again and again. But then once Paranormal Activity came out and kept basically coming out a week before Saw every year near the end of the latter’s run, audience attentions spans got distracted and switched over to the found footage horror genre, leaving Saw with nothing to do but to release a shitty “Final Chapter”, add a 3D gimmick, not make money, and left the theaters for good in 2010. But now…it’s back. JIGSAW is back.

And friends, I am an unapologetic lover of this franchise. I always thought the writing here was better and had a more entertaining dynamic than the Paranormal Activity franchise, which basically lost touch after its third film, and then slipped into garbage movie trash oblivion. But not Saw. While Saw kind of wavered between films (mainly just II and V), sometimes the films would actually get better than it’s previous installments. When it was announced that Saw was coming back, there was hardly any information about it, and it was previous named Saw: Legacy (Jigsaw is a much better title), I was a bit skeptical. I mean was this a sequel? A reboot? A soft reboot?

What more could they possible do to Jigsaw’s story of getting ungrateful people to fight for their lives in some death trap maze where usually all the victims would lose? And then I saw the trailer, which was not only cool but which hinted at Jigsaw not really being dead, (oh yeah, spoiler alert, he died all the way back in the third film) which got me intrigued. If he is alive, how the hell did he survive Saw III?! What kind of twist with this installment bring? I knew that if the franchise came back, and at least didn’t bring an installment that was better than half of the others, Saw would officially be dead.

But dead it is not! In fact, Jigsaw is the best installment since the first. I loved it’s twisty, zany story that kept me guessing until the very end. You know each Saw movie has some kind of twist, and I loved the ultimate twist here. In fact I was the most shocked since that classic “moment” in the first movie, and I was constantly looking for it. The movie managed to leave me flabbergasted several times. To enjoy these movies, you have to look past the “torture porn” aspect of it, and just enjoy the insane amount of lunacy and suspend your belief as much as you can. And I can do that with these films.

I really only had four expectations: 1. Have a huge ultimate twist. 2. During that twist, play that Saw music we know so well. 3. Someone at the end says game over. 4. The traps are not only inventive but gives you that bloody and gory goodness horror audience crave. Only one of these things doesn’t happen, and it’s the one I let slide because it isn’t the first time it hasn’t been done. Am I going to describe the plot to you? Not really. I’ll just saw that more people are in a game that looks to be created by Jigsaw, which should be impossible since Jigsaw has been dead for ten years.

The film ends up being mainly a sequel and sort of a soft reboot (considering it’s been 7 years since the last film), but it doesn’t repeat scene for scene any of the traps, story devices or previous twists, which I definitely appreciated. Does our horror master actor Tobin Bell show up in this? I will not reveal that here either. You’ll just have to see for yourself. My friend Kim and I have been going to see every Saw film since we met each other when the 5th movie came out, and then we had a marathon of the other four. We love these films. And the fact that we both said, “well that was pretty damn good and entertaining,” is high praise for the franchise. Look, the only way you are going to see this film is if you are a fan of the franchise and want something better than the shitty Final Chapter. You can’t go into this movie not having seen the other films. That would be just dumb. So if you are intrigued, I suggest having a 7 movie marathon before heading to your theater. Enjoy Halloween. And see Saw.

My order of favorite to least favorite Saw films:

1.   Saw
2.  Jigsaw
3.  Saw VI
4.  Saw IV
5.  Saw III
6.  Saw II
7.  Saw V
8.  Saw: The Final Chapter

Wondering if you should see A BAD MOM CHRISTMAS, the extremely rushed sequel to last year’s summer hit? Well, you just have to ask yourself one question. Did you like the first one? Because if so, great, this one is exactly on par with the first. Mindless, fun, entertainment that isn’t meant to be a comedy classic, just meant for you, your family and friends to switch off your brains, laugh some and have a good time. The target audience on this is simple, moms and their friends that are moms, or a higher in age family. Anyone that thinks the holidays are stressful and a load of chestnuts. Anyone that likes Kenny G taking his flute like instrument and pretending it is his cock (yes, that does happen in this movie). Basically, anyone that likes really ridiculous crude humor. I was entertained and satisfied, what more could I want.

Sometimes I can’t expect a comedy classic. I didn’t expect it out of the first one, and I had a good time. And I especially don’t expect it out of comedy sequels, which are a really hard nut to crack. Sometimes sequels do the same old same old and it either works or doesn’t, and sometimes it tries to go really outside the box, and it either works or doesn’t. It usually doesn’t work in both cases. I am a huge supporter in comedy films NOT having sequels. I mean, do you really want a sequel to Wedding Crashers? But since the first Bad Moms was ultimately harmless and fun, I didn’t mind a sequel. And this sequel mixes it up just a tiny bit. It does the same old same old story of the first where the tired and stressed out moms try and loosen up and go crazy, but this time they do it during the holidays and try to take back making Christmas perfect for everyone.

And then this time they do the ultimate cliche thing of bringing in the mom’s mom to wreck havoc. They pair Mila Kunis with Christine Baranski, Kristen Bell with Cheryl Hines, and Kathryn Hahn with Susan Sarandon. Susan Sarandon definitely has the under developed storyline where she seems like an extended cameo more than an actual role in this. But I did see her as Kathryn Hahn’s mom. And while Christine Baranski was the most developed in this, and she had her moments, she seemed too stuck to being the same character (Leonard’s mom) in The Big Bang Theory, except that she adds a fuck and shit every now and then to her vocabulary.

But the biggest surprise of the three was Cheryl Hines. She is definitely the best mom in this film. She got all of Kristen Bell’s manurisms and quirks down and not only does she look like she is having the most fun, but she has the best moments, jokes, and “wince” ful parts in this. Every time she came on screen I knew I would have a big laugh and her chemistry with Kristen Bell was fantastic. But wait, that isn’t even the best part of the movie!

The best part of the movie is Kathryn Hahn and a Santa stripper played by Justin Hartley, some of you may either know him from the latter part of Smallville playing Arrow, but most of you know him as the good looking brother in This Is Us. The waxing scene between Kathryn Hahn and him is the most laugh riot best part of the movie and worth the price of admission alone. And just like the first movie, Mila Kunis did fine, Kristen Bell was good and weird, but the scene stealer is Kathryn Hahn, who I think is one of the most underrated comedy actresses acting today. She is delightful in this.

So yeah, see A Bad Moms Christmas. It’s harmless, it’s the holidays, you’ll have a few good belly laughs, but best of all, you’ll have fun. It seemed like everyone had fun making this film, and it surprised me that they were able to rush this sequel so fast and it be just as good as the first. I don’t know what they are going to do if they make a third one, because obviously you can’t do the holidays twice in a row, but I am looking forward to one more adventure to close out this fun little trilogy.

THE FLORIDA PROJECT is a cute yet heartbreaking little independent film that is getting some serious Oscar buzz right now. It’s about a young 6 year old girl, her friends, and her morally questionable mother living in a run down project that is managed by the fantastic Willem Dafoe. You may have seen previews for it. It is playing in limited theaters right now but should soon expand. The movie shows what can only be described as the “charming side” of poverty while still trying to show that modern America needs to be way more responsible than it actually is. While I quite liked the movie, very enjoyable to be sure, and that final little scene almost made me shed a tear, and I wouldn’t mind it being nominated, it is a movie that is hard imagining watching more than once, as a lot of the choices/actions by the mother and the kids is really hard to watch.

The reason why the movie is so good because of the acting. Willem Dafoe (who I would love to see nominated for this) is phenomenal as the manager Bobby, who is the one bright spot in this dark and foreboding place. He has to put up with bullshit from the residents each and everyday, but he does so with grace and class. Even though he’s harking down on all these rules and at points seems like he’s had it and doesn’t care, he not only looks after the kids from afar (he’s really the only positive role model around) but he tries to best to at times bend the rules to make situations not any worse than they already are. It is Dafoe’s best performance to date, just watch the scene where he confronts a old stranger getting a little too close to the children playing, it’s a classic.

But the story is truly about the mother, Halley, and her 6 year old, Moonee, played fantastically for a child actor by Brooklyn Prince. Prince is so good, that it felt like children acting like children, especially ones who don’t have a great upbringing at all. And Bria Vinaite as Halley the mom, is so damn good you just want to go through the screen and wring her neck for some of the shit that she pulls. It’s infuriating at times.

I don’t want to spoil any of the movie, but some of the shenanigans that the daughter and the mom end up getting into, it’s really hard not to cover your eyes with your hand. Not just what they do, but how they act, makes you wonder, how did we as human beings, end up sometimes being as bad as this? I loved how the movie though has these dark lives under such bright visuals, but the darker they get, the darker the visuals get, the cinematography in this is breathtaking to be sure and should be included in the list of nominees come January.

And the last scene, with Prince’s acting, is just really touching and heartbreaking, and the ending, while not making sense to some, made perfect sense to me. We live in a harsh world and sometimes you have to pay the piper with some of your actions. If these movie teaches you anything is that everyone needs to be good role models to their kids and if you can’t be, find someone who can. I completely recommend watching this movie, even if I can only watching once. It’s a beautiful sad film that is not only enjoyable, but teaches a lot of life lessons without trying to shove them in your face. I appreciated that.

 

going into a movie like GEOSTORM, any movie geek knows that you are going to get one of two possible experiences out of these four staple scenarios. With each movie you are going to get one of four possible outcomes (with some mixtures of course). I am going to list these outcomes with example of each.

1. Good Good Movie (your Oscar winners, Star Wars, some Bond films, Men In Black, etc.)
2. Bad Bad Movie (Fifty Shades series, Halloween II (Rob Zombie), The Emoji Movie, Independence Day: Resurgence, etc.)
3. Bad Good Movies (recent movies such The Snowman and mother!, two bad films in my opinion that had so much potential)
4. Good Bad Movies (Starship Troopers, spoof movies, San Andreas, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012…)

I hope you kind of recognized the last couple of films. Those were directed by the filmmaker Roland Emmerich and co-written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Disaster films in general always end up in the Good Bad Movie categories. Movies that on paper for some reason shouldn’t work on screen, but they do for the most part and are fun to watch. But occasionally, they can be put in the Bad Bad Movies. Case in point: the recent Independence Day: Resurgence. A movie that tried too hard to be both cheesy and try to take the possible franchise in a new direction instead of sticking to formula. And it just didn’t worked. In fact, it sucked. I would blame both Emmerich and Devlin for the sequel to a great good bad movie original to be that shitty.

Well, after that failure, Mr. Devlin recently decided he wanted to try out both writing and directing solo to see how everything would go for him. He’s had plenty of experience where he should know what to do and when to do it. So the main question is, how is Geostorm? I’m happy to report that it is at least better than Independence Day Resurgence. But I’m a bit sad to report that it doesn’t necessarily go in the Good Bad Movie category, because the second half of this films leans toward the bad bad film category. So it’s a mixture of both. If they would’ve stuck with the fun of the first half, it could’ve gone more swimmingly.

And thankfully the movie isn’t just The Day After Tomorrow Part 2. There isn’t just something wrong with this satellite/giant project that can control the world’s weather and prevent deaths/destruction/etc. The plot hints that someone is using it as a weapon. And the film balances from hanging in space where “I don’t give a fuck what movie I’m in” Gerard Butler tries to figure out what is going on, and his brother on Earth trying to figure out what’s going on, while we see some damage of what this satellite space project, code named Dutch Boy can do.

And surprisingly, the film falters in the second half, where the Geostorm is starting to happen and we see a bunch of CGI madness all happening at once. The first half builds the appropriate amount of tension needed, not going all out bukake and showing just disaster after disaster, the special effects are pretty incredible and the acting is actually decent. But then the movie gets extremely lazy, the CGI starts to show, the subplot of kidnapping the President that involves a self driving small cab and a bazooka held by the bad guy getting pretty damn ridiculous, and a hail mary of an ending that is completely eye rolling.

I heard that there were massive reshoots to this movie, and that Jerry Bruckheimer came in to clean up some of the mess. I have a feeling he reshot the first half of the movie, while leaving the second half in tack. My reason? The movie starts out with this really dumb narration by Gerard Butler’s daughter about how disaster and destruction led to the building of this device. She is telling us, and not showing us what happened. While it is a huge cop out I have a feeling Devlin actually showed us what happened at the beginning, it was cheesy as hell, and not refilmable.  I don’t know, maybe it is just me. Oh, and if you want to know who the easily predictable bad guy is, just know your cliches, and know your bad guy film history and you should be able to solve it right when the asshole comes on screen.

I was entertained throughout the entire cheese, so I wouldn’t consider the whole event a huge loss. But I wonder if a little more time and effort went into this movie we could’ve had something really good like the first Independence Day or The Day After Tomorrow? As is, it’s a pretty great Netflix rental. The perfect movie that you put on in the background while you are doing other things, something that will not hold your attention as well as other disaster movies might. I would say that is okay, but I honestly think humanity can do better with these films. They just need to stop being so damn lazy.

ONLY THE BRAVE is incredible. If made 20 years ago, between 1995 and 1999 (which is impossible because this true story tragedy happened in 2013), it would’ve been a massive blockbuster hit, with a lot of possible award nominations. Instead, due to this insane movie culture we have now that is obsessed with superhero films, reboots, remakes, franchises, and all that stuff, this film is more than likely going to be lost in the shuffle. But hey, there is still such a thing as being a cult classic or successful when it hits video right? Which is a shame. It is easily the best firefighter movie since Backdraft, has incredible acting and in the 90s Josh Brolin certainly would’ve been nominated for an award as well as Jennifer Connolly, and pretty fantastic special effects. I really loved this film.

Do you know why I mainly loved it? Because the film took its time. In a good way. Some films, when they take their time, tests the audiences patience, and in the end, the payoff isn’t worth the journey, and you end up being bored. Only The Brave accomplishes the rare feet of taking its time AND being incredibly entertaining. We get to know the characters very, very, very well. In fact, I would like to nominate this film as probably the best character development I have seen all year. We get to know the characters so well that, well, I won’t spoil anything but you can easily find out what happened to the Granite Mountain Hotshots if you go on Wikipedia, but suffice to say, when characters are in dangers, it stings like a motherfucker.

I was surprised to find out that this film was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Oblivion with Tom Cruise and Tron: Legacy, a cult classic to some of my friends (but I feel is highly overrated). This is easily his best film to date. The films climax doesn’t go into avoiding fire action movie territory, the climax is swift, brutal, and realistic with what was happening. All the characters seem like they truly do know and care about each other in real life. We get to know them several layers deep. It contains the best performance from Taylor Kitsch that I have seen. It also contains another Miles Teller fantastic performance as well playing a junkie that the hotshots take in.

The fire spreading and killing everything in its path in this is scary and real. Everything about it seems real. We see the firefighters actually work to take care of the fires, doing some things that I haven’t seen them do in movies. Usually its just a quick montage and everything is taken care of. Thankfully, not in this. It isn’t just about the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, we go back plenty of years before that and see how the team actually got certified as a team. Its engrossing from minute one. Josh Brolin and Jennifer Connolly share some scenes that any year in the 90s would’ve gotten them supporting actor and supporting actress performances.

The ending of this is so powerful, I teared up. Usually on this biographical dramas, I don’t tear up because I don’t care enough about the characters to actually feel their plight. This one I felt to my very soul, and that was all due to direction, the chemistry of the actors, and the screenplay actually taking its time to flesh everything out. If you read this review, and if you normally only see one movie a week or one every two weeks, try and put this one into your schedule. It’s incredible and I promise you it doesn’t waste your time.