Now I’m going to tell you right off the bat that I’m not the biggest fan of Julia Roberts and that (other than Erin Brockovich and Steel Magnolias) I think she is a pretty one dimensional actress. So when I say that I really enjoyed BEN IS BACK and I think that it is her best performance in quite a long time and it might even be my favorite performance of hers, you know that I’m telling the truth. Ben Is Back is what Beautiful Boy should have been. A cautionary tale about drugs that actually elicits emotions from the audience, emotions that are well written, earned, and acted. And that fact that everything takes place during Christmas was just the cherry on top.

Ben Is Back is about a son (played by the incredible Lucas Hedges) that comes home to see his family after spending months in a rehab center. His sister and stepfather think it is way too soon, his half siblings are just glad to see him, but his mother (played by Julia Roberts) is so thrilled to see him that she doesn’t start questioning things until other family members tell her she should. What is he doing home so soon? Does he have ulterior motives? What is going to happen if he relapses at the house? What happens if someone sees that is back that shouldn’t? All good questions. Instead of taking him back to rehab, they let him stay 24 hours during Christmas, going back to rehab the same time the next day. Will they regret their decision? What I like about the film that even though it takes place all in the span of about 24 hours, everything that happens feels natural, and it doesn’t take it to over the top places that any other schlocky film could take it. I very was surprised on how tame the whole movie was. I was expecting each twist and turn to evolve into something completely outlandish, and it didn’t. It subverted my expectations, and everything had more of a “well, I could actually see this happening in this situation” type feel, and that is what I appreciated most.

I also love how the film didn’t have all these revelations about Ben, and how most of his shady past is merely hinted at. Sure, there are a couple of revelations, but even those are still limited to broader information, with the specifics and really terrible shit left for the audience’s imagination. Sure, there might be a moment or two that are set up conveniently to reveal a little info on the origin of Ben’s drug habits, for example how Hedges and Roberts run into his old doctor in the mall, but those couple of things are easily forgivable with the other tidbits of information we get. The movie also does a great job of playing with Ben’s intentions during the whole film. You think he’s doing one thing, but just several minutes later the movie subverts that theory a bit, and it just keeps going back and forth. You will literally be guessing what happens and being wrong up until the very end.

The performances in this are amazing, everyone does a great job, but the standouts are obviously Roberts and Hedges, and any other year, Hedges would get an Oscar nomination. The movie is written and directed by Peter Hedges, who wrote films you may know such as both the novel and screenplay to What is Eating Gilbert Grape, co-writer on About A Boy, Dan in Real Life, and did some script doctoring on Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur. I do like What Is Eating Gilbert Grape, but I think this is easily his finest work. And yes, he is Lucas Hedges father. Sometimes spouse or sibling or parental collaborations can easily crash and burn, but here it totally works. It seems like Peter let Lucas just do his thing, and the performance is that much better for it.

Anyway, I said earlier that this taking place during Christmas puts the cherry on top of the whole thing and it really does. The setting completely works here. If it is ever Christmas time and you happen to feel like a drug cautionary tale, but also want to watch a Christmas movie, this would easily fit the bill. The atmosphere of Christmas is all over the place, such as going to the mall with this mom, church festivities, and the cold and the snow play big parts in the film. The scene in the graveyard with Hedges and Roberts where she asks him where does he want her to bury him when he’s gone, the snow on the grave stones, the imagery is fantastic here and just elevates the whole scene. This review is getting too long, so as a Christmas present to you all, I’ll just end it by saying I really really liked this film, and it will probably be in my top 20 list when I finalize it soon.

I forget which exact episode of Friends it is, but there is a scene where Ross, Chandler, and Joey are having a Die Hard Marathon in Ross’s new apartment, and they just finished Die Hard and it’s time to put in the sequel. Here is the exact dialogue as follows:

Chandler: Die Hard, still great!
Joey: Hey, what do you say we make a double feature?
Ross: What else did you rent?
Joey: Die Hard 2!
Chandler: Joe, this is Die Hard 1 again.
Joey: Ohh..well if we watch it a second time then it’s Die Hard 2!
Ross: Joey we just saw it.
Joey: And?
Ross: And it would be cool to see it again!

I just summed up for you MARY POPPINS RETURNS in a nutshell. While I am still mildly recommending the movie as a whole for a couple of things I’ll get to in a bit, Disney just pulled “The Force Awakens Effect” yet again. “The Force Awakens Effect” for those of you not in the know, is basically claiming a that movie is a sequel, when it is almost beat by beat the same exact story and plot of the original film. But seriously…if you had complaints that The Force Awakens was beat by beat too close to A New Hope, Mary Poppins Returns is tapping your shoulder right now and asking you to hold its spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down. Mary Poppins returns to help out the children of the children she helped in the first movie, and instead of trying to make the now older Michael realize not to neglect his kids like his father was taught, she tries to make older Michael realize that home is wherever you make it if you have your family by your side, and to appreciate his kids more. Wait…what? It’s essentially the same thing, with a minor twist. Just like everything else is in this movie. It’s the closest thing that Disney can make a remake without calling it a remake.

Instead of a picture that Mary Poppins and the kids go into full of brilliant animation, it is now a ceramic bowl. Instead of a spoon full of sugar and Mary Poppins helping the kids tidy of their room, it is now just a different non memorable song with them taking a bath tidying up themselves. Instead of a chimney chim chim cha roo with some very talented chimney sweepers, it’s a new song called “Trip A Little Light Fantastic” and instead of chimney sweepers, its now lamp lighters, but it’s the same dark cinematography and matte imagery and intricate dance choreography. All of this is surrounded by Colin Firth trying his best to act like an asshole and the family has to find this certificate of shares that the children’s father left them or they lose the old house we know and love so well.

This movie is beat by beat by beat by plot point by plot point by plot point the exact same film as the original, with just some minor tweaks here and there from it being a shot by shot remake. It’s just Disney being safe. They know that safe works (see Force Awakens) and they know that going outside the box may not (see The Star Wars Prequels and I guess see some dumb fan boys’ view of The Last Jedi). They know that just bringing in an older version of the children from the first film, but now focuses on their children will give audience enough sweet sweet memberberries to chew on while watching the movie. It’s kind of sad that you could’ve even done something similar yet different of all new kids, in a all new setting, with a different plot, more attune with The Force Awakens, and yet they still didn’t go that route. And while the movie was entertaining and held my attention, I just felt kind of eh through the whole thing because I know I had seen it all before.

Okay, now let’s get to the good stuff where I’m actually giving this film a minor “thumbs up.” Emily Blunt is always amazing in my eyes, and here she is no different. She steals every scene. She is the only other person in my eyes I deem fit to play Mary Poppins other than Julie Andrews (Andrews was in her early 20s playing the role and Blunt is 35, yes, they do have an age joke or two). She can sing, dance, and do anything. She’ll win an Academy Award one day, but not for this. Let the Oscar be still with Julie Andrews for this character. And Lin Manuel Miranda (yes, he kind of raps at one point in this as expected) is great too here. Every since Hamilton he’s been on this rise, and even with this things will just keep getting better for him. Yes, Dick Van Dyke is in this for about 3 to 5 minutes, has a minor little dance number where my jaw was on the floor considering he is 93 years old.

I also appreciated when they went into that animated world we all knew she was going to take the kids into that they didn’t just cop out and try to make them interact with Pixar like animated characters. No, they go back to home grown, home spun 2D animation, and it was brilliant enough for me to crave a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? even though I hope they never make one and if they do that it isn’t just another soft reboot/remake like this one is. And yes, Meryl Streep is in this (she’s got to be in everything, ugh), however, she’s only in one scene, one musical number, and then she’s out for the rest of the picture, and she wasn’t annoying, and she was quite good).

Unfortunately, as I remember the kids quite fondly in the original movie, the kids in this aren’t memorable at all in the fact that I’ve already forgotten what they look like. And while this film is a musical, and there is a song and dance thing every ten minutes, they in no way even touch the classic songs of the original. In fact, I can only remember two songs being fantastic, “A Cover Is Not The Book” and “Nowhere To Go But Up” and the latter isn’t until the very very end of the film.

But the film is harmless, is entertaining, and in some parts even fun, even though it’s just a melting pot of the original film. I completely recommend this to people who haven’t even seen the first one or haven’t seen the first one in a long time. For God’s sake, don’t watch the original right before you go and see this or you are going to regret it. It’s a decent family film, what more could you ask around the holidays? Well, I could ask that Bumblebee never existed, but that’s like asking for a billion dollars…

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS is the most mis-marketed, bait and switch movie of 2018. Hands fucking down. It advertises in the trailers and tv spots that the film will portray “the ultimate rivalry” for rule between her and Queen Elizabeth, and that the movie is going to be about one giant power struggle. Nope. Wrong…Not. Even. Close. I made sure to brush up on some of the real history of Mary Stuart, and of all of her life they could’ve made the movie about (in fact, it could’ve just been one giant biography with 20 added minutes, with a lot of the fat trimmed out), they decided to make the movie about the least interesting part in her life, where she returns to Scotland. It is there the movie turns into a #MeToo type entity, where every single man character in the film is apparently a sadistic, mean, psychotic, asshole son of a bitch with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. This “rivalry” in the movie is barely even there. A couple of letters written between Mary and Elizabeth when Mary returns to Scotland, trying to make a deal with inheritance to eventually have one ruler over England and Scotland, and then only one final confrontation at the end of the movie. In a meeting that apparently is pure fiction and never takes place, they speak to each other for only 5 minutes, and then years of imprisonment/protection pass (which we do not see, nor do we hear about some of her cool escapes and escape attempts) and then Mary is sentenced to death for some letter Elizabeth has that we never see or hear anything about, other than that it might’ve been written in Mary’s hand about a plot to kill Elizabeth. Instead we are treated to 2 hours of Mary just dealing with dumb, mean men that completely ruin her life. Margot Robbie is in the movie for only about 10 to 12 minutes by the way, and in no way does she deserve a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

Saoirse Ronan on the other hand is utterly fantastic as Mary, and it would be well deserved if she was nominated, but at how much I completely dislike this film, I don’t care to see it get any nominations, as to send a message to the filmmakers this was the wrong way to go with the years and years of story that they could’ve told. What’s funny is that Saoirse doesn’t look a day over 18, (which is where we see her at the start of the film) and then she hasn’t aged a day, they didn’t even bother trying to do make up or use CGI, and is supposedly 44 when she gets executed. I know my movie review is all over the place, but if you think about it, I’m paying homage to the movie itself, which was the exact same thing. I currently have a couple of web pages next to the one I’m writing on and I’m scanning over the history of Mary and Elizabeth and I’m shocked at what is not in the film. There is some really juicy stuff such as Mary’s rule when she was younger before where the film starts, or some of her escape attempts and apparent plots to kill Queen Elizabeth, or they could’ve went full Rated R and actually shown how awful her execution was instead of it copping out with a fake to black end credits bullshit text update on what happened to the other characters kind of conclusion. Plus, even telling the story of Mary’s return to Scotland is riddled with inaccuracies, such as her marriage to Lord Darnley being a sham because he was gay and fucked her catholic private secretary Rizzio, when in actuality she was actually fucking him, or that she saw her son for the last time when he was clearly older than 1 or 2, when in actuality he was only 10 months, and again, if her and Elizabeth actually ever met. Also the conclusion of Lord Darnley’s character is very fictionalized and not at all how it really happened. If you are going to make an historical inaccurate film, and there have been many, they might as well have went full fiction and actually made the rivalry movie that was promised and marketed.

And the movie is quite boring. I was actually into it a little bit until it hit the 45 minute mark and I figured that the movie marketed to me and everyone else on Earth was a sham and it was something completely different. I kept looking at my watch, wondering when this rivalry/power struggle film was to begin, and it never did. I guess you could say the power struggle was within her own group of politicians that were supposed to be “loyal” to her but even that was uninteresting and too repetitive. It was basically males that seemed to just slap her around, control her and betray her, trying to turn a historical film into a platform that modern audiences can relate to, aka the #MeToo movement. I don’t know what really happened back then and couldn’t tell you anything unless I was standing there watching it all happen, but the movie seemed to make Mary too strong of a character, where when all this bad shit was happening to her, she should’ve just ordered the deaths of people around her to regain ultimate control, instead of just taking blow after blow without being able to do anything about it.

I’m just mad that I was scammed out of what could’ve been a very powerful movie about Mary Stuart, with a breathtaking performance from Saoirse Ronan. I had a similar complaint with Bohemian Rhapsody, in that they could’ve made a much better film than they did, with Rami Malek giving us a better powerful performance (don’t worry, he still owns the movie we got, but still) with elevated material. Is it possible someone could write something else in the next few years, maybe something about Mary’s entire interesting life and still get Saoirse back into the role? Now that I would give a chance and see. The look of the film was fine, the direction fine, some of the visuals fantastic, but the boredom, inaccuracies, and misdirection the movie ultimately told was too much of a distraction for me to even closely give some kind of recommendation. I guess if you love Saoirse Ronan, watch it for her performance, but that is about it. If you are going for Margot Robbie, be prepared to be overwhelmingly let down. It’s not one of the worst films of the year, but it is one of the worst disappointments.

If you are a casual movie goer yet still keep up with the reward circuit, you might be wondering what this ROMA movie is that is being nominated for all these awards and how to watch it. If you have Netflix, well I have some good news for you, it just premiered on the service yesterday! And if you are a dummy and already knew that, yet spend the amount on one ticket to see it in a theater that would pay for one whole month for Netflix, well…I already called you a dummy didn’t I? Roma is a pretty good movie, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who has directed some great films such as Gravity, Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men, and Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Apparently this movie has been a passion project for him for years and years. And you can tell that every bit of love from his heart went into making this. The movie is set in 1970 and shows the year in the life of a live in housekeeper that works for this middle class family with a bunch of kids that have a mother that is oblivious to her husband not wanting to be around anymore. It is called Roma because it is referring to the Colonia Roma district of the city. The film is subtitled and black and white, and it is one of the most gorgeous films of 2018.

The cinematogrphy and shots are crisp, vibrant, and sharp. Definitely wouldn’t have looked as great if it were in color. Cuaron uses real locations to pull the viewer into the movie with his visuals. A lot of the shots consist of the camera panning from left to right or right to left, with careful choreography that feels natural. All of the actresses/actors are complete unknowns, but even with kids playing a big part in it, everything feels real with real emotions. Cleo, the films protagonist, especially great, with parts of her journey I don’t want spoil here, emotional enough to make me almost shed a couple of tears.

IF you are an award watcher completest, Roma is a must see. It is a lengthy 2 hrs and 15 minutes, but it kept my attention throughout the whole thing, mainly because of the visuals. The best sequence has to be Cleo shopping in the middle of the Corpus Christi Massacre, the camera work alone should get Alfonso Cuaron some kind of Oscar this year. If you don’t like reading subtitles or don’t like black and white films (how could you), this might not be your cup of tea. I enjoyed it though, always enjoy great film making.

I did a short review yesterday, let’s see if I can replicate it. Because to really dig into the plot of SPIDER-MAN INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is to reveal a lot of what happens in the movie, aka spoilers, and this movie is so much fun in the discovery of what is happening that I don’t want to do that. The teaser trailer to this almost a year ago we knew that the movie would be about Miles Morales and that he was talking to a Peter Parker. The newer trailers/tv spots let on to the fact that there was so much more going on, more Spider people, and I wish I hadn’t have seen them. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a bunch of cool surprises in the film, but if they would’ve kept the fact that there are multiple Spider people that don’t belong in Miles Morales world more of a secret, it may have even had the chance to be my favorite Spider-Man movie. But don’t worry, still love it and it is pretty damn close, probably just under Homecoming and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 for me.

And even with the multiple Spider people in the movie, the film manages never to lose focus of Miles Morales journey and doesn’t make the same some of the other Spider-Man movies have made, aka, too many villains, or in this case, too many heroes. And even though there are multiple villains in this as well, the film still manages to keep its perfect balance. That is a rare feat. You could say the main boss is Kingpin, with The Prowler, Scorpion, and one surprise villain I dare not reveal here being sidekicks, but even the Kingpin is subdued to a supporting role, his part not over staying its welcome. Story wise all you need to know is what the trailers have shown you. This story is an origin tale about Miles Morales becoming a Spider person, but sort of flips that origin tale on its head, by coming up with a unique story that involves other Spider people from other dimensions. I’m not going to reveal how Kingpin or any of the other bad guys are involved and not going to reveal how the dimensions collide in the first place.

It’s amazing given how many people there are in this movie, how every one gets a complete well rounded character arc, shit, even Aunt May. (well…I guess maybe except for Scorpion, but that’s okay, he didn’t need one). And it still gives room for Miles Morales to have the most beefed up character arc of all. Some parts of the movie are pretty emotional, and the story earns those emotions. The look of the movie is unique as well, and it makes me want to go back and possibly watch it in 3D. This is a comic book movie that actually looks and feels like you are reading/watching an actual comic book. The textures, style, and colors of the animation are vibrant and fantastic, something I have never seen before. The movie also works with the voice acting. Everyone does a fantastic job, but I have to give props to Nicholas Cage as Noir Spider-Man. Now I just want a movie with that character with Nicholas Cage reading beautiful dialogue to me for two hours.

Anyway, this is where I am going to cut it short. This movie is fantastic and deserves to be seen on the big screen, possibly maybe even in 3D. It’s a really fun journey, and there is no way they could’ve made a live action version of this story to make it work. Keep on with the Tom Holland MCU sequels, but I want sequels to this as well. Now, about whether your young kids, younger than 6 should see this or not. It’s rated PG, but that’s for the cartoon like violence and fighting. There is no language whatsoever in this. Word of warning, there are two pretty emotional Mufasa like deaths early on in the film (one closer to the middle) that could rattle them up. But the rest of the movie is light, action packed and fun. So if they are huge Spider-Man fans, even at like 4 or 5, they might really dig this movie, and are sure to dig it even more once they get older. This is a fantastic, awesome, spectacular, any phrase from any dimension you want to use to describe a fucking awesome Spider-Man movie. Oh, and stay after the credits for one of the funniest post credits scenes in Marvel history.