Category Archives: Movies

Movie Review: Harriet

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill now. Good movie, but doesn’t do Tubman nearly enough justice.

Harriet Tubman (Cynthia Erivo) is one of those people that you would swear was made up if there weren’t so much evidence that she existed and that she actually did what was claimed she did. It is impossible to condense her life into a two hour movie and do her legacy any justice whatsoever. Her life really deserves to be a one season series on the streaming service of your choice. That said, “Harriet” does a decent job within the time allotted. It faithfully portrays the brutal realities of slavery and introduces Harriet Tubman to a probable much larger audience than would normally know of her exploits beyond her being associated with the Underground Railroad.

The movie’s biggest failing is its insistence on again and again relying on Harriet Tubman’s prophetic “visions”. Tubman had a very serious head injury when she was young and it likely caused her to have epileptic seizures the rest of her life. It was during these seizures that Tubman would have her visions. All evidence points to Tubman seriously believing that these visions were God speaking directly to her. She was a woman of mighty faith. In the movie, they keep happening at key points and the visions would tell her what to do and where to go. This gets a bit too ahistorical for me and it is done at the expense of telling more about her actual deeds.

There is also this weird need for an enemy in the movie and that is accomplished through more ahistorical use of Tubman’s “owner” Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn). In the movie, he furiously hunts her down and placates the audience with the final showdown the studios think the audience wants. I do understand that stories about real people are notoriously hard to end, but couldn’t the filmmakers relied on some real life harrowing moment to end the movie? Or was Tubman’s life not harrowing enough?

“Harriet” is still a good movie and the acting is really good in it. My disappointment is more in wanting Tubman to have justice than in the quality of the movie. She seriously deserves to be on our $20 bill and I sincerely hope we have a non-racist President next to put her back on track to be there.

Movie Review: Black And Blue

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: A mess of a movie that relies too heavily on massively unlikely scenarios to tell a not terribly interesting story.

My brother and I went to see “Black and Blue” because there was nothing else showing. Neither of us had heard of the movie. He, having looked at the trailer before recommending we see it, said it’s either a poignant story about police misconduct in the Black community or a horror movie. It was neither, though I think it was attempting to be the former and any horror aspects were of the bad movie variety.

The movie takes place in New Orleans, a perfect setting for either a horror movie or a movie about police misconduct so it’s sad that this was neither. It follows rookie police officer Alicia West (Naomi Harris) who, in a series of events that would absolutely never happen in real life, witnesses the execution of two drug dealers by other police officers. Having been found out by said murderous police and having recorded the entire thing on her body camera, she flees for her life into a world where none of the police can be trusted and neither can the residents.

The rest of the movie is one extended chase scene with occasional bad dialogue with lots of heavy handedness about social issues. The action is pretty decent, though. The movie racks up an impossibly high body count, but the director uses the back alleys and close quarters slums to pretty good effect. it doesn’t quite make up for the movie’s massive failings, but it’s enough to give the movie two stars instead of one.

There is no reason to see “Black and Blue” unless you want to have something on in the background while you do mindless tasks around the house or at your job. It’s kind of perfect for that. Otherwise, see the HBO series “Treme” if you want to see a good show about the struggles in New Orleans.

Movie Review: Zombieland: Double Tap

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Has zombies for mindless gore. Has Emma Stone for sarcasm. Has Jesse Eisenberg for neuroticism. Has Abigail Breslin for rebellious teenage drama. Has Woody Harrelson to tie them all together.

It’s ten years later and your favorite city-of-origin named heroes are back and they’re as fun as they ever were. “Zombieland: Double Tap” is a completely unnecessary movie that really adds nothing that the original “Zombieland” movie didn’t already have, but it’s still fun in a manner that is unique to movies and that makes it worth seeing. The plot revolves around Little Rock (Abagail Breslin) chafing at not having anyone around that is her age and Wichita (Emma Stone) chafing at her relationship with Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg). Since this is not one of those movies where the plot is at all meaningful to the enjoyment, think of it as a device for causing random adventures to happen and four actors to have fun together for an hour and forty minutes.

The zombie fighting quartet is joined by a fifth person this time around. That’s how you know it’s a sequel. Madison (Zoey Deutch), a blonde bimbo who has miraculously survived the zombie apocalypse all alone, attaches herself to the very willing Columbus after he loses Wichita. Let’s just say that Madison is in the movie for exactly the right amount of time before she gets too annoying. She’s a fun addition, but in a one-trick-pony sort of way and they don’t beat that pony till it’s dead.

It’s hard to tell anyone to go see this movie in the theater. It’s a fun little romp, but nothing you can’t get from the comfort of your own home while watching the original “Zombieland” again or for the first time. That said, it has been ten years and the movie is still fun on its own and there’s not really much else playing right now so why not? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do some cardio.

Movie Review: Joker

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Possibly the best origin story ever? Anti-elitist. Socially conscious.

A lot of serious movie critics are not a fan of “Joker” and I think I know why. The undercurrent of the movie is anti-elitist throughout and what is more elitist than getting paid a lot of money by major newspapers to write movie reviews? *looks in mirror* Yep, this checks out. Give me money major newspapers!

“Joker” is a subversive movie which, given the subversive times we live in, is probably why it’s hit such a chord with audiences. The movie portrays Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) as a damaged man that society abandons to an uncaring world of elitists that mock and abuse him making the rise of The Joker inevitable. Why would someone care about a world that has done so much to denigrate and keep you down by actions both covert and overt? People treated like animals will become like animals. The movie doesn’t excuse The Joker’s violent actions, but it leads us on a Johnny Appleseed journey of planting the seeds that would bloom into apple trees of violent fruit.

Joaquin Phoenix lost a lot of weight to star in this movie and his emaciated body is hard to look at sometimes. His facial control is just remarkable and he really brings The Joker to life with his ticks and laughter. His precise body movements, too, add a lot to the movie. He takes the awkward and ungainly Arthur Fleck and slowly transforms him into the assured and coordinated Joker. It is a sight to behold.

There is a bit of an issue with convenient lost time that bothered me a bit after viewing. We know from the beginning that Arthur Fleck was institutionalized for something, but we never really quite learn what. This would be an unimportant detail except for the fact that much of the plot depends on Arthur Fleck also not knowing anything about the time that came before. This wouldn’t be a problem if the movie at all acknowledged it in some way, but leaving it hanging there left me feeling like an important part of Arthur Fleck’s journey was missing.

The way the movie ties into the greater Batman universe is pretty interesting in ways I can’t mention without spoiling things. It definitely gives the relationship with Joker and Bruce Wayne a twist and delves a little into how Wayne Enterprises may have gotten their shady dealings started, which is a popular theme in Batman lore.

I’m always excited when the DC universe does a DC comic justice given the dearth of good ones they produce. Though I don’t recall seeing a DC logo on the film, which may in part count for this one being good. It will be interesting to see if “Joker” holds up in ten years or if it is more of a product of its times. Regardless, it’s certainly worth watching it now and you should do so.

Movie Review: Ad Astra

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 1/5 stars

Bottom Line: Like “Apocalypse Now” only massively more boring. But at least it has killer space monkeys? Also, spoilers galore because screw this movie!

The vast, unforgiving nothingness that is space is apparently full of ridiculous coincidences in this abysmally thought out movie. Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) plummets from space to Earth after the antenna he’s working on blows up in a “surge”, runs into space pirates on the moon, killer space monkeys on his way to Mars, another “surge” as his ship is landing on Mars, hijacks a ship bound for Neptune, runs past a satellite on the way to Neptune, and is somehow able to find a tiny ship orbiting Neptune in the middle of its rocky rings. This movie’s science is weak.

The so-called “surge” is coming from a Lima Project spaceship orbiting Neptune and McBride is tasked with stopping it and it’s captain, who happens to be McBride’s father, H. Clifford McBride(Tommy Lee Jones), before it somehow destroys the solar system. The Lima Project is a deep space mission to find extraterrestrial life by going to Neptune for some reason. The giant space antenna McBride is working on when it is destroyed is also dedicated to finding extraterrestrial life. There is a one sentence throw away line near the end of the movie that tries to draw a moral from this extraterrestrial search so you can’t say absolutely nothing came of this movie.

For reasons that are completely unclear or that I completely missed, the Lima Project space ship orbiting Neptune was thought lost because no one had heard from it in sixteen years. Then the surges start and the Lima Project is all “surprise muthaf@#!ers, I’m still alive!” and Earth is like “geez, what are you doing? Why are you trying to destroy us?” and the Lima Project gives it the silent treatment and the Earth is like “oh yeah, well we’re going to send this dude McBride to the moon so that he can go to Mars so that he can try communicating with you and if you don’t respond, he’s going to Neptune to blow you up! And this is totally a sequence of events that has to happen because we need this movie to be two hours!” and the Lima Project goes all “oh yeah, I’d like to see you try!”. It is later revealed that Earth somehow knew exactly what happened to the Lima Project all along and completely destroys any need for any of this movie. I mean why send a human to do what a nuclear missile can do just as easily?

If this film can be said to have any intent whatsoever, I’m sure it was supposed to be about the father-son relationship. For the entire movie, parallels are drawn between Roy and his father. There’s a nature vs. nurture lesson which definitely leans on nature as Roy and Clifford are shown to be the same person despite Roy not growing up with Clifford at all. Roy also internally struggles with whether the sins of the father should be visited upon the son as he continues to do the exact same stupid things his dad did. The most important and mindbogglingly stupid parallel drawn between the two isthat both kill their entire crew out of fear that the crew is going to jeopardize the mission. And when Roy gets back to Earth, he is greeted as a hero even though he, a member of the armed forces, hijacked an armed forces spaceship and killed its entire armed forces crew. And this wasn’t clandestinely done either. Because nothing can be done right in this movie.

I got much more enjoyment writing this review than I did watching “Ad Astra”. Is this what happens when a good idea for a movie gets away from you? Did some movie executive come in and say “Do you know what this movie needs? Killer space monkeys!”? Did George Clooney dare Brad Pitt to pitch this movie to see how crappy of a movie can be made on his name alone? The world may never know.

Movie Review: It Chapter Two

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Adults just aren’t as interesting as children. Especially when their tale is told as disjointedly as in this movie.

Chapter Two is finally here and you might want to see what I thought of Chapter 1 before you read further.

“It Chapter Two” starts 27 years after Chapter One with a hate crime against two gay adults, one of whom eventually gets killed by Pennywise. They are never talked about or referred to again. I believe this scene is supposed to establish the evils of small towns that Stephen King often encapsulates in his books and to let the audience know that Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) can also feast on adults even though both dangers seems so far removed from the main characters for the rest of the movie. So begins a series of muddled messages that comprise and compromise most of the movie.

There are still plenty of hair raising scares and chills to be had in Chapter 2 and Bill Skarsgård once again proves that he may be the creepiest man on the face of this planet. Even the scares feel a bit disjointed at times, especially when Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) tasks the adults with going it solo to find their “tokens”. The tokens seem kind of random and maybe there are ties to the first movie that I don’t recall, but the frights the adults encounter often don’t seem tied to the tokens or to anything that was previously explained.

The chemistry between the adult characters is also sorely lacking compared to the chemistry of the kids. The only time where the adult chemistry rings true is when they all originally return to Derry and meet for dinner and drinks at a Chinese restaurant, which they then trash with little concern from the other patrons or owners of the restaurant. Then there’s the two love stories that go nowhere. One, is a lover’s triangle that the movie spends a decent amount of time on the three dancing around each other to no real result and the other is a barely hinted homosexual attraction which you would think would be played up a bit more given the beginning of the movie.

Despite being a massive disappointment considering how well done the first movie was, “It Chapter Two” still delivers where you’d expect it to deliver. I just wish there were some way to both do Stephen King justice and keep it to one three hour movie, or heck, even a six part streaming service spectacular. Still, the combination of the two movies did a pretty decent job of bringing a creeptacular book to the creeptacular screen.

Movie Review: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Starts out fairly effective. Ends up laughingly stupid.

The biggest question in my mind after watching this movie is: What is the shark horror movie equivalent of jumping the shark? Because this movie did it. Which is too bad, because up to that point, it was a fairly effective horror movie.

“Uncaged” takes place in the Yucatan where a bunch of teenage girls at an all-girls school decide to play hooky from a planned shark-watching tour and go to a remote swimming spot that one of the girls knows about. And apparently, there are no actual Mexicans living in the Yucatan because I don’t think this movie features a single one. Like not even in the background. Maybe this movie takes place in Donald Trump’s fever dreams where he’s conquered Mexico and caged them all. It certainly would explain a lot. Anyway, after a, thankfully, not terribly gratuitous T&A session of the teens frolicking in the water, they decide to take the scuba gear that is there and fits them perfectly even though it wasn’t meant for them and explore the Mayan underground burial city that has since been flooded with water. And there are blind Great White sharks there. The end.

Ok, not quite the end. There is actually some really good film making in the forward sections of this movie. I mean, of course, you have to accept that these giant sharks can swim around in all these caves that the scuba divers often have trouble navigating, but still. The camera makes great use of the claustrophobia of being underwater in caves and very effectively uses light and dark and silt and rocks to scare the bejeezus out of you as these impossibly large creatures pick the protagonists off morsel by tasty morsel.

John Corbett is in this film. I do not know why. But he very effectively gets Samuel L. Jacksoned out of this film (see “Deep Blue Sea”) and you should really stop watching it at that point. From then on, it’s a film of nonsense and incredulity as the remaining survivors are subjected to a series of sharks crashing into things just as they escape and magic currents that consistently push you down to the abyss below and getting chomped by sharks but somehow surviving. I will say, though, that whoever thought up the whole starting with hooky from a shark-watching tour and finishing up with the girls being ejected into the ocean right where the shark-watching tour boat was chumming the waters is a genius and should be our next President.

Movie Review: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Stupid. Fun. Stupid fun.

I have only seen one or two of the actual “Fast & Furious” movies and this is very clearly not one of them. “Hobbs & Shaw” is just a vehicle for getting Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Shaw (Jason Statham) together in a movie so they can riff off of each other for two hours while all sorts of unlikely action is happening around them. Throw in bad guy Brixton (Idris Elba) and cameos by the likes of Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds and you have all the makings of a stupid fun movie.

The plot is virus…something something…supervillain…something something…work together…something something…hate each other…something something…family…something something…happy ending. Yep, this is one of those movies where the plot doesn’t matter. It’s all about the improvisational riffing of Johnson and Statham on each other while things explode and gadgets are gadgeted. I am just guessing on the improvisational aspect of the movie, but many times it certainly feels improvised and Johnson is a much better improvisor than Statham. Or maybe he’s just a much better actor. Or maybe both. The important thing is it works. So don’t worry about the plot and just enjoy the ride in all the highly improbable vehicles.

The final act of the movie was kind of meh for me. It throws in a weird and pointless Hobbs family plot line and often felt more like a infomercial for Samoa than a coherent piece of film making. It wasn’t until after watching the movie that I discovered they didn’t even shoot in Samoa, but on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. So go there if you want to experience the beauty around the bullets of “Hobbs & Shaw”. Obviously, a movie like this relies highly on improbability and suspension of disbelief, but the whole Samoa part kind of crosses that line into non-enjoyment, which is too bad because up to that point it’s lots of fun.

Despite the disappointing third act, I would likely see another “Hobbs & Shaw” adventure. It’s entertaining and fun and silly and stupid and as long as you don’t care about things like plot and character development and all that other boring stuff. Obviously, steer away from this movie if you care at all about all those things that make a compelling and unforgettable movie, but if you’re up for stupid fun, “Hobbs & Shaw” delivers.

Movie Review: The Farewell

Jean-Paul’s rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Touching and awkward and loving and uncomfortable. Just like a family.

“The Farewell” is an interesting movie on many levels. It is a movie about family and about culture and about morality. It is billed as a dramatic comedy, but it is funny not in the joke sense but in the way all families are funny, very awkwardly. It is painful at times as the silences stretch as family members decide what to say next, if anything. All this makes “The Farewell” a strange movie.

The coolest aspect of “The Farewell” is the East meets West factor. The movie is about a Chinese family whose grandmother Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhou) in China is dying of lung cancer. The family is spread across the world and they all return to China to see her under the guise of a family wedding. In Chinese culture, it is common to not tell a loved one that they have been diagnosed with life ending disease and Nai Nai is not told she has terminal lung cancer. The family has many discussions on whether that is the right thing to do. There are also discussions about what it’s like to be Chinese in the United States. Billi (Awkwafina), who is from New York, gets asked multiple times about the United States, sometimes by strangers, always to humorous results.

It is a very interesting moral question, whether to tell someone they are dying. One of the family members explains it as the family taking on the collective emotional burden of death from the dying. We, with our Western individualist philosophy may instant balk at the idea of not being told we are dying, but I can understand the appeal, being able to live what remains of your life without the Damocles Sword of Death hanging over you at all times. The individualist counter-argument is that there are so many things one might want to do with that knowledge in hand and that one would not be able to do without that knowledge. The collectivist retort would be that one would already have done what is expected and there is only the need to continue what is expected. The individualist would complain that they didn’t get the chance to do any of that because they were too busy working 40 hours a week for the last 40 years with the belief that there was always plenty of time for those things later, always later. Or something like that. I may be a little rusty in my individualist vs. collectivist philosophy.

I will admit that I am a sucker for well written movies whose premise is an interesting moral question and that “The Farewell” is firmly in that wheelhouse so maybe I liked this movie more than most people would. Even saying that, though, the views into how family life is pretty much universally family life despite the culture it came from are poignant and endearing and I believe would appeal to all. There is also a lot about Chinese culture to be gleaned from the movie as well. And oh yeah, Awkwafina is wonderful. She just has this delightfully awkward attitude that makes her perfect for bridging the gap between East and West. I seriously wonder if the Awkwa in Awkwafina came from her awkward attitude.

Movie Review: Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: This movie was made for one person and one person alone: Quentin Tarantino.

Imagine porn. No, not the kind of porn that you or I would watch (Well, not the kind of porn that you would watch because clearly I would never watch porn). Imagine porn that Quentin Tarantino would watch. That’s the best description I can come up with for “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood”. Like the porn that you (and not I) watch, it may be an hour long (or in this case two hours and forty-one minutes!), but you know where your favorite five minute segments are and that’s all you really need to get the job done, if you get my drift (which again, I do not because I do not watch porn). The good news is there are lots of excellent five minute segments. The bad news is there are thirty-two five minute segments to get through and it’s exhausting.

In general, I really like Quentin Tarantino’s films. He is a person who clearly loves his craft and it shows in all his movies including this one. The problem with “Once Upon a Time…” is it feels like it’s trying to be something but it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. I remember when I first saw a preview for the movie, there was no real hint at a plot, just some story about actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). I didn’t care about plot. I just saw two great actors in fascinating roles set during the golden age of Hollywood and knew it would be fun. Then I saw another preview which made it clear that this movie was also going to be about Charles Manson. This preview annoyed me because I assumed that Charles Manson was going to be a surprise in the movie, but the reality was that it is absolutely essential that you know not only who Manson is, but also what he and his followers did. If you see this movie without that understanding, a good 50% of the movie looks like absolute fluff. Any movie that requires this much foreknowledge is going to go right over the heads of most of the audience. And even if you know Manson and know his followers and are in on the “joke”, the payoff for the entire thing is completely not worth it. Since this is a Tarantino flick, it shall come as no surprise that the payoff is gratuitous violence.

i would be remiss if I did not reiterate that I am not kidding about those excellent five minute segments. There are so many fantastic actors in this film and all of them are absolutely wonderful. Despite my belief that this movie will likely alienate most of its audience, I would not be surprised if there were best actor/supporting actor nominations for the various roles.

I look forward to when people do edits of this film and simply show all the scenes with Rick Dalton in them. Then they release another of Cliff Booth. Then they release another of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), etc. Those may be worth watching. I wonder if that’s how Tarantino started and then he just mashed everyone up together to make a feature length film. Pure genius.