Movies, Film, and Chili

  The American Society of Magical Negroes is a fantasy that pulls on racial tensions in the United States. Written and directed by Kobi Libii , the film struggles with writing realistic dialogue. This is Libii 's first time directing and second time writing. Perhaps the film was written during the writer strike and so they asked if anyone wasn't a part of the guild and willing to write something. There is about a half hour of exposition. The starving artist trope was overdone, and the direction had some obvious technical issues. The close-ups weren't utilized as intended and the CGI wasn't up to expectations for a movie involving magic. I liked Justice Smith when he was in the Pokemon live-action movie. Now that he's been playing the same character since then it's become tiresome. He's typecast as a beta and scared young man who lacks confidence, just look at the Dungeons & Dragons  movie.  David Alan Grier  hasn't been in a good movie since the 90...

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is the second and probably last Aquaman we'll see for a while. James Wan  returns as director and writer for the end of the DCEU. Who knows what Mamoa will do next and James Wan always has horror to fall back on. Wan really let control go on the film as much of the CGI isn't finished. CG babies, fish, boats, powers, it all looks poor. Also, the writing seems to be phoned in. The dialogue is basic. At the beginning of the film it cuts to characters that don't matter and scenes that could have been set up to establish the new evil better. Cliche writing mixed with bad CGI just leaves you with a heavy sigh. Mamoa will always pale in comparison to Henry Cavil 's Superman and Patrick Wilson  who plays King Orm is obviously wearing a body suit. Aquaman is King but bows to the diverse council that is run by a female gender-swapped flamboyant Karshon. Who knows why no one is up in arms about this character assassination but perhaps it was because K...

Poor Things is a weird and fantasy take, and very loosely based on Frankenstein's Monster. Yorgos Lanthimos  has increased his directorial ability and budget since The Lobster . If you remember how bizarre that film was this is cranking it up even further. He's a modern, non-goth, Tim Burton . There is a fine line between being weird and being weird for the sake of being edge-y. Lanthimos balances that line perfectly. Lanthimos has a writer he loved working with named Tony McNamara  as they've worked together on the 2018 film,  The Favourite.  Emma Stone should be and will most likely be nominated for an Oscar for this film. She has to do a lot in the film, from growing up mentally to regressing her motor skills to that of a baby in a full-grown body. Did I mention the film is weird? She works wonderfully next to Mark Ruffalo who plays the charismatic love interest through most of the film even though he's not her true love. Willem Dafoe also acts in the film as the ...

  Saltburn is about an Oxford student who is thrown into the world of his aristocratic classmate when he goes to his family's estate for the summer. Director  Emerald Fennell  lets you know this film is about homosexuals with the opening line. I really enjoyed Promising Young Woman , and so my hopes were high. It is set in 2006 which I adamantly remember since that was my graduating year. Perhaps people in England dressed that way but here in the States, we dressed very differently. Berry Keoghan  plays the socially awkward main character who seemingly gets taken into this world of luxury and friendship that causes him to do some extreme things. He's not your traditionally handsome man and for some reason keeps getting roles. I mean he was good in The Banshees of Inisherin but no one remembers him in Dunkirk. Even in Banshees, he was just a weird and annoying character though. Jacob Elordi  plays the love interest who has the charm to get any girl he wants. You...

  Ferrari is a biopic of the late Enzo Ferrari and his controversial 1957 race of the Mille Miglia. Directed by Michael Mann , the film has a slow start that grounds you in the scenery, the period, and how everything is in the late 50s Italy. Mann must love Ferrari as this is the second Ferrari movie he's produced in the past 4 years: this and Ford v Ferrari which is more about Ford than it is Ferrari but whatever. Michael Mann of course directed Heat, Ali,  and Collateral , these movies are much different than his recent racing fixation. Adam Driver has a lot of range in the film having to play Enzo in various moods and display stoic, vulnerable, angry, and loving emotions; all in scenes that require them. He'll always be Kylo Ren but compared to Marriage Story and Paterson  he's really branching out from his Star Wars days.  Penélope Cruz plays Laura Ferrari, Enzo's wife who is kept in the dark about Enzo's affair with Lina Lardi played by the oddly good Shailen...

  Wonka is a prequel and nostalgia bait to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Written and directed by Paddington's Paul King, who has been downhill since Space Force and The Outsiders . The film really lacks any sort of flair as everything seems so bland and boring. It appears to me that the translation from animated bear to this has seen some trouble. King doesn't know who his audience is: is it kids, adults, or both? If it's kids why is the film so dark and gloomy in the beginning? If it's adults why are the characters so simplistic and the humor so childish? Timothée Chalamet plays Wonka and from my first impression, he is the worst Wonka we've had. He has to carry every scene that Calah Lane is in who seems so distant from what she's doing. Child actors can really be a hit-or-miss type of situation. Lane was a huge disappointment here.  Wonka has a bit of a problem in that the music is annoying and not really catchy either. Also, some of the casting choice...

  Maestro  is a love story about a composter and conductor who falls in love with an actress. I have to talk about something that I wouldn't normally talk about first. The makeup department should be nominated for an Oscar as I couldn't tell that was Bradley Cooper  until I really heard his typical voice come out. Cooper sometimes has a hard time hiding that charm. Written and directed by Cooper, I wish the film would have really had a better marketing plan and a theatrical release as this being a Netflix movie actually limits it and I doubt most people will watch this. I have a bias toward Carey Mulligan positively so I'll keep my notes on her brief. While I imagine she'll be nominated for an Oscar for the film I found certain parts of her performance to be trying too hard. The delivery of the dialogue is given way too fast in the first scene between Cooper and Mulligan to establish that these two are our leads. They also talk over each other like this is an Aaron Sor...

  The Boy and the Heron  is the latest and perhaps the last entry in Miyazaki's great set of films. The semi-autobiographical fantasy is borderline a masterpiece. I will refrain from using the, now cliche, word "triumph" because it makes me cringe whenever I hear or see a critic use it. Hayao Miyazaki will go down as one of the best directors of all time with zero bad films. Spielberg will regret The BFG or the Crystal Skull. Fincher will regret Alien 3, and so on.  The film has just enough hints at the underlying story to keep you engaged as to what happened in Miyazaki's life but is still interesting enough to overload your eyes with visual candy. It's also oddly funny at times which seemed intentional and memorable.  It also has a stellar cast with Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, and Florence Pugh. The best was oddly enough Dave Bautista as The Parakeet King which I absolutely want a plush for one day. It...

  Priscilla is the biography of Elvis Presley's former wife, how they met, and how things ended. Sofia Coppola  daughter of Francis Ford Coppola wrote and directed this film with the help of Sandra Harmon and  Priscilla Presley herself. She also has cousins named Jason Schwartzman  and  Nicolas Cage but that's just a bit of trivia. She also directed one of my favorite romances, Lost in Translation.   The woman who plays Priscilla is Cailee Spaeny , she transforms into Priscilla pretty well. I forgot for most of the film that she was in Pacific Rim: Uprising  and Bad Times at the El Royale. She has a movie coming out that I'm pretty excited to see called Civil War  directed by Alex Garland  as well as Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus . So keep this movie in mind when deciding to go see those next year. Jacob Elordi  does a decent Elvis impression but he doesn't have the charisma. He was in that Euphoria TV show which explains why all my stu...

  Leave the World Behind is about two rich families having to stay together during a Fire Sale. Written and directed by Sam Esmail , the film leaves you wondering just what is going on throughout the film. The ending doesn't satisfy and you're just left with an okay feeling. I expected more out of the Mr. Robot showrunner but then again the ending is very nilistic which makes sense from his pessimistic perspective.  Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke play the couple on vacation, staying at a BNB. Turns out the BNB is owned by Mahershala Ali's character who is played at first as a mysterious character with many circumstantial and coincidental excuses to force the audience to think he's lying. Ali and Roberts had the best acting in the film as Hawke went through the motions a tad.  There are children in the film. Myha'la plays the annoying and angsty teen which seems like an over-the-top character in how she's written. I don't really remember her character in the m...

  Godzilla Minus One  is a prequel-like film set in a Mid to Post WWII Japan where a gigantic monster appears off the coast. Back in 2019, I watched Dragon Quest: Your Story  because I'm a big Dragon Quest fan. Even while writing this review, I've paused Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. Little did I know earlier this afternoon that Takashi Yamazaki had directed both. He did a great job getting material out of the live-action characters but the CGI could have had more of a bake time as there were some noticeable issues but perhaps the average audience member won't notice.  Ryunosuke Kamiki plays the main character and has a large growth and character arc that screams Japanese as he's an insecure and self-conscious beta who has no backbone or the courage to do what's right until the arc is over. It's very relatable to younger audiences. He was in Spirited Away and The Secret World of Arrietty so there's that. Minami Hamabe plays the love interest in...

  Leo is about an old lizard who wants to have his one last hurrah before he gets too old to do his bucket list. This is another in the long line of Adam Sandler movies for Netflix that his contract requires him to do. In 2020, Sandler got another quarter of a million dollar deal with Netflix to do four more movies since his view count was so monumental over other Netflix original movies. While watching the movie you can tell it's Sandler's humor and he hires his usual friends to voice act in this animated family film. With Disney failing and Illumination taking hold of families, it's nice that there is room for Happy Madison Productions to put in good work. Sandler  puts on a voice for Leo that is goofy in his own right. Bill Burr plays his best bud Squirtle the turtle.  Cecily Strong, from Saturday Night Live, plays the substitute teacher, she really sells the mean old lady. Another couple of voices you'll recognize were Siendfeld's Jason Alexander as the entitle...

  Silent Night is a film about a man's revenge for the death of his child on Christmas morning. John Woo comes out of his five-year hiatus from directing his mediocre film Manhunt which quasi-sent him into early retirement. You might be wondering what Manhunt is, that's the problem. No one watched it. It's been a long time since Face/Off or A Better Tomorrow.  In terms of direction, there were a few scenes that could have taken longer in the CGi cooker. The writing in the film is solid. With no dialogue, the actors have to convey everything through emotion and action. Robert Archer Lynn  wrote the movie which is just a series of events and really just needed Woo to come in and get the best out of the action and emotion. Joel Kinnaman  plays the John McClane-style character. He gets shot in the neck and becomes mute for the remainder of the movie. This means Kinnaman needs to convey his emotion for the audience to pay attention. Anger is his primary emotion as expecte...

The Holdovers is about a teacher, student, and cook stuck together over Christmas break.  The writing from David Hemingson is really on a different level than much of what I've seen lately. While the movie lacks in keeping your attention from a directorial perspective it makes up for with interesting characters, dynamics, and immersion into the year 1970. The odd thing about this film is that Hemingson is better known as a producer than a writer and for this to be his first writing duty for a full-length feature film, it's pretty impressive. He was the producer of one of my favorite shows called Lie to Me, but he was also the producer for How I Met Your Mother, and Just Shoot Me! Dominic Sessa  plays the student who is abandoned for Christmas break. His character is written in such a way that makes you believe that he's a seventies kid and not just some actor. It was great but it was Paul Giamatti who plays the teacher and displays his seasoned acting skills. He plays a co...

  The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a super-prequel to the Hunger Games. Taking place when President Snow is very young, the film lets the audience know what happened in the beginning Hunger Games. The director is the same as the other later Hunger Games movies, Francis Lawrence . He also directed I Am Legend and 2005's Constantine. The film seems the same as the other, but the writing feels vastly different and that might be because of Michael Lesslie who wrote the horrible Assassin's Creed movie. The message in the film is unambiguous that: behind every great man there's a strong woman. The problem is that Rachel Zegler doesn't give off strong woman vibes. There were other messages about how the elite subjugated the poor and disenfranchised and humanizing victims which was very popular in 2023. There was something off about Rachel Zegler's accent throughout the film. She was supposed to be country but acts like a New Yorker or perhaps a P...

The Creator  is a film that once again tries to warn the audience of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Director, Gareth Edwards, seems to only write movies where it's a band of military folks, freedom fighters, or terrorists who against all odds get the job done see: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Creator, and Monsters.  John David Washington was quickly becoming a Hollywood go-to actor, but after the mediocre response to Tenant and now the lack of an audience for The Creator  his bankability is going down. Sure he was great in the Blackkklansman, but it wasn't his acting that made that movie what it was. He has a hard time showing emotion other than stoicism. This might be why he's leaving the action/sci-fi scene and going back to Oscar bait with his next movie: The Piano Lesson. The film suffers from victim mentality, hitting you over the head repeatedly for the first fifteen minutes with how the main character is a victim of artificial intelligence. The film s...

  Good Burger 2 is the follow-up sequel to the 1997 hit Good Burger based on the Nickelodeon skit from the TV show All That . The man who brought you the hit TV show, The Last Man On Earth , Phil Traill comes to direct this. Oh, he only directed one episode? He's pretty much only done TV stuff. After seeing the film I doubt he'll be asked to do more, but then again lately in Hollywood people are failing upward. He just had to do an acceptable sequel and we got this. He didn't grow up with Good Burger, he was already an old man by that point. They should have gotten someone in their thirties to direct. The writing really feels like the first film which makes sense since they've gotten the original writers on board. Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell return to reprise their roles. They've got some All That alumni back including Lori Beth Denberg and  Josh Server.   Kenan has grown the most in terms of acting, probably from his stay on SNL and Kel just feels like he'...

  Sisu is about a retired soldier during World War II who finds gold during a Nazi occupation and his fight to get himself and others home safely. Written and directed by Jalmari Helander, the film is heavily inspired by Grindhouse and similar style films. There are many times you would think: surely that would kill a person, but it doesn't. So there is a bit of suspension of disbelief and after a while, you're just waiting to see how he survives this next scene rather than thinking there are stakes. It's fun, but you wouldn't want to watch it again. Jorma Tommila  is the main character and has this rugged look to him that makes you believe that he's seen some stuff. He doesn't really change in terms of character growth, but then again you're not really looking for that sort of arc in this film. He hasn't been in anything you've heard of but over there he's been in a bunch. Aksel Hennie plays the lead Nazi and main bad guy. He's Norwegian but...

  Napoleon is an epic that goes through the rise and eventual fall of famous French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte played by Joaquin Phoenix.  Directed by  Ridley Scott, the film doesn't have acts like what you'd expect from a story but instead just goes back and forth from wartime to love time with Napoleon's love Josephine. The film is wonderfully directed and choreographed. Full immersion included. This wasn't the first time we had seen Scott and Phoenix work together as they had done Gladiator twenty-three years before. Phoenix has a range that could have been tapped into better. He kept a very stern look on his face, and perhaps that was what Napoleon was like. It's not very cinematic and felt more biographical even though there was no attempt at an accent. His on-screen chemistry with Vanessa Kirby is very much there and he knows how to command a room with just his presence, something I imagine Napoleon was able to do. Speaking of Vanessa Kirby , she is at the tim...

  PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie  is an animated family movie based on the TV show of the same name. Turns out this is the second PAW Patrol  movie. Written and directed by Cal Brunker , who returns from the first film. He also wrote and directed the underappreciated Escape from Planet Earth.  Regarding children's movies, it was pretty safe and played to the rulebook when creating a modern movie for 2023. Although you don't expect much from the film, the target audience is still learning how to speak. My 1 year old loved it. There are some voice actors that you might recognize, James Marsden, Kristen Bell, North West, and Taraji P. Henson.  The rest are the typical cast of the PAW Patrol. There's not much to really critique as each person brought the typical performance for this type of movie. I hardly even noticed any of the actors with the exception of Henson. It entertained my kid, but I wouldn't say it had a lot for the adult audience to enjoy like the '90s an...