Movies, Film, and Chili

  Dumb Money is a drama following the GameStop squeeze back in 2021. Craig Gillespie  had done a "based on a true story" before with I, Tonya and I think The Finest Hours. I, Tonya is his best movie, and after seeing this I still wouldn't say that I look forward to seeing a Gillespie movie. Paul Dano  does a pretty good job as Keith Gill , but I think anyone could have played this role. Pete Davidson  looks worse than he's ever been in previous films but does an okay job being the asshole brother Kevin. There are lots of little characters who don't add anything to the story other than diversity. There are two lesbians,  Anthony Ramos is just there to dance and flip off Dane DeHaan, and   a Hispanic nurse who just watches TV with her best friend. I believe the whole purpose was sort of disingenuous as it made it seem like anyone who isn't white is poor. Dumb Money doesn't have a lot to say so it fills time with all these other characters and odd scenes like...

  Expend4bles is the fourth installment in the Expendables franchise. This time it's up to the Expendables to save the world from going into World War III with Russia. Statham is top of the list in the poster and for good reason. He really is the main character of the film. Fox plays his love interest and she's had a lot of work done on her face to make her look like herself pre-botch. She looks good and isn't a bother. The trailer made me feel like I was going to see Iko Uwais  go up against Tony Jaa , something that I think martial arts fans would love to see. Unfortunately, there wasn't that match-up. You might know Iko Uwais from The Raid and Tony Jaa from Ong-Bak . I didn't expect Expend4bles to be good, I just wanted to be entertained. I was entertained but the writing done by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams.  Wimmer probably wrote the action as it felt a bit like Point Break . Daggerhart  is the new writer in the group and probably botched the dia...

  Joy Ride is a comedy about a group of Chinese-American women being awkward and girlbosses in China. Adele Lim  tries to recreate her prior success with Crazy Rich Asians  with this female-centered comedy. I'm sure there are many cultural references that went over many US audiences, but the intentional comedy scenes weren't landing. The cuts were so quick it was like watching the film through the eyes of an ADHD child. There were many scenes in which you had to suspend your disbelief to make it through. I'm fine with that if the payoff works and there's a laugh, there wasn't. While Ashley Park is a beautiful woman, she's not that funny. The film also addresses the fact that Park,  the actress, is Korean but plays a Chinese woman in the film.  Sherry Cola is given the most comedy to work with but she's so insufferable and rude that she just comes off as annoying.  Stephanie Hsu  probably has the best comedic timing but isn't giving her enough of the li...

  Big George Foreman is a dramatization of the life of George Foreman, a former heavyweight champion of the boxing world.  George Tillman Jr. directs the film and does a great job capturing the person and amount of sacrifice George gives to accomplish his goals. While I wasn't a fan of The Hate U Give  that doesn't mean it wasn't well directed. He also helped write it alongside Frank Baldwin and Dan Gordon. Dan Gordon wrote one of my childhood guilty pleasures Surf Ninjas. Which is just as stupid and great as you would imagine.  Khris Davis has been in a bunch of movies but this is his first that I would consider where he plays the main character. He was in Judas and the Black Messiah, Atlanta, and Space Jam: A New Legacy.  This is his coming out role and from here on out should get some better roles once the strike ends. Sullivan Jones  plays an interesting version of the trash-talking Muhammad Ali . I thought it was interesting that Tillman left out the p...

  Strays is an animal comedy starring Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx. Strays  is directed by TV show director, Josh Greenbaum, who directs the movie very safe. I haven't seen anything from him before and there really wasn't anything special to make me excited to see another one of his shows. On the other hand, the film is written by Dan Perrault  who is a very niche writer. I actually enjoyed the show that probably landed him this role, Players . The characters there were well-written and realistic.  Will Ferrell plays the straight man-dog in this film. This didn't leave him much room to be as silly as he normally could be. Jamie Foxx  was the counterpart to Ferrell but doesn't have too much of a contrast with Ferrell to really make his character more interesting. The film has a great set of comedians who could have made this film funnier but I found myself laughing twice in the film as most of the funny parts were ruined from the trailer. It wasn't as bad as Ant-M...

  The Equalizer 3  is the conclusion to Antoine Fuqua's trilogy starring Denzel Washington . Antoine Fuqua  is a solid director, with Training Day, The Terminal List, The Magnificent Seven, Southpaw, and Olympus Has Fallen. This film doesn't have any particular problem direction but editing could have seen another pass as there are many scenes at the beginning that I thought could have flowed better. The editor was Conrad Buff IV  who edited Titanic and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, so there shouldn't have been this problem. He is getting old and perhaps his age is starting to show. Speaking of showing their age Denzel Washington is starting to show his, but in the film, it works. He's supposed to be aging as the child he helped out is now an adult and returns to play a significant role in the film. Dakota Fanning is by no means an action star but she plays the role she was given pretty well.  David Denman is briefly in the film, you might remember him from Brigh...