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REVIEW:

This nineties gem was the first of its kind. By that I mean it was the first movie to have this idea about reliving the same day again and again, which has since then been done in countless movies from Edge of Tomorrow to Happy Death Day to Boss Level. But Groundhog Day wasn’t just the first, it was also the most creative, in the way it used the idea to explore a romantic comedy through every avenue of pursuit possible.

You see, Groundhog Day doesn’t start out as a romantic comedy. The characters don’t start out hating each other, or flirting with each other, or doing anything that would lead you to think there will be a romance. Instead, this begins as more of a Scrooge story (another movie starring Murray,) with Phil Connors (Murray,) laughing at, looking down upon, and ridiculing everyone, including the groundhog.

But then something happens. Weatherman Connors, wakes up on the second day at the Bed and Breakfast where he’s staying in this small town Punxitony, and he’s reliving the first day all over again. He goes through the day in disbelief, making slight changes to what he did the day before, experiencing everything with curiosity and uncertainty. Connors is just trying to get through the day, as if whatever he experienced yesterday might have all been just a dream.

And then it happens again. A third time. And this time Connors knows it’s for real. This time he needs to come up with a plan, to act on this, instead of just getting through it, waiting for the day to be done. Because it’s not going to be done. Ever. Apparently. For this third night, and the first one where it has finally hit him that this is for real, he goes to a bar, gets drunk with some locals, drives on the train tracks with them, partakes in a car chase with the police, and gets arrested. And boy is Connors happy when he wakes up in his bed again, the next morning,  as opposed to in a jail cell.

That marks the end of act 2. Act one was before the situation, including all of day 1. Act 2 is the situation itself, the inciting incident, ending with Connors’ first reaction once he realizes this is actually happening… depression. So if act 1 is day 1… the before, then act 2 is day 2 and 3. After that, we stop counting days.

For the third and fourth acts, Phil embraces what is happening to him. First it’s with a woman named Nancy, in act 3. Nancy is a total stranger who Phil just walks by, after doing his Groundhog Day report once again, and thinks is hot. There was something that happened in act 2, which gave Phil this idea for act 3. He was sitting at the bar with those two guys, who he would later drive onto the train tracks, and Phil talked about a day he once had where he and a woman made love “like sea otters.” Why couldn’t I have that day to relive again and again, he asks. And so that’s what he does in act 3.

 

Phil passes by Nancy, stops her, and asks  her some random questions. He then uses her answers the next day to pretend that he and Nancy once knew each other. All of this culminates with he and Nancy spending an intimate evening together. But there’s something else that comes out of it too. When he’s making out with Nancy, Phil says the name Rita. Twice. This is our first indication that Phil has a thing for Rita. Our first clue. The first sign that this might be a romantic comedy. And it propels us into the next act, which is all about Rita.

And now we are in act 4. This starts the second half of the movie. The Rita story. The romantic comedy movie. If the first half was a take on A Christmas Carol, minus the ghosts, then the second half is the redemption and the romance. In act 4, Connors directly pursues Rita head on. What that means is he slowly and carefully starts to learn every detail about her, from her studying French poetry in college to what drink she likes to get and what she likes to toast to. And he uses this to make her fall more and more in love with him. Or so he thinks.

Now we’ve seen the movie where a guy has a secret that he is using to win over a girl, without her knowing about it before. It goes all the way back to Shakespeare, with Much Ado About Nothing. And the girl always finds out the secret at the end, and then splits with the guy until they get beck together for the inevitable finalie. This movie is not that. It doesn’t follow the usual romantic comedy beats in any way. Connors has a secret that he uses to win over Rita, and the whole thing from start to finish, is handled in one act. By the end of act 4, Rita has rejected Connors over and over again, thinking that he’s a creep who called up all her friends to find out what she likes. How else could he possibly know so much about her?

And now we are in the fifth act of the movie. It took us a while to even get to Rita, and now Connors has gotten to her, learned everything about her, and still failed. He’s ready to give up. Literally. He spends the fifth act in his worst depression yet. If you think driving on the train tracks was bad, in this act he actually kill’s himself, over and over again. From a toaster oven in the shower, to jumping off the ledge of a building, to walking out into the street in front of a moving truck to driving down a cliff with the groundhog in his lap, he does it all. And none of it works. So essentially Connors has failed at this too. He has failed at failing. He still wakes up in the same bed the next morning, listening to the same song.

And so he decides to try a different  approach. The approach is to just be a nice person and help people out. Only he doesn’t get there so fast. He begins the act, (act 6, the final act of the movie,) by telling Rita he’s a god. He explains everything, and how he knows everything that’s going to happen, and proves it, all while at the diner. Rita decides to spend the day with him to witness everything. And it’s a great day. But of course, by the end, she’s gone.

And that leads him into his god-like act of doing good. He tries to save the old man on the street from dying. He learns piano (granted he kicks out a child student from her lesson, which is not so benevolent, but we’ll look past that.) he saves a kid from falling out of a tree. He shows up with a spare tire and jack and changes the tire of a car with three elderly women in it. He convinces a girl named Debbie to stop having second thoughts about getting married. He uses the Heimlich maneuver to save Buster, the groundhog master, from choking on some food at a restaurant.

And all of this culminates with a big groundhog dance and auction party, where everyone he has come across approaches Phil and Rita to thank him for what he did that day. It’s kind of an It’s Wonderful Life moment, where everyone we have come across during the course of the film shows up at once to approach the protagonist, one after the next. And it works. Phil has officially become a good guy. He’s become a selfless hero who is saving others.

Perhaps the only thing missing is him doing a final weather report in which he talks about how meaningful Groundhog Day is because he can see that it means so much to these people. That may have been a nice way to contradict his first report, where he thought the whole thing was pointless. But it also may have been a little too much and too obvious. What we actually get in this movie is just right. Just the right amount of hence from Connors, without going over the top.

REVIEW:

Possibly the best in the series, or at least tied with the first Creed for that title, this one ditches Rocky to focus only on our title character, Adonis, and in doing so, is able to reach new heights. Not that this movie is terrific in any way. It’s not. But it’s pretty good. And that really all comes from the villain, played by Jonathan Majors. This is the actor who is playing the MCUs new big bad, Kang the Conqueror, only in his biggest role so far there, Ant Man and the Wasp Quanumania, Majors didn’t leave a huge impression. In this movie, he does. You can tell that he’s just being given the freedom to find his role, to find the anger and resentment, and to have fun with it. For the first time in any of the Creed movies, the villain is actually memorable. Maybe that’s a result of not having Stallone in this movie. Now they are able to focus more on the villain. To be clear, Stallone’s Rocky has been an integral part of this series, and he is missed in this movie. But this movie also has the best villain, and a cool somewhat mystery-like storyline. Who was the man that the kids beat up n the flashback that opened up the movie? What really happened between these two men who are now arch rivals? The questions are there. Unfortunately not all of the answers are clear (like who a man is in a mysterious photograph that turns up.) Still it’s a cool movie with some fantastic boxing scenes and a compelling villain.

One Liner Review:

A pretty decent terrorist action movie, this one isn’t that different than other movies in the genre that have come both before and after it, but the star studded cast help elevate it to a higher level than most of these films.

Brief Review:

REVIEW:

The Peacemaker was the first movie ever put out by Dreamworks Studios, the company that was the brainchild of three powerful Hollywood players coming together… Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. (SKG,) It’s a bit odd that of all the movies they could have made to be their very first one, and to essentially launch the studio, that this is what they chose. After all, it’s little more than a standard terrorist movie featuring high caliber casting and movie stars. But the fact that it was the first really just tells you something about the time we were living in, back at the end of the nineties (1997,) and what kinds of movies were popular. After all, the only reason to make a movie like this first, which by no means stretches the muscles of creativity, would be because it seemed like a safe bet.

The movie stars George Clooney and Nicolle Kidman, two actors who were at the top of their game back then, but have only continued to rise in ability, popularity, and superstardom, ever since. For Clooney, it was one of his first movies, and yet he was already a proven star. Just two years earlier, he hit the silver screens for the first time with From Dusk Till Dawn, and he had already graduated all the way up to playing Batman (made the same year as this movie, in what is commonly regarded as the worst Batman movie ever made.) But Clooney was a rising star, and Kidman was already pretty established, and together they were like a Hollywood IT couple on screen, not unlike when Clooney teamed up with Julia Roberts for the Oceans movies.

But despite the casting, and the fact that these two actors are still just as relevant today as they were back then, the movie is still pretty generic. Now, that’s not to say that it’s bad. It is actually exciting and interesting. But it isn’t exactly creative, fresh, or different. At times this movie feels like a cross between The Rock and Die Hard, which is to say there are whole sequences and music which feel lifted from The Rock (the opening train heist being very similar to the stealing of chemical weapons at the start of that movie, complete with nearly identical music by a man who was the same composer of both films, Hans Zimmer. And then there’s the Die Hard element, where this idea that a train blew up with nuclear weapons on board so that people would think the weapons were also destroyed, when really they were taken off the train before the explosion, feels right out of Die Hard, where villains make it look like they died or their money was destroyed, only to secretly get away with still having it.

The movie opens with that lengthy train sequence, and it’s a great one including Russian military on board a train, with these weapons on it, and the soldiers expecting an easy and laid back ride, as most of them fall asleep. That’s when armed assassins show up in the shadows with all black body suits and masks that feature red eyes, as they aim the laser pointers of their guns at these Russian soldiers. There’s a great shot where you see all the laser pointers lined up in the room, with the sleeping Russian soldiers having no idea what’s about to happen. And then the execution happens, followed by a massive explosion.

From there, we are in Washington D.C. as the president is getting briefed about what happened with this train in Russia, and Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman) is running down the hall trying to catch up with the entourage and deliver the news. She’s the smartest person in the room, or so she thinks, until we meet Thomas Davoe (Clooney.) Kelly holds a conference to debrief US military strategists on what’s going on, and that’s when Davoe steps up and takes center spotlight. He has noticed something in the photos that no one else seems to be picking up on. During the moments right before the collision of two trains, which led to the bomb going off, in the photos, you can clearly see a bunch of people jumping off the passenger train. But when you look at the military train, which it collides with head first, you see that there isn’t a single person jumping off. Davoe’s theory is that on the Russian train, the soldiers were already all dead. This was a hijacking, not an accident. Nine nuclear weapons have gone missing.

At this point Kelly and Davoe look at the list of names of people who were on the train and killed. One is a well-known Russian general names Kotorov. Davoe knows people who are keeping tabs on Kotorov. He tries calling his friend in Russia, but gets no answers. He then Goes to a second source…a  man doing intel in the states, and learns of the Kotorov’s mistress, who is still receiving flowers every day… the General is not really dead. Kelly and Davoe now know who they are after. Kotorov is not the one who will use the weapons, but he’s the supplier or the middle man, and if they can find him, they can find the weapons regardless of who they are for.

 

This brings them to a a man who supplies trucks to move illegal material in Russia. Davoe tries to bribe this man, but when it doesn’t work, they tie him to a chair and threaten him. They use this to get his password and download information on the Truck. And then we get a car chase and action scene through the streets, where the laptop with the downloaded file and information is destroyed. Only it doesn’t really matter because Kelly already emailed herself the information. They use this along with satellites to find the truck, which is in a convoy of other trucks when they locate it. And that leads to them shutting down the streets, attacking the truck, and getting all but one of the nuclear weapons. One of the terrorists got off the truck with a single nuclear weapon before the truck was attacked.

 

This terrorist meets up with his friends, two other guys who we have seen throughout the movie, but still don’t know very well at all. There’s the one guy who gives piano lessons to little kids and is apparently the mastermind behind this whole thing. And then there’s his number two guy who assassinated someone at the start of the film. It’s always nice when a movie has multiple villains that are all connected to each other, (Batman Begins is a perfect example of this with Carmine Falcone leading to the Scarecrow leading to the League of Shadows.) But here in the Peacemaker, most of these villains are nameless, forgettable characters. The one exception is Kodorov, and how we are tracking him for most of the movie, until something happens to him and our focus then turns to a new villain.

 

The Peacemaker is an okay movie. Clooney and Kidman are a solid team and both deliver with getting us interested and getting us to care about the situations. But the movie itself isn’t all that different than other terrorist films that came before this. In the same way that Die Hard: With A Vengeance was originally written as its own movie, called Simon Says, and not connected to Die Hard at all, you can imagine that the plot of this movie could have easily been used for a Die Hard film. Or a Jack Ryan CIA film, Which is to say that there’s nothing really unique about this one. Even the director, Mimi Leader, turned out to be a generic filmmaker (she made Deep Impact at the same time as Michael Bay was making Armorgeddon, and while Bay isn’t exactly a good filmmaker, he definitely is memorable and has his own style.) The Peacemaker is one of those movies that does hold up, but just barely. It’s a fine film, but it is far from anything special.

 

One Liner Review:

An okay entry into the Marvel cannon, this one has a cool villain reveal and some fun cameos, but with a terrible third act, it all doesn’t amount to very much.

Brief Review:

Here is a movie that tries really hard to push the envelope in terms of twists, complications, and horror elements. And it goes too far. There are three clear acts here, and each act is loaded up with a major surprise. The problem is, not all of these surprises are good, or send the plot in the right direction. And what the movie leaves out, or doesn’t do right, ends up hurting it quite a bit. The movie isn’t bad, it’s okay. There’s certainly a lot to like. But when the third and final act is the weakest one, there is definitely a problem.

 

REVIEW:

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is a little too much. It’s a little too out there, complicated, and even horrific, all at the same time. This is definitely Marvel taking risks, which is usually a good thing, but it is also a clear example of going too far. Not all risks are good. Take Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, for example. Overly complicated to the point of losing the audience’s attention, turned out to be a recipe for disaster. Here with Doctor Strange 2, the biggest risk is how far they push the horror factor. This is Marvel, after all, not an R rated zombie flick. The fact that they get away with so much here, while still keeping a PG-13 rating is nearly inexplainable. But just because they can get away with it, doesn’t mean they actually should.

The movie opens with Doctor Strange and a teenage girl running through a strange world, and being chased by a monster. This isn’t the Strange we know, but Defender Strange, who has a pony tail. And he dies. We quickly see that it was all a dream, as the Strange we do know wakes up in bed. He gets dressed and heads off to a wedding. It’s the wedding of Christine Palmer, (Rachel McAdams,) the love interest of Doctor Strange in the first movie. Now she has moved on and is about to marry another man, and Strange is a guest at the wedding. He sits down next to a doctor colleague from the first movie,(Doctor West, played by Michael Stuhlbarg,) and West asks him about the blip, and whether it really had to happen the way it did. Was there another way? Strange tells him there wasn’t. This is pretty interesting, since it was Strange who decided this was the way to go, in Avengers: Infinity War, when he gave the Time Stone over to Thanos. Connections to the past movies are always rewarding, and this movie doesn’t have a ton of them, but at least we get an important one here.

It is while he is attending the wedding that Strange hears a bunch of commotion outside. He strolls out onto a balcony to see a giant squid monster attacking the city as it chases after one girl. This is America Chavez, the girl from Strange’s dream. He and Wong quickly go into action and this action includes making things out of thin air with magic that can take down the squid, such as golden chains. If the way they make these glowing tools and weapons in the air reminds you of the power of the Green Lantern, that’s because it’s basically the same thing. Only gold instead of green. The squid fight ends with Strange and Wong saving Chavez, but now wanting to find out who she is, and why she was in Strange’s dream. It turns out that Chavez can jump from one multiverse to the next, and that dreams are not in our imagination. They are actually happening somewhere in another multiverse. That’s a pretty cool concept.

From here, Strange goes to see the Scarlet Witch. It’s Wanda Maximoff from all the Avengers movies we have been watching, ever since Avengers Age of Ultron, (not to mention her own show, Wanda Vision.) In that show, she was the hero. Here, things are a little different. Strange visits her to ask for help in knowing who is coming after Chavez. Turns out it is Wanda herself. She’s the one who sent the giant squid. Surprise. Wanda is the villain of this movie. Yes, it’s a twist, and kind of a cool one, but it still feels like sort of a let down. You see, we are used to seeing fun and exciting villains that are new to each movie. In fact, the villain is usually one of the best things about the movie. And by making the villain Wanda, it is depriving us of a new character, (like Nightmare who was rumored to be the villain of this movie, and maybe even of the last movie.) Still, it’s definitely an interesting twist, and it leads to an exciting scene of Wanda attacking Karmatage, the secret city of the sorcerors. To do this, she employs the same mind control tricks she used in Age of Ultron, and it’s fun to see her back at it again.

The problem is that Scarlet Witch as the villain is not enough. Consider that the last Strange movie had Kysilious (Mads Mickelson,) as the villain, but then was replaced by an even bigger bad in Dormamu during the final act. Consider that the last two superhero movies, Spider Man: No Way Home (which Strange was in,) and The Batman were both stacked with villains. The days of the too-many-villains-in-your-movie problem (Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, the Amazing Spider Man 2,) are gone. These days audiences crave more. And this movie goes the opposite route, and gives us less.

 

Less applies not only to the villain, but also to the appearances and mentions of other characters from past Marvel films. For example, there is no Vision here. Not even a hint of him. Now, this movie is about Wanda going from multiverse to multiverse looking for a world where she can be with her kids. She can’t also be looking for one where Vision is still alive? Maybe the filmmakers felt like it would feel too contradictory to keep killing Vision in one movie only to bring him back in the next one (they killed him in Avengers: Infinity War only to bring him back for Wanda Vision, and then they killed him in Wanda Vision.) That argument does make sense, but in today’s culture where it’s all about the nostalgia and Easter Eggs, the better decision would have been to have Vision cameo here. And it wouldn’t be bringing him back as we know him,  it would be another version of him, in another multiverse.

 

Vision is not the only character to get the short end of the stick here. Baron Mordo is another one. When they signed Chiwetel Ejiofor to play Mordo in the first movie, they were striking gold with casting. But to say he hasn’t been used to his potential is an understatement. At the end of the first movie, Mordo was set up to be an enemy. The movie literally ended with Mordo going on a rampage, killing people who practiced magic, and saying, “too many sorcerors.” So how do they continue with that storyline? By not even showing the current Mordo, of this timeline, in the movie. Not once. We do see the character, Mordo, only the version we see is one from a completely different multiverse. He has no connection to the story that was left open at the end of the last movie. And so we don’t get any continuation of that at all. What a waste. On top of that, the way things are going (based on this “Wanda is the villain scheme,”) Mordo will probably be the big bad of the third Doctor Strange, which means once again we will be denied a new cool villain in favor of just using a character we already know and are familiar with. I’m jumping ahead and projecting here, but the fact is, this movie does not continue the Mordo storyline from the last movie at all, and that’s a problem.

 

The movie is all about cutting ties with past characters and movies (no Vision, no current timeline Mordo, and no Spider Man cameo, despite Strange being a featured star of the last Spider Man movie.) Instead of looking back, this movie wants to look forward, and so it gives us a second act that deals with a new team of superheroes in another multiverse, called the Illuminati. Now, to be fair, this move is pretty  great. Marvel tends to hesitate when announcing actors who will play future roles during scenes featured in the middle of their movies. We got the two big breakouts of Black Panther and Spider Man in Captain America: Civil War, but other than that, these moments are usually saved for the post-credits scenes, if at all (like Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Starfox at the end of the Eternals.) In the case of Captain America: Civil War, those two actors and roles were huge, but they were telegraphed in the trailers and commercials for the film, so there were no surprises. Not so much here, in Doctor Strange 2. We get a whole bunch of actors playing surprising roles. I won’t spoil them, considering how nice of a surprise they are, but it’s all impressive and handled well. And some might have problems with what happens to these characters, shortly after they are introduced, but it’s something that’s true to the comics and that we’ve seen before, whether it was in the Infinity Gauntlet comic book saga or the X-Force team in Deadpool 2. It happens, and it’s okay. Certainly the achievement is that they put these characters in the movie at all.

 

But then the movie turns very dark. In fact, it pretty much happens around the time that Wanda goes after the members of this Illuminati. She starts walking around with a black liquid pouring down the front of her face. It’s oil from a bunch of Ultron robots she destroyed, but it’s sure meant to look like blood. In fact, it’s a tribute to how Sissy Spacek walked around with blood coming down her face in Carrie. And Wanda walks around with a limp, not unlike Jack Nicholson in the Shining, before doing a take on the female ghost in the Ring, during a scene that takes place in a completely white room, where she moves in all sorts of contorted, disturbing ways. This is where the movie really begins to go for the horror element.

 

It doesn’t end there. The whole final act features our hero sending his spirit into the body of a dead character, and walking around looking like a zombie. His face is half torn off as he goes on his quest to save the world and even give inspirational speeches. It’s incredibly dark and gross for a Marvel movie. And the ideas start to fall pretty flat right around this time. There’s a fight scene between two different versions of Doctor Strange, for example, that involves playing music, causing the music notes to fly into the air, sending them down at your opponent as if they were weapons, and then catching them on a line from a music page. It’s meant to be creative, but it comes across as pretty dumb. The movie has three big acts to it. The first act, features Wanda’s turn. The second act, features the Illuminati. And then the third act, features zombie strange. Of those three, only the final act doesn’t work. Unfortunately that’s the most important act of the movie, seeing it get so bleak is a problem. The movie is okay. There are definitely some cool ideas here, (like when Strange and Chavez travel through a ton of multiverses at once, including a paint version and an animated version.) But the way that this movie crumbles in the final act does lead to it bothering nearly as good as it could have been.

 

 

 

  

One Liner Review:

Cutesy and light-hearted, without being especially smart or funny, this movie is okay, but far from anything special.

Brief Review:

This is an okay romantic comedy where the plot is incredibly thin and yet there still manages to be some funny moments and situations from time to time. The premise is that two characters are having an email correspondence with each other despite never having met face to face, and not really knowing who the other one is. They met in a chat room, struck up a connection, and now continue to chat online. Meanwhile, in the world of face to face interactions, they also know each other and are actually in competition against each other. Only they don’t know that the person they are in competition with is the very same person they are emailing with. So basically the entire movie is based around one single secret. Talk about thin. And yet they manage to get some good things out of this one, every once in a while. Chalk that up to the natural chemistry and charm between these two actors. It’s not enough to save the movie, but at least it sometimes gives us moments to smile or chuckle about.

REVIEW:

You’ve Got Mail is a very simple and basic romantic comedy, based on the classic Jimmy Stewart 1940s movie,  The Shop Around the Corner. The premise is that two characters who have had a mail correspondence with each other, and are friends through mail, also meet in real life. Only they don’t realize that the person they are meeting is the same person they are talking to through mail. And so, in a sense two different relationships form and play out throughout the movie. The one by mail, and the one in person. And the one in person, interacting with each other face to face, involves the two characters disliking each other until they eventually fall for each other, just like any romantic comedy. So it’s a decent premise, and might be a nice one for a short story, but for an entire feature length movie, it ends up being kind of thin.

In the Jimmy Stewart movie, the characters wrote letters to each other and sent them through the mail. They also worked together at the same store. In the Tom Hanks – Meg Ryan remake, the premise is basically the same, but some key elements have changed. The characters use America Online to communicate, one of the first email platforms in the early days of the internet. And even more importantly, there’s the competition involving their line of business. Instead of having them work in the same store, here they are against each other, and competing in business.

Kathleen Kelly (Ryan) is the owner of a small children’s book store. It’s the kind of place that sells rare, expensive, hand-crafted books and does things like afternoon story time where kids can just come in, sit down on the rug, and listen to a story. Joe Fox, (Hanks,) meanwhile, is the owner of a huge book store company that opens up new mega stores left and right, called Fox Books. It’s basically a version of the Barnes and Noble book chain. The problem starts when it is announced that there will be a new Fox Books store opening just a few blocks away from The Shop Around the Corner (the name of Kathleen’s store.)

Both Kathleen and Joe are in serious relationships. Kathleen’s is with Frank (Greg Kinnear,) a newspaper writer who writes articles that champion the underdogs in situations like this. Joe is with Patricia (Parker Posey,) an always busy, always in a hurry, executive. Patricia and Joe don’t seem to have much chemistry, other than that they both live a sort of elite, exclusive lifestyle. But Joe is deeper and more calm, and generally has the time to hear what people have to say, whereas Patricia does not. Frank and Kathleen, meanwhile, have more in common. In fact, at one point, Frank even champions Kathleen’s book store and writes about it in his magazine.

Kathleen and Joe meet in person for the first time when Joe arrives at her book store with two children. The children are his half brother and his aunt. Now, this story element is pretty dopey. All of the side characters are pretty bad in this movie, but the idea that Joe has these two kids to pal around with, and their strange relationship to him, takes the cake. One of the kids is the son of Joe’s father, who has just remarried. The other one is the daughter of Joe’s grandfather. And she’s just a small kid. What is the point of all this? It’s beyond confusing to figure out why the movie is doing it. Why not just have these be Joe’s kids from a previous marriage? Or if you absolutely have to make one his half-brother, why not make them both from this? It’s not a major point of the movie or anything, but the two kids do appear in multiple scenes, and making one the daughter of his grandfather is more disturbing than it is cute, which I suppose is what the movie was going for.

 

But this brings up a bigger problem. The side characters. Starting with Frank and Patricia, but then branching out to nearly every side character in the movie, they pretty much don’t work. And the movie just keeps giving us more of them. In fact, it is because the plot is so thin, and there really isn’t a whole lot going on in the story, that the movie decides to give us as many side characters as possible. That includes three different other characters who work at Kathleen’s store. There are two younger characters,  a woman and a man (played by Steve Zahn,) and then there’s an older woman who was the sister of Kathleen’s mom. The reason why that’s especially relevant is because Kathleen’s mom owned the store before she passed away, and this is the story of the store closing.

 

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t do a whole lot with this. It isn’t interested in being deep or sad in any way, and instead prefers to be light hearted, whimsical, and cute at all times. And that’s a problem, because there is very little funny here. The only scenes that hold up are the ones between Hanks and Ryan, and even those are hit and miss. There are story punchlines here and there that become the highlights of the movie, but even these aren’t anything special. The first of these highlights comes when Joe and those kids visit Kathleen’s store and Kathleen talks to Joe about how horrible it is that a Fox bookstore is opening up right near them. Watching Joe take this in, that this woman hates him so much, without actually knowing that he’s the one opening the store is kind of fun. And the movie even comes up with a clever little gimmick about it, having the boy know how to spell Fox – F -O – X, but not any other words. And Kathleen tests him on different animals.

 

The next of these story punchlines comes when Kathleen learns that the man she met at the store that day is in fact Joe Fox, the owner of the Fox Books store that is opening up. This happens at a party that the two are both attending, and when Kathleen finds out, she doesn’t hesitate to go right up to Joe and call him out. She accuses him of going into her store as a spy that day, and thinks he is just the most awful person in the world. So does Frank, who comes over to them and quickly learns from the conversation exactly who Joe is. Only Frank’s opinion quickly changes when Joe compliments him on one of his articles. That’s one of the few comical moments in the movie that actually does work.

The next big story punchline comes when Joe learns that Kathleen is the person he is been corresponding with through email. This happens when the two email friends decide to finally meet and the way they will recognize each other at the table is by having a certain flower in front of them. Joe walks over to the meeting place, a bakery on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, accompanied by his friend,  Kevin (Dave Chapelle.) Kevin doesn’t appear in the story much, but he actually happens to be one of the few decent side characters here, and that’s probably just because he’s Dave Chapelle, so he is just naturally funny (he was even great in A Star is Born, playing a more serous role.) Now, Joe goes up to the window of the bakery, looks in, sees Kathleen with the flower in front of her, and realizes who she is. And then he goes in.

 

The movie does do some smart things from time to time, centering around these plot points. One is that it has one of two character learn the secret of who they are corresponding with, at the halfway point of the movie. Movies that wait until the very end to let something like this out generally tend to feel like a big build up for something that wasn’t really worth the wait. But when a movie unleashes a major revelation like this in the middle of the film, it’s an interesting move because it leaves the audience wondering what will happen next, and how they will make the story work for another full half of the film, now that the secret is already out of the bag. Another cool move is that instead of just seeing Kathleen in the window and turning away to leave, Joe actually goes into the restaurant and pretends like his running into her there is just a coincidence. That’s another example of the movie going for the more clever and challenging move. So the movie definitely has some things going for it, but the problem is that everything that works is between Hanks and Ryan. The scenes between them. And there are only a handful of those sprinkled throughout the film. Most everything else, from the side characters to the relationships that fall apart in order for these two to finally get together, are pretty dull. And all of that fluff and filler that is not the two stars on screen together leads to the movie being just okay.

 

July 2016

Six months in, and this is a less than flattering year so far. It seems like many years are like that, with the real heavy hitters coming out in the later portion of the calendar year, just in time for the Oscar nominations. Still, when there have been four superhero movies, and two of them were real stinkers, and then there are still two more on the way, something just doesn’t sound right. Is there superhero fatigue? You better believe it. And also superhero stupidity on the part of the studios to not spread these movies out.

These superhero movies of 2016 are Deadpool and Captain America Civil War, (the good ones,) Batman V Superman and X-Men Appocalypse (the bad ones,) and Suicide Squad and Doctor Strange (the question marks.) The biggest crime of these is Batman Vs Superman which really should have been better on so many levels.

While the list of good movies seen so far this year is pretty limited to include only Deadpool, Captain America Civil War, Everybody Wants Some, and The Jungle Book, there are also plenty of movies that have been released to positive word of mouth, which still need to be seen. These are the movies missed, which have real potential. The Nice Guys, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Eye in the Sky, The Witch, and Hail Caesar. Then there are two animated films which are also supposed to be very good… Finding Dory and Zootopia.

And there are also a handful of movies that look decent and are still coming out. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Star Trek Beyond, Inferno, Jason Bourne, Sausage Party, The Birth of a Nation, The Magnificent Seven, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Passengers, and Sully. Who knows, maybe even Ghostbusters will somehow be good. I’m sure rooting for it, considering that the director is Paul Feig, and he’s been all hits and success so far. But with this as our upcoming slate and nothing new from The Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Tarantino, or anyone else of note, it’s not exactly looking to be all that promising.

 

Superhero Movies. It’s a genre that has taken over. Now, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. On the positive side of it, we now get a whole lot of options and a whole lot to choose from. Characters who we never thought we’d see brought to the big screen, (Ant Man,) are now getting their own films.

On the negative side of things, with everyone trying to cash in on the craze, plenty of products that are being turned out are not very good. The Amazing Spider Man 2 screwed up in all kinds of ways, starting with the trailer. The Josh Trank directed Fantastic Four film was also a mess, and that one was due to a studio that had no faith in its director. Finally, there is Batman Vs Superman, which might or might not be good. I’m hoping for the best, but the latest trailer, which shows both Doomsday and Wonder Woman at the end, really gives away too much. Have we learned nothing from that Amazing Spider Man 2 trailer, where the Rhino was featured front and center? He turned out to be the very last scene of the film. Talk about giving away too much.

Looking ahead, this year, 2016, will bring us a lot of superhero movies. 7 to be exact. The following year, by comparison, only has 6, and then the year after that, 2018, only has 4. I’m sure some of the 2017 films will be good, and some won’t. Hopefully the ones that don’t rely on effects so much that whole characters are computerized (like Ultron was in Avengers: Age of Ultron,) will be the better films. My guess is that Gambit will be the weakest of the bunch, but it might get some competition from X-Men Appocalypse or Batman V Superman. I am also predicting that Captain America: Civil War is the best of the group and then Suicide Squad and Deadpool are right behind. That leaves out Doctor Strange, and until we get a first trailer, and actually see the look of the film, it’s really hard to make any guesses about that one.

One thing I don’t love about the 2016 lineup is that there are two movies being released in May, and then none in June or July. Summer is the time for these movies. It’s Superhero movie season. Marvel knows that, which is why they always claim the first weekend of May. Then, they don’t want to give that first film of theirs competition, so they space out and tend to give us something in July or August (in the past, these movies have been Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man.) Marvel’s lineup from the past two years had Captain America: Civil War in April / May, then Guardians in August. Avengers: Age of Ultron in May, then Ant Man in July. But in 2016, it looks like the summer months aren’t being used very well. Nothing in June or July and two movies in May? Ridiculous.

Luckily, the following year looks to be doing things a little better. That year, 2017, there is a superhero movie coming out in May, June, and July. Now that’s more like it.

Here is the lineup of Superhero films coming out in 2016.

 

2016

Deadpool   (February 12)

Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 25)

Captain America: Civil War (May 6th)

X-Men Appocalypse (May 27th)

Suicide Squad (August 5th)

Doctor Strange (November 4th)

 

2017

Wolverine (March 3rd, 2017)

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (May 5th, 2017)

Wonder Woman (June 23rd, 2017)

Spider Man (July 7th, 2017)

Fox / Marvel Movie – Gambit or Deadpool 2? (Oct 2017)

Thor: Ragnorak (Nov 3rd, 2017)

Justice League: Part 1 (Nov 17, 2017)

 

2018

Black Panther (Feb 2018)

Fox / Marvel Movie – Gambit or Deadpool 2? (March 2, 2018)

The Flash (March 16, 2018)

Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 (May 4th, 2018)

X-Men: New Mutants (June 29, 2018)

Ant Man and The Wasp (July 6th, 2018)

Aquaman (July 27, 2018)

The Batman (Oct 5, 2018)

 

2019

Captain Marvel (March 8, 2019)

Shazam (April 5, 2019)

Avengers Infinity War: Part 2 (May 3, 2019)

Justice League Part 2 (June 14, 2019)

Suicide Squad 2 (Nov 2019)

 

 

 

2016.

So Many movies to look forward to.

Here are my top most anticipated films as of now.

1.) Captain America: Civil War

2.) Suicide Squad

3.) Ghostbusters

4.) Dr. Strange

5.) Deadpool

6.) Batman Vs. Superman

7.) X-Men Appocalypse

8.) Jason Bourne

9.) Star Wars: Rogue One

10.) Assassins Creed

Here’s a little bit about each of these films, and why I am looking forward to them. First of all, as of this moment, in March, I have already seen Deadpool. It was a February release, and quite a good film. I was excited for the movie because of its R rating and promise to be something different in the superhero genre. This was the movie that took on the genre and made fun of it, and was filled with graphic humor and violence, both at the same time. It’s the kind of film I enjoyed, but did not love, and can already tell that I can’t wait to see again. That’s because there were tons of jokes that flew by so fast, I didn’t even have the chance to catch them. Looking forward to giving a closer listen on a second viewing.

Now for the nine other movies on the list, none of which I have yet to see. Captain America: Civil War. This movie looks incredible. The Marvel movies are the most bankable films out there, in the world of Superhero movies. From Iron Man to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, at least half of them, (like the first Avengers movie,) are great. Captain America: Civil War definitely looks like it will be another one to add to the list.

From there, we have Suicide Squad. This is a superhero movie presented in dark and disturbing undertones. David Ayer, the man behind most cop dramas, is directing. This is the guy who masterminded everything from Training Day to Dark Blue. Sure, not all of his films are great, (did anyone see Harsh Times?), but overall he’s pretty talented. And Suicide Squad looks about as dark as it needs to be. With great villains, (including the Joker,) and a promise to have Batman in the movie as well, this should be a fun time.

Ghostbusters is next. Some people are down on the movie based on the first trailer. Not me. I have no problems with that trailer and in fact, think it is pretty funny. Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are falling right into their usual stride, and that’s exactly what you want. The same can be said of Leslie Jones. It’s Kate McKinnon who is the wild card. Either way, the movie is directed by Paul Feig, and that’s a name that deserves lots of considerable attention. Feig has not let me down yet. He is the man who made Bridesmaids, The Heat, and Spy. All Melissa McCarthy movies, and in fact, all of them her best movies. She hasn’t made a good movie without Feig, and Feig hasn’t made any movie without her. The two of them are perfect together. There’s just one caveat. All of their movies have been rated R. Now Ghostbusters hasn’t been rated yet, but I’m guessing with the name brand and all, it will be PG-13. So the only question is, can Feig and McCarthy do it again, only this time without the R? I’m betting they can.

Next up is Doctor Strange. It’s a Marvel movie. That should be enough said right there. After all, look at Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man. These guys do not screw up. Especially not when they are giving a character an origin film. And on top of that, the cast looks stellar. You’ve got Benedict Cumberbatch playing Strange, and he looks perfect in the role. Then you’ve got Tilda Swinton playing an androgenous spirit character, and also Chiwetel Ejiofor. The director is the man who made a bunch of horror films, like the sinister movies. That’s the only point I’m not sure about. This director. Then again, I wasn’t sure about James Gunn before he made Guardians or Peyton Reed before he made Ant Man, and look how both of those turned out. I’m sure it will be fantastic.

Batman V Superman is the movie I’m really hoping is good. It’s just such a great concept, and I love the cast and director. Zach Snyder is a man with a vision. From 300 to Watchmen, to his breakout film, The Dawn of the Dead remake, Snyder is nealy always on top of his game. He had one screwup with Sucker Punch, but other than that, he’s been flawless. What he did with Man of Steel was pretty cool. Too dark for some, but incredibly interesting, nonetheless. I expect Batman V Superman to be even better. It’s not only got those two, but also Lex Luthor and Wonderwoman and Doomsday. In fact, it might have too much. I sure hope this movie isn’t overpacked, or that they haven’t shown us too much already in the trailers the way that The Amazing Spider Man 2 did.

X-Men Appocalypse is a movie that doesn’t look especially good, but it’s got something pretty major on its side. Every X-Men movie has been worthwhile. Even the bad ones. On the list of lousy X-Men movies, you’ve got to have X-Men III, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and The Wolverine. And while those three films are all flawed, they also have plenty of redeeming qualities. There’s also something else to note about X-Men Appocalypse. It is by the same director who has made most of the X-Men films, Bryan Singer, and yet he isn’t the one behind any of those crappy ones. In other words, of all the great X-Men movies, Singer has made all of them except for one (X-Men First Class.) He is a man who knows what to do with this universe, and has shown us that with every one of his new entries. Appocalypse is a cool villain and Oscar Issac is a great actor to portray him. My concern is that the movie will be too heavy on CGI effects, but even if it is, if the story is good, and the action is fun, that’s really all that matters.

Jason Bourne. It’s about time. Matt Damon is back. So is director Paul Greengrass. These guys made the second and third Bourne movies together. For me, personally, I like the first Bourne movie the best, and so I would really be the most excited if Doug Liman (the guy who made that film, and also Swingers and Edge of Tomorrow,) was coming back. But this is the next best thing. Greengrass is a very talented director who gives an aura of seriousness and drama to his films. He also makes them dark and gritty as hell. Both of his Matt Damon Bourne movies were good, and I expect this one to be the same. It’s really Damon who is the selling point on this one. He is so right for the character and series, and without him it all falls apart. They tried doing that with the Jeremy Renner version, The Bourne Legacy, and it sucked. It’s good to have Damon back in the title role.

Star Wars: Rogue One. So this movie is a prequel to the original Star Wars movie. It actually takes place in between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: A New Hope (between episodes III and IV.) Amazing that they are able to do that with this series. Make prequels that actually fit in right in the middle of the timeline. There are so many films here, in all kinds of fractured order, that they can’t even do numbers anymore. If they did, I suppose this one would be episode 3 and 1/2. What I’m really looking forward to is how closely it connects to A New Hope. It’s about the rebels stealing the Death Star plans. The movie is directed by Gareth Edwards, who is a decent filmmaker. I didn’t really care for his big budget Godzilla film, but when he went at it with a smaller scale, to make the movie Monsters, he turned out a pretty excellent picture. Clearly the man has talent. I look forward to seeing what he does with this one.

Lastly, there’s Assassins Creed. It stars Michael Fasbender, an excellent actor, and is videogame adaptation. I believe if there’s any movie that can pull off a good videogame adaptation, it’s this one. The movie has a classic film director, this guy who made Macbeth with Fasbender and Marion Cotilard. They are both in Assassins Creed. So there’s already a working relationship, and on top of that, word has it they are going for a Par Cour look to the stuntwork, which means real people jumping around in amazing ways, as opposed to all computer effects. Think the opening scene of Casino Royale at the construction site meets the movie District B-13. If they do this right, it should be pretty cool.

 

 

 

Christmas is a great time for movies. It’s the single holiday that gets two days, (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,) that acts as another birthday for anyone who celebrates it, (presents, all around,) and that has tons of atmosphere surrounding it. Whether it’s the lights and decorations, the music, or the movies and tv episodes, this is the biggest holiday in America, and for good reason.

 

This Christmas I decided to do three nights of movies (leading up to Christmas Eve.) It worked out pretty well, and next year I might just do the same. Different movies, of course. This years plate included A Christmas Story, Love Actually, and Scrooged. One of those movies, Scrooged, is absolutely my favorite Christmas film. It’s a modern take on A Christmas Carol, the classic Charles Dickens story, and it’s both a funny and scary film. It’s the kind of movie that is so outrageous, (The Scrooge promo that is all about death, the action packed opening scene at the North Pole,) that you can’t help but smile. And Bill Murray carries the entire thing on his shoulders in a way that nobody else could.

 

This is also the first year that I really got into A Christmas Story. I’ve seen it before and in fact, I tend to watch the beginning of the movie every year, but then fall asleep somewhere in the second half. This is the first year where I really worked hard to watch the entire thing, and it turns out to be a pretty great film. It’s funny and smart, and very much about being a kid and taking on the adults around Christmas time. Not in any kind of violent way (we’ve got Home Alone for that,) but more of a mental challenge kind of way. It’s about a boy named Ralphie who is trying to outsmart his parents in order to get them to buy him a certain toy for Christmas.

 

And then there’s Love Actually, the classic short story shakeup, filled with interweaving and connections, that all unfold around Christmastime. This is the English movie that is filled with great actors (from Hugh Grant to Alan Rickman to Liam Neeson, to Emma Thompson and Keira Knightley.) There are tons of stories here, and just about all of them are great. My favorite is the story that sort of carries the movie, about an aging pop singer who has hit it big on the charts, once again, and is now finding real love for the very first time. This man, played by Bill Nighy, is so raw and unabashedly funny, that he and his storyline can be thrown in at any moment in the film, and it always gets a laugh. Aside from his story, however, there are tons of great ones, including Colin, the boy who goes to America looking for women who will appreciate him, and two stand-ins on a movie set who are used to having their clothes off around each other.

 

So it was a pretty good lineup this year. Next year I might try to throw in an oldie (It’s A Wonderful Life,) as well as Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, and Mickey’s Christmas Carol. After all, there should be one version or telling of that Dickens story ever year, one way or another.

 

This might be the best upcoming Winter of movies in ages. I’m specifically talking about the end of November through December. Just slightly over a month, and so much going on. In that time, there are a number of movies that look fantastic, then others that look very good, and still a few more that have some real potential.

 

Of course, the two big ones are Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Hateful 8. Those movies are both poised to be tremendous. For me, it’s a tough call regarding which one I am more excited for. If the Star Wars movie wasn’t directed by JJ Abrahms, than I would easily side with The Hateful 8. And that of course would be mainly due to Quentin Tarantino. But Abrahms is so good at what he does, and everything about Star Wars looks great, that it’s nearly impossible to pick one movie over the other. Especially since The Hateful 8 looks so intriguing.

 

In the case of both of these movies, it’s about the filmmaker more than anything else. There are plenty of bonuses, of course, such as the way The Hateful 8 all takes place in one cabin where the characters are trapped together after being snowed in. With Star Wars, the bonus is getting the original cast back together. But it’s the filmmakers and their proven track records which really show that these movies will be made with great quality and intelligence.

 

Now that’s just the first two movies. There are two others that look very good, and then two more that have some real potential. The two that look like they should be a lot of fun are The Night Before and Sisters. The Night Before is a Seth Rogen comedy about three buddies hanging out for one night at Christmastime. It looks like a wild, one night, letting loose on the streets of New York City, kind of movie. Like the previously mentioned films, this one is all about one name. Rogen. He has a proven track record as well. Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express, This is the End, Neighbors, and the Interview. Of those movies, the only ones Rogen didn’t write were Knocked Up and Neighbors. And even with those, Rogen was able to insert his own brand of humor. The guy is super talented, and The Night Before looks right up his alley.

 

With Sisters, I’m a little more skeptical, only because I didn’t love the last Tina Fey – Amy Poehler movie, Baby Mama. The difference here, is that Sisters is rated R (Baby Mama was PG-13.) As such, perhaps they are going more for the Bridesmaids / Trainwreck level of humor, which is definitely a good thing. It’s the go-for-broke, holding nothing back when it comes to being funny,  element, that was originally introduced to us by Judd Apatow movies (both Bridesmaids, Trainwreck, and also all of those Rogen movies were Apatow produced.) And Sisters  looks like it should be pretty funny. The premise about these girls moving back in with their parents and throwing a massive party sounds like it should be good for a whole bunch of laughs. It also sounds a little like Step Brothers, and that movie was pretty good.

 

The two other movies worth mentioning are Creed and Crampus. Something tells me I can wait for both of those to see on DVD. Not that I think they will be bad or anything, but I just don’t know if they will be must sees in theaters, like the other four most likely are. Creed in particular, I am not as into as I thought I would be. That’s probably because the promotion and buzz around it haven’t been great. Then again, the critics reviews are pretty good. It’s more of the lack of momentum than anything else. Is this being promoted as a Rocky movie or as something else? I’m not even sure that the people behind the movie have a clear answer to that. Still, it definitely looks interesting, and to see Stallone back in that role, only playing a side character, definitely seems like the way to go. If this were another Rocky movie with Stallone as the star, I would have no interest at all. Doing it this way, featuring Michael B. Jordan up front, very well might be the best approach.

 

With Crampus, I’m not sure what exactly it is, but I like the energy and spirit I see in the trailer. First of all, we always need a good Christmas movie. This Christmas we are being given both Krampus and The Night Before. And like The Hateful 8, Krampus is about characters who are snowed in and confined to a single house. It’s a sort of horror-Christmas movie, and that’s fine, but what I’m really curious about is what tone the movie will have. I’m hoping for some humor and campiness. Something like the Evil Dead 2. With a cast that includes Adam Scott, Tony Collette, and David Koechner, you would think it has to be a comedy. I certainly hope so.

 

Lastly, there’s the Revenant. This is a movie that looks more artsy and Terrence Malick-like than anything else. It’s directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iniritu, (the director who made Birdman last year.) People are really excited about this movie because it is Iniritu and because it stars Leonardo Dicaprio. With me, I just don’t know. It might be a little too slow and artistic, much like the way that Malick’s films are. Sure, Birdman was good, but other than that, this director hasn’t done much. His most known movies are Babel, 21 Grams, and Amores Perros. Not exactly a stellar resume. And Dicaprio is a good actor, but it seems like he’s had luck on his side based on the filmmakers he’s been working with, more than anything else. With The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorcese), and Django Unchained (Tarantino,) I give the directors more credit for how those films turned out, than I give to Dicaprio. So The Revenant could really go either way.

 

So there you have it. Two Christmas movies. Two movies about being snowed in and stuck in one location. Two straight up comedies, featuring either Apatow players or SNL players. An action movie that is incredibly promising (Star Wars), A possible throwback movie to the Rocky series, and a possible horror-comedy. And all of this is not even mentioning the surefire Oscar bait that will be released that month. Movies like Carol (about a lesbian couple, featuring Cate Blanchet,) The Danish Girl (about a transgender male, featuring Eddie Redmayne,)  and Trumbo, (about the blacklisted screenwriter during the McCarthy era, featuring Bryan Cranston.) Lots of good movies to look forward to in just a small amount of time.

 

Nov 28th – update 1:

So far, just saw Creed and it was pretty good. A definite crowd pleaser. This movie had just the right amount of Rocky, which means he was hardly the star, but was featured quite a lot. And it also made a bunch of references to the Rocky series, while at the same time really feeling like a spin-off and like its own thing. I have to say, I’m impressed. Nothing felt cliched or ridiculous, and instead, we got a pretty thrilling film. The boxing scenes, in particular were incredibly well-filmed.

 

Dec 20th, update 2:

As of now, I have only seen two of the movies mentioned. Creed and The Night Before. Of those two, Creed was the better one. The Night Before was just okay. Some of it was funny, but it wasn’t one of Rogen’s better films. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out, and I plan to see that real soon. Sisters is getting bad reviews. Crampus did well, but I think I’ll wait for that one to come to video. The Revenant I’m still very undecided about. And then there’s the Hateful Eight. That and Star Wars are the movies I just have to see! I can’t wait!