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Ford v Ferrari (2019)
Accurate and Compelling Tale
It's not often that I hand out a 10/10. This film earned it for staying as true as it gets to the REAL life events and characters without compromise. There are many things that an avid motorsport enthusiast who knows their history will spot. But even the errors or speculative occurances in this film are passable, and that's what made this great cinema. It's so close to the truth that those discrepancies become minute and decay as you ride along with an amazing cast. It's hard to imagine anyone else playing these historic figures because they nail it spot on. Feel free to watch any interviews with Shelby or Miles - Damon and Bale sell their performances as fact. And not one actor in this film did not complete a great job. I will say the special effects are stunning, as well as sound design. Obviously the creators of this film worked very hard with Ferrari and Ford to capture and display this amazing piece of history. I as a racing fan cannot laud this film enough. I knew it was perfect when my wife and daughters, who have little to no interest in the pursuit of speed and records, all immediately attached and engrossed theirselves with this momentous tale.
Coffee & Kareem (2020)
No warning for the amount of foul language
I knew it was a MA film, but I didn't expect to get bombarded by every foul joke in the English dictionary for middleschoolers. I remember being that way myself as a child, but I never, NEVER would've tried to assert myself that way to an adult for fear of real consequence, and mind you I'm not a geezer at all.
This film gets 3 stars - 1 for the collective performances of the actors, 1 for the exceedingly few funny lines, and 1 for employing the great people who do the actual film making.
Problem is this tired, old, regurgitated script. Somebody at Netflix is doing way too much cocaine to greenlight this kind of stuff. There are no surprises in this movie, with retreads of the same beats in so many other more competently executed buddy cop movies. Granted, there are a few honest funny scenes. But whoever wrote this has a very misguided morale compass. This film doesn't help the case for single-parenthood. There's a mother who's complicit with her son running gambit over his education, their relationship, and her own sex life. A child who (while accurate that most 12 year old boys talk mad smack with no adults around) exists in a world without direct consequences for his actions and behavior. A script which relies on it's only trick - shocking you with all the obscenities and filth it can sling in your face. And then there's the promoting of racial segregation and prejudice towards females or any race who isn't black.
It suffers from lazy writing and poor judgement. This film ends exactly how you expect it to. There is nothing redeemable to extract, no laughs that are memorable, not even cheap entertainment. It's just so bad that it manages to make mindless entertainment a chore. That's not an easy thing to accomplish, or wear as an accolade.
In all honesty, I'venever wanted to gut punch a child harder in my life. Personally, any child who wants to buck up and try and pass them selves off as an adult is gonna get treated as such by me. There is some reason in the script as to why the main character doesn't do so, but in reality, Helms' character would've most likely resorted to the treatment he received prior in life and done worse to the gobbly little oaf.
Enjoy it if you don't mind being in the bottom 15 percentile of thinking beings on this planet. Or if you think morality and ethics are malleable tissue to be stretched to the brink. Or if you have reached the point in your life where you accept that you are poor ilk and will forever remain such.
This is a tasteless film, and I find myself to be pretty distasteful in my own jokes and muses if that says anything.
Life (2017)
3D Monster > 1D People
I so want to enjoy this movie more than I actually do, and much of this longing is spurred on by the creature design and development. The folks who came up with this menace are genuinely intelligent and creative people, and their work shines brightly. It is an insidious and curious creature, much like mankind, and has a varied maturity rate and reacts to stimuli in manners that aren't unrealistic. Its movement patterns and adaptations all reflect a life born of zero g environ.
Unfortunately, the script writers didn't spend near as much time with their human counterparts.
Here are some facts that counter the very basis of this movies drama and plot:
The ISS is no where near as large as portrayed in this movie. It's far more confined and claustrophobic. It is also no where near and poorly lit (before the alien) as portrayed.
Many of the characters are too human, and rely heavily on their emotions to make life and death decisions. NASA doesn't recruit or send people who can't or won't immediately handle the stresses bestowed on them in a rational manner.
There is no question that there are real life protocols this film chooses to ignore, especially concerning first contact. NASA and other government funded projects have think tanks upon think tanks who have dreamt of this scenario, not withstanding the vast collective of fiction in all media to draw upon. They have checks and balances.
To hinge this films entire plot around constant human error is a slap to those professionals' careers and achievements.
But it is a Hollywood fiction, so maybe I should let it pass?
No. One of the rules of great writing is not to deny your premise, a mistake instantly made in the first 20 minutes of this film.
Kudos to ththe effects and design teams though. They saved this film from being completely unbearable.
The Little Mermaid (2018)
Amateur Hour Under the Sea
Wow.
I endured this with my daughter, and looked for the ealiest sign of her attention to wane as my excuse to flip this production off. This unfortunately never came.
I was genuinely surprised upon viewing that this film was created for theatrical release.
People with or in charge of more money than the majority of the world bankrolled and financed this film. And they were confident in their talents and agencies that this film could be released to audiences on the big screen and make a profit. This film is barely passable for Lifetime quality, its this rough.
Sound design, light composition, camera work, costume and makeup, character development and creation, the actors' performances, sets and locales, plot and writing structure and characters' lines.... Every last element of this film is so lackluster in execution, so amateur, so bland. I have full hearted pity for the dreams of anyone who tried to make this movie good. But if I had this on my career record, I would distance myself as far away as possible.
1 star - plus 1 star as pity for those involved, because honestly, we all gotta make a paycheck somehow.
Frozen II (2019)
Solid Sequel, not an ounce more though
This film has wonderful songs, a well-written main story of woke culture and Thanksgiving (I cannot believe I'm typing that), and fantastic visuals. What it lacks is character development and maybe a bit of restraint.
Upfront, my complaints.
I understand that Disney feels obligated by the fact that it can, but it never stops to debate whether it should. Our viewing left my oldest daughter asking me questions about the reality of Thanksgiving, questions I was not prepared to answer until that history was unfolded later on in maybe 2nd or 3rd grade. I should have been more prepared though based on Disney's filthy history of parent murder.
Also, although Elsa's story is full-circle and Ana is marginally developed, Kristoff and Olaf suffer from tertiary backdrop syndrome. And because Kristoff's arc is dependent on a life changing event, its ham fisted into the end of the film when such a ceremony could've been front and center of the next iteration.
My last gripe is about the music, and while it will seem contradictory later in this review, you'll understand my point upon viewing. There is a certain familiarity to almost each tune and verse structure, which I understand is a necessitation to keep young moviegoers singing along to tunes they've already established, but I feel a missed opportunity to jump into the unknown a bit more.
What works
Everything else is totally in tune with viewers of all ages. Humor abound, catchy tunes that are infectious and fun to nod along with, and dazzling special effects that can light anyones imagination. Tackling the subjects of truth, doubt, fear, and assurance, this film is exemplary in its ability to help young viewers come to grips with what realities we may face. As the viewers who first first saw this phenomenon have matured, so too has the thought content and challenge to their minds. I as an adult enjoyed it, and so too my mother and my wife. My daughters fell in love again, and it helped foster strength in theirselves, and that is what good cinema and art is: the power to ignite the boundless fire that each of us has inside ourselves.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
Forced Perspective
How can we ruin a delightfully spooky collection of yarns to frighten young and old? By constricting them in the coils of forced cohesion. This films largest sin is trying to contain the tales in a timeline.
Anthologies have been done before, many times over, in all media. This film could've take a page from their books. The usual setup up is a tale about the source material, a luridness of is it real or fiction from story to next, and a snap back to close the opener. This film tries very hard to create a fleshed out story about the SSTTITD, its origin, and incorporates a few of its works into the present (1968). I feel as though this ambition was too much for the source material. In a world of interconnected timelines and crossover events in our entertainment, SSTTITD is most successful in morsels that switch up the horror and fear via style to keep us on our toes (the book does this with one tale about body horror, the next tale is about the returning dead, etc). And that is the strength of the book, which unfortunately gets funneled a cookie-cut template of freeing trapped spirits.
Grievances with overall story structure aside, the execution of each tale is top notch fun and genuinely spooky. My favorite tale is Ramon's, a masterful exercise in balls to the wall dread. The special effects are almost all wonderful, aside from one tale that could've benefited from more practical applications. And the young actors are versed enough in displaying reasonable talent to convey true fear.
I personally found the overarching story to be clunky, forced, predictable and empty. Set in 1968, the film opens with all sorts of anti-Nixon propaganda, and this is peppered throughout the film, without resolution or reason. We have teenagers trick-or-treating, and jocks who look more akin to today's variant than anything from the late 60s. Each character is paperthin, with about as much development as a stick figure drawing.
At the end of the day, I find myself viewing this film as a scarier rip off of the Goosebumps movie, but more confined, and confused on its audience. The film is too scary for smaller kids, yet its tone and story are too undeveloped for any thinking adult or teenager. Sometimes a collection of campfire tales are best not interfering with one another, and that's what made the 80s anthologies so good. Each segment was it's own course, distinct and separate from the last and next. This film is an empty imitation of the far more memorable source, so at least there is that.