Eighth Grade [2018] review

Bravo to Bo Burnham and Elsie Fisher.  They really did capture what 8th grade felt like and I was pleasantly surprised how much I cared about Elsie's character Kayla when I didn't really know much about her.  Like many of us who might have felt like outcasts or who weren't socially accepted, she gave great advice that she couldn't really herself simply out of fear of being rejected, but she did try.  

The humor was very subtle which fit for this film.  I did enjoy when I got the chance to laugh out loud with the cast, especially during the scene when Kayla and Gabe dinner scene.

Her father did an excellent job - trying to play it cool, but not too cool, and also wanting to be there for his daughter.  I thought they worked well together.  I also liked when they introduced the character of Olivia.  The movie needed that outgoing friendly person to help Kayla on her journey and it gave us hope that things might be okay.

In the end, there isn't a huge revelation why Kayla is the way she is.  They don't dig into her mental health, or go on in length about the absent mother, or what the father does for a living, or feel the need to have an adult step in and be a voice of reason.  The movie presents a serious of simple experiences and puts an awkward teen said experiences, and the result felt very genuine.  Personally I was transported right back to 8th grade.  I can see why it has a 99% on RT and I definitely recommend it.

Glory [1989] review

It's the time during the Civil War.  As a non-war expert, the audience is given dates of certain events, but since I don't know the specific start or end dates, I wasn't sure at what point in the war these events were happening and if they were building towards a large battle.  So plot aside, racism is at the front and center.  The audience is constantly reminded through the dialogue and actions of the cast.  Matthew Broderick's character of Colonel Shaw appears to have no racist bone in his body, but his flaw is that he's pretty clueless on how to run his own command so he has to rely on a lot of help.  Unfortunately the help is also racist, on both sides of the coin.  

The orchestral score does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to emotion.  Early in the movie when Col. Shaw informs those under his command that General Lee has decreed that any black person fighting for the North will be executed and when the fighting is over those black people must also return to a life of slavery.  Shaw expects his entire company to quit.  The next morning when he asks his second in command, Mayor Forbes (Cary Elwes) how many soldiers are left, the music swells as Shaw turns a corner to see that no one quit and everyone stayed.  The music swells again when the soldiers get new shoes and uniforms and when they finally get their first real assignment.

Outside of that, the biggest stars of this movie were Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington (who I later learned received a Best Supporting Academy Award for his role).  Denzel doesn't chew the scenery as he would in later movies, but you can see the seeds of it start here.  He does an excellent job of crying on command and you truly care about what happens to him, Morgan Freeman's characters, and the other troops.  Speaking of the other troops, Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) also does an excellent job in his role.

Overall, the plot isn't important, and the main message is that racism is bad (obviously).  The writers and director must have felt that the American people need that reminder, whether it comes in the form of this movie in the 1990s, or we get a more recent reminder with the films honored during the 2018 Academy Awards.

A Star Is Born [2018] review

Personally, my biggest problem with this movie was that initially I could only see Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.  Who I needed to see was Jack and Ally.  When the movie started, I began to get Jack as a character, the nooses on the billboard as he coughed and drank from his limo, just looking for any bar to satisfy his addiction.  But then the movie switched to Ally, who I guess sucks at her job and gets yelled at, but all I see is Lady Gaga and knowing that she is the star "to be born" and knowing she's already a huge musical star, I found it a little hard to get past to just see her as "Ally - no name girl going no where in life that happens to strike gold".  Then for her to punch the guy in the bar... I know it was needed to move the story along and for her and Jack to bond outside the supermarket, but it just felt out of character for her from the little I knew about her.  Is she a hot head all the time?  Is she potentially violent?  Who is this girl?  All I know is that she's Lady Gaga, but I'm supposed to see her as Ally and it's not quite jelling with me yet. (Maybe it's probably because she's not a great actress, super talented musically, but not an actor.)

So things start to happen for Ally very fast and I like that the movie picked up steam here as she needed to decide whether to go for it or just stay at her job.  We begin to get more love story, but we're reminded that Jack is broken, losing his hearing, alcoholic, doesn't get along with his brother so my focus is caring about him and not Ally at this point.  I was surprised when Shallow came so soon in the movie, as I thought it would be the big number later, but it was perfectly placed. Then my mind started to leave the movie world and enter the logical world as Allly began to rise from a nobody to a somebody and she's writing music with Jack and touring on Jack's tour, what happens to her if her and Jack break up?  Who owns the music they wrote?  Does Jack?  Would Ally just fade away?  I started to become concerned with her and then shortly after questioning that, in walks in new character - ass hole music producer.  Good, this is what my logical brain needed.

So as Ally's star burns brighter, Jack's brother quits his tour, and Jack and Ally somehow continue to work professionally and personally, but then they start to take different paths musically.  Ally is shown to have a few flaws with firing her dancers and butting heads with her producer, but then eventually listens.  She continues to rise and Jack continues to fall, and I thought it was a great contrast in telling the story.  

I thought the movie was shot very well and while I didn't initially get sucked in, it wasn't until the last 45 minutes or so that I really cared about Jack and Ally and I saw the characters and not the actors.  I don't know if it was just me, but I was entertained and intrigued the whole time so I'd definitely recommend it.

Men in Black II [2002] review

Most of the humor of this movie falls flat.  I think I maybe chuckled twice at two of J's lines and none of K's.  Tommy Lee Jones just looks tired in this movie as anyone would be who was forced out of retirement into the crazy world of aliens and other creatures.  

Lara Flynn Boyle and a two headed Johnny Knoxville add very little to the story and this movies' villain is very lack luster compared to the menacing bug of the original.

Rosario Dawson is cute, but clueless.  The final chase scene is hollow and a means to attempt to probably wake up the audience who has been asleep for the last hour.

This movie is not worth revisiting and I hope the writers of the next MiB take notes from this one on what not to do for their movie.  1 out of 5 stars.

Honorable mention:  Forgot about the Michael Jackson cameo and my wife questioning if it was really him.

Bumblebee [2018] review

I enjoyed Bumblebee, but it wasn't without its flaws.

While the first Transformers movie was supposed to be about "a boy and his car" according to Spielberg, this movie was definitely about "a girl and her car" almost to a fault. Hailee Steinfeld felt genuine and true to the character. Her overall arc was well done. I wish there was a little bit more meaning to her final "heroic" act instead of just the act itself.

As for the rest of the cast, they didn't get much development. It's not like I needed more about (Steinfeld) Charlie's family, but they seemed poorly written to almost non-existent. They were really only needed for one part towards the end. Thankfully they didn't have Michael Bay cringe-worthy dialogue, but some of that went to John Cena and the doctor character. The guys at Collider said John Cena was acting like he was in a Bay movie and I agree with them. I appreciated his effort, but he was a little too much. He did have one or two good one-liners. The boy neighbor and mean popular people weren't really needed and didn't add anything to the movie for me.

To echo the sentiments of other critics, the G1 stuff was great and there's no reason why we couldn't get that in the first place. If this was the first ever Transformers movie, people would have lost their mind. It's kind of like serving your guests burgers for the past 11 years when you have a fridge full of filet mignon the whole time.

As for the connectivity from this movie to other movies, there are some plot holes, but Bay's movies are so full of holes that this one kinda fits with them in that aspect unfortunately.

This movie was good for Travis Knight's first time and we'll see if he gets a second shot at it and where things go from here.

Ralph Breaks the Internet [2018] spoiler review

Going in, I knew the general premise was that the Sugar Rush steering wheel was going to break and the goal for Ralph and Vanellope was to get a new one to save the game so all the characters had a home to go back to since having your game unplugged was a huge deal, based on the events of the first movie.  And how would they get a new steering wheel?  The internet. 

So I kind of figured they'd get the steering wheel with relative ease, maybe a hiccup here or there, while going on some fun adventures in the internet based on what I saw in the trailers specifically in reference to the Disney Princess scene.

I was slightly disappointed to learn that getting the steering wheel would be the goal throughout the entire movie.  On their way to accomplish their goal, while creative at times, sometimes felt contrived based on the worst parts of the internet.

So while on their way to eBay to win the auction for the steering wheel, they meet characters that represent a pop up.  They decide to use the pop up which brought them to the racing game which makes sense because, pardon my pun, as that's in Vanellope's wheel house.  We meet Gal Gadot's character Shank who gets way too many lines and way too much screen time.  It felt like the people in the game were trying to be the Fast and the Furious family, but I never got a sense of family from them.  

After failing to achieve their goal in the racing game per the direction of the pop up character, Shank tells them to go see Yes who runs Buzz Tube or something very similar to Youtube.  Yes helps Ralph make videos which get likes which gets them money.  They get enough money to buy the steering wheel and their mission is accomplished.

But the steering wheel wasn't, again sorry for the pun, driving the story, but the friendship between Ralph and Vanellope was supposed to be focus.  Vanellope was tired of the same thing day in and day out and dreamt of something bigger / more out of life, while Ralph liked things the way they were for the past six years.  Their friendship is tested, they fight, and eventually Ralph learns to deal with his insecurities and is able to let her go.  So Vanellope decides to stay in Shank's game and Ralph still gets to talk and visit his friend when he can i.e. when an upgrade is happening for the online game that Vanellope is now a part of.

So while I appreciated the overall message, I think the execution was a little lacking.  I loved the Disney Princess stuff and wish they were more involved with the story than they were.  I would have much rather had more of them and less of fake Youtube and fake Fast and the Furious plot lines.

In summary, I enjoyed the original more.  It needed more Disney Princesses.  C+

Fantastic Beasts The Grimes of Grindelwad [2018] spoiler review

Going into this movie, the only thing I knew is what I knew from the first movie and that Dumbledore and Gindelwald were supposedly romantically involved via the implications of the last Harry Potter book and tweets from Rowling herself.  So below is my take on things mixed with the questions I still have.

1)  The opening escape sequence - how did Grindelwald and Abernathy switch places?  Did they switch bodies allowing Grindelwald to get his tongue back?  I was very confused on what was going on.

2)  Then we get Newt and Leta at the Ministry.  Who were those guys in the room?  None of them introduced themselves or said their names.  Why was Leta there?  What does she do again?  Is she an auror?  Also, random guy hiding in the corner that turned out to be a follower of Gindelwald later -  who was that?  Did he ever say his name?

3)  I don't think any of Grindelwald's crew ever said their names or I missed them.  The only name I knew at this point was Abernathy, Grindelwald, Newt, Leta, and Newt's brother who's name I know was mentioned, but I need to look up.

4)  Cool, Queenie and Jacob show up.  I know those people.  But why does Queenie have Jacob charmed?  Because he didn't want to run away together?  Who's running the bakery back in America?   Also, who is Newt's assistant?  Is that Newt's house?  It feels like he was running his own private zoo outside of the suitcase, right?

5)  And back to more people I know - Tina and Credence.  Credence works at this traveling freak-show/circus and has developed feeling for Nagini and also is trying to figure out who is real family is.  Tina is following him.

6)  Oh I forget, we get young Dumbledore and we learn that he was the one that sent Newt to America.  Cool, something tying the first movie and second movie plot together.  I didn't catch what Newt was supposed to do or what Dumbledore wanted him to do in the first movie, but cool, Newt is secretly working for Dumbledore but everyone at the Ministry sees right through it so it's not a secret and he's being watched/followed?  Maybe both of them are?

7)  Anyway, back to the circus, we meet a new player.  It sounded like his name was Comma like the punctuation, but after looking it up it's Yusuf Kama.  Who is this guy now?

8)  So Newt likes Tina (duh) and he learns that she is in Paris and she also thinks that Newt is engaged because of a poor use of grammar in a publication of some sort.  So now everyone is in Paris but WAIT, we need to visit Hogwarts for some reason.

9)  Hogwarts

- Dumbledore is questioned and nothing comes of it other that we learn he can not or will not fight Grindlewald

- He gets some weird bracelets so now the Ministry knows if he casts any magic

- Leta gets a flash back so we can learn about her a little bit and we get some interaction between her and young Newt. 

(The actor playing young Newt was probably the best acting of the movie.)

And back to Paris!

10)  So Grindelwald using a skull hookah to create a 3D powerpoint?  So he wants Credence - makes sense because he wanted the Obscurus in the first movie.  Why?  We will find out in the last two minutes of the movie.

11)  So Newt is using magic powder of some sort to do some high level Batman investigative stuff to find Tina.  But isn't he on a secret mission for Dumbledore?  Yes he is.  Will we learn what that mission is?  Not until the last two minutes of the movie.

So I guess we get to follow Credence who is being followed by random guy at the Ministry while Tina is trying to find Credence while Newt is trying to find Tina and I'm trying to find out what the heck is going on.

12)  So evil Ministry guy is secretly working for Grindelwald and his purpose was to kill a random little person.  Credence attacks bad guy but is unable to hurt him.  And this guy is supposed to be able to defeat Dumbledore?  I hope Dumbledore knows the magic bubble move.  By the way, where does the bad guy go after speaking with Grindelwald?  Do we see him the rest of the movie?

13)  At some point we learn Grindelwald is holding a rally to bring together his followers.  It's a peaceful rally (and he doesn't start to kill everyone until all his followers leave but more on that in a bit).  Before the rally, we have a scene where everyone we care about meets up and we finally are given a giant dump of what has been going on this whole time.

A)  So Kama wants to kill Credence because he promised his father (via an unbreakable vow) to kill the thing/person that the guy who stole his wife loved the most.  By the way, what was the thing in Kama's eye?  Who put it there?  Why was Nicolas Flamel in this movie?  Was he even needed?  Who did he talk to in his magic book?

B)  The guy that stole Kama's father's wife was Leta's dad so originally, Kama was going to kill Leta, but actually Papa Lestrange didn't care about Leta either.  The only thing Papa Lestrange cared about was a baby, a baby that he sent to America with Leta and that little person from earlier that the bad guy killed.  So the baby wouldn't stop crying on the boat to America, so Leta swamped him with a quiet baby.  The quiet baby was actually Credence and baby Lestrange actually drowned.  So we finally learn that's what Leta saw when looking at the Boggart.  Also, was that the Titanic?

- We actually get a visual family tree in the movie.  Thanks, movie.  If you have to bust out a family tree, don't you think we need to re-evaluate your story telling technique?

14)  So now that that has all been cleared up, it's time for the climax - the Grindelwald rally.  As I mentioned above, he kills a lot of Aurors, who don't put up much of a fight at all.  Then sadly Queenie and Credence join Grindelwald and Leta fights and dies.  Everyone else makes it out safely and Newt accomplishes his mission - getting some sort of item that physically represents a blood pact that Grindelwald and Dumbledore made to never fight each other.  It's essentially the LOST game where Jacob and the MIB couldn't kill each other directly so Grindelwald needs someone that can kill Dumbledore and that person is supposed to be Credence who BIG TWIST is possibly also a Dumbledore and he has a phoenix - maybe Fawkes.

Jeez.  That's a lot of plot to cut through like a vine filled jungle.  Just like the first movie, this is going to take a couple watches to attempt to enjoy / understand / make sense of it all.

Things I liked

- Dumbledore mentioning to Newt about a phoenix coming to a Dumbledore in a time of need and then it actually happening at the end (allegedly)

- Leta saying I love you in the direction of both Newt and Theseus

- Newt and Theseus hug at the end of the movie

- Grindelwald makes a compelling argument and World World 2 does happen and it's a threat to not only the wizarding world, but humanity itself