 Now it's time for us to dive into the strange and unusual with the latest film from Yorgos Lanthimos, who lives in the bizarre with movies like 'Lobster,' 'The Favorite' and 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' just to name a few. This title manages to take his vision for adapting the 1992 Alasdair Gray novel of the same name while simultaneously looking at someone like Tim Burton and saying, "Hold my beer and watch this!" If you're looking for something truly bizarre and outlandish while still having a lot to say, you need not look any further than this fever dream of a film.
Taking place in Victorian London, with set designs that lend themselves to a dream world version of it, a young, pregnant lady (Emma Stone) commits suicide by leaping to her fate. She is found by an eccentric surgeon named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who transplants her now-dead adult brain with that of her own infant, thereby creating a sort of Frankenstein monster from her whom he names Bella. With her infantile brain kicking off this new life, we watch as she slowly develops the basics, like speech and motor skills, along with discovering things about herself as she grows, namely in the realm of sexuality. In the meantime, Godwin takes a medical student named Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) under his wing to assist him with observing Bella and taking notes of her growing behaviour. Max becomes infatuated with Bella and is ultimately respectful enough to see her as more than an experiment. Eventually, he even asks for her hand in marriage, with Godwin's permission; Godwin portrays much more of a father figure to her than anything else. Instead of wanting to settle down with Max, however, Bella craves seeing the outside world, which is where the sleazy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) comes in. Reluctantly, Godwin allows Bella to leave with Duncan to see how things work on the outside, and likewise, Max understands that she doesn't understand how the world works, right down to commitment to one person. Although they marry, Bella doesn't really grasp why people need to be held to one person and, therefore, sees no wrongdoing in her desire to go with Duncan, especially with the simple revelation that sex is fun. But don't worry, this comes back to bite Duncan in hilarious ways as she eventually matures and all the wrong reasons he's into her start fading away. Eventually, the pair get to a cruise ship to show Bella some changes of scenery, and she befriends fellow passengers Martha (Hanna Schygulla) and Harry (Jerrod Carmichael), who opens her mind to philosophy, which Bella uses (along with her sexuality) to develop herself into a strong, independent woman. In the meantime, she sends Godwin postcards about her adventure, along with all of the new stuff she's learning, be it good or bad, and it's pretty fascinating to see a developing brain take these things on for the first time. I think the biggest stand-out here, without question, is Stone's overall performance. I have to commend her on how brave she got with things here between acting like an infant, putting on a fake but good English accent and, of course, baring all for the world to see with the sex she has in this, of which there is plenty. It probably is the best performance she's ever given, considering everything. She owns it here and gives the other actresses of the year a run for their money. I say that with a bit of a bias; after all, Emma Stone is my favourite actress in Hollywood today. But one can't watch this without giving her tremendous respect for going for it and not holding anything back. Apart from that, though, here we have an original idea full of strange, almost fairytale-like whimsy (along with a fair share of fairy tale darkness) with set pieces and cinematography straight out of a true artist's imagination. While Stone heads this movie with her performance, everyone here is still very good with their roles. A lot of it is creepy, a lot of it is funny, and a decent chunk of it is dramatic. Speaking personally, I found it a truly unique project, and I respect Emma Stone far more than I already did... which was a lot! My only real word of warning: be ready to embrace the truly bizarre with this one. It really is a fever dream on the screen. 5/5
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 When I went into this, I had only seen 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' once before, a few years ago. However, I had the pleasure of sharing this with someone I know is a big fan of the original film, and I'm happy to say that we both left it satisfied. Right off the bat, one would think it has a few strikes against it, just between being an origin story and having someone new playing Wonka, as Gene Wilder is incredibly hard to top. But while perhaps not perfect, I still got pretty much what I expected from this, and that's a good thing.
I will say right from the get-go that this takes place in a fantasy world as a whole, as opposed to the original, which I found only fantastical while inside Wonka's factory. It's pretty easy to forgive because one has to question where the magic came from in the first place, right down to an entire race of dancing, singing creatures with orange skin and green hair. This tells us a lot of what we may have wanted to know about Willy Wonka, the man, complete with his childhood dreams of running the best chocolate factory in the world and the trouble he runs into along the way. Here, we meet Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) as a magician and inventor who has a special skill with making chocolate by using the most fantastically rare ingredients from the darkest, most exotic parts of the world. He comes to Europe in an attempt to establish a chocolate shop at the Galeries Gourmet, set in a fictional town modeled after a combination of London, Paris and Prague. Upon is arrival, and a pretty solid musical number to introduce himself, Wonka finds himself suddenly broke and setting up camp on a nearby bench. Here, Wonka meets a gruff-looking stranger named Bleacher (Tom Davis) who offers him a place to stay at the boarding house of Mrs. Scrubitt (Olivia Colman). He signs a document, spends the night, and in the morning heads to town to try to sell his chocolate for the first time. Despite intrigue from citizens of the town, however, he is quickly shut down by a trio of chocolate company owners, Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) after which he returns to the boarding house to pay for his night with the little bit left for him. Upon trying to pay, however, Wonka is tricked into staying after failing to read the fine print under the document Scrubitt has him sign upon his arrival. He is then forced into the basement to work in laundry along with several others who failed to read the fine print, namely, a girl who goes only by "Noodle" (Calah Lane) whom he eventually befriends along with former accountant Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), former telephone operator Lottie Bell (Rakhee Thakrar), former failed comedian Larry Chucklesworth (Rich Fulcher) and Piper Benz (Natasha Rothwell), whose former occupation I frankly don't recall. While Mrs. Scrubitt and Bleacher run things like some sort of sweat shop, Wonka and Noodle try to figure out a way to get his more than worthy chocolate to the outside world and hopefully get themselves free. But even if they manage, they'll have the other three professional choclateeers to deal with, trying to stop him every step of the way. And while this remains a prequel, and we basically know how it all works out in the end, it is nevertheless entertaining to get to see how it all went down, right down to our first meeting with an Oompa Loompa (Hugh Grant). Atmospherically, it's somewhere between 'Paddington' as far as its charm and whimsy and 'Fantastic Beasts' as far as the magical aspects of it. To put it very simply, this is a nice, family-friendly movie that's full of great and, I would say, clevely written music and just a fun time, all around. I can't deny that there were actually several laugh out loud moments for me here, and none of them are really low-brow. I can't promise the die-hards will enjoy this, but I have to argue that it does a very good job for what it is, and recommend checking it out if you're on the lookout for something that is bound to leave you with a smile. 4/5  In yet another title that has me searching for the answer as to whether I liked it, 'Freelance' struck me as a moderately enjoyable action/adventure flick that is probably more suited to being a streaming original than getting a big-screen release. It didn't do so hot at the box office, debuting way down the list at #8, and there is definitely some sort of "standard" feeling to it all that suggests why. The best way for me to describe it is that it's just "fine." Nothing in particular stands out as anything special, but nothing really makes it "suck" either.
Mason Pettits (John Cena) introduces himself with a voice-over describing his life as a would-be lawyer and family man and ditching that life for a life of action in the U.S. Army Special Forces. On one particular mission, he and his team are sent to the fictional country of Paldonia to assassinate a dictator named Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba). The mission goes awry, however, and as a result, Mason is injured and medically discharged, made to pursue his lawyer life once again, and seemingly getting the short end of the stick when it comes to clients. One day, a former Special Forces team member, Sebastian Earle (Christian Slater), offers him a chance to get back out there with a high-paying security job, protecting journalist Claire Wellington (Alison Brie) as she heads to Paldonia to interview the very man Mason was after when he was injured in the line of duty. He reluctantly accepts the job, as it pays very well, and he has a family to support, including his wife (who very much disapproves of the danger element involved), Jenny (Alice Eve), and his daughter (the reason Jenny's so disapproving), Casey (Molly McCann). Upon their arrival in Paldonia, Mason and Claire meet Venegas and are shortly thereafter put under fire by a group attempting to assassinate Venegas, who is convinced they are being led by his nephew Jorge (Sebastian Eslava), who has hired a professional by the name of Colonel Jan Koehorst (Marton Csokas) to kill him. Soon, Mason finds himself protecting the same person he was meant to kill in the first place several years before. So, I've used this term a lot in recent reviews, but it's another "escort mission" type of movie. I will credit the film for a few things, such as allowing Mason to maintain his loyalty to his wife during the mission. With anything like this, there tends to be sexual tension between the two characters, and it tends to be kinda old-fashioned. But Claire can certainly hold her own and is closer to Elena Fisher ('Uncharted') than Willie Scott ('Temple of Doom'), but I still wouldn't say she's necessarily a badass through this. She is often very irritating when acting smug and filming things with her phone non-stop. But again, with some credit to the movie, Mason often plays the audience in these situations, which, in my opinion, gives it more leverage. The dialogue regarding Claire's often stupid decisions gets a little humorous. But another thing about this movie is that the laughs that I feel ought to be here with a John Cena/Allison Brie team-up weren't altogether there. Nothing here ends up being very laugh-out-loud funny, and it just brings me back to the film being a mild venture at best. Ultimately, this one's okay if you're looking for something to watch with some action on a pleasant Sunday afternoon on your big-screen TV in the comfort of your living room. Nothing stands out as very good or bad about this to me either way, and it's possibly the most lukewarm I've felt towards a movie all year. So, in the end, it all boils down to a big "shrug" on my part because this is definitely one of those titles I can't recommend one way or the other. If you have time, check it out if you're curious. But I think this floated under the radar, even as a wide release, for a reason. 3/5  It's hard for me to gauge exactly how this one made me feel. If you know me well, you'll know that I'm an animal lover, and when it comes to the pets that I've had over the years, they were never pets so much as family members in themselves. Over time with our pets, however, we get to wondering what they might be thinking, and this is a movie that shows all of that in a much less family-friendly fun way, and in a much more adult and probably more realistic way. However, the cleverness of that also gets to be the film's downfall.
Fart jokes and toilet humour, to me, tend to be very low-brow and cheap - the comedy equivalent of a jump scare in a horror movie. These things can be done well, and done cleverly, or be done just for the sake of throwing it in there, and I feel like this had a lot of that "throwing" when it came to the toilet humour as well as the raunchy humour. The problem fighting me on this, however, is that for as much humping, pooping and boasting penis size as there is in this movie... these are dogs. It almost feels like dogs were used as a tool to unleash the writer's humour in a way that made perfect sense. The story involves a Border Terrier named Reggie (Will Farrell) who lives with his horrible owner, Doug (Will Forte), a character any dog lover will despise immediately, who only has Reggie to lord him over his ex. Otherwise, he resents Reggie and tries to get abandon him at every turn. Reggie, being the loyal but gullible little guy he is, keeps coming back home though, so one day, Doug takes him somewhere he feels sure to get rid of him. Now abandoned, he finds himself roaming the town with a new group of furry friends. A Boston Terrier named Bug (Jamie Foxx) takes Reggie under his wing and shows him the ways of living the stray life with an Australian Shepherd named Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a Great Dane named Hunter (Randall Park). The other dogs eventually manage to convince Reggie of the truth, being that Doug abandoned him. This leads Reggie to come up with the ultimate revenge on his previous owner by heading back home and biting off his... well... you get the picture. Essentially what we have here ends up being a raunchy road trip movie involving man's best friend and how they would face the various situations they get into. As the film goes on, the typical things we see in these movies go down. There's an awkward love interest going on between two of the main characters, there's a big drug tripping scene when the dogs find some magic mushrooms, a fight or two happens, and all of the humour is punctuated with raunchiness. I sort of hoped that this was going to be the big-deal raunchy/adult comedy of the year for me, but it just didn't impress me all that much. Perhaps that's a matter of over-hyping myself for it though. In many ways, it felt almost too low-brow during the majority of it. With all that said, however, I do believe that there's some redeeming quality to this if you are a dog lover. For as low-brow raunchy as the film gets, I feel like anyone who has ever had a dog can understand exactly where they were going with this movie, and there's a certain amount of unfiltered honesty going on here. And that unfiltered honesty comes with the fact that dogs, despite how awesome they are, can be quite nasty. Hell, they can be eating, pooping, slobbering, farting, drooling machines, and this movie gets all of that across while still making way for them to be likeable characters. The rest of that unfiltered honesty is actually kind of heartbreaking in that it shows a dog's loyalty to its fault with Reggie. When he does get abandoned, it's a heartbreaking scene, and it gives us that chance to like Reggie and want to see Doug get that "item" of his bitten off. While I can't say I loved this movie, I still had a fun time with it, and I feel like a true dog lover will as well. It's cute, fun, and even has a bit of heart to it. But if you're looking for real quality comedy, I'm not sure this is the right place to look. It's pretty much all poopies and genitalia here. 3/5  I love when a movie like this comes along in more ways than one. First and foremost, it's a divide in overall criticism. While fans and average movie-goers enjoy it, critics seem to have another thought process. And, as one might expect, when it comes to my own humble opinion, the movie is... okay. But I must admit that I lean more toward the audience on this one because, if nothing else, it could provide us with another decent family-friendly title to watch for the Halloween season. Personally, I tend to have fun with such films.
One may remember the Eddie Murphy vehicle of the same name from 20 years ago. I suppose it's not remembered in the best light when you look at it, so Disney thought a re-do of what could be a really cool concept would be a good move. I would have to say that while there's improvement, things still aren't necessarily perfected. However, what's incredibly refreshing to me was that I thought several scenes in this would work very well for a kid's first toe-dips into the horror genre. My generation had a few Disney movies for "spooky" purposes, which were pretty effective. It's nice to see that come back! We meet Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield), an astrophysicist developing a special camera to detect dark matter. One unfortunate day, he loses his wife, Alyssa (Charity Jordan), in a car accident and takes over her ghost tour of New Orleans. Since losing Alyssa, Ben becomes much more skeptical of the concept of a potential "other side", replacing the idea of her ghost tour with a walking tour of the various historical sights of the city. Meanwhile, single mother Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son, Travis (Chase Dillon), move into Gracey Manor, looking for a fresh start by converting the mansion into a bed & breakfast. They learn how haunted the place is very quickly and run as fast as their legs can carry them. Ben is eventually visited by a priest, Father Kent (Owen Wilson), who hires him to photograph the ghosts using his special camera. Ben visits the mansion, and we notice Gabbie and Travis are back. We eventually learn that if someone visits the mansion and goes home, a supernatural entity will follow them. Kent has also fallen victim to this. It's almost as though the spirits act as sheep herders for anyone who enters Gracey Manor and tries to leave. Soon enough, the four try to get to the bottom of these hauntings by assembling what Kent calls a "Dream Team" for the supernatural - he is a supposed exorcist. This "Dream Team" consists of the four characters above, a well-renowned psychic (or, as she insists, medium) with legitimate abilities, Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and Professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), a historian for haunted locations who has blueprints to Gracey Manor in his possession. As the group does some digging, they uncover a dark history behind the mansion's previous owner involving a powerful psychic (sorry, medium) named Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), the mansion's previous owner, William Gracey (J.R. Adduci), and the dark entity he accidentally summoned who messed everything up, the "Hatbox Ghost" (Jared Leto). As mentioned before, it is super refreshing to see something aimed at kids/family with genuine creepiness. It doesn't get hardcore with anything, but the film sets the spooky atmosphere quite well. The film also has a good amount of humour and heart, which act as buffers against the darkness of it all, and it makes for a fun time. I'm particularly impressed with Tiffany Hadish here, as she doesn't play her typical over-the-top loud self. While definitely still meant to be comedy relief, she does things more subtly here, and I enjoyed her performance. This is the kind of movie a family could watch together as a Halloween treat. I'd say it has the fun, family side of 'Casper', but has the dark side of 'The Haunting'. It's creepy to some degree for the younger audience, especially with a kid to relate to. But the film's sense of humour and lightheartedness given to an otherwise terrifying situation makes up for it. The film's likeable cast also spans generations with its talented, familiar names. There's a character here for everyone. Some details, like writing and special effects, could use a makeover here and there, but again, there's nothing that bad about this. Put simply, it's fun. 3/5  This was a title that didn't really "pop" for me until I saw some of the footage from it that actually had me laughing out loud. I figured that this was gonna end up being your fairly typical, raunchy road trip comedy, and to some degree, it definitely is. However, this brings an all-female, all-Asian group of four to the forefront as the main cast. And while the basic road trip comedy idea may not be so original, the thoughts and ideas put into this reflect the lives of four Asian women; each with their own very unique personalities.
This is a notable directorial debut from Adele Lim, who's perhaps known best for her writing behind such projects as 'Raya and the Last Dragon' and 'Crazy, Rich Asians'. Here, with the help of writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao (names attached to 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad') and producers Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg (who need no introduction), Lim delivers a hilarious product that, while I'm not sure I'd call it necessarily "woke", it does open ones eyes as to just how little we've seen something like this before. The closest thing I can think to compare it to some kind of cross between 'Bridesmaids' and 'Roadtrip' with the spirit and overall wit of 'Booksmart', or maybe 'Superbad'. The film's central focus is Audrey Sullivan (Ashley Park); an Asian adoptee with white parents, an overachiever in school, and now working as a lawyer at a reputable firm. She is one day promised a promotion to Partner if she is able to travel to China and close a deal with a businessman named Chao (Ronny Chieng). Tagging along is Audrey's childhood best friend, Lolo (Sherry Cola), who's there to be a translator, as Audrey doesn't speak fluent Chinese. She also thinks part of the venture should be to seek out Audrey's birth mother while there. They also meet Lolo's cousin, Vanessa, who goes by the nickname "Deadeye" (Sabrina Wu) and provides the overall comedy relief for the movie, but honestly, all four of these women are hilarious. The fourth in question is Chinese celebrity, and Audrey's former college roommate, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who Audrey was originally meant to meet as her translator for her business meeting. The whole thing does eventually become a two-sided story for Audrey, both on closing this deal to get her promotion as well as finding her birth mother, which really does end up being the main focus of things. And with that whole scenario comes a lot of the heart from this movie. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the way the film gave us a healthy does of dramatic moments sprinkled into the comedy, and none of it feels forced or crowbarred in. One thing I found altogether fascinating about filming the movie was learning that they filmed it primarily in North Vancouver and Maple Ridge, BC. Not that it's at all surprising that a movie was made in those parts, but the production designers do a great job of finding areas that reflect aspects of China, from both an architectural point of view as well as a natural one. Of course, I can't say I'm any sort of expert on these things, but I have to give them credit for using what they had to work with, and having it come across as potentially authentic. All in all, it does seem like a fairly typical road trip movie, but these four actresses, who are altogether new to me (bearing in mind they may have been in things I haven't seen), really had me laughing all the way through it. I'm not gonna go so far as to say that this was a movie that broke new ground completely, but I will say that it's refreshing. We have new faces, it's a chance for Asian culture to show off how hilarious they can be, and a rather shameless show is delivered to levels that frankly surprised me - and I mean in a really good way! Nothing is held back here. So, if you're a fan of raunchy road trip comedies, but need something new that you haven't seen before, 'Joy Ride' is actually a hell of a lot of fun. It comes with its fair share of shock value and pushes the envelope a little bit with its comedy, so be prepared for a bit of low-brow behaviour from these four. But I daresay, embrace it because these ladies do such an awesome job in this film, making me laugh more than I have with something new in a while. I may just have to call this the raunchy comedy of the summer. I loved it, and it's definitely something I'd watch again in the near future. 4/5  Jennifer Lawrence is one of those celebs that has sort of waxed and waned over the years. One second she's Hollywood's sweetheart, the next second she's phoning it in as Mystique in the later 'X-Men' movies, we respect her for furthering her acting career with more serious stuff, but then we miss the fun that she once was, and she doesn't help by saying certain things about female heroes that... I still kinda feel is a foot-in-mouth deal, but let's face it, people were not happy. Well, this may just be a personal thing, but after this, I kinda like her again.
I should probably mention that the film isn't by any means great. It's fairly typical and predictable in its overall execution, but it meets its audience halfway with a bit of realism as things go. It happens to be a pretty funny not-quite-raunchy comedy that won't have anyone laughing to the point of tears, but it deserves a good chuckle here and there for what it's worth. There's a certain chemistry these two main characters have that I couldn't help but appreciate because it looks like such a terrible contrast on the surface. I mean, just look at the accompanying picture. The film does awkward humour pretty well. The central plot involves Uber Driver/Bartender, Maddie Barker (Lawrence) who is looking at bankruptcy after owing property taxes for her inherited home as well as getting her car repossessed. Desperate to make ends meet, she answers a Craigslist ad of two helicopter parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) requesting a woman, preferably in her 20s, to date their 19-year-old son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), as he has a terrible time socializing and coming out of his shell. The reward for her succeeding in everything is a Buick Regal, which Maddie can use for her Uber driving, and therefore attempt to make ends meet before she loses the house. This parental need to boost Percy's confidence is because he'll be attending Princeton University in the Fall, and the parents worry that he won't have any sort of a University social life, which, to be fair, is also a reason for attending college or university for most human beings. he has no experience with parties, drinking, drugs (even light ones) or sex, and this is what Maddie is meant to get him through so that he's prepared for the upcoming school season. The big catch? It all has to be done without Percy's knowledge. So basically, this is immediately gonna be one of those situational comedies that seem entirely predictable, and to some degree, a lot of it is. When I look at a comedy like this, I try to find all of its redeeming qualities. Even though it may feel like a plot that we've seen time and time again (it IS roughly the same core plot to movies like 'Happy Gilmore'), there will be aspects about it that I take positively. Here, nothing really shines quite as much as the chemistry between these two. Maddie is a bit of a b-word, for the most part, and she has to deal with this kid who's significantly younger than her, as well as incredibly shy and sort of odd and, I hate to say it, but wimpy. A little too straight and narrow for anyone's taste. But they do end up meeting in the middle with quite a bit of heart and understanding for each other. Feldman does such a good job of being the weird, inexperienced teenager that even Michael Cera would look at him and think his roles were "tough-guy" roles in comparison. Thatès the kind of thing that will irritate some, but I had to give him credit for diving into such an embarrassing role. As for Lawrence, she just plain owns it here. I won't go into detail about it, but I will suggest that any controversy behind her leaked photos is pretty much obsolete now, considering one particular scene that I won't spoil for anyone here, complete, because it's a great comedic bit that will catch audiences a bit off-guard. All in all, it certainly delivered a good chuckle or two. But I do have to admit that this is a film that should be seen as not much more than a fun romp of a comedy for the summer. Rather than comparing its comedy factor to director Gene Stupnitsky's previous work of 'Good Boys', which had me laughing out loud for a lot of it, I'd say it's a bit closer to something like the 'Neighbours' movies. It's fine for what it is, but it's not something I'll be hunting down in the near future because I loved it so much that I need to show my friends. Some may have turned their backs on J-Law since "The Katniss Incident", but I never did. So if there's still a place in your heart for her, give this one a whirl. You might be surprised. 3/5  Throughout the decades, there has been version upon version of Count Dracula. So many have played him, ranging from the classically trained, like Christopher Lee to modern(ish) comedians like Leslie Nielson. And even though I certainly haven't seen all of them, I think that this was the first time I saw someone playing him where I said "Okay, I'm in" just from the very suggestion of Nicolas Cage as the Prince of Darkness himself, which can only really mean he's gonna have a LOT of fun playing such a fictionally historical character.
As the film starts off, we meet Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) in the midst of a 12-step self-help group for people in co-dependent relationships. Here we learn his quick history for those unfamiliar with the original Dracula story. About 90 years prior to this film, Renfield visits Dracula in the hopes to broker a deal for some land, and in the process, ends up being Drac's "familiar", which grants him superhuman abilities upon consumption of bugs, and immortal life, but with the curse of having to be Dracula's servant, bringing him his "dinner" whenever he needs it, among other things. Part of Renfield's involvement in the 12-step program includes him being able to seek out the abusers in these relationships and deliver them to Dracula as sustenance. This way, he doesn't need to feel remorse. He follows one to a warehouse of stolen drugs, where he makes some meat out of a few guys with his abilities, but one, Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) manages to escape, only to run into a sobriety checkpoint run by Officer Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina) who does manage to bring him in, but he gets released due to the police station's overall corruptness, and the only person she can seem to trust is her sister, Kate (Camille Chen), who happens to be an FBI agent as well. When Renfield brings Dracula the bodies from the scene, Drac mentions how inefficient these corpses are, as he needs the blood of innocents, not the blood of the corrupt. This eventually leads Renfield to a restaurant where he happens to cross paths with Rebecca as well as several members of the Lobo crime family, including Teddy, who ambush her. She stands up to them, which Renfield admires, and the two fight their way out of the situation and become friends. This also starts to inspire Renfield to stand up for himself against Dracula, which proves to be a nearly impossible task. But really, it all turns into a rather fun, if perhaps a little predictable take about standing up for one's self, using the silver screen's ultimate horror movie villain as the main antagonist. Although the story doesn't entirely stick out, I do appreciate who they used for the subject matter of this movie. What's more, is that the film shows us that essentially, these two are current incarnations of the classic characters from 1931's 'Dracula', which I thought was interesting. We see a black-and-white flashback at the beginning here that's quite honestly very well done, seeing both Nic Cage and Nic Hoult fill in the shoes of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye, respectively (although I think Renfield's original first name actually changed, that's just a technicality I feel almost no one is looking at here). The interesting thing I found with this was that it was actually a reworking of a story that landed in development hell after the dismal failure of 2017's 'The Mummy'. It then became a choice to bring this concept back, leaning into the more comedic aspects of the story. There was some back-and-forth, but really, all I think they needed to put butts in seats from the get-go was the casting of Nic Cage as Dracula. It just seems like one of those suggestions the common man would simply flock to just to see. Imagine it along the lines of casting Christopher Walken as the Wolfman. It's something you don't think of immediately, but damn it sounds like fun. And, if I'm honest, Cage definitely delivers here. I had fun with this one, but I also have a bit of a bias toward a good, gory horror comedy that leans into the comedy. My only real criticism is of the character of Rebecca. Generally speaking, I enjoy Awkwafina in what I see her in. But Rebecca's character can be a lot at times. Although we are supposed to relate to her overall situation of frustration, there are often times when you just wanna tell her to calm the hell down. But that's really about all I can say about it negatively. It may be a familiar moral in the end, but if you're anything like me and wanna see this just for the good time it simply suggests you'll have, I doubt you'll be very disappointed. 4/5  I, like so many others, was introduced to video games through Mario sometime in the mid-late 80s. Soon enough, my brother and I got our own NES for Christmas one year in the early 90s along with our own copy of 'Mario 3', and it was about as hard to put down as one might imagine. This got me really into the Mario franchise enough to start collecting Mario merchandise, dress up as him for Halloween, and develop a bit of an addiction to the games on NES with the 'Bros' series, Gameboy with the 'Land' series and SNES with the 'World' and 'RPG' games.
I was so into 'Super Mario Bros.' that I somewhat shamefully admit to really enjoying the 1993 movie just because of the title. It was one of those "something feels off, but this is the best they'll ever do" situations. Eventually, I did put those games down for a while, skipping everything from 'N64' forward, to the point that the next Nintendo system I'd get would be the Switch - and after grabbing '3D All-Stars', 'Odyssey' and '3D World', it's plain to see that my love of these games never went away, it just lied dormant. So of course when I saw the trailer for a 'Mario' movie that actually looked like it might be Mario-related instead of whatever the hell '93 gave us, I was pretty damn excited from the get-go. Two Brooklyn-based brothers, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) have recently started their own business; The Super Mario Bros. Plumbing Service, complete with its own commercial that utilizes the old theme from the 'Super Mario Bros. Super Show' (which is pure, nostalgic cheese at its finest). People kind of poke fun at them and put down their silly *ahem* "pipedream", until a significant manhole leak on the news makes Mario spring into action to prove himself, dragging Luigi with him. While down in the sewers and trying to shut off a valve, the two brothers stumble into a hidden, mysterious room where they find a mysterious pipe that sucks them both in. This "warp pipe" ends up ultimately separating the two brothers, plopping Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom, and Luigi in the Dark Lands. In the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario befriends a feisty mushroom man named Toad (Keegan-Michael Key). Upon asking Toad to help him find Luigi, Toad takes Mario to the castle of Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) who they, thank God, made a badass character for this movie. She is very well-known for being one of the most helpless damsels in distress in, not even gaming history, just history in general. So this was a very welcome change from the source material. In the meantime, Luigi is captured and imprisoned by Bowser, King of the Koopas (Jack Black). Bowser seeks to marry Princess Peach and rule the kingdoms of their world side-by-side, using a Super Star for power. However, he does learn of Mario's existence, and sees him as a threat, and if Peach says "no" to his proposal, Bowser will lay the Mushroom Kingdom to waste. Now, it's up to Mario, Peach, Toad, and a handful of helpers to save the Mushroom Kingdom as well as Mario's brother. Key characters who join the quest are the Kongs, who mainly include Donkey (Seth Rogan) and Cranky (Fred Armisen). Although I was a touch let-down by the lack of various characters I wanted to see, it's important for me to note that this universe is huge, and a lot of omissions were probably for the best. Otherwise, it's actually hard for me not to give this movie a lot of praise for further prooving my theory about video game movies getting their due. I absolutely loved that the story was so simple and almost childish, just because that's basically what Mario games were. Princess gets kidnapped by Bowser, and Mario and Luigi go on an epic quest to rescue her. That's all there was to them. So this is definitely where that kind of thing works. Otherwise, for any real Mario fan, there are Easter Eggs all over this movie. Enough to make me want to watch it a second time. Some of the music, for example, is lifted from a variety of games in the 'Mario' and 'DK Country' libraries. I really enjoyed some of the subtle changes, like making Luigi the one they have to rescue and making Peach more of a hero. With games like 'Luigi's Mansion', it makes sense. This is a movie that adopts aspects of a bunch of games including 'Smash Bros' and 'Mario Kart' among what I've mentioned, and it all comes together to make one great, harmless fun movie that makes me want to see more. I may be a bit biased here, but for the big Mario fans out there, I have to say, this is a real treat! 4/5  I tend to be a "Marvel over DC" guy with the superhero genre (except most 'Batman' films). But that does not mean DC hasn't given me anything I've enjoyed, either, and the original 'Shazam!' is one of those titles. For once, we finally had something in the DC universe that wasn't so dark, didn't feel rushed, and, above all else, knew how to have fun with what it had to work with. It was a pleasant surprise movie from DC for me. At the time, it was like the 'Ant-Man' of the DCEU, and I'm pretty sure it's my favourite film of its particular universe.
With that said, a movie like 'Shazam!' should be taken mainly with a grain of salt. Shazam is your fun superhero who relates to a kid's desire to become a superhero, and I went into this film carrying that expectation with me. However, instead of having as much fun as I had with the last one, I felt somewhat disappointed by this sequel as it's filled with superhero clichés. So, while it remains a fun title in some aspects, there's too much predictability here for those of us who have, perhaps, seen a few too many movies of the superhero genre. It will be challenging to get into this review without spoiling a thing or two from the first movie, so as with many of my sequel reviews, continue reading only if you either don't care or have seen the first movie already. 14-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel/Zachary Levi) obtains superpowers from a wizard named Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) to put a stop to Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who uses the Seven Deadly Sins to his advantage for power and revenge against his family as well as the wizard, Shazam, who once denied his corrupt mind his powers. By the end of it all, Billy learns a thing or two about teamwork and family and shares his powers of transforming to his full potential (which is why he becomes an adult) with his foster family: Best friend Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer/Adam Brody), eldest sibling and bookworm, Mary Bromfield (Grace Caroline Currey as both versions), the adorable Darla Dudley (Faithe Herman/Meagan Good), techie, Eugene Choi (Ian Chen/Ross Butler), and the introverted but kindly Pedro Peña (Jovan Armand/D.J. Cotrona), all of whom form a secret superhero squad and now work together. In the meantime, two daughters of the Titan Atlas show up, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu), breaking into the Acropolis Museum in Athens and stealing the Wizard's now broken staff (broken by Billy in the first film). They then take it to the now-imprisoned Wizard (A.K.A. OG Shazam, who once killed their father) and force him to repair it. The sisters then plot revenge by finding a golden apple, the seed of the Tree of Life. Hespera wants to plant it in the God Realm so it can flourish and bring life back to their world. However, Kalypso would use it as all-out revenge on humankind by planting it on Earth. A third sister, Anthea (Rachel Zegler), becomes Freddy's love interest in this and is the best of the sisters. She's your typical would-be villain who sees the good in humankind and doesn't quite fit in with her other sisters. That's one of a few clichés here, but I'd say the worst part was how it predictably ended, which I won't spoil here, but you'll see it coming from miles away. Let's say not much will come as a surprise here. But, even if this is jumbled with clichés, I'd still probably be able to recommend this on the almost guilty pleasure level. It still has its moments, and many of them are pretty funny. Much like with the first 'Shazam!', this wasn't something to be taken seriously for the most part. Although, at times, it does have a few genuinely emotional moments. But it was hard for me to empathize with the film's overall predictability. And I don't tend to be that guy who "knew it all along," either. But to be perfectly fair, I won't say it's "bad." If you can take it for the fun time it provides and laugh with it, it's a decent flick. But all in all, its predecessor is still something much better. 3/5  If you're currently on the lookout for something new in the thriller/comedy genre, look no further than 'Cocaine Bear'. While I can easily say the film is far from perfect, I do still feel that one can go into this and just have fun with it. All this really ends up being is a modern B movie, and should not be looked at as anything much more than that. This is a bear equivalent to 'Eight-Legged Freaks' or any number of shark movies they need to take a breather on one of these days.
As far as the "true story" goes - one day a black bear ingested a bunch of cocaine, and that's about the extent of it, as far as I can tell. All this did was throw meat into the raging bear's path. The real story is... well, it's really just sad, as the poor bear died after overdosing. However, I can see why the idea of creating a semi-horror movie about a crazed, cocaine-addicted bear can come to mind fairly easily after reading a short article about what really happened. It all starts sometime in 1985 when famed drug smuggler, Andrew C. Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) drops a shipment of cocaine from his plane to lighten the load before parachuting. Soon enough, a bag of coke is found by a black bear, who ingests it and becomes highly aggressive, and ready to take out anyone standing in its way of looking for more (of which there is now a lot, scattered around the area). Meanwhile, a local detective named Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who finds out about the lost coke and assumes that it's probably from St. Louis kingpin, Syd White (Ray Liotta). So the "primary" situation, as I might call it, mostly involves Syd looking for his lost goods through his "fixer", Daveed (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) and Daveed's recently heartbroken friend, Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich). Meanwhile, Bob is trying to make an interception to take them down. Little do either know what's lurking in the woods, however. Our secondary story (although one could easily argue this is more the primary) involves middle schoolers Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and Henry (Christian Convery) who decide to ditch school one day in order to paint a picture of the local waterfalls. Both are eventually found by the bear, and Dee Dee ends up missing as a result, leaving a fretful mother, Sari (Keri Russell) to go searching for her along with Henry. Sure enough, it's an eventuality that everything ends up crossing paths, but the main focus for the audience can be equated to your average 'Friday the 13th' film; "Where is that monster, what's it gonna do next, and how gruesome is the kill gonna be". I have to admit that I am quite impressed with Elizabeth Banks' directorial work here. I can't speak to anything she's done before this, but if I'm blunt, there's not a whole lot of her previous directorial work that jumps out at me as something I really want to see. However, as soon as I saw the trailer for this, I knew I was 100% in for it. I do love when a trailer comes along to offer up a heavy dose of comedy within something that's otherwise horrific. I'm almost always in for these kinds of movies. Realizing that Banks directed it, however, made me even more curious. I do not know Banks at all, but from what I've gathered from what I have seen her in, I wouldn't have thought that a comedy-fuelled gore-fest was really in her wheelhouse. Who'd have thought I'd be proven wrong about that? I'd love to see her do more stuff like this and make a name for herself in this B movie genre. 'Cocaine Bear' gave me quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, and it's all padded with rather brutal bear attacks that I'm frankly surprised got as gorey as they did. Add a whole bunch of one-liners to it, and here we have one of the most fun movies of the year so far for something in the R-rated comedy/horror/thriller category. I may go a little bit against the grain on this one, as I do have a bit of a bias for movies like this. Comedy/horror and comedy/thriller are by far my favourite subgenres, and I love a movie that delivers the laughs as well as the gore while taking no part of itself seriously. While the real story of the cocaine bear does end sadly, it managed to provide us with this movie that almost portrays a sort of Jason-like revenge from the bear for introducing it to such a terrible substance for it. Perhaps that's reading too much into it, however, and at the end of the day, one should probably just take this for the fun thrill ride that it is, and not much more. 4/5  I have an interesting story behind my first viewing of 'Magic Mike.' I was comfortable enough to enjoy it despite the male entertainer subject matter, which is all good, but it isn't what I look for in a movie. What I do look for, however, is a good story, which the first film had, so I like that movie for what it is. The second one was more in your face about the male entertainer subject, as the entire plot revolved around a road trip to a male entertainment convention, and in its own way, even felt a bit hollow. But here we are with a third instalment.
With a full eight years between the last film and this one, it was definitely something that came along in which I wondered exactly who was asking for it. I even remember some of my female friends kinda turning their noses up at it, mainly because it felt like they had their fun with the last two, and things have moved on since then. But as the random guy in the audience looking for a decent story, the big question here is, is 'Last Dance' as respectable as the first film, resulting in a pleasant surprise, or is it just narrowed down to Tatum's (and others') abs and moves, like in 'XXL?' While Mike (Channing Tatum) bartends for a catering company in Miami, he gets a job working Maxandra "Max" Mendoza's (Salma Hayek) fundraising event, where he's recognized by someone who lets Max in on Mike's former career as a dancer. When the event ends, Max invites him to speak with her privately. There, she makes a deal with him to experience what he can do, and what follows is an intimate and honestly pretty hot dance between the two of them. This inspires Max to offer him to go with her to London, England, for a month. In a revenge tactic concerning her recent divorce, Max brings Mike to London to work in the Rattigan Theatre, which she happens to get in the divorce, for a generous paycheck. The idea is to bring a new, modernized and sensual feel to the play 'Isabel Ascende.' I can't figure out if it is an actual play, but I assume it's fictional since I get 'Magic Mike' links after Googling it. Max has Mike find some new performers for this and choreograph the whole play in her vision but with his help and guidance. Those are pretty much the basics of how things unfold throughout the film, and it can be seen as the classic "let's put on a play" plot-line, but with erotic dancing attached to it. And, of course, there's a bit of the "love interest" thing going on between the two leads, much like in the first film, but this time, the woman dances just as well as Tatum. Salma Hayek is one sexy lady who's still got it, and she shows it here without having to show anything. And that's one thing I can credit the film for - there's "eye candy" for everyone, not just those who are into dudes. I will also credit the film for focusing more on dance's artistry and less on stripping's entertainment value. This one bridges it together reasonably well, and much like the first one, the humour keeps it going. But the idea of Max's whole revenge on her ex feels petty. By the end, I was wondering if the play she wanted to do was something that worked OR if it was like Peter Griffin's production of 'Anna and the King' where he just butchered everything to the point that it's ridiculous nonsense. The film is passable if it's what you're looking for, but it doesn't hold a candle to the first one. The first 'Magic Mike' had this element of surprise for us, hesitant hetero males. Looking like a male strip show on the surface, it delivered a good story with likable characters, and it all ended up being an interesting reveal. This one takes the stripper element and blends it with a bit of a 'Step Up' feel. It's more about putting on this production and "saving the rec centre" than anything else, so I might suggest sticking with the first one. But at the very least, there's some sexiness from both sides here, and who knows, you may even get a good laugh or two. I know I did. 3/5  Every once in a while, a movie comes along with a sort of "slice of life" aspect to it. The film is simple, tells a story about a person's "every day", and shows us a sort of otherwise mundane situation as the story unfolds. The idea is that the character focused on could be someone you know (at least as far as personality goes). And yes, some may define it differently, but it does feel like something of a loose category. In this case, we get the story of 63-year-old Otto Anderson (Tom Hanks); a grumpy widower, residing in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Throughout the unfolding of the film, we learn that Otto is stubborn, particular, and has a "take-no-crap" attitude. This is the old guy who says things like "kids these days" and "whatever happened to the times when?" Between losing his wife, dealing with people he considers jerks and jackasses every day, and suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, he's ready to end his life. On his first attempt, however, he is interrupted by new neighbours, Marisol (Mariana Treviño), her husband, Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and their two daughters, Abbie (Alessandra Perez) and Luna (Christiana Montoya), who he reluctantly befriends; namely Marisol. As one may very well be able to predict from the get-go, Marisol, along with several other neighbours, help show Otto some reasons to keep living, and help him to understand how valued he is as a person in the neighbourhood. It seems that Otto has all the answers, plain and obvious to himself, but everyone around him needs his help with various things. A lot of that is where the comedy is, but there's a lot of dramatic emphasis on Otto's past with his one, true love, Sonya (Rachel Keller), as we see the story of their relationship unfold, which shows us why he is how he is; past Otto played by Truman Hanks, Tom's real-life son. Otto has something of a relationship with everyone in the neighbourhood, and for the most part, these involve not-so-friendly "hellos" to locals who know him by name. But there's also a story of a falling out Otto had with a best friend and neighbour named Reuben (Peter Lawson Jones), who suffered a stroke one day, and is taken care of by his wife, Anita (Juanita Jennings) and neighbour Jimmy (Cameron Britton). The reason for their falling out? I won't spoil it here, but it does provide a good laugh for the audience. But unfortunately Reuben's home is about to be repossessed, so Otto has a bit of mixed feelings on his friendship. What I liked about this story is basically what the film wanted me to like, and that's that amid the dark comedy situations throughout the film, it also has a big, big heart, and gives us examples of Otto not being such a bad guy after all. So much of the humor here comes from Otto's suicide attempts being interrupted because he actually gives a damn. Furthermore we have examples like his transgender teenage neighbour, Malcolm (Mack Bayda) who Otto accepts, as opposed to his Dad. With some situations like this, we could see it as something of a "woke" movie, but it does things subtly as they'd be in reality instead of making it the film's top priority. If I was to compare this film to anything, it would be some kind of blend of 'Gran Torino', 'Up' and basically whatever other movie features a recluse who needs their neighbours more than they think. It is a good look at life today as well and does a good job of showing both sides of the coin. You get why Otto is so upset and annoyed by everyday people he considers idiots, but you may also look at these so-called "idiots" and think "well... I've done that before". But the film's big final message IS a positive one, even if the ending isn't necessarily a happy one. I won't say what happens, but it is something that hit me in the feels. All in all, I really enjoyed this one despite it getting quite a few mixed reviews. It's very hard not to like Tom Hanks in general, but I really liked him in this role, as he finally shows a dark and grouchy side to himself. There's a part of you that has to learn to like him here as opposed to just liking him from the get-go as usual. My only real criticism is that this kind of thing has been done time and time again. Odds are, we've all seen the movie about the recluse that needs a life-lesson or two, but also helps in their own way. But while not entirely original, I'd say its worth looking at. If nothing else, there's a genuine human aspect to this, and after three damn years of Covid, it's not a bad thing to snap us back to reality with (although hopefully, most of us are there by now). 3/5 |
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