I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.
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| Minions - The prequel no one requested. |
Watch Minions
Written by: Brian Lynch
Directed by: Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton
Rated: PG
Plot:
Minions Stuart, Kevin, and Bob stumble into a plan to steal the crown from the Queen of England. This is a prequel to Despicable Me (2010) focused on the minions.
Verdict:
It's a mindless movie that lacks any humor. Minions are great as a supporting character but their endless babbling can't carry a full length movie.
Skip it.
Review:
We don't know why the minions exist, they just do. It shows the minions throughout history during dinosaurs, prehistoric times, the medieval period, and even with Napoleon. They mean well, but are rarely helpful. Their one desire is assist a villain and perform their roles as minions. Director Pierre Coffin voiced all of the more than eight-hundred minions.
This backstory is stretched thin. The movie is evidence that there is no good way to create a backstory for the minions. Everything is predicated on mumbling yellow blobs. They are comic relief elevated to their own movie and it just doesn't work.
Three of the minions leave home to fulfill their destiny. They find Scarlet Overkill and she will hire them if they steal the royal crown of England. Scarlet is depicted as the greatest thief in the world. Why can't she steal the crown herself? The main plot point of the movie makes no sense.
Other stuff happens then the movie ends with a cameo from young Gru, the protagonist of Despicable Me.
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| The Kids Are All Right - Smart family drama/comedy. |
Watch The Kids Are All Right
Written by: Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko
Starring: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska
Rated: R
Plot:
A family is upended when the two children seek out their biological father.
Verdict:
The writing is really smart, blending drama and comedy. Each character feels real and has an arc. The family dynamic felt so realistic, I guessed it had to be based on real experiences. It is, in part. This is a movie about family, parenting, and complacency. It can be complicated, heartbreaking, and comical.
Watch it.
Review:
This is based on director/writer Lisa Cholodenko's life experiences with her partner. It shows in how the family interactions have a very genuine feel.
The family consists of a same sex couple Jules & Nic (Julianne Moore & Annette Bening) and their two children. The children were a product of Paul's (Mark Ruffalo) anonymous sperm donation. Now that the oldest child, Joni is eighteen, her brother Laser urges her to contact their biological father. Paul consents to meet.
The writing is smart. The children wanted to hide the meeting to avoid an overreaction from their parents. The moms just want to meet him, but privately they voice their feelings of indignation, inadequacy, and not wanting to share the kids with someone new. They are concerned he will unduly influence the kids. At the core, this is a movie about parenting. What happens when life is upended?
Nic's loss of balance and place causes her to lash out. Jules feels unloved and finds in Paul the opposite of Nic. A free spirit who appreciates her. The family dynamic turns complicated when Paul and Jules begin an affair. There's no way for it to end well.
The affair perpetuates since Jules is designing a new landscape for Paul's yard. Jules has started a landscape design company and her helper, though he has very few lines, is hilarious.
The sequence of Nic realizing the affair was very good. There were no words, just acting. The way it keys in on Nic and how everything else fades out accentuated the scene well, though the framing of many scenes felt off. It's not something I usually notice, but the shots should have been framed differently. Maybe it's a budget issue. I don't know if it was the backgrounds, or the head shots being too close, but it looked too simplistic.
It could be stylistic, close shots showing the warts and all of this family, an uncomfortably close look into their personal lives.
I really like the ending. The way Paul's transgression is resolved is different from what I expected. It doesn't resolve Paul, it never goes back to him. This movie was always about what happened to this family. Paul was a storm that swept in and then passed. The family keeps going. It's a distinctly non-Hollywood ending which I like.
Nic and Jules realize they want to stay together. Even the children realize their friends aren't that great. Joni tells her friend how annoying and needy she is. Laser realizes his friend is a jerk and just cruel. All of the characters have to break the cycle of just going with the flow and coasting.
There is a lot of talent in this movie. Ewan McGregor was originally cast as Paul, but I'm glad Ruffalo got the part. Ruffalo seems like a different person in every movie. It's fun to watch him as a free spirit, motorcycle riding, restaurant owner.
Bening and Moore form a great couple. How they nip and nag each other is subtle, but really sells their relationship.
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| We Own the Night - Tepid addition to the cop genre. |
Watch We Own the Night
Written by: James Gray
Directed by: James Gray
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Robert Duvall
Rated: R
Plot:
Night club manager Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) allies with his brother and father (Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall) to stop his drug smuggling Russian boss.
Verdict:
The plot makes the movie seem more simplistic and worse than it is. It started off really well with good direction and it has some solid scenes, but the story stumbled towards the end. It's nothing by and large we haven't seen before. Drama between two brothers on opposite sides of the law is a cop movie trope. Based on the beginning I was expecting a grander ending. There are better and worse cop dramas, but if you like the genre it's worth watching.
It depends.
Review:
Bobby Green lives a carefree life managing a night club owned by a Russian. He uses his mother's maiden name to distance himself from his police captain Joe, and police chief father. When Bobby shows up to his father's retirement party, Joe wants to use Bobby to infiltrate the Russian crime organization linked to the night club. Dead old dad pushes the drug rhetoric, urging Bobby to pick a side.
Joe raids the club without telling Bobby which increases their friction, an arrested Russian commits suicide, and Joe is shot by the Russians in retaliation. I wondered if Wahlberg was out of the movie already, but he's not.
It felt like the movie was building to something big. The Russians threaten Bobby to push their product or they will kill his father. Bobby agrees to help the cops, and while the police has informants that wear a wire, the way this movie depicts it feels strange. I never fully bought the Bobby would go all in to help the cops. In the beginning of the movie he has a real disdain for the police.
The standout sequence in this movie is the car ambush. This is a standout scene in the genre. Bobby is being moved to a new safe house. The scene occurs from Bobby's point of view, as he wonders where the police car behind then went to a car pulling beside them and firing at the driver. Bobby jumps into the front seat and he sees a gun protruding from the car in front of him shooting at the other police car. It's a well directed scene aided by the singular point of view and the sound mix.
With all that has happened, Bobby wants to join the police force. It seems like a crazy reaction from someone who was apathetic previously. If he's joining to avenge his family why wouldn't he go vigilante?
The typical trope in cop movies is that when an officer's family is harmed or killed the lieutenant tells him to take a leave of absence. In this movie the cops recruit the revenge seeking Bobby and can't sign him up fast enough. They let him skip ALL training and the police academy, and not only put him on a mission to raid a drug buy but make him the leader of the mission. They give him a shot gun too and then turn him loose. The movie should have addressed this better because I didn't buy it.
Bobby staying as an informant or going vigilante makes more sense. The ending is underwhelming. My reaction was, "That's it?" He finally does go to the police academy and comes out as a lieutenant. How? I could see him joining the police at the end of the movie as the final scene, but this movie mishandled the last half of the movie.
The score and sound mix is really good. Phoenix did a great job and I really liked Wahlberg in a subdued role.
It feels like a mix of Killing Them Softly (2012), The Drop (2014), and Pride and Glory (2008). Unfortunately, I'd recommend all of those ahead of We Own the Night.
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| Hotel Transylvania - A solid mash up of monsters and drama. |
Watch Hotel Transylvania
Written by: Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel (screenplay), Todd Durham (story) and Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman (story)
Directed by: Genndy Tartakovsky
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Andy Samberg
Rated: PG
Plot:
Overprotective parent Count Dracula shields his teenage daughter from the world at his hotel. His plan goes awry when his daughter falls in love with a human.
Verdict:
It's a fun juxtaposition of a vampire and an overprotective father. Dracula realizes he can't treat his daughter like a child any longer, and that humans aren't as bad as he feared. It could be funnier, but the end manages to be very engaging.
Watch it.
Review:
This is a twist on the overprotective parent. Dracula runs a successful monster hotel that also shields his daughter from any human contact at the Hotel Transylvania. With a stern no human rule, Dracula can keep all monsters safe.
While he lied in convincing his daughter about the dangers of humans, his only concern is her safety. When a human stumbles upon the hotel, Dracula attempts to hide the human to maintain his hotel's reputation. Despite his attempts, he can't stop the attraction between his daughter and the human. When his daughter falls in love with the human, he has to change his mind on the dangers of humans. Some may not be so bad.
It has all of the typical monsters, though much less menacing than you might expect. Monsters are afraid of humans, happy to have a human free hotel.
Dracula realizes that he can't keep his daughter trapped in the hotel even if it is for her own protection. He endeavors to find the human Jonathon and bring him back. It doesn't take much convincing to gain his friends' aid, as falling in love only happens once. It's a little hokey, but it works.
Dracula and his crew venture in the world and encounter a monster festival. With help from the humans, Dracula brings Jonathon back, risking his own safety for his daughter's happiness.
Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) tried for more jokes over substance and suffered for it. It's much less serious and in the end less engaging (read my review). Though the original contains many suggestive jokes, at least for a kid's movie. It's never funny, though there are a few cute moments.
The animation in the original has more than a few impressive moments, something I never saw in the sequel. The sand and water in particular stood out.
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| Rome Open City - Extremely bleak. |
Watch Rome Open City
Written by: Sergio Amidei (screenplay), Federico Fellini & Roberto Rossellini (collaboration on screenplay), Sergio Amidei (story), Alberto Consiglio & Roberto Rossellini (additional material)
Directed by: Roberto Rossellini
Starring: Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero
Rated: --
Plot:
Italian resistance leaders try to evade the Nazi's during the 1944 occupation of Rome.
Verdict:
Amazing look at Italy and the resistance. The underlying story is really good, but the execution is rather dry. This movie lacks the style and tension you would find in a modern movie. I'm surprised this hasn't been remade and/or updated as a modern film. The underlying story is really good, but the execution combined with subtitles makes it the type of movie you'd see in a cinema history class.
It depends.
Review:
The story is told very straightforward and the cinematography is simple. Italy is occupied by the Nazis and the resistance is doing what they can in opposition.
Women steal food, children plant bombs, men are on the run, and even the priests help hide weapons. The Germans are trying to capture two resistance leaders, Manfredi and Francesco.
Franceso is set to be married, but his fiance is gunned down the day before the wedding. Her priest is praying for her soul instead of presiding over the ceremony.
Manfredi's former girlfriend gives him up for a fur coat.
Manfredi is capture, tortured, and killed. The Germans are surprised that an Italian could withstand the abuse and not break. The torture scenes show very little, much less than a modern movie would, but just hearing the man's scream makes your imagination create something even worse. It's very effective. Without any information from Manfredi, the Germans arrest his former girlfriend and take her coat.
The priest is sentenced to execution. The Italian soldiers in the firing squad intentionally miss. The German commander takes his pistol and executes the sentence. It's a harrowing conclusion that fits the movie well.
This movie was made before Italy was even rebuilt. Was the magnitude of the war even known? Is that something you can know so soon after?
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