The Little Hours (2017)

I added The Little Hours on my watchlist ages ago because of the cast, specifically Aubrey Plaza and Dave Franco, but because of the characters, which are mostly nuns, I kept putting it off. I would have checked it earlier though if I had bothered reading the storyline. 

The film is based on the first tale of the third day of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron —which I'm yet to read—, and mainly follows three nuns, Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), Sister Ginevra (Kate Micucci), and Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie), who lives at a convent in the countryside. When a young, handsome servant (Dave Franco) fleeing from his master (Nick Offerman) takes refuge in the convent, the sexually-repressed nuns find ways to escape from their tedious lives. 

If a plot is what you are looking for then you should probably stay away from The Little Hours as it really lacks in that department and rather than a story it feels like watching a series of more or less connected Saturday Night Live sketches. That said, the story is still interesting enough to hold your attention and be enjoyable. 

The characters aren't very thought through either as they are pretty much walking stereotypes with very little characterization and no development at all, and some of them are nothing but plot devices —that's not very accurate though since you need a plot for that. This being said, each character has his/her own dose of crazy, especially Aubrey Plaza's, and for this reason they make quite memorable characters. 

As for the acting, there may not be award-worthy performances here but the cast does a pretty good job as most of them nail their characters and give humorous performances, the standouts being Aubrey Plaza and Kate Micucci, the first really delivering that contemporary dialogues and attitudes. 

Gunpowder & Sky

All of that being said, The Little Hours is still far from being a great, or good film. The problem is not the unnecessary nudity and vulgarity —it's not like you can't expect it from a movie like this—, but the fact that Dave Franco is criminally underused, the pacing is too slow and as a result, the film feels dragged in several places, a lot of the jokes fall flat, and if feels like director Jeff Baena always went with the first take so of course many scenes aren't as good as they could have been. 

WRITTEN REVIEW: Do It Yourself

By CORY CARR

Being an American, I often take Hollywood for granite. Sure, many major Hollywood productions are bloated cash-grabs that often pander to the lowest common denominator. I mean, they made a God damned Emoji Movie! But what is often forgotten about Hollywood is how it has inspires billions of movie goers. Not just with gut-busting comedies, mind bending practical special effects, and gripping tales of love and loss that have stuck with us for generations. But how it has inspired people, from all over the world, to take that leap of faith and set out to MAKE movies. Because when you don’t have all of Hollywood’s resources backing your vision, I guess you’ll just have to do it yourself.

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Occupation Movie Review

Occupation (2017)

Rent Occupation on Amazon Video
Written by: Luke Sparke, Felix Williamson (additional dialogue)
Directed by: Luke Sparke
Starring: Dan Ewing, Temuera Morrison, Stephany Jacobsen
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
A small group of Australians have to band together after an alien attack. As they struggle to survive, they realize they must stay one step ahead of their attackers, and work together for a chance to strike back.

Verdict
It's bland. The characters are nothing more than tropes and the story relies on even more tropes to progress. There's nothing to see here.
Skip it.

Review
An opening monologue demanding an alien war and talking about an alien threat is from a Ronald Reagn speech to the UN. The narration seemed crazy with what seemed like a political figure. It's even crazier my guess was correct. It's a high point of the movie that has a loose connection to the actual movie.

We're introduced to the character with a lot of foreshadowing, characters assuring each other nothing could happen in this town. It's a small town and each of the main characters is linked somehow.

Alien come out guns blazing.

I like how the group was formed. They're trying to escape and happen on a family in an RV who urges everyone to join them.

A big issue is that I never had a sense of scale. Are the aliens taking over the planet or just Australia? Why doesn't anyone turn on a radio to figure out what's going on? No one even calls for help, they just hide out.

The group is on the run from aliens, hitting the floor whenever they see light. A teenage girl manages to overpower an alien. The aliens seemed tough, up until that point.

One of the group removes the alien helmet and sees that it has some heat tracking optics, but the image is so blurry it's no wonder the aliens are such bad shots. The character also states being in the woods makes them invisible. I wasn't able to sort out how since the image in the helmet doesn't reinforce that and the aliens are able to find them just fine.

This group manages to fight back. They are a wrecking crew. That's when the aliens call in a dude with a cape. When you see someone with a cape you know they're important.

At one point the group captures an alien and the way it's portrayed we feel some sympathy with the alien, but the movie never explores that topic. It could be an interesting moral question, but this movie throws a lot out there without doing anything with it. We have all these characters that are nothing more than tropes with the hope we'll connect to at least one of them despite no reason to do so.

I was really hoping the big twist would be that Earth food is a delicacy and that was the reason for the invasion. Nothing that fun happens.
A homeless man and a teenage girl develop a relationship which was never less than strange, mainly due to the perceived age difference. It's a weird dynamic.

This movie likes crosscutting between scenes. It makes you think these scenes are more important or are related to the central them of the plot, but it's just nonsense. It's meant to pile on but there's no meaning to it. That just doesn't work.

The military comes in to save the day which removed any sense of danger or tension. That also marked the demise of any hope I had for character development. The military is planning an assault and at this point I checked out mentally.

At one point the movie quotes Terminator, "Come with me if you want to live." Since the movie brought it up, it's admissible. Terminator developed the characters of Reese and Sarah. It didn't just tell us she's a waitress, it showed us a day in her life. It's the same for Reese. We're told he's a soldier and tactfully see it. We also see his motivation for a suicide mission. His actions are logical. Occupation does nothing like that all to its detriment.

Next (2007)

Next is another of those movies that have been on my watchlist since the dawn of times because of Julianne Moore but kept putting off because it's a Nicolas Cage flick, and I have to be in the right mood and mentally prepared to deal with the insanity of them. 

This one follows Cris Johnson (Nicolas Cage), a small-time magician who can see a few minutes into the future. There's an exception though as he once had a vision of a beautiful woman (Jessica Biel) walking into a diner at 8 and he makes it his mission to be there and meet her. In the meantime, a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles so the FBI, led by Agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore), tries to capture Cris and convince him to help them prevent the attack. 

Just in case you were afraid there was not enough going on, there's also a subplot about the terrorist group wanting to capture Cris because the FBI wants to capture him and therefore he gotta be some secret weapon of the Feds'. It makes sense, right? Well, no, it doesn't. The plot is just a ridiculous mess, with holes the size of moon craters, unsurprising twists and a romance because, you know, it's Hollywood. That said, Next tends to keep you entertained. 

And it sure does have a lot to do with Nicolas Cage being the lead. While his character is awful, a one-dimensional creepy dude, Cage gives yet another of his unintentionally funny performances —or maybe it's intentional, who knows, this is the guy who bought an octopus to improve his acting, after all—, a blend of unconvincing, weird and often out of place expressions, melodrama and cheesiness. And the way this guy delivers his lines, absolutely hilarious.

Paramount Pictures 

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is not as fun as Cage to watch. Julianne Moore looks completely disinterested, bored out of her mind with her characters, a role that should have been played by a way less talented actress. Jessica Biel is utterly unconvincing as the love interest and the chemistry she has with Cage is so cheesy/soap opera stuff, but I guess nobody cares about that since she's in here only for the eye candy. And Thomas Kretschmann plays a Russian terrorist who speaks with a French accent. So there's that.

In terms of action, Next is a disaster. The action sequences just don't make any sense whatsoever, and when they do make little sense, there's usually some pretty bad and cheesy special effects to ruin them.

Thursday Movie Picks: Television Edition: Non-English Language TV Series

It seems like yesterday when the theme for Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks was non-English TV series and yet it was a year ago. Anyways, last year I went with three Italian shows. This year I'm still going with random series from Europe that I used to watch when I was a kid/younger.

Notruf Hafenkante (2007- )

It's set in Hamburg, Germany, and follows the members of a police department and a team of doctors of a nearby hospital. I really liked this one but then they stopped showing it. And when they started it again I didn't care anymore. 

Sous le soleil (1996-2008)

It follows the lives and romances of three women living in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera. I don't remember much about this other than watching it with my mother. 

Un paso adelante (2002-2005)

It follows the professors and the students of a prestigious art school in Spain. I loved this one, like really, really loved it. It's probably the first show where I cared about the characters, loved some and hated others. I'm still waiting for that reunion movie. 

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

Saying that I was reluctant about The Lego Movie is a bit of an understatement as I thought it'd be a dumb kids flick but I gave it a chance anyway and I loved it. So of course I gave The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part a chance. 

Set immediately after the events of the original film, the story follows Emmet Brickowski (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his friends as they face a new threat, Lego Duplo invaders from outer space. When Lucy (voiced by Elizabeth Banks) and others are captured by General Sweet Mayhem (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz), Emmet attempts to rescue them while also trying to stop the Armamageddon.

The film is off to a really good start as the story is engaging and quite interesting to follow; unfortunately, about 30 minutes in, the plot starts to crumble with massive plot holes, a lot of cheesiness, discontinuity and nonsense, and a twist that could catch by surprise only someone who missed the beginning of the film.

There's something worse than a poor plot, poor characters and, unfortunately, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part has plenty of those. Not only development is nowhere to be found and the majority of the new characters aren't really that good, but the writers even managed to ruin some of the old characters. There are some nice additions though, like the dinosaurs. I loved those. But the rest, especially the whole Lego Duplo thing is so childish.

As for the jokes, they are fine but they are not nearly as good as they were in the first film. The problem is that many are recycled from the original film, others are either lame, childish or out of place, and the majority is pop culture references kids will never get —I mean, how many kids will get the Bruce Willis cameo? It's really hard to believe this was written by the same people who wrote The Lego Movie.

Warner Bros. Pictures

That said, the film is not a complete waste of time as it's overall enjoyable —although I lost my interest in the second part—, the voice cast still manages to do a good job despite the poor script, the animation looks fantastic, and some of the songs are not that bad. Not the "Catchy Song" though, that one is a pain for the ears. There's really nothing catchy about that song. It's just annoying.

PODCAST 352: Rosemary's Baby, Look What Happened to Rosemary's Baby & The Omen

This week the Horror Crew create a "Shit Oreo" when discussing Devil children. Rhiannon kicks things off with Rosemary's Baby. Cory follows that up with a look at the made for television sequel, Look What Happened to Rosemary's Baby. Forest rounds things out with another classic, The Omen.

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