Month: November 2016

That’s right, there are two Captain movies this year. But Captain Fantastic isn’t a superhero in the normal definition of the word, but if you think about it, he is still a hero to the intellectual community out there.

Which you shouldn’t be thinking about yet, because this is the introduction.

I will note that this film has Viggo Mortensen penis in it, so for those Lord of the Rings super fans, this should really get you on board.

And their outfits are even fantastic!

Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his wife, Leslie (Trin Miller) have decided to say fuck modern society and to live in the woods. In fact, they made this decision a long long time ago. And at this point, they have six kids. Bodevan (George MacKay), Kielyr (Samantha Isler), Vespyr (Annalise Basso), Rellian (Nicholas Hamilton), Zaja (Shree Crooks), and Nai (Charlie Shotwell). Unique names of course, so they can be unique people in the world.

Speaking of being unique, when I say living in the woods, I mean totally outside of society in Washington state. They hunt and grow their own food. They teach their kids to learn about the world, to be socialists, humanitarians, free thinkers. They train them to survive, to hunt, to build their endurance, to think through dangerous situations. They are teaching them many different languages and how to play many instruments. It is an intellectual smorgasbord.

And then Leslie dies. By her own hands, suffering from a form of PTSD after their last child died. And now they are in a strange situation. Because of how they live, her body is sent to her parents (Frank Langella, Ann Dowd), a rich couple who never approved of her life style choices and of course her husband. They are all the way in New Mexico and the father has threatened to take his children if he shows up, child endangerment laws and all, blah.

Fuck that. They are trying to give his wife a normal, casket, Christian burial. But she is Buddhist and had explicit instructions in her will, and they are not honoring that. So he has to load up their bus and take his family down to New Mexico, through civilization, where the hardest training is yet to come, for all of them.

Also starring Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn.

Learning how to break and enter into a house can be the difference between life and death, technically.

It is hard to classify Captain Fantastic into a few genres, it turns out. I called it a Black Comedy, but it really doesn’t even fit that bill, and Black Comedy is usually the “weird films that are uneasy and funny catch up” category. A serious drama, comedy, absurd movie maybe. Not Rubber absurd, but it just comes out with such completely counter culture points of right off the back it can take you by surprise.

None of the philosophies or ideas expressed in the film are new of course, they are just taking an idea to the extreme and seeing how it plays out. It leads to a unique film and one where the viewer is happy to take the journey.

The cast of characters is wonderful, with at least 4 of the children having pretty distinct personalities. It is harder for the youngest two of course. Mortensen plays a dad trying to do what he thinks is the best for his children, and it shows. The acting is phenomenal all around, with plenty of smaller amusing scenes and intellectual arguments to show the good and bad of their situation.

The ending is a bit weird, but he movie is entirely weird, so that shouldn’t be too surprising.

If you want an intellectual, weird, and slightly morbid film, Captain Fantastic is for you. If you don’t want any of that, then you might not like good films.

Hell Or High Water is a review I meant to have early in August. I mean, I even drove to a theater about 35 minutes away just to see it. I heard a lot of good things and I wanted to make sure I saw it before it was hard to come across.

And apparently a lot of other people heard the same news, because it was completely sold out. Sure, it was in a dinky 3 row theater, but those 15 or so people got there before me, and I got screwed out of a trip. So I saw Sausage Party instead and forgot about this movie.

But now Oscar season is rearing its ugly head. Good films are coming out in theaters. Good films are being released. People are talking, and I had not seen this movie yet. I knew that come hell or high water, I’d have to see this movie before December, or else I might get lost in the new film Oscar rage again.

Thems the laws, you gotta just follow them.

The story is about two brothers, a smart one, Toby (Chris Pine) and a convict, Tanner (Ben Foster). They are together robbing banks, like a bunch of western assholes. But they have some rules. Never the bundles, just the loose cash, just right when they wake up so no one gets hurt, and just from one bank, Texas Midlands Bank.

You see, their mom died and they are about to lose the family farm. She owed the bank moneys from mortgages and extra money for bank reasons, and unless they get $40,000 ish before the end of the week, the bank will take their home. The same home that just had a big oil deposit found on its land. The boys would like to get the money from the oil rights, and so would the bank, which is why the bank is moving so fast. The Texas Midlands Bank.

So they figure if they rob from the banks, they can use their own money to pay off the debt and live a life of somewhat luxury after that. Decent plan. They are in the middle of nowhere Texas, so law enforcement isn’t the best. They do have a pair of Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham) trying to figure out what the hell their plan is, which is becoming increasingly difficult with Tanner playing the wild card.

If they are lucky people will just assume 21 Pilots are committing these robberies.

Westerns are weird. A once popular as fuck genre now only has one or two movies a year. The good news is the people taking on these western films tend to want to make them a great watch, so they put a lot of detail into the setting, cinematography, and more. I don’t know a damn thing about the director, David Mackenzie. He has directed over fifteen things, and sure enough, I have only heard of this one. So it is a nice surprise when what feels like an unknown director putting out quality work.

The story has a large cast of extras, but really only the four important characters. It is about the relationship with the brothers, the vagueness of their past, their extreme situation and a whole lot of morally gray area.

The chemistry between Foster and Pine feels natural and believable as brothers. It is one of the strongest points of the movie and should be acknowledged. It might still fall to the wayside of Bridges, old as shit, and still kicking butt. His character isn’t just a smart detective who knows everything, he is a bit bumbling, but he gets the job done and you can feel his anger at points right off of the screen. Bridges is probably a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

It has good acting, visuals, story, and chemistry. So why did I not love it like everyone else?

Honestly, I can understand a slower movie, I love a few of the slower movies this year already. It just took me so long to really feel invested in the characters. Sure, I did get invested, but the beginning with the first robberies and the chases, it didn’t do a whole lot for me. It took too long for me to care.

When I heard that American Crime Story was announced, I assumed I would just ignore it. It seemed like it just wanted to sound similar to American Horror Story and who cares after that. Well, I am glad I watched Season 1, The People vs O.J. Simpson, because it was phenomenial television, I learned a lot, and I am happy to see it won so many awards.

And my watching of ACS was just one of the reasons I was trying to ignore O.J.: Made In America. One, why would I watch a documentary series that I just saw play out with actors? It would feel repetitive. Two, I haven’t watched really any of the 30 for 30 movies, let alone a special that lasted almost 8 hours. Three, I have too many movies to watch, and a few shows, so this would take the place of almost four films. Gah!

And then I found out that despite it being in my eyes a TV series, it fits all the criteria for Oscars documentary. It premiered at Sundance (all of it!), it was in theaters in NY and LA (all of it!), and fuck, it will probably be nominated, so I probably just need to bite the damn bullet, and watch this documentary. Of course I decided to do it over five days, allowing myself to just do one at a time, but it was still a major time commitment, and as you can see, I still didn’t even give it a 4 out of 4!

Can’t win ’em all OJ.

With a documentary I still cannot say a whole lot. With this “series” we get to see more than ACS gave us, which was just from murder to end of a trial. A whole hour and a half were focused on O.J. Simpson during his college and NFL career. WHY he became a big name. The next 90 minutes focused on his post NFL career, into acting, commercials, and being a celebrity, along with meeting his wife Nicole and the abuse in their relationship.

Parts 3 and 4 deal mostly with the trial, the death, the lead up, the bigger events, and the final part deals with the results, the after math, another civil law suit, and the events that actually eventually put OJ in jail.

A wild and long ride if anything, and hell, I did learn a lot. The first two parts became the most important for me, given what I knew about the trials from pop culture and current events. The whole thing was mostly laid against racism in LA at the time, to show how the communities reacted and felt about the police at the time and WHY he was acquitted in the end. Hell, we got testimony from a few of the jury members too, a nice behind the scenes look.

But the last fifth took a huge toll on my patience. It seemed to drag. And yeah, I didn’t know that he was in jail now or why he was arrested, but the build up to that moment took so long and felt so damn confusing. I had very little idea what was actually happening, as it was being told from so many different point of views.

This is an extremely in depth (obviously) and important documentary, and can teach you a lot about the world dealing with just one case. But maybe it was too long. Maybe it wasn’t even long enough, and that would explain my confusion at the end. Regardless, it is worth the time for those who want to put the time in. And getting to see comments from Marcia Clark was also a fantastic add on.

And this is where we stand. This is where all of the marbles fall. This is where the plot thickens. Finally, Moana is now out, and we can almost fully discuss the potential for Best Animated Film this year.

I was excited for Moana since it was first announced. Every announcement was met with excitement. Character actors. Lin-Manuel Miranda helping with the soundtrack. General plot lines. Just excitement and happiness.

And this has been a decent year for animated films in America. Zootopia, also a Disney film started off strong. Kubo and the Two Strings changed the game. And Moana is the final heavy hitter. (Pixar and Dreamworks faltered this year, with Finding Dory and Kung Fu Panda 3. The later decent, but the worst of the series). And sure, there was a lot of other filler, but no one expected a lot from them, just like I don’t expect anything from Sing or Storks.

Needless to say, the hype was there, and I was hoping it would deliver.

Starting off a film with potential baby drownings is a surefire way to hold my attention.

Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) isn’t a princess damn it. She is the daughter of a Chieftain. There is a difference, she has talents. She also feels drawn to the sea. They live on an island, but outside of their local reef, the sea is rough and scary, so her father (Temuera Morrison) forbids her to really go into the water, because she has more important duties to prepare for on the island.

But everyone knows there is a lot out there. Moana’s grandmother, Gramma Tala (Rachel House), makes sure they know the tales. The tale of the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who made the islands. He stole the heart of a goddess a thousand years previous, to give the power of creation to man. But his plan backfired, evil and decay started to lurk and grow, he lost his magical fish hook and was never seen again.

But that is all a story! No way that is real. Until, you know, the crops begin to fail on their island. The fish leave the reef. And their people are worried of being able to feed their families.

Moana isn’t just going to sit around and let her friends, family, and loved ones suffer. No, fuck that. She is going into the see. She is going to find Maui, demand he restore the heart, and fix this blight for good. Sounds like a nice afternoon adventure.

Also starring the voice work of Jemaine Clement as a crab monster, Nicole Scherzinger as Moana’s mom, and Alan Tudyk as a chicken.

There is a joke here about a tiny canoe and wood, but I can’t just quite put my hand on it.

Thankfully, there is a lot going on with Moana. So much that I really don’t even know where to begin! But hey, I will try.

Animation style, it is a gorgeous film. Just like Frozen, I initially sort of had a problem with the character animations compared to the background, but quickly grew into it. The ocean was beautiful, the island so full of background life, and I especially loved the lava demon. It must have taken ages to fully animate that creature and it paid off extremely well.

There weren’t too many annoying characters either. There were small pirate coconut things, they were more amusing than annoying and felt like a reference to Mad Max. For the most part, adults weren’t super dickish in the film, like in other similar adventure stories like How to Train Your Dragon. Our lead was fierce, independent, and stereotype breaking, while Maui was funny and interesting. We still had stereotypical older sage lady, but she at least danced a bit to give her something new.

Music! Music music! What a fantastic soundtrack. Miranda’s influence is super strong in this picture. The first few songs feel very similar to the style of Hamilton songs, including the use of extra chorus members and multiple tunes. Where You Are, How Far I’ll Go, We Know The Way, You’re Welcome, and all the various reprises (There are several) are just great. Only one disappointing song in Shiny, which is sad given it being sung by Clement in a strange Bowie-esque voice. It was hard to understand and his character was lack luster, which is a funny joke given the song title. But hey, Disney movies have to have at least one bad song I guess. Soundtrack was put on Spotify last Friday and I have listened to it a few times.

Finally, we reach the story, and yeah. It is a good one. Sure, cliches here and there, but it is about empowerment and following your dreams, a good message to rehash. I can honestly say I didn’t fully predict everywhere it would go, making it another nice breath of fresh air.

As for which is better, this or Kubo? Well, I don’t know yet. I should re-watch Kubo, but obviously Moana has it beat on actual story and music numbers, but Kubo’s animation and heart are very strong.

I won’t deny it, I am writing this review like a month late. The site was down for over a month, I was busy, and honestly, I kept forgetting about the film itself.

That isn’t a good way at all to start talking about the film Denial, because if I can barely remember it after watching it, that isn’t saying a lot. Nor does my visible rating.

I will get into it later, but Denial actually does tell an interesting AND important story. It is worth existing. The execution is just the issue. And people watching it and not telling others about it. Yeah, I am also part of the problem, whoops.

I am not denying that Denial exists, I am just forgetful sometimes.

Take out your time machine, because we are going way back. Way, way back, to the mid-1990’s! Dr. Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) is a historian and Jewish history scholar, focusing of course on the Holocaust. She has written many books about it and believes one should not argue with a Holocaust denier because that gives them some level of credibility and they don’t even deserve that much.

And then David Irving (Timothy Spall), a very famous Holocaust Denier and Hitler scholar started to argue with her. He hijacked one of her lectures. He posted it online to make her seem week. And then he sued her for libel, because she called him a liar and worse in one of her books.

But Irving didn’t sue her for libel in America. Nope, he did it in Britain. See, normally in America, for a libel suit, the party who claims libel has to prove it. In Britain, the party who is being sued has to prove what they said is true instead. An interesting twist.

Well, Lipstadt says fuck that. She won’t settle or retract. She has to prove that not only was Irving as a Holocaust denier wrong, but he intentionally gave incorrect information in order to lie. Aka, prove that he wasn’t stupid, but there was malice and intent in his words. That is a hard thing to do. Especially because if they do it wrong, they are going to be potentially putting the Holocaust itself on trial, which is not a good place to be at. It is disrespectful!

Needless to say, an interest and real case. Also featuring Andrew Scott, Tom Wilkinson, Alex Jennings, Caren Pistorius, and Jack Lowden.

British court of Law is also funny in other ways.

The story for Denial is a good one, yes, sure. It offers a TON of moral questions for the trial. What methodology will they use to prove the Holocaust existed without putting the Holocaust on trial itself? How can they prove he knows the truth and is choosing to lie? Couldn’t they just bring in a bunch of survivors to tell their stories?

No. Apparently no at all to the last one. The lawyers don’t want to put them up on the stand and have a denier heckle them and denounce their harsh experiences. The hardest part for Lipstadt is letting go and trusting in lawyers who know more about British law than her.

Again, a fine story. And fantastic acting. Weisz, Wilkinson, and Spall. Especially Spall! Spall always plays these villain roles, but this one is something else and he has all sorts of mannerisms and ways of speaking that just fill him out completely. And he lost an incredible amount of weight it looks like to, a surprise to see.

The issues I have with this movie is that it feels like it also has an incredible amount of filler. There are a lot of down moments, some solemn given the topic, but just slow and repetitive feeling moments. Add in an ending that almost feels anti-climatic, or a bit too made for TV and the movie just seems to lose a lot of impact.

It could have been a truly great film, but there are too many minor points to keep it from rising to the top.

I don’t know a lot about Loving, but what I do know is that I do love the concept.

Without getting into too many details in my introduction (as I should properly tease it out), I also learned that finding a friend or colleague to watch Loving with you is sort of weird. I had one friend who wanted to see good movies, but his wife didn’t approve, because she wanted to watch it with him.

And then I found out inviting anyone based on the concept would be awkward. So did I watch it alone? Hell no, I watched in a theater of people, like I do most movies.

Don’t worry, we are a family in there, I don’t feel like a stranger.

Loving ain’t always easy. Just ask Mildred (Ruth Negga) and Richard (Joel Edgerton). A black woman and a white man, living in the 1950’s Virginia. Richard has always been around black people and his dad used to work with them, so he doesn’t care about color, but everyone else does. Needless to say, they do the thing together that they aren’t supposed to do, so they decide to get married before the baby comes out.

Unfortunately, they are not allowed to get married by state law, because of something Jesus said or something. Instead, they head up to DC, get their marriage on, and beat the system! Richard buys some land to build a house, and everything is swell.

Until the Sheriff (Marton Csokas) and a couple others break into her family home and see them in the same bed. Because of shitty laws, they get arrested, cannot bail each other out, and have a problem. Their crappy lawyer agrees to get them out of jail if they plead guilty, they are just banished from being in Virginia for the next 25 years at the same time.

Obviously there are issues. They can get legally married in one part of America, and arrested for it in another. How does that work? They should eventually fight this and get the Supreme Court to make marriage legal for all. What a good idea.

Also starring Will Dalton, Christopher Mann, Nick Kroll, Jon Bass, and Michael Shannon.

To show your loving, you just need to cuddle. It is science.

Loving is a movie about an important case that is still referenced and relevant in our time. It is about love, and our protagonists have the last name of Loving. It is like a cheesy movie idea, but in real life. And with the title of Loving, I expected both a whole lot of love from some characters, and an equal amount of hate from others.

Instead, what I feel after the fact and felt from the characters feels mostly apathetic.

I will freely admit that Negga and Edgerton did great acting in this movie. I will say especially that Negga’s character is a bit more likeable and her personality basically carries the movie. I believe the way Edgerton portrayed his character was probably realistic to the real life man. But what I didn’t really feel in the movie was a realistic relationship between our leads.

The chemistry didn’t just feel off, but it felt stale. I wasn’t feeling anything from the two characters, and most of it thanks to the way Richard was portrayed. There was one moment of actual sincerity between them near the end, and it can be a director’s choice to show them that way until the case is finally won. But a third of the way in I am already checked out because of how fake it feels.

Loving was a film that spent 95% of its time focusing on the relationship between two people and their struggles. We barely get any court room drama, which is a disappointment. No, we just see how they react to it all as the lawyers fight for them in court over the various levels. It felt like we were given a media portrayal of their relationship and never a personal look between the two, despite the focus of the film clearly being on just their relationship.

If it wanted to make it more historical, we could have gotten more court room drama and things like that, but nope. Just relationship for this story. A relationship that portrayed by two well acted individuals in a seemingly non loving relationship.

To be honest, 2016 has been an above average year for Sci-Fi. And no, I am not talking about Star Trek Beyond or Star Wars Rogue One.

But the Science Fiction films that make you think, that assume you are paying attention to the film and are here for a ride. Sure, we were given Allegiant, The 5th Wave, Independence Day: Resurgence, but they aren’t the only films out there. We were also given Midnight Special, which I gave a 4 out of 4 to, and 10 Cloverfield Lane, which I only had minor issues with.

And yet despite the better than average year, Arrival raises the bar higher and blows them all away.

That is important. That means something.

Arrival of course opens up with a parent losing her child, because movies want desperately for me to be sad always. We see a quick montage of Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) narrating over brief glimpses of her daughter, Hannah, and eventually succumbing to cancer in the late teens of early twenties. Fuck. Okay, let’s start off somber.

Dr. Banks is a linguist and teaches at a university level. She knows quite a few languages and just how they develop better than almost anyone. She has some government clearance too, thanks to helping decode some terrorist messages. So when the aliens come, she is quickly swept up to help figure out their language. The aliens are in twelve giant intimidating oval shaped pods around the world, with the only one in the US landing in Montana. Banks quickly determines that the best way to communicate and learn from them is an attempt to communicate both vocally and through a written language.

Her science team is lead by a theoretical physicist, Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), with the head military guy being played by Forest Whitaker, the head of operations guy being played by Michael Stuhlbarg, and of course, Tzi Ma, playing a Chinese general.

Suiting Up is always important when meeting someone new. Even if it is a biohazard suit.

Denis Villeneuve is a god amongst men. Sure, he didn’t come up with Arrival on his own, it is based on a book Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. But Villeneuve is consistently doing films that seemingly no one else is attempting. He is not defining what is right or what is wrong. He is not holding your hand to give you all the answers in his stories. This is true for Enemy, Sicario, and Prisoners, and now it is true for Arrival. Many other directors would have made the film a lot more in your face, but Villeneuve assumes we are smarter than that and wants to focus on the experience and narrative, rather than pointing out the subtleties.

After the director it is hard to say where else I should go with this. The cinematography is beautiful, a lot of longer shots. We even get the indie “camera following the main character walking” shot a few times, which I normally get annoyed at, but this time it seems to work really well. The aliens themselves are stunning and a bit scary, shrouded in their mystery. And the music is a hard thing to ignore, all over the place and really putting the watcher in the right mood.

Adams pulls off a hell of a performance and is likely to be nominated from it. She is such a different person in this movie, even though she clearly looks like Adams, she feels like someone else. A lot of the crazier moments come up through and about her character and it is thrilling ride the entire time. Adams made me cry. Multiple times.

The film addresses a lot of powerful themes, and to talk about most of them would feel like a spoiler. Such is the problems of a reviewer.

Arrival is the sort of film that will actually get better with subsequent viewings. It ends up going places I didn’t think possible, and will stay with me for quite a long time.

I love me some Mockumentaries. I do, I really do. Yeah, sure, most of the ones I have seen in my life were made by Christopher Guest. This Is Spinal Tap! (Technically Rob Reiner, whatever) and A Mighty Wind are my jams. But thankfully we did get Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping this year to continue the trend a bit further.

So I was excited about Mascots. And no, I didn’t know it was another film directed by Christopher Guest until about twenty minutes in, when the same cast of characters in a lot of his films appeared. It had the same style, same type of humor.

Let’s be clear, this is his first Mockumentary in a decade! Big news, because someone has to make them, damn it.

And why not explore Mascots hoping they did not break their funny bone.

Mascots are a big deal. They get the party started, they get people excited about sports and performances, and they can have zany costumes.

And in this documentary, it is showcasing several totally real mascots as they prepare for the World Mascot Association to try and win the Golden Fluffy award for the best mascot. Now a lot of random mascots enter and send in tapes to be chosen to compete, but only the best and maybe the vaguest can really win.

Of course we have a very eccentric and weird cast. There is Zook (Chris O’Dowd), who plays The Fist, a hockey mascot in Canada, known for getting into fights, and yes, he is a giant fist. Owen Golly Jr. (Tom Bennett) comes from a long line of mascots, playing a squirrel I believe. His dad (Jim Paddock) is still coaching him and his wife (Kerry Godliman) just hopes he doesn’t die.

Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey) is this absurd horse girl thing. Phil Mayhew
(Christopher Moynihan) is a Plumber mascot, and has a big routine with a toilet and a turd. Mike (Zach Woods) and Mindy Murray (Sarah Baker) are a couple act, but also going through a divorce thanks to infidelity, but still hoping to work together for the competition.

And we got more people for a variety of reasons, Jane Lynch, Ed Begley Jr., Susan Yeagley, John Michael Higgins, and Michael Hitchcock.

And I didn’t even get into the Amish and the Worm pair.

Mascots ends up being very similar to Christopher Guest’s other mockumentaries. The people are weird, but realistic, and the humor comes from relatively normal interactions. And surprisingly outside of a few moments, I found myself rather bored.

I haven’t seen a lot his previous work. I never fully watched Best In Show, but I want to. I didn’t even know he had about two others. So why would I absolutely love A Mighty Wind and not this one?

Well, shit. It might actually be the music factor. I love quirky people and musicals, so it is a perfect storm for me. This one has quirky people without all of the payoff I was hoping for. Some people seemed to exist just for one joke or one long set up and until it happened, I was just waiting.

The mascot performances were all pretty good I guess, but not enough to warrant rewatching in the future. People are weird, situations are zany, but it is all too few and far in between for me.

Oooh, I usually sort of hate Christmas movies. Too much spirit and guilty messages, not enough parties. Also giant family movies like this one means a lot of interweaving storylines that will PROBABLY end with everyone having a happy ending so it isn’t too creative in its execution. You can see them a mile away.

So Almost Christmas is coming out over a month before Christmas. I guess it is coming out in Almost Almost Christmas time. Christmas and the week before are now synonymous with great movies and mini-blockbusters, not actually thematic holiday films. And since no one makes a movie about Thanksgiving (except for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles), basically any part of November can count for Christmas.

This is a much bigger project than anything David E. Talbert has done before, and I assumed that Malcom D. Lee was the director when I saw the cast size. (He did The Best Man Holiday and other films). But hey, lets give him a shot and hope I don’t fall asleep.

This guy knows what’s up.

Prepare to be sad before you get too happy. The film opens with about 45 years of a relationship between Walter (Danny Glover) and his wife Grace. We get to see them gain a family, raise kids, develop their house, all through many Christmas snapshots and more. And now in 2016, Grace died and Walter is preparing to have his first Christmas without her.

And the whole family is coming over, problems and all. They just have to survive for five days until then while airing many grievances and being sad over the whole dead mom thing.

The youngest son (Jessie T. Usher) is about to graduate from college a big football star and most likely join the NFL. But he is nursing a sports injury that might have gotten him pill addicted.

The next oldest is (Gabrielle Union) a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. Because she divorced him and is a single mother now. In Law school, after dropping out of other big career pathways in her life. Her old neighbor fling (Romany Malco) is also in the town for the Holidays and he just won’t leave her alone.

She is also fighting with her older sister (Kimberly Elise), who is a successful dentist and married to a man (J.B. Smoove) who played some NBA in the day, and is now just a ridiculous man. They have a few kids but their relationship has been a struggle.

And finally we have the oldest son (Omar Epps) who is hoping to be elected a congressman in the House of Reps. Hot damn. This makes him very busy for his wife (Nicole Ari Parker), his kids, but hey, he brought his campaign manager (John Michael Higgins) so he should be plenty festive.

There is plenty more drama I am leaving out, but we also have Mo’Nique playing a successful back up singer and sister-in-law to Walter, Tara Batesole as a grocery store clerk, and D.C. Young Fly as a friend who has the hook up.

And let’s not forget the search for the edible appetizer.

I guess I should first mention my cry count. I think I only cried 2 to 3 times. Maybe just a good 2.5. Hard to remember, but there are of course some touching and sad moments. The whole film is about death and families coming together to work through it all. So of course it jerks a few tears as well.

I surprisingly didn’t fall asleep through the film and surprisingly enjoyed a few of the moments. Most of the better plot involves Gabrielle Union’s character, whom I guess I just had some ability to relate to versus anyone else. The ending got a little hokey, but that too is to be expected in these types of films.

My mind did try and hurt itself early on though. I have been fearing this day my whole life, but Omar Epps and Romany Malco are finally in a movie together. Every time I see Malco, I think Epps. Every time I see Epps, I think Epps. Malco doesn’t really exist to me. Of course their voices are very different, but I suck and get them confused technically. So when Malco first appeared on the screen and flirted with Union, I was uncomfortable, thinking they were playing brother and sister.

Glover and Union carry this movie for me. Epps’ plot line seems forced, Elise’s just wasn’t interesting, and Usher’s felt a bit too life timey. And some of the major plot points remind me of the later seasons of Parenthood, so it just feels like I have seen some of it play out before. And of course the kids, meh, didn’t even tag them. They are hip on technology and slang, to look cute and say outlandish things. Typical.

This is my fourth movie this year reviewing with Anna Kendrick in it, and it hasn’t been a great year. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates was on top, above Mr. Right and Get A Job, all very mediocre to poor. Sorry, I haven’t hit The Accountant yet and The Hollars looks good too, but that is still six movies this year.

After the year she had been having, I wasn’t super surprised to see her starring in Trolls as well. Trolls is probably one of the most least anticipated animated movies of the year for me, after Sing.

I mean, I get it. Getting rights to old toys to make new movies for is in right now. The Smurfs movies did okay, why not create a world about Trolls? Gotta get that merchandising money back somehow right? Fuck new risks!

Sorry, I almost complained about films these days. Trolls just seems like a lazy cash grab, and they have been hyping it since Timberlake released that song like, six months ago at least. I am trolled out already and I haven’t even been forced to see a real advertisement for it.

One of those trolls is a fucking giraffe what is going on here?

The Bergens are large, basically ogre like entities that are disgusting and sad, lives devoid of happiness. The Trolls are tiny creatures full of color who are always partying and full of happy. The Bergens hate them and are jealous of them and also found out that when they eat Trolls, they get to feel happiness inside of them and it is kind of a big deal. So they captured all of the trolls and every Bergen eats one on a holiday called Trollstice.

Except this year they have escaped underground, thanks to King Peppy (Jeffrey Tambor), saving every last troll, including his baby daughter Peppy (Anna Kendrick). This gets the Bergen Chef (Christine Baranski) into quite a big trouble, because King Gristle (John Cleese) cannot feed his baby, Prince Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). So the Chef gets banished from the kingdom. The Trolls find a new place to live and they party for ever after.

Until twenty years later. Princess Poppy is throwing a huge party to celebrate being free of the Bergens. Everyone is going to be there, everyone but Branch (Justin Timberlake). The weird troll who is grey, doesn’t sing, doesn’t dance, doesn’t HUG. He warns them not to do the party like that or else the Bergens will come. And sure enough, the Chef Bergen finds them and takes all of Poppy’s friends. All of them, even the spiritual one (Russell Brand). So Poppy decides to get the rest of the Trolls into hiding and trick Branch into coming along with her to rescue them!

Back at Bergen Town, the Chef is getting back into business with the handful of trolls she captured. The king is dead, so the new king is that poor Gristle Jr. who never got a Troll before and he decides to restore Trollstice to make his kingdom happy! There is also a small maid, Bridget (Zooey Deschenal), who likes the king. This plays a part in the plot.

So yeah, get into the town, save the friends, and you know, survive. Whoa re the friends? Well, a lot of them are played by famous people, but if you asked me their character names I would have no fucking clue, as they kept them kind of hard to figure out and match. But we have Gwen Stefani, James Corden, Ron Fuches, Aino Jawo, Caroline Hjelt, Kunal Nayyar, Quevenzhane Wallis, Walt Dohrn, and Rhys Darby! Oh okay, fine, I could figure out who Guy Diamond was based off of his name.

They live in a scary place where literally everything has a mouth and eats something.

Oh hey, Trolls. Of course it was a Jukebox Musical in some regards, and I hoped to see something creative. Instead, for the most part, the songs were bad mash ups with a loosely related theme and just choruses to get the little kids moving their feet. I don’t hate Jukebox Musicals, I just hate bad music ones. It was overall a lesser Happy Feet in that regard, but better than Strange Magic.

Overall there were two really good musical moments, one was the song Get Back Up Again which is technically the only original song in the musical (Does the JT one count as original?), and another song near the end that captured the emotions of the moment extremely well. It might have made me cry, but crying does not mean I give the film a passing grade. There was also a very awkward song moment with Deschanel’s character. She gave a unique voice for Bridget, but when Bridget sang it was uncomfortable as the voice did not transition at all into the song.

The colors are bright and kid friendly, but the animation style on its own felt quite dull. It felt too fuzzy and well, doll like. Again, their intentions I am sure to sell toys, but it wasn’t too visually pleasing.

The world they created was an incredibly scary place, as there is a recurring joke of how almost everything eats something else. It frightened me and not in a sexy way.

Plot wise, about 20-30 minutes in it was pretty easy to figure out how the whole thing would end. And yeah, it was true. The love plot between Bridget and the King, although arguably necessary, felt like it was taking too much time from the rescue plot. There are not a lot of surprises in this film, nor intellectual humor. They have a character who farts glitter, and another character who shits cupcakes. Yay butt humor.

Overall Trolls is just okay, which is better than I expected. There are only a few more cartoon movies to go this year and the only place this one will make an impact in the awards is nominations for Best Song, I imagine. It is unfortunately also really dated. They decided to make the Trolls super modern, so they are saying YOLO, OMG and more terms to connect to the youth of today, meaning no one will give a crap about it in ten years.