Tag: 2 out of 4

Immediately hearing about a movie named Master, I get a little bit of unease. I think that is the goal. It certainly harkens up slavery in America’s past, especially given the main poster for this film.

Actually going into this movie, I have no clue what it is about. It could have been a period piece, a horror, a drama, or it could be a very surprising comedy, honestly. Lacking a better introduction, I am going on to the review.

Don’t glare at me, I don’t research every movie coming out, I swear.

Let’s go to college! Namely, Ancaster College! Does it sound like a really white college? That is what we are going for here. A really white old historic college somewhere in the northeast. You know, what of those type of colleges. An Ivy league.

Jasmine (Zoe Renee) is a new freshman, ready to learn and live and laugh and love. But she is getting a lot of stares. She sticks out. For obvious reasons. Plus, people keep talking about her room. It is a cursed room some say. It is where a girl killed herself in the past. Not fun at all.

Jasmine has to deal with the normal college pressures, while also, apparently, being one of the only black people on campus. There are a few black teachers around though. Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) and Sascha (Kara Young), the latter who is a faculty member trying to go for tenure, and one of Jasmine’s teachers.

Things start getting more controversial, when Jasmine is failing her essay, about race issues no less, and she starts to get more and more vivid nightmares on this campus.

Maybe…this campus, is really just a big cult? Who knows. If so, the College Board should be informed.

When going out for a run, it is important to bring a buddy, because racists are out there, yo. 

It was hard to tell what Master was going for, in its run time. Is it going for a real supernatural horror, causing the events of the film? Or at the events of the film just metaphors, for what the characters experience, with micro- and macro-aggressions against them? Or maybe some level of in between?

Now, I will keep the truth to that question a secret of course. But I will say I was disappointed with the direction it ended up taking. It told a fine spooky movie of sorts, but I don’t think it really delved enough into the actual problems going on in the movie. They were alluded to, and I feel for a lot of people it will just go right over their heads. I am not saying that being subtle is bad, no. It is just that it isn’t really subtle either. It just seems to bring things up, and then ignore them later.

This is a movie that really feels like it was made to be streamed, where it might find an audience. But it lacked a lot of things that could have made it really stand out, as some sort of horror themed Dear White People. But we just got a pretty tame movie overall, with some fine acting and okay plot. This is one now doomed to go to streaming and be forgotten in a few days.

You might be wondering what a documentary mockumentary with the name Adventures in Success is about. Is it about getting a job? It is about running your own business? Is it about bettering your life to achieve all of your goals/

Or, is it about achieving a 12 hour orgasm?

Well. Arguably they would say if you can do that latter, you can maybe do anything in life.

This group in the Catskills, who definitely don’t consider themselves to be a cult, want to live in their own special community, with love, growth, and harmony. They do have a woman founder, of course. Peggy (Lexie Mountain) preaches to them about discovering who they really are and how they can grow, and of course, how can they experience an orgasm for several hours. Not the men, just the ladies. The men don’t need to be orgasming up in this group, that is selfish. They all need to learn what Jilling Off really means.

And this group is still fresh and new and recruiting members. They are trying to grow their numbers and get the message out there, by designing pamphlets, and maybe even going to a conference or two.

Will they succeed, or will their efforts flatten out like a penis post orgasm?

Also starring Alec Jones-Trujillo, Asia Lee Boostani, Drew Freed, Khan Baykal, Mo Stark, Nell Sherman, Nina Tarr, Robby Rackleff, and Yaz Perea.

Holding hands always made me orgasm for at least 10 minutes.

I’ve always said mockumentaries are my jam, and we really need more of them. I am surprised we don’t have an onslaught of these as films coming out, with the recent decades success of shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Modern Family, all done in a documentary like setting. Mockumentaries are usually still a different style, but it could be time for a major mockumentary to finally take the world by storm, like all of the Christopher Guest ones and, well, I literally can’t think of more examples unfortunately.

As for Adventures in Success, this comedy film seems like it has some actual good ideas in it, but I don’t feel like it gets fully explored enough. There are some wonderful jokes, including my favorite being the member who didn’t know that men weren’t supposed to orgasm, and kept bringing it up.

It did highlight the confusion and frustration of starting any organization, of course. And its quick descend into disorder was not actually expected in the small time we had with this group.

I guess, if I had to restate the complaints in another way, I would say…Adventures in Success did not go hard enough in its topic, nor was the climax satisfying, but the foreplay was decent.

I could be wrong, but I believe it is stated in the constitution that every 2 years we need at least three werewolf movies. That can be a movie about werewolves specifically, or that feature them in anyway. Hotel Transylvania: Transformania and Werewolves Within, I believe, are our last two, so now we have The Cursed to make sure that three minimum is met. Strangely enough, this one comes from France. Did you know the French cared about werewolves? I didn’t know.

This movie used to have a different title, Eight For Silver. I don’t fully know what in the heck that even means, but it does sound mysterious, so I like the original title. It would have fit this movie nicely. So does The Cursed, sure, but The Cursed could mean a lot of different things. It isn’t necessarily werewolf specific.

On an unrelated note, werewolf means a human turning into a wolf like beast. But all the other weres don’t work the same way. Werebear is a bear wolf cross thing, not a human turning into a bear. Super weird on that.

Sweet teeth you got there. Are you a cyberpunk werewolf?

Something evil in these woods! Time to go way back. To a time before most electricity, somewhere in the late 1800’s. Where? I don’t know, somewhere in Europe. People in a village go have a battle with some traveling groups, and quite a few people die, but the village wins. This actually curses their land, and makes a lot of uncomfortable things start to happen.

What kind of things? Well, like nightmares. Extra fog too, if I had to imagine. People go missing, and people also show up dead. That is a bigger problem. People maybe have seen monsters in the woods as well. Scary stuff. Are they being hunted by some beast?

Well the slightly good news is an expert is on the way. John McBride (Boyd Holbrook) is a visiting pathologist, and he has seen similar things before. He will try to help them put an end to this madness in their territory, or you know, die with the rest of them.

Also starring Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Roxane Duran, Nigel Betts, Stuart Bowman, Simon Kunz, Tommy Rodger, and Áine Rose Daly.

I am pretty sure most werewolves hate fire and shout about it often.

When it comes to curses, this is a pretty good one to wreck a small village hundreds of years ago. And it seemed to work quick.  So it was effective. But still, that last title would have been more fun, even if the reference is more awkward.

I am doing my best to be sensitive to the Romani people, who are referred to as the Roma in here. They don’t use the slur, which is great! But also, they are the “bad guys” here who curse our white regular villagers with their magic and stuff, after they are killed. That is probably not cool. They shouldn’t have done that. It is not like the curse was done to show that our main characters are truly the bad people all along (Although that is one interpretation you could make, I don’t think that was strongly argued enough though). The Romani people have had enough going bad with them throughout history in terms of negative connotations, so we should really be leaving them alone by now, honestly.

In terms of actual scares, I do think The Cursed did a wonderful job building the atmosphere for the setting. It was very tense. It also was gross. They didn’t do traditional werewolf things, that is for sure. At parts we have strange almost alien like aspects to it. I definitely had to look away at various parts, not at all pleased with the effects that went on with some of the grosser scenes. It isn’t even a movie trying to gross the viewers out, it just definitely succeeded for me.

In terms of the plot, it is pretty standard. None of the actors stand out to me more than anyone else. This is a bit of a downer.

I think the film excels at its use of effects, atmosphere, and world building. It tells a bit of an original story in the way the curse works, but not in the plot to deal with said curse. It both gains points for some creativity, and loses it for a lack of creativity in other areas.

I don’t know if werewolf enthusiasts will enjoy this movie either, given how much it deviates from the norm. Depends on how deviant they are in general. My best advice would be to go in not really knowing what to expect, and you will likely have some surprises along the way.

Finally, a movie about a person on the horse. What is with those actual horse biopic films that came out every few years? A horse winning a Kentucky Derby or triple crown seems like an awkward thing to want to see more about.

I want my horse movies to be about horses who save lives. Hell, I liked War Horse. Or I want them to be good at telling jokes. That is my preference. I will also take horse movies dealing with girls who want to have a pony and finally get to have a pony after some bootstrap pulling from their rich parents.

So let’s talk about the Jockey, the guy on the horse, and how much fun he must be having.

This is the jockey part of the Jockey movie.

Jackson Silva (Clifton Collins Jr.) is a hot shot jockey. If you knew about jockeys in this movie, you would know about this guy. We aren’t getting a film about a jockey who starts jockeying and climbs the ranks, no we are starting with the greatest already. Actually, the greatest is getting a bit old. He should maybe retire. But he wants to go out on top. He thinks he can do another big championship. He thinks his reflexes haven’t deteriorated or anything. He could do it.

Ruth Wilkes (Molly Parker), his…I don’t know Jockey terms. Someone who raises championship horses for jockeys to race on? Yeah whatever that is. She doesn’t trust in him. He should retire.

Also a new person joins in his life. This younger gentlemen, Gabriel Boullait (Moises Arias), who wants to be a famous jockey but hasn’t gotten a good start in the big leagues yet. He needs a team to trust him. Also, he might be Jackson’s son? Whoops.

Which Jockey will Jockey the horse the best? Who will make it to the finals, who will be upset, and who will die trying? Maybe no one.

This is the horse part of the Jockey movie.

Jockey is a character study, and specifically a character study of a champion who doesn’t know when to retire. In a sport a lot of people don’t actively think about.

You should be here for the story, and not here for horse racing. It has been a couple days after since I watched, but I will be honest, I don’t remember if I saw a single horse race in this movie outside of the final scene. But it was also showing just our star rider, and his face and emotions during the race, and not actively him on the horse. An interesting angle. Is it done to keep the budget low? Is it to make sure no horses get injured in the movie? Is it done to just give that specific focus in their eyes as they ride and make us feel that intensity? Who knows. But if you like sports horse racing, this movie will disappoint you.

But if you like regular drama, some alcohol, a kid mystery, and someone whose star is fading, regardless of their profession, then this will be up your ally.

Unfortunately, for me, this is more of a standard indie drama type of film. I have seen things like it before, and I will see them again. I loved Collins Jr.’s acting in it. He was great. I just didn’t fully love the story and care too much about the ending by the time we got to it. I can see its praise, while also seeing why it still isn’t drawing a whole lot of buzz at the same time.

If you liked The Power of the Dog, you would probably enjoy this one as well. You know. It is that type of film.

There are a lot of quick disaster films out there. Big ass earthquakes. Polar vortexes. Tornadoes. A lot of them are straight to DVD nonsense.

But the famous ones, that have a big budget, and aren’t necessarily great, just have big names in it? Well, apparently they just have to keep getting bigger and bigger.

“What if…what if…what if the moon…fell, on Earth? That would suck right?”

I mean, I assume that is how we got Moonfall. I am ready to be surprised going in to it, but it would need a lot of work. Need to see more big budget science fiction disaster films where black holes open and stars explode, personally.

If the moon was that close, people would still doubt we have ever been.

Back in 2011, on a SPACE mission, Astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) was working on a tether with a crew mate, when the power went out, and a huge swarm of black, small metal things flew by their ship and made things very rotational. Not good. He was able to make it back in, where Astronaut Jocinda Fowl (Halle Berry) was unconscious, their third member gone. He was able to land the shuttle back on earth with no power, and was a hero, until he said what he saw, and then was disgraced.

Well, ten years later, turns out he was telling the truth and people were warned. Because the moon has been knocked off of its orbit, which shouldn’t happen. Megastructurist/conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) was “doing research” and found out that the moon was coming closer, and leaked that information to the public because no one would believe him. NASA at the time was finding this out as well, and then? Panic.

Looks like the moon is going to be spiraling closer and closer to Earth. Causing tide changes, gravity awkwardness, and parts of it will for sure be breaking off to crash into the world. How can they fix the issue? What is that mysterious black swarm? How many aliens are there? Should we just nuke everything?

Also starring Carolina Bartczak, Charlie Plummer, Chris Sandiford, Donald Sutherland, Eme Ikwuakor, Jonathan Maxwell Silver, Kathleen Fee, Kelly Yu, Michael Peña, and Stephen Bogaert.

Spoilers: This phrase written on the spaceship is different in the movie.

I definitely went in to Moonfall thinking it would easily be one of the worst movies of 2022. And that is fair. The trailer was super dumb.

But I also want to at least point out things that worked well. I appreciate that this movie went as weird as it did. It could have played it safe. But it went into some out there, science fiction theories and science, and it went out there hard. In general, big budget Hollywood films try not to make the audience think too much, so they will often dumb things down and go for simple theories. It still explained things in a more dumbed down way, which is fair, but I just think it get points for trying. Especially because of how ridiculous things get, it is easy for claims for it to be very dumb are, when it involves a lot of theory and potential in terms of futuristic technology.

I did enjoy John Bradley’s character immensely, and I am so happy that Josh Gad had to drop out for him to come in, because I don’t think Gad would have been good for this. His scenes with his mom were his worst scenes, but they were minor.

Now in terms of things that are pretty bad for this film? Well, the entire Earth plot of family members while our leads are in space is pretty bad. The CGI gets terrible, especially in the unnecessary car chase/shoot out scene. One character dies very dumbly, when it was unnecessary, and it still made me cry despite that. And honestly just all of the thief characters. I don’t care about people stealing cars and being a recurring antagonist when the moon is about to wipe everyone out, you know?

The film was also rushed throughout it. It finally slows down near the end. Once a character gets the knowledge dump in space, I expected it to end pretty quickly, but we instead got a long drawn out space chase scene, just so we could splice it with the bad earth drama.

I will also point out that early on, I feel like it is heavily implied that Berry’s character, after divorcing her husband, seems to be in a relationship with a Chinese women. And I was thinking, damn, that’s progressive, you go you. And nah. It is just a foreign exchange student she is hosting. How old? Is she meant to be high school? She seems like an adult in the movie (and the actress is my age). It feels like she is in the house purely to watch the kid while Berry’s character can work, and honestly the whole set up is just uncomfortable for me.

Moonfall is going to be shit on, likely, by a lot of people, and be an easy punching bag. That is fair. But if I had to compare it to Roland Emmerich‘s other films, I would say it is easily better than 10,000 B.C., Independence Day: Resurgence, and Godzilla. But I don’t think this one will enter the pop culture stratosphere that a lot of his other disaster films have reached.

I heard a lot about Wolf before going into it. No, nothing about the plot, unfortunately. Or barely anything about the plot.

I mostly just heard negative reviews from my friends who already saw it. One of the worst films of the year? I knew I had to watch it to be sure.

Unfortunately, the IMDB description for this one is really terrible.  “A high-concept arthouse drama about a boy who believes he is a wolf.” That is it? That is the plot summary? The plot summary is literally the last 7 words, “boy who believes he is a wolf” and no other details. What the hell. The first half is completely unnecessary in a plot-description. A “high-concept arthouse drama?” Okay. It is a drama, fine. But the other words? That is a way to shoot it and a reason to shoot it, not at all what the film is about. I will see if I can do better.

What’s new?

Jacob (George MacKay): Is he a man, or is he a wolf? Well, clearly, he looks like a man. But on the inside, he feels as if he is a wolf trapped in a man’s body. He wants to run through the forest on all fours. He wants to do it at nighttime. He wants to howl at the moon. He wants to shed his clothes, he wants to hunt.

He has species dysphoria, or thinks he is an Otherkin, whichever language deems to be the most appropriate in the next decade. Jacob is actually taken to a clinic that specializes in clients who have species dysphoria, after his parents bring him in, so that he can be taught to shed that feeling and go back to being a productive member of society.

Things feel okay, at first. He has to keep a journal. They awkwardly have areas where they allow the patients to do what they want, including act like animals, with no problem. But for those who are further along, or who don’t find the light therapy useful, they have to deal with The Zookeeper (Paddy Considine), who uses more and more extreme methods to make those people realize they aren’t animals, they are human. You know, by treating them inhumanely.

Jacob also meets (Lily-Rose Depp), who maybe works there, maybe thinks she is a cat, and they begin a strange relationship, meeting at night when the moon is out, and exploring each other’s past and pondering their futures.

Also starring Darragh Shannon, Eileen Walsh, Elsa Fionir, Fionn O’Shea, Karise Yansen, Lola Petticrew, and Senan Jennings.

Rawr means “I love you.”

Wolf is going to be a very easy film to hate. and it is going to be a very easy film to make fun of and laugh at the awkwardness of it all. I know in my own screening, despite going in knowing it was a serious drama, it had some people laughing in the beginning, because they thought it was going for a silly absurd thing. And I can really see that happening in plenty of theaters, and then laughing through out, but it is an awkward laugh because they would be mocking those characters, not laughing at intentional humor.

You see, because this is a “high-concept arthouse drama” it knows it is showing things that could be labeled as ridiculous and amusing, but it is taking the whole thing seriously. No one is acting to be a joke. No character is breaking the fourth wall and winking at the audience. We are to treat this as serious as the film does. And I think that is the only way this works, a little bit.

Because the acting is quite good. MacKay must have been working on his wolf prowl for awhile, because he was putting his whole body into that. The way he moved his shoulders and glared. He likely had to lose weight just to make it more visually uncomfortable. Same with all of the actors. Special shoutout to Considine, who got more and more frightening as the Zookeeper. Doing more and more rough, maybe effective but probably not, methods to make his clients accept their reality. The ending he was downright frightening as he put down a “riot” in the clinic. I have never seem him so scary or great.

Now, in terms of what this movie is all about? I don’t know. It could be considered a metaphor for gay or trans conversion therapy camps. Places where we know abuse and torture occur to the poor kids who are forced to attend, until they are “cured” where the cures don’t really last, they are just delayed and hidden. This has parallels to that, but I honestly don’t think the filmmaker wants this story to be a metaphor. We definitely see The Zookeeper as a villain in this story, and this clinic as a bad place, but it is left morally gray as to whether the clients actions really matter. Should they just live their life how they want? YOLO is what I say.

However, if someone can get through it all and just be impressed by the seriousness of the whole thing, they will probably still be upset at the abrupt and unfulfilling ending. It can happen to anyone. Go if you want to see some interesting/unique acting. Ideally don’t go if you are going to mock people. And wonder with me if it still could have been a lot better.

Ah, is it happening now? Finally? The Dune movie?

Oh okay. Well, I got two Dune related stories to tell then!

The first is when I first heard about the book when I was in early High School. I was working that summer as a camp counselor, and one of my friends talked so fondly of the book Dune and wanted us all to read it. He never relented and eventually wanted to read it out loud to us one night to show how good it was. I was definitely asleep by the second page, woken up, and then again by page three. Nice.

Story two? Oh yeah, I actually saw the other Dune movie, in theaters, a few years ago, knowing nothing about the plot. It was a very strange experience, a weird film, but probably worth it on some level for pop culture history.

I have not been waiting on my knees for this version to come out, but I do like Denis Villeneuve films for the most part. The only one I didn’t love was Blade Runner 2049, which was visually pleasing, but a story I didn’t care about at all. Hmm, that was a sequel to a film from the 1980’s. This one is a movie remake that was first done in the 1980’s. I hope there is no more similarities.

Definitely more sand in this movie than Blade Runner 2049. 

We are still dealing with humans in this movie, don’t worry, it is just set like 8,000 years in the future.

House Atreides is our heroes? Well, at least our main family of character. They are some level of nobility and GREAT NEWS. They have been granted mining rights of the Spices from Arrakis. The Spices are the key to faster than light travel and longer life, and they can be rich from doing this.

The prince (?) Paul (Timothée Chalamet) has been having interesting dreams that seem to come from that planet, featuring a girl (Zendaya) that he can’t get out of his thoughts. Paul can also do mental suggestive thought things to make people obey him, which is cool. His dad (Oscar Isaac) is leading the convoy to Arrakis and his mother (Rebecca Ferguson) is mostly just trying to make sure Paul is ready to take over some day.

Needless to say, once they get to the planet, there are more shenanigans than they imagined. Stuff happens, people fight, people die, and sand worms.

Starring a whole lot of other people too, and even with 2.5 hours of screen time, a lot of them still don’t get a lot of screen time but might get more later? Well, if they didn’t die. We have Babs Olusanmokun, Benjamin Clémentine, Charlotte Rampling, Chen Chang, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stellan Skarsgård, and Stephen McKinley Henderson.

This book invented sand worms right? Not Beetlejuice?

Ah yes, Dune, clocking in at 2 hours and 35 minutes. Is that enough time to tell some epic story that was 412 pages long? [Editor’s note: Wait, 412 pages long only? That is it? The audiobook is only around 21 hours?] Well, if you ask Villeneuve then that answer is heck no. Apparently he only agreed to do it if he could do two full movies and not cram it into one. Oh okay.

But…but…They didn’t really make this into a two part film? If they did, they would have likely filmed them at the same time. They would have officially made this movie called Dune: Part 1. [Editor’s Note: This movie is called Dune: Part 1 only on the film itself near the start, but not on any advertisements, or posters, or just…officially]. And you know what? A regular film going customer shouldn’t have to look for interviews with the director and others to see that this movie is only just half of a story. I think I saw one where someone involved said it feels like a complete story still, but I have determined that to be a lie.

This movie definitely just ends in what feels like half of a story. And part of that is extremely frustrating given how long it feels like it takes to just get to the planet itself. It is not like I had a watch to look at the whole time, but it is a significantly large percentage before our characters go to the desert land to start learning and doing desert stuff. So to me, this film feels dragged out. You know, like The Hobbit films.

Just a quick note. I am okay with the concept of two part films. Sure. But the parts should still feature complete arcs and feel like storyline elements were resolved and natural enough and not just cliffhangers or, worse, plateaus that gradually decrease over time. Lord of the Rings film feel like three complete films despite one overarching story. Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Part 2 and Hunger Games Mockingbird Part 1 and Part 2 both feel like one film’s worth of plot badly stretched over two.

I am now worried Dune will feel like that, IF the second part gets made. I certainly don’t feel appreciative that the film producers are using such guilt riddled tactics to ensure they make enough money so that their story could be finished, when they could have also just trusted their product enough to make the films and release them when appropriate. If they don’t ever release another one, then we won’t get a full film. If they do release another one, then we likely get one full film over two movies with arguably a lot of filler.

But yeah, sure, it is pretty.

Have you ever wanted a musical to come to film?
Have you waited for a casting and a release date to announce?
Have you ever jumped so much you could shout?
Like you could sing, and everyone would hear?

Okay, to leave the lyric land. Maybe you also found yourself super pumped because Dear Evan Hansen was being directed by Stephen Chbosky, who also directed Rent, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and more. And you were excited that Ben Platt was reprising the role!

And then you saw the trailer and were like, wait, what, no.

That is a big thing going on for this musical. People really hated the trailer because of how much Ben Platt stuck out in it. He looked so old and uncomfortable. He played a high school senior just two years ago in The Politician and it didn’t look that terrible. Why is it so uncomfortable?

Ehhh, most people would probably blame it on the hair. The very awkward curls to make him seem, I don’t know, younger? But in reality, well, it is definitely the hair and it does not work. But something else seemed amiss too, and it was hard to tell, I had to see it to believe it.

I already planned on being uncomfortable the whole time

For those who don’t know why this musical, is really awkward, then hold on to your butts. Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), he has a lot of anxiety and depression issues. It is hard for him to talk to anyone. His mom (Julianne Moore) is a nurse working extra hard so they can live an okay life, still kind of poor, and his dad is away and out of the life. His therapist wants him to start writing letters to himself, from himself, about his life so they can help with strategies during sessions.

Well, Evan prints it out in the library and is waiting to get it, when another student, Connor (Colton Ryan) who is addicted to drugs and a little off, signs his cast as an apology for yelling at him earlier. But when Connor sees the letter, and it mentions Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), Connor’s sister and a girl Evan likes, he takes the note and storms out, assuming Evan was just another student trying to mess with him.

Evan’s big worry is that the note will be posted on the social medias and he will be made fun of. But Connor doesn’t come back to school. Later, Evan is brought to the principal to talk to Connor’s parents (Amy Adams, Danny Pino), where they tell him that Connor killed himself. And the only note he seemed to leave behind was a note to Evan, since it began Dear Evan Hansen and was signed by “Me”.

He originally tries to deny it, but they also see CONNOR written on his cast, and its big and the only name. They must have been friends. He is uncomfortable, but doesn’t want to disappoint these nice people, so he tells some lies about their friendship to help their grieving. But these lies also make Evan feel like he is gaining a family in their grief. And these lies begin to snowball, until eventually, the truth has to come out.

Also starring Amandla Stenberg and Nik Dodani.

Signing casts are bigger deals than promposals I have heard.

Will you be found enjoying this musical? Maybe. It might depend on your experiences and love of the Broadway version. At least five songs are cut from the musical and reprises of others. And if you ever listened to the musical, you will find it feeling a bit sparse on music already. Or maybe it is just me, since it came out the year after Hamilton which is to the brim with music so it is hard to really compare it. But this movie at 2 hours and 17 minutes feels musical-lite. Most of the songs are slow and sad ones too.

We open with a famous song (different than Broadway) and then it takes almost another 20 minutes before we get another song. Musicals not having enough songs is a big issue. Its the sort of issue some Disney musicals have where they have only like five or six songs and most of them are in the first half. If you are a musical, commit to it, and give more songs, you know? Two of the songs in here are also original, trying to get that Oscar nomination. I appreciate them actually including them instead of just stamping them on the credits at least. But neither might secure a nom either, unfortunately.

Did I cry? Surprisingly only once. It was with Moore singing So Big / So Small, and I honestly figured that would be cut too, since they cut her other song that would have been a duet with Amy Adams.

I knew going into this movie that the plot was all sorts of fucked up, and just like I thought with the musical (Which I hadn’t seen, just heard the songs from and read outlines), I don’t think it really dealt with the consequences enough. It just filters out near the end. Life moves on, that is fair point, but this is a movie and I would like some better closure.

I appreciate the movie/story dealing with some really awkward and uncomfortable circumstances. Usually if things are uncomfortable, there is a clear solution and way to handle it all, but after the ball was rolling it was hard to find both what should be done and what should happen when it starts to fix. And complications in life and film can be a good thing.

Ben Platt was a good idea to still be the lead, but I don’t know why short haired one from the musical and The Politician wouldn’t have seemed to fit in better. Or maybe just casting a lot of other older high schoolers, confuse us that way you know? Halfway through it, I did forget the weirdness of the look, I will say and let the story better consume me. I think it gets better.

And on that note, a better Dear Evan Hansen musical should have existed, and now won’t.

In 2011, a short documentary came out of Great Britain. It was called Jaime: Drag Queen at 16. It was about a boy, who by 16, knew he wanted to be a drag queen and went for it, despite living in a conservative place, and not even being an adult yet. He had a mom who helped encouraged him to follow his dreams, and follow his dreams he did, damn it.

And so then they made a British stage musical about it. It has the same name, Everybody’s Talking About Jaime. That one came out in 2017, and I guess it was loved enough, so that only three years later, here we are with a movie version of the stage musical.

A very quick turn around. Great if you love the musical, but also a little bit suspicious. Most musicals put it off as long as they can, because it usually signifies their show is almost over on its long stand, and it will help boost sales or give them an alternative revenue. For a turn around like this, I don’t know what to expect, except I am happy it came out this year. 2021 is the year of musicals, so let’s just pile them on all over me.

Pictured: Me smothered in musicals (each light is one musical this year). 

Jaime (Max Harwood) is turning 16, and is gay, and everyone knows it. Jaime is proud of himself and isn’t trying to hide it, despite the risk of bullies that exists. But what they don’t know about Jaime is that he also dreams of being famous. Not too surprising a dream for a kid, but Jaime wants to be a famous drag queen. He love’s typical women’s fashion, wants to put on a dress, wear a wig, and lip sync to some diva hit on stage.

But he keeps that a secret. His mom (Sarah Lancashire) knows that about him, and encourages him to go for his interests. His dad (Ralph Ineson) knows he is gay, and honestly, doesn’t like that. He is basically out the door and with another woman this whole time, doesn’t care about his son. Jamie’s best friend, Pritti (Lauren Patel), also knows his dreams, while she herself wants to be a doctor.

But screw it. The year is almost over, Jamie is turning 16, he wants to start being an actual drag queen, full outfit, and he wants to come out as a drag queen at the end of the year prom! While shopping, he finds a mentor (Richard E. Grant) to help guide him on his journey, while he battles bullies (Samuel Bottomley), teachers (Sharon Horgan), and more to live life the way he has always wanted.

Also featuring Shobna Gulati.

Face it kid, you’re gonna be a drag star.

I will say the same thing I say in a lot of these movies. Representation matters. There aren’t really many movies coming out, even in our modern world, about becoming a drag queen and why that is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice. Shit. In the 1990’s in a two year span, we somehow got both The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.  I can’t think of many other examples outside of them, but I am sure they exist, they just haven’t reached any level of popularity. So it is fantastic that we have a movie on this topic coming out in a popular-ish way. 

Now on this note, I am definitely saying, this movie isn’t really that great. It should be a 1 out of 4 purely on its own, but I gave bonus points for being about a topic not talked about much.

After the musical, none of the songs were stuck in my head. They have a song called Everybody’s Talking About Jaime, which might be there go to hit I guess, and the only reason it stuck with me more is because they played a different cover of it for the credits. 

Acting is average, but it felt like it could have been a made for TV movie on Freeform at the same time. The “villains” of this film started out reasonable and just turned into strange cartoon characters by the end. The math teacher really made no sense (and I am not just saying this as a math teacher myself). Outside of an art teacher once, and the principal once, she is the only teacher ever shown, and it is over and over, and apparently whatever she says is the main authority of the building.

The final scenes in front of the prom were ridiculous. Why is literally their whole class standing outside of the building instead of going in it. How many times does the teacher have to say “Everybody go inside” before it means everybody? I was confused each time she said it and the students argued with her about Jaime getting to go too, because she literally just said everyone, which should include Jaime. but apparently it doesn’t? And again, why is she this literal gatekeeper to the building and no one else? 

The film can have a great message about accepting yourself and others, but it just feels so dumb at the same time. 

For a year full of musicals, this one is not rising to the top, and it is important to point that out. It presumably couldn’t hack it on Broadway either, and that is why we have the movie now. I assume songs were cut from the musical for the movie, but it feels like it had less than ten songs overall still. Give me more musical in my musicals, damn it. 

Movies that are just the name of someone need to carry some sort of weight. Are they someone famous, like the movie Gandhi? Are they interesting sounding names, like Erin Brockovich? Or are they basic as fuck, like Joe Bell?

Joe Bell, as a film name, holds absolutely no weight. If it is a real person, you likely don’t know his name enough to remember him. If it is a made up person, then why does his name warrant the title of the film and not something more creative?

Well, it turns out the movie has this terrible title because Joe Bell is a real dude. He was a dad who decided he would walk across America, ending at NYC, to speak up and out against bullying. Because his own son committed suicide in high school due to bullying and other factors.

The other factors being things like Joe Goddamn Randy Macho Man Savage Bell.

Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg) is a bearded man who likes the sports and the ladies and working hard. He is married (Connie Britton) and has two kids (Reid Miller, Maxwell Jenkins) so he is doing alright. But then his oldest, Jadin, had to come out as gay. Joe said he accepted him and loved him, but you can tell he was still probably annoyed by this news.

After all, they are in a small town, people have their thoughts and opinions, and now Joe Bell might be judged on his own masculinity due to his son. His son being a cheerleader? Oh heck naww.

So Joe ain’t the best, but he is doing that walk thing yeah? Yeah, I guess. But he isn’t the best, and it doesn’t start out too great. He really has to fucking grow up if he is going to make this thing worth his time. Can’t just walk off your guilts.

Also starring Gary Sinise and Morgan Lily.

You can’t walk off past due speeding tickets either.

I will be honest here, I may have spoiled part of the story. The way it is described to me when I heard about this movie, is that it is that guy who walked across the US due to his son’s suicide. But films need things like that to be a secret I guess. It takes a whole third of the way through the film before they let out the knowledge that his son wasn’t alive anymore, to get a timed and prepared emotional reaction because it was haven’t trouble getting them at other points in the movie.

I am starting off really harsh there, but things like this bug me. The story is due to his son’s suicide, not just because of bullying. And as the movie let’s us know, his home life wasn’t necessarily great at all, and the movie about Joe Bell goes to great lengths to show that Joe Bell the person kind of really sucked.

It turns out there are more secrets and surprises to this story too. I wasn’t prepared for the ending, and it made me tear up as well. The film itself is broken down into flashbacks of home life, including the eventual suicide of the son. I did find the parts about the walk a bit more interesting, as it was dealing with grief, and Joe Bell was so bad at doing these talks and still figuring out how to do the right thing.

Wahlberg’s acting was fine. Britton was once reduced to a role of “wife of main character” and didn’t have a lot to work with there. Miller, as the boy in question was okay, but he was also limited on his screen time.

Honestly, this is one of those situations where you have to wonder where the priorities are at. They want to tell Joe Bell’s story, the dad’s? Not the son’s story? I mean, it gets told here as well, by telling the dad’s, but it still is just another example of making things through a straight white male hetero lens that is pretty damn frustrating for people who want more for their stories.

Joe Bell will leave you sad, aggravated, and not really loving the person Joe Bell.