Tag: Alfre Woodard

It’s the circle of life, and fifteen years after The Lion King graced our screens, we are now given a new The Lion King. But there is so much different between the two! You see, the one twenty-five years ago was animated, while this one is…animated differently!

Only one scene had some live action components, and that was in the opening montage of animals, some of the backgrounds were real. That is it. Everything else you couldn’t even call a green screen, because it is 100% made on computers.

We just really want you to make sure you don’t call this the Live Action version, like a lot of their recent remakes. It is not, it is still animated, and nothing is real anymore anyways.

Hakuna my tatas, life is a lie.

Ah good. Simba (Donald Glover) exists. Maybe this time his Uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wont trick him into thinking that he killed his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones). Oh… Think again!

No, but this time it is different. We have more animals! Like, we got this spiritual one, Rafiki (John Kani) who likes to wait around and draw on his walls. We got Nala (Beyoncé) who likes to wrestle, we got super mad Zazu (John Oliver) just trying to give advice, we got Sarabi (Alfre Woodard), mad that her husband had to go and get dead. Okay a lot of that is the same.

Uhhhh, we got Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen), and they like to relax, but this time more animals in the oasis have words too!

Oh, oh, oh, the real difference. None of our hyenas are unable to speak! Yeah that’s it. Nailed it.

Also featuring the voices of Chance the Rapper, Eric André, Florence Kasumba, JD McCray, Keegan-Michael Key, Penny Johnson Jerald, and Shahadi Wright Joseph.

“Shit, I was brought into this world just for this?” – Simba, probably.

Let’s take something people like, bring it back again, and make it worse, while also technically improving it. Because sure, the animals looked very realistic, which is what they were going for. Technology sure is wonderful.

And the realistic animals is also the cause of all of the other problems in this movie.

Because they are so realistic, having them talk looks awkward. And more awkward than talking animal films like Homeward Bound, because in Homeward Bound, they didn’t try to match words to their mouth movement, they just put voice overs. Watching the animals talk is distracting and downright wrong. The animals don’t have emotions on their faces either, so when the voice actors ATTEMPT to give emotion, then it is seemingly lost and wasted.

I do say attempt, because honestly, most of the voice acting was phoned in. People coming from the movie usually talk about Eichner and Rogen being the stars, because at least they are funny. Everyone else is super serious all the time. Sure, there are dark moments, but many characters provide laughs in the original.

However, even Rogen falls short for me, because his singing is terrible. I can’t enjoy Hakuna Matata when Rogen is bringing it down. Poor Eichner, actually singing well. Speaking of songs, whatever they did to Be Prepared will forever be seen as one of the biggest mistakes int his films history.

Now, what I am most disappointed about is this movie added almost 30 minutes of material, so I figured we’d get expanded characters. All we really got expanded was Sarabi, and that is barely. We still have a whole trove of lionesses that are just background, and still only three hyenas. No new animals to speak of and introduce as characters.

The only little bit of reprieve we get is in the oasis, where finally some random animals are also talking and adding in words, especially during the grub scene. How do we not have more of that?! It is so easy to do, and plus, more goddamn toys to sell.

Instead we got a movie with worse music, worse voice acting, technically better animation, but a lot less heart.

Originally, I was trying to avoid Mississippi Grind. I figured I could just wait a few months and get to it when I get lazy. But sure enough, this movie has earned some award nominations from the Spirit Awards, the awards for independent films. And for last years awards I did a pretty pathetic job of watching those movies. I started too late, when I was busying myself with the Oscar nominated movies, so I rarely was able to watch films from just Spirit. They needed to overlap!

Now, this film might be one that overlaps too. It might be nominated for Oscars, technically. I just don’t see it because it is such a small movie and no one seemed to care about it when it was released.

But here is a reason to care about it. Ryan Reynolds has been working really hard to release movies this year, and this is number four for him. Four films this year! All of them starring Reynolds. Not bull shit cameos, but lead man roles. I only enjoyed The Voices, because Self/Less and Woman In Gold were shit. But at least he is working hard before Deadpool comes out and disappoints us all.

You shouldn’t be willing to bet it all on comedic and financial success. That’s a shit bet.

Mississippi Grind is about Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn) and Curtis (Reynolds), two very old timey dude names. But only Gerry is old. He is a loner, divorced with a step kid, and he surprisingly likes to gamble. He lives in middle of nowhere Iowa, but he still plays small time poker games. Must have lost too many big steak hands in his past or something. Gerry and Curtis meet in one of these games, as Curtis was just driving through. He is charismatic, likes to tell stories, and likes to meet people. He doesn’t care about winning, but he is still addicted to gambling and the people. Gerry is addicted to gambling and money.

After night of friendship and drinking these two become the most unlikely of friends. And guess what, Gerry finally has someone who shares his love of gambling! Curtis invites Gerry to travel with him, towards a big poker tournament in New Orleans. Sure, they need a shit ton of money to enter it, but they will just stop at tournaments along the way, winning money and having a blast. They can do more than poker. They can bet on horses, on dogs, play craps, whatever the fuck they want.

Fuck responsibilities. Fuck jobs. Fuck old loved ones. Fuck cares. Let’s gamble and live life.

Also featuring a lot of people in smaller roles, so I will only mention Alfre Woodard, Analeigh Tipton, and Sienna Miller.

Some dudes too I guess. But who cares about those fucks.

I feel like I know Curtis and Gerry, I really do. These strangers met and talked and hung out, and I feel like I was maybe the third, silent stranger on their trip, laughing, yelling, and doing dumb shit. You could probably say that for most movies, as you are always watching them, but for some reason it feels a bit personal with these two shitheads.

I call them shitheads of course, because I am an asshole, and addictions are a real thing. But they just cannot stop gambling and they bet on everything. They bet on their last $100. They bet with other people’s money. They steal and lie and keep on going. They are despicable people, but despicably your friends.

I think Mendelsohn and Reynolds did some top notch acting. They were very believable, and Reynolds wasn’t stuck just playing some pretty boy.

The biggest downfall would have to be the story. It is one we have all heard before, in a way, and there are definitely better gambling films out there. But the simpleness ends up being one of its strengths, when you realize gambling is only part of the film, with the people being the main part.

Potential spoiler? I was worried this movie would turn out being like Fight Club but with gambling. It wasn’t. Everyone was real. That’s good. A Fight Club twist would have been terrible.

Horror sequels are a hard beast to tackle. Horror spin-offs are another entity altogether. In fact, I literally can’t think of a single one.

After all, having a successful horror franchise is the goal of many horror films. They hope they are scary and unique enough to warrant coming back to. They might even take over completely unrelated projects and just take on the same name in order to live off the hype. But a spin-off? Really.

The Conjuring was a great movie. Most people would agree with that. Eventually we will get a sequel to that, but until then, we get franchise spin-offs based on things we see in The Conjuring. I guess. And honestly, an Annabelle movie talking about her origins before The Conjuring made sense. As long as it isn’t identical to Chucky, and as long as it is entertaining, then bring it on.

I hope they answer how any one could even want this ugly thing in their house.

Annabelle takes place a year before the events of The Conjuring. It is centered on John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis). Yes. The main female character is actually named Annabelle. The couple are expecting their first baby soon, and as a gift, John gave Mia the final piece of her doll collection. It cost a lot of money! And it looked creepy before getting all disfigured.

Unrelated to a doll, two members of a cult come by, murder their neighbors, then attempt to murder Mia and her unborn child! But the police show up and save the day, killing those darn cultists! The lady cultist bleeds on the doll, and apparently that is enough to invoke Satan, demons, and other terrifying things.

Needless to say, the doll starts doing some creepy stuff. But the baby is still born, so don’t worry about that! Just…What does this doll want? Hopefully not cuddles. With a new baby in the mix, I sincerely doubt there is time for cuddles.

Also featuring Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola and Eric Ladin.

Let this be a lesson parents: Never get your child hooked on dolls. It only ends with Satan.

I think I am starting to realize why horror spin-offs don’t really happen or work. Based on all of the ones I have seen (all one), they don’t make a lot of sense in the plot department.

The could make a lot of sense, but that requires caring about the plot and the movie they came from. But based on the ending, there doesn’t seem to be a real reason for why Annabelle matters at all after this movie. Based on the mythos they created for the character and then explained in great detail throughout this whole movie, it should be over.

Now we have this movie and The Conjuring that both don’t do a good job of explaining why she still matters at all. And that is dumb.

Speaking of dumb, the ending in general of this movie was done. And the beginning and middle, but for different reasons.

I can’t believe they created a nonsensical and non-unique evil doll character. What a waste of time. I can’t believe we have to associate this with the awesome The Conjuring from now on.