Tag: Anne Hathaway

The Idea of You was watched early as a screener! It is releasing on Friday, May 2nd on Prime Video.

Solène (Anne Hathaway) is your regular 40something lady. You know, owning her own art gallery, to sell artwork, and divorced. Her husband (Reid Scott) cheated on her and was very wealthy. He cared about his career, not his family, and younger women. Really sucks.

But Solène still has a good relationship with her daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin). And on a chance encounter at Coachella (that the ex bailed on), she meets Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine), one of the singers in a boy band called August Moon.

Solène doesn’t know anything about the band, except that Izzy used to be a bigger fan (and was a fan of a different member). Hayes likes that Solène doesn’t fangirl over her and is just a strong, and yes, much older woman. And eventually, they start to see each other, travel, date, and live the life of celebrities in secrets.

But Solène doesn’t really believe what is happening to her. And can’t really trust a younger celebrity either. Plus, once the media gets news of the story, Solène is not ready to really experience fame in this way.

Also featuring Annie Mumolo, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, and Mathilda Gianopoulos.

Maybe they won’t be recognized in their sunglasses.

Romcoms, some people love them, some people hate them, some people think they are okay. That is probably everyone in those three groups.

I like the idea of romantic comedies, but I rarely like the execution of them. Something will anger me, piss me off, and I will throw it all away. Much like Hathaway’s character in this film. Look, movies need conflict and all of that sure, but it is amazing how much I hated her character at times. Her refusal to be slightly selfish and accept any amount of happiness. I hated her ex husband too, but that was the point.

Because honestly? There is a lot of cute in this movie. I have already seen Galitzine as a singing prince, so seeing him in a boy band was fine. I liked the two leads together, and the silliness of how they met, how they dated, and everything they did together. I think the chemistry is there, and the problems are abundant. I just didn’t like the off period. The first one? It made sense. Anne’s character was tripping and not committing. I agree.

The second time? Sort of ruined the ending for me too. I didn’t love the ending. And the endings are important in RomComs! (They are important in all films – Editor) And they are what make you leave the theater, or in this case, your computer with Amazon Prime on it, all giggly and happy. It just wasn’t my favorite ending, and left me more disappointed. Disappointed given how much I was interested in this weird quirky story.

I like the idea of pop stars dating regular nobodies. We should normalize that, and normalize terrorizing the paparazzi.

2 out of 4.

Locked Down was one of the first hyped movies from the year, because it is one of the bigger straight to HBO Max things out there. I honestly don’t know if this one was ever intended to go to theaters first, but this one ended up just on the internet streaming world. And it is notable because it was made during quarantine stuff!

And uhhh, sure, a few things have been made that way now. But but but….how many were released already? Exactly. I also don’t know. This one probably isn’t the first at all. Like, remember that movie Host? That came out awhile ago. And I am sure random TV shows and other stuff have had episodes post quarantine released.

Wait, why is Locked Down special again?

WEAR YOUR FUCKING MASKS!

Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Linda (Anne Hathaway) are a couple of chumps living in London in 2020, sometime around April probably. Lockdowns are happening, only essential workers can leave to go to work, or leaving for essentials, and a whole lot of meetings are in zoom.

The problem is, these two are miserable together. They aren’t really a couple anymore. There were things that happened not soon before lockdowns began, leading them to for sure breakup once convenient to have a new place and all of that, and then…yeah, they are stuck together.

Well life sure does suck. But thanks to a series of lucky and strange breaks, both of their jobs put them in a position where they have to work together and have to ship off a very expensive diamond to some crummy dude. But what if they don’t? What if they just, like, take it and send the replica instead? They could sell the real one and live happily ever after, even apart if necessary, somewhere far away. Hooray lax security.

Also starring Dulé Hill, Jazmyn Simon, Ben Kingsley, Ben Stiller, Sam Spruell, Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, and Marek Larwood.

Are they about to kiss at home? Okay, masks can be off.

Okay, quite a few things have been made during pandemic times now. Crews get completely tested, stay in bubbles, other crew member who can’t are masked up on set and social distancing, yadda yadda. But there is something unique in this one already, because it really captures that early April time frame of 2020 with the feel of it.

The world feels mostly empty, we have one of our main characters yelling poems to people on their balcony as a way of providing entertainment. There are masks and confusion of masks. There are zoom conference calls without the annoying jokes about people using zoom wrong (although would have been justified given when this one takes place, but man, those jokes are already played out). It went so well attention wise and then uhhh, I dunno, stopped at the end?

Like, during the heist, which did take place with workers at this giant department store place, and security, and people moving and packing up boxes, no one suddenly was wearing a mask? They had a big procedure of showing people coming in with masks, taking off the mask and then putting back on, but then at some point masks didn’t matter any more and I don’t know why. What the fuck happened to this continuity? Did they film that part before the actual lock downs? If so, the entire plot and reason they could attempt it doens’t make sense.

It really bugs me. And despite that strangeness, I still liked the movie. I like the build up to the heist, which is a huge portion, just not the actual heist, for more reasons than that as well. Just none of it seemed to really make a lot of sense then.

Also to talk about Ejiofor and Hathaway, oh my goodness they are wonderful together. That loath/love vibe is strong with those two, I bet they got into some real method acting before hand. Like, I don’t know what their relationship status is in real life, but I have to assume they actually lived and bugged the shit out of each other for awhile. They probably screwed and had arguments and watched sad movies. Their chemistry is off the charts and I am all for it right now.

Locked Down could have been better, was better than I expected, and I am now trying to headcanon a secret Hathaway/Ejiofor romance throughout the years.

3 out of 4.

Do you remember A Civil Action? Or maybe Erin Brockovich? Well, I will say I remember the first one a lot more. Because the latter came out when I was a bustling teenager and the only thing I remember in that film is cleavage being nominated for Best Supporting Actress, or something like that.

Either way, legal thrillers can be really fun, especially when they are fighting against people hurting the environment. Hurting the environment is something most of us can agree is wrong, and it is an easy bad guy. The corporations! And usually people are getting sick, or dying, or the land is getting ruined, and no one wants that either.

The sad news is that these cases are still happening and still real, so they can keep making movies about them. They don’t have to make fake boogeyman stories, they are really out there!

Dark Waters is the next attempt to bring a real story to public eye, so we know there is a bad guy out there, and who is trying to fix it.

And do they also know where this baby is?!Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) just got partner in the late 1990’s at a sweet Law firm in Ohio. They are probably the number one corporate chemical law firm. They protect companies in chemical law suits, from regular folks or other companies. But the number one chemical company, DuPont, has been out of their grasp as a client.

Well, Bilott comes from a small town in West Virginia, and an old neighbor of his grandma shows up at the firm one day with tape after tape of “evidence” that the landfill put up by his farm is dumping/hiding chemicals even though they said they wouldn’t. His cows are dying, their parts are mutating, they are angry, and his own family is being affected. DuPont, the largest employer in their area, is also the one in charge of this landfill.

Fun.

Bilott is not used to representing plantiffs, but he feels like he has to check it out, for his own sense of morality. And sure, after a few levels of checking, it feels like DuPont is still on the up and up. But when he continually digs, he finds out they have been hiding secrets for decades from the community and America about their products, and this quick lawsuit is going to be a several decade long affair.

Also starring Anne Hathaway, Bill Camp, Bill Pullman, Louisa Krause, Mare Winningham, Tim Robbins, Victor Garber, and William Jackson Harper.

Ruffalo does his best impression of a frog pretending to be human in this movie. Todd Haynes directed Dark Waters, and honestly, this is not the topic or type of movie I would have expected from the person who last brought us Carol a few years ago.

To me, this movie had a sort of TV movie special feel about it. The way it was shot, some awkward scenes early on for exposition purposes, it really just didn’t help me get fully into it.

Now, Dark Waters is certainly a story worth being told. It is an important case and I assume most people don’t know about it despite it affecting most households (myself included). It could become must watch material for that reason (or at least, must read for the article this movie is based off of). Maybe even just the Wikipedia synopsis at some point.

Or here: DuPont sucks. Teflon is cancer causing and bad for us. The chemical company lied for decades, helped cause diseases that killed its workers, and tried to hide it and never self regulated what the EPA demanded of it at the time. For profit. And they are still making lots of profit.

But in terms of this film, a lot of great actors are involved and feel wasted. Hathaway is way too great an actress for the angry at home housewife role. I couldn’t tell if Pullman was acting, and Robbins has maybe one good scene. I hate seeing Garber as the villain, but his scenes were pretty by the numbers. Ruffalo is definitely acting weird the whole film, and putting a lot of face work into it. I did love Camp in his role, once I could understand his heavy accent.

The film as a whole is just average. It doesn’t go hard enough and it just feels lazily put together.

2 out of 4.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Mainstream 2018 (Part 1)! Basically, the popular movies I had missed, and need to really review, or else.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

Mainstream 2018 Part 1

Alpha

In the face of this movie, I expected the worst. I thought this movie had to be a typical January release, something similar to
10,000 BC. But alarmingly, it came out in September, and when I finally got to see the movie it mostly met my expectations. It was surprisingly not amazingly bad, just regularly bad.

Gross CGI landscapes to recreate the before time, and a pretty uninspired storyline about the bringing together a “dog” and a man. The other sad aspect of this movie is that people might watch it and go, “Oh, so that’s how it happened! Domestication!” and take this movie as fact. That would be a shame. And I don’t know if people actually say that, because I barely know people who have seen it, but this straw man stands in my mind. A forgettable film, like most dog films.

1 out of 4.

Waiting for Mufasa to show up takes forever.

Crazy Rich Asians

When I first heard this title, I really assumed it was sort of a joke. I didn’t know it was based on a book of the title, or why it was called that, but it just felt off. I thought it would be some sort of exploitative film that was a comedy no one would watch, and hey, it feels good to be wrong. A romance more than anything, this is a film about an outsider being brought into the world of ridiculously rich Asian people in Singapore. So we get all of the wealth, luxury, and snide comments with some back stabbing.

On its whole, it could have been a forgettable romance film. But the lavish sets went all out to display a lifestyle most of us can only dream about, while also bringing in new cultural elements to American cinema. Having the lead be the mom from Fresh Off The Boat was great, and showed she has at least some range. The ending teared me up too. And damn it, it is great in general to see different people on our romance movies. Bring on this wave of Asian-American films, damn it.

3 out of 4.

Out of the three adjectives in the title, I’d prefer the middle one myself.

Mission Impossible: Fallout

“More Mission Impossible? I thought we were done with those,” said no one really ever. Or at least said people who hadn’t been watching them. I will go on record and say the only one I didn’t get enjoyment out of was the second one, and that one has a lot of stranger things going on. I just didn’t see them until I was already an adult, so it took me awhile to appreciate them. Because lets face it, there isn’t another successful American action franchise that is going into this level of detail and craziness for its stunts. It wants Cruise to do most of the work.

He is never going to be the level of some of our older or past martial artist stars, with the long choreographed fight scenes, but its at least a step in the right direction. This film is still exciting, but overall, it feels uninspired. It just isn’t as good as the last two modern MI movies. The stunts aren’t as sexy, even if they have bigger overall stunts. It doesn’t fill me with as much awe, and the story line just gets excessive as it attempts to continually top itself. The ending also feels really clunky and I never really feel that sense of dread that it is going for. A good attempt at an action movie, I just expect a bit more now from the franchise.

2 out of 4.

The biggest stunts are helicopters? Eh, I’ve seen helicopters before.

Ocean’s Eight

I am a huge Ocean’s Trilogy fan, and a huge Steven Soderbergh fan, and so even if the director wasn’t really involved, I was hoping to love this one. Heck, the stars are there too, with a lot of big names.

I will say it feels gimmicky, and not equal, to just go the opposite direction and make it an all female cast. It doesn’t feel natural, just like an all male heist would be with the large numbers (which is why technically the two sequels had…one woman in on the heist). In the movie, it does seem to make a lot more sense, given just the nature of the crime and the talents they needed to pull it off, so that is the good news. The biggest issue overall is just that the movie feels forgettable when it finishes. No one person stands out in acting, and the various twists to show how it was pulled off are for the most part guessable, especially thanks to the title.

I still hope they can do more. Go for it. Just lets raise the stakes.

2 out of 4.

Yep, eight people, like most of the advertising, spoiling a twist.

Tag

Finally, a film people maybe thought initially was a joke. A high budgeted comedy (and slightly action?) movie, about people playing tag, that has gone on with very specific rules for decades, and one person who never, ever gets tagged. So many stars, so little time, and such a ridiculous concept (based loosely on a real story). I wanted to enjoy it and was intrigued by the trailer. But like a lot of modern comedies, I think it really just needs a group of people or slight inebriation to really fully enjoy.

I’d prefer a comedy I can find historical alone, and this is clearly one meant for you to enjoy with your own group of friends, which is fine, but limited. Again, with a large cast, no one really feels like a standout, and some people seem to be doing the same sorts of character they are always type casted into. The ending also went a really strange place. Unexpected, sure, but something that feels almost like a complete genre switch.

1 out of 4.

Mainstream movies may be a broad title, especially when you compare them to the other quick themes I put together, but hey, its my themes suck it. I originally would have done genre, but too many films are multi-genre that I didn’t want to deal with that hassle.

Colossal is one of those films that I knew I couldn’t wait to see from the first trailer and concept leak. The idea sounded original, and originality in films is a rarity.

But it also had two of my favorite people! Anne Hathaway, who has been making a lot of stronger choices lately in her career, and Jason Sudeikis, who is normally pushed off as a side character and still rarely given his chance to shine.

So why not shine with giant monsters attacking South Korea? Who is excited? Just me?

This guy is totally excited!

Gloria’s (Anne Hathaway) life is shit. She got out of her small town to live in a big city, but she lost her sweet writing job and hasn’t found work in a year. She has been living with her boyfriend, Tim (Dan Stevens) who has had a stable job and a stable life. But Gloria has decided to spend most of her days sleeping, because she is up all night with some friends drinking, getting nothing done. Thanks to her lack of willingness to change and lies, she gets kicked out of the apartment and finds herself broke and alone.

So of course she heads back to her old home town, that she left so long ago. She can stay at her parents old place, because they still own it and it is empty. But hey, she will get an inflatable mattress and figure it out.

It doesn’t take long for her to run into an old friend, Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), who gives her a place to hang out (his bar), some house supplies, and a part time job. Heck, she gets some new friends in “crazy man” Garth (Tim Blake Nelson) and Joel (Austin Stowell).

And after a night of drinking and sleeping all morning, she wakes up to find that Seoul, South Korea got totally fucked up by a giant monster. And after few nights of attacks, she starts to notice that its mannerisms seem familiar. Could…could she be controlling the monster? But why? How? Those hundreds of dead people…

It is hard to reconcile your emotions when you know you wiped out hundreds, but no idea how.

If you watch a trailer for Colossal, it will look like a Comedy with some Sci-Fi elements, but it is so much more than that. As far as I can tell and hope, no trailer really just spoils the whole thing, but they all give the same sort of vibe.

Apparently this is the year of genre-bending films blowing me away, as this is only my 4th 4 out of 4 on the website from 2017 films, and 3 of them don’t get easily defined by one genre. Split, Get Out, and now this, all have multiple elements and tonal shifts that keep you on your feet and help reflect a grander film experience. Some would dock points off of Colossal for that, by being “scatterbrained” but that is only an issue if the film does not succeed on the multiple levels it tries to reach. But Colossal handles the later film drama extremely well, and the early film comedy/awkwardness/mystery elements.

Acting is top notch for our leads of Hathaway and Sudeikis. Hathaway made me hate her character, until it didn’t anymore (growth!), but I always hated her hair. Sudeikis had a lot more subtle great moments early on, before rising up to a level I have not seen before with him by the end.

Colossal is a film that is better the less you know about it, and I ensure you, I barely talked about any of the many intricacies of the plot. But spoilers be out there, so go out and swiftly see this film which deals with important subject matters in a rather unique way.

4 out of 4.

Let’s take a time machine back six years ago. The world was different, because not everything was in 3D. Only a few films tried out 3D, thanks to Avatar being the cash cow and visually stunning film that it was. This is when people still thought 3D was actually kind of cool if done right.

Then Alice in Wonderland came out, and it made a shit ton of money. Why did everyone rush to see it? Well, I guess Johnny Depp was a bigger deal six years ago, sure. But because it was released in 3D, so everyone went to see it thinking it would be as pretty as Avatar. It wasn’t.

And say what you will about the plot of Avatar, its story was miles better than the pile of refuse that they gave us with Alice in Wonderland. You would think making it into a bad story would be impossible, given the book. But no, instead they made a sequel to the original Alice in Wonderland, setting this one many years later, with Alice returning to Wonderland with a whole mess of new and awkwardly similar problems. It gave me problems, most of all calling the movie Alice in Wonderland, when it was a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. That is confusing.

But hey, Disney is on a live action kick. So they figured, let’s do a sequel. Alice Through The Looking Glass. This one will probably no be based on the book either, since it is a sequel to the surprise sequel. So who knows what they will fill it with hoping to be edgy. Let’s just say I am going in assuming the worst here, and that is based on a lot of precedent.

Clay? Rust? Red lava? Earthy minerals? Who cares, I am barely a geologist anyways.

The sequel takes place years after the original, Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is now a free girl, roaming the seas the captain of her own sailing vessel like her dad. She is exploring the new world and making trade agreements! It is actually quite fun. Unfortunately, when she gets back she is in a pickle. Hamish (Leo Bill), the man she turned down now runs the company. Her mom (Lindsay Duncan) has traded away the bill of her house for money, and the only way to get it back is for Alice to give up her boat and take a respectable job for a woman.

So, in the chaos, she runs through a mirror, following Absolem the butterfly (Alan Rickman) and returns to Wonderland! But things have changed. The entire gang is still friends, but the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is now the Sad Hatter. He believes his family, killed by the Jabberwocky a long time ago. It is obvious what Alice must do. If you thought look for his family, you were wrong. No, she clearly should go back in time, save them from the Jabberwocky, and bring them to the present to make him feel better. Yeah. That.

But time is a person (Sacha Baron Cohen). And grabbing the Chronosphere can cause a lot of issues. But she does it anyways, because friendship and sets off on a journey to the past to fuck shit up.

The Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and White Queen (Anne Hathaway) return, Leilah de Meza with and Amelia Crouch playing their past selves. Rhys Ifans plays the Mad Hatter’s dad and Ed Speleers are regular unimportant dude.

Also returning, the voices of Tweedledee / Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), Bayard (Timothy Spall), Thackery (Paul Whitehouse), Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Mallymkun (Barbara Windsor), McTwisp (Michael Sheen), and introducing Wilkins (Matt Vogel), a robot.

Time is a lot of things, and you will hear every last time pun I do decree!

First of all, Eye in the Sky is Alan Rickman’s real last film. This one is just voice work, and I swear, he maybe had three lines and no close ups. This does not get to count as his final film, I won’t allow it.

As for the actual movie, if you missed it this one deals with TIME TRAVEL. Time Travel is a scary subject matter. It is powerful and can make or break a movie depending on how it is adapted. I am not going to argue one theory of time travel is better than any other, because that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that a film is consistent with their version of time travel. Alice Through The Looking Glass cares not at all, changing the rules on a whim, and makes an incredible hard to follow film without a satisfying reason for making it overly complicated.

This line might be a slight spoiler, because I just want to explain their time travel. Alice finds out that no matter what she does, she can not change the past, the events still occur. That is the time travel they have set up. Until later on in the film, a character is totally able to change the past. Fuck.

Alice goes back in time to three different locations. Why? Because the oceans of time are chaotic and once she learns information, she tries to go to a different time line to change different things. The plot is moved forward by consistently bad decisions from Alice, whom is supposed to be a strong smart female lead. Not only that, because Alice seems to make the same bad decisions, her actions feel repetitive and the films seems to drag when there are easy solutions everywhere.

The ending is an incredible mess. Wonderland is falling apart because of two separate events that somehow produce the same results. But it doesn’t make sense for them to do the same thing. I will try and explain it out without spoilers.

I hope you passed algebra.

For most of the film, Problem A is happening thanks to Alice and the world is slowly falling apart. Much later in the film, Problem B, a completely different problem occurs and actually sets about the end of the world. Problem A is seemingly forgotten about. However, once Problem A is “solved”, thanks to our protagonist remembering it, it somehow undoes all of the damage of Problem B. The issue with that is there is no justification whatsoever that it should work like that. There are no mentions earlier on that if Problem B happens, it can be fixed by X. On top of that, there was no reason for Problem A to even continue late in the film, except for the fact that Alice becomes incompetent.

Finally, Alice is seen as a strong, independent woman, which is mostly true in the real world scenes where she is chased by pirates, but they reduce her to a bumbling fool in Wonderland. All of her positive traits seemingly vanish just to move the plot forward. On its own, I guess it is okay for a character to be stupid, sure.

The real issue here is that her character does stupid things, but she is still being lauded as a smart and capable heroine the entire film. To me, that seems almost more dangerous than just having a weak lead. What we need in films are actual strong female characters, not weak ones that they tell us are strong with us supposed to them at their word.

This is a bad movie and one I cannot believe was green-light by Disney. The 3D is pointless, the visuals are only great in a few places, the acting is so-so. The plot is a mess, breaks its rules (which breaks story telling rules and shouldn’t be seen as a compliment to the Madness of Wonderland), and most of the events happen thanks to stupidity and not for good plot reasons. The only thing I enjoyed was the excessive time puns and Cohen as Time.

0 out of 4.

The Interstellar hype train is so hot right now, you could light a candle off of its ass. That might not make a lot of sense, but it sounds like something Matthew McConaughey could say really sweet in his voice, so I ran with it.

But seriously. Christopher Nolan is one of the more well liked directors today. The movie has had wonderful trailers. It has the capability of being as beautiful as last years Gravity, especially in an IMAX 3D setting.

But wait. Controversy! It turns out Nolan doesn’t like the fancy IMAX digital camera nonsense. No, that man likes himself good old fashioned film and filmed a lot of movie that way. Most filmmakers prefer digital cameras, as they are actually cheaper and easier to get 3D/CGI stuff with them. But a few others think that digital film making makes the movie lose a certain artistic touch.

So it turns out Nolan has released his film in two ways. In an actual film reel, which a lot of theaters have gone away with, and digitally. Not only can you watch the film in 35 MM like normal, but he also has a 70 MM version meant for IMAX screens. Nolan wanted that reel touch to his movie, given some of the themes in it, so I can tell you the movie version I watched was film. Just didn’t get to see the film IMAX version.

Enough talk about specifications, let’s talk about space people!

This film is set in the future, where things are not looking so great. The Earth has gotten kind of pissy with the wastefulness of its citizens. Tech went too hard too fast and well, a lot of people died. Now most of their crops don’t work due to diseases, all they have left is corn.

In fact, some tech people are now looked down in disdain. They don’t need fighter pilots, they need farmers and mostly farmers. So NASA has been working in secret, looking for other planets to move to, because Earth kind of sucks. And it has been going poorly. But thanks to worm holes and higher tech, they have 3 planets to check out. They just need a sweet ass pilot.

Oh hey, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey). Now a good farmer, used to be a pilot and all, before the tech haters happened. And well, he is the only guy for the job. He is just going to be gone for a few years, not a high chance of survival, not a high chance of success either. Kind of intense odds. But he has to. But does he?

He does, after all, have family. A son and daughter (Mackenzie Foy, yes she is more important than brother enough to tag). Can he leave them behind? Or can he help save humanity?

Also starring a lot of people! Anne Hathaway, Wes Bentley, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, David Gyasi, and John Lithgow.

Oh sweet, and they go surfing. Every movie needs a surfing scene.

Intestellar, if anything, is definitely a visionary achievement. The scope is grand and intense with this movie. It is about 2 hours and 45 minutes long, leaving a lot of room for plot, exploration, and some hopefully good acting.

And there is some good acting! From McConaughey. And from Mackenzie Foy and Jessica Chastain. And uhh. After that it seems to get a bit muddled from what I can tell. Because unfortunately, I had some issues with Interstellar too.

Without going into big details, the last 25 or 30 percent of the movie felt rushed, despite the long run time. The ending was full of explanations, almost pounding your head in the wall to make sure you understood things instead of letting the movie tell the story naturally. Some extremely awkwardly acted moments came out of no where. One conflict scene came near the end seemingly out of nowhere on Earth. A character died in the laziest and most “wat? really?” way possible.

Just a bunch of minor things that ruined a little bit this very very excellent film.

Now, these are the type of minor things that one can probably normally ignore, but only in that I saw so many of them, it just made it a bigger issue. It is a beautiful film, and probably even prettier in IMAX. It tackles some complex subjects in the science field and has nice allusions to the Dust Bowl. It was certainly entertaining. It just wasn’t perfect film for me.

3 out of 4.

Rio 2. Did it need to happen? The first film, Rio, told a complete story. I don’t remember how I felt about the movie initially, but I quickly grew to hate it.

That’s right, I now hate the first Rio. The songs are terrible, the story is dumb. The songs are really really terrible. After one listen, I knew I could live without hearing them again (but of course I did hear them again). But whatever, I don’t have to dwell on it.

But it got a sequel because it made money, makes sense. Now they have a family of birds, doing family stuff, and living in Brazil full time. At least this time the plot won’t be an inability to fly.

No, this time it is an inability to be fly.

Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) and Linda (Leslie Mann), the humans, are off doing human things. Roaming the Amazon rain forest, looking for cool shit. They stumble on some cool shit, but also some bad shit. I am literally done talking about them.

Needless to say, the bird type that Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) are have a huge home in the middle of the rain forest, away from humans. I mean, after all, they had to come from somewhere right? That’s right, Hathaway actually voiced the same character for the sequel, unlike the travesty that occurred for Hoodwinked Too.

So they take their family and friends to find the lost tribe. Or whatever. Living in the Amazon! Yay! There they meet Jewel’s dad, Eduardo (Andy Garcia) and former lover I think, Roberto (Bruno Mars). Now that Blu knows how to fly, he has to learn how to really be a jungle bird if he wants to make sure his wife still loves him…?

Oh, and uhh. Nigel (Jemaine Clement) is back, wanting revenge. He also has a poisonous frog friend named Gabi (Kristin Chenoweth) who really loves him for whatever reason. And there are loggers. And there are parrots or something that share the forest with the Blue Mckaws.

All of the random ass bird and dog characters are also back (Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, and Will i Am) and yes, they serve even less of a purpose in this movie.

These two, plus ant eater, plus parrots, plus loggers, means like, 10,000 villains.

Rio 2 is a strange movie. Like I just said, there are so many dang villains, it just felt excessive. Because of that fact, Nigel didn’t have a great send off. When his plan finally came true, it all was super rushed and then the movie ended.

The music for Rio 2 was a little bit better, but not amazing still. This franchise’s problem is singability. I don’t want to go and sing any of these songs later, just like the first one. Just all of them are so erratic. My favorite song was the Poison Love in which Chenoweth goes full Broadway crazy on hitting all sorts of notes. Yes, surprisingly, her character was the funniest of the whole film. She didn’t even have that much time in the movie either it felt like.

I think, somehow they went even more stereotypical than the first movie. There is even a big soccer like match with the birds, including announcers acting exactly as you’d expect.

Everything else was ehh. Was hard to keep paying attention to the film, due to how pointless the plot lines felt. I hope there isn’t a Rio 3 in the future, doing the Olympics or whatever in a couple of years. That will be stupid.

1 out of 4.

Mini-Theme!

While watching Margot At The Wedding, I couldn’t help but think of Rachel Getting Married. They have similar-ish titles, obviously a similar theme, and are both super indie movies. How do I define indie movie? Low budget, usually very dramatic, and of course, having the camera follow a character as they walk.

Usually they follow from behind, but the side walk is also very popular.

Oh yeah, Rosemarie DeWitt. Her existence basically screams out that the movie you are about to watch is an indie film. She is the titular Rachel, and by golly, she is indeed getting married. But the movie really isn’t about her. It is about her sister, Kym (Anne Hathaway), playing a role to keep her from getting typecasted.

That is because Kym is currently checked into rehab, the drug kind, not the alcohol kind. She has been given a few days off to attend her sister’s wonderful wedding, even though there is a lot of drama in her family.

Her dad (Bill Irwin) is worried for her well being, but Kym interprets it as mistrust, not caring. Her sister ended up picking her friend to be the maid of honor, not Kym, so she dislikes that as well. Sure, Kym while on drugs got into a car accident which killed their younger brother Ethan, but why would that be a problem now? (That is a joke).

Rachel is also upset that during her wedding, a weekend literally to celebrate her, is turning into a Kym-fest, with all focus on her. Boo that.

But wait, there is more. The mother (Debra Winger) is involved as well, and isn’t even at the house the weekend of the wedding. She is only coming the day of. Yep, she has some secrets into this broken family as well.

But by the end, there are big hugs for all to enjoy!

I actually saw this movie first a few years ago (and here is a secret, I didn’t rewatch it for this review, shh. That is a first for me, okay!). I did it because at the time, I had a bit of an obsession with Anne Hathaway (still do?), so it was exciting to see her in a role that she was nominated for Best Actress in! I’ve only seen three of the movies of the five that had Best Actress in them, but I reluctantly agree that she probably didn’t deserve the win. Kate Winslet was baller that year. And since Anne got the Best Supporting Actress award a few years later, all is fine anyways.

None of this is about the movie, which moved a bit slow for my taste. Sure, it was a very different look/role for Anne, which she did do awesome at, but the film dragged on for me. I think it was 20-30 minutes too long, for the story that we actually got. The ending was a bit touching. The movie was going for realism, but by doing so, took out the entertainment factor. Although the acting was good, and the plot was relatively original, I think it lacked in enough other places for me to leave the movie disappointed.

Oh well. They can’t all be tear jerkers. I should probably hurry and watch Doubt and Frozen River to see if Kate Winslet really did deserve it that year, though. (Probably. Did you see The Reader?)

2 out of 4.

Audiences rejoice! There is finally a Les Miserables movie! Alright, so personally I haven’t been waiting a long time, just a year max. I mostly was excited about the cast! I like musicals, but never really heard the music in this one. I did give the 25th Anniversary soundtrack a listen a few times, just to be familiar with the songs, but I had no idea what was happening plot wise.

But apparently Hugh Jackman gets to sport a killer beard.

The plot? It is anything but simple. The main plot line is about Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), Prisoner 24601, getting paroled after 19 years in a post revolution France. What did he do? Stole a bit of bread. Sucks. Either way, he breaks the parole after turning his life around for God, hoping to be a better man. But breaking the parole is a another crime, meaning he must be on the run his whole life from Officer Javert (Russell Crowe) who follows the law to the letter, regardless of circumstances.

There are however many more plotlines, including the fall of a factory worker, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), into prostitution, in order to provide money for her daughter Cosette (eventually Amanda Seyfried). Well, Jean Valjean agrees to look after the daughter, but has to remain on the run. Eventually it is the 1832 Paris Uprising, which adds in a love story between Cosette, Marius (Eddie Redmayne), a freedom fighter, and Eponine (Samantha Barks). Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter provide comic relief as innkeepers/beggers, and Aaron Tveit as the leader of the student revolution.

Eddie Redmayne. Turns out he has a decent singing voice, despite not even knowing who the heck he was before this movie.

Alright, so I rushed through the plot to talk about the actual movie. Interestingly enough, the music in the movie was not done off set with the actors miming like most musicals, but sung during the shoots and recorded that way. You know, like an actual theatrical musical! It really gave the film a bit more of a raw emotional feel to it. What was more impressive in that department when they had really really long shots, so you knew that they just sang the entire song in one go. When Hathaway dreamed that dream, I cried due to the shear emotion in that song and scene.

A lot of bad talk has been given to Russell Crowe, who is obviously not a Broadway caliber singer, but I thought his unpolished voice brought a lot of personality into his role, and he felt a bit more real because of it.

But this was Jackman’s movie to win or lose, and he put on quite a performance, that sly dog. From the bearded warrior, to a mayor, to a runaway, to a freedom fighter, he is everywhere, and his performance was phenomenal.

If I had one major complaint, it would be that the ending felt a little bit hokey to me. Just a bit, still made me cry though.

4 out of 4.