Tag: Music

Before I forget to fit this scene in naturally, please watch this clip from the 2009 film Black Dynamite: here. It is about Little Richard! And so is this documentary.

I have been pretty excited to watch this one as soon as I heard about it. I missed it when it came by for Make Believe Seattle, but thankfully it is also getting released in many cities around the USA, so the opportunity didn’t leave me in the dark for too long.

What is not to like and want to learn about Little Richard? A famed musician, who helped invent Rock ‘n Roll, who was known for being gay, at a time when he could be jailed just for being black.

I go into this documentary acknowledging that I am pretty dumb on this subject, so I am excited to be enlightened.

Don’t ask me to name more than 1 Little Richard song, please. 

To be fair, I didn’t know how open Little Richard was about his sexuality. Specifically, I assumed he had kept things private in that regard, because it was the 1950’s. But it wasn’t like a big secret. He talked about it in interviews, on the road, on stage, and a lot of places. He was also very fluid, he wouldn’t let sexuality stop him from having relationships with whom he wanted to pursue. I mean that in the least creepiest way of saying that.

He was a man living his life the way he wanted to live it.

One of the most exciting things I learned from this documentary were the original lyrics and purpose of the song Tutti Frutti. Which I will not spoil in this review. But obviously you can look that up without the documentary, if you really wanted to know.

There is a lot more to learn about Richard in this documentary, how he got his start, how he kept his success, and the strives he overcame. And honestly, that is about it. I don’t think it ever really went on a bigger, deeper dive on the subject. There weren’t big hidden secrets uncovered. It was just a lit on the normal level by the end. And hey, that is fine. I did learn some things. I just thought I would get a little bit more by the end as well.

2 out of 4.

(dis)HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Here are the other films this year I gave a 0 out of 4 to, in no particular order: A Week Away, Dave Chappelle: The Closer, F9, Rumble, Sensation, Taking A Shot At Love, The Boss Baby: Family Business, The Ice Road, The Never List, The Retreat, The Unholy, and Zeroes and Ones.

15) Secret Magic Control Agency

Why is it on the list? With so many terrible movies, why does this animated movie make the list instead of a new Boss Baby? Well, for one, this movie is lazy. It makes Hansel and Gretel the main characters. Why does every Grimm brothers story adaptation need to have them as the lead? Are they even trying? This one started to do something different, by having them being adults and having some angst in their past. Cool. Grown ups. Then nope, convoluted plot later, they also are now going to be kids to solve this boring ass mystery. The animation is poor, the story is extremely poor, and at no point was enjoyment derived.

Worst moment? The logic that a great trained spy needs to work with a criminal to save the day.

Any Worst Awards? Worst use of Grimm brothers material in 2021. (This was hard to come up with).

14) The Addams Family 2

Why is it on the list? I certainly didn’t like the first film, The Addams Family, but it had a couple of nice moments. Some clever stuff. The animation style threw me off, and it didn’t feel like they tried too much. The sequel is worse. It goes through a classically boring plot line of “what if one of them isn’t actually a family member,” when we all know they are. It is a plot line that has no pay off, and oh what is that, a road trip movie as well? Fan-fucking-tastic.

Worst moment? I am pretty sure this is a movie with a science fair with a volcano again, so I am picking that by default.

Any Worst Awards? Worst animated sequel film of 2021.

13) Caged

Why is it on the list? Even if you have never heard of them before, low budget shit movies are still shit movies. Caged is a story about a guy in jail, for murder, and then specifically about solitary confinement. He gets harassed by guards, we have flashbacks to exactly one scene on a boar between him and his wife, and then he starts to hallucinate and freak out. But honestly, this is one of the situations where the ideas behind this movie aren’t terrible, but the execution is a barely a whisper. The lighting, the visuals, the sounds, it just draws to a horrible experience for the viewer. No, it is not putting us in his situation, it is just putting me in a situation where I have to strain to tell what is going on and I have determined nothing worth my time.

Worst moment? The very slow flashback on the boat, that kept returning.

Any Worst Awards? Worst prison sentence of 2021.

12) Narco Sub

Why is it on the list? There is a good chance you haven’t heard of Narco Sub, and there is a better chance some biases affected this pick. The director at this point had only been known for doing mostly music based films, with dancing and weird graphics, or short films. None of which I would say made a whole lot of sense. This is the first example of making a longer film, but it is also an action film with explosions and drugs, hooray!  Unfortunately, or, as expected, the plot of this film makes very little sense. The characters actions are questionable, the fact that they even feel the need to do this strong war on drugs at this point is questionable. The payoff by the end is not worth any reason to keep watching it.

Worst moment? I tried to block it all out of my mind, but I remember some mansion scene at the end with the finals deaths, so definitely that one.

Any Worst Awards? Worst drug busting of 2021.

11) Tom & Jerry

Why is it on the list? I am never someone who got behind the idea of Tom & Jerry as an amusing idea. Jerry is a pompous dick. He is a mouse in some person’s house, who doesn’t want a mouse stealing the food and damaging the interior, and the cat is supposed to help get rid of it, but when Jerry succeeds it is awesome? Damn, Jerry, go to a different house. In the movie it is more of the same. For some reason they have animosity, and once again, Tom has to get the mouse out of the house. But this time it is a fancy hotel, with guests, and standards, that don’t include damn mice in the kitchen. Arguably even worse standards. But what makes this film actually terrible is to take cartoon physics and violence and put it in the real world, with almost no consequences. Sure, they show the damage that a giant fight dust cloud makes, but it seems in a world where these cartoon animals just exist and are okay with each other’s existence, somehow these two cause giant danger messes. Honestly, the wanton violence and destruction was so odd in this film, and it even turned my kids off from watching. I am also annoyed I can’t call this the worst film that had animated and real life people together.

Worst moment? Jerry destroying tom’s piano. He was using that to make money. He was a cat who could play piano!

Any Worst Awards? Second worst animated/live action film. Worst animated film based off of Hanna-Barbara.

10) Vanquish

Why is it on the list? Vanquish is a film that apparently actually went to theaters last year in April. It very quickly went to VOD on after that, and then everyone promptly forgot it existed. Honestly, I think if we didn’t have the weird theater situation last year, this one would have gone straight to VOD because no one would care to see it in theaters. Morgan Freeman in a film is a sure sign that things aren’t going to be great, and Ruby Rose seems to do a lot of roles to show that she can’t act. So why not combine the two into a dumb plot where her daughter is kidnapped and in danger unless she goes and takes out all these people in one night. Sigh. None of this film feels original, it is just the same old shit.

Worst moment? The ending twists, that everyone can see miles away.

Any Worst Awards? Worst action-drama film of 2021.

9) Karen

Why is it on the list? Because of course it is on the list. Karen is a BET channel exclusive, that wanted to make a Jordan Peele movie with no subtext, no good acting, and everything is entirely on the nose, including constant metaphorical winks. Having a white woman named Karen be racist and call the cops on people doing no wrong? Great, works well. But damn the hyper level overacting, like a soap opera on steroids, turns what could be a great thriller idea into a mess where everyone will just laugh at it and mock it relentless as it scrolls across the screen. Maybe that sounds like a good time, sure, but it is still a bad film. And why does she look like a Wayan’s brother is wearing her face as a mask?

Worst moment? The party crash scene was particularly cringe, but so was the calling of the cops.

Any Worst Awards? Worst white bitch of 2021.

8) The Hitman’s Wife Bodyguard

Why is it on the list? Coming from someone who didn’t love The Hitman’s Bodyguard, for a myriad of reasons, I am honestly shocked they could make a sequel that somehow felt a lot worse. I am not saying that shifting the focus to Salma Hayek‘s character and increasing her screen time is bad. They just did everything somehow worse. One of the only personality traits Ryan Reynolds had was his strict focus on safety, and after one movie of keeping it, they threw it out the window in this one. Once again, we have a terrible plot for our characters, and everything is a loose explanation between bad comedy scenes and average action scenes. And for some reason, Morgan Freeman shows up again, which as I already stated is a bad sign. They really kept his appearance under wraps, its because people know it would lessen the film.

Worst moment? The adoption scene.

Any Worst Awards? The worst action film, the worst action-comedy film, and the worst Morgan Freeman of 2021.

7) Music

Why is it on the list? Hey look, Sia directed a movie. Oh no, Sia really directed a movie and made a lot of decisions. For whatever reason, in this movie, she decided she needed the main character to be quite Autistic, nicknamed Music, and listening to songs all day. And then we get a normie family member who has to take care of her, and so we have a film about a person struggling to deal with someone with Autism, and less about Autism in general. Maddie Ziegler, who Sia puts in everything she can, plays Music, and goes into some very uncomfortable territory with what feel incredibly offensive. When this was all pointed out to Sia, and that they could have actually hired someone with Autism, she instead attacked her fans and made a movie she wanted. It had a lot of fun colorful song/music videos, which seems to be the real point of the film, stuff that we see in Music’s head. And it decided to offend everyone in the process.

Worst moment? Learning how to properly tackle and take down Music if she needs it?

Any Worst Awards? Worst musical, worst film about disabilities, and worst director backlash of 2021.

6) The Kissing Booth 3

Why is it on the list? Honestly, I am more surprised at how I thought five films were somewhat worse. Let me change the order real quick….no it is fine. The Kissing Booth 2 ended up with my worst film of 2020, for all the reasons anything is a bad move, and I wouldn’t really describe 3 as a better film though. The only reason it isn’t “as bad” is because this one objectively has an ending which notably the second one lacks an ending. The same cast of characters, making more confusing stories and moments where our lead absolutely has no boundaries with those she finds to be friends and lovers. And we have people practically stalking her to win her over? That shit ain’t cool. Get this child written nonsense out of here.

Worst moment? Mario Kart, a new list approaches, and the fact that this movie doesn’t end with all the characters in an orgy, since it seems to be going that direction this whole trilogy.

Any Worst Awards? Worst romcom, worst romance, worst “third film” in a franchise of 2021.

5) Space Jam: A New Legacy

Why is it on the list? Is the original Space Jam movie good? Probably not. But it certainly has some level of heart. It keeps things relatively focused on the Looney Tunes characters, and their attributes. It had, mostly low stakes, and only affected Michael Jordan and the Tunes. So what does the sequel do? Well, it first has an extremely similar plot, but HIGHER STAKES. (It also has characters both acknowledge with some jokes of the similar plot, while also not really acknowledging that the events in Space Jam happened, just to keep us confused).

Now, millions of people might die. Now we have all of these WB properties as cameos. At the same time, we have a game that doesn’t matter or has to happen. It just takes Lebron talking to his kid and being honest about what the App is trying to do, and they wouldn’t play the game, everyone could go home and they can be good. But no, we get a shitty sports game where LITERALLY the points are all made up. And at that point, there is nothing to root for. We don’t have any traditional rules to follow. It is just something that resembles basketball, with no real way to tell what one side has to do to win. That isn’t fun. That is confusing.

Worst moment? To be specific, it is when WB made a movie that wanted to have a humor and plot to appeal to kids, and stick it full of references to films before the year 2000 that a lot of them haven’t seen, to appeal to adults, who will hate this movie. And the background members of the audience.

Any Worst Awards? Worst movie with a mix of live action and cartoon characters, worst sports movie, worst sports cameos, worst film cameos, and worst movie dad of 2021.

4) God’s Not Dead: We The People

Why is it on the list? I am pretty sure every film in this franchise has made my worst of the year list, but surprisingly, never been the worst film. They all have similar problems, so it feels repetitive to write about it at this point, but still important. This is a franchise that wants to make big political statements with religious characters, to show that religious values are being attacked in the USA and the law is out to get them. The war on Christianity is real. They usually have real law cases in question in the credits that relate to the events in the film. And finally I checked them for this one. None of them match what is going on in this film. All of these law suits are generally about families who are suing school districts for teaching their kids they don’t want them to learn, or for being accepting of gays and trans kids. They let that moment out of the bag near the end of the movie with a big rant too, about evolution and gender. Is this what this about? Really? These films just make straw man arguments, make anyone not religious as a bad guy, and basically cartoon character villains who just want to oppress the fuck out of everyone.

Worst moment? Ending rant and the Muslim girl subplot finally returning from the first film.

Any Worst Awards? Worst fourth film in a franchise of 2021. And every other award I could give to this movie, instead will go to the number 3 film.

3) Roe v Wade

Why is it on the list? Oh? A movie about the supreme court case of Roe v. Wade that went to the Supreme Court and made sure that everyone in the United States needed to legally have access to abortions as a medical procedure. Surely nothing can go wrong with this.

Ohhh. Well. Sure. If they make a movie that is just highly propaganda for the Henry Wade side of Roe v. Wade. Henry Wade was a district attorney in Dallas, because Texas outlawed abortions and made it a criminal case for doctors. This went to the Supreme Court, and the rest is history. A history that is slowly but surely being ticked away and made more and more bare so that eventually it will be overturned, and then one group of people can celebrate the oppression of women in the United States. Where depending on where you live, you might have more rights than another state, in a country people call full of freedom.

Honestly, this movie was just disgusting. They made the lawyers look gross on the Roe side, the client look inept, doctors who did abortions as greedy/evil and also Jewish. This film that was made before 2018 actually, had a lot of names signed on who walked out, including the director, realizing this was a biased trash film that existed purely to attack women making a hard decision, and adding more unnecessary public pressure to not allow women choice. It feels like a follow up to Unplanned, but it turns out those were different people involved.

Worst moment? The behind the scene dialogues from the supreme court that no one would know, and the abortion jingle.

Any Worst Awards? Worst religious film, worst drama, worst political film, worst use of washed up celebrities, and worst piece of propaganda of 2021.

2) Earwig and the Witch

Why is it on the list? I remember seeing Earwig and the Witch relatively early in the year. It is the first CGI film from Studio Ghibli and it was a big deal. At the same time, it should be considered a big deal for how BAD it was. It is a film with a orphan who is probably a witch, getting adopted by a witch purely to be a cleaning hand in their house. This girl is absolutely the worst, getting in trouble on purpose wherever she goes, complaining, and whining. And you know what? She doesn’t change the whole movie. She wins what she want and is a brat the whole time. When her missing mom finally shows up, the film unexpectedly ends. The whole movie sounds like it was meant to be 25 minutes long and an introduction to a more interesting movie. Instead, it is drawn out, has bad morals, has a trailer that absolutely makes it look like a very different focused film with a musical element, and definitely the worst ending of a movie the whole year. I knew when I watched it that it had to be near the top worst endings ever, and it kept its pedestal the whole time.

Worst moment? The ending.

Any Worst Awards? Worst magic, worst bratty child, worst pet, worst trailer, worst ending, and worst animated film of 2021.

1) The Terrible Adventure

Why is it on the list? I think I developed actual pains watching The Terrible Adventure. You go in expecting it to be about a bad trip, not realizing that the bad trip was actually the decision to watch this film. It was clearly made on a shoestring budget. The audio is off throughout the film. I feel like most, if not all characters had to redo their dialogue after the fact, so it the sounds/words said don’t always match the mouth movements. The director cast his own kids in this film, that is hardly about environmentalism, and more about nepotism.

The kids are meant to be smart, so that they can solve these puzzles to win a hidden prize. However, they don’t come across smart in their actions and the puzzles are either so obvious, or so out there that of course only the “smart” characters can get it, when in reality it is just gibberish. The contest itself makes little to no sense. We have the dad character being abused by his ex wife, as she yells at him and physically throws objects at him, with the daughter just laughing to the side like this is normal. The ice cream bad guys are worse than cartoon characters. They are just nonsensical plot clouds that float around, sound strange, and interact with the characters when the writer decided them to, whether or not it made sense. There was one guy who I think imitated being Hispanic, which they all probably thought was hilarious for him to put on an accent, ignoring their own shitty racist decisions.

I can’t believe how bad this film was, nor could I believe the high ratings. This is what happens when you make a movie that no one sees, except your friends and family, and all the friends and family love it because they know the people involved.

Worst moment? (Gestures around wildly at the whole thing).

Any Worst Awards? Worst casting, worst comedy, worst villains, worst riddles, worst plot, worst casting again, and worst film of 2021.

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site!

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

Hey look, its the movie Music! You know, the one recently nominated for some golden globes? It received a nomination for both Best Musical or Comedy and a nomination for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. That must be why everyone is talking about it, right? Right?

Oh wait, no. That is…anger I see and hear on the internet. Probably more anger than I have ever seen from any film nominated before. And wow, those IMDB ratings are super low. And (checks my own rating), wow, a 0 out of 4. I don’t know if I have ever given a 0 out of 4 to anything nominated for Best Film. That is pretty bizarre and rare.

What could have people (and myself) so up in arms about a simple movie, directed by Sia, our favorite wig wearing singer?

“Shhh, don’t listen to the haters, you are wonderful.” – Sia, probably.Zu (Kate Hudson) is recently out of incarceration and living on her own. She used to do drugs (a lot of drugs) and also sell drugs (a lot of drugs) and that got her put away from some time. She is on the mend, on the rehab, and is clean, but her life is still a bit poop.

Her sister’s name is Music (Maddie Ziegler) and she, in fact, loves music. She is also a mostly nonverbal autistic girl living with her mom in a small apartment. She always has headphones on and is listening to music (way to pick a good name as a baby, I guess), and able to go about her day. She can do a whole lot on her own, she can leave the home, go on walks, and all of that, no issues! Unless her life suddenly changes or something alters her schedule. Like when their mom dies.

So now Zu is brought in to take care of her sister, and gains any and all rights over her. She doesn’t think she can “handle her” and wants out of it as soon as she can, but also, family, you know. And since Zu is still very much mostly in on the drug selling game, it is not like her job is friendly towards those with “problems” they might have at home.

Also starring Hector Elizondo, Ben Schwartz, Sia, and Leslie Odom Jr.

There is a Tropic Thunder reference I can’t make anymore that applies here.Very briefly, let’s talk about the backlash this film had regardless of how the actual film was. A lot of people, especially autistic people, had a problem with Sia casting Ziegler as a nonverbal high level autistic girl, instead of actually going with an autistic actress who could better represent the community. People were quick to point this out when the trailer dropped, and Sia went totally “I am a bad director” at them and argued with people on twitter, and didn’t listen to the people affected, and changed her story several times about what is going on and just full on ape shit rude.  She has been famous for decades, so she certainly should be above any of that by now and went to the deepest levels of not giving a fuck about others.

A lot of what was said and spoken out against has points. It would be different if it is was just a low level of autism, but Ziegler went really really far into the spectrum with her acting, so the whole thing shows as mocking and uncomfortable. The entire film.

It is very clear Sia just loves working with Ziegler and wants her in every project she does, given their relationship in music videos for the last decade. This film seems to actually exist to create more fun and colorful videos to Sia songs. I lost count how many times it happens, more than five. I believe they are to represent what Music’s reality looks like, as it features the people in her life, and singing and dancing and elaborate costumes. It is all very much on Sia’s brand. I guess that is Sia stating that she pictures her music videos as an autistic girls reality fuel? I don’t know.

But back to more of the movie. We have an insulting performance by the lead, a main plot that is basically having to “deal with family members that need help” and the burden of autism, and a shit ton of Sia music videos that thematically are repetitive. She claims to be woke and trying to represent the autism community, but she is doing it by failing to represent the actual autism community. Hell, there is even a line where they decide to culturally appropriate spirit animal and no character on screen is there to correct it.

Look, this film is problematic in its obvious (and Sia agrees) ableism that is being shoved in the viewer’s faces. There are plenty of reasons to avoid it for all of that. But the film itself is also a really bad movie and completely should be blasted on that front as well. And for something like the Golden Globes to nominate it? Well, awards are usually bought anyways.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to listen to the long version of Breathe Me one last time and be annoyed that this basically puts a dark mark on the absolutely perfect ending of Six Feet Under as well.

0 out of 4.

This is one of the many reviews that have come out of WorldFest in Houston. Check the WorldFest tag to see them all!

Opening the festival was Blaze. Now, last year the opening film was LBJ and about a famous person I actually heard about before, with bigger names attached, and a goddamn amazing director.

This one is about a vague country star who never reached his full famous potential, died pretty young, and is directed by Ethan Hawke, who has not done a lot of directing.

This is a good film for a biography, because I would rather learn a shit ton about someone who I haven´t heard everything before. Biographies should actually teach us about new people things. That is, assuming their story is actually worth hearing. I´m looking at you boring biographies about famous people that are just…well, shit.

Oh cute, matching outfits with no one around to say its cute.

Blaze Foley (Ben Dickey), or Michael if you knew him before he was trying to become a famous singer, had a soul that was built for telling stories. These stories were generally musical in nature, which made it a good thing that he also could play that guitar. He had a life of growing up with song, thanks to his family being part of a traveling family band.

The story that we hear about in Blaze is his whole adult life’s tale. About how he met his future wife, Sybil (Alia Shawkat), a Jewish actress who appreciated the woods as much as this large cowboy. In fact, they lived in a shack in the woods for several years rent free, living off the land and no electricity.

We get to see him moving to the big cities with the intention of selling his tunes and making it famous in the country music scene. Including leaving his wife behind to tour with a friend (Josh Hamilton) in an old truck down the south. And also their move to the bigger city of Chicago to tackle the blues crowd, since he figured his music was sort of country and the blues, given how sad they all were. We also get to see him get a record contract, and coincidentally, let that all go to shit as well.

This is all juxtaposed with his final concert, which was recorded life, the day before he was shot and killed protecting a friend.

Also starring Wyatt Russell, Sam Rockwell, Charlie Sexton, Steve Zahn, and Kris Kristofferson.

Life is like being on the back of a truck. You know, fast and no seat belts.

Blaze is a slow burn, which is not what the title implies. Blaze implies a film where everything happens quickly and maybe even burns out, well before it should have. Which is a good metaphor for Blaze the person. But is it a metaphor if its his name? I don´t know how hyperboles work.

The film telling the story interlaced among big moments, early moments, and still ending with the natural ending was a great choice. Getting to hear his ¨friends¨ tell stories about his life provided a great tool for exposition, and the fact that the rest was presumably based on his wife´s book of his life gave it a very personal touch.

As a music fan, I can say it was a bit of a low point for me. I never was really engaged in the many songs sung, as they were all so slow and soulful, and felt more akin to background music while the stories unfolded. Hard to change the music if it is based on a real source though.

Overall the story just felt okay to me. The reason it ended with such a high rating though was due to the acting, especially from Dickey and Shawkat. I don´t actually know Dickey from anything else, but he transformed into this Blaze character, along with all of his imperfections. It never felt like an actor, it just felt like this artist I was completely unaware of.

Blaze is well acted, and tells the story of someone you also likely don´t know. It is debatable if it is a story that needs to be told, but hey, they told it anyways.

3 out of 4.

I have been to New Jersey, I have seen people free style, but I have never, ever, been in a drive by.

There is my bad intro joke to talk about Patti Cake$. After I saw the trailer for this film, I assumed it would be culturally insensitive. I figured it would be a cliche coming of age story or a film about a group of misfits succeeding against all odds.

And yeah, it is definitely a little bit of both. Whoops.

Oh shit, did we get an Ali G cameo?!

Patti aka Patti Cakes$ aka Killa P aka…a lot of other nicknames (Danielle Macdonald), is a woman living with her mom (Bridget Everett) and her grandmother (Cathy Moriarty) in a small, poor community in Jersey. She has small part time jobs, but a lot of her money goes to paying bills for her family and medicine for her nana.

Patti’s mom was going to be a big singer in the 1980’s, everyone loved her, but then she got pregnant. Now she is basically nothing, getting wasted on karaoke night, spending more time in the bathroom than on the stand. And Patti? Well, she is a big rapper.

I mean physically, because she certainly isn’t famous. She can freestyle, she can spit the lyrics out, but she is still a bit afraid to perform, and no one takes her seriously, because she is fat and white. The only person who believes in her is Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay), a pharmacist, who wants to be a producer. They are often looking for ways to break out, and Patti thinks there future lies in Basterd (Mamoudou Athie), an anarchist who lives in the woods alone and who, yes, can also create some sick tunes.

Also starring McCaul Lombardi and Patrick Brana.

Oh yeah, the last missing piece of their group was Nana.

Dealing with the cultural insensitivity of this film is a hard one. A lot of people don’t take Patti seriously, because she is a white girl trying to rap, and it is not in her culture to do so. Yes she is poor, living in a very small house that is abusive, where music is a big part of her upbringing, and she has way too many responsibilities for her age, but she is still a white chick. Stories where a white person tries something that is technically part of a desensitized race in America, and then flourishes? Yeah, that is all sorts of fucked up. A character uses the term Culture Vulture in this film to describe her, which paints a perfect picture of how it looks to the outside world.

The good news is that she doesn’t bust into the rap game and change the world. She is given a lot of shit and rightfully so. She has had a shit life, but it doesn’t mean she should automatically go and win all the prizes and take what was not originally hers. I enjoyed that it wasn’t a standard film in that regard.

The music of course I have no interest in hearing, but the relationships between the characters is where it mattered most. This ends up being a story about a girl and her mom, their inability to see eye to eye about anything. The relationship between her and her best friend didn’t feel natural. The relationship between her and Basterd was very interesting, but again, something that just seemed forced.

Patti Cake$ has some interesting moments throughout it, but a laughable premise with quite a bit unexplained reasons for why she and her friends can stand each other. However, I saw this movie over a month ago, and I can still remember parts of their main song. So if anything, it has a catchy hook to it.

2 out of 4.

At the time of writing this introduction, Baby Driver was listed on Wikipedia as a British-American action crime comedy jukebox musical film, and when I first read that my heart skipped several beats. I am now dead. [Editor’s note: I have gotten better, and the Wikipedia article has since been shortened.]

Those genre’s together just seemed too good to be true, and it was. Because a jukebox musical means, 1) It is a musical, and 2) That the songs that the character sing already exist and come from the charts. But I knew this wasn’t a musical, just a film that really, really, really, loved music. Music that yes, at different times, may have hit the charts. And even if the main character sings some of them, they still don’t qualify it as a musical.

Which is sad, but I am mostly certain no one will turn a plot like this one into an actual musical. Or at least, not for film, but you never know with Broadway turning out 2 or more “Movie title, the musical!” films a year.

“Elevator, the musical!” is coming up and down this fall.

Baby (Ansel Elgort) loves music. It is a major part of his identity, there are always earbuds in his ears with an iPod playing a song to help the situation. When Baby was a kid, his parents got into a car accident with him in the back seat. They died, he survived, and he gained an ever persistent noise in his ears that won’t go away. The music helps dull it out.

Baby unfortunately got into some trouble. He became very good at cars, being one of the best drivers around despite his young age. But one day, he messed with the wrong man, Doc (Kevin Spacey), and lost a lot of his merchandise. And now, to pay Doc back, Baby has been the driver for several bank robberies in the greater Atlanta area, with his share always going towards his payment. But as soon as he pays off Doc, he wants out. He just wants to drive and be free, he definitely doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Baby works with criminals, however. And criminals can be erratic and put his family in danger. His family being his foster dad (CJ Jones), who is now in a wheel chair, deaf, and needs a lot of attention. And Deborah (Lily James), a waitress at a diner he frequents who shares his passion of music and is generally a free spirit. So when the criminals start doing bad things, it is Baby’s duty to get out of it while protecting those he cares about.

We have quite a few criminals played by actors like Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal, Jamie Foxx, Eiza González, Flea, and Lanny Joon. Also featuring Sky Ferreira and Hal Whiteside.

Everyone knows that diners are the best place to go for music and pie.

Baby Driver, from start to finish, will keep you on the edge of your seat and the edge of your car seat as well when you are heading home. Don’t watch this movie during the day, because you will want the roads empty so you can blast music and drive (responsibly) maybe a little bit faster. It will take over you, especially if you are a movie goer with varied music tastes.

Elgort has been in quite a few teenage romance / young adult films. The Fault in our Stars, Paper Towns, Divergent, even the Carrie remake. But Baby Driver is finally his jumping off point into something greater than all of his parts before combined. He is now part of a cinematic masterpiece, playing a role unlike his other characters, and hopefully will lead him to a lot of better roles in the future. Elgort might be a star, especially lucky after he didn’t get the Star Wars gig.

The cinematography, the action, the variety of characters, the dialogue, and of course, the music, make Baby Driver a must see film. I especially appreciate at how diverse the music ends up being, from all sorts of decades and genres. In addition to that, having the action FIT the music is an incredible achievement and allowed me to sit in my seat in awe.

I can’t talk enough about how wonderful an experience Baby Driver was. It is a film that I want to see again in theaters and will pick up on Blu-Ray day one of its release.

4 out of 4.

Sing is the last animated film I need to review that is a major US release!

I will be honest that I wasn’t really looking forward to Sing at all. It is the fourth anthropomorphic animals major release this YEAR (After Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and The Angry Birds Movie), in a year where we also had regular talking animal movies as well (Finding Dory, Storks, Ice Age: Collision Course, Norm of the North, The Secret Life of Pets). Fuck.

Basically everything is about talking animals this year. Moana and Kubo and the Two Strings aren’t fully about that, and that might be why they are my favorite two of the year. The only really big animated films I can think of are Trolls (talking magic things) and Sausage Party (talking food). 2016 wasn’t the most creative film year, and it is sort of a huge let down for animated films.

Oh but wait! This isn’t a talking animal movie! This is a singing animal movie. With a lot of popular songs being sung by animals, reminding me of recent very bad animated jukebox musicals. Please be better to me 2017.

The face you make when your realize Cars 3 is coming out in 2017.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is a koala bear who fell in love with the theater as a kid. With the help of his father, he earned enough money to buy the theater and produce shows for hundreds more to fall in love with! But now, years later, he is far in the red, unable to pay his crew, or the bills, or his loans. He is friends with Eddie (John C. Reilly), a lamb son of a rich family, but even they won’t bail him out now.

But he has an idea! Singing competitions are all the rage, so he wants to host a local one, only featuring regular people that they all know and want to show off their talents. He will give the winner a $1,000 prize and hopefully get enough money to get back in the black. But his assistant (Garth Jennings) accidentally puts a $100,000 prize, putting the whole town into a frenzy and driving up expectations through the roof.

And our contestants are of course all over the map. There is Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), a stay at home pig mom of 25 kids with a husband who is overworked. Johnny (Taron Egerton), a gorilla from a crime family who doesn’t really want to steal. Meena (Tori Kelly), a young elephant who has extreme stage fright. Mike (Seth MacFarlane), a old timey street musician mouse who just wants money and fame. Ash (Scarlett Johansson) and Lance (Beck Bennett), a hedgehog teenage rock duo, but Lance doesn’t want to share the singing spotlight. And of course Gunter (Nick Kroll), a German pig who has no fears when it comes to his body.

Who will win? Who will get screwed over? Who will die?!

Also featuring the voices of Nick Offerman, Peter Serafinowicz, and Rhea Perlman.

Pigs are people too, and are tired of being dance shamed.

Sing is the type of film that will give you exactly what you expect. Animals, being human like, and singing pop songs. And if that is all you need to go on to enjoy a film, then you will be in for a treat. If you want something with a bit of more substance to its plot, you will be saddened and only a little bit toe-tappy.

The lessons of the film tell us to follow our dreams, no matter how many bills you wrack up, loved ones you hurt, and lives you ruin. It will all hopefully work out in the end.

McConaughey’s character seems to be a sort of more family friendly and desperate version of his character in Magic Mike. MacFarlane plays a rat who is so annoying right off the bat that I have no remorse for his character at any point in the movie. On top of that, they never resolve that characters plot line at the end. I assumed it would be an after credits scene but we were left with nothing.

Johansson as a hedgehog, Witherspoon as a pig, and Egerton as a gorilla all worked (but it took me awhile to accept the last one, because the gorilla look and clothing just felt off). I was most surprised by Egerton’s singing voice, but it isn’t the first time he impressed me this year.

Music wise, it didn’t seem to click or work until the end. And it damn well better by that point, when they put on their show and resolve all of their issues through the power of singing in public. Everyone feels like a winner. At the same time, I wonder what the entire purpose of the film was. A small story, no real steaks or issues to worry about, Sing becomes an easy movie to make on account of how easy it can merchandise.

A few of the trailers really gave away most of the bigger moments. I am most annoyed by the teaser trailer though, that decided to showcase a ton of different animals singing different songs. That is basically directly out of the film, with little editing and no more substance. We only get to see a lot of diversity for a little amount of time. And the worst part about that scene, the try outs, is they didn’t even try to make it seem realistic by having different people sing the songs. Instead it was jut playing the actual songs over their quick and quirky cast. What a let down.

If you give me an animal singing song, I want a unique voice singing that song, damn it. If I wanted to actually hear the song, I could always just use the internet myself. No amount of scantly dressed rabbit will make up for it.

2 out of 4.

You can’t spell controversy without an ‘s’ and you can’t spell Nina Simone without an ‘s; as well! There must be something deeper there.

If you are like a lot of movie watchers, you probably watched What Happened, Miss Simone? last year. It is free on Netflix and was nominated for an Oscar, so that is really all I should have to say on the matter. It was about the troubling life of Musician and Activist from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. She won a shit ton of Grammys, so you should know her name at least, even if you didn’t know anything about her.

But there is another film about her life. Not a documentary, but a nice musical bio film, just named Nina. It was originally supposed to star Mary J. Blige in the title role, which makes sense. She is a singer and somewhat an activist. But she had to drop out and they replaced her with Zoe Saldana which led to some issues.

Nina Simone grew up in a time where she wasn’t expected to succeed, she was a very dark woman and had a very distinct face, while Saldana was much lighter skinned, very pretty and is not known for her singing. In particular they had a problem with the skin color because Simone was SUPER active in the Black Power movement and it felt like a form of white washing, since Saldana is Hispanic. That, and they also colored Simone’s skin darker. Is it Blackface if the person doing it is not White? Eh, probably.

Because of all this and more, this film took a long time to come out. It was being filmed in the end of 2012, so it took years to release, possibly waiting for all the controversy to die down and maybe finally out thanks to the successful documentary. However, it seems like the distributors still wanted to bury it, with a very limited release and instant VOD.

Sad Simone/Saldana doesn’t like the controversy.

Nina Simone (Zoe Saldana) grew up like a normal black kid in a southern town. But some old white lady liked her and taught her how to play piano. She got really good at classical music and had a dream of playing at the Carnegie Hall and totally did as the first Black Jazz musician. She also went to Julliard. She made a lot of albums, mixing Jazz with Rock and Roll and Gospel and protest songs. She worked with Martin Luther King and a whole lot of other famous activists. She had an abusive husband/manager and a daughter.

Then, eventually, she left America to Paris to play, because America was too racist. And everything in the above paragraph was basically the first five minutes of the movie, told through newspaper headlines, and this film takes place all after that. Like, in the 1980’s, after she had already been out of America for a long time. She was put in a psychiatric hospital for a day in LA after threatening a lawyer with a gun, where she met Clifton Henderson (David Oyelowo), an orderly. She liked that he tried to help her, so she hired him as her assistant and took him back to France.

So she is a drunk and a jerk to him while he tries to help. She forces him to help her get one nigh stands and makes his life hell. But hey, he eventually gets her back into the US for a concert, despite no one wanting to work with her. Yay biography movie!

Also featuring Kevin Mambo, Ronald Guttman, Mike Epps, and Chuma Gault.

But Simone/Saldana loves that booze apparently!

I don’t plan on talking any more about the controversy. I mean, I’d say just let Saldana be her self with the fake nose and not go all out. The entire skin experience just felt distracting for the most part, because I recognized Saldana, except she was “off” the entire time. Just a distraction, just like the controversy.

But let’s focus on this trainwreck of a film. Simone has been the focus of several documentaries and part of a few more, but never a biography of her life. Out of people who deserve their own Hollywood bio film, Simone is definitely up there on the list. For whatever terrible reason, they focus on the late 80’s and early 90’s and none of the “good stuff” in her life.

Fuck. She was a domestic abuse victim for years and couldn’t get out of it. She made so many great songs and led amazing protests. She had a ton of achievements. And I only know any of this thanks to the documentary about her entire life. Most people in the current generations don’t know anything about her and will only learn this stuff through theatrical films. And they pick her lamest and a very unimportant part of her life. They ignore so many important points in her life and focus on such a small frame it just seems disrespectful.

It seems like the people who made this film hated Nina Simone and didn’t know how to hide it. They showed her as a terrible person and ignored how she got to the lowest point in her life. It is misleading and just…just so bizarre.

Watching Nina, I can only see huge amounts of wasted potential. Even if I didn’t see the documentary, this movie wouldn’t have excited me in any way. I would be left wondering what the heck happened. Why did this person get a movie? Why did Paris matter?

Nina is a mess of a film, and one of the worst biographical movies I have ever seen.

0 out of 4.

Gorgon Reviews – Watching Shitty (Terrible) Movies So You Don’t Have To. My long standing tagline and life philosophy. But for the most part, lately, my movies have just been everything in theaters. Some shitty, some not.

This is not a strange indie film. We Are Your Friends a film that was released throughout the US, but no one saw it. Almost no one. At the time of its release, it had the third worse opening for any film with over 2000 theaters showing it. It was the worst for live action movies.

Since it came out, Jem and the Holograms somehow decided to beat its box office records.

So We Are Your Friends only got to live in notoriety for about two months. Now it is second fiddle and now it won’t even be remembered for being never seen.

It may be remembered for having the same name as a famous Justice song though.
(Sweet music video alert)

Cole (Zac Efron) wants to be a great DJ. He is a small time guy, working the local clubs. He thinks he will be big one day. He just needs the perfect first song and the perfect opportunity. He definitely understands DJing though. He knows how to work a crowd, get them moving, and make the optimal BPMs .

He has three friends, Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), and Mason (Jonny Weston).

They need cash to make their dreams come true. But also, they like to party.

And party they do. They party a lot. And get ladies and stuff. Starring Jon Bernthal as a scummy dude, Wes Bentley as a pompous dude, and Emily Ratajkowski as a woman who doesn’t just want to be there for her looks.

Putting my hands on my head is the only way I know how to dance.

Who doesn’t love Zac Efron? He has successfully turned himself around from pretty boy Disney child into a guy who does what he wants. For the most part, he wants to do risque comedies. He did That Awkward Moment and Neighbors. And he is going to be in the Baywatch movie, which will hopefully be as good as the 21 Jump Street franchise.

But this isn’t risque or really a comedy. I mean, it is supposed to be, but it feels like a terrible drama the whole time. Having attractive women, even ones that show their boobies, does not make it really risque either.

We Are Your Friends has a boring plot, the kind you can figure out within the first fifteen minutes. Any surprises are actually completely random, and most of them serve little to no purpose. The same old romance things happen in this film that happen in all shitty romance movies.

And guess what? Spoilers. He does the song by the end. He makes people dance.

Hip hip fucking hooray. Some good music as the soundtrack though, but literally it felt about 20% of the film was saved for party montages.

1 out of 4.

I started talking about Straight Outta Compton with my review of Dope, because I am super white and ignorant.

Basically, I don’t know jack shit about this album, nor do I know a lot about the artists who made up N.W.A. I do know the phrase before the internet meme sensation came out, but that is probably only due to the fact that Weird Al made a similar joke almost ten years ago. Weird Al continues to give me most of my music knowledge about what is hip and cool in the world.

Despite not being able to name even one song from the album, I would probably consider myself an expert on late 80’s and early 90’s rap music. As you already know, I have seen and reviewed the movie Notorious! Yeah, because rap on the west coast and rap on the east coast were basically the same thing. That sounds like something I heard once.

They find my joke hilarious, because I am so white and don’t know any better.

Lives used to suck for black people back in the day. I can keep that sentence vague, because in America is has basically always been true. Back in the day could be yesterday, technically. But in this case I mean 1980’s, where apparently everyone was free and equal under the law, and the law wanted to put the black youth in their place. Arrested for being black was a common occurrence, but also drugs, gang violence, and more. N.W.A. was a rap super group from Compton, California, composed of five members with various talent.

We had Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), who was just in high school but a great lyricist. He wasn’t a thug, but he sure got harassed by the police. Dr. Dre, or Andre (Corey Hawkins) was hoping to be a DJ and produce music, not sit in a cubicle all day. There was Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), who had money and some clout in the music business and would help set them up if they had a good idea. But then he was forced to rap, and hey, he could do it well. And then there was MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and Dj Yella (Neil Brown Jr.) were also in the group, but this film was a lot less about them and more about the other three. They wrote some rhymes and DJ’d too, I guess. I don’t know shit about them.

They are the two on the left so they don’t complain to me about under-representation. Now I can ignore them the rest of this review.

Either way, their first single Boyz-N-The-Hood was an instant success. Their whole city and area loved it, and it spread like wildfire. They weren’t being soft with their words and they were telling the street truth about their lives. It was gangster rap. They were quickly signed by Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) as their manager, because he does sleazy well, and he was able to get them to produce a few more hits to create their first album. Straight Outta Compton! They were signed by the same record company who was getting big off of the California Raisins and wanted to branch out, and next thing you know, they are touring around the United States to sold our concert arenas carrying a strong message. You know, Fuck The Police and all that.

This of course led to the arrest for being black and speaking out, and other shenanigans. The group was now super famous, but thanks to contract disputes and managers screwing people over, they also had to go their separate ways. First Ice Cube left, causing a big rift and song battles, then Dr. Dre founded his own company with Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) (Don’t fuck with Suge Knight. He will secretly give you aids, kill Tupac and Biggie and get away with it all).

And uhh. More stuff happens I guess. Shit. I can’t tell you about everything. I can’t tell you about Rodney King. I should let something be a surprise.

Other artists name dropped in the film include The D.O.C., Tupac, and Snoop Dogg. Actors aren’t even important in there. However, some of the women who would go on to be wives and lovers of the big three are played by Carra Patterson, Alexandra Shipp, and Elena Goode.

You can tell the band members apart by what their favorite teams are: All from California, surprisingly!

Not many people get to play their own dad in a movie about their life. First you need a famous father. Then you have to be the right age at the right time. You also need to look a lot like him. So O’Shea Jackson Jr. got to play his dad, Ice Cube, which is awesome. He is like the kid in Notorious, who played his dad for like one small age group in that film.

In particular, I thought Jackson Jr. and Hawkins did a phenomenal job playing Cube and Dre, which also happen to be the people I know more about thanks to how big they both got. But their stories, and Eazy-E’s story was a fantastic thing for almost anyone to hear and , despite it being over 20 years ago, oddly relevant to today still. Things don’t change that quickly, regardless of the size of computer chips. However, nothing made me cry! There were three scenes where they were going to attempt to bring out the tears, but I was able to resist them all. The last two would have totally gotten me if they just made those scenes a little bit longer, but when your film is already pushing 2.5 hours, it is understandable to make a few cuts.

Seriously, this movie was intense, dramatic, entertaining, a bit funny, extremely informative, and an all around fantastic film for just about everybody. Maybe not your kids, leave them at home for awhile. Honestly, this is now my second favorite music group biographical film, and I don’t even care about most of the music in this one! It will be hard for something to beat The Temptations, honestly, unless we eventually get a gritty Weird Al movie. Two references in one review, solid.

4 out of 4.