Tag: Omari Hardwick

Zachary Theodore Snyder, you have been in the news a lot lately you have.

What, with your cuts of movies, and your…well, family problems that are very sad and that sucks. But you have been mostly in the news because of other properties that aren’t your actual doing. Sure, Justice League did suck, but don’t worry, the Zack Snyder’s Justice League still wasn’t that great either, and much longer in mediocrity.

What happened to the Zack Snyder I used to know ,the one who did his own work? (Technically, I never knew that Snyder. I learned about him with 300, so I have only known him as someone who adapted graphic novels/comics to film, and I liked them. Heck, I liked Sucker Punch, which was basically his only original film at that time, not based on another property.

So I am here for a chance for Army of the Dead. His own Zombie flick, not a sequel like his Dawn of the Dead, which I most definitely did not ever watch.

Should I go back and watch all the classic zombie films? Nah, let’s just shoot them from my memory.

Shit! Zombies!

They actually use the word in this movie, and that is nice, because a lot of films with zombies don’t. Anyways. Some Area 51 army dudes are transporting secret cargo between facilities, and have a stupid little accident that flips their vehicle and opens it up. And what is inside? A zombie! A smart, strong, fast zombie (Richard Cetrone), who kills the guards, makes a few zombies, and sets his sight for the place with the lights in the middle of the desert, Las Vegas baby!

This film takes place a few weeks after these events, with the city not only completely overrun with Zombies, but thankfully also walled off from the outside. There are communities outside the city, a lot of lost lives, and America might go and just Nuke it to deal with this threat before it gets out.

But one casino owner (Hiroyuki Sanada) wants his money out of there. So he hires a team to get his money, offering them a lot. They just have to go get in, hack a safe, get the money, and repair a helicopter in the city to fly out of there. And he picks Scott (Dave Bautista), a man who survived Vegas already and has shown capabilities. So he gets a team, including his daughter (Ella Purnell) accidentally.

Also starring Tig Notaro, Matthias Schweighöfer, Raúl Castillo, Samantha Win, Huma Qureshi, Garret Dillahunt, Nora Arnezeder, Theo Rossi, Ana de la Reguera, Omari Hardwick, and Michael Cassidy.

Oh you are so lovely, my zombie queen, and so…slightly blurry. 

Army of the Dead has a lot of zombies in it. Not the most zombies I have ever seen in a film. Shit, did you see World War Z? There were a bunch of zombies in that one shot. But we got types of zombies! Regular zombies, dehydrated zombies, smart/armored zombies, maybe robot zombies, shit we got a Tiger Zombie. Zombies for days, and all breeds. I am not some Zombie purist who thinks the only good type of zombie is one that shambles and is brain dead. It doesn’t really matter to me, because zombies are made up so who cares what anyone does with them?

This is a strange opinion for me to take, given the whole film critic thing, but despite having some plot issues and strange edits, the interesting take of zombies in an interesting scenario won me over in the end, as an entertaining flick.

The film has a lot of strange additions to the plot, and hints about what is to come, and not all of them take hold. For example, the piles of zombies who just need rain to be rejuvenated. Does this film feature rain at all? Hell no. And frankly, the ending is extremely insulting, with the sequel set up, purely based on the time the character has during it, compared to what we already know about zombies earlier in the film. It doesn’t make sense in the context of this film, but it could probably make sense with even more backstory or science behind it, which likely future ones would work on doing.

That doesn’t mean things are okay! But also, some of these things are red herrings and mysterious at the same time. The ending is incredibly clunky, and a lot of that is probably attributed to the fact that Tig Notaro replaced Chris D’Elia entirely after the film had been shot, due to his sexual assault/harassment history. I can’t remember exactly what, but it wasn’t that good. Given the problems with that, a lot of this is better than anticipated.

This world created had a lot of potential, and the moments that I enjoyed far outweighed the slower moments, the ending, and any plot awkwardness.

Bring on more smart zombies, I say.

Sorry to Bother You is one of those films that sort of snuck up on me with a roar. I heard idle mentions of it earlier in the year, but didn’t go out of my way to do further research.

I knew the star. I guessed the theme. And yet none of that would prepare me for the trailer.

The trailer felt very fresh and told me that this. Would be a movie with a lot going on. A sort of extreme satire, maybe very political, but whatever it is it has a message and will be both subliminal and superliminal with that message.

I was excited and ready for this screening, without really knowing what it might give me.

I am getting a Japan / sumo wrestler headband vibe here.

Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) is your regular, down on his luck, poor, brother. He is living in a garage in the house of his uncle (Terry Crews), with his long term girlfriend artist (Tessa Thompson), and they aren’t having a lot of luck making money.

But Cassius is able to get a job working as a telemarketer, working for commission. It is better than nothing. And he has the promise that if he does good, he can go to the top floors of the company. He can ride in the special elevator. He can be a “power caller,” and make the big bucks. No one really knows what they sell up there, but it ain’t magazines and book sets.

Cassius is told to just stick to the script, don’t get out of line, and make money. Once he makes money, he can make more money and more and be a success for once. Especially if he taps into his white person voice.

Starring David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Lily James, Forest Whitaker, and Rosario Dawson! Or at least their voices. Also starring Jermaine Fowler, Steven Yeun, Omari Hardwick, Armie Hammer, Robert Longstreet, Danny Glover, Kate Berlant. and Michael X. Sommers, that would be their voices and their bodies.

This is how white people drink champagne.

Strangely enough, the trailer for Sorry To Bother You only gave you a slice of the whole story, so I tried to do the same with my plot. There is a whole lot more that goes into this story. Topics of slavery (multiple levels) , class warfare, poverty, selling out, and American indifference to clear wrongs in the world. This movie coming out now is extremely well timed given the border problems that keep getting swept away by other media distractions.

It is not a film to use subtle clues to drive the point home. No, these clues are obvious, with a hammer. Fuck, one of the most uncomfortable scenes was the precursor to a “rap” where the chants, the disparity of the cast, made everything all too real and uncomfortable.

Stanfield is amazing in this film as our lead. His senses will probably always align with the audience on the scale of what is right and wrong and when to finally draw the line. Oh yes, you will know when that line is drawn. It was good seeing Yeun in a role very different than his previous work. Thompson was great. Hardwick was as well, despite more limited time, and Hammer was a blast going full crazy CEO for this film.

Unfortunately, areas do feel a bit clunky and jarring. Especially in the end, time seems to go by strangely and not everything seems to have the same attention to detail as earlier on in the film.

Sorry To Bother You will be looked back as an important work, with extreme topics in order to get the point heard loudly.

Alright, turns out everything I thought I knew about Sparkle was a lie. A lie! When I first heard about it, I was told that it was about a Motown era girl group, like the Supremes. One of them being Sparkle, the daughter of Whitney Houston.

Personally, I had never heard of their group, didn’t know Whitney Houston had a singing daughter who was also famous, and didn’t know any songs by this person. But whatever.

Well, not even a spoiler, I was way off. Topic, sure, but it wasn’t Whitney Houston being a character, it was Whitney Houston just playing a mom character before she died. Oh. That explains why everyone called her Emma…and she never sang…and wasn’t famous in the movie. I seriously was confused the whole movie because of this.

Pictured: Actual Whitney Houston playing someone, not someone playing Whitney Houston.

Sparkle (Jordin Sparks. Okay, that is unintentional maybe. This movie is actually a remake of one in the 1970s. Still weird. Also still fake) is the youngest daughter to her now single mom Emma (Houston). She is 19, while her oldest sister Sister (yes. Carmen Ejogo) is 28 and had to recently move back home due to some issues, and the middle sister Dee (Tika Sumpter) is 24. Turns out Sparkle is a song writer, and great at it, but might have some singing issues. Thankfully Sister is not shy, and performed her song at a club like a star.

Guess who else is at the club? Stix (Derek Luke) an aspiring record executive spots them at the club and becomes interested. He learns that not only did Sparkle write the song, but they all have singing talent too. So he eventually convinces them all to join him and be a singing group, yay! And it takes awhile… But here is some other issues.

Emma doesn’t want her daughters getting involved. Dee is just going to do it until she has money to pay for medical school. Sparkle kind of has a thing for Stix. Sister kind of has a thing for everyone. Seriously, a potential serious mate in Levi (Omari Hardwick), and a more successful person in Satin (Mike Epps) who might also get her hooked on the drugs and beat her. Can they keep it together and get a real record deal by Larry (Curtis Armstrong)? Does CeeLo Green have more than one scene in this movie?

Feel free to guess on who looks like doctor, druggie, and writer.

Alright, so besides my initial confusion, I still felt like this film was a waste of time. I was incredibly bored, and this film kind of qualifies as a musical! Lots of songs in the movie. Some were nice, some were okay. But I couldn’t get over the rest of the movie to just enjoy them.

I don’t know how this compares to the original Sparkle, obviously, but its general description sounds like a better version of what I watched. “A girl group experiences turmoil after one of their members turns to drugs and another achieves their desired fame all by herself.” That makes it seem less like Sparkle, and more about them all. After all, middle sister doesn’t even care. Sparkle, by the end does succeed on her own as a solo artist (with a weird concert I also have issues with), but the other sisters don’t care. The only problems come from the mom not wanting them to be famous and stick with church choirs. Boring!

This film basically put me to sleep. A lot of nothing kept happening, disguised as things happening. That is all I can really describe it as.