Tag: Sandra Oh

I’ve noticed that since 2016, (so five years ago), I have rated Disney Animation Studios higher than Pixar Studios movies. It is an average of 2.8 versus 1.8 out of 4. That is a whole number grade! Here is my table for comparison.

Now sure, Pixar has churned out more, but it has the only zero, and has a lot of 1s. The only reason Disney is so low due to disappointing sequels. Pixar also has disappointing sequels, but also disappointing for me original movies.

That is all. We will see how the charts look after Luca comes out this year.

But for now, as you can see, I loved Raya and the Last Dragon, a new Disney princess (maybe?) movie, that also features zero songs, which is not just rare, but a first.

You see that dragon? It won’t sing at all. Shocking. Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) is your typical daughter of a chief. Her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), is training her as a warrior to protect a magical orb. What does this orb do? Well, lets go back into the history.

Five hundred years ago, there were these evil spirits named Druun that multiplied quickly and turned people into stone. There was also a lot of dragons. This was not fun. So all of the dragons banded together, made this cool orb thing, and it banished all of the Druun! And somehow, turned all the dragons into stone in the process. Very sad times.

Anyways, the orb still does its thing, but the other tribes think that the orb gives the Heart tribe extra power and success for their lands and people. They want the orb for themselves. Chief Benja wants to reunite all the tribes to one glorious nation, and not continue with this otherism.

Well, sure enough, something bad happens, the orb breaks! Each tribe grabs a piece, but now the Druun are now back and that makes things worse. Raya is going to have to fix the orb, and get her people back to normal, and maybe even find a dragon along the way. You know, the last one (Awkwafina).

Also featuring the voices of Benedict Wong, Gemma Chan, Sandra Oh, Izaac Wang, Lucille Soong, and of course, Alan Tudyk, as an animal that only makes sounds.

If you train for hours to fight, then you are going to want to fight. Raya and the Last Dragon has music, but is not a musical. Did that take away from it? Well, fine, probably not. But I would have loved some songs regardless. But I can’t take away points because I would rather a movie be a musical. I would rather all movies to be a musical.

Raya still kicked ass. She is definitely the strongest fighter of any “Disney princess” before her. Not sure if she is a princess yet officially, but she was the daughter of a chief, so, you know. There isn’t a lot of competition amongst the princesses who can fight or do magic,  but Raya is like a goddamn ninja (yes, different cultural term than this film, but I don’t know a better word). She is quick, and arguably deadly, but doesn’t always use her fighting skills to get out of jams. But that is almost always her plan A.

And having her so driven and technically violent is great, because throughout the film it is technically seen as a flaw, especially from the dragon’s point of view. Why not try friendship, and trust, and things that involve stabbing someone? (No, we don’t see a lot of dead people in this movie who get stabbed, mostly statues. We can’t have a Disney film with a high body count for real).

I love Raya, she is strong and flawed. I am fine with the dragon. She is consistent and not just a humorous sidekick. What I didn’t expect is all of the other side characters that along the journey would also show up and be important to the rest of the story. Great side characters, all full of personality and interesting. They made me cry at the end. I did cry I believe twice, or just one long slow cry, depending on how you break them apart. I will go with two cries.

The movie becomes a bit typical, when it comes to “go to next region that is very different, and then find the next piece.” But each one does have new characters and the orb fragment is protected in different ways. And the ending, while a little predictable, I think is done in a nicely unpredictable way, at least when it comes to the order of events.

Bring on all of the Raya Halloween costumes.

4 out of 4.

There was not a lot of build up to Tammy compared to other recent McCarthy based films such as The Heat and Identity Thief. Those films got their trailers played over and over again, to increasingly annoying levels. Tammy? Nah. It had a strange teaser trailer a few months ago, decently funny, and then a regular trailer like, a month ago and that was it.

Good. It really sucks hating a movie before it comes out due to bad trailers or overplaying those trailers.

In fact, the teaser trailer of Tammy robbing the store? Pretty amusing. So there were definite hopes for this film. Especially when I found out that Melissa McCarthy co-wrote the movie with her husband / director Ben Falcone. So presumably they will flesh stuff out and not just give us the same roles she has now been type casted to.

See? She looks calm in this picture. She is never calm in any other movie.

This is a movie about a lady named Tammy (McCarthy). Tammy just lost her job for being late constantly, even if she had a good reason this time. Her car breaks down while going back home. Because she still gets back home early, she is able to see her husband (Nat Faxon) and neighbor (Toni Collette) having a fancy dinner and surprised to see her. Wooo.

So Tammy decides to leave. She wants to run away but her car is dead. Her mom (Allison Janney) says no, but her grandmother (Susan Sarandon) says yes! Pearl has over $6,000 in cash and a car, just needs someone to drive her, so why not run away with her grand daughter for awhile?

Which is also I guess your basic plot. They go on a mini adventure, where things go badly and problems occur. They get to see Pearl’s cousin, Lenore (Kathy Bates), the founder of a big pet store chain and her lesbian lover (Sandra Oh). They also meet a gentlemen interested in Pearl (Gary Cole) and his son (Mark Duplass) who Tammy awkwardly flirts with.

Outside of mentioning that her dad is played by Dan Aykroyd, I don’t think I could describe the movie anymore than I already have.

Talking about this scene is unnecessary thanks to the trailer!

When I said that was the basic plot, I guess I tried to sound sarcastic, but that is really hard to do through words on a screen. It is hard to really say how much of a plot this movie had outside of a girl and her grandmother having problems and driving. Those tiny plot points could be turned into a good film, sure, but this film might not have been in the best hands.

For the most part, McCarthy does play the exact same role. She has some nicer character moments that a lot of her other roles lack, which is nice. But as the main lead, her character doesn’t have enough for me to care. Was I supposed to feel sorry about her getting fired? No way. Even if this time it was okay, it still implied she was late a lot and probably deserved it. Same with most of the other things that happened to her.

Let’s go back to the awesome teaser trailer. You know how I didn’t bring it up? That is because that scene doesn’t happen until about two thirds of the way in the movie. Seriously. And not much is different about it from the teaser. All the lines are the same, barely any longer. A funny part so much later ruined for that reason. Looking at the trailers, this scene seems to be something early on which would make it okay. Hey, the problems start because she robs a store. Cool. Nah. That late in the movie, I kind of wonder what the point was.

Overall, the movie did have some amusing scenes, but they were few and far between for me. Pretty forgettable soon after watching it.

1 out of 4.