Tag: 2 out of 4

There has been a long history of movies being named after animal. I don’t want to give a lot of examples, so I will instead just pick a recent one, The Lobster.

The Lobster was surreal and weird. Is The Seagull going to be just as surreal and weird? Will it explore different concepts? Will it be about birds at all?

Or, as I realized later on, will it just be a remake of a very famous Anton Chekhov play from over a 100 years ago? Yeah, it is that one. And this is my only time to point out that the play has had many adaptations, modern versions, some movie, some references in TV shows. But most importantly a few years ago was a modern play version called Stupid Fucking Bird.

I want to watch Stupid Fucking Bird the movie.

Instead I am stuck with this arguably not stupid fucking face.

Set mostly in the early 1900’s, close to Moscow, on a small lake estate, The Seagull is about a wealthy-ish family and their issues. I say wealthy-ish, because they have servants, but also apparently they are too poor to leave the area or better there lives in other ways.

The main patron of the estate is Sorin (Brian Dennehy), whom is getting ill and would rather live in the city. His sister, Irina (Annette Bening), is an aging actress who is living in Moscow mostly but she returns to the estate in the summer. Irina’s son, Konstantin (Billy Howle), is a modernist, who fancies himself a poet and a playwright, hoping to the way plays are told and to become famous himself. Konstantin is madly in love with a local farm girl and his muse, Nina (Saoirse Ronan), who dreams of being a famous actress. And finally we have Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), a relatively young author who is very famous in Moscow, whom Irina has been seeing for some time as a celebrity couple.

Also Elisabeth Moss is hanging around during this time, but I couldn’t possibly tell you what her actual job or purpose is. Maybe beloved neighbor.

Most of the story takes place a few weeks over the summer. A lot of the main characters are jealous or infatuated with other ones, even if they are in other relationships. Some of these relationships are out of prestige, out of love, out of settling.

A lot of sex starved people, who might have parent issues, who can orgasm seemingly after a couple of forbidden kisses.

Also starring Glenn Fleshler, Brian Dennehy, Mare Winningham, Jon Tenney, and Michael Zegen.

Only bad things can happen on a boat.

The Seagull is about a small group of people who all want to fuck a different person. Not everyone will leave disappointed either! Some will succeed, some will be left to pick up the scraps, and that is life.

The ideas behind this story in 2018 don´t feel original at all, but if it was originally scripted in the late 1800s it was probably original as hell at the time of release. It may have inspired most of the similar stories for the last 100 years.

And yet, it doesn´t matter, as I am here just to judge a film.

The film does has really fine acting of course. Bening is a star, and Stoll does a lot more than I expected from him based on most of his previous roles. Moss provides some good comedic relief, and Ronan is fine as usual. I did find Howle a little bit strange though. It really felt like he was meant to be played by Eddie Redmayne, but he canceled or was too expensive so they settled.

The story though is just okay. It has some chuckles. It has a pointless intro flashforward. And really, I do not know why the cast wasn´t speaking with Russian accents or anything. It was just lot of clearly American people talking occasionally about Moscow and it kept throwing me off.

Fuck.

I missed the Annihilation pre-screening, and I felt bad, because I want to support independent science fiction films. Then I found out about all the drama with it and Netflix. Netflix had streaming rights for every country except for the USA and China. You see, Paramount wanted to sort of dump it because they didn’t think it would be successful. So you know, they didn’t put it in any theaters and couldn’t be successful.

The deal with Netflix would be that it had to wait 17 days after being in theater in those two countries before it could be on the program.

Fine, I would just watch it before then and review that bad boy up. And I did!

I just forgot about the review thing. And it isn’t that I forgot to review it. I knowingly just kept pushing it back and back and back, for reasons I will explain at the end. Needless to say, here is a review, two months after I planned to release it.

Blame it on the patriarchy.

For a few years, a shimmering glowing force has appeared in a remote part of the world. It is hard to fathom just what is going on in that area, but it definitely is growing over time. In fact, it has been there for three years, and everyone basically has no fucking clue what is going on. Because no one has ever returned.

Well, one guy did. Kane (Oscar Isaac). He is a special forces member of the Army. He is pretty messed up. He has returned home to his wife, Lena (Natalie Portman), who the story is actually about. You see Lena is also a soldier, or at least she used to be. She is now mostly a professor of cellular biology. Smart and strong.

After some plot reasons, she is brought to one of their bases around this field area, where she meets others who are planning to go in. For whatever reason, communication always shuts off, and they don’t really understand what is going on inside this aura.

But Lena ends up joining a team of all women to go in and hopefully, this time, report back with what is going on. And this vague synopsis is both meant to keep it spoiler free, and also try to recall everything that happened.

Also starring Benedict Wong, Gina Rodriguez, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sonoya Mizuno, Tessa Thompson, and Tuva Novotny.

She is thinking of getting into animal dentistry as well.

Annihilation, by any standard, is not a dumb movie. Which is one way of calling it a smart movie, but I am not fully committed to that line. It is above average, and after watching it I did have to speculate about it for awhile. So it is a thinker film.

A thinker film with scares, sci-fi weirdness, and pretty darn good acting. It also has a few flashbacks, questions about humanity, questions about evolution, and this one fucking ape scene that is like, omg.

Either way, I started thinking too much about the thinking movie, so I pushed back my planned review. Then I stopped thinking about it, and figured I couldn’t write it at that point because I forgot some information, and that is why we are two months late at this point.

I believe my conclusion to this movie is that I liked it, and disliked it. The ending was interesting, but not at all what I craved. This is a film that really begs for multiple watches, and the theater experience will really add with the sounds this film gives.

This is not mindless entertainment. This is entertainment that can drive your mind to uselessness and eventually forgetfulness. What a strange review ending this has become.

Pope Francis hit the world in March of 2013, after a long period of searching. Well like two weeks, but it felt like a long time. Originally called Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he comes from Argentina (first from any America, first from the Southern Hemisphere, first Jesuit) and took the world by storm. You see, the pope before him? Kind of lame. But this Pope? This is a cool Pope. This is a modern, smart, hip, Pope. The kind of Pope you might want to introduce to your parents.

You see, this pope is cool, because he isn’t saying homosexuality is bad. He is a fan of science, and evolution, and progressive stuff. He is totally down with other religions doing their thing.

And hey, he is the first Pope Francis. He took his name from Saint Francis of Assisi, one of the most well known saints across the world. Why? Well, he was smart, wanted to make the world a better place, and seemed to have values. This Pope Francis wants to do the same. Live life in a simple way, helping out the worst and the bottom of the barrel, getting rid of his wealth and focusing on the Jesus.

This documentary, Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word, is meant to tell his beliefs on various subjects and how they all actually relate to each other. You know, making the world a better place. Damn it.

Actually, not damn it. That is another goal of his. No damning of the its.

If you are Catholic, and happy with the pope, you are going to love this documentary of behind the scene Catholic stuff. Nothing drastic. No one is a lizard person unfortunately (spoiler??). We just get one on one interviews with the Pope where he explains why he is humble and a super Christian.

Now, coming from someone like me, a very nonreligious person, it has less of an appeal. I was a bit excited to see it though, because I had just seen RBG and it was an amazing documentary about an old person who was helping to make a better place. So why not one on Pope Francis, which should be about a similar topic?

Look, it was cool and all. He talked about tons of subjects. Gays, climate change, one trump bash, poverty, hunger, climate change some more. You name it. He is basically a really religious liberal and wants people to be cool to each other.

That is cool. And yeah, what else is there to say? I don’t know. Watch it if you want. It is totally average!

Ed Helms is still getting lead work, despite mixed reviews for his acting in most movies. He is leading big films, and he is leading films you never heard about before.

Films like The Clapper. Have you heard about it? Of course not. It came out some time in 2017, probably straight to DVD, and I found it accidentally on Netflix.

So sure, I like enough of the cast, and I like the concept, it is a good enough movie to review as any.

And it features…clapping I assume.

Getting into acting can be pretty damn hard. But moving to LA is a good first step. And then you might be a waiter or have small time jobs until you get a commercial. Maybe you will be a non speaking role in the background?

Or maybe you will be like Eddie Krumble (Ed Helms), and get a job as an audience member for infomercials. He has gotten to be pretty good. He can laugh on command. He can seem intrigued. He even has had speaking roles. His overall goal is to be very nondescript, so that he doesn’t get noticed across infomercials and their real studio audience feel is seen as a scam.

And of course that is just what happens. A late night talk show host (Russell Peters) is doing a bit on a bad infomercial, and they notice poor Eddie across multiple shows, and turn it into a big deal. He is on there all the time in their clips now, and they begin a campaign to find the mysterious “Clapper.” Eddie wants nothing to do with this, he wants to go into hiding so his livelihood isn’t ruined. If he becomes famous, he can’t be in the audiences, and he will gain 15 minutes of fame and then be forgotten and poor.

He also is in love with Judy (Amanda Seyfried) a gas station attendant, who also won’t be able to handle the cameras and national fame as it disrupts her line of work.

Also starring Adam Levine, James Ransone, Leah Remini, P.J. Byrne, and Tracy Morgan.

The mustache helps him blend in of course.

Honestly, this was a very weird Helms to see. A more subtle, shy, strange Helms. He is normally pretty out there, or extremely weird. He is only slightly weird in this movie, and just plays a simple person extremely well. Like, really well. Like I forgot it was Helms, and instead, just assumed it was a regular person. Somehow with make up and acting he just made himself seem incredibly non-famous, and that is the most notable thing about the movie.

Everything else is pretty, well, standard. Or even below average.

This feels like a film with a $10 budget, even the cool late night talk show host felt like an incredibly fake version of a late night talk show. It felt like it could have been made by teenagers.

The plot didn’t really grow in an exciting way, and it ended also at a relatively lame point.

It is incredibly forgettable. And remember, the higher point is just because Helms knocked mediocrity out of the park.

Before any of you take my words too seriously, let it be known that I gave the original Deadpool a 2 out of 4. Why? Some people were quite angry with me back then! They called it a fresh sight for sore superhero eyes.

And I called it sort of boring. We start with a good intro, but then when we get the flashback, it takes forever to get to the point where we get Deadpool power again. A seriously long time, that is humerous, but less funny, and just….slow. The other main issue was the weak villains. It was a very ground film, but I watch superhero films so that superheroes can fight challenges, not just generic strong people.

Either way, with the sequel, I was more excited. It was going to have a wider cast of characters, it clearly didn’t have to get bogged down in backstory for our main character. It also was going to give us Cable for the first time in modern cinema, so Deadpool 2 had something unique going on for it. And honestly, just, it needed a second try for me. This time I was already given two amazing superhero films in Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, so it had a bit of a hill to climb to get to their levels.

More ass is a nice touch though, I guess.

Deadpool 2 takes place after the events of Deadpool. I know that might sound shocking, but time is usually linear.

Unless a movie has a time travel device. Oh hey there is a time travel plot? Fuck. This movie has Cable (Josh Brolin) in it! Oh no! He is from the future, and he has a kid (Julian Dennison) to kill. If he kills the kid, his future is better for him at least. So why not?

Well, there are a lot of reasons why not. And Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) might have to protect them, although it doesn’t sound very Deadpool-y. Speaking of Deadpool-y, this plot outline is really vague, isn’t it? Yeah, because honestly, the less you know, the better.

Also starring Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beetz, Brianna Hildebrand, Bill Skarsgård, T.J. Miller, Terry Crews, Lewis Tan, Eddie Marsan, Jack Kesy, Shioli Kutsuna, Leslie Uggams, Stefan Kapicic, and Karan Soni.

And Rob Delaney as Peter.

And Peter guys, come on.

If you only had to read one statement about the film to confirm your beastly desires, then let it be this one: I think Deadpool 2 is better than Deadpool. So if you loved Deadpool, this might an even more crazy experience.

There is more action, there is more gore, there are a lot, lot more surprises, and an infinite amount more Celine Dion. It will shock you early on, throughout, and through the end. Both in terms of just how far it goes and the themes it will explore. It has probably one of the best credit scenes of all time.

And yet, it actually put me to sleep early on. Getting plot heavy isn’t a problem, but when the plot is sort of going all over the place, and it is just filled with streams of meta or lame jokes, it is easy to lose disinterest. Sure, it picks up in the second half. And yet as a full film it is just lacking again.

I do find myself more willing to re-watch this one than the first film. And future films too, given that they probably won’t have any T.J. Miller after the incidents.

Also, Peter!

A home invasion thriller movie is not a new concept. So trying to find new ways to revitalize the extremely specific genre has got to be hard.

That is what happened with The Purge, remember?

Well, Breaking In is a film that wants to have the home invader be the savior. The mother. Because other people have made it in her home and locked her out, so she needs to break in, to save them. It can work, although the idea seems incredibly silly. The plot would need a lot of components coming together and it can very easily just seem B grade movie material.

And yes, they are doubling this as a Mother’s Day movie too, which is great, because that sentimental crap most mothers probably don’t care for in their movies.

But I am not a mother. And I care for sentimental crap?

Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) is a mom just trying to do right by her kids. Her husband works a lot, and her daughter (Ajiona Alexus) is doing things with boys, but her son (Seth Carr) is relatively well adjusted still, so that’s good. She really wants to have a nice normal loving family, because she did not have a loving relationship with her father. Completely left her life basically, he was rich, and it turns out, a criminal!

Also he is dead. So she has his many assets, and bills. Including a giant mansion that she grew up in. It has some upgrades with technology and security, because her dad was paranoid. But she is there for one thing. To clean it up and get it sold! Get rid of those bad memories growing up, get paid, and go on with their lives.

Unfortunately, other people don’t want the same goals as her. You see, a group of criminals (Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Levi Meaden, Mark Furze) that are loose connections to each other have been learning over time that the old man in the mansion had a safe with some big money in it. They planned on a simple go in, break in and out situation. They didn’t expect a family to deal with. This complicates everything, and when they lock the mother out of the house, she is not going to let them hurt her babies.

Also starring Jason George, Christa Miller, and Damien Leake.

Good thing she took those Spider-Man yoga classes.

The twists that Breaking In offers the genre are relatively entertaining. And that is probably a good way to describe the whole film. Relatively entertaining. It isn’t a strong plot and it isn’t strong acting overall, but it is a bit of fun.

Unfortunately, the really fun moments were ruined by technical issues and not fully thought out writing. When we have an crazy defensive house, and they talk about all of its features and plans, you would expect for them to work. They said that if anyone gets close to the building, then it would set off specific lights to spot her. And they did eventually, but not later in the movie when she first started sneaking. They had awesome motion sensing technology in the house, but for some reason it could only sense a tiny drone flying around, and not the other two humans walking around.

The ending became very weak, both with the coincidences, the dialogue, and just the final outcomes.

Really, I just wish it was smarter. We have a cool concept, really, and done with smart writers could have given an overall great film. I am fine with the criminals and the characters making dumb decisions. That just makes sense given their situations and the unexpectedness of it all. And also, Union does a good job as the lead.

But the film does not live up to its concept and will be forgettable in a month or so.

Shit, did you read my 6 Balloons review? I just had an introduction that would work for this film as well, First Match.

Except First Match came out a couple months ago on Netflix, while 6 Balloons was only a couple weeks ago. And for First Match, I actually watched it right when it came out on Netflix.

So why the late review? Eh. I forgot. And it got pushed back week after week after week. Another movie I watched the same day. I haven’t even wrote that review yet either, so that one might take another few weeks!

Don’t let any of that deter from this review. Unless I get some details wrong. Then blame it on memory loss because I am old as fuck.

I am pretty sure they are not in the same weight class.

Monique (Elvire Emanuelle) is a problem girl, but really, is it her fault? She is living in a foster home with a foster mom (Kim Ramirez), but she gets moved around a lot. Because of her own problems, because of her temporary homes, and because of her parents messing up her life and getting involved in crime.

She has her issues of course, but she is coming around. For example, her sudden interest in the school wrestling team. She feels like she can fight, so why not put it to a different skill set. They don’t have a woman’s wrestling team, so as long as she can tough it out, she would have to wrestle the boys.

None of this has to do with her father coming back into her life of course. Her dad (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was a wrestler, and she is saying he is her coach, but won’t show up to her games and doesn’t want to take her back into his home. Maybe if she wrestles real good, she can win his heart as well?

Or maybe he will just use her like she is always used.

Starring Colman Domingo, Jared Kemp, and Jharrel Jerome.

This school is different from the East Compton Clovers, but close.

First Match is not a movie made for people like me to relate to or to necessarily enjoy, but to see a different sort of culture and view in the US. Lower socioeconomic class films are pretty common, but they always feel like sort of fantasies at time, and rarely have an extremely realistic portrayal. First Match probably is extremely realistic.

I don’t recall a lot about this film after a couple of months (my bad!). I do remember that this is the rating I picked, probably due to its slower moments, and a bit more of a lackluster ending than I would have liked.

But again, going for realism doesn’t always mean it will be very entertaining.

It is okay acted, an okay story, but not one that will change my own life in any meaningful way.

The idea of Krampus, coming from a humble American, is fascinating. An evil Santa Clause? A beast that steals away naughty kids? Why worry about coal when your goddamn life can be on the line?

That is about as much as I really know about the idea. It was flirted with a bit in Rare Exports, we recently had the horror-comedy Krampus as well. It seems Krampus fever is hitting America stronger than ever, and we are eating it up.

Needless to say, I was very excited to be watching Greetings From Krampus, a documentary from the Austrian area, an actual source on their customs and belief of Krampus. How it has grown through the tiny villages and the national phenomenon that has grown for many to have a worthwhile sort of career in it as well.

Horny little buggers they are.

It turns out there is a lot I didn’t know about Krampus. Exciting! Did you know there were a lot of creatures like Krampus, that are not Krampus, but come out at the same time as Krampus? Krampus is basically a demonic pet of St. Nicholas. But they also have the Perchten, which are other humanoid esque creatures. And basically, they get weeks of celebration after the Krampus.

But for the most part, these things are celebrated with Krampus Run events. First of all, to get rid of all the past shenanigans where people would dress up and cause problems, the Krampus ideas were outlawed for some time. Only the ruralist villages still did it. But they had official troops who would get together, have rules, to dress up and do appropriate mischief for the holidays, and not just any weirdo in a mask. That way they have some form of checks and balance!

Anyways, basically each villages has a troupe, with some amount of members, to dress up, make their own costumes and masks and rules and funds as a part time job. They travel to these different Runs, where there could be 60-80 different troupes going through a special path while onlookers cheer and get spanked and whatever.

A huge event, many of them all in a few week span, while the rest of the time is spent making sure Krampus awareness happens. Like teaching kids that Krampus isn’t real and to know its a person in there and NOT use it as a tool to frighten kids into behaving.

Overall, there is a lot of useful information in this movie. However, what it lacks on is the lore itself. It does talk about it some, but I thought it would go a lot more into the lore aspects of it. This is basically Krampus Run, the movie. We see so many clips of them, and groups talking about them and their traditions. It is extremely repetitive, especially when it goes back to topics they covered 40 minutes prior.

Cool information, very unique, just not diverse enough and easily boring in the last half hour as you wonder how much longer it will be until finished.

WorldFest isn’t known for its big releases. No, it is an independent movie festival, so seeing one of those giant movies that is going to win an Oscars would probably be very rare.

On that note, for the film Disobedience, it is probably the first time I heard of a movie months before I knew it would be at WorldFest. It was directed by Sebastián Lelio, who directed Gloria a few years ago (haven’t seen yet still, but a remake soon with him still at the helm for America), and A Fantastic Woman, which just won best foreign film.

Needless to say, I was excited about his next film. Hell, very provocative posters for this film have gone up and maybe that is why it is famous (okay, that is the reason). Let’s bring on the sexy times.

Nothing sexier than candles, flames, beards, and dark clothing.

The story opens up with Rav Krushka (Anton Lesser) is giving a sermon about the differences between Man, Angels, and Beasts, and the idea of choice. Oh, this is totally a synagogue as well, very very conservative Jewish. Somewhere in Great Britain, a little local community. The women sitting on the second story only. And then he goes and dies.

His one and only daughter, Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is living in NYC. She left the community she grew up in, abandoned her family, to live alone. She is a bit of disgrace. No one talks to her anymore. But someone sent a message through the grapevine that her father was dead, their Rabbi and spiritual leader, so she heads back over ready to face her past and her peers.

The ceremonies take place at the home of Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola), Rav’s spiritual son, whom he took in when he was in his teen years to begin his devout training, so sort of a brother to Ronit. He is now married to Esti (Rachel McAdams), a big shocker to Ronit. They invite her to stay in their guest room while she deals with her father’s loss and the annoyance from the community.

We learn of course that some members of the group had an intense past. This past is why Ronit ended up leaving their community, seemingly never to return. How dare she mess that up, right?

Rachel and Rachel standing on a street. R-A-C-H-E-L-I-N-G.

Setting this in a conservative Jewish community with very little out of it first took me awhile to figure out where this film was set. It is a modern film, it just took until the last 20-30 minutes before someone pulled out a cell phone for any reason. It could have been in the 60’s/70’s, or it could have been modern, given their conservative nature, who knows!

The three main leads give really good acting performances. Weisz is the powerhouse here, Nivola has his moments at the end, and for the most part McAdams is a quiet force building over time. They all feel very vulnerable and real in their roles, giving an extra umph to the story.

It just took forever for the story to really grow and move forward. It was definitely boring. I am fine with a slow burn story, but it was hard to keep my eyes open early on and even by the end there was still some struggles.

I like that we got an in depth look at a community that is old dealing with “modern issues”, and it seems to be something that the director is playing with lately. It is something worth being told, but the payout doesn’t feel necessarily worth it.

Ah spooks! A story about ghosts.

This movie is not to be confused with A Ghost Story, which came out last year, which I loved, which was very polarizing, and very indie.

No, this is Ghost Stories! Without the A article and the addition of the letter ´s´ things are quite different now. With this film, this British film, we are promised not one story, but multiple stories!

Maybe it is just two stories, maybe it is a hundred! With plurality, the sky´s the limit.

And of course, if this was called Ghosts Story, then it would be one story about multiple ghosts. Learn your grammar, folks.

This pair means two of them, although together, they may look like a single pear.

Professor Goodman (Andy Nyman) has a strange name, yes, but he is off to help people. How? By exposing liars! Liars and word thieves. You know, those who claim that ghosts are real, that want to deceive the public, or the ones that claim they can speak to dead loves, or even just psychics in general. Hell, he has a show to defraud them too, publicly, and has gotten himself famous.

He always dreamed of being this sort of researcher. Growing up he watched Charles Cameron (Leonard Byrne) on TV, who did similar things but more old school and subtle. However, he mysteriously disappeared at some point for decades.

Needless to say, sometimes the past comes back when you least expect it. And when it does, sometimes you are given three cases to look over and research, in order to really see if the supernatural exists and your exposing of frauds has been for naught. And sometimes your brain just wants to play tricks on you.

Starring Martin Freeman, Paul Warren, Paul Whitehouse, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, and Alex Lawther (who was in one of the best Black Mirror episodes, Shut Up and Dance).

This hole covers its whole face and doesn´t look too wholesome.

I will give one thing to Ghost Stories. First of all, it is well shot, it is framed, it feels very sexy. The three stories are relatively intense, have their own levels of spooks and frights, but there is something missing.

A reason for these stories to feel more super serious than any other story is very much lacking. And they explain that eventually, but without knowing it ahead of time, it was just a gnawing feeling on me each time. Just like the professor, we aren´t sure why any of this matters.

Like I said, eventually we see why it matters, and that reason ends up being extremely lackluster. The ending of this film is shit. It feels like a prank. Like an edgy high school student wrote it without experiencing anything original in their life. I cannot describe enough how shit this ending is.

And honestly, if it could have just tied the stories for a good explanation and not just gone for some quick scares, it might have been worth something. The rating given is given only because of it still looking quite nice, having some nice moments, and honestly, Freeman was a blast in this movie.