2024 - THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT, a true life World War II story

Tyler Perry gets a lot of crap about being a less than good filmmaker.  His Madea character which is basically Perry playing an old lady in drag has been very popular much to the chagrin of many critics.  However Perry is a very successful filmmaker with studios in Atlanta, Georgia.  All of this is a lead up to discussing Perry's latest film The Six Triple Eight.

Based on a true World War II story, The Six Triple Eight was an all black female Army unit which ended up being assigned to Glasgow, Scotland where they are ordered to sort and deliver millions of letters to soldiers in the European theater that were just sitting in a warehouse undelivered.

 

This film is about their efforts to clean up and organize this military mail mess..  Kerry Washington plays the commanding officer of this Army unit who faces a stream of racism from white Army enlisted men and officers. She's based on the real commander Lt. Col Charity Adams a very remarkable woman in real life.  Ebony Obsidian is one of the enlisted women who is involved with a white Jewish pilot in a rather far fetched romantic subplot.  Oprah Winfrey herself shows up in a small role and Sam Waterston and Susan Sarandon are Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

 

Frankly the film is really not that good.  The incidents in the film appear to be mainly true but the storytelling is a little "hit you over the head" blunt as it goes through the motions.  The characters at times seem awfully stereotypical  

Is this film worth watching?  Well in spite of the at times clumsy execution of the plot, The Six Triple Eight tells a fascinating story about a moment in World War II that had been forgotten.  The achievement of this Army unit is impressive and it looks like most of the story points in the film are true to what actually happened to these women.  So yes the film is worth watching.

The film was written by Tyler Perry, the running time is 127 minutes.

2024 - WICKED, it's long it has a lot of songs

The big hit musical for the holiday season is now showing up on streaming.  Wicked as everyone knows is based on a popular Broadway musical of the same name.  The film was very expensive to produce around $150 million.  It has big sets lots of dancing and two charismatic female stars, it is also very mediocre.

In a musical it should be all about the music.  However in this film I don't think there was one memorable song in the entire film's long running time.  The production team tries to cover this up with lots of big sets and elaborate computer image special effects but after a while it's all just viewer overload.

 

As far as the cast goes Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are certainly talented enough but as an old boss of mine once said you can only put so much "lipstick on the pig" to cover all the problems with this film.  The other cast members well what can you say.  A special song has been dedicated to the original stars of the musical, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth who are showcased in a scene that goes on and on.  Bowen Yang has been carving out a career as a comedian on SNL plays the stereotypical bitchy gay guy which is apparently the best character the writers could come up with.  Michelle Yeoh is also in the film and continues to appear in a lot of films as she enters the "paycheck performance" period of her career.  Jeff Goldblum plays the Wizard of Oz as Jeff Goldblum. 

Wicked is supposed to be a revisionist story of The Wizard of Oz but this film has also decided to be about racism (the green skinned witch) and the social prejudices of the citizens of Oz in this case  talking animals because after all they are different from us (get it).  

I guess the director Jon M. Chu should get some credit for orchestrating all of this junk into a film.  He had to deal with two probably diva stars, lots of overblown special effects and a completely unwieldy screenplay.  By the end of this movie the credit comes up "end of part one" god help me.  To paraphrase my niece the only people who should get awards for this film are the marketing team that sold it to the public.

The film was written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, who have sort of been hinting at a parts 3 and 4 to this film.  The running time is 160 minutes.

2024 - NOSFERTAU, 3rd remake of this vampire story

A passion project for the writer/director Robert Eggers.  Apparently as a kid he was impressed with the 1922 F. W. Murnau film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  This is actually the third remake for this story.  Besides the Murnau version Werner Herzog filmed his version Nosferatu the Vampyre, in 1979 with madman actor Klaus Kinski as the title character.

I saw this version at an IMAX theater and in 35 mm no less which made for a rather intense viewing experience.  The film was shot in a lot of medium sized screen shots which on the giant IMAX screen really jumped out at me.   I probably should have sat farther back as at times I felt a little overwhelmed.

Some of the acting was a little hard to take particularly Lily-Rose Depp as the victim of the vampire Count Orlok.  Depp plays a character called Ellen Hutter who apparently has some kind of psychic connection with the Count.  Depp's performance is shall we say rather hysterical and at times she seems to be channeling a possessed character like in one of those Exorcist films.  Regardless of what I may think of her performance it's certainly a step up from that mess of a TV series The Idol which she started in.  Probably the best performance in the film is from Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz although the character is usually called Professor Van Helsing, confused yet?

 

Nosferatu is extremely well made you can't argue with that.  The photography, set design, makeup and special effects are at a high level.  Naturally since this is a film released in 2024 and not 1922 there is the expected blood, nudity and sex but that's the way it goes. A well done horror film although I didn't find it particularly scary.  I'm still not sure the world needed another version of Nosferatu but here it is.

The film's running time is 132 minutes.