2024 - HERE, today gone tomorrow

Took me all night to think of that title which is probably more time spent on that then on the script for this film.  The most depressing aspect of this film is the ongoing downhill slide of the career of the director Robert Zemeckis.  At one time he was a reliable provider of entertaining films like Used Cars, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

 

But into the 1990's Zemeckis began to embrace cutting edge film technology.  The flaw of this approach was a failure to see the weaknesses in the scripts and stories at the expense of the visual effects he loaded his films up with.  This resulted in some disappointing films like, Forrest Gump, A Christmas Carol, Pinocchio, Welcome to Marwin and the very strange Beowulf.  Here almost seems like a summation of the worst aspects of his film making style.  Interesting and sometimes amazing technical achievements and a complete failure in the storytelling department. 

 

Here isn't the worst film I've seen but for all it's razzle dazzle special effects junk it's bad.  The decision to shoot with only one camera angle robbed Zemeckis of his ability to edit the film, use the tools of the close up, the pan, the moving camera and the long shot.  Having the actors walk towards the camera appeared to be the solution for the close up but that came off like a poor 3-D gimmick.  For all the special effects of traveling through time to different eras using split screens and what not it just became a cheap gimmick.

The de-ageing software used to create younger versions of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright still has a long way to go, they look like cartoon versions of their younger selves.  It sure didn't help their performances. It's like watching an animated versions of themselves, exaggerated and ridiculous.  In fact the whole film has a weird phony look to it.  Zemeckis and his team should have spent more time on the characters and less time in the computer rendering department.

At the time of release this film was understandably clobbered by the critics.  If this is the future of film, the viewer should prepare for a wave of very mediocre AI films.

Written by Eric Roth and Robert Zemeckis, the running time is 104 minutes.

2024 - THE PENGUIN LESSONS, a charming film

Expecting the worst, comedian Steve Coogan adopting a penguin as a pet, I was surprised to see that this film had a lot more going for it than I thought.  This film has the ominous credit scrawl, "based on a true story."  But I will say Steve Coogan who is a funny guy also makes films that have a lot more to them then just comedic situations.   Coogan was the producer on Philomena a true story film a woman abused by the Catholic Church.  Coogan also played comedian Oliver Hardy in a decent film biography about Laurel and Hardy.

In The Penguin Lessons Coogan plays a teacher working at a boarding school in Argentina while the millitary was in power after overthrowing the elected government.  During a short vacation to the ocean he comes across a penguin covered in oil.  After cleaning the penguin up, Coogan tries to return it to the ocean but the penguin has bonded to him.  Coogan ends up taking the penguin back to his boarding school where the penguin bonds with the students and staff.

 

 Up to this point the plot seems simple and feel good enough but the film takes a turn when the daughter of one of the employees is arrested by the country's secret police for being a political activist.  Coogan has to decide if he will intervene to get the daughter released which could be at the expense of his own personal safety.  

 

I'll give this film credit, it could have easily taken the low road with lots of penguin being cute scenes but the filmmakers did try to put a little bit of a spine into one of these "adorable" animal films.  The film also doesn't have some gratuitous love interest to distract from the story for a change.  Overall an agreeable story well told.   

The film was written by Jeff Pope, the running time is 112 minutes. 

2024 - CONCLAVE, the pick a Pope film

With the passing of Pope Francis and the upcoming conclave of Cardinals to pick the new Pope for the Catholic Church.  People are streaming Conclave the "pick a new Pope" film.  In my case,  monkey see monkey do.

Conclave is a film thriller set in the Vatican.  The film stars Ralph Fiennes as the Cardinal in charge of running the three ring circus that is the process of picking a new Pontiff.  Briefly, stick the Cardinals in the Sistine chapel, have them cast secret ballots until there is a clear favorite candidate.  Burn the ballots in the Sistine Chapel fireplace. White smoke means they have a winner, back smoke means back to the drawing board. This stuff has been ingrained into every Catholic kid as the will of god.

The drama comes from all the political and personal intrigue going on with the Cardinals. There are lots of buried secrets, payoffs to other Cardinals, unwed mothers etc.  If you are looking for a film about the issues the Church has to confront, women as priests, birth control, treatment of LGBTQ, the conservative wing of the church vs the liberal wing, forget it.  This is strictly soap opera Dallas or Knots Landing stuff.  

 

You certainly can't fault the acting, Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci are very good.  John Lithgow shows up but he's about in every film or TV show these days. Isabella Rossellini is a nun who is in charge of housekeeping for the Cardinals which come to think about it is about the highest a woman can rise in the Catholic hierarchy.   

 

Conclave is a reasonably entertaining film, but the location of the Vatican is just a gimmick.  The film could have been easily set at a University, major Medical Center a World Bank or some place like that. 

The film was written by Peter Straughan, the running time is 120 minutes.

2024 - MUSIC BY JOHN WILLIAMS, butt kissing tribute to the maestro

Steve Spielberg and count em (10!) producers pay tribute to film composer John Williams in this so called documentary that is a very quick journey through Williams's professional life while an endless stream of talking heads sings his praises.  

  

I don't think that anyone can argue that Williams isn’t important to film history.  His orchestral scores for Jaws, E.T., Star Wars and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the  Lost Ark certainly contributed greatly to the classic status of these films.  However I think there should probably be a limit to how many times someone should be called a genius and in this film he's called that over and over and over by the usual bunch of Hollywood hot shots.  Spielberg, Lucas, Ron Howard and J.J. Abrams, ad nauseam. They seem to exhaust about every superlative they can think of in their praise of Williams.  Spielberg can be justly proud of his collaboration with Williams, but after a while his fanboy blathering dilutes William's achievements.

This film would have probably been maybe a tad more interesting if usually competent documentary director Laurent Bouzereau spent a little time investigating some of the films he was involved in that weren't exactly a raging successes like 1941, Always, Amistad, Hook and The Terminal some of Spielberg's lesser films.  Williams may have been a major player in many commercially and critically successful films but his music in these disappointing films is about the only reason to watch them and might be interesting to hear how he tried to improve them.

 

Probably the person who comes off best in Music by John Williams is John Williams himself.  For all of his success he is a rather soft spoken and modest man.  Williams seems like a talented craftsman doing his best in about any project he's involved in which in it self is plenty impressive.

The film's running time is 105 minutes. 

2024 - FROM ROGER MOORE WITH LOVE, kind of odd tribute to Roger Moore

The actor Roger Moore passed away seven years ago.  Moore appeared in his last James Bond film almost forty years ago.  So it's kind of strange that this tribute film to Moore was made now.  Apparently the film aired on the BBC during the holidays.  This is the usual mixture of interviews and home movies.  Moore apparently liked to run around with a Betamax VHS camera of all things and filmed a lot of the guests who stayed at his home in Switzerland.

Moore started his career as a sweater model and was lucky enough to hook up with the director Brian Desmond Hurst who apparently mentored him when he entered the acting profession.  Moore never had the acting "chops" for heavyweight dramas and was dropped by MGM after a couple of less than outstanding performances in Interrupted Melody and Diane.  This film doesn't mention his time at Warner Brothers where he mainly did television shows like Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. 

 

After his failure in America, it was back to England where he found his signature role in the popular TV show The Saint playing sort of a gentlemen thief.  After working in television for a while he was cast in the James Bond film Live and Let Die. He was James Bond number three during the 1970's.  Moore was blamed for bringing a lot of silliness to the James Bond franchisee but the reality was the series took a sharp turn towards goofiness with Sean Connery's last Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. 

If there is anything to be learned from this documentary and I use the term documentary very loosely it's that Roger Moore recognized his limitations as an actor and was able to turn these limitations into a film and television career.  Moore was apparently a very nice guy in real life.  He was never a prima donna on film sets and he apparently never turned his nose up at his fans.  Moore was also a very lucky man in his career.  Christopher Walken who never does these tribute interviews shows up and speaks very highly of him.

 

From Roger Moore With Love is about as lightweight as Roger Moore was.  It's a painless way to pass some time, sort of entertaining if you are a fan and in the end not remotely memorable.

The film is amusingly narrated by actor/writer Steve Coogan imitating Roger Moore's voice which Coogan has made a career of, the running time is 79 minutes.

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 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.

2024 - SATURDAY NIGHT, lame comedy/drama about the famous TV Show.

Exactly who was this film made for and more importantly who would be going to see it. "Saturday Night Live" the long running late night comedy show is now fifty years old which probably makes its original audience in the seventy to eighty year age range, hardly the hip group of moviegoers the filmmakers were probably hoping to attract to their film

This is a  comedy with small pieces of drama and it's clearly a tribute to Lorne Michaels who at 80 years old is still running the show and to think they complained about Trump and Biden"s ages during the election.  I don't think this film is an especially positive treatment of Michaels who I understand was a pretty cool character under pressure.  The young Michaels looks like he is about to crack up dealing with a nervous bunch of NBC executives who are ready to run an old episode of The Johnny Carson show should he fall on his face and  a staff of pothead comedians and writers who are basically a bunch of malcontents.   Did all this stuff really happen?  Well sort of.

The film has been carefully cast with actors impersonating the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" and the  goofy writing staff.   A standout is the actor Tommy Dewey playing Michael O'Donoghue.   O'Donoghue was probably the biggest misanthrope writer Saturday Night Live had on staff and was responsible for some of it's sickest and funniest skits until he was fired.

Saturday Night wants to say how important the show was to the cultural zeitgeist of the mid 70's but at times it also wants to get serious about the show's treatment of the only black performer Garrett Morris which was almost board line racist in real life.  However that's all brushed away as the film races to the premier of the first show which is treated like it was the second coming of the Ten Commandments.  If the filmmakers really wanted to get serious maybe the could have discussed the misogyny of John Belusi and some of Chevy Chase's less than sterling interactions with the cast. 

The film was written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, the running time is 109 minues.

2024 - JACKPOT, typical streaming comedy

This lame action comedy coming from the world of streaming, is a typical streaming movie.  Cable TV aka "Linear TV" continues to die on the vine as the public migrates to streaming. These streaming shows should provide more original entertainment since they are not subject to a lot of the censorship rules linear TV has put up with.  But in their desire to flood their streaming channels, the viewers end up with some stupid junk like this.

Jackpot is a typical streaming movie, it has a high concept idea but presents it in the blandest way possible.  There is a plot such that it is. In the future, anyone drawing a winning  lottery ticket has to spend the first 24 hours ducking the general public which in this case is trying to kill the winner.  The person who kills the lottery winner gets the winning ticket and the original winner’s monetary so cue the unending action scenes.

The film is a mediocre action comedy, with decent actors trying to wring some humor out of this preposterous situation. In fact it's safe to say this movie is not funny. 

The lead actors Awkwafina and former wrestler John Cena seem like they want to make this silly film work but Jackpot gives them nothing to do. It's as if the writer Rob Yescombe and the director Paul Feig had absolutely no interest in making an entertaining popcorn film other than collecting an easy paycheck for this drivel

 

I'm not sure what happened to Paul Feig.  He was usually a fairly reliable director of entertaining comedies like Bridesmaids, Spy and A Simple Favor.  But lately he really seems to be struggling with making decent comedies.   Jackpot is extremely undemanding viewing.  As  I sat in front of the TV playing with my phone at the same time, I sort of watched it with neither a mild interest or a mild disinterest.

The running time is 106 minutes.

2024 - TWISTERS, a big dumb summer movie

A big dumb summer movie with the emphasis on dumb.  Actor Daisy Edgar Jones is a brilliant scientist named Kate Carter who only seems to wear a wardrobe of tank tops.  Kate has invented a way to stop tornadoes by shooting sponges or something into them thereby improbably sucking the water out of them.  After a failed test which results in the deaths of most of her science team she goes into mourning.  Five years later she's back chasing tornadoes but this time she is competing with YouTube video star Tyler Owens a character clearly modeled after real life YouTube video star Reed Timmer whose videos are frankly a lot more entertaining than this. Tyler Owens is played by Glen Powell in an entertaining performance.  In fact Powell is the best thing about this movie, he really turns on the charisma.

This silly movie features lots of tornado destruction from evil tornadoes, evil land grabbers exploiting people who have lost their homes and Kate Carter in tank tops when at times a rain coat might be a little more appropriate.  When you get right down to it Twisters is pretty much an updating of an old Irwin Allen movie.

Twisters supposedly cost between 155 - 200 million dollars. You can be sure they didn't spend it on the screenplay which for the most part is just a collection of cliches with lines like," you don't face your fears, you ride 'em," and "if you feel it, chase it."  We're not exactly talking Harold Pinter dialog here.

 

As I've stated before, movies like this aren't really directed or acted they are made by a bunch of computer nerds sitting at their desks making stuff spin around on their computer monitors.  Supposedly Twisters has nothing to do with the original Twister movie but don't kid yourself this is the exact same movie as the first one.  I have nothing against an audience pleasing summer movie but does this one have to be so dumb?

Written (barely) by Mark L. Smith, the running time is 122 minutes.

2024 - THE FALL GUY, very entertaining action/romantic comedy

 The Fall Guy is a film supposedly based on the crappy Lee Major's TV show from the 1980s.  About the only thing this film has in common with the TV show is the name of the lead character Colt Seavers, his profession a film stuntman and the pickup truck he drives around in which was the method of transportation for Majors during the TV show.  This film is if anything the spiritual successor to the Burt Reynolds/Hal Needham stuntman film Hooper.

The story such that it is has Colt Seavers reuniting with the woman he broke up with Jody Moreno played by Emily Blunt.  Jody is directing her first film which she calls a science fiction love story entitled Metalstorm.  In  reality it's just another crappy action film.  When the leading man of Metalstorm disappears Colt Seavers attempts to locate him so Jody can finish her movie.

The Fall Guy has lots of stunts and action.  A lot of the stunts seems like practical effects. But what the film is really about is a satire of the current film business and it's obsession with actions scenes at the expense of characterization and story.  The film in fact is loaded with lots of funny bits, from the characters reciting dialog from other movies to a very funny Miami Vice stunt joke complete with the theme from Miami Vice on the soundtrack.

 Ryan Gosling is the put upon stunt man trying to solve the mystery of the missing leading man while simultaneously rekindling his relationship with Emily Blunt.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the vain leading man full of himself.  Hannah Waddingham is the producer of Metalstorm and Stephanie Hsu is a personal assistant pushing for a producer's credit instead of money in a ridiculous blackmail scheme.

 

The Fall Guy has not been the financial success that Universal Pictures had hoped for.  People who go to the film enjoy it but for some reason it has failed to attract a wide audience.  The worst criticism I can throw at this film is that it probably could have been a little shorter, but that's a minor complaint.  The film is entertaining  and well made.  The end of the film has outtakes from the action scenes staged for the  camera, something Jackie Chan has been doing for years.  There's also an amusing preview of the next episode of The Fall Guy.

The film was written by Drew Pearce, the running time is 126 minutes.

2024 - HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, funny slapstick comedy

Reviewers smarter than me have pointed out that the film Hundreds of Beavers is essentially a cross between a Warner Brothers Road  Runner cartoon and a Karel Zeman film. It's beavers vs man in a duel to the death.

The film is certainly cleverly made with animation mixed in with special effects and filmed in black and white which emphasizes the fantastic nature of the film.  The gags have been carefully worked out and the final frantic chase is extremely well done.  The film has virtually no dialog and is almost a throwback to the Buster Keaton, Harold Loyd days of silent film making

My only issue with this film is that it is a little long and probably could have used some editorial tightening up. At times all the clever slapstick gets to be a little exhausting.  Still this is an impressive technical achievement considering the extremely low budget the film was made for.

  

It will be interesting to see what these filmmakers come up with next but I shudder to think how much time they must have spent rendering these special effects scenes to achieve this result.  The film is available on streaming platforms and is playing in select theaters.

The film was written by Mike Cheslik and the lead performer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews.  The running time is 108 minutes.

2024 - THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE, disappointing spy/action film.

Another one of these based on a true story films but we can get into that later.  The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the supposed true story about a team of British commandos involved in something called "Operation Postmaster" during World War II.  In real life this team snuck aboard a couple of supply ships the German Navy had in neutral West Africa and sailed them into international waters where they were taken over by the British Navy.  The raid was apparently opposed by the British Admiralty but was sanctioned by Winston Churchill himself.

Well so much for the facts.  In this telling of the story these British commandos are a bunch of carefree devils as they race around shooting German soldiers and sailors with machine guns equipped with silencers and make no mistake about it they shot a lot of guys while they crack a lot of jokes.  They are assisted by a British agent played by Mexican actor Eiza González,  not that there is anything wrong with that.  The rest of the actors are a mixed bag of American and British performers.

 

This film was directed by Guy Ritchie who would seem the perfect guy to mix his mild black humor with lots of over the top violence.  But for some reason Ritchie doesn't seem up to the task this time.  The film straddles between attempts at James Bondian quip type humor and all out dead seriousness.  Ritchie can't seem to find the tone for this film.  Instead the film degenerates into a shoot and blow things up extravagance during the last part of the story.  I guess if you are in the mood for watching a lot of German soldiers get shot up, this is the film for you.  

 

The film ends with one of those "American Graffati" endings where they show the real pictures of the commando team with a little blurb about each of them. In real life these characters in this film were killed during various covert operations during World War II.  However there is no place for that kind of ending in this film.  So much for the based on a true story credit that the film shows at the beginning of this story. 

The film was written by Paul Tamasy,  Eric Johnson,  Arash Amel and Guy Ritchie.  The running time is 120 minutes.