Movie Review The My Little Pony Movie

The My Little Pony Movie (2017) 

Directed by Jason Thiessen

Written by Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao, Michael Vogel 

Starring Uzo Udoba, Ashleigh Ball, Emily Blunt, Kristen Chenoweth, Taye Diggs 

Release Date October 6th, 2017 

Having seen the unique and oddly fascinating documentary Bronies a few years back, I have been trying to come to terms with the adult fans of My Little Pony. Is this simply large scale trolling or are these grown men for real in their pony based fandom? Oddly, I don’t feel like either of the Brony documentaries that have been released in the past couple of years have answered my question. I still don’t get what it is that grown men see in My Little Pony.

I definitely see what my 5 year old Goddaughter, Charlotte, finds appealing about the series. My Little Pony combines pretty, colorful, talking horses with a very simple, easy to digest moral in each episode of the series. Charlotte’s favorite color is pink and there is a character in the series named Pinkie Pie, it’s a pretty natural fit for her as yet unformed taste and intellect. That brings me back to the Bronies. Having now sat through My Little Pony The Movie, their interest in this series remains a bafflement to me.

My Little Pony The Movie is centered around the very first Festival of Friendship in which our heroine, Princess Twilight Sparkle, is charged with demonstrating why friendship is the greatest thing ever. Twilight has planned an epic festival featuring a performance by none other than pop star pony Songbird Serenade (real life pop star Sia). As we join the story, Twilight is nervously preparing for a meeting with her fellow pony princesses. She’s hoping to ask them to use their magic to move the sun and the moon to just the right places in the sky to light up the festival.

Unfortunately, Twilight’s plan is thwarted by an attack by an evil baddie known as The Storm King (Live Schreiber) and his top henchman, a former pony kingdom member, Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt). The Storm King hopes to steal the magic from the Princess Ponies so he can use to take control of the weather and by extension take over all of Equestria. It will be up to Princess Twilight and her pals, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Spike the Dragon, to unite the surrounding pony kingdoms to stop The Storm King and his evil plot.

Find my full length Review in the Geeks Community on Vocal 

Movie Review The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy (2024) 

Directed by David Leitch 

Written by Drew Pearce 

Starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Winston Duke, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Hannah Waddingham 

Release Date May 3rd, 2024 

Published May 3rd, 2024 

The Fall Guy is so much fun. Ryan Gosling stars as stunt man Colt Seavers, the double for famed movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnson). Colt has everything going for him, a great job that he loves doing, a great reputation, and he's just fallen in love with a camera operator on the new movie he's working on. Jody (Emily Blunt) and Colt are making plans and fliting and generally getting along smashingly when a stunt goes wrong. Performing a fall from a few stories up, Colt's rigging fails, and he smashes to the ground. 

Having suffered a devastating back injury, costing him his job and reputation as a stunt man, Colt retreats into a self-imposed isolation. This includes leaving Jody behind as he doesn't want her to see him as less than the man he was. 18 months go by, and Colt is just getting by parking cars when he receives an emergency call. Gail (Hannah Waddingham), Tom Ryder's protector and producer needs Colt to fly to Australia immediately to help out on Tom's new movie, Metal Storm. Tom has gone missing, and Gail needs Colt to stand in for him on the movie and also help find the missing star. 

Tom has apparently fallen in with some dangerous types down under and while Colt feels no obligation to help Tom, he decides to help because if he doesn't the movie will fall apart. Why does this matter? Because the director is Jody. It's her first time directing a major motion picture and if Tom disappears, she could get fired and lose everything. Wanting to reconnect with the woman he loves, Colt sets about trying to find Tom while performing his stunts on the movie, all while Jody finds new ways to punish him for ghosting her after his accident. 

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer (2023) 

Directed by Christopher Nolan 

Written by Christopher Nolan 

Starring Robert Downey Jr, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett 

Release Date July 21st, 2023 

Published July 21st, 2023 

Oppenheimer is the kind of epic filmmaking that we've not seen in years. It's expansive, expensive, and visionary work that encompasses American history within a singular story. The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of contradiction and controversy. Oppenheimer gave the humanity the ability to destroy itself and placed that power in the hands of egomaniacal world leaders. Then he spent his life trying to convince people to use this power responsibly. He was somewhat successful, we haven't been incinerated by Oppenheimer's creation. But that that is cold comfort, Oppenheimer's creation still hangs like the sword of Damocles over all of our heads, even as we all do our best to ignore it. 

The expansive story of J. Robert Oppenheimer exists in movie form in three separate threads. In the first thread, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr) is facing a Congressional hearing over his appointment to a position in President Eisenhower's cabinet. Though a top aid to the President, played by Alden Ehrenreich, assures him his approval is a near guarantee, Strauss is concerned that his past interactions with J. Robert Oppenheimer, a former friend and subordinate, will cost him his position. As this story plays out there were many twists and turns in the relationship between Oppenheimer and Strauss and that we only remember one of them historically says a lot. 

In the second thread, we see J. Robert Oppenheimer rising through the academic ranks in the world of physics before ending up at Berkley. There he forms a friendship and partnership with Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), the man who would take Oppenheimer's theory and turn it into a reality. Both men are brilliant and one doesn't succeed without the other, even as Oppenheimer is the one who goes on to infamy as the man who founded Los Alamos and led the charge to create the bomb. Nevertheless, without Lawrence, Oppenheimer may not have been sought to lead Los Alamos, it was Lawrence who joined The Manhattan Project first. 

The third thread finds Oppenheimer, known by colleagues as Oppy, though that always feels far to whimsical for a man this serious, takes charge of Los Alamos, essentially a town founded with the specific goal of uniting America's best scientists in one place in order to build the bomb. Here, Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves work as leaders and adversaries in the 2 billion dollar effort to beat the Nazis and then the Russians to the development of a weapon of mass destruction. The point of the Manhattan Project was beating the Nazis but the war in Europe is won before the bomb is built. 

This leads to a number of ethical debates about whether the the bomb still needs to be built. Oppenheimer here is shown as ineffectual in trying to make the case against developing the bomb. At a certain point, he just wanted to know if it could be done and this ambition allowed him to passively be convinced that dropping the bomb in Japan was a necessary evil intended to end the war in the Pacific and show Russia the full force of the American military. Oppenheimer was of two minds, understanding the bomb as a deterrent to future wars while also worrying that developing the bomb would cause a dangerous and divisive arms race. 

Simmering in the background is Oppenheimer's personal life which is divided between two women, among several he may have carried on relationships with. Oppenheimer's first love was communist author and psychiatrist, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). She tries to recruit Oppenheimer to communism but finding him noncommittal to the cause, she settles for a tumultuous affair with Oppenheimer that unfortunately collides with Oppenheimer's relationship with the woman who would become his wife and mother of his children, Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt). 

These two women reveal different aspects of Oppenheimer, aspects that cut to the core of the human being behind the pragmatic scientist turned unlikely patriot. From Jean Tatlock we learn about Oppenheimer's approach to politics but also to passion and how emotion can collide with his dedication to reason and education. Through Kitty we see the conflicted Oppenheimer, the vulnerable, awkward, self-effacing man behind the confident veneer of a world famous scientist. In the performances of these three actors we see this incredibly tense and passionate attempt to get Oppenheimer to open up and confront himself and his creation and we watch Murphy do everything he can to maintain composure in the face of world altering history on a very human scale. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review: The Young Victoria

The Young Victoria (2009) 

Directed by Jean Marc Vallee 

Written by Julian Fellowes 

Starring Emily Blunt, Paul Bettany, Rupert Friend, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent

Release Date December 18th, 2009

Published January 6th, 2010 

"Queen Victoria, one of our more frumpy Queens. They're all frumpy aren't they? Because it's a bad idea when cousins marry." Eddie Izzard "Dressed to Kill"

That quote was all I could think when I sat to watch The Young Victoria. Eddie Izzard's pointedly funny takedown of royal lineage threatened, early on, to affect my ability to enjoy this take on Queen Victoria's rise to power. What a welcome surprise it was then that star Emily Blunt made me forget all about Mr. Izzard, at least till the film was over, and with the great aid of an exceptional script by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes, made me love this movie.

The Young Victoria tells the story of Queen Victoria from the time just before she became Queen through her struggle with parliament and marriage to Prince Albert (Rupert Friend). We learn that as a young woman Victoria was kept from the world at large by her dour mother, the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) and her mother's consort Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong).

Both pressured the teenage heir to King William's (Jim Broadbent) throne to make them her Royal Regent, essentially ceding them the power over the monarchy. She refused, meanwhile the King himself conspired to win her favor with the help of the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany), and the King's brother in law, and the ruler of Belgium, King Leopold (Thomas Kretschmann) maneuvered to move his bloodline into power through his nephew Albert.

For his part, Albert proved to be more than just another pawn in another power play. Over the course of Victoria's rise to power he is a trusted friend, confidante and eventually a husband and lover. It is in this relationship between Emily Blunt’s precocious yet savvy Victoria and Friend's stolid yet loving Albert that The Young Victoria gets it's romantic drive.

Emily Blunt is a powerhouse in The Young Victoria. Sure, she looks nothing like what is known of Victoria, ('one of our more frumpy Queens') but as she has told reviewers, you want realistic, watch the history channel. This is a Victoria for pop culture consumption and as such it works. Blunt's Victoria is sexy and smart, winsome and powerful. 

Ms. Blunt has remarkable chemistry not just with Mr. Friend, who is only just her equal, but also with the exceptionally cunning Paul Bettany and the always welcome Jim Broadbent, in a terrific cameo. The rest of the cast, minus the Snidely Whiplash-esque Mark Strong as the villain of the piece, is uniformly excellent. 

Adding to the power of Ms. Blunt's performance is an exceptionally smart, witty and concise script by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes. Mr. Fellowes takes a sprawling story of high court conspirators boils them down to their essences and keeps the audience in firm grasp of the various plots, machinations and maneuvers going on around our Victoria all while creating a hot house atmosphere of Victorian Era intrigue. 

So often period pieces like The Young Victoria can seem like inaccessible museum pieces all stuffy and puffed up. Fellowes and director Jean Marc Vallee deftly introduce a little soapy daytime drama into the mix without losing their air of cinematic importance. This is high minded drama but with a sense of the modern culture, hence the choice of a sexy Queen and lithesome, Edward Cullen-esque, leading man. 

The Young Victoria is tart and smart and features a star-making performance from Emily Blunt who may be more of a contender for Best Actress than many think. This is just the kind of glorious underdog of a performance that arrives on Oscar night to upset the apple cart of Oscar expectations. Here's hoping that Mr. Fellowes' scripting doesn't go unnoticed on Oscar night as well.

Movie Review Sunshine Cleaning

Sunshine Cleaning (2009) 

Directed by Christine Jeffs

Written by Megan Holley 

Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Jason Spevack, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Clifton Collins Jr, Eric Christian Olson, Alan Arkin

Release Date March 13th, 2009 

Published March 13th, 2009 

The opening scene of the dramatic comedy Sunshine Cleaning involves a man walking into a gun store, picking up a shotgun, placing a shell inside that he had brought with him and in the end this man shooting himself. The scene is contentiously at odds with the rest of the movie which attempts to make the cleaning up after such an incident a quirky romp. It's not.

Oscar nominee Amy Adams stars in Sunshine Cleaning as Rose Lorkowski, the head cheerleader turned maid for hire. Life hasn't worked out as Rose planned. She had planned on being with her high school sweetheart Mac (Steve Zahn), especially after he went and knocked her up. The two are still sleeping together but Mac is married to someone else.

Now, Rose works wherever she can to make money to raise her slightly odd son Oscar (Jason Spevack). Then there is Rose's sister, Norah (Emily Blunt) who's like having a second child. Norah cannot hold a job, cannot stand authority and is generally a drag on her big sister.

Then, an opportunity arises. Mac informs Rose that the guys who clean up after crimes make  really good money, more than enough for Rose to put Oscar in a private school. Rose enlists Norah's help and, after some brief whining by little sis, Sunshine Cleaning is born.

Director Christine Jeffs elicits strong performances from Adams and Blunt while getting solid supporting turns from Zahn and Oscar Winner Alan Arkin. The characters played by each are believable in the context of the film and each has that just slightly off center quality that fascinates an audience.

Unfortunately, the actors are often overshadowed by the film's wildly gyrating tone which bounces from an almost slapstick approach to Rose and Norah's early business going to deathly serious as Rose and Norah's past with their mother is revealed. Norah's ark becomes bizarre and awkward when she becomes determined to inform the daughter of a dead woman (Mary Lynn Rajskub) of her mom's death and finds the woman taking an interest in her.

Meanwhile Rose develops a platonic friendship with a cleaning supply store owner played by Clifton Collins Jr. The relationship doesn't really develop beyond her using him for his knowledge and eventually as a babysitter. These subplots fail to reveal much about either sister aside from their own helpless self involvement.

There are good things about Sunshine Cleaning from the cast to the few laughs elicited to the demonstration of a career that holds a morbid fascination for more than a few people. Sadly, the film never finds the right tone to unite the characters, the humor and the morbidity and thus Sunshine Cleaning feels unsatisfying in the end.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place (2018) 

Directed by John Krasinski 

Written by John Krasinski, Beck and Woods

Starring Emily Blunt, John Krasinski

Release Date April 6th, 2018

Published April 5th, 2018 

A Quiet Place stars John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as husband and wife and parents of three kids in a post-apocalyptic Midwestern America. We meet the family 89 days into this seeming apocalypse as they are gathering supplies in the dusty remains of a pharmacy. One of the kids is sick but the bigger issue is the youngest son who has set his eyes upon a battery powered toy rocket.

Why is the toy rocket a big deal? In this apocalypse, sound is your greatest enemy. The slightest hint of noise can bring the arrival of nasty, assumedly alien, beasts that strike quickly and kill mercilessly. When the boy flips the switch on his new toy, his parents were unaware he’d taken it, the tension is off the charts and A Quiet Place gets off to a stunning start that becomes a relentless, tension soaked 90 minutes.

John Krasinski directed A Quiet Place from a script initially penned by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck though Krasinski is also credited on the script. The premise is clever and Krasinski as director makes smart choices in how he capitalizes on the premise to create incredible tension. The toy rocket is just the first of several ways the movie capitalizes on the central notion of not making a sound.

The other major set-piece comes with the reveal that Blunt’s character, none of the characters are named until the closing credits, is pregnant. The logistics of attempting to give birth under the circumstances of this plot is clever if a tad unrealistic. We are forced to simply accept that these otherwise careful characters had very quiet sex and took the risk of pregnancy despite previous experience that told them how nearly impossible a silent birth would be.

One of the audience members at my screening of A Quiet Place was rather apoplectic at the notion of silent sex, though I do believe there is an attempt to explain it. That however requires reading far too much into what is an otherwise straight forward character study that also happens to be a horror movie. Let’s just say that a sound proofed room may or may not have been designed and leave it at that.

I have a number of quibbles with A Quiet Place, little loose strings I could tug on for a while but those are very much secondary to the excitement created by Krasinski’s smart direction. I will say that the clichéd exchange when a husband tells his pregnant wife she’s beautiful and she responds that she’s ‘fat’ and he makes a wise-crack about how he didn’t say that, is not refreshed simply by being said in ASL. If we could retire this conversation in movies I would be very happy.

Like I was saying however, my problems with A Quiet Place are relatively minor compared to how smart the movie is elsewhere. The monsters are scary, the action set-pieces are well staged and the tension, especially during the birth scene, is off the charts fantastic. Krasinski’s deft camera choices play up the tension exceptionally well and the sound design smartly underlines the tension, even when it’s just a silly jump scare.

Is A Quiet Place a revolutionary new wave in horror? No, the hype in fact is probably doing a great disservice to the movie. A Quiet Place is very good but considering it as anything more than a terrifically thrilling genre piece is only going to cause future audiences to feel a tad disappointed. A Quiet Place doesn’t rethink the genre, it’s not a landmark event and if you go in expecting something iconic you may come away thinking you missed something.

Movie Review Into the Woods

Into the Woods (2014) 

Directed by Rob Marshall 

Written by James LaPine 

Starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 21st 2014 

“Into the Woods" is a shrill, monotonous mess of a movie.

Director Rob Marshall has followed up the self indulgent tragedy that was 2010's "Nine" with an even more full-of-itself, or just plain full of it, musical adaptation. The difference this time is that he has buried a good deal of big money talent under his hack direction. 

"Into the Woods" stars Meryl Streep as an over-the-top street performer - ahem, I mean a fairy tale witch - who tasks a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), with obtaining several magical items. These objects will help the witch to lift a curse, which is preventing the couple from having a child, is one she placed on the baker’s family years earlier. 

The items include a cow of milky white, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper of … something or other. I lost track as I stopped giving a damn. These items, naturally, already have owners including a boy, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), who believes his cow is his best friend; a nasally singing, irksome girl, Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford); and Cinderella (Anna Kendrick). 

Each of these story threads eventually coalesce into something of a story, but not without various distractions, including the entirely unnecessary inclusion of Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and her prince suitor (Billy Magnusson), whose presence has literally nothing to do with the other stories going on. Indeed, the one attempt to rope Rapunzel into the main plot is literally discarded just a few short scenes later. 

Then there is Chris Pine as another prince who is continually abandoned by Kendrick's Cinderella. He too will be discarded from the main plot without much effect before the film is over, but not before he's rendered his entire plot meaningless by turning into a minor villain, a character trait that also has little bearing on the main plot. 

Oh, and did I mention there are giants? Yes, dear reader, this movie that is packed to the gills with needless characters seems fit to toss in a giant in the final act, even after it had reached a fitting, if somewhat abrupt, happy ending. The giant is a tacked-on bit of plot intended to underline something about fairy tales … blah, blah, blah. I truly stopped caring by this point. 

Somehow, I have made it this far without raising the most offensive topic of "Into the Woods," which is Johnny Depp's uber-creepy Big Bad Wolf. Yes, I get that he is a villainous character, but was it necessary for his villainy to carry a child-rape subtext? Just take a moment to ponder these lyrics and tell me I'm overreacting: 

"Look at that flesh, pink and plump. Hello Little Girl" 

"Tender and fresh, (Sniff), not one lump. Hello Little Girl" 

Later, Red Riding Hood herself sings a song that underlines the awful subtext and takes it a step further on the creep-meter:

"He showed me many beautiful things" (What did he show her? Flowers? That's just about flowers?) "Then he bared his teeth and I got really scared, well excited and scared." (Excited? Why would she be excited? She's about to be killed in the surface context, so why is she excited?)

"But he drew me close, and he swallowed me down, down a dark slimy path where lies secrets I never want to know." (What exactly is the context of that?) 

Later Red Riding Hood sings about how she should have listened to her mother and never strayed from her path. The implication: What happened to Red was her own fault. Accuse me of overreacting all you want, but the Red Riding Hood story has long been contextualized as being about a young girl's sexual coming of age. Just ask the French.

Putting aside the creep-tastic Wolf, you still have an ungainly mess of a movie that doesn't know how to end and is overpopulated with unnecessary characters and nonsensical talk-singing. "Into the Woods' ' is a shrill disaster of a fairy-tale musical; one of the worst movies of 2014. 

Movie Review Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels (2010) 

Directed by Rob Letterman

Written by Joe Stillman, Nicholas Stoller

Starring Jack Black, Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Chris O'Dowd, Catherine Tate

Release Date December 25th, 2010 

Published Deember 25th, 2010

The thing about "Gulliver's Travels" is that there isn't all that much wrong with it and I still can't recommend it. The cast headed up by Jack Black is uniformly game and hard working. The story is a classic hence why Jonathan Swift's story has lingered for more than 200 years. So, what really kept me from liking this harmless, desperately wanting to be loved movie? I'm still working on that.

Gulliver (Jack Black) is the head of the mailroom at one of New York's largest newspapers. He's been at this job for a while, something that would not satisfy most adults. When Gulliver finds out that the new guy, Dan (T.J Miller), that he has trained for a single day is now his new boss, Gulliver vows to do something with his life.

That something is finally asking out the paper's travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet) who Gulliver has had a crush on for years. Unfortunately, Gulliver chickens out on the asking out part and in his haste to escape social mortification accidentally backs into a writing assignment. After faking a writing sample Gulliver is off to Bermuda where the infamous triangle awaits.

Of course we know that soon after Gulliver boards his boat he will be arriving in Lilliput, the island home of the miniscule Lilliputians lead by King Benjamin (Billy Connelly), his daughter, Princess Mary (Emily Blunt) and her betrothed, General Edward (I.T Crowd genius Chris O'Dowd). After being captured by the General and imprisoned, Gulliver makes a friend, Horatio (Jason Segal) who happens to be Princess Mary's true love, imprisoned by the jealous General.

From that set up we get Gulliver becoming a hero defending Lilliput against other mini invaders, Horatio released from prison and wooing Mary with Gulliver's modern diffidence and the surprise arrival of Darcy in search of Gulliver after discovering his faked writing samples lifted from Fodor's among other sources.

There is a battle against a giant robot and an island where Gulliver is dwarfed by even larger beings. These ideas are introduced by director Rob Letterman and just sort of happen and are discarded. There is no lingering effect. Some of this stuff is funny, most of it might bring about a smile or a chuckle but mostly the humor of "Gulliver's Travels" evaporates as quickly as it appeared.

The thing is though; there is nothing really wrong with that. Chuckles and half smiles aren't bad when you want a minor distraction. A movie should aspire to a great deal more but when so many other movies rob audiences of life force, I'm looking at you Fockers, one is tempted to grab a giggle wherever you can find them.

Also, it's fair to say that "Gulliver's Travels" meets every expectation of its underwhelming trailer. Jack Black tumbles and riffs, Emily Blunt and Amanda Peet are pretty and the 3D is completely meaningless and unnecessary. Jack Black gets the same laughs in the movie that he does in the trailer and a few more half smiles and giggles here and there. It's everything the marketing promises.

I am hesitant to give even a half hearted recommendation to "Gulliver's Travels" in part because of a quote from the legendary, and greatly missed, Gene Siskel who once asked "Is this movie as good as a documentary about these same actors having lunch together?" Gulliver's Travels fails that test miserably. Listening into the lunch conversation of Jack Black, Jason Segal, Chris O'Dowd, Billy Connelly and Oscar nominee Emily Blunt would be infinitely more entertaining than "Gulliver's Travels."

Movie Review Mary Poppins Returns

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Directed by Rob Marshall

Written by David Magee, Rob Marshall, John DeLuca

Starring Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda, Pixie Davies, Ben Whishaw

Release Date December 19th, 2018

Published December 17th, 2018

If you had told me there would be a sequel to Mary Poppins and that I would enjoy it even more than the version I grew up singing along to, a week ago I would have told you that you were crazy. But now, well, now I have seen it for myself and, indeed, it’s true, I enjoyed Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt and Lin Manuel Miranda even more than I enjoyed the original. That’s high praise as I used to pretend I was Dick Van Dyke and sing along with the songs in that movie when I was 7 or 8 years old. Mary Poppins Returns had to overcome a lot of nostalgia. 

Mary Poppins Returns is a direct sequel to the 1964 Disney original. It’s not a remake, it’s not re-imagining, it’s a sequel featuring the original characters played by new actors. Emily Blunt takes up the role that Julie Andrews made famous as Mary Poppins, a nanny who can fly. In the original movie, Mary came to help the Banks children, Michael and Jane cope with their fun-hating father and flighty mum. 

Twenty years have passed between the original and the sequel and Michael (Ben Whishaw) is all grown up with his own three children. Jane (Emily Mortimer) has inherited her mother’s activist spirit which has left her without much of a social life. Recently, Michael’s wife passed away and it has thrown his life and the lives of his children, Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie (Joel Dawson), into chaos. So much chaos in fact, they may lose their home unless they can find their grandfather’s long ago shares in Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, where Michael now works as a teller. 

Into this maelstrom comes Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt), arriving, as she does, on the end of a kite being flown by Georgie. Mary Poppins sensed trouble when the kids, rather than just being kids, were beginning to act like adults. Mary Poppins immediately sets about giving the children childlike adventures which include a trip under the sea via their bathtub and some magic bubbles and a lovely cartoon carriage ride inside a cracked old bowl that their mother gave them. 

The cartoon carriage ride is the most inspired part of Mary Poppins Returns. It recalls, of course, the legendary dancing penguins, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious performance from the original, with a penguin cameo no less. Herein, Blunt performs the big showstopper of Mary Poppins Returns alongside Lin Manuel Miranda who plays Jack, ostensibly the Bert of this sequel. The song “A Cover is Not the Book” is completely delightful, a rollicking and slightly risque tune that wonderfully combines animation and live action even more seamlessly than the original. 

The best song in Mary Poppins Returns however, is the one that is likely going to make you cry. It made me wipe away a tear. The song is called “The Place Where Lost Things Go” and it’s an emotional piece that gets at the heart of grief and loss and parental love. Relatively easy targets for a tear jerker but wait till you hear Emily Blunt sing it before you get cynical. Blunt’s beautiful voice soars and the kids’ back-up on the song hits right at the heart. 

Mary Poppins Returns was directed by Rob Marshall and marks a return to form for the director who was last seen torturing the movie musical genre with his unbearable Broadway adaptation, Into the Woods. Marshall hasn’t directed anything nearly as good as Mary Poppins Returns since he won an Academy Award for adapting Chicago to the big screen in 2003. He’s helped by having much better music here than he did in Into the Woods. Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman have truly hit it out of the park with not one bad song in the movie. 

I wasn’t expecting much from Mary Poppins Returns. I was kind of expecting the film to fall on its face while rehashing the original. Instead, what we get is a gleefully fun romp that recalls the spirit of the original movie and, in many ways, improves on the original. Emily Blunt is fantastic, Lin Manuel Miranda is lively and energetic and the music is spectacular. Have no hesitation, Mary Poppins Returns is everything you could want from a Mary Poppins sequel and so much more

Movie Review Sicario

Sicario (2015) 

Directed by Denis Villenueve 

Written by Taylor Sheridan 

Starring Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin 

Release Date September 18th, 2015 

Published September 17th, 2015 

Sicario stars Emily Blunt as Kate, a tough young FBI Agent who is recruited for a joint government task force on drug enforcement. Immediately she smells something fishy, especially after she meets Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), a specialist in cartel politics who is supposedly working for the Department of Justice. Alejandro answers only to Kate’s new boss, an equally shady character named Matt (Josh Brolin).

Both Alejandro and Matt are suspiciously good with a weapon for a pair of Department of Justice lawyers and that’s not the only thing about this new assignment that is nagging at Kate. Among other things, Kate’s first day on the job finds her crossing the Texas-Mexico border to capture a high level drug asset. The fact that she’s flanked by an elite military force for this mission gives the strong impression that whoever has arranged this, is working outside the bounds of diplomacy and the rule of law.

As the story evolves, Kate is torn between the desire for results in the unending battle between the government and the fractured but still functioning cartels which have only grown more violent and territorial since the fall of the Medellin cartel which had kept an uneasy peace among the cartels while keeping the flow of drugs into America as high as it has ever been. The choice for Kate is simple, the idealistic and seemingly futile pursuit of results inside the bounds of the law or giving up a piece of her very soul for the chance to slow the flow of drugs into the country.

How much moral flexibility does Kate have? Can Kate kill unconvicted people if it means capturing or killing those who’ve earned it? These questions form the drama and suspense of Sicario and director Denis Villenueve gives these questions weight and patiently unfolds them as the movie goes on. Villenueve, one of the finest filmmakers working today, an Academy Award nominee for his work on Arrival, has a mastery of pacing and building toward powerful moments.

With the help of two time Academy Award nominee, Editor Joe Walker, Villenueve slowly allows tension to build via clever character moments and splashes of sudden violence. The editing is seamlessly brilliant and essential to how Sicario slowly builds to a pair of remarkably tense closing scenes including a sweaty and intense dinner conversation with a drug kingpin and one final moment between main characters that is downright devastating.

I could go on and talk about the brilliant production design by Patrice Vermette, another two time Academy Award nominee or about the breathtaking cinematography of Roger Deakins, an Academy Award winner for his work on Villenueve’s Blade Runner in 2017 and the only member of the cast and crew of the first Sicario movie to be nominated for an Academy Award. Believe me when I tell you, every sequence of Sicario is impeccable.

Great performances, tremendous direction, beautifully spare cinematography and production design and a great story combine to make me very excited for the new movie Sicario Soldad. It should be fascinating to watch Alehandro and Matf do what they do without Kate around to force them to weigh their consciences. Just how low will these rogue elements of our spy underground go to stanch the drug pipeline between the U.S and Mexico.

Movie Review The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) 

Directed by David Frankel 

Written by Aline Bros McKenna

Starring Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Adrien Grenier 

Release Date June 30th, 2006 

Published June 29th, 2006 

The Devil Wears Prada, adapted from the bestselling novel by Lauren Weisberger, wants desperately to be an urbane, witty combination of Sex In The City and the haute couture of a glossy Vogue magazine cover. More true to the film's nature however is a typical little fish, big pond story that combines elements of Cinderella and Mary Tyler Moore.

Anne Hathaway stars in Devil Wears Prada as Andy Sachs, a wide eyed midwestern girl in the big city of New York hoping for her big break in journalism. Landing a job at Runway magazine as the second assistant to the legendary Runway editor Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) is the kind of job that opens a lot of doors.

This, however. There are no typical assistants, assistant gigs. Priestley is a tyrannical slave driver with a withering gaze and a dismissive whispery voice that sets your teeth on edge, especially with her dismissive catch phrase "That's All" dropped randomly during any discussion.

At home Andy's life in the big city centers around the tiny apartment she shares with her boyfriend from back home Nate (Adrien Grenier, TV's Entourage). He is working his way to becoming a chef while watching Andy run ragged by her new job.

The thrust of the plot is seemingly predictable. Will the poor midwestern girl succumb to the glamor explosion of her new job at the expense of her midwestern values or will she be true to herself and her boyfriend. To the film's credit this very typical storyline does not play out completely as expected.

Director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna cannot resist a few cliches along the way. Watch as the film trips along the edge of an old fashioned Hollywood values play as they position Andy's life choices. Andy can have the job and the glamor or the true love of her old boyfriend and all the pre-packaged old school benefits of marriage, kids and settled down 'bliss'.

For some reason Andy cannot have both. At 23 years old neither Andy's boyfriend nor her closest friends, played by Tracie Thomas and Doug Sommer, are unwilling to understand the sacrifices one must make in order to make it in a challenging field such as the one she has chosen.

The boyfriend and the friends bitch and moan about Andy changing into someone they don't know anymore. They even go as far as to condemn her when she accepts the chance to travel to Paris for a few weeks of work. I don't know about you but if a friend of mine were headed for Paris I would try and hide in their luggage rather than complain about it.

To reiterate, the film does not end with the old school values lesson. In fact the movie takes a wide left turn that Hays code era films never would have been allowed to take. Andy has a quickie relationship with a disingenuous newsman, played by Simon Baker, that is counter to her midwest values but that director Frankel does not play as corruption but rather as the choice of an independent minded woman.

Therein lies the problem with The Devil Wears Prada. The film is pushing two divergent messages at once. The old school idea that women are happier with relationships and kids than with a successful career and the idea that women can make independent choices that don't have to conform with old school values. The film wants it both ways, condemn Miranda for eschewing the classic homemaker idyll but celebrate Andy for being independent. The shifts in ideals never make sense.

The film in some fit of old school values rage wants Andy to choose the path of boyfriend and wedded bliss over career and glamor but then shows the career and glamor to be the more interesting and even correct choice, seemingly against the movie's own will.

Is Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestley an arrogant harridan deluded by her power? Yeah, but she also has great success and a serious belief in the integrity of what she does. Streep fights off any attempt to typically humanize Miranda choosing instead to have Miranda stay true to her driven hard nose self something the film then positions as her being unhappy.

Miranda however never really seems all that tortured by her life. She has a great life and while it may have cost her several husbands, she is a strong independent woman with little time for the trifling matters of the male ego. This is not something to lament, not in the post-feminism era. Miranda Priestley, despite her seeming loneliness, is a success story and for the film to try and portray it any other way is yet another nod to old school values.

The most important thing one needs to know about The Devil Wears Prada is that Meryl Streep reaffirms that she is an American treasure. Ms. Streep's performance is just spot on, perfect. Nailing Miranda's bitter aloof nature while never allowing her bitchiness to become a cliche. Streep gives Miranda fierce integrity even as the film tries to position her as an arch villain desperate in her loneliness and unhappiness. Ms. Streep will simply have none of it.

Watch Streep's final scene, played just with her face as she gives an approving Mona Lisa smile to the new independent Andy and then just as quickly returns to being typical Miranda snapping her driver to attention with a withering whisper. This is one of the most entertaining performances of the year and the second brilliant performance from Ms. Streep in a matter of weeks, she was exceptional in A Prairie Home Companion as well.

A film that desperately wants to be as hip and edgy as the haute couture it models fails because it lacks the originality of the clothes on its characters' back. The Devil Wears Prada is simply too conventional a fairy tale to be set in and around an industry, fashion, that while fatuous is often very original, forward thinking and ahead of its time. Mary Tyler Moore meets Cinderella as a plot is so mid-seventies.

On the other hand, Ms. Streep is so good I can give a partial recommendation to The Devil Wears Prada based on her performance alone. Just dim your expectations of the film and sit back and enjoy an American treasure at work.

Movie Review: The Wolfman

The Wolfman (2010) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, David Self 

Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving 

Release Date February 12th, 2010 

Published February 11th, 2010 

Andrew Kevin Walker is one of the most daring and dark screenwriters Hollywood has ever known. As famous as his script for Seven is, Walker may be known better as the most rewritten screenwriter in history. Rewrites of Walker screenplays include 8Mm, Sleepy Hollow and countless un-produced properties from Superman to X-Men.

His work has been criticized for being too dark and violent for mainstream audiences, despite Seven having made more than 300 million dollars worldwide. It was with this in mind that Walker went to work on a remake of The Wolfman in 2007. Today, The Wolfman is ready for the big screen and, no surprise, Walker's work has once again been rewritten into a compromised, mainstream ready version.

The Wolfman 2010 remixes Lon Chaney's classic creature with modern day special effects wizardry. It is directed by Jumanji and Jusassic Park 3 director Joe Johnston as a wild ride of techno factory dreariness. Benicio Del Toro takes the lead role of Lawrence Talbot an actor raised in America but born in Wales.

Lawrence happens to be touring in England when his brother Ben is mauled to death by some unknown creature. Ben's fiancee Gwen (Emily Blunt) informs Lawrence of his brother's death and calls him back to his childhood home where Gwen is staying with Lawrence's estranged father Sir Jon Talbot (Sir Anthony Hopkins). Father and son parted ways when Lawrence was a child and witnessed the aftermath of his mother's suicide by cutting her own throat.

Lawrence spent years in a mental health facility before going overseas. His return is warm enough for a father who put his son in a psych ward but the undercurrents of discord are resonant in their halting conversations. Lawrence gets on far better with Gwen whose grief rather quickly gives way to a sad flirtatiousness that Lawrence welcomes.

Unfortunately, the romance has to be put on hold as Lawrence searches for the beast that murdered his brother. The townsfolk blame a dancing bear owned by local gypsies but Lawrence, visiting the gypsies, encounters a woman, Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) who has a different and far more terrifying theory: a Werewolf did it.

Lawrence has no time to be skeptical of Maleva as soon the camp is overrun by villagers and then the angry, ravenous beast himself. Lawrence chases the beast into the forest and is bitten. When his wounds heal startlingly fast there is only one conclusion, he will become a beast himself.

While Lawrence ponders his fate, Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) arrives and with suspicions cast on Lawrence he aims to keep a close eye on him.

The plot puzzle that emerges in The Wolfman fits together well enough. Sadly, director Joe Johnston's hyper-kinetic style does not seem to fit a story that thrives on atmosphere and heightened emotions. Johnston cuts to quickly, whirls and tilts his camera and relies on too many cheeseball effects scenes for the gothic atmosphere to set in.

Watch The Wolfman and you find that stars Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins are making one movie while director Joe Johnston seems to be making another. Del Toro and Hopkins halt and suspect and busily feel each other out as fits a movie of a slower, more deliberate pace. There are important father/son issues they hope to seed into the story. Director Johnston leaves them no time for that however.

Johnston's charge is to make a fast paced monster movie with modern tech and modern gore. Neither approach is wrong really but the two together are ill-fit and the film falters for a lack of a singular vision. That vision likely could have been writer Andrew Kevin Walker’s whose script the cast signed on for and then saw rewritten when director Johnston came on board by the more by the more mainstream horror writer David Self (The Haunting, Thirteen Days).

The failure to meld two visions into one movie is the failure of The Wolfman and yet it is hard to call the whole film a disaster. Makeup and effects legend Rick Baker's work on Del Toro, what little we see of it in the final CGI heavy edit, is solid as is the work of Del Toro who cuts a strong figure as the titular Wolfman.

It's unfortunate that once again Andrew Kevin Walker finds his work compromised into a by-committee, safe for the simpleton mainstream crowd horror movie. Hollywood studios it seems are the first to underestimate the brains and taste of the majority of audiences and that is part of the downfall of The Wolfman.

Movie Review: Dan in Real Life

Dan in Real Life (2007)

Directed by Peter Hedges

Written by Pierce Gardner, Peter Hedges

Starring Steve Carell, Dane Cook, Juliette Binoche, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney, Emily Blunt

Release Date October 26, 2007 

Published October 25th, 2007 

Peter Hedges' film  Pieces Of April was a funky little indie feature about family and togetherness, secrets and lies. The visual style was risky in how disjointed and even at times ugly and stylishly amateur it was. Now, Peter Hedges is moving up to big time mainstream filmmaking and it seems that the move to the studio has taken away his flair for the risky and the funky. His latest, Dan In Real Life, could not be less risky or funky. A straight laced genre romance, Dan In Real Life is a warm but extraordinarily dull little mainstream sitcom, something of a disappointment for a rising star director.

Steve Carell stars as Dan Burns, an advice columnist raising three daughters. Dan lost his wife years ago and is convinced that he is done with relationships. That changes on a family trip to Rhode Island where his parents (Diane Wiest and John Mahoney) live in a lovely beach house where the entire extended family gathers for a week every year.

While getting away for a few hours from his daughters, each of whom are upset with dad for different reasons, Dan meets Marie (Juliette Binoche). The two spark a conversation about books that leads to coffee and scones and eventually to Marie giving Dan her phone number, despite the fact that she is town with her boyfriend and is meeting his family. What a shock then, that the boyfriend happens to be Dan's brother Mitch (Dane Cook). Now Dan must decide whether he should risk everything and pursue his brothers girl or deny the first new love he's felt since his wife passed away.

Nearly everything about Peter Hedges' charming directorial debut Pieces of April is missing from the machine like Dan In Real Life. Churning through the required scenes of a romantic comedy, Dan In Real Life feels forced throughout. The fake vibe of the whole enterprise rises to levels of smarm that are nearly stomach turning.

If Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche weren't such terrifically lovable actors Dan In Real Life would be an absolute chore to sit through. As it is, Carell and Binoche have almost zero chemistry together but just enough likability for us not to be entirely bored by them. Without resorting to mugging or cuteness, Steve Carell still manages to squeeze a couple of laughs out of this story but not nearly enough to make Dan in Real Life worth watching.

As for Juliette Binoche the lovely French actress coasts on her talent in a role she could have performed in her sleep. There is nothing really challenging in this script, unless you consider pretending to want Dane Cook, a challenge, and some might. Dan In Real Life throws highly typical romantic comedy roadblocks in front of Binoche and Carell and both actors go through the motions of not being together before the inevitable and obvious conclusion.

Director Peter Hedges is far more talented than this sitcom in movie clothing suggests. I can't help but feel that Dan In Real Life and not Pieces of April is the anomaly of his career. Pieces of April was smart and funny and a little risky in both the storytelling and style. Dan in Real Life is the antithesis of risky. Nothing could be less risky than this puppy dog romantic comedy made from the leftovers of several other dull, forgettable romances.

Movie Review The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) 

Directed by George Nolfi 

Written by George Nolfi 

Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terence Stamp 

Release Date March 4th, 2011

Published March 3rd, 2011 

Fate versus free will is the debate at the heart of “The Adjustment Bureau,” or so the movie wants you to believe. There is little ambiguity about the side the film comes down on: Both Sides. Surprise! A mainstream entertainment that tries to be all things to all sides; hey taking a side might cost a potential ticket buyer.

As irksome as the compromised plot of “The Adjustment Bureau” is, I can't stay mad at the movie because the makers placed Matt Damon and Emily Blunt at the center of their faux conflict. Damon and Blunt have such wonderful, unforced romantic chemistry that “The Adjustment Bureau” adjusts from a bad idea to a not terrible bit of romantic goofery.

Matt Damon stars in “The Adjustment Bureau” as Congressman David Norris, a rising star and bad boy Democrat. We meet David as he is running for Senate from the great state of New York and falling victim to one of the lamest scandals ever to befall a politician, especially one from New York.

With his campaign derailed, David is preparing his concession speech in a hotel men's room when he meets Elise (Blunt), hiding out in said men's room to avoid hotel security. She hears much of David's lame speech and unintentionally nudges him toward something slightly more genuine.

What we see of the speech doesn't really warrant the political superstardom the movie claims for David but maybe the better stuff is on the editing room floor. It doesn't really matter, the film's depiction of politics is not central to the plot which really kicks in after David takes a private sector gig, working for his pal Charlie (Michael Kelly).

Men in hats played by Anthony Mackie and Mad Men's John Slattery have been shadowing David since we met him and after he loses they step in to inform us that David has to have his path adjusted. It will be Mackie's job to slow David down on his way to work so an adjustment can be made at work. When that slowdown doesn't happen, David winds up meeting Elise again and his path gets out of control.

The man in charge or the Chairman or God or whatever, doesn't want David and Elise together; it's not part of David's life plan which may or may not involve the Presidency. Should David choose to continue pursuing Elise he will be lobotomized and the process will begin all over again, just with someone other than David.

Unfortunately, David's attraction to Elise is more powerful than the threat to becoming President or potential frontal lobe dismemberment. He chases her down and when one of the adjusters decides to help him out, plans begin to diverge toward chaos.

The ideas in “The Adjustment Bureau” are interesting but they are not all that well explored. The film is based, not surprisingly, on a short story by Phillip K. Dick which explored the theme of fate versus free will in a more thorough and concise manner in a much shorter amount of time.

Writer-director George Nolfi appreciates the ideas of Dick's story but his movie doesn't really explore the themes. Instead, we get a lot of chase scenes and scenes between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt that do well to distract us and then scenes with Damon and Anthony Mackie that remind us that the movie isn't very good.

Nothing against Mackie, it's not his fault that his character is more functionary than character. The same goes for John Slattery and Terrence Stamp who don't so much have character arcs as spots they have to hit in order to throw a wrench in Damon's plans. That wouldn't be so bad if they at least had interesting things to say, maybe if they were funny or brought any real energy to their work. 

But no, these adjuster characters have few emotions beyond being tired from their ungodly workload; there are several billion people with paths to adjust. Their dialogue is mostly expository with Mackie coming off, at times, like he has one of those videogame bubbles over his head in order to illustrate the instructions Damon must have for his next move in the game. 

Now, it sounds like I hated “The Adjustment Bureau” but I don't. Despite the major plot issues I walked out of “The Adjustment Bureau” smiling thanks to stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Damon is at his charismatic best investing David Norris with the oily charm of a politician and the ability to convert genuinely into an average guy. 

When Damon is opposite the beautiful Ms. Blunt his eyes light and the whole movie seems to perk up. Emily Blunt has that essential quality of a star ingenue; beauty combined with that something behind the eyes that holds an audience in rapt attention to whatever she is trying to communicate. These two brilliant people together are irresistible and when the rest of the plot gets out of their way, it works. 

Is that really enough to recommend “The Adjustment Bureau?” Well, for me it is. It's hard to say whether this appeal will be there for all audiences; fair to guess that many people will be so disappointed with the failed sci-fi plot that they can't like the movie. For me, Damon and Blunt are worth the price of a ticket and in the future, easily worth a look at the Redbox.