Movie Review Disenchanted

Disenchanted (2022) 

Directed by Adam Shankman 

Written by Brigitte Hales, J. David Stern 

Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, Maya Rudolph 

Release Date November 18th, 2022 

Published November 17th, 2022 

Disney Plus 

I'm growing concerned that Disney has somehow found an algorithm that determines the exact level of mediocre. Look at their recent spate of live action movies and you can see what I am getting at. From Jungle Cruise to Hocus Pocus 2, Disney has been able to craft movies so inoffensive, bland, mediocre and passably 'entertaining' that they simply pass through you like a fast food meal, not bad, but not exactly a memorable meal. 

Further evidence of this algorithmic mediocrity comes in their latest Disney Plus release, a sequel to the wonderful 2007 comedy, Enchanted, called Disenchanted. Bland, mediocre, passable, each of these benign phrases are perfectly fitting of this deeply run of the mill effort. Directed by a master of bland, middle of the road, mainstream mush, Adam Shankman, Disenchanted is not a bad movie, just a supremely bland, deeply unmemorable movie that fails to justify its existence. 

Where Enchanted was wildly inventive, a loving tribute to Disney Princess tropes, Disenchanted sends up fairy tale tropes with all the skill of someone taking up juggling for the first time. Using Disney created tropes from Cinderella, Snow White, Maleficent and any number of classic fairy tales, Disenchanted appears to have been made by people whose idea of satire is aiming a fire hose of every idea without hitting any specific target. 

Disenchanted picks up the story of former fairy tale Princess, Gisele (Amy Adams), living her happily ever after in New York City. It's been 10 years since she fell through a portal into the real world and met and fell in love with her handsome Prince, New York lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey). However, things are not the as Happy as the phrase Happily Ever After implies. Gisele has grown weary of the big city and her relationship with her adoptive daughter, Morgan (Gabriella Baldacchino) has grown strained. Morgan has become a movie teenager, a bland amalgamation of sarcasm and unfocused rebellion. 

In order to get her Happily Ever After back on track, Gisele asks Robert to move the family to the suburbs, specifically, a tiny hamlet called Monroeville. There, they buy what appears to be a run down former castle and set about a new ending for their story. Things do not go well and with everyone in the family at each other's throat, Gisele grows desperate for a magical fix to her problems. That magic arrives with a visit from her friends, Prince Edward (James Marsden) and his wife, Nancy (Idina Menzel). 

Visiting from Gisele's animated home world, Andalasia, they've brought a gift, a magic wand, to be given to Gisele and Robert's baby daughter. Once they leave however, Gisele decides to use the wand for herself. She wishes for her new home to be just like Andalasia and the next day, it's a full on fairy tale. Robert is now an adventurer, Morgan has become a Cinderella like figure, and, since Gisele is technically Morgan's stepmother, she begins to turn evil. A helpful scroll informs Gisele and us that if she doesn't reverse the wish by Midnight she will turn evil and all of Monroeville will remain in this fairy tale world. Oh, and that means destroying Andalasia for some reason. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.media

Classic Movie Review Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge (1952)

Directed by John Huston 

Written by Pierre La Mure, Anthony Veiller, John Huston 

Starring Jose Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor 

Release Date December 23rd 1952 

Published November 15th, 2022 

Film Foundation Restoration Screening November 14th, 2022

Four films share the title Moulin Rouge in the past 90 years of cinema. The most famous, perhaps due to recency bias, is Baz Luhrmann's lavish 2001 musical starring Ewan McGregor. The previous movie titled Moulin Rouge was released in 1952 and was directed by the beloved and venerated director John Huston. Though known for his gritty thrillers like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or the detective noir The Maltese Falcon, Huston was a true iconoclast who indulged any number of interests, including deep romanticism marked by longing and sadness. 

That longing, sadness and romanticism is certainly on display in Huston's take on Moulin Rouge. While other stories surrounding the legendary 19th century dance hall center on the bohemian revolutionary art and culture for which Moulin Rouge became a symbol, Huston's Moulin Rouge falls upon the tragic story of artist Toulouse Lautrec, a man whose fame came about after his time at the Moulin Rouge and because of the work he did promoting the Moulin Rouge with incredible posters he painted in exchange for being able to drink for free. 

In a flashback we see young Toulouse Lautrec as a notably spry teenager. Though known for his short stature, Lautrec was not born with dwarfism. An accident occurred that left Lautrec with a pair of broken legs that did not heal correctly causing his growth to be stunted. The injury and a series of romantic failures, briefly depicted in the movie, led to heavy drinking and a general avoidance of close relationships in favor professional friendships, rivalries and drinking buddies. 

The sad story then follows Lautrec into a brief relationship with an explosive and unpredictable sex worker, Marie Charlet (Colette Marchand). It's a relationship of convenience as Lautrec rescues Marie from being arrested and she comes to stay at his home. She tries to entice him into bed but he rejects her, not wanting to be her customer. The push and pull of emotions between Lautrec and Marie make up the middle portion of Moulin Rouge and it will resonate with anyone who has loved someone who did not love them back. 

Lautrec's soulful longing is undercut by his unsympathetic rage and cutting remarks toward Marie. The two fight and makeup with similar intensity but the relationship never progresses to the kind of intimacy that Lautrec desires but cannot fully express. Jose Ferrer's ferocious performance never states the obvious about Lautrec, how his low self-esteem and self worth caused him to believe he was unworthy of love. It's all brought forth by Ferrer in his fiery eyes and thin skinned reaction to any minor slight. 

Late in the second act we do see some growth from Lautrec. He finds success with his poster tributes to the Moulin Rouge and seems to begin a relationship with an independent young woman named Myriamme (Suzanne Flon). Sadly, his self-loathing short circuits any possible romantic relationship and Lautrec slowly destroys their relationship with his cruel remarks. Ferrer is remarkable in these scenes as he capably moves from intelligent and charming to cutting and cruel with minor shifts in his tone and a dismissive, angry gaze. 

Read my complete review of Moulin Rouge (1952) at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Resurrection

Resurrection (2022) 

Directed by Andrew Semans 

Written by Andrew Semans 

Starring Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman 

Release Date January 22nd, 2022 

Published November 16th, 2022 

Resurrection is not a movie you watch passively, it's a movie you recover from having watched. The 2022 horror thriller starring Rebecca Hall is an intense and thoroughly enthralling experience. And all of that is due to the remarkable performance of Rebecca Hall. Beginning the movie as a confident, independent business woman and single mother before slowly succumbing to the abuse she suffered as a teenager, Hall is breathtaking, delivering one of the best performances of 2022. 

Margaret (Hall) is a confident and successful woman with a corner office, a beautifully appointed apartment, and a teenage daughter who she loves dearly. We meet Margaret as she is counseling one of her subordinates who is going through a rough time with a boyfriend. Margaret is thoughtful, understanding and very helpful in her advice. It's clear, at this point, that Margaret may have some experience in dealing with abusive men, her advice comes from a place of hard won experience. 

This veneer of success however, along with a rather mundane routine of sleeping, jogging, working and sleeping with a married man, begins to be upended when Margaret encounters her former abuser, David (Tim Roth), at a work conference. She only sees him briefly but it is enough to trigger a significant breakdown and panic attack. This is just the beginning. Soon, Margaret begins seeing David in other unexpected but also very public places such as a department store and a local park. 

Deciding to confront David, he immediately starts pressing her buttons. He claims to be there with Benjamin whom we learn is the baby the two had together more than 20 years ago. This is not possible as Benjamin is dead and it's strongly implied that David killed the baby. If that were the only implication, Resurrection would be a very different movie. As it is, the revelations from this point on, I don't wish to spoil. You must have this experience for yourself. 

Resurrection is a disturbing movie. Writer-Director Andrew Semans has a strong command of the terrifying things that abusers do to their victims and some may find it hard to sit through just how disturbingly real David's machinations are, on top of the outlandish notes that Roth brings to the character. The gaslighting, the grooming, the separation of the victim from their support system, all of these are seen or referred to as part of Margaret's past with David. 

Click here for my review of Resurrection at Horror.Media. 

Movie Review Falling for Christmas

Falling for Christmas (2022) 

Directed by Janeen Damian 

Written by Jeff Bonnett, Ron Oliver 

Starring Lindsay Lohan, Chord Overstreet 

Release Date November 10th, 2022 

Netflix 

We all love a good comeback story. As much as our culture tears people down and enjoys a downfall from a massive height, we do love seeing someone bounce back. Lindsay Lohan certainly qualifies as someone who fell from great heights. After having become a major celebrity and a leading lady, she began a descent that was scrutinized and poked fun at for years on end. Battles in the tabloids with her family, public accounts of bad behavior and a series of truly awful movies, had left Lohan at the lowest of depths in popular culture. 

Then, Lindsay went away. Pulling herself out of limelight and getting healthy was the best news. After having a brush with becoming another Hollywood tragedy, Lindsay has seemingly been welcomed back to the Hollywood fold. The announcement of a two picture deal with Netflix was met with excitement and old friends and co-stars like Jamie Lee Curtis cheered her on. That comeback has begun and, before we talk about the movie, we should note that viewing numbers for Falling for Christmas are reportedly quite good. 

That bit of kindness out of the way, Falling for Christmas is a bad movie. It's not egregious or even unwatchable, but it's not good either. This incredibly basic holiday movie blends together elements of the Goldie Hawn comedy Overboard, a bit of It's a Wonderful Life, and the production design of every Lifetime Christmas movie to produce a most mediocre of modern Christmas movies. It's not Lindsay's fault, she has some spark here, but the whole of Falling For Christmas fails the returning star. 

Falling for Christmas stars Lohan as Sierra Belmont, a wannabe influencer and daughter of a very rich ski lodge owner, played by veteran Soap Opera star Jack Wagner. Sierra has come to her dad's lodge to try and get out of taking an actual job. She wants to be an influencer like her flamboyant, yes that is a code word, boyfriend Tad Fairchild (George Young) whose life is dedicated to selfies, trending, and brand deals. 

Here we have the first major misstep of Falling for Christmas. The movie has a very 50 year old man view of what an influencer is. The description is very much coming from a person who is upset that influencer is a job that people claim to have. The writing team does nothing to hide how they've only ever heard Boomer buzzwords about what an 'influencer' is and they are mad about it. Thus, the idea of Influencers is treated with boomer contempt for those damned kids. 

Read my complete review of Falling for Christmas at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Enola Holmes 2

Enola Holmes 2 (2022) 

Directed by Harry Bradbeer 

Written by Jack Thorne, Nancy Springer 

Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Helena Bonham Carter

Release Date October 27th, 2022 

Published November 14th, 2022 

Enola Holmes 2 is a consistent delight. Picking up from the breath of fresh air that was the first Enola Holmes feature, Enola Holmes 2 doesn't miss a beat in being fresh, funny, charming and thrilling. The stand out aspect of Enola Holmes 2 is, obviously, Enola Holmes herself played by Millie Bobby Brown. Brown could not be better cast as a quick witted, supremely intelligent, and capable detective hero. Brown's pluck and panache are the perfect qualities to complement a bubbly script underpinned by a genuine dedication to mystery. 

As we re-join our beloved hero, Enola Holmes, she has unsuccessfully hung out her own shingle as a detective for hire. Unfortunately, the ugly misogyny of the time makes it hard for Enola to find work. Soon she's forced to close her office due to the lack of clients. Then, a young girl wanders in in need of Enola's help. The sister of this young girl has gone missing and she wants Enola to find her. It's pretty clear that this child won't be able to pay for Enola's help but Enola jumps into help anyway. 

Running parallel to Enola's missing girl mystery, her big brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) finds himself vexed by a series of financial crimes. Someone is robbing the rich and powerful via blackmail and they are also taunting Sherlock along the way. No points for guessing that Enola and Sherlock's cases will be crossing paths. How we get to that point is a terrifically fun ride. Driving the plot, even in limited screen time, is the corrupt Detective Grail (David Thewlis). A relentless and dangerous investigator, Grail goes to every length to keep Enola from the truth, right down to framing her for murder. 

Find my complete review of Enola Holmes 2 at Geeks.Media. 

Why Are We All So Connected to Halloween Ends?

Is the Halloween franchise truly going to end? It's unlikely. Even as the next film in the franchise is literally called Halloween Ends, my cynical mind cannot accept that idea. Sure, Jamie Lee Curtis and her continuity in the franchise will end, I trust her when she says she's finished with the series. But, Hollywood doesn't just stopping making a franchise in this day and age. If they feel there is still money to be made from an intellectual property, they will keep reheating it for eternity. 

That said, my cynicism fully expressed, I want to posit why we are so connected to this particular franchise. What is it about John Carpenter and the endurance of this horror franchise? What is it about Michael Myers and Lori Strode that compels us back to the theater for movie after movie. This question arose as I was watching a newly released featurette on Halloween Ends. It's about Jamie Lee Curtis' final days on set and the family atmosphere behind this intense horror franchise. Even as I have not like the newest entries in the franchise, I could not help but get a little emotional as Jamie Lee Curtis teared up and said goodbye to the crew of Halloween Ends. 

Our relationship to Good and Evil 

The unquestioned good of Lori Strode and the undying evil of Michael Myers are the basis for identification with this franchise. Lori Strode was just an average teenage babysitter who became the target of a supernatural monster of a man. It's the classic David versus Goliath story, how can this unprepared young woman possibly survive an attack by this unkillable monster? It's also a classic underdog story. On first glance, there is no chance for young Lori Strode to survive against Michael Myers. Automatically, our sympathy lies with her. 

On a base level, Halloween is about Yin and Yang, good and evil and how they cannot exist without each other. What is good if not the opposite of evil? Who is Laurie Strode if not the opposite of Michael Myers. On the most simplistic level, that is always appealing. Beginning in the earliest days of passing stories along by word of mouth, to the creation of literature translated to the stage, and the screen, we've always returned to this very basic theme of good overcoming evil, the meek inheriting the Earth. Laurie Strode is who we are in struggle and Michael Myers is the problem we must overcome. 

Jamie Lee Curtis

Click here for my full length article at Geeks.Media

I Followed Actor Steven Yuen on Twitter and Nothing Happened

Some time in the pre-pandemic era of social media, my friend Tim decided he was going to follow actor Armie Hammer on Twitter. He liked the handsome young actor from The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name and he thought it might be fun to see what the actor revealed about himself on Social Media. It turned out to be a lot. Though what Hammer was doing to the women he encountered was done in DM's and not open to the public at that time, Tim still found himself in a weird rabbit hole as Armie Hammer, even before his being outed as a sexual predator, is pretty weird. 

That got me thinking, maybe if I found a celebrity I might find my own bizarre rabbit hole of weird behavior. Thus, I decided to follow the first random celebrity that the Twitter algorithms would recommend to me. The first name on the list was the former co-star of The Walking Dead and the recent co-star of the Oscar winning film, Minari. I am a big fan of Steven Yuen, aware of him despite not having watched a single moment of his television breakthrough in The Walking Dead. So, where did this rabbit hole take me? Read along to find out the terrifying but true details of Steven Yuen on Twitter. 

Steven Yuen Spends Very Little Time Tweeting

If you were to tell me that Steven Yuen's Twitter was unquestionably a Bot, I would believe you. Yeah, Steven Yuen, it turns out, doesn't do much on social media. Though he allegedly was an early adopter to Twitter, his bio indicates that Yuen joined the platform in 2008, Yuen did not send his first tweet until January of 2021. That first Tweet was a random and slightly insufferable Retweet of the Kurt Vonnegut Quote bot: "There's only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you've got to be kind." 

Often, individuals trying out social media for the first time will use a quote from a famous intellectual as a way of setting expectations for those who choose to follow them. People like Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Gandhi, are still represented on Twitter despite their lives pre-dating the launch of the site. Associating yourself with famous author A looks good on Social Media, doesn't require vetting by your publicist, and, hopefully, creates an association between you-the Re-Tweeter- and the highly respected and well thought of author portrayed in the ReTweet. I know this because, it's what I did as well. 

Click here for my full length article at Geeks.media

The Questionable Ethics of Rust Resuming Production

On Thursday, October 21st, 2021, actor Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger on what he thought was a 'cold gun,' a real gun on the set of a movie that is not loaded. Unfortunately, this particular weapon was loaded and when Baldwin pulled the trigger, a bullet struck Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and killed her. It also wounded director Joel Souza who was looking over Hutchins' shoulder as the shot was fired. Hutchins died on the way to the hospital. 

A subsequent investigation of the shooting still has not been resolved nearly one year later. Nevertheless, on October 5th, 2022, Director Joel Souza and the production team behind Rust, a western starring Alec Baldwin, will resume production of the film soon. The decision was made to continue after reaching a financial settlement with the family of Halyna Hutchins. Director Souza released a statement accompanying the announcement that claimed that resuming filming of Rust would be a tribute to Halyna Hutchins. 

Honoring Halyna Hutchins 

Regardless of the platitudes, resuming production of Rust is a cold and calculated business decision. For all of the supposed tributes and dedications to Halyna Hutchins, the cold hard reality here is that the people who invested money in making Rust want to make their money. Not only that, but the film now has a higher profile than it would ever have had had this on set tragedy not occurred. While we can only speculate about the motivations of the Rust production team, they can't escape the fact that Rust went from a likely candidate for the vast Video on Demand Rental market to a movie that carries a morbid curiosity around it. 

Of the many issues that must be wrestled with is the idea that due to the death of Halyna Hutchins, Rust has a higher profile than ever before. The New York Times, arguably the biggest of the big in American journalism announced the resumption of production on Rust in a Breaking News blast. That's coverage normally reserved for high budget blockbusters, not for obscure westerns starring Alec Baldwin. Prior to the death of Halyna Hutchins, most film consumers were unlikely to ever know Rust had been made. Now, with the tragedy, the film is front page news. 

Morbid Curiosity 

No matter what Alec Baldwin, Director Joel Souza, or the production team behind Rust says, the reality is they are capitalizing on the death of Halyna Hutchins. They can blame the media, they can blame the film consuming public for only wanting to see their movie out of morbid curiosity, but they can't escape the fact that any dollar made on this movie is now blood money. The entire profile of this film is now related specifically to this tragedy. 

Click here for my full length article at Geeks.Media

Classic Movie Review All About Eve

All About Eve (1950) 

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz 

Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz 

Starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, George Sanders, Gerry Merrill, Marilyn Monroe 

Release Date October 27th, 1950 

Classic on the October 10th episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast 

A question that plagued me as I watched and loved All About Eve for the 100th time was what the modern story equivalent of All About Eve might be. The original finds a cunning ingénue snaking her way into the inner circle of Broadway's elite with career advancement her sole motivation. I love Broadway, but it hasn't been as relevant recently as it was in 1950s where All About Eve occurs. The modern All About Eve would not be set on Broadway. Nor would it likely be set in Hollywood. No, the new All About Eve would center on the social media world. 

Today, the Eve of All About Eve would have come up as a fan of Logan Paul's Team 10 v-loggers or a fan of Charlie D'Amelio and her family. Eve would arrive at the Tik Tok Hype House and wait outside everyday in hopes that one of Charlie D'Amelio's family will see her dedication and introduce her to her idol. She would become Charlie's assistant and help film her Tik Toks and then, when Charlie could not make it to a big Hype House brand deal meeting, Eve would take her place and dazzle the owner of Bang energy drinks with her talent for branding his awful drink. 

Okay, that's not exactly a one to one comparison. It's more like what He's All That is to She's all That really. That said, I am just struggling for a way to bring the supremely witty, ingenious and utterly brilliant All About Eve into a context that might intrigue young people to watch it. It is my all consuming desire to get more people to watch and remember All About Eve so that they can experience the full breadth of the talent of Bette Davis and writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Together, Davis and Mankiewicz might rescue the concept of wit in the day and age of Tik Tok. 

Sadly, All About Eve remains bound to its New York in the 50s aesthetic. It belongs to a time when people were devoted to the New York stage in a fashion that today people are dedicated to a vast cross-section of media. The ambition of Eve remains timeless, that type of striving will never not be in fashion, but the circle that this Eve strives to be part of will never be the same. This witty, drunken, catty and brilliant circle, revolving around superstar Margo Chandler (Bette Davis), is lost to time. 

Perhaps that's the point? Perhaps the modern reflection of All About Eve is how a bad person with ambition still thrives while genuine talent, fondly remembered, recedes slowly but inexorably into time. Indeed, Bette Davis is the kind of talent who stuck around for a very long time, but well after her talent was most fondly remembered. She was the kind of actress who bravely accepted roles like Margo Chandler because her talent and smarts far outpaced any sense of vanity or perception. 

Indeed, many Eve Harrington's have come and gone over the years, they've found success but without respect. They were popular and idolized but never became icons. Their ambition brought them the trappings of celebrity minus the things that make life whole like the respect of ones peers or the secure notion of self that is so rare and valuable. The Eve Harrington's of the world spend their careers forever uncertain if they have actual talent or a bit of luck that could run out. 

That's perhaps the secret of Bette Davis, security. A secure sense of self. That is reflected in her performance as Margo Chandler. She wins in the end after briefly doubting herself by remembering that she's Margo Chandler, she has the respect of her peers, the love of the man of her dreams, and a tight circle of friends who see past her talent and what that talent can do for them. Margo needs not for ambition, people recognized her talent and she never had to ask for their attention, no seeking, no striving, a full arrival of a complete person. 

Similarly, Bette Davis didn't need to strive for respect, she had it from the first moment. She didn't need the adulation that some sought, she had the respect of peers and directors who sought to work with her even if they may not have liked her. They knew and she knew that she was the best at what she did. If they didn't like her, it was because she possessed incredible talent and she knew it. They couldn't do what they did without her but she could damn well do what she does without them. 

All About Eve is a story about duality, two performers as two contrasting states of being. Eve Harrington represents insecurity, a life built out of sticks and threads haphazardly strung together to create a life. Margo Chandler is self actualization, she's confidence. Margo is a life built on talent and accomplishment. It's a life built on an earned respect. And it's a life built around finding people who can similarly claim security and confidence and bolster each other's security and confidence. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

What I Saw at Fantastic Fest At Home

I would have loved nothing more than to travel to Austin, Texas to be part of Fantastic Fest as it unfolded September 22nd to September 29th. Sadly, I was not able to be there in person. Instead, I settled for covering Fantastic Fest At Home which offered selections from the Festival that were made available online. This included features and shorts, documentaries and a wild selection of new release movies that fit the uniquely avant garde reputation of Fantastic Fest. I've already had the chance to write about a pair of documentaries that I adored at Fantastic Fest, you can find my reviews of the wild A Life on the Farm and Lynch/Oz linked here. And I could not resist writing about the bizarre experience of the horror film All Jacked Up and Full of Worms, a full length review you can read linked here. 

But sadly, I can't write full length reviews of everything I saw at Fantastic Fest at Home so here are several capsule reviews of movies I saw at Fantastic Fest. Two of these I was lucky enough to interview the director of the movie and you can find those interviews on my brand new Sean at the Movies YouTube Channel linked here. Like, subscribe, share and all that YouTube stuff. 

Give Me Pity 2022 

Directed by Amanda Kramer 

Written by Amanda Kramer

Starring Sophie Von Haselberg

Release Date Unknown 

Played at Fantastic Fest 

Give Me Pity is a strange and bold movie that captures both the bizarre nostalgia of 70s and early 80s variety shows centered on celebrities and a fever dream of horrific proportion. Bette Midler's incredibly talented daughter, Sophie Van Haselberg as superstar Sissy St. Clair. There is no narrative per se in Give Me Pity, rather the film begins with Sissy St. Clair performing a lavish opening number for her very first variety special. 

Director Amanda Kramer never breaks the spell of this gauzy nostalgia. Instead, she introduces visual elements, dreamscapes and nightmare imagery that can lead you to your own conclusion about what you are watching. For me, I settled on the idea of Hell and how this character, Sissy St. Clair's version of Hell was being forced to perform in this variety show for eternity as her mind slowly begins to crack and madness begins to set in. Again, that's just my interpretation based on a surface level observation. I'm not writing a full length review of Give Me Pity only because I need to see it again to ponder the many, many layers of Meta and Irony and deeper meanings behind the many songs and skits in the movie. 

Sophie Van Haselberg is a revelation. She's incredible in this movie. I kept wondering why she looked so familiar and when I saw that she's Bette Midler's daughter, it clicked, I've seen her mom perform on shows not unlike the variety special in Give Me Pity. I can recall Bette Midler wearing similar costumes and crooning in the same way Sissy does in this movie. That's not to say that Van Haselberg is in her mother's shadow but rather that being Bette Midler's daughter adds a delightful layer of meta-commentary that requires another viewing to fully unpack. Give Me Pity is a must see when it becomes available. 

Give Me an A 

Directed by Anthology 

Written by Anthology 

Starring Virginia Madsen, Alyssa Milano, Milana Vayntrub, Rachel Torres, Regina Ting Chen 

Release Date Unknown 

Premiered at Fantastic Fest 

Wow! I really should leave the review as that one word, Wow! Give Me an A is the most in your face and pointed horror satire I've ever seen. Nakedly political, the anthology of short films from female directors with female stars makes serious points about the debate over abortion or, more specifically, about how the abortion debate is really about women's bodily autonomy. While the extreme voices would like to say this is about 'killing babies' or other such nonsense, the reality of the debate is about whether or not women get to make decisions regarding their own body. 

It's more than merely whether to carry a child to term. This debate in full affects whether women should be able to make any number of decisions about how they use their body. It's also about the rippling effect of these nakedly political decisions, masquerading as moralism, and the ways in which women's behavior are under attack, largely by a group of men whose oppressive conservatism, brought to its most powerful affect would prevent women from making decisions about their private lives, their healthcare, and other important aspects of THEIR life. 

Give Me An A uses a series of fiery and supremely intelligent short films to make these points dramatically, horrifically, through science fiction, and through a scathing satire that demonstrates both humor and a stinging rebuke of those who would stand in the way of women making their own decision about their bodies. This is one of the most exhilarating and exciting anthologies to come around in some time and a rare one that uses the form to make a trenchant and fearlessly political point. 

Find my complete article at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review The Computer Accent

The Computer Accent (2022) 

Directed by Riel Roch-Decter & Sebastian Pardo 

Written by Documentary

Starring YACHT 

Release Date October 21st, 2022 

Album Chain Tripping Released 2019

I have no idea what Chain Tripping means and neither does the band YACHT, though it is the name of their 2019 record. It's a pair of nonsense words mashed together and yet, Chain Tripping seems to fit perfectly the album it gives title to. When you listen to Chain Tripping and you find the groove that appeals to you, especially on tracks like Scatterhead, you feel like you are tripping and you could call it a chain as one song flows seamlessly into the next in an otherworldly rave. 

Chain Tripping is, as far as I know, the first and only fully A.I produced full length album. The band YACHT, an acronym that means Young Americans Challenging Technology, were looking for a challenge for their new album in 2019. Since lead singer Claire L. Evans is also an accomplished author whose most recent book chronicled the history of women in technology, futuristic ideas about artificial intelligence were certainly part of the band on a molecular level. 

As they began to look at making their next record, the band took a meeting at Google where a group of Google engineers happened to be working on technology intended to produce A.I generated music. With Google's work as baseline and the work of futurists and theorists in the field of A.I at their disposal, YACHT, which also includes Jona Bechtolt and Robert Kieswetter, began the painstaking process of making an album collaboration with Artificial Intelligence. 

The band then began a painstaking process for planning the record that would become, Chain Tripping. The first thing the band did was set some ground rules that would determine that the record fully came from their A.I collaborator. 

Rule 1 No adding notes, no adding harmonies, and no jamming 

Rule 2 The band could choose instruments, transform melodies, cut up melodies. 

These rules in place, the band set about breaking apart every song they'd created in their previous 17 years as a band and entered the songs into the A.I which would then use those elements of the YACHT catalogue to create a series of computer generated melodies that would be the base line of a song, essentially the instrumental for the record. Another rule the band created for themselves was that they were allowed to only use sounds that they could reproduce in live performance using some form of instrument. 

In one of the most fascinating aspects the documentary, The Computer Accent, we watch as Bechtolt and Kieswetter teach themselves these songs. It's a process that requires them to relearn how to play instruments they'd played all of their lives in order to re-produce the melodies generated by the A.I. In one incredibly telling instance, Bechtolt hears a computer generated melody that will require him to play the drums in a way that is counter-intuitive to the way most, if not all drummers, approach playing the drums. 

Similarly, lead singer Clair Evans had quite a challenge in mastering the A.I generated lyrics. In order to generate an albums' worth of lyrics from the standard of current A.I, the band needed to use not only their own back catalogue, but hundreds of songs from bands they'd admired and that had influenced the band members over the years. With the aid of technologist and poet Ross Goodwin, lyrics were generated and then Evans began a painstaking process of cutting the lyrics and rearranging them without changing the basic lines created by the A.I 

What Evans did is very similar to the process David Bowie used to write some of his most unusual and memorable lyrics. As detailed in the recent Bowie documentary, Moonage Daydream, Bowie would cut lines from news paper and rearrange the lines into lyrics and that would become the basis for a song. Or Bowie would write a complete song and then cut his lyric sheets up and rearrange the line to create something completely different and yet the same. Bottom line, it's not easy to do and it's an incredibly revealing challenge for a songwriter. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Terrifier 2

Terrifier 2 (2022) 

Directed by Damien Leone 

Written by Damien Leone 

Starring David Howard Thornton, Lauren LaVera, Elliott Fullam, Chris Jericho 

Release Date October 6th, 2022 

Published October 24th, 2022 

I went into Terrifier 2 with a chip on my shoulder. I had made many assumptions about the movie before seeing it and my cynicism was beginning to shape my perception of the movie without seeing it. What a surprise it was then to have walked out of Terrifier 2 having been turned into a huge fan of the movie. Rather than being edgy and perverted, Terrifier 2 is a triumph of both incredible DIY gore and a sense of the absurd macabre of the horror movie that is employed to make the movie watchable beyond the off-putting if groundbreaking approach to horror. 

Terrifier 2 stars David Howard Thornton as the terrifying horror villain, Art the Clown. I'm told that Art the Clown made his film debut in Terrifier 1 and became such a cult phenomenon that a sequel became a demand of the fans. The sequel over-delivers on the original in which, though I have not seen it, I've been told, Art has less personality and even more brutality. In Terrifier 2, writer director Damien Leone and star David Howard Thornton have fully realized the potential of Art the Clown by leaving him silent but giving him an even more terrifying physical personality. 

Opposite Art the Clown is our hero Sienna (Lauren LaVera). Sienna is a teenager dealing with the suicide death of her father with whom she shared a very special bond. Sienna's dad used to write comic books and dedicated his stories to her, especially a beautiful and strong female hero. On Halloween, Sienna plans to pay tribute to her dad by using her incredible cos-play skills to re-create the look of the female hero her father created. She may be the only one who knows the character, but regardless, the costume means the world to her. 

Sienna's little brother Jonathan however, he's another story. Jonathan's costume is an edgy homage to a massacre in their rural New York state town. Jonathan wants to dress as Art the Clown, something that infuriates both his sister and their mother, Barbara (Sarah Voight), who orders Jonathan not to wear his favored costume. This scene and another that comes up in the wake of a disturbing slaughter, play our love of Halloween blood and guts and serial killer obsessions against us, calling us out for turning real life terror into entertainment. 

That scene, the slaughter scene, is easily the most disturbing and illness inducing. You've perhaps heard stories about moviegoers becoming sick while watching Terrifier 2. Well, as much as that is merely a marketing campaign for the movie, I can see where this slaughter scene might cause people to become unwell. As Art scalps his teenage victim, cuts out their eyeballs, and is discovered playing with the victims' entrails, while the victim is still alive, we are kept at a distance by the absurd level of graphic visceral human destruction. Art's horrifying rictus grin casts a gaze directly at the audience as if accusing us of enjoying what he's done. It's chilling and farcical all at once. 

Click here for my full length review of Terrifier 2 at Horror.Media 

Documentary Review Louis Armstrong Black and Blues

Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues (2022) 

Directed by Sacha Jenkins

Written by Documentary 

Starring Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis 

Release Date October 28th, 2022 

Platform Apple TV 

Published October 27th, 2022 

At some point, the phrase 'Do you like Jazz?' became a cheesy signifier of pretension and oddity. Jazz is still wildly popular but it's settled into a niche that rarely breaks into mainstream success these days. Years ago however, that was not the case. Indeed, in the 40s and 50s, Jazz was fully in the mainstream. Much of that success could be attributed to the popularity of 'Satchmo' aka, Louis Armstrong. Arguably the greatest trumpet player of all time, Satchmo crossed racial lines and united fans of Jazz at a time when unity among white and black Americans was far from the norm. 

The new documentary, Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues chronicles the life and career of Louis Armstrong in a way no other Armstrong project has. For years, Armstrong wore a big brave smile and stayed above the fray of American politics. It was his effort to remain as popular among all audiences but it came with the cost of many Black Americans believing that Louis Armstrong was selling out Black people to secure his own success in mainstream America. Through never before heard private recordings we find out how Armstrong really felt about his success, the racial divide, and other notable aspects of his life. 

Louis Armstrong grew up in New Orleans and developed his talent for playing the trumpet at a very early age. As a teenager he honed his skills playing in brothels. But Armstrong was far too talented and too charismatic to go unnoticed. Eventually, Armstrong was brought on board with a touring band and his huge smile and brazen trumpet playing were the undeniable draw. By his mid-twenties, Satchmo had become a headliner, even in areas of white America and the south where the stage was the only place he was allowed to be because of his race. 

Among Armstrong's earliest challenges was navigating the mob. Having moved to Chicago in the late 20s and 30s, Armstrong was forced to cope with connected club owners and promoters who used intimidation tactics to get him on stages but used the same tactics to take larger portions of Armstrong's earnings from those gigs. Eventually, Armstrong was forced to choose between gangsters who set his schedule and took his money and settled on one who took the lowest amount of his earnings. 

Always a canny self-promoter, Armstrong turned to Hollywood to pick up paychecks and to spread his popularity as a singer and trumpet player. Word of mouth and recordings of his trumpet playing had made him a pretty big star but appearances on the big screen let Armstrong show off his winning smile, his innate charisma and a performance style unlike any other modern American musician. That voice, that gravelly, sad, yet joyous voice became as indelible and iconic as his legendary trumpet thanks to his appearances in movies that exposed his uniqueness to a wide audience. 

What director Sacha Jenkins captures in Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues is Armstrong's uncanny talent for self promotion and his private struggle with racial injustice. Even being, arguably, the biggest Black American star in the country did not rescue Armstrong from the indignities of racial intolerance. One notable story, related in the documentary features the voice of rapper Nas reading a private letter that Armstrong wrote to a friend about his experience on a Hollywood movie set. 

Click here for my full length review of Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues 

Documentary Review Gratitude Revealed

Gratitude Revealed (2022) 

Directed by Louie Schwartzberg 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Louie Schwartzberg, Norman Lear, Deepak Chopra 

Release Date November 1st, 2022 

Published October 29th, 2022 

Available via Streaming Rental apps and Amazon Prime 

Bewilderment is the holiest of holy feelings - Deepak Chopra in Gratitude Revealed 

I realize that being a person who quotes Deepak Chopra is a recognized identity that I don't have. And yet, here I am, having heard the famed thinker, Deepak Chopra say something that struck deeply with me and forced to quote it. This is a quote that crystalized for me something I have often felt but could never quite say. Confusion, for all the terror and uncertainty it may engender, is an opportunity. To be bewildered, to be lost in a moment is a chance to discover something or solve a problem. It's an opportunity to overcome something. 

I was wandering around in that thought for a while as I enjoyed director Louie Schwartzberg's wonderful documentary, Gratitude Revealed. That's where the Chopra quote comes from, this odd, beautiful, thoughtful and incredible documentary that is really like 30 some odd documentaries all in one. In Gratitude Revealed, the famed director of Fantastic Fungi trains his eye for detailed camerwork and depth of patience, on a group of individuals, creators, artists, musicians, thinkers, a man who is called a Freestyle Philosopher, and Norman Lear. 

It's a melange but a wonderfully realized melange. The mixture of people and idea ideas may seem unrelated, but they are, in fact, united in the idea of gratitude, of living a grateful life. Each in their own way has followed a path in life that they are grateful for. Whether it is a life of art, or music, or surfing or cooking, they're engaged in grateful acts each and every day they enact their passion. It's simple and inspiring and I could not get enough of it watching this documentary. 

Through this exploration of gratitude, you are invited to search your own life, your mind and find the ways in which you connect to the people on screen, the thoughts that connect you to the universe, the meaning you find is all your own and yet is universal, you are sharing this realization with millions of people, each in a different way. Every experience of life is just like that, a new opportunity to experience something. When you think of it like that, isn't life kind of great. It may seem cliche to look at each day like another opportunity, but it really is. You just have to decide what that opportunity is. 

Gratitude Revealed is what we should be teaching young children in school. Schwartzberg's curriculum is a series of experiences, a series of handshakes with different people who share a little of their experience that creates a connection through compassion. The man identified in the documentary as a Freestyle Philosopher and proves through his several soundbites to be just that, touches on something that Roger Ebert talked about years ago, how movies are machines that generate compassion. He is referring to the very documentary that he's appearing in as an example of cinema that generates compassion through the shared experience of other lives. 

Click here for my full length review of Gratitude Revealed at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review On the Air

On the Air (2022) 

Directed by Romuald Boulanger 

Written by 

Starring Mel Gibson, William Mosely, Alia Seror O'Neil

Release November 5th, 2022 

Published November 4th, 2022 

Separating the art from the artist is a concept that has been in vogue in the past several years. The question being address and opined upon is: How do we treat the art created by people accused of or guilty of doing awful things. Whether it is being accused of abuse or being convicted of a crime, what do we do with the art of terrible people. J.K Rowling is a good example. The Harry Potter creator has used social media to attack trans people and it has caused a reckoning for Potter fans who want to keep enjoying the Potter books but don't want to support Rowling's hate toward the trans community. 

Another example of this concept is actor Mel Gibson. More than a decade ago the actor known for the Lethal Weapon franchise and as the director of Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ, was caught on tape verbally abusing and threatening his then girlfriend. He was also captured by Police while drunk and is accused of having made horrific anti-Semitic remarks and making misogynistic remarks toward a female Police Officer helping to place him under arrest. How can we consume the art of Mel Gibson ethically? We can't. Simply put, if you choose to pay to see a Mel Gibson movie, you are putting money in his pocket and tacitly telling him that you excuse his behavior. 

This lengthy intro brings us to Gibson's latest movie, a low rent thriller called On the Line. The film stars Gibson as a man named Elvis, a Los Angeles radio host with a proclivity for saying things you can't legally say on the radio. Elvis 'tells it like it is,' to borrow a cliche, and his fans love him for it. Elvis's life and career is turned upside down when he's confronted by a caller to his radio show. This caller claims to have broken into Elvis' home and taken Elvis' wife and daughter as hostages. 

The unknown caller claims that Elvis is responsible for the death of a former employee of the radio station. The woman killed herself after having spent several months being berated on the air and off by Elvis as part of his edgy persona and his private Assholery. The caller wants Elvis to make things right by leaping to his death from the top of the high rise where the radio station is located. Naturally, not all is as it seems. The call is not coming from Elvis' home, it's coming from inside the radio station. Sinister stuff eh? 

I didn't forget to say spoiler alert, I just don't want you to bother seeing this movie so I told you want happened. I haven't mentioned the ending but you can probably figure it out just from my description. On the Line is not exactly trying to redefine the thriller genre. The direction and action of On the Line is dull and derivative as is Gibson's tough guy act. It borders on comic when the known bully Gibson is trying to play for our sympathies. His persona robs the movie of any sympathy it attempts to generate. Not that I wanted to see the man's family killed, I shouldn't have to say that's wrong, but I could not empathize with a character played by Mel Gibson on almost any level. 

Click here for my full length review of On the Line at Geeks.Media

Spoiler Alert: Let's Talk About the Ending of Tar

Tar (2022) 

Directed by Todd Field 

Written by Todd Field 

Starring Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noemie Merlant, Mark Strong 

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Published October 31st, 2022 

In Theaters Now... 

What is writer-director Todd Field trying to say in his new movie, Tar? There are a myriad of readings currently being debated online and each seems to have some merit. There is, in the end, no right answer. If we separate the art from the artist, then what Todd Field is trying to say doesn't matter as much as how we interpret what he is saying. My interpretation of Tar is a mixed bag of evocative and provocative ideas and low humor that only occasionally lands. 

Tar stars Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tar, a famed conductor. Lydia is about to achieve a lifelong dream, to have conducted recordings of the work of Conductor Gustav Mahler. Sitting at the head of the table at the Berlin Orchestra, Lydia believes that conducting Mahler's 5th Symphony will cement a legacy built over a life time crawl to the top in merciless pursuit of the comforts and adoration of fame. Lydia Tar has cut metaphorical throats to get where she is and yet she doesn't realize how tenuous her grasp on power truly is. 

In this article I am going to wander around within several ideas and presentations in Tar that struck me after watching it. I will be employing spoilers and since I am recommending that you see Tar, if you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to jump off and come back after you see it. Tar is not so much a movie that can be 'spoiled' in the traditional sense but I do believe the experience of Tar is one better served by not knowing where the story is going. 

Lydia Tar is a conductor of an orchestra, specifically, the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic. The role of Conductor is an interesting one, rich with meaning and teeming with questions. What exactly is the function of a conductor? Why is a conductor necessary? Why do conductors get so much credit for directing the performance of people doing the actual, physical work of the orchestra? Tar is not direct about answering these questions though they are explored a little when we see Lydia in her work environment. 

The conductor of an orchestra brings order to chaos. It's a fantasy of power with a group of exceptionally talented people at the top of their field all at the mercy and direction of a wand wielding egotist. The musician may have the talent to make transcendent music from their instrument but no matter their talent, they are at the mercy and whim of someone not playing an instrument. Naturally, Lydia Tarr conducts her life as she conducts her orchestra, furiously exerting control, rigidly demanding conformity to her will. This, of course, is her downfall. 

The things that Lydia Tarr cannot control or conduct to her will, she ignores. Out of sight, out of mind is the substance of her worldview, especially when it comes to the discordant troubles in her life. One such trouble is a former student with whom Lydia may or may not have had an affair with. Lydia abruptly cut ties with the student and in doing so, harmed the woman's career and education. The former student is spiraling into depression according to glimpses of emails to Lydia's assistant, played by Noemie Merlant. 

Lydia cannot control this situation so she ignores it until a tragedy occurs. Even then, Lydia is unrepentant, and continues to avoid the problem, a privilege often conferred upon the powerful, the ability to turn their back on their problems via their privilege. A theme presented throughout Tar is Lydia's growing sensitivity to noise. The clicking pen of her orchestra colleague, a metronome left ticking in a cupboard, and other such seemingly insignificant noises become a torture to Lydia's psyche. 

Click here for my full length article at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Spirited

Spirited (2022) 

Directed by Sean Anders 

Written by Sean Anders, John Morris 

Starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer, Sunita Mani, Tracy Morgan 

Release Date November 11th, 2022 (Apple TV) 

Published November 11th, 2022

Imagine that the three ghosts that visit Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, are part of an elaborate business that specializes into scaring bad people into good people, all while singing very on the nose show tunes, and you have the movie Spirited starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. This musical comedy posits that Ebenezer Scrooge (Will Ferrell) became the Ghost of Christmas Present after his life ended. Now, Scrooge along with his old pal Marley (Patrick Page), the Ghost of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani), and the Ghost of Christmas Future (Tracy Morgan), works to redeem those in needing redemption. 

For their latest case, the Ghosts and Marley are targeting a big fish, a so-called 'unredeemable' human being named Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds). Briggs is a bad guy. We meet him as he is making a presentation to owners of Christmas Tree Lots and he is encouraging them to demonize those that don't use real Christmas trees as hating Christmas. Briggs' job is all about creating chaos and division in order to sell narratives that protect brands and rich elite jerks. Marley is convinced that Briggs cannot be saved. Scrooge however, sees some of himself in Briggs and emotionally links his own redemption story to that of this awful jerk. 

From here we watch as Scrooge and company stage the life of Clint Briggs. They recreate his childhood home and bring his late sister to life. Clint has a lot of guilt and complicated feelings about his late sister, a saint who took care of him as a kid while their mom was a comical jerk. When the sister dies, Clint refused to take on her daughter, instead leaving the daughter to stay with his loving but bumbling younger brother, Owen (Joe Tippett). Naturally, Scrooge will use this moment to tug on Clint's heart strings but as happens throughout Spirited, Clint is not an easy nut to crack. 

For his part, Clint sets about sewing chaos in the meticulous plot to redeem him. He starts by seducing the Ghost of Christmas Past and then by twisting Ferrell's Ghost of Christmas Present/Scrooge into knots with endless questions about his past, why what he does is necessary and why Clint himself is happy to be seen as Unredeemable. Of course, we all know where this is headed. There is no surprise o be found in Spirited and thus the movie has to rely on gags, comical songs, and the strength of the cast to sell this overly complicated and yet predictable story. 

Spirited kind of works. This is undoubtedly Will Ferrell's best performance since 2010's The Other Guys, the last time he earned really big laughs on screen. In the last decade, Ferrell has made some of the worst movies going and thus I was happy to be able to laugh with him again. I've missed the Will Ferrell that wasn't a desperate, flailing, sweaty mess. His Scrooge is a strong combination of his Elf persona with his dramatic, adult performances in Stranger Than Fiction and Everything Must Go. The wistfulness and longing in this character give a genuine quality to his energetic, desperate for the joke side and that goes a long way toward making the performance tolerable and even entertaining. 

Ryan Reynolds sparks well with Ferrell as Scrooge. Reynolds' playful approach to being a massive jerk provides a strong arc for the character, even as it is a supremely predictable arc. Reynolds is funny, charming, angry, and rounds into genuine kindness in a real and enjoyable fashion. Strange as it seems for such a broad comedy, it's among the most genuine and enjoyable performances from Reynolds in some time. Somehow, getting to sing has enlivened Reynolds after several recent rather bored performances. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Weird The Al Yankovic Story (2022) 

Directed by Eric Appel 

Written by Weird Al, Eric Appel 

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson 

Release Date September 8th, 2022 (Roku Channel) 

Published November 11th, 2022 

As a connoisseur of one Weird Al Yankovic, the idea of a traditional Weird Al biopic had me perplexed. Why would anyone make an earnest biopic of one of the strangest, most ironic, and comic careers in history. I was genuinely confused with what the makers of the movie Weird were all about. Then I saw the trailer and it all began to make sense. Weird is a Weird Al biopic but it is, far more importantly, a send up of the various silly tropes of rock biopics. 

Biopics of rock stars seem to always go the same way. There is the rocket ride to stardom, struggling in the harsh light of fame, the inevitable fall from grace and then a rise once again or a death, one or the other. Biopics of rock stars do not tend to stray from this formula. Thus, the rock biopic genre is ripe for the kind of parody that Weird Al made famous with his music, an irreverent send up of the tropes combined with an over the top wackiness that is both hilarious and genuine. 

Weird kicks off in a universe where Polka is the equivalent of gangsta rap, a genre of ill-repute in the white washed Reagan era. Here we meet Al as he is berated by his working class father, Nick (Toby Huss) and coddled by his loving mother, Mary. Al's life is changed forever when a door to door salesman (Thomas Lennon) comes to Al's door selling accordions. While Al is taken with the instrument, his father will not have this filthy equipment in his home and sets about beating the salesman to death with his bare hands. 

In order to keep Nick out of jail for assault or attempted murder, Mary buys an accordion and gifts it to Al. This begins a life long love of the accordion and the start of his rocket rise to fame. Cut to college where Al is living with three friends and plays the accordion regularly. When challenged, Al invents a song on the spot, a parody of My Sharona called My Bologna. In an inspired sequence, Al is inspired for every single lyric by something he sees in the room around him. 

Biopics love to give every aspect of every rock star life an origin story. Thus, Al having an origin story for even the most mundane or outlandish lyric is a great bit. Big laughs are spun from this scene and the following scene where Al and his friends go to a local bus station bathroom to record My Bologna. That's a true story, Al really did record the song in a bathroom and took it to a record company meeting on the same day. They turned him down just as they do in this movie. 

Another inspired element comes when Al insists on writing original music only, only to then write his most famous songs, Eat It and Amish Paradise while calling them original songs. The meta of Michael Jackson calling Al for permission to write and perform Beat It, based on Al's Eat It, is another truly inspired gag. Throughout Weird, the movie finds wonderful little inventive ways to give Al a massive ego, something his fans know is certainly not a trait of Weird Al, arguably the most humble tunesmith in America. 

This being a Rock N' Roll biopic, a love interest must be involved, a woman of ill-repute who follows our star down to the depths of his despair. That woman in Weird is Madonna played by Evan Rachel Wood. Sexually voracious and wildly talented, Madonna sets her sights on Al because of the supposed Al Bump, a spike in sales following an artist being parodied by Weird Al and his band. Madonna wants the sales bump and will do anything she can to get it. 

Click here for my review of Weird at Geeks.media 

Movie Review Black Panther Wakanda Forever

Black Panther Wakanda Forever 

Directed by Ryan Coogler 

Written by Ryan Coogler

Starring Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Winston Duke, Lupita N'yongo 

Release Date November 11th, 2022 

Published November 11th2, 2022 

Black Panther Wakanda Forever begins jarringly without warning. We begin in the moment of the death of King T'Challa. His heart is still beating as his sister, the brilliant scientist, Shuri (Letitia Wright), forgoes being by her brother's side in favor of desperately trying to save him by perfecting a potion. T'Challa dies before Shuri can find the right combination of elements for her life saving potion, the same potion he'd taken when he'd become Black Panther, the masked protector of Wakanda.

Shuri is plagued by both guilt and grief as her mother, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett, as regal as ever), tries to comfort her. Jumping ahead by one year, Shuri remains consumed by guilt and since she doesn't believe in the elders or life after death, she refuses the comfort that such ideas can bring. Her guilt and sadness are slowly curdling inside her just as we find out that the leader of an underwater kingdom, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), is convinced that Wakanda has designs on attacking the kingdom of Atlantis. 

This is not the case. Rather, the Americans have created a machine that can locate Vibranium, the super powerful element that was once believed to only exist in Wakanda. The truth is that Vibranium also exists in Atlantis and the Americans want it. Namor's misguided belief that Wakanda is after the vibranium, sets off a chain of events that includes kidnapping Shuri, and the young American scientist Ri-Ri (Dominique Thorne), who created the incredible Vibranium locating machine. Namor believes that killing the scientiss will keep enemies from locating Atlantis. 

Naturally, Queen Ramonda sees this as an act of war against Wakanda and the two sides begin a slow roll toward war. Shuri is caught in the middle, wanting nothing more than to protect Wakanda while also understanding Namor as someone who has lost people and as someone simply trying to protect his people from the incursion of the outside world. King T'Challa's decision to share Wakanda with the world has had consequences and those consequences are directly confronted in Wakanda Forever. 

Director Ryan Coogler has an extraordinary command over the story he is telling in Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Keep in mind the tight rope walk Coogler is making in trying to honor his friend Chadwick Boseman and not exploiting his death for cheap emotion. He has to show love and respect for Boseman while also moving the Wakanda story into the future and provide comic book thrills along the way to satisfy mainstream audiences. 

Most directors in Coogler's place would have fallen back on easy, maudlin ploys for sympathy. Not Coogler, he smartly dispatches with performative grieving to the long term effect that the loss of a loved one can have on those loved ones. No one seems ready to move on from T'Challa but they are also always prepared to defend themselves as circumstances require. The vulnerability of Wakanda without the Black Panther, is a major subplot of Black Panther Wakanda Forever and it is remarkably well handled under the circumstances. 

That said, the key to making this plot work is Letitia Wright. Wright's Shuri has the impossible task of taking up the mantel as Wakanda's protector and she is not ready for it. She's not ready to let herself grieve fully for her brother and only the circumstance of Namor's arrival in Wakanda, exposing the Wakandan defenses in the process, thrusts Shuri out her longing and grief and into a place where she is driven by rage and revenge and her journey morphs from grieving to vengeance and on to maturity. 

Wright does a wonderful job throughout of giving Shuri an inner life, an intellectual and emotional life that feels real under these outsized circumstances. The script does take shortcuts to get Shuri to Black Panther but these shortcuts are typical of all Marvel adventures where the dictates of blockbuster cinema often requires a shortcut to keep the pace and action up while the emotional aspects of the story linger in the background. 

Read my complete Review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Paradise City

Paradise City (2022) 

Directed by Chuck Russell 

Written by Corey Large, Edward John Drake, Chuck Russell 

Starring John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Stephen Dorff, Blake Jenner 

Release Date November 11th, 2022 

Published November 9th, 2022 

The effort that Director Chuck Russell puts into not putting John Travolta and Bruce Willis on screen together, despite their being co-stars in the new movie Paradise City, might have been better used to make a good movie. But, that's just wishful thinking. No, instead of bothering to make a good movie, Russell spends loads of time creating scenarios that led to his stars never sharing the screen at the same time. Why? Who knows. I'm not familiar with whether or not there is some issue between Willis and Travolta. 

All I do know is that they have a scene in the movie Paradise City where Travolta and Willis's characters, a wanted international criminal who underwent serious facial reconstruction, and the world's greatest bounty hunter respectively, are supposed to be sitting in a restaurant together. It's a flashback to an important face to face showdown that is edited to have only given us a vague sense that perhaps the two stars had been in the same room at the same time. 

The... inelegant, to the be charitable, camera and editing gymnastics that keep Travolta and Willis from having to breathe the same air in the same room are the most notable thing about Paradise City. Like me, if you waste your time watching this Z-Grade thriller you will spend most of that time wondering why Travolta and Willis never share the screen, even when their characters are supposed to be in the same room having an important confrontation. 

The movie opens with Bruce Willis in a car racing along some Hawaiian roadway. He crashes and retrieves a hooded figure from the trunk. He drags this hooded figure to the beach and waits for the people chasing him to come along. He tries to reason with, what appear to be corrupt members of law enforcement, Willis' go-to late in career villains, before he's forced to release his hostage and is subsequently brought down in a hale of bullets. 

The hooded prisoner is Travolta but we only find that out later when we see the aftermath of the shooting, Willis's bounty hunter miraculously survives, and with Willis fully out of frame and dying in the ocean, the hood comes off to reveal Travolta. Again, I don't know if there is some kind of beef between Willis and Travolta, it's just this weird choice the movie made. Perhaps they could save money by shooting their most expensive cast members separately, that seems logical, but regardless, it's deeply distracting and with the remaining cast headed up by Blake Jenner and Dollar Store Christian Slater impersonator, Stephen Dorff, it's easy to get distracted. 

Click here for my full length review of Paradise City at Geeks.Media.