Classic Movie Review When Harry Met Sally

When Harry Met Sally (1989) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Nora Ephron 

Starring Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby

Release Date July 14th, 1989

Published September 20th, 2017

The classic on this week’s Everyone is a Critic podcast is When Harry Met Sally, director Rob Reiner’s 1989 romantic comedy that arguably set the template for every romantic comedy that came after it. Reiner, whose The Princess Bride turns 30 this weekend and inspired our podcast to focus on Reiner’s work, directed When Harry Met Sally from a script by Nora Ephron who would go on to take the mantel of the leading voice in romantic comedies in Hollywood throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s.

The template is thus, two people who seem ill-suited for each other get repeatedly thrust together by fate before sleeping together, montage together and then break up, montage, and finally have a romantic reunion. These movies could write themselves after a while but in fairness to Reiner, when he conceived of When Harry Met Sally, the template wasn’t quite so set in stone. In fact, in pairing the comic Billy Crystal with the actress Meg Ryan, Reiner found something that still feels very fresh in their unusual chemistry.

Harry (Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) met at the University of Chicago in 1978. Sally happened to be headed to New York to take a job as a journalist and Harry headed the same way for work offered to help pay for the trip and share the driving. They immediately don’t get along as Harry launches into his off-putting diatribe about how men and women can’t be friends because sex always gets in the way. Sally, put off by Harry’s blunt talk about how all men want to sleep with her, goes quiet and the two part ways seemingly to never see each other again.

Five years later, on a plane, Harry and Sally reconnect. Sally is in a new relationship while Harry has an even bigger surprise, he’s getting married. That doesn’t stop him from flirting with Sally and even asking her to dinner when they get to their destination. She says no and once again they part. Finally, we cut to another five years later, both Sally and Harry are fresh out of relationships with Harry still stinging from a recent divorce. In a speech that remains remarkable to this day, Harry lays out the scene of the breakup to his pal played by Bruno Kirby. The brutal honesty and dark humor of the story is magnificent, and Crystal demonstrates the kind of acting chops that few other movies have ever allowed him to show. Crystal is a consummate performer and given a brilliant monologue to deliver he becomes a magnetic presence.

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

Movie Review Lego Ninjago

Lego Ninjago (2017) 

Directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan 

Written by Bob Logan, Paul Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern, John Whittington

Starring Dave Franco, Michael Pena, Kumail Nanjiani, Abbi Jacobson, Zach Woods, Fred Armisen, Jackie Chan

Release Date September 22nd, 2017

Published September 22nd, 2017

Lego Ninjago has not one single laugh. It has amusing moments but not a single instance of induced laughter. And I am not just speaking for myself here. The audience I watched Lego Ninjago with was really ready to laugh and you could hear some forced attempts at trying to laugh but as the movie went on even those that kept smiling and trying to find what was happening in Lego Ninjago funny weren’t laughing. It was strange; there was no outward disdain for Lego Ninjago but there weren’t any laughs.

Lloyd (Dave Franco) is a teenager who is constantly picked on because his father happens to be an evil ninja who keeps trying to take over his home town of Ninjago. What the people making fun of Lloyd don’t know is that he’s the legendary Green Ninja who, along with his fellow ninjas, have kept Garmadon (Justin Leroux) from actually destroying Ninjago. Naturally, regularly fighting his dad while flying around on a mechanized ninja dragon has led to more than a few daddy issues for Lloyd.

Thankfully, Lloyd has his uncle, Master Wu (Jackie Chan), who has taught him and his friends everything about being Ninjas and making giant mechanized animals that they use to battle Garmadon’s evil Crab army. Well, he has people dressed as crabs and dressed as sharks and dolphins and they make up his evil army; though at one point he does shoot sharks at people from a giant mechanical arm but that part isn’t very clear. I could follow the action well enough but some of the chaos got a little confusing.

All of that description sounds funny, right? Especially when you consider the recent history of the Lego franchise, The Lego Movie and Lego Batman. Those movies were laugh a minute spectacle that created an anticipation for future Lego movies. Like Lego Ninjago, those casts were overflowing with some of the funniest voices on the planet and Ninjago has a fair share of very funny people like Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Kumail Nanjiani, all of whom are remarkably funny.

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

Movie Review Kingsman The Golden Circle

Kingsman The Golden Circle (2017)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn 

Written by Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn 

Starring Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges

Release Date September 22nd, 2017 

Published September 21st, 2017 

Kingsman: The Secret Service was a not particularly inventive rehash of Mark Millar’s previously adapted work, Kick-Ass. The derivative spy take on the same tropes of the super-hero send-up bored me endlessly with its nihilistic approach to James Bond minus the strange wit of Kick-Ass, which shared not just creator Millar but also director Matthew Vaughn, who couldn’t help but seem to rip off his own work in a lazy rehash.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle, thankfully, is not Kick-Ass 2. That sequel was a massive letdown that quickly destroyed the goodwill carried over from the inventive original film. Here, with The Golden Circle we have the opposite effect. Considering that they had nowhere to go but up following The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle has the wit, charm, and fun that the original was lacking, minus the nihilistic violence that was so out of place in the first film. Don’t get me wrong, there are still gruesome elements but nothing that approaches the overrated church shootout of Kingsman 1.

Eggsy (Taron Edgerton) is still living with the loss of his mentor, Harry (Colin Firth), as we join the story of Kingsman: The Golden Circle. His time to mourn, however, is quickly cut short as the film dives into a spectacular car chase to open The Golden Circle. Though it is showy and rather pointless to the plot, the chase is undeniably spectacular with Edgerton battling it out inside of a cab with a former Kingsman recruit who is now working for the bad guys and is part robot.

The bad guy in Kingsman: The Golden Circle is actually a bad lady played by Julianne Moore. Poppy, Moore’s character, is a drug dealer who hopes to use her illicit products to hold the world hostage. Meanwhile, she’s also found a way to take the Kingsmen out of the game by blowing up all of their headquarters around the globe and killing several of Eggsy’s close friends, while he happens to be out of the country.

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