Movie Review I Do Until I Don't

I Do Until I Don't (2017) 

Directed by Lake Bell 

Written by Lake Bell 

Starring Lake Bell, Ed Helms, Mary Steenburgen, Paul Reiser, Amber Heard, Wyatt Cenac, Chase Crawford 

Release Date September 1st, 2017 

Published August 30th, 2017 

Lake Bell is quickly proving herself as a jack of all trades. She started her career in the role of the slightly less gorgeous best friend in movies before taking a major U-turn from pursuing movie stardom. When her What Happens in Vegas co-star Rob Corddry pitched the idea of the then web series Children's Hospital, it was an unlikely choice, one I’m sure her agent wasn’t exactly excited about. Then the series became a cult hit, earning a place on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup it showed Hollywood that Lake Bell was more than just the pretty face.

But Lake Bell wasn’t finished taking risks. In 2013, instead of making the move back to features or a full-time TV gig, she had plenty of options, Bell decided to cultivate a small budget and make a movie of her own in which she was writer, director, and star. In a World was a charming, delightful and highly original love story about a voice-over artist who dreams of getting that one big gig and become the first woman to utter the phrase that became a cliche of so many sci-fi action movies of the past In a World.

With the small budget, In a World became a solid hit and earned Lake Bell the capital to do more writing, directing and starring. This time her idea, called I Do Until I Don’t, was a bit more of a struggle. Having begun writing the screenplay immediately following the production and release of In a World, Lake began the story as a skeptical exploration of why people get married. The intent then was to deconstruct marriage and ask why this seemingly antiquated ritual was still a thing.

Then Lake met and fell in love with her husband Scott Campbell and they had two kids and the story, throughout this wonderful, if tumultuous time, evolved from a skeptical take to a more nuanced and thoughtful take on why people fall in love and the work it takes to stay in love.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Amazon Women on the Moon

Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) 

Directed by Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, Robert K. Weiss 

Written by Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland 

Starring Arsenio Hall, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joe Pantoliano, David Allan Grier, Rosanna Arquette 

Release Date September 18th, 1987 

Published September 18tth, 2017 

One of the first movies I ever reviewed on my podcast, when it was still called I Hate Critics, now Everyone’s a Critic, was a disconcerting sketch comedy movie called Movie 43. The film was a series of appalling short films strung together with no narrative under a title that one could imagine it having been randomly assigned by a movie studio for storage purposes, not intended for theatrical release. That this series of short films starred such actors as Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Richard Gere, Liev Schreiber, and Naomi Watts are the only reason Movie 43 ever saw the light of day.

When I saw Movie 43 I had never even heard of the obscure 1987 comedy Amazon Women on the Moon. I take that back, I did hear of it but I assumed it was some sort of softcore pornographic comedy. I think I may have also confused it with the movie Cannibal Women in the Amazon Jungle of Death, an epically unfunny spoof movie starring Bill Maher, before Politically Incorrect, oddly enough, and Shannon Tweed.

It turns out, Amazon Women on the Moon is everything that Movie 43 wished it could have been, trenchant, hilarious, weird, and just plain fun. Twenty-six years before Movie 43 strung together a random assemblage of movie stars in unfunny short films, writers and directors John Landis, Carl Gottlieb, Robert K. Weiss, and Carl Dante, all born from the Roger Corman school of filmmaking, pulled off the trick Movie 43 so desperately failed at, a ragingly funny sketch comedy movie.

Amazon Women on the Moon consists of 19 short films, some related, some not. The sketches do vary in quality, with Joe Dante really stealing the show in his portions, while Robert K. Weiss struggles a little with the film’s title sketch. Landis and Gottlieb go a far less traditional route with mostly good results, especially Gottlieb’s use of nudity which is wonderfully absurd and genuinely inspired.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Birth of the Dragon

Birth of the Dragon (2017) 

Directed by George Nolfi 

Written by Christopher Wilkinson, Stephen J. Rivele 

Starring Phillip Wan-tung Ng, Xia Yu, Jin Xing, Billy Magnusson 

Release Date August 25th, 2017 

Published August 24th, 2017

Birth of the Dragon has been marketed as the story of Bruce Lee learning to grow and become more disciplined, humble, and dedicated to his craft after being confronted by a famed Shaolin Master named Wong Jack Man. Instead, Birth of the Dragon is a ludicrously misguided combination of faux-history and one of the worst conceived Bruce Lee movies in history. It's as bad as the films that inserted old Bruce Lee footage after his death into different movies that were then marketed as Bruce Lee movies.

Birth of the Dragon was directed by George Nolfi who acquits himself well as a visual stylist but as a writer he fails to understand why this movie should not have been made in the first place. The story is based off an ungodly awful, mostly apocryphal story in a 1980 Kung Fu magazine. The writer of that story brings together three separate accounts of a fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man and it is written in a style that is reminiscent of the worst of modern internet writing. Supposed professional writers dedicate themselves to writing about information in other people’s articles, stealing without stealing what others wrote as if by stealing from multiple other sources you’ve somehow written your own article.

That is not exactly the best place to begin an artistic endeavor but then things get so much worse from there. The idea is supposed to be about this legendary 1964 fight between two Kung Fu masters that forever changed how Bruce Lee used Kung Fu, creating his legendary Jeet Kune Do style. However, because the writers, director, producers, and distributors apparently felt that mass audiences wouldn’t take to a story about Asian Americans, even if one of them is portraying BRUCE LEE(!!!!!!) we get an entirely invented character named Steve McKee who is so terribly portrayed by Billy Magnusson that I genuinely felt sorry for the young man that this performance is preserved on screen.

Magnusson is awful because his role is so incredibly stock and was built solely for the purpose of creating a character that dumb white audiences could relate to. This is the kind of quietly insidious racial politicking that we as critics and audiences have been allowing Hollywood to get away with for far too long and frankly, I am done. I recently wrote about a wonderful film called Wind River which shone a different kind of light on this type of casting. That film cast white movie stars because it had an urgent cry of a story to tell and needed to use white movie stars as a megaphone for an important purpose. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review England is Mine

England is Mine (2017) 

Directed by Mark Gill 

Written by Mark Gill 

Starring Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown Findlay, Laurie Kynaston 

Release Date August 4th, 2017 

Published August 3rd, 2017

I have to believe that writer and singer Morrissey is more interesting than the version of him brought to light in the movie England is Mine. I cannot sit here and tell you I know much more about Morrissey than what I read on his Wikipedia page. I can’t name a single Smiths song or Morrissey solo single. That said, I still know who he is. Somehow through some kind of pop cultural osmosis I know who Morrissey is and that is enough to tell me he must be interesting, he has to be more interesting than this mopey, dopey boring version of Morrissey in England is Mine.

England is Mine, which I am told is a lyric from a Smiths song, picks up the story of Steven Patrick Morrissey in his teenage years. Steven is not your standard English teenager. He likes to write lengthy letters to the music magazine NME criticizing the music scene in his corner of England and secretly hoping that someone at NME might read him and give him a job. His other hope is to become part of a band but he seems so crippled by social anxiety that even when an opportunity presents itself he’s too frightened to pursue it.

Morrissey’s life, according to England is Mine, hinges on his chance friendship with artist and singer Linder Sterling (Jessica Brown Sterling). Sterling entered Morrissey’s life after criticizing one of his letters to NME and then arranging to meet him. Linder is everything that Steven is not, outgoing, aspiring, happy. She takes to Steven in the fashion of a muse but not exactly an inspiration. Linder is the gentle prod that finally gets Steven to take himself seriously and become a singer. Linder herself could be the subject of a film as her influence as both an artist and a singer was a significant part of English punk and new wave music and yet you would not know that from England is Mine which doesn't even mention that she had her own band.

One might think that Morrissey taking the stage for the very first time with the band The Nosebleeds in 1978 might be some incredible moment. I would imagine that there are Smiths fans who wish they could have been at that club that night. And yet, England is Mine barely gives the moment any weight. Here is a true pop cultural artifact for the very people England is Mine is attempting to appeal to and the film gives it less weight than scenes where Morrissey is angrily scribbling in a notebook while suffering the mediocrity of a day job in the tax office.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Cupid's Proxy

Cupid's Proxy (2017) 

Directed by Jason Dallas 

Written by Jules Howe 

Starring Jet Jurgensmeyer, Valerie Azlynn, Jackee Harry, Steve Byrne 

Release Date September 12th, 2017 

Published September 11th, 2017 

Cupid’s Proxy imagines a world in which newspapers still employ advice columnists like the Landers’ sisters and paid them well enough to live in toney suburbs. The advice columnist here is Olive aka Cupid (Jackee Harry) whose advice column has grown stale and out of touch, much like the newspaper that still employs an advice columnist. To spice up her column Olive turns to the actual star of Cupid’s Proxy, 12 year old Disney star Jet Jurgensmeyer as 12 year old Justin Murphy.

When Olive asks Justin’s advice about what to write to a young reader, she rips off his reply wholesale and it becomes a viral hit. On the verge of being fired, Olive hires the 12 YEAR OLD BOY to give love advice using the kind of stereotypical Millennial-speak that even Millennials would make fun of, and that’s quite an accomplishment considering they’re the first generation post-sarcasm. The story, such as it is, revolves on Justin giving love advice under the pseudonym Cupid’s Proxy and ending up giving love advice to his music teacher, Stewart (Byrne) about how to romance Justin’s own mother Rebecca (Valerie Azlynn).

I promise that the premise is far less creepy in execution than in my horrifying description. There is genuinely nothing insidious about Cupid’s Proxy, it’s just another obvious, unfunny product, market tested into mediocrity. For the most part, Cupid’s Proxy is harmless; some might even find it cute. I found the film cloying, pushy, pointless, slightly sexist and brainless but again, mostly just a mediocrity.

Jet Jurgensmeyer is not a terrible young actor. He seems to have good timing for a young comic actor and he sparks well with the other characters but he’s not ready for the primetime spotlight of a leading role in a feature film. He has yet to master that thin line between trying and trying too hard to sell a gag or a line. It’s something that might come with time but for now, he’s no match for a leading role, especially one as poorly conceived as the lead role in Cupid’s Proxy.

That said, Jurgensmeyer could learn a little something from his young co-star Carolyn Dodd. Dodd plays Nat, a neighbor girl with a crush on Justin. Nat has a bad habit of talking way too fast and way too much and it’s this tick that steals a few scenes and earns a few of the film’s minor chuckles. Dodd has little experience but she’s quite adorable in Cupid’s Proxy, even amid the mediocrity around her.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Wind River

Wind River (2017) 

Directed by Taylor Sheridan 

Written by Taylor Sheridan 

Starring Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olson, Graham Green, Gil Birmingham, Q'Orianka Kilcher  

Release Date September 8th, 2017 

Published September 8th, 2017 

Wind River is one of the most emotional experiences I have had at the movies in 2017. The modern western from writer-director Taylor Sheridan is a cold and harsh drama about a cold and harsh place where these characters don’t merely live, they survive. The film also shines a devastating light on the plight of Native Americans and the criminal lack of care we give to their living conditions and well-being. That it takes a white writer-director and two white movie stars to get this story told says nearly as much as the movie itself.

Wind River begins terrifyingly with a young Native American woman running through a barren, snow covered valley. You can feel the cold simply from her manner and the way Sheridan films her running at a distance. Upon closer look your fear for her amps up as it is revealed that she is not wearing shoes or gloves. She collapses and tries to get up and keep going, she’s bleeding. The scene fades to black with her running toward a forest on a mountainside.

The body of the young girl, Natalie, is found a day later by Corey (Jeremy Renner), a hunter employed by the US Fish and Wildlife Administration as he is tracking mountain lions that have been attacking livestock. Corey knows the young girl and her family, they live on the reservation where he met his now ex-wife (Q’Orianka Kilcher). The dead girl was a friend of Corey’s late daughter.

Since the death happened on an Indian Reservation, the jurisdiction is murky, somewhere between County Sheriff’s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the FBI. The FBI is represented by Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olson), an inexperienced agent from Las Vegas who is ill-prepared for the frozen conditions of Utah; she is somehow the closest available agent for the job despite being stationed nearly 400 miles away.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Leap

Leap (2017) 

Directed by Eric Summer, Eric Wann 

Written by Eric Summer, Laurent Zeitoun, Carole Noble 

Starring Elle Fanning, Nat Wolff, Maddie Ziegler, Carly Rae Jepsen

Release Date February 24th, 2017 

Published February 25th, 2017 

It’s bizarre to me at times the things we feel are alright simply because they are animated. Take for instance the new animated family movie Leap which, while it tells a lovely story of an aspiring ballerina, spends a portion of its third act following a crazy woman as she attempts to murder two orphan children. Now, I get it, they’re animated but the choice made here is so incredibly forced and horrible that it doesn’t feel like Elmer Fudd’s failed attempts to murder Bug Bunny but something far more grim, ugly and worst of all, unnecessary.

Leap tells the story of Felicie (voiced by Elle Fanning) and her friend Victor (voiced by Nat Wolff) who escape from an orphanage on the outskirts of France and head to Paris to achieve their dreams. While Victor dreams inventing a way to fly, Felicie dreams of being a dancer and her dream is what drives the plot as she quite literally stumbles her way into the most prestigious dance company in Paris. There she meets Odette (voiced by Carly Rae Jepsen) who becomes her mentor and mother figure.

After Felicie nabs an invitation to attend the famed dance company from a talented but bratty rival (voiced by Maddie Ziegler) she begins attending classes while Odette begins to train her in secret. Odette used to be a dancer herself and in one of the film’s many abandoned plot strands, her background as a famed dancer is barely mentioned before it is pushed aside. Eventually, Felicie’s ruse is uncovered by the evil mother of her bratty rival (voiced in typically over the top manner by SNL star Kate McKinnon), and Felicie must fight for her chance to remain in class and in competition for the lead role in a major production or end up being sent back to the orphanage.

There are lovely moments in Leap but for each lovely moment there is a head-scratchingly awful moment such as a montage of Victor regaling Felicie with his own Paris adventure which he describes as triumph while we suffer/watch footage of him stumbling, falling and at one point lighting farts. Yes, this lovely movie about a young girl dreaming of life in the ballet contains a scene where a young boy lights his fart. Because, apparently, Hollywood hates your children

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media