Date: Sunday, October 14 2018
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Time: 12:10pm
Party: 2 (my mom and I)
Director: Bradley Cooper
Writers: Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump," etc.), Bradley Cooper, and Will Fetters ("Remember Me")
Composers: [there's so much music in this movie that I can't list everyone... but Gaga and Bradley Cooper both have writing credits on the soundtrack, which is pretty awesome]
Notable Cast (for me, main characters and also people that stood out):
Jackson Maine- Bradley Cooper
Ally- Lady Gaga
Ally's father, Lorzeno- Andrew Dice "Dice-Man" Clay
Bobby Maine, Jack's brother [not father]- Sam Elliott
Rez Gavron- Rafi Gavron
Ally's friend, Ramon- Anthony Ramos
Jack's driver, Phil- Greg Grunberg (I had to include him cuz I recognized him from "Heroes")
Drag bar MC- Shangela
Emerald- Willam Belli
Duration: 136 minutes (+7 trailers... I sense a common theme in this theater, it's always 7 trailers...)
Opening Comments:
So this came out over a week ago and since my mom was going to a conference with my dad, she asked if I could wait a week to see it. No problem, just as long as I'd get to a theater to see it at some point. Not sure why, but it's been really hard getting me out to the movies this year. Maybe I'm over movies in general or having to drive half an hour to a theather takes the motivation out of it... we were so spoiled having the theater down the road from us.
I remember that this had been in the making for a long time. According to Wikipedia, it'd been even longer... but I did hear a couple years ago that Bradley Cooper was doing this with Gaga and now it's finally here.
A few things to say about these two people...
Bradley Cooper
I'm such a nerd for remembering this, but when he was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine in 2011, I didn't really get the hype (and Ryan Gosling not winning had nothing to do with that, I'm not that into him either). To me, he was just part of the Hangover wolf pack and the bully in Wedding Crashers at that point.
But after seeing him a bunch of dramatic roles, I really got to like him. He is good looking and the more I see him interviewed, I really think he's a nice guy that'd be cool to spend time with. The attraction still isn't at the level of some other famous people.
Whether it's The Words, Silver Linings Playbook or Burnt, he just becomes these characters to the point where I don't see him anymore. Not counting the Avengers movies, this is the third time I'm going to see him in a theater release. And again, it has more to do with the subject matter than him as a person. But he's still a highlight of the movie. And something in those movies always hits me in the gut or moves me so I'm crying... not ugly crying, just a tear or two and then we move onto the next scene.
Lady Gaga
Where to even start with her? I'd been a Little Monster since maybe 2011 after seeing the Monster Ball HBO special. I'd been listening to her and buying her stuff before that- I love pop music and her stuff was the first music in a while (since maybe 2002) I'd been enjoying off the radio. "Born this way" is still my favorite album. The message appeals to the outcast in all of us (I'm a straight white female, we're the same age, and still don't feel like I have my place a lot of the time... unless of course it's among people who love Prince on Facebook or Twitter). And the music has such creative amazing energy.
I won't be like other fans who've given Artpop and Joanne a lot of crap. There's still something on both albums I can latch onto and really get behind.
A lot of her activism is really admirable: supporting gay rights, anti-bullying... I wouldn't have watched the "Hunting Ground" documentary if she hadn't written a song for it, which SHOULD have won an Oscar.
But hopefully with this movie, she will finally will cuz she REALLY deserves it for this one.
Trailers:
A full length trailer of "The Crimes of Grindewalld" from the Fantastic Beasts franchise. I swear I'd have to watch it a dozen times to catch everything in it. I think there was a snake in a scene that was actually called Nagini and it was an Animagus. Makes me wonder if Voldemort's snake was an Animagus that never changed back.
The Mule- apparently Clint Eastwood is pushing/transporting drugs in his old age? It seems like a very odd concept and I don't know if it'll work.
The Girl in the Spider's Web- for whatever reason, the sequel to the Dragon Tattoo, "The Girl who played with fire" got completely scrapped (along with the whole cast) and they decided to focus on the sequel to the trilogy... I struggled to read the first book and gave up before getting to page 100 and the movie was so risqué that I didn't want to see it on those grounds alone. This looks more like a solid R-rating than NC17, but I feel kinda bad for Rooney Mara not reprising the role that earned her an Oscar nomination. Also, Lisabeth Slander doesn't seem nearly as autistic as she did in whatever trailers I saw of the first movie.
Rocketman- a teaser trailer, really, about Elton John's life... why not? Queen is getting one that looks AMAZING. Although it seems weird that Elton John is getting a biopic and he's still alive. Don't you usually only do those for dead people? Not to be rude, but isn't that usually the case?
Beautiful Boy- it's been getting a lot of air play on TV already. It looks like a really good movie that deals with addiction and family. Starring Steve Carrel and the actor from "Call me by your name"
The Upside- it seems to be a pattern that Kevin Hart always does a movie that comes out in January... and it's almost always terrible, which is unfortunate cuz that dude's hilarious. But this seems like a sweet movie where he's down on his luck and gets a job helping quadriplegic Bryan Cranston. Some of the comedy might be over the top, but some of it seems well written. Either that or this trailer was shot REALLY well. (Makes me think of that scene from "The Holiday" where Cameron Diaz does a trailer for a Lindsay Lohan/James Franco movie that makes it look amazing, but she and everyone else knows it's crap)
The Favourite- apparently the Queen (whoever this queen is, I have no idea, don't really care) is really depressed and Emma Stone (maybe searching for her next Oscar?) and Rachel Weisz are vieing for her attention. I honestly don't know if this meant to be a comedy or a drama... it's just hard to take completely seriously.
The Main Event:
I'll just preface in saying I'd never seen any of the original versions of this movie and at some point, I should at least watch the Judy Garland version. But I knew this was an older movie being remade, so I thought maybe Bradley Cooper and Gaga were paying homage to old Hollywood like La-La Land and The Artist. While they certainly could have pulled that off, it wasn't the case. This take is very modern and current and that's why it's so compelling.
Bradley Cooper plays an established country singer with addiction issues (drugs and alcohol) to deal with hearing issues he's starting to have in his left ear. (I think the term is tinnitus, which is an incessent ringing. The titular character in "Baby Driver" also had it, which is why he always played music in his ear buds on the job... still need to see that movie). It's a constant struggle. At one point, his brother (yes, his brother) played by Sam Elliot suggests he wear inner ears to perserve what he still has, but he refuses because it cuts him off from the energy of the audience.
I've seen it on American Idol and The Voice a lot. Singers wear these inner ear inserts so they can hear themselves, but sometimes they'll take one out so they can hear the music or the audience. When you're not used to them, they make it difficult to do your job, but they can also be helpeful. (I'm sure I'd seen Prince wear them a couple of times in concert footage- one was at Hong Kong in 2003 where he did "Shh"... amazing... ok, moving on).
By chance, Bradley Cooper stops by the one bar that Gaga's character is performing. Not a gay bar (although a lot of the crowd probably fit the description), but a drag bar.
There was a lot of hype, particularly from my favorite reality singing competition blogger, Lyndsey Parker, about the fact Gaga had the idea for the drag bar in this movie and she recruited two "RuPaul's Drag Race" alums to having speaking roles. (According to Wikipedia, they were from season 3 and they also appeared in her "Applause" lyric video). I'd never seen that series, but it has a huge following and recently won an Emmy for best reality show (RuPaul won three years in a row for reality show host... which is great, but I feel bad for Cat Deeley for not winning one for SYTYCD- she's such a sweetheart, always great with the contestants. And unlike Carson Daly on The Voice, when she asks them questions after they perform or get eliminated, it doesn't sound scripted. It sounds like she actually cares about them and I know she does).
But it got me thinking that maybe at some point, I might watch the show to see what all the hype is about. (I also thought I was going to binge sometime on Project Runaway- another reality show I'd never seen and I have yet to do that either... I have so little time for any sort of binging, unless of course it's YouTube videos on video games...)
Gaga plays Ally (sounds stupid, but I was upset at the spelling of her name- I always imagined it as "Ali", anyway, moving on)- waitress by day and singer by night. And this drag club is a place where she feels comfortable and at home. And it's a really sweet relationship she has with the people there.
Anyway, Ally and Jackson (Bradley Cooper) start hanging out and he finds himself fascinated by her. He thinks she's an amazing singer and songwriter, but she's afraid to give it that extra shot. She said record companies rejected her because her nose is too big: the whole conundrum of "you sound great, but you don't look great"
But he gives her the opportunity to sing her song on stage with him and the wheels start to go into motion... and what a wild ride it is. And sadly he does spend a good chunk of it drunk or wasted and the people around him struggling to help him.
Ally's character arc was really cool to watch over the course of the movie because it was very similiar to Gaga's own career. She was a struggling singer/songwriter playing at all the clubs and wanting desperately to make the big time. I came across a website that had a bunch of her songs from before she became Gaga. Of course there were one or two comments on the link, saying "you're not a real fan if you're just finding this now"... it's kinda sad that there's a little of that arrogance in every fandom and I'm occasionally guilty of that myself.
But Joanne was also meant to be a return to that- stripping away all the gimmicks and focusing on vocals and raw songwriting. If anything, Ally's songs from this early part of the movie were even more stripped down than that and that's why there's so good. This is a soundtrack I'll definitely be getting in the future. It's also cool that Gaga and Bradley Cooper co-wrote a lot of it. And his singing voice isn't bad, either.
Later, Ally is approached by a record producer who wants to help her do an album. An offer she ultimately takes and the tide of the movie turns for better and for worse.
And funny enough, it does follow the arc of Gaga's career where she went from the singer/songwriter thing to the pop thing. Some aspects are similiar, but others... it kinda speaks against pop music and the whole machine of record companies. How they make their artists adhere to a certain image and they have to stick with that or else they get dropped, therefore real artistry is extinguished.
Gaga's music had a lot of flash and polish, but her lyrics weren't this explicit. Ally's first hit song under the label and she performed on SNL had a chorus saying something like "how are you walking around with an ass like that"... I know butts and asses sell records, but give me a break... a lot of the songs just took her completely away from what made her great in the first place. That, coupled with Jackson's addiction issues, created a lot of problems.
I think one issue I had with this movie was that there was good chunks of plot, but there were also huge chunks where nothing was happening. Montages of sex scenes (which were done tactfully, not too overdone) or hitting different venues and performing and such.
For me, while the movie was 2 hours and 16 minutes long... it felt a little too long. I spent maybe the last 20 minutes waiting for the movie to be over.
I won't give away everything that happened, but there were a couple times throughout the movie I wanted to punch her manager in the face. Just because he has a cute British accent doesn't mean he's excused from some of the stuff he does.
And by the end of the movie, Ally returns to form and does one last song... and it's amazing and a bit of a tearjerker.
My mom called this a "three tissue movie" and that's totally a good way to describe it. I think I cried at least three times and they were at good parts, during good songs. One was when she finally took the spotlight for the first time in front of a huge crowd- we were all just so happy that she finally owned what made her so good. It was also a tad awkward cuz I think we were the only ones in the audience clapping or cheering and it wasn't even loud cheering either. There wasn't a lot of people in the theater, but a lot of them were a little older and it was crazy that they were seeing something with Gaga in it. I guess cuz she stripped away that whole image and all that risque quirky stuff, she's now more approachable. On the one hand, it's great that more people are appreciating her, but part of me hates that it took this long... kinda like how it suddenly became cool to like Taylor Swift because of her 1989 album- SNL did a whole sketch about that. Kinda funny, but kinda lame cuz a lot of her stuff before that album is really good. (Her "Red" album is my favorite, although "Reputation" I've really gotten into these last few months).
And yeah, the final song is meant to be a tearjerker and the lyrics are very manipulative cuz of what happens in the movie to bring it out... but yeah, it was so good.
Other than the length, I really couldn't complain. It was a great movie.
It was also kinda funny seeing Andrew Dice Clay playing her father... I didn't have any idea it was him until the end credits rolled. Talk about playing against type. I first saw him years ago on an old VHS where we recorded a bunch of stuff off the TV and I got to see his "Little Miss Moffet" routine. I also saw him in "The Adventures of Ford Faraline"- for him, but also cuz Morris Day (he was in "Purple Rain" with Prince), although his role was very small. It's not the greatest movie, but it was entertaining in its own little way. And recently I saw him on this reality show where celebrity couples threw dinner parties and he won just because his girlfriend did all the cooking and was really good. There was this hilarious scene at his house where Lance Bass stumbles into his closet and comes out wearing one of his leather jackets. Suddenly, everyone is wearing one :P classic!
As Ally's father, though, he's a driver who also likes to gamble and has a lot of his friends hanging around the house all the time. He also keeps telling a story, saying how he could have been bigger than Sinatra. And he's always bragging to his friends how great a singer she is- long before she became famous.
Probably the best part of the movie was that the two main actors were so good. They didn't feel like people playing roles- they WERE these characters and I really enjoyed spending time with them through all the ups and downs of their lives and careers.
If Bradley Cooper gets nominated and wins, I'm sure there's going to be a big uproar about it that goes back to the whole #Oscarssowhite movement. The movie hasn't even come out yet, but I can totally see Rami Malek winning for playing Freddie Mercury in "Bohemian Rhapsody"- that movie looks really good.
But I really hope Gaga gets nominated AND wins- there's a lot of momentum going her way, between her Julie Andrews tribute, her SuperBowl performance (the best one since Prince- which will forever set the standard for me), and " 'Till it happens to you" being nominated (and losing to Sam Smith cuz he did the latest James Bond theme). If she has any shot of getting an Oscar, this is it and it has to be now. I think she also won an Emmy for "American Horror Story" so if she does Broadway, she has a shot at the EGOT title, something that Whoopi Goldberg, Audrey Hepburn, Rita Moreno, and, most recently, John Legend have won. And of course, Robert Lopez- half of the husband/wife duo who wrote the songs for "Frozen" and are responsbile for "Let it go" becoming one of the most beloved/hated songs of all time cuz EVERYONE had to cover it on some YouTube video or singing competition.
Lyndsey Parker mentioned this on a podcast where she and Jeffery Austin (4th place finisher on The Voice, season 8... I'm still mad he didn't win) bemoaned the fact that the songs from "A Star is Born" are destined to be covered a million times on every possible reality show that involves song and dance.
I didn't realize it until they said it, but they're right and that fills me with dread. Especially considering how overdone the songs from "The Greatest Showman" are already- "This is Me" in particular. Fun fact: Jenny Lynd's song "Never Enough" was dubbed by someone from season 3 of The Voice, Loren Allred. I don't remember her from the show at all, although I don't remember a lot of people unless they're in the top 12 and I really wanted them to win (and a lot of the time, they don't- I think Cassadee Pope was the only winner I really backed, all the way from the blinds through the whol show- I loved her voice and she sung a lot of pop songs I loved). But I read about Loren after finding this out from The Voice, when someone auditioned with her song, and she said that the producers were trying to create an image around her that she just wasn't buying into. I think she was eliminated in the Live Playoffs.
Interesting how it all comes full circle- all this talk about artistic integrity and record companies trying to package artists to fit a certain mold or image. It's probably the biggest issue this movie goes into and it's sadly true in real life. Particularly when artists are thrust into the spotlight, don't get to hone their craft and unless they have the right machine behind them or they sell out to a certain market, they're not going to lost beyond their first album or two.
That's probably a big reason why these days, I really don't buy into a lot of new music. There doesn't feel like anything original anymore and it's all about flash with no substance. Not to mention more rap and hip-hop than I ever want to have in my life... when I listen to the radio, I try to find stations that at least mix up different decades and there's more variety.
The last albums I have bought: Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and Jessica Meuse, who I'd been following since she was on American Idol back in 2014 and that album was worth the wait for sure. I'm sure some of their image is being produced in some way, but they feel like the few people that have their own sense of artistry and haven't completely sold out to an image just to sell records. "Reputation" can be argued that it was a move to be edgier and get rid of that squeaky clean image, but some of the old Taylor is still in there. It's just knowing where to look.
Even Prince (sorry for all the references to him, they just have so much relevence I can't help myself) had to deal with the industry trying to package him a certain way- early in his career, he told his manager and his label that he didn't want to be just another black artist. And he did albums like 1999 and Purple Rain to crossover to the white audeince and gain appeal across all the demographics. (Although he did such a good job creating that image for himself, it sadly defined his career and created a ceaseless battle where people wanted him to always be that guy from Purple Rain when he just wanted to keep going forward and evolving).
What I've noticed is that the industry always tries to put artists into boxes, but the artists that are in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, the peaks of their careers were in the 80's or earlier and they played their own instruments and wrote their own material. There was a craft of performing and songwriting and playing instruments and that's why older music is so good. I try not to say that current music is crap. Heck, my dad refuses to listen to anything later than 80's music and the only reasons he knows who Gaga and Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars are either because I follow them myself or he saw them on HBO or as part of the Victoria's Secret fashion show. He also loved that song, "Shut up and dance"- I think because it sounds like an 80's song, but I think he found about it by random chance on some YouTube binge. Somehow, I think we're all guilty of binging something on Youtube :P but with good wi-fi and so many videos to choose from, it's hard to resist. But it's almost gotten to a point for me where, sadly, I may be over current music and the only people I invest in are ones I'd followed for a long time and/or I see a part of me in their work.
...well, that got out of hand quickly... but I'll leave it in cuz all of it ultimately fits the point. Record companies work at what they do, but at what cost to the artists?
Grade: A-
(I swear, if it didn't feel too long, I would have given it a higher score... and there was maybe one loose end at the end of the movie I wish they had tied up... and it goes back to that damn manager... just wanna punch him)
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Mad-Eye Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Fleur DeLaCoeur- Cleménce Poésy
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Stanton
[newcomers]
Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeor- Bill Nighy
Bill Weasley- Domnhall Gleeson (in case you didn't make the connection, fun fact- he's Mad Eye's son IRL... he'd also since shown up in the Star Wars movies as an Empire commander who gets made fun of a lot by the other characters, good and bad)
Xenophilius Lovegood- Rhys Ifans
Mundungus Fletcher- Andy Linden
Yaxley- Peter Mullan
...it's really hard trying to figure out who I should and shouldn't include... there's so many people in this movie, but few with really big roles.
Notable Nominations:
Art Direction and Visual Effects
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Wow, my last post from this series was in 2016... I don't think I'd seen any of the movies except maybe the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts since then. I think it's also the first time I'd seen any of the movies since we actually went to Harry Potter in Universal Studios. That was one tremendous nerdgasm, just seeing all this stuff from the movies. Hogsmeade Village and Diagon Alley as well as so many tourists in costume and robes. It's almost like it's Comic-Con there every day and it is awesome. (Also, very expensive). We went through Hogwarts Castle and were unknowingly whisked off to a ride where we had to escape the castle. Our feet were dangling and we were thrown forward and backwards and the visuals varied between actual set design and a movie where we zipped through the Quidditch pitch and around the castle. My mom keeps saying she loved it, but it half scared the crap out of me and my sister. I literally blinked my way through the times we were moving because a) it was a little too much of a rush and b) it was kinda terrifying and I thought maybe I'd throw up a couple times. But the times we were still or laying on our backs, just looking at the scenery around us. We saw spiders, dementors and the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon and its breath were AWESOME. The spiders and dementors... :shudder: both creepy. At least with the dementor, I tried to think happy thoughts because that's how you defeat them. Yep, I'm a true Potter head :P
We also ate true British cuisine at the Hogsmeade Pub and had Butterbeer... so good! We also saw some girls dressed like they went to Madame Maxime's Academy of Magic. As for souvenirs, I got a T-shirt, a Ravenclaw scarf (cuz I like blue... although I may have fit into that house... I took the quiz at Pottermore and it actually put me in Slytherin... in my defense, so was Merlin and he wasn't a bad wizard), and a time-turner. And the cashier was great, saying for me not to use the time-turner to take more money out of my band account. He was totally in character and it was awesome.
Oh and we also saw Grimmauld Place on the street... which brings me back to this movie. The film does spend some time there, but seeing it again after having been there last October... oh man, that was great.
Now for the actual movie...
It was a 2-part movie and this is part one. For Harry Potter, this was definitely justified because both halves revolve around two different settings. Part One is basically Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run, trying to figure out how to find Horcruxes (objects that contain pieces of Voldemort's soul) and destroy them. And Part Two is essentially "the Battle of Hogwarts." Where they decided to split the two movies couldn't have been more perfect.
Spoilers Ahead...Read the Books!
Adaptation
For starters, I'll say that I think I'd read this book three times EVER. Once was when we first got it... I remember that my mom and dad were off to Vegas July 2007. Sometime when they were away, I watched Under the Cherry Moon for the first time (and my sister walked in a couple of times and said there was too much kissing in the movie... and Prince isn't the best on-screen kisser, I don't think anyway). And when they came back, my mom came with the book. She bought it at the airport and was reading it on the plane, as was another passenger and they briefly talked about being fans and such.
I remember my experience reading the book and how we took turns with it. The first hundred or so pages was agonizing because nothing was happening. So when this movie was split up, I initially thought that a lot of this book could have been shrunk down to fit into one movie. But after seeing the end result, I'm happy with how they did it.
As for transferring the book to the actual movie, most of it was done well. I wish they kept the scene where Harry and his cousin Dudley have their final goodbyes because it was kinda of a big moment in the book. A bit of a payoff after all those years where Dudley and his friends bullied him.
The story kept pace pretty well and they montaged a lot of stuff that should have been montaged in the actual book, lol. We watched it last night and I felt like the movie zipped by really fast. It's 2 hours and 13 minutes and it really didn't drag. Maybe because I spent half of the movie noticing little things I hadn't before or that I was actively questioning stuff. You know, nerding out.
For the most part, I think the story followed the book really well and not much was changed too much where I could complain about it.
One new thing I noticed was at Malfoy Manor at the beginning. Voldemort is practically having a Council of Evil dinner party and they're discussing finding/killing Harry when he's being shuttled to a safe house. At the table, there were a couple of characters I didn't pay much attention to until now. This was this guy Yaxley that nearly catches up with Harry and his friends when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and I thought it was weird that Hermione knew his name, but I had no idea who he was or why he was after them. Seeing him at this dinner party, I totally get the connection. And the guy that Voldemort says spoke "like a true politician"- he becomes the new Minister of Magic.
Oh yeah... Rufus Scrimgeour is the new Minister of Magic that was elected after Fudge had to resign at the end of the Order of the Phoenix. He was elected in the 6th book and actually meets Harry where he tries to get him to help the Minister renew their image or mend relations with him after they spent the previous book tarnishing his image. Harry, of course, declines and lets him have it. In this movie, we're meeting him for the first time. A little nit-pick, I know, but I thought it was a little too much when we start the movie with him giving a speech and the camera is staring at his eyes... a little TOO close there, Mr. Director!
He shows up at the Weasley House to read Dumbledore's Will (I remember how this was one of the first three scenes we got to see before the movie came out) and bequeaths three random objects to the three main characters and ultimately says "I don't know what you plan to do, but you can't do this alone"... then next we hear about him, he gets killed by Death Eaters and the Ministry has fallen...
The movie starts on a bit of a sad note because Hermione wipes her parents' memories of her. I remember watching through this YouTube series, Cinema Sins, where they nitpick movies endlessly. Half of their Harry Potter nitpicks were things that were EXPLAINED IN THE BOOKS so I thought they were completely stupid. The other half is Deus Ex Machina, a literary device where things are conveniently placed in the books because they explain/resolve things later in the plot. One example is in Chamber of Secrets where Herbology happens to be teaching everyone about Mandrakes the same year Mudbloods are getting petrified and juice made from them is the cure. It's something that does happen a lot in the Harry Potter books, but so what... so as much as I like watching Cinema Sins, the guy behind it sounds like an ignorant jerk... I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure cuz I'd watched a bunch of these videos.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make... he got one thing right... when Hermione wipes her parents' memories, she also erases her picture from all the picture frames. His comment was "won't Hermione's parents think it's strange they have a lot of blank picture frames in their house"... I get why she did it. Cuz if the Death Eaters find them and who they are, they'd probably torture them with the Cruciatus Curse and drive them incurably insane.
We do get a little story process when Harry and the other two stay at Grimmauld Place and learn who R.A.B. is. He left a note inside the locket Harry and Dumbledore retrieved in the previous movie, saying the locket is a fake and he plans to destroy the real Horcrux. Having inherited Grimmauld Place and Kreaker the house-elf from Sirius, Harry's able to compel Kreaker to tell him where the locket is. Mundungus Fletcher barely has any screen time, but we at least give him hell for running away when the Death Eaters attack the Order when they're transferring Harry to the safe house. It's because he ran that Mad-Eye Moody got killed.
But wouldn't you know it- the Ministry person he sold the locket was OUR Undesirable #1, former Professor Umbridge. I can understand why J.K. Rowling brought her back (she was disgraced and fired after her actions in the 5th book) in this book because who else to be in charge of the Muggle Registry... someone who thinks she knows better than everyone else and passive-aggressively tells muggle-borns that they can't be witches or wizards because they have no magic blood. Voldemort has always preferred purebloods above all others, but his policies really do hit home when we see all the propaganda the Ministry is sending out.
I could talk more on politics and who Umbridge reminds me of, but I've got better things to do.
While the movie is pretty dang serious through most of it, it's nice to have some of the Weasleys as comic relief. George gets injured the night of Harry's transfer and he comes up with the perfect line to make the seriousness of it go away. And later Ron has a couple of funny lines as well. That kinda makes up for the fact he turns into a jerk halfway through the movie and leaves because (shock horror) Harry has no idea how to find or destroy the Horcruxes. I thought Ron was a bit of a jerk in the Goblet of Fire after Harry is chosen to be in the Triwizard tournament, but this was over the top. But I guess if someone had to leave, he would... it also brings up a good talking point that the fandom had talked about for years. About why Harry and Hermione didn't end up together because they seem to be a good fit. I think J.K. Rowling came out and said she wanted to put Harry and Hermione together as well, but doing so would have taken Ron out of the picture entirely. Although looking at the actual quote where she says Ron/Hermione was "wish fulfillment"... I don't quite understand what she means by that. The article I read tried to explain that, but never gets anywhere.
But Ron has had issues for years being in the shadow of all his brothers as well as the great Harry Potter, so it makes sense that this would come to a head here of all places. There was a scene in the movie that was new and it was a nice addition. Hermione is depressed when Ron leaves and Harry tries to cheer her up by dancing with her to something on the radio.
My favorite scene of the whole movie is in Godric's Hollow where Harry wants to see where his parents are buried and it's where Bathilda Bagshot lives. She apparently was interviewed by Rita Skeeter for a new book (a smear piece on Dumbledore and his private life... she's still at, unfortunately... in the 4th book, Hermione does inevitably catch up with her and threatens to out her as an illegal Animagus if she doesn't stop with the swear pieces... it was left out of the movies, but considering this storyline, it kinda makes sense that it was left out). Anyway, Harry thinks it might be another lead towards a Horcrux.
Just the moment where it's snowing on Christmas Eve and Harry and Hermione are looking over the Potters' headstone... it was really solemn and sweet and sad all at the same time.
The way Ron ultimately comes back, maybe there were too many coincidences thrown together to make it work, but I honestly don't care. But him talking about this little ball of light that comes out of the Deluminator, goes into his heart and takes him to where Harry and Hermione are... I vaguely remember at the Oscars that they made fun, trying to make it sound like he's singing about this little ball of light. They did that with other movies too, but that one always stuck with me LOL
Another great scene is where they see Luna's dad about this symbol sees in her Beedle the Bard book (another thing from Dumbledore's will) and at the Peverell grave in Godric's Hollow. Three guesses what the symbol is... it's in the title...
Anyway, Hermione reads this story about the Three Brothers, which is about the Deathly Hallows. They choose to animate it. Not only is it a compelling story and Hermione is a great reader... but just the way it is animated... I got so sucked in that I was enchanted for the rest of the movie. It's REALLY well done. No doubt that's the reason this movie was nominated for two Oscars... beat by Inception and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The remainder of the movie is pretty dramatic, though...
Harry and the others get caught by Snatchers (who work with the Ministry to round up Muggleborns with winds) and taken to the Malfoys because despite a stinging jinx Hermione uses on him, they believe Harry is with them.
Harry and Ron are thrown in the basement and Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione, thinking they stole the sword of Gryffindor from her Gringotts Vault. According to IMDB, a lot of it was cut out because it would have pushed for a more mature rating. It was that bad. And it also says that after the scene was shot, Helena Bonham Carter is extremely apologetic to Emma Watson. The screaming and her expression afterwards really sells it. (She'd carved "mudblood" into her arm).
Throughout the books, Dobby the House-Elf made several appearances since Harry freed in the Chamber of the Secrets. But in the movies, all of the moments where he helped further the plot (giving Harry the gillyweed for the 2nd task at the Triwizard tournament and locating the Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to meet) were given to Neville. I don't disagree with giving Neville more screen time to do something other than getting jinxed... but I just thought it was lazy on their part cuz they didn't want to spend time on that animation.
Dobby finally returns and of course it's for the last time... that's the really unfortunate part. Although it is nice he actually saves Harry's life and he actually needs him to (in the Chamber of Secrets, he kept trying to get Harry kicked out of Hogwarts because he overhears from the Malfoys something terrible will happen)... it's a minor nitpick, but I hate that his animation is completely different from the previous movie. I don't know, I just really like continuity with how characters look. When I go into the Twilight movies, I'll REALLY have a field day with that.
A few more funny things from this particular viewing...
The moment where Harry says in the Ministry of Magic (he and Hermione are disguised as employees using Polyjuice Potion) that if they don't find Umbridge in an hour, they'll come back another day... and a second later she shows up at the elevator, I screamed :P it's been so long since I'd seen it I totally forgot it was that moment. Plus, I really don't like her. Major ick factor.
I also noticed that the number 7 came up a lot in the series... just a random observation. My mom asked me how many Harrys there were when the Order was getting him to the safe house and half of his friends took Polyjuice potions to become decoys. (So funny when Fred and George said "look, we're identical"... their voices coming out of Daniel Radcliffe kinda reminded me of Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, cuz Harry is a lot shorter than they are and just their accents. Plus they're all comic relief characters). I somehow remembered the chapter said there was 7, but I said it was called "the seven Harrys"... it was called the "seven Potters"... close enough, I say.
Plus there are 7 Horcruxes and 7 Weasley siblings (also, I know he didn't really have a part to play in the story, but it kinda sucks we never got to meet Charlie Weasley, Ron's brother who studies dragons in Romania) and I remembered just now that Harry's Quidditch uniform has the #7 on it. Oh, and there are 7 players on a Quidditch team.
I know it's not the most original number to use everywhere (Prince has SEVERAL songs that mention the number 7... including one just called "7"), but I just thought that was a fun/funny observation.
Wow, my Harry nerdom really does show in these posts :P
Also two things I noticed were recurring themes in this movie... but they were only referred to once in the second movie and that was when they were actually useful... the shard of the mirror Sirius had given Harry and Harry had used to it to call for help and got Dobby (he finds out who was actually behind it in the next movie) and there's the Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's will. It shows up throughout the movie, flying around and he sees the words "I open at the close" on it. But by the time it shows up in the last movie, you completely forget that he has it... I just find that a little odd. But that's what happens when you have two separate movies.
Unless of course you play them back to back... which we did once before... the reason it took so long to do this was because my mom refuses to watch this movie unless we see the second half soon afterwards, whether it's hours or days...
so now it's time to watch the last Harry Potter movie and put an end to all this... sadly, but it must be done.
Date: Sunday, August 5th 2018
Location: Stroud Mall Cinemark Theater
Time: 11am
Party: 2 (my sister and I)
Director: Marc Forester (interesting array of credits, but "Finding Neverland" tells me he was the right director for this because they deal with similar themes)
Writers: (too many to list LOL, but have to give credit to A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard for giving us these beloved characters in the first place)
Composer: Jon Brion and Geoff Zanelli
Cast:
Christopher Robin- Ewan McGregor
Evelyn- Hayley Atwell
Madeline- Bronte Carmichael
Giles Winslow- Mark Gatiss (he played Mycroft to Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock? fascinating...)
Eeyore- Brad Garrett
Pooh and Tigger- Jim Cummings
Owl- Toby Jones
Piglet- Nick Mohammad
Rabbit- Peter Capaldi
Kanga- Sophie Okonedo
Roo- Sara Sheen
Duration: 104 minutes (+ 7 trailers... seems to be a trend at this theater, always 7 trailers...)
Write-up:
Introduction
Gotta say it is CREEPY at the mall this early on a Sunday. None of the stores are open and there's almost nobody around. The theater had a decent amount of people, maybe 15-20 and there weren't as many kids as I expected.
Kinda funny how I'm doing all this build-up with the stuff in the movie and the trailers as well, but the movie discussion itself, I'm probably not going to go into too much detail about.
The two of us had been seeing trailers for this for months and have wanted to see it. It's oddly been really difficult to get me to a theater lately because a) it's more than 5 minutes down the road like our old theater was and b) nothing out there holds any interest for me anymore... almost like RDJ's Sherlock where he's in his flat for a couple months after the Lord Blackwood case
Coming Attractions
None of which really looked that interesting to me. Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age (of 32, LOL)... seems to be a recurring theme... anyway, moving on:
House With a Clock in the Walls
...first of all, WORDY title, bleck! The PG rating says it was for sorcery, so I thought this would be another Fantastic Beasts trailer... nope, a kid goes to live with his uncle, Jack Black, and he learns about magic and there's apparently a clock in the wall just ticking away. I thought this would be like Poe's Tell-Tale Heart (although I think that's actually about a beating heart under floorboards... I never read the story as you can probably tell). There's a funny line in the trailer where there's this older woman in the house (I called her a Helen Mirren type) and she says something and Jack Black is like "that [some inanimate object I can't remember] talked" acting all surprised and crap in the usual Jack Black way. I was thinking I hadn't really seen him in any live action movie in some time. And the last one I remember seeing a trailer for was Goosebumps... funny thing about that...
Goosebumps 2
I didn't think the first movie did well enough to merit a sequel... I guess studios really are running out of ideas... there was a girl in this trailer wearing an Emma Swan red leather jacket and I really thought it was Jennifer Morrison from Once Upon a Time... nope, it's a younger actress I'd seen a few times before. I think she was a werewolf in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows and the Carrie remake. The story is about two boys finding a book that was never published and probably should have stayed locked away... you know where this is going... all Jumanji style, the characters from the books come alive and terrorize the town.
A-X-L
I thought this would be yet another Transformers movie (knock it off, Michael Bay, nobody cares anymore!) but it's a little closer to today's technology. A teenager finds a mechanical dog in a junkyard, but it has intelligence and can learn/obey commands kinda like Alexa, but without it taking back. And of course it's something developed by the government that they want back... the concept is interesting, but the storyline has been done before.
Wonder Park
I'm not entirely sure what this one is even about. It seems to be about a girl who's traveling alone in the woods and she finds a hidden theme park and she's tasked with bringing people back to it. And somehow this is being done by some studio other than Disney cuz this kinda looks like Fantasy Land from Disneyworld without it being Disney.
Smallfoot
Cute concept- it's about a society of Yetis (Bigfoot) in the mountains and to them, we (smallfoot) are legends. Then a hiker gets lost and one Yeti finds him and tells the others. But they don't believe him so he goes to find the humans and world collide. At least this one is kinda original and it seems to have a cast of well-known actors (none of which I can remember at the moment... man, this is really becoming a cynical post)
Dumbo
I'd heard this one was coming... directed by Tim Burton and supposedly the Internet went nuts when this trailer first came out. It's the first time I'm seeing it. It's very much a teaser trailer that only lasts maybe a minute with not much dialogue. We see Dumbo come out of the hay and his ears are huge. He's found by two kids and their dad is Colin Farrell (he's been popping up a lot lately in these types of movies... interesting, but in a good way). And they show Dumbo's mom Jumbo being carted off in a trailer and the two kids have to take care of him. Then the trailer ends as we see Dumbo about to take flight for the first time at the circus. I noticed that there is no Timothy the Mouse, who taught him to fly in the original cartoon... I don't know if they're doing this movie without him or what... but I kinda feel like he's a vital character.
Ok, I actually looked this up... there are no other animal characters in this... no Timothy or anyone else... it's focusing on the human perspective... :sigh: not sure how I feel about that. I only saw this movie maybe once in my life and for a kid, it's kinda traumatic where Jumbo gets shackled one foot at a time when she attacks kids for bullying Dumbo and she gets carted away somewhere and he's left alone. The humans in that movie were terrible characters... Tim Burton is also an interesting idea... I don't know how he and Danny Elfman will make this movie their own. But if they do the scene with the pink elephants on parade, where Dumbo gets drunk or something, it'd be extra creepy. I think Nostalgia Critic listed that as one of his "top 10 nostalgic mindf***s"
Mary Poppins Returns
We get to see a little more in this than the teaser trailers, but not much more. It starts with a kite that gets caught up in the wind and finds a boy and his father and they take it for a flight. And Mary Poppins comes down holding it, opposed to her umbrella. And there's one scene where Emily Blunt goes by a mirror and her reflection mocks her when she walks away.
Maybe it's the music playing in the background from the movie, but I was almost getting teary with this one the way I did with the Beauty & the Beast trailer... omg, that was so good! I'm not nearly as nostalgic about Mary Poppins, but I have a really good feeling about this movie. And Emily Blunt is sure to get great in this role.
Ok, that's one that looks interesting to me... scratch my initial statement...
The Main Event
Synopsis
So we start how we often do: Christopher Robin with his friends and they're preparing to say goodbye to each other, but they all promise not to forget each other.
We start to flash forward and we're treated to a montage of Christopher Robin growing up. He's in private school and his father suddenly passes away so he must become the man of the house. He meets his future wife, goes off to war and eventually comes back to a 3-year old daughter and he works for a luggage company as head of logistics. He more or less becomes a workaholic who doesn't spend any time with his family.
Enter Winnie the Pooh, who finds the magic portal Christopher Robin once came through and they meet for the first time in maybe 20-30 years. Christopher Robin is forced to work over the weekend to solve a logistics issue so a huge chunk of the workforce isn't laid off, which is why he misses more time with Evelyn and Madeline. And meeting Pooh, of course he's in a rush to get him home so he can resume work. But once they get to the 100 Acre Wood, they've lost track of everyone else and whether he wants to or not, Christopher Robin winds up looking for them. And along the way, he does find his inner child, which he had lost over the years where he'd had to be become a responsible adult.
Acting, Writing and Adaptation
As far as the writing goes, it's really well done. All the characters pretty much act the way you'd expect them to. While Christopher Robin is happy to see old friends again, he is very much trying to hold onto his new life and not lose sight of responsibility. There's always going to be a moment in these types of movies where a fight happens between characters for wanting different things. But they handled this well with him and Pooh- this is a kid's movie, after all. It's not like he's going to curse him out or say anything demeaning to him.
It may be a little cheesy how Christopher Robin winds up playing again... apparently everyone is hiding because they think a Hufflelump is out to get them and he pretends to scare one away... in anything but a Disney movie, how he acts would be considered more than a bit ridiculous. Yet here, it works... at least I think so.
For the most part, the characters are just how we remember them. Owl is a know-it-all, but he's not as annoying as I found him in the Kingdom Hearts games where he was pretty much a tutorial giver. Toby Jones was the perfect voice for him. Of course they had Jim Cummings (one of the most versatile voice actors ever... I'd known his name as long as I'd been learning names) playing Pooh and Tigger and doing them as well as you'd expect from him. I read one review that was maybe a bit cynical, but he had one thing right where Pooh kinda looks like zen riddles. He is a bear of little brain, but he knows a lot more about life than you'd expect.
And Tigger is just Tigger... we even get that dang song where he says why Tiggers are wonderful... just HAD to have that in the movie. And like with the old cartoons, of course he does something kinda stupid to screw up the story and the other characters have to go through the portal to London to make it right, but once we get to the end of it, you can't argue with the result because it saves Christopher Robin as part of his family as well as his job.
Brad Garrett was a good fit to voice Eeyore. However, I'm a little conflicted with how he was presented as a character. Some of his sarcasm was pretty funny and the audience got a kick out of them. (One of those moments was mocking Tigger's song pretty much saying "Not again..."). I mean, we all know Eeyore is very downtrodden and depressed and sarcastic. But some of his lines, to me, come off just a tad passive-aggressive just short of being mean-spirited. It's a little difficult to describe unless you actually see it for yourself, but he didn't quite sound like this in his original form.
Piglet is true to form, but it's hard hearing anyone else play him other than John Fielder, who passed away some time ago (2005, wow... that long?). Nobody could play Piglet better, but I really liked how the character was pretty much the same as we remember... other than the fact he was dressed in blue instead of his iconic pink/red outfit.
Kanga and Roo didn't have as many lines, but their actors nailed their parts.
I think the only voice actor I didn't like was who they got to play Rabbit. I think because it was a very British actor. And the cartoon really didn't have any British actors other than Christopher Robin himself. But the story did take play in England, so that's probably what they should have done in the first place. The actor played one of the many incarnations of Doctor Who, so definitely fitting for this role. But to me, it just sounded weird and out of place. (Maybe because Rabbit was my favorite character cuz I loved rabbits as a kid...)
And Ewan McGregor was great in this role. It feels like a long time since I'd seen him and I hadn't seen him in anything like this. Where he's an everyday man who happens to have animated stuffed animals for friends.
HIs wife and daughter were done well also. Of course we know Hayley Atwell as Agent Carter so it was cool to see her again in a normal role, but it's another where her loved one fought in the war. (I don't know if this was World War I or II in this particular movie). And Madeline was adorable as his daughter. He wants her to go to the same private school he did and to study all the time. But all she wants to do play as a kid and read stories like Treasure Island at bedtime, opposed to dusty old history books.
The fact Evelyn and Madeline get to meet the character and interact with them was great and really made the whole thing worth it at the end.
Final Comments
Overall, you get what you pay for. It's a live action Disney movie with beloved characters we all grew up with. They got a good story true to form and they were portrayed really well. And the story was well-written and didn't color outside of the lines too much to take away from the nostalgia and everything we grew up with. So I thought it was nice and sweet. And certainly well worth leaving the house and spending money on a movie ticket for. Not much is getting me to the movies anymore, so I thought it was worth it. Is it worth a movie ticket for other people? It's up for them to decide, I think.
It's kinda too bad that the movie only made $24.5 million... but nowadays, unless it's a Marvel or Star Wars movie (at least pre-Solo... still didn't think it was THAT bad where they had to derail all of the side-mode movies to regroup), movies aren't bringing in lots of money anymore. Half of it is lack of originality, but the other half is probably this ridiculous trend of streaming off Netflix and similar companies. I went around looking for a new CD and not only did nobody carry it, but the CD collections at all the stores but FYE were very minimal. Some dude probably my age or younger at Best Buy said they stopped selling CD's cuz one CD is worth 3-months of Spotify. If I was more secure with myself, I probably would have started an argument with him over it. I don't buy many CD's anymore, but that's so not the point :P Anyway, that's it.
Score: A- (it wasn't anything spectacular or ground-breaking, but I liked it enough where I'd watch it again for sure)
Director: Jason Reitman
Writers: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner; based on Water Kirn's book
Cast:
Ryan Bingham- George Clooney
Natalie Keener- Anna Kendrick
Alex Goran- Vera Farmiga
Craig Gregory (oh yeah, never trust a dude with two first names)- Jason Bateman
Ryan's sister, Kara- Amy Morton
Ryan's sister, Julie- Melanie Lynskey
Jim, Julie's fiancé- Danny McBride
Awards and Nominations:
nomination-OSCAR- Best Picture (lost to The Hurt Locker)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Supporting Actress- Anna Kendrick
nomination-OSCAR- Best Supporting Actress- Vera Farmiga (lost to Mo'Nique- Precious)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Actor- George Clooney (lost to Jeff Bridges- Crazy Heart)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Director- Jason Reitman (lost to Kathryn Bigelow- Hurt Locker)
nomination-OSCAR- Best Adapted Screenplay (lost to Precious)
Golden Globe- Best Screenplay
nomination- Golden Globe-Best Supporting Actress- Anna Kendrick
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Supporting Actress- Vera Farmiga (see above)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor- George Clooney (see above)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Picture- drama (Avatar took them to the cleaners! ...oh yeah, that was the year RDJ won for Sherlock Holmes)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Director- Jason Reitman (lost to James Cameron)
...
some mild spoilers ahead...
...
First off, I’d been meaning to do this post for a while. The motivation has always been the same and I’ve meant to do it around this time but I’d always run out of time or another project caught my attention. But currently going through traffic coming home from the shore house (riding shotgun so you don’t get the idea I’m typing and driving) I’m making time to do it finally.
Have you ever had a movie where you completely see yourself in it, saying “this character is living my life”? While it isn’t a perfect 100% DNA match, my dad loves this movie because George Clooney spends as much of his life on the road as he does. And he can relate to the business of flying so many days out of the year, being efficient about packing luggage, getting through security in a timely manner and, of course, racking up as many frequent flyer miles as possible. It’s all about the miles. While my dad goes internationally (mainly Asia with the occasional sidebar to Europe- not on the same trip, of course) to sell product as part of the metalworking industry, Clooney racks up his miles domestically in a completely different business- firing people.
Watching the movie this latest time, I didn’t even realize that it was inspired by the unemployment crisis that kicked off in 2008 when the housing market collapsed... it's been 10 years now and now that I’ve been working consistently for a couple years now that it’s easy to forget the past. But now recognizing that Clooney’s line of work in this movie is connected to that and I think some of the people in it that were fired weren’t actors but people who’d gone through this rough transition period, it gives me a little more appreciation for it. (According to IMDb, the real people were people that didn't have dialogue with the main actors in the movie).
So this business flies people around the country to various corporations where they fire employees for said corporations (to paraphrase what Clooney says in the narrative) because they are too cowardly to do the firing themselves and leaves them with a packet and words of wisdom like “anybody who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are now and it's because they sat there that they were able to do it” (I had to double check I had this quote exactly right because it's important).
The movie starts to kick into its plot because of Anna Kendrick. She plays a college graduate who has the idea to revolutionize this business- using video conferencing to fire people rather than flying people around the country. Of course Clooney hates this idea because it threatens his way of life. He has family that he isn’t particularly close with and is a confirmed bachelor and he travels to avoid having any serious human connection. He also does motivational speeches about avoiding commitment where you stuff all of the things in your life into a backpack, feel how heavy it is and that alone is reason enough not to have any attachment to anything. Moving is living. One speech involves things/objects and the other involves people in your life starting with casual acquaintances and working up to spouses and children. And one involves you setting the backpack on fire and realizing how invigorating that is- don’t worry, he does clarify this.
So he has Anna Kendrick along for the ride and shows her what they do. While she’s working on an algorithm to simplify the process, as brilliant as it sounds in theory, dealing with people in person isn’t as easy as one would think. Along the way, Clooney also meets Alex (played by Vera Farmiga in the first role we all saw her in) who seems to lead the same life he is.
The core trio of cast members are all brilliant at their roles and earned Oscar nomination. While Clooney is cynical, the idealism of Anna Kendrick does get through to him later in the movie- for better and for worse. It does kinda help him develop and change as a character but for me, one aspect of the movie gets ruined in the final few minutes.
The spoiler is about Alex and the truth about her life that comes out when Clooney makes this grand gesture to see her at home to say how he feels. (Why does it always seem like these grand gestures always derail these movies?) To this day I still don’t understand it...
He goes to see her and find out that she’s married and has a family. She calls him up from a parking garage days later and has the nerve to tell him off, saying he could have screwed things up for her. Not once does she even mention this to him...seriously, why? And why doesn’t he say that he has nobody back home that he’s cheating on with her? It’s no wonder she got cast as Norma Bates because that’s totally something she would do.
With all that going on, he finally achieves a goal he’s been working towards, the business needs to reconsider Anna Kendrick’s idea when something tragic befalls one of the hundreds of people they fired, he’s at a bit of a crossroads at the end of the movie...but it offers a lot of interesting possibilities where you can fill in your own blanks- much like the people at the end that are collectively interviewed about their transitioning period.
Date: Sunday June 3 2018
Location: Cinemark Theater at Stroud Mall
Time: 11:35am
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Director: Ron Howard
Writers: Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan
Composer: John Williams
Notable Cast:
Han Solo- Alden Ehrenreich
Kira (ok, it's spelled Qi'ra officially, but I don't care)- Emilia Clarke
Chewbacca- Joonas Suotomo
Tobias Beckett- Woody Harrelson
Lando Calrissian- Donald Glover
Dryden Vos- Paul Bettany
L3-37- Phoebe Waller-Bridge (she'd never forgive me if I left her out- you'll see why later)
Duration: 135 minutes (+ 7 trailers... that seems to be a common thing now, 7 trailers at this place..)
Opening Remarks:
Two weeks after this movie came out (and the day after we saw it), the local DJ rejoiced "Star Wars is dead!"... stating how poorly this movie did at the box office and drawing attention in particular to the sharp decline from the first to the second weekend... The first weekend it only made around 90 million and the following week, it was closer to 30.
I'll start in saying this movie wasn't THAT BAD. And box office numbers aren't everything. It's just that not as many people are going to the movies anymore, whether they'd rather just stream or wait for it come on cable or they're just sick of movies in general... unless of course they're from the Marvel universe or Deadpool :P
It was the second week and there weren't many people in the theater. Maybe a dozen... and we were there early enough to get good choice of seats.
Trailers:
:sigh: almost all of these were the same trailers at the Avengers movie... so that annoyed me from the get-go. It's hard to be excited about new movies if it's the same trailers all the time.
Venom, Jurassic World, The Incredibles 2 and Ant-Man I'd already commented so, so I won't add anything more to that.
Mile 22 was a Mark Wahlberg movie and I think it's about a deadly weapon that gets stolen and needs to be retrieved... I don't remember much about it, but it's not my type of movie anyway
Mowgli, I don't know if it connects to the Jungle Book live action movie. Although they do have Cate Blanchett voicing the snake again, so I think they are connected. And he's living with man, but is also trying to figure out his identity and place in the world. It looks kind of intense for something based on an animated Disney film, but it also looks impressive.
Then there's a Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic called (what else) "Bohemian Rhapsody"... now that looks impressive. I've already heard some good things about it in passing and how the guy playing Freddie Mercury really nailed it.
...it also makes me hope that they never do this with Prince... he already did a biopic, it's called "Purple Rain"... ok, it's semi-autobiographical and the people in it are only one side of the personalities of those people in real life. Even Prince is playing a version of himself, but not being completely himself. The story itself has some truth to it, but the actual events that happened in the movie didn't actually happen in real life... yeah it's complicated, just no biopics for Prince, please, he deserves better...
The Main Event:
As one could expect, this is a prequel and origin story of sorts.
We find out how Han Solo got his name (well, his last name anyway), we get early glimpses of himself inability to follow orders and so on. Pretty much everything we know and love about our favorite scruffy looking nerfherder.
There's also a love story arc, but it doesn't go quite the way we expect. Like with a lot of this movie, I don't want to go into full details because you should probably experience it for yourself.
We also find out how Han met Chewbecca... and it's not the way I personally pictured it. I think my mom said in the book series that talks about the characters that Han rescued Chewbecca when he was young. I'm not entirely sure about this, I'm sure she'll correct me once she reads this.
As a whole, the movie started out as very relaxing for me. Which is a weird thing to say about an adventure film. But the fact is that we know Han Solo would survive this no matter what happens had me just hanging back and enjoying everything at face value.
The highlight is Han Solo himself. I'm not as in love with Harrison Ford or the character like my mom is, but I do like the guy. And there was no mistaking this was the same character. It's hard to explain, but this guy just has a certain swagger and self-assuredness that was very easy to like... even when he goes against the flow no matter who he's working with. That guy is just such a natural leader that it's difficult for him to follow anyone's orders other than his own. Heck, he even says to Leia in the first movie "I only take orders from one person: me"
His childhood friend/love interest Kira is an interesting piece of work herself... you never really know what's going on with her. They're both on this planet at the start where runaways are forced into slavery and they're trying to get off the planet. He gets off and she doesn't and he's trying to get back to her. But in the midst of his newest gig, working with Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson pretty much being the typical Woody- but he instills early on how you can never trust anyone and if you expect everyone you know to betray you, you'll never be disappointed... and boy does that become true later on...), he finds her in the quarters of their employer, Dryden Vos (his voice sounded so familiar that it took me a while to figure out it was Jarvis from the Iron-Man movies... of course I also know he was in movies like A Knight's Tale and A Beautiful Mind).
So Kira did get off that planet, but she doesn't seem to be completely free either. And she also comes with Han and Beckett to complete a job. They need to find some valuable raw material and make the Kessel Run in fewer than 20 parsecs to get it somewhere to be refined so it doesn't explode. In order to do that, they need a fast ship and Lando is the one who has it.
Then there's the end of the movie where you don't know where anyone stands... everyone is betraying everyone and all of it seems to be self-motivated... there's also a cameo in the movie and Kira is talking to him via intercom... this movie is supposed to take place 10 years before A New Hope and this guy died at the end of the Phantom Menace... so I'm a little confused about that... reading the trivia, it sounds like he survived the Phantom Menace.
Maybe this will come to fruition in some sequel in the future, but based on this movie's box office numbers, I'm not sure how much of a possibility that is now.
This movie also dwells into some social commentary... almost a little too much for my tastes...
there's a story arc with this droid L3-37 that works with Lando and she's very into droid rights... there's a scene where she's decrying droid fighting and it made me think about Battle Bots and what it'd be like if these robots actually had thoughts and feelings of their own. She also talks about Lando having feelings for her that she could never return, but also subtly hints that sex is possible between humans and droids... the Internet lost its mind when the people on the movie announced that Lando was pansexual. I'm not saying that I don't want different sexualities explored in movies, but I don't like it when they're doing it to fulfill an agenda.
I will say, though, that the scene where she frees all of the droids, that was pretty epic.
There's also a heavy theme about slavery. How runaways are enslaved on that planet Han and Kira are from. The thing with the droids. But Wookies as well. Chewbecca was a prisoner when Han met him and the two of them escape together and their lifelong friendship formed from that.
As for the Kessel Run... there was talk about it in passing in the first Star Wars movie where Han is asked if his ship is fast and he says "it's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs"... it was kinda cool seeing how that claim came to light.
And also how the Millennium Falcon got to be called a piece of junk by everyone to lay eyes on it throughout the series :P there was actually a point where it looked gorgeous. Then Han got to drive it and he did kinda ding it up a bit.
And true to form as well, Han won the ship from Lando in a card game... but it isn't necessarily the first game the two of them play. Let's just say that Han learns a thing or two from the scoundrels he hangs out with.
Also- it took me until the credits to find that Kira was played by Daenerys from Game of Thrones... I just don't recognize her without that wig :P I'd also only seen Game of Thrones a handful of times... my whole family is really into it, even my dad who isn't really into this stuff... I think I've seen 3 episodes EVER...
Grade: B
Date: Saturday April 28 2018
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Time: 1:40pm
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo
Cast... oh boy... I might just copy & paste this whole thing
Tony Stark/Iron-Man: Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Rodgers/Captain America- Chris Evans
Thor- Chris Hemsworth
Bruce Banner/The Hulk- Mark Ruffalo
Black Widow- Scarlet Johannson
Peter Parker/Spider-Man- Tom Holland
The Vision- Paul Bettany
Black Panther- Chadwick Boseman
Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch- Elizabeth Olsen
Loki- Tom Hiddlestone
Heimdell- Idris Elba
Star-Lord- Chris Pratt
Gamora- Zoe Saldana
Rocket- Bradley Cooper
Drax- Dave Baustisa
Groot- Vin Diesel
Mantis- Pom Klementieff
Doctor Strange- Benedict Cumberbatch
Sam Wilson/Falcon- Anthony Mackie
Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier- Sebastian Stan
Okoye- Danai Gurira
Thanos- Josh Brolin
Unless there are more people that come up in the movie, that's going to be the majority of them...
Duration: 160 minutes (+ 7 trailers... trailers started on time, but the actual movie didn't start until 2:02pm)
Write-up:
Introduction
Man, I've been really bad at keeping this blog updated, but I really haven't been to the movies since 50 Shades back in February. Ever since our local theater burned down, I've felt less need to go to the movies and there've been a few I've wanted to see. Isle of Dogs for starters. And with all the success it had, I kinda regret not going to see Black Panther. There'll be another chance, I'm sure... when it comes on DVD and my dad sees it in-flight.
I also have yet to see the new Spider-Man movie. Having RDJ in it wasn't even enough incentive to get me to go. I guess I'm just sick of them trying to remake Spider-Man when Tobey Maguire did it right the first time.
With this movie, I don't have a whole lot of expectations. I've been disconnected from the Marvel universe for some time. It's been a while since the last time I saw an Avengers movie and I gave up Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after that Ada story arc and the alternate universe. It just drove me too nuts that much of the series was about the team being split apart and fighting all season to get back together. Almost as frustrating as Once Upon a Time always starting a new season with a new memory-wiping curse... I really did love that show and I miss watching it, but it broke my heart one too many times.
And now I'm rambling...
I'd purposely avoiding spoilers, but it's getting rave reviews and on Twitter, I get the impression it's very dark ("and they call DC dark" I think was the quote). There's also talk of a lot of characters being killed off... I mean, losing Tony Stark would be emotional for me, but I'm dying for RDJ to do something other than Marvel. It does sound, though, he is working on a new Dr. Dolittle movie. It has an all-star cast, but of course, he's the only human among them, lol.
Getting into the movie...
This was a first for me. If our local theater hadn't burned down, I'm not entirely sure this would have been avoided. BUT we get there close to 12 for the 12:20 show... they have an electronic sign behind the ticket counter with all the movie times. I noticed within minutes the 12:20 flashing saying "sold out"... I'm like "whoa..." so we immediately get tickets for the next showing and are promptly told to get in line an hour beforehand so we'll get a good seat. An hour beforehand was half an hour of free time... but the line actually wasn't bad and we got really good seats.
Gotta say this for the Avengers crowd at the first weekend of a movie... you'll never find a better movie crowd. They care about everything so much that they will laugh at all the appropriate times in unison and will collectively stay silent when something serious is going down. Hell, I got shushed once during this movie when I was complaining how Spider-Man calls these movies he's referencing "old"... I did not appreciate that. It's not like I was like those little kids at the Beauty & The Beast movie last year that were chatting much of the movie and were promptly shushed when the big song came on. But I guess it's been a while since I'd been in a crowd like this and I'd gotten way too comfortable with interacting with movies. It's not like I do it ALL THE TIME in theaters. (Although I couldn't help but do so when I saw "Let's be cops" and "Ghostbusters" cuz I was the only one in the theater... best time ever)...
Again, I'm rambling...
Then there was the ending where everyone just fell completely silent and whether we said it aloud or not, we had all a sense of "that was it?!"
Trailers
I was able to ID these movies within 10 seconds so I was able to type them into my phone and lock so I could enjoy the rest.
The trailers have been around, but I finally saw Deadpool 2. And it seems like he's trying to put a league together of superheroes. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea... X-Men (which Colossus has been recruiting him for) or Avengers (cuz, you know, it worked so well)... Anyway, it looks like this movie has more of a budget than the last one and I hope they don't try to overachieve too much just cuz they know they have a good thing going.
Crimes of Grindewald- the newest installment of the Harry Potter "Fantastic Beasts" franchise. And it appears Jude Law is Dumbledore... I love Jude, but I don't know if I completely buy it. Cuz Harry Potter is born in 1980 and goes to Hogwarts in the 90's. This franchise takes place in the 20's and maybe 30's... Dumbledore looks A LOT younger here than he does in the Harry Potter franchise. Unless his inevitable duel with Grindewald ages him A LOT, I don't quite see that making sense. But it sounds like Dumbledore is asking Newt Scamander to kill Grindewald because he can't do it. J.K. Rowling said after the books were done that Dumbledore was gay and hinted that he and Grindewald might have been a thing... so I interpret his plea to Newt as "it's not that I can't do it, I just don't want to"...
but it's very exciting for this next movie to come out... too bad it isn't for months.
Mission Impossible: Fallout... WHY?! We don't need anymore of these movies. I'd rather see Jeremy Renner's next Bourne film (that's not a jest, I really do want to see another of those movies from him...)... I didn't know about this movie until ET trailers talking to Tom Cruise about his MI injury and I'm like "another injury?"... this trailer just made me want to see the new Jack Reacher movie that should be on HBO soon.
Venom with Tom Hardy playing the title role... I didn't know about this until I saw the movie posters and we promptly saw a trailer. This looks DARK and terrifying. Something I really have no interest in seeing. Supposedly there is this Indian guy running a company that's experimenting with something called Symbiants, which is some dark substance that takes refuge in the human body and is the next step towards evolution. Tom Hardy gets infected and this substance actually talks back to him in this deep threatening voice and sometimes black fluid comes out of him to attack people around him. Supposedly Venom will become an anti-hero. I know that people are disappointed with how Venom was treated in Spider-Man 3 (among other things...) but completely darkening it up is too far for me. I don't know or care enough about this character (or Tom Hardy for that matter) to proceed.
Solo- we saw this trailer on my dad's iPad ,but this had far better lighting. Woody Harrelson is in it as Han's boss, saying something like "if you expect everyone you know to betray you, you won't be disappointed"... which tells me someone betraying him is why Jabba the Hutt puts such a huge price on his head. And there's a scene with Lando and a card game and supposedly that's how Han gets the Millennium Falcon. My mom of course is excited cuz she loves Han Solo and Harrison Ford and she kinda likes this guy as well, but we'll see when we see the actual movie.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom... going back to dark and terrifying... OH MY GOD... this movie goes way beyond all the previous Jurassic movies. Not only is the island full of dinosaurs being threatened by a volcano, but Blue, the last of Owen's trained raptors gets captured and experimented on and of course, B.D. Wong has to create a new dinosaur (because Indominus Rex worked SO WELL in the last movie). There's a scene where the new dinosaur is in a girl's bedroom... so yeah, this is scary. And is this girl supposed to be Owen and Claire's kid? Why not bring back her nephews from the last movie? (I guess after the last movie, their parents don't want them anywhere near the island or dinosaurs again)...
anyway... it looks terrifying and like nightmare fuel (I'd been saying that a lot lately, although I don't really have nightmares all that much), but cuz I'd seen every Jurassic movie in theaters, I have to see this one. It's tradition.
Incredibles 2... I didn't like the last one that much, so I'm not really looking to see this one either... but the theme is that some organization wants to change the perception of superheroes and they want to use Elastic Girl to do it. Meaning Mr. Incredible is emasculated and has to be a stay-at-home dad. Meanwhile his daughter is going through, what the Quickster called "adolescence" (this franchise I think was closer to PG13 than other Pixar movies, so that's as family friendly as they can put it... although I think "Inside Out" did mention puberty towards the end) and Jack-Jack has a lot of different powers firing off at the same time.
Yikes... now I get the feeling I'm going to be saying more about the trailers than the actual movie. Sorry if that's disappointing...
The Actual Movie
Here's the tricky part... so much happens in this movie, good and bad... that I really don't want to go into every detail. It's one of those movies you just have to see. Especially if you love these movies.
I admit I'd been experiencing "Marvel fatigue" lately with all the movies that had been out... I think mostly because RDJ is stuck doing these movies when he could be off trying to win Oscars... for me, the latest Thor and Guardians installment were kinda disappointing because they either stepped way too far from what made the franchise great or just too dark a turn that I kinda lost faith. "Civil War" was really good and one of the better ones, but it's not the greatest feeling that not like Tony Stark and siding with Captain America when I'd always leaned one way more than the other.
This movie or less took all that fatigue away and now I'm dying for the next volume to come out... because this ending needs to be salvaged and reconciled.
I don't really want to give away which characters run into who because that's part of the fun. And also where they end up going.
Tony Stark and Pepper seem to be planning their wedding... which is amazing to me because in "Civil War," I thought they'd broken up so I have no idea how they reconciled. But needless to say, the events of this movie will put a further damper on things.
And he also winds up confronting a lot of his fears that have been with him since his moment of sacrifice in the original "Avengers" movie... so that's really good closure for his character. Meanwhile, the tech in this movie is RIDICULOUS... how advanced Tony's suit is and all of the extra features his suit for Spider-Man is... it was blowing my mind.
Gotta hand it to this franchise, they step up their technology every time and it's incredible how far we've come in the last 10 years.
Yeah, Iron-Man was released 10 years ago and I don't think any of us could have predicted all this.
Of course one thing people have been clamored for and RDJ had hinted about it on his Facebook page... the two Sherlocks (Downey from the Guy Ritchie franchise- where is Sherlock 3?!! and Benedict Cumberbatch from the PBS series) getting to have actual screen time together. It's pretty awesome. And it reminded me how I really should get Doctor Strange on disc at some point cuz I hadn't seen it since the movies.
On the other side of the galaxy, we have the Guardians. And in true-Guardians fashion, their arrival is announced by a change in music :P and they interact with a couple of different Avengers throughout their screen time. And of course they go how you expect them to... which includes another melee (that was a highlight of the first Avengers movie, so why not?... too bad the timing of it isn't exactly preferable).
If you view this movie in the canon of the whole franchise, seeing it right after the latest Thor movie... let's just say things get very dark, very fast.
Thor is in need of a new weapon to replace his beloved hammer and he gets to visit the forge inside a dying star that Mjolnir came from. I won't give away who he meets there, but let's just say Game of Thrones fans will be VERY happy. And his new weapon is extremely bad-ass.
Then there is Thanos... who had been hyped up since the end credits scene as the ultimate villain of this franchise... you'd think his motivation was just galactic/universal domination. But he has a very interesting motivation that falls almost in line with Dan Brown's Robert Langdon book "Inferno"... his concern is overpopulation, so he wants to obtain all of the infinity stones to rectify that. As far as motivations go, it's actually not too bad. It's well-thought out, actually. In the Pokémon video game franchise, the theme of Black & White was about separating Pokémon from people because certain characters truly believed that they did not benefit from their captivity. That fell in line with the critics of the series that said it was akin to dog fighting. When you really think about it, the antagonists might have a point and if you were in their circumstances, you might believe the same way. However, you have to resist and hold onto your ideals because it will get in way of your happiness and way of life.
I think my overall point to this is that you can side with Thanos and agree with where he's going... but you really don't want to because the price needed to be paid is way too high. Losing people you love and care about.
It was established in the first Guardians movie that Gamora was adopted by Thanos and left him to join the Guardians. Like with Tony Stark, everything kinda goes full circle for her as well and we see how she came into the care of Thanos.
As far as action goes... it's nearly relentless. We get some lulls where there are some good laughs and pop culture references and so on. But the fact the Stan Lee cameo is very early in the movie suggests that things will get pretty dark later on. (and yes, I know I used that word 9 times already... I'll try to stop).
It's incredible to watch, though. It keeps you on your toes. I audibly screamed once or twice because something came out of nowhere. (But in my defense, that has happened a couple of times recently, including one episode of Shadowhunters). The technology is insane and so cool to watch. Just when things look bad for the heroes, others show up to join the fight. We have a scene where all of the female characters get to fight against a common enemy. That was a pretty awesome moment, but I can't help but feel that was planted to pander to a certain demographic. Kinda like this latest trend of having diversity just for the sake of it. Whitewashing in a historical movie where it involves a certain culture or demographic is one thing, that's bad... but feeling the need to include non-white actors and actresses into movies so you can claim "hey, we're diverse, we're good"... to me, it comes off a little forced.
What we need is more good roles written by and for non-white characters. Like Randall in "This is Us" and the movie "Girls Trip" where the writers, director and main cast is black... that's a step in the right direction for sure. "The Good Doctor" also had an interesting episode where one character threatens to sue for unlawful discharge, proclaiming racism and the head of surgery (as black) berates him for an improper use of "the race card" (he was fired because he assaulted another doctor cuz another student said he was inappropriate with her)... he went into a little more detail than that, but I thought that was an interesting moment.
So the fact I am doing a lot of sidetracking kinda suggests I don't really want to talk about certain things in the movie.
As a general rule, I REALLY don't like it when villains are unbeatable. All of them have to have one weakness that gives the good guys a chance to overcome him. Certain parts of this movie were like that, but the camaraderie between heroes and the last minute saves helps with that. But ultimately, that emotional rollercoaster was just toying with our emotions.
The body count (if you can call it that) is substantial. But considering how many of these characters have upcoming franchise installments, it's hard to be completely devastated. Not to mention they did bring a couple S.H.I.E.L.D. agents back from the dead, so it's impossible to kill anyone off, really...
And the fact I'm not a complete wreck but merely just felt numb in all my extremities after the movie ended... that's kinda telling of one of the survivors...
And for those curious, there is a post-credits scene, but it's after ALL of the credits. (Made me wonder how much of the lengthy run time was for credits alone). And it's more fallout from the end of the movie. But there is hope because back-up does get called, but all they give us is a symbol and I have no idea what it is. Who else is there left? Unless they actually bring the cast from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into the movie as well... that'd be something.
Grade: A (if not for the somber ending, it'd be an A+ easily... probably the best of the whole franchise)
...oh and another thing... why the heck is Black Widow blonde in this movie? Were the movie runner afraid we'd confuse her with Wanda? I'm sorry, that aesthetic change just doesn't work for me.
And the dynamic with Bruce Banner and The Hulk gets even more interesting in this movie-- somewhat of a reverse of how things went down in the latest Thor film. Some of its kinda frustrating, but it also has its entertaining moments.
