Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert (2022)

Directed by Michael Showalter

Screenplay by David Marshall Grant & Dan Savage

Based on the book, "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies" by Michael Ausiello

Stars: Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge, Sally Field, Bill Irwin, Nikki M. James, Sadie Scott, Jason Gotay, Brody Caines, Braxton Fannin, and Tara Summers

Watching the trailer of the film, I wanted to see the film. The trailer was very forthright that the movie is a love story, but a different one. I know of Michael Ausiello, but I did not know about his life with his husband, Kit. This is a sweet movie that will tug at your heartstrings.

The movie covers the romance between Michael (Parsons) and Kit (Aldridge). Meeting in a club in 2001? or 2002?, Kit getting to know Michael's smurf collection and them falling in love with each other. Signs of things to come began to show themselves with the fainting spells.After being together for over a decade, Kit learns that he has cancer. The movie shows us the true love shown between Michael and Kit as they battle this new obstacle.

I was thinking that the movie was going to be exploiting the cancer story to make people cry. It was handled well. It wasn't manipulative. 

This is not a feel good movie by any means. It does make you feel that love is the strongest drug to have.

Rating: 8/10

The Last Movie Stars

The Last Movie Stars (2022)

Series directed by Ethan Hawke

Series written by Stewart Stern

Stars: (archive footage) Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Martin Scorsese, Sally Field, Dick Cavett and David Letterman

(re-enactment interviewees) George Clooney, Laura Linney, Zoe Kazan, Josh Hamilton, Barry Poltermann, Brooks Ashmanskas, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Alessandro Nivola, Karen Allen, Steve Zahn, Tom McCarthy, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Bobby Cannavale 

Everyone knows about the marriage of Hollywood actors, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. This documentary lifts the veil on their fifty year marriage to let you know that everything was not sunshine and roses.

Ethan Hawke who put the documentary series together was tasked by one of the Newman daughters to bring their parent's life to light. I only knew that they were married, starred in films together and that was it.

There were some things that I didn't know. The rose colored glasses of it all. I didn't know that Paul had a wife who he was having an affair with Joanne. When Newman and Woodward got married, her star power dimmed while his was on the rise. His alcoholism. What happened to them when they got older?

It was fortuitous that family friend, Stewart Stern transcribed the interviews for Paul Newman's memoir that never came, because he burned the tapes in 1991. I felt like I knew the real people behind the mask that they shown to the public.

This documentary series is moving and poignant. Sometimes, I felt like the action would have benefited more if it was in chronological order. Hawke took the film in a Tarantino-esque trajectory that would have more emotional weight with a linear approach.

Rating: 9/10

Lincoln

Lincoln (2012)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Screenplay by Tony Kushner

Based on the book, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earl Haley, Tim Blake Nelson, Lee Pace and Joseph Cross

There was trepidation in watching Steven Spielberg's latest movie. Another year, another biopic for gimmee gimmee lotsa Oscars. It is played out and stale. The movie was nomianted for 12 Oscars, which is eight too much in my opinion. You can possibly tell there was not love out for this movie.

It seems that Spielberg and company wanted to take an atypical biopic like Capote (hated it) or Milk (meh). Make it a one word title, specifically the last name and try to focus on one specific time in the insert historical person here's life and spit it out to the American public. Here, the film focuses on the last four months of Lincoln's (Day-Lewis) life as he tireously tries to get the thirteenth amendment passed and signed into law. That's it. That the whole movie in a nutshell.

The movie is like watching long drawn out version of The West Wing with a bunch of filler to over-stuff it. The boring back and forth about a piece of legislation. The movie did not focus on Lincoln that much. It was all about the damn amendment. It should have been called The Thirteenth Amendment. This is no way downgrading what the piece of legislation has done to my ancestors and many others, but nobody wants to hear a bunch of stuffy men talk about legislation for over two hours. It grows tiresome after ten minutes.

A movie having a 86 Metacrtic would have been at least enjoyable. There was some dozing moments on my end. Everybody is touting that DDL will be the first actor ever to win three Best Actor Oscars. What's so special about this performance? It was laid flat. No nuisance. No gravitas. It was a dead fish. His performance in There Will Be Blood was leaps and bounds better than his Lincoln lite he put on.

The only person worth mention is the brilliant performance of Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, the Pennsylvanian Representative that fought for most of his life to get slavery abolished in the country. Whenever he was onscreen, nobody was in the room. He has an intensity that few could master. Bravo, TLJ.

Sally Field on the other hand was cartoonish in her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln. It felt like she was in a different movie. Like she was in a soap opera the way she was speaking. It was reminiscent of Soapdish (which she was in) and not in a good way.

My expectations were very low of this movie and it did not exceed them in the slight bit. There is something that bothered me, when the credit were rolling, did anybody catch the obvious lens flare? Really, Mr. Spielberg? you wanted to do this movie for the last decade when Liam Neeson was attached to play Lincoln. This is what you came up with. Back to drawing board, sir.

My Rating

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Directed by Marc Webb

Story by  James Vanderbilt

Screenplay by James Vanderbilt and Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves

Based on the comic books series by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Stars: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Chris Zylka, Irrfan Khan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Martin Sheen and Sally Field

Let me warn you folks, I will using some coarse language in my review of this movie. If you don't like strong language, please turn away right now. Only warning.

When I heard that the Spider-Man franchise was being rebooted, I had mixed emotion with it. I enjoyed the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire franchise, expect for Spider-Man 3 -- which I did not see -- so I will not comment on that. I went into this movie with an opening mind and what I saw on-screen was nothing. Was Spider-Man "amazing? " I can certainly say with a resounding no.

Everybody knows about the origin story of Peter Parker that has Andrew Garfield slipping into the red and blue unitard suit which has to be done again for this movie. This movie takes place is a different universe than the other movies. This Peter Parker is a mopey, emo, skater kid that has a knack for photography and chemistry. He has a crush on Gwen Stacy (Stone) who he has a wallpaper of her on his computer. He tries to find what happened to his parents (Scott, Davidtz) and why they have to leave him with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May (Sheen, Field) years prior. He finds his dad's briefcase in the basement with a secret file to a decay algorithm he was working on with a former college, Dr. Curt Conners (Ifans). He tries to get closer to answer when he was bitten by an enhanced spider and blah, blah, blah.

I was warned before I went into this movie that the first half of the movie was going to be repetitive to give the origin story again. I have no idea whose idea it was to make Peter Parker into this cocky emo punk kid, but I fucking hated it. I understand that he goes into a dark place when he Uncle Ben is killed. (That is not a spoiler. Ben dying in the crux of Spider-Man existing.) When Spider-Man dons the costume, he becomes a giant douchebag, playing with the hundreds of guys that look like the guy that killed Uncle Ben.

I didn't understand the point of this movie. I was supposed to be entertained, but making the armrest next to me go up and down was more interesting than this movie. There was no immediate danger to anybody. I did not feel the tension, no suspense. Are these characters going to survive? I didn't care. I thought the dialogue made my eyes roll. I kept exclaiming, "Oh, God.Are you fucking kidding me?" I was in disbelief about how bored I was at the movie. Why was Chris Zylka in this movie? His role was the typical meat head jock bully that serves no purpose.

When you see the inspiration for the costume, I wanted to walk out. There were several times that I wanted to walk out of the movie. It was a waste of time. The sad part is that this movie is going to make a shitload of money. It's a damn shame. Columbia Pictures, you have dropped the fucking ball again.You have great source material and you fucking it all up with a repellent lead, laughable action sequences, a bland romance and atrocious dialogue. I rather look at Josh Hutcherson's audition video for two hours than see this movie again.

My Rating