A Christmas Story Christmas

A Christmas Story Christmas (2022)

Directed by Clay Kaytis

Story by Nick Schenk and Peter Billingsley

Screenplay by Nick Schenk & Clay Kaytis

Based on the book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" by Jean Shepherd

Stars: Peter Billingsley, Erinn Hayes, River Drosche, Julianna Layne, Julie Hagerty, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Zack Ward, Ian Petrella, and Henry Miller

This is supposed to the official sequel to the 1983 staple Christmastime film. I heard about this when I saw a trailer for it a couple of weeks ago. What I expecting the movie to be a timeless classic like the first movie? No. Is it a good movie? Far from it.

Taking place 33 years after the events of the first movie, Ralphie (Billingsley) is a struggling novelist, trying to get his first book published. He made a deadline that if he does not get published by Christmas that year, he would abandon that dream and get a regular job. Ralphie gets a photo call that his old man has died. He takes his family back to his family home in Indiana where everything that could go wrong does.

I understand that the first movie is a seminal watch around the holiday season. This movie is not good. There were times when I covered my face and cackled at the absurdity I was watching. This movie was trying capture lightning in a bottle twice. It did not. There were callbacks to the previous film that were nice, but it did not feel genuine.

Most of the original cast came back. They were fine. Not great. The glaring recasting choice of having Julie Hagerty playing the mom from Melinda Dillon from the first movie. I understand that Dillion retired from acting in the mid 2000s, but you can see clips of her from the flashbacks sequences.

The movie was a retread. It tried to capture the spirit of the first movie, but it leaves the viewer filling hollow. If the story was about Ralphie's kids and their hijinx over the Christmas holidays, it would have worked more.

Rating: 3/10

The Wonder

The Wonder (2022)

Directed by Sebastián Lelio

Screenplay by Alice Birch, Emma Donoghue and Sebastián Lelio

Based on the book by Emma Donoghue

Stars: Florence Pugh, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Tom Burke, Niamh Algar, David Wilmot, Ruth Bradley, Toby Jones, Dermot Crowley, Ciarán Hinds, and Brían F. O'Byrne

There were some rumbling that people were talking about a possible Best Actress nomination for Florence Pugh in this movie. She is solid in the film, but the movie overall is not the greatest.

1862, Ireland. An English nurse, Elizabeth Wright (Pugh) is brought to a small town in Ireland to look after a young girl, Anna (Cassidy) who has not eaten food for four months. The local cousel of the town wants her and a nun to look after Anna and report their findings. During the visits, Elizabeth notices that something is not adding up.

The beginning of the film started on the wrong foot with a backstage shot of the set. The actual set. The same thing happened with the ending panning to the narrator. This action immediately took me out of the experience.

I was reading that the movie was a psychological thriller. Where? I did not see that. It was an intense drama where some fucked up things happened. The narrative felt strange. What was that stuff that Elizabeth was spoon feeding herself? There is this romance subplot that comes out of nowhere between Elizabeth and a journalist, William (Burke).

What is with these drawn out costume dramas? It was a slog.

Rating: 6/10

Tár

Tár (2022)

Written and directed by Todd Field

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Sylvia Flote, Sydney Lemmon, Mila Bogojevic, and Mark Strong

It has been fifteen years since Todd Field had a movie out in theaters. I was eagerly anticipating this movie. I was intending to see this movie in theaters, but life got in the way. Hearing the movie was coming to VOD today, I had to watch it.

Lydia Tár (Blanchett) is an established conductor that is working with the Berlin Philharmonic. She feels like she is on top of the world. She has her partner, Sharon (Hoss) and her daughter, Petra (Bogojevic). The action takes place the days before a proposed recording of orchestra. Lydia's life begins to unravel when her past catches up to her.

There has been a lot of buzz with Cate's performance. She was phenomenal. Lydia is not a likable character. She is extremely OCD, type A personality and is a bit stuffy.

The movie itself grabs hold of you and never lets go. It is bleak. Saturated colors of the world-- of Lydia's world view. The sound or sometimes the lack of pulls you in.

The biggest hit I have with the movie is the pacing. Sometimes, it felt long. There were some scenes that could have been trimmed. This has to be seen to be believed.

Rating: 9/10

Review Rewind

Last week has been been an interesting week of movie viewing. Here are the movies that I watched this past week.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: Holy shit. This movie is bonkers. Seeing two real-life adversaries in the same movie is something to behold. Bette Davis was acting her ass off in this. Joan Crawford did not get what the tone of the movie was supposed to be. 8/10

Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte: I might have been expecting this movie was going to be campy like WEHTBJ. No, this was a real movie. I didn't appreciate what was happening when I was watching it. It's a suspenseful thriller that deserves a second viewing. 6/10* (Rating my change upon re-watch.)

It: (Re-watch). I have not seen the movie since it was in theaters. I was intending to watch it during Halloween, but didn't. Seeing the movie at home made the movie less scary to me. The dynamic between the kids saved the movie from dropping my score lower. 7/10

It Chapter Two: Seeing the run time of the movie, I knew that it was going to be a slog. They were introducing the older versions of the characters from the first movie for the first 30 minutes and I had it. Montage that shit. I stopped watching it. DNF

Mommie Dearest: For years, I heard that this movie was horrible. It's not good. Faye Dunaway shot for the moon with her portrayal of Joan Crawford. The structure of the story felt like snapshots of what may or may not have happened to Christina, and her life with Joan as her adoptive mother. 4/10

Falling for Christmas: A Lindsay Lohan Christmas movie. Yes. I watched the movie and was immediately bothered by annoying characters, a recycled amnesia plot, lack of chemistry between Lohan and Chord Overstreet. This movie came out this year, but I didn't want to review it. Why bother? 5/10

Black Panther: (Re-watch). I wanted to revist this movie before I saw the sequel. It was still as good as I remembered it from my theater viewing. Great acting, action sequences and a fantastic villain. It earned that Best Picture nomination. 9/10

Nightcrawler: There was a lot Oscar buzz with Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in this movie and he didn't get the nom. It was shocking. This role is against type for him. An insomniac trying to get the big story in violent crime scenes around LA for money. He descends into a dark place that is fucked up. 8/10
 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Story by Ryan Coogler

Screenplay by Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole

Stars: Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Tenoch Huerta, Dominique Thorne, Martin Freeman, Mabel Cadena, and Alex Livinalli 

I did not think this movie was going to happen. After what happened with the death of Chadwick Boseman, how could the movie go on? I'm sure there was a lot of rewrites that had to happen. Film friends were not to keen with movie. Is it on par with the original movie? No.

After the sudden death of T'Challa (Boseman), Queen Ramonda (Bassett) and Princess Shuri (Wright) have to put their broken pieces back together. Foreign powers are pressuring Wakanda to share the vibranium with the world. It is discovered that vibranium is not the only place it is housed. A new threat, Namor (Huerta), the king of Talokan threatens to wage war against the surface world unless Wakanda aligns with them. Who will take up the mantle of The Black Panther?

This is not an easy watch. The movie is melancholy. It is understandable why has to be. Some people's roles had to be expanded, because certain actors from the the first movie were not there. It seemed that the characters changed from the first movie to this one. 

The problem I had with the movie is the pacing. The middle of the movie where was had to have the backstory of Namor was fine. It dragged along. Namor as a character was very good. It felt like his motivations were the same of Erik Killmonger from the first movie. Okay.

Some of the action scenes were lackluster. It wasn't suspenseful. They were mostly boring. The soul of first movie was not present in this movie.

Rating: 7/10

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)

Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp

Story by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Nick Paley and Jenny Slate

Screenplay by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Nick Paley and Jenny Slate

Stars: (voices) Jenny Slate, Isabella Rosselleni, Dean Fleischer-Camp, Lesley Stahl, Andy Richter, Nathan Fielder, Jessi Klein, Jamie Leonhart, Conan O'Brien, and Brian Williams

People on Letterboxd had this movie on their minds for the longest time. It flew under the radar from me. Heard some rumblings that the movie is in consideration for Best Animated Feature Film. A live-action movie about an animated talking shell? Okay. This is sweet movie that has its flaws.

An amateur filmmaker Dean (Fleischer-Camp) rents out an airbnb after the dissolution of his marriage. He befriends a talking shell named Marcel (Slate). Dean wanted to make a mini documentary about Marcel and his life living in this vast house with multiple people coming in and out. Dean realizes that Marcel only has his grandmother, Connie (Rossellini), but his other family were accidentally taken by a previous tenant. A whole adventure begins to find a lost family.

Going into this movie, I didn't know what to suspect. There is a talking about shell with one eye and pair of shoes on. How do the shell pick up things with no hands? They dynamic between Dean and Marcel was sweet and genuine.

The biggest problem I had with this movie is that some situations felt telegraphed. The obvious foreshadowing. If you have picked up on the clues, then certain scenes don't have the emotional impact that Fleischer-Camp wanted you to have. That's a bummer.

Rating: 8/10

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Directed by Eric Appel

Screenplay by Al Yankovic & Eric Appel

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Diedrich Bader, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Rainn Wilson, Julianne Nicholson, Toby Huss, Thomas Lennon, and Evan Rachel Wood

The trailer was bonkers. I knew going into the movie that it was not going to be a biopic. Maybe that is the reason that I enjoyed the movie for its silliness and being over the top.

Snippets of Weird Al's real (Radcliffe) life are mentioned in the movie. You don't know what was real and what was fiction. It seems that Al has a typical childhood when playing the accordion came naturally to him. People saw that he had talent and then the parody songs are mentioned. The action takes a complete 180. It falls into a fever dream that I didn't want to wake up from.

The biopic is always some desperate attempt to get nominated or win Oscars. Hollywood has at least five of them a year. It's tiring. This movie is not the run of the mill biopic. This is taking chances. It deviates from the boring chronological drivel Tinseltown churns out. I want to see more movies taking chances like this one moving forward.

Rating: 7/10