Rate That Movie Part IV: Movies Never Sleep

[Buscemi2]

Nicholas Stoller peaked with his first movie and he's been coasting ever since with mediocrity. He's basically a hackier Judd Apatow.

[Buscemi2]

Paddington in Peru 5/10

Disappointing third entry in the series that sorely misses Paul King (and Sally Hawkins, who was replaced with Emily Mortimer for this one) and essentially reduces the heart of the first two with dumbed-down humor and some of the most obvious villains and plot twists in recent memory. While you still have much of the returning cast trying and Antonio Banderas once again shining with a lesser-quality script, it's largely a missed opportunity that's not particularly interested in adding anything new, choosing instead to repeat moments from the previous Paddingtons when it's not treading typical family comedy cliches.

Let's hope the planned Paddington 4 is better but I have a feeling this series is trending downward.

[Chienfantome]

I've never seen any Paddington film.
In the meantime, The Brutalist has finally been released here in France, I'll try and catch it soon.

[numbersix]

The first two are genuinely good films.

[StarLord123]

Captain America: Brave New World 5/10
My feelings when I first walked out of this movie were mildly positive. Unfortunately though, the more I think about the film, the less I like it….

Anthony Mackie still does a decent job as Sam Wilson. Although I think his character works a lot better when he has someone like Bucky or Steve to banter with, Bucky’s cameo shows that strong rapport that the bulk of the film is sorely missing, his banter with new Falcon is a sizable step down. Although Harrison Ford leans into overacting a bit at times, this is the most engaged he’s been in a role in at least a decade, good for him. Despite his limited screentime and him mostly saying generic villain dialogue, Giancarlo Esposito’s character was more threatening than the main villain. Carl Lumbly also does good work as the tormented Isaiah Bradley.

The action sequences are a mixed bag, the larger scale scenes such as the aerial battle and the climactic Red Hulk fight, are decent if unremarkable, but the smaller-scale hand-to-hand fights are choppily edited. The movie feels like a hodgepodge of ideas from other MCU films, none of which really come together with the weird editing and pacing, likely due to the film’s constant retooling during production. It also tries to be a direct sequel to both the 17-year old Incredible Hulk and the Disney+ series Falcon and Winter Soldier, which is like mixing oil and water.

I don’t think Tim Blake Nelson does a bad job, but The Leader was a blah villain. His character design is goofy as hell and clashes with what’s trying to be a more grounded entry. Also, for a villain who’s supposedly a genius and can mind control people with a music cue, his ultimate plan is just to smear Ross and start a trade war over Adamantium, that’s it?? The resolution to everything also isn’t satisfying, Sterns just turns himself in after his plan fails, and Red Hulk just tires out and switches back to Ross.

Sure, this is a superficially watchable, mildly entertaining film, but it’s so damn average. In this current comic book movie climate, that’s just not good enough. Here’s hoping that things are looking up from here…

[Buscemi2]

This year's batch of Oscar nominated animated shorts were good this time. And it was a banner year for stop motion shorts, as three of the nominees involved stop-motion.

Magic Candies 8/10

From Japan comes a short about a lonely boy who buys a pack of candies from a toy store and discovers magic powers that allow him to be able to feel those around him and make him a more well-rounded person in the process. Lots of heart and emotion in this one.

In the Shadow of the Cypress 8/10

A Persian take on The Old Man and the Sea, focusing on a woman and her father who help try to get a whale who's washed up ashore back to the sea. However, trauma from their pasts make this objective quite difficult. Beautiful animation and it mixes the difficult subject matter well.

Yuck! 8/10

A French tale about growing up that reminded me a lot of Turning Red. Best seen in a dark auditorium to best show off the colors.

After a content warning, there was...

Wander to Wonder 8/10

Seemingly inspired by the recent revival in popularity of Teletubbies, this Lord of the Flies-like story of actors from a forgotten TV show fighting to survive mixes live action and stop-motion to create a morbid and darkly humorous vision of what happens when the cameras stop rolling and despair comes knocking. This might me of be of interest if you like the early works of Peter Jackson.

Beautiful Men 9/10

My pick for the Oscar. A cross between Bergman and Anders Thomas Jensen (it feels like every year, there's a nominated short seemingly influenced by Jensen's screenplays), this focuses on three middle-aged Belgian men who come to Istanbul for a hair transplant and in the process, discover a bit about themselves and the conflict of whether or not getting their hair back will make them happy again. It's funny, sad, and humanistic, sometimes all at once, and it shows once again that there is still a place to tell stories about people and not just concepts or IP's.

Overall, I was impressed by this set and a vast improvement over the last few lineups. I'll be seeing the Live Action nominees on Monday night.

[Buscemi2]

The live-action shorts were disappointing compared to the animated ones.

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent 6/10

Good set up but ends before it really seems to start.

Anuja 9/10

My pick if I had a ballot. A young math savant is torn between taking a test that could get her an education and set up her future and coming to work to help her sister and having money. Produced by Mindy Kaling and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, financed by Netflix, and starring amateur actors, this is a vision of India that's more Slumdog Millionaire than RRR but one that has a somewhat hopeful view of life in the lower caste and how there's a light at the end of the tunnel, even with the ambiguous ending.

I'm Not a Robot 3/10

Another year, another nominated short about evil technology. Yawn.

A Lien 3/10

The likely winner due to recent political events ultimately says nothing we don't already know about ICE or racism and its directors are too afraid to say what they really think. It would have been better if the directors had just screamed at the audience for 20 minutes about how humanity is awful and doesn't deserve to live.

The Last Ranger 5/10

Good concept but ultimately feels like a forgettable Saturday morning TV show.

[Buscemi2]

Becoming Led Zeppelin 5/10

Perfectly average documentary on the early days of Led Zeppelin and their first two albums. While the archival footage looks good on a big screen and their music lends its extremely well with a big sound system, this largely sanitized view of the group ends up feeling like a glorified Wikipedia article and the two hours spent here covering a two-year period of the group would usually take 3-5 minutes to read online. Also due to the time constraints of the story, a lot gets left out.

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I don't really think Led Zeppelin works as a movie subject. The music was great but they aren't the most interesting figures to build a documentary around (I feel the same about The Song Remains the Same).

[Buscemi2]

Cleaner 5/10

It has a lot of the makings of a good movie: a solid lead performance, a premise that acknowledges the ills of society, and a plot twist that makes its Die Hard in an X concept stand out slightly. However, the film is rather convoluted and it tries to have its cake and eat it too by trying to multiple things (action, martial arts, environmental thriller, comedy) at once but its low budget and uneven tone prevents it from getting past average. The twist also gets hampered a bit by its Janet Leigh in Psycho moment with Clive Owen getting killed off halfway. It's too bad as Daisy Ridley's lead role, an former Army veteran with a complicated family life now working as a window washer for a series of terrible bosses thrust into a bad situation where has to use her skills to save the day, is pretty good and details of the story stand out compared to other Die Hard imitators. Had a company like A24 taken on the project, it could have really worked. But alas, we are left with a mere 90 minute time killer instead of something more.

[StarLord123]

The Monkey 7/10
Osgood Perkins swings over from slow-burn atmospheric horror thrillers to a wacky dark comedy with horror elements. I think the result is enjoyable, though a bit flawed. The first half of the film with the twin brothers as kids is very good, with Perkins nicely handling both the tension and humor. The numerous gory kills are highly creative. The Monkey’s drumming visual is sick and I think works better than a cymbal-playing monkey would’ve. Once the time jump occurs, I think the tonal balance is lost some as it becomes more serious. An estranged father/son plotline is brought in, which has been done to death at this point, and the humor downgrades. There are also a few attempts to be sincere which don’t work all that well. Still, Theo James and Christian Convery both do a really nice job in the twin brother dual role, and Tatiana Maslany is also good as the boys’ mother. There’s also solid direction and visual flare throughout. It is probably my least favorite of the 3 Perkins-directed films I’ve seen (I haven’t seen Gretel & Hansel yet), but it’s still a good time overall. Based on the post-credits teaser for his next project Keeper, it looks like it’s back to atmospheric dread.

[Buscemi2]

Last Breath 4/10

Rather routine survival thriller that makes the mistake of being less about thrills and more about being inspirational. As a result, we get a flat end result that wastes potential and often feels unbelievable despite being based on a true story. The production also made the mistake of letting a documentary filmmaker make his narrative debut with it, as it has an often jarring switch between narrative and documentary elements without any way of having them mesh well.

Not long after seeing it, you'll probably have forgotten most of it. It's not good enough to see in a theatre but it's not bad enough to hate. It's merely okay.

[Buscemi2]

My Dead Friend Zoe 3/10

Another movie about grief that makes the mistake of trying to be a feel-good comedy. Much like A Real Pain, the filmmaker decides to not show truth and instead wants to be like one of those cliche self-help books about how we should stop being sad by giving a charlatan $20 by telling us things we've already heard. But this goes the extra cliche route by having to add ghosts, the military, and dementia into the story. Should we be surprised this played at a big festival (SXSW) before inevitably being dumped onto a few screens for a week?

At this point, it would be a breath of fresh air to tell people that death happens and we have to accept it instead of giving us the illusion that we can live forever by lying to us.

[Buscemi2]

Night of the Zoopocalypse 3/10

Don't let the tagline "from the mind of Clive Barker" fool you. This is only based on an idea from him and the end product is basically just Madagascar with zombies and with a much lower budget. While David Harbour and Scott Thompson are in the voice cast, they can't do much with the material and you're more or less left with what feels like a made-for-TV movie put into theatres. Children who don't know better might like it but anyone over twelve will be bored.

[Buscemi2]

Queen of the Ring 6/10

This wrestling take on Rocky (this was co-written, produced, and directed by the son of Rocky's director), based on a true story, starts slow and has some roughness due to the low budget but is held together by the fight sequences and getting to know about and see some of the original stars of wrestling from the 1940's and 1950's. You might know me for liking a good wrestling movie and this definitely hit the spot, also having some camp value that fits well with the story's time frame. Sure, the acting isn't the best but you're watching a movie like this for the action and it's got a lot of it.

So if you have 130 minutes to spare and love to watch some fighting, you might like this one.

[transformers2]

Even with his dad's history in the industry, I'm still stunned that Ash Avildsen has really committed to making movies. It's not every day that you see a pretty successful record label executive/tour promoter take on indie filmmaking as a side job (although given how the industry is going now, people like him are soon to going to be the only ones that can afford to be indie filmmakers).