I came away with one unmistakable thought when I saw the movie, Birth of a Dragon.

I didn’t know that Bruce Lee, EYG Hall of Famer, was such a dick.

Now, this movie is clearly a fictionalized rendition of a real life fight between Lee and Shaolin monk master Wolf Jack Man which has become stuff of Urban Legend.  Since very few witnesses to the actual fight are still alive, this allows the filmmakers to give this “true story” a bit of a “historical fiction” aspect to it.

Wolf Jack Man (Xia Yu) was a legendary Kung Fu master who had come to San Francisco after a fight had gone wrong in China.  Wolf Jack Man was in search of a way to cleanse his soul and he found it in washing dishes.   Young and brash Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) was teaching others Kung Fu, and believed that Wolf Jack had been sent to spy on him.  Lee had been training non-Chinese people Kung Fu, and this was frowned upon.

However, the film takes a bit of a turn here.  One of Lee’s students, Steve McKee (Billy Magnussen) meets a girl who was beholden to a local crime boss for money to repay bringing her in the country and he falls in love with her.  She is not allowed to speak English or to interact with other people, but they still come together in the star-crossed lovers story that we have seen a million times.

This story becomes the driving force behind the movie.  In fact, the movie makes it that the fight between Lee and Wolf Jack has to do with freeing the girl instead of personal issues between them.

I’m not sure the reasoning here, but Steve truly does become the main protagonist in this movie that features what was a major— legendary fight between two masters.

I am not sure the reasoning here.  Were they just trying to make it so neither Lee or Wolf Jack had to look bad?  If so, they failed, as I mentioned earlier, Lee is portrayed as quite the jerk in much of this movie.  It is not as if the character of Steve is the most engaging and enthralling personality on screen.  He is basically milquetoast and one-dimensional.  The relationship with him and the girl Xiulan (Jingjing Qu) is shallow and unimaginative.  There is no reason that the character of Bruce Lee has to be reduced to a supporting character in his own movie.

Both of the actors playing our two main martial artists are pretty good.  The Bruce Lee portrayal is even exceptional.  The action scenes, including the fight between them, are really well done and visually enjoying.  There could have been an epic movie here dealing with two characters on different ends of the Kung Fu spectrum with differing thoughts and styles facing off.  If you are going to fictionalize it anyway, why are you adding this boring love story that makes no sense and dumping this dull Steve character in the middle of the film?

The pessimist in me says it is because Steve is white and the studio believed that they needed a white guy for the audience to connect to.  I sure hope that is not the reason, though I will admit that I thought it might be.

This movie was not a bad watch, but it could have been so much better.  There was no reason why Steve and his girlfriend should have taken one minute of screen time away from Bruce Lee or Wolf Jack Man, but that is what the ton of studios involved (there were about six studios identified at the beginning of the film) has gone with.  Too bad.  Because Bruce Lee and Wolf Jack Man could have been more than enough to make this an exciting film.

2.5 stars

Listed as a drama, Good Time, the new film directed by the Safdie Brothers, feels more like a dark comedy at times within the context of real world New York as told by Scorsese.  Does that sound like an odd mash up?  Well, that would be Good Time.

Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) is a low level con man whose brother Nick (Benny Safdie) is mentally challenged.  So of course, Connie takes Nick to be his back up on a bank heist.  To no one’s surprise, the heist goes wrong, and Nick winds up caught and sent to Ryker’s Island.  Nick goes about trying to get the money to post his brother’s bond before anything else can happen to him.

Robert Pattinson is great as Connie.  He is extremely unlikable of a character that I spent the whole film hoping would be caught, but still wishing the police would not catch him.  He created such an uncomfortable feeling within me, never sure just what he might do.  The sole redeeming quality in this character was his feelings for his brother Nick, which feels as if it is the only sincere feelings he has.

Connie is shown to be a somewhat intelligent person, but he consistently does remarkably stupid things.  It is as if he was a terrible storm that would blow through other character’s lives leaving them worse off than before.  And yet you don’t hate the guy.  Part of it is the desperation with which he is trying to do the one good thing he can, and that is to help Nick.  The Safdie brothers constantly use close ups to help create that manic feeling in Connie and portraying it to the audience.  Despite how much of a jerk Connie is, you can’t help but follow him, and, despite your best intentions, even feel for him.

There were some other interesting performances in the film.  Co-director Benny Safdie is really good as Nick, despite lacking a ton of screen time.  We do get a slight mention of why Nick is in therapy (as shown in the movie’s first scene), but it is not expanded upon.  Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Corey, Connie’s girlfriend/next mark.  Barkhad Abdi has a cameo as a security guard whose life gets flipped over by Connie.  Buddy Duress is Ray, the acid-taking, ex-con trying to avoid being sent back to jail.

It is kind of fun watching these crooks do so many stupid things.  Connie is already in trouble, but he then digs himself deeper and deeper with each passing minute as he tries to help his brother out.  There are no characters here to like.  All of them are rotten people.  Even Nick is anything but a likeable character.  Seeing these unlikable characters placed into these awkward positions is one of the best parts of this movie.

The film is very grimy. You see the worst of life in New York, with so many dirty and lowlife people and locales.  The use of neon light helps to create that mood during the film, which included a very enjoyable section in an amusement park.

I had no idea what Good Time was before I went into it, and I was happy that I didn’t know. Robert Pattinson has certainly come a long way since Edward in Twilight. He knocks this role totally out of the park and he deserves credit for overcoming the type casting of the twinkling vampire.  Good Time was a surprisingly good time.

3.9 stars

Death Note is an original film from Netflix of a property of a popular manga/anime from Japan.  It was not something that I was aware of before, so I do not have any pre-existing expectations of the story.  From what I have heard, this film really takes the source material and makes a lot of changes.  I do not have any judgments on that.

Light (Nat Wolff) is a high school student who winds up in possession of a magical book called the Death Note, given to him by a death god Ryuk (Willem Dafoe).  Light discovers that when he writes a person’s name in the Death Note, the person would die.  Light begins to, along with his girlfriend Mia (Margaret Qualley), write names of horribly evil people in an attempt to fool the world into believing that there is a god watching over the world.  Light named this “god” Kira and the people began to believe in him.

However, the police began an investigation into the mysterious deaths.  Light’s father James (Shea Whigham) was to head the investigation.  The mysterious L (Lakeith Stanfield) came to join in and his incredible detective skills led him back to Light.

I am split with this film.  For the most part, I had a decent time watching it, but there were some glaring issues that I did not like.  First, the film felt rushed.  The film did not seem as if it had the time to really go into depth on any of the themes involved because it then had to move along to the next point.  I wonder if the anime series was longer and they tried to cram in too much, much like the movie the Dark Tower did.  As I said, I am unfamiliar with the anime so I can not judge this.  From my perspective, it felt too busy and so became too surface.

Second, I really liked the concept of L, and I enjoyed part of the presentation of the character, but he seemed to go way off the rails in the latter part of the film, making what appeared to be a quirky and intriguing character into a wildly inconsistent one.  Lakeith Stanfield, who was great in Get Out, is solid despite what was given to him.

Third, and probably the worst of all, the ending is so terrible that, even if I had loved everything heading up to it, this would have ruined it.  It felt like it was leading to a really great end and suddenly it was tossed to the side in favor of a shock value end.

Finally, the look of Ryuk was less than I would have expected.  The voice of Willem Dafoe is great, but the character itself looked like a bad Halloween costume.

However, I did like much of what was here as well.   The concept of the story was very original and could be mined for some really deep and fascinating story telling.  The idea that a kid could be trying to make himself into a god by killing evil people is a interesting idea.  Secondly, Mia becomes unbalanced as the movie continues and that could have been a great look at how power can corrupt even the sweetest people.  I thought most of the performances were well done, although Nat Wolff was a bit over the top.  And I truly enjoyed how the climax of the story came to be, with the scene at the Ferris wheel  and the direct aftermath being cool and showing how clever Light could be.

So I am split by the film.  I have a feeling that if you are a big fan of the source material, you are not going to enjoy this movie.  If you come into it blind as I did, it will not offend you as much.  As a late night Netflix watch, Death Note is acceptable, but I would not feel the need to run to my Netflix account and watch this immediately.

2.75 stars

The writer of Hell or High Water and Sicario, Taylor Sheridan took his turn in the director’s chair in his first big screen film, Wind River, and Sheridan showed that he is one of the hottest creative talents in movies today.

Local hunter/tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), who spends his time searching the woods of Wind River, a Native American reservation in Wyoming, for animals that are killing livestock of the natives.  During one of his hunts, he stumbles across something unexpected.  A body of a local Native American girl, raped, beaten and frozen to death.  FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olson) was sent into the reservation to investigate the crime and the pair team up to try and solve the mystery.

Wind River is a mystery story, but it also is not a mystery story.  What do I mean by that?  Well, the mystery is here, but it is not the center of this movie.  The main driving force of the film is the elements and how Wind River is a perilous place to live.  It is also very much a comment on the lives of the Native American who live in the area.  The mystery is there too, but honestly it is peripheral to the rest of the film.

Jeremy Renner is tremendous in this role, perhaps the best I have seen him.  He was subtle and nuanced as this hunter who is dealing with his own tragic past while trying help solve the case.  Elizabeth Olson is also wonderful in the role as the “fish out of water FBI agent, ” providing layers to her role, despite there not being as much development for her as there was for Renner.  To both of their credits, I never thought of them as Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olson during the film, and, even more impressive, I never thought of them as Hawkeye and Scarlett Witch, either.

However, perhaps the most standout performances were by a couple of Native American actors.  The wonderful Graham Greene played the local sheriff Ben, who was entertaining and funny as he pessimistically quipped about the dower lifestyle with which the people had to deal.  He reminded me very much of Gil Birmingham’s role in Hell or High Water.  And the second top performance was by the aforementioned Gil Birmingham, who played the father of the murdered girl, Martin.  He was amazingly heartbreaking and you could not help but feel the pain that he was dealing with.  He also portrayed the anger perfectly of how society’s actions led to the loss of his daughter.

I was fully engaged and engulfed by the movie for the first two acts of the film.  I have heard some criticism that the early part of the film has pacing issues, but that was not my experience.  I was all in on the film immediately.  However, at the beginning of the third act, there is a flashback scene chronicling what exactly happened to the girl that felt so out of place in the narrative that we had had so far that it was very jarring.  Though well done and traumatic, the flashback took me out of the film.

Yet, immediately after the flashback, we get sucked right back in with one of the most real to life gunfights you will ever see.  It is tense and dramatic and seriously painful to watch, and then the ultimate finale of the film is remarkably satisfying so the beginning of the third act only slightly derailed the film for me and I was right back on board after that.

The scenes between Renner and Birmingham are some of the best scenes of the film, as these two men are able to connect over their common losses and it shines a light of humanity on the horrible situation life has placed them in.

Wind River is a fantastic thriller with top of the line characters that has a voice to say about the treatment of Native Americans.  It does so without being preachy.  It just is.  Renner and Olson are wonderful and Gil Birmingham could be Oscar worthy.  The scenic backdrop of Wind River is a stark reminder of not only the beauty found in nature, but also how unforgiving and deadly nature can be.  Even with the slight hiccup near the beginning of the third act, Wind River delivers big time.

4.85 stars

This one is a tough one.

Please do not go into A Ghost Story expecting a typical horror movie… or a normal haunted house movie.  This is more than that.  It is a challenging, infuriating, frustrating film that you may not understand.  It is also very well done.

A young married couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) are preparing to move from their house, but fate has another idea.  Affleck is killed in a car wreck and he returned as an invisible ghost, covered by a white bed sheet, and he has to watch as his wife continues her life without him.  However, there is more than just that as time starts going all over the place and he starts seeing the history of this house, both from the past and in the future.

David Lowery is the writer/director of A Ghost Story, but I got a distinct feel of David Lynch here.  The long, extended scenes sitting on one subject, the beautiful yet confounding imagery, the use of time as a manner of storytelling all speak of the similarity to Lynch.  We get a good five minute scene of Rooney Mara sitting on the floor and eating a pie.  This is just like a scene that you might get in Twin Peaks.

There is a definite feeling of loss and longing here.  We do not have much dialogue during the film, but the actors do a tremendous job of revealing feeling without speaking.  In fact, the ghost beneath the sheet does more with just some body movements than a lot of actors can do with their entire face and voice.

However, since the scenes can be long and drawn out, I can understand why some people may find A Ghost Story boring.  It is certainly unlike any film of the year.  It asks a lot of the audience, insisting on patience and not necessarily paying off everything, and it was a sad movie, pushing the level of depression hard.

It is beautifully shot despite some of the imagery being extremely troublesome.  It asks the audience to pay attention to the images and to do it without very much dialogue.

It does ask a lot from the audience, but I did feel that the film was worth it by the end of it.  It is a challenge to watch, but it is very emotional and beautiful.  It is not for everyone.

4 stars

The Hitman’s Bodyguard was one of the films that I was looking forward to as I really enjoyed the trailers that they showed for it.  Unfortunately, the film itself was more of a let down than anything else.

In order to free his wife, notable assassin Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) agreed to testify against General Dukhovich (Gary Oldman).  In order to get him to The Hague, Interpol agent Amelia Roussel (Elodie Yung) contacted her old flame, bodyguard extraordinaire Michael Bryce, whose reputation had slipped after one of his clients had died, to help get Kincaid to the trial.

The film is basically your typical buddy movie with two characters who hated one another and who begrudgingly learn to respect each other as the movie progresses.  The problem with this is that the movie is painfully predictable.  In fact, five minutes into the movie, you can see what was going to happen.  There were at least two distinct moments in the film where I said to myself, “oh, so this will happen at the end” and both times I called it exactly.

Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds are both remarkably charismatic here but neither of them are actually playing a character.  Truthfully, both are playing the versions of themselves that they show the public.  We’ve seen these versions in multiple movies over the years.  We have also seen both of them better.  Here Jackson and Reynolds and their banter is one of the strongest parts of this movie.  It could still be so much better.

The strongest part of the film, however, was absolutely the scene stealing performance of Salma Hayek, playing Kincaid’s wife, Sonia.  She was a hoot, playing completely against type and bringing to life the most fascinating character in the film.  Now, I don’t think that I would want more from her, because I can see Sonia becoming too annoying if we had more of her, but the part that we got was tremendous.

The action was fine, well shot, but it was also hard to believe.  There were a lot of bullets flying around without there being too many consequences.  That can be some dumb fun if you are willing to suspend the disbelief.

The story is told through flashback, but the scenes given to us in flashback seem to be told from different movies and completely different tones.  In fact, the inconsistent tone was a major issue with The Hitman’s Bodyguard.  It felt like a comedy at times, but the flashbacks felt like it was a satire.  There was the use of the romantic music to highlight the couples on the canvas, but there was also a villain in Gary Oldman who is shown killing a kid (albeit off screen).  The tone varied so badly that you were never quite sure how you were supposed to react.

The dialogue on the whole was pretty lame and there was a lot of it used as expository.   There were some good moments of laughter, but most of the humor was hit-or-miss.  Since Jackson and Reynolds are naturally funny people, you are going to get a lot of humor from them just being themselves.

In the end, The Hitman’s Bodyguard was not a good movie, but it is one that is watchable.  It is a forgettable film that could be considered disposable.  It might not be the worst film to watch but there is little reason to want to do it.  Reynolds and Jackson are fun at times, but you could make a case that they both are better than what we get here.  The tone is all over the place and the humor is off.  I was really excited for this one, but unfortunately, that was too much to hope for.

2.5 stars

Steven Soderbergh, the director of the Oceans 11 franchise is out of retirement with Logan Lucky, a new heist movie that takes place at a NASCAR race.

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) lost his job on construction at the Charlotte Motor Speedway because of a pre existing leg injury, and Jimmy makes a decision.  Approaching his Iraq veteran brother Clyde (Adam Driver), Jimmy comes up with a plan for robbing the track.  Needing help, the brothers approached incarcerated explosive expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) to aid their plan.

The strength of Logan Lucky is the original characters that exist within the film.  The characters are quirky, funny and well developed and that is something that could have been a real drawback with them.  However, these characters were well done and engaging.

Admittedly, Daniel Craig is easily the best character of the film and he steals practically every scene he appears in.  Yet, there were other very solid characters in the movie.  Dwight Yoakum, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Charles Halford, Jack Quaid and Sebastian Stan all have quirky characters to play.  Young Farrah Mackenzie does an admirable job as Jimmy’s daughter Sadie.

The story itself is more complex than you think at the start, but it might be too convoluted.  By the end of the movie, they go through all the little bits that needed to happen for the plot to work.  Because of some of that convoluted nature,there are some sections of the film that is a bit dull.  So much so that I was dozing off through the first couple of acts.

Still, there was more enjoyment to be had in Logan Lucky than not.  The lead actors were all great, especially Daniel Craig.  Some have claimed that Lucky Logan is one of the best movies of the summer.  I would not go that far, but it was a good time at the theater.

3.2 stars

Last summer I was able to see two wonderful independent films, Sing Street and Swiss Army Man, that wound up in my top five films of the year.  I was thinking about both of those films while I was watching Brigsby Bear because I had very similar feeling with this movie.  It was tremendous.

I am not sure how to proceed with this review without spoiling the movie and I do believe the fact that I went into the theater with almost no knowledge of what the film was about and I think that really helped with my enjoyment of Brigsby Bear.

James (Kyle Mooney) is the biggest fan of the series Brigsby Bear Adventures, a show that he grew up watching and that helped to form his moral compass.  When his entire world changed and his show went away, he decided to finish the story of Brigsby Bear himself.

Kyle Mooney is amazing as James.  He was one of the most original characters in a movie this year.  His innocence was charming and engaging.  Mark Hammill is his normal awesomeness as James’s father, Ted.  There was also a fun appearance by Greg  Kinnear as Detective Vogel.

There is a twist in the plot that happens early in the movie that really shifts the perception of the movie.  You think you are going to be going in one direction with these characters in this setting and then the rug gets pulled out from underneath James and the audience.  It was unexpected and it became something even more.

It would have been easy for the film to take James in a certain, typical way but the movie avoids the cliches with him.  He is sweet and he develops throughout the story.

There was a feeling of magic in this story.  By the third act of Brigsby Bear, I was fully entwined in the movie and emotionally connected to the characters.  There is so much heart in the film and it made me happy.  There were some funny moments too with its clever script.

Just like Sing Street and Swiss Army Man, Brigsby Bear has not found a large nationwide release.  It is difficult to find it in the theaters, but Brigsby Bear is definitely worth the effort.  It is one of my favorite movies of the year and is perhaps the most charming one of the year.

5 stars

I was excited about this film.  The Bruce Timm style animation of the film similar to the classic Batman: The Animated Series and the return of the great Kevin Conroy made this animated special Fathom showing something that I especially wanted to see.

I turned out to be disappointed with this one.

The film started out with an opening credits scene that was really campy and I immediately paused.  I had not expected the tone that this movie was taking, but I was ready to give it a chance.  I like the humor and there are some very funny moments in the movie as well.  The juxtaposing of the wild and campy Harley Quinn (Melissa Rauch) with the stoic and hard-nosed Batman really works at times.

You knew this was going to be a different movie when Harley Quinn and Nightwing have sex.  Yes, that is what I said.

Poison Ivy (Paget Brewster) and The Floronic Man (Kevin Michael Richardson) have a master plan to turn everyone in the world into a plant-like creature using the formula created by Dr. Alec Holland (who becomes the Swamp Thing in DC Comics).  Batman and Nightwing are trying to prevent this and recruit Ivy’s B.F.F. Harley Quinn, who has been released from Arkham and has gone straight.

Batman does not trust Harley, but goes along despite his better instincts.

I was into the tone for a good portion of the film.  It was very unexpected because the tone of the Batman: The Animated Series was usually very serious and, even when something humorous happened, the serious tone was maintained.  Still, I remembered the episode when Harley and Ivy initially got together and it was pretty funny.  I like the laughs and the campy feel worked for part of the movie.  There is a scene at a henchman nightclub that is a hoot.  We also see Harley Quinn singing. There is also a very strong scene after a building gets burned down.  You get to see the Harley Quinn humanity during this scene and it gives you a different look at the character.

And then the film goes off the rails hard.

The third act of this movie is just tremendously terrible.  It took what was going to be a surprising and unexpected tonal film that I liked into a film that just does not work.  Moment after moment in this final set pushed believability to the breaking point.  This film has the final confrontation between Harley and Ivy that is so disappointing and cheesy, the arrival of a deus ex machina that actually turns out to be a complete waste of time, and an anticlimactic resolution that is downright stupid.

Batman and Harley Quinn was working for me for the first part of the film, as the campy factor was not too out of line, there were some legit funny moments, Harley Quinn was fun and it felt like they were building to a more serious conclusion after the dramatic scene with Harley after the fire, but the film completely spiraled into ridiculousness and lost me in the third act.  As good as it was to hear Kevin Conroy back as the voice of Batman (and Melissa Rauch of the Big Bang Theory was a solid Harley Quinn), the entire package just was not worth the build.  I left the theater feeling that this would have been better had it been Batman ’66 and we could just make the whole movie a joke.

2.6 stars

A raunchy comedy with nuns.

As with most raunchy comedies, if it is funny, other issues can be forgiven.  The Little Hours is funny.

Massetto (Dave Franco), a young servant fleeing from his master (Nick Offerman) whose wife he had an affair with, comes across Father Tommasso (John C. Reilly), who is drunk and has lost his cart full of goods into a small river.  Massetto aids the drunken priest and Father Tommasso offers the boy a place to stay at his convent.

Problem though.  The nuns at this convent are not the regular version.  They are violent, attacking the previous handyman for talking to them.  So, to protect him, Father decided for Massetto to pretend to be a deaf mute.

The three main nuns, Sister Alessandra (Alison Brie), Sister Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza) and Sister Ginerva (Kate Micucci), meet Massetto and he sends their libidos into the atmosphere.

This film is a satire on the church and the manner of male-female sexual relationships.  It does not take the group long to be succumbing to their lust.  Because it is a satire, these characters are not remarkably deep, focusing mostly on the archetype more than anything else.

Once heading down the path of revelry, the nuns cannot be stopped.  There is a scene with witches that is extremely funny and downright shocking.

The actresses are funny in their naughty behavior and Dave Franco is imminently likable as the young Massetto who feels like he is being taken advantage of by all of the characters in the film.

John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon (who plays the head nun Sister Marea) are very good in the movie, and they have some very sweet scenes together.  Their relationship seems to come out nowhere, though.  Fred Armisen comes in later in the film as Bishop Bartolomeo and delivers some funny scenes.

The nuns though go way over the top.  I will tell you that the humor is not “rolling on the floor” laughter, but there are consistent laughs throughout.

There may be some who are offended by the use of the church setting to tell this raunchy satire, but it makes sense when you are dealing with isolated, horny individuals.  It was a decent film.

3.2 stars