DailyView: Day 283, Movie 398

A magical fantasy combined with a real life feel, Beasts of the Southern Wild was a powerful film of life, family and courage.

Six year old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) had a lot to face for someone so young. Her father Wink (Dwight Henry) was having serious health problems and their home in a bathtub in a southern delta at the end of the world was being threatened by natural disasters and an army of prehistoric creatures called auroch. When her father’s health deteriorates, Hushpuppy goes in search of her long lost mother.

The film is centered around an amazing performance from the young Quvenzhané Wallis, the youngest actresses currently to have been nominated for Best Lead Actress Oscar at the Academy Awards. There is a force of nature feel to the young girl and she dominates the screen with every moment she appears. She plays brilliantly off Dwight Henry, who gives a tremendous supporting performance, with a complex character unlike any that I’ve seen before.

The blend of the fantastic and the realism of the world is another impressive feat that this movie pulled off. To be such a mixture of the two film types and to be so successful at it is a true compliment to the film’s director, Benh Zeitlin.

Not only did Quvenzhané Wallis receive an Academy Award nomination, but the film itself was nominated as Best Picture at the Oscars. It was recognized as an original, beautiful story that you just do not see evryday.

All of this was coming from the POV of Hushpuppy, so everything depended on the imagination of the young girl. Everything that was going on around her was adapted into the world that was created in her mind. Without the presence and power of Hushpuppy, this does not work nearly as well.

This was a surprisingly powerful and emotional experience and should be a film that you check out.

DailyView: Day 282, Movie 397

The February section of the DailyView continues with the rom-com films with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis.

After a five year relationship, actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) dumps Peter (Jason Segel), composer and sad sack boyfriend. Peter spirals out of control and goes through a series of meaningless one night stands, but he could not get over his broken heart.

So when his step brother Brian (Bill Hader) convinced him to take a trip. Peter went to Hawaii and coincidentally wound up at the same hotel as Sarah and her new boyfriend, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

Depressed Peter was helped out by one of the hotel employees Rachel (Mila Kunis), who provided him a room at the hotel. Peter and Rachel hit it off and started hanging out while he kept running into Sarah and Aldous.

This was a lot of fun. I loved the film, from the beginning right through to the intriguing ending. How can you not love Dracula The Musical (with puppets)! Jason Segel went all out (and all off) to make the movie funny. He had great chemistry with Mila Kunis.

Russell Brand was perfectly cast as Aldous Snow and he was cool in the role. There were some great cast members here too including Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Liz Cackowski, Jack McBrayer, Taylor Wily, Steve Landesberg, Da’Vone McDonald, Maria Thayer, William Baldwin, Jason Bateman, Billy Bush, and Kala Alexander.

Many times I do not like this kind of raunchy comedies, but I found Forgetting Sarah Marshall to be a smartly written, intelligent and fun film that used the humor in an excellent manner.

DailyView: Day 281, Movie 396

Woody Allen has been a controversial figure for many years. The accusations that have followed him have turned off many people. It can be a struggle to support an artist like him who has been accused of such terrible things. People like Michael Jackson, Mel Gibson and Woody Allen have created such amazing work over the years, but can someone enjoy the work knowing how potentially horrible they are?

Annie Hall is a great example, because this movie is fantastic, but the whole time I was watching it, I kept thinking about Woody Allen.

Putting that aside, Annie Hall is great. I loved how Woody Allen started off just speaking to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, which he does several times throughout the movie.

Allen played comedian Alvy Singer who was reflecting upon his failed relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The story bounced around giving us moments throughout the history of the relationship and of Alvy’s life, filled with neuroses and paranoia. Annie Hall is the great love of his life, but I am not sure that he ever truly realized that.

Woody Allen was all over this movie and he brought his best work. Annie Hall is considered one of the greatest movies made by many cinephiles. It is definitely funny and Allen’s constant neurotic behavior as well as his one liners keep the film a good time.

Diane Keaton is excellent as the title character, and she does win an Academy Award for Best Actress. Annie has a real arc of a story across the movie, making more change than probably any character. I guess as the character who the film is named after, that makes some sense.

The rest of the cast is filled with some fascinating cameos as well as some solid actors. The cast included Tony Roberts as Alvy’s best friend Rob, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Collen Dewhurst, Jeff Goldblum, Janet Margolin, Truman Capote, John Glover, Sigourney Weaver and Beverly D’Angelo.

At some point, you have to be able to separate the artist from the art, because if you can’t, you miss out on some awesome stuff. That is the way it would have been with Annie Hall if I could not do that separation. And I enjoyed the film tremendously.

DailyView: Day 280, Movie 395

Today we are blending together the rom-coms with Black History Month and we get The Photograph, a 2020 film that I missed in the theaters because of the pandemic.

The Photograph told two intermixed stories from two different time frames. Famous photographer Christina Eames died unexpectedly, leaving her estranged daughter Mae (Issa Rae) filled with questions. When Mae discovered a photograph, it lead to an investigation into her mother’s past life and her love, Isaac (Y’lan Noel). As she was looking into the mystery, she entered a relationship with a journalist, Michael Block (LaKeith Stanfield).

LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae were wonderful in this film, showing an undeniable amount of chemistry between them. Both are exceptionally strong, up and coming actors that have huge futures ahead of them. This showed that they are capable of tapping into the romantic side of their repertoire. Because of them, the present day story was much more compelling that the story of the past, which felt fairly typical.

Some of the film was set in New Orleans and that backdrop added to the flare of The Photograph.

There are a strong cast of black actors in this ensemble including Courtney B. Vance, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Teyonah Parris, Milton “Lil Rel” Howery Jr., Rob Morgan (Turk from Daredevil), Chanté Adams, and Jasmine Cephas Jones. The cast also included Chelsea Peretti.

The Photograph was fine. The performances of the main two stars carried it through a fairly predictable story.

DailyView: Day 279, Movie 394

As the calendar turned to February, one of the semi-focuses for the DailyView will be some rom-coms (as well as some films for Black History Month). Rom-coms will be the main films until Valentine’s Day. So for the first of February, I watched one of the most well known rom-coms of the last 20 years, the adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel, The Notebook.

In a nursing home, Duke (James Garner) read a story to a woman (Gena Rowlands) who was suffering from dementia and had no memory. In the story, Duke read about a young girl named Allie (Rachel McAdams) from a wealthy family who met a local worker Noah (Ryan Gosling) and they fell in love. Noah was not whom Allie’s parents wanted their daughter to fall for, and their disproval led to the young lovers to split.

Noah enlisted in the army and went to war while Allie waited and hoped to see him again. After years, Allie met a new man (James Marsden) and she fell for him. He proposed to her and she accepted.

Noah had returned from the war and, with the financial help from his father (Sam Shepard), bought his dream home, rebuilding it from scratch. When Allie saw a photo of Noah and his newly constructed home in the newspaper, she felt drawn to see him in order to wrap up the past. However, their love would not be denied.

I was torn by this movie. I thought the acting was superb from the cast, especially from James Garner and Gena Rowland, whose identities were anything but secretive. I found Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams to be exceptional as well, early on in their careers.

However, there was a ton of sentimentality in The Notebook that it felt overpowering at times, and not in a good way. I also had trouble with some of the character choices made, especially from Allie. She treated James Marsden’s character just horrendously, playing him along and treating him with a lot of disrespect that he did not deserve. I felt terribly for Marsden, and this made me feel as if rooting for Allie and Noah was a bad thing.

Then, there was an amazing scene with Garner and Rowlands in the third act that was heart-wrenching, but it was tainted by what had happened before. The “mystery” of who they were really ruined the story structure of the relationship with Noah and Allie.

There are a bunch of clichés throughout the movie and it felt somewhat manipulative because of it. I don’t think there is any doubt that Garner and Rowlands and their story was way more compelling than the story of Noah and Allie, which ends up being kind of ironic.

As I said, I am torn by The Notebook. Despite its flaws, there are some solid scenes and some great acting. I just wish that I liked the leads more.

DailyView: Day 278, Movie 393

Tonight, I returned to the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes movies for Sherlock Holmes Faces Death.

As always, Rathbone and Bruce are excellent together as Holmes and Watson. This film was loosely based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” from 1893.

The film is a mystery film where Sherlock Holmes is trying to solve the murders that are occurring at the Musgrave Manor, a home being used as a hospital for a number of servicemen who are suffering from events of the war. Dr. Watson was working at the manor, and called in his friend Mr. Holmes after his colleague Dr. Saxton (Arthur Margetson) was attacked and stabbed in the neck, though he survived the attempt.

This was not my favorite of the Rathbone/Bruce series of films. This one felt pretty forced and the conclusion was forgone. I saw that one coming from the beginning. The mystery was anything but mysterious. Holmes’ tricks were also very obvious.

This film abandoned the idea that Holmes was a bit of a spy hunter in the war protecting England. It is a new (or old) way to look at Holmes in this series. While I did not love this, it was a nice step to have Holmes back to his old ways.

DailyView: Day 277, Movie 392

Joel and Ethan Coen do this kind of film really well.

Burn After Reading falls right in with Fargo and Raising Arizona as black comedic crime films with complicated and intricate plots and somewhat cartoonish characters.

According to IMDB: “Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), a Balkan expert, resigned from the CIA because of a drinking problem, so he begins a memoir. His wife (Tilda Swinton) wants a divorce and expects her lover, Harry (George Clooney), a philandering State Department marshal, to leave his wife. A CD-ROM falls out of a gym bag at a Georgetown fitness center. Two employees there try to turn it into cash: Linda (Frances McDormand), who wants money for cosmetic surgery, and Chad (Brad Pitt), an amiable goof. Information on the disc leads them to Osbourne who rejects their sales pitch; then they visit the Russian embassy. To sweeten the pot, they decide they need more of Osbourne’s secrets. Meanwhile, Linda’s boss (Richard Jenkins) likes her, and Harry’s wife leaves for a book tour. All roads lead to Osbourne’s house.”

This was a riot. I laughed multiple times and found these characters to be so over-the-top that they were so enjoyable. Are they too cartoonish? Maybe, but that did not bother me even a little bit. None of it took me out of the film.

The CIA supervisor, played by J.K. Simmons, was absolutely hilarious. His deadpan reactions to the ridiculousness of the story being told to him by David Rasche. The difference in POV between Simmons, who couldn’t give a bigger crap about what was happening and downplaying everything, and the chaotic thoughts of everyone else involved.

George Clooney is off the charts with his paranoid U.S. Marshal character. He was a real womanizer, bouncing around to several women as his wife was on tour with her book. Clooney threw himself into this role and he was fantastic.

Clooney was involved in the best moment in the movie with Brad Pitt that lead me to scream out in shock. It was so great and I couldn’t stop laughing at his behavior. In fact, that moment is when this movie really came alive and became more than just another clever black comedy.

This was a great film that I had a lot of fun with.

DailyView: Day 277, Movie 391

DreamWorks has had some great animated films over the years, from Shrek to How to Train Your Dragon, but the company has never reached the levels of Pixar or Disney. Still, they have had their successes. 2004’s Shark Tale is passable, but not one that will stick with you.

According to IMDB: “The sea underworld is shaken up when the son of shark mob boss Don Lino (Robert De Niro) is found dead, and a young fish named Oscar (Will Smith) is found at the scene. Being a bottom feeder, Oscar takes advantage of the situation and makes himself look like he killed the finned mobster. Oscar soon comes to realize that his claim may have serious consequences.”

Will Smith and Robert DeNiro stand out among the voices, but, honestly, Smith feels as if he is trying too hard. Jack Black voices Lenny and does not stand out at all. The animation is solid and looks good. Bright colors are interesting and stand out on the screen.

The story is simple and the characters are average at best. There are some clever jokes scattered throughout the film, but not enough to be sustainable.

There are a ton of pop culture references, way too many. Most of them stand out as not working. With all the quotes, are we to understand that these fish watch movies and TV from the surface? The music is okay, but I can not recall anything from the film.

Shark Tale is just an average, unremarkable animated feature that you can pass time with, but won’t fill you up.

DailyView: Day 277, Movie 390

I have watched several Charlie Chaplin films during the DailyView, but they have all been shorts, half hour or less. Today, I watched a longer film from his career for the first time, called The Circus. It was wonderful.

The Little Tramp found himself working for a circus after being chased by the police for a misunderstanding about a pickpocket crime. While he came running through while being pursued by the police, the crowd loved him and laughed at his antics. So much so that the ringmaster (Al Ernest Garcia) hired him to be a clown. However, it turned out that Charlie was not funny when he was trying to be.

The Ringmaster’s step-daughter Merna (Merna Kennedy) befriended Charlie, and he gave her some food. She was treated very poorly by the Ringmaster and appreciated the help.

The arrival of a tight rope walker named Rex (Harry Crocker) complicated the situation for the Tramp, who began practicing walking the tight rope himself.

The one thing that I noticed different in this movie in comparison to the shorts is that this felt like more of a developed story than they were. The shorts were more of a series of slapstick at time. Extremely funny, yes, but not much by way of storytelling. The Circus had a plot and a full story. I felt I knew the characters more than I did in the shorts and the pay off of the film was very satisfying. I found The Circus to be quite charming as well as extremely funny.

Charlie Chaplin was a remarkable talent. He wrote, directed, scored and produced the film as well as starred in in. The Academy gave him a special Oscar for the effort. Why they did that, I am unsure.

This was a more pleasurable film than the other ones that I have watched today.

DailyView: Day 277, Movie 389

I’m shaken.

I do not think I have had such a haunting experience watching a movie in… well, I am not sure when or if I have had quite an experience like that.

Requiem for a Dream was a masterful movie… and I never want to see it again.

The film was focused on the drug addictions/abuses of four main characters, Sarah Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), her son Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connolly) and Harry’s friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). Each of the four of them had a different direction to take with their drug abuse, but it was portrayed in a much similar fashion. You could tell how the film, which was shot in a dream-like state in many of the scenes, was building to make this something that would stay with you.

The performance of Ellen Burstyn, in particular, was absolutely crushing; it wrecked me. She deserved every last bit of recognition that she received for this performance because it was utterly crazy.

The music was also designed to destroy you too, as every minute of the film progressed, the score was ripping into your brain, putting you on edge.

Then there is the third act. I literally watched this with my mouth open, not believing what I was seeing, and wrapping my arms around myself in an unsuccessful attempt to contain the feels. I have never seen anything like the montage at the end of this movie and it ripped my heart out of my chest (not literally, this time). Holy Hell, this was unbelievable. The closest I can come to comparing the feeling was as I watched Schindler’s List for the first time. I desperately wanted to shut Requiem for a Dream off and retreat within myself during this scene, but I persevered and watched it through to its depressing and heart-wrenching conclusion.

Darren Aronofsky directed the heck out of this. I have not been a huge fan of Aronofsky over the years, with The Wrestler being the one film that I loved from his oeuvre. Aronofsky has been known for his surrealism in his movies and how he uses psychological aspects of character to deconstruct the archetypes of characters. The imagery of this film was outstanding and added to the overall tone that Aronofsky was building towards.

Requiem for a Dream was a trip of a film. As I said, I never want to watch this again, but I think that I am glad that I watched it. It left a pit in my stomach after viewing which is currently, as of this writing, is still there and when a film can affect you like this, it has to be a good thing, right?

DailyView: Day 276, Movie 388

No matter what your opinion on the WWE may be, you cannot deny that they know how to put together compelling documentaries about their Superstars.

Tommaso Ciampa is one of the biggest stars to come out of NXT, a developmental organization of the WWE, and he was the NXT Champion when he had to have neck surgery, missing out on Wrestlemania weekend.

This becomes the story of a pro wrestler who had to face a devastating injury that stopped his momentum dead and the struggle to come to grips about what this meant for his career and his family.

There are scenes of his neck fusion surgery and they spoke to plenty of his friends, colleagues and family. We heard from Triple H, Johnny Gargano, Shawn Michaels, Edge, as well as plenty from Tommaso himself. These are interviews that truly brought the passion of the man to the forefront.

The doc talks a great deal about Tommaso’s baby daughter, Willow, and the way she came to be. It was an emotional tale and added to the entire situation of the injury that flipped his world. She was so cute and the pictures of Willow were absolutely fabulous.

Tommaso Ciampa is one of my personal favorite performers and this slice of his life during such a tumultuous time is wonderful. The WWE documentaries hit it again.

DailyView: Day 276, Movie 387

The second film of the day, dedicated to wrestling was considerably better than the first one (but it would have to be. Ready to Rumble set the bar really low). This was the Jack Black film called Nacho Libre.

Jack Black played Ignacio, a Catholic friar from Mexico who moonlighted as a Luchadore in the world of lucha libre. Ignacio and his partner, Esqueleto (Héctor Jiménez) struggled to find any success in the squared circle which caused frustration for the fighting friar. Yet, Ignacio continued his battle not only for his own glory, but for money to use to help the orphans.

Addressing this up top, Jack Black is about as white of a guy as you are going to see playing this Mexican man. His accent is ridiculous. I know some have made claim that this is racist, but I do not buy that. It may not be the most sensitive aspect of the film, but it did not disqualify it for me.

Nacho Libre had some decent moments and Jack Black is always fun. His dual role was well done, as he tried to balance the call of the ring with his duties as a monk. Some of the wrestling scenes were well done, especially the ones involving the bestial little people.

The real life Luchadore Silver King portrayed the film’s antagonist, Ramses. Silver King had a long career in wrestling until his death in the ring from a heart attack in 2019.

Like many Jack Black comedies, Nacho Libre is over-the-top, but with its heart in the right place. The film is carried very much by the personality of Jack Black and he fits right into the world of Luchadore.

Nacho Libre is a mixed bag, but I liked it more than I anticipated. It is Citizen Kane in comparison to Ready to Rumble, that is for sure.

DailyView: Day 276, Movie 386

Today is the WWE’s classic event, The Royal Rumble, which one of my personal premium live events the WWE presents. So I decided that I would honor the Rumble by watching some wrestling movies on the DailyView.

Unfortunately, I started the day with Ready to Rumble.

Gordie Boggs (David Arquette) and Sean Dawkins (Scott Caan) are a pair of dimwitted sewage workers who are huge wrestling fans, especially for Jimmy King (Oliver Platt), the WCW World Champion. When evil promoter Titus Sinclair (Joe Pantoliano) decided to screw The King out of his title, Gordie and Sean went on a mission to help return Jimmy King to his throne.

This is such a sad movie. It is terrible and it paints the wrestling fan in the worst light possible. It also makes the wrestlers look so bad. I cannot understand why the WCW stars involved themselves in this insulting and downright offensive film that denigrates the business of professional wrestling and its fans while enforcing every possible negative stereotype of wrestling.

It also put into motion one of the worst storylines of all time, when David Arquette actually won the WCW World Championship in the WCW. This storyline was a contributing factor in the eventual real life downfall of the promotion.

Back to the movie, it made no sense and tried to blend the fictionalized world of pre wrestling with reality, failing miserably. Gordie and Sean are absolutely horrendous and highlight nothing good about wrestling. Maybe that was the purpose of the film, but, again, I can not understand why the people at WCW would agree to this script or this movie.

Martin Landau suddenly showed up as a wrestling trainer right out of the Stu Hart mold. I couldn’t believe when he opened the door.

I wanted this movie over five minutes into it. I hated this disrespectful and hate filled movie.