I got the opportunity tonight to go to an early screening of the new Disney animated film, Wish, at Cinemark. Wish is scheduled to be released for the Thanksgiving holiday next week. I love getting the chance to see this early.

However, it was, at best, an okay Disney animated film.

I did not hate the film. I did not love it either.

According to IMDB, “Wish will follow a young girl named Asha (Ariana DeBose) who wishes on a star and gets a more direct answer than she bargained for when a trouble-making star comes down from the sky to join her.“

Wish felt more like a series of references to past Disney animated movies than a new and vibrant story of its own. There were a bunch of Easter eggs to former Disney films and it was fun to spot the allusions, but it also tended to get in the way of the story this film was trying to tell.

As always, the animation and the visual look of Wish was stunning and extremely beautiful to watch. There is no doubt that plenty of young children will be engrossed by the movie simply by the way it looked.

The music was okay. Some of the original songs were catchy, but, honestly, there are none that stick out in my head, just a few hours later. While I tapped my toes and nodded my head during the actual songs, there is nothing that sticks out as a big-time hit like films such as The Lion King, Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast had. There was not even songs like Let it Go or We Don’t Talk About Bruno on this soundtrack.

Chris Pine provided the voice for the antagonist of the film, King Magnifico, and he does a solid job. The voice cast was very consistently solid, including Alan Tudyk, Victor Garber, Evan Peters, Jennifer Kumiyama, Angelique Cabral, Natasha Rothwell, and Harvey Guillen.

For a film about the magic of wishes, there did not feel like there was enough Disney magic to make the film feel special.

Having said that, Wish is certainly not a bad time. It was beautiful to look at and had a simplistic message about giving up one’s dreams that is worth hearing. I just would have liked to have connected to this movie more than I did.

3.2 stars

This one is a long way from Jo Jo Rabbit.

Heck, it is a long way from Thor: Love and Thunder.

I was excited about this movie, from Taika Waititi, since I saw the trailers. Michael Fassbender as a coach of soccer, trying to turn around a team from American Samoa that lost a FIFA match 31-0. A soccer game, 31-0. That just should not happen and yet it is a true story.

Sadly, the film was about as good as that soccer team. Not very good.

It was a typical sports movie, with the underdog team getting better as their coach struggled with his own problems.

The film was just not funny. The best parts of the film, I had already seen in the trailers, which I enjoyed. The rest of the film seemed childish and overly silly.

Taika Waititi does have skill at weaving in emotion to what should be a ridiculous situations and there are some moments at the third act that work well. Unfortunately, by that point, I was checked out and was not willing to check back in.

The reason Fassbender was the way he was could have been a real powerhouse moment, but it was not developed properly during the film and so it felt as if it came out of left field, excuse my mixing of sports metaphors.

Within the first ten minutes, I kept saying to myself, “Uh Oh.” I could feel that this wasn’t going to be an enjoyable time, but I held out my hope because I enjoy Waititi so much. The hope was gone soon after and it felt like a wasted opportunity for a really funny and enjoyable sports film.

2.2 stars

David Fincher returned with his latest film that has been in select theaters and debuted on Netflix this weekend.

Michael Fassbender played the Killer, an assassin who missed his most recent target and had to face the consequences for failure.

After his girlfriend is attacked in response, Fassbender methodically started on a quest for vengeance against everyone that was involved in the attack, even adjacently.

Honestly, the story of the movie is pretty simple. Fassbender does a voice over narration but his character says almost zero lines of dialogue through the film. We follow this man who is clearly anything but your typical protagonist as he brutally and without passion executed person after person.

Fassbender is a likable actor and that helps make this assassin human, because his actions are anything but. The voice over repeats the Killer’s mantra before every kill, reminding himself to stick to the plan, and that empathy is weakness.

Fassbender is excellent in this role. It seems to fit him beautifully. Again, he is the standout of the movie because the simplistic plot is only somewhat engaging and the dialogue is nearly non-existent.

Tilda Swinton makes an appearance as one of the eventual targets and her short time on screen was excellent as always. However, we know so little about her character that it does not give us much to feel with her eventual fate.

There is an effective use of tone and mood in this piece, but it is a surprisingly sleight film.

3.6 stars

There have been a lot of negative comments about the latest MCU film, The Marvels from the reviewers that I usually listen to or follow. And I understand perfectly that I am more likely to like this than most people considering my background with Marvel. To call me the target audience would not be a stretch. I have also been a fan of almost everything Marvel Studios has put out (I’m looking at you, Secret Invasion).

So going into The Marvels with a little trepidation because of the reviews (even though it is currently at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, so considered FRESH), I was nervous.

I am pleased to say that I thought this was a lot of fun and that I enjoyed myself watching it. It is definitely messier than many of the other Marvel Studios movies, but, for me, that did not distract from the key of this film.

That key is the three lead women of the film, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel. Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani have such an easy chemistry with each other and they are truly well written. Iman Vellani is a joy and she is charming. She was great in the Ms. Marvel Disney + series and they bring her right into this without skipping a beat. I really believe that Iman Vellani can be the next face of the MCU if done properly. She is a star.

I did enjoy the conflicts that were there between the leading ladies, especially with Carol and Monica. It just felt as if these conflicts were too surface level and could have been deeper and were dealt with too quickly.

They also included Kamala’s family, actors Saagar Shaikh, Zenobia Shroff, and Mohan Kapur, in The Marvels. While it was great to see them again and they did provide some wonderful moments grounding the character bits with Kamala, but they were part of the messy aspects of the film too as Nick Fury brought them aboard the spaceship for some reason.

I have heard a couple critics talk about two major things that were too silly, and ruined the tone of the film. I think a big reason why you may not like this movie is that these two moments bother you. Those who want more serious superhero movies or who may not believe the humor worked well will probably allude to these scenes as the ones that ruin the film. For me, neither of these moments (one deals with cats, one deals with music) bothered me in the slightest, but I have never been opposed to some silliness in my superhero movies.

The villain of The Marvels was Kree warrior Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, was admittedly weak. There was not a ton of development for her, much like Ronan the Accuser, her predecessor, was in Guardians of the Galaxy. She did have motives that were potentially good, but she was approaching this in too much of a vengeful manner. There have been considerably better villains in the MCU than Dar-Benn.

The special effects of the film were up and down. Much of the CGI was really good, but there were enough moments that stick out to notice.

The last scene of the movie is really like a post credit scene and involves a great cameo that I did not expect to see but was totally welcomed. Meanwhile, the actual mid-credit scene had a cameo that had been spoiled for me, but it opened up a huge area for the MCU.

One problem here is that if you had not watched the Ms. Marvel or WandaVision Disney + shows, you would be more confused than you should be. That is, again, not a problem for me considering that I watch all of these Marvel Disney + shows. However, the normal film goers might struggle at times with the new characters. The film does an okay job of letting us know who these characters are and some details, but it just has a lot to get through considering Monica was involved in 9 episodes of WandaVision and Ms. Marvel had 6 episodes of her own show. I do think that is an issue that Marvel Studios needs to address moving forward.

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Iman Vellani was wonderful and I liked both Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris too. There are a lot of Goose the cat (actually the Flerken). The Marvels had its messy moments but it was fun and entertaining.

4 stars

Based on the novel Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley, Priscilla becomes the latest film featuring a story with the King of Rock-N-Roll, Elvis Presley.

However, this time, the film is not specifically about Elvis. The protagonist of this film is Priscilla.

We start the film during the time when Elvis (Jacob Elordi) was in the army and in Germany. During this period, he met 14-year old Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny). These two hit it off, even though Elvis was considerably older than Priscilla. We saw how the pair of them grew closer as Priscilla continued at her school in Germany.

Eventually, Elvis convinced Priscilla’s father (Ari Cohen) to allow Priscilla to come to Memphis to finish school. He said that she would be looked after by his family and staff. Somehow, the father agreed to this. I guess when you are Elvis, you get things done.

The film, directed by Sophia Coppola, continued to follow Priscilla through the years, showing the tribulations of this first love mixing with toxic stardom.

This is absolutely the darkest presentation I have ever seen in reference to Elvis Presley. So much so that I might actually call him the antagonist of the film. Elvis was portrayed as a manipulative, control-freak that insisted on certain things that he expected Priscilla to do, to the point where Priscilla was becoming lost inside her own life.

I found a lot of these scenes very fascinating, although, prior to her death earlier this year, Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter, complained about the characterization of her father in the script.

The performances were very strong, in particular Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. Elordi’s performance was probably the most difficult since there was just recently an Oscar nominated portrayal of Elvis (from Austin Butler in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis) and Elordi does a great job of doing something different and not just doing a copy.

I do feel as if there is something missing from the narrative of this film. The ending comes to an end suddenly and did not feel as if it built up to make sense. It seemed as if it needed something more than where it left off because the ending did leave me flat.

There were also a lot of scenes that felt as if it could have been trimmed from the script. There were several moments where I was not sure the purpose for the inclusion of certain scenes in the film and that there were other moments that could have done a better job of spelling out the ideas that Coppola wanted to get through to the audience. Sadly, by the last part of the movie, I was becoming kind of bored.

So I feel the performances were decent and the look at the relationship gave us something new between the two main characters, but I just did not feel the proper development of a narrative and there was too much that did not work. While it is not a terrible film by any stretch, Priscilla could have been so much more.

2.8 stars

With the new Beatles song dropping today, which I had not heard of until today, I discovered that there was also a short which I watched on YouTube.

It was the story of how Paul and Ringo came back and finished a song that had been on the tapes that Yoko Ono had given to them back in the 1990s that led to “Free as a Bird.”

Listening to Paul tell this story was truly emotional and had me feeling as if I were ready to sob. This film is only 12 + minutes long, but it was amazing.

This has been my favorite short in years. It made me feel and I was utterly fascinated by the story of Now and Then, the “last” Beatles song, a song that included John Lennon’s vocals, Paul on bass, Ringo on drums and a mix that included George on a guitar solo.

You are able to get a song that includes all four former Beatles, despite the fact that two of them are gone. For Beatles fans like me, this short is magnificent. I think that even those people who are only slight fans will love seeing how they were able to create this song.

Go out of the way to see this.

5 stars

Edit: I see that this is also on Disney +, which surprises me that I was able to see this short on YouTube.

A film that has been on my “To Watch” list for a few weeks now has been the 2023 drama Fair Play. It has been on Netflix and today was the day that I finally got the chance to watch it. This one was quite brutal and turned really ugly.

Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), who work together at a cutthroat hedge fund, were in love and became engaged to be married. Since they worked together, they were going to wait for the perfect time to let people know.

That perfect time did not come as an unexpected promotion at work started to create tension between the two ambitious people.

Watching these two individuals who had been in such a positive place at the beginning of the movie devolve into a brutal, toxic relationship was tough. The couple started slowly, with resentment being forced down, but the anger and frustration was never going to stay hidden and it was obvious to the audience that this engagement was doomed.

Both of our lead actors, Dynevor and Ehrenreich did a spectacular job playing the emotions that they were burying inside of them. As communication broke down, mistrust started filling the emptiness.

This is not a movie I would throw on to have a pick me up. It is most definitely a downer of a story, but it is extremely well told and acted. It is one of those movies that I would admire, but never want to see again.

3.5 stars

I missed this horror movie when it was in the theaters, and I have not rented it on Vudu while the price was high. I found out that this movie, It Lives Inside, had dropped the price on Vudu down to a more realistic amount and so I rented it this weekend. I am certainly glad that I did not spend 19.99 to rent this one.

I found this movie to be pretty boring for much of the runtime. The third act wasn’t too bad, but, in my mind, this movie could have been more scary had they spent less time showing us this monster.

According to IMDB, “Sam (Megan Suri), an Indian-American teen, lives in an idyllic suburb with her conservative mother (Neeru Bajwa) and her assimilated father (Vik Sahay). Sam’s cultural insecurities grow due to her estranged friend, Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), who mysteriously carries around an empty mason jar all the time. In a moment of anger, Sam breaks Tamira’s jar and unleashes an ancient Indian demonic force that kidnaps Tamira. Sam searches for Tamira, following the trail of a young man who performed a deadly ritual, until the demonic entity starts targeting her, murdering her boyfriend and shattering her reality with terrifying visions. Sam must band together with her parents and a sympathetic teacher (Betty Gabriel) to save Tamira and put an end to the terror of the demon.“

Megan Suri does a good job as the lead protagonist. She is an interesting actor and does not seem that she fits as the lead.

I like the idea that the monster was more specific to the culture of Indian-America, but much of the story was fairly typical. Nothing about this stands out in the horror genre.

It Lives Inside is not the worst movie of the year by far, but it is not a great one either. I’m glad I waited to see it.

2.3 stars

The brand new video game adaptation was released this week. It is called Five Nights at Freddy’s. I originally was planning to go to the theater to see this, but I discovered that it is also streaming day and date on Peacock so I decided to save myself some gas, make it a weekend lounging at home, and watch it on the streaming service.

I’m glad I did not drive down to the Quad Cities to watch this because it was not that enjoyable.

I have no background with the video game, but, for me, there was a better version of this released a few years ago starring Nicolas Cage that was called Willy’s Wonderland. It is not a literal adaptation, but the idea is very close.

Five Night’s at Freddy’s starred Josh Hutcherson (from Hunger Games fame) as Mike, a troubled man struggling to overcome a haunting memory from his youth and take care of his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio). As part of a way to move forward, Mike is hired by Steve raglan (Matthew Lillard) as a security guard for a closed down restaurant that had been popular in the 1980s. His job, just keep people out.

Desperate to discover the truth of his younger brother, Mike found that the animatronics from the restaurant where more than what they seemed.

Overall, the story in this movie was messy, did not have enough moments that paid off for what it as asking us to watch and included a bizarre ending that felt out of place.

Hutcherson’s character did not give us the required emotional depth for us to really connect to him. I never believed in this character’s arc and found him to be disposable. Hutcherson did not elevate this role with his performance.

The movie featured a lot of dull moments with the monstrous animatronics really being regulated in the film. There were a few fun horror moments, but nowhere near as creative or enjoyable as it should have been.

The film added a character named Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) who was absolutely terrible and the film utterly wasted Mary Stuart Masterson in a throwaway ‘evil aunt’ character that was completely unnecessary and one-dimensional.

I have seen comments on how this could be used to introduce kids to horror. To that I would say that there are considerably smarter movies and TV shows that would do that better than this.

I was disappointed at Five Night’s at Freddy’s as I hoped that this would be more than what it was. Watch Willy’s Wonderland instead.

2.4 stars

“Time travel! … What? I see this as an absolute win.” – Bruce Banner, Avengers: Endgame.

Time travel movies are crazy. And they all have rules that change. Back to the Future. Avengers Endgame. LOST. 12 Monkeys. Dozens more.

You can add another time travel movie to the list with the film Totally Killer, which is available on Prime. And it is a total hoot.

This was a really fun and inventive movie with a lot of humor and creativity. Does the time travel rules get broken? Oh yeah. Are there a few weird plot points that do not make sense? Sure. Did they leave a dangling plot or two? Yes. But I had an absolute blast watching it and was totally engaged all the way through.

According to IMDB, “When the infamous ‘Sweet Sixteen Killer’ returns 35 years after his first murder spree to claim another victim, 17-year-old Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) accidentally travels back in time to 1987, determined to stop the killer before he can start.“

Kiernan Shipka was great as out protagonist who was desperately running around in the past trying to use the information that she knew in order to prevent the three killings and to change the future that she left.

The film wisely alluded to several of the time travel movies, comparing what was going on to the situation they were in. Every time Jamie made an allusion to a movie, she was like the audience, who must have been thinking the same thing.

The final showdown with the killer was not the best moment of the film, but it did not detract from the overall enjoyment of the film. I have said this before, but when a film is funny, it gets extra grace when dealing with storyline. This movie was funny.

Some of the best jokes were about the 1980s and how people kept doing things that she thought, in her 2023 mindset, was just crazy or dangerous. There was a scene with the red rubber dodgeballs that I literally screamed out about. Our generation knew what it was like to be hit in the face with those red dodgeballs and get past it. That does not happen in today’s schools.

This film knows that it is silly and slight, and it plays into it big time. By doing so, they have given us a spectacularly good time in a film that is like Back to the Future combined with Scream combined with Happy Death Day. I loved this.

4.5 stars

The newest epic film from Martin Scorsese was widely released this weekend, based on a true story. The film is entitled Killers of the Flower Moon and it is set just after World War I in Oklahoma and featured the Osage nation.

The Indians of the Osage nation discovered that there was oil beneath their land and they became incredibly wealthy. However, this led to a series of deaths and murders of the Osage people in an attempt to get the land and oil money away from them.

Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returned from the war to go work for his uncle, William “King” Hale (Robert DeNiro). He met up with one of the Osage Indians from the family that owned the land, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), fell for her and married her. There was some inkling early in the film that perhaps he had married her for the oil.

As their life together progressed, other members of her family started dying off in suspicious manners. It became clear that Hale had been calling the shots and had been using Ernest to do his dirty work along with several other men.

I will say that I thought this film was good. I was not as blown away by it as I thought I might be. There are a lot of strong parts of the movie that just have enough problems to keep it from being a masterful film.

One issue is that the film does feel its length at times. Killers of the Flower Moon is nearly three and a half hours long, which is a marathon of a film and it is not brimmed full with action or dramatic moments. It is definitely a slow burn. Even though I think the film works as a slow burn, I do think they could have condensed some of the scenes in the middle to trim off 10-15 minutes and it would be for the film’s benefit.

Another major issue I had is a spoiler so I will have to just touch on it generally. It feels like something that is a creative swing that may work for some people, but that will be a problem for other. I fall into the latter category. This is the conclusion or the wrap up of the story. The way they wrapped up the movie did not work for me at all and I even think it damaged the narrative that had been constructed.

Positives of the film included some excellent acting. Standout performances came from Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. Lily Gladstone has been called the heart of the picture, and I can see why. She does an amazing job as Mollie, a woman suffering form the pain of losing family members while dealing with her own health issues. You could feel for her constantly as she tried to take strength from her marriage, despite her husband being a conflicted a-hole.

That a-hole was Leonardo DiCaprio, who does a really great job playing this conflicted and manipulated man. Truly, I found my own opinions on Ernest to be filled with hatred as he continued to make poor choices in betrayal of his wife and her family all for the money.

This was the best performance of Robert DeNiro has given in years. His portrayal of William Hale is creepy and full of sinister behavior as he manipulates everyone to do what he wants them to do.

The technical aspects of Killers of the Flower Moon was exceptional. The film looked great and the directorial job from Scorsese is awesome.

This movie is good, but not great. Th length can be an issue, but it is a interesting story with some top notch performances.

3.5 stars

I was not sure if I was going to go to the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour so I asked my NEST/home room class if I should go. I told them that I did not know much about Taylor Swift but that I would be interested in reviewing the film for the EYG site. They told me that I should go…so I bought my ticket.

As I said, I know very little about Taylor Swift. Honestly, outside of Shake it Off, I could not name another Swift song. I did recognize the tune of the one song that Weird Al had parodied into the song “TMZ.”

I am going to be honest, a lot of these songs felt the same to me. I do think that most of that is because I do not know the songs. I did like the transitions between songs because many times, they just moved into a different song and you could tell the change.

Hearing some of these other songs, I realized that Taylor Swift was a real storyteller with her lyrics. There were some surprisingly deep words in these lyrics. I was actually impressed. However, I counted at least three F-Bombs and I wondered as I was watching the movie what the rating was, since usually one F-Bomb is allowed for PG-13.

The stage set up for this concert tour was spectacular. The LED screens and the stage craft was wonderful and some of the most creative ideas in execution. The moment Taylor Shift dove into the stage and started ‘swimming’ in the water beneath was a stunning achievement.

I also loved the back-up dancers, especially the black, heavier set man dancer. I was so impressed with him and the fact that they gave him a primary spot among the dancers. You normally do not see a man with this type of body style as a back-up dancer. However, I could not take my eyes of this gentleman when he was front and center. He was impressive.

I enjoyed the experience of watching this too. There was some singing in my theater and some waving arms etc. I would have liked more of that from the crowd I was with. I had expected more of that and I was looking forward to the energy that the audience was going to bring. I saw this in XD theater and the sound was amazing… rocking loud.

I had a real good time with this concert movie even with a performer that I did not know much about. Her music was entertaining and the shots of the concert by director Sam Wrench were excellent. If you are a fan of Taylor Swift, this will be an amazing experience. If you are not, give it a chance because you may become one afterwards.

4.2 stars

I am not sure what some people are thinking.

This documentary tells the tale of Russ McKamey and the McKamey Immersive Horror Haunted house, a place where the former US Navy veteran ‘hosts’ people who come to his house and he puts them through torturous situations.

The doc used only real footage, footage that was filmed during these events at the house and it was shocking what people would allow him to do to them. Waterboarding, burying them alive, or exploiting the guest’s deepest fears.

I was shocked at how many people appeared on the doc to support or defend Russ. There were several people who had signed up for the immersive house only to realize how wild and horrific and sadistic the situations would become.

I could have used more specifics or background on Russ McKamey, who appears in the videos as well, because it would be good to know more about him and his choices.

I wanted more from the doc, but the story it did tell was unbelievable.

3.1 stars

There was a new sci-fi/horror film that debuted on Hulu this week starring Lil Rel Howery called The Mill.

A businessman in the corporation Mallard woke up one day in an open-air prison with a grist mill in the center of the cell. An electronic voice indicated that he was here to increase his productivity because his work has been slipping lately. He had to push the mill to reach a quota daily or else he would receive consequences.

Joe (Lil Rel Howery) was desperate to get out of this prison so he could get back to his pregnant wife before she gave birth to his son.

The set up of the movie was interesting, but the premise was about all that was interesting for me. It does become repetitive after awhile with little development.

Howery was passable in the role, though he always felt like he may not have been leading character material. He was okay.

I hated the ending of the movie though. It felt like a giant cop out and there was nothing satifying about the conclusion.

I thought this might be an interesting film, but it did not expand to more than what it was. It was an obvious message film that was just not much to see.

2.5 stars