This past year’s Oscar nominated animated movies included one that I had not heard of before but could be found on Netflix.  Placing it on my queue, I would hope to get back to I Lost My Body, a film by Jeremy Clapin.

It truly is one of the more original animated films in a long time and a beautiful story, told through some wonderful animation.

We are following the severed hand of a young boy named Naoufel (Hakim Faris) in the hand’s attempt to find its way from the dissection lab back to the boy.  Along the way, the story is told in a series of flashbacks to prior events from the life of Naoufel.  This included his meeting and falling for Gabrielle (Victiore Du Bois), a librarian whom he meets while attempting unsuccessfully to deliver her pizza order.

The film keeps you wondering exactly what was happening and how it is happening.  You wonder what exactly has happened to Naoufel and how his hand became severed… and sentient.

While many of those questions are left for the audience to ponder, you can’t help but relate to Naoufel, whose mistakes are obvious, but done with an attempt to cure the loneliness that has plagued his life since the death of his parents.

I Lost My Body is an adult animation as there are situations and dialogue that would be too old for some children.  Still, it is a beautifully designed story and the animation is exceptional.  Especially the use of the sentient hand, which goes through so much in its hope to find its body.

I certainly can see why this was nominated for an Oscar, and I can understand those people who thought it should have won.  It is one of the most original animated films you are going to find.  Honestly, though, the ending left me a little cold and wanted for more of a resolution.  With that exception, the movie is a great experiment in storytelling and narrative.

Yesterday, I went to see the new Will Farrell/Julia Louis Dreyfus movie called Downhill.  After seeing it, I discovered that it was a remake of a Swedish film called Force Majeure from 2014.  The word was the original film was better than the remake and, when I heard it was on Hulu, I was curious to see what it was like.  How I felt about it compared to the one I saw on Sunday.

The story is the same.  A family of four go on a ski vacation in the Alps and have an intense experience with a controlled avalanche while they.  Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), the father,  grabbed his phone and ran off instead of helping his wife and kids.  This act of survival cut his family to its core.

Some of the reactions in the movie are different than from Downhill.  There is more subtly to the performances here.  Lisa Loven Kongsli played the mother Ebba and her reaction to the event She seemed to hide it more than Julia Louis Dreyfus did, even though Ebba’s feelings come out several times.

The children in this version have some strange reactions too and I their reactions are never quite handled sufficiently.

This version was funnier than Downhill.  This one found the comedy in very European manner.  It was more subtle and more inside the situation.

I am not sure what I thought of this ending.  It really seemed to go out of the way to make it okay for Tomas at the expense of the other characters.

I found this to be a better time than Downhill, but I did not think it was remarkably better and I am just not sure how I felt about the conclusion.

This was a movie that has been on my to watch list for awhile now.  It was introduced to me by watching the Top 10 Show and hearing John Rocha speak about it being his favorite Western.  I have not seen near as many Westerns as most other genres, so I wanted to give this a go and this morning fit the time perfectly.

The Searchers starred legendary John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, a hard nosed cowboy who returned to his brother’s home from the war.  After he returned, Comanche Indians attacked the house, killing several of the women and kidnapping two girls.  Ethan and some of the other men started out after the Comanche, who were led by the mysterious Scar (Henry Brandon) in an attempt to gain revenge and save the two girls.

Ethan Edwards was anything but a straight hero.  He was violent, hard-headed and stubborn, clinging to his own thoughts even if the evidence stated differently.  However, he was also a imposing figure that could be respected for his toughness.

This is perhaps John Wayne’s greatest role and he does an admirable job bringing the layers to a character that could easily have been one-note.

Some of the humor does not fit well in the film and some of the secondary characters are superfluous, but that is a minor criticism to make when the main character is such a ripe and vital creation.

The film is beautifully shot by iconic Western director John Ford, bringing the age of the Western into a different style.

If you have not seen The Searchers, you should absolutely seek it out.  It is one of the best Westerns I have seen and was a huge inspirations for the exceptional Westerns that followed.

I decided to prepare for the 2020 Oscars tonight by watching a film on Amazon Prime that I had missed last year.  The film?  The VelociPastor.

Oh my god.

How exactly am I supposed to review this thing?

I mean, it could be one of the worst movie ever made, but I spent the entire film laughing my head off.  I was thoroughly entertained by the ridiculous movie.

As a critic, this is just horrendous.  As a movie fan, I loved it.

After his parents died in a car bomb, Pastor Doug Jones (Gregory James Cohan) went to China (sort of) to find his faith.  Instead of faith, he found a dying woman who gave him a dinosaur tooth.  After accidentally cutting himself with the tooth, Doug discovered that he could turn into a dinosaur.  Along with the hooker Carol (Alyssa Kempinski), Doug decided to use his new found ability to kill off the bad guys.

I knew immediately after seeing the words “VFX: Car on Fire” appeared on the screen instead of seeing the actual car on fire that this was going to be one wild ride.  And I was not wrong.

We got ninjas, completely extraneous flashbacks to the war, exploding girlfriends, rubbery heads and some of the worst acting and dialogue you are ever going to see.  And it was laugh out loud funny.  I mean, they had to do this on purpose, right?

You can’t make something this bad and not do it on purpose… right?

I cannot wait to see RiffTrax get their hands on this film because it is hilarious as it is and, when they add their own touch to it, it will be undeniably perfect.

This falls into the category of so bad it is good along with such non-classics as Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Manos: Hands of Fate, The Room, Octaman and Samurai Cop.  Because of that, I have instituted a brand new category for Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed.  It was a long time in coming, but this is the perfect example to kick off the category.

The second football film today is Mark Wahlberg’s role as 30-year old bartender Vince Papale who tried out for a position on the Philadelphia Eagles.  This true story took place in 1976,

Greg Kinnear plays NFL coach Dick Vermeil, the man who gives Papale his chance to make the team and stuck with him against the backlash.

The film is fairly by-the-numbers but it tells a great story of perseverance and grit.  How if you give your best effort and stay on target, you can accomplish your goals.

Yes, there are the typical sport movie cliches here.  Most of them do.  I would give a true story a little bit of leeway compared to a fictional one.

Wahlberg is good in the movie and Kinnear continues to do solid work.

While there is nothing that really stands out in Invincible, the power of the true story comes through above everything else.  It is worth the watch.

So, apparently, there is some kind of big game happening today.

Super Bowl LIV is today, with the Kansas City Chiefs facing off with the San Francisco 49ers.  In honor of the game, I decided to do a mini-binge on some football movies starting off with The Replacements.

A strike sends the regular players out of the NFL and the owners decide to enlist replacement players to finish the season.  Replacement coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) brings in a crew of oddballs and has-beens, led by quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves).

There was a definite Major League vibe to the Replacements, though nowhere near as good.  The Replacements has some light hearted fun, but there are too many cliches or scenes that simply seem like something I have already seen.

The first thing that made me wonder about the movie was how the owner (Jack Warden) was shown as a good guy where as the players were millionaire jerks who just were concerned about money.  Football owners are billionaires so their complaining about football players making money feels pretty fickle… and the asshole athlete is a huge cliche.  Certainly something that we have seen plenty of times before.  And even with the owner making a power play at the end, that did not change how I thought of the beginning of the film.

The rest of the movie included all of the sports movie cliches that you have seen before.  There are not too many surprises.

I did like Pat Summerall and John Madden were fun in their roles too.

And there is no realism here at all.  That might not be the worst thing for a sports comedy, but there has to be some rules to the game.

My favorite scene though was the jailhouse dance scene to “We Will Survive.”  That was a fun and engaging moment.  They had a few light-hearted moments like that, but. overall, the film was forgettable.

For awhile, I thought Bad Boys II was going to be better than Bad Boys.  It started promising.

Then it took a serious nose dive.

Corpses falling on to the road and being run over by cars during chases type nose dive.

Bad Boys II was every bit as juvenile, childish, dumb as its predecessor.  Maybe more so, even.

I have never been a fan of Michael Bay movies and this movie is everything that I hate about them.  It legitimately feels as if this is directed by a 13-year old.  There are a couple of interesting ideas in the film, but they are completely crushed by the immature and downright disrespectful insults of the plot, characters and dialogue.

Will Smith is still the strength of the film, showing his natural and easy chemistry.  If only he had something worth displaying that chemistry in.  Instead, he is covered with hatred toward homosexuals, fat people, women… just to name a few.  There is so much disrespect and hatred here that it chokes the movie.

When you also consider that this film is way too long, Bad Boys II is just a nightmare of a film.

I appreciate that there are some people who loved this movie and who find the Michael Bay-isms fun.  Some say it is just a big, action movie with some humor.  If that is your jam, so be it.  This is just not a film I enjoy.

I guess I am as prepared for Bad Boys for Life as I ever am going to get…

Sick day.

I thought this would give me the opportunity to watch Bad Boys and Bad Boys II, preparing for Bad Boys for Life this weekend.  I had never seen either of these Michael Bay movies and I figured I needed to see them for the third film.

However, I am not sure that I can watch the second film because I am sick enough.

This was just stupid.  The story was ridiculous.  People do not talk like this.  It is loud, dumb and filled with Bay-isms.

I could not believe how much I hated this film.

Will Smith was good in this limited role.  Martin Lawrence was loud, obnoxious and clearly an influence on Kevin Hart because I have seen him play roles just like this.  Whatever positive could be said about this movie would be found in the chemistry between Smith and Lawrence, but a little of it went way too far.

What was the story?  It had to do with heroin.  Tea Leoni was here too for some reason.

The film was homophobic, misogynistic, violent all blended together.  I really disliked Bad Boys.  It makes me wonder if I should watch Bad Boys II or Bad Boys for Life.

Following up the first Rescuers film that I watched the other day, this was the one I was looking forward to more.

I do not think I ever saw this one despite a definite pull for me.  Tristan Rogers voiced the kangaroo rat, Jake, and Rogers was one of my favorite people at the time.  He starred on General Hospital as Robert Scorpio and I loved him.  So hearing that he was voicing a character in the Disney film should have made me excited, but watching it today, there was nothing that I remembered.

Young Australian boy Cody (Adam Ryen) frees a golden eagle from a poacher’s trap, bonding with the bird in the process, but he winds up being snatched by the poacher (George C. Scott) in an attempt to get the location of the eagle’s nest.  Word heads out and eventually reaches the Rescuers in New York.

Bernard (Bob Newhart) is preparing to pop the question to his partner and love Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor) when they get the cry for help.  Chartering a flight on Albatross Airlines, new pilot Wilbur (John Candy) got the pair to Australia where they meet up with guide Jake (Tristan Rogers).  The trio of mice ventured into the Outback to try and rescue the boy.

I found this charming and fun.  A couple of the story arcs felt unnecessary, but I enjoyed the main story.  The voice work is strong.  The animation is the typically good style Disney films use.

There is a scene where Cody winds up with a bunch of animals in cages captured by the poacher, but they never returned to them.  My first thought at the end of the movie was “What about the other animals?  Are they gonna starve to death in those cages?”

Despite that plot hole, The Rescuers Down Under continued its strategy of simple storytelling and heroic action.  It is a wonderful family film that I think I like a little bit more than the original, though there may be a bias involved with Tristan Rogers involved.  I still enjoyed myself.

A film that I have not seen since I was very little happened to be on Disney + and was one of the films that I was looking forward to revisiting on the streaming service.

Honestly, there was not a lot of The Rescuers that I remember.  It has been around 40 years since I saw this (if I actually saw it at all).

Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor voiced the main characters Bernard and Miss Bianca, two mice from the Rescue Aid Society, who responded to a help note in a bottle of a little girl named Penny (Michelle Stacy) who had been kidnapped from out of the orphanage she lived in.  The girl had been taken by the villainous Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page) and her companion Mr. Snoops (Joe Flynn) to force her to find the diamond that Madame Medusa has been searching for for years.

The story of The Rescuers is pretty simple.  There were things that I thought could have been developed more, such as the fact that Bernard was just a janitor and not an actual agent, but that fact did not seem to ever really come up in any significant manner.  There are plenty of examples like this scattered throughout The Rescuers.  Truthfully, these potential plot points would have cluttered this up too much.

The fact is this is a simple good vs. evil story, with one of the more cruel villains in Madame Medusa.  The design of the character in the animation reminded me quite a bit of Carol Burnett’s portrayal of Miss Hannigan from the Annie movie.

There was a very intense chase scene with a mosquito being chased by a bunch of bats that was excellent, which was something that I never thought I would type.

The music was nice, but not memorable. There are some scenes and moments that were pretty dark for a Disney film.  Especially the healing power of moonshine alcohol.

There are plenty of recognizable voices throughout the film as well. I heard George Lindsey (Andy Griffith Show), Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney from Green Acres), Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay), John Fielder (Piglet) and John McIntire (Sheriff from Psycho).  The voices worked well.

The Rescuers was a quick watch and was a fun animated movie.  It is not a very deep story, but as a light and fluffy film, it is pretty good.  There are some scary scenes, but they help create tension for the viewer.

The last couple of years, I have had a tradition with my mom to watch a movie on Christmas Eve.  Last year we went to the theater and saw Mary Poppins Returns, but this year there was just not much that I thought she would enjoy at the theater.  Certainly wasn’t taking her to Cats.  So, since this year I got Disney +, I figured we could watch a film in the comfort of home.

Looking through the tons of films available on Disney +, I came across Saving Mr. Banks, the story of how the film Mary Poppins was made.  I loved this movie when I saw it and I figured this would be a great film to watch with mom.

P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) resisted selling the rights to her creation, Mary Poppins, to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) for years, but a need for money put her in a situation she had not faced prior.  Travers went to Los Angeles to see if she could handle selling the rights or if giving them up would be too much for her.

The story of Mary Poppins was a very personal one for Travers as she wrote this book with her father Travers Goff (Colin Ferrell) in mind.  The film shows us flashbacks from P.L’s (her real name being Helen, nicknamed “Ginty”) childhood, revealing the traumas that influenced her life and her work.

She feared that Walt Disney would turn her deeply personal work into fluff and fantasy.  There have been debate on the ending of the film as Travers had claimed to have hated the movie, angered at how Disney treated her character.  Some say that Disney railroaded Travers into giving up the rights for Mary Poppins.  The film gives a different story, of course.  It is a film by Disney which makes you wonder about the correctness.  This is not a documentary though and the film brings some strong emotions to each scene.

The first time I saw this movie, I found the flashbacks a tad dull, but this time, I appreciated the importance of these scenes to the character of P.L. Travers.  Truthfully, Colin Farrell is absolutely astounding as her father.

There are other wonderful performances in Saving Ms. Banks as well.  Emma Thompson is excellent as the main character and the ever talented Tom Hanks seemed born to play the role of Walter Disney.  Paul Giamatti was great as the kind-hearted limo driver Ralph who bonded with Travers.  Bradley Whitford was writer Don DaGradi and Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak were the iconic songwriting pair, Richard and Robert Sherman.

The “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” segment in this movie is one of my favorite scenes in any Disney film.  There is just so much hopefulness in the scene and the actors look to be having a blast.

Those who see Disney as the evil overlords will see conspiracies throughout this movie and will not like it.  I thought it was lovely, filled with great performances and very emotional.

My memory of this movie was that it was my favorite of the prequels, but that it was not a film that I loved.  Looking back on Disney + at the film in preparation for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, I pretty much confirmed that opinion.

It was far and away better than the previous two Star Wars movies, but it still had big time problems that kept me from really loving the film.  Interestingly enough, The Last Jedi had some big time problems but that did not prevent me from loving it.  I wonder how much stench on this film was still being left by Attack of the Clones?

I will say the same thing about this film that I said about the previous prequels.  There is too many light saber fights.  Everybody is fighting with the light sabers and because of that, those cool possible moments (like Obi-Wan vs. General Grievous ) would have felt so much more special instead of just another CGI fight.

And the CGI continued to be a problem as everything lacked the realistic feel.  There was too many scenes taking place in a pristine world that just did not fit with Star Wars worlds.

I sis not buy Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side.  It felt as if it were coming out of left field and that he had not been pushed enough.  Hayden Christensen was better here, but he still had that whininess about him that took away from the overall character.  Then, slaughtering all of the Jedi children was much darker than I thought Anakin was.  It felt unearned… something that I just had a hard time believing Anakin would do.

The light saber fight between Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of the film was well done, but it felt as if it were too long.  Much like the fight between Superman and Zod at the end of Man of Steel, I think if they had shortened this up, it would have been more effective.

This was the best Ewan McGregor was as Obi-Wan, and I almost wished this was the way Obi-Wan was for the full prequels.  His dialogue was still not great, but the character was much more interesting than before.

And there was the scene that was iconic…but for all the wrong reasons.  We see Darth Vader in full outfit for the first time in the prequels and what happened?  Noooooooooooooooooo!  You were not the only ones yelling that, Anakin.

There are plenty of plot holes and things that do not make sense here when you look at the original Star Wars trilogy, but that will just have to be ignored.  Like why does Obi-Wan, in A New Hope, says to Luke that he does not remember ever owning a droid?  I mean.. it is C3PO and R2D2.  Sure, maybe they wiped the C3PO memory, but did they wipe Obi-Wan’s as well?  How about when Yoda says, in response to Obi-Wan stating that Luke was thei rlast hope, “no, there is another.”  Should Obi-Wan know that since he was there when Luke and Leia were born?

But despite this lack of continuity, Revenge of the Sith was definitely a step up from the previous two films and, while it may have had its share of problems. it was a much more enjoyable film.  Maybe this looked as good as it did because of what it followed, but I do believe that they made some strides.

Star Wars Episode IV is under a week away now, and I got stuck after The Phantom Menace.  Two reasons:  one, I got busy.  Two, I really wasn’t looking forward to watching Attack of the Clones again.

Finally, as I was working on the In Memorandum for the 2019 Year in Review section of the web site, I put the movie on in the background.

You could tell that the movie was not my main interest.  And with good reason.

Episode II was the worst of the Star Wars movies when I first watched them back in the early 2000s, and time has not improved my opinion of this one.  In fact, by now, the CGI is so much better that the CGI in this film looked terrible.  I don’t know how many times I looked over to the screen and saw what was clearly a green screen.  I had to laugh a couple of times, and then I had to look away a couple of times.

The CGI in the prequels was one of the biggest problems because it made everything look too pristine. Star Wars was always dirtier, grittier.  That was gone in these movies and it was desperately missing.

Poor Hayden Christopher… he was terrible in these movies. I feel that he was tossed into the deep end of the pool too soon.  I know he is a better actor than what we saw here, but he was simply bad here. The dialogue was just shockingly bad.  I think some of my middle school students would write more realistic dialogue than this.

The whole romance between Anakin and Padme was so forced and so unbeleivable that it did damage to the entire idea of the prequels, which was to show the “origin” of Darth Vader.  To show how Luke and Leia’s father took the path to the Dark Side of the Force and became the most evil villain in the galaxy.

Even the action at the end is not good because all they have are a bunch of light sabers carving up some droids.  I found the whole fight boring.  Even the Yoda/Dooku showdown was lacking.  I found it hard to believe that Yoda was as active as he was in that fight.  Wasn’t he limping around with a cane?

There is just too much of the light sabers in this film (all of the prequels to be honest) and that makes those less special.

It feels as if these Jedi are not the Jedi that Yoda and Obi-Wan spoke about in Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back.  These Jedi are much more quicker to react violently, which I thought was a quick path to the Dark Side.

The whole Jango Fett and little Boba was a waste of time too.  Oh and Jedi Master Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) sure lopped off Jango’s head pretty fast.

This is the definitive low point in this series as Attack of the Clones was just not what anyone wanted.  You can tell that the creators wanted this to be the Empire Strikes Back of the prequels, but, unfortunately, it did not reach that goal at all.  It did so much damage that even a reasonably okay third film (we’ll see about that) could not save the franchise.

Revenge of the Sith is next up.

I am about halfway through Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and I am not sure I will get through the rest.  This is way worse than I remember.

The goal, of course, is to watch the prequels in preparation for the final Episode of the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker, which opens on December 20th.

Still, this is tough.

There was more light saber use in the first 20 minutes of this movie than there was in the entire trilogy prior.  That is not a good thing.

Jar Jar Binks.  Ugh.  Just horrendous.

The dialogue?  Cringeworthy.  Actually, cringeworthy may be too kind of a description.

Poor little Jake Lloyd.  It really isn’t his fault.  He was doing his best, but Anakin Skywalker introduced in this manner was a huge mistake.  Of course, Jake was not the worst actor on the screen.  His mother was barely registering any emotion.  Jake did not deserve the amount of hate that he garnered for the role.

There are so many racist characters in this movie.  Completely unnecessary.

Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor could have done so much more than what they were given.  The villainous Darth Maul was wasted in the movei for, what was basically, one fight.  That fight with the Jedis was pretty decent, but there could have been so much more.

Oh, and these Jedis sure are quick to use violence to solve their problems.  I thought that was the quickest way to the Dark Side.  Maybe I misunderstood.

The inclusion of C3PO and R2D2 really felt awkward.  So C3PO was made by young Vader?  Hm, that sounds odd.

Midi-chlorians?  Quick way to take the power of the universe that surrounds us all and turn it into a weird blood virus.  To be fair, Star Wars realized that this was a huge mistake and kind of let these midi-chlorians fade away into the ether.

Hey, it is Greg Proops!  I knew that voice of the pod race announcer and, when I looked it up, I found the awesome Mr. Proops, one of the rotating regulars of Whose Line is it Anyway.  I have found a positive!

These movies miss that practical effect feel that the original trilogy had.  This is way too “clean” for what it should have been.  Too much green screen.  It makes these movies too artificial.

I had hoped to find something more than I remembered in this film, but, alas, there may be even less.

Bringing George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy to a close is Return of the Jedi, Episode VI.  Return of the Jedi is a, mostly, satisfying conclusion to the original trilogy and kept the Star Wars fans happy for years after its release.

Return of the Jedi begins with one of the best action pieces in the entire series, the attack on Jabba’s compound on Tatooine.  With every new piece the movie sets up a tremendous battle over the Great Pit of Carkoon where the sarlacc lives.  All of our heroes are involved and we get to see both the new and improved Jedi Knight Luke and the recently out of carbonite Han.  Metal bikini clad Leia completed the trio with her mastery of choke chains.

The second part of the movie is less consistent as the opening scene, though it is still very compelling.  The whole Luke-Vader-Emperor angle of the film is just amazing, with Luke’s determination to save his father’s soul being a huge driving force for the film.  The confrontation between Luke and the Emperor is tense and nerve-wracking.  However, the section on Endor with the Ewoks feels too cute and cuddly.  It is believed that the main purpose of the Ewoks was to sell toys.

Of course, there are some good moments with the Ewoks too.  Rumor has it though that the Ewoks were originally intended to be Wookies, which would have been all forms of epic.  It would have made more sense to see the Wookies help take down the Imperial forces than it was to see the Ewoks.  Branches and rocks vs. blasters and AT-AT does not make much strategic logic.

Yet, the death of Nanta the Ewok is a very emotional scene, considering they are just teddy bears.

In the end, Return of the Jedi is am enjoyable end to the Star Wars trilogy.  The good parts are fantastic and the weaker parts are still decent.  Return of the Jedi leads into what seems like a happy ending for our heroes and its fans.