I am going to strive to not make any cat puns during this review.  We’ll see how well that goes.

There was a woman in my theater sitting two seats from me who was waving her hands in her face to keep from crying and she was clearly filled with joy over this movie.

I’m glad that she found joy here, because there was little to no joy to be found by me.

This was a total crap-show.

I’ll get the positives out of the way first.  God bless Ian McKellan.  He was the one actor, appearing as Gus the Theater Cat, who seemed to know what movie he was in.  When he meowed, I nearly fell out of my chair.

Second, the musical performance of Memory by Jennifer Hudson was astounding.  Hudson has an amazing voice and she put every last bit of emotion into that version.  I also have a special place in my heart for the song, Mr. Mistoffelees so I liked hearing that song.

That was about it.

You may wonder why I have not done the plot synopsis that I normal do.  Simple.  There is no plot here.  The story is severely lacking at best and at worst non-existent.   From what I can tell, the story was that each new Jellicle cat arrived and sang a song about who they were, hoping to be selected by Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) to be reborn into a new life on the Heaviside Layer.  No explanation of what any of that means, mind you, but there it is.

The biggest issue with the movie is the horrific CGI that made these wonderful actors into some kind of nightmarish cat/human hybrid.  It may look somewhat better than that terrible trailer they released earlier this year, but it still looked atrocious.  Jennifer Hudson was frightening as she performed her brilliant version of Memory.

There were times where I simply stared at the screen in utter shock over what I was seeing.

The tone of the film was scattershot.  One minute, it felt like the movie was intended to be a comedy (such as when James Corden and  Rebel Wilson were on screen) and in another minute it felt like a serious drama (when Judi Dench and Hudson were on screen).  Meanwhile, there were dancing and singing cats all over the place.

The size of the cats was inconsistent.  Some times they seemed as if they were supposed to be human sized.  Other times they seemed to be cat sized.  There was even a time, when they were walking on a rail, that they seemed to be tiny, almost mouse-sized.  This is just sloppy editing and direction.

Most of the music could not replace the story and it made much of the movie feel boring.  None of these characters that were introduced, outside of Gus, were interesting at all.  Macavity (Idris Elba) was the main villain, but there was little point to him.  He arrived to spirit away the individual cats so they would not be around for the selection.  This whole subplot was forced and irrelevant.

This may be a film that eventually will find its place as a cult movie or a film to be riffed by RaffTrax Live or some type. That would be purr-fect.

Dang it.  I didn’t make it.

0.9 stars 

In the immortal words of LOST’s John Locke, “We’re gonna need to watch that again.”

The LOST allusion is not completely out of left field because I saw Charlie on screen tonight as I was watching the final chapter in the Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker.  I know Dominic Monaghan has had other roles (including a huge one in Lord of the Rings) but he will always be Charlie Pace from Drive Shaft to me.

After the first viewing of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, I am torn.  I enjoyed the process of watching the movie, yet I have major issues with what I saw.  I was enjoying the film, but I am afraid that this could be one that I have a different opinion of as time movies along.

I am avoiding all spoilers for this movie review which means that there may not be much that I can talk about at this moment.

The Rise of Skywalker wraps up the third Star Wars trilogy in a way that tries to make everyone happy, and I think that many of the Star Wars fans will love this.  There were some really good moments that I liked too.  There was a ton of nostalgia in the film.  There were things that were fun to see.  There was some good humor here and most of the jokes worked for me.

There are some major issues too.  First, it was full of too much exposition.  They felt the need to explain most everything.  Second, the dialogue was not quite the sharpest we have see in this franchise.  Third, the pace of the film was a breakneck speed as the movie flew from point to point in the first part of the film.  fourth, I do not think that the trio of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega) had the connection that the film wanted them to have.  We just have not had enough of these three characters together.  I absolutely did not buy the relationship with Rey and Poe.  It felt false.

However, the biggest problem I had with this movie was there were so many scenes that were basically the exact same scenes from previous Star Wars movies.  As I was watching, I kept thinking that, “Oh that was from Empire.  Oh, now we are doing Return of the Jedi.”  It was not even just homages either.  It almost felt as if they took the exact scenes from the previous movies and just flipped around the characters a bit.

That would become very distracting for me as I was thinking about past movies instead of what was happening in the new one.  Because of this choice, there felt to be very little changes taken by J.J. Abrams and the creative forces behind the movie.  That certainly feels like a choice made because of the backlash that The Last Jedi suffered.  No matter what you think of The Last Jedi, you cannot deny that Rian Johnson took some big swings in that movie.  The Rise of Skywalker…not so much.  And some of The Last Jedi seemed to be wiped away with this movie too.  The Rise of Skywalker did not feel to be a follow-up to The Last Jedi, which brings into question the overall planning of the franchise.

And yet even with these problems, I enjoyed myself fairly well.  The third act was shaky for me, but the first hour and an half was a decent time at the movies.  That may sound like I am trying to stay on the fence, and that would sound that way because that is exactly what I am doing.  This is a movie where I need to reflect on what I saw and let my perceptions settle.  I do believe I need to see this again to solidify what I think about it.

I really liked the performances of Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley.  They were stand outs here.  It was heartbreaking to see Carrie Fisher again and watching how they resolved her absence was one of the tougher aspects of The Rise of Skywalker.  The film looked like a Star Wars movie, unlike the entire prequels, which looked like nothing more than a video game/computer graphic background.  There was some good action.  However, the plot is lackluster, if not lazy.  While I enjoyed a good part of the first hour and a half, the story being told was not the best ever.  It was basically a “we have to find this thing so we can go there and do this” type of a story and those are not the deepest plots imaginable.

I’m still not sure what my mind is on The Rise of Skywalker.  The more I type here, the more reflective I am about the film, the more it seems that I am being negative, but there is no denying that I had fun with the movie.  I did not feel that it wasted my time.  I am glad that I was there opening night and that I saw it with a full house.  It was a moment.  Perhaps this truly is a film that I need to see a second time before I commit to what I think.  I am afraid that Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is going to be that type of film where I initially feel one thing, but over time, it slips down the chart.  I don’t know.  But for now, despite the drawbacks I have, I am going to give it …

3.25 stars

That still feels too high of a number, but, for now, that is what I am going with.  You should see this movie for sure to allow yourself to make up your own mind.  Maybe some of the problems I have are not going to bother you.  I hope you all enjoy the movie.

In my opinion, Clint Eastwood has not made a really good movie for awhile.  He made some okay ones (The Mule, Sully, American Sniper) and some really bad ones (The 15:17 to Paris, Jersey Boys, J. Edgar).  This time, with Richard Jewell, Eastwood feels as if he is back on track.

This is the true story of security guard Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) who was the person to discover the backpack that contained the bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.  After a few days of calling him a hero, the FBI began looking at him as a suspect and the papers took that tidbit and ran with it.  Jewell had to face pressure on himself individually and with his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates) from the media constantly following him, camped outside their home and the perception of Richard as a bomber.

There are several strong performances in this movie that really help carry it.  The lead performance of Paul Walter Hauser is truly powerful.  He portrayed Richard as a man of principle and honor who had great respect for law enforcement until he could take it no longer.  His mother, played brilliantly by Kathy Bates, showed the pain and fear in every scene she was in.  Kathy Bates should really receive an Oscar nomination for this role.  Sam Rockwell was great as always as Richard’s lawyer, Watson Bryant, the eccentric lawyer who battled to give this man his life back.

There is a definite theme about the dangers of the media with how an untrue story can decimate a family, especially if the authority is not acting on facts.  The film also has some stings toward the FBI as well, as FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) tried several sneaky, underhanded tricks to try and get the naive Richard to implicate himself.  Shaw had formulated a theory and nothing was going to break him from that path.  Both of these can be plugged into today’s society easily.

The news media, in particular one journalist Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is portrayed in a very cartoonish light, which makes her very two-dimensional instead of the potentially fully filled out character she could have been.  It is interesting that Kathy Scruggs was a real person, but the FBI Agent Shaw is a fictionalized compilation of an agent.  Neither character gets much in way of development with Shaw never admitting that Jewell was not guilty.

I think an argument could be made about this film being too political and aspiring to present Eastwood’s side of thought, but, during the film, I did not feel as if it was tilted.  It was only after reading some background info on the situation that I thought there may be some fire to go with the smoke.

Either way, I did like this movie much more than Eastwood’s recent work and it does provide three top notch quality performances from three great actors.  If you keep it at that, Richard Jewell is an enjoyable watch.

3.7 stars 

I saw this on Netflix and I was intrigued.  I like Ryan Reynolds a lot.  Then I saw the director:  Michael Bay.

Now, I am not a Michael Bay hater, per se.  I mean, yes I hated the Transformers movies and there are other Bay movies that I disliked, but I also liked Pain & Gain, 13 Hours and The Rock.  So there is that.

6 Underground is THE MOST Michael Bay movie I have ever seen.  That may or may not be a good thing depending on who you are.  For me, it was definitely NOT a good thing..

What did it include?

Explosions ✔

Slow Motion ✔

Car Chases ✔

Explosions ✔

Montages with bad rock music ✔

Pop Culture references ✔

Explosions ✔

Needless shots of beautiful (usually scantily clad) women ✔

Explosions ✔

I checked out on this one very early.  I was bored.  Not even Ryan Reynolds’ charm could save this turd.

When it first came on screen, Reynolds said that he was a ghost and the ghost has one superpower, which was to haunt the living.  And I thought this was going to be the literal story.  I thought, “Hm, what a strange and intriguing idea.  Maybe RIPD with a better story or execution?”

Nope.  They meant “ghost” as a person who fakes their death to drop off the radar and then become a mercenary.  Suddenly much less interesting, but I gave it a chance.

The dialogue was terrible.  Nobody really talks like that.  None of the characters stood, with the possible exception of Corey Hawkins as Seven.  The rest are cliches and underwritten stereotypes.

I really should have watched The Mandalorian instead.  Michael Bay fans may love this.  I hope they do.

1 star

When Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle came out, I had very little interest (outside of Dwayne Johnson, whom I love).  The sequel had no business of being any good.  And yet, it crushed it, both critically and monetarily.

Could they do it again?  That was another point where I was just not sure and I was nervous about.

After seeing The Next Level, I have nothing to worry about.

Spencer (Alex Wolff) has been having problems since leaving the world of Jumanji.  It had become so bad that he decided to go back into the game for a chance to feel the power and confidence of Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson).  When his friends discovered that he had gone into Jumanji alone, they chose to follow him in to help him with his quest.

However, there were some switches of characters that were unexpected and brought a different set of challenges.  When you add Danny DeVito and Danny Glover into the mix, you amp up the comedy part of this comedy/adventure movie.

As with the previous movie, one of the best parts of The Next Level is the cast including Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black.  These four, especially Black and Hart, bring their A-game to this movie, providing an imitation of the actors/characters that is extremely well done.  Kevin Hart’s version of Danny Glover is spot on and never fails to be hilarious.

They also bring a plot point into the film as they near the third act that feels effective and helped to maintain the freshness of the performances, particularly Dwayne Johnson’s Danny DeVito imitation, which was threatening to run its course.  The plot point helped the movie dramatically.  It was also something that made sense in the world of video games.

There are similarities to Welcome to the Jungle, but I feel that they tweaked sections in different ways that really helped to provide the variety in the scenes.  Plus, it is just a fun and extremely funny movie with lots of adventure.

The CGI was very well done with all of the animals that the group had to face.  The herd of ostriches was especially great.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire Jumanji: The Next Level.  The changes they made were refreshing and the adjustment through the movie made perfect sense in storytelling.  The cast is still the selling point of this movie as they are able to show their talents and knowledge of these characters, while clearly having fun making this movie.  A very worthy addition to the Jumanji franchise.

4.4 stars

I had never seen the previous versions of Black Christmas, the 1974 original, which horror aficionados consider a classic in the slasher genre, or the 2006 remake, so I was not weighed down by any previous feelings toward the film.

However, I had seen the trailer fro this new version, and I feel that, after viewing the trailer, I basically saw the film itself.  I was not sure why I needed to see this movie since they showed me so much in the trailer.  Film critic William Bibbiani tweeted that he thought so initially too, but that, after seeing it, the film held more back than he thought.  Okay, so I decided to give it a chance.

After seeing it, I do still think they gave way too much away in the trailer, but there are a few things that are left for discovery in the movie.  One of the biggest was actually one of the parts I liked the least.

I have heard a lot of negative reviews directed towards Black Christmas (2019) but I did not think it deserved as much vitriol as it has received.  It is fine.

A group of sorority sisters were being hunted by an underground cult/cabal from a misogynistic fraternity who were looking to force women in their proper place.  Riley (Imogen Poots) had a past experience with the fraternity that has informed her opinion and the opinions of the others in her sorority.

I was actually enjoying a good chunk of the opening hour or so of the film, but I thought the ending went fairly wanky and relied too much on exposition to reveal what the film needed us to know.  The last half hour or so weakened the film for me.

I also believe that Cary Elwes, who played Professor Gelson, was totally wasted here.  He had some early scenes that could have been creepy and mysterious had the trailer not spoiled it for me.

The message of this movie could have benefited from being more subtle than it was.  There is a clear and unmistakably apparent message that is drilled throughout the film and, while it is a very important message for today’s world, it was less effective with the preachy aspect of it.  The best horror films use symbolism to provide a message in the story, but it does not have to be as blatant as it is in Black Christmas.

The cast does a solid job of making me feel for the characters and to draw the contrast between them.  Each girl had a trait or quirk that made them individuals, something that a lot of these movies do not take the time to do.  A special shout out to Aleyse Shannon, who played Kris, who I thought was one of the most interesting actors in the ensemble.  You could see the spark while she was on screen.

I am torn about whether to recommend this film.  On one hand, I do think it is a better film than it is getting credit for, but it clearly has some major issues in storytelling and theme.  In the end, I walked out of the theater with the mindset that it was better than I expected and so, I will give it the slight recommendation.   And if you can go into Black Christmas without seeing the trailer, do it.

3 stars

This one felt strange to me.

First, I would state that the performances in Waves are top notch, especially from Taylor Russell as Emily and Kelvin Harrison Jr as Tyler.  Most of the film is shot beautifully and it does have some emotional wallop in the story.

However, it also feels as if the story itself was all over the place.  Overlong and erratic, Waves seemed to completely switch the story about two-thirds through the film where the main protagonist is changed and the focus on the film changes dramatically.  It was really a strange watch.

The film starts focusing on Tyler, a high school wrestler who seems to have everything, and we see how his life begins to unravel and how these stresses and problems take a toll on his life.  His slow descent into anger is difficult to watch as he continued to make poor decisions.  Those decisions were taking effects on the people in his life.  His overbearing and hard-nosed father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown) is pushing his son hard in every part of his life.

A shoulder injury threatened to end his wrestling.  His girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) brings an unexpected problem and everything starts to weigh down Tyler.

There were amazing performances here and there were several real emotional moments.  They had some great shots and director Trey Edwards Shults does an admirable job doing things that are outside the box.

I was engaged until the strange shift in the narrative which felt so weird.  It dropped what was being a solid film into one where I still liked but found clunky.  After the switch, Taylor Russell was still exceptional (she brought a beautiful presence to the screen) and she has a bright future ahead of her.  She will be a star.  Lucas Hedges was really fantastic too.    The problem is theor parts just came out of nowhere.  The film never got its flow back after the flip.

3.3 stars

There has been lots of buzz for Marriage Story, the new film directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, which tells the story of a couple heading for divorce.

I had heard some great things about Marriage Story, but honestly it did not sound like something that I was going to be interested in.  After opening in select theaters, Marriage Story would wind up streaming on Netflix so viewing it would be simple.  Still, it was not something that I was anticipating.

Then I saw it.

Wow.  What a brilliant movie.

Adam Driver plays a stage director named Charlie and Scarlett is his wife and actress Nicole.  The film starts off in a beautiful way, but then it pulls the rug out from you.  I won’t reveal how because it is a wonderful opening.

They have a son named Henry (Azhy Robertson).  They work on their play in New York and then Nicole got a pilot in Los Angeles.  This is what started the end of the marriage, though there were other factors in pay already.

Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are utterly awesome in these roles. They bring such humor and pain to every minute and nothing is wasted. You can see from both points of view during the film with neither side being completely wrong, but not completely right either.  I can not imagine that Driver or Johansson will not be nominated for Academy Awards for these roles. If they are ignored, that would be a terrible snub.

This is a wonderful character driven story that focuses on its great leads, but there are also some amazing supporting characters in the movie.  Alan Alda and Laura Dern are potentially award deserving for their roles as divorce lawyers who are both straight forward but also two-faced.  You can tell why lawyers get a bad reputation from some of the tactics that they take, and yet they are clearly real people who have feelings and are complex.  We also have Ray Liotta, Shawn Wallace, and Julie Hagerty in supporting roles that are original and fun.

There are some scenes that simply dropped my jaw.  There is one scene between Johansson and Driver where they are fighting that was utterly tense and distressing.  This would be their Oscar submission, I think.

This movie is filled with pain, but also a joy of life that comes through clearly.  Divorce is a difficult time and it leaves scars, but it is something that you can make it through.  I was surprised how much I loved this movie.  I did not expect to love it this much, but the two lead actors are so great, and the film is so well created that you cannot help but llove it.

5 stars

This is a true story that is just shocking because you have no option but to accept the fact that the world is full of just evil people who do terrible things to people over money.  There is no denying it.  Some companies have individuals who will hide the most amoral acts because for these acts to be revealed will lose the companies money.

Mark Ruffalo is tremendous as always playing a real life hero Robert “Rob” Bilott, a corporate lawyer who gets involved with a farmer from his hometown whose cows are dying at an alarming rate.  Turns out that the corporation DuPont has been dumping poisonous chemicals into West Virginia landfills that comes from the creation of Teflon.

Watching what this case does to Mark Ruffalo’s character is one of the biggest takeaways from this movie.  The affect of this case on his health, his marriage, his career is just shocking, making this real life man all the more heroic in that he continued to fight through all of the years.

And watching DuPont pull their dirty, underhanded tricks was just as powerful.  Victor Gerber played DuPont CEO Phil Donnelly and there are times when even he shows the anguish of what he is doing to hide this secret.  Gerber does a great job providing this monster of a man with some humanity after all.

Rob’s wife Sarah (Anne Hathaway) is as affected by the case as her husband is and you see how she deals with the stress and, at times, the danger that she has been brought into unwillingly.  Anne Hathaway gives a top notch and human performance.

The investigation of the case is fascinating and very interesting to me.  I am amazed at some of the things that happen and admire the individuals involved for their perseverance.

The movie did get a tad long at times, but it actually does an admirable job following this case along for what turned out to be years.  It was the third movie I saw today and that may have contributed to the feeling of length for me.

This movie poster says that “from Participant, who brought you Spotlight and The Post.”  Participant is a production company that has apparently done a bunch of really great movies.  Spotlight and The Post both share some DNA with Dark Waters.  They have the same feel and the same tone to them.  Hopefully they continue to find these true stories that deserve more focus because I had no idea about this until I saw the promotion of this movie.  And this is something that we all should know.

4.1 stars 

I do not think that I am going to have much to say about this one.

It was terrible.

It was a poor man’s Lego Movie and it did not work anywhere near that.

We started with live action as Anya Taylor-Joy as Marla and Gabriel Bateman as Charlie, a brother and sister whose parents died in a car crash years ago and that moment shifted their relationship.  They wind up getting caught in a mysterious world where they are PLAYMOBIL® characters with their locked out legs and pincher fingers.  They get separated (Charlie, who is in a body of a viking with super strength) and Marla has to try to find her brother before it is too late.

The story was dumb.  The voice acting was adequate.  The animation was fine, but it was clearly wanting to be more like The Lego Movie and it fails at that.

Instead of trying to be the Lego Movie, it should have been its own thing and find the strength of PLAYMOBIL®.  There did not seem to be any.  It was dull and predictable and the secondary characters all made me think of other, more iconic characters.  There was a character that made me think of James Bond.  One that made me think of Boba Fett.  One that made me think of Zach Galifianakis.  Pirate guy too.  The villain was basically Nero from Rome.  Just imitations of better toys or characters.

This is already more than I intended to talk about this movie.  The music was pretty lacking as well.  Save yourself some time and just re-watch The Lego Movie.  It is much better .

1.6 stars 

Shia LaBeouf based this film on his own personal experiences.  This makes me want to reconsider my thoughts on Shia as an actor because he clearly had demons that he had to get through.

Honey Boy stars Shia LaBeouf as James Lort, the father and personal assistant of a young child star named Otis (Noah Jupe).   We also see Otis as a young adult (Lucas Hedges) facing the darkness of his past while he is in rehab.  Honey Boy plays out in both time lines with powerhouse performances as the relationship between father and son takes center stage.

Noah Jupe is downright spectacular.  The brilliance of this performance, as he has to face off with Shia LaBeouf in a high percentage of scenes, is unbeleivable.  This young actor goes through so many emotions and feelings during this film and he does so believably and passionately.  It is one of the best child performances of the year, if not the decade.  So much rides on this young boy to carry the weight of these scenes in the face of Shia LaBeouf, who is giving one of the best performances of his own career.  Noah Jupe makes this film.

I was less impressed with Lucas Hedges in the older Otis role because I feel as if I had seen this before.  Still, I don’t want to criticize him too badly because there is some solid work by Hedges, but the film really pops when Shia LaBeouf and Noah Jupe are on the screen.

Every moment that Shia LaBeouf and Noah Jupe share you feel the sensation that at any second all hell could break loose.  It is a noticeable anxiety faced by the audience between these two characters.  You can see how much young Otis just wants to have his father be a father to him, but you are always wondering if James is capable of doing that.  No matter how cruel or obnoxious James is, Otis wants a real relationship.

You can tell that James loves his son, but it seems as if he does not trust himself to be worthy of Otis, especially with Otis in a more prominent position as money provider.

There are some dark and heartbreaking scenes in this movie that stick with you long after you leave the theater.  It is truly an intimate story from the world of fame and the personal struggles that go along with it.

4.3 stars