What happens when you are a grounded, low key super powers movie released limited one week before the biggest, most massive super hero film of all time gets released?  Yes, you get lost in the shuffle.

So it was gone from theaters super quick.

However, I heard Marc Bernardin, writer and podcaster, speak about the movie on Fatman Beyond, the podcast that he does with Kevin Smith, and he raved about it.  I remember hearing him back when it first came out too, singing Fast Color’s praises.  He called it the best “X-Men movie that you have never seen.”  It intrigued me, so I went to Vudu and looked for it, and, lo and behold, there it was.  So I rented it and got to it tonight.

He was right.  The movie is excellent.

In a world where water has become a scarcity, there was a young woman Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who had discovered that she has some powers.  However, she had trouble controlling them, leading her to leave her mother Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and father Ellis (David Strathairn).  She turned to drugs and alcohol, but nothing helped.  When she gave birth to her daughter, she returned and left the child with her mother to raise.

Pursued by government officials who intend on examining her, Ruth returned to her mother’s farmhouse, sober, and tried to repair the relationship with her and with her daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney).

There is a lot of under the surface things happening here as well.  The film examines the bloodline of this family of females and how these powers wind up being passed along through the generations.  It looks at family and at the relationships and choices people make.

There are some great performances by all actors involved and each one makes their character their own.  Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a total standout and could easily find a role in a big time franchise.  She carries herself like a star and it will be just a matter of time before she is in something massive.

Saniyya Sidney is exceptional as well.  She brings hope and emotion to the young girl. She hopes that her mother is here for good.  The actress carries a big chunk of the film.  And Lorraine Toussaint (who was Vee in Orange is the New Black) was a powerhouse as Ruth’s mother.

Films like this can be lost in the shuffle against the juggernauts like major studio franchise films so it is important to remember them when they show up on these services.  Or even better, see them in the theater.

4.3 stars

Sorry my friend (you know who you are)…

The new film Good Boys has been causing a stir across social media and other platforms because they have placed three kids into an R rated, raunchy movie with lots of swearing and sex.  I even read an article online that said that the new movie was sexualizing children and some have even gone as far as to use the “P” word to describe the creators or the potential fans of the movie.  The faux rage from people who had not yet seen the movie, going only by the trailers, has been consistent with other films that seemingly have caused divisiveness in the audience.

As a middle school teacher, I will tell you that the language of these kids in the movie are very much the language of middle schoolers today.  They use curse words and they think and talk about inappropriate topics all the time.  While I would not necessarily claim that Good Boys is a realistic portrayal of pre-teens, the language and thoughts are not far from the truth.  The kids from the movie It spoke like kids speak.

Maybe you are someone who just does not want to hear kids using swear words or talking about sex, and that is perfectly fine.  Maybe you are someone who does not like the type of raunchy movie genre that this film would fall into and that, as well, is fine.  Honestly, I have my moments where I am not a huge fan of raunchy jokes in a movie.  Something like Sausage Party is funny to a point, but gets tiring after a while.  I do not dispute anyone’s right to not watch what they want.

However, you do not have the right to criticize something you have not seen.  You do not have to watch it, but you can’t then form an opinion on the overall movie because you chose to not watch it.  There are many Adam Sandler movies that I chose to skip because I do not like his brand of movies, but I cannot critique, say, his Netflix film with Jennifer Aniston, Murder Mystery, because I have not watched it.  Same thing happens here.

Because I will tell you that the raunchiness of Good Boys is countered with the fact that these three actors (Jacob Trembley, Keith L. Williams, and Brady Noon) are wonderful here and bring a balance of innocence to the proceedings that, while they say these things, make you understand that they do not really understand what is going on.

One of the examples for the sexualizing children crowd was the scene from the trailers with the boys in the sex swing.  This scene is so not sexual in nature and is counterbalanced with how much the boys really did not know that it turns out to be charming.  I wish they had left that out of the trailer because that would have been a big laugh if it was unfamiliar.

Truthfully, the film is not about sex, but, actually, it is about friendship and how some childhood friendships change over the years.  Some friendships grow apart as the kids inside them find that they are becoming different people.  I know this happened to me as a kid.  I had two very close friends through elementary school and we grew apart into junior high and high school while I got another group of friends with more things in common with me.  It did not mean that I did not like my elementary friends any more.  I was just not as close with them as I was before.  Good Boys is more about that than anything else.

Yes, there were several parts that did not work for me.  The whole drug aspect of the film was hard to buy, but it did lead to a ridiculous, but very funny, scene with the boys and a group of college drug suppliers.  The boys’ adventure meant that you had to stretch credibility several times, but I have said before that if something is funny, you are more willing to give leeway than if it is not, and Good Boys is funny.

Honestly, there were a couple of scenes that I laughed really hard at that I felt a little dirty doing it, but it was funny.

The three boys are great.  Jacob Trembley is a fantastic actor and has another really strong performance.  Keith L. Williams, who plays Lucas, is constantly the funniest of the group.  His character is so sweet and heart-felt that you cannot help but like him.  Brady Noon’s Thor is the glue that holds them together.  All three boys are given worries and concerns from their home lives or from school that are realistic and impactful.  They turn these moments into comedic gold.

Some parts of the story were all over the place but the message in the film comes through strong in the end.  The three boys are wonderful and play with such heart.  These really are good boys.  There may be gross out moments in the film with a ton of cursing, but these boys’ goodness shines through.  And the film has a definite idea that it wants to cover about friendship.  The film is truly about more than just sixth graders saying the F-word or talking about sex.

If you are easily offended, you probably do not want to see Good Boys.  If this type of movie is something that you find crude and something that you do not want to see in a movie, that is fine.  That is your right.  I disagree with you, and that is my right.

4.1 stars

I have always enjoyed good shark movie and I might give a bad shark movie more leeway than other movies receive.  I did not like the original 47 Meters Down at all so this one already started off behind the eight ball.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged is better than the original.  There are still lots of issues with the movie, but, in the end, I had a decent time in the theater watching this one.

Step-sisters Sasha (Corinne Foxx) and Mia (Sophie Nélisse) go with some friends scuba diving into a pond that leads into an underground Mayan city.  While there, the girls find themselves cornered by a deadly species of Great White Shark and they struggle to survive and escape before they are eaten or their air runs out.

The best part of the film is the tension created by the sharks.  There are some very strong moments of anxiety built by the sharks.  The four girls are reasonably engaging.  Sasha is played by Jamie Foxx’s daughter Corinne and another of the girls is played by Sly Stallone’s daughter Sistine Rose Stallone.  Nia Long was the fourth of the girls involved.

John Corbett appears in the movie as Mia’s father, who is the head investigator on the underground city and how the girls knew about the city.

There were a couple of surprises too, which was nice for the film.  There were some deaths that I did not expect.

The sharks themselves looked pretty good, but the rest of the filming under the water was not great.  It was really dark and difficult to see anything that was happening.  With the girls in their scuba gear, it was very difficult to know who was in danger at any certain time.  The camera was not very steady either.  The visuals were very dark and unappealing.

And, of course, many of these characters do stupid things, which is a horror film trope that is very annoying.

The ending of the film is both ridiculous and, strangely, stupidly fun.  The film does not pretend to be anything more than this and it works for the most part.

3 stars

I heard a ton of positive word of mouth on The Farewell as it currently holds a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and some of the online critics I like were raving about it.  I went to it today.  I liked it.  I would not rave about it, but it was definitely good.

Billi (Awkwafina) is a Chinese-American living in New York, struggling to get by.  When she discovered that her beloved grandmother Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao) was dying of lung cancer.  Her parents were planning on going to China, but Billi was shocked when she discovered that no one in the family intended on telling Nai Nai about the diagnosis.

Apparently, it is tradition in China of family members to keep this type of fatal diagnosis a secret to allow the sick person to enjoy his/her last days worry free.

So, Nai Nai’s family was arriving in China under the pretense of a wedding for Billi’s only cousin Hao Hao (Han Chen) when no such wedding was planned.  It was only an excuse for her family to come and spend time with Nai Nai while she still had time.

At first, Billi was told by her father (Tzi Ma) and mother (Diana Lin) that Billi could not go because she would tell her grandmother the truth, or at least would be unable to hide her feelings from her.  Of course, her father and his brother were just as bad at this, if not considerably worse.

The film was a lot of interrelationship scenes between the people of this family who were continuing to debate whether what they were doing was the right thing or if they should tell Nai Nai the truth to allow her to say her goodbyes.

There is a lot of emotions here, but, honestly, I thought there would be much more than what was presented.  What they did have was a well-written and human story of guilt and grief, tip-toeing around something that none of them wanted to admit.

Awkwafina was excellent as Billi, playing her love for Nai Nai against the pain of knowledge that she had in her own heart.  I thought, as well, that the actress playing Nai Nai, Shuzhen Zhao, was spectacular.  She was funny, sweet and cute as could be.

There were some wonderful scenes detailing some of the cultural aspects of the Chinese and comparing them to those same cultural aspects in America.

This was based on the true story (or as the movie tag line states. “Based on an actual lie”) that happened with the film’s director and writer Lulu Wang.  The role of Billi is based on the real occurrences that happened to Wang’s family in 2013.  So much so that the character of Little Nai Nai (Nai Nai’s sister) was actually played by Wang’s real life Little Nai Nai.

The twist at the very end of the film wraps the whole film up with a perfect bow.  The film is very heartfelt and sweet, and is extremely well acted.  It also provided some depth to the life of people in China.  It is not my favorite film of the year, but it is very good.

3.9 stars  

I had been looking forward to this one for awhile.  I liked the trailers so I was hopeful.  Unfortunately, this was not a very good movie.  I did not hate it, but there are way too many problems to overlook.

Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elizabeth Moss play three wives of members of an Italian crime family in Hell’s Kitchen in NYC.  When the three men wind up captured and sent to prison by an FBI sting, the women decide to take matters into their own hands and fill their husbands’ shoes.

First problem was that these three women stepped into this role of mobster quickly and without much trouble.  One minute, they were wondering what they would be able to do for money with their husbands arrested and the next they are walking around to businesses in Hell’s Kitchen and convinced these people to stop paying protection money to Little Jackie (Myk Watford) and start paying to them.  The businesses did it as easily as if they were changing long distance providers.

Elizabeth Moss hooked up with psychotic killer played by Domhnall Gleeson and she went from shaky abused wife to cool hand killer in a few scenes.

I did like Melissa McCarthy, both her acting performance and her character.  She felt like the most developed of the three, although that may simply be the fact that she was a mother.  She turned to the life of crime very quickly however.  The three of them became criminals immediately, dumping bodies in the ocean, knocking off rabbis, and everything.  There was no second doubt about their actions, going from law abiding women to law breakers for money did not give the audience much reason to support these characters.

The storylines fly by with little to no development.  Things happen without explanation.  Other mob bosses get involved and they seem to not understand how the mob works.  McCarthy says once in the film that if they get in the car and go to Brooklyn, they are dead.  However, that could not be further from the truth as they meet with Alfonso Coretti (Bill Camp) and they have the most friendly and cooperative meeting ever.

The finale of the film was downright dumb and anti-climatic.  There were so much that they could have done, but what they ended up doing was so silly that it bordered on the ridiculous.

The Kitchen was based on a DC Vertigo series.  I had never read it and nor do I plan on it after seeing this movie.  As I said, I did not hate this as much as most critics did, but it is not one you should worry about seeing.

2.1 stars

The latest young adult books to make the big screen is the Scary Stories to Read in the Dark trilogy, bringing an air of horror to the world of YA.

In the movie, we find a group of teens who go into the local haunted house on Halloween and find a book, allegedly belonging to the girl Sarah Bellows, who was rumored to have killed a bunch of kids by poisoning them before she hanged herself.  The kids notice soon that inside this book, stories are being magically written in blood and their friends begin dying.

This movie has a connective storyline throughout the film whereas the book series (there were three of them) is basically a series of short stories.  The short stories from the book wind up being used in the movie when Sarah’s ghost writes them.  This was a clever way to incorporate the stories into the feature film and make them viable and relevant to the characters that we have been introduced to.

And these characters are fairly likable.  Our main protagonist is fellow writer Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), who found the book at the haunted house and took it with her.  Colletti does a strong job leading the kids and showing the guilt and regret of starting this snowball metaphorically rolling downhill.  She has a background trauma involving her mother leaving her and her sad father (Dean Norris) too.  This is not dived too deeply into, but the subtext is there for the character.

We have the stranger in town, Ramón (Michael Garza), who has a story to hide as well.  He gets caught up with the kids, seeing early what happens when these stories start to appear.  Garza (who was in the Hunger Games series) has a nice presence about him and I think he has a nice career ahead of him.

Some of the moments in the stories are creepy and effective.  There is a specific scene involving Ruth (Natalie Ganzhorn), sister of Stella’s friend Chuck (Austin Zajur), that was creepy as all get out and gross.  Hint… there are spiders.

One of my problems with the film was that it was set in 1968, but I did not feel as if it were set during that time.  Oh sure, they hit us over the head with allusions of the period (Nixon being elected president, Vietnam war etc), but the kids did not make me feel like they were from the 1960s.

This was produced by Guillermo Del Toro and he has always been effective with his horror.  This was a PG-13 film so there was not much blood or gore, but they were very effective with their creepy crawlers and gross-looking creatures.  The creature at the hospital looked silly at first, but I have to say, what happened with it was one of the scarier moments of the film.

I came out of this movie enjoying my time watching it.  Sure there are some problems in the basic narrative and a few of the designs, but nothing too bad that it pulled me out of the film.  This is a decent way to introduce some teens to the world of horror, and I believe that is one of the goals of this film.

3.75 stars  

Surprise!  Dora is actually good.

Would have lost that bet if I made it.

Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a live action adaptation of the cartoon Dora the Explorer and this is just about as good as that source material could be portrayed in a live action movie.  I had never seen a Dora cartoon, but I knew of the character.  This movie was well down on the list of expectations.  Who knew that it would be decent.

Dora (Isabela Moner) is right at home in the jungle.  Home schooled by her professor parents (Michael Peña & Eva Longoria), Dora is very happy.  However, before heading out to try to find a lost Incan city, her parents sent Dora to the city to go to school with her cousin and former best friend Diego (Jeff Wahlberg).  Dora’s plucky, upbeat attitude gets her labeled a weirdo quickly, but she is unable to address these issues because she, Diego and two other kids from high school are kidnapped by some villains, looking for the lost city as well, and planning on using Dora to force her parents to cooperate.

Dora and her friends, however, are freed from their captivity by a friend of Dora’s father, Alejandro (Eugenio Derbez) and the group try to find the city before the villains do.

Now, do not get me wrong.  There were some spots in the new film that made me role my eyes.  Specifically, the appearance of an animated fox called Swiper (voiced by Benicio Del Toro) who was among the bad guys and would “swipe” things.  There was also an almost too human like monkey named Boots (voiced by Danny Trejo).  These characters were weird additions, but I assume they are major parts of the animated show and fans of that show would enjoy their inclusion.  Boots wasn’t bad, but Swiper was a tough sell for me in this film.

Other than that, I enjoyed the film quite a bit.  The performance of Isabela Moner was spot on and helped carry this movie.  She delivered her role in both a childlike innocence and a confident teen.  She was remarkably cheerful, almost too much so, but, for the most part, her positivity was a winning characteristic.  Her bright and positive manner brought the explorer to life and she was a force on the screen.

There were funny parts, but there were also way too many poop jokes for my taste.  That part is targeted for the younger audience and the movie is clearly made for kids.  However, there are other parts of this movie that adults could appreciate.  Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a solid film for families to watch together and should provide enough entertainment that neither the kids nor their parents are bored.

There are times when this movie goes a long way into weirdness, including an animated section and a dance number, but those both felt very in tone with the rest of the film.

I believe fans of Dora the Explorer will be pleased with the adaptation of this movie and those people who have never seen an episode before will be able to find parts to enjoy as well.  I know I did.

3.5 stars

Wow.

I have never been much of a fan of gospel music, but there is absolutely no denying that “The Queen of Soul” Aretha Franklin had one of the most amazing voices ever to perform a song, and this documentary, originally filmed in 1972, shows exactly that.

Over two nights, Aretha Franklin recorded a live gospel album at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972, an album that became the best selling gospel album of all time.  Warner Brothers sent film maker Sydney Pollack to record the sessions, but there was technical difficulties and the film had never been finished…until now.

Franklin performed a series of gospel songs with the Southern California Community Choir, as the well-known Reverend James Cleveland spoke and hosted the event.  Aretha’s father, Reverend C.L. Franklin, attended night two as did Rolling Stones lead man Mick Jagger.

This film is not so much a documentary as a recording of the evenings’ events.  That is not a negative because clearly what a viewer wants here is to hear these songs sung by Aretha Franklin.  You did not need much more to make this a powerful experience.  You can tell that by the faces of not only the crowd, but also of the choir.

The emotions were written all over the faces of Reverend Cleveland, who is constantly wiping tears and sweat from his face, and the members of the choir, who, at times, appeared to not believe what they were hearing.

My only complaint is that I was not able to see this in a theater with the surround sound echoing around.  I watched this at home on my computer from the site Vudu, and I cannot help but imagine how powerful this would be in a location more conducive for the presentation of sound quality.  I can remember seeing trailers for this documentary in the theater and being blown away by what I heard there.  That is obviously not a criticism of the film, but it is something that affected my viewing experience.

Amazing Grace serves not only as a wonderful example of a voice beyond compare, but also as a time capsule to a time and place from nearly fifty years ago.

4.5 stars