Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Anora

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One of the early leaders in the race for the Oscars went wide this weekend as Anora his the theaters.

According the IMDB, “Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.“

Mikey Madison played Anora, or Ani as she preferred to be called, and she is amazing as this tough as nails New York exotic dancer/escort, whose client, rich Russian Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), falls for Ani after a whirlwind of a week.

This movie sets things up in the first part of the film and you can see where this is going. Then the film takes a total swerve and changes paths completely. This is very well written and avoids the cliches that this movie very effectively seems as if it is heading toward.

Mark Eydelshteyn does a very good job with the character of Ivan, who is a character that really will change the audience’s opinions on as the film progresses. No spoilers, but he does a fine job of playing Ivan without flipping the character’s center.

The Russian handlers come in to the story midway through and bring a surprising amount of humor/comedy to the story. It played against expectations with these characters and they were hilarious.

Mikey Madison is a front runner for an Academy Award after this performance. She brought such a range of emotion in the film, from her brazen toughness to a deep seeded pain. This feels like a real breakthrough performance for Madison.

Anora had a lot of nakedness, and absolutely deserved its R rating. Truthfully, I could have seen a possible higher rating for the movie. The film does not shy away from anything and gives these characters the ability to do whatever they want. None of it felt gratuitous though.

This was a very good movie and some wonderful performances elevated it, as did some writing that took this in a direction that I did not see coming.

4.4 stars

Heretic

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If you had said that Hugh Grant would be horror/thriller movie villain and completely rule at it, I might not have believed you. However, he absolutely does and he is one of the major factors to the new A24 horror flick, Heretic, being as exceptional as it is.

However, I could see how this movie might be polarizing considering its main topic is religion and the discussion of how and if religion is relevant.

Hugh Grant is the standout of the movie, but the two female co-stars, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, who play Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton respectfully, carry their own against the powerhouse performance from Grant. Both Thatcher and East are given characters with their own quirks that work very well in the context of this movie.

There may not be as many scares in this movie, but the script gives the film an uncomfortable feeling throughout, especially with the uneasiness provided by Grant’s work. You can tell that everything is just not quite what is being shown and you are anxious waiting for that hammer to drop.

However, while they are waiting and building the unease, the writing is sensational, with the debate between the different religions of the world. I loved how this was basically three people talking for much of the first act (or two) and it is able to build the anxiety. The writing was top notch. I also do not believe that it took one side and argued that in a preachy way. I do believe that someone could find their own opinions of religion given voice in this film.

I loved the writing when Sister Barnes retorted against Mr. Reed’s (Hugh Grant) metaphor comparing religion to Monopoly. This whole diatribe was expertly written and delivered.

The ending might have been a little weaker than the first half/two-thirds of the film, but I do love how these characters are smart and are shown to be smart.

4.4 stars

Robot Dreams

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The eighth film today in the 4F binge was an animated film called Robot Dreams and it was a story of loneliness and friendship. Told without any dialogue, Robot Dreams used music and sounds to help portray the story, and it did it extremely well.

According to IMDB, “DOG lives in Manhattan and he’s tired of being alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot, a companion. Their friendship blossoms, until they become inseparable, to the rhythm of 80’s NYC. One summer night, DOG, with great sadness, is forced to abandon ROBOT at the beach. Will they ever meet again?“

There have been some amazing animated movies this year, and this is yet another. Nominated for an Academy Award this year, Robot Dreams was a sad and bittersweet story of Dog and Robot who each just seem to only have any real success in their dreams.

The film did seem a little too long, but the creativity is off the charts. The use of music is spectacular and I do love the use of “September” by Kool and the Gang throughout the film.

The ending was unexpected and a little sad. No spoilers here, but I am not sure how I feel about the end. I did not guess that it would turn out like this.

Oh, and that DUCK seems rotten. A postcard? Couldn’t she give DOG a phone call? Stop by on the way to the airport? What a quack.

Sweet and sad, Robot Dreams is a fabulous animated film.

4.3 stars

Pedro Páramo

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The longest film of the 4F so far will be Pedro Páramo, a new Mexican film dropped on Netflix. It was based on a 1955 novel of the same name by Juan Rulfo.

The film transcended the life span of the man known as Pedro Páramo, though told out of time, jumping between his youth and leading past his death. His son came back to try and find him, only to find a town full of death and loss.

There were plenty of spooky imagery in this movie, shot beautifully by director Rodrigo Prieto.

The story was quite gripping of this vile character Pedro Páramo and the sins of his life that all stemmed from his teenage loss of the woman he loved, Susana.

The movie was a little on the long side and could have shaved off 10-15 minutes to make it a little more tidy, but the nonlinear storytelling did require that there is some length to cover the plot.

The ghost town part of Comala was some of my personal favorite parts of this film. There was so much creepy in the beginning part that I would have liked more time with Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) than we got. He felt to be the most tragic of the characters involved as all he did was promise his mother on her deathbed that he would go find his father, Pedro Páramo.

A very solid adaptation that should be well received across the board.

4 stars

Skincare

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I had this film picked out as a possible rental for the 4F binge, but I was not sure it would be up my alley. I mean, a film dealing with skincare? I just was not sure what would appeal to me. I went ahead and rented it anyway off Fandango at Home.

According to IMDB, “Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman is about to take her career to the next level by launching her very own skincare line. However, she soon faces a new challenge when a rival opens a boutique directly across from her store. Suspecting that someone is trying to sabotage her, she embarks on a quest to unravel the mystery of who’s trying to destroy her life.“

Though I did not expect to enjoy this one, I was completely invested in the film, buying into the mystery of what was happening in Hope’s life. Elizabeth Banks does a tremendous job of playing this character on the verge of falling off a cliff.

The story does a great job of showing Hope’s life unraveling as she blames her business rival for the troubles of her own life, leading to worse events regularly.

Honestly, this film gave me Ruthless People ( a film with Danny DeVito and Bette Midler) vibes. I enjoyed it very much as everyone involved seemed to have their own personal issues and selfishness.

4.1 stars

Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three

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Next up is Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Three, the third in a series of animated movies from DC focusing on the iconic comic mini series. The previous two films leading up to this were weak. I do believe the finale is a little better, but it does not reach anywhere the levels of the previous DC films.

It was kind of fun watching the wave of Anti-Monitors killing all of the animated TV show earths.

It was also great to hear Kevin Conroy-Mark Hamill once again together. This was the final voice performance of Kevin Conroy, prior to his death. Conroy is the iconic Batman voice of a generation.

The story is paced poorly, and it does not feel the sense of grandness that it should. Part of that is probably the previous installments in this trilogy, but this final one is not a huge step up either.

The animation here is fine and the voice cast is vast and full of solid work.

Here’s hoping the next DC animated films are back to the storytelling of the past.

2.6 stars

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

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We have another documentary for the 4F as I am on Hulu/Disney + watching Road Diary, following a recent return tour from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. I do not mind his music, but I am just not as familiar to it than I am in some other music. Because of this, I was not as filled with joy and wonder as some might be.

Having said that, there are some cool moments of watching how this band of musicians can come together after five years of inactivity and create a tour of American music.

Listening to the E Street Band discuss their music making as well as Bruce and his mastery of the form is interesting. I did not know that Steven Van Zandt was in the E Street Band. Van Zandt is a musician I had heard of and the only other musician I was aware of in the E Street Band was the late Clarence Clemons. It was intriguing to discover that Clemons’ nephew, Jake, replaced Clarence in the band.

I feel as if you are a Bruce Springsteen fan, this would be like candy to you. For me, it was an okay look at a powerful musician who I have had a healthy respect for over many years.

3 stars

Don’t Move

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The next film of the 4F is once again on Netflix. It is produced by Sam Raimi and is another tense thriller with a fun hook. It was called Don’t Move and it was a surprisingly entertaining film.

According to IMDB, “The grieving Iris (Kelsey Asbille) wakes up early in the morning and goes to the memorial in the park where her beloved son Mateo died falling off a cliff. She is thinking in committing suicide jumping off the same cliff when the young man Richard (Finn Wittrock) dissuades her. She returns to the parking lot with Richard, and he kidnaps her. He injects a substance that will shut down her body in twenty minutes, but she succeeds in forcing him to crash his car into a tree and to flee to a river.”

I was impressed with how this film was able to build as much anxiety in so many different situations considering the main protagonist was unable to move, speak or do much of anything. I guess it was lucky that this substance she was injected by did not stop the muscles that were required for Iris to breathe, even though it basically shut down everything else. Minor gripe I guess. You have to ignore certain details for this movie to work.

However, if you can get past some of the logic leaps here, Don’t Move makes for a decent thriller with a villain worth hating. This villain, played by Finn Wittrock, does a good job of portraying this monstrous person who has a secret life. I would have liked to have known more about his background with his wife and daughter. How did the mysterious Chloe fit in?

Either way, there is enough good work here to recommend this as a fun, leisurely Netflix watch. It may not hold up to a ton of scrutiny, but it is a fun “watch it on the couch” flick.

3.2 stars

Woman of the Hour

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I went to Netflix for the next Friday Fabulous Film Fest movie. It was a film that starred and was directed by Anna Kendrick called Woman of the Hour. It was based on a true story of a serial killer who appeared on the Dating Game in 1978.

Sheryl (Anna Kendrick) was a struggling actor whose agent booked her on the Dating Game. Little did Sheryl know that one of the bachelors she could choose from was a serial killer who had been involved in a killing spree.

It is an amazing true story. How brazen can you be as a serial killer to flaunt yourself on a national game show? He clearly felt untouchable at the time.

The film had plenty of moments of tension, especially with the scenes between Anna Kendrick and Daniel Zovatto, who played Rodney Alcala, the serial killer. It was unclear how it would turn out as the tense scene played out, and I really liked this.

Sad point was that Alcala was recognized by someone in the studio audience during the Dating Game taping and she was ignored by those in charge at the show and eventually the police. This character, Laura, played by Nicolette Robinson, added that feeling of helplessness that all of Alcala’s victims must have felt.

I enjoyed the direction by Kendrick, though my one complaint was the narrative structure was a little hard to follow. The timeline of the movie was not as clear as I would have liked it. Otherwise, this was a very engaging film.

4 stars

Piece By Piece

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The first official movie in the Friday Fantastic Film Fest is one of the strangest documentaries you are ever going to see. This movie, Piece By Piece, is the biography of music producer Pharrell Williams, but it is told as a Lego movie style.

Huh?

Honestly, this is weird.

I am not that familiar with Pharrell Williams, outside of “Happy,” but the Lego part of the film is what attracted me to see this movie. I probably would not have watched a straight up movie with interviews centered around Pharrell, but the gimmick of the Legos drew me in.

The Lego animation was original and, at times, beautifully transcendent in Piece By Piece. Even times when it did not feel like it worked for the moment, the color and the imagination shone through.

Unfortunately, the story did not match the originality of the format. The story was basically just interviews and lacked that special oomph that the visuals provided throughout. I know it was a biography, but something that was so creativity special in one aspect, was fairly mundane in the other.

I enjoyed the music, even if it wasn’t my normal type of music. It worked for me it the bits in the film.

I found the most fascinating part of the film was the post-“Happy” stuff, how the creation of one of the biggest songs in recent memory caused a challenge for the artist in ways you would never have expected.

Overall, Piece By Piece is an interesting animated film that gives some insight into an artist that I did not know much about, but I just wish the story was told in a more outside the box manner, to match the visuals.

3 stars

The Substance

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Very disturbing.

I have never been a big fan of body horror films, but The Substance has a few things going for it that a typical body horror film does not have. Namely, one Demi Moore providing one of the best, albeit horrific, performances of her career.

According to IMDB, “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? You. Only better in every way. Seriously. You’ve got to try this new product. It’s called The Substance. It changed my life. It generates another you. A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you. And there’s only one rule: You share time. One week for you. One week for the new you. Seven days each. A perfect balance. Easy. Right? If you respect the balance… what could possibly go wrong?”

The dialogue was limited, but the performance from Demi Moore was so great. It was impressive how much she was able to emote from her face and her reactions.

The effects are unbelievably creepy and frightening. The imagery of the movie is horrific and mostly practical.

I do think the ending was not good. The last fifteen or twenty minutes felt truly more silly than most of the film and did drag down my feelings overall. Most of the movie was really good and creepy. It just did not finish well. However. Demi Moore should be recognized for an astounding performance.

3.8 stars

Brats

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Next up on the Pre-Show 4F Binge is a documentary on Hulu that took a look back to the 1980s and a group of actors who had been dubbed as the Brat Pack.

One of the actors of the 1980s who had been included in the Brat Pack was Andrew McCarthy and McCarthy was the director and driving influence behind the documentary.

McCarthy was looking to discuss with the group of actors the feelings of the name of the Brat Pack and how it influenced their careers.

McCarthy traveled around to try and talk to the other “members” of the Brat Pack, including Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Jon Cryer, Leah Thompson. He tried to talk to Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson, but they seemed to rebut him not wanting to look back.

The term “Brat Pack” was dubbed in a magazine article about Emilio Estevez written by David Blum, and the actors really took the name negatively. One of my favorite parts of the doc was when McCarthy went and spoke to David Blum. There was a feel of tension between them and Blum was seemed very arrogant in this interview.

The discussion with Emilio Estevez was also amazing. He looked so much like his father during the interview that it was wild.

This was amazing as it felt like a big therapy session for Andrew McCarthy as he talked through his anxieties and memories of his past with others who could relate to the feelings that he was having.

I wouldn’t say that I was a big fan of any of these actors, but I found it utterly fascinating to watch how they worked through their own issues over a named given to them when they were young and hot actors and how the negative feel of it affected them.

3.7 stars

The 4:30 Movie

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The pre-showings of the 4F kicked off with Kevin Smith’s latest film, The 4:30 Movie.

This is a cute coming-of-age movie that feels fairly biographical as the filmmaker leans into a young kid who loves movies and is obsessed with a girl. The boy, played by Austin Zajur, and his friends try to sneak into a rated R movie and deal with their friendship.

This is a cute film. There is a sweetness to it, even though there are several moments of Kevin Smith’s raunchy writing that feels in contrast to the film.

The film features several of Smith’s usual cast members including Ralph Garman, Justin Long, Harley Quinn Smith, Ming Chen, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Jason Biggs, Diedrich Bader, Jason Lee, and his wife Jennifer Smith.

It also features Ken Jeong, Sam Richardson, Method Man, Kate Micucci, Reed Northrup, Nicholas Cirillo, and Logic.

The three young boys are kind of obnoxious in much of the film, but there are some real solid relationships and the chemistry between Austin Zajur and Siena Agudong was real and very easy. They carry this movie with their scenes and their dialogue.

Overall, a nice little film to kick off the pre-show 4F.

3.5 stars

Music by John Williams

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John Williams is one of the masters of film music. He has had more classic scores that exist in your head than practically any composer. From the music of Star Wars to Jaws to Schindler’s List to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the themes fill you with emotions every time. And each score provides something extra to each film, something that makes the film more than it was before.

This is why John Williams has been in such demand over the last fifty years. His music brings that final oomph to a film, and it does not matter what the genre is. John Williams is capable of delivering something magical.

This weekend saw the drop of a documentary featuring the iconic composer in a film entitled, perfectly, Music by John Williams, on Disney +.

The doc does touch upon his life and family, but most of the runtime is focused on the music and the films that he scored. We hear about John Williams’s thoughts from John Williams himself, as well as from his dear friend Steven Spielberg, whom was one of his most ardent supporters.

We hear from tons of people expounding on the amazing talents that John Williams would bring to their films. We saw Ron Howard, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Chris Columbus, Seth MacFarlane, James mangold, Kathleen Kennedy, Chris Martin and Itzhak Perlman all provide insight into their times working with Williams in whatever capacity they could give.

One of the more powerful moments was Kate Capshaw, wife of Steven Spielberg, describing when she and Steven went to hear the score for Schindler’s List, played by Williams on the piano, and how she began crying immediately.

The amazing footage throughout was awesome, much of it coming from Spielberg’s own recordings over the year. Being able to hear the words and the thoughts of Williams about the work that he had done is truly special. I will admit that seeing the scene from E.T. where the bike flies in front of the moon brought a few tears to my eyes. It provided us with so many memories from years of amazing work.

The doc is fairly straightforward, but if anyone deserves it, John Williams is it.

4.5 stars

Here

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Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright have reunited on screen once again for this new film called Here. Zemeckis, Hanks and Wright were all together for Forrest Gump, and now they are focusing on a specific house.

This film has a specific gimmick to it. The camera was stoic, steady and unmoving for the entire movie. There was one angle that the movie had and it told multiple stories through the life of the house (and the plot of land that it was built on) with that single shot.

The main story that was told was the life of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. We saw Tom Hanks, who played the character Richard, grow up, fall in love, get married and become a father in this one room of this house that we see. Robin Wright played Richard’s wife Margaret and she was involved in much of the main story.

One of my favorite characters involved was Richard’s father, Al (Paul Bettany). His wife was Rose (Kelly Reilly) and they were shown throughout their lifespan inside this house.

Using these postcard like boxes, the movie transitioned between stories. Other stories included a Native American family, the man who created the La-Z Boy recliner, a recent black family, a early aviator whose wife hated the airplane, and the illegitimate son of Ben Franklin. None of these extra stories had much if any impact, outside of just continuing the life of the house. These were pauses from the Richard-Margaret family story meant to simply break from those characters.

I liked the format of this movie, but there were some issues with it. The main story had my attention every scene they had, but all of the other ones were so slight that they were a distraction. This movie did feel too long and a couple of these extra stories could have been dropped to shave off some time.

The CGI was decent in the movie, especially the de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Some of the background CGI was obvious, but it did not ruin anything. I did like the music of the film as it helped show us the advancement of time.

This is a interesting movie with a gimmick that I have not seen before, unless you are a fan of stage plays with the single location setting. The film was too long, but the main story was likeable because of the excellent actors.

3.5 stars