It takes a special kind of person to be a Marine. I know that there was never a point in my life that I could have done it so when I see movies like The Inspection that highlights what these people go through, it only elevates the respect that I have for them.

The Inspection was written and directed by Elegance Bratton, who based a lot of the story on his own real-life experiences.

Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) was a young, gay black man who was having plenty of challenges in his life, including an estrangement with his mother Inez (Gabrielle Union). French decided to get his life on track by joining the Marines. However, his sexual orientation was revealed and this led to a series of homophobic responses from his platoon mates and the drill sergeants. In particular, drill sergeant Leland Laws (Bokeem Woodbine) would make the situation even worse for French. Laws’ goal was to make a Marine and he did it in some of the worst ways imaginable.

Watching this, you could not help but to feel for these people for what they were being put through to be a Marine. I understand that the Marines are looking for the best and can’t just let anyone join, but the process of systematically breaking down individuals until they can not handle it any longer is a difficult process to watch.

However, French faced plenty of problems, but it seemed as the film went along, he was not being broken down, but instead he was becoming stronger. He had several really good scenes with others in the platoon and with the men in charge. Jeremy Pope was outstanding through the whole movie. You absolutely see the way that French grew as an individual with each passing cruelty.

There was another intriguing character here named Ismail (Eman Esfandi), who had to face his own issues with prejudice toward his religion and the stereotypes of the Middle Eastern people. The scenes between French and Ismail were very strong and worked to show the connection the Marines build with one another.

Then there is Gabrielle Union, who played Inez and her own reactions to her son were just tragic. Union made the audience hope that there might be a chance that French and she could reunite and yet the pain was too deeply set. The third act scene between these two was a powerful and painful moment.

The Inspection was a really strong film with some very difficult moments to watch. There were wonderful performances and a concise story that dove into characters and their wills to overcome.

3.85 stars

I avoided this movie for a long time. When it was in theaters at the end of August, I did not find myself interested in seeing it. It then came to Vudu, and I could not bring myself to rent it. Finally, it came to Netflix and it was free, so I finally decided to give it a view. I was right in the first place.

According to IMDB, “After the death of her mother and having no other known relatives, Evie (Nathalie Emmanuel) takes a DNA test…and discovers a long-lost cousin she never knew she had. Invited by her newfound family to a lavish wedding in the English countryside, she’s at first seduced by the sexy aristocrat host but is soon thrust into a nightmare of survival as she uncovers twisted secrets in her family’s history and the unsettling intentions behind their sinful generosity.“

The first half of the film was nothing but jump scares strung together, none of which were anything of substance outside of just tying to elicit a response from the audience. There are movies that use the jump scare effectively, but this one was nothing but the cheap scare technique.

The acting was fine, but there was nothing that was going to elevate this movie above the script and some of the dialogue was truly awful. My favorite of the film was Sean Pertwee, who played the butler Renfield. Pertwee also played Alfred Pennyworth of the Gotham TV show. I guess his specialty is service acting. Of course, he was nothing here but a lackey, but it was nice seeing him once again. I always liked his Alfred.

The film really pulled the rug out from the story that it seemed to be telling in the first two-thirds of the movie. You knew something weird was going on, but it was a real flip when the truth came out. Understand, it is not that it was a surprising shock. It was obvious as could be as to the truth that was going on, but it did not take any time to build up the twist. It just through it into the story and let things fall where they may. It was preposterous.

The setting did a decent job of setting a mood for the film, but it felt as if all it would take was a single line and this could have been a solid satire.

I did like Nathalie Emmanuel as our main protagonist, though she was stupid through much of the film. She looked great on screen and I expect that she could do more with a better story. The former Game of Thrones actress could have a really good career (she’d be great as a young Storm in MCU), but when she moves ahead into better projects, hopefully she will be able to put this one behind her.

The Invitation became my 178 movie reviewed this year, setting a new record for a single year. It’s a shame that the record breaker couldn’t have been a better movie.

1.5 stars

As I was watching John Rocha and Jeff Sneider on their podcast The Hot Mike, they were talking about some of their favorite movies from 2022, and Sneider mentioned one that he thought was fantastic. It was entitled Catch the Fair One and he said it was available on VOD. Intrigued by the recommendation, I went to Vudu and, sure enough, the film was there and I thought this would be a great film to watch when travel is discouraged on a snowy Friday morning in Eastern Iowa.

Jeff Sneider was right. It was quite the movie, full of tension and intensity.

Kaylee (Kali Reis) was once a championship level boxer whose life had taken a downward turn since her sister was missing. The loss and grief set her on an obsessive path to try and find her sister. The path led her to a sex trafficking ring and a violent journey of vengeance.

Kali Reis gets to take her character on quite the character arc, though she probably does not learn much during the film. She went from a hugely successful boxer to someone who sees what the life of revenge can do to you. There are several scenes that, while you understand why Kaylee is doing what she is doing, it is very difficult to root for her while she is doing it.

Catch the Fair One does an admirable job of creating a sense of anxiety among the viewers while Kaylee continued to make poor choices on her road of vengeance. You could feel that the road she was on was leading to something terrible and yet you could see that Kaylee did not seem to care about what was going to happen.

Yet, you could tell that she still had some of her humanity with the way she conducted herself at times, and you know that she had good motivations, even if her intentions were not positive.

This film provided a real-life feel to a movie subgenre that, many times over, becomes unrealistic or even cartoonish. There is nothing cartoonish about Catch the Fair One. It is brutally real and tough to watch at times.

3.6 stars

I loved the character of Puss in Boots from his appearances in the Shrek film franchise. However, I did not love the solo film he had a few years back. I mean, it was fine, but for a character that I thought was such a standout on the Shrek films, I found the solo adventure to be somewhat lacking. Because of that, I doubted the need for another Puss in Boots film, but I had heard positives about it so I went in with a hopeful attitude. And Puss in Boots: The Last Wish delivered big time.

The film caught up with our awesome hero Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) doing his signature heroic actions and singing about his conquests. However, after saving several villagers from a rampaging giant, Puss in Boots is killed by a falling bell.

No worries though because Puss in Boots has nine lives, as he arrogantly told the doctor. After a recount of deaths, Puss realized that he was on his final life. One more careless adventure and there would be no coming back for the cat.

Even worse, Puss is being stalked by a monstrous wolf (Wagner Moura) who struck fear into the feline’s heart for the first (or second) time. Puss ran from the wolf, finding shelter in a cat sanctuary. This did not last for long as Goldi (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Ray Winstone, Samson Kayo, and Olivia Colman, respectively) were searching for Puss in order to have him steal a map to the Last Wish from Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney). When Puss discovered about the wish, he decided that this was his chance to regain his lost lives.

Puss in Boots is joined by both Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and a dog (Harvey Guillén) who had been impersonating a cat at the sanctuary. This set up a race to find the mythical Last Wish from all of the factions.

I was thoroughly entertained by Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It was funny, engaging action film with characters that were cleverly adapted and beautifully rendered. The animation style reminded me at times of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as it varied the style multiple times through the film, in particular when there were fight scenes. There were a bunch of times where I stopped and watched the animation in awe of the creativity and design of it.

There was also a great job from Antonio Banderas, as well as the other voice actors, in bringing their characters to life. Banderas was the captain of this film and his work is absolutely stellar. He had great chemistry with Selma Hayek, as they have been together in multiple films.

I loved all the villains involved here too as they all took the general stories of the fairy tales/nursery rhymes they were based upon and made them into fully functioning characters with understandable motives and real depth. None of them were just the typical fairy tale villain that was just out for evil. However, I do think the joke about Goldilocks and the “Just right” bit was used way too much and I found it annoying at the end instead of moving as it was intended. It would have helped the film to have toned back the number of times that comment was used.

Still, the film moved at a brisk pace and was rarely boring. It went to great effort to give us characters with understandable motives and reasons for their actions and Puss in Boots is truly an epic hero. The confrontations between Puss and the Wolf were very frightening as the design of that character certainly is meant to be fearful.

Puss in Boots capped off an excellent year for animation and is a film that everyone in the family should enjoy.

4.4 stars

I was surprised to see Spoiler Alert available on Vudu today. I had not been able to see it in the theaters, but I had wanted to see this. I have always enjoyed Jim Parsons and Sally Field and the trailers looked decent.

It was strange as I was watching the film because I thought the name of Jim Parson’s character sounded familiar. He played Michael Ausiello who was a journalist from TV Guide at the beginning of the film. As I was watching, I started thinking that maybe this was a true story.

Sure enough, Michael Ausiello was a name that I remembered back when I would read through TV Guide and that this film was based on a memoir by Ausiello called Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies.

The memoir is about Ausiello’s marriage to photographer Kit Cowan (Ben Aldridge) and Cowan’s eventual death from cancer.

The story was sweet and well told. It focused on the relationship between Michael and Kit earlier, before the cancer reared its evil head. Though much of the relationship, which lasted 13 years, is skimmed over with photos of Christmas trees, but they do spend time at the beginning few months as well as the final few months.

Jim Parsons does a great job as Michael. The fact that I watched this movie and I did not look at him as Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory showed how effective he had done in Spoiler Alert. Parsons and Ben Aldridge had good chemistry and worked very well together. Earlier this year, there was a film called Bros that had some scenes that made me uncomfortable. I never felt anything uncomfortable here. I just enjoyed the pairing.

Sally Field was exceptional here too. She played Kit’s mother, with a ton of perspective and a strength that was put to the challenge. I really liked how she and Bill Irwin, who played Bob, Kit’s father, interacted and fit together as a pair of parents that felt familiar. I also loved how they did not make a big issue over their son’s homosexuality and, instead, made the issue that he had not told them. This was a nice switch for this type of film.

The later part of the film where Kit begins dealing with the cancer was emotional and really tested the relationship between Kit and Michael, a relationship that had been failing prior to that. Of course, the film’s title tells you right away that the movie was going to be about the loss of this man.

There were some interesting parts of the film where Michael imagined himself as a child in a sitcom, dealing with the terrible losses of his life, including the death of his mother to cancer.

The film blends the drama and the comedy together nicely and feels like one of the best comedy/drama films about cancer since 50/50.

Michael Showalter directed this film. He was coming off the excellent comedy/drama The Big Sick.

Spoiler Alert tells an interesting story of a gay couple and their thirteen years together, through trials and tribulations, until death did they part. Solid performances helped the film, which did feel a touch long.

3.75 stars

The iconic recording studio, Abbey Road, in London was the home to some of the biggest musical acts of all time and the new documentary on Disney +, If These Walls Could Sing, detailed some of those moments in time.

Directed by Mary McCartney in her directorial debut, If These Walls Could Sing included interviews with Elton John, John Williams, Jimmy Page, Kate Bush, Shirley Bassey, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Celeste, Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallagher, Giles Martin, Ringo Starr, and, of course, her father, Paul McCartney.

With this array of musical talent, McCartney wanted to provide the musicians the chance to explain how much Abbey Road Studios meant to them and to share the feeling of history and of magic that enveloped the studios at Abbey Road.

Each of the performers spoke about the way that the studio helped their recordings and discussed some of their greatest records that were recorded in the studio. One of my favorite moments was with Paul McCartney, who was telling a story about a recording session and how they had a specific piano available. He turned around and looked behind him and he saw that exact piano, got up and started to play it.

As a huge Beatles fan, I really enjoyed the reminiscing from Paul McCartney about the recording of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band and the White Album. Though it did not have the in-depth details as last year’s Get Back documentary, it was still very interesting and engaging.

It was also great watching John Williams and his work on Star Wars, with George Lucas sitting there watching and listening.

I thought this was a great debut from Mary McCartney and she explored some wonderful moments that happened in the studio of Abbey Road. There may not have been anything to tie the differing sections together, but it was fun to hear the stories of the stars about the studio.

4 stars

Pearl is a film that is a prequel of a film called X that was also released in 2022. Directed by Ti West, Pearl is the basic origin story of the character Pearl, the old lady in the film X.

Pearl (Mia Goth) was isolated on a farm, trying to help to take care of her infirm and paralyzed father (Matthew Sunderland) while under the thumb of her controlling and paranoid mother Ruth (Tandi Wright). Pearl’s husband Howard was serving overseas during World War I, and Pearl dreamed of escaping from the farm and making it big in the movie industry.

However, as things begin to unravel for Pearl, her dark tendencies begin to shine through the façade she had in place.

Mia Goth is completely brilliant here. She portrayed the slow descent into madness perfectly and she created a tension on the screen where you just were never sure what she was about to do. The final scene of the movie (no spoilers, of course) is one of the creepiest sections of a movie this year.

There was also one of the year’s greatest monologue when Pearl was speaking to her sister-in-law, Mitzi (Emma Jenkins-Purro). She was truly frightening during this scene as you see the mental chasm forming across her mind.

Some of the kills in this slasher film are really well executed and create a tense atmosphere of uncertainty. All of that is simply elevated even more by the performance of Mia Goth. She gave, seriously, one of the top performances of 2022.

I enjoyed X, but I will admit to having to refresh my memory about what happened in it. I do not think I will need a refresher on Pearl. This was one more excellent horror film from 2022.

4.1 stars

Netflix debuted a new documentary this weekend called The Volcano: Rescue for Whakaari, which illustrated the 2019 tragic events when there was a volcanic explosion on the island of Whakaari, which led to the deaths of 22 people.

In 2019, a group of tourist went to Whakaari, off the coast of New Zealand, to go on an adventure to see the magma of the volcano. Several of the survivors were interviewed throughout the documentary, talking about their reasons for going to the island in the first in the first place, dealing with the horrors of the eruption and their
struggles to survive their injuries and after effects of the ash.

While there may not have been as much in depth evaluation of the topic, the documentary had no lack of emotions and feels for these people who went through such a terrible even over the two hours of eruption time.

Then, the after effects, seeing the scars and the pain that the survivors suffered was something to behold. It is amazing what they had to do and seeing how they handled life after the eruption was emotional.

The film does a solid job of telling this story and setting up these people as survivors. The doc was a good watch.

3.85 stars

2022 has been a great year for the horror genre, but I really expected Christmas Bloody Christmas would be on the other side of that ledger. Surprisingly, I thought this was much better than it had any right to be.

This is the second “killer” Santa movie of the year, but Christmas Bloody Christmas could not have been more different than Violent Night. In Violent Night, Santa was our protagonist and in Christmas Bloody Christmas, Santa was the antagonist and not the real Santa Claus. Both were holly jolly butt kickers though.

In Christmas Bloody Christmas, according to IMDB, “It’s Christmas Eve and Tori (Riley Dandy) just wants to get drunk and party, but when a robotic Santa Claus (Abraham Benrubi) at a nearby toy store goes haywire and begins a rampant killing spree through her small town, she’s forced into a battle for survival.”

I found myself drawn to Tori and her friend Robbie (Sam Delich) and their adversarial and snarky relationship. Their banter was quick, funny, dirty as can be and real. I was rooting for them to both survive the night.

The Santa Claus robot was a clever idea and found plenty of ways to show off some vicious kills. I was also impressed with Tori’s continual attempts to survive the murder bot. However, one of my problems with this film is the same as I have with all of these films. When Tori had the Santa Claus down and out, instead of finishing it off, she would run off. I would keep shouting at the screen for her to “take the axe and cut off its head” but she just refused to do it. Sure, I buy the first couple of times, but as the Santa Claus kept coming back over and again, you’ve got to learn from the past and press that advantage when you get it.

The story is fairly thin, but what were you expecting? Director Joe Begos and the cast know exactly what type of movie this is and they go for broke with the slasher killer St. Nick. There is a lot of good natured cheesy fun and some cool kills. It does not come anywhere close to the quality of Violent Night, but it is a different sort of film. It was an easy watch on Shudder and I enjoyed suspending my disbelief, even if they wouldn’t listen to me about cutting off Santa’s head.

3.4 stars

The long awaited sequel to the highest grossing film off all time finally hit theaters this weekend. Avatar: The Way of Water marked the return of director James Cameron to his beloved franchise. I was never a huge fan of Avatar, but I rewatched it last week and found it much better than I had remembered which helped my anticipation for the Way of Water.

In a return to Pandora, we meet up with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their children. When problems of the past rear their ugly head, the Sullys have to face dangers and tribulations.

I don’t want to go into too much in plot synapsis because there are some spoilers that I do not want to reveal that I did not know heading into the movie and I want everyone to have the same experience as I did.

The highlight of the film is clearly the special effects and the images on display. This is brilliant. The visual storytelling of this movie is amazing.  Honestly, I would say that around two-thirds of the first two acts of the film
are imagery. The look of The Way of Water is breath-taking. This will certainly be the leading candidate for special effects Oscar Award.

The underwater scenes in this movie are absolutely unbelievable. The underwater creatures that would swim by are amazing and would even draw my attention away from the main purpose of the scenes.

When you add the 3D, it enhanced the imagery even more. Most 3D tends to be darker or more difficult to see, but not The Way of Water (well, maybe a couple of times). It creates such dimension and realness that it added to the remarkable design and artistry. It had been a long time since I saw a 3D movie, and it has never been one of my most favorite aspects, but this was well worth
it.

The music was sensational as well, helping to add to the visual storytelling and creating the proper tone and mood the film was going for.

However, Avatar: The Way of Water is not perfect by any stretch. It suffered from some of the same drawbacks of the original. First of all, it does strike me as familiar in a lot of ways. It hit a lot of the same beats as the first film did. Secondly, the dialogue was not as sharp as it could have been. Some of the language that was being used should have been mo0re foreign to the characters
than it was. Speaking of the characters, several of them were simple and not developed to the level that they could have been. Several of the Sully children were not given much more than surface level characteristics. Another problem with the narrative is that several plot points were brought up and seemingly dropped through the film. I’m not sure if it is was cut for time (as the film
was already well over 3 hours long) or if it is intended as material for further sequels that we know James Cameron intends to create, but theses are noticeable.

The third act of the film was an amazing action film with some serious stakes and dramatic tension. Again, this was very much like the previous film.

There is no doubt that the effects and imagery of this movie will revolutionize the movie industry as much as the first Avatar did. I cannot stress that this is a film that is screaming to be watched on a big screen. The bigger the better. Your mouth will be agape from the spectacle, and, because of that, you may be able to overlook the weaknesses in the narrative.

3.75 stars

Netflix had a series recently called Murderville, where celebrities joined Will Arnett’s character Detective Terry Seattle as homicide detective trainees, trying to solve a murder. The twist was that the celebrities did not receive a script and everything was straight improvisation.

The series had some moments to it, and it was always better when the celebrity had some improv skill. However, some of the moments were pretty painful.

A special Murderville arrived on Netflix this weekend, with a Christmas theme and a cast including Jason Bateman, Maya Rudolph, Pete Davison and Sean Hayes.

At a gathering at City Hall, Santa (Sean Hayes) is stabbed through the heart with a sharpened candy cane and Terry Seattle and his trainees looked to figure out the culprit.

I love improv, but the problem with Murderville is that the people they recruit are not improv experts and so it can become very messy. Both Maya Rudolph and Jason Bateman are funny, but they were constantly stepping on each other and none of it helped while Will Arnett was screaming and being too loud. Improv requires listening and working together, but there are just too many moments when everyone was trying to get their line in.

They would also toss some improv games into the mix. The Good Cop, Bad Cop bit was my favorite of these. One of the staples of this show was sending the celebrities undercover with Terry Seattle providing lines to them via headset. That always felt too forced, as it did here too.

The reveal of who the killer was was an entertaining stretch, but still felt too out of control.

These actors were also just cracking themselves up. Some laughing is understandable, but when the dead body is laughing hysterically, there may be a problem.

Overall, this is a harmless special, but it was really messy and could have been funnier. I would love to see a Colin Mochrie or a Ryan Styles on the case to show how season veteran improv performers handle the case.

2.75 stars

The Apple TV + original film filled with controversy starring the reigning Best Actor Oscar winner arrived last week to the streaming service.

Controversy because this is the first film starring Will Smith since his slap of Chris Rock at the Oscar ceremony earlier this year. Add that to the fact that this is a runaway slave story based on a true story and there is a lot here to question.

There had been a push by several black actors to not be involved in more slavery films. While it is a vital story to tell, constantly placing black actors in this situation was painting them into a corner. So when, of all people, Will Smith set up another slave film, there were some people talking.

But the most important part is whether or not the film is any good. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, Emancipation was a beautifully shot film, in a wonderful black and white, with a strong performance from Will Smith. Unfortunately, the film drags a lot and the characterization was lacking.

Our main character, Peter, has little to him. He was very religious and was clearly full of grit and determination. Outside of those traits, we learn very little about him. Everyone pursuing him was the stereotypical slave owners that you see in these types of films. The lead one was played by Ben Foster in a waste of such a talented actor. His character Jim Fassel had one scene where it seemed as if they were trying to give him more layers, but it was not successful.

There was an alligator fight. Where did that come from? Peter showed himself to be one of the most determined and uncommon men, battling to get back to his family. He had all kinds of damage to himself and, as a classic action hero, he fought his way through the pain and wounds that would kill any normal man. That makes this fairly difficult to relate with.

Emancipation was a mixed bag of a film. It had moments that were okay, but for a 2+ hour film, you would think that they could have developed characters more than they did. The three acts each seemed to have their own arc and they did not really fit together well.

2.6 stars

Who would have guessed that a musical about a singing crocodile would be any good?

Not I. I had no interest in seeing Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile when it was in the theaters earlier this year. Honestly, I was not aware of the musical part initially, but all I thought it would be was some dumb, family-friendly snooze-fest. Well, it was certainly dumb and family-friendly, but it was anything but a snooze-fest. In fact, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile was a lot of fun and had a charm that I did not expect.

We meet Lyle (voiced by Shawn Mendes) as a small, caged crocodile who could sing. Down on his luck singer Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem) discovered the singing reptile and tried to get him to join his act. Unfortunately, Lyle had a horrible case of stage fright and could not perform in front of a crowd. Hector left Lyle behind in the brownstone. Lyle stayed in the attic until he was found by Josh (Winslow Fegley), whose family moved into one of the apartments of the brownstone.

Josh was shy and timid, but when he found Lyle, they eventually bonded and became close. He tried to hid Lyle’s existence from his mom (Constance Wu) and dad (Scoot McNairy). Things took another turn when Hector returned from the road to come back to Lyle.

The relationship between Josh and Lyle was a nice selling point. A boy and his crocodile? Not what one would expect.

Javier Bardem is fantastic in the role of Hector. He looks like he is having a blast with the singing and the dancing. Javier Bardem is a top line actor, and he brings a certain level of credibility to the movie that it might not have without him.

Stranger Things actor Brett Gelman played the downstairs villain Mr. Grumps, who was certain that Josh and his family were the worst thing ever. He had some connection to Hector that they play with later in the film for the conflict. This part did not feel as earned as some of the rest of the film.

Yes, there were some low brow humor, aimed at a younger audience that felt dumb to me (a few fart jokes for example), but that was kept at a minimum and did not distract me from the overall positives that I was seeing.

The special effects were fine, if not unremarkable. Nothing that I saw on the screen made me grimace in frustration. The music was good, though I am not familiar with Shawn Mendes much. There have been some enjoyable musicals in 2022 and this is the most unexpected.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile was based on a mid-sixties children’s book of the same name by Bernard Waber. It is a reasonably entertaining movie that is great for all children. Younger kids are going to love this, and parents won’t hate seeing it.

3.5 stars