When I started the animated film Leo on Netflix, I did not know it was an Adam Sandler vehicle. Sandler is not one of my favorite actors, to be honest. It seems as if most of his films are the same stupid, immature jokes and he plays the same basic character in all of them. Still, he has had some moments of excellence such as Rare Gems. It wasn’t too long into Leo that I recognized his voice work.
In this movie, Sandler gives his voice to the lizard named Leo. Turned out that all of the animals could speak. Leo, along with Squirtle (Bill Barr), were classroom pets in a 5th grade class. When Leo starts being taken home with the students, he starts talking to them, telling each that he could only speak to them and that they were special.
There are some funny moments. The film does a good job of avoiding the immature humor that I associate with Sandler. There are some heart-warming moments through as well.
I was surprised that it turned out to be a musical. Most of the songs were catchy and some were clever lyrically. There was nothing very serious, but fun matching the film.
As I said, this was fun and enjoyable. It certainly could have been much worse. There were some childish moments, but nothing that made me cringe as an adult.
I don’t know why it took me this long to watch this movie.
Nyad is a biopic of Diana Nyad, the marathon swimmer who wanted to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida. She had attempted the swim when she was 28 years old, only to fail. She then tried again, starting when she was 60 years old.
Nyad was portrayed in the film by Annette Bening, who did a remarkable job in the physical role. Nyad was accompanied by her long time friend Bonnie Stoll, played here by Jodie Foster. The film was not just a film of staying the course and never giving up, but it was also one of friendship and the trials between friends.
Bening and Foster were amazing in their roles. The whole cast did a great job, but Bening and Foster were on screen all the time and brought so much energy and ferociousness to their work, you could believe that they both were fighting for that last chance to reach their dreams.
Rhys Ifans deserves recognition too for his role as John Bartlett, the chief navigator for the mission.
The story was one of amazing dogged determination, a woman who did not want to give up and how that determination affected, often negatively, those people around her. The stretch of the film where Nyad’s crew were dropping out on her because they were afraid she was going to die doing this was exceptional.
Bening was not afraid to show the warts of Diana Nyad and to make her look selfish and paint her in a negative way. She felt like a real person and not just the ‘force of nature’ that they described her as several times.
I am very pleased that I finally got a chance to watch this on Netflix and I would recommend anyone who likes the reaching for the stars type of sport movie watch it as well. Either way, there are two performances that should be considered come Oscar nomination time.
Zack Snyder is bad in just about the most Zack Snyder-like Star Wars wannabe movie on Netflix today. You should read that last line in slow motion to celebrate this movie because there is a TON of slo-mo in Rebel Moon.
According to IMDB, “When a peaceful settlement on the edge of a distant moon finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Mother World, Kora assembles a small band of warriors – outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a battle over the fate of a galaxy is waged, and in the process, a new army of heroes is formed.“
This film was surprisingly boring for much of the run time. And then there was some slo-mo. Kora went out to recruit a band of characters to help protect the village in a very Seven Samurai inspiration. One problem? None of these new characters were very interesting or more than a one-dimensional archetype.
The dialogue was poorly written, and there was so much exposition when dealing with these characters. It makes this so much more dull than it needed to be.
Typically A Zack Snyder movie looks great. This one looks great at times. It also looks badly. It is such a mishmash of special effects that you do not expect from such as visual of a director as Zack Snyder.
The villains of this movie are basically Nazis in space. There is no nuance to any of these villains.
There is some interesting world building in the film, but the execution of presenting it was really weak.
This was not a good film. I am not sure if the next part of the movie will be better or just a lot of the same.
“What If… Peter Quill Fought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”
Episode two is a bit of a step back from the excellent first episode of season two.
Peter Quill gets taken by Yondu and given to Ego. They go about on the Expanse and Peter comes back to earth, leading Peggy Carter to bring together the best heroes the earth could muster at the time.
It was sort of a different style Avengers formation, including Bill Foster, King T’Chaka, The Winter Soldier, Hank Pym, and Dr. Wendy Lawson (Mar-Vell). Things picked up when Thor arrived too.
As with all of the What If…? episodes, one of the cool things is that the most actors who played these characters in the MCU films reprise their roles on the animated show. That led to an astounding cast for an animated show including Chris Hemsworth, Michael Douglas, Laurence Fishburne, Kurt Russell, John Slattery, Sebastian Stan and Hayley Atwell all on the call list for episode two.
There were some good things that happened in the episode. It is not as if I hated this one. It just felt too rushed in some places. I did not love some of the character choices and a lot of what could have made the episode stronger was left out.
The animation continues to be a highlight of the show so far. Everything looked awesome and feels like a step up from season one.
Running Order:
Definitely…
E1 “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”
E2 “What If… Peter Quill Fought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”
The long delayed Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom finally came out as the final installment before James Gunn’s films start coming out in 2025.
I had the bar set really low for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and, unfortunately, it seems as if the film stumbled over it.
There was nothing obnoxiously unwatchable about the movie. It just wasn’t very good and there were plenty of times where it was actively stupid. I found much of the first act or so boring. The third act was the typical DC CGI fest and it was really predictable.
Jason Momoa still does a decent job as Arthur Curry, but I am not sure that a lot of the humor worked well. Momoa and Patrick Wilson’s chemistry was okay, but it did feel like a poor-man’s version of Thor and Loki. Amber Heard’s presence felt awkward because of her outside situations.
CGI was a mishmash. Some moments it was pretty good. I’d say the background with the settings were always beautiful. However, some of the action and the evil villain from the past was not good. When that green Groot-like looking thing showed up, I got real Paralax from Green Lantern vibes. I almost laughed at the character the first time he appeared.
There were several things that did not make sense, but I can’t go into these without spoiling. One thing from the third act involving Randall Park that I just could not get past.
I also spent a lot of time watching their hair flitter in the water but nothing else happened. No bubbles from the mouth. No other things floating. I was distracted by Momoa’s hair every time he was supposed to be underwater.
This was just not very good and it sent the DCEU sputtering off into the night. Bring on James Gunn’s new DCU.
It is time once again for the Expendables Awards for Acting Excellence. The awards given out to members of the massive cast for their best and worst appearances. And this year we had a new Expendable movie so we’ll see how things go.
Best movie w/Expendable: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Harrison Ford is here and, while the movie is at best fine, it is one of the best of the group of films with these actors in it.
Best Expendable Actor: Harrison Ford for Shrinking. The Apple TV show that saw Ford as a psychiatrist. His work was really great in this series.
Worst movie with Expendables: Expend4bles. Ironic that the worst of the films this year featuring this group of actors is Expend4bles, which is easily one of the worst movies of this entire year. Even in my review of the film, I said that it would be the worst movie of the year if it had not been for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. This was truly a terrible movie.
The Bruce Willis Quantity Over Quality Expendables Award for Most Movies Made: Jason Statham. This year, Statham made four movies and, they were all just terrible. Expend4bles and The Meg 2 are among those four and they have a chance to be in the top 5 worst films of the year.
Best Expendable Cameo: Antonio Banderas (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny). Banderas was one of the highlights of The Dial of Destiny and I really wish he had stayed around for more in the film. Banderas has actually won Expendable Awards every year for awhile.
Best Expendable with a Giant Shark: Jason Statham. This is an award that was given out the year of The Meg, and now it has returned for this time.
Best Expendable in Blue Makeup (or CGI face): Kelsey Grammar (The Marvels). The cool cameo in The Marvels post credit scene of Beast from the X-Men FOX universe was mind blowing and hinted at some major mutant fun.
The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award
Previous Winners: Avengers: Endgame (2019), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), In the Heights (2021), Mass (2021), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
This year had a few solid ensemble casts. I generally consider an ensemble cast here as a cast without a main lead, although some of the previous winners did have lead performances too.
Runners-Up: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. A great finale for this franchise within the MCU. Everybody got their awesome final moments. Dungeons & Dragons was a surprise hit of the year, at least critically. Their group of actors worked so well together. Air was another film that did great earlier in the year. The third Poirot film with Kenneth Branagh was the best of the three, A Haunting in Venice. Saltburn had a leading performance, but the ensemble around him was part of the weird film’s strength.
Winner: Oppenheimer
Sure, you could make an argument that Cillian Murphy is the lead of the film. I mean, it is named after his character. However, there are so many rich and complex characters populating this film that you could argue that this might be one of the best ensemble casts of all time. Oppenheimer was a huge hit and should be heard from again come Oscar time.
I was not looking forward to this movie. I love the original film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Gene Wilder is the perfect actor for the role. I hated the Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film and it felt as if nobody needed or wanted more of this.
So when they announced a prequel featuring Timothée Chalamet as Wonka, I did not find it to be something to anticipate. However, I really enjoyed Wonka after seeing it this morning.
We start with Willy Wonka arriving on a ship, preparing to become a great chocolate maker. Unfortunately for him, he spent through his money in the first song and had no place to spend the night. He was brought to a place by Bleacher (Tom David) run by his companion, Mrs. Scrubitt (Olivia Colman). They seemed kind, but wanted Wonka to sign a contract, one with plenty of fine print. Wonka was warned by a young girl named Noodle (Calah Lane) to read the fine print, but Wonka did not know how to read. He signed and it turned out to include charges for just about everything.
When his chocolate selling was disrupted by a chocolate cartel and the police chief (Keegan-Michael Key), Wonka discovered he owed Scrubitt a lot of money and had to work it off as an indentured servant.
I found the music of the film to be extremely enjoyable and catchy. My favorite song was probably “Scrub Scrub” but they were all very engaging.
Timothée Chalamet was very good as Willy Wonka, bringing a kindness and a sugary sweet disposition to Wonka. It was clear that there was more going on with the character and Chalamet’s performance brought that out.
However, my biggest criticism with the way Chalamet was presented as Wonka was the original Wonka, as played by Gene Wilder, had a definite amount of sinister aspects to him. You believed that Wonka would be just as happy letting those kids fall into his furnaces or be tortured by stretching or juicing. The manner in which Wonka was presented as barely caring when terrible things happened to the kids made that performance so deeper. There is no way that this Wonka would allow a child to fall into his chocolate river and get sucked up the tube. Maybe you could say that he was still heading toward that, but I was hoping to see some darkness inside of this version of Wonka, and there was none there.
Still, I found the story to be fun, the music to be great and the overall acting was very enjoyable. The film looked good with some beautiful imagery and some powerful moments.
Some of the side characters and the villains felt too cartoonish to really matter, but there was a really great relationship between Wonka and Noodle, which led to to some emotional moments as the story moved on.
I am not sure how I feel about Hugh Grant as the Oompa-Loompa. He had some moments, but I am not sure if his inclusion was worthwhile. His song was very funny though as it takes a bit of a twist from the original film with the use of the Oompa-Loompas.
I was thoroughly entertained by Wonka and my criticisms were not that major as to throw off my enjoyment of the film. It was better than I anticipated, even if it were lacking a little darkness in the soul of Wonka.
It is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the world of movies. At times it is really a matter of opinion. Others it is painfully apparent as to whether a film has flopped. Sadly, 2023 saw more than its share of flops.
Truthfully, even some of the better movies of the year could be considered a flop this year because of the way the box office seems to be going. I know that there will be some films on my Top 30 films list of the year that would be considered a flop. It has been a tough year.
Even the juggernaut of film companies, Disney, has lost its share of money on movies this year. If it can happen to Disney, it can happen to anyone.
The excess of streaming services can be blamed for some of these flops. Who wants to go to the theater when they can just wait a few months and see the film on Disney + or on Max?
The John Carter Memorial Award is given to the film chosen by EYG as the biggest flop of the year. This year was a tough decision.
Past years had some tough choices too.
John Carter Memorial Award
Previous winners: John Carter, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Lone Ranger, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Expendables 3, Jem and the Holograms, Pan, Rock the Casbah, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Robin Hood (2018), Mortal Engines, Playmobil: The Movie, The Rhythm Section, Reminiscence, Strange World
This year had plenty of runners-up.
Dis-Honorable mention: One of the reasons that these films are considered flops is the size of the budget. Some of these movies just spent too much money and had no chance of making it back. One example was the fifth film in the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which was a decent movie, but it seemed as if no one was going to go see it. Certainly not enough to make up a budget of reportedly 294.7 million dollars, not counting marketing. Another film with a budget too high was the first official flop of the MCU, The Marvels. I liked that movie a lot, but it did not make it to $100 million domestically. Killers of the Flower Moon also did not make much money domestically with a considerably larger budget than this type of film usually has. Shazam: Fury of the Gods did not succeed on building on a successful first film. Disney’s latest film Wish should have done much better business than it did, just showing that Disney is struggling to put together that classic animated hit. Big George Foreman only made $5.7 million worldwide on a $32 million dollar budget. I did not see it either. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One was one of the best films of the year, but it just did not make much moolah.
Of all of these, though, there is one that should have been way more successful and should have been a lynchpin of the films this summer.
Winner: The Flash
This was a huge DC Comics film, featuring one of the top characters of the company. The Flash had a nine year TV show preceding this. And yet, it was as if everything was playing against The Flash for Warner Brothers. Starting with the craziness of its star’s life over the last couple of years. Ezra Miller made headlines with his behavior and it reflected poorly on The Flash. Though not the sole reason for this film’s downfall, it did play a part. Secondly, the film was not very good. It had some parts that were solid, but a film that saw the return of Michael Keaton as Batman should never have had this much trouble. Third, everyone knew that this was a film that was staggering to the end as the whole DCEU was being revamped into the DCU by James Gunn and this film would not go on.
I’ve always liked the Flash. He is one of my top DC characters. This was, at best for me, okay and I could see the numerous problems with it. I never would have guessed that it would only make $55 million opening weekend.
That makes this the John Carter Memorial Award winner for 2023.
I have been a fan of Roxy Striar for years, since she was the host of TV Fights. So when I heard she had such a significant role in a movie, I wanted to see it. It was very much an independent feature and with it finally available on Prime, I rented it.
This was a very fascinating movie. These actors are all new faces except for Striar and Andrew Ghai, who I knew from the Movie Trivia Schmoedown. I think you can see the inexperience from these actors, but they did a decent job.
The film dove deep into the concept of depression and mental illness, dealing with grief and guilt that comes with it. I did like the way they told the story, through flashbacks to when Lola, Roxy Striar’s character, was still alive.
The film had a well written interactions between these characters. There was a weird transition about half way through, but I did like the way the film ended up.
I am very happy for Roxy, getting a role like this and doing such a solid job. There was a lot of emotion and sadness, as well as hope and rebirth. An independent film that gives a clear message.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 