Keanu

Plot: Rell (Jorden Peele) finds a cute kitten on his doorstep and adopts him. He goes to visit his friend Clarence (Keegan-Michael Key), and when they comes back to Rell's house, it has been burglarized. Their neighborhood drug dealer says that the boss drug dealer Cheddar (Method Man) robbed his house and took the cat. Rell and Clarence, who are middle class black men, impersonate tough guys from the hood to get the kitten back. They end up telling big lies to boost their cred, and soon are delivering drugs to rich clients with the tough but cute Hi-C (Tiffany Haddish.) Thinks go poorly and soon many thugs are chasing them. This leads to a plot twist, and in the end everyone gets their just deserts.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Good parts and bad parts. I liked the Clarence character. I liked his fast talking lies, and his background intellectualism. Gotta like rocking out to George Michael.  As you can imagine, most of the movie is sitcom action about two normal guys pretending to be the toughest of the tough guys. Some was funny, but some was cringeworthy -- watching our heroes do such stupid stuff. Cringeworthy gags can be fun, but this got repetitive.

The kitten gimmick was clever with all the tough guy posturing, gun-play, and high body count the movie could be too heavy to be funny, but every time a tough guy would pick up the tiny kitten -- the whole movie instantly got ridiculous again.

I liked the ending too. Not too Hollywood, but Hollywood enough. 

Cast: Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Tiffany Haddish

Directed by: Peter Atencio

Written by: Jordan Peele, Alex Rubens

The Music: Never noticed it. I sure there was some. I liked the George Michael lip-sync.

The Visuals:  The violence isn't bloody. I wonder how they got the cat to do all that.

Rating: 2.0 stars; I had fun at the theater, what more do you want? The humor was a little repetitive, but the characters were likable. 

More: There were seven kittens used in the production, boys and girls.

Even More: .

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The Jungle Book

Plot: A boy named Mowgli is being raised by wolves in the jungle, watched over by Bagherra, a panther. A large tiger says that Mowgli must leave the jungle because he will grow to be a man, and men are bad. Bagharra agrees to take Mowgli to a jungle village so he can be with other people. On the way he meets Baloo, a bear, and decides he does not want to go the village. He goes back to confront the tiger, and that leads to the final scene.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Jungle Book looks great, but it takes more than pictures to make a fun movie. This is one of the best animal action CGI movies in terms of technical achievement. The animals are rendered if not realistically, because they talk, but with realistic imagination. The scenes of Mowgli running in the trees at the beginning and the end are great. It is a shame the visuals were wasted on such a bad script.

The movie's story (as distinct from the book) is just another menacing bad guy to run away from. The movie's platitudes fall flat, and some of the humor is for just for kids. (Though happily no fart jokes.)

Once I got tired of the pretty pictures, I wanted a story to engage with. I got bored by 35 minutes in and was wishing for the movie to end quickly. 

Cast: Frequent readers may recognize that I don't credit voice actors since it slights the animation artists who are at least as important. Bill Murray's voice is distracting. His mannerism were too much like his other roles; it pulls me out of the film, to thinking about why Bill Murray is playing a jungle bear.

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Written by: Justin Marks, based on the book by Rudyard Kipling

The Music: Orchestral music by John Debney, with a song by Bill Murray and another by Christopher Walken. Both sing in old-school, honky-tonk jazz songs with lots of horns. 

The Visuals: Tops. Best animation of this kind. 

Rating: 1.5 stars: I wished I could leave early. 

 

More: You can't trust critics to review kids movies. They get it wrong so frequently.

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Zootopia

Plot: Judy Hopps wants to become the first rabbit cop in Zootopia, but isn't given an opportunity to prove herself. Soon she stumbles on a scandal, and with the help of a fox named Nick, she catches the baddies. At same time she acts out a 21st century allegory about ability and discrimination. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Zootopia has some good moments and an positive message while not being too preachy. The detective drama is only ok, but the visual humor is always there. I loved watching the tall giraffes. I liked the concert at the end with dancing tigers. The best parts show a happy community with many animals living peacefully together.

The scene at the DMV is a classic -- too bad they spoiled it in the trailer.

Perhaps an anti-discrimination message is never out of date, and this one has a twist. On the other hand, Zootopia doesn't have the fun of Cars or Frozen. 

Directed by: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush

Written by: 9 people. How long does it take 9 people to write a movie?

The Music: Just average, but I liked the Shakira song at the end. Made me want to play Shakira when I got home. 

The Visuals: Top quality animation, but no dramatic visual scenes. 

Rating:  2.0 stars: It was OK.

 

Bizarre Spoiler Alert: The Chinese People's Liberations Army Daily called Zootopia propaganda: they say wolves eat sheep -- it is a corruption to have sheep menacing wolves. More here.

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Concussion

Plot: Pittsburgh Medical Examiner Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) does autopsies on two Pittsburgh Steelers players, and finds an unusual brain disease that he attributes to head trauma while playing football.  Meanwhile Bennet marries his wife Pema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and together they experience harressment from the NFL and fans. In the second half of the movie he meets physician Julian Bailes and together they battle the NFL. ([imdb]    [photos]

Review: It starts with personal stories of the players and their minds slipping away. This is linked with the sympathetic Dr Omalu discovering the problem. Will Smith and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are great. Will Smith disappears into the character. Early on the dialog is wonderful and the photography is dramatic. I loved it.

Then it changes from a medical movie to a legal movie. Oh, the NFL -- so bad. Oh, just like the tobacco companies. This part of the movie should have been compressed to 15 minutes. 

Cast: Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin

Directed by: Peter Landesman

Written by:  Peter Landesman based on the article in GQ called Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas

The Music: Solid early. What the heck was the country tune at the end credits? 

The Visuals: Some well staged and dramatic shots. 

Rating: 3.0 stars: Half a good movie, kicked up for great performances by Will Smith and Mbatha-Raw, and because the story has a social valence. 

More: Here is photo of the real Dr Omalu.

Even More: .

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10 Cloverfield Lane

Plot: Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) breaks up with her husband and drives away. Someone forces her off the road, and she crashes her car. She wakes up chained to a wall with Howard (John Goodman), who says that there has been an invasion of America, and it isn't safe to go outside. She is safe with him and his neighbor Emmett (John Gallagher) in a bunker. After while Michelle isn't sure if there really is a disaster outside, or if she is the prisoner of a pervert -- like in Room. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane is a well-crafted, suspenseful and creepy, plus it has a twist ending that is a little bit scary.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead carries the movie by being sympathetic and emotive. John Goodman has a good performance too, but he is so creepy and disturbing.

The vast majority of the movie is inside the bomb shelter, and its like a stage play with only dialog. John Goodman is always menacing, and varying degrees of crazy. He always dominates the action, and with a good script, keeps it interesting the whole time.

The ending scenes were great too. Very suspenseful, even with the basic special effects. 

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher

Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg

Written by: Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken

The Music: Pretty minimal

The Visuals: Low budget special effects. Maybe that is charming or retro?

Rating: 3.0 stars: Well made, creepy, good ending. 

More: Production cost only $5 million; it should make a fortune.

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Plot: TV journalist Kim Baker goes to Kabul, Afghanistan during the war with the Taliban. It shows her struggling in Kabul with the people, the war, and the restrictions of women with the help of fixer Ali (Alfred Molina). She meets reporters Tanya (Margot Robbie) and Iain (Martin Freeman) and they talk about stories and drink too much. It's based on a memoir with a series of incidents rather than a traditional dramatic structure with a climatic conclusion. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The best part is Kim's character who faces improbable challenges one ofter another. The drama is her growth and development.  I am told the original book is funny. The humor arises for the weird situations like a sitcom.

It's based on a memoir, so it's based on a series of incidents in chronological order. This means there is no overarching plot with its climatic ending, and this makes it less satisfying somehow. People complain that all movies are the same, but when a movie isn't the same -- people say something is the matter with it.

Aside from Tina Fey's performance, Margot Robbie and Martin Freeman are fine, perhaps a little too "large" and comedic for a drama. They don't get any dramatic lines.

Now that I've seen it, I can't name any favorite scenes. 

Cast: Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina

Directed by: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Based on the book by: Kim Barker called The Taliban Shuffle

The Visuals: The scenes of Kabul and the countryside were spectacular. 

Rating: 2.0 stars: Sort of the definition of a two star movie with high spot and low spots. It was OK. I thought it was fun to see. 

More: At right is the real Kim Baker" (actually Barker), who was a newspaper correspondent for the Chicago Tribune in Kabul during the aughts. She is a Metro reporter for the NY Times now. 

Even More: None of the filming was in the Middle East. Kabul scenes were in shot in Albuquerque.

Yet More: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a dumb name for a movie.

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Trumbo

Plot: Galton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was a communist Hollywood writer who was blacklisted for studio work during the 1950's anti-Soviet Cold War, along with many others. It shows his early activism with Arlen Hird (Louis CK), studio politics with John Wayne (David James Elliott), Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) & Edward G Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his struggle to make money while blacklisted by using a series of pseudonyms. While blacklisted Trumbo worked maniacally at home creating drama with wife Cleo (Diane Lane), daughter Nika (Elle Fanning) and his other kids. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Trumbo shows how 1950's America was another world from today: a world where post-war fear created government oppression seemingly greater than that found today. (See Even More below.) Alan Cranston's dramatic acting and scriptwriter McNamara's powerful dialog provide weightness to the Hollywood blacklisting events. The dialog often sounds like quotes from real events with the stilted voice and elevated word choice of a master writer. 

Having said all this good stuff, Trumbo is about the political establishment trying to limit the movie industry's influence on the populous. Politicians did not understand the expanding mass entertainment industry, but they knew the writers controlled the message, and they put their thumb down on them.

Trumbo was sent to jail, and was a political prisoner. Certainly there is less overt political imprisonment today, though some terrorism suspects probably qualify.  Trumbo begins with a political struggle, but it is more free speech, and an Occupy Wall Street or Bernie Sanders redistribution theme. In the end Trumbo loses his politics in order to pay his bills and also to get an Oscar. Getting an Oscar seems sold out to me.  In the end Trumbo pulls its punches, and pushes a message of individual civil liberty especially free speech.

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Helen Mirren, Louis CK, Diane Lane, Michael Stuhlbarg, 

Directed by: Jay Roach

Written by: John McNamara, based on the book by Bruce Cook

The Music: Never noticed it.

The Visuals: As mentioned, there is old footage of hearings and of movies in which the films actors are inserted in a way that they match the color and texture of the original. Difficult technically, and fun to watch. I especially liked how Dean O'Gorman was inserted into a fight scene in Spartacus. 

Rating: 4.0 stars: .

More: I liked the photos at the end of the real Dalton Trumbo. Working in the bathtub is pretty strange.

Even More: In the fear-filled 1950's political oppression was heavy on communist scriptwriters, but is it really different from today's talk of Muslim bans, border walls, and bars against refugees. Was the oppression in Hollywood as bad as being shot by police in Ferguson?

My feeling during the film was that the 50's were another era, and also "How thin the distance between us and the barbarian past?" As I think about this later, many people were killed during the cold war in Vietnam or Korea or countless smaller conflicts.

How much of the cold war battle against communism was the 1% trying to hang on to their goods? I still think that the battle against Castro's Cuba was caused by the now Florida-resident former landowners trying to get their land back. They are trying to assert rights under a Feudal system in the 21st Century.

Yet More: Writer John McNamara is also the script writer for one my favorite series, The Magicians based on the books by Lev Grossman.

It doesn't stop: The Louis CK character, Arlin, wasn't real. He was a composite of five characters. The drama about cancer: not real.

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