Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

Plot: Peter (Chris Pratt) reunites with his lost father, Ego (Kurt Russell) who has god-like powers. Ego wants to use Peter to take over the Galaxy. Peter, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket, and Groot strive to save the Galaxy again. There are two side plots one a golden race that wants revenge because Rocket stole some batteries, and another side plot about the Ravagers mutiny against Yondu (Michael Rooker).   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: This was creative and tons of fun. I really enjoyed all of it. It is a comedy and an adventure. The tone is always light and fun.

Baby Groot is alway cute and funny. The opening sequence is a dance sequence with baby Groot with the other Guardians battling a giant monster behind him.

I liked Chris Pratt's comic acting, and Dave Bautista delivers some good lines as well. Zoe Saldana is a good facial actor.

The star of this movie is the jokey plot and the irreverant tone. In that sense the real star is writer-director James Gunn. 

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista

Written and directed by: James Gunn

The Music: .Even though I have a low tolerance for oldies, these songs fit in well with the mood of the movie. I even appreciated Brandy, which I liked back in the day, but would never listen to now. 

The Visuals: Some great costumes on all those actors. I really like Nebula's make up. Some of the other effects are deliberately hokey for comic effect. 

Rating: 3.5  stars: Why not 4 stars because I loved it. 

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Even More: There are four end-credit bonus sequences. Two hints about future movies and two just for fun.

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Gifted

Plot: First grade orphan Mary (Mckenna Grace) is supergood with math. She is being raised by her uncle Frank (Chris Adler) in a low rent cottage in Florida. Her teacher Bonnie (Jenny Slate) says she is gifted, but Frank wants to keep her with kids her age. Grandma Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) flies in from Boston and sues Frank to get custody. She wants to send Mary to tutors and elite schools. After a court hearing, the final scenes lead to a milquetoast ending.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Gifted is a well acted movie without much of a story. This is ironic because Gifted originated as a winning script in scriptwriting contest, so something was lost in translation.

The movie's core is the education of a likable first grader. I have hard time getting worked up about education choices made for six year olds and how this affects their lifetime. I am a big proponent of education, but it is not a juicy driver of emotion. I never knew any math geniuses, and I have a hard time believing that any "genius" really is a gift and not just motivation combined with a pushy parent -- like Malcom Gladwell's 10000 hours of practice is what produces genius.

I liked Mckenna Grace; child actors can be dull, but she was fun to watch. Chris Evans was OK, but he was so stereotypically perfect that he seemed dull. Not sure what teacher Bonnie saw in him beyond the biceps, but actress Jenny Slate did a good job with her. Octavia Spencer's character didn't have much to do in the story, but she is likeable.

An interesting aspect is that Grandma Evelyn, departed daughter Diane, and Mary are/were all math jocks. It is like Evelyn is trying to Mary into a copy of the dead daughter Diane. This twisted aspect of Evelyn personality is only hinted at, and I would like to have seen more.

Gifted is OK. It dragged in the middle.  Although Mckenna is a good child actress, the central drama was not dramatic enough.

Cast: Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Jenny Slate, 

Directed by: Marc Webb

Written by: Tom Flynn. The script for gifted won an award in 2014/5. It is not based on a book. 

The Visuals: Almost all talking heads. Many chalkboard scene film obliquely so you can't read the writing.

Rating: 2.0 stars: 

Even More: Director Webb grew up in Madison Wisconsin. He loved math as a kid, and had the quadratic equation written on the side of his bead. link

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Fate of the Furious

Plot: Dom (Vin Diesel) gets blackmailed by evil hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron) to do three crimes, in Cuba, NYC and in Russia. Spy Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell) recruits the F&F team including Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Ludacris Bridges), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) as well as former enemy Deckard (Jason Statham) to stop Dom. What follows are many over-the-top car chases leading to a yet more over-the-top finale.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Fast cars, showy chases, party music -- it is fun movie. The shadowy spies are not serious enough to make us worry; and the movie becomes comic and self-satire as it progresses.

Jason Statham beating up bad guys one handed while holding a baby is just funny. 

Cast: Vin Diesel. Charlize Theron, Kurt Fussell, Dwayne Jonson, Michelle Rodrigeuz, Tyrese B Gibson, Ludacris Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Statham

Directed by: F. Gary Gray

Written by: Chris Morgan based on characters by Gary Scott Thompson

The Music: Hip-Hop, salsa and rock n roll; I bought Hey Ma by  Pitbull, Camila Cabello and J Balvin

The Visuals: Good special effects, some unrealistic, but all pretty cool looking 

Rating: 2.0 stars: Fun to watch, and what is wrong with that?

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Lion

Plot: Five year old Saroo (Sunny Pawar) gets lost at a train station, and ends up on the other side of India. He is eventually adopted by Sue (Nichole Kidman) & her husband, an Australian couple. Saroo  (Dev Patel) grows up, meets girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara), and attempts to find his mother with clues that he remembers from childhood.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A competent movie told visually; very slow at times. It has a satisfying ending that makes the dreary middle worthwhile.

Lion is not about street children in India, but it does elevate that issue. It is about adult Saroo trying to learn his personal story and to relieve his mother of worry.

The acting is competent including by Dev and Nichole. I wasn't swept away. The dialog is so-so, but as mentioned the story is not dialog driven.

The strength of this movie is the story, and sympathetic images of young Saroo wondering the streets. The story of adult Saroo is less moving. The sub-plot with brother Mantosh must have been more interesting in the book, because it was distracting and unpleasant here. It felt like filler material.

I went to the theater with high expectations because of the glowing reviews and Oscar buzz. I was pretty disappointed. I did not find a gripping social message elevate this otherwise mediocre film.  

Cast: Dev Patel, Nichol Kidman, Sunny Pawar, Abhishek Bharate, Rooney Mara

Directed by: Garth Davis

Based on the book by: Saroo Brierley;  A Long Way Home (A notably better title than "Lion")

The Music: OK

The Visuals: Not so great. Lots of shots of landforms and alleyways. There was a tender moment  with Dev Patel playing with Rooney Mara's hand. 

Rating: 2.0 stars: A two star film. Pretty overhyped in the media. 

More: Lion should get an award for the LEAST descriptive film title.

Even More: Dev Patel should trim his beard or maybe shave.

Yet More: This was a great deal at the dollar cinema in Allen Park.

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Ghost in the Shell (2017 movie)

Plot: A girl's brain gets transplanted into a robot body, and then renamed as "Major" (Scarlett Johansson), she works for the Japanese anti-terrorist police. Mysterious villain Kuze (Michael Pitt) is killing engineers from the robotics company Hanka. When Major learns that who Kuze is, it causes her to rethink her identity and her loyalty. This leads to the final battle.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Some cool ideas, some cool visuals, but dry and not engaging.

In the first scene, Major strips down to chase a bad guy. We see her asexualized human-shaped robot body, and this is a metaphor for the whole film. She is first a robot, and not so much the girl inside. Much later when she finds people from her past, she is still robotic -- too distant. It is the lack of emotional engagement that wrecks the film. Major never seems like the poor orphan impressed into military service, robbing the movie of emotional power.

No doubt, the hidden emotions are to show that the character is a robot, but it is easy to think of emotion-filled Sci-Fi robots. Not here. Scarlett's talents are wasted on a character who seems unemotional, or maybe she wasn't up to the job. Only her boss' character Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) has gravity.

The plot is primarily told visually, and I found it easy to follow. This style meant we don't get discourses on philosophy or complicated plot twists, but it works on the action movie level. 

Ghost in the Shell is the most international film that I have seen since Pacific Rim. Set in Japan, we see actors from races around the world. Scarlett Johansson and Michael Pitt are white, why? Probably because she is more bankable more than Rinko Kikushi.

Major

Major is a kind of "cool girl." In books written by men, they are modeled after the author's image of himself, not modeled after any real woman; she is a character who likes guns and competition more than fashion and children. Cool Girls are always sexy: a male character in a girl body. See the image of Major in the manga.

The Cool Girl trope is why Major needed to strip down in the opening. If the movie, was going to work, she needed to be sexy, but the sexiness got lost in the uncanny valley.

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbaek

Directed by: Rupert Sanders

Based on the manga by: Masamune Shirow

The Music: Electronic by Magnus Deus; I bought the main theme. During the film, it was hardly noticeable.

The Visuals: The futuristic street scenes are great is all the art direction.  I liked the way they took the faces of the robot bodies apart.

I think the uncanny valley was the issue with Major's body -- odd/creepy not so sexy. 

Rating: 1.5  stars: I can't decide between 1.5 stars and 2.0.  It wasn't really fun to watch, and it didn't play with philosophical ideas as it might have.

 

More: I know Ghost in the Shell primarily from the soundtrack album. I never read the manga or saw the TV show.

Even More: At 1.5 stars, it might end up on my worst of the year list. That would be too bad, because it was worthy effort.

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Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Plot: Belle (Emma Watson) and her Dad Maurice (Kevin Kline) live an 18th Century French village. Maurice (Kevin Kline) is attacked by wolves in the winter and, wondering through the snow, comes upon a haunted castle. At the castle a Beast (Dan Stevens) attacks and imprisons him. Alerted by an intelligent horse to her father's situation, Belle rides back to the castle, and takes her father's place as prisoner. The beast treats her beastly, but gradually they begin to be nice to each other, and the story ends like a fairy tale. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: 

First, I am a sucker for a musical, and this one is lots of fun. I especially like the big production numbers. I also liked the

Second, I don't mind remakes. The animation from the 1991 version shows its age. Most of the songs in the old version have stronger vocalists, and sound great.  The new version did not need to be so literal; they kept many of the not funny jokes in the lyrics.

Third, the plot is still a hostage falling in love with her captor. No matter how they try to hide it, it is creepy to celebrate the love story between a young girl and her physically-stronger, captor. I can help thinking of Jaycee Dugard, who was raped by her captor regularly for 18 years. Having said that, Disney tries to clean it up for children.

The lesson author de Villeneuve was trying to express was something like you can't judge a person by  its appearance. (See what I did there? I used "its" to refer to a gender neutral person.) This is valuable, and it is played up by the mixed race cast. It is undercut by the beast turning into a handsome prince, rather than a plain one. The movie has homophobic tropes in it as well as pro-homosexual ones, especially at the end. 

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Hattie Morahan,

Directed by: Bill Condon

Story by: Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1790

The Music: Great. All the songs from the 1991 classic and a few new ones. 

The Visuals:  Luminere and Cogsworth are great. I like the wolf fights too. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: It is a 3 star movie less ½ star for being about kidnapping girls. 

 

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Before I Fall

Plot: Sam (Zoey Deutch) gets up, goes to school, gets flowers from admirers on Valentine's Day, goes to a party, and then gets killed in a roll-over car crash with her girlfriends. And on the next day, it all happens again, like Groundhog Day. Each day she tries to live a little differently, and get more clarity on what is most important.    [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Before I Fall is very introspective, and it is still pretty watchable. Sam tries, gets things wrong a dozen different ways, and slowly improves herself. The endlessly repeating day idea works well for such a touch-feely movie. The movie takes up themes of teen suicide and bullying.

Before I Fall works because of Zoey Deutch and her facial acting. The wordless communication is better than all the catty dialog between the girls.

Because it is a high school drama, it is familiar territory, but it works. It works because the interpersonal ties between the girls and the with Sam's childhood friend Logan (Kent McFuller) are so strong. As Sam gets more self-aware though endless practice, she sees her relationships more clearly. Further she risks more because she knows that day's embarrassments will be wiped away the next day. 

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Elena Kampouris, Cynthy Wu

Directed by: Ry Russo-Young

Written by: Maria Maggenti based on the novel by Lauren Oliver

The Music: Pop/Dance music with female vocalists

The Visuals: Mostly talking, but a few artistic images

Rating: 2.5 stars: I liked it. 

 

More: Director Russo-Young says that the first day's high school drama is intended as a satire of high school movies, before it gets stranger and deeper in later repetitions.

Even More: I saw this in a theater full of young people. Movies about young people are some of the best stories. If older people should not only watch movies about old people. Movies about young people are better than movies with over-the-hill actors making one last gasp, for example, last week's Logan.

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