I Kill Giants

Plot: Troubled teen Barbara (Madison Wolfe) prepares each afternoon to battle giants with homemade traps and a battle axe, named Coveleski. At school she gets picked on, in part because she always wears halloween-style rabbit ears. Counselor Mrs Molle (Zoe Saldana) tries to talk to Barbara, but Barbara doesn't want help. Sophia (Sydney Wade), Barbara's sister, tries to look after her at home but Sophia is young herself and has to work to support them. The neighbor girl, Karen (Imogen Poots), sees how eccentric Barbara is, learns about her plans to fight them. At the very end, there is a big twist.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: I Kill Giants is always interesting. It is a really strange tale. Early on, it is ambiguous about whether there really are giants coming as in a Harry Potter movie. It is clear Barbara is troubled, but perhaps also clued-in about the coming giant apocalypse. Barbara is so plucky and self-assured that she preservers. Her determination and her pain are her endearing qualities.

I liked the dialog, and I liked Madison's performance. 

Cast: Madison Wolfe, Zoe Saldana, Sydney Wade, Imogen Poots

Directed by: Anders Walter

Written by: Joe Kelly based on his graphic novel

The Visuals: The giants themselves were creepy, and hidden most of the time.  Harbingers, another creature were distractingly low-tech -- like canvas and spray paint. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: A good story

 

More: .Walter adapted the script to remove supernatural creatures from the early part of the film to prolong the tension about whether Barbara was fighting real giants or just ones in her head. link

Even More [MAJOR SPOILER]: In this fascinating interview, Director Walter and a film critic who just lost a parent, talk about the death of a parent, and how/whether to depict that in art.

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Love, Simon

Plot: Simon (Nick Robinson) is in high school, and he has a good life. He has friends who like him, an intact family, a sister who cooks him breakfast, a computer, a car, a phone and a fancy house. His problem, to the extent it is a problem, is that he is a closeted gay guy. That is his "huge ass secret." Simon starts anonymously emailing another closeted student in his school, and soon he depends on the email  for emotional support. In time another student, Martin (Logan Miller) finds out and blackmails Simon. Blackmail leads to the predictable consequences, and this sets up the final scenes.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: I liked Love, Simon because I liked the relationships between the four students, Simon, Leah (Katherine Langford), Abby (Alexandra Shipp) and Bram (Keiynon Lendeborg). The relationship is positive and the dialog pulls out the strains inside Simon with other peers. The dialog is light and humorous with a some sitcom jokes and PG-13 humor.

Love Simon has a message, but it is softly pedaled. I was expecting another Brokeback Mountain, but in Love, Simon the romantic relationship is all in a chat window.

Jennifer Garner, playing Simon's Mom, has a great scene at the end talking about what Simon means to her. Emotive. It does a nice job of setting the outing in context, and helps resolve the relationships in the family. There is scene with the father, played by Josh Duhamel, which is OK, kinda sappy.

Overall, I liked it. 

Cast: Nick Robinson, Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Keiynon Lendeborg, Jennifer Garner

Directed by: Greg Berlanti, who has made a lot of TV superhero shows, Supergirl, The Flash, my favorite Arrow, and more. 

Written by: Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker based on the novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

The Music: Good soundtrack. Four songs by the Bleachers and some other pop + HipHop. There is also traditional orchestral music by Rob Simonsen. 

The Visuals: Mostly people talking. The final scene on a ferris wheel is filmed simply, as if on a budget.  

Rating: 2.5 stars: Fun to watch, with a message but not preachy.

 

More: Director Berlanti felt emotional watching the dailies while making the film. "I went to look back at the footage, and I stopped watching it very quickly as a director and started to watch it as an openly gay person. And crying in happy scenes and wondering, 'Why am I emotional?' And showing it to my friends who are also gay, and seeing them have the same kind of [reaction]. I think it was just the power of representation."

Even More: Alexandra Ship played Storm in X-Men Apocalypse. The other young actors have  much less experience.

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Detroit

This is a mini-review of a movie that I saw on a plane.

Plot: This movie plays out scenes from the 1967 Detroit riots focussing on abuse by police officers at a hotel where there were thought to be sniper shots.

Review: Racial hatred and institutionalized racism is not pleasant or cheerful. Detroio can be very hard and exhausting to watch, but it is a great movie, and I highly recommend it. The torture scenes are welloacted, and very emotional. Emotionao for me when I watched it

It is not a peofect movie, and it can get a little one-note and a little preachy, but it is still powerful.

Rating: 3.5 stars

3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

This is a mini-review for a movie I saw on a plane.

Plot: Milred's kid (Frances McDormand) is missing, and she rents three billboards on the edge of town to put pressure on the cops to solve the crime.

Review: I liked it. I think Frances McDormand is great, and the interaction with Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is also great. I liked Milred's heart-felt emotion, and her humorous obscenity.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Jumanji -- Welcome to the Jungle

Plot: Four high schoolers become characters in a video game. They must beat the game to win, and game over has serious consequences.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: It has the adventure story in the jungle, the sitcom jokes of its absurd premise, plus a teen soap opera. All together it works pretty well.

The movie is self-aware of its silliness, but near the end it gets a little cheesy.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, 

Directed by: Jake Kasdan

Written by: A staff of twelve featuring Chris McKenna; based on the 1981 kids book by Chris Van Allsburg

The Music: Drum and horn heavy tracks by Henry Jackman

The Visuals: Well done, but not top quality.  I loved the rhinos. The visuals aren't quite trying for realism; they look like animated animals. The jungle shots looked like paintings.  

Rating: 2.5 stars: Its not great, but it is fun

 

More: Jumanji was made with Robin Williams in 1996. Apparently there was a dramatic rhino stampede like in this movie.

Even More: I didn't know that Karen Gillian played Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy.

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Game Night

Plot: Max (Jason Bateman) and Anne (Rachel McAdams) invite a group of friends play a murder mystery game that turns out to be too realistic. Kyle's brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) gets kidnapped, and the friends try to sleuth  it out. You never know what is real and what is part of the game. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: I loved Jason Bateman & Rachel McAdams. The script is funny and clever. It is the best comedy I've seen in a long time.

Game Night has the thriller plot twists of a mystery; the catty dialog among the friends; and sitcom humor based on the odd situations.

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are so good together. McAdams is so likable to begin with, and 

the dialog is has them bickering and making obscure references to games and movies. Jesse Plemons plays a neighbor in a strange and obsessive way that was occasionally that sets up much of the sitcom humor.

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnussen, Larmorne Morris, Kyle Bunbury, Jesse Plemons

Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

Written by: Mark Perez

The Music: Good jazz-electronica soundtrack by Cliff Martinez; I liked the moodiness. 

The Visuals: There are some fun visuals like Gary's bloody computer room, and the chase around the mansion with the Faberge Egg. 

Rating: 3.5 stars: It doesn't have any social message, but it is a great comedy. Fun-to-Watch

More: The original score was lighter and comedic, but the test audiences liked the film better with thriller sound track.

Even more: The directors said getting the tone right was the toughest aspect. It couldn't be too zany or too dark to keep the movie working.

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Black Panther

Plot: T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) becomes Black Panther  and King of Wakanda when his father the old Black Panther dies, and after he wins a one-on-one dual with a rival prince. Wakanda is futuristic and wealthy country that hides itself. Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) and Eric Killmonger (Michael B Jordan) steal valuables from Wakanda, and the Black Panther with his all-female posse including Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) and Okay (Danai Gurira) go to get it back. They chase them around Busan, Korea, and Killmonger eventually finds his way to Wakanda. He reveals himself as a long lost Princely cousin, and challenges T'Challa for the throne. This starts a civil war leading to the final battles. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The beginning is best. I liked the set-up: the mythology of a rich, advanced African country hiding from colonizers.  The art direction was great. I liked the arm-crossing gesture and the female soldiers pounding their spears on the ground. I liked the fighting challenge in the water.

It is slow going early as back-stories unspool including Jordan's Killmonger as the long lost prince. I liked drama of an psycho becoming King; an analogy to Present Trump, as they spell out in the dialog for anyone who misses the symbolism. When the bad guy takes over the government, the army falls into place and the government's resources are now available to profit from.

After Killmonger's initial success, there isn't much cleverness left. The writing delivers some bleak, dark situations for the good guys several times. This whipsaws our emotions, and that's OK.

There is a debate between Killmonger and T'Challa about why doesn't Wakanda open itself to immigrants or share its technology freely with the outside world. Killmonger wants to help the oppressed overthrow their rulers. Killmonger makes good points than T'Challa, but he [not a spoiler] gets defeated by T'Challa, standing up for property rights. This is a Disney film after all, and intellectual property rights are sacred to them. Having said that, in the first post-credit scene, T'Challa and Shuri (Letitia Wright) start a mission in Oakland; so Killmonger seems to have won part of the argument.  (Director Coogler is from Oakland.)

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Andy Serkis, Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright.

Directed by: Ryan Coogler

Written by: Ryan Cooglar and Joe R. Cole based on the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

The Music: Disappointing. There is a hip-hop soundtrack by Kendric Lamar and a regular soundtrack by Ludwig Goransson. Goransson has African themed orchestral music; some repetitive: nothing that sounds good when reviewed the clips on iTunes. Lamar's hip-hop is nothing special, except for Pray for Me by The Weekend and Kendric Lamar. 

The Visuals: I loved the lab. I loved the moving symbols on the walls and the other walls painted with African symbolism. I loved first shots in Korea, outside and in the casino. I liked how the female soldiers were bald and had tattoos on their scalps. You gotta like the armored rhinos; so sad I can't find a photo of them. 

Rating:  3.5 stars: I liked the clever ideas and art direction early. I liked the epic sweep. It has stayed with me. It gets points for the world-building of an a high tech African utopia -- something that I'd never seen in a big budget movie. This is like Brokeback Mountain getting extra points for being unlike anything made before. 

 

More: Here is info on the two end credit scenes.

Even More: Even with all the female actors, my wife didn't like it.

Yet More: My sympathies to those people being driven out of Oakland by the high housing prices, but 2018 Oakland is not so poor. Having been to Oakland during my last vacation, I can only shake my head at the million dollar price tags on the houses. I see a gentrified city, and the idea that Oakland is full of poor people needs a reality check. Even in the low rent neighborhoods, the houses are ½ million.

In Detroit, you can buy a block-full of houses for ½ million.



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