Original Movies (not sequel, not reboot, not spin-off)
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Reading Ax's movie reviews is like reading a peer-reviewed study on Reggae.
Too funny.
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The Devil's Own
Link to videoShort summary - Brad Pitt plays an IRA terrorist (!) who comes to the US to buy missiles for use against the government. Through a connection, he's given a place to stay - the home of a NYC cop (Harrison Ford) who knows nothing about Pitt's mission.
Contrived and silly. Fun to watch Pitt's Irish accent, and Ford is, well, Ford. Rumor is that Pitt was going to drop out because it was so bad.
Yeah, 1 ½ stars.
Collateral
Link to videoTom Cruise plays the bad guy, a hitman who has to carry out several hits before the night is out. He hijacks a cab to transport him around as he goes from job to job.
Contrived, and not as silly as The Devil's Own, but, c'mon, man! Cruise is OK as the bad guy, and that's unexpected. He does a very credible job. But the coincidence of who the cabbie's first fare of the night is and later events is stooopid.
Two, maybe 2 ½ stars.
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"The Green Book"
A feel-good (mostly true) story about a bouncer ("Tony Lip) from the Copacabana, looking for work while the club is being remodeled, gets a job chauffeuring noted jazz pianist, Don Shirley. Shirley's on tour from New York to the deep south in 1962.
Viggo Mortensen is unrecognizable as Tony Lip (he put on 45 lb), and Mahershala Ali does a great job of faking playing piano.
Small, but very satisfying movie that explores racial animus, friendship and music. Worth the rental.
Link to videoIt’s pure formula, of course. Two men—one white, one black—from polar opposite backgrounds with wildly contrasting personalities get thrown together under unusual circumstances. They learn from each other, change each other for the better and discover that—guess what?—they’re not so different after all.
“Green Book” is all that and more: It also takes place while the two men are driving across the American South during 1962, so it contains multiple formulas at once. It’s the mismatched-buddy road trip movie with a message about race relations, arriving in theaters at the height of awards season and the holidays, just in time to make us all feel better about the world—or at least give us a brief glimmer of hope during this period of political and ideological division. As an added bonus, it also happens to have been inspired by a true story.
But damned if it doesn’t work beautifully for nearly the entirety of its two hour-plus running time. “Green Book” is the kind of old-fashioned filmmaking big studios just don’t offer anymore. It’s glossy and zippy, gliding along the surface of deeply emotional, complex issues while dipping down into them just enough to give us a taste of some actual substance.
The trailer makes it look sillier than it is.
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Elemental (2023) directed by Peter Sohn
Disney animation. Good music, nice enough plot, good production in general. Visual style looks a bit like "Inside Out" to me. Have the usual Disney morals about be/accepting yourself and importance of family and such. Don't the take physics seriously. Entertaining and a good family movies to watch with young kids.
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The Blackening (2023) directed by Tim Story
A black slasher comedy; black as in the cast of main characters is almost all black. Among the jokes is when most of the main characters are black, who dies first? And at the end of the slashing ordeal, the survivors still don't want to call the police -- a play on #BLM, why risk being shot by cops after surviving a psychotic murderer? The survivors called the Fire Department instead, and they suffered some indignities from the FD anyway. Don't take the film too seriously, just laugh along and it's an entertaining enough movie.
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Adipurush (2023) directed by Om Raut
Hindi film based on mythology in the Ramayana. The plot is about the gods/demigods, some good, some bad, battling each other for one reason or another. Seems to me the producer/director really tried to make it an EPIC (which it is in the Ramayana) but somehow doesn't quite make it -- and this is a common theme in reason Bollywood fantasy "epics"; they try, sincerely, but somehow the CGI and cinematography are just not quite there. Still, a good enough production.
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No Hard Feelings (2023) directed Gene Stupnitsky
Comedy. Plot is around a crass, down-on-her-luck 32 year old woman being hired by a rich couple to date/seduce their 19 year old boy out of his low self-esteem shell. Most of the jokes are around the woman's advances failing in the face of the boy's social awkwardness. A bit surprised to see Jennifer Lawrence exhibiting full frontal nudity and fighting fully nude in the movie, not in a "sexy" way but in a Borat-like cringey and laughable way. No idea how the producer/director talked Lawrence into it, but she pulled it off admirably. Nothing ground breaking, but an entertaining movie nonetheless.
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Asteroid City (2023) directed by Wes Anderson
Very good movie. Not really in the visual style I like (rather "retro," most of the set looks like a stage for a play rather than a movie), but I enjoyed the movie. It's a complex movie, with play inside play, multiple parallel plots, etc. So, being entertained aside, it keeps the brain engaged. Direction and acting are all top notched. If you feel like watching something "not stupid" or "not braindead," this is a good one to watch.
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Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023) directed by Kirk DeMicco
A DreamWorks animation that "flip the script" somewhat by make the krakens "good" and the mermaids "bad" to start. Has the usual cartoon-for-kids morals about accepting yourself and the importance of family and such. I get the sense that the target audience are "girls" rather than "children" in general. Certainly has that DreamWorks quality and is a good production. Good family movie to watch with kids.
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Joy Ride (2023) directed by Adele Lim
Asian-American comedy, second generation, post-Crazy Rich Asians. A lot of self-awareness for being second generation Asian-Americans. The plot revolves around an Asian young woman who was adopted by a white couple embarking on a journey to China to look for her birth mother, then ended up finding out that her mother is actually Korean. Of course she has a cast of wacky friends who tag along. Many crass, cringey, contrived jokes. Not the best in the genre, unfortunately.
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Shortcomings (2023) directed by Randall Park
Asian-American drama. The movie centers around a young Asian-American man with innate character flaws. He wants to be a great filmmaker, yet he could not help making decisions that screw up his relationships and his own life. In many ways, that character reminds me of Adam Sandler's character in Uncut Gems (2019) -- well-intentioned, but cannot help his self-destruction turns after turns.
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Theater Camp (2023) directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman
Basically a musical-comedy whose plot is about a bunch of misfit summer theater campers putting up a show to save their beloved theater camp from foreclosure. Though formulaic in many ways, it's entertaining enough as a musical-comedy. And of course there is that "final number" that the protagonist struggled to compose that comes together beautifully at the end to save the show -- I don't really think the song/music is all that remarkable, but ultimately find the lyrics moving.
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Jules (2023) directed by Marc Turtletaub
Sci-fi/drama, ET for old people. The story is about some senior citizens in a small town finding then befriending an extra-terrestrial who crash landed in someone's backyard. The senior citizens have their quirks and the ET performed a few miracles. No big action, nothing iconic like the Spielberg ET riding a bike that flies across the moon. Still, a nice movie with some subtleties.
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Blue Beetle (2023) directed by Ángel Manuel Soto
Original story for the Blue Beetle superhero from the D.C. comics. Nice enough as a superhero movie, probably no nicer than, say, Shazam or Black Adam in my estimation. The protagonist is Latino and there is an emphasis on the importance of family. Not sure if there is a secret rule in Hollywood that says if your protagonist is Latino, then somehow "family" takes on outsized importance. Too lazy to research if the first/original Blue Beetle in D.C. comics is indeed Latino.
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Strays (2023) directed by Josh Greenbaum
Dog movie. A ragtag team of wacko, quirky, foul-mouthed cursing dogs finding their way home. There are running jokes and near the end a scene about a dog "biting [a human's] dick off." Most jokes are rather crass. Watch if you like to see/hear dogs curse in English.
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Last Voyage of Demeter (2023) directed by André Øvredal
Story about the ship "Demeter" that transported Dracula's coffin from Bulgaria to London. Most of the movie is about the crew slowly getting killed on the ship. As a production it's actually quite polished, just that it does not really stand out among the many Dracula movies that are already out there. If you really want to kill a couple of hours with yet another Dracula movie, this is not a bad choice.
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Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) directed by Cory Finley
Aliens, the Vuvv, have taken over Earth. The movie is about how the surviving humans live under their Vuvv overlord. Lots of commentaries about social hierarchy, economic inequity, the oppressors vs. the oppressed, the occupiers vs. the occupied, propaganda/whitewashing by the victor, etc. The aliens look weird, even a little bit gross, and "talks" even weirder, which is all good -- there is no lack of "cute" or "scary" or "mysterious" aliens in movies, but this movie managed to adhere to the book and thus make the Vuvv stand-out among other aliens in movies. This is not a brain-dead movie, if you are willing to think, it gives you things to think about. Recommended.
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Bottoms (2023) directed by Emma Seligman
Satirical teen comedy. A couple of misfits take advantage of rumors that they came out of "juvie" and start a "fight club" at school. Has your usual cast of high school misfits. And this being 2023 the cast are mostly female with an increased quotient of LGBTQ+ characters. Pretty violent/bloody by satirical teen comedy standard.
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Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) directed by Karan Johar
Punjabi romantic comedy. The two protagonists have very different education background and very different family customs. The movie then is mostly about the two protagonists and their families learning about the quirks of and finally accepting each other. Save the Indian/Punjabi cultural elements, this is a fairly formulaic movie. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining, though.
