Category Archives: 2017

Anna and the Apocalypse

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Anna and the Apocalypse             3 ½ stars

Just in time for Christmas comes the Christmas musical comedy from England, Anna and the Apocalypse.  The movie starts out with us meeting Anna, a high school senior in England who is dealing with life choices following graduation and her father after the loss of her mother.  She also has her friends at school including John, Steph and Chris.  There is also her former boyfriend, Nick who is something of a jerk.  Since it is a musical some of the story is told by the main characters doing some excellently choreographed musical numbers.  And since it is Christmas time, there is the night of the school musical put on by many of the students.  All seems very conventional until about a half hour into the movie when the zombies come.  It seems a worldwide viral outbreak has occurred and most of the population has transformed into flesh eating zombies.  So it is now up to our small band of high school heroes to do hand to hand combat with the zombies and get Anna back with her father who is a janitor at the school.  All this is done to song and dance while they find inventive ways to kill off the zombies and keep from getting bitten.  Will they make it through the day and find Anna’s father?  The film is strictly for laughs and is fun to watch for its short hour and a half length.  Don’t compare this to such master zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later or The Girl with all the Gifts, but for a pleasant change and a break from holiday stress, it hits the spot.

Ferdinand

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Ferdinand                           4 stars

One of the more engaging animated films of 2017 was Ferdinand brought to us by Blue Sky Studio and director Carlos Saldanha.  It is based on the children’s book about a sweet bull who is not interested in fighting but just wants to enjoy life and the people/animals around him.  His adventures take him to a peaceful farm in Spain, to a ranch where he “trains” to fight with the other bulls and finally to the fighting ring.  Through it all he keeps his peaceful nature as he deals with trying to keep his fellow bulls safe from the humans who seek to exploit them.  There is plenty to enjoy with the comical characters and the colorful animation.  Especially good are John Cena as Ferdinand and Kate McKinnon as the female “calming” goat, Lupe.  Though not on a level of Lion King or even Rio, this is a fun movie to watch and very suitable for children.

Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour                      4 ½ stars

I finally got to see Darkest Hour, the 2017 release about Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England during World War II.  This film starring Gary Oldman follows Churchill through the first four weeks of his service in the office.  It is the time of greatest peril to the country, when the Nazi war machine was raging across Europe conquering one country after another.  Not long after assuming office the Germans invade Belgium and France and threaten to destroy most of Britain’s army as they are caught facing the coast at the English Channel.  Besides this threat, Churchill has to deal with opposing Parliament members who are scheming to cause his downfall.  Gary Oldman puts on an inspiring performance as he captures Churchill’s mannerisms and his style of speaking under some very convincing makeup.  We only get some glimpses of what is happening in Europe as the bombing of the British forces continues.  Most of the action centers on Churchill’s interactions with the King (Ben Mendelsohn), his wife Clemmie (Kristin Scott Thomas), a secretary (Lily James) and a collection of common people he encounters in public.  The scene stealing moments come when he delivers his greatest speeches though, including the memorable We Shall Never Surrender speech before parliament.  I am just sorry I waited so long to see it and that I missed the effect it would have in the theater.  The picture won two Oscars last year including Best Makeup and Best Actor for Oldman.

The Insult

The Insult            2 ½ stars

Critics and audiences alike seemed to like this courtroom drama set in Lebanon about a Lebanese man taking a Palestinian refugee to court over an incident in which the Lebanese man provoked an insult from the Palestinian.  The courtroom battle spills over into a giant media circus as the case gets nationwide attention and the population takes sides according to their political beliefs.  It was well acted and directed but I had a tough time relating to the story as the premise seemed somewhat farfetched to me.  Most people would settle such an incident privately.  And of course not being from the Middle East it is hard to relate to the cultural differences that would exist among the ethnic groups in Lebanon.  The Insult received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language film.

Icarus

Icarus                                                                    5 stars

Icarus is the award winning documentary by sports enthusiast and film maker Bryan Fogel about the folly of anti-doping efforts in international sports.  Like some of the best documentaries the film set out to do one thing then ended up going in a very different direction.  In this case Fogel sets as his objective the discrediting of the anti-doping efforts of WADA by enlisting the help of Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the anti-doping center for Russia.  But what follows is the revealing of the astounding efforts that the Russians have gone through for years to cheat at international sports.  It is Rodchenkov who plays a pivotal role in the story as he leaves his life and family behind in Russia to become a whistleblower on the scale of Russian cheating and so becomes the central figure in Fogel’s film.  The film goes into detail about how the Russians went about their scheme at the Sochi Olympics by swapping out urine samples for hundreds of athletes before they could be tested.  It is remarkable how they were able to get away with this.  Finally, the truth was revealed before the Rio Olympics in 2016 and many Russian athletes were banned from the games.  It is also clear from the movie that Vladimir Putin played a role in this fraud which he has of course always denied.  Anyone who has a keen interest in competitive sports should be sure to see Icarus.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri             5 stars

I finally got around to seeing Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a full year and a half after it was released and now that I have I can say that it is the movie that should have won Best Picture for 2017.  The movie stars Francis McDormand as Mildred Hayes who has lost patience with the local law enforcement’s failure to find any suspects in her daughter’s murder, to the point that she puts up a message on three billboard near her home to bring attention to the case.  This move is not appreciated by the local sheriff (Woody Harrelson) and his second in command racist deputy (Sam Rockwell).  All three lead performances are superb in this complex story about loss, anger and reconciliation as the characters rage against one another and eventually come to see one another’s points of view.  Not only is the story interesting, but the filmmaker, Martin McDonagh seems to have gotten the perfect blend of drama and humor.  The most impressive aspect of the movie to me was how each of the actors were able to display the pain and anguish that each was going through.  I only wish I would have seen this gem much earlier when it was getting so much attention.

Downsizing

Downsizing         2 stars

I saw two movies recently that can be classified as social satires, one of which was very well done and the other while having great intensions falls far short.  Downsizing, from 2017 takes place in the near future when a technology is discovered that allows people to be shrunk in size to only a few inches tall.  The promise is that this will save the planet from environmental catastrophe by reducing the human footprint and allow people to live in luxury in a place called Leisure Land because their cost of living is reduced to a tiny fraction of normal.  It stars Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as the couple willing to embark on this adventure when he becomes disillusioned with his job.  The movie has a few funny moments but loses its satiric edge as it seeks to deliver a message on the inequalities of this new world and the dangers of overconsumption.  By the end of the movie I just wanted to say: Ok I get it. There are always injustices in the world!  The movie was by director Alexander Payne who in the past has given us great movies like “Sideways” and “The Descendants”.  Something did not go well with the idea for Downsizing.

Alien Covenant

Alien: Covenant                 4 stars

Alien: Covenant I believe is the fifth movie in the franchise and sees the return of Ridley Scott as the director. You may recall the original trilogy of the seventies and eighties in which Sigourney Weaver battles killer aliens found on a distant planet. This installment set two decades before the original Alien is just as horrifying and is aided by the modern CGI effects common to science fiction movies today. The movie is set on a colony spaceship with over 2,000 people on a multi years journey to a planet that is to be a new settlement for humans and occurs ten years after the events of Prometheus, another doomed space mission. A constant in the Alien movies is the presence of a synthetic, an artificially created humanoid who serves his human creators. The role of the emotionless but curious synthetic Walter is filled again by the amazing Michael Fassbender. As a result of a mishap on the Covenant in which the captain is killed, the crew learns of a previously unknown nearby planet that can support human life, so the new captain (Billy Crudup) decides to alter the plan and investigate and possible avoid years of hypersleep. Of course, this is the first mistake of many. The planet happens to be the same one of the events of the ill-fated Prometheus! When the landing party including the captain and Walter arrives, other than and intense storm, things seem normal enough. That is, until the pathogen born creatures start to show up and kill off the crew! The synthetic, David (also Michael Fassbender) who was the only survivor of Prometheus finds the crew and explains to them what happened here. Unfortunately, he leaves out a few key details that would explain what happened here. The movie is perhaps less original than Prometheus, and more like the original movies thanks to Scott. It is heavy on the interactions of the characters and an action driven plot. The scenes involving two Michael Fassbender’s are especially intriguing. Also, as expected the movie is heavy on blood and gore, so be forewarned! (This one is far better than last week’s Underwater.)

Rough Night

Rough Night       1 ½ stars

Rough Night is an uneven 2017 comedy about a group of girl friends from college who get together for a wild bachelorette party when one of their group is about to get married. It stars Scarlett Johansson as Jess who is the one getting married to Peter (Paul Downs who I never heard of before) and happens to be running for a state office. It’s an unusual comedy role for Johansson who is often found in drama and action roles (The Avengers). Alice (Jillian Bell) is her funny best friend and roommate from college who sets up the wild weekend in Miami, Florida. Her two other friends are Blair (Zoe Kravitz) and Frankie (Ilana Glazer). Then Pippa from Australia (Kate McKinnon) arrives who is Jess’ friend from Australia. McKinnon provides a lot of comedy to the movie being quite an accomplished improv actor, but the Australian accent is not convincing. The group arrives at a million dollar mansion on the beach (where most of the scenes are) and before long they manage to accidentally kill the male stripper that Frankie has hired for the party. The rest of the movie is made up of the hijinks that ensues as the women struggle to come up with a plan that will keep them out of prison and save Jess from a career ending scandal. Since that isn’t enough to carry the movie, another comedy bit is added involving Paul’s misguided efforts to drive to Miami to save their relationship. (Somehow in one of the most contrived aspects of the movie it becomes necessary for him to travel wearing diapers and no pants!) The movie feels like it has borrowed material from other comedies involving bachelor/bachelorette parties and has little originality. And since it is a bachelorette comedy there is no shortage of sex related scenes and jokes throughout, especially with Jillian Bell’s Alice who seems obsessed with penis jokes. The movie was made mainly by Lucia Aniello who has few credits to her name. I would advise Scarlett Johansson to find better comedy material in the future and that goes for the rest of the cast as well.

Okja

Okja                       3 ½ stars

I went back a few years to see an earlier film by Korean film director Bong Joon Ho. Ho is probably best known for the 2019 Academy Award winning film Parasite, about greed and class discrimination. His earlier movies that I have seen are The Host and Snowpiercer. His imaginative films typically contain elements of science fiction or fantasy with dark undertones, and this is certainly true of Okja, a tale about a genetically engineered super-pig that is loved by a Korean girl named Mija. Mija has been raising Okja from a piglet with her grandfather in the mountains of Korea for ten years and the two are quite close. But Okja is actually a genetically engineered animal intended to be a new food source along with hundreds of other such animals that was created by the conglomerate Mirando Corporation, led by the villainous Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton). One day the face of Mirando arrives at the farm in the form of Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), a comically self-absorbed TV show host, who is there to take possession of Okja and take her back to New York where she will participate in a sort of beauty contest for the giant pigs before they are taken to slaughter. This doesn’t sit well with young Mija, so she sets off to free Okja before she is shipped to New York. But along the way she encounters a group of animal rights activists, called the ALF, or Animal Liberation Front, led by Jay (Paul Dano), who has some personal issues with violence. This sets off plenty of action and comical situations that are amusing, all created with some ingenious special effects. The movie is enjoyable to watch, though due to language it probably is not suitable for young children. This was Bong Joon Ho’s second English language movie, his first being the manga inspired Snowpiercer. Since that earlier movie didn’t do well in the foreign markets, he decided to go the streaming route teaming up with Netflix. When it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the audience booed the Netflix logo, showing their disapproval of the streaming platform. Though overall, the movie was well received. The movie is somewhat predictable and lighter than Ho’s other movies, especially the award-winning Parasite that came out two years later.