Category Archives: Music

Coming 2 America

Coming 2 America            2 stars

It took thirty-three years for a sequel to be made of the Eddie Murphy/Arsenio Hall comedy Coming to America. The original movie was a hilarious fish out of water story about Prince Akeem, an African prince from the country of Zamunda who comes to Queens and meets Lisa (Shari Headley), his true love and brings her back home to share his life in the royal palace. This time around in Coming 2 America it is his illegitimate son, Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler) of Queens who must make the journey to Zamunda and assume his place in the royal family, something that seems like a dream come true at first. The hitch is that he has been promised as a mate to the daughter of the general (Wesley Snipes) from the neighboring country of Nexdoria in order to prevent the two countries from going to war. The main draw of the original movie is the many comedic moments involving Murphy and Hall which includes various other characters played by the pair thanks to the HEAVY use of makeup. This is especially true for the gang from the MY-T-SHARP barbershop in Queens. These old men appear again in the sequel but their roles don’t seem as significant, though they are very funny. There certainly are some very funny moments, but this movie just doesn’t measure up to the original which was the second most popular movie of 1988. I certainly do credit the appearance of Leslie Jones as Mary who is just as funny as I remember her from Saturday Night Live. There is also a great scene with Colin Jost appearing briefly as a racist hiring manager that I found quite hilarious. Somewhat distracting were the flashback scenes that made use of de-aging CGI to feature younger versions of the prince (Murphy) and his assistant, Semmi (Hall). I recommend that you see the original movie again and skip the sequel as it is a less funny imitation of the first film.

Flora and Son

Flora and Son                     4 ½ stars

I returned again this week to a film that appeared at Sundance but missed at the festival. Flora and Son is the latest creation of writer/director John Carney, who previously brought us Begin Again, Sing Street and his masterwork, Once. Again, the Irish filmmaker has created a simple story about conflict in a relationship that centers around and is resolved by the process of song writing. This time the story is about a young, Irish, working class, single mother, Flora (Eve Hewson (daughter of Bono)) who is struggling to raise her 14-year-old son, Max (Orén Kinlan) in a small Dublin apartment. Max, unfortunately has a habit of stealing and getting into trouble at school and is facing the prospect of being sentenced to a juvenile facility. In an effort to keep him out of trouble, she recovers a discarded guitar, has it restored and gives it to the troubled teen, hoping to get him interested in music. Max wants no part of this plan, but Flora is drawn to the guitar and goes in search of online guitar lessons, and in so doing finds Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a musician in Los Angeles who hires himself out for personal lessons online. The pair discuss the chords on a guitar and what it means to write a good song and before long Flora is critiquing Jeff’s songs and suggesting ways to make them better. The discussions get quite personal as they discuss the feelings created by a song and refer to song terms like the verses, the chorus and the bridge, something you only see in a John Carney movie. Occasionally, Jeff is shown in the same room with Flora to show how they are connecting over their discussions. (The viewer must ignore the fact that performing music together via Zoom is not practical due to the time delay.) Carney is always interested in his characters getting closer together, but also in the process of writing good music which I love to see. And ultimately there is hope for her son, Max as he reveals some musical talent as he learns to use a synthesizer to create rap music, and mother and son find that they do have a common bond in music. The movie has the right amount of humor and successfully dealing with family conflict without getting too sappy though it is probably not Carney’s best movie. Flora and Son is newly released in theaters so I suggest you see it there while you can. It is also available on Apple TV+.

Dicks: The Musical

Dicks: The Musical                           3 stars

The title of this movie leads you to believe that it is about dicks. This screen adaptation of a musical play first performed in a basement in New York does deliver. It has two of them. The screenwriters, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson play Craig and Trevor, two self-obsessed straight men who are in love with themselves and don’t care who they screw over to get what they want. But then one day they meet each other for the first time, discovering that they are competing to be the best salesman for the same company, Vroomba, selling parts for this mysterious machine. They each have one half of a locket they each got from their parents, making them separated identical twin brothers. Of course they look nothing alike which only adds to the bizarre nature of the comedy. They set about to reunite their two separated parents, Harris (Nathan Lane) and Evelyn (Megan Mullaly) by donning wigs and switching places and persuading the two to arrive at a restaurant for a prearranged meeting. (Has anyone heard of The Parent Trap before?) Evelyn is now a wheelchair bound recluse in an apartment filled with odd knickknacks and horrendous looking wallpaper, and who keeps her vagina in a purse. Huh? Harris has come out as gay and has a secret as he keeps two bizarre looking creatures that he rescued from the sewer, referring to them as the Sewer Boys. Besides the bizarre nature of the premise the movie is going for shock and screams, containing almost nonstop references to sex acts (both straight and gay) and genitalia and plenty of use of the f word. It’s all done to music that is more memorable for the content than for the tunes themselves. There is no doubt that it succeeds in being outlandish, offensive and gross. It tries to reach a status of a cult movie, but I doubt it will be another Rocky Horror Picture Show. There are two other roles that are quite notable. Megan Thee Stallion is excellent as Craig and Trevor’s boss in a boiler plate office where she emasculates all the male employees in “Savage” style. And Bowen Yang of SNL does an admirable job as God who narrates much of the story as only Yang can. Dicks: The Musical is not the funniest movie of the year, but it is easily the most irreverent. It is fun just to see how offensive it can get.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour           4 ½ stars

Concert films are one type of film that I very rarely see, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in the theater. Since I can’t remember seeing any specific concert film before I can say that this was the best concert film I have ever seen. But seriously it is an experience you shouldn’t miss if you have the chance. The film is taken from a single performance, Taylor Swift’s final stop of the Eras Tour in Los Angeles. The show is extravagant to the maximum, lasting over two and a half hours with amazing sets, a myriad of costume changes and accompanied by a dance troupe with Taylor at the center of it all. She performs songs from throughout her seventeen year career broken down by periods of inspiration that she calls her eras. How she has the energy and stamina to go so long including well staged choreography is beyond my comprehension. The film is heavily edited with closeups of her and many shots of the adoring fans in the audience. So call me a Swifty now. I loved it.

Mean Girls

Mean Girls          3 stars

Twenty years after watching high school girls battle for dominance in their pack in Mean Girls, the movie is remade in musical form with the same title, but this time it is updated for Gen Z to include the new weapon of social media and cell phones used in the art of put downs. Mean Girls is a movie based on a Broadway musical based on a movie based on a book. The same comedy genius, Tina Fey is again behind the writing for the film, but while funny, the magic of the original movie starring Lindsay Logan as Cady Heron, the homeschooled girl raised in Africa and transplanted to North Shore High School doesn’t quite carry through. We get almost exactly the same story with a group of high school mean girls called the Plastics who are determined to be feared by most while maintaining their exclusive club, only with the musical numbers from the stage production transferred to the big screen. There are some very well performed numbers like the emotional “What’s Wrong with Me” and an elaborately choreographed number involving what seems like hundreds of students in the school hallways. There are also times when the songs make too much use of the students’ cell phones, so you end up with a montage of TikTok like videos. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows do a good job reprising their roles from the first film as Ms. Norbury and Mr. Duvall. (I really enjoy seeing Tina Fey as a Calculus teacher.) The cameo roles of Jenna Fischer, Busy Phillips and Jon Hamm were barely noticeable. But be sure to watch closely and you will see Lindsay Lohan as the Mathletes moderator. Angourie Rice does an admirable job in the Lindsay Lohan role of Cady, the girl who forgets who her friends are when doing the full mean girl act. The best performance of the film must go to Renée Rapp as Regina George. She really makes mean look good as she instills fear with a stare throughout the school as she walks through the hallways. She can certainly sing, never missing a note. Rapp is continuing the role from the Broadway production, and we can see why. She is perfect in the role first performed by Rachel McAdams. (She has been making the TV talk show circuit for the past year or so and recently even made an appearance on Saturday Night Live.) If you really like musicals, you should see Mean Girls. Otherwise, I recommend going back and watching the original starring Lindsay Lohan with its message of staying true to your friends.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio                   5 stars

Pinocchio by Academy Award winner Guillermo del Toro is not your Disney’s Pinocchio. It is not at all like the underwhelming live action Disney version that came out the same year (starring Tom Hanks). Del Toro’s movie is done with creative stop motion animation using physical carved figures and has a very dark aspect to it. There are the same basic elements from the original 1883 story by Carlo Collodi. It opens with Geppetto (David Bradley), the carpenter losing the son he loves, only here it is due to a stray bomb dropped from a war plane during World War II. It is set during the reign of Benito Mussolini, who we actually get to meet at one point. Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) was carved by Geppetto out of grief and was brought to life by some magic spirits. He has some very bad habits, always getting into trouble breaking things and skipping school like someone with ADHD. Like the original story his adventures include joining the circus and encountering a giant fish at sea and having a tiny cricket friend (Ewan McGregor) who looks out for him. In this version Pinocchio is crudely carved and is very puppet-like, with a large head and narrow limbs so that it is obvious he is made of wood. He would not be described as cute. And since he is very gullible it is easy for a carnival master (Christoph Waltz) to persuade him to join the circus. When it is learned that Pinocchio can be brought back to life after being killed, the local Podestà (Ron Perlman) sees that he will make the perfect soldier for the Fascist cause and forces him to join the army. He goes on to meet Il Duce who is not amused by Pinocchio’s antics so promptly shoots him! Each time he “dies” he is instructed by the Blue Fairy (Tilda Swinton) about his fate and the choices he is faced with. The movie has more violence than the Disney versions but even so is still suitable for children. It still has the same positive messages of the importance of love and family like the other versions. It is a natural story for del Toro to tackle adding it to his previous dark fantasy movies like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. It is very deserving of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature it received.

Maestro

Maestro               5 stars

It has been five years since Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut of A Star Is Born, a remake of a true Hollywood classic that he also starred in alongside Lady Gaga. Now he has co-written, directed, and starred in Maestro, a biopic on the life of Leonard Bernstein, the legendary American composer and conductor. Cooper elected to focus on his twenty-five-year relationship and marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre (played masterfully by Carey Mulligan (An Education, Drive, She Said, Promising Young Woman), showing us how they met at a New York gala, how she stayed with the man she loved through many difficult years until her death from cancer. We see Bernstein’s rise to fame after he directed the New York Philharmonic and the attention to his career by the media. The film does not show us much of his creative process in his compositions, choosing to show us his conducting skills (which I understand are very accurate thanks to Cooper’s attention to detail), and his tendency toward having affairs with men causing great strife for Felicia. I think that he made the right choice in not making the movie too broad as often happens with biopics. I really liked some of the creative elements used in the picture, such as the moving camera work in an opening scene where Bernstein learns he is to conduct the New York Philharmonic and we follow him from a bedroom as he moves through hallways and appears in the concert hall all in one continuous motion. The early scenes in the forties and fifties are all done in black and white making it look like old Hollywood, but when we get to the sixties and seventies the screen turns to bright colors displaying the difference in the eras. I loved the fantasy sequence showing dancing sailors giving us a hint of On the Town, but with Bernstein showing up in the act as a foretelling of the troubles to come. The film wouldn’t be nearly the success that it is without Carey Mulligan as Felicia who loves Bernstein but must suffer through his infidelities and his selfishness over his own greatness. The scene of the two confronting one another in their apartment during a Thanksgiving parade, (complete with Snoopy balloon) with her exploding in rage is equal to what I’ve seen in Anatomy of a Fall and Marriage Story. I have admired her acting skills since 2010’s An Education. She has been nominated for acting Oscars twice before and will surely be nominated for Maestro come Oscar time. She could very well win it this time. Bradley Cooper has Bernstein’s mannerisms down cold and keeps the energy of the film high with the quick dialogue he delivers along with the rest of the cast. The makeup on Cooper is convincing as we see Bernstein age through the decades. Undoubtedly, the movie will be rewarded for this. The only problem I had was with the movie not telling us what pieces are being performed when Bernstein is conducting. It is assumed the audience knows them and while they are familiar to me, I would like to know what they are during the movie. I am just glad I got the chance to see it in the theater to get the full effect. All music lovers should see this one and even if you’re not you shouldn’t miss it. Maestro is one of the best movies of the year.

Bob Marley: One Love

Bob Marley: One Love                    2 stars

Bob Marley: One Love by director Reinaldo Marcus Green brings the legendary reggae artist to the big screen, focusing on the singer’s rise to fame during the two years from 1976 to 1978. So instead of doing the standard musical biopic we start and stop with two important concerts in Marley’s life, a free concert in Jamaica intended to quell the violence in the country over which political party would be in control, and the One Love Peace show when he returned to his home country. In between we see an attempt on his life, how he and his wife, Rita, had to leave the country for their own safety with Marley going to London, the creation of the Exodus album and their European tour. Of course, we also get plenty of performances of the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers with that distinctive reggae sound. The thing I didn’t get was a sense of anything special about Bob Marley, or his vision for peace. It feels a little too much like a standard music biopic with flashbacks to his childhood growing up poor and having a father who didn’t care for him. The actor playing Marley, Kingsley Ben-Adir (who previously has portrayed Malcolm X and a Ken doll) does a creditable job with the performances, but the whole film felt rather ordinary. One criticism that I rarely make of movies is how the dialogue is very difficult to make out. The heavy Jamaican accents really call for the use of subtitles. Without them there were many points in the film that I just couldn’t understand. In particular, there are conflicts within the band and between Bob and Rita that didn’t make sense to me because I couldn’t understand what they were saying. And there is a frequently used word, Rastafar that is important to Marley, but I have no idea what it is. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green previously did much better with King Richard in 2021. It was good to hear the music and to remember Bob Marley’s impact in the world, but overall, One Love was a miss for me.