I had fairy high hopes for this one. A Coppola at the helm, a trio of young actors at various points in their career, Andrew Garfield, Maya Hawke and Nat Wolff, and set in LA featuring a story that should cut deep with anyone who has a phone and an online social presence.
But even with all of this, it feels mostly barebones.
Sometimes you just want to put something on and be entertained for an hour or two. No indecisive and extensive browsing, just a few button taps of your remote on a thoughtfully crafted user interface and just like that, a movie is playing just like you wanted.
Stowaway is decent enough…great cast, the latest survival drama from Joe Penna…that most people will give it a watch with little thought, mostly because it’s right there on Netflixes main menu. It’s just not a movie that most people would go deep diving on the streaming platform to find.
Sometimes you just want to put something on and be entertained for an hour or two. No indecisive and extensive browsing, just a few button taps of your remote on a thoughtfully crafted user interface and just like that, a movie is playing just like you wanted.
Stowaway is decent enough…great cast, the latest survival drama from Joe Penna…that most people will give it a watch with little thought, mostly because it’s right there on Netflixes main menu. It’s just not a movie that most people would go deep diving on the streaming platform to find.
I love Crip Camp. You come for the free wheeling summer camp, Jened, a camp that operated from 1951-1977 by hippie counselors, for an intimate group of teens with various disabilities, a recollection that just puts a smile on your face but you’re really here to witness the inspiring, challenging but ultimately admirable fight during the mid 1970s, led by some of those who attended Camp Jened, for the much needed rights for all Americans living with those same various disabilities. It’s yet another substantial piece of American history that felt like was glossed over during my own secondary education.
It just feels like Godzilla vs Kong is in the right place at the right time. Some of the world is slowly starting to regain bits of normalcy. Here in the US, it’s getting warmer and closer to Summer. Some people are getting vaccinated. And more movie theaters are softly reopening, just in time for the release of the seemingly epic finale to the MonsterVerse movie franchise.
Moviegoing might never fully be what it was pre pandemic but Godzilla vs Kong is at least a good enough new release, packed with just the right amount of Kaiju action and humanity to help ease back into a resemblance of public moviegoing as we once knew it.
I’d say Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs Kong lands at #3 on the list of MonsterVerse movies. It’s not as great as Godzilla (2014) or Kong Skull Island (2017) but it’s easily better than the exhausting mayhem that was Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019).
Like I said, the movie is a great balance of spectacular fun, action and human drama that just makes it versatile entertainment for those still watching their movies at home or those making the long awaited return to movie theaters. Whichever way you choose to watch, it doesn’t overwhelm our big screen starved senses but there are problems to mention.
It feels like Godzilla vs Kong beams us into the future at nearly incoherent light speeds, where the world is armed with high tech and drenched in neon colors. Kong has been in simulated Skull Island solitary confinement, Hollow Earth has been discovered and experimented with, Apex has been a fully operating mega corporation. It’s only been 5 years since Godzilla was crowned the king of the monsters but it easily feels like 10-20. It’s all a few tweaks shy of Pacific Rim levels of relative futurism.
It features some awful subplots but it’s really the only place where humans can still reign supreme. It’s actually kind of funny how much screen time is interested in its human characters when the rest of the movie features the Apex Titans destroying massive chunks of cities, probably killing humans by the millions.
While I enjoy the performances of Millie Bobby Brown, Julian Dennison and Brian Tyree Henry, I couldn’t care less about the conspiracy theorist sub plot they were confined to.
On the other hand, I didn’t entirely like the performances of Alexander Skarsgard, Ilene Andrews, and Eliza Gonzalez but I was very much interested in the Hollow Earth sub plot.
This contemporary feud between Godzilla and Kong is of course lots of fun to watch.
The first brawl takes place when the two Apex Titans come face to face for the first time and battle it out in the ocean amongst a convoy of naval ships….during the day! It’s a massively fun and creative set piece.
But Godzilla and Kong’s final meeting takes place in the finale that leans a little too heavily into that cinematic chaos that plagued Godzilla King of the Monsters. It turns into a dark and destructive mess as the two duke it out for real this time, then only briefly join in arms against Mans Apex creation.
They give Kong so much heart, but Godzilla still essentially beats him in their two fights. It would’ve been cool to see 3 rounds of fighting, split between the two Titans and the 3rd fight turned towards their mutual enemy.
My main issue isn’t actually something in Godzilla vs Kong. Its movie should’ve been the 5th movie in the monsterVerse franchise. Why? Because of our long overdue and abrupt arrival in Hollow Earth and its ancestral ties to Kong.
Now I can’t stop thinking about how Godzilla technically got his own sequel where he fights all the Titans on Earth to be crowned king of the monsters but Kong didn’t get his own sequel in a similar fashion. He could have gotten a sequel where he somehow makes it to his ancestral stomping grounds in Hollow Earth and fights all of the Titans living here to be crowned king of Hollow Earth. Then the two champs square off once and for all. It could have developed Kong much more as a character and it would have strengthened this movie as a whole.
Well this may be the end of the MonsterVerse franchise because unless they want to go the toho route and add some comedy or pull from the massive catalog of Titan villains for either Apex Titan to face in future movies, this is a solid point to end on.
9/13/21 – Feels weird to read this review now. The world fell back into some darker times as Covid-19 continued to mutate, people refuse to acknowledge the severity of things and more people died. It’s a sad thing
I’ve been on a nice streak of seeing some movies from directors with no other feature length credits to their name that just blow me away with how great they turn out.
Evan Morgan’s The Kid Detective, featuring Adam Brody as the ex kid detective now existentially struggling adult finger quotes detective is the latest in this remarkable movie streak I’m currently on.
It has plenty of great qualities that add up to a gripping mystery. An overwhelmingly cathartic resolution, a long lost sense of accomplishment and all of the emotions that have built up for about 2 decades for Adam Brodys Abe Applebaum come pouring from his soul in our final moments with him and its something I feel like I haven’t seen in awhile and make the movie that much better.
Noah Hutton’s Lapsis makes a worthy expedition up the movie mountain but slowly loses steam towards the top and gets sluggishly lost on its way to the finish line.
It starts out strong with some thoroughly engaging exposition. The characters are modern and real, especially its main character Ray. He’s nothing special, he’s older, out of shape, not the most honest, questionable career choices but he’s nowhere near scumbag territory. He’s just trying to get paid to get his little brother the help he needs for his Omnia.
The premise is freshly brilliant and sinister in nature. It introduces us to this new near futuristic industry of work known as Quantum Cabling. All you gotta do is lay a shit ton of cable to power the worlds Quantum technology as you experience the great outdoors, hiking, camping, even socializing with other fellow cablers and you can make a respectable amount of money. It would appear to be a win win for everyone involved. Its yet another brand new industry scheme and a realistic concept we can very well see exist in our own world. So when Ray quickly finds himself in this new line of work for obvious reasons, it’s very much a fish out of water scenario also for obvious reasons. With all things considered, the high rewards imply some high stakes are soon to follow.
So once we have all of our exposition essentials packed up and ready to hit the trails for some hard work and some fresh air it quickly becomes difficult for various reasons. Tagging along with Ray on his deep natural trek provides some clear struggles in his abilities to finish what he starts. Even with the reasons why these people are out in this forest in mind, it feels calming to see people living off the grid even if it’s only temporarily for monetary gain. Conflict exists biologically, other human cablers and mechanically, these little cabling robots, to nudge along made up slogans like challenging your status quo, yet the conflicts and stakes never feel like they live up to the set up.
Lapsis loses all of its momentum once Ray, despite all obstacles, mainly the natural ones, finishes the advanced routes he was illegally provided. It should feel like a satisfying accomplishment but instead it feels anticlimactic. And from here it gets completely lost in what feels like 1,000 different glossy motives, morally and monetarily, existing at once, which is believable but any clear focus is now incoherent and lost deep in the cabling forests.
Despite Lapsis falling flat on its face before crawling to its unfulfilled conclusion, it’s still a fantastic movie for that strong first half alone and more than anything the point remains, that everyone is just trying to get paid.
I can’t say I’ve seen a movie like Ham on Rye in quite awhile. It appears to be Tyler Taormina’s first feature film and it’s an impressive one for the most part. The performances are memorable, the soundtrack is melodic and mysterious and the wavering themes are meaningful.
The first half feels special. We’re thrown into the lives of a town’s teenagers on their way to some life determining event and we’re right there along with them. It feels good and puts a smile on your face. Just as any town would have it, we see various groups of teenage friends, all dressed up nicely as though they’re on their way to some prom….but of course its a deli hosted rite of passage tradition. And here on this special day is when you either fade into the blissfully thin air, happy and wanted or you’re left behind to deal with a doomed emptiness.
And once the last of the desirable teens literally disappears into thin air, the tone flips dramatically in the second half and the so on the nose they’re concrete themes melt into a tormenting abstraction. Your life can be cruising along nicely and all of a sudden you lose control and find yourself in an existential crisis of sorts. Our characters or rather who is left of them and now us as spectators have nothing to look forward to. The movie intentionally loses all momentum and focus and we’re left aimlessly wandering with the unwanted, the forgotten and the stranded, particularly a trio of teens, one who left the party, one who never made it due to a panic attack and one who is a bit older and now finds themselves in a rather depressing state. So it does a fantastic job drilling these same negative feelings into our brains.
But the idea enters some weird meta territory when we run into a group of Uno player once famous teen actors in real life. It drives home that odd 90s feel when we see Lori Beth Denberg and Danny Tamberelli of All That fame, Clayton Snyder of Lizzie McGuire fame and Aaron Schwartz of Heavyweights and the Mighty Ducks fame among the other many distraught, zoned out individuals at this party of the same mindset. It’s not to say they’re actually forgotten losers now, but you can’t tell me, if you at least recognized them, you weren’t in the slightest bit surprised to see them on screen again.
More aimless wandering takes place before the ending fully loses even the thematic momentum it had going for it and it just concludes in a park full of people who appear to have turned out OK. You get everything in the first half and you get nothing in the second half. While it was borderline embarrassing to smile when seeing the teens on screen just be teens, dancing, being awkward, having fun it was equally melancholic to see the unfortunate ones left behind. It’s mostly nihilistic in nature but it’s such a unique movie that it’s hard not to enjoy regardless.
It really makes me miss being a teenager and it makes me hate being an adult.
For a cinematic concept as limitless as the time loop, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is sadly confined by a weak sense of direction. I have no doubt that the short story that inspired this feature length movie of the same name is a very moving story and there are bits of the movie that are just as well but overall it has all the feels of a typical low budget straight to VOD movie. The acting is adequate, the coastal Alabama location feels nice and homey and it maintains a very charming and melancholic tone despite the actual time loop aiming low and existing too loosely. The idea found within the time loop though is most admirable. Just as the title states, what I like the most is the map of the tiny perfect things.
Each of our lives are composed of these things, things that have already become a part of our existence and things that have yet to happen. Moments that lead to memories and while they can vary in size of significance to us, we often take for granted or glance over the tiny perfect things in our lives. We all have our version and we often even share bits of our existential maps with others. Well what if you had all the time in the world to maximize your life experience and never miss another tiny nugget of perfection in the never ending stream of time, well this map helps lay it all out in one place, literally. It’s a good thing the movie is about the tiny perfect things and not bigger ideas which again makes me suspect filmmaking constraints. While it’s a nice concept, you may find yourself on either side of the fence. Should life be about checking off every possibly experience like some bucket list, or should it come naturally without any full control.
While it’s theorized in the movie, these perfect things may not actually form some 4-dimension shape in a literal sense or even solve our biggest problems like breaking out of some time loop for example, but the best thing going for Ian Samuels movie is the idea of this map even if it’s not a perfect representation of such an idea. We all have this existential collection that continually shapes our lives even after we break free of this physical existence at the end of our life times.
Underneath Earwig and the Witches jarring almost uncanny 3DCG, a self centered main character, the tuneless score outside of the music occasionally provided by the fictional witchy rock band, Earwig, is a somewhat decent story.
The daughter of a witch rockstar and now a lifelong resident of an orphanage, Erica Wigg, finds a new home with her mother’s ex band mates who happen to be another witch and a Mandrake. It’s never explained whether this adoption was a mere coincidence or not, and the abrupt ending does nothing to tie things up. The final 1/4 of the movie isn’t terrible but it clearly rushes to the finish line rather anticlimactically.
It would’ve been much better as an October release with its spooky premise. And while I’m on the topic of spookiness, it reminds me a lot of how I felt about Monster House and it’s unique animation at the time. I hated it when it came out but the movie and it’s aesthetics grew tremendously on me over time. I’m just not sure Earwig and the Witch will be so lucky to receive this sort of appreciation in the future considering it’s nothing groundbreaking other then for Studio Ghibli. There are certain sequences where this particular 3DCG looks amazing but its hit or miss. I’m not sure I can ever think of the movie without picturing those cursed kids YouTube videos made by gods knows who.
It somehow captivated my youngest cats attention, where she sat at the end of my bed with her gaze entirely on the TV for the back half of the movie so there’s that.
