Bohemian Rhapsody

The best:  Is it too easy to say the music?  If so, then Rami Malek

The worst:  Very sanitized telling of this story

Comments:
Full disclosure: Like many people, I love the music of Queen.  I would have gone to this movie it was just a bunch of old concert film, and probably would have given it an amazing review.  So with that out of the way...

Bohemian Rhapsody is a movie that tells the story of the early days of the band Queen through to their seminal 1991 Live Aid concert performance.  I am not sure I would call this a true biopic due to the many historical inaccuracies and extremely sanitized versions of some events (but more on that below).  The movie covers Freddie Mercury joining the band, personal live and relationships, early songs and albums, success, tension, decent into hedonism, Mercury's AIDS diagnosis, and the before mentioned Live Aid performance.  All of this is presented with Queen's most famous music.  The distinctive anthem rock sound served as the perfect backdrop for this peek behind the curtain of one of the biggest bands of the late 70's to the early 90's.

I imagine it would be very difficult to be the lead in a biopic (or faux-biopic), since so much of how people judge the movie will be done through the lens of your performance.  Rami Malek does not fail as Freddie Mercury.  While some clever prosthetics help with the shape of his face, the real magic is in the attitude and stage presence that Malek is able to recreate.  He brings just the right amount of glamour and eccentricity to the role for it to succeed.  His performance is the piece that carries the movie forward; his enactment of the evolution of Mercury is the mileposts that help us to see how much time is passing.

I was pretty disappointed with some of the inaccuracies in the film.  Nothing really breaks the story but having Queen be quasi-broken up just before Live Aid was unnecessary, the timing of his AIDS was all messed up to fit it into the movie timeframe, a lot of things with his first wife were out of order.  All of those were a bit disappointing.

Another small bit of disappointment was in how sanitized everything was.  The arguments were mild.  The parties were populated but not too crazy (the cleanup was pretty bad, though).  Success came easily and at the cost of selling a van.  The record deal was waiting in the wings.  The doctor appointment where Mercury finds out he has AIDS is the perfect analogy for this rosy version of the story:  spotless, clean, and empty.  This is Queen as told from people who were very concerned about protecting Queen's (and Freddie Mercury's) legacy.  Freddie could look selfish and bad at times because he comes begging back later!  Everybody else is a saint, only focused on the music and never engaging in undesirable behavior.

This reminds me of the movie Straight Outta Compton in that it tells a dirty story but forgets about the dirt.  I think this is a bit of hubris that plays through when the people who were a part of the experience are allowed to have producing credits for the movie.  Nobody wants to play the bad guy on screen, even if there were bad guy moments in life.  Everybody wants to be smarter, handsomer, better in every way.  A lot of that came across in this movie, and it was worse for having done it.

The movie was very enjoyable, but fell short of great.  No risks were taken in the storytelling, no dirt was dug up.  Anything potentially offensive was scrubbed out replaced with those spotless, clean walls.  I wanted more, but at least the music was fantastic!

Rating - 7/10  The music gets it 5.5 points all by itself.

Venom

The best:  The banter between Eddie and Venom

The worst:  Script.  Continuity.  

Comments:  Venom is an interesting movie.

This is a comic book movie through and through.  This is not a bad thing for me as those tend to be some of my favorite movies.  Eddie Brock is a report who crosses the wrong person and loses his job.  Venom is an alien to wants to kill - and potentially eat - everybody, but needs a host to merge with in order to survive our planet.  Mix well and you have our movie.

This movie is a mess.  The bad guy is terrible and so one dimensional it's painful.  The way Eddie gets fired is telegraphed so hard you'd catch it in your sleep.  Venom switching sides comes so completely out of the blue it will leave your head spinning.  The fight at the end is visually appealing but don't think too much about it.  There are more cheesy parts than I can count.  The side characters are so one dimensional they may have just done better using cardboard cutouts.  The story has no depth and I felt as if 8 people had written 8 different scripts for this movie and then merged them together to end up with a startling lack of direction to the story.

And it was pretty fun.  This movie has very little quality (and most of that quality is the superb acting of Tom Hardy) but was a fun time.  Admittedly, it was fun in a "so bad it's good" sort of way, but fun is fun.  Nobody will ever mistake this movie for an Oscar contender, but at least it isn't trying to be one.  They keep it lighthearted through "internal" conversations between Eddie and Venom, most of which are pretty entertaining.  They kept a movie about an alien that wants to eat people's heads at PG-13, which made for some odd scenes.  The action felt more like a video game than a movie.  They keep the story movie along - an absolute requirement for a movie like this to work - and don't hesitate to leave logic behind when it gets inconvenient.  

In the end I have filed this movie away with 'Road House' and 'Con Air' - movies that are a guilty pleasure in that I enjoy watching them even while being painfully aware of how bad they really are.

Rating: 6/10  Just bad enough to be good.

A Star is Born

The best:  Everything the two lead actors brought to the table

The worst:  I don't know what to put here.  Maybe that the script writers didn't realize Lady Gaga's nose is smaller than Barbara Streisand's?

Comments:  It has taken me over a month to write this review, not because I did not know what to say but because it took me this long to sort out how I felt walking out of this movie.

The story isn't new- in fact this is the fourth version of this tale.  Each is told differently -  the first two in Hollywood and the latter in music, some focus on the career while others on the relationships, and the quality and chemistry of the actors varies greatly between versions.  But although I had seen this tragic tale twice before, I was not prepared for the emotional impact that awaited me.

Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper, who also directed) is a big star on the back nine of his career.  And he has problems.  Drinking, drugs, relationship, daddy- you name it, he has it.  While looking for a drink, he runs into Ally (Lady Gaga) in one of the genuinely strange scenes in the movie.  Strangeness aside, there is an instant attraction that takes off and gives us a movie.

Let me say upfront:  this movie is not perfect.  But it would take a far more critical mind than mine to find specifics that need to be changed.  This movie was amazing.  Bradley Cooper blew me away both with his directing and his acting.  The chemistry between him and Lady Gaga was electric.  There is a scene that you catch glimpses of during the previews when Ally first sings on stage with Jackson that is easily my favorite single scene of 2018.  The music was incredible and memorable.  Lady Gaga shocked me with her acting and Bradley Cooper shocked me with his voice.  It was just that kind of movie.

But it's not a happy movie.  The characters are deeply flawed, and those flaws are laid bare over and over again.  Cooper's Jackson Maine in particular is hard to watch at times.  But in those flaws are where the soul of the movie lies.  The joy is offset by pain, the happiness find sorrow, and the love fights reality.  You will be elevated with the highs and you will be brought down with the lows.  By the end of the movie the emotions are overwhelming, and I saw the majority of my full theater with tears on their faces as the lights slowly turned on.  For every tear there was somebody humming the music or talking high praise for the movie.

I loved this movie.

Rating:  10/10 - Best drama I've seen in years.

Smallfoot

The best:  Surprisingly deep message

The worst:  Some of the visual gaffes are fairly ridiculous

Comments:  What if we made Hotel Transylvania....but we traded the monsters....for YETIS!?

10 minutes into the movie I was convinced that I was going to write a review of this movie basically saying it was Hotel Transylvania Redux.  Which would not be the worst thing, as I rather enjoyed that movie.  But pretty soon the movie stopped skating along and dove into a solidly enjoyable tale with some enjoyable themes for all ages.

Yetis live on a mountain, and think people are mythical.  Then one of them meets a human, and eventually the two sides meet each other.  And within that basic framework for a kid's tale, Smallfoot gives us a story that touches on searching for truth while lightly poking at blind obedience to tenants, but keeps it light and fun.  The characters are fresh and bright with enjoyable interplay and dialogue that keeps the plot hopping along.  During the film I heard laughter from both younger children and adults.

The art was pleasant.  Shades of white are dominant when around yetis and humans come across with neon and darker colors.  Each bigfoot has a very individual look, from body type to hair, that makes it easy for each to stand out and be noticed.  The yeti and human villages contain a surprising amount of little details that make them feel alive and interactive.  The CGI is what you would expect from a modern animated file - clean and clear.

A real highlight is the voice work throughout the cast.  Channing Tatum and James Corden are great in the lead roles, each providing very good personality to their characters.  Common deserves a special mention, adding some real depth to the story as the stoic Stonekeeper.  And the songs were entertaining, if not particularly great.  The music fit into the overall story, but lacked some of the magic we've seen recently in Moana, Coco, or even Trolls.  The exception would be Common's Let it Lie, which was the song that stuck in my head as I walked out of the theater.

Kids will love this movie, and I think most adults will at least enjoy the experience.  It's cute and fun, which is usually good enough for me.

Rating:  7.5/10 - Enjoyable and memorable

The House with a Clock in the Walls

The best: The promise of the story

The worst:  The failure to realize that promise

Comments:  The other day one of my sisters posted on Facebook that she "WANTS to like movies".  And I realized I'm the same way - I go to movies to be entertained and to be caught up into a compelling story.  I will forgive many errors if a show can achieve that.

And this movie completely failed to do so.

The House with a Clock in the Walls is a movie about an orphaned boy (10?  11?) who goes to live with his uncle he's never met during the 1950s.  He quickly discovers that his uncle and the neighbor lady can perform magic, and asks to learn as well.  During all of this he goes through the normal "young boy/new school" troubles you'd expect - a hard time making friends and a harder time fitting in.  Overshadowing it all is the clock in the walls, which is ticking down to something ominous.  Lessons are learned and obstacles are overcome as the young man settles into his new life and family.

But for a movie about magic it somehow forgot to inject any into the movie.  Everything felt flat and procedural, which is not at all what I want to see in a movie like this.  Interest parts were completely rushed through and skipped over - warlock training, the history of his uncle and the neighbor, getting to know the house, and even the majority of his school experience.  Any of those would have added much-needed life into the tale.  Instead those were sacrificed for pointless subplots and a rush into a main bad guy that added almost nothing to the movie.

We are presented with side characters that should have expanded the magic of the world - a griffin topiary that poops dead leaves in all the wrong places, a sofa that barks and acts like a dog, and a stained-glass window that changes and moves to interact with the humans.  But none of those are ever expounded upon, instead they are played in the background and end up just being noise that distracts from the plot without adding anything.  Magic is shown and could be - no should be - interesting, but instead it is rushed over without any development.

Younger audiences may enjoy the film for the very reason I disliked it - disjointed storytelling and empty promise may not be something noticed by a 7 year old.  But there is almost nothing in this movie for adults or even older teens.

I wanted to like this movie.  I just couldn't.

Rating:  3/10 - 3 points because kids could watch it, and it's not offensive

Searching

The best:  Good use of a storytelling gimmick

The worst:  The limits of the gimmick

Comments:
Searching is the story of a daughter who goes missing and her father who goes....Searching.

But it's how it tells the story that makes this something worth watching.  The plot unfolds through the technology that is watching us - we see facetime calls, a webcam on a computer, security footage, YouTube videos, and even news stories.  Everything is told through those mediums, and it sucks you into the story.

After his daughter goes missing, the search for her takes place on two fronts.  Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing - always nice to see her) handles the police work while her father, David Kim (John Cho) digs into her online life and learns how little he knew what she was up to.  The plot takes a few twist and turns, including a rather shocking one, before coming to a great closing.

This movie tries to do a lot and succeeds for the most part.  I really loved how the method of storytelling was able to make it feel like I was watching something happen - it pulled me in and gave the plot a level of urgency I did not expect.  Excellent acting by the leads certainly helped.  John Cho really shined, conveying an evolving mental state as more and more time passed by from the last time anybody had seen his daughter.  I'm used to seeing him in supporting roles, but in this movie he shows the skills to carry a story.

This isn't a perfect movie by any means, but it is a different and fresh approach to storytelling that I appreciated.

Rating: 7/10 - Extra points for being original and ambitious

Alpha

The best:  Cinematography

The worst:  I dunno - historical accuracy?

Comments:  Let me start off by saying straight out - this movie was wonderful.  It was beautifully filmed and staged, and the plot is heartwarming and wholesome.

Keda is the son of the tribal chieftain on his first seasonal hunt.  Things don't go as planned; he is lost to the hunting party and left for dead.  And he meets an injured wolf and bonds with it.  Then they head home.  And things happen.

While that description is more or less correct, it fails to capture the heart that make this movie great.  It is touching and suspenseful and takes you on an emotional journey that is worth every penny and every moment of your time.

The acting is very good, the scenery is filmed with deft skill, the makeup and scenes are effective, and the music draws you in.  I don't know what else to ask for in a movie.  The movie is subtitled (the spoken language is a fictional proto-language), so be aware of that going in for younger children without reading proficiency.  There are scenes of intense peril and at least a couple of off-screen deaths.  That's the best I can do for negatives.

This movie is simple and wonderful.  When I saw it last week, the theater was about half full, and when the movie ended I watched to see how the audience took it.  Some people had visible tears, and some were smiling.  The rest were doing both.  Expect to do the same when you see this movie.

Rating:  9/10 - It's just good.