As has been the case for many years, I saw more movies in the waning months than I had time to write full reviews for. In the past, I would just let this go and take the L.
This year, I am trying something new: I'm doing a single post where I give mini-reviews to all of those films. I apologize that these do not have the in-depth plot summaries and analysis. But I hope these reviews will be helpful to anyone who is thinking about seeing this films:
David
This is an animated musical about the early life of King David from the Bible. I am usually very hard on Christian films because they tend to emphasize theme over artistry. But this movie is fantastic. The animation is on par with anything being put out by Disney/PIXAR. It is beautiful to watch. But for me, what really sold it is the music. They put a lot of effort into these songs to make them big, bold, and sweeping. "Follow the Light" has been staying with me long after leaving the theater.
The movie also does something that too few animated musicals do: in the finale, they reprise the major songs and they all harmonize so well that there is a cathartic convergence of song. This is a movie for the entire family with fun characters and action for the kids but also enough complexity for the adults.
Anaconda
My friends and I used to make silly movies in high school and played around with camcorder filmmaking while in college. Those were some incredibly fun memories. This movie captures that same feeling. Jack Black and Paul Rudd play middle-aged men who try to recapture that same magic by going down to Brazil and attempting to do a low-budget remake of Anaconda. The movie has at least 4 or 5 really good jokes that had me laughing. Instead of going for a full parody, they try to create an actual Anaconda horror/comedy, but the plot bogs down the laughs. But there is enough good will here for it to be enjoyable.
Marty Supreme
The director and the actors used an incredible amount of skill to tell this story. Only, this isn't a story worth telling. The titular character is completely and utterly awful from the first scene until the end. He has a dream of becoming the greatest ping-pong player ever, but for no other reason than the glorification of his own ego. The philosopher Immanuel Kant formulated his moral system under a few principles including: "Treat other people as ends in themselves and not means to an end." Marty is the perfect anti-Kantian: everyone is a means to his ends. He lies and manipulates everyone. And everyone around him is just as awful. This was a slog to get through and it felt like a pointless journey. Its one redeeming quality is that Timothee Chalamet is excellent and will probably get an Oscar for this.
Song Sung Blue
My biggest quibble with this movie is something which is not the movie's fault: I wanted it to be happier. Without getting into spoiler territory, I went in thinking that this was going to be an feel-good movie. And while there are moments of heartfelt inspiration, this is a sad melodrama. But it is a good sad melodrama. The performances are great. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson feel very real as normal people just trying to get by. Their dreams are modest, their gripes are petty, their struggles are real... they feel like very relatable characters who just want to make a living at music and have a simple, happy life. In that way, it is superior to most musical bio-pics.
And the Neil Diamond soundtrack is very enjoyable.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
This was better than The Way of Water because it had a stronger sense of intensity in the first two acts. It became a chase movie with a lot of forward momentum. One of the interesting story elements (revealed in the trailers) is that the human protagonist "Spider" goes through a procedure that lets him breath Pandora's air. Realizing the danger that this puts all of the Navi in, Jake struggles with what to do and we have one of the best scenes in the series that is reminiscent of Abraham and Isaac. While beautiful to look at, the third act does get long and bogged down.
Also, it is not necessarily a good sign for your story that the most likable and charismatic character is your main antagonist. I liked Quaritch so much that I almost started rooting for him. But if you've seen the last two Avatar films, the last act plays out exactly the same.
Eternity
I found this movie to be incredibly mean-spirited. The performances are very good, especially from Elizabeth Olson, but there is a cynicism that runs throughout. The premise is that when you die you have to choose a type of eternity (e.g. on a beach, in the mountains, in Paris, etc) and you can never change. When Olson's character dies, she has to to choose either her first husband who died young or her second husband that she grew old with to spend eternity with. This story reminded me of how Christ told us that there is no marriage in heaven to avoid horrible situations like this.
The movie is oddly anti-religious. When one of the people guiding the dead thinks someone is religious, she goes, "Oh, so you're one of those people," and basically says all religions are the same. But the worst is that while going on a bender, it looks like Olson's character was bing eating the Eucharist. Some non-religious after-life films are very enjoyable (e.g. Defending Your Life and Chances Are), but this one was very off-putting.
Fackham Hall
I love silly humor and I love the effort that the filmmakers put into capture the magic of Airplane! and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They are not nearly as successful as I would have like them to be. And the movie suffers from the same problem as this year's remake of The Naked Gun where the third act has plot requirements that get in the way of the humor and it loses steam.
But there are enough laughs to keep you going to the end, if this is your type of humor. If you like scenes where to characters are communicating their forbidden love while JRR Tolkien is in the next room struggling with diarhea, then I'd check out this film. If not, you won't like it.
Rental Family
As I wrote in for my "Best Screenplay" award:
Rental Family is such an interesting movie because it challenges you with its premise: selling emotional catharsis with performance. In the film, a company hires actors to play parts to live out moments for emotional fulfillment for clients in Japan. For example, they act as mourners for someone who pretends to be having a funeral so that he can hear people say good things about him before he dies. But the company also sells lies. The main story revolves around Brendan Fraser's character lying to a little girl pretending to be her American father.
Normally, I would reject this premise out of hand as a horrible set up of deception. But to the credit of the writers, they draw us in to the complexity of the situation. First, they point out that there is a big stigma around mental health counseling in Japanese culture, so what they do is the equivalent of therapy. Second, the story plays out the complications and consequences of telling lies in a way that confronts its own premise head on. What I loved about the writing was that it invited me as an audience member to look at the situation and use my own judgment regarding the character's actions. It allowed me to see both sides of the situation without putting its thumb on the scales. And even when I decided who I felt, there was enough depth for me to have complicated feelings about it. Depth of this kind is rare in movies and I greatly enjoyed it here.
Running Man
This movie is so disappointing because it has a really good first act. This was so much so that I was thinking that it was better than the original Arnold Schwarzenegger film from the 1980's. Instead of being a modern gladiator fight, it was much closer to something like The Fugitive, where Ben Richards has to run and hide throughout America while everyone in the country is trying to kill him. So Ben has to rely on his quick-thinking and guile, while making smart and stupid decisions.
But the movie devolves quickly, especially at the half-way point when Michael Cera's character shows up. For NO REASON, he puts everyone's lives in danger and his storyline goes nowhere. What's worse is that they bring in Emilia Jones in the third act and try to have her fill the role that Maria Conchita Alonso had in the original. But it is so late in the film that you never feel an actual connection and her character turn feels artificial. She seems to be there only so Ben can go on an anti-capitalism rant, which always sounds hollow coming from film makers who are making millions from the movie.
Wake Up, Dead Man
I am conflicted about this movie because it has one of the best priests I've seen in movies recently, but it also has one of the worst priests and some of the worst Catholics I have seen. Fr. Jud is accused of murdering Monsignor Wicks. Fr. Jud is kind, patient, and speaks about the love of Jesus in a way that does not ring false. Monsignor Wicks is basically a stereotype of Donald Trump in clerics, who embodies every conceivable wicked stereotype that people have about priests. But Fr. Jud is the opposite. At one point in the story as he is trying to get information to help clear his name, the random woman on the phone is going through a spiritual crisis in the family. I was so so moved when Fr. Jud stops everything to counsel the woman and pray with her over the phone. It was such a fine moment of priesthood on film.
But the movie does not know how the Catholic church works, especially in the area of the sacrament of confession. And director Rian Johnson seems to take too much glee in the destruction of sacred images and objects while his main detective Benoit Blanc trashes the Catholic Church and faith in general.
Also, the mystery is kind of stupid, like Glass Onion. So even though I like the portrayal of the one character, there is too much negative in it for it to be saved.
Playdate
I love Kevin James and I really dug the chemistry he had with Alan Ritchson. The first half of the movie is very absurd and funny. But then as the plot gets revealed and they try to do some actual character work, the absurdity becomes less funny and more off-putting. In fact the any character growth and thematic elements that develop are completely destroyed (literally) in the last minutes of the film. But for the first part, I enjoyed it enough.
