Hello, Dear Reader.
The beginning of the academic year is usually an incredibly busy time for me, but moreso this year than any year previously. Not only am I spending more time in the early days of the classes that I teach, but my Diaconate Formation classes have been eating up a great deal of my time along with my parish assignment. Many nights I am not home until after 9pm. I am not complaining, but I am trying to explain why my blogging has slowed down to 1-2 posts per week.
As a result, I have fallen behind on my film reviews. In fact, looking back I have seven film flashes this year without reviews attached (I also have 3 streaming movie reviews that I will be adding)
Previously, in order to catch up I did a mini-review roundup for all of the movies that I had been missing. With apologies, Dear Reader, I will do the same now.
Enjoy!
Solo Mio
I am a big fan of Kevin James and gives his full commitment to this movie about an American school teacher jilted at the altar while in Rome who decides to experience his non-refundable honeymoon package. The supporting cast including familiar faces like Allyson Hannigan and Jontahan Roumie is endearing and charming. The movie doesn't have as many big laughs as I would like, but it earns enough good will so that you will be smiling through most of it.
Power Ballad
Paul Rudd plays Rick, an American ex-pat living in Ireland who is making a living with a wedding band. At one wedding he happens to meet Danny (Nick Jonas), an ex-boyband member who is trying to make a serious solo career. The two get intoxicated and Rick plays Danny one of his songs, "How to Write a Song Without You." When Danny goes home, he passes the song off as his own and it becomes a gigantic hit. Rick becomes obsessed with proving to everyone that the song is his, even if he has no proof.
The movie starts enjoyable, but then takes a bit of a darker turn as Rick becomes more obsessed. This causes a gigantic strain on his wife and teenage daughter in a way that is unpleasent to watch. However, to my surprise, the movie turned on its head with one line. When Rick finally confronts Danny, he says that he knows Danny couldn't have written it. When Danny asks him why he says, "Because you think it's a love song!" What follows is an interesting character turn that moves the film to a much more satisfying conclusion than I was expecting.
Minions and Monsters
I have never been a big fan of the Minions series. I don't have anything against it, but it always seemed like disposable fun nonsense, which is fine. The same could be said about this one, but what I liked about it was that it was a real love letter to old Hollywood. I teach a little bit of the history of film and I loved all the homages throughout to Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, and the like. I also like the humorous incorporation of a Lovecraftian villain. Someone asked me about the supposed satanic imagery. There is one scene with an evil wizard that could be interpreted that way, but I saw it more like an evil Gandalf.
Young Washington
The first act of this film feels like a made-for-TV movie. They do a lot of heavy-handed dialogue moments where they do set-up and pay-off only minutes apart. But once you get past the first act, the movie really picks up. The performances are very good and you get a strong sense of Washington's character, both in his ambition and his determination. You feel all of his horrible mistakes that he makes along the way, which is why you root for him when he steps up and tries to make up for them.
Voicemails For Isabelle (Netflix)
Zoey Deutch plays Jill, a struggling chef in San Francisco who copes with life by leaving voicemails to her dead sister on her old number. She does not realize that the number has been reassigned to a young real estate agent in Austin, TX named Wes, who unwittingly falls in love with her through her messages. Wes decides to enter into her life and start a relationship with her, all the while struggling with the secret of how he knows her.
This is traditional rom-com stuff and the movie handles it decently. But there are too many b-stories that really don't go anywhere and the movie lacks a lot of heart and charm. It is unnecessarily sexual in ways that you find in Netflix productions that only serve to distract from the story.
The Dink (AppleTV+)
The movie is trying to be Happy Gilmore for pickleball and it only works sporadically. Jake Johnson is funny as the lead, but his character is so unlikeable that he never really pulls you in. He has great chemistry with Mary Steenburgen as his pickleball partner, but for some reason the movie kills off any growth in their relationship. You also have a funny turn by Ed Harris as Dustin's father, but other than that, there isn't much to write home about here.
Mayday (AppleTV+)
This is one that I wish was in the theater. Ryan Reynolds plays a Navy pilot who gets shot down behind Soviet lines in the 1980's. He is found in the wilderness by a former KGB agent played by Kenneth Branagh, who is willing to help him if he can defect. The two then go on a comedic and action-packed ride through Cold War Russia.
The movie was incredibly charming. Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who also made the criminally underated Game Night as well as the most recent Dungeons and Dragons, know who to film an action set piece and they know how to use the camera for laughs. I laughed more in the movie than most comedies in the theater. The directors have the confidence to know when to just let a visual gag sit without having to do an MCU-style quip. There is one sequence in particularl when Reynolds and Branagh are hiding in a closet that is particularly memorable. Reynolds and Branagh have great chemistry and I cannot believe how believably Branagh plays an action hero. The movie occasionally cannot help itself to make some kind of ham-fisted social commentary, but that is the only part of the movie that feels flat
Coyote vs. Acme
This is a very clever movie. It stays true to the spirit of the Coyote and Roadrunner characters in a way that was pleasently unexpected. The use of Foghorn Leghorn as the villanous corporate shill was a very insightful choice. It isn't as smart as Who Framed Roger Rabbit or even Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers. The human elements are the least interesting part, except for John Cena who seems very at home in the Looney Tunes Universe.
By Any Means
This movie could have been a lot better. Set in 1966, it focuses on FBI agent Wayne Strider (Yaha Abdul-Mateen II) who is investigating a murder led by the KKK, but Strider is hampered because of all the racism he encounters in his investigation, even from local law enforcement. So his boss partners him with Greg Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg), a sociopathic mafia hitman to break their way into this underworld.
The movie does a great job at showing us Strider's struggles, both interior and exterior. And unlike most movies of this nature, he and Scarpa don't form a kind a unlikely friendship where they learn from each other. Scarpa is a violent monster who has been set loose on even worse monsters. That was an interesting take. However, the main problem with the movie is that just when Strider starts really enter into challenging moral territory where his character is stretched, the movie just ends. It feels like there is no strong resolution to the good set up. So you will leave the theater a bit unsatisfied.
Runner
This is a simple, straightforward buddy-action film that feels like a lot of the mid-budget movies you would get in the 80s and 90s. Alan Ritchson plays a recovering alcoholic courior with a military background who ends up escorting Owen Wilson who is transporitng a liver to a dying girl in a hospital. But a very powerful drug cartel is out to get organ with the clock ticking on the liver's viability and the little girl's life.
The action sequences are very compentantly shot and actually very enjoyable. Ritchson and Wilson have surprisingly good chemistry. The only time that the movie loses steam is when the character stop pushing their forward momentum for some comedic dialogue or some heartfelt backstory. These moments take the wind out of the sails, which is a shame because if they were able to keep up the intensity consistently, it would rank a notch above.
