When I heard Rami Malek was going to play Freddie Mercury, I was curious. Rami Malek’s Mr. Robot role is fairly monotone and bland. Freddie Mercury could not be further from that. Throughout Bohemian Rhapsody, the brooding portions of Mercury’s life come forward with Malek’s familiar, morose expression. The story is supposed to follow Mercury’s rise to stardom and diagnoses of HIV, but it feels like it plods at times. There are great sequences, if true, of the band creating some of their hits, like the title track, but also some of the anthems we’ve all grown to love.
I really can’t say anything outrageously bad about this movie. I liked it fine enough. The songs were fun, the cast of characters seemed lively. The intrigues and betrayal almost seemed obvious. Malek’s accent was off some of the time, and you couldn’t tell if it was his voice or Mercury’s that you were actually hearing. The band seemed to come off of the screen, having only ever really noticed Mercury, it was nice to see the rest of the people.
I genuinely felt sad for Mercury. He abandoned his family, was abandoned by his band, left with people around him that didn’t have his best interest in mind, at all, which is how he got HIV, it would seem. I cried through the last 20 minutes of the movie. Watching Malek as Mercury accept the news about his death sentence, which was exactly what it was in the 80s, and still perform at LiveAid was pretty remarkable. They blew the roof off of Wembley Stadium.
If you’re a fan of Queen, you will want to see this. If you’re a fairweather fan, you’ll probably still want to see this. It’s a fun romp, but don’t get the gourmet popcorn from AMC, it was like $10 for a small cup of popcorn. Being that this was a period piece, by default, it fails the Hina test. There were really only white men in the movie and one or two women. It was cute seeing his parents, but otherwise, there was no diversity or strong female characters.
I never saw the first Goosebumps movie, but I’m familiar with the series from Fox and the books, though I never read them, I’m aware of them. The premise of the movie is pretty simple, for the most part, kids find something they shouldn’t mess with, they mess with it, wackiness ensues. Like the House with the Clock in the Walls, this movie has Jack Black in it, but only briefly. The movie follows the story of a brother, his older sister, and his best friend as they battle Halloween come to life.
I don’t want to spoil any of the movie, but for the most part, it was entertaining. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it. There were mostly a lot of laughs and a handful of genuine jump scares, but not much substance. It is a kids movie, with a bit for adults to find funny. RL Stine is an excellent writer, so the story holds up. I just never felt that invested, and the stakes were high enough. It just felt like it could have been a made-for-TV Halloween movie, one of those you used to see on ABC Family.
Onto the important stuff: the Hina test. This movie didn’t quite pass. It had a strong female character with the mom being a single parent raising two kids and the older sister doing what she can to save her brother. The best friend to the son was African American, so that’s nice, and the neighbor was Ken Jeong. He was kind of playing a bit of a caricature, but I’m not sure of what. I wish I had a middle grade, but I don’t – so this is more a fail than a pass. The movie was set in New York, so having a lot of white people wasn’t necessary. There was also a forced romance between the mom and the store manager of a pharmacy which brought nothing to the story.
If you like Goosebumps or like movies that are kind of scary, but really aren’t, then this is for you. Otherwise, I’d give a hard pass on this.
Action packed anti-hero movies can be a lot of fun. Tom Hardy with a wimpy American accent doesn’t do much for me, but it fit the character, to a small degree. For those of you that read the comics, watched the cartoon from the 90s, we know that there is more to Eddie Brock than being a seeming loser. The part where Eddie was a reporter who stopped at nothing to get the story was mostly correct, but in the comic, he never had the girl, which made him the perfect foil to Peter Parker, as he was always with or chasing Mary Jane. This isn’t critical to the plot of the story. The plot is somewhat hard to nail down. Is he a hero? Is he a comedian? Is it okay to laugh as Venom bites off someone’s head?
The story, if you go for that sort of thing, is about a reporter who is asked to do a fluff piece, but can’t follow instructions and pushes the envelope with a biotech, Elon Musk type, that has him fired and fires Brock’s girlfriend. Then one of the scientists gets cold feet, realizes that this isn’t okay, to kill homeless volunteers in the name of science. Brock finds out, through the scientist, finds his way into the facility, which mysteriously has no cameras, and frees one of the captives. Then the parasite grabs a hold of Eddie and the rest of the movie unfolds.
Honestly, this movie was kind of stupid. Does that mean I didn’t enjoy it? No. I have simple needs sometimes. Special effects can carry a movie. I mean, I wouldn’t pay more than the $7 I paid to see it. I also got the free comic, and my friend’s free comic, too. Tom Hardy is usually a good actor to watch, as is Michelle Williams. The rest of the cast was passable. It kind of felt like a B horror movie. Like, they skimped on the plot to spend more on the special effects. It showed. You might like it, but I can’t recommend it.
With respect to diversity, the main villain was an Indian dude and there was a strong female character in Michelle Williams. It barely passes, but it does.
So, I’m not the romance movie sort. You should know this if you follow this blog. But, when I saw the fanfare for this movie, I was intrigued. A romance movie with like, no white people in it? Dude, sign me up! I’m already telling you that the movie passed the Hina test. While most of the actors were of the lighter-colored variety, there was still a ton of diversity and a lot of subtitles, which I loved.
You might see the title and wonder, what was this movie about? Well, the title should give a solid approximation – the movie was about a family of wealthy Asians and this woman who is dating their son, who is to inherit the fortune, manage the business. It is over-the-top in a fun sort of way. The parties are lavish. There was a friend, who knew the main character, played by Awkwafina, who is hilarious in every scene she’s in. Her family is new money and she tries to coach the main character to recognize she’s in for a crazy weekend.
The whole movie was wholesome fun. There wasn’t any shame shame scenes, no gratuitous nudity, it was a nice look at how a film could hit all the notes, happy, sad, elation, whatever, and not be too much, not be grotesque. I really liked this movie, all around, save for the predictability of it, which was expected. Romance movies rarely break from their path. I get why they’re all so formulaic, but it is still fun to watch.
It’s been almost half a year since I saw a movie in the movie theatre…I was just slacking. I wanted to see a lot of the horror movies that came out, but I didn’t want to take the time to actually go to the theatre. But enough about me, you’re not here for updates on me.
A friend wanted to see this movie. I really don’t care for Jack Black, but a movie with Cate Blanchett is an event. I’ve missed far too many of her movies. She is really a treat. Years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing her live, at the Kennedy Center, performing in Street Car Named Desire. Anyway, this movie is about a kid, who loses his parents and is taking the bus to some city in Michigan to live with his uncle, who is estranged from his mother, but is the only family he has left.
The kid gets to the house, and it appears to be haunted, but only to the viewer, not to the kid, not at first. He soon discovers weird things are happening, but can’t explain it. The uncle finally admits that the house is haunted, sort of. It turns out Jack Black’s character is a warlock, a guy witch. The back story kind of takes us through this winding path of how Black’s character moved into the house after the previous owner died in a mysterious circumstances and left a doomsday clock in the walls. The movie builds up and up and the kid accidentally raises the dead warlock who lived in the house before and has to find a way to defeat him.
For the most part, this felt like a kids’ movie. There was some potty humor, and of course, Cate Blanchett is always wonderful. The overall story was complete by the end, but it didn’t entice me to read the books. And quite frankly, it didn’t keep my interest, but I did have a bucket of popcorn. For a kids’ movie, it was good. If you’ve got an inquisitive kid, then yes, go see it. But if you’re an adult, I’m not sure this is for you.
While the story is set in the 1950s in Michigan, one can’t expect any diversity. There were maybe two people of color and three women. Cate Blanchett didn’t have her magic totally under control and the other woman was evil, leaving the last one as a girl in the kid’s school. It felt a tad messy. I have to admit, this failed my Hina test.
Well, after 10 years and a ton of movies, the penultimate movie has supposedly come out. I should warn, there will be SPOILERS ahead. We were told the stakes would be high, but are they? I finally watched Doctor Strange over the weekend and you know, he has the time stone, a magical element that he can use to manipulate time, undo whatever has happened in the past. Imagine how helpful that would be if something awful happened, to say, all, or half, of our favorite characters. The movie starts of where Thor Ragnorok ended, and we are aboard the ship of what is left of Asgard. Loki is on his knees, pleading with Thanos about not killing Thor, not wanting to give up the Tesseract (another infinity stone) – if you missed it, there are 6 magical stones, the big bad, Thanos, has one, as far as we know, but gets the second from Loki, who stole it before Asgard fell. The ship they’re on gets destroyed and that’s how Thor ends up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Hemdall, Idras Elba, gets Hulk off of the ship, back to NYC and he lands in Doctor Strange’s sanctum. And this is the first time Banner is back, and he isn’t the Hulk and we don’t see the Hulk throughout the movie. I don’t want to skip over anything, but the story with Vision I found very annoying. And his love story with the Scarlett Witch bored me. I know that sounds bad, especially because he has the infinity stone in his head, and it’ll likely cost him his life. But I’m going to change gears.
For several movies we’ve heard nothing but fear and anxiety about Thanos. This movie finally gives us a glimpse into some of his origins. It doesn’t delve deeply enough, into what makes him think that he’s right, but we see a flashback of him taking Gamorra from her home world and adopting her, sort of. There is a moment, towards the end of the movie, that Thanos is explaining to Iron Man/Tony Stark, what happened to his home planet, Titan. This, to me, was the most important scene. Thanos says he noticed how wonderful Titan was, how prosperous it was, how overcrowded it was. He said he made a suggestion, or something, to decrease the number of people, to kill off a large group, but not based on wealth or status, just random. That encapsulates the ending. As you expect, Thanos gets all of the stones, has the completed gauntlet and does exactly what he says he’s going to do. And poof, like that, half the heroes are gone. But not any of the original Avengers, not they’re all fine. And that’s what makes this so empty. The can kill of Black Panther or Spidey, but we know they have more movies coming out, so we know they’re going to be fine. So what have we been waiting for, really? I’m not sure.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a good scary movie. This was a good one, but with all the hype, I expected something to stay with me, and it really didn’t. This movie reminded me a lot of Signs. That was an M.Night Shyamalan movie, so that shouldn’t be lost on you. For those of you trying to avoid SPOILERS, it is worth watching, for those of you that want to know more, read on.
The popularity of post-apocalyptic movies seems to have no end in sight. In this movie, the story starts out with a family foraging for meds for one of their kids. Clear in the first scene, you see all the chip bags untouched by the family, by anyone, which is interesting given that in that time, you’d think it’d be hard to find food. So, the family leaves the store, all using sign language. The one kid wants to take a noisy toy, but the dad says no, but one of the kids lets him take it, this doesn’t end well. The scary thing shows in the first few minutes and the dad can’t get there in time to stop the kid from getting eaten. The movie moves up about a year and the mom is prego. How she can have a baby and be quiet is beyond me.
Anyway, of course, the family goes in separate directions, to collect food, or something, and wackiness ensues. I don’t want to give away the last mystery, but it does keep you on the edge of your seat. The scary things aren’t nearly as scary once you’ve seen them a few times, but they’re still creepy looking. The acting was well done. The entire movie was white. There were no people of color, but movies like this tend to get away with that. The two women in the movie were sort of strong, but not really. For diversity, this movie gets a hard fail. For strong female characters, it also doesn’t get a high passing mark.
This was a good horror movie, but it left a lot to be desired. The ending was just as gut wrenching as the beginning, but just like Signs, the movie gives you slight hope, in the end.
I’m not sure why I had it in my head to see this movie. I was re-watching the original yesterday and it was about as silly as I recall. I get that these movies are supposed to be throwbacks to the old monster movies, like Godzilla, but there really is no heart, just a lot of special effects. And let me be clear, the special effects are amazing. The huge monsters and the huge mechs that fight them are quite impressive on the big screen. The story, with the son of Idras Elba’s character had less draw to it. John Boyega plays his estranged son, who has, in the past, gets thrown out of the flight school or something. There may be slight SPOILERS ahead, but really, I don’t know how much of the story I can talk about.
The premise of the overall story is basically that the bad monsters are gone, but there can never be enough production, so drones are being built and tested to replace the regular robats/mechs. They need another pilot to help train the new kids, so they’ve found John Boyega’s character in jail and told him he has to re-enlist or go to jail. He chooses the former option and brings a young kid with him, who has built her own mech. The two get there and the drones crash some event, putting more people in danger. Then one of the scientists from the first one who mind-melded with the bad monsters has secretly been a double agent and has been trying to get a gateway open so the monsters can come through and take over.
As you might expect, the good guys win. It wouldn’t work any other way, I suppose. There is a decent amount of diversity in this movie. The lead actor is of African descent, and he is paired with a white girl, but there are other people, of other colors throughout the movie, so that was nice. The female characters never need the guys to come save them, which is a nice change of pace. Overall, that aspect of the movie was strong. If you have kids, this might be too scary for them, especially in 3D, but it was fun. For $12, I’m not sure I’d recommend it.
Video game movies are notorious for not being done well. I can honestly say that isn’t the case here. I wouldn’t say this was the best movie I’d seen, or that it was the best video game movie, but it was a good movie. It kept you sort of guessing, had lots of puzzles to watch being solved, very much like the game. At the same time, the movie strived for emotional moments that it never quite hit. It’s been a day and I’ve already forgotten some of the movie. There were lots of great set pieces, big action sequences, but that doesn’t make for a good movie, per say.
There may be SPOILERS ahead, so you’ve been warned. If you’ve never played a Tomb Raider game, this movie might not fully make sense, in a ‘why would anyone do this’ sort of way. The movie tries to tell the story of Lara Croft trying to discover what happened to her father. She doesn’t want to admit that he probably died on a treasure hunt, so to speak. Her guardian has to come bail her out of jail or something to introduce the audience to Lara’s immense responsibility and wealth, while she was living like a pauper for the first bit of the movie. In his will, Lara’s father gifts her with some sort of puzzle box and so she runs off, not signing the papers, which I thought was kind of funny, and tries to get some money for a necklace and then runs off to the other side of the world. Of course, there are mercenaries that are living on an island since her father’s disappearance, trying to find what was hidden. Lara escapes, with the help of a local, and somehow finds her father, who has gone a little crazy, and the two have a strange reunion before Lara takes a bow and arrows and runs off to defeat the heavily armed mercenaries. It doesn’t end the way she had hoped and Lara ends up leading them inside the tomb, to find the treasure, only discovering the treasure is really an active disease that passes through touch. As you might guess, this proves costly and Lara knows that she can’t let it get out, so once again she’s fighting with the mercenaries to stop the disease from getting free.
The diversity in the movie, as per my Hina test, was okay. Yes, the movie was helmed by a female actress, one that doesn’t seem to be white. But most of the cast was white, except the Asian actors, all men, who were on the island, being held hostage by the mercenaries. It didn’t strike me as all that empowering, even though it should have been. I didn’t get a positive vibe from the movie, not really. That might just be me.
I am not sure I can recommend this movie or not. It was enjoyable, but was it worth $10, I’m not sure. I wonder if I’d like it better if I saw it again.
This movie was touted as the best superhero movie ever. I’m not sure I’d give it quite that high of a bar to reach, but it was quite good. It is on par with Captain America, the first movie, in the origin of T’Challa and his ascension to the throne. There are going to be SPOILERS ahead, so be aware. But before we get to that, I will say that the overall look and feel of the movie was refreshing, yet it still seemed familiar, like it was a Marvel movie and you knew it. It was nice to see all the faces that weren’t all white. I thought Chadwich Boseman was very subdued as the title character. In a way, his performance let the other amazing performances come forward. I couldn’t figure out why I recognized his general of his female army, but that is Michonne from The Walking Dead. The surprises for the movie, for me were his little sister, played by Letitia Wright, and the head of the Jabari tribe, played by Winston Duke. Those two stole every scene they were in.
On to the movie itself. The majority of the movie took place in Wakanda, a fictional country in Africa. It is hidden by the technology that they possess. The opening of the movie was a CG/FX wonderland, that, with 3D glasses, in the second row, was kind of nauseating. At times, the 3D did really disorient me, more than I would have liked. I am also still miffed that AMC promised me a lanyard, but supposedly the lanyards never arrived. That’s some grade A BS. Someone yanked them and is selling them on ebay, as I might have done, given the same chance, but I wouldn’t have taken the entire box, that’s just rude.
Anyway, the story progresses and the audience is introduced to lot of new faces, including T’Challa’s younger sister and ex-girlfriend, who he saves at the very beginning of the movie. One member of the Jabari tribe challenges the new king, but T’Challa wins, then he is crowned the king. His first order of business is to catch someone who stole vibranium from Wakanda, Andy Serkis, playing a South African thief. Let’s all stop and remember that there are two Hobbits in this move as the token (Tolkien) white guys. I can’t take credit for that line, I saw it on Twitter a while ago. Anyway, the cast was meticulously put together and everyone worked amazingly well together, as in most Marvel movies.
I posted this review without talking about the very obvious politics of the movie. The main conflict is between T'Challa and his cousin, played by Micheal B Jordan, and Jordan's character wants to send out a support structure to Africans across the globe to overcome their oppressors. T'Challa was given the leadership to keep Wakanda a secret. It is an interesting conflict between empowering people and helping them, vs. the isolationism that T'Challa grew up with.
I enjoyed the movie, but I am not sure I’ll see it again, even though a friend wants to see it this weekend. I love the inspiration this movie will provide. As the representation for African Americans was great. There were hardly any threatening white faces and that was quite refreshing. There was tons of diversity and the female characters were wonderful because they didn’t need saving, like the usual damsel in distress that superhero movies do. No, these women were fierce and smart. In a way, it almost made T’Challa a bit of a bumbler, but with a good heart. Either way, you’d be foolish to miss this movie. And if you get a lanyard, hook a charmander up!
Horror movies, I never get my fill, yet I never find one that really scares me, not anymore, it seems like. This one did not scare me as much as it could have, but the based on a true events sort of thing only does scare me some of the time. The movie, in a nutshell, is a ghost story. But there’s more to it than that, and that more does make a slight difference. Helen Mirren plays the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune and the company has called in a person who can assess her mental state to see if they can’t wrestle the power of the company away from the old lady. She has been building a house, building and rebuilding for a while, and continues to do so until she dies. The idea is that the ghosts tell her to build rooms and then she seals the rooms off so that the spirits can come to rest. It is an interesting concept. One I’d not be inclined to investigate firsthand.
Overall, the story was cohesive and interesting. There were a lot of jump scares, but the evil ghost didn’t do nearly as much damage as expected. An unexpected earthquake cause a lot of damage, releasing spirits throughout the house. There is a part of the plot that involves the Winchester curse, and how any of the family will be killed because they had created a weapon of destruction. That sort of thinking is somewhat novel in this day and age of everyone thinking they need to have a gun to protect themselves. I won’t devolve into a political discussion, but in some sense, it makes the movie timely.
The special effects were decent, the acting was decent, given a not so impressive script. There were a few twists and turns, but nothing wholly unexpected. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but it didn’t floor me. It just sort of existed and I watched it and that was really it. I’m not sure I’d say you should see this movie or not, but if you’re bored and it’s on, you might enjoy it.
As for diversity in this movie, there was none. I don't think there was one non-white character. I will say that having Helen Mirren in a movie, and she is a strong character, certainly helps, but it won't salvage the lack of other colors in the movie. I get that it is a period piece, so it wouldn't be normal to see anyone other than whites, but still.
I love Taraji P Hensen. She’s great in everything, even with that ultra-awkward forced love storyline in Person of Interest. This movie was pretty straightforward, not a lot of twists and turns, really. The story had promise, but I didn’t feel like it executed as well as it could have. The story follows a hit-woman who accidentally kills a guy who has a kid, then follows the kid around as he lives on the street, perhaps not accidentally killing the small fish he worked for. Wackiness ensues. A hit-woman having a child is weird enough, but then, of course, she wants to leave her job killing people and that isn’t what the people she works for wants. I do wonder if they opened a bed and breakfast, like one of the other bad guys suggested.
There were a lot of curious moves for this movie, like for me, why was it set in Boston? Also, why would a hit-woman be driving a Tesle, a 4-door Tesla no less. Like, who else was ever going to be in the car with her? Towards the end of the movie, the car gets shot up real good and somehow it turns right back on, really? Come on, now. The kid was not running around trying to shoot people once he discovers that Taraji has all those guns, really? The guy she used to date ends up kidnapping the kid and threatening to kill the kid, which I thought was kind of presumptuous. I mean, if he killed the kid, then their relationship is over, but if he doesn’t, then Taraji is going to put that dog down. A lot of plot holes, as best I can see it. The action was decent, fun even, but the movie didn’t have a ton of staying power, if any at all. I’d say you’re not missing much not seeing this movie.
Can't say much about the diversity in the movie when it was primarily African American actors. Would have been interesting to see other races represented. Also, there were no other women except the title character.
