November 2017

Justice League Action – Drivers Ed

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Justice League Action – Drivers Ed
  • wiki: link

Justice League Action - Drivers Ed television review

While taking a driving test through space with Space Cabbie (Patton Oswalt), Stargirl (Natalie Lander) leaps into action to stop the Red Lantern Zilius Zox (Armin Shimerman) from robbing a space ATM in an asteroid field (because where else is a space ATM going to be?). The goofy short doesn’t make a lick of sense (even our heroine questions what she’s doing since her Cosmic Staff allows her to fly through space), but still provides its share of fun including fitting in another oddball Silver Age character.

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

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  • Title: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
  • IMDb: link

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri movie reviewI’ve been waiting all year for a front-runner, a film to set the standard to which every movie that follows will have to try to measure up. I don’t have to wait any longer. Writer/director Martin McDonagh takes us to a little-used patch of road in rural Missouri where the sudden use of three derelict billboards begin to raise the eyes of the local community.

After months of seeing no progress in the investigation into her daughter’s (Kathryn Newton) gruesome murder, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents out those three unused billboards to send a message to the community in general and the cancer-stricken Sheriff Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) in particular.

Darkly humorous, yet deadly serious, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is an immensely-watchable and thoroughly-enjoyable film. Filled with flawed, angry, sullen, and sad characters, the film offers no easy answers, no heroes or villains (although Sam Rockwell‘s shit-kicker Southern deputy comes damn close), but just people of varying character doing what they believe is right.

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Coco

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  • Title: Coco
  • IMDb: link

Coco movie reviewPixar’s nineteenth feature isn’t one of the studio’s best, but it does display plenty of heart. We open to extended narration setting up the life and family of young Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) whose family’s hatred of music makes the first-half of the movie seem like Footloose with dead people. More than anything in the world Miguel wants to be a musician which, through a somewhat convoluted series of events, sends him into the netherworld on Día de Muertos when the spirits can leave the Land of the Dead and visit their living relatives (only if their families have remembered to place their picture in the family ofrenda, or altar).

Once Miguel is loose in the Land of the Dead, with only a single day to find his way back home, the film picks up. After meeting relatives whose blessing he needs to return to the land of the living, but who will provide it only if the boy promises to give up his music, Miguel goes in search of his long lost great-great grandfather who he believes to be one of the greatest musicians of all time (Benjamin Bratt). Relying on the help of a dog and a skeleton named Hector (Gael García Bernal), Miguel begins his quest.

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The Man Who Invented Christmas

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Man Who Invented Christmas
  • IMDb: link

The Man Who Invented Christmas movie reviewOn television, stage, and in film there have been plenty of adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol over the years (Mickey Mouse and Bill Murray have provided two of my favorites). The latest from director Bharat Nalluri and screenwriter Susan Coyne, based on Les Standiford‘s book, doesn’t add much new to the proceedings, but proves to be an enjoyable holiday romp focused on the turmoil in Dickens’ (Dan Stevens) life and the creation of one of his most famous works. The script follows a familiar path seen before with authors talking directly to their characters and stealing names and lines from real-life to work into their writing. The later reminded me of Shakespeare in Love, which had far more wit than we find here.

The main takeaway of the movie seems to be that Dickens had as much Scrooge (Christopher Plummer) in him as Bob Cratchit, and only by coming to terms with the fact was he able to finish the book that had ties to his own troubled upbringing. Stevens is likable enough in the role, with serviceable support from Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Morfydd Clark, and others while the movie brings Victorian London, and various Dickens’ characters, to life.

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