Alan Rapp

The Two Popes

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Two Popes
  • IMDb: link

The Two Popes movie reviewNow stop me if you’ve heard this one, two Popes walk into the Vatican… Director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Anthony McCarten offer this amusing tale of the relationship that develops between two men with opposing views of Catholicism in the world. It just so happens that both of those men would become Pope. Opening with Pope Benedict XVI’s (Anthony Hopkins) election over a reluctant Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), the film moves forward seven years during a tumultous time for the Catholic Church where Benedict will look at his formal rival as the best hope for the church.

With the simple set-up, McCarten sets the stage and allows Hopkins and Pryce to play off of each other offering insights into both men struggling to find common ground. Pryce gets the better deal with the more layered Jorge who, thanks to Benedict’s prodding, would go on to become Pope Francis. Hopkins gets stuck with the more straightforward Benedict, but the set-up offers him challenges in attempting to convince a man whose views of the church he disagrees with to take a job he doesn’t desire.

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Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
  • IMDb: link

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie reviewWith The Rise of Skywalker J.J. Abrams returns to close-out the sequel trilogy which began with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Not content to end just this series, Abrams intends the film to work as the climax to all nine of the Star Wars films featuring mentions, Easter Eggs, and callbacks from every film (and even some of the various animated TV series). The shift also forces a change in the tone of the arc of the series as Rian Johnson‘s look to the future is replaced with a story tied very much to the past.

One of the complaints some had to The Last Jedi was the film wasn’t fan friendly enough. The Rise of Skywalker goes a bit overboard in attempting fix a problem which in my opinion didn’t exist in the first place. The result is a final entry to the franchise that feels like an attempt to placate more vocal fans by asking less of them the final time around and offering up a heaping of nostalgia and fan service instead. It’s more Return of the Jedi than Star Wars. On an emotional level, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker works. It’s a cathartic farewell to these characters. Story wise, however, it’s the weakest of the three sequel films.

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The Mandalorian – Chapter 1

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Mandalorian – Chapter 1
  • wiki: link

The Mandalorian - Chapter 1 TV review

The first episode of the Disney+ series introduces us to a nameless Mandalorian bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) first through a rather routine bounty and second through a new job off-the-books that raises several red flags for our protagonist but whose payout cannot be ignored. Series creator Jon Favreau, who also wrote the first episode aims for a tone reminiscent of the Mos Eisley Cantina found in the original Star Wars. The early bar fight to open the episode and the later attack on a heavily-armed compound both show off the character’s skill-set, while the final scene of the episode offers a glimpse into the character’s emotional state.

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Superman #18

/ / Comics

Superman #18 comic reviewWhat’s so interesting to me about Superman #18 isn’t how it fundamentally changes the character going forward in a major way but how well writer Brian Michael Bendis presents the idea as a natural evolution for Superman. While the issue jumps around a bit here and there, including nice moments of Clark Kent’s separate conversations with Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, the main focus in a press conference Superman calls in front of The Daily Planet revealing his dual identity to the world. That isn’t to say Clark Kent is going away, he’s remaining at The Daily Planet, it’s just now his co-workers (and the entire world) know that he’s also Superman.

A staple of the super-hero genre since it’s inception, the alter-ego has been used to allow heroes to lead something of a normal life while not in tights and to protect their loved ones who might become targets from their enemies. Let’s face it, Lois Lane is already getting into life-threatening situations and the realization that she’s married to Superman should actually make her safer. As for a normal life, that’s the interesting twist which Bendis delivers here centering on the character’s internal moral compass and the first word in his slogan “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.”

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Parasite

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Parasite
  • IMDb: link

Parasite movie reviewA family of con artists living together a cramped semi-basement apartment set their sights on a wealthy and gullible family in writer/director Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite. Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) is the first through the door as a tutor for the teenage daughter Da-hye (Ji-so Jung). Next comes his sister Ki-jeong (So-dam Park), as an art teacher and art therapist for the couple’s son (Hyun-jun Jung). Together the pair are able to replace the family’s driver with their father Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song) and the housekeeper (Jeong-eun Lee) with their mother (Hye-jin Jang) all while hiding the familial relationship behind the Parks’ (Sun-kyun Lee and Yeo-jeong Jo) new employees.

The insidious nature of the clan and their slow takeover of the household is fascinating to watch. What’s interesting, despite their lies and deceptions, each proves fairly good at their jobs. I won’t get into the film’s dark turn or reveal what happens in the film’s second-half other than to say the house of cards is threatened by a discovery deep in the heart of the Parks’ home in the dead of night leading to a climactic sequence of events playing out in the middle of a family celebration.

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