Drama

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
  • IMDb: link

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood movie reviewThe latest from writer/director Quentin Tarantino includes all the trappings that fans have come to expect over the past two decades. Overly talky, in need of a little editing, with a few too many shots of his characters’ feet, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is still quite entertaining and easily the best film Tarantino has made since 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. Most comparable with Death Proof, Once Upon a Time offers a slow build-up focused on character and snappy dialogue before jumping headfirst into an explosive finale.

Set in 1969 Hollywood, the plot follows the exploits of western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the downside of his career, his friend and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his new neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and the Manson Family. The separate threads will eventually intertwine late in the film’s final act on one fateful night in the Hollywood Hills, but for most of the film Tarantino takes his time with each, featuring the Dalton/Booth friendship most prominently with plenty of inserts of the the actor’s glory days as the star of Bounty Law which came to an abrupt end after he started chasing a movie career.

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The Beast in Heat

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Beast in Heat
  • IMDb: link

The Beast in Heat Blu-ray reviewWhen you are looking at a film where the director and 90% of the cast refused to put their real names on the project, you know you found something pretty awful. An Naziploitation film co-written and directed by Luigi Batzella, under the pseudonym Ivan Kathansky, the film centers around the comings and goings around a Nazi POW camp during WWII where a mad scientist (Macha Magall) has created a human beast (Salvatore Baccaro). Apparently the Nazis have decided the best way to win over the locals is for the Beast to rape them into submission.

There’s nothing of merit and little of interest here. The film is a bizarre mix of unintentional camp mixed with gore, torture, shootings, and rape sequences. There’s also a subplot involving locals looking to derail the Nazi war effort who become prisoners the Dr. Kratsch (Magall) as well. Had the film thoroughly embraced its ridiculous nature and gone full camp it may have been semi-passable as a guilty pleasure. As is, it’s hardly watchable.

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Yesterday

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

Yesterday movie review

Yesterday is a feel-good summer movie with a non-traditional leading man, an intriguing idea, and a terrific soundtrack. The film has everything it needs to succeed, but, despite being thoroughly entertaining for much of its running time, never reaches the heights it should given what it has to work with. Even enjoying Yesterday for what it is, it’s hard not to be at least a bit disappointed for what it might have been.

The set-up is simple. A struggling musician (Himesh Patel) wakes up to a world where only he remembers the Beatles. Remembering enough of their music to pass off some of their hits as his own, he finds fame and popularity for the first time while feeling the weight of his lie and the the ever-increasing pressure to continue to produce more and more of the band’s hits. Although it does corner our protagonist into only one likely outcome, leaving little room for surprises (other than one small twist involving the recurring appearance of a pair of ominous characters), when director Danny Boyle‘s film stays focused on Jack Malik’s (Patel) musical rise to stardom (and the humorous moments involved, such as trying to remember the lyrics to “Elanor Rigby“) the movie is everything you want for light summer viewing.

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Toy Story 4

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Toy Story 4
  • IMDb: link

Toy Story 4 movie reviewAt some point Disney and Pixar may go too far with the Toy Story franchise and jump the proverbial shark which always seems to be lurking just around the corner of the next sequel. Thankfully, that day is not today. Despite the fitting conclusion Toy Story 3 offered to the franchise in having the toys find new life with a new owner, Toy Story 4 comes up with a new story that (while not as emotional as either the second or third entries into the franchise) provides an abundance of quirky and zany humor reminiscent of the original Toy Story.

Without breaking too much with tradition, the set-up is simple as a toy is lost and other toys set out to bring it home. This time the toy in question is a makeshift toy Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw) creates on the first day of Kindergarten called Forky (Tony Hale) who, despite the child’s love, still yearns for the trashcan from whence the spork came from. Woody (Tom Hanks), who is struggling with his position of no longer being a favorite toy, claims responsibility for the spork. This means going after Forky who escapes on a road trip leading Woody to encounter new toys and one old friend.

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Photograph

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

Photograph movie reviewWriter/director Ritesh Batra‘s Photograph offers audiences a low-key romance between a tourist photographer (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) struggling to scrape money together to pay off family debts and the daughter (Sanya Malhotra) of a well-to-do family unhappy with both the current state of her life and her parents’ plans for her future. Neither is all that happy with their lives, but until their meeting neither of them has ever thought about attempting to make a change, either.

A chance encounter between the two leaves Rafi (Siddiqui) with Miloni’s (Malhotra) photograph, taken at the Gateway Of India. Hoping to ease the worry of his grandmother (Farrukh Jaffar), Rafi includes the stranger’s photograph in a letter suggesting that he has finally found love. When the grandmother decides to come into town to meet her, Rafi scrambles to find the stranger and convince her to play along for a few days. What could just as easily have been a throwaway plot to a regrettable Hollyood romcom works fairly well here, as the unusual offer comes at just the right time as Miloni feels oppressed by the expectations of by her own family.

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