Musical

The Little Mermaid

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  • Title: The Little Mermaid (2023)
  • IMDb: link

The Little Mermaid

The latest unnecessary live-action Disney remake cast Halle Bailey as mermaid princess Ariel who dreams of visiting the surface world despite her father’s (Javier Bardem) distrust of humans. While not the most awkward adaptation Disney has tried, there’s nothing in this version of The Little Mermaid that doesn’t feel like a pale comparison to the original 1989 animated-film whose theme of a girl giving up her own voice for love I’ve always found a bit problematic.

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Leo

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  • Title: Leo
  • IMDb: link

Leo

Leo starts with the same premise of one of my favorite films from one of my favorite years of movies. Joseph Vijay stars as a shop owner who defends his cafe against armed intruders. News of the event, however, brings out even more trouble. First we get the wave of violence from the dead robbers’ friends and family which only draws more attention to the reclusive Parthiban. This brings the attention of a criminal empire who believes this local hero to be a mass murderer known as Leo.

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The Color Purple

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Color Purple (2023)
  • IMDb: link

The Color Purple

Taken from the Broadway musical which was itself adapted from Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, we meet Celie (Fantasia Barrino) who, like the other African-American women in the story, is treated rather shabbily over the first two-thirds of the film by men before standing up for herself to her abuser (Colman Domingo) and, at least in this version, having her story turn on a dime (which may or may not give you whiplash) where she receives everything she could ever have wished for over the film’s final act.

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Wonka

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  • Title: Wonka
  • IMDb: link

Wonka

The attempt to tell the origin story for Roald Dahl‘s famous eccentric chocolatier is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand we get Timothée Chalamet as the still naive young man seeking his fortune creating chocolate for the world to enjoy which provides the heart of the film. There’s enough here that we can see the possibility of this version of Willy Wonka growing into the far more gruff character we see played by Gene Wilder. On the other hand we’re left with a script that turns out to have little to do with chocolate and more to do with crazy antics, involving bumbling bad guys, really only suited for small children.

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The Archies

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  • Title: The Archies
  • IMDb: link

The Archies

It’s hard to imagine a move loving recreation of classic Archie Comics than what writer/director Zoya Akhtar offers in The Archies. Tackling older comics can often lead to parody or darker and grittier versions, but with The Archies the classic characters and their town are uprooted and planted in 60s India to explore the oldest love triangle in comic books and offer a civics lesson to both our main character and audience about standing up for what is right. While I can’t see an American production leaning into the earnestness of classic Archie with such gusto, somehow the Anglo-Indian reincarnation of Riverdale fits perfectly.

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