Mini-Movie Review: ‘The Hustle’ is Too Loud and Outrageous to Pull Off a Satisfying Con

May 9, 2019

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CREDIT: Christian Black/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp, Ingrid Oliver

Director: Chris Addison

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Crude Makeup Jobs and Exaggerated Appetites

Release Date: May 10, 2019

Successful movies about con artists pull cons on their audiences, and we thank them for it, because that is how they derive their entertainment value. So as someone on the hunt for entertainment value, it is my solemn duty to sadly report that The Hustle (a gender-flipped remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) struggles mightily to keep its viewers guessing. There are very few surprises along the way until the very end, and you’ll probably be able to surmise the big reveal if you’ve seen the original, or if you’re just savvy enough with the genre. So that leaves Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson to do what they can by bouncing off against each other, which they do by leaning way too hard into their typical character types. Let’s put it this way: this is a movie in which someone eats a French fry that’s been dipped in toilet water, and there’s no good narrative reason for it. If that tickles your funny bone, then good on you, but it’s not especially relevant to any con job.

The Hustle is Recommended If You Like: Sticking raunchy humor into a genre where it might not fit

Grade: 2 out of 5 Sob Stories

Movie Review: ‘Detective Pikachu’ the Movie Demonstrates Its Potential Worth as a TV Show

May 8, 2019

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CREDIT: Warner Bros./Legendary

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy, Chris Geere, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Rita Ora

Director: Rob Letterman

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: PG for Explosions, Lightning Bolts, and Suspicious Gas

Release Date: May 10, 2019

The promise of a significant chunk of ’90s has been crystallized in the form of Detective Pikachu. Pokémon is a franchise that has endured for decades, but unlike say, Star Wars or the Muppets, it is not the sort of property that its fans continue to love, or love in the same way, as they grow older. Instead, it is tinged with nostalgia at the same time that it enthralls subsequent generations with new chapters. With its mix of live-action humans and CGI monsters and its expansive approach to Pokémon mythology, Detective Pikachu takes a rather meta stance towards a significant piece of culture. I enjoyed watching it, but I also had the sense that it was not as perfectly constructed as it could have been. It soon dawned on me that there was so much potential Pokémon goodness missing from this world that could be fleshed out in a TV version.

What I’m saying here is that I would love it if it turns out that Detective Pikachu is just the first chapter and that we get a new mystery for the adorable electric mouse to solve every week, with a few more big-screen adventures as well if anything gargantuan turns up. Surely Pika’s deerstalker hat of choice points to his sartorial inspiration as a possible model to follow for ongoing detective work. There is just so much untapped potential here in Ryme City, a land in which humans and Pokémon live alongside each other on equal terms. It’s not unlike Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but a lot more adorable. With hundreds of Pokémon available to play around with, necessarily only a small percentage are spotlighted. But more could have had their moment to shine, and hopefully more will.

But the Pokémon who do get their chance to shine give us some delightful, occasionally anarchic deployments of their unique powers, especially a frustrating charades-based interrogation with a Mr. Mime. What makes Detective Pikachu work as well as it does is its total lack of winking within its meta framework. As the voice of the title crimesolver, Ryan Reynolds is basically doing a PG version of Deadpool, which turns out to be just subdued enough to be plenty palatable. Among the rest of the cast, Kathryn Newton stands out as an underpaid digital news intern who is basically a doing an impression of a mix between a noir femme fatale and a His Girl Friday-type. Occasionally the film gets bogged down in heavy mythology that may be too much for even some Pokémon devotees, but when it maintains its full sense of playfulness, it is a commendably unique cinematic achievement.

Detective Pikachu is Recommended If You Like: Pokémon with a spritz of Minions and a soupçon of Deadpool

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Deerstalker Caps

Mini-Movie Review: ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ is an Almost Too Perfectly Inspiring Documentary Tale of Triumph

May 7, 2019

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CREDIT: NEON

Starring: John Chester, Molly Chester, Todd the Dog, Emma the Pig, Greasy the Chicken

Director: John Chester

Running Time: 91 Minutes

Rating: PG for Coyotes Attacking Livestock and Mud- and Manure-Based Messes

Release Date: May 10, 2019 (Limited)

In 2011, John and Molly Chester moved out of their cramped Los Angeles apartment to make a go of it on two hundred unkempt acres in Ventura County. They had a dream of doing things a little differently, an alternative, if you will, to the factory farms typical of modern American agriculture. Luckily for us, John is a documentary filmmaker, and he had the cameras rolling for much of the journey.

The Biggest Little Farm is the document of their ultimate triumph over great odds. Whenever a new problem arises and seems intractable (not enough rain, too much rain, relentless predators, thoughtless pests), the Chesters somehow manage to consistently turn crises into opportunities. It almost feels a little too perfect. To be fair, we do see the struggle, but I would have liked to have seen even more of it. We could have gotten really deep in the process of the problem-solving. Oh well, maybe that’s what the special features are for. It would have been tough to fit all that in a ninety-minute package. As it is, though, what we have is a valuable record of the passage of time and its truly transformative possibilities. John has a preternaturally keen eye for capturing the wondrous chronological workings of nature, and the result is inspiring cinema that shows that maybe, just maybe, uprooting everything can work out just like we need it to.

The Biggest Little Farm is Recommended If You Like: Lifestyle transformations, Videos of animals giving birth

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Promises

Mini-Movie Review: ‘Tolkien’ is Fairly Inessential Bio-Cinema

May 7, 2019

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CREDIT: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Boyle, Patrick Gibson, Tom Glynne-Carney, Craig Roberts

Director: Dome Karukoski

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Flashes of World War I

Release Date: May 10, 2019

Would you be intrigued to know that some of the elements of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s actual life? The biopic Tolkien is counting on it, although it is not especially committed to that idea. The legendary English fantasy writer (as played dutifully by Nicholas Hoult) is haunted by memories of World War I with rather dragon-esque fire in the sky, and he has a tight group of schoolmates that one might call a fellowship. But beyond those (easily identifiable, not particularly cinematic) connections, this is a fairly straightforward story about a boy of modest, tragic (Dickensian, even) origins who made good. It is a life well-lived, but not necessarily captivating at every little moment. But at least his romance with his future wife Edith (Lily Collins) is compelling, built as it is on mutual respect and fascination. The emotions in their declarations of love are not atypical for the genre, but the language is unique and heartfelt. Focusing the whole movie on this intimate love story might have been a more inspired choice.

Tolkien is Recommended If You Like: Tolkien completism, The less interesting story behind the story

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Cellar Doors

My 2019 Tribeca Film Festival Adventure

May 6, 2019

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Photo Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival

Another spring, another Tribeca Film Festival. As is my custom, I took in a few films at the Lower Manhattan fest, and now I am here to report back to you what I thought of the offerings. Read on to discover what was in store in my 2019 Tribeca Film Festival Adventure!

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SNL Love It/Keep It/Leave It: Adam Sandler/Shawn Mendes

May 5, 2019

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.

Love It

Holes – So Beck and Kyle discovered that clothes are just holes to cover up your bodily holes, and then they made a song about it, and now we get to bask in the joy of their wonder. It sounds like a cheesy ’80s power ballad, although the sartorial style is more reminiscent of Michael Bolton and other over-the-top soft rockers. And there’s even some “We Didn’t Start the Fire” influence there with the rhyming of Federico Fellini and Roberto Benigni. Wonderfully singular.

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Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 5/3/19

May 3, 2019

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CREDIT: Philippe Bossé

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Long Shot (Theatrically Nationwide)

Podcasts
–Primetime (Premieres May 9) – Hosted by Vox Cultural Critic Todd VanDerWerff!
–The Ron Burgundy Podcast – This premiered back in February, but somehow I’m only realizing just now that it’s available.

Mini-Movie Review: Olivier Assayas Imbues ‘Non-Fiction’ with Fascinating Conversations and Boring Affairs

May 2, 2019

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Courtesy of IFC Films

Starring: Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne, Christa Théret, Nora Hamzawi

Director: Olivier Assayas

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Sex Here, Some Sex There

Release Date: May 3, 2019 (Limited)

We may be living in a decidedly digital age, but believe it or not, there are still people in 2019 who write honest-to-goodness books. Olivier Assayas’ French relationship dramedy Non-Fiction ponders what the Internet hath wrought on the world of writing by way of examining the life of a literary editor. This film is hardly the condemnation of modern technology that premise might suggest, though. Instead, it features thoughtful conversations about how online discourse has actually amplified writing and maybe even improved it overall. A series of discussions about the status of literature may sound boring to some, but at least Assayas and his actors bring the necessary gusto to their dialogue. Alas, Non-Fiction eventually just devolves into a series of affairs whose consequences feel paper-thin and that do not really have anything to do with the literary industry, beyond the fact that some of the people involved coincidentally happen to work in that business.

Non-Fiction is Recommended If You Like: French people constantly talking and/or sleeping with each other

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Rejections

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