Cinema | Jmunney's Blog

This Is a Movie Review: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

June 8, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews David Newell, François Scarborough Clemmons, Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers, Joe Negri, Morgan Neville, Won't You Be My Neighbor? 2 Comments

CREDIT: Jim Judkis/Focus Features

I give Won’t You Be My Neighbor? 3.5 out of 5 Casual Sweaters: https://uinterview.com/reviews/movies/wont-you-be-my-neighbor-movie-review-documentary-keeps-fred-rogers-legacy-of-love-alive/

This Is a Movie Review: Hereditary

June 8, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, Ari Aster, Gabriel Byrne, Hereditary, Milly Shapiro, Toni Collette 3 Comments

CREDIT: A24

I give Hereditary 4 out of 5 Decapitations: https://uinterview.com/reviews/movies/hereditary-movie-review-an-unforgettable-toni-collette-performance-is-one-of-many-disturbing-attractions/

This Is a Movie Review: Avengers: Infinity War

June 3, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Anthony Russo, Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, Infinity War, Joe Russo, Marvel Cinematic Universe, MCU, Thanos 2 Comments

CREDIT: Marvel

Much more so than 2012’s Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of all that has come before in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After ten years and nearly twenty films, this has been THE destination. Sure, “saving the whole world and/or universe” is what so many previous superhero movies have been about, so Infinity War cannot fully be satisfying on that score. But as a narrative experiment, it works as a satisfying conclusion (or beginning to a conclusion).

Weirdly enough, I think Infinity Wars works whether or not you have seen all the preceding entries. I cannot say for sure, as I have seen every MCU flick, though I have only watched all of them once each and I am by no means the most devoted Easter egg hunter. But there is just something about how this massive teamup of heroes manages to avoid feeling busy and instead come off as electric. There is a lived-in feel to Tony Stark and Stephen Strange trading banter and then becoming fast friends or the Guardians of the Galaxy making sense of Thor on the fly. If you don’t know what these characters are all about ahead of time, you can pick it up along the way, just as they do with each other. As for Thanos and his plan, it’s fine for setting the plot in motion, but I’m mainly here for all the combinations and permutations.

I give Avengers: Infinity War 4 Infinity Stones out of 5 “Shocking” Deaths.

This Is A Movie Review: Adrift

June 1, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Adrift, Baltasar Kormákur, Sam Claflin, Shailene Woodley Leave a comment

CREDIT: Kirsty Griffin/STXfilms

I give Adrift 3 out of 5 Dinghies: https://uinterview.com/reviews/movies/adrift-movie-review-shailene-woodley-learns-how-to-survive-the-gorgeous-but-deadly-ocean/

This Is A Movie Review: American Animals

June 1, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews American Animals, Ann Dowd, Barry Keoghan, Bart Layton, Blake Jenner, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson Leave a comment

CREDIT: The Orchard

I give American Animals 4 out of 5 Painted Birds: https://uinterview.com/reviews/movies/american-animals-movie-review-a-fascinating-heist-flick-plays-around-with-reality-as-it-attempts-to-pull-off-the-impossible/

This Is a Movie Review: 3100: Run and Become

June 1, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews 3100, 3100: Run and Become, Ashprihanal Aalto Leave a comment

If a race consists of 3100 miles over the course of 52 days, with breaks for sleeping and even a haircut, can it really be considered a race? Or is it more of a running regimen? Semantics aside, this is clearly an impressive feat, and Sanjay Rawal’s documentary 3100: Run and Become (which is having its world premiere at the Illuminate Film Festival in Sedona, AZ with plans for a theatrical rollout in late summer 2018) tracks the story of those who have accomplished that feat at the Self-Transcendence 3100 Miler, the world’s longest certified footrace.

The race is situated along a half-mile block in Queens, New York, which competitors must traverse thousands of times as they seek to average at least 60 miles per day. The film chronicles the 2016 edition, mainly focusing on Finnish paperboy Ashprihanal Aalto, an eight-time winner of the event. Along the way, the masters establish their leads by thousands of miles, while others succumb to the heat and are forced to drop out. It is incredible that the latter fate does not befall everyone, considering that they are spending practically the entirety of their waking hours going around and around. Overall, there is a Zen tone to the presentation, as the easygoing Aalto has practically been subsumed by the natural forces that move him along.

Rawal also includes detours about other long-distance runners: a Bushman in the Kalahari, a Navajo on a reservation in Arizona, and a resident of Japan’s mountain temples. They certainly have a thematic connection to Aalto’s story, but it may have been wiser to keep the focus squarely on the 3100. Any long-distance runner or admirer of long-distance runners would surely appreciate a deep dive into the details of what allows Aalto and his fellow competitors to survive and even thrive in this extreme ultramarathon gauntlet. Still, just knowing that this race exists and getting a taste of it is enough to catch a whiff of the transcendence that is being chased.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Succeeds When it Commits to Its Icons Fully or Creates Something Wholly New

May 23, 2018

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Alden Ehrenreich, Chewbacca, Chewie, Donald Glover, Emilia Clarke, Han Solo, Joonas Suotamo, Lando, Lando Calrissian, Paul Bettany, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Ron Howard, Solo, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson Leave a comment

This review was originally published on News Cult in May 2018.

Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover, Joonas Suotamo, Paul Bettany, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Director: Ron Howard

Running Time: 135 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Lasers and Space Derring-Do

Release Date: May 25, 2018

Nobody can play Han Solo as iconically as Harrison Ford, or so the conventional wisdom goes. Now that we actually have Alden Ehrenreich’s version to dissect, we can render a more practical verdict about just how successful he is or isn’t. And while indeed young Solo has nothing on classic Solo, the task is not necessarily as impossible as originally advertised, which we know because we do not have to look far to find someone else pulling off that goal, as Donald Glover’s take on Lando Calrissian manages to be just as iconic as, if not more so (time will tell, ultimately), Billy Dee Williams’ version.

To be fair, Glover probably has the easier task, insofar as it is the less restricted one. While Ford is one of the major players in four Star Wars films, Williams only has about 15 minutes of screen time across two episodes. Ergo, Glover has plenty more freedom to fill in the blanks and create new blanks never hinted at previously, while Ehrenreich is locked into coloring necessary backstory, like earning the life debt that Chewie owes him and making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs. But the biggest difference is in the quality of preparation. Glover feels like someone who has been auditioning to play Lando his whole life, while Ehrenreich feels like someone who has been training to be an actor, and maybe more specifically a movie star, but not so specifically Han Solo in particular. That specificity and passion is almost certainly necessary to pull off the job of simultaneously paying homage to a famous character and making it one’s own. Maybe there are some folks out there who have been playing Han Solo in front of the mirror their whole lives, but Ehrenreich is probably not one of them. He gets the job done, but he does not take it to the next level.

Solo does not rely entirely on checking off a bunch of backstory checkpoints. Like any well-bred Star Wars movie, it is populated with a menagerie of diverse characters. As far as the new faces go, most prominent are Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra, Han’s childhood friend and partner-in-crime, and Woody Harrelson as Tobias Beckett, Han’s smuggling mentor. They are appropriately cast, but they feel like could be any Emilia Clarke or Woody Harrelson character, as opposed to the roles of a lifetime that add new definition to what a Star War can be. Same goes for crime lord Dryden Vos, who can be easily and unfussily added to Paul Bettany’s murderers’ row of villain roles.

But not-so-quietly revolutionary is Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s motion-capture performance as L3-37, Lando’s feisty, herky-jerky droid companion. Waller-Bridge’s success comes from a starting point totally opposite of Glover’s, as she had never seen a Star Wars film before auditioning. Consequently, her performance is not beholden to any droids that have preceded her. She takes full advantage of the individuality inherent to a set of beings that seem to have plenty of free will despite also being conditioned by their programming. Her relationship with Lando suggests an open-minded (pansexual even) imagination that might as well be explored in a cinematic universe as vast as this one. And therein lies a template for keeping fresh the perhaps infinite number of future Star Wars: anchor them in a deepened spin on the familiar while introducing a high-risk, wholly fresh concoction.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is Recommended If You Like: Community’s Star Wars homages, Watching poker when you have no idea what the rules are, Human-cyborg relations

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Parsecs