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CGI Animals and a Daffy Robert Downey Jr. Performance Make for a Feather-Brained ‘Dolittle’

January 15, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Antonio Banderas, Carmel Laniado, Craig Robinson, Dolittle, Dr. Dolittle, Emma Thompson, Frances de la Tour, Harry Collett, Jason Mantzoukas, Jessie Buckley, Jim Broadbent, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Octavia Spencer, Ralph Fiennes, Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., Selena Gomez, Stephen Gaghan, Tom Holland Leave a comment

CREDIT: Universal Pictures

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Harry Collett, Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Jessie Buckley, Carmel Laniado, Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Marion Cotillard, Jason Mantzoukas, Frances de la Tour

Director: Stephen Gaghan

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: PG for Mild Animal Chaos

Release Date: January 17, 2020

It’s not a great sign when my favorite part of a movie is the end credits revealing who all the voice actors were, especially when it’s a movie about talking to animals, because … I love talking to animals! Not necessarily in the Dr. Dolittle sense, but if I did have that ability, I would be happy to use it. As for Robert Downey Jr.’s version of the classic fictional veterinarian, I wouldn’t say that he is unhappy about his interspecies communication abilities, but he is making some odd choices, what with an unplaceable accent while barely opening his mouth whenever he talks to the point that it seems like he is practicing his ventriloquism. Dolittle is a movie whose existence in 2020 I’m having trouble fathoming, but despite that, I can’t say that I doubt Downey’s commitment, however strange it may be.

Anyway, the plot is some fever dream logic-driven concoction about how a reclusive Dr. Dolittle, hiding away in his home following the death of his wife, is summoned to set out on an adventure to find a cure for a deathly ill young Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley). Naturally enough, his animal friends join him to help out, and their presence on this journey just feels too unremarkable. Perhaps that has to do with the reliance on CGI, which renders these creatures less adorable and more just humans with fur or feathers or scales. For the most part, then, Dolittle is a mix of humdrum when it should be goofy and ridiculous when it should be straightforward. Although, there is one part when Dr. Dolittle removes a set of bagpipes from a dragon’s colon, so this endeavor wasn’t a total disappointment.

Dolittle is Recommended If You Have: A Bottomless Appreciation for CGI Animal Hijinx

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 Quacks

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 1/10/20

January 10, 2020

jmunney Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television Critics Choice Awards, grown-ish, John Malkovich, Jude Law, Medical Police, Rare, Selena Gomez, The New Pope Leave a comment

CREDIT: Netflix

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

TV
–Medical Police Season 1 (January 10 on Netflix) – From the team behind Childrens Hospital!
-25th Annual Critics Choice Awards (January 12 on The CW)
–The New Pope Series Premiere (January 13 on HBO) – John Malkovich joins Jude Law in this sequel to The Young Pope.
–grown-ish Season 3 Premiere (January 16 on Freeform)

Music
-Selena Gomez, Rare

‘Underwater’ Delivers Deep-Sea Monsters, While Merely Hinting at Something More Insidious

January 9, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Kristen Stewart, Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller, Underwater, Vincent Cassel, William Eubank Leave a comment

CREDIT: Alan Markfield/Twentieth Century Fox

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller, Mamoudou Athie, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr.

Director: William Eubank

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Attacks On and From Sci-Fi Horror Monsters

Release Date: January 10, 2020

The opening of Underwater promises intense pressure and pitch black scenarios, but honestly? It could’ve had even more pressure and been even more pitch black. That’s not to say that those prone to extreme claustrophobia should give this one a chance. It is, after all, about deep-sea researchers who have to walk to safety across the ocean floor after their vessel becomes damaged by an apparent earthquake. But it’s almost a little too bright, a little too out in the open. The creepy-crawlies that turn out to be lurking in their path are effectively monstrous, but the point of escape appears clearly within reach such that I was never fully worried. Maybe not everyone would make it through alive, but surely some of them would. The ingenuity and grit devised for getting around the beasts are fairly satisfying, but I found myself craving, or at least anticipating, more danger and mystery.

Going right along with the vibe of shining more light than expected, both the opening and end credits inform us that this misadventure will remain very much classified when all is said and done. But the thing is, we’re seeing the classified story. This whole movie is a peak behind the redaction! So why let us know that there is a cover-up when we’re already within the covers? Perhaps there is meant to be an implication, in thoroughly true blue X-Files spirit, that in the real world there are actually terrors in the deep running amok that most folks have no idea about because certain people have decided we’re not supposed to know about any of that. Alas, all that conspiracy flavor is merely the thinnest spread of icing. But by golly, if you’re going to tease us about what your monster is really all about, then please follow through with it.

Underwater is Recommended If You Like: Overlord, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The X-Files but compressed

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Stuff Bunnies

‘Like a Boss’ Goes Broad When It Could Have Gone Weird

January 8, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Ari Graynor, Billy Porter, Jennifer Coolidge, Jessica St. Clair, Jimmy O. Yang, Karan Soni, Like a Boss, Miguel Arteta, Natasha Rothwell, Rose Byrne, Ryan Hansen, Salma Hayek, Tiffany Haddish Leave a comment

CREDIT: Paramount Pictures

Starring: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Coolidge, Billy Porter, Ari Graynor, Natasha Rothwell, Jessica St. Clair, Karan Soni, Jimmy O. Yang, Ryan Hansen

Director: Miguel Arteta

Running Time: 83 Minutes

Rating: R for Totally Open Sexual Discussions Between Close Friends

Release Date: January 10, 2020

In the spirit of being experimental with my movie reviews in 2020, I have decided to review Like a Boss as if someone going to see it thought it were somehow based on the SNL Digital Short of the same name. Now, this might be a little hard to conceive of, because even though there are indeed movies based on SNL sketches, there hasn’t been one in a while, and a two-minute one-off would be an odd candidate for expanding out to feature film length. But after overcoming this initial disappointment (or non-disappointing plain-old realization), this theoretical moviegoer can be comforted by the fact that this movie stars people like Tiffany Haddish and Salma Hayek, who have hosted SNL, and people like Rose Byrne and Billy Porter, who would surely be great SNL hosts if given the chance. On top of that, the movie starts off with a demented sketch comedy-esque sensibility, with bits involving accidentally getting high around an infant and a baby shower cake that features a head crowning out of a vagina and chocolate sprinkles as pubic hair.

Alas, after a rollicking opening ten minutes, Like a Boss settles into a standard issue broad studio comedy groove about Haddish and Byrne as a couple of lifelong friends and business partners struggling with massive debt. There are a few elements that suggest it could have been something a little more offbeat, in particular Hayek’s huge pearly white chompers. There is a bleached-to-perfection, but also slightly degenerate quality to her cosmetics mogul character that someone like John Waters would surely be proud of. It sounds like a solid fit for director Miguel Arteta (who previously directed Hayek to a fantastic performance in the simmeringly toxic Beatriz at Dinner), but the hijinks of the story pull him away from his knack for weirdos puncturing the niceties of the world around them. So in conclusion, if you’re in the mood for the Lonely Island Like a Boss, you’ll probably be even more likely to decry the fact that Business Lady Like a Boss doesn’t allow its comedic imagination to run completely wild.

Like a Boss is Recommended If You Like: Gags about spicy food, Drone-based physical comedy, Makeup tutorials

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Controlling Stakes

Some Quick Thoughts on ‘Pain and Glory’

January 6, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Cecilia Roth, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz, Raúl Arévalo Leave a comment

CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics

There are two moments in Pain and Glory that really hit me and made me go, “This! Is! Cinema!” The first comes when an animated sequence accompanies Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) telling us about how he learned about the subjects he should have learned in school by instead experiencing them later in life. Hurray for mixed media! The second is the meta ending, which I don’t want to spoil, in case anyone reading hasn’t seen it, but I do want to talk about it, so I suppose I’ll throw in a SPOILER WARNING. It turns out that the flashback scenes with a young Salvador and Penélope Cruz as his mom are actually a film-within-the-film directed by the adult Salvador, and that is such a lovely framing device. [END SPOILER WARNING] And one more thing! There’s a terrifically funny scene in which Salvador and his leading man Alberto (Asier Etxeandia) skip a post-screening Q&A they were supposed to attend but then phone in and the audience gets to hear the vicious, but also slapstick argument they get into. As is typical of Pedro Almodóvar, Pain and Glory is liable to make you laugh aplenty and go, “What a thing it is to be alive!”

I’ll go ahead and give Pain and Glory 11 Chases out of 15 Dragons.

The 10 Best Movies of the Year and How They Made Me Feel

January 5, 2020

jmunney Best in Film 2019, Best of 2019, Cinema A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Best of 2019, Blinded by the Light, Greener Grass, Happy Deeath Day 2 U, Knives Out, Parasite, Ready or Not, Uncut Gems, Under the Silver Lake, Us 1 Comment

PHOTO CREDITS: Courtesy of the Studios

For my ten favorite movies of 2019, I have decided to ascribe each of them an emotion or a way of looking at the world that reflects how they made me feel to my core.

But first! – here are some other movies from the past year that I quite enjoyed that didn’t quite make the top 10:

Apollo 11, Avengers: Endgame, Fighting with My Family, Hail Satan?, Hustlers, Isn’t It Romantic, The Irishman, Little Women, Ma, Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, The Mustang, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Rocketman, Toy Story 4, The Two Popes

Now for the Top 10 … (Drumroll, if you please)

10. Knives Out: STRAPPED-IN AND ALONG FOR THE RIDE – Here’s a wonderful idea for a murder mystery: give away the answer at the beginning … and then add more surprises along the way!

Watch And/Or Listen to This: Taylor Janzen’s “What I Do…”

January 4, 2020

jmunney Music, Music Videos, Watch And/Or Listen to This Taylor Janzen, What I Do Leave a comment

CREDIT: Taylor Janzen/YouTube Screenshot

The vibe here is early 2000s indie pop rock (think Rilo Kiley) but with a Gen-Z twist.

The 53 Best TV Shows of 2019

January 4, 2020

jmunney Best of 2019, Best of TV 2019, Television American Dad!, American Housewife, AP Bio, Barry, Baskets, Best of 2019, Better Things, Big Mouth, black-ish, Bob's Burgers, Bojack Horseman, Broad City, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Documentary Now!, Fleabag, Fosse/Verdon, GLOW, I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Jane the Virgin, Jeopardy!, Joe Pera Talks with You, Last Week Tonight, Legion, Living with Yourself, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., mixed-ish, Momma Named Me Sheriff, Mr. Robot, Pose, Rick and Morty, Russian Doll, Sex Education, Sherman's Showcase, Silicon Valley, Speechless, Superstore, The Conners, The Goldbergs, The Good Place, The Kids Are Alright, The Last O.G., The Mandalorian, The Masked Singer, The Orville, The Other Two, The Unicorn, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Undone, Watchmen, What Just Happened??!, What We Do in the Shadows, You're the Worst, Young Sheldon 2 Comments

CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): Amazon; Disney; Pamela Littky/FOX; Rhys Thomas/IFC

Under the known laws of physics, it is currently impossible to watch every TV show (or even just every good show) airing new episodes in a given year. But for those of us who treat televisual consumption as a transcendent pursuit, we do our best to fit in as many programs as possible, which means that there are more than ten or even twenty shows worth recognizing in an annual best-of list. So this year, I decided to rank as many shows as I thought were worthy of recognition and provide blurbs for the ones where I really needed to say something.

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 1/3/20

January 3, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Television Brad Rutter, Golden Globes, James Holzhauer, Jane Levy, Jeopardy!, Jeopardy: The Greatest of All Time, Ken Jennings, The Grudge, The Grudge 2020, Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Leave a comment

CREDIT: NBC

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

Movies
–The Grudge (Theatrically Nationwide) – Always doing the horror thing.

TV
-77th Golden Globe Awards (January 5 on NBC) – Awards season is heating up!
–Jeopardy: The Greatest of All Time (Premieres January 7 on ABC) – Three great champions (Rutter/Jennings/Holzhauer) face off.
–Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Series Premiere (January 7 on NBC) – Jane Levy fandom on full alert!

‘The Grudge’ Just Won’t End, and That’s Fitfully Fascinating

January 2, 2020

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews Andrea Riseborough, Betty Gilpin, Demián Bichir, Frankie Faison, Jacki Weaver, John Cho, Lin Shaye, Nicolas Pesce, The Grudge, The Grudge 2020, William Sadler 2 Comments

CREDIT: Allen Fraser/Sony/Screen Gems

Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Demián Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye, Jacki Weaver, Frankie Faison, William Sadler

Director: Nicolas Pesce

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Dismemberment, Fire, Drowning, Stabbing, and Gunshot Wounds

Release Date: January 3, 2020

In the spirit of experimentation, I have decided that my first movie review of 2020 will be in the form of an acrostic. The letters I will be using will be those in the title (not including the “the”), that title being The Grudge, the remake of a remake (or perhaps the latest remake of the first version) about the ghostly curse that lingers in a house where an anger-filled murder has occurred. This time, it takes the form of a multi-murder mystery in which those investigating the deaths at 44 Reyburn Drive run the risk of becoming infected by the grudge themselves.

Great cast! I mean, just look at that list. That’s at least half a dozen folks that could carry a horror movie (or any movie) on their own, and here they are together. Do they elevate the material that’s on the page? Yes, and it could use some elevating.

Repeating the formula is the name of the game here, but not the Grudge formula (or not just the Grudge formula). If you’re hankering for a return to J-horror remake glory, chances are you’ve got The Ring on your mind, and so does, it would seem, The Grudge 2020, as Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) is most concerned about protecting her son from the effects of the curse that she is experiencing.

Upside-down is how you’ll be looking during one particularly grisly moment involving Lin Shaye. It’s also how you’ll be feeling when things turn metaphysical and conversations discuss how supernatural curses go hand-in-hand with time distortion.

Digits (i.e., fingers) get hacked off. In general, writer/director Nicolas Pesce is not shy about bodies becoming pummeled, ripped apart, and decayed. It’s this movie’s most effectively visceral technique.

Generosity, and a fair bit at that, is probably required to give this umpteenth entry in a long-running, occasionally ponderous franchise a chance. An effective atmosphere is met, and frankly, that is a must that must be met in this sort of challenge.

Ending… it looked like it was going to be conclusive, which wouldn’t have been a good fit for the endless hopelessness inherent in this premise. But then there’s a fakeout, and instead of a punch in the gut, you leave with more of a whoosh.

The Grudge is Recommended If You Like: Diving into the infinite reboot loop while allowing some room for hope

Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Hands Popping Out of Hair

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