This Is a Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time

April 22, 2018

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CREDIT: Disney

I certainly enjoyed Ava DuVernay’s spin on A Wrinkle in Time, though I am a little disappointed it does not reach the level of blockbuster classic that I hoped it would. I think much of that has to do with its too-low-calorie mix of epic and low-key. Sure, Meg travels a great interdimensional distance to save her father from a dark entity threatening the entire universe, but she does so over just the course of an afternoon. That relative speed is part of the hook, sure, but it should not feel so speedy. It really would have been beneficial to more deeply explore the effects of tessering on Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace.

There are a lot of wonderful design elements and sufficiently creepy moments, but much of those do not feel terribly specific to what this particular film is trying to say. Perhaps the scariest sequence is the disturbingly harmonious cul-de-sac on Camazotz, but that is not really preying on any unique Murry family fears; the fight at hand is not really one against suburban conformity. As for the supposedly weightless bromides of inspiration and self-confidence, I do not find them terribly off-putting, but they certainly could have benefited from the offbeat verve that Zach Galifianakis naturally taps into as the Happy Medium.

I give A Wrinkle in Time 3 Happy’s out of 5 IT’s.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘I Feel Pretty’ Mines Humor and Self-Confidence Out of Cognitive Dissonance

April 19, 2018

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CREDIT: Mark Schafer/STX Films

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Amy Schumer, Rory Scovel, Michelle Williams, Aidy Bryant, Busy Philipps, Lauren Hutton, Tom Hopper, Emily Ratajkowski, Adrian Martinez

Directors: Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Strategically Filmed Nudity

Release Date: April 20, 2018

A friend who accompanied me to the I Feel Pretty screening remarked afterwards that Amy Schumer was the wrong fit for the lead role and that an actual plus-size actress like Nicole Byer or Aidy Bryant (who plays one of Schumer’s close friends) would have made more sense. Her point is salient, for while Schumer does not have a supermodel’s stereotypical rail-thin body, she is hardly anywhere near obese. But this movie, in which a cosmetics company employee suddenly starts believing that she is transcendentally beautiful, is about perception more than reality. What it requires in the lead then is someone with a body that can both convincingly cause self-esteem issues and be stunningly attractive. That is to say, it could be anybody, and that is the underlying message. I Feel Pretty is not about a fat girl who starts to believe that she is skinny, but rather, it is about someone with low self-esteem who transforms into the most self-assured woman ever.

Writing/directing duo Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein take their cues from the likes of Big (even featuring clips from that 1988 Tom Hanks classic to make the connection even more obvious), as Renee (Schumer) wishes at a fountain that she can be one of the beautiful people that commands the attention of any room she walks into. The next day at SoulCycle she gets knocked out after hitting her head, and when she comes to, she looks in the mirror, and voilà! Her wish has come true, and she proceeds to admire and shamelessly caress all her assets. But here’s the kicker: her appearance has not changed, and there is no indication that she is hallucinating an idealized version of herself. The audience sees the same body she has had the whole time, and presumably that is what Renee sees, too. It is only how she sees it that has changed.

I Feel Pretty walks an unceasing tightrope, as it is built on a foundation of cognitive dissonance. Schumer has to play a character who is insane enough that she has a sort of inverted body dysmorphia but not so insane that she cannot function in society. (Appropriately enough, one of the biggest laugh lines comes from her being assured that her company offers plenty of mental health services.) She gets away with it by maintaining a relaxed energy befitting the self-confidence she achieves. And besides, while constant confusion may not be the best formula for logic, it is a perfect formula for laughter, as the brain attempts to make sense of the nonsense of self-discovery.

Much of the humor derives from the reactions of those around Renee. Her best friends Vivian (Bryant) and Jane (Busy Philipps) humor her assurances of “It really is me” while subtly worrying that she has lost her mind. As for those who meet her after her “change,” Rory Scovel, as Renee’s love interest, and Michelle Williams and Lauren Hutton, as her co-workers, get a lot of comedic mileage out of just looking on in stunned amazement at this truly singular woman in their presence. What they are responding to has almost nothing to do with her body and everything to do with her self-assurance. (Williams, for her part, is unforgettable in her affectation of a breathy baby-doll voice that is supposedly her character’s natural way of speaking.)

The story falters a bit in the middle for the sake of fitting into the genre’s typical denouement. Renee initially remains as nice as she always been after her transformation, but after a taste of life on the other side, she starts displaying some casual cruelty that feels less like a natural regression and more a betrayal of character consistency. These conflicts lead to some sweet resolutions, but they are not quite satisfying enough to make the means of getting to that point easy to stomach.

I Feel Pretty’s message that self-confidence and self-acceptance are the keys to success and happiness is no great revelation, but that does not make it any less true or not worth repeating. But I am left wondering: would it have resonated more if the lead had a less normative body type? From a business standpoint, it would be positive if more starring roles went to those who are plus-size, queer, trans, and/or people of color. But the point is that self-confidence and self-doubt are both available to everyone, no matter how traditionally attractive they are or are not. So theoretically the lead of I Feel Pretty could have been anyone, but in practice it had to be one person. At least there is a genuine invocation of inclusivity with a conclusive speech. It is the sort of speech that has been co-opted to sell cosmetic products (both within and outside the film), but it is nonetheless worth holding onto its positivity and running with it.

I Feel Pretty is Recommended If You Like: Big, Laughing While Being Confused, Finding the Inspiration to Achieve Your Dreams

Grade: 4 out of 5 Diffusion Lines

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of April 21, 2018

April 18, 2018

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Music , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange the top 25 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 25, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
2. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
3. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
4. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
5. Bad Wolves – “Zombie”
6. Foster the People – “Sit Next to Me”
7. Alice Merton – “No Roots”
8. Panic! at the Disco – “Say Amen (Saturday Night)”
9. 30 Seconds to Mars ft. Halsey – “Love is Madness”
10. Walk the Moon – “One Foot”
11. Bishop Briggs – “River”
12. Five Finger Death Punch – “Gone Away”
13. lovelytheband – “Broken”
14. Portugal. The Man – “Live in the Moment”
15. 30 Seconds to Mars – “Dangerous Night”
16. Muse – “Thought Contagion”
17. Godsmack – “Bulletproof”
18. Two Feet – “I Feel Like I’m Drowning”
19. Vance Joy – “Saturday Sun”
20. Elton John – “Rocket Man”
21. Shinedown – “Devil”
22. Three Days Grace – “The Mountain”
23. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats – “You Worry Me”
24. Breaking Benjamin – “Red Cold River”
25. AWOLNATION – “Handyman”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. River
2. No Roots
3. Feel It Still
4. You Worry Me
5. I Feel Like I’m Drowning
6. Rocket Man
7. Live in the Moment
8. Thought Contagion
9. Handyman

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of April 21, 2018

April 18, 2018

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot 100, Music , , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 20, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Drake – “Nice for What”
2. Drake – “God’s Plan”
3. Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line – “Meant to Be”
4. Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla $ign – “Psycho”
5. BlocBoy JB ft. Drake – “Look Alive”
6. Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey – “The Middle”
7. Ed Sheeran – “Perfect”
8. Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin – “I Like It”
9. Lil Dicky ft. Chris Brown – “Freaky Friday”
10. Bruno Mars and Cardi B – “Finesse”
11. Cardi B – “Be Careful”
12. Migos ft. Drake – “Walk It Talk It”
13. Rich the Kid – “Plug Walk”
14. Bazzi – “Mine”
15. Camila Cabello – “Never Be the Same”
16. Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug – “Havana”
17. The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar – “Pray for Me”
18. XXXTentacion – “Sad!”
19. Migos – “Stir Fry”
20. The Weeknd – “Call Out My Name”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Pray for Me
2. Havana
3. Never Be the Same
4. Call Out My Name

SNL Review April 14, 2018: John Mulaney/Jack White

April 16, 2018

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

CREDIT: Will Heath/NBC

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

News Cult Entertainment Editor 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

Hollywood Update – Mulaney finds brilliant inspiration from his very own “Family Flix” (aka “Rocket Dog”), one of the greatest sketches he ever wrote during his SNL tenure. This time around, the objectionable material for supposedly family-friendly entertainment is squarely present both in front of and behind the camera. Simply mentioning the uncomfortable sexual ramifications of a parent-child body switch premise would have been enough to make this sketch a winner, but the disturbing details just keep on coming.

More

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Rampage’ is Big, Big, Big, Very Big

April 13, 2018

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CREDIT: Warner Bros.

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello

Director: Brad Peyton

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Pummeling and Devouring by Mutated Animals, Frighteningly Evocative Urban Destruction, and Crude Gorilla Hand Gestures

Release Date: April 13, 2018

If you subscribe to the belief that bigger is better in cinema, then you ought to head straight to Rampage. Its entire premise is: what if three already fairly large animals became gigantic? The main focus is on our good buddy George, an albino silverback gorilla who knows sign language. He hooks up with a grey wolf that “weirdos on the Internet” have dubbed “Ralph,” as well as a crocodile who goes by Lizzie. The three of them have been mutated by a mysterious gas that fell from the sky. In addition to blowing them up, it has given them abilities typical of other species. It is a bit like the hybridization in Annihilation, but much less nightmarish and internally disruptive.

There is a lot of time devoted to explaining that the mutations are the result of developments in CRISPR genetic editing technology. Some cursory research on my part reveals that early research into CRISPR was happening in the mid-’80s, coincidentally around the same time that the first entry in the Rampage video game series (on which the film is based) was released. It can sometimes be helpful to ground a creature feature with real science, but in this case it is beside the point. We’re just here to see George, Ralph, and Lizzie let loose, and what is appreciated is that there are only three of them, because if the mutations had gotten even more out of hand, this could have all just been a cacophonous mess.

Tasked with wrangling these huge creatures are some actors both literally and metaphorically big. Who else could be the human star of Rampage besides Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is reliably big when it comes to muscles, charisma, and box office results? Lending him a hand is a government agent played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who, though a tall man himself, is certainly not quite as large as Johnson. But as the “asshole looking out for other assholes,” he knows just how big and vibrant a supporting performance in this type of film needs to be. And rounding out the cast’s bigness are Malin Åkerman and Jake Lacy as a sniveling brother-sister villainous duo. Their experience in comedy has trained them well for just how to calibrate their broadness. Lacy especially, constantly with a sandwich or Pop-Tart in hand, is bound to get you chuckling with his pouty face.

The climax, in which the mutant trio tears apart Chicago, is filled with stunningly big and bold decisions. The onscreen deaths are somewhat alarmingly violent, though not unexpectedly so. But when we get to a skyscraper collapse that evokes the Twin Towers falling on 9/11, the film scrambles through about 100 different tones. These outsize decisions are consistent with Rampage’s entire approach, but they are liable to leave you unable to process quite what is happening. Bigger is not always better. Sometimes you need to take a step back and ask yourself if a certain choice is really a good decision, but Rampage never lets its foot off the gas.

Rampage is Recommended If You Like: Godzilla, King Kong, Godzilla vs. King Kong, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Gorilla Middle Fingers

This Is a Movie Review: A Classic Game Turns Deadly in the Sloppy But Intermittently Effective ‘Truth or Dare’

April 11, 2018

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CREDIT: Peter Iovino/Universal Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Hayden Szeto, Landon Liboiron, Nolan Gerard Funk, Sophia Ali, Sam Lerner, Aurora Perrineau

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Douchey College Behavior, Serious Alcoholism, Disturbing Secrets, Freaky Images, Sudden Broken Bones and Gunfire, and One Quick Sex Scene

Release Date: April 13, 2018

It takes a while for Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare to really get going. At first it’s just about a group of college friends hanging out in Mexico on spring break, which is fair enough because these movies are often about attractive young people whose lives get upended by some ancient curse. But you would think there would be a little more foreboding about the dangers to come. Instead, we get the most banal opening credits sequence in a good long while, which is effectively just a social media vacation slideshow that is livened up in no way at all with genre signifiers. At least the first third gives us Ronnie (The Goldbergs’ Sam Lerner), the ultimate parody of a fratty interloper, who delivers beautiful poetry like, “I can’t say no to shots. Everyone knows that.”

Thankfully director Jeff Wadlow and his fellow screenwriters figure out how to make their premise truly unsettling about halfway through. The stakes of the titular game, cursed by a demonic presence, are literally life-or-death: tell the truth, or you die; complete your dare, or you die. Trouble is, the challenges can be just as lethal as the consequences. When these kids are not told to literally kill someone, they are asked to reveal secrets that might drive their friends to kill themselves. There are Final Destination-style dynamics of victims being picked off one by one here, but the methods used to terrorize them are uniquely effective. This is the horror of confronting painful secrets that can lead to irreparable rifts between loved ones. On top of that, there is the creepy signature visual effect involving faces contorted into uncanny valley-style bulging eyes and unnaturally stretched-lips smiles.

While it is appreciably unsettling, Truth or Dare could have taken more care to grapple with its morality. It confronts the eternal dilemma of choosing between saving a small group of loved ones and a larger group of strangers, as well as the conflict between self-interest versus protecting others who may not be deserving of such care. Olivia (Lucy Hale) is both the narrative and moral center. She gives money to the homeless and professes that she would save the larger group, while dealing with her own feelings for the boyfriend of her best friend, who is constantly cheating on him. This all leads to an ending that is undeniably devastating that but might just betray the message that Olivia has attempted to demonstrate throughout. It is fine when a horror flick ends on a sour note, but it is not exactly playing fair when it is such a stark departure from what has come before.

Truth or Dare is Recommended If You Like: It Follows But Wish It Were More Like Traditional Friday Night Multiplex Horror (For Good and For Ill), The Ring, Final Destination

Grade: 3 out of 5 Creepy Smiles

Billboard Hot Rock Songs – Week of April 14, 2018

April 11, 2018

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot Rock Songs, Music , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart, and then I rearrange the top 25 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 25, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”
2. Imagine Dragons – “Thunder”
3. Imagine Dragons – “Believer”
4. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still”
5. Bad Wolves – “Zombie”
6. Foster the People – “Sit Next to Me”
7. Alice Merton – “No Roots”
8. Panic! at the Disco – “Say Amen (Saturday Night)”
9. Walk the Moon – “One Foot”
10. Five Finger Death Punch – “Gone Away”
11. lovelytheband – “Broken”
12. Portugal. The Man – “Live in the Moment”
13. Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams”
14. Muse – “Thought Contagion”
15. Panic! at the Disco – “(Fuck a) Silver Lining”
16. James Bay – “Wild Love”
17. Godsmack – “Bulletproof”
18. Three Days Grace – “The Mountain”
19. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats – “You Worry Me”
20. Shinedown – “Devil”
21. Vance Joy – “Saturday Sun”
22. Breaking Benjamin – “Red Cold River”
23. Two Feet – “I Feel Like I’m Drowning”
24. Imagine Dragons – “Next to Me”
25. Dethklok – “Awaken”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. No Roots
2. Feel It Still
3. You Worry Me
4. I Feel Like I’m Drowning
5. Wild Love
6. Live in the Moment
7. Dreams
8. Thought Contagion

Billboard Hot 20 – Week of April 14, 2018

April 11, 2018

jmunney Billboard Charts, Billboard Hot 100, Music , , , , Leave a comment

Each week, I check out the Billboard Hot 100, and then I rearrange the top 20 based on my estimation of their quality. I used to rank all 20, now I just rank the cream of the crop.

Original Version
1. Drake – “God’s Plan”
2. Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line – “Meant to Be”
3. Post Malone ft. Ty Dolla $ign – “Psycho”
4. The Weeknd – “Call Out My Name”
5. Blocboy JB ft. Drake – “Look Alive”
6. Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey – “The Middle”
7. Ed Sheeran – “Perfect”
8. Bruno Mars and Cardi B – “Finesse”
9. Lil Dicky ft. Chris Brown – “Freaky Friday”
10. Migos ft. Drake – “Walk It Talk It”
11. Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug – “Havana”
12. Bazzi – “Mine”
13. Rich the Kid – “Plug Walk”
14. Camila Cabello – “Never Be the Same”
15. The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar – “Pray for Me”
16. Cardi B – “Be Careful”
17. Migos – “Stir Fry”
18. XXXTentacion – “Sad!”
19. Kendrick Lamar and SZA – “All the Stars”
20. Offset and Metro Boomin – “Ric Flair Drip”

Jmunney’s Revision
1. Pray for Me
2. All the Stars
3. Havana
4. Never Be the Same
5. Call Out My Name

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Borg vs McEnroe’ Serves Up an Electrifyingly Tense Two-Biopics-in-One

April 11, 2018

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CREDIT: Julie Vrabelova/Neon

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stella Skarsgård, Tuva Novotny

Director: Janus Metz Pederson

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: R for the F-Bombs of Athletic Frustration and Incidental Nudity

Release Date: April 13, 2018

A study in contrasts often makes for both thrilling athletics and fascinating cinema. Thus it makes sense that we now have a film chronicling the 1980 Wimbledon men’s final between the Swedish Björn Borg and the American John McEnroe, considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, tennis matches of all time. It is surprising, perhaps, that it has taken decades for Borg vs McEnroe to happen, though that is perhaps attributable to tennis not being as marquee as other sports. But it is also good that we have had to wait, as it has given us time to digest the moment. The end result is appropriately internationally flavored, with a Danish director, production support from multiple countries, and only about two cast members well-known in America.

As a major tennis fan, I can’t help but think about how dramatically different Borg vs McEnroe would have gone if today’s officiating technology were available. The Hawk-Eye system used at many tournaments is an exceptionally efficient method for confirming whether or not balls have landed in or out of bounds. Had it been around 40 years ago, it could have prevented McEnroe from developing his hothead reputation, much of which came from his disputes with the umpires about supposedly blown calls. He could have been vindicated, though perhaps he would have found something else to complain about. But because it all went down as it did, B v M sets up its titular rivalry in terms that could be an alternate title: “Ice-Borg vs. Superbrat.”

Instead of a traditional dramatization of a rivalry, Borg vs McEnore is really more a concurrent double biopic. The buildup over the course of the tournament to the championship match is interspersed with flashbacks that paint both competitors as outsiders fighting their way into a game that has historically been elitist and dismissive of outsiders. Borg (who displays a temper on par with McEnroe’s in his teenage years) is treated with insults by the sport’s upper crust; though he is embraced by fans after winning the four prior Wimbledons in a row, he still maintains a resolve of doing things his own way. McEnroe is the upstart attempting to break through, showing little concern for decorum at the tournament where it is valued more than anywhere else, and he is met with the boos to match his impishness. As Borg, Sverrir Gudnason is not asked to do much besides remain still and calm outside of the tennis scenes, but there is a world of action taking place within his eyes. Shia LaBeouf does not try to mimic McEnroe’s voice, but he does deploy his similar propensity for asshole outbursts.

B v M’s filmmaking techniques are unique among most sports biopics, and are practically avant-garde when compared to typical live televised athletics. Rarely does the camera focus merely on the ball landing on the court, one of the most essential aspects of the game, instead criss-crossing between the reactions of the two players as well as key figures in the stands. The editing is often frenetic, suggesting the whirlwind of emotions and pressure Borg and McEnroe are digesting throughout. The journey ends on a note of profound respect, their twinned stories appropriately subsumed within each other, leading into the expected epilogue that hits harder and deeper than most.

Borg vs McEnroe is Recommended If You Like: The filmmaking of Triumph of the Will, Rivalry Friendships

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Epic Tiebreaks

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