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The Willoughbys (2020)
Diamond animation of a dark tale - a little rough on the edges
What makes this production interesting is the balance between the adult appeal and a story simple enough so that kids can follow. The satirical aspects may be too subtle for a younger audience but it is packaged and layered well enough that generations may enjoy it together unsuspectedly. It's a sign of a great presentation. Children can take the idea of sending their bad abusive parents on a dangerous vacation quite literally but the willingness of the parents to act out the fantasy is what ultimately leads them to peril. It's a very clever juxtaposition between the children's imagination and how that translates to the chastisement. In this regard the movie manages to capture the book's intention perfectly.
Being an age-inclusive animated story it was clear that character development and charm would fall short. The source material is a braid of many different points of views and stories, unfortunately the transitions were a little to jumpy here and with an odd pace at times. Luckily the weird stepsister amorous love angle from the book was scratched out but they forgot to do the same to the main title song "I choose you" which, as a consequence, loses some of it's meaning to an unwary audience - odd choice.
Sully (2016)
A missed opportunity
There are many many inconsistencies all throughout the movie the most disturbing one is how the Airbus approaches the river on a level angle at 140mph. All you need is to have seen at least once in your life such a plane on a descent. The nose is pointed up specially during the stall that the pilot must have put the plane in to decrease its speed for touchdown. From the cockpit window no river would have been visible and that would have made it a much more poetic visual composition. It's just a deliberate mistake to increase the drama through "epicness" of landscape photography but since it's such a vital shot it ruined the whole movie for me.
The things that were of interest all fell flat: Sully's background as a fighter pilot, his relationship to a guy who flew that particular Airbus for the very first time, the geese and how they were subsequently hunted and annihilated, the deep shock of the traffic control agent that thought he had lost a plane (rather than that goofy, spaced out mess), there is just so much material in real life for this movie and yet somehow Todd Komarnicki just managed to keep it as dull and formulaic as possible. The editing is well done except for a terrible bar scene that lasted way too long and had a barkeeper making a joke about a splash of water?
To quote the movie: If not for Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood - take them away from the equation - this movie is really bad.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Not even the actors could save this movie
The story of NWA is so diverse and interesting, all of these portrayed artists are very different from each other and highly talented. Even if you took away their background & heritage there would be still a lot of oddities and interesting anecdotes to tell us about. Instead the movie is as formulaic and stereotypical as it can be. I would have been able to look past that and enjoy it for what it is: a mediocre attempt of rap group biopic of the early 90s except that is were its weak point is. The wardrobe, lingo, streets, mannerisms it's all wrong. Very wrong. At a pool party you get a close up of a woman shaking her giant booty in a g-string. Let me tell you in the early 90s you had high cut baywatch style bikinis, yes. But no lady showed up to a pool party in a g- string, big asses were not really considered attractive and nobody danced by staying in place and bouncing their booty. Perreo dance styles that made it into hip hop culture appeared in the early to mid 2000's.
The only redeeming part of this movie are the actors which come very close to the characters they portray, except of course when they speak. In that regard only Ice's son did a somewhat good job by shutting his mouth and talking through mimics like the real Ice would when he was fronting.
For someone who lived the era, who knows how South Los and Socal looked like, who has seen it up close this movie is painfully wrong. There are other things wrong too like the story being too drawn out and the pacing being weird. (It felt in many scenes like there was a build up, hinting that there was something significant going on and then it flattens out, really weird!)
Altogether its a bad movie and I could not recommend it, not even to the die-hard fans. As a fan of the music and the artists the wasted potential is really imeasurable, a big disappointment.
Lincoln (2012)
Big mistake sadly destroys the experience
Let's be frank. If a high school student in a theater class were asked to write a play about Lincoln and his involvement in the North & South conflict that lead to the civil war. Wouldn't that student get scolded for not knowing which states were against slavery and which ones weren't? It's the kind of amateur mistake you don't expect to run across in a Steven Spielberg movie - and so it kind of ruined the rest of the story for me, as I was expecting other blunders to occur along the way.
Apart from this, the movie captures a great deal of accurate details, picturesque scenes and episodes from that time line. The acting was quite good. Technically it could have been much better if the scenes weren't cut from so many different angles and close ups. It seems as though an attempt was made to speed up the dialogs through excessive cutting to accommodate the younger generation of hyperactive spectators. It's not a bad movie but in light of the big factual mistake I'd give it a merciful B-
Amazing Stories: The Mission (1985)
The Mission means mission accomplished
This is a great classic. I would consider this one of Steven Spielberg's best short ever. The pace is typically slow for a 80's production compared to nowadays. If you watch this for the first time you should keep this in mind. If you are familiar to the movie Poltergeist you can expect much the same screen writing pace. What stands out is the excellent performance of all actors (including some nice morse coding skills from Sutherland). A very young Casey Siemaszko lays down an astonishing performance too. His expressiveness brilliantly captures the despair and emotion of the strong scenario and everything after the line "I'm not gonna die father..." simply's outstanding and also mixes very well with the score.
I think this episode is by far one of the best of the whole "Amazing Stories" series and captures the American spirit beautifully; from the different attempts to rescue a comrade, to acrobatic landing maneuvering of an airplane, to the miracle itself. The contained message's that everything is made possible if you believe in it. It goes to portray the ever important aspect of American culture that individualism mixed with strong beliefs are the very embodiment of the American dream. The heavy usage of symbolism is leaving its distinct marks allover - from Airforce to IIWW freedom, from superstition in numbers to the supernatural ending with the burned drawing at the closing scene - a real masterpiece.