by Julian Spivey Last year I embarked on a movie challenge in hopes of seeing some films I’ve never seen and more importantly opening myself up to some kinds of films I likely would never see. The premise is that you have 12 months to watch 12 movies recommended by 12 friends. I don’t often participate in such social media challenges but being a movie buff, I felt this might be an interesting way to get out of my comfort zone a bit when it comes to watching movies. Like in 2023, I have some movies on the list that I’ve always meant to get around to watching but haven’t – most notably the 1962 classic “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which I think I saw the first half of in school but was absent on the day it finished. And there’s some stuff I probably never would’ve gotten around to like Andrzej Wajda’s 1958 Polish film “Ashes and Diamonds.” As I did last year I will write about my thoughts and feelings on each of these films after I have viewed them. Here are the 12 movies recommended to me and the months I’ve assigned myself to watch them: January: “The Wonder” (2022) February: “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) March: “Dreamgirls” (2006) April: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004) May: “21 Jump Street” (2012) June: “Mamma Mia” (2008) July: “City of Angels” (1998) August: “Fried Green Tomatoes” (1991) September: “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958) October: “Clue” (1985) November: “The Intouchables” (2011) December: “The Agony and the Ecstasy” (1965) Admittedly, my April movie recommendation is one that I was dreading, despite it coming from my wife Aprille. She, like much of the world, is a big Harry Potter fan. I’ve managed to avoid the series thus far, which is fairly impressive given my wife and I have been together for nearly two decades. Harry Potter had two things going against it for me. I’ve never been a huge fan of fantasy films. My idea of a good fantasy film is ghost baseball players in an Iowa cornfield. And I’ve also never had an interest in serialized film series. I don’t want to get involved with an eight-movie series. I never thought the series would be bad – they’re fairly well-reviewed by critics. I just never had an interest. But part of this exercise that I’m in my second year of doing was opening myself up to not just films I hadn’t seen but some that were out of my comfort zone. Another hesitation I had with this series specifically is Aprille wanted me to watch her favorite Harry Potter film, which is 2004’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” This meant my first foray into the world of Hogwarts would be the third film. Though I will say there’s so much Harry Potter within the pop culture landscape that I pretty much knew the main characters without any previous knowledge of the series. “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” mostly revolves around an escaped prisoner Sirius Black, played by Gary Oldman, and his relationship with Harry’s deceased parents. It’s an interesting plot but I feel like one that doesn’t get enough focus in the film. The film is so dense with the world of Hogwarts that the movie feels more like world-building than the actual Sirius Black/Harry Potter plot itself. I felt like the movie needed more Sirius Black, more Remus Lupin (David Thewlis) and less everything else going on. As directed by Alfonso Cuaron in his only Harry Potter film, it’s a beautiful-looking film. It’s funny to me that Cuaron went from 2001’s “Y tu mama tambien,” a film about an erotic tryst between two young men and a slightly older woman, to what amounts to a children’s film. That was kind of a wild choice by Warner Bros. Pictures. But from what I understand this is nearly universally considered the best of the series so it worked out. I finished the film basically as indifferent to the Harry Potter series as I was going into it. It certainly wasn’t a bad film. It just didn’t do anything for me as a viewer.
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by Philip Price Director: Dev Patel Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley & Pitobash Rated: R (strong bloody violence, language, sexual content/nudity & drug use) Runtime: 2 hours & 1 minute Anger may not quiet the soul and an eye for an eye might eventually make the whole world blind, but corruption must be reckoned with in some fashion and Dev Patel makes it satisfying as hell in his directorial debut, “Monkey Man.” While the story of revenge is the most common kind of story, especially in the action/thriller genre, Patel elevates the material by making that aforementioned anger more deeply felt and the context hyper-personal as well as lathering the execution in every influence the writer/director/star has made note of since directing became an ambition. Patel, the director, has a real penchant for framing his shots around an unexpected primary focal point that communicates plot elements visually while simultaneously building the world - not an easy task when considering you're doing so from the ground up. He does this in a somewhat brash fashion backed by either a heavy soundtrack or Jed Kurzel's Harold Faltermeyer-esque score that culminates in a style desperately trying to carve itself out of those influences. Whether it was my experience as a first-time viewer or Patel realizing his intention through experimentation, by the end of the film the extreme from-the-hip angles coupled with the extreme close-ups of particularly gritty moments in hand-to-hand combat make for a very ecstatic and unrestrained tone that can't help but to be felt if not necessarily viewed as singular. But also, as a director, if you don’t have women cheer for you when you take off your shirt onscreen what are you even doing? As one of three credited screenwriters, Patel - as stated - isn't reinventing the wheel here, but what is important is the film has an angle; a specific point of view from which it is being told and most key is that it latches on thematically to a small but critical facet in the revenge saga: drive. Patel and Co. use the genre elements and story staples to structure the film accordingly, but mostly this is a movie about a guy so driven by his anger and rage that he will stop at nothing to avenge a brutal and frankly, mortifying, moment from his past. Yeah, the screenplay may have some glaring missteps when analyzed from a critical perspective, but it would seem this is due more to who had the say on the final edit rather than artistic narrative choices. Still, things like having our hero feel the need to say one cool thing before he kills the bad guy and not echoing the single-kick knockout from an earlier moment in the film in the final fight feel very much like rookie oversights. As for Patel the performer, this is played far more akin to something like Batman than he is John Wick (despite the in-movie reference) as this character referred to simply as "Kid" is not slick, he doesn’t have his shit together, and maybe most importantly - we can’t trust that he’ll prevail, but we root for him regardless. This is a largely wordless performance as well making Patel's performance even more intentional given all of the other roles he played in this production as his physical presence when matched with the soundtrack mix in certain scenes and sequences is beyond complimentary. The bathroom fight in particular is one of the coolest things I’ve seen put together this year and is arguably on par with the ‘M:I – Fallout’ bathroom fight in terms of pure energy and vibe. Furthermore, Patel chooses such hard-hitting music (including Ben Kim and Swedish House Mafia) to underscore every action sequence up until the climax in which we are served only acoustic guitar under the most chaotic sequence makes the design and the purpose all the more evident in the best way possible. by Philip Price Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is very much the third ‘Ghostbusters’ movie that would have been made in 1992 had they completed the trilogy as they probably should have. Instead, the 2024 version of this serialized sequel comes with about eight unnecessary characters which inevitably leads to two too many subplots and not enough bandwidth for any individual character to matter or enough time for any of the "super secret underground ghost busting stuff" to genuinely resonate. Kumail Nanjiani really makes the most of his time though, especially in his scene with Bill Murray. I could have watched 10 more minutes of that. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire To follow up on my previous review, this movie has King Kong ripping a mutant wolf in half and then bathing in its green blood. What more could you ask for? Other notable observations/questions: Kong beats up other giant gorillas with a baby orangutan. Real Joe Jackson vibes. Godzilla takes a nap in the coliseum and destroys the ancient pyramids with zero care or concern. What a boss. Dan Stevens has great hair. Also, I’m curious how many folks now believe they saw Bradley Cooper in “Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire.” What’s the air quality like in Hollow Earth? As a seasoned podcaster/vlogger Bernie knows he doesn’t have to provide live narration, right? A bridge made from a backbone is a sick visual idea. Top-tier Wingard. I do wish there were more moments to emphasize the scale though a la the shot of the Scar King’s tooth flying into the street and it being bigger than a car. The music supervisor absolutely killed it. Ultimately, this would be a really fun two-episode story arc of a Saturday morning cartoon that has one too many subplots featuring irrelevant humans delivering unnecessary exposition to justify why we're all here in the first place - which isn't even that necessary. The way Kong celebrated that win like he just scored a touchdown was quite possibly peak cinema. |
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