Weird mediocre week with shark movie 47 Meters Down, raunch-com Rough Night, and Cars 3. Drink every time someone mentions The Bends and you will die. Not enough sharks (or scares) in this shark movie. Stupid ending. Rough Night is about women, but in the end the insecure fiance is the hero? Should’ve been more funny given how great the cast is. Cars 3 is terrible for the first hour, then gets kinda good. We spoil the hell out of it, so beware. You can read the written form of Andy’s comments here. The short Lou before the movie is the best part. That we don’t spoil because it’s beautiful.
The big movie of the week is Finding Dory, and stick around to the end for our late-breaking In Memoriam to Anton Yelchin. Random topics in this episode: better than popcorn but not as good as caramel apple sucker, Octodad. Pixar sequels and best Pixar movies, judging on the Spider-Man scale, seeing The Shallows and Jaws on the water, and buy your tickets for The Killing Joke for July 25th.
This week we review Mockingjay Part II, Victor Frankenstein, The Good Dinosaur, and Creed. We continue our countdown to The Force Awakens by talking about the movie that started it all: Star Wars – A New Hope.
Mockingjay Part II – It’s the final Hunger Games movie! Everyone gets a moment to shine. We forget Jennifer Lawrence can actually act. You finally won me over, Josh Hutcherson. Veteran actors Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore all shine. Has too many almost endings — like Return of the King. 7.5 out of 10.
Victor Frankenstein – This cast could read the phone book and it would be entertaining. They should’ve stuck to reading the phone book. More style than substance. Why was this released at Thanksgiving instead of Halloween? 5 out of 10.
The Good Dinosaur – It’s a “A Boy and His Dog” movie. Except with a dinosaur and the dog is a little human. Jaws references. It turns into a Western with Sam Elliot. Sure to be a crowd pleaser but Pixar is usually capable of more than just pretty animation and a good story. We expect more. Andy gave it 8.5 out of 10 and Adam gave it 7 out of 10.
Creed – Watch this review by Scott Stapp of Creed. It’s a Rocky movie! And almost exactly what you’d expect. Maybe a little long. Maybe too many training montages. But the last few minutes are amazing.
Dope is about young Malcolm growing up in Inglewood, Los Angeles, as a self-proclaimed geek who is into “white shit” like skateboarding, Game of Thrones, manga, his trip-hop punk bank named Awwreoh! and getting good grades and going to Harvard. Through a series of misadventures, the day before his fateful alumni interview that could determine his future, he gets a bunch of drugs planted in his backpack and then is placed in circumstances where he has to sell them. Sorry for plot spoilers– that’s not the point. Lots in here about racial identity– what it means to be black and expectations based on your race. There’s also a strong commentary about drugs and how the impoverished African-American community deals with the violence and problems of delivering drugs to white folks.
Strong performances by main cast, a GREAT soundtrack (which you can stream here) and lots of laughs and real drama. 8/10
Inside Outis Disney/Pixar’s return to form after not having an incredibly spectacular movie for a while. Perfect cast. The purpose of Sadness. Bing Bong.
9/10
Our childhood imaginary friends.
What is the purpose of criticism or critics?
Ratatouille – the main message here was Gusteau saying that “Anyone Can Cook.” Remy was challenged by knowing that a critic was coming in to eat their food, and he made something to blow his mind.
Chef – Jon Favreau and Oliver Plat get into it on social media over a bad review. Chef says critic doesn’t understand how to cook. Critic says his dishes are uninspired. So chef gets fired, gets inspired with a food truck, and critic ends up wanting to financially back his restaurants. What what what?!?!
Critics are chefs’ friends– they demand more, and point out where things can be improved. What do you need to be a critic? Anyone can cook, so anyone can critic– just use critics as a lens or filter, not infallible arbiters of good and bad.
Birdman – theater critics are way mean. Why are they so broken? We wanted to like TMNT. Really. Sometimes a movie is just escapism. The law of large numbers and critic aggregation sites.
Agree with us, disagree with us– let’s have a discussion.
Closing song is from Lava, the short that played before Inside Out. We forgot to review it, but it is excellent and worth the price of admission alone.
The podcast so you don't end up bored as hell at the movies
