Apollo 11 Quickie

How this isn’t a part of the best documentary features this year at The Oscars truly baffles me. Admittedly, I haven’t seen every nomination in that category, mainly because the Oscar Documentary category tends to be a dumping ground for some of the most depressing real-life stories imaginable. Why I love Apollo 11 and why I think it should be in that category is because of the extreme sense of wonder it invokes. The moon landing has always been something in the distant past to me being born 30 years after it. I know in the grand scheme of things this is merely a drop in the bucket, but I’ve always felt kind of disconnected to it. I hate to admit it, but personally I feel more connected to the fictional characters in the Star Wars universe than I do the actual moon landing. Space has always interested me, but I never felt a part of the moon landing in the same way that baby boomers seem to.

Apollo 11 puts you front in center with that feeling. The footage in this film, the narrative structure, the lack of narration makes you feel like you’re experiencing the moon landing as if it’s happening right now in front of you. I was awestruck by the IMAX footage presented here. It is so crisp and orgasmic that it is truly riveting.

I simply haven’t seen a documentary like this in my lifetime, that could make me care about something I never felt attached to in a significant way. It made me care, it made me wonder, it made me nostalgic for a time I wasn't even a part of. It is truly an achievement. What more can I say?

Just see it already. ALRIGHT!?

The Art Of Self-Defense Quickie

This movie isn’t going to change lives, but I had to include it on this list because it was criminally underseen and is truly a hidden gem.

It’s one of those films that doesn’t really have any likable characters, but it manages to still work. It certainly strikes me as the type of film that will have a cult following soon enough if it doesn’t already and I don’t have much else to say except go into it blind and have fun with the results.

Also, it has one of the most mean-spirited yet fully earned jokes in all of 2019 and might have made me laugh the hardest in the theater this year.

HONEY BOY QUICKIE

I never thought I would actually have this come out of my mouth in my life, but Honey Boy is a REVELATION in the truest sense.

It’s kind of hard to appreciate the film on the same level I did if you aren’t familiar with the background and struggles of the main actor Shia Lebouf’s background. His strange father that I often heard about in a joking matter on talk shows, but never really knew the extent of the psychological and physical abuse.

Honey Boy is not only a fantastic character study and a great highlight of Shia Lebeouf’s fantastic acting ability--yet another performance ignored by the Oscars bafflingly—-but it also is kind of a film about overcoming your demons and forgiving people that have wronged you which is something they often don’t make films about. Forgiveness is rarely something explored in Hollywood movies and whenever it is I always give bonus points (I haven’t forgotten you Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood).

While I can’t say this is an enjoyable film, especially if you grew up with addict parents who were both emotionally and psychologically abusive, none of that stuff feels fake or melodramatic. You can tell that Shia has poured his mental anguish into every page of this screenplay and never does this movie even feel preachy or appealing to Oscar-bait sensibilities. It’s just a great film, plain and simple.

DOCTOR SLEEP

Doctor Sleep was easily the biggest surprise of the year and the one movie that I keep going back to. It’s also... a big flop and kind of underseen outside of horror supernerds? I have to give this film an extra grape job sticker for not only being a great adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, but also a sequel to the original Kubrick film and somehow managing to honor both author’s intent without shitting on either property. That’s something not only incredibly difficult to pull off but something only a damn fine director can get away with.

I’ve seen most of the director Mike Flanagan’s work and have really enjoyed it. He made a good adaptation of Gerald’s Game which literally is spent mostly in a woman’s head and somehow still works. When he was announced to make an adaptation of Dr. Sleep I was cautiously optimistic---and also there is just some inherent baggage with making a sequel to a horror classic that is beloved by all except for a single person, the author of the original book, Stephen King. He is infamously known for hating Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining while literally everyone else on Earth loves it. It’s a seemingly strange stance for him to take, but I understand where he is coming from being someone who has also read the novel it’s based on. As an adaptation of his work, it is flawed. Jack Nicholson seems crazy from the beginning and in King’s novel it is a slow transition into madness.

But Doctor Sleep is it’s own thing...minus the last 30 minutes. I guess if I had an objection to Doctor Sleep in any capacity it would be the last 30 minutes, not because it’s bad—-I think it’s really good actually---but it relies too much on the audience's familiarity with the original film adaptation that makes me sad that Flanagan didn't continue doing his own thing.

I do think the ending is great and does appeal to fans of the original movie without feeling too fan service—-LOOKING A T YOU ROGUE ONE—-and doing interesting things with the original film it’s referencing.

Everyone in this film gives great performances. Ewan McGregor is fantastic in this movie and has an amazing character arc and realistically portrays the life of an alcoholic who has undergone some serious childhood trauma. There’s also actors recast as the original characters, but they aren’t doing cheap imitations but rather capturing the cadence of the characters. It's honestly kind of amazing and completely shouldn’t work but somehow manages to work.

I’m going to say something rather cliche here and say this film is UNDERRATED. Not in the classic sense of the word, because as we know Rottentomatoes is the determining factor of whether or not a film has merit—--RIGHT? RIGHT!?

I’m more of a Metacritic fan myself because it tabulates every review into a numeric score (who actually has the time for such things) and gives you a more well-rounded interpretation of the reviews. And if you were to go on Metacritic, you would have seen that Doctor Sleep has a 55/100 average which is kind of...bad.

But I think what the bulk of the negative reviews fail to realize is that this film is not trying to be a direct sequel to the shining...while also kind of being one? I don’t know. It’s hard to not sound like a hypocrite talking about this movie, but this film feels like its own and also not (but it still works somehow) and also kind of like a Superhero movie in the way that the final act concludes.

The film mainly works because both the protagonist and antagonist are fucking fantastic. Rose The Hat is a compelling villain which has completely understandable motivations even if you might disagree with her morally.

The cinematography, the direction, the special effects are actually kind of incredible and innovative and there are more than a few scenes that I was lost in and were seared into my brain, whether it be for their visual beauty or the tension of two people just talking to each other.

Good stuff.

Marriage Story Quickie

Marriage Story is a film that many of my friends rolls their eyes at and I can’t really blame them. Movies about creative people and actors just rub some people the wrong way.

And I certainly couldn’t argue that either of these characters are actually very good people at the end of the day, but I was rooting for each of these characters through their selfish actions and bad choices all the same and this film’s ending legitimately had one of the most moving scenes in any film I’ve seen this year—-and in a very long time.

What hasn’t been said already about this film. Yes! Both Adam Driver and Scarjo give fantastic performances. And honestly Adam Driver kind of elevates anything he’s in that I see a few points. Have you seen the new Star Wars trilogy you guys, imagine if someone from the prequel trilogy played that part. It would not be the same.

Adam Driver is probably so buff from carrying that franchise on his shoulders and I’m sure this is a joke that I’ve stolen so I’m just going to give credit to the millions of other people who have made this joke before me.

The most compelling aspect of Marriage Story is the depths of the human heart it strips bare and explores without ever feeling like a movie. These characters act and speak like real people and make choices that we often can’t sympathize with but also understand.

I don’t really have much else to say about this movie except that it’s a fantastically real portrayal of a marriage coming apart where neither person is the villain and that is something rather hard to pull off.

Avengers: Endgame

This is a film on my list that I need to put an asterisk on at the end. While I’m not saying it isn’t a good movie—-it is—-it’s kind of more than a movie in a way. It’s an event. This is a culmination of 10 years of planning by Marvel that actually sticks the landing and that is something that should be applauded because we’ve seen other studios try to attempt the same thing that Marvel has done in a thoughtless, cynical fashion and failed in real time. Hell, it’s still going on . As a movie, Avengers: Endgame is solid, but nothing super revolutionary in terms of its actual film-making. It is, however, revolutionary in the sense that I can’t really think of another time I’ve seen a film with an audience where we all felt so invested and people were cheering. I think the scene where Captain America gets that hammer is so incredibly satisfying because it’s been building since 2014’s Age of Ultron and it is so much more rewarding for us fans who have been sticking with Marvel from the beginning, trusting them that even when they fail, they are trying to make good movies that audiences will enjoy.

Avengers: Endgame is the true definition of a crowd-pleaser. I was completely wrapped up in the film in the theater and even my girlfriend who has seen like 2.5 Iron man films, Infinity War, still enjoyed the hell out of it without knowing all the lore and payoffs that this movie has in almost every scene. So that’s saying something about how it just works as a classic American blockbuster film-making.

Simply put, a fun movie that delivers on many characters' arcs spanning over an entire decade that could have been so awful and mishandled and just wasn’t. Kudos to everyone involved. You made something that truly the world was excited to see and went to the theaters to enjoy together and we need more movies like that before every multiplex is reduced to dust and rubble.

Captain Marvel Quickie

Captain Marvel is a bedfellow with Black Panther where the conversation surrounding the film is bigger than movie itself. Wonder Woman is a film that Captain Marvel aspires to be and misfires in almost every category. The source of that reason is harder to place. Perhaps it was a film made by committee, but the phoned-in Larsen performance and poor direction renders this fish-out-of-water story flopping aimlessly. Honestly, they could have Mad-libbed the screenplay for Wonder Woman with minor tweaks and probably churned out something more effective in its storytelling, but every choice seems to be done with shrugged shoulders. The acting, stunt choreography, character arc, plot, visual style and storytelling all feels corporate and indistinct.

But will the cultural and political maelstrom swirling around this movie allow me to critique it honestly? It seems that anything negative said about this movie will wrangle me into some kind of political conversation I don’t want to participate in.

So, I’ll give the movie a 6/10 because I’d rather not have a guy in a black ski mask spray paint a swastika on my driveway alongside the MAGA-hat wearing guy spray-painting a Pepe the frog.

It was fine?