Back again…

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Remember the jingle from those Saturday morning specials in the 80’s…
“after these messages, we’ll be RIGHT BACK!”

So… I took a bit of a break from reviewing films so I could start writing some. I need to put my money where my mouth is… start subjecting myself to the same gauntlet that I was seemingly putting other screenwriters and filmmakers through. It was time. Did I stop watching films? No way! I think I saw more than ever. And I couldn’t help but review them a bit… a few got a reviews in haiku, a few a simply rated, and others got a full write up.
If you have requests, I’m open to reviewing what you are curious about.

I’ll try to bring you some quick film reviews in the next few weeks. Perhaps these will help you navigate streaming while you wait out at home protecting those you know and do not know.

Blessings,

SPlatter

YESTERDAY (2019) movie review

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REVIEW in HAIKU

Starving artist wakes

to a world with no Beatles.

It’s fame or girlfriend.

REVIEW in PROSE

In short: See this sweet British rom com that is unapologetically syrupy with a quirky premise that sways honest and endearing. If you like Beatles music at all, you’re sure to love it.

Director: after Slumdog Millionaire, Steve Jobs, and Trainspotting, Danny Boyle jumps into a pillow plush genre to prove that he can parade in the lighthearted RomCom as well as he can the darker

dramatic.

Writer: Richard Curtis – also wrote Notting Hill, About Time, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Bridget Jones’s Diary. He’s prolific and perhaps THE quintessential British romcom writer.

Actors: Himesh Patel stars, showing off his prowess as both actor and musician. Lily James, too, plays the likable teacher, girl-next-door, pretty face who believes in him when he’s a clumsy nowhere man. Anglophiles will both get their fill and be delighted by Ed Sheeran’s lengthy screentime.

Basic premise: What if you, a talented and hopeful musician doing tiny shows at dive bars and county fairs woke up one day as the only person who has heard of the Beatles? You’d “write”and perform hit songs, make it big, struggle with the pressures of fame only to, like Dorothy, conclude that there’s no place like home.

Audience: A film for friends, families, and music fans alike. It’s a quick jaunt on tour in a sweet film that ebbs gradually through the playlist of favorites, tokening titles with memorable, laughable moments.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (2018) movie review

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Freddie Mercury’s life demands a big screen experience. Flamboyant, flippant, often flustered, Mercury was a showman with the pipes to match.His talent surpassed the world’s ability to process it. He was a diva through and through who envisioned massive crowds enthusiastically applauding his music. One performer can’t do it alone. The Queen band became his family, and he theirs. His wife, ever-supportive, endured a lot but remained his rock and comfort even after they split.

His huge personality paired with an equal ego. He was haughty and callous, exclusive yet extroverted, and Rami Maleck plays him beautifully.When Mercury was diagnosed with aids, however, he was humbled. His world closed in and he searched for his true companions again. His band took him back and remained family to the end.This bio-pic places audiences on stage for the largest concert in history. Every minute, the exploration of vibrant color and lighting in each shot, not to mention the phenomenal costuming, makes this an incredible viewing experience.Bohemian Rhapsody
Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury)

A STAR IS BORN (2018) movie review

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The premise: a skilled performer finally gets her big break and true love only to find that one cannot exist with the other.

Bradley Cooper wears many hats over his trademark blue eyes for this film: singer, star, writer, and director – he’s a regular Streisand.

Lady Gaga nails every note but gives only a few unforced sequences. Her first few scenes with Cooper are decently honest and raw. As soon as her character reaches performance mode, however, she’s back to standard Gaga: almost meat suit, Kermit dress level.

Her character is allowed some complexity: she’s snarky but subdued, impulsive but fearful. Yet, we never know much more about her than her immediate feelings. Cooper’s Jack character gets more backstory, but character gaps make him the big/hearted addict performer only.

Brilliant musical numbers performed as live stadium shows interrupt the otherwise arduous pacing revealing huge character gaps and content foibles including Dave Chappell’s one perfect scene which feels dropped in like an afterthought.

The scenes in the house were O’Russell-esque: wild with conversational dialogue and frenzied POV. Delightful with perfectly cast Andrew Dice Clay as her father. Otherwise, most dialogue felt messy and foul-mouthed, forgetting continuity and consistency in favor of Gaga power ballads.

FIRST MAN (2018) movie review

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How could they have known they were sending a crippled man to the moon? Emotionally broken, tripped up over and over, Neil Armstrong’s journey into space was fraught with death. He knew the risks but pushed on. We know that there are many ways to grieve, so many faces, steps, phases. Each day a smaller crescent shows until the grief washes over and you are full once more.Director Damien Chazelle’s newest dazzler wasn’t what I expected at all. It’s pensive, somber. It doesn’t have the heat or pace or pressure of Whiplash. It’s not fueled with color or pizzazz like LaLa Land. Rather, this feels more Malick-esque. Somber tone throughout, it steps softly into each phase of the story. The tension sits on brows, in close proximity always leaning forward, waiting.So much is shot in POV, allowing viewers an experiential almost widescreen VR approach. No doubt the Executive Producer, Spielberg, had a hand in that. We feel the Eagle’s Landing and step onto the lunar soil ourselves, then we glimpse the long horizon and slice of earth through the visor.Gosling’s Neil Armstrong is perfectly poised and tenuous. He is calm and calculated, exacting and still. His silence screams his character’s pain and grief.His counterpart Claire Foy holds the audience in the same spin as well. Her eyes echo the stories of loss without words, pain so deeply felt it changes you, drowning out all but the one focus. For the Armstrong family, loss bolstered drive that became history-making.From his sweet fathering moments holding his kids, playing, laughing, to the ever-present near-death scenarios involved in space travel, Gosling holds our gaze with his. “I see the moon and the moon sees me. …Shine on the one I love.”

THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (2018) movie review

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Newfound Triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman and Eddy Galland (Photo by Richard Lee/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

The nature nurture question has lead to many posited psychological theories and some experimental studies, but none so shocking as this one. “Separated at birth” takes on new meaning when Three Identical Strangers inadvertently find one another in college.The honeymoon phase is glorious for these boys – peppered with fame, glory, and wine, women, and song. They live together and love having put the missing pieces back together. Eddie, David, and Bobby shared the same voice, mannerisms, likes and dislikes.

Their young lives were so unique, it was as if they’d been placed very specifically in homes across the socioeconomic spectrum. One raised quite poor but lovingly. Another mid-level. And the other in a slightly wealthier, military strict home.
After opening a restaurant together and starting their own families, being best men in each other’s weddings, they started asking questions and in-fighting. One brother struggled with severe depression that the other two were ill-equipped to battle alongside him.

Oddly, the question they waited to ask was “why.” The triplets and their parents had visited the adoption center for answers and had been disappointed in the response. What they later discovered was the psychological testing that had been going on under their noses, in their own homes throughout their childhoods.

Victims of experimental research, the subjects were not without casualty, and the past, once dug up, only deepened the mystery.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS (2018) movie review

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It’s zippy fab Hallmark meets Vogue, like a 2 hour runway show without much plot beyond the recycled Cinderella story, add comedic pop fusion. Likable characters flit through wealthy Singapore parading food, fun, and fashion. It’s onscreen candy leading up to one of the most beautiful weddings ever witnessed. Very little backstory is needed to usher forth the lovers with mommy issues who must try to make it work despite socioeconomic divisions. 

PAPILLION (2018) movie review

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Charlie Hunnam strongarms his way through the many stages of imprisonment in this film with his character’s name as the title. He is the unbreakable Cool Hand in this based-on-a-true-story of prison break from the infamous real Papillion .Rami Malek squeaks in as the money roll who needs and is willing to trade all he owns for Hunnam’s protection.

An odd friendship grows between cash and street from ship to shore. From bare-bodied battles to attempts at escape. Nothing seems to work for them.Papillon finds himself in solitary a number of times. It somehow centers him despite emerging emaciated and seemingly broken.

Hunnam’s odd film choices are beginning to find pattern in historical bio pics with outcast heroes who feed on passion and force to survive but somehow rarely win. Always a battle. Always exhaustion. Always society against the one trying to break him. Papillon is no exception.

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (2018) movie review

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As it should be, the boy and bear unite to save their friends in this surprisingly sweet film starring Ewan McGregor as a grown up Christopher Robin.Director Mark Forster and famous voices, including the original voice of 1988 Disney classic Pooh Jim Cummings, bring the original pack of fluffy pals to life in scenes that look pleasantly more muppet than CG.Hook meets Paddington, as it takes a bear of “very little brain” and deep honey love to show a dad how to play and laugh and be silly once again.Sometimes we work too much and let the anxious world let us down, so we require a film like this one that reminds us of the sweetness of enjoying another’s company in doing nothing for a while. After all, doing nothing often leads to to best of somethings.

TAG (2018) & GAME NIGHT (2018) movies reviewed

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TAG (2018) and GAME NIGHT (2018) occupy the same shelf in my mind. Both are foul-mouthed comedic romps of mischief between grown ups acting like kids who take their kid games a little far. Ed Helms and Jason Bateman, the interchangeable well-meaning married men who hesitate then act with whimsy edging on insanity. Rachel McAdams & Isla Fisher play the competitive trophy wives with violent tendencies but good hearts. Increase the casts to ensembles including the likes of SNL’s favorite Mad Man John Hamm, New Girl‘s Nick  Jake Johnson, Avenger’s Hawkeye Jeremy Renner and more. Roll those dice, and it’s game on.Car chases, crazy fight sequences, violence, drug use and constant language, as well as some blatant discussions about sex make both of these pretty edgy almost raunchy comedies.If we’re talking straight filmmaking, the major flaws lie in negligent storytelling, not poorly made movies. In fact, some decent editing and stunt work exist in both films.  Game Night is a quick giveaway in which the characters know too much too soon and are able to escape and outwit the bad guys every time.Tag entrusts some all-stars with too many boring scenarios hoping famous faces will mask the lack of plot. Otherwise, they could never get a gorgeous journalist to tag along for such a spiraling schlep.I suppose some would say I’m being too harsh to mindless dirty comedies. Perhaps some would prefer the bliss of ignorance. I suppose in this time-is-money world, I would just prefer to protect viewers from wasting both.