Wednesday Revisit: My Number 1 Film 2013

2013 was not a very good year for films:
-Gravity was my number 2 film this year
-The underrated About Time and documentary Stories We Tell

However a weak year with one immensely popular film:

Frozen
Directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Screenplay by Jennifer Lee
Voices by Kristen Bell; Idina Menzel; Jonathan Graff; and Josh Gadd



Stop rolling your eyes. I know the song sung by Menzel as Elsa Let It Go has been played to death. And yes Frozen has been a marketing overkill. However break it down and just step back a bit. This film deserves the number 1 spot....

-The script is maybe the best script of that year. It is very clean and straight up good vs evil. Love of family. A lost soul who finds love.  Kindness vs greed. And also lets not forget magic. It makes you feel good.
-Music. Let It Go was overplayed, but do not forget...it is a very meaningful song as per the script.
There were other wonderful songs and all relevant to the script. Do You Want To Build A Snowman....I Summer... Fixer Upper. Face it after seeing the film you are singing one of the songs from this film. Speaking of singing...
-Not only great voice work but the same voices are singing. Yes we know Gadd can sing and Menzel can sing.....but how about that Kristen Bell as Anna!!! Who knew she could sing!!!
-The look!!! I think when dealing with Frozen...with all the great music and the wonderful story ...the animation can be overlooked. Most notably: The final showdown....the snow coming down looks so good you can almost feel the cold coming off the screen. Also that wonderful look of Elsa's purple cape providing a wonderful sharp contrast to the white snow.

Again....in all the over marketing...and over playing of Let It Go...do not forget the magic of it all.

Now for fun and not so fun facts:

- The highest grossing film of all time as of 2014 it was at 1.097 billion dollars

-Anna is 18 in the film while Elsa and Kristoff are 21 and Hans is 23

-Based on a Hans Christian Anderson story.

-Menzel tried out for the part of Rapunzel in  Tangled. even though she did not get the part they kept her tapes and offered her Elsa two years later.

-Speaking of Rapunzel. Rapunzel and Eugene were at the opening of the gates for the coronation.

4 1/2 stars for Frozen. Clearly the best film of 2014.

From the shadows as always thanks for your time.

New Releases For Home Viewing This Week

Two new releases for home viewing this week. However sadly not a great week.....but not awful.

BEFORE I FALL

Directed by Ry Russo-Young
Screenplay by Maria Maggenti
Based on the book by Lauren Oliver
Starring Zoey Deutch; Halston Sage; and Elena Kampouris




It is a strange film involving a high school student who crashes in her car after a party, and wakes up that same morning living the day over and over again Ala Groundhog Day.

I love the idea....Samantha played wonderfully by Zoey Deutch ...lives her day as a high school student over and over again, hoping to fix her and her friends bad behavior of:
Bullying
Love for the wrong reasons
Unnecessary bad treatment to family
Understanding mental illness.

All this works. As we kind of watch Samantha grow into an adult as the day plays out over and over again.
Yet.....the problem I find is that all of Samantha's school mates are so generic and annoying and boring. There is not much to them. they are just walking cliches. From the rude asshole boyfriend to the boy who watches from a distance to the leader of the girl pack who is a jerk. It almost seems like lazy writing. This all leads to a strange ending leaving an umbrella of sadness.

Positives?
Well I already mentioned Zoey Deutch as Samantha being wonderful.
Elena Kamopuris as Juliet is wonderful as the girl who holds secrets while she gets treated like a disease. Love her. I just wished they gave her more of a spotlight. Juliet and Samantha were the most interesting characters.

Well 3 stars out of 5 for Before I Fall. I understand the idea. Live each day with love. treat each other with kindness. Remember where you come from. Respect others. It is just ...again a cliche and also sad. I have to wonder if the book dug deeper into each character.








FIST FIGHT

Director Richard Keen
Screenplay by Van Robichaux and Evan Susser
Starring Ice Cube and Charlie Day






Okay. To make a good comedy.....it has to be at least partly realistic. Here...nothing is realistic.

-Undisciplined kids. And what they do, when writing someone must of thought this is funny, it is not funny. The school is a mess. Yes some schools are a mess, but this is unrealistic, No spoilers here but...it was not funny and irritating often. And by the way....being mean is not funny.

-So many things the teachers do are unrealistic, like leaving school to shop during the day. Again very few laughs.  Tracy Morgan seemed like his parts were filmed at a different time and felt like an entirely different film and sadly again...not funny.

-The final scene. Yea. I have to stop...but...really the whole student body??!! And no one there to stop it.

Positives?

Charlie Day is pretty good as the frustrated every man.
And for some reason Christina Hendricks as Ms Monet had funniest lines. I think it was just.... you would not think her lines, or things she says, would be coming from her, which made it funny. She has good comic timing. I hope she does more...but then again she is choosing bad films like Bad Santa 2 and this. Ugh.

Well 1 1/2 stars out of 5 for a comedy with few laughs and just plain annoying.

From the shadows as always thanks for your time.

New Film Review Pirates Of The Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

Directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg
Screenplay by Jeff Nathanson
Starring Johnny Depp; Javier Bardem; Geoffery Rush; Brenton Thwaites; and Kaya Scodelario



I will get right to it. This was the best Pirates film since the original.
It does a lot right:

-Casting Bardem. He is really good as the bad guy or....pirate. The other newbies Thwaites as Henry Turner and Scodelario as Carina Smyth have wonderful chemistry and personality. They get you to really care for them...and cheer them on.

-Depp is comfortable in these shoes as Jack and it is nice to see Rush and Depp to pull back their characters. Almost soften them. There is one moment when Rush and Bardem are squaring off and I thought I hope the audience appreciates two of the great actors of our time are squaring off on screen right in front of you!! A special moment.

-The screenplay is basic. It sounds like a negative but often these movies and/or the screenplay goes way out there and that makes it feel like they are making it up as they go along. Here there is action and a very sweet conclusion....plus wait thru the credits.

Yes there are negatives;

-Back to the script.....they had trouble closing the action faze. It felt like too many endings. It felt long. Finding the trident should have been the goal. But they a lot of things or add ons after they fail or not fail (No Spoilers Here)...just close it out...not need to add more action after this. This film would be fine coming in under two hours. Two hours felt long. It overstayed its welcome.

-Violent. This film is reaaaallly violent. Stunningly violent. I just worry about kids whom like the Disney ride......and watching this....nightmares galore.

Well 3 1/2 stars for the best Pirates since the first. It is fun that is for sure.

From the shadows as always thanks for your time.

New Film Review: Baywatch

BAYWATCH

Directed by Seth Gordan
Screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift
Starring Dwayne Johnson; Zac Efron; Alexandra Daddario; Kelly Rohrbach; Ilfenesh Hadera;Jon Bass; and Priyanka Chopra



Well Baywatch is back. Settle down I know your excited
This is an odd film. There are action movies that have a lot of humor.....
Beverly Hills Cop
Lethal Weapon Films
And so on.

It is a challenge for a screenwriter...to add levity but still stay focus on the action and plot at hand

Baywatch fails at this.
It cannot find its tone at all...
-It has ridiculous moments of scenes of Baywatch life guards being heroes and as a viewer I was not sure if I was suppose to be laughing at these moments. Sometimes the life saving moments were campy...at least I think
-Then there is humor but not much of it. And half of the so called funny moments just fall flat including one long joke (No pun intended) about a stuck penis. The trailer made us think it was a Zoolander film about Baywatch.  I cant honestly tell you if that is what they were aiming for...but if it was...it failed.
-So then we go to the story line. About Victoria Leeds (Chopra) running drugs through the Bay. This just did not make sense, I mean the crime sounded legit but the way she did this was just oddly more difficult then needed to be. Speaking of ridiculous. it ended with a ridiculous escape plan by helicopter. No spoilers here but........ahhhh your in a bay...take a boat...or a car???!!

Well there are positives:
-Everyone on the Baywatch team had great chemistry together. I found each character likable. To a point ...this film missed but I would like to see them again.
-Daddario who I have seen in many films and I always think that she is underrated...you cant help but like her in this part. I say that often about her. She seems to come into a film in a small part and always ends up as the one you remember...and cheer on.
-Chopra, even though she is dealing with a ridiculous story line is all in and she is really good as the bad awful criminal.

Well Baywatch 2017  get 2 out of 5 stars. I wish it found its tone and was funnier.

From the shadows as always thanks for your time