3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The King

2019, David Michôd (The Rover) -- Netflix

So, in 2013-ish Joel Edgerton and director Michôd collaborated on the screenplay for The Rover. At the same time they revealed they had worked also together on a script for an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Henry" plays, often called the Henriad, which cover the reign of King Henry IV and the rise to power of his son, Henry the V. I fully admit I know very little of the plays, only knowing Branagh's 1989 film. I also know very little of the historical period. But it fascinates me that this movie displays as a historical drama, yet retains the fictional character of Falstaff, from the plays, as played by Edgerton himself.

Enough of the meta. This movie just looks & sounds goooood !! Its grim and gritty, yet so very fucking precise in its use of language (close, but not quite Shakespeare-ian) and imagery. And very oddly curtailed in its "historical" depiction. Usually these kinds of movies cover a long range of time keying on points from the history blogs, the sound bites of a figure of notoriety. This movie focuses on Hal's coming to power, and his famous battle with the French at Agincourt. That's it. It helps that its based on plays and not history.

So, Hal (Timothée Chalamet, Dune) is a bit of a layabout. He doesn't care for his father at all and spends his time in Eastcheap drinking and whoring with John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams), an ex-soldier given to fat and hanging out with the wrong sort, leaning on his royal friend to get him out of tough situations. Meanwhile after fighting the Scots, King Henry's vassals are less than happy with his paranoid responses, one named Hotspur going so far as to insult the King to his face. That leads to the King (Ben Mendelsohn, Captain Marvel) naming them outlaw and sending his son to deal with the "rebellion", his younger son who he has now named as heir, because of Hal's rejection of everything.

Hal is actually incensed, knowing his little brother to be weak, ineffectual and desperate to please their father. He interrupts the grand battle between armies by challenging Hotspur to singular combat. The two fully armoured knights clash, grunting and striking each other in the mud until Hal comes out victorious, stealing glory from his brother. You get the feeling that despite Hal being a drunken fool, he knows how to fight and is keenly aware of his father's failings. Not long after, his brother still dies, trying to prove himself in Wales. And soon after that, King Henry IV dies in bed, covered in sores and regretting everything. Hal is forced to accept the crown.

Hal bears his crown with a heavy heart but a stubborn desire to Be Better. He doesn't want to be his father, a man continually at war with everyone, but also doesn't want to be seen as ineffectual. When, during his coronation, the French send him a single tennis ball, he doesn't react with violence to the insult, as all expected of him. But it becomes clear to us, the viewer, if not Hal himself, that there is a lot going on he was never aware of and there are constant outside factors influencing every aspect of his reign. This is probably when Hal could have used the friendship and guidance of Falstaff, but he leaves the man to his drink and his debts. Until he needs him.

It doesn't take a keen mind to see Hal is being manipulated, primarily by his lead advisor, Sir William Gascoigne (Sean Harris, Mission: Impossible - Fallout), a man always quick with loaded advice, and a very very affected way of standing, as if posing for the camera. It is William who unmasks an assassination attempt leading to the execution of two nobles, one who was Hal's friend in childhood. And it points all swords at France, a challenge not even peace-seeking Hal can ignore. 

Dude, you are being played.

Hal apologizes to Falstaff and brings the drunken knight along as a chief advisor, and they all set sail for France. They are armed with the attempts on Hal's life and some complicated, probably fabricated explanation as to how the King of France is not legally entitled to be king. But in front of the king is his foppish and arrogant son, The Dauphin (Robert Pattinson, The Batman), a cruel man who taunts Hal. They "easily" take the first castle but when they meet the Dauphin's army proper, he has The Higher Ground.

The Battle of Agincourt, the definite point in history. This is where Falstaff's brilliance comes into play. He is a man who suffers from his experiences in wars past, but wants what is best for his friend, and king. He also wants as little death as he can allow to happen, devising a plan where the lightly armoured English will feint an attack on the outnumbering, but heavily armoured French, allowing everyone to go down in the mud. It goes as planned, but at the cost of many English including John. Peace is drawn up and Hal is to marry the French princess (Lily-Rose Depp, Yoga Hosers) to seal it. He asks one thing of her -- always speak truth, because if there is one thing Hal needs it is an advisor who isn't entirely self-serving. 

The movie ends with Hal realizing how everything, the insults by the French and the entire war, was put into play by Gascoigne, to better the man's holdings. Hal dispatches the man in a less than dramatic fashion.

Again, I say the movie just looks good. There is budget and intent in the depictions. The lighting and colouring remains grim even in the lighter scenes, of which there are few. Given the movie is less a recollecting of historical facts, it is not surprising it is more a collection of artfully built vignettes.... much like a play generally is. Dialogue is at the forefront and it also is very precise, but not entirely period nor Shakespeare. If anything, it does feel a bit muted, with the tale of a heavy crown obvious, but not really impactful.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Anyone But You

2023, Will Gluck (Annie) -- download

I have nothing against romcoms. I mean, we watch Hallmarkies on this blog. But het men of a certain age, really any age, are not supposed to like romcoms, they are supposed to endure them for the sake of their spouse. Back in The Day (OK grampa), Marmy and I made a point of it to go see them in the theatres. Kent watches more of them these days than I do, and if I stroll through the romcom tag I see he watches the less-mainstream ones. The better ones.

Of side-note, one of our favourites (Serendipity) is, in retrospect, one that Kent no longer appreciates, but is one of his better more-bloggy (personal as opposed to movie review) posts, which is why I am here.

This is not a good movie. Why did we watch this? Because it makes nods to Much Ado About Nothing, a Shakespeare play where people con two cantankerous ex-lovers into reuniting. The problem is that in this movie they are not really ex-lovers, just did the "talk all night" thing and then, by way of misunderstanding, said mean things to each other. And for that brief encounter, we are supposed to expect unending animosity between them. I honestly don't think most people keep that kind of brief stuff in their brainpan, well, except at random moments, like brushing your teeth, where your brain dredges up something entirely annoying & embarrassing from your past and forces you to obsess on it for the next four hours. Just me? Sorry.

Of note, our fav "Much Ado...", the Branagh edition, is also a Kate Beckinsale movie. 

Bea (Sydney Sweeney, The White Lotus) has a meet-cure with Ben (Glen Powell, Scream Queens) at a coffee shop and they spend the entire day together. Even though they don't have sex, she sneaks out but after she tells herself she made a mistake, she returns only to hear him saying something mean about her. They bump into each other at a club where Bea's sister Halle (Hadley Robinson, Utopia) and Claudia (Alexandra Shipp, X-Men: Dark Phoenix), the sister of Ben's best friend Peter (GaTa, Dave) have begun dating. They are even meaner to each other, like exponentially so. 

The girls get engaged and the wedding is to be in Sydney, Australia. Of course, Ben and Bea are there, as are their ex-es and everything is awwwwkward. That is, until some of the family members decide to try and get them together Shakespeare style, i.e. have each of them overhear that the other is secretly in love. They decide to play along, for their own reasons. As expected, by us, they begin actually falling for each other.

The movie could have had some Shakespearian level fun, but I would have been entirely fine if it dropped the whole schtick as long as it had stayed witty, but instead it just opted for hijinx such as falling off a boat, or playing on Australia's reputation for outrageously large spiders hiding in dark corners... or testicles. Powell is serviceable as a leading man, but Sweeney is just ... a problem. She strikes me as one of those actors that with the right role, and the right director, she can really latch onto a character. This is not one, and there were many scenes she just didn't seem interested in doing. But they both look incredible in bathing suits so....

But even in a bad romcom, as long as the mains have a certain chemistry, you can forgive just about any misstep. Alas... I didn't understand why they were so fucking angry at each other, and I didn't understand, doubly so, how they could turn it off, but for the idea of two shallow people wanting to have sex with a sexy person. 

Final note. Even in charmless movies, I can enjoy someone giving it their all, and this award goes to GaTa as Pete, the best friend. His character and his performance is always 110% and I thoroughly enjoyed his loyal, measured, but kind of goofy character.

I Saw This!! Oscar Bait Edition

 I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(yes!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Like, stoopid Pootin bad.

For the past few years (decades?) I've been pretty bad about seeing the Oscar nominated movies. The truth is, the types of movies that generally get nominated for Oscars aren't my preferred style of movie.  Then again, they're few people's preferred style of movie.  What the Academy Awards, and the attention they garner, present is the opportunity for the everyperson to elevate their movie-watching game.  But as the years drag on, it's become evident to me that the "elevated cinema" the Academy is interested in rewarding tend to be cut from the same cloth, more often than not.  They pepper in a populist choice or two for best picture (otherwise relegating them to technical categories) and they will often seed in a few dark horse choices for performers and picture, but the majority of their selections seem obvious...well, obvious for the academy.  This is not to say that nominated films and actors don't deserve the accolades, but they're rarely daring, and so often flooded with biopics and melodrama.  This isn't the Palm D'or.  There will be no Oscar for something like Titane.

This year, as a half-assed exercise I tried to jam into my viewing cycle some of the more notable nominated movies.  There was really no rhyme or reason for why I watched what I watched except that I made a list, sectioned off into "Must See", "Maybe" and "Nope".  Most of this ranking was based off critical reaction from the various movie podcasts I listen to or film reviewers I read.  My top three Must See movies, well, I still haven't seen, mainly because they're not on one of my streaming services yet (these were Licorice Pizza, Drive My Car, and The Worst Person In The World all which remain on my must see list even post-Oscars).  A couple on my Nope list actually won awards (Belfast, The Eyes of Tammy Faye), and most of the big winners were in my "Maybe" list.

all is not ok

The Awards ceremony, as you may have heard, was a bit of a shit show in the last hour.  There's enough commentary on the slap that I won't spend much time on it except to say I felt very anxious when it happened and really bad for both Chris and Will...Chris is a hapless victim of whatever trauma Will is clearly working through.  A great essayist on Black culture on youtube, Fiq Da Signifier, did an off-the-cuff video on his Patreon delving into it with empathy for both men as well as its stupidity but the layers of context, both personal and cultural, that underpin it (a condensed version is public on youtube). 

The rest of the night was about the most enjoyable Oscars ceremony I've seen in years, and yet there's heavy criticism that the humour of the ceremony (basically roasting the nominees and film in general) and its weird editing of the technical awards (plus those stupid Twitter fan-voted categories that were naturally usurped by the Snyner-bros) was just chasing an audience that really doesn't care anyway.  Movies, as a thing, are becoming less and less relevant.  Kids would rather play video games, watch other kids dance on tik tok, watch other kids play video games on youtube, and binge anime and manga.  Television has caught up to and sometimes surpassed film in quality, and there's no shortage of content to pull people away from theatres, nevermind the impact of the pandemic.  The relevance of the Oscars maybe should pull inward.  Instead of trying to appeal to a broader crowd, it should really go insular, and make the Academy Awards show more of a fly-on-the-wall, real insider-like ceremony. 

I dunno.  Let's talk about some movies I watched.  I was really keen to write about these before the ceremony, but I ran out of time, and I'm a lot less interested in doing so now.

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Being the Ricardos (2021, d. Aaron Sorkin - AmazonPrime) was on my "Maybe" list.  I thought that the choices made for Lucy and Ricky were a little odd, as Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem aren't exactly known for their comedic chops.  But as Oscar co-host Amy Schumer so astutely pointed out on the big night, Being the Ricardos is not a comedy.  It's a moment in time drama about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the prime of their run of I Love Lucy.

This is a movie from Aaron Sorkin, who, as a writer and creator, and I guess filmmaker, appeals so distinctly to Boomers.  The Social Network is his only work that stands outside of the rest of his output, mainly because of the the Fincher-factor.  But if you will recall the short-lived Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which premiered alongside the other show that was about Saturday Night Live (but not SNL in name), only one was a comedy and one was a drama about comedy.  Well, it's the same thing here.  Sorkin isn't interested in making a funny movie, nor is he really that interested in what made I Love Lucy or its stars funny, he's interested in the drama behind the scenes.

The moment-in-time the film is engaged with is a fraught one... Lucy has been accused of being a communist as McCarthyism is on the rise, Desi is facing infidelity accusations, Lucy is now pregnant which you couldn't be on TV at the time, Desi is feeling his control on the show slip away, there's fighting with everyone: producers, network, writers, sponsors, cast members, and each other.  It's a lot.  There's no calm.  Sorkin puts you at the center of a storm with no respite , the dialogue is non-stop (a Sorkin specialty).  There are flashbacks, showing how Lucy and Desi first met, or some classic Lucy bits, and there are wholly unnecessary and distracting "modern day" talking heads trying to editorialize what we're watching as we watch it. 

The point is, less than halfway through the film I was exhausted with it.  I got the gist of what Sorkin was doing and I really didn't care.  As great as the actors all were (Kidman especially really did something special and disproved the nay-sayers) it's a tiresome movie, and not something I felt I needed to finish.  I'm much more interested in Amy Pohler's documentary, Lucy and Desi, which is probably time better spent.

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Given that my wife loves Shakespeare and generally likes the Coens, it's surprising that it took us a couple months before we decided to sit down for The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021, d. Joel Coen - AppleTV+).  I neither love nor hate the Shakes, but it always will take a little motivation to get me to partake.  In this case, I believe it was a podcast talking about Kathryn Hunter's contorting portrayal of the witches.  And they were right, it's amazing.  The witches of Macbeth are usually three performers, but here, Hunter plays them first as a singular being with three voices, and through Coen's direction and Bruno Delbonnel's cinematography, there's one amazing shot of the witch reflected in two pools of water that makes them three.  

I was immediately smitten with Denzel Washington's performance as Lord Macbeth.  What I'm used to with Shakespeare is people adopting an accent and being theatrical, saying words but rarely in a way that seems to convey real understanding of what is said.  Most actors just seem like delivery vehicles for the word, and the performaces often seem set aside from the language.  Denzel, however, speaks his lines as if he understands the intent of every word.  He's not emoting while regurgitating, he's full-on inhabiting a role, not just doing a Shakespeare.  Expressing my delight early in the film, my wife pointed out that it was a massive step forward since Washington was in Much Ado About Nothing, which she opines was a terrible performance (I haven't seen it).

The set design is, for a second time this year (beside Villeneuve's Dune) to employ really brutalist design, very sparse, with big slabs of flat, unadorned surfaces, and a lot of sharp angles casting shadows.  Shooting in black and white, it's very striking, and the lighting so very precise as to create hard lines of black against white.  It's all quite staged, and yet it's something more than a play, but also not a conventional film.

A favourite critic of mine, Alonso Duralde, asked what the purpose of this adaptation of Macbeth was... as in Why now? What's it saying?  And ultimately if the movie disappointed him it's in not having such a purpose.  It really was a production put on by Coen to appease his wife, Francis McDormand, who really wanted to play Lady Macbeth.  I'm sure if like, say, West Side Story there had been some sort of modern commentary made, then the film would have been critically loved, rather than just liked.  I kind of agree.  But as *just* a presentation of a Shakespeare work, it's really pretty good.  I only nodded off once.

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There's not really a good poster for this moive.
This is perhaps the most interesting but it's also
the most off-putting "theatre kid" version

Basically at the bottom of my "Maybe" list was Tick, Tick...BOOM! (2021, d. Lin Manuel Miranda - Netflix).  I talked about my feelings on musicals in my West Side Story write up, but that's not the be-all and end-all to my feelings on musicals.  It's an ever-evolving opinion.  I started that review stating that "I don't like musicals", and by the end I had proven that untrue.  But I certainly don't have passion for musicals.  I don't avidly seek them out, I don't care much to listen to cast recordings (last week I queued up the 1999 Broadway revival of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" on Spotify but am unlikely to ever really listen to it).

So what finally drew me into Tick, Tick...Boom!, a musical biopic about the guy who wrote Rent (a musical I've never seen, which, while beloved in its time, has been critically reassessed in the past 15 years)?  It's kind of sad, honestly, but the draw was two-fold: first, seeing Andrew Garfield again in Spider Man: No Way Home reminded me that I do like him as a performer, and then finding out that Toast and Kent's favourite switching princess VanHudg was in it (only to be disappointed in how minimal a role she plays).

Unlike many a Letterboxd hipster millennial, I've not tired of Lin Manuel Miranda.  I don't spend much time on social medias and I haven't seen a million Miranda memes, but it was evident that much of Tick, Tick... Boom!'s initial lack of resonance was this Maranda lash-back.  Yet, the opening five minutes of the film just pulled me right in.  Garfield, on a stage, before a live, if smallish, theatre crowd, fakes playing the piano but belts out the opening number so hard it looks like the veins in his neck are about to explode.  I can't even remember the song, but the emotion and investment Garfield exhibits just blew me away.  We're so used to lip synching on screen, that when we see someone *actually* belt out a tune on camera it's really, really powerful ...see Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables or Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls...this is just as revelatory.

By the end of the film, I was just completely enamoured. While not a single song stuck in my head, I found more than a few of them, most of them in fact, to be surprising and likeable, as opposed to static and du rigueur.  The film is adapted to the screen from Jonathan Larson's biographical stage musical, which is about how he tried to make a dystopian sci-fi musical out of college and, despite garnering some good attention, failed.  Of all the musicals I've seen, I've never seen an autobiographical one, and it's such a more intimate experience than the usual fare.  Only once, during an early number, cutting between different members of the ensemble in different locations singing and dancing, did it feel theatre-kid stagey.  Otherwise there's a rawness that feels so very fresh.

The film jumps between the live, on stage performance of Garfield-as-Larson, and the story in the film as he tells it.  A lot of the musical numbers are done within the story as Larson tries to bring his first effort, "Superbia" to life.  He's a struggling artist, working at a diner, often sacrificing his relationships for his art.  It's a real "how the bread gets made" story, behind the scenes of how young theatre talent evolve into broadway hit makers. It's certainly not a world I've been exposed to, although it mirrors most my-life-is-my-art narratives.

I'll get to Will Smith in the Venus and Serena superhero origin story shortly, but I thought Garfield's performance was the strongest of the five nominees this year (and I actually saw all of them).  I should also note that Tick, Tick...BOOM! made the top 5 list in the oscar's Twitter fan vote for best film (not that it really was a realiable measure of anything considering the bad faith incel edgelords who stacked the vote for an unheard of Johnny Depp movie and Snyder's Army of the Dead).

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Summer of Soul (or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021, d. Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson - Disney+) was the obvious frontrunner for best documentary feature.  It's an uplifting story of discovery and rediscovery, while also grounding itself with an honest portrayal of the social politics of the time.

The Harlem Cultural Festival was held over 6 weeks in 1969.  It was a respite from the overwhelming events of the era - the deaths of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the Kennedys, the civil rights protests- turned-horror shows, riots - there wasn't a lot to celebrate.  But Black music was only getting more powerful, more prominent, and a definite unifier of the community.  The festival was a sponsored event, and was put together in part with the goodwill of John Lidnsey, the then Mayor of New York who was invested in the well-being of the Black community, if only for votes, but maybe more.

The Festival featured acts like Stevie Wonder, The 5th Dimension, Nina Simone, B.B. King, David Ruffin, Gladys Knight and the Pips, as well as activists and leaders like Jesse Jackson, and comedians Moms Mabley and Willie Tyler & Lester.  The crowds were packed show after show after show, this was something monumental.  The moon landing happened during the festival and, at least for the attendees, was a distant second of interesting things happening at that time.

The festival organizer had the forethought to film the entire event, and worked with the production crew to ensure the stage and space was set up in a way that would take advantage of the natural light.  The hope was to sell the footage to a network for replay but the narrow-mindedness/systemic racism of 1969, the networks thought it wouldn't attract viewers or sell ads, and so the footage was stashed away in a basement for 50 years before being recently rediscovered and restored.

Questlove's documentary isn't just playing footage of the Festival, which, on its own, would have been astounding.  It's an examination of the times in which the Harlem Cultural Festival inhabited, but also the director gets talking heads of people who were actually there, both performers and attendees.  Some who were there were only children, and without much documented on the festival, had thought it was perhaps just a dream, and are moved by seeing the footage.

Seeing these in-the-moment performers, some at the height of their popularity, some just starting to explode, is pretty powerful stuff.  Most "live" musical performances from the 60s is talk show footage where the singers are lip-syncing to album tracks and pretending to play instruments.  Sly and the Family Stone singing "I Want to Take You Higher" live is like an aural explosion.  It moved me, as did Stevie jamming out on his organ, so blissfully, and Nina Simone proselytising Black love and self love is so full of power and beauty.

I can only imagine that someone is working on securing all the song rights and shopping all this footage around to streaming services for a hefty penny, because all of this is gold that needs to be shared and preserved.

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Now as powerful as Summer of Soul is, my pick for best Documentary for 2021 is Flee (2021, d. Jonas Poher Rasmussen - AmazonPrime).  I'm sure most people are wondering just what Flee is.  And maybe their only familiarity with it is the fact that it was nominated for Best Documentary, Best Animated and Best Foreign Feature at the Academy Awards this year, a first that's not likely to be repeated any time soon.

This film burrowed deep and moved me to tears, frequently. It is indeed an animated documentary, as adult Amir (the animation is in part used to conceal his identity) details to the director (and long-time friend) his harrowing story, and revealing the truth of his story for the first time.  The retelling captures the temperature shift of politics in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, from peaceful and prosperous to war-torn, to having to run following the fall of communism only to wind up in a differently bad situation in the only country that would take them as refugees, Russia.  Life in Russia seems a miserable experience even in the best of circumstances, but as a POC refugee, it's a literal hell, facing harassment the most from the police.  Amir, in the retelling, it is evident, has PTSD from his time there.

The attempts to leave Russian to the Scandinavian countries are heart wrenching and horrifying.  Having seen dramatizations of the horrors of human trafficking on TV and movies, I knew things could get really really bad, and was preparing for the worst in the telling. But reality isn't TV or Movies, most of the time, and where we may think the worst is death, sometimes surviving these situations seems even more the worst-case scenario, the scars they leave on one's psyche.

We see, intercut with Amir's narration of his history, his life modern day, and the toll his past trauma has had on his relationship with his fiancee.  It's not a documentary just about a particular place or event, it's rounded picture of one very specific story that puts us deep into Amir's whole journey over 30 years.  That Amir is gay is just a subtle undercurrent.  Coming out stories tend to be center focus of entire documentaries, here, it's just one small facet that Amir didn't have the luxury to contemplate for a very, very long time, and once he did it frightened him intensely.

In one of the most moving aspects of his story, Amir tells of finally feeling settled into his new home in Denmark, prospering in school, and feeling resolved enough to visit family in Sweden (he told the Danish authorities that his whole family was dead when seeking asylum...his fear of being found out, and the repercussions that may fall  is why he remains anonymous in the film).  But after years separated he feared his family finding out he was gay, that as alone as he has been at least he knew he still had family elsewhere.  He feared his family would reject him, ostracise him, and that he would truly be alone.  Amir's narration throughout the film is so matter-of-fact for much of it, a steely, shut-down demeanour he's had to adopt to survive, but the vulnerability is just boiling under the surface, all the hurt and pain and trauma, yes, but also the joys and triumphs appear to be too much, too dangerous, threatening to crack the facade.  But when it cracks, it's one of the most affecting moments I've ever seen, and it makes me tear up just thinking about it.  I've tried to retell this moment to a few people and I myself break down from the weight of it all.

Flee was not destined to be the best animated movie in a year where Encanto so expertly defied all-ages animation conventions.  Flee's, rotoscoping is effective enough to do the job its there to do, and that its animated allows the "flashbacks" to contain details that may otherwise be hard to recreate.  Meanwhile, the film also intercuts footage from global news sources in live action as grounding points during transition times... it's very effective and captivating.  Flee I knew would also not be the best foreign feature because a couple of heavyweight entries in that category (Drive My Car, The Worst Person in the World, both critically adored juggernauts), which I kept hearing about for months, yet nothing about Flee.  But I thought it had the best shot at winning best doc, and likely would have if not for the potency of a very American story in Summer of Soul.

The journey in Flee is so alien to me, but it is told from its first person perspective so beautifully, that it removes the separation.  Amir's weary animated face and burdened tone are so empathetic, that even though you may not relate to his experiences, you can indeed feel the weight they have and how those memories and his fear weigh down his life.  The events in Afghanistan, like those in Iran as detailed in Persepolis are exactly what fervent conservatives are trying to push around the globe, police states that will only prosper for those who fit the mould and fall in line.  It's a beautiful, powerful, emotional movie, but take it also as a warning.

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In his 5-minute long, tear-filled, rambling acceptance speech(/apology) for Best Actor at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, Will Smith was having a moment. Having just barely an hour before stomped up on stage and slapped Chris Rock in the face for a stupid joke Rock made about Jada Pinkett-Smith's hair (Rock apparently unaware, like I was, of her alopecia), Smith was attempting to explain, but not condone his own actions.  He was regretful, apologetic (though not to Rock), and a mess of emotions poured out.  This angst-invoking drama soiled the evening, ruined Questlove's ability to give an acceptance speech for best documentary feature, and basically will be the thing Smith is most remembered for in spite of a massive career.  But, letting go of this, what was evident from the "speech" was that playing Richard Williams had a profound affect upon him, one that he's still wrestling with in his inner monologue.

Richard Williams was the overbearing, overprotective, and complicated patriarch of the Williams family that birthed two of the greatest tennis stars in history.  His unapologetic and relentless efforts in coaching and then bullying their way into an otherwise closed, elitist system made a huge impact in what was (and by-and-large still is) a predominantly white, upperclass sport.

Williams worked a lot to ensure his five girls would have the best they could possibly get.  When he was home he was making sure everyone was studying and setting their ambitions high.  Nobody was going to get in the way of their success, even if it meant he had to take a few lumps, and in one particular moment, consider killing a man, in order to keep them safe.  

His hucksterism, his ability to promote, was shameless, but it had to be. His dishevelled appearance and stilted gait was likely to get him arrested if not for his disarming smile, pluck and civility.  It didn't hurt that, when put on display, Venus and Serena had the goods.  But the most telling aspect of Willaims was that he always wanted his girls to enjoy life, to enjoy what they were doing.  The only pressure he put upon them was to be as good as they wanted to be.  Getting into country clubs or competitions put them in stark contrast with the mostly white kids who, after a loss, would berate themselves followed by a berating from their parents.  He led with love...mostly.

I wasn't thrilled with King Richard when it was announced.  A Venus and Serena movie but centered around their dad?  In the lead into the Oscars though it became evident that, as producers, this was a story Venus and Serena wanted told, their father, in spite of his flaws, made them what they were.  They could not be where they are without him.  He was one in a hundred million, so driven to see his children succeed, even if his initial motivations were perhaps self serving.  Watching the film, you almost have to see it from the perspective of his children to get it.  From outsider standpoints he's a challenging personality, but to those girls he was their dad and he fought tirelessly to give them everything he thought they deserved.

Will Smith doesn't disappear in the role...he can't.  He's Will Smith.  But it's a performance delivered with conviction, one that seems to have resonated with him deep down.  It's evident he has some hurt in his past, relating to his own father, and mother, and that in being a father and a husband he may have some guilt.  Playing Williams, he said, taught him about protecting your family at all costs....  Smith talked about having to protect his co-stars, particularly the young girls playing his daughters.  Through his connection with them he started talking at Venus and Serena in a balcony booth, as if he had to protect them as his own daughters.  We don't know Smith as a method actor, but somewhere in the making of King Richard and likely in writing his own memoir, not to mention the public display of their private life his wife started relating, he got lost, confused.

It's a good movie, but not great.  It's a superhero origin story for Venus and Serena, and the last act is largely young Venus (Saniyya Sidney) in the spotlight.  The film shows us some of the hardships, but seems to whitewash what I'm sure was plenty of racism along the way.  The filmmakers want this to be that  pleasant type of Oscar bait that's an uplifting experience for everyone ... and nothing tamps that sentiment down like white guilt. 

Honestly, I would like a sequel, but with more focus on the two champions in their teen years and more insight into their lives, thoughts and experiences.  And maybe less of an intensive experience for Smith.

---

Dune (2021, d. Denis Villeneuve - in theatre) was probably the big winner of the evening, pulling in many, many technical awards.  Toast and I have been ...what's the opposite of working on?... noodling with a collaborative review for months now, not getting very far...but one day it will come together... so you can wait until then for our thoughts...but the short answer is Toasty loved it, and I liked it, but sure to like it more when Part 2 comes out and tells a complete story.

-fin-

10 for 10: let's see how it goes edition

10 for 10... that's 10 movies which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?

In this edition:
What Happened, Miss Simone (Netflix) - 2015, Liz Garbus
Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (Netflix) - 2015, Christopher McQuarrie
Cooties (TMN on demand) - 2014, Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
Saint Vincent (TMN on demand) - 2014, Theodore Melfi
All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records (TMN on demand) - 2015, Colin Hanks
Pitch Perfect 2 (TMN) - 2015, Elizabeth Banks
The Night Before (TMN) - 2015, Jonathan Levin
Everest (TMN on demand) - 2015, d. Baltasar Kormákur
Macbeth (2015 TMN on demand) - 2015, Justin Kurzel
Midnight Run (Shomi) - 1986, d. Martin Brest


aaaand...go

What Happened, Miss Simone is the Oscar award-nominated (won? I don't have the time to research things) documentary on the life on Nina Simone.  She was a superstar in the music industry in the 1960s and yet by the time the 1980's hit she was almost unheard of.  I personally hadn't heard of her until the early 2000's when an ex introduced me to her.  She led a very tumultuous life, and had a difficult career, especially at the hands of her husband/manager who was very jealous and controlling.  Her career took a drastic shift when she started aligning herself with the Black Panthers, a move that proved divisive and alienating for not just her crossover audience but even friends and family.  The movie features a tremendous amount of archival performance material and interviews from all stages of her life.  She is a fascinating persona who led a difficult life, in part because of race and in part because of her relationships, but also because of pressures of society to conform to standard norms of servitude, beauty and behavior.  Her past would haunt her up until her death, the scars of abuse and the wear of performance pressure broke her in a way she never really could mend.  She wound up living a fairly reclusive life in her later years, performing in small establishments to appreciative crowds.  Powerful.  (9:55)

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I think David and I have both spoken in the past about the disposability of the Mission Impossible series, and the latest on, Rogue Nation (as per David's review) is no exception.  What I remember most about this film was the feeling that it was probably going to be the best of the series, the one that I will want to go back to, the one that will stick with me.  Turns out, five or six weeks later, I once again really don't remember it at all.  Rebecca Ferguson is obviously the big highlight of the film.  She's a badass British secret agent who teams up with Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt to...well, do whatever it is they need to do.  There's some stuff about shutting down the Impossible Mission task force, but Ethan managing to finagle Simon Pegg's Benji into being his right hand man.  Pegg gets a bigger spotlight here than any in the series before it, and yet despite the great turns from Ferguson and Pegg (and great support from Ving Rhames, Alec Baldwin, and Jeremy Renner) this still feels 100% like the Tom Cruise show, and because of the series' inability to make a true team out of the IMF, I think that's why it suffers from such forgetability.  Ethan Hunt has never been Bond-like in charisma or distinctive charm...he's a "master of disguise" which means he's supposed to be able to blend in and be unseen, which honestly makes for a bland character in the end.  Give Ferguson's character her own movie (with the same support cast) and you're laughing.  It would be fantastic.  This one looked good, sounded good, had great action, a decent bad guy in Sean Harris and is probably worth watching again.  (19:49)

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Horror was being taken over by zombies a decade ago.  Zombies are still a dominant force but horror has recouped to include ghosts and demonic possessions and witches and mystical creatures and slashers and body modders and cannibals and all sorts of grim gruesomeness.  The difference between now and, say, 15 years ago is so much horror used to wind up in the direct-to-video market, where as now, in surprising numbers, horror winds up in first run cinemas, if only for the shortest of stints.  Horror is bankable.  It's cheap to produce since all the devotees really care about is the gags, the plot and acting are secondary.  It's only those that wish to cross over into larger box office terrain that hire bigger names for their casts.  But hiring name actors is hit an miss in terms of getting that crossover.  Far too often bigger does not equal better for horror movies.  Cooties has an impressive roster of known faces (Rainn Wilson, Elijah Wood, Alison Pill, Jack McBrayer, Jorge Garcia, Nasim Pedrad) as teachers in a public school where an experimental chicken-turned-chicken nugget has caused a "cooties" infection (which, basically, means another zombie outbreak).  This is of the horror-lite variety.  The focus isn't so much on the gags, or even the apocalypse... it's character-centric, even if the characters aren't exactly the most appealing (they're not bad people, just not all that lovable). (29:30)

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I didn't manage to see a trailer for Saint Vincent until long after its release on video, which means it kind of came and went from theatres without much attention, at least from me.  The trailer highlighted Bill Murray's curmudgeonly neighbour to Melissa McCarthy's newly divorced mother and her pre-teen son.  Murray, as the titular Vincent of the film, has had a hard time adjusting since he's started living alone, and is taking his frustrations out on everyone, including himself, drinking excessively and getting into deep debt gambling.  McCarthy's suddenly single and moves in next door finds a reluctant willingness from Vincent to look after Oliver (as Oliver takes a curious interest in Vincent).  Of course, Vincent isn't a great role model, except when he is.  He cares in his own way, and he has a curious cast of loved ones whom he supports or who support him.  The supporting cast is rounded out by Chris O'Dowd as Oliver's Catholic School teacher (Oliver's Jewish), Naomi Watts as the pregnant hooker/stripper that Vincent's sleeping with (but it's not his kid), and Terrence Howard as the bookie Vincent's in debt to (he's nice to a point).  The film is actually very funny while being very solemn and touching in points.  The climax is just shy of being corny and manipulative, but is nonetheless satisfying.  It's sweet and rewarding. (38:40)

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When I moved to Toronto there was a Tower Records on the corner of Queen and Yonge.  It was three stories of music and videos, and I could lose hours in there browsing...but before I could really settle into any routine going there, it was gone.  Tower Records was a major force in music retail for the better part of 30 years, and then they disappeared almost overnight.  This documentary from Colin Hanks, All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records, is surprisingly interesting investigation into how Tower changed the face of music retail and distribution, and made being a snobby record store clerk a thing for the masses to aspire to.  It starts with its origins as a side offering in a pharmacy and how it grew into a multi-national chain.  Its distinctive yellow and red logo and unique displays, its warehouse feel, at once unassuming and cool, were all selling points.  It was a permissive work environment which seemed to encourage partying and maintaining an aura of cool and tastemaking.  Its business model was unconventional, dubious even, but it was working.  It was really expansion into foreign markets, without enough research into those markets, that overextended to company's resources and took it down.  Even if you're unfamiliar with Tower Records, if you're a music nerd, this is a fascinating doc that shows the awkward and forced transition between music format and provides a unique slice of music history. (47:44)

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Indeed I liked Pitch Perfect, far more that I probably or logically should.  But we have to allow ourselves these somewhat guilty pleasures.  Pitch Perfect 2 eliminated the most detestable element of the previous film (not entirely, but mostly), the aggravating Skylar Astin, but then doubled down on its use of Workaholics' most unlikable member Adam Devine and introduced Ben Platt (like Skylar Astin-lite) as the love interest of new Barden Belle Hailee Steinfeld.  The focus of the movie is on the Barden Belle's and their pursuit of the World Championship (or ruin) but these romantic side stories with thoroughly unlikable actors (or, at least, characters) as romantic leading men just bog the film down.  This feels like an 1980's style sequel, one that tries to repeat the format of the first but going bigger, and offering diminishing returns in the process.  It's still funny, in parts, but the jokes are more 60/40 this time around, with more than one sequence built around a leaden joke.  It's decently directed by Elizabeth Banks, not too flashy, (though sometimes it's very underwhelming, such as the big finale) it's a solid chick-flick-that-isn't-a-chick-flick that has broad appeal.  The songs aren't quite as good this time around either, though. (58:50)

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The Night Before reteams Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen with Jonathan Levin, their director from 50/50, add in The Avengers' Anthony Mackie as the third in a trio of best friends who are putting their last traditional pre-Christmas outing to rest with one big blowout.  Rogen has a baby on the way, and Mackie is a football star riding a career peak, but Levitt, a struggling musician is feeling left behind as the wounds of his last relationship refuse to heal and he refuses to really take ownership of his life.  The film wisely finds a heart to the hedonistic journey of these guys, but thankfully the stakes aren't all that high (no pun intended)...really only the fate of their friendship lies in the balance.  Jillian Bell is awesome as Rogen's all-too understanding wife, diffusing that conventional one-dimensional-female-character-in-a-comedy trope very, very nicely.  Mindy Kaling (who should be Rogen's next costar in a buddy comedy) also puts in a terrific supporting character performance.  It's surprisingly Michael Shannon who steals the show as the all to sage pot dealer, Mr. Green, but that would be forgetting Rogen's brilliant trip-out sequence, a fun cameo from Broad City's Ilana Glazer, and an unforgettable James Franco cameo.  There are some huge laughs here (perhaps the best texting/sexting joke put to film) and it works great as a seasonal comedy or a summer comedy. (1:09:29)

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At the start of Everest the climbing guides explain to the tourists they're escorting up Mount Everest all the various dangers that could occur when they go up the mountain.  As if you couldn't guess, every worst case scenario occurs, and then some.  Everest could have been very cleverly staged as a horror film, but instead it's a strictly matter of fact account of a real-life ill-fated trip three tour groups took up the mountain in 1996.  There seemed to be, on the part of the filmmakers, a strong desire to try and portray events as true to how they happened, which is something people complain most docu-dramas don't do enough of.  The reason for that, though, is clear... it's kind of boring.  There were countless possible ways to ratchet up the tension in this film, but it never is as pulse-pounding as it could have been.  The filmmakers are way too focussed on the human drama.  Unfortunately there's too many players to fully invest in the human drama.  It's sad to see people die, and to know they're true-to-life analogs makes it even more so, but there's not much investment in most of these people as characters.  A focus is put on Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) in that we jump back to their families, but the story on the mountain doesn't focus on them as jump between them and everyone else.  It's a good looking film, but given the subject matter it should have been far more engaging. (1:19:20)

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Macbeth is that Shakespeare play I always think is Hamlet, until 10 minutes into it when I realize it's not Hamlet and I don't exactly remember what it's all about.  I find enjoyment of Shakespeare comes from familiarity.  It takes countless reads or views of the plays to really, truly feel comfortable, and even study may be required to actually get the most out of them.  I find modern adaptations, where they take the general plot structure and character outlines and apply them to modern situations with modern dialogue to be generally more appealing.  Shakespeare knew how to craft a story, for sure.  His olde English puts me to sleep.  This Michael Fassbender-led rendition of Macbeth wasn't much different.  It's a lavish look at the Scottish countryside, for sure, but it's droning, ambiant score, and the director's penchant for slow motion, and everyone's utter lack of emoting throughout the bulk of the picture make for pretty dire entertainment.  My wife's the English major and Shakespeare buff, and she said this wasn't a very good rendition.  I would say you can take her word for it.  Skip. (1:25:59)

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There are classics of cinema, and then there are just great movies.  They can be mutually exclusive or one and the same.  Classics are movies that are important for their time, and great movies are those that hold up regardless of when they were made or when they are being watched.  Midnight Run may not be a classic, but it is a great movie.  Given how many comedians I've heard on countless podcasts talk of their love for this movie, I was expecting a comedy classic.  I was surprised that it wasn't really that funny, but it had me rapt.  It's not a drama, by any means, it's sort of a crossroads between action, comedy and drama, just a light, romp-y, unconventional buddy road movie, a straighter counterpart to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Robert DeNiro is a bounty hunter who's given the task of bringing a high-profile mob accountant (Charles Grodin) back from LA to New York, with other bounty hunters, the FBI and the mob hot on their tails.  The film lives and dies by its characters.  It's a story that serves them, not action or comedy like most of today's movies.  It's about digging into DeNiro's troubled history, solving the mystery of what happened to him when he was a cop in Chicago.  Likewise it's about understanding who Grodin's accountant is.  Is he just a crook, or is he a nice guy who go into a bad situation and tried to make it better (at least on his conscience).  It's their interplay, which leads to a tense partnership, and even an almost friendship, that's totally worth the journey.  The late, great Denis Farina is at his best here, perhaps the funniest aspect of the film.  Yaphet Kotto is the lead FBI agent, and likewise shows some pretty fantastic comedic chops. Then there's the always fun Joey Pants (Pantoliano) as the bail bondsman desperate for the return of the accountant or he's in ruin.  Just a 100% solid cast, a fully engaging chase/road movie, and a fantastic character study.  Yeah, a great movie, if not a classic. (1:38:53)

I Saw This!! Kids Stuff part III

(part II) (part I)
In this edition:
Strange Magic (2015), d. Gary Rydstrom -- in theatre
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), d. Steve Barron -- blu-ray
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), d. Paul Tibbitt -- in theatre
Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014), d. Rob Minkoff -- netflix

---

We came to watch Strange Magic by way of a birthday party my daughter was invited to.  Now, my daughter has been nothing but reluctant, if not vehemently against seeing movies in the movie theatre after the great Muppets Most Wanted trauma of last year, but because this was one of her good friend's birthdays she was into going but only if I joined here.  I had seen the trailer, with it's plethora of pop song covers and was rather wary of the end product ("From the mind of George Lucas!" doesn't quite hold the cache it once did), but I'm always game to be surprised.

Well, Strange Magic isn't quite what the trailer describes it as.  The "goblin king" (it's actually Bog King in the movie) isn't necessarily trying to take over the forest, and our plucky heroes are necessarily trying to stop him.  Instead it's a farcical comedy about both love and a love potion gone wrong, and the Bog King's attempts at obliterating love from the dark side of the forest, if not the entirety of the forest altogether.  It's a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, so the story structure itself is quite surprisingly sound.

But yeah, there's singing.  Lots and lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of singing, all of pop songs from the 50's to the modern day, none of which are outright offensive but nothing stellar or exciting.  The songs are incessant, and at times overwhelming but never grating.

The animation, from moment one, is strikingly gorgeous, and I was almost ready to buy in because of it.  The vibrancy of the colours, the lush details of the forest and its foliage, the intricacies of the costuming and hairstyles... it's all so very impressive.  Even the choreography of fight sequences (which are in no way prolonged or egregiously violent) and the musical numbers are stellar, weaving between movement on land and in the air (fighting with wings hasn't been done quite enough).

The opening sequence features a doe-eyed, lovestruck princess Maryanne fluttering about the forest carelessly on her wedding day, singing "Can't Help Falling In Love", which immediately tore into the film's beauty with yet more stock lovelorn royalty, but thankfully, and approvingly, once she realizes her husband-to-be is a total cad, longing only for her power (and an army of his own), she rejects love and goes goth, getting edgy, learning to fight, etc.

It's unfortunate that Lucas and company opted for licensing songs rather than going the route of original numbers. I'm certain the film would have been much stronger and better received had it gone that route.  Pop songs, no matter how they're arranged, seem tedious and even corny when they're crammed into a context not originally intended.  Sure this may be most kids' first exposure to the songs here but it doesn't make it any less a grind for the adults sitting with them.

Likewise, scaling back on the number of musical numbers, and adopting a bit more of a literal adaptation of Shakespeare's original story may have serviced the film far better (had this been a direct adaptation, with the lavish animation, it would have been absolutely stellar).

It's gotten a bad rap from most critics, but it's really a middle-of-the-road picture.  It's themes about accepting people as they are and being able to fall in love with anyone are certainly present, and even I will admit toe getting sucked into the Moonlighting-esque romance of Marianne and the Bog King.   It's decent, but it certainly could have been far better (and easily far worse).

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I covered "TMNT", the 2007 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated feature in the last I Saw This!! Kids Stuff, and noted there my brief (and mostly absent) history with the Turtles.  They just weren't my thing.  Even though the Turtles are technically a comic book property and especially in the 1990s I would watch any comic book movie no matter how awful it looked (yes, even Steel starring Shaquille O'Neal), I never watched any of the live action trilogy.  They just seemed beneath me, juvenile, annoying.

When the hosts announced that they were watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as their next film one week on the Wham Bam Pow podcast, I had thought they were going to be reviewing the latest Michael Bay produced trainwreck.  But it turned out to be the original feature, which I had suspected would be beneath them.  When they (surprisingly) quite favorably reviewed it I actively sought it out, knowing that even if I wasn't that into it, my daughter would be.

Turns out, it's true, it's not so bad.  It's kind of charming in a late-80's grimy, practical-effects and restricted budget kind of way.  Following hot on the heels of the mega-success of Tim Burton's Batman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles indeed attempts much of the same style and maturity to an ostensibly juvenile property.  That the film, more than most comic book adaptations, remained fairly faithful to the flavour of the source material is quite impressive.

The main plot finds New York City slowly succumbing to a crime wave led by a legion of foot soldiers under the sway of The Shredder.  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles start to come out from their sewer lair to help fight this crime wave, encountering reporter April O'Neill and sports-themed vigilante Casey Jones along the way.

The thrust of the story, however, is about family, and the four brothers (Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael) have very disparate personalities which often find them at odds.  There's a need to prove themselves to one another, particularly between Leo and Raph.  When their sewer lair is infiltrated, their master Splinter captured, and April's apartment destroyed by Shredder and his goons, they flee the city to regroup, train and find some semblance of the teamwork needed in order to take down their foe and rescue their master.

As far as the Turtles pantheon goes, I've long given April the short shrift, but here she's really the glue that holds the whole movie together.  Judith Hoag, with her wild and kinked-out red hair, pale skin and freckles is a bit of a startling screen presence at first, but being the primary human character she adds incredible depth, warmth and she makes you believe this world and these crazy puppets exist.  It's really all for her to shoulder and she carries the movie.  She may not be typical Hollywood attractive, but her charisma becomes undeniable.

The film is not a classic, nor great by any means, but it's truly enjoyable, and far better than it had any right to be.  Also, extra points for a very young Sam Rockwell appearance.

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A decade and a half ago Spongebob Squarepants popped up on an unsuspecting television audience, delighting children, teens, college kids and some parents alike.  The culmination of outre animated comedy defined by Ren and Stimpy  and the irreverent humour just starting to catch on (via Cartoon Network shows like Dexter's Lab, Cow and Chicken), Spongebob may not have been wholly original but it was able to capture a far broader audience than any of its forbears, and become both a merchandising and comedy juggernaut that approximated the Simpsons rise to fame.  Children's animation, for the most part, has become a sea of pale imitators over the past decade-plus, almost to its detriment.  Every show aims for the same irreverence and it's diluted what made Spongebob so special in the first place.

But there have always been certain things Spongebob did that few other animated shows could replicate, particularly the show's radical inclusion of live action and atypical animation techniques.  My favourite Spongebob moments are always those where the characters break the surface tension of the ocean and wind up in a cheaply produced live-action environment as a yellow sponge on a stick, a starfish on a stick etc.  It's absurdity at its finest, the knowingly crude production values, and yet the voice acting carries on as if nothing were out of the ordinary.  The way the show pulls these out (and in moderation as well) I had high hopes for how it would manage a full feature film with Spongebob and gang interacting in a live action world.

Well, that said, the whole conceit of the film, "Sponge out of water", only comprises the last act, while the remainder of the film is an upgraded version of the traditional animation style of the show.  That the commercials (and poster) predominantly show the cgi cast, gussied up as superheroes, gives the expectation that the film will be largely comprised of this type of Who Framed Roger Rabbit animation/reality smash-up, even if it didn't seem like the best idea, it was kind of daring.  The way it's actually executed is anything but.

The film could have easily made up for this duplicity were it actually funny, but clippy irreverence over a 12-minute running time is one thing, doing it over 89 minutes is another, but it's like they didn't even try.  Every joke seems horrendously dragged out, and the pacing never finds its footing.  Each sight gag or sudden jump cut that would usually have an audience in stitches lands instead with a thud, giving itself way too much room to breathe and far too often setting itself up so that the joke is expected.

Nearly everything about this film is a waste of potential.  The plot finds Spongebob teaming up with Plankton after the Crabby Patty formula goes missing and Bikini Bottom falls into chaos without it's regular supply of burgers.  It turns out the disappearance of the formula was the work of the dread pirate Burgerbeard, a live action character played by Antonio Banderas.  Banderas kicks off the film narrating a story to a group of CGI seagulls which look like pathetic versions of the Penguins of Madagascar.  The potential of this film narrated by Banderas is mind blowing but squandered.  The book Banderas reads from had the power to adjust Spongebob's reality, a fact used two or three times in the third act, but could have been utilized with crazy results throughout the film.

While Banderas' casting is squandered genius, Matt Berry's voice work as Bubbles the space dophin, protector of the galaxy is the only oddball feat the film actually manages to make work.  It's a short sequence, 2 or 3 minutes long mid-way through the film but it's reality-bending nature and it's utter weirdness (not to mention Berry's particularly unique delivery) was the only moment that met up with my expectation of what a Spongebob story should be like.

Even when we get to reality, it seems so cheap, so manufactured, so unnatural.  It feels like very little production value went into it. which given my fondness for sponge-on-a-stick Spongebob, you would think I would like.  But it's like they were trying to make "reality" without using reality.  Had they made the film's reality exceptionally cheap, knowingly so, then it would have been incredible.  If there were nods to the props and the obviousness of its fakeness, the film would have paid off its promise.  As it stands it looks like a cruddy video game.

The Spongebob Movie could have been this year's Lego Movie, instead it feels like the rest of the barely tolerable TV movies Nickleodeon airs.

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Like Spongebob, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, comes to the big screen where it started life in a much shorter fashion.  Even shorter than Spongebob's usual 11-12 minute stories, the original Mr. Peabody and Sherman stories were brief segments on the Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show anthology cartoons in the early 1960s.  Each cartoon featured Mr. Peabody, a super-genius bipedal dog, and his adopted pet child, Sherman, venturing into the past (via the "Wayback Machine") to meet a famous historical figure or witness a famous historical event.  Quasi-educational, very silly, and endlessly charming, "Peabody's Improbable History" was irreverent and enduring, much like every part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle ensemble.  The cartoons were ahead of their time, the comedy much more sophisticated than, say, the Flintstones and a product of their time at the turn of the 60's like Looney Toons was in the 40's and Spongebob was in the early years of the new millennium.

With that in mind,.the long-in-development feature film starring Mr. Peabody and Sherman is a bit of a disappointment in that it's not that funny.  However, unlike a great many kids movies that aren't funny largely because their comedy is terrible, juvenile, or ill timed, this film doesn't really strive too hard for comedy.  It's more an adventure, with a heavy dose of father-son relationship drama getting in the mix.  There are some decent chuckles (Mr. Peabody's puns are typically followed by Sherman laughing then coldly stating "I don't get it"), and the adventure leans more towards whimsical than intense, so it's not a harsh film at all, but it does take its relationships seriously.

The heart of the story is that child protective services are threatening to take Sherman away from Mr. Peabody after the boy gets into a fight with a girl, Penny, at school and he bit her in the process.  Mr. Peabody holds a dinner for Penny and her family, but things get complicated when Sherman tries to settle an argument by showing her the Wayback Machine, and she goads him into using it.

The adventure finds Sherman and Mr. Peabody on a mission to rescue Penny in ancient Egypt, then losing power and calling upon Mr. Peabody's friend Leonardo da Vinci for help, getting time lost in the middle of the battle of Troy, and finally creating a time vortex by accidentally visiting a time where they already exist (sort of a Back To The Future II situation).  All of the time traveling provides for some light history lessons (filled with a lot of not-so-true-history), but through it all the threads of Peabody and Sherman's relationship is woven.  Sherman, as a son, is in part an academic endeavor for Peabody, something so irrational as emotions seem difficult for him to acknowledge.  Meanwhile, Sherman obviously has some latent issues about being raised by a dog, given his violent retaliation when he's mocked as one (but also probably not helped by Mr. Peabody's emotional neglect).  Doubtlessly the two come to common understanding and acceptance, but it still a rewarding conclusion even if it goes about it in a hammy way ("I am a dog", the crowd starts chiming in as animal control starts hauling Peabody away in their Spartacus homage).

The animation style is fair, but typical, the voice work by Ty Burrell, Max Charles, and Ariel Winter are all solid for their roles (with fun voice work from Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Allison Janney Patrick Warburton and Stanley Tucci).  There's a device used early on as Mr. Peabody figures his way out of a situation (taking in all information around him and finding the best available option), somewhat akin to BBC's Sherlock or Amadeus Cho in the Greg Pak Hulk comics, but it's kind of abandoned, which is too bad because it was the most visual the film got.  The lead into the time vortex was by far the film's most playful and imaginative moment (as it struggled with multiple versions of its characters and the laws of temporal physics) but upon releasing the actual vortex it becomes less logical and weighed down by the needless "big finish" sequence (with more than a hint of Ghostbusters blazing through).

It's a middle-of-the road kid flick, but on the higher end of that part of the scale.  Not recommended for adult watching solo, but certainly not a bad thing to watch with the kids.