The Reel World

Having never played the game and having no frame of reference for this adaptation, I had to rely heavily on reinforcements to let me know if the movie was true to the game. According to my nephew, there were some deviations, such as the final boss, but for the most part, he said the movie was true to the game. From my perspective, A Minecraft Movie was an entertaining movie that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, which is to be expected with Jack Black cast as Steve, the only original character from the game. Black delivers in the fashion that he is famous for, a bit of overacting and breaking out into song in the oddest moments. Adding to the silliness is Jason Momoa, who fully embraced his goofy side that we usually only get to see when he is doing interviews. Jack Black and Jason Momoa being given free rein to crack jokes and overact; what more can you ask for? Along for the ride are Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), Sebastian Hansen in his second film role, and Emmer Meyer of Wednesday and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which explains why I’m still waiting on season two of Wednesday.
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“When you can lie about everything, when you can deny everything, how do you tell the truth about anything?”

That is essentially the theme of Black Bag. When intelligence agent Kathryn Woodhouse is suspected of betraying the nation, her husband — also a legendary agent — faces the ultimate test of whether to be loyal to his marriage or his country. With a plot like that, you are most definitely going to need some top-shelf actors to convey the nuance and tension of a married couple that can’t fully trust one another. Enter Cate Blanchett and Miachel Fassbender on the heels of his espionage series The Agency. Toss in Steven Soderbergh as the director, and you get yourself a party.
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“Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”

“My queen, your beauty is beyond compare, but there is one — her beauty grows — from deep within … Snow White. She is as pure as snow.”

Controversy up front, and this film has had it share of it, starting with the casting of titular character. The casting of Rachel Zegler, a Latina actress, as Snow White, drew criticism, as the character is described in the original material as having skin “as white as snow”. This is actually not that uncommon for a Disney live-action. I would even dare to call it commonplace. And while I don’t agree with it personally and actually like the idea of these stories evolving and that they are “open to all ethnic groups”, I’m just saying that I am not surprised at this criticism. We saw the same thing with the live-action Little Mermaid.
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“We share the same world, don’t we? This world you would die to save. It’s coming. I’ve seen it in the probability. Seen it plain as day. All you heroes protecting this world. Do you think you’re the only ones? Do you think this the only world? We’ll see what happens when you have to protect this place from the others.”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is truly at a crossroads. Since the last Avengers film the studio has released one disappointing film after another. The big tentpole stars and characters have been lost along the way, and that star power has seriously damaged the franchise since that time. Certainly there have been some bright spots. Spider-Man No Way Home was the lone exceptional outing, and the recent Deadpool & Wolverine film was just plain fun.  With Robert Downy, Jr.’s Iron Man. Gone. Chris Evans Captain America. Gone. Scarlet Johanson’s Black Widow. Gone.
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I’ve never been much for Will Ferrell. His brand of comedy never really resonated with me. I always just found it too ridiculous and outlandish.  I suppose You’re Cordially Invited will be the exception to that rule. While the film does play right into Ferrell’s wheelhouse with the over-the-top antics such as wrestling an alligator, it is actually the dynamic, should I say the rivalry, between Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon that is the highlight of the movie. The film is similar to Bride Wars and the Neighbors, which makes a measure of sense as the director of the latter film is actually the director of this film as well. Further aiding the film’s success is that, like Ferrell and Witherspoon, a majority of the cast all have established comedy backgrounds. Joining Ferrell and Witherspoon was Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers) as Ferrell daughter and one of the brides-to-be, Meredith Hagner (Vacation Friends) as Witherspoon’s sister and the other bride-to-be, Stony Blyden (Hunter Street) as one of the grooms-to-be, and Jimmy Tatro (Home Economics) as the other groom-to-be.
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“What F&#k is a shark doing on a plane?” 

You remember Samuel Jackson back a few years was fighting off Snakes On A Plane, yeah? Well, now we’ve got sharks on a plane. So how in the heck did they do that? Well, it requires going back to the 1970’s when Irwin Allen was the master of the disaster film, and he had a legion of followers. Writer Andy Mason and Director Claudio Fah found themselves a TARDIS and took their behinds to those golden days of movie mayhem. If you are willing to totally throw logic out the window and just hang with these guys for about 90 minutes, you’ll have a bit of fun, and likely you’ll forget it by the next day. I happened to catch the film yesterday, and … let me see … Someone was doing something, and there were sharks on an aircraft of some kind. Let me go and watch it again. Hold on …
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With the end of the year upon us, I felt this was the best time to talk about what I feel was the best film of 2024. First I want to start by saying that this hasn’t been my favorite year for cinema, especially when you look at the kind of films you see at award shows, mostly all those films were forgettable and not anything I feel will become cinematic classics. That being said, when it comes to the horror genre, this has been a pretty great year. For a while I would have said Late Night with the Devil was going to be my favorite horror film of the year, but then The Substance came out, and that just floored me, and I’ve kind of become a bit obsessed with the film. It’s the only film this year that has stuck with me for days and just had me wanting to watch it again so I could savor its visuals, whether they be beautiful or grotesque.
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” Well, you can forget what you’ve learned at training college. Because at the end of the day, there’s just one thing that matters in this job – a copper’s gut.” 

Wallace and Gromit is the brainchild of animator Nick Park. The British filmmaker tried for years to bring his clay creations alive, but on his own finished a mere 10 minutes in a little over 2 years. When he met up with Aardman Animations, he was teamed up with the creative talents he needed to make his dream come alive, and come alive these two characters did indeed. They’ve become an overnight sensation in the UK and now all over the world. I was introduced to the characters with the full length feature Wallace And Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. I have to admit that I was completely won over by the magic of this creation. It’s so simple looking that it almost appears to be child’s play. The truth could not be further from the perception. Stop motion animation goes back to the beginning of the cinema itself.
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Not sure if this has ever happened to me before: to like the movie adaptation as much as I like the book itself. Naturally much of this feeling is due to the inclusion of Peter Dinklage into the cast of this film, but that said, I found The Thicket to be among my favorite movie adaptations of this year, which is interesting given the amount of creative license taken with the material. Based on the Joe R. Lansdale western novel of the same name,the film follows Jack Parker, a boy who, after his sister is kidnapped by a violent killer known only as Cut Throat Bill, enlists a fierce bounty hunter named Reginald Jones, who becomes the leader of the group of outcasts searching for the stolen girl. Joining Dinklage is Juliette Lewis as Cut Throat Bill, Hanna’s Esmé Creed-Miles as Lula Parker, Jack’s sister, and The Old Man’s Gbenga Akinnagbe as Eustace Howard, an ex-slave who assists Jack.
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“Killing is bad. Like, unacceptably bad.”

I had such high hopes for this romantic comedy. I didn’t expect that it would raise the level of the genre, but I figured that it would be some lighthearted fun like in The Ugly Truth or Sex Tape. The unfortunate part is that I feel like it had that potential; it just required better story development. A shame; this really could have been a win for Kaley Cuoco. Not that she needs one; of the big three of The Big Bang Theory, I’d say she’s the one with the fullest dance card. It’s like she hasn’t taken a breath since the series ended. But then again one could argue that she’s always been on the go since her days on 8 Simple Rules. Even so, I really wanted to like this film, and while it had a couple of good moments, the lackluster story development really diminished any traction that the film gained.
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“This is a game about winning the points that matter. You beating me is a nice story for you to tell people when you’re giving them tennis lessons, but I guarantee you the thing they’ll all be the most excited about is that you met me at all. They’ll ask you what I’m like. They’ll ask you if I’m nice. They’ll ask you if we were friends. And then they’ll ask you how I did it. They’ll ask you and you won’t have no $#*%ing clue what to tell them. And even if you did want to know, I couldn’t possibly explain it to you in a language you’ll understand, because the thing you learn when you’ve been operating at my level for as long as I have is that it’s so $#*%ing lonely to win this much. Nobody gets it. But everyone on Earth gets what it’s like to be you.”

So the truth about this film when I learned about it was I knew it was destined to be a movie that my wife would drag me to the theater to see. I’ve never been one for tennis, and while I have a rudimentary understanding of the game’s rules and how it is played, it falls into the same category as golf; it’s just not that exciting a sport for me.
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For just about the past decade I feel Samara Weaving has earned the title of scream queen in the horror genre. She may not be a box office name like Jenna Ortega, but I feel Samara Weaving has a more impressive resume of cool and fun horror films, and she just consistently delivers. Ready or Not in a lot of ways is the film that best showcases her talents, and I thought for sure she’d level up to A-list status, but it seems the movie gods have other plans for her. Thankfully she is still cranking out some fun films for genre fans. Azrael is Weaving’s newest dip into the horror genre, a film that was written by Simon Barrett, who previously wrote the horror gems You’re Next and The Guest, and to sweeten this ghoulish cinematic pot, it is directed by E.L. Katz, who directed the 2013 dark comedy Cheap Thrills. Does this all add up to another genre hit, or is this a dud?
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“The staff of wisdom given to me by Master Oogway himself. It is said that whoever possesses this staff has the power to travel between the realms. The power to unlock the door to the spirit realm. And now the power to open the all new Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu, where the broth has kick and the bean curd’s a knock-out.”

It’s hard to maintain the attention of the 21^st-century child. Animated movies have to combine enough elements of charm and action to keep their attention for a little under two hours. If you want to keep a franchise going, you have to rip out your sequels on reasonably tight schedules. It was over four years between Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3, and we waited nearly that long between the first and second entry. That’s a long time in a culture where we move from fad to fad almost by the hour. But if the films are good enough and leave enough of an impact, you might be able to bridge those years successfully.
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“If I could stay funny, I can stay alive!”

That was the mantra that kept Jamie Foxx alive, which he explains in this testimonial stand-up special about the events that nearly cost him his life back in 2023. We all heard the rumors about what happened. Renowned triple threat Jamie Foxx suffered a serious medical event resulting in him becoming hospitalized. Amid conflicting reports about the nature of his condition, including rumors that he was gravely ill, his condition for the most part remained a mystery and a closely guarded secret within his family. Then the rumor mill started to include tales that the actor had died, and the family was keeping it secret. And as if that was not outlandish enough, following the actor posing a video clip in which he commented about his health, saying that he had been to “hell and back,” then the rumors started that the actor had been cloned, this coming after the release of the film They Cloned Tyrone, in which the Jamie Foxx is featured.
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There is something about how the French make their horror films that I find a bit hard to resist. Films like High Tension, Inside, and Martyrs are films I go back to time and time again and just have a blast with, and with the release of MadS I was a bit optimistic that this could also be a film to add to my rotation when I’m on a French horror film kick. What really gave me hope for this film is seeing that it was directed by David Moreau, who gave us the criminally underappreciated home invasion horror film Them (2006). If you are a fan of home invasion horror and you’ve missed on Them, I highly recommend checking it out. As for MadS, it seems Moreau was going for something a bit different, this time doing a one-shot horror film about a virus outbreak that causes those infected to go “mad” and violently attack people. Sure, we’ve seen it before, but is the one-shot approach a fresh enough take to make this an experience worth sitting through?
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“Project Shadow is far beyond anything we’ve encountered. Shadow’s story began a lot like yours, Sonic. But where you found family and friends, Shadow only found pain and loss.”

I’ve been patiently awaiting this installment since the 2022 mid-credit scene hinted at the idea of Shadow’s introduction into the franchise. Now here we are with that idea becoming a reality, and with Keanu Reeves voicing the character, no less. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 takes the series in a darker direction than the previous installments as the happy-go-lucky Sonic finds his worldview challenged by the reveal of another hedgehog that received a much worse reception than he did. In that regard, I appreciated the director staying true to form with Shadow’s backstory.
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“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”

As awards season has come around this year, I found myself watching several films involving the Catholic Church, from Russell Crowe’s The Exorcism to Sydney Sweeney’s Immaculate, and finally Cabrini. And now Conclave. I was surprised to find that all four films were relatively respectful, even as they might be pointing out the flaws of the ancient church. All four films were replete with wonderful performances that carried the emotional beats of the stories. At the top of my list from those films is Cabrini, with Conclave coming in a close second.
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It seems it would be easy to do a film about the urban legend where a driver picks up a woman in white who turns out to be a ghost. We are all familiar with this story, though the details of the urban tale can vary from one storyteller to the next, and it really seems like something so straightforward that it would be hard to make a mess of it. I at least thought so until I watched Black Cab. The film at first glance just seemed like something in my wheelhouse that couldn’t go wrong; it was a ghost story starring Nick Frost, whom I’ve been a fan of since first seeing him in Shaun of the Dead and Spaced, but despite how likeable he is, there is just nothing much that could have saved this movie, which was mostly dead on arrival. Anne (Synnove Karlsen) and Patrick (Luke Norris) are a recently engaged couple. After a night of celebration turns sour, they attempt to take a cab ride home, but instead their night is about to go from bad to worse as they discover their driver is a bit unhinged. As for their cab driver, Ian (Nick Frost), his plans for the couple remain ambiguous for a good portion of the film,
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“Between 1889 and 1910, over two million Italians immigrated to the United States. They were desperately poor, often illiterate, and almost never spoke English. Many Americans considered these Italians to be of inferior intelligence, fit only for menial labor and a threat to the very fabric of America.” 

I have to admit to a particular bias here. I am Italian. My grandparents immigrated here in the early 19th century. I am also Catholic, as most of these Italian immigrants were. In addition, I feel a bit of a connection to Mother Cabrini. The first school I attended back in first grade was that attached to my Italian Catholic parish, and it was called the Cabrini Academy. So there is a certain bias toward the subject here, but I might point out it also leads to very high expectations that these subjects are treated correctly. I still very much demanded a compelling story and an inspirational lead. In director Alejandro Monteverde’s Cabrini, I was fortunate enough to find both.
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When I first heard Anna Kendrick was stepping behind the camera to direct her first film, I kind of expected it to be another Pitch Perfect film … but to find her instead doing a thriller about a real life serial killer and rapist who appeared on a game show in the 1970s was a curve ball I wasn’t expecting. But this isn’t simply a true crime story but instead is about how women were marginalized and heavily objectified. But the biggest takeaway I had while watching this was simply how dangerous things were back then and just how easily a serial killer could be prolific and walk the streets while no one suspected a thing. To get it out of the way, my major gripe with this film is that we meet Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) in the very beginning, and we see that he’s a vicious serial killer who lures his victims with charm while posing as a photographer.
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“All right, kids. This is the part where you get to do the things the grownups don’t wanna do anymore. Door to door on foot. Knock-knock, ‘have you seen this man?’ Just like in the movies. Partners have already been assigned so no one will get hurt feelings. Suspect likes to visit a certain kind of neighborhood. He’s a middle-aged Caucasian male and not likely to go quietly, so let’s always assume he’s armed. We’ll go alert and careful. That’s all.”

But that’s really just the beginning. Writer/director Osgood Perkins has created one of those serial killer films that is bound to draw comparisons with some of the best of those films and most certainly Silence Of The Lambs. Let me just get that out of the way fast. This is a pretty solid film that deserves some attention, and is absolutely worth a look.
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“I just love children’s imaginations. What I don’t like is when they get so violent.”

Blumhouse is one of those horror factories that have changed the way horror films are created, seen, and marketed. There have been some powerful horror films to come out of those doors. When I think of Meg3n, the first couple of Paranormal Activity films, and even the Purge franchise, I see clever and innovative films. But the production house can be a bit feast-or-famine, and there have been a number of famine films on the bill.  Among the famine list of films you’ll find Truth Or Dare and the crazy horror/hybrid take on the old Fantasy Island series. What do both of those films have in common?
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“Let me tell you a story. A story of a great king.”

Let me begin by admitting that the original 1994 classic animation feature film The Lion King has remained my all-time favorite animated film. It wasn’t just the Elton John/Tim Rice songs, but that didn’t hurt. I’ve been an Elton John fan as far back as I can remember. There was just something special, something timeless, in that film. Since that time I regard it as the very last breath of the Walt Disney Studios classic animation. It started the studio’s last string of hits, and it was the end of an era. So that film has become somewhat bittersweet for me. The animated sequels were low-budget made-for-video quality, and the more recent “live action” version did not impress me with anything more than the technology it displayed. The heart has been gone for a long time. With the release of Mufasa, Walt Disney is attempting to pull on the heartstrings of people like me who love the original.
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I always found it a bit funny when Hollywood churns out movies that have similar plots to compete against each other. Back in the 90s Armageddon dueled the same year with Deep Impact, when disaster films were all the rage. 2024 had the same situation, though not in the form of big blockbusters, but this time in the form of two horror films about nuns and strange pregnancies taking place within the confines of the convent. The prequel to The Omen was better than I had anticipated, and when Immaculate was released, I just never got around to seeing it … at least until now. While The First Omen is a slow burn that actually pairs well with the first film, Immaculate I feel is the more bloody and popcorn-friendly romp that I feel fits into the sub-genre of nunsploitation (something I wouldn’t object to seeing more of).  So is this film worth congregating in front of the television for 90 minutes, or is this a hard pass in a year that seems to flourish with quality horror films, but not much of anything else?
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With it being December this is when all the critics and groups start to announce their picks for best films of the year. This year has been a bit of a lackluster year in my opinion, but there have been a few gems that have managed to surprise me. A Real Pain, the directorial and writing debut for Jesse Eisenberg, is one of those few gems that crackles with great dialog and impressive cinematography, but most importantly is anchored by the performances of its two leads, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. On a surface level, this is a story about two cousins going on vacation together, but really it’s about two young men struggling with their own pain. You’d think a film like this would be a drag or even a chore to sit through, but instead it is engaging and heartfelt throughout and has moments that will have you laughing and crying.
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