Swifty is an arctic fox. His cautious parents liked to dress him all in white to make sure that he always blended in with the arctic snow. Blending in is safe. Standing out is dangerous. But Swifty dreams of being seen. He’s tired of being invisible.
Unfortunately, the movie bigwigs have conspired against poor Swifty, hiring the blandest of the Avengers to voice him. That’s right: Jeremy Renner, who does not have a distinctive voice (some, meaning me, would argue he does not have a distinctive bone in his body). Not all actors can or should be reduced to just their voice: Christopher Walken for sure. Definitely Tiffany Haddish. Patton Oswalt. Sam Elliott. Maria Bamford. Not everyone can do it. If you’re hiring Jeremy Renner, you may as well hire Joe Blow, who’s a heck of a lot cheaper. Well, he’s somewhat cheaper. I can’t imagine Renner commands all that impressive of a salary. You might hire a well-known actor with a boring voice because you need a big name up on the marquis. Again, Renner isn’t exactly fitting the bill. If anyone, ANYONE, goes to the theatre especially for Renner, it’s not a kid who likes mediocre animated dog movies. But the people who made Arctic Dogs don’t cast movies based on “good reasons” or “talent” because Heidi Klum is also voicing a fox named Jade. I suppose it makes as much sense for an arctic fox to have a German accent as an American one, but nobody in the whole history of the world has accused Klum of having a face for radio. Or a voice. She has other assets, and they’re better appreciated in still photographs, or, I imagine, live in person, preferably rolling around on a white sand beach but let’s not be greedy.
Anyway, back to our pal Swifty who wants to be noticed and isn’t. He works in the arctic mail room, sorting packages but he dreams of being on the front lines where the Top Dogs, a team of husky couriers so well-known and respected they’re practically celebrities, are the ones making the deliveries. One day Swifty decides to make his big move, and he highjacks a sled to deliver a package to a secret location, perhaps persuading his curmudgeonly boss Magda (Anjelica Huston) that he’s up for the job.
Anyway, Renner turns out to be the perfect guy for the job because the movie turns out to be just as bland as the man. Had they hired, say, Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Hemsworth, we might have expected something good. Best to temper our expectations with a second (or third) tier celebrity and call it a day. The story and animation are just good enough to satisfy most little ones, but it has little else to recommend it and won’t be memorable for anyone. Is that a plus? Your kid won’t get obsessed with this movie and demand you rewatch it 14 dozen times: GUARANTEED.
Although we’ve very much enjoyed the cruises we’ve taken (once, in the Caribbean, around the Bahamas, the other one around the Hawaiian islands), we were happy last night to be celebrating at a resort on land because when we got back to our room, Sean chose Poseidon for its New Year’s Eve setting but this movie might have made us think twice before getting on a boat.
The unsuspecting guests on that boat had just rung in the new year, with Fergie leading them in a countdown to midnight (the Shakira of the sea, we renamed her, since Shakira had played at our sister resort). But then a rogue wave hits, flipping the boat upside down. Of the 5000 or so passengers who must have been on board, most die instantly (and not on film). Mostly just the hundred or so survivors of the ballroom are given any airtime: Fergie of course, and the ship’s captain, Capt. Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher, again!), a degenerate gambler named Lucky Larry (Kevin Dillon, also again!), a suicidal man named Richard (Richard Dreyfuss), Robert, the former mayor of New York (Kurt Russell) and his daughter Jennifer (Emmy Rossum), newly and secretly engaged to Christian (Mike Vogel), a mother and young son, a stowaway, and of course the fearless leader Dylan (Josh Lucas), whose dimples will surely keep them afloat for hours. The ship’s captain is trying to keep everyone calm and contained within the airtight ballroom until help can arrive, but squirrely Dylan is not content to stay put. He leads a small handful of the survivors “up” (which in this case means travelling down into the ship’s bowels since it’s currently bobbing upside down in the ocean). They’re battling flash fires, rising waters, and of course gravity to get out in time.
Like most movies of its ilk, Poseidon (this is the 2006 remake of a 1972 classic) is big on the epic disaster set pieces and meager on story and character. It’s not going to make any logical sense, so leave that in life raft for later. You’re not going to know or really care about the people either. Remove your humanity, wrap it in a personal flotation device, and move on. The movie delivers a bloated sense of claustrophobia and a bad case of Murphy’s law, which impressively follows them right down to the bottom of the ocean. The camera dwells on the dead bodies as we swim by them so if you’re hoping for some campy fun, think again. There are corpses everywhere, and not all of them float. Not unlike this movie, which sinks under its own self-importance.
Social worker Bernie (Don Cheadle) has placed sibling orhpans, 11 year old Bruce (Jake T. Austin) and 16 year old Andi (Emma Roberts) in more foster homes than he can count. Current foster mom Lois (Lisa Kudrow) and foster dad Carl (Kevin Dillon) are more interested in becoming rockstars than nurturing children, and they’re really only providing the basic, state-mandated necessities. They’re definitely not providing for Bruce and Andi’s dog Friday (Cosmo the dog) so the kids are forced to hide him. Poor Friday is little more than a street dog these days, and the kids are considering giving him to a home who can take better care of him, though they’re loathe to give up a furry friend their parents adopted as a puppy just before they died.
Good thing they stumble upon an abandoned old hotel AND 11 year old Bruce just happens to be something of an…engineering savant? Pretty soon they’ve not just got cozy digs for Friday but they’re providing sanctuary for all the homeless mutts in the vicinity. Which sounds like a nice thing except you know how those insatiable dog catchers are: relentless. The dog pound is strangely empty but they’re not going to let sleeping dogs lie, even when there’s 3 cute pups sleeping together like a French Bulldog sandwich.
Okay so it’s a ridiculous premise, all right? But full of cute dogs. Plus it’s no more ridiculous than the hotel we’re staying in, which does in fact have dogs – two Mexican hairless dogs named Luna and Pek who, between them, manage an awfully good impression of Diego, the dog from Coco, also a Xoloitzcuintli. But they’ve also got donkeys called Lupillo and Pepito, ducks, rabbits, goats, and 2 pigs that were rescued from a live nativity scene. Now if you can tell me what the hell pigs were doing at the birth of jesus christ, I will mail you ten dollars. Not even pesos. Dollars!
Is this the strangest take on an upstairs/downstairs movie? It’s gotta be up there.
Upstairs, Dr. Houseman (Jerry Orbach) has just arrived at an upscale resort in the Catskills where he and his lovely wife (Kelly Bishop!) and their two daughters are going to spend a pleasant 3 weeks doing the family foxtrot after a white napkin dinner.
Downstairs, the resort’s staff unwind after a long day catering to fussy tourists by dirty dancing. And I’m not sure which is stranger: that everyone in the room has simultaneously agreed to whatever dance moves necessary to achieve orgasm through pants, or that in such a large group of people there isn’t a single wallflower among them, not even a girl who’s a little luke-warm on her boyfriend tonight. Nope, they’re all hot and heavy, all of the time, and they don’t care who sees. Well they do care, sort of. There’s one rule: no resort guests allowed. Which is a rule immediately broken when the Houseman daughter referred to as ‘Baby’ (Jennifer Grey) simply carries a watermelon right through the doors and practically onto the gyrating lap of lead dancer Johnnny (Patrick Swayze). And then the rule is broken repeatedly and flagrantly throughout the film, so the one and only hard and fast rule is neither hard nor fast though pretty much everyone in the film is both hard and fast. And sweaty. I don’t know why they didn’t call it Sweaty Dancing. Not the same ring? Patrick Swayze in particular puts the ‘work’ in ‘working it’.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ve already seen the movie. If you haven’t, you simply MUST leave a comment saying so because I need to know who you are and what the heck. Baby is a ‘good’ girl who gets involved with some ‘bad’ people and we all learn a valuable lesson about judging a book by its cover.
Oh. And Patrick Swayze is often without a shirt but never without his heels.
And there’s a botched abortion! So: something for everyone.
This is really just an excuse for me to tell you about a show on Netflix called The Movies That Made Us; season one covers classics like Ghostbusters, Home Alone, Die Hard, and, because for a minute there it seemed like they were pandering to Sean a little heavily, Dirty Dancing. They’re really cool episodes that talk about how movies got made. You’ll learn: which costars didn’t get along, who almost got cast rather than Grey & Swayze, what the woman who wrote the famous line “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” really thinks of it, and why Grey’s nipples were so, um, extroverted during that one scene in the lake. Check it out!
If you were looking for a review of Passengers (2016) about a dick named Chris Pratt who pulls the grossest act of total bullshit and gets away with it, click here. Otherwise, Passengers (2008):
Captain Raymond Holt, who of course only plays Capt. Holt on Brooklyn 99 (Andre Braugher), calls in a highly educated but personally rutted psychologist, Dr. Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway) to support a small handful of passengers who have just survived a plane crash. She holds group sessions for grief counseling and quickly finds that the 5 passengers disagree on what happened. Some remember a flash or an explosion that the airline aggressively disavows.
Despite several degrees that should tell her otherwise, Claire becomes personally involved, not only in untangling the mystery, but romantically with the most secretive of the passengers, Eric (Patrick Wilson). Eric’s reaction is strange in a different way. He’s almost elated, feels better than ever. But this little group of survivors has all kinds of inconsistencies to it, and Dr. Summers is practically tripping over herself to break all the ethical and professional boundaries that exist for a reason. Of course, when the members of her group begin disappearing one by one, it seems not even professional boundaries would keep them safe.
Passengers feels like someone conceived of a “twist ending” and then reverse-engineered the movie around it. It spends almost no time justifying or earning its end; instead it builds smoke screens around it, protecting an ending that then comes out of the blue because no one was clever enough to drop those juicy little hints that make your mind tingle and a surprise ending feel oh so tantalizing. An unearned ending feels more like a relief than a delight or a shock. It creates frustration instead of alleviating it. Because that’s the thing about thrillers: they’re supposed to build on themselves, creating suspense while leaving behind a subtle trail of clues. The mystery is an itch and it’s a flood of relief when finally everything comes together to scratch it.
Passengers is a bit of a mess in terms of logic and plot. The story is emotionally manipulative. Anne Hathaway is a bland leading lady. Are those things that might bother you? Or are you the kind of person for whom everything about the movie is incidental to the mere watching of it. In which case, Passengers is definitely a movie you can watch on Netflix. It begins, it plays for a while, and it ends. Thankfully.
We meet Rose-Lynn (Jessie Buckley) the day she’s released from prison and she doesn’t exactly strike us as the picture of reformation. She’s greedy, selfish, a bad mother, a bad daughter, a terrible employee, and doesn’t have an ounce, not one ounce of contrition or personal responsibility for the crime she was put away for. Rose-Lynn cares for only one thing: an escape to Nashville, where she’ll be able to pursue her dream of country singing. But Rose-Lynn lives in Scotland, born in the wrong corner of the world, she thinks. Who ever heard of a country singer from Glasgow?
Rose-Lynn is an anti-hero of sorts, hard to like, harder to root for. But you cannot deny her talent. Not even you don’t like country music – stripped down, “three chords and the truth,” raw and unfiltered, Rose-Lynn is a Voice and Jessie Buckley a real revelation.
Julie Walters really props her up as a long-suffering mother and grandmother tired and weary of her daughter’s constant excuses. Sophie Okonedo is luminous as a supportive employer turned friend and booster, playing 50 and looking not a day over 28. Even the kid actors manage not to fuck up the good vibes going on in the film. But the truth is, this is very much Buckley’s movie to make or break, and she proves that she isn’t just a great singer but a talented actress. Her expressions are as good as entire country songs written onto them, just unguarded heartbreak.
The script is very good, taking a circuitous route to where it’s going but enjoying the journey there, and making sure we do as well. The structure is as admirable as almost anything else, everything falling into place as if this was the only way it ever could. A bit of genius, really, in a movie that already contained genius of another sort.
I wasn’t always sure I was going to like this movie, and then I fell violently in love with it.
Writer-director Greta Gerwig has a clear feminist point of view when retelling the classic tale Little Women. She doesn’t deviate much from the novel penned by Louisa May Alcott (two novels in fact – more on that later) and doesn’t need to. Alcott was surprisingly modern unconventional for her time (1832-1888), writing about domesticity and women’s work but making it clear that they all had minds and passions and ambitions of their own, even if society was set up to constrain their use.
The novels are largely classified as autobiographical or semi-autobiographical fiction, with Jo March standing in for Alcott herself as she pulls stories from her own life to illustrate herself and her sisters transitioning from childhood to womanhood. The first novel was such a success that Alcott quickly wrote a follow up which she titled Good Wives, telling more about her characters are their lives as grown women. An avalanche of fan mail had poured in, much of it demanding a happy ending for Jo, happy meaning married of course, so Alcott wove that into her own story, but bucked against the traditional and created a second option for Jo, one she hoped would appease readers (she was, after all, needing to support her family on the earnings from her work) but would still honour the true spirit of the character she and so many others had come to love. But 150 years later, Gerwig restores Alcott’s true intentions, bending the ending just a bit, leaving it not a little ambiguous so that we may choose which of the paths was truly more important to Jo.
As a writer with 3 sisters myself, who often put on plays together in the basement (we had no attic) of our home, you can probably guess why I loved this novel from a young age. It wasn’t its radical (for the time) point of view, it was the wonderful bond of sisterhood so deeply felt within its pages. Even as the sisters fight (sometimes physically, as illustrated in the film), their attachments are secure, their love never wavering. Modern sisterhood is often portrayed as catty and competitive but we too were a home of Little Women with big personalities and are close to this day, as our Snapchat can attest.
Jo (Saoirse Ronan) is the writer, not just of their childhood productions but also evidently of this retelling. Big sister Meg (Emma Watson) is the actress, Amy (Florence Pugh) the dreamer and youngest Beth (Eliza Scanlen) the sweet, shy musician. Marmee (Laura Dern) presides over her family with unending patience and affection even as she spreads the family’s resources thin taking care of others in the community. The next door neighbours are almost as rich as they are irresistible; Mr. Laurence (Chris Cooper) cuts a sad figure from the window of his large but empty house, and young Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) clearly feels stifled as its only other occupant. Both men will get folded into the March family home in their own ways. Mr. Laurence is fond of young Beth, who reminds him of his own departed daughter, while Laurie and Jo get on like a house on fire, often to the exclusion of Amy who feels on so spurned.
The brilliance of Alcott is that even as some of these sisters settled into marriage and domesticity, the work never seems to judge them. Their paths are held in equal esteem to that of Jo’s. Alcott, who remained unmarried herself, was revolutionary in her thinking, in painting love and career in equal measure and equal worth. 151 years later, we still haven’t truly caught up, still trying to balance those wants and needs in a way that feels satisfying and right. Although I loved the spirit of this adaptation, I suppose I thought Gerwig might have a little more to say on the matter. I imagined that she might have stamped just a bit more of herself into the proceedings.
Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh are the stand-outs among the cast; as this is the seventh movie adaptation I suppose by now we know these are the plum roles (Jo having been played by the likes of Katharine Hepburn and Winona Ryder, and Amy by Elizabeth Taylor and Kirsten Dunst). All great directors have their muses and it seems Ronan may be that for Gerwig, playing her leading lady twice now, and likely to secure an Oscar nomination. Pugh has already had a dizzyingly successful 2019, and she certainly makes the most of her scenes in this. As Gerwig must, she trims many of the novel’s excesses, choosing scenes for plot and character development and losing many of the fun and funny anecdotal ones that make the novel feel so lively and warm. But Gerwig’s adaptation is both faithful and wise. It’s only that I admire her unique voice so much that I wish she had respected her source material a little less and allowed her own perspective to shine through a little more. If it is possible to love something while being just the tiniest bit disappointed, then that’s my verdict. Gerwig gives Little Women 100% but I unfairly hoped for 110%. Still, it’s a pleasure to see a female story be so lovingly preserved through the years, in timeless and timely ways.
I was literally up to my elbows in cookie dough, had been for at least 6 hours, and we’d already listened to all my Christmas records. I was craving something funny, but more importantly, something easy to watch – something that wouldn’t suffer from my inattention or oven checks or frosting mishaps. Solution: 2010’s Dinner for Schmucks, a movie I’d seen and enjoyed when first released but not since.
And honestly: why the heck not? It’s actually FUNNY. I mean funny. But also wacky, an offbeat kind of film where Paul Rudd plays chronic good guy Tim who’s up for a big promotion at work but will lose it unless he plays along with a weird office tradition wherein the high ups try to impress their boss by bringing the biggest idiot the can find to a dinner party where the idiots will be secretly judged and one of them awarded the top prize (which, if you’ve been paying attention, is not compliment).
Tim is not normally the kind of guy to condone such disrespectful shit but he’s real desperate for the promotion. And the universe basically drops an idiot right into his lap. Barry (Steve Carell) is a weirdo who misinterprets almost all that life has to offer and he spends all of his free time searching for dead mice to taxidermy and pose in intricate dioramas inspired by his fantasy life. It would be hard to out-schmuck this guy. Tim’s got it in the bag.
His girlfriend, meanwhile, is losing all respect for him. But while his relationship circles the toilet, we the audience are beyond entertained by their antics – heightened by memorable turns from Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement. There’s layers of insanity in every single corner of this movie, and that’s before we even get to the dinner, which is peopled by extravagantly bizarre characters by the likes of Chris O’Dowd and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer.
This was a delight to revisit. A sheer, full-figured delight.
The people (birds) of Bird Island have been deeply engaged in an epic prank war with the people (pigs) of neighbouring Pig Island. But then an actual serious threat arrives from a third island, which has the pigs’ King Leonard (Bill Hader) calling for a truce so the two frenemy nations can discuss. Red (Jason Sudeikis), however, isn’t into truces. He’s the bird who gained popularity last movie when he saved the birds’ eggs from the evil green piggies. He’s afraid that a truce would make him irrelevant, and worse, unpopular.
But the threat is real, y’all. Purple-feathered tyrant Zeta (Leslie Jones) from Eagle Island is tired of living on the cold island. Birds and pigs are going to have to band together to overcome the threat together. Only problem: both Red and Leonard are reluctant to give up alpha status. Red is terrified if no longer being needed. But things are a little more complicated than the bill we’re being sold.
The movie hits all the cute notes the first one was known for: bright characters, great voices, zany antics. Plus pigs and flightless birds breaking out into dance almost constantly to crazy catchy pop songs. That’s literally all an animated film needs to be popular with kids. Angry Birds knows it. It’s undemanding, at times even unthinking, but it harnesses a charming chaotic energy that moves along so agreeably and so quickly you’ll hardly have time to think, let alone be bored. Fire! Ice! Lava injectors! Smells like bacon! Urinal hijinks and pigs in spandex: it doesn’t make a lot of sense but you wouldn’t be watching the sequel of a movie based on an app if you cared about logic in plot.
The voice talent is wonderful though it’s growing so exponentially it’s hard to give everyone their due. The animation seems to have leveled up since its last foray, if you bother to look past the garish colours and frenetic action. The sight gags are almost as frequent as the pop songs which means brainless or not, this movie is light-hearted fun.
And on a personal note, I get that Zeta is supposed to be the villain here, but as a Canadian living in my own wintry wasteland, I get you, girl. You just want to get some sun on your buns. But we could have avoided all this violence and mayhem if you did as Canadians do and buy a ticket to Mexico. Did I mention we’re going to Mexico next week? Feliz navidad, bitches.
I knew Cats was bad. It was unanimous and what on this big blue planet is ever unanimous? People love or they hate Rise of Skywalker. They love or they hate The Witcher. They love or they hate Henry Cavill. They love or they hate Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich. But Cats has united us, just in time for the holidays: everybody hates Cats.
I’ve never seen Cats the musical because in my house growing up, cats (little c) were verboten. My mother was viciously attacked by one as a child and held a deep-seated fear. Although I’m not afraid of them, I’m extremely cautious and skeptical of them. Being very firmly a dog person, I’ve never seen the appeal of a cat: they’re not friendly or loving. It’s not just that they don’t return your affections, they spurn them. Sean, however, grew up in a cat house. And a Cats house as his entire family took in the show when he was a boy, although I dare say they missed the point as they named one of their cats Macavity even though he’s the villain (and all this time I thought they were being clever because Sean’s dad was a dentist. nope) and another Mistoffelees even though their cat was female whereas the Cats cat goes by Mister.
Anyway, we both knew Cats was going to be bad but I thought it might be funny-bad or entertainingly bad or even meme-able bad. Instead I just prayed for a sudden and nasty plague of feline AIDS and tried not to audibly gasp when the movie was once again not over but churning into yet another song about the exact same thing.
The movie (and very likely the show, but I haven’t seen it) is about a “group” of cats called the Jellicles. I don’t know why they’re a group or why they needed to name their group. Are they a gang? A mafia family? Do they commit hate crimes together?
One night a year they all get together to participate in a Suicide Pageant. They each sing a song, and judge Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) decides which one will die. Naturally I assumed Old Deuteronomy was the villain of the film, but not so. Apparently it’s a real honour to be chosen for cat-on-cat euthanasia; all the cats talk about ascending over to the Heaviside Layer like it’s the greatest thing. Which I suppose confirms what I’ve always believed about cats: they’re a miserable bunch, angry at life itself, waiting impatiently for it all to end. Which also describes a Cats audience.
Victoria, the lead cat, newly abandoned and adopted by the Jellicles, undergoes some pretty ambitious white-washing considering its actors are covered in fur. Francesca Hayward, the ballerina who plays her, is Kenyan-born and black, but you wouldn’t know it or even guess it to look at her cat. Although I suppose that’s a fairly minor insult compared to how dirty they did Jennifer Hudson, who plays Grizabella. Grizabella is a down-on-her-luck cat roundly rejected by the asshole Jellicles and by Cats director Tom Hooper who knows she’s a star but decides to bury her in a mound of garbage. Grizabella looks inexplicably terrible, which is particularly sad because when Hudson sings that one Cats song everyone knows (Memory, and damn right she sings it twice), it’s the only time the audience willingly faces the screen. But Hudson is so moved by the lyrics, she’s constantly got lines of snot running from her nose to her mouth, glistening in the movie lights, making sure we gag to the fullest extent of the law. Considering how much money was spent to digitally alter away any trace of male “bulge” you’d think a CGI swipe or two under her nose would have been wise, but no.
Cats is 7 hours long, so maybe think about bringing some knitting or a crossword or a roast beef with you to the theatre. Technically the run time is just under two hours and that’s all that will have passed outside the theatre. But inside it’s a marathon shit show. As I said before, the Cats story takes place over one fateful evening, a time conceit which usually gives a film a nice sense of urgency but in this case it feels like the movie never goes anywhere. We just stand in one spot singing about the same thing over and over until somebody dies. Literally! And there’s a slideshow of celebrity cameos – Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Ian McKellan – who show up for a song and then disappear again into the night, perhaps to form their own real-life career suicide club for having appeared in 2019’s biggest flop.
And Cats had that distinction before it was even in theatres; even the trailer creeped people out. The cats are weird human-cat hybrid. Human faces and human hands poke out of fur and CGI ears and tails twitch as though they have a life of their own. Everything in the movie is scaled up so the cats appear…well, not quite cat-sized but definitely weird. Everything about this movie is off, never mind the fact that they walk on two feet, except when they don’t. And they’re all naked and barefoot except when they’re not. A couple of them wear sneakers, one wears pants, another a sparkly jacket. Rebel Wilson’s Jennyanydots unzips her fur to reveal another fur pelt wearing a jazzy ensemble…that she’s kept hidden under her skin this whole time? Doesn’t that get hot?
Cats’ greatest sin is of course that it’s boring. It’s got one memorable song and a bunch of filler. The numbers are repetitive. The dancing is a big yawn. Cats, making its London debut in 1981, needed some updating. Perhaps the kindest thing would have been to lose the ballet in favour of something a little more modern. Nobody wants a musical overstuffed with songs that drag without moving the plot forward coupled with dance that struggles to connect with anything current or relevant.
People have hated this movie so universally that director Tom Hooper re-edited it furiously, and a new cut, with yet more CGI effects, is being rushed to theatres as we speak. But unless Star Wars is sold out, you won’t be seeing it, right? Because you value your time and money? And because Cats sits in your belly like a hairball you can’t wait to go home and hack up.
p.s. Since the only good thing about the movie is Jennifer Hudson’s 4 minutes, here she is for free on Youtube singing Memory:
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 