Tag Archives: O’Shea Jackson Jr.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Do you remember there was a Godzilla movie released in 2014? Neither did I, but maybe that’s because we saw it at the drive-in. Apparently Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a sequel to the 2014 film, and apparently in 2014 Godzilla stomped through San Francisco at some point. Well, during the mayhem, Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler’s movie son died, and it really put a strain on their marriage. So they split up, and now their movie daughter Millie Bobby Brown lives with Vera in a Chinese rainforest, researching classic movie monster Mothra. Things go sideways, though, when ecoterrorist Charles Dance kills everyone else at the research lab and takes Vera and Millie hostage along with Vera’s monster-controlling sound machine, in order to wake up lots of other monsters and let them run wild.

Obviously, the plot is really dumb. And the characters have some of the dumbest dialogue of the year. Mostly espository nonsense in between assorted lame quips (and very occasionally a good quip from O’Shea Jackson Jr., probably ad-libbed). Just terrible writing. So much terrible, terrible writing. But who cares, really? Godzilla should be about the monsters, and the monsters come to play.

Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and Ghidorah feature prominently, with King Kong and a bunch of other monsters making cameos (I don’t know who the other ones are but I bet someone does!). Monsters fight in Antarctica, monsters fight in Mexico, monsters fight in Boston, and I think they fought in one or two other places as well, but who can keep track? The important thing is, when the monsters fight, the movie works. And they fight enough that all the stupid writing can just be ignored, because you know another fight will come before too long.

Maybe next time they can fill the inter-fight lulls with halfway decent writing, plotting and character development. But if I have to choose between good human-vs-human scenes and good monster-vs-monster ones, I’m picking monster fights every time. After all, the monster fights are why I went to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters in the first place!

Long Shot

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On my more cynical days, I sometimes feel the only reason we have cinema is so that unattractive men can kiss beautiful women who would otherwise be unattainable to them. No shade against Seth Rogen, but let’s face it: the man is a schlub. An endearing, lovable schlub, sure. But Rose Byrne? Michelle Williams? Elizabeth Banks? Let’s call it a stretch of the imagination, one that Hollywood asks us to take a little too often. In this particular movie, it’s Charlize Theron, while Seth’s character, in a ubiquitous teal windbreaker, is actually mistaken for a homeless man.

Charlotte Field (Theron) is not just a beautiful, out-of-his-league woman, she’s the goddamn Secretary of State. Fred Flarsky (Rogen) is not exactly a slouch: he’s a journalist MV5BZWVhODA5ZmItOWYwOC00OTU3LWJiNTEtODcwMDIyMTBjZWY3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc5OTMwOTQ@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1291,1000_AL_ who goes the extra mile to get a juicy story, BUT he just got fired. Well, okay, he quit on principle, but the net effect is, he’s unemployed. Which kinda works out perfectly because the Secretary of State is about to announce her run for President, and she just needs someone with a comedic touch to punch up her scripts a bit. Enter Fred, who in fact has crossed paths with her before. She was the babysitter he had prepubescent chub for, and maybe he’s been carrying just the tiniest lit torch ever since.

Anyway, Fred is the last man on earth Charlotte should be falling for just as she’s about bet her life on the polls. And yet, hormones. Theron and Rogen have some major oddball chemistry going. It turns out Theron can hold her own in pretty much any movie. But this one is more interested in pointing fingers at the ridiculousness of their pairing than exploring who either of them are as people, or explaining how exactly Fred is worthy of Charlotte (or indeed the other way around – their romance is largely inexplicable).

It works adequately as a superficial, no questions asked rom-com, and moderately better as a political comedy. There’s a familiar cynicism there, but it’s nowhere near as biting or incisive as Veep. Still, I laughed. And Sean snorted. That counts for something in an era where the comedy genre should probably be renamed “attempt at comedy.” It’s kind of a crap shoot, but Long Shot turns out to be a pretty good bet.

Ingrid Goes West

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The first question you’ll ask yourself is: Is “West” a euphemism for the psych ward? It is not, but it is Ingrid’s first stop. Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) is social media-obsessed. She has no friends except the strangers she stalks on Instagram who becomes her besties in her mind. They’re a little less thrilled when she repeatedly interrupts their lives with her stupified, selfie-riddled presence, and eventually they haul her off for a medicated time-out.

Ingrid is hard to like. She doesn’t quite live in reality, and because we haven’t yet classified social media overconsumption as a mental illness, we feel she brings it on MV5BMTY5MTE3MTM3Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODA5NDE5MDI@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,751_AL_ herself. But the truth is, her mother has recently died and she really doesn’t have anyone else in her life. So there’s maybe a little sympathy there, or there should be. But it also means that her $60K inheritance will fund a trip to L.A. where her latest obsession lives. Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen) is an “Instagram star.” She lives and makes her living online, creating picture-perfect moments for her followers to drool over while being sponsored by trendy businesses to do so. So she’s kind of the perfect match for Ingrid. They both eat this shit up. It’s just that a) Taylor doesn’t know they didn’t simply “bump into each other” and b) Ingrid’s a little unhinged and every damn thing is about to unravel.

Aubrey Plaza is great in this. Elizabeth Olsen is pretty great too, though it seems like not a compliment to say someone was believably vain, superficial, and self-obsessed. And I really loved O’Shea Jackson Jr (from Straight Outta Compton) who plays Ingrid’s landlord and is a much better friend to her than she deserves.

The humour is topical and dark. Plaza’s performance is so disarming it’s hard to know how to come at this film – sometimes it’s quite breezy, and other times the claws come out and someone’s face is about to get scratched the eff up. And she’s not afraid to go full lunatic. She knows it’s an unflattering role and she commits to it like avocado toast to a Millennial’s Instagram account.

Straight Outta Compton

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Finally! It’s hard to say there was a downside to TIFF but it monopolized my movie-watching for its entire 11 days. And since Jay and I were busy before that doing Amazing Races and Oddball Festivals and other summertime stuff, I didn’t get to see Straight Outta Compton until yesterday. Which was making me itch a little because I had heard really good things, and I am happy to report that those good things were accurate. Straight Outta Compton is a very enjoyable history lesson/tribute to some of hip-hop’s founding fathers, most notably Eazy-E.

Having been a 12 year old small-town Canadian kid when N.W.A. broke, they were a little fuzzy to me at the time. But now I’m older and wiser, and since turning 13 I got into mid-90s hip-hop, Ice Cube made a lot of movies, and as my record collection grew I got Straight Outta Compton and The Chronic (and All Eyez on Me), so this movie brought N.W.A. into sharper focus. It’s really staggering to think of how much talent was in this group and how soon it all ended. It’s also staggering to think about how much more to the story there is in the Aftermath, which gets hinted at in the end, and which was a nice touch.

I thought this movie flowed really well and was grounded enough in reality to feel authentic. Again, since I was 12 at the time, I don’t know much about Eazy-E aside that he died from AIDS when AIDS was just becoming real for me because Magic Johnson had it. So it was really neat to see him be the focus of this movie along with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. I expect that DJ Yella and MC Ren had more to do with the group than just being faces in the background but if you are fans of theirs, you will have to wait for their version of this story to get greenlit in order to learn anything about them. Fortunately for me, I am a Dr. Dre fan primarily and Straight Outta Compton paid lots of respect to his genius.

It helped that O’Shea Jackson Jr. looks so much like his father, but a great casting job was done with the other roles as well. Even cameos like Snoop Dogg and Tupac work, especially because the voices are eerily similar. I felt like maybe there was some auto-tune trickery at play but whatever was done, it works to immerse you in this world if you are at all familiar with it. And Suge Knight is well portrayed too, he’s a dead ringer for the real thing and comes off as bad as he should. As Jay said while we were watching it, whoever thought it was a good idea to trust that guy deserved what they got.

If you like hip-hop at all, this is a must see. And even if you don’t, this story is one that may grab you regardless. It’s an enjoyable movie that captures a lot of N.W.A.’s ups and downs, and is more or less accurate as far as I can remember! For that, Straight Outta Compton gets eight police brutality charges out of ten.