The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (a movie review post)

I'm just going to get it out of the way that Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are not some of my favorite movie people, as I talked about in this post. That doesn't mean they're not good at what they're good at, though, and, evidently, what they're good at is writing comedies. [Come on, Disney, what made you think these guys were capable of helming a Star Wars movie? Maybe a Lego Star Wars movie (why aren't you doing that?), but not a franchise film.] All of which is to say that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is almost as good as the first one.
Almost.

There may be some spoilers in here. Okay, I lied. There will be some spoilers in here.
You've been warned.

The first issue with the movie is that it jumps ahead five years. On the surface, this isn't an issue; however, when you look at the movie in the context of the outside world it's set in -- and you have to, because this one breaks that barrier much more heavily than the first -- you have to reconcile the idea that the brother and sister have been having this conflict over Lego and sharing and playing together for the entire five years and the mother is only just now at her breaking point? Do Lord and Miller even have kids? [No, I don't care enough to look that up.] This idea is dumb.

So is the idea that Finn (the boy) has being playing at Apocalypseberg for five years. And maybe he hasn't been, but it's certainly implied.

And, again, do Lord and Miller even have kids? Because when Finn goes to Bianca's room and smashes her Lego construction [Her personal Lego in her room! Because let's get this straight, the Lego that Finn plays with are his dad's! It was his dad's stuff that he was allowed to play with but, evidently, despite the message that Bianca was going to get to share in that endeavor, she's been isolated to only playing with her personal stuff in her own room for the past five years AND NO ONE HAS DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THE FACT THAT FINN IS A DICK!], she is punished right along with Finn. As a parent, I'm appalled by this, the fact that Finn got off Scott-free for smashing her stuff.

The other story issue with the film is the increasing frequency that the Minifigures are able to see into the human world. I believe that happens once in the first movie? During the climax, Emmet sees into the real world briefly and sees the father/son conflict. Something like that. I haven't seen it again since it seeing it in the theater and don't quite remember. However, in this one, any time the story is at a sticking point, there's a glimpse into the real world to push it along. And not just from Emmet, which I find problematic since that was supposed to be his special ability. Now it's just a plot device.

All of that said, when they stick to what's going on in the Lego world, everything works fine. The humor is good, and it's an enjoyable film. Probably, these things that bother me aren't going to bother anyone else. Or even be noticed by most other people.

The voice acting was fine. I suppose Chris Pratt deserves a special shout out for doing two characters and having the non-Emmet character not sound totally like Chris Pratt. Of course, I don't actually know if that was due to voice acting or if it was due to sound engineering. But, if it was him, he did a good job.

And I didn't even realize that Unikitty had an actual voice actor but, then, I wasn't really aware of Alison Brie five years ago. Okay, that's not true, because we watched Mad Men, but she didn't impress me in that. Since then, though, I've been very impressed, and her Unikitty voice skillz are pretty mad.

So, yeah, if you want a fun movie that won't require a lot of thought and will deliver on the laughs, Lego Movie 2 is a good choice.
Damn you, Lord and Miller!

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (a movie review post)

My question as I'm sitting here staring at my screen and thinking about this movie is this:
Are comedians somehow more -- "qualified" is not exactly the word I want to use, maybe "adept"? -- more something, at any rate, than other actors in dramatic and tragic roles? They certainly seem better at disappearing into those roles than other actors. But, then, comedy has tragedy at its heart, so I suppose it makes sense.

What I know for certain is that Melissa McCarthy is great in her role as Lee Israel, a down on her luck author who turns to literary crime to support herself. I bet you didn't know literary crime was a thing, did you? At least not a thing you can make money at, but, then, you can look at some of the best sellers and see that, sometimes at least, crime really does pay. Of course, that's not the kind of crime I'm talking about here. Israel's crime was forging letters from famous, deceased authors and actors and selling them off to collectors.

To its credit, the movie did make me want to read the book it's based on... or, at least, it made me want to want to. Knowing myself, I know that I will never actually read it because I'm not quite curious enough to follow through on that, but, if I had the book right here in front of me, I would give it the chance to suck me in. After all, it is by and about an author and her author journey. Sort of.

Anyway... Melissa McCarthy. She's great. Funny, funny lady. We, my wife and I, love her, though I'm sure my wife loves her more. I'm not sure I would have been interested in seeing this movie without her in it. It's an interesting story, but McCarthy makes it captivating. Obviously, I never met Lee Israel, but it seems from the things I've read about Israel and the things she said about what she did
that McCarthy really captured her spirit. She's worth the movie, which is good since she's the star.

Richard Grant, who plays Israel's sidekick (of a sorts), is also wonderful. Charismatic and charming and, again, tragic. He captures it all. They're a good team. And their relationship is heartbreaking.

It's not my pick for Best Picture, but I do hope it gets nominated. And McCarthy for best actress. She deserves it. And she may be my pick for that category. You should probably see it.

Sisters (a movie review post)

There's something to be said for any movie willing to go up against Star Wars and, whatever that is, it can be said about Sisters. No, I'm not sure what it is, but I know there's something. Actually, they may have said it best with their promo explaining why they kept December 18 (henceforth known as "Star Wars Day") as their release date:


Honestly, the promo is my favorite thing about the movie, which is not to diminish the movie at all, but I think the promo is pretty darn awesome.
Not that it has anything to do with the movie itself.

So, yeah, I'm sure if there was an actual movie category called "stupid comedy" that this would be in it, but, then, so would a lot of very popular and great comedies going all the way back to the 80s. That doesn't make them not funny. And, yes, there are some things that cross the line of believability in Sisters, but that doesn't make it not funny.

And it is funny. Very much funny.
But with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler how could it not be?

There's even a little bit of message about what it is to be family.
But, mostly, it's just funny.
And a little bit painful. The music box knows what I mean.

There's not much else to say about this one.
James Brolin and Dianne Wiest were great as the parents. My kids are still teenagers, but I could totally empathize with them.
John Cena was hilarious.
Ike Barinholtz was good but a little bit distracting because he looks too much like Mark Wahlberg, and my brain kept wanting it to be Wahlberg but it wasn't, which was disconcerting.

Look, I get it. Usually these kinds of movies are full of teenagers doing dumb teenager kinds of things, but that's the point. The point that we don't ever really grow out of wanting to do those things. I guess. I mean, I never did those things, but I had friends who did, so I get it. Basically, you have to find the balance between growing up and staying a kid.

And it's funny!
Just remember to turn off the water.

The Big Short (a movie review post)

I think when you hear about a movie being made about the financial collapse of the housing market, you don't think "funny." That's certainly not what I thought. So I figured this was going to be a serious "doom and gloom" kind of movie, but I wanted to see it because it's about the guys (well, one guy, really) who saw the bubble and knew it was going to pop. You hear about the people who saw it coming, but you don't really hear about them, if you know what I mean. They get brushed off as doomsayers who just happened to be right this time but not because they were right but because they were lucky. After all, no one could have seen the coming of the collapse of the housing market, right?
Right?

Honestly, Steve Carell was enough to make me want to see it, but it's a subject I have interest in. And I like Gosling, too. I'm not a fan of Bale, but I do concede that he's a good, possibly great, actor, so I could get let his presence slide. And, um, I had actually forgotten that Brad Pitt was in it at all. I do like him, so that would have been a plus... if I had remembered.

Then the movie turned out to be a comedy! A dark comedy, granted, but a comedy nonetheless. I suppose I could have known that before going in, but I don't like to know too much about a movie before seeing it and the fact that this is a comedy in no way takes away from the movie or the subject matter. Humor may have been the best vehicle for a movie like this, in fact.

Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, the actual guy who saw the housing bubble and knew it was going to burst. I'm not going to get into all of that or what happened because you can watch the movie or do the research to find that stuff out, and you should because it's interesting and somewhat fascinating. That he saw the bubble was not "luck" or a good guess or anything like that; it was an ability to look at the data and know what it means, something most (nearly all) people are incapable of. So, yeah, of course it sounded ludicrous when he suggested that the housing market was going to collapse. Also, he was trying to make money off of it but not because he was trying to make money off of it. No, I'm not going to try to explain that. Also, Bale was incredible as Burry. Like I said, he's a good, possibly great, actor whether I like him or not.

Brad Pitt was also cast somewhat against character and, since I had forgotten that he was in the movie at all, it was halfway through or something before I even realized it was him. It was one of those "oh!" moments: Oh! That's Brad Pitt! And, well, if someone like Brad Pitt can make me not even recognize him, you have to know that it's a good performance.

Carell was playing more to character, kind of an angry Michael Scott kind of guy, but he was really good and fit the part perfectly. He's actually the guy you end up having the most connection with because he's in this investment business but really hates everything about it. He hates all of the corruption and deceit and greed but, yet, there he is. So, yeah, at first, when he and his group figure out about shorting the housing market (they'll explain that to you in the movie), it's about the money but, as he finds more out about what's going on, for him, it's really about hurting the banks. Carell is actually great in the role and makes you really feel for the character.

Speaking of the movie explaining things, that stuff is awesome. They actually stop the action of the movie to have celebrities explain concepts, like the bit with Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining whatever she was explaining (I don't remember what anyone explained, now, so that has nothing to do with Robbie in the bubble bath). Those bits were pretty brilliant; the one with the chef and, um, whomever was with him was probably the best one.

And, oh, yeah, Gosling is good, too, though he didn't really do anything that you wouldn't expect of Gosling, so hos performance doesn't really stand out to me. It's the kind of thing you'd expect of Ryan Reynolds, but Gosling does a lot of that kind of thing, too.

All in all a really great movie, as good as Spotlight, really, which fills me with conflict, because I want Spotlight for best picture, but The Big Short, though a different kind of film completely, is equally as good. I wouldn't want to have to pick between the two as to which one is actually the "better" movie.

The Problem of Criticism

My oldest son has been in a production this month of the play Stage Door (there was a movie adapted from the play that I was going to link you to, but, after looking at the movie specifics, I'm not doing that, because the plot of the movie is almost unrecognizable when compared to the plot of the play). It's just a small part, because he has the lead in their other production, Look Homeward, Angel, to be performed next year. To put it mildly, things have been busy, lately, our weekends packed with events, not the least of which have been shuttling our kids all over the place.

Before we went to the play, we asked my son about it, trying to figure out the best time to go and how much priority to give the play for his, basically, three minute performance. He completely downplayed it to the point where I kind of thought we should just skip it, because we were going to have to go on a school night, which was going to mean being out way past bedtime for the kids, since the play didn't even start until 7:00, and it was two and a half hours long. See, our son said Stage Door really wasn't very good. It wasn't about anything, and he really didn't like it.

No, he didn't try out for a play he didn't like. He didn't try out for it at all. They asked him to do the part because they were running short of guys, so he acquiesced.

We did try to get more out of him, but, basically, all we got was that it's about a bunch of girls living in a boarding house in New York trying to make it on Broadway. And that is what's about. But that's not a plot, and, as far as my son was concerned, it didn't have one. I have to say, I was ready to skip this one after hearing him talk about it. Oh, and it was being billed as a comedy, and my son couldn't figure out why, because he didn't think it was funny. Oh, there were a few places with laughs, but, you know, not a comedy. Not that he knew what it was.

But my wife wanted to go anyway, and I get that. We do want to support the program he's in even if it's just for three minutes of him on stage.

I'm so glad we went, because, well, he was just completely wrong about that play. It was great! And it was, actually, about something: the struggle to hold onto your dreams in the face of repeated rejection, something you writers out there ought to be familiar with. There were several story lines, but, really, all of them dealt with that same subject. It was good, and it was funny, although it did contain tragedy. Still, definitely a comedy since it has a happy ending.

So how could my son be so wrong about it? What was the problem with his criticism? Well, it's the source: he's a 16-year-old boy that just didn't "get" what the play is about. He had no context for understanding the struggles the young women were going through, so, to him, the play wasn't about anything more than a bunch of girls living in a house together. Later, maybe, once he's been out in the world a bit, he'll be able to understand. But not now.

The whole situation got me to thinking, though, again, about criticism and reviews and all of that stuff and how important it is to remember the source of the criticism (criticism here being used as the objective measure of merits and faults of a work). It reinforces my belief that negative reviews are just as necessary as possible ones, because we should all be looking at the source of any review or criticism. Does the review just bash a work without giving any reasons? Does it unashamedly praise the work without any given reasons? Neither of those things are helpful. Unless the source of the critique tells why s/he liked or didn't like a work, it's fairly unhelpful. Unless you have a feeling of why the source likes or doesn't like particular types of things, it isn't helpful.

All of that to say that the first thing I should have done when my son was telling me how much he doesn't like Stage Door was to consider the source. I know what he likes. He likes nerdy, geek stuff. ThinkGeek is his favorite non-place in the world. If it had been a play about aliens girls in a boarding house, he would have loved it. But it wasn't that, and it dealt with subject matter that he's not equipped to understand, yet, so he didn't like it. What I should have done was seek a better source of information.

That's always the problem with criticism. The source of it. In that respect, there's more of a responsibility on the reader to find what s/he feels is a reliable source. "What does this person like?" "Does this person give reasons for what s/he likes?" Because, you know, if you know what kind of things a reviewer likes, you can decide that you should check something out even based on a bad review.

And here's a good example:
The recent trashing of Guy Fieri's restaurant by the New York Times (and other New York food reviewers) resulted in a packed house for Fieri as people flooded the place to see if the food really could be as bad as the reviewer said. Here's a better response to all of that than I can give, never having eaten there. It's a good example, though, of taking into account the source of the review.

I wish all of you could go see Stage Door, but they ended their run this past weekend, even if you did live close enough to go see it. As the play teaches, hold onto your dreams. And, as I'm saying, remember the source of criticism. Weigh it as much as you would the material being reviewed. Positive or negative.

[Oh, and don't forget to drop by A Beer for the Shower and vote for my party! Thanks so much!]