Monthly Archives: December 2024

Dec 31 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Conclave (2024)

Who let the Pope out? Who, who, who?

BQB here with a review of this surprise hit.

This movie reminds of many an Aaron Sorkin film that takes you “behind the scenes.” Behind the scenes in the halls of congress. Behind the scenes of a TV show. Behind the scenes of the I Love Lucy show, or here, behind the scenes of the papal election process. Luckily for us viewers, Aaron Sorkin wasn’t involved because like his films, this one is very heavy on the dialogue but unlike in his films, the dialogue is believable and digestible.

The pope has passed and Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of the College of Cardinals (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with the duty of running the conclave, that most secretive of procedures in which cardinals from all over the world gather behind closed doors at the Vatican, are sequestered, cut off from all contact and news from the outside world until they reach a majority vote on who the next Pope will be.

They must choose one of their own ranks and though they are supposed to have lived holy lives, each carries baggage that threatens to undo their candidacy. At least the frontrunners do. They are human, after all.

Frontrunners include members of warring factions – the liberals Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and Tremblay (John Lithgow) fear the Catholic Church will go backward under conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellito). Cardinal Adeyemi of Africa (Lucien Msamati) has enough support to potentially become the first pope of color while dark horse candidate Benitez (Carlos Diehz) has just become known to his brothers under mysterious circumstances. The late pope had granted him leadership of the archdiocese of Kabul, Afghanistan in secret for fear that going public would have led to the demise of Benitez and any Catholics under his watch in a lawless, radical Muslim country.

Tedesco is portrayed as a scene chewing villain though if you’re a conservative, you’ll think he has a point or two. I know I did, but anyway.

Isabella Rosselini plays Sister Agnes, the head nun at the Vatican. Her ranks are usually seen and not heard though she has important info to share.

Speaking of info, Lawrence is burdened with the task of rooting out corruption and boy, there’s a lot of it. He does this with a heavy heart because a) he’s suffering a crisis of faith b) he sees all of the cardinals as his brothers and does not like politics and muckraking and c) there are ancient rules about what can and can’t be done vis a vis information found that he must navigate through. One by one, each frontrunner is faced with a scandal that threatens their undoing and Lawrence, who would rather not have the job, must sus out the deets of chicanery perpetrated by his colleagues. Even worse, he becomes a frontrunner himself due to his track record of good behavior. That would be good news for any other cardinal but not for Lawrence, because he really doesn’t want the job. He’s not sure if he even wants his current job anymore.

The good? This movie is part mystery and part political intrigue thriller. The frontrunners are set up like so many dominos only to be knocked down. It seems a miracle that any man could be elected to such a holy office, given that the slightest act of human infallibility can lead to a candidate’s undoing.

What could this movie have done better?

A) You don’t always get the answers to some of the mysterious questions posed. The actions of various cardinals are questioned. The cardinals defend themselves and claim the accusations are outrageous. Sometimes you get the definitive smoking gun that shows said cardinal is full of crap. But as often happens in life, sometimes the question is left unanswered. Maybe the cardinal under examination was a scumbag or maybe they are unfairly maligned. The truth doesn’t always get presented with a gift wrapped bow.

B) Ralph Fiennes delivers an Oscar worthy performance, one of many in his long career. But while he portrays a good man who must complete a task that fills him with anxiety but does it with honor, we’re never told the events of his personal life that caused him to have a crisis of faith. We just know that he doesn’t like the politics of the Vatican, would prefer to run an archdiocese somewhere, anywhere else, but the Pope thought he was too good as a “manager” to let him leave the position.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Obviously, there’s no action packed CGI here, but if you’re interested in the intrigue of Vatican City, this movie is for you.

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Dec 28 2024
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Movie Review – A Complete Unknown (2024)

How many readers must a blogger have before he can call himself a blogger?

The answer my friends is…3.5.

BQB here with a review of the Bob Dylan biopic.

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Then again how can there be spoilers when Bob Dylan is 83 years old. And if he really chain smoked as many cigarettes as his counterpart, Timothee Chalamet, did in this movie, he must have made some sort of deal with the devil to live this long.

In some ways, this film resembles most famous musician biopics. A young artist’s dream comes true when he finds fame and fortune. But alas, all the fame and money in the world can’t fill the hole in his soul. Various music industry suits want to exploit him for cash. He loses the only girlfriend who loved him and believed in him before the fame came because he succumbs to the temptation of all the other hotties who want him. Alas, after yearning to be famous for so long, he is now sad because he can’t have five minutes of peace without some fan shouting and pointing at him. Even worse, his fans don’t want him to grow as an artist and try anything new. They just want him to be a trained monkey who keeps spitting out his greatest hits.

In another way, this biopic is different. The title comes from a line in one of Bob’s songs, “Like a Rolling Stone.” (i.e. “how does it feel to be all on your own, a complete unknown?” But Bob is a complete unknown – to the world, to his fans, his friends, his lovers and even to himself.

When he hitches his way to New York City, he takes advantage of his new surroundings to reinvent himself. He never speaks honestly about his past. Instead, he makes up a story of a youth spent working for a circus, claiming that wandering cowboys taught him everything he knows about how to play the guitar. Everyone sees through the BS but his girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning) is exhausted by it. Bob won’t let her in and we spend the entire film wondering if Bob is just a dick who is gaslighting everyone into thinking he is a mystery man, or if he really does feel that way.

We never truly get an answer. Chalamet plays Bob as a walking contradiction. He walks and talks and presents himself as a man mired in depression – rumpled clothes and wild, unkempt hair, always mumbling (Dylan’s signature sound.) Yet he acts like a man with unbridled self-confidence, such that he has zero doubt his talent will land him at the top of the game.

Dylan provides the soundtrack of the 1960s. His song, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” couldn’t describe that time period any better. That era was a time of great change, of social justice protests and civil rights struggles, of moving away from comfort zones and challenging the status quo. Vietnam, political assassinations, clashes over civil rights marked the decade and Dylan’s songs captured it all with tones that somehow were equally depressing and uplifting.

Monica Barbaro plays folk singer Joan Baez, who rounds out the love triangle while Scoot McNairy and Ed Norton play Bob’s idols and mentors, popular folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, respectively. Personally, I wonder if this movie wasn’t made largely because Chalamet’s agent was like, “Hey Hollywood, if we slap a mop top wig and sunglasses on this little shit and make him mumble, it’ll make a great Bob Dylan flick,” but what do I know? For all I know this biopic could have been in the works a long time.

But while a lot of it follows the standard biopic formula, Ed Norton, IMO, deserves some Oscar recognition here. Ed tends to just play himself in a lot of movies (as most actors do) but he really turns into someone else when he takes on Seeger’s “Aw shucks” personality, mentoring his young protege and eventually coming at odds with him over differing views as to the direction in which folk music should go. Who is Pete Seeger, you younguns ask? Ever hear of a little song that goes, “This land is my land, this land is your land?” He made it into his 90s and Baez is still kicking at 83 so there must be something about folk music that gets all the gunk out of your soul so you can reach full longevity.

Folk music is all about acoustics and story-telling and at a crossroads where rock and roll is taking over, Dylan breathes new life into the artform by taking risks – to the delight of mainstream music listeners but to the chagrin of folk purists. You didn’t know there’s such a thing as folk purists? You do now.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. If you like Dylan’s music, you’ll love this soundtrack. If you are into 1960’s culture, it does capture the spirit of that turbulent decade. My only criticism is we never learn why Bob Dylan was such an enigma, what was he running from that he felt he had to shut down any talk of who he is and where he came from and adopt a mysterious persona? But I assume the movie doesn’t answer this question because the answer is unknown even to Bob Dylan.

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Dec 22 2024
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Movie Review – Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim (2024)

What up, 3.5 hobbits? BQB here with a review of the latest LOTR joint.

This anime tells a tale set in LOTR world 183 years before Bilbo Baggins’ famous journey. While there are many fantasy races in Middle Earth, this film focuses on a war between humans – specifically, the Rohirrim or horse-lords, those residents of Rohan known for their skills in cavalry.

When a fist fight goes awry, it’s all-out war between the clans of young and vengeful Wulf and bad ass old King Helm Hammerhand. Brian Cox lends the only recognizable voice to the flick, though the other talent are top notch. While Helm and his sons and nephew fight bravely, Hera’s willingness to fight goes largely unrequited. But ultimately, through a series of events that I won’t explain as to avoid SPOILERS, Hera ends up being the Head Girlboss in Charge when her clan is trapped in a long abandoned, secluded stronghold as enemy forces lay siege.

The good? Stunning visuals. Great soundtrack. Relatively low budget of $30 million that has already seen a return of $12 million in the first weekend. Back in the day, when George Lucas made his three Star Wars prequels, he continued the fun for the franchise’s number one fans, children, with a series of Clone War cartoons. Fun animation was cheaper than live action, meant the characters could do more and weren’t limited by the bounds of live action and the plots could be simpler.

Personally, I think everyone involved in LOTR should have taken a page out of Lucas’ playbook way earlier and I wonder if they are now. Amazon has spent over a billion dollars on a live action LOTR prequel series that most fans universally agree has all the charm of a refried pile of moldy dog poop. Meanwhile, this animated film is solid, will likely earn a good return on its investment and is something everyone can enjoy.

While I’ve never been a fan of anime (this style where everyone is drawn with huge eyes and moves that open enormously wide has always been silly to me), this film does tone dawn some of anime’s worse tendencies (i.e. there’s no one with wide open pie holes as I just described) the visuals were great and look better on the big screen. Hollywood has gone all in on 3D animation, but this movie reminds us that 2D can still look great, that advancements in film make it look even better and creatives should explore it more.

The bad? The plot is pretty simple though I don’t necessarily mind that. So many films unnecessarily complicate things to the point where I feel like I have to break out a flowchart and a slide rule to figure out where it is all going. Here, you can easily guess the direction it is taking, though there are occasional surprises.

Also, though the fans who live and breathe this stuff might disagree, IMO as a casual observer, there’s not much connection to the LOTR franchise. There are occasional red meat references but by and large, this could have just been called “The Random Fantasy World War Movie” and still made sense but not as much money.

Overall, I think cartoons would be a great direction for LOTR to go in and maybe even Star Wars should consider it again. And 2D should be given more consideration. While 3D, when it is done well and a lot of money is spent on it, looks fabulous (i.e. Moana for example), many cheaply produced 3D shows look like crap so why not just go the 2D route?

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Unpopular opinion: the LOTR early 2000s movies were very overrated and just a product of their time. Peter Jackson was a CGI master and brought audiences sights they had never seen before but ultimately those films have never been something I wanted to go back and watch again and again. I’ll doubt I’ll ever want to rewatch this film again, but I did enjoy seeing it the first time as I did the original LOTR films back in the day.

SIDENOTE: Yes, horror of horrors, it is a girlboss movie in a time when the largely male fan base of action and fantasy movies are male nerds. If you boil the movie down enough, its mostly about testosterone crazed brutes who won’t stop fighting over who a woman is going to marry and had they bothered to ask her, all the fighting would not have been necessary. (You know, that old fantasy world trope.)

While there are a few eye-rolling scenes where Hera bests a foe twice her size, overall she’s more believable since she walks through proverbial fire to learn her girlbossing skills as opposed to most girlboss movies where the girlboss is just born a girlboss because girls are bosses. And to the film’s credit, it takes a realistic approach to fantasy world dark age era thinking – i.e. all the dudes scoff at the idea of a girlboss whereas Netflix would just have a girl bossing all the dudes around in ancient times and no one ever questioning it.

Still, I have to remind Hollywood, if you want young men to grow up to be strong, chivalrous and protective of good values, you’ve got to give them a young male hero they can look up to and you haven’t done that in a long time.

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Dec 17 2024
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Movie Review – Red One (2024)

Red One? More like Poop Two. Am I right?

Sigh. Let’s get the review of this stinkburger with extra turd fries over with.

“Of all the movies I’ve ever seen, this was certainly one.” I can’t take credit for that line because I read it on Twitter and the name of the quoted escapes me and I’m too lazy to look it up, just like the writers of this flick were too lazy to write a good movie.

When the trailer hit, I was looking forward to it. It looked like a fun spoof on the spy movie genre with a Christmas theme. Alas, when my butt hit the seat of my local theater, I immediately realized the problem, namely, that this movie took itself WAY, WAY, WAYYYYYYYYY to seriously. Imagine a Jason Bourne type film where spies engage in cloak and dagger espionage to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus but there’s little to no humor and the occasional jokes rarely land.

Yep. I couldn’t wait for the flick to be over. The worst part is, two weeks later its already available on streaming media and that’s where it belongs, because it’s the type of movie best enjoyed while it’s on your TV in the background while you’re cleaning your house, or on a tiny cell phone screen while you’re on the toilet taking a dump, which is what this movie is.

The plot? The Rock stars in the only movie he couldn’t save as Callum Drift, the leader of Santa’s (JK Simmons) security detail. He’s one day from retirement, because he’s lost his passion for the job. The world has become a cesspool of way too many naughty people care only about the material gain of Christmas instead of the spirit of giving. Santa understands Callum’s theory but disagrees with the execution, for he believes in a time when everyone is a self-absorbed jerkface, now is the time when people need Santa more than ever. TBH, this theme is the most redeeming part of an otherwise forgettable movie.

When infamous cyber hacker Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) is hired anonymously to track down highly secured intel, he didn’t realize the result would be the real life Santa would be kidnapped by yuletide baddies. In fact, Jack is shocked to realize Santa even exists, which is the classic plot hole of any movie where Santa exists, because where do people who are shocked to realize Santa exists think all those presents are coming from?

Anyway, Callum is pissed and forces O’Malley into aiding him on Santa’s rescue mission. They work for Zoe (Lucy Liu) the head of a spy agency designed to protect and/or monitor the fantasy world including various holiday mascots. Personally, I wondered if this part of the flick was just useless filler or if the producers hope more holiday spy movies are underway and if it’s the latter, I wouldn’t hold my breathe for a spies rescue the Easter Bunny flick given this film’s performance.

Callum and Jack navigate a Christmasy criminal underworld as they fight various ne’er-do-wells on the path toward saving our favorite man in red velvet. Had they done this with some humor, this movie might have become a beloved classic, but they do it seriously, so it will just take up space on your favorite streaming platform’s server. Maybe you’ll stream it next year while your scrub your toilet. Then you can actually sit on the couch and take a break while you watch It’s a Wonderful Life.

Kristofer Hivju of Game of Thrones fame is in it as Krampus though by the time he showed up I was checking my watch and debating whether or not it was worth it to leave early. Ultimately, I stayed because I’d already bought a ticket, but I suppose there’s room for debate about the sunken cost fallacy.

Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men and Sabrina the Teenage Witch Reboot fame rounds out the cast as the big bad.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I watched it so you don’t have to. Who is this movie for? Your guess is good as mine. It’s too serious for kids to enjoy but too silly for adults so ultimately it’s for people to listen to while its on their TV in the background while they do the laundry.

SIDENOTE: The worst part? The film’s price tag. $250 million for a film that is utterly forgettable.

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Dec 16 2024
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Movie Review – Wicked (2024)

This post is defying gravity! La la la, defying gravity!

Let’s delve into the magic, shall we, 3.5 readers?

Well, it’s official. Wicked is a hit. So much so that it took me 3 weeks to get a ticket to see it at my local theater or any theater within reasonable driving distance. I only got a ticket this weekend because I thought ahead and bought it last week. In a time when theaters are at risk of going the way of the dodo, it’s great to see a film that puts butts in seats.

It’s primary fanbase? Females and families. Moms and daughters were singing along to the tunes that have become modern classics and producers would do well to take notes about what motivates the public to buy a ticket vs. waiting to stream at home.

Power, power and power. How do we get it? How do we hold onto it? You wouldn’t expect to learn so much about the nature of power in a movie based on a Broadway play based on a novel that serves as a prequel to one of the most beloved children’s stories of all the time – The Wizard of Oz, be it the original 1800s novel by L. Frank Baum or the beloved 1939 film starring Judy Garland.

Alas, as it turns out, the politics behind the land located somewhere over the rainbow are intense. The Wicked Witch of the West, the green skinned OG baddie of film whose black leather boots other movie villains aren’t worthy to lick, was just a scapegoat all along.

The story follows Elphaba (Cynthia Errivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande) in their early years at Shiz University, the place where Ozians go to learn all things magic under the tutelage of headmistress, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh.)

Elphaba has spent her entire life despised by all, from her classmates to her family, over the color of her green skin. It’s no different at Shiz, as she quickly descends to the lowest of social ranks while pretty and perky Galinda rises to the top. They become roommates and eventually, BFFS, until fantasy land politics drive them apart.

Literal scapegoating is at play as society starts pinning all the blame for the land of Oz’s ills at the feet or uh, paws and hooves, of talking animals. Humans want animals to stop talking and just bleat, bark, moo and cluck. Elphaba feels for them, in particular, goat professor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) whereas Galinda, a pro at being popular as the song goes, just wants to rise through the ranks and obtain power, fame and yes, love from the masses and she can’t do that by going against the grain.

And so, a power struggle begins worthy of a political science classroom discussion. When any conflict arises, you can be an Elphaba and take the morally right but politically unpopular stance and become hated and despised by society. You can be one of the blind followers like so many residents of Oz who tow the line and do and believe as they are told without further introspection. Or you can be a Galinda, who knows the status quo is wrong but really, what can you do about it, so why rock the boat when you can just be pretty and smile and go along with the flow and collect all the benefits of being a goody two-shoes?

I suppose you as a member of the Oz fandom can pick and choose what you believe, which ironically, happens a lot to many of the characters in this tale. Truth is a matter of perspective, a lesson apparently known in the 1990s when the book that started it all (the long running Broadway play and now the movie) was written, and it certainly has never been more true in today’s social media age. But at any rate, if you want to believe the Wicked Witch of the West was indeed little more than a nasty, vile beatch on wheels who lived to oppress the Ozians with her villainous ways, then you can. But if you want to accept that Wicked is cannon and believe that said witch was just a victim of social injustice who was unfairly lambasted for taking a heroic stand on talking animal rights, you can too.

Cynthia Errivo really can belt out a tune and she’s beautiful, so honestly, I don’t get the marketing where she’s showing up to interviews bald with a big ass nose ring, but I suppose she likes that look and in the spirit of the film, we shouldn’t scapegoat her for it although I could write an entire separate post complaining about the weird trend of women putting rings in their schnozes.

Ariana Grande has long wowed young audiences as a pop star sensation but this is her first starring role and she nails it. This was the role she (and other past Galindas) was born for – perky, charming, popular and only inadvertently evil.

And of course it wouldn’t be a movie with an eccentric dude in charge of everything with weird ways without Jeff Goldblum.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. This movie was only part 1 and alas we’ll be waiting awhile for part 2. There’s a reason this story formed the basis for one of the longest running and beloved Broadway shows of all time. It has a lot of heart and if you’ve ever been unfairly picked on then you’ll identify with Elphaba’s struggle. Wicked puts butts in seats, whether those butts are on Broadway or in a theater near you, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

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