The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

The last play written by Tennessee Williams is a story about Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard) a rich plantation daughter who finished University in Europe and is back in Tennessee to face an angry population after an heinous act committed by her father to save his property. The story centers around Fisher and Jimmy Dobyne (Chris Evans), the grandson of former governor whom she has her eye on and two parties (her debut and a Halloween party) they attend. Compared to today’s standard, nothing happens much in the movie but what happens is breathtaking. Bryce Dallas Howard embodies the character heart and soul, (the best I’ve seen her) as she transports you back in time to 1923. She’s sassy, she’s vulnerable and mesmerizing. Chris Evans compliments her with his strong, convincing portrayal of a poor drunk’s son with character. Even without any lines, his eyes speak volumes. Wonderful supporting cast played by Ellen Burstyn (Addie), Mamie Gummer (Julie) and even Ann-Margaret (Cornelia). This may not appeal to the discerning younger crowd but two minutes into the movie I was pulled in and completely immersed in the magic that Tennessee Williams created with his words and brought to life by the actors. This truly is a wonderful surprise too good to keep a secret. Theatre junkies will eat this up.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado

The movie starts off with a bang as a terrorist blows himself up after being caught trying to cross the border and continues with similar actions happening inside a mall in the US that prompts the US Government to identify the cause and in this case, the cartels and use all necessary force to contain it and have them turn against each other. Help comes in the form of Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and his number one soldier Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) as they kidnap the drug cartel’s daughter Isabel Reyes (Isabella Moner) that ends up getting more complicated when they are betrayed from both sides of the fence (so to speak) and alliances are questioned. This movie is gritty, violent, engaging and entertaining as more than a few twist are thrown in the story to make it interesting. It’s very realistic and depicts the reality of the drug war and how small the value of life is given by both sides. The pacing is excellent as there are no slow parts complemented by the acting that is completely believable as the film flows like a river from start to finish: it’s choppy, it’s rough and then it gets smoothed out in the end. Highly recommended.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

As a stand alone (solo) movie, it’s a highly entertaining action adventure Sci Fi film with great cinematography and special effects with the spirit of Star Wars present as felt in the various worlds we get to see, the eclectic species that inhabit the movie (including droids), the signature music and the lurking Empire. Alden Ehrenreich (Han Solo) does a solid job of portraying a younger version of Han Solo although it takes awhile to warm up to him because he doesn’t quite capture Harrison Ford’s voice but he somehow makes it work. The storyline is entertaining enough although I had hoped it would have introduced us to Han’s childhood but instead starts off with Han as a young adult as a slave/prisoner working as a thief in Corellia with his love Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke - GOT’s Mother of Dragons) and how they ultimately get separated with Han enlisting in the Empire and teaming up with Beckett’s (Woody Harrelson) motley crew, getting thrown in the pit and meeting Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) and reconnecting with Qi’ra after a few years has passed and teaming up with Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and his Millennium Falcon to make the famous Kessel Run in twelve parsecs. As a Star Wars movie, it fell flat because although we were fed with all the visuals I mentioned above along with the music, the emotional pull was lacking. The characters were entertaining enough and like I said, Alden Ehrenreich did a fine job making me believe that he was a younger version of Han Solo but it just doesn’t feel like it’s part of the Star Wars universe because the story just didn’t have the true spirit of Star Wars. You get a glimpse of it, time and time again (maybe because of the music?) but it wasn’t consistent through out the film and as a Star Wars aficionado it was mediocre at best. The rapport between Han Solo and Chewbacca was spot on but it wasn’t enough to lift the movie and make me believe that I was experiencing a story from “a long time ago from a galaxy far far away…” The magic just wasn’t there. Again, as a solo stand alone story, it’s great but this wasn’t a “Star Wars” movie and I guess only die hard fans can sense that. Maybe it was from an alternate universe? Sadly, the force was lacking on this one.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

The movie starts off with a whimper with an opening scene that is both predictable and not at all exciting. It maintains its flatline sensibility as Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) makes her appearance along with two new sidekicks Zia (Daniella Pineda) and Franklin (Justice Smith) who are unremarkable but eventually grows on you. They are recruited by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) to help rescue 11 types of dinosaurs that are currently inhabiting an island where the volcano is about to erupt and wipe out the entire species. Claire then locates Owen (Chris Pratt) to help track Blue who is the “piece de resistance” of the collection. Compared to the other Jurassic Park movies, this is by far the weakest in every sense. The plot is derivative, the tension is diluted, the suspense is lacking and the characters are just two dimensional. There is no interesting or new idea that the other Jurassic Park movies haven’t already explored (and in a much better way!). Furthermore the dialogue is stilted. Even the ending is a rehash of other Jurassic Park movies only this time around, it was utterly lackluster. A forgettable rethread of a great movie.

Ocean's Eight

This was a wonderful heist movie with girl power at its best (unlike the horrendous Ghostbuster reboot) that showcases a fast paced written script that starts off with the release of Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) from prison and how she quickly establishes her con skills are still razor sharp as she reconnects with a friend/colleague Lou (Cate Blanchett) and how she convinces her of her idea and forms the crew needed to pull off this jewel heist at the Met Gala. Okay, it revisits the same themes as previous Ocean's (insert a number) movies but to its credit, the actors were all believable in their characters and the chemistry was on par and there was never a boring scene in the movie. The girls were all magnificent in their roles and the ending was satisfying. There’s lots of jewelries, beautiful dresses, a cameo of Serena Williams, Heidi Klum and Anna Wintour to name a few and also actors from the past (Marlo Thomas, Dana Ivey) that makes this little gem that much more sparkly! Now, that’s girl power at its best!

Hereditary

It’s an interesting enough horror film that is a slow burner with wonderful camera work and scenery and solid acting from the cast as the film starts off with the funeral of the grandmother and slowly progresses to revealing bits and pieces of her startling secret and its repercussion to the family she left behind. It had echoes of Rosemary’s Baby with the ambiguity of what was happening on film but as it gets towards the end, it almost felt rushed as the climax didn’t hit me as hard as it should have. Maybe because it’s been done before and that is the major downfall of most horror movies? I know that’s not fair but it is what it is. I almost felt like if they had attacked the delivery of the film in a different direction towards the end and addressed a few of the issues that would have made sense to the story, then the film as a whole would have had a more powerful impact and because they didn’t do that, I felt robbed of what could have been an awesome horror flick and instead it’s just okay.

Deadpool 2

Growing up reading comic books and having a special affinity towards the X-Men, it was much later in my life where I was exposed to the character Deadpool, when he was part of the second incarnation of X-Force called Uncanny X-Force. In the movie, Ryan Reynolds embodies Deadpool sublimely showing the wise cracking side as well as his soft, intimate side with such panache that one would think this was the role he was born to play. What separates this from the other Marvel movies is that it is more catered to adults due to the humor which works well 99.9% of the time because it falls in line with the character and the story progression unlike in other Marvel movies that seemed almost always forced just to add wit and banter which falls flat almost half the time. In Deadpool the zingers just flies and land spectacularly on the bullseye. The storyline structure, similar to the first, where it jumps from different time line to another (like Pulp Fiction for the sake of analogy) works well in presenting the story. Josh Brolin was flawless as Cable as he embodied the time displaced hero to perfection. The action scenes were presented in a matter that one loses oneself when watching the fight scenes which was brilliantly broken down into slow motion just in the right places. The music was off the hook, the supporting cast all shined and the director kept it fresh. This is truly the summer movie of 2018!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Forget the fact that Micky Rooney played an Asian character that may be interpreted as racist. (It was a different time and that’s what Hollywood did back then) And also the fact that Audrey Hepburn’s character is a hooker. If you can look past that and immerse yourself into the movie, then you will be transported back into the swinging 60’s where everybody who’s anybody smoked, said “darling” and summer in New York City was the place to be. The plot is rather thin compared to today’s standard but what this film has is the incomparable Audrey Hepburn. She radiates as Holly Golightly and as she fumbles through life searching for love, looking at all the wrong places, one can’t help but feel for her as we see a bit of ourselves in her character (haven’t we done the same thing and unconsciously still doing it? Be honest now…) George Peppard (known for John “Hannibal” Smith of the A-Team) plays the perfect yin to Audrey’s yang (or is that vice versa?) who is the perfect match to her materialistic-roving eye but only we, the audience can see that. What this movie does so well is that it touches the heart, it evokes the loneliness we all feel and despite all the layers we add to mask ourselves, only by peeling away all the “phoniness” can we truly be free and understand who we really are and when that happens we are able to find that elusive “true love” (and in this case: it was always right there in front of her). Isn’t that a lesson worth learning from watching a piece of Hollywood cinema? Add the wonderful Oscar winning theme song “Moon River” by Henry Mancini (note: producers hated the song and wanted to take it out and Audrey bravely said: “Over my dead body!” She was right as always!) and you have a movie that in paper doesn’t seem much of a movie but when all is said and done, it’s positively purrfect! It’s what Hollywood magic is all about!

A Quiet Place

There is much to like in this movie. It was a brave and original choice to explore horror in mainly silence with actors using their eyes and body language to convey the myriad of emotions that forces them to live in this manner in order to exist. The musical score helped bring the tension felt by the audience. The visual introduction of the monster towards the middle of the story was a good touch which kept viewers hanging in anticipation. Emily Blunt (the mother) was stellar and stole the show with her top notch performance that was so compelling. Her eyes were not only expressive but pulls you right into her character. Now the bad part. As much as I wanted to push this movie upward towards the stratosphere due to its “outside of the box” angle in the horror genre, when secrets are revealed with regards to the monsters’ fallibility and utter demise when equating how it wiped out most of the human population is completely ludicrous. I don’t want to list the obvious plot holes and weak writing that sets up the story as a whole but to accept that we, as a human race, was decimated mostly when the solution is rather elementary and easily carried out is down right stupid. I understand that it’s a movie and some liberties should be allowed but to have such a catastrophic dystopian start and then reveal later on that the monsters can be killed this way, or they can be distracted this way and so on and so forth is an insult to anyone above the age of 7. It’s infuriating that this is so and even more so how the adverts were saying this is the best horror film ever and garnered a 95% Rotten Tomato rating from critics. Really? It makes me question the validity of these systems and wonder where is the integrity? I love Emily Blunt and John Krasinski as actors and wish them well in all their current and future projects but this film, when rated as a whole is a big let down. If I was writing this screenplay I would advise that maybe they should have revealed that 2 types of monsters invaded and the first type (a more formidable one) that killed most of the human race were also killed completely and the second type of monster, that is featured in the movie, is the one left existing that the Abbott family is currently battling would have been more believable!

Ready Player One

Steven Spielberg is a god in movies. A god! Whatever he touches is usually a cinematic experience one can’t forget and usually discuss to length with friends and family and keeps us all mesmerized by the magic he creates. Having said that, he is placed at the highest level imaginable because no one else can do what Mr. Spielberg can. Drama? Let me see, there’s Schindler’s List, Lincoln… Adventure? Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark… Sci Fi? We have E.T., A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) and so on and so forth. The man can do no wrong. So, when he does something like Ready Player One that looks like a winner in the trailer but falls flat in the cinema one would wonder, what went wrong? I’ll tell you what. Now, I’ve never read any of the book so I can’t say what happened in the book but from what I garner, there are loads of materials that wasn’t covered or explained properly in the story that leaves viewers scratching their heads (at least me) wondering: “Who’s that?” “How did they know each other?” “What? They all live in the same area?” I blame this on the screen writer which ironically is also the author of the book. Writing novels and writing screenplays are two different animals. Just because you can do one really well doesn’t necessarily mean that you can also do the other just as well as this movie proved to me without a doubt. There is a unique skill in screen writing that is tough to master because you only have so many lines and dialogue to convey the story. I usually frown on movies over two hours but in this case, I think it would have made more sense to take a gamble and extend it another hour. Yes, it’ll be a 3 hour and 20 minutes long but let’s face it, this is an epic of a story and because we, the audience, were not properly given the exposition required to at least understand where the characters are coming from, it left us feeling numb towards them and the movie as a whole. Visually it was spectacular which is a Steve Spielberg trademark. Sadly, his other trademark was completely ignored which is the emotional pull and connection we feel towards the characters (good guys and bad guys). It came to a point where I was getting dizzy with all the special effects and rather than jumping up and clapping like I normally do during a Steven Spielberg movie, I was asking myself: “ What is the point?”