Retroactive Review: The Mothman Prophecies

6/10

The Mothman Prophecies is a movie, loosely based on the sightings of the urban legend known as the Mothman, with Richard Gere as a Washington Times reporter who ends up in a town where the residents have ran into the creature. This is one of those movies that is hard to rate: it doesn't drop the ball but doesn't make a slam dunk either.

To director Mark Pellington's credit, he had a clear vision for this. He brings a unique visual style featuring a controlled use of the camera and close-ups to tell the story. The movie has an overcast, bleak look to it that really helps push the eeriness and mystery of the whole thing.  

The script is where things get shaky. This is a long movie that is a lot of talking with little action. The first half in particular drags. It helps when we get closer to when the tension starts revving up and we learn and experience more. The dialogue is decent (with the exception of Gere's work friend who is too obviously there for exposition) and the ending is solid, but they may not be solid enough for a lot of viewers to salvage the pacing.

Some of the audio is pretty soft, requiring me to crank the it up hear what's going on. This is pretty story heavy. You have to pay attention. Don't make this a background noise movie.  

This is a supernatural mystery. It's all about exploring the unknowable. Don't expect this to be an outright horror film. If you're expecting a good visual look at Mothman, that's not what this is about. 

Nothing to complain about the acting; solid across the board. Will Patton (the villain from The Postman) is the standout here as one of the witnesses to the Mothman.

This isn't a perfect movie, but has its interesting points. It's not something I'd ever recommend to a group of people if they were trying to think of something to watch. But if you're a fan of Richard Gere or the Mothman, this may be for you.

My Spy

7/10

In My Spy, currently on Amazon Prime, a young girl (Chloe Coleman) blackmails a CIA operative on a stakeout (Guardians of the Galaxy's Dave Bautista) into helping her out with her life. I thought this was decent.

Let me start out by saying that this is predictable. It's the general story of the odd couple becoming friends and a tough law enforcement/government agent working with kids like Kindergarten Cop and The Pacifier. (This is very The Pacifier). The predictability can at moments make things drag as you can tell what's going to happen and are just waiting for the movie to go where it's going to go. The love interest in particular feels by-the-numbers and rushed and lacks chemistry.

Despite all that, this was still an enjoyable time for me. The movie's cookie cutter, but competently handled. It's the two leads that make this movie as they manage to elevate the material and work so well with each other. If you were one of those people that thought that Bautista's character in this film and in his last one Stuber seemed really similar (they are both comically impulsive men of the law), you'll pleased to know you're not just watching the same performance. I thought Bautista works a lot better here. He's a lot more nuanced and easy-to-like. The Last Man on Earth's Kristen Schall also does a decent job as Bautista's partner on the stakeout.

Admittedly, there are only a couple of downright funny parts, but the humor generally works and has its charm.

This is a PG-13 family film. Most of this is basic family film storyline mixed in with the occasional bit for adults.

Overall, I recommend this. It's not perfection, but it's a generally nice film for a group deciding on something to watch on a Friday night.

The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)

8/10

The Adventures of Mark Twain is the only full length film from California Raisins creator and claymation specialist Will Vinton. It follows Mark Twain (voiced by James Whitmore) and his literary creations Tom Sawyer (Chris Ritchie), Huckleberry Finn (Gary Krug), and Becky Thatcher (Michelle Mariana) as they search for Halley's Comet in a flying machine. I only remembered small pieces of this from my childhood and my curiosity caused me to give this a rewatch. I was pleased with how unique the whole thing is.

I was really impressed with Vinton's vision. AoMT is rather an artsy philosophical core in a general audience friendly coating.

The movie is basically an anthology of several stories of Mark Twain, but except for the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country, they're not his more commonly known ones. A lot of the narration or dialogue, especially Twain's, is comprised of quotes. The whole film is jam-packed with Twain's musings about the world, including a surprising amount of critical looks or playful jabs at religion. The movie serves as an ode to Twain and all aspects of him, including both his genius wit, but his cynicism as well. 

This is heady stuff for a family film, but it is nicely complemented by VInton's visuals. It is colorful and quite lively and creative interpretations of Twain's works. His version of Adam and Eve appears unlike any other version of it you've seen and the most fun part. Claymation is already a time-consuming process, but the amount of detail here must have really made this intensive. (You even get to see people's moustaches move along with their mouth movements.) There is just so much going on in the scenes, especially in the airship, which is just an impressive piece of design. The depictions of the sky are particularly beautiful. 

Admittedly, the pacing may not quite work for everyone. It's not slow, but it's got a "Charlie Brown Christmas" deliberateness to the whole thing. Also, the voice acting is decent, but there's something not quite right to it. I think it has more to do with the audio recording or the direction than the voice actors.

Younger kids may like the visuals, but the wordiness to this may go over their heads. (A lot of parts feel more like they're trying to speak to adults.) Parents that are more selective with what their children watch be forewarned that there is one brief scene that feels racially insensitive and one brief weirdly sexual part. Also, there's a reason this movie often pops up in scariest children's films lists. The Mysterious Stranger section is really dark and creepy, well told, but creepy.

I can't think of anything quite like this movie. It's the combination of the childish and mature, fun and ominous. It's too bad it didn't get better word of mouth. I recommend this.

Hamilton

10/10

This is a filmed recording of the hit musical Hamilton, a musical about first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton featuring a predominantly Hispanic and African American cast and hip-hop music mixed with other styles. From what I understand, it mixes footage from a live performance and separately filmed close-ups. This is a wonderful show!

The story in this is an engrossing look at one man's life and death, his tremendous highs and lows. Besides being dramatic, the clever lines in this can also be pretty funny.

The songs in this are truly unique. This presentation shows why Hamilton is the biggest musical of the decade. It accomplishes something that appears to be rarer and rarer in recent decades: every song is a winner. This is especially impressive since this is a song-only musical with basically no spoken dialogue.

The one part of this show that could be an issue for some is that singing and exposition can go by pretty quickly, especially in the first fifteen minutes, and you could miss something.

The choreography and staging are also great, not to mention very creative at times. The dancing really accentuates the story and songs. The set rather than changing scenes takes the minimalist route of having one basic set and the use of body movement, props, and a couple other stage aspects in order to tell the story. It's all so complex and fascinating to watch.

The performances in this are top-notch all-around. I've heard and seen a lot of comments that Lin Manuel-Miranda (the lead and creator of this) isn't as strong a singer as the rest of the cast, however it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role. (Though by now, I'm sure plenty of people on stage have.) He just pulls off the man's drive so well in such a passionate manner. Going back to the show's sense of humor and unique interpretations, we are treated to a couple of delightfully flamboyant turns from Daveed Diggs and Johnathan Groff (from Frozen and Mindhunters).

The nice thing about this compared to seeing the show live on stage is that the close-up shots allow you to truly get a good look at the actors' expressions. (Though once in a while since the blocking is done in relation to talking in the direction of an audience, the actors can be facing the camera at an odd angle. It's not a big issue.)

Overall, I can not recommend this tremendous work enough.

Blindspot- Season 5 (Final)

9/10

NOTE: There are no spoilers for this season, but there is a brief reference to the events from last season setting off this one.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was one of the best seasons.  

The gang find themselves framed and on the run from the law, taken away from their resources and forced to work off the grid. This total reversal of fortune and raising of the stakes really brought an energy to the show. The characters deal with constant tension as all parties are trying to obtain their goal. Gone are the more episodic stories. To clarify, there are plenty of stand-alone missions, but they all tie into the story.

This season also benefits from being the final one. The show has nothing to lose things can get dark. The lives of all characters, both regular and recurring, are fair game and the show does a good job of keeping you guessing who'll live and die.  

The show's weak spot remains the main villain Madeleine Burke (played by The Abyss' Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). She's used more sparingly and written a little better, but she's still extremely frustrating. She's just in-your-face nasty and too-over-the-top nasty in her actions and not in a love-to-hate-her way. Mastrantonio's lack of facial expressions doesn't help any.  

The finale is really ambitious. The way it ends may tick off a lot of people. However, I give the show credit for going out big and taking chances. 

The cast remains good and all the characters go through some effective emotional wringers. I haven't been the biggest Zapata (Audrey Esparza) fan, but the writers finally found a good groove for her story-wise. Rich Dotcom (Ennis Esmer) remains the MVP, and I'm still so glad they made him a regular last season. Not only does he balance darker elements with some good jokes, he also serves as the most human of the group. Aaron Abrams also continues to do a great job as pragmatic, ladder-rising FBI director Matthew Weitz as he's forced to make difficult moral choices. 

The writers make a really concentrated effort to exploring the characters, including paying attention to the recurring ones. Lab techie Afreen (Amie Sheth), who's mostly just been a background character brought in from time to time when they needed an extra pair of hands, actually gets a subplot and stuff to do.

Despite my issues with Burke, this is just a pretty solid bunch of episodes, and I recommend this to to all Blindspot viewers.

Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever

I was browsing through Youtube and just happened to come across the special live American premiere of Kamen Rider Generations Forever. (An official release from the American distributor.) For the unaware, Kamen Rider is one of the toukusatsu shows, a genre of Japanese children's shows showing colorful heroes in costume fighting monsters. Power Rangers uses footage from one of these series. Some may have encountered Kamen Rider footage used in Masked Rider on Fox Kids during the 90's. The is basically about a hero or heroes dressed in vaguely grasshoper-themed supersuits. This is a team-up film (and itself a sequel to a film from last year) featuring several of the characters from the Heisei era (between the 2000's and now). I found this to be so-so.

Full disclosure, I'm not really familiar with any of the characters that are the main focus of this. Still, I didn't have too much trouble following the general story, which is stand-alone. I only had to look up something once. That having been said, the story didn't completely work for me. I was rather enjoying this for the first half, but things just felt dragged out. I was surprised this was an hour and forty minutes, because this felt much longer. The main story has several interesting ideas and is ambitious but suffers from throwing way too much at you and trying too hard to be clever. This is basically a final hurrah for the Heisei era and there's a lot of fan service, which is fine, however, they throw too much into the final third and things feel padded.

It also doesn't help that the main villain doesn't have clear motivations for why he's doing what he's doing.

But, I admit that this is for the fans and not me. If you're into Kamen RIder, you'd probably get a lot more out of this. All the protagonists, both from the show and made for the film, are likable. The final fight is delightfully over-the-top.

I like all the hero outfits. They're colorful and have a unique look to them. I wasn't as big a fan of the villains. They felt both overly detailed without really having anything to say visually.

If you're not a fan of toukusatsu shows, this probably isn't your thing. However, it's an interesting curiosity if you want to give it a shot. Again, fans may find this to be an honorable homage.

Retroactive review: Spider-Man: Homecoming

9/10

I really like this movie.

At the time of its release, Spider-Man Homecoming was my favorite Spider-Man movie. (Now it's Spider-Verse). It is such a fun film with a good combo of humor and action. Now, fans of Spidey's more tragic and angsty side may not like the fact that this is more of a generally crowd-pleasing, popcorn film. However, after five movies that were big on tragic events, I was okay with this being more lighthearted. 

This is one of the most natural feeling of the SM movies. I liked the original trilogy, but it did have a retro feel and the Amazing films lacked a concrete identity. After five films, this movie does a surprisingly good job of re-inventing Spidey. There is a lot more of a focus on Peter Parker (Tom Holland) as a regular teenager in a regular teenager environment. The movie also manages to provide drama in Pete's life without resorting to the picked-on-nerd cliche. Now, he's in a school for science and technology instead of a regular high school and it's an interesting place to watch. Another nice twist is changing Flash Thompson (Grand Budapest Hotel's Tony Revoleri) from a jock/physical bully to a preppie/verbal bully. 

Holland does a great job as an earnest, very well-meaning Spider-Man. However, the film's one flaw lies with the main character. Peter Parker is supposed to be an awkward, not-quite-mature teen, but he can be so impetuous and delusional here that it can get annoying. Not a deal breaker, but that side of Parker could've been toned down.

The Vulture (Michael Keaton) is a great villain. I liked that he was a more practical, down-to-Earth antagonist. There were no big plans of revenge or mass destruction plots, he's just a guy running a business, albeit a very crooked one. The character is multi-faceted, at times charming, sympathetic, and intimidating. I also feel that his villain outfit is such an inspired and eye-catching adaptation of the comic one.

The whole movie looks great from the well-lit look that shows a bright side of New York to some wonderful action scenes and effects.

I highly recommend this to any superhero movie fans.

Palm Springs

8/10

In the dramedy Palm Springs, curently on Hulu, a couple people (SNL/Brooklyn 99's Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti) at a wedding find themselves in a time loop. This is pretty darn good.

Yeah, time loops have been done before: the original Groundhog's Day and the more recent Happy Death Day. Still, Palm Springs manages to carve out its own place with a pretty well-written story. Its narrative and dispersal of info. is done in an interesting way that is different from the other films. It helps that instead of one protagonist experiencing one day over and over we get two people. (This has been done in shows like Stargate but not film.) The interactions between two characters with different viewpoints on a fascinating but awful situation really help drive this.

The whole thing is pretty funny, too. Yeah, there are the obligatory jokes you'll find like they had in Groundhog's Day where the characters have fun with their situation or get darkly humorous at their low-points, but they are good jokes and there is one particular recurring bit in this that hasn't been done before that's really amusing. The more serious parts of dialogue between the characters are well written, too.

Samberg and Miloti are great leads. This is my first time seeing Samberg doing something not entirely comedy, and he's great at it. Miloti is also wonderful. She's one of those those actresses who definitely gets work, but not as much as they may deserve. I really hope this film helps her career and gets her more leads. The supporting cast is solid across the board, especially J.K. Simmons who dominates every scene he is in.

I highly recommend this. The framework may be obvious, but the actual components are both funny and compelling.

Retroactive Review: Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy!

6/10

I find this movie to be just okay.

To the film's credit, it is one of the stronger entries in the 2000's wave of Scooby-Doo films, which had the weakest animation and least ambitious scripts as compared to the waves that came before and after. The general plot does try to be a little creative within the SD framework, including one particular concept you haven't seen before. The guest characters and suspects feel distinct and realized. The use of the Bermuda Triangle in this lends to some creative visual ideas, especially for the opening credits.

But when all is said and done, this a competently handled children's film, but not a particularly stand-out one. There are just several stronger written SD films out there. The Scooby gang have a few fun moments, but nothing particularly memorable. Like the rest of this wave, the animation feels pretty basic.

The voice cast is mostly strong, including some known names you may be pleasantly surprised with. Casey Kasem, who was no spring chicken at this point, does sound a little tired as Shaggy. 

This is something that will probably entertain your kids, especially if they like Scooby-Doo or pirates. You may be able to sit through and enjoy the first time, but there probably won't be enough for you on rewatches and you'll become bored. There are simply more likable films in the franchise you can put them in front of.

30 Rock: A One-Time Special

8/10

What I like about this hour long 30 Rock special is that even after seven years the writing and cast hasn't dropped a beat. The special feels like classic 30 Rock and is a stronger effort than the Parks and Rec special.

It helps that this unlike P+R has more camera work. The premise is still based on the characters contacting each other via social media and quarantining themselves, but the cast had more help from a limited on-set crew.

There were a couple parts that weren't perfect. I've never been the biggest Jenna Maloney (played by Jane Krakowski) fan, I found her jokes here to be particularly stale and obvious here. Also, there is a character called Vivian or something like that who just doesn't work. 

I've seen complaints that this is too much of an advertisement for NBC's new streaming service Peacock. I won't deny that, but considering that 30 Rock always poked fun at corporate synergy and NBC and is being obvious about it's own commercialism, I won't hold it against them. I mean it was a pretty clever way to get me to watch commercials for the new NBC shows.

Overall, I highly recommend this for fans of the show.

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home

7/10

This sequel to the first film, which itself was a follow-up to the entertaining USA Network series, does some things better than the first film and some not as well.

The first film made the mistake of trying to squeeze in so many familiar faces that the plot got away from it. The story, while having some pretty fun villains, also felt a little bare. This one is stronger. Psych 2 feels like the show as there is more focus on the mystery and the story in general, not to mention that there is a lot more of the trademark rapid fire funny remarks of fake psychic Shawn (James Roday) and his friend Gus (Dulé Hill).

On the other hand, this film suffers from the same issue as the last one: Things just feel stretched out. The movie is written by people who worked on the show and they haven't quite nailed how to evolve Psych from episode to feature length. Also, this movie misses some of the bigger swings and more energetic moments from the first.

I do like that Psych 2 carried over and double downed on a couple of the plot elements they introduced last season instead of forgetting about them.

The most pleasant part about this is the return of Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). The grumpy, tightly wound foil to Shawn had to be mostly written out of the last movie when Omundson suffered a stroke. Luckily, the actor has recovered enough to appear here. He's not in 100% condition (I mean, he suffered a stroke), and the writers were smart enough to have him recover from a similarly debilitating incident. I saw an interview with Omundson and the movie appears to be specifically looking at the struggles he has had to go through. Lassiter hands down has the best subplot and journey in what is a poignant look at the man at his lowest. 

There is one aspect of Lassiter's story that felt odd. I know that I complained about the character nods in the last film, but you'd think you'd see at least some of his family members hanging around while he is recuperating in a hospital.

Psych fans will enjoy this. Not the best work but still entertaining. If you're new to Psych, though, this probably isn't the best entry point. You can find this on NBC's new streaming site Peacock. It has a free tier, just be prepared to sit through a few commercials at the beginning.