Film Review: “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”

Dead Reckoning keeps the franchise flying high!

Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Death-defying stunt. Fight and chase. Team regroup. Although repetitive, this formula has been successfully carrying the Mission: Impossible franchise forward. It’s now on its seventh film, Dead Reckoning – Part One. The newest film showcases, once again, the finest action stunt work choreography in the film industry. Although the franchise continues to steer away from the intricate spy work that the original television series and first few films featured, there’s no denying that with Tom Cruise on screen and Christopher McQuarrie in the director’s chair, a thrilling cinematic experience is guaranteed.

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Film Review: “The Eight Mountains”(Le Otto Montagne)

Tenderness and solitude are at the forefront of this epic tale of male friendship

Against a calm snow-capped vista of the Italian Alps, two friends come together and stand in silence. They don’t need to speak much. They’ve known each other for long enough that words don’t carry the same value. They part ways once again, for how long neither of them knows, to continue finding themselves and hoping that the other will do the same. Amidst these characters’ experiential subtleties, The Eight Mountains, based on the best-selling novel by Paolo Cognetti, unfolds as a (sneakily) epic tale of friendship and discovering one’s natural place in the world, while making a cinematic statement on the fragility of all living things.

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Film Review: “Christmas With You”

Representation Matters in Christmas With You Starring Aimee Garcia and Freddie Prinze Jr.

Costume director Carisa Kelly deserves a raise… and whoever scouted that piano. Aimee Garcia and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Angelina and Miguel. Photo courtesy of Netflix (2022).

About ten years ago, a friend of mine said, “They never make movies about people like us unless it’s about our trauma or a white person growing. Why can’t we have happy endings, too?”

It was true; all my favorite movies were helmed by white people, and the few that weren’t were about trauma. The rest of the time, we were in supporting roles as best friends, maids, taxi drivers, gangsters, or terrorists. Sometimes the story was about us, but it wasn’t really about us; it was about the white teacher who changes our lives, the white writer who is inspired by us to tell our stories for us. It still centered on a white person’s journey of growth. Continue reading “Film Review: “Christmas With You””

Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Dazzling, vibrant fun with a classy set list

Drax jumps right in.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the highly anticipated follow-up to the surprise superhero blockbuster from Marvel Studios, opens with a credit sequence set to Baby Groot dancing around a space station platform while the rest of the gang fight an intergalactic squid monster. Of course, Baby Groot is dancing to the late ’70s jolly tune “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra. If that isn’t a welcome return to the colorful, soundtrack-propelled, fun tone of the Guardians franchise, then I don’t know what is. From the first moments to the very end of the closing credits, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a fun ride with all the elements that made the first such a glowing success, and, even if it doesn’t feel quite as fresh and employs a few unorthodox plot maneuvers, it still delivers a ton of laughs and top notch visuals. 

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Show Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark Live in Concert with the SF Symphony

A lovely night with Williams’s score, Ford’s performance, iconic scenes… there are no bad dates here!

Face melting, Nazi punching fun!

Raiders of the Lost Ark is the quintessential action-adventure film. One could confidently claim that it is the greatest action-adventure film of all time! There is nothing about Steven Spielberg’s 1981 classic that isn’t famous — the giant boulder, the snakes, the hat & whip, every single line of dialogue, Marion’s alcohol tolerance, the airfield fist fight, the melting faces, poisoned dates, and so on. Yet, one component of the film is arguably more iconic than all the rest: John Williams’s score. The awe-inspiring, galloping main theme that nearly all humans can identify is a benchmark against which all other adventure film music is compared, and it is the basis for which this amazing night at the San Francisco Symphony exists!

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Film Review: Power Rangers

Even with a few stumbles, this is an ultimately fun return of a classic franchise.

Saban's new Power Rangers
Saban’s new Power Rangers

Remaking a story like that of Power Rangers requires a great deal of care on two fronts. On the one hand, preserving the world, the characters, and the essential plotlines, is important in order to make the new film appeal in the first place (brand new characters, names, etc., simply wouldn’t fly), but also requires being modernized to fit the sheen and shine of big-budget motion pictures. However, there’s also the concern of keeping a lot of the original charm — which isn’t without its strong sense of extreme camp and over-the-top flashiness — and not having that clash strongly with a modern sense of acting and drama. Thankfully, Lionsgate’s new attempt at rebooting the Power Rangers franchise is ultimately a very fun effort, despite its occasional awkward moments that stumble slightly before the big, explosive finishes arrive. Continue reading “Film Review: Power Rangers

Film Review: Beauty and the Beast

Still magical. Yet, there’s something there that wasn’t there before, and that something is meh.

Belle and Beast dance the night away.

If you’ve seen the 1991 Disney animated classic Beauty and the Beast as much as I have, you’re probably just as nervously excited for the live-action version as I was. The 1991 film was the first animated feature to ever be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar Award, and for good reason: it was smart, magical, romantic, and broke down animation barriers. The new live action version had to stay true to these things, while simultaneously amping up the drama, the romance, and the magic, and still embracing its classic songs (“Bonjour”, “Be Our Guest”, “Beauty and the Beast”, etc.). For a while, it was scarily unclear if the new version would be a musical at all. Once announced it would be, however, the producers needed to cast actors who could sing, and employ special effects that didn’t ruin the fun-loving side characters like Lumiere, Cogsworth, and, of course, the central character of the Beast. While the new songs and expanded character backstories are jarring and uninspired, the majority of the new Beauty and the Beast is still full of magic and romance, and does the original and Disney source material proud. The film also marks a pivotal point in Disney’s aspiration to have one of the industry’s most inclusive, and ethnically and racially diverse, modern film portfolios.

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Film Review: Logan

Dark and gritty and a proper sendoff for Jackman and Stewart.

Jackman is jacked up one last time…for now.

Logan will be Hugh Jackman’s ninth (and final) appearance as the comic hero, Wolverine. Nine. Films. <<pause for effect>> In. Seventeen. YearsThat’s two more movies than either Sean Connery or Roger Moore played James Bond. That’s two more than there are live action Star Wars movies, and one more than in the Fast and the Furious franchise. You know which movie won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2000 when Jackman first starred as Wolverine in X-Men? American Beauty won! Feel old yet? Yeah, me too. First, let’s give Mr. Jackman a round of applause. <<applause>> Next, let’s begin to consider Jackman for a potential Best Actor nomination come next Oscar season, as his performance in Logan transcends the casual superhero action movie performance — it is staggering, transformative, emotional and tragic. Finally, let’s admire Logan for the amazing piece of storytelling, acting, and cinema that it is. Logan is not only the darkest and grittiest X-Men movie to date, it’s also one of the most dramatic and near-perfect superhero movies, ever.

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Film Review: My Life as a Zucchini (Ma vie de Courgette)

A perfectly crafted, poignant charmer.

Zucchini looks to the sky.

My Life as a Zucchini is one of the most wonderful films of the year, which has resulted in its much deserved Oscar nomination this year for Best Animated Film. Zucchini is a stop motion animated feature from France and Switzerland about a nine year-old boy, Courgette (which is French for zucchini), who loses his mother and father and is taken to a foster home where a handful of other orphans reside. The brisk 70 minute film follows Courgette as he befriends the kindhearted policeman who takes him to the foster home, and then learns to love and trust the other foster children in similarly unfortunate situations. The animation is colorful and simple, yet each shot is overflowing with heart. My Life as a Zucchini is not meant for very young audiences — the subject matter may be beyond a young child’s understanding and there are some bits of nudity and substance abuse. And yet, I recommend audiences of nearly all ages see My Life as a Zucchini because it beautifully tackles how all people, including children and adults, can rise above their surface-level differences to love each other, even in the face of tragedies that affect their lives in unexpected ways.

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Film Review: The Great Wall

White male hero leads dumpster fire movie to a forgettable fate.

Do we LOOK like we’re having fun?

I chose the above picture for very specific reasons. I could’ve chosen a more beautiful shot of a heroic looking Matt Damon atop The Great Wall of China. But no, I preferred this one for the way it captures the feeling one has while watching The Great Wall — the feeling of trudging through the sewer, acting unfazed while knowing deep down that the journey will result in nothing but a sh*tty mess. If you were considering watching The Great Wall as a fun activity this weekend (or at some point), let me save you the two hours you’d never get back. First, The Great Wall is offensive for its white savior narrative. Second, it’s poorly shot and edited. And third, it features cartoonish special effects and thus can’t even manage to string together two minutes of respectable cinema without an embarrassing element restarting the clock.

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