Frozen 2 Review

The Mouse House is at it again, this time with what is sure to be one of the most talked about films of the year. I need not remind anyone of the cultural phenomenon that was "Frozen" in 2013 or how it's been solidly ingrained into pop culture ever since. Making a "Frozen 2" seemed like a no-brainer. It's kinda perplexing that it took them six year to get it out. Although what's more perplexing to me is the idea that "Frozen" was released six years ago. Time goes by too fast. And now all the little girls who drove their parents crazy with "Frozen" are either teenagers or close to becoming teenagers. And the teenage girls who all loved the movie are now off in college. Let that sink in for a bit. And now, not only are they all going to rush out to see "Frozen 2," but we also have a new generation of young girls that are excited to go see this sequel. So are y'all ready for the Frozen Fever to start all over again? I certainly am! I saw "Frozen" five times in theaters and absolutely fell in love with it. I most certainly contributed it to it going super viral, causing a wave of hatred to take over the internet several months later that's continued for six years. And even though it's been cool and hip to hate "Frozen" while claiming "Tangled" is so much better, I've stubbornly stood my ground.

This whole phenomenon is what I've called the Frozen Effect. A movie becomes so well-beloved by the initial wave of people who went to see it that word of mouth spreads like wildfire and the movie explodes. The movie becomes so huge that a second wave of people who normally don't rush out to see movies gives in and sees the movie, expecting it to be the best thing ever created. Because it doesn't live up to those massive expectations that they went in with, they go polar opposite with their opinion, claiming it was the worst thing ever created, because, you know, there's never any middle ground when it comes to opinions on movies. You can't just think it's OK. This same phenomenon also happened to "La La Land" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." All three of these movies have a loud group of haters who claim it's the worst movie ever because it didn't live up to the lofty expectations left by those who initially saw it. In the case of "Frozen," said haters started clinging onto "Tangled" as the much better Disney movie. Yes, I enjoy "Tangled," but it's by far the more inferior film. It just has the advantage of having not exploded on the scene, so there's not that bitter taste in people's mouths that comes when something is overplayed and overwatched.

I know I'm here to review "Frozen 2," so I'll make my thoughts on "Frozen" quick, but "Frozen 2" can't be reviewed without going over "Frozen" first. The core reason why I love "Frozen" is that it turned the typical, cliche Disney princess story arc on its head, becoming a movie about the love that two very different sisters have for each other. It's not a movie about a Disney princess (or heroine) who is a damsel in distress that needs to be rescued by a mighty prince (or a likable male). In fact, it looks that formula directly in the eyes with both Hans and Kristoff and purposely turns away from it. Hans didn't save the day because he turned out to be evil. Kristoff didn't save the day because he was too slow. He thought he needed to be the one to rescue Anna with true love when her heart was pierced with the ice. But it wasn't the true love from a man that saved Anna, it was the true love from a sister, which is very different than usual and very beautiful. Addressing "Tangled" real quick, yes the characters are fun and there's a lot of humorous moments, but ultimately it's a story about a man and a woman who fall in love. The woman needs saving from the evil power and it's the man who saves the day and the two of them live happily ever after. There's nothing unique and different there.

Diving deeper into Anna and Elsa, I really loved how deep and relevant both of their arcs were to our day. There's a lot to learn there. Starting off with Elsa, she's the one who's different than the others in the kingdom. She wants to be normal, but she's simply not, yet she's told by her parents to hide who she is and try to fit in because that's the safest way to go about things. When it's discovered against her will of who she actually is, she becomes scared and nervous as the people reject her, so she runs away. In running away, she decides to "Let It Go" and accept who she is. But that's only the middle of her arc. She eventually learns to not just accept who she is, but she learns to be the best version of herself, using what's different about herself to make the world a better place. I'm not going to single out a minority group here, but any minority group who has been oppressed and rejected can relate with Elsa's arc, thus making this an important and relevant story that Disney decided to tell. In contrast, Anna represents the ignorance and naivity of the world. Everything is perfect and nothing should change. Yet she learned the hard way that the world is a nasty place that you need to be careful in, something that Elsa knew from day one due to how different she was.

The two sisters eventually came together to help each other out. I loved that. It's genuinely one of the most beautiful stories that Disney has told and made it in at No. 12 in when I did my massive ranking of all of the movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios. The icing on the cake for all of this is that it also included a large handful of lovable side characters, including the hilarious Olaf, who I think is one of the best Disney sidekicks. And of course all of the music is fantastic. When we specifically pick out all of the Disney musicals and judge them by the music alone, "Frozen" is one of the best. It has that one song in "Let It Go" that is absolutely a grand slam as well as a whole collection of fun songs to support it, making if a perfect, grand adventure. When it comes to Disney movies, it's the full package. In the last six years, I've heard many arguments as to why "Frozen" is a bad movie and I simply don't understand. There must be an alternate version of this movie out there somewhere that all the haters saw. That's the only viable explanation that I can come up with. Plus, 99 percent of people who hate "Frozen" are among the second wave of people who saw it later. There's only one person I know who saw it opening weekend and hated it. She knows who she is.

But, OK. "Frozen 2." And yes, I'm using "Frozen 2" instead of "Frozen II." Bite me. Disney themselves have used both in advertising this movie, so I get to chose and I chose "Frozen 2." I was excited for this because Disney's main branch of animation actually has a great track record when it comes to sequels. Granted, they've only done two of them, unless you count the 2011 "Winnie the Pooh" or "Fantasia 2000," which I don't. Putting those two aside, both "Rescuers Down Under" and "Ralph Breaks the Internet" were great compliments to their predecessors. So it seems like when Disney wants to do a sequel and takes their time with it, they do a good job. All those other crappy Disney sequels? Well, if they're not the ones I mentioned, they're from DisneyToon, which is a completely ball game. And if you bring up "Cars 2" or "Cars 3" as examples, then I'm just going to slap you because I'm done trying to explain the different between Disney and Pixar. It seemed like the creators of "Frozen" wanted to make sure they do a proper sequel to their most lucrative film, so they took their time to do it right instead of rushing it to the theaters, which I respected. And that's why I was not one bit surprised when the "Frozen 2" trailers looked excellent. Of course that was case.

Right off the bat, I really like how "Frozen 2" didn't try to recreate "Frozen." It took this franchise in a completely new direction and thus expanded the lore. I find it impressive when a sequel can manage to do that because then it justifies its existence rather than seeming like a cash grab. Perhaps this wasn't a sequel that was planned from day one, but Disney did an excellent job of making a proper sequel. As such, there's a lot of surprises that movie brings that I don't want to spoil, so I'm going to tread lightly in discussing plot points, but nevertheless, the movie centers around a voice that Elsa keeps hearing that seems to be calling out to her. So she feels the need to venture out to discover what's out there. And of course Anna, Kristoff and Olaf demand to be a part of this journey. The result is a grand adventure with several different phases to it that connects to Anna and Elsa's past, giving more explanation and clarity to their future. If you're one who thought the story line in "Frozen" was boring, which I obviously would strongly disagree with, you might be rather impressed because story and adventure is central to "Frozen 2." Without saying too much, "Avatar" is a solid comparison. As in "The Last Airbender," not the blue people movie.

As I've illustrated here with my thoughts on "Frozen," the story of the two sister is what I really love the most and I respect "Frozen 2" for sticking to that central idea. The movie and the plot is very different than the original movie, which I think is good for a sequel, but it still centers around these two sisters. They've grown very close due to everything they've been through, but they're still very different from each other and there's a lot for both of them to learn in this. It's actually a movie that's very mature in its themes. Disney seems to be very self aware of the fact that the audience from six years ago is grown up and can handle some things about life that cut deep. It's not a movie that panders to a young audience. In fact, I predict that the youngest of audiences might not gravitate to this in the same way they did "Frozen" because there's some things in here that they're just not going to connect with. Instead, "Frozen 2" has grown up with its initial audience, much in the same way that the "Toy Story" sequels did. I don't think young kids were able to understand "Toy Story 3" and "Toy Story 4" in the same way that I was able to as one who watched "Toy Story" as a young kid. And I think this gives "Frozen 2" an opportunity to stand on its own moving forward.

Yet at the same time, "Frozen 2" still manages to keep its same magical flare that the first movie did. Kristoff and Sven get more to do in this movie, which partially connects to a side arc where Kristoff is trying to figure out how to best propose to Anna. There's a lot of hilarious and charming moments in that regard as well as a brand new song featuring Kristoff's woes that had me busting up in laughter. And of course Olaf is there. They didn't overuse him like some animated sequels do when they come upon a side character that everyone loved (I'm looking at you, "Cars 2"). But he still was able to add a lot of levity as the film went on in the right moments and with the right doses. An Olaf joke doesn't ruin the moment when the movie gets super dramatic, but he always manages to be a welcome presence in the film. If you're one who found Olaf annoying in the first movie, I don't know what to tell you here. He still exists and you'll probably hate him here, too. But I highly doubt he'll be the dealbreaker in this movie for anyone. In addition to these returning side characters, there's a lot of new added side characters that I won't mention in any sort of detail, but all of them also added to the expanded lore of this "Frozen" universe.

The other thing that I really want to mention is the details in the animation. I think this is something that we take for granted these days because animated movies are simply expected to be animated to a top standard, but I really loved how there was so much attention to detail here. And of course a lot of this has to do with the natural environment, like with the water, snow, wind and earth. Without all of that being done to perfection, this movie is not the same, especially considering certain details in this movie's plot. The environment is a key role in this movie. Because it is done perfectly, the movie is enhanced and gorgeous. But the other thing in regards to the animation is the attention to detail specifically when it comes to Elsa. I don't know if it's weird or not to have an animated crush, but I love Elsa. And they did a lot with her outfits and her hair in this movie. Oftentimes characters in an animated movie will be animated only one single way in regards to their appearance, but that's not the case here. Sometimes Elsa will have her hair done up. Sometimes it'll be braided. Then sometimes it will be long and straight. And that latter hairstyle was gorgeous, especially in connection with her many different dresses, which constantly change to due her magical powers.

Now that I've covered just about everything that I want to cover without diving into spoilers, there's one major aspect of this movie that I have yet to talk about that you're probably wondering why I haven't even touched it yet given how central it is to the movie. To be honest, that's because it takes time for me to soak in new music from a musical. It took me at least three watches to really appreciate the music in "Frozen." As I've only seen "Frozen 2" once and there were a lot of new songs thrown at me, I'm not ready to give a final determination on what I thought. But my initial thoughts lean quite positive. I don't think there's a "Let It Go" in this movie's soundtrack, which for some of you might be a positive thing, but the advantage that this movie's music does have is that it's more consistently deep and emotional. There's a higher level of quality across the board. "Frozen" was very reliant on fun, catchy songs, a lot of which were more cotton candy level of songs. The music in "Frozen 2" isn't as catchy, with a few major exceptions, but there's a lot more emotion in the songs, with the two best examples being "Into the Unknown" and "The Next Right Thing," two emotionally powerful songs with a lot of meaning and excellent vocal prowess from all involved.

In wrapping this all up, there's such a wide range of opinions of "Frozen" that I really don't know how to recommend "Frozen 2." I'm more curious than anything to know what all of my friends think. If you hated "Frozen," did "Frozen 2" win you over? Or is it just as annoying and insufferable as the first? If you loved "Frozen," was "Frozen 2" just as good? Is there anyone who loved "Frozen" that thought "Frozen 2" was even better? I want to know these things. Just know that I might get a bit a feisty if you start to get too critical of either film since I get quite defensive and protective over my "Frozen" films. Which one do I like better? Eh. Probably "Frozen." But the two movies are so different that it's really hard to judge. And sure, "Toy Story 4" is still the best animated movie of the year. Despite how much I loved "Frozen," it narrowly missed out on my top 10 list of 2013. I think I had it at No. 11. And it wasn't in the top 10 when I did my big Disney list. Just top 15. So it's not like I'm calling it the best thing in existence. But I still really loved it and I was very satisfied that "Frozen 2" managed to live up to the legacy of the first film. This is a fascinating universe with two films that are excellent companion pieces to each other. Because of this, I'm giving "Frozen 2" a 9/10.

Charlie's Angels Review

Did anyone know that a new "Charlie's Angels" movie came out last weekend? Based off of box office receipts, I would be willing to bet the answer to that is no. And for those who were aware of its existence, most of them simply did not care. That general sentiment is kinda what I was expecting long before this began its advertising campaign. Does anyone care about a new "Charlie's Angels" movie? When the advertising did start, those feelings were confirmed as it didn't seem to elicit any excitement. But even then, I wasn't expecting this movie to open in single digits with $8.4 million. For context, "Terminator: Dark Fate" and "Men in Black: International," two other films that failed to restart a previously popular franchise, opened to $29 and $30 million respectively. For more context, the 2000 version of "Charlie's Angels" opened to $40.1 million and its 2003 sequel, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" opened to $37.6 million. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, those two numbers adjust to $67.8 million and $56.9 million respectively. So this new movie opening to just $8.4 million really hurts. Granted, it only had a production budget of $48 million as compared to something like "Terminator: Dark Fate," which had a massive $185 million budget, but still. That hurts.

All of that means I didn't really need to see this movie. Just like no one cares about this new version of "Charlie's Angels," I doubt anyone was remotely curious about what my opinion of the movie is and I fully expect this review to get very few views because oftentimes box office numbers and view counts on my blog correlate quite well, especially when I get the review out a week late. But this was 100 percent a personal venture for me because I was curious about what the outcome of this movie would be. This curiosity stems back to nearly a year ago when I did my preview of the movies of 2019. After being perplexed about why we were getting this, a bit of an epiphany hit me. A modern version of "Charlie's Angels" has the potential to recreate the franchise into something significantly better than those older McG movies from the early 2000's. Those movies have zero substance. They only exist for teenage boys to salivate over the hot girls in skimpy outfits doing spy stuff. Believe me. I was a teenage boy when they were released and I know why all my friends loved them. And it wasn't due to the plot or action sequences. Have you ever tried to go back and re-watch them as an adult with a more critical mindset? They're terrible. That means there's something to be improved.

My vision for this new movie was that it would be one of these female empowerment movies. Rather than sexualizing the lead females in order to pander to a male audience, it could actually give them something to do. We need more movies with strong women leads in order to help propel forward a more progressive narrative. The history of Hollywood has been, general speaking, very male dominate, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the action genre. There's been so many iterations of James Bond over the years, in and out of that franchise, why not give women more of a chance? Actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Charlize Theron have proved to be very exciting and electric in action films. I want more of them. Specifically, I want more of them in roles where they're actually taken seriously, not sexualized in those roles like in the early "Charlie's Angels" movies or the Angelina Jolie "Tomb Raider." The more I thought about this, the more I felt that this is a great opportunity to make an entertaining female-led action movie that's empowering rather than degrading. And given that Elizabeth Banks was the director here, I had all the faith in the world that this is exactly what she was going for, especially since she herself played a supporting role in the movie to the angels.

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but I came to those conclusions long before the trailers got released. When said trailers came out, I realized that I may have hit the nail on the head here, which is why I had to see this movie even though no one seemed excited. Elizabeth Banks even did an interview where she stated that men have no interest in seeing female-led action movies. While the validity of that statement could be debated, I will raise my hand excitedly to tell Elizabeth that there's at least one man in the country that went and saw this movie. And I walked out of the theater rather pleased that the trailers didn't lie to me and that my initial intuitions were right on. This is a movie with three female leads who are having an absolute blast and I found that rather infectious. I also liked how the three of them were different characters who mixed together to create a fun team of angels. Kristen Stewart played the carefree individual who was very wild and rebellious. She didn't care what anyone thought and just did her thing. Ella Balinska, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. She was very structured and serious in the way she went about her job. And then topping it off, Naomi Scott was the adorably naive newcomer trying to prove her worth.

All three of these girls did a great job at what they were asked to do. For Kristen Stewart, I feel this was a rather easy role for her as she has a naturally carefree personality, so it felt like she was being herself. This past decade she's spent a lot of time in the more serious, independent dramas where she totally shines. But those types of films I imagine require a lot of energy to engross yourself into these characters that she's so good at portraying. So this movie felt like a breath of fresh air for her where she could just relax and be herself. In doing so, she is absolutely the star of this movie. Which for me is no surprise. She's one of the more talented actresses working today and thus someone who I look forward to seeing all of her new work. For those of you still stuck on the "Twilight" thing, wake up and enter 2019. Stop judging someone by their appearance in one horrible franchise that's now around a decade old. Both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have had excellent careers in the decade since "Twilight" and have continually proved all the haters wrong. Yet the haters still keep hating. They very bragadociously speak about how awful those two are, yet when I challenge them, they've not seen a single film of theirs outside "Twilight." They're just hating in blind ignorance.

As far as the other two girls go, Naomi Scott is the other big name in this. She's having herself a great year as she gets to have fun in this movie after stealing the show in "Aladdin" earlier this year. But I was really impressed at how different she is in this movie. If I hadn't known going in that this was the girl who played Jasmine, I may not even picked up on that. I really liked her in this as the innocent newcomer who is very bright and optimistic, but isn't always given the chance to shine until she forces her way into it. This is a much different role than Jasmine. And also a much different role than one of the rangers in "Power Rangers." I think the three movies shows a good level of versatility that proves that she has a lot of potential moving forward in her career. Speaking of potential, Ella Balinska is a huge surprise here, but mainly because I had no idea who she was. She gave one of those performances that convinced me that I've seen her somewhere else, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I assumed she was a veteran actress with a lot of work under her belt, so I looked her up and this is her first big role. She's had a lot of small roles, mainly in various TV episodes, but that's it. This is the first time she's had center stage and she owned the spotlight. I hope she gets recognition for it.

Unfortunately, even though these three ladies genuinely did a great job and made for a fun team of angels, there's a movie around them that has to be analyzed. And as I've tried to pinpoint exactly what it is that didn't fully connect with me, it has to come down to the lady that has her name on the movie four times. Elizabeth Banks. She's the writer, director, producer, and co-star. And while she does a good job at the latter, this is about as basic as it gets when it comes to an action/spy thriller. The girls do an excellent job of elevating the movie and making it entertaining enough, but there's only so much they can do when the actual plot is as thin and predictable as they come. I'm trying to describe some specifics here as to not give you vague statements, but I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what happened because it's too disposable. And the action sequences in the movie are directed in a way that you can tell the director is inexperienced with action films. Thus I don't think Elizabeth Banks was the perfect choice to write and direct this film. This is only her second directorial effort after "Pitch Perfect 2," so not only does this not feel like the right genre for her, but the lack of experience as a director holds this movie back a bit.

I do think the feminist angle in the movie was rather amusing. I'm not talking about the strong female leads specifically, but rather the angle that all of the men in the film were the villains while all the girls were the heroes. They tried so hard to be progressive that they overcompensating to the extreme as girl power was oozing from start to finish. I honestly felt like I has crashed a Bachelorette Party. This didn't anger me. It just amused me. It did anger all the butthurt internet trolls, though. All the nerdy men living in their parent's basement playing video games all day absolutely swarmed this movie in anger and hatred ever since Elizabeth Banks said men don't watch female-led action films. It's the same group of internet trolls who got super offended when Brie Larson said she didn't need men to see "Captain Marvel," even though most of Brie's comments were taken out of context. Are we really going to lose our minds because the movie is "sexist towards men" as if men have been the oppressed gender for ages. If you want to know where all of these trolls congregated, go check out IMDb. The movie has a 3.9 score with hundreds, if not thousands of one-star reviews, which I'm guessing 95 percent of never even saw the movie. All of them kinda make me laugh.

Generally speaking, many of the critics that I have heard from seemed to be surprised that the movie is better than it has any right to be. The movie has a 54 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn't great by any means, but does constitute a slight majority saying that the movie is good. Many of the reviews said it is better than expected. And to that I say I told you so. No, this is no masterpiece. Again, I think the inexperience from Elizabeth Banks in terms of writing and directing action films, of which this was her very first attempt at, is what holds the movie back a bit. But it's still a whole lot better than all the internet trolls whose masculinity was threatened when Elizabeth Banks called them out after a making a movie that makes them look like the inferior gender. And it's really the performances of the three leads that elevate this into being a movie that's much better than it has any right to be considering the inferior writing and directing. I think this failed financially because this is a franchise as a whole that people weren't interested in revisiting. Sometimes shoving franchises down people's throats is not always the best game plan. But still, if you ever decide to objectively give this a shot, I think you might find yourself decently entertained. My grade for it is a 7/10.

Parasite Review

Earlier this week I reviewed "Jojo Rabbit." In that review I mentioned that I did a double feature of "Jojo Rabbit" and "Parasite" the other weekend. That was quite the intense pair of movies to watch in one evening. But now after having reviewed "Jojo Rabbit," it's time to explore this other movie, one that I have no idea how to properly review. But I'm going to do my best as well go along. Quite frankly, I knew almost nothing about this movie going in. All that I saw is a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes as I was in. A win at the Cannes Film Festival back in May helped, as did a huge amount of praise from every film festival it stopped at along the way. And now all of that is leading to a whole ton of Oscar buzz, with it being a top contender to WIN best picture. I don't need anything else. I'm sold. And I was also told that this is a movie that is best experienced by knowing absolutely nothing going in. I don't even remember who I heard that from, but I took that person by their word and read/watched nothing about this. I don't even remember seeing a trailer. I just went in and was ready to be surprised at whatever the heck this movie is that people are buzzing about. If you want to do the same and just go see this, please do. I totally recommend that. Then you can come back and read this review.

However, I totally understand that not all of you are like me in that way. You're not going to blindly walk into a small, independent film that you know nothing about just because I said go see it. You need to know what the heck this is. So I'm going to reveal this movie's premise. First, though, it's a Korean film, so if you're allergic to subtitles then you definitely need to see this movie because you need to get over that dumb allergy and watch more foreign films. Subtitles are OK. And we better as heck not get an American remake of this film five years from now because of people's refusal to see foreign films. I hate when that happens. The other thing I need to say is that this is a movie by Bong Joon Ho. If you don't know that name right off the bat, he's the guy who did "Snowpiercer" and "Okja." That should get you excited. Of those two, "Snowpiercer" is especially a wild ride that is a lot of fun. If you haven't seen that one, fix that as soon as possible. After having seeing those two films and now "Parasite," Bong Joon Ho is definitely a director I have my eye on. In fact, I want to go back and check out some of his other movies, like "Memories of Murder," "The Host" (the one from 2006) and "Mother" (the one from 2009 -- NOT the recent one from Darren Aronofsky).

Switching gears to "Parasite," this is a movie that definitely has a lot to say about the class system, but it does it in such a crazy way that is equal parts fun and intense. The movie surrounds this lower class family of four (Mom, Dad, daughter, son) who is having struggles making ends meet. The son stumbles on a job from a friend working for this super rich family, tutoring their daughter. So far, so good. Nothing out of the ordinary. But after a bit, the son decides to see if he can get away with getting his sister a job for the same family without telling said family that she's his sister. But then they don't stop there. They decide that they are going to all get hired for this family, which suddenly leads this into feeling like a heist film. Because in order to get everyone hired, they have to figure out morally questionable ways of getting the current workers who earn an honest wage to get fired. Thus this poor family really aren't the heroes of this film. They're getting themselves involved in all sorts of questionable stuff while this rich family really isn't doing anything wrong. They're not portrayed as snobby and unlikable. They're just living their lives as best as they can while the angry poor people decide to take advantage of them.

That's what makes this so interesting. Yes, it's very much a social commentary about the class system, but Bong Joon Ho doesn't really take any sides in his writing and directing. He presents two sides of the coin and lets it all play out. I almost thought that this was a Robin Hood style of story, robbing the rich to feed the poor. But Robin Hood did things for the greater good. This poor family is doing all of this for completely selfish reasons. Yes, they want to better their situation, but they let jealousy and greed take over. They have an obvious animosity towards this rich family, but it's solely because of their riches and possessions. The rich couple is actually super nice. They're the ones that are the most likable. They did nothing wrong except for being financially well off. That's not a sin. The lower class often blames the upper class of being snobby and arrogant, but more often than not it's the lower class that is more prideful. It's pride from the bottom looking up. Yet the problem here with this rich family is that of naivity and ignorance. They're not bad people. They've become unaware of their surroundings. When a huge rainstorm hits, they're disappointed that their camping trip didn't work out while being completely unaware that people in the lower class lost their homes.

It's a fascinating contrast here. Yet despite all of that, I found myself rooting for this poor family, much like I do in every heist film. Is it wrong of Danny Ocean and friends to decide to rob a casino? Absolutely. But with the way the movie is framed, you cheer them on the whole way. What makes this work well in "Parasite" is that, despite being very morally ambiguous, this poor family has such strong chemistry. This is due to some fantastic acting across the board. Now I'm the worst at Korean, but Wikipedia is going to help me out here so that I can say that Song Kang-ho (the dad), Jang Hye-jin (the mom), Choi Woo-shik (the son) and Park So-dam (the daughter) did an excellent job of portraying this family. If any one of them gets their name called when Oscar nominations come around, I'll be stoked. In paying attention to the buzz, Song Kang-ho seems to be the one who could represent this movie, but we'll see. Although this is an instance wherein I'm sad that best ensemble cast is not an option at the Oscars because this would fit perfectly into that. There's not one actor in the group that stands out of the crowd. They all do good. They play off each other very well as a believable family, so I wanted them to succeed even though they were in the wrong.

But this movie is not just a comedy or a heist. This movie is also very much a thriller. I don't want to even tell you why. Everything I've talked to you about so far is the movie's initial set up. While I was having a lot of fun during the first part of this movie, I slowly became more and more uncomfortable as I started to realize that something was off. And that just nagged at me the whole film, thus I have to give huge credit to Bong Joon Ho for doing a phenomenal job at properly setting up tension. But not just that, he does a great job of balancing the different tones in the movie. The fun I was having did not compromise the tension I was starting to feel. Nor did the rising tension make the comedy aspects less funny. It was perfectly intertwined. But when the humor and the fun of the whole thing was ready to give way to full-out tension, it was a very smooth transition. And while Bong Joon Ho did a great job of setting up the tension, he did an even better job of executing it all. There's a point in this movie where it unleashes, which caused me to cower in my chair. The movie isn't just an empty, fun heist movie. It's a movie that incorporates actual real-world consequences towards actions that are taken. And there's no easy escape from it all.

By the end of this movie, this is one of those experiences that left me in a stunned silence. I went and saw the movie with a friend, but I did not do a good job at participating in the conversation about the movie on our way home because I needed some time to recover and process everything. This is an absolutely crazy film that is bound to leave a mark. It's one of those films that lives up to all the hype. Oftentimes I'll see a movie that's super crazy hyped up and I'll walk out of it thinking it was decent movie, but nothing super special. "Parasite," on the other hand, is something else. It did have one Grinch give it a bad review, so it's down to 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after being at 100 percent for the longest time. But, yeah, it totally deserves to be that high. And if it feels like I haven't done the best job of describing exactly why, it's because I can't. I've only briefly told you the emotions I felt during the second half of the movie and that's as far as I can go. So you're just going to have to trust me on this one. Even if you chose to read this whole review instead of following my recommendation of going in blindly, I'm not going to help you out any more. But for mysteriously cryptic reasons, this is one of my favorite movies of the year and I'm giving it a 10/10.

Jojo Rabbit Review

Awards season is upon us and the other weekend I did a double feature of two of the more buzzier films at the moment, "Jojo Rabbit" and "Parasite." We'll get to "Parasite" in my next review, but first I'm going to dive into "Jojo Rabbit," the latest film from Taika Waititi. If you don't already know the name Taika Waititi by heart, he's the guy who directed "Thor: Ragnarok." Prior to that, he directed the 2014 film "What We Do in the Shadows" and the 2016 film "Hunt for the Wilderpeople." When it comes to "Jojo Rabbit," those latter two are the more relevant films if you want to get a real taste of what Taika is like. As much as I love "Thor: Ragnarok," that's a completely different ballgame given that it's a big-budgeted Marvel film. "Jojo Rabbit" sees Taika going back to the independet realm where he has complete control over everything he wants to do. In that realm, he has a very entertainingly bizarre style that reminds me a bit of Wes Anderson at times. He does a great job of perfectly intertwining humor and serious drama. With "What We Do in the Shadows," he did a Vampire Mockumentary while "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"  reminded me of a live-action remake of "Up." It was both hilarious and touching, which is the path that "Jojo Rabbit" takes.

I will say that when I watched the initial trailer, while I was excited to see the movie based on Taika's directing prowess alone, I was a bit confused as to what exactly the movie is. Speaking of Wes Anderson, it reminded me of "Moonrise Kingdom," but with kids going to a Nazi Germany camp while one of them has Hitler as his imaginary friend. It looked hilariously bizarre, and when I first saw the trailer in theaters without knowing what it was, I actually thought it was a new Wes Anderson film that I hadn't heard of. But how is a comedic movie about Nazis going to work in mainstream 2019? As it turns out, there's a lot more to this movie than that initial trailer hints at. And actually, if you've seen the second trailer, you get a major clue. Funny enough, I didn't see that second trailer until after I had already seen the movie. As I mentioned above, I saw this in a double feature with "Parasite." When I watched "Parasite," the second "Jojo Rabbit" trailer was one of the trailers shown. Not only does that give away what the movie is about, it actually showed way too much of the film, in my opinion. I'm glad I never saw it. I rather enjoyed the experience of having only a small taste of what the movie was, while discovering the whole thing in the moment of seeing the movie.

On that note, if you've seen Taika's films and you're excited for "Jojo Rabbit," I'd recommend just jumping into this one as blindly as humanly possible. This is not a spoiler review, but I'm going to talk plot points and I'm going to describe the emotional journey I went on while watching it because it was quite the wild ride. Feel free to close this review and come back later. Just know that I think this is Taika's best movie to date and one of the best movies of 2019. If you've already seen the movie or you don't mind me exploring my journey of this film a bit, then let's proceed. The first surprise I had while watching this movie was that all the stuff regarding the Nazi camp that the kids went to was all the first 10-15 minutes of the movie. That initial trailer may have shown random clips from the middle or end, but the majority of it came from the movie's intro. This is another movie about the horrors of Nazi Germany during World War II. On that note, this isn't necessarily the most unique film in regards to premise. I've seen a lot of movies that take on the same exact subject matter. But what is unique is the angle that Taika takes on it. This movie is told from the perspective of a young boy who doesn't know any better. He thinks Nazis are good and Jews are evil. That's all he's ever known and thus you can't blame him for what he does.

Because of this, I really liked this kid's arc in the film. And yes, his name is Jojo and he's given the nickname Jojo Rabbit. If you were wondering why the movie was called "Jojo Rabbit," that's your reason. Jojo is played wonderfully by Roman Griffin Davis and the comedic aspect of the movie's beginning works like magic. Tonally it's a bit strange to see Hitler as his best friend with so much love and praise given to the Nazis. Usually movies about Nazi Germany are dark and serious, with all the Nazis rightfully being treated as the evil enemies that they were. But that's not how we start out here. The movie is lighthearted and comedic as we seemingly glorify the Nazis and tear the evil, rotten, inhuman Jews to pieces. But the reason it works so well is because it's told from the perspective a little kid. Again, he doesn't know any better. In retrospect, we all know how awful the Nazis were. But if a young kid growing up in the 1940s was essentially brainwashed into thinking the Nazis were the good guys, you can't blame him for seeing Hitler as his idol while aspiring to be a part of the German army. Yet there are subtle moments where you see Jojo's honest good nature, like when the leaders of the camp throw him a rabbit and tell him to kill it and he just can't.

This is where the movie just blossoms. Due to unfortunate circumstances in the eyes of Jojo, he is unable to be a part of this young, brainwashed army and has to spend the majority of his time at home. This setting is where the majority of this movie takes place. While Jojo is trapped in home, he accidentally stumbles on a Jewish girl hiding in his wall. Jojo's mother, played by Scarlett Johansson, has been secretly hiding her in their home, telling absolutely no one for obvious reasons. When Jojo discovers this girl, he is legitimately freaked out, so him and imaginary Hitler come up with a game plan as to what they are going to do. What I liked here is that this movie didn't take any shortcuts. You know exactly where this is going. This is not a movie that glorifies Nazi Germany in any way, shape or form. This young Jewish girl is our real hero, along with Scar Jo for giving her a place to stay. But instead of jumping right to that the second we discover her, the movie takes Jojo's pace and is more than happy to maintain a comedic tone along the way because Jojo still feels this high level of energy and optimism as he's breezing his way through life. All this Nazi stuff with Hitler as a main character may have felt irreverent, but it was genuinely hilarious and served a good purpose.

Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo was just so good in this movie. He was front and center for the majority of the movie and impressively carried this entire film on his shoulders. Of course I have to give him a lot of credit for this, but when a child actor knocks his performance out of the park, I feel like giving the director at least an equal amount of credit. When I think about it, both "Jojo Rabbit" and "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" leaned heavily on a young actor, meaning Taika is great at directing children. Many kudos there. In addition to a good director, young Roman also had a solid supporting cast that boosted him up. Thomasin McKenzie as the Jewish girl and Scarlett Johansson as the mother both gave performances that were very subtle. There was no flamboyant "Oscar moment" for either of them, but the way the both responded to Jojo in what he was doing made a lasting impact long after the movie was over. I really loved how Thomasin McKenzie, whose character's name was Elsa, played along with Jojo when Jojo was very naive in trying to figure out how to deal with her. Yet even though she put on a good face for Jojo, you could sense her pain. And Scar Jo as the mother was such a loving, caring mother who was quietly being super heroic.

All of these performances built to excellent character arcs that had me really invested in everyone's story. And when the time was right, there was a definite tonal shift in this movie. This was a shift that completely blindsided me. After spending the majority of the movie up to that point nearly rolling over in my seat with laughter, the movie took a giant 2 x 4 board and decked me over the head with it when I wasn't expecting. I don't want to go into any detail about what exactly it was that caused this, but I was sent reeling into a deep depression for the rest of the movie. It was so bad that when Taika tried to make things lighthearted, I just wasn't ready for it. Some of the later jokes felt inappropriate because I wasn't in the mood to laugh anymore. And there's certainly a specific moment here that perhaps might be the most memorable scene of 2019. When you get there, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I kinda feel bad even bringing this up as you might now be preparing yourself while watching, but I gave a fair warning and I can't talk about this movie without describing these emotions I went through. Even though the tonal shift is sudden, in the context of war or even any tragedy, it's very real. Sometimes were not ready for what life has to throw at us.

I meant to write this review much earlier than I did. I could've gotten it out nearly two weeks ago. But I'm glad that I waited a bit because it's given me time to simmer over everything that I watched. It's a movie that cuts deep, yet is able to perfectly intertwine the drastically different tones. It's not very often that I can say that a movie is one of the funniest movies of the year while also being one of the most emotionally heavy. When I watch this a second time, I have a feeling that both of those emotions are going to be amplified with the added context. I might laugh harder at all the humor, especially with the Hitler scenes, Hitler being played by Taika himself. Yet I might also be a complete emotional wreck, requiring a shoulder to cry on in certain moments. And there's so much more to expand on here that I refuse to say. Nevertheless, this movie becomes one of the most real, honest and emotional coming of age stories as we watch a boy slowly discover the realities of his situation as he grows from ignorance and naivity to complete understanding due to circumstances that he is unfairly thrown into. Taika really has delivered quite the unique and memorable film that's going to stick with me for a long time. Because of that, I'm going to give it a strong 9/10.

Terminator: Dark Fate Review

The holiday season is underway and, as I mentioned in my November preview a few days ago, it's set to be a rather crowded holiday season at the domestic box office. However, despite the quantity being quite high, it's been a bit of a weak start in terms of the financial totals. Out of the four wide releases that opened last weekend, "Arctic Dogs" and "Motherless Brooklyn" were completely dead on arrival. Even though "Harriet" overperformed based on expectations, it didn't necessarily rock the box office world. This current weekend we're on looks to be equally as disappointing for the four new wide releases, although we'll get to that later. Then we have the case of "Terminator: Dark Fate." Yes, it won the weekend when it opened last weekend, but it only came in at $29 million. For context, when you adjust for ticket price inflation, "T2" and "T3" opened to nearly $70 million, while "Salvation" took in just over $50 million. I thought "Dark Fate" had all the pieces in place to at least match that inflation adjusted $50 million opening of "Salvation," thus reviving this franchise. But nope. It's $29 million opening barely edged out 2015's "Genisys," which unadjusted took in $27 million. With a $185 million production budget, this could spell the end of the "Terminator" franchise.  

To the idea that "Dark Fate" could spell the end of the "Terminator" franchise, I say good riddance. Prior to the release of "Genisys," I hadn't actually seen a "Terminator" movie. Given that I had heard a lot of great things about the first two movies, I marathoned the whole thing, then went into "Genisys." And yeah, "The Terminator" is a great movie. That initial 1984 film is not one I brought up in box office comparisons because it was a small film that only opened to $4 million 1,005 theaters, bringing in $38 million total. It gained a large following in the seven years that ensued, which helped "T2" open huge, making $202 million total domestically, which adjusts to $438 million with 2019 ticket prices. And there's a great reason why the sequel made that much money. It took a fascinating concept with that original movie, then expanded on it, resulting in one of the best action movies ever since. Even though "T2" finished the story, they attempted to keep it going sans James Cameron with "T3" in 2003. In my opinion that was an utter disaster. Then they tried again in 2009 with "Salvation," and even though that's often considered the worst post "T2" sequel, I don't think that one is that bad. It's just useless and forgettable. "Genisys" did go back to being bad, though.

So yeah, three attempted continuations of the "T2" story arc and three failures. Each of those tried a unique angle to bring the franchise back into relevance, but nothing worked. My position thus became that this franchise should've ended after "T2." You have an excellent two story arc there and a completed story. The world has been saved. Crisis averted. Nothing more is needed. But Hollywood wasn't done. Enter "Dark Fate," which kinda saw James Cameron return. I say "kinda" there because I doubt how much involvement he actually had in this. He's not the director. He's just a producer. And that could mean just about anything, but I think he's too busy making "Avatar" movies to make a real contribution to anything. I think him listed as a producer is more of a marketing ploy. Sure, the movie has his stamp of approval, but I also seem to remember him thinking "Genisys" was worthy successor to "T2," so I don't know if his opinion or stamp of approval really means much of anything these days. Nevertheless, whoever came up with the idea behind this movie decided to go the "Halloween" route of completely retconning the previous sequels while choosing to be a direct sequel to "T2." OK, not a bad idea, I suppose. But how is the execution? Yeah... 

"Dark Fate" picks up five years after "T2" happened. Judgment Day is in the past and Sarah and John Connor are living happily without any worries. Then an inciting incident happens. For now, all I'll say is the term "inciting incident" because that is a spoiler. But we HAVE to get into that later. But I'll warn you before we do. Moving on, after said inciting incident, we jump 22 years into the future, bringing us into the present day. Two random citizens in Mexico are minding their own business when a terminator-like being falls out of the sky. Turns out this first being is actually not a terminator. She's a genetically modified human of sorts who has been sent back in time to protect a certain individual from the real threat. It's then we see the actual terminator fall from the sky. This terminator is even more powerful than our previous terminators from past films. I can't remember what his model name is, but I call him liquid terminator because he turns into liquid and transforms into whatever his surroundings are. Perhaps shape-shifting terminator is a more apt term, but I still like liquid terminator because he melts into liquid and is impossible to kill. But he's out to kill the new chosen one and our genetically modified human is sent to stop him.

If this all sounds familiar, it's because it is. And that's what makes this movie frustrating. Sure, the idea of being a direct sequel to "T2" was fine, but the severe lack of creativity is painful. All they did was create a plot that was a completely recycled from "The Terminator" and "T2." The novelty of that first film was great. The expansion of that idea with "T2" was fantastic. But come on. Can ANYONE figure out how to do a new idea here that is actually smart and unique? First, though, before I continue my many complaints of this latest film, I must say that this is a competently crafted film. Tim Miller is the director here and he's the one who directed the first "Deadpool" movie. Given that both of his movies are franchise films with higher-ups who had ideas of how the movie needed to be, I don't really know what a Tim Miller film looks like. But in both cases, his movies are well shot, well directed, and exciting. The action in "Dark Fate" is extremely entertaining and all of the actors are giving it their all, with the idea that they are a part of a "Terminator" movie that's going to get people excited about this franchise again. This didn't feel like a paycheck film for anyone. I could see that everyone involved believed in what they were doing, which gives this movie a boost. 

Specifically I give a lot of credit to Mackenzie Davis. She's our genetically modified human coming back to protect our new chosen one. In the movie we call her Grace. She has some great acting chops, making her character quite interesting. I came to love her personality and the extremely likable on-screen presence she had. She was also great in her action sequences. Now this is not gender specific, but sometimes you get an actor or actress who gets forced into being an action star, yet you don't believe it. With Mackenzie Davis that was not the case. I don't know what work she put into this movie, but it felt like she did a lot of training so that she could personally pull off what she was required to do. And that made everything exciting, especially as this unstoppable liquid terminator came after both her and the girl she was protecting. Speaking of that girl, her name is Dani and although she's not the most memorable part of this film, she also did a fine job. She was more of a damsel in distress and thus doesn't compare much to Sarah Connor in that original film, but she also had personality and emotion, so I had a genuine interest in her safety. The performances of these two ladies and some well directed action sequences made for a first act of this film that was excellent. 

Of course those two ladies aren't the only ladies at center stage of this film. "Dark Fate" sees the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, who has developed into hardened, angry terminator hunter. At 63 years old now, she hasn't missed a beat. Her presence and excellent acting abilities elevated the first two "Terminator" movies and her involvement in this movie is also a welcomed presence. With her added to this trio of ladies, we have lots of girl power to help stop liquid terminator, making this an entertaining and progressive film for a portion of it. And while all three of these ladies did their absolute best to make this a good film, the root problem here for me was that this movie eventually became exhausting. A big part of the problem goes back to the core issue of this being the most unoriginal sequel to date, which in turn made this extremely frustrating. I kept waiting for something different and unique to happen, but the further we got into this film, the more this just became empty noise as we repeated the same exact tropes of the first two movies and I got tired of seeing an unstoppable liquid terminator hunting them down. Arnold in the first movie was a great villain and the T-1000 is pretty awesome. But liquid terminator bored me. He was fun for a bit, but just got old and dull, just like the movie's plot. 

And this brings us full circle to the "inciting incident" that mentioned in the beginning of the movie. If you are interesting in seeing this movie, then turn away now because I'm going to bring up spoilers. If you've already seen this movie or you don't care about the plot of a sixth "Terminator" movie is, then let us continue. The beginning of this movie reminded me a lot of "Alien Cubed," my nickname for "Alien 3" due to how the title is stylized. "Alien" and "Aliens" both spent a good amount of time building up a likable team. By the end of "Aliens," the surviving group was family. Yet most of them died off screen at the beginning of "Alien Cubed," which is perplexingly frustrating. That leads us to "Dark Fate," which for some reason decided to kill John Connor in the opening scene. A rogue terminator shows up, despite Judgment Day already ending, and shoots John Connor in cold blood. This is why Sarah Connor became a hardened terminator hunter. I kept waiting for a justification here for this action, but that never came. Ultimately Dani became the new John Connor in another alternate future that forms, which is dumb. And it's frustrating because we spent two full movies protecting John Connor... only to see him shot dead at the beginning of the new one? 

If you're a fan of this franchise, I have no idea how you can be fine with them doing this, just like I have no idea how you can be fine with "T3" completely ignoring the continuity errors that they set up. Everyone seems to hate "Salvation" because that one was only PG-13. I don't care about that. I don't require a movie to be a certain rating in order for it to be enjoyed. I just want it to be a good movie. And at least "Salvation" tried to be something different, which I think is respectable. We can all agree that "Genisys" was a unfortunate blunder, but I can see a lot of people supporting "Dark Fate" because it gave us some great action sequences and some great acting, with the return of Linda Hamilton. I need more than that, though. I need a good movie that's not recycled from previous movies and I need the movie to respect the events of the first two movies that are excellent. In that, this movie fails. And I feel bad for Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes and Linda Hamilton because they tried to make this work. Thankfully this timeline is so screwed up that I can forget that any of these sequels post "T2" ever happened and simply enjoy the first two movies as a solid two movie story arc. "Dark Fate" isn't the worst sequel, but it is the most frustrating and I'm giving it a 6/10. 

Movie Preview: November 2019

Halloween is in the books and it's time for the beginning of what is officially labeled as the holiday season. Due to November 1 inconveniently coming on a Friday, I ended up having zero free time to do this post last week as I prioritized my Halloween reviews and I didn't even get around to several of those that I wanted to do. So I'm a weekend behind. But that's OK. There's still four full weekends of November to preview. And I'll do a recap of last weekend. Speaking of inconveniences, the website I use to put this post together, Box Office Mojo, completely revamped their site. Which is cool and all, except they put a lot of their info that I regularly used behind a giant paywall while completely gutting several other useful features. So instead, this post is brought to you by The Numbers (the-numbers.com), a site I'm still trying to figure out how to use. So if it feels like there's slightly less information in this post that I usually include, that's why. Regarding October, it ended up being a rather healthy October with $778.6 million domestically, powered mostly by the $285 million of "Joker." Coming in second was not "Maleficent 2," "Zombieland 2" or "Gemini Man," but rather "The Addams Family" with $76.8 million. But now we move onto the busy November.

November 1st - 3rd-

As I stated above, this initial weekend is a recap since I couldn't get around to this post last week. Taking the box office crown was Terminator: Dark Fate, but with a surprisingly weak $29 million. There's a lot of bad puns I could throw out here, but the easiest one for me to walk right through is that it was a rather "Dark Fate" for the Terminator franchise, which was hoping to reinvigorate the franchise by pulling a "Halloween" and being a direct sequel to "T2: Judgment Day," while retconning the rest of the sequels that no one liked. They even brought back Linda Hamilton, hired Tim Miller, director of "Deadpool," and had James Cameron back on board, albeit as a producer. Ask me a few months ago and I would've said this could've at least matched total of "Terminator Salvation," which earned $152 million when adjusted for ticket price inflation. Instead, the $29 million opening barely comes in ahead of the $27 million opening of 2015's disappointment "Terminator: Genisys," which finished its run with $89.8 million. But even that movie had a solid 3.3 multiplier, which means "Dark Fate" could finish with as little as $70 million if it drops off the face of the cliff, which is definitely not good for its reported $185 million budget. Needless to say, this franchise probably won't be back.

On the flip side of things, the story is much more positive towards are second highest grossing new release of the weekend, which is the Harriet Tubman biopic Harriet. Considering how influential of a figure Tubman is in American history, it's a bit surprising that it took this long to get a movie made about her. "Harriet" is directed by Kasi Lemmons and stars Cynthia Erivo in the lead role. It was thought of to be a major awards season play heading into the season, but the narrative changed a bit when reaction was a bit underwhelming coming out of Toronto International Film Festival. Perhaps that convinced Focus Features to give it a more frontloaded release into 2,059 theaters instead of playing the slow roll-out game like "Jojo Rabbit" and "Parasite" currently are. That's a decision that has worked out quite well as it was projected to earn anywhere from $8-10 million heading into the weekend, but managed to jump higher with an $11.7 million opening weekend, good enough for fourth place. What's better is that general audiences are responding much stronger than festival goers and critics have been as it scored the coveted A+ Cinemascore. Awards season buzz or not, a Cinemascore like that is certain to drive strong word of mouth in the weeks to come.

There were two other wide releases this weekend, but they were both dead on arrival, so we'll blow through them real quick. Down in ninth place, Warner Bros. struck out with Motherless Brooklyn, a film that was written and directed by Edward Norton, who also stars in the film. This is Norton's second directorial effort after the 2000 film "Keeping the Faith." "Motherless Brooklyn is a crime drama that follows a private detective with Tourette's Syndrome who tries to solve the murder of his mentor and friend. It was thought to also be an awards season play, but mixed reaction also killed that buzz. It wasn't quite as lucky as "Harriet," though as audiences ignored it, causing it to only make $3.5 million, which is only a tad bit better than fellow Warner Bros. disappointing "The Goldfinch," which opened to $2.7 million in September. Following right behind "Motherless Brooklyn" in 10th place with $2.9 million was Arctic Dogs, an animated film with almost zero awareness. Entertainment Studios confidently released it in 2,844, but with no marketing push, the only thing that it managed to accomplish was score the worst weekend ever for a movie opening it at least 2,800 theaters. With "Frozen 2" right around the corner, this one is going to disappear quickly.

November 8th - 10th-

Now we're onto the actual previews for this month. After four new wide releases in the first weekend of November, this second weekend also has four new releases and they'll be led by the Halloween holdover Doctor Sleep. It's been a bit of a Stephen King renaissance as of late as the huge box office totals of both "IT" and "IT: Chapter Two" have sparked all sorts of Stephen King material. Plenty of them, like "1922," "Gerald's Game" and "In the Tall Grass," have been Netflix releases, but "Doctor Sleep" is the third theatrical release of Stephen King story in 2019, following "Pet Sematary" and "IT: Chapter Two." And it's a pretty big one as it's the sequel to "The Shining," which was adapted by Stanley Kubrick into film back in 1980. Said film has easily become one of the most beloved Stephen King adaptations, even though King himself famously hated the movie. The book "Doctor Sleep" was written in 2013 and takes place several years in the future, with young Danny Torrance now an adult. Danny Torrance is played by Ewan McGregor, which brings an added draw to the movie. This could open huge with a $30-40 million debut if all the stars align, opening like a Conjuring film, but two notable comparisons come with "Pet Sematary," which opened to $24.5 million, and "The Dark Tower, which opened to $19.2 million. Any of those options will result in a No. 1 spot at the box office.

Looking to play the long haul for the holiday season will be the romantic comedy Last Christmas. This is a movie that teams up Henry Goulding from "Crazy Rich Asians" and Emilia Clarke from "Me Before You" for a Christmas themed romance film. On paper that seems like the perfect recipe for success. If its target audience responds well, not only should it be able to have a solid opening weekend that could, in theory, challenge "Doctor Sleep" for the opening spot, but it is also poised well to have a lengthy holiday run. The director here is Paul Feig. Even though Feig in the past has stuck with a very specific style of comedy with the likes of "Bridesmaids," "The Heat" and "Spy," last year he proved to be a little more versatile as he directed the comedic thriller "A Simple Favor." So stepping into the romance realm doesn't seem to be too far of a stretch here. Best case scenario would be for this movie to match the opening weekend of "Crazy Rich Asians," which earned $26.5 million. However, all comparisons seem to indicate an opening in the high teens instead as the aforementioned "Me Before You" ($18.7 million) as well as this summer's "Yesterday" ($17 million) and 2017's holiday themed comedy "A Bad Mom's Christmas" ($16.8 million) all opened in that realm.

While both "Doctor Sleep" and "Last Christmas" are trending positively at the moment, the movie going in the wrong direction is Roland Emmerich's war thriller Midway. This is the movie that tells the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing Battle of Midway during World Ward II. And while that sounds fine enough on paper, thus bringing to mind other movies set in the Pacific Theater like "Hacksaw Ridge," "Unbroken" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," lots of red flags on this one shoot up and they all go back to the director here, Roland Emmerich. Emmerich is a director that made one giant blockbuster in "Independence Day" back in 1996 that everyone loved, but nothing notable since, at least not in terms of quality cinema. His most recent films include "Independence Day: Resurgence," "White House Down," "2012" and "10,000 BC." So generic, mindless action thrillers are more of his thing, which is why him attempting a serious war epic is a bit concerning. Thus the perfect comparison might be to Michael Bay's 2001 film "Pearl Harbor," a movie about these exact same events from a director who also usually does mindless action rather than serious war films. And while all of these comparisons were actually financially successful, the comparison there in terms of quality seems to be resulting in the interest level in "Midway" not being particularly high.

Pulling up the rear will be the John Cena led family comedy Playing with Fire. Teaming up with John Cena is Keegan-Michael Key and John Leguizamo as the three of them play a trio of macho firefighters who meet their match when they have to deal with a trio of young kids. This is a more juvenile slapstick comedy aimed at younger audiences in the vein of something like "Daddy Day Care" or "The Pacifier," two other films featured manly men doing something they aren't as good at, dealing with kids. While this is probably not going to be the type of movie adults or critics care much about, that's also not the point here. If it can make the young kids giggle at all the silly things happening on screen, then the movie did its job. The problem is that it's the adults paying for the tickets and with the likes of "Frozen 2" right around the corner, that might be too big of an obstacle to overcome. Granted, there is a bit of a window of opportunity before "Frozen 2," but it's also worth noting that "The Addams Family" is still playing rather well as it became a sleeper hit in October. So "Playing with Fire" might be the odd movie out, being sandwiched between the other two major family films. However, this does seem like the type of movie that gets discovered later on.

November 15th - 17th-

We're not slowing down this weekend in terms of the quantity of releases as after two straight weekends of four wide releases, this third weekend adds another three to the mix. And I promise that the pun at the beginning of this paragraph was completely unintentional, but leading the pack this weekend will be Ford v. Ferrari. This is a movie that looks to hit the sweet spot between being a well-reviewed awards contender and an audience-pleaser for the general movie-going crowds. It tells the true story of Carroll Shelby and his British driver Ken Miles who dispatch the people at Ford to build the Ford GT40, with the goal of finally defeating the people at Ferrari at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. That premise, combined with Oscar darlings Christian Bale and Matt Damon in the lead roles, have led this to be a buzzy film in the awards race. It had high praise out of Telluride and Toronto that could translate into several Oscar nominations. At the same time, general audiences also like Bale and Damon, as well as big-budgeted movies about racing. It also has James Mangold at the helm, who is coming off strong praise following 2017's "Logan." All of this could lead to a rather long ride at the box office. And yes, that last pun right there was very much intentional.

Entering itself into the long list of remakes/sequels/reboots that no one asked for is the 2019 reboot of Charlie's Angels. This is a franchise that dates back to 1976 with original TV series of the same name that went for five seasons and 110 episodes. In initially starred Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith as the trio of crime-fighting ladies working for a private detective agency, led by the unseen Charlie Townsend, voiced by John Forsythe. It was adapted into a film in 2000, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. That movie, as well as it's 2003 sequel "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," was directed by McG. This 2019 reboot has Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinski as the new generation of angels. Elizabeth Banks, Djimon Hounsou and Patrick Stewart provide supporting roles in the film. Directing the film is also Elizabeth Banks, which brings up this movie's main difference. The two McG films were very much directed more at teenage boys, with the angels being used more as eye candy rather than actual characters with backstories and personalities. Elizabeth Banks seems to be directing this more towards a female audience, with her angels being empowering female characters rather than eye candy. While this is solid motivation for making the movie, the biggest obstacle here is getting people to care enough.

The third wide release of this weekend is Bill Condon's The Good Liar. This stars Ian McKellan as Roy Courtney, a career con artist who meets a widow named Betty McLeish, played by Helen Mirren. And, well, as a lot of con artist movies often go, Courtney finds himself in the awkward position of actually starting to care for this woman when he was initially going in for yet another con. This movie was thought to be a potential Oscar vehicle for Ian McKellan, who has only been nominated twice in his career for his acting, winning neither of those nominations. It would be a nice acknowledgement to one of the greatest actors in the business. However, this is Warner Bros. pushing this vehicle and they're on a losing streak at the moment with their potential awards contenders. In September, "The Goldfinch" bottomed out with just $2.7 million, while this past weekend "Motherless Brooklyn" also was dead on arrival with $3.5 million. Warner Bros. didn't even bother throwing "The Good Liar" through the festival circuits and haven't been giving it much of a push. Thus it being another Warner Bros. title that opens with less than $5 million seems like a strong possibility. On the other hand, this could also attract the senior audiences given its cast and premise.

I mentioned that there were three wide releases this weekend. However, I also mentioned that I've taken a lot of my information for this post from The Numbers instead of Box Office Mojo. The Numbers currently lists All Rise as a movie that's getting a wide release from Entertainment Studios this weekend. However, looking at Box Office Mojo as well as Box Office Pro (boxoffice.com), neither of those two sites have this movie even on the schedule, while IMDb's release date claims this as having come out in September, which certainly didn't happen. So I have no idea what's going on with this. What I do know is that this was released in the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, then being titled "Monster." It's about a 17-year-old honor student being charged with felony murder. Entertainment Studios purchased the rights to distribution, retitled it "All Rise," and plan to release it at some point. Whether it's this weekend or five years down the road, I have no idea. Entertainment Studios was also the studio that released "Arctic Dogs" to a record low opening for a movie opening in at least 2,800 theaters, so who knows what they're up to. The movie does star Jeffrey Wright, Tim Blake Nelson and John David Washington, so it would be beneficial for them to do something.

November 22nd - 24th-

It's going to be an absolutely monstrous Thanksgiving this year at the box office and that will be 100 percent due to Disney's release of Frozen 2 getting a head start the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. I don't even need to recount the history of "Frozen" as everyone knows how much of a phenomenon it was following its release in November 2013. It opened on the weekend of Thanksgiving, earning a $67.4 million for the three-day and $93.9 for the five-day. It finished its run with $400.7 million domestically and $1.272 billion worldwide. It's also had a very long, lucrative life post-theaters with DVD sales and merchandising. That alone means that "Frozen 2" is primed for huge business everywhere, practically guaranteeing that it will be Disney's sixth $1 billion film of 2019. The marketing even has a lot of the "Frozen" haters seemingly on board with the direction they're taking this sequel. What does that mean for its opening weekend? To answer that, some highly anticipated Pixar sequels should be where we turn. In 2016, "Finding Dory" opened to $135.1 million. Last year, "Incredibles 2" opened to $182.7 million. Earlier this year, "Toy Story 4" opened to $120.9 million. Somewhere in the midst of that is where "Frozen 2" should fall. Add to that another lengthy holiday run and, yeah, this is going to do quite well, continuing the year of the Disney.

Attempting to compete with the Disney machine this weekend is A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Being released the same weekend as "Frozen 2" is a daunting task and this could work as counter-programming. However, its subject matter, that being the famous Fred Rogers, was obviously someone who spent his career working with children, so it makes sense there would be at least some crossover here with family audiences, which is a battle that will be easily won by "Frozen 2," so Sony is probably hoping for some staying power here. If audiences take well to this and positive word of mouth ensues, this could have some long legs, especially if it grabs some awards attention. It's a bit of an interesting turn of events that Fred Rogers is getting this much attention as last year saw the release of the documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?," which did quite well for documentary standards. And now director Marielle Heller is taking his biopic here, with Tom Hanks playing the lead role. The movie did benefit from its release at the Toronto International Film Festival in September as it got solid reviews from there, currently standing at a fantastic 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with 86 reviews counted. But still, with the high level of competition, both with "Frozen 2" and other Oscar fare, it's not a guarantee that this becomes a runaway hit at the box office.

And finally for this weekend, we also see the release of 21 Bridges. When it comes to counter-programming, out of the two movies opening alongside "Frozen 2" this weekend, "21 Bridges" is the one that actually has potential to successfully counter-program. This is an action thriller starring Chadwick Boseman, J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller and Taylor Kitsch. It's a movie about an NYPD detective, played by Boseman, who puts all of New York City on lockdown in order to stop a duo of cop killers. So those who aren't interested in seeing "Frozen 2" have the option to go see this cop thriller movie. In regards to the advertising, this movie has been heavily pushing the fact that it is from Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of "Avengers: Endgame." Smart advertising, I suppose. It's a bit deceiving, though. The Russo Brothers did NOT direct this movie, which is what the trailers make you think. They're just the producers. The actual director is Brian Kirk, who's mainly been in the TV realm, with a few episodes of "Game of Thrones" being his biggest resume piece. The biggest challenge that "21 Bridges" will face is getting people interested. At this current moment, interest level isn't super high, meaning strong reviews and good word of mouth will be key to its performance.

November 27th - December 1st-

The week of Thanksgiving will also be dominated by "Frozen 2," but on Wednesday the 27th, there will be two additional movies thrown in the ring for the five-day holiday weekend and the one that's likely to make the most noise is Knives Out. This comes from Rian Johnson, director of "Looper," "Brick," and a few episodes of "Breaking Bad." And, yes, he also ruined the lives of millions of Star Wars with a recent Star Wars movie that shall not be named. In fact, the world's worst fan base hated him so much that they are still trolling him on Twitter to this day. In order to hide from all the noise, he sat down and wrote this movie, an old-fashioned murder mystery, then recruited everyone in Hollywood to join him in the filming of it. And I'm not exaggerating by much as we have Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette LaKeith Stanfeild, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer. And that's just the names that they could cram onto the poster. So far the word is very positive. It debuted at Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews as it was at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes for quite some time. At the moment it's sitting pretty at 98 percent with 102 reviews counted.

Last, but probably not least for November, is the movie Queen & Slim. While this movie did not take the festival circuit, it's garnering a fair amount of buzz, which could lead to some awards nominations, especially for lead actors Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith. The movie stars those two as a couple going on a normal date when a police officer pulls them over for a minor traffic violation. The situation goes horribly wrong and, in a bit of a twisted turn of events, they end up killing the officer and become fugitives. Video of the situation also happens to go viral, making them a symbol of trauma, pain and grief across the country. While this specific story is a fictional one, it's the type of premise that could be seen as extremely relevant and thus garner high praise. That doesn't necessarily guarantee strong box office numbers out of the gate, though. Thus a similar comparison might be to last year's similarly-themed film "The Hate U Give," which opened to $7.6 million in its wide expansion at around this time. With the high level of competition, that range might be what "Queen & Slim" is looking at. But it's another one of those movies that is looking to play the long game. It will get its official premier on November 14 at the AFI Fest before opening wide.