Little Women Review

Up until this past week, my personal experience with “Little Women” in any format was at exactly zero. I was aware of its existence, but was never really motivated to look into it. In light of this current adaptation, I became aware of the fact that it has been adapted a large number of times in various formats. It began as a novel by Louisa May Alcott, originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. It was immediately successful and was eventually published as one novel in 1880. In addition to the novel itself being extremely popular and widely influential, it has been adapted many times. It was first adapted into a stage production in 1912 and has since had a very successful stage life. The first movie adaptation was in 1917 as a silent film. This new 2019 version is the seventh film adaptation with films coming in 1917, 1918, 1933, 1949, 1994, 2018 and now 2019. It has been adapted into television by means of a series or mini-series on many occasions. It even became a Broadway musical in 2005 and an opera in 1998. So yeah, there’s been a lot of “Little Women” productions in the last 150 years and yours truly is just now jumping on the bandwagon in 2019. Why? Easy. Greta Gerwig. After seeing “Lady Bird,” I was excitedly on board with whatever she decided to do next.

If you’re not as crazy into film as me and you don’t immediately light up when I say Greta Gerwig, allow me to elaborate a bit. Greta Gerwig has been around the industry since 2006, primarily as an actress. She’s had aspirations to do more as she co-directed the 2008 film “Nights and Weekends” with Joe Swanberg and has jumped on as a co-writer on several occasions, but for the first decade or so of her career, acting is what she mainly did. That is until 2017 when she finally premiered her solo directorial debut, that of “Lady Bird,” a movie she also wrote. In concept, “Lady Bird” wasn’t necessarily the most original idea. But it was so personal to Greta Gerwig and executed so well that I was overcome with emotion on the ride home. It was about a teenage girl living out her senior year of high school in California, yet despite not having those specific connections to the story, it felt very personal to me and I crowned it as my favorite movie of 2017, ahead of a certain Star Wars movie that I loved. So of course I had to see what Greta did next. And if she decided she wanted to adapt “Little Women” again, then sign me up and consider my ticket purchased. Sometimes it’s as simple as that for me? And Saoirse Ronan is back with her? Even better.

We’ll eventually get to this whole movie review thing, but my history with Saoirse dates back even further than Greta. I discovered Saoirse in 2011 with the movie “Hanna,” which is a very underrated film that not many people are aware of. Not only is the movie beautiful and the soundtrack one of my favorites, but Saoirse is excellent as an action star in that movie. Then I saw her in things like “The Host” in 2013 and “Brooklyn” in 2015 and I quickly realized that this girl has versatility, yet she was only 17 years old in “Hanna,” and thus 19 years old in “The Host” and 21 in “Brooklyn.” I don’t know why I haven’t gone back and watched “Atonement” from 2007, where she was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 13, but I need to fix that. Then, of course, with all this history, she completely won me over in “Lady Bird” as the title character. This girl is a superstar and perhaps my favorite actress working today. And at some point along the way, I learned that she’s Irish, with a very thick Irish accent that is fun to listen to, which means all these American accents she’s been doing is not her normal speaking voice, which makes her more impressive. I also pride myself in knowing how to correctly pronounce her name, which is nothing like it looks since Irish is a bit of a unique language.

OK, fine. I’ll stop swooning over my girl Saoirse and give you a review of “Little Women.” But all of that is important because, even though I knew close to nothing about the source material of this movie I was watching, I am very biased in favor a strong Saoirse-led movie. Others might compare her performance to previous adaptations, like Winona Ryder’s Oscar-nominated performance in 1994, or more obviously to how the character of Jo March was written in Alcott’s original novel, but I was just sitting there enjoying Saoirse’s performance as is with no expectations of what she was supposed to be. It’s possible that may have given me an advantage because often it’s better to judge something on its own merits rather than how it compares to things around it. In regards to Saoirse specifically, I didn’t have seven or more versions of her character in my head to compare her to, which I think allows me to be completely unbiased in regards to how she did compared to others. With the movie as a whole, same thing. With no expectations of how things are supposed to be, I was able to simply enjoy what I saw on the screen. I was also able to be surprised at how the plot unfolded because I had no idea what was going to happen.

I don’t imagine there are too many people who need a plot summary of what happens here, given how long this has been around. But yeah, this movie revolves around the life experiences of four sisters: Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth, all of whom have very different life aspirations and different talents. Joining Saoirse in this cast of sisters is Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and newcomer Eliza Scanlen. I mean, talk about dream cast here. Emma is one of my other favorite actresses for obvious reasons. Everyone loves her. And Florence Pugh is having a phenomenal year with this, “Fighting with My Family” and “Midsommar.” If you don’t know her yet, you will soon as she’s starring alongside Scar-Jo in “Black Widow” this upcoming May. The three of them as established, excellent actresses just lit this movie on fire. And newcomer Eliza Scanlen impressively kept pace with her veteran co-stars. Given how excellent they all were, I cared about each of them. I wanted them all to succeed. Because I was so emotionally invested in their individual journeys, I became upset when they were upset. When they cried, I wanted to give them a hug and cry with them. When they succeeded and were happy, I leapt with joy. There were several moments worthy of applause.

This strong level of emotional investment was what made this movie so satisfying. One thing I want to heavily stress here is that this is not some silly chick flick. For obvious reasons, this is going to attract a large female crowd to the theaters, but if you’re a guy and you had no interest in “Little Women” because you think it’s a “girl’s only” film, you are absolutely wrong. I wouldn’t even qualify this is a romance film. Yes, romance is a strong theme, but this is a movie about life. It’s a movie about family, growing up together, and supporting each. It’s honest with how life goes. Sometimes when you’re young you have the naive belief that things are always going to be the same. You may have a sibling or a best friend who you think you’ll always be together with. But that’s not always true. Sometimes life happens. Sometimes people you care about move away, change who they are, or even pass away. And sometimes that’s tough to deal with. And this movie did a great job reflecting that, making it really difficult to get through at times. In my sold out screening, I occasionally looked around, especially at key moments, and the whole theater was sobbing and sniffling. This movie really gets to you. There’s a lot of moments, big and small, that are going to stick with me.

In putting this all together, I really liked how Greta Gerwig framed this story. I don’t know how things are organized in every version of this, but looking at the Wikipedia of the novel, the story is told in two parts. If I were to make a guess, I would think that some of the versions of this story are told chronologically. And perhaps that works for those versions. But Greta Gerwig set up this story as being told out of chronological order. She takes the two parts of the story and essentially slices it up and puts them on top of each other. This sometimes gets confusing because, outside the opening sequences where it says “Seven years earlier,” the movie chooses not to babysit you. It jumps back and forth constantly between the two timelines without informing you what timeline you’re in. You just kinda have to figure it out based on circumstance, and occasionally the hairstyles, because the cast is also all the same. But outside getting lost occasionally, for the most part this provides excellent juxtaposition, looking at the sisters at two very different times of their lives at about the same time in the movie. This beautifully drives home the themes I just talked about. There’s a lot of stark contrast between scenes that makes things even more emotional. 

This is also a movie that’s about more than just these sisters. They are, of course, the main focus. But there’s also a large cast around them, which includes Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk and Chris Cooper. Each one of them plays a very important role. Some roles are large, like Laura Dern playing their mother or Timothee Chalamet playing the main love interest. But then you have Meryl Streep showing up every once in a while or Bob Odenkirk making an appearance at the end of the film. And I think all of these roles were vital to the movie’s success because it helped paint a large picture of everything that happened in the sisters’ lives. There were a lot of small moments that became very rewarding because an actor or actress would step in for a brief scene or two, make a strong impact, then step away. These moments were so effective that I would love to spend more time in each of their individual worlds. Thus a great puzzle was perfectly put together. The full scope of life was beautifully represented. Life itself is a puzzle and oftentimes things are hard because we don’t understand everything. We only see a small portion. Yet the movie “Little Women” helps us take a step back and see the big picture of life.

I really think that Greta Gerwig has hit yet another grand slam as a director. After delivering a debut of “Lady Bird,” she was immediately on my radar. Yet I can’t claim someone as a favorite director after just one film. And I don’t know if I can do so after just two films, either. But with “Little Women,” Greta Gerwig has proven that she’s not just a one-hit wonder, but rather is a force to be reckoned with. And given that she’s married to Noah Baumbach, who just rocked my world with “Marriage Story,” the two of them are quite the power couple. And as I think about, “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” have a lot more in common than I was initially anticipating. They’re both movies about life and Greta has now proven that she is excellent at developing these real-world themes into stories that really stick with you. Thus with just two solo films under her belt as a director, I already feel confident in saying that she’s one of my favorite directors. Whatever she decides to do next, consider me first in line. In a year that provided us with both “Avengers: Endgame” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” I honestly might be more interested in returning to “Little Women,” which is not something I thought I was going to say going into this year. My grade for “Little Women” is a 9/10.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review (SPOILERS)

It’s been quite the two-year journey for the world of Star Wars since the release of “The Last Jedi” in December 2017. While it’s true that “The Force Awakens” had its fair share of controversy, I would say it was mostly muted as, generally speaking, critics and audiences were both pleased with Disney’s new introduction to the world of Star Wars. People complaining that it was a terrible movie due to it being a carbon copy of “A New Hope” were more in the minority and, comparatively speaking, they weren’t loud and toxic. With “The Last Jedi,” on the other hand, that was a completely different story that, quite frankly, caught me off guard. The critics loved the movie. I loved the movie. All of my friends that I saw it with loved the movie. All was well with Rian Johnson’s second chapter in the trilogy. But then the firestorm hit as suddenly there appeared an angry mob of Star Wars fans whose lives had just been miserably ruined and torn to shreds because of a silly, fictional, two-hour story. Honestly, I’d still contend that said fans were still in the minority as “The Last Jedi” was not only in the 90 percent range on Rotten Tomatoes, but also received an A on Cinemascore and, to this day, still has a 7.1 on IMDb after over 500,000 votes. But man was that crowd loud.

If you’ve been anywhere on the planet Earth in the last two years, you are well aware of all of this. But nevertheless, a brief recounting is necessary to provide context for me talking about the final chapter in the new trilogy, “The Rise of Skywalker.” Following the emergence of this angry, loud minority of fans storming the internet in a ruthless rage, it rather quickly became exhausting to discuss this movie, especially since there was no calm reasoning with these people. They were so hurt and offended that suddenly talking about Star Wars became as frustrating as talking politics. I personally stood my ground and will still defend “The Last Jedi,” but it quickly became trendy to hate “The Last Jedi.” This is an interesting, psychological phenomenon wherein once someone starts giving a negative criticism, other people start feeling justified in also giving negative criticism. If this starts spiraling out of control, the people who didn’t see the movie in the initial wave will go into the movie with the idea in mind that they will disappointed instead of being excited, meaning they’ll spend the movie looking for all the negative things about it instead of trying to enjoy the movie. This causes complaints to arise like people being upset that the movie doesn’t follow the laws of physics.

Can you understand how two years of this nonsense can get exhausting? I mean, I can nitpick the movie, too. But I can also nitpick EVERY Star Wars movie. In fact, I even made one Facebook post recently wherein I destroyed every Star Wars movie that has been made, as if I had hated all 10 movies in the saga. I did that to prove a point. If people are being extra nitpicky about “The Last Jedi,” yet they easily overlook all the other flaws in the series, that’s a double standard. My favorite example is calling people out on them hating this new trilogy for not having a planned out direction from day one. Yes, that can be frustrating. But if that is cause for hatred of the new movies, then what’s the justification of Luke and Leia making out in one movie, then being revealed as siblings in the next with Leia saying she’s always known? Or what about the biggest cop-out in movie history with Obi-Wan telling Luke that what he told him regarding his father was true… from a certain point of view? If you’re going to tell me that every detail was planned out with the original trilogy from day one, I’m calling you out on that because that’s just simply not true. The beloved original trilogy has many flaws. It’s just too old for some people to criticize. And it came out before social media was a thing.

The result of all of this personally was that I was done. My opinion of the movie wasn’t changed, but I was done talking Star Wars. At least on the internet. And on my personal Facebook, I began to delete any negative comments about “The Last Jedi” because I simply didn’t want to deal with it. With “The Rise of Skywalker,” I honestly didn’t even want to review this movie. I wanted to go watch it on my own terms and enjoy it without even thinking about all of the noise that I knew was going to follow since people still won’t shut up about “The Last Jedi.” Given that this is Star Wars, I’m confident that there was going to be a large crowd of people that will hate watch the movie just so that they could bash it into the ground and argue relentlessly about how horrible of a movie this is. And I have no desire to go through all of that again. But nevertheless I am here. I am typing up my review of “The Rise of Skywalker.” Mostly because I am a completionist and I have reviewed every other Star Wars movie worth reviewing (no Ewok movies or Holiday Special will be talked about on this blog). Just know that I have no desire to get into another firestorm with this movie. I want to get my thoughts out and move on with life. And yes, there will be spoilers ahead.

With that large preamble out of the way, “The Rise of Skywalker” is a movie that I had concerns with going in. As I have said, I was and still am a major fan of “The Last Jedi.” I liked what Rian Johnson did with that movie and I didn’t want JJ Abrams to come in and retcon everything. I wanted a fitting conclusion to this trilogy that respected both chapters in the trilogy. And I wasn’t 100 percent confident in JJ’s ability to pull that off. I say that, not because of any disrespect towards “The Force Awakens,” but because JJ is a filmmaker who, historically speaking, doesn’t often finish what he starts. He loves setting up his mystery box scenarios, then letting others come up with the endings. “LOST” was the best example of this, but not the only one. And this is exactly what he was initially planning with Star Wars, which is why he let Rian Johnson do whatever he wanted. Colin Trevorrow was the one who was initially going to finish things. But when that marriage didn’t work out (thank heavens), JJ stepped in last second to take this to the finish line. In doing so, he made statements that sounded like he wanted this to be a tribute to all previous Star Wars movies. That was unsettling because I didn’t want this to just be a nostalgic-based ride. 

Despite this, I decided to practice what I preached with the last movie and go in without specific expectations or demands that needed to be met in order for me to be pleased. If JJ was going to retcon “The Last Jedi” or simply deliver a nostalgia-fueled ride, I would wait to see how it played before giving a final judgment. And I’m glad I did because this movie did not meet my expectations. If I had labeled some of my thoughts as absolute dealbreakers, I would’ve walked out upset. But because I let the movie play out, a lot of it ended up working for me. I still have a fair share of concerns to go over, but ultimately I would label it as a satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga. No, this isn’t the end of Star Wars by any means. Disney and Lucasfilm still have Disney+ to play around with, providing the likes of “The Mandalorian,” “The Clone Wars” and the upcoming untitled Obi-Wan series. Plus they do have a new trilogy of movies starting in 2022 that they’ve said pretty much nothing about. But I do believe that this specific nine-movie arc in the main saga is complete. As one of my friends always says, never believe Hollywood when they say something is the final chapter. Episode X could still happen. But if not, we do have a satisfying conclusion currently in place.

The first thing that I will say about this is that this is a very Star Warsy movie. That’s what I initially said on my Facebook page about the movie and is also the first thing that I tell my friends when they ask what I thought. I think JJ went to great lengths to make this feel like a Star Wars movie. He didn’t do this by regurgitating plot points or repeating character arcs, despite what some people might claim. Rather, he went back to the basics of what makes a Star Wars movie and applied that to our current characters in their current situation. Because of this, this felt very much like “The Force Awakens,” which is certainly not a coincidence since JJ directed that one, too. With “The Force Awakens,” the major complaint was that it was too similar to “A New Hope.” That I don’t think is fair. That movie has different characters and different plot points than “A New Hope.” JJ just did a good job of knowing what makes a Star Wars movie, which is why it felt very similar. In my viewpoint, that’s not a negative thing. That was a positive thing. Applying that to “The Rise of Skywalker,” this felt like JJ’s direct follow-up to “The Force Awakens” rather than being a direct sequel to “The Last Jedi.” That said, JJ also found a way to be respectful to “The Last Jedi” as well.

As much as I like “The Last Jedi,” the difficult thing about doing a follow-up to that movie is that Rian Johnson didn’t do anything to set up a sequel. Unlike what JJ did with “The Force Awakens,” Rian didn’t leave any dangling plot points for someone to immediately pick up on and run with. “The Last Jedi” is a bit of a stand alone movie. With JJ taking on the task of directing “The Rise of Skywalker,” he essentially had to start over and come up with a brand new story arc for the finale, which makes sense as to why this feels like a follow-up to “The Force Awakens.” JJ had a lot of plot points that he set up in that movie that Rian didn’t necessarily touch on. So JJ went back to those to wrap those up. On this note, I’m glad that JJ wound up doing “The Rise of Skywalker” because it allowed him to finish the trilogy the way he wanted instead of continuing to play this game of telephone with the trilogy. From what I hear, Colin Trevorrow had significantly different ideas as to what he wanted to do with the finale. Given that Trevorrow is also responsible for the disaster that is the “Jurassic World” movies, as well this thing called “The Book of Henry.” So I’m scared as to what ideas he had in mind to send Star Wars to its death. It’s better to have JJ finish things off.

With that, if we’re finally getting into plot specifics here, JJ decided to revolve this story around the return of Emperor Palpatine, which is a bit of a risky undertaking. Personally I liked the idea of the villain of this movie being Kylo Ren, having gone down a dark and disturbing path of no return. I think it would’ve been just fine with Rey having to stop him and his Knights of Ren once and for all. But it’s apparent that’s not what JJ wanted. He probably wanted the villain to be Snoke, while giving Kylo Ren a redemption arc as him and Rey stop Snoke for good. But Rian Johnson killed Snoke in “The Last Jedi,” a decision I really liked because it subverted expectations and made this a unique trilogy. Yet that painted JJ in a corner with what he wanted to do, so instead of going forward with Kylo Ren as the main villain, he went into his hat of tricks and pulled out Palpatine as the main villain. Despite this not being the path that I wanted, it worked well enough. It is kind of exhausting having Palpatine as the only villain in Star Wars, always the one pulling all the strings. But a cloned and/or resurrected version of Palpatine is something that has been done before in the books that are now referred to as Legends, so this plot line does feel like an ode to those stories, which I suppose is OK.

If the plan was to bring back Palpatine, I would’ve preferred that to be set up from the beginning instead of thrown into the final movie. Again, setting up a different villain or going forward with Kylo Ren would’ve been the best option, but all things considered, if we had to bring back Palpatine and squeeze him into the final movie, I think JJ did the best job he could. Right from the beginning he comes up in the opening crawl, with the opening sequences being Kylo Ren discovering this ugly, revived version of Palpatine, kept alive by this giant machine, on the secret Sith planet of Exegol. Palpatine then tells Ren to go kill Rey, promising that Ren will be the new emperor of this Final Order if he does. So then Ren is out to hunt down Rey while Rey and friends are out to find a Sith Wayfinder, which is the tool needed to locate Exegol. In terms of creepy Star Wars planets, Exegol is rather impressive. It’s dark and mysterious, with a large group of Sith Eternal, a cult group dedicated to the rebirth of the Sith. I really enjoyed the atmosphere on this planet, which helped me buy into the fact that these Sith Eternal would use Sith magic to revive Palpatine and set into place a plan where the Sith would take over. This backdrop made Palpatine an imposing villain.

Speaking of Palpatines, Rey apparently is one. In speaking of things that “The Last Jedi” set up, I liked the idea of Rey being declared a nobody who then rose to being the new savior of the Jedi. This was a beautiful story contrast to Ben Solo being the “chosen one,” then falling off and becoming Kylo Ren. I liked the message that your heritage doesn’t determine who you are. You, and you only, are in control of your destiny. Regardless of where you came from, you have the power to chose where you will go. Does Rey being declared a Palpatine change that? Is it a huge retcon that gives “The Last Jedi” the middle finger? I honestly don’t think so. I think JJ respectfully danced around that with the clarification that Rey’s parents were nobodies because they chose to be nobodies in order to protect her from her evil grandfather who wanted to kill her. That seems different than something like, “What I told you was true… from a certain point of view.” The latter seems to be a complete change in direction with where the story was initially going in “A New Hope,” whereas this change in “The Rise of Skywalker” seemed to be done in a way to take the story the direction JJ wanted it to go without disrespecting the decision that Rian Johnson made in “The Last Jedi” to make her a nobody.

The reason I say that is because her being a nobody who rose to being a somebody is a parallel arc to that of her being a descendant of an evil Sith Lord, yet ended up good despite that. It still holds in place the theme that a person is in control of his or her own path, despite what the upbringing is. And in this situation it does put in place a unique scenario where Kylo Ren is the grandson of Darth Vader while Rey is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. It does remove the idea of Rey being descended from someone who wasn’t a previously established character. Some people are tired of the idea that we have such a large universe, but all the main characters come from only a few different family lines. That personally was inconsequential to my enjoyment of the movies, but I can see that reveal being upsetting to some for that reason. Another thing that her being a Palpatine potentially changes is people’s complaints about her being a “Mary Sue.” I didn’t have that issue myself. And for those who did have that complaint, I’m not so sure this reveal is going to completely satisfy them. But her being a descendant of an all-powerful Sith Lord might explain why she’s inherently really good at everything or how she’s able to understand the force so easily. It’s in her genes.

With all of that context, I simply found this movie to be a fun Star Wars adventure. In some ways I found it comparable to “Solo,” a Star Wars adventure I enjoyed. “Solo” didn’t feel grand or epic, but I didn’t need it. I just wanted a fun Star Wars movie and that’s exactly what I got. The biggest difference here with “The Rise of Skywalker” is that perhaps I would’ve wanted a movie that felt like an epic, grand finale, which is not the case with “The Rise of Skywalker.” But I hate having such a black and white perspective. Some people like saying that a Star Wars movie specifically has to be one of the best movies ever or else it sucks, as if there isn’t any room for some middle ground. I’m not going there. No, this is not the best Star Wars movie. Perhaps if they would’ve had a better master plan from day one, maybe this could’ve had an “Avengers: Endgame” sort of feel to it. But it doesn’t. As is, it’s more of a fun, villain-of-the-week adventure that just happens to involve a revived Palpatine, the Sith planet Exegol and the Sith Eternal. But with that, it’s a non-stop, exciting adventure with beautiful visuals, fun creatures, exciting space battles, an epic light saber fight and an intense final conflict with our villain and our protagonists. All of those things that make a good Star Wars movie are there.

Before I go, I want to talk about the ending here because there is a lot to digest. I could spend a paragraph or two on each of these following elements, but I’ll go through them more quickly. First, Kylo Ren. I’m a grinch and didn’t want a redemption arc. JJ apparently did. So that’s what we got. And I wanted to be upset at first, but the idea that his mother reached out to him and made that connection made it effective. Then he had one more conversation with his Dad in some sort of dream sequence. That was rewarding. Rey and Kylo Ren as a thing? Or, rather, Rey and Ben Solo? Nope. I’m sorry. I didn’t like that and I thought that kiss was rushed and out of place. It kinda made me, and most people in my theater, break out in laughter. Then Ben sacrificed himself to save Rey and disappeared and that was that. Rey summoning all of the energy from past Jedi to finally defeat Palpatine was quite epic, though. Hearing all of those quick statements from all of the Jedi throughout the whole saga was a great send off. Finishing the saga off, having Rey travel to Tatooine, bury Luke and Leia’s lightsabers, reveal that she has the yellow lightsaber of the Jedi Sentinal, then declare herself as a Skywalker in the backdrop of the double sunset was perhaps the perfect ending to this saga.

Honestly, the biggest concern I ended up having in this movie was not specifically the idea that Rey was a Palpatine, but that Emperor Palpatine had a child. My immediate thought was… when? Turns out I resolved that concern in my brain when I did some math. The internet told me that Rey was 19 in “The Force Awakens.” With there being 30 years between “Return of the Jedi” and “The Force Awakens,” that means Rey was born 11 years after the initial death of Palpatine. If Palpatine had a child after he became all gross and deformed in “Revenge of the Sith,” that would be weird, but it turns out that the timeline here works. There’s 65 years between “The Phantom Menace” and “The Force Awakens.” If Rey’s parents birthed her when they were 46, that means they in turn could’ve been born during the events of “The Phantom Menace,” wherein the internet tells me that Palpatine was between 45-50 years old. That eases my mind quite a bit. Now it’s still kinda weird that we went nine main-saga movies, a couple spin-offs, and several TV shows before learning that Palpatine had offspring. And I know the movie said that Rey’s parents became nobodies in order to protect her, but what were they doing in the years prior? That still bothers me a bit, but I can live with that.

If you’ve read through all of this, I hope that means that you’ve already seen the movie. Or perhaps you don’t care and just wanted to know my thoughts. Either way, you’re not going to necessarily need a recommendation from me. But if you haven’t yet seen this and you just happened to scroll to the end to get my score, then I will say that I’m not quite sure how to recommend this movie to others. If you’re like me and you actually enjoyed the two previous movies, I’m sure that you’ll also like this one. If you enjoyed “The Force Awakens,” but hated “The Last Jedi,” well I don’t know. I would say that this has more of a vibe like “The Force Awakens,” meaning you might like it, but that’s not a guarantee. What I will say for sure is that if you were disappointed with “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” ruined your life, then just don’t bother with this finale, especially if you’re one who has dedicated their life to tearing apart everything Star Wars related. We don’t need people like you on the internet and thus I’d rather not have to deal with the toxicity that you’re going to bring. But I suppose it is what it is. You’ll probably hate watch the movie in spite of me. But I enjoyed this movie. Not as much as the last two, but that’s OK. My grade for “The Rise of Skywalker” is an 8/10.

Richard Jewell Review

I know everyone is looking forward to hearing my detailed thoughts on a certain blockbuster that was released this month, but before I get to that, there's another movie that warrants an important discussion and it's a movie that, based on box office returns, might be one that few of you have even heard of. Part of the reason why is that this is a movie that almost came out of nowhere with very little advertising or promotion until shortly before its release. It's a movie that also could've been thrown into the festival circuit and gained buzz that way, but Warner Bros. decided it was a better idea to push "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Goldfinch" instead. Whoops! It's a good thing that Warner Bros. has a little movie called "Joker" or they would be completely empty-handed when it comes to awards season due to their failure in campaigning the correct movie early on. This movie is, of course, "Richard Jewell." And if you have heard of it, chances are you decided not to see it because on the weekend beginning December 13, this sold the least amount of tickets ever for a Clint Eastwood movie that opened in wide release, as it opened to just $4.7 million. Information on that is courtesy of The-Numbers.com and film critic Dan Murrell from the YouTube channel Screen Junkies.

That statistic right there is a rather frustrating one to me because this is a movie that deserves to be seen. I actually saw it on a Wednesday night, the night before "The Rise of Skywalker," and I was literally the only one in that screening. When the credits rolled, I started pouting while saying, "Why did no one see this movie?!?!" Granted, I saw the movie on a Wednesday night when no one goes to the theaters. But still, that combined with the movie's box office totals was upsetting. Obviously no one heard my vocal cries during those credits, but given that I have a platform here, I decided that I am going to use that platform to convince at least one person to go see this because the message of this movie is far more important than laser sword fights, video game trappings, freaky humanoid cats or anything else you'll see in the theaters this Christmas. This tells the true story of one Richard Jewell, a security guard who saved multiple lives back in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, when he discovered a pipe bomb and got as many people out of the area before it exploded. Two people ended up dying and 111 were injured. But both of those numbers would've been a lot higher if it weren't for the heroics of Richard Jewell. Yet due to some terrible reporting, the man was villainized.

In going into this movie, I went in with two different hats, my movie critic hat and my journalism hat. Journalism is what I studied in school and got my degree in, so I obviously have a soft spot there and I did hear about all the controversies surrounding the movie when it came to media portrayal from Mr. Eastwood. So I wasn't ready to simply give this one a pass based on the quality of the film alone. I wanted this to be fair to all angles of this story, not just from Richard Jewell's side. And I had at least one fellow journalism friend who wasn't happy based on things she had heard about this film, so I did my research on the real life situation that is portrayed in this film before going in so I would be ready to analyze everything that happened. Then I did a more in depth dive afterwards. Now I could've gone without doing all of this and simply focused on the film alone, which is the path that many critics most likely took. But I didn't want to take that route. This is a movie that at least needed to get certain things right with this story or else it will become just another one of these Hollywood productions that unfairly blasts the evil media for not doing their job. And we have way too much of that going around these days, especially with the common outcries of "Fake news!"

Yes, in terms of the quality of the film itself, Clint Eastwood hits all the right notes. In fact, when it comes to films that Clint Eastwood has directed this decade, this might be his best one. I say “might” because there’s a few that I haven’t seen. Out of the ones I have seen, I had very mixed feelings about “American Sniper.” “Sully” was a solid movie, but nothing that blew my socks off and nothing that I’ve had a strong desire to return to. “The Mule” from last year is a movie that I have a hard time remembering what my opinion was, which is problematic. “The 15:17 to Paris” is one I never got around to, but I hear I didn’t miss anything. And “Hereafter,” “J. Edgar” and “Jersey Boys” I have also not seen, but reviews suggest I also might not be missing anything. So yeah, in analyzing all of these movies, “Richard Jewell” is definitely one that stands out as a movie that is both gripping, emotional and important. The movie has a solid setup that introduces us to this innocent and somewhat naive security guard named Richard Jewell. He is by no means a perfect angel and sometimes he has a mind of his own in terms of doing what he is instructed to do, but his heart is in the right place, making him very likable.

This setup is what makes this movie all the more tragic. Richard Jewell is not someone who deserved to be villainized in the way that he was. Initially when he finds the bomb and saves all those people, it’s a celebratory moment. Up to this point in his life, despite his shortcomings, all he’s really wanted from life is to help protect people. He’s had a large amount of respect for authority figures and he wants nothing more than to be a successful police officer, security guard, or some other type of government official who keeps people safe. And in this moment of time, all of his work and effort has paid off in a moment where he’s become a hero. And he gets to bask in that glory for a brief moment until suddenly the rug is pulled right out from under him as he becomes the subject of an intense investigation from the FBI, which gets leaked to the press, resulting in nationwide scrutiny. Now in principle, the idea of the FBI investigating him is certainly not a bad thing. It was good of them to look into all angles. And if the media got word that he was being investigated as a possible suspect, it’s also not a bad thing for them to report on what they’re hearing. That’s their job. But it’s to the extent to which both go to, without thinking about consequences, that's damaging.

Now let’s step outside the realm of this movie and talk about this for a second. Both when it comes to the FBI and to the media, there’s a responsibility to seek out truth. I don’t know all the real life details about what happened in this situation. I don’t know if the real life people were as despicable as Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde were in the movie. But I have seen many situations where officers or agents were so narrowed in on one subject that they became blinded to the possibility that they might be wrong. If evidence does come out that someone else might the real suspect, instead of accepting that evidence and doing their job properly, their pride gets in the way and they’re more focused on their reputation than the actual truth. With journalism, I have seen countless times where a journalist is more focused on getting the inside scoop and the flashy headline than reporting truth. In both of these situations, the government official and the journalist aren’t stopping to think about the consequences of their actions. They just have the selfish desire of making themselves look good without realizing that they might be ruining lives if what they end up doing ends up being incorrect, which is exactly what happened here with Richard Jewell and its heartbreaking.

Again, I don’t know all the details of what happened here in real life. Perhaps the FBI agents and the journalists had their hearts in the right place. I don’t know. What I do know is that, in hindsight, it is 100 percent confirmed that Richard Jewell did not plant that bomb. It was good of the FBI to look into him as a possible suspect, but from what I have read about the actual case, they went way overboard in their investigation of him, most likely based solely on stereotypes of who he was. This should’ve been a secret, private investigation that should’ve never got out to the public and should’ve lasted rather quickly once they realized that there was no way that Richard Jewell could’ve actually planted the bomb. To the main controversy of the movie, it’s certainly problematic that Clint Eastwood portrayed this female reporter as having slept with the FBI agent in order to get this information when there is no evidence of that happening. And my biggest problem with this movie is that Olivia Wilde as the journalist did not feel real. She was extremely exaggerated. But regardless of how this all happened, the fact of that matter is that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution got word awfully quick about this FBI investigation and immediately jumped on this story.

The sad part of all of this is how quickly this spiraled out of control and it is obvious to me that a lot of the people reporting on this story cared more about their story than they did about the facts. Even if you argue that the initial report of the FBI investigating Richard Jewell was warranted, a lot of the latter reports and stories simply were not true. And this is a situation where the journalists hid behind the wall of “My sources have said that...” in order to defer the guilt of them simply not reporting the truth. Because of this, Richard Jewell later went and sued a lot of these news stations and, while he technically didn’t “win,” most of them chose to settle rather than go through a court battle. Thus with all this, I think this whole situation provides a great lesson into how journalists need to remember that they have a lot of power and influence into how people choose to think. And as Spider-Man would tell you, that power comes with a great responsibility that they need to make sure they are reporting truth because carelessness can lead to ruined lives. And this is one of those situations where we can watch the movie or read about the actual events and apply these principles into our everyday lives, especially in the day of social media where information runs rampant.

What brought this all together were the acting performances in the movie, specifically with Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewel, Sam Rockwell as his lawyer and Kathy Bates as his mother. All three of them gave Oscar-worthy performances that sold the emotion of this story. Whether or not they get those nominations is a different story, given how poorly this movie performed at the box office. But the three of them combine to elevate this story into something that left me with a rather emotional ride home, combining both the difficulties of what they went through with the triumphs at the end. John Hamm is also sufficiently despicable as the lead FBI agent to provide some excellent contrast. And I do have to give some credit to Olivia Wilde even though her character was written in an overly exaggerated way. She did the best with what they gave her. It wasn’t her fault that her character wasn’t written in a believable way. All in all, I would label this movie is one that is a must see at some point. Obviously it’s not one to take the whole family to during the holiday season. But I think the message of this movie is one that is extremely applicable to our day and can thus go a long way to help us improving society. My hats off to Mr. Eastwood. My grade is a 9/10.

Jumanji: The Next Level Review

A few years back we were all horrified and highly skeptical at this idea of a "Jumanji" remake. I mean, how dare they ruin our childhood by desecrating another one of our beloved classics, right? Well, in hindsight, "Jumanji" might be more of a nostalgia-heavy adventure boosted heavily by the great Robin Williams. And I think the world was more offended at the idea of rebooting a Robin Williams film so close after his death. However, slowly the world started coming to terms with the idea that maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all. People see Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black in a movie together that is actually a "Jumanji" sequel rather than a "Jumanji" remake and curiosity instills. Then trailers come out and full confusion sets in as this movie we thought we were going to hate actually looks really good. And, well, yeah. Sony ended up with the last laugh as the movie actually ended up being really good. Then the world quickly went from angry to forgiving, which resulted in an extremely leggy box office run for "Welcome to the Jungle," eclipsing $400 million domestically and becoming one of Sony's highest grossing films. Two years later, the negative buzz is nowhere to be seen as we're now all excited for another trip to Jumanji.

I think the thing that made "Welcome to the Jungle" so effective is that it ended up being a reboot that justified its existence. Now I still use the term reboot even though it was a sequel because reboot is a more broad term that signifies a new start to an established universe. A reboot can come in the form of an all-out remake where the new version takes place in a completely different universe or it can be a continuation of a franchise that had previously ran into a dead end or had "finished." Both "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" can be considered reboots even though both were continuations of an established franchise because both were new starts. Thus the same principles apply when it comes to this discussion of the necessity of reboots or remakes. In which case, "Welcome to the Jungle" was much more than just a recreation of something beloved. It used the same idea, but updated it for a modern audience, while also taking it in a completely different direction. Thus it stood side by side as an excellent companion piece rather than being a subpar recreation. There were also a lot of strokes of genius along the way that showed us all that we really do need more "Jumanji." There's a vast world here that deserves to be explored.

The biggest stroke of genius was turning the board game Jumanji 90's style retro video game console. It wasn't just kids playing a board game only to realize the board comes to life. Instead, our group of awkward and very different teens are the ones who get sucked into the video game that they have to beat rather than the board game coming to life around them. In doing this, they get transformed into various video game avatars, which in this case just happen Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan. All four of those have the time of their lives acting as these teenagers throughout the movie, with Jack Black as the teenage girl completely stealing the show. Now I don't meant to sit here and re-review "Welcome to the Jungle," but said points here are important because Sony realized that they discovered something special here, so they decided to go the route of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Now in some instances this could be a big flaw. You don't necessarily want them to do the exact same thing again. You'd rather see something different. But "The Next Level" is not one of those instances. Because sometimes in life you'd rather just have a second slice of pizza instead of having a 10-course meal where every dish is vastly different. 

This works to the advantage of "The Next Level" because "Welcome to the Jungle" has become one of those movies that is the perfect for a movie night. In fact, I've been to a lot of gatherings where it was advertised that they were having a movie night and said movie turned out to be "Welcome to the Jungle." Even though I didn't necessarily praise it to the high heavens when it was released as it didn't make my top 10 best movies of the year, I was thoroughly entertained. It's one of those movies where the rewatchability factor is really high. You don't need to spend a lot of time doing an in-depth analysis of every major facet of the movie. You just kick back, relax, shove some popcorn in your face if you're that type of person, and enjoy. Which is why there wasn't that much pressure in making this sequel. They didn't need to make a masterpiece. They just needed to give us a second helping of our favorite dish. In which case, an interesting comparison might be to the Fast & Furious franchise. That's a franchise where all of the recent movies are just a blast. They don't take themselves seriously. Everyone on board is just out to have a good time. Thus when I go into another movie into that franchise, I'm not focused about being super critical about everything.

On that note, for the most part there's really not a lot to say about "The Next Level," which is why I've spent a long portion of this review not really saying a whole lot about the movie itself. I think the principles I'm trying to get across will mostly suffice in this case. It's not like I'm trying to avoid spoilers here or anything. It's just that this movie is a pretty straight forward. If you want me to discuss specifics here, the unique thing that this movie does to separate itself a bit from the first movie is that it switches around the avatars. The game goes all berserk and sucks everyone in again without them really having much time to think. This being after Spencer already got sucked in, so Fridge, Bethany and Martha are just going to find him, but they aren't even given time to choose their avatars, which causes them to all get switched around. That's where this movie has a lot of fun. Everyone, or almost everyone, I suppose, gets the chance to be someone else as they wander through Jumanji, which I think the cast has a lot of fun with, especially Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart this time around as they get to do impersonations of Danny DeVito and Danny Glover, who play Spencer's grandfather and his grandfather's friend who happened to be visiting. 

I will say that this is a bit of a curious choice to bring Danny DeVito and Danny Glover in, then have the whole plot revolve around them, simply because this is a movie that has a four-quadrant appeal and I'm not sure the two Dannys have the same drawing power as the other cast members. I imagine they had a wide selection of potential cast members to bring on as I don't know who would say no to starring alongside Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black in a new "Jumanji" movie. But yet out of all of the options, they decided to bring on two older actors who are probably mostly unknowns to the younger audience, kids and teens alike. Thus most of this movie's humor is targeted specifically towards the adult audiences. Although being that I am one of those adults that saw this movie, I found it extremely hilarious. Kevin Hart is especially the star of this show with his Danny Glover impression, which had me cracking up the whole film. But Dwayne Johnson is also a star, playing off Kevin Hart as both of them are having fun being these two old men. Now I do suppose that, even though the younger audience might be left in the dark, I think they might still be amused at the idea of Johnson and Hart playing old men.

The drawback of going so hard on the shtick with Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart in this movie is that it did sideline the other characters a bit. Jack Black playing a teenage girl in "Welcome to the Jungle" was one of those career-defining performances. In "The Next Level," he certainly shows his versatility by being Fridge instead, but it's just not as memorable. And Karen Gillan isn't even given the option of being someone else. Now she was excellent in the first movie, but given that Spencer's grandpa is in the avatar of Dwayne Johnson instead of Spencer, the interplay there is missing. Thus the unfortunate result is there's less of a balance among the cast. Now there are other things that happen later in this movie, which include Awkwafina joining the cast, Nick Jonas returning, and a horse being a big part of the plot. But given that the final trailers revealed way more than they should, I'm going to stay silent when it comes to all of that in case you are one of those people who doesn't vulture over trailers like I do. There's certain things that SHOULD'VE remained a surprise, which would've made for a great reveal, but since Sony is Sony, they feel the need to advertising reveals in their trailers so that people will go see their movie. I find that quite frustrating.

In short, there is more to talk about, but I'm going to stay silent. Nevertheless, fun is had. The screenwriters had a blast with certain things and I think all of the actors enjoying rolling with the punches. The final word I will say here is that because Sony played it super safe in following nearly the exact same formula as "Welcome to the Jungle," it does make this movie slightly less memorable. Yes, it's a second serving of your favorite dish and it is immensely enjoyable in that aspect. But the second slice of pizza isn't always as good as the first slice, if you know what I mean. It might be the same exact pizza with the same ingredients, but there's a psychological aspect to that where the first serving just ends up being more of a memorable experience. And in terms of the screenwriters, even though they had a lot of fun with the characters themselves and the actors all did a great job, there could've been slightly more of an emphasis on the plot of the movie itself. No, they didn't have to do something drastically different. They could've kept the same formula as "Welcome to the Jungle." But I walked out remembering individual sequences and the performances from the actors, but not much more. But still, this was still an entertaining sequel that pleased me, so I'm giving it an 8/10.

Movie Preview: December 2019

A busy month it has been for yours truly, allowing not as much time for blogging as I normally like. However, even though the calendar says the month is halfway over, thus making the idea of a movie "preview" sound a little silly, it's worth noting that we're only into the second weekend of the month given the fact that the month started on a Sunday and I included that day in my final weekend of November. Thus the first weekend of December was the 6th through the 8th, which only had one new wide release anyways, and that one was a historical bomb. So I'm not actually that far behind. As far as a recap of November, it was a great month if your name was Disney as they owned the top two spots with their own "Frozen 2," which will continue to dominate through the holiday season, and Fox's "Ford v. Ferrari." If your name wasn't Disney, life wasn't as wonderful as three different studios all failed to reinvigorate previous franchises, with "Terminator: Dark Fate," "Charlie's Angels" and "Doctor Sleep" all being mostly dead on arrival. Moving forward, Disney has already crossed $10 billion worldwide in 2019, with six billion films so far (counting "Frozen 2"). And this little thing called Star Wars hasn't even come out yet. So let's explore what Star Wars month has to offer!

December 6th - 8th-

As I mentioned in my introductory paragraph, there was only one new wide release in the first weekend of December and it was the historically bad release of PLAYMOBIL. Just how bad was it? Well, STX opened "PLAYMOBIL" in 2,337 theaters and it only managed $656,530. That's the fourth worst opening weekend for a movie that opened in at least 2,000 theaters. The winner of the worst opening is the 2012 release of "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure," which could only muster up 443,901 in 2,160 theaters. Right behind it is "Delgo" ($511,920) and the 10th Anniversary release of "Saw" ($650,051). So what went wrong with "PLAYMOBIL"? A lot of things. First off, they were trying to cash in on the success of the LEGO Movie franchise, which was bad timing given the underwhelming total of "The LEGO Movie 2" earlier this year. The other big problem is that the studio that initially held the rights went bankrupt, so STX bought the rights early in the year and then bounced the movie all over the schedule before finally settling on this weekend, which was an awful decision given the presence of "Frozen 2." Other major factors for this movie's failure was a lack of promotion, leading to a lack of awareness, as well as a general disinterest. Bad reviews were the icing on the cake.  

December 13th - 15th - 

This second weekend of December is when the party really gets started as three new wide releases hope to get a jump on the holiday season, with Jumanji: The Next Level easily leading the way. Two years ago, Sony made the rather risky move to reboot the classic 1995 film "Jumanji," which was led by the late, great Robin Williams. The idea wasn't well received initially, but "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" ended up getting nearly unanimous praise, which led to an incredibly lengthy backloaded run at the box office as word continued to get out that it was actually a movie well worth seeing. The result was a $404.5 million reward for Sony, making it one of their highest grossing films. So of course they put together a sequel as fast as possible, leading to "Jumanji: The Next Level" just two years later. With this sequel, Sony is using the philosophy of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" as "The Next Level" follows the same exact formula as "Welcome to the Jungle," bringing back all of the lead stars, including Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan and Nick Jonas, while also adding the likes of Awkwafina, Danny DeVito and Danny Glover to the mix. The final results seems to be quite positive so far as it's currently headed for an opening weekend north of $50 million.

Clint Eastwood is also back in the race with his latest film Richard Jewell. When it comes to build-up and anticipation, this movie ended up being more of a late starter as the movie really didn't have much buzz and awareness until fairly recently. If Warner Bros. wanted to give this a real awards season push, they would've released it in the festival circuits to help build buzz. Instead, they decided to push "The Goldfinch" and "Motherless Brooklyn," which failed miserably. "Richard Jewell" is movie that tells the story of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing that killed one person and injured 111 people, with another person later dying of a heart attack. As bad as this was, the event could've been a lot worse had a security guard, Richard Jewell, not discovered the bomb and cleared a lot of people out of the way. This movie focuses heavily on the other part of the story where the media reported Richard Jewell as a potential suspect in the bombing, which ruined his image. The portrayal of the media in this has sparked quite a bit of controversy as the movie is seen by some as an anti-media or anti-journalism piece from Old Man Eastwood. Controversy often sparks curiosity, but in this case, "Richard Jewell" is looking to just scratch past $5 million on the weekend.

In worse condition is the Christmas horror film Black Christmas. Christmas and horror are genres of film that usually don't mix together too often, meaning "Black Christmas" takes up a decent percentage of this crossover given that this is the third one to be released. The initial "Black Christmas" was released in 1975 and although it didn't necessarily break the bank at the box office, it became a cult classic and is often seen as one of the first slasher films and one of the inspirations behind John Carpenter's "Halloween" a bit later in the decade. It was remade in 2006 and now again this year. Each iteration of "Black Christmas," all three of which share the exact same title, involve some sort of combination of sorority sisters getting stalked and killed by a mysterious killer around Christmas time. Given that it's been a while now since there was a breakout horror film (perhaps since "IT: Chapter Two" given the underwhelming performance of "Doctor Sleep") combined with the slightly unique idea of a Christmas horror film, "Black Christmas" was thought to be a potential breakout film, but it's looking to miss out on $5 million instead of matching 2015's "Krampus," which opened to $16.2 million. Instead, it's a lot closer to 2006's "Black Christmas," which opened to $3.7 million.

December 20th - 22nd- 

I certainly don't need to inform you that a Star Wars movie is coming out this weekend as you all were well aware of that. But nevertheless, it's time to now discuss Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. After 40+ years in the making, the nine-movie story arc that George Lucas had in mind will finally be fully realized as the Skywalker saga will officially come to an end... for now. I mean, this is Disney. You've gotta think that they'll eventually decide to do an Episode X, XI and XII. Because why not? Star Wars is definitely not coming to close anytime soon. There's going to be a lot of new Star Wars content on Disney+ as well as the beginning of some sort of new theatrical trilogy in December 2022. Nevertheless, "The Rise of Skywalker" will see JJ Abrams do something he often doesn't do. Finish something he started. Even if there will be new Star Wars content for the rest of time, this movie could see the conclusion of the story arcs of Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren and the rest of the new gang. Somehow Emperor Palpatine will also play into this while Billy Dee Williams is also set to reprise his role as Lando. While the lid is being held very tight on specifics,, JJ Abrams has nevertheless hinted at the idea that this is going to be pays tribute to all previous Star Wars films.

Before we get into the other two movies of the weekend, an analysis this movie's box office potential is in order. We'll find out really soon what this will actually be, but it goes without saying that this is going to be another huge hit for Disney. That said, some fairly narrow-minded individuals might look at the fact that "The Last Jedi" fell off quite a bit from "The Force Awakens," which was then followed by the financial failure that was "Solo," and conclude that people are sick of Star Wars, thus resulting in yet another drop off for "The Rise of Skywalker." However, history of Star Wars seems to disagree with this idea. While it is true that "The Last Jedi" fell off quite a bit from "The Force Awakens," so did "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Attack of the Clones" when compared to their respective first movie in the trilogy. In fact, without throwing a whole bunch of numbers in your face, all three of our second movies in a Star Wars trilogy fell about nearly the same rate as each other. In both previous cases, the third film significantly improved upon the second movie, again at about the same rate. While "The Rise of Skywalker" isn't guaranteed to follow this trend, it nevertheless suggests it may be looking at a final domestic total in the range of $675-725 million.

With Star Wars out of the way, we turn our attention to two pieces of attempted counter-programming here, with the first of these two being the not-so-highly-anticipated movie adaptation of Cats. The general feeling here around "Cats" is one of confusion and perplexity as both trailers have a large percentage of dislikes. However, it is worth noting that movie musicals are currently more popular than they have been in many years. The Christmas holiday has worked very well for several of these, with the likes of "The Greatest Showman," "La La Land," "Into the Woods" and "Les Mis" being some of the big examples from this decade. With this in mind, it makes sense to continue to mine this genre and come up with other musicals to bring to the big screen. When we scroll through the list of the longest-running Broadway musicals, "Cats" lands at No. 4, behind only "The Phantom of the Opera," "Chicago" and "The Lion King." So if it's that popular, why not try to bring it to the big screen? However, even the biggest advocates of the Broadway musical will still contend that this is not necessarily a musical that translates well into the big screen. Thus this is a big risk that they're putting forward. Will enough people take the "Cats Challenge" for this risk to pay off?

While it can be argued as to whether or not "Cats" will be able to successfully counter-program Star Wars or not, it does appear that Bombshell is set to provide a legit option during the holiday season for the small percentage of humans that are not interested in seeing the Star Wars finale or people who are searching for another movie to see during the holidays after already having seen Star Wars. Unlike "Richard Jewell," "Bombshell" is a movie that is getting legit awards season buzz, despite not having taken the traditional festival around for awards season hopefuls. This is a movie that stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie and centers around the Fox News scandal where several women decided to step forward and expose Fox News CEO Roger Allies for sexual assault. Roger Allies resigned from Fox News in July 2016 because of this and passed away next year. "Bombshell" has already received plenty of awards recognition with Theron and Robbie picking up Golding Globe nominations while Theron, Robbie and Kidman all got SAG nominations. Are Oscar nominations next for at least one or two of these ladies? It's worth noting that this movie is opening in limited release before it's nationwide release and is so far looking at a very healthy opening.

December 25th - 29th-

Christmas is always a very lucrative time of the year for the box office and many of the previous movies already discussed in this preview will certainly do very well during the week of Christmas. But Christmas Day, which falls on a Wednesday this year, adds two more movies into the mix, both of which should to fairly well. The first of this is Little Women, which is obviously targeting the female audience and, along with "Bombshell" should provide an excellent bit of counter-programming. "Little Women" has a very long history, which dates all the way back to the 1860's with the publishing of the original novel by Louisa May Alcott and has since had way too many adaptations to count. Even though this has been a movie that has been done quite often, this latest adaptation is set to be perhaps one of the more lucrative adaptations. This comes from director Greta Gerwig, who is fresh off major success with "Lady Bird" in 2017. For "Little Women," she brings along "Lady Bird" star Saoirse Ronan with her, while also having Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, and more on board as well. This combination of star power, directing prowess, a large built-in fan base, and strong early reviews should help this be a solid hit.

While there will be plenty of major limited releases and expansions this Christmas season from movies hoping to garner awards season buzz, for the sake of simplicity I've decided to limit these posts to wide releases coming out, which means the final movie I'll talk about is the animated movie from Blue Sky in Spies in Disguise. While "Frozen 2" will most certainly still be doing quite well during the week of Christmas, there is enough room for "Spies in Disguise" to succeed, especially since plenty of families have already seen "Frozen 2" and may be looking for additional options during Christmas. "Spies in Disguise" brings along the star power of Will Smith and Tom Holland, who voice a unique buddy comedy duo consisting of a young scientist and a prestigious detective who has been transformed into a pigeon by said young scientist. The movie is loosely based on the 2009 animated short "Pigeon Impossible." While Blue Sky hasn't ever reached the heights of other major animation studios like Pixar, Disney or DreamWorks, they have nevertheless been able to produce a decent string of mid-range successes. In December 2017, "Ferdinand" survived well in the face of "The Last Jedi" to the tune of $111 million, which suggests "Spies in Disguise" is in good shape.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Review

It's the week of me catching up on some November films that I missed. On Monday I posted my belated review of "Ford v. Ferrari," a movie I ultimately enjoyed even though it was a bit long and dragged on during the first two-thirds of the movie. And now we dive into the second movie in as many years about Mr. Rogers, a man whose show I grew up watching. And I'm certainly not the only one. I'd argue that most Americans who had a proper childhood also grew up on Mr. Rogers. And that's what made last year's documentary, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" such a popular and powerful film. Everyone knows and loves Mr. Rogers and it was so inspirational seeing a deep dive into his life to discover how genuine and near-perfect he really was. The Mr. Rogers you see on screen in each episode is the real him as opposed to it being an act in front of a camera, which is why he was able to make such a big impact on millions of kids throughout the country and over the course of several decades. And I'm still upset that this documentary didn't get nominated for best documentary feature when it clearly deserved to win that award hands down. And now not far removed for that movie's success, we get another journey into Mr. Rogers. This time with Tom Hanks.

I'll say right off the bat that this review might come off as a tad bit controversial. As much as I love Mr. Rogers, the idea of Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers in a movie that I thought was a biopic is something that my brain was never able to fully connect with. On the one hand, Tom Hanks is one of the nicest and classiest actors working. And he's also one of the most talented. If there's one person on Earth that could perfectly personify Mr. Rogers in terms of personality and class, Tom Hanks is the one. But when it comes to acting, in order to be able to properly pull of a portrayal off a real-life character, being able to nail down the personality and mannerism is only part of the battle. You have to look and sound like the character, at least to some extent. Granted, if you're playing a fairly unknown person, maybe you could get away with not looking like said person. But when you're portraying one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century that nearly every human being on Earth at the moment is well aware of, I think being able to look like and sound like that person is important. As great as Tom Hanks is, he just doesn't look or sound anything like Mr. Rogers. Nor does he have the ability to completely disappear into a role. He'll always look and sound like Tom Hanks.

Given that I'm a bit of a film nerd and thus have a good pulse on the film industry, I've known about this movie for a long time. The second they announced this, I immediately became skeptic. The idea of Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers was a confusing one to me. That said, I was willing to wait and see how this turns out given that Marielle Heller was the director here. If you don't know her name, she directed "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" last year, which was an excellent little film that was painfully overlooked. If you want to feel like a prestigious film nerd for a day, go watch that movie and brag to your friends how awesome it is because I can almost guarantee you that most of them will have never even heard of it. Anyways, knowing that she is quite capable of directly a well-crafted biopic, I was willing to give this movie a shot. But then the trailers were released and my brain got confused even more. The movie looked like it could be good, but it looked like Tom Hanks cosplaying as Mr. Rogers. But still, you can't judge a movie by its trailer, right? Which is why I was willing to go in open-minded. It got rave reviews out of the festival circuits, which was followed by excellent critical reviews. Currently it's at 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Was I about to be proven wrong?

Nope. I'm going the be the Negative Nancy here. Now to this movie's credit, this is actually a well-crafted film. It's very easy to take on a biopic and present something that's generic and bland. There's a biopic road map that many biopics feel they have to follow, which can get a bit tiresome, especially when a biopic feels like it's just going through the motions with the sole purpose of attracting the awards season crowd. The other problem biopics can have is when their subject matter has a life or story that doesn't fit a traditional movie narrative, so the filmmakers change history in order to craft a narrative that better fits the traditional movie structure. This one is a really big pet peeve of mine. Some people will argue that as long as it's a good movie that entertained them, they don't care about accuracy. They came to watch a movie and be entertained rather than be given a history listen. And while I understand that point of view, that's not how my brain works. I have many different hats that I have the ability to put on when it comes to film. When I am walking into a historical film, I'm not there to be entertained. I'm there to be educated. And when my history lesson is inaccurate, I get rather peeved. If the person's life didn't fit the narrative, find someone who does. 

In contrast to both of those points, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" doesn't even feel like a biopic. In fact, it's not even really about Mr. Rogers. It's a movie about a journalist named Lloyd Vogel, who is a disgruntled journalist with a miserable personal life. He's received a bad rap due to his stories that always seem to shine his interviewees in a bad light. In his personal defense, he's not out to praise all his subjects and be their best friend. He's there to present the honest truth and he often sees himself as more of an investigative journalist who is out to paint a real picture that the general population may not know. And while that may be a worthy cause, it has resulted in people having no desire to be interviewed by him because it may ruin their reputation. On top of all this, Lloyd has an awful relationship with his father who is currently trying to insert himself into Lloyd's life after years of neglect and poor treatment that left an awful taste in Lloyd's mouth, especially given certain things that he did to his wife, Lloyd's mother, that I suppose I won't spoil here. In the midst of all this, Lloyd's boss assigns him to do a quick feature on Mr. Rogers, which Lloyd really has no desire to do, but isn't given much of a choice, so he grudgingly accepts.

This aspect of the story I thought was wonderful. And it was a very unique way of portraying Mr. Rogers given that Mr. Rogers ended up as a supporting character in the movie rather than the movie's main focus. Instead of following a traditional biopic path, the movie chose to show the power and influence of Mr. Rogers through an isolated story of one individual he met rather than giving us a highlight reel of his life. In doing so, the movie was able to focus on a few strong themes in this story that leaves a very positive message. Lloyd's character arc is quite fantastic as he tries to deal with his work, his father, his wife, and his son, trying to balance all of these aspects of his life that aren't all working out super well. And the movie doesn't provide any easy outs with all of this as there's some raw, human emotion present between Lloyd and his father, which is elevated by two excellent performances from Matthew Rhys as Lloyd and Chris Cooper as Jerry Vogel, the father. Chris Cooper does a great job of portraying a bad man who has made a lot of serious mistakes, yet is trying to put his life back together and gain the love and support of his son. Yet Matthew Rhys is very human in his performance as he has no desire to forgive his father. And he is quite justified in this reaction.

And that's what makes this story have a genuine impact. It's easy to go through this by-the-numbers story about forgiveness. They could've easy gone through the cheesy kids route by making Lloyd automatically forgive his father without any drama, but instead they decided to present a realistic scenario, one that could be easily related to and learned from. And obviously Mr. Rogers is the one that guides Lloyd into actually making an attempt to listen to his father and fix this relationship, but it's also not an easy journey. At several points in the movie, Lloyd gets angry and frustrated with Mr. Rogers and storms out of the interview, requiring patience on Mr. Rogers' end in order to actually help Lloyd out. And this presents yet another fascinating angle in how to help someone who is going through a hard time. You can't just tell them what they're supposed to do and expect them to magically follow through with your counsel because they might not have any desire to do so. You need to be patient with them and not give up. Had Mr. Rogers had any level of impatience with Lloyd after how Lloyd reacts to what he says, Lloyd may have never learned the lesson that he needed to learn. All of this leads to a wonderful film with a lot of depth and emotion packed in.

Yet that is why I found this experience so frustrating. As amazing as this movie was with the lessons it teaches and the performances that are given, this excellent writing and strong direction still wasn't able to overcome my initial concern that entered my mind over a year ago when this movie was first announced. Tom Hanks looks and sounds absolutely nothing like Mr. Rogers. At no point during the movie was I ever able to overcome this. I honestly tried to get lost into the experience, but I just wasn't able to trick my brain into thinking the man on the screen was Mr. Rogers. The image and voice of the real Mr. Rogers is so ingrained into my soul to the point where it's a part of who I am. Much of my life growing up was influenced by the lessons he taught me every morning. So when I see a man on screen who is pretending to be Mr. Rogers, yet doesn't sound or look like him at all, my brain spends the whole time screaming at me that this is not how things should be. Thus I have to conclude that this was just a poor casting choice. Instead of finding a lesser known actor who could successfully disappear into the role and trick my brain into thinking he is Mr. Rogers, they instead went the route of casting the famous actor in order to sell tickets.

Because of all this, I don't know what to do with this movie. In terms of casting choice, the best comparison here that I can come up with is Emma Watson as Belle in "Beauty in the Beast." No, Belle is not a real life character, but she's a character who was a big part of my childhood as "Beauty and the Beast" is my favorite Disney animated movie. Disney could've chosen to cast someone who looked and sounded more like Belle, but instead they chose to go for the bigger name in Emma Watson in order to sell more tickets. And as hard as Emma Watson tried to be Belle, she's just not Belle and I ended up spending the whole movie seeing Emma Watson dressed up as Belle instead of seeing Belle. And I enjoyed that movie overall, but that was one element that I think could've been improved upon. And that's the same here. This movie did such a great job with almost everything else in the movie that a perfect casting choice with Mr. Rogers could've been the home run hit, making this one of the best movies of the year. But when they can't get the most important thing right, I end up spending the whole movie in a flustered state of confusion. I wanted to love this movie. I left inspired to be a better person. I just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't my Mr. Rogers on screen.

Could I forgive this one big flaw and praise this movie to the high heavens? Sure, in theory I could. But I feel justified in being nitpicky because I have seen biopics, or movies about historical figures, where they get everything right. I think the gold standard here is Spielberg's "Lincoln." Not only is the movie itself fantastic, but Daniel Day Lewis did such a great job of both looking like and acting like Abraham Lincoln that I was convinced that a time machine was used to get the real Lincoln to come be in a movie about his own life. Thus when I see movies that don't get it perfectly right, I can feel justified because there are movies out there that do it right. On the one hand, we get movies like "Jackie" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" where the lead performance is absolutely perfect in every way, yet the movie around them leaves much to be desired for. And on the other hand, we have movies like this where the movie itself is fantastic, but the lead actor just does not trick my brain into thinking he's the actual person. It is possible to do both and in this instance, this just does not fully compute. The only sense of relief I got was when they showed clips of the REAL Mr. Rogers in the end credits. THAT was my Mr. Rogers. Not Tom Hanks. Thus I don't feel like giving this more than a 7/10.

Ford v. Ferrari Review

How's this for an incredibly late review? "Ford v. Ferrari" was a movie that come out a month ago, back in the second weekend of November, before the likes of "Frozen 2" and "Knives Out," two movies that I ended up seeing and reviewing before this movie. Believe it or not, I actually was excited for this movie. My exact reasoning for not seeing it opening weekend, though, was that I figured it was a movie that was going to play well throughout the holiday season, whereas "Charlie's Angels," which was released on that same weekend, was going to be a movie that was gone from theaters in a few weeks due to lack of interest, so I figured getting that review out was a higher priority. From then on, it just became a scheduling thing. I kept putting it off and I kept seeing other movies or doing other things with my life. There was even one instance where I walked outside to go to my car to go see it, but it was so cold and frozen outside that I walked back into my apartment where it was warm. But here we finally are. The movie has been seen by me and I finally am sitting down to review it. It's a Christmas miracle! And yeah, like I predicted earlier, this is a movie that's still playing quite well, so I don't believe my window of opportunity has passed just yet.

"Ford v. Ferrari" is a movie that has almost nothing to do with Ferrari. In fact, for most of it, "Ford v. Ford" would've been a more accurate title. And when they finally get into the race, it's like "Ford v. Ford v. Ferrari v. Ferrari v. Ferrari." It's just that we in America are too dumb to know what Le Mans is or what the significance of Le Mans '66 was. So if we called it "Le Mans '66" here, there's a good possibility that a lot of people would skip it because they have no idea what that is. But throw out two big car companies in the title and promise a big race between the two of them and people swarm the theaters. Because we do like our cars here in America. I bring that all up because in many countries over in Europe, "Le Mans '66" is the actual title of this movie and it's a title that makes a lot more sense because it's the movie about that race and the events leading up to it. In past years, Ferrari has dominated that race, which is a 24-hour race over in France, but the people at Ford design a super fancy car that they think has a shot at winning. Said car is the Ford GT40 and legendary car designer Carroll Shelby is all gung-ho about this, and he's working hard with his British driver Ken Miles to make this all happen, despite a lot of push back from the corporate bullies in charge of Ford. 

All of that inner conflict at Ford was actually quite interesting. I thought I was getting myself into a movie about a car company trying to make the best car possible and race against the other car company. And I did get that to a certain degree. But a large part of the movie ended up being a movie about the two small voices trying to fight against the big corporation. The people at Ford wanted them to submit and do what's best for the company as a whole, which is not necessarily a bad thing in concept. It's just the way they went about it was fairly heartless. There's a right way to steer your employees in a proper direction and that involves showing respect for each individual employee, which is not how Ford was going about things. They just wanted to treat everyone like robots and force them to meet their demands, which is why I was rooting for Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles to stick their ground. It became a very empowering journey. One that taught that if you stick to your guns, you can make a difference. If all you do in life is ride the waves of what everyone else is doing or what everyone is telling you to do, you're just going to disappear into the crowd. But if you stick up for what you believe in, eventually people are going to notice.

As wonderful and inspiring as all that was, I will admit that if you ask me to get into specifics regarding the plot instead of making general statements saying how wonderful it was seeing the little guys stand up to the giant corporation, I'm not really going to remember a whole lot. I could attempt to sound all smart and say I just don't want to tell you because I don't want to spoil the specifics about the plot so that you can experience it all for yourself. But if I'm being honest, I simply don't remember a whole about all the details of what was happening and it was only a few days ago when I watched this. And I bring that up to illustrate a point in this movie that this story gets really long. The movie as a whole is 152 minutes and it did not need to be that long. I'm certainly not against the idea of a long movie. But if you're going to chose to be that long, you need to have effective pacing so that the movie flows well. And the first two-thirds of this movie got boring. I don't want to be the type of person to tell a movie to jump over all the character stuff so we can get the fun racing sequences. I mean, I didn't walk into this movie hoping for a Fast and Furious movie. I expected the Oscar drama stuff to be a heavy part of this. But there came a point where I just lost my patience.

Luckily there was a lot of great acting that helped push the movie forward when the plot itself dragged. Carrying the load was Matt Damon and Christian Bale as Shelby and Miles. Those two are always a joy to watch. I'm not sure if they've ever been in a movie together, but they played off each other really well. Matt Damon played Carroll Shelby and he provided the right amount of passion and energy to the role. Given that this guy was one of the most legendary sports car designers, this role required someone to have the right personality. I had to be convinced that this character had the ability to make a difference. Matt Damon was perfect. The thing that makes Matt Damon a respectable actor is that he always puts 100 percent into whatever he does and it shows on camera. Whether he's jumping into his Jason Bourne role or if he's doing something more dramatic like in "The Martian" or "Ford v. Ferrari," I can always tell that he's fully invested. It never looks like he's there for a paycheck. Because of that, he was the perfect anchor for this film. He was able to successfully push back against Ford and their corporate demands while also getting Ken Miles to invest in what they were doing, which was important given that Ken Miles was the driver.

Speaking of Ken Miles, Christian Bale had a lot of fun playing him. I don't know if this was necessarily one of his Oscar-worthy performances, although admittedly he has been nominated for lesser roles. But I didn't think that mattered. He provided a good balance to Matt Damon's Shelby as the cool and collected driver who was obviously great at what he did. And he did have a solid arc to him with in regards to his relationship with his wife and son. This is nothing unique and original for a movie like this. Typical thing where wife is not sure if she wants her husband invest in something this time consuming or dangerous and husband tries to convince her to let him. Granted, husband also doesn't know if he wants to do this huge race with all the preparation that goes with it, but once Shelby convinces him to go for it, he also has to convince his wife to let him on board. Yes, you know where all of this is going. But there was still a strong execution here thanks to these great performances and solid direction from James Mangold. With Bale's performance, he did a good job of balancing the drama and the humor. And it was also a role that reminded me that in real life he's actually British. I'm so used to his American accent that I forget that's not his natural voice.

In addition to Matt Damon and Christian Bale, this movie also had a solid supporting cast holding them up. I'm not going to spend a paragraph on each of them, but we had Tracy Letts acting sufficiently despicable as Henry Ford II with his croonies played by Josh Lucas and Jon Bernthal adding to the fire, really making the people at Ford look terrible, which made it all that more rewarding when Damon and Bale succeeded in overpowering them. And of course I can't forget Caitriona Balfe and Noah Jupe as Bale's wife and kid in the movie. Without that family dynamic in the movie, this really doesn't work. And even though all of this drags on way too long, there's enough of a solid foundation here that makes this a really rewarding experience when we get to the big race, which is where this movie shines. The racing sequences in this movie put other racing movies to shame. And even though I've never been a fan of watching real life Nascar stuff, racing games and racing movies have always been my thing. The Need for Speed franchise is one of my favorite gaming franchises and I've always loved the Fast and Furious movies. So yeah, I think it should mean something when I say the racing sequences in this movie take the cake when compared to the others.

Unfortunately, though, that's where I have to slam on the breaks when it comes to this review. Even though the last act is the best part of the movie and it's not like said last act is any sort of surprise given that Le Mans '66 is the whole point of this thing, it is nevertheless the last act of the movie and I need to tread lightly, so I'm just going to end this review in that vague sort of way. It was intense and exciting. Modern-day Nascar is quite safe, but that wasn't quite the same back in the 60's, so when they're driving 200 miles per hour and the movie suggests that they're pushing the car to the limits, I was genuinely intense and I had no idea how things turned out here. Given that this is a sports movie and there's only a small amount of options that the genre has available to offer, it was impossible for this movie to surprise me, especially since I've seen every possible sports ending done a hundred times each. But nevertheless, I found myself quite satisfied. The movie does have a bit of a fourth act to it that continues quite a bit longer after you think it's going to end and I have mixed feelings there. And as I've detailed, the first two-thirds of this movie drags on quite a bit at times, but overall this was still a very enjoyable time at the theaters and thus I'm giving "Ford v. Ferrari" an 8/10.