Don't Look Up (Netflix) - 4.0
The Big Short was such a fresh take and a fascinating way to tell an important story that probably wasn't really all that known in the cultural zeitgeist. Director Adam McKay immediately put himself on the map, and I instantly knew then that I would watch any of his movies.
Then Vice came around, and the excitement wore off a little bit. Still a good movie. I didn't really appreciate some of his points and I felt he was quite unfair, but the movie was made well and it was still compelling.
Then Don't Look Up came out. I was incredibly pumped. Here was a movie that was supposed to obliterate social medialites and the political stupidity that's ruining our discourse and turning people into animals. I was prepared to disagree with some of McKay's viewpoints, but I was ready for strong messaging and thought-provoking insights (the girl's line about respecting the president even if you didn't vote for him was fantastic and a lesson millions of people need to learn).
Instead, all I got was a reminder that people who are all about social media are morons, political figureheads care more about their polls and doing what's good for society and people in general, rich people love their money (even the Bible has stern warnings about rich people, for crying out loud), and people care more about their followers or ratings than they do real-world issues. Don't Look Up makes commentary on the most low-hanging fruit there is, but it doesn't offer any solutions or alternatives.
To make matters worse, the movie's characters were far too shallow, they had no arcs, no real moments (other than DiCaprio's explosion on camera), and they were far too satirical. It's okay to have characters serve as parodies, but I still want to feel like I'm watching a movie instead of a conglomeration of SNL skits.
McKay bakes in some environmental messages, and I interpreted some conversations to pertain to the Coronavirus, but I might be in the minority on the latter. Regardless, his points didn't really have anything to say that hasn't been said by many others in more intelligent ways.
Red Notice (Netflix) - 5.0 (SPOILERS)
The way I see it, Ryan Reynolds hit another gear when he played the title character in Deadpool, and his career skyrocketed. The problem is Reynolds has been stuck in that gear ever since, and I'm incredibly sick of it.
Reynolds teaming up with the Rock in a goofy action movie with treasure-stealing heists should've been a perfect match. Dwayne Johnson is posing as a cop trying to track down Reynolds, but they both end up teaming to stop Gal Gadot's thief character, who was better at stealing than both of them. You'd think the two guys working together would've been conducive for funny situations; instead, we're forced to watch these tough guys play therapist for each other and talk about their dads or childhoods or whatever half-baked context we needed for certain moments, and honestly, the payoff was pretty shallow, anyway.
The other disappointing part of the movie was the predictability. Even for a B-rated action comedy like this, the telegraphing of what was really happening made me question things far too easily, which is sad considering how ridiculous the story was anyway (I'm not even talking about the stunts, which were fine). The biggest example of this was the fight scene at a dinner party. Gadot, Johnson, and Reynolds are all fighting each other in the middle of a heist when Gadot grabs Johnson and throws him over her shoulder and slams him to the ground in perfect choreographed unison. Serious? Gadot may have played Wonder Woman, but no way she dominates a fight with the Rock like that. It was so ridiculous that I knew instantly that something was up with them. Sure enough, Gadot and Johnson are actually are secretly working with each other and playing Reynolds like a fiddle. A couple of other twists later in the movie were just as predictable. What makes it worse is how condescending their detailed explanation of the entire movie was, as if this movie was really a brain-burner.
The action was solid, especially the escape from the prison. I got some Indiana Jones vibes near the end when they needed to figure out the hiding place in the forest, as well as when they were escaping in the old-timey vehicle. But a few fun action scenes didn't make this movie memorable all that much.
Matrix Resurrections (HBO Max) - 5.5
The original Matrix movie is one of the greatest and coolest movies ever made. The sequels were the product of Hollywood trying to cash in by turning one great movie into a franchise, though I suppose they were better than most crash grabs. The story got a bit worse in spots, but at least the sequels were still fun to watch.
Flash forward nearly 20 years, and Hollywood's trend of nostalgic cash grabs strikes a once beloved franchise. Matrix Resurrections was made with full self-awareness and full fan-service nostalgia plays. That's not always a bad thing, but man did this movie overdo it by a longshot. The worst part is, it didn't need to do that. The concept of the Matrix is such that rebooting this franchise would make all the sense in the world since the lore of its own universe said it has been done five times previously, anyway.
The meta at play in this movie is simply insane. We start out in a recreation of the first scene in the original movie. Right away hitting up that nostalgia play. We later find out, of course, that what we're watching isn't real. Neo is a video game programmer who is trying to recreate the success of his first blockbuster Matrix game. He even meets with a bunch of suits in a board room (for Warner Bros., even, wink wink) and actually discusses what would make a good sequel, or reboot, or whatever.
This is the problem with Resurrections. They made the choice to recreate parts of the original movie instead of build off its lore and the story that came before it. I don't need this movie to purposefully try to convince me that it's the same cool stuff I've seen before. It's like a magician trying to pull off a magic trick when you already know his secret. Suddenly it isn't so enchanting. This film honestly could've been put together by a bunch of Youtubers who think they know what it means to create fan fiction. This notion is exacerbated when Neil Patrick Harris' therapist character shows up. He's supposedly this smarter, trendy new-age genius who is arrogant enough to dismiss any "old" ways of thinking instead of showing any sort of respect to what came before. So much meta at play, but what good is it really doing?
In the end, though, I get it. Look, they brought back Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne-Moss, so the question became how can they employ ingenuity with them in ways that push the envelop while still respecting the series' roots? But Warner Bros. knew exactly who would be in the audience, so it's not like they needed to recall all of the lore for us, let alone in such a heavy-handed way that tries to convince the core fans that the movie is picking up the mantle and advancing the franchise.
House of Gucci (theatres) - 7.0
Knowing practically nothing about the history of Gucci and the people involved, I was pleasantly surprised that House of Gucci, a movie about a fashion empire, was actually pretty interesting. It was a bit slow-paced, but that was for its own good. I really felt an appreciation for the characters' arcs by the time the crazy stuff happened toward the end.
The movie focused on the characters and family drama a vast majority of the time, which kept the movie centered and grounded. I would've preferred to see progression from the public's perspective, but I don't think that would've served the movie well. The cold-blooded business decision Gucci made late in the film was so impactful because of the investment in the characters to that point; you feel how much that hurt the rest of the family (granted, some of them made incredibly stupid decisions, so it's not like they didn't deserve some of it).
What I didn't appreciate was how much screen time Lady Gaga's Patrizia got. If the woman is as annoying in real life as she was portrayed by Lady Gaga, then so be it, but regardless, that character was the worst part of the movie. And Lady Gaga did not carry herself well in that role. I'm sure she thinks she's good enough to be the best at anything she sets her mind to, but her getting lucky once as an actress in a movie tailor-made for her since it basically told the story of her music career in A Star Is Born (a movie focused on singing, of course) doesn't mean she's a good actress. She was out of her element here to the point that it was distracting at times.
The rest of the cast didn't exactly deliver mind-blowing performances, either. Patrizia was on camera so much that Adam Driver's Gucci character didn't really have a whole lot of opportunities. While Driver was mostly just okay (I'm an Adam Driver stan, so that hurts to say a little bit), the character was mostly in situations that required stoic, mild-mannered, collected behavior, which forced Driver to play the role with more nuance. He definitely came across cold-blooded when it counted, which is the important thing. The best acting performance by far came courtesy of Jared Leto, who played the weirdo relative Paolo. He portrayed ignorance and the effects of family betrayal better than anyone else. Al Pacino had some decent moments, but he was mostly fine.
Just as the movie felt like it was losing steam, the shocking murder reinvigorated the pace. But I felt like the final act was rushed too much, though I suppose there are many possible reasons for that. For starters, certain pieces of the story had to be filled in since not all of the details in the real-life event were fully known. Secondly, spending too much time on the murder would've detracted from the movie's purpose, which was not retelling the crime investigation. If anything, what we did get in the movie just made me interested in learning more about the actual house of Gucci, so in that sense, the movie was a success.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (DVD) - 8.0 (Minor spoilers)
As I mentioned with Matrix Resurrections, movie reboots/continuations of older franchises don't always go over well. And after the crappy all-female Ghostbusters reboot nearly threw the IP into the toilet, I was highly suspicious of the need to watch yet another attempt at reviving the franchise.
Boy, am I glad I was wrong on that one. Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which came out last December, was a near-perfect continuation of the original movies, almost as if it was made in tribute to them (which, if you watch the "making of" features, you'll know exactly why).
The greatest part of Ghostbusters: Afterlife was its ability to stand on its own two feet without the nostalgia plays. Granted, there is a ton of nostalgia to be enjoyed by longtime fans, but if you haven't seen the older movies, you will not feel lost for a vast majority of this film. Writer/director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman, director of the original movie) really eased in the new generation of fans by establishing a new set of characters and a decent story that led to the uncovering of the events that occurred in the original films.
And this new cast of characters was outstanding. McKenna Grace in particular was incredibly confident and exuded a full sense of ownership of her Phoebe character, a young genius girl who doesn't really fit in with anyone, but isn't ashamed of her intellect (think Alex Dunphy from Modern Family). Her young counterpart is a boy simply named Podcast (because, you know, he has a podcast. With one whole subscriber, even!), and his comedy was earnest, light-hearted and actually funny without feeling forced or contrived (save for maybe one or two lines total).
Though it was light-hearted in nature, I was surprised how "scary" some of the ghost scenes were. The series has always been on the fringe of occult-like horrors, and they really pushed the envelop for me in Afterlife. They even shoehorned in the timeline story of these ghosts coming out of this giant hell-like cavern every so often. No thanks.
The good stuff for fans of the series came near the end, when the original cast joined together to bust ghosts one more time. In an age when seeing actors on screen posthumous has become very possible (Carrie Fisher and Paul Walker to name a couple), the handling of the late Harold Ramis, who passed away in 2014, was done quite well. Bringing him back as a good ghost was such a fitting, clever-yet-simple idea, and the fact that he hardly spoke actually serviced the character well. The redemption of his character's arc in relations to the other three was touching, too, especially when Bill Murray leads with the apologies.
Death on the Nile (theatres) - 8.5 (spoiler-ish)
I love a good mystery movie. I'm that guy who tries to figure out everything before it happens. Watching mysteries encourages the audience to do so, though that opens the door for misdirects, which are usually awesome when done correctly.
Without having seen the trailer (the best way to go into a movie, of course), it was fun for me to not even truly know what was going to cause all the drama. The early scenes quickly introduce the main characters, but right away, the circumstances seem sus, which kept me calculating multiple possibilities of where the story would go or who would have the motives to commit the crime. I was never even sure which character was going to die (though it's pretty obvious once it's happens. But that's the point, right? The story never revealed its hand too much, but you definitely could see the poker chips piling up and the stakes raising.
For example, I was really proud of picking up on a sub-storyline that had nothing to do with the main murder, but I had part of it backwards. When we finally found out the truth (one person was investigating another in secret), it was an eye-opener for sure.
The movie didn't rush to get to the murder, which was a brilliant move. When you have this many characters, you don't want to rush, anyway. As per most mystery movies, we got enough insight into several characters that justified suspicion of so many of them. The motives for some of the characters were actually very human and understandable (jealousy was a key one).
After watching Death on the Nile, I immediately wanted to watch it again, which is all you can really ask for from a mystery movie, which typically doesn't lend itself to rewatchability.
Being the Ricardos (Amazon Prime) - 9.0
I loved watching I Love Lucy when I was a kid. That show is still maybe the purest definition of what a sitcom is. Getting to watching those characters work together for so long became such a comfort, yet the show never became predictable.
The movie Being the Ricardos somewhat channeled that chaos as the four movie characters who played the TV characters all had their own drama, not to mention all the public-eye-catching scandals and behind-the-scenes drama the actors carried for several years. The movie sort of combines the timing of all that stuff, though, and that decision led to a rather clever little screenplay that was consistent with the workweek associated with sitcoms before streaming services started releasing shows all at once (more akin to movies).
The writers weaved it all - Lucille Ball's drama with the Communists, Desi Arnaz's affair, Vivian Vance's weight, and (to a lesser extend than I would've preferred) the difficulties William Frawley and Vance had working together - into an incredibly cohesive flow, and each story had its own payoff.
Watching the scrap of an idea like Lucy stepping barefoot on grapes germinate into a full-blown episode was gratifying, but it was also amazing to watch Nicole Kidman's Lucy brilliantly envision how the scene plays out for the audience, which elevated the writing in a way only Lucy could. In certain moments, Kidman's performance reminded me of Michael Richards, who played Kramer on Seinfeld, my all-time favorite show. Kramer comes across as the goofy doofus who slips on a golf ball in Peterman's office, but the amount of craft Richards put into the moment to make sure Kramer fell "upwards" is the type of genius people probably don't associate with physical comedians. But Lucille Ball was (and probably still is) the epitome of physical acting. She was so measured in how she delivered every silly line, and Kidman brought that out of the character incredibly well; it was like watching a mad scientist at work, only in a theatre instead of a lab.
When Lucille Ball was adamant about not treating the audience disrespectfully, I came away with an even greater appreciation for her (assuming, of course, the movie portrayed the actress correctly, because, you know, the show first aired 30-plus years before I was even born). Watching those scenes when Kidman put on her serious hat and argued with the writers about why certain conversations wouldn't work or why she had to be cutting flowers with a specific tool or whatever the case may have been in real life showed the respectable side of Lucille Ball that doesn't translate on the silver screen, but is every bit as important to her persona.
The conversation Vivian and Lucy had about the breakfast Lucy secretly sent Vivian - thereby opening up the can of worms about Vivian needing to gain weight - was such a nuanced, yet heavy talk. My wife and I read between the lines so much that we actually had a long, in-depth conversation about how that was handled. It's hard to separate friendship from your work lives, as Lucy found out. That moment felt so real and human, truly a masterclass in writing and acting.
Some of the movie's other heavier conversations felt awkward, probably because they were dramatized to appear more confrontational than they actually were in real life. But the purpose doesn't get lost or overblown, so I'm good with it. I read that Lucille's and Desi's children actually approved of the movie, so in my mind, those key dramatic moments were executed close enough to the real thing that no substantial embellishments were made. The biggest fake thing that definitely did not happen was the phone call on the night the show's audience found out about Lucille's political missteps in her past (it was a pretty corny scene that didn't seem to fit at all).
I appreciated the story of the female writer trying to do everything she can just to keep her job because of how much harder it was for women in that day to compete with men (it's still too hard, obviously, but thankfully the gap is closing a bit). Her story was handled well because it was about inequality more than feminism (if you don't know the difference, you might be part of the problem), and it felt completely natural and not shoehorned in just to make a statement.
My biggest problem with the movie was how the actors looked, particularly Javier Bardem, who played Ricky. I just didn't feel like he captured the TV character well at all. I'm normally not the kind of person who thinks that an actor who doesn't look like the character he's playing is a problem. I had zero problems with Alden Ehrenreich play Han Solo, even though he didn't look much like Harrison Ford. But Bardem just kept taking me out of the moment. He didn't look or sound enough like Ricky, and it kept throwing me off. Ricky was a leaner, better built character, but Bardem looked like what Ricky would look like when he was older and "out of the game," so to speak. Kidman's hair threw me off several times, too; Lucy's hair should be way poofier and taller than how Kidman's hair looked. But I was able to get past that more easily. J.K. Simmons was the perfect Fred, yet even he threw me off once or twice. I don't know, I think it's so hard to get it just right, which is why I'm normally so forgiving in this situation. For some reason with this movie, it just didn't click for me.
Despite that, and despite the few unrealistic moments and the fact that so much was condensed into one week for the sake of the movie, Being the Ricardos was an absolute knockout of a film. I loved it so much.