(Not long into Dear Evan Hansen, I realized the best audience I could write to would be myself as a High School Senior.)
Dear Mark A. Lester (circa 2005),
Categories
Dear Evan Hansen (2021)
Tag: PG-13
This truly seems like uncharted territory. I mean, when was the last time you saw a movie where a nonagenarian directs themselves in the lead role?
While I admit to not seeing all of his films (both in front of and behind the camera), I have seen more than enough to know that Clint Eastwood has long since made his mark not only as cinematic legend, but an American relic. Regardless of what age he is in the movies, he still plays the no-nonsense, hard lined tough guy as good as anyone ever has. No one else ever looked more terrifying when holding a gun.
As the second film of the MCU’s Phase 4, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings also holds the distinction of being the first true origin story film of the MCU since 2019’s Captain Marvel.
Of course, one could argue that Black Widow was also an origin story, but we have seen Natasha since 2010’s Iron Man 2. Shang-Chi is a character we had no interaction with until now. Like a good amount of the films in the series, it showcases a character that only true comic book fans know something about (I can still remember when non fanboys like myself needed the movies to introduce the likes of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos, Black Panther, and even Iron Man.)
The story has been told many times, in many movies.
A teenager/young adult is the odd one out of their family as he/she tries to follow their passion that will be in direct conflict with their family, despite the family being a loving one. These are movies such as October Sky (1998), Billy Elliot (2000), Bend it Like Beckham (2002), Sing Street (2016), and Blinded by the Light (2019). Even if the movies were good to some degree (as are the previously named films, in my opinion), we know the formula so well that it is near impossible not to predict what will happen.
Categories
Respect (2021)
Toward the end of 2010, Rolling Stone released a list of the top 100 vocalists of all time. I remember at the time being a bit shocked that Elvis was not at the top of the list (he was 3). When I saw that #1 was Aretha Franklin, I thought to myself “Oh, well, okay. That makes sense.”
People who think Aretha was not a good singer are people who most likely do not exist, or at least people I have not met or heard of. Right from the beginning of Respect, we know she is being told at a young age that her voice is a gift from God. The movie is clear in telling us this, but not entirely in giving us much more.
Even with the COVID pandemic pushing back the release date of Black Widow (and a host of other films), the newest Marvel film indeed seems to be arriving rather late.
Perhaps those who have never seen a film from the MCU won’t feel that way, but for the rest of us, it is inevitable (pardon my Thanos plug there) to feel this film should have come out before the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019), where Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johanson) dies. That fact still hovers over the second female lead film of the MCU (after 2019’s Captain Marvel), leading us to feel like those behind the scenes may have screwed up.
Why?
That is the question that was on my mind not long into the documentary Summer of Soul. It continued to grow more and more until the credits began to role. Most of the time, when this one word question is in our heads during a film, it is the beginning of the question “Why was this movie made? It is so bad!”
Categories
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Maybe I was just Mr. Grumpy pants when I was watching this film.
Perhaps I just was not giving The Tomorrow War a fair opportunity to try to be a semi fun time travel film. I do confess that I can overthink a lot at movies, but it did not take me a long time to realize this film should have stayed in the future. The very, very distant future.
Some movie formulas are so much fun you can’t help but want to put yourselves in the character’s shoes.
If it were a body switch comedy (or any genre), you wonder, “Who would I want to switch bodies with?”. If it were a fish out of water plot, where would you as the (hypothetical) fish wish to be? And, if you were stuck in the same day on a constant loop (most notably done in the classic film Groundhog Day), what would you do?
Categories
In the Heights (2021)
When the credits rolled at the end of In the Heights, I stayed to see if I could find out how many extras were used for dancers. I soon realized that the list would have been at least the size of three screen shots. I returned home, I logged on to HBO Max, and (to the best of my ability) counted how many extra dancers were used.
The final count I arrived at was 274. Honestly, it may as well have been 96,000.
Nothing else to say 