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I am new to the films of director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has been highly praised for a number of his earlier films. I don't know how representative of his style this movie is, but I can say there are certain things in this movie that seems to be unique to the movie and were clearly director's choices. Most of those flourishes are at the base of my reservations about the film, so I may be hesitant to sample his other work. Between the praise and Award talk about this movie, and the highly entertaining trailer, I was expecting something a little more light and maybe traditional. There is a core to this story that I think would make a fine film in another director's hands, but in Lanthimos grip, the movie becomes a bit "arty" and pretentious. Deserving of high praise, regardless of what I thought of the rest of the movie are the three lead actresses. Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, but especially Olivia Colman, deliver effective performances. Stone manages to run the table ...

I enjoyed the first of the "Transformers" movies, it was loud and full of explosions and destruction, but all that got a little tiresome as the sequels came. Since I was not a child in the 1980s, I barely knew what the Transformers were and probably missed the relationship that younger audiences had with the original cartoons. Still, it is a series based on a toy line, and that seems like the biggest product placement you can have. I assume it has been working, at least up to the last film which was apparently a bust and abysmal. "Bumblebee" may not draw in the big bucks that the first three films managed, but it will go a long way to restoring some sense of purpose to the concept. This film still has big effects and robots bashing each other, but not nearly as much and the purpose is not to gawk at all the Metropolitan destruction on screen. The battles here are smaller, easier to follow for a number of reasons, and they are mostly connected to the story. Hailee St...

We have a new entry into the Best Christmas film ever category. Oh all right, maybe not, but when there is a competition for the most fun to be had in a Christmas movie, "Anna and the Apocalypse" will be there on the top shelf. This is a silly little mash up of "High School Musical" with "Shaun of the Dead" and the result is a delightful ninety seven minutes that will make you tap your toes and laugh out loud. The songs are sappy and although they don't consistently blend with the theme, they each have a winning charm to them that makes them worth listening to. Just before the Christmas break at school, somewhere in Scotland, Anna and her father, the school custodian, have a set to over her plans at the end of her senior year. Anna and her best friend John, who is trapped in the friend zone, navigate the school's social castes and administrative politics as everyone is preparing for the big holiday extravaganza. Steph, the lonely American lesbian h...

The man is 88 years old and still working hard to make good films. I skipped the first of his 2018 movies, the poorly reviewed "15:17 to Paris". I was initially interested in seeing it, but the reviews were so bad that even the idea of the actual heroes playing themselves was not enough to induce me. This film does not any gimmick to it, it simply has the one essential plus that could over power any doubts; Clint is acting in the movie. In addition to directing, which has been his main focus for the last decade, he has come out of semi-retirement as on on-screen presence to deliver a performance to potentially cap off his amazing career. It's unlikely that he will receive Awards attention, he will be stereotyped as playing a character that he is, an old man. That character can also be seen as not to distinct from Walt in "Grand Torino", a man who today's generation would see as a racist because of the generation he grew up in. He is also likely to be ignored...

Frankly, this movie is ridiculous. The premise of the Aquaman is one of the loopiest comic book concepts that was ever created. There is something fishy about the whole idea. (Yeah, prepare yourself for a lot of bad puns her). Despite the silliness of the whole thing, it turns out to be pretty entertaining. If ever there were bad movies that won me over by sheer will power, than "Aquaman" can be added to the list. This is a mash up of concepts that should not work together but somehow manage to overcome the complete incompatibility of those ideas to make something that is hypnotically watchable, regardless of how inconsistent it is. First of all, this movie is cheesy.  In addition to the bad puns, you are going to get a whole lot of metaphor in this review.  Like the soft, cheddar flavored goop that covers your nachos, this movie drips warm flavor over the saltiness of the sea. It is a fairy tale to begin with. The title character actually narrates the opening and closing of ...

For a nostalgia junkie like me, this premise was catnip, with a potential for disaster. The original "Mary Poppins" is one of the pivotal films of my childhood.  It was the one movie that I distinctly remember my grandmother taking me to. I also recall listening to the soundtrack with my friend Kathy Callen and singing the words from the songs, because in those days there was no home video, we relived the movie through the music. So I wanted to revisit the characters and the setting of the movie, but there is always trepidation when a sequel comes along, especially when it if fifty plus years later. As things worked out, we are all in good hands. Rob Marshall has made a career out of bringing musicals to the screen and this original story with new songs fills our expectations in a number of ways. The first thing the movie gets right is the tone of the story. There is some melancholy over a Mother who has passed, a family on the brink of financial ruin, and some grown ups who ...

It has been six years since " Wreck it Ralph " popped into our video consciousness and it's time for a sequel.  I am pretty sure I only saw the previous film the one time. It's not that I disliked it, it simply was not my jam and I never felt connected to it the way I have to other Disney films. So this sequel was not something on my radar until a trailer dropped, and even though it looked like it might be fun, I was in no hurry to see it. In fact, I ended up in this screening completely by accident. I'd gone to see "Creed II" in the brief window of time I had available yesterday, and the film failed. I sat in the dark and the movie never started. After I notified the management and they struggled for ten minutes to reboot the equipment, I was offered a pass and an invitation to take in another film. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" was what was starting next so here I am. After having built a world out of the old arcade games of the past, the maker...

This is one of those posts that is personal nostalgia rather than a film review, so if you were looking for a detailed evaluation of the film, sorry, not today. Last night I watched "My Fair Lady" on TCM as they were screening it in honor of it's inclusion on the National Film Registry. I happened to be by myself, a scenario that is likely to be more common than I have any desire for. As almost all film lovers know, much like music or the scent of Grandma's cooking, a film can trigger memories that are vivid and powerful, and that is what hit me last night. In 1994, shortly after my Mother had passed away and my Father began living with us, "My Fair Lady" was restored and released in a limited number of theaters for a week or so. It might have been Mother's Day weekend that we chose to go and see this, but I definitely remember the experience. My girls were Eight and Six, and we drove across the county of Los Angeles, to Century City (A place my youngest...

Frankly I'm not a big fan of Will Farrell. After the first five years of listening to him scream, I lost any sense that it was humorous. "Elf" came out right about the time I started feeling like this was too much. It did manage to channel that maniacal loud voice into something that was a little bit more charming and I remember having a pretty solid reaction to the film. Flash forward 15 years and I went to see it for a second time, this was also a regular theatrical screening, in acknowledgement of the Anniversary. I still enjoyed it, but there were moments that I wanted to look away. The movie starts and ends with Bob Newhart so it has that going for it. I've always been a fan. It also features a supporting role from Mary Steenburgen, whom I've had a crush on since I first saw her in "Goin" South" in 1978. Finally, it also features Zooey Deschanel, right before she became America's Manic Pixie Dream Girl of choice. She was much more subdued a...

LAMBracket: Best Christmas Movie – Play-Off #7 : From December 1st until Christmas Eve, here on the LAMB, we’ll be determining what is the BEST Christmas movie of all time. We’ve asked you all which films are the main contenders, and … championed by Richard Kirkham from  Kirkham A Movie A Day If you are not considering  The Muppet Christmas Carol  as your choice for the best Christmas movie of all time, you must not have seen the film. Not only is it a great Christmas film, it is in many ways, the greatest telling of one of the most important Christmas themed stories of all time. Charles Dickens’ story has been filmed more than two dozen times, with distinguished Shakespearean actors and American Television Thespians. None of them can hold a candle to this version which succeeds because of two fantastic features. First, look at the title, “Muppets”. I have heard that there are people who do not appreciate The Muppets, I don’t want to know who those people are. The off kil...

It was 40 years ago this month that I trooped down to the Chinese Theater in Hollywood with my band of friends and my girl, to see this comic book movie. More than a decade before the launch of "Batman", the D.C. Universe started with their most iconic hero. This was a highly anticipated film and we knew before we even saw it that there was going to be a sequel. This was the beginning of a comic book franchise that ends up setting a high standard with the opening two films and then trailed off with subsequent efforts. Regardless of how you feel about the revived D.C. films, the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films stand the test of time. Unlike forty years ago, this trip to the theater was solo and on a Monday night of all times. The Fathom Event included an opening cartoon from Max Fleischer Studios, featuring an animated version of the Man of Steel. This efficient ten minute adventure looks like it was the template for the TV series to come. It certainly had all the t...

When I first saw the trailer and concept for this movie, I was tempted to refer to it as "Driving Mr. Daisy". There are some parallels to the Oscar winning film of 1989, but the superficial comparisons stop pretty quickly. Although the racial component is certainly a key component in the film, "Green Book" explores the relationship between the main characters in a much more diverse manner. Viggo Mortensen plays a man on the fringes of society in the urban jungle of New York circa 1962, but in many ways he represents the whole country at a moment in time when the world might change. Mahershala Ali is more mainstream in the City, but even there he is a lonely figure, who is an imperfect vessel for a message of change, but one that he has decided to deliver. The movie is a polemic waiting to happen but it steps back from being a political film at it's core and instead focuses on the tentative friendship between the two men of such different backgrounds.  There is p...

  We are taking a slightly different journey this week with MIWETS (Yeah, not a great acronym). I would not really say the films I am going to focus on are guilty pleasures but many film fans might turn their noses up at such crassly commercial projects. One film exploits a TV show comic book legacy and the other one comes from one of the most resented genres among movie fans, the romantic comedy. I think each film actually has some merits that could be discussed in a passionate way because I have seen some hate for these films online. Neither film is essential, seminal or serious in any way. The two movies have one thing in common that moved me to pair them like this. Each one is a version of a nearly extinct form of film making, the original film musical. It is true that we occasionally get a musical in an animated movie, or that a stage musical is adapted for the big screen. Those are rare enough however that even Disney cannot be counted upon for regular versions ...