Archive for July, 2019

Movie Mayhem – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Posted by Bryan Caron in Entertainment, Film, Movies, Reviews on July 28, 2019

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — 2019; Directed by Quentin Tarantino; Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Timothy Olyphant, Kurt Russell and Al Pacino

I am not much of a Quentin Tarantino fan. Of his nine films, I’ve only ever seen four of them, and by all accounts, that’s enough. Reservoir Dogs was okay, but I was not a fan of Pulp Fiction or Django Unchained. Tarantino has a very unique style, and his writing can definitely be sharp and witty, but it always felt to me that he can also be very overindulgent, an opinion that doesn’t end with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — even as his ninth film finally breaks through as one I can actually say I enjoyed, despite having no discernible plot.

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Movie Mayhem – The Lion King (2019)

Posted by Bryan Caron in Entertainment, Film, Movies, Reviews on July 21, 2019

The Lion King — 2019; Directed by Jon Favreau; Starring Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Chietel Ejiofor, John Oliver, Alfre Woodard, Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen and James Earl Jones

Live-action remakes have been around for quite some time (Popeye, anyone), they’re just much more prevalent now with Disney’s recent onslaught of remaking all of their beloved animated classics into live-action properties. I don’t mind these upgrades; getting to see your favorite animated films with real people can be a lot of fun, especially when the updates add more to the story and help develop stronger characters. The issue with these updates comes when a film relies too much on their predecessor (because, you know, they were perfectly fine in animated form), making them feel a bit lazy and underwhelming.

This is what happens with The Lion King, which isn’t so much a remake as it is a facelift; many scenes, including the grand opening sequence, are nearly identical to the original. Beauty and the Beast was criticized by many for this reason, though I didn’t mind it as much because real actors carried the majority of the film. However, because The Lion King is nothing but animals (no humans were harmed in the production of this movie), it’s hard to distinguish this version as “live-action” because the majority is still animated, just in a different way.

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Movie Mayhem – Crawl

Posted by Bryan Caron in Entertainment, Film, Movies, Reviews on July 14, 2019

Crawl — 2019; Directed by Alexandre Aja; Starring Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper

Movies about alligators (or is it crocodiles?) attacking gorgeous teens aren’t quite as plentiful as movies about sharks attacking gorgeous teens, but there are still plenty of them crawling around out there. Sharks, on the surface, seem more deadly; they are after all out in the wide open spaces of the ocean, while gators are stuck mostly in marshy, humid areas where no one would want to camp or spend their holiday. But alligators can be just as deadly as sharks when they want to be, and Crawl proves that when a family of alligators attack a father and daughter during a major hurricane, begging the question, how many times can someone be bit by an alligator and survive?

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Movie Mayhem – Spider-Man: Far From Home

Posted by Bryan Caron in Entertainment, Film, Movies, Reviews on July 7, 2019

Spider-Man Far From Home — 2019; Directed by Jon Watts; Starring Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Cobie Smulders and Jake Gyllenhaal

If you didn’t already know from the second trailer, the fallout from the events of Avengers: Endgame plays a large role in Spider-Man: Far From Home. So much, in fact, that it feels as if Robert Downey Jr. is somehow playing puppet master in the background of the entire film. But that isn’t to the detriment of Spider-Man’s newest solo outing; having Iron-Man’s presence be such a large part plays into the larger themes of the film and helps propel both the story within the film as well as the overarching story of the entire MCU forward into new and interesting places.

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