The Dead Don't Die

I knew very little about this movie going into it, from what I saw of a couple clips and photos, I was kind of expected a zombie horror maybe akin to Shaun of the Dead coupled with the dry humor that Bill Murray and Adam Driver are good at delivering on. The scenes with those two are absolutely the best thing of this movie because everything else just feels slow paced and drab. You would think given the sizable A-List cast given including Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Tom Waits, Steve Buscemi and Danny Glover to name just a few that this has the makings for something special. The bests parts are with Driver and Murray in their squad car just talking together and the self referential comments they make knowing that they are inside a movie are funny. The rest is very heavy fisted commentary on political and environmental state of the world we are in, it is written & directed by Jim Jarmusch who also wrote and directed Broken Flowers, which also starred Bill Murray, which I enjoyed that film quite a bit and actually have it in my DVD collection. I think Jarmusch let his message over power the story of the film. There is also a very random scene with Tilda Swinton’s character that I was just like um what was that and why did that just happen. I would not spend money going out to theaters on this one it’s definitely streaming rental material and I only give it that for Bill Murray and Adam Driver scenes. D.

How It Ends

An unexplained event has occurred off the Western coast of the United States, seismic tremors ripple across the country, communications are severed and a total blackout of power engulfs the entire country, this is How It Ends. Theo James is flying back from a work trip and visiting with his soon to be in-laws in Chicago when the event occurs stranding him half a country away from his pregnant fiancée in Seattle. Forest Whitaker is a strong willed former Marine and father who would do anything to keep his only daughter safe, including taking Theo James who he has not totally accepted into his daughters life on an apocalyptic road trip to Seattle.

I’m all for end of the world, apocalypse, disaster films until the movie becomes the disaster. We never  fully realize what is happening or causing the effects of destruction in the movie which is fine, is it aliens or an attack or natural, who knows which is great, choose your own adventure in your head. The problem I had with this movie is Theo James and Forest Whitaker both why are they in this they are better than this, it’s what you’d expect from two people on opposite ends of comfort levels being cooped up in a car, but, the script is bad and how many times can one character make the same mistakes and not learn from them. There is a third passenger they pick up played by Grace Dove off an Indian reservation who’s story doesn’t add any real dynamic and doesn’t get much to do besides be a third wheel. I continued watching hoping for some more depth to these characters which never occurs and just keeps the same pace from start to end trapped in a car with two men I could have cared less if they survived their trip. C.

Dark Phoenix

Well, this movie did not do anything for trying to convince me the X-Men movie franchise is a good thing. I used to like the X-Men movies until they did the whole new timeline thing and set things back in time, for the same reason I had problems with Avengers: Infinity War and the Terminator series, when you start going back and messing with timelines it gets messy and confusing. Let’s just focus on Dark Phoenix, it is set in 1992, mutants seems to be generally accepted by the world their is a direct line to Xavier’s desk from the White House and action figures of the X-Men. That phone I just mentioned rings at the beginning of the movie with the president calling on the X-Men to help the space shuttle Endeavor that has been hit with a solar flare, putting the crew at risk of their lives. The X-Jet takes off with its mutant crew and during the evacuation of the shuttle, Jean Gray (Sophie Turner) directly absorbs the solar flare which will give her powers she does not know how to control and putting an alien race on the planet hunting her down to get said power. It will be up to her mutant buddies led by Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) to shower Jean Grey with love and understanding while trying to keep her safe from the baddies.

For me this movie was just a mess, its obvious the franchise is showing its age and majority of these actors have moved on to bigger and better things, coming back some of them even on screen just look like they are thinking, I’m contracted to do another one of these, lets get this over with. Some of the visual effects are also not on par with what has become standard for summer blockbusters. This is definitely a female empowerment movie with Jean getting all this power that is new to her and not knowing how to yield it, there is even a line early on in the movie that goes something like, looks like the women are always saving the men around here lately they should rename us the X-Women. While that’s all well and good and I’m down for some strong female hero’s the problem is Sophie Turner is not the strong one to pull this off, I saw more potential with Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) in this having that ability to command the screen for such a task. Same thing my issue with Captain Marvel, I think there is some great character potential there, I’m just not sold on Brie Larson, she’s an amazing actress I just don’t get this strong persona from her like say Sigourney Weaver or Linda Hamilton who are action women. Pushing aside from the female side of things, their are some laughable moments in the dialogue that are funny for the wrong reasons, at this point in superhero movies it is why are we stooping to dialogue like this. I think what we get here is Simon Kinberg is the director it’s his first feature film directing debut with not much directing experience before, where he has done more producing in his past with hit or miss movies in that filmography. It feels that Fox wanted to make this and went up to him, you like these films right, want to direct? Then it’s a fan making a over cliched superhero movie and making in his mind what a superhero movie should be.

Final thoughts, it’s a mess of a movie, I love many of these actors: Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hault, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain (notice I didn’t even touch on her alien role in this; its bad). I mean look at that list and its just a few of the names in this and I see many movies and know they are all much better than what this script and movie gave them to work with. Loyal fans of the franchise will of course go see it, anyone else wait until DVD release to rent it. For me the franchise just needs to stop now and give some time to pass. With Disney holding the rights to the X-Men who knows what we will begin to see now will we see a reboot of things, for me I’m not a comic follower by any means, but, I feel there are more individual mutant characters that we can focus on. I would not mind seeing some standalone character films, just don’t do like the MCU and try to tie them all together, get some good standalone superhero one and done films. C.

The Death of Stalin

The Death of Stalin looks at the final days of the life of Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) the Soviet leader and the clambering of power and control by his successors. Only this is all done through a dark comedy format which I truly enjoyed from start to finish. The beginning of the movie starts at a concerto being hosted by Radio Moscow and after the performance is finished a request from Stalin for a recording of the concerto that was not made, then Paddy Considine has to try to get all the musicians and audience to stay and do the concerto again to make the recording, showing the power and fear Stalin had over the population. But, then he dies soon after and the battle for power begins as the weak successor by the rules is George Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) who doesn’t like to make decisions and easily persuaded by others. Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale) is the head of the NKVD and wants to have full police state power over the country, where Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) wants a little more reform within the government. This is not a movie for everyone as it is a political satire masquerading as a dark comedy, it is a movie that you have to invest in and not just casually watch to keep up with who is plotting what and each persons role in the events happening. While the movie tackles a very serious time in Russian history and horrid events that took place within the span the movie is presenting it delivers the history with humor while making sure the impact of the events is still prevalent. Going into the end of the second act I was getting a little fidgety as it started lagging a little as it becomes obvious where things are going, once the final act gets underway it started clipping along again. This is one that like myself I watched it alone late night when I didn’t have anything else to do and once it started going I was having fun with it. C.

The Perfection

Allison Williams is a young cellist that has tremendous skill and is taught by Steven Weber and his wife, Alaina Huffman, who run the foremost school for the cello in the world. That is until Allison William's character has to drop out of school to careful her ailing mother, when she passes away Allison reaches out to her teachers and finds they have taken a new young protégé under their wings, Logan Browning. Allison flies to Tokyo to meet up with the staff and what she sees as her replacement where the two form a bond and on the fly relationship. Leaving the next day to travel the world together before Logan has to head back to school, on the bus ride Logan develops symptoms of a horrific virus that leaves the two in the middle of nowhere, did she catch this from travelling to another country recently where there was an outbreak or is there something more going on?

This movie takes a lot of twists and turns and executes them fairly decently, using time warps to go back and explain things that if you didn't catch it makes you kind of smack your head. I enjoyed the first half of this movie, towards the end when they get back stateside everything involving Steven Weber inside the school it kind of went way farther than I thought this was taking it. It's an okay movie to turn on if your bored one night and want something a little darker to watch. I wouldn't go our of my way to watch this one, I did like Allison Williams in this quite a lot, she is one I would like to see do some more work and broaden her abilities. C.