My Spy

​JJ (Dave Bautista) is former special operatives for the military who has taken a job with the CIA and turns out being a spy is more than just shooting people and blowing things up. Such as killing any person with intel on a black market nuclear device is not the great idea when you need more information. Getting assigned with a tech handler (Kristen Schaal) he is reassigned to watch the wife and daughter of the brother who is out to create a nuclear bomb. Except JJ did not plan on the daughter, Chloe Coleman, being a combined force of spy wannab​​e with her own tech skills. Blackmailed by the young girl JJ must teach her how to be a spy to not blow his cover with the mother. Then things get hairy when JJ starts to get emotionally attached to the mother and oh that bad guy who probably was never going to show up does and then it’s time to pu​​t all the skills we were shown to work and get those jokes to pay off. I actually found this quite enjoyable and fun, especially because I had low expectations for it. To me I felt I saw trailers for this for years every movie I went to seemed to show a trailer for this and it was had commercial in online shows I streamed, usually to me a movie I feel that over saturated with marketing is either bad and they trying everything to get people to it or being a comedy every joke was in the trailer. Which turned out to be untrue there are some lines in the trailer that didn’t make the cut, though there was quite a bit that wasn’t in the trailer I found funny and it is sad I didn’t get to see this in theaters, damn you COVID-19, to me it would have been an even bigger impact on surprise to me than on my TV laying on the couch and would have once word went around probably cleaned up pretty well at the box office, now with everything heading to VOD in the next week and Hamilton (ugh) it’s most likely to get buried in the streaming world. I though Bautista and Coleman had great comedy together for their scenes which are what make the movie while the spy stuff goes by, meh, its there because it has to be. What is enjoyable and makes it stand out from many of the family comedies that tread similar beats is that it's not afraid to dip its toe into its PG-13 with a little darkness here and there. It's a shame that it never got its long delayed theatrical release, I would definitely give it a watch as family movie night or even solo just for Bautista performance, he has great comedic timing and pulls of the tough guy with a loveable side perfectly. This is one I would have paid $19.99 to rent and been satisfied with paying that, however, it is out on Amazon Video and watchable for free if you have Amazon Prime. B.

You Should Have Left

​Kevin Bacon is a former high profile banker that has a troubled past that follows him in this newest Blumhouse production based on a novel by Daniel Kehlmann. Why do I call out Blumhouse, because they are usually misses for me more than hits, there always seems to be a formulaic model they use for the majority of the films, this one is no exception. Bacon and his younger movie star wife, Amanda Seyfired, decide to take a vacation with their daughter before her next picture begins production and they decide to stay at a foreboding modernist house in the Welsh countryside near her future shooting location. Things begin to shift as we learn more about Bacon’s past and that this house has more secrets in its walls and becomes a character in and of itself. I started off intrigued as the mystery of Bacon’s past is stirred up early on, when the​​y get to the countryside and visit a small shop in town there seems to be something eerie about the house that matches up with its black modernist design out in the country. The house is modernist both in and out though it has a closed floor which allows the director l, David Koepp, to be able and manipulate the house as needed and setup shots that disorients the characters. There is some interesting concept here especially as Bacon begins to discover the workings of the house then it kind of went off rails in the end for me. The performances are good, the problem was I just got bored through most of this movie there are your standard Blumhouse jump scares for the most part though they come well predicted. Many have compared it to The Stand, if your looking for a lite version of that then here you go, I wish it had hit theaters, open up already!, because I probably would have seen this for $5 bucks at my local AMC in the morning. It is not worth the $19.99 theater at home rental, I feel that is what my reviews have come down to now is it worth the cost of rental, I wish it had a cheaper rental option and kept the $19.99 to purchase, for a rental or this quality it’s a hard pass. D.

7500

There are some movies that are probably not best when viewed in certain locations. Example: Jaws is one you probably don’t want to watch on your weekend trip to the beach. Another example: Psycho probably not the best decision if your on a trip solo staying in a hotel room by yourself and you plan to take a a shower. 7500 is probably not the right choice for your inflight entertainment, if your not familiar with the title 7500 is the squawk code pilots enter to signal a hi-jacking. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a pilot who’s airliner has just been hi-jacked and his wife is also a flight attendant, separating them a near impenetrable cockpit door. While a movie about an airplane being hi-jacked is nothing new this one stirs up the pot by placing the entire movie inside the cockpit as events unfold from beginning to end pretty much in real time. It’s hard to talk about a movie when its as straight forward as this, yes there are some bumps in the middle, but I don’t want to give away spoilers for you. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is charismatic enough to keep you entertained and often times on the edge of your seat waiting to see how events will unfold. I think the self contained nature of this movie is what makes this a good fit for its debut on Amazon Prime, at right around an hour and a half if doesn’t feel stretched out as it easily could have been and makes for a little thrilling evening of entertainment if your looking for something where you do not have to get invested too much into character or plot, you could easily walk up pop some popcorn come back and not have missed much or easily fit A and B together. C.

Babyteeth

It has been 97 days since my last visit to a movie theater when I saw Emma before going on a family vacation that ended with the country shutting down. Today I got to venture back into my favorite past time and hobby of movie watching thanks to a local art house theater called The Enzian in Maitland, Florida. While I watched movies at home off and on during the shutdown I largely got into a depressive state of missing seeing movies in theaters and the experience of going out to the theater.  For the last few months as you may see it has been touch and go on keeping up my enthusiasm to write and maintain a consistent watch trend. I have missed seeing movies come out initially into a theater, while the theater at home concept with VOD has become somewhat of a thing most only have a rental option of $19.99 which does not include owning a copy only a limited time rental, for an individual such as my self that attends movies for $5 - $9 dollars going out it is not cost effective for me to rent every single new release they throw into VOD instead of theatrical release.

Now let’s talk film, with my first showing back in a theater environment with Babyteeth. I have not seen any other films by director Shannon Murphy though I may seek them out after watching this one. Eliza Scanlen is Milla a high schooler is also dealing with having cancer when she happens upon an older boy named Moses played by Toby Wallace. Not only is he quite a bit older than she is he is also into the drug dealing scene which does not sit well for Milla’s parents especially when he starts to take their own drugs after being introduced to the family and invited into their home. Things take a turn when Milla begins a serious relapse and her parents must put differences aside if that’s what it means to make their possibly terminally ill daughter happy. I’ll be honest with the title my mind immediately went to the film Teeth from 2007 which this turned out to be nothing like, phew. When this started I was not quite sure what to make of it or if I was going to find myself committing to it, as it starts to unravel and more of each characters traits starts to be explored I found my self drawn into Milla’s world. It is told through title card segments that keep things moving along and I never found myself bored and its warmly shot. This might be a little harder for those that have had to experience a child going through cancer, especially towards the end. It was a nice film to get back into the movie going saddle as it has moments of laughter and times to cry which experiencing with the audience their laughs and sobs enhances the emotions the film is trying to convey. I would not say it’s a must see for most viewers, those in the independent circuit I feel will enjoy this especially in the art house environment I was in, though I would say check it out when it comes to VOD if your leery still of venturing out because Eliza Scanlen and Toby Wallace their performances feel very natural. It is a good exploration into having to accept negatives for a positive outcome. B.

Another topic I get a lot of friends and family looking for my commentary on is the mask being required in the chain theaters when they reopen. I am going to take AMC’s original stance and not want to get drawn into the political debate in regards to masking. I will just say I love going to movies and the experience that the theater with an audience brings especially to certain genres of movies and would rather wear a mask than not be able to go at all, because I have just been miserably depressed not being able to do my favorite past time these past few months. My main argument through this phase of reopening is if you do not feel safe don’t go and if you love something as much as I love going to the cinema a piece of fabric should not deter you from that experience.

The Vast of Night

The movie opens with a The Twilight Zone inspired opening on an antique style television setting up the tone for this movie, think Mysteries in History from Men in Black 2, a fictional show about alien events or was it real. Set in the late 1950’s in a small Nevada town seemingly in the middle of nowhere it is game night at the high school gym and the whole town is going to watch some basketball save for a few residents here and there. One of them a switch board operator the other the town’s radio host, when an unusual noise comes through the radio and odd calls start lighting up the switchboard with reports of something happening in the sky. The two listen to a caller and a town recluse that spin stories that may elude to something other worldly that may be happening in the skies above the town and that has happened before. Five minutes into the movie and I was hooked, from the tracking shots to the dialogue that unfurls between the towns people, the setup for this gives it a feel of a small town that could have existed back then. It captures that time period amazingly and the score elevates the visuals with this eerie, sci-fi feel that also has that feel of an old television show. While so much happens off screen, through telephone calls, the dialogue and the story being told just made it all the more intriguing. There are some issues with lighting at times being very dark, given this was filmed in just seventeen days with an extremely limited budget there has to be a little give here and there, the choice of how conversations are shot to the tracking shots make up for the lighting problems in my book. There are no distracting big name stars in this, the genuine performances of Sierra McCormick and Justin Horowitz captivates. If you’re a fan of The Twilight Zone or Stranger Things with that retro science-fiction aesthetic I think your going to enjoy this quite a bit. Regardless for what a first time director / filmmaker (Andrew Patteson) was able to accomplish is worth watching on Amazon. The best part being this one of the movie that actually works on a home VOD format being presented in the way it is as the old television show. A.

Becky

Don’t mess with Becky, Lulu Wilson is Becky, a rebellious young girl who has lost her mother to cancer and now lashes out at the world about it. Picked up from school by her father, Joel McHale, they are off to their lake front cabin in the wood conveniently in the middle of no where. Oh yeah and her father’s soon to be fiancé and her son are also coming to this trip at the cabin. There’s a problem though because Kevin James and three other inmates have escaped their prison transport and have shown up at the cabin looking for a key, don’t ask what the key is for, seriously don’t. What they did not count on is young Becky and her ultra violent Home Alone style make shift weapons and booby traps. I am going to be kinder on this movie than I probably should be, basically because I just had a damn fun time watching it, sure it has several super gory and grotesque scenes, highly unbelievable moments, though I found Wilson’s entertaining and Kevin James is just so damn charming as a villain you love to hate. End of the day it is a home invasion movie, though it does some different things at the beginning there is so fun editing flipping back and forth between Wilson and James setting up these two as combatants. Home Invasion movies are a dime a dozen nowadays especially with all the streaming platforms because honestly you have one or two locations and a handful of players its quick to turn these out, the kill styles set it apart from the invasion pack. It’s bloody and over-the-top at times, if your looking for an action ride until the mainstream movies get rolling again I would give Becky as shot, maybe skip the popcorn if you have a weak stomach to graphic violence.C.

The Goldfinch

I finally committed to watching this movie in its full 149 minute runtime entirety, why is that such a big deal? Because I had zero enthusiasm to watch this movie, the trailers looked blah and boring while the reviews I read or watched were not to kind on it. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Donna Tartt that centers around the character of Theo in his youth and as an adult, played by Oakes Fegley and Ansel Elgort respectively. Theo had his world changed in an instant when he was young while visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art the day a bomb went off killing his mother, of the survivors a young girl he would come to be friend through his life and the painting the movie gets its name from that he takes, which will be his Macguffin through the movie that he carries everywhere. After the explosion he is taken in by a well to do family featuring Nicole Kidman who takes Theo in and develops a fondness for him and plans to bring him into their family until Luke Wilson shows up, Theo’s father, who takes him back to his house in the Nevada desert where there are more motivations than just to be a father once again to his son. But, it’s not all for nothing being dragged from the cozy comforts of the well to do family then moved to a dust bowl neighborhood because he befriends Boris played by Finn Wolfhard. Things progress and by happenings, Theo will end up living with Jeffrey Wright a colleague of a man who died next to Ansel Elgort in the museum that left a ring that connected the two, Theo would then live a life of antique furniture sales and trying to find his place in the world. Admittedly this is a vey fast paced summary of what happens in the movie which is quite the opposite is very slow paced. Directing the adaptation of the novel is John Crowley, who directed Brooklyn, I loved Brooklyn and did not know this was being directed by the same guy that did that until I started doing some research before actually hitting play. What I enjoyed about Brooklyn was the characters more than anything, while the characters in this movie are interesting which is largely what kept me going through this was being invested in what was going to happen to Theo as time goes by though and more and more I just started getting bored which I don’t know if its just the story, I have not read the book or if its just did not make the transition from page to screen well. I do have to say I enjoyed the younger scenes with Oakes Fegley more than I did with older Ansel Elgort who comes off pretty wooden in this movie. I also enjoyed seeing Finn Wolfhard in a new genre than he normally appears in and some of the scenes with him and Oakes were my favorite. Shot by Roger Deakins The Goldfinch is nothing if not gorgeous to look at, Deakins is slowly creeping his way up to being one of my favorite cinematographers. The big question is was this movie as bad as I was expecting it to be, actually it was not, I got invested in the character of Theo and the movie has some interesting themes it explores, I do not know if it was the cutting back and forth on the timeline or pieces of the book didn’t make it into the screenplay that made the movie kinda of a chaotic mess of scenes and character relationships. It’s not a movie for everyone, undoubtably if you read the book your most likely going to watch it, it was okay not something I am going to remember in a few months. C.