Month: July 2024

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of July 15, 2024

Twisters

Rated PG-13 for intense action and peril, injury images and some language

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77% at time of writing

In Theaters

I have very fond memories of the original 1996 Twister as I was attending the University of Oklahoma (Boomer Sooner!) as it was being filmed.  And to give the film gravity, I saw a tornado as I was driving home from the theater.  Talk about a scary moment!  So now, almost 30 years later, we are getting Twisters, which sounds like a sequel, but actually doesn’t have any relationship with the original, other than it is about life-threatening tornadoes in Oklahoma.  Directed by Lee Isaac Chung (director of the multi-Oscar nominated film Minari) the film follows a young woman (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who is a smart young meteorologist who loses three friends during an attempt to do tornado research.  After her tragedy, she moves to New York but is lured back when one of her former research buddies (Anthony Ramos) gives her a new opportunity to finish her studies.  But while attempting to once again tame a tornado, she meets a tornado chasing YouTuber (Glen Powell) who seems like a dangerous villain at first, until she starts to get to know him better.  And of course, all of this is set in the middle of a bunch of storm chasing with maybe too many deadly tornadoes destroying everything in their path.  While I was looking forward to watching the film, based on seeing the trailer, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot.  The original was a guilty pleasure, and I expected this one to serve as much the same.  But there is a lot to like here, and the two-hour experience should be a thrill for most audiences.  Yes, it is a big, loud roller coaster of a film, but I really liked the characters, the story and the special effects-driven adrenaline rush.  Director Lee Isaac Chung, who was so impressive with his film Minari, with help of The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith, infuse the action with organic but fun characters who really help you get invested in the plot, even if it is a bit unrealistic.  And while the acting is good throughout, actor Glen Powell really drives the movie through both action and romance as he attempts to both chase storms, while at the same time chasing the leading actress, pushing the audience to really hope they change the world and possibly even end up together.  The icing on the cake here is a terrific soundtrack that I can’t wait to check out in my car once it is released.  It has a Top Gun kind of feel, only with some rocking country music filling both the quiet and the action-packed sequences.  And by the end you get an even better Twister movie, with better action, better characters, and much better storytelling.  B+

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of July 8, 2024

Fly Me to the Moon

Rated PG-13 for some strong language and smoking

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%

In Theaters

I always thought The Shining was a decent movie in my younger years, with some good scares and fantastic acting, but it wasn’t until years later, after I saw the documentary Room 237, that I truly started to put together what a crazy genius film it might be, and what I knew about the moon landing was potentially untrue.  I’m not one to jump into conspiracy theories at all, but the theory laid out in this documentary contends that Stanley Kubrick all but admitted through the film’s imagery that he filmed the moon landing as a contingency in case we couldn’t get good footage, or in case they didn’t make it at all.  In this way we could prove to the world, and more importantly to the Russians, that we were indeed first.  In Fly Me to the Moon, a similar story is laid out where Scarlett Johansson plays a slick New York PR guru who is hired by Woody Harrelson, a government shadow ops character who needs her to give NASA the much-needed PR they require to become the center of the world’s attention, rather than just an unnecessary bureaucracy.  Once in Florida, she goes to work with NASA launch director Cole Davis (a fictional character played by Channing Tatum) who tries hard not to fall in love with her but just can’t seem to resist.  But once crunch time kicks in, the decision is made to secretly film the moon landing so that the world will see that the Americans hold space superiority.  But being a romantic comedy, lots of things go wrong and hilarity ensues throughout.  While the film does have its slow moments and the NASA scenes aren’t nearly technical enough to be taken seriously, the movie is so damn cute that you hardly care.  I love a good rom com and there are so few of them nowadays, so I was thrilled that this one came along, even if not perfect.  The chemistry between Johansson and Tatum is solid and the film comes off as really sweet, without being sappy in the least.  And I love that someone had the idea to turn such a crazy (or not so crazy) conspiracy into a feel-good romance.  I really appreciated that it is almost a family-friendly movie as well.  It feels like a genuine PG movie until Woody throws out an F-bomb at the end, which I can only guess was put in to get a 13 added to the PG.  But overall, it’s a highly enjoyable film with largely forgivable faults.  B+

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of July 1, 2024

Despicable Me 4

Rated PG for action and rude humor

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55%

In Theaters

It’s been seven years since the last Despicable Me film ( for which I honestly can’t remember anything about), and Gru (voiced again by Steve Carrell) and family are forced into witness protection when a supervillain named Maxime (voiced by Will Ferrell) who Gru put in prison, escapes with an intent to seek a brutal revenge.  While trying to live inconspicuously in his new home and community, Gru gets bored and attempts to do some side missions, while some of his minions are subjected to a treatment which turns them into a cross between the X-Men and The Fantastic Four.  When Maxime eventually discovers where Gru’s new location is, a Battle Royale commences.  There’s not a lot of great storytelling on display here, just as in the other films.  The plot is weak and old, and the dialog is neither funny nor clever.  In fact it is quite the opposite.  They think they are being clever which makes many moments rather painful, at least for adults.  For kids, it should still be a fun time, filled with lots of loud action, silly minion humor and enough familiarity to bring smiles to faces.  I just wish Universal was ambitious enough to create a good four-quadrant addition to their franchise.  Making the film great for kids but only nearly tolerable for adults, is just disappointing and frustrating.  Pixar did a great job of this with their recent sequel Inside Out 2 – and look how it is paying off.  I’m sure that Despicable Me 4 will make a decent box office, but much of its business is going to be from audience members who wish they were in another room while watching.  So once again, we get a film that falls short when it really doesn’t have to.  C

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of June 24, 2024

Kinds of Kindness

Rated R for strong sexual content, language, full nudity and strong violent content

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%

In Theaters

Hot off his highly successful Oscar run with Poor Things, writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos returns to theaters with this triptych of stories, all with the same revolving cast which includes Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau and Margaret Qualley.  The stories each revolve around control in relationships, however the interconnection is very much up to the interpretation of the viewer.  The first tale revolves around Plemons, who is asked by his boss (Dafoe) to commit a senseless act of violence or be out of his good graces.  The second finds Plemons distraught when his wife goes missing on a work trip only to find that he doesn’t think it’s actually her upon her return.  The third finds Plemons and Stone as colleagues working for a sex cult led by Dafoe, looking for a prophesied messiah.  I’m not saying The Favourite and Poor Things weren’t weird, as they absolutely were, but compared to his earlier works like the Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, they were quite normal narratives.  Here he seems to be going back to a world that is left up to the audience to decide on its meaning and value.  Is it about relationships?  Is it about religion?  There is nothing given easily here.  At first I even thought he was messing with us as the story was just that odd and elusive.  But once I got into it, it didn’t make more sense, but it certainly was entertaining.   It helps that the acting is top-notch, but it helps more that all three stories serve as grand dark comedies.  If you are like myself and much of the audience I saw it with, you will find yourself laughing out loud (many time out of pure discomfort) at scenes that you feel you shouldn’t be laughing at.  In this, its sense of humor is both perverse and pervasive, making the film rather enjoyable when maybe it shouldn’t be.  Will we be circling around this project again come awards season?  Probably not.  While the acting and production are definitely worthy, I doubt the reception will be strong enough to bring home any trophies.  But for fans of either Lanthimos or absurdist movies in general, this should find itself a popular enough film in certain circles.  B+

Daddio

Rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

In Theaters

This low-budget indie stars Dakota Johnson as a New Yorker returning from a trip who gets into Sean Penn’s cab going from the airport to her apartment in Manhattan.  When the cab gets stopped in traffic, the two get into an intense conversation about relationships where Penn gets a load off his chest while serving as a pseudo-therapist doling out wisdom to a young woman in great need of receiving it.  What should be a dull, real-time story, turns out to be an interesting movie that circles around ideas that go mostly unsaid in polite society, as two people, who both know they won’t see each other ever again, open up in ways they could never do with a more familiar party.  Definitely not a date movie nor a project that will find a big box office, but it will be interesting to see who the audience will be, if it finds an audience at all.  But for the lone person who finds it, there a worth-while 100-minute journey to be enjoyed here.  B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of June 10, 2024

Inside Out 2

Rated PG for some thematic elements

No Rotten Tomatoes Score at time of writing

In Theaters

It’s been almost 10 years since Pixar released the brilliant Inside Out, which was a risk-taking project about the emotions that go on inside a little girl’s mind.  Now, Riley is hitting puberty and several new emotions are added to the mix, including anxiety, envy, embarrassment and ennui (a feeling of weariness or dissatisfaction).  Hot off a big hockey win, Riley and her two best friends are invited to attend a 3 day hockey camp, where she will get to prove herself in the next level.  With these new emotions on board, which team up to kick the original emotions to the curb, Riley goes through a tremendously complex decision-making crises, which has the chance to either help her succeed, or possibly force her to make destructive choices.  Inside Out was such an unexpected hit, winning the Oscar for best animated feature film and even scoring a nomination for best original screenplay.  That being said, I was quite concerned when I discovered that much of the original production team was gone.  With only original co-screenwriter Meg LeFauve along for the ride this time, and a new, largely unproven director in Kelsey Mann, there was cause for concern that Pixar was either not putting their best foot forward, or they are changing up the guard.  While the shoes were a bit too big to fill for obvious reasons, including originality, the filmmakers did a very good job of continuing Riley’s journey with intelligence, heart and humor.  And just like the first film, the subject matter will cause you to get very self-reflective, causing you to constantly find relatable memories and emotions to go along with what is on screen.  There are some major plot holes, such as when they go into adult’s minds and all of the new emotions are missing, but they are forgivable given how much more complex that would have been to try to make sense of everyone’s individual brains.  Overall, I found the film to be short and sweet, and most important, relevant to any audience member regardless of age or gender.  B+

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of June 3, 2024

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Rated R for some sexual references, language throughout and strong violence

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%

In Theaters

Trying to resurrect his career after the slap heard around the world, Will Smith reunites with Martin Lawrence for a fourth Bad Boys film.  As the film begins, Mike (Smith) is getting married as Marcus (Lawrence) has a heart attack while going a little crazy at the wedding.  While dead, Marcus has a vision of what is to come, with a premonition that things are about to get crazy.  And they do. Without much of a break, the plot starts to thicken as they find out that their deceased boss has been framed for working with the cartels and they must find a way to clear his name and stop a huge wave of crime from hitting both Miami and the police department.  My biggest concern going in was whether I would be able to separate my disgust of what Smith did in real-life enough to appreciate him again.  It’s not our job to forgive him, but it is a task just to forget what happened.  That being said, Smith, now an Oscar winner, is a very talented actor and he manages to allow you to sidestep his real life issues long enough to enjoy his new adventure.  And it helps that this new chapter of Bad Boys is very entertaining.  Just like the others, the action and comedy are both in full force, creating a scenario where your laughs and thrills hit in equal measure.  From the very beginning, the jokes hit, and the laughter penetrates between action sequence to keep you fully engaged and excited for nearly two hours.  Sure, there are some problems throughout, with silly script issues and some terrible character choices. But the movie allows you to ignore the issues just long enough to get you to the next plot point, and for the most part, this is a triumphant return for both Smith and Lawrence, each of whom was struggling coming into this project.  I must admit that I hardly remember a thing from 2020’s Bad Boys for Life, but thankfully, the movie doesn’t require much of a memory, and you are quickly tied up into the action before you can realize that you don’t really know exactly what is going on.  So honestly, I don’t see a need to rewatch unless you really get a hankering.  So while I still can’t condone Smith’s notorious Oscar night shenanigans, I still found a way to enjoy his latest outing, leaving the theater with a bigger smile on my face than I thought would be possible for this project.  B