Category Archives: Movies

My 11th Blogiversary and 2024 List Additions

20 Monday Jan 2025

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It feels odd to celebrate my tenth year of blogging and movies when, for my posting at least, the year was basically just NaPoWriMo in April and three Blindspots before that. Heck, I still haven’t gotten around to completing my 2023 Blindspot list! I realize I’ve been out of practice for months, but 2024 still had quite a few excellent films that I enjoyed and will hopefully get to review eventually. Like last year, there weren’t quite a full twelve that I loved enough to add to my Top 365 List, but my love of lists demands a full complement and #12 is still a high runner-up in my book.

As is tradition, I must make mention of the other runners-up seen last year that I still liked and would recommend, even if they didn’t make the cut. These include Long Way North, A Man Called Otto, Mean Girls (2024), Past Lives, American Fiction, Dreamgirls, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The Equalizer and The Equalizer 2, Civil War, Carry-On, Gladiator, and Flow. Beyond the world of film, I also have been seeing a lot more touring and local stage productions lately, as research for my own musical project and just to widen my horizons. I thoroughly enjoyed Shucked, Beetlejuice, and Into the Woods (way better than the movie), as well as Peter and the Starcatcher and To Kill a Mockingbird for straight plays. 

Plus, my vacation to Europe in October allowed me to see two shows in London’s West End: Stranger Things: The First Shadow (great for fans of the show and coming to Broadway in April) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The Musical. The latter is very different from the movie, but, with its Celtic musical style and an exceptionally talented cast, I think it’s my favorite thing I saw all year. Sadly, it’s closing next month, but, if you ever get a chance to see it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Once again, this list isn’t exactly full of Best Picture nominees (maybe a few), but it reflects my personal favorite movies seen, all but two of which were actually from 2024. I probably need to start watching more older films again. Anyway, what were your top movies from last year? I always welcome recommendations, but for now, on to the Top Twelve list!

12. Dune: Part Two (2024)

As many noted after the successful first installment, any story split into two parts is going to hinge on how well it sticks the landing, and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune did it with just the right amount of prophetic guile and sci-fi grandeur. The big moments feel appropriately huge – Paul’s first worm ride, the Fremen attack on the palace, the climactic knife duel – and even if Dune overall isn’t my favorite tale in the genre, the skill and scale of this adaptation deserve praise.

11. Furiosa (2024)

While not as universally well-received as Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller’s prequel was still an awe-inspiring thrill ride, focusing on the past of Charlize Theron’s tough-girl Imperator, played by the always reliable Anya Taylor-Joy. With Chris Hemsworth in rare form as the crazed desert warlord Dementus, Furiosa serves as a fitting origin story of one woman against a world gone mad, reminding us why Mad Max felt like a supporting character in the previous film.

10. Cabrini (2024)

Continuing the theme of one woman against the world (albeit in very different circumstances), Cabrini brought to life the story of the first American saint, the Italian immigrant and missionary nun Francesca Cabrini. Cristiana Dell’anna gives an award-worthy performance in the title role, and her strength and conviction in the face of stubborn powers-that-be represent the kind of inspiration that Hollywood rarely delivers these days, especially for religious audiences.

9. A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

While I couldn’t care less about the latest Saw or Terrifier, I am fully invested in the Quiet Place franchise, which remains my brand of horror. Scary and intense without resorting to gore, this prequel separate from the other films, set during the beginning of the sound-based alien invasion, continues the themes of loss and self-sacrifice with an excellent Lupita Nyong’o in the lead. Although, let’s face it: her cat is the real star.

8. Alien: Romulus (2024)

What was that about gore? I don’t know exactly why, but Alien is in a league of its own, and this latest entry in the long-running sci-fi horror franchise is one of its best. A crew of orphaned workers trying to escape to a better planet try their luck with a derelict space station, and naturally things go south quickly. Bridging the gap between the Prometheus and original Alien timelines, Romulus sticks to what this franchise does best and creates some outstanding action setpieces amid the android betrayals and xenomorph ambushes. Even seven movies in, I’m still eager to see what comes next.

7. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

After an excellent trilogy of Apes films in the last decade, it seemed like adding another entry into this hoary franchise might backfire, but Kingdom managed to surpass expectations. It follows the hero’s journey of Owen Teague’s young chimp Noa after a human girl appears and his clan is captured by a would-be tyrant. With some of the franchise’s best effects yet and room for more to come, Kingdom breathed some welcome freshness into this simian dystopia. 

6. Inside Out 2 (2024)

Proving that last year’s Elemental was a return to form rather than a fluke, Inside Out 2 built on one of its best films of the last decade. It explored further corners of Riley’s mind while bringing in new teenage emotions like Embarrassment, Ennui, Envy, and especially Anxiety, something that is all too relatable nowadays. The imaginative storytelling at Pixar is still going strong.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024)

In the Venn diagram of anime fans and Lord of the Rings fans, I am squarely in the center, so it hurt my heart to see War of the Rohirrim ignored at the box office and largely written off as a failure. I can’t argue with some of its weaknesses, whether it’s unrealistic feats or the slightly choppy animation, but it felt so good to return to Middle-earth, complete with music from the Peter Jackson trilogy, that I didn’t care. Regardless of what it could have been, I still love it.

4. The Holdovers (2023)

Appropriately a “holdover” from last year, Alexander Payne’s tale of a student, a teacher, and a cook at an emptied New England boarding school at Christmas is an instant holiday classic. Despite the bratty insolence of Dominic Sessa’s teenage Angus Tully or the crotchety disdain of Paul Giamatti’s Paul Hunham, the layers of surliness are gradually peeled back, allowing the insecure humans underneath to unexpectedly bond. Along with Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Oscar-winning role as a grieving mother, their trio of performances is pitch perfect.

3. Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Easily the biggest surprise of the year, Godzilla Minus One managed to win over audiences and critics alike with its impressive effects and a genuinely moving story of survivor’s guilt. I was convinced to see it only based on the wave of popular buzz, and it challenged my preconceived notion of what a Godzilla movie could be. It’s a true reinvention of what had once been the stuff of B movies.

2. Wicked: Part 1 (2024)

What a surprise that a musical fan enjoyed the biggest musical movie of the year! Again, the truest evaluation of Jon Chu’s adaptation of Wicked will have to wait until Part 2 (For Good) comes out later this year, but Part 1 certainly delivered the tunes and Ozian wonder of the classic musical’s first half. With both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande excelling in career-defining roles, Wicked found the success that has eluded so many other movie musicals of late, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

1. The Wild Robot (2024)

Similar to how Pixar made an inquisitive robot beloved in WALL-E, DreamWorks Animation delivered an exquisite fable of technology finding a way to live in harmony with nature. After Lupita Nyong’o’s unprogrammed robot Roz is stranded on a forested island, she must rise above her directives to connect with the local wildlife, particularly a hatchling goose in need of a mother. The animation is stunning, the score soul-stirring, and the voice cast peerless. The Wild Robot is that always-welcome animation that can appeal to anyone of any age, and, despite an imperfect ending, it was my favorite film of the year.

And thus ends another blog year, as sparse as it may have been. Nevertheless, here are my own unofficial awards for the year’s films:

Best opening scene: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Best final scene: Wicked: Part 1

Coolest scene: Alien: Romulus (the ending escape)

Biggest emotional impact: The Wild Robot

Oldest film: 8½ (1963)

Most recent film: Wicked: Part 1

Longest film: Dune: Part Two (166 minutes)

Shortest film: Long Way North (81 minutes)

Best soundtrack: Wicked: Part 1 (naturally)

Best score: The Wild Robot

Best special effects: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Most family-friendly: Inside Out 2

Most mature: Furiosa

Funniest: Inside Out 2

Scariest: Alien: Romulus

Best male performance: Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers

Best female performance: Cristiana Dell’anna in Cabrini

Personal favorite poem written: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Most represented year: 2024, with ten films

So there you have it. While I regret how much I’ve left this blog in limbo lately, I’m still grateful for everyone who has read, liked, commented, or followed in the past year and for this blog itself as a creative outlet. I really want to return to a more regular posting schedule and get to some of the lists I’ve had in the back of my head for a while now. Thank you to all, whether you be a long-time reader or a newfound visitor, and I wish everybody a blessed 2025!

Wicked: Part 1 (2024)

31 Tuesday Dec 2024

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Long time, no see, eh? I wish I had a better reason for dropping completely out of the blogosphere since May. I have been working on my musical still, and I had a wonderful trip to Europe in the meantime, but the absence simply boiled down to my not having the drive and interest to write about movies, even though I’ve still seen quite a few. With the new year approaching, I would like to change that and return to a somewhat more regular posting schedule, especially since I have a backlog of films to cover. So sorry for the long disappearance, but I’m back and with a movie musical no less!
_________________________

Wicked is as wicked does as wicked is perceived.
The good, by virtue of their virtue, always are believed.
And no one stops to question if there’s something to be grieved
When wicked people get what they deserve.

They surely had a childhood, a life before their fall,
A point of view, a friend or two, a favorite book or doll,
But something changed in them or us, though what I can’t recall,
To slide them down a steep and shameful curve.

The public judge, of course they do, a jury of our peers,
And when the executioner is playing on their fears,
They’ll brand a person “wicked” to a hundred thousand cheers
If only they will get what they deserve.
And surely we all know what they deserve….
_________________________

MPA rating: PG

Despite my love of musical theater, I’m actually a comparative newcomer to the fandom of Wicked. I knew very little about it until a TV special celebrating the show’s 15th anniversary in 2018 (which featured Ariana Grande). I didn’t actually get to see a touring production of the show until earlier this year, so I feel like the timing of my interest in Wicked was far more convenient than for the ardent fans who have been waiting twenty-one years for this movie’s release. Even so, it’s finally here (Part 1 at least), and it’s a hit!

For those who still don’t know, Stephen Schwartz’s Broadway musical Wicked is based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, a then-innovative twisting of the classic Wizard of Oz storyline to make the Wicked Witch of the West, the green-skinned Elphaba, a more sympathetic main character. While I haven’t read the book myself, I’ve heard the musical and movie are a lighter PG version of the tale that nonetheless touches on themes of acceptance, persecution, and the perils of public perception, all amid a host of now-iconic showtunes. Here in Part 1, covering the first half of the stage show, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is a new student at Oz’s prestigious Shiz University, unpopular but skilled with magic, alongside the more fashionable Galinda (Ariana Grande-Butera). Both dream of meeting the famous Wizard and making their mark on the world, and, though their initial interactions are strained, a friendship eventually blossoms, a bond to be tested by the different directions their ambitions take them.

While it didn’t gain mainstream success, I was a big fan of Jon M. Chu’s previous musical adaptation In the Heights, and Wicked further cements Chu as the premier director for movie musicals. The energy and choreography of the dance scenes are especially thrilling on a big screen, particularly “Dancing Through Life,” the carefree anthem of Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), the girls’ dreamy Winkie love interest. Much has been said of the decision to split Wicked into two films, but I think it was a smart move. A common complaint of musical adaptations is that fans’ favorite songs or moments end up on the cutting room floor (ahem, Dear Evan Hansen), but Wicked is almost obsessively faithful to its source material, with every song accounted for and many in-between scenes expanded. Does that make its two-hour-and-forty-minute runtime a bit overlong, considering this first half is nearly as long as the whole stage show? Well, yes, but with few exceptions, I appreciate the extended runtime, which lets the relationships grow more naturally and gives the non-musical scenes some breathing room.

I may have had some reservations about the casting when the lead roles were first announced, but Erivo and Grande more than deliver, both of them ardent fans of the show who have publicly championed their commitment to Elphaba and Glinda. Erivo is an outstanding actress and singer and reliable as ever in the lead role, while Grande is more of a surprise. Considering her early acting role as the ditzy Cat Valentine on Nickelodeon, I doubted that she was a serious enough actress for Glinda, even if she was a superfan (and had already contributed to this Mika song that samples and remixes “Popular”). But she brings surprising depth to a character who could easily be written off as a vain blonde but whose connection to Elphaba feels genuine and sweet. It helps too that both lead actresses have amazing voices, with Erivo’s “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity” and Grande’s “Popular” as auditory standouts. There are instances of the movie interrupting a song with some pause or vocal trick that didn’t need to be there, but that’s a minor critique.

Funnily enough, it seems that Wicked fans are the ones poking the most holes in the movie, whether it be a supposedly lackluster color palette or the overly indulgent superhero-style awakening of Elphaba’s witch persona at the end. Yet I as a casual fan found a lot to love and very little I would change. I thought one musicless dance scene was overly awkward and long, but I’ve seen others praise it as an emotional high point, so to each their own. I especially loved some pitch-perfect cameos in the Emerald City sequence, and I certainly think the practical sets and elaborate costumes deserve some Oscar love.

Now, with only a year to wait before part two (subtitled For Good) comes out, I am thrilled with what we have so far and hesitant for what is to come. The second half of Wicked is darker, has fewer memorable songs, and has a lot of stuff happening offstage that is easier to accept in a stage format. With the work they’ve done on extra characterization here, such as with Fiyero and Ethan Slater’s Boq, I do wonder how they’ll handle all that as a movie. But for now, its chill-inducing showstoppers still fresh in my mind, Wicked is a triumph and a treat for musical fans, already outgrossing all other Broadway adaptations, and one I hope to see again soon.

Best line: (the Wizard, played by the fitting Jeff Goldblum) “The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”

Rank: List-Worthy

© 2024 S.G. Liput
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Happy New Year, all!

NaPoWriMo 2024 Recap

04 Saturday May 2024

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May the Fourth be with you all! I am breathing a sigh of relief after the whirlwind of National Poetry Writing Month. Plus, I’m very pleased that, for the first time since 2020, I managed to not miss any days. There were plenty of times I posted right before midnight, but I was able to keep up with the daily schedule of one poem/review a day throughout April. This allowed me to play major catch-up on my backlog of movies waiting to be reviewed, particularly the major films from last year.

With another NaPoWriMo in the books, I want to extend thanks to everyone who read, liked, commented, and subscribed along the way, as well as to the NaPoWriMo website for the daily prompts that helped direct each day’s poem. Not every post may be my best work, but I’ve come to value the inspiration that April brings every year, helping me create verses that I might not have imagined otherwise.

While resuming work on my musical will take precedence again, I’ll be continuing to write on this blog too, hopefully more frequently than I was before April rolled around. Below is a look back at the posts from NaPoWriMo 2024, and until next year, happy writing to all!

April 1 – Great Expectations (1946) – Honorable Mention

April 2 – The Whale (2022) – Honorable Mention

April 3 – Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) – Honorable Mention

April 4 – Godzilla Minus One (2023) – List-Worthy

April 5 – Living (2022) – List Runner-Up

April 6 – Leave the World Behind (2023) – List Runner-Up

April 7 – Weekend at Bernie’s (1989) – List Runner-Up

April 8 – A Million Miles Away (2023) – List Runner-Up

April 9 – The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (2022) – List Runner-Up

April 10 – Barbie (2023) – Honorable Mention

April 11 – Last Night in Soho (2021) – List Runner-Up

April 12 – Django Unchained (2012) – Dishonorable Mention

April 13 – Dune: Part Two (2024) – List Runner-Up

April 14 – Long Way North (2015) – List Runner-Up (my most liked post)

April 15 – Cabrini (2024) – List-Worthy

April 16 – A Man Called Otto (2022) – List Runner-Up

April 17 – Guys and Dolls (1955) – List Runner-Up

April 18 – The Boy and the Heron (2023) – Honorable Mention

April 19 – Hollow Man (2000) – Honorable Mention

April 20 – Lincoln (2012) – List-Worthy

April 21 – Mean Girls (2024) – List Runner-Up

April 22 – The Holdovers (2023) – List-Worthy (my favorite film of the month)

April 23 – The Marvels (2023) – List Runner-Up

April 24 – The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) – List-Worthy (my favorite poem of the month)

April 25 – Past Lives (2023) – List Runner-Up

April 26 – Cats (2019) – Dishonorable Mention

April 27 – Elemental (2023) – List-Worthy

April 28 – Peninsula (2020) – List-Worthy

April 29 – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) – List-Worthy

April 30 – Oppenheimer (2023) – List-Worthy

Oppenheimer (2023)

30 Tuesday Apr 2024

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(For the final day of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem in which the speaker is identified with a mythological figure. It may be on the nose, but I had to go with the “American Prometheus” himself.)

American Prometheus, they name me,
The man who stole the fire from the gods,
Never returned.
Shall I justify my actions
As the fairest of the factions
That ignited chain reactions
And left everybody burned?
I was spurned.
For no good deed goes unpunished
While the bad are not admonished,
And you’d frankly be astonished
At how in-between deeds fare.
I was there,
Leading teams so complex,
Daring dreams of what is next,
All for loyal intellects,
Intent to see the fire burst.
What is worse,
That I built this capability
Employed to end hostility
Or shirked responsibility
For everything it cost?
I am lost
In my chains, writ in ink,
Where the eagles barely blink,
As I think and I drink
And I offer up my liver to atone
For what I’ve sown.
_____________________________

MPA rating:  R (for language and nudity)

This review certainly feels overdue! While everyone was hopping on the Barbenheimer bandwagon last year, I stuck with the more serious half of that mash-up, Christopher Nolan’s ambitious biopic of the “father of the atomic bomb.” Based on the biography American Prometheus, this film would have been very different in more conventional hands. I can envision a version of it that follows the chronological events of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life and climaxes with the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, perhaps followed by a final scene where he grieves his role in the war and a footnote about how he was effectively disowned by the government. That might have been a great movie on its own, but it’s too pedestrian for Nolan, who instead created a non-linear epic to view Oppenheimer’s life and work from as many angles as possible.

In the role for which he will likely most be remembered, Oscar winner Cillian Murphy epitomizes J. Robert Oppenheimer in all his genius, hubris, and folly. From his time as a physics student admiring Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) to his romantic rendezvous with Communist connections (Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt) to his being approached by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) to lead the Manhattan Project and beat the Germans to the atomic bomb, the film presents Oppenheimer as level-headed yet prone to bad choices, aware of his own limitations yet confident in his expertise. By itself, this is the film that Oppenheimer could have been, and Murphy still would have excelled in it.

But interspersed with the scientist’s road to fame are scenes of later bureaucratic proceedings, including Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing in 1954 and the Senate confirmation hearing of former Admiral Lewis Strauss (Oscar-winning Robert Downey, Jr.) for Secretary of Commerce in 1959. Though these parts can threaten to be dry, they offer a wealth of clues pertaining to Oppenheimer’s work and beliefs, how others viewed him, and the underhanded tactics used to besmirch suspected Communist sympathizers at the time. After years of struggling and building an impromptu town at Los Alamos, the testing of the first atom bomb in the New Mexico desert would understandably be the high point of the film, and indeed it made a friend of mine tear up in the theater with the grandeur of the historic explosion (made more impressive by not using CGI, according to Nolan). Yet this moment oddly serves as a false climax around two-thirds into the three-hour runtime, and Nolan instead manages to make those bureaucratic sessions into a riveting culmination of all that’s come before. It still may feel anticlimactic to some, but Nolan pulls it off better than anyone else could.

It’s hard to believe that Christopher Nolan had never won an Oscar before this film, considering his reputation for smart blockbusters. As much as I loved The Holdovers, I celebrated Oppenheimer’s seven Oscar wins last month, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Score, Best Cinematography, and especially Best Supporting Actor. (Like Brendan Fraser the year before, I’m so glad Robert Downey, Jr., has proven his talent beyond his action movie days.) If the Academy had gotten around to adding the Best Casting category this year, I’m sure that Oppenheimer would have won that too, since its huge cast is full of recognizable stars, even in mere cameos, including Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, Jason Clarke, Alden Ehrenreich, Josh Hartnett, and Gary Oldman.

With its convoluted method of presenting Oppenheimer’s story, the film is perhaps not the most accessible or entertaining of biopics, and I could have done without a few unnecessary nude scenes trying to justify its R rating. Its presentation of President Truman and the women in Oppenheimer’s life is far from flattering, and some complaints are also valid about how it omits Japanese perspectives of the bombings or the Native Americans and downwinders living around the bomb testing site. Yet any single movie can only present so much, and it’s hard to imagine a biographical film that is more comprehensive in its exploration of one man’s life and impact. Inception remains my favorite Christopher Nolan film, but Oppenheimer is a masterful history lesson and a well-deserved peak for his career as a filmmaker, one that I hope he can continue to top in future efforts.

Best line: (Kitty Oppenheimer, in a context different from the bomb’s development but no less applicable) “You don’t get to commit sin and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2024 S.G. Liput
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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

29 Monday Apr 2024

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(For Day 29 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem inspired by one of the ten vocabulary words compiled by Merriam-Webster from various Taylor Swift songs, including incandescent, clandestine, Machiavellian, cardigan, elegy, altruism, self-effacing, albatross, antithetical, and mercurial. With more time, I might have liked to tackle using all ten, but I settled on the word clandestine for now.)

Their agents are clandestine
So normal folk can rest in
The peace that comes from ignorance and bliss.
Not knowing we need saving,
We carry on behaving.
Don’t tell the targets just how near the miss.

The villains and the heroes,
The neutral ones and zeroes,
They trade their blows for country, cash, or crown.
I doubt the average person
Will mind if conflicts worsen
As long as they will simply… keep it down!
__________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

I’ve been behind the curve when it comes to the Mission: Impossible franchise, only realizing how good it was in recent years. Thus, this seventh installment in the Tom Cruise juggernaut is the first one that I was lucky enough to see in theaters. And as is the case ever since the third movie found the franchise’s stride, Dead Reckoning Part One is another winning spy thriller making full use of Cruise’s willingness for death-defying stunts.

After a Russian submarine is sunk by its own torpedo, world leaders are informed of a rogue A.I. known as the Entity, capable of manipulating any computer system. The Entity would be a game changer for whatever government procures the two-part key that can control it, so Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his friends Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and the now fugitive Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) take it upon themselves to ensure it is destroyed to preserve the global balance of power. With its predictive capabilities, the A.I. is always a step ahead of them as they contend with a self-serving thief (Hayley Atwell) and Ethan’s old nemesis (Esai Morales).

Ethan Hunt is no stranger to “going rogue,” but it’s an interesting change for him to willingly defy his government’s agenda to obtain the Entity because he doesn’t trust it in anyone’s hands, as opposed to the myriad times he’s been set up by a villain. It’s becoming cliché for A.I. to be made scary as it runs amok, and it’s perhaps unrealistic how the Entity pulls strings, seeming omniscient but not infallible, yet it works well as a change of pace from the typical terrorist or corrupt IMF agent that usually battles Hunt’s team, though Morales’ Gabriel still provides that too.

(Non-specific spoilers here) While I liked how characters from previous films were brought back, a part of me is disappointed with how the film handles a particular character, apparently having little idea what to do with them except sacrifice them for the sake of drama. And it’s clear that Hayley Atwell is meant to be the new blood for the team. While that narrative intent is unmistakable, I can’t be too mad because Atwell is a breath of fresh air, a great female foil to Ethan as they match wits until she is drawn deeper into this world of espionage than she expected. Considering Ethan let Michelle Monaghan slip through his fingers already, I think the two of them make an excellent pair.

And we mustn’t forget the action. Whether it’s a car chase through Rome or a free-for-all aboard the Orient Express, the stunts and skirmishes never disappoint, including Cruise’s well-documented motorcycle jump off of an Alpine cliff, though the train climax that follows is even better, in my opinion. It’s unfortunate that the Mission: Impossible hype has waned, leaving this Part One of a two-part story a box-office disappointment, but I sincerely hope it can bounce back even stronger (perhaps with a tighter runtime) because Cruise and this series clearly still have gas in the tank.

Best line: (Ethan, to Gabriel) “If anything happens to them, there’s no place on Earth where you or your God [the Entity] will be safe from me. There’s no place where I won’t go to kill you. THAT is written.”

Rank:  List-Worthy (joining the rest of the series)

© 2024 S.G. Liput
796 Followers and Counting

Peninsula (2020)

28 Sunday Apr 2024

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(For Day 28 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a sijo, a Korean form similar to the haiku but with longer lines of 14 to 16 syllables, for a total of 44 to 46 syllables. It seems like a tricky form to get right, but I tried my best with the six-line format, ending up with 45 syllables. And of course, I had to pair it with a Korean film.)

For the dead, we spare no thought,
Heedless without a gutted grave.
The shells we humans wear
Serve us well before our final molt.
What remains is not you, not me;
May it never crave your fear.
____________________________

MPA rating:  Not Rated (a light R seems about right)

Train to Busan was an anomaly for me, a Korean zombie film that I genuinely loved as it showcased character growth and action over gross-out horror so common to the genre. The animated prequel Seoul Station only reinforced its predecessor’s uniqueness, since that was merely another exercise in apocalyptic nihilism. So I was cautious in approaching Peninsula, the standalone sequel set in the same zombie-infested South Korea as Train to Busan. While it feels more like the zombie dystopias I tend to avoid, Peninsula proved to be a pleasant surprise.

Four years after South Korea was overrun by fast-moving zombies and sealed off from the rest of the world, former Marine officer Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) is haunted by the day his world fell apart, losing his sister and nephew in the undead chaos. When he and his bitter brother-in-law (Kim Do-yoon) are approached by mobsters to return to Korea, they sneak back into the desolated Incheon to retrieve a truck with $20 million, only to be confronted by both zombie hordes and a violent rogue military unit that has taken control of the wasteland. With a handful of resourceful survivors (Lee Jung-hyun, Lee Re), Jung-seok must outmaneuver both living and dead to find a way off the peninsula.

At first glance, Peninsula has many of the familiar trappings of the zombie movie: swarming hordes, abandoned cityscapes, evil humans acting worse than the zombies. One thing I liked about Train to Busan was that it was comparatively less violent than others of its genre, owing to the fact that the characters didn’t have access to bloodletting weapons like guns or swords. In contrast, Peninsula has no shortage of guns, making it more of a conventional shoot-em-up actioner, though it at least doesn’t turn into a full-on gorefest.

So, as many middling reviews have pointed out, this sequel doesn’t match the original for creativity or emotional payoff, but it comes closer than I would have expected. While Jung-seok doesn’t have quite the selfless character arc of Seok-woo in the first film, the way his guilt motivates him to do better still becomes poignant by the end, and the story presents a satisfying karma of evil or selfish characters getting their due. Plus, despite the “conventional actioner” complaint earlier, the action is thrilling throughout, particularly a fantastic, Mad Max-level car chase toward the end.

Though Peninsula is more violent and less inspired than its forerunner, I was glad to find that it is not a complete departure from what made Train to Busan so good. Zombie movies are such a well-worn format by now that there needs to be something to set new installments apart, and I can certainly get behind car chases, heist thriller elements, and an emotional core.

Rank:  List-Worthy (joining Train to Busan)

© 2024 S.G. Liput
796 Followers and Counting

Elemental (2023)

27 Saturday Apr 2024

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(For Day 27 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for an American sonnet, which is described as just a sonnet with “fewer rules.” For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon rhyme entirely, so I defaulted to the Shakespearean form, albeit in iambic heptameter.)

If opposites attract, then why are opposites so cruel?
If different groups can get along, we marvel at the sight.
So why is concord the exception rather than the rule,
The urge to differ stronger than the wisdom to unite?
We see the danger first, for every difference is a threat,
A threat to what is “normal,” our bubble near the pin.
Imagining the worst of people we have never met,
We need the reassurance never needed from our kin.
Then there are bad impressions left by others of their kind.
If one is bad, then all are bad, all nuances be damned!
Yet we have evil brothers too; by them are we maligned
And earn a matching stigma, the traded hateful brand.
If history could be erased enough to meet anew,
Then maybe opposites could prosper, just like me and you.
______________________________

MPA rating:  PG

Pixar isn’t quite the guaranteed powerhouse it once was, and with the easy availability of Disney+, its films are no longer must-sees at the theater. To be honest, I still haven’t gotten around to seeing Luca or Turning Red since they just felt like lesser efforts based on the trailers. But Soul proved the studio had some of its old magic, and Elemental is thankfully a confirmation of that.

Continuing their time-honored tradition of anthropomorphized otherworlds, Elemental breathes life into the four classical elements – fire, water, earth, and air. In the metropolis of Element City, the citizens made of water, earth, and air have a well-established rapport living alongside each other, while fire elementals Bernie and Cinder Lumen (Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi) are met with hostility moving there from Fire Land (represented as analogous to East Asia, likely director Peter Sohn’s ancestral Korea). Nevertheless, they establish a thriving store in the city’s Fire Town district, which their daughter Ember (Leah Lewis) hopes to inherit one day. After an unceremonious meet cute with the watery Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), the two contrasting elements start to fall for each other, despite their natural differences and familial pressures.

While Pixar has featured love stories before, like WALL-E or the beginning of Up, Elemental is the first of their films to embrace the rom-com formula, hinging its success on the chemistry of lead characters Ember and Wade, and thankfully, they make a cheer-worthy couple. With its excess of elemental puns, the film might have relied too heavily on stereotypes, Ember with her fiery temper and Wade with his sappy sensitivity making him cry at the drop of a hat. Yet the two prove to be more than one-note with their relatable stresses around family responsibility or awkward anxiety.

Likewise, the film finds subtleties in its very obvious racism metaphor of fire as the outsider element. In a way, it’s understandable why fire people are viewed skeptically; fire burns plants, boils water, and is generally destructive. That hostility has affected how Ember’s father Bernie behaves toward the world, harboring resentment toward the water that is similarly destructive toward his kind. When both sides foster prejudices or barriers they feel are justifiable, it is no easy feat to break the cycle of bias, and Ember and Wade themselves have doubts about how their connection could even work. Yet it’s still a bond worth the effort.

Like Cars, I can’t deny that there are aspects of this fantasy world that strain credulity of how things work (how many fire people die if they forget an umbrella when near the city’s water train?), but what is presented is full of fun and bustling imagination. The beautifully fluid animation allows these elemental characters to do all kinds of funny and non-human actions, from slipping through cracks to melting and reshaping glass, and every scene is full of world-building details that make this universe a visual marvel.

I particularly liked how Elemental didn’t feel the need to have a traditional villain. Societal and familial expectations (and random accidents) are enough of a source of conflict, allowing for timely immigrant parallels and room for growth on all sides. Though it may be missing something from Pixar’s golden age when I was growing up, Elemental most definitely recalls those classics and thrives on its own visionary and romantic charm.

Best line: (Ember, voicing the unhealthy mindset of many an immigrant kid) “The only way to repay a sacrifice so big is by sacrificing your life too.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2024 S.G. Liput
796 Followers and Counting

Cats (2019)

26 Friday Apr 2024

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(For Day 26 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem showcasing alliteration, consonance, and assonance, some of my favorite poetic devices.)

The cats are out, the cats are out,
So stow your salmon, hide your trout.
They’ve come to call and cull the crowd
And find the one whom fate endowed.

Heading from their humans’ homes,
Crawling in the catacombs,
Fleeing from the fountain sprays,
Dallying in the alleyways,
Gamboling upon the ledge,
Reveling the razor’s edge,
Clawing at the curtain rods,
Ravaging like greedy gods,
Gobbling their food in mobs
While passing off as polished snobs,
Swinging at the hanging string,
Confident in claws that cling,
Swishing their capricious tails,
Romping on the risky rails,
Sniffing, licking, and nitpicking,
Quick to treats as well as tricking,
Now they come in coats of fur,
Here a hiss and there a purr.

In case there still is any doubt,
The cats are out, the cats are out.
__________________________

MPA rating:  PG

As many know, I am an ardent fan of movie musicals, so a part of me felt that 2019’s film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber show Cats couldn’t really be as bad as everyone said. Surely it was just some Internet haters latching onto some detail, like the eyes complaint from Alita: Battle Angel, which never bothered me. Yet as much as I wanted to find redeeming value in Cats, there’s not much that even I could extract. Truth be told, it really is as awful as people say.

I’ll preface this by saying I was never a big fan of the original stage version of Cats either. I applaud Webber’s talents, as well as the risk of adapting T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, full of many a charming and lyrical poem. Yet the result of that adaptation was a near-plotless story of various cats preening their particular talents in the hopes of earning reincarnation. It relies heavily on dance, and only ever touches the emotions with the iconic song “Memory,” sung by the outcast Grizabella (played here by Jennifer Hudson), leaving the rest of the songs to be intermittently fun or clever but rarely involving.

So the stage show had its own issues that make me wonder how it managed to stay on Broadway for eighteen years. The film does nothing to remedy those issues and instead adds even more, from strange scaling of the set and props to disturbing CG creations (I didn’t mind the human-cat hybrids themselves, but the human-mice and human-cockroaches were a step too far) to bafflingly poor casting and humor, particularly James Corden and Rebel Wilson (who even eats some of the aforementioned human-cockroaches). It’s especially astounding how many talented performers are featured here, including Hudson, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, and even Taylor Swift, all performing songs that range from decent to cringe-inducing and making me wonder at what point did they realize this was a bad idea.

So yes, Cats the movie is an utter mess, though I will grant it is not without some bright spots. A few songs are quite fun, like “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat” with Steven McRae, while the new song for the movie, “Beautiful Ghosts,” was rather pretty. And I honestly feel sorry for Francesca Hayward in the lead role of Victoria, since she likely thought this could be her big break and could have done better with better material. Surprisingly, my VC disagreed with me and largely enjoyed the film, so perhaps there’s room for non-ironic fans out there. There are far better Webber musicals out there, so I’ll just watch Evita and pet my own cat instead.

Rank:  Dishonorable Mention

© 2024 S.G. Liput
795 Followers and Counting

Past Lives (2023)

25 Thursday Apr 2024

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(For Day 25 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem inspired by the Proust Questionnaire, so often incorporated into interviews. I latched onto the question “What is your greatest regret?” which ties in nicely with this film.)

Who am I?
I’ve had many years
To answer that question that rings in our ears.
I’ve grown used to moving, to not sitting still,
Though I’m not sure if that’s merely habit or skill.
I’ve learned a new language; I write in it well,
But still love yukgaejang and savor the smell.
I met someone kind, and the two of us… fit,
Despite once agreeing we hate to commit.
I’ve settled, but not like the second-best good,
Like dust that’s done flying and lands where it should.
Yet still I remember how close we once were,
Before parting ways for our lives to occur.
Who would you be to me, staying nearby
In that time before I answered
Who am I?
____________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

Although it won no major awards during this past Oscar season, I noticed a general sentiment among cinephiles that Past Lives was one of the best films of 2023, often ranked above the heavy hitters like Oppenheimer. It’s a small and tender drama that eschews bombast, and while it didn’t appeal to me as much as some, it certainly deserves praise all the same.

The directorial debut of Celine Song, who based it partially on her own experiences, Past Lives follows Na Young and Hae Sung from their time as childhood friends in Korea to their falling away when Na Young moves to the United States, eventually reuniting years later. During their time apart, Na Young, going by the Americanized name Nora (Greta Lee), meets and marries a fellow writer named Arthur (John Magaro). With the visit of Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), Nora finds herself torn between the life she has embraced and the life that might have been.

The greatest strength of Past Lives is its realism. The way the two childhood friends lose touch and periodically reconnect has an authentic quality, reflecting how much distance can affect the course of our relationships. There is surely an alternate-universe version of this movie full of melodramatic tension between Nora’s white husband and Korean beau, perhaps a torrid affair and a showy following of her heart. But that’s not this film.

Arthur is actually surprisingly cordial toward Hae Sung, even when being excluded as the other two speak in Korean, and Nora herself acknowledges how much she has in New York – home, career, husband – to hold her there. Yet in their frank conversations touching on time lost and the differences between East and West, there is a clear chemistry between them, a spark that Nora would surely like to follow if not for that all-important realism. Past Lives is a lovely snapshot of people already beyond their crossroads but willing to glance behind, potentially slow and boring for the uninterested yet insightful and elegant in its minimalistic love story.

Best line: (Nora’s mom) “It’s true that, if you leave, you lose things, but you also gain things too.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2024 S.G. Liput
794 Followers and Counting

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

24 Wednesday Apr 2024

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(For Day 24 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to borrow a line from an existing poem and take it in a different direction. Since this film has a direct connection to the poem “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth, I decided to start with the same opening line and use the same form.)

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
Her story nearly myth.
We had few tales to light our day
Or dreams to bargain with.

Dear Lucy Gray endured the Games,
That much is widely known,
But as to any other claims,
They’re whispered when alone.

I’ve heard details that she was friend
To Coriolanus Snow,
The man who every year will end
Our children as a show.

It makes me worry how a man
Could dull his very heart.
Was Lucy Gray part of his plan?
And did it fall apart?

I cannot say, but still I hear
Of rumors in the night,
That Lucy Gray just may appear
And offer us a light.

I wonder who awaits that more,
The tyrant or the slave.
We all have things we’re waiting for
Along the road we pave.

Such stories make me want to pray
For nigh unlikely things,
To hail another Lucy Gray
And see what change she brings.
________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

While The Maze Runner and Divergent struggled to match its success, there’s something about the world of The Hunger Games that stands out among young adult dystopia franchises. The concept of children being forced to kill each other for entertainment is not without precedent (ahem, Battle Royale), but the journey of Katniss Everdeen from tribute to freedom fighter is a special blend of sci-fi action and frighteningly plausible barbarism, with just the right amount of hope. It’s a testament to Suzanne Collins’s book series and their film adaptations that the world they create is able to sustain a prequel without it feeling like a cheap cash grab. Let’s just be glad it’s not a whole new trilogy.

As advertised, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is the origin story of Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical villain played by Donald Sutherland in the original series. Proving that even dictators were young and hot once, “Coryo” is played here by Tom Blyth, who gives the future despot a fitting ambiguity between his tender side with his remaining family (Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan) and his growing ambition to rise above his peers. At the behest of the inventor of the Hunger Games (Peter Dinklage), the Capitol’s Academy class must serve as mentors for the upcoming Games, with Snow paired with District 12 musician Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, never quite as compelling as Jennifer Lawrence). Eager to prove himself to the ruthless Head Gamemaker (Viola Davis), Snow conspires to keep Lucy Gray alive for both their sakes.

The first Hunger Games featured the 74th annual contest, so the pipeline of reaping children and training them into gladiator combat had been efficiently honed over decades by that point. In the prequel, it’s only the 10th Hunger Games, with the devastating war that prompted their creation still seared into most people’s memories. I found it fascinating to see the process Katniss experienced still in its infancy, with less refined technology and growing pains like defective drones for delivering resources to the arena. Being a tribute was not always glitz and glamor before the fighting began, and there were even vocal critics of the Games’ brutality, such as Snow’s close friend Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera).

The plot is broken up into three sections, and it does feel odd that the always thrilling Games make up more of a middle climax, kind of like the bomb testing in Oppenheimer, leaving the rest of the film to be potentially dull by comparison. Thus, it depends how interesting you find subtle treachery and questionable loyalties whether the latter third holds up without the action. I for one did still enjoy Snow’s gradual slide into Machiavellian deceit, as well as the little fan-service references to the other films. As for the ending, I don’t blame anyone for feeling unsatisfied by its open-ended lack of resolution, but the connection to Wordsworth’s “Lucy Gray” helped me appreciate its poetic mystique.

I mulled over how I would rank all the films with this new addition, and it would probably come in fourth, ahead of only Mockingjay – Part 1. (I loved how that film’s great “Hanging Tree” song found its origin in this film too.) That ranking speaks more to the strength of the other three movies since The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has plenty of merits, including a strong tragic character arc, great actors adding to the story’s gravitas, and welcome development of the history and lore of Panem. It’s certainly the most musical of the series, with Rachel Zegler flexing her singing chops perhaps too often, but I didn’t mind that. It’s hard to say how well the film works for uninitiated audiences, but this ballad is an insightful expansion for franchise fans like me.

Best line: (Lucy Gray Baird, to her captors) “Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.”

Rank:  List-Worthy (joining the rest of the series)

© 2024 S.G. Liput
793 Followers and Counting