Killers of the Flower Moon

It says a lot about the movie industry when a director like Martin Scorsese needs to go to streaming services to get his movies funded. His last movie, "The Irishman," was released on Netflix. His newest, "Killers of the Flower Moon," is getting a theatrical release but will eventually only be available on AppleTV+. The kinds of movies he makes are not made as much anymore. The major studios tend to make big-budget, IP-driven adaptations and sequels. Scorsese is best known for his mid-budget movies aimed at adults, so he has had to look elsewhere to tell the stories he wants.

Set in the 1920s, "Killers of the Flower Moon" focuses on a series of murders/mysterious deaths of the Osage people in Oklahoma.

In the days since I have seen this movie, I have read a few critiques that bring up some valid points. The main focus is on the white characters (Leonardo DiCpario's Ernest and Robert DeNiro's William Hale) while normalizing violence against Native Americans (women specifically). It is a perspective I didn't have while watching it, but it is one I cannot ignore. As much as I loved the movie, it has flaws.

Lily Gladstone, who plays Ernest's wife, Mollie Burkhart, is the heart and soul of this movie. In a film with great performances from the likes of DiCaprio and DeNiro, Gladstone stands out. Mollie is the oldest of her siblings, all of whom end up dying or getting murdered, so the oil rights are hers when her mom passes. She carries the weight of all these deaths, most of which are murders. You can see and feel that in her performance.

She is so good that I wish that more of the movie was told from her perspective. Much of the movie is told from Ernest's point of view, and that is one of the valid criticisms of the film I have come to agree with. We spend more time with the titular killers than with those affected by the murders. There is even a moment late in the movie where Mollie should have been the focus, but instead, the camera lingers on one of the killers. It is a huge missed opportunity.

I loved this movie (even if it was a bit long). The story was compelling, and the three leads delivered some of the best performances of the year. It is great to see that even at 80, Scorsese is still one of the greatest filmmakers in the world.

8/10

Rated R for violence, some grisly images, and language

3hrs. 26mins.

The Exorcist: Believer

When I decided I needed to suck it up and watch horror movies, one of my priorities was watching the classics. High on that list was "The Exorcist." Not only was it a great horror movie, it was a great movie in general. There were a few sequels and a television show, but now there is a more direct sequel: "The Exorcist: Believer."

Angela (Lidya Jewett) and Kathrine (Olivia O'Neill) go missing and turn up three days later, miles away from their homes, with no memory of what happened. It leaves their parents with many questions and nowhere to look for answers.

There is only one good thing about this movie: the performances. Leslie Odom Jr, best known for originating the role of Aaron Burr in "Hamilton," is excellent. He plays Anglea's father, Victor, and has been raising her alone since his wife died. Odom Jr. plays Victor's desperation believably. He is a man who wants to protect his daughter from any danger, and when she becomes possessed, he can't.

When you call your movie "The Exorcist," one would hope that the exorcism is well done. It is not. Part of that concerns the use of CGI as opposed to practical effects. Nothing has weight, physically or emotionally. The thing the entire movie was leading up to was a massive letdown. With two possessed children, the potential was to ramp up the stakes and make it interesting, but it was the most tedious part of the movie.

"The Exorcist" is one of the best movies ever made. It is held up as a classic, and justifiably so. This new one had a steep hill to climb and did not even come close to the original. This is the first of a planned trilogy (the second one is contractually obligated to be made), but if they are going to be anything like this one, my only hope is that they do not tarnish the legacy of the original masterpiece.

5/10

Rated R for some violent content, disturbing images, language and sexual references.

1hr. 51mins.

The Shelf: Booksmart

As their senior year is coming to a close, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) regret that they spent so much time working and not enough time having fun. They decide to cram four years of fun into one memorable night.

The one common thread for all the movies on The Shelf is that I remember walking out of the theater* and thinking, "Wow. That was something special."

*This does not apply to the recent addition of "Trick r' Treat" and "Prey." These were released on DVD/Blu-Ray and Hulu, respectively.

The impetus for their epic night is Molly discovering that all the other students who spent their weekends partying will attend top-tier schools. Molly sees this night as a chance to change their story. As with many movies, this night is full of revelations.

Molly and Amy have gone through high school under the assumption that they were the only ones who cared about school. They would hear rumors about other students and take them as fact. In essence, they, Molly in particular, saw themselves as better than everyone else. This night dispels those ideas. In most comedies, Molly and Amy's assumptions would have been proved right and be vindicated.

There are so many great performances in this movie. Both leads are incredible, and much of the supporting cast does great things with their limited screen time. There is one performance that I love more and more every time I rewatch this: Bille Lourd as Gigi. She is the very epitome of a scene stealer. Gigi becomes this mythical creature in this movie. Molly and Amy attend three parties throughout the night, and Gigi is at each one. Gigi is a free spirit and fiercely loyal to those she considers friends. Lourd completely commits to the role and, in doing so, makes Gigi one of the most memorable characters in cinema history.

"Booksmart" came out of nowhere and was a massive box office hit. I saw it twice in the theater-it was one of the last movies I saw before lockdown in 2019. Not many R-rated comedies were being made at the time (I think we are in a renaissance now), so it stuck out. If I gave movies a 10 out of 10, this would be one of them.

The Shelf: Baby Driver

"Baby Driver" is a 2017 movie directed by Edgar Wright. It is the story of a getaway driver named Baby (Ansel Elgort) and his attempt to get out from under the control of the Doc, a mysterious criminal kingpin.

Wright is one of my favorite directors, and when he puts out a movie, I am in the theater as soon as possible to see it. He is best known for movies like "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," "Last Night in SoHo" and the geeky cult classic "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." These are all movies I love, but a few things set "Baby Driver" apart: the music and the car chase scenes.

Much of the movie is choreographed to the music. Baby was in a car accident when he was a child. His parents were killed, and he was left with a case of tinnitus and a constant ringing in his ears. He uses music to drown out that ringing, making music a massive part of his everyday life. "Baby Driver opens with a bank heist and car chase set to "Bellbottoms" by The John Spence Blues Explosion. Cuts, movements, and even windshield wipers all match the song's beat. Every car chase is matched to a different song. It is such a simple, brilliant idea that improves these already incredible sequences. When I saw that first chase sequence for the first time, I knew this movie would be one of my favorites.

The car chases are some of the best I have seen. Sometime after his parent's death, he boosted a car that belonged to Doc that contained a lot of product (we are never told, but it is highly implied it is cocaine). He has been paying Doc back for years for the loss of the product. Baby is an incredible driver, so Doc always uses him in the heists. He is cool, calm, and collected as he races through the streets of Atlanta, trying to evade the cops. That is what I love about these scenes. The other people in the car are frantic, and Baby is focused on his job: driving. Combine that with the incredible music, elevating these scenes to another level.

So, why is this one worthy of The Shelf? It is because of its use of music. Wright and James Gunn are the best in the business when it comes to using music in their films. "Baby Driver" is the ultimate example of this. If you take it out, the movie suffers. It would still be a good story with incredible action, but the song choice in each scene is critical to "Baby Driver" being as great as it is.

The Shelf: Arrival

In "Arrival," alien ships have appeared all over Earth. The US government asks linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) to try to communicate with them.

One of the greatest compliments I ever received was as a preschool teacher. I forget what I said, but I used a bigger word than one would typically use with a 4-year-old. One of the dads heard me and said he liked that I used words like that. It is something that has stuck with me a decade later. I still use big words when I speak to my students. I have always felt that exposing them to terms and then defining them for them afterward was what teachers call "best practice."

I also write a lot, so I love language. If I had the mind for it, I would love to study languages and learn more about how words are formed. That is the core of what I love about this movie. It has aliens, but that is not what it is about. I have said it before and will keep saying it: this movie is a love letter to language.

One of my favorite scenes, and one I think about all the time, is when Louise explains why this is more complex than the government wants. The ultimate question they want to ask is, "What is your purpose on Earth?" They need to know if the aliens understand a question, a request for information, that they know the difference between the collective you and a specific you. Building up to that question and understanding their response will take time. It is a quick scene, but it is one of the most crucial in the movie.

With each of the movies on the titular shelf, there is a reason it is there beyond my love of it. The ultimate lesson is why this gets a place of distinction. "Arrival" shows that, while communication is important, understanding is essential in a society. When I watch this movie, it reminds me that, despite all the hate and vitriol that is on the news, the solution is exceedingly simple: we need to learn to understand one another.

"Arrival" has a lot of science fiction elements, but it is accessible. There are sci-fi elements, but it has an incredible story at its core. The performances from Adams and Jeremy Renner are some of the best of their careers, and the movie put director Dennis Villanueva on my radar. Even if you are wary of science fiction, I would recommend "Arrival" because it is as close to perfect as a movie can get.

The Shelf: An Introduction

With the summer movie season ending, the last few weeks have been underwhelming at the movies, and this past weekend was no different. I did go to a movie, but since it was "Howl's Moving Castle," an almost 20-year-old anime, and I know my audience, it was not worth reviewing right now; I have plans for the Studio Ghibli movies. Instead, I decided to start a series I have been thinking about for a few years. I am calling it The Shelf. 

I am still a big believer in physical media. In the past few years, that has only become more important with streaming services removing shows and movies with no warning so they don't have to pay royalties. HBO had done this so many times in the last two years that when I had the chance to buy the incredible series "Station Eleven," I did just in case they ever removed it from Max. All this is a long-winded way of saying that I own a lot of physical media. 

With so many movies and TV shows, space is at a premium. Most of my movies are in sleeves and not in cases. If I keep a movie in it's case, it is because there is something extra special about it. There are currently nine movies on that shelf, and besides two that share a star, they don't fall into one specific category. They are, in alphabetical order:

• Arrival

• Baby Driver

• Booksmart

• Everything Everywhere All At Once

• The Flordia Project

• Knives Out

• Logan

• Mad Max: Fury Road

• Short Term 12

In the coming weeks, I am going to watch and write about each of these movies. I cannot guarantee it is going to be the next nine weeks, but I can commit to the next nine times I don't have anything else to write about. These will not be reviews. Instead, these will be me reflecting on what it is about these movies that make them worthy of "The Shelf. "Next week, I will talk about "Arrival."

Movie Review: The Deepest Breath

If there is any genre that has benefited from the rise of streaming services, it is the documentary. For better or for worse, all the sites seem to have a glut of them, especially Netflix. When I hear of a noteworthy one, I will always check it out. One of those is "The Deepest Breath" on Netflix.

"The Deepest Breath" explores the world of free diving. It follows freediver Alessia Zecchini and safety diver Stephen Keenan as they train Alessia to break a freediving record.

The footage of these record-breaking dives is breathtaking (pun intended). The many sequences of freedivers swimming down deep on only one breath is both exhilarating and terrifying. What Alessia and the other free divers do is incredibly dangerous, but their passion and dedication are admirable.

On the other side is Stephen Keenan. He was a freediver but became a safety diver after a near-death experience. He opened a diving school in Danab, Egyp, and became one of the world's best safety divers. He is the one who trains Alessia in her quest to break the record at the Blue Hole.

I knew nothing going into this, so I will not get into what happens in this movie. I was on the edge of my seat watching Alessia attempt to break the record, and I would not want to spoil that experience for anyone. I highly recommend this documentary because it is about a sport you can't watch weekly. There are no teams, and the competitors support one another as much as they want to have the record. These are dedicated people doing something they are passionate about.

“The Deepest Breath” is available now on Netflix.

8 out of 10

Rated PG for some intense peril, unsettling images and language

1hr 48min

TV Review: Welcome to Wrexham

In November 2020, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the Welsh football club Wrexham A.F.C. When I first heard the news, I thought, "What a random thing for them to do." This past Labor Day weekend, I finally sat down and watched the series that came out of this purchase: "Welcome to Wrexham."

It would be easy to say this is like "Ted Lasso," but real. That would also be wrong. I would say that this is closer to "Friday Night Lights" than anything. Sure, this is an unscripted reality, but what the two shows have in common is that both shows are as much about the people as the sport. The residents/fans of Wrexham get as much (if not more) screen time as the players. These people have been fans for decades and have seen the city suffer as the team got demoted to the National League, had terrible owners who only wanted to make a profit, and even planned to level the stadium (the oldest international football stadium in the world).

They were weary of these two Hollywood actors coming in to buy their team. It seemed like a publicity stunt, and they would sell the club to someone else if things got bad. Early in the season (of the television show), Rob McElhenny talks about his roots growing up in Philadelphia. He compares Eagles fans to Wrexham fans because both fandoms are full of working-class, passionate people. He says it was one of the reasons he was drawn to Wrexham. Reynolds and McElhenny had to earn the trust of the city.

The show is entertaining to watch, and if you do not know if Wrexham got promoted, those final episodes are exciting to watch. During the last episode, I was out of my seat and pacing just like I was watching a Bills game on Sunday. The new season starts on September 12, and I cannot wait.

“Welcome to Wrexham” airs Tuesdays at 9 on FX and the next day on Hulu.

Random Rambling: Too Much

It is a great time to be a nerd. Many things we nerds love have become an enormous part of mainstream culture. That is becoming a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is great that we can watch more of these characters, but on the other hand, in the studio's rush to capitalize on an IP (intellectual property), the quality has suffered.

I have been feeling this way for a while, but it came to a head this summer with Disney+'s "Secret Invasion." The comic revolves around discovering that a race of shape-shifting aliens known as the Skrulls have been posing as superheroes. It is a very compelling arc in the comics. The show is nothing close to that. A rebel faction of the Skrulls have infiltrated key government and media posts and wants to take over Earth.

The show was a slog, and the finale was a huge disappointment. After this massive waste of time, I decided I needed to stop watching something just because it scratches that nerdy itch. There is a lot to watch, so why waste my time with a bad show or movie?

"Ahsoka" just started its run on Disney+, and I have not watched any of it yet. Ashoka Tano quickly became my favorite character when watching the animated "The Clone Wars" during lockdown. I love Rosario Dawson, who plays Ahsoka in the new series. Yet I am not watching the new series yet. After the debacle that was "Secret Invasion," there are not many of these Disney+ shows I am going to jump right into. I hate to say I agree with a studio head during the WGA and SAG strikes, but when Bob Iger said that the Marvel and Star Wars brands have become diluted because of the Disney+ TV shows, he was right. Marvel, in particular, is putting out more movies than before, and all the TV shows make the movie less of an event.

Look at it this way. Even if it was just the movies, new viewers have to do a lot of homework, and the shows make it worse. Take the upcoming "The Marvels" movie. To experience that movie to its fullest, you must see the movies "Captain Marvel" and "Avengers: Endgame." And then the Disney+ shows "Wandavison," "Ms. Marvel," and possibly the aforementioned "Secret Invasion." If I were just coming into this, I wouldn't see "The Marvels." There is just too much.

Movie Review: Blue Beetle

I feel bad for "Blue Beetle." I really do. It was finished before the massive shakeup that brought James Gunn and Peter Safran in as heads of DC movies. It was made before Gunn announced that they would start fresh with their movies and not build off any of the movies made in the last ten years. I feel bad because I had a very good time with this movie.

Jamie Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) becomes the symbiotic host to an alien scarab. In return, it gives Jamie incredible powers, allowing him to save his family and fight the head of the company who wants to take the scarab powers for herself.

The heart of this movie is Jamie and his family. Jamie is very close to his family, and when he graduates college and sees that his family is struggling, he takes a cleaning job to help make ends meet. When his family is attacked, he uses his new powers to save them. It is rare for a superhero movie to focus so much on the family, and I loved how all the Reyes rallied around Jamie and one another.

For as acclaimed an actress as Susan Sarandon is, I felt she was phoning in her performance as the villain. I don't know if I can blame her because there was nothing on the page for her to work with. Victoria Kord is a one-note villain who is completely uninteresting.

This movie is a lot of fun; that is all I wanted from it. I was not expecting some new ground to be broken in the superhero genre (a more cynical person might call this an "Iron Man" rip-off). All I wanted from this movie was to have fun while watching it, and on that level, it delivered. DC movies have had a very rough time recently. "Black Adam" and "Shazam: Fury of the Gods" were massive bombs. "The Flash" was entertaining but had a lot of baggage attached to it. This is why I was rooting for "Blue Beetle."

7/10

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, language, and some suggestive references

2hr 7min

Random Rambling: Original Stories

I hate it when I hear people complain that the plot of something is not original. Everything is a derivative of something else at this point. How you choose to tell that story matters more than an original plot. You can be telling a story that everyone knows, but if you aren't doing something interesting with it, then what is the point? Don't get me wrong, I love original stories too, probably more so, but I am not one to dislike something because it is similar to something I have already read/seen.

The perfect example of this is the musical "Hadestown." This was one of, if not the best, musicals I saw at Shea's this past year. It is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, one of the oldest stories ever told. However, what Anaïs Mitchell does with it makes it unique (and I am not just talking about the music and dancing). She took a pretty simple story, kept the basics, and expanded on them. She gave the characters personalities and even incorporated the "Greek chorus." Growing up, I was into Greey mythology; it's actually why I started writing for fun (but that is a story for another day). It did not matter that I knew how the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice ended. I still loved how this version was told.

Just look at how many times the works of Shakespeare have been produced on stage and screen. Can we only have one interpretation of Hamlet? The thing about stories is that different generations interpret them differently. It is how "Taming of the Shrew" can become "10 Things I Hate About You." Stories evolve and change to reflect the people, culture, and time they are made.

I don't care if the movie I am watching is based on something or even if it is a remake of something else. All I need is justification for why this story is being retold. What is this person bringing to the story? Is there something they are trying to say? These are more important to me than it being a retread of another story.

Movie Review: Oppenheimer

On one visit to my grandparent's house, I played with this fluffy soccer ball. My grandpa saw me and told me that when they were putting together "the bomb," it was put together like the soccer ball, pentagonal pieces around the explosive core. That was the first time I knew my grandpa worked on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.

"Oppenheimer" is not just a movie about the making of the atomic bomb; it is more of a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy).

Murphy has always been an incredible actor, but this movie will open the eyes of much of the movie-going public. He is best known for playing The Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. Nolan, who directed this movie and has cast Murphy in six movies, puts him front and center, and Murphy makes the most of it. It is not a big bombastic performance (no pun intended). Oppie is a quiet man who is methodical in his approach to most things, so he will not have outbursts of emotion, and this is where Murphy excels. He brings an unshakable calmness to the performance, even in high-stress situations.

I do have a few critiques. One of them is a common critique of Nolan's movies; his female characters are consistently underwritten and underdeveloped. It is all the more apparent when you have two powerhouse actors like, Emily Blunt, who plays Kitty Oppenheimer, and Florence Pugh, who plays Jean Tatlock. Pugh's character is an on-again-off-again girlfriend of Oppie and doesn't get much to do in the few scenes she is in. Blunt's role is reduced to the supportive wife of a genius, and it's very cliched.

Nolan is famously anti-CGI. He relies on practical effects as much as possible, and so the explosion of the bomb is done practically. When this information was first revealed, there were jokes that the filmmaker exploded a real nuke. No official behind-the-scenes secret has been spilled on this, but the prevailing theory is that he blew up the equivalent of dynamite. It is a very cool-looking explosion, and the entire sequence leading up to it is incredibly tense. Will the rain stop so they can go forward with the test? Will they ignite the atmosphere and destroy the world? At my screening, three people in the row in front of me were leaning forward for the entire sequence.

"Oppenheimer" is Noaln's masterpiece. It takes advantage of his best and worst qualities. His female characters are almost non-existent, but he makes a movie about people talking in rooms incredibly compelling. This is required viewing for anyone in the Levy family. It is an excellent companion piece to all the stories that Grandpa told. When it showed the bomb being put together, I remembered the day with the soccer ball.

9/10

Rated R

3hrs.

Movie Review: Barbie

I figured I would start with the movie that kicked off my Barbenheimer experience; "Barbie."

One day Barbie (Margot Robbie) starts contemplating death and must travel to the real world to figure out what is happening and fix it.

Robbie is the only actress who could play Barbie. First and foremost, she looks like Barbie, but more than that, she is an actress who is not afraid to have fun at her own expense. Her small part in "The Big Short" was her in a bubble bath, with a glass of champagne, explaining part of the mortgage crisis. That is 99 percent of her role as Stereotypical Barbie in this movie. By her very nature, Barbie is naive, and Robbie plays her journey to a more aware version of Barbie perfectly.

What sets this apart from other movies based on recognizable IP (intellectual property) is that it has something to say. The recent "Mario" movie was just there to be a Mario movie. "Barbie" is about something; actually, a lot of things. It comments on Barbie, Mattel, and modern-day society. Sometimes those messages can seem a bit heavy-handed when it is repeated over and over, but it didn't take away from time importance of what the movie was trying to say.

When I first heard that Mattel was making a movie based on "Barbie," I wrote it off as a soulless cash grab. Then Greta Gerwig was attached to write and direct, and I saw the potential for what this could be. Gerwig is an incredible writer/director. "Ladybird" and "Little Women" are two fantastic movies (I also recommend one of her earlier movies, "Francis Ha"). With her on board, I knew this would be something special.

9/10

Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language

1hr. 42min.