The Beach Boys (Disney+)

      The new Beach Boys documentary- “The Beach Boys” is now streaming on Disney+ and it’s fine. I’ve seen quite a few docs on The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson over the years, I even read Mike Love’s autobiography from a few years ago and this new film, co-directed by mega-producer Frank Marshall (Indiana Jones films, Jurassic Park films, Back to the Future, etc) and Thom Zimny, who has directed almost everything involving Bruce Springsteen since the 2014, is ok. There’s not a lot of new material here and it’s not presented in a very original way. There are some modern “talking heads” like Janelle Monae, but they’re not enough to hold a Beach Boys fan’s attention all that long.

    We follow the story of The Beach Boys from their childhood formation of the group through about 1980. The facts seem right, but many are not followed through. Sure Brian Wilson famously had some emotional and psychological trauma but they don’t get very deep into the “whys”. The thing is, the story of The Beach Boys is fascinating and much more complex then this almost 2 hour movie. It just can’t come close to doing their story justice AND it still seems to drag at times. It may seem counterproductive to suggest that this two hour doc that felt long should have been longer, but that is exactly what it needed to be. This group and their story really needs a multi-part documentary similar to the Gary Shandling and George Carlin docs or the recent Steve Martin doc. Their story didn’t end in 1980, things got even weirder for a while in the 80’s. Frank Marshal, in addition to being a producer of blockbusters is actually a pretty good documentarian. His 2020 doc The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is terrific! I recommend it highly. This film plays like a Reader’s Digest version of the first couple chapters of the story of The Beach Boys.

     If you’re a passing fan of the band and haven’t seen or read ANYTHING about them then you’ll enjoy this film. Though I think you’ll feel like a lot was still to be told. Like I said, it’s fine. It’s family friendly (there is half of an F bomb), it just feels a little like Disney saw what a success Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back (which was in 3 parts) was and started looking for another band to feature. “How about The Beatles main competition in the mid-60’s?” Not a bad idea, but this movie feels like something produced with a release date already set. Too bad, there is a great story to be told. You just won’t find it here.

Unfrosted (Netflix)

     If you were a viewer of the ‘90’s classic sitcom Seinfeld, then you’ll know of Jerry Seinfeld’s love of breakfast cereal and fascination with everything about it. Well, he, and a couple of former Seinfeld writers, have created a movie inspired by the creation of the Kellogg’s Pop Tart. This is not a dramatization of that story, this is a way out there, and sometimes downright bizarre, re-imagining of how it may have happened.

     Co-writer and director, Jerry Seinfeld stars as Bob Cabana an R&D man who reports directly to Edsel Kellogg (Jim Gaffigan) himself and he is trying to create a breakfast treat that is portable and doesn’t require milk. He hires a former Kellogg’s employee and current NASA food scientist (Melissa McCarthy) to help make it happen. They are in a race with competing cereal giant Post (it’s owner, Marjorie Post, is played by comedienne Amy Schumer) to break this breakfast barrier. With the help of some crazy characters that include Chef Boy Ardee, Steve Schwinn, Tom Carvel, and America’s “Godfather of Fitness” Jack Lalanne, work begins. They even inadvertently create a new life-form before finally coming up with the Pop Tart we all know and love.

     I had a good bit of fun watching this movie. The story is secondary, though there is a plot and it works as a through line for the film, what makes it work is the sheer amount of jokes and gags being tossed your way. Do they all land? No, but, at least for me, most do. For the most part they are just silly. There are no complicated comedic setups that will be paying off later in the movie, well… maybe a couple, but they are equally silly. Here are just a few examples. When Cabana arrives at NASA to recruit Melissa McCarthy’s character, he shows up driving a Moon buggy. Later there’s a line like; “it’s weird that they’d leave these things lying around.” There’s a, sort of, subplot involving the cereal mascots like Tony the Tiger, and Snap, Crackle & Pop looking for fair compensation. And, in an example of some of the surreal comedy in the movie, the character of Tony the Tiger, or rather the real life voice of Tony the Tiger- Thurl Ravenscroft, played by Hugh Grant, being the actor in a Tony the Tiger costume. Again, some of the comedy works great while others, not so much. There is a riff on the January 6^th attack on the Capital building that is a little heavy handed, but it doesn’t ruin the movie. In addition to all the comedic actors I’ve mentioned already, this thing is full of really funny performers- Mikey Day, Patrick Warburton, Max Greenfield, Andy Daly, Cedric The Entertainer, Jack McBrayer, Bobby Moynihan, Thomas Lennon, James Marsden, Tony Hale, and Bill Burr as John F. Kennedy, and that’s not even a full list. These are performers who know how to take a bit and milk it for all it’s worth, and that’s why the movie works more than it doesn’t.

     If ridiculous and silly for the sake of silly (think The Three Stooges) does not appeal to you, then this movie won’t work for you. If a movie is presented to me as a comedy and it makes me laugh nearly all the way through, even though I can predict some of the punchlines before the setup is done, then it’s a success in my book. I actually think Unfrosted is more successful with it’s silly comedy than when it tries to make a comment or observation on real events. Sometimes you just want to laugh and this movie made me laugh.

Spaceman (Netflix)

     The new Netflix movie Spaceman stars Adam Sandler as an astronaut half way through a year long solo mission to study a strange nebula-like feature that has appeared near Jupiter, who winds up combating his loneliness, and yearning for a wife that he can feel pulling away, with the help of a giant spider-alien (voiced by Paul Dano) he names Hanus. Here are some things to keep in mind if you plan on watching this film. Even though it stars Adam Sandler, it is NOT a comedy. Think more along the lines of Punch Drunk Love or Uncut Gems Sandler. It’s also not a fun sci-fi romp. Think more along the lines of 2009’s Moon or Silent Running. We’re watching a man slowly let himself sink into depression until an unlikely friend (real or imaginary?) helps pull him out of it.

     I make the comparison to Moon and Silent Running because it’s a fairly small story, with the exception of a few people we follow back on earth, like the head of the space agency- Isabella Rossellini, a mission control person- Kunal Nayyar, and the astronaut’s wife- Carey Mulligan. Only half-way through his mission Sandler’s character is literally trapped with no way to get to his wife, who we learn really is planning on leaving him. The agency is withholding this info from him because it could compromise the mission. Which is very true, but it’s probably too late since he knows something is wrong and if you’re like me, and this character is in this respect, not knowing the details of a situation your mind creates all sorts of scenarios that can gnaw at you and keep you from thinking rationally. This is the tone of the film. When this big talking spider shows up the astronaut is afraid, then assumes he’s losing his mind, but the creature speaks in a calm, reassuring voice and claims to want to help the man. One thing I found interesting was the choice of the filmmakers to give the creature a, kind of, human like mouth. For some reason it did make him a little less scary. Dano’s voice works well as the calming presence for a man in psychological distress. In the end, not really implying one way or the other as to whether Hanush was real, I think, worked best for the film.

     I do have some questions though. We’re told that this is a Czechoslovakian space agency, with a mention of the “Euro-space agency”. My question is why? The film’s stars are American, English, Italian, Swedish, and the director (Johan Renck) is Swedish. Why keep the Czech based local from the book- Spaceman of Bohemia- it’s based on? If I was to make my best guess, it’s that no one would finance a weird little movie starring Czechoslovakian actors. Nor would making the cast do their best Eastern Block accents. So I get that, but why keep those details? The emotions and point of the film does not come from the fact that it’s a Czech character. I just bumped up against it every time that fact was mentioned in the script. I also question why so much of the dialogue is delivered in a whisper. At least for me, watching it on Netflix I had to keep turning down the volume when the score or sound effects played and then turning it up, up, up to hear the dialogue. I considered turning on the closed captioning but hate to do it when the film is in my native tongue (English). In the end, I liked the movie. It’s interesting and Sandler’s character does finally have a realization that changes him and his view of his situation. This is not a movie for everyone. It has a fairly slow pace and is kind of talkie for a flick with a giant spider in it, but even with it’s strangeness I’m glad I saw it. I had a similar experience with another movie that featured Paul Dano- Swiss Army Man. That is one weird movie that I didn’t know if I liked or hated at the time I watched it. Looking back, I did like it, but, in the same breathe, I have no ambition to revisit it. The same goes for Spaceman.

2024 Golden Globes Broadcast

     This past summer the Hollywood Foreign Press Association officially dissolved under a complicated reorganization plan that allowed the Golden Globes to continue.

Eldridge Industries, a holding company, and Dick Clark Productions, which has produced the award show’s telecast for decades, agreed to buy the organization’s Golden Globe assets for an undisclosed price. The proceeds went to a new nonprofit organization known as the Golden Globe Foundation to fund philanthropic efforts. The voting pool was expanded, from less than 100 in the old system, to about 300 jounalists from around the world and that is where we pick up the story as the Golden Globe telecast began last night on the CBS television network. Finding a host seemed to have been a challenge because it was only a couple of weeks ago that it was announced that stand-up comic Jo Koy would serve as M.C. Personally, I’ve only seen him on talk shows, snippets of his stand-up, and the trailer for his film Easter Sundy from a couple of years ago. I haven’t seen the film myself yet. So I had absolutely no preconceived notion of how he would do. In my opinion, he had a rough night. He fell back on the old “look around the room and comment on the stars in attendance and joke about them and/or their work.” Most of his stuff was meh at best. He then got a bit defensive with lines like; “I only got the job 10 days ago, what do you expect?” and “I didn’t write all these (jokes). Mine are the funny ones.” Don’t make excuses. Own that you’re bombing and use your comedy skills to improvise something clever. I think he discovered he wasn’t ready for this gig. I’m told it’s a difficult one because the audience is eating and drinking. It’s not like they are sitting in a theater all paying attention. Ricky Gervais, who won the first ever Globe for Stand-up Special, had everyone’s attention when he hosted. Not everyone thought he was funny, but he commanded the room.

     I’ve heard others say the night was full of surprises. I predicted most of the winners, with a few happy exceptions. Oppenheimer was the big winner with Best Score, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, Best Actor, and Best Motion Picture Drama. A very happy surprise to me, because I really liked this movie, was the success of The Holdovers, taking the Best Actor in a Comedy and Best Supporting Actress. I have not seen Poor thing, though I’m dying to, which took Best Picture Comedy and Best Actress in a Comedy. The big surprise, for me, since I hadn’t really even heard of this film, was the Best Screenplay award for Anatomy of a Fall, which also won Best Non-English Language film. Where’d that come from? The rest of the awards pretty much fell as I figured they would. Barbie got the first ever Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award. No surprise there. The HBO series Succession cleaned up in the TV Drama categories for it’s final season, The Boy and the Heron for Best Animated film, and Lily Gladstone for Best Actress in a Drama. I figured The Bear would win many of the Comedy series awards (which it did), but is it a comedy? Really? I was a bit surprised at how well the show Beef did, winning Best Actor, Actress, and Limited Series. I still have to check that show out too.

     The presenters were all very pretty and well dressed, but the “presenter gags” they were given were, for the most part, lame or just stupid. Very few worked. I felt so bad for Kevin Costner, Angela Bassett, and others who you could see were trapped in these idiotic sketches. A few of them were saved by clever performers like Will Ferrel and Kristen Wiig, and Ray Romano and Keri Russell. Let’s get some better writers next time or just stick to presenting the awards and cut the “clever” banter. All in all the show was fine. These things are usually saved by some fun and/or sincere acceptance speeches and this show had a bit of both. There were WAY too many commercials. I would bet the entire show lasted just over 2hrs without the breaks. I think we should stop blaming the producers for award shows going “over their expected end times” and blame the networks for selling too much ad time. This is why so many people are turning to streamed content. Even the ones with ads offer fewer than over-the-air channels. There’s definite room for improvement Golden Globes, but I’ll be back next year anyway.

Maestro (Netflix)

    Right away, let me get it out there that I don’t really have a great amount of knowledge of Leonard Bernstein, so any holes in my knowledge may show themselves in this review of Bradley Cooper’s film Maestro.  The 1949 film version of On the Town is actually my favorite movie musical of all time and it features songs by Bernstein, and I was aware of his work with Stephen Sondheim in West Side Story and that is really the level of my Bernstein knowledge.  So, what is fact and what has been “fictionalized” by the creators of this movie is not something I can comment on.
      Maestro is Bradley Cooper’s second film as director, he co-wrote and stars here too.  My personal opinion is that Maestro plays more like a large-scale presentation of Cooper’s need for the world to see him as an “artist” than as a satisfying bio pic.  By that I mean he pulls out all the stops when it comes to the technical side of the film.  He plays with aspect ratio and being in black & white or color depending on the period of Bernstein’s life.  There are also some pretty wild seemingly single shot moments where the camera follows our characters from one place to another, that puts the opening shot of Citizen Kane to shame.  There are shots framed by windows, foliage, and even a garden gate.  All are very nice and, in many cases, impressive, but I found myself looking at the composition of the images and paying little attention to what the characters may be saying.  There are also whole scenes that occur in one long take. Some are more effective than others. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s (who has worked on films as varied as Cooper’s A Star is Born, Josie and the Pussycats, Iron Man, Black Swan, and The Wale) work in Maestro looks terrific in both black & white and color.  This guy knows how to shoot a movie and I’m sure Bradley Cooper tossed some challenges his way in this one.  Cooper himself is heavily made up to resemble Leonard Bernstein.  There are times when, as the younger Bernstein, it does look a little artificial.  On the other hand, I was really impressed with the Bernstein late in his life look.  It’s hard to say how much the make-up supports the performance, but it did get in my way a couple of times, both by noticing it’s artificiality and by admiring how real it could look.  I’m sure there is some CG supported shots but, for the most part, they are totally invisible.  On the technical side Maestro is a very successful film.
     I was also impressed with the performances, not so much with the script though.  Bradley Cooper took a lot of time to key into Leonard Bernstein’s “voice” in each period of his life.  His Bernstein in his ‘20’s is very different from the old Bernstein after 50 years of chain smoking.  Cooper’s performance also portrays a man who didn’t filter himself very often.  He’s bisexual and only vaguely hides his affairs from his wife, while also being very comfortable expressing his joy for life.  Having said that, Carey Mulligan, as Bernstein’s wife Felicia, is the actor that makes you stop and listen when she’s on screen.  She masterfully takes you through Felicia’s joyous highs to her heartbreaking lows when battling cancer.  All with the support of very little age make-up.  Another, though in a much smaller part, performance that surprised and impressed me is Sarah Silverman as Bernstein’s sister Shirley.  We’re used to her comedic talent but here, and again it’s a small role, she is nearly unrecognizable.   I kind of wanted more of Shirley.
     Where this film doesn’t work for me is, well, the rest.  There is a lot of dialogue, but much of it seems to amount to very little.  The movie is basically in three parts.  Bernstein’s early career, his mid-career heights along with meeting and falling in love with Felicia, and the fissuring of their marriage and her cancer battle.  There is a very short bit at the end with Bernstein toward the end of his life that wraps up the movie as well.  The only section that felt like there was a story being told was the part where Felicia confronts Leonard about his barely hidden affairs followed quickly by her cancer diagnosis.  This is really where Carey Mulligan pulls out the big guns and steals the movie too.  I don’t have a problem with unconventional bio pics (Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis for example), but Maestro seems to skip huge swaths of the life and career of Leonard Bernstein and fills it with very talky moments that, mainly, don’t further the story.  If the film had focused mainly on that period where Felicia begins to question whether her giving up her own career for a man who needs more than just her through her passing it would be much more emotionally impactful.  The three children of the couple are in the film, but we never get a good introduction to them or know them very well.  This is a movie of broad strokes, but the broad strokes are sometimes parts of the man’s life that were kind of mundane.  Maybe I missed something, but I found myself really being engaged in about 30 minutes of this 129-minute film.  There is definitely impressive stuff in this movie, but it’s a bit of a slog to get to that good stuff.

The Killer (Netflix)

    Director David Fincher’s latest, and second film of his deal with Netflix, is The Killer. In it Michael Fassbender plays a hired killer who, after an assassination goes wrong, returns home to find his wife/girlfriend/someone he cares about (we aren’t told) has been very badly beaten and left for dead. Once he’s satisfied she is going to be ok, he heads off in search of the party or parties responsible. At least that’s what I think was happening.

    I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan of David Fincher’s movies. I do like Se7en and his last movie, Mank, was ok. So it wasn’t a surprise really that I wasn’t feeling this one as it played out in front of me. It’s mostly Michael Fassbender’s “The Killer” driving, walking, flying in planes, taking cabs, or on a fairy. He’s traveling a lot. When he gets to these various locations stuff happens, but it was difficult, at least for me, to understand where exactly these people fit in his search for the responsible party. He pretty much kills everyone he encounters so after a while I just wasn’t invested in him and his quest. At least with John Wick I knew he was killing the baddies. I mean The Killer is himself a baddie, which can still be the character you can sympathize with, even knowing they aren’t actually a good person. Here, he’s a narrating, The Cure songs loving, TV character names as aliases using guy. The aliases were kind of fun I’ll admit. The movie plays out at a snails pace with a few nice moments peppered in there from time to time, but not enough to keep me from occasionally yawning and checking my watch, and in the end, it all seems to have amounted to nothing. At least that’s how it seemed to me.

    There were a few things to admire about this movie though. Fassbender’s American accent is actually quite good, but seems odd coming from him since I’m so used to his English accent. There is a really good scene between him and Tilda Swinton as well. Well, it’s mainly Tilda Swinton since she carries the most weight in the scene. It was nice to have a moment of clever dialogue with dark undertones between The Killers travels. For me, she was the highlight of the movie and I think she probably has 5 minutes of screen time. There’s a terrific fight scene between Fassbender and a huge brute of a guy. The Killer takes a lot of punishment, that I could feel as it happened, before barely coming out on top. The Killer is also a beautiful looking movie. That’s one thing I can not fault Fincher for. He knows how to photograph a beautifully lit and staged scene. All his films, that I’ve seen, look great.

    For me, all the good stuff just couldn’t make up for the amount of dullness that pervades this movie. It’s a technically great looking film featuring some talented performers that just couldn’t get me to care about the main character, or almost anyone really. There are a couple of genuinely innocent people who he takes out, I guess, so there is no chance he could be traced to them. I just didn’t buy it. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy a movie about a bad person. A Clockwork Orange comes to mind. Malcolm McDowell’s character is a pretty nasty human being, but in the end I actually feel a little bad for him and he’s as entertaining as hell along the way. I’ve heard of other people really liking The Killer. I just can’t be counted among them.

Quiz Lady (Hulu)

     The movie landscape hasn’t been very kind to comedies in recent years. Especially with theatrical releases. So we’re seeing the films that would have, definitely, been in theaters make their premiers on streaming services. Quiz Lady is the latest and one of the better. First let me admit that I am an Awkwafina fan. I think she’s a talented comedienne. And how can you not be a fan of Sandra Oh? She’s always good but it’s not often that she is seen in a comedy and I definitely hadn’t seen her play a character like this before.

     Awkwfina plays Anne Yum, who becomes known as the “Quiz Lady” when her directionless older sister (Jenny), posts a video of her playing along with a long running quiz show and knowing all the answers. Anne works a thankless office job but pays the bills. When her mother runs away from her retirement home she and her sister, who showed up thinking Mom had died and also needs a place to crash, are approached by a man who says their mother owes him $80.00 in gambling losses and he has kidnapped their dog (Linguine) to hold until he gets him money. Once Jenny realizes that if her sister could get on that game show she could win the money they need to get Linguine back she plots to make it happen. So, after an awkward, but successful audition, they head to L.A. to be on the show.

     I had a lot of fun with this movie. It’s been a while since I laughed out loud consistently through a recent comedy. Awkwafina actually plays the more grounded and “normal” person in this story while Sandra Oh is the wild child sister. Both bring some belly laughs and worked well together. Will Ferrell plays the host of the game show and he’s good too, but he’s really just playing the same character he did in countless game show sketches during his time on SNL. Jason Schwartzman is the long running winner on the show. A smart man, but kind of a smug egomaniac. Holland Taylor plays Anne’s crotchety neighbor, who gets swept up into their adventure and Tony Hale has some nice moments as a Philadelphia themed hotel manager who “plays” Ben Franklin and stays in character, as best he can, while working too. We’ve seen most of the comedy themes of this movie before- the crazy sister who brings chaos to her sister’s life, the grumpy neighbor, and “we need money to pay off the mob”. Nothing new there, but the dialogue is fun and the cast talented enough to rise above the cliche’s and play things real and still really funny.

     This is director Jessica Yu’s first feature. She’s been working as a TV director for some time on shows like 13 Reasons Why, The Morning Show, and This is Us. There isn’t much in the way of comedy in her resume’ but she handles it pretty well. She’s not a “showy” director, but definitely has control of the story. Writer, Jen D’Angelo, also comes from TV having written for comedies like Workaholics and Young Rock. She also worked on the movies Hocus Pocus 2 and the recent Amazon horror/comedy Totally killer. I don’t know how much of the really funny stuff in Quiz Lady is D’Angelo and how much was improvised by this amazing cast, but the combo works. If you’re missing silly comedies for adults, that don’t rely on raunchy humor, you’ll have a lot of fun with Quiz Lady.

No One Will Save You (Hulu)

     Hulu’s No One Will Save You is a little bit Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a little bit Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a seemingly out of nowhere ending, that I’ll admit I didn’t see coming and actually turned me around a bit on how I felt about this flick.

     In this nearly dialogue free film we follow a young woman named Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever of The Last Man Standing and Booksmart) living alone in a house on the outskirts of a small town. We learn through some interactions with a few townspeople that she is something of a pariah. No one seems to like her. We’ve seen nothing to warrant it, but something happened in the past. All clues point to what happened and it’s not that hard to figure it out before the reveal later on. So she is secluded and alone physically, alone in her house, and emotionally with the entire town seemingly against her. Anyway, one night she is awakened by some strange noises and realizes that her house has been broken into. Only these intruders are NOT HUMAN! Yes, aliens have invaded her home and they don’t seem to be friendly. She fights back, surviving the night. In the morning she heads to town for help and notices that a lot of the townsfolk are not acting like they usually do. She then has another round of nighttime battles with aliens, culminating in an ending that you’re going to want to discuss with someone.

     There are other people in this movie but 99 percent of the screen time belongs to Kaitlyn Dever. I loved her in Booksmart and was even impressed by her in the Julia Roberts/George Clooney romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise. A film that doesn’t try real hard to be original and works as well as it does solely by the charm of it’s stars. Devers is required to deliver what is basically a silent performance. She utters maybe 5 words in the movie and they all come toward the end. Otherwise she is left with grunts, screams, and whelps to support her physical performance, which she does very well. Other than the “dark moment from her past” stuff I had no problem understanding what was going on and what she was feeling throughout. She is never the problem with the film.

The aliens are not all that original. The film makers went with, what is basically, the traditional “Greys”. Oblong heads that taper down to a small chin and mouth. They, and I believe this was a conscious choice, look a lot like the aliens from Close Encounters. We see that there are three distinct different types of creatures. One is the traditional human sized being, another that is smaller and a lot more aggressive, and a supersized creature with extra long arms and legs who could be contenders in a pop and lock dance competition. While not too original they can be pretty creepy and threatening. I can’t say how much of the creature effects was practical and how much was digital, but I’m willing to bet that there was more practical than you’d expect.

     The concept is interesting and thrilling throughout that first night Brynn battles the aliens but it goes on. When she goes into town the next day and it’s revealed that her house was not an isolated location for the invasion it still works pretty well. This is where the movie could have made a choice as to what it wanted to be, but she goes back to her house for, basically, a repeat of the first night. By this time you don’t see any way she is going to come out of this. She’s way out of her league physically and it’s inevitable that she will be caught. The second night of alien fighting just goes on too long. There is a stereotypical red haring scene where you think; “maybe everything is ok”, but it’s just too easy to see through. What happens at the end, I’m sure, will be divisive. For a lot of people this will be what they hate about the film. For me, it is so out of left field that it, sort of, redeemed the film a bit. This is only Writer/Director Brian Duffield’s second film as director. The other being Spontaneous a romantic comedy featuring spontaneous combustion. He wrote the screenplays for one of the Divergent films (which I actually didn’t dislike), the Natalie Portman western Jane Got a Gun (which I did hate), the Kristen Stewart thriller Underwater (which is surprisingly entertaining), and the weirdly comic Love and Monsters (which is also pretty fun). I can see some similarities in No One Will Save You to his past work. He’s not afraid to take his stories to some odd places, but wears his influences right out in the open. Nowhere more than in this film though.

     At this point I want to discuss the ending. So, if you want to see the movie, go watch it and then come back and pick up right here to see my thoughts. Otherwise, you’ve been warned. I am about to spoil the living crap out of this movie.

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If you’re still with me I assume you’ve seen the movie or just don’t care. Again, I saw no way out for Brynn. She was going to get caught, so just get on with it. The goofy “was it all a dream?” sequence was much to easy to see through. It’s when she is finally caught and brought aboard the aliens ship that my interest was peeked a bit again. Where can they go from here? I’ll admit, I did not predict that the aliens would look into her mind, see that she had killed her friend (I’d figured out that she’d killed her friend long before this point), and decide; “Well, lets put her back and give her a positive place to live”. Part of me thinks that it is a brilliant idea, while another part of me thinks- would Brynn really be happy knowing that all the townsfolk are actually aliens now? She seems pretty into it. We see the creature in the neck of the boy she’s dancing with, but not in hers. So, my reading of the ending is that the aliens felt bad for her and gave her a happy existence. The fact that she seems to be really into it is what doesn’t quite ring true for the character we’ve just followed for the past 90 minutes. Maybe she is so shallow that this works for her. It’s left up to us to figure it out. The ending is so out of nowhere that I just have to give Brian Duffield credit for going for it. I don’t think I’ll revisit this movie any time soon but it does give you something to think about and discuss with friends.

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (Netflix)

     So, let me say right out of the box that I am not the target audience for You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. This Adam Sandler produced (and co-starring) movie is aimed squarely at the 12-18 girl audience.  Don’t expect an “Adam Sandler movie”, this is not that. Thats not to say it’s a bad movie. For what it is, it’s not bad at all.

    Sandler’s real life daughter Sunny plays his movie daughter Stacy, as she prepares for her impending Bat Mitzvah and navigates life as a teenage girl.  Her crush on a popular boy causes her a few embarrassing moments and serious strife between her and her best friend Lydia. Which becomes the backbone of the story.

    While Adam Sandler’s family members have had bit parts and walk-ons in many of his films in the past this is the first time his children have played major roles.  Sunny actually being the film’s lead. Older sister Sadie plays her older sister, and their mother plays the mother of Stacy’s best friend Lydia.  Sandler and Idina Menzel are Stacy’s movie parents. Other supporting players are Sarah Sherman (of SNL), Luis Guzman (Wednesday), and Ido Mosseri (a big name in Israel).  Again, Adam Sandler takes a back seat to daughter Sunny here.  He has a few funny moments but plays things pretty calm and lets her shine.  Luckily, she has some natural talent and, while there are a few awkward performance moments, she delivers what the story required.  Giving us the “feels” a couple times where it was supposed to be.  I found myself wondering if any of this was “inspired by” something that the Sandler family actually lived, because she was so good.  If she wants to, with a bit more training, she could definitely make a career of acting and be successful.

    Like I said, this movie is for a younger audience, though I appreciated the “parent” moments the most, since I am also the father of 2 teenage girls myself.  I didn’t understand most of the references the kids made nor was I keyed into what it must be like to be a teenage girl today.  I was a teenager, though not Jewish, so there is enough commonality that I could still relate.  Not having the same references as the kids did keep me from enjoying some of their gags and the “teen angst”, probably because of the vast amount I deal with on a daily basis in real life, got a little old.  It does fall a little into the cliche’ “teen movie” tropes once in a while, but also went a few directions I wasn’t expecting.  I would have liked a bit more Adam Sandler and Idina Menzel.  They seemed mostly waisted, but I know that this was never meant to be a movie about the adults.  So, I can’t fault the movie for that. In the end it’s a cute “slice of teenage life” movie.  It’s not fall down laughing funny, nor is it a sappy teen relationship story.  It does a pretty good job of keeping the story moving forward and doesn’t overstay its welcome, coming in at 104 minutes.  If you have teenage girls in your family, watch it with them. They’ll have fun.

Heart of Stone (Netflix)

      I’m sure Netflix is hoping its new spy thriller- Heart of Stone will be the first film of a new franchise.  It’s actually not bad, but after watching it I also wasn’t dying to see more adventures of super spy Rachel Stone, played by Wonder Woman herself- Gal Gadot.  The movie opens with an MI6 team undercover at a fancy ski resort trying to capture a drug dealer.  One of the members of that team is Rachel Stone and we learn fairly quickly that she isn’t the “new agent” the rest of the team believes her to be, but a super spy who actually works for "The Charter".  An international spy organization that all other national investigation organizations believe is a myth.  When The Charter’s super A.I. ("The Heart"), that gives them their missions and unlimited access to tech around the world, is stolen and used to begin to dismantle The Charter, Stone is the only agent left to get it back.

     Here’s the deal.  Heart of Stone is really nothing we haven’t seen before.  It’s a pretty “by the numbers” action thriller in the vein of the Bond series.  But… if you go in without expectations it’s fairly entertaining too.  The big action pieces are mostly pretty good and affective, and the plot is kept pretty simple, so you don’t have to think very hard to follow along.  There’s a nice amount of “globetrotting”, though some of it is there just for the sake of globetrotting, and a few of the characters are interesting too.  Again, the film is led by Gal Gadot, who also serves as one of the producers, and she's fine.  She’s as charming and as at home in the action as she was in Wonder Woman, so there is no problem accepting her as a super spy.  The supporting players like Jamie Dornan, who plays against his usual type, and Alia Bhatt (RRR) are good too.  Especially Alia Bhatt.  I just had a good time when she was on screen.  Watch for BD Wong and Glenn Close in small roles, not much more than cameos, too.  The special effects are better than you’d expect here as well.

    Having said the nice things, admitting that it is watchable. and at times kind of fun, this movie doesn’t offer up anything new to the genre.  Sure, a female led spy series could be great, but it needs to bring something different, other than having a female protagonist.  Even the threat of a potentially malevolent A.I. in the wrong hands has been done a few times.  While the cast is good and does their best, there just isn’t anything special about these people that makes them stand out in the genre.  Snappier and more clever dialogue would have helped.  Two of my favorite characters don’t survive the second act.  Luckily Alia Bhatt’s Keya squeezes everything she can out of her role and, along with some pretty entertaining action sequences, helps keep the movie from withering on the vine.  I didn’t dislike Heart of Stone but wouldn’t have any desire to see it again either.  A “Rachel Stone” series of films could work, but they’ll need to do something to differentiate themselves from the Mission: Impossibles and Bonds in order to succeed.