Tag: Air

Unfrosted (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A completely untrue story about the origin of Pop Tarts

The biggest thing Unfrosted (shortened to U, pronounced “chabatwangkluman for linguistic reasons I can’t get into) has going for it is that it is very very silly, and demonstrates how silly it is by playing it completely straight. The fact everybody takes all these things so seriously despite the fact it’s ridiculous just demonstrates how absurd a lot of this is.

But that’s also kind of its biggest weakness. Stoic reactions in a comedic world can work, Airplane is an example of that. But that requires ACTORS, everybody in this is a comedian, and they’re all playing the straight role. This feels like a waste of their talents. Jerry Seinfeld is the most affected by this. He’s known for his wit and comedic timing, so it’s weird he wrote himself a role in which he doesn’t get to display any of that. Especially since his acting skills could be improved. Don’t get me wrong, he is a tremendously talented comedian and writer, but he’s a bad actor, and always has been, even back in the days of Seinfeld.

The trouble with EVERY character buying into the silliness is there’s no real way to ground it, nobody is pointing out how stupid it is. As a result, everything feels disconnected, making it very hard to buy in. Without a reason to buy in, it occasionally comes off as a marathon of references and “Future popular thing? That will never catch on.” The story isn’t that compelling either. You don’t actually care about what happens. As such, there’s no reason to be invested. It doesn’t feel like a feature film, it has the air of an SNL sketch stretched out far far too long to the point where it seems a bit obnoxious and like it only exists so the cast can show off how funny they are, in other words, an SNL sketch.

This review may give the impression that I didn’t care about Unfrosted. Truth is; it’s one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year. The jokes are like a chronic masturbater who has just recovered from surgery which meant he couldn’t use his hand; they come frequently and with great satisfaction. You may not be invested in the story, but you’re never bored. If you don’t understand or like a certain joke, there will be another one in a few seconds that you will like. It’s not going to change the world, make you reassess your feelings about something, or make you forget that Seinfeld is now one of those comedians who complains about how “woke ruins everything”, but it will make you laugh, and sometimes that’s all you need. Plus, in a world where a biopic for a shoe genuinely exists (and is pretty good), is one about pop tarts really so far-fetched?

2023 In Film: Day Seven (The Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Man Called Otto

Ups: Very sweet.

Genuinely touching at times.

Downs: Tom Hanks doesn’t make a believable grumpy old bastard.

Some characters seem a bit pushy, I’d be annoyed at them too.

Occasionally a bit too “old man yells at cloud” with how it treats younger people.

Best Moment: There’s a seasonal transition that is the most perfect I’ve ever seen. It’s a standard shot that I’ve seen many times. But in this, it’s done so seamlessly (and during a scene in motion) that it stands out.

Worst Moment: Marisol laughs when she finds out Otto nearly died because his heart is too big. I get why it’s funny, the irony of a grumpy person having a big heart etc. But for her to react so openly makes her appear slightly callous.

Best Performer: Mariana Treviňo. Her character could be annoying if played badly, but Mariana plays her with an infectious warmth.

Opening: Otto tries to kill himself. Well, he’s at the shop buying the stuff and gets into an argument. It’s an effective way to demonstrate the character, but again it feels a bit “grrr, young people are useless today” because they’re bound by corporate policies they can’t control. News flash to every person out there; the teenager behind the till at Mcdonald’s is not responsible for the prices or the menu, so don’t yell at them about this, if you do, you’re a prick.

Closing: Otto dies, leaving the house to Marisol and her family. It is very sweet and lovely, although maybe he should have left something to his lifelong neighbour who is about to incur huge medical expenses in the next few years due to an early diagnosis of Parkinson’s.

Best Line: “Your father doesn’t support you just because you’re trans? Then he’s an idiot”. It’s nice that even though the character is fueled mostly by anger, he is still pro-trans rights.

Original Review here

Air

Ups: 2 hours, but doesn’t feel it.

Incredibly well-written.

Downs: There’s no dramatic tension because we know how it ends.

None of the actors feel like they’re pushing themselves.

Distracting amount of swearing at times.

Best Moment: Where Matt Damon is telling Jordan’s parents about how his life will go. How the public will both worship and resent him.

Worst Moment: In that same moment where we find out about his fathers’ death. Such an important part of his future life is underplayed.

Best Performer: Matt Damon

Opening: Nike are nearly closing down their basketball shoe division. It’s weird to think of Nike being shown as an underdog.

Closing: Standard “what happened next”.

Best Line: Damon’s entire speech to Jordan’s parents.

Original Review here

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania

Ups: Kang looks like a formidable villain for the next stage.

Some good visuals.

Funny

Kathryn Newton is a good addition to te MCU

Downs: M.O.D.O.K

Inconsistent CGI

The MCU REALLY needs to start moving forward.

Best Moment: How Kang gets Scott to help. Spectacularly brutal.

Worst Moment: M.O.D.O.K . Words cannot exaggerate how stupid that looked.

Best Performer: Kathryn Newton

Opening: Opens with Janet meeting Kang. Nice way to get people excited for what’s next.

Closing: Everything is fine, but it might not be. There’s an ominous feeling that Scott can’t shake off.

Best Line: “Oh, you’re an Avenger. Have I killed you before? They all blend together after a while.” Really sells Kang as a threat.

Original Review here

Champions

Ups: Funny.

Has more heart than you’d expect

Surprisingly subversive at times.

Actually cast actors with Down syndrome.

Downs: Doesn’t have that little extra something to make it stand out

Too predictable at times.

May come across as patronising to some.

Best Moment: When we find out why Darius won’t play for Marcus. Some great character stuff.

Worst Moment: The NBA coaching sub-plot

Best Performer: Madison Tevlin

Opening: Marcus gets fired from his job after shoving his boss. Good way of showcasing both his talent and his anger issues.

Closing: A chumbawamba sing-along. Fun.

Best Line: Your heart’s a long way from your knee. Suck it up!

Original Review here

Elemental

Ups: Very sweet.

Good pacing

Downs: I get what they’re going for, but if you’re pushing a story about tolerance, maybe don’t have one of the people involved be a constant threat to the other one. “People who are different from you can kill you” may give out the wrong intention.

The music is a little weak.

Very predictable story.

Best Moment: When Ember is taken to see a flower, incredibly sweet and gorgeous to look at.

Worst Moment: The whole leak sub-plot feels first draft.

Best Performer: Mamoudou Athie

Opening: Bernie and Cinder move to Element City. Very cute, but nowhere near as good as similar scenes you’ve seen before.

Closing: Wade and Ember move to a different city. Again, very predictable, but sweet.

Best Line: The shop was never the dream. You were the dream. You were always the dream

Original Review here

How To Blow Up A Pipeline

Ups: Incredibly important.

Well-written characters

Best website.

Downs: Needs to be shorter.

Weak music

Doesn’t focus on the wider implications as much as it should.

Best Moment: The conversation about what they’re about to do. Feels genuine, and says a lot about how society treats revolutionaries.

Worst Moment: The explosion itself. Its not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t feel like something that everything has been building towards.

Best Performer: Ariela Barer

Opening: A woman is nervously walking down a street, making sure nobody notices when she lets the air out of a tyre. She then places a leaflet on the vehicle explaining why. I checked, and the leaflet is fully typed out. I appreciate that. We then see a small group of other people preparing in different ways; some clone their security cameras, some throw their phones away etc. Very “heist”.

Closing: The pipeline is blown up; a few members of the group take the fall. A very dark ending considering what we know is going to happen to some of them soon.

Best Line: “But by the time the market solution does shit, billions will be dead……we need to start attacking the things that are killing us”.

Original Review here

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

Ups: Some of the best sound design you’ll see (hear?)

The best Shrek film since the first

Provides a good sense of existential dread for a kids’ film.

Downs: The suitcase of villainy is a bit overpacked.

Two of the voices seem a bit too similar.

The physics doesn’t work sometimes.

Best Moment: The death montage

Worst Moment: The sequel hook.

Best Performer: Harvey Guillen

Opening: Standard fairy-tale opening about wishes. Doesn’t inspire hope.

Closing: A sequel hook. Eugh.

Best Line: “You’re not gonna shoot a puppy, are you?”

“yeah, right in the face. Why?”

Original Review here

Renfield

Ups: Fun

Bloody

Clearly made by people who have researched the mythos

Dracula looms over the film even when he’s not physically in it

Downs: Could go further

Predictable at times.

Needs stronger supporting villains

Best Moment: Renfield disposing of gang members in a restaurant

Worst Moment: The ending.

Best Performer: Awkwafina

Opening: A retelling of the Dracula myth.

Closing: A group of dead people have been brought back to life. Because who wants consequences in their movie?

Best Line: You know when something crazy happens and someone’s like, “It’s okay. I’ve seen way worse?” Everything I saw you do today is gonna be my “way worse.”

Original Review here

Return To Seoul

Ups: Very sweet.

Park is incredible.

Truly emotional.

Cool music, reminds me of 27

Downs: The sound is a bit off at times. Particularly in the restaurant scene. Feels like they forgot to put in background noise for a lot of it.

Given a UK release in the same year as Past Lives

Best Moment: An employee has found her mother. Top work from everybody involved performance-wise. She is never more vulnerable than at that moment.

Worst Moment: When she’s dancing on her own in a bar, it’s written and performed brilliantly. But it’s shot via a lot of close-ups so you don’t really get her sense of social isolation. Not the “worst” moment per se, but the gap between what it could have been and what it is is quite huge.

Best Performer: Ji-Min Park

Opening: K-Pop on headphones being listened to by a hotel worker who is then interrupted by a customer who wants to check into the hotel, rude I know. A quite cute moment between two people ended with “But you’re French!”. Good way of showing her cultural identity and confusion. And it’s a very cute moment between the two characters.

Closing: She sends an e-mail to her mother, getting a “This e-mail address is no longer valid” response.

Best Line: “You’re A Very Sad Person”

Original Review here

Saw X

Ups: Bloody.

Has one of the most despicable characters in the history of the franchise.

More mature than it needs to be.

Rewards patience.

Downs: It’s a prequel, so all sense of tension is gone from certain scenes.

Not as cathartic as other entries

Pointless.

Best Moment: The bone marrow trap is deliciously disgusting.

Worst Moment: The conclusions to most of the traps. They feel too timed-based. So many of them nearly make it and if they were given 5 seconds more would have completed it. This goes against Jigsaws’ modus operandi of testing people; technically they did pass the test and proved how much they were willing to sacrifice, but because they were slightly slower than Jigsaw thought they should be, they die.

Best Performer: Tobin Bell

Opening: Kramer is at a cancer support group. An incredibly mature and bloodless way to start, almost like a proper movie.

Closing: The main villain is left trapped in a room, presumably to die. Shame, she’s truly detestable and it would have been good to actually see her comeuppance rather than just know.

Best Line: This is not retribution. It’s a reawakening.

Original Review here

Scream 6

Ups: It doesn’t miss Sidney as much as you think it would.

New York changes it, turns it into a completely different type of slasher.

Disgustingly brutal kills,

Downs: The online conspiracy that Sam really killed everyone doesn’t ring true.

So Gale can do research on finance records of dead people but isn’t a good enough journalist to realise family connections? BS

Worst reveal in a Scream movie so far.

Gale’s character seems to have relapsed into her Scream 1 version

Best Moment: The subway scene. A perfect use of location.

Worst Moment: The reveal. Have you seen a movie before? Then you’ll be able to guess at least 2 out of the 3 killers. It’s far too obvious.

Best Performer: Melissa Barrera

Opening: A professor is killed by Ghostface, who then immediately unmasks. Genuinely shocked me.

Closing: Somehow everyone survives. That’s a big issue with this film is how unscathed the main characters remain throughout.

Best Line: “Not every movie needs a post-credits scene.” as a post-credits scene

Original Review here

The Creator (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

As a war between humanity and AI rages on; grieving widow Joshua (John David Washington) has been tasked with retrieving a weapon which could turn the tide of the war in favour of AI; a weapon which turns out to be a small child.

I’m gonna say this now; The Creator is probably the best movie I’ve seen all year. It’s not my favourite (at the moment Missing still occupies that spot). I really can’t see it being beaten, I haven’t seen a film this good since EEAAO back in May 2022. It’s difficult to explain just how incredible this is. Like all great films, it leaves you asking questions. Questions about the future of humanity, questions about yourself, questions about your country. There’s also another question it forces you to ask:

How the hell is this possible?

Take a quick look at the trailer (hurry back though). That was done on a $80million budget. For reference; that’s the same as the budget for the Michael Jordan Shoe-opic Air. I don’t know how Gareth Edwards managed it but I can only assume witchcraft. It looks incredible, absolutely astounding. There are zero moments where it doesn’t look real (although there is one moment where the geography of the scene could be improved to help clarify things). Considering the amount of effects etc. that must be needed for this to work; that truly is a testament to the talent of Edwards and his team.

Edwards has done a great job in giving The Creator its style. It’s like a Vietnam War movie mixed with Blade Runner and made by Steven Spielberg. Even that description is underselling it. There is nothing else like this out there at the moment, and that’s both a shame and a good thing. I would like to see more films made like this, but I can’t see how anybody can do this better. The performances are perfect throughout; I still think the general public is sleeping on John David Washington; which is a weird thing to say about someone who was the lead in a Nolan movie. But it doesn’t feel like his name gets brought up when people discuss great actors, and it really should. When people bring up who’s going to be the lead in a new franchise, John David Washington should be among the first names on many lists. The supporting cast do their job too; Allison Janey manages a character which shows a bit more depth than she’s usually allowed, Gemma Chan maximises her screen-time perfectly, Ken Watanabe does what he usually does and is great at it, and Ralph Ineson more than holds his own amongst them. Madeleine Yuna Voyles is tremendous given her young age, especially considering how much of the humour and emotion is based on her performance.

The music is comprised of some odd choices, and it is missing that ONE song that you will associate with it. The soundtrack is really standing on the shoulders of the giants of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, so a lot of the choices feel like tributes to other films rather than truly unique choices. The Hans Zimmer score is pretty damn good, but won’t be something that will stick in your head like the visuals will.

The script itself is probably the weakest part. I mean, it’s still VERY good but there are a few really important plot points that are glossed over quite quickly, one in particular should be a complete game changer for motivations but is not really mentioned or referenced again.

Overall, I was impressed with this. I realised very early on that I was going to rate this highly; the opening scene is one of the best scenes in terms of establishing the film universe that I’ve seen in a long time. It g goes from what I assume is real news footage to film-produced news seamlessly and quickly establishes everything you need to know. I watched this two days ago as a secret preview screening at the cinema, and I’m already tempted to go watch it again. If there’s any justice; this will be one of the biggest films of the year, it deserves nothing less.

Air (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: It’s the 80s (in the film, not now, obviously) and Nike’s basketball shoe division is flailing, when one guy makes a decision: throw everything they can on signing the rights to create shoes for a young Michael Jordan.

I’ll get the big thing out of the way first: Michael Jordan isn’t in this. Well, he technically is, but mainly out of focus or shot from behind, I’m not even aware of the character having any lines. It kind of works though, he’s supposed to be “above” everybody, so having him as this unseen presence makes him feel bigger and more important. If you actually saw the character and he was underwhelming, it would underwhelm the whole premise. It is a decision that does risk annoying some people, and hasn’t gone down well with some reviewers, but like I said, for me, it works. You don’t really miss him as a character, and there are only a few scenes where it’s obvious that they’re deliberately not showing him.

With no Jordan, it’s left to others to pick up the mantle: the employees of the Nike basketball division, Michael Jordan’s family, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (middle eastern geography joke!). The ensemble cast is like a dream team of “I like them, but to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned out to be a massive dick” (with the exception of Viola Davis who is genuinely one of the best performers in the world at the moment). Nobody is really testing their acting abilities here, everybody is playing a character similar to what they would play in almost anything else. Ben Affleck plays a Shouty Man who remembers where he came from, Matt Damon plays his friend who is idealistic, and Jason Bateman plays someone who is sarcastic. I mean, they do their jobs well, so it’s hard to find fault with that, but you don’t come out of this particularly impressed with any of them? The characters? Yes, very well written, which is a good thing as the film would fall apart without that. Let’s face it, it’s not as though Air can depend on the plot to carry it. I’m not saying the plot is bad, but it’s a foregone conclusion so it does lack the suspense that audiences may want. Face facts, nobody is watching this film thinking “Oh no, I wonder whether these *checks notes* Air Jordan shoes will ever get made? I just don’t know. Also, why am I carrying notes in a movie theatre? And how am I able to read them so clearly in a dark room?”. In a lesser film that lack of suspense would harm it, but in this it’s oddly not an issue. That’s probably because of how good the writing is, it’s fascinating to watch everything play out.

Despite the fact it is a Ben Affleck movie, it doesn’t really feel like his previous work, for one thing, there’s no crime. Still a lot of swearing though, a distracting amount at times. Mostly it’s okay and makes sense in the scene and for the characters, but there are a few times where it feels a bit gratuitous, which is a shame as mostly the dialogue is incredible. The dialogue is so good that it feels like it hasn’t been written. All of it is so natural and effortless that if someone told me it was ad-libbed I’d believe them.

The other thing to appreciate is the pacing. It’s almost 2 hours long, but you’d never guess. There are no moments where you sit there looking at your watch wondering when it’s going to be over. The whole thing is so quick that it feels over quicker than my interest in watching an actual game of basketball. It is weird to watch a film where Nike is pitched as a plucky underdog though.

I’m going to end this with a positive. There’s a scene in this where Damon’s character is telling Jordan’s parents about how the career of Jordan will go. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of writing talking about how the public reacts to fame; how they build people up into an impossible ideal and then criticise them for not being able to live up to it. It’s intercut with high (and low)lights from his life; his career, his playing basketball, and his father’s death (although it is weird that this is the only reference the film makes to that, with it being curiously missing from the “what happened next” montage at the end). It is one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen, but it does make the rest of the film seem worse by comparison, which is a shame.

So in summary, go see this. It’s not likely to end up on any “best of” lists at the end of the year, but it will be one you’ll think warm thoughts of if you see it mentioned. It’s one you’ll definitely think of buying if you see it cheap enough, and if it’s on netflix, it’s getting watched.