Self Reliance (2024)

Written, directed by, and starring Jake Johnson, Self Reliance is a little bit of a mind trip. I went into this movie hoping it wouldn’t be awful. I’m still not sure what to think of it.

Tommy (Johnson) is a man who is stuck in life. When he gets an invitation to participate in a game where he has to avoid being murdered for 30 days, he agrees to play. However, there is a big loophole. The hunters can only attempt to kill him when he is alone.

This is another movie where I kept expecting some sort of twist ending. There are suggestions that maybe Tommy is making this whole thing up for attention or maybe he’s having a mental breakdown. Even at the end, we can’t really be sure that we aren’t inside Tommy’s mind. Does this make it a good movie? Well, yes and no. Yes in that it does keep you watching the movie to see where it’s going to go. But also no because the movie is listed as a Comedy Thriller and it doesn’t really contain either. I literally said “Huh” out loud as the credits rolled. I was hoping that maybe there was a mid-credit or end-credit scene that would help explain what just happened. There isn’t. I honestly don’t know if I can recommend Self Reliance. It’s weird in a way that you kinda have to experience it and hope you haven’t wasted your time.

Rating: C

Asteroid City (2023)

The next movie that I wanted to see last year but missed out on due to a bunk eye is Asteroid City. I generally enjoy Wes Anderson films and, with this cast list, it couldn’t miss. But this may be a difficult synopsis to write.

Asteroid City is set as a televised documentary about a stage play, which we see acted out on screen. Conrad Earp (Edward Norton) writes a play about an unusual group of people brought together to Asteroid City for a Junior Stargazer convention. Brilliant teenagers have been invited to accept awards for their various inventions. However, when an alien lands a UFO in the middle of their ceremony, Asteroid City is locked down and no one is allowed to leave.

I think this is one of those polarizing types of movies. I remember hearing a lot of bad things about it. However, I actually enjoyed the movie. The transitions between the documentary and the actual play kept me interested where I probably would have grown bored if it was just the Asteroid City parts. I also found myself smiling at all of the various cameos. While I don’t think this will be one of Anderson’s most beloved movies, I do think that it deserves to be watched at least once. You should probably watch it twice, though, just in case you missed something.

Rating: B+

Lift (2024)

On January 12, Netflix released a new movie starring Kevin Hart titled Lift. Let’s see if this heist movie holds up against the others in the genre.

Cyrus (Hart) leads an international group of thieves. There’s master-of-disguise Denton (Vincent D’Onofrio), pilot Camila (Úrsula Corberó), hacker Mi-Sun (Yunjee Kim), engineer Luke (Viveik Kalra), and crazy safecracker Magnus (Billy Magnussen). After successfully stealing a Vincent Van Gogh painting in London while kidnapping a mysterious artist named N8, the group gets tasked by Interpol to help capture a terrorist named Lars Jorgensen (Jean Reno). In exchange for their freedom, the group agrees to the deal.

I don’t think I have ever seen a more boring heist film. For most of the movie, I was wondering when the action was going to start. Even though the movie begins with a massive art heist, we don’t see anything interesting until around an hour and fifteen minutes into the 90 minute runtime. I wanted to like this movie so much but is was so utterly bland. How can they take someone like Kevin Hart and make him dull?? Who was OK with this?

Rating: D

Beau Is Afraid (2023)

Beau Is Afraid is a three-hour monster of a movie. I wanted to see it when it came out in April 2023 but I was still having eye issues and there was no way I was going to make it through a three hour movie. Well, now that my eye is doing better, let’s see if this is worth it.

Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is an anxiety-riddled man who lives in a rather dangerous part of town. As he gets ready to take a trip to visit his mother, Mona (Patti LuPone), both his suitcase and the keys to his apartment are stolen. He calls his mother to both cancel his trip and figure out what steps he should take. Mona resigns to the fact that he is not coming to visit and hangs up on him. Beau calls back, only to have a random UPS guy pick up the phone. The UPS man tells Beau that his mother is dead. Now Beau has to figure out how to get to his mother’s house for the funeral.

This description barely scratches the surface of what happens in Beau Is Afraid. So much weird stuff happens that I kept waiting for the big twist that explains everything. But that twist never comes. I still don’t know how to interpret this movie. It feels like they were trying to make a movie like Big Fish, where we are supposed to assume the main character’s tales are unreliable only to find out they aren’t. However, we don’t get that sort of sense here. Fantastical stories are told that we are supposed to believe are true. But, seriously, there is a giant penis-monster locked in an attic. Am I supposed to believe that the monster is real or that it’s a allegory for an actual person? There isn’t anything that happened previously in the movie to tell me which way to go.

So, I don’t know. I didn’t hate it but it is way, way, way too long and parts of it were way too boring. I do know that I can’t recommend this movie to anyone. That feels like torture.

Rating: D+

Mean Girls (2024)

Mean Girls started off as a movie in 2004 with Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. In 2018, Mean Girls hit Broadway as a musical with Erika Henningsen and Taylor Louderman. On January 12, 2024, the musical version was released as a movie with Angourie Rice and Reneé Rapp. I have seen all three versions so let’s talk about the newest one.

Homeschooled Cady Heron (Rice) and her mother (Jenna Fischer) have moved from Kenya to Illinois so Cady can attend high school. At North Shore High school, Cady realizes that she does not have the necessary social skills to survive. She meets Janis (Auliʻi Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey) who introduce her to the various cliques, including The Plastics: Karen (Avantika), Gretchen (Bebe Wood), and Regina (Rapp). Regina decides to take the new girl under her wing, making Cady understand just how mean girls can be to each other. Janis convinces Cady to get revenge on Regina, which causes all sorts of chaos in the halls of the school.

I was already in my late 20s with a 2-year old daughter when the original Mean Girls movie came out. So while I was never the intended audience for the movie, I did enjoy it. Then in 2019, we saw the Broadway musical with most of the original cast. Let’s just say I’m very familiar with all of the various versions of the story. The 2024 movie made a lot of changes to the musical. Unfortunately, not all of the changes were very good.

First, they cut a LOT of songs. Including reprises, fourteen songs were cut for the movie. I would say fifteen were cut since “Meet The Plastics” only includes Regina’s part of the song and cuts both Karen and Gretchen’s parts. They also added a new song for Cady “What Ifs.” This completely replaces “It Roars,” which I think is the better song. (The second new song, “Not My Fault” by Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion, is only used during the credits so I’m not counting it.) I get that these songs were cut for time (the musical is 2 1/2 hours long, the movie version is just under 2 hours) but some of these songs would have made the movie so much better.

Second, a lot of the songs that they had were very flat. The movie felt like it was entirely focused on Rapp’s singing until about halfway through when they realized that Cravalho is also a powerful singer. All of Rice’s songs had zero emotion or personality. Songs that should have been filled with emotion were just flat.

Finally…I’m not sure how to explain this. The movie just felt off. Some of the costuming was weird, the usage of real life influencers in the social media montages took me out of the movie, and of all of the possible makeup/beauty brands they could have partnered with, they chose e.l.f. cosmetics? Regina literally references Louboutin shoes but she uses makeup you can buy at Target? I don’t buy it.

There were good things about the movie - even three years later, Rapp is still amazing as Regina; Spivey’s Damian made me laugh out loud; Cravalho’s version of “I’d Rather Be Me” put the biggest smile on my face; and all of the dancers absolutely ate every scene they were in. (Shout out to Kyle Hanagami’s choreography!) I just wish that they didn’t scrimp on the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, this was the first feature length movie for the directors, Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., and it shows. I would love to say that this is a good replacement for the Broadway musical but it’s not. If you get a chance to see a live performance of the musical, please go see it. It deserved so much better than this.

Rating: C

Crush | Movie Review

Hulu released a teen romcom last year called Crush. To me, that title sounds more like a horror movie than a romcom. Well, let’s see how horrific it is.

Paige (Rowan Blanchard) is a high school student dreaming of attending an elite art school. She needs to submit a piece of art based on the prompt “your happiest moment.” All of the moments she can think of revolve around her crush, Gabby Campos (Isabella Ferreira). When the school principal accuses Paige of being KingPun, a local artist leaving pun-themed graffiti on the walls, she agrees to join the track team as an extracurricular and find out the true identity of KingPun. Gabby’s sister, AJ (Auli’i Cravalho), is assigned to train Paige, who is painfully unathletic. As she spends more time with AJ, Paige finds that she no longer likes Gabby. She now has a crush on AJ. But this only complicates things. Oh, and she still has to figure out who is behind KingPun!

Crush was a pretty cute movie. It seemed a little weird that a majority of the characters were gay but maybe that is just the group of kids Paige hangs around. Or maybe it’s because the whole movie revolves around Paige’s emotions. The writers didn’t want her crushing on a straight girl because there would be no resolution there so they had to put almost everyone on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

I think my biggest issue with Crush is that there isn’t a lot of substance in the plot. Paige didn’t dig too deeply to try to figure out the identity of KingPun. Either we should have seen Paige trying harder to figure out her submission artwork or they should have spent more time trying to figure out KingPun. As it is, we’re mostly treated to track team antics. Which, by the way, everyone seems to be on the track team too. This is a very small world she lives in.

Since there were a few cute moments in the movie, I’m rating it a 3 out of 5. It could have been a lot worse but it could have been a whole lot better.

Wedding Season | Movie Review

The funniest part about not knowing a lot about romantic comedies is that I don’t really know what to look for when I’m searching for a movie. I just pop into the “romance” category and cross my fingers. Is there some sort of romcom database somewhere? It would be helpful.

Asha (Pallavi Sharda) is a successful economist works in microfinance to get loans for women in impoverished countries to start their own businesses. Her mother, Suneeta (Veena Sood), is desperate to find the right man for her daughter so she writes an online dating profile for Asha without Asha’s knowledge. One of the men that replies is Ravi (Suraj Sharma). Well, it’s Ravi’s parents that reply, setting them up on a date. The first date goes badly but Asha and Ravi agree to fake date in order to keep unwanted attention away from themselves during wedding season, when they have 14 weddings to attend. They end up spending so much time together that the fake dating turns real.

While this was a fairly standard romcom plot with the twist of Indian culture, I found myself enjoying Wedding Season. None of the characters came off as annoying or outrageous. Even all of the parents and aunties in the movie came off as lovingly overbearing. There is one part where Ravi’s parents are a little too much and my heart broke knowing what he had to go through growing up. But even they come around at the end to apologize for their misdeeds.

Yes, Wedding Season is full of tropes. But it was enjoyable and easy to watch. I’m giving it a 4 out of 5 with the hopes that DJ Spellbound can perform at one of my parties.

The People We Hate At The Wedding | Movie Review

You know, I’m not completely sure The People We Hate At The Wedding fits the romcom category. But Amazon listed it as both a comedy and a romance movie so I watched it. Now that I did…I’m not completely sure it’s a comedy either.

Eloise (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is the first child of Donna (Allison Janney), from her first marriage to Henrique (Isaach De Bankolé) when she lived in England. After they broke up, Donna moved to the United States, married her second husband Bill (Andy Daly), and had two more children: Paul (Ben Platt) and Alice (Kristen Bell). As the children grew up, they grew distant. Now Eloise is about to get married and she has invited her American family to join her, much to their dismay.

This is another movie where almost all of the characters are terrible people. Alice is sleeping with her married boss, Paul is a therapist at a terrible clinic attempting to treat OCD through exposure therapy, Paul’s boyfriend Dominic (Karan Soni) bullies Paul into doing whatever he wants to do, Donna may have abandoned Eloise as a teenager…it’s kinda hinted at but not actually stated, Henrique sleeps around with much younger women. Eloise is the best of the characters and the one we’re supposed to sympathize with. However, she has done her fair share of terrible things as well. While it can be fun watching a dumpster fire, it would have been great if the fire was put out a little sooner.

I suppose, in the end, I would give The People We Hate a 3 out of 5. It definitely would have ranked higher if EVERYONE wasn’t so terrible. I guess Dennis (Dustin Milligan) is a good guy but he’s only in like 4 scenes. He barely counts as a character. I need someone actually in the movie to cheer for!

You People | Movie Review

I had heard that You People was a terrible movie. Of course that means I had to watch it. I’m not sure that it’s terrible but I’m not sure that it’s good either.

Ezra (Jonah Hill) is a Jewish man who falls in love with Amira (Lauren London), a black woman. When the two get engaged, they have to figure out how to blend both their families and their cultures without anyone getting hurt or offended. It is much more difficult than either imagined.

Hm. Let me start off by saying that I didn’t hate You People. It has an extremely strong cast - Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nia Long, David Duchovny, and so many cameos that I couldn’t possibly name everyone. They were wonderful. My problem is the script.

I’m not really sure what the point of the movie was. Sure, it was about how cultures are different but, at the same time, it didn’t do anything to resolve the culture issue. Instead, they made Amira’s dad, Akbar (Murphy), a straight up asshole to Ezra. It wasn’t about culture. It wasn’t about Ezra not understanding black problems in the world. It was about Akbar not wanting his daughter to date a white man but he didn’t want to admit it. On the other side, Ezra’s mother, Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus), tries to center everything around herself. When Amira first meets the family and tells them what she does for a living, Shelley literally makes it about herself. At no point does she ever try to understand Shelley or learn more about her as a person. She just wants to be seen as “not racist” so instead she’s a jerk.

If all of the family members had come together with the intention of actually meeting each other and learning more about who they are, this might have been an amazing movie. But no. It’s about Who Has It Worse - Black People or Jewish People. And I wish I could say that it was only the parents who had this mindset. But we don’t even see Ezra and Amira talking to each other about their cultures and their differences. We only see Ezra learning about the black experience through his podcast co-host, Mo (Sam Jay). And even that barely scrapes the surface.

I would love to tell everyone to go watch this movie. That they will learn so much about people who live different lives. But no. All you will learn is that Jonah Hill is sarcastic and Lauren London is gorgeous. And, really, you should have known that before the movie even started. I give it a 2.5 out of 5.

About Fate | Movie Review

After I watched Shotgun Wedding, Amazon Prime recommended About Fate. It seemed like an easy enough watch so why not?

Griffin (Thomas Mann) wants to propose to his girlfriend, Clementine (Madelaine Petsch). Margot (Emma Roberts) wants her boyfriend, Kip (Lewis Tan), to propose to her. When both dates go wrong, Griffin and Margot find themselves thrown together by fate. Maybe they will find the love they are looking for with each other.

About Fate was fun but not the same kind of fun as Shotgun Wedding. Poor Margot kept getting lambasted by her sister, Carrie (Britt Robertson). No matter what Margot did, Carrie assumed that she would mess it up. While pressure like that would almost always result in failure, Margot always came through for her sister. Sure, it wasn’t “perfect” but, news flash, nothing is perfect.

Thankfully, the relationship between Griffin and Margot kept the movie entertaining. This is one of the few movies where I kinda wished the rest of the characters would just go away so Griffin and Margot could have fun in their own little world. Everyone else sucked.

So where would I stick About Fate? Probably at a 3 out of 5. This isn’t necessarily a movie I would watch again but I might be interested in a movie about Griffin and Margot’s life after they get married. Just not their actual wedding. I don’t want to see either of their families any more.