Good Grief ( 2024)

So I decided to do a February romcom/romance movie thing. I turned on Netflix and went to their romance movies and found Daniel Levy’s new movie, Good Grief. Since I generally enjoy his work, I popped it on. I don’t think this is how I wanted to start the month of romance.

Marc (Daniel Levy) is living the good life with his husband, Oliver (Luke Evans). A year after Oliver died in a car accident, Marc opens a card from him confessing that he found someone else in Paris, where Marc discovered that Oliver had secretly been renting an apartment. Determined to find out more, Marc travels to Paris with his best friends, Thomas (Himesh Patel) and Sophie (Ruth Negga). The three of them come to terms with the difficulties each of them have faced in their personal lives.

This was a really sad movie. I mean, I should have known it from the title but I didn’t expect it to be this sad. It is entirely about Marc’s transition through the stages of grief and accepting that, while he loved Oliver and Oliver loved him, his husband was not the person Marc thought he was. At the same time, we have secondary plots with Sophie having commitment (and maybe alcoholism) issues and Thomas being afraid of not being enough for his boyfriends (and maybe still being in love with Marc since they previously dated).

Don’t get me wrong. Good Grief isn’t a bad movie. It is very well done. But if you aren’t in the right mindset to watch three very broken people learn how to better themselves, it might not be for you. I’m glad I watched it, I’m just not sure it should have been the first movie of February.

Rating: B

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol | 2022 Christmas Movies

In order to cleanse my palate, I flipped over to Netflix to see if Scrooge: A Christmas Carol was worth watching. I did not know it was a musical. That is two musicals based on A Christmas Carol this year. Interesting.

Ebenezer Scrooge (Luke Evans) is a miserable old man who will gladly step on poor people if it would be beneficial to himself. On Christmas Eve, his old business partner Jacob Marley (Jonathan Pryce) tells him that he will be visited by three spirits. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Olivia Colman), The Ghost of Christmas Present (Trevor Dion Nicholas), and The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Will the spirits be able to convince Scrooge to change his miserly ways?

While I love a good musical, I will admit that I didn’t like this at first. The animation is beautiful but the songs didn’t seem to fit. It wasn’t until The Ghost of Christmas Present appeared that I started to enjoy the songs. Thinking back, it’s possible that I was so caught off guard by the fact that this was a musical that I didn’t give myself a chance to actually enjoy the beginning parts. I will definitely go back and watch it again to see if that is the case.

Taking the songs out of it for a moment, I did love the way this version told the story. We are all very familiar with the story of Scrooge so it can be difficult to tell it in a new way that will keep people’s attention. I think that the Christmas Past portion was done very well and I loved the joy that Christmas Present had with being on Earth at Christmastime. All of this made a classic story interesting.

I think that fans of A Christmas Carol or animation in general would like this version of the story. But if you aren’t a fan of musicals….sorry, this one isn’t for you. As I said, I’m going to watch it again to see if I like it better now that I know it’s a musical. Sometimes even I get thrown off by a random song out of nowhere.

Pinocchio | Movie Review

Disney is really into their live action remakes nowadays. The latest one, Pinocchio, was released on Disney+ on September 8. After watching it, I understand why they chose not to release it in theaters.

Geppetto (Tom Hanks) is an old woodcarver in a small Italian village. One night, a cricket named Jiminy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wanders into Geppetto’s house. The insect finds the old man putting the finishing touches on a wooden marionette named Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Before going to sleep that night, Geppetto makes a wish on the evening star. As he slumbers, the Blue Fairy (Cynthia Erivo) visits to bring Pinocchio to life. She assigns Jiminy as Pinocchio’s conscience as she leaves. Pinocchio, wanting to be a real boy, tries his best to learn the right way to live his life.

There are a lot of people that didn’t like this movie. This is, after all, almost a beat by beat remake of the 1940 animated version. There are a few new characters. Most notably, Fabiana (Kyanne Lamaya) and her puppet Sabina (Jaquita Ta’le), who work at Stromboli’s (Giuseppe Battiston) puppet show, and Sofia (Lorraine Bracco), a seagull who befriends Geppetto. But I’m not sure they were enough to really differentiate the live action from the original.

Personally, I didn’t hate the movie. But I didn’t love it either. There were a lot of scenes where I had trouble hearing what Geppetto was saying because Hanks kept mumbling all of the lines. It was the main reason I ended up watching the movie with subtitles on. In addition, the big scene where the kids are getting scooped up to go to Pleasure Island is so dark that I couldn’t tell who was who. It made it a little difficult to tell the kids apart from each other, except for Lampwick (Lewin Lloyd) because Pinocchio says his name every five seconds.

With that said, there were some very good parts. Fabiana and Sabina were perfect. I loved them so much. Casting Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John was brilliant. He is so good in evil roles. Finally, while I was originally confused about Monstro (thanks original Pinocchio), I loved his design. Instead of just being a giant whale, they actually made him a giant sea monster with tentacles and rows of sharp teeth. It definitely made him a bit more fearsome than the original designs.

Would I recommend watching the live action version over the animated version? Probably not. However, you aren’t going to hate yourself if you decide to watch this one instead. I don’t understand why it seems to get as much hate as it does. There are absolutely worse live action remakes out there. I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast.