2017 #OSCARS: A Review

The 2017 Oscars will go down as one of the most memorable for quite a long time. In terms of predictions, it was one of my worst showings in years. In the Top 8 categories where I usually post predictions, I only got 3 of 8 categories correct in who I thought would win: Director, Actress, and Supporting Actress. I also only got 3 of 8 correct in who I thought should win: Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and Original Screenplay. Overall, I predicted 14 of the 24 categories correctly. Below is the list of who I thought would and should win versus who will win.

Picture 

• WILL WIN: La La Land.
• SHOULD WIN: La La Land.
• DID WIN: Moonlight.

Directing

• WILL WIN: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land.”
• SHOULD WIN: Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival.”
• DID WIN: Damien Chazelle, La La Land.

Actress in a Leading Role

• WILL WIN: Emma Stone, “La La Land.”
• SHOULD WIN: Ruth Negga, “Loving.”
• DID WIN: Emma Stone, La La Land.

Actor in a Leading Role

• WILL WIN: Denzel Washington, “Fences.”
• SHOULD WIN: Ryan Gosling, “La La Land.”
• DID WIN: Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea.

Actress in a Supporting Role:

• WILL WIN: Viola Davis, “Fences.”
• SHOULD WIN: Viola Davis, “Fences.”
• DID WIN: Viola Davis, Fences.

Actor in a Supporting Role

• WILL WIN: Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals.”
• SHOULD WIN: Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight.”
• DID WIN: Mahershala Ali, Moonlight.

Adapted Screenplay

• WILL WIN: “Arrival”
• SHOULD WIN: “Hidden Figures.”
• DID WIN: Barry Jenkins and Talvin Allen McCraney, Moonlight

Original Screenplay

• WILL WIN: “La La Land.”
• SHOULD WIN: “Manchester by the Sea.”
• DID WIN: Kenneth Lonergan,  Manchester by the Sea.

In the end, La La Land ended up with 6 Oscars and Moonlight ended up with 3. The only other films to win multiple awards were Manchester by the Sea and Hacksaw Ridge which each won 2. Fences, Suicide Squad, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Arrival and Zootopia each won one. Lion and Hidden Figures were shut out. 

The three wins by Moonlight is the fewest a Best Picture winner has ended with up since 12 Years A Slave upset Gravity in 2014.  However what most people thought if was what happened over a decade ago when the execrable Crash upset Brokeback Mountain to win Best Picture in 2006.

However, Moonlight's victory should not be minimized. It is the first all-Black cast to win Best Picture. Additionally, it's central character is a Black gay man and it is unquestionably a Black LGBT film. It is simply astonishing that it won Best Picture, but as Sasha Stone at awardsdaily.com notes, a preferential ballot can lead to a film with a passionate following with limited detractors exceed a film with wide appeal that some people detest.

2017 OSCARS: The Winners

Best Picture

• Moonlight

Best Director

• Damien Chazelle, La La Land

Best Actress

• Emma Stone, La La Land

Best Actor

• Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea

Best Supporting Actress

• Viola Davis, Fences

Best Supporting Actor

• Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Moonlight

Best Original Screenplay

• Manchester by the Sea

Best Foreign Language Film

• The Salesman

Best Animated Feature

• Zootopia

Best Film Editing

• Hacksaw Ridge

Best Cinematography

• La La Land

Best Original Score

• La La Land

Best Original Song

• “City of Stars,” La La Land

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Suicide Squad

Best Costume Design

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Best Documentary Feature

• O.J.: Made in America

Best Production Design

• La La Land

Best Visual Effects

• The Jungle Book

Best Sound Editing

• Arrival

Best Sound Mixing

• Hacksaw Ridge

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Suicide Squad

Best Short Film, Animated

• Piper

Best Documentary, Short Subject

• The White Helmets

Best Short Film, Live Action

• Sing

La La Land ended up with 6 Oscars (out of 14 nominations, losing 8) while Moonlight won just 3 awards (Picture, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay) out of 8 nominations. Both movies made history as Moonlight became the first movie with  an all-Black cast to win Best Picture and the first LGBT-themed movie to win Best Picture. Sadly, Hidden Figures and Lion were shut out of the Oscars, but my favorite Arrival won one technical award (Sound Editing).

2017 #OSCARS: My Prediction in the Top 8 Categories

Below are my predictions for the Top 8 categories for the 89th annual Academy Awards. Last year I correctly predicted 6 of the Top 8 categories. Below I put in red the movie or person I want to win, and in blue the person I think actually will win.

Picture 

• “Arrival” 
• “Fences” 
• “Hacksaw Ridge”
• “Hell or High Water”
• “Hidden Figures”
• “La La Land”
• “Lion”
• “Manchester by the Sea”
• “Moonlight”

WILL WIN: La La Land.

SHOULD WIN: La La Land.

Directing

• Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
• Mel Gibson, "Hacksaw Ridge"
• Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
• Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
• Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”

WILL WIN: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land.”

SHOULD WIN: Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival.”

Actress in a Leading Role:

• Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”
• Ruth Negga, “Loving”
• Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
• Emma Stone, “La La Land”
• Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

WILL WIN: Emma Stone, “La La Land.”

SHOULD WIN: Ruth Negga, “Loving.”

Actor in a Leading Role

• Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
• Andrew Garfield, “Hackshaw Ridge”
• Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
• Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
• Denzel Washington, “Fences”

WILL WIN: Denzel Washington, “Fences.”

SHOULD WIN: Ryan Gosling, “La La Land.”

Actress in a Supporting Role:

• Viola Davis, “Fences”
• Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
• Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
• Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”
• Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

WILL WIN: Viola Davis, “Fences.”

SHOULD WIN: Viola Davis, “Fences.”

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
• Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
• Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
• Dev Patel, “Lion”
• Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”

WILL WIN: Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals.”

SHOULD WIN: Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight.”

Adapted Screenplay

•  “Lion,” by Luke Davis
•  “Arrival,” by Eric Heisserer
•  “Moonlight,” by Barry Jenkins
•  “Hidden Figures,” by Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder
•  “Fences,” by August Wilson

WILL WIN: “Arrival”

SHOULD WIN: “Hidden Figures.”

Original Screenplay

•  “Manchester by the Sea,” by Kenneth Lonergan,
•  “Hell or High Water,” by Taylor Sheridan
•  “La La Land,” by Damien Chazelle
•  "20th Century Women," Mike Mills
•  “The Lobster,” by Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos

WILL WIN: “La La Land.”

SHOULD WIN: “Manchester by the Sea.”

Total Nominations

• La La Land - 14(!)
• Moonlight and Arrival (8)
• Hacksaw Ridge, Lion and Manchester by the Sea (6)

Total Wins

• La La Land - (9)
• Arrival (3)
• Moonlight, Fences (2)
• Star Wars: Rogue One, , Hacksaw Ridge, Lion and Manchester by the Sea, Hidden Figures (1)

FILM REVIEW: La La Land

La La Land is the latest picture directed by Damien Chazelle, the 32-year-old wunderkind whose debut film Whiplash was nominated for Best Picture, won 3 Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for J.K. Simmons (Oz). La La Land stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as two star-crossed lovers who are trying to further their artistic pursuits (his as a jazz pianist, her as an actress) in primary-colored, sun-dappled Los Angeles. This year La La Land received an astonishing 14 Oscar nominations, tying the record set by All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997).  All About Eve only won 6 Oscars but Titanic basically swept the Oscars its year, winning 11. That record was tied by The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2004.

La La Land is the frontrunner to win the Best Picture Oscar this year (and perhaps win a lot of other categories as well) because of many reasons, but I would say primarily because it is about Hollywood, struggling artists and "the dream factory." The city of Los Angeles (i.e. the eponymous "La La Land") is almost another main character in the movie. The movie begins with a traffic jam (which turns into a frenetic, strangely uninteresting song-and-dance number) at one of the key freeway interchanges in the city and continues by showing iconic images of Los Angeles, from the Hollywood sign, the view from Griffith Observatory, Watts Towers, the Colorado Street Bridge (in Pasadena), the Rialto Theater (in South Pasadena) and many more. As an Angeleno (as most Oscar voters are), La La Land is a delight.

La La Land attempts to upend and subvert movie tropes while it simultaneously reinscribes them. It is a movie musical about a boy and a girl who fall in love while trying to hold on to their dreams of artistic success and fulfillment. There are numerous points in the film where characters break into song and start dancing (like we would expect them to do in a classic 1950s Hollywood musical). But there are also numerous roadblocks to success and happiness for our couple, Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling). John Legend has a teensy role as the source of evil temptation for Sebastian to sell out and make money playing back up music in a band he doesn't believe in instead of following his dream of opening up a jazz club where he can preserve the authentic traditions of the music for fellow aficionados like himself.

In the end (which is surprisingly unpredictable) La La Land is a heart-warming story with some catchy tunes that any Angeleno will be hard to resist calling the best movie of the year.

Title: La La Land.
Director: Damien Chazelle.
Running Time: 2 hours, 8 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some language.
Release Date: December 9, 2016.
Viewing Date: December 19, 2016.

Writing: B.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: A/A- (3.75/4.0).

2017 OSCARS: Nominations Announced! #OscarNotSoWhite

The 2017 Oscar nominations just came out! La La Land leads with 14 nominations (tying the record set by Titanic and All About Eve) but little movies like Hidde Figures, Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea did very well. There are NUMEROUS nominees of color this year.

NPR called it "Oscars Slightly Less White":

Call it Oscars Slightly Less White: Unlike last year, when no people of color managed to secure acting or directing nominations, the Academy nominated Denzel Washington for lead actor in Fences, Mahershala Ali and Dev Patel for supporting actor in Moonlight and Lion, respectively, Loving's Ruth Negga in the lead actress category, and Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) were nominated for best supporting actress. Moonlight's Barry Jenkins was also nominated for best director.

The big nominations are:

Picture 

• “Arrival” 
• “Fences” 
• “Hacksaw Ridge”
• “Hell or High Water”
• “Hidden Figures”
• “La La Land”
• “Lion”
• “Manchester by the Sea”
• “Moonlight”

Directing

• Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”
• Mel Gibsion, "Hacksaw Ridge"
• Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
• Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
• Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”

Adapted Screenplay

•  “Lion,” by Luke Davis
•  “Arrival,” by Eric Heisserer
•  “Moonlight,” by Barry Jenkins
•  “Hidden Figures,” by Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder
•  “Fences,” by August Wilson

Original Screenplay

•  “Manchester by the Sea,” by Kenneth Lonergan,
•  “Hell or High Water,” by Taylor Sheridan
•  “La La Land,” by Damien Chazelle
•  "20th Century Women," Mike Mills
•  “The Lobster,” by Efthymis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos

Actress in a leading role:

• Emma Stone, “La La Land”
• Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
• Amy Adams, “Arrival” Ruth Negga, “Loving”
• Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
• Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”

Actor in a Leading Role

• Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
• Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
• Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
• Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
• Denzel Washington, “Fences”

More analysis later. 

WATCH: Awesome review of TV and Movies in 2016

Hat/tip to Gizmodo

FILM REVIEW: Arrival

The movie Arrival was one of my most anticipated movies of this year, as the director Denis Villeneuve has previously helmed some of my favorite films: Incendies (2011), Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015).  I blogged about some of the trailers for the movie, which stars Forest Whitaker, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner and is based on an award-winning short story by Ted Chiang called "The Story of Your Life."

I saw it with a friend at the AMC Tysons Corner 16 in Northern Virginia opening weekend. The fact that the movie's source material is a novella is not surprising because in some sense it feels like there are a limited number of characters in the story, almost like a play. The main character is obviously Amy Adams who plays Louise Banks, a Prius-driving, professor of linguistics who it appears has recently(?) suffered the loss of a child after a long illness (these events are told in a prologue).

The movie really begins with the sudden arrival of a dozen egg-like spaceships, suspended in mid-air in various locations around the world. It turns out that the ship in North America is somewhere in Montana. Forest Whitaker's Colonel GT Weber shows up in Professor Banks' office soon afterwards and on the helicopter we meet Renner's Ian Donnelly, a theoretical physicist. Eventually, the three principals don the world's bulkiest hazmat suits to enter the alien ships and try to find out a way to communicate with our alien visitors in order to discover why the aliens have come to our planet and whether their intentions are peaceful or violent.

One of the memorable aspects of Arrival is the design of the ship and the aliens, which do not look like anything we have seen before, i.e. they really appear to be extra-terrestrial. In particular, the language and the manner in which the aliens communicate is so mind-bendingly original that it sets Arrival apart from other first-contact movies like Contact and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Some people have issues with the ending of Arrival but I thought this was the key point which elevated the film into one of the more thought-provoking cinematic experiences of the year. Some aspects of it were a surprise but there were some hints dropped at earlier points in the film which led me to make some conclusions before they were revealed in the narrative. Even though I was not surprised by the eventual twist at the end this did not diminish its emotional resonance with me.

Overall, Arrival is a brilliant, well-crafted depiction of first contact between humans and aliens which gets resolved in a way that reveals an existential question that confronts the viewer.

Title: Arrival.
Director: Denis Villeneuve.
Running Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.
Release Date: November 11, 2016.
Viewing Date: November 13, 2016.

Writing: A+.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A.

Overall Grade: A/A+ (4.16/4.0).

FILM REVIEW: Moonlight

The movie Moonlight is based on an unproduced play by Black gay wunderkind (MacArthur Award winner) Tarrell Alvin McRaney. I saw McRaney's Choir Boy in Los Angeles and enjoyed it quite a bit so I was excited when I started seeing ads for Moonlight and seeing the overwhelmingly positive reviews on NPR and elsewhere.

I saw the movie more than 6 weeks ago but first pressures around the 2016 election and then reactions to the surprising results delayed my ability to engage with writing this review. Since then, Moonlight has become highly celebrated, and now that movie award season has become, the film and one of the stars Mahershala Ali (Luke Cage, House of Cards, Alphas) is starting to get Oscar buzz.

This is somewhat surprising, because although the film is quite good, and very emotionally affecting, it is ultimately a very "small" film, I'm not disparaging it by using the adjective, it is simply factual to note that it has a relatively small cast. Also, it is primarily the story of how one black boy grows up to be a man. Obviously, the subject matter resonates with me, especially when it turns out that the black boy (who his mother calls Chiron) is different from the other little boys in one specific way: he's probably gay, and he is being raised in near-abject poverty by a drug-addicted single mother.

The main character of Moonlight is played by three different actors, as the movie follows him at three distinct stages of his life. First we see him as "Little," an almost non-verbal, small-for-his-age child who is being abused by other kids his age. Then later we see him as Chiron, a shy, gangly and (sexually) conflicted teenager who is (still) being bullied by kids his age. In the third stage we see him as "Black," an impressively muscular, imposing Black man who has the typical accoutrements of a "thug" and no one is going to be bullying.

It's the "Little" segment of the film which is primarily getting most of the attention (and that's where Ali makes most of his on-screen time, in a memorable supporting role). For my money, I think the performances by the two main female supporting actors in the film are even more affecting: Teresa (played by Janelle Monae) and Paula (played by Naomie Harris). Paula is Chiron's biological mother, but Teresa is basically a surrogate mother-figure, primarily appearing in the second segment.
The accolades the ensemble cast is receiving are richly deserved.

For me it is the final segment, featuring Trevante Rhodes (damn, who is that phyne brutha?) as the grown-up Chiron, who now goes by the name of "Black" which resonated the most with me (and the other gay men I saw it with). Ultimately, however, I was disappointed by how the central tension of the film was resolved (in my opinion it was not resolved, but adroitly side-stepped in a way that was frustrating). That's not to say that Moonlight is disappointing, I hope I am communicating that my feelings are exactly the opposite. The film's portrayal of Black boys and Black men on screen is something so rare, nuanced and lyrical that ultimately seeing Moonlight is one of the most rewarding experiences in the theater I have had for a very long time.

Title: Moonlight.
Director: Barry Jenkins.
Running Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for some sexuality, drug use, brief violence, and language throughout.
Release Date: October 21, 2016.
Viewing Date: October 30, 2016.

Writing: A-.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: A (4.0/4.0).

WATCH: Final Trailer for Arrival (In Theaters 11/11)

Next week, Friday November 11th is when Arrival finally hits movie theaters! The other half and I will be in Arlington but I definitely intend to see it on opening day. The movie is helmed by one of my favorite directors Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) and stars Oscar-nominated actors Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker. It's about the sudden arrival of aliens and the importance of communication.

WATCH: Trailer for Arrival Features Difficulty Of Intraspecies Communication

I"m very excited about the imminent arrival of Arrival, the new film by director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Prisoners, Sicario) starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker based (loosely) on an award-winning short story by Ted Chiang. Villeneuve has made some of my favorite films over the last decade (notwithstanding my constant fan-boy love for Christopher Nolan) and I'm thriller he is working in my favorite genre of science fiction for the first time.

In this "Common Ground" trailer, the difficulty of communicating with people who share common experiences but not a common language is depicted as a means of emphasizing the key point of the film which is about the arrival of aliens whom humanity needs to communicate with.

FILM REVIEW: Sully

Last weekend I was in Los Angeles and I was able to get together with a group of friends and we went and saw Sully the latest movie from Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, American Sniper) and starring 2-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks (Philadephia, Forrest Gump, Bridge of Spies). The movie is, of course, a cinematic adaptation of the incredible story of the "miracle on the Hudson" that occurred when a U.S. Airways jet with 155 people on board (passengers and crew) experienced a freak collision with a flock of birds that destroyed both engines a few minutes after takeoff from Laguardia and forced Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberg to make a controlled emergency landing on the near-freezing water of the Hudson River in January 2009.

The makers of  Sully has a difficult dramaturgical problem to address: the events of the Miracle on the Hudson are so well-known that making a movie about it means that one has to find a new source of tension separate from wondering what will happen. To their credit, they do come up with some dramatic tension that does pique one's interest in the film.

Additionally, Tom Hanks gives yet another excellent performance, and he has amazing chemistry with Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) who plays the co-pilot on the famous flight. The acting is just one highlight of this surprisingly short film. In fact, this film almost seems like a play because the story is so slight and the action is so limited. It's pretty amazing that the film was even made, but it does serve as a pretty effective vehicle for Hanks.

Overall, it's probably not necessary to rush out and watch Sully in the movie theaters. It's a good movie, but one that you can enjoy most of its virtues in the comfort of your own home, unless you are a fan who is also a Tom Hanks completist.

Title: Sully.
Director: Clint Eastwood.
Running Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some peril and brief strong language.
Release Date: September 9, 2016.
Viewing Date: September 16, 2016.

Writing: B+.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: B+ (3.3/4.0).

MOVIE REVIEW: Jason Bourne

The Bourne movies (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Legacy, Jason Bourne) are a guilty pleasure of mine. The Other Half and I went to see the latest one (which is the fifth in the franchise but only the fourth one to feature Matt Damon as the titular character). We mostly did so because The Bourne Ultimatum is really quite a good movie (Th Bourne Legacy, starring Jeremy Renner is not.) Also, director Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy) is back on board, so we said "why not?"

The cast is surprisingly good, with Oscar-winners Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black,  No Country for Old Men) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl) in addition to Vincent Cassell (Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, Black Swan), Julia Stiles (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Riz Ahmed (HBO's The Night Of).

Sadly, the movie is not as good as its cast (59%/62% on rottentomatoes). I did not even recognize Vikander was the same actress who played the android in Ex Machina! (Maybe that's why she won an Oscar this year.) She was one of the best parts of the movie, and happily she has a huge role. Jones is playing the (cartoonishly corrupt) CIA Director and we find out more and more about the back story of Damon's Jason Bourne character. These are all fun and familiar aspects of a Bourne film.

However, it really was not a particular enjoyable cinematic experience. Greengrass is a kinetic, exciting director and it was this energetic style which brought him acclaim in his helming of the earlier films in the Bourne franchise. But, here it just seems frenetic and motion sickness-inducing. One aspect of Greengrass's direction which I did appreciate was that the final cut of scenes that were depicted in the trailer (like Damon knocking down a guy with one solid punch with his left hand and the scene where the CIA realizes that Bourne is back: "My god that's Jason Bourne!") are slightly (but noticeably) different. In other words, the best parts of the film which are sometimes given away in the trailer as an inducement to get the audience to fork over their cash to see the entire film, this time were still fresh. I'm sure Greengrass made this conscious decision and I appreciated it.

That being said, despite one of the most harrowing car chases ever put on film (take THAT, The French Connection) it is doubtful that Jason Bourne will be remembered as a success despite doing (relatively) well at the box-office. I will certainly think twice about going to see the next Bourne in the theaters, but I would happily watch it on cable.

Title: Jason Bourne.
Director: Paul Greengrass.
Running Time: 123 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief strong language.
Release Date: July 29, 2016.
Viewing Date: August 7, 2016.

Writing: B+.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B-.

OVERALL GRADE: B/B+ (3.16/4.0)

MOVIE REVIEW: Finding Dory

Finding Nemo is one of my favorite Pixar films (and is also beloved by a lot of other people) so I have been psyched ever since the sequel Finding Dory was announced way back in 2013. The husband and I went with a couple of friends (all gay, average age over 50) to see the film on opening day, at the Arclight Pasadena. (I have gotten out of the habit of writing my reviews of films immediately after seeing them so that is the explanation for the delay in this post.)

Finding Dory is an excellent sequel to Finding Nemo. (Actually a fair amount of the story takes place in a timeline before the events of Nemo so in some sense it is also a prequel.) The main characters are all anthropomorphic fish: Dory (played by Ellen Degeneres), a blue tang fish who suffers from the inability to maintain memories of most events for more than a minute, the inquisitive and adventurous Nemo, and his overprotective dad Marlin (played by Albert Brooks). Nemo was about Dory helping Marlin find Nemo who went exploring and got lost. Dory is about Dory finally realizing that she has gotten lost, and is trying to get back to her parents. In the course of events, Dory gets separated from Marlin and Nemo and so they spend a good deal of the movie having harrowing adventures trying to reunite with their friend, whose well-being they are quite worried about, because of her memory deficiency.

One of the best parts of Dory is the new character of Hank (played by Modern Family's Ed O'Neill), a chameleonic octopus who tries to take advantage of Dory as his meal ticket out of a marine life facility where Dory finds herself. It's amazing to watch the contortions that the octopus (and the script!) take to get our water-logged friends across vast stretches of dry land and around corners and into locked rooms. When the octopus starts to drive a truck, you know things have gotten way out of hand! But it makes for an action-filled, PG-rated night at the movies which is a whole bunch of fun, and well worth seeing more than once.

Title: Finding Dory.
Director: Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane.
Running Time: 97 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG for mild thematic elements.
Release Date: June 17, 2016.
Viewing Date: June 17, 2016.

Writing: A.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.84/4.0)

FILM REVIEW: Star Trek Beyond

I had heard that Star Trek Beyond was not getting great reviews, but since I have been a longtime fan of the franchise (beginning with watching the original series reruns in the early 1970s as a kid and continuing with the Star Trek: The Next Generation series in college). I think I have seen every Star Trek movie there is (except perhaps one of the last movies with the ST:TNG cast). I've also seen and enjoyed) the first two Star Trek movies 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and 2009's Star Trek with the rebooted cast starring Chris Pine as  Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock and Karl Urban as Bones. Anyway, with me, it was not whether I would see this movie, but when. And after hearing that John Cho's version of George Takei's Hikaru Sulu would be depicted as openly gay (having a male partner he's raising a daughter with) I got tickets to see it opening weekend!

My worries about reviews were unfounded since Star Trek Beyond is certified fresh at Rotten Tomatoes with an 85% rating. This is (slightly) lower than the first two movies, which had 95% and 86% ratings, respectively.

One interesting difference of the latest entry into the Star Trek movie franchise is that it was co-written by Simon Pegg (who plays Scotty, primarily as the comic relief) and  JJ Abrams has relinquished the director's role to Justin Lin but still is listed as a producer.

The most compelling aspect of the film is the killer casting and the nuanced performances as updates of the original characters. The three leads are (mostly) excellent, but in the smaller roles, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Cho as Sulu and and Pegg as Scotty all standout. As with most summer blockbusters, the effectiveness of Star Trek Beyond is dependent on how good (or bad) the villain is. The villain in Star Trek Beyond is Krall, played quite well by a mostly unrecognizable Idris Elba. There's also a new female character named Jayla played by Sofia Boutella (last seen as the woman with the crazy blade legs in Kingsman: The Secret Service).

The story this time is built around central themes of loss as we see Spock learning about the death of Ambassador Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy of course) who actually represented Quinto's Spock from a different timeline that intersected in the 2009 Star Trek. We also learn that Spock is thinking of leaving Starfleet and has broken up with Uhura again because in light of the destruction of his homeplanet he is feeling compelled to try and go to New Vulcan to find a Vulcan mate and contribute to rebuilding Vulcan society and culture. Unbeknownst to Spock, Kirk is also thinking of leaving the crew of the Enterprise, and has applied to become a Vice-Admiral at a huge space station near a mysterious nebula.

Of course, the Enterprise ends up exploring the nebula where it gets attacked by a huge swarm of powerful alien spacecraft that forces the crew to abandon ship as the saucer section is forced to separate and crashes on a planet. Krall captures most of the crew (with Uhura and Sulu) but Bones and Spock, Chekhov and Kirk and Scotty land on the planet in separate groups. It was good to see that Chekhov had a larger role than in previous films due to a freak accident that killed the 27-year-old actor Anton Yelchin last month which means he will not be appearing in any more sequels.

In the end, the crew is reunited and we learn that even Starfleet officers can become corrupted and that people will come up with all sort of rationales to justify horrific actions. The visuals are exciting and the action is frenetic but overall this was a better than average entry into the Star Trek movie franchise.

Title: Star Trek Beyond.
Director: Justin Lin.
Running Time: 120 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence.
Release Date: July 22, 2016.
Viewing Date: July 23, 2016.

Writing: A-.
Acting: B+.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B-.

Overall Grade: B+ (3.33/4.0)

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: First X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer Released!

I have been a huge fan of the X-Men comics since I was introduced to them as a teenager living in Barbados. I started collecting them in earnest (especially when they split off to form the New Mutants) when I was in college. Anyway, I have also been a fan of director Bryan Singer's film adaptations of the X-Men movies. The last one was X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014 and the one before that was X-Men: First Class which stars James McAvoy as the young Charles Xavier an Michael Fassbender as Magneto. The third movie in the sequence if the forthcoming X-Men: Apocalypse.

The trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse is now out, and it looks amazing! The film comes out May 27, 2016.