DAMIEN RILEY | World Music | HQ Blog

Sing is animals, music, bright colors, a cute story, and … did I say animals? You can’t rate this one for anyone above 12 but it gets full stars for anyone below. I guess if you’re 13 or over and are still a child at heart, you’ll rate it highly too.

Sing

“A koala named Buster Moon has one final chance to restore his theater to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.” -IMDB

Cast

Matthew McConaughey Buster Moon (voice)
Reese Witherspoon Rosita (voice)
Seth MacFarlane Mike (voice)
Scarlett Johansson Ash (voice)

Directed by

Garth Jennings, Christophe Lourdelet

Written by

Garth Jennings

Other Info

Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Music
PG
Wed 21 Dec 2016 UTC
108min
IMDB Rating: 7.3

“The Koala takes the cheese … Hi hoe the merry-O …” Anyway, the Koala is the ringleader of this movie. He is starting a variety show with all the unknown talent in the city. His mother once performed in a local theater that she owned but now he is trying to do it on his own to impress her.

Koalas are cute in the wild but I wouldn’t have picked this one to be the centerpiece of this movie. The other animated creatures are much more pleasing to the eye than he is. Still, he does a good job putting everything together in his quest to make everything work.

Unfortunately, I feel this is another “bait and switch” ad campaign. We have been seeing the ads for this film mysteriously simply titled Sing. We saw the pig swooning and dancing with maracas in the grocery story for months. The fact of the matter is, most of the whopping 65 musical routines are very short and they don’t ring many bells. I say that as compared to the stellar Trolls that came out this year where the song number is less but the music is more well-known. I think hiring Justin Timberlake to direct the music on that one paid off.

As I was arguing some of my criticism to my 11-year-old daughter, she reminded me, “It’s a kid’s movie Dad.” I will leave that magnanimous wisdom with you. Does it matter the story is thin and the characters underdeveloped? I say no and the sound of kids laughing and clapping at the closing credits drove that home with me. I recommend this only after you have seen Trolls, a much better animated music based film. But after that, it’s definitely a thumbs up with me.

Title: Deadpool
Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy
MPAA Rating: R
Year: 2016
Director: Tim Miller, known for “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.”
Top Billed Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller
Brief Synopsis: A former military dynamo turned reckless mercenary is transformed into having a superpower.
My Word to the Wise: Add another film to the Marvel superhero franchise. It mocks formulas but is formulaic to a fault. As far as Marvel films go, this is more fun than they are usually allowed to be. It’s definitely fun but not what I had imagined. The reviews made it seem like something apart from Marvel, it’s not.

Spoilers may follow in the rest of this review.

Ryan Reynolds does a good enough job in this Marvel film that sets out to be more gritty than the rest. He’s delivering jokes almost from credits to credits. It’s funny, for a while. I don’t mean to judge like a puritan, because I ‘aint one fo sho, but it seems like the producers wanted nudity, excessive blood, and reckless profanity throughout this movie, that appeals mostly to teenage boys. It’s so obvious they’re doing it you almost expect Deadpool to address the age group in one of his asides. By the way, there are many asides which is new for these movies.

I would like to see Deadpool take on Iron Man. This is partially because I never liked the Iron Man’s false bravado. I know the audience would root for Deadpool because, quite frankly, he way more crazy. I went into this movie not knowing how locked in to Stan Lee and the gang it was. The reviews I read seemed to hint at a superhero outside of the commercial loop. I saw that in about the first 1/3 of the movie. After they explain how Deadpool came to be, it because just another Marvel/X-Men/Avengers for me. They act like they are making fun of the genre with clever writing but Deadpool is just a slightly different incarnation. I hope I’m not bumming anyone out who wants to see it. It is certainly a lot of fun as any Marvel film is. Many buckets of fake blood gave their lives for this film and there’s a lot of nude scenes. I don’t recall seeing those in a Marvel film before. Trust me, I’m not complaining, just being real.

The teenage boys, ages 11-19 will love this film. The older ones will be mildly entertained. Based on the ratings out there in the strongholds: Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, it’s a “great film.” I suppose I agree with them. There’s a lot more on my mind bout this film but I’ll let it come out in comments on other people’s reviews. I really wanted to love this movie but after all the hoopla and watching it, I just like it. I have a platonic relationship with it. Will I see it again? Probably not. It has nothing on an intellectual level I’m afraid. Because it tried too hard to make fun of a genre that it was itself (it didn’t seem to know that) it lost a star. I have movies that “try.” Because I felt the R rating was sought out of indifference for the ten boys who make up the main audience, it lost another star. It’s definitely worth seeing though and damn funny at times. In closing though, I do not feel it lives up to the hype it’s receiving as “something different” in a superhero movie.

A lot of my friends loved this movie. Whether you agree or disagree with my appraisal, please let me know in the comments.

These are the movies I reviewed last week on my blog. Get ready for the whopping 2 films I reviewed last week! One is actually a tv Miniseries. They are both quite good, earning high recommendations from me. Check them out if you have the chance.

• The Night Of
  

  September 11, 2016
  

   

• Hell or High Water

  September 9, 2016
  

Al Pacino has tried to play touchy feely roles but it never works for him. He is a mean ass devil may care murderous dude. That’s why in lots of ways, some people may enjoy part II better. The first is a subdued mafia classic that elicits a response. The second is a study in the evil that is the character played by Al Pacino.

The Godfather: Part II (1974)
R | 3h 22min | Crime, Drama | 20 December 1974 (USA)

The early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay by), Mario Puzo (screenplay by) | 1 more credit »
Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall

This is a 3 1/2 hour film. Thankfully, there is an intermission. The music and portrayals of parties and culture within the Italian mafia put me in a trance. You can smell the spaghetti and meatballs. The film flashes back intermittently to the young beginnings of Vito Corleone. He is played by Robert DeNiro. I would say these are distracting but it is so engaging to watch DeNiro play the “young Godfather.” It doesn’t absolve Vito of all guilt for the bloody life he led but it does show why he went that way, because things were so messed up.

The scenes and dialog throughout Michael’s beginnings as the Don draw you in and they are worth watching. I noted how he stayed calm and reserved when people were screwing him over. He was mindful of how things should look as he was cutting their throats later. That’s probably why he was so successful. The flashback scenes were not my favorite and the film did drag on at times. For that reason, I gave it a 7/10. That is 3 less points that the 10/10 I gave the original.

This sequel to ‘Finding Nemo’ pleases with the introduction of some new hilarious characters, a similarly cute story, and the unforgettable talent of Ellen Degeneres.

Finding Dory

Cast

Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill

Directed by

Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane

Written by

Andrew Stanton, Victoria Strouse, Bob Peterson, Angus MacLane

Other Info

PG | 103 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Riley’s Rating:

The question for viewers should not be, “Why is this good?” but rather “Why did it take 13 years to make this sequel?” Some movies are difficult to improve upon and This film betters ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003) in some ways. However, in other ways it is fish food compared to the live bait we viewers took in 2003. For example, no scene touches the amazing dentist office escape sequence in the first movie. Still, there are some new characters and laughs well written in ‘Finding Dory’ that do their own pleasing and that makes it well worth going to see.

The seals are among my favorites. You have two Laurel and Hardy types that love their rock as if it were a heated waterbed at sea. A funny third reminiscent of Beaker from the Muppets, tries to sneak up on the rock to have “a taste” but the two kings of the mountain always shuffle him off. This is a recurrent gag that works very well as comic relief. Then again, do we need comic relief from the amazing comedy of Ellen Degeneres? Not in theory but here she is the voice of the main character. In ‘Finding Nemo’ she herself was that relief. For anyone wondering if she pulls it off as a main comic, yes, she passes with flying colors.

The story is identical to the first one only this time it is set in a wildlife preserve/theme park/museum sort of place. Dory remembers her parents that she lost prior to the first movie and she wants to get back to them somehow. This is made nearly impossible by her short term memory loss. Dory runs across a litany of new fish in the new setting, the most notable is an octopus named “Hank,” voiced by Ed O’Neill. Hank starts out as an antagonist but before long, Dory wins his affection and he ends up being the one who can help her most in getting back to her family. Virtually every aspect of the movie parallels number one so I suppose that could have been improved upon with some original sidebars.

The movie was originally set to be made for Disney by Disney’s experimental group “Circle 7 Animation.” That didn’t work out and the rights went back to Pixar who created the first animation for Disney on ‘Finding Nemo’ in 2003. In conclusion, I recommend this film to you but with a microscopic caveat that it isn’t base on anything original (to speak of, the search for her parents is slightly different than the other way around in ‘Nemo’). It lost a star from me for that. Still, I had a blast watching it at the drive in. I hope a lot of people get a chance to see this film.