Given that Sam Raimi is riding the Doctor Strange wave, it’s worth reminding audiences of Burst. That was his 3-D film that he produced about spontaneous combustion. It’s got all the makings of a cult classic and was never made, but sounds ridiculously awesome. That’s just one of the films featured in Under Exposed! The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made. Justice League: Mortal, directed by Mad Max legend George Miller is another film that inspires the mind as to what it could’ve been.
If the pressure exerted upon Toy Story 4 could be reproduced and sold in the form of a mineral it would be the largest and most valuable diamond ever….until the next Toy Story in 2028.Rare is the movie franchise that can produce a string of highly enjoyable, commercially successful and critically successful film past the third one. Think of a franchise that’s had more than three films in a row that have knocked it out of the park. While the series has maintained or kept going on, like Harry Potter, a film within the MCU or James Bond, there have been peaks and valleys that mar any series. Toy Story 4 bucks the trend and is pure cinematic joy. It’s neither too sentimental, sappy or nostalgic; rather, it acknowledges the history that it brings to the screen gleefully embraces it and then runs in a new direction.
What is that?, was almost certainly the thought when you first saw Forky. Toy Story 4 presents the home made toy that every kid has and establishes itself in the pantheon of classic toys we’ve all had. I still have a toy that I made as a child. It’s a crude block of clay with four stumps that barely resemble legs, a slightly bigger clump that might be its head and an odd twig of clay for a tail. This was no classic toy, but for a season of my childhood it held rank over G.I. Joe and the simple box of red, white and blue LEGO blocks that were in my closet.
What Toy Story 4 does so well is letting audiences think that they know what the film will be about, but then faking them out with plot shifts and pacing. Everything that you’ve seen in the trailer does happen, but not in the logical order that your mind thinks that it will be.
Running in tandem to the excellent script is the addition of some key new characters that really add to the film. Duke Caboom, Bunny, Ducky and Forky add to the movie in such a way the we don’t really miss Buzz and Woody when they aren’t on screen. Then, when either of them does come back on screen they manage to propel the movie even more forward, not that it was ever at a standstill.
Toy Story 4 goes from great, to good, to excellent and beyond. It’s filled with so much joy and happiness that audiences won’t want it to end. Our 9 year-old has seen dozens, perhaps 100+ movies and I have never heard him laugh as consistently as he did in Toy Story 4. There was one particular sequence that stars Bunny and Ducky that will have the entire theater howling with laughter.
The screening we attended of Toy Story was made up of about 65% adults and 35% children. This is one of those films where the older attendees are ones who attended one of the previous Toy Story films as a child. Like a child’s version of James Bond, this is a franchise that can exist for generations. Similar to a child’s fascination of the refrigerator light and if it stays on when the door is shut, they wonder and want to imagine a world where their toys come to life.
From a marketing perspective Toy Story 4 is meta and easy to buy into. There are Duke Caboom toys that look exactly like the Evil Kenevil toys I had as a kid. There’s a Little Bo Peep cane that’s a much of an action saber as a sheep wrangler. This is a story that has managed to make a cowboy cool again and does it with charm. Moreover, it does it while maintaining a G rating. This is a G rated film that anyone will love and audiences can only hope that Disney takes another nine year of craft before another one comes out. Then, our high school senior will probably see Toy Story 5 and enjoy it as much as he did Toy Story 4.
Toy Story 4 is easily one of the most anticipated films of 2019. Forky is just the character that’s needed right now. It’s true to the way that kids play. Any parent or child will attest to the fact that there is always one homemade toy that manages to work its way into the inner circle of the toy coven. The sneak preview of Toy Story 4 is happening Tuesday, June 18. If you want to win a pair of passes to this movie event and be one of the first ones (outside of Disney brass or Hollywood) to see it, here’s what you need to do.
How to enter: Leave a comment in the blog post letting us know what your favorite toy was growing up. We have 15 pairs of tickets to give away to this sneak preview.
You can also RT this:
Win tickets to the #Atlanta sneak preview of #ToyStory4 – https://t.co/tk3KfkEuef pic.twitter.com/HFZBKNaJFl
— Daddy Mojo (@Daddymojo) June 7, 2019
This sneak preview of Toy Story 4 is in Atlanta on Tuesday, June 18 at Atlantic Station. We’ll email the winners with complete details so that you’ll be able to plan accordingly. This giveaway will end on June 14 at 9PM. Important: this giveaway is for passes to the sneak preview. You’ll need to arrive early in order to secure your seat as everybody and their brother wants to see Toy Story 4. This showing will be 100% full.
I rolled my eyes when I saw that movies were being made based on video game characters. At its core, that shouldn’t really matter because all a good movie needs is a great character and video games have those in spades. Comic book movies were once relegated to the bin of low expectations also. Even James Bond films have the ‘every other Bond’ disclaimer attached to them as a way to inoculate them to critics and fan expectation. Video game movies though have truly been horrible. Looking at the list of video game films through 2019 and only a couple of them, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Silent Hill are worthy of mentioning as something that was close to memorable. Enter the potentially annoying, but highly cute squirrel like character from the world of Pokemon. And Pokemon Detective Pikachu has accomplished what dozens of other well known characters and franchises have failed to do.
Pokemon Detective Pikachu is a very good movie that will entertain people seeing Pikachu for the first time; as well as, those fans that go to the theatre with their Pokemon paraphernalia. To some it’s not news to say: this film is very good. Few studios make a bad movie on purpose; it’s just that, more often than not, the end result is less than what you hoped that it would be.
In the case of Pokemon Detective Pikachu we expected it to be bad and were incredibly pleased when it turns out to be very good. In the case of our 9 year old test market whom we saw the film with, it’s better than Shazam!-which he raved about for a couple of days. It’s even more remarkable because this kid is not a fan of Pokemon. He knows the basics, like Pikachu looks like a squirrel with a lightning bolt on his tail, but that’s it.
All I know about Pokemon is that our kids collected the cards for a season or two, never played the game and then stopped asking about it. If that’s you, then Pokemon Detective Pikachu has you covered. You don’t need to know anything about these sometimes cute, sometimes explosive animals that have live amongst us. It also establishes a world in which some Pokemon live in civilized society, while others prefer to be in the wild, which could be a key ingredient to a sequel.
The film works because of the CGI and Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds’ voices Pikachu in a calm, snarky manner that makes the character lovable and very easy to root for. The CGI in the film is fabulous. It makes you want to hug him, but ever so carefully so that you avoid the tail. The other Pokemon characters also have a texture and visual depth to them that makes it easy for you to believe that they’re real. The marketing for the film has been great also. Reynolds has been sharing sarcastic comments, previews and even ‘leaking’ the film online. Said ‘leak’ was actually an hour and forty two minutes of Pikachu dancing to 80’s type soundtrack music, utterly brilliant.
Pokemon Detective Pikachu is great for those who are 13 and younger. It’s rated PG and rewards elementary school movie goers with a fun time that balances action, sight gags and humor. There are some older jokes that are provided through Reynolds’ dialogue that make the film seque a bit older too. It won’t have mass appeal to where high school students will see it en masse, but will demo up to those middle school kids who want a fun time at the movies.
I do love martial arts films. Even when they’re bad, they have entertainment potential for me. It’s some of those films, as well as, James Bond films that require them to be graded on a curve with a caveat. Master Z stems from the Ip Man films, which are entering their fourth incarnation, but have required the “good for a martial arts movie” caveat since the second one. Master Z has a title that belies its quality. This is a grade A martial arts movie that entertains martial arts fans, action movie audiences and might just convince casual movie goers to give these films a chance.
Master Z starts out with our titular character (played by Max Zhang) announcing that he’s giving up the fast-hands-for-hire game and going legit, but not before he’s challenged by an equally fast paced opponent. He’s done some bad things for good reasons, but now Cheung Tin Chi wants to go straight and narrow, spend some time with his son and avoid danger and the police. He opens up a grocery store, but danger, the growing crime scene and a drug underbelly can’t avoid the man who almost beat Ip Man.
Granted, I’m glossing over some of the plot details. Part of that is because martial arts fans know what to expect from these genre films. The other reason is that Master Z swims in some of these tropes, but it also splashes headlong against them.
The women are victims. Yes, there are some weak women in Master Z; but one of the baddest, strongest characters is a woman (the legendary Michelle Yeoh) and there is also a great scene where Liu Yan helps defend her friend against a gang of thugs.
Children as ploys are another tropes in films, not just martial arts films, and this is no exception. However, in Master Z it’s handled quite well and the audience is given just enough exposure to believe that he’s a father who loves his son, without it being child endangerment.
Yeoh is a pleasure to see on screen. She’s speaking her native tongue and crackles in every scene that she’s in. Max Zhang also does a great job balancing the drama of caring for his son, adapting the western nightlife of Bar Street and the eventual villains that make their way in.
There is some stunt casting in Master Z that might not pay off as well as you’d like. Tony Jaa is in the film, but it’s only for a couple sequences. Having said that, he’s still great to see and anytime he can be seen in a quality vehicle, even for a couple of minutes is welcome.
What ties all of this together is the action. The fight sequences are amazing and rarely let up. A great example of this is when I left the screen for: 30 to get a snack and came back in to a full on battle. It was that natural down time in martial arts films where the characters get together, talk about their family and then figure out what to do about the town bad guy. I took a snack break then, but it was a fake out from Master Z that just served up more action.
Master Z is directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, the legendary Hong
Kong director who did the action choreography for The Matrix trilogy, Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon and more. From watching Master Z, even if you haven’t seen
his other work, it’s obvious that there’s something different about this film.
This is fun. It’s quickly paced, has some great humor and photography that
makes you take notice. If you enjoy martial arts films you must put Master Z on
your to-be-seen list. If you’re a casual action film fan this is one that you’ll
want to check out.
The rating for Master Z is probably PG-13, and it’s a middle PG-13 rating. There are life and death elements, but they’re presented in ways that aren’t graphic. Ages 12 and up should be fine with everything here.
We look forward to every film that Laika puts out. It’s ironic that as a youth stop-motion animation scared me, but now it’s an art form that I’ll go out of my way to view. It’s even more ironic that our 9 year-old loves the medium also. He was all in from the moment he saw the trailer for Missing Link. I was in also, but much like when we saw Kubo and the Two Strings, we had to check our reviewer hat at the door.
First off, as a technical exercise in film-making, Missing Link is masterful. The film employs stop-motion animation, 3-D printing, puppets and more. From a movie wonk perspective the film is stunning, but movie geeks are looking for these things. Impress me, I say to myself as I see a film from Laika-and they never fail to do so. Missing Link raises the animation bar from its already high standard from Kubo.
Did you ever see Wallace and Gromit, The Wrong Trousers? There’s a sequence in there where Wallace is chasing the penguin while riding a train set. When I first saw that I was amazed. There is so much movement in each shot, coupled with entertainment and laughs for an almost silent film that it (still) blows me away.
There are multiple scenes in Missing Link that gave me that same feeling. Early in the film our explorer, Sir Lionel Frost, voiced by Hugh Jackman, crosses a shallow pond to meet the mysterious author of a note that was sent to him. When Frost’s foot enters the pond, as well as, a couple other water/ice scenes were jaw dropping. I know it’s a scale model clay figure, but they feel human and make us care about them.
So, the film was a technical marvel, we kind of expect that from Laika. I took two 9 year-olds to see the film, did they like it? One of them had never seen a stop-motion film before and was a bit confused. They both enjoyed the film, as much as a 9 year-old can, but they weren’t doing cartwheels as they left the theater.
On the other hand, I was reeling in its moments, the obvious humor, the very dry humor (courtesy of Zach Galifiankis as Mr. Link), the dry/icy puns put forth by Emma Thompson and more. As an adult, who loves great movies, this was a great time at the cinema that will be repeated many times at home. We also took a 7 year-old to the theater and he laughed the loudest. Perhaps most surpsingly, he laughed at the dry part of the film, which promptly led us to go home and watch some episodes of Mr. Bean or Monty Python.
Personally, this is the best Laika film. It’s wildly entertaining, varied and has a cohesive, linear story that checks off all of the stop-motion dots. It’s a gorgeous time at the cinema for fans of Laika, stop-motion movies. For those outside of those camps it’s still entertaining. For example, our neighbor saw the film and thought it was ‘cute’, while his 9 year-old daughter thought that it was entertaining. We’ll invite the two of them over to watch Kubo or Wallace and Gromit later.
Missing Link is art, yet it’s approachable art for elementary school ages and up that like entertaining films. The curve ball happens because Laika has produced something so different to what most audiences have seen. It’s not different as in ‘challenging’, it’s just a form of animation that they may not be used to seeing. Case in point, Missing Link is leagues above the most recent PG rated film that they saw, which was computer animated. This is heart, soul and fun, but some younger audiences might not see it over the clay skin that they’re wearing.
Storm Boy is based on a revered Australian book by the same name. Published in 1964 and later made into a film in 1976, it seems as germane to growing up down under as their young American contemporaries must do in watching The Sandlot or The Wizard of Oz. If you’re new to how respected this intellectual property is I’ll quote the thespian J. Lo in how to approach Storm Boy in saying “Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got”. Except, in this case, the ‘rocks’ are the film, ‘got’ is that it might be entertaining for children and I completely blame my wife for getting that earworm stuck in my head.
I thought it was a children’s film. Look at the poster for the film, it has a young boy hugging a pelican. This looks just like an Old Yeller poster would look if that film were re-imagined for today, I initially thought. Wait a minute, Old Yeller was a 50’s film that they showed us in school when teachers needed a break or students had to be taught that it’s OK to have feelings about a lovable, yet now rabid dog. That wasn’t really a film for children at all, was it?
I completely understand the fact that children must be taught the lessons of loss and the hardships of life. Many times it’s far easier to teach these lessons through film, then to have them experience it first- hand. I’m not the type of parent that bubble wraps our kids. Actions have consequences and sometimes it’s better to teach these things with real people or animals, instead of CGI characters that get traded or fall down the PIXAR memory hole.
To that end, Storm Boy is a gorgeously shot film that serves as much as a travel advert for Australia as it does a drama. The beaches are amazing and some of the shots with the pelicans are guaranteed to induce wanderlust. The film might be engaging for audiences middle school and older, just be ready for a heavy, slow paced film that requires your attention. There is a taut dramatic line that the film creates, it was just hard for us to stay on that line with a not-so-serious 9 year-old.
He was into it far longer than I thought he would be, but by the 50 minute mark he was wiggling, asking me questions and wishing that this was animated, had superheroes or fart jokes in it. And maybe that’s the point of Storm Boy, this is an old soul film that requires your attention and does deliver it in a dramatic fashion. There are also modern elements of guilt that older audience will roll their eyes at. The stereotypical teen daughter who is angry and her dad who is not listening to the press over environmental aspects of their business which strains the grandfather/son relationship and where the heck is the pelican to save this film??! That’s what I was thinking.
Pelicans are awesome. For older drama movie fans Storm Boy might be also, but younger audiences will tire of scenes where the pelican isn’t the star. Unfortunately, that would be for about 70% of the film. Storm Boy opens in theaters on April 5.
Please don’t mess this up. That was my thought when I first saw the trailer for Dumbo. It’s not that I have fond memories of the 1941 original. I’m sure I saw it as a child, but I have no memory of it. The only thing I know of Dumbo is that he’s a flying elephant. Having said that, it’s classic intellectual property, an icon and a symbol of all things Disney. If they could mess up this film then the next you know they’ll go about closing classic theme park attractions like The Great Movie Ride. *
To the film’s credit, Dumbo isn’t a total dumpster fire. It’s just that the film doesn’t know exactly what it’s trying to be. There are very few funny scenes so it’s not funny enough to be a comedy. There are enough dramatic elements for it to be considered a drama, but for what age? Audiences under 14 won’t find the laughs or entertainment that they require to fully hold their attention. Those older than 14 will be able to predict what’s going to happen the moment that we’re introduced to the characters-which aren’t given enough rope to run with.
We meet Milly, the daughter of Holt, a WWI veteran who returns home. Milly is a rebellious tween who wants nothing to do with the circus and has an interest in science. Note to Hollywood: we get it now; girls can be scientists too, thanks for the update and quit hammering audiences with this message. We also know that animals in the circus is a bad thing, now that we’re reminded of this can we get on with the guilt trip that audiences will pay $12 for?
When Holt returns from WWI we see that he lost an arm in battle. Wait, a one-armed rodeo rider in the circus, the same circus with a big-eared elephant, a strong-man and other human performers who are on the outcast of mainstream society? This is just one example where the not-so-subtle characteristics project their intentions from a big tent away.
There are a couple moments of joy. When Dumbo first flies it’s quite entertaining, but then the audience is labored with more story that’s as obvious as the obelisk to the chimpanzees in 2001. Here comes the wealthy investor who, wait for it, also has a theme park and circus. He’s looking for a main act and Dumbo could just be the ticket for the small town travelling circus and the big time entertainment mogul to make a match.
So now, Dumbo and (spoiler alert) his mother are in the same circus. You’ll never guess what happens next….unless you’ve seen the 1993 film Free Willy.
There are some nice inside baseball moments when the film goes to the investor’s theme park, Dreamland. It’s like a steam punk Disney World, complete with its own version of Carousel of Progress. Literally, this is a generic version of Carousel of Progress. Initially it’s quite complimentary, but as (spoiler alert) Dreamland burns down, we see the robots melting and malfunctioning. I’m guessing that Dumbo wasn’t given the theme park QA check before it went to print.
It’s obvious that the film, set designers and aspects of the cast are trying very hard to make it all work. That’s what’s all the more frustrating as a fan of everything involved with the film. I should have loved this film, yet it’s a hodgepodge of big ears, guilt and nostalgia wrapped up in a Disney bow.
Tim Burton directs Dumbo. In theory this is great because he’s a left of center guy that is capable of making the ordinary seem cool. Alas, Dumbo is more Planet of the Apes (2001) or (Mars Attacks!) than Alice in Wonderland. As a movie fan and Disney fan, I’m sensing that the live action movie parade is fading or at the minimum suffering from Star Wars fatigue or poor development. I’m getting the same vibe from Aladdin and The Lion King as I did when I first saw the Dumbo trailer.
The good news for Disney, to an extent; is that these bad review of their live action films will fall on deaf ears. The classic Disney fans will see them to be reminded of what they love and most likely take their children. The downside, if their kids are like ours then after they leave Dumbo they’ll be ambivalent at best or worst case for Disney, ask when the next Minions film comes out.
*I know that The Great Movie Ride closed. GMR4L yo.
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