Ah how great it is to see terrific comedy! It’s the best to sit back, relax and heartily laugh at a good movie. Unfortunately it’s an experience that doesn’t happen too often these days. Now most comedies are so raunchy that I either chose to not watch them or they aren’t my style of humor. So, you can imagine my enjoyment when I put on this month’s blind spot pick, Duck Soup, and laughed good and hard! Duck Soup is a classic comedy and with good cause. Especially if you like physical comedy it doesn’t get better than this.
Duck Soup stars the Marx Brothers- Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo and evidently this is their crowning achievement. I read dictator Benito Mussolini took the movie as a personal insult and banned it from Italy! You know you are doing something right if a dictator bans your movie!
The plot for Duck Soup is pretty basic. Groucho plays a man who is put in charge of a small country named Freedonia. They are a nation of great pomp and circumstance and much is made about their need for decorum. Meanwhile Chico and Harpo are sent as spies to look into the situation and see what Freedonia is up to. Zeppo plays Groucho’s secretary and kind of the straight man role in the story. Quickly all kinds of mayhem erupts involving war, love and politics.
You don’t see a movie like Duck Soup for the plot. It’s about the hilarious gags. What’s impressive here is they manage to be funny with both physical comedy and political commentary. I love how expressive each of the brothers are and how you can read so much through their eyes and facial expressions.
This scene with a lemonade vendor is hilarious:
I particularly like Harpo and how innocent and sweet he is. Don’t you just want to hug him? What he is able to do with a simple hat to get laughs is remarkable.
But Duck Soup can also be very funny in the political commentary especially if you think about its release date in the 1933 when trouble was brewing in Europe. The insanity of such political negotiations and the egos involved is skewered so well in scenes like this one-
It’s so funny when he goes in seconds from welcoming the idea of diplomacy to ‘who does he think he is? That he come here and make a sap out of me in front of my people’. I have a feeling it might not be that far off of actual diplomacy (I try to not think about that too hard these days! Politicians and the egos involved is a scary thought).
Duck Soup is only an 69 minutes so it’s not much of an investment of time but boy is it rewarding. I laughed from start to finish and it wasn’t the kind of mean spirited raunchy comedy you get today. It can be a little bawdy but all in good fun. I have seen one other Marx Brothers movie Monkey Business and I think Duck Soup is much funnier than that.
I know some children might be intimidated by black and white but comedies can often be good ways to introduce them. Duck Soup would be great for that. I think they will love it especially Chico and Harpo as the 2 spies. Hilarious.
I just loved this movie! The only flaw I suppose is maybe 2 of the musical numbers go on a little long. Other than that one of the great comedies without question.
Before diving into my review of Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 let me give you some context into my feelings on the first film. I LOVED it! For me it was a new Star Wars film before we got Star Wars back. It wasn’t a typical Marvel movie but it was a space opera and I loved seeing our team of misfits form and search for their orb/infinity stone. I loved the humor, action, charismatic actors and bright color palate. Just a great movie. 9/10 or A grade from me.
So let’s talk about this sequel. Naturally loving the first film I was very excited for the follow up but I still tried to enjoy it as its own film and not compare it too much. In the end, I feel Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 is at best a mixed bag. It’s not awful but I had major problems with it.
At the outset of the movie our team is commissioned by a leader Ayesha to guard a series of batteries. This leads to a great opening that heavily features the world’s favorite adorable creation- Baby Groot! Of course, we have seen Baby Groot all over the marketing for the movie and he did not disappoint. Soooo adorable!
This scene also features everything you like about the first film. It has witty banter from the entire team, fun action as they fight a monster and a catchy song. I thought ‘Oh boy! This is going to be awesome!”
Unfortunately just a few scenes later they make a massive mistake that had a large impact on my enjoyment of the film: They divide up the team!!! Peter meets his father and half the crew go with him while half stay behind and end up with Yondu and his crew.
This was such a terrible choice for a number of reasons:
Hurts the humor- When you have a large group of characters the humor can be a mixture of all their types of comedy. So you will get one Groot joke mixed in with Drax, Peter, Rocket etc. When you have just Rocket and Groot then their type of jokes become repetitive and tired very quickly.
Hurts the emotion- It’s the same with emotion. We are with a character and they have an emotional moment. Then they leave that character for a long stretch hurting their story and emotional arc.
Hurts the team- Characters aren’t able to feed off each other and create that winning chemistry I loved so much in the first film. Sometime this can help you get to know characters better like in Star Trek Beyond but that was not the case here.
Hurts the action- Because they are all split up the action is pretty sparse. For instance, Drax is sitting talking almost the entire movie. He’s Drax the Destroyer for goodness sake, and he doesn’t destroy anything.
I guess all of this would be fine if the story was compelling but it is not. They try to set up several different family dynamics. There is Peter and his father, Peter and Gamora, Gamora and Nebula, Groot and Rocket and Yandu and Peter. While I appreciated the message of family, the film became too cluttered with relationships that they weren’t as developed as they could have been.
The villain is another surprise villain. About the 10,000th one I’ve seen in recent years and I’m tired of it. It was so obvious and the plan for world domination makes no sense unless he or she wants to be completely alone in the whole galaxy. Even if he or she did, it still strains credulity to believe this insane plan (and the way it is explained is hard to follow or feel invested in).
I was also disappointed in the Nebula/Gamora storyline. I liked Nebula in the first film when most people didn’t. I thought she had a wounded quality to her that I wish had been more developed. Well, unfortunately she is seen more here but Karen Gillan overcooks it in the villainy department. Also she flips around from good girl to bad in ways that didn’t work for me or feel authentic.
So, from all that it seems like I had a miserable experience at this movie. No. I didn’t but I’d be lying if I didn’t share those major problems I had. However, there are some things I liked.
First, like I said, I liked Baby Groot and a lot of the comedy did work. It would have worked better if they hadn’t divided the group but a lot still made me laugh. Drax gets some funny lines with a new girl named Mantis. Rocket has a lot of humor including a hilarious sequence with Baby Groot getting him things for a jailbreak.
Second, Michael Rooker is great as Yondu. I didn’t think Yondu would be the most fleshed out and interesting character in the film but he was. We learn about his association with a band of ruffians called The Ravagers. He has upset them and we get to find out why through the course of the movie. We also learn about why he took Peter and his connection to Peter’s father. Yondu also has the best action scene in the movie with an arrow thing he uses to take out a fleet of men (Sorry I don’t know what the arrow thing is called).
Third, even if it could have been more focused, I still loved the overall message about family. I think Vin Diesel might have carried this over from the Fast and the Furious movies because they are all about family. I particularly appreciated the focus on alternative families- that families are not always about blood but so much more.
Fourth, it is a beautiful looking movie. James Gunn has done it again with amazing cinematography and special effects. The planet Peter’s father lives on was beautiful and lush. I loved all the bright colors and dazzling world building. The special effects on Rocket and Baby Groot are flawless. You forget they aren’t actual talking raccoons and walking baby trees.
There also is a joyous feeling to the picture which makes it pleasing to watch. While some of the jokes grow tired it never made me angry or annoyed like other fantasy films. I mostly wasn’t bored although there were a few moments that dragged.
The soundtrack was a bit of a mixed bag. There are some great songs but a few of them felt very on-the-nose Also, I didn’t like that characters mentioned the songs so much. In the original they are this awesome background gift to enjoy (aside from Peter listening to them they don’t work into the story and he doesn’t repeat lyrics or talk about the individual songs). Here there is even one song where the lyrics are repeated verbatim and the life experience fits perfectly into the situation at hand. It makes the song choice feel uncreative and obvious when they were so great in the original. Still, there are some good songs. Cat Stevens and Electric Light Orchestra are used particularly well.
In the end, Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 is a mixed bag leaning towards the negative. I have really struggled with what grade to give it and whether to make it smile or frown worthy. Other films I have given smiles to like Ghost in the Shell feel less worthy than this film but this is way more of a disappointment and downgrade from the original film. It’s really tough…
I’m torn but I think my disappointment is going to rule the day:
Overall Grade- C (It is without a doubt in my bottom 5 Marvel movies. No question)
Also this is pretty raunchy for a Marvel movie. It definitely earns its PG-13.
You can all hate me now…
Check out my podcast with my friend Trevor from How to Love Comics where we break it all down
In Furious 7 there is a scene where Hobbs announces he is leaving the hospital and he focuses on his broken arm until the cast falls off in pieces. There was never a moment that campy and fun in Fate of the Furious.
In Furious 7 there is a moment where we see Brian and he waves and drives into the distance. There was never a moment with such heart in Fate of the Furious.
You get the idea. This film was a significant step down from the previous 3 films.
It’s not like I am expecting Shakespeare in Fast and the Furious. I know it will be stupid stunts and lots of talk about family. My main problem with this movie is it wasn’t enough stupid stunts or talking about family.
The first big mistake they make is splitting off Dom from the family. He is manipulated by Charlize Theron’s character and it did not work having Dom as this quasi-villain for most of the film. Dom is the core of the team. He brings everyone together and reminds them of what is important. Without him I didn’t care as much about the characters. And I thought Charlize Theron was a complete miss as a villain- extremely flat and boring.
The second big mistake is way too much talking and staring at screens. There were so many scenes of characters scheming and planning and staring at screens. I have no idea why action movies think this is a good idea. We saw it last year with Jason Bourne which was even worse. In a Mission Impossible movie or good James Bond we don’t see him staring at screens talking about hacking and plans for long stretches. We seem very little planning and lots of butt kicking. That’s what we want!
One of the big action scenes is mostly people staring at screens because it involves unmanned cars. At one point it is literally raining cars, which with no people is boring. I honestly got kind of drowsy during sections of this movie- something I never thought I would say about a Fast and Furious movie. Even Tokyo Drift wasn’t exactly boring.
The ending starts to get wacky and fun with them chasing a submarine but it wasn’t as enjoyable as it would have been if the entire movie had been that kinetic fun tone. Instead, it felt like a reminder of the kind of movie I wish I had gotten all along.
My favorite scene in the movie was when Jason Statham’s character has to protect a baby. This was funny and tense, which is just what I want from this franchise. He also has some funny dialogue with Helen Mirren (who is underused but funny in few scenes she’s in).
In the future it seems like we may want to get back to the drawing board of what made 5, 6 and 7 so much fun. This entry unfortunately wasn’t.
One of the frustrating things about reviewing Dreamworks films is many of their movies come close to being good but can’t quite pull it off. Particularly their comedies often have great casts, promising premises, inviting animation but the jokes fall flat leaving me annoyed. Over the Hedge, made in 2006, is no exception to this rule.
In fact, Over the Hedge is particularly frustrating because it starts out with such potential! I kind of wish it had just been a 30 minute short because that first 30 minutes is great. Unfortunately, it can’t hold that momentum for the 83 minutes run-time and becomes a generic at best kids movie.
The set up is a raccoon named RJ becomes indebted to a bear for stealing his food. To pay the debt he must replace the food in a weeks time. He stumbles upon a bunch of forest creatures waking up from hibernation and begins to school them on the glories of human food consumption. This sequence is the highlight of the movie:
This food glory sequence is funny because it is relevant social commentary. It still makes me laugh how it shows driving and dressing like food. From an alien perspective (or animal) we really do focus way too much on food in America. There’s no doubt about it and that is funny.
However, once this setup is over the rest of Over the Hedge becomes a Toy Story rip-off. Verne the turtle is Woody and RJ is the new hip Buzz. You have a ton of other characters voiced by famous comedians but they aren’t really given anything to do (Plus they repeat the same jokes over and over again). Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, William Shatner, and Wanda Sykes are all wasted in their roles.
The last act of the movie is the animals trying to steal food from a woman who has a heavily fortified house. Why wouldn’t they just pick another house? It’s a subdivision so they have lots to chose from. It’s clearly just to manufacture tension and a dramatic car chase scene at the end. Instead, it all feels like filling time, like they were stretching 30 minutes of an idea into over an hour, which is probably accurate.
It is very predictable and nothing really engages the viewer. We know RJ is lying to the crew and exactly when he is going to feel bad, be exposed and make up with everyone. Formula movies are fine but there needs to be more to entertain than in this.
I also think it is a little weird the characters spend the entire movie stealing from the humans and are never really punished for this. Not the greatest example for kids!
As a plus the animation is pretty decent and kids will be moderately entertained by it. It’s not awful but not very memorable either. I would say watch the first 20 minutes and then find something else to do with your day!
Hello friends! I have a new monthly series I am finally going to announce to you. This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time. Today I bring to you Review Rewinds. This is where I take a look at previous reviews and how my opinions have changed on the rewatch both for good or bad.
What? I can hear you say. How can we trust you if your reviews change? Well, I’m a human being and my experience at a film can be impacted by a variety of factors. I could be tired, annoyed, sick of a particular actor or director. There could be a number of similar films coming out at the same time which might make me more critical and on the rewatch when I’m separated from that experience I appreciate it more.
The other factor is I often struggle to come up with a grade that adequately expresses my feelings. This is why I am very happy about my new smile and frown worthy approach. I don’t think very many movies go from being smile to frown worthy on the rewatch. They just might drop from an A to a B or a B to a C+.
Anyway, I thought this would be fun and show my history with a film not just an initial viewing.
From my original review “Got to see Avengers Age of Ultron and loved it!! It’s a great movie and right up there with the original”. That was how I felt at the time so it was an honest response. I still love the first Avengers movie and I admire the sequel but the two movies aren’t close on the rewatch. The original film has Loki as the ideal villain and the death of Agent Coulson to gather the gang together. In Avengers: Age of Ultron you have Ultron who is fine but fairly basic. I still like James Spader as the voice of Ultron, but there’s not much to him.
But the biggest difference is they try to create emotion with Hawkeye and his family and it doesn’t work nearly as well as Coulson who we’d gotten to know in all of these other Marvel movies. I love the party scene in Ultron and the banter between the characters. That still holds up but certain scenes are bit boring like the Hulkbuster scene. Speaking of the Hulk, Bruce should put way more of a fight up against Tony’s insane ideas but he doesn’t. Especially with all Bruce has been through with the gamma radiation he should be very hesitant to do all these experiments.
Oh well. I still enjoy Age of Ultron but not as much as I did when I first saw it. Review Rewind!
From my original review “They are entertaining to watch, pleasant to look at, but in the end kind of forgettable.” To my surprise I gave Rio 2 a C despite admitting it is “weaker than the original”, so that must have been some kind of mistake. I watched Rio for family movie night last summer and I found it quite charming. It’s not the greatest movie I’ve seen in my life but I enjoyed it and felt I was too hard in my original review.
One of my main problems with the film was the voice acting. I said “Of all the voices the only one I liked was Jermaine Clement as the bad Cockatoo named Nigel.” On the rewatch I didn’t have a problem with the voice acting. Sure Anne Hathaway doesn’t sound like someone from Brazil but I guess I’ve been worn down so I didn’t care. You don’t need the celebrity voices but they do fine. None of them are annoying like Kevin Heart in Secret Life of Pets.
I say the “extended musical numbers that don’t do anything for the story and are just kind of average.” Again on rewatch I like musical sequences. I think they have color and life and are a lot of fun to watch. It’s so weird because I’m usually won over by musical sequences!
I certainly think Rio is much better than Rio 2, which has a main appeal of the insane frog in love with the bird. I think if Rio came out now I would probably treat it a lot like Smurfs: the Lost Village and be dazzled by the pretty animation. I’m such a softee…
This was a mini review and I admitted ” it is expertly crafted but I found it kind of unpleasant to watch”. Sometimes this happens with a film. I will walk away saying ‘boy they did a good job…and I never want to see that film again”. I can honestly say the makers of Edge of 17 did a great job doing what they were trying to do. However, I can also say it left me depressed for the rest of the day and I never want to see it again.
It goes back to the lead character Nadine who is the quintessential surly teenager. It’s very well done. The problem is I have no desire to spend 2 hours with a surly miserable 17 year old. It reminded me of my surly days and honestly I called my Mother and apologized after, so I guess it was positive on that level. The performances are all good but it left me feeling cold and sour.
In the review I said “Everyone is comparing this to John Hughes and I guess it is like 16 Candles the most but I prefer this”. I’m not sure what I was thinking there because at least 16 Candles has some joy and goofiness in it. This is just so caustic and I found it even more so on the rewatch.
If I was going to give a subtitle to this review it might be The Circle: Buzz Words without a Buzzy Story. On the surface the The Circle looks like an intriguing thriller about social media and there are moments of that but they are buried inside a very dopey script, poor character development and tons of exposition.
Based on the novel by Dave Eggers, director James Ponsoldt takes a dopey book and turns it into an even dopier movie. Some elements in the novel like the suicide of a character have a lot of emotion and depth to them. In the movie that suicide is made into an accident and its impact is minimal. It’s just everything is neutered emotionally but then explained as if we were toddlers in the audience that it becomes hard to watch.
I felt like saying “movie we all get it! Social media can be invasive and take away from actual relationships”. The odd thing is within The Circle they never really address the true darkness of things like cyberbullying or trolling. It’s all on a level of ‘isn’t that uncomfortable this information or moment got shared”.
Emma Watson stars as Mae who gets a job at a facebook-like company called The Circle. It’s really like Google and Facebook combined. She is initially skeptical but then is won over…but then she’s skeptical again and won over again. There is no sense of here’s where this character starts and here’s what she learns in the end. Watson is fine in the role but it’s for a hopeless endeavor of a bland character. There’s one point where she commits a crime and that came out of nowhere. Why would she want to do that in the middle of the night? I have no idea.
Tom Hanks plays Eamon the head of The Circle and I guess he is supposed to be scary? It is certainly portrayed that way in the marketing with the label “the only thing he can’t control is her”. Far from it, he controls her very well, literally manipulating every aspect of her life for most of the movie. He’s not in the movie that much and mostly gives presentations to large groups, which makes for weak character development.
The biggest problem with Eamon and The Circle is we don’t understand the motivation. Is it to make money? Because clearly most of the stuff going on in The Circle doesn’t make them money. For example, they have a promotion to get everyone in The Circle to vote. Why does Eamon want this? For political control? If that is the case it is not clear what he wants to do with that power when he gets it. Does he want to start a cult? This could be but aside from protecting people there doesn’t seem to be an underlying philosophy usually associated with cults.
John Boyega’s character is also a huge miss. Without spoilers, let’s just say there is no way The Circle would keep him around. He’s basically there to occasionally pipe in and give Mae exposition.
The rest of the actors like the late Bill Paxton are fine but in such a lame story it is such a shame. Even the editing and directing felt cheap and rushed.
There are a few good moments and thought provoking ideas but for the most part The Circle was a bad movie. Poor characters, writing and tone.
There are some movies I feel bad for giving a negative review to. In a world of bland board meeting films I especially want to love passion projects and movies where all involved had ambition and a grand scope. However, that ambition can only get you so far and the movie has to be able to stand on its own. James Gray’s recent The Lost City of Z is such an ambitious miss and it pains me to say it. There is a lot of good but in the end I can’t recommend it mostly because of the poor script that let’s the whole movie down.
The Lost City of Z is based on a book about a man named Percy Fawcett who at the turn of century led several expeditions in Bolivia to find the ancient Lost City of Z. This might sound exciting but in truth this film is more like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre than an exciting exploration movie. You might also be able to compare it to the Revenant in the way it explores the harshness of another climate and culture. However, both Sierra Madre and the Revenant have something Lost City of Z does not have- a concise narrative and compelling script (especially Sierra Madre which has a masterful script).
In Lost City of Z we get the entire life of Percy Fawcett. This not only makes the movie very long but also quite sprawling in nature. We get 3 expeditions and a long war sequence wedged in between. If the movie decided to focus on one of these expeditions it would have been so much better. It would have had a clear goal and the accompanying challenges, heroes, villains, etc. Here it seems like every time the movie gets momentum you are back in London, or off to war, and then back again to the Amazon.
It’s the same way with the characters. Sienna Miller is good as Fawcett’s wife but we see her so intermittently that she basically becomes a ‘ra ra’ character for him. Robert Pattinson is good as his first mate but the script doesn’t really allow us to get to know him either. At one point in the story they are starving and we see suffering but I was left asking questions- why did they not bring enough food, what happened to the food, why did they not fish or hunt, what exactly are they looking for etc. If I was more invested in the characters than I wouldn’t have been asking those questions.
I also thought the dialogue was very clunky. Charlie Hunnam tries his darnedest but he always felt like he was giving speeches not talking like an actual person. There is one scene where he argues with his wife about her coming on the expedition that felt real and human. (Sadly that is undermined by it coming out of nowhere for her character). Aside from that, everything he said just felt so wooden and clunky to me.
For example, towards the end he has a chance to say something emotional and meaningful to his son (Tom Holland). Instead of sharing a memory or a personal story of his life he says something like ‘we’ve got to fight on until the end because we are explorers’. It was stale when it should have been raw and emotional.
I know I have been very tough on this movie- probably more so than it deserves, but it has so much potential it is frustrating. I honestly think if the script had gotten a few more run-throughs and was made a little bit better it could have been one of the best of the year. As it is, it is an ambitious miss.
** Some that are very spoiler sensitive might find spoilers below but I tried to keep it clean
2016 seemed to be the year that original indie films didn’t work for me. Movies like Swiss Army Man and The Lobster that others loved I found repetitive and frustrating. So, it was with a little trepidation I went to see the latest creative ‘science fiction comedy’ Colossal (which btw is a hard word to spell…). While it is admittedly uneven, I walked out having enjoyed myself and can recommend the film.
I don’t want to spoil anything in the movie so I will just tell you the basic premise. Anne Hathaway plays an alcoholic who is dumped by her boyfriend played by Dan Stevens. When she goes back to her hometown she meets old friend Jason Sudeikis and realizes she has a connection with a monster or kaiju that appears in Seoul Korea. For example, when she scratches her head or bends over etc so does the monster.
There are a lot of positives in Colossal. First of all, Anne Hathaway is great in the lead role. She has to play a lot of notes as Gloria and she pulls them off well. I also liked Dan Stevens as the boyfriend who can’t take living with the alcoholic any more. Jason Sudeikis is ok. He starts out great and then his character kind of goes off the rails in ways I didn’t care for but as an actor he is ok.The movie also says a lot (maybe too much) and I feel like it is one I could watch several times and get new things out of. It has something to say about bullying, toxic masculinity, addiction, technology, communication, news, our worldwide connectiveness etc. I liked that Gloria has a messy life and even when she has turned things around she still is kind of a mess. That felt real to life.
Colossal looks great with convincing special effects and cinematography. It had a real sense of place. Everything is always gray and cold and it just suits the story. The designs of the kaiju looked terrific especially on an indie movie budget. It reminded me a little bit of Gremlins in the feel and style of the creatures.
All that said, there are some negatives. For about 20 minutes the movie goes into ‘creepy stalker guy’ material that felt right out of a generic horror movie. This made me roll my eyes and was disappointing because everything else had been so creative.
Also I’m not really sure what the movie is trying to say about addiction? Gloria overcomes her addiction pretty quickly and makes some decisions that seemed completely out of left field. For example, she starts up a relationship with someone that made no sense and I didn’t understand what the movie was trying to say with that? Is the kaiju symbolic of addiction? I think it can be symbolic of many things but it got a little muddled.
Some people have had issues with the ending. I didn’t mind the ending because I felt it got out of the lame creepy stalker horror movie section that I didn’t like. It was back to the weird scifi stuff I do like. I found her solution to be innovative and clever. It worked for me.
Overall, Colossal has some problems but it is still entertaining and worth a watch. I’d be interested to see more from director Nacho Vigalondo as it showed a lot of potential for someone who has mostly done shorts up to this point (the shorts before the movie were terrible btw).
Have any of you seen Colossal? What did you think? What do you think it was trying to say and what messages did you take from it? Share in the comments section. Thanks!
As far as content it is rated R for language and it is on the mild side I’d say.
I don’t often talk about news on this blog but a post appeared on twitter today that I just had to talk about.
All right. Let’s talk about each of these items
Untitled Disney Fairy Tale (live action)- We have all been wondering what the heck this was supposedly premiering in July. Well now it is next August but surprising they won’t just announce the title?
Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck it Ralph 2- Disappointed to hear this awful title is final but moving it from March to November is caused by the changes to Gigantic. This is fine for me.
Wrinkle in Time and Magic Camp- Wrinkle in Time is taking Wreck it Ralph 2’s spot. I love the book so I am soooooo hoping it will be good. Magic Camp is now officially announced and I’m very curious about it. I hope it will be fun!
Gigantic- Here’s the tragedy. Our update on Jack and the Beanstalk with music from Robert and Kristen Lopez is being moved from 2018 to all the way to 2020. I’m so sad 🙁
Star Wars: Episode IX- They are moving it from December to May and while I do like getting our Star Wars episodes sooner I kind of liked having a Star Wars surprise at Christmas. I wonder if we will get an animated Star Wars or something like that at Christmas? That’d be cool.
Indiana Jones- So this has moved to 2020. I bet this has more to do with Steven Spielberg than anything else with projects like Ready Player One working on right now. But seriously how old is Indy going to be in this movie!
Lion King (live action)- We have a date for this “live action” Lion King remake. The only weird thing is that another live action Disney movie is coming out the next month which seems very close together.
Frozen 2- I think most of us knew Frozen 2 was coming in 2019 but this is the official announcement and date. I know what I will be seeing Thanksgiving 2019!
The rest are all untitled projects so not much to say about them except I am curious what that Untitled Pixar Animation is!
No word on Disneytoons film which was previously announced for April 12, 2019. I still think it is going to be an Elena of Avalor movie because she is so popular but it could also be Star Wars. Who knows?
I am also surprised they announced this now and not at D23/Star Wars Celebration. It seems a little random but whatever.
The biggest bummer is Gigantic. 🙁
What do you think of these announcements? Would love to hear your thoughts
Ah how great it is to see terrific comedy! It’s the best to sit back, relax and heartily laugh at a good movie. Unfortunately it’s an experience that doesn’t happen too often these days. Now most comedies are so raunchy that I either chose to not watch them or they aren’t my style of humor. So, you can imagine my enjoyment when I put on this month’s blind spot pick, Duck Soup, and laughed good and hard! Duck Soup is a classic comedy and with good cause. Especially if you like physical comedy it doesn’t get better than this.
You don’t see a movie like Duck Soup for the plot. It’s about the hilarious gags. What’s impressive here is they manage to be funny with both physical comedy and political commentary. I love how expressive each of the brothers are and how you can read so much through their eyes and facial expressions.
I know some children might be intimidated by black and white but comedies can often be good ways to introduce them. Duck Soup would be great for that. I think they will love it especially Chico and Harpo as the 2 spies. Hilarious.
