Movies Extravaganza 14 : NO HARD FEELINGS, THE BLACKENING, SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, THE LITTLE MERMAID, THE MOTHER, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Vol. 3

NO HARD FEELINGS | Sony Pictures Releasing | Director & Co-Writer Gene Stupnitsky |Co-Writer John Phillips

Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), a 32-year old single woman, born and raised in Montauk, NY, lives in a home she inherited from her mother, but can’t afford to pay the property taxes and is in jeopardy of losing the home. She works as an Uber driver and bartender. Until her car is repossessed, forcing her to rollerblade to the one job and unable to do the other. Desperate, she accepts an unusual Craigslist posting in which her new employers, a pair of helicopter parents (Laura Benanti & Matthew Broderick), ask her to “date” their 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) in exchange for a Buick Regal. Percy has had no experiences with girls, drinking, parties or sex, and his parents hope to boost his confidence before he attends Princeton University in the fall.

Whilst the set-up implies Percy is the one who’ll be learning the language of love from Maddie, quelle surprise, turns out they both have a lot to teach each other. Andrew Feldman impresses in his first major role, and is genuinely touching as the shy youngster; a rule-follower whose naivety is a product of his parents’ over-coddling, and who breaks out in anxious hives at the first sign of romantic intimacy. He’s a character of contradictions, however — the fact his parents would enlist help from Maddie in this way is a stretch to begin with, but to see Percy’s relative ease with her implies he’s not as socially inept as that deal believably suggests… READ MORE by Sophie Butcher, Empire.com

Gene Stupnitsky’s (Good Boys, Bad Teacher) film has a kinder, gentler tone and intent than its logline suggests. ‘No Hard Feelings’ is a nice comedy, courting taboo here and there but largely rounded out with sweetness. It’s an amiable time at the movies — but I was hoping for more of a shock. … Despite those occasional bursts of raucous energy, the film’s presiding vibes are laid-back. Which is a slight disappointment, demanding a sudden realignment of expectations to get on the movie’s wavelength… READ MORE  by Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Lawrence going for broke in a bold and bawdy performance as a rowdy Long Island surfer girl doing her best Mae West. There simply aren’t enough female dirtbags in cinema, so Lawrence’s Maddie Barker — Uber driver, surly bartender and pissed-off Montauk townie — is a refreshing character… READ MORE by Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

What did I (LeAnne) think? “No Hard Feelings” is 100x better than the recent comedy, “About My Father” co-written and starring Sebastian Maniscalco; mainly because Lawrence is playing to her strengths, digging into that messy mind, falling down, rough exterior personality she used to present to talk show hosts and on the red carpet. Whereas Maniscalco went against his standup persona, presenting a nice, reasonable boyfriend, of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg on why that movie didn’t work.  But I feel this one did.  At first I too thought the character of Percy was contradictory, because he handles himself really well with Maddie. It doesn’t take him any time at all to open up and romance her. But then I realized, what his parents think of him and who he truly is, are supposed to be contradictory. He has his reason’s for being a loner, but he’s not on the spectrum or clueless. He just lets his parents coddle him, cause, well, it certainly makes life easier. That being said, it’s a comedy which loses its appeal if you dissect it too much; if you just let it be, there’s some pretty humorous and endearing setups throughout, to steer you to the lessons learned, feel good ending.

I realized this is JLaw‘s first official comedy – “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Joy” are each a dramedy. “Don’t Look Up” is funny, but its genre would be cautionary/Scifi. Lawrence was the comic relief in “American Hustle”, but again, a satire, not a broad comedy.  I’m glad she finally found herself here.  T&T Rating 3.5 outta 5

THE BLACKENING | Lionsgate | Director Tim Story (Ride Along, Think Like a Man, Barbershop) | Screenplay Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip, Harlem) & Dewayne Perkins (The Amber Ruffin Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

This black, horror comedy begins with the central question, “if the entire cast of a horror movie is Black, who dies first?”  The blackest?

Oliver says, “Every time I take on a new genre, I’m like a student. I watched so many horror movies because there are rules to follow, and there are structural things that you have to understand about the genre to get it right. I took it seriously, and I watched a bunch of things and even wrote down stuff to keep in mind or wrote stuff like, ‘Oh, I really like how they did this. Maybe we could figure out a way.’ We did a lot of homework and research.” READ MORE  BloodyDisgusting.com Interview

Click image to play

Reuniting for a weekend of Spades and drinking after a ten-year gap, the group is made up of lawyer Lisa (Antoinette Robertson), her former boyfriend (and current secret lover) Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls), and her gay best friend Dwayne (Perkins) who still hasn’t forgiven Nnamdi for breaking Lisa’s heart back in college. There’s also lovable drunk Shanika (X Mayo), dancer King (Melvin Gregg), slightly neurotic light-skinned Allison (Grace Byers) and awkward outcast Clifton (Jermaine Fowler). The ones who organized the weekend, Morgan and Shawn (Yvonne Orji and Jay Pharaoh), have been MIA all afternoon…  READ MORE Joe Lipsett BloodyDisgusting.com

Every slasher movie needs a good villain, and here the killer wears a blackface leather mask. It’s on the nose, but this parody has about as much subtext as “Scary Movie” and that’s part of the fun. There is no toning down Blackness or explaining things to white audiences. If you don’t know how to play Spades or what the Black anthem is, ask a friend… READ MORE Rafael Motamayor IndieWire.com

What did I (LeAnne) think? The Blackening’s got the feel of Bodies Bodies Bodies, just not as clever.  You can see the twist ending coming from a mile away. But as someone whose black card is always in threat of being revoked, due to having grown up on a constant diet of corny, white fare; I liked the irony of a board game of actual black cards, where each character has to answer culturally black trivia in order to stay alive!  And yup, if I were playing, my black card would once again have been in jeopardy, cause for a number of the questions, I’d have been about as much help as I’d be in an escape room requiring math. 

The movie relies upon the chemistry of the cast, which works, only I couldn’t understand why the first few scenes were filled with such staged, amateurish, setup dialog, was this intentional parody or bad writing?  But once the movie gets rolling, you can’t help but laugh and roll with it to its socially relevant ending dilemma.  T&T rating: 3.5 Outta 5

Overall I enjoyed the film and thought this fresh take on the Flashpoint event was creative. Just not as creative as the 2013 film, which still had meta-humans and heroes, with each of them in different roles than what they are in the traditional DC’s Earth-Prime version. For instance, Bruce Wayne was killed in the alley that famous night instead of his parents; turning his father into Batman and his mother into the Joker. Superman is captured and nowhere to be found. Cyborg is a resistance leader, giving America a fighting chance within a war between Aquaman’s Atlanteans and Wonder Woman’s Amazonians. Aquaman cheated on his wife Mera with Diana and it led to this major war. READ MORE

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE  | Sony Pictures Releasing | Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson | Writers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham

Across the Review-Verse ….

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a cultural watershed moment. Directed by Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman, and Peter Ramsey from a script by Rothman and Phil Lord, with Lord producing with his creative partner Christopher Miller, not only did Into the Spider-Verse introduce audiences to a Spider-Man never seen in a feature film in Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and break the concept of the cinematic multiverse wide open, but it also marked a shift in Hollywood animation. Its varying frame rates and expressionistic, comic-like style were revolutionary in every way. Opening to a modest box office, on the backs of stellar reviews and fan adoration, the film became a modern classic. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse adopts the sequel playbook of going bigger and bolder. Rather than resulting in an overstuffed mess, Across the Spider-Verse is up to the challenge, making the first movie look like a trial run in comparison… READ MORE  written by James Preston Poole – DF DiscussingFilm.com

We begin with Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), who must leave her universe after her police captain father (Shea Whigham) tries to arrest her, believing her to be guilty of killing her universe’s Peter Parker. She does so with the help of Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), who oversees a multiverse-spanning network of Spideys, and Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), who becomes her mentor… READ MORE written by Mountanto – College Times

Across the Spider-Verse is a visually dynamic film with a variety of different styles used to represent alternate universes. In addition to the common generic CGI look, there’s one that’s impressionistic, another that offers an unfinished, almost-blurry aesthetic, and others that are dark, futuristic, and reflective of old-style comic books. The LEGO universe makes an appearance and there is a brief live-action sequence featuring a character from the Venom movies… As for the cliffhanger ending, I’m of two minds about this…. READ MORE written by James Berardinelli – ReelViews

What did I (LeAnne) think? 4.5 Outta 5 – Vibrant all the way around, story, visuals, characters! Although, I’ll admit, I got a little sleepy a few moments before we meet the super cool Spider-man named Hobie Brown, aka Spider-Punk voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, but that could have been due to the heaping portion of Chinese food I ate at the beginning of the movie. This Spider-Punk was my favorite spidey. Kauuya says he: put a lot of emphasis on what matters to the fans when it came to finding his superhero’s voice, so much so that when he first took on the role of Spider-Punk he listened to fan-made playlists dedicated to the character to understand how they saw him rather than choose to base him on any punk rock icons of the past… READ MORE written by Roxy Simons –Yahoo Entertainment

Disney Live Action THE LITTLE MERMAID | Walt Disney Studios | Director Rob Marshall | Screenplay David Magee | Composers Alan Menken & New songs Lin-Manuel Miranda

Me and my sister came out of Disney’s Live Action The Little Mermaid smiling from ear to ear feeling as though it managed to capture and hold true to everything we loved about the animated original and at the same time, embracing the world of today with beautiful diversity. But then I read The New York Times review by Wesley Morris and he just makes me feel stupid for enjoying the movie. I suppose he has some salient points like “This new flesh-and-blood version is about a girl who’d like to withdraw her color from the family rainbow and sail off into “uncharted waters” with her white prince.” Also, although I loved Halle Bailey’s interpretation of Ariel, his review now makes me question, does she imbue varied enough facial expressions while mute?

He seems to be against the script changes and yet mocks it for playing it too safe and trying too hard to please the audience who grew up with the original. He also seems to both condemn the efforts and expects something better in terms of inclusion and Disney’s attempt at atoning for systemic racism and chauvinism of earlier classics.

“The song that breaks this news to Ariel and Sebastian is a rap called “The Scuttlebutt” with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda. And Awkwafina, who does Scuttle’s voice, performs most of it while Bailey looks on in what I’m going to call anguish. Here’s an Asian American performer whose shtick is a kind of Black impersonation, pretending to be a computer-generated bird, rhythm-rapping with a Black American man pretending to be a Caribbean crab. It’s the sort of mind-melting mess that feels honest and utterly free in its messiness…” 

His review had me all over the map, but it’s definitely worth a READ. 

But in the end,  I’m just gonna stick with the simple fact that The Little Mermaid 2023 made me happy 🙂

I also came across…

 5 FUN FACTS ABOUT THE ORIGINAL THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)

1. The then chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg, was dead set against Ariel having red hair, but agreed they wanted to set her apart from Daryl Hannah‘s blonde Mermaid in “Splash”, so he gave in to the creators wish to give Ariel the now signature flowing red mane. Tyco the toy company making Little Mermaid merch, was not as easily persuaded and gave the doll strawberry blonde hair, but kids demanded a really red haired Ariel, so they had to do a re-do and manufacture a new version. Wonder how much the strawberry blonde dolls are worth now?
Also, I think they could have given Halle Bailey a bit more red tint for her Do while still keeping the mix of braids and dreads.

2. “A Part of Your World” was almost cut from the original because the rough animated storyboard screening didn’t test well with a group of kids. However, there was a popcorn dropping incident during the song which distracted the audience. The creators and animators argued how necessary a song it is and even cited “Over The Rainbow” having almost been cut from “The Wizard of Oz” and what a mistake that would have been. Luckily, kids were transfixed during the song at the next test screening which was fully animated.

3. In the French dub of the movie Chef Louis is Italian. This character is not in or needed in this Live Action version.

4. A character called Harold the Merman was cut from the movie. He was supposed to be an example of how Ursula tricked people with her deals. Thankfully, he was replaced with the song “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.

5. Howard Ashman was a big fan of “Dynasty” and pictured Ursula as a Joan Collins type and wanted Collins for the role. But writers Muster and Clements wanted Bea Arthur and even wrote her name into the script; her agent turned down the role. They also auditioned Charlotte Rae (Facts of Life) but thankfully, they kept auditioning until Pat Carroll, who embodied the role like no one else ever could, not even Melissa McCarthy.

Click more Fun Facts and Easter Eggs about the original animated “The Little Mermaid”.

Here’s a little video I put together of some mini interviews with the cast
and pics of the blue carpet premiere:

One Other Tidbit!

Did you know there’s a Mermaid Museum which opened 2020 in Berlin MD?  I wanna go for my upcoming birthday in June, but the B&B’s are mad expensive $ – Ocean City MD is not far from Berlin, but I wanna stay where it’s quaint.  Anyway, the museum is both history and pop culture and looks great!

THE MOTHER |Netflix | Director Niki Caro | Writer/Producer Misha Green (Lovecraft Country)

The Mother is a Netflix action thriller starring Jennifer Lopez as a deadly assassin who must give up her daughter and go into hiding. The movie is full of adrenaline-pumping scenes. But it’s not fun like Netflix’s “The Gray Man” or “Red Notice” it’s far more grim and deadly.  The movie is directed by Niki Caro, who previously helmed “Mulan” and “The Zookeeper’s Wife”. She knows how to stage some impressive action sequences, especially the ones involving Lopez’s hand-to-hand combat abilities. Lopez delivers a solid performance as a fierce, ex-military, sniper expert and estranged mother who will do anything to protect her child, Zoe, who has become an unfortunate pawn in a conflict between two cartel factions.

Newcomer Lucy Paez, plays Zoe, the 12 year-old who is getting to know her birth mom for the first time in the wild Alaskan frontier. She’s pretty good, acts with a pouty mouth. I think her exotic, versatile look should keep her working in the industry for a while.

Joseph Fiennes plays one of the men who could possibly be Zoe’s father and is hell bent on revenge for the many transgressions done by The Mother.

Omari Hardwick plays the FBI Agent who attracts bullets, explosions and knives aimed at him. But hurt or not, he’s still super hot.

Jennifer Lopez is still in incredible shape and handles such a physical movie with ease.

I thought this was a funny quote:

Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas recalled living with Jennifer on location in the remote Canada woods. “I was really scared because she caught me eating carbs,” Goldsmith-Thomas said. “She didn’t eat any carbs. I was like, ‘Me, too! Solidarity!’ But then I snuck some Cheetos. She was a beast. I don’t know if she was in better shape for this or ‘Hustlers,’ but she was a beast.”

The Mother explores themes of family, redemption and identity, as Lopez’s character (with no name) struggles to reconcile her past and present. It’s not a groundbreaking or original movie by any means. It borrows heavily from other action movies like “Taken”, “Salt” and “Atomic Blonde”. The plot is predictable, the villains are one-dimensional and the moments of warmth aren’t very moving. But it’s entertaining, it’s JLo, and it’s Mother’s Day, so go stream it!

T&T rating: 3 outta 5

Click image for Short IMDB Interview with Lucy & Jennifer

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 | Marvel Studios / Disney| Writer/Director James Gunn |Producer Kevin Feige

James Gunn says goodbye to his band of galactic misfits with a Rocket (Bradley Cooper) terrifically sorrowful origin story. Typically GOTG movies start out with an upbeat track –  GOTG 1 was Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) exploring to Redbone “Come and Get Your Love” and GOTG 2 was Baby Groot jamming to ELO “Mr. Blue Sky” obliviously enjoying himself while the other Guardians are getting thrashed by an Abilsk.  But GOTG 3 is a little more somber in tone, indicated by the opening sequence where Peter is still inebriate-ly mourning the loss of his Gamora (Zoe Saldana) from his timeline, as the Gamora from this time line… well, sucks.  And Rocket is featured in sedate shots with Radiohead’s “Creep” playing. [Side note: this is a song I was reminded of how good it is after recently seeing the Broadway show “Fat Ham” (Nominated for a TONY) of which the song features prominently].  

Suddenly the relative harmony of Knowhere, a Pirate city the Guardians are now calling home, is disrupted by what seems like a large gold bullet hurtling for the planet at full velocity.  It’s Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) as a bounty hunter sent to retrieve Rocket by his maker, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). A guy reminiscent of Chewitel Ejiofore’s character in the “Firefly” series movie “Serenity” they both are villains trying to make a better society through sick experimentation, driven by a God complex.  I read the Adam Warlock character Wiki, and in the comics he was originally called Him and had a more Messiah representation.  This version is nothing like that. He’s more a man/baby, with mother issues, who doesn’t really understand his own strength or place in the Universe.  But he is able to do some major damage to Rocket, who can’t be restored without getting passed an override code no one knew he had.  Thus, sets up the main plot of the movie – operation find out where Rocket came from and get the code to save his life.

I’ve always really liked Karan Gillian as Nebula, you can tell she takes the character seriously. And it’s good to see this humanoid, daughter of Thanos take center stage, she’s now a major player, and they’ve worked in a quirky chemistry between she and Quill.

The core of the movie is in flashbacks, witnessing how Rocket came to be this talking racoon, of which he always denies being. The running joke is that he’s always referred to as everything from a badger to a rat to a… fill in the assorted rodent or mammal, all of which he also denies being, but he’s never said what he is.  There’s a real Island of Misfit Toys aspect to this story that’s pretty emotional and probably will be quite upsetting for a lot of sensitive, animal crazy kids and adults. But I found these creepy, sweet, lab experiments weirdly compelling.   

I definitely feel GOTG3 has stronger beats than Ant-man Quantumania, but it’s still a little long and lacking a certain spark had by the prior 2 movies of this MCU franchise. I think we need to go back to keeping the films just under 2 hours. Infinity War and End Game each needed to be nearly 3 hours because of so many characters and major story arcs, but with these sequels, no matter how beloved the characters, there’s not enough to fill them. I love superhero movies and particularly the MCU, but lately I can always feel the point in which they should be wrapping up, yet there’s 40-45 minutes still to go. 

This week I’m gonna go back and watch the Guardians Christmas show on Disney+ because I took note of a few things that I thought I may have just forgotten about, but turns out these were things revealed in this “Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special”. I’ll watch it just for my own edification. Regular moviegoers won’t need it to enjoy GOTG3.

T&T Rating 3.75 outta 5