Movies Extravaganza 16 : A HAUNTING IN VENICE, FAIR PLAY, A MILLION MILES AWAY, BLUE BEETLE, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3, JULES

A MILLION MILES AWAY | Amazon Studios | Writer/Director Alejandra Marquez Abella |
Co-Writers  Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez

Biopics with outsized heroes can lay it on thick, but “A Million Miles Away” manages to keep its hero’s feet firmly on earth before his space shot, largely thanks to star Michael Peña as Hernández and Rosa Salazar as his wife. They keep their characters’ humanity even as the soundtrack and visuals blast off. He may be an astronaut, but someone still needs to take out the trash.

Screenwriters Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez and Alejandra Márquez Abella — who base their story on Hernández’s memoir — tell a linear story of a gifted young man who is helped along the way by a teacher, his parents and his extended family. He is rejected so many times from NASA that he keeps all their letters in a folder. READ MORE  By Mark Kennedy, APNews.com

BLUE BEETLE | Warner Bros/DC Comics | Director Ángel Manuel Soto | Writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer

After finishing graduation, Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) returns back to see his family struggling financially and the news that his dad had suffered and recovered from a heart attack. Jaime, along with his sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), gets a job at the house of Kord Industries CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon – relishing every villainous moment), where Jaime chances upon the latter’s gorgeous niece Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine). Jenny is dead against her aunt tarnishing the legacy of her late father Ted Kord by harnessing an alien scarab to create an army of cyborg supersoldiers called OMACs, but there’s little Jenny can do against Vicky and her OMAC bodyguard Ignacio Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo). Eventually, Vicky steals the Blue Beetle Scarab, seeks help from Jaime to smuggle it out of the Kord Headquarters, and…. as anyone would expect, the dormant Scarab awakens suddenly and chooses the poor teen as its host… READ MORE by Bhuvanesh Chandar, thehindu.com

Whereas you could usually expect the civilian loved ones of a fledgling hero in the making to recede into the background as this kind of movie’s focus turns toward the fantastic, Blue Beetle pulls the other Reyeses even closer to Jaime as its story kicks into gear. It’s an interesting choice that’s meant to make Jaime’s transformation into the Blue Beetle feel distinct from other superhero movie narratives where young people are whisked away from everything they know while saving the world. It’s also one of the film’s ways of lovingly depicting the Reyeses as the average kind of tight-knit Latino family unit that audiences can recognize and see themselves in… READ MORE by Charles Pulliam-Moore, theverge.com

Comics fans know that Ted was the previous Blue Beetle, a kind of buggy Batman complete with kooky crime-fighting gadgets and an underground lair… READ MORE by Bob Strauss, sfchronicle.com

What did I (LeAnne) think? 4 outta 5 – I’ve never watched Cobra Kai, so I wasn’t familiar with the cutie Xolo Maridueña who plays the title role. But he’s got good energy & heart. Blue Beetle as a Superhero is part Shazam as he’s not skilled in the least & part Moon Knight or Venom cause he’s been chosen to be a host for an entity and really has very little control.

George Lopez has a really fun role as Uncle Rudy. In fact, the whole family totally works & feels authentic. Do most families who speak both Spanish & English really go back & forth so much interchanging the languages? I wish I could do that. It makes your speech so much more colorful.

Anyway, I don’t know if it’s gonna knock BARBIE outta the top spot, but it’s definitely worth seeing in the theater. Unlike STRAYS which I also saw this week.

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3| Focus Features | Writer/Director Nia Vardalos |

People love this family and want to revisit with them. And obviously, you can’t go wrong showing the stunning vistas of Greece – too bad the movie is beautifully flat. The young, self appointed Village Mayor, Victory (Melina Kotselou) is lively and brings a certain spark. But things like for instance, the brother Nick (Louis Mandylor) doing his manscaping and other grooming at the dining table. It shouldn’t be the focus of the scene, it’s not that humorous. However, if he was doing it less conspicuously, where we see it’s disgusting, but the family is oblivious, that would make it funny. There’s just a lot of places where things could have been cuter, funnier, more charming… I would say it’s got 2.5 iotas of charm.

JULES | Bleecker Street | Director Marc Turtletaub | Writer Gavin Steckler

Ben Kingsley plays Milton Robinson, a doddering senior whose daughter, Denise (Zoe Winters), worries he is starting to suffer from memory loss and senile confusion. Her fears are not allayed by the fact that Milton begins mentioning an alien that landed in his backyard. The alien is very real and is the titular Jules. Played by Jade Quon in a mute performance, the creature’s silence ultimately acts as encouragement for the people that encounter it to open up more than they normally would… READ MORE by Trace Sauveur, austinchronicle.com 

What follows is good for a wry smile or two (or three), but is not entirely unexpected in this sweet but slight fable. Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) christens the visitor Jules, although Joyce (Jane Curtain) insists that the alien looks more like a Gary, as the three of them debate what to do, all while Jules keeps leaving Milton unexplained drawings and performing repairs on the damaged ship, racing against time as Men in Black from some agency called the National Security Center are honing in on the site. (The biggest joke of the film involves what Jules’s ship needs for fuel. I won’t spoil it, except to say it’s a bit silly… READ MORE by Michael O’Sullivan, washingtonpost.com

Though we spend most of our time with Milton, it’s Sandy and Joyce who often steal every scene they’re in. Curtin, who is basically an authority on alien comedies after starring in Coneheads and 3rd Rock From the Sun, stays armed with her iconic comedic timing (one expertly read joke about her old life in the big city made me holler), and Harris matches Kingsley’s ability to cycle between hilarious line deliveries and big-hearted sentimentality, which blessedly never gets too saccharine… READ MORE by Coleman Spilde, thedailybeast.com

What did I (LeAnne) think? 3 outta 5 – Marc Turletaub is a prolific Producer of movies like “Little Miss Sunshine”, “Loving”, “Safety Not Guranteed” “The Farewell”  – however, a movie he directed, PUZZLE (2018)(RIP Irfan Khan), I absolutely adored and highly recommend to anyone! “Jules” is charming enough, but not very nuanced. Yet, it does go to show you’re never too old to experience wonder 🛸