Cruella

 Cruella (2021)

Starring Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beecham, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Mark Strong

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Written by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Last Christmas

Last Christmas (2019)

Starring Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Paul Feig

Written by Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

The Missing Link

The Missing Link (2019)

Featuring the vocal talents of Hugh Jackman, Zach Galifianakis, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Fry, Timothy Olyphant, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Chris Butler

Written by Chris Butler

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Late Night

Late Night (2019)

Starring Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, Max Casella, Hugh Dancy, John Lithgow, Denis O'Hare, Reid Scott, and Amy Ryan

Directed by Nisha Ganatra

Written by Mindy Kaling

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

Starring Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel, Grace Van Patten, Candice Bergen, Adam Driver, Rebecca Miller, and Judd Hirsch

Directed by Noah Baumbach

Written by

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Trying something new here...uncovered a new website that's a bit of a film diary.  Contemplating switching over to it completely, but for the moment I'm going to link to things there.  Explore Letterboxd...maybe you'll want to join too and we can comment on movies there!

Click here for a link to my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Starring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Audra McDonald Stanley Tucci, Kevin Kline, Hattie Morahan, Nathan Mack, Ian McKellan, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Bill Condon

Although I stopped my Disney Discussion before I got to their fantastic 1991 animated classic, it should be noted that the original Disney Beauty and the Beast is my second favorite film of all time.  (Only Psycho tops it.)  Needless to say, I was not avidly looking forward to Disney's live-action remake.  Much like the 1998 nearly shot-for-shot remake of Psycho which proved to be a waste of time when the infinitely superior original exists, I was extraordinarily hesitant heading into a theater to watch the remake of Beauty and the Beast.  While I'd love to say that this 2017 version is a glorious take on the classic animated film, I can't in the slightest.  Instead, I found myself asking the the following question throughout:

Why does this film exist if its creative team is not going to make a single thing better than the original?

Here's the thing about this 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast -- the story still holds up incredibly well.  I was never bored as I watched the tale of Belle (Emma Watson) and the Beast (Dan Stevens) unfold with the layers of their distrust in one another changing to love blooming in its place.  The nuances of Alan Menken's music and the late Howard Ashman's lyrics still paint a lovely picture in song and add pivotal characterizations to the film's core ensemble.  Yet despite a few new songs and some odd and misguided changes to the story, director Bill Condon has assembled a film that hews much too close to the original to have a feeling that it's its own unique piece.  If the only purpose of this film is create the same exact tone and feel of its animated predecessor but to do so in live action, what was the point other than to simply be a major cash grab for the Walt Disney corporation?

Frankly, it's obvious that there was no other point.  This is a cash grab through and through, moreso than any of the previous Disney live action remakes of the past few years.  Despite its epic failure, Alice in Wonderland at least was manically what it was.  Maleficent took on the Sleeping Beauty story from a different perspective.  Cinderella gave us more well-rounded and deeply developed characters.  The Jungle Book provided a sensory special-effects experience that was visually enticing.  This Beauty and the Beast does none of that, instead insisting on staying so close in tone to its predecessor that its reason for existence proves moot.  Sure, the film attempts to give us a little more backstory to Belle and the Beast (hence its 30-minute-plus longer runtime than the richly developed, yet concise original), but that exposition proves to be silly most of the time rather than insightful.  (As an example, one of the few unique moments of the piece -- a journey back in time to when Belle was a child -- seems aggravatingly unnecessary despite its attempt at character development.)

I realize my last parenthetical comment seems contradictory to my biggest qualm with the film.  Here I am complaining about this iteration's lack of originality and yet I'm berating its attempts to be different at the same time.  I was all for "difference" here, but there has to be a reason for it and I found most of the film's changes disappointingly uncreative.  Frankly, the best change is one that's been widely criticized in a large chunk of the reviews I've read.  Following their dance to the titular song (which is a huge let-down in and of itself in both visual and aural execution), Belle runs home to her father who she discovers is being harmed by the maleficent Gaston (Luke Evans -- the one shining aspect of the piece).  The Beast is in emotional shambles, destitute that his one true love (and his one chance of overcoming the horrible spell that's been placed upon him) has run away.  He sings a desperately emotional plea in the new song "Evermore" which, while not quite as emotionally heartbreaking as Broadway's equivalent version of this number "If I Can't Love Her, still succeeds in cluing the viewers in to the Beast's psyche at the time.  This unique moment is what I wanted more of from this film and instead director Condon, writers Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, and the Disney corporation have just regurgitated nearly everything that made the animated film so fantastic.  The second time isn't always the charm, however, and that's the case here.

Emma Watson is lackluster (though serviceable) as Belle.  She lacks the charisma present in the animated character and while Watson's Belle is perhaps a bit more assertive and "feminist" (in a good way), there's an emotional blankness behind her eyes in many of the scenes.  I'll also never understand why one's singing voice isn't always a top priority when casting actors in a musical.  Sure, some musical films -- La La Land, as an example -- can skate by on the charm of the characters whose less-than-perfect singing actually adds a layer to their cinematic personas.  I simply don't think that works in a movie like this which sets itself up as an old-school stylized musical.  Being able to sing is important here and with the exception of a few adequate moments in the song "Something There," Watson lacks the emotional phrasing needed to succeed when starring in a movie musical.  Dan Stevens as the Beast fares a little better with the aforementioned "Evermore" number granting him an opportunity to give his character some hefty gravitas.  Granted, his performance is essentially crafted by motion capture special effects experts, but I found the Beast to be a well-animated effect at least.

Unfortunately, that's more than I can say for many of the other special effects-created animated supporting cast who take on the forms of candlestick Lumiere (Ewan McGregor), teapot Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson), clock Cogsworth (Ian McKellan), feather duster Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), armoire Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald), and piano Maestro Cadenza (Stanley Tucci).  None of these performers (with perhaps the exception of Mbatha-Raw) do a thing to exceed their marvelous vocal predecessors who came before them and their gothic, dark design is almost always visually unappealing.  Essentially all doing voice-overs, the heart and charm of the animated film is lost in this version's characters.  Pivotal moments like "Be Our Guest" and "Beauty and the Beast" are disappointingly staged, poorly re-enacted, and oddly paced and sung by the likes of McGregor and Thompson, creating emotional vacuums where there should've been charm and heart.

The funny thing after writing all of the above which should seemingly yield a scathing rating below is that inherently the story behind Beauty and the Beast is still a successful one and since this version hardly deviates from the original, it's not an all-out failure.  While nothing in this go-around is better than the original -- although Luke Evans interpretation of Gaston comes awfully close as he fully embraces the hammy machismo that shaped that character in the animated version -- it's tough to say this film is unwatchable.  What I can't understand, though, is why anyone would want to watch this version when a perfect version of this same story is available.  Inherently, I do have problem with Disney reaching back into its animated vault to create live action versions simply to pad its coffers (albeit with boatloads of money if this film's success is any indication).  However, it they're going to have to do it, they need to at least be willing to deviate somehow from the original especially if it's one as perfect as Beauty and the Beast.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Burnt

Burnt (2015)

Starring Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Omar Sy, Daniel Brühl, Matthew Rhys, Alicia Vikander,  Uma Thurman, and Emma Thompson

Directed by John Wells

Burnt is a well-acted film about a once great Michelin Star-earning chef named Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) who lost it all when drugs and horrible behavior upended his career at an early age.  After taking time to reflect on his wrongs back home in the United States, Adam returns to London to start his career again, opening a new restaurant and trying to right the wrongs of his past.

Despite the aforementioned notion that Burnt is well-acted, it's a film that just kind of sits there and doesn't excite the audience in any way.  Director John Wells paces the already short film in such a way that it doesn't engage us and pull us in to Adam's life.  Sure, the glossy and well-lit scenes of kitchen work are pretty, but once we move beyond the boiling pots, buttered-up pans, and fancy sous vide machines, there's no dramatic tension in this otherwise typical film about a formerly unpleasant guy becoming pleasant.

Bradley Cooper is quite good and his character is at least a little bit captivating.  His relationships with his sous chefs (Sienna Miller, Omar Sy), his front-of-house staff (Daniel Brühl), and rival (Matthew Rhys) are all pleasant enough and all well-performed by the cast.  Unfortunately, there's very little for the actors to sink their teeth into which goes hand-in-hand with the lack of any tension and significant plot.  Burnt isn't a particularly bad movie, but by the end I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Love Punch

The Love Punch (2014)

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, and Celia Imrie

Directed by Joel Hopkins

In The Love Punch, Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson play Richard and Kate Jones, a divorced couple whose retirement nest egg is depleted after a nasty young French businessman buys the company for whom Richard works.  Richard and Kate are obviously devastated, but after discovering that the businessman is due to be married to a French model whom he has bestowed the biggest diamond ever sold at auction, Kate hatches a plan to steal the diamond in order to make back their money as they enlist the help of their best friends (Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie) as they trek across France.

This comedic caper first lacks any comedy.  With the exception of maybe a chuckle or two, The Love Punch falls completely flat.  It's also a flick that's much too obvious and transparent with the bickering Richard and Kate inevitably being set up to fall in love again from the film's opening scenes.  Brosnan and Thompson (along with Spall and Imrie) try to make the most of things, but when they're tethered to lame jokes that play off their age -- lack of bladder control being used multiple times -- they can't save this lame duck.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Men, Women & Children

Men, Women & Children (2014)

Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie Dewitt, Judy Greer, Dean Norris, Kaitlyn Dever, Ansel Elgort, Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Crocicchia, Elena Kampouris, Dennis Haysbert, J.K. Simmons, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Jason Reitman

Are you aware that the internet can pose a dangerous threat to our youth?

Are you aware that the pressures of being a teen nowadays are amplified exponentially by the power of social media and texting?

Are you aware that some people get so lost in the internet worlds of role-playing games and pornography that they lose touch with their actual reality?

If you've been living under a rock for the past ten years, then writer-director Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children is the movie for you!  However, if you're anything like me and pretty much everyone else, I'm sure that none of the above questions are altogether surprising.  Reitman seemingly thinks that these notions are somewhat new as he tries to present all of them to riveting, shocking, and dramatic effect.  Unfortunately, we've seen this story before in both movies and television -- and we've seen it done much better.

This is one of those movies where you simply try to guess at the beginning which teenager is going to commit suicide and which one is going to get pregnant because you know it's going to happen -- and, sure enough, Reitman doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel because halfway through the flick someone gets knocked up and three-quarters of the way through we witness the suicide.  Neither of which surprise us in the slightest as we could see them telegraphed from the film's opening five minutes.  Reitman hasn't crafted characters here, he's simply created stereotypical avatars of what he must think sex-crazed teens (Olivia Crocicchia, Timothée Chalamet) or loner teens (Kaitlyn Dever) or jock teens (Ansel Elgort) or overprotective parents (Jennifer Garner) or cool parents (Judy Greer) or emotionally detached spouses (Adam Sandler, Rosemarie Dewitt) are really like.  He then tosses in a tongue-in-cheek British narrator (Emma Thompson) to spout pithy remarks about the goings-on which confused the heck out of me as I couldn't tell whether Reitman was trying to craft something serious or whether this whole film was just an awful attempt at satire.

Across the board, some typically solid actors are left wallowing.  Kaitlyn Dever (so good in Short Term 12) and Ansel Elgort (quite a charming surprise in The Fault in Our Stars) fare the best, but maybe it's simply because their roles felt the least cookie cutter.  Also, would it be too hard for Judy Greer to land some more gigs?  She makes the best of her part as a mom who posts risqué pictures of her daughter on the internet by imbuing a bit of heart and personality into the film -- something that Men, Women & Children is missing in spades.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

Starring Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Rose Buckley, Colin Farrell, Ruth Wilson, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, B.J. Novak, Jason Schwartzman, Kathy Baker, Melanie Paxson, and Rachel Griffiths

Directed by John Lee Hancock

Poor Saving Mr. Banks.  Hit with articles and speeches (thanks, Meryl Streep) saying that it's a whitewash of Walt Disney's "true" misogynistic and anti-Semitic leanings, intent on being a love letter for the cherished movie company, the family friendly film all but missed the boat on Oscar nomination day failing to earn a nod beyond Best Score.  Critics of the film will tell you that the movie sets up Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers as a put-upon lady who had to succumb to "Uncle Walt's" wishes in order to finally have a film version of her classic novel placed up on the screen.  Quite honestly, I can't help but think that's a bunch of baloney as that's not at all what I saw in this movie.  Travers' headstrong personality may have kowtowed in certain areas of production, but to call her an obsequious woman trampled on by a larger than life figure misses the boat completely.  Yes, Saving Mr. Banks is a film about letting things go, but Travers isn't "giving up" her beloved Mary Poppins.  Instead, she's giving up some long-standing guilt that's she's clung to since her childhood.  The story here isn't really about the making of a movie...it's about one woman's acceptance of the past and willingness to forgive herself for things beyond her control.

Saving Mr. Banks manages to take two separate storylines and weave them together rather seamlessly thanks to a lovely script by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith and nice (though perhaps a tiny touch heavyhanded) direction by John Lee Hancock.  First, we see an adult Pamela Travers (Emma Thompson) finding herself facing monetary trouble.  With her unwillingness to write any more novels and sales of her Mary Poppins series dwindling, London-based Travers is convinced by her agent/publisher to travel to California and meet with Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to discuss the making of Poppins into a feature film.  Upon her initial meeting with the Hollywood mogul, Travers agrees to see what Disney, screenwriter Don DeGradi (Bradley Whitford), and songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman) have crafted for her beloved nanny character.  Travers is not an easy woman to please.  While some may call her curmudgeonly, she simply has a vision as to what she believes Mary Poppins should be.

The reason for that vision is because, as much as she tried to suppress it for decades, Mary Poppins is really a re-imagined telling of what she longed for her childhood to be.  In the other half of Saving Mr. Banks, we bear witness to Travers' youth.  Young Ginty (Annie Rose Buckley) simply adores her father Travers Goff (Colin Farrell), a banker whose imaginative mind created a fantastical world for Ginty and her two siblings despite the family living on a dilapidated ranch in Australia.  Travers wanted nothing more than to provide for his family, however, he was dealing with his own personal demons in the form of alcohol and young Ginty carried around the guilt for decades of not being able to "save" her father from placing his lips to the bottle.

As we discover, Ginty is really Pamela Travers with Pamela changing her name in adulthood to honor her father.  The film bounces back and forth between the two storylines with each allowing the other to become richer and more well-rounded as layers are revealed.  We begin to realize that it's her childhood experiences that shaped Pamela Travers into the no-nonsense (perhaps even crotchety) woman that she became.  She used her novel to try and cope with the demons of her past, but rather than helping her let them go, the book made them cling to them even more.  Through the making of the film version of Mary Poppins, Travers is able to release them (even if just a little bit), but this doesn't come without an emotional toll for her.

Emma Thompson is fantastic as P.L. Travers.  Admittedly, she starts off rather one note, with Travers being a woman of clipped, precise words, showing little to no emotion behind a rock-hard exterior.  However, as the film progresses, we see glimpses of her ice queen nature being melted away.  It's this change that has many of the film's critics crying fowl with the critique being that through the "magic of Disney," all of her problems were solved.  That's just not the case.  Thompson's Travers can really be summed up in the film's final scene (of which, I guess, this could be considered a spoiler, so read on with that knowledge) in which Travers sits watching the Hollywood premiere of Mary Poppins.  Without a single word and only through facial expressions and the slightest of body movement, we see Travers initially disgraced with her selling out of her beloved character, angered by the addition of animation (which she was adamantly against), yet moved by the lovely depiction of family life and of a father who wanted nothing more than his children to flourish and grow beyond what he could provide for them.  John Lee Hancock stays focused on Thompson's face and it's a fantastic moment that carries so much more emotional impact than what we're seeing on the surface because of everything Thompson brings to the role.

Although Thompson is certainly the center of the film, she's surrounded by fantastic performances all around, including Tom Hanks as the equally opinionated Walt Disney.  Disney here is a nice guy who's willing to make concessions to Travers, but not willing to forgo his knowledge of what makes "quality" movies.  The back-and-forth between the two actors is oftentimes brilliant and was a treat to watch.  A very nice and subdued supporting turn from Paul Giamatti as Travers' driver was also a nice addition.  Really, though, there's not a bad performance here at all and that's certainly something worth recognizing.

I will admit that I come to Saving Mr. Banks with some inherent bias in that I'm the biggest Disney fan I know.  However, I also approached this film with a great level of fear and trepidation that it wouldn't even come close to living up to the bar I had set for it.  In fact, I avoided watching the film for nearly a month because I simply didn't want to have my hopes shattered.  I'm beyond pleased to state that my worries were unfounded.  Saving Mr. Banks is an absolutely lovely film that carries much more emotional depth than I ever could have expected.

As a side note, stay halfway through the credits.  There, you'll hear taped recordings of Travers duking it out with the Sherman brothers and screenwriter Don DeGradi over the script.  It shows that the film's depiction of Travers was certainly true-to-form.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-

Movie Review - Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Starring Aldren Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Richard LaGravenese

Ever since the inception of the Twilight series and its surprising success, the movie industry has been hoping to find the next teen sensation.  Beautifiul Creatures is not that, despite their efforts to clone the success of that aforementioned horridly acted vampire/werewolf saga.  Not wanting to delve too far away from the supernatural nature of the Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson-starring dreck, Beautiful Creatures shifts its attention to witches,  but failing to create any semblance of story for the audience to actually give a damn.

Most of the actors here are better than expected, but they can't help imbue any sense of urgency or heightened sense of emotion into the languid plot which is, if this can be believed, worse than the good vampire vs. bad vampire (vs. werewolf) malarkey that Twilight heaped upon us.  Beautiful Creatures deals with Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) who, on her sixteenth birthday, will discover her true nature when it's determined if she will be a good witch or a bad witch all the while trying to make things work with her boyfriend Ethan (Aldren Ehrenreich) who, despite her supernatural powers, still loves her.  The problem with the film is that beyond that sentence, nothing else happens in its two hours.  Sure, Emma Thompson and Emmy Rossum come on the scene and try to wreak havoc while Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis try and fight for good, but they're all infinitely better than the material with which they're given to work.  Similarly, Aldren Ehrenreich is much more engaging that Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner ever hoped they could be, but his character's plight of wanting to get out of the Deep South in order to better himself is much too simplistic.

Ultimately, despite the fact that I really wanted to like Beautiful Creatures at least moderately more than the Twilight saga and despite the fact that every actor here (even Alice Englert who isn't all that engaging in the slightest) is better than anyone in the Twilight films (with the exception of Anna Kendrick), this flick was utterly boring.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alice Eve, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

It's been years since I've seen either of the first two Men in Black movies, but I remember finding them a bit better than typical action comedies.  They weren't anything fantastic, but I at least recall there being a slight enjoyment stemming from them (and if that isn't the case, at least they're remembered that way for their sake).  None of that sense of joie de vivre is present in Men in Black 3, a surprisingly joyless affair without any laughs and lacking either big or small action sequences to provide a sense of excitement.  This third movie just slogs along going nowhere in particular.

Men in Black 3 begins in the present day with alien outlaw Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) escaping from his lunar prison and traveling back down to Earth to enact revenge on the man who put him away and blew off his arm in the process -- Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones).  Boris finds a time machine and goes back to the 1969 day before he lost his arm and was captured in order to kill Agent K.  Somehow or another, K "rids" the world of everything that K himself caused since that fateful day so when K's partner Agent J (Will Smith) wakes up in the modern world, he is told that K died back in 1969.  [Why this has to happen, I'm not sure..]  J then goes back in time to try and help K kill Boris (and help past K not be killed by the modern-day Boris) rather than simply capture him in order to save the planet from Boris's modern day nastiness.

Confused?  Yeah, I was, too.  There's no easy way to write the summary in a way that makes sense because the film doesn't really attempt to make a whole lot of sense itself.  Will Smith attempts to try and work his smooth-talking charisma, but his charming persona as J can't win over the audience here because the audience is left flabbergasted at the foolishness of the plot.  With the film taking place mostly in the past, Tommy Lee Jones sits on the wayside for nearly all of the film with Josh Brolin doing an impressive impersonation of a young 1969 version of Agent K, and although Brolin is a bright spot, the allure of the impression wears off after a few minutes.

With that, I'm going to draw this shoddily written review to a close.  When I can't find a way to explain a summary of a movie, I'm turned off from writing my opinion about it.  Just know that Men in Black 3 is the worst of the bunch in this series.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Brave

Brave (2012)

*viewed in 3D*

Featuring the voice talents of Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connelly, Julie Walters, and Emma Thompson

Directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell

From a strictly visual standpoint, Pixar is simply the best animation studio working today.  They have a way of animating movement that is just stunningly accurate and beautiful to watch.  From the opening scene of their newest venture, Brave, their expertise is on display again.  The company really is head and shoulders above anyone else in terms of their slick, vivid, and stunning animation.

Story-wise, Pixar is well-known for their heartfelt tales and Brave is no exception.  Focusing on a female lead for the first time, Brave's story is shockingly simple and that's its one slight flaw.  We get a princess tale here (which has drawn some unwarranted criticism) and while the wheel isn't reinvented, it's perfectly fine.  However, Princess Merida's adventure does lack the originality that we've come to expect from the company and despite its rather short running time, the film manages to drag on a tiny bit during its middle act.

Still, there's a good movie here well worth seeing.  Teenage Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is an independent free spirit who finds herself being tied down by rules and proper royal etiquette by her mother Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson) who only wants to prepare her for the future rule over their Irish land.  The time has come for Merida to be betrothed, but the three men vying for her hand are all lacking in multiple departments.  Much to her mother's chagrin, Merida takes things into her own hands refusing to wed causing quite a rift between the young woman and her mother that even King Fergus (Billy Connelly) is unable to right.  After a tiff, Merida runs into the nearby woods where she comes across a rundown house inhabited by an old woman (Julie Walters) who also happens to delve a bit in the mystical realm.  Needless to say, this crone's magic ends up weaving quite an interesting turn of events for Merida which makes her begin to realize that her life may not have been as bad as she made it out to be.

As I mentioned, the film looks beautiful (Merida's long-flowing locks alone are amazingly well-crafted) and the voice acting is top notch as always, but Brave surprisingly has a "been there-done that" feel to it, culling much of its story from Disney flicks of the past.  Granted, that's not necessarily a bad thing -- Disney animated films are classics for a reason -- but there is something oddly unoriginal which, for Pixar, is a first.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Love Actually (2003)

Christmas Movie a Day #7
Love Actually
Starring Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kiera Knightley, and Bill Nighy
Directed by Richard Curtis

I understand that this isn't a perfect movie, but I really can't help but love it. There's just something so charming about this flick that wins me over every single time that I watch it.

Richard Curtis (writer-director of the recent Pirate Radio) crafts a movie full of interweaving tales of romance -- some of which end positively and others of which of conclude less than perfect. With the exception of the tale of the young Englishman who travels to the U.S. to work his British charms on unsuspecting American ladies and the story of the naked body double couple, there's not a bad story in the bunch. Particularly winning are Liam Neeson as a grieving widow dealing with his young stepson's first love and Emma Thompson as a wife who suspects her husband (Alan Rickman) of cheating on her with a hot office colleague. Hugh Grant as the new prime minister is also at his best here. Throw in Colin Firth, Laura Linney, and a hilarious Bill Nighy as an aging rock star and you've got one heckuva cast.

What's particularly enjoyable is that Richard Curtis is able to make many of these stories connect without ever seeming the least bit unbelievable. None of the relationships/interconnections ever seem forced even it's just as simple as a character sitting in the congregation at another character's wedding. That's a difficult task and Curtis was definitely up to it.

Once again, I realize this film isn't perfect, but it's one of my favorites, for sure. A new holiday tradition, perhaps, even if it's not the most "Christmas-y" movie around.

The RyMickey Rating: A-
The Christmas Spirit Scale: 6/10
(The Christmas Spirit Scale is a totally pointless rating that is simply my feeling about how "Christmas-y" the movie felt to me)

Movie Review - Pirate Radio (2009)

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, and Tom Sturridge
Directed by Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis definitely has a distinctive directing and writing style and although he's not incredibly prolific, his three previous "big time" releases -- Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love, Actually -- are all darn impressive. I can say that he's a director whose films I would seek out and look forward to seeing.

Unfortunately, Curtis falters with his most recent effort, Pirate Radio (also known as The Boat That Rocked), the tale of a boat on the North Sea illegally broadcasting rock and roll over the airwaves despite the British government's stern warnings. As I was watching, I couldn't help but think that I would've loved to have seen this movie as a weekly tv series rather than as a movie. The film is about the quirky and funny characters and not about plot at all, and, unfortunately, that's its downfall. As a tv show, we could gradually learn about each of these humorous disc jockeys, but trying to squeeze all of these larger-than-life personalities into a movie didn't really work.

And the thing is, it's not like this is a bad movie. It's directed quite well (although there were one too many cutaway shots of people on the mainland dancing around their radios). The acting is really all top notch. Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as the seemingly grounded main DJ. Bill Nighy is hilarious as the founder of the pirate radio station. And everyone else is enjoyable to watch as well (with the exception of Kenneth Branagh as a government official whose role was much too one-dimensional and whose storyline brought down the rest of the movie).

Add to that, the great soundtrack featuring everything from the Beach Boys to the Moody Blues to Procol Harum to The Who, and you've got yourself an enjoyable two hours.

It's unfortunate that the movie's about nothing...just a series of little inanities that don't really mean anything in the grand scheme of the overall plot. This guy gets married, this guy finds out who his real father is, these two DJs are fighting about who's better...nothing matters because nothing's important.

And it's a shame because there's something here that would work so incredibly well. I enjoyed myself during this movie...I just wish I could have enjoyed it more.

The RyMickey Rating: C