TRAP (2024)

 

 

 

When I saw the preview for M. Night Shyamalan’s latest offering, Trap, my first thought was how would Josh Hartnett do as the main character.  The second concern was how much of this film was going to be centered around the actual concert Cooper (Hartnett) was going to with his daughter Riley.  Riley is played by Ariel Donoghue who is a fine actress from Australia who I had never heard of before this so kudos to her for a job well done.  Hartnett (Oppenheimer, The Virgin Suicides, and Black Hawk Down) does a decent job playing both a caring and loving father (which you can tell he really is) as well as a cold blooded serial killer named The Butcher.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I didn’t know at the time that Lady Raven is played by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka.  Saleka is also an up and coming pop singer like in the movie.  The film features lots of songs by her.  LOTS OF THEM!  OK, get it out now if you want; go ahead and yell “nepotism” and then we can move on.  Good, now that you have that out of your system I’ll say this as well, I’m not a fan of Saleka’s music.  By far she is a better actor (she has some scenes where she is not singing) than she is a pop star; to me at least.  After seeing how much concert is in this movie it proves to me the only reason this film exists is to give Saleka a jumping off point for her music career.  So for that I hope it works because as a crime drama thriller it mostly falls flat.

 

 

 

 

The films runtime is around an hour and forty-five minutes.  Probably just an hour and fifteen minutes if you take out the concert parts.  So the good scenes are very choppy and not all the non-concert scenes are good.  Some seem contrived, and way overdone.  I mean if this was such a tightly held onto secret then there are too many people who know there is a serial killer at the concert and give zero fucks about it.  Alison Pill (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Vice, and Milk) plays Cooper’s wife Rachel who isn’t even in the film until about the last thirty minutes.  Maybe thirty it might be less.  Also starring as Dr. Josephine Grant, an FBI profiler, is Hayley Mills.

 

 

 

Now I get it Hayley Mills was in The Parent Trap (the original one from the 60’s not the remake) and here we have The Butcher who is caught in a trap and he is there being a dad to his daughter so it’s essentially a trap for a parent.  *Insert audible groans here*  I’m also going to rip Shyamalan in that for the first time (at least I think it is the first time) a film he directed “appears” in Philadelphia but none of it was really filmed anywhere near the city I was born and raised near.  I’m not a Philly expert, but I friggin’ know Philly when I see it and certainly know when I don’t see it.  So I call Shenanigans on that as well.  So while I was worried about the film not all of my worries came to fruition but oh boy, the ones that do are really hard to overlook.  A while back I watched Old which is also one of Shyamalan’s films and I didn’t like it much at all but here’s the thing, it’s not my least favorite M. Night film anymore.  This is!  Two slap bracelets out of five. 

 

 

          

   

 

IF (2024)

 

I have to begin this review by saying it won't be as much of a coherent discussion as I would like it to be due to the fact I don't want to give any spoilers away.  I will try to dance around it and get as close to it as I can but I will not overstep even at the risk of sounding like an idiot.  So with that in mind let's jump into the latest offering from John Krasinski, IF,  who is writer, actor, and director, the same as he did in both of The Quiet Place films.  Oh wait, I forgot to add, he also voices one of it IFs.  IF stands for Imaginary Friend for those of you who have spent the last six months under a rock and didn't know that.  Since somewhere around New Year's Day, maybe it was closer to the Super Bowl, we have been inundated with ads for IF.  There's a ton of trailers to be found each giving us a little different view of the film but in all of them it seems to be a comedic film aimed at kids.  I'm not sure what age we are targeting here but I can tell you that in the theater I saw it in most of the kids under, oh, I'll say 8-10 didn't care for it one bit.  It's not animated so it has that going against it and I don't think kids over seven want to see anything if it's not a cartoon.  I have nothing to base this on as there are no kids in my immediate family so it's just a hunch.

 

 The kids I saw that were most interested in the film were all in the 9-12 age range and this is probably the audience it's going for as it is rated PG.  I don't think anyone over fifteen will be into this either as it's not something a teenager approaching adulthood would appreciate.  You have to go maybe into the late 20's to get to people that might connect to the story so I feel this film would appeal to a smaller audience than it thinks it does.  I kinda think us sentimental older folks "of a certain age" is who this is for and for some of us it can be disguised as a film for grandparents to take their children's offspring to see.  OK, I've gone off on that tangent for far too long, let's get to some of the other aspects of the film.  Cailey Fleming , better known as Judith Grimes in the latter seasons of The Walking Dead plays Bea a tween who has lost her mother, and while her father (Krasinski) is in the hospital waiting for an unspecified heart surgery, she goes to spend some time with her grandmother.  Her grandmother is played by Fiona Shaw who is better known as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films.  While there she sees one of the IFs that resembles a humanoid butterfly named Blossom.

 

One night she follows Blossom (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge from Fleabag and Killing Eve TV series) when she is out with a man who Bea watches enter a house through a window and bring out another large IF.  This one is covered in purple fur named Blue (voiced by Steve Carell).  Yes, the fact it's name is Blue and it is purple is addressed almost immediately.  The man, named Cal (Ryan Reynolds), lives in the same building as Bea's grandmother just a flight or two above.  Cal, who can see all the IFs, works with them trying to get them united with new kids after their original kids have long since forgotten them.  After some convincing, Bea agrees to help him.  The two of them head to Coney Island and deep down inside the bowels of the giant swing ride, Cal shows her where the IFs go when they are no longer needed.  The place is the Memory Lane Retirement Home and Cal introduces her to Lewis.  Lewis (voiced by Louis Gossett Jr. in one of his final roles before his death) is an elderly teddy bear who is in charge of the community.  He urges Bea to use her imagination to remodel the facility.  Even if Cal doesn't like the idea, she does just that.  One day while visiting her father in the hospital she meets a boy named Benjamin who seems to fall frequently and breaks a lot of bones.  Did anyone check out this kids parents?  His latest fall has resulted in a broken leg and a broken coccyx.

 

Bea asks him about his arm, which is also in a cast, and he tells her he got that from a fall before this one.  Seriously, someone check in on this kid, please!  Anyway, Bea comes up with the idea that maybe some of the IFs can be connected to some new kids since their old kids weren't using them anymore.  While a good idea, it proves ineffectual as Benjamin isn't able to see any of the IFs Bea trys to introduce him to.  Afterwards, Bea is discouraged until she meets Lewis on the Coney Island boardwalk.  Lewis tells her maybe she needs to reconnect the IFs with their former kids who are now adults.  While still not sure how to do what Lewis suggested, Bea goes back to her grandmother's apartment and looks at an old picture of her grandmother taken back when she was a young ballet dancer.  Bea sees Blossom in the picture and realizes she was her grandmother's IF.  Bea plays one of her grandmother's old records which inspires her grandmother to dance around the apartment.  Soon, Blossom begins to dance as well and as Bea's grandmother begins to remember Blossom, the IF begins to glow with a golden light.  Soon after, Bea and Cal are able to reconnect Blue with his boy, Jeremy (Bobby Moynihan) who is now a man.  Once Jeremy is reunited with Blue, both of them have a golden glow around them and Blue says goodbye to Cal and Bea.

 

 

When Bea gets back home, her grandmother tells her that something went wrong during her fathers heart surgery.  She runs upstairs and tells Cal about her father and that she isn't ready to loose him after loosing her mother to cancer.  Cal tells her to go to the hospital and instead of saying goodbye to her father tell him a story.  At the hospital Bea tells her father how she keeps trying to be a grownup but he is the one who keeps bringing fun into her life and that she still needs him to do that for her.  Suddenly her father wakes up and Bea goes to tell the news to her grandmother and it is here that my recap of the story must stop for fear of creating spoilers.  Let me give you some of the names that lend their voices to some of the other IFs.  Awkwafina (Renfield and Crazy Rich Asians) is the voice of Pop, a large bubble surrounded by smaller bubbles.  Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place and Oppenheimer) is Uni, a colorful unicorn.  George Clooney is the voice of the astronaut named Spaceman.  Bradley Cooper is the voice of Ice which is a glass of ice water.  Side note: how weird must that kid have been to come up with that one?  Matt Damon voices Sunny the sunflower.  Bill Hader (HBO series Barry and Saturday Night Live) is the voice of Banana, yep, you guessed it, a banana.  Keegan-Michael Key (from Comedy Central's Key and Peele and Keanu) voices Steven, a green glob of slime.

 

  Stand up comedian Sabastian Maniscalco is the voice of Magician Mouse, a cartoon mouse who dresses like, well, a magician.  Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Vice) lends his voice to Guardian Dog who is a dog dressed like a superhero and acts like one as well.  John Stewart from The Daily Show lends his voice to a robot named Robot proving that if nothing else, kids are definitely not creative when it comes to names.  Finally, I want to bring up that there is one IF who is invisible and named Keith.  The running joke throughout the film is Reynolds character Cal, keep tripping over him and falling down.  Being invisible means we never see Keith, and for that matter we never hear from Keith either and the character is masterfully portrayed by Brad Pitt.  Now, let's discuss the acting of the human characters specifically that of Reynolds and Fleming.  Fleming does a good job of playing the kid wanting to grow up too fast.  While she is fifteen or sixteen when the film was made, she comes across as much younger which plays to her advantage as an actor.  She seems much more grown up than her characters thirteen years would dictate but with loosing her mother to cancer at a young age and now faced with possibly loosing her father, Fleming is able to put on a brave face and soldier on with a grace much older than is expected.

 

 

There's a movie named Finding Neverland and in that movie there is a character (maybe named Charlie, off the top off my head, I forget, and I ain't looking it up,  so there!) played by Freddie Highmore and in one scene Highmore is talking about his mother who (oddly enough) has died of cancer and he manages to get one tear to well up in his eye, that for a moment his eye is more tear than it is eye.  Finally, after what seems like and eternity during which the tear just hangs there waiting to fall down his cheek, it does and it leaves a large wet trail down his face and it is such a touching and honest moment in the movie that it makes me tear up as well.  Well, here Fleming can give Highmore a run for his money as she has nearly mastered the Highmore tear.  She's cute, she's a good little actress, and I'm hoping she can make the transition from child to adult actor, if that is what she wants to do.  What can I say about Ryan Reynold?  He's as great looking as he is hilarious.  He's funnier in R rated films, but he gets the job done here.  Carell is great as Blue and while I loved him in The Office, I feel that he is an even better voice actor.  The IFs parts are all small enough (except for Blue and Blossom) that none of them are explained very much but they are what they are which is basically cameos for the voice actors.  Krasinski is nearly an afterthought in his own movie as his scenes are all subdued and while I know he's playing a heart patient the character seems very tired and worn out.

 

 

Krasinski also lends his voice to one of the more disturbing IFs and that is the marshmallow who's head is constantly on fire.  Reynolds and Fleming both do a good job of getting the point that marshmallow is difficult to look at across very nicely.  The issues I have with IF is that it is uneven and sometimes very flat.  I also had some difficult figuring out just when this movie is supposed to take place due to the fact some of the scenes look as though they are taking place during a much earlier time (due to scenery and wardrobe decisions) than the rest of the film.  That happens with little to no explanation as well.  Not all that confusing, just odd.  Yes, the movie is touching and pulls on the heartstrings as it is meant to do but it's a little bit too much of a knock on the head.  I see a lot of movies, I get it you don't have to serve it all up to me on a silver platter.  I think the average movie goer is more intelligent than this one gives us credit for.  Now for the part that is going to make me look a little dumb as I cannot fully flesh out this last complaint as I don't want to give any of the ending away.  I think IF is a little bit of a rip off of another very successful horror/thriller film from a few decades ago.  I can't say what film it is or what in IF makes me feel this way other than to say about half way through the film I figured out the ending and leaned over and told The Horror Honey Denise what I thought.  She agreed almost immediately.  So while the film leaves a bit to be desired, and it didn't seem to be an original idea, Krasinski might have some explaining and apologizing to do in the near future.  With that being said I already have the sequel all mapped out in my mind.  If you're reading this Johnny K, let's do lunch and we can talk.  In the meanwhile I will give this three dancing IV buddies out of five.  I almost went two and a half but it made me cry a little bit in two places so I bumped it up a half of a star.  There is also a nice dedication to Lewis Gossette Jr. at the end of the film after the credits that also touched my heart.

 

 

  
 
 
  
  

Romancing the Stone (1984)

 

I vaguely remember seeing this shortly after it came out and I have to assume it was one I went and saw with my then girlfriend "Anna Maria" who liked to get amorous at the movies because I recall next to nothing about it.  Now, I have to admit, I'm not much of a Michael Douglas fan, I don't hate him, I just don't seek out his work.   Same for Kathleen Turner to be honest. I liked her as Chandler Bing's father and I remember seeing her in V. I. Warshawski which was produced by Jeffrey Laurie who also owns my beloved Philadelphia Eagles.

 

  Don't remember much about that film either. Saw that one with my erstwhile partner in crime Cerpts, he's on Blogger as well, you can find him here: http://landofcerptsandhoney.blogspot.com/ look him up, he watches way more films than I do. And like "Anna Marie", he puts out at the movies as well.

 

Maybe that's why I don't remember anything about that film either.  Now that I examine those facts, it seems I should have seen more Kathleen Turner films in the theater.

 

 But I digest.

 

 Back to Romancing the Stone; it's OK. Nothing special. I think, since at the time, Turner was being compared to Lauren Bacall, maybe they were trying to form a Bogey and Bacall feel to it but there's no way you can compare them. It's no contest! Also, most times I find Michael Douglas can get a little annoying, here he never got there for me. When "he isn't annoying" is the best thing you can say about someone perhaps there is an issue there.

 

Danny DeVito helps to save the movie a bit but when it all comes down to it Romancing the Stone feels like the plain rice cake of movies. So with all that said, the best I can do for Romancing the Stone is give it two and a half treasure maps out of five. Thankfully Robert Zemeckis would move on from this (after he was fired from directing Cocoon) to direct Back to the Future.

 

 

 
 

Jesus Christ Superstar: Live Arena Tour ( 2012)

 

 

A belated Happy Easter to my Christian friends, an early Happy Easter to my Greek Orthodox friends, Happy "Didn't We Do All This A Couple Of Weeks Ago?" to my Pagan friends.  Oh and I wag a finger at my Jewish friends while jokingly ask "What did you do?".  Now I don't celebrate the entirety of the holiday but most of my family does so I follow suit.  One of the things I have made it a custom of doing is watching the '73 Jesus Christ Superstar movie based on the musical.  For a couple of years now I have wanted to see the live rock opera version starring Tim Minchin as Judas.  Well this was the year.  Aside from Minchin, the performance also features Ben Forster (who won an American Idol type contest named Superstar to win the role) as Jesus Christ, and Melanie Chisholm as Mary Magdalane.  Chisholm is also known as Mel C who was Sporty Spice in The Spice Girls.  Every version I have seen has had a somewhat campy performance from whoever plays King Herod.  I saw Alice Cooper play the part in the TV version from 2018,  for Christ sake, and even that was pretty good.

 

 

Oh, pardon the pun!  I don't want to forget to mention Josh Mostel's version in the '73 film which is absolutely sublime!  Playing the part here is English radio and TV personality Chris Moyles.  Now I wouldn't know Moyles if I tripped over him in the street but he does an excellent job as well with it even if the part is only about ten minutes long.  The other person I wanted to mention is veteran stage actor Alexander Hanson because his version of Pilate is like none I have ever seen.  Not that it is better than the (at times) shocking portrayal by Barry Dennen, for I think without his version, we would never have gotten the version we have here.  Hanson is all at once sympathetic and accusatory to Jesus and his choices but you can see the sadness inside him even as he spouts vitriol while condemning Christ to death.  His words say "Crucify Him!" but his face begs the crowd for their forgiveness of Jesus.

 

 

The stage is mostly just bare bones black risers with the occasional prop or scenery used in a very updated (but certainly acceptable) way.  One who knows about JCS knows it's filled with anachronisms and this version is no different.  It's always interesting to see how each version will be updated.  The orchestra, which is really more of a rock band, is divided in half on either side of the stage with several different levels of the stage being used for them.  This of course leads to the audience down in front getting a great view of the action.  Also on either side of the stage, scattered throughout the band, is the production crew with some monitors where you could see for a few split seconds here and there stage directors giving different actors their cues.  At least that's what it looked to me, I don't know much about the stage.  That's not really a complaint about it either, but what do I know.

 

 

This concert tour/performance was the first time that composer Andrew Lloyd Webber actually saw his original vision fully realized.  He even makes a point of coming on stage afterwards to say so.  As much as I liked this version (which I am leaning towards rating higher than I do the '73 film which is so far the best version I have seen) there is a couple things keeping it from being perfect for me.  One is due to a few decisions (wrong ones to me) by the director of the film Nick Morris who has made his living off of filming musicals.  The main one that stood out to me is during the song Hosanna which is when Jesus gets a idea that he's going to die for his actions. His followers are seemingly asking him to prove his love to them by doing so.  In the '73 version when Jesus makes this realization the change in looks that overcomes the face of actor Ted Neeley's clearly foreshadows what Jesus already knows is to come.  Here, Jesus is hardly shown feeling one way or another, in fact it isn't until the Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say) performance do we really know that Jesus is aware of his coming fate.

 

 

The other and more glaring part is while Tim Minchin is hands down the best part of the show, I mean it's not even close,  his performance is the only one that is auto-tuned.  As far as I can tell it also seems unnecessary.  Upon further investigation, Minchin himself was furious when he found out about it.  This two things are pretty much all I have to complain about.  I know what the '73 film was trying to achieve and that was put a musical in a wider area than a stage can afford.  Which it does well.  I mean it looks incredible but (and here comes the hate mail) I always thought the actual vocals by the actors were the third most important part of the film.  Don't get me wrong, the performances are some of the most iconic in rock opera history, if not in all musical film history.  I just feel cinematography and acting was valued more than the vocals.  With all that in mind I highly recommend this version regardless if you've seen the film before.  Either way see this and let me know how you feel about it.  Watch both, compare them, and then talk to me.  Until I am convinced differently this is my new favorite version and I will give it four and a half apostles out of five.

 

 
 


 
 

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

 

On a snowy Fat Tuesday, the Horror Honey and I celebrated the 22nd anniversary of our first date by dragging our bodies out of the house and to the moving picture show to see Lisa Frankenstein.  The film stars Kathryn Newton (Lady Bird and Freaky) as Lisa (Swallows is her last name here not Frankenstein), a high school student whose mother is killed when a serial killer breaks into her home.  A little while later her dad gets remarried to Janet, played by Carla Gugino (Night at the Museum and Watchmen), who is a nurse in a mental hospital.  Lisa also has a step-sister named Taffy, Liza Soberano (Alone/Together and My Ex and Whys), who is a beauty queen, a cheerleader, and prom queen.  After Lisa's dad marries Janet, Lisa has to go live in a new town and attend a new school.

 

 

Surprisingly, Taffy and Lisa actually get along well with Taffy going out of her way to try and get her new sister to be accepted in her new school.  Lisa works as a seamstress in a tailor's shop.  She has a crush on a boy in her new school named Michael who is also the editor of the school paper.  Michael loves the poems Lisa presents to him for publication.  One day, at an abandoned cemetery in her new town, Lisa does some grave rubbings.  One of the rubbings she does is on a monument with a statue of a young man on it.  The name on the statue is Frankenstein.  Lisa develops a one sided relationship with the statue as she goes there often and talks to him.  At the beginning of the new school year, Taffy takes Lisa to a party.  At the party, Lisa, on a dare, drinks from a glass that contains some spiked alcohol.

 

 

While Lisa is heavily under the influence of whatever the drink was spiked with, Lisa's lab partner Doug, Bryce Romero (Maggie and Eagle and the Albatross), tries to help her by holding her hair back while she pukes, to taking her somewhere quiet to sober up.  Of course this leads to a bedroom where Doug grabs Lisa's chest and puts her hand on his crotch.  Lisa is able to get away from Doug and heads for the cemetery.  Right after she leaves, a huge bolt of lightening strikes the cemetery.  Later, Lisa is left home alone and The Creature, as it is called in the credits and played by Cole Sprouse (Five Feet Apart and Big Daddy), breaks in and chases Lisa around the house.  I gotta say when I was watching the film, I had no idea who Cole Sprouse was, in fact it wasn't until I looked him up on IMDb that I realized he was one of the boys playing opposite Adam Sandler in Big Daddy.

 

 

Sprouse gives off some serious Johnny Depp from Edward Scissorhands vibes.  Now that I think about it Newton reminds me a little of Winona Ryder as well.  The Ryder character she reminds me of isn't the one she played in Scissorhands however, but rather the character she plays in Beetlejuice.  I guess what I'm ultimately saying here is the movie reminds me of a Tim Burton film.  Is that good or bad?  Honestly, I dunno but I'm not mad at it.  Lisa slowly realizes that the creature she is fighting off is the animated corpse of the young man from the cemetery.  The Creature is more zombie than Frankenstein monster.  He is missing both ears, one of his hands, and cannot talk.  After that, people around town start to go missing and then things really start getting weird.

 

 

Lisa Frankenstein is written by Diablo Cody who also wrote Juno and Jennifer's Body and directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams in her full length feature debut.  Also starring is the music we hear in the movie which is taken right from the 1980's. At one time or another my entire record collection from that era is included here.  Which, for those of you keeping score, I would have been around 21 years of age myself.  Sometimes music is just there and often taken for granted, here, the music is often a driving force in the film.  Songs take us not only from scene to scene but also they play a part in molding scenes and making them even better than they are to begin with.  Is it perfect?  No, and without giving away spoilers, I cannot go into it further why I deducted points.  Most of it is tiny details but they add.

  

 

As The Horror Honey pointed out to me early on during the film, this is a chick flick, and I'm OK with that as it's not the first one I've seen.  I'm not tricked into seeing many though, like I sort of was here because this is NOT a horror movie as I thought.  I knew nothing but the title going into it but figured it was at least a horror comedy.  It's more of a comedy romance or a romcom if you will.  With some roots in horror though as it definitely pays homage to Frankenstein as well as zombie films.  In fact Romero's Day of the Dead can be seen playing on the TV in Lisa's house.  I will say another thing about the film and that is it really pissed me off for a split second.  When Lisa's father, Joe Chrest (Gifted and The Perfect Date), asks his step-daughter Taffy if she wants to go to Fuddruckers for dinner it hit that nostalgic spot in my heart that made me miss the 80's.  It also reminded me I can't go to Fuddruckers anymore because there are none near me now. But, I'm OK with it now and I will gladly give Lady Frankenstein three and a half tears that smell like a hot toilet at a carnival out of five.