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Reviews
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)
It's an Adam Sandler movie...
Adam Sandler found his niche a long time ago with the majority of his movie roles being in light-hearted, and for the most part, inoffensive comedies. He developed his own production company and kept his friends employed by prolifically putting out these standard comedy vehicles. While he has occasionally put in Oscar worthy dramatic performances, he has mostly chosen to stay within his goofy comedy lane. So having said that, this is your typical Adam Sandler family comedy movie. I think most people understand what that means.
The plot is a simple coming of age story with a Jewish twist. It has your typical teenager movie tropes such as mean girls, social awkwardness, having a spat with your bestie, suffering an unrequited crush and dealing with peer pressures. It's not deep and doesn't make any profound statement on the genre. It's just a cute film and a pleasant way to pass an hour plus.
As mentioned already, Sandler likes to employ his close friends but this is the first movie where he has employed his actual family with both his real-life daughters (one in the lead role, and the other supporting) and his wife (also supporting.) The lead Sunny, in my opinion, did a good job for a first time lead role and had chemistry with the actress who played her bff which was central to the story. Of course there was also a natural chemistry with her dad, which gave an authentic, sweet quality to this movie overall. I'm curious to see her in other roles and to see how she matures as an actress.
The other daughter Sadie, played the sardonic older sister. Her role was relatively small so it's hard to gauge her acting skills, but again the real life father-daughter relationship gave this movie a little more authenticity than it would have had otherwise.
I will say his wife's role as the BFF's mother felt less authentic. Maybe she's not a great actress and couldn't (or didn't want to) carry the larger role of the lead's mother. Instead that role was adequately filled by Idina Menzel. However, Sunny bares a strong, noticeable resemblance to her real life mother and it was hard to ignore this when they shared scenes. I mean if you're going to use your daughters as your daughters, you might as well use your wife as your wife, especially as Idina's role didn't require any outstanding acting. This was somewhat distracting but didn't really ruin the movie.
In the end, you either like Adam Sandler comedy movies or you don't. I gave this move a 7 because I generally do. It's a likeable movie if you come into it with low expectations and just want to be entertained. I mean this is an Adam Sandler movie so why are people even trying to compare this to Judy Blume or Ladybird? That's just ridiculous.
Depp V Heard (2023)
Why was this even made?
Don't waste your time watching this garbage. It sheds no new information, does not offer an in-depth look at any aspect of the trial and only shows portions that are obvious biased to the defendant's side. Worst of all it is disrespectful to the professionalism of the Judge and Jury who gave their time, and insulting to anyone who watched the entire trial and made up their own mind by insinuating the verdict went the way it did because we were all under the sway of a "movie star" and social media. Everyone knows justice got served in this case. Completely unconvincing rubbish under the guise of a documentary.
Babylon (2022)
A Poor Pastiche
I have to say I laugh at both the 10/10 reviews lauding this as a "love letter" to Hollywood or the 1/10 calling this degenerate and disturbing. It was neither, though you could easily feel the director straining to reach for both. I don't mind meta or graphic scenes if they add to the story but here it just felt like the director was trying to rip off other films and other directors. Hints of Boogie Nights, Wolf of Wall Street, Moulin Rouge, and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood are strewn throughout. Singing in the Rain is blatantly ripped off, as are several well-known Hollywood scandalous gossip stories. It's like if you dumped a variety of canned soups together and still expected it to be appetizing.
Diego Calva as Manny, a young Mexican man serving as a studio gopher and Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad, a silent movie star trying to transition into "Talkies," were by far the most interesting and integral to the story. Both do a wonderful job of showing a little guy on the way up and a big star on the way down in Hollywood. I think that if the movie stuck mostly to their stories it would have been much more coherent and satisfying. Calva's portrayal of Manny's sheer tenacity and determination to make it in the film industry and Pitt dripping ennui and old school Hollywood charm are incredible. The "Why" scene with Pitt and Jean Smart was a high-point. Unfortunately, the director made this an ensemble story, where it branched off into other, less well-used characters.
Which brings me to Margot Robbie's Nellie LeRoy. Everything about this character ruined the movie for me and had the character walked off into the darkened void of the street after her "Sound-stage" sequence, I wouldn't have cared less. I love Margot Robbie and think she's a phenomenal actress and you can see she gave her all, but it's the character that unredeemable, not MR's acting. First, it annoyed the crap out of me that there wasn't even an attempt to make her look like an early Hollywood starlet. She was presented far too modern making her character far less believable. Second, most of her scenes were not needed and didn't progress the story - the rattlesnake scene added nothing. The society lunch scene could have ended with her telling everyone off. The vomiting felt gratuitous as did the whole gambling story-line. Basically the character held no value other than to give the movie some sort of transgressive cred ala Tarantino or Anderson.
All in all there's too much mishmash going on in this film and it misses the mark more than it hits. It's not a horrible movie but there's a whole lot of extraneous stuff which makes the 3+ hours feel bloated. There are characters in the ensemble you don't really care about and the script does nothing to invest you in them. There are at least five scenes that are not needed and only seem to be in there to make it like another director's movies. Like xeroxing a xerox, the quality got lost in process.
Cunk on Earth (2022)
Silly parody of pretentious history docs
I do agree with another reviewer that this is somewhat of a Baron-Cohen ripoff (minus the misogynst rant about female comics) in that the interviewer feigns ignorance of the subject to get unusual responses and reactions from the "experts." However, if you like history or historical documentaries, but hate the pretentiousness of some of those shows, you will likely enjoy this. I chuckled quite a bit and found the series an enjoyable way to pass some time. No you won't really learn anything new, this is pretty much History 101, and yes, it's not a particularly original comedic set up but it is enjoyable and worth the watch. The humor is silly and at times crudely funny, but it is funny.
That '90s Show (2023)
Very little 90s nostalgia and even less laughs
The original 70's show turned a cast full of unknown actors into household names with a funny look back at a different era with different values and a lot of fun pop culture references. Maybe the pop culture references here were to mimic the watered down, unfunny Disney shows of the 90s? Because that's exactly what it comes off as.
The new kids here are so bland and generic. At least that 70s show poked fun at the 70s stereotypes - the nerd, the girl next door, the cheerleader, the stoner, the Himbo and the foreign exchange kid. That's what made the 70s show grounded...knowing these stereotypes and all the references to things like Led Zeppelin, Rock radio, Kiss, Star Wars, Disco, Annie Hall, etc. The 70s kids even had 70s clothing and hairstyles! None of these kids look distinctly 90s, nor do have any character. All of them come off vanilla despite the obvious push at diversity (which doesn't really make sense given 90's Wisconsin demographics, lol). Two of the boys are basically Kelso clones (one even being Kelso's actual son!) without Kelso's hilarious narcissism and lack of self-awareness. The girls are boring as are the situational story-arcs.
As for 90s nostalgia? The kids don't play video games, surf the net, watch MTV or any TV. They don't talk about grunge, hip-hop, alternative or boy-bands. There's no skateboarding or dirt biking which was ubiquitous in 90s suburbia. They still smoke pot in the basement like their 70s parents did, but don't even mention MDM or ecstasy at a rave (which btw is the lamest representation of a rave you've ever seen.)
It's like this show was written by people who didn't experience youth culture in the 90s. There's very little 90s here and not a lot of laughs. The only scenes that were even mildly interesting were when the old cast made cameos and even those were cliche. Sorry, I got bored halfway thru and have no interest in a season 2 should Netflix green light it.
Monster (2022)
Interesting series with a lot of inaccuracies
First off, I am an Evan Peters fan. I think he's a terrific actor but I don't really feel like his portrayal of Dahmer was all that great. One of the scariest things about Dahmer was how intelligently and articulately he described his own crimes. The real Dahmer was soft-spoken, but self-aware and charismatic enough to manipulate people but Evan Peters portrayed him as completely monotone and emotionally flatlined. Maybe that's what people expect of someone who's done these kinds of crimes, but it wasn't how he actually was. There are many online interviews where you can see for yourself. I'm sure it was a difficult role, but I feel like EP missed the mark and just played him as a generically non-emotive psycho.
There are also a lot of inaccuracies; many other reviewers have listed them here so I won't bother repeating, but there was a definite narrative being presented that diverged from facts. The real story was intriguing and certainly horrifying enough to not have to make stuff up or editorialize it to a particular opinion, but that's Hollywood for you.
All in all it was worth a watch, especially the first half where the inaccuracies were kept to the minimum and the history of JD's life is presented as events actually unfolded. There's a lot of time jumps that could be confusing if you aren't familiar with his story but that didn't really ruin it for me. What did ruin it were the later episodes where entire episodes are based on fabricated characters and events that are used to "sell" a particular narrative. Still it's the best and most detailed look at Dahmer and the horrible, shocking crimes he committed.
Life & Beth (2022)
Meh
It didn't get better for me as it moved along, it actually got more boring. A lot of melodrama, very little funny. Michael Cera is the best thing about this show. I had to restart the last two episode several times because I kept getting easily distracted. It just couldn't hold my attention.