Jefe's Movie Reviews

 I went in with high expectations. It surpassed them. Puss in Boots (2022) is the best movie I've seen recently. It's laugh out loud funny throughout the whole movie. The writing is witty and snappy and really fun. Antonio Banderas is perfect reprising the role of Puss in Boots. Salma Hayek is fantastic as Kitty Softpaws. I don't know the actor playing Perrito, but he's very funny in this role. John Mulaney is great and nasty as the evil Jack Horner. And Florence Pugh is fun as Goldilocks with her adopted family of three bears.  All of the characters are searching for a map that will lead them to a wishing star, and that star will grant the person one wish. I won't give spoilers by telling you what they are all wishing for or what happens. But the end is VERY satisfying. The movie begins with a song that is EXTREMELY catchy and gives us one of the best movie openings I've seen since Capt Jack Sparrow stepped off the sinking ship in Pirates of the Caribbean.  I H...

 I saw M3gan tonight. It was better than I expected. Most of the reason I liked it was the performance of Allison Williams, whom you might have seen in Get Out or in A Series of Unfortunate Events. She anchors the show very well and makes it feel more real and plausible. The girl who plays her niece didn't exactly carry the show. She's OK, and her acting is probably just like what a girl would be like in the situation, but it didn't draw the viewer into the show.  M3gan is a very good main character. The three actors who play her really nail it.  I'm not going to give any spoilers, I'll just say that the show gives us a very entertaining look at what would happen if AI became just a little too protective. There are some logical errors in what happens, but I won't point them out in this review because it would require spoilers. I'll suffice it to say that the things that M3gan does, especially at the end, don't make any sense from a "let's help A...

 I saw Missing tonight. I have mixed feelings about it. Overall, I would say that if you see it, rent it. It is DEFINITELY not a big spectacle that you need to see on the big screen.  The acting and production value are decent. The writing isn't particularly clever, but it's not cringy. The way the director tells the story IS clever. Most of the movie is shot through various modern devices, like cell phones, websites, ring phones on people's doors, etc. Easily most of the movie takes place on the little windows on the screen of the main character, seen in the picture above. She does an OK job in the main role, though I felt like she underacted a few times. Some very traumatic things happen and she's like "OMG" rather than freaking out like I think someone would in that position. I got bored several times while watching it. It relies too heavily on "big reveals" that aren't always that interesting or devastating. Though I do admit that there are a...

 I saw plane. It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen. There was nothing wrong with it really. The writing, plot, dialog, acting, and production value were all fine. Gerard Butler gives a decent performance as the protagonist.  The title is apt, because the movie is plain. It's nothing special. Ten years from now I'll have trouble remembering if I saw it or not. There is nothing that really stands out. The tag lines on the ads are misleading - the plane doesn't exactly crash, it just lands in an unusual place. There's nothing particularly "survive together" about it. The movie is OK. I don't recommend that you see it or avoid it. If you're looking for something decent to kill a couple hours, it's not bad. I would recommend renting it, not seeing it in the theater. It's rated R for violence and language.

 Someone who reads my movie blogs requested that I review Fatherhood with Kevin Hart. I like taking suggestions on movie reviews, and this was no exception. I enjoyed the movie. This is because I like Kevin Hart. One of my fav things in Hollywood these days is the silly, goofy friendship of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. I can watch the interview where Dwayne says that if he's Black Adam, Kevin should be Honkey Pete and they both lose it, over and over and never get tired of it. I like them both individually, and I think they're hilarious together.  And I find Kevin Hart to just be a likable guy. He's funny, but not TOO funny. He's a talented actor and believable in all of his roles. The supporting cast in this movie is not great. The girl who plays his daughter is just a tad too angry looking most of the time. His goofy white friend from work, played by Anthony Carrigan, comes across a tad creepy and never quite finds his stride. His main friend, played by Lil Rel Howe...

I just started watching this. I'm about five minutes into it. it already grabbed me. this is gonna be good.  UPDATE: So I finished this one and it's a masterpiece. The SUBJECT of the story is twisted and interesting. One character, pictured on the right above, decides one day that he doesn't like another character (played by Colin Farrell, pictured on the right). He tells him to stop talking to him. The Colin Farrell character refuses to stop, so the other guys says every time he talks to him, he's going to cut off one of his own fingers. That's the kind of twisted I mean. I'm not going to give you any more spoilers. But the tone and setting and mood of the movie is the real reason to watch it. You get TOTALLY drawn into the life of these simple people living on an island off the coast of Ireland. It's a beautiful and tragic movie that explores human relationships and their importance and limitations.  I highly recommend it, though it's not for the faint...

 I saw Avatar: The Way of Water tonight. I expected it to be visually stunning and weak on story and dialogue. And that's EXACTLY what it is. The story is very VERY similar to the first movie, except without (I'm afraid) the best part of the first one. To me, the genius of the first movie was the AVATAR aspect - that Jake Sully and his friends got into the pod thing and became the big blue people. It was amazing to go through that transition with him. Kind of like when Toby McGuire becomes Spiderman for the first time. We feel like we're along for the journey. Well, in this movie, they're all blue people all the time. We see a couple flashbacks or "Great Mother" moments when we remember or revisit normal humans. And there are some normal human bad guys. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say there's one normal human who may or may not be a bad guy - the main bad guy from the first movie's son. Sort of. I'll let the movie expla...

  Hey guys! I'm taking suggestions as to what movies I should review next. If I haven't seen it, I'll watch it and review it. I had a TikTok viewer recommend Girl, Interrupted. I hadn't seen the whole thing, just parts. So I watched it. And I was shocked at the star-studded cast! Of course Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie were good in it. But they weren't just good. Winona played a more serious version of her journaling self from Heathers. And the song Que Sera, Sera from Heathers was in this movie, too. Angelina Jolie gives what is probably the best performance I've seen from her in this movie. She's raw and edgy and crazy and mean, but also playful and silly and lovable. Her character is so complex, and she plays it perfectly. But we've also got Whoopie Goldberg, Jeffrey Tambor (whom you probably know from Arrested Development), Elizabeth Moss (from Mad Men and Handmaiden's Tale), Brittany Murphy! (whom I didn't recognize in the role and then wa...

 People.... people who eat people.... are the unluckiest people in the worrrrld... Barbra Streisand might have sung. And she'd be right. These are not lucky people. I saw "Bone and All" tonight. I went in with an open mind and low expectations. I didn't like the movie. There were a couple moments that were good. The very first scene where you learn that the main character, played by Taylor Russell (picture above, left), is an "eater", or cannibal, is intense and shocking in a good horror movie kind of way. But then the plot jumps all over the place. The one thing I can say is that the acting, for the most part, is good. Besides Russell, Timothee Chalamet and Mark Rylance play simultaneously disturbing and sympathetic characters. I really liked Mark Rylance in The Outfit, which I recommend. And Chalamet was  great in Dune. But I feel like their talents were wasted in this strange and gratuitously disturbing movie. And when I say gratuitous, I mean just that. ...

 My expectations were too high for me to enjoy this movie as much as I wanted to. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's not anywhere NEAR as good as Knives Out. If I had seen this movie all by itself, without having seen Knives Out, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit. But it was a big let down.  Everyone plays their parts well, especially Daniel Craig and Ed Norton. The only slight miscast I think was Kate Hudson, who is still trying to play a hot young thing and is no longer a hot young thing. Everyone else was fine in their roles. The writing was not as snappy as in the first film. The characters all seemed to be trying to be as BIG and FLASHY and annoying as possible. You find out later in the movie why, but it's still annoying. I really didn't like the first 20 or 30 minutes of the movie at all because everyone was TOO MUCH. The middle of the movie is good, where we start finding out WHY these people are acting like this. Especially Janelle Monae, who seems to...

 I was expecting The Menu to be good. And I THOUGHT it was going to be one kind of movie, from the previews. But it turned out to be even better than I was expecting, and not quite the kind of movie I thought it was going to be. Ralph Fiennes just seems to get better with age. He was amazing as the evil Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He was great in The English Patient and in Forgiven. He played the part of Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies perfectly. And he's exquisite as a kind of Gordon Ramsey on steroids in this film. The movie is VERY smart. It's divided up into sections, based on the menu of foods that the guests are eating. It's beautifully done, and cerebral in places. I can't give you any more details without spoiling it.  I highly recommend it. It's not something you need to see on the big screen, so wait and watch it when you can stream it, or rent it from Redbox. It's rated R for violence and language. It's very disturbing in places, but ...

 I totally didn't see it coming. The big twist at the end of perhaps M. Night Shyamalan's best movie totally took me by surprise. I won't tell you what it is so it doesn't spoil it for you. But wow - it shook me! The movie is so well done. Great acting and writing by all involved. Haley Joel Osment could not have done a better job as the little kid who "sees dead people." BTW that reminds me - what do the movies The Sixth Sense and Titanic have in common? Icy (I see) dead people.  Bruce Willis is in his prime here. Funny, intense, loving, and very believable as the therapist who is trying to help the little boy work past his issues. It's nice to see Willis in a role different from his usual super funny action hero. M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed this. Too bad his subsequent films weren't as good. I did like The Village and I thought The Happening was MUCH better than it's usually rated by unhappy viewers. But nothing he's done since has ...

 Titanic is a strange movie. It's a historical film, a strange and kind of twisted romance, and a horror story all rolled into one. I really enjoyed the historical journey back in time, even if it was a little "colored" by today's perceptions. I enjoyed reliving the horror of a ship going down and people making life-altering choices. I did not enjoy the twisted romance. It's rated PG13 for "disaster related peril, violence, nudity, sensuality, and brief language". I do recommend watching it for the interesting historical details. James Cameron did a good job recreating what it would have been like to sail on a grand ship in those days, and what the sinking might have been like.

 "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." This is one of the most quotable lines from one of the most quotable movies of all time. The Princess Bride is a masterpiece. It's one of the very few times that the movie is actually better than the book. Jaws, Forrest Gump, and Hannibal are three other examples. It's also the second funniest movie of all time, after Monty Python's Holy Grail.  Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Andre the Giant, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Fred Savage, and Billy Crystal are the biggest names, but the whole cast is amazing. The story is full of love, laughter, fight scenes, sword fights, and quotable lines. It's a must see and a classic. It's rated PG for a little "action violence". I can't recommend it highly enough. Not watching this movie is... inconceivable.

 I saw the new Black Panther tonight. It wasn't great.  I really liked the first one, and I enjoyed the role that Black Panther and Wakanda played in the other Marvel movies. But this one falls pretty flat. It's not the acting. The main character, played by Letitia Wright, is well acted. But the writing was all over the place. It lacks the fun of the previous Wakanda stories. It's a lot of angry women yelling at each other throughout much of the movie. Martin Freeman brings a little depth to his scenes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus seems out of her league here, with a streak of purple in her hair for some unexplained reason.  One of the main reasons it was difficult to take this movie seriously, or to enjoy it that much, is that the "bad guys" in the movie are so silly. I don't want to give too much away, but the main bad guy has little wings on his ankles that allow him to fly. He and his entire crew come across silly and lame throughout the whole movie. The ending wa...

 So I watched the new Jeepers Creepers movie, called "Reborn", and I went in with extremely low expectations. It didn't meet them. But I am happy to report that it crossed the line into the territory of "movies that are so bad they're good." The writing is the only thing that scary about this movie - it's so bad it's terrifying that someone would think it was good enough to be in a movie. The acting is various levels of terrible. There's passable terrible, which thankfully is what the two main protagonists are doing. There's silly and ridiculous terrible, which most of the rest of the cast uses, and then there's "what is this person LITERALLY thinking right now" terrible, which only a couple actors practice in the movie. This one woman is touted as a former miss universe, and the little speech she gives to begin the spookfest cosplay festival is one of the worst things I've ever watched on film. One thing I DID appreciate in...

 I've loved all but one of Quentin Tarantino's movies. (I wasn't fond of Hateful Eight). And Django is one of my favorites by him. I'm rewatching it right now on Tubi, and it's so good. Tarantino likes to take things that we all have strong reactions to, like racism or Nazis, and put a new twist on them. In this movie, the great actor Jamie Foxx plays a black slave trader (or rather, a freed slave who pretends to be a black slave trader in order to find and free his wife from slavery).  The usually very dependable Christoph Waltz is the other main character. And supporting roles by Samuel L Jackson, Don Johnson, and Leo DiCaprio make this a film that goes over the top in entertainment and thought provocation. It's so well written and directed, from the very first scene that draws you in, and the soundtrack (always the case with Tarantino) is a perfect accompaniment to the action. It's rated R for violence, language, and some nudity. I highly recommend it if ...

 I just finished watching See How They Run , and the best word for it is "charming". Watching the movie is VERY MUCH like watching a stage play. In fact, I think it would make a better play than a movie. Sam Rockwell is solid in his role as chief detective. Adrien Brody continues to have a face that makes me want to punch it (I honestly don't know why). But the real winner here is Saoirse Ronan, whom I'd never heard of before watching this movie. But the only times I laughed out loud were on her lines, perfectly delivered. It's what we call a "cozy mystery" in the book business. Several people are killed along the way, always in silly and nongrusome ways. And the movie is about the two slightly bumbling detectives trying to unravel the mystery and unmask the killer.  I only recommend it if you really like cozy mysteries. I found much of it boring and slow. The verbal play between Rockwell and Ronan was the only part that really drew me in. It's rated...

  The Happening is probably M. Night Shyamalan's most controversial film. Some people loved it. Most people hated it. I thought it was a really interesting idea and had some great moments, but kind of fell apart at the end. It stars Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, both of whom I like a lot. Shyamalan is usually very adept at creating interesting movies with huge twists in them. And there IS a huge twist in this one. The twist is when we find out exactly... well, what's HAPPENING. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm not going to spoil it for you. I recommend seeing it. Go in with the expectation that the ending is going to be weird and not very well done, and you'll probably enjoy the movie. It's rated R for graphic violence (many people killing themselves in horrific ways) and language.  SPOILER ALERT! Don't keep reading if you haven't seen it and don't want to know the ending. So, I thought the idea that nature was causing people to kill themselves w...

 The Quick and the Dead came out in 1995, and it was good. It was funny, harrowing, full of action and shooting and was a pretty good western for the 90s. It starred Sharon Stone in a rare role, Leo DiCaprio as a kid, Russel Crowe in an early role, and Gene Hackman as the bad guy you love to hate. It also has supporting performances from Gary Sinise, whom you might know as Lt. Dan, and Bruce Campbell from Army of Darknes and The Living Dead.  The entire plot revolves around who the fastest gunslinger is in this little western town. No one can beat Gene Hackman. I won't give away the story by giving up spoilers. But it's got a good ending. It's rated R for "western violence", though I think there's some strong language, too. I recommend it, if you like westerns, or you like the above named actors. It's a fun movie. PS the title is a pun, because "quick" can mean "alive", so the title means "The Living and the Dead". But it also...