Minions: The Rise of Gru

And They Were All Yellow

I have a confession to make: until now, I had never seen a Despicable Me movie.  As a millennial, my animation touchstones were Toy Story and Shrek, and at 18 I was too old for the original Despicable Me when it came out.  But sometimes the universe (along with an aggressive marketing campaign) gives you a sign.  I couldn’t stop watching the original #gentleminons video on social media, and for the past month three yellow faces have stared at me from a poster at my subway stop.  When Minions: The Rise of Gru was the most convenient option at the theater, the time had come to stop resisting and succumb to the meme fever.

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Get Duked

Oi Scouts

Get Duked doesn’t waste any time, laying out its premise in the very first scene: three juvenile delinquent chavs are “volunteered” by their schoolmasters for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, an outdoor program meant to build character for wayward youths.  The movie immediately shows off its amped-up, in-your-face style, complete with stylized cartoon cutaways scored by fast-forwarded dialogue.  It announces Get Duked as a genuinely bold effort if nothing else, though its effect becomes less potent as the movie progresses.

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The Wrong Missy

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Miss-taken Identity

I had low expectations going into The Wrong Missy.  On the surface, it seemed like another Netflix production designed primarily to give the Happy Madison crew a paid vacation in an exotic location, á la the aggressively mediocre Murder Mystery and The Do-Over.  And while The Wrong Missy doesn’t do much to refute that accusation, there are just enough signs of life to set it apart. Continue reading

The Host (2006)

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Heart and Seoul

I will admit to taking some petty pleasure in being able to say that I knew about Oscar sensation Bong Joon-Ho all the way back in 2007, when I went to go see The Host at the age of 15Though not an obscure indie by any means – its budget was over ten million dollars, and it broke South Korean box office records – it received a limited release here in the states, and certainly wasn’t a household name among foreign movies of the time.  With Parasite getting unprecedented media attention, I thought I’d look back at Bong’s unconventional monster movie. Continue reading

Sonic the Hedgehog

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Blue Streak

After a rocky production that saw the special effects team rebuild the title character from scratch, no doubt increasing the budget in the process, it’s a minor miracle that Sonic is not only a success, but a good movie.  Not a great one, by any stretch, but I’ll take what I can get. Continue reading

Eighth Grade

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As an incurable horror movie fan, I have no problem watching torture, disembowelments, and all other manner of grotesqueries.  But no amount of gore could prepare me for the emotional meat grinder that is Eighth Grade.  Bo Burnham’s directorial debut is at times nothing less than an endurance test, and I mean that as the best of compliments. Continue reading

Thoroughbreds

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Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) is in a bad place.  She’s in trouble with her posh boarding school, and stuck at home between semesters with her well-meaning but uninvolved mother and douchebag-extraordinaire stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks).  He and Lily live together in hostile tension, both affecting a façade of chilly politeness that barely conceals their mutual hatred for one another.  Meanwhile, the mother of Lily’s middle school classmate Amanda pays her to tutor her daughter, itself a transparent excuse to provide Amanda with some social contact.  Amanda has become an outcast after brutally killing her family’s crippled horse, which in her mind was an act of mercy. Continue reading

I Love You, Daddy

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Now I can’t say exactly how I came across this movie, but I assure you all that it was through completely legitimate channels.  And yes, I will be addressing the controversy surrounding its cancellation, but first, my review: Continue reading

The Fast and Fentress Film Discussion Podcast Episode 2: Sausage Party

sausage party

For our second episode, Vil Zsolnay and I discuss the 2016 animated comedy Sausage Party.  We’ll cover the movie’s influences, the religious overtones, and the occasional plot hole that comes with a movie about talking food.  Be warned, spoilers ahead.  Enjoy!

The Disaster Artist

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I’ll get this out of the way first: I’m what you might call an “obsessive” fan of The Room.  I’ve seen it at least ten times, been to several screenings, read Greg Sestero’s book, and even met Tommy Wiseau in person.  So while I’m not exactly an objective judge of The Disaster Artist’s source material, in a way, I’m also especially qualified to write this review.  After all, The Disaster Artist is geared toward The Room’s cult following more than any other group, though its story of beating the odds has universal appeal. Continue reading