MOVIE REVIEW: COCAINE BEAR

After a 500-pound black bear consumes a significant amount of cocaine and embarks on a drug-fueled rampage, an eccentric gathering of cops, criminals, tourists, and teenagers assemble in a Georgia forest.

Director: Elizabeth Banks

Cast: Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Matthew Rhys, Ray Liotta

Release Date: February 24, 2023

Genre: Comedy, Thriller

Rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout

Runtime: 1h 35m

Review:

Cocaine Bear is a gory comedy that embraces the goofiness of its premise.  Elizabeth Banks knows exactly what kind of movie she's making and doesn't saddle it with too much extraneous baggage that keeps the film moving at a brisk pace.  Its straightforward in the best way possible spending a little time early on introducing the players before the inevitable mayhem begins.  The cast and director are both on the same page as there's a decidedly cartoonish air about the characters and performances.  The ensemble cast is peppered with recognizable character actors, including Ray Liotta's final onscreen appearance, who are clearly having a ball playing their roles.  Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich get the biggest portion of the screen time with the latter two providing the best onscreen chemistry.  Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Isiah Whitlock Jr. make the most of their limited screen time in supporting roles.  The titular bear is a solid, but it’s never photo realistic enough to make you forget you are watching CGI animal.  The plot and characters are thinly written which makes it difficult to maintain its initial energy before it sputters into its finale. Ultimately, Cocaine Bear is a solid piece of mindless, goofy fun that's easy to enjoy even though you'll probably forget about it shortly there after.  

C+

MOVIE REVIEW: IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

A journalist's life is enriched by friendship when he takes on an assignment profiling Fred Rogers. Based on the real-life friendship between journalist Tom Junod and television star Fred Rogers.

Director: Marielle Heller

Cast: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Cooper

Release Date: November 15, 2019

Genres: Biography, Drama

Rated PG for some strong thematic material, a brief fight, and some mild language

Runtime: 1h 48min

Review:

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood isn’t the Fred Rodgers biopic you might expect.  His character is mostly a secondary player but the film does a solid job of capturing the epitome of his spirit.  Marielle Heller’s film is a subtle but a well crafted tale that uses some wonderful visual and framing devices to really capture the feel of a Mr. Rodgers episode.  At the center of the film is Matthew Rhys who delivers a fine performance.  Rhys carries the air of a broken man from the beginning of the film.  Ultimately, this movie is about his story and how his interactions with Rodgers helped him identify his personal pain and grow into a better person.  There’s nary a question that nobody could play Mr. Rodgers except Tom Hanks.  Hanks brings his own inherent likeability to the role and it would have been easy to just coast through his performance based off of just that.  Thankfully Hanks doesn’t do that and the film is so much better for it.  It’s a showcase of subtly as he uses vocal inflections and mannerisms to channel Rodgers.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the film perks up every time he shows up on screen.  It’s wonderful performance that leaves you wishing he’d been a bigger focus of the film as a whole.

B+

Cindy Prascik's Reviews of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood & 21 Bridges

This weekend I threw my hard-earned cash at two unfortunate films offered as sacrifices to the Frozen gods: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and 21 Bridges.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

First up: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

A jaded investigative journalist is assigned to write a profile of Mr. Rogers.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is about Mr. Rogers, but it isn't really *about* Mr. Rogers. So close on the heels of the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? maybe it doesn't need to be. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is about Mr. Rogers' uncanny gift for teaching healthy coping mechanisms, and the exceptional kindness that always allowed him to see things from another person's point of view. In this "based on actual events" tale, Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) forms an unlikely friendship with Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a world-weary writer assigned to profile him for Esquire magazine. Struggling with changes in his home dynamic and estranged from his ill father, Vogel cynically wonders if the saintly Rogers could possibly be for real. The story is framed within a fictional episode of Rogers' legendary television show, which sounds interesting in concept but plays somewhat awkwardly in practice. Pacing is dicey enough that the film, which isn't all that long, sometimes feels very slow and very, very long. It's also heavy-handed with its lessons of kindness and understanding, which isn't unwarranted in these unkind times, but being beaten over the head with a movie's message never helps me enjoy it much. Negatives aside, where the film really shines is in its leading performances. Hanks and Rhys are brilliant individually and together, even if I did catch a bit of Forrest Gump peeking through Hanks' Fred Rogers here and there. Given that he's the world's most-loved actor, playing the world's most-loved person, best actor nods across the board seem a given for Hanks. (At risk of sounding like a broken record: Ceding nominations only. He may not have Taron's Oscar, either, even if he is Tom Hanks playing Mr. Rogers.) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood pulls at the heartstrings, but, ultimately, it still feels like the great Fred Rogers hasn't yet gotten the film he deserves.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood runs 108 minutes and is rated PG for "some strong thematic material, a brief fight, and some mild language."

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood features great performances and some touching moments, but overall it's pretty forgettable. Of a possible nine Weasleys, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood gets six.

Fangirl points: An audible twitter rolled through my theater when the Incline turned up!

Next on my agenda: 21 Bridges.

A detective known for taking down cop killers catches a case where eight officers were killed...but can he peel back the layers to get to the heart of the crime?

21 Bridges is a 2019 movie with the gritty feel of a 1970s cop drama. The underlying story of police corruption in the dirty Big City further adds to the old-school vibe. Chadwick Boseman carries the picture with ease, and--while this doesn't require anything on par with his stunning work in 42 and Get On Up--he is eminently watchable. The supporting cast is as good as it needs to be in fairly limited use, with Taylor Kitsch and Stephan James being particularly noteworthy. Characters are broadly drawn and leave little to the imagination, which makes plot twists pretty easy to spot. The movie is fairly intense throughout, though first half does seem to drag a bit. The second half is more solidly paced, playing to a predictable but not unsatisfying finale.

21 Bridges clocks in at a tight 99 minutes and is rated R for "violence and language throughout."

21 Bridges is a serviceable cop drama that offers a nice respite from awards bait and sappy seasonal fare.

Of a possible nine Weasleys, 21 Bridges gets seven.

Until next time...

Cindy Prascik's Reviews of Our Brand is Crisis & Burnt

Dearest Blog: Welcome to Awards Season, where every film feels vaguely like it *could* be based on a true story. Thus, yesterday it was off to Marquee Cinemas for two stories that kinda sorta seem like they maybe could be a little bit real: Our Brand is Crisis and Burnt.

 

First on my agenda: Our Brand is Crisis.

 

An American political strategist reluctantly becomes part of an unpopular Bolivian presidential candidate's team.

 

Our Brand is Crisis probably isn't a bad movie for any other time of year, but plunked down in October, when everything either hopes for an Oscar or hopes to scare the pants off of you, it seems an inexcusably poor offering. Crisis is hilarious at times, yet the premise is so depressing it feels wrong to laugh. 

 

The film never really earns your full attention, and, sadly, there's no amount of humor that could buoy this all-too-real real depiction of politics with no soul. If there's any good news to be had, it's that the movie boasts uniformly strong performances. Sandra Bullock has a few bravura moments that might justify another Oscar nod, Billy Bob Thornton is an able adversary, and the delightful Anthony Mackie is solid as always. The real star of the picture, though, is Bolivian actor Reynaldo Pacheco, whose earnestness single-handedly salvages what's otherwise a depressing exercise in cynicism.

 

Our Brand is Crisis clocks in at 107 minutes and is rated R for "language including some sexual references."

 

It provides a few good laughs, but Our Brand is Crisis is a mostly-discouraging look at the political process. 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Our Brand is Crisis gets five.

 

Next on the docket: Burnt.

 

Bradley Cooper stars as Adam Jones, a brilliant chef who is so messed up he does nothing but hurt the people who care for him, and you'll be too distracted by those baby-blues to really care.

 

Dear reader(s), I don't mean to belittle chefs, as nobody--and I mean NOBODY--has a greater regard for food than I do (as my profile photo will attest), but I am unsold on any attempt to portray a chef, even the world's greatest, as some kind of rock star worthy of a feature film. I'm something of a rock star, myself, when it comes to secretaries, and last I looked, Angelina Jolie wasn't queuing up play me on the big screen anytime soon. 

 

Thus Burnt starts out at an insurmountable handicap: it's just not that great a story. The high-emotion, high-stakes kitchen scenarios may accurately portray behind-the-scenes action at the world's finest dining establishments, but the drama seems plain silly (is it *such* a tragedy if the scallops are a bit overdone?), and the rest of the story is so done-to-death you won't care about any of it for a single second. Bradley Cooper swaggers his way through the film like an actual rock star, and, to his credit, makes the dull exercise almost watchable. 

 

Daniel Bruhl is terrific as Jones' supportive and long-suffering friend, and Matthew Rhys is outstanding as his top rival. Sadly, though, fantastic performances can't save a lame premise that's predictably executed.

 

Burnt runs 101 minutes and is rated R for "language throughout."

 

Much like the pretentious dishes whose preparation it depicts, Burnt is far more interested in collecting awards than it is in actually satisfying anyone. 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Burnt gets four.

 

Until next time...