January movie reviews

In theaters:

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM

Jesus. I thought the 1st Aquaman was a complete mess, but it looks like a borderline masterpiece compared to this sequel. This still has all the noise and ugly underwater fx, but it is even more boring and lazy. You can tell how uninterested everyone involved is. Having Jason Momoa try to do dramatic scenes is a disaster. It's amusing seeing how obvious it was that they cut Amber Heard out of every single shot she wasn't absolutely necessary for. The DCEU was an up and down franchise, but it's a shame that it goes out on its worst film by far. 

AMERICAN FICTION

Nominated for best picture, I think this is a good, witty satire, and the film I wanted Spike Lee's Bamboozled to be many years ago. It isn't THAT funny, and doesn't reslly.know how to end. But the script is very smart, and the nominated performances by Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown are both outstanding. 

THE IRON CLAW

I was really into this drama based on a real life wrestling family, who had a tragic story that wouldn't be believable as fiction (the movie actually toned down the misery). Excellent ensemble, led by a truly transformative Zac Efron, and the best use of Lily James in a long time. Enjoyable wrestling sequences too, especially considering I don't like the sport. 

THE BEEKEEPER

I wanted Jason Statham obliterating hapless bad guys for 2 hours, and that's exactly what I got. This is basically what I wanted the last couple Equalizer movies to be, just a good time. And elevated just enough by having a real director (David Ayer). 

MEAN GIRLS

The original Mean Girls is a really good movie. You wanna make a stage musical about it, fine, but this transition of that musical back into a movie is kind of terrible. For one, I didn't think that most of the songs were really any good at all, nor were they shot in any sort of cinematic way to make them pop visually. So once that part doesn't work then all you have left is a lazy remake of the original movie, with almost all the same story beats and even entire scenes and dialogue just copied over. I liked the actresses who played the Amanda Seyfried and Lizzy Caplan roles, though. 

THE BOOK OF CLARENCE

Director Jeymes Samuel, whose Netflix western The Harder They Fall made by 10 best list in 2021, comes back with this biblical movie that was marketed as much more of a comedy than it turns out to be. Lakeith Stanfield, always great, is a regular guy who decides to pretend to be a prophet. The movie starts out with some sharp comedy, but then disappointingly transforms into a largely serious movie that probably is not much different than any of those religious movies that pop up in theaters all the time. It's still very well shot, and I still think Samuel is crazy talented. 

MEMORY

I was mostly bored stiff by this languid drama starring Jessica Chastain. She's excellent, but nothing compelling happens. There's a little conflict, and then the movie just ends. Not soon enough tbh. 

I.S.S. 

The trailer really intrigued me, showing a film set entirely on the space station, as apparently WW3 breaks out down on earth, after which the Americans and Russians fight for control. The film generates some good claustrophobic suspense, and I enjoyed seeing a space thriller not involving any aliens or that kind of stuff. The cast is good, led by the excellent Arianna DeBose. It never makes that leap up to excellent, and the ending is way too abrupt, but it's a good film. 

ANYONE BUT YOU

The sleeper hit of the winter, but I cannot figure out why. Is it just because this is the first genuine romcom to hit the big screen in a while? Cause even that starved audience deserves better than this generic crap, a romcom with few laughs, and a very weak lead pair. Glen Powell is pretty charming, but I'm sorry, I just do not get this Sydney Sweeney thing. She is not charismatic, a dull actress, and displays no knack for comedy. She's called upon for a couple physical gags here that are just cringeworthy. On the bright side, maybe this will get the genre some steam again and much better entries will arrive soon. 

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT

George Clooney directed this movie about a rowing team that won gold at the 1936 Olympics. Even as sports movies go this is achingly formulaic, and as bland as a saltine. There really isn't even any significant obstacle the team faces, so there is no real drama. I suppose I learned a little bit about rowing though. 

ZONE OF INTEREST

I am utterly baffled how this film gained major Oscar nominations, including best picture. The film is set in Germany during the Holocaust, with a family going about their mundane lives as just nearby at a concentration camp unspeakable horrors happen. So the idea is to show the banality of evil. Okay, I get the idea, but the film makes that clear within minutes. And then it just goes on for a punishingly boring 2 hours in which there is no story, no narrative, nothing to latch on to. It is legitimately one of the most boring films I have ever seen. I went and rich a bunch of reviews calling the film harrowing and devastating and many other superlatives. What fucking film did these people see? Is it just because of its setting that people think it's important and has to be respected? I mean, Schindler's List depicted these awful events but did so with a story, and characters. This film has none of that. Decent score, I guess. What a waste of a film. 

Everything else:

MORE AMERICAN GRAFFITI 

Finally got around to seeing the famously maligned sequel to George Lucas's 1st big hit. Lucas didn't direct this one, but mapped the story, which really goes in a vastly different direction, following the returning characters from the original (no Richard Dreyfus, and only a Harrison Ford cameo) over 4 New Year's Eves. It's stylistically interesting, with each segment being shot differently (one is entirely in split-screen), and since we're always bouncing around from segment to segment the movie flies by pretty good. It's not even remotely as good as the original, of course. The structure works against it more than for it. It isn't nearly as fun or lively, although they did make age another aces soundtrack. Performances are still good. In particular I'm kind of baffled that Candy Clark didn't manage a bigger career.

RUSTIN

Colman Domingo got a best actor nomination for this biopic about a civil rights leader, who was something of a right hand man for MLK, and largely led the way in setting up the March on Washington. The Obamas actually exec-produced this. It's a pretty standard biopic, and a little toothless at times, but I didn't know the story of this guy and it did a good job telling it. 

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW

Nominated for best international feature at the Oscars, this is about that rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in the early 70s, and the survivors wound up turning to cannibalism to survive. It's well made and all, and the story is gripping, but we already got Alive 30 years ago, which was very good at telling the same story. 

FIRE WITH FIRE

Normally I avoid those latter days Bruce Willis flicks, since we now know why he made them. I gave this one (from 2012) a chance cause the cast was pretty good, with Rosario Dawson and Vincent D'Onofrio, who gives great hammy bad guy. Josh Duhamel is the lead, and he ain't bad. The plot is solid. It gets the job done.