movie-review

Ordinary Angels

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Rating: Full

Genre: Faith, Drama, Family

Cast: Hilary Swank, Alan Ritchson, Nancy Travis and Tamala Jones

Director: Jon Gunn

Writers: Kelly Fremon Craig and Meg Tilly

Producers: David Beal, Jon Berg, Johnathan Dorfman, Kevin Downes, Andrew Erwin, Jon Erwin, Roy Lee and Dave Matthews

Music by: Pancho Burgos-Goizueta

Rated: PG for thematic content, brief bloody images and smoking

Release Date: 02/23/24

Runtime: 1h 58m

Tagline: N/A

Favorite Character: Sharon Stevens

Quote: “I’m good at plenty of things. Taking no for an answer ain’t one of them.”- Sharon Stevens

Fun Fact: N/A

The Review: The purpose of Faith films is to make you feel good and raise your belief in god. And with Easter around the corner, this might be a good movie to view around that weekend (if it was still there around that time).

It’s 1994 in Louisville and in a bar is Sharon Stevens, a drinking addict hairdresser with a Texan accent whose didn’t just have a alcohol problem but also has a troubled relationship with his son. The butterfly effect happened at a store where Stevens is purchasing alcohol and the moment she comes across something on the newspaper commences the whole film. A little girl named Michelle (Emily Mitchell) in need of liver transplant had lost her mother, giving Stevens a wonderful opportunity to transform from a drinker to a metaphoric angel.

One of her first steps was bargaining in the mother’s funeral uninvited. There is her now widowed husband, Ed Schmitt (Ritchson, who at first glance from the trailer, I thought it was Chris Pratt) with her two daughters, the Michelle (the sick girl) and Ashley (Skywalker Hughes) who are like Bluey and Bingo Heeler, such innocent and playful. Even if you don’t have kids, you will find it quite cute especially when Michelle loves to pretend to go on a adventure, just like the certain cartoon Hispanic explorer.

But with Michelle in need of a transplant, Ed is having a fanatical problem and is about to give up hope, but little did they know, Sharon is about to step in and become an angel that Ed would have been if he actually tried harder. putting a fundraiser at the saloon, raising $3,200 for Michelle. The bad news, however, is that it’s still not enough. Now one of the light of this darkness, is becoming an honorary Aunt to the girls.

I may not be irate by this, you probably may be but Ed doesn’t really feel all that grateful for Sharon coming in their lives. I mean, i don’t blame him for having a stranger stealing his daughters attention, but for god sakes Ed, Sharon is trying to help! Thankfully, Ed slowly grew to her (not in a romantic way) and just in time for a climax that showed us that faith should remain inside of you, even at tough situations.

While Ordinary Angels wasn’t perfect, the movie features Swank gave us an inspiring performance as a real life Ordinary Angel of Louisville. Yeah, it may be predictable, but hey, I can’t say anything about it if it’s based on a true story.

Self Reliance

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Rating: Full

Genre: Comedy, Suspense, Thriller

Studios: Hulu/Neon/MRC

Cast: Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Morales, Andy Samberg, Mary Holland, Emily Hampshire and Christopher Lloyd

Director: Jake Johnson

Writer: Jake Johnson

Producers: Ali Bell, Joe Hardesty and Jake Johnson

Music by: Dan Romer

Rated: R for language throughout

Release Date: 01/03/24

Runtime: 1h 25m

Tagline: Surviving is all about the company you keep.

Favorite Character: Tommy Walcott

Quote: “This Show is a Comedy”- Charlie

Fun Fact: the bar in the movie ‘La Cita’ means ‘The Meeting’ in spanish.

The Review: I have only heard of Jake Johnson from the Spiderverse films and I don’t watch New Girl so I may not be familiar with him. So, I’m starting to get familiar with him in his directorial debut. I am, however, am familiar with SNL’s Andy Sandberg and it was quite interesting with his comedy band ‘Lonely Island’ producing this film.

Johnson also wrote and starred in the film as a guy named Tommy who is suffering from a bad breakup and goes through the loss by exercising, working and drinking every day. That really doesn’t sound like a fun life at all. That all changes when a mysterious limo came by and who is sitting in the limo is none other than Andy Sandberg, inviting him in the limo for what is about to be a game changing adventure. Sounds a man’s fantasy, it evens feels like it, but it is really happening. If Tommy actually thinks about it, something awesome like this will always have one big catch.

This turns out to be a Dark Web reality show and he will be watched, every move! But if he survives 30 days without being hunted, he will win $1 million, which sounds pretty tempting but deadly. Now the good news is that there is a loophole, the hunters won’t kill him if he is within a few feet of someone, but he will be at risk if he is all alone. Sounds like this dark comedy is really in a social experiment genre.

I wasn’t expecting Johnson told immediately tell his mother and two sisters about the game, I mean we probably would in a same situation. And as we expect, they don’t believe him and assume that he is having mental issues, turning him into a person who the world thinks he’s crazy (but he isn’t). The first five days was no problem for Tommy but after that, the dark web show begins and things are getting tense. So his only option is to have anybody with him 24/7. Anybody. Even if its a homeless man named James. But before that, comes a suspenseful and hysterical moment of the film. Involving his sister’s boyfriend, him taking a crap and Johnson panicking…yeah, you probably might figure out what this is.

You might have heard Pitch Perfect’s Anna Kendrick is in the movie and you might be like, where is she? That’s what I was like, but thankfully, she appears in the movie at the same bar that was part of Tommy’s same old schedule. And as someone who is also participating in the game, so all they had to do way be within each other for the remaining of the game. Sounds easy right? Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath for that one because if you are in a movie, things will always take a radical turn.

I won’t say much about the ending, but by that time, the story really slipped. A very anticlimactic moment that would you will be like…really? That’s it? It also could use more of the humorous moments too, but Self Reliance did manage to teach the audience the same value of life that Tommy learned. It’s a squid game like social experiment that Johnson used to teach the audience and the results are various but entertaining.

Lift

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Rating: Half-Full

Genre: Heist, Comedy, Thriller, Action, Adventure

Studios: Netflix/Harbeat/Kinberg Genre Films/6th & Idaho Motion Picture Company

Cast: Kevin Hart, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ursula Corbero, Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, Jean Reno and Sam Worthington

Director: F. Gary Gray

Writer: Daniel Kunka

Producers: Audrey Chon, Kevin Hart, Adam Kassan, Simon Kinberg, Matt Reeves and Brian Smiley

Music by: Dominic Lewis and Guillaume Roussel

Rated: PG-13 for violence and action, suggestive material and some language

Release Date: 01/12/24

Runtime: 1h 47m

Tagline: The heist begins at 40,000 ft

Favorite Character: The Jet

Quote: “God, I really love that NFT.”- Cyrus

Fun Fact: The large painting in one of the scenes is a same painting that was stolen from a museum in Boston in 1990.

The Review: Prepare for takeoff! with your favorite comedian Kevin Hart on board, but does Lift make a good in-flight movie? I’m not sure.

Now let us meet the team! Your main thief, Cyrus (Kevin Hart), Pilot Camila (Ursula Corbero), Safecracker Magnus (Billy Magnussen), Korean hacker Mi-Sun (Kim Yoon-Ji), engineering expert Luke (Viveik Kalra) and the master of disguise Denton (Vincent D’Onofrio) and of course, like some of the other heist movies, they are criminals. It’s good to have a team, but perhaps giving them more characteristics would make the characters more

The opening was pretty eye catching to me, but mostly from the golden mask worn by an NFT artist that goes by N8, who rather remains anonymous, just like musicians Daft Punk, Deadmau5 and Marshmello. What is NFT? It is a Non Fundable Token which people sold for thousands or millions, yeah, i don’t understand all that stuff, but that’s what Cyrus and his team are stealing in the opening. Spider-Man fans will flip when N8 was forced to remove his mask, revealing it to be Jacob Batalon! Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but I think this is probably the first heist movie where the team steals an NFT.

Shortly after the NFT heist, the criminals are caught by Interpol agent Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who is willing to give them a second chance providing that they, big surprise, pull a huge heist. Stealing the bar of gold, in the plane, while 40,000 ft in the air! Now if you are confused, there is a billionaire (Jean Reno) in Zurich working with the cyber terrorists that are plotting to flood cities, so in other words, that greedy man is willing to make a profit at the cost of a lot of lives. I actually believe that sounds like what real life greedy people would do in real life, so I give this villain written by screen writer Danial Kunka a credit.

The coolest character in the movie would probably be…a high tech private jet. Yes, a high tech jet. It can spell out messages on the bottom, has a cool design inside (with a stripper pole) and for most of the time, covered in steel plates to avoid detection while going under the commercial airliner that contains gold! While it does sound like a crazy plan, it wasn’t even that unique. In fact, it may actually have been done in multiple films like Lift.

Now I do appreciate F. Gary Gray for trying his best to pull off this heist thriller and i don’t see how this movie lacks excitement, but with so many cliches in the film and the fact that I barely even notice that it was comedy, Lift went in the rough landing but if you want a simple thriller, this probably will do.

Wish

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Rating: Half-Full

Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Musical, Adventure, Comedy

Studios: Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios

Cast: Ariana DeBose, Chris Pine, Alan Tudyk, Angelique, Victor Garber, Natasha Rothwell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Harvey Guillen, Evan Peters, Ramy Youssef and Jon Rudnitsky

Directors: Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn

Writers: Chris Buck, Jenifer Lee, Allison Moore and Fawn Veerasunthorn

Producers: Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones

Music by: Dave Metzger

Rated: PG for thematic elements and mild action

Release Date: 11/22/23

Runtime: 1h 35m

Tagline: Be careful what you wish for.

Favorite Character: King Magnifico

Quote: “When you’re threatened, you do not breathe; you focus.”- King Magnifico

Fun Facts: This film’s animation is combined with watercolor animation and CGI animation.

This film was made to celebrate Disney’s Animation Studios’ 100th anniversary’s.

Why wouldn’t there be easter eggs nod to other Disney films?

There was supposed to be a short ‘Once Upon a Studio’ released with Wish but it didn’t.

Summary: In the land of Rosas, a citizen wishes upon a star, thus setting the chain of events.

The One Liner Review: Sure Disney’s original fairy tale has magical animation and catchy songs but a couple things would make the audience wish upon a star for more originality and to not have a meaningless message.