Sean’s movie thoughts

Fighting with My Family is based on the career of WWE diva Paige. How true to life it is, I am not sure. I did enjoy it. Paige comes from a family of wrestlers and she gets her shot at the WWE but her brother doesn’t. Florence Pugh stars as Paige. She is good, I don’t think I have seen her in anything else and I am not really familiar with Paige, so maybe that helped me buy Pugh as Paige. Pugh is likable as Paige and relatable when she is a bit less likeable. Vince Vaughn aughn plays the talent scout/drill sergeant who runs the training program for the WWE. He has some experience with being a drill sergeant after Hacksaw Ridge. Dwayne Johnson has a nice cameo but this is not his movie. Don’t let the poster fool you. Fighting with My Family might be worth re-watching before the end of the year.

The Razzies are the Golden Raspberry Award for cinematic failure. These awards go back to 1981. Do they matter? Do they have power? I don’t think they matter and I do not think that they have power. The Academy Awards have power, winning one can help a person’s career. I don’t think winning a Razzie really hurts a person’s career. Brad Miska is the co-founder of the Bloody Disgusting website, which I look at from time to time, and he tweeted about the Razzies today. He said he would like it if film journalists wrote positive things about Razzie Winners and how he would like the Razzies to lose power. I don’t think they have power. Here are the complaints I have heard about the Razzies 1)they pick on obvious targets 2)Some of their award categories or award winners don’t make sense (Showgirls won for best sequel but it was not a sequel) 3)the whole notion of the Razzies is mean-spirited. https://www.mandatory.com/culture/942899-easy-targets-razzies-pick-year#LWWkuOBHDvy3xX32.9...

I know that Queen produced some great music and that the band has a legacy. I mean no disrespect to the band but the Bohemian Rhapsody film might be terrible. I say “might be” because I tried to watch it and lost interest after maybe 35 minutes. I guess the movie could have gotten better. I am going to Fighting with My Family tomorrow, I hope it is good. I have heard good things. It is based on the real life of WWE wrestler Paige. I hope it is more memorable than Atila Battle Angel. I am surprised the Lego Movie 2 semi-bombed. It might not be as good as the first one but it is still good. Maybe people/families were more interested in the new How to Train Your Dragon movie.

This movie is not as bad as I thought it might be, so I guess that is something. Jaime Fox is better in this than he was in Amazing Spider-man 2, so maybe when people do a career overview of Fox this film won’t be mentioned as one of his worst. It is okay, I probably won’t want to see it again.  I never lost complete interest and considered ending the film early but maybe lead actor’s (Taron Egerton) next film Rocketman will be better and more memorable. For a movie with as many action scenes and stunts as this one, you’d think it would be more exciting. It is under two hours, and  Egerton’s lead performance is decent but I am not sure that is enough to recommend this one. Critic David Ehrlich panned it  https://www.indiewire.com/2018/11/robin-hood-review-2018-1202022262/  and I think the review was fair.

Rosa Salazar is really good in Battle Angel Atila. She plays Atila in motion capture and she is good/likeable as the cyborg. Salazar was also in the Maze Runner series. This movie is based on a Japanese comic. Honestly I have seen this movie before (or at least I have seen movies like this one), it is fine. The villains aren’t interesting, the visuals are good, but none of the other performances are good as Salazar’s. No one is awful. Did I buy the love story? Maybe not completely. The actor playing her love interest is not bad but maybe the love story could have been downplayed. Maybe they could have been just friends.(I probably have seen worse love stories or romantic subplots in films.) I guess it is a bit of a bummer that the movie ends setting up a sequel that might never happen. I could make a list of movies that set up a sequel that never happened. I think there are at least five since 2015. I saw this the same day as Happy Death Day 2U, and that film is better.

Happy Death Day 2U is pretty good. It had some emotional moments I was not expecting and Jessica Rothe was really good as Tree. (These moments involve Tree’s mother.)  I am even more disappointed now that the Valley Girl remake she was in has been put on a shelf to rot. I am not going to spoil anything, so I won’t go over the plot in detail. Basically this movie reveals the origin of the time loop from the last movie. Tree, Carter, Ryan (Carter’s roommate), and some of Ryan’s science student friends try to figure the situation out. Technically this is a horror movie but it is more of a comedy than a horror movie. Even some of the deaths are played for comedic effect. It helps if you have seen the first movie but I think people who didn’t see that movie can enjoy this one. The end of the film hints at another sequel. Maybe Israel Broussard’s Carter could get a bit more to in  the third movie, if there is one.

I don’t have Franchise Fatigue or Superhero movie fatigue. At least I don’t think I do. However there are some signs that I could be developing X-men fatigue and maybe Dwayne Johnson fatigue. I am surprised about the X-men fatigue. I don’t feel excited about the new X-men movie. I might go see Dark Phoniex but I might not. Maybe I be more excited if it was a different storyline, the Dark Phoniex storyline was part of X-men 3. I am curious about the New Mutants movie but not very curious. I don’t think I have re-watched X-men Apocalypse. I might be okay with the franchise taking a few years off after this year. I like Dwayne Johnson but he makes a lot of movies. I did not like Baywatch at all. (I gave that movie at least 2 chances and have written about it.) I don’t feel excited by Hobbs and Shaw (his team up movie with Jason Statham). I am kind of glad his Doc Savage movie is not happening, I am not sure he was the right choice for Doc Savage.