A Seattle moviegoing lifestyle magazine
Judy Blume is such a wonderful subject for a documentary it’s almost a surprise that we’re just getting a doc about her life now. A career-spanning film about Ms. Blume’s life is long overdue. Besides being an almost-universally beloved author who has more people that confess to her (mostly adolescents) than the Pope, she just radiates warmth.
In this telling from the Broken Lizard team (Super Troopers, Club Dread), the time is 1186 France and Quasimodo (Steve Lemme) makes torture devices. He’s a loveable, harmless, area man who builds torture devices for a living. There’s a rivalry between the power-hungry King Guy (Jay Chandrasekhar) and the power-hungry Pope Cornelius (Paul Soter). From what I can tell, France has never had a King Guy and Pope Cornelius reigned from 251 to 253 AD.
To its credit, Renfield doesn’t take itself seriously for even a moment. That’s usually fine but the jokes and gags here fell flat almost 100% of the time. I wish there was a sense of cleverness to the humor, but there just isn’t. The acting (save for Cage) is unconvincing and the action scenes are campy (in a bad way).
Even though I am fast-developing a reputation as the easiest-to-cry member of the Seattle film press, I don’t think there’s anything I could’ve done to emotionally prepare for how powerful and quietly intense this movie is.
In the first few moments of the thrilling new movie Rodeo, we learn that its protagonist Julia is a lone wolf and antihero. She doesn’t make friends easily, she blows off work, has alienated her family, and she steals whatever she wants or needs. Her one passion is motorcycles.
It’s hard not to sympathize with the environmental activists turned ecoterrorists at the heart of the potent new movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Eight young persons have so much justified rage from the cruelties of American capitalism that they find the best course of action to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas. This movie is a meticulously planned scheme about how the photogenic gang of eight plans to commit their act of terrorism.
You don’t become the most dominant athlete (not basketball player) of your era without creating an incredible story along the way. The story of how Michael Jordan became the most marketable sports superstar before his rookie NBA season began is told in the new movie Air. If there’s anything Ben Affleck and screenwriter Alex Convery know, it’s that the story of Michael Jordan is best told the less Michael Jordan talks.
The new Super Mario Bros. Movie is extremely cool to watch. The movie is fast-paced and the animation is seamless and the colors are vibrant, like playing a video game on an enormous TV. As it should be. A lot of money went into making this movie look cool. I wish for all of the money spent on the animation and top-tier voice talent, we got a better story. I’m not sure that matters, though.
A Good Person, the newest movie from Zach Braff: director and writer, is melodrama through and through, for better or worse. It’s often manipulative, cloying, overly sentimental, and it leans heavily on cliche. It’s also saved by excellent performances by two leads.
At any given point throughout the almost-two hour run time, I don’t think I could satisfactorily explain what exactly is going on. It’s a taut, fast-paced heist movie, but it can be hard to follow at times. I also don’t care. Last time Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham teamed up, in 2021, I wrote, “I’m a simple man and sometimes I just need to watch Jason Statham beat the shit out of some bad guys. Ya know?” Nothing has changed: I got what I wanted then, and I’m getting what I want now.
