One Of Them Days

Perhaps unconventional for my regular interests but the trailer got my interest.

Needless to say I was thoroughly entertained throughout and while not bust a gut hilarious certainly had humor that hit for me. This is the city, Los Angeles California, where we meet two friends Dreux and Alyssa (who my little white boy heart was crushing on something fierce) rooming together who when oopsie daisy the guy Alyssa was dating turns out to be a bastard and robs them blind on the very day they need to get rent paid leading them on a comedy of errors to get the dough and keep on livin'. And I haven't heard that term 'comedy of errors' in quite some time but it's the perfect way to describe the plot, cause these poor girls cannot catch a got damn break around here with several ideas both good and bad to garner some monies. Now the only thing I felt iffy on was there were 3 instances where the comedy got outlandish, girl runs mach 3 into a car door and brushes it off, guy nearly gets busted through a wall due to steam, electrocution at one point but the rest of the movie is pretty grounded, and you either commit or you're wishy-washy. Beyond that though, I had a lot of fun! I really love our two leads, Keke and SZA effortlessly slip into the roles as best friends and their dynamic ans character identities are a great mix, with Dreux being planning, career driven, and practical whereas Alyssa is more aloof, cosmically inclined, with a firm belief that all will naturally resolve in the favor of a happy ending. And because of that they bicker and headbut like rams but their's is a bond tempered like steel, and you easily want them to succeed! Dreux is trying to get a much better paying nicer job in the midst of all of this and I was rooting for her since minute 1, and who the hell would want to see people get thrown out on their asses to the curb anyway? Yet I feel the way the plot progresses skirts the situational comedy label some might deem it to be, the girls go to a blood bank for some cash let's see how it gets wacky, no it just so happens to blow up in their faces with a little help from the supporting cast. And I'll give props, each side character is easily understandable with defined traits that adds to the world the movie creates which takes a bit of inventive writing to make happen. Whether it be Keshawn the dumbass boyfriend, Mama Ruth one of the neighbors with a snack hustle (mad respect to you), Berniece who's kind of always off her rocker and ready to beat the hell out of someone, or Lucky the resident street walker everywhere but nowhere trying to keep people out of trouble but never listened to, easily memorable characters. And the humor is not joke a minute or complex, often times it kinda hits you like a sucker punch to the nose outta nowhere which I like cause it keeps you on your toes. It's a fun if slightly ridiculous movie that probably will slowly but surely garner more fans in the future, and I'm one of them! Real plot, fun characters, good humor, it didn't take long for me to get into it. 3 stars, 7.5/10, go to the movies today for some discount popcorn and everyone have a great day!

Nope

Well done sir, three home runs in my book.




I'll admit, the trailer got me alone with a shot of a flying saucer. Cause I knew immediately that this was gonna be a new take on aliens and breathe some new life into a very much bygone genre. And new barely covers how they handled the subject matter. So the movie follows two siblings who own a horse ranch in California when for no real reason, various bits of metal fall from the sky, power shuts completely off, and something is clearly spooking the horses leading our great leading stars to attempt to sort out the problem and get the impossible shot. I almost don't wanna say a thing. Needless to say Daniel Kaluuya is awesome, I can see some people say he has no expression or is just kinda zoned out when all this wild ass stuff is happening but I can forgive it. I mean if I saw a UFO I would literally lose my fudge, and walking home in the middle of the night with the wind picking up was um....fun. I guess you would get a bit desensitized and able to think more logically if you kept seeing a flying saucer but it doesn't take away from the performance. Keke Palmer won me over with one brief scene in the trailer, she is a joy to watch and I adore her. She just has that energy, that spirit, it's quite hard to not like her truthfully. Brandon Perea is a good source of comic relief and buys into this whole spaceship business easily, and I was a bit stunned cause he works at Fry's Electronics and I thought that was nothing more than another relic in my memory. Cause it takes place in modern day but truthfully the trailer sold it to me as early to mid 2000s, but man I miss that store. Moving on. Steven Yeun I feel is the wild card in this cast, he does belong but his whole backstory is so out there but I think that's why I like it. The film is shot super well with obvious emphasis on the sky, day or night, and it's paced just right for a roughly 2 hour film. Now, no spoilers of course however I must admit if you want to see new sci-fi, recognizable elements of sci-fi done with a new twist, I think you will enjoy it. I was very happy how it all progressed and the flying saucer was actually made pretty scary and unsettling again. Expertly done sound design by the by. A great time to be had, inventive, creepy, but engaging and interesting. I give it 4 stars, 8.5/10! Next week, I'm somewhat looking forward to and yet debating on whether I should do it at all. Until then, watch the skies always. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.

Lightyear

Sometimes your gut feeling is just the truth of the matter.

When I saw the trailer for Lightyear, I did not think it was gonna be good. I didn't understand the reasoning for it, I thought it did not need to be a gritty origin story or even a plain origin story for Buzz Lightyear. I saw the second trailer and was kinda getting on board, and the plot follows it but does a lot more than what is simply shown in that trailer. This is your spoiler warning. I do not spoil jack shit if the movie is good, this is your clue. And to be honest, when I was gathering the production details I saw a rating of 4.7/10 on IMDB, to which I replied oh come on it can't be that bad. It was baaad, I wouldn't rate it lower than that but also not much higher either. So our story follows a colony ship that wrecks on an alien world with no way to escape, leading our hero to put himself through an experimental test flight to find the right dilithium-uh I mean hyperspeed crystals to help get his crew back to space. Now I must admit, this beginning section of the movie was not bad. I liked the setup and the dilemma, and the fact that the whole hyperspeed experiment is not a one and done and then boom it's 60 years later. It was super good stuff seeing Buzz internalize so much blame on himself for marooning the crew here, and constantly keeps flying the experiment, each time springing 4 years into the future. It's almost Interstellar in a sense as he sees his crewmates get older and eventually die. That's a good story, that has some weight and drama to it. And even when he makes the final jump things do not go south, he meets his partner's granddaughter, is quickly brought up to speed on evil robots and what has happened which I appreciate infinitely for not doing that whole bullshit song and dance of who are you and we don't trust you, blah blah blah. The characters aren't bad, the performers do a decent job and have personality, they get some weird ass super brief character moments or "arcs" if I dare even call them that but...okay. This story needed a bit of ironing out, and the one single solitary element I was begging not to happen, happened. And it was worse than I thought it was going to be. Jesus Christ. If this is the first time either the director or writer has worked on a project it wouldn't surprise me. I had one wish, don't make Zurg a character we've met in the movie at an earlier point, just let him be an anonymous threat. I hate this so much, I am not in a good mood at all for reasons I will divulge at the end. Are you ready for some world class A-grade seal of approval bullllllllshit?? Zurg is actually Buzz. Are yo-

Goddamn it. God f***ing damn it. The fact they thought at all the audience would still be on board with this movie afterward is astounding. This writing is horrible at times, and that is the crown jewel of awful. What the, oh f*** off! When those credits started I was gone. I heard some horseshit playing behind me, you're not worth my time, don't even try to sequel bait me. But it has decent elements to it, the first quarter was really good, the animation quite lovely and makes the whole robots and space suits look pretty damn cool, I can get behind a story of a space faring galactic defender with his robot cat blasting shit, Sox was awesome, but man....they done f***ed it up! No William Shatner either, and the fact oh my God in heaven above they open the movie with essentially a disclaimer that Andy got a Buzz Lightyear toy because of this movie which was his favorite movie. I wouldn't buy anything from this movie if it was a penny. 1.5 stars, 5.5/10. Now I get to disclose information, the theater experience was awful, all I heard was kids being noisy little bastards and running to and fro around the theater. Constant. Thumping. Racket. That did not help I assure you. But wait, it gets better. I wrote about half this review and I'm walking home and it finally happened, I got hit by a car. Plot twist, I'm writing this from the afterlife mudda fudgers!! No, it hit me dead center but it wasn't super fast and I'm just sore and so angry I could put Vader to shame. F*** this evening, I'm going to bed.