The Dead Don’t Die is proof that a lot of good moments do not always come together into a good movie. The latest from quirky indie director Jim Jarmusch, it brings his style of filmmaking to the zombie genre. The government has been doing some “polar fracking” which has spun the Earth off its axis. This has made the planet screwy, with electronics failing, days being randomly longer or shorter, and, most bizarrely, the dead start rising. Jarmusch brought in a bunch of actors he’s worked with in the past, so the film features an all-star cast including Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, and others. While the film has plenty of good moments and lots of funny dialogue, I couldn’t help but feel like the movie is just a bunch of fluff. Nothing that was all that memorable once it was over. I guess worthy of a single viewing, especially big Jarmusch fans, but overall, not great. ★★
Frozen was one of those films that didn’t need a sequel; it had a definitive ending with no more story to tell… until Disney invented more story to tell. Having said that, the sequel is good. Elsa is hearing a song from the north, and goes to investigate, aided by Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, and trusty Sven. Along the way, they unravel some of the backstory of their parents and, of course, save the kingdom again. The animation just keeps getting better, and the movie is visually stunning. The new songs certainly live up to the legacy of the first film too. For a movie that focuses heavily on magic, it lacks some of the movie magic of the first film: there are less surprises and some plot points are forced, but it is still great family fun for the cliché children of all ages. ★★★½
If you’ve been reading a lot of Martin Scorsese quotes in the news lately about his comments on the marvel films, it is from the context of him promoting his new film, The Irishman. This is a good old mobster film, based on a nonfiction book by Charles Brandt, which is itself based on confessions of mob hitman Frank Sheeran. Frank is portrayed by Robert DeNiro, and the film follows him from his early days as a young man in Philadelphia starting to do favors for mob boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), through his mid-life working for Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), and up until old age, when he has outlived them all. It is an incredibly engaging story, full of incredible actors who haven’t lost a step, and playing in the types of roles they were born for. It’s a long one at 3 ½ hours, but it didn’t feel like it. Excellent pacing and deceptively funny dialogue too keep the wheels turning throughout. Who knows how much of it is true, but when the movie is this good, who cares. ★★★★½
I haven’t seen the original cartoon The Lady and the Tramp since I was a little kid, but I have fond memories of it. I went into the new live action one with a bit of trepidation due to the mixed reviews, but I mostly enjoyed it. For anyone who was never a child (because that would be the only way you could have missed the original), the story is of a pretty female dog who lives a pampered life in a house, but finds herself neglected when the young couple have a child. She runs away for a short time and falls in love with a street dog who others call The Tramp. When she is reunited with her family, she misses her love, and teams up with other neighborhood dogs to save him from the pound. Like the live action Lion King, I still think the original cartoon is better, but still this is an above-average family fun movie with heart. ★★½
The Report is a new film detailing the hunt by a Senate-backed commission to get to the bottom of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) used by CIA operatives overseas. Adam Driver plays Daniel Jones, a staffer in Senate Feinstein’s office, who builds a report which said, despite what the CIA officially stated, tortue never lead to any reliable data to stop terrorism or to find Al Qaeda members. The first half of the film is great, as Jones does his digging and we see, through flashbacks, the way those techniques were given the green light: who knew what, when, and how. I thought the second half slowed down, as Jones fights the CIA higher-ups as they try to protect themselves, and the whole thing becomes a political fight. As a whole, it is a very interesting film. I’m sure people who bone up heavily on the constant stream of government news were aware already of much of the info portrayed in the movie, but for myself, I learned a lot about how widespread the initial plan and the following cover-up went. It does a good job of making sitting at a computer digging through miles and miles of confidential memos look exciting. And Adam Driver gets to show a lot more than he did in Jarmusch’s film. ★★★
Jons Movie Takes 