Did everyone have a good Christmas? Did everyone get everything that they wanted?
If the answer’s yes, you have one man to thank for that!
Hooray for Santy Claus!
(You might recognize this song from one of our favorite holiday classics, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians!)
Po (voice by Jack Black), that Panda Bear who knows kung fu is back.
After finding fame as a Dragon Warrior and defending the Valley of Peace from numerous threats, he’s been told by his master, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), that it is time for him to give up being the Dragon Warrior and move on to becoming the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace. Po doesn’t really want to do that so, after being passive aggressive about auditioning replacements, Po goes on a quest with a plucky corsac fox and thief named Zhen (voiced by Awkwafina). Together, they head out to defeat a new threat, the Chameleon (voice of Viola Davis). The Chameleon is summoning past villains from the Spirit Real and stealing their kung fu powers.
Meanwhile, Po’s two dads — one biological (voiced by Bryan Cranston) and the other a goose who adopted Poe when he was young (voiced by James Hong) — also set out on a quest to try to keep Poe from getting into trouble. It’s actually kind of sweet, even if I did have a hard time telling all the various Panda Bears apart. Actually, so did everyone else in the movie so at least I felt a little bit less dumb.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is a typical Dreamworks animated film. The characters are cute and kid-friendly. The humor is self-referential and occasionally, an adult joke will slip in but it’s never anything that would threaten the film’s G-rating. The plot is pretty predictable and by-the-numbers but then again, this is a Kung Fu Panda film that we’re talking about here. There’s only so much that you can do with that. That said, the animation is nicely done and the voice actors all do a good job of bringing their characters to life. I especially liked Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu. It’s an entertaining movie, even if it does ultimately feel a bit generic.
The release of a new animated film, even one as low-key as Kung Fu Panda 4, used to be a huge event. Now, we kind of take animated films and their star-studded casts for granted. It’s a bit of a shame that we’ve lost that excitement.
I should admit that I have a bias when it comes to Average Joe.
Two weeks ago, when I watched this movie, I mentioned that I was viewing it on twitter. I included a picture of the film’s poster with my tweet. A few days later, I was briefly locked out of my account because someone reported the tweet for a copyright violation. Apparently, they were offended that I had shared the film’s poster. The image was removed from twitter and my account was subsequently unlocked.
I mean …. seriously, what the Hell? Not to brag on myself but I’m probably one of the few secular film bloggers out there who is willing to give a serious, non-snarky review to a faith-based film like Average Joe. Beyond that, me tweeting that I’m watching the film and sharing the film’s poster is basically free advertising for a film that really hasn’t really gotten a whole helluva lot of attention. I really have to wonder who thought it would be a good idea to alienate a viewer by complaining about someone sharing the film’s poster on social media.
As for the film itself, it’s based on a true story. Joe (Eric Close) is a former rebel and delinquent who is straightened out by both serving in the military and marrying Denise (Amy Acker). After Joe joins a church and shares his testimony, he is asked to take over as coach of a struggling high school football team. Joe leads them to victory but he also causes controversy by publicly praying before and after the games. The school board orders Joe to pray in the locker room where no one can see him but Joe refuses. Joe’s case makes its way to the Supreme Court. Along the way, Denise goes from being annoyed with her husband’s stubbornness to supporting his right to pray.
Del Close and Amy Acker make for a believable and cute couple. They definitely have enough chemistry that you buy them as a married couple. Both Close and Acker are also talented enough actors that they can make the movie watchable, even when it gets more than a bit heavy-handed. That said, the film also features Joe and Denise looking straight at the camera and narrating their story, which leads to several moments of either Close or Acker saying, “Actually, that’s the not the way it happened. What really happened was….” It’s a technique that become popular after Adam McKay used it in The Big Short (though I think it’s entirely probable that McKay himself stole it from Michael Winterbottom’s 24-Hour Party People). The first time it happens, it works because Joe interrupts some over-the-top footage of him trying to lasso a camel in a desert. It’s exactly the type of scene that is worthy of a “Wait, this didn’t happen!” But each subsequent time that Joe and Denise break the fourth wall, it feels less like a clever narrative device and more like a gimmick. There comes a point where you just want both Joe and Denise to get on with it.
Average Joe is …. it’s okay. I liked some of the acting. I liked the score by Andrew Morgan Smith. Narratively, it was never quite as memorable as it probably should have been. It’s a film that tries hard but doesn’t really stick with you.
In The Fall Guy, Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers.
When we first meet Colt, he’s a legendary and rather cocky stuntman. While movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes all the credit and brags about doing his own stunts, Colt is the one who is actually jumping off of buildings and surviving car crashes. Every day, Colt risks his life to make Tom look good and, even though Tom is a bit of a tool, Colt loves every minute of it. Why shouldn’t he? He’s good at his job and he’s in love with aspiring director Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt).
Or, at least, that’s case until one stunt goes mysteriously wrong and Colt ends up breaking his back. Colt eventually recovers but he’s no longer willing to be a stuntman and he and Jody break up. Colt ends up working as a parking valet in Los Angeles, retrieving cars and hoping that no one recognizes him.
When Colt gets a call from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asking him to fly down to Australia and once again act as Tom’s stunt double in a science fiction epic called Metalstorm, Colt refuses. But then Gail tells him that Jody is directing the film and the production is running behind schedule. Jody herself wants Colt to come work on the film. Colt finally agrees. However, when he arrives in Australia, he discovers that Gail lied. Jody definitely does not want Colt working on the movie and, in fact, Metalstorm is her way of getting out all of her negative feelings about their relationship.
Gail explains that Tom is missing. Colt agrees to track him down while working on both the film and his relationship with Jody. However, it soon turns out that Tom isn’t just off on a drunken binge somewhere. Colt soon finds himself caught up in a murder investigation, one in which Colt himself is the top suspect!
I liked The Fall Guy a lot more than I thought I would. From the trailer and the commercials, I was expecting it to just be another dumb Hollywood action film. And, indeed, there is a lot of action in The Fall Guy. Appropriately enough for a film about stuntmen, the stunts in The Fall Guy are often spectacular to watch and the film serves as a tribute to the unnamed stunt players who make us believe that film stars can do just about anything. I’m not going to speculate about who Tom Ryder might have been based on but it’s easy to see him as a stand-in for any number of spoiled movie stars who get all the credit for what we see onscreen despite the fact that it’s usually their stunt doubles doing the thing that we really remember. The Fall Guy is also a surprisingly funny movie. It’s smart enough not take itself too seriously and there’s a bit with a unicorn that made me laugh out loud. As always, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are charming and fun to watch. I’ve been pretty critical of Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the past but I have to admit that he did a really good job as Tom. The Fall Guy kept me entertained and there’s definitely something to be said for that.
This radio production of A Christmas Carol was originally broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1939. It’s not really Christmas unless you experience at least one version of Charles Dickens’s classic holiday tale and this version features not only Orson Welles providing the narration but Lionel Barrymore playing the role of Scrooge!
Other members of the cast included such well-known Welles’s associates as Everett Sloane (Marley’s ghost), Frank Readick (Bob Cratchit), Erskine Sanford (Fezziwig) and George Coulouris (Ghost of Christmas Present). Two years after this broadcast, Welles, Sloane, Sanford, and Coulouris would all appear in Citizen Kane.
For your listening pleasure, we offer up this journey to the past….
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
It’s Christmas! Here are 4 Shots from 4 Christmas classics!
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Godfather (1972, dir by Francis Ford Coppola, DP: Gordon Willis)
Die Hard (1988, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Jan de Bont)
Goodfellas (1990, dir by Martin Scorsese, DP: Michael Ballhaus)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999, dir by Stanley Kubrick, DP: Larry Smith)
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Enjoy!
Watching the 1964 holiday sci-fi epic, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, is a Christmas Eve tradition here at the Shattered Lens! So, sit back, turn on Kid TV, and get ready to sing!
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HOORAY FOR SANTY CLAUS!
This is the song that inspired Santa Claus to conquer the Martians.
Enjoy!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter and occasion ally Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of Mastodon’s #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We snark our way through it.
Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1995’s Virtual Assassin!
It should make for a night of fun viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto Mastodon, pull up Virtual Assassin on Tubi, start the movie at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag!
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 