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Singing and dancing and music, oh my!

Judy (2019)

11/02/2020 · by Joy

I will be the first to admit that I thought that Judy was going to be another Oscar-bait, old Hollywood, schlocky-type film. I was partially correct. Currently sitting at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, I kind of fell in love with this little guy. I’m one of those people that reallllly enjoys a good biopic – I have enjoyed the surge of them in the past few years (I’m looking at you, Rocketman, and yes, even you, Bohemian Rhapsody), so yes, I have a biased interest coming into this one.

Going into Judy, I had very little knowledge of what Judy Garland’s life actually looked like. I knew she died young and I knew she had a turbulent childhood in showbiz and that… that is about it, my friends. Do I feel like I know now? Kind of.

The absolute heart of this movie lies with Renee. This is a performance that you can just tell Renee Zellweger poured herself into. Before the Oscars and before seeing Judy, I was pretty sure that Renee was going home with Best Actress and the reasons for that are clear: a movie about Hollywood – check, a movie about a real life person complete with actress impersonating said person – check, historical biopic – check. It was a shoe-in. I finished watching the Oscars and said, man, I really wish that Renee Zellweger hadn’t won Best Actress and it should have 100% gone to Saiorse… but now that I’ve actually seen the movie (funny how that changes an opinion), I see it. I see it and I understand it.

If ever there was a Renee performance that deserved Best Actress, it was this one. Her performance is tragic and her performance is fabulous. You can’t help but watch her and you can’t help but love her. I truly forgot I was watching Renee and slipped into the mindset that I was watching Judy Garland’s life unfold on my TV screen.

That said, Renee is carrying the film on her back. Without Renee’s stunning performance, there is little to commend – the plot is thin, the supporting cast is mediocre at best, and the writing is just okay.

All in all, I enjoyed the film, but solely based on Renee’s performance. I do think that Judy will be remembered as time elapses, but I think people will remember Renee’s performance without remembering anything else about the film, which is a pretty okay thing to remember it for after all.

A Star is Born (2018)

14/10/2018 · by Joy

I can’t begin to describe to you the reluctance I had in seeing this film. The reluctance due to the fact that I vastly misjudged Lady Gaga. I’ve always loved Bradley Cooper literally since seeing him in Wet Hot American Summer – you see him on film and he just has a certain authenticity about him. Plus, it super helps that he’s a beautiful, beautiful man. I had no reservations about seeing a Bradley Cooper movie.

Don’t get me wrong – I love (and I do mean love) musicals. I wish my voice was spectacular enough to be in one because I would be allll over that shit. And I love musicals that star those that don’t typically cross-over from film to recording studio – a la Johnny Depp (Crybaby), Rosario Dawson (Rent), etc. But for some reason, I didn’t think Lady Gaga could pull it off and I was so, so incredibly incorrect. Lady Gaga brought everything to the table. She was fantastic. Her acting was natural and, I hesitate to say it, but flawless. She was authentic, she was genuine, she filled the role perfectly. I read right after seeing the film that both Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s vocals were live and untouched and I believe it. Lady Gaga has a very powerful, distinct voice. It fills a room with any melody – any genre. She is extremely versatile.

Now, combine the two – one of my favourite actors and one of my favourite singers – and imagine… just imagine that they have perfect chemistry together. I am fully jumping on the bandwagon and saying that I for sure think that Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga belong together. Of course, I googled it and Lady Gaga is, in fact, married, and so is Bradley Cooper, but I just have to say… maybe not for long after their significant others see this movie.

This may come as a surprise to you, but I actually had no idea this was a remake, let alone a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake which was a loose remake of a film. That’s right, there is a 2013 Bollywood version which my mom postulates doesn’t count because it didn’t come to the Americas and I tend to agree, the 1976 version with Barbra Streisand, the 1954 version with Judy Garland, and the 1937 version with Janet Gaynor, which was a loose remake of What Price Hollywood? (1932). You bet your ass that I’m about to rent the rest of those A Star is Borns on the Google Play store and go to town (and probably subsequently die from an emotional breakdown because… wow).

For some reason, I wasn’t expecting such a wallop of an ending as I got and I lost it. Like, I’m not talking a few tears escaped the confines of my eyelids, I’m talking full-force, tears rolling down my cheeks and falling into my large, extra buttered popcorn. I was a mess. Over the course of 134 minutes, Bradley Cooper (who also directed this one, did I forget to mention that?) managed to build two incredibly loveable and realistic characters that had me wrapped around their pinky fingers. The character depth was built gradually with little unnecessary exposition – it felt natural and none of it felt like, “oh hey, we’re just saying this stuff for the benefit of the audience who has no clue what our history was”… it felt real. Interactions between Ally and Jackson Maine felt real, interactions between Jackson and Bobby felt raw, interactions between Ally and her father and Jack and Ally’s father – real. I don’t know if that speaks more to excellent writing or excellent casting – I guess a combination of both.

The music was phenomenal – like I said, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s vocals were all live and unedited and it worked so well. Bradley Cooper altered his voice to sound deeper, more weathered, and way more gravelly and that also worked. You can tell a lot of effort and love went into shaping the perfect characters for this film. This may sound biased (because you already know I love B.C.), but I think that Bradley Cooper can do it all – he is a singer, he can act, and he’s got a beautiful (oh so beautiful) face. His voice wasn’t perfect, but it was real and it was open and I feel like I’ve used the word “real” maybe like 6 too many times in this review and I don’t care. I haven’t left the theatre (or my couch depending on whether I feel like putting on real pants that day or not) feeling this way in a long time – the feeling that new life has been breathed into my love for film. Thank you, Bradley Cooper (marry me?)

Report card:

Starring cast – amazing, perfect, wonderful.
Supporting cast (Sam Elliott, Anthony Ramos, Dave Chappelle) – perfect, couldn’t be any better if they tried.
Music – phenomenal, “Shallow” is the new theme song of my life.
Writing – great.
Story – heart-wrenching.
Bradley Cooper – A+++, shattered my heart into a million little pieces.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

20/08/2018 · by Joy

My hopes were beyond high. My expectations were… well, I wouldn’t say they were that high since I did look at some reviews prior to watching The Greatest Showman, but man… I was not prepared for the severe mediocrity and dullness of this movie.

I am a huge fan of movie-musicals, my favourites being Moulin Rouge!, Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd and, on a more “guilty pleasure” level, Rent, and normally I can find the good in even a mediocre movie-musical. That being said, the only thing I found remotely ‘good’ about The Greatest Showman was Hugh Jackman’s dedication to his role as P.T. Barnum. I later read about how this was a passion project of Hugh’s and that just makes me tremendously sad. To pour your heart and soul (and bank account) into a creation that just falls entirely flat… I can’t even imagine. Though, to be fair, I don’t know if any of Hugh Jackman’s personal dollars were poured into this monstrosity.

The message is a great one. The story is a dull one (and pretty much entirely false). The songs are pathetic attempts at showtunes.

If you’re looking for a biographical film about Barnum’s life, this is not it! One of my favourite things about watching a movie-musical is coming away humming the soundtrack, singing it in my quiet moments, playing the songs endlessly when I’m driving around in my car. I couldn’t hum you a single bar in this movie. Each song was more forgettable than the last and so “poppy” it was physically painful to sit through. It had a promising cast, but most of the characters fell flat and didn’t resonate with me at all.

Hugh was great, Zac was pretty good… Michelle Williams was just Michelle Williams. Zendaya was certainly there.

What does a movie-musical have going for it if it doesn’t have a catchy, fantastic soundtrack, phenomenal (stage-quality) acting, choreography that impresses and awes, and a plot that is driven, that is linear, that is great? It has nothing. It is confused and it is contrived and I literally can’t express to you how much I disliked this film.

All it succeeded in doing was encouraging me to bleach my eyes and ears by watching a superior musical (literally anything else). If this is one you’re excited about, I say skip it and message me, I can give you some worthwhile musicals to spend 106 minutes of your life on.

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

25/06/2017 · by Joy

If you’ve been reading my reviews for pretty much any amount of time, you’ll know that I am a Disney fan. Beauty and the Beast has never been one of my favourites, but that isn’t to say I don’t like it. When the first teaser trailer came out for this film, you know, with Lumiere and Cogsworth saying “it’s a girl…” and the rose and the music and… well, I was excited. For some reason I thought, how could this possibly go wrong?

I’m currently halfway through and I am, how do I say this? Bored. It doesn’t have nearly the same magic as the animated version. It doesn’t pack the same emotional punch. I do not care that Belle and the Beast are falling in love. I don’t care. I want to see more of Gaston and Le Fou to be honest. Where are they? I miss them. And that Wardrobe? She’s fricken terrifying. The music is lackluster at best. Emma Watson is even falling flat for me and I typically really enjoy her acting.

I see what Disney has tried to do – they’ve tried to take a classic and modernize it, make it a more detailed “masterpiece,” but it’s fallen oh-so-flat. The added effects and added details look like just that – add-ons tacked on to make the movie something “original.” It feels so… cheap and tacky. Why do we need to keep taking classic, wonderful animated films and making garish, distasteful karaoke versions of them? If you’re going to remake a film like Beauty and the Beast, you have to at least breathe some fresh air into it. Keep that aroma of familiarity, but make it something better, not something… like this.

Not to mention, they took this opportunity to create a very openly homosexual character… and that character was who?? Le Fou – a bumbling fool, an idiot, the villainous sidekick of Gaston. That’s just depressing. You could choose any character in any reimagining and make them gay, and you chose Le Fou. We have better LGBT representation in Paranorman (“You’re gonna love my boyfriend!”) Just… wow.

To be honest, unless you’re a mega fan of the original film, I’d skip this one. It left me feeling as though I need to watch the original as “eye bleach” and feeling resentful that I had wasted not only $4.99 on the Google Play store to rent it, but also two-and-a-half hours of my life that I could have spent watching something with actual substance and style. This is not a film I want in my collection. This is not a film I want to see again. I’ll stick to the tried and true, thank you very much.

La La Land (2016)

07/01/2017 · by Joy

I am a huge fan of musicals. I will admit that hands-down I am definitely, 100% biased going into La La Land in the first place. My boyfriend, David, however, is not a huge fan of musicals and therefore, not biased. Actually, going into the theatre, I was prepared for disappointment. My mother-in-law had me pretty convinced that I was going to see a huge, steaming pile of garbage. I was convinced that this was going to be one of those movies… you know, the critically-acclaimed, Oscar-nominated films that are totally pretentious pandering?

Boy, was I ever incorrect.

From the first minute, I was hooked. It was a visually stunning cinematic masterpiece, which is precisely what I went home and said to my Snapchat following (very small, probably didn’t care all that much). I won’t go so far as to say it’s a perfect film, but it is pretty much my perfect film. I’m a big fan of Ryan Gosling (some of my favourites being Blue Valentine, Lars and the Real Girl, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Fracture)… I’m a big fan of Emma Stone (Easy A, The Help, and Zombieland) and like I said, I’m a big fan of musicals (Les Miserables, West Side Story, Rent, Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, Singin’ in the Rain, Cry-Baby, Hairspray… etc, etc, dot dot dot). One of my OTHER favourite things is a movie that makes full use of colour and La La Land does just that perfectly.

I’ve read some of the negative reviews and I just can’t take most of them seriously. Tossing around terms like “worst movie of the year” simply because musicals don’t appeal to you isn’t valid! The acting is wonderful and beyond believable… Emma Stone is phenomenal, even when she’s acting that she’s acting (act-ception). She plays Mia, an aspiring actress. Ryan Gosling is pretty typecast because he does typically play one character, I find, but that’s not a bad thing because he plays his character well. He plays Seb, a confident jazz musician that’s trying to revive a dying genre of music. The writing is good (I won’t say great, but it’s definitely good). The songs are lovely and while the lyrics are pretty simplistic, they are touching and evocative.

I think the opening scene, which is more typical of movie-musicals with people bursting out of their cars into choreographed song and dance, cajoles people into expecting something that isn’t really coming. La La Land is a musical, for sure, but it’s not filled to the brim with song and every piece of dialogue doesn’t take place within a song. If you go in expecting West Side Story, that’s just… not what the film is.

The film really blew me out of the water when it came to the visuals. It was beautiful. It was imaginative, the colours were perfect and could not have been an iota more perfect. It’s colourful and it’s vibrant and it’s everything wonderful about musicals and it does a great service to the genre of jazz music, which is fantastic because if you don’t like jazz, you’re just wrong.

The first thing I said when David and I left the theatre was, “If and when we get a 4K Bluray player, that is the movie I want on 4K,” and I stand by that. That is my review. That sums up my feelings for this film. I will definitely watch this movie again and again. And again.