Movie Review -- Cats

  And now for something completely different. Musicals aren't normally my bag but after hearing all the criticism going around about Cats I knew I had to check it out. Plus I had nothing better to do last Friday night. So is Cats a worthwhile means of passing the time? Let's take a look...

  And let's never take another look again. The felines in this movie look freakin' disgusting! If you haven't seen them then let me explain: they have human hands, feet, proportions, faces, limbs, fingers, and toes. Really the only cat-like things to them are the ears, whiskers, tails, and fur. So basically the cats just look like pygmies in really lazily slapped together cat costumes (if you've got fetishes then you'll really like this movie). Except they aren't even really that: the “costumes” are really just CG effects, and not very good CG at that. The computer generated effects are about on par with Monsters, Inc. which was 18 years ago. The actors' faces are very sloppily pasted on to the motion-captured digital bodies whose feet don't seem to be interacting with the ground properly (just watch their feet as they walk, you'll know what I mean). And last but not least, the four-legged freaks don't even land on their feet half the time.

  So who are these weirdos exactly? The main character Victoria is played by ballerina Francesca Hayward in her film debut which mostly consists of her not saying much for long stretches at a time while keeping that same dumbfounded facial expression throughout the film. The rest of the cast boasts some rather big names but there's two that really stand out for me. The first is Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy because (a) she can't sing to save her life and (b) she's easily the most bizarre and creepy-looking creature in the whole film. The other notable character is Gus played by Ian McKellen who gives off this whole oblivious-grandpa-who-is-still-having-a-good-time vibe. Pretty much everything he says and does is hilarious and he's easily one of the best parts of the film.

  I guess I should mention the plot. It follows the recently abandoned Victoria as she's introduced to the world of the Jellicle Cats, a gang of stray cats in London who occasionally take part in a song and dance competition with the hopes of being reincarnated. It's a plot that's rather thin and goes off on a lot of tangents for the sake of giving the audience more songs to listen to. Some of the songs are alright, like the one about cat burglars that steal things from peoples' homes. Also Taylor Swift is here for about four minutes and her song is pretty good too – even though her English accent isn't quite up to par. However most of the songs are just “meh” – a lot of them have choruses/verses that are repeated too much – while the silly 1970's synthesizer filler music sounds weirdly out of place. And the whole movie is capped off by a fourth wall-breaking scene that takes forever to end.

  Cats's directing is a real letdown. There are a few nice-looking compositions, but most of the dance scenes are ruined by an overly-shaky handheld camera that makes it hard to see the choreography. Things don't get much better in the editing room. There's a ton of awkward cutting to random characters' faces during singing parts as if the movie is unsure of who the audience is supposed to look at. As if that wasn't bad enough, the sound balancing is inconsistent. Sometimes the lyrics are impossible to make out during choruses while some other songs sometimes have the music drowning out the singer's voice. This movie is a mess!

  And that's about all I can stand to say about Cats, a gross-looking, poorly-directed, sloppily-edited excuse for a movie. The only things that save this film from being utter trash is Ian McKellen and a couple decent songs. I don't want to be too harsh on Cats because, as mentioned before, musicals aren't really my thing. But that doesn't change the fact that Cats is one of the worst movies I've seen this decade.

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Movie Review -- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

  Another year, another Star Wars movie. Today I'm reviewing Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the last of the new sequel trilogy. After the double disappointments that were 2017's The Last Jedi and 2018's Solo can this latest entry redeem the current generation of this epic space fantasy series?

  Short answer: too little, too late.

  Taking place a few months after The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker has both Resistance and First Order fighters searching for wayfinders that may lead to the origin of a mysterious broadcast from the not-so-dead Emperor Palpatine (this ain't no spoiler; he was in the trailer), who seeks to reestablish his Galactic Empire under Sith rule. This leads to... honestly there's an ass-load of stuff that happens throughout this movie. The riveting early scene introducing Palpatine notwithstanding, the first half of this film jumps around a lot with action scene after action scene, one right after the other. We're shown so many locations and so many MacGuffins that I couldn't help but tune out the finer technical details of things as the film ground on.

Remember what I said about TFA and TLJ, how they're remakes of the original trilogy films? TROS is no exception, a quasi-ripoff/remake of Return of the Jedi, especially in the last act. Here we get to see the return of:

• a planet-exploding weapon (What is this? The fourth time now?!),
• a jedi returning to an old master's retreat to do some more training,
• Lando and Chewbacca spearheading the attack in the Millennium Falcon during the final battle, and
• a jedi going alone to confront the bad guy leader as he eggs him (or in this case, her) on to kill somebody.
• (Trust me there are far more similarities that I can't mention without spoilers.)

  Return of the Jedi coincidences aside, The Rise of Skywalker's plot is very up and down. We learn the origin story of both Rey – which is pretty neat – and Snoke – which is totally lame. What's also lame is that the main characters are pretty much invincible; their ability to survive landspeeder crashes without a scratch, raid/board a star destroyer with only a handful of guys, and blast through a whole platoon of stormtroopers without even having to stop and take cover robs many of the action scenes of tension. There's one subplot that was established back in Episode VII that Rise of Skywalker hints at resolving but by the film's end this plot thread is still left hanging. Did the writers simply forget about it? I guess they were too busy working on the really disappointing and predictable ending and the half-dozen or so “what the hell” moments that occur in the film's last five minutes.

  The characters are about the same calibre as the previous two films: Rey is as to-the-point and lacking in personality as ever while Kylo Ren continues to be the best and most interesting character in the whole trilogy. While he's just as conflicted as he was before this time he's without a master and seeing him act with more agency – especially in relation to Rey – is a treat thanks to a focused performance from Adam Driver. John Boyega is around to shout Rey's name a whole lot. And of course it's always a delight to see Ian McDiarmid play the role of Emperor Palpatine once again. There's also Carrie Fisher back as Princess Leia one last time via unused footage from Episode VII; as you can imagine this doesn't make storytelling easy with her character so it's a good thing Maz Kanata (the goggles chick) follows her around and (apparently) reads her mind.

  As with other recent Star Wars films, Rise of Skywalker is a very well-produced film. The effects look great (better than the last two), the compositions are splendid, the music is top-notch, and the fight choreography is precise. In short, it's a nice-looking and nice-sounding film. The tone is somewhat more balanced than last time: there's slightly fewer cute critters to make the kids laugh. Some of the jokes are quite funny while some are simply bizarre and gratuitous.

  And that's Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. I may have been a bit harsh on it, but the fact is that I don't hate this movie. Most of it is OK, that is until you get to the disappointing ending. It's a finely-crafted film and I believe that the only lazy thing to it was the writing. This movie remains trapped in familiar territory and simply doesn't bring anything new to the series – which is my main complaint about the sequel trilogy as a whole. But in case you're wondering, yes The Rise of Skywalker is better than The Last Jedi. But that's not saying much.

  Still, if you've ever wanted a Star Wars movie in which someone says the word “ass” then this is the one for you!

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Screw Die Hard: Top 10 Christmas Movies You Didn't Know Were Christmas Movies

Sometimes internet culture is like you when you were a little kid. You know, when you said something that the adults unexpectedly found funny so you repeated that same thing over and over again expecting the same hilarious result when in fact you were really making everyone sick of you. Case in point: OH MY GOSH GUYS, DIE HARD IS TOTALLY A CHRISTMAS MOVIE!!!!!!! AMIRITE? LOL FTW YOLO DOUBLE RAINBOW 360 NOSCOPE ROFL COPTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so sick and tired of people making the joke that Die Hard (1988) – a violent action movie that is not exactly festive in the traditional sense – is a legit Christmas movie simply because it takes place around 25 December, features a couple holiday songs, and has a handful of seasons greetings in it. It's an overdone joke that I've been hearing for at least eight years now and I'm simply tired of it, you know?

(Just for the record, I'm not hating on Die Hard. I thoroughly enjoy it and think it's one of the greatest action movies ever made. This is all just for fun.)

But I guess that if a few nods to Jesus' birthday and the festivities surrounding it is all you need to qualify as a Christmas movie then screw it, I guess Die Hard is a Christmas movie then. But you know what? Two can play at this game! This is my list of top ten other films that qualify as Christmas movies.

10. American Sniper (2014)

What? What are you talking about? American Sniper is totally a Christmas movie! There was that one scene where Chris Kyle is watching war footage of US soldiers getting shot in Iraq as he sits next to a Christmas tree in his living room. It demonstrates Chris' trouble with leaving the war behind and focusing on his family even during a holiday season on which families traditionally get together in peace. Chris sees his comrades in the military as his second family which he wishes to protect and thus he can't get the war out of his mind. And nothing says “Merry Christmas” like combat-induced stress in veterans, right?

9. Stalingrad (1993)

Stalingrad is a German war film about a platoon of Wehrmacht soldiers participating in the epic Battle of Stalingrad (1942-3). It is also unquestionably a Christmas movie. There's one scene set in late December where the situation for the Germans isn't looking good. The Red Army has them encircled, supplies are running low, and a breakout seems less and less likely with each passing day. The main characters have been sentenced to a penal company and are off to take part in a suicide mission. As they ride in the back of a freezing cold truck one of them spontaneously sings “O Tannenbaum” (or “Oh Christmas Tree” as it's known in English). As if that wasn't Christmassy enough, just look at all the snow that envelops three-quarters of this movie. Need I say more?

8. Miracle (2004)

You remember Miracle? It was one of the best hockey movies ever made and it's also a pretty darn good Christmas movie. During a brief holiday break from Olympic training camp the US hockey players take part in a gift exchange. I don't know about you but my holiday season isn't complete until I see Dave Silk being given a pair of silk underpants.

7. Jarhead (2005)

It turns out that it wasn't the waiting, the boredom, the heat, the sand, the thought of his girlfriend at home cheating on him, or his being denied the killing he was meticulously trained to do that drove Lance Corporal Anthony Swofford to have a mental breakdown. It was the fact that he missed out on Christmas 1990 with his family, of course! The closest he got was getting drunk and dancing naked wearing nothing but a Santa hat and even that got ruined by clumsy Fergus falling asleep on the job. Way to go Fergus, you ruined Christmas in Kuwait!

6. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

I honestly don't know why people pick Die Hard as the definitive faux-Xmas flick over OHMSS. This one's got it all: a wintery Swiss setting chock full of winter sports, loads of Christmas decorations, and a gift exchange scene involving beautiful young ladies being hypnotized into committing acts of biological warfare. Does Die Hard have those things? Nuh uh. Does Die Hard have Ernst Stavro Blofeld saying “Merry Christmas, 007”? Didn't think so. Sure, in Die Hard John McLane and Holly get back together at the end but do they get married like Bond and Tracey did in OHMSS? No they don't. I rest my case.

5. The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather is often cited as one of the best movies ever made. It is also one of the best Christmas movies ever made and here's why. There's not one but two scenes showing characters shopping for Xmas presents. Michael and Kay are having a fun time shopping for their friends and Tom Hagen gets kidnapped by Sollozzo the Turk while shopping for his kids. What a nice way to spend the holidays.

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

You know I'll talk about this movie any chance I get. That's because TGWTDT is one of my favourite movies ever – and if we're going by Die Hard rules then it counts as my favourite Christmas movie of all time. In fact it's so Christmassy that it has Christmas in it twice! That's right, Xmas appears near the film's beginning – Blomkvist is at a Christmas party and Lisbeth gives a gift to her ward only to find that he's had a stroke – and again at the very end when Lisbeth gets a gift for her crush Blomkvist only to find that he's a man whore. Yeah, late December doesn't seem to work out well for Lisbeth Salander.

3. Batman Returns (1992)

Well, damn. Here I was going to make a big tongue-in-cheek thing about how Batman Returns is totally a Christmas movie – what with tons of decorations, trees, snow, and holiday greetings – but Wikipedia of all people beat me to it. Of course the joke was that Batman Returns is a somewhat dark movie with disturbing visuals and insane characters set against a backdrop of the most peaceful and joyous of holidays. But Wiki-freakin'-pedia already has it in their Christmas movies category. You know you've failed at comedy when an online encyclopedia beats you to the punch. Oh well, speaking of Batman...

2. The Dark Knight (2008)

There's a scene where one of Joker's crazy henchman says all the voices in him were replaced with lights “like Christmas”. 'Nuff said.

1. Jingle All the Way (1996)

You probably didn't know this but Jingle All the Way is actually a Christmas movie. Even though it clearly wasn't meant to be. It couldn't have been. There's no way that's what they were going for with this film. In truth Jingle All the Way was intended as a black comedy, a satire depicting the over-commercialization of North American society and how rampant consumerism has driven us all mad to the point of greed, violence, and theft. The film's “happy ending” is simply some greedy kid being given some plastic toy he covets. Materialism brings everyone together, I guess. But if you look closely you can see some subtle Christmas flavour sprinkled about. For example, in some scenes you can catch a glimpse of some Christmas decorations. And did you know the reason people are buying so much stuff in this movie is because 25 December is approaching? And lastly, if you look closely enough you might just see Santa Claus in there somewhere. The only downside is that in order to spot any of this you have to pay attention to the movie, which I wouldn't recommend.