Aladdin

Unlike many people, I don't really have a problem with all of Disney's live-action remakes of their animated classics.  I've enjoyed most of them, especially Cinderella and The Jungle Book, and I am really looking forward to The Lion King later this summer.  However, the 1992 version of Aladdin is one of my favorite movies so I was really nervous about what Guy Ritchie might do with it (King Arthur is a convoluted and bloated mess) and I didn't really like the casting of Will Smith as the genie.  Despite my misgivings, I decided to to see it last night and I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  In fact, I really loved it!  The story of how a street rat wins the love a princess with the help of a genie freed from a magic lamp doesn't stray too far from the 1992 version but it does give Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) a powerful new story arc that I really appreciated.  I also really liked her new song, "Speechless."  Mena Massoud is an incredibly appealing and charismatic Aladdin and he has great chemistry with Scott.  Both of them have lovely singing voices and I especially loved their rendition of "A Whole New World."  I also, rather surprisingly, liked Smith as the genie.  He is a lot of fun and, in my opinion, he does enough to make the iconic role originated by Robin Williams his own, particularly in "Friend Like Me."  I didn't hate the CGI blue genie but I did prefer it when Smith physically portrays the character in human form while at the palace.  The genie's interactions with Aladdin when they officially meet Princess Jasmine are absolutely hilarious!  Ritchie's idiosyncratic style of directing is most evident in "One Jump Ahead" but the stylized action sequences really work here as Aladdin eludes the guards through Agrabah.  My favorite song in the 1992 version is "Prince Ali" and the big production number in this movie is quite the spectacle and did not disappoint (I even liked the elephants).  The costumes are absolutely spectacular and the production design, especially the palace, is fantastic.  Sometimes the CGI is really obvious and I didn't particularly care for how Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) is portrayed, but I found the movie as a whole to be very magical!  Ignore the critics and go see it!

Summer Reading 2019

Today the 2018-2019 school year is officially complete and I couldn't be happier because, among other things, I now have uninterrupted time for reading.  For the fourth year in a row I am presenting my summer reading list and inviting you to read along with me.  This year I picked mysteries and thrillers from this list including The Outsider by Stephen King, The Woman in the Window by A.J.Finn, The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager, The Broken Girls by Simone St. James, Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris, Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney, The Witch Elm by Tana French, The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware, and Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell.  I am really excited to get started and I am particularly looking forward to The Outsider because Stephen King has always been one of my favorite authors, The Woman in the Window because it was highly recommended to me by one of my colleagues, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway because I quite enjoyed Ware's novel In A Dark, Dark Wood (which was on my summer reading list several years ago).  As usual I will review each of the selections here every Friday and I hope you will join me and let me know what you think in the comments.  Yay for summer reading!

Note:  If you are interested, here are my past lists: 2018, 2017, and 2016.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

Last night I went to see John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum and it is awesome!  It is an adrenaline rush from beginning to end!  This movie picks up right where the last one left off with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) on the run after an unsanctioned hit on the crime lord Santino D'Antonio at the New York Continental, a safe haven for assassins.  He is declared excommunicado by the High Table, a shadowy guild of assassins, and placed under a $14 million bounty.  Eluding assassins eager for the bounty at every turn, he calls in markers from the Director (Anjelica Huston), a high ranking member of the High Table, and Sofia (Halle Berry), the manager of the Casablanca Continental, to reach the Elder (Said Taghmaoui), one who is above the High Table, who gives him a penance to perform to atone for his transgression.  Meanwhile, an Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) from the High Table imposes consequences on Winston (Ian McShane), the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) and the Director for helping Wick and recruits the assassin Zero (Mark Dacascos) to kill him.  These events set in motion an epic confrontation at the New York Continental that results in a betrayal (and the setup for the next movie).  The action sequences in this movie are amazing!  They are brilliantly choreographed and ingeniously filmed with wide shots and fast cuts.  These scenes are intense, unrelenting, and exhilarating to watch!  Reeves gives a great performance in a role that is particularly well suited to his unique style of delivery (Reeves redeems himself after giving one of the worst performances of 2019).  I was also so impressed by his physicality in this role!  He fights off two assassins on motorcycles while on horseback!  Berry is also pretty kick-ass in the action sequences, as well!  Finally, this movie is visually stunning, especially the fight in between glass cases at the Continental.  I loved it and I think it might be my favorite in the franchise.  I highly recommend it to fans of action movies.

Note:  This movie is incredibly brutal and it is probably best that you don't take your elementary school aged children to see it (there were several in my screening!).

Red Joan

I am a fan of espionage movies and of Judi Dench so Red Joan has been on my radar for the last few weeks.  I had the chance to see it last night and I had a somewhat mixed reaction to it.  Joan Stanley (Dench) is an 80-year-old woman who likes to potter in her suburban garden when she is arrested by the Special Branch for violating the Official Secrets Act.  She is accused of giving vital information to the Soviet Union which hastened their development of an atomic bomb after World War II.  As she is interrogated, there are flashbacks to her time as a brilliant physics student at Cambridge University during the war.  Young Joan (Sophie Cookson) becomes involved with radical politics when she meets Sonya (Tereza Srbova) and Leo (Tom Hughes), who are both Communists.  She and Leo become lovers and, when she gets a job with a top-secret group of British scientists working on nuclear fission, he eventually recruits her as a KGB agent run by Sonya.  The action moves very, very slowly (there were many times when my mind wandered) and having the narrative move back and forth between the past and the present removes a lot of the tension that a traditional espionage thriller might inherently have.  Judi Dench is given very little to do but stare off into space as she remembers her past.  Her talents are definitely wasted in this role.  However, I really liked young Joan's character arc.  She naively falls for the dashing Leo and succumbs to his charms every time he comes back into her life but she ultimately realizes that he is using her and in the end she uses him for her own idealistic motives.  Cookson gives a great performance that is incredibly thought-provoking and Hughes is so charismatic, especially during a speech he gives at a rally (you can totally see why Joan falls under his spell).  Despite an interesting premise and some good performances, the pacing, structure, and lack of intrigue make this a bit underwhelming.

Steel Magnolias

Yesterday I saw Steel Magnolias, the next movie in the TCM Big Screen Classics series, and it was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  This movie tells the touching story of how a group of friends, M'Lynn Eatenton (Sally Field), Shelby Eatenton (Julia Roberts), Truvy Jones (Dolly Parton), Annelle Dupuy (Daryl Hannah), Clairee Belcher (Olympia Dukakis), and Louisa "Ouiser" Boudreaux (Shirley McLaine), support each other through life's triumphs and tragedies in a small Louisiana town.  It is as funny as it is poignant because the women spend much of their time gossiping in Truvy's beauty salon and my audience laughed out loud through much of it.  My favorite line is when Ouiser says, "I'm not crazy M'Lynn.  I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years!"  All of the actresses give outstanding performances, particularly Field during a very dramatic moment, but I really enjoyed Tom Skerritt as Drum Eatenten because he is so goofy.  The movie was filmed in Natchitoches, Louisiana and I loved all of the stately old homes and gardens.  The production design is a lot of fun, especially all of the blush and bashful pink used for Shelby's wedding, and the 90s fashions are fabulous, especially the bridesmaid dresses.  I enjoyed watching this movie as much as I did the first time I saw it on the big screen thirty years ago and I highly recommend it (go here for more information).