Mark McPherson's Blog, page 45

“Wonder Woman 1984” Review

2017’s Wonder Woman featured the Amazon warrior of Diana Prince trying to prove that humanity is worth saving from the wrath of warring gods. The follow-up film finds the hero, once more reprised by Gal Gadot, trying to find the good in humanity warring against itself. Though the film chooses a unique time period to stage such divisiveness and greed to test the worth of mankind, Wonder Woman 1984 takes on too much in its broader story of believing in truth.

Diana has continued to live outside...

“Soul” Review

I have severely mixed feelings about Soul taking such a light yet abstract take on existentialism. At its heart, yes, it’s a film more about inspiration and the importance of what one does with their life. The way the picture approaches such high-concepts of both birth and death are handled with an artistic flair but also a certain safety to never be too firm on aspects of the great beyond. All of this is treated with such an airy vibe that it allows the character dynamics to flow better rather ...

“Synchronic” Review

The sci-fi mystery of Synchronic starts off fairly scientific but quickly veers off into wilder territory. The initial explanation for its fantastical appeal of time-travel drugs is that a pill has been invented which alters our perception of time so we experience different eras. By the time we get a more firm explanation of what this drug does, we know it’s a little more than just vibrant hallucinations of history. That twisty nature is nothing less than what I’d expect from the higher-concept ...

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” Review

Patton Oswalt made a joke about why he didn’t make his most recent stand-up routine about the Trump administration. He compared the administration to a scene of a truck full of monkeys high on PCP crashing into a truck full of dirty diapers. To make a bit about such immense absurdity would seem pointless, where comedy just can’t top the ridiculousness of reality. The sequel to Borat tries to do just that and the result is more knowing smirks with a side of eyeroll.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s classic...

“The War with Grandpa” Review

I never thought I would ever write something like this but I wish this were a sequel to Robert De Niro’s other abysmal comedy Dirty Grandpa. That forgettable 2016 comedy was horrifically bad but on a surface level of poor choices in funny antics. I was not won over by that movie’s attempt to brew laughs from De Niro grabbing taints, farting loudly, having raunchy sex, and cussing as though he were on Scorcese picture where the director took cocaine and demanded more extreme vulgarity. I didn’t l...

“On the Rocks” Review

Bill Murray has such an enduring nature that even when he’s playing the antagonist it’s hard not to dig on his appeal. Director Sophia Coppola takes advantage of this by posing him in On the Rocks as a believable misanthrope. He seems charming when around his grandkids but get in the car with him and he can’t wait to tell you about his dated traditionalist views to excuse irrational behaviour. He talks about women historically being property and that men are biologically engineered to cheat on t...

“Tenet” Review

Christopher Nolan’s grand ideas for mind-bending action are certainly unparalleled. Tenet is undoubtedly his most elaborate, playing with time and its inversion to stage the most trippy and tense of sequences, designed to distort and excite. Nolan’s ambition, however, has trumped the rest of his filmmaking, less concerned with a cohesively pleasing theme than making sure the plane explosion looks real cool.

This seems most apparent when following our central character, who is only referred to...

“Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story” Review

Among Nickelodeon’s first foray into their original cartoons, Ren & Stimpy was by far the most influential. Appealing to kids and adults, the slapstick surrealness of a short-fused dog and a stupid cat revolutionized the industry, paving the way for the strange success of Spongebob Squarepants. There is, sadly, a darker truth to the story of this odd little cartoon, created by someone far stranger and too destructive in more ways than one. This controversy has been around for a while, cited by n...

“Rebuilding Paradise” Review

The terrifying story of the small-town Paradise begins literally at the epicenter of the deadly blaze. A forest fire engulfs the town and it appears as though the fire is surrounding the escape routes. The residents are mostly trapped and a montage of footage from inside the inferno is truly terrifying. The skies turn black, the trees turn orange, car tires pop from the heat, and propane tanks explode. Footage from one car displays a tearful relief once they’ve escaped and can see the sky once m...

“Radioactive” Review

There’s a fascination with the Curie’s and their discovery of radioactivity that seems to favor more of the influence than the people. Marie Curie is given the spotlight here, but the focus is so clearly on her work and drive more than herself as a person. Her tragic marriage and involvement in the war alongside her daughter make her interesting portrait, but as with the work of Curie herself, this is a picture far too lost in its grander picture than to care enough to blow up the smaller one.

...