Current Film Review/Coming to a Video Screen Near You- Scoob!

       Yep, the pandemic is still going on. We're all still stuck at home, and most movie theaters are still closed. So, it's mostly direct-to-VOD for a lot of movies. So, for this month, it was either this or Josh Trank's Capone. I didn't really want to spend time talking a movie where nothing happens except Tom Hardy growling at people and shitting his pants, and this actually seemed to have potential from the trailer. I greatly enjoyed the comic series Future Quest, and this seemed to capture similar energy, creating a universe of Hanna-Barbera characters. And hey, it's a crossover between my Current Film and VOD reviews, appropriate for this film.

        Based on Joe Ruby and Ken Spears' venerated series (and featuring characters from other Hanna-Barbara produced series), the film, of course, centers on Mystery Inc.: Fred (Zac Efron, which is too perfect casting to have not been considered before), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), Velma (Gina Rodriguez), and the ever loveable Shaggy (Will Forte, doing a decent Casey Kasem impression) and Scooby Doo (Frank Welker). After Simon Cowell (Simon Cowell) questions the latter two's contribution to the group, they sulk a bit in a bowling alley (In a cute nod, named for veteran Hanna-Barbara animator Iwao Takamoto), before they are attacked by scorpion robots and beamed into the Falcon Fury, the sanctum of the superhero Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg) and his assistants Dee Dee Sykes (Kiersy Clemmons) (from Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels) and Dynomutt (Ken Jeong). Apparently, the robots were sent by nefarious villain Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) (from The Wacky Races) to capture Scooby. What results is a globe-trotting adventure as the gang with their new allies try to stop Dastardly and his mysterious scheme. 

      First, a lot of really good jokes and gags littered throughout. Very subtle jokes alongside very good references. The jokes appeal to all ages too, so you don't have to be very young to appreciate them. I liked all the references they made both to the old cartoon (including a CGI recreation of the original theme) and the other Hanna-Barbara creations, especially in terms of the designs. Jason Isaacs hams it up as Dick Dastardly. The animation is pretty good, with very fluid motion and colorful design. I really liked that they included all the little cartoon sound effects from the original series all over, which gives it a lot more oomph. 

     I'd honestly try not to think too hard about the plot, because it gets into a lot of confusing territory real quickly. There are basic character arcs that mostly work, but the plot goes into some weird directions to try to connect all these characters together. Even as an adult, I had trouble really following some of this story, so the target audience might also have trouble figuring out the mechanics of the plot. And unlike those direct-to-video Scooby movies from when I was a kid (like Zombie Island and Cyber Chase) , it really doesn't follow the Scooby formula very much. It's just a standard adventure story that Shaggy and Scooby just happen to be in. There are nods to the original format, and even a short bit where they homage parts of the formula, but the story doesn't have that Scooby Doo feel to it. 

     This movie delivers what was promised:  a nice, decently Hanna-Barbara crossover with tons of little nods, potentially setting up an animated cinematic universe of those characters (especially in the end credits). If you're familiar with these characters, like I am, you'll probably get a kick out of all the little references. Even if you aren't and you watch it with little children, it's good enough on its own, with tons of funny gags and nice animation to keep you satisfied, even if the plot has some trouble. 

     Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you like this review, please consider donating a bit to my Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/rohithc. I'll sign off with this interesting compilation of Scooby Doo openings through the decades:

Coming to a Video Screen Near You- A Million Little Pieces

    I was severely disappointed by the fact this was dumped onto VOD like last week's salami, because I was actually fairly intrigued by this film. If you don't know, A Million Little Pieces was a 2003 novel by James Frey, ostensibly about his extensive drug use and experience in rehab. The book would garner critical acclaim and financial success, especially after Oprah put the book onto her Book Club list in 2005, and had Frey on as a guest. It then emerged from investigations that he had fabricated siginficant parts of the book, including his arrest records and involvement in several incidents described. His subsequent appearance on Oprah saw her eviscerate him on air, his "memoir" was reclassified as fiction, and Frey himself would become a punchline for defrauding people, and would fade into obscurity (popping up only to make a YA slave factory and apparently came up with the initial concept for Queen and Slim). Now, I myself don't remember any of this, because I was 8, but the story has intrigued me for a while. The idea of a fake memoir, someone embellishing or fabricating their own life and selling it successfully is an intriguing notion. I feel that it taps into so many intriguing aspects of memory, fiction vs. fact, people's perceptions of real and fake. In this era of misinformation and fake news running rampant across the internet with little rebuttal, telling the story of a man who made up a memoir and successfully pitched it to the American public might had some relevance and might've been a biting look into media hype and how mistruths can spread. Unfortunately, director Sam Taylor-Johnson and her husband and star of the film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, decided to take the memoir as it was, and ignore all this interesting material for the most mundane telling of this story.

    Based on James Frey's "memoirs" of the same name, the story follows Frey (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as he is forced to go into rehab in Minneapolis by his brother Bob (Charlie Hunnam, doing this horrible what I think is supposed to be a Boston accent) after an incident where . While he is initially reserved and in denial of his extensive drug and alcohol abuse (even as he deals with no drinks or even anesthesia) , through the acts of people like Leonard (Billy Bob Thorton), Miles Davis (not that one, he plays a clarinet) (Charles Parnell), Joanne (Juliette Lewis), and Lilly (Odessa Young), he learns to overcome his struggle, and yadda, yadda, yadda, you know the rest.

    There are parts of this movie that are actually quite well done. There's some very good shots down that are surprisingly evocative, especially a parallel shot at the beginning and end. Billy Bob Thorton and Charles Parnell are also very good for the stock roles they end up giving. Thorton in particular has some great emotional moments that are really gripping.

     First and foremost, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is awful in this. Just horrible. His line delivery is muddled and incoherent, his physicality seems distractingly unnatural, and during the vaunted scenes of drug use, this physicality really doesn't work with stumbling and bumbling anywhere. I can tell he's trying to capture the angst and agony going through this character as he tries to recover, but it really, really doesn't work to convey that. James Frey comes off a cypher wandering through life. What doesn't help is that the film itself is mostly a generic, middle-of -the-road story of addiction, that largely goes through the motions stipulated by other works of fiction (and yes, I do consider the "memoir" fiction), done better in other films. Other than those shots I mentioned, it's filmed generically, it's written generically with bland speeches about overcoming, and mostly, it's just... generic. Not especially good, not especially bad, just .... there. When compared to films like Beautiful Boy (based on an actual true story) or Ben is Back, both from last year, this film, with its after-school preachiness and ridiculous scenes, comes off really dated and absurd. Which might make it entertaining if it weren't so dull. I completely zoned out of large parts of this film because it was so monotonous and unengaging, with so many speeches about overcoming and not a lot of actual overcoming. Finally, and this is a real life criticism, but that the fact the memoir was a proven fraud, casts a shadow over this film. They acknowledge it briefly with a quote at the beginning, but like I said in the intro, instead of treating it like the story of a man who tricked millions of people, we instead get the full, largely fabricated account of the fake memoir, by extension endorsing it. If it had actually happened, a lot of the earlier flaws might've been forgiven, but this is all made-up and the fact that filmmakers don't seem to want to acknowledge it really undercuts the power of the film and any help it may give to other addicts.

    I read a bunch of interviews with Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and they seem very sincere in bringing this to the screen. The director, in particular, talked about people she had known who had struggled with addiction as a reason to make the film. I appreciate the reasons they had to go through with this project in spite of the controversy and years of production hell, but honestly, it's really hard not to think of it and the potentially more interesting story that might've been told around this book. At the end of the day, though, this was just mediocre. The fact of its very existence is probably much more interesting and thought-provoking than the film itself. It's not even bad in a particularly interesting way. It's bad in dullest manner. If you're interested, read up on the real story and especially The Smoking Gun's investigation into the inaccuracies and suspicious elements of the book, and see it with that mind. Otherwise, I can't quite think of a reason to see it. 

Coming to a Video Screen Near You- Under the Silver Lake

     Okay, I was looking forward to this one for a while, ever since I saw the trailer about two years ago, I think. I loved director David Robert Mitchell's previous feature It Follows, one of the best horror films of the last decade. It was scheduled for June, 2018 (the same day Jurassic World: Fallen Franchise was meant to come out). Perhaps because of this, it was then moved to December. And then to April. And when I remembered it was supposed to come, I found it that it had an incredibly limited release in New York and Los Angeles (damned coastal elite), and was just going straight to video. Given I've annoited myself reviewer of shit studios dump onto VOD, I decided to take a look, and see if it really deserves these delays, in the inaugural entry of my series now looking into these discards.

      Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a jobless voyeur living in Los Angeles who is obsessed with an alternative comic called Under the Silver Lake, written by Comic Fan (Patrick Fishler), which has some similarities to recent events. One day, he meets a young woman named Sarah (Riley Keough), living in his apartment complex. After they share a night of ...passion, one could call it, he wakes up to find that she and her roommates have completely vacated the premises. Sam, already a conspiracy theorist, slowly pieces together a larger conspiracy involving the murder of a millionaire (Chris Gann), a rock band, and several pieces of pop culture ephemera.

      First, the score is great. Disasterpiece (that's apparently what he's called), who did the iconic score for It Follows did the music for this, and it gives the film atmosphere. Punctuating moments, allowing the ambiance of a brightly lit scene to settle in, and just sounds great whenever it's on. I liked how parts of the conspiracy were constructed and how Sam was able to decode the messages. The Under the Silver Lake comics have nice animation that really capture the feel of an alternative horror comic like this. I like how, despite the darker undertones of the film, Los Angeles itself is shown in a bright, colorful manner that is somewhat reminiscent of films like La La Land, which is a nice contrast. After watching this, I do kind of want to visit LA again after seeing it.

      I'll say first that Andrew Garfield just wasn't the right person to play this role. I know others praise his performance, but it's just didn't click for me. I think he is too subdued. This character is supposed to be more nuts and crazed, but he is too relaxed and too stoner-y to pull it off. A couple reviewers said he was a stoner, so that might be why, but I didn't quite get the performance and it didn't click with me. The conspiracy is well-thought out, but it feels like there are little stakes in it. There's no sense of real urgency or importance to it. It feels more like an elaborate treasure hunt made for a primetime game show. When it culminates in the revelation, it a.) feels incredibly underwhelming, and b.) leaves several loose plot threads out to dangle in the wind. Maybe this was the intention, but I never got invested in this character journey. There is a lot of gratuitous nudity, sex, and butt shots, of all things, and maybe there is some They Live-commentary there, but it just felt awkward (and a bit off-putting) to watch. It is also way too long for the plot, with so many digressions and needless elements.   

     There were interesting elements to this film, and I was drawn by those. However, a lot of it just felt tedious, especially its use of pop culture brownie-point, like The Long Goodbye as written by Max Landis. I don't really think a theater experience would've enhanced this much. That said, if you are intrigued by the synopsis or the look, I'd say rent it and see what you might think of it.