MINI MOVIE REVIEWS 2023 PART II

Ahead of Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, I’m reviewing some more of those nominated films that I had to see to be able to vote fairly for the performers. (SAG Awards honor only actors and stunt people, no other categories, of course.) [Note: I’ll try to do one more batch of mini reviews before the March 12th Oscars.]

Now that I’ve seen most of the supposed top films of the year, I finally kind-of understand all the nominations for these mostly-awful movies and not-special-in-any-way performances: it’s that they’re all not great, so there weren’t enough worthy ones to nominate!

If you missed my last group of mini reviews, where I actually praised some of them, here’s that link: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/movie-reviews-mini-movie-reviews-2023. (I have praise for a few of these new ones, as well, so it’s not just all gloom-and-doom.)

I have to admit that I may have jumped the gun a bit when I designated Everything Everywhere All At Once as the worst film of the year. (You can read my full review of that one right here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/movie-review-everything-everywhere-all-at-once.) That was only because I had not yet seen the hideous Babylon yet! So let me get to that abomination first.

Babylon—This was way too long, extremely boring, and often repulsive. And meant absolutely nothing. Director Damien Chazelle foolishly thought he was making a masterpiece, but all he did was entertain his own ego. ‘Nuff said.

The Fabelmans—What in the world was Steven Spielberg thinking when he came up with this snoozefest??? He thinks it’s a tribute to his parents, but I knew his mother Leah, and I’m pretty sure that she would be mortified that he’s telling the world about her infidelity!!!

I must admit that out of Spielberg’s entire stock of films, all of which I’ve seen, I’ve liked only one, Schindler’s List. (“Liked” is not the right word for a movie about the Holocaust; it’s the work and true story I admire.) I do, of course, recognize the merit in them all; they’re just not my cup of tea. But The Fabelmans, (which should have fit that bill,) is by far the worst. On every level.

The most egregious problem is that Michelle Williams is greatly miscast as Leah. And how did she ever get nominations for that performance??? No matter how not-great everyone else was in the other eligible films, they had to be better than this.

But at least The Fabelmans inclusion in awards season gives me the chance to share a couple of fun stories about my personal experiences with Leah Adler. We met because she was a fan of my TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue, and called me up to ask me to review her kosher restaurant in town, The Milky Way. Of course I agreed, (not because of who her son is, at all, but because of who my mother’s daughter is. That’s me, in case you didn’t figure it out, and my little mo taught me to always be kind to everyone.)

I reviewed it when my parents were visiting because I knew my father would get a kick out of Leah, and he loved paying tribute to our Judaism when he could. So off we went, along with the non-Jewish Mr. X!

It was a fun time, but I was amazed at my mother’s ability to remain cool and calm while Leah kept saying how alike she and I were, not my mother and I! At one point, she even said to the assemblage, “Karen should have been my daughter, don’t you think?” Even I was horrified at that.

But on the way home, when we were discussing it, my mother deadpanned, “If she’s your mother, then she should ask your brother, Steven, to give you a part in his next movie!” Amen. You go, ma—you tell ‘er!

And no offense to Leah, but I met her husband Bernie with her, and he was the absolute furthest thing from the funny and fun-loving guy that this movie made him out to be. He was very boring and actually a bit creepy. But couples have their own situations, so good for her for getting a kick out of him.

I saw her occasionally through the years after that, and we shared some other funny times. A quick one is that a friend had invited me to a young rabbi’s Sukkoth luncheon one year, and when I showed-up, someone screamed, “Karen’s here!” And, of course, it was Leah. We loved the surprise of seeing each other there.

She extolled my show to the assemblage, and told them I’m “the most fabulous restaurant critic,” to which the rabbi became a nervous wreck! The group asked my favorite foods, and all I could think of were non-kosher ones! Not wanting to insult my hosts, I blurted-out, “Chocolate!” So, even though my friend left early, they made me stay and eat about a dozen chocolate desserts! Oysh!

Living—This one is actually a good film. If you can get past how slow and depressing it is from start to finish, it is interesting. And it has some pathos and, shockingly, a tiny bit of happiness, as well. And to watch Bill Nighy, in anything, is always a treat.

Tar—As Mr. X exclaimed, no one but Cate Blanchett could have played this role! There are so many aspects to it. (Acting, playing the piano, conducting, running, and even hitting a boxing bag believably.) She’s wonderful, as usual, and deserves to win every award there is! But she probably won’t because of the industry’s insane obsession with “diversity.” After so much ragging on the recent BAFTAs because the winners were all white, I’m sure the SAG and Oscar voters will bend over backwards to have as few white winners as possible, no matter how deserving they might be. I hate discrimination in all forms, and reverse discrimination is just as bad as the other way around.

But outside of the master class that is Cate Blanchett, Tar itself is another story entirely. Twenty-four minutes in, and as Mr. X was snoring away, I wondered out loud, “Who sat through this movie?” Then later, when he was awake, and I paused the movie to look away to search for something in the room, he said, “Let it play while you’re doing that. You’re not going to miss anything.” Touché.

No matter where you see this one, bring a pillow and blanket.

Women Talking—This is a weird one. (Aren’t all movies involving director Sarah Polley?) If you missed it, (which I think most everyone did,) it’s about a group of Mennonite women deciding if they should stay or leave the colony after getting raped constantly by the men. Besides the obvious boredom factor, Mr. X and I hated that their words and expressions are so modern, which is totally erroneous. No women, and especially Mennonites who can’t read or write and have never seen a TV or computer, spoke like that in 2010.

And so many of the characters looked the same! Very often, I couldn’t make out which women were doing the talking!

On top of that, there was a supposed trans character in there. Yeah, I’m sure Mennonites know anything about the trans situation. As I said, Women Talking is a weird film, accomplishing nothing, including good entertainment.

The Banshees of Inisherin—I’ve seen several of Martin McDonagh’s horrible, and horribly depressing, plays before, so I tried my hardest to warn M. X about this film which McDonagh also wrote and directed. But the trailers made it look like a charming and heartwarming comedy, so he could not be deterred. But—SPOILER ALERT—after the cutting off of a character’s five fingers, Mr. X got really upset and jumped up to leave the room, saying he couldn’t watch the rest of it. He didn’t have to convince me—I was thrilled to turn off this vomit-fest!

SPOILER ALERT IS OVER NOW. But we decided to be brave and finish watching it a few days later, and it basically got even worse. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for any of it. How did it ever get green-lit???

But there are two good aspects to it, if you can get through the slowness and miserable story. The cast is excellent, especially Barry Keoghan as a simple guy. And the scenery is unbelievably gorgeous!!!

Avatar: The Way of Water—What a gargantuan undertaking this film is! It hurt my head trying to figure it all out! I had not seen the first Avatar on purpose; neither of them is my type of movie. But, since the stunt team is up for a SAG, I was afforded this opportunity, and I knew that Mr. X would be interested, so I chose to watch it as my last SAG nominated film of this season. (We can see most of the films right at home; we have a big screen TV with surround sound, so it’s the next best thing to an actual theatre, but without the CP—Covid Potential!!!)

So, at 10PM the other night, Mr. X said, “Let’s watch…” this three hour and twelve minute movie!!! I repeat–at 10PM! After an incredibly full day with only five hours sleep the night before! And…I went along with it. And actually stayed awake the entire time!

It’s definitely interesting, but enough already. So many things were confusing, such as…we saw all the bad guys get killed, so how did more keep showing up??? But honestly, I didn’t really do my usual harping on the errors—I just admired all that work. No wonder it took a baker’s dozen years for the second Avatar to come out! (We both thought it was only three years ago! Boy, time really does fly.)

Top Gun: Maverick—What a stupid, unimportant, pat, plebeian film this is! The only good thing about it, at all, is that they put Val Kilmer in it; it was heartwarming to see him work after all his health troubles.

And even though I’m not a Tom Cruise fan, I must say that he looks unbelievable for a man of sixty!!! Wow. But Mr. X and I froze when Jennifer Connelly first showed-up on the screen because we try our hardest to avoid any film she’s in because they’re usually horrific. (If you haven’t seen Requiem for a Dream or House of Sand and Fog, do yourselves a favor and never do!) But we needn’t have worried because most of what she did in this one is walk slowly with her hands in her pockets. (Here’s a strange sidebar: When I was little, she is exactly what I pictured that I’d look like as a grown-up. Boy, was I wrong!!!)

The Batman—This is literally one of the most boring movies I have ever seen! Mr. X kept begging to stop watching this supreme waste of time, but I insisted we plug on, assuming it had to get better. But I was wrong—it definitely did not; it actually got way worse.

The story is downright stupid. But worse than anything is that the “lighting,” (and I use that term very loosely,) of the whole way-too-long-and-about-nothing movie is waaaay too dark! It’s awful. I felt like I had to shine a flashlight onto the screen to see anything. (That would not have worked, of course.) I’m glad Mr. X was watching with me and confirmed the darkness, or I would have had to rush out to the eye doctor today! And why did every character have to whisper for the entire three hours???

Okay, that’s it for this crop of films. I’ll try for one more Mini Movie Reviews column, (of the rest of the Oscar-nominated movies,) before the Oscars.

And I’m sorry to those of you are expecting me to live-tweet the SAGs this Sunday, but no can do this year. I’ll be out at what I expect to be an incredible event that I’ll tell you about next week. But I hope to do a full review of the SAGs also next week, if I can figure out how to watch them later, because the telecast is on an obscure channel this time. How annoying!