I Didn't Like Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody

I grew up on the music of Queen, loving how they could achieve a massive range of styles while still sounding completely singular, and I also lived in a household that acknowledged Freddie Mercury as the greatest lead vocalist of all time. Naturally, I was curious about the life of Mercury, and when I heard they were making a movie about him starring Sacha Baron Cohen, I was pretty excited. Then the project kept changing due to the band's own creative vision and eventually (about 8 years later) a trailer was released. The trailer was pretty solid, but I wasn't quite sold. Then the reviews came in and it became clear that the movie was just okay and I didn't need to see it. Then the movie was released to the public and became a huge hit. Then it won Best Drama at the Golden Globes. Then it got nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Now I had to see it.

These are my thoughts on the film. Spoilers for a (kinda sorta) true story:

First of all, I don't care about any of the characters. Any good biopic (think The Social Network, Goodfellas, Ed Wood, Amadeus, Raging Bull, Patton, The Wolf of Wall Street, etc.) starts by introducing the important players of the story. A good screenwriter shouldn't assume the audience knows who these real-life people are already, instead they should establish them as if they're made-up characters in a fictional story, because the fact is: It's still a movie. The Social Network introduces Mark Zuckerberg as a computer prodigy who has terrible social skills, Ed Wood shows Ed Wood as a director with big dreams and a great work ethic but absolutely no talent, and Goodfellas stars Henry Hill as a working class kid who finds a family in the mafia. These are interesting characters, who happen to be based on people that really exist. Because if I just wanted information about the life of a real person, I'd go to Wikipedia. I don't need the film version of Freddie Mercury's Wikipedia page, but that's essentially what I got.

If someone who knew nothing about Queen watched Bohemian Rhapsody, they would probably be very confused. The characters suddenly appear without having any discerning, unique traits that would make them memorable at all. Freddie Mercury (according to Bohemian Rhapsody) is good at singing but his parents want him to be a doctor or a lawyer instead. That's about as boring and cliche as any story can get. Monty Python was parodying that cliche in the 1960s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkihKpnx5yM), which was over 50 years ago from today, and 10 years before the events in Bohemian Rhapsody took place. I understand that life is full of cliches, and the screenwriter can't help that that's how Mercury's parents really felt, but that's why they should've taken a more innovative approach to the story. In Goodfellas Henry Hill's parents don't approve of him joining the mafia, but that's why they're not the focus of the movie and have maybe 5 minutes of screen time. In Bohemian Rhapsody, the parents are a huge focus of the movie despite not being remotely interesting at all. It's a tired old story that we've seen a million times.

Other notable cliches in Bohemian Rhapsody include:

1) Playing an already fully-formed version of a song for the first time and saying they're just "trying it out", as if it's their first thought and it took no effort to craft the song. (Case and point, the "We Will Rock You" scene, which is the perfect example of everything I hate about bad biopics.)

2) Freddie Mercury coughs into a tissue. There's blood. He hides it. This is the first thing most people think of when they think of cliches, and this movie did it.

3) Queen "wins" every single scene they're in. They're always in the right no matter what. Considering how involved the band was in the creative process of the film, this feels downright masturbatory.

4) Freddie asks to be in the band, they say no, so he immediately sings to them. I can't imagine that's how that really happened, and even if it is, the tone of the scene feels fake.

5) They play a perfect version of "Keep Yourself Alive" at their very first show, where Freddie Mercury also discovers his signature broke-off mic. Mercury also apparently had "Bohemian Rhapsody" in his head since day one. All of this comes off as false and it's insulting that they think anyone would buy it.

6) At one point Freddie Mercury says to Queen "We're all outcasts.", which is not only a cliche but also completely untrue in terms of how they're all presented in the movie. They're never shown to be outcasts or even particularly disliked by anyone.

7) Mike Myers plays a studio head and references teenagers banging their heads to "Bohemian Rhapsody." Anyone who's seen Wayne's World understands this horribly forced reference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thyJOnasHVE), and it's a great example of the cliche where the fourth wall is purposefully broken to reference something that happens after the events of the movie take place. There's a great Patton Oswalt bit about this phenomenon (check out "Your Moment of Irony" on his album Feelin' Kinda Patton), and I cringe every time a movie or show does it.

8) Freddie Mercury sexually harasses a waiter, but luckily he's into it and becomes Freddie's boyfriend. It's almost like Bryan Singer made this movie.

9) The entire break-up scene between Freddie Mercury and his girlfriend is paint-by-numbers, and uncreatively soundtracked to "Love of My Life."

10) Freddie Mercury delivers the news that he has AIDS to the band as a fun surprise. The actual transcript of the scene is: Mercury: "I've got it." John Deacon: "What?" Mercury: "AIDS." I'm not kidding.

If the cliches aren't enough, the story itself is somehow rushed and lazily written despite being over 2 hours long. It almost feels like the screenwriter just wanted to get the project over with as soon as possible, like me in college writing an essay the morning it's due. The whole movie feels like a very long trailer, except the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer is much better than the actual movie. It's like a sketch show parody of itself in that it hits all of the same story beats and uses the same disingenuous dialogue that every bad biopic uses, except it doesn't take the extra step to satirize bad biopics, instead it just is one. The episode of South Park where the kids play Guitar Hero is a perfect send-up of these bad rock band biopics, and it still manages to give the story more emotional gravitas in 22 minutes than the entirety of Bohemian Rhapsody. And that was a parody on purpose.

Bad writing aside, even the visuals are atrocious. Everything is overly lit and looks false. It's even worse when it's trying to be artistic, like the scene where Freddie Mercury talks to the press while he's on drugs and it looks like a Spy Kids movie. Even the big spectacle moments, which Bryan Singer has plenty of experience directing, look fake. For instance, the CGI Live Aid concert audience at the end of the movie looks like a video game from the 90's. Could they seriously not fill a stadium with the simple ad: "Hey, we're doing a Queen biopic. Come see a free concert and be in a movie."? Apparently not, because instead they just keep cutting between the animated crowd and the ten extras they hired. It's embarrassing.

It's shocking that in today's times Bryan Singer's allowed to make movies, let alone terrible ones, and this terrible one won Best Drama at the Golden Globes and got nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Apparently this was due to it having an aggressive Oscar campaign, something the Weinsteins were also notorious for, which completes the Bryan Singer-Harvey Weinstein Venn Diagram. This was a bad year for movies, but not bad enough to nominate Bohemian Rhapsody, and the only reason it did well in the box office was because people love the music of Queen and wanted to find out more about them as people, which they didn't get because the writing was so lazy that none of the characters felt like real people, despite them being based on actual real people. There's also plenty of factual inaccuracies, but that's honestly the least of its problems. What's far worse is that it's a poorly made film that squanders a perfectly interesting subject. Sacha Baron Cohen had the idea of having the movie be about Queen after the death of Freddie Mercury. Now that's an interesting idea. No wonder he left the project.

Don't waste your time with this movie. Especially if you're a Queen fan.

An Adult's Perspective On: The Santa Clause

The Santa Clause

I'm 24 years old and I just watched The Santa Clause for the first time.

How I Never Saw It: I was a major Disney kid growing up, but I was really only interested in the animated films. Not only did the live action movies not get my attention, I also never watched Home Improvement growing up so Tim Allen was nothing but the voice of Buzz Lightyear to me. I even remember seeing commercials for The Santa Clause on TV and thinking it looked kinda funny, but not funny enough to sit and watch the whole thing. My parents must've felt the same way since we never owned it on VHS or DVD, and apparently none of my friends ever wanted to watch it either.

Why I'm Seeing It Now: It's the holiday season and I'm scrounging up the last few Christmas classics I still haven't seen before, this being one of them. I didn't think I was about to watch the greatest movie of all time, but I figured there must be enough Christmas imagery and holiday cheer that I'll enjoy the experience despite it really just being for kids.

What I Thought: I thought I was just gonna watch this movie and not talk about it, but about five minutes in I had to start taking notes, because this movie was made by and for insane people.

Look, if this is your favorite Christmas movie because you saw it as a little kid that's completely valid. I specified this being "an adult's perspective" for a reason, that reason being I have no nostalgia-colored lenses to see this movie through. I took it at face value and my face still hurts from it. I didn't just not like the movie, I was confounded by it. There are choices in here that make absolutely no sense, and I wrote down every thought this movie forced out of my brain.

Tim Allen plays a bad person. No stretch there. He starts the movie with lying to his ex-wife about there being traffic as he soars through the deserted freeway because he doesn't want her to know he made a speech at work before coming over to pick up his kid. Already, I'm confused. Why wouldn't he just say "Hey, I've gotta make a speech at work because I'm doing really well there, sorry I'm gonna be late." Is he trying to avoid the 90's trope of dad who puts work before his kid? I'm just gonna say yes because I'm only a minute into the movie.

He picks up his kid and we meet his ex-wife and her new husband, who's introduced as a horrible jerk who honks at them as they wait inside. I point this out because at no point after this scene is he like this. Neil (Judge Reinhold) is a psychologist and he's actually pretty patient and kind, with his only flaw being his attempts to talk the kid (Charlie) out of believing in Santa Claus (which is admittedly weird). He's never shown being the kind of person to honk at his family ever again after this scene.

So it's Tim Allen's turn to have Charlie for Christmas and he's horrible at it. We've gotta establish he's bad at being a parent so he can have an arc throughout the movie, so here you go. He burns the turkey, so he takes his kid to Denny's, a place that is already depressing enough on regular days of the year, let alone Christmas Eve. I'm stopping here because there's a weirdly racist moment where Tim Allen and Charlie walk into Denny's and it's full of Japanese businessmen. A waitress then asks Allen and Charlie if they're Japanese businessmen and they say no, then she takes them to the back where other kids and their single dads are, so we never come back to this room full of Japanese businessmen. But what was that? Is this a stereotype that the screenwriters made up? The shot lingers for a while like it's being played as a racist joke, but what's the joke even supposed to be? It's only there for 30 seconds but it's so bizarre that I can't stop thinking about it. Someone please help me make sense of this.

Later Tim Allen reads Charlie The Night Before Christmas and he tells Charlie that Santa's real. Then Santa shows up. Great, we're not wasting any time. Tim Allen's reasonably shocked and thinks Santa's a burglar. Tim Allen shouts at Santa and he falls off the roof instantly. Allen doesn't even really shout at Santa, he just calls up to him. Santa really shouldn't be that shocked, I would think this happens to him all the time, but apparently just him being acknowledged was so startling it caused him to lose his balance immediately and fall off the two story house and fall onto a bush coated in soft snow. This kills him. I don't think this would even kill a child, but somehow a grown man is dead from it. Allen finds his business card which tells him to put on the suit. Charlie points out the reindeer on the roof and they get in Santa's sleigh. The reindeer fart a few times, which isn't typical of the Disney brand so I wonder if that was Tim Allen's idea or if it was in the original script and the screenwriters fought to the teeth to keep it in.

Tim Allen takes Santa's sack and it causes him to fly. Charlie's amazed by this and Tim Allen proceeds to say that it's not weird for him because "I lived through the 60's." So now there's an LSD joke in this Disney children's Christmas film. Also, Tim Allen was born in 1953, so he was in high school when the 1960's ended, meaning not only is the joke about doing drugs, it's about a child doing drugs. And it's in the movie.

So I like that the the story's starting quick, getting right into the premise of "What if Tim Allen was Santa Claus?", but it almost feels like the movie's done out of order. Why are we seeing regular Tim Allen do Christmas first? I understand it's part of seeing his growth as a character later on, but we don't even see him physically start to transform into Santa Clause until over half way through the movie for the next year's Christmas. This premise must've seemed simple to the screenwriters at first, but as soon as they started working on it they realized just how overly complicated it has to be for it to make any sense. But even if the premise is hard to iron out logic for, maybe just have Tim Allen's house be the last one on Santa's list or something, because seeing him talk horribly to a little girl who's presents he's putting under the tree is pretty disturbing and sad to watch.

Also, it's during this sequence that I found out the CGI is terrible. This is 1994, a year after Jurassic Park came out. Disney was also having a renaissance in the 90s, so there's no reason for these embarrassingly cheap special effects. Fork over a little cash for your farting racist drug child Tim Allen Santa movie, Disney.

Moving on, they go to the North Pole and meet the elves, who are children. What. So elves are just little kids? Doesn't that evoke thoughts of child slavery? Did they just really not want to give little people actors jobs? What was the thought here? Not only is it strange, it's actually kind of creepy. Like, one of the elves is a baby. That's not just illogical because babies are terrible workers, but it's a chillingly surreal image, like out of a David Lynch movie. The only older elf is David Krumholtz as Bernard, whose name Allen purposefully keeps saying wrong because he's awful.

At this point I'll point out that I actually like these North Pole sets. They're a little cluttered but they're Christmasy and fun. This is the kind of thing I was expecting when putting on this movie. What I wasn't expecting is Tim Allen changing out of his Santa costume and a bunch of elves peeping on him from outside his door. What. Why. That's terrifying and implies that all of these elves aren't just little kids, they're perverts. But they aren't the only perverts, because then Tim Allen talks to one of the little girl elves and says "You know I must say, you look pretty good for your age." I get that the line is supposed to be innocent, but when it's Tim Allen saying it to a very young actress, it sends shivers down my spine.

The next day Tim Allen wakes up at his home and thinks this is all a dream, but his kid thinks it's real. Allen starts wigging out and his kid says that he knows CPR. WHAT KID IS THIS. He looks like he's 6, but he's weirdly intelligent and is apparently CPR certified. That's such a weird line to throw in because he's not saying it to be cute, he's deadly serious.

Anyways, then we cut to his classroom on career day and a fireman is telling the class about his partner dying from third degree burns.

..........

What is the tone of this movie supposed to be? I understand that family films should have jokes for both kids and adults with some jokes going over kids' heads, but that's not going to be one of them. Kids know what burns are. They have some idea of what death is. What maniac thought this joke was gonna slide in a Christmas Disney film for children? And the teacher's reaction is essentially ".....wellll okay then!" as if this was just "awkward." But it's not awkward. It's disturbing.

Then Tim Allen tries to talk to the class about working for a toy company, but his son tells everyone about last night and how his dad is really Santa. This concerns Tim Allen's ex-wife (who's dressed like Mia Wallace, complete with hairstyle) and her new husband (who's dressed like Bill Cosby, which was fun then but sad now), and causes a kid to ask the most glaring question in the whole movie: "So if I take you out, am I the new Santa Claus?" And then they cut to the next scene.

No.

Answer that question.

Because there's a lot of implications here. Like what if Hitler had killed Santa? Would Hitler become the new Santa? There needs to be background checks or something, because otherwise Disney is saying it's fine for Hitler to become Santa.

Anyways, the school's principal is also concerned about Charlie, so she brings in Allen, ex, and husband to talk about him. Allen doesn't take any of this seriously at all, and at one point sticks his tongue out at his fellow adults. He's truly an awful man, and I can't believe he has to be our protagonist.

Also, why are they taking The Sixth Sense route of making the kid look like he's psychologically damaged? That's not fun or Christmasy. That's very sad. How did no one come in and say "Hey your fun family movie about Tim Allen being Santa needs to not keep making people think about a child who's had a traumatic experience and now has psychological damage?" Everyone was just on board with choosing this angle.

More movie happens, Tim Allen keeps being mean to the new husband and keeps making fun of his sweater because Tim Allen isn't funny. Then he farts when he gets out of bed because the ADR people tried to make him funny.

Now, an hour into the movie, Tim Allen finally starts turning into Santa Claus.

He goes into work and people audibly gasp when they see he's fat now. Who does that? What human being could possibly be that rude? Then they keep staring at him as he eats his big lunch. Who are these people? Why are they so terrible?

Then at this meeting they introduce Santa in a tank for their next toy. Tim Allen points out all of the Santa inconsistencies with the ad except for the fact that SANTA IS IN A TANK. I know real life Tim Allen doesn't have a problem with this, but how does Santa Claus not see a problem here? Santa probably wouldn't want to see himself in a horrifying killing machine when he's supposed to be beloved by children all over the world. It's also weird because this means the screenwriters, producers, and Disney itself didn't see a problem with it either. And they're okay with Hitler Santa.

Tim Allen goes to the doctor who proceeds to not care that he's defying science by growing a beard and gaining weight in seconds, or that his heartbeat is to the beat of "Jingle Bells." He just sends Allen on his way like he stubbed his toe or something. Is this supposed to take place in our universe?

Then he's at the park alone watching his kid play soccer when a bunch of little kids start sitting on his lap. I don't know what you think of when you see a grown man with a beard and a bunch of children on his lap at a park, but let's just say the parents should be more concerned than they appear to be. Also, in the background of this scene there's an extra who is clearly an adult that goes on the slide by herself. WHERE ARE WE?

Then ex and husband talk about how they stopped believing in Santa Claus because he didn't give them what they wanted. So these are terrible people too.

Then they get full custody of Charlie and Tim Allen comes over unannounced which is super creepy. It was also at this point that I realized a full year had already passed. They really needed a better way of showing time passing, because I had no idea that had happened.

Then Tim Allen kidnaps Charlie and leaves. When the cops hear that a man who looks like Santa kidnapped a child, they all laugh. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE LIKE THIS?

Also, the picture they have of Charlie is a really weird picture for a kid to have of themselves. It looks like the cover of his moody new solo album.

Then Tim Allen and Charlie and the elves walk and do a CHOREOGRAPHED DANCE FOR SOME REASON.

They make this all look like a fun montage but it's actually horribly traumatizing for the couple who just HAD THEIR CHILD KIDNAPPED.

This is the second time we're at the North Pole, and it's the point where I realized almost all of this movie is just custody battles. There's literally 30 minutes total of Christmas imagery in this movie. It's like if The Squid and the Whale was a Christmas movie.

Oh and then KIDS WATCH SANTA GET ARRESTED.

But ex is happy now and she burns the custody papers which I guess is how law works now. Also in this scene Judge Reinhold believes in Santa and then doesn't believe and then goes back to believing again in a way that doesn't feel like it was done on purpose.

Then the SWAT team shows up and they have multiple sniper rifles and a helicopter ready for literally one man.

Then Charlie turns down Judge's offer to become a psychologist, looks at Santa Allen and says "I think I'm gonna go into the family business." which heavily implies he's gonna kill his dad.

Then ex and Judge finally get what they wanted for Christmas, which means I guess the old Santa never got anyone what they wanted? Or maybe they were naughty that year? I don't know.

So anyway that's The Santa Clause and my brain hurts and I'm sad now.

Again, if you genuinely love this movie, that's wonderful.

For me it's occasionally unintentionally funny, but mostly just frustrating. I don't like it at all, but I'm not gonna say I regret watching it. After all, it got me to write something again.

Face/Off

Face/Off

This is the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Netflix (if you haven't heard of it) is a very popular streaming service that offers a wide variety of movies and TV shows. Their TV shows are mostly pretty good. Their movies are, for the most part, pretty bad. "Straight to Netflix" is the new "straight to video" when it comes to their movies, which makes sense since Netflix has to constantly produce new content to stay alive. Luckily though, Netflix has a big enough audience that established filmmakers will occasionally work with them, which is how we end up with fun, oddball movies like Bong Joon-Ho's Okja, Noah Baumbach's The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected), Mike Flanagan's Gerald's Game, Macon Blair's I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind (which I still need to see), and now, The Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

I've seen all of the Coen Brothers' movies, since they're two of my very favorite filmmakers, and for the most part they're consistently great. Their classics have earned the title a million times over, their underrated movies deserve to be put up with their classics, and even the ones that aren't so good are still unlike any other movie that's being made today. Their unique brand of surreal-yet-understated comedy, typically in the midst of horrifically brutal happenings, has earned them their place in the pantheon of great modern auteurs, and it's played up to the highest degree in this movie.

This is a western anthology film, with the framing device being a literal book that features six short stories. The first three of these stories are completely wild and bizarre, while the last three are much more grounded but still have that strange tilt that you can expect from a Coen Brothers story. They're all visually gorgeous, thanks to cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (who also did the tragically underrated Inside Llewyn Davis), taking full advantage of every angle of the western genre.

Returning Coen players Tim Blake Nelson and Stephen Root are wonderful as always (those two specifically are more unhinged than I've ever seen them before and it's a treat to watch), and Coen newcomers are brilliant as well. Some actors in the film, like Tom Waits and Liam Neeson, are playing completely different types of characters than I've ever seen them play before, to the point of being nearly unrecognizable, which is one of my favorite Coen Brothers staples.

All of the stories have something great, or at the very least memorable, to offer. My favorite story is one with Liam Neeson and DUDLEY DURSLEY (Harry Melling), which is beautifully written and acted, and gives a brutal perspective on show business and its relationship with the public. I won't say more than that.

I'll leave the rest a surprise (and they're all surprising), because this is definitely a movie I recommend. As a whole it's tonally uneven, but that's what you get with an anthology movie. Even if you're not a fan of westerns or even the Coen Brothers, please click on this movie so that Netflix can find out how much more people like it when they present unique and interesting films like this instead of the onslaught of undercooked crap that they've been releasing recently.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Well folks, this is incredible. After only a year of doing this silly little movie blog, I've gotten to do something that I could never have imagined.

I was sitting in my humble North Hollywood apartment when I heard a sudden violent rapping on my window. I opened it up and to my utter surprise a brown and white owl burst into my room! I quickly grabbed some owl food I keep in my pantry and laid it out on my bed for the owl to enjoy. I then noticed a parcel that he kept clutched in his talons, and he must've noticed my noticing because he dropped it right in my hand a moment after I saw it.

It was a letter, addressed to "Jacob's Side of the Room." I peeled it from its seal and read it aloud to myself. It/I said: "Hello, Jacob. I hope this letter finds you well. I'm a big fan of your work and I've heard you're a fan of mine as well. I know you've read all of the Harry Potter series and are really trying to find time to read The Casual Vacancy and all the Robert Galbraith novels, but it's hard with all of the vague staring into the distance while listening to podcasts that you have to do. Since you're such a big fan, and you're on the Harry Potter-themed long-form improv team called Hogwash that plays every month in Santa Ana, CA, which I can find out more about on bestcoastimprov.com, it only seems fair that I repay you, since my putting something creative out into the world automatically means I owe something to everyone who knows that it exists. How would you like to come to my mansion in Edinburgh and have a chat? Let me know whenevsies. - J.K. Rowling"

I couldn't believe it. I've always loved Harry Potter and the fact that she knew about my amazing improv show that's only $5 and has tickets available at bestcoastimprov.com completely blew my mind. I hastily scrawled out my acceptance of her invitation on a napkin and gave it back to the owl, who was now checking out my movie collection with an overwhelming admiration in its eyes, as if to say "This must be the coolest guy in the world."

He hoo'd goodbye and, after a few anticipation-filled days, finally returned to my front door with a letter addressed to "The Couch That Jacob Sometimes Falls Asleep at for 30 Minutes While Watching a Movie But Still Reviews It Anyway." I ripped open the letter and my eyes filled with tears of pure, unbridled excitement at her response: "K. - J.K."

As soon as I had touched the letter, I felt a sudden rush, blinked, and found myself standing in J.K. Rowling's foyer. She welcomed me to her home and, after giving me a change of pants, showed me to the kitchen, where a lovely dinner was waiting for me. It was catering from a local Scottish restaurant called McDonald's. It tasted familiar, like something I have every single night at home, but the context made it all the more delicious.

Right about now is when I should let you know that I saw the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald this past weekend, which Rowling herself wrote. It takes place in the Harry Potter universe, and even features some important Harry Potter players, including Albus Dumbledore, Nicolas Flamel, Gellert Grindelwald, Nagini, and Minerva McGonagall, who was amazingly at Hogwarts seven years before she was born.

I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to combine my world with Rowling's, to get a glimpse into her creative process and share it with you all. So here it is, dear reader, here is J.K. Rowling at the Movie Party:

JN: While you're finishing up those McNuggets, I'd love to discuss the newest Fantastic Beasts film.

JKR: (dabbing her mouth delicately) By all means.

JN: The first film is called "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" and this next film starts with "Fantastic Beasts", which implies the rest of the title. But after watching both of them I still don't feel like I know where to find very many fantastic beasts. Was this not meant to be an educational documentary series a la Planet Earth but for discovering magical creatures?

JKR: No, it wasn't.

JN: Great, that's actually good to hear.

JKR: Glad I could help.

JN: So, I have some questions about the movie.

JKR: Alright, let's hear them.

JN: Is Nicolas Flamel going to continue to be a part of this series? And if so, are you going to continue hiring Teddy Perkins from Atlanta to play him?

JKR: Well, he didn't die in this film, so it's safe to say he'll probably keep coming back. Although I could change my mind later and decide he's dead already.

JN: On the topic of you changing your mind, you decided to give the character Jacob his memory back in this film despite making a very conscious decision to obliviate him in the first one. Was there a reason for this?

JKR: Oh, yes. Jacob was the source of comic relief in the first film, and after my first draft of Grindelwald I realized I had completely forgotten to add humor to it, so I decided to reinsert Jacob into the film by just sort of squeezing him in there.

JN: Speaking of which, this film features the bold choice of making Jacob's girlfriend Queenie an insane rapist who emotionally manipulates and abuses him.

JKR: I don't hear a question.

JN: Oh, no, it was just a compliment.

JKR: Thank you.

JN: Of course. Moving on to my next question, why did you decide to make Ezra Miller's character, Creedence Clearwater Revival, a new Dumbledore?

JKR: Well, as you know this is a prequel series.

JN: Oh yes, I got quite a few prequel flashbacks.

JKR: Excellent. Well, when you're writing a prequel it's hard to make it interesting because the audience already knows where the story is going to eventually end up.

JN: Absolutely. That's why prequels are pointless and stupid and only exist to scam people out of their hard-earned money.

JKR: Exactly. So, in order to trick people into thinking they're watching something new and interesting, you sometimes have to make surprise additions to the story that you can hopefully tie up before the series is over.

JN: So every new character that shows up will inevitably have to die at some point, because otherwise you'll have to justify why they aren't around by the time the Harry Potter timeline starts.

JKR: They won't necessarily have to die.

JN: I think they do.

JKR: No.

JN: You have some fun moments in Grindelwald that only an eagle-eyed fan will notice. Things like the Sorcerer's Stone, Hogwarts, Dumbledore, magic, and a cameo by Professor McGonagall, despite this taking place in 1927 when you already stated she was born in 1934.

JKR: Yes, isn't that amazing?

JN: Unbelievably so. I just wanted to say that as a fan, I felt very serviced. Thank you.

JKR: You're very welcome.

JN: Walk me through how you made the decision to feature so many different plot threads. Off the top of my head I can think of ten, including: the Newt/Queenie/Tina love triangle, Creedence Clearwater Revival's journey, Grindelwald's crimes, Queenie's dealing with mindreading, Queenie and Jacob's relationship, Lovely Leta's feelings, Newt's brother doing stuff, Dumbledore working at Hogwarts, Newt's mission that Dumbledore gave him, and that suspicious guy with the hat that doesn't really go anywhere.

JKR: That's eleven.

JN: I am so sorry.

JKR: It's quite alright. As you know, I'm an author.

JN: Please don't assume I know that.

JKR: I am so sorry.

JN: It's quite alright.

JKR: I've written one other screenplay, that being the last Fantastic Beasts film, which I believe justified my needing absolutely no help in writing this one.

JN: Makes sense.

JKR: So I used by authorial instincts to have a lot going on the whole time instead of keeping it simple and streamlined like screenplays are preferred to be since they're being written for a visual medium.

JN: Yes, I loved the decision to have so many conversations at boring tables in boring rooms.

JKR: Thank you.

JN: I have some questions about the directorial decisions, but I don't suppose David Yates would be here to answer them.

Right at this moment who else but David Yates walked into the dining room, wearing a night cap and bathrobe.

DY: (yawning) Hello, Jacob. Big fan of your work.

JN: Thank you so much, David. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?

DY: Not at all.

He sat down at the table, between J.K. and I.

JN: First of all, it seems like you're living here. Could you elaborate on that?

DY: Of course. I'm hiding.

JN: Ah, yes. So I've got some questions about the visual aspects of Grindelwald.

DY: Go for it.

JN: What was the reason for replacing wizard robes with boring suits and making the color palette for this film grey and completely miserable?

DY: Well, Harry Potter was a series for children, but Fantastic Beasts is a series for adults.

JN: It's about a whimsical magic man who's studying adorable animals by keeping them as pets in a zoo in his house.

DY: Yes. So in order to match this dark and gritty tone, we decided to light the film poorly and desaturate it in editing.

JN: I noticed some issues with the cinematography, like almost never being able to tell where we are or what's going on, and having close-ups that completely cut off the actors' foreheads.

DY: I'm a bit of a purist, so I wanted to make sure the visuals were exactly as confusing as the screenplay. As for those close-ups, all of the actors in the film are very self-conscious about their foreheads, so we created what we call "frame bangs."

JN: The cast is obviously full of amazing, talented people and Johnny Depp, but I noticed the acting was very subtle, almost as if no one in the movie wanted to be in it.

DY: Yes, that was my decision. As I've said before, this series is very adult, and adults forget how to feel happiness and therefore never smile or laugh or have a brief flash of humanity on their faces.

JN: Can't argue with that. The young Hogwarts students seem to be having fun though. What was the thought behind giving them modern haircuts when this is a 1920's period piece?

DY: That was to make them look cool.

JN: It worked.

DY: Thank you. I'm gonna go back to bed.

JN: See ya.

JKR: Bye.

DY: Bye.

David Yates shuffled back to bed, leaving J.K. and I alone once again.

JN: Can I be completely honest, J.K. Rowling?

JKR: Please, call me J.K. Simmons.

JN: I'd rather not.

JKR: Go on.

JN: I really didn't like this movie. It completely misses what made Harry Potter timeless and successful. It was never about the magic or the creatures, those are just decorations. It was about the magical world, the three-dimensional characters, and the strong relationships those characters had with each other.

JKR: Look again.

JN: What?

JKR: Check your blu-ray copies of the Harry Potter movies you own.

Confused, I pulled out all of my Harry Potter blu-rays that I keep with me just in case. I walked over to J.K. Rowling's impressive home theater and popped in the first movie. I couldn't believe what happened next.

The opening sequence appeared on the screen, but it wasn't how I remembered it. The vivid colors and sense of fun were gone. The film was now grey and the actor's emotions had been digitally removed. The wands were replaced with walkie talkies, and there was a new scene with Jabba the Hut.

JN: I don't understand.

JKR: I changed it. It's better now.

JN: But I loved the original. Everyone loved the original. Why would you do this?

JKR: It's what all of the modern summer blockbuster films are doing. They're either grey and sad or they're colorful but disingenuous. I chose the first option.

JN: But Harry Potter is one of the most successful franchises of all time, why not just stop while you're ahead? You already have everything you could ever want!

JKR: It gives me control, Jacob. It's why I use Pottermore to just straight-up make stuff up about my own series despite it already being finished.

JN: Look, I'm sure Da Vinci would still want to add some extra brush strokes to the Mona Lisa, but once something is published it belongs to the public. Art is never finished, it's taken away from the artist, and it has to be that way because otherwise no one would ever share their art because it would never be quite perfect enough, and then we'd live in a world without art.

From on top of my soapbox I could see something behind J.K. Rowling: a family photo. Only her children and husband looked different now. They had all had their heads replaced with the head of beloved singer/songwriter Morrissey.

JN: Wait. Since when does every member of your family look like Morrissey?

JKR: Since I decided they did. I love Morrissey so I wanted them to look like him.

JN: But you can't do that, they're already the way they are! They can have surgery to look more like Morrissey if they want, but you're certainly not allowed to just change them against their will.

JKR: EVERYTHING IS WHAT I WANT IT TO BE!

J.K. Rowling pulled out a wand from her pocket and shot me across the room, into her TV. Every bone in my body was broken.

JN: Why...why are you doing this to me...?

JKR: I didn't like your A Matter of Life and Death review.

JN: Well, I could always see it again. Maybe I'd change my mind.

JKR: Now you're talking my language.

She helped me up, repaired my broken bones, and sent me back home through her fireplace.

I'm now in my living room, jotting down my thoughts on the other two movies I saw last week. I haven't kept in contact with J.K. Rowling, and I'm sure she's met with so many people since then she won't even remember me, which is why you shouldn't bother asking her if any of this happened.

But I'll never forget my dinner with J.K. Rowling.

Thanks for reading.

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are a brilliant pair of filmmakers from Britain who made some of the greatest and most underrated films of the 20th century (The Red Shoes being my personal favorite). A Matter of Life and Death (also known as Stairway to Heaven) is probably their most well-known movie, being the all-time favorite of both J.K. Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe (according to an interview with them I once heard).

Playing a bit like a fairy tale, the movie revolves around a British fighter pilot (played the charming and gentlemanly David Niven) who sends out a radio call as his plane is going down. He falls in love with the American radio operator (played by the infectious Kim Hunter aka Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire) that happens to pick up his call as he plummets into the ocean. Now the members of the afterlife must decide whether he's ready to join them or not, so he's sent to a sort of realm between life and death where he spends time with his American girl, as well as a few other new friends.

The first 20 minutes or so are absolutely perfect. I was ready to love this movie almost immediately, based on the writing, acting, and gorgeous visuals that look like an animated Disney film come to life. But then there's all of the standing around and talking. It felt a bit heartbreaking every time I would start to get bored by how much talking instead of doing there is in this film. Whenever they actually do things it's wonderful, whether it's stopping time or entering a new, beautiful set, but they spend so little time doing things that it nearly lulled me to sleep at a few points.

Perhaps it would be different if I could see the movie in the theater, where the distractions of home are nowhere to be found and I'm forced to hang onto the many, many words of dialogue there are in the film, but regardless of that there's still the bizarre final half hour. There is a large trial in the afterlife to see whether or not David Niven should be allowed to live or die, and the lawyer who's against him is an American Revolutionary general who hates the British. This leads to a half-hour debate between America and England that's justified in the context of both the story and the political climate of the time, but is still clearly a huge digression from what the movie is supposed to be about. It's also worth noting that Niven isn't the one defending himself in court, it's a completely different character who's doing it for him, so not only is it 30 minutes away from the story, it's 30 minutes without either of the two romantic leading characters. It's well-intended and well-written, but it could've 100% been cut, along with about half the dialogue that's in the movie.

Again, maybe I just need to see it in the theater, but it started to feel like a task having to watch actors stand in a room and talk each other for long periods of time in the visual medium of film. The production design, costumes, and cinematography are all immaculate and I'm glad I own the movie for those elements, and the acting and writing is very good as well, it just leans too heavily onto one aspect of storytelling when it could've been brilliantly using all of them. It's still a very good movie, and maybe I'll watch again soon and like it better, but for now I just can't get over its static nature.

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka

In 1988, before Scary Movie, before In Living Color, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka was the first ever Wayans Brothers' project. A parody of 1970's blacksploitation films, their signature love of Zucker Brother-esque broad humor is apparent from right out of the gate.

It's clear that this is the first Wayans movie, as there's a lot of pacing issues and the majority of the jokes don't land. I don't exactly consider any of the Scary Movie movies to be comedic masterpieces, but at least they all have consistent gags that are hit-and-miss, but they move so quickly from gag to gag that there's no lingering on a bad joke. In this movie there's lots of time to linger on bad jokes, and it feels very awkward to watch. Considering they're going for something like Airplane!, you'd think they'd've taken note of how fast that movie moves, and adjusted their script accordingly. But instead they'll do a visual gag and then cut back to it several times in case you didn't catch it the first time. It never works.

In comedy, the performance is key, as that's where the golden rule of timing comes in. Unfortunately for this movie, none of the performances are particularly funny. Keenen Ivory Wayans is not a strong enough comedic presence to be the lead, which is a bummer considering how hard he must've had to work simultaneously acting, writing, and directing. Perhaps if he had found someone else to be the lead, he would've been able to focus more on the movie as a whole and improve it, but instead he gives an eager but ineffective performance. He's not alone though. Honestly, the only couple of laughs I experienced during the movie were from visual gags, none of the actors in the movie made me laugh at all. Everyone seems sort of tired, not wanting to commit to their characters or elevate the scenes in any way. The Wayans would have to wait until In Living Color to find those incredible comedic performers that they needed.

I'm pretty sure I've only seen one blacksploitation film (The Mack, which is a ton of fun), so it could very well be that there were a lot of gags and references that completely went over my head. And the movie wasn't miserable to watch by any means, I just barely laughed. One gag that made me laugh very hard involves Isaac Hayes gearing up to fight the bad guys, the YouTube clip of which I'll leave right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhe58xORWG0

While it's not a bad movie as a whole, it's a pretty weak comedy. If you're a comedy writer, it's a good example of bad pacing for a comedy movie. If you're not a comedy writer, just watch In Living Color instead. It's much better.