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Reviews
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Not credible, and no good story
Another boring, disjointed effort by a very over rated director. Premise is not credible from the beginning, an attractive 25 yo woman is rarely/(never) interested in a relationship with a 15 yo boy, esp one who's overweight, short, and pimply faced unattractive. Has a few good scenes, like the cameos by Cooper (as Jon Peters) and Penn (as a William Holden character). But that's all PT Anderson movies ever have, some occasional good scenes absent any interesting or coherent plot. He seems to have conned critics into thinking his lack of conventional movie elements must mean it's some "high art" (and "Oh wow, if I don't know what the title means, this must be deep"). But more likely, and increasingly clear, is that he's just not capable of telling a good, interesting story.
The Lost City (2022)
Appealing stars, but dumb script
Has a dumb main story about finding some lost whatever that you don't care about, and one scene after another is people doing things that make no sense. In a comedy/adventure that can be ok if the comedy works, but there's just not enough of that. Pitt, and esp Tatum, display some fun moments, but that only goes so far. Radcliffe's such a cartoonish, non-threatening, villain it's hard to take the adventure part seriously for a second. With Bullock 16 yrs older than Tatum, the movie's emerging sexual dynamic between them looks not so believable, and might work better if they were closer in age (you do see it in her scene with Pitt, who's about same age).
Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. (2022)
Like watching a slow motion car wreck
Pretty clear what's going to happen and how it ends up, and somewhat slow going. But I found it watchable, I guess in that morbid "can't look away from the car crash" sort of way. The big mystery - and absolutely unsolved at conclusion - is why such a smart (Ivy grad from Penn's Wharton), attractive, successful woman gets taken in by such an obvious liar - fat, unattractive, and obnoxious to boot. Causing her to just destroy the popular, successful restaurant she built. Shows her rebuffing the advances of Alec Baldwin...ok, yeah, but he'd still be orders of magnitude better that the squalid creep she ends up with.
The Assistant (2019)
An interesting watch
An interesting watch, we'll directed esp in its way showing of pieces of information about people and what's going on in this movie company (of some sort). Made want to keep watching to find out more.
Unfortunately it doesn't really lead much anywhere, and seems it's purpose was more as a profile of a young woman's challenges in working for a powerful jerk boss. Lots of stereotype jerk male characters, esp when the guy who plays Tom from Succession shows up playing essentially the same character to demean the Garner character. The effect is so over the top, it's - unintentionally - funny.
Also Garner seems too passive, almost mousey, to be the ambitious assistant, but aspiring movie producer, she's supposed to be. More realistic if she showed more of that spunky ambition of the character she plays in Ozark.
West Side Story (2021)
Mostly inferior to 1961's WSS. But a fantastic Mike Faist as Riff
Mostly not as good as the original 1961 movie, both in the altered story and script geared to go full woke (yeah, what a surprise these days), and esp in the inferior dance, singing, and musical productions.
The essence of WSS is the music, songs and dance, but lots of bad decisions made here:
The actor playing Tony is not a professional singer and you're just left feeling you've heard these fantastic songs sung better.
The song "Something's Coming" is supposed to set the stage for Tony's big awakening but you get no sense of that here staged in that depressing looking store (and with Rita Moreno?).
"Officer Krupke" is joyless and humorless and weirdly set in an police station and makes no sense that's it's empty of cops. 1961's "Cool" is as mesmerizing a dance as is on film (check it on YouTube) but here it's a forgettable whatever about who get's the gun.
Most bizarre is having 90 yo Rita Moreno (showing up again...and again) singing "Somewhere" a song that's supposed to be sung by Maria and Tony.
Movie does have one huge plus, Mike Faist, as Riff, is riveting, gets to the soul of Riff - even better than 1961's Russ Tamblyn - he just grabs you, every seen he's in. (Plus he's a real dancer, Tamblyn got by on his acrobat background). Also, Rachel Zegler has a wonderful singing voice - no need to dub for her as they did for 1961's Natalie Wood.