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Review by Sean Boelman
Grace VanderWaal as Stargirl Caraway in Disney's live-action HOLLYWOOD STARGIRL, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The first Stargirl was an underwhelming adaptation of a young adult book, with too many cringe-worthy moments to recommend it. While it’s unlikely that many were clamoring for a sequel, Hollywood Stargirl is one of the most pleasant surprises of the year, an improvement over its predecessor in almost every imaginable way.
The film picks up after the last movie, when Stargirl has moved to California with her mom where she meets new friends and discovers a life of music and full of dreams. It’s a fairly standard “[character] Goes to [destination]” type of sequel where we watch the character see the sights of the city and become enamored with all it has to offer. Admittedly, the film explores many of the same themes that any movie set in the City of Angels approaches, but it does it in a way that is so wholesome and lovable that it’s hard not to appreciate it. It’s a reminder of the power that optimism and following your dreams can have, which is something we always need as a society. The character development in this entry is significantly better than it was in the first. Whereas Stargirl was essentially a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the first movie, serving to inspire the male protagonist, she is the protagonist here. She gets a much more interesting arc here that feels fully developed and independent. 
(L-R): Uma Thurman as Roxanne Martel and Grace VanderWaal as Stargirl Caraway in Disney's live-action HOLLYWOOD STARGIRL, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Even though the story may be a bit generic, this really feels like the natural progression for the character. We finally get to see her in action as the dreamer that she is, rather than just a person who is more outspokenly optimistic than everyone else around her. It’s a very different path for the character that still stays true to the character’s essence.
As with the first film, this really takes advantage of Grace VanderWaal’s singing talents with a soundtrack composed of some great jukebox hits. It’s a movie that is unabashedly nostalgic for a certain era, but not in a way that feels overly retro. And this creates an overall wholesome, lovely feel. The supporting characters here are also much more memorable. The friends that Stargirl makes along the way are charming and lovable, albeit a bit on the archetypal side. And Uma Thurman’s mentor character in this film is pitch-perfect for her, allowing the storied actress to give what is her best performance in almost two decades. Hollywood Stargirl is one of the best new Disney+ movies in recent memory, taking a concept that wasn’t rife with potential and making something intriguing out of it. It may not be unconventional, but it’s charming beyond belief, and sometimes that’s all that’s required. Hollywood Stargirl streams on Disney+ beginning June 3. Rating: 4.5/5
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Review by Sean Boelman
One of the biggest sins that a film can make is to deliver a trailer that is substantially more interesting than anything the actual movie has to offer. The Russian film Row 19 is much less effective than its marketing materials, failing to take advantage of an intriguing concept to make anything more than a subpar horror flick.
The film follows a woman with a young daughter who is trapped on a plane in the middle of a turbulent storm, beginning to lose her grip on reality and bringing up substantial trauma from her childhood. It’s one of those horror movies that presents itself purposefully ambiguous because its goal is to catch the audience off-guard. There is some decent suspense throughout, but the twist is so ridiculous that it almost completely ruins the effect of anything that came before it. At under an hour and twenty minutes in length, you’d think that it would move by pretty quickly, but it really drags between its three or four images that are genuinely disturbing. Some of the best parts of the film are those which explore the protagonist’s trauma, but the things that writer James Rabb has to say about the theme are the exact same thing that so many other movies have said before. The short runtime and narrative structure prevent it from going into a satisfying depth in this regard. 
The character development is also uneven. The protagonist is likable enough, but even her development is rather shallow. And all of the supporting characters are extremely bland and unmemorable. You’d think that they would at least make something compelling out of the other passengers on the plane, but they’re all highly archetypal.
Svetlana Ivanova’s performance is the only thing that keeps this thing running. Even in the most ridiculous moments of the plot, she manages to keep everything feeling grounded and emotional. It’s nice that she manages not to make anything feel phoned in despite the script being woefully underdeveloped. For a genre picture that is largely confined, the movie looks a lot better than expected. There are some CGI moments that aren’t the best, but to hold it to a higher standard would be unfair for a project like this. The film does its job to create a few brief disturbing images that will freak out viewers but have a fleeting impact. Row 19 is a less-than-stellar genre picture, although there are a few moments here that make it watchable. It’s a concept that has a lot of potential but none of its themes are explored in a particularly meaningful way. Row 19 is now available on VOD. Rating: 2.5/5 LITTLE NICHOLAS — HAPPY AS CAN BE -- A Charmingly Quaint Blend of Adaptation and Biography5/27/2022
Review by Sean Boelman
Le Petit Nicolas is an iconic character of French children’s literature, and so it is only fitting that a biopic about its creators would be equally playful. Little Nicholas — Happy As Can Be is a unique blend of adaptation and biography, this is an adorable animated film, even if it probably won’t appeal to younger audiences.
The movie follows a children’s book author and illustrator who come together and form a partnership that ends up bringing to life Little Nicholas, a mischievous young lad who gets into all sorts of endearingly humorous antics. This meta-like narrative is an intriguing one, even if it isn’t as deeply explored as one would hope. Those portions of the film which follow the literary character are anecdotal in nature, jumping between various vignettes. As a representation of what the children’s book series stood for, this is perfect, because it’s a series of wild, amusing hijinks. There is a lighthearted, airy nature to the entire affair. On the other hand, the movie fails to make the biopic aspect of the story as compelling as it had the potential to be. It’s mostly standard biography material, following an artist who is struggling to make ends meet before he has a sudden burst of inspiration and creates his masterpiece, in this case, a character. 
Although the film should be praised for its attempts at doing something ambitious with the relationship between the author and his creation, it doesn’t ever amount to as much as it could have. When Little Nicholas leaps off the page, it should be magical, but the result feels a bit overly sentimental.
That said, the animation of the movie is certainly very good, done in the visual style of children’s book illustrations. It’s a playful, simplistic approach, but it’s perfect for what this film is aiming to do. Especially during the vignette sections, it gives the movie a particular energy that will make you nostalgic for your childhood. The humor of the film is very goofy and wholesome and will get some chuckles. Filmmakers Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre obviously have a huge respect for the history of Le Petit Nicolas, and it shows in the end product. However, it still feels like this is made more for people who grew up on these books than younger generations who could discover the magic of the character. Little Nicholas — Happy As Can Be is a cute little animated movie with a lot of great individual elements, even if they don’t all come together as well as one would hope. It’s definitely worth checking out if you have nostalgia for the character. Little Nicholas — Happy As Can Be debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Review by Cole Groth  Immediately opening on the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, which caused $17 Billion in damage to Wilmington, North Carolina, We Feed People presents us with José Andrés, a larger-than-life celebrity chef-or rather, cook, as he prefers to be called — with a single goal in mind: feeding everybody and anybody who needs food. It's an admirable goal, and his love for cooking shines through every moment in this documentary. In the rather well-paced 90-minute runtime, we see how he helped out in many crises, including the COVID-19 response in both the Navajo Nation and New York City and the issues he faced along the way. Due to the stature of José Andrés, it's important for Howard to take some time to develop his background. After moving to America when he was 21, Andrés quickly rose to fame and power as a chef, often credited with bringing Spanish tapas, or small plates (which is ironic considering the scale of the meals he serves as a humanitarian chef), into the light as a popular dining option. After scaling up considerably and leading many restaurants throughout the United States, Andrés formed the World Central Kitchen, an NGO which provides food to people in need. In the last 12 years, we've seen many natural disasters destroy countries like Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. At each of these tragic events, World Central Kitchen and José Andrés have been on the scene. Andrés' love for food and helping others is characteristic of him, emphasized through interviews given by his wife and daughters. When taking time to focus on Andrés instead of his humanitarian efforts, Howard paints the image of a man who feels brutally honest. He cares most deeply about helping other people but doesn't try to hide his emotions or otherwise create a facade of who he is. Multiple times throughout the film, Andrés is captured in moments of frustration, which help in showing that he's just an ordinary person. In the modern cooking world, it's impossible to see figures like Gordon Ramsay or Martha Stewart as very down to Earth people, but Andrés stands out as a man with his blemishes on full display. His dedication to his family underlines why Andrés is so willing to help whoever needs it. There are frequent points where he's a bit of an awkward presence on camera, and while that contributes to the overall tonally inconsistent feel to the film, it at least makes him seem more natural.  On a technical level, We Feed People isn't very special. Taking lots of iPhone footage or clips from Twitter, Ron Howard is able to lead us through the story of the harrowing disasters that we see, but it's not quite engaging enough to feel completely satisfying. However, one of the biggest issues with this documentary is a general lack of personality. Seeing that this was directed by Ron Howard is rather confusing because there aren't any directorial choices that stand out. Howard has clearly shown interest in the struggles of humanity, emphasized most apparently in 2020's Hillbilly Elegy, so his rather by-the-books approach to Andrés' story is surprising. One of the moments that does have personality later is when, after Andrés yells at one of his workers, one of the women receiving aid starts demanding an apology from him. It's an uncomfortable point in the documentary, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what the point of the scene was. Andrés apologizes profusely, ending the scene on an unpleasant note. There aren't many moments like this, but they still stick out like a sore thumb in an otherwise smooth journey.
With those issues aside, it's hard not to fall in love with Andrés's pure ambition for helping others. At every moment he can, Andrés is figuring out how he can best help the people who need assistance while also making the food taste as good as possible and creating as little waste as he can. He's innovative, enigmatic, and a caring man who deserves his place in the spotlight. We Feed People is able to effectively show how, even though our seemingly more frequent moments of disruption, humanity is able to persevere. We Feed People is available on Disney+ now. Rating: 3.5/5
Review by Tatiana Miranda
A mixture of bloody metaphorical sex scenes and surreal body modifications as art, David Cronenberg’s new film Crimes of the Future explores the bounds of human evolution and how we view our bodies. Loosely based on Cronenberg’s hour-long 1970 film of the same name, Crimes of the Future takes place in the not-too-distant future in a decrepit landscape filled with abnormal humans as they begin to evolve, now devoid of pain and growing seemingly useless organs. Viggo Mortensen plays the central character, Saul Tenser, a performance artist with a penchant for growing and removing organs within him. As his body faces faults regarding the growth of these organs, he starts to unravel the truth of the evolutionary process that is occurring within him.
Crimes of the Future’s plot is loose at best, as Cronenberg’s film prefers metaphor to structure. In fact, metaphors and conceptual scenes are the heart of the movie, especially since nothing is as it seems. During one scene, Kristen Stewart’s character Timlin notes that “Surgery is the new sex” after viewing Saul and his artistic partner Caprice performing an extremely erotic surgery. While this is seemingly true, with sex intertwined closely with bodily mutilation, it is among a vast list of concepts that Cronenberg attempts to portray in this movie. Along with the idea of surgery being a form of sex, the idea of the development of new organs as a form of artwork and surgery becoming performance art is also central to the actions of both Caprice and Saul. Although there is certainly an overabundance of conceptual scenes and metaphors, it pairs well with the aspects of body horror Cronenberg uses. While surgical scenes are bound to make audience members squeamish, they are undercut with explanation and an understanding of the character’s decidedly painless reactions. Even more compelling than the genre of body horror, Crimes of the Future is a semi-sci-fi/detective thriller as Saul meets with different characters in an attempt to rebel against the government and come to terms with his own changing body. 
While Crimes of the Future is gritty and contemplative, it isn’t above itself, as the characters’ dialogue constantly pokes fun at the absurdity of it all. Saul chuckles to himself and tells Caprice to make sure not to spill as she performs a sexual act on his open wound. Side characters such as bureaucratic coworkers Timlin and Wippet are intense in their love and appreciation for Saul and Caprice’s artwork, almost to the point of insanity in an attempt to come into their world. Concepts in Cronenberg’s world-building, such as the Inner Beauty Contest, which Saul enters, realize the performative way humans view bodily functions in a humorous albeit depressing way.
Crimes of the Future is far from a perfect film, as it is less a movie and more a nearly two-hour-long visual metaphor regarding the fate of humanity. Although its concepts are intriguing and linger long after the credits roll, it isn’t entirely sure what point it is trying to make, much less which genre it aligns itself with. In the end, though, Crimes of the Future gives the audience some sort of relief as Saul finally allows evolution to run its course. Crimes of the Future releases in theaters on June 3. Rating: 3/5 |