Mini Reviews for October 28 - November 3, 2019

Spooky movie season has sadly come to a close. Eleven more months of non-spooky entertainment, I suppose.

Movies

Toy Story 4 (2019)
None of the Toy Story sequels ever had a reason to exist, but Toy Story 4 is unique among them in that doesn't ever figure out a convincing way to pretend to need to exist during its runtime. So I guess it's to its credit that it isn't actively bad, given its lack of conviction. It's a collection of reasonably good ideas—Forky, the carnival setting, the Key & Peele-voiced plush prizes, etc.—but most of these simply remain good ideas unto themselves without ever cohering into a thematic whole. To be fair, this was also true of at least Toy Story 3 (I think people tend to forget its kind of wacky second act in the daycare), but the momentum of that movie's existential dread was so powerful that it kind of made everything cleave together by sheer force of will. Toy Story 4, on the other hand, has a much gentler emotional core, teasing out the implications of the final scene of Toy Story 3 by turning toy ownership into a religious/ideological framework by which toys form meaning—something touched on by the other movies but much more centered here. It's never as intense as either of the two previous Toy Story sequels, which is fine, since I like the relative subtlety of the first movie better; but unlike even that first movie, none of the existential concepts become a true backbone for the movie to hang itself on; these themes just exist alongside all the other pieces of the movie as simply "good ideas" that haven't done the work to fit with one another. Toy Story 4 is certainly near the bottom of the Pixar canon, and while it's not quite the studio's weakest or even just the weakest of the sequels, at least Cars 2 has a cohesive emotional core and story structure, ya know? On a completely different note, as weird as it is to say, I think Pixar's CG rendering technology is getting too good; the limitations of the tech in the previous three entries gave their worlds a cartoony look, while Toy Story 4 is as photorealistic as a Pixar movie has ever been outside of the landscapes in The Good Dinosaur, and honestly, it's distracting to a fault how different these characters look from their previous iterations when they have minutely detailed textures and lighting—everything's just so shiny and fuzzy in ways that my brain refuses to acknowledge. The worst is in a flashback of a young Andy, and while I never would have said I had any affection for the dead-eyed animatronic doll that was Andy in the first two movies, the realistically proportioned and textured boy we see in this flashback is almost unrecognizable as the character he's supposed to be, and it's more unsettling than any of the poorly aged CGI of the earlier movies ever was. Take it easy, Pixar. Grade: B-

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
Ugh, not another one of these zombie Christmas musical movies—enough is enough, Hollywood! But in all seriousness, it's a pretty good execution of that batty premise. I was never really feeling that connected with the character beats, so when the movie tries for some emotional gravitas toward the end, it doesn't do a lot for me. It's also got some pretty connect-the-dots music—but the lyrics are great. Also great is the cast, who are super charming even though the screenplay never got me that invested in the characters themselves. There are also some of the most fun gore effects I've seen in a zombie movie in a while. The zombie parts of the movie crib maybe a bit too liberally from Shaun of the Dead, but then again, my favorite moment of the film by far is basically a musical reworking of the Shaun gag where he's always improbably looking in just the right direction that he never notices the zombies around him. Good stuff, for the most part. Grade: B

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Finally catching up with this one, I guess. Bette Midler is having a great time, and that's contagious to an extent—which is saying something for me, who usually isn't too entertained by Bette Midler. And there are some kind of fun, old-fashioned effects, which are charming. The rest is pretty drab and mediocre, though. I don't hate anything here, but there's also not a whole lot for me here either. Millennials have terrible taste in their nostalgic favs, so the best I can say (and I am very thankful for this) is that Hocus Pocus at least isn't the worst of those. Grade: C+

Lady Frankenstein (1971)
A boilerplate Frankenstein story, only imagine that Dr. Frankenstein is killed by his monster at the beginning and his daughter decides to enact revenge by taking her aging romantic interest whom she will not have sex with on account of his aging flesh and putting his brain into a younger, more bang-able body that will, in addition to rocking her world, also allow said love interest to kill her father's monster, sating her vengeful spirit. Wild, right? But oh no! The boring boilerplate elements of the story basically overwhelm everything until like the last 30 minutes! Too bad. Grade: C




Books

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (2006)
The way this book combines typical coming-of-age tropes (first crush, new friends, new school, etc.) with a really complex wrestling with ideas like double consciousness is fascinating and compelling, and I love the tri-part storytelling structure, which breaks the novel into one third a realistic narrative about Chinese-American boy's experiences in a mostly white school, one third a pseudo-sitcom involving exaggerated racist tropes, and one third a re-telling of part of Journey to the West. Even before the ending ties all these together, it's not hard to understand how these three are all related thematically, each exploring the nuances of being a minority in a majority-white society. Very good stuff. The ending does end up linking it all—in a device I don't really find convincing, to be honest, and it's super-rushed, to boot. I wonder if the book would have worked better just leaving the connections between the three parts implicit, as I really don't think the book sticks the landing. Which is a shame. Grade: B+

Music

Chance the Rapper - The Big Day (2019)
After several mixtapes that were basically albums by another name, Chance the Rapper finally released what he's calling his debut album, The Big Day. It's sort of a worst-case scenario in some respects, as Chance takes the absolute worst elements of the past couple decades of big-budget mainstream rap albums (77 minutes long! too many features! freakin' skits!) and at the same time loses a lot of the ebullience and sonic personality of his mixtapes. Chance the Rapper has never been boring before, so I guess you could call this a new direction? It's not a total wash, though; people like to make fun of Chance the Rapper for his corniness, but I do think that's an asset here; The Big Day is pretty short on posturing and pretension, which I appreciate—if the most important things in your life are your family, your child, and God, then by golly, sing about that (and he does, a lot). There are also a few tracks that hint at the lush heights of Coloring Book, most notably the closer, "Zanies and Fools," which uses a gospel choir to interpolate "Impossible; It's Possible" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella alongside some pretty strong verses, and it's great. Wish I could say so of the album as a whole. Grade: C+