Change Your Image
JoElliot
Reviews
Family Camp (2022)
Best family movie in years!
It's so hard to find clean family movies these days. We even cancelled our Disney Plus subscription because we couldn't trust them to provide wholesome content that can be shared with the kids. We're stuck constantly watching stuff from twenty years ago, and it gets old. Enter this movie. It was family movie night, and my husband said he'd seen something on Amazon that looked promising. We watched the trailer and decided to take the chance. Thank you, Amazon Prime and Skit Guys! This movie was everything we'd hoped for: it was funny, the kids were cracking up, it had depth, was still lighthearted, had a diverse cast, and there was zero cursing or anything at all objectionable. Please give these creators a budget and a team, so they can start churning out more of these.
Elephant (2020)
Satyrical narration
The cinematography was beautIful, but the narration was very difficult to listen to - a strange parody of sweet. It gave the film an aura of satire, which is definitely not what you want paired to a documentary. It made the film unwatchable for us, which is rather unfortunate, because the visuals looked gorgeous and we would have loved to have seen it the whole way through. Hoping Disney produces something similar in the future. In the meantime, we will most likely give Our Planet another watch, or the series on the National Parks. All of these were beautiful and were paired with quality narrations.
Dopesick (2021)
Must-watch
Beyond being compelling, this series is informative and eye-opening. Like everyone else, I had no love for Big Pharma and saw it as a corrupt system - but I had no idea to what extent. What makes this series especially chilling is that it affects each and every one of us. We're all living under this system - we might as well know how it works. Dopesick grants you a peek.
In addition to that, the cast is flawless. Michael Keaton, Rosario Dawson, and the actress who plays Betsy are especially good, but the others (whose names escape me) were wonderful as well. I hope to seem them sweep at the Emmys. My favorite series this year.
Persuasion (2022)
Idiocracy is here
When I first saw the trailer for this, I thought oh, I guess they're making another snarky version of a Jane Austen novel. Might be fun. But then I saw the film, aaand oof..
There is no humor here. It's like watching a comedian bomb for two hours straight, all the while cringing at the actors' desperate attempts to make those lines work. Joke after joke (can we call them jokes?) fell flat. How does one make an Austen movie with zero wit? Did no one raise any concerns during production? And, most frightening of all - are there people out there who actually enjoy something this dumb? Have we as a society, really become this stupid?
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Like bad fan fiction
Couldn't wait for it to end. Extremely disappointing, since Ragnarok is one of the best MCU films. This one has a big Hiddleston-sized hole - he was a great foil to Hemsworth's Thor.
Tessa Thompson and Kat Dennings are both underutilized, Hemsworth and Portman continue to have zero chemistry, and the jokes felt like a comedian who is opening a set - and bombing. Just an all-around train wreck. I'm just
disappointed that I paid for tickets and given the MCU's record as of late, next time I'll wait until I can stream it.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
How'd Disney get away with it?
Genuinely curious as to how Disney got away with a PG-13 rating on this one - it's pretty violent and really feels more like a horror flick. On top of everything else, the plot was super lame and I found that really didn't care how it ended - I just wanted it to end. Marvel has been stumbling quite a bit as of late.
White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch (2022)
1:30 hrs of clickbait
It's incomplete, at best. Context is everything, and mall culture of the late 90s/early 2000s had specific aesthetics for each store. Express and Guess employees had high heels and were dripping in makeup, Tommy Hilfiger's had baggy clothes and fades, Hot Topic's wore head to toe black and lots of eyeliner. Abercrombie was no different. This "documentary" is an hour and a half of clickbait.
Bill Maher: #Adulting (2022)
The far-left is to 2022 as Puritans are to 1622
Its preference for silencing dissent at the expense of free speech, dogmatism over following the facts, vilification of anyone who dissents, etc. As for us voters, we've spent too much time on social media and in our own echo chambers to see the world as it truly is. We've forgotten who the real baddies are - totalitarian regimes such as China and Russia - and how our goal is to strengthen our republic in order to provide a better life for others, both in our country and around the world. Having worked in our school system, I've seen the essay testing of the late nineties become an exception rather than the rule, and as our focus shifted to standardized testing, our kids have not been extensively coached on the ability to analyze arguments, perceive nuance, and reach compromises. The world is perceived in black and white, rather than greyscale; true or false, rather than the "depends on..." essay form.
Of course there are plenty of measured adults and well-informed, analytical kids and, but we are the exception rather than the rule - on both the left and the right. We are the proud heretics and the true Resistance - and we love Bill Maher, because he consistently points out all the hypocrisy and buffonery that has plagued the Democrats over the last few years, as well as the ongoing trainwreck that is the Republican side. This special does exactly that - puts into words all the ridiculousness of the past few years and the heartbreak of those of us who've been lifelong Democrats. I voted Democrat on my first election in 2004 and have continued to do so ever since, but recently changed my registration to Independent. I have no interest in belonging to a cult.
So thanks, Bill Maher! You're the only reason we bother with HBO Max ever since the demise of GOT (but that's a whole other post).