Picoreview: Wicked (both acts): not bad, but way, way, WAY too long I have avoided the musical Wicked in all its formats because I hated the book with a deep and committed loathing, but many people I trust told me repeatedly that the stage show/movie is only barely based on the book. That, frankly, was not enough, last year, to commit myself to a 2 hour, 40 minute first act film of a stage show that is in and of itself only 2 hours and 30 minutes long. However, the…
Picoreview: Countdown – this was clearly not ever going to be very good, but having Jensen Ackles in it doesn’t manage to bring it up as much as I hoped. Countdown is an Amazon Prime vehicle for Ackles, and I can remember for about five nanoseconds at a time that it’s called Countdown: I keep calling it Crossroads, for obvious reasons (those reasons being “Jensen Ackles is in it”). It’s about a Very Handsome Man Who Is Tired Of Shaving and who is Kind Of An Asshole But Has Reasons…
Picoreview: G20 – a great Die Hard movie In this particular Die Hard movie, which appears to be an Amazon Prime original, John McClane is Viola Davis, President of the United States, Nakatomi Plaza is the G20 summit being held in South Africa, and the hostages are the leaders of the G20 nations. Look, all I can tell you is that it delivers on what it promises. Viola Davis is fabulous and has magnificent biceps, her family dynamic feels real, and an older Asian woman has an unexpectedly great role.…
Picoreview: F1 – unexpectedly good, but also hoo boy. I’d been wibbling about going to see F1, because Brad Pitt is Problematic and I’m not much of a car race fan, but also…I like movies, and it looked like it might be decent. Somebody whose film opinions I frequently agree with saw it and said it was, in fact, a terrific underdog story (a thing I’m a sucker for), but also that Pitt was “uncannily flat” in it. So I became kind of more interested in seeing it, because it…
Picoreview: Brave New World: This is the weakest of the Cap films, but it’s still in the top third of the MCU, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe the top ten, but I haven’t stepped back to do a top ten list lately. But I thought it was solid and sort of uncannily timely. Prior to its release (possibly in the relatively early stages of production) I’d heard that it was going to be “Sam’s journey toward earning the shield” which would have been FINE if they hadn’t JUST DONE…