Movie Walrus: LeVar Goes To The Pictures Part II - Electric Boogaloo... THE REVEAL

12th place and 5 pts to
Mid90s (2018)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5613484/

IMDB wrote:

Follows Stevie, a thirteen-year-old in 1990s-era Los Angeles who spends his summer navigating between his troubled home life and a group of new friends that he meets at a Motor Avenue skate shop.

Have I Seen It Before: No

LeVar's Approval Rating: 62%

Review:
This was a decent enough indie film, and I enjoyed it for what it was, there were some elements I found really interesting, but overall it just didn't leave a huge impression on me. The main problem was it lacked depth, and didn't explore the characters enough, because I think the actors did a really good job and were compelling to watch, but they just didn't have enough to work with. I appreciate what Jonah Hill was going for and I quite liked his directing style, though I think he could have used an experienced co-writer on this to just guide him a bit and flesh out the script. That said, it was clearly a passion project for him and although he has a couple of writing and directing credits, this appears to be the first big project that he took sole ownership of the writing and direction, and there's certainly potential there so I'd be keen to check out more of his non-acting features in the future, when he has hopefully mastered his writing craft just that bit more. Sunny Suljic and Na-Kel Smith are two of the actors here I hope have great careers ahead of them because I thought they really stood out, although all of the core actors were really good.

13th place and 4 pts to
Gorillas In The Mist (1988)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095243/

IMDB wrote:

The story of Dian Fossey, a scientist who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought to protect them.

Have I Seen It Before: No

LeVar's Approval Rating: 54%

Review:
This is a fascinating story and Dian Fossey was clearly a compelling individual, so I did enjoy it in that sense, but I just felt it could have been a far better film and the end result was all a bit hollow. The pacing was my biggest issue here, the film meanders and faffs about on certain parts of the story for far longer than they have any need to, and then rush through the most exciting and interesting aspects as if they were more of an after thought. The script also lack any sort of energy and all of the characters feel a bit two dimensional as a result ; being a biopic doesn't mean characters are exused for being devoid of personality, artistic and dramatic liberties have already been taken as its not a documentary, so even if the people in the film are as dull as dishwater in real life (which I don't believe is the case by the way), they still need to be written as fully formed characters and breathe a bit of life into them. There's some solid actors in the cast and I think most of them did a decent job with what they were given to work with, but while I'm a fan of Sigourney Weaver I didn't feel a connect between actress and character (again this could be largely due to the script) and for me it felt like a bit of a miscasting as a result. All that aside, I did enjoy the bones of the story and as I said Fossey seems like a fascinating individual, so it wasn't awful or anything, but the overall package just didn't really work for me personally.

4th place and 13 pts to
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449059/

IMDB wrote:

A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.

Have I Seen It Before: Yes

LeVar's Approval Rating: 91%

Review:
I have seen this before, but it was back when it first came out on DVD and I was working in a Chartbusters (one of the greatest jobs in the world and the only reason I lament the death of video rental stores) and we just decided to throw it on the in-store screens one night when we expected it to be a relatively quiet evening, so I vaguely remember liking it even though I wouldn't say I gave it my full attention seeing as I was occasionally dealing with customers or shooting the breeze with whoever I was working with that day. Which is a long way of saying, I didn't really remember any of the detail outside of pretty much what it says in that IMDB synopsis above. I'm glad I was able to watch it without any distractions this time around, because it's just a great movie, that manages to hit you in all the feels along the way. Every character has purpose and a story arc of their own, and each is given their moments to shine throughout. There was a lot of hype about Little Miss Sunshine when it was first released, which often means it never lives up to the expectations, but this is an example of a film that fully deserved it's hype train. Not much else to say on this one, because not much needs saying aside from, it has a superb cast, a great script, and is just a genuinely lovely feel-good movie.

The Top 3 here scored a higher rating than #1 in the previous round, so it was a tough battle up the Top...

Top 3 and Bottom 3 (in alphabetical order)...

Alfred Borden
Arghus
Electric Nitwit
JP Liz V1
osh
Rikand

And naturally, they'll all need a few minutes to allow the nerves to build up...

3rd place and 14 pts to
Home Alone (2006)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/

IMDB wrote:

An eight-year-old troublemaker must protect his house from a pair of burglars when he is accidentally left home alone by his family during Christmas vacation.

Have I Seen It Before: Yes

LeVar's Approval Rating: 97%

Review:
There are very few Christmas Movies that I'd be happy about being forced to watch in April, and as a rule I only tend to watch Christmas Movies during the week of Christmas itself, but Home Alone is one of the exceptions to the rule. I mean who doesn't love Home Alone? You would have to be a monster not to love this film, which is ironic given that with the exception of Old Man Marly and Gus "Polka King of the Mid-West" Polinski, all of the characters in this film are monstrous in some way or another, but I genuinely love how awful they all are. I have always thought "Kevin McAllister: Rise of a Serial Killer" would have been a much more apt name for this given that Kevin was definitely trying to kill Harry and Marv who only survived the torturous traps because of plot armour and the fact that it is a "family friendly" film ; was a hundred percent the inspiration for the Saw franchise though and I refuse to let anyone convince me otherwise. I actually watch this pretty much every Christmas Eve as part of a double bill alongside Die Hard, and it wasn't until a few years that I realised that Harry and Marv being subjected to Kevin's House of Horrors only lasts 15 minutes in its entirety, but as a kid I always thought that made up about 90% of the film ; all that precedes that main event are actually the parts of the film I enjoy the most though, and the big showdown is merely the cherry on top. It's just such a shame that Angels With Filthy Souls isn't an actual film and they only made that one scene specifically for this film.
"I'm gonna give you to the count of 10 to get your ugly, yellow, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full of lead… 1, 2, 10! Keep the change ya filthy animal…"

15th place and 2 pts to
Whale Rider (2002)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298228/

IMDB wrote:

A contemporary story of love, rejection and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

Have I Seen It Before: No

LeVar's Approval Rating: 43%

Review:
The things that saved this film from being an absolute disaster for me were the fact I have a soft spot for the Kiwis, and I really really liked all of the actors in this. l liked the dynamics and relationships between all of the family members, as well as the extended community, and I wish the whole film was just that ; a standard familial drama going through their highs and lows. There's a fair bit of that in here to be fair, some really great emotional scenes between the various characters, especially in the first half with Paikea's father and grandfather, but the framework of the story which serves as the backdrop is all about the whales and spirituality, which was fine at the start when that was merely the backdrop, however it completely takes over for the second half of the film and I could not have given less of a sh*t about it. Everything gets tied in a neat bow in the end without actually resolving any of the various relationship dramas through dialogue or with any emotion whatsoever, the Whale bullsh*t just brings everyone together and solves all of their problems and suddenly its one big happy ending, which I'm sure is great for anyone who was invested in the spiritual side of this film, but for me it was a completely unsatisfying way to end the story and almost soured me against the film entirely ; after thinking about it for awhile though, I was enjoying the first half well enough and it had its high points, so I have to give it some credit.

2nd place and 15 pts to
The Four Times (2010)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1646975/

IMDB wrote:

A beautiful combination of an old man's struggle to continue his goathearding life; the birth of a baby goats; a tree which becomes charcoal; and the lives of the simple people in the hills of Calabria. We see the stages of life through beautiful imagery at times dramatic and at times comical.

Have I Seen It Before: No

LeVar's Approval Rating: 98%

Review:
Someone had told me about this one before. I think it had been playing at the IFI back when it was released and a friend was either trying to convince me to go see it with them or had even just been recommending it to me, so I looked it up at the time and it sounded like the biggest load of complete and utter artsy fartsy ****, meaning twenty-something me refused to go see it. Honestly, when thirty-something me saw it had been submitted, I still expected it to be complete and utter artsy fartsy ****, and it was one I was expecting to endure rather than enjoy, so I wasn't looking forward to it in the slightest, was even ready to get my red marker out and print a big fat F at the top of this report. I'm happy to hold my hands up and admit to being wrong though, and its healthy to be reminded from time to time not to pre-judge something, because this was just superb. It's a very simple slice of life story, there's no dialogue, and while its beautifully shot its nothing you won't have seen in a good nature documentary, but it all just works really well ; I found it very relaxing, and I was surprised by how invested I was in what was going on.

Which means either JP Liz V1 or osh is about to knock this out of the park, as I gave the top film in this round 100% approval...

The other just about scraped 22% from me... but what can I say, other than I can be a harsh critic at times... :pac::pac::pac:

Last place and 1 pts to
August Rush (2017)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426931/

IMDB wrote:

An orphaned musical prodigy uses his gift to try to find his birth parents.

Have I Seen It Before: No

LeVar's Approval Rating: 22%

Review:
Why the f*ck can't Jonathan Rhys Meyers do an Irish accent? He's from Dublin, he's Irish, he should not sound as terrible he does in this, especially since Kirsten Sheridan is the Director, and she's also Irish, so there's no excuse for how shockingly bad that accent is. Not a fan of Meyers in general, I struggle to warm to him in anything he's in, and this was no exception. The rest of the cast are all very good actors, I enjoyed their performances here, particularly Freddie Highmore and Keri Russell, although they didn't have much to work with as the writing is cringeworthy at best. It's also always great to see Robin Williams in a movie I hadn't already seen him in before, although on the list of iconic Williams performances August Rush won't be making the cut for me ; he's grand here, really nice to see him, but not a performance to write home about. The music ranged from bad to slightly tolerable with a hint of something decent, so for a film that music plays such an integral part in, that element was just a massive disappointment overall. I actually hated the overall premise, thought it was really convoluted and cheesy, and then it started winning me over a bit about halfway through, largely thanks to a couple of decent scenes, and I started looking forward to the inevitable reunion, but it ends up being a huge let down as the film just sort of ends abruptly (I can see what they were going for, but they hadn't earned that sort of ending as far as I'm concerned), so I found the ending completely unsatisfying just as the film had begun winning me over slightly.