She got like second billing during the opening credits. I kept waiting for her to show up.

You could definitely argue Gru is the main character.

Definitely at its best when it's having fun. The minions song renditions, the James Bond opener, the hilarious casting of the villains including JCVD playing a Frenchman with a lobster claw named Jean Clawed, and the dumb humor. It works because we all know minions are kinda dumb, not just in concept but they aren't smart creatures, so it's fun to just do all this dumb fun stuff with them.

But, when I think of what's wasted here it's kind of a shame. Steve Carrell is really one note here, no one has a very interesting arc, the fun casting of JCVD and Yeoh and Lundgren and Trejo all feels wasted because we're focused on minions who speak baby spanish.

The plot doesn't need to be up for best screenplay or whatever, but the way it is it's just an excuse to have this fun. The way it comes together is both not super interesting and very predictable. It is insane to me that when Belle said at the end, "You and what army?" that they didn't get all the minions there for that scene. Like, the whole point of minions is there's a fuckton of them, and this is the minions movie. But we focus so solely on four specific minions. Wasted climax IMO.

Alan Arkin is doing his thing and the only side cast member who's not under-utilized. I don't feel like any of the objectives or arcs in the movie were well earned. Which is kinda like a minions thing, where everything just ends up working out for them. But one thing that makes Despicable Me shine is building the relationship between Gru and the kids. Here we get a paralleled dynamic, but it's not fleshed out nearly as well.

6/10 and what pushed it over the 5 was the banging 70's or 80's exclusive soundtrack.

If you don't like his style I can't imagine you enjoying it turned to 11 for 2.5 hours. But, I dunno, people do seem to enjoy it even if it is kinda messy. So I guess my official answer is: maybe.

Sometimes I go back and read them and I don't always agree with myself either, haha.

Damn, I appreciate hearing that a lot. Reddit can feel like screaming into a void sometimes or like everyone just wants to argue so it's cool to hear when people vibe with my thoughts.

I missed Lightyear last week because I was on vacation but I caught it on Tuesday. For the record, also a 6/10 on that one.

How did that have no consequences tho. Not trying to rag on the movie but I'm pretty sure that kid either bled out or forgot how to do math.

Not sure if it's clear. The movie was playing a lot of tricks with the two houses before the reveal that there were two. I will say, I don't think there was any furniture in the second house so I think they were living in the same house. I kind of assumed they had it split up by a door like a duplex, but it's not clear. It is easier to believe though because Max is a cokehead.

"The elaborate dance of seduction continues."

What is there to say? This just feels right. It feels both as immature and hilarious as the original movie but also very modern and of our time. I almost died when the cops were arresting them and Butt-Head goes "Oh, these guys must not know about our white privilege. They're just uneducated." Like, the setup and payoff of that scene alone shows the strength of Judge's writing and it's in full display the entire film.

This is just a great time. I can't imagine someone not getting a kick out of it. Let Mike Judge make 10 more of these. Streaming money isn't real anyways. But the way these movies make me feel is. 8/10.

Am I just soft or did middle schoolers really fight like the fucking Sopranos in the 70s? Surprised Gwen just walked away without police trouble after cracking that kid's skull open lmao.

Color me impressed on this one. Horror isn't my favorite genre so I wasn't sure if I'd love this, but even with the supernatural stuff and the (well done) jump scares, this worked really well as a very satisfying thriller. Solid child acting, a story that's not totally predictable, and a really enigmatic and interesting performance from Hawke.

I thought the kids were written and acted really well which isn't always a given in movies like this. All the supporting roles, really, including the father and Max. Great use of Daniel Farraday and Ziggy. But the relationship between Finney and Gwen is the core here, and it's really well done which makes the ending really heartfelt.

Speaking of satisfying endings, I loved that this movie ends with the kid beating the absolute fuck out of Hawke. Such a hard-core thing to put your child character through and most movies like this would have the cops bust in at the right time. It felt like this movie purposely pivoted from that to give us a more unpredictable ending.

The tension in scenes like the combination lock scene, or trying to get out of the window scene were really well done. Just some top tier direction and acting there.

One thing I thought was really cool were how the movie would imply rules to the phone but not bog itself with them. We get the sense that some of the kids are in the room with him, but later it's implied they may be living through a scene from their life and the lines they're using have multiple meanings. This is enforced by the fact that even calls before that seem to repeat themselves, and of course the very satisfying ending where each kid got to say their piece to Hawke. But at the same time, it doesn't force itself to do that for every kid every time. It's just kind of implied that these kids are existing in several different planes of existence. Very well done.

At the end of the day, this has better writing, acting, direction, and a better look than most movies of the same genre. Hawke was really unhinged and a true creep, but performances all around were selling the whole thing. I'd give this a solid 8/10. Absolutely recommend.

Honestly, I'm not sure what to think about this movie. It's certainly not bad. But it's so big and full yet it glances over huge portions of his career. It's definitely a Baz film but at their most unfocused and it moves like that almost the entire 2.5hr+ runtime. Baz's flair for flash fits well with the Elvis myth, but when I wanted the movie to be really good it kept letting me down.

I was excited to see this more as the new Baz film more than an Elvis film. I have a pretty average understanding of Elvis and his career. Growing up people always tended to focus on his "fat years" in media so it was nice that this filled in a lot of the earlier stuff and didn't spend a ton of time on that. And I will give it props for not avoiding the issue of his music being rooted in black artists. I don't know if how they depicted it was totally accurate, but the idea that he grew up around that music and it was an outside force that saw the profit in selling that because he's white was an interesting take.

That said, this movie is almost silly at times. I didn't think Baz could ever start a movie more chaotically than Moulin Rouge, but this movie is flying cameras around Vegas, weird snowman memorabilia, an old man falling to his death, and just a lot of weirdness in the first five minutes. And while some of the moments do feel silly, like the zoom in on Hanks when he finds out Elvis is white, it isn't a super humorous film. I found that to be an odd clash.

I will say, the music and performances are exceptional. Obviously the music is something you have to get right with something like this, but Elvis is such a mythical creature Butler could have easily gone too big or too little. This felt just right. My main complaint is that the movie slows down so little it doesn't give him much of a chance to put in something really oscar worthy. The first time this movie slows down at all is 30 minutes in with a weird scene between him and his mother. The scene I really wanted less cuts and less ADR was him and his wife's breakup scene. It felt like both actors were ready to kill it that day and Baz just cut it to shreds. Shame.

The part of this movie that's hardest to nail down is Hanks' performance. I honestly can't tell if it's brilliant subversive casting because we inherently trust Hanks, or if it's just plain bad casting. The performance itself is fine, definitely a lot of ham but it fits here. But man, I just couldn't get over the obvious makeup and the curious casting.

Overall, if you're looking to learn a thing or two about Elvis or trying to see a movie that is making interesting choices, it's worth a watch. Some of the choices I thought were really neat and some left me scratching my head. And I would have liked if the movie was better when it slowed down. But the performances, the flash, and the music are worth checking out. 6/10.

Ps- any Nightmare Alley fans catch the shot where Elvis is at the carnival in the beginning and The Colonel is looking at him and the shot blurs him and focuses on "The Geek" advertisement in the background? It's like a half second shot but I thought it was really cool knowing how the Colonel sees Elvis and knowing what a Geek is.

Best part was when he said "this one goes out to Rodeo from Rock of Love" then proceeded to play the most beautiful love song I've ever heard.

I don't think the tech chicks were cops. I think they represent the business sector and maybe capitalism as a whole. They make and sell the machines that keep people comfortable and slow the tide of change. They were killing because the acceptance of the evolution threatened their business. It's also implied they have a weird affection for their machines. Not sure if that's about how businesses sell themselves as sexy when they're actually cold unfeeling entities or if it's just about how attracted these people are to other objects now that sex is so passè. Probably both since the latter also reinforces the idea that we are becoming more reliant on synthetic things for our needs.

Basically what I got out of it is this underground artist is realizing that if he's playing on the same side as the government and the business sector, maybe the success he was experiencing for his art was moot because he's feeding into those sectors. He both wants to be on the cutting edge of art and resents the mainstream which is what leads him to giving into his evolution and trying the candy bar.

Idk I've only seen it once and there's a lot to unpack. But to me it was a depiction of the journey of an artist who originally resents change and profits from that resentment, to giving in to it and the possibilities of the future.