After the Oppenheimer party that should happen tonight, we will enter the 2025 Oscar season. I know it’s still stupid early to really start predicting things, but it’s never a bad time to have things on your radar as the year moves along. Dune: Part 2 is absolutely going to be a major player as Part 1 won 6 awards at the 2022 Oscars. The next movies in theaters so far that should be in the award conversation won’t be out until May. Then, we get the next Planet of the Apes (Visual Effects) and Furiosa (Fury Road took 6 awards in 2017). Until then, there are some interesting movies that I have been looking forward to. Like Ghostbusters in two weeks. That is then, this is now. On to the reviews.
It’s getting pretty easy to guess the Screen Unseen movies lately. The last few have only really had one option. After two SU’s will no walkouts one the movie started and revealed things, one person dropped a “What the F***?!” when Hopkins first showed up, and left the theater 10 minutes later. Not sure what his problem was. This wasn’t that bad. The film tells the story of Sir Nicholas Winton and his efforts to rescue as many Czech children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia before the Nazis fully invaded. His group did this by transporting as many as they could by train to foster families in the UK. While the framework of the film works, and the emotional points (like what happened to the 9th train, or the tv show reveal) really hit their mark, the middle parts really is lacking. They seem to yada yada how Winton and the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia managed to pull off everything they did. Another minor issue is that the film ignores that other groups were doing the same. It wasn’t just them. Overall, this film was fine. It just won’t be one of the WW2 films I will watch a lot. It also doesn’t help, at least for me, that the Zone of Interest came out last month. I was already thinking about Schindler’s List during the film, for obvious reasons
I grew up in the 90s during the dawn of the Direct-to Video era. This one sure felt like it belonged in that time period. That isn’t to say the quality of the movie isn’t there. The animation was at the same level that Dreamwork’s other titles are at. What I’m talking about here is the story. It was just barely there. That is not helped by Dreamworks cutting the character list in this one by almost 2/3. There are only 5 returning characters (Po, Master Shifu, Mr. Ping, Li Shan, and Tai Lung). You will notice I didn’t say the Furious Five. They aren’t here, but cardboard cutouts are as a gag at the beginning of the movie when it gives away that they aren’t in this adventure. This just feels like a movie that Dreamworks placed as a stopgap because Wild Robot isn’t ready yet, and Shrek 5 is still too far away. They just had a Trolls movie, and they already have plans for another Dragons movie, to the Panda is the easy money grab. Kind of how I feel Cars is for Pixar. You might be reading this and thinking I’m being too harsh for a kids movie. I’m a 30-something with now kids, so this isn’t made for me. I get that, but there were kids in my theater. They stayed silent through the whole 90 minutes. They were laughing during the trailers for Inside Out 2 and Garfield, so I knew their reaction would give me an accurate feeling about how they thought the movie was. Katzenberg said in 2010 that they wanted to make 6 Panda movies in total. If they are as boring and lazy as this, just put the resources into another franchise, or god forbid, create something new.
This week is getting worse. I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a Horror fan. You will notice this over time as I skip reviewing them in the future. This seemed interesting though, so I tried and I wish I just imagined watching it. This was awful. Wise can be good in films, but she was bland in this one. The kid who played Alice was good, but the one playing her big sister was written as someone that just hated her stepmother, until told the story didn’t want her to anymore. I just wanted the movie to end, and it just wouldn’t. I have more things in this movie I really thought were stupid, but that would spoiler things, and I don’t want to do that for the 14 people looking forward to seeing it. I will say though it was better than a haunted pool movie though. Barely.
Two movies go wide this week, Arthur the King and Love Lies Bleeding. I don’t really see the latter making any noise in the Box Office, but former could. Still, I think it’s Dune and the Panda controlling things still.
1. Dune: Part 2
2. Kung Fu Panda 4
3. Arthur the King
4. Imaginary
5. Bob Marley: One Love
The plan is to continue the three movies a week again this week. I’ve got the two wide releases from above, and also possibly American Society of Magical Negroes or Problemista. Those are the limited releases this month and it’s always a chore to find the showtimes around here.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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