Over on the Box Office Madness page, there is something kind of depressing going on. With us now being three weeks into the Winter season, we only have 2 movies (Sonic3 and Mufasa this past weekend) that have grossed more than $20 million dollars. More sadly, only 4 have crossed the $10 million mark. The winter isn’t usually a big season for films as it’s the home to Dumpuary next month, but the real lack of any big players this month is surprising. Even our quartet of film being released on Christmas Day aren’t going to gross more than $25 million collectively most likely. We might not have a legit big opener until Dog Man at the end of January. Such is life when the winter hits I guess. On to the reviews!
For the longest time, I knew of this film being called Flint Strong. I say that as this has been a delayed project for a couple years. Filming for this took place in 2022, but work really began in 2020, which then was ended by COVID. Universal then dropped it, causing another delay. MGM would then pick it up, and here we are. So, did sticking with it through such issue pay off. I think it certainly does, but that is partly because sports biopics are usually a winner for me. This biopic is about Claressa Shields as she trains for the Olympics, and what happens after them. What you need to just forget about going in is knowing Shields is the best female boxer in the world right now, and the film does a really good job in not hinting really at what she would become. What we see in the run towards the first Olympics is how Flint itself rallied behind her. As I watch the Olympics every 2 years, communities supporting athletes is a major part of NBC’s programming. So all of that worked.
What the movie really hits on, and the part that I found most thought provoking, was what happens after she wins the gold. Which is basically nothing. That is something that way too many people don’t realize when they watch the Olympics. We see them compete and win, and the coverage makes everything so celebratory, but when everyone goes home, for the vast majority, life just continues. Bills still need to paid, and not everyone can be on the Wheaties box. Boxing fans know Shields will be ok, winning a second Gold at the next Olympics, then so much more, but it was nice that we got that 30 minute stretch showing what happens in reality for so many athletes. The only issue I had with the film is I felt that we spent too much time on the build up to the first Olympic run, that the run to the second Olympics was too quick. We could have cut 15 minutes from the first act, and added that to her second run. That is a minor quibble though. This was a good sports film, and might play pretty well when we get around the Summer Olympics every four years.
Anyone that knows me can kind of see what is coming here. I have long beaten the drum that Disney is creatively bankrupt at the moment in one for their film areas. One big reason Disney became Disney is by creating new stories, and making people grow to know those new characters. Then, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland happened, make a ton of money, and the genie was out of the bottle. So now, we are getting live action versions of all those classics. In 2019 we got the live-action Lion King, and I wasn’t a fan of it. I love the 1994 original, and the remake was just the same thing, just worse. Also, the live-action ploy just didn’t work for me with the animals, but I was in the minority I guess. The 2019 film grossed $543 million, and is currently #18 on the domestic all-time chart. That means we get a sequel, but those are lame, so let’s do a prequel. That is what we have here, and it works less for me than the 2019 one did. Prequels are tricky to pull of in the first place, but here we learn the following things: How Mufasa and Scar meet, Rafiki’s backstory, How Rafiki got his walking stick, how Zazu came to be in Mufasa’s service, how Pride Rock was formed, and how Scar got his name. Did we really need to know any of these things?
If they were so hell bent on making another one of these, why not do adapt Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride, or I don’t know, tell a new story with these characters? One thing I am reminded with this is that in the 2000’s Disney was toying with a Snow White prequel called The Seven Dwarves, which was rightly cancelled. In that we would have learned so much about the dwarves including that Dopey lost his voice witnessing his mother’s death. We didn’t need to see that, and we didn’t have to since it was cancelled as part of the changes when Disney bought Pixar. The same critical look should have been placed on Mufasa. There is a line from Jurassic Park the applies here spoken by the great Dr. Ian Malcolm: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Anyway, the next Disney release is live action Snow White, so get ready for me to get on my soapbox again.
This was an interesting thriller on Netflix with not a real complex plot. Egerton plays a TSA screener names Ethan and on Christmas Eve he is given an ear piece to wear. Through this he is now in conversation with a terrorist played by Bateman who want’s Ethan to let a package go through security or he will kill his pregnant girlfriend who works for one of the airlines at the Terminal. I won’t go into how things go down in the movie, but I will say I wasn’t bored. Not everything made a lot of sense, but when you go into these types of movies, you kind of let that go. This is going to be a short review for this one since anything else I want to say about it would give away how the plot unravels. These kind of films are best when you know very little about it before hand.
This was one of the big films to see at Chicago during the film festival, and boy howdy was it a lot of film. I know a lot of people who have issues when movies stretch past the 2 hour mark, so this is going to be a most likely no go for them with its run time of 3 hours, 45 minutes. There is a 15 minute intermission at least mixed in there. That is a shame because this is something to behold. The story is about the life of a Hungarian-born Jewish architect named László (played by Adrien Brody) who survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the US. What we see is how his life changes as happenings around him make his life different. The biggest change is when Guy Pearce’s wealthy industrialist comes in to play. He tasks László with creating a community center that has pretty much anything inside of it. This library becomes the white whale of sorts for the movie. We see how this project slowly consumes László, and things don’t improve when his wife and niece emigrate to join him when come out of the intermission. Brady Corbet has really created an unflinching look at how difficult like was for immigrants coming here from Europe. Lázsló was a celebrated architect before the War, but in the US, he was just selling furniture for his cousin before someone with deep pockets and a huge ego uses László to meet his fantasy. There is tough scene towards the end the kind of highlights how László is just a pawn. Awards wise, this will be a big player in discussions. Brody is a favorite for Actor, Felicity Jones is one for Actress, Pearce gives Culkin a real battle for Supporting Actor, and this should easily be a nomination for Picture. Corbet might end up being the real winner here. Most circles have Best Director going to Sean Baker, but Corbet is right there with them too. Having seen Anora and this, I would go with Corbet easily.
It’s Christmas week, and with it the usual Christmas Day avalanche of releases. The issue this year is that none of the 4 released Wednesday should make a tremendous amount of noise. There is possibility Nosferatu or A Complete Unknown catches on, but even if they do, the Hedgehog is still going to outrun them
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3
- Wicked: Part 1
- Mufasa: The Lion King
- Moana 2
- Nosferatu
As I’m up in the country this week, my options are limited. I only see one theater within 2 hours of my parent’s house that has Babygirl, so that might be where I see that and Nosferatu back to back. What a double feature. The real highlight for me this week is ending it with seeing Sonic 2 with the kids. They have been looking forward to it so much. It will be fun.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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