Tag: 2025

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To Kill a Mockingbird (novel)

To Kill a Mockingbird (novel)

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My journey with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t begin in high school, where students typically become acquainted with it.  Instead, it began with an article published in the Washington Post on November 3, 2023, titled “Teachers tried to dump ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ The blowback was fierce.”  As someone who typically reads classic literature, I was curious why anyone would want to take Mockingbird out of the required curriculum.  The novel, first published in 1960, has been considered as one of the great works of English literature since it was published.  Why would educators want to pretend it no longer exists?

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Nobody 2

Nobody 2

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Back in 2021, Nobody introduced the novel concept of seeing Bob Odenkirk play a violent action hero.  That incongruity worked surprisingly well, so it’s no surprise that a sequel would be forthcoming.  Nobody 2 picks up where the last one left off, with Odenkirk’s Hutch trying to be a family man while simultaneously working off his debts by way of dangerous assignments from his government handler.  While the movie has the same violent action sequences that gave the first one such a kick, it lacks the angry verve that helped the original rise above similar punch-fests.

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Weapons

Weapons

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The fact that Weapons begins with its most haunting images tells you something about what writer-director Zach Cregger has in store for us.  The movie is ostensibly about seventeen children who disappeared at the same time, but Cregger’s ambitions extend beyond that.  Although Weapons is a horror movie, it’s also surprisingly insightful in what it says about how tragedy affects us, the risks associated with everyday human kindness and the lonely plight of victimized children.  And on top of all that, it’s very funny.  Weapons is a big canvas horror movie that takes big swings and connects every time.

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The Bad Guys 2

The Bad Guys 2

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When you’ve played the villain your entire life, it takes more than a single good deed to change perceptions.  That’s the quandary these Bad Guys find themselves in.  They bought into the whole tail wagging thing last time around and used their talents to do a whopper of a good deed, but their past transgressions are still etched within everyone’s memory.  Did they make the right decision in breaking good?  Or should they revert back to what everyone still holds against them?  The Bad Guys 2 shows that it takes time, hard work and believing in yourself to make that happen.  I’m not sure if this movie’s target audience will appreciate the philosophical argument discussion that’s happening alongside the slapstick and chaos, but their parents can explain it to them later, I suppose.

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The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun (2025)

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When Liam Neeson agreed to star in The Naked Gun, he knew he had big shoes to fill.  If you’ve seen the previous movies in this franchise, you probably heard those words in the voice of leading man Leslie Nielson, a dramatic actor who quickly mastered the art of the deadpan delivery.  You may also have envisioned the 6’ 4” Neeson stumbling around in a pair of noisy clown shoes.  That’s the challenge with following up one of the greatest comedies ever made, filling those iconic shoes.  While Neeson is up to the challenge and the movie is funny, it’s not in the same league of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker films from the Eighties and early Nineties.

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Eddington

Eddington

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Eddington may represent a first for cinema, a mainstream movie making light of a modern pandemic.  To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a humorous take on SARS, Ebola, the opioid crisis or AIDS.  This isn’t to say that such a movie couldn’t have been made.  As George Carlin once noted, there’s no topic that’s off-limits when it comes to comedy.  However, using a traumatic event like the Covid pandemic as the source of laughs requires a take no prisoners approach, no matter how insensitive it may be perceived.  That’s the fundamental problem with Eddington, which is too selective in the targets and too gentile in how it handles what it does take aim at.  The movie is timid where it needed to be ruthless, circuitous when it should have been forthright.

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Jurassic World: Rebirth

Jurassic World: Rebirth

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Remember Nedry, the fat guy played by Wayne Night in Jurassic Park?  Rebirth hopes that you do, because its opening scene is a weird callback to his character.  Seventeen years ago, before the events in Jurassic World took place, the scientists at InGen were just starting to experiment with dinosaur DNA.  One scientist curiously tries to eat a candy bar just before entering a controlled environment.  The guy is a slob and carelessly drops the wrapper just before he enters a sealed chamber with a dinosaur in it.  The wrapper gets sucked into the door’s ventilation and shorts it out.  Uh oh.  In the rush to lock everything down, the candy bar guy is left staring face-to-face with a very nasty dinosaur.  The lesson here is to not be a slob, because the repercussions are fatal.

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F1: The Movie

F1: The Movie

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F1: The Movie would have been an entertaining movie regardless of who was cast in the leading role.  It’s infinitely better with Brad Pitt in the driver’s seat, though.  As one of the few remaining actors who is also a star, Pitt gives the movie its electricity.  It also helps that he’s comfortable with putting his rugged good looks on display again.  If Pitt had insisted upon obscuring his good looks with glasses, a beard and long, scraggly hair, few would want to see that movie.  (If you got my reference to Pitt’s supporting turn in The Big Short, congratulations!)

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