Westside Steve

Dumbo Walt Disney PG. 112 min I know it will sound a little bit odd if I say I was disappointed in this film since as you will see at the end of the review I give it a fairly high grade. Here’s the deal. This is Disney, not some fly-by-night movie studio being run out of a Bakersfield garage. Nobody, and I mean nobody, in the world does this kind of thing better. The original is one of America’s most beloved animated features and now with access to the most amazing modern graphics imaginable being remanufactured for a whole new generation. It really should have been an A+. And I’m serious when I say it looks spectacular. Tim Burton directed this and for all of his talents and shortcomings the guy really does make his films look more rivetingly surreal that almost anyone else. Unfortunately within that jaw dropping look you will find just a hint of creepiness. Unlike the pure and heartwarming charm of Disney’s recent MARY POPPINS, Burton just can’t help adding a little essence of skunk to the perfume. The original animated DUMBO was released in 1941, q very different time in America, and subject to the constraints of a very different level of animation effects. The new DUMBO is a louder brasher and even more violent flick. The Medici Brothers Circus has fallen on hard times. Trick riding cowboy star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) has come home from World War I with one less arm and two kids to provide for alone after the death of his wife. Circus owner Max Medici, (Danny DeVito) having lost so many of his attractions, is counting on the upcoming birth of a baby elephant to breathe new life into the show. When the time comes everyone is shocked and appalled by the look of the little pachyderm who has unnaturally huge ears. As the audience turns against the poor little creature Max and his crew feel all is lost until Holt's daughter makes an amazing discovery, that the little elephant can fly. With a flying elephant the circus is back on the fast track to success but now gains the attention of V A Vandevere (Michael Keaton) the unscrupulous owner of the world’s largest show who works up a deal to make Max his partner, and give all the Medici Brothers Circus performers a new home. Does anybody think he can be trusted? When Vandevere shows his true colors, and Dumbo and his mothers lives are now in jeopardy, Holt, Max, the kids and trapeze artist Colette (Eva Green) steer the film into an action adventure to save the elephants. Part of my slight discomfort was that it’s hard to accept one of Hollywood’s most charismatic guys, Keaton, as an evil son of a bitch. And it seemed to me Farrell was channeling Luke McCoy for the accent. It’s just that none of the actors are as lovable as you would expect Disney characters to be. Nobody makes a film quite as visually stunning as Burton but I don’t think he’s generally good with characters. Personally I think he could have hit the hook about the elephant not needing the feather to fly or the cowboy meeting his arm to ride a little harder, but it was there. Still that’s not a deal-breaker and I thoroughly enjoyed the film and I’m giving it a B. It was exciting and heartwarming and thrilling at various times, and I do love those mice. I just wish the masters at Disney turn this triple into a home run. B WSS

Captain Marvel Marvel PG 13. 125 min Okay gang, to be honest I had no real idea who Captain Marvel was. Apparently, and I had to look this up, Captain Marvel was a character from a group called Fawcett comics back in the 50s who were sued by DC for copyright infringement meaning that they felt the captain was a ripoff of Superman. Apparently they won because Fawcett dump the character and it wasn’t until the 60s that Stan Lee at Marvel Comics bought the trademark and gave the series new life. Last year the producers of the BLACK PANTHER found out that you can put out a mediocre superhero movie and as long as the main character isn’t a white guy you will make a lot of money and grab a lot of headlines. So what to do with the stale CAPTAIN MARVEL series? Bingo! I have no idea what kind of transgender surgery went on but all of a sudden he a she. Well frankly I didn’t think BLACK PANTHER was terrible, just way overrated. CAPTAIN MARVEL, on the other hand, sucks. Now before you get irate it’s not because it’s a female in the lead, WONDER WOMAN was great, it’s just a bad movie. 1. First of all you need to figure out how to our heroine winds up on Earth near the end of the 20th century when she’s actually from somewhere in the intergalactic future. Or something. There are two things going on in the future first some kind of a war between the Cree and the Scrulls. The Scrulls look a little bit like Orcs so we assume that they are the bad guys right off the bat. They can also metamorphosize themselves into any kind of creature and wind up imitating some of the other characters as the story clumps along. Brie Larson is Carol Danvers, (Ironically Stan Lee, may he rest in peace was imitative till the end. SUPERGIRLS Earth name is Linda Danvers) also Captain Marvel, is charged with protecting a super energy thingamabob created by her mentor Annette Bening. It just happens to look exactly like the glowing blue cubes that were the big problem in BLACK PANTHER. Apparently everybody wants control of that Cube and guess what, there’s a whole lot of fighting as they try to take it from each other. And a whole lot of blowing stuff up. Surprised? The bulk of the film, when it’s not completely consumed by explosions, violence and second-rate special effects, Danvers hangs out with Nick Fury ( the usually great Samuel L Jackson) and his family or the most interesting part is waiting for Jackson as fiery to drop an MF-bomb. Finally when the dust clears and we’ve traveled back and forth and time to give you a crick in your neck, everything is resolved at least until the next film when Marvel joins the rest of the Avengers for another two and a half hours of noise. Besides the surprisingly shoddy CGI, and a confusing and nonsensical story there is some second-rate acting going on here. I blame the director because I’ve seen Jackson in plenty of things in which he’s not asked to play a tough guy and a nerd in the same script. The usually compelling Jude Law plays his part like a villain in a B science fiction serial . Also the Scrulls rubber masks obviously make it hard to talk. Nobody in the sound room could overdub the voice? And for whatever reason Larson plays the main character with the look and feel of a Bob Evans waitress. It will undoubtedly make a lot of money but it still stinks. D WSS

Cold Pursuit Summit Entertainment R. 98 min Okay it’s Spring, right? Meaning that we in Northeast Ohio have just slog through the entire winter that are crossing our fingers we’ve seen the end of the snow. I thought it was especially appropriate that finally one of the most familiar figures in our neck of the woods is featured as the hero in an action thriller, namely the snowplow driver. Remember Mister Stanley, if it wasn’t for the snow plow driver we’d never even be able to see the white lines on the Highway. So the latest thriller starring senior citizen action hero Liam Neeson is COLD PURSUIT. On the plus side it’s supposed to be an action thriller and I usually like those especially when there’s some good old fashioned revenge involved. We know from the trailers that snow plow driver Nelson Coxman’s (Neeson) son has being found dead and the preliminary cause of death seems to be a drug overdose. Dad knows that his boy is not a druggie so the real reason must have been murder. And we're off. One of his sons dirtbag buddies spills the beans that they’ve been wrapped up in some sort of dope deal gone south. Dad puts together a plan to kill off all the members of the food chain, one by one, until it gets to the head drug lord, known by his gangland nickname Viking. (Tom Bateman). For the record all the bad guys have gangland nicknames. Viking is certainly a despicable character but there’s just enough asshole in his personality to keep him from being truly frightening. As matter of fact most of these desperados fall short of the intense hatred necessary to make a Revenge film work to its fullest extent. Don’t get me wrong we are still happy to see these mugs get knocked off but mostly they come off has more stupid than pure evil. Another thing that makes the revenge factor less compelling is that we never really meet and get to know Nelson’s son. If there was more of an empathetic connection I think the audience would feel worse about his unjust death. One semi interesting subplot is that Viking has mistakenly killed the son of an Indian chief, who just happens to take time away from the casinos and the reservation to be a rival cocaine kingpin. That means Vikings son is now in jeopardy. This particular film, set in Colorado, is the Americanized version of a Scandinavian project and book called In Order Of Disappearance. This, as I assume did the previous versions, keeps a running total of all the bad guys who meet an untimely end. This flick is listed as a dark comedy and while it is certainly dark enough it’s my opinion that the Scandinavians, for all their fine qualities, seem to fall a little bit short in the area of Comedy. Anyway despite the lack of excitement and real intrigue there is just enough of the poor man’s Coen brothers quirkiness to keep it from being a complete bore. Just not quite enough to earn it more than a mediocre rating. C WSS

The kid Lionsgate R. 100 min Here’s one that’s worth a little extra trouble, not a whole lot but I had to drive to the Valley View Cinemark who often have some films that don’t play in wide distribution. Why you may ask? Well in the first place I really like westerns and there aren’t many of them these days. Second it starts Ethan Hawke who’s a pretty good actor but usually flies just under the radar. His presence is not a guarantee of a great film, as a matter of fact even despite the short-lived Oscar buzz, I hated FIRST REFORMED, but that’s another story. Third, I was curious to see what Vincent D’Onofrio we do behind the camera. Well the kid here is William Bonney AKA Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) and this is a semi-biographical tale about him and his friend / nemesis Pat Garrett. (Hawke) How much is real and how much is artistic content who knows? I’m guessing the fictional part concerns the main story of the actual protagonist here, another kid, Rio, (Jake Schurr) who has run away from home with his sister Sara, (Leila George) after killing his drunk and abusive father. Things are looking perilous for the siblings as a nasty uncle is out to seek revenge for his ne'er do well brother. The kids find an abandoned cabin in which to hide out. Well not quite abandoned as presently it’s also in use by a band of outlaws led by the notorious Billy the Kid. The good news is that Billy takes a liking to the youngsters and sort of takes them under his wing. The bad news is that it’s not long before Pat Garrett and a handful of lawmen capture the entire bunch. Unwilling to confess patricide to the authorities Rio and Sara make up a story about a relative who will take them in when they get to New Mexico. That just happens to be where Pat is taking Billy to stand trial and presumably hang. So what we have is kind of a perverse buddy flick / Thriller as the company travels along getting in and out of various dangerous situations together. It’s not really an action-packed journey but there are plenty of exciting moments along with a satisfying but somewhat bittersweet ending. Besides Hawk, DeHaan is an unexpected bright spot as Billy, even though we’ve never seen the kid except for old photographs, he looks pretty much like them and is completely believable. Schull is a fine little actor as well, and we should be seeing more of him in upcoming films. D’Onofrio exhibits a steady hand directing the story through are rough and gritty landscape. Certainly worth the ride. B+ WSS

Ironic. That's just about your exact role here on the board. WSS

As if we needed more. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/18/kate-smith-god-bless-america-banned-yankees-over-h/ On the other hand you know who and you know who else are probably going to buy Yankee hats right now! WSS

Before the Revolutionary War almost everybody in the country was in agriculture oh, just trying to scratch enough food out of the ground to survive. Today maybe 2% of the population Works in agriculture and one of our biggest problems is too much food to eat. WSS

Scribbles from today https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2019/04/cleveland-browns-scribbles-john-dorsey-looking-for-more-from-2018-draft-terry-pluto.html

As the Democrat Party reaches its goal of turning once beautiful American cities into third world shitholes. WSS

Nancy Pelosi plans Monday meeting on Mueller report: 'Congress will not be silent' AOL.COM 33 mins ago House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) organized a meeting with House Democrats scheduled after the Easter weekend to discuss what to do next in response to the release of Robert Mueller’s long-awaited redacted report. Pelosi asked for the conference call to take place on Monday in a letter to Democrats. In her letter, Pelosi described the special counsel’s findings as a “grave matter.” The speaker also said the nature in which the Justice Department released the findings was “disrespectfully late” and “selectively redacted.” “The Caucus is scheduling a conference call for Monday to discuss this grave matter, which is as soon as our analysis and this Holy Season’s religious traditions allow,” Pelosi said. “Congress will not be silent,” she concluded. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I've had it, don't particularly like it. Black and white pudding on an Irish breakfast plate is a lot better. Scrapple reminds me a little bit haggis. WSS

Nobody really cared about it except people that hated Clinton. Perjury trap not much different than the stupid ass Mueller report. On the other hand, along the lines of Mary Ann or Ginger your choice... Monica or Melania? Or Melania or Michelle or Hilary? 😮 Maybe a better question Monica or Stormy? 😂 Personally I think the broken English is a plus. WSS

And the problem with that is exactly...? 🤔 WSS

"profound to get this dose of reality over thepast several years to see how far our entireculture has fallen. " Just reading your semi-literate commentary achieves that goal. WSS

Again it all depends on the programming. If you program the machine not to do anything the programmer doesn't like it will respond. If you teach a child antisocial behavior He will carry it through his adulthood. Ethics and morals have to be taught and or programmed. Morals and ethics have been created to bypass Human Nature in many instances. WSS