Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | {Insert Appropriate Seasonal Greeting Here}

[Unholy Diver]

Moana 2 - 7/10

A clear step back from the original, big downgrade on the music going from Lin Manuel Miranda to whoever did this one, the story was also a bit thin, seemed like too much focus on the Moana's team to me than the actual story, villains also a downgrade, nobody as memorable as Tamatoa, not a bad movie, but nowhere near the first one


Wicked Part 1 - 8/10

I've never seen the stage version or read the wicked books, and I am not a huge musical guy, so your mileage may vary from mine, but I found the story to pretty enjoyable, the musical scenes were well done, and the film kept me invested and interested. Grande and Erivo were a good pair playing such opposites, and the rest of the cast held their own.

 

[kihei]

The Piano Lesson (2024) Directed by Malcolm Washington 6A

The Washington clan is slowly working through playwright August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, ten plays of which nine of them are set in that city. Denzell Washington has executive produced all three film adaptations so far, Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom being the other two, and starred in Fences. The Piano Lesson is directed by one son, Malcolm, and its lead actor is another son, John David. Washington's wife and daughters are involved as well, either as producers or supporting actors. August Wilson's plays focus on black American experience with his pitch perfect dialogue being reminiscent of Arthur Miller's best works. Indeed, it is embarrassing that Wilson's plays never received the same level of praise and reward that Miller's achieved.

The Piano Lesson is about a black family living during the mid-1930's in Pittsburgh whose heirloom piano becomes a source of conflict between a brother and sister, one of whom wants to sell it, the other who wants to keep it because of its importance to the family's history. A bit of a ghost story factors in on the decision making. While inexperienced director Malcolm Washington tries to extend the narrative beyond the stage with flashbacks and exterior scenes, The Piano Lesson remains clearly a play first and a movie second. As this is true of the other two films in the series as well, it seems fair to conclude that Washington and family are reticent to tamper with Wilson's works too much, an accusation of theatricality being less onerous to bear than a potentially wrong-headed and disfiguring adaptation. This is the sort of work where one expects the actors to have a field day and they do with one exception. Danielle Deadwyler is suberb and Samuel L. Jackson is better than he has been in years. However, as the headstrong brother John David Washington seems to be playing to the back rows of Yankee Stadium; his performance is way too over-the-top and it distracts slightly from the plays themes of a family's legacy and their relationship to the past. However, Deadwyler's Oscar worthy performance more than makes up for Washington's deficiencies.

Netflix

 

[Bahama Mama]

Terrific film.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/?ref_=chttp_t_52