The Disney Double Attack (Disney Plus/Hulu) was late to the Netflix/Amazon Party, and has fallen behind its chief competitors with its original movies. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any winners on the platforms. Especially because Pixar and 2022 Hulu really came for the streaming title!
Love can happen anywhere, anytime. Even in a bathroom at an art gallery. What follows after boy meets girl here is an adorable meet cute through Brixton, in the UK: a night either of our adorable youngsters will never forget, and the audience will laugh, swoon, and smile through, beginning to end.
Fresh will make you just stop dating, especially if you’re a woman. Daisy Edgar Jones has a meet cute with Sebastian Stan in a super market, which leads to a whirlwind romance. However, the more Jones learns about Stan, the less she likes, until it might be too late. Mimi Cave shows us a worst case scenario metaphor for modern dating, and all the incredible subtle maneuvers women have been forced to learn to prevent men from using the toxic masculine system against them.
I was never a big fan of the Predator movies. Until this one. Amber Midthunder gives a starmaking performance as a woman in a Native American tribe in the Great Plains in the mid 1800s. And then…a Predator shows up. What follows is the stripped down version of those over the top 80s Macho thrillers, finding a more interesting story in the 2020s, but still kicking a lot of butt.
Hollywood Studios underappreciate Andy Samberg’s talent. Not content to be just a comedian, Samberg produced and stars in this fascinating, self-aware movie about time loops that hits you emotionally pretty hard. Samberg and Christin Milioti are excellent as the couple trapped in the loop, going through the beats of one of these movies, but putting their own spin on the genre.
Fresh off exploring the mind, Pete Docter takes Pixar into a person’s heart. Soul takes Jamie Foxx’s stuck in life music teacher and has him enter the after life, and realize he doesn’t want to go yet. Taking Tina Fey’s lost soul under his wing, Foxx, Docter and Pixar take the audience through the soul of a person, how it gets formed and grows into a real life person as you could explain it to an 8 year old. Impressive stuff, as always from the animated giant.
Ah, the Jane Austen update she always imagined: at a gay beach vacay destination. You might not think it would work, but Joel Kim Booster’s toes the line magnificently, updating Austen’s manners to the rules of the gay community. Plus, too few movies make you feel like you were at an awesome party; Fire Island delivers the goods and then some. It made me want to plan my own kickass Hamptons getaway!
Sex. When we all hear that word, it conjures up something in our bodies, minds, and loins. But not all of us are rearing ready to go; we need some warming up. Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack are sensational here, showing through brilliant exquisite dialogue how barriers get broken down and word expression transforms into body expression. It’s complicated, messy, awkward, but ultimately satisfying, as I set myself up there I just realized…
I came to this movie after its release, and am bummed that I didn’t see it sooner. Bing Liu tells his tale and the tale of his friends skateboarding, growing up in Rockford Illinois. Liu’s personal recordings of his friends becomes a complex, loving, and tragic study of growing up in poverty, the unending chain of violence/abuse, and how one grows from a child into an adult.
Much of new Pixar is mired in sequel hell. Not this Domee Shi film though, maybe Pixar’s most daring. Shi takes the potentially traumatizing for children event of female puberty and makes it understandable without being gross, a near impossible feat. On top of that is an emotional story filled with lots to say about moms and daughters and their relationships. And 4 Town. Never met nobody…like U!
Questlove’s Jaunt completely blows the top off of what a music documentary can be. Using recently uncovered footage from the OTHER 1969 music festival, The Harlem Cultural Festival, Questlove makes these musicians and the people they represent other’d no more, framing the importance of that moment for the African, Latino, and all other marginalized cultures in Harlem at the time.
