Dumbo Review

4.5 Stars

Disney continues its recent movie trend of live-action remakes of their animated classics with 2019's Dumbo.  This is Disney's 11th live-action remake following hits like Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book, and Christopher Robin, though Christopher Robin was actually a live-action continuance rather than a remake.  And they won't be slowing down any time soon with previews already out for Aladdin, The Lion King and Little Mermaid.  And each one of these live-action movies gets more and more realistic and close to a perfectly imperceptible blend of CGI and actual actors and animals.

After a long string of weird, wonderful, fantastic and bizarrely beautifully haunting movies, Director Tim Burton has been somewhat quiet in the last several years.  He directed Big Eyes in 2014 and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in 2016 and produced Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2016, but this is the one Burton fans and Disney fans alike have been anticipating for years now since it was first announced he would be taking on the project.  

To add to the cornucopia of delicious movie ingredients, Burton has reunited with stars Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito for the first time since he directed them both in Batman Returns in 1992.  

In the live-action Dumbo, Timothy Q. Mouse has a couple of quick cameos, but is not the encouraging, mentoring friend and manager as was his role in the original cartoon. Instead, it is a pair of children who discover Dumbo's talent and hone his skills.  

In this version, Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) was a big circus star until he went off to fight in the war.  He did not return the same man: his wife had passed, he lost his arm, and he was left to raise his two children with the help of his circus family.  Circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) purchased an Asian elephant, Mrs. Jumbo, who was due any day with a baby that would bring a new spark to the dying, struggling circus.  When her baby is born, Medici is shocked and embarrassed by the enormous size of the baby's ears.  Since Holt can no longer perform horseback, the act that made him a circus star, he was charged with caring for the elephants.  Medici charges Holt with fixing the baby's giant ears while he gets to work demanding a refund for the faulty elephant.  Mrs. Jumbo is hauled away, but when Holt's children discover that Dumbo can fly, the are convinced that his aerial feats will draw enough crowds and make the circus enough money that they could buy Mrs. Jumbo back and reunite them.  When word of the flying elephant get out, entrepreneur V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) and circus aerial acrobat Colette Marchant (Eva Green) show up to make the big-eared wonder a super star and give a permanent home to the flailing traveling circus.

The animation, as it appeared from the preview, was nearly flawless.  Burton and Elfman are nearly flawless, especially when they work together.  And having Keaton and DeVito back together was just perfectly fantastic.  There were many throwbacks to the original cartoon, but Burton definitely made this live action film his own.  As I mentioned, we got to see Timothy Q. Mouse a couple times.  I liked the choice in his use of the storks when it was time for the miracle of birth.  It was great to hear Elfman's original yet distinctly recognizable music.  Hearing his take on the classics like Casey Junior and Baby Mine (get your Kleenex ready) and Elephants on Parade.  In the cartoon, Dumbo accidentally drank some of the clown's booze and blew elephant bubbles from his trunk during that song.  The way Burton worked that into this movie was clever.  And, I won't give it away, though I missed the crows singing When I Seen an Elephant Fly, the way he payed homage to that one was as perfect as could be done without actually having the crows back in the movie singing it.

One of the biggest challenges animators still have with CGI is when actual actors interact intimately with their CGI counterpart: walking down stairs, dancing, flying, especially when Dumbo has such an awkward flapping style of flying.  The way Burton accommodated his animators by his choice of shots was genius and made for flying scenes that did not take you away from the movie at all.

I have been excited to see this movie for a long time now and I gave an enthusiastic 4.5 Star Prediction to Dumbo.  I am sticking with my 4.5 Star Rating and the only reason really that it wasn't a perfect 5 stars was because of Holt's daughter who played such a major role in the film but lacked any kind of emotional range throughout 95% of the movie.  I don't know if it was her acting choices or a director's guidance, but she had the same lack of emotion when Holt came home without an arm, when her dad was dismissive of her desires to leave the circus, when Dumbo began to fly, when Dumbo was separated from his mom, when their small circus was bought by V. A. Vandevere.  No facial expressions, no emotion in her voice or eyes.  It was just flat.  But, other than that, I thought it was well worth the money in the theatre, one I'll want to see again and again and will definitely add to my collection as soon as I can.  So, what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Dumbo 2019 Preview

Disney is continuing its recent movie trend of live-action remakes of their animated classics with 2019's Dumbo.  This will be Disney's 11th live-action remake following hits like Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book, and Christopher Robin, though Christopher Robin was actually a live-action continuance rather than a remake.  And they won't be slowing down any time soon with previews already leaked out for Aladdin, The Lion King and Little Mermaid.  And each one of these live-action movies gets more and more realistic and close to a perfectly imperceptible blend of CGI and actual actors and animals.

After a long string of weird, wonderful, fantastic and bizarrely beautifully haunting movies, Director Tim Burton has been somewhat quiet in the last several years.  He directed Big Eyes in 2014 and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children in 2016 and produced Alice Through the Looking Glass in 2016, but this is the one Burton fans and Disney fans alike have been anticipating for years now since it was first announced he would be taking on the project.  

To add to the cornucopia of delicious movie making ingredients, Burton has reunited with stars Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito for the first time since he directed them both in Batman Returns in 1992.  

Dumbo is the story of an baby elephant born into the circus with comically large ears.  He is unwelcome by the other elephants.  During a parade in town, a group of boys tease Dumbo incessantly to the point that his mother must defend him.  For her protective instincts, she is locked away as a dangerous elephant.  Dumbo is alone save for his only friend Timothy Q. Mouse who is determined to look after the pachyderm.   Timothy is able to convince the circus ringmaster to let Dumbo be the top of the elephant pyramid, but he trips over his own ears causing harm to the other elephants.  

The next morning, Timothy and Dumbo wake up in a tree.  A group of crows convinces them that Dumbo flew up there.  Back at the circus, Dumbo's newest trick is to jump from a burning building to be caught by clown firemen as he plummets into a tub of water.  With the aide of a black crow feather and the encouraging words of Timothy, Dumbo flies through the circus instead of plunging into the water.  Dumbo becomes an overnight sensation and the star of the show.  He and his mother are reunited and given a private luxury car on the circus train with Timothy as his manager.

In the live-action preview, we get a peek at a character who looks to be Timothy Q. Mouse, but it's pretty clear from the peek that he will not be performing the same role he did in the original cartoon.  Instead, it is a pair of children who discover Dumbo in a pile of hay.  While there are allusions to similarities to the original film, it is also clear that this will be a very different version of Dumbo.  One thing is for sure, though: the scene that made everyone cry in the cartoon will be there in the live action as Dumbo and his mother share a tender moment outside of her prison cell.  The famous song from the cartoon is Baby Mine.  The preview has a hauntingly beautiful version playing as only Burton's best music buddy Danny Elfman could compose.  

In this version, Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) was a big circus star until he went off to fight in the war.  He did not return the same man.  Circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) enlists Holt's assistance in watching after Dumbo, the newborn elephant with giant ears who is the laughing stock of the struggling circus.  When Holt's children discover that Dumbo can fly, entrepreneur V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) and circus aerial acrobat Colette Marchant (Eva Green) show up to make the big-eared wonder a super star.

The animation looks nearly flawless.  Burton and Elfman are nearly flawless, especially when they work together.  And having Keaton and DeVito back together is just perfectly fantastic waiting to happen.  I've been excited to see this movie for a long time now and I'm giving an enthusiastic 4.5 Star Prediction to Dumbo.  I think it will be well worth the money in the theatre, one I'll want to see again and again and will definitely add to my collection as soon as I can.  So, am I right?  We shall see.  

Spotlight Review

3.0 Stars

Spotlight refers to the group of investigative reporters who work for The Boston Globe.  The group has been there since the 1970 and will often spend months working on a single story.  In 2001, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) comes in from Florida as their new editor-in-chief and asks the current team to put their latest investigation on hold and look into allegations of a Catholic priest's sexual abuse against a minor and the potential cover-up.  Retiring editor Walter "Robbie" Robinson (Michael Keaton) and his team of reporters are hesitant at first, considering Baron to be an outsider just trying to stir things up.  Eventually Robbie and his investigators Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James) agree to the story and find the truth is much worse than one priest and one child.

My only concern was the potential for deep lulls in the movie pulling the investigation and interviews together for their story over the course of the 2 hour and 8 minute film.  The "lulls" of the investigation were actually the driving points of the film.  Each stone the team overturned revealed more abuses, more victims and more cover-up on what turned out to be a global scale.  I gave Spotlight an anticipatory 3.5 stars  as I had a feeling it would be entertaining, moving and bold, but probably one of those films that seeing it once or twice would be enough without feeling the need or desire to own it.  I actually lowered it half a star.  Again, it's tough to rate these movies on their creative license when they are based on true stories, however, the main purpose of these reviews is to gauge how accurately the film as portrayed in the preview.  The preview for Spotlight made it seem like religious leaders, politicians, lawyers and more would be vehemently blocking the team's investigation and story at every turn.  In truth, it really wasn't that difficult for them to find attorneys, victims, and even perpetrators who were willing to come forward to help them piece their story together.  There was a lot of talk about how powerful the church was and the reach of their control with friends in influential places, but little action to that effect throughout their digging.

Spotlight was, as anticipated, disgustingly moving and disturbing.  It was well-written and brilliantly acted by the entire team, but a bit less dramatic than the preview lead me to believe.  I enjoyed it, might watch it again, but most likely won't be making it to my home collection.  So, what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Spotlight Preview

In February 2016, Spotlight beat out The Revenant, Martian, Room, Mad Max, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn and The Big Short for Best Picture of the Year at the Oscars.  Spotlight refers to the group of investigative reporters who work for The Boston Globe.  The group has been there since the 1970 and will often spend months working on a single story.  In 2001, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) comes in from Florida as their new editor-in-chief and asks the current team to put their latest investigation on hold and look into allegations of a Catholic priest's sexual abuse against a minor and the potential cover-up.  Retiring editor Walter "Robbie" Robinson (Michael Keaton) and his team of reporters are hesitant at first, considering Baron to be an outsider just trying to stir things up.  Eventually Robbie and his investigators Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James) agree to the story and find the truth is much worse than one priest and one child.

In their pursuit of the truth, the Spotlight team must dig deeper and reach higher to discover just how much the Archdiocese knows about the scandal and what has, or more importantly has not, been done to eliminate such abuses.  While doing so, they try desperately to keep their findings a secret until they are ready to release their story so as not to be beat to the punch by competing agencies.  Their challenge grows as it's not just other news organizations they have to worry about, but powerful religious and political forces that will try to shut down their story.

Ruffalo and McAdams earned Oscar nominations for their supporting roles and Tom McCarthy was nominated for his work as the film's Director.  McCarthy and partner Josh Singer won the Oscar for best original screenplay.  The preview looks powerful, disturbing and awful.  The all-star cast looks like they will not disappoint in their performances and the story is one that would tear at anyone with a heart.  My only concern is the potential for deep lulls in the movie pulling the investigation and interviews together for their story over the course of the 2 hour and 8 minute film.  I'm giving Spotlight an anticipatory 3.5 stars.  I have a feeling it will be entertaining, moving and bold, but probably one of those films that seeing it once or twice is enough without feeling the need or desire to own it.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Birdman Preview

Birdman or (The Unexpected Vitrue of Ignorance) was the 2014 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture of the Year.  In fact, it was nominated for 9 awards and won 3.  Michael Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone were all nominated for their performances.  Unfortunately, I was not able to see this one in the theatres before the Oscars; however, based on the movies I saw and the previews of the nominees, this was my pick for Best Picture, so I have high hopes.

Keaton plays the title role of Riggan Thomsan who was made famous 20 years ago for his portrayal of a comic book superhero Birdman.  After making three movies with the character, Thomsan only became known as Birdman and it took over his life.  In a post-mid-life crisis, Thomsan attempts to establish himself as a true artist and separate himself from the Birdman character by writing, directing and starring in a Broadway show that he co-produced with his best friend Jake (Zach Galifianakis).  Thomsan stakes his reputation and his money in the project and will do anything to make sure it goes well.  And it goes anything but well.

The preview shows Thomsan battling the Birdman persona both internally and externally.  He seems to be haunted by an inner demon that won't let it go; and, try as he might to ignore the voice inside, he has every critic, friend, family member and fan doubting him and keeping the comic book character alive.  It looks sad, funny, tragic, hilarious, deep, and original.  Some of the special effects in the preview that show us we will get to see acted out in real life what is going on in Thomsan's unstable head look to be spectacular and way over the top in a very good way.  Each actor looks to give a performance well-deserving of their Oscar nominations.  I am truly excited to see Birdman.  I expect it will make it to my home collection and I'm giving this a 4.0 star prediction, maybe even 4.5.  Am I right?  We shall see.