i tonya

It's the night of Christmas Day, and I'm still a bit on a vacation mood. Apologies yet again, but I'll get back to you on a review for this movie sooner than later.

the post

if you're reading this,..... Merry Christmas!!! Apologies, but I'm taking advantage of the holiday for a bit, so this review for "The Post" will be written up at a later time. It won't be too long though (unlike those other reviews...). 

the greatest showman

You would be forgiven if you decided not to watch "The Greatest Showman," due to the fact that while it proclaims to be inspired by a true story, it greatly seems to be rewriting history by making it more palatable. There are many out there that don't think too favorably to what P.T. Barnum did in his life time, and this movie seemingly wants to ignore most of that. There's also the whole subject about people getting exploited for profit to consider, and this story just gives a lightly serviceable take on that matter. Without a doubt, this film can be accused of being yet another fake Hollywood take of actual history.

The story is filled with tons of derivative cliches, a bit emotionally manipulative in multiple occasions, and it's important thematic messages are handled in very superficial ways. Now let's ignore all that for a second and judge this purely as a movie musical. Well just based on the first act, I was ready to dismiss it as being much too bombastic, over-produced, unnecessarily too flashy and loud. It seemed a little too full of itself and I wanted it to take things down a notch. To my surprise, it actually did just that, and then I started to genuinely have fun with it. 

One of the main saving graces of this movie musical is the soundtrack. The songs are catchy! Sure the topics cover your typical fare of being inspirational, self-affirming, uplifting, and emotionally moving. Did I mention that they are all pretty catchy? It helps that the majority of the cast actually sings their songs too! Combine all those songs to some very well choreographed sequences, and we've got ourselves a movie that does indeed work as a musical. 

Besides the songs, the other element that absolutely wowed me was the whole cast. Yes, Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Keala Settle, are all already known to be talented song and dance people, and they get to show off their craft on screen rather well. However, I was also highly impressed with everybody else in the supporting cast roles, from the rest of Barnum's circus-folk, the bartender, to even the daughters. I'm willing to re-watch this movie just for the song and dance scenes alone. 

There are clearly issues with "The Greatest Showman" of being uneven in it's overall quality as a story and as a movie, but I still can't deny that I ended up liking it anyway. The highs this movie musical has are pretty high, and that made a difference to me. So even though there are enough reasons not to support this film, you would be forgiven if you did anyway. 

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downsizing

A huge chunk of the film's beginning revolves around the reveal of this breakthrough scientific procedure called "downsizing." Then it proceeds into how it effects the world. How it's affecting the economy, the importance of helping the planet, "normal sized" people having prejudicial thoughts about the "small sized," the places where people who took the "downsizing" procedure lives, etc. All of that was great.

Just the social political and cultural discussions about downsizing were highly interesting. The premise is just all so infinitely fascinating. Here's the thing though. All of that happened during the first two acts of the movie; when our characters were still "normal sized." Go figure, but those are the best parts of this story. Once the act of downsizing actually happens, that's where the premise starts showing the problematic cracks surrounding the logic behind this concept. 

I think it doesn't help that this movie also kinda feels too self-important. Don't get me wrong, the main thematic messages that this story is trying to relay to us is admirable and laudable, but somehow it all falls a little flat. It might be because it's all just too heavy handed about the messaging. There are moments when it tries to lighten things up with a few jokes, or shows us some visually imaginative imagery, but in the end it still takes itself much too seriously. It's all still interesting sure, but it sure isn't as fun to watch as it probably should have been. 

You know what also doesn't help? The characters. I simply didn't care that much about the characters. It's too bad, because it's got quite the all star cast too, with Matt Damon in the lead as Paul Safranek. It's hard to feel invested with what happens to these characters, if the movie doesn't give me a more compelling reason to care.

I'll give the movie this though. It still made me want to see how it all plays out, and how it ends. I can't exactly call it boring either. I suppose it deserves some credit for that achievement at least. It's all just too unfortunate, because I'm far more interested in discussing the idea about "downsizing," rather than watch this movie called "Downsizing." 

loveditenjoyedit  IT'S OKAY  itsmehitsterrible