JoeMama's Movie Reviews

Paint Starring Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Stephen Root Directed by Brit McAdams A soft-spoken painter. Paintings of pristine landscapes. A wonderful fro. You'd be forgiven if you thought "Paint" was a biopic about Bob Ross, one of television's most iconic, endearing, and good-natured hosts - but you'd be mistaken. Instead, "Paint" is sort of a caricature of Ross, a man who, on the outside, embodies everything Ross stood for. But underneath is a man who uses his talent to take advantage of women, a man who yearns for the spotlight, and when his decades-long career is threatened, resorts to childish behavior all hidden under an unassuming monotone voice. Carl Nargle (Owen Wilson) has been the number one rated painting show in Vermont's PBS station for the last thirty years, and along the way his paintings have inspired people while making himself irresistible to women, especially Katherine (Michaela Watkins), whom had a relati...

Moving On Starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Roundtree Directed by Paul Weitz One of the major components that will make or break a film is the chemistry between the cast, whether platonic or romantic. If the actors involved in a project aren't that close in real life, no matter how good of an actor they are, it shows in the product - but if you got actors who know each other so well, have worked together for decades, and can easily work off one another, you've got something truly special. Thus is the relationship between Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, who've been starring in films together since 1980's "9 to 5," and have even starred in the long-running Netflix comedy series "Grace and Frankie" where both women have earned countless award nominations for their performances. Earlier this year they also starred in the surprise comedy hit "80 for Brady," and now they get together again for "Moving On," a dramed...

John Wick: Chapter 4 Starring Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Bill Skarsgard Directed by Chad Stahelski It all started with the tragic murder of a dog. Back in 2014, "John Wick" hit theaters with very little fanfare, starring a then-on-the-downswing of his career Keanu Reeves about a retired hitman who comes out of retirement to get revenge on the men who killed his puppy given to him by his late wife. The film earned $43 million dollars and re-invigorated Reeves' career, landing him some of his most well-known roles outside the classics like "Bill and Ted" and "Speed," while also creating a new series centering on his assassin character John Wick. Throughout the following sequels we dig deeper into Wick's past, learn that he's a wanted man from his former employers known as the High Table, and finds himself getting double-crossed by friends and foes alike. What made the film series such an entertaining and engaging one is Reeves' co...

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre Starring Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Hugh Grant Directed by Guy Ritchie My friend saw this film before I did, and she said it was like the script was written by an A.I. bot who was fed scripts of several spy films. I didn't think it would've been that obvious, but after watching this I'm inclined to believe her - the film feels like a stereotypical spy caper that we've seen countless times before, and much like the other films it parodies, this won't be remembered in the coming days, weeks, months, years, minutes, or seconds. When a mysterious briefcase containing some sort of thing that can bring about the destruction of mankind, or whatever, is stolen and held to the highest bidder, the British government brings in Nathan Jasmine (Carey Elwes) to find it before it falls into the wrong hands. He brings in his own team consisting of super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham), expert hacker Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza), an...

Women Talking Starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Frances McDormand Directed by Sarah Polley In a small Mennonite community in Bolivia from 2005 to 2009, 150 women and young girls were drugged and raped by the men of the community, and they would wake up not knowing what happened, but find blood on their sheets and legs. Their ages ranged from 5 to 65, and their religious rules prohibited them from seeking outside justice, and the men were free to keep up their sadistic acts. Eventually their abuses were reported to the Bolivian authorities, and the women testified at their trials, landing eight of the men to serve twenty-five years in prison. Canadian author Miriam Toews - a Mennonite herself - heard about the story and felt compelled to write a fictionalized version of events called Women Talking in 2018, and Sarah Polley crafted a screenplay and directed the 2022 film, which is a powerful, moving, and stunning story of the strength women hold and how their decisions s...

65 Starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman, Nika King Directed by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods In cinema there's movies that are so terrible you wonder why they were made in the first place. Then there's movies that, while technically there's nothing bad about them that make them terrible, you wonder why the heck they made it in the first place. These movies really don't tell a compelling story, offer developed characters, or even supply any decent action to make it worth you spending ninety minutes of your precious life watching it. "65" is one such movie: it's not bad, you don't feel like you wasted your time per-se, but you wonder what else you could've done with your time that would've been more meaningful: like clipping your toe nails, yawning, or standing in the middle of a rainstorm for no good reason. 65 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth, and humanity wasn't even heard of yet. Billions of light years away,...

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Starring Zachary Levi, Jack Dylan Grazer, Lucy Liu, Helen Mirren Directed by David Sandberg The DCEU is in disarray, with James Gunn taking control of the reigns and vowing to pretty much dismantle everything that the DCEU has done before and re-working it to fit his idea, which is unfortunate because films like "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," "The Flash," and the upcoming "Aquaman" sequel all seem inconsequential now in the grand scheme of things, as superhero films now aren't about their solo projects but how they advance the entire universe forward. For Shazam and his family, this concept looms heavy as the film itself is a passable one, with decent enough stakes and some hefty emotional moments with sporadic comedy thrown throughout, but ultimately it's just a shrug, a dying breath of a cinematic universe that wanted so badly to be the MCU, but failed epically on almost every level. After acquiring the power of the gods fro...

95th Academy Awards Predictions 2022 was an amazing year for films, the best post-pandemic and one of the best in recent memory thanks to huge blockbusters ("Top Gun: Maverick"), smaller independent thought-provoking dramas ("The Banshees of Inisherin"), remarkable animated films ("Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio") and, of course, "Everything Everywhere All at Once." While I typically fare well in picking my Oscar predictions, this year is a difficult one as there's hardly any obvious front-runner for the major categories, and that's all thanks to the impeccable films and actors, directors, writers, and everyone behind the scenes who were nominated. Still, here's my picks for who will win Oscar gold tonight. BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse The Flying Sailor Ice Merchants My Year of Dicks An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It I have not seen any of these short films, so I...

  Champions Starring Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, Ernie Hudson, Cheech Marin Directed by Bobby Farrelly The urban dictionary defines a basic white girl as "a girl who thinks she's so different from the others, but conforms to all of the popular trends" including "Starbucks, Chipotle, Instagram, selfies, and Snapchat." The cinematic equivalent of a basic white girl - in terms of sports films - could be defined as such: "a down-and-out minor leaguer who's so self absorbed they think the world revolves around them gets into legal trouble and must coach an [inner city, disabled, or overall untalented but with a lot of heart] team. At first they're totally against it and is only doing it to fulfill their penalty, but as time progresses they form deep connections with the players and teach them to play as a cohesive unit so well they advance to the [state, national] finals, but also along the way he receives good news for himself that threatens to diss...

Scream VI Starring Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett 2022 saw the re-birth of everyone's favorite knife-wilding killer(sometimes s) in a freaky mask, Ghostface, in "Scream 5," (or "Scream"), which served as a requel film to the original. A requel - in case you didn't know - is a movie that revisits the subject matter of an earlier film but is not a remake or a linear continuation of its plot (thanks Wikipedia), and "Scream" had a lot to live up to: most notably re-vitalizing a franchise thought long dead after one of its creators - the great Wes Craven - passed away. Thankfully, though, "Scream" proved that there was still some blood in the veins, crafting a great film that paid homage to the original, included the legacy characters of Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley, as well as introducing a new gang of youths who come under attack from t...