tina fey | the m0vie blog

216. Soul – This Just In (#178)

Posted on January 9, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Deirdre Molumby and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Pete Docter and Kemp Power’s Soul.

Music teacher Joe Gardner catches a once-in-a-lifetime break, the opportunity to play on stage with the legendary Dorothea Williams. Joe boasts that he could die a happy man, which makes it doubly ironic when a freak accident sends Joe hurdling into the Great Beyond. However, Joe is convinced that a little thing like death won’t keep him from living the best day of his life.

At time of recording, it was ranked 178th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: African American, black, death, deirdre molumby, graham day, jamie foxx, jazz, meaning of life, pixar, soul, the great beyond, tina fey | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Soul

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Darren

Soul is ambitious and well-crafted.

If Onward had been positioned as the populist Pixar film this year, then Soul is a counterproint. It is a prestige piece for the company, something similar to Inside Out or Wall-E. After all, Soul is the latest project from Pete Docter. Docter has been part of the Pixar brain trust since its earliest days, even working on the stories for Toy Story and Toy Story 2. However, Docter’s most recent high-profile work has been his scripting and directing duties on Up and Inside Out, two Pixar films to have been nominated for Best Picture and to win Best Animated Feature.

The afterlife and all that jazz.

The premise of Soul is suitably abstract. Joe Gardner is a music teacher who always dreamed of being a successful stage musician. One day, a former student gets in contact with him, offering a gig with jazz legend Dorethea Williams. Joe manages to land the gig, and is convinced that his fortunes are about to change for good. Naturally, dramatic irony strikes, and Joe finds himself sent to the afterlife. Refusing to accept that his life is over, Joe commits to doing whatever it takes to get back to Earth and live his dream. “I’m not dying today,” he vows. “Not when my life just started.”

Soul deals with very big ideas in a remarkably clever way. The film creates a compelling and fascinating imaginary world that recalls both Riley’s internal life from Inside Out and even the afterlife depicted in Coco. Docter also uses the story as a meditation on weighty subject matter like death, dreams and disillusionment. It’s bold and striking, and the film largely works as a showcase for the company’s imagination. However, Soul does stumble slightly in its final act, pulling its punches ever so slightly as the film reaches its denouement.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, disney, jamie foxx, Movie, non-review review, Pete Docter, pixar, review, soul, tina fey | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Wine Country

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Darren

Wine Country should be a slam dunk.

The appeal Wine Country lies in its central cast. Wine Country assembles an impressive selection of older female comedians and drops them into a fairly standard premise that should allow them room to bounce off one another and enjoy themselves. It is a tried and true comic formula, the unleashing of a set of comedic personas on a familiar plot, the sole purpose of that stock set-up being to avoid getting in the way of the chemistry and charm of the cast. Wine Country has quite the cast; Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell and Emily Spivey, along with supporting turns from Tina Fey and Cherry Jones. That should be enough to get any comedy half way home.

Toast of the town.

The actual plot of Wine Country is fairly simple as such things go, but this is a canny move. Wine Country is designed as a cast showcase, and so the plot’s primary function is to serve as justification for bringing (and keeping) these characters together so that the film can bounce from one scene to the next. Wine Country is the story of a group of friends who come together to celebrate a fiftieth birthday, traversing the eponymous region while each dealing with their own personal and professional crises. Character traits are arbitrary, and their arcs simplistic; in many cases, it seems like the characters were developed through nothing more than vague word association, a collection of generic adjectives (“busy”, “immature”, “obsessive”) thrown into a hat and selected at random.

While this does hold Wine Country back, it isn’t the biggest issue with the film. Quite simply, Wine Country is put together in a frustratingly clumsy and haphazard manner, looking a feeling like a cloying made-for-television movie that somehow stumbled upon a phenomenal cast. The film looks flat and over-lit, even allowing for the sunny Californian setting. Many of the jokes feel lazy and obvious, grabbing the lowest hanging fruit; perhaps appropriate given how much time the film spends in vineyards. The soundtrack is awful and on the nose, slowly and loudly suffocating any genuine emotion the film might attempt to evoke. There’s no doubt that the cast and crew making Wine Country had a great time making the film, but none of that carries over to the finished product.

‘Til the (fri)end of time.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: comedy, female friendship, film, may poehler, Movie, review, the trip, tina fey | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Bridesmaids

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Darren

It’s kinda interesting. Bridesmaids opens over here a month or so after it does in the States, so I’ve had the opportunity to pick up quite a significant amount of chatter on the film, as a good film tends to attract on the information super highway. Most of the discussion around the film has been centred around the movie’s gross-out humour, with reviews branding it as “The Hangover in heels”or some such, and a great deal of discussion focusing on the fact that it demonstrates women can do that sort of disgusting and crass physical comedy. Such a discussion seems to be just a little bit over-the-top, as the movie really only features three absurdly crass set pieces (one of which admittedly opens the film, another competes with anything else in a comedy this year, and the third is tucked away in the credits) – so much so I doubt anyone would bat their eye if the same level of juvenile conduct were contained in a film about a bunch of dudes. It’s a damn shame that this seems to monopolise the conversation on Bridesmaids, because it’s actually just a really good film.

Maids of honour?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Annie, brides, Bridesmaid, comedies, comedy, feminism, films, funny women, greg kinnear, Hangover, John Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Movies, non-review review, review, Rose Byrne, the hangover, tina fey, weddings | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Baby Mama

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Darren

Baby Mama is effectively a “buddy” chick flick. Indeed, considering that the bulk of buddy guy flicks – like Lethal Weapon or The Expendables – are about guys doing stereotypically “macho” stuff (grrr… explosions and guns and fights and stuff!!!), it’s perhaps appropriate that this movie pairs off its two leads doing something stereotypically “feminine” (awww…. babies and maternal instincts and things…). The premise and the message of the movie are difficult to get a hold of (it by turns mocks and reinforces a conventional liberal perspective, particularly in its portrayal of class conflicts), but works at its best when it lets its two tremendously talented leads time and room to work – there’s a reason that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are competing against each other for that Emmy this year. Despite its fairly heavy subject matter, the movie arguably finds its feet as a conventional “odd couple” comedy – which is a shame, as that’s only one of many things it’s juggling.

Guess which one's white trash...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: amy pehler, baby mama, comedy, feminism, films, greg kinnear, modern families, motherhood, Movies, non-review review, review, sigourney weaver, single motherhood, steve martin, tina fey, unconventional families | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Date Night

Posted on April 29, 2010 by Darren

Date Night is a perfectly okay film (okay, maybe a tinsy bit better than “perfectly okay”, but “a tinsy bit better than than a perfectly okay film” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as it should). It essentially coasts off its deliciously old-school comedy-of-errors premise and the charisma of its two leading actors (plus their ensemble of cameo! friends), while never really trying too hard or ever really hitting a note of pitch perfect comic genius. There are no lines you’ll be quoting to yourself for weeks afterwards (except maybe “kill shot!” every time somebody tilts their sideways gun at you – but I’ll assume that doesn’t happen too often).