Since the release of Hamilton on the new Disney+ streaming service on July 3, 2020 one would have to guess that there has been a huge increase in subscribers, at least for one month.
Even for those who hate musicals, and I am one of those people, you cannot help but admire the enormous amount of work the creator of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda, put into composing so much music and rhythmic dialogue for a production that is over 2 12 hours long. Then add all the singing and rapping of so many words that the entire cast had to memorize for so many musical numbers in this long production. Years ago, nobody would have guessed that someone could make an entire musical from the life of Alexander Hamilton who lived from January 11, 1755 – July 12, 1804. At its peak, Hamilton was the most attended and popular musicals in the world.
This movie, that is only available on the Disney+ service is a recording of a Broadway performance in June 2016 at the Richard Rogers theater. It plays exactly like you are sitting in the audience, watching a Broadway play. Ever aspect of the production is excellent and I agree with the very high 99% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. For me the standout performance was the actor who played King George, Jonathan Groff. He was both an excellent singer and very funny during all of his standout musical appearances. The entire rest of the cast, especially Miranda were all outstanding.
Hamilton is a must see, for the high level of acting, music and production.
The new on demand movie “Irresistible” is both written and directed by John Stewart, and my first question is, why is this movie even called Irresistible? This title makes no sense, considering what this movie is about. The story of Irresistible is about the political process in this country, that is all about raising money and back stabbing and bad mouthing the other side. Its about the system being broken and is all about money and not about changing things for the better. The problem here is that the point of this film is lost in Stewart’s attempts to be different and because of this, most of this entire film does not make any sense.
First of all, why would a high level political operative, Gary Zimmer (played by Steve Carell), who works in Washington D.C. ever care about a small town Mayoral race in Wisconsin? This would never happen, so why not make Zimmer more local to Wisconsin?
The movie starts with Zimmer seeing a speech during town hall of a former army Colonel Jack Hastings, played by Chris Cooper and because of this one speech, Zimmer believes he would be a great candidate for mayor of a small conservative town in Wisconsin. What follows are mostly unfunny and disjointed scenes of a political campaign and even a trip to New York City to get funding for this mayoral race, in what turns out to be millions of dollars. Why would rich people in New York City give a great deal of money to fund a mayoral campaign for a small town in Wisconsin? There are several other scenes in this movie that looked like Stewart was trying too hard to be different, including one scene where an injured army veteran was dressed up and talked like a robot, because of his many strokes. I thought this was not only unfunny, but in very bad taste. The campaign manager Faith Brewster for the current mayor, played by Rose Byrne has an ongoing love hate relationship with Zimmer, and most of their scenes also fail pretty badly and are never funny.
The ending included the conclusion of an ongoing scam with the town, that did not work and was completely implausible. The ending is another attempt by Stewart to try something different that also failed. I had the feeling throughout watching this film that any new screenwriter would never get this screenplay made into a movie because it was just not strong enough. Only because of John Stewart’s clout was this movie pushed forward and financed.
My other question is that why are these on demand first run movies so expensive to buy at $19.99? You would think that because the movie has no distribution costs that it would be cheaper to make. Perhaps the producers believe that the only way to recoup enough money is to charge a ridiculously high price for a movie you can see in your home. Given that Irresistible is not a good movie, paying 19.99 is even more annoying for all who will see this film.
I agree with the very low 42% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and recommend this movie should be avoided to save the $19.99. John Stewart is very funny as a talk show host and a talented comedian and it must be hard for him to get all of these bad reviews. Sometimes it is better to not make a bad movie rather than produce something just to try and stay relevant in Hollywood.
The new movie “My Spy”, streamed on Amazon Prime is one of those forgettable films, because its so much like so many other stories about Spies and undercover Police that we have all seen before. For this film, nothing stands out as different or groundbreaking.
My Spy stars wrestler/actor Dave Bautista, who has been in more than a few movies the last few years – most of them about the same. Time will tell if he can create a movie career, anything close to the huge success of Dwayne Johnson, who has made many movies the last 15 years.
The story of My Spy is very similar to “Stakeout” that was released in 1987, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. It is so similar that the only real difference is the 9 year old girl involved Sofie, played by newcomer Chloe Coleman. She steals this whole movie, mostly during the scenes where JJ, played by Batista, who is a CIA agent, become friends – even to the point of Sophie bringing JJ to school with her, for show and tell of all things. Considering that JJ is a very experienced CIA agent, most of these bonding scenes with a 9 year old girl, do not make much sense. Sophie’s mother Kate is played by Parisa Fitz-Henley and eventually becomes the love interest for JJ, which is also the same plot line of Stakeout.
The bonding scenes between JJ and Sophie take place during the middle of this film, and are mostly not compelling enough to keep a person interested in watching. There are several moments where this film refers to other action movies of the past, including even “Raiders of the Lost Arc” at the end where JJ and a terrorist are fighting in front of a plane. Also at the end of the movie there is an attempt at humor, trying to make fun of action movies where the hero is walking forward, and something explodes behind them. I thought this was an interesting idea, but not enough to save this movie.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for My Spy are a low 51%, and I agree with this rating and do not recommend this film.
