Eddie Huang’s debut film ‘Boogie‘ hit theaters last Friday, March 5th. I came into the theater with high hopes for the film and left with mixed emotions towards it. It’s a coming-of-age sports film with a plot similar to dozens of sports films before it. The character Alfred “Boogie” Chin (Taylor Takahashi) is an arrogant hotshot who has the talent to lead his team to success, if he could overcome his enormous ego and act like a team player. He dreams of someday playing in the NBA, but he must first land a scholarship at an elite college to begin that journey. He deals with the pressure that many teen athletes face, with parents with different views about what’s best for their son, on-court rivals and a girlfriend who unlocks emotions in him that he has never felt before. The only difference between Boogie and the protagonists of other basketball films is he’s an Asian-American.
This difference allowed for worlds to collide and for many Asian-Americans, it was something reflective of our own lives. As an Asian-American myself, the thought of a film set around a Chinese athlete BORN & RAISED in the United States excelling in sports had me anticipating the movies release the day Eddie Huang announced it’s production. The plot was there but the execution was not.
The majority of the film feels stale and under thought. There were numerous times in the film that the plot seemed scattered and many scenes seemed like they didn’t belong. This could be due to the fact of the passing of Bashar Jackson, better known as Pop Smoke, before filming ever wrapped up. Pop Smoke plays Boogie’s high school rival Monk. The role of Monk could have been recasted, but I find Eddie Huang’s decision to keep Pop Smoke as Monk admirable. It wasn’t an easy task keeping him in, but it was a great way to honor a talented young man taken away from us too soon.
There is little dialogue between the two characters and the way the film set the rivalry was rather awkward, with Boogie watching Monk from a distance with no interaction as he plays pick-up basketball games. In fact, many of the scenes had Boogie choosing staying silent over speaking up and standing up for himself, something that “high school big shots” excel at doing.
The film excelled in displaying Chinese culture and how first generation Asian-Americans live with the pressure of bettering their families. Boogie is not the average “model minority” asian many Americans are accustomed to and that’s what brings him his charm. He is the product of when Urban and Chinese culture collide. He listens to rap, talks with no remorse and lives his life in a way that breaks the asian stereotype. In the film, Eddie Huang makes it a point that asians in America have been reduced down to “Beef & Broccoli”, when we are so much more than that.
by Emily Nagle
Lady Gaga has shared a first look on social media at the upcoming biographical crime film House of Gucci.
The film is based on Sara Gay Forden’s 2001 book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. It will tell the true story of the murder of Maurizio Gucci (played by Adam Driver of Marriage Story and Star Wars fame), the former head of the Gucci fashion house. Gaga will play Gucci’s wife Patrizia Reggiani, who was responsible for arranging his assassination. This will be her first film role since 2018, when she played an Oscar-nominated role as singer-songwriter Ally Maine in A Star is Born.
Currently in Italy for filming, Gaga snapped a photo with Driver in front of the snowy Alps with the caption “Signore e Signora Gucci #HouseOfGucci” and posted it to Twitter and Instagram. The image has gone viral, receiving 4 million likes in a single day, and fans have made created memes based on the stars’ outfits, including comparing them to Bernie Sanders, Catherine O’Hara from Schitt’s Creek, and Chris Evans from Knives Out.
House of Gucci will be directed by Ridley Scott and produced by MGM, and is slated for release on November 24.
By Kurt Balingit
MGM has announced that Michael B. Jordan will make his directorial debut with the upcoming film “Creed III,” the latest installment in the Rocky/Creed franchise.The film, set to be released in theaters on Nov. 23, 2022, will have a returning cast of Michael B Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad. It is written by Ryan Coogler (“Space Jam: A New Legacy”) and Zach Baylin (“King Richard”).
Jordan will remain the star of the film, playing Adonis “Creed” Johnson, son of the deceased boxing legend Apollo Creed from the original “Rocky” movies. Apollo Creed was Rocky Balboa’s (Sylvester Stallone) former rival turned close friend, who was killed in his fight versus Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in “Rocky IV”. In “Creed II” Adonis was able to get his revenge by defeating Ivan Drago’s son Viktor (Florian Munteanu).
As Michael B. Jordan is set to direct and star in the upcoming film, he mimics his on-screen mentor Sylvester Stallone, who directed “Rocky II,” “Rocky III”, “Rocky IV” and “Rocky Balboa” in 2006.
Michael B. Jordan was excited to speak on the opportunity stating…
“Directing has always been an aspiration, but the timing had to be right,” said the director/star. “Creed III is that moment — a time in my life where I’ve grown more sure of who I am, holding agency in my own story, maturing personally, growing professionally, and learning from the Greats like Ryan Coogler, most recently Denzel Washington, and other top tier directors I respect. All of which sets the table for this moment. This franchise and in particular the themes of Creed III are deeply personal to me. I look forward to sharing the next chapter of Adonis Creed’s story with the awesome responsibility of being its director and namesake.”
Michael B. Jordan
by Emily Nagle
A little over a year after its launch, Disney Plus has reached 100 million subscribers.
The news was broken by Disney CEO Bob Chapek at a shareholders meeting on Tuesday, who added, “the enormous success of Disney Plus has inspired [Disney] to be even more ambitious, and to significantly increase our investment in the development of high-quality content.” Disney+ had already announced 94.9 million subscribers last month.
Chapek explains that the media conglomerate aims to create at least 100 new titles each year across any of its properties, including but not limited to Star Wars, National Geographic, and Disney Animation. “Our direct-to-consumer business is the Company’s top priority, and our robust pipeline of content will continue to fuel its growth,” he elaborates.
While the amount of subscribers for the streaming service has been skyrocketing each month since its November 2019 launch, one of the major contributions to its worldwide success was its launch on Star India, an Indian media conglomerate, last month.
This boom has helped Disney reach record-breaking numbers on the stock market, closing at $201.91 on Monday. This is a significant improvement from the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, when the company’s shares were at $79.
By Kurt Balingit
As one of America’s biggest movie theater markets, New York City opens up at 25% capacity, vaccine levels rising and recently president Joe Biden claims vaccines will be available for every American by the end of May. Every day life seems like it may go back to “normal” soon. Especially movie studios who continue to make schedule moves. Last week allowed studios a chance to test the waters again.
Box Office for Weekend of March 5 – 7, 2021
- Raya and the Last Dragon: $8.5M (Premiere)
- Tom & Jerry: $6.6M ($23.0M Gross Sales)
- Chaos Walking: $3.8M (Premiere)
- Boogie: $1.2M (Premiere)
- The Croods: A New Age: 788k ($53.6M Gross Sales)
“Raya and The Last Dragon” was the top grossing film over the weekend with an underwhelming $8.6 million at the domestic box office and did $17.6 million in box office returns in the global markets. This is the first animated film released to theaters by Disney since the pandemic began. The film opened to mostly positive reviews, but this did not guarantee box office returns. Last week’s box office winner, “Tom & Jerry” from WarnerMedia, raked in $13.7 million, the highest opening weekend since the pandemic started, for its premiere despite mostly negative reviews, including our review.
“Tom & Jerry” also tallied an additional $6.6 million in it’s second week in theaters. Those results, along with additional premieres for “Chaos Walking” and “Boogie,” and “The Croods: A New Age” and “Wonder Woman 1984,” helped this weekend’s box-office results to $24 million in total.
by Emily Nagle
[usr 1]
I was never super into Tom and Jerry as a kid, but I was familiar with them and their slapstick antics. With Cartoon Network being one of my go-to channels for years, it was one of those shows I’d sometimes watch in the mornings while eating breakfast, or if I was out sick from school.
When I watched the trailer for the new Tom and Jerry movie, I was initially a little skeeved out by the lineless, three-dimensional visual style of the iconic cat-and-mouse rivals. I understand they were trying to do something a little different from their usual 2D appearance, but it reminded me more of one of those AR Snapchat filters than animation for a feature film. Regardless, I decided to give it a shot and see how it was, since I’ve always admired animation. There’s so many different ways to do it, from CGI to clay to hand-drawn mediums. Based on the vibe you’re going for, there’s often multiple approaches that can be taken – you can go for a darker, creepier style, or you could create something on the bouncier, more colorful side based on what type of story you want to tell. There’s nothing wrong with trying out a different approach.
In the case of Tom and Jerry, the film was a combination of live-action and animation, with the plot being set in New York City and all the animals, even fish and birds, being animated with CGI. The animation style they chose felt out of place set against the real-life backdrop of New York City, and it was too brightly colored. The characters may have looked better if they had been portrayed a more realistic, textured style, like the animation styles used in Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog. Pikachu and Sonic started out as 2D characters, but the way they appeared in those movies worked because they fit the environment they were in. Since they’re supposed to be furry animals, their 3D designs were made to look fluffy, and almost like you could reach through the screen and touch them. With Tom and Jerry, however, the animated creatures look like somebody placed them into the scene from a completely different film. They don’t blend in at all with their environment.
Among this colorful cast of animals is a group of pigeons (all voiced by director Tim Story) – credited as the “Pigeon Announcers” – who don’t contribute anything to the film other than performing a rap at the start of the movie and telling the audience what’s going on, even when it’s clear what’s happening. When it’s finally the day of the wedding, they fly up to the camera and explain that to the viewer, even though we had spent the last 20 minutes watching Kayla meet with the bride and groom to get everything ready for the big day.
The human characters in this film aren’t much better. The people in it are flat and boring, and have no personality. The main human character is young, ambitious Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz), who talks her way into a job working an upscale, elaborate wedding at the swankiest hotel in the city by using somebody else’s resume. She walks into the hotel and scares a woman who’s applying for a job out of it, and then hands in that woman’s resume to the hotel staff, passing it off as her own and lying that she has all this experience that she doesn’t actually have. The movie delves a little bit into the bride and the groom’s dynamic, but it doesn’t really go that deep. Ben (Colin Jost) has visions of a big wedding, with the couple riding into the room on British-accented elephants, but bride-to-be Preeta (Pallavi Sharda) doesn’t see why it’s necessary for the couple to have all these things at their wedding, and just wants Ben to listen to what she wants. Why doesn’t she just talk to Ben? Who knows. We don’t really get to see much about the couple’s relationship, other than the fact that they don’t communicate about what they want. They don’t even open up to each other until the end.
So, where do Tom and Jerry come in? Even though the film is titled “Tom and Jerry,” it’s actually not even really about them. The two are more like side characters, as opposed to the stars. All they do in the movie is cause chaos by destroying the hotel and the wedding, as well as blowing Kayla’s cover, causing her to get fired from the job she never deserved in the first place. The slapstick humor that they’re known for doesn’t even last for half the movie. A teaser from last year shows us that they’ve left their home for some reason, but this is cut from the final film, so the audience is left wondering why Tom and Jerry are wandering around the city. What happened that made them end up here? Tom lives on the street making money by playing piano, while Jerry has a luxurious home living inside the walls of the hotel. When the kitchen staff (the head of them being played by Ken Jeong) discovers him, Kayla takes on the task of discreetly catching and getting rid of the mouse, so as to not ruin the hotel’s reputation or disrupt the wedding. Meanwhile, Tom is on the street and notices Jerry through a window, and pursues him, wrecking the whole hotel room. Kayla happens to be passing by and checks the room after hearing the commotion, and joins forces with Tom to get Jerry out of the hotel, reigniting the cat and mouse’s 80-year rivalry.
The jokes in this movie aren’t funny, either. I found myself cringing multiple times throughout the 101-minute film. A lot of the jokes were awkwardly delivered, or they just weren’t clever at all. One that stood out to me was when the couple first arrives at the hotel, and their dog Spike lashes out when he sees Jerry, to which Ben says, “I’m sorry, he’s a little animated.”
The film as a whole was disappointing and I didn’t find it to have any redeeming qualities. It didn’t have much in common with the traditional animated Tom & Jerry shorts, as it was focused more on Kayla and the wedding than on Tom and Jerry.
Tom and Jerry is being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and is available now in theaters, or free on HBO Max for the next month.
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