June Movie Round-Up: Jurassic World Dominion, Lightyear, Elvis

Another summer month has gone by and a slew of blockbusters catering to various audiences have arrived in theaters. Whether you need some dinosaurs, space adventures, or a musical biopic, there's something for everyone.

Jurassic World Dominion: Go in with low expectations and you will be rewarded. This is a popcorn action flick with lots of dinosaurs running around and humans being hapless. As long as you know that, you will be fine. There are long action sequences that are quite thrilling and fun to watch as humans desperately try to escape the ever-growing number of dinosaurs they have unleashed onto the world. And as the conceit is that dinosaurs are now roaming freely through our planet, you aren't confined to watching folks screaming in a well-curated jungle. There are some urban set pieces to keep things visually stunning.

The actors are all trying their best (well apart from Chris Pratt, who literally just maintains one expression through the entirety of this film), and they are selling this script as hard as they can. But come on. This is supposed to be a movie about dinosaurs but instead it is a rambly, incoherent mess of multiple plots, including human cloning for some godforsaken reason, and half the time you are yelling at the screen, "Let's get back to the dinosaurs!" The best bits are when Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum are reunited and we get the original trio facing up to the disasters of the new century after all the drama they dealt with back in the 90s. And of course, Bryce Dallas Howard is as endearing as ever. But yeah, don't expect this movie to make sense or deserve an award for anything beyond excellent stunt work. It is pretty, but dumb. Oh wait no, just pretty dumb. 

Lightyear: This isn't a top-tier Pixar movie, but it's certainly funny and charming and will keep you wholly entertained for two hours. The opening credits are a little confusing, because they say that in 1995 a boy named Andy got a Buzz Lightyear toy - that toy was based on this movie. So I guess this is the movie that spawned the Buzz Lightyear action figure that Andy got in Toy Story? Anyway, that's the only connection to Toy Story - the rest of this film is just about Buzz himself, a Space Ranger who is stranded on an alien planet and determined to rescue the entire spaceship of people who crashed alongside him and his colleague, Captain Hawthorne. The kicker is that every time Buzz goes on a test flight to see if he can achieve the hyper speed necessary for everyone to leave this planet, he causes a weird space-time issue that results in him only aging a few minutes during the flight, but several years passing on the planet below him. So in classic Pixar fashion, there is a slightly sad story for us all to learn about the passage of time, and how to value your life.

The voice acting is great - Chris Evans is wonderful as the somewhat blustery but confident Buzz, and Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, and Dale Soules are vastly entertaining as a ragtag bunch of rookies who help Buzz on his mission. There's a lot here about having to rely on help from others, no man is an island, etc. But also, there's a very funny robot cat and lots of jokes and sight gags to keep you giggling. So buckle in and get ready for lift off.

Elvis: Coco Chanel famously said, "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off." Well, I wish Baz Luhrmann, director and co-writer of Elvis, had looked at this film during the edit and taken some flourishes off. It might have allowed a less chaotic cinematic experience.

Austin Butler is the best thing about this film. His portrayal of Elvis Presley is uncanny, never veering into caricature, and despite this film being way too long at 2 hours and 40 minutes, at no point did I ever find my enthusiasm wane for his performance. He is a powerhouse and destined for great things. In distinct contrast to his co-star, one Mr. Tom Hanks, who is playing Elvis's corrupt manager, Colonel Tom Parker. This man was a bizarre carnival charlatan who took advantage of Elvis and his family and was blamed for everything that went wrong with Presley's life. I don't know what Hanks is doing with this performance and his weird accent (Parker was an odd character, to be sure, so I am sympathetic that Hanks probably didn't have much to go on) but it certainly feels like he's in a completely different movie than Butler.

The movie acknowledges the many Black influences on Elvis's music and style, but ultimately this causes a cacophony of sounds that never quite mesh together. I found myself wishing for a scene where I could just watch Elvis sing a song all the way through without any other cinematic flourishes, but unfortunately, the soundtrack invariably would throw in two or three overlapping pieces of music and cause an auditory riot. The movie is a jumble and is trying to do too much, which ultimately means it does too little. I'm never a fan of birth-to-death biopics, so perhaps something that just looked at a week in Elvis's life would have proven more fruitful. But if you're a fan of the man, the myth, the legend, there's still a lot for you to enjoy here. It's a loving ode to an American icon that ultimately, like Elvis, starts out strong and then becomes a bit of a bloated mess. 

This Is Going to Hurt: The Perils of Medicine

This Is Going to Hurt is a seven-episode BBC series (airing on AMC+ in the US) that is a fictional adaptation of the memoir by Adam Kay, who also created and wrote all seven episodes of this show. Ben Whishaw plays Adam, an OBGYN doctor in an underfunded and chaotic NHS hospital where he is forced to work long hours with little support or guidance while making life or death decisions every day.

Adam's colleagues include: Shruti (Ambika Mod), a junior doctor who is overwhelmed and needs some care and attention but only ever seems to get sarcasm and criticism from Adam; Tracy (Michele Austin), the hospital's extremely competent head midwife who has her opinions on how these junior doctors are getting on with their work; and Non-Reassuring Trace (Josie Walker), the other head midwife who seems competent but unfortunately thinks every patient is about to die at any given minute. There are also the consultants, Mr. Lockhart and Ms. Houghton (Alex Jennings and Ashley McGuire), who Adam would love to learn from, but he rarely gets to see them as he is expected to hold down the fort and only call for them in an emergency. Needless to say, this chaotic state of affairs leads to some very dire situations. We also see the toll that this work has on Adam's personal life. He has a wonderful boyfriend, Harry (Rory Fleck Byrne), who seems gloriously tolerant of Adam's demanding life and the fact that he will flake out on plans at any given moment, but there's only so much that poor man can take before he snaps. Harriet Walter plays Adam's mother, an extremely judgy upper-class lady who makes his life rather difficult, while Tom Durant-Pritchard and Alice Orr-Ewing are lovely as Adam's friends Greg and Emma who will go through quite the journey with Adam over the course of this series.

This show is technically not a comedy. But it's British, which means that even though it is dealing with heinously dark subject matter, everything is punctuated by sarcastic quips and jokes that will make a horrified giggle burst through your lips. I have already ordered Adam Kay's memoir from the library because I need to know if the tone of this book is as darkly comic as this show, but the writing is a thing of beauty. The dialogue is always a battle, with characters seeking reassurance from each other and never quite getting what they want, and everyone being slightly disappointing until push comes to shove and it's all hands on deck. The stakes are impossibly high at every turn - obstetrics and gynecology is an unusual specialty where you are responsible for two patients at once, and we see how the consequences of Adam failing to treat a pregnant mother appropriately can have ramifications for her baby. Every scene of this show is stressful and chaotic, so I'm warning you right now that you might need to dole it out to yourself in installments, instead of binging it in a fever dream like I did.

My personal favorite character, of course, is Shruti, the young Indian doctor who is the first in her family to go into Medicine and find herself completely questioning her life decisions. I empathized so much with this woman's struggles - she was quite literally me as a medical student. Her story arc on this show is poignant and incredible - she starts out as such a mouse and is treated so abominably, but she gradually comes into her own. And then our paths diverge. No spoilers, but Shruti's fate on this show is exactly what I envisioned when I was working in hospitals. Which is why I left medicine. In fact, this is not a show for anyone to watch if they are still in the medical profession. After all, it's written by a man who left Medicine and is very focused on highlighting the struggle and daily pressure that health care workers are under every day to care for their patients. It captures the absolute apathy they start to feel towards their patients - you may enter this profession to make a difference, but you cannot get too invested because it will grind you down. But one episode also offers up a cautionary tale of public versus private hospitals - even if healthcare is free in the UK, there are disparities in the way wealthy people choose to cut the line and "go private," and this series offers a searing rebuke of that whole system. 

This is Going to Hurt is a brilliant portrayal of all the reasons I couldn't be a doctor. All I can hope is that the politicians and hospital administrators watch this show and think about how they can do a better job to support the people who do choose to remain in the medical profession. We must ensure they don't have to endure quite such a hellscape every time they walk into work. 

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: Sexy & Sweet

All I knew about Good Luck to You, Leo Grande was that it starred Emma Thompson as a woman who hires a sex worker after she has spent her entire life never having an orgasm. Also, I knew that at some point in the movie she gets completely naked. And frankly, that's all you should know before you watch this movie too. Within the first five minutes, I had a big smile on my face and knew I was going to love this movie, and by the time I finished it, I was in tears and convinced it was one of the best movies I had seen in my life. So, stop reading this blog post and come back when you've watched the movie, OK?

Alright you're back? Let's begin. This movie is so incredibly charming and sweet and sad and earnest and funny. Emma Thompson is staggeringly wonderful as Nancy Stokes (is that her real name...), a retired Religious Education schoolteacher who was widowed after 31 years of marriage that consisted of extremely boring sex. She has never had an orgasm and in a sudden wild moment, decides to book a sex worker named Leo Grande (definitely not his real name...) for a quick night of passion. Daryl McCormack is devastating as Leo, a kind and confident sex worker who knows that he is good at what he does, possesses a charming swagger that is calculated to put his clients at ease, but is also grappling with some personal issues that will come to the fore as he continues his association with Nancy.

The script by Katy Brand is a complex and intricate wonder, teasing out the insecurities and vulnerabilities that both of these characters have developed over their lifetimes. In Nancy's case, there's a lifetime of societal repression - this is a woman who has been held down by the patriarchy her entire life, and she isn't just going to come out of her shell in her first encounter with Leo. But boy, it is a delight to watch her transform from a horrified prude to a sex-positive evangelist for Leo's good work. And when Leo first struts into the room and soothes Nancy with his dulcet Irish tones, it's hard to imagine that this is a man who carries any baggage. But of course, Nancy needles him mercilessly and strips away those defenses. He is such a funny and engaging man, but when his walls come down and he lays his life bare, this movie really starts firing on all cylinders.

Director Sophie Hyde has coaxed out incredible performances from her two stars and gives this script enough time to breathe and develop and bloom into a gorgeous tale of friendship and self-love. The whole point of this movie is to be a judgment-free zone even though it starts out with Nancy being extremely critical of her decision to hire Leo and of Leo himself. But Leo's philosophy of never judging his clients eventually rubs off on her, and ultimately, this is a story about how wonderful the world would be if we all just stopped criticizing ourselves and each other and simply asked for what we needed. 

I was so happy for Nancy and Leo by the end of this film, but I was also devastated at the thought of how many Nancys exist in the world who will continue to languish in unfulfilling lives of quiet desperation, never being able to ask for what they deserve and never having a Leo Grande in their lives who looks out for their best interests. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande should be required viewing in every Sex Ed class - perhaps if we teach kids now that this is what open and honest communication looks like, they will grow into adults who promote a far more equitable society than the one we have today.

Pirates vs Preachers: The Righteous Gemstones and Our Flag Means Death

I finally made my way through two seasons of The Righteous Gemstones and a season of Our Flag Means Death. Get that HBO subscription because you are in for a treat.

The Righteous Gemstones: Oh where to begin? This is a show about a family that runs a megachurch, led by the patriarch, Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), with the eldest son Jesse (Danny McBride, who also created the show) waiting in the wings to take over alongside his driven wife, Amber (Cassidy Freeman). Jesse is  constantly squabbling with his siblings, including the ambitious Judy (Edi Patterson), who never gets to take the stage because she’s just a lowly woman, and Kelvin (Adam DeVine) who is a buff youth minister who hasn't quite come to terms with his sexuality.

The show is joke dense and utterly bonkers. In both seasons, major scandals are brewing and there are long story arcs involving mysteries and murders and all manner of shenanigans that have to be addressed so the Gemstones can maintain their reputation. For a show about a religious family, it contains some of the filthiest jokes ever, reams of scatological dialogue that would be heralded as absolute poetry if they weren’t so utterly profane. And this show is also single-handedly redressing HBO’s penchant for female nudity by giving us more male full frontal nudity than your eyes can handle. Seriously, scrotums seem to pop into frame for no earthly reason at an alarming rate.

This is a devastatingly funny and well-plotted show. The characters are intriguing and all unique weirdos in their own special way, and each season thwarts and/or builds on their ambitions in ludicrous fashion. Don’t expect any realism, but go into this for an over-the-top comedy that will make you laugh out loud and groan with horror when someone gets poked in the eye with a penis. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Our Flag Means Death: This is a great show, but perhaps one to dole out to yourself as a weekly treat rather than binge in one sitting. Set in the early 18th century, we follow the crew of the Revenge, a pirate ship captained by Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), an English gentleman who decided to abandon his wife and kids and take up a life of piracy because that seemed more exciting than gentle living (in writing this blog post, I have just discovered this is based on a real-life gentleman pirate named Stede Bonnet. Mind blown.) He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, of course, but that’s where the show excels, portraying a man who earnestly lectures his crew on self-care and improving themselves with literature instead of giving into the toxic masculinity of the pirate life. 

As the show progresses, the famed Captain Blackbeard (Taika Waititi) arrives, and though he initially meant to plunder the ship and kill all the crew, he unexpectedly finds himself beguiled by Steve and a friendship blossoms between the two. Well, I say friendship, but this is an exceedingly queer show where the crew have no qualms about hooking up with each other, and Leslie Jones has a cameo as a polyandrous mercenary on one of the islands, so that relationship eventually does blossom in other ways.

This show boasts an epic costume and production design budget - I have never wanted to live on a pirate ship more than when I first saw Stede’s remarkable library built into his private quarters. The actors are all swashbuckling about and having a grand ol’ time and there is a lot of fun to be had with the conceit of pirates who are less into bloody pillaging and more into fine silks. So give it a try. Your mileage may vary, but it’s well worth taking a quick cruise around the islands with this crew.

Chip 'n Dale & Fire Island: Sweet 'n Sassy

If you’re looking for a fun movie to watch this week, have I got two insanely good recommendations for you. Whether you’re looking for a PG-rated family-friendly flick or a decidedly R-rated hilarious and romantic gay retelling of Pride & Prejudice, you are about to be so entertained.

Fire Island: There was so much hype for this movie and thank God, it was all worthwhile. Directed by Andrew Ahn and written by Joel Kim Booster (who also stars as Noah, i.e. the Elizabeth Bennet character), this is a brilliant story about a bunch of gay men who are on their annual week-long pilgrimage to Fire Island. Bowen Yang co-stars as Howie (i.e. Jane), a man who yearns for romance, while his best friend Noah is trying to urge him to be more pragmatic and just focus on getting some action. Of course, they then meet the men (James Scully and Conrad Ricamora) who will be the Bingley and Darcy to eventually sweep them off their feet. But there will be some obstacles along the way.

This movie is such a joy in the way that it takes the world’s greatest straight love story and turns it into a stunning gay romcom. No matter what your sexuality, you will relate to these characters on a completely human level - I initially declared that I was Max (Torian Miller), who only wanted to read a book instead of partying on the island, until I realized that he was Mary, the impossibly dull sister; I quickly reneged to being Noah instead, because don’t we all want to be Elizabeth? As a connoisseur of all things P&P, I naturally spent this whole movie reveling in the wonderful script and update to these characters. In 2022, the querulous character of Mrs. Bennet is now being played by Margaret Cho as a jaded lesbian who serves as mother hen to a bunch of young gay men. Huzzah!

This movie has many laugh-out-loud lines, but it also packs a hefty emotional punch. It has a lot to say about toxic gay culture and how Asian men in particular can feel invisible or ugly because everyone is fixated on worshipping fit white dudes. It has a lot to say about chosen family and the importance of listening and supporting your friends even if they don’t want the same things as you. And ultimately, it is such a swoony and perfect love story, where you get to see some gay men get their happily ever after. The setting is perfect, the sunsets over the beach are resplendent, and this movie is an utter joy. Jane Austen would be proud.

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: When I went to Disneyland at the age of 7, the first autographs I got in my little notebook were from Chip and Dale. Since then, I had not thought about these characters until my boyfriend mentioned last week that this movie was out on Disney+. I went in with zero expectations, having seen no trailers or anything. And boy, at the end, I had giggled my little heart out and had a great time.

John Mulaney and Andy Samberg voice Chip and Dale respectively, and that voice casting is perfection. The action picks up in our present day, where their glory days of starring in the Rescue Rangers TV show are behind them and now Chip works as an insurance salesman, while Dale keeps going to fan conventions and is desperately trying to eke out some sort of solo career in Hollywood. He has gotten "CGI surgery," so one of the funniest aspects of this movie right off the bat is that Chip still looks like an old school animated cartoon character while Dale is now updated for the 21st century. This kind of meta commentary persists throughout the film which is a wonderful blend of animated characters and human actors, and is absolutely brimming with jokes and sight gags in every frame.

Written by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand and directed by Akiva Shaffer, it’s very apparent that this is a movie made by a bunch of fans who are deep into Chip 'n Dale lore with plenty of Disney Easter Eggs scattered throughout. It’s so funny and well-observed about what it feels like to be washed up in Hollywood, but it is also clever about animation and comebacks, whilst still featuring a mystery storyline that is perfectly in keeping with the original tone of the Rescue Rangers show. This movie is fun from start to finish and offers up just enough nostalgia wrapped up in 2022 social commentary. This is a movie for the original fans like me who are all grown up now but I’m sure kids could still enjoy it today and give Chip 'n Dale a brand new audience. Which is exactly what these characters would want to happen.