{"id":17771,"date":"2022-04-20T00:32:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T00:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17771"},"modified":"2022-04-19T19:32:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:32:59","slug":"pass-the-popcorn-pass-the-wand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/20\/pass-the-popcorn-pass-the-wand\/","title":{"rendered":"Pass The Popcorn, Pass The Wand"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY KEN STOKES<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s Easter, but this year resurrection isn\u2019t limited to the religious. For the multitudes of those who have had quite enough of quarantines, masks and mandates, its variants-be-damned and back to the cineplex, as the godless entertainment industry has been more than happy to oblige by unleashing the first in a six-month parade of would-be blockbusters designed to heal our scarred social psyche and reverse their own fortunes. That the fantasy genre would be chosen to lead the charge is simply good sense, no matter which way you look at the situation. That a proven franchise would have that same honor, well, ditto. And that\u2019s where the real cinematic surprises begin.<\/p>\n

Warner Brothers clearly spared no expense in creating Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,<\/i> the third FB installment, which themselves are prequels to the beloved Harry Potter franchise. But like the Star Wars prequels, this film is far from fantastic. In the Harry Potter movies, every time the words \u201cMinistry of Magic\u201d were invoked, I cringed, \u201cOh crap, here we go again.\u201d Watching the kids grow up was fascinating, and the \u201cfantastic beasts\u201d of the original series served multiple storytelling purposes. Enduring the intrigues within the MoM was a major buzz kill (outdone only by the Bambi 2.0 opening of this movie). Consequently, the end of the original franchise left me cold.<\/p>\n

As for FB: TSoD<\/i>, oh crap, here we go again. Sad to say but I prefer good ol\u2019 Trump fascism over the stuff served up in this film because the Trump shenanigans are inherently more entertaining. Although I must admit the art direction and costumes are glorious\u2014in the movie, that is. I still have nightmares about the white tie and tails Trump wore at Buckingham Palace. And since the creators chose to shove Dumbledore out of the closet, it didn\u2019t seem necessary to go down the \u2018I wish I could quit you\u2019 backroad yet again. Oh, for the days when fantasy, fun and feel-good could coexist in harmony.<\/p>\n

Well duckie, those days are back. They just didn\u2019t come from where you expected. Do you enjoy fantasy films? Yes? Then you\u2019ll love the jaw-dropping Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/i>. Did you enjoy Crazy Rich Asians<\/i>? Yes? Then you\u2019ll adore this flick. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Kill Bill<\/i>? Ditto. The Matrix, A Fish Called Wanda, Ratatouille, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown<\/i>, the entire Monty Python oeuvre? Ditto. Do you enjoy the occasional drag on a doobie or micro-dose of LSD? Ditto. Have you endured the humiliation of an IRS audit and lived to tell the tale? Do you now or have you ever had parents or children? You get my drift. How this is even possible, \u2026\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u2019t overthink it. That\u2019s the whole point of the movie. I\u2019m not giving you the setup or plot points or themes or any of that malarkey because the less you know, the more fun you\u2019ll have.<\/p>\n

How many times have we heard the term \u201cgenre-bending\u201d with near-reverence? The cinematic magicians known as The Daniels don\u2019t stop at bending. They operate in a paradigm that mashes up the manufacture of saltwater taffy with the blending of vegetable smoothies and the baking of everything bagels\u2014a major metaphor in the movie.<\/p>\n

The movie not only defies classification, it challenges the basic tenets of traditional screenwriting. And a warning to you film aficionados fresh off time spent at the Sun Valley Film Festival: the more you analyze the film as you watch it, the more you\u2019ll completely ruin the experience. Which, once again, is the point. This is a roller coaster of the first order. Park the physics. Relax into the wildest ride you\u2019ve ever had in a movie theater.<\/p>\n

And all of this is window dressing for a message so focused, so simple, so true and so moving that, during the credits, more than a few audience members broke out their cellphones and called their parents\/children to schedule a family viewing. But hire a babysitter; this is All in the Family<\/i>, not all-family entertainment.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be remiss not to give shout-outs to the dazzling Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis, who both give career-best performances (and watching JLC role-reverse from her Halloween days is an absolute hoot).<\/p>\n

The wand is passed. Long live everything this fantastic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY KEN STOKES It\u2019s Easter, but this year resurrection isn\u2019t limited to the religious. For the multitudes of those who have had quite enough of quarantines, masks and mandates, its variants-be-damned and back to the cineplex, as the godless entertainment industry has been more than happy to oblige by unleashing the first in a six-month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17772,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17771\/revisions\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}