Based on the true story of WWE wrestler Paige, Stephen Merchant’s Fighting With My Family follows a tried and true formula of rags to riches story. While it only offers a little in terms of something we haven’t seen hundreds of thousands of times in the theater, it does provide us with a new avenue: that of a World Wrestling Entertainment superstar. Starring Saraya (Florence Pugh – A Good Person, Don’t Worry Darling) as Paige, this movie tells her story and the story of her entire working-class English town, where they own an inviting wrestling gym and run an independent wrestling league.
Category Archives: 2019
Ad Astra (2019)
“To The Stars” is the Latin translation for Ad Astra, James Gray’s (The Lost City of Z, The Yards) powerfully ambitious space travel movie that features astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt – By the Sea, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) going from Earth to the moon to Mars to Neptune in an attempt to stop pulse bursts that have been devastating the Earth that has taken thousands of lives are a poised to take thousands more. The perceived bursts are thought to be coming from The Lima Project, a missing exploration ship piloted by Roy’s father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive, The Company Men), presumed destroyed decades earlier. Taking the story out of it for a second, Ad Astra is a visually stunning masterpiece that deserves a viewing on the largest screen possible. It doesn’t quite feel like you are floating in outer space (like the equally brilliant Gravity does), but it’s not that far off.
Them That Follow (2019)
Such a simple premise and simple story is co-directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s creepy faith-based community movie Them That Follow. You can almost exactly predict the story and the steps it takes along the way and still be surprised when they happen. That is the sign of a quality film with quality people working behind and in front of the camera. And that’s what we have here, with this simplistic, beautifully artistic film, far from perfect but captivating.
After the Wedding (2019)
A sub-par movie with excellent performance best describes Bart Freundlich (Wolves) as slightly disappointing After the Wedding. It’s not that this movie was bad. It was just so far-fetched, yet it tried to take itself oh so seriously. When everything added together, it was hard to take this movie seriously, even when each of our leads did so without batting an eye. It should have been a movie I disliked because of its many flaws. Yet, as flawed as this movie was and how easy it is not to recommend, I still found myself thoroughly entertained and enjoying it.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Sometimes, movies have dumb names or names that are so obscure that you can’t even remember the title. This is the case with first-time directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz in the sentimental surprise summer hit The Peanut Butter Falcon. Starring protagonist Zak (newcomer Zack Gottsagen), whose screen chemistry with Shia LaBeouf (Man Down, Borg Vs. McEnroe) is instantaneous, the result is a sort of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn between two pals trekking and floating down the fictional marshland in North Carolina.