Category: Stephanie Hsu

THE WILD ROBOT (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Chris Sanders
CAST: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 97% Certified Fresh

PLOT: An intelligent helper robot winds up stranded on an island populated only by wild animals.  To survive its new environment, it adjusts its programming, with unexpected results.


Just days after watching Flow [2024], a dialogue- and human-free animated film about animals struggling to survive after a cataclysmic flood, I watched The Wild Robot, also human-free, also starring mostly animals, and also about the struggle for survival, but it adds conventional dialogue and an intelligent robot in search of its purpose.  In broad, REALLY broad strokes, they are similar, but don’t bother asking me which one is better.  I give them both a ten-out-of-ten, each for different reasons from the other.  Flow may be literally unique, at least in my experience, but The Wild Robot tames its genre and bends it to its will, creating one of the most heart-tugging movie experiences since Wall*E [2008].  If you’re prone to crying during a movie, this is a three-hanky film, at least.  (Penni went through five, herself.)

On a dark and stormy night, a mysterious container washes up on the shores of an uninhabited island.  Inside is Rozzum 7134, an intelligent helper robot with exceptional physical capabilities and the speaking voice of Lupita Nyong’o.  Hope she gets her royalty checks.  Upon escaping her would-be watery coffin, Rozzum searches the island for the one thing that will give her existence meaning: a task to complete.  The opening scenes get us off to a hilarious start as she tries to complete tasks for various animals, to no avail.  In an intelligent bit of screenwriting, she powers down for a couple of days and, through passive listening, effectively learns the language of the animals around her.  In a lesser movie, this feat might have been handled with the push of a button.  I liked the fact the writers went for something a little easier to swallow, science-fiction-wise.

Through circumstances which I will not reveal, Rozzum winds up as the guardian for a newly-hatched gosling, and as the unlikely friend of a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal, whose voice was utterly unrecognizable; I thought it was Matthew Broderick).  The gosling imprints on Rozzum, which she finds bothersome.  A helpful mom opossum, Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), warns Rozzum that the gosling must learn to feed itself, swim, and fly by the next fall so he can migrate with the other goose; otherwise, it will starve during the harsh winter.  Presto…a task!

Eventually, Rozzum is shortened to Roz and she names the gosling Brightbill (Kit Connor).  As she undertakes her task of raising the gosling, Roz’s programming…evolves.  She starts to actually care for the little guy.  She starts asking questions that robots aren’t supposed to ask.  She exhibits all the early warning signs of helicopter-momism.  And all the while, she debates whether to activate the internal beacon that will let her makers know where she is…

Because the plot is so dependent on tugging those heartstrings, that’s all I’ll say about it.  Let me talk instead about Wild Robot’s visual style.  The backgrounds and characters are gorgeous, sumptuous, evocative of oil or acrylic paintings.  I could mention two or three specific shots right now that contain some of the most beautiful animated imagery I’ve seen since Pinocchio [1940], but I don’t want to give anything away.  (Hint: butterflies and geese.)  In this way, among others, it shares a lot of DNA with Flow, whose backgrounds and characters also resembled hand-painted objects.  I don’t even want to think about how long it took to create such a painterly style and make it look so effortless and organic.

I also liked the way Wild Robot used its story to make a pointed commentary, but not in the direction I thought it would go.  From the trailers, I assumed it would be yet another paint-by-numbers story about preserving nature or life, which was already covered as well as it possibly could be covered by Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant [1999].  Instead, Wild Robot makes some eloquent statements about the terrifying task of parenthood.  At one point, Roz, who is programmed to solve problems, discovers the task she’s undertaken – raising a gosling, i.e., being a parent – is a task that could potentially never end.  She experiences the fear of almost losing a child.  The joy of watching Brightbill learn to fly, while at the same time realizing that means he will one day migrate.  As I list the plot points here, it sounds like the movie is composed of cliches, but I can assure you, it’s not.  All of these nuances, and many more, are allowed to occur organically without the slightest hint of being nudged along by the screenplay.

DreamWorks has created possibly their best animated film since…gosh, I’ll go all the way back to The Prince of Egypt [1998].  It’s a crowd-pleasing adventure with a point, which is a hallmark of only the best science-fiction movies/stories.  There are real stakes on the line.  There are some actual deaths in the story, which surprised me for some reason, but there you are.  It looks sensational.  It’s smart.  I can’t say enough about it.  The Wild Robot was one of my most favorite films of 2024.

THE FALL GUY

By Marc S. Sanders

Indulge me please while I spout off a number of movie titles. 

I am big fan of Emily Blunt.  She justifiably earned her first Oscar nomination for Oppenheimer.  She was Mary Poppins – a damn good one.  She’s good in her husband John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place monster movies.  Have you seen Sicario? The first one?  You should!  As well, there’s the role that put her on the map with The Devil Wears Prada.  Just a great actress with a huge repertoire of sensational performances under her belt.

I am also a big admirer of Ryan Gosling.  Magnificent in the long-awaited Blade Runner sequel.  He’s a dancing wunderkind and musical genius as well with films like La La Land.  You ever seen The Nice Guys where he partnered with Russell Crowe?  Another one you should see.  Also find him in The Ides Of March, directed by George Clooney.  He got his umpteenth nomination for Barbie recently, but let’s face it, after that Oscar show performance for Best Song the man only overshadowed what he blew our eyes out with, and now I believe they should bow to his dancing feet for hosting duties.  Plus, the guy is now the pinnacle live action Beavis to go with Mikey Day’s Butthead.  Is there nothing this guy can’t do?

I think back to all of these sensational cinematic achievements, and I am dumbfounded that when this pair finally, at long last, team up it is for wasteful bash up/smash up junk like a television adaptation of the Lee Majors’ ABC action series The Fall Guy.  It’s been a long time since I was so bored watching a stunt filled two-hour flick with zero spice or flavor.  There are fire balls aplomb in this movie and I don’t think Gosling ever feels the burn.

I’ve seen the Die Hards and the Lethal Weapons with the fight scenes and car chases and bombastic explosions. Amid all nine of those pictures (well maybe not the last Die Hard movie) the action usually drove at least some semblance of story, suspense and amazement.

The Fall Guy, directed by former stuntman David Leitch, proudly declares itself a stunt movie because the hero, Colt Seavers (Gosling) is a stunt man for action movies.  However, the audience is shortchanged on…well…the stunts.  I remember Miguel and I watching The Fast And The Furious for the first time.  We both agreed the movie failed because it did not provide what it was selling, namely car chases and car stunts.  At least not enough of them.  Instead, we got Paul Walker and Vin Diesel getting all Terms Of Endearment like and we asked ourselves, when are they going to get in a car and drive.

Consider the opening sequence of The Fall Guy.  First I’m dazzled by a well-done Steadicam shot the runs at least four minutes as it follows Colt talking on his cell phone as he struts from his movie set trailer then on into the lobby of a sky rise building, through a crowd of movie extras, crew and cameras, up an elevator and then over to a platform ledge where a harness is strapped to his uniform and he is suspended high above the ground below, while facing up.  A fall is gonna happen, right? And it does, but then we do not see the finish of the fall.  This one shot walk for Gosling cuts the legs out from under us. Just as the fall is about to finish, it cuts to the guy in a stretcher being wheeled into an ambulance. 

Now you can insist to me that is the start of the story.  Colt breaks his back in a stunt fall gone wrong and thus he’s now retired and surely 18 months later, he will be called back to do his best bidding and set the wheels in motion for the rest of the movie.  Okay.  Fine.  I’m with you.  The hero comes out of retirement for one last job. Yet, THE RYAN GOSLING just did the actual fall and we couldn’t see THE RYAN GOSLING finish the fall.  This wasn’t a stunt double as far as I could tell.  I’ve used this analogy before, but this is like Moe throwing the cream pie at Curly, only you don’t get to see the pie make impact with Curly’s face.  I feel cheated, and I felt cheated during most of The Fall Guy.

This approach is done often during Leitch’s film.  He’ll put Colt into a stunt sequence but then cut away to something else.  Later in the movie, Colt gets into a fist fight with some bad dudes while trying to hang on to a runaway truck and trailer careening through the streets of Sydney, Australia.  Colt throws punches.  He gets punched.  He falls.  He hangs on.  He gets up again.  Wash, dry, repeat.  The problem is that Leitch opts to cut away after each punch or fall to Emily Blunt doing a rendition of “Against All Odds” in a karaoke bar.  This whole action scene is chopped up for no purpose that keeps me in the film.  It’s like when I would have to ask my kid to stop interrupting while the grown ups are still talking.  I love watching Emily Blunt sing.  I love watching Ryan Gosling do his version of what a kamikaze Mel Gibson used to do in his younger years.  Can we just have one thing at a time though?  This kind of juxtaposition is not intriguing or beguiling or whatever the filmmaker wants it to be, and it does no favors for either lead.

The story is pretty simple and pedestrian. Nor does it follow the theme of the TV show that everyone has forgotten or that this generation has ever heard of.  Blunt plays Jody Moreno, a maybe former flame/middle school crush of Colt’s.  Unbeknownst to her, the producer (Hannah Waddingham) of the science fiction film Jody is directing has reached out to Colt a year and a half after his broken back accident to come to Australia and not only work on the set but also track down the star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) of the picture who has disappeared without a trace.  Colt is not very bright and he’s especially not a detective of any sort. 

Once this is all set up, The Fall Guy flip flops from the search, over to Colt getting set on fire repeatedly on the set, and then back to the search, followed by the inevitable twist, which is in no way a twist because the surprise seems known as soon as movie begins. 

I was not expecting utter brilliance here, but I was hoping for substance.  Gosling and Blunt are two of the biggest stars out there right now and can have their pick of the litter in what they do next.  It only makes sense that these two should pair up for a movie, but this is what they choose?  The script has less wit or intelligence than a coloring book that has yet to be scribbled in by a four-year-old.  I remember the hype around a picture called The Mexican with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, the biggest stars of the time finally teaming up, and just like it is with The Fall Guy, they had zero chemistry, and they barely shared any scenes together.  When they did, they hardly acknowledged each other.  Filmmakers cannot just stop working when they get the marquee names to sign a contract for the film.  They gotta work to live up to the hype that comes with these capably appealing actors.

In his pursuit, Colt gets drugged and then we see a unicorn standing next to him for a long sequence.  The audience sees the unicorn, but Colt hardly acknowledges it.  I don’t get where the ha ha ha is supposed to come from this bit.  I think the writers were maybe going for an Airplane!/Naked Gun gag.  Colt gets thrown through glass walls.  He tells us he was part of the Miami Vice stunt show at Universal Studios by simply wearing a jacket that says it, but so what?  There’s no dimension to any of this. (I did appreciate hearing the theme song during a very brief nighttime boat chase.)

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Kick Ass, and one time James Bond candidate) is another fine actor, not doing his best work.  He’s a jerk here with bleach blond locks and nothing to do.  He’s just unlikable and unfunny.  Hannah Waddingham?  Never heard of her, but I can only imagine she’s got something better lined than this obnoxious movie producer role with an annoying over the top Australian accent.  If she’s really Australian, then I’ll have to surrender to the fact that I just don’t know the down under dialect.  Frankly, she’s just terrible. 

Never thought I’d say this but Gosling and Blunt had a thousand times more chemistry when they did that presentation at the 2024 Oscars jabbing at the Barbenheimer trend and shamelessly promoting the upcoming release of this film.  In this movie, they look like they are not making eye contact with one another or listening to what the other actor is saying. I don’t blame them, though.  I call foul on David Leitch for lousy directing.

The most interesting thing about the film adaptation of The Fall Guy are post credit behind the scenes footage where I got to see all of these stunts in their uninterrupted entirety, but without the glossy cinematography finish.  However, an Easter egg scene shows up with THE LEE MAJORS and the other blond Heather from the 1980s, THE HEATHER THOMAS.  She is given blond wig and probably an unseen muzzle because she has no dialogue to say except stand there in a cop’s uniform with her butt and boobs sticking out.  Majors is left to be dull, like he probably was in the final season of the show when it was jumping the shark.  If the writers of this movie just used a tenth of their imagination, they could have kept Lee Majors as the original Colt Seaver who mentors Gosling into being THE FALL GUY of today.  Why couldn’t Lee Majors have a substantial role in this picture?  It would have worked.  However, that is not likely because there’s barely a plot, character, or even stunt scene that implies the makers of this movie have that kind of capable imagination. 

Find another movie for Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling. STAT! They are so much more worthy then the building they jumped off of only to land in this fire ball blasted junk resting below.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

By Marc S. Sanders

Exploring the science fictional context of parallel universes can turn your thought process into a tailspin.  It can leave you up at night trying to find the center of a never-ending spiral.  Maybe that is why this gradually more common story line is reviving itself in current films like the next Doctor Strange installment from Marvel, or DC’s The Flash with multiple Batmans, and the unexpected surprise of Everything Everywhere All At Once.

My first experience with a multi-verse concept happened one Saturday morning in the early 1980’s.  At age 7 or 8, my favorite cartoon, Hanna Barbara’s Superfriends, explored a Universe of Evil.  Following a volcanic eruption, an evil Superman exchanged places with the noble Superman that we all know.  They each found themselves in opposite universes.  For the good Batman, there was an evil Batman, dressed in pink.  (Pink is evil????)  Evil Robin had a mustache itching to twirl.  Aquaman had an eyepatch.  Later, I hypothesized that this simple plot catered for kids was likely inspired by the famous Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror.  (Evil Spock donned the evil goatee. Mwah ha ha ha ha!!!!!) These two storylines, which I highly recommend you seek out and watch, were very cut and dry in the concept of multiple universes.  There was a Yin and Yang structure of just black and white.  Everything Everywhere All At Once welcomes diverse complexity in its storytelling.  In this film, nothing is black and white.  Instead, everything consists of infinite shades of grey and gray.

The Wang family are Chinese immigrants buried in demanding and overwhelming tax obligations from the IRS while trying to manage a California laundromat.  Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is the matriarch who is married to Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) and they have a daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu).  Upon visiting the IRS agent assigned to their case, Deidre (Jamie Lee Curtis, who finally found something else to do besides another Halloween retread), odd occurrences take place.  Evelyn is warned by Waymond with suddenly a strange and very different personality to act upon their current situation, like getting off an elevator and turning to the right, not the left.  Just trust me when I say that while you will likely be bewildered for a while as the exposition unravels itself, it will all pay off satisfyingly.  Somehow in another universe that is performing parallel to the one we first see in the film Joy is a villain bent on destroying Evelyn…and that’s not even half of what’s out of place.

I saw this film directed by the “Daniels” (Dan Kwan and Dan Scheinert) with my Cinephile colleagues, Miguel and Thomas.  After it was over, it was no surprise that they knew what I was talking about when I said this film is the reason why good editing is necessary in a film.  Because the Daniels introduce not one or two parallel universes, but SEVERAL, and there is so much happening…well…all at once.  I’d argue most shots in the film last no longer than an average 8-10 seconds because the multiple universe equivalents of Evelyn, Waymond, Joy and Deidre switch on a blink of your eye.  I warn you not to make a quick bathroom exit.  Quick flashes of scenes are relevant towards something else you may see in the next minute or an hour later.

Anyway, I’ll bet you never realized that there is a universe where the people have raw hot dog like fingers.  There’s also a universe where Evelyn is a street sign twirler, and a good thing there is an Evelyn like that to help another Evelyn fend off of a bunch of attackers in a different universe.  There’s also a world where humanity doesn’t exist.  Yet the equivalent of Evelyn and Joy are represented by two rocks.  That’s right.  Rocks with no limbs, no way of speaking vocally.  Yet, the film cleverly has the characters or products of its earth communicate with one another.  There’s even a different variation of the Pixar creation, Ratatouille.  Replace the rat with a racoon and see what transpires.

So, what does this all lead to?  Fortunately, there is a reason for these different worlds to collide and it leads to a valuable lesson in love and understanding within family.  Now that may sound hokey, but the film demonstrates that none of us are the same in what we are affectionate about, or what’s important to us.  How a daughter considers a girlfriend is not going to be easy for a mother to accept as any more than a friend.  The Daniels’ film carries much profoundness among its silliness depicted on the surface.

Having only seen Everything Everywhere All At Once one time so far, I could not help but laugh often and uncontrollably at what I was looking at, and the laughter becomes contagious when watching the film in a crowded theatre.  What made my movie going experience with this film quite fascinating though is that I responded in tune with the rest of the crowd.  Once you get past looking at Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis (two recognizable and accomplished actors) flap their hot dog fingered hands at each other, eventually you recognize the “normalcy” of that particular universe.  You are no longer laughing with them.  Now you are accepting the people and how they function in that specific environment.  Same goes for the rock universe.  The Daniels are brave enough in their direction to just show two inanimate rocks perched on a ledge and communicating with subtitles of very aware and well written dialogue.  It looks completely crazy at first.  Later, you yearn for the impending destiny of those rocks.

Much symbolism is tucked into the Daniels’ script as well.  The most telling is that it focuses on an Asian immigrant family obligated by law to honor American tax codes.  The Deidre character portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis is not so empathetic to the Wangs’ comprehension of resolving tax violations.  Basically, two different cultures are butting heads with no progress because they have a different viewpoint on how things function.  Wisely, this serves as a springboard to demonstrate how multiple universes will lack perfect chemistry as well when they collide.  None of this is written off as communication barriers.

I imagine on a second viewing, I likely will look at Everything Everywhere All At Once through a different lens.  I won’t laugh as much because I’ve grown acclimated to what were once very odd and strange environments for these characters that dwell within.  Instead, I’ll be even more observant and appreciative of the film as it presents different behaviors and cultures encountering one another.  This is a very good picture that is worth multiple viewings for sure.

In fact, this film is such a pleasant surprise, that I am comfortable suggesting this early on that I will consider it one of the best films of 2022.  If at least Everything Everywhere All At Once does not receive an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, then it would be a terrible disappointment.  The imagination of its endless devices is just so inventive.  Heck, I’ll throw my hat out there and strongly suggest nominations for Michelle Yeoh’s performance, along with Best Editing for Paul Rogers (this guy should win the award) and Best Picture of the year.

See Everything Everywhere All At Once in a movie theatre with a crowd and/or a large group of friends.  You may just have a cathartic experience of how human nature responds when getting acclimated to what at first appears to be so foreign.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Directors: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis
My Rating: 10/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 96% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A middle-aged Asian woman tries to do her family’s taxes with mind-bending results.


Every once in a while, a movie comes along that is so daring and original that any attempt to accurately describe it feels futile.  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was one of them.  Being John Malkovich was another.  And now comes Everything Everywhere All at Once, a sci-fi action brainteaser that feels as if it were written by Terry Gilliam and Quentin Tarantino and directed by Stephen Chow (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer…two movies that also meet that “indescribable” criterion).  It feels like an episode of Black Mirror crossed with Jackie Chan and a dash of David Lynch and Terrence Malick.  If you can’t find anything to like in this movie, check your pulse.

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) opens the film trying to do her family’s taxes.  She and her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan – “Short Round” from Temple of Doom!!), carry stacks and stacks of receipts to their local IRS branch and try to explain to their case worker (a dowdy Jamie Lee Curtis) how a karaoke machine can be deducted as a business expense.  However, before that can happen, after a series of very strange events involving Waymond and a pair of Bluetooth headsets, Evelyn finds herself immersed in a trans-dimensional battle between the forces of good, led by an alternate-universe version of Waymond – the “Alpha Waymond,” if you will – and someone called Jobu Tupaki, a being or person who is hunting for Evelyn in every conceivable parallel universe.  All Evelyn has to do is use these weird headsets to access the infinite multiverse and harness the skills learned by the infinite Evelyns before Jobu Tupaki can track her down and kill her.

To access the multiverse in such a way, one must commit random acts of…randomness, which leads to bizarre scenes of individuals doing some very weird things to access special skills.  What kind of weird things, you ask?  Things involving…sticks of lip balm, putting your shoes on the wrong feet, saying “I love you” to a stranger, or wiping someone else’s nose for them and…well, use your imagination.

That’s seriously just scratching the surface.  I haven’t even mentioned Evelyn and Waymond’s daughter, Joy; their laundromat; Evelyn’s elderly grandfather, Gong Gong (veteran character actor James Hong – 450 film and TV credits and counting); or the divorce papers Waymond has on his person.

This movie is a trippy, joyous, tightrope-walking masterpiece.  There are moments where you can sense it tap-dancing on the line of self-parody, then jumping over it and daring the audience to go along with it.  If there are some people that say they were unable to follow where this movie leads, I can’t really say I’d blame them.  Not many movies would ask you to take it seriously, then include a scene involving two rocks having a conversation via, I guess, ESP.  Or where the two lead characters turn into piñatas.  Or where Jamie Lee Curtis staples a piece of paper to her own head.  Or where the fate of the world might hinge on who gets their hands (in a manner of speaking) on a trophy shaped like…a very specific kind of toy.

HOT DOG FINGERS, people.  HOT.  DOG.  FINGERS.

I’m frankly amazed this movie didn’t collapse on itself.  There are so many ways it could have gone wrong, and so much it wants to say, while trying to be simultaneously massively entertaining and heartbreakingly poignant.

From a technical standpoint, I think it’s the frontrunner for the Best Film Editing Oscar for 2022.  This movie jumps from one parallel universe to the next and the next and back again so frequently that I got whiplash, BUT it was never confusing or mystifying.  It was always crystal clear what I was watching and why I needed to see it.  I could list any number of films or TV shows that have attempted this kind of thing on a much more modest scale and failed.  This is like the Who Framed Roger Rabbit of film editing.  It has been done so well and on such a grand scale that it seems unlikely anyone will try to tell this kind of story in the same way again.

Some may quibble at the mildly melodramatic resolution of the conflict among Evelyn, the “Alpha” universe, and Jobu Tupaki.  I can understand that viewpoint, but honestly, I just rolled with it when it came around.  And so did the theater audience I was with the night I saw it.  We all laughed uproariously on cue, sometimes for something funny, sometimes in sheer disbelief at what we had just seen.  But when the wrap-up started to come together, we all hushed and waited to see what would happen.  Even when it involved a parallel universe with something called Raccacoonie.  (It’s a long story…)

I hope I’ve conveyed how crazy good this movie is while preserving some of its best surprises.  I haven’t felt this urgent about getting the word out about a great movie since I saw Roma.  To call this an entertaining night at the movies does a serious injustice to the words “entertaining” and “movies.”  It’s more than entertaining and, not to get too hyperbolic, this is more than a mere movie.  It’s a masterwork, a collision of grand ambition and even grander moviemaking.  I plan on seeing it at least once more in theaters, if only just to see what I may have missed the first time around.  (And maybe also to tune more carefully into audience reactions at key moments, like the performance trophies, or those two rocks.  Who knew two rocks could be funny?  Like REALLY funny?)