Movie Nation

The wrestling empire that is WWE dives even deeper into movies with “Rumble,” an animated film that they made through Paramount Animation, and had slated for theatrical release earlier this year.

“Rumble,” based on a graphic novel about a world where towering, monstrous kaiju wrestlers fight for “the Big Belt,” makes its way to audiences via Paramount+ instead.

It’s a good-looking, mindless romp aimed at the children of all ages who watch professional wrestling. Formulaic and silly, it might not be reason one to subscribe to the Kevin Costner network. But there are a couple of laughs and lots of utterly ridiculous “action” in the octagon where the Big Boys play.

“Are you ready to go out there and look RIDICULOUS tonight?” our coach asks our hero at one point.Yes. Yes he is. Why? Because “We do not CARE!”

That’s the stance Rayburn Jr. (Will Arnett voices him) has to take when the career-loser, son of a wrestling legend, is recruited by the daughter of his late father’s coach, Winnie (Geraldine Viswanathan), to get serious about the sport by learning to “dance” in the ring.

Winnie the coach’s big idea is to toss in paso dobles, pirouettes and the odd pas de deux with all the piledrivers and suplexes that wrestlers live by, even the 40 foot tall versions.

Wrestling-crazed Stoker-on-Avon has never been the same since the famed Coach Jimbo and his star kaiju Rayburn disappeared years before. A new local champ emerges, but Tentacular (Terry Crews) wins the title and promptly announces he’s “taking my talents to Slitherpool,” to wrestle “for someplace that matters.”

Stoker will lose its stadium unless Winnie can find somebody and train him to be the champ who saves their rep and the stadium that bears her dad’s name. That “somebody” turns out to be her dad’s most famous wrestler’s son.

Rayburn and Winnie have to bond and come up with tactics that will transform a career loser into a phenom and do it all before their beloved stadium becomes a parking lot.

Whatever the Rob Harrell graphic novel has going for it, this script envisions an entire world that revolves around wrestling, with fanatical fans taking on all the rituals and body paint tributes of hockey and football fans.

The cleverest touch? Having the matches called by the insufferable Mark Remy, voiced by the insufferable Stephen A. Smith of ESPN. Dancing in the ring?

“This is HARDLY wrestling. Y’all know that, right?” The character complains and complains, until our hero starts winning. Then he changes his tune, just like Stephen A.

“I’m not sayin’ I’m wrong.‘ Because I’m never wrong. But…”

Jimmy Tatro voices the monster who is color commentator for the matches. And who introduces the combatants in the ring? Michael “Let’s get rrrrready to RRRRRumble” Buffer, of course.

Arnett and Crews, two very funny guys, don’t pay off as funny characters because the script doesn’t have many jokes that land. Tentacular has just won the Big Belt. What’ll he do?

“I’m going to an unnamed theme bar!”

Kids may get into the “action,” but for me there was one sight gag and one sight gag only that pays off. One of the beasts eyes the Prop that Made Wrestling What It Is Today — a folding chair. Great! It’ll turn the tide of the match. Unless of course he’s miscalculated the impact of something that small on wrestlers this large.

Aside from that, and the “get knocked-down, get back up again” messaging, there’s nothing to “Rumble.” Hard to see it as ever being a theatrical release contender.

Rating: PG, slapstick, innuendo

Cast: The voices of Will Arnett, Geraldine Viswanathan, Terry Cruz, Jimmy Tatro, Ben Schwartz, Tony Danza, Fred Melamud and Stephen A. Smith.

Credits: Directed by Hamish Grieve, scripted by Hamish Grieve, Matt Lieberman and Alexandra Bracken, based on a graphic novel by Rob Harrell. A Paramount+ release.

Running time: 1:34

This is an altogether more interesting list than the half-hearted Golden Globes glob dumped earlier this
AM.

Lots of love for “Licorice Pizza,” “Belfast,” “CODA…”

But I have to say, honoring out a somewhat hamhanded turn by Lady Gaga and more or less ignoring the rest of “House of Gucci” is simply falling for hype. She’s over the top, and not any better than anybody else in it. And nobody is talking up Pacino or Driver, with good cause. Jared Leto also earned a nomination. You couldn’t even tell it was him, bit that wasn’t a subtle turn https://www.salon.com/2021/12/13/little-known-donor-helped-fund-capitol-riots-is-now-facing-probe_partner/ either.

No Ridley Scott nomination for either “Gucci” or “Last Duel?” Oh well.

The Critics Choice Awards are handed out by what started life as the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

Take a look.

BEST PICTURE

Belfast

CODA

Don’t Look Up

Dune

King Richard

Licorice Pizza

Nightmare Alley

The Power of the Dog

tick, tick…Boom!

West Side Story

BEST ACTOR

Nicolas Cage – Pig

Benedict Cumberbatch – The Power of the Dog

Peter Dinklage – Cyrano

Andrew Garfield – tick, tick…Boom!

Will Smith – King Richard

Denzel Washington – The Tragedy of Macbeth

BEST ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter

Lady Gaga – House of Gucci

Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza

Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos

Kristen Stewart – Spencer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jamie Dornan – Belfast

Ciarán Hinds – Belfast

Troy Kotsur – CODA

Jared Leto – House of Gucci

J.K. Simmons – Being the Ricardos

Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Caitríona Balfe – Belfast

Ariana DeBose – West Side Story

Ann Dowd – Mass

Kirsten Dunst – The Power of the Dog

Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard

Rita Moreno – West Side Story

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS

Jude Hill – Belfast

Cooper Hoffman – Licorice Pizza

Emilia Jones – CODA

Woody Norman – C’mon C’mon

Saniyya Sidney – King Richard

Rachel Zegler – West Side Story

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

Belfast

Don’t Look Up

The Harder They Fall

Licorice Pizza

The Power of the Dog

West Side Story

BEST DIRECTOR

Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza

Kenneth Branagh – Belfast

Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Guillermo del Toro – Nightmare Alley

Steven Spielberg – West Side Story

Denis Villeneuve – Dune

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Paul Thomas Anderson – Licorice Pizza

Zach Baylin – King Richard

Kenneth Branagh – Belfast

Adam McKay, David Sirota – Don’t Look Up

Aaron Sorkin – Being the Ricardos

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter

Siân Heder – CODA

Tony Kushner – West Side Story

Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth – Dune

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Bruno Delbonnel – The Tragedy of Macbeth

Greig Fraser – Dune

Janusz Kaminski – West Side Story

Dan Laustsen – Nightmare Alley

Ari Wegner – The Power of the Dog

Haris Zambarloukos – Belfast

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Jim Clay, Claire Nia Richards – Belfast

Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau – Nightmare Alley

Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – The French Dispatch

Adam Stockhausen, Rena DeAngelo – West Side Story

Patrice Vermette, Zsuzsanna Sipos – Dune

BEST EDITING

Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn – West Side Story

Úna Ní Dhonghaíle – Belfast

Andy Jurgensen – Licorice Pizza

Peter Sciberras – The Power of the Dog

Joe Walker – Dune

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Jenny Beavan – Cruella

Luis Sequeira – Nightmare Alley

Paul Tazewell – West Side Story

Jacqueline West, Robert Morgan – Dune

Janty Yates – House of Gucci

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP

Cruella

Dune

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

House of Gucci

Nightmare Alley

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Dune

The Matrix Resurrections

Nightmare Alley

No Time to Die

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

BEST COMEDY

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

Don’t Look Up

Free Guy

The French Dispatch

Licorice Pizza

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Encanto

Flee

Luca

The Mitchells vs the Machines

Raya and the Last Dragon

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

A Hero

Drive My Car

Flee

The Hand of God

The Worst Person in the World

BEST SONG

Be Alive – King Richard

Dos Oruguitas – Encanto

Guns Go Bang – The Harder They Fall

Just Look Up – Don’t Look Up

No Time to Die – No Time to Die

BEST SCORE

Nicholas Britell – Don’t Look Up

Jonny Greenwood – The Power of the Dog

Jonny Greenwood – Spencer

Nathan Johnson – Nightmare Alley

Hans Zimmer – Dune

April 8, this one opens in a cinema near you.

Well, Lady Gaga got some love, voters remembered Jessica Chastain’s Tammy Faye Baker turn.

And they think “Dune” and “Power of the Dog” are best pic worthy.

Wait, these guys lost their TV deal in a corruption, racism and sexism scandal. Do they even matter any more? Or matter even less than they used to?

“Don’t Look Up” doesn’t belong on this list, no “Respect” but love for “Cyrano?”

“Annette” is wholly forgotten, hard to summon up much love for “I’m the Heights” either.

Dinklage!

Weak animation field, Almodovar has to have the inside track on best foreign language film in that group.

DeBose and Ciaran Hinds, or do they love Ben?

Are we even paying that much attention to the Globes noms now? So many questions.

Two lists that look the way the Oscar field might, but no love for Ridley Scott?

So that’s all they recognized from “Respect,” not that it’s all that. But that “musical or comedy” field is pretty thin.

The TV field is even less relevant, simply because the “Globes” don’t influence the Emmys.

Remember, these clowns lost their TV show. So this all the oxygen I’m giving them. They went through the motions, so did I.

Ho hum, Golden Globes. Ho hum.

MovieNation, spreading cinema throughout the land, one DVD, one poorly framed pic and one small town or city library at a time.

This year, I’ve donated DVDs to libraries in West Va., Va., NC, SC, Ga. and scattered corners of Florida, bringing subtitles to the masses is my motto, Johnny Appleseed style. Call me “Roger DVDseed,”copyright pending. A dozen libraries, maybe 40 DVDs in all. Let’s hope the good folks of Polk read my review before passing this one by. Judging from the sheriff here, a little culture wouldn’t hurt.

Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, an Oz-wise kids’ comedy with wit, slang and a little edge.

“Back to the Outback” is an Australian “Madagascar,” an “escape from the zoo” comedy that leans into the continent/country’s reputation for having more wildlife than can kill or maim you that any place else on Earth.

It also isn’t shy about sending up the locals, the humans who labeled the assorted snakes, great whites, spiders, and crocs “monsters,” and got a lot of tourist and TV show mileage out of it.

Somewhere, Steve Irwin is blushing, and having a laugh.

The critters live in the Australian Wildlife Park just across the bay from the Sydney Opera House. The star of the park is the cuddly koala, Pretty Boy, most adorbs of the adorable kangaroos and quolls, bilbies and quokkas. He even has his own web cam.

But the big draws are the “monsters” from the “Danger House,” with Jackie the croc entertaining the paying guests by scaring them and making mean with trainer/handler and all around butch boy Chazz Hunt (Eric Bana). He’s teaching his son the ropes, and those ropes are used to lasso critters and keep them in line.

Jackie (voiced by Jacki Weaver) is the old timer of the Danger House. She regales the lizards, scorpion Nigel (Angus Imrie) and funnel web spider Frank (Guy Pearce) with tales of the “Outback,” from whence they all came.

Medusa, or “Maddie” (Isla Fisher), the Taipan snake, the “most deadly” venomous snake on Earth, was raised by Chazz and makes her debut in a show, but finds herself shocked when people recoil from her thanks to Chazz’s hype and rough treatment. Maddie is heartbroken. And hearing about the Outback, her “home” that she never knew, is cold-blooded comfort.

One day things get out of hand with the croc show and Jackie is trapped and shipped off. That’s Maddie’s final straw. She’s leaving. Nigel, Frank and the thorny devil lizard Zoe (Miranda Tapsell) join her.

And naturally, events conspire to force them to take that pampered, narcissistic koala, Pretty Boy (Tim Minchin) along. Not that he wants to go.

They have to make their way across the bay — helped by a Great White — learn about “U.S.S.” the “ugliest secret society” of scorned creatures, who might help them, keep Pretty Boy in line and find their way to the Blue Mountains which all of them once called home.

The quest narrative is as old as the hills, but that’s how they encounter helpful spiders, bullfrogs (Keith Urban), a wild boar (Kylie Minogue) and others who help them along.

The humans are almost to a one louts and tough-guy posers. Chazz has to impress little Chazzie, his boy, with his fearlessness, exploits and his perfect grasp of Oz slang.

“Stone the crows” to “crikey” to “I once captured 10 Komodo dragons with no more than a pair of budgie smugglers and a bit of Vegemite.” I’d quote more, but “Let’s not spit the dummy, son.”

No idea what’s he’s talking about there.

The movie is not all that original, but never less than cute, with “Invisalign” and “conditioner” cracks coming from the pampered koala, Fisher singing the others to sleep and humans, save for one little Aboriginal girl, hilariously frightened by them and hellbent on killing or trapping them.

There’s even a moment when two bars are emptied out with bikers and martini drinkers pitching in on the hunt. Drinking and driving in out Mad Max bikes and Utes! Waltzing Matilda without the song!

It’s formulaic, but good clean fun. And it’s a fair dinkum way for the kiddos to learn Oz wildlife and Oz slang in a cartoon.

Rating: TV-G

Cast: The voices of Isla Fisher, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, Tim Minchin, Guy Pearce, Rachel House, Kylie Minogue and Keith Urban.

Credits: Directed by Harry Cripps and Claire Knight, scripted by Harry Cripps and Gregory Lessans. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

A hint of Massachusetts in this Long Island period piece? “Tenduh Bah” is the proper title of the Amazon release, opening Friday.

Time-proven people-in-peril horror formulas cross borders and cultures. That’s true in “Roh,” a somewhat effective tale of terror set in the forests of Malaysia.

That’s where a mother (Farah Ahmad), her tween daughter (Mhia Farhana) and younger son (Harith Haziq) find themselves menaced by “omens,” sinister forces in play in their corner of the middle of nowhere.

We’ve seen a feral child (Putri Qaseh) digging up a fresh grave in the dark of night, a Burning Bush her only light.

Mother Mak has no hope of her husband returning, and has only her children to rely on out there. But when they see a slain deer hanging from a tree, they have an idea something’s up. There’s an evil “old people talk about” around here, a creature that targets deer and small children.

Sounds like she’s making that up to keep them safe. But she warns them to beware of anything they see in the forest.

And we’ve already seen this solitary hunter (Namron) stalking about, searching for something. Now would be the perfect time for this mute, filthy wild child to pay them a visit. They feed her and try to figure out her story.

It’s only after she’s killed and eaten a chicken, raw, that she blurts out an answer.

“When the moon is full, all of you will die,” she says (in Malay with English subtitles).

Perhaps the woman (June Lolong) from the village across the river can help. Because once you’ve seen an unwashed urchin devour a bloody chicken and heard her deliver an ominous warning before slitting her own throat, you’re pretty sure this isn’t something you can handle alone.

Writer-director Emir Ezwan, working from a story he and one of his stars (and a producer) conjured up, renders this tale in slow, deliberate strokes.

It’s more chilling than frightening, and just cryptic enough about what’s really happened and what is really happening to keep the viewer engaged.

And even if his film isn’t a non-stop downward spiral into terror, the shocks are genuine and the violence grisly, personal and demonic.

Rating: Unrated, graphic violence

Cast: Farah Ahmad, Mhia Farhana, Harith Haziq, June Lojong, Putri Qaseh and Namron.

Credits:Scripted and directed by Emir Ezwan. A Film Movement+ release.

Running time: 1:23

It’s a 63 year-old stage musical widely regarded as a classic, and 60 year-old movie beloved by generations, also considered a classic and on TV almost constantly.

So who thought giving Steven Spielberg a lot of money and a coveted December/holidays release spot was a sure thing? Aside from Spielberg?

His no-big-stars-in-it “West Side Story” opened to some ecstatic reviews, but mostly respectful ones, and managed just over $10.5 million on its opening weekend. It only earned $4 million and change overseas.

There’s a lot of kvetching over exactly why this didn’t blow up, or why the Sondheim/Bernstein classic didn’t at least out perform the lesser efforts of Lin-Manuel Miranda and others, the recent run of musicals that either featured the “Hamilton” creator in the cast (“Mary Poppins”), behind the camera (“Tick…tick…BOOM!”) or in charge of the whole shebang (“In the Heights”).

Yes, it’s Latin-flavored in a big way, and that audience didn’t show for “In the Heights.” There’s a big difference between the Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican and Panamanian audiences, Hollywood is occasionally reminded.

Unless you’re referring to “Fast and Furious” movies, those cultures don’t collide at the cinema watching musicals.

“No stars” seems to be the biggest hangup. I was chatting with a fellow critic over the box office bomb this was shaping up to be (an $800k Thursday night opening told the story), and wondering if this would have played even as a Disney/ABC “blockbuster TV event.”

Spielberg went for reality, when musicals should never take that approach too far (“La La Land” got away with it, somewhat). He chose a “Hamilton” star to play the breakout character Anita, and got Ansel Elgort and a total unknown to play Tony and Maria.

The result is a movie that played well…in New York.

Why would 20th Century (pre-Disney) studios give Spielberg the money to make this? Well, there’s a reason 20th Century Fox was a perpetual also-ran, outside of the occasional Big Deal (“Star Wars,””Last of the Mohicans,” etc). Their big gambles were traditionally long shots that landed as wrong shots.

Why would Spielberg think this was a good idea? “Ego,” my critic pal noted. Seems about right. 

All Spielberg accomplished here was making another good-not-great film on a resume wholly filled with big ticket studio projects. He’s spent his entire career trying to be “the new Orson Welles,” a boy wonder who exploded in the scene (lying about his age to appear younger than Welles), and made plenty of blockbusters and a handful of classics working in the studio system, which Welles rarely could.

All I thought when watching the impressive “West Side Story” was how Robert Wise’s 60 year-old film was just as impressive, without drones, lightweight digital cameras and modern tech. Wise (“Sound of Music,””Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) didn’t have Spielberg’s gifts or canon. But Spielberg is a lot closer to “The New Robert Wise” than he is “The Next Orson Welles.” This “West Side Story” had plenty of emotion in select moments, but felt flat with a lot of scenes that didn’t pay off as well as they did way back when.

I still think “West Side Story” will have legs throughout the holidays. But with no Hugh Jackman/Zach Efron and Zendaya, no “radio friendly” new tunes, it’s not going to “Greatest Showman” its way into the black.

STX’s “National Champions” was savvy programming for the end of the “regular” college football season, a decent enough take on the “student athletes deserve to be paid” debate set against the National Championship game in New Orleans. But the movie only really “played” in the football-mad South, where the idea of paying athletes runs up against institutional and cultural racism. So it didn’t do all that well there, either. It didn’t even sell $1 million in tickets, with just over $300k on well over 1000 screens.

The limited Amazon release “Being the Riccardos” did better on 400 screens, over $400K. That isn’t a dazzling per-screen average either. Folks will watch that Oscar bait on Amazon Prime instead.

Yes, there’s still a pandemic going on, but “Spider-Man” is about to remove that excuse from any of the second-guessing surrounding “West Side Story” and the under-performers of fall. COVID or not, that could clear $100 million on its opening weekend alone.

“Encanto” rounded up another $9.4 million (over $70 so far), “Ghostbusters Afterlife” continues to sell even as it falls off to $7 for the weekend (It’s already over $111 million overall), “House of Gucci” did another $4 million and change — it’s over $40, respectable, and it could get some awards season help.

“Eternals,” the worst-reviewed Marvel movie of them all, finishes its run just over $160.

Although Shaun and his fellow Mossy Bottom Farm sheep will never replace Wallace & Gromit as my favorite Aardman characters, they get themselves into a fine mess in “Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas.”

Yes, basically every Shaun story, in feature film, short film, TV series or holiday special, is about he sheep making mischief and creating mayhem when they get off the farm. But this time there’s snow!

The story involves the eyeless (and Muppet-like) farmer whipping up a not-quite-lethal batch of holiday home brew that he bottles for the town Christmas Fair as Shaun and his non-speaking (save for bleats) flock DIY decorate their barn and Christmas tree with freshly-laid (and painted) eggs, assorted household appliances and the bonnet badge on the farmer’s truck.

Dressing as Santa and taking his trusty dog — who tried to “save” the botched batch of punch that the farmer overloaded with salt — the farmer sets off for the fair. But the lamb of the flock mistook the eyeless Santa for the real one and stowed away on the truck.

Shaun, the lamb’s ewe and four other sheep wangle their own ride to town in pursuit. Things get really complicated when a little girl is given the gift box that the lamb is hiding in. The kid’s a hyperactive moppet, the indulged daughter of the TV chef the Farmer whose recipe for grog he copied, half of a lifestyle show’s husband/wife star couple.

The sheep must track the lamb to the country house of the couple, foil the kid and outrun her parents. The dog tracks the sheep, as his life’s work is tidying up the sheep’s messes and keeping them on Mossy Bottom Farm.

If it ever got out that they were getting out, the Farmer would replace him, I dare say.

“The Flight Before Christmas” starts slowly and gets up a fine head of steam by the top bottles of the home brew pop, creating a cork ricochet incident that tickles.

A mistletoe vendor sells a lot of sprigs, and stuck under another kisses…the cold hard cash she’s collected so far tonight. The Farmer gets mistaken for the “real” Santa and is mobbed at a “Tell Santa what you want for Christmas” event.

Skiing/sledding gags, a Roomba run amok bit — there’s just enough going on to keep the littlest kids interested. And a tiny dollop of heart helps.

They’ll never be Wallace & Gromit, but Shaun and his sheep will do until they run out of reasons to slip off the farm.

Rating: TV-Y

Credits: Directed by Steve Cox, story by Giles Pilbrow and Mark Burton. An Aardman film on Netflix.

Running time: :30