Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland


















Michael's Movie Grade: F

Review: This film wasn't as bad as Rogue One. However that is the best thing I can say about this movie and in my mind that is not even a compliment.

This movie simply gave me no reason to care about anything that happened on screen. The new characters were devoid of anything resembling personality, and the old characters seemed to have lost any personality they once had. There were moments that I knew were supposed to be suspenseful but being left with no one to root for I kept waiting for them to end. There was not a side of this battle I wanted to see win or lose, because I felt no connection with any of them. This movie also seemed to lose the atmosphere that is so visible in the best Star Wars movies. What made the best Star Wars movies work is that the planets the characters stayed on felt so real and vivid, that you completely believe these places and picture yourself there. Every place that is seen in this movie is horribly undeveloped and simply uninteresting. I could never image any of these places as real, they simply felt like locations in a third rate science fiction movie. The one thing this does have over Rogue One was that there were some plot twists I didn't see coming. However I was so uninterested in anything I was seeing that they left no impact at all on me. This film also had some attempts at humor that would have been nice, if they were at all funny. Sadly they are just as bland and boring as the rest of this movie.

After this and Rogue One I have lost all hope in the Star Wars franchise. I know it is possible for the series to turn itself around, but I just don't see it happening. Simply put this movie is pure boredom and I simply just don't care about this franchise any more.

-Michael J. Ruhland     

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland











Michael's Movie Grade: A+

Review: Fantastic movie is incredibly moving and powerful.

This film could have so easily been a preachy one sided film about a woman standing against authority. However it was anything but this. The movie did not take sides or try to convince us of anything. Instead it showed us the problem in all its political and social complexity and come to our own conclusions. Writer and director Martin McDonagh isn't afraid to show our main character doing things that aren't quite admirable. It is never fully clear what kind of feelings we are supposed to have towards her. This again lets the audience come to its own conclusion, which is much more effective than the one-sided film this so easily could have been. Frances McDormand's performance makes this lack of clarity much more powerful. Her performance here is one of the finest acting performances of this year. She plays the part with such a feeling of conviction, that you believe her completely, no matter what over the top thing she does. This is needed for this movie since it is so much a character study of her.

However despite the serious and dark subject matter this film was very funny. There were many times I was laughing out loud watching it. The humor also perfectly complemented the story. Not only did it keep the movie from being to bleak and depressing, but since it was always tied so perfectly into the story and characters, it actually helps the story move along and feel more real.

This is by all means a must see film and one that I hope will go down in history as the great great movie it is.

-Michael J. Ruhland 

"CoCo" and "Olaf's Frozen Adventure"

Reviews Written By Michael J. Ruhland



CoCoMichael's Movie Grade: A+

Review: Incredible pure Pixar magic at its best and a must see for all movie lovers.

When I was watching Cars 3 for the first time (and yes I enjoyed that movie) I could tell you each little thing that was going to happen next. This is far from the case with CoCo. Just when I thought I knew where the story was heading it did something completely different. However not only was it completely different, but it was so much more powerful than what I saw coming. This is an extremely moving movie. This is hugely because the characters and environments felt so real. I believed from the bottom of my heart every little thing I saw on screen and accepted it as real. The characters could have easily been simple movie stereotypes, but they are so much more. Each facet of their personality is extremely well thought out and come together to make a completely believable character. The environments are likewise filled with an extreme amount of detail. I can't even imagine how much work probably went into something I probably saw on screen for no less than a second. The story itself is fantastic. As I stated before, you never know what is going to happen next. Despite this though each plot twist seems to naturally flow out of the story and characters and there is nothing in this film that feels forced.

It is hard to praise this movie enough, but every movie fan out there needs to see it.

Olaf's Frozen Adventure

       Michael's Movie Grade: B+

Review: This short was a delightfully enjoyable little film, and I was happy to get both this and a feature film for my money.

The best parts of this film were the humor and characters. While I know many people seem to be tired of Olaf, I find him a great character, whose ability to detach body parts reminds me of silent era cartoon characters like Felix the cat or Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He is extremely delightful here, as he is funny and good hearted and brings a classic cartoon energy to this film. This film is quite funny throughout much of it. While it is hard to describe why a film is funny, I found myself laughing at quite a few of these jokes. The short also gives us a greater insight to what happened when Elsa had to hide from Anna, and these scenes are very touching and flow naturally out of the characters, we already loved from Frozen.

On the downside this does feel like a story we have seen before, and Anna and Elsa's part in the story seems too brief.

I have to be honest, I don't know why people hate this short so much. I find it delightful. I know many people complained about having to sit through a 21 minute short before the feature. However to me the short felt like it went by extremely quickly. Also to me to get a longer short and a feature just made it feel like I was getting a very special movie going experience that is too rare today. Personally I would love if Disney made more 21 minute shorts before their feature films, but sadly that doesn't look like it is going to happen.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Wonder

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade: A-

Review: Fantastic heartwarming family film, of the type there are too few of today.

What makes this movie so fantastic is that every character is so fully fleshed out and given a prefect amount of time to shine, without the movie feeling too long or cluttered. This is all worked together perfectly to show you that each of the character has their own side to the story that is just as valid as anyone-else's. This is something that is very hard to capture in a movie as usually when it is tried the movie just feels like it is forcing too much in the film, but this filming is never felt in this movie. Instead we connect to every character in a personal way. This movie is also filled with great humor. The jokes with Chewbacca are especially very funny. The story is not only told well but is very charming. All the emotion in this film feels real and genuine. You care about everything that happens and the movie may even produce a few tears. While this movie has its sad moment the film comes together to be very uplifting. These type of family-friendly feel good movies are sadly becoming too rare, and most of the time when they come about they feel too forced and phony. There is nothing phony about this movie it is a genuinely charming movie and a delight for the whole family.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Lady Bird

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland












Michael's Movie Grade: A+

Review: Lady Bird is a profoundly moving and funny film, and one of the one of the finest American movies in recent years.

What really makes this film so incredible is its honesty and straightforwardness. Everything in this film feels so real in natural. This does not feel like you are watching a movie, but rather that you are seeing these characters' lives unfold on screen. These characters could have so easily become one dimensional stereotypes, but they are so much more. Like us they have fully rounded personalities that are sometimes admirable and sometimes much less than that. When we see a character make a bad choice, we don't just shake our head and think they are stupid as we do in so many other movies. We really feel sorry and regret for them. This is because as we watch the movie they become almost like friends and family to us and we feel legitimate concern for them. The relationship between Lady Bird and her mother is extremely real and powerful. All this is so important because this is a film that is much more propelled by the characters than the story. The story itself is really simple, and resembles stories we have seen in other films. Despite this the characters make it feel so unique and new. Besides just being profound and moving, this movie is consistently quite funny. There were many times and other audience members laughed out loud. The jokes were not only funny but very clever as in. Fitting into the spirit of the narrative, each joke perfectly comes out of the characters. This means the jokes are not only funny, but help us get more and more involved in the characters and story we see on screen. Though this movie does bring up politics and religion and uses them as the basis for jokes, there is nothing mean spirited here, and the movie never preaches to us on what we should think.

All in all this is just an incredible movie and a must see for all movie lovers.

-Michael J. Ruhland 

Thor Ragnarok

Review Written By Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade: D

Review: Though this film tries to make Marvel's weakest cinematic series into something more enjoyable the film seems bland and lifeless.

The Thor movies are my least favorite Marvel movies. The main reason for this is that I find Thor and Loki maybe the two most boring major characters in Marvel's cinematic universe. There is little to make them more interesting here. Sure, Thor has more wisecracks than he did in the past, but a personality that doesn't make. There is just little reason to care about this character at all. The villainess is equally boring here. She is definitely very powerful, but her screen presence and personality just feels like many villains we have seen in many other superhero movies and there is nothing here to make her stand out among so many similar villains. The Valkyrie is one of the many characters in recent films (like ones we saw in Rogue One) that has a backstory instead of a personality. Bruce Banner is honestly the only character here I actually seem to care about. With the blandness of the characters there seems to be little reason to get into the action scenes, and they come off as boring. The movie does look really good, but all this amounts to little when all but one character are so boring.

One of the main selling points of the movie was the humor. It ended up being very hit and miss. There were some jokes that made me laugh and were the highlights of the movie (though the movie's best joke was already seen in the trailer). Most of the jokes that worked seemed to come from the Hulk. He was the only character in this film that made me laugh consistently. The bickering between him and Thor were easily the highlights of the film. On the other hand much of the humor just falls flat. Thor's wisecracks leave little to no reason to laugh, and Loki's humor is annoying rather than funny.

I know I am hugely in the minority on this movie but I found the film quite bland.

-Michael J. Ruhland

All I Can See is You

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland



















Michael's Movie Grade: C+

Review: This movie some big flaws, but it still ends up being a good movie thanks to great direction by Marc Foster and a very moving performance by Blake Lively.

Thus film really looks great. However this not only makes the movie pretty to look at but makes the story more effective. These visuals often allow you to see the world through the eyes and mind of our main character. When she sees or feels distorted, we can see that visually on the screen and when things are less distorted for her we see things in a rather normal way. With this the main character feels more real to us, and we believe the story more because of this. Also helping make this movie more believable is Blake Lively's performance. Critics seem to be split on this performance but I love it. You feel the emotion in her face. There is not a scene of this movie where she ever feels fake or unreal. Instead even when she doesn't say a word she conveys every emotion perfectly and pulls you into the movie. Why this film works is that with the direction, cinematography and performance all working together this main character feels undeniably real and this makes for some very emotionally effective moments.

However this film does have some huge problems. One of these is as real as our main character feels, her husband doesn't feel real. Though there are some interesting ideas with him, he is never believable. His dialogue often is the film's most forced and there is little knowing what he would be like or do if his wife wasn't in this movie. On top of this some of the side characters simply seem to be there to show us how the relationship between these two is having trouble. (slight spoilers though these events don't take place that far into the movie, so you won't have the ending ruined) How sexually satisfied the sister and her husband are is supposed to contrast with the awkward sex life of our two leads. However it becomes obvious that that is the only reason those two side characters exist. Likewise the peep show scene is supposed to symbolize their troubled sex life, but that scene is instead just awkward and hard to watch, while only telling us what we already know. (spoilers over) There is also another character who only exists for a similar reason, but I won't talk much about him so I don't spoil something that happens late in the movie. Again though while this problems are big, there is more than enough good here to make it worth watching.

-Michael J. Ruhland