Tag Archives: Drama

Cobra Kai review

12 Saturday May 2018

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Cobra Kai Never Say Die!  Is that right?  I might be getting my beloved ‘80s references mixed up.

by Thom Yee

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Cobra Kai images courtesy of Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television

I have a weird relationship with The Karate Kid.  I mean, I’m mostly a ’90s kid, but I was born in the ’80s, a child of two worlds one might say (if one were being intentionally overdramatic), so even though it may have taken until the ‘90s for me to get to them, many of the biggest properties of the ’80s still managed to have a significant influence on my life.  In fact, four of my all-time top five favourite movies — Big Trouble in Little China, Die Hard, Back to the Future, and Transformers the Movie — are properties firmly planted in the ’80s.  And that’s not something I planned, I only just realized that as I began to write that last sentence, but 1984’s The Karate Kid was definitely a movie that never sat quite right with me, and there are two reasons for that. Continue reading →

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Win It All review

29 Saturday Apr 2017

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To gambling, the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems

by Thom Yee

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Win It All images courtesy of Netflix

Manifest destiny is one of those concepts that’s surprisingly easy to throw around, even if we don’t all have a firm grasp on 19th century colonialism, because it’s so tempting to believe what we’re doing is right. What we’re doing is inevitable. What we’re doing is something we ought to be doing, something that will bring about the way things should be and, perhaps, always should have been. It’s a lot like gambling that way. It’s an act of faith.

Gambling is something you do at least partially because you believe it can help you to meet your end goals. That doesn’t necessarily make it a lot better or an easy thing to condone, but I think it makes it easier to understand. Continue reading →

Your Name. (Kimi no Na wa) review

15 Saturday Apr 2017

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Where’s Lindsay Lohan when you need her?

by Thom Yee

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Your Name. (Kimi no Na wa) images courtesy of Toho

Did you ever wake up crying and you weren’t sure why? You’ve had a huge swelling of emotions that you could feel like the heat from a roaring fire, and then snap! Just like that, you’re awake; you’ve experienced something of almost unbearable emotional intensity, something deeply draining, something almost alive, but with every second that passes you drift further and further away from whatever it was that made you feel that way. And you forget it. You forget the moments, the details, the places and names, all gradually but surely disappearing with every second that passes. You get up, go to your bathroom, and study yourself in the mirror, the face looking back at you familiar but foreign, and a horrible feeling starts growing in your stomach and your heart, a feeling that tells you that, though it was just a dream, you’ve somehow lost something of infinite value. A feeling so big it makes you want to cry. But you don’t. You have a cat to feed, a humidifier to turn off, and a degrading job to get to, so you wash your face, put your clothes on, eat your cold breakfast, tie up your shoes, step out the door, and try to join the human race. Just like everyone else. Continue reading →

La La Land review

25 Saturday Feb 2017

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Surprise!  It’s a musical review!

by Thom Yee and a special guest

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La La Land images courtesy of Summit Entertainment

I’ve never outright announced, proclaimed or demanded that GOO Reviews will not be reviewing musicals, in fact it’s something we’ve done a few times in the past, but more recently, under my editorship (i.e., I’m the only one left who writes our full-length reviews on a regular basis), it’s something I thought would at least be implied going forward.  And yet here we are.

The release of La La Land was something that had been causing me actual apprehension for most of last year.  I was conflicted about the movie because while it was going to be a musical, and thus something I could probably ignore, it was also likely to be a headline-grabbing, award-nominated movie that I’d most likely have to pay some attention to.   Continue reading →

Manchester by the Sea review

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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And then you die

by Thom Yee

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Manchester by the Sea images courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios

“Life isn’t fair.” Odds are you’re going to hear that on at least a few occasions in your time on Earth, and if your life goes a certain way or if you too often find yourself in the company of a particular sort of person, it’s a saying that could echo and repeat and may even start to form a pattern around your entire existence. Really, the only people who like to say “life isn’t fair” are those who don’t care, especially not about your sh*t. Another saying that’s become nearly as popular is “It gets better”, and there’s a certain type of person you’re likely to hear that from too — someone who does care but who doesn’t have as firm a grasp on things as they’d like you to believe. And, if we’re being honest, they probably don’t care that much about your sh*t either. If they did, they’d realize how ignorant, manipulative, and galling saying “it gets better” can be. Continue reading →

The Founder review

04 Saturday Feb 2017

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Who’s up for Shamrock Shakes?

by Thom Yee

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The Founder images courtesy of The Weinstein Company

I remember this one time when I was a kid and McDonald’s was selling their hamburgers on promotion for something like 25 cents a piece. This was the ‘90s mind you, well before the days of McCafé or McDonald’s salads, well after the days of the McDLT, and probably around if not just before the all-too-brief age of McDonald’s’ pizzas, so it was right in the heart of when we knew how bad fast food was for us, but hey, where else were we gonna eat (plus we always ordered the Diet Coke, so whatevs)? And the place was just packed. People were buying the maximum number of hamburgers, ten at a time, and getting their friends to come in with them to order more, as if there were some kind of hamburger shortage, as if they were struggling to feed their tired, hungry, huddled-mass families, as if their very lives depended on it. But who am I to talk; after all, I was there too. I got a McChicken. Man, I miss how good those used to be. Continue reading →

Swiss Army Man review

01 Saturday Oct 2016

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And as I watched the lonely man ride the farting corpse of Harry Potter like a jet ski through the ocean waves, I realized I may never again have occasion to write a finer sentence.

by Thom Yee

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Swiss Army Man images courtesy of A24

Normally around this time of year we take a look at the smaller, less well-attended movies of the summer just passed, which is why you’ve been reading reviews of The Nice Guys and Green Room and like that, but FYI, we also had a skip week in September (as we are wont to do) because nobody here had enough to say about our third scheduled movie, Sing Street, to write a whole review about it. I point this out for two reasons. One, we hope it’s interesting to get a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at GOO Reviews (i.e., we do think ahead of time about what we’re doing), and two (and more importantly), you need to know that we watched Sing Street because the movies we ended up watching for this year’s “Summer Movies You Missed” review series wound up being weirdly distorted mirror versions of each other. In weeks two and three, we watched Green Room and then Sing Street, both movies about music’s role in growing up, but while the former was nihilistic and horrific, the latter was overtly, naively hopeful and upbeat. Now in weeks four and five, we watched Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Swiss Army Man, both movies about coming of age while trapped in the wilderness, but where the former was a lovely portrait about finding the best in each other, Swiss Army Man… well it’s about a lonely weirdo and the farting corpse he finds in the woods. Continue reading →

Hunt for the Wilderpeople review

24 Saturday Sep 2016

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Ninjas! Direwolves! Child welfare!

by Thom Yee

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Hunt for the Wilderpeople images courtesy of The Orchard

Growing up is tough. Whether you grew up in a stable home with parents who loved you, as an orphan who was never lucky enough to find somewhere to belong, both your parents were shot in front of you in a senseless crime that sent you on a path of dark vengeance, or you’re like me and you never really did grow up (still the same self-serious weirdo you’ve always been), growing up is a tough thing even in the best of circumstances. That’s why there’s so many movies about it. There are moments locked away in all of our youths that have, consciously or unconsciously, become so personally meaningful or profound or scarring that they stay with us forever. Though you might not have known it at the time, those are the moments that helped to shape who you are and probably who you always will be. And they weren’t always positive experiences. Continue reading →