Raised On Popcorn With Grant

Fackham Hall is a film that’s title is almost a challenge: if you smiled or chuckled at the double entendre of the title then it’s a pretty good bet you will like the film itself. The film is a parody of Jullian Fellowes styled upstairs/downstairs british period pieces centering on the wealthy davenport family whose world is turned upside down by a failed wedding, a lovable handsome pickpocket who has conned his way into a job at their home and a murder, it all goes down (wink wink) at Fackham Hall, the davenports Downton esque estate. Fackham Hall is a film that is difficult to review like most parody films because all you can really judge is how much you laughed and on that basis the film is an absolute success, i laughed a lot at the bits here some were obvious and silly (a joke about the Davenports daughter finding the right cousin to marry) others were surprisingly clever and sophisticated (have you met the Bechdel sisters) and even when a joke made me groan i still almost always ...

Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is a “film” only in the sense that it was shot on camera and will be projected otherwise the film is about as useless as a bucket without a bottom. The film ostensibly follows Mike (Josh Hutcherson whom it only takes watching 10 minutes of the new HBO series I Love LA to realize he’s too good for this nonsense) as he struggles to raise his little sister and to trust friend and burgeoning love interest Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail, who is genuinely talented despite her film choices) in the wake of the events of the first film in which Vanessa’s homicidal dad (Matthew Lillard, both utterly wasted and the sole bright spot) tried to kill the trio with killer animatronic characters what follows is a series of jump scares and easter eggs with no real cohesion to speak of. Roger Ebert once said “the worst films should be cut up and made into ukulele picks for the poor” FNAF 2 deserves that treatment. This isn’t merely bad it’s incomprehensible, scenes just happen without ...

Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution is not really a movie but it is an entertaining cinematic experience. The film is an extended recap of the second season of the anime series and the first episode of it’s forthcoming third season as it follows Yuji in the aftermath of a horrible incident which leads to him being hunted. Like many anime films it takes sometime to get used to the episodic structure of these compilation films but if it serves no other purpose it puts some stunning animated action and surrealism on the big screen and that’s not a bad thing. I had fun even if i was a but baffled.  I Give It 4 Stars!!!

Merrily We Roll Along is further evidence that more broadway shows should be transferred lock, stock and barrel to the big screen. The film which was shot with original broadway cast last year tells a story over twenty years in reverse order beginning in 1979 old pals Frank (Jonathan Groff, excellent), Charley (Daniel Radcliffe, truly incredible) and Mary (Lindsay Mendez, also great) have achieved their Broadway dreams at the cost of their friendship especially in regards to the egotistical Frank, we than roll along to vignettes in past years leading up to this low point. Merrily We Roll Along is a triumph of storytelling regardless of medium, a coming of age tale where by starting low and ending high we get a sense of how cruel and bittersweet time and its passage can be (Richard Linklater is working on a film adaptation being shot over 20 years due for release in 2040 which in hindsight is the best choice) and in turn showing just how perfect the trio of leads are especially Radcliff...

Oh. What. Fun. is a bright and charming if familiar holiday comedy that benefits from an excellent ensemble cast. The film centers on the Clauster family, a loving but dysfunctional clan over the holiday season particularly matriarch Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) who struggles every year to put on a perfect christmas and outshine her across the street frenemy (Joan Chen) and maybe even get on her favorite talk show but after her family accidentally leaves her behind at home and forgets her she decides to leave and head to the talk show taping  leaving the family to fend for themselves now led by hopeless husband Nick (Denis Leary), can this family get there act together and more importantly show Claire how much she means to them before christmas day? Oh. What. Fun. is currently getting a bit of a drubbing from critics and i don’t really understand why. This is a very charming if familiar film with laughs and heart and a great cast (which also includes Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moret...

100 Nights Of Hero is a delightfully strange and proudly progressive queer feminist fairy tale. The film follows a young woman named Cherry (Maika Monroe) who lives in a heightened fairy tale world run by a cruel patriarchy who demand she become pregnant within 101 days or be executed, the only problem her husband barely touches her and one night makes a drunken bet with a new arrival to the kingdom (Nicholas Galitzine), if he can impregnate Cherry within 100 nights he will give him everything including the castle. But here’s the thing about Cherry she doesn’t want any of this, so she turns to housekeeper/loyal friend and master storyteller Hero (Emma Corrin) for help using her storytelling abilities to prevent this dashing stranger from succeeding. 100 Nights Of Hero is like a perfect hybrid of Ella Enchanted and Three Thousand Years Of Longing, based on a 2016 graphic novel the film is a feminist cinderella story with a dash of Lewis Carroll acid trip. It sometimes struggles to balan...

The Merchants Of Joy is one of the least pleasant christmas films i have seen in some time. The film is a documentary following the “five families” of the New York Christmas tree trade as they compete to be the best. The Merchants Of Joy feels like being trapped with the loudest and most abrasive people at the bar for 90 minutes. It’s not about yuletide cheer but commerce until inexplicably it isn’t as it spends 80 minutes extolling how winning and money is everything before in the last 10 minutes it becomes a montage of these annoying people telling us “but hey it’s really about family and togetherness during the holidays” but it wasn’t. Flat, irritating and repetitive The Merchants Of Joy is pretty joyless.  I Give It 0 Stars!!!

Dust Bunny is a delightful modern fairy tale that is practically guaranteed cult status. The film follows a young girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan, a charming newcomer) who has a bit of a pest problem, you see all her foster parents are getting eaten by a monster that is burrowing under her bed, desperate she hires a nameless badass who lives in her building (Mads Mikkelson in fine action hero form) to kill the beast leading to various misadventures in a sort of fantasy tinged New York. Dust Bunny is the kind of film the 10 year old version of me loves, a Gilliam-esque fairy tale with interesting mythology and humor. A perfect film for adults and older children (this film’s R rating is completely ridiculous and should be appealed) who love a good mix of whimsy and action. The feature film debut of TV wunderkind Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal) it sometimes is a bit too lore-dense and sometimes is weird for weird sake but overall Dust Bunny is an original flick that has cult clas...

Left-Handed Girl is a raw and intimate slice of life. The film centers on three generations of women living in Taipei, a mother (Janel Tsai, excellent), her college dropout older daughter (Shih-Yuan Ma, the film’s mvp) and her youngest daughter (Nina Ye, adorable) as they open a stand in a bustling night market and all three deal with various dilemmas all tied to unrealistic generational expectations. Left-Handed Girl is a little treasure, co-written and edited by Sean Baker and Directed/co-written by Shih-Ching Tsou (in her solo directorial debut) and shot entirely on an iPhone the film has a raw immediacy and an immersive sense of place. All three lead performances are stellar but Ma absolutely steals this film as a troubled young woman who has been crushed by the expectations of her domineering grandmother and disappointed mother, it’s a powerful lived in performance that feels natural. That is true of the film itself, we feel like we are barring witness to lives we don’t see onscre...

Blue Moon is a bittersweet gem that cuts like a painful love song. The film follows Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke in an oscar worthy performance), formerly the partner of Richard Rogers before the latter split off to form Rogers & Hammerstein, it’s the opening night of Oklahoma! and a bitter Hart drowns his sorrows at a bar and regales the fellow patrons with his signature stories including his hopelessly one sided infatuation with a young ingenue (Margaret Qualley) despite the fact he is gay. Blue Moon is a fantastic portrait of the last days of a forgotten artist with Richard Linklater (who also directed the terrific Nouvelle Vague this year) stepping back and allowing the screenplay and Hawke’s performance to speak for itself. Hawke is career best here playing a brilliant but bitter man who puts up a desperate front of support in front of his former friend while drowning in booze and resentment. It’s an incredible performance and Blue Moon completely lives up to it.  I Give It 5 ...