movies Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie review: Toy Story 5

Jessie faces Lilypad

My wife and I went to see the movie Toy Story 5 on a weekday afternoon at the Spectrum 8 in Albany because I had to. I’ve seen Toy Story (1995) and Toy Story 2 (1999) in the cinema well before we had a child. When we watched the third film (2010), we didn’t take the kid. For the fourth (2019), the three of us all saw it at the movies, but not together. I even saw a couple of TV specials, Toy Story of Terror! (2013) and Toy Story That Time Forgot (2014). But I never saw the Lightyear (2022) movie.

So I guess I’m as invested in the TS universe as others are in the ones for Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic, or LEGO.

Bonnie, the eight-year-old who inherited Andy’s toys in TS4, is rather content with playtime, which is represented wonderfully in a handmade-looking style. But her parents are concerned. They buy her a new smart tablet, Lilypad, so Bonnie can chat with her dance class members. Has Bonnie outgrown her toys?

On the outskirts of town, Blaze, a nine-and-a-half-year-old, loves animals: a horse, Daffodil, and the family pig, Jimmy Dean. (The name cracked me up.) She has a display of her model horse collection in her room and still enjoys playtime occasionally.

Sheriff Jessie and the other toys, including her deputy, Buzz Lightyear, worry that Lilypad will usurp Bonnie’s attention. The action goes from there, including the return of Woody. A unit of high-tech Buzz Lightyear toys crash-lands on a deserted island, and they too end up in the main plotline.

The cowgirl

This is very much a Jessie story. There’s a brief reprise of When She Loved Me from Toy Story 2 early on, which was a hint for me. How much has the cowgirl mattered over the years?

At the same time, the movie seemed to be set up to bash online technology, yet in the end found a place for it.

Rotten Tomatoes gave Toy Story 5 a 92% (critics)/94% (fans) positive rating. It “largely sidesteps franchise fatigue” through its redirected focus. We liked it a lot, and even got a little, er, emotional. Aside from the core characters, most of the TS tribe was underutilized, but it would have made the story too bloated.

It was strange, though. There was a father and child in the theater, but they left early on, leaving us to see the film by ourselves, which was too bad; I like getting audience reaction.

Sunday Stealing Is Artificial

Essential American songs of the last 250 years

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Since it’s the 4th of July weekend, we’re going to keep this simple. On us all! The first question came courtesy of AI. Sunday Stealing Is Artificial.

4th of July Questions

1) If you could attend a 4th of July fireworks display anywhere in the United States, where would you choose?

I want to be somewhere with a great sightline, and not a lot of people setting off their own incendiary devices. In Albany, I used to have a great view in my former church’s parking lot on Lark Street. About 12 years ago, my daughter and I loved the view from the field behind Albany High School. But on the way home, only a half dozen blocks away, I felt as though we were going through a war zone. So, sadly, I settled for watching it on television.

2) What book are you currently reading?

Nothing. I’m doing a book review on Tuesday, July 7, at 2 pm at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Ave. The book is African-Americans in the Wyoming Valley, 1778-1990, by Emerson I. Moss. I picked this book because I have an ancestor, and indeed, a whole family to whom I am related, mentioned substantially in this book. Preparing a book review involves rereading, taking notes, and the like.

CCL

3) What have you been listening to?

Last week, CBS Sunday Morning offered up Essential American songs of the last 250 years. The presentation featured Sara Bareilles singing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” made famous by Aretha, and Jon Batiste performing “Georgia On My Mind”

Here’s the Spotify roster. Lists like this always generate a certain controversy. “Where’s X? What about Y?” The missed choice I read about most was “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. A guy named Mike Smith had a list of 15 alternatives; I totally agree with Midnight Train To Georgia, probably 16 Tons, and El Paso.

4) What shows or movies have you been watching?

I finally watched Idiocracy, an absurd 2006 film which is becoming more believable by the year. “Corporal Joe Bauers, a decidedly average American, is selected for a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive.” Will stupidity win out? One fan on Rotten Tomatoes wrote: “The most prophetic movie ever created. It predicted Trump’s America in an amazingly accurate and satirical way!”

My wife and I are FINALLY watching The American Revolution. We’re 2/6 of the way through the Ken Burns documentary. It’s amazing how little we knew about the period between Lexington/Concord/Bunker Hill and July 1776.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Collections

FantaCo?

Recently, Chuck Miller wrote: “I’m sure you have unique collections of objects in your own personal life.

“I’d like to hear what those are. That’s why I have a comments section.

“Let me know what your collections include and why those objects bring you joy.”

As I contemplate the question, I wonder what constitutes a “collection.” And of course, I’ll post it here, because, you know, I need content.

In rough chronological order:

Stamps – my great-aunt Deana gave me a book of stamps from around the world, which I still have. For a time at FantaCo in the 1980s, I’d tear off the interesting stamps we received. But I never committed to it.

Coins – back in 2009, I wrote about why I hadn’t collected the state quarters released from 1999 to 2009, because my childhood collection had been stolen. Yet eventually, I DID collect not only the state coins but also the Presidential dollars.

Still, I lost interest in the America the Beautiful coins, in part because I couldn’t feel the rhythm. The states were in the order in which they entered the Union. Presidents were, of course, by their time in office.

Not incidentally, there wasn’t a Jimmy Carter presidential coin in that series because 39 still alive. (The notion that we have a $250 bill with FOTUS on the face was absurd, and Scott Bessent’s defense of same was disingenuous.)

Baseball cards – I had a collection that was stolen from my grandmother’s house in the 1970s. I dabbled subsequently, but I had no heart in it.

Yugoslavia

Maps – my grandfather Mac had a subscription to National Geographic, and they usually contained maps, which he would give to me. This stopped shortly after I went to college, but I STILL have them. Maps are like automobiles: they go from being out of date to being antiques.

LPs – that I still have, except for the ones stolen from grandma’s place, but I haven’t added to it.

Books – is it a collection, or do I just acquire them? And what does that mean? I will note that within the collection is a shelf of hymnals, possibly not enough to be a “collection” as such.

Comic books – I definitely had a collection from 1972 to 1994, when I sold it for about $1000 because I had no real income. The comic material I still have is books of Marvel comics, Swamp Thing, and the like.

Compact discs – I make an effort to play all of them at least once a year.

Hess trucks – I’m still getting them.

Ultimately

If I have anything approaching a collection, I suppose it’s from FantaCo, the comic book/convention/mail-order/publishing place I worked at from 1980 to 1988. I have all of the publications that came out. But I also kept the newspaper clippings, T-shirts, even my little Rolodex. That thing had names of comic book distributors, writers, and artists; it practically tells a story.

Moreover, I have hundreds of photos from that time: everyone from the staff to customers to artist/writer signings to our UPS guy and merchants on our street, including World’s Records when it was at 22 Central Avenue.

The Young Rascals – Collections – Full album – 1967. Playlist. The second Rascals album and the second one I owned, after Groovin’, the third album. My favorite song on the album: Love Is A Beautiful Thing.

Movie review: The Sheep Detectives

crimessolvers

My daughter and I saw a Wednesday matinee of the film The Sheep Detectives at the Spectrum Theatre in late May. Initially, we were the only people in the theater, but eventually two groups of three joined us.

One of the television ads featured a pull quote calling the movie a cross between Babe and Knives Out. That was a useful observation, as it let me know that we would have a bunch of talking animals.

“George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can’t possibly understand. But when a mysterious incident disrupts life on the farm, the sheep realize they must become the detectives. As they follow the clues and investigate human suspects, they prove that even sheep can be brilliant crime-solvers.”

Of course, it is easier to solve a book crime than an actual one, as sheep Lily (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and the others (voiced by, among others, Patrick Stewart, Bryan Cranston, and Regina Hall) soon discover. And then, how do they convey the information to Officer Tim, the only cop in town?

There are a half dozen suspects: a couple of competing farmers, the shopkeeper who steals something from the letter carrier, maybe even the minister. How about that young woman new to town? Is the lawyer (Emma Thompson) on the up-and -up?

Big thumbs up

I adored this movie. It was smart and compassionate. The description one sheep made to others about the nature of God and the church was LOL funny to me. Those sheep had their own myth about death, which is no weirder than the one people you know have. The sheep have to get out of their comfort zones, physically and otherwise.

On Rotten Tomatoes, it received 95% positive reviews from critics and 96% from audiences. Recommended for someone 8 to 80. Warning: you may get a little teary-eyed.

Review: The Devil Wears Prada 2

didn’t see Michael

My wife, daughter, and I went to see the film The Devil Wears Prada 2 at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany on a Saturday afternoon in mid-May. It’s been a while since the three of us did that; I have no idea when, or what we saw.

It was fine. The initial “reunion” between Miranda (Meryl Streep) and Andy (Anne Hathaway) was on point. Andy and her frenemy Emily (Emily Blunt) were mostly entertaining. And we finally see Nigel (Stanley Tucci) come into his own.

What we see in the consolidation of media and how powerful manipulates the marketplace is definitely there. It was fun to see all of the cameos at one party. The fashion was interesting to see.

And yet, I found that the movie wasn’t always maintaining my attention, or my daughter’s; she rested her head on her mother’s shoulder for a time. I wouldn’t say the movie, at two hours, was too long.

David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews wrote that the “picture eventually segues into an almost impossibly sluggish midsection rife with needless subplots and digressions.” The Milan scenes, in particular, meandered, although it was Nigel’s shining moment.

Also, per IMDb, “Miranda hosts a large dinner directly beneath Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In reality, access to the room is strictly limited, and food, candles, and any form of smoke are prohibited to preserve the fragile artwork.” I didn’t need to be an art historian to know that was true.

Yet I did like the payoff. Rotten Tomatoes critics were 78% positive, while the fans were 84% positive.

DNS

The next day, my wife and daughter saw the biopic Michael at the same venue, with Jermaine’s son Jaafar playing his late uncle. I had seen the jukebox musical MJ at Proctors Theatre in December 2024 and didn’t feel the need to see the film, but my family liked it.

The movie’s Rotten Tomatoes scores were 39% among critics but 97% among fans. One critic wrote: “A banal, airbrushed portrait that plays like a jukebox musical and, except for a few snide winks, ignores the controversies that have long swirled around the singer.”