Category: Movies

Have you been thinking there have not been enough 80ish Spielbergian movies made recently?  Well apparently Jeff Nichols felt that way so he made Midnight Special.  While Midnight Special has nothing to do with a southern midnight prison train, it is very good, and it seems right at home in today’s media climate with shows like Stranger Things on the air.

I don’t wish to give away any of the plot, but it revolves around a man (Michael Shannon) trying to get his son (Jaeden Lieberher) to Tallahassee with the help of his friend (Joel Edgerton), and his son is not quite normal.  Intrigued? I hope so.

Even though Midnight Special is Sci-Fi, it is really a road trip drama, so special effects are used sparingly, but when effects are used they create more awe than if they were used all the time like in other films.  The writing is what makes this all work.  You can tell they are a family on the run, and they are doing whatever they can to get to where they are going for the sake of their son.

Dramas fall flat if the actors don’t hold up.  Thankfully this is a talented cast, and they keep this movie running.  I never doubted any of their performances for a minute.  I guess there is a reason Jeff Nichols uses the same actors over and over.

I didn’t know what to expect when I started watching Midnight Special.  I had just heard that it was good and Steven Spielberg kept being mentioned a lot.  Though to be fair this is not a straight up Spielberg copy.  It is more like someone watched a lot of Spielberg growing up, and then made their own version of something in his family Sci-Fi genre.  Anyway, what I am trying to say is that Midnight Special is a great movie, and you should watch it (even if you don’t like 80’s Spielberg movies).

If you have followed my site, you know that I have a giant soft spot for stop motion animated movies, and Laika in particular brings me more joy than any one animation studio should.  That being said, Kubo and the Two Strings might be my favorite movie of theirs yet.  I just watched it, but I already want to watch it again.

The movie is about a young boy named Kubo (Art Parkinson) who has to find his father’s magical armor.  He will be joined on this quest by a talking monkey (Charlize Theron) and a beetle samurai (Matthew McConaughey).  He is armed only with his mother’s magical shamisen (kind of like a Japanese guitar).

There is so much to Kubo and the Two String’s story, but I don’t want to give any of it away.  It is simple in its premise and plot, but it excels in its execution.  It is sad, scary, funny and hopeful in just the right amounts.  The movie is an hour and forty minutes long, and none of that time is wasted.  It is fantastic story telling.

The look of this movie is flawless.  There are always incredible things to see.  I haven’t had this much fun just looking at a movie in a long time.  It is truly candy for the eyes.  It makes other films dull by comparison.  Even if I have a bias towards stop motion, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe me when I say Kubo and the Two Strings is a visual feat.

Another bias I have is Charlize Theron, so you will just have to trust me that she was great anyway, and she brought the monkey to life with her voice perfectly.  McConaughey and Parkinson also did amazing jobs.  With their talents it is easy to forget that you are looking at little models in front of a green screen.

Kubo and the Two Strings is so good that if it was a blanket I would wrap myself up in it and never take it off.  Sadly (thankfully?) it is not.  One word of warning, Kubo can be a tad scary, so if your kids are easily frightened you might want to wait until their are older.  Other than that, Kubo and The Two Strings is a great film for the whole family, and one I wholeheartedly recommend.