Tag Archives: film

Piece By Piece

Hey, gang, here’s a way to spice up a tired storytelling format: Go Lego!

The new film Piece By Piece has those familiar elements seen time after time in documentary biopics: archival footage plus soundbites from associates/family/observers, tied together with narration and/or onscreen text. But this story of musical polymath Pharrell Williams has that big difference. It is told… via Legos!

The movie is colorful, musical, kinetic and full of cool images that would not be seen had the story been told in the traditional way.

Does the Lego innovation/gimmick work? Yes, to an extent. But after a while, it gets a bit tedious. And it is a bit dishonest. Do the projects in Virginia Beach where Pharrell grew up look like they’re presented in this film? Is his high school where he met many of his first musical chums similar to its cartoon representation here? 

Among the people who contribute soundbites to Piece By Piece are Pharrell’s parents. After about their third appearance onscreen—as Legos—I wanted to see what his folks really look like, not just their cartoon images. Also, I wonder if all the musical folk who contributed comments are pleased with their Lego depictions? 

Interestingly, when Pharrell’s story gets to 2013, one of the three gigantic hit songs he was involved in that year gets just a brief mention. Blurred Lines, performed with Robin Thicke and rapper T.I., has since been cancelled in popular culture because of its lyrical content. To have ignored the song, a monster hit, would’ve left fans wondering WTF. But acknowledgement of the tune, set between more screen time for the two others, is appropriate.

Pharrell’s part in Daft Punk’s Get Lucky was his first 2013 mega hit. Then, in summer, as Blurred Lines was ruling the charts, his song Happy was heard as the closing theme of the film Despicable Me 2. Toward the end of the year, the song began ascending the charts and in early 2014 the song and its video were making people everywhere… happy! Positive responses from the song’s fans get good play in this new movie.

For those who know Pharrell Williams mainly for his time as a judge on The Voice or from his song Happy, Piece By Piece delivers a good opportunity to learn more about the man. His love of music from childhood when he was a Stevie Wonder fan. His involvement with many of music’s giants including Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z. His family life including not just his parents but also his wife and his grandmother. 

The Lego innovation/gimmick offers parents a reason to bring their kids along to the theater. Even if they don’t care for the story, the Lego images and the creative animation should keep them amused. Or even, as the song title says, happy.

Piece By Piece runs just over 90 minutes. Rated PG.

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Twisters

Is it okay for a movie about something as terrible as tornadoes to be… fun?

Twisters has its share of perilous moments and amazing depictions of the devastation a tornado can cause. But it also has a Hallmark-like rom-com element and a Dukes of Hazzard quality as well. 

One Hallmark Channel boilerplate plot has a young woman leaving her small town for the big city, coming back for a visit, meeting a man who initially rubs her the wrong way. But as they keep encountering each other, attraction ensues.

In Twisters, Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones), now working for the National Weather Service in New York, had a frightening tornado experience years ago but is lured back into the plains of Oklahoma to test a new tornado tracking system. She soon partners with Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) a reckless storm chaser who posts his storm videos on social media channels. And off they go!

Will they find tornadoes? Um, if they don’t, there’s no movie here. Will they become a romantic item? Um, if they don’t, there are gonna be lots of disappointed folks when the movie’s over. 

How hot is Glen Powell? Well, he’s hot in that he’s a good looking guy with a great smile and good hair but he’s also hot in that he’s had significant success in movies in the last couple of years. And his work in this film will only add to his appeal to casting directors, not to mention it will add to his future paydays.

How hot is Daisy Edgar-Jones? She’s gorgeous. Cute in a wholesome, Hallmark babe kind of way. (She starred as Kya in the 2022 film Where The Crawdads Sing.)

How good are the effects? While this new movie doesn’t have the money shot of flying cows that made the 1996 Twister buzzworthy, there are numerous scenes that are frightful AND make you wonder… how did they make it look so real? Objects and people do go flying through the air. Minor spoiler: a gigantic blade from a wind turbine plummets to the ground. Yikes.

Just like your computers and cell phones have made gigantic advances in the past 28 years, so have CGI and other movie making magic tools. You may not gasp in amazement at everything but you will enjoy the ride.

When Tyler is introduced, the film’s cool country music soundtrack kicks in. When he drives his pickup truck off road through rough terrain, you may be reminded of the Duke boys and their reckless driving in the General Lee. A rodeo scene lets Tyler inform Kate that he was once a bull rider. And Kate’s down home roots are confirmed when she goes home to the farm to see her mother (Maura Tierney).

Unlike many of the potential perils presented to audiences in movies, tornadoes are real and often catastrophic. I recall videos of the monster that hit Tuscaloosa AL in spring 2011 and then driving through the area of impact a few weeks later. Wow! Just a month after Tuscaloosa was hit, Joplin MO was pounded by an enormous twister that cut a huge swath through that town.

Why do people chase tornadoes? Is it for the adrenaline rush? The urge to tempt fate? Why do any of us do risky things? Twisters director Lee Isaac Chang says, “There’s a contradictory element to tornadoes. They’re so destructive, yet we all want to see them.” Twisters provides all the vicarious tingle I need without exposing me to danger. 

Plus the film has two lead characters who have great charisma and chemistry. It’s rated PG-13 so you can take most all of your family members. It clocks in right at two hours with nary a wasted frame. And, yes, it is a fun movie.

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The Fall Guy

Like one of Stefon’s hottest clubs, The Fall Guy has EVERYTHING: Action, comedy, romance and drama. And, of course, awesome stunts. And some cool dogs. And a unicorn.

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are excellent, as you would expect. But it’s their characters and the story that make The Fall Guy a movie you will want to see. As is often the case with films full of explosions, chases, fights, etc., you will want to see it at a movie house rather than wait a few weeks for streaming.

Colt Seavers (Gosling) is a stunt man who injures his back when a fall goes wrong. After which he goes into a shell and ghosts his girlfriend Jody Moreno (Blunt) who is camera operator on the film. Eighteen months later, when Jody is directing her first film, producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) recruits Colt to jump on a plane to Sydney to do stunt work.

Their relationship ramps up again slowly as an insecure Jody tries to tie her film-within-a-film together. Her film Metalstorm involves aliens and cowboys,BTW. Meanwhile Gail asks Colt to track down missing star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), setting in motion much of The Fall Guy’s action sequences which occur away from the Metalstorm filming locations.

Director David Leitch and screenwriters Drew Pearce and Glen A. Larson have stitched together a tale whose plot takes a few clever turns but doesn’t get too weird. The tale’s resolution and the film’s coda are both hugely satisfying. 

Also enjoyable are some of the “inside baseball” elements of movie making. Along with “real” views of some of Metalstorm’s action, we see the onscreen versions in brief clips. The stars talk about movies like Pretty Woman and Love, Actually. At one point, after Colt says something sweet to Jody, he wonders to himself if his remark was an ad-lib or a line from a movie.

The Fall Guy feels just a smidge too long but that qualm is extinguished when one considers all the stuff that’s in the movie. Including a few clever director’s tricks like split screens and quick cuts between static scenes and action scenes. To avoid the risk of this review also running too long, a quick mention that the film is rated PG-13 so you can take your parents and even most kids. No sex, just violence.

Bottom line: The Fall Guy is a winner.

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