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Reviews
My Best Friend's Famous (2019)
Great supporting cast and music!
Great effort from this shoestring budget indie film about a New York transplant trying to break into Hollywood as an actor. The main character (Sean) fumbles his way through the entertainment business while his BFF catches all the breaks and to make matters worse - Sean seems inept in the ways of female relationships! The biggest highlight for me was the supporting cast who enhanced every scene they were in - especially the drama teacher and Mindy Sterling who played Sean's mother. Another big reason to watch this movie is for the fantastic original songs sprinkled throughout the movie which give the film a moody somber tone.
Moana (2016)
Catchy songs and culture with surprises from voice talent
Moana features catchy songs and fantastic animation in addition to a well crafted story that feels both ancient and modern at the same time. Moana and Maui have excellent chemistry on screen and both Cravalho and Johnson surprised us with their ability to convey humor, emotion and song with their voices. We were glad to see a female protagonist introduced into the Disney universe who wasn't part of a love interest or even have a love interest at all – unless you count a love for her people and the ocean. The movie also does a nice job of conveying Polynesian/Samoan culture and even has a couple of catchy songs sung in Traditional Tokelauan.
Overall, Moana is enjoyable and fun to watch – if there was a negative side about the movie it would be that much time is spent with the two characters on a raft and reminded us a bit of the Kevin Costner movie Waterworld. We would have liked to have seen a secondary plot that may have kept us involved for the roller-coaster ride and maybe even some explanation as to the significance of some of the cultural elements germane to the story.
Video Games: The Movie (2014)
Polished edu-tainment docu-movie
We love movies and documentaries on the video game industry and Video Games The Movie (2014) is the latest entry in this education/entertainment genre from the folks at Variance Films. The film runs 1:41 minutes and is available this week as a digital download on iTunes and also in select movie theaters. Video Games The Movie has some big names attached to it like Zach Braff, Cliff Bleszinski and David Perry as both producers and interview subjects along with Wil Wheaton, Nolan Bushnell, Reggie Fils-Aime, Chris Hardwick and many more interviewed on camera and features the voice of Sean Astin as the narrator.
The opening of Video Games The Movie is an elaborate montage of video games throughout the years – in fact the entire movie has a great array of graphics and gaming clips to delight the visual senses. Some of the subjects touched upon are things like the 'great debate' on who was the first person to create a video game – a conversation that generally revolves around M.I.T. scientists, Ralph H. Baer and Nolan Bushnell. More topics include the 'rise and fall' of the home gaming industry in the early 1980s and the now-debunked rumors of the E.T. Atari 2600 burial of cartridges.
Most of the talking head interviews are well done with style and good sound production. As a viewer you can see that the production team behind this documentary was given a great amount of access and time to the people being interviewed. There is a good amount of stock/archive footage from early video game commercials which was edited into the movie in a finely crafted way overlapping interviews and as sort of a 'buffer' between the serious stuff and whacky throwback to crazy early game commercials.
Overall Video Games The Movie is a finely crafted edu-tainment docu-movie. We're not quite sure if the target audience is meant to be for people learning about the history of video games or for those already familiar with it looking to reminisce on the early days of gaming. If you came looking for Zach Braff then you may be disappointed as his soundbites are few and far between however if you are a fan of Cliff Bleszinski talking then you'll be in for a treat as he holds the most screen time along with Wil Wheaton. It was a treat to see many familiar faces once again on camera talking about the video game industry – many of whom we have interviewed over the years here on COIN-OP TV as well.