Movies that I've managed to see this month.

Even though I've been busy with my writing project this month - that seems to go on and on and on, I've also tried to find some time to watch some movies with my friend. We've tried to watch some of the interesting films that have been released lately.

Indeed, over the last two weeks we managed to watch movies like Pixar's 'Toy Story 4', James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel' and Seth Rogen's comedy 'Long Shot'. We thought that these films would be worth our time and that they would keep us entertained.

So when it comes to the first movie that we saw, it wasn't exactly a difficult decision to watch 'Toy Story 4'. Based on its reviews and the success of the series, it was pretty much guaranteed that the 4th film in the series would work too.

After all, when you have a movie that has a 97% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com by the critics and a 94% fresh rating by the audience, things look pretty good. It's pretty clear that the movie is going to be at least somewhat watchable.  

Yet, having now seen the Pixar animation with my friend, I have to say that the movie - surprisingly enough - wasn't as good as I had expected. Even though the film is okay, there were certain story problems in it that shouldn't be overlooked.

For example, one of the problems with 'Toy Story 4' had to do with its 'Forky' character (picture above). I thought that the character was just too depressing (it barely was even a toy) and it didn't really fit in with the rest of the characters and the universe of the film.

Another story problem in the movie had to do with its villain character 'Gabby Gabby'. The fact that the writers decided to turn her into a somewhat misunderstood 'good' character in the 3rd act of the film didn't really work and felt contrived to me.

Furthermore, there were other questionable things too in the story, like that the characters weren't much of a team anymore. Especially when it comes to Woody being selfish and the fact that the movie neglected the supporting cast was pretty awkward.  

Still, despite these mistakes in the movie, I can't deny that the film nevertheless had tons of good qualities about it. There's no question that the film looks beautiful, is well acted and that there are a lot of solid action scenes that keep the thing going.

In that sense, if you haven't seen 'Toy Story 4' yet, you should nevertheless give it a chance. You should watch it, because even though the film has its flaws, there certainly aren't too many good movies to watch out there anyway.  

The second movie that I watched with my friend is 'Alita: Battle Angel'. This is a scifi-action movie produced by James Cameron and the story in the film is based on a popular 1990's Japanese manga series by Yukito Kishiro.

The reason that we watched the film was not because I was super excited to see it. I hadn't really heard that many good things about it and I also didn't feel that good about James Cameron's 'career choices' lately either (he definitely should make movies more frequently).

Yet, once I noticed that the film had a pretty solid 7.4/10 rating on Imdb.com, that was more than good enough. Since the film also had a positive rating on Rottentomatoes.com (62% fresh by critics) I couldn't say no to the film.

So having now seen 'Alita: Battle Angel', even though the film has some minor problems in its story, I have to say that it wasn't that bad at all. The movie turned out to be surprisingly watchable and both me and my friend like it quite a bit.

Indeed, when you look at the movie, among other things, there's no question that the whole thing looks absolutely incredible (its protagonist is 100% computer generated). It's clear that insane amount of work went into making this movie as awesome looking as it is.

Story-wise, the biggest flaw in the movie is that there are way too many story beats and exposition in the film. The writers - one of them was Cameron - and the producers - as unfortunate as it is - weren't able to make the story work as well as it should have.

Still, when I think of the movie as a whole (it has the always great Christoph Waltz in it), I was still more than entertained by it. I liked the characters and the basic story in the film and also its 'Blade Runner meets The Hunger Games' atmosphere.

In that sense, if 'Alita: Battle Angel' doesn't get a sequel (it more or less broke even box-office wise), I would honestly be disappointed. The film was certainly good enough for me and is good enough to deserve a sequel.

The third and the last film that I saw with my friend is 'Long Shot', a Seth Rogen vehicle that I had heard some good things about. The movie had gotten solid reviews (81% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com) and I thought that it might perhaps be worth our time.

After all, even though some of Rogen's comedy films haven't been that good, this one had potential. The premise of Rogen's journalist character being hired to become a presidential candidate's (Charlize Theron) speechwriter was something that intrigued me.

So when it comes to the romantic comedy, I have to say that I was positively surprised by the quality of the film. I was delighted by how well written the movie was (especially the romance part) and how much substance and actual message it had.

Indeed, over the course the movie our odd couple goes through all kinds of situations that are entertaining. These situations (meeting, falling in love, honing policies, campaigning etc.) are something where you can't help but to root for these two.

Substance-wise, the movie is about environmentalism and shows how insanely manufactured politicians can be and how corrupt they are policy-wise. The film does a surprisingly good job at taking jabs at corporate politicians and the media (especially Fox News)

Naturally, since this is a Seth Rogen comedy, the movie is full of naughty dialogue and dirty / funny jokes. The movie is absolutely jampacked with raunchy material, which might not be for everyone if we're being completely honest here.

Still, when it comes to the film as a whole, if you're someone who can even remotely tolerate Seth Rogen as an actor, there's a good chance that the movie is for you. You should not think that the movie is all about silly jokes and being as raunchy as possible.

On the contrary, even though the film is definitely raunchy, it also has a good message. Its honest message preaches about being true to yourself and not taking the easy way out, no matter how difficult or embarrassing doing the right thing might seem at first.

'Yesterday' is an uplifting movie that has integrity.

As a pretty big fan of British comedies, when I heard that there was a new movie by legendary writer Richard Curtis called 'Yesterday', I got my hopes up. I thought that there was a good chance that the film would deliver and that it would be worth my time. 

After all, since my hero Curtis had written movies like 'Love Actually' and 'Notting Hill' and the new film had a strong premise, things looked good. I was confident that the movie about 'a guy who's the only person to remember that The Beatles existed' would work.

Having now seen the movie with my friend, I have to say that 'Yesterday' as a film did turn out to be really good. Even though some critics haven't like it that much (62% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com), the movie was definitely worth watching. 

In essence, the story in the film is about a struggling musician (played by Himesh Patel) who one day notices something truly weird. Once a global power outage occurs, he seems to be the only one who remembers that a band called 'The Beatles' ever existed. 

Not surprisingly, once our protagonist casually starts playing the band's music to his friends, they immediately think of him as some kind of a musical genius. How on earth did a guy like him suddenly come up with awesome songs like 'Yesterday'? 

Later on in the film, once he gets past the usual struggles for an unknown artist, the inevitable happens. After he gets enough exposure as a musician, he becomes the biggest artist on the planet and things start to get more and more complicated.

So when it comes to the quality of the film, one of the best things about the film is that the story in it is creative. Even though the script follows the standard story structure, the movie fortunately doesn't take the easy way out with its story beats.

By that I mean is that had 'Yesterday' been your usual 'Hollywood' hack fest, you would have guessed all the story beats way before they happened. In that case you'd have gotten the usual 'guy gets famous, gets too cocky, loses it all and needs to learn a lesson'.

Fortunately in this movie, the protagonist has integrity throughout the movie. He tries his very best to do the right all the time and at no point of the movie acts like a jerk (which I can guarantee would happen in a Hollywood movie).

Another major reason why the movie works so well - not surprisingly - has to do with it how well it's acted. The movie relies on its main actors not only to be able to act well but also to be capable to perform all those various songs.

After all, without the ability of Patel as a solid actor and a gifted musician, I doubt that the movie would have been as entertaining as it turned out to be. He genuinely manages to deliver here and brings that much needed authenticity and honesty to the film.

In hindsight, when I think about the movie, the only real problem in it has to do with some parts of its screenplay. Even though the story is well paced and didn't feel boring at any point, the 'romance' part in the film didn't work as well as it should have.

After all, especially when it came to the moment of Ellie (played by Lily James) finding someone else, I felt that this part in the story was a bit rushed. That part could certainly have used some polishing and could have been better written.

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, it's pretty clear that even though there were some tiny problems in the story, these minor flaws were not that important. They did not prevent me from enjoying the movie as a whole.

After all, despite the film's minor flaws, there are so many good aspects to the movie that make it shine. These solid comedic and dramatic moments and the overall uplifting tone of the movie certainly made me enjoy the film very much.

In that sense, if you're someone like me who likes to watch romantic comedies and likes to listen to 'Beatles' songs, 'Yesterday' is almost definitely for you. You should give the film a chance and not be discouraged by what some critics have said about it.

After all, even though some critics complained that the film doesn't go deep enough in exploring the premise of 'what if', you shouldn't believe their criticism too much. That aspect of the story is not what the movie in its essence is about.

On the contrary, when you look at the movie as a whole, what the film really is about is about idealism and kindness. It's about being good and kind to each other and making sure that no matter what happens, in the end we are still able to do the right thing.