FANTASTIC BEASTS: DUMBLEDOR’S SECRETS: 3 STARS
Four years after last entering the Wizarding World franchise, the Big Cheek Exchange takes place in theaters this weekend as zygomatic-blessed Mads Mikkelsen takes on the role of former malaria favorite Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets.
Located in the 1930s, the real or Muggle world is preparing for World War II. A battle of various kinds is brewing in the wizarding world. Gellert Grindelwald (Mickelsen), a dark wizard and former love interest of Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), has returned after creating world chaos with renewed faith in magical superiority and a plan to create a new magical world order.
Freed from his crimes by the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW), Grindelwald’s first step toward world domination comes with a plan to steal the election (ICW) and take control. He wants to burn the Muggle world. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” he told his ex-lover Dumbledore.
As the storm in Grindelwald grows, Dumbledore hires British Ministry of Magic employee Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmain) and company – including returning characters such as older brother Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner), brave baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and Bunty Broa – Take your wands and fight.
The stakes are high. Dumbledore believes that this is the greatest threat to both the world of wizards and the Muggle world of a century. “Things that seem unimaginable today,” he says, “will seem inevitable tomorrow.”
It seems that politics in the world of wizards is as intense as in ours.
If you’re going to see “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets” for a magical Harry Potter-style fix, you’re in luck. The film has spectacular visuals that enliven the world of wizards, some mystical creatures such as cute dragons that can identify the pure in heart, killer books and a suitcase that germinates legs and walks.
It’s full of CGI miracles, but so heavily loaded with effects that the characters play a second violin of bits and bytes. This is the best job, but after a while it becomes suffocating. You crave something organic, but this is the World of Wizards and everything is an illusion.
The story has an old-fashioned sense of adventure, but like CGI it feels too much. The big moments are huge, accompanied by a swollen orchestral score. But even the small moments are big. A simple story of world domination is lined up and tricked into a stretched time of two hours and twenty minutes, populated by many, many characters, most of whom don’t have much to do.
Under the watchful eye and captivating cameras of Harry Potter veteran director David Yates, “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets” is a large, beautiful film about magic, but unfortunately it doesn’t feel so magical.
STU’S FATHER: 2 ½ STARS
“Father Stu”, a new, inspiring film by Mark Wahlberg, now in theaters, is the unlikely but true story of a throaty and rude boxer whose journey to redemption begins with a detour to the Catholic Church.
When we first met Stuart Long (Wahlberg), he was an amateur boxer with long-standing visions. He is good, but not good enough to become a professional, as his mother (Jackie Weaver) likes to point out. “Don’t be careless with your life,” she says. “You’re the age most people pack it.”
He is an angry man. Angry at his dead father (Mel Gibson). Angry at his little brother, who died young. Angry with himself and the world.
He’s a nasty drunk with an irritating temper, but when a medical condition forces him to retire from the ring, he turns his gaze to Hollywood. “I’m going to cash in on my face,” he says. “Not my fists.”
Speaking fluently, he manages to find a job at a grocery store, where he hopes to meet actors and directors who will give him a concert. Instead, he meets Carmen (Teresa Ruiz), a devout Catholic who reluctantly starts dating the unpolished Stu, but only if he is baptized. She is, as one friend puts it, “a Catholic like the cross itself.”
His path to redemption begins when he helps Carmen teach Sunday school. His outspoken way is a hit with children, Carmen and even her strict father, but it takes a motorcycle accident drunk to see Stu literally the light and dedicate himself to the church. “God saved me to show that I have a reason to be here,” he said as he told Carmen of his intention to become a priest.
In a life full of dramatic twists, Stu expects another. One who can stop him from fulfilling his dream of becoming a priest. “God is everything in the fight against chances,” he says, “to have the strength to endure a difficult life.”
Father Stu has enough inspiration. It is a film about the power of religion to heal and motivate, in which many people say “Amen”, but the story is similar to the film of the week, with predictable plot points and an accelerated timeline that gathers too much in too little time.
Even after two hours, the pace is uneven, as director and screenwriter Rosalind Ross tries to cover as many aspects of Stu’s personality as possible. She takes the saying “everything happens for a reason” to the extreme, and as such the film seems hasty in some scenes, too casual in others, but rarely gives us deep insight that would make Stu’s motives resonate.
Wahlberg, who also produced the film after hearing Stu’s story over dinner with a group of priests, underwent an extraordinary transformation to play the character – and I don’t mean his ridiculous mustache. His charisma shines through weight and makeup, and it is in these scenes that he elevates Stu from the animated bad boy from the first half of the film into a captivating character. It’s unfortunate that Ross is trying to tie some of the loose threads of history just when personal history is really finding its humanity.
“Father Stu” comes out around Easter, so given its theme and messages, it seems to be a film for the whole family, but keep in mind that Stu’s language is authentic, ie. pretty rough all the time in the movie.
“Father Stu” is a film about change, about overcoming obstacles and living with purpose. All the good messages, it is a pity that they are tied in a clumsy movie.
ALL MY MINI WEAVES: 3 ½ STARS
As you can imagine from a film that begins with the voice-over: “Has there ever been a more obvious truth in human history than the statement ‘We’re all going to die?’ And yet in our bones, how many of us can conceptualize that? , “All My Little Sorrows” is not afraid of the delicate question of death.
The struggling writer Yoli (Alison Peel) and the concert pianist Elf (Sarah Gadon) – short for Elfrida – are sisters who fled the strict, rural Mennonite upbringing to forge a life of art. There is a deep connection between them, although their lives have taken many different paths.
Yoli is divorced after 16 years of marriage. As his daughter Nora (Amibet McNulty) storms in, Yoli wonders aloud if she’s doing the right thing. “The end of 16 years of monogamy with Dan caused a strange animal reaction,” she said. “Honestly, the last few months haven’t been my pride.”
An elf, although internationally successful and happily married, has lost her thirst for life. When she tries to commit suicide for the second time, Yoli comes to her side, hoping to help her sister avoid the same fate as their father Jake (Donal Loag), who committed suicide when they were children, but her pleas remain deaf.
“Will you take me to Switzerland?” The Elf asks.
“Yes, we will take Swatches,” says Yoli.
But Elf wants to go to an assisted suicide clinic, “where dying is legal and you don’t have to die alone.”
Screenwriter and director Michael McGowan, who adapted Miriam Touse’s novel of the same name, tells a story of grief and death that explores the purpose of life. McGowan sensitively shows how life’s decisions resonate with everyone inside and outside.
These themes are reinforced by the performances of Peel, Gadon and Mare Winingham as their obsessed mother. The literary script often looks as if the characters are speaking in carefully constructed prose, but in the mouths of these performers there is love, disappointment and acceptance of the situation. The pill and Gadon snap like sisters, bringing out a lifetime of love and petty quarrels.
“All My Little Sorrows” is an emotional film that covers the whole sad situation of the end of life, irritation, grief and even occasional humor.
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