Author: JONATHAN MOYA

Retired movie nut living in Chattanooga, Tennessee with a wonderful wife, Kristen and pomchi baby, Sharma

“Private Life”: A Great IVF Dramedy

JONATHAN MOYA December 9, 2018

Private Life, (on Netflix) director Tamara Jenkins first film in twelve years, is an angst filled dramedy about trying to conceive. The grind of unsuccessful IVF treatments, futile search for egg donors and deflective comments to adoption counselors feels lived in, comically and realistically absurd, simultaneously heartfelt and heartbreaking, and always authentic. The irony of…

“Dumplin’”: A Beauty Pageant Comedy With a Dolly Parton Heart and Song Track

JONATHAN MOYA December 9, 2018

Dumplin’ (a Netflix movie) folds a whole lot of Dolly Parton songs (six new, and six classic) and witticisms into its rebellious BBW daughter (Danielle Macdonald from Patti Cake$) versus former beauty pageant queen mom (Jennifer Aniston) plot. It is the most Dolly ever put into a movie without a Parton appearance. She is guru,…

“Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle” Getting Beyond the Disney Version to a True Kipling Sense

JONATHAN MOYA December 8, 2018

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (on Netflix) realism and violence makes it a truer version of the Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book stories than the sanitized Disney versions. Though not quite Darwinian, The Law of the Jungle does rule here and is verbalized quite frequently by the wolf pups and Baloo the Bear (voiced with…

“Widows”: A Heist Film With a Large Detour Thru Character Hell

JONATHAN MOYA December 6, 2018

In Widows the best heist occurs at the beginning of the film and it is fast, smoothly edited, filled with stunning action shots and crashes that flow by seamlessly in one take— and almost every criminal dies. The important one, carried out by the Widows of the first, is brief, choppily edited, has no chase…

2018 movies

“Green Book” Is More Than a Reverse Driving Miss Daisy

JONATHAN MOYA December 5, 2018

Green Book, a semi-true story about a black concert pianist being chauffeured around the early 1960’s deep South by a white Italian racist New Yorker with the deepest of accents, tries to be a reverse Driving Miss Daisy with Viggo Mortensen assuming the Morgan Freeman role and Mahershala Ali assuming the Jessica Tandy Miss Daisy…

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” Gets Stuck in the Disney Princess World Wide Web

JONATHAN MOYA December 4, 2018

There is one thing that Ralph Breaks the Internet does very well— satirizing the Disney world wide web, and Princess culture in particular. The regular internet not so well.

The Disney Princesses show up to semi-anoint Vanellope into the harem. It may look like a dressing room, but it is filled with Princesses…

“Outlaw King” Mucks Its Way Thru Scottish History

JONATHAN MOYA December 2, 2018

For those expecting Outlaw King (on Netflix) to be a sequel to Braveheart will be sorely disappointed. The only appearance of William Wallace in David Mackenzie’s telling of Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine), is his quartered (judging by the outward curve) left hand nailed to a Scottish cross in a public square- and that is…

“Instant Family” Manages to Get It Right, Eventually

JONATHAN MOYA November 30, 2018

In the adoption comedy Instant Family Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne agree to foster and adopt three minority children (Isabela Moner, Gustavo Quiroz, Juliana Gamiz) who are caught in the intricacies and sometimes unfairness of the juvenile justice system. There is the usual speechifying, rough edges smoothed, easily resolved traumas and complication, but at its…

“The Christmas Chronicles” Kurt Russell’s Santa Doesn’t Ho-Ho-Ho But He Is Definitely Holly Jolly

JONATHAN MOYA November 29, 2018

Kurt Russell can make you believe he is Santa Claus, although be it one that doesn’t ho-ho-ho, who is not happy with the fatter oft advertised fatter version, and can belt out an Elvis style rendition of any holiday song. Russell’s Santa in The Christmas Chronicles (a Netflix movie) exists between Billy Bob Thornton bad…