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Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Deeply Frustrating and Often Unpleasant
"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" is a deeply frustrating film. In trying to please everybody, it pleases nobody. The pacing is break-neck speed as it tries to cram too much plot, and too much poorly-thought-out fan service into too little a runtime and it completely fails to make itself anything close to interesting.
Clearly everyone involved wanted to appease those fans who abhorred the previous film, but I'm not sure they accomplished that. Everything about this movie felt so fanservicey in the most perfunctory way. Things just happen with little-to-no explanation under the assumption the fans will love it for happening. But this approach fundamentally fails to understand why fans might want to see something happen. All of the reveals fall flat because the previous movies did nothing to set them up and the film is paced with such break-neck speed that it's difficult to get attached to (or understand) any of what you're seeing.
A lot of the visual effects don't work well - there's a CGI flashback that's worse than the Rogue One uncanny valley scenes. The actors all do a decent job with what they're given, but nobody is given much to do (aside from Ridley and Driver). The insertion of leftover Leia footage from "The Force Awakens" never really works as it never feels like she's talking to the characters in this film or they're talking to her - and they do so little with her character that she might as well have not been in the movie at all.
I didn't love "The Last Jedi" but at least it took a risk. It failed to be what the middle chapter of a trilogy needs to be - it didn't set up the final film at all - so "Rise of Skywalker" had to pick up some of that slack and was always going to suffer for it. But, God. I just didn't like this movie at all. It's so steeped in the past that it feels redundant and completely fails at concluding this story. It was never fun - and Star Wars film should always be fun.
Cats (2019)
Never As Weird as You Want
Outside of a few extremely weird moments, CATS is neither as consistently weird as you want it to be nor as good as the film thinks it is. You get used to the CGI after 5 minutes and after that, it's just the stage show. If you like that, you'll like the movie. I liked the movie a bit more than I liked the musical (for reasons that will become apparent) - but I also really don't like the musical.
The script adds a bit more of a story than what is found in the musical, but it's never really able to turn the film into anything more than a collection of vignettes where various Cats explain why they should be the ones to ascend to the Heaviside Layer (a version of Cat Heaven) and be given a chance at a new life.
The CGI isn't as monstrous as you fear, though there are plenty of times it doesn't work. Hooper films this movie in exactly the same method he filmed the Les Miserables film - lots of extended closeups and very long-lasting wide shots. The wide shots do a good job at showing off Andy Blankenbuehler's choreography, but the closeups are very unsettling.
Unfortunately, the movie is only REALLY weird for about 30-40% of the time. The rest of it is fairly monotonous and it just sort of numbs you. I'd argue it's worth seeing for those weird moments - because they're REALLY weird. But, at the end of the day, if you don't like the musical, there's no chance you're gonna like this movie - because it's just the musical with slightly weirder costumes.
The American Mall (2008)
Pretty good for MTV
Saw it on MTV earlier, and, although it is from the executive producers of High School Musical, this movie is geared more to the high school crowd than High School Musical is. So, The American Mall is not nearly as childish as High School Musical, making it a better movie all together.
The relationship between Ally and Joey was very similar to High School Musical, (the two people sing together, don't know each other, and then meet up again, only to break up shortly there-after, and get back together at the end.) Although, the relationship between Ally and Joey is exactly the same as the relation ship between Troy and Gabrielle, in High School Musical, there is more emotionally depth with the actors/actresses, making it a better experience.
It was a great movie, well worth the time and I would recommend watching it soon.