Michael B. Jordan Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Michael B. Jordan-whose latest project "Creed III" releases in theaters on Thursday.

Michael B. Jordan's Filmography Ranked:

13.A Journal for Jordan (C-)

12.Fantastic Four (C)

11.Red Tails (B-)

10.That Awkward Moment (B-)

9.Without Remorse (B)

8.Hardball (B)

7.Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (B+)

6.Chronicle (B+)

5.Creed II (A) 

4.Just Mercy (A)

3.Creed (A)

2.Black Panther (A)

1.Fruitvale Station (A)

Top Dog: Fruitvale Station (2013)

The sheer depth of the talent that Jordan and Ryan Coogler possessed became clear within the first few minutes of watching Fruitvale Station. Their ability to paint an empathetic, honest picture of Oscar Grant as a man trying to pick up the pieces of his life after being released from prison in the hours before he was murdered by a transit cop in Oakland on January 1, 2009 serves as a devastating, urgent reminder of the human beings that are on the other end of these all-too-frequent headlines of police brutality that ends in the death of an unarmed civilian. 

Bottom Feeder: A Journal for Jordan (2021)

At the core of A Journal for Jordan sits a really heartfelt true story about a timeless romance (Jordan and Chante Adams-who have terrific chemistry) that was cut short by the husband being killed overseas while serving in the military and the positive impact that a father had on the son that never really got to know through a journal of letters he wrote for him to read once he got older. Through some stagnant direction by Denzel Washington and a script that choose to handle themes of grief, loss, etc. primarily through cheap melodrama-particularly in the latter half, this tale loses its connection to the real world and significantly dulls its emotional impact in the process.

Most Underrated: Creed II (2018)

Calling Creed II underrated is probably a bit of a stretch, but the reception was a bit less enthusiastic than the original and I believe that it's just as good, which is ultimately enough for me to justify giving it that distinction. Steven Caple Jr. admirably fills the shoes of the great Ryan Coogler by making another exhilarating yet powerful film about legacy, family and people finally gaining the strength to confront the pain they've caused others in the past.

Most Overrated: None

Jordan's relatively small filmography paired with my love for his most revered movies (Black Panther, Chronicle, Just Mercy, Fruitvale Station, the Creed series) has prevented him from having a single film that qualifies for consideration here. May this streak continue for as long as humanly possible.  

Biggest Missed Opportunity: Fantastic Four (2015)

I strongly believe that Fantastic Four is the most glaringly obvious and damaging case of studio interference on a movie that I've ever witnessed. 20th Century Fox hacked up the final cut so much that it only runs for 100 minutes and may be the only movie I've ever seen that has no middle as it jumps from the setup to the finale with no real transition to speak of.  Despite all of these glaring issues with the version that was released, there's so much potential for a compelling darker, more character-driven take on these iconic heroes' origins residing in this hollow shell of a movie and if Josh Trank had simply been allowed to execute his vision as intended, I believe this movie could've been pretty damn good.  

Movie Review: Cocaine Bear

Universal Pictures' public service of producing movies that no other major studio has the courage to regularly make right now continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Their latest $30 million donation to the sicko arts resulted in the birth of Cocaine Bear, which rides its absurd premise all the way to the promised land where future cult classics are born.  

If Charlie's Angels was viewed as some kind of setback for the progress of Elizabeth Banks' directorial career, Cocaine Bear is the movie where any lingering doubts over her directorial ability promptly go out the window. Not only is she able to produce big laughs by delivering the self-aware horror comedy camp with a level of flare and energy that suits a movie about a bear that starts killing people once it starts eating the dozens of kilos of coke that a notorious drug smuggler (Matthew Rhys) dropped in the Georgia forest where they reside, she finds ways to throw in some surprises without ever straying too far from the film's core B-movie mission statement. 

The varying sets of motivations each character has for being in the forest the day (ex: Keri Russell is a single mother looking for her daughter and her daughter's friend who skipped school that day to go paint a cave wall, Ray Liotta plays a drug kingpin who tasks his errand boys O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich-who happens to be his son-with securing the coke, Margo Martindale is a hot-headed park ranger who is fed up with people coming into the forest and not respecting serenity of nature) directly dictates how they behave once they encounter the bear, a vast majority of the kills materialize in such gruesome, unexpected ways that each death is accompanied with a visceral shock to system and there's an absurdist streak to the humor that pairs beautifully with the playfulness that naturally inhabits campy material and helps a lot of the punchlines land with a greater impact. It's hard to imagine any director who could've struck a better balance of comedy, horror/gore and characterization with this material and based on the level of enthusiasm that was in my theater along with what I've heard anecdotally online, Banks' approach satisfied a lot of people who went to see Cocaine Bear this past weekend. 

After sitting on it for a few days, I can say with complete confidence that Cocaine Bear is the 1st movie of 2023 that I truly loved. Watching a movie execute its gameplan with such passion and precision from everybody involved (on top of Banks' direction, the script from Jimmy Warden and performances from Ehrenreich, Martindale and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as a dog-loving cop in pursuit of Liotta's character manage to stand out) is such a joy, especially when those winning efforts are enhanced when the film is consumed by an engaged crowd in a public space. Keep these genre dice rolls coming Universal. There's a whole contingent of gleeful weirdos that are counting on you. 

Grade: B+

Ray Liotta Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank franchises or filmographies from worst to best and hand out assorted superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the films of Ray Liotta-whose latest project "Cocaine Bear" is in theaters now.

Ray Liotta's Filmography Ranked:

21.Wild Hogs (D+)

20.Killing Them Softly (C-)

19.Hubie Halloween (C)

18.Observe and Report (C)

17.Revolver (C+)

16.No Sudden Move (B-)

15.Identity (B-)

14.John Q (B-)

13.Muppets Most Wanted (B)

12.Youth in Revolt (B)

11.Date Night (B)

10.The Place Beyond the Pines (B)

9.Narc (B)

8.Blow (B+)

7.Field of Dreams (B+)

6.Kill the Messenger (A-)

5.Cop Land (A-)

4.Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (A)

3.Smokin' Aces (A)

2.Marriage Story (A)

1.Goodfellas (A+)

Top Dog: Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese made the ultimate rise-and-fall crime saga by simply staging the shit out of a story that easily could've morphed into something trite and familiar. With his straightforward yet detailed and stylish approach to the fact-based material, Scorsese allows the audience to understand what attracted to Henry Hill (Liotta in his finest hour as an actor) to initially join the mafia as a poor Italian-American kid from Brooklyn, the moral decay and relentless danger that comes with associating with unpredictable killers (Joe Pesci, Robert de Niro) and how his empire built on greed, betrayal and violence ultimately crumbles beneath him in spectacular, abrupt fashion. It's tragic. It's funny. It's enthralling. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.  

Bottom Feeder: Wild Hogs (2007)

Fun fact: Wild Hogs was the last movie Disney ever released under the Touchstone Pictures label. Wild Hogs being the swan song for an iconic brand manages to be significantly funnier than any joke that appears in this movie that a lot of people that were 40-65 at the time thought was a stitch (this movie made an astonishing $168 million at the domestic box office-which was more than fellow 2007 releases Superbad, Enchanted and Live Free or Die Hard). Wild Hogs is nothing more than a largely unfunny epic-length sitcom episode with a movie budget that is above the talents of everyone in its cast (John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Liotta) besides Tim Allen-who is very much at home working with such lazy material. 

Most Underrated: Cop Land (1997)

James Mangold dropped a sneak attack on audiences when he packed a collection of stars known for gritty meathead action/crime fare (Sylvester Stallone, Robert de Niro, Harvey Kietel, Liotta, Robert Patrick) into a melancholic, slow burn take on the corrupt cop movie. That "false advertising" caused the movie to kind of fade into obscurity after its so-so run at the box office, which is really unfortunate since it's a terrific early showcase of Mangold's gifts as a director as well as a much-needed reminder that Stallone has a ton of dramatic acting talent that Hollywood has rarely allowed him to show off since.  

Most Overrated: No Sudden Move (2021)

In its early stages, No Sudden Move is a vintage Steven Soderbergh crime thriller that's loaded with style, intrigue and charismatic performances. In its latter half, it completely loses its way by widening the scope of the story to the point where it becomes needlessly overstuffed and unfocused and deciding to end things on an infuriatingly anticlimactic note.

Best Non-Crime Movie Performance: Marriage Story (2019)

Liotta did a brilliant job of playing against type as the prolific divorce attorney Adam Driver's character hires to help him "win" his divorce/custody proceedings with his estranged wife (Scarlett Johnsson). By playing the character in a completely forthright manner, he's able to showcase just how much nasty, performative bullshit goes into the day-to-day work of a divorce attorney and how the people that excel the most in this field are able to flip a switch as soon as they're out of the courtroom that allows them to completely ignore the severe repercussions these proceedings are going to have on a group of people's lives. Especially now that he's gone, it really sucks that he couldn't secure an Oscar nomination for his performance. 

2022-23 NBA Midseason Awards

Top Player: Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)

Denying Jokic's MVP bid for 2022-23 on the grounds of him winning it the past 2 years is asinine. What the Joker is doing every night to help the Nuggets win games is incredible (he's currently averaging a triple double and on pace to set new career bests in assists, shooting percentage and 3-point percentage) and considering how great he's been in recent years, I think people are starting to take his excellence for granted in a way that we haven't seen in the league since LeBron James in the mid 2010's after he left the Heat to go back to the Cavs.  

Honorable Mentions: Luka Doncic (Mavericks), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks), Joel Embiid (76ers) 

Top Defensive Player: Brook Lopez (Bucks)

It really wasn't evident how much the Bucks missed having Lopez-who missed the majority of the regular season last year with a back injury-in their starting lineup until the start of this year. The 34-year old has seamlessly slid back into the role of defensive anchor for Milwaukee and his combination of fierce rim protection and ability to slide out to the perimeter and contest 3's has been a big part of why they've climbed up to 3rd in defensive rating after finishing 14th in 2021-22.

Honorable Mentions: OG Anouby (Raptors), Nicolas Claxton (Nets), Dillion Brooks (Grizzlies)

Most Improved: Lauri Markkanen (Jazz) 

Back in September, Markkanen was viewed as simply a pot sweetener for the Jazz in the Donovon Mitchell trade. 5 months later, the Finnish forward made the 1st career All-Star game appearance. Getting more opportunity to shoot after falling out of favor in Chicago after a solid start to his career and being a complementary piece to Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley in Cleveland has done wonders for Markkanen's ability to impact the game-as he's averaging nearly 25 points per game, shooting 41% from deep and hitting over 51% of his shots from the field.

Honorable Mentions: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Thunder), Tyrese Haliburton (Pacers), Nicolas Claxton (Nets) 

Top Rookie: Paolo Banchero (Magic)

While the Magic are still very far away from contending, adding Banchero has unquestionably bolstered the long-term outlook for their young corps. His toughness and willingness to compete on both ends of the floor has been mighty impressive and although his shooting touch needs work (41.9 FG%, 28.1% from 3), his willingness to keep firing and ability to hit some tough looks is a good sign that more efficient scoring days are ahead for the reigning #1 pick.

Honorable Mentions: Keegan Murray (Kings), Benedict Mathurin (Pacers), Jaden Ivey (Pistons)

Top 6th Man: Malcolm Brogdon (Celtics)

Perhaps the most unsung part of the Celtics dominant start to the season has been the play of Brogdon. He was brought to Boston to provide a desperately needed spark off the bench and with his lethal outside shooting, smooth facilitation of the second unit offense and terrific fit in the Celtics constant switch-driven defense, he's delivered just that on a nightly basis.  

Honorable Mentions: Norman Powell (Clippers), Tyrese Maxey (76ers), Bobby Portis (Bucks)

Top Coach: Mike Brown (Kings) 

No disrespect to Joe Mazzulla-who has done a terrific job of navigating a very difficult situation in Boston that saw him take over for Ime Udoka a month before the season by keeping the team playing at a high level in the face of an uncomfortable off-court situation, but Mike Brown went to the current worst franchise in the 4 major American sports leagues and has them on the cusp of breaking their NBA-record 16-year playoff drought in his 1st season on the job. They've already won more games at the All-Star break this year (33) than they did in the entire 2021-22 season (30) and the emphasis on offensive ball movement and spacing that he brought over from Golden State has catapulted them all the way to #1 in the league in scoring and #2 in offensive rating.

Honorable Mentions: J.B. Bickerstaff (Cavailers), Joe Mazzulla (Celtics), Mike Malone (Nuggets)

Movie Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

When it comes to fan complaints about the post-Endgame MCU projects, the lack of a bigger, interconnected narrative has been atop the list. It's not a secret that The Multiverse will ultimately serve as the road map for this chapter of the Marvel saga, but outside of Loki and some sproadic usage in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, this ambitious timeline-hopping concept has been more of a looming future threat than a materialized plan thus far. Kevin Feige and co. decided that the Ant-Man franchise-which had previously served as a "palette cleanser" between the MCU's higher stakes entries -would be responsible for accelerating the development of the Multiverse and well, that plan didn't exactly go well. 

As depicted in the trailer, Quantumania focuses on an unplanned trip to the Quantum Realm that is initiated when aspiring scientist Cassie Lang-who has aged about 12 years since Endgame for some reason and is now played by Kathryn Newton-shows off a satellite that can make contact with this magical world that everybody from her father (Paul Rudd) to his current girlfriend (Evangeline Lilly) and her parents (Michelle Phiffer, Michael Douglas) have a long history with. Once Cassie escalates this show and tell by turning the power button on, it's only a matter of moments before the whole damn family gets sucked down into the Quantum Realm and are forced to battle the dangerous tyrant Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) that presides over this weird, dangerous little galaxy if they want to make it back home alive.  

Once this Quantum Realm vacation occurs around the 15-minute mark of the movie, it becomes immediately apparent that the comedy-centric team of director Peyton Reed (Bring It On, the previous two Ant-Man movies) and writer Jeff Loveness (Rick and Morty, Jimmy Kimmel Live!) have no clue how to handle material that requires them to table their goofiness. This sprawling world full of unusual creatures, landscapes and people is so visually plain and nondescript in character that it feels as mundane as any boring place on Earth. Despite the massive implications this film is going to have on the broader MCU, there's such a lack of urgency and clarity behind the story (the amount of plot points that are introduced only to be promptly discarded is staggering) that it makes all of the events feel strangely weightless. The closest thing Quantumania has to coherent storytelling is another series of expositional monologue dumps about the rules of the Multiverse-which is both completely unnecessary following Loki doing the exact same thing for 6 hours and pretty insulting to the viewer's intelligence as Disney thinks people need 8+ hours of handholding to properly explain a concept that really isn't all that difficult to comprehend.  After a promising sequence at the start of the second act that details the past relationship between them, Majors' imposing Kang and Phiffer's vulnerable badass Janet van Dym aren't given nearly enough to do as the film decides to pivot to rapidly cycling through about 65 more of the aforementioned grossly underdeveloped subplots before pulling out the old Marvel staple of a big monotonous action finale where CGI people slam into each other until the good guys win. To put as mildly as possible, it would be a questionable choice to hire Reed or Loveness to handle another project like this again in the future (given how poorly received Quantumania has been for a Marvel title, it wouldn't be a shock if Loveness got replaced as the writer for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty)

It's equally disheartening, head-scratching and ridiculous that a film that is so valuable to the MCU canon could be so bland and poorly made. This is the type of joyless, sterile mess that could promptly derail a would-be franchise in its infancy, not something constructed by a well-oiled machine that has been the envy of all of Hollywood for the past 15 years. I'm not going to pull out the "oh shit, Marvel is in trouble!!!" like some people have after watching this, but they should absolutely treat the embarrassing ineptitude of Quantumania as a lesson in why hiring individuals that have the right vision and passion to make a given movie work will be crucial to keeping this gravy train from flying off the rails. 

Grade: D+   

Movie Review: Your Place or Mine

Showing their dedication to embracing the bleak future of the arts, Netflix has decided to become an early adopter of AI-generated content with the release of their latest romantic comedy Your Place or Mine. This technology-driven creation stars Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as longtime best friends living on opposite sides of the United States who've suppressed their true feelings for each other for 20 years. After Witherspoon's babysitter (Rachel Bloom) lands an acting gig in Vancouver the night before she's set to travel to New York for a week-long course on corporate accounting, Kutcher's NYC-based character volunteers to fly out to LA to watch her teenage son (Wesley Kimmel) so she can fulfill her obligations. 

Once they land in respective destinations, all sorts of thoroughly unpredictable shit ensues. Kutcher quickly bonds with the kid who he hadn't seen in person since he was a toddler. Jesse Williams wins the attention of Witherspoon through their shared loved of literature and experiences as single parents. Zoe Chao, Tig Nataro and Steve Zahn all show up to provide comic relief and key monologues that help the main character's work acknowledge their unspoken love for each other. All of these developments draw a straight line to the grand finale:  Kutcher and Witherspoon ultimately confess their love for each other in an argument scene at LAX that suddenly turns romantic after a sentimental gesture comes to light. Congrats robots, you just wrote your first romantic comedy!!!! 

The funny thing about robots or in this case, humans that crafted something just feels like it was made by robots is that no amount of advanced programming can give them the instincts or emotional intelligence of a human being. They're completely beholden to the data of their code and while that's great for determining results on a search engine or running mass-scale calculations for an insurance company, it's fucking worthless when it's tasked to do a job that is driven by the creator's understanding of what makes a movie compelling for the independently sentient that's watching it. If the brain of a living, breathing person with full cognitive capabilities and no desire to satisfy an algorithm was behind any of the creative choices in Your Place or Mine, they probably would've recognized that Witherspoon and Kutcher have zero chemistry, there wasn't a single convincing bit of human emotion in the script and that a romantic comedy should contain more than just a little bit of romance and comedy if it's setting out to be a successful romantic comedy. 

Your Place or Mine has zero respect for the genre and what its audience wants or expects from the genre, which is particularly stunning given that both the writer/director Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses) and Netflix (Set It Up, Always Be My Maybe) have pretty good track records of success with romantic comedies. Computers don't know a god damn thing about storytelling or the heart and soul of moviemaking and humans that make movies for a living should stop trying to emulate their cold, analytical approach while they're working in an artform that was perfected by their own species.     

Grade: D+

Sebastian Stan Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling the work of Sebastian Stan-whose latest project "Sharper" is in select theaters now and begins streaming on Apple TV+ tomorrow. 

Sebastain Stan's Filmography Ranked:

17.Gone (D)

16.The Covenant (D)

15.Captain America: The First Avenger (C+)

14.Captain America: The Winter Solider (C+)

13.The 355 (B)

12.Destroyer (B)

11.Rachel Getting Married (B)

10.Captain America: Civil War (B)

9.Fresh (B)

8.The Devil All the Time (B)

7.Logan Lucky (B)

6.The Martian (B+)

5.Avengers: Endgame (A-)

4.Hot Tub Time Machine (A)

3.I, Tonya (A)

2.Avengers: Infinity War (A)

1.Black Swan (A)

Top Dog: Black Swan (2010)

Thinking about the brilliance of Black Swan just a mere couple months after watching the manipulative melodramatic circus that was The Whale is making me kind of sad about the massive rut Darren Aronofsky has fallen into recently. Where The Whale goes for tears by effectively pummeling the viewer until they submit to crying, Black Swan taps into feelings of paranoia, jealously and fanatical dedication to creating art by viscerally telling a story through the disturbed eyes of ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman in one of the most stunning performances I've ever seen in a film). As Nina's grip on reality continues to worsen as she becomes completely consumed with giving a flawless performance in a production of Swan Lake-in which she is set to play the dual lead role of the graceful White Swan and the insidious Black Swan, the film becomes an increasingly vivid hallucinatory nightmare through the twisted materialization of her long-suppressed insecurities surrounding her career, sexuality and relationship with her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey). It's a deeply disturbing master class in psychological terror and my personal favorite thing that Aronofsky has ever made.     

Bottom Feeder: Gone (2012)

Gone achieves the rare double whammy of being a thriller that's both exceptionally dumb and brutally boring. How Amanda Seyfried got dragged into leading a project this inept at a stage of her career where things were already going well just completely defies comprehension, but fortunately she hasn't stooped quite this low since.   

Most Underrated: Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Does Hot Tub Time Machine hold up well? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure as it's been about a decade since I've watched it from start to finish. That being said, I did see about 15 minutes of it on HBO recently and it seemed like the combination of kinetic self-aware absurdity and great buddy camaraderie between its leading ensemble (John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke) that made it such an excellent comedy when it was initially released remained fully intact.

Most Overrated: Captain America: The Winter Solider (2014)

While Winter Solider features some of the better choreographed fight scenes in the MCU and a great lead performance from Chris Evans-who really blossomed into the role of Captain America after a somewhat shaky inaugural turn in The First Avenger, its lethargic pacing and overwhelmingly convoluted plot make the film a pretty frustrating mixed bag overall.