Tag: Zachary Levi

Review: ‘Sarah’s Oil,’ starring Zachary Levi, Naya Desir-Johnson, Sonequa Martin-Green, Garret Dillahunt, Mel Rodriguez, Kenric Green and Bridget Regan

November 7, 2025

by Carla Hay

Zachary Levi, Naya Desir-Johnson and Garret Dillahunt in “Sarah’s Oil” (Photo by Shane Brown/Amazon Content Services)

“Sarah’s Oil”

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1913, in eastern Oklahoma, the dramatic film “Sarah’s Oil” (based on real events) features an African American and white cast of characters (with some Native Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An 11-year-old African American girl named Sarah Rector becomes a multi-millionaire when oil is discovered on the land that she inherited because of the United States’ Treaty of 1866, but she and her family experience violence and racism from greedy white business owners who want to steal the land from her.

Culture Audience: “Sarah’s Oil” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas that are “rags-to-riches” true stories and American life in the Jim Crow South.

Adyan Copes, Sonequa Martin-Green, Kenric Green and Naya Desir-Johnson in “Sarah’s Oil” (Photo by Shane Brown/Amazon Content Services)

Based on a true story with some obviously added fictional elements, “Sarah’s Oil” is a predictable drama that should satisfy viewers looking for family entertainment. This story gives some basic truths about Sarah Rector, racism, and generational wealth. Most people don’t know that Rector was one of the first African American females to become a multi-millionaire (which happened in 1913, when she was 11 years old), because of oil-rich land that she inherited in her home state of Oklahoma. “Sarah’s Oil” aims to bring more awareness to this real-life story that is usually not taught in American history classes.

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (who co-wrote the “Sarah’s Oil” screenplay with his wife Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh), “Sarah’s Oil” is adapted from Tonya Bolden’s 2014 non-fiction book “Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America.” The movie takes place in 1913, in Oklahoma, where “Sarah’s Oil” was filmed on location. “Sarah’s Oil” can be considered a faith-based movie because there are several scenes that mention God, Jesus and praying. However, it’s not an overly religious movie.

“Sarah’s Oil” begins with a caption quote from oily tycoon J. Paul Getty: “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.” “Sarah’s Oil” has intermittent voiceover narration from an unseen adult Sarah Rector (voiced by Tamala Jones) as she tells her story as a childhood memory. (For the purposes of this review, the real people will be referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie will be referred to by their first names.) is a cynical twist on a biblical quote, attributed to oil tycoon J. Paul Getty.

The adult Sarah explains in a voiceover why she inherited 160 acres of oil-rich land in eastern Oklahoma. Sarah was born in Oklahoma, which became a U.S. state in 1907. She and her parents were direct descendants of the Muscogee Nation tribe of Native Americans (also known as Muscogee Indians or Creek Indians), one of five Native American tribes who are entitled to tribal land under the United States’ Treaty of 1866.

Her parents were also counted as descendants of Freedmen (formerly enslaved African Americans) who would be entitled to this land if they were also descendants of the five qualifying Native American tribes: Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole. The deed to the land was entirely in Sarah’s name. At the time Sarah inherited the land, it was considered worthless.

As depicted in “Sarah’s Oil,” in 1913, 11-year-old Sarah (played by Naya Desir-Johnson) lives with her parents and her younger brother Junior (played by Adyan Copes), who is about 5 or 6 years old. Sarah’s farmer father Joe Rector (played by Kenric Green) wants her to sell the land because the family needs the money. Sarah’s mother Rose Rector (played by Sonequa Martin-Green) also thinks that Sarah should sell the land.

Sarah says in a voiceover about her land: “I was determined to keep it.” Why? Because when Sarah puts her ears to the land’s ground, she says she hears there is oil underground. Sarah’s mother Rose is very skeptical: “If there was oil in that patch, they would’ve never given it to you.” A confident Sarah replies, “God gave me ears to hear, Mama. He gave me that land for a reason.”

Sarah is so sure that the land is rich with oil, she convinces her father Joe to go with her to visit various oil companies in their town to see if they can get the land assessed. During this period of time of Jim Crow laws in the American South, racial segregation was legal. And so, it’s a big risk for Joe and Sarah to walk into a “whites only” building.

Not surprisingly, Joe and Sarah are rudely told to leave without getting a meeting when they visit the Condor Oil Company and the J.J. Ransom Oil Company. The latter place literally has Joe thrown out the door. Sarah and Joe also get hostile stares from some white people while walking on the streets of this mostly white business district.

After this rejection, Sarah goes into the “whites only” Busy Bee Cafe to buy a glass of water. A server named Karla (played by Carrie-Rose Menocal) dismissively tells Sarah that Sarah needs to leave immediately. However, a man named Bert Smith (played by Zachary Levi) is sitting by himself and reading a newspaper when he sees what’s happening to Sarah. Bert tells Karla that he wants to buy a glass of lemonade for Sarah, who thanks Bert for his kindness.

Meanwhile, Joe has snuck into the headquarters of Pan-Okie Petroleum by pretending to be a sanitation worker. Joe finds his way to the office of Pan-Okie Petroleum partner “Big” Jim Devnan (played by Garret Dillahunt), who is curious to hear what Joe has to say about Sarah’s land. In an “only in a movie” moment, Sarah suddenly shows up in the office while Joe and Jim are talking.

Sarah is depicted as a prodigy who is able to shrewdly negotiate deals and who has a great deal of knowledge about real-estate laws and contracts. Even though 11-year-old Sarah is never shown going to school, the movie doesn’t explain why she talks like she has a business degree and a law degree. It’s hinted she got her knowledge through a lot of reading. Still, the way she talks like an adult in these business deals seems very much exaggerated for the movie. Meanwhile, Sarah has to explain to her father Joe what a financial royalty means for oil land owners.

Sarah is able to negotiate a deal with Jim for Pan-Okie to survey the land for oil. She outsmarts Jim when he tries to lowball her on the current wholesale oil price. Pan-Okie Petroleum workers arrive on Sarah’s land with equipment for the survey. The final assessment is that no oil was found on the land. Jim says the company will cut its losses in this survey and will leave behind the drilling equipment and other equipment for the Rector family to keep.

Not long after this apparently failed survey, a sleazy worker named Earl Raskin (played by
Stelio Savante) shows up at the Rector family home by himself with an offer to buy Sarah’s land. Sarah is inside the house, while Joe is the person who communicates with this stranger outside the house. Just like Jim, Earl starts off with a lowball offer because he thinks the Rectors are too stupid to know that they’re being lowballed.

Joe repeatedly tells Earl that it’s up to Sarah to decide if she will sell the land, but Joe won’t let Earl talk to Sarah. Earl keeps increasing the offer, but the answer is still no. Earl’s racism comes out when he calls Joe a “cagey coon,” but then tries to sweet talk his way by offering $6 an acre for the land, which at the time was worth $3 to $3.25 per acre. Earl eventually leaves in frustration when he can’t close the deal.

When Sarah hears about Earl’s visit and the purchase offer, she and her mother Rose immediately know that this land is a lot more valuable than Pan-Okie told them it was. And sure enough, a scene shows that Earl actually works for Jim at Pan-Okie. Earl and another Pan-Okie goon named Horace (played by Vic Trevino) later trespass on the Rector family’s property at night to look for Sarah’s deed to the land, just as the family is somewhere else on the property to bury the deed in a box for safety.

The family catches Earl and Rector during this home invasion where the family finds their home in disarray from the intruders’ frantic search. Before the intruders escape, they shoot at the family’s female Collie dog Blue Bonnett, who runs away. When the intruders report to Jim what happened, Jim is furious with these bungling employees because he didn’t want any guns to be used during this home invasion, because it would tip off the Rector family that someone desperately wants Sarah’s land deed.

The next day, Sarah is looking for Blue Bonnett and finds part of the dog’s roped leash, which has blood stains on it. The leash is found near an encampment inhabited by wildcatting drifters. And lo and behold, there’s Bert (the lemonade Good Samaritan), who is a con artist originally from Texas. Bert’s specialty is charming and swindling wealthy widows (he regularly checks newspaper obituaries to find out who’s been recently widowed), but he’s also on the hunt for any “get rich quick” schemes in oil prospecting.

Quicker than you can say “unsurprising plot development,” Sarah gets reacquainted with Bert, who has a buddy sidekick named Mason “Mace” Hernandez (played by Mel Rodriguez). Sarah makes a deal with Bert and Mace to continue the oil drilling work on her land, by using the equipment that Pan-Okie left behind. And they find a lot of oil, of course.

Because Sarah is an underage African American, she doesn’t have certain rights for legal disputes, so Bert is named her guardian regarding legal matters that inevitably go to court. A crusading attorney named Kate Barnard (played by Bridget Regan) gets involved in Sarah’s case and offers to represent Sarah. You can easily predict the rest of the story. The Pan-Okie villains try to use every dirty trick they can think of to steal the land from Sarah. The tactics get violent. And not everyone gets out alive.

“Sarah’s Oil” has solid performances from the cast members, with Desir-Johnson giving a charming portrayal of the precocious and plucky Sarah. Martin-Green and Green, who are married in real life, have an easy chemistry with each other and are convincing as Sarah’s kind and supportive parents. Dillahunt’s portrayal of Jim is of a typical corrupt corporate villain.

The character of Bert, who was fabricated for this movie, is far from being a saintly do-gooder. He has his selfish reasons for wanting to help Sarah. And he has some ingrained racism that comes out when he describes a predominantly African American neighborhood as a “coon town” in front of Sarah.

Bert sees how much Sarah is hurt and offended by his derogatory comment, and he makes an apology to her. However, the movie doesn’t sugarcoat the racism that the Rector family and other African Americans experience in this story. Ultimately, Bert (who has most of the “comic relief” scenes in the movie) is portrayed as a charismatic rogue who might or might not want to be redeemed.

“Sarah’s Oil” is mostly well-paced and gives a an easy-to-understand (in other words, simplified and condensed) version of battles that Sarah and her family had to go through in order for her to keep her land. If people think this type of racist thievery of land is in the distant past, think again. There are many Native Americans and African Americans who are still fighting to keep their rightful ownership of inherited land in the United States when other people are trying to take away this land for racist reasons.

Rector’s story is unusual because she happened to become a multi-millionaire from land that was given to her because it was originally deemed worthless. The movie wisely leaves her multi-millionaire status as an epilogue to the story. That’s because the most important part of her story is her perseverance in standing up for herself and fighting for her rights when other people underestimated her and tried to oppress her.

Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures released “Sarah’s Oil” in U.S. cinemas on November 7, 2025.

Review: ‘The Unbreakable Boy,’ starring Zachary Levi, Meghann Fahy, Jacob Laval, Drew Powell and Patricia Heaton

February 21, 2025

by Carla Hay

Pictured from left to right: Meghann Fahy, Gavin Warren, Patricia Heaton, Jacob Laval, Zachary Levi and Todd Terry in “The Unbreakable Boy” (Photo by Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate)

“The Unbreakable Boy”

Directed by Jon Gunn

Culture Representation: Taking place in Oklahoma, the dramatic film “The Unbreakable Boy” (based on the non-fiction book of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A married couple with two sons have ups and downs in their family life because of their older son’s autism and rare bone condition; the couple’s financial problems; and the father’s alcoholism.

Culture Audience: “The Unbreakable Boy” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and faith-based movies that put schmaltz over realism.

Peter Facinelli, Zachary Levi and Drew Powell in “The Unbreakable Boy” (Photo by Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate)

“The Unbreakable Boy” puts a fairytale spin on a real-life family’s unsettling problems. There’s plenty of melodrama about medical conditions and financial struggles, but there’s an over-use of movie clichés that sugarcoat the truth. The truth is that the family’s problems that are depicted in this sappy movie don’t get resolved as easily in real life as the filmmakers want people to think they can be resolved, by presenting a perky boy with autism as if he’s some kind of good luck charm used for the family’s benefit.

Written and directed by Jon Gunn, “The Unbreakable Boy” is based on the 2014 non-fiction book “The Unbreakable Boy: A Father’s Fear, a Son’s Courage, and a Story of Unconditional Love,” written by Scott LeRette and Susy Flory. “The Unbreakable Boy” isn’t a typical faith-based movie that gets preachy about religion, although there are certainly some religious elements to the film. Instead, it’s a somewhat misleading movie that makes people think that it will be about mostly about the “unbreakable boy.” The movie actually takes a detour and becomes about how the boy’s self-admitted disappointing father goes on a downward spiral and has to find a way to prove that he’s a responsible parent and husband.

It’s a shame that the movie’s title is not reflective of the movie’s agenda and focus. “The Unbreakable Boy” movie also changes the age of the title character, just to make the most of having a cute underage kid to make the movie more appealing to families. In the book, the “unbreakable boy” is actually 18 years old. In the movie, he’s 13. It’s easy to see why the filmmakers wanted to reduce the age of “the unbreakable boy”: It’s more dramatic to have an underage kid be emotionally wiser and more honest than his screwed-up father. Making the kid a legal adult is much less compelling.

“The Unbreakable Boy” takes place in Oklahoma, where the movie was filmed on location. The movie’s title character is talkative 13-year-old Austin LeRette (played by Jacob Laval), who has autism and who was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare condition that causes bones to break easily. Austin inherited osteogenesis imperfecta from his mother Teresa (played by Meghann Fahy), who has the same condition. Austin, whose nickname is Auz-Man (his imaginary superhero alter ego), is the chirpy narrator of the movie’s story. Austin likes to wear a jester hat, which becomes a symbol of his cheerful optimism.

Austin says in the narration that sometimes things get broken in life. He ominously says, “This is the night when everything broke.” “The Unbreakable Boy” begins with a scene where Austin’s father Scott LeRette (played by Zachary Levi) is drunk at a New Year’s Eve party at a country club. Scott has Austin and Austin’s 11-year-old brother Logan (played by Gavin Warren) at the party with him when he drives away from the party with the boys as passengers.

The car swerves and narrowly misses hitting another car. Scott is obviously too drunk to drive, but the movie never really shows anyone actually confront him about this reckless and irresponsible driving, nor is it shown if he got arrested for driving under the influence. This drunk-driving incident is never mentioned again and the only clue that it happened is when Scott is later shown in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“The Unbreakable Boy” movie does that a lot in the movie: It has a dramatic, tension-filled buildup to a problem. But then, it abruptly segues to another part of the family’s life and leaves many questions unanswered, or it presents a trite, not-very-believable solution to the problem. You get the feeling that this family has a lot more dirty laundry that they just didn’t want to put in this movie. (Scott and Teresa LeRette are two of the executive producers of the movie.)

After this drunk-driving scene, the movie quickly goes into flashback mode, as Austin describes how his parents met and how the couple’s relationship progressed to becoming married parents. Thirteen years earlier, Scott was working as a medical supply salesperson when he went into a clothing store to buy a pair of trousers. Some green khaki trousers caught his eye but what really captured his interest was Teresa, a sales clerk at the store.

It’s mutual attraction at first sight. During this “meet cute” moment, Scott says he’ll buy up to eight pairs of the trousers if she’ll go out on a date with him. He also compliments Teresa on her bright blue eyes, which she says are bright because of a birth defect. Teresa gives him her phone number and says he doesn’t have to buy anything in the store but he can take her out for coffee. On their first date, a casually dressed Teresa is surprised that instead of going to a coffee shop, Scott has arranged for them to go to an upscale restaurant.

It’s the beginning of some communication problems that start early in the couple’s relatonship. Teresa has secrets that eventually get exposed. Scott and Teresa are casually dating for a few months when Teresa gets pregnant. Scott comes from a religious Christian family, so when he finds out that Teresa is pregnant, he proposes marriage. Teresa and Scott aren’t “in love” yet, but they’re getting there.

Teresa says no to the marriage proposal because she doesn’t think that she and Scott need to get married. She’s still emotionally scarred by her parents’ toxic marriage. Teresa says her father was an abusive alcoholic. Teresa also tells Scott that she has osteogenesis imperfecta, which is genetic, and she’s afraid this unborn child will have osteogenesis imperfecta too. Scott is more optimistic than Teresa is that their unborn child won’t have osteogenesis imperfecta.

Teresa’s main support in her family is her sister Lori (played by Amy Acker), a character who’s just in this movie as a sounding board to Teresa’s rants. Teresa’s parents are never shown in the movie, but Scott’s parents are. Scott’s father Dick LeVette (played by Todd Terry) takes the news in stride about the unplanned pregnancy. By contrast, Scott’s mother Marcia LeVette (played by Patricia Heaton) is furious because she knows that Scott now has to delay his plans to quit his job to go to grad school.

Marcia throws and breaks objects as she angrily shouts at Scott that he’s throwing his life away. That kind of violence isn’t very Christian, but the movie glosses over Marcia’s nasty temper as acceptable because she’s the type of “righteous” mother that these faith-based movies frequently excuse when these mothers are overly judgmental or hypocritical. Scott even jokes to his father that Marcia’s temper tantrum isn’t as bad as Scott thought it would be.

Scott and a pregnant Teresa move in together. And that’s when he finds out Teresa’s biggest secret when he discovers some of her legal papers: She’s been married and divorced twice before. Both marriages were short-lived, and her ex-husbands are no longer in her life. Scott gets upset but eventually forgives Teresa, who tells him that she’s sorry for not disclosing this information before their relationship got serious.

Scott proposes marriage again, and she says yes. Teresa wants to get married in a church. Scott wants to get married at a courthouse. Austin says in a voiceover that his parents reached a compromise. The next scene shows Scott and Teresa getting married in a church. It’s the movie’s way of saying that Teresa usually gets her way in the relationship. Teresa is never seen working outside the home again, so the movie implies that she became a homemaker after the birth of her children.

Austin is born, and the movie spends a great deal of time showing him as an infant, as a toddler (played by Roy Jackson Miller) and as a 5-to-6-year-old (played by Kellen Martelli), which is the period of time that Scott and Teresa find out that Austin has osteogenesis imperfecta and autism. There are several montages of Austin breaking his bones in various ways, usually from running around or jumping while he’s playing. Scott is shown as the only parent who’s with Austin when Austin gets his most serious injuries, which is another way of the movie putting an emphasis on Scott being the more “irresponsible” parent.

Logan is born two years after Austin. Logan, who does not have any health issues, is a compassionate and protective brother who gets sidelined a lot in this story because so much of the kid focus is on Austin, who does a few horrendous and abusive things while in a manic state of mind. Logan does not get enough credit for being such a wonderful child when Logan has so many reasons to be bitter and resentful about his parents having to pay so much attention to Austin.

Austin has the type of autism where he doesn’t know how to pick up on social cues, he will talk incessantly, and he will often take things literally. He will repeat doing things in almost an obsessive-compulsive way. He’s highly intelligent but socially awkward. And you know what that means: He gets bullied at school, but the bullying is psychological and emotional, not physical. The main bully to Austin is Tyler (played by Pilot Bunch), who actually gets physically aggressive with Logan, not Austin.

“The Unbreakable Boy” shows the ups and downs of the family and how Austin remains mostly positive through it all. Scott’s alcoholism gets worse after he loses his job. But he’s not the only irresponsible parent in the household. Teresa becomes unemployed too and appears to have become addicted to playing video games and shopping for things that the family didn’t need, thereby driving the family into debt. Teresa’s culpability is glossed over a lot in this movie, while Scott gets blamed the most as being the “terrible parent.”

But those are not all the questionable things about this schmaltzy film. Throughout the movie, Scott has an imaginary adult friend named Joe (played by Drew Powell), who’s supposed to be Scott’s conscience and “voice of reason.” Scott talks out loud to Joe, who sometimes dresses in identical clothing as Scott, and sometimes in different clothing. Joe mostly looks like a lumberjack who has nothing better to do than to hang out with Scott, who becomes a “sad sack” as his problems get worse.

The problem with “The Unbreakable Boy” is that it plays fast and loose with the truth and avoids answering some crucial questions. For starters, the movie unrealistically makes it look like Scott and Teresa had to take care of their two kids all by themself, even though there are indications that plenty of people could’ve helped. This potential support includes Lori, Scott’s parents and people at the church where Scott and Teresa attend. (Peter Facinelli has a supporting role as Preacher Rick, the church’s amiable leader.) The movie never shows if Scott and Teresa asked for any help in taking care of their kids. You don’t even see a babysitter in the movie.

Second, the couple’s debt is a big issue in the story, but the movie never explains if Teresa was willing to get a job to help pay off the debt, or if she and Scott agreed that she would be a homemaker, no matter what their financial situation. Sure, Teresa could’ve hidden all the debt she racked up, and Scott eventually found out. But the movie takes a very patriarchal view that it was Scott’s responsibility to fix this problem, even though Teresa was the one who caused the overspending problem. There’s also a scene where Teresa looks worried when she sees Austin’s medical bills that are a five-figure total, but then that medical debt is never mentioned again.

Third, that drunk driving scene is dropped into the beginning of the movie and then never properly addressed again. Instead, “The Unbreakable Boy” is more concerned about underage Austin preaching at the audience when he rambles on about his philosophies and observations about life. It all becomes a bit too phony, just like the movie’s force-fed concept that all anyone has to do is be in Austin’s presence, and life will turn out just fine.

Despite the movie’s obvious flaws, Laval gives a mostly delightful performance, although people with autism are probably the best judges of how autism is portrayed in the movie. (“The Unbreakable Boy” was originally scheduled to be released in 2022, but it was released in 2025, when Laval looks a lot different than he did when he filmed the movie.) Levi seems to enjoy portraying adults with emotional maturity issues, so this role as a flaky father is just more of the same for him. The rest of the cast members are serviceable, not outstanding, in their roles.

To its credit, “The Unbreakable Boy” has a positive message about how kindness can go a long way in changing someone’s life for the better. The movie also brings more awareness about osteogenesis imperfecta and autism, although families should teach any underage and impressionable children that this type of movie is not quite as realistic as it should be in portraying how public schools for children are legally allowed to resolve certain issues that are depicted in the movie. What’s really “breakable” in “The Unbreakable Boy” is how it reaches a breaking point of credibility in how these issues and more are mishandled in the movie.

Lionsgate released “The Unbreakable Boy” in U.S. cinemas on February 21, 2025.

Review: ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ (2024), starring Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani, Jemaine Clement, Tanya Reynolds, Zooey Deschanel and the voice of Alfred Molina

July 31, 2024

by Carla Hay

Lil Rel Howery, Zachary Levi, Tanya Reynolds and Benjamin Bottani in “Harold and the Purple Crayon” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures)

“Harold and the Purple Crayon”

Directed by Carlos Saldanha

Culture Representation: Taking place in Providence, Rhode Island, the fantasy film “Harold and the Purple Crayon” (based on the book of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Children’s book characters Harold (who uses a magic purple crayon that can make illustration things become real things) and friends Moose and Porcupine go to the real world to find their book narrator and experience various misadventures. 

Culture Audience: “Harold and the Purple Crayon” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and anyone who doesn’t mind watching substandard entertainment geared to families and underage children.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Benjamin Bottani, Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery and Zooey Deschanel in “Harold and the Purple Crayon” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures)

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” is as sloppy and muddled as someone doodling while drunk. This mishandled movie looks like a rejected TV show aimed at children, with most of the cast members looking embarrassed to be there. “Harold and the Purple Crayon” might be acceptable for viewers who want to have something to watch without any expectations of being fully engaged or entertained by what they’re seeing. But for people expecting imagination and charm in a movie about characters who can use a magic crayon to draw things that become reality, then “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is not the movie to watch.

Directed by Carlos Saldanha, “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is based on Crockett Johnson’s 1955 children’s fiction book of the same name. The “Harold and the Purple Crayon” book is the first in a series of Johnson’s books that have a 4-year-old boy named Harold as the main character. David Guion and Michael Handelman co-wrote the “Harold and the Purple Crayon” adapted screenplay, which is a dreadful concoction of stale jokes, hollow characters and boring scenarios. The movie (which takes place mostly in Providence, Rhode Island) updates the story to take place in the 2020s. Johnson’s “Harold” books were also adapted into a short-lived HBO animated series called “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” which lasted for one season from 2001-2002.

In the beginning of the movie “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” a voiceover narrator (voiced by Alfred Molina) explains that illustrated drawing characters Harold and his animal pals Moose and Porcupine are best friends. Harold, who is supposed to be a 4-year-old boy, has a magical purple crayon where anything he draws becomes a reality. The movie spends less than three minutes showing Harold, Moose and Porcupine in their illustrated book world before the movie abruptly shifts to making these illustrated characters come to life.

That’s because sheltered Harold, who is now physically grown up but still has the naïveté of a child, suddenly gets curious about who this narrator is and wants to meet him in person when the narrator goes silent. Harold assumes that this narrator is his elderly father, so Harold wants to go to the real world to find his “old man,” which are words that Harold repeatedly uses throughout the movie to describe the narrator. Moose and Porcupine are reluctant to go to the real world because they heard it can be a scary place where bad things can happen.

Harold is determined though, so he goes through a magical portal and ends up in the “real world,” which is Providence. Why is this story located in Providence? As the movie explains later, Providence is the location of the Crockett Johnson Museum. Harold doesn’t know anything about his “old man,” including the name of the “old man,” so part of the movie (which gets distracted by other things) is about Harold thinking any elderly man he sees is his “old man.”

When Harold enters the “real world,” he is a fully grown man (played by Zachary Levi) wearing the same thing that Harold the book character wears: a blue onesie. Harold might look like an adult, but he has the life experience and intelligence of a child. Sound familiar? In “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” Levi is doing another version of the “boy trapped in an adult body” superhero character that he played in the “Shazam!” movies, but “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is much worse than the “Shazam!” movies.

Eventually, Moose goes through the portal, but his transformation goes from looking like a moose to looking like a man (played by Lil Rel Howery), who wears clothing with moose illustrations on it. Moose can randomly turn back into a moose, apparently when he’s startled or scared. The movie does a horrible job of explaining how and why Moose can switch back and forth between looking like an animal and looking like a human.

Porcupine is the last person to go through the portal to the “real world.” She also appears in the real world as an adult human (played by Tanya Reynolds), but the only visual reference to her being a porcupine is that in human form, she has a purple-streaked Mohawk. Porcupine is the most annoying of the three pals. She’s so annoying, this movie has Porcupine separated from all the other characters for a great deal of the story because Porcupine is looking for Harold and Moose.

This movie’s costume design is a failure of imagination. Porcupine wears a black leather jacket and black trousers, but that outfit should’ve been accented with a lot of studs or spikes, to make it look like she’s a porcupine in human form. Later in the movie, Porcupine wears a motorcycle helmet with black Mohawk spikes, but it’s too little, too late. By then, the movie has gone completely off the rails, and no creative costume design can save it.

The portal to the real world leads to an unnamed park in Providence. Harold wants to hug every elderly man he thinks might be his “old man,” and gets the expected “get away from me” responses. When Harold starts running next to a jogger (played by TJ Jackson) in the park, he asks the jogger: “What are we running from?” The jogger replies, “Grown men in a onesie,” as he moves away from Harold. This is the type of cringeworthy “comedy” that’s in this misfire of a movie.

Harold and Moose soon find each other in the park. Moose and Harold accidentally get hit but not seriously injured by a car driven by a widow named Terry (played by Zooey Deschanel), who is in the car with her son Melvin, nicknamed Mel (played by Benjamin Bottani), who’s about 11 or 12 years old. Because of the accident, Terry’s car gets a flat tire. No problem. Harold takes out his purple crayon and draws a new tire, which becomes a purple tire that Terry can use for her car.

Terry feels guilty about this car accident, so when Harold and Moose tell Terry and Mel that they’re new to the area and need a temporary place to stay, Mel convinces Terry to let Harold and Moose stay at their house. Harold and Moose have to stay in the attic, but they are thrilled because the attic has things they’ve never seen before in their limited book-illustration world. And what a coincidence: Terry still has some of her deceased husband’s clothes, and he happened to be same size as Harold. Terry lets Harold borrow these clothes so he isn’t walking around looking like a Super Mario Bros. character.

Mel is a lonely kid who is bullied at his school. Mel has an imaginary friend named Carl, which he describes as a creature that’s a combination of an eagle, a lion and an alligator. Harold treats Mel with kindness and encourages Mel (who likes to draw) to use his imagination and indulge in fantasies. And you just know what’s going to happen when later in the movie, Harold breaks his magic purple crayon in half and gives this half of the crayon to Mel. When Carl does finally appear (which isn’t a secret because this creature has already been revealed in official photos from the movie), it actually looks more like an oversized lizard with wings.

Harold and Moose find out that even though Terry is a very nice person, she hasn’t been happy ever since her husband died. (The husband’s cause of death is not mentioned in the film.) Terry also says she hates her job. She works as a shelf stocker for Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a discount general store that’s similar to Walmart. Terry’s dream job is to be a concert pianist. Mel tells Harold that he wants his mother to be happy again. You know where all of this is going, of course.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” plods along with lackluster scenarios, such as Terry waking up one day, after her new house guests have arrived, to find out that Harold and Moose have made several blueberry pies and are eating them for breakfast with Mel. Mel has drawn a flying tarantula-sized spider with fangs, which Harold brings to life by using his magic crayon. This creature flits around and scares some people on more than one occasion, and then just flies out of the scene. It’s all so pointless.

Harold, Moose and Mel go to the C.C. Barrister Library to try to get information on Harold’s “old man.” At the library, they meet chief librarian Gary Natwick (played by Jemaine Clement), a pompous creep who has written an unpublished fantasy novel where the novel’s “hero” (who dresses like a knight) is a version of Gary. Gary has an unrequited crush on Terry, so Gary becomes jealous and alarmed when Harold innocently tells Gary that he’s been seeing Terry and is spending nights at Terry’s home.

Harold, Moose and Mel become a tight-knit trio who get involved in various misadventures. And where is Porcupine during all of this male bonding? Getting herself into bungling trouble, such as when she goes to a house because she’s sure that’s where Harold and Moose are, but it’s someone else’s house, and the owners think she’s a burglar. With Porcupine being so separate from the main story, there’s a whiff of sexism in repetitive scenarios showing her as a “troublemaker” while the three guys (Harold, Moose and Mel) get to have almost all of the fun.

The acting performances in “Harold and the Purple Crayon” are mediocre to terrible. Levi looks like he’s trying the hardest to stay in character. But in reality, he’s woefully miscast as Harold. Very few middle-aged actors can be convincing as a character who’s supposed to have the mentality of a human child but in an adult’s body. And in this case, it actually looks creepy and weird in “Harold and the Purple Crayon.”

And it doesn’t help that “Harold and the Purple Crayon” has such an uninteresting villain. Clement’s hilarious comedic talent (which can be seen in other on-sceen entertainment) is completely squandered in this cinematic flop. The depiction of Gary looks like half-baked campiness, which doesn’t really fit the earnest tone that the rest of the movie has.

Deschanel, Howery and Bottani are servicable in their “Harold and the Purple Crayon” roles but don’t do anything that’s noteworthy. Reynolds stands out for the wrong reasons: Her acting is either too stiff or over-exaggerated. Most of the celebrity cast members in this movie do not look emotionally invested in their characters at all and look like they’re just there to collect a salary.

The movie’s visual effects are basic, while the movie’s pacing is often sluggish. The misguided filmmaking in “Harold and the Purple Crayon” could trigger a thousand pun jokes about needing to go back to the drawing board for fresh new ideas. And those jokes would be inifinitely better than the uninspired swill that this disappointing movie dud turned out to be.

Columbia Pictures will release “Harold and the Purple Crayon” in U.S. cinemas on August 2, 2024.

Review: ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods,’ starring Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rachel Zegler, Djimon Hounsou, Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren

March 15, 2023

by Carla Hay

Ross Butler, Adam Brody, Grace Caroline Currey, Zachary Levi, Meagan Good and D.J. Cotrona in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods”

Directed by David F. Samberg

Culture Representation: Taking place in Philadelphia, the superhero action film “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, Asian, African American and Latino) portraying superheroes and regular human beings.

Culture Clash: Billy Batson, who transforms from being a teenager to an adult superhero named Shazam, leads his teenage foster siblings (who have similar superhero transformation abilities) in battling against three daughters of the god Atlas who want to retrieve the powers that the Shazam family has. 

Culture Audience: “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, movies based on DC Comics, and the 2019 movie “Shazam!,” but “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is yet another sequel that is inferior to the original movie.

Ovan Armand, Jack Dylan Grazer, Asher Angel, Faithe Herman, Grace Caroline Currey and Ian Chen in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” loses much of the charm of 2019’s “Shazam!,” by overloading on bad jokes, cluttered storylines and formulaic action scenes. It’s a failed attempt to be a wisecracking, high-quality superhero movie. This movie sequel’s visual effects are also unimpressive, as several scenes make it too obvious where the “green screens” were located to put the computer generated imagery (CGI) in post-production. Much of the movie’s dialogue is cringeworthy, most of the performances are trite, and the cliché-ridden story has no surprises.

The movie didn’t have to be this disappointing. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” features many of the same team members who made “Shazam!,” including director David F. Samberg, screenwriter Henry Gayden, producer Peter Safran, film editor Michel Aller and most of the principal cast members. However, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” added a screenwriter—Chris Morgan (“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” “The Fate of the Furious”)—and changed cinematographers, production designers, and visual effects supervisors. The changes did not result in a better movie.

The “Shazam!” movies are based on DC Comics characters. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” has all the qualities of a dull and mindless sitcom, thereby making the forced comedy look very awkward in what’s supposed to be an exciting superhero movie. And for a movie with such a simple plot, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” keeps muddling the story with unnecessary subplots and pointless scenes. There are simply too many underdeveloped characters in this movie. Most of these characters don’t have memorable personalities; they have forgettable soundbites.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” (which takes place in Philadelphia) picks up three years after the events of “Shazam!” Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel) is now 17 years old. He is still living with a secret that most people don’t know: He can transform into an adult superhero named Shazam when he yells the word “Shazam!” Billy is living in a foster family with other teenagers, whom he considers to be just like siblings. As shown in “Shazam!,” these foster siblings have similar abilities to transform into adult superheroes. Billy is the leader of this group.

Billy/Shazam’s superhero pals are goofy Freddy Freeman (played by Jack Dylan Grazer), who can transform into Super Hero Freddy (played by Adam Brody); sweet-natured Darla Dudley (played by Faithe Herman), who can transform into Super Hero Darla (played by Meagan Good); intelligent Mary Broomfield (played by Grace Caroline Currey), who can transform into Super Hero Mary (also played by Currey); introverted Pedro Pena (played by Ovan Armand), who can transform into Super Hero Pedro (played by D.J. Cotrona); and earnest Eugene Choi (played by Ian Chen), who can transform into Super Hero Eugene (played by Ross Butler). These friends/foster siblings have made a pact not to perform any superhero duties without each other.

In most teenage superhero stories, these superheroes are orphans or have at least one deceased parent. The guardians of these teen superheroes usually don’t know about the teenager’s special powers, but they eventually find out. After all, there are only so many times that it can be believable that a parent or guardian does not notice that their teenager isn’t around at the same time a superhero is on live television committing an act of heroism. In “Shazam! Fury of the Gods!,” there are six teenage superheroes in the household. It stretches the bounds of credibility that their foster parents Victor Vasquez (played by Cooper Andrews) and Rosa Vasquez (played by Marta Milans) would take so long to notice.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” brings some Greek mythology to the story, by having three daughters of the Greek god Atlas (the Guarder of the Tree of Life) on a revenge mission to get back the mystical powers that were stolen from them by an enigmatic sorcerer named Wizard (played by Djimon Hounsou), who is shown in a prison in the beginning of the movie. The three sisters are Hespera (played by Helen Mirren), who has the power of the elements that can affect the weather; Kalypso (played by Lucy Liu), who has the power of chaos that can affect mind control; and Anthea (played by Rachel Zegler), who has the power of axis that can affect the rotation of Earth.

Near the beginning of the movie, Hespera (who is the leader of this trio of sisters) and Kalypso are seen invading a museum, where they use their powers and steal a wooden staff that was locked in a glass case. Hespera and Kalypso then pay a hostile visit to the Wizard in his prison cell. The sisters have brought the wooden staff, which they force the Wizard to hold while he says, “Shazam!” This act is supposed to lead the sisters to the keeper of the stolen powers. And it leads them right to Shazam.

And where is Anthea? It just so happens that there’s a new student at the high school attended by Billy and his pals. Her name is Ann (also played by Zegler), who appears to be kind and compassionate. Freddy is instantly smitten, but there are repetitive scenes where Freddy (who uses an arm brace) is brutally attacked by school bullies Brett Breyer (played by Carson MacCormac) and Burke Breyer (by Evan Marsh), two brothers who also want Ann’s attention. Brett and Burke humiliate Freddy by physically assaulting him in front of Ann. The movie weirdly has Freddy accept this abuse with a smile, because Freddy says that all that matters to him is that Ann likes him.

Meanwhile, Billy/Shazam has his own crush: Wonder Woman. There’s another misguided scene where Billy is having a fantasy that he (as Shazam) is on a dinner date with Wonder Woman, who is not facing the camera. (In other words, they didn’t get “Wonder Woman” movie actress Gal Gadot for this scene.) All of sudden, when she is facing the camera, she has the face of the Wizard, who has an important message for Billy/Shazam. This scene is supposed to be amusing, but the visual effects just make everything look bizarre and misplaced.

Billy/Shazam is also going through an identity crisis. As Shazam, he is seen in the office of pediatrician Dr. Dario Bava (played by P.J. Byrne) and treating this appointment like he’s in a a psychiatric therapy session. While lying down on a couch, Shazam whines, “I feel like a fraud.” He also says that he feels rejected by his parents, rejected by the system, and rejected by the city. Shazam also has an inferiority complex because the Flash superhero (another DC Comics character who wears a red superhero suit with a lightning bolt) is more famous than Shazam. When Dr. Bava tactfully reminds Shazam that he’s a pediatrician, not a psychiatrist, Shazam keeps whining.

Not long after this not-very-funny scene, the superhero pals go to rescue people from a collapsing Benjamin Franklin Bridge. It’s a scene where Bonnie Tyler’s 1984 song “Holding Out for a Hero” is playing, and the characters joke about it in a meta way that is not very cute. Fortunately, there are no fatalities during this disaster, but the bridge has completely collapsed. The news media and the general public blame Shazam and his superhero friends for not being able to save the bridge, so the superheroes are called the Philadelphia Fiascos. It doesn’t make any sense that the superheroes would be vilified for not saving the bridge when the superheroes chose saving people’s lives as the top priority.

The Philly Fiascos label is just another excuse for the movie to make Billy/Shazam feel sorry for himself. He also thinks he’s losing the respect of the superhero group of friends. There’s a useless subplot about Freddy going out on his own to fight a crime as Super Hero Freddy. Billy/Shazam finds out about it, so there’s more pouting, whining and complaining from this character, as he lectures Freddy about team unity and not breaking their group pact.

Billy is about to turn 18 soon. Victor and Rosa will lose foster care government funding for each child that turns 18, also known as aging out of the child welfare system. These foster parents have told Billy that they can’t financially afford to have him in the house after he’s legally an adult. Billy feels even more insecure about losing his home, because Victor and Rosa have decided to let Mary stay in the household after she turned 18.

The foster parents made an exception for Mary, because the foster parents say they can afford to have only one other adult in the household. Mary just happened to have the luck of turning 18 first out of all six foster kids. And because Billy/Shazam is somewhat competitive with Mary (because he’s insecure about her being smarter than he is), you know what that means: More pouting, more whining and more complaining from Billy/Shazam.

What happened to the fun-loving Shazam from the first “Shazam!” movie? He can be seen occasionally in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” but he’s mostly turned into a neurotic annoyance who tells so many horrible, unfunny jokes, it would embarrass even the most amateur stand-up comedian in a low-rent, obscure nightclub. There’s a very unoriginal joke about “The Fast and the Furious” movie franchise, which seems like more like a shameless plug from “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” co-writer Morgan, who’s been a screenwriter for a few movies from “The Fast and the Furious” franchise. When Billy/Shazam isn’t fretting about not being perceived as an “alpha male,” he’s fixated on the idea of dating Wonder Woman. This movie is not subtle at all about why Wonder Woman is mentioned so many times.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” also has tone-deaf, sexist jokes about women’s ages. Someone insults Hespera by saying she looks too old to be Kalypso’s sister, and questions if these two sisters are even from the same family. The dolt who makes this asinine remark apparently doesn’t know that gods and goddesses in Greek mythology can live for centuries and can therefore become parents of children with significant age gaps. There’s also a stupid crack that Billy makes about how Wonder Woman will no longer be too old for him when he turns 18.

It goes on and on with simple-minded dialogue and unimaginative action scenes in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” A lot of it is actually quite boring, compared to the abundance of better superhero movies that exist. Viewers will learn nothing that’s new or interesting about Billy/Shazam, unless you think it’s fascinating that he sure knows how to complain a lot if people don’t treat him like a rock star. Levi and Asher are just treading in shallow waters with the Shazam and Billy characters in this movie, when the filmmakers could have given them a deeper and more adventurous dive.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” also missed several opportunities to have more character development for supporting characters Mary, Darla, Pedro and Eugene, who are all written and portrayed as generic as generic can be. Finding out that Pedro has a crush on a baseball outfielder named Marshall Wade (as briefly shown in one of the movie’s early scenes) does not count as character development, since it’s already well-known among DC Comics fans that Pedro is gay. Freddy, who is supposed to be the funniest character in the “Shazam!” movies, just kind of drifts along, while Grazer does his best to make the weak material work in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

As for Mirren, Liu and Zegler, they are perfectly satisfactory in their roles as the vengeful daughters of Atlas, but they are not outstanding in the movie. Mirren looks a little bored. Liu is a little too campy in her role. Zegler just looks happy to be there, since “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is only her second movie, after she made an impressive movie debut with a starring role in the 2021 remake of “West Side Story.” Simply put: The performances of Mirren, Liu and Zegler in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” are not going to be considered iconic in the DC Extended Universe.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” has a blockbuster movie budget but all that money is wasted on a story that has the quality of a third-rate kiddie cartoon. The movie’s plot is stretched out to nearly 132 minutes when it could have easily been 90 minutes or less. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” gives the impression that the filmmakers from 2019’s “Shazam!” were so impressed with themselves because “Shazam!” was a hit with most fans and most critics, so the filmmakers didn’t bother to make a better sequel and are just coasting on the success of a “Shazam!” movie that was made several years ago.

Movie audiences have come to expect a certain level of cinematic quality for these superhero movies, which don’t always have to be super-serious. But the superhero movies that want to be comedic should at least fulfill the basic requirement of being funny and entertaining. In that regard, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” misses the mark by a long distance.

The movie’s mid-credits scene is a reference to HBO Max’s “Peacemaker” series, while the movie’s end-credits scene features a character who was in the 2019 “Shazam!” movie. The DC Extended Universe is undergoing a massive overhaul under DC Studios’ co-chairmen/CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, including recasting of several major DC Comics characters. In other words, this incarnation of the “Shazam!” franchise is going out with a whimper (and a lot of whining from Shazam), because the next “Shazam!” movie is getting a much-needed revamp with a new team.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” in U.S. cinemas on March 17, 2023.

Review: ‘American Underdog,’ starring Zachary Levi, Anna Paquin and Dennis Quaid

December 17, 2021

by Carla Hay

Anna Paquin and Zachary Levi in “American Underdog” (Photo by Michael Kubeisy/Lionsgate)

“American Underdog”

Directed by Andrew Erwin and Jon Erwin

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1990 to 2000 in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and some other U.S. states, the dramatic biopic “American Underdog” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After several years of trying to break into the National Football League (NFL) as a football player, Kurt Warner joins the St. Louis Rams, but he faces opposition and skepticism from people who think he’s too old and not good enough to play in the NFL. 

Culture Audience: “American Underdog” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in American football movies and inspirational “against all odds” true stories.

Zachary Levi and Dennis Quaid in “American Underdog” (Photo by Michael Kubeisy/Lionsgate)

Even though retired NFL player Kurt Warner’s life story is already known by many NFL fans, “American Underdog” is an entertaining version of his life on and off of the football field. The movie is entirely predictable but not too mawkish, thanks to grounded performances from Zachary Levi and Anna Paquin. With “American Underdog,” directors Andrew Erwin and Jon Erwin (the filmmaking brothers whose specialty is making faith-based Christian movies) tone down a lot of the religious preachiness that can be found in many of their other films. In fact, it’s pretty obvious in the movie that the biggest thing that Warner really worships is American football.

“American Underdog” (which was written by Jon Erwin, David Aaron Cohen and Jon Gunn) is not a completely comprehensive biopic, because it covers Warner’s life only from 1990 to 2000. He was with the St. Louis Rams from 1998 to 2003. Warner would later go on to play for the New York Giants (in 2004) and the St. Louis Cardinals, from 2005 to 2009.

“American Underdog” chronicles Warner’s life journey from his days on the football team at the University of Northern Iowa to his wannabe NFL player struggles to the first few years of his stint with the Rams. The movie accelerates and compresses Warner’s first three years with the Rams to make it look like he was on the team for a very short time before he played a life-changing game in 1999. (Most NFL fans already know what that game is.)

Up until that game-changing moment, the movie focuses on how Kurt Warner (played by Zachary Levi) was underestimated or dismissed for most of his football career. A great deal of the movie also shows the ups and downs in his personal life, including an on-again/off-again romance with Brenda Meoni (played by Anna Paquin), who was a divorced mother of two underage children when they first met while he was a student and a star football quarterback at the University of Northern Iowa. This romance, even when it was at its most painful and distant, would turn out to be the one constant in the couple’s lives when experiencing life lessons about love, loyalty and not giving up on dreams.

“American Underdog” has a straightforward narrative told in chronological order. (There are few brief flashback scenes showing Kurt as a child, played by Beau Hart.) The first third of the movie depicts Kurt’s life when he was a college student and his first few years out of college. Therefore, it’s a bit of stretch to see Levi and Paquin (who were in their late 30s/early 40s when they filmed this movie) portraying people who were supposed to be in their early-to-mid-20s. (The real-life Kurt and Brenda had consulting roles for “American Underdog” and visited the film set.)

One of the better aspects of “American Underdog” is how it doesn’t portray Kurt and Brenda’s romance in a fairytale way. Brenda (who’s four years older than Kurt) played very hard-to-get in the beginning—not in a coy way, but in a way that was a reflection of who she was at the time: a financially struggling divorcée with trust issues because her ex-husband cheated on her. In the beginning of their relationship, Brenda was emotionally aloof and outright insistent to Kurt that they wouldn’t make a good couple because she said she didn’t like sports. (Obviously, she changed her mind later.)

Kurt, as portrayed in this movie, wasn’t exactly a dashing and suave Romeo. In many ways, his courtship of Brenda could be considered aggressive and even stalkerish. When they first meet at a bar playing country music, Kurt can’t take his eyes off of Brenda. He’s instantly smitten, and she’s not. Brenda loves line dancing to country music. Kurt not only dislikes country music, but he also doesn’t know how to line dance.

However, that doesn’t stop Kurt from making his first move on Brenda. Kurt literally muscles his way in on her dance partner, by nudging the other man and telling him (in a polite manner) to get out of the way. During this first dance together, Kurt introduces himself, but Brenda is so wary that she won’t even tell Kurt what her name is. It becomes an awkward joke for the rest of the evening when she still won’t tell Kurt her name.

Their first conversation also reveals how different their lives are. Kurt came from a family where his parents split up when his father abandoned the family. Kurt’s mother Sue Warner raised Kurt and his brother as a financially struggling divorced parent. Kurt tells Brenda, “Football was the most important thing my pops taught me before he left.” Kurt adds that he has reconciled with his father, “who’s back in my life now,” but there are still some emotional difficulties in this father/son relationship.

Brenda tells Kurt, “I hate sports, so it’ll never work between us.” She tells him up front that she’s divorced with two kids. And she’s certain that this information will scare off this young bachelor college student. “If I never see you again, I’ll totally understand,” Brenda says when she tells him that she’s a single mother. Brenda’s messy personal life is in contrast to that of her parents, who are still happily married after decades together.

What Brenda doesn’t tell Kurt during their first meeting is that she and her two children are currently living with her parents because Brenda is unemployed and can’t afford to have her own place. Kurt finds out when he shows up unannounced and uninvited at the house to see Brenda and meet her children. Brenda is naturally shocked to see him. Kurt tells Brenda that he found out where she lived by asking the bartender at the bar where Kurt and Brenda met.

It’s a stalker move, but it’s supposed to show that Kurt was willing to go to certain lengths to court Brenda. Not only that, but Kurt also walked the three or four miles to get to the house because he didn’t have a car at the time. Brenda doesn’t want invite him into the house, but her son Zack (played by Hayden Zaller), who’s about 7 or 8 years old, lets Kurt into the house.

Kurt and Zack have an almost immediate bond. Zack tells him that his transistor radio in the bathroom doesn’t work, and Kurt sees that all the radio needs is a second battery. Kurt and Zack then lie down on the bathroom floor to listen to the radio. Zack happens to be legally blind, but Kurt treats him like would treat any other kid. Brenda’s other child is a daughter named Jessie, who’s about 2 or 3 years old.

Brenda starts to warm up a little to Kurt when she sees how kind he is to Zack. Eventually, Brenda opens up to Kurt when she tells him a little more about her background: She used to be in the U.S. Marines and thought that she would have a perfect Marine life, including the Marine man she married named Brad, who is not seen in the movie. But Brad cheated on her when she was pregnant with Jessie.

Brad also caused Zack’s blindness: When Zack was four months old, Brad accidentally dropped Zack on the head when Brad was alone taking care of the Zack. However, when Zack was taken to the hospital with a swollen head, Brad didn’t immediately tell anyone that the reason for the swollen head was because her dropped Zack.

Brad didn’t disclose this crucial information until more than a day after Zack was taken to the hospital. But by then, it was too late, and Zack lost most of his eyesight because of the brain damage. Doctors had predicted that Zack would never be able to sit up or walk on his own. Zack defied those predictions and had the ability to do those things as a child.

At the time Kurt and Brenda met, she had left the Marines and was studying to be a nurse. Because she has to take care of two young kids, Brenda warns Kurt that she won’t be able to spontaneously go out on dates because her kids will be her top priority. It doesn’t deter Kurt. Although some people might think that Kurt and Brenda’s “meet cute” was fabricated for a movie, how they met and how Kurt followed up really did happen this way, according to interviews that Kurt and Brenda have given.

When she finally agrees to go on a date with him, he’s gotten a truck, and the kids go with them. It’s a simple date—Kurt and Brenda just hang out at a lake and talk while the kids sleep in the back of the truck—but it’s enough to spark a romance. When Kurt takes them back to the house, and he and Brenda spend some time alone, she again tells him that their relationship won’t work. But then she practically jumps on him to kiss him, and Kurt enthusiastically kisses her too.

Over time, Brenda’s parents Jenny Jo (played by Morgana Shaw) and Larry (played by Danny Vinson) are more accepting of Kurt than Kurt’s mother Sue (played by Cindy Hogan) is accepting of Brenda. Sue is afraid that Brenda being an unemployed single mother will be too much of a burden for Kurt, because Sue went through similar struggles. Brenda tells Kurt that most mothers of men she’s dated have had similar reactions to Brenda. As the movie goes on, it shows how much Kurt and Brenda are each other’s biggest support during the lowest points in their lives.

Kurt’s NFL dreams seemed to be on track when he was recruited by the Green Bay Packers not long after graduating from college. However, those dreams got a serious setback when he was cut from the Packers after less than two days. The reason? The team’s quarterback coach Steve “Mooch” Mariucci (played by Brett Varvel) didn’t think Kurt was prepared to play in the NFL.

The turnoff for Mooch was that when Mooch asked Kurt to go on the field during practice, Kurt didn’t want to go on the field because Kurt said he didn’t know the playbook yet. As far as Mooch was concerned, Kurt should’ve been eager and ready to know the playbook on the first day of practice. Kurt’s hesitancy cost him a place on the team.

It was a painful rejection that led to years of struggle for Kurt, who never gave up on his dream to play professional football. During those lean years, he experienced unemployment and a lot of financial problems, including being temporarily homeless. At one point, the only job he could find was being a shelf stocker at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where he had to face people who knew him as a once-promising college football star. Eventually, Brenda invited Kurt to live with her and her parents because Kurt had nowhere else to live.

“American Underdog” has moments where these struggles are depicted in very dramatic and very “in your face” ways—literally. There’s a scene where Kurt is stocking shelves at the grocery store, and he sees a Wheaties box with Miami Dolphins star Dan Marino on the cover. Kurt looks at the box with a sad expression on his face that says, “That could’ve been me. I should have the life that Dan Marino is having.”

In another scene, Kurt and Brenda are so financially broke, they can barely afford gas for their car. And sure enough, they run out of gas, with the kids in the back of the car, on a deserted road. And wouldn’t you know: It’s during a blizzard. And so, Kurt has to walk to the nearest gas station, which is about four or five miles away, all the while hoping that Brenda and the kids won’t freeze to death or get frostbite in the car.

After this “stranded during a blizzard” incident, Kurt realizes that he can’t continue to be financially unstable, and he has to be a better provider for Brenda and the kids. And so, Kurt does something that he vowed that he would never do: Say yes to an offer from Iowa Barnstormers chief Jim Foster (played by Bruce McGill) to play for the Barnstormers in the Arena Football League, which Kurt says is “for guys who are circling the drain.”

Kurt signs on to play for the Iowa Barnstormers, which he gripes is “all the way in Des Moines, and it’s not even real football.” However, bills must be paid, and Brenda is supportive because she knows playing professional football is what Kurt really wants to do with his life, even if it’s for a team that Kurt thinks is a pathetic joke. Luckily for Kurt, his college best friend Mike Hudnutt (played by Ser’Darius Blain) is also on the Barnstormers team.

Just like during his college football days, Kurt also becomes a star quarterback for the Barnstormers. What Kurt and Brenda don’t anticipate in advance his how much Kurt ends up enjoying the partying that comes with being a football star. His constant traveling also takes a toll on their relationship. Brenda then goes through a tragedy that also tests the love that she and Kurt have for each other.

Brenda is a religious Christian, while Kurt was not particularly religious when he first met Brenda. Over time, Kurt became a more devout Christian. And although “American Underdog” could be considered a faith-based movie, this is not a typical Christian faith-based movie where God or Jesus is mentioned every 10 minutes. There are scenes of people praying, but there aren’t scenes of people going to church on a regular basis. There’s one big church scene, and it’s exactly what you think it is, considering that it’s easy to predict or know what happened to Kurt and Brenda’s courtship.

As Kurt, Levi has somewhat of a passing physical resemblance to the real Warner, and he capably handles all the football scenes, which include several real-life current and former pro football players. Levi is known to appear in mostly comedic projects or in dramas where he’s a wisecracking comedic character, so “American Underdog” is a real departure for him as an actor. He’s an easy protagonist to root for, but the movie also shows how a single-minded persistence to follow a career dream always comes at some price to someone’s personal life.

Paquin also makes her character command the screen with a believability. Brenda is both strong and vulnerable as someone who knows what it’s like to have broken dreams but has enough love in her heart to encourage Kurt to follow his football dreams, even if it means Kurt has to sacrifice time that he could be spending with her and the children. Yes, there are thrilling football scenes, but the movie’s heart is really in the relationship between Kurt and Brenda. It’s a reminder that anyone who achieves fame and fortune through a career always had supportive people along the way who helped with those achievements.

As for the supporting cast members, Dennis Quaid shows up in the last third of the movie as Rams head coach Dick Vermeil, the person on the team who believed in Kurt the most, even when numerous people—including Rams offensive coordinator Mike Martz (played by Chance Kelly)—told this coach that he was making a mistake in supporting Kurt. Mike was one of the naysayers until Kurt proved him wrong. Quaid plays the role in a standard way that still manages to convey some individual personality. Zaller (who is legally blind in real life) is a scene stealer as Zack. He’s not an extremely polished actor, but child actors don’t get much more adorable than Zaller in this movie.

“American Underdog” mostly succeeds in its obvious aim to be a heartwarming and inspirational movie. It’s not pretending to be artsy or subtle. And the movie isn’t going to be winning any prestigious awards. But for audiences who want to see a drama about “ordinary” people who can do “extraordinary” things with persistence and the right support system, then “American Underdog” delivers on those expectations. The movie does a good job in conveying the message that people’s true characters are made during their most difficult times.

Lionsgate will release “American Underdog” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2021. The movie is set for release on digital on February 4, 2022, and on Blu-ray, DVD, 4K Ultra HD and VOD on February 22, 2022.

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Review: ‘The Mauritanian,’ starring Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim, Benedict Cumberbatch and Shailene Woodley

February 19, 2021

by Carla Hay

Tahar Rahim and Jodie Foster in “The Mauritanian” (Photo courtesy of STX)

“The Mauritanian”

Directed by Kevin Macdonald

Some language in Arabic, French and German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Mauritania, Cuba, the United States, Germany and Afghanistan, the dramatic film “The Mauritanian” features a cast of white, North African, Middle Eastern and a few black characters representing people who are connected in some way to the case of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian citizen who was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for being a suspected terrorist.

Culture Clash: Slahi’s legal team argued that he was being wrongly imprisoned by the U.S. government, because he wasn’t given the proper due process in the court system and he wasn’t charged with a crime.

Culture Audience: “The Mauritanian” will appeal primarily to people in interested in social justice issues, especially in how Muslims were treated after the 9/11 attacks.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Zachary Levi in “The Mauritanian” (Photo courtesy of STX)

Movies like “The Mauritanian” usually don’t get made unless there’s a message of hope and inspiration at the very end. But this dramatic interpretation of a real-life story of legal injustice also exists to show the horrors of being caught in a system of imprisonment without being charged with a crime. That’s what happened to Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian citizen who was held captive at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for being a suspected terrorist.

In many ways, “The Mauritanian” (directed by Kevin Macdonald) follows a typical formula of a movies about a wrongfully imprisoned person who’s fighting for legal justice and release from prison. There are crusading defense attorneys, corrupt government officials and brutal scenes of prison life. There’s also some hokey dialogue that lowers the quality of the movie.

However, the “The Mauritanian” is not a typical movie of this ilk because it tells a very specific story about someone who was imprisoned for years by the U.S. government without even being charged with a crime. And that’s highly unusual in any legal case in the United States. The other way that “The Mauritanian” is not a typical movie about a legal case is that the two defense attorneys who do the most work on the case are both women, and the defense team is led by a woman.

These legal dramas often take the perspective of the privileged lawyers involved in the case, but “The Mauritanian” never loses the perspective of the person who is suffering the most in this case: Slahi (played by Tahar Rahim), whose story is told from the moment he was questioned and detained, as well as through flashbacks. However, the movie gives a lot of screen time to the legal finagling that went on outside of Guantanamo Bay, in order to give scenes to the better-known actors in this cast who portray the lawyers and government officials who are in a power struggle over this case.

“The Mauritanian” opens with a scene of 30-year-old Slahi at a wedding reception in Mauritania in November 2001. Outside, he apprehensively meets with two plainclothes Mauritanian police officers who have shown up to question Slahi about where his cousin Khalid al-Shanqiti is. Slahi replies, “I have no idea where [he] is. I doubt even Bin Laden knows.” Viewers who don’t know the story will later find out in the movie that al-Shanqiti is a personal poet and spiritual adviser to Osama Bin Laden, who was widely identified as the leader of the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks.

One of the cops tells Slahi: “After the New York attacks, Americans are going crazy. They want to talk to you.” A nervous Slahi goes inside the building and erases all of the contacts from his phone. Slahi then goes back outside and agrees to go for questioning, but he insists on taking his own car. What happened during that interrogation session, which is shown later in the movie as flashbacks, resulted in Slahi being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay.

The movie then shows how lead defense attorney Nancy Hollander (played by Jodie Foster) got involved in the case. Hollander is portrayed as a no-nonsense, politically liberal lawyer who believes in the same ideals as the American Civil Liberties Union. She’s also a partner in the law firm Friedman, Boyd & Hollander, which is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“The Mauritanian” presents a scenario of Hollander first becoming aware of Slahi’s case in 2005, when she has a lunch meeting with a colleague named Kent (played by David Flynn) from another firm. Kent tells her that a Mauritanian lawyer approached his firm to take Slahi’s case, but Kent’s firm declined the request. It’s mentioned during this lunch meeting that the German news publication Der Spiegel has reported that Slahi is suspected of helping plan the 9/11 attacks.

What lawyer wants to defend a suspected 9/11 terrorist and accuse the U.S. government of wrongful imprisonment of said terrorist? Hollander does. Her partners at the law firm discourage her from what they think will be a losing case, given the political climate at the time. They also don’t like that this would be a pro bono case for Hollander. In other words, she wouldn’t be getting a fee that would bring income to the firm.

Early on in the movie, it ‘s shown that Hollander is someone who likes to fight for underdogs, so she remains undeterred in wanting to taking the case. Because she’s a partner in the firm, Hollander has more clout than a junior lawyer or non-partner would have, so she ends up getting her way in the firm representing Slahi, with Hollander as his lead attorney. Hollander also has the advantage of having national security clearance, so she has access to certain information and people that a regular attorney would not have.

The first person she recruits to be her second-in-command attorney and researcher is Teri Duncan (played by Shailene Woodley), a junior attorney who shares Hollander’s enthusiasm for taking on the case. However, Duncan’s loyalties will be tested later on when things don’t go smoothly. Duncan is friendlier and more easygoing than Hollander, but Duncan is also someone who is more likely to be intimidated or discouraged by setbacks than Hollander is.

This contrast in Hollander’s and Duncan’s personalities affects the case in different ways. The first meeting that Hollander and Duncan have with Slahi at Guantanamo Bay (after they go through high-level clearances and briefings) is so they can convince Slahi to hire them as his attorneys. Hollander is noticeably stiff and uncomfortable in interacting Slahi, while Duncan is better at being more approachable in the conversation. Slahi can speak English, Arabic, French and German, although he sometimes needs a translator when he needs to speak to someone in English.

Duncan makes eye contact with Slahi in a way that makes him feel that he can trust them, so he agrees to let them be his attorneys. He also makes a remark that at this point in his dismal situation, he doesn’t have better options. These qualified attorneys, who wholeheartedly believe that Slahi is not guilty of being a terrorist, are offering their services for free, so it would also be foolish for him to turn down their offer.

While Hollander and Duncan are are on the case, the movie shows hints that Duncan is somewhat attracted to Slahi and might have a personal interest in him outside of their attorney/client relationship. (Duncan and Slahi were both single at the time this story took place.) It’s mentioned early on in the movie that Hollander was separated from her husband Bill and living alone during this time in her life. In other words, don’t expect to see scenes of Hollander with a family, like other characters have in the movie.

Slahi’s life before prison is shown in flashback scenes of him with his family members, including his controversial cousin al-Shanqiti, a known terrorist associate who used the aliases Abu Has al-Mauritani and Mafouz Walad al-Walid. Slahi was especially close to his mother, who expressed concerns abut him living in another country when Slahi was in his 20s and got an electrical engineering scholarship at a university in Germany.

After getting his college education, Slahi moved to Afghanistan in 1990. It was this period of time in his life that put him on the radar of being a suspected terrorist. As portrayed in the movie, Slahi and his cousin al-Shanqiti attended radical Islamic training groups. The U.S. government suspected that Slahi and his cousin al-Shanqiti joined the Al Qaeda terrorist movement that had Bin Laden as its leader at the time.

One of the main reasons for Slahi’s imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay was that the U.S. government accused him of recruiting to Al Qaeda one of the men who years later was identified as one of the 9/11 terrorists: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, also know as the 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks. Slahi vehemently denied that accusation, although he didn’t deny that he was taught Al Qaeda training in Afghanistan. In a flashback, it’s shown that Slahi believed the training he was undergoing in the 1990s was for Muslims to fight against Communism, and that Al Qaeda was on the same side as Americans.

However deeply involved in terrorism Slahi might or might not have been, or how credible he might or might not be, that wasn’t the key legal issue for Hollander and the defense team. As Hollander declares: “We have to prove that the U.S. government lacks sufficient evidence to detain him.” The defense team soon finds out that it will be an uphill battle.

On the opposite side of the case is Stuart Couch (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), a U.S. Marines veteran who was assigned as the lead prosecutor in Slahi’s case in September 2003, just one month after he joined the Office of Military Commissions. A graduate of the U.S. Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program, Couch has a personal reason for going after 9/11 terrorists: His close friend Bruce Taylor was on the plane that crashed into the Twin Towers’ South Tower in the 9/11 attacks. At a 9/11 anniversary memorial service, Couch comforts Bruce’s widow Cathy (played by Justine Mitchell) and tells her how proud he is to be prosecuting the case so he can help get justice for Bruce.

However, during Couch’s investigation to prepare for the prosecution, he begins to question how committed he’ll be to the case when he uncovers disturbing incidents of Guantanamo Bay prisoners (including Slahi) being illegally tortured during their interrogations. These torture scenes are shown in graphic detail in the movie, including horrific beatings and waterboarding. Couch’s investigation is further complicated because of his personal connection to one of the government officials whom Couch suspects is covering up incriminating information.

That person is Neil Buckland (played by Zachary Levi), who was a former classmate of Couch’s when they were stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Buckland is portrayed as a manipulative villain who uses his past personal connection to Couch to try to cloud Couch’s judgment in the investigation. Couch considers himself to be a highly ethical person, but even he begins to wonder how much of the government’s violations he should expose when Buckland and some other government officials question Couch’s patriotism and competence.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot of Slahi befriending a fellow Guantanamo Bay inmate known only as Inmate #241, who is originally from Marseilles, France. They never see each other because they are separated by walls. But they end up confiding in each other about their lives and what they hope to do if they’re ever released from prison. The movie portrays Inmate #241, who gives Slahi the nickname The Mauritanian, as the closest that Slahi came to having a true friend inside the prison.

At 129 minutes, “The Mauritanian” could have felt less bloated if about 15 minutes had been trimmed from the total running time. “The Mauritanian” director Macdonald keeps an even keel throughout the movie, which is part legal thriller, part prison drama. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not an outstanding movie that will get the industry’s most prestigious awards.

All of the actors do well in their performances, particularly Rahim, who gives an authentic portrayal of the range of emotions that his character goes through in the movie. It’s a very human depiction that shows Slahi’s strengths, weaknesses and occasional flashes of humor in grim situations. Foster, Woodley, Cumberbatch and Levi are solid, but their roles are written in a fairly predictable way.

The movie falters the most in the screenplay, which was written by M.B. Traven (also known as Michael Bronner), Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. They adapted the screenplay from Slahi’s best-selling 2015 memoir “Guantanamo Diary.” There are many times in the movie that might remind viewers of how a formulaic legal procedural series is written for television, especially during the courtroom scenes.

And the dialogue can be a bit corny at times. During a government meeting for the prosecution, one of the officials says of one of the suspected terrorists: “This dude is like the Al Qaeda Forrest Gump. Everywhere you look, here’s there.”

These flaws don’t ruin the movie, because they are outweighed by how compelling the story is and by how well this talented cast portrays it. The approach of the movie isn’t so much from a political perspective but from a human rights perspective. It’s clear that the filmmakers want “The Mauritanian” to serve as a statement that no government should act as if it’s above the law when it comes to violating human rights.

STX released “The Mauritanian” in select U.S. cinemas on February 12, 2021. The movie’s VOD release date is March 2, 2021. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will release “The Mauritanian” on digital on April 20, 2021, and on Blu-ray and DVD on May 11, 2021.

2019 MTV Movie and TV Awards: “Avengers: Endgame’ is the top winner

June 17, 2019

With three prizes, including Best Movie, “Avengers: Endgame” was the top winner at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards, which took place June 15 at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California. Zachary Levi hosted the show, which MTV televised on June 17.

“A Star Is Born” won two prizes: Best Musical Moment (for “Shallow”) and Best Performance in a Movie (for Lady Gaga). Noah Centineo also won two awards, for his co-starring role in the Netflix romantic comedy “To All the Boys I Loved Before”: Best Kiss (a prize he shared with co-star Lana Condor) and Breakthrough Performance.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was honored with the Generation Award. Jada Pinkett Smith received the Trailblazer Award.

The show’s performers were Bazzi and Lizzo. (Martin Garrix, who had been scheduled to perform with Macklemore and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, cancelled the performance.) Presenters included Annie Murphy, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Gavin Leatherwood, Noah Schnapp, Ross Lynch, Aubrey Plaza, Daniel Levy, Dave Bautista, David Spade, Elisabeth Moss, Jameela Jamil, Kiernan Shipka, Kumail Nanjiani, Maude Apatow, Melissa McCarthy, Mj Rodriguez, Shameik Moore, Storm Reid and Tiffany Haddish.

Joel Gallen of Tenth Planet Productions served as executive producer with MTV’s Amy Doyle, Wendy Plaut and Vanessa Whitewolf for the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards. Rick Austin also served as executive producer. Joseph Buoye and Alicia Portugal were executives in charge of production. Amani Duncan and Lisa Lauricella were executives in charge of music.

Official sponsors of the 2019 “MTV Movie & TV Awards” included M&M’S®, MTN DEW®, Taco Bell®, and truth®.

Here is the complete list of winners and nominees for the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards:

*=winner

BEST MOVIE
Avengers: Endgame*
BlacKkKlansman
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Us

BEST SHOW
Big Mouth
Game of Thrones*
Riverdale
Schitt’s Creek
The Haunting of Hill House

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A MOVIE
Amandla Stenberg (Starr Carter) – The Hate U Give
Lady Gaga (Ally) – A Star is Born*
Lupita Nyong’o (Red) – Us
Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury) – Bohemian Rhapsody
Sandra Bullock (Malorie) – Bird Box

BEST PERFORMANCE IN A SHOW
Elisabeth Moss (June Osborne/Offred) – The Handmaid’s Tale*
Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) – Game of Thrones
Gina Rodriguez (Jane Villanueva) – Jane the Virgin
Jason Mitchell (Brandon) – The Chi
Kiernan Shipka (Sabrina Spellman) – Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

BEST HERO
Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel) – Captain Marvel
John David Washington (Ron Stallworth) – BlacKkKlansman
Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) – Game of Thrones
Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) – Avengers: Endgame*
Zachary Levi (Billy Batson/Shazam) – Shazam!

BEST VILLAIN
Jodie Comer (Villanelle) – Killing Eve
Joseph Fiennes (Commander Fred Waterford) – The Handmaid’s Tale
Josh Brolin (Thanos) – Avengers: Endgame*
Lupita Nyong’o (Red) – Us
Penn Badgley (Joe Goldberg) – You

BEST KISS
Camila Mendes & Charles Melton (Veronica Lodge & Reggie Mantle) – Riverdale
Jason Momoa & Amber Heard (Aquaman & Mera) – Aquaman
Ncuti Gatwa & Connor Swindells (Eric Effiong & Adam Groff) – Sex Education
Noah Centineo & Lana Condor (Peter Kavinsky & Lara Jean) – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before*
Tom Hardy & Michelle Williams (Eddie Brock/Venom & Anne Weying) – Venom

REALITY ROYALTY
Jersey Shore: Family Vacation
Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta*
The Bachelor
The Challenge
Vanderpump Rules

BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE
Awkwafina (Peik Lin Goh) – Crazy Rich Asians
Dan Levy (David Rose) – Schitt’s Creek*
John Mulaney (Andrew Glouberman) – Big Mouth
Marsai Martin (Little Jordan Sanders) – Little
Zachary Levi (Billy Batson/Shazam) – Shazam!

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Awkwafina (Peik Lin Goh) – Crazy Rich Asians
Haley Lu Richardson (Stella) – Five Feet Apart
Mj Rodriguez (Blanca Rodriguez) – Pose
Ncuti Gatwa (Eric Effiong) – Sex Education
Noah Centineo (Peter Kavinsky) – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before*

BEST FIGHT
Avengers: Endgame – Captain America vs. Thanos
Captain Marvel – Captain Marvel vs. Minn-Erva*
Game of Thrones – Arya Stark vs. the White Walkers
RBG – Ruth Bader Ginsburg vs. Inequality
WWE Wrestlemania – Becky Lynch vs. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair

BEST REAL–LIFE HERO
Alex Honnold – Free Solo
Hannah Gadsby – Nanette
Roman Reigns – WWE SmackDown
Ruth Bader Ginsburg – RBG*
Serena Williams – Being Serena

MOST FRIGHTENED PERFORMANCE
Alex Wolff (Peter) – Hereditary
Linda Cardellini (Anna Tate-Garcia) – The Curse of La Llorona
Rhian Rees (Dana Haines) – Halloween
Sandra Bullock (Malorie) – Bird Box*
Victoria Pedretti (Nell Crain) – The Haunting of Hill House

BEST DOCUMENTARY
At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal
McQueen
Minding the Gap
RBG
Surviving R. Kelly*

BEST HOST
Gayle King – CBS This Morning
Nick Cannon – Wild ‘n Out*
Nick Cannon – The Masked Singer
RuPaul – RuPaul’s Drag Race
Trevor Noah – The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

MOST MEME-ABLE MOMENT
Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club – The Lilo Dance
Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood – Ray J’s Hat
RBG – The Notorious RBG
RuPaul’s Drag Race – Asia O’Hara’s butterfly finale fail
The Bachelor – Colton Underwood jumps the fence*

BEST MUSICAL MOMENT
A Star is Born “Shallow”*
Bohemian Rhapsody Live Aid Concert
Captain Marvel “Just a Girl”
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina “Masquerade”
On My Block “Look at that Butt”
Riverdale “Seventeen”
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse “Sunflower”
The Umbrella Academy “I Think We’re Alone Now”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32W9rrUrG-w

 

2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards: Zachary Levi named as host

April 23, 2019

Zachary Levi
Zachary Levi (Photo by Peter Kramer/NBCUniversal)

The following is a press release from MTV:

Hot on the heels of the worldwide box office hit “Shazam!,” star Zachary Levi will host the “2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards” on Monday, June 17th at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California.

Levi currently can be seen toplining David F. Sandberg’s blockbuster superhero feature film “Shazam!” from Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line Cinema.

No stranger to superhero films, Levi has also appeared as Fandral in “Thor: The Dark World.” He was previously best known for starring as Chuck Bartowski in the popular television series “Chuck” and, most recently, as Benjamin in the Emmy(R) and Golden Globe(R) award-winning series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” for which he took home a SAG(R) Award for “Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series.”

Levi follows in the footsteps of previous MTV Movie & TV Hosts, including Tiffany Haddish, Adam Devine, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Conan O’Brien, Rebel Wilson, Russell Brand, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg, among others.

The 2019 categories and nominees will be announced in the coming weeks.

Official sponsors of the 2019 “MTV Movie & TV Awards” include M&M’S(R), MTN DEW(R) and Taco Bell(R).

For additional information, please visit MTVAwards.mtv.com and follow @MTVAwards and @MTV on social media. #MTVAwards

Joel Gallen of Tenth Planet Productions will serve as Executive Producer with MTV’s Amy Doyle, Wendy Plaut and Vanessa Whitewolf for the 2019 “MTV Movie & TV Awards.” Rick Austin will also serve as Executive Producer. Joseph Buoye and Alicia Portugal are Executives in Charge of Production. Amani Duncan and Lisa Lauricella are Executives in Charge of Music.

About MTV

MTV is the leading global youth media brand in 180 countries, reaching 450 million households in nearly 30 different languages across every platform. A unit of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA), MTV operations span cable and mobile networks, live events, theatrical films and MTV Studios.

About Zachary Levi

Zachary Levi has proven himself to be a triple threat – he is an accomplished actor, singer, and dancer which was displayed with his Tony- nominated performance for “Best Leading Actor in a Musical” in the critically-praised Broadway production, “She Loves Me.” Levi currently can be seen toplining David F. Sandberg’s blockbuster superhero film, “Shazam!” from Warner Bros. Pictures/ New Line Cinema. Levi recently took home a SAG Award for “Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series” for his recurring role for season two of Amazon Studios’ Emmy winning series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The first season of the show won six Primetime Emmys, two Golden Globes, as well as a Peabody Award and two Critics’ Choice Awards. The second season won one Golden Globe, three Screen Actor Guild Awards, one PGA Award, two Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, one Critics Choice TV Award, and TV Program of the Year at the AFI Awards. Additional previous film credits include “Thor: The Dark World”; “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel”; and “Tangled.” The song “I See the Light,” written for “Tangled” (performed by Levi and Mandy Moore) was nominated that year for an Oscar and Golden Globe for “Best Original Song”. The pair performed the duet at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony. “I See the Light” also won the Grammy Award for “Best Song Written for Visual Media” at the 54th Grammy Awards. Levi is best known for his fan favorite performance as Chuck Bartowski in the hit NBC series, “Chuck.” Other previous TV credits include: the Netflix mini-series “Alias Grace” and “Heroes Reborn.”

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