Amazon Series Review: Elle

The movie "Legally Blonde" (2001) is one of the most popular and iconic movies of all time. Frequently on cable TV, during the entire 25 years since it was released. The original movie starred Reece Witherspoon as Elle Woods, a young woman who was rejected by her cruel and stupid boyfriend and tries to get into Harvard Law School to win him back.

One of the best parts of this very good movie is Elle's resilience, which at first enabled her to start out badly at Harvard and then fight back to become a top student. Elle was so different than all the other Law students at Harvard, which caused a great deal of resentment from several egomaniac law students, angry that someone like this got into their school. This was yet another challenging problem that Elle had to overcome. Despite all the problems, Elle keeps her extremely positive personality and continues to wear pink, traveling almost everywhere with her tiny Chihuahua, Bruiser, and refusing to try to be like everybody else - just to fit in.

The most surprising thing about the new Amazon Prime Series "Elle" is that it took 25 years to come up with a great idea like this - following Elle's life in the mid-1990's while she was still in high school. The first task the producers of this eight-episode series did was casting Lexi Minetree as Elle Woods, as she is outstanding in this role, with her look, personality, and voice matching Reece Witherspoon's perfectly.

The story has some similarities to the movie, where Elle's father is forced to move from Los Angeles to Seattle due to a botched nose job within his plastic surgery business, forcing Elle to adapt to a Seattle High School where she is very different from every other student. Like the original movie, Elle has to overcome the hostility of many of the students, especially Kimberly (Chandler Kinney), who is nasty and cruel to Elle at every opportunity. Too much of this nastiness is overkill, especially towards someone as cute as Elle. Once arriving at this Seattle school, several different sub-stories allow Elle to eventually gain several friends, while never losing her own identity - including wearing pink outfits while everybody else wears dark, depressing grunge clothing. Over time, Elle forms new friendships with Liz (Gabrielle Policano), a gay young woman, along with Shannon (Danielle Chand), Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), and Dustin (Zac Looker). These friendships grow stronger as the series progresses, but not without many disagreements and conflicts along the way.

The main sub-story in this series involves the High School Principal(Matt Oberg) and the Dean of the school (James Van Der Beek) stealing money from the high school. Van Der Beek was in his final role during the latter stages of dying from colon cancer, and within the four episodes Van Der Beek appeared, it was difficult to see his extreme weight loss, while admiring his courage to continue working when he had such a short time to live.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this solid series is way too low at 53%, while my rating is 80%, and I strongly recommend this series.

Movie Review: Jackass: Best and Last

For the promised very last, "Jackass: Best and Last" movie, it is as disgusting, stupid, dangerous, and idiotic as all the other films, with scenes from previous Jackass movies, and new scenes created for this current documentary of the stupidest and most dangerous stunts any group of insane people has ever produced. Due to the ridiculously high 86% Rotten Tomatoes rating, I was fooled into seeing this movie, mainly for this blog.

Given that this latest Jackass is not really a movie, it is difficult to review, even as a bad documentary. Like all the previous five Jackass movies released in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2013, and 2022, this one is once again a series of insane and disgusting stunts, with almost all of them having the potential to permanently injure and kill any number of cast members. At the end of every stunt, the entire cast laughs hysterically, even though another cast member is lying on the ground in extreme pain.

One of the most dangerous is when a cast member is strapped to a red plastic rocket and shot into the air over a lake, only to fall off as the rocket almost lands on the unfortunate passenger. By far the most disgusting is when cast member Steve-O flies into the air strapped into a porta-potty - with the obvious horrific trauma filmed inside.

The injuries the cast members have sustained during the filming of these six movies, starting with Johnny Knoxville, include 14 severe injuries, including a brain hemorrhage, multiple concussions, and numerous broken bones. Knoxville's worst injury was when he was attacked by a bull in "Jackass Forever" (2022), and sustained a brain hemorrhage, concussion, broken wrist, broken rib, and loss of consciousness. Steve-O has sustained third-degree burns and multiple broken bones, numerous concussions, chemical burns, and has a pellet permanently lodged in his chest. Considering so many years of surgeries, non-stop pain, and risk of life, one has to wonder how much this group of insane people has been paid to make these ridiculous movies, while trying to figure out if all those stunts were worth it.

The Rotten Tomatoes of 86% is crazy, even for the most rabid fans of this movie franchise. My rating is 5% and a big pass.

Movie Review: Toy Story 5

In November 1995, the groundbreaking Toy Story was released by Pixar, and it was the first ever 100% computer animated movie of all time. As the next 3 movies were released in 1999, 2010, and 2019, I have always been very impressed that the production team behind these great movies all realized that no amount of genius computer animation is going to be enough to cover up a bad screenplay. It makes no sense to spend many millions of dollars on top-notch computer animation for a bad story, so the quality of all the Toy Story movies has always been near the top of all animation films ever released.

For the 5th installment of this movie franchise, "Toy Story 5", the central part of this story is a great one: "kids are no longer playing with toys, they are all on their cell phones or IPADs". The main character in this story, Bonnie, a 7-year-old child, is having trouble making real friends, mainly due to kids spending too much time in front of screens. Then the gang of original toys, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), and Jessie(Joan Cusack) come to the rescue. The problem with this very solid story idea that started out so well is that what follows is a way too convoluted, overly complicated series of about five parallel stories that no young child is ever going to be able to follow, much less any adult.

This movie looked like another one of those screenplays with too many screenwriters and not enough collaboration to meld all the ideas into a coherent, sequential story. I saw no reason to have so many stories running at once, with so many scenes switching back and forth for the entire two hours. After 31 years, unfortunately, this 5th installment in this important film series is mostly a miss, entirely due to a screenplay that should have been rewritten about ten more times.

One of the better reviews I have read about this film, written by Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian: "Meanwhile, Jessie, through a hugely convoluted plot complication that needs a rogue platoon of upgraded Buzzes to sort out, comes across a great kid called Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a real horse lover and toy enthusiast who lives on a farm and could make a great best friend for Bonnie."

I was also surprised that the Jessie character, played by Joan Cusack, dominated this entire movie at about 80%. Woody and Buzz Lightyear do appear in this movie, but far too little, which is another mistake that will disappoint many fans of these original great characters. Once again, we are all reminded of how difficult the art of screenwriting is, even with a film franchise that has created some of the best stories we have ever seen in movie history.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 95% are way too high, with my rating at 80% and a recommendation for the most die-hard Toy Story fans and another recommendation to see any one of the first four movies instead.