MOVIE: Rocketman (2019)

Rocketman Year: 2019 Rating: R Length: 121 minutes / 2.02 hours After the critical success of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), it felt like the market was ripe for another movie about a homosexual piano-playing musician. Enter Rocketman (2019), a biopic about Elton John (Taron Egerton) that didn’t quite know what to do with itself. Was it supposed to be the greatest hits of Elton John songs, like Mamma Mia! (2008) was for ABBA? If it was intended as a straight biography of Elton’s life, it falls into all the tropes that seem to be requirements for the genre. There didn’t seem to be anything original here other than sex, drugs, and rock and roll. One aspect of Elton John’s rise to stardom that I found interesting was his ability to pick up and play any song after hearing it once. This skill is quite a rare trait, and I almost wished this film played up that aspect a little more. I also was intrigued to learn...
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MOVIE: Yesterday (2019)

Yesterday Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 116 minutes / 1.93 hours When I saw the first trailers for Yesterday (2019), I had some high hopes for this movie. The premise of only one person remembering The Beatles in a world where this famous band didn’t exist was intriguing enough by itself to warrant a watch. Plus, with Danny Boyle directing, I had perhaps anticipated more than what I actually got. It’s hard to hate a movie with such a great soundtrack full of Beatles songs, but the execution of the entire idea left me wanting a bit more and breaking my suspension of disbelief on more than one occasion. Back in high school, I had a history assignment to perform a thought experiment similar to Yesterday: what happens if The Beatles didn’t exist? Instead of just being a weird gap in the cultural zeitgeist, I think this movie would have done better to see the amount of influence the band had throughout the music industry. Sure, some moments...
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