There's been a lot of jukebox movies lately, similar to the Broadway musicals built around a particular artist's soundtrack. At first it was musician biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, but now it's just movies featuring music from one artist, like this Blinded By The Light about a Pakistani Springsteen fan in 1980s UK. And the Last Christmas trailer says they'll have more than one George Michael song.
By the way, Last Christmas also stars Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh, so I'll probably see it for the mini-reunion. Anyway, it's been incredibly hot in Texas this August, with only a brief cooling rain this week. Better escape to an air-conditioned movie again.
I saw Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and it was very enjoyable. The beginning shows young Dora playing with her cousin Diego in the jungle, implying that their cartoon adventures were all in their imagination, though Dora insists that Boots the monkey really can talk. Ten years later, teenage Dora is still narrating her adventures while using a GoPro camera, presumably for a blog. Then her parents send her to America to attend high school with Diego, but thankfully we move past the school stuff once she and other students get kidnapped to South America. I did find it weird and convenient that Dora and the others were rescued by Alejandro, and he later drops the hint "I'm a bad guy" but the kids think he's just being hysterical then. I did become suspicious by that point and was glad I was right in the end. The adventure is Indiana Jones-lite with jungle puzzles and even a magical Incan goddess. I liked that the teens were well educated and could comment on stuff like European colonialism and Inca aqueducts. There's even a great sequence where, high on hallucinogenic flowers, the characters start seeing themselves as Dora cartoon characters. That's a nice nod to the original kids show.
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