The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 28 Round 9)

 

This round's quality was actually pretty decent, so prepare for some nit-picking in the Bottom 3. Here's The Roundup....

3. Jacob Jones

LRF's animation guru continued with another success this round with Madeline. The material may be a bit old fashioned at times, but I think Jacob did a solid job given the old fashioned source material. There were some definite issues with the film (more on that below), but I must say it was nice to see this potential franchise starter from him work out better (financially) than some other franchise hopeful films.

2. GRA Races

AKA Billy the Kid just made the GRA race a lot more interesting and competitive, scoring the exact same Metascore as The Beat Goes On earlier this season. Those two will obviously be front-runners for a lot of categories. 

1. AKA Billy the Kid

Probably my favorite film of Season 28 so far (Harvard Psychology sounds interesting though). I was wary of Baz Luhrmann directing when it was announced, but having seen the final product now I see exactly what writer Dwight Gallo was going for. I haven't been a big Austin Butler supporter the past couple years, but he was perfect as Billy the Kid, able to play all kinds of facets of the character. In my mind, this is LRF's all-time greatest western film.

3. Box Office

It's usually not a great sign when a Western is the highest grossing film in the round. Granted, AKA Billy the Kid was a wildly successful western, but it being the most successful film definitely kept the ceiling low.

2. Beasts

I was quite excited for Beasts based on the pedigree both in front of and behind the camera. The end result certainly isn't a bad film, but it was a disappointing film for me. The world the script built was fascinating, but the characters didn't follow suit. Maybe I was expecting too much. 

1. Madeline

Jacob Jones probably did about as good of a job on a Madeline film as possible. That said, I found the material a bit outdated (and not particularly iconic or current). And aside from Madeline herself I could not keep track of any of the other girls. There were simply too many. Hopefully a potential sequel can clean up some of that.