Molly's Game (2017)

You all know how an Aaron Sorkin movie works, regardless of who the director is. People talk quickly, using a remarkable vocabulary, discuss complicated topics swiftly, all while walking around at a fast pace. You can't look away for a minute or you'll miss something. I love it.

With Molly's Game Sorkin has taken over the directing himself and shows himself to be quite skilled. He has delivered a solid, entertaining, quick paced movie about people talking which has you on the edge of your seat.

But none of this would have worked without his star, Jessica Chastain, who lives and breathes Molly Bloom into vibrant life. She takes this biopic and creates a fully realized hero, flawed and difficult and admirable as all hell. She delivers on all the promise she has displayed so far.

On the surface Molly's Game is about the world of high stakes private poker parties but in reality it is about how men set up and perpetuate a world where women cannot get ahead. Chastain acts out this catch 22 perfectly making the case for this injustice succinctly and clearly. From her dad, to her employers, to the men she makes her living off of, to the US government, she is screwed over time and again and comes out on top. The film's whole arc is about how she is the only one who manages to act honourably and succeeds despite that. The film's only man who acts with any integrity, likely by no coincidence played by a black ma, Idris Elba, does so for his daughters sake. He is the father Molly wishes her father was. But even he wants compromise with the system. Only she has the "nuts" to withstand the pressure and remain admirable. Molly's Game is a clear, if not sometimes heavy handed, indictment of patriarchy. 

Sorkin fumbles this a bit near the end with a clumsy, unlikely meeting between Molly and her father (Kevin Costner) where she ends up comforting him in his failure. In someways this fits with the theme of men just not being enough and only women having the strength and integrity the movie's morals demand. But the scene happens so awkwardly I didn't feel it worked. And the film is too forgiving of him.

Still, Chastain delivers an amazing performance and the film is one damn entertaining two and half hours, whose message is clear and poignant in this day. Gamble on this and it will pay off.

Molly's Game
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Chris O'Dowd, Graham Green
Writer/Director: Aaron Sorkin

I, Tonya (2017)

I am usually leery of movies based on "true stories" of sensational events. They either tend to be voyeuristic and exploitative or overly sentimental puff pieces meant to paint a certain picture of the subject. I, Tonya is refreshing in that it is neither of these things. In fact it attempts to deconstruct both. I appreciated the way the film plays with the idea of what is "true" basically concluding that we won't know.

The other thing to appreciate about I, Tonya is how it looks at the way socioeconomic class, gender, and patterns of abuse interplay. The Tonya Harding of this film is constricted by all of the above. America is implicated in the whole mess. I, Tonya does a good job of holding the mirror up to its audience and pointing out that we did this. We aren't just watching this, innocent in our comfy chairs. We are responsible. It's fascinating.

Also fascinating is Robbie's performance. She graduated from up and coming star to full on movie star with her turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. Here she shows us that she is a real actor of the highest caliber with a performance which is intricate, entertaining, and pushes our boundaries. Her relationship with co-star Alison Janney is one of the most compelling of the year. Both actors shine here in award deserving turns. Neither is an easy role and often they are hard to watch. I, Tonya's subject isn't a comfortable one and forces us to see things we don't have to have to think about.

I, Tonya manages to be both completely entertaining and fascinatingly exciting. More focused on how we react to sensational stories than the actual story itself, I, Tonya saves itself from movie of the week blandness to be something truly interesting. It also gives two actors such great roles they can truly shine.

I, Tonya
Starring: Margot Robbie, Alison Janney, Sebastian Stan, Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Canavalle
Director: Craig Gillespie
Writer: Steven Rogers

Pitch Perfect 3 (2017)

In my opinion the first Pitch Perfect was a fun, if simplistic, exercise

in silly fun. Funnier and more hummable than it should have been, Pitch Perfect was the right film at the right time.

And as usual when a film like this breaks they have to make sequels. Pitch Perfect 2 is a good example of why not all good movie need a sequel. Disjointed, gimmicky, and repetitive, 2 just tried to redo what 1 did and ended up doing it much worse. It turns out 3 isn't as bad as 2 but once again is completely needless.

My advice is that if you loved Pitch Perfect just watch it again. Don't bother wasting time with a carbon copy which doesn't offer anything new.

If you really have to see it just know the songs are less catchy, the plot less cohesive, the jokes more formulaic, and Rebel Wilson remains the best thing about it. I just couldn't muster enough enjoyment out of this retread to have any real fun. Shoehorned romances with this vanilla cast just don't cut it. They are running out of fun songs to cover. Remember how much fun Cups was when this first came out? Nothing close to that here. It all just feels so been-there-done-that.

I almost lost it when I saw that Mike White was responsible for the screenplay. I know his work hasn't always been perfect (no pun intended) but to see him slum like this was pretty sad.

Like a pop song you've heard on the radio far too many times, Pitch Perfect has lost all its appeal.  Thank goodness this is the last act.

Pitch Perfect 3
Starring: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Haliee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Chrissie Fit, John Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Banks, John Lithgow, Ruby Rose, DJ Khalid
Director: Trish Sie
Writer: Kay Cannon, Mike White

Lost City of Z (2017)

Writer/director James Grey's The Lost City of Z got a lot of buzz when it came out and has had some staying power as we reach the end of 2017 and some are still mentioning it among the best of the year. It's one of those films that no one saw but anyone who did said it was great. Finally having watch it I can say it was alright, my lack of enthusiasm for seeing it when it was in theatres carried through to a lack of real enthusiasm when I was watching it. The film, it's story, the performances in it, and the overall messages of the movie were all fine. They just did nothing to excite or engage me.

The The Lost City of Z has a very classic feel to it. It reminded me of films like The Mission, Greystoke, Passage to India. It is richly filmed and rather economically told. Grey's approach is grandiose yet straight forward. But it all comes down to the fact that his colonialist heroes, no matter how sympathetic to the "noble savages" they may be, remain as uninteresting as privileges colonialists tend to be. Sure there is a romance in this story or wondering whether or not the real life heroes survived this adventure and lived in another part of the world for their remaining years. But to be honest, I grow less and less interested in the white man's burden stories.

Still, for what it is, The Lost City of Z is very well done. I struggle to take Charlie Hunnam seriously in any film I see him in as I find his performances wooden and uninspiring. Grey makes sure his film is beautiful regardless. He perhaps oversimplifies the "debate" going on here, a debate which feels like it was put there to make the white colonialist protagonist more heroic, and less there to actually explore the issue. The real hook is the mystery, the romance. My main problem with this technically well made film is that the mystery and romance never hooked me.

So for me The Lost City of Z is worth watching if you are already interested or just looking for something to watch. I wouldn't recomend you go out of your way to see it.

The Lost City of Z
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Ian McDairmond
Writer/director: James Grey

Bad Mom's Christmas (2017)

I know it comes as a shock to most people but I don't see every movie released ever. Bad Mom's is one of the films that I never got around to seeing. Looking for something holiday themed and new to watch over the holidays I thought I'd give the follow up, A Bad Mom's Christmas, a try. Something told me I would still be able to follow the plot of this sequel without having seen the original.

I'm not going to spend much time crapping on this movie. Yes, it's not very good. The biggest part of the problem is the jokes are all really predictable and ridiculous. I don't find this kind of humour very satisfying, the kind of jokes which just push all sense of realism to the side. It just stops being funny for me when I see someone doing something so completely unrealistic. The basic gimmick of the film is how each of our "bad moms" has their own bad mom show up and act horribly. They don't even act remotely like a real bad mom would act. They just act ridiculous. And I just don't find that very funny.

But I went in expecting that so I put it aside and just tried to enjoy the main plot, the idea that our expectations for the holidays set an impossible standard to live up to which sucks all the joy out of it. There is something about that I respond to. I liked that the movie tried to get there, even if it does it by being as silly as possible. So as it careened obviously towards it's silly sentimental conclusion, by being as rude as possible to make it seem too cool for sentimentality, I lost any hope it would bring any actual insight into the difficult relationships within families that manifests over the holidays in our consumerist culture, and just realized it was going to feed us all the expected jokes and tropes that we get year after year in movies like this.

So in the spirit of the season I'll give it a pass and just enjoy the few rare moments the movie made me chuckle. Most likely this won't be added to my list of holiday films I try to see each year, yeah it certainly won't but whatever. Merry Christmas bitches.

A Bad Moms Christmas
Starring: Mila Kunis, Kristin Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines, Susan Sarandon
Writers/Directors: Scott Moore, Jon Lucas 

Bright (2017)

Imagine The Lord of the Rings happened in our world, a long time ago, and now Orcs and Elfs live among us in our modern world, a world filled with magic and fantasy. That's the premise of Bright, a buddy cop movie filmed with all the tropes of that genre, but sprinkled with the elements of fantasy. I do love genre mashups, and Bright worked for me by taking the classic elements of both and makes a truly fun adventure that lays the ground work for more stories set in this mish mash world. It all stems from the mind of writer Max Landis (Chronicle) who has some experience with mixing genres.

Director David Ayer truly embraces the B-movie elements of his story which may be why many are responding so negatively to his movie. Ayer takes the approach that he will live into the fantastic and not try to make it real. But in doing so the story remains fully cohesive and I could truly get into it. He builds the relationship between reluctant partners Daryl (Will Smith) and Nick (Joel Edgerton) on the cliched cop movie trope and it gives Smith espcially the oppotunity to do his enjoyable Will Smith shtick. Once they find themselves in a gang war relating to the "return of the Dark Lord," who of coarse remains unnamed, the two genres merge to form a truly enjoyable, if simple, ride.

And layered, perhaps a bit heavyhandedly, over all of this is an analogy for race relations in America. Casting a black man in the traditional white privilege roll also adds to the film's interesting analysis of American racism and classism. Yes Bright might be a bit on the straight-forward side but that doesn't weaken anything it is attempting to do.

Bright ends up being fun and not dumb. As I said, I would be up for more stories to be told in this world.

Bright
Starring: Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Edgar Ramirez
Director: David Ayer
Writer: Max Landis

The Shape of Water (2017)

What struck me early on into writer/director Guillermo Del Toro's fantasy love story The Shape of Water, is how he plays with what is fantasy and what is reality. He sets his tale in a stylized 1950s America and it has all the hallmarks of the time and place, the culture and the people. This is the time when America was supposedly great, a time many conservative Americans long for. He focuses his story on the outcasts, those who didn't get to be part of the greatness, to show just how monstrous that supposed greatness is.

The Shape of Water is in many ways a love story, but it is also a critique of the American dream, the American myth, of American empire by showing us just how few got to be part of it, and how monstrous that empire truly was.

Del Toro's almost Burton-esque 1950s is beautifully lived in and richly dirty. It's not parody suburban 50s like many films that venture into this territory, it is more a tribute. The film is examining the way Americaness is positioned against the other. And in that world he places the disabled, the homosexual, the negro, the communist, the feminine, and shows us the inherent beauty in all that is supposedly "unamerican." He shows us the ugliness of American culture which rejects all that isn't silent when it is supposed to be.

And at the heart of his critique is the opposite, a beautiful love story. We are shown how something which we've been told is grotesque is truly gorgeous. We are asked to flip all that we understand to embrace some more, something which threatens who we are, and asks us to see why that is necessary.

Del Toro's morality fable is beautiful both visually and emotionally. His strong cast makes the whole legend work as does the incredible art direction. I love films which give me a reason to watch them, to see all their glory. Del Toro's "asset" isn't the only strikingly beautiful thing about the film. He follows in a long line of artists who have shown us to see what makes beauty, often in the very things we are told are monstrous.

The Shape of Water
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg
Writer/Director: Guillermo Del Toro

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

I'm struggling with how much Call Me By Your Name moved me and upset me and thrilled me and disappointed me. After hearing quite a bit about both the film and the book on which it is based, perhaps preperceptions got in the way. The film ended up being a lot of what I expected and quite a bit that I didn't. I am still not sure what to make of it as it took me through a range of feelings.

To whom do queer stories belong? Can a straight man write a book about queer male awakenings, and can a straight man direct a movie about that book starring two straight men? Can the passion explored there feel authentic? Can that straight male gaze capture something honest about queer male love/lust/emotions? I'm not sure Call Me By Your Name answers these questions, as, for me, it left much of the answers ambiguous.

Call Me By Your Name is very much about the intersection of connection and emotion with lust and desire. It is not a romance that is without a powerful physicality. So many of our "first love" stories seek a purity which eschews sexual awakening as if there is something more noble without our physical response to other people. But that's not the case here and I appreciated the film's attempt to build a sexual tension, an adolescent yearning. Bodies and sex are, in the pastoral landscape of Italy, ubiquitous. But in that landscape, in that ubiquity, they also become a bit sterile. Despite seeing skin and muscles and hair, the energy of that desire is somewhat lacking, almost removed. It is almost as if Call Me By Your Name is afraid of the story it is telling. It speaks to the danger of feeling of lusting or loving, yet doesn't take the risks of that feeling.

The best example of this for me was how the film builds for about an hour towards the main characters' first physical contact, and then the camera pans away, awkwardly, and self-consciously as if all of the time the camera spent lingering on their bodies, it was now too afraid to embrace the union of those bodies. The film had done this incredible job of building anticipation for this moment, then when the time comes so much of the physical intimacy is muted, pushed to the side. When we do see sex between characters it is brief and often shrouded in shame. The passion of the characters is centered around their physicality, it's not a chaste romance. So the way the film pulls out feels not quite right?

Yet then there are moments of such pure emotional intensity, such as a conversation between Elio and his father, which are so rich, so moving, they brought me to tears. Gay screenwriter James Ivory finds the connection between these lovers and it comes through so painfully. Another moment like this is when lead actor Timothee Chalamet, as he is informed by his lover that he may be getting married, sits on the phone listening with so much intensity its like the world is ending. It's all just a scene sitting on the phone but Chalamet is remarkable in this moment, but in some ways it is a moment the film doesn't earn. After the lovers' first lovemaking they commit their forbidden connection by trading names to call each other by. But it feels almost too soon for such a tender moment, like they hadn't quite got there yet.

So there are times when I felt the film was denying the feelings it was exploring, but there were other times when it was so raw and present and real. For much of the film I wasn't buying the love the leads were pantomiming, despite the gloriously filmed scenes. Director Luca Guadagnino has shot a gorgeous film which is hard not to stare at, not just due to the unmistakable beauty of the men he has cast (and ogles) but his loving, tender approach, and the Italian setting, almost dreamlike, like the relationship. But then there would be beautiful little moments when my heart would break, or when I'd feel intense passion, or betrayal.

I loved the way Call Me By Your Name struggles with the ambiguity of what this relationship means for each of its leads, that perhaps there is something incongruous about it. Yet the film handles this ambiguity a bit haphazardly, once again not quite capturing it cohesively. It's not just out of grasp in an elusive, mysterious way, but in a way that feels disconnected at times, hitting the target with intensity occasionally, but often missing the mark.

In some ways Call Me By Your Name is a tremendous success. In others it feels like a let down. So at the end of Call Me By Your Name I sat confused about my feelings for the film, not sure what to make of how it all came together. There is much to appreciate and admire about Call Me By Your Name, but also a lot that is left to be desired. Still, if it isn't quite a masterpiece, it is a beautiful miss and one that will likely bring be back to wrestle with it more.

Call Me By Your Name
Starring: Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Struhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esther Garrel
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: James Ivory

The Greatest Showman (2017)

I guess it is fitting that a movie about a man who is famous for (most likely) saying "there is a sucker born every minute" is itself mostly a lie. Not based on much of P.T. Barnum's actual story, instead it is a fantasy version of events, The Greatest Showman is a fraud. And perhaps there might be something wonderfully beautiful about that if the film was itself not such a bore. This is about a man who knows how to entertain and yet there is little entertainment going on here.

First The Greatest Showman is a musical, and musicals succeed or fail based on their music. The Greatest Showman is filled with trite disposable pop songs. Think the kind of original music they used to write for Glee but without any of the irony. Anachronistic in a way that feels disjointed, the music of The Greatest Showman is cheap and forgettable. It's the kind of stuff a boyband or girlgroup sings. Unlikely to go down in the annals of classic movie music. Despite the promotional materials reminding us that the lyricist of La La Land, the music here isn't in that league. Here the lyrics are sentimental and trite, selling cheap platitudes about love and believing in oneself, the kind you hear in 1000 other songs.

But again I guess that's fitting since the movie's script and story fall into the same pattern. The story is ripe for all sorts of great morals about diversity and uprising of the underdogs. But the film tokenizes this so strongly. The film is squarely about a white man and his pretty blonde family. Despite the way he treats his "freaks" they embrace him anyway, so grateful for his emancipation, without any cost to him. The cliched interracial romance at the heart of the B-plot is right out of a TV melodrama. The film speaks to things on the surface only and never lets any of its issues get in the way of its music video format.

By the way the film feels so lip-synced you spend your time waiting for the lips not to match the dialogue.

The story is pathetically bad at points. The subplot about real life opera singer Jenny Lind is eye-rollingly awful. Despite none of it being based on real life, she supposed falls so hard for Barnum, and he remains so steadfastly chaste like all good romantic heroes, that she leaves behind all her American success over being jilted. His wife, who has shown an immense amount of dedication throughout the story, suddenly is moved to leave him over this nothingness, just to set up a ridiculous and callous conflict for our hero to face. It feels as cheap and it sounds and rings so completely hollow.

Director Michael Gracey has made his film look good. There is an artificial staginess to the film which I felt fit the theme. But he failed to imbue the film with any sense of magic. It's all an illusion, a sleight of hand. Sing a few cheesy but catchy songs, smile at a few cheesy but sweet after-school-special moments, and go home lulled into complacency.

I'm not buying this ticket.

The Greatest Showman
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya,  Rebecca Ferguson, Keala Settle
Director: Michael Gracey
Writers: Jenny Bicks, Bill Condon

Ferdinand (2017)

I am not a fan of BlueSky Studios animation. Their Ice Age series is painfully bad, Rio is dreadful, and other than the charming take on Peanuts they did recently, their work is pedantic and predictable. They are the opposite of innovative. It turns out their take on the classic anti-violence story is as safe and predictable as their other work, but at least ends up being more entertaining and charming.

The film finds just enough embellishment to keep its story entertaining. It doesn't take any chances by being to radical in its approach to pacifism. John Cena's Ferdinand is principled without being dangerous. There is something inherently queer in the story of a bull that wants to smell flowers and refuses to fight. BlueSky mutes anything too upsetting about this story and doesn't flaunt this beyond the most simplistic "be true to yourself" message. There isn't the anti-fascist themes of the original story. It's a kinder gentler Ferdinand.

But it is a fairly funny and entertaining take and children will eat it up. Kate McKinnon's ugly goat is a crowd-pleaser (cause what else would she be) and its' hard not to embrace Cena's charming, cuddly bull. Sure his oppressors aren't overcome, Ferindand's freedom is won with their consent and with smiles and with a Jonas pop song.

Ferdinand remains one of BlueSky's better offerings which may not be saying much but at least it is a fun watch.

Ferdinand
Starring: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, David Tennant, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Anderson, Payton Manning, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias 
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Writers; Robert L. Baird, Tim Federle, Brad Copeland

Star Wars the Last Jedi (2017)

I was reminded tonight of why I love movies. I sat in a dark room with mostly strangers, and some great friends, and my child, and we were all transported, transformed, transfixed. It is simply transcendent. Star Wars is the reason I became a cinephile at a young age. The epic story telling, the myth making, the movie magic. I was hooked early and I've never looked back. The Last Jedi brought all of that home for me.

The Last Jedi had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. Despite the formula, despite the film being an homage to The Empire Strikes Back in countless ways, the film kept going in different directions that I could guess. I never once felt secure that a character might not be killed, that a plan might not work out. The Last Jedi is an exercise in pulling the wool out from under us and making us take notice. This is story telling of the caliber that our ancestors managed sitting around the fire, the very human legacy of narrative which sets out who we are.

On the one hand it is hard to pick favorites in this sprawling cast who are all remarkable. From the surprisingly impactful presence of Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern, to the cannonball arrival of newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, to the continued amazing screen capabilities of John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, and of coarse Daisy Ridley, to the rest of this amazing troupe, not to leave out the chameleon that is Andy Sirkis. But on the other hand this is all about Mark Hamill and of coarse Carrie Fisher. Fisher is stunning in her final role. Leia is the centrepiece of this film and she holds that place with a true gravitas. I know many will cry at this performance.

Admittedly, The Last Jedi is a more challenging film than most blockbusters. It deals with issues of loss, death, failure, learning from mistakes, and multilayered identities. Mainstream audiences have often rejected complicated tentpole films, preferring their action to be more straight up. Jedi doesn't let you get away with that. It is clearly for a more discerning taste.

This is a golden era for kids of the 80s like me who are seeing their passions come to such rich life. Star Wars taught me what it means to love movies and tonight I was not only reminded but freshly reinitiated into the cult of film.

Star Wars the Last Jedi
Starring: Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Sirkis, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Billie Lourd
Writer/Director: Rian Johnson

Darkest Hour (2017)

Winston Churchill once said "I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between communism and Nazism, I would choose communism." Today we often want to see Churchill, as the movie Darkest Hour tries to do, as the wall between freedom and fascism. But in many ways, he was just one of the forces to keep a kinder, gentler branch alive instead of Hitler's variety. An aristocrat born with a silver spoon in his mouth who opposed the freedom of India and promoted conservative values at all costs, Churchill stood for empire, for colonialism, for racism. Darkest Hour is an apologist's attempt to set him in a positive light, as a historically unique character whose eccentricity saved the world from a darker evil.

And as propaganda it's brilliant.  Director Joe Wright is a beautiful filmmaker. Although I often find his films on the boring side there is no doubt he makes beautiful movies. He has made one here. It's smokey and atmospheric. He chronicles Churchill's exploitative coup of the UK as a charmingly cute historical anecdote. It forwards the "great man" theory of history where the presence of a truly great individual changes the course of history. Yes he is shown to be exploited and used by those seeking power around him, but in the film's mind he is above all this and triumphs over it. It certainly embraces the whole standing against appeasement theory. Darkest Hour is a soft focus portrait of a man far more complicated than it needs him to be, especially near the end when there is a sappy scene which has Churchill cry in pubic.

Wright sets the stage for one of Britain's greatest actors, Gary Oldman, to give one of his career best performances. Oldman, under likely Oscar winning make up, gives a strong performance which not only transforms him into the famous figure but also allows him to give a layered and fascinating performance. Oldman gives Churchill a humanness required by the film. We can see him as a man as well as a legend. He gets to put on all those amazing speeches. The film spends a lot of time focusing on Churchill's power to inspire through his motivational speeches and Oldman makes the most of these. This is a bit of a "crown jewel" in Oldman's career.

Darkest Hour is great film making. As with many great films, as history it leaves a lot to be desired. While I found much of the Churchill sentimentality hard to suffer, I found Wright's story telling to be quite up to snuff.

Darkest Hour
Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn
Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Anthony McCarthen

The Breadwinner (2017)

The Breadwinner is a powerful story of survival. Although the film is completely accessible for all ages, it doesn't shy away from serious issues such as living under totalitarian regimes (in this case the Taliban), sexism, living in war zones, abuse and violence. The ability to deal with this in a way that children can understand is part of makes The Breadwinner so remarkable. And kids will understand it, likely ask questions, and certainly be inspired.

The Breadwinner jostles between two different styles of animation, a more traditional 2D style reminiscent of the filmmakers' previous effort, The Secret of Kells, as well as a 3D paper puppet style used when the main character tells her story-within-a-story. Both are beautiful making the film a joy to watch. Parvana's beautiful eyes will haunt you after seeing the film.

A warning, the story is powerful and the ending is slightly, and honestly, ambiguous. Perhaps smaller children will struggle with the brutal reality of the nature of the story. But slightly older children will be moved and inspired. The Breadwinner is a lovely treat of a film.

The Breadwinner
Starring: Saara Chaudry
Director: Nora Twomey
Writers: Anita Doron, Deborah Ellis

The Disaster Artist (2017)

I've never been truly comfortable with the phenomenon that is The Room, popularly referred to as the "worst movie ever made." The idea that one gets their enjoyment from watching someone fail at something so badly, to essentially laugh at them, is difficult for me to appreciate. People make whatever excuses they need to, usually involving the way writer/director/producer Tommy Wiseau's embracing of that cult status, his capitalization of it, as making it okay to laugh at someone who appears to be ill. But these excuses never make sense to me. Go to any screening, watch anyone react. The point is to point and laugh. That just feels incredibly icky.

I was wondering how a film about the making of the "worst film every made." would feel. Would it explore Wiseau's journey, make us understand who he is and why he did what he did? Well it turns out no. The film The Disaster Artist, told from the perspective of Wiseau's friend and costar Greg Sestero, who is clearly the attractive and heroic one we are supposed to relate to, presents Wiseau as an enigma, and not a sympathetic one. No our sympathies lie with Sestero who is such a nice guy for putting up with the horrible Tommy, he endures Wiseau and then makes his success off him.

Watching The Disaster Artist made me feel somewhat complicit in this alienation of a man who starts out the story rejected by society and ends up rejected on a much higher level, and fortunately makes money off it. The Disaster Artist never attempts to tell the outsider's story. This is the suffering of the friend of the outsider. The outsider remains outside, remains the guy we keep around so that we can feel cool about how sophisticated we are for laughing at him.

The Disaster Artist recreates much of The Room's incredibly poorly made scenes. Franco, as director and star, adopts the mimic style of performance. His Wiseau isn't multilayered. He is a caricature. Perhaps the real Wiseau is just that opaque as to not allow any reflection or examination. But that doesn't mean it's interesting.  Just like he films his film as a copy of The Room, he plays the part as a copy. Franco does a competent job of telling this story and The Disaster Artist remains interesting all the way through. But as the film comes to its conclusion where the premiere crowd is cheering for Wiseau to blow his brains out ("do it! do it!"), and Sestero encourages Wiseau to go up and embrace it, I had real mixed feelings about all of it.

It comes down to what is the point of this. Are we just supposed to laugh at Tommy Wiseau even more? Are we really laughing "with" him? Cause it doesn't feel like it. It mostly feels cruel.

The Disaster Artist
Starring: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan, Alison Brie, Ari Greynor, Josh Hutchinson, Jacki Weaver, Zac Efron, Hannibal Buress, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith
Director: James Franco
Writers: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

The Star (2017)

Okay, okay.  know it is unlikely this film would be any good but let me make my case for why I saw it in the first place. Yes I would normally have skipped it but I needed some film to take my child to and we had already seen Coco (which admittedly would have been better to see a second time than this film) and, wait for it, I had some expectations due to the director.

Timothy Reckart is a promising animation director. His short Head Over Heals is wonderful, and he contributed to Anomilasia, a film I had some problems with but generally showed a great deal of promise. I figured if he was taking this on, perhaps there would be more to this than cliched sunday school philosophy and dumb animal jokes.

Aaaaand I was wrong. The Star is as cliched and corny as it appears. The animation is deeply second rate and the script is horridly clunky and downright ridiculous. Even ignoring the flawed theology behind this sort of commercialized dime store religion, the story and dialogue doesn't work. There were barely any laughs at the pathetic jokes and hardly any excitement worked up by it's hackneyed climax. Even the inevitable final moments, supposedly inspiring, fell flat offering little to no rapture.

Once more in my defense the film does feature a fascinating voice cast from Steven Yeun and Keegan-Michael Key to Christopher Plummer and Ving Rhames. With Kristin Chenowith, Tracey Morgan, Aidy Bryant, and Anthony Anderson, they woudln't make this if the script was this bad, would they? Then again Joel Osteen is in it. I guess that should have tipped me off.

The Star is second, no third, rate. There is far more spirituality in Coco and certainly a better message. This is one fallen star.

The Star
Starring: Steven Yeun, Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Keegan-Michael Key, Christopher Plummer, Ving Rhames, Tracey Morgan, Kristin Chenowith, Patricia Heaton, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Aidy Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Anthony Anderson, Chris Kristopherson, Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson
Director: Timothy Reckart
Writer: Carlos Kotkin

The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)

I've always been a believer in the secular Christmas, and much of what we think of in that regard is tied to ideas popularized by A Christmas Carol. The Man Who Invented Christmas starts with the premise that in the English world a minor holiday was elevated to a premiere annual event by putting a focus on charity, love, and challenging the capitalist ideals which were sacrificing so many.  There is an argument that stories like A Christmas Carol, and later popular narratives of a similar vein (The Grinch for example), have a subversive, resistance aspect to them, as does the celebration of Christmas in itself.

But it turns out the film isn't as interested in that discussion. It wants to tell a different story, a more personal one.

The thesis here, in this film which treats itself as a comedy first and foremost, is that A Christmas Carol is an examination of the good and bad in all of us, and potentially an attempt at personal redemption. According to The Man Who Invented Christmas, Scrooge is Dickens himself and it's his journey through his anger and hate that is being represented. And by extension Scrooge is all of us and Christmas is our calling to be better.

It's a good argument and the film, in all its cheery, self depricating humour, makes a good go of it. However the film drags on a little to long to maintain its cheer. There is a lot of Dickens sitting around and Stevens scowling. I was getting tired of the shtick by the end. There just isn't quite enough story here to justify its run time. And while generally charming, the characters and dialogue aren't quite as engaging as the film needs them to be.

So while the idea is an interesting one and the film is generally entertaining, overall it leaves a little wanting, not quite as magical as the story it is based on. The Man Who Invented Christmas isn't a waste of time but not nearly what I had hoped it would be.

The Man Who Invented Christmas
Starring: Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce
Director: Bharat Nalluri
Writer: Susan Coyne