Paddleton (2019)

What is so great about the Netflix model is how little films like Paddleton, which in the past struggled to find audiences and therefore were harder to get made, can now reach the audiences which can enjoy the film. While many may not have made a point of paying to see this in a cinema, there are moments in Paddelton that make it worth finding an audience.

Paddleton is the story of two friends following them through a period of time once one of them is diagnosed with incurable cancer and decides to end his life. I didn't think Paddleton offered much new or revelatory when it came to the issue of making these end of life decisions, but what it did was tell a very honest and touching story about it.

Ray Romano is the centre of the film, his character's eccentricities are excessively charming and his journey through accepting his friends oncoming death is what makes Paddleton so satisfying to watch. Mark Duplass has the more challenging task of playing the "straight" man reacting to Romano's oddball. He pulls it together at the end making a very convincing portrait of a man facing the end of his life by choice. Together they have great chemistry and their friendship feels very truthful which makes Paddleton a rewarding watch.

Paddleton
Starring: Ray Romano, Mark Duplass
Director: Alex Lehmann
Writers: Mark Duplass, Alex Lehmann

Oscar Nominated Shorts (2019)

I managed to see all the short films nominated for Academy Awards in 2019 and I was once again reminded of why I wish there was more opportunity for us to see short films. There is such a wealth of great film making in this medium yet we don't have the ways for audiences to find these films as we do with television and feature films. Here are my thoughts and picks for favourites in each category:

Animation
While this is usually my favourite categoy, this year I was mostly underwhelmed by the animated shorts selected for the awards. As usual Pixar produced a worthy champion with Bao, the whimsical and touching story of a mother raising a dumpling which many of you may have seen. For me One Small Step and Weekends, two traditionally animated stories of children and their fantasies inspired by their relationships with their parents, were also strong. While Bao was situated from the point of view of the mother, the other two were very much from the point of view of children.  All of them were strong contenders and would make good winners in my opinion with Weekends being for me the strongest artistically, finding a truly gorgeous way to bring its images to life. I wasn't overly impressed with Animal Behavior, the group therapy session for animals, as I didn't find it rather funny or rather meaningful. Something tells me Late Afternoon, a rumination on memory and its loss will win the award but it wasn't the one which spoke to me the most.

Documentary
My guess is the Oscar winner will be the most inspiring of these 5 films, Period. End of Sentence. a lovely chronicle following a group of women in India who start a maxipad business to not only empower themselves through financial independence but bring social independence to the women of their communities. The other films were all pretty darn depressing especially Black Sheep, a very powerful and artfully rendered remembrance of a young black man's experiences with racism and internationalized racism in the UK. Lifeboat, which follows a group of people who dedicate themselves to rescue migrants trying to reach the shores of Europe, is timely yet didn't spark for me the sort of emotion I would have expected.  A Night at the Garden, which is basically just archival footage of an American Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in the 1930s, is horrific but rather sparse in its delivery. For me the most satisfying was Endgame, which follows terminally ill patients as they make decisions about their end of life decisions, but it wasn't the most entertaining or engrossing. It was a hard category for me to pick a favourite here but likely it would be either Endgame or Black Sheep.

Live Action
This was my favourite group this year. All of them were remarkable. Again they are mostly rather depressing, but they were all excellently told, deeply powerful, and perhaps so moving in how they mostly deal with children navigating a difficult world. Two Canadian films make the list, Fauve, the story of two boys whose games turn accidentally into tragedy, and Margeurite, about a woman coming to terms with her sexuality late in life. Both are deceptively clever in how their stories creep up on you finally delivering powerful end moments which deliver on the promise of each. Detainment is likely the most difficult of all to watch as it shows us two 10 year old boys being interviewed by police for murdering a toddler. It is the longest and most unrelenting of the bunch, making us face the truly unimaginable. The one I most anticipated is Skin, the film I think likely to win the award. It explores white supremacists and gun enthusiasts in a way which I felt would give me a cetain amoutn of satisfaction but ended up being as painful as the other films. But for me it was Madre, the story of a mother speaking to her lost 6 year old on a dying phone, which made my heart race and left me breathless. It also inspired the most reflection in me after watching it.

I would recommend searching all these out but be ready for them. They are not easy but they are mostly quite rewarding.

Fighting With My Family (2019)

Fighting With My Family is that sort of feel good, crowd pleasing comedy drama that hits all the feels and gives a very good time. What makes it work so well, besides the charismatic leads Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden, is how earnest it is. It never tries to be anything more than it is, and it comes by all its joyful moments honestly. It's not manipulative just a fun, inspiring story.

The true story of WWE wrestler Paige makes for a great family story. The film doesn't try to make us love her or her working class family, they just show us why we should. And we do. Yes it's a "true story" and yes it still is formulaic, but the film just rides that out and gives us the best story it can.

And at the centre is rising star Pugh who once again shows us just how magnetic a performer she is. Paired with Lowden as her brother, the two make the real life siblings feel fairly real and you just want to root for them. The charming cameo by The Rock and delightful supporting roles by Nick Frost, Vince Vaughn, and Lena Headey just make it all so much fun to watch. Special shout out to Stephen Merchant who also appears in a delightful cameo while also making his feature directing debut with this little gem. The audience smiles all the way through. No matter how predictable or formulaic the story was, the film just rolled on honestly and basically it was damn fun.

Side note, pairing Nick Frost with Jack Lowden really made it stand out for me how much of a dead ringer Lowden is for Simon Pegg 20 years younger.

Anyway, Fighting With My Family is damn good fun and a treat for anyone who sees it.

Fighting With My Family
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn, Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Dwayne Johnson
Writer/Director: Stephen Merchant

How to Train Your Dragon the Hidden World (2019)

I have to disclose that I haven't enjoyed any of the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Now that doesn't mean I wouldn't like this one. Sometimes, despite not liking its predecessors, you can still end up enjoying a new movie in a series. But soon into the runtime of The Hidden World I knew this just isn't a franchise for me.

I have felt each film in this series is more of an exercise in visuals than in story telling. I find each story (the first being the best) to be weak and very thin, and the execution of that story to be handed to us instead of unfolded. I find most often the film makers seem so obsessed with putting the biggest possible spectacle on the screen that they run out of time to develop characters or narrative.

But I know so many people love these films so there must be something about them that work. It just doesn't work for me.

In this one, early on we are treated to the spectacular Berk, a village of remarkable advancement and beauty which, for no apparent reason is built like a house of cards. This is remarkably asinine since Berk is designed to be the home where humans and dragons live together. So despite being filled with large flying beasts, the village is set up precariously dangle over the side of a cliff, everything built on wobbly posts, so that invariably it crumbles apart once one of those beasts moves in just the wrong way.

It makes no frickin sense. But oh how spectacular it looks when it's all crumbling apart. And no one seems to mind!?! Other than looking a little frustrated with having to clean up what is the equivalent of the Avengers' third act. The people of Berk just act like the dragon knocked over a bowl of food.... no the entire cockadoodie town.

And the whole film (in fact series) is like this. Everything is huge and catastrophic, even when the story doesn't organically call for it. I know. Nitpicky. It just isn't my vibe. While I get that others like this. It's just not for me. I need more fantasy worlds to be set in a way that I can buy into them and I never have been able to with this series. And The Hidden World doesn't improve upon this for me. 

For example, the whole point of this series has been about how dragons and people need to learn to be together. This film upends all of that rather quickly and without sufficient justification to basically say the opposite, that dragons and people can't live together and need to go their separate ways... until we can all live in peace... WTF?? So the solution to intolerance is apartheid?? I honestly just don't get it.

Mild spoilers from here on out:

So we get to what the film makers clearly hope will be the ending to Toy Story 3 and the audience is crying and I'm just sitting here going... when will this be over? Yes get your falsely constructed goodbyes over Hiccup and Toothless. I'm bored with it already. I had to suffer through a truly boring villain who we were supposed to see as some super hunter but never gave us any reason to think he was anything special. Now I'm going through a goodbye scene which doesn't feel honest.

And guess what? It wasn't. Moments after we see them say goodbye we see that Hiccup and Toothless back together again so really they didn't have to say "goodbye" just "see you later." But unlike Andy driving away from his childhood forever, Hiccup is just moving down the road. It not the same emotional weight. The film doesn't really support that sort of heart string pulling.

So overall, HTTYD just wasn't my cup of tea. I'm fine with others enjoying it. It's just not something I want to have to experience again. Yet despite the filmmakers saying this is the last one, something tells me we may not have seen the last of these dragons.

How to Train Your Dragon the Hidden World
Starring: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristin Wiig, Justin Rupple, Kit Harrington, David Tennant
Writer/Director: Dean DeBlois

Alita Battle Angel (2019)

There is a moment very early in Alita Battle Angel that sets the tone for the film. The character starts to move, the score starts to swell dramatically, and suddenly the scene cuts quickly, we're seeing a different take, and the score has suddenly switched to a mellower, quieter take. It is disjointing. It feels like someone accidentally cut out a few moments of the film. But the remainder of the film ends up following this track. Alita feels edited within an inch of its life, attempting to pack in plot points without taking time for nuance, character development, or emotional resonance.

The film, whose run time for the actual movie is kept at 2 hours (the formal run time is longer but that's because the credits go on forever), is presented so that one plot point follows the next. Each one feels abbreviated to just give us exactly what we need to know. Characters walk into scenes, explain their motivations, tell their fellow characters exactly what's going on, and then get to the action. It all feels like Alita should have been much longer and taken more time to flesh out its story, its characters, its emotional impact. Instead we are just told a story, a story that doesn't have a great punch to it, it is all details and no romance.

Even the action in Alita feels truncated. There aren't the sort of spectacular set pieces which movies like this live for. Almost every fight is only a few moments. There is one scene in the middle, a scene I imagine was meant to be a pivotal and inspiring scene, where the fight goes on for a while and involves multiple characters. Yet it still feels economic in its execution. There are fascinating seeming characters who exist on the margins who are then never utilized. Perhaps the film didn't do enough work to get us invested beyond the surface so when the metal hits the metal we just aren't as excited as we should be.

Plus the special effects are.. problematic. Despite the film using state of the art digital effects, there isn't a scene in the film where the effects don't pull you out of the movie. Alita puts all her eggs in one basket, the visual effects basket, and it shows. The effects are constantly screaming "look at me" instead of being there to tell the story.

I think there is an interesting story in here and the possibility of fascinating characters. But the film doesn't feel interested in working on that. Instead it just needs to hits its story beats quickly so we can marvel at the visual spectacle, a spectacle that actually ends up being less impactful for all its damn impressive technology.

Alita ends us on a cliffhanger of sorts but I honestly couldn't muster enough excitement to care whether or not we get chapter two.

Alita Battle Angle
Starring: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keenan Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earl Haley, Michelle Rodriguez, Idara Victor, Edward Norton (uncredited)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Writers: James Cameron, Laeta Kalogridis

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is as clever as the first and manages, like the first, to make a story that is both entertaining and delivers the message celebrating play and creativity. But for some reason while the first felt fresh and rather inspired, this one feels a bit mundane.

I really have little to critique the movie on. As I said its story is fun. The jokes are pretty funny. And the visuals still have that awe and wonder that Lego just manages to inspire. Plus, the premise and moral to the story are clever. They manage to figure out what is great about the toy Lego and make it into a movie.

But I think what's going on for me is that often when a film comes up with a truly great idea and then tries to continue it into a second film it loses a lot of what made it great in the first place. The Lego Movie isn't the first to suffer like this. Often the second part feels like more of the same without offering anything new. And while that isn't bad and can remain rather entertaining, it doesn't inspire the same sort of wonder that the first time did.

You always remember your first time.

Sequels are a both hard and easy. They are easy in that you have a built in fan base which may want more of what they enjoyed the first time. But they are hard in making that second experience something truly worthy of more story time. There is truly nothing wrong with The Second Part. But it doesn't take Lego to the next level.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Starring: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnet, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, Maya Rudolph, Nick Offerman
Director: Mike Mitchell
Writers: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

What Men Want (2019)

Remaking a bad movie is a good idea. The 2000 Mel Gibson film What Women Want is a stinker so one would think they couldn't get worse right? Well they certainly tried. No matter how much charisma and star quality Taraji P. Henson has, she can't save this wreck of a "comedy."

The plot is pathetic and I knew going in I'd have to get over the impossibility of making the gimmick work. She can supposedly hear all men's thoughts but according to the movie they only ever think when it's convenient. There are huge parts of the movie when she's not hearing the thoughts of the men around her, when it doesn't make for a good joke or serve the plot. But we can get over that. It's just a gimmick to get to the moral of the story about being true to one's self... blah blah blah.

The plot is as hackneyed and cliched as one would imagine and the jokes have all pretty much been told before. It's the typical Men are from Mars bullshit and it's tired... so dead tired. I cracked a smile a few times.

But this is the second movie in a few years directed by an openly gay director which had overtly homophobic content throughout and that pissed me off. In typical romcom fashion Taraji has a gay sidekick and everything about him having a relationship is a joke in the movie. The amount of times she condescends to his romantic expressions is disgusting. Sure the movie makes him a likeable character and all but it is the thought of him in a relationship which gets the laughs. They don't even show him getting to kiss his love interest despite making his romantic advancement a plot point. All that while she has all the sex-with-a-bra-on sex that the movie can pack into it's 2 hour runtime. I just really couldn't take any more condescension.

So dumb plot, bad jokes, homophobic overtones. It's all just a piece of crap and likely isn't what men, or any other audience, want at all.

We need to get Taraji the kind of movies that are worth her talent and stop putting her in crappy films like this. 

What Men Want
Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Tracy Morgan, Aldis Hodge, Josh Brener, Erykah Badu, Shane Paul-McGhie, Wendy McLendon-Covey, Tamala Jones, Phoebe Robinson, Max Greenfield, Jason Jones, Brian Bosworth, Richard Roundtree
Director: Adam Shankman
Writers: Tina Gordon, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck

High Flying Bird (2019)

The work of director Steven Soderbergh rarely does anything for me, and most of it leaves me rather cold. Despite how much he is loved by cinemaphiles, I can't name any of his films that I truly love. His Ocean movies are horribly overrated, as is the boring as all hell Magic Mike. Erin Brokovitch and Traffic are 2000's one-two punch of mediocrity featuring great performances. His recent work, Logan Lucky and Unsane are both terribly bad. He keeps saying he's going to retire and yet he keeps making films.

But then he makes probably the most unexpected film of his career and, while I can't say I "loved" it, I was shocked at how much I truly enjoyed it.

First of all Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney has delivered an Aaron Sorkin style script which rushes us rapidly and runs us over filled with fascination. He fills the mouths of his cast with remarkable dialogue and lays out a compelling story which holds capitalist sports accountable. I've only see the film once but there is just so much here that is interesting. I imagine the film will work well on repeat viewings.

Then there is Andre Holland in a star making performance. He's spot on, creating his character in a rich way and giving us amazing scenes that are just a joy to watch. I've liked him for a while and here it felt like he truly came into his potential.

With Holland is another rising star Zazie Beatz who steals every scene she's in and gives one of those captivating performances that just oozes naturalness and ease. She makes it all just look easy and sweeps us off our feet.

Shot on an iphone, Soderbergh's latest is naturalistic yet lovely. He refrains from most of the gimmicking things he often does. Soderbergh shoots this story beautifully in a manner that grounds us squarely in the story. It's a beautiful thing to watch.

So I guess there is always time for a film maker that doesn't speak to me to make something I can appreciate.

High Flying Bird
Starring: Andre Holland, Zazie Beetz, Melvin Gregg, Sonia Sohn, Zachary Quinto, Kyle McLachlan, Bill Duke
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Tarell Alvin McCraney

Mirai (2018)

As with a lot of animation from outside North America, Mirai is not the sort of story which one expects to find in an animated movie. It is the story of Kun, a young boy who is adjusting difficultly to becoming an older sibling upon the birth of his sister, Mirai. The film explores the emotions of each family member through a series of fantastic encounters Kun has with... well that is part of the story.

What is surprising about Mirai is how intense the emotions are captured by the film. It is quite an astute exploration of family dynamics. The film doesn't have an "adventure" to go on. It just about living life and making a family. But it is remarkable in this and completely engaging. For a film that doesn't take its characters on a journey with a definable end it remains quite engrossing.

Also Mirai is beautiful. The film makers animate Yokohama in such a lovely way that you just want to be there. It feels alive and real despite the film's 2D animation style. The character designs, despite mostly being rather realistic, are striking as well. All around Mirai is a beautiful film to watch.

And it all comes together making Mirai one of the strongest animated films in a while, and quite different from what one would expect.

Mirai
Starring: John Cho, Rebecca Hall, Daniel Dae Kim
Writer/Director: Mamoru Hosoda

Serenity (2019)

I love great mysteries with twists, films that are about something different than they appear to be. But these films walk a razor's edge between pulling it off and failing (often miserably). Serenity quite early on proves it's not going to make it and as the film begins to unravel it's enigmatic plot, it fumbles its way along until its hard for the audience to care much about it, let alone buy into it.

These movies make it hard to talk about why it doesn't work without spoiling it. I won't spoil the "mystery" but will say that it is one of those reveals that once you understand it, it actually makes the rest of the movie make less sense. Basically the film, which is set up with the tropes of the sensual thriller genre is revealed to be something else, and that something else would not lead to the sort of story which would be told in the sensual thriller genre, not without a whole lot of ewwww factor. Once the reveal comes out, and it's not sudden, the film starts to build to it early and clumsily so it starts to become clear sooner than it probably should, it makes the rest of the film feel rather gross and to be honest somewhat pointless. Again once you understand the twist, you question, "well then why was this here?" and "why did that happen?" So much of it is illogical in light of what's really going on.

For this film's premise to have worked it would have needed to develop a lot more trust in its audience, build a more believable world for it to take place in, and perhaps make its story beats more subtle. Serenity is so heavy handed throughout it poisons the mystery so it doesn't feel as fun as it should. It could have been a pulpy, sexy, scandalous thriller but it ends up being mostly clunky.

Another thing needed for a film like this to work is for the story within a story to be more compelling. With Serenity it almost feels like the film makers didn't feel the need to make their main plot compelling enough, relying solely on the twist to save it. And perhaps if we had been truly invested in the main story the twist could have been more impactful. And what is especially surprising about this this is that it comes from the remarkable film maker who shot a whole movie of Tom Hardy driving in a car and made it one of the most compelling and engaging movies I've ever seen. Here he has sexy people half naked and I can't seem to get worked up about what I'm watching.

Serenity just doesn't pull off what it is trying to and makes you wonder why you spent the time wading through it in the first place.

Serenity
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon, Hounsou, Jeremy Strong
Writer/Director: Steven Knight

The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)

Well this is not the film I was expecting from the director who brought us Attack the Block and helped write Hot Fuzz and Ant-Man. While I didn't mind The Kid Who Would Be King, it has none of the originality of those films, none of the style. The Kid Who Would Be King has a very 80s family movie adventure feel to it.

I enjoy films which mix in Arthurian legend so that sustained me through this story, a story which follows a very classic story structure set around those legends. While it is completely fine the way it is, writer director Joe Cornish finds no way to make this film stand out. It doesn't even have the feel of a film maker tapping into his love of the mythology. Instead it just feels like a simple adventure based on popular stories.

And there is nothing wrong with that. I wasn't bored and generally the audience was entertained. I guess I always just ask what makes any specific film special an unique and I couldn't find anything here to make it stand out. Not even it's connection to the Camelot stories.

So as standard disposable entertainment it is completely fine. But as the follow up to the film maker behind Attack the Block it feels like a downer. And as a chance to play in the world of Arthurian mythology it feels like a missed opportunity.

I will give credit to the fun performances of Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart as zany Merlin. That was a bright spot in the movie. You might find yourself making hand gestures to double your money if you aren't careful. 

So basically it's fine. It is just fine.

The Kid Who Would Be King
Starring: Louise Ashbourne, Tom Taylor, Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Ferguson, Angus Imrie, Dean Chaumoo, Rhianna Doris
Writer/Director: Joe Cornish

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

I have enjoyed writer/director Dan Gilroy's work in the past, both as a writer and a director. He wrote The Fall (which I love) and his directorial debut Nightcrawler was incredibly impressive. Roman J. Israel was also much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. So perhaps part of the problem was that I went into Velvet Buzzsaw with higher expectations than I should have. But as I watched the film, my heart sank. It felt like one of those films that seemed like it was a lot more clever than it really was.

Velvet Buzzsaw wears its moral-of-the-story on its sleeve. It's attack on the art world, specifically the selling and critiquing of it, is blatantly on the nose. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded so much if Velvet Buzzsaw was itself done with some panache and style. But very much unlike Nightcrawler, there is little artfulness about the way Gilroy films Buzzsaw. It often looks like a television show more than a movie and its scenes are laid out rather pedantically. There is one moment where Gilroy does this odd shot panning across an art exhibition where he actually goes through a champagne glass. It doesn't feel revelatory or interesting, just weird. But little else in the film even has a "weird" vibe so it sits quite out of place.

The film's plot happens in a very straightforward way, and offers little to get interested in. Buzzsaw descends quickly into a campy horror film that doesn't manage to capture a high-camp elegance. It feels far to predictable for that, and lacking any true sense of artistry, it just feels like a typical horror set in the world of the art market. It's like Gilroy couldn't decide if he was making a B-movie horror film or art house cinema and ended up missing the mark on all of it.

Even the cast feels so off throughout most of it. Gyllenhaal looks like he's aping throughout the film more than creating a character of any depth. Collette, who is most at home in a good horror film, also plays campier than normal and seems one dimensional. The film sort of rests on Zawe Ashton, the central figure of the film, and she never quite feels like she's on point either. For me little in this film came together and that includes the cast, all actors I normally enjoy.

I couldn't help thinking throughout what a missed opportunity this felt like. I kept flashing to Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, a film which shares much in common with this in intention but blows it away in terms of style, narrative, and symbolism. Velvet Buzzsaw feels like it never quite finds its groove or hits its mark. And when there is this much potential it feels like a larger disappointment than most.

Velvet Buzzsaw
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Zawe Ashton, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, John Malkovich, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Billy Magnussen
Writer/Director: Dan Gilroy