The Nightingale (2019)

Sometimes watching the sophomore film by a director who truly impressed you with their debut is a bit daunting. What if their next effort doesn't live up to your expectations. Are your expectations to high? Was the first film a fluke? Will you be able to see past your passion for the first film. After being blown away by The Babadook, I worried, wondered, and wished The Nightingale could capture the kind of excitement I had watching a film maker spin me a story that captivated, terrified, and moved me. It turns out I had nothing to be worried about. Writer/director Jennifer Kent knocks it out of the park again with this devastating movie.

Once again Kent is exploring the painful challenges of motherhood. She has crafted a "revenge film" but, as she did with the horror genre, she shows us she isn't beholden to a genre's rules, showing us there are new and interesting ways to tell such a story. Her hero is a woman driven beyond the edge who finds her way back not through the seeking of revenge but the awakening to another's humanity, another who she perhaps couldn't recognize as fully human originally. It is a powerful and well plotted out arc which grabs you from the first and doesn't let go.

Kent explores the horrors of both colonialism and misogyny in her complex and compelling narrative. Her villain is a horrible monster but he is human in how he is empowered to be so through the systemic racism and sexism inherent in his world. our heroes are defiant of those norms, not in an anachronistic way but by simply being unable to thrive in the situations they are given, so they survive in other ways. 

The Nightingale is a brutal tale but it is completely satisfying, completely rich experience that is up to the challenge of telling such a difficult story. It is the sort of film that will leave you breathless at the end having felt such a range of emotion and reflected on so many themes. Sam Clafin is strong as the film's villain, and Aisling Franciosi is a powerhouse, but I was most captivated by Baykali Ganambarr, as "Billy" who is magnetic and subtle. All around the cast is remarkable and give the kinds of performances needed for such a story.

Kent's script is lovely even as it is harsh. Her direction apes traditional historical drama but she imbues the film with an energy, a desperation which is palpable. She tells her story with a challenging eye, presenting perhaps a different view than what we are used to in revenge stories. And it is refreshing.

After this I am pretty optimistic about whatever she does next.

The Nightingale
Starring: Aisling Francisosi, Baykali Ganambarr, Sam Clafin, Damon Herriman, Harry Greenwood
Writer/Director: Jennifer Kent

Maleficent Mistress of Evil (2019)

Maleficent was already a revision of the Disney take on the classic fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty. It was a self-contained re-imagining of the story which was already a re-imagining of a tale told for centuries. So what does one do when one is tasked with coming up with a sequel? As far as I am aware there isn't a precedent for a sequel to Sleeping Beauty. And Maleficent changed enough about the story to take the whole thing in a different direction. So they just came up with something new.

And what they came up with ends up being an unabashedly queer fairy-tale. It tells the story of conflict between the "humans" and the "fairies," many of whom have rainbow coloured wings, and all of whom are less than subtle analogues for aspects of the LGBTQ2S+ community. The story employs aspects of how chosen family is created and honoured yet how those relationships are devalued and disparaged by the mainstream society. It explores characters who seek to "shape-shift" their forms and set their identity despite how other's label them. It contrasts the heteronormative progression of the princess' traditional story arc with that of the wild fairy. And it centres the latter, making the "other" the beautiful heroes of the story.

Also the art-direction, costumes, and visual effects are stunning. Mistress of Evil is a gorgeous film in all ways. Take the queerness of that as you wish.

And the moral of the story is the way the "human" society needs to be queered. It isn't until the kingdom is transformed from its rigid, polite culture into something wilder, that it is saved. Like a Shakespeare marriage play, the nuptials at the end don't come until the characters have been sufficiently wilded, until they earn it. The "true love" that saves the day isn't what the fairy-tale tells us, it is the love between mother and daughter (and not the biological kind) which is all encompassing.

The lush story is efficiently told and moves as an entertaining pace. Mistress of Evil is a surprisingly engaging film, unnecessary sequel which actually improves the story and perhaps offers something richer with a moral to the story that is far more radical than a Disney blockbuster usually manages to be.

Maleficent Mistress of Evil
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Harris Dickinson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Skrein, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Leslie Manville
Director: Joachim Ronning
Writers: Linda Woolverton, Noah Harpster, Micah Fitzeman-Blue

Black and Blue (2019)

The idea behind Black and Blue is a good one. But Black and Blue is an example of when all there is is an idea. Once the film gets going, it is clumsy and awkward, managing to waste and good momentum it starts to gain by falling flat again and again.

This is the story of a good cop, a black cop, who is torn between her community and her job, a cop who comes across bad cops and struggles to find anyone she can trust. There is so much to be explored here but the film's idea of exploration is rather surface and obvious. So often I found myself wondering what a more nuanced and complex approach could have yielded with such a story. 

Characters articulate plot, motive, and characterization instead of letting us glean all of that from their actions.  In fact they don't say much of anything else. Everything seems to be explained to the audience to make sure we are getting the point. When the film starts to move into its action sequences, they build up great tension only to have it dissipate through a jump cut to what often feels like non-sequitur. For example a number of times, our hero will be hiding, about to be discovered by her pursuers, only to have it revealed without any explanation that she is not there and she managed to get away. It sucks the tension right out of the scene and an action movie needs that excitement to sustain it.

Also everything is telegraphed miles ahead. You see everything coming. No twist is left for a surprise in what turned out to be one of the most predicable movies of the year.

And it's all to bad because the idea of the move this could have been is truly compelling.

Black and Blue
Staring: Naomi Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Frank Grillo, Mike Colter, Reid Scott, Nafessa Williams
Director: Deon Taylor
Writer: Peter A Dowling

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

I've never been much of an Eddie Murphy fan. But every now and then he moves away from his wheelhouse and finds a role that shows us just what else he can do. Dolemite Is My Name is one of those times but unlike Dreamgirls or Mr. Church, the film doesn't make Murphy unrecognizable. His portrait of blaxploitation star/film maker Rudy Ray Moore is one of those films built around its star to showcase just what a talent they are. But he is playing a showman, a comedian, and seeing Murphy in that role is easy enough for audiences. And Murphy doesn't disappoint delivering the comedy or the more dramatic parts.

Murphy doesn't overplay it at all, finding a remarkable and astute balance making Moore feel fully real. There is a wonderful scene in the middle where Moore is preparing for his film role and as he rehearses he works through some of his personal issues. It's powerful without being overwrought. It is a gripping scene. And when the humour hits it isn't what we're used to from Murphy. It's organic in the scenes, coming naturally from the story.

Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer plays it pretty safe with Dolemite, telling Moore's story in a linear, classic way while instilling it with a loving nostalgia for LA in the 70s, as well as a healthy dose of nostalgia for blaxploitation in general, makes this film easily watchable and entertaining. His rose coloured glasses take is delightful while also giving us a taste of the tragedy in the story as well. Yes it is an adult movie, finding the comedy and beauty in Moore's exploration of adult comedy.

Murphy and Brewer put the whole package together. Audiences love these stories of men who make the most of the hand their dealt to them. They also approach the race issues which shape Moore's story in an accessible way. As Moore faces racist America the film never makes it too uncomfortable for its audience yet still shows him as an overcoming if somewhat unrecognized hero. And maybe Murphy is just the crossover star to get that story out there to the audience which has ignored Dolemite all this time. Look at this amazing cast. Put them all into an entertaining film like this and Dolemite is ripe for a renaissance.

Dolemite Is My Name
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Titus Burgess, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Mike Epps, Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Leunell, Snoop Dogg, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Ron Cephas Jones, Kodi-Smit-McPhee
Director: Craig Brewer
Writers: Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski

The Lighthouse (2019)

Okay.

I get that The Lighthouse is a novelty. Robert Eggers' artful tale of two men confronting each other shot like a 1920s melodrama with its intense closeups, jerky staging, and blurry B&W cinematography. The Lighthouse embraces extremes, radical characters who act absurdist and fly off the handle, a passionate claustrophobic plot that is begging to explode into violence, and worn on the sleeve symbolism which is desperate to be analyzed. I get that all of this takes a remarkably amount of film making skill. What I don't get is why anyone cares.

The Lighthouse is rather boring. While there are times throughout The Lighthouse where the absurdist moments are funny, and there were times I was just curious to see what they were going to do next, I never got myself to care about the characters or where they would end up. It was like watching an accident, not in the way watching a terrible film is like watching an accident, but in the way that you want to make sure everyone is okay, and if in the end things will work out. But expecting an ending which isn't apocalyptic with a film like this is foolhardy. The Lighthouse's story is destined to be a dark one.

I will give credit to Pattinson and Dafoe for giving remarkably watchable performances amongst all the nightmarish caricature. Both bravely give it their all and imbue their characters with an sincerity which helps sell what is here. But The Lighthouse feels more like form over function, style over substance, an exercise in what the filmmaker could get away with more than an attempt to be a storyteller. There may be something interesting in that. I get that sometimes people want to watch film to see what it can accomplish. But it didn't offer me a great deal. Often The Lighthouse felt more like mimicry or aping than it did about creativity. I rarely (if ever) felt emotion about what I was seeing; I tried engaging it intellectually but could never connect with it in my heart.

Fans of films like Pi and Eraserhead will likely find something of a kindred spirit with this one, but for me this, like those films, is more of an experiment which pays off in the filmmaker's later work. I do think Eggers shows so much promise and after seeing this I would love to see what he could do if he got his hands on a compelling story and became more interested in telling it than it making "a film."

The Lighthouse
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson
Director: Robert Eggers
Writers: Max Eggers, Robert Eggers

The Laundrymat (2019)

As a movie The Laundromat is a bit of a mess. It's attempt to the The Big Short but about the Panama Papers falls a bit flat. The film never manages to find the right balance between telling an entertaining story and getting it's economic/political lesson through. The run time is rushed, the story used to craft its education just isn't overly compelling. It feels like we are being lectured to, not told a story. An amazing cast is wasted by playing caricatures more than characters.

But as a pseudo-documentary it is actually quite eye opening. It will inspire you to rage which is what it should do. The Panama Papers came and went without the world doing anything about it and that is a remarkable tragedy. The film does a great job of breaking down the issues into digestible and understandable pieces making the issues relatable and helping understand just how the abuse and corruption continues.

As I watched, I was engaged but often taken out of what it was I was watching. I kept wondering how this would have worked if it had been framed as a documentary perhaps even with events dramatized by this cast instead of being presented as a fourth wall breaking drama. The film oscillates between seemingly random and unconnected anecdotes which don't often work well for the story telling part. And just as it gets into the part where we are really into it, it's over.

But here's the rub. I would strongly recommend people watch this to get their head around a thorny and difficult yet important issue. But I also can't say it's a "good movie."

The Laundromat
Starring: Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Gary Oldman, Sharon Stone, David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, Will Forte, James Cromwell
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Scott Z Burns

Zombieland Double Tap (2019)

It's been so long I had forgotten how much of a hipster bro sracasmfest the first Zombieland was. Movies that exists just to be a series of snarks just aren't my jam. I get that other people like them but they just aren't for me. But about 5 minutes into Double Tap I was reminded and settled in for a long  93 minutes of eyerolling.

There is just the barest of plots and no subtext whatsoever. The film right up admits the Zombie genre has been over-saturated and that they aren't really going to do anything new with it. Instead it's just a bunch of inside jokes. Isn't it hilarious they found actors who do great Eisenberg and Harrelson impressions. That joke goes on for a while. Irreverence is great in small doses but when you craft a whole movie around it it gets tired really fast.

So Woody Harrelson is playing a stereotyped version of who everyone thinks Woody Harrelson is. Jesse Eisenberg plays a stereotyped version of who everyone thinks he is. Emma Stone plays... well you get the picture. This isn't a film it's a bunch of buddies getting together and goofing off. Movies like that always bore me and Double Tap is no exception. Even the appearance of one of my favourites, Rosario Dawson (who happens to play a fairly stereotyped version of who everything thinks Rosario Dawson is) doesn't save the film for me.

So if the first Zombieland is your jam then go knock yourself out laughing at how cool you are. I'll go find something just a tad more sincere and satisfying.

Zombieland Double Tap
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Rosario Dawson, Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia, Luke Wilson, Thomas Middleditch
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writers: Rhett Reece, Paul Wernick, Dave Callaham

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

I've never watched an episode of Breaking Bad and I went into this film completely blind, beyond the most basic of understandings of the premise and cast which came through osmosis. Does this film, presented as a "coda" on the series, work as an independent film that anyone can just watch and enjoy for what it is? For me it did. The story of a man trying to move on from his criminal past lead by Aaron Paul giving a tour de force performance is a compelling yet maturely sobering experience.

The strength of this story comes mostly from Paul who truly does give a remarkable turn. Writer/director Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad does a great job of setting his story in two worlds, the worlds of the fans who clearly will get a great deal of satisfaction from this story, ending one part of the journey, and in the world of the casual viewer who is up for a personal story of an almost ruined life seeking a fresh start.

Crime movies are often about this arc, a time worn criminal hoping to end his run and find peace, running up against obstacle after obstacle. They are morality plays showing us crime doesn't pay. Their success is tied to how well they make us care for the central figure, how tragic his arc is and if there is redemption how cathartic it is. El Camino follows a fairly traditional arc but does so in a very satisfying way. The combo of Paul's performance and Gilligan's sober, restrained yet deeply intense style makes this a very engaging watch. I didn't know what would befall Jesse. Would this be a tragic tale of self-destruction or a rebirth narrative.

I imagine fans of the show will find this very satisfying but I can't speak to what ways it plays fan service. I can attest to the fact that you don't need to be a viewer of the show to get a lot out of this story. El Camino could exist without Breaking Bad although I am sure it is even richer with it all together.

El Camino
Starring: Aaron Paul, Jesse Plemons, Kryston Ritter, Robert Forster, Bryan Cranston
Writer/Director: Vince Gilligan

Addams Family (2019)

At their best the Addams are a subversive critique of modern society by putting forward all that we consider "ooky" and presenting it so that we can see its value making us ask ourselves where we've gone wrong in shunning the different and embracing polite conformity. We haven't seen the creepy and kooky family on the big screen in a generation. Does it manage to continue the tradition this family has maintained for decades?

Sort of. Yes, the plot of this animated take on The Addams Family features the usual twisting of norms which juxtaposes a celebration of uniqueness as wholesome and vilifies conformity. But it only goes so far, perhaps playing it a bit safe making the "mainstream" society so cartoonishly bad that we perhaps don't ever see ourselves in it. I've always felt for The Addams Family's shtick to work it needed to make us slightly uncomfortable and this cartoon take is a bit too family friendly. There are extremely subtle references to S&M, anarchy, and class upheaval but they are buried pretty deep. Sure previous iterations were also subtle in this regard hiding its more radical messages in the Gothic comedy pastiche, but the tendencies were still prevalent. Success here comes from the proper balance of mainstreaming something that undermines and criticizes the mainstream. I found this version to be a bit too forgiving overall.

But does it just work as light entertainment? Well, the film just isn't overly funny, which is remarkable looking at this talented cast. It's plot is only mildly entertaining. It's not as much outright fun as one would want. It's not bad just doesn't reach the level of entertainment I had hoped for.

The Addams Family
Starring: Charlize Theron, Oscar Isaac, Chloe Grace Moritz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler, Alison Janney, Snoop Dog, Elsie Fisher, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara
Directors: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan
Writers: Matt Lieberman, Pamela Pettler

Gemini Man (2019)

Now we know what happens when you mix Jerry Bruckheimer, action producer, with Ang Lee, Oscar winning director. It is a pretty mixed bag. I am a huge fan of Lee's work and one of his qualities I enjoy is he is the chameleon director working out there None of his films are remotely alike. Imagine a resume which includes Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, and Hulk. He has lately turned to exploring the limits of technological advances in film making since how he wowed with Pi, with the disappointingly bland Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, a snoozefest which played with hyper high frame rates making for crystal clear imagery. He has now applied some of that technology to the action genre which Gemini Man, a very Bruckheimer-esque which also features heavy use of CGI de-aging special effects.

And as a rather light action movie it works. The action sequences are out of this world. I want to give credit here to Lee's staging of the set pieces. The are brilliant to watch. That with the combo of the the high frame rate creates some amazing sequences. Seeing Will Smith face off (pun intended) against his younger self is also a spectacle. But Gemini Man feels more like an excuse to use the technology and the spectcle more than an quality film and story in itself.The story just isn't as engaging as it should be and it's twists are all seen coming a mile away. There are themes here of identity, fatherhood, responsibility, humanity that are glossed over and given just cursory, simplistic discussion. The script is weak, having characters spout off the ideas the film is playing with, again on a surface level only. I had hoped that with Lee involved the film would explore some of this in a more satisfying way but it drops the ball here. It's really all about the visuals.

It's not the fault of the cast. Smith has been doing some of his best work lately and he is strong in Gemini Man despite all the special effects. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is also strong but her character is given so little to do you just wanted to see her given more.

So here is hoping Lee returns to his amazing story telling qualities and becomes a little less focused on the technological toys he is being handed. Or better yet he finds a way to merge the two into something remarkable like his earlier work.

Gemini Man
Starring: Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: David Benioff, Billy Ray, Darren Lemke

Vox Lux (2018)

It took me a year to see this film. I remember wondering why a film with such a high profile cast with "generally favorable" reviews would completely miss getting a wide release, or even a prestige release. In this age of Streaming services picking up films I didn't understand why it didn't even get that platform. It played in very few theatres and west directly to "on-demand." It fell off my radar and I didn't come back around to it for quite some time.

Now that I have seen it I understand a bit better. Vox Lux is a difficult film. It unabashedly wants to be challenging. Up and coming director Brady Corbet is known for picking less mainstream pieces (his previous film being an adaptation of a Sartre story) and he approaches Vox Lux in a way that minimizes its commercial potential. The story of the rise of a pop star from tragedy could have been played for Star is Born mainstream appeal but instead is dark, almost nihilist dark. The pop songs aren't catchy. The characters are not in the slightest sympathetic. The glitter and glamour is all tarnished and dull. The violence is up close and personal. One doesn't get any warm and fuzzy vibes from Vox Lux.

But that wouldn't be the point of this film anyway. This is a hard look at the exploitive ways celebrity is crafted, our obsessions with violence and shallowness, and how we pass these on to our children. It is a pessimistic film, a film that wants us to reflect on difficult things. And it does that with a strong cast giving good performances, it does that through presenting itself in a documentary style that keeps us someone arms length from the subjects, it does that without offering us a hopeful or even cathartic ending. This isn't the sort of film that audiences flock to.

But it is fascinating. It will give you much to chew on even if it isn't always entertaining enough to sustain its morality play. There were times I felt it dragged but that gave me some time to reflect on some of it's questions. And when it was punching me in the gut I felt it. The emotions here are raw and visceral. Willem Dafoe's stoic narration also adds to the films bleakness.

The ending feels a bit of a cop out. Perhaps though that's the point. The film ends with a big although rather uninspiring concert number. The narrator's rather fantastic revelation at the end can be taken either literally or figuratively which is how it read for me. And as the credits rolled I felt a sad emptiness.

No wonder no one wanted to see it in theatres.

Vox Lux
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Willem Dafoe, Raffey Cassidy
Writer/Director: Brady Corbet

Addams Family Values (1993) REVISIT

Sometimes you just want to gush about movies you enjoy. I love the 90s Addams Family movies for their subversive satire and camp esthetic. The first film is a lovely comedy but it is Values which is my favourite, a film I enjoy each time I watch it with a silly grin on my face. With the characters and world already established, Values gets to push into some pretty smart and audacious critiques which also happen to be hilariously funny. The films, in their apparently innocent comedy burrow under the surface of our culture, especially in the age of "family values" and make us question what we truly do value.

Writer Paul Rudnick has a funny sensibility if a bit of a heavy hand and director Barry Sonnenfeld is bold but sometimes clumsy. But by putting together a hilarious cast and giving them the stage to embrace their characters, they tell a story that is delightful from start to finish. It is a story of a hustle, perpetrated on the family that sums up what is really important. It holds up just how twisted our culture is and how it is the outsiders who are the real moral examples.

Think of this cast; Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Christine Baranski, Peter McNichol, and of coarse Joan Cusack in what I find to be her most remarkable role. Her Debbie is the ultimate villain and every moment she is on screen is a twisted delight. And then there are the cameos including Nathan Lane, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, Dana Ivey, and Tony Shalhoub. It is like a dream come true.

But there is more to Values. It is kinky. It's feminist. It's anti-racist, anti-ablest, anti-colonialist. It's queer. It is a love letter to the rest of us.

Some little take aways from Values.

- When the baby is born and the family questions if it is a boy or a girl the answer is "it's an Addams!"
- Morticia and Gomez express their love for each other and all their children demonstrably.
- Gomez eagerly supports Morticia's pursuit of self-actualization with no threat to his masculinity, just a desire to see her be who she wants to be.
- Gomez and Morticia dancing in the restaurant is the sort of set piece that audiences remember.

The more times I watch it the more I find it remarkable for what it does. It is valuable indeed.

Addams Family Values
Starring: Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Joan Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Christine Baranski, Peter McNichol, David Krumholtz, Carel Stuycken, Jimmy Workman, Dana Ivey
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Writer: Paul Rudnick

Robbery (2019)

Writer/director Corey Stanton crafts a lovely little indie, even if it feels a little too indie at times. His tale of a son who learns the craft of burglary from his father who is suffering from dementia hits all the right notes of tangled crime caper full of twists and touching family to pull at the heart strings. The earnest cast pulls it off despite sometimes feeling like a cast of actors more than the actual characters they are playing. But in the end the deficiencies are overcome with a very satisfying story.

Robbery often feels shoe string, with sets sometimes looking like a back room dressed differently for each scene and angle. But what makes it work is the gut punch of a story which travels through anger and revenge into finding a fairly honest place of forgiveness. I was worried as the film meandered towards its conclusion it would feel a bit hokey but it never quite did, instead delivering a satisfying and convincing look at redemption.

Robbery
Starring: Art Hindle, Jeremy Ferdman, Sera-Lys McArther, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Jennifer Dale
Writer/Director: Corey Stanton

Joker (2019)

Lets start with what Joker is not. It is not a film which sets its central character as a sympathetic hero figure or even anti-hero. The Joker is the villain of the piece from the first scene. He’s entitled, believing his shit life is the fault of everyone else and willing to use violence against those who he sees as being responsible.

It is also not a film about a mentally ill person. Arthur Fleck may believe himself to be mentally ill but his behavior is about an unhappy person not a depressed person. And while he may be psychotic there is no diagnosis, just a belief that his anti-social behavior is again not his fault but the fault of something outside him.

It is also not a violent film. Well, that's not exactly right. The violence in this film is palpable but very little of it is viewed on screen. There are all sorts of violence from gaslighting to verbal abuse to stalking to acts of physical violence. But most of it is left off screen, left to our imaginations, where it is so much more powerful. Joker is the sort of film where you feel the effects of the violence and it hurts. But you see little of it. There is little blood in the film. But when it is there it has a real power that so many much more violence films lack.

Now lets talk about what it is. It is a signal of how our mainstream movies are adapting to the new normal. We are now at the point where “comic book movies” get to do what comic books have been doing for a while now. They are telling diverse stories and moving away from being one genre. For a while we saw all comic book movies the same, and many still do see it that way, we’ve been moving away from that for a while. Now a so called “comic book movie” can be of any genre and be targeted towards any audience and not have to be the formula tent pole movie. While graphic novels have been doing this for a long time, it is only recently we’ve held the movies based on them in a more limited view. The other side of this is that any movie of any genre can find an audience by tying in comic book themes which may expand an audience. It is very easy to see this film be made without being about the comic book character of the title. But more people will see it because of that.

Writer/director Phillips does two things at once. He remains true to the character which has inspired this story a fan would love and filling it with the sort of references fanboys love. It is more than that. He imbues it with the sort of meaning that those devoted to these stories want to feel to see their passions reflected to them. At the same time he tells a story any audience, even one which was somehow ignorant of who the Joker is, can not only understand but truly resonate for. One of the most successful aspects of this film is how it succeeds at both. Again I would argue there were precursors to this in the comic book film oeuvre, but this one takes it to the next level.

Joker tells a difficult, challenging, and powerful story. Any film which has us follow a villain has this difficulty since we are so used to identifying with the central character. This isn’t Maleficent or Wicked, a revisionist take which puts us on the side of the villainous character. In Joker Arthur Fleck is menacing from the beginning. Yes he is a complicated character and there are parts of his story which are tragic, but his actions, his way of viewing the world, none of it is set there to have us sympathize with him. Instead we are to be scared of him and how he reacts the world, shitty or not, is to him and to many others. We are to see how dangerous and destructive these sorts of behaviors and ways of rationalizing things are. For example, films often give audiences a kind of pay off when we see bad characters do bad things and then something bad happens to them. We then cheer or feel a sense of satisfaction that the world is a good place because people who do bad get their comeuppance. Joker avoids that. We see people be shitty to Fleck but then we see him lash out at them and we don't feel that sort of satisfaction we usually get. Instead we are shaken, horrified. We see just how scary it is to see those evil impulses acted on. This is something we often don't get in films, something that makes this so much more than what we would expect.

Both Phillips and Phoenix do this difficult story telling masterfully. This will be one of Phoenix’s career defining roles, and it is well deserved the role itself is inherently challenging without the added pressure of the role being one played famously before. Both Nicholson and Ledger won praise for their portrayals so that is baggage Phoenix has to overcome. He does this by creating a whole different character who manages to be as authentic a portrayal as an other that is onscreen. As I have argued it's a character that is challenging in many ways but perhaps most so in how much he pushes the audience away from him. Phillips frames his story of a dangerous man and how he builds himself to be as dangerous as he can be in a way that hasn’t been told before. Previous Jokers have had the good guys to play off of, to have their evil underlined. Here Phillips and Phoenix don't have that and they have to make us scared of him on their own. It is quite brilliant.

Joker is one of those films in which all the pieces come together beautifully. It is a challenging movie but it is a deeply satisfying one. It will be hard for many who want their films to be wrapped up in a nice ending which gives us comfort that things are left in a good place. This one doesn't do that. It makes us fear the world a bit more. It is the sort of film people make up their minds out about before they see it. You should try to avoid doing that. Because Joker is the kind of film which can surprise you and movie you in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Joker
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beets, Robert De Niro, Francis Conroy, Brett Cullen
Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Scott Silver, Todd Phillips

Official Secrets (2019)

I often find it hard to appreciate films like this which try to tell a story of some real life living figure as part of some grander morality lesson. Even when you agree with the political position of the film, as I do here,  film in its desire to make the person into the hero it needs them to be (even in an “every person” sort of way) can stumble in making the kinds of complex narratively fascinating characters needed to make the kinds of movie I get a lot of out of. Also they often suffer from a “history lesson” approach (this happened, then this happened, then...) which also can make a movie more of a slog than an entertaining piece of cinema. Despite the fact Official Secrets tells the story of a (fairly “every person”) hero who did something important Im not sure it gets around these problems. Its story is compelling enough and the performances good enough and while I got passionate about the issue Im not sure i was ever passionate about the movie and watching it.

I also felt the movie might not quite ever fully capture the importance of what it is covering. The summation, which arrives rather quickly, basically provides the conclusion that the Iraq was was illegal and while it blatantly asks us to consider all the dead as we wrestle with that. But the film’s rather lack lustre crescendo doesnt make it feel like this hits home as much as it should.

Still, the movie is good enough. Its story is good enough. Its cast is good enough. You wont regret watching it or get bored but you likely wont be excited about watching it either. And will it make you mad enough?

Official Secrets
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Northam
Director: Gavin Hood
Writers: Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein, Gavin Hood