Breakthrough (2019)

Pretty much everything about Breakthrough is bad. It is a moving cliche as is every character in it. It is filled with bad theology and horrible views on adoption. And worst of all it's just a boring movie.

The story of John Smith (based on real life events) is a series of insultingly cliche moments. He is adopted so therefore he naturally suffers from abandonment issues and his mother is a series of memes about what mothering is supposed to be. When he has his accident and recovers he struggles with the reasons for why he was spared. He comes to his rationalization that he was worth saving because of something good that he did. As if our value as human beings is based on what we can contribute. And as if others die because they can't contribute something valuable enough. Plus there is the whole plot piece about the community coming together to pray for his survival, as if God is somehow making decisions about who lives and who dies based on a prayer tally, similar to "likes" on Facebook. These ideas are an affront to people of faith and to adopted people. It reinforces horribly simplistic efforts to seek meaning in the difficult complicated world we live in. I could go on and on about all that I found insulting about this film from a faith perspective and from an adoption perspective. But instead of all that I'll focus on what a bad movie it is overall.

The story is the kind of afterschool special level of writing and acting which frustrates me when I'm watching it. The characters are two dimensional, each one a stereotype. The film does what I most resent in films. It doesn't build real characters it relies on the stock ideas we each carry with us so that we simply fill in the blanks with each stereotype and know who that person is supposed to be. The film does the same thing with its story. It sets us on a path where we know wxactly what's going to happen and why, simply reinforcing our assumptions for us as we go along instead of pushing us or challenging us. Fitting that it stars This is Us star Chrissy Metz, a show which suffers the same manipulative writing style.

While some my buy into the corny and rather insulting theological aspects of this story I get that I won't be able to convince them of how problematic it is. But beyond that Breakthrough is just bad film making, the kind which doesn't expect anything of its audience.

Breakthrough
Starring: Chrissy Metz, Marcel Ruiz, Jake Lucas, Topher Grace, Mike Colter, Denis Haysbert
Director: Roxann Dawson
Writer: Grant Nieport

Long Shot (2019)

The opening scene of Long Shot will make audiences wonder if they are in the right cinema. They came for a rom com and the film starts with a neo-nazi meeting. The scene quickly turns to laughs, in one of the most awkward transitions in a mainstream movie in a long time. This actually sets up what Long Shot is going to be.

Long Shot is half political satire and half part romantic comedy. But the problem is, like much of that first scene, the two sides never quite gel. The political satire half wants to go all in. The jokes are hard edge, the politics unapologetically progressive, often erring on the side of SNL skit absurdity. The rom com part wants to be all charming misfit meet cute, basically Knocked Up all over again. And despite Both Theron and Rogen being really good at what they are doing, this Jeckle and Hyde plot doesn't come together.

But there are extremely funny moments throughout and the film has a charm that makes it enjoyable at times. There are also times when you want to cringe. I kept oscillating between enjoying and being frustrated about it. I certainly did like all the genX references. But the film isn't The American President or even Dave. But I kinda wish it could have been.

Long Shot
Starring: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogan, O'Shea Jackson Jr., June Diane Raphael, Andy Serkis, Randall Park, Lisa Kudrow
Director: Jonathan Levine
Writers: Dan Sterling, Liz Hannah

Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

True Crime is not a genre I often appreciate. There is a voyeuristic, exploitative element to it that I find hard to overcome. There needs to be a reason to tell stories about real people's deaths and their suffering and that reason has to be compelling enough to justify the risk of glamorizing both the killer and the crimes. In my opinion most True Crime doesn't manage this feat. I don't feel Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile manages it either.

Extremely Wicked has trouble finding it's focus. It attempts to be a number of different movies at once and never quite manages to be any. First it focuses less on the crimes and more on the legal proceedings. It follows infamous killer Ted Bundy as he is arrested for the first time and through his journey through the legal system. This choice opened the door for what could have been a fairly fascinating look at criminal justice and how it works (in this case it mostly worked) yet the film doesn't spend much time on the legal aspects and more on the trials as we expect them on TV shows. 

The film also looks at Bundy as pseudo-celebrity. Yet even with this the film doesn't get into a deep analysis of the way we romanticize celebrity criminals. Instead it just scrapes the surface never getting underneath the whys or hows and all the difficult questions that go along with it.

The choice to cast Zac Efron emphasizes this. His image as sex symbol focuses us on that path. And while many critics praise his performance I found it rather basic. It's certainly not bad but I don't feel be brought anything complicated to the role. The film follows his "adventures" escaping, filling the story with charming moments and entertaining if sometimes comic anecdotes. All making Bundy charming and attractive with little deconstruction of these emotions and reaction. The film plays into them.

Another approach the film tries but never quite delivers on is centering Bundy's girlfriend played by Lily Collins. There was a choice made to tell the story (partly) through her eyes. It is therefore the story of a woman who is taken in by him and struggles with her love for him and the revealing truth as she drowns in it. This could have been an interesting movie too but the film doesn't give enough of it's time to it. Sometimes I felt like I wished the film had chosen between its foci but it keeps moving in different directions doing neither very well. The film introduces elements of different ways to tell the story and then doesn't fully follow through on any of them.

I did appreciate the film didn't focus on his crimes. We aren't subjected to reproductions of his murders and that I felt was a good choice. There are times when the film does have people speak of the crimes and this is probably important. We need to remember how evil Bundy truly was. But we don't have to watch that evil happen. Especially since it really did happen. However even this part is problematic. The film never makes us see Efron as truly evil. There is a disconnect between him and the crimes that the film never addresses.

Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile does not fail completely it just never truly succeeded for me in making me care about any of it. Mostly this is due to the way the film never truly commits to what sort of story it wants to tell and therefore never quite tells one fully realized tale.

Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile
Starring: Zac Efron, Lily Collins, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Dylan Baker, Jim Parsons, Haley Joel Osment
Director: Joe Berlinger
Writer: Michael Werwie

Penguins (2019)

It isn't hard to make an entertaining film about penguins. Point the camera at them and let the charismatic buggers go about their lives and bam you have a fun film. Their incredibly beautiful and inaccessible landscape is mesmerizing and their struggle for survival is extremely captivating. Penguin movies make themselves.

Disney has focused on one "everyman" penguin they've named Steve and through following one brief antarctic summer in his life they give us the basics of the penguin life cycle. While we learn a lot about penguins, an into to penguin life 101, it is all wrapped up in a fun accessible story which is safe enough for the youngest viewers but compelling enough for anyone of any age. Steve falls in love and raises children and survives predators. It is all here.

Ed Helms narrates and voices Steve in his personified adventures. He doesn't over do it as he sometimes does, keeping a rather casual vocalization of Steve's thoughts. Penguins tells as simple but extremely enjoyable tale of the life of an average penguin, one of the most lovable species on the planet. I dare you not to enjoy this.

Penguins
Starring: Ed Helms, Steve
Directors: Alistair Fothergill, Jeff Wilson
Writer: David Fowler

Avengers Endgame (2019)

Avengers Endgame is the perfect culmination of the MCU so far. It is all that is good and all that is bad about the MCU.

I am not a big fan of the MCU but there are aspects of it I like, films in it I enjoy.  Mostly I find the films focus on being light and accessible, often leaning so far in that direction they become rather meaningless and forgettable. But they also have built a universe of characters and worlds more successfully than almost any franchise I can imagine. By focusing on the relationships it has drawn up, this MCU climax manages to capitalize on all that they've built. I liked how Endgame captured what I have enjoyed about the franchise but was still frustrated by how much it is like the parts I don't.

Perhaps this is best summed up in the opening. There are a couple scenes which set the stakes in a very MCU manner. There is a sense of loss and tragedy but only pushing the line so far. And Tony Stark is there to crack the jokes so it never hurts too bad. It's an easy pill to swallow. There is nothing difficult or challenging about the MCU. It's always accessibly enjoyable. And that's why it rakes in the dollars.

Endgame, like most of the MCU, is a very surface oriented story. What I mean by this is while the film may have its dramatic and entertaining moments, it isn't about anything more than just its rather story, a story which is fairly pedantic and basic and laced with more than enough humour to keep us from ever having to feel too much (Thor remains a joke within a joke within a joke). There aren't underlying themes, symbolism of grander ideas. Like with how Civil War skimmed over it's moral questions, Endgame flirts with moral conflict over time travel and its consequences but dismisses it all rather quickly without truly resolving any questions. It's a story in and of itself and that is all it tries to be. While this is fine and certainly popular, I like my movies to offer something more. Perhaps to say it better, a film will hold so much more for me when the story and characterization serve readings which can be explored on multiple levels. Only occasionally have MCU films attempted this (such as Black Panther's dabbling in afro-futurism and deconstructing colonialism). There is none of that here. This is all focused on finishing the story arc the last 10 years of MCU films have been building towards.

I am also frustrated with the contrived nature of the characters' arcs. Characters are used for convenience without investing much in making their arc organic. Captain Marvel's showing up (both times) felt blatantly deus ex machina. Hawkeye's journey feels force fed without making us really feel it (probably because what it would take to really make his story believable would be too difficult for the MCU audience to handle). The excuses for why the infinity stones snap can do certain things but not other things makes no sense and is a bit insulting. But I went into this expecting that. Knowing as we did that the ending of Infinity War was temporary it sucked pretty much all of the emotional impact for me. All of Endgame feels constructed, convenient. While I get that people are buying into the "tragic" nature of this story, for me the inevitability of it, without inevitability being the moral of the story (wow that could have been interesting), takes away from that power. For me, the whole thing, and buy whole thing I mean the 10 years of MCU films, feels like a predictable and rather classically basic grand story arc. As other franchises are beginning to deconstruct the very ideas explored here, such as the hero's journey tropes, the MCU stays firmly in that past idea of story telling. I guess I am just rather bored with it.

However, that being said, neither Endgame nor the MCU story arc is a bad story. It's a story told without much art of originality but it is still an entertaining story. Even if I feel over this sort of story telling, it doesn't mean it is a bad story. I love the commitment Disney has given this. There is something extremely satisfying about seeing it all come together. The story, in all its contrivances, is a perfect vehicle for revisiting each and every corner of the MCU allowing fans to touch on all the characters and back stories. There is a Back to the Future Part II vibe to it which ends up being pretty fun. It's brilliant it how it pulls together all the threads from all the stories making it poetically lovely. Marvel movies are fun and Endgame, despite its sad parts, remains fun. Despite the running time you'll be entertained. The MCU has aspired to little more than that so it achieves it. It is a success for what it is. I had a lot of fun watching Endgame. But I likely won't return to it many times.

My criticism is that this sort of story just doesn't hold the interest for me as other stories, the kinds which make us question the very things this story purports. So while I understand why the masses eat up this sort of thing, it all just leaves me a little cold. I couldn't muster up the excitement to get worked up. I'm glad it is so much fun for so many. I'm just waiting for something that resonates more for me.

Avengers Endgame
Starring: Pretty much everyone...
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus, Steven McFeely

King Lear (2018)

I've always had trouble sympathizing for Lear, who many describe as the central character in Shakespeare's most impressive work. I've never felt that attachment to this play preferring many of his other works, but appreciating a lot about King Lear. In Richard Eyre's film Lear is almost over the top a spoiled entitled white man, throwing temper tantrums and barely ever reckoning with his follies, the way I've often read him so much of his take on the story resonated for me.

Eyre also uses the modern convention of making the audience sympathize with the villainous bastard's plight. Instead of assuming Edmund is inherently evil due to his "illegitimate" birth as previous audiences may have, we are instead presented with his seeking revenge for being treated as such by his world, a reading which is grounded clearly in the text. I appreciated how Eyre flushed this out and founds ways to make Edmund so fascinating and despite his resolution he manages to bring everyone down.

And in the case of Lear I've never seen this as a bad thing. By focusing on the Lear family's destruction at the hands of a wronged anti-hero, Eyre manages to find a way to deal with the common problem with adapting Shakespeare to film, how to pair it down in a way that doesn't feel paired down. Lear is epic and trying to tell its story with a runtime of 115 minutes is foolhardy. But I think Eyre mostly succeeds by narrowing his focus.

Eyre also finds a nice visual esthetic for the film. Setting the story in modern England Eyre uses a palette which supports without distracting from his story.

Does he make Lear riveting? I'm not sure this production gets there. I think for fans of the cast of of Shakespeare this film presents an interesting take. But it's also not going to be the film that draws in a crowd outside that. Still it made me think a lot more about one of Shakespeare's works which is less impactful for me than most.

King Lear
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, Jim Broadbent, Florence Pugh, Jim Carter, Andrew Scott, John Macmillan
Writer/Director: Richard Eyre (with William Shakespeare)

Her Smell (2019)

Is the self-destructive rock star trope that interesting. While I found myself impressed with Elizabeth Moss fully embracing her character's ____, I kept waiting for there to be something original in the insight. Is it just a tragedy or is there something new for us to understand about the creative mind or about the way the corporatization of that creative mind wrecks it? I'm not sure Her Smell gets there. It does give Moss a chance to give a truly fascinating performance and it does give us a chance to feel her and her pain.

The story of a rock star whose success and mental health are waning is shot by writer/director Alex Ross Perry in a cinema verite style, mimicking the kind of back stage documentaries that we like to watch about real rock stars. Moss plays the centre of a once successful band who is surrounded by family (her husband and mother) industry (the executives and other artists) and her own demons. She is isolated from the very start, both literally and emotionally. She is both victim and author or her own destruction. She is sober but finding that sobriety isn't giving saving her from herself either. We watch helplessly as she ensures no one helps her and everyone around her uses that as the excuse for not helping her. And in the end everyone takes from her what they need.

This is the sort of story we've seen played out both in fiction and in reality time and again. Her Smell isn't about answers or blame, answers and blame are thrown around but as an audience we aren't left with anything easy. In that Her Smell is strong. But as the story reached its conclusion I was left feeling fairly empty about Becky and her trajectory. Her Smell never got under my skin. I felt too removed, like everyone around Becky perhaps.

Her Smell
Starring: Elizabeth Moss, Amber Heard, Cara Delevingne, Dan Stevens, Eric Stolz, Virgina Madson
Writer/Director: Alex Ross Perry