If Beale Street Could Talk

​​★★★★★★★★★★ 10/10

I have been moved no greater by a writer than by James Baldwin. I marvel at his ability to relay so clearly deep feelings of mine, the kind that are hardly expressed and that I didn’t know could be put into words. His prose is fiery and empathetic, never dipping into sentimentality. In his time Baldwin not only mastered clarity, but he wrote poetically, choosing the right words to give a simple something weight or sanctity. His complex weaving reads easily, yet his genius is unmistakable. 

But I’ve only ever experienced a piece of this prolific writer, having only read his non-fiction works (I generally don’t read fiction). With the film If Beale Street Could Talk I can see, hear, and feel this same spirit that characterizes Baldwin’s non-fiction in a story that is tragically beautiful.

Every time I sit to read James Baldwin his words feel urgently relevant to our country's current context. In Beale Street Fonny, a young black man, is falsely accused of rape and jailed right before being able to begin his life with Tish on their own. Sexual assault, misconduct, and rape are tough topics to talk about, and when it's combined with complicated racial politics it's even more fraught. But with a pen in his hand Baldwin maneuvers through difficult terrain to create something from which we can all grow.

There’s probably no one who could translate the poetic nature of Baldwin’s novel — about a young black couple so miraculously in love only to be separated by a sheet of glass because of the racism that has terrorized the United States since before it was established — better than writer/director Barry Jenkins. His style feels transcendent, infused with notes of jazz that define the version of the New York City through which Tish and Fonny walk. Though I haven’t read Beale Street, it’s as if the two men, despite the separation of time and death, are walking in tandem steps telling one story. The spirit that carries over from Baldwin’s non-fiction to his fiction, has been carried to us visually by Jenkins.

Jenkins has this way of zeroing in on a face straight on and telling us everything we need to know. Shots like these are often overlooked in other films in an effort to prioritize action, but Jenkins understands that the face is where the action happens. He shows us the characters’ eyes and, somehow, what’s happening behind them. Lots of credit belongs to KiKi Layne (Tish), Stephan James (Fonny), and Regina King (Sharon), who each give stirring performances. Layne’s work is especially noteworthy. She crafts a character who is believably frightened for the love of her life and too young to have to be this strong

And the film would not be what it is without its score. I haven’t been emotionally moved by a score since Mica Levi’s work in Jackie (2016). Here Nicholas Britell, who’s no stranger to composing for film, takes Baldwin’s words and Jenkins’s vision and crafts music that perfectly aligns. Through a combination of classical and jazz elements we hear what love, danger, and fear sound like at this time for these people. His song "Agape" (which we hear when Tish recounts the moment she knew Fonny loved her) holds on to the low strings that characterize the entire score, but is layered with an unchained treble part that sounds like a bird learning to fly. Through his score, Britell helps us understand how much Fonny and Tish love each other, and how devastating it is when love is not allowed to fully exist. 

The point of all this is to say, if you let it, If Beale Street Could Talk has the power to leave you breathless. 

Aquaman

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

Aquaman is the third-best DC Extended Universe film, a film series that so far includes five films plus this, the sixth. But when the three films lower on the list are Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, and Justice League, the bar is set so low it’s hardly worth acknowledging the bar at all. The film, featuring the comic book character who swims at hyper speed and can talk to sea creatures isn’t an all out failure like those other, lesser films. It wants to be good, but struggles to meet the mark. And who us among can’t relate to that? 

Aquaman starts off well enough by telling the story of Arthur’s (Jason Mamoa) parents — a human father and a mother (Nicole Kidman) fleeing from an arranged marriage in the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. Their love is true and peaceful until guards violently break in their home to return the would-be queen back to Atlantis. Arthur’s father anxiously awaits his love’s return, and Arthur learns to live both on land and in the sea. 

Aquaman makes some fun attempts at world building. Director James Wan and his team create some absolutely stunning visuals. When the water is still (read: not an underwater fight scene featuring the overuse of CGI), the visuals beneath the sea are bright, colorful, and unlike anything we’ve seen. But Aquaman isn’t as successful as its predecessor, Wonder Woman, the best DCEU offering, which turned Themyscira into not only a beautiful place, but a place with deep cultural roots and traditions and with meaning attached to it.

In Aquaman, it is fun that our world above the water is the land of the rebels, whereas the kingdom below the surface represents a repressive system of order and succession. Arthur has little interest in that, and is content using his strengths to protect the earth and sea as a lone soldier, much like he was when Bruce Wayne first found him in Justice League. Instead of Wayne it’s Mera (Amber Heard) who asks Arthur to help out this time. She needs him to join her in a fight against his half brother who’s planning an assault on the surface world. 

And from here the film becomes predictable. To defeat King Orm (Patrick Wilson), Arthur and Mera must go on a journey to find the trident of an old Atlantean king. Acquisition of the trident will prove Arthur’s right to rule Atlantis, and the journey to find the trident will teach him everything he needs to become not just a king, but a hero. All of this is run-of-the-mill superhero mumbo jumbo that’s been inhaled, chewed up, and regurgitated back at us, only this time it’s wetter. Since the beginning of the DCEU, originality has all but eluded Warner Bros. So has decent dialogue. Mamoa’s charisma is never allowed to fully shine through because he’s hampered by a script that’s both stale and poorly written. 

What makes Aquaman so frustrating are the sparks of potential we see along the way. Unlike the DCEU entries that are worse, Aquaman wasn’t all bad. Even the last trailer, featuring epic theme music that sadly didn’t show up in the film, speaks to the potential of the movie. But where we end is a place we’ve been before with with DCEU. 

Roma

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

Roma gives voice to a people group that’s rarely talked about in conversations relating to arts and culture. The indigenous people of Mexico, along with their language, are referred to as Mixtec. They look different, often with darker complexions, and have faced, as a people, more than their fair share of racism and hatred from the wider population, placing them alongside other oppressed groups around the world.

I was originally going to make the argument that Roma is similar to earlier 2018 films like Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians. And in a way it is in that it gives that voice. But one, Roma, despite its nominations, isn’t really part of popular culture, and two, it doesn’t have the same celebratory tone as those other films. There have been some Asian films, and a lot of Black films, but what makes Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians so racially significant is that they are bold celebrations of their respective cultures on a scale we haven’t seen before. Roma could be seen as a celebration of the resilience of the indigenous people of Mexico, particularly those in the wealthy district of Roma in Mexico City, but it is a much more quiet celebration, and truthfully, involves more tragedy.

But that tragedy is also where beauty resides. The films follows Cleo (played with piercing sincerity by first-time actor Yalitza Aparicio), a live-in housekeeper for a well-to-do Mexican family. The film is slow to start. To call it patient would be a euphemism. But this slowness is intentional. Director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity) draws out meaning from nearly every tiny interaction, like playing dead on a rooftop, and some of the smallest actions and tasks, like washing a driveway. And because the film is so gorgeous we are more inclined to allow things to take their time.

As we continue to watch we begin to see that Cleo has her own life apart from the house in which she lives and works. She has a few friends and kind of a boyfriend, but her life is quiet. You sense that she’s been socialized to move and speak in ways that minimize who she is. Because of her race, she’s aware that there are limits in life and that she’s got to live within them. This is a lesson Sofia, the wife of a doctor and mother of three that Cleo works for, seems to just be learning.

Cleo and Sofia, who aren’t at all similar, are on kindred journeys discovering just how alone they both feel while so much is required of them. But where Sofia leans upon Cleo, Cleo bares her pain mostly alone. And that’s what makes the film so devastating. Somewhere within the quiet, slow developments of the film Cuarón shakes the earth with an astounding portrait of a woman who carries so much on her shoulders. I really want to talk about two incredible scenes that make my heart beat faster just thinking about them now, but I’ll keep this review spoiler free. Just know that the poignance of these scenes sneak up on the audience in what are two of the most incredible cinema moments of 2018.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

When i was a kid I didn’t see the point of movies with real people in them. My younger self understood, and not altogether incorrectly, that setting films in the real world with real people was limiting to where the story could go, especially in that time before the CGI advancements we take for granted today. These “real movies” were to me then what documentaries are to most people — not my cup of tea. I was interested in cartoons alone and I let my parents know this routinely on our trips to see “real movies.” This was when Pixar was just starting to revolutionize animated films, so 2D animation commanded my attention.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a full realization of everything every version of me — from my youngest self, to my current self, to probably even my future self — could want. 

Let’s start with what we see. The animation is the wild combination of the uber-saturated 2D comic book look, with its grid-like color cells, and computer generated animation that makes worlds come alive. It’s as visually stunning and as impressive as something like Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and likewise serves to fully immerse us in this wonderful alternate version of the New York City we know. It’s made all the more miraculous by the whiplash pace at which the movie moves, and, quite simply, I’ve never seen anything like it.

But visuals can only carry a movie so far (see Kubo and the Two Strings). Into he Spider-Verse fully delivers on story, which is a tough challenge for any film, but especially a film released in this context. We’ve seen far too many iterations of Spider-Man in less than two decades and frankly the zeitgeist is a bit fatigued by the constant reboots, even with Tom Holland’s newest Peter Parker serving as a refreshingly young take. The thing is, even though Spider-Man: Homecoming, the version tied with the Avengers universe of movies, made the right choice not to not rehash Uncle Ben’s death and the power/responsibility spiel, it still can’t completely shake the cobwebs from films that came not too long before.

Spider-Verse is almost abrasively aware of its context, making it the freshest reboot to date. The film points to the things that could have made it stale and turns each one into a joke. Spider-Verse introduces us to a bunch of different Spider-People from alternate universes, and with each new introduction comes the speed-date version of their origin story because the filmmakers know that by this point we could recite Spidey’s origin story in our sleep.

Of course the main reason this Spider-Film is so fresh is because our Spider-Protagonist (I’m leaning into these Spider-Words) isn’t Peter Parker at all. He’s Miles Morales, a young Afro-Latino kid from Brooklyn bitten by a different radioactive Spider. In some ways he’s like the Peter Parker we know — Miles is incredibly smart, incredibly nerdy, has a complicated relationship with his male guardian, and struggles to find his place in life — but in other ways he’s totally different, and we mostly see that through his personality. Miles feels realistically influenced by the specific cultural amalgam of forces that have shaped his life from birth adding a special depth to the character. Actor Shamiek Moore, who provides Miles's voice, contributes to making him both likable and relatable as a kid finding himself in over his head with his new Spider-Powers, surrounded by Spider-People, and facing the crime boss Kingpin, who’s unleashed a danger that’s converged several alternate realities on our world.

And this adventure is all good fun and expertly crafted, but what comes as the most pleasant surprise is how much heart the movie possesses. First, Miles’s relationship with Peter unfolds throughout his journey to understand his new powers. Then there’s Miles's relationship with his dad, a cop who doesn’t like Spider-Man, but loves his son not knowing that they will soon be one and the same, and struggles to know how to communicate with a son more sensitive than he is. This strained relationship pushes Miles to his uncle Aaron, yet another moving and layered piece of the puzzle.

Spider-Verse is the best animated film of the year because somehow it manages, with all the cards stacked against it, to be the most original animated movie in years. Let all the kids at heart rejoice.

Vox Lux

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

I’m going to be completely honest. I don’t quite know what the meaning of Vox Lux is. There’s a lot to dissect, and a lot of questions about what it could all mean, but save for a few guesses, I really don’t know what to make of it.

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The story is kind of told in a documentary style. At its simplest it’d be some type of surrealist documentary with Willem Dafoe serving as a deep-voiced narrator, but in reality I don’t think it’s meant to really be a fake documentary at all. Dafoe’s narrator is talking directly to us more to make a point, which to underscore again, eludes me. The film begins in a surprisingly pedestrian setting. Celeste is a high school student in a Staten Island community rocked by a senseless school shooting that happens in her very own classroom. She gets shot in or near the neck and is one if the only survivors injured in the shooting. After her recovery she sings an admittedly wonderful song that her sister helps her write (all the music is penned by Sia) at a vigil. It gets filmed and goes viral, thus beginning Celeste’s career as a singer. We spend much more time than I expected with young Celeste (played by Raffey Cassidy) and we watch her as she transforms. There’s something off kilter about the new artist. She’s awkwardly lanky, a terrible dancer, and the way she speaks to her manager (Jude Law) is nothing short of odd. Celeste and her sister (played by French actor Stacy Martin) live in a global whirlwind as Celeste’s star rises.

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We then time hop to present day, where we meet Celeste, the 31-year-old superstar (played by Natalie Portman). She’s performing a huge show in her home town to an audience of 30,000 later that night. The show is the first one presenting her newest album, but before she can make it to the show, she must deal with the press who question her about a different gun rampage, this time halfway across the world on a Croatian beach. The gunmen dressed in disguises from a Celeste music video from years earlier, so there’s an eery connection to the pop star.

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So there you have it, the basic plot, but nothing really to tell you exactly what it all means. There’s a lot to ponder, the most obvious thing being how intense and random gun violence mirrors the music Celeste makes. Is the rise of exhausting pop music being linked by writer/director Brady Corbet to the increase in gun violence that makes no sense? I think that might be something. But what exactly should we make of the tumultuous relationship between Celeste and her sister later in life, and the fact that her sister wrote some of her music? Surely there’s a reason the same actor who played Young Celeste comes back after the time jump to play Celeste’s detached teenage daughter Albertine. The sister takes care of Albertine just like she looked after young Celeste, an image mirrored after the time hop. Is there something to be understood when Celeste says she likes making pop music in light of her high school trauma because she just wants to make people feel good? That’s definitely an odd way to process confronting this type of danger. I think the film not only requires, but begs to be watched a second time so the pieces of this mystery can be stitched together.

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What I do know is that I really did like the movie despite struggling to understand it. Corbet does an incredible job of keeping us on edge especially as violence continues to define Celeste’s life. That contrast between danger and the pop anthems she sings is stark. The music itself is sort of fantastic in the purpose it’s meant to serve and even as standalone music. Raffey Cassidy is so good as young Celeste, encompassing the awkward glory that is teenage life, while adding a dose of something unbalanced to the character.

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And then there’s Natalie Portman, who is a complete force of nature. Portman, the actor, gets lost in Celeste’s tantrums and roundabout logic allowing us to fully immerse the wild world Corbet creates. She’s also hilarious. Both Portman and Cassidy, as different stages of Celeste, make us laugh wildly without ever once winking to the audience with their performances. All the while, the film, which very much is in combined thanks to Corbet and Portman, makes you feel like something terrible is about to happen even as you laugh at how ridiculous everything becomes. It’s masterful filmmaking really.

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So while I can’t quite say, even after a week of contemplation, what it all means, I have a feeling that it’s something miraculous that will come to me when I least expect it.

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To leave you with one final thought: Baby...Avec...Cash

Free Solo

★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

Free Solo seems pretty straightforward. The filmmakers start by defining what free soloing is — it's the practice of climbing rock formations free of ropes and carabiners — then it introduces us to Alex Hannold, perhaps the greatest free soloer to ever live, and his plan to climb the most daunting wall in Yosemite National Park, El Capitan. It's a smart subject for National Geographic to make a documentary about. The stakes come naturally. What we get out of the project, though, is so much more incredible than what we could have hoped for at the outset.

Drama derives from the circumstance itself. Will Alex be able to climb the toughest formation ever attempted? That is the question along with the question of why. We follow Alex's preparation (with ropes) as he choreographs his route to the top. Because most of us are unfamiliar with free soloing, the filmmakers' job is to explain just how crucial each decision Alex will make on the climb is. Just hearing him explain his delicate options is enough to make your stomach turn when coupled with the knowledge that he could plummet to his death if just one move is off. On top of his prep work, Alex needs to be in top shape, the weather must cooperate, and the film crew needs to stay out of his way.

The filmmakers are climbers themselves and Alex's friends. Their anxiety compounds the overall sense of dread. While watching I assured myself that it would be unethical for this documentary to have been made if Alex died en route to the top, but still a creeping suspicion arose causing me to doubt this instinct.

Then there was Alex's girlfriend, Sanni. She's bright, doting and all around grounded by a refreshing normal-ness. Sanni is no climber, but learns the basics enough to operate the rope while Alex does some light training. The only problem is she might be the cause of Alex's recent injuries, which Alex dryly explains never happened until Sanni came into the picture.

All of these elements do add depth of the film, but it's Alex, and his enigmatic personality, that makes the film so remarkable. On a basic level, Alex displays anti-social behaviors. He feels unknowable, and our challenge is to try to understand him. Nearly every viewer will have moments when they identify with Alex, or at least understand his perspective on things, and then other times when he seems completely detached from our reality.

In many ways it makes since for Alex's personality to be abnormal. The desire to free solo is something that goes against our natural self-preserving instinct. Plus, free soloing is a daunting task he can do all by himself, which is probably a big reason he's drawn to it. Even Alex is surprised that he's made the commitment to be in a relationship. What may be shocking to hear, but still not surprising the more we come to know Alex, is that his relationship with Sanni in no way deters him from doing what he wants even with death as the looming consequence for a mistake. In documentaries like these, the temptation is to make forced parallels between the subject's personality and whatever themes the doc hopes to raise. Here, the through lines are natural.

Alex convinces us that, if anyone can, he can make it to the top of El Capitan, while the rest of the documentary plays against him, providing us with all the reasons he might fail and should reconsider the climb. And while Alex is a master at keeping his cool, he's not crippled by hubris. Throughout the film we begin to see cracks in his nonchalance, and that small thing makes him someone worth rooting for.

When you're tasked with capturing unfolding events, documentary filmmaking involves so much luck. It helped that the filmmakers were Alex's friends, but you never know if what you hope to capture will happen. You can't know if your subject's personality will be strong enough to carry the project. And even if you find their personality enthralling, there's no way to guarantee that it'll translate on camera. That's why so many documentaries are just about he past, people who have died, or did something significant long ago. There's more to control with those projects. It was risky to devote time, money and effort to this endeavor, but it clearly pays off.

As Alex attempts the climb, surpassing each difficult pitch (you'll learn some light climbing lingo) as he ascends to his 3,000-foot goal, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. Whether it makes since or not, we get tied, both mentally and emotionally, to seeing Alex reach the top of El Capitan.

The Favourite

★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

Director Yorgos Lanthimos has a way of imagining and displaying the world of chaos hidden beneath the pretenses of civility. Whether it's creating the absurd world order in The Lobster, where singles willingly go to a special hotel to find a mate lest they be turned into an animal, or it's a world where a boy has the mysterious power to rain down sickness and destruction on a man's family in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, both of those movies show a world of absurdity concealed behind rules, morals, and conventional pleasantries. While I haven't seen Lanthimos's first film, Dogtooth, based on what I know of it, this through line extends from his earliest work to The Favourite, though here Lanthimos uses the real society-driven world of 18th century England to cover the outrageousness of what's going on behind the scenes. Because a version of this world existed, The Favourite is the most straightforward film to date from a director known for his weird projects, but that doesn't make this one any less impressive.

At the outset, The Favourite plays like a Moliere-esque farce. It's outrageously fun and funny, and Lanthimos's message about the ridiculousness of this society with all its mores is clear. We follow three women, each with distinct personalities and motivations. There's the bumbling Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). She's aging, seemingly clueless about the affairs of state, whines loudly about her ailments of body and heart, and is hardly presenting herself publicly with the grace expected of her office.

Second is Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), the Queen's longtime trusted confidante. That the court and country are following a queen instead of a king, and that the person most routinely whispering in the monarch's ear is a woman, certainly would rattle the men of the government. Lady Sarah is essentially behind all the Queen's political decisions, telling her that the war with France must continue and that the Queen must announce a tax increase, all to the chagrin of Harley (Nicholas Hoult), the opposition party leader. On top of that, Sarah is Anne's brutally honest friend. She doesn't allow the Queen to wallow in sorrow when they're alone, and both dotes on and insults her.

Third is Abigail (Emma Stone), Lady Sarah's cousin. After her gambling father causes her well-to-do family to fall on hard times, Abigail travels to the palace hoping her cousin can offer her work. Matching her new station, Sarah finds Abigail a job as a servant scrubbing floors in the palace kitchen. But Abigail is crafty and exploits any opportunity to raise her station to its former glory and beyond. To do this she attempts to curry favor with Sarah and the Queen herself. She at first appears to meekly arrive at the palace hoping to be of service, but we soon learn that she's "quite capable of some unpleasantness."

All three women are vying for different things that cause them to clash throughout the course of the film. Even though what each of them wants is wholly different, the three are inextricably linked. It seems that Sarah and Abigail want the same thing, and at a base level they do want power, but for different reasons. Abigail hopes to become a Lady once again, while Sarah wants to wield political power, for the sake of England she claims. To do this, both women attempt to become the monarch's favorite, and therefore step all over each other to do so. The Queen is the only woman with power, but also the one who wants it the least. Instead, the Queen wants to be deeply and personally loved in order to fill the well of sadness that has characterized much of her life. Sarah loves the Queen, but is demanding and mean. So when Abigail comes along offering sweetness, Anne jumps at the opportunity to pit the two against each other.

This back and forth among the three characters, two of them quite crafty, is what makes the film so exciting. Sarah and Abigail attempt to outmaneuver each other politically, though Abigail only uses politics to achieve her own ends. The civility of this society is bursting at the seams as everyone in court resorts to deceit and manipulation to get what they want, not just Sarah and Abigail.

While the others hilariously squabble (Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz give awards-worthy performances), something else is brewing beneath the surface. Queen Anne's desperation for closeness comes from a much deeper well of sadness than it initially appears. It wasn't until second viewing that I realized just how full of despair Anne was throughout. Her outbursts are infantile, but they're also moving once we see how worn out she is. Olivia Colman's performance is so remarkably strong, that she should be nominated for everything possible. And she could win all those awards as well. At once she creates a character so outrageous, but so understandably grief stricken.

By the end of the film all three women end up in a place none of them ever meant to be, and the only one who really comes out on top is the man Harley.

Creed II

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

It was while watching Creed II that the problem with sports movies became clear. That's not to say all sports movies are bad. That's far from the truth. There are some remarkable sports films (and sports naturally have great stories built in) but there’s a larger host of remarkably average ones. But before I could understand what makes a sports movie less than stellar, I had to understand my particular dislike for boxing in general and separate that from the failings of Creed II.

So first off, I find boxing as a sport to be generally ridiculous. The Rocky and Creed films attempt to make the argument that boxing is innate, something that a boxer must do to survive. I refuse to believe that about any profession. The movies also argue that boxing is the most natural of sports. I just don't buy any of these assertions. Self-preservation is natural, so this brutish sport, which causes pain, and is an open invitation for physical pain’s visitation, is unnatural. The movie takes the craft of boxing, and the macho energy that surrounds it, so seriously, that it's laughable. But watching most any film requires the suspension of disbelief, so I'm willing to buy into the idea that boxing is important.

After all I do really like the first Rocky movie and the fight scenes in both Creed films are enrapturing. That's the thing about sports movies. They always end with a grand head-to-head battle, not unlike most action movies. And those final battles, which involve the sport itself, are almost always incredible, leaving audiences with a good feeling about the overall project at the end. But creating an exciting sports showdown is the easy part. Here's the key: what makes a sports movie good or bad is what happens in between the sporting contests. So while the fight scenes in Creed II are astounding, what comes between them is, quite frankly, boring.

At the beginning of the movie Michael B. Jordan's Adonis Creed fights for the heavyweight championship and wins. These movies often start with an exciting display of the sport. He’s riding on Cloud 9 until Ivan Drago and his son Viktor show up in Philadelphia and challenge the new champion to a fight. Ivan Drago is the man that killed Apollo Creed, Adonis’s father, 30 years earlier as Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) coached him from the sidelines. The prevailing opinion is that Rocky should have called the match before Ivan had the chance to kill Apollo. Well, Adonis feels the need to fight Viktor, why exactly is never made clear despite the many, many conversations meant to explain Adonis’s position on the matter. Adonis asks Rocky to coach him as always, but because of Rocky’s history with the Dragos, he can’t support the fight. Rocky and Adonis fall out, and Adonis and his girlfriend, Bianca, move out to LA to train for the fight against Viktor. (Minor spoilers ahead, although with a film so predictable they hardly feel like spoilers.) Bianca becomes pregnant, which heightens the intensity of the fight because the looming question is will Adonis put his child in the middle of a life-or-death situation like Apollo did three decades before to him? For some reason, though Adonis is incredibly skilled, the fight is supposed to be more dangerous than ever just because the father of this new boxer killed Adonis’s dad. If anything that would make me more scared for Viktor since Adonis is the one who might be out for blood.

Nothing about Adonis’s narrative is compelling. Blasts from the past and pregnancy are common plot devices that, when not used well, feel like a cheap way to introduce stakes to a run-of-the-mill story. Both are routinely employed by daytime soap operas. On top of that, the primary motivator for everything is Adonis’s pointless and unchecked machismo. But the real issue with the film is that there is a lot happening on the periphery of the primary narrative that would make for a significantly more interesting film.

I would rather see a movie about a musician who’s racing against time before she goes completely deaf, which is Bianca’s battle. She’s basically the modern-day Beethoven.

I’d also rather see the Drago story take center stage. After his crushing defeat to Rocky Balboa following his fatal match with Apollo Creed, Ivan Drago was abandoned by his country and his wife. So he took his son and trained him to become a monster of a boxer, and they decide to challenge Adonis right as he becomes the new champion all in an effort to restore honor to the Drago name. That’s some Game of Thrones-level intrigue. When Viktor is on the rise, Russian big wigs and even Drago’s ex-wife return to honor Viktor as the pride of Russia. Throughout the film we see Viktor become more and more disillusioned with his father’s need to be loved by the people who cast him out. When Viktor begins to struggle in his final match, we see his mom, and the man who becomes the stand in for Russia’s love, abandon the Dragos once again. But it’s his father who stands by him. This is all happening in a few select scenes, and it’s already miles more engaging that whatever Adonis thinks he’s dealing with. At the end of the final fight when Adonis wins (again, it’s not really a surprise) I began to feel quite emotional. But that had less to do with the fact that Adonis successfully defended his championship, and much more to do with seeing Ivan come to his son’s aid when everyone else abandoned Viktor. It was incredible yet one of the smaller pieces of the film.

So yes, when the Rocky theme music starts to blare during the final boxing match our hearts begin to pump faster. It’s exciting to see people go head to head. But those sports scenes have drama baked into them from the start. And yes, these scenes were remarkable in Creed II. But it’s everything in between that determines if a sports film is actually good, yet that’s where this movie really fails.

Widows

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

When a movie is just good, not great, there are three types of reviews to write. First, there’s the kind where one tries to prove that a movie is better than most people are saying, giving an overall positive impression. Then there's the type of review that feels impossible to write because there's nothing much to say other than the movie was solid. Last is the kind of review like this one, where a movie has remarkable reviews and the writer spends his space explaining why the movie isn't nearly as good as everyone says it is. After pointing out all the flaws, the review will make the reviewer's opinion of the movie seem wholly negative, but rest assured, I enjoyed my time watching Widows, though it was far from perfect.

(Some spoilers)

Widows tells the tale of the surviving wives and lovers of a group of thieves, all of whom die on a job stealing a couple million dollars from street king and local Chicago aldermanic candidate Jamal Manning (Bryan Tyree Henry). Manning shakes down Veronica (Viola Davis), wife of the crew's leader, pressuring her to come up with the $2 million to pay him back within two months. Luckily her husband (Liam Neeson) leaves her a book with the plans for his next job to steal $5 million. Instead of selling the book for money, Veronica decides to assemble the three other widows to carry out the job themselves.

Only two of the three widows show up to the first rendezvous. There's Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), a mother who's lost her business since her husband's death. Then there's Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a statuesque Polish woman who seems quite dense at first, but ends up being just as much of an asset to the team as Veronica, the ringleader. Debicki steals the show as the only character with a sense of humor and the richest backstory. As an actor Debicki is often underutilized, so perhaps this will be the project to change all that.

The first problem with Widows is that it's shockingly slow. For a heist movie with death as the consequence for not pulling the heist off, the preparation for the heist marches forward at a snail's pace. Sure the developments are meant to be quiet as the women are hoping to fly under the radar, but there's meaningful quietness, and there's slog. This film veers towards the latter.

Beyond that, a lot about the film just doesn't work. The beauty of most heist films is that they're fairly straight forward. Of course there are twists and setbacks to be expected (unless the movie is Ocean's 8), but rarely do these films attempt to touch on so many topics. Widows hopes to offer smart commentary about political corruption, racial politics, police brutality, grief, and loneliness. It's a tall order that explains the long run time, yet with all of that, there's the overarching feeling that not much happens until the final 15-20 minutes. The issue is that none of these things feel central to plot and the screenplay (co-written by the book's author Gillian Flynn and director Steve McQueen) doesn't dive deeply enough into any of these other themes for them to really register. Is this a plot-driven movie or a character study? While there's an attempt at both (and both can happen at once; see Hell or High Water), Widows succeeds at neither.

Then there were other things about the plot that simply made no sense, chief among them being Belle's (Cynthia Erivo) involvement in the heist. Belle is introduced in a way that's totally disconnected from our primary three widows and their heist. To get to know Belle we have to take significant pauses from the action moving the plot forward to learn about her backstory. All for her to suddenly join the crew without much need of convincing. Yes, we see she's strapped for cash, but to take a leap from doing anything she can to make an honest buck to committing to criminal activity with no skin in the game is a shallow development.

Next up, the weak relationship between Veronica and Alice. It's supposed to be the central relationship, which I didn't know until it was played up in the final scene, but there's so much going on in the movie that their growth as friends hardly registers. The final scene feels out of place because we don't know we're supposed to care about the two of them like that.

Finally, there's the poor casting of Liam Neeson. Neeson is a top-tier actor and quite famous, which is the problem. Your immediate question after he dies in the first 10 minutes is, "Why would they cast someone like him to die so early on?" There are more issues that would require bigger spoilers, and I haven't even touched Colin Farrell's or Daniel Kaluuya's characters, but I think the point has been made. Widows is enjoyable enough and features some good performances, but it's unbalanced and muddled. Good but not great.

Sidenote: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the opening kiss. Now I'm no expert, but what was that? Liam Neeson practically sucked Davis's face off. It was a disturbingly comical opening.

Bohemian Rhapsody

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

The final 20 minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody are among the very best minutes I've spent watching a movie over the past year. The scene is Queen's 1985 set on the stage at Live Aid, a global concert watched by one billion people across the world. The band played, to a packed outdoor audience, some of their greatest hits, and in the film we watch as Rami Malek's committed portrayal of frontman Freddie Mercury marches across the stage belting out the group's infectious music. 

The scene is lifted by bits of the story that led up to this moment. The band was reuniting. Mortality loomed as Mercury learned that he had contracted AIDS. Mercury's best friend, Mary (Lucy Boynton), watched from the side as their friendship was freshly reconciled. Mercury had struggled with his voice before the concert, but belted effortlessly once he hit the stage. But mostly the success of the scene has nothing to do with any that. It's that the scene itself, independent of the two hours that preceded it, is magnificently captured and executed. It was an utterly inspired decision to allow six to seven songs play out back to back to back, making the sequence a rapturously pleasing experience. By time they started singing "We Are the Champions," along with the entire crowd, I could barely contain my emotions.

And while this remarkable ending elevates the movie, it really highlights just how disappointing everything that comes before this scene is. It's the same old problem, honestly. Once again a sprawling biopic is hampered by the ills that make biopics among the worst genres of film. Bohemian Rhapsody is weighed down by trying to capture so many events and themes over such a long period of time that what we end with is less of a movie with a clear narrative structure, and more of a montage of events glued together. It would be better for these movies to focus on a single event or period of time. So rarely does the totality of a life end up with neat and meaningful messages. This is why so much about these movies is untrue. (In real life Freddie Mercury didn't learn he had AIDS until two years after the Live Aid concert, but it was moved up to add weight to the final scene.) What's worse is that instead of leaning into the messiness of life, these films, often approved by the subject, in this case the remaining members of the band, end up spreading a rose-colored, lukewarm version of history.

The first 30 to 45 minutes feel like a series of montages with a few scenes in between. Little attention is paid to the music. Instead, Queen's songs are painfully used as a background soundtrack to showcase montages that illustrate the passage of time. It's not until much later in the movie (around the introduction of "We Will Rock You") that the music gets any true attention beyond the scene recounting the creation and recording of the titular song. If we learned anything from A Star is Born it's that letting a musical performance play out as a scene is so very worth it. If it's done well and the music is good, people won't get bored.

Beyond the music montages, the film misses the mark emotionally. With all the things that they manipulated to create a cohesive story, how Mercury met the band and became their lead singer, how he fired their longtime manager, how Freddie met Jim Hutton, when he learned he had AIDS, none of it amounts to a more interesting story. Is it problematic that these movies manipulate so many things to tell a more cohesive story, while also relying on the "truthfulness" of the story to overwhelm our emotions? 

The most perplexing thing, though, may be how everyone in the film, besides Freddie, is either good or evil. There are a couple villains in this story that are simply bad in a Don Jon sort of way. Mike Meyers as record producer Ray Foster, who refused to allow "Bohemian Rhapsody" to be the band's single, is one of them. The ultimate example, though, is Freddie's partner Paul, who is possessive and manipulative, and effectively blamed for every wrong path Mercury ever ventured down.

The cast does a good job with what they're given. Rami Malek is convincing and wholly devoted to his character. If the film were better, he might even be at the center of awards-season conversations. So there's really only the writers and directors to blame for creating yet another biopic that attempts to do so much, but accomplishes so little. But at least we have those final 20 minutes.

Suspiria

★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 5/10

Every feeling felt while watching a movie falls into one of two categories. First, there are the kind of feelings that comes from and are felt within the context of the film. When you feel fear or sadness deriving from the plot or the overall vibe of the movie, it is internal, meaning the feeling originates within the confines of a story that has managed to suck you in. Movies like It and Hereditary aren't scary because of jump scares, but because of a building sense of imbalance that leads to a true sense of dread. That's the positive side. With the second, more negative category, the feelings are experienced externally. Instead of sucking you into the movie, you get pushed out and begin to think about how you feel as an outsider looking in on the movie. Among this category of feelings is disgust. Unlike fear or terror, disgust causes you to think about the filmmakers, and question what they were thinking. They are thoughts independent from the story unfolding on the screen.

Suspiria can elicit feelings that fit into both categories. From a brief survey of critic reviews, many felt either only category one feelings or category two, but there is a sizable contingent that fits in the middle having felt both. I fall on the negative side of that middle ground.

Suspiria is a loose remake of a horror film from 1977 of the same name. Directed by Dario Argento, it was critically acclaimed for its inventiveness. I watched the original in theaters three days before seeing this remake, and in a modern light the first one is, in many ways, comical. The dubbed dialogue is nearly unbearable, the blood, liberally used, is a ridiculous lipstick red, and the acting is a far cry from naturalism. Still that first movie has several things going for it. First, visually the film is remarkable. The direction is clear and the lighting is genius. Second, there's a sense of a growing mystery that eventually unveils something sinister. We wonder what's going on within the walls of this prestigious school of dance more and more as things grow continually out of hand. And finally, despite the effects looking dated and a soundtrack that goes overboard every now and then, I was genuinely shivering from the chills running through my entire body during the film's penultimate scene. That terror that the 1977 Suspiria conjures up is a category one feeling, and I felt it in a very visceral way.

2018's Suspiria had some of the initial plot trappings of that first film, but is altogether different. Writer David Kajganich and director Luca Guadagnino create a wholly different narrative, which is welcome, but where it goes, after two and half hours, is a significantly less remarkable place than the conclusion of Argento's film. But as I mentioned, there were some of those positive category one feelings here. In this updated version of Suspiria, the dance school isn't just a location, it's much more central to the plot. And that means we see a lot more dancing, something that first film was in desperate need of. The dance sequences are absolutely mesmerizing. They suck you into the film and give the sense that something significant is happening. There's an early scene where Susie Bannion (played by Dakota Johnson) attempts to perform a principal dance part for the first time. It’s impossible to look away from the scene. That sense of dread from films like Hereditary is present in these moments. Dakota Johnson, as the Ohio dancer who comes to Berlin to audition for a spot in the dance school of her dreams, and Tilda Swinton, as the lead dance instructor at the school, elevate the material by putting their complete faith in Guadagnino, and for good reason. His work is incredible. My personal favorite is I Am Love, a nearly perfect movie in which Swinton stars. And Guadagnino led both leading ladies in A Bigger Splash, which was also good. Johnson's and Swinton's devotion is not unlike Jennifer Lawrence's devotion to Darron Arronofsky in last year's supremely pretentious mother!, and, like with Lawrence, there's something to be admired about that kind of dedication, but it doesn't always pay off.

The movie is about a coven of witches that runs a dance school. Whereas the fact that the women who run the school are witches was the big reveal in the original, here it's mentioned in the first scene, which was the first clue that this wouldn't be a simple remake. Susie takes the place of Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) who goes missing after going mad upon the discovery that her teachers were witches and that they wanted to use her as part of their plan. Her psychotherapist, an actor (it’s actually Swinton) clearly in old-man makeup, tries to help Patricia’s school friend Sara (Mia Goth) find out what's wrong with the place. This psychotherapist's story becomes a grand distraction masquerading as emotional depth throughout the entire film. He helps tie the story to Germany's political unrest and fallout in the '70s, which unfolds in the backdrop of our primary story. Whatever the attempt is to make a parallel with those historical events, it falls ambitiously flat. That's the thing; it's an impressively ambitious film that simply doesn't work.

Moved on a spiritual level by Susie's emotive audition, Miss Blanc (Swinton) hopes Susie will be not only a replacement for Patricia, but also the one they need to complete their mission, a dance that will fulfill some sort of ceremony to revive Miss Markos, the hidden head witch after whom the school is named. Sara carries Patricia's suspicion's and involves Jozef, the psychotherapist, Miss Blanc trains Susie in dance to prepare her for the ceremony while having her own doubts about Miss Markos, and Susie discovers something sinister within herself.

I'm 100 percent here for wild, fantastical tales. I believe in pushing the bounds of what film, particularly films involving Hollywood talents and shown to American audiences, can be. But the overwhelming issue with the film is one of coherence. It's not even that things don't make sense linearly, but it all feels hobbled together. This version's penultimate scene is loaded with grotesque, senseless violence, and gore. It's somewhat shocking that after everything, this is where we end up. It completely took me out of the film, leading me to my category two feelings.

The feelings I experienced during Suspiria that fall in category two are disgust and impatience, and they were particularly present in that culminating scene. Both of these feelings are the type that happen outside of the film from a bird's-eye view. To be fair, it's not the most disgusted I've been during a film. That award goes to The Neon Demon, a travesty of a film that was gratuitously grotesque. Here, I at least sensed the thoughtfulness behind the choices that ended up being upsetting. There does seem to be some confusion where artists think grotesque-ness will guarantee that sense of dread or horror of which I spoke earlier. It does not. And as it became clearer that the film's crescendo would be a let down, impatience began to take hold. It's the type of impatience where things meant to be disturbing become increasingly comical, but the comedy is detached from the film itself.

So what precisely brought on these unwanted category two feelings? Firstly, the film, with all its sophisticated plot updates and gorgeous cinematography, winds up being significantly less satisfying than the original. There's an attempt to explore some psychosexual undercurrents that feel unresolved and pointless. The political backdrop feels wasted and unnecessary, and the added subplots are drawn out and tedious. Ultimately, though the movie is never boring, it feels as if it's being stretched until Guadagnino can find the point he’s trying to make, but within the two and a half hours he never manages to.

Beautiful Boy

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

There's something miraculous about experiencing a wealth of emotion while watching a movie. Film has the power to completely overwhelm your senses and grab ahold of your heart. There is, of course, a wrong way to do it, and that's when gross sentimentality takes over. Apparently that's the problem with the movie Life Itself from earlier this year, brought to you by the creator of This is Us.  But when it's done right, you feel the weight of boundless emotions in all their messiness, just like how they hit you in life, but in a controlled environment. The problem with emotional people is that they're so consumed by every little emotion they experience, when in most cases they should acknowledge that what they're feeling is hardly reasonable, and then move on. These are often the people who then refuse to see really good films (or other forms of emotional art) that release a less wishy-washy emotion in an environment that allows you to contemplate them in a more meaningful way. It’s a better way.

All that preamble is to say that Beautiful Boy unearthed a well of emotion in me that illuminates things about my own life. I'm not close to anyone who deals with the kind of drug addiction that Nic (Timothée Chalamet) deals with in this film based on a true story, but the pain Nic feels and that he causes his family is so visceral that it managed to hit me.

The film isn't perfect, though. If I had one decision concerning how to make it better, it would be to completely cut the last third. I understand that the movie is based on a pair of books, which are first-hand accounts of true events, but the last third disrupts the narrative thread. Chalamet's Nic moves from being a young victim of addiction and youthful ignorance towards just being an exhausting adult who chooses to cause people pain. Yes, the underlying addiction is the same, but the character feels less complicated and we feel less sympathy as we lose patience with Nic's cycle of addiction and rehabilitation. That sympathy feels necessary when telling the first, larger part of the story. Without giving away spoilers, I would cut the movie after the car scene with Maura Teirney (who plays Nic's stepmother. Though it's a small role, she makes her presence known).

The entire film feels in danger of becoming manipulatively sentimental. Some of the music choices are a bit much. Thankfully director Felix Van Groeningen manages to keep it from falling over the edge, and instead weaves together a remarkable story about the realities of drug dependence. But beyond that, the story is about the hopes we have for other people, disappointment, and how to love is often, in large part, to experience pain.

This is the time to talk about Steve Carrel. His portrayal of a proud father whose heart gets broken by watching his son consistently succumb to his addiction to crystal meth is nothing short of astounding. He's not just a sad dad, or even a disappointed dad. He's often a bad father, because his inability to help his son consistently drives him to intense anger. While Nic is on the seesaw of rehabilitation and falling prey to the demons of addiction, David is going back and forth between desperate anger and desperate understanding. Both men are unreliable.

And when this father-son relationship is at the center of the film, which it is for the first two-thirds, the film uncovers something so true. Father-son relationships on screen have always hit me particularly hard, but this one is perhaps the most affecting. David has all these plans and dreams for his son. He's his son's biggest champion and loves him more than everything, but he struggles when Nic fails to reach the goals David's set for him. When confronted with his son's addiction, David falls into the trap of thinking about the situation as his own to fix and his own to bear. He tells Nic, "This is not who we are," placing victimhood upon himself. And while he is a victim in the situation, the last thing someone who's truly in the middle of dealing with any issue needs to hear is how hard it is for someone watching from the sideline. The film uncovers two things. From David's perspective, loving anyone is bound to lead to disappointment because people make their own decisions. There's no way for love, despite all the hearts and roses, to not lead to hurt. In fact, it's because of this intense magnificence that love lends itself to the deepest pain we can feel. And from Nic's perspective, every child, whether it's something as serious as drug addiction or not, has the creeping suspicion that they'll disappoint their parents. It's essentially impossible not to, and it's because of this same love. Love leads to hope, which more often than not leads to broken ideas of what should be. So is it better to have love and lost than to not love at all? Or perhaps the question this film asks is if it's better to love while knowing the pain it will bring, or to just skip it altogether. I honestly don't know the answer.

In the last third, Nic and David's relationship becomes less central although it's always what we return to. Yet because we step away from it one too many times, the film misses its opportunity to be absolutely perfect.

First Man

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

There's a thing that singers with good voices do when they're trying to be impressive. They'll pull out all the stops for the audience and practically scream "Listen up, I am good." I recently saw a clip of a vocalist in a church singing a song that anyone marginally familiar with gospel music will recognize. His voice was incredible. He hit remarkable highs, perfect lows, and he packed the song with runs top to bottom. The only problem is the song was lost in the musical mayhem, and at the end of the clip I was left with no lasting feelings. Yes, I was aware that this random guy on the internet could sing, but I'd forgotten about him and his rendition of the song until this moment as I type this paragraph.

While First Man, half Neil Armstrong biopic, half something else, certainly has less self-aggrandizing intentions, the feeling I'm left with is the same.

The stops pulled out for the film are obviously different from the gospel vocalist. Here, we are called to marvel at and be moved by a host of different things that end up not being particularly effective in my view (and its worth noting that my view is not widely shared by critics). Damien Chazelle shows us his directorial choices right from the start. Half the time he films space exploration from within the cockpit exposing us to wild and rocky ride from the claustrophobic point of view of astronaut. It's a fine choice. Other times he attempts to show the vast grandeur of space, the kind of new frontier glory sought by explorers of old. Perhaps it's a cynical view, but nothing about the images are particularly spectacular (until we actually get to the moon). In fact, despite a soundtrack of grandiose classical music that accompanies these space scenes, the visuals feel familiar, stale, and not nearly as fresh as they did in Gravity (2013) or Interstellar (2014).

The film is about so much that it's almost about nothing. It's not about the race against the Russians to the moon, nor is it really about the importance or dangers of space exploration. Was it an introspective look at the toll traveling into the unknown can take on a family, knowing that the glory of reaching this new frontier could very well mean death? Maybe, but not enough time was spent really focusing in on the family dynamics to make it of note. Claire Foy turns in a strong performance as Neil's wife Janet, but the scenes that address her duress are few and far between. If First Man is meant to be a character study, it's a tepid attempt at one with not enough time paid to any character, besides Neil, who eventually comes off as insufferable.

The thing that felt most like a misplaced vocal run that contributed to the lost soul of the film is the use of the death of the Armstrong's first child, a daughter named Karen. It comes off as manipulatively sentimental because it's only brought up a few times in a very long movie, during moments where the drama is meant to be heightened. It feels like an excuse to involve our emotions even though it's never clearly tied to the events at hand.

Not everything is off about the film. I think the filmmakers wanted to make something great, and perhaps they did and I'm missing it. I will concede that there are sparks of inspired direction from Chazelle. His talent is without question and he makes some beautiful choices. If you have the option to see the film in IMAX, you should. The moon landing is spectacularly shot and remarkably captivating as it takes up the IMAX screen from floor to ceiling. And the performances across the board are good. The script, on the other hand could use some work. Like his unfortunate film from last year, The Post, Josh Singer's script reeks of a cheap nostalgia. Additionally, it lacks focus, a driving narrative, and makes one of the, if not the, most momentous occasions in the history of world exhausting.

A Star is Born

★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

It's in the first 45 minutes that A Star is Born's fate is sealed. With large yet grounded music festival scenes, intimate peaks into mundane lower-middle-class life, and folk music that sounds and feels so personal, the film has the power to captivatingly connect with your soul.

Ally (Lady Gaga) lives with her dad and works in a restaurant. Jack (Bradley Cooper) is an alcoholic folk/rock music star touring on the festival circuit. When he meets Ally she's performing a dramatic rendition of "La Vie En Rose" at a bar Jack happens to drop by after his set. It's in this scene that you begin to see Cooper's remarkable talent as a director. He films Gaga's small bar performance like a personal cabaret through the eyes of a mesmerized, if not tipsy, Jack. He doesn't have to say she's captured his heart. We begin to see it in the subtle, yet clear choices our director has made. Directorial choices can so quickly veer into cliche and manipulation, and this is the temptation for the whole first act. With a story like this — a famous guy meets a hum-drum girl full of talent she's too afraid to believe in, then he pushes her to reach her full potential — it's easy for things to grow stale. It's a type of story that's been told so many times before. In fact, this is the fourth version of A Star is Born with the first dating back to 1937. I was less than excited for the film in the lead up to its release because I had doubts that anyone, especially an actor-turned-new-director, could resist falling into the trap of sentimentality.

What makes the first 45 minutes so wondrous is the way in which it convinces you, despite all reasonable doubt, that at the heart of this story is something very true. Ally's doubt in her ability, Jack's almost immediate infatuation with her, Ally's struggle to build the courage to take a chance and trust Jack, and Jack's belief that she is beyond ordinary — all these things feel real. So when that emotionally ascendent story is coupled with joyful scenes of music making, the film becomes an unstoppable force. You ride a wave of uncertain elevation built upon a well-crafted script and performances rooted in reality.

The next part of the movie is less rapturous as scenes move mostly indoors, the music is less personal as Ally ventures into pop, and Ally and Jack hit bumpy patches on relationship road. It's meant to be in stark contrast to the rising tide of excitement in the film's beginning. Something is lost, but it's by design. What carries this subdued larger portion of the movie are the performances.

It's clear that Bradley Cooper has put endless hours of thought into making this film. Beyond his achievements as the director, he's dug deeply within himself to pull out a character so off balance. He almost always feels like he's teetering on the edge as he fails to fully deal with his addictions. Even as his relationship, built solidly on love, continues to grow, this man cannot shake his demons.

And we've all known about Lady Gaga's indisputable musical talents. Even her acting chops were vindicated with her Golden Globe win for her role in American Horror Story, but I don't think anyone could have anticipated the emotional space she would inhabit for this film. Not a single word or action from Ally feels forced or unnatural. Gaga credits Cooper for really pushing her performance and clearly the push paid off. Without a doubt, she's the current front runner to win all the lead actress awards. In many ways Gaga's entrance into the pop culture lexicon was shrouded in mystery. Donning over-the-top costumes, wigs, and makeup for the first several years of her prominence, I'm not sure I would have even noticed her walking down the street in plain clothes. That first version of Gaga was a treat as well, but here is something wholly different and more relatable, adding to the surprise of her performance.

And to mention her voice is to belabor a point with which we're well aware. She sounds beyond incredible, really raising the excitement and magic of the film's first 45. And where Gaga's acting performance is most surprising, perhaps Cooper's voice is what surprises the most on his end. His low, rich tone grounds the music in something visceral.

At the end of the day it all comes down to if you believe Jack and Ally truly love each other. And while the story of a woman not believing she's beautiful until a man comes along might initially feel boring and tired, it's a story that rings true if we can buy into this idea that two random people can fall in love. By the movie's end, despite the ups and downs of their relationship, there is no doubt.

Venom

​★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ 3/10

With a movie like this you have start with the conclusion. Venom isn't okay. It isn't even just bad. And it's certainly not, despite what some are trying to make of it, an example of good intentions gone wrong. The movie is a travesty through and through. And there's no mystery as to why it's a mess. Everything about Venom, save for the visual effects and a genuinely thrilling motorcycle chase, is worth avoiding.

Early critics of the film got it right in appraising it as a movie out of its time. From the moment the film begins, it feels like the kind of story that would have gotten the green light in the year 2000 before the first X-Men and Spider-man movies revitalized the comic book genre, catapulting Marvel to the juggernaut it is today. That this film is a 2018 Marvel (although it's in association with the entertainment company since the movie was produced by Sony, not Disney) offering makes it sting that much more. Venom has reached Catwoman (2004) depths, the film that gathered up four Razzies, Hollywood’s most embarrassing honor. 

But what Catwoman had that Venom doesn't was a type of terribleness that makes it endlessly re-watchable. In fact, I recently re-watched it and though it remains a piping hot mess, the plot, the CGI, the script, and the basketball scene are so laughably ridiculous, it's genuinely fun. And Halle Berry charismatically fumbled through this post-Oscar punishment.

Venom has none of that. It's easy to lose count of the amount of times director Ruben Fleischer zooms into an actor's face to deliver ridiculous one-liners that are neither funny nor clever. Fleischer's best film is 2009's Zombieland, which has a cult classic quality. It marries disturbing post-mortem images with the charm of characters who've surprisingly held on to their humor during a near apocalypse. It's clear about one-third of the way through Venom that Fleischer hopes to strike this balance again, but it's not convincingly replicated here. Fleischer essentially created a movie that's supposed to be a supernatural buddy cop film. After the alien slime (called Venom) attaches itself to Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock, there's a war inside Brock's head. Brock begins to hear a low, grovely voice begging Brock to feed him and bite people's heads off. Venom's candid talk of violence is supposed to be both funny and, to hear Hardy talk about it, a serious attempt to explore the battling voices inside one's head. It's neither of those things, making the central relationship, between human host and alien parasite, ineffective. And the relationship is indicative of the problem with the whole movie. The outing is never funny and never meaningful or unsettling, all while Fleischer hobbles together a movie that's trying to be all those things.

Tone notwithstanding, I've never experienced a movie that's so simple yet makes no sense. (Spoilers ahead, but really don't waste your money) In essence the gooey alien parasites (called symbiotes) come to Earth in order to take over the planet and feed on the large native population. They can't survive alone on our planet so they need human host bodies to overtake and control. It's not a bad science fiction premise. Venom tells Brock, who's never fully overtaken, of the alien plan, and assures him that if he cooperates he'll be spared. Yet after an hour of watching Venom wreak havoc across San Francisco to preserve his host and reach his alien leader, Venom suddenly decides he likes Earth and wants it to survive despite his hunger for living flesh. What!?!? Literally when did this change of heart happen and how so suddenly? Venom assures Brock that his time conjoined with his host led to this change. It's such a frustratingly vapid plot move that really captures the silliness of the entire enterprise.

How a script so obviously contrived could garner such talented actors speaks to the power of studios, comic book films, and the dollar. Riz Ahmed, Tom Hardy, and Jenny Slate are talented actors with interesting careers stacked with some fascinating roles. How they landed here is anyone’s guess, but for younger actors like Slate and Ahmed it makes more sense as a role like this could really raise their profile. Hardy has less of an excuse, and his description of the role as a sort of modern Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde tale feels like a reach. Michelle Williams’ presence is so unfortunate, being that she’s one the finest actors in Hollywood, that you simply feel bad seeing her here.

I would make a case for how this movie illustrates just how far comic book movies have come, which would be a true assertion, but the fact remains that this movie would be a failure even if under the glow of the low standards for comic book movies before 2008.

Bad Times at the El Royale

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

It's harder to review a movie wherein so much unfolds, because as the writer you want to talk about the plot points that make the film a success or failure. But the charge and challenge given to the reviewer is to attempt to write spoiler-free critiques. To make matters more difficult in this particular case, the trailer and TV spots for Bad Times at the El Royale hardly give the slightest indication of what the film is about. 

So writing this review will be a test, but perhaps it's worth firstly mentioning that at the heart of what makes El Royale so good is that fact — that so much happens. In recent history, nothing happens in a far too many film and TV projects. Especially with television, where stories are often drawn out beyond what's necessary, showrunners have chosen to focus on atmospheric details and pointless dialogue, instead of driving the story forward. A lot of it has to do with the success of Mad Men (one of my favorites), a show that may give the appearance that nothing much is happening on the surface, but is actually masterfully imbued with momentum in every episode. All that is to say that when a story comes along with clear plot developments, it's kind of nice to ride the wave of clues that lead us to the thrilling conclusion.

And though we're regularly given new bits of information, nothing about the movie is predictable.

The El Royale is a declining, late-'60s, tourist hotel split in two. One half of the property (and half of the hotel's rooms) is on the Nevada side of the border, while the other half is on the California side. The hotel is empty, save for Miles the bellhop, bar tender, and everything else. Four travelers arrive at the hotel around the same time: an insufferable vacuum salesman (John Hamm), a black singer traveling for a gig (Broadway's Cynthia Erivo), a dopey old priest (Jeff Bridges), and a stylish young woman with an irreverent attitude (Dakota Johnson). There's tension in the air from the start between all the hotel's new residents as they check in and settle in. The biggest problem the movie has is that this early part is slow. Director Drew Goddard puts forth every effort to drum up the suspense, but initially the film feels tedious.

The filmmakers break the movie up into chapters, the first ones exploring the goings on in each individual's room. As we take a peak into the rooms during the night, we get to see that every resident has a story. They are stories so compelling that each one could be its own film. We learn that the hotel is not what it seems, but a sordid place where people with secrets go to hide. As it turns out, just about each of the El Royale's new tenants has a secret, and unbeknownst to them, those secrets will become intertwined.

The way the stories are all woven together is masterful. El Royale feels like a Tarantino film, most notably his latest, The Hateful 8, where a motley crew of mostly strangers end up huddled together in a lodge as they wait for a storm to pass. But this weaving is only the beginning. Where the story will go is so impossible to guess. The audience is at Goddard's will, less able to regulate our own heartbeats with each passing moment. The film builds to an ultimate crescendo that's both wildly exciting and surprisingly moving, making El Royale on of the best movies of the year so far.

Beyond the director, the casting director deserves a lot of credit. Dakota Johnson has found a supporting role in which to truly relish, Bridges believably goes from one facade to another, and Hamm embodies the off-kilter spirit of the film and the times. 

But there are three performances that really elevate the film. First is Chris Hemsworth. In an effort to not spill the beans, I'll simply say that he's simply phenomenal in the role he's given and is very much responsible for keeping the audience off balance in the later part of the film. Then there's Cynthia Erivo. She was obviously chosen for her singing voice, which she uses spectacularly throughout the film, but she also turns in an incredible acting performance, adding emotional weight to the violence at film's end. Last, there's relative newcomer Lewis Pullman who plays Miles the bellhop. He feels like an inconsequential pawn, the kind of character you're certain will die first, but even Miles has secrets, more than anyone would imagine.

Though most of the El Royale's residents could be classified as objectively bad people, nearly each one is on a search for redemption. The question is who will find it.

Nappily Ever After

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

The thing about fiction storytelling is that a measure of subtlety is required. Unlike a documentary or a nonfiction book, where it's expected to simply be told about something in plain terms, fictional narratives should take us on a journey. In the best fictional films and books, there's something to be discovered. Storytelling only becomes more difficult with film, which engages even more of our senses.

The problem with Nappily Ever After is that  despite its interesting and important messages about a black woman's hair journey and obsession with physical appearance, nothing about it is subtle. And nothing is surprising outside of the fact that a movie about the subject was made. It's exciting to see this conversation, one had in the black American community for a long long time, put into a film. The attempt, though, doesn't quite payoff.

Violet Jones (Sanaa Lathan) is a successful, attractive public relations star at her firm. She knows how to build a short and to-the-point narrative to make women feel they need to buy whatever she's selling. She's able to prey on the insecurities of women because they're ones she's battled her entire life. Violet is interesting because in some ways she's more self aware than we'd guess. Since she was a kid, her mom (Lynn Whitfield) would take a hot comb from the stove and use it to straighten her hair, a common experience for black girls for decades leading up to probably the early 2000s. Despite those insecurities, Violet is very aware that straight hair equals beauty, style, and even success, which is why she obsesses over it so much.

The movie is broken up into chapters throughout, documenting her hair journey— chapters like "Weave" and "Blonde" to mirror whatever Violet's current hair reality is. (Small Spoilers) Her life goes awry when her soon-to-be doctor of a boyfriend doesn't propose on the day she expects. The man is everything Violet, and perhaps more importantly her mom, has dreamed of and worked for. The lack of a diamond leads to the end of the relationship, dating mishaps, and eventually a shaved head as the result of a moment of desperation. Violet then embarks on a journey in her new life without the security blanket that is her hair.

I'm not sure how one would go about presenting the topic of black hair, and all the societal baggage that comes with it, in a more subtle way. So I understand why the film shakes out the way it does. The film hints at things beyond hair, like Violet's high heels, that she clings to to reach her desired level of success and beauty in the eyes of men, but hair is the main focus and it's so specific that a more artful, subtle message seems hard to come by. It of course doesn't help that she ends up being romantically interested in a guy who creates natural hair products or that her campaigns for her company suddenly change tone with no regard for the overall purpose of PR, which is to get people to buy things by any means necessary. It's always comical when a movie pretends like capitalist commerce and ethics go hand-in-hand without a struggle. The weight of America's brief history strongly suggests otherwise.

I don't doubt that the film will be impactful. It's easy to watch, mildly funny (mostly thanks to Whitfield's dramatics), and Lathan is a charismatic lead. Yet with all that, the film altogether watches like a think piece about natural hair instead of a narrative film with enough intrigue to really draw in the audience.

A Simple Favor

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

I can only imagine how impossible it was to decide on a marketing strategy for A Simple Favor. Wrapped up in this one movie are several different genres. They chose to build the trailer by showing off the more mysterious elements if the film, playing it as a suspense thriller, which it is. But they could have gone in another direction really pushing the "From the director that brought you Bridesmaids" angle (Paul Feig directs) because the film is actually very funny, though not in quite the same way. This might have been an easier sell, but it would've left audiences unsatisfied, because it's not a comedy first and foremost. They also could have marketed the steamier moments, because there are plenty of those.

But just how to market the film was the least of Feig's worries. When you're deep in the trenches of filmmaking the concern becomes how to balance everything without it toppling over. And while there are moments in the film that feel as if the whole enterprise is teetering on the edge of reason, Feig and his team find a way to make all the elements work.

It's precisely because there's so much more there than I thought that I loved the movie so much. Not having read the book, I was pleasantly surprised by how funny, thanks to a supporting cast of comedians and comedic actors, intense, and all-around wild the movie turns out to be.

It's important to mention here that Blake Lively is an absolute treasure. In this film she's dripping with punk glamour, championing, as she does in real life, the woman's tuxedo and pants suit. She plays Emily, a working Connecticut mother with a high-profile fashion PR job in New York City. She's rough around the edges, yet she projects an air of complete control. When Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) meets her, Emily drops curse words on her son like its nothing, while he bad mouths back. Emily's son is begging for a play date with Stephanie's son, so Emily relents inviting both mother and child to her lavish home for games and a "real drink." 

Kendrick's Stephanie seems to be the complete opposite of Emily. She's a widowed stay-at-home mom, and an overachiever who unwittingly shows up all the other classroom parents by going above and beyond. She's preppy, prudish, and puts those characteristics on full display in her mommy vlog.

After the first play date Emily and Stephanie hit it off and become regular old drinking buddies, regular old friends— the kind that share intimate parts of their lives. Emily makes Stephanie look like a lifeless shell of a woman when stacked against the crazy art on display in Emily’s home, the couture clothes Emily wears, and tales of Emily's and her husband, Sean's (Henry Golding), intense relationship decisions. But we learn that Stephanie wasn't always Ms. Goodie Two Shoes. In fact the movie ventures into some twisted territory when the moms start swapping stories and secrets from the past. And we soon learn that Emily hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of the stories she could tell.

But she doesn't get the chance to tell them because she suddenly vanishes without a trace. Emily had asked Stephanie to pick up her son from school while she put out a fire and work and while her husband was tending to his sick mother overseas. Three days pass without a word from Emily, who no one seems to be able to pin down with any certainty. The police get involved and what happens next is a dizzying road of twists and turns.

Feig does a good job of keeping us engaged throughout. His sort of awkward-interaction comedy keeps the film light on its feet, even while diving into more dangerous territory. There are perhaps one too many twists, and there's a feeling that the film is about to lose itself in the murky waters of the timeline, but Feig always snaps it back.

One of the reasons this movie is so good is because, despite balancing so many genres and plots turns, the tone of the film never really changes. It's frantic yet engagingly and unendingly lush. It's a story about beautiful rich people doing bad things and it oozes a sort sleazy, sexy stylishness that’s infused in every frame.

Blake Lively is the cornerstone on which the film is built. Without her convincing betrayal of forbidden motherhood, the movie would crumble. Additionally Anna Kendrick holds her end of the bargain well as the film's true star. Sure, she's tackling her normal awkward, bright-eyed routine that made her famous, but she shows her range when we start to see Stephanie's layers peel back bit by bit.

And on top of fantastical performances to match this outrageous film, at the end of the day Paul Feig crafts a film that is genuinely enjoyable. Even if some things are implausible, the film never once stops being a ball of fun. Like the moms who watch Stephanie's vlog to get updates on Emily's disappearance, Feig draws us in until we're glued to the silver screen begging for any new revelation that might shed light on why Emily disappeared and what Stephanie plans to do about it.

Papillon

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

Charlie Hunnam is drawn to a certain type of film as an actor. Over the last few years since ending his time on FX's Sons of Anarchy, his film projects have all been sprawling epics, or at least they attempted to be (looking at you King Arthur). These projects, The Lost City of Z and this film, Papillon, though, aren't just set in a different time period, but feel like films from an earlier era. They're the kinds of movies that aren't really made anymore, and, at very least, for that reason they are welcome.

Papillon is based on a true story and is a remake of a 1973 movie written by Dalton Trumbo of the same name. Steve McQueen played the real life title character back then. Papillon (Hunnam) is a French safe cracker who's been framed for murder and sent to the harsh prison Camp de la Transportation on a French colony in South America to serve his life sentence. Along the way he meets Louis Degas (originally played by Dustin Hoffman, now Rami Malek), a scrawny rich man convicted of counterfeiting. Degas thinks he'll be back home in just a few months, but realizes that because of his wealth, which he hides by routinely swallowing and excreting it out, he's got a target on his back, and may not last more than a few days. Papillon needs money to facilitate an escape, so he sets up a deal with Degas to protect him if he finances his escape.

Things get complicated when they meet the warden who clearly lays out the dire predicament all the prisoners are in. If they attempt escape, the guards will shoot to kill. If the guards don't succeed, the jungle or the ocean’s sharks will kill the prisoner for them. If they are recaptured, then they'll be sent to solitary for three years for the first offense and five for the second. If they survive two rounds of solitary, which is very unlikely, they'll be sent to Devil's Island, a little land mass that's impossible to escape, left alone there to rot.

Papillon is hindered by its overall construction. It's a journey movie, which, as I described in my review for last year's Dunkirk, is a film where the inward motivations and outward goals are always the same for our characters. They face constant setbacks causing them to reset and attempt reaching the same goal all over again. In Dunkirk the goal was getting off the beach as German forces approached. They tried it, didn't make it, tried it again and again. In Papillon the goal is to escape and it's a similar path for Papi and Degas. Journey movies can be good, but are always limited because instead of weaving a more intricate and complicated web of movements and motivations, the situation for the majority of the story is generally the same.

This iteration of Papillon handles this construction in the best way possible. The film, though long, is never boring. Director Michael Noer finds ways to make everything interesting without devolving into a genre of film that feels unnatural. If Noer had tried to add horror, suspense, or too many action elements to the film, it wouldn't have worked. It's a beautiful film reminiscent of something like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or The African Queen in that it never loses its sense of adventure at the heart. (Minor spoiler) Noer does a particular good job showing us solitary confinement. It's a well-paced section that attempts to illustrate the toll being alone can take especially when coupled with brutal treatment. Hunnam does a remarkable job showing us his struggle without saying a single word. It's one of the rare times we see this character, who is unbelievably prepared for almost anything, under duress.

Though the movie is well done you don't really feel anything on an emotional level for the vast majority of the film. Like some of those films from an earlier era, you have to wait two hours before the film begins to drive home its emotional message. It's a message about friendship and it’s eventually felt after a while because Degas and Papillon have gone through so much together. Noer lands his emotional point effectively and craftily, it just takes far too long to happen.

Crazy Rich Asians

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

Crazy Rich Asians is three-word phrase that jumps out at you. The initial impulse might be to recoil because adding classifiers to an ethnic group can be troublesome territory. But more than anything it makes you want to know more. Who and where are the crazy rich people and why is it significant to mention that they're Asian?

We find that it's a very important thing to mention they're Asian because what we see is something we, somehow, haven't seen much of before. It's a film showing a full cast of East Asian characters being unapologetically Asian. In the '90s and early 2000s there was a sense that to achieve representation in media, minorities needed to distance themselves from their cultural histories. Gabriel Union mentions in her book that she distinctly remembers making decisions to downplay her blackness when she was a kid. But what the millennial generation has achieved, something that few give us credit for, is turning that on its head. Instead of simple assimilation, millennials actually asked challenging questions. Why do I have to downplay my [insert just about any identity]-ness? And we made the decisions to both hold on to our culture and be heard.

The East Asians in Crazy Rich Asians don't have to be stripped of their ethnicity, culture or background. It’s significant that the filmmakers decided not to dilute the characters or the overall vibe of the film (I'm talking about the incredible soundtrack here) to make it more palatable to a certain segment of the Western audience. The Western audience, by the way, is filled with lots of different people, and the film's opening weekend shows that a good portion of those people can handle seeing other people interacting within their culture without being confused. And for those who can't, they better learn quickly because things are changing.

The film follows young Asian-American professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding) as they make the trek to Singapore for Nick's friend's wedding. It'll be the first time Rachel meets her beau's parents, and if that weren't enough, she learns that the Youngs are rich beyond her wildest imagination. The film is really about a class and duty struggle, struggles that are presented as both universal (think Pretty Woman) and specifically cultural. Rachel's not only safely middle class, but was raised by a single mother and has an American mentality which creates distance between her and her potential in-laws. What started as an exciting inaugural trip to Singapore in Rachel's mind becomes a huge source if stress as she faces an endless barrage of pushback while trying to prove she's worthy of Nick.

The film struggles to rid itself of the predictable trappings of a romantic comedy despite all of the cultural aspects so rarely seen in Hollywood films. Despite these cultural additions, there are scenes where Rachel learns to make dumplings and where she and Nick's no-nonsense mother (Michelle Yeoh) play Mahjong, we're still treading familiar ground. The story is essentially a combination of Monster-in-Law (2005) and Maid in Manhattan (2002). There's the idea that the romcom is what it is. People will say they're always predictable, and that's precisely why they're beloved. I think we can stand to push the boundaries and expect more than that passive viewpoint demands. There are romantic comedies that don't fit the mold and that are so special that they become what other romantic comedies begin to emulate. The Holiday and Bridesmaids come to mind most immediately.

Also in some regards the film doesn't quite live up to it's name. "Crazy rich" connotes a type of wealth that's otherworldly. We hear about this wealth and we even see it, but we rarely feel the crazy richness. Outside of a wedding scene that quite literally made my jaw drop, the wealth we see rarely overwhelms. To be clear all the elements are there: the houses, the cars, the clothes, the parties, but you don't get the sense that life is large because of tepid directorial choices. Say what you will about Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby (2013), but no one can argue that he didn't capture the ridiculous lavishness of Gatsby, his friends and his parties. Luhrman infuses his entire film with this energy, no more so than in the first party scene filled with fanfare, fireworks and Fergie. The scene lifts your heart until the ultimate crescendo when Leonardo DiCaprio raises his glass to the camera welcoming Nick Carraway to his party. There's a reason that image has become a meme. It's magnificently over-the-top. Yes Crazy Rich Asians is a different movie, but instead of making bold directorial choices we get something more tempered.

That being said, the film is really very good. Beyond the cultural implications, the movie is a fun one and endlessly re-watchable.  The film's comedy derives from the overall situation, of course, but it's YouTube star Akwafina who gives a show-stealing performance. She's plays Peik, Rachel's college friend who is pretty rich herself. She drives incredible cars and has an opulent and off-kilter sense of style. Though she's rich, she seems more in awe of the Young's family's immense wealth because in Singapore it's legendary. Peik serves as the confident backup Rachel needs to keep fighting against the forces that want to keep her and Nick apart.

​

The film, and I imagine the book, does a really good job of showing how class and cultural frustrations can go hand-in-hand to create a less-than-ideal situation. Though it struggles to find new ground, what newness it does find is both important and engaging.

Blackkklansman

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

Spike Lee's purpose in writing and directing Blackkklansman is pretty clear— first, show the ills of racism, and second, draw a clear parallel between racism then (the '70s and before) and now. That first part has always been part of his work since he began filmmaking. Even though his first film, She's Gotta Have It, isn't singularly concerned with racism, Lee, above all directors, and maybe above most other artists, shows us that race politics infiltrates every part of black life with his work.

Though it covers some familiar themes, Blackkklansman is unlike anything I've seen from Lee. The tone is different, more off-kilter. It's as if Spike Lee conceived of the film with the Coen Brothers. That there's so much emphasis on how characters speak is an obvious way it's reminiscent of Coen films like Fargo and O, Brother Where Art Thou, but more importantly it combines a type of situational comedy with very dark dealings. We laugh at over-the-top personalities while people's lives are under threat.

But here, particularly for black audiences, the threats and violence feel more personal than the death of a car salesman's wife in Fargo, Indiana. This type of violence, and the motivations behind it, have clear and systemic effects on the well-being of minority groups across the country. The sheer ignorance of Klan members seems funny until you realize how their recklessness leads to the destruction of a people. 

The film is based on the real experience of Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington), a black officer who plans an undercover investigation of his local chapter of the KKK. He calls a number he found in the newspaper and pretends to be a white man looking to join the group. He even gets a chance to talk to the leader of the organization, David Duke (marvelously played by Topher Grace). When it comes time to meet the group, Stallworth employs his colleague Flip (Adam Driver) to pose as him to get in and gather information for what the group might be planning.

Lee displays a biting wit and a knack for comedic timing. But running jokes that were funny before, when revisited in more dire circumstances, become harder to laugh at. But Lee hasn't misplaced these jokes. Instead he very well might be placing them there to show us how serious the mumbling stupidity of racism really is. It was funny to laugh at Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser essentially playing his same character from last year's I, Tonya) for his complete cluelessness at first. Then this same foolishness turns into something far more sinister.

Lee addresses more than just the moral depravity of the Klan. He also dives deep into the other characters' lives. How is it that Flip Zimmerman, the Jewish cop going undercover to spy on the racist organization, seems far less bothered by what the group's members say? Lee also pushes against Stallworth's naïveté. Is he naive to believe that he can live as both a black man fighting for the total liberation if his people while also being an officer in a police department that's an extension of the governing powers holding his people down? His relationship with Patrice (Laura Harrier), the president of a Black Student Union at one of Colorado's institutes for higher learning, pushes him to consider the ramifications of his decisions. Stallworth, in what is one of the year's most moving scenes in cinema, sits and listens to Stokely Carmichael's fiery speech at an event Patrice organizes and is so moved by the passion of the prolific speaker and the audience that he begins to see more clearly the depths of mire and muck his country stands in. Carmichael speaks incredible words affirming black beauty and logically lays out the argument for self-protection, a talking point used to delegitimize the Black Panther Party in American history. But Lee, and this is maybe more surprising, even pushes back against the budding obstinance and militarism Patrice veers toward, offering up a need for collaboration among  people with a diverse set of experiences. After all it is a police officer that saves the day.

​

As is often the case, Lee can be a bit on the nose with his dialogue bringing up ideas he wishes to discuss in conversations that feel forced and unnatural. And while the decision to make this story a dark comedy was a good one, Blackklansman seems to just miss the mark of profundity. 

And to the film's second purpose, illustrating that the racism today has a clear through line from the racism of yesterday, Lee makes that more clear than ever in this work explaining that President Trump, a name Lee refuses to utter, is the culmination of the dreams Klan members dreamt decades ago. Just when you think Lee may tie everything up neatly with a bow, which is not characteristic of his style, he leaves us with a lingering sense of dread. He would never allow the audience to leave with the idea that all is well. Not only are things not well for our protagonists, but things are not well for each one of us sitting in the audience. If the film isn't quite profound enough, the coda ending will surely drive this point home.

With Blackkklansman Lee doesn't try to change the minds of those in the far right (and because of this he allows himself to have more fun). Instead, he plays to the audience he knows he'll get, one more concerned with justice, and practically dares us to try to sit still while chaos and injustice reign today. He asks us to consider collaboration despite emotions that rightfully run high.

Eighth Grade

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

There are certain movies, most even, that add a particular dramatic flare to the way the story is told. If you look closely at just about any film script dialogue, one thing you'll notice is that people don't speak this way in real life. We rarely have our thoughts so in order, rarely do real life heroes have the perfect zinger delivered at the perfect time, and people almost never drop bombs of wisdom that are more than meaningless pop psych platitudes. This disconnect from reality doesn't make a movie bad— we go to the movies for something different from our everyday experience— but occasionally there are movies that all too carefully remind us of real life. Seeing life itself play out with such specific detail can be scary. And that's what we get with Eighth Grade.

The honesty of the film relies heavily on the shoulders of young actor Elsie Fisher. Her performance is painfully recognizable from the stuttering to the subtlest of eye twitches. Fisher so embodies the character of a girl struggling through every moment of her young life within her own head. 

Kayla Day (Fisher) is in her last week of eighth grade dealing with the conflicting moments this time in her life brings. She looks forward to the next big step, high school, while also looking back at the unfulfilled hopes of who she thought she’d be by now. Like everyone, she wants to be cool, but even more than that, she wants to be confident being herself. Kayla posts YouTube videos wherein she gives helpful life tips to her "followers." No one watches these videos, but if they did they might see that she's not the "most quiet" girl like everyone thinks.

Despite her confidence struggles, Kayla's no saint. Yes she's dealing with a lot, but she also takes her dissatisfaction out on her dopey dad who acquiesces to her every demand. And those YouTube videos, while a nice step out of her comfort zone are hardly insightful. Writer/director Bo Burnham absolutely nails the sort of pseudo-intellectual faux authenticity of YouTube self-publishers. What masquerades as deep hardly even scratches the surface, illustrating how much more clueless Kayla is even in times when she thinks she's finally understanding how to navigate life.

Fisher so impressively captures the essence of what it is to have no power, no social capital, and no recourse for gaining these things. Kayla tries to be more confident and outgoing, but anxiety follows every step of the way. This, plus the unfair social forces that plague her, all tie into Fisher's multi-layered performance, one that could reemerge as a standout come awards season.

In addition to Fisher's elevating performance, Bo Burnham gives the film the wings it needs. In his script he's somehow captured something both individual and universal. The film is of its time— Kayla deals with social media, technology and changing social attitudes that are much different than when I was in middle school (though I am still very young). The film is very much from a white American perspective. This is not a negative thing, but the way she interacts with people, who she interacts with, and some of the social forces she does and doesn't deal with are very much part of who the Kayla character is. Some of things she says to her dad would simply never progress past the first two words once most any black parent caught wind of the tone in which they were being addressed. And it's a distinctly female story. Bo Burnham has taken the time to listen, learn and understand a set of social forces that didn't specifically affect his eighth grade experience, but certainly play a part in nearly every girl's childhood. In a particularly poignant scene, Kayla, after struggling with so much anxiety, has that compounded when she confronts an evil that's so sickeningly pervasive in our culture. And even beyond this moment, nearly all her interactions, though it isn't overstated, are tinged with a layer specific to Kayla's girlhood. 

Burnham smartly makes the story one that is distinctly Kayla's by not only tying it to her generation, her culture, and her gender, but also her individual personality. Each one of these things may remind the audience of something in their own lives. But it is a distinct experience watching the movie when you relate to Kayla on none of those fronts. Can the film hope to speak to an outgoing, black, male viewer, who went to middle school in the early 2000s?

The answer is yes.

Even without living your own middle school life in the time of YouTube videos or the pervasive use of the internet; without experiencing the joys and pains of American girlhood firsthand; without having a similar sort of loosey-goosey relationship with one's parents, at the heart of the film is an experience that we all can relate to— one of having absolutely no idea what we're doing.

Mission Impossible - Fallout

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

Ever since Ghost Protocol, the fourth in the Mission series, one thing is clear: the Mission: Impossible franchise is America’s Bond series. It's both formulaic, and dependably entertaining. Can we bet Ethan Hunt, the most daring agent in the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), will defeat whatever terrorist threat by film’s end? Absolutely. But we can also rely on each new Mission movie to be just as good, if not better, than the last. The franchise is more consistently impressive than the most recent series of Bond films starting Daniel Craig, my generation's James Bond, which has some great entries of its own.

The Mission films take on a distinctly American quality. Less consumed with style, the franchise is lighter, less stuffy, and even sillier at times. The films are less likely to brood, and more interested in keeping you on the edge of your seat, which is no surprise coming from the country whose biggest export is entertainment. But none of this is a bad thing because each time Tom Cruise hangs off the side of an airplane as Ethan Hunt, the result is phenomenal. Fallout continues this trend.

And perhaps nothing more captures the big American essence of the franchise more than its wild stunts. They've always been big, but in Fallout they are more extreme than ever. The stunts Tom Cruise himself completes are beyond incredible. He actually jumps out of a plane to complete a military-style HALO jump, flies a helicopter, and rides a motorcycle in one of the coolest car chase scenes of the decade. Much of this was filmed after, according to director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise broke his ankle jumping from one building to another. Gasps filled the theater as we watched stunt after stunt, which, beyond the execution, is a testament to the stunning way the stunts were filmed.

But beyond the big, bold stunts, the Mission: Impossible franchise has almost always had a good story at the center. What I love about this film is that more than any of the sequels, this one is tied to the last film, Rogue Nation. In that film Ethan stopped former-British-agent-turned-anarchist Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) from accessing a virtually unlimited amount of money to fund his global network of agents, called the Syndicate, who now wreak havoc on the world. At the outset of Fallout, Ethan learns that the remnants of the Syndicate possess three plutonium cores, which can be weaponized to create nuclear bombs. So Ethan and his team need to get the cores before they're sold to the highest bidder on the black market. 

The film is overlong. One particular sequence includes so much double-crossing it’s dizzying. In this brief moment the film becomes tedious. That being said every other plot twist and story turn is thrilling. 

Along the way Hunt meets White Widow (played by the incredible Vanessa Kirby) a high-level black market broker masquerading as a philanthropist. Kirby absolutely relishes every line and look she gives in spectacular fashion. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of her to come. There's Alec Baldwin, who in the last movie moved from leading the CIA to the IMF. Angela Basset steps in to fill Baldwin's void as the fun sucking CIA leader. She sends a hot headed agent known as The Hammer (played by Henry Cavill) to baby sit Hunt's mission to capture the plutonium cores. All this, plus regulars like Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), British agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), introduced in Rogue Nation, and Julia (Michelle Monaghan), Ethan's ex-wife who hasn't been seen in more than a ultra-brief cameo since the third movie. There's a lot of overacting going on. Lots of whisper talking, courtesy of Baldwin, grandstanding from Basset, and wooden line reads from Cavill, though his character essentially demands as much. But it's all in the name of fun.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout is what happens when creatives have the audience in mind. But unlike other, dumber blockbusters, McQuarrie, Cruise and Co. understand that moviegoers also want an engaging story with their heavy dose of action theatrics. That's why with this franchise they've created not just an enjoyable series, but an enduring one.

McQueen

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

First things first, I love fashion documentaries. They are, at their best, portraits of artists who are so invested in a type of art that has a specific perception, one of glamour and showmanship, which these pioneers often see in a very different light. Just like any genius, a designer’s calling to create clothing is baked into their being. These artists often feel as if they can’t do anything else. They must get their ideas out. So it was only a matter of time before Alexander McQueen became the sole focus of his own documentary.

Alexander (known as Lee to friends and family) was known as something of a rebel of British fashion. Having launched his first collection in the ‘90s, his style was often dark, gaudy, and extremely personal according to the documentary. McQueen shows a man who, just even on face value, doesn’t look like a major fashion designer. His early years lacked any sort of glamour, and physically he was heavier, and, as one interviewee put it, looked a bit like a skinhead.

This early part of the documentary set the stage for a great film. Through the use of home videos and with interviews from the people who helped put the designer on the path to who he would become, we learn about how a talented unknown becomes someone who will be widely regarded as a genius one day. The film is funny and well-paced as it leads us to his first collection in 1992.

According to the documentary, McQueen had an innate knack for both tailoring and creating clothes with unique shapes. More than anything I’ve seen, McQueen’s work is truly art that just happens to be wearable. His shows were provocative and at times disturbing— I happen to agree with the press at the time about the inappropriate and harmful nature of his 1995 Highland Rape runway show— but what the documentary illustrates by going through show after show of the artist’s work, is McQueen’s ability to merge things that are both beautiful and disturbing. The film ventures to show us the internal workings of his mind.

But because of the way the film is constructed (hopping from show to show, and major life even to major life event) a film about fashion’s biggest rebel eventually becomes incredibly ordinary. After the first fifth of the documentary, which is divided into five parts, the film mostly lacks any insight. It’s as if the filmmakers refused to ask about or simply couldn’t draw out any sort of deeper understanding of who Alexander McQueen was. Everyone featured plays like a doting fan unwilling to say anything too provocative about a man who trafficked in controversy. We get just a hint that he was abused as a child and hints at the important relationships in his life. But we don’t really get a sense of what precisely led him to take his own life in 2010. Though the film focuses on each one of his career plot points and shows us a ton of his collections, much of it feels disconnected to his internal life, despite the film’s claim that this internal struggle and pain is what the documentary is really about. It’s a familiar and ultimately boring story of a tortured artist that refuses to really dig deep into the things that tortured McQueen. In reality the film has no center. It resembles a mediocre Hollywood biopic in this way— far too expansive, and lacking in story.

The film doesn’t completely miss the mark. It’s at its absolute best when exploring McQueen’s relationship with Isabella Blow. Honestly, a documentary about this woman would certainly be worth watching, if made by other other filmmakers of course. Blow essentially was so inspired by McQueen’s first collection that she took him under her wing. She’s credited with “discovering” the boy wonder and kick starting his career. It’s clear in the documentary that McQueen was fascinated and enamored by Blow. She was both a mother and sister to him. Blow, like McQueen, even just from a physical standpoint, is something of surprise in the fashion world. She wasn't classically beautiful. That plus her idiosyncratic personality and humor was probably a turn off for many on the more glamorous side of the industry. But McQueen understood her and she understood McQueen. And in the documentary, it’s the one relationship that pops on screen.

McQueen and Blow’s relationship was consistently referenced throughout the film. It follows that McQueen was utterly distraught when Blow died. Her death led him to one of his most incredible collections, La Dame Bleue, a show dedicated to his dear friend. The show is beautiful and watching it in the documentary lends to the most affecting part of the film.

The problem is that this is the one time during the documentary that you feel the filmmakers were building to something. McQueen is incredible to look at, has a few impressive moments, and on a basic level has an incredibly compelling character at the center. But it tries to do too much and sacrifices a stronger story buried somewhere deep within the documentary we have here.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

There's something about the Ant-Man movies that are understated and simple. The inclination might be to romanticize that simplicity, but no matter how entertaining the films are, and this second one is better than the last, they're missing that certain something that makes Marvel movies epic and grandiose. Despite all of Ant-Man and the Wasp's delightfulness, it feels forgettable.

With that being said, there's a lot here worth watching. Where Ant-Man was essentially a protagonist's journey to becoming a hero, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a heist movie, which automatically makes it more fun. The film picks up about two years after the events of Captain America: Civil War. In that movie Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) was enlisted by Captain America to fight half of The Avengers in Germany. Technically he was fighting on the wrong side of international law, so after growing to an astounding 65 feet in that battle, he was captured and detained. For the last two years he's been monitored by the FBI while on house arrest. We find him on the tail end of that sentence.

Because Scott used Hank Pym's (Michael Douglas) size manipulation tech in Germany, both Hank and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) are wanted and on the run. In Ant-Man Scott was able to shrink so small that he accessed the quantum realm. The quantum realm is a subatomic space of color and secrets unknown-- a space that Hank's wife Janet, the original Wasp (played by Michelle Pfeiffer), accessed decades earlier and got stuck in while on a mission with her husband. After Scott went to and returned from the quantum realm, Hank and Hope began work developing a quantum tunnel to access the quantum realm to get Janet back. But they need Scott's help to locate her. So the father-daughter duo kidnap Scott and bring him to their hideout, a lab space they can shrink down to the size of a carry-on whenever they need to move. 

The first part of the plan is to get the last piece of tech they need for the tunnel from a black market tech dealer (Walter Goggins). Their acquisition of this final piece of the puzzle is interrupted by a mysterious villain (Ghost) with some sort of ability that makes moving through solids possible.

This new villain takes the tech they need to rescue Janet as well as their travel-sized lab. So the movie becomes a super fun mission to find out how to track the lab, then retrieving the means to track the lab down, then trying to get the lab and the tech back, all in enough time to save Janet from the quantum realm.

Ghost is the weakest part of the story because you never really feel that the villain is that much of a threat. We learn about Ghost's backstory and motivations, but its not nearly as strong as recent Marvel villains, Thanos (Infinity War) and Killmonger (Black Panther). That being said, the most fun part of the story is that our team of heroes not only deals with Ghost, but pressure from the FBI as the agency tries to track down the Pyms, and the shady tech dealer who's also after the Pym's shrinking lab.

The movie is light and entertaining: from Scott's relationship to his too-smart-for-her-age daughter, to the chemistry between Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, who suits up this time as another shrinking hero, one with wings and who's a much better fighter. After all she famously taught Scott how to punch in the last movie. This second movie is funnier than the first with some seriously laugh-out-loud moments. Michael Pena reaches almost Michael Scott-levels of brilliance with his comedic timing.

But as mentioned earlier, the Ant-Man films feel ultimately inconsequential. That this is the follow-up movie to Infinity War makes it feel that much more skippable now that we're so deep into phase three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Despite the heights to which Ant-Man can grow, the film is too small within the context of the larger universe.

Sorry to Bother You

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

Expectations are a big part of interacting with art. An experience with a film doesn't necessarily begin with the first frame. Most people have made their way to the theater because of a trailer, word-of-mouth, or because of a filmmaker's previous work. It's easier to market a sequel because expectations factor into the equation.

For new and original films trailers have a huge role to play in garnering interest. Whether marketing should have such an important role in the way films are consumed and in setting expectations is up for debate, but the truth is that film marketing has become more important in the last couple of decades because more people have access to the tools it takes to make a movie, which is ultimately a good thing, even if it creates a more crowded playing field.

The trailer for Sorry to Bother You does an incredible service to the film. It shows us a beautiful cast and clearly describes the premise of the movie: a down-on-his-luck man, Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), starts a new telemarketing job and finds success when he begins using his "white voice" to sell things. The options for where this can go seem endless. So while the trailer gives you a sense of what the movie is about, it leaves you with the sense that there's plenty to be discovered.

From the beginning, writer/director Boots Riley drops us into a surreal world that holds on to just enough of the vestiges from our reality to make it relatable. The characters are bold and colorful, especially Cassius's girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), an artist, rebel, and sign twirler on the side. Cassius meets friends at his new job, most notably an older telemarketer named Langston (Danny Glover) who tells him about the power of his white voice. In a particularly smart scene, Riley explains to the audience, through Langston’s exposition, that a white voice isn't just a higher pitch, or proper grammar. It's taking on a certain confidence. It's an ease with which you can navigate any conversation and instantly gain trust. 

So Cassius adopts his white voice, hilariously performed by comedian David Cross, and climbs the telemarketing ladder.

The film explores a lot from collective action, to the detached inhumanity of capitalist systems, the social dynamics between the rich and the powerless, the privileges associated with assumed whiteness, and, on a broader level, the masks people wear to get what they want. It's really an impressive film in that Riley manages to build an alternate world, make poignant observations about the world we live in, all while presenting a legitimately funny movie. Perhaps no one is funnier, than the know-nothing manager played by Kate Berlant, who gets consistent laughs for her ridiculous line readings and her every subtle movement.

But there's a moment when the movie takes a very sharp turn from surreal to absurd. Absurdism is fine and here it even makes sense. The issue is that though Riley's one idea may flow to another, the shift in focus is indelicate. We reach a point where the premise that the movie began with as its primary focus, the idea of talking white and what it can achieve, 100 percent disappears from the film. Much of this confusion has to do, admittedly, with expectations. The entire film is marketed upon the idea that the film will dive more deeply into white talk and how even when race is invisible it still has ramifications in a country where racism is so deeply rooted in its every fiber. But even beyond the expectations one might have gotten from the promotional materials, Cassius's discovery and use of his white voice is built up to be a seminal moment in his character's trajectory. It's the thing that leads to his success and his downfall, but suddenly it's gone, never to be brought up again. It's this story shift that's more jarring than the absurdism that takes over in the second half of the movie.

The fact that the trailer feels misleading is representative of the overall problem, which is that when the film takes a turn it leaves behind a big part of the film— the part that, at least the trailer makers, found to be the most interesting bit. Though the second half of Sorry to Bother You isn't completely disconnected, a major part of the story is lost.

First Reformed

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

Every movie should make you feel something by the end. It's an overall sense, a culmination of everything you've just witnessed. More than just feeling happy, sad, angry, or invincible, it's the vibe, the heart of the whole movie that's less defined by words, but something more visceral. For example, in my favorite movie from last year, Phantom Thread, I left the theater feeling a combination of terror, awe, and I don't know what. The best movies are often difficult to explain. I didn't even know that Phantom Thread was the best film I had seen all year until the next day when I couldn't shake how the movie effected me.

First Reformed is something special. Instead of feeling this palpable, inexplicable thing as the culmination of the movie-going experience, Paul Schrader makes you feel something deep and visceral while you're right there in the thick of the film.  For the majority of the movie what you feel is a heavy, burdening despair. It descends like a viscous cloud and it's the reason why it was on track to becoming one of the best movies of the year for me.

Ethan Hawke plays a priest at a small, remote, but storied church. We learn that he once had a wife and once had a son, but all that is in the past. Now, he lives a solitary life. He feels deeply even though he would never share those feelings with anyone, only a journal he keeps and plans to destroy after a year has passed. Mary (Amanda Seyfried) is one of the few members of his congregation and asks him to council her husband Michael, an eco-activist just released from jail. Michael is in a constant state of despair, and, in what's probably the single best scene in a film this year, Michael explains to Pastor Toller why he doesn't want his wife to have the baby she's carrying. Michael knows that by 2050, when the child is in his 30s, the world won't look like it does now because of the irreparable damage mankind has caused. He couldn't stand to have the child grow up to ask why his father didn't stop the destruction. Toller, who's experienced his own share of familial grief, explains that faith is living in the space between despair and hope. That in between is reality, and going too far to one extreme is not. The conversation feels small but meaningful as Michael describes a slow but terrible apocalypse. And Toller deeply senses his pain, while offering a slightly more hopeful way forward. And we, the audience, feel the despair that, when open to it, has the power to pull at your heart. 

As the film progresses, Toller begins to take on Michael's despair. As he dives deeper into Michael's work and research from the scientific community, Toller can't help but fall deeper into the lonely well of sadness as he's confronted with prophecies of the end of the world as we know it. If Schrader is making a political point about the realities of global warming, it's a bit on the nose, but I don't think that's his main objective. Instead he's using it to explore how despair takes root. The film can be likened to Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, which asks, when faced with the end of the world, and even when not, how do you deal with unshakable sadness at a heart level? It's remarkable that Toller can't shake this darkness. He's had to do it before. But something about this is different. Perhaps it's that the scale is broader than with his previous struggle. Perhaps it's the combination of his past struggles with this new awareness. Or it could be that Toller is gravely ill that makes things different this time. 

The only person Toller has to talk to is Pastor Jeffers (Cedric the Entertainer, billed as Cedric Kyles), the leader of nearby megachurch. He seems concerned about Toller's well being, but in a way that's hard to trust. Toller soon comes to see him as a stumbling block and complicit in the destruction of his community and world. As hope continues to slip away, Toller's next phase is something more extreme.

The film gives you hints of where we're headed along the way. It's an even, slow burn. Then suddenly the film takes an odd turn that is hard to grasp. The oddest part of Toller's life, and the film, is his burgeoning relationship with Mary. She feels a grief that's a bit easier to understand, and reaches out to Toller for consolation. But what they end up doing to help each other is so bizarre and out of left field that it's laughable as it first catches you off guard. It's not so much that what we're seeing is weird, it's that it suddenly feels like we're not watching anything that resembles human behavior anymore. Prior to this, the film was firmly grounded in reality. 

From here on out it's a struggle to recapture the deep and beautiful vibe that characterizes the first two-thirds of the movie, because the mind is trying to make sense of the impossibly odd things that begin to happen late in the film.

The oddity continues straight through to the end, but I think without one particular sequence involving Toller and Mary, the bizarreness at the end would have a better chance of connecting. The problem is that by then the energy has already been sufficiently diffused, so the through line from deep despair in the earlier portion to the madness at the end isn't as strong. It's a real shame because Schrader taps into something really remarkable, but completely loses it in an instant, never to be fully recaptured.

Ocean's 8

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

When living in this, the golden age of television, there's always something good to watch. Too much of this peak TV, though, is drama-- heavy drama. Since Breaking Bad, and really probably even earlier since The Sopranos, prestige television aims to be darker, grittier, and more hopeless.

So sometimes, when I'm looking to watch a movie, I just want something easy. I want to watch glamorous people living their lovely lives, dealing with beautiful first-world problems. I want a plot so simple I could scroll through Instagram for 30 minutes and not miss a beat. That is what Ocean's 8 is. It's easy, fun, and goes down real smooth. Yet if it weren't for a cast jam-packed with stars, it would be utterly forgettable.

We have our main players, all successful stars in their own rites spanning the wide range of the entertainment industry. Then we have the celebrity cameos. I can't begin to imagine the favors called in for this one. Anna Wintour, Serena Williams, Gigi Hadid, two Kardashians, and not the lesser ones, and the list goes on practically screaming the tune from last year's animated masterpiece Coco, "Remember Me," without half the charm.

The performances are good. Sandra Bullock has always been a ball of charisma. Mindy Kaling is funny, even with little to do. Rihanna could do anything on screen and it'd be worth the price of admission. Cate Blanchett is perhaps the most perfect just having a good time. The problem: a toothless script and light-as-air story. 

The film begins with Debbie Ocean's (Bullock) release from prison. She was caught running a scam and spent the last five years planning how to steal the crown jewels from the Met Gala. This year's theme for the most glamorous night in New York is European beauty or something. What doesn't make sense is how she could have known five years in advance what the theme for the Met Gala (and the accompanying fashion exhibit) would be. They announce the theme maybe a year in advance, so that's the first inconsistency. But that's hardly worth mentioning when confronted with the other glaring issues, which can be summed up by saying there's simply no conflict. I don't think I've ever seen a heist movie where the thieves aren't challenged. Sure there's a brief moment when two in the crew are too far below ground to access the wifi needed to scan a $150 million diamond necklace, but the fix for that is as simple as convincing the holders of this expensive piece of jewelry to let them see the piece in natural light. It takes about three sentences and no back and forth. There's a moment at the height of the heist where it appears that Mindy Kaling's Anita might get caught. But there's no clever save. Just follow the plan and everything will be alright. The filmmakers routinely create this experience where you begin to think that maybe, just maybe, the team will face an obstacle, and before your heart rate can ever truly elevate, everything is okay, because it's all part of the plan. 

The issue is that director Gary Ross and his film team treat the audience like children who can't handle even a sliver of suspense or danger. Yet suspense and danger are the two crucial elements of a heist movie. Imagine if in Ocean's 11 or 13 (the good ones) Danny Ocean never truly had his back against the wall? What makes a good film thief is an anti-hero who can think on her feet. What makes a heist film good is when the filmmakers trick the audience into thinking something went horribly wrong, but we see later on that it was cleverly a secret part of the plan all along. There's an attempt at this sort of reveal, but it's not so much that something went wrong and we cut to a slick flashback to show how it was part of the plan after all. Instead the reveal is that not only did the heist go swimmingly, it went even more perfectly than previously imagined. No one wants to watch a heist that goes off without a hitch.

Ross and company even set up a perfect plot device that could've led to higher stakes. Debbie plans to use the heist to set up the man who ratted on her and essentially sentenced her to five years in prison. So she plans to pin the heist on him. He even notices Debbie is suspiciously at the gala, but he doesn't foil the plan, or jeopardize the mission. Nope.  Everything just goes as planned and he takes the fall for the heist. 

There is an attempt to use this plot device to add a dose of drama between Debbie and Lou (Blanchett) when Lou realizes that Debbie is using the heist as a form of revenge. It leads to a little argument, and a threat to quit that never materializes.

I love heist films and spy movies. They're special because they're fun and stylish. Ocean's 8 gets all that absolutely right. What's missing are the critical elements that make any story worth watching-- struggle, a challenge, danger, conflict. Any attempt at this is tepid, and it sucks the air out of what could have been a good movie.

Hereditary

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

It's easy to forget how bad the acting is in horror movies until confronted with one that employs a talented cast. And when you think about it, it becomes clear that the lack of skill seen in these movies is one thing that contributes to the fact that the genre is so easily written off. (There were reports that Academy voters this last time around refused to even consider voting for Get Out in the categories for which it was nominated because it was characterized by some as a horror movie, even though if they had watched it, they would have found that it was more of a suspense thriller, a brilliant satire and impeccably acted.) Hereditary is a true horror film, and when something like it comes along, a film so well acted, you begin to see just how impressive these films can be.

Toni Collette (Annie) leads the cast, and on her shoulders rests the fate of the film. If she cannot convince us that the unexpected paranormal events are happening and that she's terrified by them, then the movie has no chance of success. It must be hard to act scared. There's something so immediate about some forms of fear: the initial heart rate spike, the uncontrollable reaction. Without the real stimulant, these innate feelings are difficult to duplicate because they're so immediate. Even harder still may be to portray being truly horrified. Hereditary is less about jump scares and more about a fear that's deep-seeded. So Collette's Annie has to show us the intricate process of realizing the terror born of the twisted things she beholds. Much of this is done with her face, something of which she so clearly has full control.

Annie is a woman who experiences all kinds of emotions. As the movie opens, she deals with the recent death of her all-but-estranged mother. Her husband (Gabriel Byrne) tries to be there for her, but she's not all that sad. Neither is her teenage son, Peter (Alex Wolff). Her young, detached daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro), on the other hand, developed a special bond with her grandmother and is obviously taking the death harder than anyone in the house.

It's after the mother's death that the world stops making sense. Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd) an odd woman dealing with the death of her grandson. Dowd, in a relatively small supporting role, gives a multi-layered performance herself. She teaches a very skeptical Annie how to conjure the spirit of the deceased, a choice that leads to endless troubles. As Annie begins to realize what she's unleashed she has to deal with so many emotions at once: the aforementioned terror of the unfolding events, immense heartache, anger at her husband who thinks she's mad, all while trying to maintain a sense if normalcy for her son. As he buckles under the pressure of being haunted by the spirit unleashed, she tries to understand and frantically reverse what she's done. And that's what makes what Collette does so remarkable. She's a woman dealing with so much and feeling so much. It almost looks like overacting until you realize just how desperate her character really must feel.

Alex Wolff also does an impressive job. His primary claim to fame is a show on Nickelodeon back when he was a kid, but here he shows a bit more range. Instead of juggling a wealth of emotions he's mostly just confused. Moving from the high school world of girls and smoking pot under the bleachers to a world of supernatural mystery is too much for the kid. His weeping is intense, and childlike, which, like Toni Collette's performance, seems like too much until you realize that his reversion to childhood makes a lot of sense.

I've talked a lot about the acting, but a film, a story, can't be good without somewhere interesting to go. Hereditary smartly finds a way to give us very little about why and the exact nature of what is happening, while revealing just to enough to make us crave more. As a writer Ari Aster is nothing short of excellent. As a director Aster also shines, though he relies too heavily on the all-too-familiar horror movie slow pans used to create suspense with no immediate pay off. But all things considered, Hereditary is an original breath of fresh air.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

There's nothing particularly wrong with Solo: A Star Wars Story, it just feels so incredibly pointless. That's a remarkable achievement and disappointment when dealing with one of the greatest rebels ever to grace the silver screen. Since its release, and even before, people have been boiling the film's failures down to the fact that no one really asked for this movie. Well, no one really asks for most good films either. What these critics are trying to address is how inconsequential Solo is and just how low the stakes are.

The task of creating a prequel, particularly an action prequel where excitement derives from characters being placed in perilous positions, is no easy one. You know the main players, and perhaps some of the supporting ones, are going to survive to make it to "later" films in the timeline. Making a prequel is one automatic way to remove the heightened sense of danger an action film needs. At no point as Han Solo flies a ship through an avalanche of rocks or away from a giant galactic squid did we ever wonder if Solo or Lando Calrissian would die. That doesn't mean, though, that prequels never work. And Solo's failure to be a great one sheds light on what makes a good prequel good.

On the positive end of the prequel spectrum sits X-Men: First Class. The Matthew Vaughn-directed film reset the 20th Century Fox franchise by going back to the 60s to show us what happened before Magneto and Professor X were on opposite ends of the fight for mutant freedom. We see younger versions of characters we've grown to love, like in Solo, giving us the chance to get a more complete picture of how and why our characters became who we know them to be. 

There are two reasons something like First Class succeeded where Solo did not, and it has nothing to do with the direction, performances, or CGI, some of which was less than stellar in First Class. Instead it has everything to do with the story. 

First, in First Class the characters we know from the original films are different people. They're in development. Magneto struggles with his anger before he gives himself over to it like we see in the original three films. Mystique is Charle's adopted sister and their relationship is sweet and playful, something we never would have guessed by only watching the earlier movies. Even Professor X is a different man, conflicted over whether mutants should physically assimilate when given the chance. In Solo the two characters we know, Han and Lando, are indistinguishable from their future selves. Han is perhaps slightly less of a curmudgeon, but in essence they're both younger shadows of their older selves. This sheds no light on the interior work within each character over time. And furthermore, it limits talented actors like Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover to giving us their best impressions of Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams.

Second, First Class has higher stakes because it's tied to something that feels like it matters. It is a big deal that the makers of First Class essentially rewrite the entire Bay of Pigs incident, but more than anything, we get to see how and when mutants were, at least partially, introduced to the world. That's a huge milestone within the universe of the film. Nothing in Solo feels as if it'll have any consequence for the overall franchise. That's what sets it apart from 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a one-off film that's also a prequel of sorts. In that film the characters' mission is crucial to 1980's Episode V. First Class is also better because it uses what we know about our future characters to raise the stakes. We know that Magneto becomes something of a villain and the professor's arch nemesis. But by making Magneto so likable, tugging at our sense of justice as he seeks vengeance for his mother's death, and even making him the more reasonable one in some of his intellectual arguments with the professor, when we watch him devolve into who we know he'll become, it means something. When we see Magneto and Professor X's friendship ruined, it matters. Nothing from the previously released films that come before or after Solo chronologically is critically connected, so the filmmakers couldn't truly play off of those movies even if they wanted to.

Sometimes filmmakers prioritize things like getting the timeline exactly right over perfecting the story. It's impossible to know if that's what happened with Solo. But I use X-Men as an example for comparison because that timeline makes no sense. You don't need a microscope to point out the inconsistencies, but still so many of the films, and particularly the first prequel, work because they prioritize using the best parts of the franchise to continue to build the universe even though we're going backwards.

Tully

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

Tully is a quieter film than the other ones from creative duo Diablo Cody (writer) and Jason Reitman (director). It's certainly bound to make less of a bang than 2007's Juno, which introduced us to Cody's unique blend of wit, cynicism, and understanding of the human heart. It's more similar to 2011's Young Adult in that it's a bit darker and features an incredible performance from Charlize Theron. But even that film is one, when you find it, that commands your attention. Tully is more subtle. It seems with each new project the creative partners uncover more of what life is like for everyday people, and that so often means highlighting the mundane. And while we see the nuts and bolts of the life of a mother of three, Cody and Reitman continue to grow more able to pull something meaningful from things that seem so small.

Marlo (Theron) starts the film as a suburban mother of two, with a third unexpected child on the way. She lives with her husband (Ron Livingston) who has a boring corporate job, while she has her own boring human resources job that she's just left for maternity leave as the baby is expected any day now. Marlo is already overwhelmed with her oldest daughter and younger son, and is experiencing a weird mix of emotions when it comes to the idea of having the third. Her son is obviously "quirky" and experiencing learning challenges, which adds an extra dose of stress as she hopes to keep him in the fancy private school her wealthy brother pulled strings to get him into.

This wealthy brother (Mark Duplass) offers to pay for a night nurse as a baby shower gift of sorts. The night nurse would arrive at 10:30 and take care of the newborn allowing both parents to get some sleep. Marlo rejects the offer outright, but reconsiders when she's unable to handle the stress of it all.

The film is particularly spectacular at portraying how stress can arise from things and people you love. It's rarely seen in film, and most forms of storytelling, a landscape where things are often painted as either good or evil, but the reality is that most of our stress comes from people and things we want, at least sometimes, to be around. Marlo is exhausted by her son's special needs, though she loves him. She's afraid that her daughter is beginning to care too much about what others think of her, though her daughter is also a source if consistency and joy in her life. She loves her new baby Mia, but finds the tasks required to care for a newborn tedious and unrewarding. And her love for her husband is mutual as is their devotion to each other, but he isn't always a person she can depend on when it comes to helping with the kids. 

Cody and Reitman also leave no doubt that motherhood, simply put, is hard work.

Diablo Cody's humor is much more understated in this film, which contributes to it's overall quietness in relation to the other films she's written. Marlo has a certain dry wit, but much of the humor comes from the situations in which Marlo finds herself. And while those situations are humorous, they're also imbued with a certain sadness. Just like the joint experience of feeling stress and love, it's more multi-dimensional to show experiences that are both humorous and sad at once.

Ultimately Marlo does hire the night nurse, a 26-year-old named Tully (a bright-eyed Mackenzie Davis), who seems to have a natural way with baby Mia allowing Marlo to get some much needed rest. Surely it's odd to invite a stranger into the home, but soon they are not strangers at all, but friends. Marlo utterly transforms knowing that she can rely on Tully each night. She's a happier, more adventurous, more consistent mother and overall person. There's a surprising turn of events, though, that puts a damper on Marlo's newfound joy.

One gripe I have with the film, wisely crafted as it may be, is the introduction of some sort of sexual tension within Marlo that ultimately feels inconsequential. Instead it's thrown in as a distraction to keep you from seeing exactly where the story is headed. Perhaps the audience needs to feel that they have at least an idea of the path the film might take, but in retrospect this addition feels like audience manipulation.

That being said Tully is a smart, well-acted and inspiring portrait of just how difficult life can be even if you are dealing with first-world problems. Reitman and Cody, especially, are in their element and doing their best work when uncovering the truth behind our everyday lives.

Deadpool 2

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

Writing a sequel might be one of the most daunting tasks someone in Hollywood could take on. What makes it harder is when the first movie was a rousing success. It becomes even harder still when that first movie was a surprise success. And perhaps it gets no more difficult when that movie is beloved by comic book fans across the world. So everything that can be said about Deadpool 2 has to be filtered through that context. Surely everyone involved in the process felt the pressure to up the ante this second time around.

The only film I can liken Deadpool's trajectory to is the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. I had such low expectations for this film, and before it came out it seemed like the first major misstep for Marvel Studios introducing these beyond-fringe comic book characters to the big screen. Pleasantly surprised doesn't begin to describe the experience I had watching what, in my opinion, is the very best MCU film to date for the first time. And while over-meeting expectations must have felt nice for a while, Director James Gunn and his team had to get back to work making the next movie. 

Deadpool has a similar history. We had seen the character played by Ryan Reynolds before in the travesty that is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In it Deadpool was a forgettable friend-turned-foe in a movie that's very difficult to enjoy. So when news came that the character would be getting his own film, expectations were low. But, like Guardians, we were treated to a comic book movie unlike any we had ever seen. Sure the plot was a bit predictable, but the loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed character was not. So Deadpool became the highest grossing February release of all time (that is until Black Panther). But the elation of that achievement could only last so long as the filmmakers returned to make the next one.

Both Guardians and Deadpool succeed with their emphasis on comedy, albeit very different strains, and an impressive dollop of emotional depth. The differences between the two kindred franchises begin to emerge with the release of their sequels. Even though both aren't quite as good as the originals, the filmmakers appear to have taken very different routes when it comes to making these second films. Though both films emphasize comedy, the writers of Guardians prioritized story more than jokes, leaving us with a sequel that's really very good, if not brilliant. The Deadpool team, on the other hand, seems to have done the exact opposite.

Having been praised almost solely for their humor, the writers of Deadpool appear to have begun the writing process thinking about how to crack some jokes and what sort of celebrity cameos Reynolds could swing with his star power. There's a story somewhere in there, but finding it is like searching for a needle in a haystack. This time around the story is so remarkably thin that it feels as though we're watching more of a televised comedy special than a linear film with a story arc. Characters' motivations are less important than sight gags. Explaining how things work is a lesser priority than Deadpool winking at the audience as he tells his next fart joke. Don't get me wrong, all of the crude humor and gags were present in that first film, but the driving force wasn't the jokes alone, but the story, simple as it may have been. Instead of working our way through a story, we have to wade our way through muck and mire during the down times between jokes.

This was no more evident than with the building of Deadpool's super team, X-Force. He built a team of 5 or 6 additional super humans just for a few tiresome jokes in the film's followig moments. Just about every one of those characters was dispensable.

The one bright spot from X-Force debacle is the introduction of Domino (Zazie Beetz). Domino's super power is good luck, something Deadpool doubts can even be considered a power, and one he diagnoses as hard to visualize in a movie. Domino didn't have make jokes to be funny. Her powers and the situations that play out as a result are funny and were well-integrated in the story.

That wasn't the case for Cable (Josh Brolin), a time traveling aggressor looking to kill a particular mutant teen going by the name Fire Fist (Julian Dennison). We don't learn Cable's motivations until far too late in the game. And once we do learn about them, the stakes seem lower than ever.

There was an attempt at a heartfelt center. The relationship between Deadpool and Vanessa (Morena Bacarin) was the soul of the first film. It was mildly effective here, but felt too disconnected from everything else to truly resonate.

An argument can be made that the primary difference between the first and second Deadpool lies outside of the films themselves, but instead with the expectations of the audience. But even if this is true, the fact that we can't rely on the surprise factor that helped elevate the first film to success means that the story was even more important this time around. But that's the one element that's missing most.

Avengers: Infinity War

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

All I want to do right now, here in the immediate aftermath of seeing Avengers: Infinity War for the first time is talk about every detail. It’s a nearly three-hour extravaganza, the culmination of 10 years worth of cinematic world building, and decades of comic book imagination, so certainly there’s lots to dissect. But this will be a spoiler-free review. Instead of talking about the nitty gritty, I’ll start with my one real problem with the film.

The film is long, though hardly a moment is wasted. It’s the first time we get to see nearly every hero from almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie all in one place, many meeting and interacting for the first time. So naturally with so many characters, a lot needs to be accomplished in a movie starring, well, everyone in Hollywood. And while the filmmakers do an impressive job of providing consistent action, a heavy dose of humor throughout, and enough moments for fanboys and girls to clap at, there are times in the middle that feel tedious. It doesn't elicit quite the feeling you get when you sense a movie shouldn’t be as long as it is, but more a sense that you’re slogging through the slow period between one amazing moment and the next. Perhaps just a few scenes could have been tidied up, but ultimately this critique pales in comparison to everything there is to love about the film.

The most impressive thing may just be the balance the movie achieves. Marvel has continued to thrill us and surprise us with each new movie, in part because each film, or film set, has a distinct feel. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, though they take place the same universe, don’t even begin to tonally resemble the films featuring Captain America. Instead each franchise within the larger cinematic universe is able to stand alone because of the unique personality each film takes on. My biggest worry going in was that the moment when one of Earth’s mightiest heroes meets Groot, the tree-teen, and Rocket, the talking raccoon, there would be a lack of harmony. But directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who were at the helm of two of the best MCU movies (Captain America: Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War), were miraculously able to stay true to the vibe of each film that came before and the work fellow directors, writers, and actors put into creating those experiences.

And speaking of balance, to successfully create a movie in which so many big personalities meet is no small feat. In one version of the film’s poster we see more than 20 characters that are to make an appearance in no small way. The Russos, and their writing team, masterfully juggle all their story lines, plus the story line of a basically brand new villain.

Which leads me to talk about Thanos, a mysterious space giant first teased in a post-credit scene in The Avengers back in 2012. We know that he provided Loki, Thor’s brother, with the power and army to attack Earth. We learn in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 that he’s the adoptive father of green warrior Gamora, and he means to collect all the Infinity Stones, which harness the universe's elemental powers, as a way of ruling said universe. And in Avengers: Age of Ultron we see that he haunts Tony Stark (Iron Man) with visions of terror. But we’ve never actually seen him in action, and more importantly don’t really know too much about his motivations. Marvel has, in the past, been criticized for creating villains that only exist to give our affable heroes something to do. Save for Loki, who’s an interesting mix of good and bad, none of the baddies make much of a lasting impression. Well that all changed with Black Panther from earlier this year. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger was a dazzling villain who challenged our hero not only physically, but philosophically, because he actually made a lot of sense. Luckily Thanos continues the trend, and it’s perhaps more important here than in any movie that came before. Because our heroes are scattered across the galaxy for most of the film, the through line that we most consistently return to is Thanos’ quest for the Infinity Stones. Thanos has a reason for wanting to destroy half of all life in the universe. Surely it’s a psychotic plan, but it makes some sense. There’s so much more to Thanos than we bargained for. He’s a fighter, a toiler, and a villain with an emotional layer to him that’s convincingly portrayed here. He’s no Killmonger, but there are echoes of Marvel’s greatest “villain” in Thanos, which is still miles ahead of most of the other MCU bad guys.

What Avengers: Infinity War represents is a sort of bold ambition that has materialized into one of the, if not the, most epic and grandiose film I’ve ever seen. It’s a film with an astronomical budget that you can see right before your eyes, although there are a few laughably terrible CGI moments with Mark Ruffalo. But it’s also a film that does justice to 10 years of cinematic build up that led us to this moment. Disney and Marvel have participated in a level of world building akin to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, but they’ve done it in a much different way. With 10 years worth of films a whole universe has been created, one with wild characters and rules, silly though they may be. But silly is often just another word for creative. To bring these characters together at this time, in this movie is brilliant, and shocking, and immensely rewarding to watch. But it doesn’t just stop at being delightful. Story has always been at the center of the great Marvel movies, and here we get to experience a Marvel film more devastating than ever.

In a way, Marvel’s partnership with Disney has been an incredible years-long advertisement for capitalism. What I mean is that the series suggests that even with something essentially created to make a lot of people and a company tons of money, ambitious storytelling can be the result. So rarely do we see such boldness and creativity when we’re talking about billions of dollars at stake. It’s a testament to the fact, and I’ve said this before, that the writers, directors, actors etc. involved in creating these films consistently show us that they care about the characters as much as those of us who rush to theaters on Thursday nights to see what they’ve created. It’s a marriage of commerce and art, two things that so rarely go hand-in-hand. Of course, there are probably many more examples of when this capitalist marriage ends in divorce. The DC Extended Universe series (Justice League and its preceding films) are the most obvious foil to the MCU, suggesting that ultimately money and creativity should remain separate.

Perhaps the greatest balancing act might not be the meeting of these great heroes, but the meeting of two of our world's elemental forces, our Infinity Stones if you will—the power of the dollar, and the power of art.

King in the Wilderness

​★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

There are certain subjects that have been talked about to death, and you might think civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is one of those subjects. And perhaps as a subject you've heard your fill, but as a person, many of us know very little. King in the Wilderness explores the human side of Dr. King and takes the position that he himself cannot be divorced from the causes he fought for, all of them in totality. In fact, by talking to his closest confidants from his time leading the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), the HBO documentary rages against the weak and inaccurate version of Dr. King we've come to know in the U.S. and introduces us to a man full of sadness, and challenged by an immense burden for justice, particularly from 1965 to 1968, the last three years of his life.

The argument could be made that an even more idealized version of the man might be invented by talking to those who revered his leadership, but through the individual stories told by those closest to him and how they corroborate each other's experiences, they create an intimate and honest picture of one of the most famous men in American history.

Many of the images are familiar from his speeches, to his sermons, to footage of countless marches he led and joined, but there are some things not in perennial circulation of King material, the set that resurfaces for a blip each January. With these lesser known sermons and speeches, plus testimony from the SCLC members interviewed, the filmmakers connect the dots between his philosophies and the life that led to them. 

We hear about King's initiative to expand he civil rights movement to include more than just racial justice. It follows the SCLC's campaign against widespread poverty and housing discrimination in Chicago. The vitriolic racism they encountered in that northern city was surprisingly worse than in the south, yet King got blamed for causing the outcry. He rightly pointed out that a doctor cannot be blamed for revealing cancer to his patient, but, in fact, does him a service.

The filmmakers explore the lead up to his decision to firmly oppose the injustice of the Vietnam War and the resulting fallout. From every side he was bashed and hated for speaking the truth and even pointed, in a later sermon, to the hypocrisy of those who thought he should speak only of racial injustice, but remain silent anywhere else injustice was doled out.

The segment that affected me most deeply focused on his interactions with Stokely Carmichael, one of the leaders of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Carmichael espoused the philosophy of Black Power, a phrase King, I believe incorrectly, took issue with. But what bothered King more was that Carmichael was not bound to the SCLC's commitment to nonviolence, despite the "N" in the SNCC acronym. Carmichael was fiery, fed up with white aggression and understandably unwilling to hold the hands of a historically violent, dominant class as if they were children, all while they continued to punish his people for something as rudimentary as skin color. I felt King's struggle with Carmichael so personally during this part of the documentary. King was torn between the need to support SNCC's cause for justice while also maintaining his belief in nonviolence. He could even see why, like most any black person can, one would be driven to the point of giving up on believing in the redemption of white America. 

And that may very well have been the source of King's sadness. In the film, beyond feeling King's inner battle between nonviolence and Carmichael's stance, his friends painted a picture of man in pain, falling beneath the weight of rejection and the lack of progress after the Civil Rights and Voting Acts were passed. Those pieces of  legislation did not solve what they were meant to begin solving as white Americans across the nation seemed completely uninterested in an equal society. You get the sense that towards the end King began to question the possibility of his dream becoming a reality. And that's real life. This hope-filled man was crushed by the truth of reality, that his vision of peace and equality would probably never come true. That's a much different picture than the one we're so often given.

King in the Wilderness pushes back against the very American trend of whitewashing history, a trend so bodacious that it even washes away the radical truth of the civil rights movement and the man who led it. It's a trend that washes away the fact that he was utterly rejected by most for most of his life. It washes away the fact that the bigots that live today would have hated the man despite their claims to love him, which is much easier to do now that he's dead. It washes away truth, and that's why his dream will most likely always remain just that, a dream.

A Quiet Place

★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

What stands out about A Quiet Place is just how simple it is. Compared to the sprawling worlds of stories like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, and even something like the 10-year-long Marvel Cinematic Universe, this film is short, succinct and easy to understand. Compared to other thrillers, A Quiet Place is stripped down to he bare minimum.

There's no huge mystery to be solved. That work has already been done. The survivors on the planet must live in virtual silence lest they be hunted down by the blind monsters that now terrorize the earth. Any out-of-the-ordinary sound is cause for the creatures to appear and begin thrashing about destroying anything in the vicinity.  

Sure there are versions of the film that could have been flashier. Perhaps if the film started earlier, it could have gone the big budget, Independence Day route, as government officials discover that sound is what triggers the beasts. There are outstanding questions like what exactly are these creatures and where did they come from? But A Quiet Place isn't interested in answering those questions, and it's all the better for it.

What we get instead is a terrifying family drama, one that's hyper-focused on the lives of the Abbots, what would be an all-American family outside of the present circumstances. Regan, the oldest child, is deaf. What once may have been thought of as a curse is probably their saving grace since they already know how to communicate in silence. And after more than a year haunted by the creatures, the mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is nearing her due date.

The genius of what co-writers Scott Beck, Bryan Woods and John Krasinski (who also directs and stars) have created is far beyond an interesting premise. Premises can be ruined by bad story choices. The filmmakers here rightly realize the question of how a woman plans to give birth when she must be silent is far more interesting than the question of whether these monsters are from outer space or not.

At the center of what makes A Quiet Place stand out aren't just the moments that make you jump, most of which are well-earned and sincerely terrifying, but also the emotional message that acts as a simple through line in film. It's really shockingly simple: much has been lost and no one can bear to lose anymore, because they love those they hold dear. Each emotional moment is intricately connected to the terror, not some side element added after the fact to give the film an empty kind of universal weight. It's equally a story of familial love as it is a horror film, and those two elements are impossible to separate.

And though the film isn't part of a sprawling canon with a storied history, the same attention to detail is paid. Each sound is heightened since sounds are so few and far between. The music is sparse and perfectly placed. The clothing choices make perfect sense, from the flowing dresses Evelyn wears, to the plush knit sweaters that make their young son look like a Christmas elf. And Krasinski's direction proves he has a very sharp sense for what makes a horror film and what makes one that effectively tugs your heartstrings.

Tyler Perry's Acrimony

★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ 5/10

There's a lot more than meets the eye with Tyler Perry's Acrimony. Marketed as the same old same old, on its face Acrimony looks like your standard, woman gets cheated on by her man and deals with the heartache and pain story. And that was a calculated marketing move that brilliantly worked. People, the older black female audience to be more precise, have shown they have an appetite for Tyler Perry's familiar tropes, and with a $17 million opening weekend it's obvious that appetite is still very much present. But what starts as your run-of-the-mill episode of the Tyler Perry hour, elevated by the skill and craft of Taraji P. Henson, transforms into something else— something smart, but ultimately something confusing.

It's smart for a director to play on an audience's expectation of their work. It's not the first time it's happened, but Perry's canon is so different from and for a much different audience than directors who have done so in the past. Having the official title be Tyler Perry's Acrimony instead of just Acrimony, only helps to establish the audience's very particular set of expectations.

Melinda (Henson) recounts her whirlwind romance and the proceeding fallout in a court-ordered therapy session. It's on long flashback that details how she met Robert, an engineering student from the wrong side of the tracks, on her college campus; how she used the money her deceased mother left her to get them a solid footing as they started a life together; and how she subsequently blew through her savings supporting his dream of developing a regenerative battery that he hoped would be their ticket to the high life. 

(Spoilers ahead)

The problem with Robert is that he, consumed with his battery project and dream of getting the funding to make it a reality on a massive scale, never gets a job to help the household and seems oblivious to the fact that they're burning through tons of cash because of it. And on top of the fact that he takes without giving back, he cheated on Melinda once in their youth leading young Melinda (played by Ajiona Alexus, who's making a career out of playing young Taraji, having done it on Empire as well) to be blinded by rage, wreaking havoc on herself and Robert.

We learn that this is the thing with Melinda. She so desperately wishes to shirk the label of mad black woman, but, as she tells the therapist, when she feels wronged, she loses control and goes to the extreme. 

So Robert is clearly a bum and Melinda is clearly the long-suffering wife. This expected end was met by derisive grunts and moans from the folks in my theater fed up with Robert's behavior. But then suddenly things begin change, throwing the audience for a loop. You could feel the audience's uncertainty once Perry impressively switches the script. 

After decades of work, Robert's battery turns out to be a viable technological advancement. He gets fired from the one job he was able to secure in a last ditch effort to keep his dream alive, an effort that doesn't fully pay off, but lets him know that he's on to something. But this is Melinda's last string. She kicks him out and makes plans for a divorce. What seems like mere seconds after finalizing the divorce, Robert sells the plans for his battery for more money than can be fathomed and his life changes.

But instead of just moving on with his life completely, he actually does the right thing and returns to Melinda to thank her for her investment in him. He buys her a home and gives her $10 million to use however she sees fit. He has moved on romantically to a woman from his past, but only because Melinda made it very clear that she would never want him.

Well, seeing him happy with another woman sends her over the edge despite his willingness to offer recompense for what she gave him. The only problem is that it's here that the movie transforms into something different altogether. Apparently for the past two hours we were supposed to have been watching a thriller, where a woman, clearly plagued with mental issues, seeks fatal revenge. It's an abrupt change that's treated like a big reveal, only this reveal serves to fundamentally alter the genre of film we're watching at a very late stage. 

The final scene becomes a slasher film, with violence that is totally unearned by anything preceding it. Despite the filmmaker's best efforts to build to this end, the build wasn't there. Sure, we are constantly warned that she could go blind with rage, but we really only see one truly crazed act, and that's at least partially justified, in the first half, while the rest of the time they just talk about her potential to go overboard. And  it's one thing to want to get revenge and even kill those you feel wronged you, but a whole other thing to want to chase a man and his new wife around with a bloodied axe. 

So any points earned for and inventive reveal that flipped the script in an smart and surprising way, were essentially lost as the film devolved into something so incredibly disconnected from everything that came before.

Also the movie is far too long.

Ready Player One

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

A funny thing about Steven Spielberg's movies became apparent to me in the final moments of Ready Player One. The scene is reminiscent of the end of a sports movie from 80s or 90s. A big crowd celebrates a victory that transcends the sport. This was no simple game, but a battle between good and evil, and evil is handed a mighty defeat. Suddenly we zoom in to our main characters among the frolicking crowd, where a guy kisses the girl for the first time and all that was off balance is restored as the evil team walks away in defeat. A rousing, strings-heavy orchestration plays putting a smile on everyone's face. It's utterly optimistic. A dream sequence come true.

This is what we get with Ready Player One, and on one hand, it feels dated and old school. Or is it, on the other hand, something more timeless? Because of Spielberg's Spielbergian direction, with swooping pans that make your heart swell, and a sort of weaving in and out of scenes in a way that only he can envision, timeless is the more accurate description because the same devices that Spielberg used to make spirits rise back then, devices that were copied over and over in those previous decades, still have the same effect today.

And that's why Ready Player One works so well. Even if you miss most of the pop culture references or, like me, completely sucked at any and all video games, Spielberg has managed to make what can be considered one of the most sci-fi of sci-fi movies in recent memory interesting to anyone willing to go along for the ride.

Ready Player One takes place about 25 years in the future, a time when a virtual reality world called the OASIS has all but become a substitute for the real world. People live much of their lives in this virtual reality being who they want to be and living out their dream lives. In many ways one's experience in the OASIS is like a video game. Death isn't real death, you can collect coins and there are hidden Easter Eggs.

Since the creator of the OASIS, Halliday, died, the main objective of almost everyone in this VR world has been to find three hidden keys Halliday left behind to unlock the ultimate Easter Egg. To get a key requires being smart enough to decipher clues Halliday left behind to complete the challenges he set. So Parzival (teenager Wade Wyatt in the real world) makes it his mission to gather the three keys and be the one to find the Easter Egg, and thereby win the ultimate prize—  complete control of the OASIS (and the billions that goes with that). But he's up against some pretty tough competition, like his best friend Hal, the mysterious competitor Art3mis, and the IOI corporation, which employs thousands of gamers and researchers to win the game so the company can take control of the biggest invention since the internet.

Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) leads IOI and its efforts to find the Easter Egg. He doesn't care about Halliday's legacy, video games or pop culture, and he'll go to any lengths to find the Easter Egg. So when Parzival, Art3mis and their friends gain a lead in the game, Sorrento introduces dangerous, real world consequences for the players.

The film travels back and forth between a gritty future version of Columbus, Ohio, filled with forgotten stacks of ratty trailer homes that Wade (Tye Sheridan) lives in, and the virtual world of oversaturated colors and bright lights. It also goes back and forth in the same way between being a candy-coated kids' adventure, to a heavier and more dangerous film. It's designed to be a stark contrast, the real world versus the one Halliday has engineered. But there's also a bit of a filmmaking disconnect that doesn't work, making it hard to grasp the stakes. Sure we know that everyone in the OASIS is angling to find the keys that will lead to control of the VR fantasyland, but these stakes are ultimately pretty low because the reality of winning Halliday's quest is like the possibility of winning the lottery. It'd be cool, but if you didn't, you'd probably be okay. It's only because Sorrento and the IOI shareholders he needs to impress want control of the OASIS so badly that Halliday's game ever feels like a big deal, even though the film tries to get us to care about the VR world beyond the IOI's persistent presence. 

So when Sorrento proves willing to kill in the real world to stop Wade from winning the game, it kind of feels out of left field. Sorrento wants to win because he and his company want to control the OASIS for business reasons. And Parzival and friends want to win to protect the integrity of the virtual world they call second home. But their motivation is only activated because of IOI. None of it seems worth dying over, but we somehow reach this astounding level of intensity. And what's more, the overall light and airy tone of the film helps subvert the intensity that the filmmakers and writers struggle to build. 

But beyond that one major gripe, the movie is certainly fun enough and impressive enough to justify its existence. Spielberg hearkens the energy that characterizes his Indiana Jones films, ensuring that Ready Player One has a solid place in the director's canon of films.

Isle of Dogs

★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

It's not a particularly new phenomenon to see a great animated movie. Coco was in my top 10 films of 2017. One thing that is so impressive about them is that these films, made for and marketed to kids, are engaging and meaningful for anyone who watches them. 

But Isle of Dogs is different. With it's PG-13 rating, and even outside of the MPAA rating system, you get the sense that this animated movie is made for adults. It, of course, is not the first, though it's rare, animated movie for adults, but those film's either take a very raunchy (Seth Rogan-esque, if you will) turn, or are of the goofier variety (I'm looking at you The Simpson's Movie). Wes Anderson's take on adult animation is in a class of its own, kind of like all of Wes Anderson's films. There's a childlike whimsy involved, but the story elements, references, and overall attention to artistic detail in lieu of candy-colored shininess might very well bore children.

So Isle of Dogs is special because it feels like a project not compromised by compromises. Funny, sharp, visually astounding, ad altogether a Wes Anderson movie.

It’s the story of a city in Japan led by Mayor Kobayashi, a mayor with a penchant for cats, who exiles all dogs to the an island off the mainland. The island, which doubles as a landfill, would become the isle of dogs, a place of sadness, despair and high-pitched canine whimpering. Luckily the dogs speak English, at least they do in effect, so the audience can understand their motives, conversations, and get a sense of each dog’s personalities, like Duke (Jeff Goldblum), a dog inclined to spreading gossip, or Oracle (Tilda Swinton) thought by the other dogs on the island to have visions of the future, who really just happens to watch a lot of TV News.

A group of four dogs, led by the dirty and unaffectionate stray called Chief (Bryan Cranston), find and help a boy who crash-lands on the island in search of his lost dog Spots. Despite Chief’s less than enthusiastic interest in the boy, who turns out to be Atari, nephew of Mayor Kobayashi, the canine quartet help him search the island for the lost dog. Back in the Japanese city, humans sympathetic to the discarded dogs work to create a cure for the dogs’ illness, cited as the reason the dogs were banished in the first place. And young people led by American exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) work to uncover the political plot to rid the city of pups and their parents.

It’s all very wondrously screwball and creatively brilliant. It’s impossible not to laugh and be moved by the story of these dogs, who very much are the heart of the film, with the human characters supporting. Ultimately it’s a movie to sit back and marvel at, taking in how incredible it is in every way.

And one of those ways is, of course, visually. It’s a movie that was painstakingly made like all stop motion films. But with the focus on animal characters covered in fur, a certain sushi scene that reportedly took months of preparation, and the use of more than 1,000 puppets, the film reaches a new plane of meticulousness. While watching the movie you can’t help but be in awe of the majestic nature of the visuals. This sense of wonder has the ability to take you out of the story of the film to give you a sort of outside-looking-in perspective. Usually this would be a problem, but the oddness of nearly all of Anderson’s work, characterized by the storybook format through which nearly all them are told, provide a sort of distance that keeps the audience at bay, instead of being sucked in. But all that’s intentional, and therefore not a bad thing like it would be in another instance. It’s an effect that rubber stamps and places a seal on Anderson’s work truly making it his own.

Thoroughbreds

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

I was sitting at my desk at my job's Flatiron office participating in one of me and my co-workers' frequent film chats when we all fawned over how great Heathers is. I had probably seen it for the first time more recently than anyone else, having watched it within the last year. Unlike many of our other conversations, on Heathers we all agreed— this '80s classic starring Winona Ryder deserved all the praise heaped upon it. 

If you haven't seen Heathers 1) you should and 2) without spoiling it, it's a surprisingly dark and twisted movie played out on a Hughesian high school backdrop. One of my co-workers mentioned that movies like it simply couldn't be made today. And without thinking too deeply, I continued to agree. But I don't think that's true and Thoroughbreds proves it. Perhaps these movies won't capture the wide attention of the American audience in the same way, but high school dramedies, one of my favorite genres of film and television, with a particular darkness, can still be successfully made today.

There's so much that Thoroughbreds gets right. One of those things is the casting of our two main characters. Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke play rich Connecticut high schoolers unhappy with their vapid parents and whitewashed lives for various reasons. The two girls, though similar in several ways, are mostly different. Lilly (Taylor-Joy) is a picture perfect Wasp on the outside, effortlessly projecting the image of a wholesome and fulfilled college-bound teen. Amanda (Cooke) on the other hand, sees through Lilly's crap, and wears her discontent on her sleeve. The two girls are old friends who have drifted apart and have only reconnected as a response to the desperate pleas of Amanda's mother, who feels her daughter needs a friend.

There's a line in the trailer, and in the film, where Amanda lists off a list of emotions in an effort to describe to Lilly that she cannot feel any of the feelings on her list and beyond. It's the line that determined that I would be seeing this movie because it begs several questions. Is Amanda truly unable to feel? Is it a self-diagnosis? How does she then hide this alleged fact in social interactions? And do people like her exist in our world? The other question the film raises that I hadn't thought of— is the unfelt life worth living?

Cooke has played a version of this role before. In Me, Earl and the Dying Girl she's a deadpan cancer patient dealing with her diagnosis with surprising ease. And even in the series Bates Motel she often cuts to her point with a low, matter-of-fact tone of voice. Here she pushes that convincingly to the extreme and holds the film up on her shoulders.

Lilly and Amanda continue their friendship, though it's a tumultuous one, because Lilly enlists her help to devise a plan to kill her wretch of a stepdad, Mark (Paul Sparks). Mark is a control-freak and an altogether douche, but hardly the worst as far as film stepparents go. Still Lilly and Amanda come up with a time and place for the murder, and avenues for plausible deniability. They rope in Tim (Anton Yelchin in his final role), a local small-time drug dealer, to do the deed.

But the film is more than the murder plot. It's about learning who these two rich white teens (and their richness, whiteness, and teen-ness certainly play a role even if indirectly) are, and what they've done to get them to this place in their lives. They're both enigmatic and magnetic.

And that magnetism is heightened by incredible direction. Writer/director Corey Finley frames our anti-heroes as pop icons giving them power even when they're flailing. There's a moment early on when Lilly fiddles with her necklace pulling it back and forth, and the camera, though stationary, follows it with focus. It's a little thing that's both stylish and tonal. Then there are other compositions that have the potential to make these teens the kind of characters people talk about in offices 30 years from now.

But while there's so much to love about Thoroughbreds, there's still something missing. Exactly what that is is hard to pinpoint. But the film isn't as sharp or biting as it needs to be. It's not quite as funny as you'd expect it to be. And ultimately, though murder is at the center, the stakes feel a bit too understated. So while so much about Thoroughbreds is intriging, it's ultimately missing the spark of greatness, a spark that Heathers possesses, that cannot be ignored.

Red Sparrow

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

Ah, the spy movie. I think in some ways it's an acquired taste. Too much posturing and not enough action for some. But for me, it's right up my alley, which probably explains why I like Red Sparrow more than others. Spy movies ooze style and tease us with sensuality in the most thrilling of ways. That being said, I won't accept any rubbish under the spy film umbrella. Luckily, there is enough in Red Sparrow worth watching that covers over the film's other faults. 

Let's start with the bad. Red Sparrow, simply put, is too long. It's a winding narrative that connects things lightly mentioned in earlier moments, puts the consequences of those moments on the farthest back-burner, then comes back to make those fleeting snippets and words exchanged the bedrock for the big reveal. It's supposed to be clever, and in some ways it is, but after such a long runtime, things begin to just feel tiresome. And that's honestly the one major problem with the film. There are so many sections that, if more craftily handled, would have led to a more fulfilling and thrilling end.

Do we need to see Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) as Russia's prima ballerina, who, after being irreversibly injured during a performance, brutally attacks the woman who takes her place, and the ballerino who helps her? We could have essentially skipped 15 of the first 20 minutes, the producers could have saved thousands making Lawrence look like she could dance, and we could have avoided a section of the film, her attack, that actually throws a confusing wrench in her overall evolution as a character.

But luckily it's not enough to ruin a movie with very high ambitions. 

After Lawrence's Dominika can't dance anymore, she and her sick mother are stuck between a rock and a hard place as soon the dance company will stop paying for their apartment and her mom's medical treatments. Dominika's seedy uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts), a high official in the Russian intelligence community, approaches her with a proposition to  use her body to help the Russian government prove the disloyalty of an associate. That's a whole section in itself, and it's no surprise that things don't go as planned, complicating the former dancer's future. So her uncle gives her a non choice: prove her loyalty to her government by joining the Red Sparrows, a group of attractive young people trained to use whatever skills necessary, which turns out to literally only ever be sex, to squeeze information out of foreign agents and associates, or die.

It's a whole other section as we watch Dominika grapple with her morality during her training to be Sparrow. This section is full of (much of it unnecessary) raunchiness led by Charlotte Rampling, who is as cold as ever, somewhat her specialty in this later stage of her career. Rampling is actually quite good and gives this section a sense of danger, as we wonder if a ballerina actually has what it takes to become a Red Sparrow. 

Dominika is then plucked by her government to become familiar with Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), an American agent stationed in Budapest, so she can extract information about a Russian mole he's in contact with. This starts a long, long web of avenues that goes off on deep tangents only to be brought together in the end.

The fact that everything does all work together is impressive. It's what Atomic Blonde, with all the glory of "the hallway scene" was missing— coherence. What I've outlined so far of the plot is only the beginning. There's much to cover with Dominika's roommate in Budapest, the roommate's own spy activity is it's own tangent that at a point comes to the forefront. Dominika has a tumultuous relationship with her pig of a boss in Budapest. Plus there's the constant back and forth as we wonder with which government Dominika's loyalties lie, if any.

And all this leads me to my main takeaway. Red Sparrow should have been a television show, specifically a limited series. I'd give it about seven episodes. This way, all of these distinct sections of the story could have enough time to fully play out, without the bothersome worry of time. It would also allow Dominika to become a more developed character as she grows and evolves from graceful dancer to manipulating puppeteer. Could they have gotten Jennifer Lawrence to play the lead role if Red Sparrow were a television program? Perhaps not, but now more than ever it seems feasible. In a world where movie stars like Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Matthew McConaughey can do limited series, who's to say J-Law would shy away from the opportunity to win the E in her eventual EGOT?

Something would be lost without Lawrence at the helm. No matter what she's in, she's magnetic. And I think she's only getting better. She seems to lose herself in characters more these days, perhaps adopting the method method of acting. She's less Jennifer Lawrence playing "X" character, but instead is starting to become the character, all without losing her charisma. Lawrence was undeniably brilliant in Mother even as the movie itself was deniably so.

So Red Sparrow the film certainly benefited from her presence, but Red Sparrow the limited series would have benefitted from more time.

Annihilation

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10

In many ways Annihilation is the best you could hope for in a February offering (save for the rare outstanding film that shocks you to the core, like Black Panther). Expectations are low in these early months of the year. So when a film with as interesting of a premise as Annihilation hits theaters at this time, it's worth checking out.

And while Annihilation is on the positive side of the February movie spectrum, it's still a far cry from greatness. Yes, it's visually stunning at times and features a mystery that genuinely piques ones interest. Still it lacks something that writer/director Alex Garland's first film, Ex Machina (2014), possessed. 

It's always a bit dangerous to have a successful film, especially when it's your first directorial feature. The follow up is almost more pressure than the earlier project and comparisons are impossible to avoid. Ex Machina was a surprise hit. A smartly told, suspenseful story about artificial intelligence that worked not only because it was an interesting concept, but because a sense of unease was built into every frame and every syllable of dialogue. Though Annihilation is in many ways similar to that earlier film, the build up, the uneasiness, is missing.

Lena (Natalie Portman) is a biologist and former army vet whose military husband disappeared in action on a secret mission she knows nothing about. That mission, she learns, was to investigate and enter a sort of jungly, rainbow-colored alternate dimension created by a crater that hit the earth. The parameters of this dimension are ever expanding, transforming whatever it comes in contact with. Virtually no one has ever come back after going in, leaving the scientific community with little to no information what's within the borders of this space, and how to stop its advancement.

A team of five women is chosen to enter the dimension in order to reach the lighthouse at the epicenter of the meteor strike, to figure out what's going on. Because no one has returned from this alternate world, the team has no clue what dangers might await or if they'll simply go mad within the new dimension. 

As can be expected, the team can't quite keep it together until they reach the lighthouse.  And while the end is visually stunning and answers some of the questions we've had since the movie began, what leads to this thrilling end is essentially your standard jungle exploration film. The women must fend off attacks in the wild and battle demons of their own minds' creation. But nothing particularly out of the ordinary happens that even alludes to the bright, colorful, and other-worldly nature of the film's final act.

It's a mostly well-acted film. Natalie Portman is as solid as ever. And her supporting cast holds their own, particularly Gina Rodriguez who embodies a much different space than her Jane the Virgin character. The one weak link is surprisingly Jennifer Jason Leigh, the disaffected government scientist leading the team to the lighthouse. For a character who's supposed to be distant and cold, Leigh somehow manages to overact.

Garland should be commended for not playing it safe. A lesser artist might be inclined to use his newfound Hollywood capital to make a biopic or some other sort of Oscar bait. Annihilation is an ambitious project that simply doesn't quite work out, which ultimately explains its February release.

Black Panther

★★★★★★★★★☆ 9/10

After leaving theater I hopped in a cab to go home, then hopped on the phone with my sister who had seen an earlier Thursday showing of Black Panther. Immediately after getting on the phone she put me on hold. Suddenly another voice greeted me on the line, this one belonging to my cousin, who had also just seen the movie that night. Clearly I was intruding upon a conversation in progress, but was glad to share this moment with family members who were as eager as I was to see Black Panther the moment I got the chance.

During this conversation my sister made a profound observation. She said, "It's nice to leave the movie theater after seeing a black movie and feel empowered." She was on to something. Going to see most black films that receive the level of widespread critical acclaim that Black Panther has enjoyed involves the ritual of self-depression as these stories focus on the saddening hardships black people have been forced to endure. Even when these movies are meant to be hopeful, like 2016's Hidden Figures, you may feel anxiety the moment you leave the theater knowing that your world isn't the rosy picture of progress that just graced the silver screen, or in my case, may wonder if the film’s hopeful tone was irresponsibly untrue. Even with black (culturally speaking) comedies, you may laugh, but empowered isn't necessarily the word that comes to mind.

So yes, Black Panther is a huge gulping breath of fresh air for black audiences who showed up wearing African-inspired head wraps or dressed as members of the Black Panther Party of the 60s and 70s. But on top of all that, Black Panther is a really good film, complete with a complex story, humor, charismatic performances, and a villain worth his time on the screen. 

Is it odd that this character, created by white men, is the cause of such inspiration in the black community? Honestly, yes. But what cannot be denied is the way black people have so gladly taken ownership of the character by seeing themselves in this king and kingdom, with people living in a world more advanced than any place on earth. It's a fantasy of fantasies, one that we can only wish for right now, but one that we know reflects our glory in that it perhaps could have been if black history weren't marred by oppression at every turn.

The story takes place right after the events of Captain America: Civil War. One week earlier King T'Chaka of Wakanda was killed at a UN summit leaving his son T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) as the new king. After defeating Zemo and fighting against half of the Avengers, T'Challa returns home to become king of the advanced African nation, and to assume the mantel of the Black Panther, a mystical force that bestows upon him the honor and burden of being Wakanda's protector. It's in Wakanda that we meet a host of characters, particularly the women, who guide T'Challa and the country. There's Okoye, the country's most skilled fighter and general of the all-female royal guard. There's the new king's sister Shuri, who brilliantly heads up tech innovation in the country, harnessing the power of vibranium, the strongest metal on the planet, in new ways. There's T'Challa's mother Ramonda (Angela Basset). And Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), T'Challa's ex. She's a spy who has made it her mission to bring aid and end corruption around the continent through covert operations. 

It's Nakia who challenges T'Challa's view of his duties as king. Wakanda's foreign policy can only be described as isolationist to the highest degree. To the outside world Wakanda is just another third world nation struggling to survive, when in actuality, like Wonder Woman's native island of Themyscira, they've shrouded the truth of the country, its high standard of living and superior technology, from the outside. This means that in order to keep this secret they refuse to take in refugees, or help their neighbors for fear of unleashing their vibranium resources to the world in the form of weapons. Nakia pushes back against the fearful stance noting that Wakanda has the resources to help, but won't, which is why she can't stay in the country watching idly as nothing changes.

The way women and their roles are highlighted in Wakandan culture is nothing short of glorious. They are strong, fiercely intelligent, wise and conflicted like any human being would be.

And at the heart of what makes Black Panther, or any film for that matter, good, is the story. It's not enough for a film to have a diverse cast, shirk the sexism that has plagued Hollywood with lame portrayals of female characters, and to be altogether "woke." Without a story it won't work. So that fact that the underlying story only serves to bolster the film's claims to “wokeness” elevates the experience that much more. 

A compelling villain sits at the center of much of the action. Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger is shaped by the history of his family. He has reason to hate Wakanda and to team up with Ulysses Klaue, who stole and seeks to steal more of the Wakandan's vibranium. Killmonger shares Nakia's view that Wakanda should be at the forefront of the fight to right the wrongs in the world with the incredible global power the country could wield. He's unsatisfied with the injustice he's experienced and seen having grown up in Oakland, California in the '90s. Perhaps he takes things a bit too far by attempting to overthrow Wakanda's power structure and unleash a reign of terror on those who have been part of the oppressor class. But what can't be denied is that Killmonger has a point. Plus, he's so charismatic, anyone could be fooled into following him to destruction. Jordan's stellar performance is a big part of what makes the film soar. He's both dangerous and enticing, and in many ways he appeals to our sense of justice, those of us blessed and burdened to have that sense.

If I have one complaint it's that in some sections the use of CGI was overdone. But this is a very minor issue when you consider how marvelous the film is in nearly every regard, including the deep impact this representation of black life is likely to make. What we, as black people, have to come to terms with, though, is that, at a certain level, this representation may only mean something to us. 

Others can understand it but won't necessarily feel it as deeply as we do, and that's fine. So when someone doesn't feel it in the same way, we have to realize that they simply cannot because the same social forces don't connect them with what this representation means to us. And in the case of the white straight male (which I do not use as a badge of dishonor, but more as a collection of factual identifiers), most likely no social force acting upon him connects him to this meaning. 

With Wonder Woman I don't think I fully grasped the significance of what the film meant to women in the audience to see her on the screen. At the time I thought this distance, so to speak, gave me a clearer set of eyes to see the film for what it was, but upon further consideration I don't think I saw it more clearly at all. Instead, I missed a layer. Perhaps it was a layer not meant for me to understand fully, but it was a layer nonetheless that helped elevate that film with so many moviegoers. The same is true here. Perhaps as a nonblack person you may not feel the sense of urgency so many black people feel with this film's release. Perhaps the weight of the moment won't hit you as hard or hit you at all. But as a black man watching it, understanding the film within the context if who I am, makes the film that much more perfect.