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I See Dead People

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Coco

by Hope Madden

Pixar is probably still the best bet in animation, though they followed up their 2015 high point Inside Out with the somewhat mediocre The Good Dinosaur and Finding Dory, and finally the underwhelming third installment in their least impressive series, Cars 3.

Can Coco, a story of finding your place between family and dreams, between this world and the next, set things right?

The film follows Miguel (well voiced by young Anthony Gonzalez), a musician, like his great-great-grandfather. The one no one is allowed to mention. The one whose face has been torn from the family photo. The one the whole family is supposed to forget.

Instead of being a musician, Miguel is supposed to make shoes, like the great-great-grandmother who taught herself to make shoes when her husband left her to pursue his dreams of being a musician.

But Miguel prefers music—who wouldn’t?—and “borrows” the guitar of the great, long-dead hometown hero Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) so he can play in the talent show during the Dia de los Muertos celebration.

One thing leads to another and Miguel finds himself in the Land of the Dead.

There are a number of things Coco does quite right. Though its themes are reminiscent of other Pixar films—Ratatouille, in particular—the cultural execution is a welcome change in a long and Euro-centric list of movies.

The film is also characteristically gorgeous, many frames spilling over with vivid color and imagery.

Coco also tells a satisfying story that packs an emotional wallop. Like the animation giant’s 2009 masterpiece Up, Coco invests in elderly characters and celebrates death as a tragic but inevitable consequence of life.

The structure by now has become common, with too many notions borrowed from other Pixar films. Worse, the laughs are rarely hearty and the genuine emotion is saved for the climax leaving too much time spent with little serious audience connection.

That’s the tough thing about being Pixar, though, isn’t it? We’ve become so accustomed to treasures that we disregard a lovely, heartfelt piece of family entertainment. Coco is no Toy Story, but it’s a lovely film.

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Truth in Advertising

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

by George Wolf

In any form, great writing is a joy to behold. On the movie screen, pair it with skilled actors and you’re more than halfway home to a memorable experience.

Three Billboards… gets all the way home.

Writer/director Martin McDonagh provides his stellar ensemble with smart, insightful dialog that crackles with bite, poignancy and scattershot hilarity. His tale is offbeat but urgent and welcome, speaking as it does to grief, compassion, and navigating the contrasts between the good and evil in our flawed selves.

Frances McDormand is sensational as Mildred, a woman still haunted by the unsolved murder of her daughter seven months earlier. Passing by a series of abandoned billboards on her rural drive home one evening, Mildred decides to rent them, publicly asking Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson, capping off a year of multiple great performances) why there have been no arrests.

This is not a popular move, not with the Sheriff, his violent deputy (Sam Rockwell – fantastic), Mildred’s abusive ex-husband (John Hawkes), her embarrassed son (Lucas Hedges) or…who else ya got?

Only an enthusiastic co-worker (Amanda Warren) and a hopeful suitor (Peter Dinklage) offer support, leaving Mildred as a small-town pariah.

She is unmoved, and McDormand crafts Mildred with meaningful layers, as a foul-mouthed firebrand lashing out at injustice and sorrow with a defiant lack of concern for consequence. She is absolutely award-worthy, as are Rockwell and Harrelson, and as their character arcs take unexpected detours, the film displays its relevant social conscience through both subtlety and aggression.

McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) compliments his usual knack for piercing wordplay with well-paced visual storytelling and some downright shocking tonal shifts. We are constantly engaged but never quite at ease, as McDonagh demands our attention through brutality and dark humor, holding the moments of humanity until they will be most deeply satisfying.

Behind Three Billboards..are performers able to create rich, indelible characters and a bold filmmaker whose vision and instincts have never been more on point.

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Strike a Pose

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Justice League

by George Wolf

Fair or foul, each new superhero film release spurs a check of the scorecards: Marvel vs. DC. Last year, Wonder Woman finally put a solid check in the DC column, one that Justice League only leaves frustrated and alone.

Nearly every facet of the film not only betrays a few promising avenues left undeveloped, but also its basic superhero tenets that are bettered by similar films (including the underrated Batman v. Superman). These friends aren’t super, they’re awkwardly forced and often helpless against some distracting CGI.

Perhaps even more than superpowers, big screen heroes need memorable villains, and the newly formed Justice League offers none. Instead, they have Steppenwolf.

Steppenwolf is a mass of weak computer graphics (voiced by Ciaran Hinds), born to be wild but currently in search of the three “mother boxes” he needs to unleash “the end of worlds” and send everyone back to the Dark Ages.

With Superman (Henry Cavill) still dead, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) recruit the surly Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the young Flash (Ezra Miller) and the brooding Cyborg (Ray Fisher) to join the cause.

They have the bodies. What they don’t have are characters worthy of investment.

Director Zack Snyder has them pose, trade overly dramatic declarations, and then do some additional posing while you may be checking your watch.

Comparisons to the first Avengers film are inevitable, especially with Joss Whedon on board as a co-writer, but Justice League just cannot get any resonance from the darker tone of the DC franchise. The push to be heavy and meaningful is an empty suit, despite well-meaning lip service to refugees and the importance of science.

Ironically, as the Marvel films continue to lean more comedic, the humorous moments in Justice League, usually courtesy of Miller and Mamoa, are among the film’s best. Rather than undercutting any dramatic tension, the humor here feels more logical and organic, similar to the highly effective funny bone in the recent Spider-Man: Homecoming.

And, with Gadot back on board, the difference in Wonder Woman through a male director’s lens is hard to miss. Yes, she gets some bad ass moments that she’s more than earned, but she also gets a more sexualized, less earnest presentation.

There are two extra “stinger” scenes to send you out discussing who the JL is fighting next, but perhaps the lasting impression of Justice League is just how behind-the-curve it all looks. Steppenwolf seems lifted from an old gaming commercial you might find on that VHS tape still lurking in your basement, while Cavill’s digitally-altered mouth (to remove a contractually obligated porn ‘stache he had during reshoots) sits there proudly like a new zit on prom night.

There is substance to be gleaned from DC, Wonder Woman was proof of that. But for now, Justice League is two tired steps back.

 

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Birdhouse in Your Soul

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Lady Bird

by Hope Madden

Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, may be the most delightfully candid and refreshingly forgiving coming-of-age film I’ve seen.

The great Saoirse Ronan—because honestly, is there now or has there ever been a more effortlessly talented 23-year-old?—plays Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson. Uniformed senior at Sacramento’s Immaculate Heart, Lady Bird is a work in progress.

Ronan is surrounded by talent. Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) shines as a sweetly gawky budding thespian while, as Lady Bird’s devoted bestie Julie, Beanie Feldstein (Neighbors 2) is heart-achingly wonderful.

Tracy Letts, playwright turned go-to character actor, proves again his natural ability in his newer profession as LB’s softie father. But it’s Laurie Metcalf who matches Ronan step for step.

As Lady Bird’s tough, even scary, mother, Metcalf is near-perfect. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Rosanne star nab her first Oscar nomination for a turn that’s brave, funny, hard to watch and painfully authentic.

Lady Bird’s greatest desire is to escape Sacramento—“the Midwest of California”—in favor of someplace, anyplace, with culture. Preferably a liberal arts college in NYC. But her grades, her mom and her family’s financial situation present some (often hilarious) obstacles.

Though the film is hardly a straight-up comedy, its irreverent humor is uproarious. I laughed louder and more often during Lady Bird than any film this year.

The plot and the comedy are less the point here than you might expect. They are really just a device Gerwig uses to explore adolescence and its characteristic stage of reinvention. She throws in the surprisingly accurate image of a family’s financial struggle to boot, just to make sure we never mistake this for a John Hughes film, or, God forbid, Perks of Being a Wallflower.

No, this is not a cheese-clothed indictment of all the ills facing adolescents. It’s Rushmore with less camp and more authenticity, and that’s got more to do with Gerwig than her formidable cast.

Though Lady Bird’s landscape is littered with coming-of-age tropes, there is wisdom and sincerity in the delivery. Gerwig offers genuine insight rather than nostalgia or, worse yet, lessons to be learned. The result ranks among the best films of the year.

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Social Distortion

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The Square

by George Wolf

Ruben Ostlund is a filmmaker fascinated with social contracts. He dissects them with a precision that can be both insightful and comedic. And now with The Square, he displays an equally deft handling of the absurd.

In 2014’s Force Majeure, Ostlund brilliantly exposed the folly of mixing societal assumptions and righteous intentions. This time out, his eye is trained on the growing distance between the classes and the social quandaries of privileged egocentricities.

Christian (Claes Bang) is curator at an art museum in Sweden, making preparations for the debut of a new exhibition called The Square. Once unveiled, it promises a “sanctuary of trust and caring,” where all will enjoy equal rights.

As Christian and his team ponder various marketing plans for the new venture, Christian’s phone and wallet are stolen, he must fight Anne (Elizabeth Moss) for possession of a used condom, a monkey puts on makeup in a lavish hotel suite, an aggrieved young boy makes good on a promise to fill Christian’s life with chaos, and two men race to right a wrong in a vehicle they giddily dub the “Tesla of Justice.”

Regardless of whether you’re able to make sense of it all, Ostlund continues to bring visionary scope to his writing and direction. Nearly every frame becomes a lavishly fascinating microscope, probing deep into the inner impulses and outward pressures that are constantly forming our actions and reactions.

The humor is dark and droll, often awkward and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but The Square (winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes) is also alternatively weird and occasionally freakish. Scenes are filled with subtle subtexts, shifting tones and burgeoning ideas, but through it all, Ostlund weaves a persistent, telling theme.

Character after character is seen, through different forms and varying levels of desperation, asking for help. As society is not quite the sanctuary of trust and caring offered by the new exhibit, Ostlund digs into both the motivations for, and reactions to, these pleas, always relishing the chance to open wounds and twist knives.

The Square is more evidence that Ostlund is a challenging, ambitious filmmaker whose work demands attention. It’s a visceral, thoroughly rewarding experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKDPrpJEGBY

 

 

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Terror Train

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Murder on the Orient Express

by Hope Madden

Kenneth Branagh likes a big room.

The thespian and Shakespearean master often feels ill-suited to film, as if he cannot help but play to the back row. Whether Branagh is in front of or behind the camera, subtlety and subtext don’t appear to come easily.

How about Agatha Christie? Branagh gambles that a 20th-century crime novelist whose prose created the architecture for a genre of books, movies, stage and television will still thrill modern audience.

A stacked ensemble for Murder on the Orient Express makes the same wager.

Branagh plays Christie’s brusque genius, Belgian Inspector Hercule Poirot.

Branagh the director is so preoccupied with Branagh the actor that his talent-laden cast is offered little more to do than to quickly hash out one-dimension. The waste of talent is the real crime afoot.

Those underused? A wide array of A-listers, from immediate hot properties Daisy Ridley (The Last Jedi) and Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin) to cinematic icons (Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi) to true movie stars (Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp)—and that’s not even half the cast.

Josh Gad appears in his second period-piece of the season (after last month’s Marshall), here playing a shady, drunken lawyer-turned-secretary who just might have killed a man.

Leslie Odom Jr. (Broadway’s Hamilton) plays a problem-solving doctor and former sharpshooter who just might have killed a man.

Penelope Cruz is a missionary nurse who won’t touch a drink, but she just might have…

You get the point. It’s an Agatha Christie story. At its best, campy, stagey fun. At its worst, stale.

The movie is a bit of both.

In keeping with Branagh’s love of spectacle, Murder on the Orient Express is a gorgeous, larger-than-life adventure. He shot on 65mm, and whether 20th Century Fox decides to release a 70mm print or not, the result is a glorious display, particularly in Act 1.

By the second act, we’re trapped in the train with a murderer. At that point, Branagh’s film starts to smell musty, and no quirky fun performances (Pfeiffer is particularly memorable) or delicately framed dining car treats can freshen things up.

When not doting on his star, Branagh’s camera showcases dazzling locations before luxuriating in the sumptuous appointments of the elegant train cars. It’s big. Very big. Grandiose, you might even say.

Which makes no sense at all for Christie’s close-quarters sleuthing of clues, faces, motives and sleight of hand.

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Tragic Kingdom

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The Florida Project

by Hope Madden

Full of the raucous rhythm of an unsupervised childhood, The Florida Project finds power in details and tells an unadorned but potent story.

Co-writer/director Sean Baker follows up his ambitious 2015 film Tangerine with another tale set gleefully along the fringes of society. Where Tangerine used weaves, stilettos and spangles to color the Christmas antics of Hollywood hustlers, here Baker fills the screen with bold colors and enormous, cartoonish images to create a grotesquely oversized playground.

The film begins with as perfect a movie opening as you will ever see.

Six-year-old Moonee (an astonishing Brooklynn Prince) wastes her summer days wandering the Orlando strip surrounding her home, a vivid purple bargain motel catering less to Disney World tourists than to tenants who can’t afford the security deposit world of traditional housing.

When she’s not out finding adventures with her besties Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera), Moonee’s probably hustling wholesale perfumes to tourists with her mom Halley (Bria Vinaite).

The one true grown up in the mix, motel manager Bobby, is played with charm and tenderness by Willem Dafoe.

Baker’s many talents include an ear for authentic dialog, a knack for letting a story breathe and an eye for visual details that enrich a tale. But maybe what’s most striking is his ability to tell fresh but universal stories. We all remember elements of unbridled recklessness in our childhood, although very few of us grew up the way Moonee does.

Baker creates a bridge into Moonee’s life, revels in her freedom and bravado, but keeps us always aware of the dangerous edges when you’re blurring childhood and adulthood.

It’s the concept of childhood and adulthood that preoccupies Baker and his story, set in this absurd, low-rent amusement park of a world. As Mooney’s mother, Vinaite offers a fierce mixture of childishness all her own as well as street-savviness. Halley keeps the ugliness of the world away with her own whimsy, and Vinaite’s onscreen chemistry with Prince is authentic and full of tenderness.

As much as Tinsel Town was the perfect backdrop for the struggling glamour of Tangerine, the shadow of Disney World is almost too perfect a setting for the grinding poverty and perverted innocence of The Florida Project.

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What We Do on Asgard

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Thor: Ragnarok

by Hope Madden

What if the next Avengers movie was a laugh riot? A full-blown comedy—would you be OK with that?

The answer to that question has serious implications for your appreciation of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok.

You’re familiar with Thor, his brother, his buddies, his hair. But how well do you know Waititi? Because he’s made a handful of really great movies you should see, chief among them What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Waititi’s films are charming and funny in that particularly New Zealand way, which is to say equal parts droll and silly. So a total goofus has made our latest superhero movie, is what I’m trying to tell you, and you’ll need to really embrace that to appreciate this film, because Thor: Ragnarok makes the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise seem dour and stiff.

There’s a real Thor movie in here somewhere. Thor (Chris Hemsworth and his abs) learns of his older sister Hela (Cate Blanchett—hela good casting!). Sure, Thor’s the God of Thunder, but Hela’s the Goddess of Death, so her return is not so welcome. But daaayumn, Cate Blanchett makes a kick-ass Goth chick.

Indeed, the film is lousy with female badasses. Tessa Thompson (Dear White People, Creed) proves her status by taking all comers, Thor and Hulk among them.

But can you get behind the idea of Hulk and dialog? Because he has dialog in this movie. Like whole conversations. Dude, I don’t know about that.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston) returns, as does Idris Elba, so this is one bona fide handsome movie. Mark Ruffalo makes an appearance in a vintage Duran Duran tee shirt. It’s like Waititi thought to himself, how many of Hope’s crushes can we squeeze into one film?

One more! Jeff Goldblum (don’t judge me) joins as a charming and hysterical world leader. His banter with his second in command (Rachel House—so hilarious in Wilderpeople) is priceless.

Also very funny, Karl Urban (who brings a nice slap of comic timing to every bloated franchise he joins), Waititi himself (playing a creature made of rocks), and one outstanding cameo I won’t spoil.

Thor: Ragnarock lifts self-parody to goofy heights, and maybe that’s OK. There’s no question the film entertains. Does it add much to the canon? Well, let’s be honest, the Thor stand-alones are not the strongest in the Marvel universe.

You will laugh. You’ll want to hug this movie, it’s so adorable.

Unless you’re totally pissed about the whole thing, which is entirely possible.

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Those Aren’t Sugar Plums

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A Bad Mom’s Christmas

by George Wolf

“Okay, fine, we’ll go caroling, but I’m not wearing that ridiculous costume.”

Man, what a setup. When we see her wearing that ridiculous costume two seconds later it’s really, really…not funny at all, much like the other 103 minutes of A Bad Mom’s Christmas.

The original Bad Moms might have been completely superficial and a champion of equal rights for cliched, underwritten male characters, but at least it managed some chuckles from three talented leading ladies.

And beyond all that, it was a box office smash, so the moms are back to do Christmas this year, mainly against their will.

Amy (Mila Kunis), Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) are tired of being overworked and under appreciated every Holiday season, so they make an oath to “take Christmas back” and just chill this year.

But they’re barely done giving lap dances to a mall Santa when they all get visits from more easily identifiable cliches, gift-wrapped as their own mothers! What the?

Amy’s mom(Christine Baranski) is the demanding perfectionist, Kiki’s (Cheryl Hines) the stage five clinger and Carla’s (Susan Sarandon) is the party hound. All three are here to make their daughters feel overworked and under appreciated, at least until everybody learns something today.

Writers/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover trilogy) return from the first film to surround even more talented ladies with lazy, condescending attempts at comedy and female bonding.

The obvious gags rarely rise above the level of women talking dirty and little kids dropping F-bombs. Sure, that can be funny, but not when the women and kids are the only reasons it’s supposed to be funny.

Like the bedroom of Amy’s teen daughter that bears two-too-many “I love soccer” banners, Lucas and Moore are desperately trying to not only show they can write funny women but also that they are finely tuned to what makes women feel fulfilled as mothers and daughters.

A Bad Mom’s Christmas is contrived and forced at every turn, and by the time a mother/daughter heart to heart disrupts Midnight Mass while the congregation never takes one eyeball off the choir, a gift receipt is in order.

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Mighty Neighborly

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Suburbicon

by George Wolf

Ah, the good old days.

In these turbulent times, who doesn’t long for a return to that simple life, when everything was just so peachy and America was…what’s that word? Great!

Suburbicon is hardly the first film to cast satirical aspersions onto idealized visions of 1950s Americana, but few have created such a biting bridge to the present while doing it. Just when you might think it’s being too obvious in its messaging, the powerhouse pedigrees of almost everyone involved remind you there must be something more at work here.

There is, something that’s often deliciously dark, twisted and satisfying.

The village of Suburbicon is peddled as the pinnacle of modern living for the upwardly mobile families of the 1950s. It’s a community proud of its diversity…until a black family moves in. Mr. and Mrs. Mayers (Leith M. Burke and Karimah Westbrook) are careful to mind their own business, even as the angry crowd outside begins to grow.

Right next door to the new unwelcome neighbors, Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon), his wife Rose (Julianne Moore), sister-in-law Margaret (also Julianne Moore) and son Nicky (Noah Jupe) are dealing with the consequences of a violent home invasion. An insurance claim follows, which brings a visit from an eager fraud investigator (a scene-stealing Oscar Isaac).

It’s a film loosely loosely built from the story of the first black family to live in a 1957 Pennsylvania suburb, as director George Clooney and frequent writing partner Grant Heslov resurrect a decades old script from the masterful Coen Brothers to mine both the ridiculous and the profane.

Connecting the Lodge and Mayers households only through the uneasy friendship of Nicky and young Andy Mayers (Tony Espinosa), we see the Suburbicon residents threatened not by the dangerous lunacy of their white neighbors, but by the mere existence of anything that disturbs their own privilege.

The eye for crisp detail that helped Clooney nab both writing and directing Oscar noms for Good Night, and Good Luck is on full display here, along with stellar performances from a standout ensemble.

But Clooney’s heart is on his sleeve as usual, and surrounding a tale of racial violence with such kitsch and exaggerated satire brings a danger of condescension that the film keeps at arm’s length through a commitment to its long game.

Beyond the tired metaphors of fences and observant children lies the point that this is the history so many want to “take America back” to, and it was far from great.