Don’t let It find you in the dark

The reimagining of Stephen King’s It is a genuinely creepy, genuinely scary movie, not for the faint of heart. Rather than telling the story of the kids in flashback-form as the first movie did, this one just takes place in 1988 (ostensibly setting up a future sequel when they come back as adults).

Focusing on a group of 4 pre-teen boys, who pick up another couple friends along the way, the movie shows the town of Derry, a town which is facing a crisis. People, and especially children, are disappearing at an alarming rate. Eventually the insane clown Pennywise shows his face to each of the friends, and they decide to come together to rid the town of the menace. There are plenty of ways for the clown to give you the creeps (and quite a few jump scares, one in particular that got the whole theater to startle). But more than just a scary movie, this film has a great plot and is truly well acted by the young leads, fronted by Jaeden Lieberher of St Vincent and Midnight Special. Don’t take the kids to this one unless you want to be woken up during the night, but fans of the horror genre will find plenty to like.

Quick takes on 5 films

Chuck is a biographical film about the life of Chuck Wepner. I’d venture to guess that most people my age and younger have never heard of Wepner, but his boxing fight against the heavily favored Muhammad Ali was Sylvester Stallone’s inspiration for the original Rocky. Here, Chuck is brilliantly portrayed by Liev Schreiber, with a strong supporting cast including Ron Perlman and Elisabeth Moss. Wepner thought very highly of himself, going so far as to make up stories to enhance his reputation among the boys, but eventually his fast lifestyle catches up to him. And though Schreiber is great, the film falls into the same trap as a lot of bio pics, in that it feels a little too much paint-by-numbers. There’s a lot of “he went here and he talked to this person” kind of action. Reaching only about an hour and a half long, it is still worthy viewing for movie lovers for the performances.
Last Days in the Desert is a dramatization of the waning days of the temptation of Christ, as he is headed towards Jerusalem. If you can get past the subtle hint of a Scottish accent by Ewan McGregor’s Jesus every now and then, I actually really liked this film. Too often I think we only see Jesus as this mythical being, and while he is that, it is easy to forget he lived a human life. This movie puts a human face on him, without being sacrilegious. Jesus is wandering the desert, facing temptations by Satan along the way (who has also taken McGregor’s face, in a subverted, subconscious kind of way), when he comes across a family of three living on the edge of the wasteland. The father is a builder, so Jesus can relate, but the son dreams of leaving and starting a new life in the city, and the mother is ill, most likely of the wasting disease, or cancer. In this family, Satan finds new ways to tempt Jesus. The film feels like a parable lifted from the Bible. It does a great job of showing the kinds of enticements Jesus faced, while remaining sin-free and ultimately, straying true to his calling.
Beatrice at Dinner is a weird film, and for me, not in a good way. Movie critics love it, but I can’t find a single reviewer who’s sole reason isn’t the fact it is about a Mexican immigrant telling her story in the day we live. Salma Hayek plays a masseuse whose car breaks down at a rich client’s house, forcing her to stay with the family during dinner, a dinner they are hosting with other rich business partners. When Beatriz discovers one of them is a real estate developer, much like the mogul who uprooted her whole village as a child, she lashes out the only way she can, with words. A movie about cultural differences, but with some deeper meanings too, the film feels a little disjointed, and the ending tries to make it something else entirely.
Buster’s Mal Heart is another strange one, but this one I kind of dug. Buster roams the countryside, breaking into vacant vacation homes, staying one step ahead of the police. He makes random phone calls into the radio stations to rant about the end of the world coming with the Y2K crossover, what he calls “the inversion.” We also see him floating in a lifeboat in the middle of the sea, but which version is true, we don’t know. His previous life is told in flashbacks, the family he used to have and his job as a third shift front desk worker at a hotel, where he met the man who introduced him to the whole inversion idea. Rami Malek’s straight, stone face is perfect for Buster as he creeps along to lunacy, as we slowly learn what brought him to this place. The movie has a quiet, stirring tension, very mysterious and almost foreboding, and the twist is thought-provoking and emotional.

 

Far From Men is OK I guess. It is a French film starring Viggo Mortensen (who knew he spoke fluent French?) as Daru, a teacher in war-torn Algeria in the early 1950’s. He teaches the local Muslim children how to speak French but more importantly, how to read and write. However, independence fighters are tearing through the area as the Muslims are rising up against the French. One day a French officer drops off a Muslim prisoner,Mohamed, at the school, and tells Daru he must accompany the prisoner the rest of the way to the next city. Along the way, nearly everyone seems to want one or the other one dead. The best parts of the film are the quiet dialogue between the two journeyman, when Mohamed and Daru learn each others tales, and form their bond. Not tremendous, but not bad either.

No super powers found in Marvel’s Inhumans

Marvel’s Inhumans is a rare miss for the Cinematic Universe, so much so that I actually left before the conclusion. I heard the rumblings of bad reviews before I went in, but I didn’t want to believe them, and hoped to be surprised. Unfortunately it was not to be.
This “film” coming to theaters is a weird round-about tale. Originally intended to be a film in the Marvel series, the backstory of the Inhumans was later incorporated into the Marvel show Agents of SHIELD, which I do greatly enjoy. The new Inhumans show is partly backed by IMAX, so the first two episodes were combined together for a limited run on IMAX screens this week, before the show launches on ABC later in the month. Helmed by Scott Buck, it certainly didn’t start off on the right foot (google him to see a list of his failures over the years when he was the showrunner).
Inhumans follows the group of super-humans in their hidden city on the moon. The king’s own brother starts an uprising, forcing the royal family and their friends to Earth. If it sounds like a plot from a 80’s low budget sci-fi show, you wouldn’t be far off the mark. The dialogue is almost comically bad, and the wooden, stuttering acting is the result of either grossly poor direction or just terrible actors. There were about 5-10 minutes of good sequences in the hour I sat through before leaving, and that’s being generous. Makes me wonder if the show will be canceled before it ever airs an episode.

Without the film rights to the Mutants (Fox owns those for their X-Men films), Marvel Studios and Disney desperately needed to develop the Inhumans (the next best thing to Mutants) into something with some staying power. But this terrible miss may mean they never see the light of day again.

Quick takes on 5 films

The Wall is a tense, though ultimately flawed, war movie with a twist. A couple American soldiers are called to a possible sniper situation in Iraq. The sniper gets the upper hand, taking one of them out and pinning the other behind a small wall. The Iraqi sniper and American soldier converse over a short wave radio, while the American tries to think of a way to get out of the situation. There are some pretty implausible actions that take place before it is all over, and while the premise is a good one, the script doesn’t offer enough to really grip you and keep your attention.
The Fate of the Furious is the newest in the franchise, and perhaps they should have stopped after the last. I really enjoyed # 7, Paul Walker’s last, and while the series has continued to feel like nothing more than a money grab for awhile now, at least they’ve been mostly entertaining. I can’t quite say that about this one. Granted, the plots have always been ridiculous, and stunning, impossible-to-believe action sequences have always followed cliche-riddled dialogue, but this newest installment takes it to the absurd. The banter between the leads is nearly always eye-roll worthy with such classic lines as “Speak of the devil” and “You are going to have to take me out too” as the standard fare. And the aforementioned action is beyond the fathomable. The 9thmovie in the series will probably find the team on the moon.
Gifted is about a 7 year girl, Mary, who is a math prodigy, able to advanced college level equations. She is being raised by her uncle Frank (Chris Evans), as her mother committed suicide when Mary was a baby. Frank wants Mary to grow up with a normal life without the pressures of being a genius, but Frank’s mother, Evelyn, wants to push Mary just as she did her mother. The adults end up fighting it out in court. Evans is great as the well meaning protector, letting him show a different side than his normal Captain America role. The movie is just ok though, a little too predictable and heavy handed.
Colossal is a strange film, and you have to ride it out to the end to make the trip worthwhile. Anne Hathaway plays Gloria, an alcoholic who moves back to her hometown after being kicked out by her boyfriend. She reconnects with a boy she grew up with, Oscar, played by Jason Sudekis. At the same time, a giant Godzilla-like creature begins showing up in Seoul, Korea, stumbling around and smashing buildings. Turns out the creature shows up in Seoul every time Gloria is in the park in her town, and it follows her actions (her drunkenness stumbling). It is a silly premise, but since the movie chooses to focus more on Gloria’s reaction to this, and the guilt from killing those people during her rampages, it becomes a much deeper film than the superficial science fiction backdrop. A very good movie with fine acting as usual by Hathaway.

 

Based on a book by Daphne du Maurier, who’s Rebecca I read a couple years ago, My Cousin Rachel has the same kind of feel as that novel. Philip is a young man who stands to inherit a fortune from his recently deceased older cousin (who had no children of his own). It is revealed however that Philip’s cousin had recently married Rachel, but had not changed his will to leave her anything. Rachel comes to stay with Philip in her mourning, and Philip starts to fall for her. As the story unfolds, the viewer is left to wonder if this infatuation is truly reciprocated, or if Rachel is simply looking to pry some of the fortune from Philip. Rachel Weisz steals the camera in every scene as cousin Rachel, but the film itself is a bit lacking in depth and development. I’m sure the book is better, as I did enjoy du Maurier’s Rebecca quite a bit.

Quick takes on 5 films

The Other Half is a beautifully done, well acted film, about a love story involving two people with some serious baggage. Nickie is a young man from England, living in the states, where he is running from his past. He has lost a younger brother, and stays away from his parents and anything that reminds him of his loss, acting out with aggression towards anyone who crosses paths with him. He finally starts to come out of his shell when he meets, Emily. Emily is wild and fun, and Nickie falls instantly in love with her. However, it turns out Emily is struggling with bipolarism, and suffers from extreme highs and extreme lows. She has saved Nickie in a way, but he is now faced with the impossibility of doing the same for her. This is a heart-warming and heart-breaking film, and will hit close to home to anyone who has loved someone struggling with mental illness.
Ghost in the Shell is a major letdown for science fiction lovers. Boasting cool visuals and an interesting premise, it can never shake the feeling of a bad Syfy channel film on a big budget. Scarlett Johansson is Major, a fully synthetic cyborg with a human brain. She is built as a weapon for the military, hunting down terrorists in a futuristic city. However, she can’t shake buried memories from her past human life, and the people she is hunting may not be terrorists after all. The pretty computer enhanced effects and rather good acting by Johansson can only take this movie so far. Rough dialogue and a choppy story drown this film before it can get off the ground.
I enjoyed Kong: Skull Island more than I thought I would. I debated even seeing this one, usually these kinds of movies aren’t my thing. But this one, taking place in the ’50’s about an American expedition to a recently discovered island and finding it inhabited by giant monsters, has just enough surprises in the first half to sustain its lack thereof in the second. Upon hitting the island, the military helicopters are attacked by King Kong, and find shortly thereafter he isn’t the only mammoth sized animal on the island. With a good cast and good effects, this film won’t win any awards, but it will entertain, as long as you temper your expectations.
What followed for me was a couple comedies which I could just not get into. Toni Erdmann is a German film about a lonely middle-aged man, divorced with a grown daughter whom he hardly speaks to. When his longtime pet dies, the man goes to visit his daughter at her high-stress job in Romania. She obviously doesn’t enjoy this, and finds an excuse to usher him out the door after just a couple days. As she is regaling her weekend to her friends, her dad pops ups again, in the guise of Toni Erdmann. Toni his much more outspoken and direct than her father. This is where I gave up on the film, 1.25 hours into a nearly 3 hour movie. Maybe I just don’t get German humor, or maybe something was lost in the subtitles, but the moments where the film wanted me to laugh, I couldn’t even crack a grin. I’m sure the film was heading towards a conclusion where she realizes her dad is more than the doddering old fool she sees at first, but good luck sticking around to that conclusion.

 

I also bailed on Punching Henry, and this time I couldn’t blame it on a language barrier. Henry is a down-and-out musician/comedian. He returns to LA after having been laughed out of town (and not in a good way) several years earlier. He is heckled at bars he performs at, has his car stolen 30 minutes after entering town, and when a producer decides to make his dreary tale into a TV show, even the execs at the studio can’t believe how bad his life is. Again, I turned this one off, this time making it about halfway through the 1.5 hour movie. I’ll admit I did chuckle a few times at poor Henry’s expense, but not enough to warrant sticking around for another 45 minutes of tedious wisecracks. After these two films, I need to go re-watch Groundhog Day, Office Space, or something that will actually make me laugh.

Quick takes on 5 films

The Lost City of Z is a biographical film about the explorer Percy Fawcett. I don’t know how accurate the movie is, but it showcases Charlie Hunnam brilliantly. Though he is still playing the same kind of “tough guy” as seen in his Sons of Anarchy days, Percy is a dynamic character and Hunnam is fantastic here. The movie tells of Percy’s several forays into the Amazonian jungle, first as a cartographer and surveyor for England, and later on his own explorations, searching for a fabled “lost city”, or his version of El Dorado. The film has an almost old-timey “journey to the center of the earth” kind of feel, with Percy finding clues here and there but never finding his goal, though it is more of a drama-driven movie than an action flick. The movie ends just as Percy’s real life did, shrowded in mystery. A good film.

As You Are is a very low budget, independent film, written and directed by young filmmaker Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. The title references the famous Nirvana song, and the film is a look at a group of 3 teenage friends trying to survive the early 90’s. Jack and Mark are forced together when their single parents start dating each other. They two young men become close quickly. Jack hides his homosexuality from everyone, as many high-schoolers were doing in the early 90’s, but he opens up to Mark, who responds in kind. However, they drift apart a bit when their parents break up, and each end up dating the same girl, fellow friend Sarah. This film has a nice premise, but ultimately the shifts in dialogue and choppy editing take away from overall performance. The two leads are very good for young actors. Fellow children of the 90’s like myself might fight enough to wax nostalgic about.

A United Kingdom is another biographical drama, this one telling the story of Seretse Khama and his wife Ruth, a black man and heir to the throne of the kingdom in southern Africa, and a white woman from England. Seretse has been in England getting a proper education before claiming his thrown, where he falls in love with Ruth. This union stirs opposition on both sides. The British are eager to keep that African area as a territory of theirs, and with Apartheid developing just south of them, the black inhabitants want their rulers to be of the same background. There is very strong acting from the leads of David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, but the story felt bland for me, and didn’t reach the heights that similar movies in the last couple years have.

There are slow movies (which I don’t necessarily mind), there are bad movies (which can be entertaining in their own way), and then their are just slow, dull movies, which are maybe the worst kind. Their Finest isn’t really a bad movie. The acting by the lead (Gemma Aterton) is actually really great, but the movie is just boring. Taking place during World War II, Catrin is brought on board to lend a female voice to a propaganda film team in England, a team that is trying to help boost morale. The movie shows a microcosm of gender relations at home and in the work environment at this time. Should be fairly interesting to history nerds like myself, but after the first hour I found myself browsing my phone while half-heartedly watching the rest of the film. Unfortunately a movie behind the backdrop of a major wear really should be more exciting.

The Zookeeper’s Wife is just OK, and that’s coming from someone that generally likes historical dramas. About the hiding of jews in the Warsaw Zoo by its owners during World War II, this film is fronted by lauded actor Jessica Chastain, who seems to have a knack for finding these kinds of roles. She and her husband take progressively riskier steps in saving more than 300 Jews from Warsaw ghetto. However, the film doesn’t get as engrossing as it probably should have, and I never felt the “edge of the knife” so to speak, as I did for similar story The Book Thief from a couple years ago, though that one is fiction while Zookeeper is based on fact. A good film from the perspective of learning a historical tidbit, but otherwise fairly forgettable unfortunately.

Quick takes on 5 films

Get Out is a pretty great movie. On the surface it is a fairly simple horror film with an almost absurd premise, but deeper in it is a biting look at how many Americans continue to look at race, despite most of ours ideas of how far we’ve come. Interracial couple Chris and Rose go to meet her parents for the weekend. Chris is worried what they’ll think, but Rose assures him they are not racist and all will be ok. When they arrive, the parents do seem to be very good with the situation, but Chris gets bad vibes immediately. The “help” (groundskeeper and maid) are black and act very weird, almost robotic but with a tense, aggressive feel. Obviously things are not ok, but I’ll let you watch to get the story. This movie opened my eyes too. I saw the white family doing things that I can see in myself and friends of mine, and when it was pointed out as racist in the movie, it was a sharp slap to my senses. Seems I have a long way to go as well.

Before I Fall is a new take on Groundhog Day, but with teenagers instead of adults, and no Bill Murray humor. I’m not often into teenage dramas, but I enjoyed this one. Zoey Deutch is great as Sam, a senior in high school. She is one of the popular ones, and a real bitch to the uncool kids. After a hectic Valentine’s Day at school, which really shows the lines between popular and unpopular at school, and the subsequent party at a friend’s house, Sam and her friends are in a car accident on the way home. Sam wakes up reliving that day over and over again, and finally seeks to be a better person for herself and to those around her. Though you can see the ending coming a mile away, it is still a worthy journey, with tremendous acting in the lead role.

20th Century Women is a coming-of-age art film. And if you didn’t know that, it beats you over the head with that fact every 15 minutes, with slow, singing background music, and black and white stills showing the time period (1979). The movie is about a 15 year old boy (Jamie, played by Lucas Jade Zumann) being raised by his single mom (Annette Bening). Other women influencing him include a 20-something boarding at their house (Greta Gerwing), and his major crush, a somewhat loose girl 2 years older who is his best friend (Elle Fanning), much to Jamie’s chagrin, as he is still a virgin. His mom is a forward thinking woman for her generation, but not prepared for the changing society and feminism pushed by Gerwig’s character. Not a bad film. Bening is incredible, and this is the first time I’ve seen Gerwig play a more demanding role that what she normally does. However, like many other independent films, it constantly tries to remind the viewer how deep it wants to be, when in reality, it is the actors’ strong performances that make this movie.

Elle is a French film starring renowned actress Isabelle Huppert, for which she won a César Award last year (the French equivalent of an Oscar, for which Huppert was also nominated here in the states). She plays Michele, a somewhat cold, detached woman, living alone after her husband has left her for a younger woman. She runs a successful video game company and is very standoffish with her employees, with just a single close friend. The movie begins with her being attacked and raped in her own house, and the film unfolds with Michele continually being harassed by her unknown attacker, via phone messages and continual break-ins to her home. Michele is a brave woman, not letting it deter her, but we find near the end that she is pretty messed up herself, perhaps related to her psychopathic father. Very strong acting from Huppert, and some decent twists (though the most obvious one is readily apparent early in the film). A great movie for foreign film lovers. Poking around online, it looks like this movie was originally intended to be an American film with English-speaking actors, but the violent nature (the film shows rapes after all) caused American A-listers to stay away. I think Huppert ended up being perfect for the role.

The Lego Batman Movie is a followup the wildly successful Lego film a couple years ago, though this one is set entirely inside the Lego world without an “outside” human presence. It sounds more cutesy than it is, and there are actually plenty of laughs for adults as well as kids. Many of the best jokes are probably way over young kids heads, such as cultural references and lots of gags about past batman (and other) films. There are puns galore, and who doesn’t enjoy a good pun? The story involves a lonely Batman who is forced to realize it is important to have friends (and even enemies) in your life for it to have meaning. Well written and well voice-acted, this one is a lot of fun.

Spider-Man swings back to theaters

I’m a little late in writing this one, as I saw it about a week ago. Time swings by faster than Spidey! (hardy har har)

Unless you aren’t a fan at all, you’ve heard a lot about the background dynamics of this film. Marvel sold the film rights to Spider-Man and his associated characters back in the ’80’s, which have been owned by Sony since at least 2002 when their first Spider-Man (with Tobey Maguire) came out. Sony made 5 films on their own, before coming to an agreement a couple years ago to bring the character back under the Marvel umbrella. It is a bit of a convoluted deal, with Sony still owning the rights, but his character is sort of “on loan” to appear in Marvel’s far-reaching Cinematic Universe, having first appeared in Captain America: Civil War. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, this new version of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man starring Tom Holland, he gets his first full film.

I liked this one. I liked the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield films too, but this one feels fresh, and Holland is the right mix of hero and teenage-driven angst that fills the character out. I also liked that for the first time in a long time, there’s a Marvel MCU film where the character isn’t saving the world. One of the reasons I really dig the Netflix shows in this series, is the heros are making their corner of the city better, but aren’t facing off against the end of mankind. This newest Spider-Man has that same sort of feel.

If you are a fan of the genre, I’m sure you’ve seen this one all ready, and if not, you probably don’t care, so I won’t write up anything about the actual movie. Suffice it to say, it takes Spider-Man in a strong direction for the future. I think the lines will be blurred between “canon” MCU films, like this one, and other Marvel films Sony has planned with their licenses (upcoming Venom) which will not fall in the same timeline. Either way, it is a good start to this reboot.

Quick takes on 5 films

Lion is a gut-wrenching movie, and doubly so for being based on a true story. Saroo is a young boy in India when he accidentally falls asleep on a train, which takes him over 1000 kilometers away from his village. He’s at that age where he knows his home’s name, but doesn’t know his own last name, and offers little help to those who (mostly half-assedly) try to help him. He is one of the lucky ones though, and is quickly adopted by an Australian couple. He flies there and grows up in a solid and secure middle class family. 20 years later and now an adult, Saroo wants to find his birth mother, to tell her he survived and that a loving family found him and raised him. The two leads of Dev Patel as Saroo and Nicole Kidman as adopting mother Sue are equally captivating, and the film does a spendid job of walking the line of tugging at your emotions without clobbering you with dramatic cliches.

Let’s face it, you don’t generally see a Keanu Reeves movie for the acting. John Wick 2 is a typical Reeves film. He shows us about 2 different dramatic faces (admistering and receiving pain), and all the other characters are as one dimensional as he is. But damn if it isn’t an entertaining romp. As most action movie sequels go, the body count goes up, the ridiculous factor goes up, and it sets itself up for yet another sequel. At this point, sign me up, I’m in.

Okja is (I think?) the second English language film from Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, following Snowpiercer from a couple years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed Snowpiercer, and this film is a lot like that one in feel and direction. Okja is a giant “super pig”, bred to help feed the overpopulating earth. The pig is raised on a remote farm in Korea by Mija and her grandfather. After 10 years on the farm, the time has come for the pig to head back to its owners for butchering, and Mija cannot let Okja go. With insanely over-the-top characters (Paul Dano as an extremely non-violent extremist, Jake Gyllenhaal as a wacky tv star, Tilda Swinton as the emotionally unstable head of the company), like Snowpiercer this film has the feel of an Asian anime brought to live film. Under all the layers, there is a gripping story, and young Mija and the computer-generated Okja are the stars of the screen.

I really wanted to like Life, as sci-fi space adventure is right up this geek’s alley. The trailer seemed great. Unfortunately the film was a let-down for me. The backdrop is a team on the International Space Station grabs a probe returning from Mars to look for past life in the soil samples. They find not only past life, but a microorganism that has been in hibernation and is brought back to life again. This discovery is celebrated at first, but of course things go wrong when the tiny Martian lashes out at the humans. If it had stayed a tiny bug or parasite, I’d be down, but instead it grew to this flying super-strength Alien-esque monstrosity, that seemed damn near indestructible and more intelligent than our greatest minds. At the same time, these well trained astronauts made some pretty poor, rash decisions in the heat of the moment, that put their whole mission and lives at risk. Far fetched even by sci-fi standards, which ruined what could have been a great film.

Let’s end on a great one though. Logan is the (supposedly final) Wolverine film starring Hugh Jackman. Long the centerpiece of the X-Men movie franchise (17 years strong, for the most part), Jackman’s Wolverine has been through a lot. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say this film is the end of it all (it has been billed as such). Set in 2029, Wolverine and Professor Charles Xavier are pretty much all that is left of the mutants on Earth, and we don’t find out why until later in the film. Not sure which timeline this falls in, hard to keep that up unless you are a super fan, but you can set that aside and just enjoy this film. Logan is old and all of his life-long battles are finally catching up with him. He doesn’t heal as fast as he used to, he feels a lot more pain that he used to, and he seems to know he isn’t going to get to ride off into the sunset peacefully. A new government team has been breeding new mutants as weapons, and Logan reluctantly becomes involved to stop them. This is a violent film, rated R and rightfully so. It has gory, glorious action sequences, but it also has something that not every super-hero film does, and that is heart. This is a great one, and a fitting end to Wolverine’s run.

Quick takes on 5 films

I found La La Land enchanting, but not simply because it is a revival of the musical genre and I’m a nut for the classic musicals. It is just a really good film. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling play a respective struggling actor and jazz musician, trying to make it big in Los Angeles. Mia goes to audition after audition, but rarely even makes call-backs. Sebastian loves the straight ahead jazz of a bygone era and is reluctant to play other types of music which may pay the bills. The two meet, and support each other to continue to reach for their goals, despite what it may do to their relationship. A beautiful film, with stunning scenery, wonderful songs, strong acting, and most importantly, a heartwarming tale, though maybe not one you are expecting. Well worthy of all the awards it received last year.

I went into A Monster Calls not really knowing anything about it, other than it had a decent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Sometimes it is those films that you aren’t expecting anything from which suprise you the most. This is a heart-breaking, yet ultimately uplifting film about a boy, Conor, who is “too old to be a kid and too young to be a man” as the opening describes. His mother is fighting cancer and getting worse instead of better. Conor’s emotions over this ordeal are causing him to variously withdraw and/or lash out. He is visited by a fantastical beast, a living tree called “the monster,” who tells Conor he will tell him 3 tales, after which Conor must tell his own story. As with real life, the stories are complex without clear good and bad guys, which enlightens Conor, and ultimately helps him deal with the very real possibility of losing his mother. The only real fault in the film, and minor at that, is that it hammers home those “ah-ha” moments, so younger viewers won’t miss the true meaning, yet I believe much of the growth Conor makes can only be appreciated by adults. Still, a very fulfilling movie, especialy for those who may have lost someone at a young age.

I found the newest Harry Potter film (and apparently the start of a new franchise) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them to be fairly ho-hum until the climax in the end. Most of the film is OK I guess, though it seemed like it was purely made for fanboys until the latter stages. A prequel to the Harry Potter films, the outstanding Eddie Redmayne plays Newt Scamander, an English wizard visiting 1920’s New York. He brings with him a magical trunk carrying a host of magical creatures, some of which escape in the city. The American wizard federation blames Newt for the crazy happenings in the area, when in reality something much more sinister is in play. If you can hold your attention through the admittedly slower first half, you’ll be rewarded by a very satisfying denouement. I can’t quite shake the feeling that the movie feels like a cash grab (it made over $850 million worldwide), but it isn’t a bad film.

Hidden Figures is a great movie on its own merit, regardless the racial element it brings to the table. I had a good friend downplay the film (without having seen it), saying there were many people behind the scenes during the space missions, so why single out these 3 women just because of the color of their skin. The obvious answer of course is these three had to work that much harder to have their voices heard. Telling the true story of three women (Katherine G Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson) working at NASA during the “space race” with Russia to put a man in space, this is a strong film for both its acting and story. With plenty of dramatic liberties taken, it isn’t entirely accurate, but it is still a wonderful film. You can’t help but root for them, and the team as a whole, to be successful at putting John Glenn in space.

Blah blah blah. That’s the first thing I think about 3 Generations. It is one of those movies with great subject matter (let’s be honest, Oscar-worthy subject matter), and the filmmakers know it. Know it so well, that they repeatedly ram it down our throats. It stars Elle Fanning as transitioning teenager Ray (born a girl but feeling like a boy all of his life), with a single mom and a lesbian grandmother. Unfortunately the dramatic moments are pushed so incredibly hard, and it would be nice to let the viewer breathe a little. The comedic respites just make the film feel choppy. The framework of the movie is good, but strong acting by all involved can’t hide poor directing and so-so dialogue.