Aquaman [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (1 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller-Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Aquaman [2018] (directed and screen story co-created by James Wan along with Geoff Johns and Will Beall screenplay by David Leslie, Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall and based on the DC "Aquaman" Comic [wikip] [DC] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] created by Paul Norris [wikip] [IMDb] and Mort Weisinger [wikip] [IMDb]), is one of those films that one has to "enter the story" as a wide-eyed 10 year old (boy) with the pages of an Aquaman Comic [wikip] [DC] in his hands for the very first time. If you're not willing or unable to do this, you'll neither be able to understand this story nor be able appreciate the film's manifold technical achievements.  For the film makers were able to breathe life into those already spectacular / fantastic comic book pages.

That said, the story-telling here suffers IMHO (!) from the _same deficiencies_ as other adaptations of DC comic book characters (as compared to the storytelling of its Marvel Comics rivals).  While the characters of Marvel's comics (both good and evil) have compelling/conflicted, eminently relatable, if perhaps exaggerated ("operatic," well, "comic book" ;-) backstories, character development in DC's universe seems intentionally BESIDE THE POINT.   In DC's universe, the superheroes (and supervillains) are above all SIMPLY AWESOME (beyond our reach).

So in this story, we watch a battle develop between TWO factions of undersea kingdoms who trace their roots to the lost civilization of Atlantis, and, again, to ask too many questions (beginning with WHY?) is BESIDE THE POINT / to be almost WILDLY "UNGRATEFUL."  We're just invited to be THRILLED by the clash of two factions, one riding elaborate 25' tall sea horses and the other riding on the backs of armored sharks.

Again to a 10-12 year old boy, especially with all the young women, all quite amply endowed, being dressed in the tightest of formfitting gear, embellished with shiny, mermaid-like scales (and armed with exploding tridents, or underwater laser blasters) WHAT POSSIBLY COULD BE MORE AWESOME THAN THIS??  But ... well ... is there anything more ...?

As far as I could see ... no.

So I honestly liked Marvel's development of Thor, also a demigod, if from "a different realm" so much better than the simple if ... after a while, tired ... AWESOMENESS here.


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Bohemian Rhapsody [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (O)  RogerEbert.com (1 Star)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review

Bohemian Rhapsody [2018] (directed by Bryan Singer screenplay by Anthony McCarten story by Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan) tells the story of Freddie Mercury (played in the film by Rami Malek) lead singer of the British 1970s-80s rock group Queen.

First some disclaimers (seriously).  I realize that for many Readers here -- it's a blog written by a Catholic priest after all -- that the man who came to call himself "Freddie Mercury" came out as gay and later died of AIDS (specifically of AIDS related pneumonia) would be probably all that one would need to know about the film.  Indeed, though rated PG-13 (and having, of course, seen the film, I think it basically meets _the technical requirements_ of the rating) I struggle to understand why a teenager today would want to see a film about a rock star who _may_ have been important to his/her parents' (my) generation but who in the mind of a teenager today might as well have been "born before time itself."  So I wonder if the true reason for making this film a PG-13 movie rather than an R-rated one was that the necessary sanitization of the material allowed for a more sympathetic portrayal of Mercury and his friends than an R-rated version would have.

THAT ALL SAID, I do believe that there is a compelling story to be told here ... one in which Mercury's strange, often (WAY, way) "over-the-top" behavior becomes quite understood.

Born Farroch Bulsara of Indian Parsi origin (neither Hindu nor Muslim but Zoroastran in religion) and immigrant to London from the former British colony, er, "Protectorate" of Zanzibar (an island nation off the coast of East Africa), Mercury's life would have been challenging (in London, England, Europe) from the get-go.  He survived at least partially by _embracing_ indeed EXAGGERATING his almost "out of this world" origins, dressing flamboyantly (portrayed in the film as almost like a young Mummar Gadaffi), wearing eye-makeup and speaking with an _exaggerated_ accent.  To his parents, Parsis, yes, but CONSERVATIVE (and I don't care what religious background one comes from, Rule #1 of religious conservatism is almost _always_ DON'T STICK OUT) their flamboyantly dressed and extravagantly accented son was growing up to be an abomination.  They certainly would have blamed his outward behavior on "(cosmopolitan) London" / "Western values."  Yet, to his English friends, his flamboyance actually made him "interesting" as opposed to "scary."

And so coming out of this background, the rock group Queen's eventual flamboyance (Mercury became its lead singer) makes a lot of sense, even as the group's other, English, members themselves are portrayed as finding Mercury's antics, partying and eventual open hedonistic homosexuality increasingly too much for them as well.

Is there a lesson there?  Boy there is.  IMHO it is a reminder to all of us that there's _almost always_ "a story" behind someone's behaving strangely, "outside the norms" and if one knew "the story" one would better understand that person.

In that regard, truly AN EXCELLENT FILM.


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Vice [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallarico) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Vice [2018] (written and directed by Adam McKay) a film about the very private / secretive GW Bush-era V.P. Dick Cheney (played in the film by Christian Bale) did not seem to me nearly as coherent in both theme and content as McKay's previous laser-sharp / damning cinematic exposé (on the 2008 Financial Crisis) The Big Short [2015]. 

It seems clear to me that McKay initially intended the film to be an i-s dotted /t-s crossed damning hatchet job against the former V.P.  BUT either he himself flinched as he started to truly understand his subject matter, Cheney, or perhaps he was ordered to stand-down "a bit" by the studios / their lawyers  (I'd go with the former explanation, with McKay realizing that Cheney was far more human / lamentable, less simply "Evil," than he had initially believed). 

In any case, the Cheney here who emerges is something of a human mess, whose decision guiding principles were limited, perhaps quite severely, by his own intellectual and perhaps even physical limitations / short-comings.  So ... in an Administration, GW Bush's, not known for its intellectual prowness, he was one of its brighter lights / beacons, BUT ... that wasn't necessarily saying much, and yet ... could he honestly have done any better?

Let me explain.  We are told that Dick Cheney, growing-up in the cattle-ranching state of Wyoming, began his young adulthood first getting accepted and then quickly flunking-out of the East Coast Ivy League University of Yale.  Why he got there at all was through the help / connections of his future wife Lynne (played in the film by Amy Adams).  Lynne, convinced that as a woman still of her 1960s generation she could not "be somebody" on her own, felt that she needed at least her husband to be "somebody."  At the time Dick looked apparently like a lug, but a BIG (homecoming quarterback-like) LUG, so ... she wasn't necessarily choosing her man in this regard badly.  He just needed to be encouraged, pushed-forward to ... "become the man" that she hoped for.  (This kind of thinking is, perhaps thankfully, becoming "old hat." BUT ... back in the Dick and Lynne Cheney's young adult years, that actually still made a lot of sense.  Women back then did become (or at least hoped to become) "somebodies" through their men).

Through another connection of Lynne and her family, Dick Cheney got an internship in Washington D.C. to work in Congress, and meeting among other people, a young "North shore" Illinois Republican Donald Rumsfeld (played in the film by Steve Carrell) THIS TIME, HE NEVER LOOKED BACK.

But ... Dick, never a particularly sharp tool, came to learn TO PARROT (very well) the ideology and  values of the people around him (in his case ... that of Nixonian republicans).  As a result his values came to be LOYALTY, SMALL GOVERNMENT, and a questionable increasingly dogmatic belief in the UNITARY POWER OF THE EXECUTIVE (basically that the President simply because he was President could do no wrong or at least could not be held to account, except _perhaps_ by the ballot box).   How such a view would work inside a Party "of small government" is remarkable.  However one supposes, going back to essentially A KING _could_ make "government" "smaller" ;-).

And the rest of the story then follows...

Now fascinatingly, those three pillars of Cheney's political ideology, DON'T necessarily point in the same direction all the time.  So there are honestly surprises, moving surprises in this film.  And Cheney was ALSO famously limited by his own health issues.

The result is ... perhaps a film about a "good old boy" who went, WAY, WAY HIGHER than anyone with his capacities / limitations really should have.

So ... what to finally say of the film?  It's something of a mess, but ... it gives Viewers, perhaps, a lot to think about as they go home.  So a decent enough, if not exactly great job.


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The Mule [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


The Mule [2018] (directed by Clint Eastwood, screenplay by Nick Schenk, based on the New York Times Magazine article "The Sinaloa Cartel’s 90-Year-Old Drug Mule" by Sam Dolnick [NYT] [IMDb]) is probably going to be my favorite movie of the year, or maybe it will be this year's A Star Is Born [2018], both incidentally about struggling deeply flawed men and both somewhat surprisingly starring/costarring Bradley Cooper)  IMHO in the current case deserving Eastwood consideration for best actor in a leading role and possibly a nomination for best director.

The story here, inspired by the true case of Leo Sharp, fictionalized here as Earl Stone (played by Clint Eastwood himself) was about an octogenarian, vet, farmer, who had arguably squandered his life maintaining a rock-star celebrity status at quaint (and to most of us utterly irrelevant) "day lily" conventions.  He'd talk up the ladies, buy entire bars full of people rounds of drinks.  Everybody loved him ... there ... at those "day lily" conventions.  Back home?  Not so good.  He missed his own daughter's wedding (Stone's daughter played by Eastwood's own daughter Alison Eastwood).  Why? / How?  He was whooping it up at some random "day lily" convention in some random midwestern town, buying a round of drinks for another, random wedding party of strangers, somewhere else.  What a mess...

Then, technology (the internet) passed him by.  No longer did people need to go to "day lily" conventions to buy "the latest" in "day lily seed" / "technology."  They could just buy these things, sitting at home with the click of a mouse.  So not only did his "celebrity status" collapse but so did his business.  So the guy that "everybody knew" in this sliver thin horticulturist subculture only ten years back faced foreclosure on his farm/business.  What to do?

He gets a tip, that since he used to like to drive to all those conventions (and apparently never ever was even stopped by the police for any traffic violation) that ... "there'd be some people" who'd be "interested in hiring someone like him" to ... (discretely) "drive some merchandise" from Point A to Point B.

With few options and many past bridges burned, he takes the tip and ... soon he's serving as a courier (a mule) for ... El Chapo's Sinaloa's drug cartel.  Does he know?  (probably)  Does he care? (probably not).  A man of many regrets, he takes the job first to survive, and as he starts getting good at it (and the money gets ever better) he starts using that money to do some random / poignant good (even for his estranged family).  But yes, he spends at least some of it on "dancing (at 80+ more like shuffling) the night away" with small-town 40+ year old prostitutes who, well, "enjoy his company" ;-) ... Still "livin' the dream" / "rockstar" ... ;-)

So ... does this (old) man have a conscience?  Robert Redford's recent Old Man and a Gun [2018] treads similar territory -- both Eastwood and Redford know themselves now to be "old men" and seem to be telling us that "narcissism / sociopathy" don't necessarily get cured with old age.

Still, does Eastwood's Earl Stone have / gain a conscience?  I'll let you discern that for yourselves if you see the movie.

I really do think that the movie does an excellent job of portraying someone who was clearly flawed and (perhaps) trying to do better (as perhaps best he can).  One excellent murky mess of a story!


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Mary Poppins Returns [2018]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  RogerEbert.com (1 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Castillo) review
AVClub (C. Bramesco) review


Mary Poppins Returns [2018] (directed by Rob Marshall, screenplay by David Magee, screen story by Rob Marshall, David Magee and John DeLuca, based on the childrens' stories [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by P.L. Travers [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) proved MUCH BETTER than I feared and my hat off to Emily Blunt for the courage to play the lead, Mary Poppins, a role that's truly indelibly SEARED into the heads of generations of us as having been played by the great Julie Andrews [wikip] [IMDb]. 

As with last summer's update of another children's classic (in that case of Christopher Robin / Winnie the Poo), the story here takes place after, the children of the original story Michael (played here by Ben Whishaw) and Jane (played here by Emily Mortimer) have all grown-up and Michael, a widower (hence among other things in need of a nanny...) has children of his own: Anabel, John and Georgie (played by Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and Joel Dawson). 

Set during the Great Depression, when money was tight, the family's house is threatened with foreclosure, and as the good souls but not particularly practical Michael and Jane struggle to keep the house, the uber-sensible (but also fun) Mary, not aged ONE BIT since she last flew out of the lives of the Banks family with her umbrella, "pops in" to ... well ... ;-)

Much ensues ...

I had heard from parishioners who saw the movie that I did that the current movie is "simply too much" (that it's just too fast paced).  Given that this has been the legitimate criticism of the Sherlock Holmes [2009] [2011] as well as Star Trek [2009] [2013] [2016] reboots, perhaps even of the most recent The Three Musketeers [2011] adaptation (the last of which, TTM, I LIKED), I went to the current film with some, perhaps even _a lot_ of  "concern."  BUT all things concerned, I thought that the adaptation / updating was quite marvelous -- there's an entire sequence that plays out on the surface of a "chipped bowl" that, except for a little bit of unfortunate old-style English racism (the carriage rider, portrayed AS A DOG was voiced by someone who identified himself as "Irish" ... sigh), was remarkable!

As such, I'd compare the adaptation to The Three Musketeers [2011], The Alice in Wonderland [2010] [2016] and Winnie the Pooh / Christopher Robin [2018] updates, all of which I liked as opposed to the Sherlock Holmes / Star Trek updates that IMHO "haven't worked so well."

I didn't particularly like the unnecessary "anti-Irish" flourish mentioned above, nor the spectacularly _undeveloped_ "bad guy" banker Wilkins / Wolf (played by Colin Firth) who plays the villain in the story.  Aside from being "of course" a banker, there doesn't seem to be a reason why he'd be so evil, or so spectacularly focused on destroying the peace and tranquility of Banks family.

As such, while not perfect, the effects in the film are often truly magical and EMILY BLUNT simply nails it, playing the simultaneously no-nonsense but FUN "Mary Poppins."

Sooo ... generally a pretty good and at times truly excellent job!

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Mary Queen of Scots [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Castillo) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


Mary Queen of Scots [2018] (directed by Josie Rourke, screenplay by Beau Willimon based on the book Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by John Guy [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a reminder to us why monarchy even for the monarchs themselves is really an awful form of government.

Both Mary, Queen of the Scots (played by Saoirse Ronan) and Elizabeth, Queen of England (played by Margot Robbie), cousins, found themselves Queens of their respective Kingdoms by the then roulette of history.  Both had plenty of enemies first because of their religion, Mary was nominally (but proudly) Catholic (by birth), Elizabeth was Protestant (not entirely by choice: by the politics of the time, she was much more likely to survive to live to a ripe old age in the England of the time as a Protestant than as a Catholic...), and then because they were women at a time when a Queen would be the Monarch only because ... there were no legitimate (or simply no clear) male heir to the throne.   YET, as women, they were BOTH expected to fulfill their fundamental role of providing their Kingdoms with heir.  YET to fulfill that fundamental they needed HUSBANDS and (ONE MORE) YET that husband would inevitably start to think (or have people pushing him to think) that HE was supposed to be the MONARCH not the Queen.  Elizabeth famously NEVER GOT MARRIED (she found it impossible to really trust ANYONE).  Mary, did and a good part of the story here is about the intrigues that followed.

The result is a story that would arguably make the characters of Game of Thrones blush.

Well acted, based largely on actual events (as well as some intriguing / fun "reading between the lines...") I honestly don't have much negative to say about the film except that I'M REALLY REALLY HAPPY (1) to be of NOT of "much consequence," and (2) did not live back then.  Good / great job all around!


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Creed 2 [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


Creed 2 [2018] (directed by Steven Caple Jr., story by Cheo Hodari Coker and Sascha Penn, screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and Juel Taylor, characters by Ryan Coogler) continues the generally satisfying Rocky franchise:

Adonis Johnson (played by Michael B. Jordon) son of Rocky Balboa's once great rival later fallen friend Apollo Creed first introduced to us in Creed [2015], is challenged by Viktor Drago (played by Florian Munteanu) son of Ivan Drago (played by Dolph Lundgren) the (Russian) fighter who had killed Apollo Creed in a boxing match and was finally bested by Rocky Balboa in Rocky 4 [1985]. 

It's a match made in fictionalized boxing (and actual Hollywood) heaven.  However, as is ever the case in the Rocky franchise (and certainly the franchise's greatest and most redeeming charm) the actual match becomes almost beside the point, as both Adonis and Viktor were fighting other demons far closer to home. 

Adonis, who was after all an illegitimate son of Apollo Creed and who had been portrayed in the previous film as having grown-up in various foster homes / institutions continues a still unfinished struggle, still largely unguided (though an aging Rocky, played still by Silvester Stallone, there in as much as he can to lend a helping hand) to achieve a more "normal," yes respectable life.  He has a girlfriend, a singer named Bianca (played by Tessa Thompson), who's also struggling, among other things with hearing impairment.  He feels he wants to marry her.  She honestly asks the question, why?  Soon a pregnancy, which becomes more complicated than perhaps initially expected, takes things to a new and quite poignant level.

Viktor, for his part, has been dealing with the effects of his father's "loss" to Rocky.  After Ivan lost that fight, Ivan's wife, Viktor's mother (played in the film by Bridgette Nielson), left him (and Victor) as a loser.  So Viktor has spent his entire life trying to redeem his father's (or at least his own) honor. 

Some years ago, I've come to see these "boxing" / "fighting" stories as fundamentally tragic.  So often BOTH of the "fighters" have compelling stories and honestly deserve "to win" and yet ... only one can.

So then this film to, while a fundamentally one (even as it is about a boxing match, it is also a sad one. 

I do wish that both could win.


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Green Book [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


Green Book [2018] (directed and cowritten by Peter Farrelly, along with Nick Vellelonga and Brian Hayes Currie) tells the sad story of what it was like "back in the day" for African American people in the Jim Crow South -- as special "Green Book" was put out by Exxon to help African Americans who were traveling to know which gas stations, hotels and restaurants would serve them (many indeed _most_ commercial establishments would not, and were legal protected by the Jim Crow (Segregationist) laws of the time from being required to do so.

As we discussed this movie over dinner in my Servite community recently, I confessed that I had a real difficulty watching the film -- it remains simply stunning to me that ANYONE much less someone claiming to be a Christian [Mt 25:40] or for that matter an American -- the "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and all from our Declaration of Independence" -- could so blatantly even _gleefully_ mistreat an entire group (in this case, race) of human beings like this "You know, that's 'just' the way we do things here..." WHY???  I'd be either in jail, or would have set myself on fire or hung myself in despair (or so I'd hope...).

So then ... to the movie ...

Dr. Don Shirley [wikip] (played in the movie by Mahershala Ali), Florida born in 1927, Jamaican-American in ancestry, at age 9 he was invited to study music in the Soviet Union at the Leningrad Conservatory, and later having studied at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., he became virtuoso in CLASSICAL PIANO, something that African Americans at the time were not necessarily known for.  SO ... he decided, as part of his personal contribution to the African American Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s-60s, to embark on a tour of various cities in the Deep South to ... give concerts in classical music.  Since traveling in the Deep South as an African American was not necessarily safe at the time, he hired as a driver / bodyguard Tony "Lip" Vallelonga, a bouncer of Italian American ancestry at New York's Copacabana nightclub.   Tony was temporarily out of work because of "remodelling" being done at the club.

To the film's credit, Tony is not portrayed as some sort of a Civil Rights crusader.  He was doing this simply because he needed the work.  Tellingly, in an early scene, when Tony's wife Dolores (played by Linda Cardelini) had given two African American workmen who had come to their apartment for a plumbing job glasses of water, Tony discreetly took their glasses after they had finished AND THREW THEM AWAY (Dolores, seeing what her husband had done, later with similar discretion pulled them out of the trash and washed them).  The scene AS QUIETLY UGLY AS IT IS is in my mind COMPLETELY REALISTIC.  Yes, THAT was the time, my own family would have almost certainly done _no better_.

So ... as the story progressed, Tony learned what it was like to be ... black.  And Don Shirley learned ... IMHO that he had made the right decision to embark on his tour.  How many white Southerners he "converted" to accepting black Civil Rights, one can only guess, but he DID convert Tony.

Great story.



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A Private War [2018]

MPAA (R)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (N. Minow) review


A Private War [2018] (directed by Matthew Heineman, screenplay Arash Amel by based on the Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner [VF] [IMDb]) tells the story of Marie Colvin [wikip] (played by Rosamund Pike) an (American) journalist who covered some of the most brutal dangerous conflicts / civil wars of our time from the Civil War in Tamil Tiger Civil War in Lanka (where she lost one of her eyes) to the Arab Spring inspired Revolution in Libya that deposed Gaddafi to the subsequent Syrian Civil War where she (not really a spoiler alert) she died during Seige of Homs.

This is a harrowing tale of a driven journalist who repeatedly risked her life to tell the stories of innocent people in war zones who otherwise we'd never know about.  Why did she do it?  That's one of the questions that the movie asks viewers to consider.  Yet, whatever her motive, and it was almost certainly mostly pure, we owe her and other journalists like her an enormous debt.  Justice depends on being able to understand what's going on.  She and other journalists like her help us to understand precisely that -- what's going on.   A deep deep thank you for journalists like her.


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At Eternity's Gate [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


At Eternity's Gate [2018] (directed and cowritten by Julian Schnabel along with Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg) tells the story, again, of tormented impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the current film quite admirably by Willem Dafoe).

Why would an artist who _never_ sold even one of his paintings during his life time, who clearly was tormented (he _cut off his ear_ for God's sake in apparently a terribly misguided expression of ... unrequited love) and who arguably committed suicide (though he could have even flubbed that up ... being killed instead by simply random petty thieves) BE SO FASCINATING TO SO MANY PEOPLE (US) TODAY?  Exactly ;-)

It would seem that Vincent Van Gogh was an archeotypical supremely talented but tormented, misunderstood ... LOSER ;-). 

It would seem that his legacy embodies fundamental fears that many of us have of "never being able to make our mark" (though somehow we'd feel entitled to make said mark ;-).  And yes, like Franz Kafka (another tormented soul, never really appreciated in his lifetime) he's been vindicated -- IN SPADES (!) -- since his death, more than a century ago (!).  TODAY we look at his pictures, so many of them SO FAMOUS _now_ and wonder "how it it possible that people didn't see his genius while he was alive?"

SO ... quiet loser in his life time (and again Willem Dafoe plays him really, really well) ... he embodies a hope that "one day" those who don't understand us ... will.

Honestly, GREAT introspective / tormented, and dare one say _impressionistic_ film ;-).


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2.0 [2018]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
FiBt listing
RogerEbert.com (S. Abrams) review


2.0 [2018] [IMDb] [FiBt] (directed and tamil dialogue cowritten by S. Shankar [IMDb] [FiBt], along with Jayamohan [IMDb] and Lakshmi Saravanakumar [IMDb], hindi dialogue written by Abbas Tyrewala [IMDb]) is a fun if apparently wildly expensive Indian (Tamil) Sci-Fi film about "The Day the Cell Phones Disappeared."

What happened?  They just all "flew away," right out of people's hands all over the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, one day.  Why?

Well, they seem to have been "called together" by the soul of a tormented environmental activist named Pakshi Rajan (played by Akshay Kumar [IMDb] [FiBt]) who had been convinced that microwaves from cell phones were killing birds (by frying their brains).  So in despair, he had hung himself from a cell-tower in protest and ... his soul apparently got sucked into the microwave ether where ... he became able to call all the cell phones from all over the state to form a shape changing "flock" of cell phones that sometimes even took the form of a GIGANTIC bird of prey that would attack random "people of interest" (usually promoters of cell phone and other "anti-bird" technology) throughout Tamil Nadu.

Enter a geeky scientist named Dr. Vaseegaran (played by Rajinikanth [IMDb] [FiBt]),  He too was (mildly) bitter.  He had previously created a marvelous all-purpose (but particularly adept at law-enforcement) robot named ... Chitti (also played by Rajinikanth [IMDb] [FiBt]).  But the good doctor had been forced previously (at the end of a previous film... Endhiran [2010] [IMDb] [FiBt]) to terminate his research by a government not particularly interested in robotic technology (in a country with so many PEOPLE desperate for work / livelihoods).  Sooo ... pouting a bit ... he contented himself with creating a simultaneously hot yet sensible looking / super intelligent robotic personal assistant named Nila (played by Amy Jackson [IMDb] [FiBt]) to "accompany him" in his "waning years."  Honestly Asimov would have been awe-struck by (and perhaps tormented over) Nila.  She was truly EVERYTHING but ... free (but, of course, programmed not to mind...).

But now the country was in peril.  So the Government FINALLY gives him the permission to "unleash" his original creation, Chitti, into the fray to battle this otherworldly cellphone dominating Monster.  Much often very, very funny ensues... in good part because "Chitti" is not exactly "robocop" but rather a rather chatty, again, truly all-purpose robot ;-).  Anyway, much ensues ...

A fair question could be asked:  Does the plot make sense?  BUT does it have to?  Did ANY of the plots of Sharknado movies ever make sense?  What about the Spielberg, Belushi, Aykroyd "flop" 1941?  There are SO MANY sight gags, one liners, two liners in this film that to complain about "plot integrity" would be to WILDLY MISS THE POINT ;-).  A truly fun / great job ;-)


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Ralph Breaks the Internet [2018]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review


Ralph Breaks the Internet [2018] (codirected by Phil Johnston and Rich Moore, screenplay cowritten by Phil Johnston and Pamela Ribon, story cowritten by Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, Jim Reardon, Pamela Ribon and Josie Trinidad additional material by Kelly Younger) is a film that I honestly liked better before I set out to write about it as I do believe there are some aspects of the film that I do believe were not particularly well thought out.

The film begins where the surprise children's animated hit Wreck-it Ralph [2012] left-off.  So, like the original it is set among the community of characters living inside the video games of a Video Arcade.  Each night after the arcade shuts down the characters gather together -- traveling up and down the electric cords that power their machines and connect them together -- to catch-up on the day's events.

We find that Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) has generally found his peace with having been literally programmed in the video game featuring him to be game's "villain" (the one who breaks things, that another character in the game then tries to fix...).  He's learned that after clocking out for the for the night that he can literally "leave his job behind" and "become his own person" among the other characters from his / the other games.  (There's an amusing scene near the end of the current film where Ralph and some of the other "villain characters" from some of the other video games are "discussing Dostoyevsky" in the support group that they have formed ;-).

But among the various characters from the other games, Ralph's come to be particularly close (in, one hopes..., a generally "foster father / "mentor" sort of way...) to another, significantly younger sounding character, named Vanellope (voiced by Sarah Silverman).  She's a character, at one point nicknamed "Glitch" because she wasn't perfect, from a young girl-oriented car racing arcade game named "Sugar Rush" that in the previous film, he felt sorry for / helped.  Indeed, trying to keep her happy -- Vanellope was _mildly_ complaining that she's been getting rather bored as she's been riding the same courses in her video game name for years -- Ralph uses his "wreck-things" ability to try to carve out a new course for Vanellope in her game.

HOWEVER, when the next morning the first human beings, two young girls, come in to play the "Sugar Rush" game, because the new course was so new / challenging they accidentally rip the steering wheel off of the arcade game.  Since a replacement steering wheel for, let's face it, a rather old arcade game would run over $200, the owner of the Arcade decides to just "unplug" the "Sugar Rush" game and makes plans to send it to the scrap heap.

What to do?  Well it turns out that the Arcade Owner had plugged in a new gadget in the recent days called a "Wifi-Server" ;-) and ... even though initially the characters from the various Arcade games found "the Server" "kinda boring", they soon learn that "if only" ... Ralph and Vanellope could (1) get to Ebay.com over the internet ;-), they could buy the replacement steering wheel for the "Sugar Rush" game and (2) make some money on the internet to pay for it, they could fix the game themselves so that the Owner wouldn't have to get rid of it.  And so, Ralph and Vanellope set off to surf (inside) the Internet and ... much ensues ;-).

Among that which ensues is that the effervescent Vanellope finds a far cooler (if somewhat more violent) auto race game there called "Slaughter Race" that she finds she ... kinda likes.  It's so different from the bouncy / happy "Sugar Rush" game that she's literally "always known," and she also makes friends with a rather gruff if kind female race car driver from that game named Shank (voiced by Gal Godot).

While on the Internet, Vanellope also runs into the "Disney Princesses" and ... and is forced to confront the question(s): (1) Is she first / foremost "a princess" herself _or_ "a race car driver, " and (2) what's exactly "a princess" (a nice / good behaved girl) supposed to be anyway.  And as Vanellope tries to figure herself out, the _other_ Disney Princesses begin to re-evaluate their own understandings of themselves.  SERIOUSLY the "Princess" scenes here are fascinating.

In the midst of this Ralph becomes somewhat confused: He's been trying to come up with ways to make some money on the internet so that he could buy that replacement steering wheel for his friend / charge Vanellope so that she could come back with him to the Video Arcade BUT even he's starting to see that Vanellope is really "finding life" / "new challenges / opportunities" _elsewhere_ ... inside this boundless universe of the Internet.  SO ... what to do?

That's thematically the rest of the film.  Honestly, the questions asked in the film are interesting.  I just wish there wasn't such an age difference between Ralph and Vanallope.  They have, I suppose a "step father / step daughter" or "mentor / mentee" relationship but it's not clear and honestly after a point I've started to be somewhat creeped-out by it.

So, honestly, as good as the film is on one one hand, on the other it's really more for the adults, the "Ralphs" of this world than for the Vanallopes / children of the world.  And this is why I give it a lower rating than I initially would have.


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AFI Fest 2018

Of the films which played at the 2018 American Film Institute (AFI) Film Festival, I was able to view and review the following: 

 

Sir [2018] [IMDb] [FiBt](written and directed by Rohena Gera [IMDb] [FiBt]) scheduled for release in the United States in December 2018 is an INDIAN FILM which tells the story of Ratna (played by Tillotama Shome [IMDb] [FiBt]) a mid-to-late 30-something widow from the villages who took a job in Mumbai as a maid for a late 20-early 30-something engineer / son of a developer (played by Vivek Gomber [IMDb] [FiBt]) who, though obviously he has a name, through most of the film she simply calls "Sir."   Since the story essentially begins with Ashwim, "Sir," coming home from overseas, distracted / angry because _he_ had just called off his wedding to someone he simply came to the conclusion he did not love, the first 15-20 minutes of the film are somewhat painful to watch because this chiseled / pampered pretty boy really treated Ratna quite rudely (in good part because he was "distracted" BUT ...).  Still as he slowly goes through his personal drama, he of course, "lightens up."  And the rest of the story proceeds from there reminding us all that one really can't "judge a book by its cover" and yet THOSE "COVERS" ARE THERE ... The story becomes a powerful reminder of the multitude of barriers that separated us.  EXCELLENT FILM and I'm SO GLAD that this film apparently will make it to American theaters later in the year.  IT'S WORTH THE VIEW (4+ Stars) 

Amateurs (orig. Amatörer) [IMDb] [CEu] (directed and cowritten by Gabriela Pichler [IMDb] [CEu] along with Jonas Hassen Khemiri [IMDb] [CEu]) is a SWEDISH film playing out in a fictionalized  town called Lafors, somewhere in the middle of the Swedish countryside.  After getting word that a German firm was looking to put-up a "Superbilly" Walmart-like "big-box" store in Lafors, the city-council decides to come-up with a "promotional video" to sell the town.  But how to do so?  

With no budget, a still rather young (and Arab-born...) city councilman named Musse (played by Fredrick Dahl [IMDb] [CEu]) comes up with the idea of going to the local high school to ask the teens to put together a film for them.  What could go wrong?  Right?  Well ... ;-) ...

Did I mention that this was a "sleepy little town"?  

So ... a number of boys in the school decide to "spice things up" by producing a (still amateurly produced, they're 15 year olds after all) _hip-hopping_ clip that looked like a trailer to an inner-city drug-gang crime drama (yup EXACTLY what one would want to show a bunch of out-of-town executives considering building A BIG BOX STORE in their town ;-).  

Then there was a fifteen year old classically Nordic (ethnically Swedish) girl who produced an Ingmar Bergman inspired SOLO piece in which her sad existential angst-filled voice-over says: "This town is SOO boring, I have no friends, nobody understands me, I just want to ..." and the town council ends viewing her clip as it shows her heading toward the bridge at the edge of town to ... the final joke being that even if she were to fling herself off of said bridge BOTH the bridge was so low and the river so shallow that NOTHING would have happened to her anyway ;-) ;-).  

FINALLY, there was the submission of two immigrant girls Aida (played by Zahraa Aldoujaili) and Dana (played by Yara Aliadotter) that seems to capture the honest spirit of the town BUT ... there still were problems: They portrayed a town that was still "kinda boring."  One of the shots in their submission showed one of the two girls' moms mopping the floor at night at the local city hall (but ... THAT WAS ONE OF THEIR MOTHERS' JOBS).  And then of the two girls, one was "a little too dark" and the other "a little too fat" with even a little bit of a gender-bending lezy vibe (but they were _just fifteen_...) to their friendship, to promote the lively, fit and classically SWEDISH "image" that the town's council wanted to portray.  BUT (eye roll) ... "HEY, you asked us for an honest film about the town!  What's wrong with our clip!  We didn't show anything bad!  We just showed real / normal people (including us) during real / normal things!"

And this then becomes main question in the film (about the making of a film): Does one portray (and _embrace_) reality?  Or does one decide to strive for some _false_, _unattainable_ and even _racist_ "ideal"?   One heck of a story ;-) -- 4+ Stars ;-).


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.

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Silent Night (orig. Cicha Noc) [2017]

MPAA (NR would be R) Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*


 Silent Night (orig. Cicha Noc) [2017] [IMdb] [FW.pl]*(directed and screenplay cowritten by Piotr Domalewski [IMDb] [FW.pl]* along with Helena Szoda-Wozniak [IMDb]), which swept last year's Polish Eagle (Poland's equivalent of the Oscars) Awards and played here recently at the 2018 Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles, tells a contemporary immigration story that almost all immigrant families could relate to.

The film begins with Adam (played wonderfully with a mix of still wide-eyed youthfulness and appropriate not completely upfront shiftiness by Dawid Ogrodnik [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) on the bus, near the end of his 20 hour ride from Holland, on his way home to rural Poland for Christmas.  At the last larger provincial town before arriving at his parents' family's farm/stead somewhere in the lovely, if, it's December after all, now largely frozen Polish countryside, he gets off the bus and ... rents a car, a big one, to, of course, impress his parents when he arrives.  He's of course video recording everything along the way because ... (1) that's what young people do nowadays ;-), capturing everything that they're doing and (2) he's gotten word from his wife / girl-friend (unclear) but in any case "significant other" Asia (largely off screen but played briefly by Milena Staszuk [IMDb]) that she was expecting and so ... talking to the picture of the ultrasound that she had sent him, Adam wanted his new child to see what he was doing to prepare for his/her arrival.

He arrives with the big (rented) car.  The parents (ma' played by Agnieszka Suchora [IMDb] [FW.pl]*, pa' played by Arkadiusz Jakubik [IMDb] [FW.pl]* ask, "is this your ride nowadays," he responds "tak (yes)."  They shrug.  It's _almost as big_ as some other neighbor son's car that they saw a number of weeks back ;-).  "Welcome home son... BTW why has it taken you so long to come back to visit us again?" ;-)

Well, Adam isn't coming home altruistically, he has "a plan."  He's gotten it into his head that "if the family just sold grandpa's house" and _gave him the money_, he could "start a business" out there in Holland and "when it started paying money" he'd pay everybody back. ;-).  Besides, he's "becoming a father" he's _trying to be_ "responsible."  What could go wrong? ;-)

Well, the first problem is that ... grandpa , ever drunk though he may be and with a touch of the cancer (played gleefully in ever-smiling clueless fashion by Paweł Nowisz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) _isn't dead_ yet ;-).  Secondly, Adam's younger brother Paweł (played by Tomasz Ziętek [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), with whom Adam never got along, had his own plans for dying, but still not dead, amiable grandpa's house: He was going to use it to setup a barber shop inside (yes, out there in the placid Polish countryside, where next to no one would come by... ;-).  Pa' who like Adam, spent much of his adult life "working abroad" sympathizes, somewhat, with Adam's plan but tells him: Convince Paweł and your older (and married...) sister Jolka (Maria Dębska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*)  that your plan's a good one and I won't stand in your way.  Jolka's husband Jacek (played Mateusz Więcławek [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) pointing to the impressive wedding ring on his finger, of course, has "a few things to say..."

Amusingly, there's younger 12-13 y.o. sister named Kasia (played with wonderful not really knowing what's going on innocence by Amelia Tyszkiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who like grandpa "doesn't really matter" here.  The expression of pa' for whom Kasia was "the apple of his eye" when Kasia picks-up the violin to begin playing "Silent Night" (it's all playing out during Christmas after-all) and then ... as she continues ... is absolutely priceless ;-).

Ma' for her part is frustrated in her role of (once again) managing the needs / egos of all these men -- her husband, her two sons, her daughter's husband and even "grandpa" (her father or father-in-law,  unclear, though it _is_ clear that she's ultimately "the caregiver" there) -- all of whom she clearly seems to understand, at the end of the day, to be losers anyway.  She appeared to be _not_ particularly happy to see Adam "drop in" from Holland for Christmas.  His unexpected visit seemed to simply add (and as far as she could see, _unpredictably_) to her burdens of cooking for and then getting through the family's Christmas Eve (oplatkis and all).

There are some fun twists in the story.  And as I wrote at the beginning of my review here, pretty much EVERY IMMIGRANT FAMILY could relate to its characters.

As Tiny Tim ends Dickens' Christmas Carol: "God bless them, everyone."  They / we certainly need it ;-)


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The Old Man and the Gun [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB ()  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)


IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

 The Old Man and the Gun [2018] (directed and screenplay by , based on the New Yorker article "The Last Heist" by David Grann) seems like an appropriate swansong for legendary actor Robert Redford who, of course, plays the lead, Forrest Tucker [wikip] [IMDb].  After all, Redford's career was made, early, by his roles playing smiling, good looking / sympathetic outlaws in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [1969] and The Sting [1973], and ... as apparently a juror said of the ever well dressed, smiling and polite Tucker at his last trial, "You have to hand it to him, the man has style."  Again, it'd be a nice way to "go out" ;-), that's if one really believes that this will be Redford's last film (as he's promised it is). 

The film tells the story of Forrest Tucker who was known for doing two things (1) robbing banks, politely, and (2) escaping prison, repeatedly (apparently 18 times!), throughout the whole of his life!  Yup, there was clearly "a story" indeed "a movie" in that kind of life.

Now from the Catholic Church's perspective, there has always been the concern that film-making (or storytelling in general) _not_ make it seem that "crime does pay."  And so, looking at this film, this was a concern that I did have.  Yes, Tucker was remarkably skilled at those two things that he devoted his life to, but did he not _clearly_ waste his life pursuing "excellence" in, well, evil skills?  Yes, Tucker seemed "nice" about things.  He didn't seem to have ever fired his gun during any of the robberies that he was involved in or the chases that followed, but ... what if he needed to?  Yes, he was known to be "polite," but ... perhaps he was simply "lucky" to never have to be "not polite" in getting out of a jam, a bank robbery that "ran afoul."

So while storytelling is often subversive (that's what often makes it interesting, allowing us the Readers, Viewers or Hearers to imagine being in the shoes of said supremely "competent" outlaw), it's good to remember all the other things that _could have happened_: If there was even a single person who would have been shot or hurt as a result of one of his bank robberies, a single one ... Tucker would have become a much less sympathetic person than he is remembered today.

Let's face it folks, we he was simply ... lucky.

But it still makes for a remarkable (if subversive and not exactly moral) story.


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A Star is Born [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review


A Star is Born [2018] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Bradley Cooper along with Eric Roth and Will Fetters based on the 1954 and 1976 screenplays by Moss Hart and John Gregory Donne, Joan Didion and Frank Pierson respectively, based on the story by William A. Wellman and Robert Carson) continues and IMPROVES UPON a Hollywood-spun Cinderella story where where "the Prince" who lifts her up is tragically flawed and yet, does something right.

So here country music but hard drinking superstar Jackson Maine (played wonderfully by Bradley Cooper himself) stumbles upon a sweet if utter unconfident singer named Ally (played by Lady Gaga who proves here THAT SHE CAN ACT) and lifts her up to Grammy-level stardom.

As a Christian, indeed CATHOLIC, how can I not love this story?  It reminds us that ALL OF US are more than just our sins (even though those sins exist, and yes, WE PAY FOR THEM).  Still, all of us are capable of doing something good, and leaving a legacy that is kind.

And so even as we, along with Jack's friends watch him tragically self-destruct, we also see Ally literally GAIN HER VOICE and succeed.  And in her kindness she does understand all along that it was Jackson who first believed in her even when she didn't yet believe in herself.

What a story / film at a time when perhaps in a new way we're being told that _the only way_ to "the top" is "by our own bootstraps."  No.  All of us owe a lot to those who surround us.


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