The Spy Who Dumped Me [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review


The Spy Who Dumped Me [2018] (directed and cowritten by Susanna Fogel along with David Iserson) is a fun if at times trashy "spy chick flick."  Directed, cowritten and principally starring women, it makes for a joyful "turn about" to the generally "women as eye-candy" or "ice cold bad-A" conventions of the genre. 

Random / average NY 30-something Audrey (played by Mila Kunis) begins the film absolutely furious because her suddenly strangely absent boyfriend Drew (played by Justin Theroux) appeared to dump her by text.  Turns out he's absent because he's a spy, turns out he dumped her because he wants to keep her out what he's gotten himself involved in -- searching for a tiny flash drive that contains all kinds of super important / super nefarious information on it, that half the world's spies are looking for.  Well, like it or not, Audrey finds herself sucked into this intrigue anyway when she finds herself abducted, straight off of a NY street) for a while by an MI-6 agent named Sebastian (played by Sam Heughan) doing so, again, "to protect her." 

Protect her from what?  Well Audrey and her BFF Morgan (played wonderfully in her bouncing off the walls / "I have nothing but caffeine in my veins" utterly unpredictable manner by Kate McKinnon) decide to go to Europe to find this flash drive that everybody is looking for (and some think that she somehow has already anyway).

And the rest of the story unspools from there ... 

Part of the joy of the movie for me was that the movie plays out across Europe, pretty much ALL OF EUROPE and so (I thank Ukrainian descended Mila Kunis or Kunišová for this) Eastern Europe -- Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic is not given the short shrift.  Yes, we get to see an amusing scene with Audrey and Morgan trying to figure out how to pronounce where all the trains nominally departing a Viennese train station are going to -- but just try to pronounce a random Hungarian place name, or for that matter a Czech one (if you don't know how to do it ;-).

But then there are some real gems here.  The part of the film that plays out in the Prague is introduced WITH AN AUTHENTIC 1960s CZECH COVER of the Nancy Sinatra song "These Boots are Made for Walking" (the Czech cover was called "Boty proti Lásce" or "Boots against Love" basically the same idea ...).  Again THANKS MILA!!  This was part of the reason why Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviets in 1968: the whole culture was taking its cues from the West rather than from the East. 

Anyway, the story trots across back and forth across the whole of continental Europe and Audrey / Morgan, though entering this world / "spy game" as neophytes at the beginning quickly learn, and improvising (having their own networks of friends and families, as well as skills that "regular spies" would never have thought of) soon hold their own.  Indeed, there's a "fight scene" in a staid Viennese cafe where by the end, these two women will have used every implement / instrument in that whole cafe _as a weapon_  It's brilliant and funny ;-).

So overall, while at time raunchy (the R-rating is probably deserved) it makes for a fun woman/girl-centric spy-buddy movie.  Good job!


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Crazy Rich Asians [2018]

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

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


Crazy Rich Asians [2018] (directed by Jon M. Chu, screenplay by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim based on the novel [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Kevin Kwan [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a fun all Asian cast romantic comedy that tells a story that anyone who's attended a major university in the United States in the last generation or two (or, heck, gone to see even _one_ true "Bollywood" movie in one's lifetime) would know -- there ARE plenty of _crazy rich Asians_ in this world.

Sure, there are also plenty of poor Asians as well (as there are poor North Americans / Latin Americans, Africans, etc).  But one of the joys of this movie has been that it's A NORTH AMERICAN MOVIE about ASIA that _doesn't_ focus on "Calcutta" or "the mean streets" of Manila, Shanghai, Tokyo or Hong Kong).  This film unabashedly declares -- hey, a lot of us Asians today do actually have _a lot_ of money.

Now we Christians aren't supposed to be focused so much on money.  On the other hand, if Western Christians continue to pretend that "the only people with money are North Americans or Europeans" then we simply choose to walk away from reality.

Indeed, the film begins with a fascinating quote attributed to Napoleon: "Let China sleep, because when she wakes up, she'll roar" and then after a bitingly funny first scene that sets up the story, the opening credits roll to a great (and absolutely true to contemporary global culture) Chinese cover of the Barrett Strong song "Money, that's what I want" ;-).

To the film ... Rachel Chu (played by Constance Wu) a young, clever first generation American / NYU economics professor is invited by her economist approaching two years boyfriend Nick Young (played by Henry Golding) to attend his best friend's wedding "back in Singapore."  Her first guess of what she's in for is when the two board the plane and instead of finding their seats (where the rest of us would sit) "somewhere back in coach" they're escorted to a first class suite that most of us would only have heard rumors about (but do exist on ... mostly Asian airlines).  "Sooo, you're rich ...?" "We're comfortable." "THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SUPER RICH PEOPLE WOULD SAY."  

And the rest of the story unspools from there... ;-)

The display of wealth (and competence, every member of Nick's family seems to be running something major / big) could perhaps begin to get irritating after a while ... But what then to say of all those, indeed _generations_ of "Jane Austen" inspired movies?

So, recognizing certainly that there are hundreds of millions, arguably BILLIONS of people living in poverty in Asia, why not remind ourselves that there are also millions, tens of millions of Asians who are "quite wealthy thank you" indeed, "SUPER wealthy, thank you" as well.  Otherwise we'd remain with a 19th Century "Rule Britannia" mindset that's simply no longer true ...

Now if we could ALL learn to share ...


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Papillon [2018]

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

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (M. Rechtshaffen) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub () review


Papillon [2018] (directed by Michael Noer, screenplay by Aaron Guzikowski based on 1973 screenplay [wikip] [IMDb] by Dalton Trumbo [2015 film] [wikip] [IMDb] and Lorenzo Semple, Jr based on the books Papillon [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] and Banco [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Henri Charrière [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is another remake, here of an already dark (if largely true) French "Devil's Island" prison tale, that no one was really clamoring for.

I suppose prison and prison break-out films, probably the best of which in the United States in my lifetime was the Stephen King based film The Shawshank Redemption [1994], like other "genre films" speak to us on a deeper subconscious level.  If we feel trapped, in need of breaking free from something, but to do so would be very "complicated," then I suspect these kind of stories would be appealing.  And if we feel that we live in a time that feels more oppressive than others that we've lived through, then the metaphor of "Prison" and its attendant "Darkness" would again "speak to us" in a way that in happier times it would not.

And this film as well as its 1973 antecedent is _plenty dark_.   The current film begins by reminding us that its chief protagonist Henri 'Papillon' Charrière (played in the current film by Charlie Hunnam) was no saint.  Indeed, he was safe-cracking hoodlum tied-up in the Paris underworld of the early 1930s. 

But like perhaps the Marvel Comics "Deadpool," he wasn't all bad.  He too had a girlfriend who loved him.  But when one "plays tag with the Devil" one can get burned.  And so it was, perhaps out of petty spite, perhaps because of simple convenience, his immediate (mob) boss had him framed for the murder of an annoying henchman he had to dispose of.  So said boss had the henchman killed and ... then had the police pick up Charrière for the crime.

'Cept this was France of the 1930s, a France that couldn't agree on much of anything except ... if you turned out to be a criminal you _really_ deserved to be punished: Convicted felons were put on prison ships and transported across the Atlantic to ... penal colonies along the alligator / malaria infested jungle coast of French Guiana ... basically to die.  Even after finishing their _pointless_ but extremely _hard labor_ sentences, former inmates were expected _to stay_ there in French Guiana for a term as long as their original sentence, doing ... exactly what?  Most inmates apparently didn't live that long to find out.  Apparently 40% of the inmates sent to French Guiana died in their first year.

So ... as I was saying, this was _not_ a cheerful story.  And one immediately could understand why inmates would really, really want to escape, and go to extra-ordinary lengths to keep hidden the few valuables that they had.  The current version of the film was more explicit about this than the 1973 version was (though for its time, the 1973 version, was plenty dark as well).

Repeatedly, I was saying to myself "Okay, this is probably where I'd just hang myself, or plunge myself in front of an alligator hoping to quickly die." 

And then I remembered that actually the Old Testament Joseph had found HIMSELF in prison, betrayed first by his brothers and sold into slavery, then denounced falsely by his Egyptian slave-owner's wife and ... found himself at his lowest point in the Darkness of an ancient Egyptian Dungeon with ONLY "his dreams" to keep him company AND ... it turned out that it was through his (there in the Dungeon) _learned ability_ to "interpret dreams" that eventually got him out of that Dungeon, all the way up to Pharoah's court and into a position where he could actually save his brothers [Genesis 37, 39-].  And both the nation of Israel and Christianity exist today because this man, who NO ONE would have blamed if he "just gave up," _chose to continue to live / try_ anyway.

So I reminded myself that while we're "here" in this life we really should never give up, that despite everything God has a purpose for what happens (and that all will ultimately turn out okay, if not in this life then in the next).  Indeed, there's a _far happier_ passage in the Book of Acts, in which Saints Paul and Barnabas were locked-up in a Dungeon as well, but with the presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, even in the Darkness of Midnight there, they literally "Could not Keep from Singing" [Acts 16:16-40] ;-).

In any case, the story of Henri Charrière aka Papillon (Butterfly) is a dark if compelling one.  And I suppose the Viewer is reminded that through the French would consider themselves along with us in the United States to be the paragons of freedom-loving democrats -- we with our "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," they with their "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" -- the French, like us (think Guantanamo or how we treat the homeless people in our country), could also be brutally cruel to people they decided not to like or respect.  Still Henri Charrière aka Papillon (Butterfly) chose not to give up.

I'm glad that the prison system of Devil's Island is itself now ... dead, lying on the ash-heap of history.


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Christopher Robin [2018]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


Christopher Robin [2018] (directed by Marc Forster, screenplay by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy and Allison Schroeder, story by Greg Brooker and Mark Steven Johnson based on the characters from the Winnie the Pooh books [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by A.A. Milne [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb] and Ernest Shepard [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) is a lovely family oriented film that offers parents and children the opportunity to discover / rediscover these characters that like the once a boy (in the original stories) now, in the current film, an adult Christopher Robin (played by an excellently casted Ewan McGregor), many of us may have "left behind" for years.

For at the beginning of the current story the 8 year old Christopher Robin leaves the magical "Hundred Acre Wood" behind his family's cottage in Sussex, England, to (1) go off to boarding school, (2) grow-up, (3) go to War, (4) settle down after the War,  (5) get married to a lovely and kind woman named Evelyn (played by Hayley Atwell) with whom (6) he had a lovely 8 year old daughter named Maddie (played by Bronte Carmichael), and (7) get a really boring job as an accountant "in the efficiency department" of a luggage (baggage...) company to support this grown-up and, let's face it, really really boring life.  What happened?

Well it turns out that Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings), the once imaginative 8 year old Christopher Robin's talking teddy bear, ALSO "woke-up" one dreary morning in that once magical "Hundred Acre Wood" to find that all of his friends Eeyore (voiced by Brad Garrett), Piglet (voiced by Nick Mohammed), Tigger (voiced by Jim Cummings), Kanga (voiced by Sophie Okonedo), etc, had disappeared.  So ... in his disarming simple mindedness, he, Winnie the Pooh, decides that he's going to look for Christopher Robin because, "Christopher Robin would know what to do..."

Call it honestly a children's, a "Winnie the Pooh" version of the Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon WW II classic Saving Private Ryan [1998], because _so lost_ had Christopher Robin become in life that he didn't even know how lost he was: When the adult, thoroughly responsible but by now all but soul-dead, Christopher Robin first encountered Winnie the "teddy bear" of his childhood after all those years, he honestly didn't know what to do.  And he didn't understand why this talking teddy bear, who came back for him at this point in his life would, passing by a vendor of helium balloons, would _so want_ a balloon: "Why do you want that balloon so much?" the approaching middle age Christopher Robin growls at his childhood teddy bear.  And Winnie the Pooh answers him, "Because it makes me happy."

OMG ... the rest of the movie unspools from there.

We don't need 10 balloons, much less a 100 balloons.  But an _occasional_ simple / cheerful "balloon" can indeed ... help make us feel _happy_ ;-)

Excellent point / story!


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Won't You Be My Neighbor? [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (A-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (O. Henderson) review
AVClub (N. Murray) review


Won't You Be My Neighbor? [2018] (directed by Morgan Neville) is a perhaps tragically timely, nostalgic documentery about a man, Fred Rogers [wikip] [IMDb], a 1950s-70s era Presbyterian Minister who was the creator and host of the iconic (and supremely _gentle_) PBS television program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood [1968-2001] [wikip] [IMDB].

Yet the film _could be more_ than just said "tragically timely nostalgic remembrance of a man" who in the context of the extraordinary harshness of contemporary American culture could seem like an extraterrestrial.

We could, for instance, choose to remember -- as this film noted -- that as gentle as Fred Rogers was in his demeanor (and yes, his family and friends emphatically insisted that he was exactly the same in his gentleness in his private life as in his public persona) he was no wilting flower or doormat:

Readers, consider simply that his program WHICH SOUGHT TO HELP _CHILDREN_ better comprehend the world around them BEGAN in EXACTLY THE SAME YEAR and DURING EXACTLY THE SAME MONTHS as the MLK and RFK assassinations.  One of the archival clips presented in this documentary showed one of Mr. Roger's puppet characters asking him: "What's an assassination?"  OMG, how poignantly sad.

Then, at a time when MILLIONS OF (WHITE) AMERICAN FAMILIES were still _sincerely_ if _utterly misguidedly_ asking themselves whether people of different races should share public spaces -- and more to the point, whether their kids should share public swimming pools with other kids of other races -- GENTLE MISTER ROGERS put this question UTTERLY TO BED with a remarkable scene:

One of the perennial characters on his program (about a neighborhood after all) was an African American beat cop named Officer Clemons (played by Francois Clemons).  So on one supposedly "very hot summer day" GENTLE MISTER ROGERS told the children of his audience that since it was so hot, he was just going sit down in his chair on the front lawn of his house and put his feet into a nice pool of cool water.  Officer Clemons came by and GENTLE MISTER ROGER asked him: "Hey Officer Clemons, it's such a hot day and you've spent so much time walking around all day.  Would you like to take off your shoes and socks and rest your tired feet with me in my nice little pool of water?"  Officer Clemons took off his shoes and socks, AND THERE ON NATIONAL TV, the feet of GENTLE MISTER ROGERS (White) and Francois Clemons (African American) shared the comfort of a nice little cool pool of water TOGETHER.  How could segregation of public swimming pools possibly continue thereafter?

What a lovely gentle example of kindness and universal community for a time -- today -- when Latin American children are being ripped from their parents at our border and (overwhelmingly white) panels are then judging whether the parents are "worthy" of getting their children back.

And yet GENTLE MISTER ROGERS lived at a time when "uppity black families" could still stand to have crosses burned in their front yards as well.

Honestly, in the best of Catholic traditions, "Gentle Mister Rogers, pray for us."


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Mission Impossible: Fallout [2018]

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

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


Mission Impossible: Fallout [2018] (written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie based on the Television Series [Wikip] [IMDB] by Bruce Geller) delivers, IN SPADES, what it promises -- a simultaneously likable / engaging "buddy movie" (about a team of super-super-deep-deep-cover spies ;-) yet also a thoroughly heart-pounding, _often_ literally _cliff hanging_, spectacularly convoluted thriller that keeps one guessing _on multiple levels_ until the very end. 

Indeed, the combination of the "buddy movie" with a "conspiracy movie" -- a story about trust in the midst of so many reasons to mistrust -- is fascinating even on the conceptual level.  Yet, these ideas are fleshed out in the characters and the plot of this story / film series.

Near the beginning of the story, super-secret spy Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) is given "the Mission should [he] choose to accept it" of recovering plutonium, enough for three nuclear bombs, that had gone missing (from some Russian base somewhere near Kamchatka), that, we're told, is being coveted by a Norwegian unibomber-like nuclear scientist named Nils Debruuk (played by Kristoffer Joner) who had just written a radically anti-religious manifesto and in league with jailed, anarcho-terrorist -- Solomon Lane (played by Sean Harris) the principle super-villain from a previous installment in the MI film series -- organized a shadowy group of "18 Apostles" dedicated to inflict massive, nuclear, harm on humanity "to bring about peace." 

"Choose to accept this mission?"  Of course Ethan's gonna accept this mission.  This is _exactly_ why he and his super-secret agent unit (the IMF or Impossible Missions Force) exists.  And it initially seemed easy.  Ethan and his team -- Benji Dunn (played by Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickwell (played by Ving Rhames) -- set-up a "sting operation" in Berlin to _buy_ the plutonium.  Well "the exchange" goes south and Ethan finds himself with the choice of EITHER sacrificing his team members OR recovering the three balls of plutonium in essentially a carry-on bag-sized suitcase.  He _chooses_ to save the lives of his team members and the nuclear arms traders are able to flee with their plutonium to try to sell it to someone else -- perhaps Debruuk/Lane and their "Apostles.

Needless to say, CIA Chief Erica Sloan (played wonderfully with icy seriousness by Angela Bassett) -- the IMF is but one, if super-secret, group operating under the overall umbrella of the CIA -- is quite appalled at Ethan's somewhat surprising humanity.   IMF head Alan Huntley (played by Alec Baldwin) tries to defend Hunt's actions to Sloan: "But Hunt's two other agents would have been lost."  She replies: "But recovering the plutonium was the job.  In saving his two friends he put millions at risk."  But Alan Huntley is so impressed by Hunt's choice that he tells him, "Precisely because you weren't willing to sacrifice even one person to save those millions, you are the best possible person to send out to recover that plutonium."

The rest of the story -- which of course involves coming up with a new plan to recover that plutonium -- ensues...  And it becomes, of course, ONE WILD RIDE, taking us to Paris, to London, and finally to the mountains of the Indian controlled part Kashmir. 

The closing sequence which is 40 HEART-THUMPING MINUTES LONG is spectacularly complex and leaves the Viewer gasping: "Well they don't call these stories 'Mission Impossible' for nothing" ;-)

And yet we witness a super-secret agent who ... cares.

AWESOME FILM !


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Sorry to Bother You [2018]

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

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


Sorry to Bother You [2018] (written and directed by Boots Riley) is a fun African-American centric Kafkaesque near-future dystopian scifi flick in which Cassius Green (played wonderfully in mildly grifter - hey, I'm just trying to stay afloat / eke-out a living - fashion by Lakeith Stanfield) finds himself in a way, way, way more bizarre "this is how the world works" conspiracy than he could imagine.

The story begins with Cassius at a job interview in which he gets busted in an awfully embarrassing way for padding his resume -- "Cassius, do you know WHY I know that you never ever got 'employee of the month' nor even worked as a bank teller at that Oakland branch that you put in your resume?  BECAUSE I WAS THE MANAGER THERE at the time ;-) -- "HS, am I horribly busted!" -- But before you get a cardiac here son, as many lies as you've put on that resume of yours, you've taught me the only two things I know to give you this (entry level telemarketing) job; (1) You show initiative ;-), and (2) you can read.  THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW to be a telemarketer: STAY ON-SCRIPT and FIND A WAY to make it sell.  That's all you need to know."

Yea!  Cassius is now on his way to finally be able to pay rent to his uncle for the two car garage which he and his ever big-earring-always-with-a-message-wearing girlfriend named Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson) have called "home" ;-).

Ah yes, but how to you sell stuff -- on the phone -- that people don't really need and at times can't really afford?  Well after a few days of - "OMG I'm going to lose this job again" - he's told by an older / more experienced coworker (played by Danny Glover) "Cassius, you're going to have to find your 'white voice.'"  "WT... does that mean?"  "No, not a white, white voice, but the voice that tells the person on the other end of the line 'You know, I don't need to make this sale, after I finish talking to you, I'm taking the rest of the day off to take my Ferrari for some detailing again.  I'm not calling you because I need you, I'm calling you today because you need me, and you need this product that I'm offering you.'"  

Cassius figures it out ... and ... soon he's becomes one of the company's best sellers, indeed being "bumped up" to its "Diamond Sellers" level.  Those who "make this level: get special perks -- a special gold plated elevator, activated by an insanely long "security code," that literally takes him to said "new level."

But it's there of course, that he finds that things are _far, far, far weirder_ than he even would have imagined.  But does he "play the game?"  Or say something?  And who would actually even believe him if he did?

A FUN and GREAT MOVIE that would have made Kafka of "The Castle" fame proud ;-)



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