I have been excited for Jojo Rabbit for some time now.  However,when I hear about these independent films that are supposed to be so amazing, many times they are fine, but not to the level that everyone claims.  There have been several this year that fall into that category for me.  I worried that I was looking forward to Jojo Rabbit too much.

After seeing this, I can safely say that Jojo Rabbit is utterly brilliant and one of my absolute favorite films of 2019.

I can understand the tentative nature of people who may not think it is a good idea to have a film where a young boy has an imaginary friend who is Hitler.  I have to say it caught me off-guard when I first heard about it too.  But with Taika Waititi attached as writer and director, my anxieties soothe.  I loved Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok and What We Do in the Shadows so I believed that, if anyone could navigate the issues, it would be Waititi.

Anyone who lists the version of Hitler in this film as a reason to hate it has already made up their mind that they were going to hate it.  Taika Waititi does a masterful job of playing this “Adolf”, the imaginary friend of Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), a 10-year old German boy who idolizes the Fuehrer and joins the Hitler Youth.

After an unexpected result, Jojo discovers that his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) has been hiding a Jewish girl name Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in the walls of their home, shaking the boy’s preconceived notions to their core.

The performances of this movie are off the frickin’ chart.  Let me start with the actor playing Jojo, Roman Griffin Davis.  This is Griffin’s feature film debut and that is totally unbeleivable because everything in this film depends on this young actors ability to deliver his lines and carry the emotional heft of the scenes.  There are some moments of levity that Davis pulls off brilliantly playing opposite Waititi and, also, Sam Rockwell, who plays a heavy drinking and quickly sinking Nazi Captain Klenzendorf.   Yet, Davis has some deep and life-affirming moments with Scarlett Johansson as well.

Still, the heart of the film is probably the relationship and the interactions between Jojo and Elsa.  These two young actors make you fall in love with them in one of the most unconventional ways imaginable.  Thomasin McKenzie is a star in the making.  Her every minute on screen lights it up and you cannot help but notice how effervescent she is.

There were also a couple of scenes that caught me completely off guard and nearly caused me to break down. No spoilers, but the emotion in this movie is powerful and elevates this above just another comedy.

It is a comedy, though and it is laugh out loud funny all the way through.  Stephen Merchant appeared as a Gestapo S.S. agent and he brings a ton of humor while still being as tense as any moments in the movie.  It also led to a ridiculously funny “Heil Hitler” scene.  Rebel Wilson gets to do some broad comedy as Fraulein Rahm, an assistant to Captain Klenzendorf.  Wilson brings some fantastic physical comedy in a supporting manner.

Then, Taika Waititi’s performance as Adolf was note perfect, and it had to be because he was walking a dangerous line with this role, but Waititi understood that humor allows one to transcend almost anything and that the satire of Adolf Hitler, one of the worst monsters to ever step on the planet, can be used to spread a message of anti-hate.

Jojo Rabbit delivered on every expectation that I had and it is a damn near perfect movie.  I loved this film and Taika Waititi has done it again, bringing a vision to a story that sounded as if it had plenty of hand grenades. I don’t think anything was ever going to catch up for me to Avengers: Endgame, but Jojo Rabbit is right there.

5 stars

Back in May, a film came out called The Intruder, and I skipped watching it.  You see, the trailer to the movie basically showed everything that I needed to see, including a big chunk of the third act so I was not sure why I needed to see it.  So, despite a couple of times when I thought about going to The Intruder, I decided to let it pass by.

Then today I found it for $0.99 on Vudu and I thought that that was a price that I could not turn down.  Certainly, it would be worth $0.99, right?

Well, it wasn’t quite worth the $0.99.

Dennis Quaid played Charlie Peck, a widower who sold his beloved house to Scott and Annie played by Michael Ealy and Meagan Good.  At first, it appeared that Charlie was just having a difficult time parting with the house that he had spent so many years in, but then it became obvious that he was mentally unhinged and wanted to have Annie for himself to the point of attacking her and trying to keep her against her will.

You say that is too much detail and that I may have spoiled too much.  Well, you’d be right, but that was what the trailers had in it so it is fair game.

There are some really dumb scenes in this predictable film.  It takes Annie way too long to accept the fact that Charlie is a loon because she was too busy getting mad at Scott for stupid things.

It seems that Dennis Quaid is having fun hamming it up as this coo-coo but he does not have near enough energy to make up for this film.

I am not unhappy I watched it, and I am glad that I did not spend the full cost on it.

2 stars

I have heard a lot of critics say that this is the best Terminator movie is T2, and, while that is definitely the case, it is not setting the bar very high.

The movies in the Terminator franchise have fallen somewhere between poor and totally rotten since T2: Judgement Day so a competently made Terminator movie would easily be the best since T2.

That does not mean this is a great movie or that I loved Terminator: Dark Fate.  The best I can say for the film is… it’s fine. However, there are no new ideas as the entire film is basically a retread of a strange combination of Terminator and T2.

A powerful Terminator (Gabriel Luna) is sent back from the future to kill someone, in this case a girl named Dani (Natalia Reyes).  The resistance of that future time line sends a protector, Grace (Mackenzie Davis), to keep Dani alive.

Does that sound familiar?

The film also adds Linda Hamilton back in as Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Terminator for nostalgia.  It was the film’s way to connect the films of the past to the new film of 2019.

I enjoyed both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performances in the movie and they did a nice job interacting with the new characters.  Schwarzenegger was very funny in his role and makes a character, that could be the worst of the film, likable.

However, something happens at the very beginning of the movie that.I suspect will be a major dividing point among Terminator fans.  While I did not hate what happened, I can certainly understand why some people do.  I do find the eventual result of the first scene to play out in a silly way that stretches my suspension of disbelief.

I found the action to be a mixed bag.  The highway chase, as seen in the trailers, was not bad, but it felt like something I had already seen.  I was bored with the action in the airplane, but I thought the final third act throw-down was decent.  Some of the CGI was shaky at times, especially when showing the future timeline with the Terminators coming out of the water.

Natalia Reyes and Mackenzie Davis are both very good in their roles, even though you could easily assign previous characters from the Terminator franchise as being replaced by them.  There really is not a lot or originality in this new film.  Still, The Force Awakens was very similar to New Hope and that does not make Episode VII bad, per se.

I have a feeling that this film may be one of those films that I originally recommend but, over time, continue to think poorly about.  I found Terminator: Dark Fate to be an okay movie and it looked good on the IMAX screen that I watched it on, but there is just something unremarkable sticking in my craw.

3 stars

When I was younger, I really liked Harriet Tubman.  I really did not know what it meant or how heroic she actually was, but her story appealed to me.

This was why I was excited to watch the biopic Harriet, based on the harrowing life of Harriet Tubman, one of the top conductors on the Underground Railroad.  Starring Cynthia Erivo, Harriet does a very good job of showing us the challenges faced by one of our nation’s truest freedom fighters.

There were many things about Harriet Tubman’s life that I did not know and I wondered how accurate the film was in portraying her life.  I especially wonder how close to the truth it came with her former master Gideon Brodess (Joe Alwyn) and his pursuit of Harriet.  This feels very much like a cinematic addition to the story, but I will admit to not knowing for sure. (edit… looks as if he is made up, but the Brodess family was in fact Harriet’s owners).

The film may have brushed over the voyage Harriet went on when she escaped from her master and traveled to Pennsylvania.  I am not sure that the movie showed how distressing the trip truly was and how unbeleivable it is that she was able to survive, let alone go back to aid other slaves in their journey to freedom.

Cynthia Erivo was wonderful as Harriet, bringing the iconic hero to life and showing how strong and determined she was.  Cynthia Ervio is a star in the making and this movie may give her the push to start that progression.

While the biopic may be a conventional one, Harriet still brings a really string story of a historical figure that spreads a positive message, something we could really use these days, and whose bravery and heroism in the face of cruelty and hatred is inspirational.  I always liked Harriet Tubman, and, now that I know more about her, I like her even more.

4.1 stars

This one is one of the most original films of the year that will absolutely keep you thinking well past the end of the movie.

Two men arrive on an island to run the lighthouse that is located there.  However, there is clearly more going on here than that.  It is difficult to go into much more details without spoilers.

The two men are Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe).  Winslow a young man who is running from his past and Wake, an older man who looked as if he were a sea captain.  As they worked on the island, both men started to slip into madness.

Willem Dafoe was utterly brilliant in this film.  His performance was Oscar worthy and he could absolutely win the award.  He handled the difficult lingo of the sailor beautifully and brings a gravitas to this role.

Robert Pattinson perhaps gave his finest performance of his career.  Although Dafoe may have been the real standout, Pattinson held his own in every moment with him.  I did not even realize that it was Pattinson until the end of the film.  He truly lost himself inside this multidimensional character.

Another major aspect of The Lighthouse is how beautiful the film looked.  First, of course, the film was shot in black and white and it was amazing to watch.  There were so many great images throughout the movie that stands out as artistically as any and the cinematography was wondrous.  The second aspect is the fact that this was shot in a way that the picture was more of a square, not full screen and it fit the story great.

Robert Eggers, director of The Witch, brought a visual style to this film unlike many you will see.  Eggers has a pretty strong early career so far and this is beautiful.

The film is challenging and does not feel the need to explain every scene that has some ambiguity to it.  I love the fact that you can interpret the film in the way you want.  And there is some weird stuff going on here. It is a film that you are never sure what is happening, what might have been a character’s delusion instead of reality.

I can see where some people may not like The Lighthouse, but I found it challenging and fascinating.  The performances were next level and the technological aspects were beautiful.  The Lighthouse is a different type of movie.

4.25 stars

Eddie Murphy is back with a vengeance.

Murphy returns in the Netflix biopic focusing on the life of Rudy Ray Moore, a comedian and Blaxploitation film star of the 1970s.

Rudy Ray Moore was a struggling comedian, rejected on a regular basis, until he created a character to play on stage, a foul mouthed, obscene pimp who rhymed his way through his act named Dolemite.  Moore was told repeatedly that he was never going to be successful, but he refused to give up.  He parlayed the character into several bootleg record albums and eventually a feature film.

There is a great cast of actors involved in Dolemite is my Name, which is lead, of course, by Eddie Murphy.  This is easily Murphy’s best performance in years.  He looks to be having a ton of fun as Moore.  The film also includes Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess, Mike Epps, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Kodi Smit-McPhee.  There are some great cameos as well, including the scene-stealing Wesley Snipes as D’Urville Martin, the co-star and director of the first Dolemite movie.

The real Dolemite movie has become a classic of the Blaxploitation genre, one of those “it’s so bad it’s good” films.  Watching the biopic, I must say that I got some flashes of The Disaster Artist, the film detailing the creation of one of the worst films ever, The Room.  Both of these films showed us the charismatic lead actor that may not have much acting chops, but can still find ways to get things done.

Moore would become an idol and an inspiration for many modern day rappers, who looked at his rhymes as an early form of rap music.  Moore would become known as the “Godfather of rap.”

There are some real feel good moments in this movie.  I found the relationship between Rudy Ray Moore and Lady Reed aka “Queen B” to be extra special.  Moore found Lady Reed in a night club one night, knocking out her boyfriend, and she became a muse for him.  The bond they formed that night carried the pair through the years of challenges ahead.  The fact that neither of them were the typical Hollywood shape sends a wonderful message to the fans who may not be as slim as they wish to be.

Dolemite is my Name is a great movie, funny, sweet and filled with tremendous performances.  Sure there is a lot of swearing, but it is fully part of the time and of the real Moore.   Eddie Murphy is magnificent here and I hope he continues this run.

4.5 stars