When you are enjoying your subscription to Disney Plus, don’t forget about Netflix, because Netflix just dropped one of the best animated movies of the year, just in time for the Christmas holiday (well…okay, Thanksgiving, but you get the idea.)

Klaus is a re-imagining of the Santa Claus mythos that is as charming and heart felt as any film I have seen in a long time.

A simple act of kindness always sparks another.

Jesper (Jason Schwartzman) was a spoiled brat of a man who exploited his family’s money to live a pampered and lazy life.  His lack of interest in the family job as a postman worried his father so he banished his son to an island called Smeerensburg with the near impossible task of sending 6000 letters in one year.  If he failed, he would be cast out and stripped of his inheritance.

Once in Smeerensburg, Jesper met an old woodsman named Klaus (J.K. Simmons) who was isolated and depressed.  Jesper discovered Klaus’s shed full of handmade toys and he formulated a plan to get the local kids to write letters to Klaus asking for toys in return.  Little did Jesper know how this would strike a positive note into the conflict-laden island.

Smeerensburg had a long time feud between the Krum and the Ellingboe families and the hatred between them had fueled the tone of the land for generations.  Joan Cusack and Will Sasso voiced the respective heads of the two warring families.  These two factions did not like seeing the positivity that had started to sweep through Smeerensburg causing the two families to form a tentative truce to face against a common enemy.

This film is extremely clever and provides a new explanation for many of the Santa Claus iconography such as the cookies and milk, the chimney and the flying reindeer.

The first act of this movie, however, has its share of scary images and moments.  The introduction of a lot of the story is surprisingly dark and even a little twisted.  Yet, by the end of the movie, it is full of warmth and heart and would be a fantastic holiday film that the entire family would enjoy.  The ending has all the feels too as the emotional beats are used prominently.

I also found myself laughing out loud several times throughout the run of Klaus.  It brings every bit of emotion into the film and succeeds in glorious fashion way more than it does not.

The animation is beautiful too, with the character designs standing out above everything else.  SPA Studios and Aniventure create the film, an English language Spanish animated film written and directed by Sergio Pablos.

Klaus was a genuine surprise and watching this made me feel such a range of emotions.  It could develop into one of those classic Christmas movies that you enjoy every year.  It is a triumph.  It is available on Netflix right now.

4.75 stars 

Charlie’s Angels has been around since the 1970s in one form or another.  The most recent version has arrived in the theaters from director Elizabeth Banks.

Unfortunately, I found the new version, with a few exceptions, to be dull and repetitive.  I was not interested in the story and I was surprised how unimpressive I found the performance of Patrick Stewart.

The Angels themselves were the best part of the movie.  Kristen Stewart, especially, was one of the more entertaining aspects of the film.  Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska were nice additions to the Angels and the three of them worked well together.  However, the writing and the dialogue had too many cringe-worthy moments.

I thought Patrick Stewart, who I almost always love, was just phoning this performance in here.  As one of the Bosleys, Stewart was uninspiring and disappointing.  A far drop off from the brilliance of his performance as Charles Xavier in Logan.

Some of the action in the final act was fine, and I did like how they took the decades of Angles lore into account in the new film, but I just did not find much more engaging.

2 stars

I ignored this movie the first week it was out.  I caught up with it this week and I have to say that I did not dislike it as much as I thought I would.  However, there are a couple of major issues with it that really make me uneasy about recommending it.

Emilia Clarke plays Katrina (or Kate as she insists), a young woman with a bad attitude that acts extremely selfish.  Her attitude has pushed her family away and has made her depressed with her life.

When she meets Tom (Henry Golding), an unassuming and kind man, she begins to fall for him, but he is very mysterious, disappearing for several days at a time.

I did enjoy some parts of the film. I thought Emilia Clarke was good as Kate and I thought a bunch of the secondary characters were original and well used.  There may have been too many side plots with these characters, but they were definitely intriguing.

I said that there were some major problems that kept me from fully engaging in this movie.  The biggest problem was that I knew what the big “turn” in the film was going to be back when I saw the trailer.  I kept watching the film, looking at each scene trying to see a place where I would be wrong, but, with each scene, I was even more sure I knew what was happening.  And, of course, I was right.  It is a bad sign when I can see the twist coming in the trailers (and that is without the trailers giving away too much as they sometimes do).

Then, why does this film have such a connection to the music of George Michael?  We get a ton of George Michael songs and Wham songs, whether they make sense with the story or not.  I know Last Christmas is a Wham song (although I do not think I had ever heard it before today) but why does that mean we need “Freedom!” or “Faith.”  I found all the George Michael distracting.

Directed by Paul Feig, Last Christmas was co-written by Emma Thompson, who also appeared as Katrina’s mother, Petra.

I am very split on this movie.  It was better than I expected it to be, but the problems with the movie prevented me from enjoying it fully.  I am on the fence with this.

2.9 stars

I am not a fan of auto racing, not even a little bit.  So when the critics say that you do not have to like auto racing to like the new movie, Ford v Ferrari, you can believe them because I loved this movie.

Ford v Ferrari is the true story of how the Ford Motor Company decided to compete and win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race in France that had been won by rival car company, Ferrari, for several years.

Ford Company, led by Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), hired former race car driver Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) to help design a car that could beat the cars from Ferrari.  Shelby brought in brilliant, but troublesome driver Ken Mills (Christian Bale) to help create and eventually drive the car.

Ford Motor Company had personal problems with Ken, especially weaselly Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) who held a personal grudge against Ken.  Ford consistently threw roadblocks in the path of Ken, before the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Honestly, the movie is not really Ford v Ferrari as much as it is Ford v Ken and Shelby.  The rivalry with Ferrari is in the film, but it is significantly in the background of the narrative.  It was vitally important for Henry Ford II to jump into Le Mans, but after that, it is an after thought.

Christian Bale is always great, and this is no exception.  He loses a lot of weight for this role once more and throws himself into Ken Miles.  We get a lot from Ken and his family, his wife Mollie (Caitriona Balfe) and son Peter (Noah Jupe).  Jupe has been a wonderful child actor and he has some really solid work here too.

Matt Damon is every bit as much of the star of this movie as Bale.  Shelby starts off with a heart problem that forces him out from behind the wheel of the race cars.  Damon and Bale have amazing chemistry with one another and you fully believe in their friendship.

The race scenes are very well done and, apparently, are combinations of practical effects and CGI.  I can honestly say that I could not tell what was practical and what was CGI.  I saw the film on the IMAX screen which showed this film in the best possible aspect.

The film is very long (over two and a half hours) but truly did not feel as if it were long.  The flow of the movie moved along tremendously well and kept everything working together.  There are some scenes of emotion that work as does the humor.

Ford v Ferrari is a very strong film with some top notch performances and a compelling story.  The third act race is about as well done as you are going to get.

4.4 stars

The Good Liar is the new film from director Bill Condon, featuring two legendary actors, Sir Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren.

McKellen is a con man, out to find a wealthy widow that he can scam out of her money.  He has plenty of irons in the fire but he was looking for that windfall.  Mirren is that wealthy widow who is searching for something since the death of her husband.

They hit it off immediately and seem to form a bond, to the dismay of Mirren’s grandson.

There is no doubt about the best part of this film.  Helen Mirren has always been a personal favorite of mine.  She always is fantastic, even if the film itself is not good.  And Ian McKellen made his name in geek culture as Magneto and Gandalf.  Putting these legends together is a wonderful treat.

Watching these characters interact was charming and warm, even though you knew there was a darkness at the heart.

I was enjoying the film as it was moving along, but I had some real problems with the third act.  The film feels as if it falls apart in the end for a couple of reasons, both of which would be considered spoilers so I am going to have to just say that the third act was quite a step down in my opinion.  It was painfully obvious what was happening making it pretty predictable and silly.

Even though the ending was not as strong as the first part of the movie, I enjoyed the rest of the film enough to give this a pass.  There were some satisfying, albeit hard to believe, moments in the end and two amazing actors.

3.15 stars

Classic animated movies being rebooted as live action has been the trend over the last few years and now the most recent version has come to Disney + as Lady and the Tramp joins the ranks of Aladdin, Lion King, Jungle Book and Cinderella.

Sure, the original 1959 animated version of this movie may not have been in the same class of those movies, but there is at least one iconic scene everybody knows that involves spaghetti.

This is a very good choice of film to place on Disney + for its start up because it is well known enough to get eyes on it, but it would not make the millions of dollars at the box office as many of the other live-action movies have done.   Here it is one more positive for Disney +.

As for the film itself, it is good.  I enjoyed watching it on my own TV.  I wonder if my opinion would have been different had I paid money for it at a theater.

Prim and proper house dog Lady (voiced by Tessa Thompson winds up on the street and meets scroungy street dog Tramp (Justin Theroux) and the pair form a bond, despite being pursued by the overly-dedicated dogcatcher (Adrian Martinez).

The talking dogs are a problem here, just as the talking lions were a problem in The Lion King.  The facial expressions are not right and the mouth just moving can be creepy and off-putting, not the response that the film would want.  However, it did become less so as the film progressed so it may have been that I got more used to it than I was at the start.  The CGI on the mouth was acceptable for a streaming service film, but would have been more of a problem in a big budget released film.

The voice acting was fine, especially that of the wondrous voice of Sam Elliot as Trusty.  Among the live action actors, Yvette Nicole Brown stood out as the cruel and mean-spirited Aunt Sarah.

As a family film, Lady and the Tramp is a must see.  There is a wonderful goodness about the tale and the characters.  It may not be the upper echelon of Disney movies, but it is still quite recognizable and a perfect starter for Disney +.

3.3 stars 

I was looking through Netflix and I realized that I had not seen very many documentaries this year.  So I decided that I would watch several of the docs over the next month to get ready to see which one was the best one around. All these have been released in 2019.

I started on Netflix and watched a short one (around 42 minutes) called Fire in Paradise.  This told the story of a terrible camp fire in 2017 that decimated a town in California named Paradise.  This was totally shocking and tense, seeing pictures and cell phone images from the heart of the blaze.  The interviews with the people who survived this encounter was absolutely heart wrenching.  You could almost feel the heat coming through the screen. This doc was seriously good.

4 stars

Next doc I moved over to Hulu to watch The Amazing Johnathan but this one was less involving to me than the last one.  Johnathan is a magician who found out that he had a heart condition, and that was something that I was not interested in seeing.  I did not find Benjamin Berman that charming and the doc went into a different path that was odd.

2 stars

I had had the chance to see this one in the theaters, but I did not want to see it.  That was too bad, because The Biggest Little Farm was tremendous.  I would have loved to see it in the movie theater.  This told the story of a couple and their dog in an attempt to bring an area of farmland outside of Los Angeles back to life.  They faced all kinds of problems from birds to coyote to soil that was “dead.”  This was wonderfully education and as compelling as could be. I should not have skipped this one.

4.4 stars

Next up on Hulu was a documentary called Jawline and it was about a 16-year old boy named Austyn Tester, who wanted to build a career by posting videos on YouTube and Instagram.  This film was interesting because it followed the young man who had some initial success, but apparently wound up back in his life in Tennessee.  The film discusses some of the drawbacks of social media too.  While interesting, I would have liked to know more, go deeper.  It never seemed to go fully into the theme.  It was entertaining though.

3.3 stars

The final one today on Hulu is Ask Dr. Ruth which is the story of iconic sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer’s life, career and influence to the world.  The documentary included more than just the sex talk that she had became famous for, but also looked at her past, including her escaping the Holocaust and how she grew up to be Dr. Ruth.  Ruth Westheimer is such a charming and funny person who is able to speak so honestly that you can understand why she became such a sensation.

4.5 stars

More to come later…looking for the time to watch the Bob Dylan/Martin Scorsese doc on Netflix.

Edit:  BTW…Dr. Ruth was a sniper.

Yeah… 

It’s been a while since we have had a good pulp noir film, and Edward Norton’s passion project fills that gap respectfully.

Norton is the writer/director/lead actor of this new film. Motherless Brooklyn, which tells the story of a detective whose boss/friend gets killed in pursuit of a big case.  Lionel (Ed Norton) has some version of Tourette’s Syndrome, though that name is never used, and it gets in his way as he tries to weave his way through the complicated case at the heart of his friend Frank’s(Bruce Willis) death.

The film is slow and it is long, but I did not find either of those as a drawback to the movie.  I found this interesting and engaging.  It was a mystery story that we had to uncover exactly what had happened.  We knew the result and who committed the crime, but we had to discover the reasons.

Part of that had to do with Alec Baldwin’s big bad New York developer character, Moses Randolph.  I am not really sure where the inspiration for this character came from… (just kidding).

The story took place in the 1950s in New York.  The atmosphere of the film was one of the best parts.  The atmosphere helps make the noir successful.  Ed Norton did the voice over and it worked.

The performances were good to great.  The story was fine.  I had picked out the “surprise” part early on so that did not shock me.  And there was some epic music happening with the score too.

I believe that watching this movie requires patience, because it is a slow burn, but the trip is worth it.  These days of instant gratification, this is a throwback to the old days of movies.

4.1 stars