Sentimentality at its worst.

This film had some possibilities, especially with a very solid if not spectacular performance from Will Smith, but the writing of this was sloppy, the story itself was predictable and at times cruel, and only one of the film’s two twists nailed.  Still, this is not as bad as some critics have made it out to be.

Admittedly, this feels as if it would be more at home on Lifetime or Freeform as a TV movie, Collateral Beauty has an A+ cast.  Unfortunately, I would say that the cast averages out to a C+ performance.

Howard (Will Smith) is an advertising executive who suffers a great tragedy and loses his daughter to a rare cancer, and find that his life has little meaning.  His partners and friends from the agency (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña) try to snap him out of his trance in order to save their company by selling it.  The problem, they cannot move forward without him (because he has voting rights). So this threesome decide to hire three actors to portray Love, Death and Time after the discovery that Howard has been writing letters to them.

That’s right.  Howard’s friends try to gaslight their grieving friend and colleague to make him believe that he is going crazy.

Their cruelty is meant to be offset with their individual personal issues.  Whit (Edward Norton) has a daughter who doesn’t want to see him because he cheated on her mother, Claire (Kate Winslet) wonders how long she has before her biological clock stops ticking and Simon (Michael Peña) is dying of cancer.

One of the major problems of this movie is that these people are horrible people and their selfishness is not an excuse for them to pull the manipulation that they do.

The three actors hired by this trio included Helen Mirren as Brigitte, Keira Knightley as Amy and Jacob Latimore as Raffi.  These three want their play financed and are willing to do whatever to Howard that is necessary.  Amy does show some doubt about the plan, but she does go through with it in the end.

Meanwhile, Howard is struggling with an attempt to go to a grief group filled with other parents who lost a child.  Madeleine (Naomi Harris) leads the group and has a bond with Howard almost immediately.

Will Smith is really good here, as he completely envelopes the role, and the relationship with Madeleine seems intriguing and hopeful.  I must say that, although I thought Smith was really good for most of the movie, the scenes of him on his bicycle riding around the city making a variety of faces bordered on hilarity.  Except for those moments, Smith was excellent.

The same can not be said for some of the other actors in this movie.  Edward Norton seemed to be going through the motions and I haven’t seen as poor of a performance from Kate Winselt in a long time.  Both of these actors looked to be cashing a paycheck for these roles.  Michael Peña was okay, but I had a hard time buying his motives in this movie.

Helen Mirren was her normal solid self.  She seemed to be the only one of the three actors, she was hired as Death, to have much of anything.  He scenes with Smith were all very good, and she got more out of Peña than expected.  Unfortunately, her work was wasted in this garbage story.

There were two surprises at the end of the film.  One involved the relationship between Howard and Madeleine, and I thought that was fabulous.  I did not see that coming, and it made a nice little bow on that story.  However, the second twist was telegraphed so early in this film that it really took away any magic that might have been generated by the movie.

The movie tries really hard to tug on your emotional strings, but all of this baggage felt forced and manipulative.  These emotions did not come naturally from the story, but shoehorned into it by weak writing.

A few good performed scenes does not make a good movie, and Collateral Beauty is not one.  I heard someone claim that this was the worst movie of the year, but that is not the case.  It is not that bad.  But it is nowhere near a good movie either. There is no Christmas magic here.

2 stars

I will admit that at one point, I did not think the idea of Rogue One was a good idea.  I mean, why did it matter how the Rebel Alliance got the plans of the Death Star in Star War: A New Hope?  They just did.

Then I saw Rogue One.  I was wrong.  It was important to know.  It made the original Star Wars better.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) was the daughter of an Imperial scientist/inventor (Mads Mikkelsen) who was taken away from her when she was but a child by the Empire.  The Empire wanted Jyn’s father, Galen Erso, to design the weapon that would become the Death Star.  Jyn, alone, was discovered and raised by extremist rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).  Later in her life, she was recruited by the Rebels to try and find her father.

Without spoiling too much, I am going to leave the story right there.

We are introduced to a series of amazing new characters in this film, as we filled in point of contention from the original Star Wars and built a cohesive story around what did not feel like a major gap in continuity.

Let’s look at some of these great new characters we got in Rogue One.  Jyn is an amazing, kick ass female lead who you could relate to.  She was deserted as a child, wanting only to find her father and regain what she had lost.  She was really well done.

Saw Guerrera was not in the film enough to really connect to him, but Forest Whitaker is always a solid actor.  I believe that the character of Saw could be the focus of other prequels.  Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) had that lovely rogue role that Star Wars seemed to need.  I did like the actor and the character grew on me enough to look past him as a han Solo ripoff.  However, K-2SO (vocied by Alan Tudyk) stole every scene he was in as a former Imperial droid who was working with Cassian.

Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) was a great addition to the cast, playing the blind warrior dedicated to the Force.  He was protected by Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) to the nth degree.  Sure, Chirrut is not a new character (Daredevil’s Stick has been blind fighting for decades before), but this pairing brought another classic Star Wars trope to the front.

We also got Riz Ahmed, who was brilliant in this past year’s HBO show The Night Of, as former Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook.

Are all these characters basically constructs from past Star Wars movies?  Yes, that is true.  However, there was enough chemistry among the cast and enough exciting action to carry the film through. However, I get the feeling that had I read some of the books and stories from all of the Star Wars canon, I might have thought more of these characters than this.  For me, they were all basically the same type of archetype that I have seen before.

I thought the film as a little slow at the start as we were being introduced to our new cast, but the second and third acts really picked up.  The battles in the third act were full of drama and action.  This was a war movie set in a Star Wars universe.

There was also plenty of nostalgia involved in Rogue One.  We see toss-backs to past movies, including what looked like the exact location from Return of the Jedi.  We see characters we loved make cameos and appearances. and of course…

Darth Vader.

We know Vader makes an appearance in the movie from the trailer.  I think they used Vader a perfect amount.  They did not over use him, and when he did appear, he was shown to be one bad ass man.  The voice of James Earl Jones is perfection coming from one of the greatest movie villains of all time.  Now, he does make a pretty rotten pun that almost wrecked the first scene he was in, but we the second time we get Vader makes up for that in spades.

I also feel that the ending of this film was really well done and was quite brave.  To avoid spoilers, I will leave it at that for now.  I am impressed how much uncertainty there was despite knowing that the ultimate mission (to find the plans of the Death Star) was going to be successful.  I never dismissed parts of this story because I knew that those plans would find their way into R2D2.

Rogue One was a beautifully shot film, and Gareth Edwards, director, does a fantastic job shooting this massive film.  I believe that this film fit perfectly in with the Star Wars films, filling in gaps that might have been problematic issues.  Rogue One feels like both a different Star Wars film than we ever have seen before as well as a comfortable fit into the continuity and Star Wars world.  That is quite an accomplishment.

4.2 stars

I have never seen a movie that made me want to take a shower more than Miss Sloane.

Miss Sloane shone a light on the career of political lobbyists, and that light make them scurry for the shade.  No, really… this movie showed these people as the slimiest and most repugnant people around.  They made them seem considerably worse than members of Congress…I know right?

In fact, there is the typical scene where the lobbyists have members of Congress on each side and they have to swing certain ones over to their side to win a vote.  It was like the scenes in American President with Annette Bening… except with Bening not being the sweetheart she was.  I don’t know if I can watch that scene again without wondering what dirty trick is really going down.

Jessica Chastain played Elizabeth Sloane, one of Washington’s most successful and downright rotten lobbyists around.  When a bill attempting to place restrictions on guns comes to the floor of Congress, Sloane leaves her current company to try to help get the bill passed.  And she does just about whatever she needs to do to make it so.  No line is too far to cross.

Of course, opposing her is the NRA and their own bag of dirty tricks and lobbyists willing to do whatever is necessary to win.  Miss Sloane apparently knows all the dirty tricks because she showed a remarkable ability to anticipate what her opponents were planning and to counter that with her own slimy trick.

There were people shown on Sloane’s side that were not as slimy as Sloane herself.  There is Esme (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who had a good reputation as a knowledgeable worker who had a hidden past with gun violence.  There is Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong) who spear-headed the group trying to get the bill passed and he brought Sloane into the fold.  Some of the other characters on Sloane’s side were interesting, but most of their contributions to the story was to stare, slack-jawed at the things that Sloane would do.

The gun supporting side was basically played off as the heartless villains, but they were still shocked at the lengths stooped to by Sloane.  One of the negative notes of the movie is how the other side was not more positively portrayed.  Gun control does not have to be one side is right, one side is wrong…especially with the lobbyists characters falling so hard into the shades of gray section.

But it is clear that no one is smarter than Miss Sloane, and that is fine, especially since she is such a flawed and downright rotten person.  She is played brilliantly by Jessica Chastain and she makes you root for this awful woman, despite the constant travesties that she engages in.  Chastain showed the human side of this woman, creating someone that could easily have been a caricature.

The film was a little long, but the ending payoff is worth the wait.  Yes, it is unrealistic (No SPOILERS), but it paid off the film in a big way.  Kudos to not only Chastain, but also John Lithgow, who played a senator in charge of a Congressional hearing into Sloane’s business practices.  Their showdown was high drama.

Never once did the fact that Miss Sloane was a powerful woman come into play, and I liked that very much.  This was not a story about a powerful woman taking on the NRA, but a powerful lobbyist doing the same.  It felt as if we had taken a step past identifying her as a woman.  She just was.  That is a great thing.

As I said, the whole story pays off big time, but the suspension of disbelief is remarkably high.  If you cannot accept that, Miss Sloane is going to fall apart for you.  I had no problem with the end, so I really did enjoy the film.  I do wish the pro-gun side would have been less villainized, but I understand why they did it.

Jessica Chastain is excellent and the character of Miss Sloane is an enigmatic woman who wants to win above almost anything else.  She does not need to be seen as a hero.  In fact, she is as dirty as any of them.  However, she is shown as a complex and real person who has reasons for her choices.

Our political system really is messed up.

4 stars

I was completely enthralled with Nocturnal Animals.  I even had considered, as I sat in the theater, the possibility that this would become my favorite film of the year. However, I was not a fan of the ending of the movie, so I dropped it down a few notches.

Then, I was reflecting upon it and listened to some theories about the ending.  These were some ideas that I had not considered.  This is one of the reasons I really enjoyed this film.  There were a lot of layers to the movie, and you really had to think about what you were seeing.

Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) was an artist with a successful exhibit and career, a handsome husband (Armie Hammer) and lots of money and yet she was wallowing in her unhappiness.  When a manuscript for a novel, dedicated to Susan, arrived from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), she found herself emotionally invested in the story.

It is at this point where the second narrative of this film begins to be told.  As Susan read the novel, the audience began to see a visualization of the story through Susan’s POV.  She placed Edward in the role of Tony Hastings, the novel’s main character.

In the novel, Tony and his wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber) are on a road trip through Texas when a group of scoundrels and troublemakers run them off the road.  Led by real lowlife Ray (Aaron-Taylor Johnson), the men wind up abducting Tony’s wife and daughter, leaving Tony alone and stranded in the Texas wilds.

Tony is able to find his way to the police and eventually, police officer Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) arrived to try and help Tony.

There is actually a third strand of story here as well as we get flashbacks to the time when Edward and Susan first met and began becoming involved in a relationship.

Amazingly enough, all three narratives have through lines that work as metaphors for what was happening.  There are so many layers to this film that you will be thinking about it well after you walk out of the theater.  I know that happened for me.  There were things that I had not considered at first that, upon reflection, make perfect sense.  This is a beautifully crafted tale and the three different narratives work very well together.

The performances are awesome.  In particular, Michael Shannon as Bobby is one of the best characters in any movie this year.  I believe Shannon is a lock for an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.  Bobby’s dogged determination drove Tony to seek justice for his family and inspired the weak-willed husband and father to continue to push for revenge.

Nocturnal Animals is very dark and troubling.  It seemed to strive to make the viewer uncomfortable, dealing with issues that were remarkably troubling.  This included one of the most initially disturbing opening credits scene that I have ever seen.  Yet, again upon reflection, see the metaphor that director Tom Ford was going for.  The idea of being completely free is a wonderful feeling that so few of us are able to feel, and it is certainly on display here.

And this film is gorgeous.  There are countless visual moments throughout the film that is meant to shock, entice or appall you.  There are several images that cross over between the three narratives that it is apparent that they are intentional.  Some are subtle, but some are  painfully apparent.  At all times, the imagery is one of beauty, even those times when the imagery is gruesome or painful.

Nocturnal Animals is a brilliant film, with remarkably intelligent writing, and perfect performances.  It is a film that will stick with you well after you have seen it, and you might have to see it again to fully appreciate what you have seen.

4.85 stars

Jeff Nichols wrote and directed Loving, the story of an interracial couple from Virginia in the late 1950s who decide to get married and wind up getting arrested.

You see, in Virginia at the time, it was illegal for people of different races to marry, so when Richard (Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) drove up to Washington, D.C. to get married, they knew the dangers of returning to Virginia.

Still, the couple did return to the state and began living as husband and wife.  Someone turned them in, and, before you knew it, the Lovings were in jail.  After pleading guilty, the couple were sentenced to leave Virginia for 25 years.

However, Mildred was pregnant, and really wanted Richard’s mother (Sharon Blackwood) to deliver the baby, so they sneaked back into the state for the birth.  This led to them being arrested again.

After this, they returned to D.C. to continue living their lives until a near tragedy caused Mildred to want to return to the country life of Virginia.  Setting themselves up in a rural home, the Lovings planned on living the remainder of their lives in quiet isolation.

Mildren, though, had written a letter to Bobby Kennedy, who redirected the letter to the ACLU, who hooked them up with a lawyer (Nick Kroll) who saw this as an opportunity to take biracial marriages to the Supreme Court.

This is all quite amazing of a story, and is all the more amazing when you know that this is a true story.

I enjoyed this movie, mainly because of the amazing performances of its two lead stars.  Joel Edgerton is unrecognizable, diving into the character of Richard, while Ruth Negga (who starred in this year’s hit show Preacher) is just astounding as Mildred.  It is very possible that Negga will receive an Oscar nomination for the role.  Both performances were very understated and subtle.  They were a couple who just wanted two live their lives in peace where they wanted to live.

Michael Shannon had a small role here, but he brought his best once again.  This has been a strong year for Shannon.

The film did drag at times, and it took several time jumps that did not feel right.  The pacing issues aside, this film was pretty solid.  There was never that jump up and hit you moment of emotion, but there was pretty consistent emotional taps throughout.

I would have liked to see more of the Supreme Court scene, as very little of the argument was presented.

It is another reminder of how sad it is that some humans can be so full of hate over things such as the color of a person’s skin.  The fact there were once laws like this on the books in the USA is a shameful moment in our history.

4 stars

‘Tis the season to be jolly.

Or, at least, to giggle a little bit.

Office Christmas Party is the newest holiday fare with your typical wild party hi jinks.  You’ve seen that before. This time, the wild party is being held at an office of a business desperately trying to stay afloat.

When his mean sister Carol (Jennifer Aniston) threatens to close down the company, Clay (TJ Miller) and his co-worker Josh (Jason Bateman) try to grab a huge account and save the jobs of their employees by throwing a huge Christmas party.  And, of course, things get out of hand.

This movie was okay, but not great.  There were not too many really great laughs.  The issue with that is there should have been.  It relies on the old standby jokes of drug culture and sexual innuendo and most of them seem dull by comparison.  The film wants to be lewd and over-the-top, but it does not feel that way.

That is a shame, because the cast of this film is extremely strong and indelibly likable.  Jason Bateman, TJ Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn, Kate McKinnon, Rob Corddry, Courtney B. Vance, and Jillian Bell all appear here and are actors who are fun to watch and who I generally like.  Unfortunately, most of them could have stronger characters to portray.  Aniston is basically playing the same bad boss character that she has played several times.  Bateman is playing Jason Bateman.  And yet, there was just something about these people that made me not hate this film.  I found myself rooting for them and that was surprising.

Yes, the story was very thin. and there were many ridiculous things that happened, but none of it felt obnoxious.  It just was.

If this cast had a better story, this could have been a really surprising movie.  There were moments of good work, and there was some possibility with the brother sister relationship between Miler and Aniston’s characters, but most of the really solid characters moments were buried beneath the excesses of indulgence that populated most of this movie.  The office party was too much of the film and took it to levels that were just impossible to believe.

The biggest issue was there were just not enough really laugh out loud scenes.  I did giggle a few times, and (maybe) even guffawed once.  There was just not enough of that to justify the rest.

There were some fun secondary characters, including the security guard Carla (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who had a fixation on Die Hard, the Uber driver Lonny (Fortune Feimster) who has some of the better dialogue in the film, and unappreciated assistant Allison (Vanessa Bayer) who attracts the wrong type of man. These were fun characters that helped the film, but there was just too many other moments that were not funny.

I liked watching this film, but I did not love it, and, with the ensemble of this film, that is a shame.  It is worlds better than Bad Santa 2 (ironically, probably not as funny, though) so if you want a new Christmas movie for the year, this might be your best bet.

2.5 stars

I kept thinking through this whole movie just how long ago did they film this?  How long had this been on the shelf because the young boy starring in Incarnate is David Mazouz, who plays Bruce Wayne on Fox’s Gotham series, and he looks so different now…so much older.  Young Bruce Wayne is very close to a man.  Here he was just a little boy.  So why am I just now seeing this film.  Could it be because it is a bad movie?

In the 1980s, Marvel Comics put out a comic called “Nightmask” in their New Universe imprint where the main character could jump into the mind of sleeping people and help them out.  I always believed that Nightmask would have made an interesting movie.

It seems that Incarnate is evidence to the contrary.

Now, I did not completely hate this movie.  I mean, WWE superstar Mark Henry makes a cameo.  Um…

The film has Aaron Eckhart.

Hm.  That really might be it.

Dr. Seth Ember (Eckhart) is a wheelchair-bound psychic who is hired to help people “possessed” by some kind of spirit.  The film takes the religion out of the exorcism here and made it more scientific, (which was interesting).  Ember had ulterior motives for taking these cases, and that was a chance to go searching for a specific “demon” named Maggie who had killed Ember’s wife and child in a car wreck.  When Maggie takes control of Camreon (Mazouz), she taunts Ember to put himself on line to get his revenge.

The film does have an interesting premise, but there is so much garbage around it that the premise gets lost in the midst of it all.  Emjay Anthony, who is one of my favorite child actors working today (Chef, Bad Moms), is totally wasted here as Ember’s dead son.  The writing is bad and the dialogue is heavy-handed and exposition filled.  They add scenes that make no sense with the story itself.  There is a couple of scenes with Eckhart and one of his friends Felix (Tomas Arana) that basically had nothing to do with the plot of the film.  I’m not sure why that was included at all.

The film brings in the father of Cameron and that character makes zero impact on the film.  It was as if the film just needed material to fill time.

I do believe that Aaron Eckhart was doing what he could to make this movie better.  He wanted to be able to be that actor that can transcend the material and put that film on his back.  He failed here.  Eckhart, up until this point, has had a pretty good year, first in an okay sequel London Has Fallen, and then being the best part of Bleed for This and being just great in Sully, so I know he can bring it.  Unfortunately, this film wasted the efforts of Eckhart and a potentially intriguing twist on the possession movie with poor writing and uninspiring characters that really did not help the narrative.

Plus, the movie implied that there were others beside Ember who had this skill to enter people’s dreams.  The were called incarnates, but this was just tossed in to explain how he could do it and never touched upon again.  This could have really been a strong hook to make this more than just another poorly made movie.

I still would like to see a Nightmask in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Marvel would know how to handle it.  Incarnate did not.

1.5 stars

I never saw the original Bad Santa.  I know there are a lot of people who consider it to be a raunchy classic, but it never interested me.  So I had no specific desire to see the sequel of the film.  I will say that I did not feel that I needed to see the first film to understand this sequel.  Bad Santa 2 did a good job of presenting us with the premise.

Unfortunately, that was about all that was done well by Bad Santa 2.

Willie Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) is still a down on his luck schmuck trying to get by in life while drinking and being foul mouthed when former partner Marcus (Tony Cox) approaches him with a new plan to rob a charity in Chicago.  However, it wasn’t just Marcus’s plan.  It was Willie’s mother Sunny (Kathy Bates) who came up with the idea and needed her son’s safe cracking skills.

Now, I will say that the first time I saw the trailer for Bad Santa 2, they showed the scene where Willie realizes that his mother is involved, slaps her, and she says, “You still hit like your daddy.”  First time I cracked up but I got quiet quickly because I felt guilty at laughing at that line.  I was also the only person who laughed at that in the theater at that time, so I was feeling a little judged.  But that is the type of humor that one would expect to be in Bad Santa 2.

Truthfully, there was not as many laughs as I thought there would be.  Sure there was some clever nastiness, but most of the time, the script depended on the actor or actress saying the f-word or swearing in some manner to get the audience to laugh.  There were a few clever moments of dialogue that helped the film out, but, after awhile, the f-word isn’t funny by itself.  You need more.

And there was not much more here.  I did find the character of Willie to be interesting, but highly unlikely.  The relationship with Willie and charity organizer Diane Hastings (Christina Hendricks) was completely ridiculous and depended on so much suspension of disbelief that it is unimaginable.  Diane became such an unbelievable character that any positive opinions I might have had about her early was flushed down the commode.

Kathy Bates was really good as Willie’s mother, and the interactions with her and her son were some of the highlights of the movie for me.  The return of actor Brett Kelly as Thurman Merman tried to be the counter agent to the bitterness and vileness of the main antagonist and the others in his circle.  The way the film portrayed this character as almost mentally slow was quite obnoxious.

I still think that most of the funniest parts of the film had already appeared in the trailers for Bad Santa 2.  That is a danger from these comedy film that seems to happen on a regular basis.

The ending of the movie really breaks down and sends this film, that was barely hanging on, into territory of crap.

This sequel certainly did not inspire me to go out and watch the first film, despite people’s comments on it being the much better film.  Bad Santa 2 had a couple of great actors (Bates and Thornton) in a film that was not very funny and depended on the f-word for laughs.  Merry Christmas everyone.

1.9 stars

Howard Hughes is one of the most eccentric and enigmatic figures of the mid 20th century, a man who became known as much for his recluse behavior as for his influence in the aviation industry.  The subject has been an inspiration for Warren Beatty, who has returned to write, direct and star in this film based on the reclusive billionaire’s life.

Rules Don’t Apply, however, is not strictly a biopic on the life of Hughes, as the story centers around the romance of one of the pretty actresses Hughes would bring to Hollywood and sign to exclusive deals and the man who was assigned to drive her.  The story itself about the romance between Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich) and Marla Mabrey  (Lily Collins) is fictional, but many of the things done by Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty) comes from real-life anecdotes about Hughes.

Marla arrives in Hollywood with her Baptist mother (Annette Bening) looking to become an actress.  She is assigned Frank as her driver with the knowledge that if there were any relations between driver and actress, the driver would be fired.

Still, the pair hit it off and Marla caused Frank to question his relationship with fiance Sarah (Taissa Farmiga).

Both Marla and Frank had hopes to meet Howard Hughes, but neither seemed to be getting their wish.

Meanwhile, Howard has been actively trying to ignore the world, particularly the banks who wanted to meet with him about his running of TWA.  There is certainly signs as well that Hughes was beginning to slip into mental issues.

Rules Don’t Apply is a fun movie in many ways.  I found it entertaining and I was engaged early on with the characters.  Then, about midway through the film, it felt like it got lost in the story, losing focus on what the story was truly about, before recapturing it near the end.

The biggest issue was the romance between Marla and Frank.  This relationship was seen at the beginning part of the film, but wound up separating the pair for much of the middle part of the movie.  This did not make much sense.  The first part of the film was so focused on these two characters with Howard Hughes as a supporting character only to flip it completely around about midway through.  Marla disappeared after a tryst with Hughes and the film became about Hughes and the relationship with Hughes and Frank instead of about Frank and Marla.  When she reappeared near the end of the film, Rules Don’t Apply found its story again.

There is a great cast here with such notable actors taking secondary roles such as Matthew Broderick, Candace Bergen, Martin Sheen, Paul Sorvino, Ed Harris, Oliver Platt, Alec Baldwin, Dabney Coleman and Steve Coogan among others.  The list of actors is compelling.  Alden Ehrenreich (as our soon to be young Han Solo) does a really strong job as Frank.  Ehrenreich is a star in the making and you can see here what kind of a career this young man has in front of him.  Lily Collins makes a good lead as well, showing some skills (including singing), and she has good chemistry with Ehrenreich, and maybe even more with Beatty.

Beatty is excellent as Howard Hughes, bringing the confusion and fear of Hughes to life.  You understand why Hughes acts the way he does.  He has daddy issues, and he has fears over losing what he has earned in his life as he realizes that his life is unraveling.

Rules Don’t Apply did get a little long, especially when the film lost focus on what the story they were telling actually was.  It has really good performances and looks great as a period piece of the 1960 Hollywood.  Beatty has a decent film for his return.

3.6 stars

Disney is at it again.

Moana is a wonderful new animated movie from the House of the Mouse that is simply great entertainment for the entire family.

Moana (the debuting Auli’i Cravalho) is the daughter of the Chief (Temuera Morrison) of an island where the people are happy and isolated.  They never go out past the reefs.  The tribe’s rules prohibit it.  So when the ocean chooses Moana to go on a mission, there is conflict.

See, at one point in the past, demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart of the island goddess Te Fiti in an attempt to create more islands.  Maui was banished from the island and the legends said that only by bringing Maui back over the seas to return the heart could stop the destructive darkness.

As Moana’s island begins to show signs of decay and loss, she sets out to find the mythological demigod and bring him back to save the world.

Moana has a simple story, but that is not a bad thing.  In its simplicity, the story shines.  And because of that, Moana is able to take other Disney tropes and shake them up.  Moana is not a typical Disney princess (despite the joke later in the film that she is) and she does not require anyone else to save her.  I found this female character refreshing and original.

Newcomer Auli’i Cravalho is magnificent in this role.  She makes this character her own immediately and she has unbelievable chemistry with the Rock.  She was cast as a 14-year old freshman in high school over some serious competition for the role, but it was clear that she showed Disney something special and she truly brought it to Moana.

Speaking of the Rock, his portrayal of Maui was note perfect.  I also liked how Maui was basically a likable jerk, which is something that Dwayne Johnson can definitely pull off (if you smell what I’m cooking).  I got a little bit of a “Genie from Aladdin” vibe from Maui, but with much more narcissistic tendencies.  Maui wanted to be the hero, mainly for the adoration of the crowd, not as much because it is the right thing to do.

The music of Moana is beautiful.  The score was written by Mark Mancina and Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote songs with Opetaia Foa’i  and Mancina.  Auli’i Cravalho’s voice is beautiful and the song performed by The Rock (“You’re Welcome”) is my personal favorite.

I really enjoyed some of the creative secondary characters in this film as well.  The Ocean was an actual character that interacted with Moana.  The chicken Heihei (Alan Tudyk) who was about as dumb (intelligence wise) as it could be.  The villainous Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement) is a giant crab that loved the bright and shiny objects (and sang a great song about it).  And the tattoos on the body of Maui are some of the best parts of this film.  These tats are basically animated and can interact with Maui and can change depending on what happened.  This was genius and a great way to tell the story.  These tats could provide the POV of the audience at home when Maui was being too much of a jerk.  Tremendously creative.

Of course, the animation of Moana is breath-taking.  The shots of Moana and Maui out on the ocean are about as realistic as you are going to find.  Disney continues to up their game in the world of animation with each new release.

Moana has so much heart and love that you cannot help but enjoy this film.  There are so many things going for it that I have a hard time believing that anyone would not have liked this film.

Now, I was not a fan of the animated short that preceded the movie.  Usually these Disney shorts are pretty fun and entertaining, but this one was just a dud.

The Polynesian culture is something that we have never seen on screen before, and this is a huge aspect of the  film.  I love the lead character of Moana, a heroic female who does not fall into the tropes of Disney princesses.  The Rock is always the man.  A beautiful looking, sounding and full of fun movie that is charming throughout and, at times, hilariously funny.  Sure it may be a simple story of a hero’s journey, but that does not mean it is a bad story.  Disney has yet another winner on their hands.

4.6 stars

The new Robert Zemeckis film, Allied, was not one that I thought I was going to enjoy.  Yet, I was surprised at how much I did enjoy the film.

This is really a romance film, which was unexpected.  It was promoted more as a spy thriller set in World War II, but I was as engaged with the relationship early on in the movie as I was with the spy shenanigans at the end.

Max (Brad Pitt) goes on a mission to assassinate a German officer and he hooked up with Marianne (Marion Cotillard) as a partner.  They were pretending to be husband and wife to infiltrate the target’s world and, along the way, they fall in love.  After the mission ended, they went back to London, married and started a family.

Problem.  London intelligence determined that Marianne was not actually who she said she was and was, in truth, a German spy.  They planned on setting her up to prove this story and, if true, wanted Max to execute her.

I was surprised at how connected I felt to Max and Marianne as a couple.  When the whole German spy thing came up, I was never sure if it were true or not.  The film played it coyly throughout, and it kept me uncertain.  I liked that.  I like the fact that I wasn’t sure if Marianne was really a German spy or if it were just British Intelligence messing with them.  I had convinced myself both ways as the film progressed.

There were some pacing issues with the movie.  There were some shots that could have been edited out to bring the run time down a little bit.  I think that would have helped make this feel a tighter story.

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard were excellent in their roles, and I completely bought them as a couple in love.  I believed completely in Pitt and his conflicted mind as he struggled to prove that his wife was not what she was accused of being.  If these characters were unconvincing, the entire film would fall apart.  They made me believe.

The film was also very much of a throwback to films of yesteryear.  In particular, the film was an homage to Casablanca.  Zemeckis was clearly inspired by those films and wanted to make a film to honor them.

I liked Allied more than I thought I would, and it is nice when a film surprises me.

4 stars

Among the boxing movie genre, Bleed for This does not stand out, and that feels unfortunate since it has, at its core, perhaps one of the greatest comeback stories ever.

Boxer Vinnie Pazienza was a world champion when he was involved in a horrific automobile accident that broke his neck.  Instead of having neck fusion surgery that would have ended his career, he chose to have Halo surgery, which was a circular metal device that was screwed into his skull with metal screws, to allow his body to heal on its own.  It was a severe risk, but Pazienza couldn’t see his life outside of the boxing ring.

Pazienza (Miles Teller) works diligently to fight his way back inside the squared circle, overcoming unbelievable physical odds.

The problem here is this film does not do a great job with the source material.

After seeing this movie, I could not place my finger on what it was about Bleed for This that was bugging me, but there was definitely something.  I did not hate this movie, but the story just did not seem compelling enough, which is astounding.

Add to the fact that the film boasted a brilliant performance from Aaron Eckhart as well known boxing trainer Kevin Rooney, this film should have been a huge hit.

Miles Teller was, at best, okay here.  He did not come near the highlight of his career (Whiplash) as this boxer.  Another issue was that the film itself felt like it was split into two parts.  The first part was Pazienza coming back after falling into a slump and moving up two weight classes to box.  This was the first half of the film and was dealt with fully before the accident that nearly cost him his life, which was the second half of the film.  I kind of thought that was what this film should have focused on.

I found much of the early part of this movie boring, and maybe that was why it did not feel right.

There was also some undertones of corruption implied in the film, including a weird interview with Teller, as Pazienza, that seemed to indicate that there was more to the world of boxing than what we normally see.  Considering we did not see any of that (with the possible exception of Ted Levine playing the slimy Lou Duva) the ending felt tagged on to the wrong movie.

There really isn’t anything new here or special here or inspiring here, despite it being a tremendously inspiring real life story.  It feels as if this movie lost an opportunity to become one of the year’s best biopics, but now it is just another boxing movie, like Hands of Stone (the Roberto Duran film from earlier in the year- Duran (Edwin Rodriguez) who appears in this film as well.

The film felt like it took forever, and I was checking the time several moments throughout.

2.75 stars

I was not sure what to expect about Moonlight.  I had heard extremely positive things about the second directed movie by Barry Jenkins, yet I had a difficult time relating.

However, the ideas of the film does transcend the racial divide and deal with concepts of growing up and how confusing that could be.

The film follows the same character, Chiron, during three major parts of his life.  First in i: Little, as a child struggling with a challenging home life who finds a friend in a kind local drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali) and his girlfriend (Janelle Monáe),  Second, ii: Chiron tells the story of the young boy as a sexually confused and awkward teen in high school, picked on by a basic bully.  And finally, iii: Black, sees Chiron as an adult drug dealer on his own trying to reconnect with his high school friend Kevin with whom he had had his first sexual encounter.

The film does a great job of smashing stereotypes of the black community.  Juan is a drug dealer, but he is shown as a caring and kind-hearted man.  Mahershala Ali is wonderful again in the film, but his absence in the second and third acts of the movie is jarring.  It starts out by feeling as if it were his movie only to discover that was not the case.  Interestingly enough, Chiron basically grows into a copy of Juan by the third act of the movie.

There was a fascinating subplot in the film dealing with Chiron’s substance abusing mother (Naomie Harris).  I found this as interesting as any of the other stories in the movie.  I would have liked more between these two.

This is most definitely a personal film and one that was, at times, tough to watch.  The characters were original and well developed and the story was well written.  The time jumps were a little difficult to hand at times, and the constant use of the n-word, while probably realistic, was uncomfortable.

In the end, Moonlight is a solid film, but I had more of a challenge relating to our main character.

3.5 stars

I really enjoyed Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, which I did not expect.  It was one of the best movies of that year.  Unfortunately, Lee’s new film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is closer to Ang Lee’s Hulk instead of Life of Pi.

I really disliked this movie.

Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) was a member of the military group known as Bravo Squad who was involved in a video of a heroic action during the Iraqi War and suddenly became American heroes.  Billy Lynn was the face of the story.

So the squad was brought to Texas to a football game, to make an appearance at the halftime show, by team owner and billionaire Norm Oglesby (Steve Martin).  Along the way, we see the troubles and tribulations of the group of soldiers adapting to the normal world again.

There were so many stupid things throughout this film.  From Billy Lynn enlisting because his sister Katherine (Kristen Stewart) was in a terrible accident to a group of roadies attacking the squad during the football game, I found so much just ridiculous in the story.  Billy Lynn meets and falls for a cheerleader (Makenzie Leigh) and is ready to run away with her after ten minutes.

Flashbacks to the Iraq War involving Vin Diesel as the person who Billy Lynn “saves” does not help the movie.  Steve Martin, who was basically playing Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, was wasted as the Texas money man.  I did not understand why Kristen Stewart had such a desire to get Billy Lynn out of the military either.  She went as far as to say that if anything would happen to him, she would kill herself.  Geez, thanks sis for putting on the pressure.

The remaining members of the Bravo Squad were underdeveloped and were basic stereotypes.  They were not portrayed in a very positive light.  They were shown more as assholes and delinquents than soldiers.

Ang Lee’s message was all over the place as well.  At times, it felt like I was getting preached at about the horribleness of the Iraqi War and other times it made me think that the soldiers were being set up as being better than all of us and other times made me think that this was intended as a comedic satire.  I’m not sure if this was a political statement or a love letter to the military or a satirical plot.  It felt like all of these at many different times of the film, and that inconsistency makes this tough to watch.

The funniest part of this whole thing is Chris Tucker plying an agent who is trying to sell the story of the Bravo Squad to Hollywood, but not getting any takers.  Ironically, in the movie apparently, they understand that this would not make a good movie.  Too bad real life did not echo fiction in this case.

2 stars

I can really relate to this movie.  Not the teen angsty seventeen year old, but the grumpy high school teacher played by Woody Harrelson.  The line about the “run-on sentences” is one of my favorite lines of the year, and one I could see myself saying in the same situation.

There have been a ton of these types of social outcast, teen drama films over the years, but The Edge of Seventeen does a very fine job of creating well developed characters and avoiding the cliches that can easily be prevalent in this genre of film.

Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is a seventeen year old girl who has had a lot of problems in her life.  She has a perfect brother Darian (Blake Jenner), a mother (Kyra Sedgwick) who has been off the rails since the death of her husband, and a lack of friends her own age.  Nadine does have one best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), but when Krista falls for the perfect brother, Nadine feels betrayed and tossed aside.  This sends her into even more of a downward spiral.

Nadine goes to her social studies teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson) as a sounding board, but he is anything but empathetic toward her situation.  In his own way, Mr. Bruner provides what Nadine needs in a snide and snippy manner.

There are some really strong performances in this film, lead by Harrelson and Steinfeld.  This relationship between not-so-great teacher and overly-needy student is the strongest, most real relationship of the film.  It is written with a lot of wit and intelligence, providing a real tone of caring.

I also enjoyed the way the writers created Darian.  He could have easily fallen into the perfect sibling trope, but Darian shows the cracks in his veneer as he has to continually step up to help his family, despite at the detriment of his own life.

The film is very poignant and at many times very funny.  The coming of age story is nothing new, but this film takes that and subverts it by taking the main character and making her a stubborn, unlikable mess who you still can’t help but love and root for.  Hailee Steinfeld brings all of her youthful vigor to this role, providing an uncertainty to exactly how this film would come to an end.  I did worry that, at some point in this film, Nadine would take a turn into tragedy.

I also enjoyed the relationship between Nadine and the lovesick loser Edwin (Hayden Szeto).  This was another character that, in a worse movie, would have fallen into simplistic tropes, but in this film becomes a much more fascinating character filled with rooting potential.  The cute animation near the end of the film was very funny as well.

I was a little disappointed that there was not a scene between Nadine and her mother to smooth over that relationship, although it is a powerful chance that the film took by having this important relationship only shown to improve through tiny steps- over a text message.  I still thought it felt like a scene was missing between them, but I respect the moxie of the movie makers.

I do think the film went a little long, but I am not sure what I would cut out.

Again, I really loved the disgruntled teacher played by Harrelson.  When he put on a film about Lincoln and left the classroom, I howled because I know of teachers who have done that before.

The Edge of Seventeen was a very enjoyable film, deep and funny, and contributing something new to a genre that tends to be repetitive.  Strong performances highlighted an already excellent script.

4.3 stars