On DVD 4.0

More Reviews of Movies on DVD or Blu-Ray or Streaming

© By John Arkelian

“The Last of the Sea Women” (USA, 2024) (B+/A-):  “As haenyeos, the ocean feeds us and feels like our mother’s arms.  It’s more than that,

though.  Being a haenyeo is a calling.  Haenyeos are the guardians of the sea and we have protected the ocean for hundreds of years.”  Jeju Island, situated off the south coast of South Korea, is home to the haenyeo divers, all of them women, and all of them old enough (in their 60’s to 80’s) to be grandmothers.  They dive to the sea bottom without oxygen, holding their breath as they gather sea cucumbers, spiky sea urchins, and shellfish.   It’s a traditional form of self-employment for women in this particular corner of the world that goes back centuries.  Flippers and wetsuits are fairly recent nods to modernity, but they draw the line at compressed air.  In its 1960’s heyday, 60,000 of the island’s 200,000 people made their living this way; nowadays, their numbers have dwindled to only 4,000.  This engaging new documentary from Apple Films and A24, and co-produced by women’s rights advocate Malala Yousafzai, introduces us to a handful or two — and a doughtier bunch of ladies in their golden years can scarcely be imagined.  Their good-natured, plainspoken authenticity, sparks of humor, and dauntless drive to return to the sea every day makes for a delightfully refreshing window into a different way of living, a way which embodies both girl-power and an instinctive love for nature.  As to the former, we also meet a pair of 30-something women from a different island (Geoje) who have embraced the life of the haenyeo and added their own new generation’s unique touches — like their own YouTube channel with dance moves and commentary.  When the two young women meet the much older “aunties,” there’s an instant, quite touching, and tearful rapport.  One of the Joju ladies goes to Geneva to address the United Nations Human Rights Council.  She becomes a fish out of its water to speak on behalf of the environment about the dire imminent release by nearby Japan of large quantities of radioactively contaminated water from their broken Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.  There’s wry humor here about aging:  “If I were younger, my fingers would be more nimble.  I think everything becomes more difficult when you get old.”  Maybe so, but these ladies don’t let age stop them: “The ocean is our home.  We can’t stop diving.  We have to go to the sea.  Even in my next life, I will dive again.  Just an old woman, and the sea, forever.”  Beautiful underwater scenes and, above all, beautifully authentic and intrepid human beings make this film a pleasure to experience.  Streaming on Apple TV+.   For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHMngOUUYvc

“The Crow” (USA/U.K./France/Czech Republic, 2024) (D+/C-):  “Sometimes something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul cannot rest.  The crow will guide you to put the wrong things right.”   This reimagining of the 1994 supernatural vigilante film with Brandon Lee, lacks the original’s moody sense of unease and mystery and deviates in major ways in the story department.  Its chief failing is to spend two-thirds of its time on the meeting and romance of a not very engaging couple played by Bill Skarsgård and the absurdly self-christened ‘FKA twigs.’  They meet at a drug rehab center, improbably fall madly in love, and soon fall lethally afoul of a sort of psychic vampire played by the suave Danny Huston.  One supernatural character was enough.  Adding a second, particularly one who outshines the lead in dangerous charisma, was a mistake.  Actress Laura Birn makes an impression as the villain’s second-in-command, but it remains unknown why she (and all the nameless henchmen) serve such a savage master.  What about him (other than sheer fear) would inspire loyalty to the death?  Other flaws in simple logic aren’t hard to find: for one, why are all the villain’s many armed guards skulking in the expansive foyer of an opera while he’s left alone at home in his country manse?  The dialogue often feels affected, stilted, and inauthentic, to wit: “He has been sent back.  The power to escape death exists within him.”  The pseudo-Gothic look of the film is heavy-handed in the manner of a heavily stylized and set-dressed music video, though we did like recurring images of a single crow flying above the once-dead man who’s intent on vengeance.  But, as back-from-the-dead avengers go, this one is awfully uncertain, ineffectual, and none-too-menacing for too long.  Only in the last half hour or so does he suddenly hit his vigilante groove.  Even then, however, credibility is severely strained by the action for action’s sake sequence of frenetic hand-to-hand duels to the death with an improbably endless succession of baddies:  they’re just cannon-fodder in the mode of any and all John Wick movies.  And just like the Wick movies, their hyper-violent conflict goes impossibly unnoticed by everyone else (in this case a large assembly of concertgoers).  Sad to say, though, that mindless action is the most entertaining thing on offer here.  We disliked most of the songs, save one: Enya’s mysterious and mesmerizing “Boadicea.”  As to the film, pretentious and mostly uninvolving characters and an over-written screenplay yield a pretentious and mostly uninvolving result.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; strong violence; gore; drug use; brief sexual content and brief nudity.

“Twisters” (USA, 2024) (C+):  The deadly weather phenomenon of 1996’s “Twister” is back — and this time it’s personal.  Well, not really.  This time, there’s a prologue with a young weather scientist in Oklahoma (played by Daisy Edgar Jones of television’s 2019-22 series “War of the Worlds”) whose trial run at defusing a tornado goes lethally wrong for three of her four colleagues.  Five years later, she has left tornado alley far behind her, working in meteorology in distant New York.  But her sole surviving comrade-in-arms (Anthony Ramos) entreats her to come back for just a week with his account of new high-precision radar equipment.  She’s haunted by her past tragedy but gradually intrigued by the attentions of the former rodeo rider turned tornado wrangler for the blogosphere played by Glen Powell): he’s all rugged larger-than-life bravado and charm, and a mutual attraction develops.  There are gaping holes here in good sense and simple credibility.  For one thing, the leads go to instruct townsfolk who are in the path of impending death from the sky about safety measures.  News-flash:  people who have lived in areas prone to tornadoes (like your humble correspondent) already know to seek shelter in basements or crawlspaces.  Also, there are a whole lot of convenient intersections (turn left, turn right) in the middle of nowhere: where do all those improbable intersecting roads go, anyway?  Last, but not least, the thrill-ride/circus atmosphere, with the aforementioned former cowboy acting the part in a figurative sense by driving around with his ragtag team like loons with music blaring and nary a thought about forcing others off the road in their recklessly madcap exuberance, seems like something you’d see in a silly movie.  This is a silly movie, but it is also a moderately entertaining one, buoyed in large part by its likeable cast.  Among those not already mentioned, Maura Tierney makes as impression as the lead’s mother.  The storm effects are okay, if unmemorable.  The music seems out of place (with blaring country and Hispanic songs along with an upbeat adventure-themed orchestral score in lieu of something foreboding and dangerous.  But, as the filmmakers proclaim, the film aims to be fun, and it hits that modest target adequately.  The Blu-ray from Universal has a nice array of extras, including a director’s commentary.

“Borderlands” (USA/Hungary, 2024) (C+/B-):  We knew nothing at all about the video game upon which this playful sci-fi/action-adventure is based; but, it held our interest on the strength of its unapologetic silliness.  A poor man’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” in semi-comedic tone and concept, it has a ragtag crew of six misfits on a road trip quest.  An adolescent member (Arianna Greenblatt) of the sextet wears oversized rabbit ears just because she wants to and hurls stuffed bunny bombs at a moment’s notice.  Cate Blanchett sports a bright orange-red hairdo as a cool-under-fire bounty hunter.  Jamie Lee Curtis is the brains of the operation.  Kevin Hart unexpectedly plays an action-guy, and Jack Black gets all the best lines as a smart-alecky droid.  He, like the rest of the film, is deliberately hyperactive.  The result is modestly entertaining and fun.  It’s always engaging when disparate characters come together to form ad hoc surrogate families.  At its best, it yields films like the aforementioned “Guardians” or television’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly.”  While “Borderlands” isn’t at their high caliber, it nevertheless gets the job done:  (Q) “She seems deranged.”  (A) “You two have a lot in common.”

“The Miracle Club” (Ireland/U.K., 2023) (B):  “I never hated you more than I loved you.”  A trio of women — played by the estimable Maggie Smith (in her last film role), Kathy Bates, and Laura Linney — reunite (in 1967 Dublin) after a long separation amidst persisting ill feelings and embark on a church pilgrimage to Lourdes in France:  “We are more alike than you think.  We both carry our pain too proudly.”  The strong trio of female co-leads is ably supported by Agnes O’Casey, the always watchable Stephen Rea, and Mark O’Halloran, who makes an impression as their parish priest:  “You don’t come to Lourdes for a miracle.  You come for the strength to go on when there is no miracle.”  Part whimsy, part gentle poignancy, the standout female cast is the reason to see this film, which explores emotional pain, regret, forgiveness, and reconciliation in a character-driven story.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp3ZFdklPCk

“Supernova” (U.K., 2020) (B/B+):  “Being sad something is gone means it was great while it was there.”  Stars shine brightest at the end of their lives.  Would that it were so with human beings.  With end of life on the not-so-distant horizon for one of them, a pair of partners embark upon a road trip in England’s gorgeous Lake District.  It’s an up-close-and-personal look at life, love, and impending loss, “steeped [says writer/director Harry McQueen] in compassion and empathy.”  The focus here is on a relationship, and, in time, we put aside the unaccustomed and somewhat uncomfortable distinction that it is a same-gender romantic relationship.  The setting is breathtakingly beautiful as the two travelers traverse its expanse.  The performances, by Colin Firth (the erstwhile Mr. Darcy himself) and Stanley Tucci, are masterful.  And, of course, the insights into close human relationships transcend gender.  The romanticism, the idea of one “propping up the entire world” for the other, has resonance for those of us accustomed to more traditional pairings.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; adult subject-matter.  (There is no sexual content per se.)

“Hope Gap” (U.K./Cyprus, 2019) (B):  “I never asked myself what she was thinking, or if she was happy.”  Human relationships are complicated things, not least in marriages.  What if we grow apart?  What if we were never really suited to one another in the first place?  Grace (Annette Bening) is dissatisfied in her marriage of 29 years, but she has no thoughts of ending it.  To her surprise, Edward (Bill Nighy) announces one day that the marriage is over:  “Things are coming to a head.  I’m going to leave.  I can’t make [you] happy.  I’ve tried, but I’m the wrong person.  Also… I’ve fallen in love.”  Their 30-ish son Jamie (Josh O’Connor), an only child, is caught in the middle.  The film, written and directed by William Nicholson, is a quiet, thoughtful, closely-observed study of a marriage that ends and the resulting impact on a sundered family.  Infused with metaphors from nature (imposing seaside cliffs) and from history (Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Russia’s unforgiving winter, in which the weak are abandoned so the strong can survive), the result is poetical in both word and mood:  “Say not the struggle nought availeth / The labour and the wounds are vain…/ And as things have been they remain” (Arthur Hugh Clough).  Curiously, two disparate ends of England (Yorkshire and East Sussex) stand in for the story’s single setting.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Fried Green Tomatoes” (USA, 1991) (A):  “A heart can be broken, but it still keeps beating all the same.”  This top-notch adaptation of Fannie Flagg’s bestselling 1987 novel is about the unbreakable bond of love born of friendship (known in Greek as ‘philia’).  It has twin stories, one set in the present, the other in the 1920s-30s.   Both work very well, thanks to a flawless cast, including Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary-Louise Parker.  These characters connect with us emotionally, eliciting both smiles and tears.  Thomas Newman’s musical score is hauntingly poignant.  The result is an impressive feature film directorial debut by Jon Avnet, an effective depiction of the power of storytelling, and a compelling reminder of the ability of movies in particular to engage and deeply move us:  “All these people’ll live as long as you remember ’em.”  “Fried Green Tomatoes” was an Oscar nominee for Supporting Actress (Tandy) and Adapted Screenplay; a BAFTA nominee for Actress (Tandy) & Supporting Actress (Bates); a Golden Globe nominee for Best Film, Actress (Bates), and Supporting Actress (Tandy); and a Writers Guild of America nominee for Adapted Screenplay.  It is one of the best films of its year and a must-see!

“Beast” (U.K., 2017) (B+/A-):  None of us is only one thing…  The Channel Isle of Jersey with its glorious cliffs and crashing surf is the setting for this psychological drama about the masks we wear and the thin fabric of civility that conceals something primal, wild, and potentially dangerous.  Moll is played by Jessie Buckley, who exuded boisterous self-confidence as the falsely accused letter-writer in 2023’s “Wicked Little Letters.”  Here, in her film debut, her 30-ish young woman is deeply repressed as a twin result of an incident in her childhood and a domineering mother (the memorable Geraldine James) who keeps her on a short leash.  Moll sings in a church choir directed by her mother, works as a historical guide for busloads of visiting tourists, and serves as a caregiver for her ailing father.  She’s a study in conflicting concealed emotions.   At once timid, restless, unhappy, and suppressed (by herself and by her ever-vigilant mater), Moll’s inner disquiet is palpable in Buckley’s subtle performance.

A chance encounter with illegal poacher and loner Pascal (Johnny Flynn, who played the younger incarnation of Anthony Hopkins’ character in 2023’s “One Life”) gradually unleashes Moll’s long-suppressed inner wildness.  He is rough and unpretentious (though he claims descent from the one-time Norman overlords of this place).  There’s dirt under his nails, he neglects the social niceties, and there’s a frisson of danger about him, though he seems protective of those in need of it.  He gifts Moll with a guidebook about wild animals, which is symbolically apt given his own uncurbed proclivity for wildness.  With an undomesticated, almost feral quality that excites Moll, Pascal brings to mind such antecedents as Heathcliffe, the gamekeeper in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” and “Beauty and the Beast’s” gruffly romantic lead.   But is the wildness he embodies infectious, or does it already lurk beneath the facade in Moll, too?  “We’re the same” each of them concludes.

Pascal has had minor brushes with the law, but now he’s a person of interest in something that’s not at all minor.  Although where the couple ultimately end up is not entirely satisfying to this viewer, they are complex, finely drawn characters.  Their story is set in the real world, but, thematically, there’s a hint of a fairy tale, starting with the use of the Old English font for the film’s title.  One flaw:  Moll’s pivotal relationship with her mother (so powerfully portrayed by James) is abandoned without rhyme or reason.  Among the uniformly strong cast, the charismatic Irish actress Olwen Fouéré (of 2024’s “The Watchers”) makes a powerful impression in her single scene as a no-nonsense detective visiting from the mainland who seems to have an instinctive insight into Moll’s psyche.

Written and directed by Michael Pearce, “Beast” won Outstanding Debut by a British Writer/Director at BAFTA, where it was nominated as Best British Film of the Year.  Jessie Buckley won Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards, where the film as nominated for nine other categories, among them:  Best British Independent Film, Actress, Director, Screenplay, Casting, and Music.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; brief sexual content; brief violence; and adult subject-matter.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8NMF2g5_Nw

“Jules” (USA, 2023) (B/B+):  “I’m not sure what to do.  This hasn’t happened to me before.”  That must be the understatement of the century by the aging widower played by Ben Kingsley (winner of the Best Actor Oscar for 1983’s “Gandhi”) who is suddenly confronted with something completely unprecedented.  Until that happens, Milton is quietly fading into the background, as far too many seniors do, scarcely making an impression on the mainly younger members of society around him.  His well-meaning daughter (Zoe Winters) is concerned that he may be showing early signs of cognitive decline; and his memory certainly isn’t what it used to be.  There’s a subdued, dignified vulnerability about Milton.  But, face-to-face with the unexpected, Milton steps up to meet it with matter-of-fact practicality and his abundant humanity, finding allies along the way in fellow seniors played by Harriet Sansom Harris and comedic actor Jane Curtin.  The trio form a bond in a charming parable about aging that’s sweetly whimsical and gently touching.  They invest their characters with an appealing blend of humor and poignancy, while Jade Quon makes an impression in a wordless performance.  The result is eminently likeable — and a very engaging surprise.  “Jules” was nominated for Best Actor, Supporting Actress, and Best Independent Film at a respected genre awards competition, and it was nominated for Outstanding Casting by the Casting Society of America.  It adeptly balances a genre trope with down-to-earth realism.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“I, Daniel Blake” (U.K./France/Belgium, 2016) (B+/A-):  “They’ve picked the wrong one if they think I’m going to give up.”  Characters in Ken Loach films aren’t ones for giving up, that’s for sure.  His working-class characters are often caught up in a Sisyphean struggle to survive, to make ends meet, and to better their situation; but they never stop trying.  The eponymous Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) is an older-middle-aged carpenter in Newcastle.  A hard-working widower, he has been sidelined from said work by a heart attack.   A bureaucrat arbitrarily deems him fit to work; his doctors say he manifestly is not.  And arbitrariness pervades the system with which Daniel has to contend, with absurdity meeting petty rules in a “Catch-22” cycle of maddening futility.   He needs to qualify for unemployment support to tide him over till he’s fit to return to work.  But he encounters a byzantine maze of bureaucratic hoops and bafflegab straight out of Franz Kafka.  There’s incessant paperwork; there are appeals that are left in perpetual limbo; there’s a terse insistence that he file things online despite he utter dearth of familiarity with computers; and there’s the repeated unkind verdict that his best efforts ‘aren’t good enough.’  Even a lone sympathetic government staffer (Kate Rutter’s Ann) is ultimately unable to lead Daniel out of the labyrinth.

A heartwarming relationship gives us the full measure of this good, kind, and decent man.  He befriends a young single mother (Hayley Squire’s Katie) and her two children (played by Briana Shann and Dylan Phillip).  They’ve been relocated by the social services system from London to the north of England, where they don’t know a soul.  But, with Daniel, they become a warm and loving surrogate family.  Their story is a bittersweet one — with love and solidarity juxtaposed against a ceaseless struggle with misfortune.  They encounter the decency of others (like a young entrepreneurial neighbor played by Kema Sikazwe) but also exploitation at the hands of a predator who is all too ready to take advantage of their desperate straits.  As a result, their story is at once gently humane and morally indignant.

“I, Daniel Blake” was directed by Ken Loach and written by his frequent collaborator Paul Laverty.   At BAFTA, it won Outstanding British Film of the Year and was nominated in four other categories, including Best Film, Supporting Actress, Director, and Screenplay.  At the British Independent Film Awards, it won Best Actor and earned four other nominations.  It won three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d’Or (Best Film).  It won Best Foreign Film at France’s Academy Awards.  And it won a special award at the European Film Awards and earned four other nominations, including Best Actor, Director, Screenwriter, and Best European Film.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahWgxw9E_h4

“Sorry We Missed You” (U.K./France/Belgium, 2019) (B+/A-):  “Going from one shitty job to another… working 14 hours a day.”  That’s the predicament for a working-class couple.  Ricky (Kris Hitchen) has taken on new work delivering parcels for a high pressure employer.  They classify him as ‘self-employed’ to avoid giving him any benefits, including the benefit of the doubt if a family emergency means he needs time off.  The trouble is: to pay for his own delivery van, he has to sell the car his wife uses for her work.  Abby (Debbie Honeywood) is a caregiver:  most of her clients are elderly and alone, and Abby is kind, gentle, and conscientious in caring for them.  But it’s gruelling work, physically and emotionally.  At home, the couple have a bright, precocious 11-year-old (Katie Proctor’s Liza Jane) who is acutely aware of heightened stresses on the home front, and a moody, rebellious, and oft-surly teenager (Rhys Mcgowan’s Seb) who is getting into trouble in and out of school.  A kindly policeman urges Seb to remember that “You’ve got the best thing in life here.  You’ve got a family that care about you, that you love… There’s people that don’t have a family that care for them… And you’ve got it.  It’s massive, man.”

Director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty (whose multiple past collaborations include 2023’s “The Old Oak”) have crafted a remarkably empathetic and humanistic portrait of a working-class family.  We instantly sympathize, and identify, with Hitchen and Honeywood as a couple who are doing the best they can in the workplace and at home, only to find that it isn’t always enough:  “I just don’t know what to do Abby.”   Between unremitting stress, a tyrannical boss (Ross Brewster’s self-styled “nasty bastard”), acute money worries, a son who is acting out and on the verge of getting into serious trouble, and a daughter who is worried about the domestic stresses and strains, Ricky and Abby are an appealing couple of underdogs who never give up the struggle.  The result is a highly engaging story about family.  But brace yourself for an abrupt ending.  “Sorry We Missed You” was nominated for Outstanding British Film of the Year at BAFTA, the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at Cannes, and Actor & Screenplay at the British Independent Film Awards.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysjwg-MnZao

“The Old Oak” (U.K./France/Belgium, 2023) (B/B+):  “When I looked through the camera, I chose to see some hope…  If I stop hoping, my heart will stop beating.”  So says the female protagonist in this film, but it might just as easily be the filmmaker speaking through her.  The acclaimed British director Ken Loach is known for his gritty, naturalistic, and humane stories of everyday, working-class people.  At 88, he says that “The Old Oak” may be his last film.  If so, he’s going out in style because the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at Cannes and Outstanding British Film at BAFTA.  It’s set in a town in the north of England in 2016.  Like too many other places in that country (and closer to home), it has been hit hard by the loss of livelihood — in this case, mining.  When that went, so did everything from shops to the church hall, along with hope in the minds of many — “a whole way of life just gone forever.”  The townsfolk are struggling, and some of them don’t react kindly to the arrival of newcomers, in the person of refugees fleeing the dreadful conflict in Syria.  With resentment verging on xenophobia, some say. “There’s eff-all in this village now.  And we’re supposed to share it with that lot?  We don’t even know them.”

But the keeper of the pub that gives this film its name is of an altogether mindset:  “This is solidarity.  It’s not charity.  This is about [doing] something together.”  T.J. (Dave Turner) is kind and welcoming to the newcomers, and he befriends a young woman, Yara (Ebla Mari), who, like T.J.’s deceased father, loves to document what she sees with her camera.  Their sweet friendship is the beating heart of this story.  Together with community activist Laura (Claire Rodgerson), they hit upon the idea of communal meals for the struggling families — locals and newcomers alike — inspired by T.J.’s mother’s adage that “When you eat together, you stick together.”

It’s not all sweetness and light:  there are recurring expressions of hostility from several of the pub’s regulars.  Perhaps we hear more from them than we’d like, but what we hear, in the form of overheard conversations, is akin to a documentary.  Indeed, the film opens with a series of B&W snapshots, moments from the lives of its characters, accompanied by a spoken voiceover.  And, despite, or perhaps because of, his decency, T.J. struggles with despair.  When someone says “We’ll get there” (as in reaching their objective), T.J. replies, “I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ‘get there.’  And I’ve never come close.  It was just self-delusion.”  Both sides of the coin of human nature are depicted here in down-to-earth, highly naturalistic characters.  There’s the meanness and small mindedness of a few set against the kindness and decency of many others.  It’s about human solidarity, encapsulated in the microcosm of a touching, tender friendship between these two people.  They differ in age, gender, and place of origin, but they find a kindred connection that transcends those unimportant differences.  One slight cavil:  It’s surprising to see such a prominent cathedral in this small-town neck of the woods, though it might be meant to be situated in a neighboring burgh.  For ages 18+:  Frequent coarse language.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwb0c5zqsyM

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” (USA/Canada/U.K., 2024) (C+):   In 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” a new generation, some of them still adolescents, took over the self-appointed mission of wrangling spooks.  Paul Rudd (who is utterly winning in the “Ant-Man” movies and feels underused here), Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace (from 2017’s “Gifted”), and Finn Wolfhard comprise the new Ghostbusters family, and they are perfectly serviceable.  For her part, Emily Alyn Lind makes an impression as an effortlessly alluring ghost-girl who bonds with Grace’s teen wunderkind.  But the presence of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray (too briefly), Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts from the original films in supporting roles are the real highlights.  Why not reunite them (they may be aging but they’re still entertaining) as leads in their own movie instead?  Plot-wise, this is pretty thin gruel, and it feels oddly episodic, without a single strong unifying storyline.  Miniature versions of the original’s oversized marshmallow man are cutely amusing; but why is the high-energy iconic theme song (“Who ya Gonna Call?”) relegated to the closing credits?  Using it early (and often) might have livened things up a bit.  There’s the expected action, humor, a spectral uber-villain, and a likeable cast.  But they’re let down by mediocre writing.  The result is mildly diverting to watch, but instantly forgettable.  Here’s the trailer, but it’s more exciting than the movie:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOBXh02rVc

“Anatomy of a Fall” [“Anatomie d’une chute”] (France, 2023) (B+/A-):  “My job is to cover the tracks so fiction can destroy reality.”  That’s what novelist Sandra Voyter (an award-winning performance from German actress Sandra Hüller) says about her craft as a writer.  But does the same modus operandi apply to the suspicious death of her husband?  He has plunged to his death from the third floor of their chalet in the French Alps.  Did he fall or was he pushed?  Was it an accident or murder?  Was he suicidal?  Was he restive about perceived domination by his spouse or just jealous of her literary success?  Were their marital frictions mere things of the moment or indicative of deep-seated conflict?  Do our worst moments reveal who we truly are, or are they just temporary lapses in otherwise healthy relationships?  Sandra is indicted for murder on circumstantial evidence and the trial peels back layers of apparent secrets and lies.  But are the revelations really grounds for murder or simply the stuff of normal domestic discord?  And where is the border between artifice and reality?  That’s the milieu for this blend of mystery, courtroom drama, and family dynamics.

Admirably character-driven, it is anchored in the accomplished performance by its leading lady.  Her Sandra is a strong-minded, no-nonsense voice of reason.  Is she a little too calm, cool, and collected?  Or is that just how she presents herself?  Sandra Hüller is ably supported by Swann Arlaud as her friend and defense lawyer, Milo Machado-Graner as her sensitive 11-year-old son, Samuel Theis as her ill-fated husband, Antoine Reinartz as the prosecutor, and other members of the cast, up to and including the canine who plays the border collie Snoop.  Perception is cleverly played off against reality:  When Sandra tells her lawyer, “I think he fell,” the lawyer replies, “Yeah, but nobody’s gonna believe that.  I don’t believe that.”  In the absence of compelling facts, sometimes, perhaps, belief is just a leap of faith:  “I don’t give an eff about reality,” says the lawyer.  “You have to start seeing yourself the way others are going to perceive you.  A trial is not about the truth.”

Directed and co-written by Justine Triet (2019’s “Sibyl”), “Anatomy of a Fall” earned a veritable cornucopia of nominations and awards.  To name but a few: it won the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at Cannes (and a special award for its precocious canine).   It won the Oscar for Original Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Film, Actress, Director, and Editing — with precisely the same win and quartet of nominations at BAFTA.  At the Golden Globes, it won Best Foreign Film and Screenplay and was nominated for Actress and Best Film (Drama).  At France’s César Awards, it won Best Actress, Supporting Actor (S. Arlaud), Director, Original Screenplay, and it was nominated for another Supporting Actor (A. Reinartz).   It won five awards at the European Film Awards, among them Actress, Screenplay, European Film, and European Director.  It won Best Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards and at the U.S. National Board of Review.  Note:  Most of the film’s dialogue is in English.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language and adult subject-matter.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKtIG68cQuI

“Nowhere Special” (Italy/Romania/U.K., 2020) (B+):  “This is the biggest decision of my life.”  A single parent in Belfast, Northern Ireland meets with a succession of would-be adoptive parents for his young son.  John is only 34, but he has learned that he has only months to live, and he is determined to find a fitting surrogate family for his four-year old son:  “I thought I would know when I first saw them.  I thought it would be simple.  No, yes.  Not them.  That’s them.  But what if I’m wrong?  I need to be sure.”  It sounds like a recipe for a relentlessly sad story.  But, instead, it’s filled to the brim with love.  Tender, gentle, sweet, and full of humanity, it’s the moving story of the love between a parent and child.  And it’s anchored in an award-caliber performance by James Norton, who was the original co-lead in the BBC drama series “Grantchester.”  And there is good supporting work by such players as Daniel Lamont (in his screen debut as young Michael), Stella McCusker (as John’s kindly older friend Rosemary), and Eileen O’Higgins (as the supportive social worker Shona).

Initially, John balks at broaching the subject of his impending departure with his impressionable son.  When he finally does, he does so with admirable tenderness:  “One day soon your daddy will lose his body but always be around you — in the air…. You won’t see me, but you can talk to me.  And I’ll listen.  And you won’t hear me like you hear me now, but you’ll hear me inside you.  I’ll always be with you — in the air around you… and in the sunshine that warms you.”  Written and directed by Uberto Pasolini, and inspired by a true story, “Nowhere Special” is something very special indeed.  It was nominated for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival and it was nominated for Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards.  The Blu-ray disc from Cohen Media has a 32 minute interview with the director and lead and a 10 minute featurette.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKPNVZ4pFgw

“Io Capitano” (Italy/Belgium/France, 2023) (B/B+):  Two untried journeyers are pitted against the worst that Nature and Man can set against them in a life or death trek that will test their mettle and make men of them, if they survive.  Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) are cousins and best friends in the small West African country of Senegal.  Each boy is 16, and like boys (and girls) everywhere, they are full of dreams, and they dream of becoming something more than their modest prospects in a poor Third World country can offer.  They are good kids with idealized notions of finding adventure and success by migrating to Europe.  Seydou is a dutiful son and older brother.  But he yearns to make his mark on a bigger canvas:  “I want to become someone…  I can realize my dreams there.”  His mother tries to rid him of what she sees as foolish notions.  But the pair embark anyway, without parental leave, on a long journey east, then north, through Mali, Niger, and Libya.

Their objective is the Mediterranean coast — with Italy tantalizingly in mind.  But the route is far more perilous and traumatic than either of these not-very-worldly boys can imagine.  People die on that journey.  People are mere commodities to the human smugglers upon whom they are obliged to rely.  If you fall behind (or off the back of a swiftly moving pickup truck), you are abandoned to your fate (which is assuredly death) without any qualm whatsoever.  And if you don’t die in the scorching, arid expanse of the Sahara Desert, or fall prey to ruthless robbers who take all of your money in lieu of your life, you have a very real risk of drowning at sea in grossly overcrowded boats.  It’s a journey worthy of Homer, as another writer has suggested.  Desperation, or dreams, or sometimes a bit of both, drives these travelers.  With illegal migration to both Europe and North America rising ever higher, the story of migrants — told from their point of view and told in an almost documentary-like fashion — couldn’t be more timely.

The story’s two travelers are used and abused — by the elements and by pitiless men.  But Seydou does have pity and a conscience and a sense of responsibility for others.  It’s a story of hardships and injustice pitted against human decency, human hope, and the indomitable human spirit to struggle on against the odds.  There’s a fleetingly brief, lyrically beautiful, dream sequence in which, at grave risk to himself, Seydou offers succor to a complete stranger.  In his mind’s eye, she then resumes the desert trek — effortlessly floating alongside him.  That kindness is repaid by the unexpected kindness of others.  A man skilled at construction takes Seydou under a protective paternal wing at a critical juncture.  Later, a man with medical knowledge saves Moussa’s life.  And, finally, Seydou puts fear and doubt aside in a heroic effort to save others, to proclaim, as the film’s title suggests, “I am the captain [of my own life].”

Inspired by the true story of a migrant from Ivory Coast, the journey of Seydou and Moussa feels utterly authentic.  These unlikely heroes are ordinary boys, boys who become men by adhering to their natural decency.  Their story is their story, but it also stands in for the stories of the countless many who make such dangerous journeys.  Their story is full of trauma and man’s inhumanity to man.  But it is checkmated by its diametrical opposite — the decision to freely accept the responsibility of being one’s figurative brother’s keeper.

Directed and co-written by Matteo Garrone, “Io Capitano” was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars and the Golden Globes.  At the David di Donatello Awards (Italy’s Academy Awards), it won Best Film, Director, Producer, and Cinematography, and it was nominated

for a whopping eleven other categories (such as Production Design, Visual Effects, and Music).  At the European Film Awards, it was nominated for Best European Film and Director.  And, at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, it won Best Director, Young Actor, Production Director, and the UNESCO Award, and it was nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film).  For ages 16+:  Very brief strong violence.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0j2Y9e3PxI

“The Teachers’ Lounge” [“Das Lehrerzimmer”] (Germany, 2023) (B+/A-):   Carla Nowak is an earnest young teacher at a thriving middle school in suburban Germany.  Full of energy and fueled by an idealistic regard for her students’ well-being, she’s a dedicated teacher with an excellent rapport with her 7th Grade class.  She radiates positivity, and it seems to be contagious among her young charges.  But things start to change when the school’s well-meaning administrators act to investigate a series of thefts by person or persons unknown from the faculty lounge.   Carla is uncomfortable when two student representatives are ‘encouraged’ by the adults at a meeting to identify whoever might fit the bill as a thief, with mere suspicion (or personal prejudice?) serving in lieu of actual evidence.  Things go downhill from there, as Carla’s class is interrupted — with the girls asked to stand and then quit the room while the wallets of the boys are searched.  In theory, any student can decline, but, in reality, compliance is not really optional.  Suspicion lands in the wrong place.  Later, it alights elsewhere, after Carla does some impromptu detective work.  Then things really fly asunder:  “Peace at our school is under fire.”  Truer words were never spoken as a maelstrom of suspicion, accusations, and paranoia spiral out of control at the erstwhile progressively minded school, leaving civility, order, and respect for authority battered in their wake.

Leonie Benesch is instantly and utterly believable as Carla, a benevolent figure who is buffeted by the storm that ensues.  It’s a compelling, award-caliber performance.  Suspenseful music in the opening scene sets the tone for increasingly fraught consequences for faculty and students alike.  But Carla is always at the center of the tension.  Part suspense story, part psychological drama, this involving character-study also has elements of social commentary.  The breakdown of social cohesion in this microcosm feels all too similar to the disunity, factionalism, and mistrust which are so lamentably evident in society at large these days.  The school’s administrators (among others) jump to conclusions; the student newspaper plays fast and loose with the truth, various and sundry put blame before the evidentiary cart; and a meet-the-parents night degenerates into a verbal mob scene.

The classroom dynamics are ably portrayed.  In happier times, Carla uses a really engaging call-and-response technique with clapping to bring her charges to order.  And her mathematics lesson on proofs has an unwittingly striking resonance with the bigger story that unfolds.  One critic called the film “a gripping social parable.”  Might the idea of a parable be reflected in the prominent use of Felix Mendelssohn’s 1826 composition “A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, Op. 21” on the score?  After all, the subject of that music, Shakespeare’s play of the same name, is filled, like this film, with intrigues, manipulation, and misdirection (though to comedic effect in the play’s case).  And if it’s a parable, what is the lesson?  Something about good intentions going awry, the perils of skirting due process, and the imperative of practicing what integrity preaches, perhaps?

“The Teachers’ Lounge” was directed by Ilker Çatak (who also co-wrote the film with Johannes Duncker).  He was born in Berlin to Turkish immigrant parents, which may well influence the story’s cross-cultural sensitivity.  The film was an Oscar nominee as Best Foreign Film.  It was nominated for Best European Actress and European Screenwriter at the European Film Awards.  At the German Film Awards, it won Best Film, Director, Actress, and Screenplay, and it was nominated for Cinematography.  The U.S. National Board of Review named it one of Top Five International Films of the Year.  The result is one of the best films of the year.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YgQBGqhTcM

“Fallen Leaves” [“Kuolleet lehdet”] (Finland/Germany, 2023) (B):  Shyly, tentatively, and with hardly any cooperation at all from the three figurative Fates, a woman and a man meet, experience attraction, and pursue the possibility of an antidote to their respective loneliness in a romantic attachment.  She’s a cashier in a grocery store; he works in industrial settings.  She lives alone, serving herself TV dinners; he bunks in a Spartan workplace dormitory.  Although she has a simple inherited home, neither of them has much in life — either materially or in terms of full hearts.  There’s a hint of wistfulness and past disappointments about her.  He professes to be content with his solitude, but his over-drinking may gainsay that supposed contentment.  She’s an attractive woman — but unadorned, presenting herself with plain simplicity.  The performances — by Alma Pöysti (as Ansa Grönholm) and Jussi Vatanen as Holappa — are, like everything else here, remarkably understated.  Quiet, relentlessly low-key, and very gently paced, the story aims for authenticity in its depiction of its working-class couple.

Janne Hyytiäinen (as Hannes Huotari) has all of our favorite scenes as Holappa’s older coworker.  He takes Holappa under his wing, cajoling him out for a night’s fun at a karaoke bar.  It’s an outing that unexpectedly holds the promise of a sea change in the younger man’s life.  The exchanges between the two men brought one wry smile after the other to the face of this reviewer.  The humor just doesn’t get any drier than in their witty one-liner exchanges:  (HH) “You don’t want to sing.”  (H) “I do, but I can’t.  I have no voice.”  (HH) “You talk a lot, regardless.”   Or this one:  (H) “Tough guys don’t sing.”  (HH) “You’re not a tough guy.”  (H) “I could be.”  (HH) “Somewhere abroad, perhaps.  In Denmark?”

Written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, the film offers what his leading players describe as “caring as a counterforce to cynicism… He gives us a little bit of hope that you can find love, but it’s not in a sugary way.  It’s more in a salty way — brutally honest.”   The relentlessly understated tone and very gradual pacing here bear no resemblance whatsoever to romantic comedies in their usual Hollywood guise.   It’s quiet and subdued, but closely observed and kind of gently sweet for all its down to earth presentation.

Among its many nominations and awards, “Fallen Leaves” won the Jury Prize at Cannes, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or (Best Film).  It had five nominations at the European Film Awards, namely, Best Actress, Actor, European Film, Director, and Screenplay.  It was nominated as Best Foreign Film at the British Independent Film Awards, France’s César Awards, and Italy’s David di Donatello Awards.  It had the same nomination at the Golden Globes, in addition to Best Actress.  It had four nominations at Finland’s Jussi Awards, namely, Best Film, Director, Actor, and Audience Favorite (Alma Pöysti).  And the U.S. National Board of Review named it one of the Top Five International Films of the year.  As a point of trivia:  Filmed during the ongoing war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, both characters listen to war updates on the radio.  IMDb has pointed out a small continuity error in that ‘the sequence of radio news reports about the war is not in chronological order.’  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“The Iron Claw” (U.K./USA, 2023) (B):   Movies can take us out of our time, place, and lifestyle and immerse us in another one.  Even an unappealing milieu (like wrestling) can frame an interesting story, if that story concerns people grappling with what life has dealt them.  Based on the true story of the wrestling Von Erich family, this film takes its title from their signature move, an inescapable grip on their opponent.  But the real ‘iron claw’ here is the unyielding grip that family expectations has on these characters.   Closely-knit siblings, these four young brothers (led by Zac Efron as the eldest) have a father with an indomitable will, to whom they remain deferential through thick and thin.  And they face very real, very daunting challenges.  Seemingly vulnerable to recurring tragedies, there’s talk of a family curse.  But, at the heart of things, may be their unflinching loyalty to a dominating ego — in the form of a father whose overweening ambition comes before his own offspring’s well-being.  Curiously, their mother seems to have very little role to play in their lives.

Their father, persuasively played by Holt McCallany, has instilled this credo in his eager-to-please sons:  “The only way to beat this thing [i.e. the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and real or imagined stacked odds] is to be the toughest, the most successful, the absolute best.  To rely on no one but ourselves.  I will get us there.”  He might have added, ‘at whatever the cost.’  It’s the power of positive thinking on steroids and a uncompromising way to live life.  A readiness to struggle is good, an abiding sense of being aggrieved not so much:  “The world keeps taking from us, and I’m sick of it.  I want to fight back.”  The result, written and directed by Sean Durkin, is a full body immersion in a different way of living.  It won Best Ensemble and a place among the Top Ten Films of the Year at the U.S. National Board of Review.  It was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Casting by the Casting Society of America.   And it earned abundant critical praise.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; brief implied sexual content; adult subject matter.

“Oranges and Sunshine” (U.K./Australia, 2010) (B):  “How would you like to go to Australia?  The sun shines every day… and you’ll pick oranges off a tree for your breakfast.”  That disingenuous pitch, delivered to mere children who ultimately had no say in the matter, was the cover story for the involuntary mass deportation of children from Great Britain over the many decades from the 19th century until 1970.  From the mid 1950’s till the mid 1960’s, Australia was the chief destination for poor or neglected children from the British Isles.  They were often told, falsely, that their parents were dead (or didn’t want them) and their natural parents were likewise misled as to their children’s whereabouts and status.  Purportedly undertaken with ‘the very best of intentions,’ the deportations involved collaborations between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia and various charities.  The deportations not only broke apart families, they also often landed children in situations in which they were exploited for labor and/or physically or sexually abused.

When a British social worker, Margaret Humphreys (played by Emily Watson of “Breaking the Waves”) gets her first inkling of this secretive program, she makes it her mission to get to the truth of things.  Sheer dogged determination and the stories of scores of survivors fuel her indefatigable quest for justice in this true story based on her 1995 book “Empty Cradles.”  The quietly poignant result is character-driven and gently paced, with solid, affecting performances from David Wenham (“The Lord of the Rings”), Hugo Weaving (“V for Vendetta”), and Richard Dillane.  Its modest heroine is a very relatable (and uplifting) profile in moral courage.  She’s haunted by the psychological trauma and pain inflicted on so many children by indifferent powers that be and laments that, “I can’t give you back what you’ve lost.”  The film’s director, Jim Loach, is the son of famed director Ken Loach (who is best known for his stories about everyday people).

“Oranges and Sunshine” had five nominations (Film, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, & Editing) at Australia’s academy awards (AACTA).  At Australia’s Inside Film (IF) Awards, it won Best Actress and Production Design, and it was nominated for six other awards, such as Best Film, Actor (David Wenham), and Script.  It took the top prize at the Australian Cinematographers Society.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; adult subject matter.

Postscript:   Although this film has nothing to do with Ukraine, it inevitably brings to mind the recent unlawful mass abductions of Ukrainian children from parts of that country occupied by invading Russian forces.  In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and for his so-called Commissioner for Children’s Rights (a misnomer if ever there was one) Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, pursuant to the forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia, where some have been adopted by Russian families and others languish in institutions.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” (USA, 1962) (A+):  Here is one of the best films of all time, faithfully adapted from Harper Lee’s magnificent Pulitzer Prize winning novel, with a wonderfully evocative score by Elmer Bernstein and great performances by the entire cast.  Gregory Peck is perfect as the humble, courageous Atticus Finch — the role of a lifetime that seems tailor-made for Peck’s aura of dignified integrity.  For their parts, Mary Badham and Phillip Alford deliver performances by children that have been equaled only in 1961’s “The Innocents” and 2003’s “In America.”  It won Oscars for Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Art Direction, and it was nominated for five other Academy Awards, among them Best Film, Director, Supporting Actress, and Original Score.  Its story is as timely as ever with its conflict between decency and hate, its note-perfect evocation of childhood, and its inspiring portrait of moral courage.  Directed by Alan Pakula, from a flawless screenplay by Horton Foote, this film is an enchanting masterpiece.

“House of Sand and Fog” (USA, 2003) (A):  “Today God has kissed our eyes.”  Here’s a masterful psychological drama from Ukrainian director Vadim Perelman (2020’s “Persian Lessons”) in his stunning feature film debut.  Based on a novel by Andre Dubus III, it chronicles a desperate clash of perspectives — as essentially good people get caught up in an increasingly bitter and dangerous conflict.  The direction is captivatingly artful, and the dual leads — Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly — are an utterly bewitching revelation.  Supporting players Shoreh Ahgdashloo, Ron Eldard, and Frances Fisher are scarcely any less marvelous.  By turns haunting, riveting, and despair-inducing, this compelling drama restores one’s faith in the movies.  The only possible misstep is a move late in the film from psychological to physical conflict, a change that may slightly compromise the confrontation’s subtlety.  It’s one of the best films of its year.

“House of Sand and Fog” was nominated for three Academy Awards:  Best Actor, Supporting Actress (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and Original Score.  It was nominated at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild for Best Actor.  It won Supporting Actress and was nominated for Best First Feature and Actor at the Independent Spirit Film Awards.  And, at the U.S. National Board of Review, it won Outstanding Directorial Debut and a place among the Top Ten Films of the Year.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language, some violence, brief sexual content, and disturbing content.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer, but we recommend foregoing it in favor of the film itself:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y-0cSERrvE

“Persian Lessons” [“Persischstunden”] (Russia/Germany/Belarus, 2020) (B+/A-):  At a German “transport camp” in occupied France in 1942, imprisoned Jews await transport to death camps in Poland.  One new arrival blurts out that he is not Jewish, but rather Persian, in a desperate attempt to save himself from summary execution.  It proves to be a fortuitous impromptu masquerade, as unplanned and unrehearsed as it is, for one of the camp’s officers has need of a Persian.  Before the war, he was a chef, and he aspires to open a restaurant in Tehran once the war ends.  To do that, he needs to learn Farsi.  Sheer chance thus keeps the young man (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart’s Gilles) alive, but his survival balances very precariously on a knife’s edge.  Posing as the half-Persian, half-Belgian Reza Poon, Gilles is enlisted to teach Farsi to his captor (Lars Eidinger’s Klaus Koch).  But making up words in faux-Persian isn’t nearly as difficult as remembering them all.   Koch has the rank of “Hauptsturmführer,” a Nazi Party paramilitary rank in the SS which is a mid-level commander rank equivalent to captain in the regular army.  And he’s not a forgiving sort of man.  Coldly draconian with even his German subordinates, he threatens Gilles with death should Gilles be lying to him.  But, ever so gradually, he softens under the linguistic tutelage, and he begins to confide in his involuntary teacher.

While the context is the Holocaust, the story told here is a highly original character study.  Admirably humanistic, it reminds us that it was (and is) human beings, rather than one-dimensional inhuman monsters, who did (and still do) horrible things.  That makes their inhuman acts all the more horrifying.  A kind of connection, understanding, and maybe even friendship seems to develop between the two men.  But we never forget that it is rooted in a huge power imbalance.  A sustained, ever more elaborate white lie on one side is juxtaposed against a desperate need to believe on the other.  Because none of us is only one thing, and because there is more to each of us than only the worst thing about us, it is possible to feel some sympathy for the chef beneath the Nazi officer’s exterior, without, of course, excusing in any way the horrible system he’s a willing part of:  “I’m tired,” says Gilles.  “Of what?” asks Koch.  “Being afraid,” replies Gilles.  The result, directed by Vadim Perelman, the Ukrainian director of 2003’s stellar “House of Sand and Fog” as well as 2007’s “The Life Before Her Eyes,” and written by Ilja Zofin and Wolfgang Kohlhaase, is very affecting, with two award-caliber performances.  There’s a timeless quality to this film.  It happens to be set when and where it is, but it transcends its time and place.  Technical note:  The subtitles are too small.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; brief violence; and very brief (and mild) sexual talk.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6zQuPLd9HQ

“My Afternoons with Margueritte” [“La tête en friche”] (France, 2010) (B+):  One day, sitting on a park bench, Germain Chazel (Gerard Dépardieu) crosses paths with a little old lady (Gisèle Casadesus’s Margueritte) who shares his penchant for noticing the little things in life, in this case, the pigeons who congregate daily near the bench.  “If you really look,” he tells her, “no two are the same.”  And neither are this pair:  she’s highly educated, literate, elegant, and well-traveled, with a very active mind in her 90’s; he’s regarded as the village fool, lumbering, only semi-literate, and emotionally hobbled by a difficult upbringing.  As a child, he was told by his most unmaternal mother (Claire Maurier) and his mocking elementary school teacher that he was worthless; and he half-believes it.  But, he is neither unloved, nor unlovable, having won the love of the beautiful young Annette (Sophie Guillermin).  Margueritte loves to read, and when she starts to read aloud to Germain, his mind is opened, like a field of flowers blossoming after a long drought.  (The metaphor is apt, given Germain’s skill as a gardener.)

“Her head is filled with shelves.  On the shelves, books, books, books.  She understands,” says Germain, admiringly, about his new friend.  At first, he supposes that her love of books, and of words, and of understanding is hopelessly beyond him:  “I tried to learn with you, but it just hurts.”  But, like that aforesaid blossoming flower, Germain discovers unsuspected resources within himself and he turns his head toward the light.  Pessimism and low self-regard (“From the start, life makes promises it can’t keep”) give way before a sense of wonder and empowerment in this lovely, heartwarming tale of redemption.  Directed and co-written by Jean Becker and based on the 2009 novel “La tête en friche” (the title signifies one whose brain is not in use) by Marie-Sabine Roger, this is a poetic story about connecting with another soul, a story about an unconventional platonic love, and a story about the power of words:  “It’s not a typical love story.  But love and tenderness… both are there.  Named after a daisy, she lived amidst words, surrounded by adjectives in green fields of verbs.  Some force you to yield.  But she, with soft art, passed through my hard shield and into my heart.”   Technical note:  The subtitles are too small.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; very brief sexual talk; very brief violence.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flgBaCdBhGU

“20 Days in Mariupol” (Ukraine/USA, 2023) (A-):  “War is like an x-ray:  all the insides become visible.  Good people become better; bad people worse.”  When Russia began its full-fledged invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, one of its first targets was Mariupol in southern Ukraine.  An important port city, with a pre-invasion population of about 430,000, Mariupol was just 30 miles from Russian-held territory.  Its 86-day siege, replete with the deliberate unlawful targeting of civilians, saw thousands killed and hundreds of thousands forced to flee.  The Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov, reporting for Associated Press (AP) and the PBS documentary series Frontline, stayed in the besieged city for the first 20 days of its deadly ordeal, filming, writing, and directing this compelling documentary record of what happened there.  The result is an up-close-and-personal look at the devastating mass assault to which the city’s (and country’s) inhabitants were subjected.  A sobbing woman pleads to the camera:  “Can’t anybody do anything?  They’re killing us here.”  Doctors and nurses in a hospital close to the approaching front lines do their desperate best to save lives, without essential kit like painkillers.  Among the constant stream of civilian casualties there’s a pregnant woman and a boy who was struck while playing soccer.  A young mother asks, “What did we do to deserve this?”  When a young child is asked, “Why are you so upset?” she replies, “I don’t want to die.  I want it to end soon.”

Some succumb to their worst impulses by looting; but most simply struggle to survive, half in shock at the death and destruction unleashed against them.  And for what?  Nothing but pointless, lawless aggression.  “Let them be damned, the people who started this,” exclaims one man.  There’s courage here, as well as despair, amongst those who are surrounded, cut-off, and utterly isolated by a ruthless enemy.  There is no dignity for the victims of this massive crime even in death, as circumstances require their hasty consignment to mass graves.  What a doctor says about a dead baby is true of this whole film:  “It’s hard.  It’s very hard.”  Someone else says, “This is painful to watch.  But it must be painful to watch!”  As another person observes, even in the midst of the maelstrom:  “You did a big thing [by documenting this].  Otherwise, no one would know what is happening [here].”

“20 Days in Mariupol” won the Oscar for Best Documentary.  It won that same category at BAFTA, where it was also nominated as Best Foreign Language Film.  The Directors Guild of America named it Best Documentary, and the U.S. National Board of Review placed it among the Top Five Documentaries of the year.  At Sundance, it won the Audience Award for Documentaries, and it was nominated there for the Grand Jury Prize in that category.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; disturbing subject-matter.

Editorial note:  War crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime in international law of waging a war of aggression are clearly (and egregiously) being committed by the Russians in Ukraine.  It is imperative that NATO and the rest of the Free World have done with timorous half measures and bring sufficient force to bear to defeat the lawless aggression of Putin’s regime and oust the invaders from Ukraine.  Said cause is both a righteous one and a self-interested one, lest we ultimately find the aggressors at our own doorstep.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H_Fg_5x4ME

“The Book of Clarence” (USA/Italy, 2023) (B-):   It opens, amusingly, with a burst of larger-than-life orchestral music straight out of yesteryear’s Biblical epics over a title card; but this take on that past genre is otherwise in a category all its own.  Part dark comedy, part satire, part theater of the absurd, and part serious, it’s mighty hard to categorize, or to find anything resembling a consistent tone.  The first thing we wondered was: why is everybody here (a hillside town in Italy stands in for Jerusalem), except the Romans, black?  Answer:   It’s an all-black reimagining of the last days of Christ, seen from an outsider’s point of view.  A field of crucified prisoners at the beginning feels all too serious (and in poor taste for a comedy), but it’s followed by detours to a comedic chariot race, a narcotic-smoking sidekick, and a conman’s schemes to get one over on his respectable brother.  Said brother, Thomas, is one of Jesus’ apostles.  For his part, Clarence (Lakeith Stanfield, who plays both parts) doesn’t believe in God, let alone his Son.  But, ever the opportunist, he sees marketing himself first as ‘the Thirteen Apostle,’ and then, as the Messiah himself as a way to improve his cashflow (he’s in debt to a loan shark) and his standing in the community.  Thomas is openly dismissive (“A man that lacks honor is a nobody?), and, above all, Clarence craves respect.  The standout sequence is an arena fight with a gladiator version of the historical Barrabas (Omar Sy, who’s the best thing in the film):  it’s full of pure energy and dark humor.  We were delighted to see the talented Alfre Woodard (“Rich in Love”) among the cast; and James McAvoy is amusing as Pontius Pilate.  Disappointing at first, the film grew on us.  But, ultimately, it is neither fish nor fowl.  Written and directed by Jeymes Samuel, it’s neither broad comedy like Monty Python, nor serious drama like “Ben-Hur.”  There is certainly nothing funny about the road to crucifixion late in the film or its depiction of death on the cross.  But those deadly serious moments feel at once trivialized and out-of-place in the context of the film as a whole.  There are moments that approach pathos, but they exist in close conjunction with silly stuff.  Slow at times, self-indulgent at times, but also somewhat touching at times, this impossible to categorize mixture of incongruent elements gets a mild and mixed recommendation.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; violence; drug use; not suitable for children.

“Ru” (Canada, 2023) (A-):  “When you appreciate the nuances of the sky’s blues… you appreciate life.”  A happy and well-off family in Saigon is wrenched away from everyone and everything they know when the Americans abandon South Vietnam to its fate in 1975.  The victorious communist forces break down the doors of perceived class enemies, and the elegant, sophisticated, and cultured life of the young Nguyen family is irrevocably shattered.  They decide to flee, taking to the sea on a perilous journey as ‘boat people,’ leaving close kin, high status, material comfort, and their culture itself behind in a desperate bid to survive.  They ultimately find sanctuary in Canada, but the ordeal they have experienced is not easily forgotten even as they work hard to fit in as strangers in a strange land.

Adapted from the Governor General’s Award winning debut novel by Vietnamese-Canadian author Kim Thúy, this semi-autobiographical story makes the immigrant experience immediate and personal, personified by the Nguyen family, and in particular the mother and daughter, played, respectively, by Chantal Thuy and Chloé Djandji.  Their characters share the same name, but, in Vietnamese, the tonal pronunciation conveys different meanings to the same words.  Tinh the younger’s name means “peaceful inside,” but she’s anything but.  Withdrawn, deeply sad, and locked away within herself, she mourns for the loss of her close-as-a-sister cousin Sao Mai, and she bears all the hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder.  The film is partly a coming-of-age story about Tinh, as it traces her path from darkness back into the light.  And the film also follows the strained relationship between mother and daughter.  The parents don’t have time to lament their calamitous change in fortunes, gracefully accepting whatever work they are offered.  Minh (Jean Bui) was a young governmental deputy minister in South Vietnam, but he is grateful for work delivering food for an Asian restaurant and sweeping the floors of a church at their adopted home near Montreal.  For her part, Tinh the older takes work as a seamstress.  As she tells her daughter:  “Family is the most important thing.  Life is a battle where sadness leads to defeat.”

Recurring flashbacks fill in the family’s backstory; more importantly, they serve as striking counterpoints in the film’s adept and very moving juxtapositions between what was and what is.   A kindly fellow refugee at the restaurant where her father works tells Tinh that he wrote hundreds of pages on a single piece of paper while he was in captivity, erasing each page to make room for the next.  That account is contrasted with the communist soldiers, like the Vandals of old, burning scores of books — with knowledge, culture, history, and words (the chariots of dreams) all ruthlessly consigned to the bonfire.  Elsewhere, a countryside gathering with new Québecois friends — replete with food, family, friends, and fellowship — is contrasted with the memory of Minh giving his wife suicide pills for her and their three children against the dire eventuality of their being taken by pirates.

Directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud, “Ru” is impressively artful and poetic.  A scene with the boat people transferring to a lifeboat shows them from the blurry depths.  From below, we see the dark silhouettes of figures frantically swimming to their small floating sanctuary.  The winter scenes make palpable Canada as the land of winter (as the song has it, “mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver”).  The musical score is often foreboding, and a solo piano embodies Tinh’s melancholy.  But she keeps encountering bright lights:  there’s the vivacious daughter of her family’s Canadian sponsors (Mali Corbeil-Gauvreau’s very winning Johanne) and the old judge turned poet who has somehow survived his captivity and learned to see the beauty and the poetry in everyday things:  “The sky… cut my chains.”  There’s the aforementioned writer turned cook who offers his own example on how to see the world to young Tinh:  “When you write, you can hear the clouds move.  Or see the remains of the stars.”  There’s the book she’s reading to learn French: “I think often of that image that I alone can still see.”  There’s the warm and welcoming Québecois family who serve as the Nguyens’ sponsors, guides, and new-found friends.  There’s humor here, too, amidst the serious stuff, as the newcomers learn about North American food (they are admonished not to do without a toaster), maple syrup, and understating qualifications when you’re manifestly overqualified for the jobs on offer.  Karine Vanasse shines, as usual, as their sponsor Lisette, while Patrice Robitaille brings the humor as her well-meaning but sometimes maladroit husband Normand.

And speaking of artful, there’s a truly striking sequence late in the film as assorted members of the cast of characters — some of them major players, others mere passing encounters, all stand mute while looking straight at the camera — as if posing for snapshots in the memory book of Tinh’s mind’s eye.  The film is a poignant thing of beauty about healing and reconciliation:  “I see the shadow lifting and light reflecting off you.”  If we have a cavil, it is only this:  it may be that the portrayal of young Tinh is a little too inscrutable.  Her face is often stolidly expressionless, her pain and other feelings concealed and mostly implied rather than overtly shown on her features.  But perhaps that’s by design.  Perhaps Tinh is the blank canvas upon which we are meant to paint our own pictures.  As of this writing, “Ru” has five nominations at the upcoming Canadian Screen Awards — for Best Supporting Actress (Chantal Thuy as the mother),  Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Makeup, and Costume Design.  “Ru” is one of the best films of the year — and it is highly recommended!

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZciLUh8oMZU

“The Persian Version” (USA, 2023) (B/B+):  Here’s an engagingly vibrant blend of humor and more serious moments about three generations of Iranian-American women.  Our primary interlocutor is Leila (Layla Mohammadi).  At once charismatic and iconoclastic, she’s a free-spirited observer of her family and of society at large.  As to the former, she’s the only daughter in a brood of eight brothers, and her mother (Niousha Noor’s Shireen) cannot accept her same-gender romantic relationship.  As to the latter, we should say societies plural, for Leila is a child of two cultures:  “I have some problems with culture.  But can you blame me?  I come from these two countries that used to be madly in love with each other.  And like any great romance, it ended in a bitter divorce.”  She’s talking about America and Iran:  “Like a child of divorce, I was right in the middle, being pulled at it from both sides.  I never fit in anywhere — too Iranian in America, too American in Iran.  I was just an all-American girl, but the Americans didn’t see it that way.”  As our guide, she regularly ‘breaks the proverbial fourth wall’ to face the camera and address us directly.

The tone is often comedic in this exploration of family dynamics, cultural expectations, the immigrant experience, and the instantly relatable objective of ‘fitting-in.’  In a nutshell, it’s all about being in a minority, sometimes a minority of one.  In an extended flashback, a younger Shireen (Kamand Shafieisabet) takes over the narrative as a child bride in Iran.  Their two narratives ultimately converge, with the realization that the things they have in common supersede the differences that have put a strain on their mother and daughter relationship:  “I inherited that from my mother.  The strength of silence.  Pain can’t touch you if you don’t talk about it.  Right?”

In addition to the those named above, the engaging cast includes nice turns by Bella Warda and Sachil Gholamalizad as the grandmother Mamajoon in older and younger age, Tom Byrne as the one-night stand who might end being more than that, and Chiara Stella as the child version of Leila.  There’s an infectious musical number to the strains of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and the last two words of spoken dialogue, almost whispered, are, poignantly, “My love.”  Written and directed by Maryan Keshavarz and dedicated to “all the fierce Iranian women,” “The Persian Version” was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, where it won the Audience Award and the Screenwriting Award.  The U.S. National Board of Review selected it as one of the Top Ten Independent Films of the Year.  The dialogue is in English and Persian (Farsi).  For ages 18+:  coarse language.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDrlpcv4vXE

“Driving Madeleine” [“Une belle course”] (France/Belgium, 2022) (A-):  “Each moment of anger ages you.  Each smile makes you younger.”  Well, the French singer, actress, and writer Line Renaud, who was 93 years old when she made this film, must have done a lot of smiling in her life, for she positively glows with elegance and beauty.  A hard-working, but financially struggling taxi driver (Dany Poon’s Charles) gets a fare that will forever change his outlook on life in the person of Madeleine.  Obliged by her doctors to forsake independent living, she’s en route to a retirement home, but there are many detours on the way as she revisits her past.  An initially reluctant Charles soon gets carried away with the current of his charming fare’s long life — its tragedies, its triumphs, and the life lessons she can offer:  “When you make choices in life, you need the courage to assume them.”  Taking responsibility is at the core of who Madeleine is — that, and heart.   She’s empathetic, she has a sly sense of humor, she’s a quick thinker, and the bumps along her life’s journey have imbued her with equal measures of wisdom and strength.

Directed by Christian Carion (2006’s Oscar-nominated “Joyeux Noël”) and co-written by him and Cyril Gely, “Driving Madeleine” is tender, poignant, heart-warming, and wistful all at once.  There are lovely performances by its two leads and supporting players like Alice Isaaz (as the young Madeleine) and Gwendoline Hamon as her mother.  One its lessons is to create memories while we can.  And its story is told with wonderful humanity — there are painful moments here, but, overall, there is joy and laughter.  Along the way, it’s about, as one commentator puts it, “How life goes by in a flash.  About love and romance and that first kiss.  Women’s rights…  And living a whole life in one place.”  And it’s about not letting the darker moments of life define us.  For Madeleine’s story always returns to the light.  And her story and the transformative effect it has on Charles is guaranteed to warm your heart.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; brief sexual violence; adult subject matter.

For a sneak peak, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ZLwuO2eg8

“The Whole Wide World” (USA, 1996) (B+):   “I’m the kind of man that needs to be free.  I can’t be tied down.  The road I walk, I walk alone.”  Do those words represent objective reality, or a subjective self-characterization, or a bit of both?  The man who speaks them is a loner.  But is that the inescapable result of his character or, in part at least, a kind of affectation constructed to explain, justify, and even romanticize a solitariness born of social awkwardness and shyness?   Based on the memoir “One Who Walked Alone” by Novalyne Price Ellis, this fascinating character study tells the story of her relationship with the idiosyncratic writer Robert E. Howard in rural Texas in 1933.  Novalyne, a young teacher, aspires to write.  For his part, Howard is already a successful author, proudly wearing the mantle of “the greatest pulp writer in the whole wide world.”  His stories, later collected into books, were initially published in popular magazines like “Weird Tales.”  He created larger-than-life characters like Conan the Barbarian, a fearless antihero who “don’t take it from nobody; he’ll fight man, beast, devil, or god!  And when those women feel those tree trunk-firm arms around their waist… they melt like butter on a hot skillet!”  Howard’s genre of choice was sword-and-sorcery, earthy and often lurid tales aimed at a mass readership — hence the term ‘pulp fiction.’

The eccentric author and the young teacher with “a strong heart” (captivatingly played by Vincent D’Onofrio and Renée Zellweger, respectively) are on the edge of romance, but it always remains tantalizingly out of reach.  For Howard inhabits an emotional and psychological territory that may, ultimately, admit no new permanent residents.  He is propelled by his imagination.  When Novalyne remarks on a vista (“You can see the whole world from up here.”), Robert replies “And others as well.”  One admires his devotion to the imagination, but does it damn him to solitude?   Howard has, or deliberately assumes, a larger than life personality.  Immersed in an internal dreamscape, he creates his own reality in a way.  Maybe it suits him better than the prosaic one that surrounds him.  He’s prone to physically and verbally acting out his stories and ideas.  Are his warrior heroes an alter ego?  Is he shy?  Antisocial?  Reclusive?  “I’ll see those sons of bitches in hell before I make one of their parties.”  When he describes a planned new hero as “the morose, ungainly misfit among men,” it sounds very much like he is unwittingly describing himself.

Novalyne is simultaneously attracted to, and kept at a distance by, Howard’s forceful persona.  Even Howard’s father admits:  “Robert’s a stranger to me…. He’s in his own little world most of the time, and I’m not privy to it.”  It seems that the two love each other, but something in Howard’s own character may be his downfall — in romance and in life more generally.  Whether he is overly devoted to exalted ideas or handicapped by his own sense of being different from others, Robert’s description of his hero (and himself), prompts Novalyne to ask (about said fictional hero and, by implication, the author himself):  “Why does he have to be a misfit?  Why can’t he be handsome and kind?”  Howard replies dryly, “You’re still a dreamer, girl.”  But Howard is the real dreamer here:  “To make life worth living, a man or a woman gotta have a great love or a great cause.”

Written by Michael Scott Myers and directed by Dan Ireland, “The Whole Wide World” is propelled by two strong performances and solid supporting work by Ann Wedgewood (as the fragile mother to whom Howard is chivalrously devoted) and Harve Presnell (as his stern father) and others.  The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.  It was nominated for Best Actress and Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Film Awards.  And it was nominated for Best Actor at the U.S. National Society of Film Critics.  The result is highly original and thoroughly fascinating.

“The Holdovers” (USA, 2023) (A-/A):   “You’ve got time to turn things around.  Yes, I know, the Greeks had the idea that the steps you take to avoid your fate are the very steps that lead you to it, but that’s just a literary conceit.  In real life, your history does not have to dictate your destiny.”  Paul Giamatti is Paul Hunham, a cantankerous teacher of ancient history at a private boys’ prep school in Massachusetts in 1970.  He is openly cynical about the sons of rich men:  (Q) “Sir, I don’t understand.”  (A) “That’s glaringly apparent.”  The film opens with him dismissively decrying them as “Philistines.  Lazy, vulgar, rancid little Philistines.”  He’s not really joking, either.  He’s not keen on his spoiled, entitled, and too often lazy students, and the feeling is largely mutual.  And for the most part, they live down to his expectations.  Paul is certainly a curmudgeon (one who is unpopular with faculty and students alike), but is he also a borderline misanthrope?  It seems so, at first, but there’s a good man hiding beneath that armor.  Giamatti says that his character is “unliked but not unlikable.”  He’s also a man of integrity, even to his own detriment.  The head of the school punishes Paul for failing a U.S. Senator’s (and major donor’s) son, who, as Paul says, “richly deserved it,” by assigning him the thankless task of babysitting a handful of ‘holdovers,’ that is, students who are staying at the school during the Christmas holidays.  The campus empties out for two weeks, leaving just Paul, five students, and the school’s cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Mary), who is grieving the loss of her son in Vietnam.

But the number of charges soon diminishes, leaving Paul alone with Mary and one recalcitrant student (newcomer Dominic Sessa’s Angus Tully).  Gradually, all three come out of their respective shells.  Paul is introverted and socially awkward, but he is tempted into town with Angus and Mary to attend a Christmas Eve house party.  Might something wholly novel be in the works with the highly sociable school secretary (a highly engaging performance by Carrie Preston, whose new series, “Elsbeth,” debuts on CBS-TV in February 2024)?  Might romance be making a belated arrival in his hitherto solitary life?  Paul lets himself hope so, anyway — and we, the viewers, are right there with him in that hope.  Tully likewise has some chemistry with a partygoer named Elise (Darby Lily Lee-Stack, who makes an impression in her brief role).   And, as jaded as Paul may be as an educator, and as an ironic observer of the human condition, there’s a heart beneath the loner persona.  The figurative die is cast (“alea iacta est“), an emotional Rubicon is crossed, and Paul unexpectedly bonds with his troubled student:  “I find the world a bitter and complicated place, and it seems to feel the same way about me.  I think you and I have this in common.”

Directed by Alexander Payne and elegantly written by David Hemingson, the film is at once funny, poignant, wise, and, above all, humane.  As Hemingson says, “Payne is a humanist.  He wants to tell a human story.  And he wants to see people in all their flawed glory.”  The film reunites Giamatti, who is note-perfect in the role, and Payne after their equally successful work on 2004’s “Sideways.”  There is a sly dichotomy between the picture postcard New England setting, replete with the Christmas carols and hymns on the soundtrack, and the often combustible and irreverent interactions of the story’s characters. “The Holdovers” is a real treat — and one of the very best films of the year.

Among its great many awards and nominations, “The Holdovers” is nominated for five Oscars, namely, Best Film of the Year, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Editing.  At BAFTA, it won Supporting Actress, and it was nominated for Best Film, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay.  At the Golden Globes, it won Best Actor, and it was nominated for Best Film and Supporting Actress.  It has four nominations at the Independent Spirit Film Awards.  And, it won Best Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and a place among the Best Films of the Year at the U.S. National Board of Review.  “The Holdovers” is highly recommended!  Don’t miss it!  For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

For a sneak peak, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhKLpJmHhIg

“The Mole Agent” [“El agente topo”] (Chile/USA/Germany/The Netherlands/Spain, 2020) (B/B+):   No, it’s not the continuing adventures of a lead character from “The Wind in the Willows.”  But it gets off to just as fanciful of a start.  A classified ad in a Santiago newspaper catches the eye of a retired senior citizen:  an employer is looking for a suitable candidate for a job who is between 80 and 90 years old!  Opportunities like that don’t come along every day for job-hunters of a certain age.  So, Sergio is hooked — and he gets the gig.  His new employer:  a private detective.  His undercover task:  to check into a retirement home for several months and assess the treatment and care of its occupants.  The daughter of one of them fears that her mother is being neglected and possibly burgled.  As one of the very few male occupants, Sergio immediately captures the interest of the opposite sex.  And his daily interactions with them — fitting-in as the new guy while surreptitiously snooping into the quality of life there — is ever so tender and humane.  Sometimes funny, sometimes gently poignant, this documentary gets us up-close and personal with its perceptive look at aging.

We were keen to see this film from writer/director Maite Alberdi after the sheer mesmerizing pleasure of her superlative 2023 gem “The Eternal Memory” (which perversely had a mere single week’s stay at the local multiplex).   And she doesn’t disappoint with this earlier outing.  Among its many nominations and awards, “The Mole Agent” was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature (her current film is nominated in that same category) and it was likewise nominated at the Independent Spirit Film Awards.  At the U.S. National Board of Review, it won a place among the top five documentary films of the year.  At Spain’s Goya Awards, it was a nominee as Best Ibero-American Film, and it was a nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.  The result is something completely different — sometimes whimsical and always heartwarming.

“Frantz” (France/Germany, 2016) (B+/A-):   “Yes, it makes me want to live.”  When we are bereft by grief, life is bleached of color.  And so it is here, as the parents and fiancée of a young German man (the Frantz of the title) mourn his loss in the Great War.  Their world, artfully shot in simple black & white, is without color — both figuratively and literally.  In its stead, there abide only memories, mourning, and the ever-present, palpable ripples of the past.  One day, a stranger (Pierre Niney’s Adrien) in their small town leaves flowers at the grave of their loved one.  He is a stranger in more ways than one:  they don’t know him, and he is French, from the opposite side in the bitter conflict that engaged both nations for years.  When he later approaches the family, he introduces himself as a friend who knew Frantz during their pre-war time as students in Paris.  He tells of their mutual inspiration at the Louvre, ebullience at dances, and a shared love of the violin.  Tentatively, cautiously, brief moments of happiness creep back into the lives of Frantz’s betrothed (Paula Beer’s Anna) and his parents (Ernest Stötzner & Marie Gruber), and, as they do, we get momentary sections of the film in color, often paired with the beauty of nature, the balm of music, and the pleasure of shared memories.

Director and co-writer François Ozon (2000’s “Under the Sand”) has adapted an earlier story and fashioned it into an artful reflection on love, grief, the possibility of starting again, self-doubt, complicated intentions, self-invented fictions, and the feat of taking responsibility.  It is a moody, mysterious story, entangled in secrets and lies, and somehow gently Hitchcockian in tone.  Sometimes, it takes maximum effort for us to carry on living, and these characters find that strength within themselves by whatever means they can.  As the director says, its particular time (1919) and place has undercurrents of xenophobia and resurgent nationalism, themes which have, alas, all too much currency with our present-day world of Trumpism, Brexit, and the contagion of autocracy.  Can we be happy again in the aftermath of tragedy and profound loss?  Can we learn to forgive others — and, indeed, ourselves?  Can pure intentions justify embellishing the facts to arrive at a truth of the heart as opposed to a truth of the simple facts?  How do we take responsibility for our actions and omissions?  Frantz’s father asks himself that question and concludes that by encouraging his 24-year-old son to enlist to ‘fight for the Fatherland,’ he carries guilt for his death.

Moments of music in the film artfully echo its themes, with the words “I dream of love now gone” sung in an opera and moments from Rimsky-Korsakov’s beautiful symphonic suite “Scheherazade,” based on the story of a woman who has to spin tales to preserve her own life.  The award-caliber actors named above are very ably supported by Cyrielle Clare, Johann von Bülow, and Alice de Lencquesaing.  The film is an evocative immersion into the psyches of its damaged characters.  And there is often more going on here than meets the eye.

Among its many awards and nominations, “Frantz” had eleven nominations at France’s academy awards, the Césars, among them Best Film, Director, Actor, Most Promising Actress, and Original Music, winning for Cinematography.  It had three nominations at the European Film Awards, including Actress.  At the U.S. National Board of Review, it won a place among the year’s Top Five Foreign Language Films.  And at the Venice Film Festival, it was nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film) and it won Best Young Actress.  For ages 16+:  Adult subject matter.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mytb1Ms7KLI

“All My Puny Sorrows” (Canada, 2021) (B+/A-):  “The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins.  We start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes.  It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future…  We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”  Those words from D.H. Lawrence are quoted in this highly literary film to denote the emotional cataclysms we can encounter in life.  Those of us with the strength to endure persevere, no matter how many skies have fallen.  But do we all have the strength to endure?  Here, the protagonists are two sisters:  Yoli (Alison Pill, of television’s 2012-14 “The Newsroom,” in what may be a career best performance) and Elf (Sarah Gadon, who played a young Princess Elizabeth in 2015’s “A Royal Night Out” and made a powerful impression in 2016’s “Indignation”).  Raised in a strict Mennonite community, Yolandi and Elfrieda had parents (Mare Winningham and Donal Logue, the latter from television’s 2014-19 “Gotham”) who dared to favor an independent path for their daughters.  But, there are those aforementioned cataclysms.  Like her father before her, Elf is sad beyond measure, emanating a palpable world-weariness, despite her talent (as a concert pianist), beauty, and ostensible success in life:  “The day always darkens…  I’m certain that the future will be an endless repetition of the same disappointment.  No matter how hard I try, I can’t see beyond it.”

A struggling writer, with a broken marriage, who is a single mother to a teenaged daughter (Amybeth McNutty, who played the title role in CBC-TV’s 2017-19 “Anne with an E”), Yoli is desperate to give her sister the will to live:  “Just be like the rest of us.  Get fat, start smoking, play piano badly, whatever.  Just know that you’ll eventually get what you want most in life.”  “What’s that?’ asks Elf.  “Death,” Yoli replies.  “So why can’t you wait around and be patient like the rest of us?”   But, Elf sees things differently:  “I had to be perfect so you could eff-up, and you were more than happy to take on that role.”  The sisters have two strong female role models.  The first is their quiet but resilient mother (she has an amusing scene with a meat tenderizer).  When the family crisis gets worse, Yoli says to her, “This is almost too much, Mom,” and she replies, simply, “Almost.”  The other strong woman in their lives is their aunt (Mimi Kuzyk, who makes a strong impression in her few scenes).  She firmly reminds Yoli:  “We’re Loewens.  Don’t forget that, Yoli.  We’re lions.”

The film is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Canada’s Miriam Toews, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize.  A jury for another literary prize aptly described the book as “a haunting novel of tremendous feeling, beautifully written and profoundly humane… Miriam Toews, a dazzling literary alchemist who manages to summon all the joyous and heart-breaking humanity of her characters, has produced a work of astonishing depth.  Reading it is an unforgettable experience.”  With its character-driven portrait of the close bond between two sisters, the film adaptation, ably written and directed by Michael McGowan, lives up to the book’s high praise.  Heartfelt, evocative, and literate, it has a strong cast, led by two very fine Canadian actresses at the top of their game.  It’s about memories, loss, incurable sadness, close confidences and even closer family bonds, and the inescapable marks of the past.  There is sadness here, but there is also unexpected humor.  In one scene, Yoli has a full-fledged emotional meltdown in a parking garage; moments later, when she emerges from the elevator, she dryly remarks to her waiting mother, “I just had a little trouble parking.”  It’s an adroit and dryly funny change in emotional energy, not to mention a sublime understatement.

Someone in the film observes that, “Suffering is something that is passed on, from one generation to the next, like flexibility, grace, or color blindness.”  How we struggle to cope with suffering is central to the story, with each of the sisters markedly different in that respect.  Their relationship is as rich in conversation as it is in love; and their words, with the feelings they represent, feel viscerally authentic.  Words are mirrored in flashbacks to childhood and in symbolism, with recurring images of train tracks, which figure so dramatically in their backstory.  The result is a lovely surprise — tender and moving — that’s one of the best films of its year from anywhere.

“All My Puny Sorrows” won Best Original Score and Editing at the Canadian Screen Awards, where it was also nominated for Casting, Cinematography, and Sound Editing.  Surprisingly, it had no acting nominations there.  However, the Vancouver Film Critics Circle remedied that omission, with wins for Actress, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Best Canadian Film of the Year, and a nomination for Director.  At the Directors Guild of Canada, it was nominated for Best Director, and it won for Editing and Sound Editing.  At TIFF, it won a place in Canada’s Top Ten Films.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; brief sexual content; adult subject-matter.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gY5joSmRDY

“The Lesson” (U.K./Germany, 2023) (B):  “The prerequisite for writing [is] you don’t have a choice in the matter: you must write… Words [are a] testament to experience… words I chose because I believed they bore witness to a truth beyond fiction.  Because, when strung together, they accorded to a music only I could hear… [They] resolved some conflict raging within them.  Who owns them?  They belong to whomever chooses to read them, and, since we are the words we write, so do we.”  A young man (Daryl McCormack’s Liam) is hired to prepare a younger man for the challenging admission process for the University of Oxford.  His student is to be the younger son of the country’s preeminent novelist.  It has been years since his last book, but J.M. Sinclair (Richard E. Grant) seems to be nearing the finish line with a new work.  His beautiful French wife (Julie Delpy’s Hélène) is an art curator.  They live in an upscale home in an idyllic setting in the English countryside; but it is clear from the get-go that things are far from idyllic in their lives.  Sinclair is peremptory, haughty, disparaging, and perhaps cruel.  His wife, for all her sophistication, seems remote and unhappy. And their son (Stephen McMillan’s Bertie) is sarcastic and overtly unfriendly to the newcomer in their midst.

These characters and their interactions, one with another, are full of misdirection and prevarication.  Agendas, overt and hidden, likewise abound.  Words, meant to be the heralds of truth, can also be the agents of deception, as we know all too well from the real world of the here and now.  The collision between ego and simple kindness, talent and ambition, guilt and responsibility, single-minded self-interest and the welfare of others is the raw material for this noirish psychological drama.  For instance, when the newcomer observes the others, is he being obsessive, intrusive, predatory, voyeuristic, or perhaps all of those things at once?

There are recurring snippets of poetry.  Are they superficial stylistic flourishes or things of real substance?  Do they make the story poetical or simply signify a storytelling reach that exceeds its grasp?  The viewer must be the judge, for there are deliberate layers of artifice here.  Likewise, the story references the story of Apollo and Daphne, which had the Greek god, struck by Cupid’s golden arrow, obsessively in love with a woman who emphatically does not share his ardor; fleeing, she is transformed into a laurel tree to elude her pursuer.

“The Lesson” is a well-acted, literate, theatrical chamber piece.  There are some credibility issues — among them, an unlikely aptitude for instant recall and some likewise unlikely carelessness about the keeping of precious words.  It’s well-cast, with Crispin Letts supporting the others as the quietly observant family retainer.  There’s a subtle sense of disquietude about these characters, their real intentions, their secrets, and even the setting itself, with the deep pond where things (inanimate and otherwise) go to die.  And it’s hard not to like a screenplay that uses the term ‘amanuensis.’  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; very brief sexual content; adult subject matter.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0wnu-1_8-M

“Memories of My Father” [“El Olvido que Seremos”] (Colombia, 2020) (B+/A-):  “If I ever live again, it will be in the same way.” Quiet heroism is something we can all aspire to, whether it manifests itself in one’s domestic life or in broader society.  Héctor Abad Gómez (Javier Cámara) was such a man in his varied roles as husband, father, physician, educator, and human rights advocate.  In each of those settings, he stands up for what is right.  But, here, we see him most closely as a father, through the eyes of his son.   As a child, Hector Jr. declares, “I don’t want to go to heaven if my father isn’t.  I’d rather go to hell with him.”  As a young man, he has a more jaundiced view of his father’s selfless integrity:  “Don’t get involved in things… I don’t think you should be playing at being a rebel at your age.”  That admonition is ostensibly well-meant, but it misses what is fundamental about his father — and that’s his courageous integrity.  His advocacy for the poor in a country (Colombia) beset by inequality and oligarchy puts him in jeopardy:  he is dismissed from his professorial position at a university early on.  When that doesn’t silence him, he risks losing much more.

The film is based on the internationally bestselling memoir “Oblivion,” by Abad’s son.  It’s the engaging portrait of a close-knit, loving family in the city of Medellín (which was to become synonymous for drug cartels).  Lead actor Cámara says of his character, that he was “a very good man who tried to change the reality for the poor of his country.”  But, he was just as intent on raising his children to leave good lives.  For Abad, we all have “Five Needs,” namely, “air, water, food, shelter, and affection.”  He did not stint on giving freely of affection.  The result is a warm, engaging character-study about the relationship between a father and son directed by Fernando Trueba (who also directed 1994’s Best Foreign Film Oscar winner “Belle Epoque”).  The filmscore is by Zbigniew Preisner (of the “Trois Couleurs” cinematic trilogy)

“Memories of My Father” won Best Ibero-American Film at the Goya Awards (Spain’s Academy Awards).  And, at the Platino Awards, which celebrate Ibero-American cinema (i.e. films from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries in Europe and the Americas), it won Best Film, Director, and Actor, and it was nominated for Supporting Actress and Screenplay.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language and brief sexual references.

For a sneak peek, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zldhg7ALFdI

“The Natural” (USA, 1984) (A):  Who’d have guessed that a mythic story about a hero’s journey could be so effectively wrapped in the mystique of baseball?  The setting is professional baseball and the characters are baseball players; but, what’s really going on here, adapted as it is from a novel by Bernard Malamud, is so very much more.  At its heart is a young man with a gift:   He’s chosen by the gods, goes on a quest, faces a test, and fails:  “You’ve got a gift…  But it’s not enough.  Rely on your gift alone and you’re going to fail.”  As the filmmakers point out:  “If you believe you are greater than your gift, the gods slay you.”  It’s a story about temptation, hubris, and redemption — and it’s richly full of imagery and allusions to things mythological, like lightning bolts at key moments, a woman in black who seems more like a classical Fate or Fury than a flesh-and-blood human being, a team called ‘the Knights,’ and a bat called ‘Wonderboy’ that’s reminiscent of Excalibur.  It’s as though something prosaic (a sport) has been dipped in the enchanted waters of something fantastical (a mythic story about losing, then regaining, greatness).  It’s a peek behind the curtain of the mundane to bigger, deeper, more fundamental things, like heroism and redemption and a sense of wonder.

This director’s cut re-jigs the film’s first act to show its protagonist’s boyhood and early adulthood as flashbacks, recollections of “this troubled man who lost his youth and all the promise that he once had.”  We preferred the straight progression in time used in the film’s theatrical release.  But, either way, the film has undeniable poignancy:  “Some mistakes I guess we never stop paying for.”  Its thrillingly inspirational moments are supercharged by Randy Newman’s powerfully emotive score.  It speaks to the soul.  Directed by Barry Levinson, “The Natural” has a note-perfect cast that includes Robert Redford, Wilford Brimley, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Richard Farnsworth, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, and an unbilled Darrin McGavin.  The film had four Oscar nominations (Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Musical Score), a Golden Globe nomination (Supporting Actress), and a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.  The stellar film score won a Grammy as Best Instrumental Composition.  The result is easily one of the best films of its year — and one of the best film scores of any year.

“Man on the Train” [“L’Homme du train”] (France/U.K./Germany/Japan, 2003) (A):  “This is my life’s stage, from my first feed to my last cigar.”  The lives of two strangers intersect over a few days.  They couldn’t be more different:  Manesquier (Jean Rochefort) is a retired teacher who has lived his whole life in the same small town in France, most of it in the same house.  He’s genteel, erudite, and armed with a self-effacing sense of humor.  Milan (Johnny Hallyday) is a man of action, an itinerant man of the world whose chief profession is robbing banks.  He comes armed with three handguns.  One is a man of words; the other is the strong silent type:  “Not a great conversationalist, are you?  Still, I don’t mind.  Conversation’s my line.  I could keep going till doomsday.”  One has books from floor to ceiling; the other fondly recalls a line of poetry he once heard:  “On the Pont Neuf, I met… who sings that distant song?… The dream that was my light.”  The ‘distant song’ for each of them is reflected in the personality and lifestyle of their alter ego.  One is anchored to one place; he longs for adventure, for travel, for the embrace of new women.  For the other, the sense of a home means pictures of forbears on a wall, getting baguettes at a familiar shop, and the hitherto untried apparel known as slippers.  Homebody versus wanderer?  It turns out that both choices have things to recommend them.

One of the men offers shelter to the other, and, remarkably, an unexpected friendship and reciprocal respect develops.  Each sees in the other the road not taken, the dreams that have gone unfulfilled, and all of the suppressed regrets that come with life’s choices.  And their mutual glimpses of what might been ignites each man’s curiosity and wistfulness.  Each has something to learn from the other.

Written and directed by Patrice Leconte, “L’Homme du train” is on the cusp of masterpiece territory.  It is gentle, sweet, warm, and sensitive at the same time, with equal measures of wry humor, poignancy, and regret.  This is the way to make movies — anchored in closely-observed, utterly authentic character development.   The film won Best Actor (for Rochefort) at the Venice Film Festival as well as the Audience Award for Best Film; and it was nominated there for the Golden Lion (Best Film).  It had four nominations at the European Film Awards, including two for Best European Actor and Best European Director.  The U.S. National Board of Review named it Best Foreign Film of the Year.  The result is a wonderful film with valuable lessons about other ways of being and about spending time in someone else’s figurative shoes.  And it reminds us that none of us is ever only one thing.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; very brief sexual talk.

“Gifted” (USA, 2017) (B/B+):   Family comes in diverse configurations, but what they all have in common are people who choose each other and who are bound to each other by love.  Here’s a highly engaging story about a man who strives to be an able father to his seven-year-old niece.  Educated as a philosopher, Frank (Chris Evans) has chosen a more down-to-earth lifestyle in Florida, where he repairs boats and devotes himself to the care of his late sister’s daughter.  But he’s worried about Mary (Mckenna Grace):  “She has no friends, no social skills.  She doesn’t know how to be a kid.”  Mary’s mother was a mathematician of genius caliber, and Mary is likewise a budding prodigy in that field.  But, when Frank opts to segue Mary from home-schooling to a local primary school, it quickly becomes clear that she’s way beyond the elementary curriculum in her intellectual aptitude.  “We’ll never be able to raise the child to the level her scholarship deserves,” protests the principal.  “Well, just dumb her down into a decent human being.  Everybody wins, ” retorts Frank.

Trouble comes in the form of Frank’s imperious mother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan), who values superlative achievement above all else and has the material means and connections to propel young Mary into the top echelon of post-secondary mathematics.  If it means jettisoning the girl’s chance at a normal childhood, so be it:  “I don’t expect you to understand the price you have to pay for greatness.”  A contest of wills ensues between implacable ambition and empathy.  Character-driven and fueled by a high likeability quotient, “Gifted” has a solid cast in those named above, supported by Octavia Spencer as Frank & Mary’s plain-speaking friend, by Jenny Slate as the girl’s elementary school teacher, and by a monocular cat named Fred.  It’s all about what makes a family a family, and its characters’ fundamental decency is very appealing.  For ages 18+: Very brief coarse language.

“Sideways” (USA/Hungary, 2004) (B+/A-):  “Here’s to a great week!”  This road trip for grown-ups has two friends intent on wine-tasting and golf in sunny California get sidetracked by romance and misadventure.  The pair are an odd couple:  Miles (Paul Giametti) is a middle-school English teacher and aspiring novelist who is contending with a grindingly disappointing failure to connect with a publisher.  Jack (Thomas Haden Church) is a television actor, whose long bachelorhood is about to end in a week’s time.  He has visions of sowing some final wild oats before he ties the proverbial knot.  Miles is an introvert, still bereft by his divorce.  His friend candidly observes that, “You have been officially depressed for like two years now.  And you’re a negative guy anyway.”  Jack is the extrovert of the duo, in perpetual pursuit of a good time — and the opposite sex.  Their odyssey is a satisfying, character-driven blend of humor, sadness, and poignancy.   The cast — Paul Giamatti, Virginia Madsen, Thomas Hayden Church, and Canada’s Sandra Oh — shine in nuanced performances, four of the year’s best.  And the film’s redemptive theme is deftly handled. The result, from director and co-writer Alexander Payne (2023’s “The Holdovers,” 2013’s “Nebraska,” and 2002’s “About Schmidt”), is charming, heartwarming, and dryly funny.

Among its many awards and nominations, “Sideways” was nominated for five Oscars (Best Film, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, & Adapted Screenplay).  It won Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes, where it was nominated for Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, & Director.  It won Best Adapted Screenplay at BAFTA.   It won Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Male Lead, & Supporting Female at the Independent Spirit Awards

It won Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Top Ten Films at the U.S. National Board of Review.  And, it won Outstanding Performance by a Cast at the Screen Actors Guild, where it was nominated for Male Lead, Supporting Male, & Supporting Female.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; sexual talk; fairly strong sexual content in two scenes; and brief nudity.

“The Phantom of the Open” (U.K., 2021) (B):  “Whatever happens, no one can say you didn’t try.”  Here’s a feel-good tale about the world’s worst amateur golfer who somehow gets admitted to Britain’s national championship and delivers “the worst round [of golf] in the history of the play.”  Maurice Flitcroft (a truly engaging performance by Mark Rylance of 2015’s “Bridge of Spies”) operates a construction crane for a living.  He’s been a caring and dependable husband and father.  So, his wife (Sally Hawkins of 2016’s outstanding “Maudie”) tells him it’s high time for him to indulge himself by doing something that’s just for him.  He fixes upon golf, though he’s never played the game.  Undaunted by his own shortcomings at his chosen new pursuit, he is indefatigable in his efforts to improve:  “Love your mistakes and you can’t go wrong.”  Sincere, but naive, sweet-natured, humble, and kind, Maurice is a good-hearted man — simple, but not simple-minded.  When he innocently applies to enter the 1976 British Open Golf Tournament, he lists among his “handicaps” false teeth and a touch of arthritis.  There’s a wry sense of humor throughout.  When his wife remarks, “I knew a young man once.  Said he was gonna be somebody.  Promised me diamonds, caviar, champagne. Travel the world, he said,” Maurice self-effacingly replies, “Sounds like you should’ve married him.”  Based, remarkably, on real events, it makes for a cute, appealing underdog story about ‘sticking by your family through thick and thin,’ and never giving up on your chosen goals in life.  It’s funny and endearing, with an understated poignancy, and it’s bound to leave you with a glow of affection.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“The Starling Girl” (USA, 2023) (B/B+):  “I want a heart full of love.  I want it to fill me to the brim.”  At 17, Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen of HBO’s “Sharp Objects” and 2019’s “Little Women”) is becoming a young woman.  In the process, she’s becoming aware of her sexuality.  But dwelling on that (let alone indulging it) certainly is not encouraged in her evangelical Christian community in small-town Kentucky.  On the contrary, the expressive worship dances done by Jem and other teenage girls at the church are vetted for modesty and traces of pride.  A parishioner quietly takes Jem and her mother aside to pass along a ‘helpful’ observation about an undergarment inadvertently discernable beneath Jem’s blouse.  And Jem’s parents (Jimmi Simpson & Wrenn Schmidt) are on side with their pastor (Kyle Secor) when he seeks leave for his younger son to start “courting” Jem.  Her parents tell their distinctly unenthusiastic daughter that it’s “[all part of] God leading you to fulfill your purpose.”  The unspoken implication is that Jem’s “purpose” can be found only on the prescribed path to marriage and motherhood.  Instead, she is increasingly attracted to forbidden fruit, in the person of the pastor’s older son (Lewis Pullman’s Owen), recently back from a missionary role in Puerto Rico and now serving as youth pastor.  Before long, the sexual and romantic attraction is mutual.  But, he’s older than her — and he’s already married.

Initially torn by the expectations of her family and church community, Jem prays, “Lord, help me to be content.  Please quiet my heart.”   But Jem wants what she wants.  Her objective — of being filled to the brim with love — never wavers; but its object shifts from the divine to something more down-to-earth.  It’s an effective coming-of-age story, in a different sort of setting than we’re used to.  “The Starling Girl” is the feature-film directorial debut by writer/director Laurel Parmet, and it earned a Grand Jury Prize nomination at Sundance in 2023.  There are solid performances all-round.  Jem’s inner turmoil is mirrored by that of her father, who is troubled by the legacy of his secular past.  Desire, the yearning for freedom, youth’s impatience with conventionality and with rigid rules, and the pressures to conform collide in a perceptive character study that feels very authentic.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language and some (mostly implied) sexual content.

“Judy” (U.K./ France/USA, 2019) (A-/A):  “I’m only Judy Garland for an hour a night.  The rest of the time… I just want what everyone wants.  I [just] seem to have a harder time getting it.”  A star whose fortunes have ebbed but whose grip on the imagination of her fans remains unbreakable, a forty-something Judy Garland comes to London in 1968 for a series of nightly live performances.  Behind her, in L.A., she doesn’t have a home or even a manager anymore.  She feels obliged to take work in Britain to pay the bills, even though she won’t be able to take her two young children with her.  Renée Zellweger delivers an award-winning performance as a woman who is at the self-same time badly buffeted by life and admirable.  Zellweger says Garland was a “combination of spirit and beauty and humility and grace and empathy.”  Ruthlessly victimized and used by the movie studio star system, the young Garland’s every move is controlled.  Still a minor, she’s plied with pills to suppress her appetite for food, stimulants to keep her working long hours, and sedatives to substitute for the sleep she finds so tormentingly elusive.  Her studio boss is portrayed as part oppressor, part incipient molester.

By early middle age, Garland has had four husbands, hepatitis, a suicide attempt, and a tracheotomy.  She has a certain nervous insecurity about her, but she still has a dry sense of humor, and, my goodness, she knows how to wow a crowd.  On opening night in London, she nearly has a panic attack before going on stage.  But, once there, she’s on auto-pilot — with talent and charm to spare:  “It seems we have a band here.  We may as well put them to use.”  She belts out a song (“I’ll go my way by myself”), but she’s a deflated picture of unhappiness at night’s end:  “What if I can’t do it again?”

We get a strong sense of the troubled trajectory of Garland’s life, with recurring flashbacks to her as a sweet young thing (played to perfection by British actress Darci Shaw).  But, as victimized and exploited as she undoubtedly was, there’s also a hint that something in Judy herself chose larger-than-life glamour over normalcy:  “I still believe in it, you know.  The love you find with an audience.  On a good night.”  Was she seduced at an early stage by the adulation of an audience?  If so, she learns later that an audience can be fickle and turn on the object of their adulation.  Still, the single most touching scene in the film has Judy spending an evening with two loyal fans of the same-gender persuasion.  Their time together is full of mutual empathy and tenderness.  Other strong supporting work is delivered by the aforementioned Darci Shaw, Jesse Buckley as Judy’s stern but sympathetic overseer in London, Rufus Sewell as an embittered ex-husband, Finn Wittrock as a younger man who shows a possibly self-serving interest in Judy, Michael Gambon as her British theater producer, Richard Cordery as the intimidating studio boss of Garland’s youth, and, briefly, Gemma-Leah Devereux as her adult daughter Lisa Minnelli.

Judy Garland’s star burned bright from an early age but was extinguished early. She radiates star-power, pathos, and vulnerability.  She may be damaged, but she never gives up:  “It’s all about hope, and we all need that.”  And she leaves us with a heartfelt plea:  “You won’t forget me, will you?  Promise you won’t.”  Renée Zellweger swept the awards for her lead role in “Judy,” winning Best Actress at the Oscars, BAFTA, the British Independent Film Awards, the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review, and the Screen Actors Guild.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Unbreakable” (USA, 2000) (A-/A):  “[The scariest thing in life] is not knowing your place in the world.  To not know why you are here…. These are mediocre times.  People are starting to lose hope.  It’s hard for most people to believe there are extraordinary things inside themselves as well as others.”  When we first meet David Dunn (Bruce Willis), he’s on a passenger train, slyly hiding his wedding ring as he tries to ingratiate himself with an attractive woman in the adjoining seat.  In the next scene, he’s in a hospital ER, the only survivor of a catastrophic derailment.  And he’s completely unscathed.  Why?  How?  Is it random chance, a one-in-a-million case of pure dumb luck?  Or, is there something else at work — something inexplicable and extraordinary?  On the face of it, David epitomizes ordinariness.  Early prospects for a career in professional football have passed him by in favor of ordinary work as a security guard at a sports stadium.  His marriage is in trouble.  And a miasma of grey discontent has drowned all sense of meaning in his life.  That’s why he gradually becomes intrigued when he is approached by a stranger (Samuel J. Jackson’s Elijah) who believes, fervently and single-mindedly, that David is his polar opposite.  Elijah has severe brittle bone syndrome and has found a refuge in the stories and art of comic books.  But that fascination is obsessive, fueling his conviction that his own extreme physical fragility is mirrored by what he is convinced is David’s near-invulnerability.  What, he asks, if David, unwittingly, is “a person put here to protect the rest of us.  To guard us.”

It sounds like the introduction to a fantasy, but this wonderfully ingenious and deeply moving story, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is utterly realistic.  No one here wears a cape, let alone leaps tall buildings in a single bound.  On the contrary, what unfolds is as much a psychological drama, firmly anchored in strong characterization, as it is a tale of physical conflict.  Elijah sees the world through comic book tropes and symbols, for they have been his only source of succor and inspiration in a lonely, hobbled, and terribly vulnerable existence.   But, is there anything to his ardent conviction?  Or is the power of suggestion — if not outright mass hysteria — the only ‘superpower’ at work here?  David’s changing view of himself and his burgeoning sense of purpose affect the dynamics of his troubled relationship with his wife (Robin Wright’s Audrey) and young son (Spencer Treat Clark’s Joseph).  But are the changes that David senses grounded in objective reality or in a subjective need for meaning?  The result is a reflection on destiny, on choices, on obsession, on the divide between right and wrong, and on the subtle question of what is truly extraordinary in life.  It combines elements of a mystery, a suspense drama, and a poignant, relationship-driven, character study.  Its understated performances get a thrilling jolt of emotional energy every time the powerfully emotive score by James Newton Howard is heard — music that earned a place in a recent book about the 100 best film scores of all time.   Although “Unbreakable” looks and unfolds nothing like a genre film, the “American Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films” found kinship with its themes, since they nominated it for the Saturn Award as the Best Film of the Year in those categories.  For mature audiences:  Emotionally intense with some implied violence.

“Past Lives” (USA/South Korea, 2023) (B/B+):  “There’s a word in Korean — ‘In-yun.’  It means ‘providence.’  Or ‘fate.’  But it’s specifically about relationships between people…. It’s an In-jun if two strangers even walk by each other in the street and their clothes accidentally brush.”  Are we fated to be drawn to certain people, to feel an instinctive connection?  Are certain people simply meant to be in our lives?  This semi-autobiographical story from South Korean-Canadian writer and director Celine Song follows the recurring intersections in the lives of Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo).  They are (chaste) first loves at the tender age of 12.  But Nora, who then goes by the name Na-Young, emigrates to Toronto (which is barely seen in the film) with her parents and sister, leaving Hae Sung bereft.  Twelve years later, Nora is a playwright living in New York when Hae Sung reaches out.  They reconnect by video-calls after the dozen year separation, and the old magic reignites in their adult selves.  They’ve missed each other, though, in Nora’s case, it seems she wasn’t conscious of it until their orbits bring them back into contact.  But distance and different life trajectories cause Nora to put a pause on their budding feelings:  “I want to accomplish something here.  I want to commit to my life here, but I’m sitting around looking up flights to Seoul.”  It’s a long pause indeed:  another twelve years pass.  By now, Nora is married to a Jewish-American writer named Arthur (John Magaro), who confides, “Sometimes I get scared…. You dream in a language that I can’t understand.  It’s like there’s whole place inside of you where I can’t go.”  For his part, Hae Sung is still single, having broken up with a girlfriend, and he wants to visit.  Is he the man Nora is truly meant to be with?

The film is very quiet, very gently-paced, and very subdued.  It’s a thoughtful, engaging meditation on relationships, on the role chance (or fate?) plays in our lives, on the roads not taken, and on the ways our inner selves evolve with the passage of time and life’s experiences.  There are no emotional fireworks here.  The emotions at play are understated and the result feels more cerebral than visceral.  “Past Lives” has received high marks from critics and audiences alike.  The former have described it as “elegant,” “mesmerizing,” “subtle,” “sublime,” and “sophisticated.”  There’s a poignancy at the heart of this “minimalist romance,” which its writer/director says is “about life itself.”  She says that, “The thing I care about is language and character,” and that’s where the film’s strengths lie, along with two gently affecting lead performances.  Much of the dialogue is in Korean (with subtitles).  For ages 18+:  Coarse language in one scene.

For a sneak peak, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA244xewjcI

“Juniper” (New Zealand, 2021) (B/B+):  When a discontented teenage boy is sent home from private boarding school, he learns that he and his widowed father are about to have a difficult guest, in the form of the boy’s take-no-prisoners grandmother.  She has long been estranged from his father.  As for Sam, he’s never met her, and he’d rather keep it that way.  Still crushed by the death of his mother, Sam (George Ferrier) is on a lost, self-destructive course.  It doesn’t help that his father (Martin Csokas) is called away to England, leaving Sam to deal with Ruth, played by the indomitable Charlotte Rampling in an award-caliber performance, on his own.  Ostensibly, she has come to New Zealand, with her young private nurse (Edith Poon), to recover from a shattered leg; and, against his wishes, Sam is drafted to assist with her care.

To say the two do not hit it off is to put it mildly — very mildly.  Ruth is imperious, unsentimental, iconoclastic, and ruthlessly unfiltered.  And she downs copious amounts of gin.  Her nurse Sarah says, “She has the constitution of a goat.”  And she’s got an ornery disposition to match.  But, gradually, unexpectedly, the boy and the aloof matriarch develop a connection and mutual respect.  She teaches him to embrace his life and to be authentic about his feelings: “At least you’re a fighter,” she observes.  She introduces him to her favorite time of day:  “Most people like sunsets.  I love the sunrise.  The light allows the imagination in.”  As a veteran photojournalist who spent her life covering the frontlines of wars, Ruth has seen a lot of life — and death.  She can size others up at a glance, and she’s got a battle-hardened, no-nonsense approach to everyone who crosses her path.  Ruth is not one to suffer fools, gladly or otherwise; but, she’s also stubborn, abrasive and not at all inclined to observe proprieties or spare the feelings of others.  Somehow, these two people are just what the other needs in this bittersweet, character-driven story about reconciliation and emotional healing.  The result, written and directed by Matthew J. Saville, is a drama that ably blends sad moments, heartwarming moments, and some dryly humorous ones.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; brief implied sexual content; and adult subject-matter.

For a sneak peak, here’s the trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwR4CIeMCzs

“Oslo, August 31st” (Norway/Denmark/Sweden, 2011) (B+/A-):  “It’ll get better.  It’ll all work out.  Except it won’t.”  That’s the gloomy self-prognosis by a young man at a countryside drug rehabilitation facility who’s about to released for one day in the city for a job interview.  Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) isn’t optimistic:  “Look at me.  I’m 34 years old.  I have nothing.  I can’t start from scratch.”  But can he find the wherewithal to reassemble his squandered life?  We get a kind of road-story, a day in one man’s life, a reflection on being that’s conversational, philosophical, and gently-paced.   There’s a nice scene in a cafe in which the solitary Anders overhears snippets of conversations around him — bits and pieces of others’ lives.  Sometimes, the camera follows this or that passerby, listening in to mundane moments in their lives.  One woman recites a fanciful wish list, culminating with “And be loved.”  Anders is unlikely to feel that any of those things are within reach for him.

The film, directed and co-written by Joachim Trier, feels like a reverie at times.  Anders’ voice-over remembrance of his parents is mostly positive, but even it cannot escape a tinge of sadness and regret:  “They never taught me to cook or build a relationship… They never told me how friendship dissolves, until you’re strangers, friends in name only.”  Anders sees himself as “a loser.”  But are any of us truly beyond repair, forever relegated to the shadows or the periphery of life?  The result is the odyssey of a world-weary soul.  Even in the company of others, he always seems solitary and detached, an outsider looking in.  It’s an up-close-and-personal look at one day in the life of one human being.  It was nominated for the “Un Certain Regard” prize at Cannes and for Best Foreign Film at France’s Academy Awards.  And it had five nominations (including Actor) at a prominent film festival in Norway, winning Best Director and Editing.  Technical flaw:  The DVD subtitles are much too small.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language and adult subject-matter.

“A Man Called Otto” (Sweden/USA, 2022) (B-/B):  “Are you always this unfriendly?” Tom Hanks plays the eponymous “grumpy old bastard” in this American remake of the 2015 Swedish film, “A Man Called Ove.”  Embittered by the death of the love of his life, Otto is obsessive, truculent, and verging on misanthropic.  He’s none too fond of dogs and cats — and that goes double for people.  As the self-appointed caretaker, rules-enforcer, and fault-finder of his small residential neighborhood, Otto is ready to shrug off this mortal coil, as depicted in some humorously unsuccessful attempts at closing the book on his life.  But into that life comes a new Hispanic neighbor Marisol (Mariana Treviño) who insists on being friendly, despite Otto’s resolute determination to thwart her efforts at reaching the man behind the sour demeanor.   She’s cheerfully ebullient to his surly.  A redemptive arc ensues.  Its mix of humor, sentiment, and serious themes about there being more to each of us than meets the eye will win you over in the end.  At first, we weren’t sure we entirely bought the usually affable Tom Hanks as this embittered and determinedly rude man.  And would anyone be so insistent on befriending him in the face of rebuffs that would send anyone else running?  What propels Marisol’s relentless good cheer?  There’s an element of whimsy here which prevails over such purely practical questions, and these characters will grow on you as their stories evolve.

“The Courier” (U.K./USA, 2020) (B+):  An ordinary British businessman (Benedict Cumberbatch) is recruited to be the clandestine contact for a high-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer (Merab Ninidze) who fears that nuclear war between the two superpowers is coming and wants to prevent it.  Based on a true story leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the film opens two years earlier with a thunderous speech by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.  Among his audience is the man (Nimidze’s Oleg Penkovsky) who runs his country’s ‘state committee for scientific research.’  He’s well-versed in the art of spycraft; but, when he gets a message to Western intelligence officials at the CIA and MI6 (Rachel Brosnahan and Angus Wright, respectively), they decide that he should be approached by someone who is both a civilian and an outsider.  A skeptical Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch) gets the nod and goes alone to Moscow, ostensibly to drum up commercial business during the Cold War.  The film gets dramatic impact from its ensuing ‘fish out of water’ scenario.  It gets its humanity from the unlooked for friendship that develops between the two men.  And, the stress their dangerous undertaking places on their spouses (Jessie Buckley and Emma Penzina), who initially know nothing but perceive the tension, adds to the human impact of their story.  The result is a very fine character-driven suspense story about integrity and unexpected courage, which earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Merab Ninidze at the British Independent Film Awards.   And the moral to the story is as apt as ever:  “Maybe we’re only two people; but that is how things change.”  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“The Mauritanian” (U.K./USA, 2021) (A-/A):   Here’s a most unexpected surprise, based on a true story.  Given its subject-matter, we were braced for a downbeat movie; instead, we got one of the most uplifting films we’ve seen in years!  In November 2001, a man attending a family celebration in the northwest African country of Mauritania is taken away by soldiers.  It seems he’s wanted for questioning by Americans.   He is transferred to their custody and remains a prisoner of ‘the war on terror’ for the next fourteen years — never charged with a crime, and, at least as portrayed in the film, completely innocent of any involvement in terrorism.

Another man might have been embittered and/or radicalized by the ordeal.  But not the story’s protagonist.  A fundamentally good and decent man, Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim) has such strength of character that he never gives into hatred.  Nor does give up on his fellow human beings, not even his captors.  Indiscriminately tarred with a very wide brush, Slahi is suspected of much, but guilty of nothing.  “This dude is the al-Qaeda Forrest Gump,” someone says in connection with the preposterous assertion that he recruited two of the 9/11 hijackers.  The utter dearth of evidence against him counts for nothing in the face of presumed guilt by the slightest association.  Here is a portrait of indomitable human spirit and grace, an affable good nature that does not respond in kind to the injustice meted out to him.  And there are other figures of integrity here, too — among the pro bono legal defense team (Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley) and among the military prosecutors (Benedict Cumberbatch).  They are sympathetic, admirable characters, and so is the film’s Slahi.  Charismatic, with an active sense of humor, the fact that he is convincingly Westernized in manner and bearing removes the distance between us and him which a perception of ‘otherness’ might otherwise have engendered.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans and most of the rest of the Free World threw our professed regard for the rule of law and universal human rights out the window, recklessly trading our freedoms for the illusion of security.  Fundamental legal rights, rights which are an essential part of our core values, guarantee that no one may be imprisoned without charge and without a prompt, open, and fair trial.  Yet, the United States and its allies, in the name of protecting ourselves from those who would harm us, inflicted dire harm upon ourselves through such travesties as so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’ (a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction and unlawful transfer to another state), coercive interrogations (including the innocuous-sounding ‘waterboarding’) that amounted to torture, cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners (remember Abu Ghraib?), denial of the right to counsel, search and surveillance (including mass surveillance of law-abiding citizens) without an warrant by a judge supported by reasonable and probable grounds, and indefinite detention without charge or trial.  Those behaviors are, without exception, anathema to our core legal and human rights.  The most infamous of the unlawful holding facilities was Guantanamo Bay, an American military enclave on the coast on Cuba.  People who should have known better — among them, lawyers, elected legislators, law enforcement agencies, diplomatic and military officials, judges, and even some journalists — ‘justified’ the negating of basic rights at such places through the pernicious lie that they were situated “outside U.S. legal jurisdiction.”  These egregious breaches of basic rights ignored the well-established principle that we must not neglect the rights of ‘the worst of us’ lest we thereby undermine the rights of ‘the best of us.’  Indeed, in 1769, a jurist stated that maxim that the law holds that ‘it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent be unjustly convicted.’  Shockingly, those basic precepts were thrown to the four winds in much of the Free World in reaction to the fear of terrorism.  Out of fear, we inflicted violent harm upon our own most cherished rights and values, in the process inflicting more harm upon ourselves than terrorists ever could.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, “The Mauritanian” is a remarkably uplifting, inspiring even, story about overcoming injustice.  Based upon the book cowritten by Slahi himself, it was nominated for Best Film, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Best British Film at BAFTA; for Actor and Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes; and for Best European Actor at the European Film Awards.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; brief sexual talk; brief violence; adult subject-matter.

“Emily” (U.K./USA, 2022) (B+):   How remarkable that three sisters in an isolated corner of England in the early 19th century should each be possessed of such astonishing literary and poetic talent.  Yet, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë each produced enduring works of literature (respectively, “Jane Eyre,” “Wuthering Heights,” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”).  They grew up in a parsonage in Yorkshire, endured the too-early loss of their mother, and never married.  Yet, even in childhood, they, and their likewise talented brother Branwell, demonstrated imaginations which were precocious, audacious, and voracious, as they peopled their imaginary countries of Gondal and Angria with an eclectic cast of characters, intrigues, and high romance.  Here, actress (1999’s excellent “Mansfield Park”) turned writer and first-time director, Frances O’Connor imagines the adult Emily as the tempestuous heroine of her own fiction, in a portrayal that could have sprung fully-born from Emily’s own poetry:  “No coward soul is mine / No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.”

The film’s Emily (Emma Mackey) rarely ventures beyond the cloistered bounds of her country home; but, her spirit and intellect know no boundaries.  As the real-life Emily said:  “’Tis all that I implore; / In life and death a chainless soul, / With courage to endure.”  Impatient with conformity and with arbitrary notions of propriety, she is portrayed as an impetuous rebel, and the film ascribes to her life some intimations of the characters and situations from “Wuthering Heights.”  But being different comes at a cost:  “Is there something wrong with me brother?  People in the village call me the strange one.”  The film’s Emily is a riddle wrapped in an enigma.  Why is her romantic relationship with a young curate (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) so unstable?  Why is she at odds with her disapproving elder sister Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling), to whom she haughtily declares:  “I’ve always been beyond your comprehension and always will.”  Is the film’s Emily determined to make a tragic heroine out of herself, like her similarly romantically-charged counterpart in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman?”  Why is she so needlessly harsh in giving an opinion of the first two chapters of her brother’s (Fionn Whitehead) book, dismissing it as “lazy writing?”  Her rejection of his work hurts him.  Does she do it because she’s hurting, too?  Or because she is disappointed in him for other reasons?  Or because he has fallen short of his potential?   Someone says to Emily, “I think there’s something ungodly in you.”

The film boasts a lovely setting, with Haworth amidst the moors of Yorkshire.  There’s a visceral sense of place and of nature.  When Emily sits by her window at night, we hear the rustling trees.  When she wanders the moonlit moors, we hear an operatic soprano.  The film bearing her name is a poetical imagining of the real Emily Brontë, postulating her as a creative phenom who was driven to live the drama she created on the page in her fiction and poetry, a young woman who was physically tied to a prosaic reality but whose soul was truly chainless through the sheer force of her will-power and imagination.  Not so much a straightforward biopic, “Emily” is instead a poetic reimagining of its eponymous creative spirit.

“Emily” had four nominations at the British Independent Film Awards, three of which were for acting, as Best Lead (Emma Mackey), Best Supporting Actor (Fionn Whitehead’s Branwell), and Best Ensemble Cast.   For ages 18+:  Brief nudity and brief sexual content.

“The Quiet Girl” [“An Cailín Ciúin”] (Ireland, 2022) (B/B+):   Kindness, gentleness, and love make all the difference in our lives.   To be deprived of them is to be deprived of something every bit as essential as food, water, and shelter.  Young Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is overlooked and neglected in a dysfunctional, hard-scrabble rural household:  her older siblings dismiss her, her over-stretched mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) has no time for her, and her irresponsible father (Michael Patricis) is a father in name only.  With yet another baby on the way, they relieve themselves of one mouth to feed by fostering Cáit out to some childless relatives on well-run farm a few hours away.  Here she is greeted warmly by her aunt Eibhlín (a standout performance by Carrie Crowley):  “We’ll keep the child gladly.  She’s more than welcome.”  She brushes the girl’s hair, introduces her to warm baths, holds her hand as they walk to the well for water, and gives her attention and care.  Eventually, the more stand-offish uncle Seán (Andrew Bennett) warms to Cáit, too.  And the girl blossoms, like a plant getting its first taste of life-giving sunshine.  Her quiet and introverted demeanor is replaced by confidence and requited affection.  She experiences happiness and belonging for the first time.

Seán tells Cáit that her aunt “wants to find the good in other people, hoping she won’t be disappointed.”   As a foster family, these three people find healing and wholeness with each other.  It’s a simple notion, simply told, but no less profound and heartfelt for its very simplicity.   With its study of the curative power of human kindness and love, it’s a strong argument for the importance of nurture in forming a healthy human being.  There are moments of humor, and there’s an effective succession of brief scenes of domestic life on the idyllic farm which unfold as we hear Eibhlín’s voice in an a cappella song.  The story ends rather suddenly; but we choose to interpret the touching final moment — in which a single word is spoken twice, in a different tone and with a different meaning — as a hopeful one.

Written and directed by Colm Bairéad, the film is based on the story “Foster” by Claire Keegan.  Among its many awards and nominations, “The Quiet Girl” was nominated at the Oscars as Best Foreign Language Film.  It had the same nomination at BAFTA, where it was also nominated for Adapted Screenplay.  At Ireland’s Academy Awards, it won Best Film, Director, Actress (young Catherine Clinch), and Editing; and Carrie Crowley had a well-deserved nomination as Supporting Actress.  It won Best Cinematography at the European Film Awards.  The film is mostly in Gaelic; but the English subtitles on the DVD are much smaller than they ought to be.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

“The Son” (U.K./France, 2022) (B+):  “It’s just I’m not made like other people.  Sometimes I feel like I’m not made for this life.  And I can’t deal with any of it.  Even so, I try every day, with all my strength.  But I just can’t deal with any of it, because… Because I’m in pain.  All the time.  And I’m tired.  I’m tired of being in pain.”  What could be worse for any parent than to see their child in distress?  The marital break-up of Peter (Hugh Jackman) and Kate (Laura Dern) has left a legacy of what the filmmaker describes as ‘heartbreak, guilt, confusion, and resentments’ in its wake.  The resulting emotional upheaval has scarred their seventeen-year-old son Nicholas (Zen McGrath).  He’s become reclusive, he’s been skipping school, and he scares his mother.  It’s decided that he’ll move in with his father and his father’s second wife, Beth (Vanessa Kirby, who’ll be seen later this year as Joséphine de Beauharnais in “Napoleon”), and their infant son.  Peter labors under a sense of guilt for not always ‘being there’ for his teenage son.  A successful and ambitious New York lawyer, Peter puts a lot of his focus on his career.  In that respect, he is following in the footsteps of his own father (Anthony Hopkins) even though the difficult relationship he had with his remote and formidable parent still clearly troubles him.  That poses the question:  How much are we molded and influenced by ‘intergenerational reverberations of neglect and trauma?’

“The Son” is directed by France’s Florian Zeller (2020’s “The Father”), based on his play; he co-wrote the screenplay with Christopher Hampton and relocated the story to America.  It’s a visceral depiction of a father’s anguished attempts to help his son, without ever fully understanding what’s ailing him.  Nicholas is afflicted with severe depression, an existential angst (“It’s life.  It’s weighing me down…  I don’t think I’m ever going to measure up”) with which Nicholas’ increasingly concerned family is ill-equipped to cope.  They love Nicholas; but love isn’t a panacea.  And their reactions run the gamut from confidence to self-doubt, from imploring to scolding, from sympathy to impatient frustration, and from wishful thinking to despair.

“The Son” was nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes; and it was nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film) at the Venice Film Festival.   For ages 18+:  Occasional coarse language; adult subject matter.

“Full Time” [“À plein temps”] (France, 2021) (A-/A):  “You never stop.”  That’s what someone says to this film’s hard-pressed protagonist, and truer words were never spoken.  Her life is a pressure-cooker of stress in all shapes and sizes:  she is a single-mother; she has a long commute to her workplace in Paris, a commute that’s become an outright ordeal thanks to a transit strike that shows no sign of ending; her daughter’s nanny is getting restive about her resulting ever-later returns to home; she’s under pressure at work (as the head chambermaid at a five-star hotel); she has to sneak away to an interview for a better job; her ex-husband is behind in the alimony and not answering her calls; the hot water is on the fritz; she’s saddled with a green trainee at work; and the bank is about to pull her line of credit.  Julie (Laure Calamy) can’t win for trying, but, my, does she try — and try and try.

She’s capable, she’s good under pressure, and she thinks on her feet, pivoting and extemporizing to deal with each crisis that comes her way.  But will her indomitability win the day?  How can it, under the assault of so many different problems?  Taken individually, those problems are the stuff of everyday life, but the film’s pacing is very much that of a thriller — frenetic and relentless, with tension that never lets up.  The film’s writer/director Eric Gravel’s angle on the story was to conjure “the feeling we have if we have to run all day.”  As to his protagonist:  “She’s a rock.  She cracks from everywhere, but she doesn’t break.  She lives in the present; she doesn’t have time to think of anything else.  [Her] time zone is now and only now.”

Billed as a “kinetic real-world thriller,” the film and the lead performance give us a protagonist in whom we become instantly invested.  One observer aptly noted Julie’s “grace under pressure, constancy, steady presence, [and] graceful dignity.”  We root for her; we feel her pain; we inhabit her subjectivity.  And we see hints of the toll that unremitting stress and strain are taking beneath her mostly composed exterior.  The result is not to be missed — as involving as it is original.  “Full Time” won Best Actress and Director at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, where it was also nominated as Best Film of the Year.  At the Césars (France’s Academy Awards), it was nominated for Actress and Original Screenplay, and it won Editing and Original Music.  For ages 18+:  Occasional coarse language.

“One Fine Morning” [“Un beau matin”] (France/U.K./Germany, 2022) (B+):  “I don’t know what to hang onto.”  Sometimes in life, all of our certainties, our easy self-assurance that what’s (and who’s) familiar will still be there tomorrow, the way we take for granted the fixed points in our own quotidian firmament, all of that, and more, can be undermined, and it can be shaken to its core.  When that happens, what, indeed, can we hang onto?   Sandra Kienzler (Léa Seydoux) is a still-young woman, whose life revolves around raising her young daughter, being a caregiver for her afflicted father, and working as a translator.  Widowed for five years, she isn’t looking for romance (“I just feel my love life is behind me.”); but, she unexpectedly finds it with a longtime friend, Clément (Melvil Poupaud).  But he is married to someone else, with a child of his own, so insecurity is baked into their newly found passion for each other.

And insecurity is the last thing Sandra needs.  Her father Georg (Pascal Greggory), an esteemed professor of philosophy, is beset with a neurodegenerative disease.  It has blinded him; now it is relentlessly robbing this urbane man of letters of his cognitive abilities.  Seydoux does an admirably understated job of conveying the terrible toll her father’s implacable, pitiless decline has on her.  Despair, helplessness, sorrow, unbearable stress, anger — they’re all there, under the surface.  Every once in awhile, Sandra’s mask slips — as in a standout, quietly emotional scene on a train.

When his family can no longer adequately care for Georg in his own flat, his toughly practical ex-wife (played by Nicole Garcia) pushes the family to place him in an institution.  That means getting rid of his belongings, including his beloved books.  Sandra objects, pointing out that, “His books are his life.”  More than that, they represent a tangible connection between Sandra and her father:  “I feel closer to my father with his books than with him.  His books are more him than the person at the nursing home.  There, it’s his bodily envelope.  Here, his soul.”

It’s a poetical passage; an even more moving one comes later.  When Sandra discovers a journal kept by her father in the early days of his affliction, we hear his impressionistic, stream of consciousness words read by a male voice.  And they are powerfully affecting and authentic:  “Earthquake, tsunami, insidious creeping serpant… Interrogations.  Anxiety.  What’s happening to me?  What must I do?  I try to get used to the changes my new state require…  The irony of things.  This disease deprives me of what is dearest to me…. [leaving only the] sense of an abyss, of being outside the world, away from others.”

Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve (whose academic background in German philosophy peeps through in the story and characters), “One Fine Morning” is an understated character study that’s admirably subtle and adeptly performed.  It won an award at Cannes and was nominated for Best European Actress at the European Film Awards.  It reminds us to “Make the most of being together.”  And, as the closing credits begin, a song’s lyrics have a hopeful message:  “Love will remain, when knowledge has passed away.”  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; brief nudity; brief sexual content.

“Parallel Mothers” [“Madres Paralelas”] (Spain/France, 2021) (B/B+):  Two lives intersect by pure chance, become intertwined, and have a lasting impact on each other.   Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit) find themselves roommates in a hospital maternity ward.  Each of them has become pregnant without intending to do so.  Janis, a successful middle-aged professional photographer, welcomes the impending arrival of a baby, while Ana, an adolescent, does not.  But, the pair of single mothers have more in common than it seems at first, even as each of their lives goes in unexpected directions.  The result, from acclaimed writer/director Pedro Almodóvar, is two-thirds relationship-driven, one-third situational drama.  It’s a bit melodramatic in tone, and there’s something vaguely Hitchcockian about it.  There’s a strong performance by Cruz, who is ably supported by Smit, Israel Elejalde, and the others, with the lovely Aítana Sánchez-Gijón (from 1995’s “A Walk in the Clouds”) making an impression as Ana’s actress mother.

Besides the eponymous parallel mothers, there’s a secondary storyline about the lasting legacy of Spain’s bitter and deadly civil war.  Generations have past, but the crimes of yesteryear have not been forgotten by their victims’ kin.  Trouble is:  that eminently worthwhile subject-matter doesn’t entirely gel with the domestic story set in the here and now; instead, it ends up feeling like a pro forma nod to something from an altogether different movie.

“Parallel Mothers” earned Oscar nominations for Actress and Original Score (by Alberto Iglesias).  It was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film at BAFTA, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Film Awards, and France’s Academy Awards (the Césars).  It got five big nominations at Spain’s Academy Awards (the Goyas), namely, Best Film, Actress, two Supporting Actresses, and Director.  For ages 18+:  Brief sexual content; adult subject-matter.

“Aftersun” (U.K./USA, 2022) (B/B+):  “When you were eleven, what did you think you would be doing now?”  The 30-ish father who is asked that innocent question by his young daughter is seen in silhouette beside a window.  Instead of answering, he averts his head behind a curtain.  It’s a moment, just a moment, but it adroitly hints at shattered hopes and failed dreams.  Calum’s marriage has failed.  But he has charge of young Sophie during her school break, and they have traveled from Great Britain for a few days of sunshine at a holiday resort in Turkey.

The place is somewhat dowdy — more adequate than memorable.  What unfolds there is deceptively mundane, a quotidian routine of sunbathing by the pool, amusement in the electronic games room, a diving excursion, a visit to an ancient outdoor amphitheater, and nightly after-dinner entertainment.  Those scenes are interspersed with recurring glimpses of an adult Sophie imagining her father at nighttime raves, where, amidst the pulsing strobe lights, he is surrounded by others on the dance floor, yet profoundly, poignantly alone.  It’s a few days in the lives of a father and daughter.  The close bond between parent and child is evident, and they seem glad of each other’s company:  “We’re both underneath the same sky, so we’re sort of together [even when we’re apart].”   But, this understated window into their relationship challenges us to be as perceptive as young Sophie, who senses the unspoken nuances around her.   It’s all about close bonds, memories, empathy, and the terrible burden of our own disappointments.

Sophie is played with impressive authenticity by Frankie Corio, who captures the essence of childhood curiosity:  she’s old enough to watch with interest the interactions and flirtations of teenage kids at the resort; she experiences a first kiss; and she bravely does her own thing on the karaoke stage, even when her father balks at joining her.  Paul Mascal earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Calum, a good father who harbors an inner angst.  When his repressed unhappiness abruptly breaks through, it’s as though the seeming balm of sunshine was a mere illusion, hiding a pall of inner sadness about which we are left to draw our own conclusions.  (That also goes for the recurring images of paragliders drifting overhead.)  Gently-paced but very closely-observed, “Aftersun” is an impressionistic and enigmatic deep dive into psyches of its two characters.

“Aftersun” was one of the most talked about films at Cannes in 2022.  Among its great many awards and nominations, it was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars.  It won Best Debut Director (Charlotte Wells, who also wrote the screenplay) at BAFTA, where it was nominated for Best British Film of the Year, Best Casting, and Best Actor.  It won Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, where it was nominated for Best Lead, Best Breakthrough Performance, Editing, and Cinematography.  It swept the Toronto Film Critics winning Best Film, Director, Actor, and First Feature.   At the Directors Guild of America, it won Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a First-Time Feature Film.  And, it won Best British Independent Film, Director, and Screenplay at the British Independent Film Awards, where it was nominated for Best Joint Lead Performance.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

“The Last Vermeer” (USA, 2019) (B+/A-):  One part mystery and two parts character study, this story takes place in The Netherlands in May 1945, three months after the fall of Nazi Germany.  “A Dutch Jew with a Canadian uniform,” Captain Joseph Piller (Claes Bang) is in charge of finding out who sold stolen art to the Nazis.  Among the priceless works recovered is a painting called “Christ and the Adultress” by Johannes Vermeer.  And chief among the suspects is art dealer Han van Meegeren.  He’s as cool and composed as he is urbane and witty.  Someone calls him “a raging narcissist and a cunning devil.”  But, he’s also, indisputably, “the life of the party.”  Piller concludes that, depending on whom you ask, his suspect is “either Satan or a saint.”  But, is he a collaborator and/or a dealer in stolen art?

Guy Pearce delivers a winning performance as the colorful, worldly, self-confident Meegeren.  Is he a willing malefactor?  Is he unapologetically amoral?  Or does he maintain his own moral strictures?  When someone points out that the powerful Nazi Hermann Goring paid a fortune for the Vermeer, Megeeren replies that that only “proves that pigs can sometimes have taste.  Or too much money.”

Loosely based on actual events, this directorial debut by Dan Friedkin gets high marks for its ambiguous figure who may be villain, victim, or a bit of both.  One thing’s certain:  he’s an astute observer of human nature.   Guy Pearce steals the show (whether or not he also steals the art), and he is ably supported by a solid ensemble cast — with its distaff members (Olivia Grant, Vicky Krieps, Marie Bach Hansen, and Susannah Doyle) making a particularly strong impression.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Women Talking” (USA, 2022) (A-):  “We had only 24 hours to decide what world you would be born into.”  So says a young mother to her unborn child.   For the women and girls on this isolated religious farming community have only just realized that they have been drugged and sexually assaulted for years.  While only some of the men have committed those crimes, nearly all of the men have been complicit — by conveniently dismissing half-remembered molestation as lies told by girls “to get attention” or as over-active “female imagination;” by perpetuating the lopsided power imbalance that has relegated an entire gender to subservience; and by demanding that the victims forgive the malefactors or face excommunication.  With the men away for twenty-four hours, the women have to decide between three options:  “Do Nothing.  Stay and Fight.  Leave.”

Happily, the first of those options, to do nothing, is dismissed very early on.  Had it been otherwise, the story would have fatally tried the patience of indignant viewers.  Instead, we get a freewheeling group conversation in a hayloft that encompasses matters social, political, moral, religious, communal, practical, philosophical, poetic, and deeply personal.   The clash of opposing perspectives feels visceral and utterly authentic.  One points out, “It is part of our faith to forgive.  We have always forgiven those who have wronged us.  Why not now?”  Another asks, “Is forgiveness that’s forced upon us true forgiveness?”  Still another angrily declares, “I would rather stand my ground and shoot each man in the heart than flee!  And I’ll deal with  God’s wrath if I have to.”

Whether they fight or flee, the women decide that they need to formulate a positive plan for the kind of society they want to replace the broken, malignant one in which they have lived:  “We are women without a voice… All we have are our dreams.  So, of course we are dreamers.”  They realize that power, the power to participate meaningfully (and as of right) in decision-making is fundamental to a just and free society.  Someone asks, ‘Are we questioning God?’  The answer is:  “Not God.  Power.  The rules made [by men] in the name of God.”  If only every man, woman, and child in the theocratic tyranny in Iran (among other places) could hear those words (and see this movie)!

Here’s a story about ideas — not distant, theoretical ideas, but down-to-earth practical ones.  But what gives the film its great power is that those ideas are anchored in believable characters.  They have their situation and upbringing in common, but they are distinct individuals, each with their own, utterly credible, perspective.  And they are brought to life by an immensely talented ensemble cast, among them:  Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw, Frances McDormand, and Canada’s Sheila McCarthy — to name just a few.  It’s a story of empowerment, and it’s not to be missed.  Despite their differences, something unites these women:  “We have decided that we are entitled to three things:  “We want our children to be safe.  We want to be steadfast in our faith.  And we want to think.”  To attain those objectives, they resolve to convert their pain into the propellant they need to change their lives:  “Let’s absorb it ourselves.  Let’s inhale it, let’s digest it.  Let’s process it into fuel.”

Written and directed by Canada’s Sarah Polley, and based on the book by Miriam Toews, “Women Talking” is one of the best films of the year.  It won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, where it was a nominee for Best Film of the Year.  It was nominated for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards, where it won the Robert Altman Award for the best combined cast, director, and casting director.  It was nominated for Screenplay and Score (by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, of 2022’s “Tár” and 2019’s “Joker”) at the Golden Globes.  And it was a highly deserved nominee for Best Ensemble Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language and adult subject matter.

“Au revoir le bonheur” [“Goodbye Happiness”] (Canada, 2021) (B):  “Dad always said that our family is our greatest asset.”   When their father dies, four adult brothers converge on the vacation home where they grew up to honor their father’s passing.  They may share a common upbringing and a deep affection for their common home, but, they are otherwise as different as can be in temperament and situation.  One (François Arnaud’s Nicholas) has misfired at work and at love — with four kids by four different mothers.  Another, a playwright, is plagued by protracted writer’s block.  The third values success and profit above all else, while the fourth is beset with the conviction that he was overlooked by his father amidst his flashier siblings.  It’s a lighthearted, amiable look at how divisions and unity can coexist within a family.  There’s a likeable ensemble cast, with Arnaud, the lovely Charlotte Aubin (as his girlfriend), and Julie LeBreton (as the house’s off-season caretaker) each making a lasting impression.

Best of all is the beautiful setting — on the rolling, moor-like landscape of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  (The islands are part of Quebec, but they are situated closer to the Maritime Provinces.)  Their tranquil vistas are to die for.  Written and directed by Ken Scott, the film was nominated for Editing and Original Song at the Canadian Screen Awards.  The result is a gentle comedy that’s just for fun, with some mildly poignant life lessons thrown in.  For ages 18+:  Some brief coarse language and brief sexual references.

“Empire of Light” (U.K./USA, 2022) (B+/A-):   There’s a line in this film that will resonate with film devotees:  “That little beam of light is escape.”  The beam in question emanates from a film projector.  It’s our magical doorway into other places, other times, other lives, other what-ifs.  It’s a way to escape the cares, worries, and humdrum of our lives.  But it is not only an avenue of egress; it is also a way into other (vicarious) experiences and adventures.  The setting here is a grand old cinema in the coastal town of Margate in southeast England.  The staff at the Empire Theater are a surrogate family, and their character-driven story is at once gentle and touching.  Film here is a metaphor for life and for the light within us:  “A spark between the carbon makes the light.  And nothing happens without light.”  Light unexpectedly comes into the life of middle-aged Hilary (Olivia Coleman, who won the Best Actress Oscar for 2019’s “The Favourite” and the 2021 Primetime Emmy for her portrayal of Elizabeth II in “The Crown”) through a growing attachment to the new staffer Stephen (appealingly played by Michael Ward).  He’s younger, and he’s black — at a time (1981) when Britain is experiencing outbursts of racial intolerance by a loud minority.  But, they hit it off.  Hilary shrugs off the numbness of the psyche with which she’s been beset; but her new-found happiness prompts her to neglect the medications that moderate her mood swings.  She ends her dead-end sexual relationship with her married and somewhat predatory boss (Colin Firth, yes, Mr. Darcy himself) and she starts to bloom.

The film opens with a succession of quick vignettes — Hilary opening the theater, closing it, at home alone, having a solitary meal, and sleeping.  Her life revolves around work, where she supervises the staff, which includes Tom Brooke and the always engaging Toby Jones.  There’s an etched inscription on one of the walls that reads: “Find Where Light in Darkness Lies,” which might easily be the theme of this story.  There’s a whole unused and neglected floor to the building with a panoramic view of the ocean from its expansive reception space.  Hilary remarks, “It used to be beautiful,” to which Stephen replies, “It still is.”  And so is she.

There’s love here, and friendship, and wisdom:  “Don’t let them tell you what you can and can’t do.  No one’s going to give you the life you want.  You have to go out and get it.”  There’s poetry (courtesy of Tennyson) on the eve of a new year:  “Ring out wild bells to the wild sky / the flying cloud and the frosty light / The year is dying in the night / Ring out wild bells and let him die.”  There’s gentleness here (“As long as you were kind“), a gentle reverie, hopefulness, healing, and and a bittersweet account of things lost and things found.  The result is low-key but lovely.  Written and directed by Sam Mendes, the film was nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes, Cinematography at the Oscars, and Best British Film, Supporting Actor (M. Ward), and Cinematography at BAFTA.   For ages 18+:  Some coarse language and sexual references.

“The Banshees of Inisherin” (U.K./USA/Ireland, 2022) (B+):   “To our graves, we’re taking this.”  One day, one longtime friend tells the other, “I just don’t like you anymore.”  Their sudden sundering isn’t the result of a quarrel.  And it is precisely the stark absence of any real why or wherefore that makes the abrupt end of their friendship through unilateral edict by Colm (Brendan Gleeson) so incomprehensible to Pádraic (Colin Farrell).  It bewilders and confounds him, it hurts him deeply, it disillusions him, and it sticks in his craw.   He simply can’t come to terms with it, and being so tersely and unexpectedly rejected inevitably turns him to anger.  The eponymous setting is a small fictitious island off the coast of Ireland.  It was filmed on the real-life Aran Islands (part of County Galway), a setting that is utterly irresistible to those of us who are enraptured by rugged coastlines, a crashing surf, towering cliffs, grand vistas, and dramatic skyscapes.

It’s April 1, 1923, and a more literal civil war rages on the mainland.  But the fight between the two erstwhile friends has nothing to do with politics or partisanship.  To Pádraic, it is arbitrary and unjust; to Colm, it is an expression of a reevaluation of his life:  “We’ll keep aimlessly chatting and my life will keep dwindling… I’ll die with nothing to show for it.”  When Pádraic’s sister Siobhán (a truly winning performance by Kerry Condon) tries to uncover the reason for the breach, Colm tells her, “He’s dull…  I’ve changed.  I just don’t have a place for dullness in my life anymore.”

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, this film reunites him with Farrell and Gleeson after 2008’s darkly comedic “In Bruges.”  This film, too, is startlingly offbeat in tone.  On the surface, it plays as straight-faced drama — if you don’t count darkly humorous understatements like, “It was all going fine till he chopped off all his fingers.”  One part quirky character study, and one part dryly dark comedy with a seasoning of irony, it is gently paced, with a small cast (rounded out by the truly offbeat Dominic, played by Barry Keoghan).  All four of the key players were showered with award nominations.  Filmed on location, this story and these characters feel like they inhabit a play.  There’s a gentle affection for four-legged companions, like a miniature donkey and an anthropomorphically wise dog.  The result is highly unconventional, getting points for first-rate acting and sheer originality in the midst of its theater of the absurd scenario.

Among its great many nominations, the film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, (including Best Film, Actor, two different Supporting Actors, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay, Music, and Editing); the same nine nominations (plus Best British Film) at BAFTA; five acting nominations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards; eight nominations at the Golden Globes (winning as Best Film (Musical or Comedy) and Actor); and eleven nominations at the Irish Film & Television Awards.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language and brief sexual references.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (USA, 2019) (A):  “There is no normal life that is free from pain.”  But the good we can wrest from pain, anger, and loss is the revelatory subject of this wonderful film.  Based on a true story, it has a journalist (Matthew Rhys) assigned in 1998 to do a magazine profile of the popular children’s television host Fred Rogers (beautifully portrayed by Tom Hanks).  He’s gentle, he’s sweet-natured, and he exemplifies human decency at its best.  It’s a portrait of grace personified.  Very genuine, very good, and very much in the moment, its protagonist likes people, and he takes a sincere interest in their welfare, with an unerring instinct for recognizing damaged souls:  “You love people like me… broken people.”  There’s a magnetic, irresistible attraction to the man portrayed here, and real poignancy in the film’s treatment of brokenness, forgiveness, healing, and redemption.  The heartwarming result is one of the finest films of recent years.  Tom Hanks was nominated as a Best Supporting Actor in this film at the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA.  Highly recommended.

Full of affection, wisdom, humor, and love, “Belfast” is easily one of the best films of recent years.  Among its mountain of nominations and awards, it had seven Academy Award nominations (including Best Film, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actress), winning for Screenplay.  It won that same category at the Golden Globes.  It had six nominations at BAFTA, winning as Best British Film of the Year.  And it earned eleven nominations at the British Independent Film Awards.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Black Adam” (USA/Canada/New Zealand/Hungary, 2022) (C+):  “You may not have been a hero, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be one now.”  This lesser-known DC Comics character started off as a villain on the printed page.  Here, he’s more of an a reluctant hero.  A prologue sketches the story of a free people reduced to servitude in the fictional land of Kahndaq in 2,600 B.C. and the rise of a champion who is invested with the powers of a demigod.  Narrated by a young boy, it’s all cartoonish nonsense.  And, at first, things aren’t much better in the present-day, when the entombed title character is reawakened by the utterance of a silly “Shazam.”  He floats, he flies, he grabs missiles, he shoots lightning bolts, and he dispenses rough justice.  When someone points out, “Heroes don’t kill people,” he flatly replies, “Well, I do.”  A pedestrian plot about a pointless gang of baddies and an object that will convey dark powers is buoyed by Dwayne Johnson’s natural charisma and amusing banter (“Don’t touch him, he’s made of lightning”) between him and the quartet of more conventionally high-minded superheroes sent to apprehend him.  They become allies against a common enemy.  It’s good to see the former 007, Pierce Brosnan, again.  Ditto for the lovely Sarah Shahi, who made a strong impression on television’s “Person of Interest.”  And, there’s a nice riff on the climactic gunfight from “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” complete with some of the famous Ennio Morricone score.  The result is redeemed from mediocrity by its sense of humor and some good casting, with Aldis Hodge (as Hawkman) and Canada’s Bodhi Sabongui (as Adam’s youthful self-appointed guide to the modern world) in addition to those already named.

“Star Trek: Discovery — Season 4” (USA, 2022) (B/B+):  As with “Star Trek: Picard,” inconsistency bedevils what is, at times, a very good series.  Having reached its fourth season, “Discovery” has had more than enough time to shake off its flaws.  Yet they persist — in the form of uneven writing, too many misfired attempts at character development which only interrupt the story, and continued reliance on season-long story arcs which don’t need or deserve that much time.  The off-putting over-abundance of same-gender romantic relationships and gender ambiguity has only increased and multiplied over the seasons — with at least five continuing characters in this not at all engaging camp.  Why this preoccupation with unconventional pairings?  More non-mainstream social agenda proselytizing than good storytelling, it feels like heavy-handed didacticism run amok.

There are four standout episodes among this season’s offering of thirteen.  Pride of place goes to number six, “Stormy Weather” (B+/A-), which finds the ship lost in an inescapable void.  The premise is derivative of a similar empty expanse in a “Next Generation” episode, but it works just as effectively here.  (Coincidentally, this episode was directed by “Next Generation” cast member Jonathan Frakes.)  A drone sent ahead emits a mechanical scream, then disintegrates as if being eaten.  And the ship’s sentient A.I., Zora, whom we first met in the highly effective “Calypso” (one of 2018’s “Short Treks”) has an affecting moment when she says, “I’m afraid, Captain.”  Both moments are dramatically effective.  Episode eight, “All In” (B+), is in the same league, with an alien broker of contraband named Haz Mazaro very well conceived, acted, and visualized by the make-up department.  And David Ajala gives us more reasons to regard Book as one of the standout characters of the past two seasons.  In episode nine, “Rubicon” (B+), past and current bridge crew members (Nhan, Rhys, and Bryce) get some overdue screen time.  And the understated hint of incipient romance between Saru and T’Rina is both affecting and sweet.  Each of them is a great asset to the series.  Doug Jones brings great humanity to the role of the alien Saru every time he’s on screen.  He is dignified, gentle, kind, and wise:  “Each of us must sit with pain in our own way.”  Tara Rosling, playing the composed Vulcan leader T’Rina, brings her own brand of gravitas to the series.  The other top-four installment, episode five’s “The Example” (B+A-), has the Captain (Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham) and Book trying to save several prisoners who are from a society which imposes lifetime imprisonment for any and all crimes, regardless of how minor, as a way to make object lessons of lawbreakers.  The lead prisoner, unlike the others, has committed a serious crime and he is determined to do penance, even if it kills him:  “It’s my life, my debt to pay.”  He gets added poignancy by channeling a Native American look and demeanor.  The same episode introduces a new character, Roun Tarka (well played by Shawn Doyle), who is the resident genius drafted by the Federation to overcome the new threat to the galaxy. Brusque and none-too-humble, he nevetheless gets and holds our attention, though his character is later hobbled by a contrived backstory and yet another return to the terribly over-used same-gender relationship well.

On the other end of this season’s spectrum, episode eleven, “Rosetta” (C-), has meaningless mumbo-jumbo (an undefined “hyperfield”), the sudden materialization of extraneous plot drivers in the form of a dead planet and a sun surrounded by Dyson rings, a directing misstep which has the heroes stride down a hallway in silly slow-motion, a not very credible gamble on a reconnaissance mission when time is truly of the essence, some trivial relationship stuff, and a contrived reliance on conveniently encountered hallucinations to provide insight into the alien species the Discovery crew needs to contact.  So near the end the the season, this was a dull detour into navel gazing.

The aforementioned uneveness of the series’ conception and writing often finds expression in trite and trivial detours into silliness and soap opera.  Cases in point: Tilly’s self-doubt and her excessive silliness.  Mary Wiseman has the odd good moment, but too often her character is written as would-be broad comic relief.  Some characters (the bridge crew) aren’t used or developed enough; others (like the Captain’s mother) don’t need to be there at all.  On the ever recurring ambiguous gender front, Adira’s monologue to an unconscious Grey is tedious rather than moving.  On the plus side, there are some strong supporting players, like Oded Fehr’s Starfleet Admiral and Chelah Horsdal’s Federation President.  David Cronenberg gets some nice guest spots.  And Annabelle Wallis does affecting work giving a voice to the ship’s A.I., Zora.

When it’s good, Season 4 is very good; it’s a shame the writers could not maintain that consistently high standard throughout.  And, as Blu-ray extras go, it would have been nice to get more than one episode-long commentary to supplement the assorted behind-the-scenes feasturettes.

“Beast” (USA/Iceland, 2022) (D+/C-):  Iceland’s Baltasar Kormákur has made some good movies; but this is not one of them.  Maybe the heat from the on-location shoot got to him. A widower from New York takes his two young daughters on a photo-safari to South Africa, where they run afoul of an aggrieved rogue lion.  The two chief adult actors — Idris Elba and Sharlto Copley (playing against type as a sympathetic character) — are okay; the pair of youngsters less so.  But, the script and plotting nearly sink the whole thing.  What people say and do is just not credible.  The dad repeatedly warns his daughters to stay put in the relative safety of an enclosed motor vehicle.  Instead, the girls take turns wandering off alone in unknown country.  But, he’s not much better, embarking in the pitch dark of night, moments after a lethal lion attack, to find a man in a yellow shirt who might have the keys to another vehicle.  Off he goes, through woods and water, guided by nothing but dumb luck.  How does he keep track of his location relative to where he left his daughters?  Why do they insistently call him on a walkie-talkie and thereby announce his utterly vulnerable position to the eponymous predatory beast?  Why, before all of that, when the party of four comes across an entire village freshly slaughtered, do they not prudently beat a hasty retreat?  Why, later, do they stop for supplies at an abandoned building and neglect to shut the door behind them?  Why is their savvy guide so sure he’ll get friendly bear-hugs from some once semi-tame lions who are now living wild?  How on earth does a man survive a close encounter of the inevitably lethal kind with a fanged killer and emerge relatively unscathed, instead of mortally wounded?  The answer to all of those questions (and more!) is the same: bad writing.  It’s there, too, in the clumsy resentments that dominate the family banter when they’re not under attack.  The film manages some moments of suspense, and it offers an amusingly novel way of administering a tranquilizer (probably the film’s best moment); but there’s scarely an ounce of credibility from beginning to end.  And a recurring dream sequence involving the departed wife, who’d originally hailed from these parts, is kind of feeble.

“Top Gun: Maverick” (USA, 2022) (C+/B-):  When it’s in the air, this sequel to 1986’s “Top Gun” soars, as sleek jets operated by elite naval combat pilots hurtle through the sky at dizzying speeds and heights.  Set 30 years after the original (though 36 have passed in the real world), Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (with Tom Cruise reprising his lead role) is quite content not to have risen higher through the ranks.  He’s only happy in a cockpit, piloting a high performance jet fighter.  But the upper brass see things differently:  “You can’t get a promotion, you won’t retire. And despite your best efforts, you refuse to die.  Yet, here you are: [a] captain.  Why is that?”  With unmanned drones ever more in vogue, most of his superior officers see Maverick as a relic:  “The future is coming and you’re not in it.”  It comes as no surprise at all that our hero will prove them wrong, or die trying.  He’s assigned to train the cream of the flying crop for an all-but-impossible live fire mission.  But, with a dubious motto like “Don’t think.  Just do.” you may well wonder if Maverick will be content to fly a proverbial desk.  In contrast to all the aerial soaring, things feel a tad leaden back on terra firma — and too often heavyhanded to boot.   Aboard an aircraft carrier in a prologue, we get a hand-signal montage by the deck crew:  it’s supposed to look cool — the rituals of a macho fraternity — but drawing so much attention to it just comes across as silly.  It’s a music video in all but name.  Much later, Maverick gets his highly competitive students to bond in a game of pick-up football on a beach.  Boiling team spirit down to sunglasses-topped grins, glad-handing, and bare male chests feels oh-so-superficial and unoriginal.  When Maverick walks in the door at a rural diner, the entire clientele stares at him like he’s Tom Cruise.  What other possible reason would they have for being so astonished by the sight?  After all, they didn’t see him walk away from the crash that occurs off-screen.  As to the big mission, we get some mumbo-jumbo about “an unsanctioned uranium enrichment plant” in some unnamed foreign (and northerly, given all the snow) country. “Unsanctioned” by whom, exactly?  The word (and thence the plot’s rationale) means nothing in context.  And, the overuse of the pilots’ call signs (Maverick, Iceman, Hangman, Rooster, Phoenix, Fanboy, Coyote, et al.) is, again, meant to be cool, but it grates instead, seeming more juvenile than elite.  There’s nary a mention of Maverick’s love interest (who was played by Kelly McGillis) from the original.  Instead, we have a new character played by Jennifer Connelly, but her relationship with Cruise’s character is simply meant to be accepted at face value.  Despite references to an unseen past history between them, it never really feels more than superficial.  Val Kilmer is all but mute in a cameo — the actor, like his character, suffering from medically impaired speech.  But, oddly, he doesn’t look much like an admiral in his preppy outfit.  Jon Hamm, and especially Ed Harris, make an impression among the supporting players, as do Glen Powell, Bashir Salahuddin, and Miles Teller.  Video misstep:  The DVD format gets none of the video extras.  Instead, they appear only on the 4K and Bluray formats, which is a shame.

“Jerry & Marge Go Large” (USA, 2022) (C+):  When Jerry Selbee retires from his job as a line manager at Kellogg’s after 42 years, he’s bereft of purpose — until he finds one.  A mathematical high achiever, he notices an overlooked flaw in the set-up of an out-of-state lottery.  It’s a perfectly legal way to turn the odds in the ticket-holder’s favor.  He enlists his wife and most of the townsfolk in his system, and the big paydays start rolling in.  An appealing wrinkle is that the profits are used to reinvigorate a town that’s in the financial and cultural doldrums — a dormant jazz festival is revived, building loans are offered to those in need, and the town’s collective morale gets a much-needed boost.  Based on real events, this simple story (made for the streaming service Paramount+) is bouyed by its engaging leads — Bryan Cranston (who played the lead in another story of a man who exceeds the boundaries of a seemingly mundane life in 2008-13’s “Breaking Bad”) and Annette Bening (who is all but recognizable in her plained-down look).  Rainn Wilson comedically steals his scenes as their ally, and Jake McDorman gives the story a bit of emotional depth as the couple’s son, who always rued his father’s need ‘to understand the reasoning of everything.’  It’s an unassuming but mildly cute underdog story about a man who “made our little town feel big.”  There are no extras; but a featurette, or even a cast commentary, would have been welcome.

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” (USA, 2022) (B-):  There’s an over-broad and silly cabal of human villains here (the so-called “Vicious Six”); but, who can resist the titular cohort of little yellow mischief makers?  Outfitted, as ever, in goggles and overalls, they’re cute, they’re manic, they’re funny, and they’re fluent in gibberish (what the subtitles call “Minionese”).  They’re the maladroit helpmeets for an 11¾ year old Gru (voiced by Steve Carell, who insists at a villain job interview that, “I am pretty despicable.”  There are very amusing takes on the music of the time (1976), like “Won’t You Take Me to Funky Town?,” “You Don’t Always Get What You Want,” and “Baby, You’re No Good.”  And, the Minions make encore appearances in a pair of short film extras — in one, they find instant fame and fleeting fortune in the world of abstract art; in the other, a game of “Minions & Monsters” takes over for the perhaps better known “Dungeons & Dragons.”

“Star Trek: Picard — Season 2” (USA, 2022):  These ten episodes are all over the galactic map in terms of their quality, ranging from very good (B+) for some early episodes to disappointing and mediocre (C) or (C+) for many later ones.  The problem is with the writing.  The plotting just can’t sustain coherency, let alone our rapt interest, for an entire season.  Only an abiding affection for the returning characters and for the Star Trek universe keeps us watching. And that’s ultimately a failure, because it means that nostalgia and allegiance to the Trek ethos are the not quite powerful enough warp core driving this and the sister series Star Trek Discovery.  The missions they descry just don’t support the weight of entire seasons.  Sure, it’s always some big threat or other to the Federation, if not the entire galaxy; but, it always ends up being just a flimsy hook on which to hang a continuing multi-episode plot.  It would be far better to eschew season-long plot drivers and instead concentrate on single episode stories worth telling.  There’s something lacking if the best thing (by far) about these new series are the bursts of music from past series, sights of Starfleet vessels, or returning characters from older and better Trek series.  Are the current new series still worth watching?  Yes, but they fall short of their potential — to be moving, to be thoughtful, to be gripping, to be memorable, to matter.

The standouts here are Picard & Seven of Nine, both of whom hail from older (and better) iterationsof the Star Trek franchise.  Some of the characters fashioned specifically for this series (like Rios, Jurati, Raffi, and Laris/Tallinn) are intermittently appealing, but too much of what the plot has everybody doing feels like contrived filler.  It’s good to see the fearsome Borq Queen again.  Although the new actress playing her does well, we missed the originals (Alice Krige & Susanna Thompson).  Were they unavailable?  And, the writers dilute that uber-villain by making her a sporadically sympathetic — even before her wholescale personality upgrade.  John de Lancie reprises his role as the quixotic Q.  It’s a character who has always been problematic, combining as he does godlike powers (with nary an explanation for how or why he possesses them), childish petulance, spite, and ruthlessness.  He’s as arbitrary and inconsistent as ever here — more heavy-handed plot device than convincing character (through no fault of the actor).  That goes double for Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Brent Spiner, beloved for his portrayal of the late, lamented android Data.  Here, he plays Adam Soong, an ancestor of Data’s creator.  Doting father, mad scientist, diabolical schemer, murderer, saboteur, and agent of pointless malice — he’s all of those things here, a plot chameleon who changes abruptly with the shifting whims of the scriptwriters.

The who, what, why, and wherefore of everything is hopelessly muddled.  The Borg are back, and they may be as malevolent as ever — or not.  Q throws the crew into the past in an alternate timeline.  There’s another trip to the ever drier well of alternate universes with a harsh human empire in lieu of the benevolent Federation making a brief (and pretty pointless appearance).  There’s inchoate mumbo jumbo about eugenics run amok.  There’s the aforementioned time travel.  There are recurring, pointless flashbacks to an unhappy time in Picard’s childhood.  If he is so haunted by a childhood trauma that it debilitates him as surely as PTSD, why is this the first time we’ve heard hide or hair of it?  It’s just not credible.  And, in the mundane column, he’s also suddenly afflicted by commitment issues. (He seemed perfectly capable of forming lasting relationships of strong affection with women before now.)  There are recurring lapses in credibility elsewhere, too.  For instance, if someone has to guard the Borg Queen, the obvious choice is Seven.  Who knows more about the Borg than her?  But, instead, the writers take her elsewhere to allow the plot to put her crewmates in needless jeopardy.  Whoopi Goldberg is welcome back as the enigmatic and unruffled Guinan; but the actress playing her as a younger version of herself fails to connect, looking always wild-eyed.  A certain juvenile cast member from The Next Generation has a cameo, but, again, it’s a case of too many non-essential ingredients.  And the Borg Queen 2.0’s android ex machina appearance near the end, with a wildly out-of-character proposal is mawkishly ridiculous.

On the plus side, it has that Star Trek ethos — of fighting the good fight and turning opponents into partners.  It has those call-backs to Trek series gone before — the questing musical fanfares from the original series and The Next Generation.  It’s not as good as it could be, overall, but it has its moments — and there’s something to be said for nostalgia.  Near the end, we’re told that, “There are moments in our lives we fear to relive and others we long to repeat.  While time cannot give us second chances, maybe people can.”  In this case, people can, if the writers will only do a better job at creating memorable stories.  Technical flaw:  There is something amiss with the menu on the Blu-ray set:  episodes and other selections are all but unresponsive to remote control commands.

“DC League of Superpets” (USA, 2022) (B-/B):  It turns out that Superman has a canine companion who, like himself, survived the destruction of the planet Kypton and is embued with superpowers here on Earrth.  Kypto can fly, and he’s got a sense of humor:  “Nobody can hide from the long snout of justice.” Soon, it’s up to him, and animal allies sprung from an animal shelter (among them, another dog, a pig, a squirrel, and a turtle) to rescue DC’s leading superheroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, et al.) in this animated adventure.  The result is a pleasant surprise.  Cute, fum, inventive, and engaging, it fits in with the DC universe characters.  And there’s some sly humor.  When a dog named Ace dreams of “a one hundred percent animal farm,” the pig dryly notes that, “That doesn’t sound ominous at all” (an in-joke about George Orwell’s dystopian 1945 novella).  Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate Mckinnon, John Krasinski, and Keanu Reeves (as Batman) are among the voice cast.

“Elvis” (USA/Australia, 2022) (B+/A-):  There’s an audacity to Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s movies (e.g. 1991’s “Strictly Ballroom” and 2001’s “Moulin Rouge”); they’re big, brash, flashy, and ostentatious — with a rapid succession of short scenes and a kaleidoscope of images.  And so it is with his imagining of Elvis Presley’s life, as seen through the eyes of the singer’s manager and impressario.  “Colonel” Tom Parker (of purely invented military rank), played by Tom Hanks, is a showman and carnival huckster who prides himself on what he calls “the snow job ,” to wit, “emptying a rube’s wallet while leaving them with nothing but a smile on their face.”  He’s an unsavory fellow, unapologetically self-aggrandizing (“I am the legendary Tom Parker… Without me, there would be no Elvis Presley”), a bit of a parasite, and a notoriously unreliable narrator of events. T hat’s a given here: there’s no attempt to hide the fact that we’re getting a one-sided, highly subjective version of the truth.  One of the film’s best moments comes in Presley’s childhood when we see a black blues singer quickly intercut and juxtaposed with Gospel revival singing:  it’s an adept illustration of the roots of Presley’s music and style.  Ditto for his remark, “A reverend once told me: when things are too dangerous to say, [then] sing.”  Later, as a young performer, his trademark torso wiggling attracts controversy for being ‘too sexual and too black.’  The film delights in showing young women and girls being driven to distraction by all that suggestive shaking (‘giving people feelings they weren’t sure they should enjoy’).  It’s true; it happened; but, all those female hysterics nevertheless come across as ridiculous.  There’s an inventively amusing sequence later, with Elvis’ successes — his film roles in Hollywood, his marriage to the pretty (and young) Priscilla, and so on — done up like a movie trailer.  When he confides to his wife that “I’m so tired of playing Elvis Presley,” those few words capture the pitfalls of celebrities who allow their public persona to overwhelm who they really are.  Some bits and pieces don’t add up.  For one: Parker is pretty canny about what will sell; so why, at one point, try to ‘tame’ Elvis?  Austin Butler inhabits the role of Presley (already earning him a nomination for Best Actor at the Australian Academy Awards).  For his part, Hanks is hard to recognize physically and atypically hard to like in character.  A manipulative blowhard, Parker is a deliberate, self-made caricature.  Meanwhile, the film’s Elvis, perhaps like the real thing, increasingly skirts the borders of self-parody with the arrival of capes, rhinestones, and over-the-top glitz.  All that superficial sparkle distances us from the human being beneath the persona.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“1883” (USA, 2021-22) (A-):  “I’m sleeping on the edge of civilization.  And, soon, we leave the

edge behind.  Then, no rules.  Then, only life.”  This impressive ten-episode miniseries follows a months-long journey of immigrants and their guides as they set off from the lawless Texas frontier across the even more dangerous Great Plains to the distant destination of Oregon.  Created by Taylor Sheridan for Paramount+, it is, technically, a prequel to his ongoing series “Yellowstone,” which chronicles the fictional modern-day family who own the biggest ranch in Montana, but that little detail is irrelevant.  This 19th century story, which has the heft and scope of a ten-hour theatrical movie, is wholly self-contained, and no familiarity at all with its distant kin in the 21st century is needed.  Two members of its cast aptly capture its distilled essence: “1883 is a journey of an unlikely group of people fighting against the forces of nature [and] the malice of humankind in search of change and a new home.”  And, “It’s about freedom.  It’s about the American Dream — the beauty of it and the ugliness of it.”  The writing, performances, and cinematography are first rate.  In part, it’s a coming of age story for its narrator — an 18-year-old girl on the threshold of womanhood.  Headstrong and fearless, Elsa chafes under human rules and conventions.  She’s the voice of the journey, as her poetic voice-over monologues open and close every episode:  “[There] were two journeys.  One was filled with danger and death and despair, the other [with] adventure and wonder.  I was on the latter, and I loved it.”

These characters gradually (and sometimes grudgingly) form a kind of extended surrogate family.  But there is an actual family at the heart of things.  The Duttons are migrating west from Tennessee:  “We weren’t poor.  We weren’t failures.  The road west is filled with failures.  Failure

isn’t what drove him.  It was a dream.  And the dream is coming true.”  James Dutton (country singer Tim McGraw) is strong and capable and singlemindedly dedicated to protecting his family.  Indeed, he makes no bones about the fact that their welfare is the only thing that matters to him.  He is wary of tying their fortunes too closely to the wagon-train of immigrants from Europe, a ragtag bunch who are desperately ill-prepared for the dangers and hardships that await them:  “[Here] there can be no mistakes.  Because here doesn’t care…  If you fail to beat the current, you will drown.  If you get too close, you will be bitten.  If you are too weak, you will be eaten….  The land of no consequence is behind us.  We are in the land of no mercy now.”  But, there are no weaklings among the Duttons.  Margaret (county singer Faith Hill) is a force to be reckoned with in her own right.  And the aforesaid Elsa (Isabel May) grows from headstrong girl to fearless woman.  Our mixed feelings about that pivotal character soon diminish, as she becomes an admirable exemplar of personal freedom and personal responsibility.

But pride of place goes to Sam Elliott’s award-caliber performance as Captain Shea Brennan, the Civil War veteran tasked with guiding and protecting the pioneers.  He’s a no-nonsense trail boss, dispensing draconian justice when it seems necessary:  a couple with the early symptoms of smallpox are mercilessly ejected from the group before the journey begins; and, in transit, those accused of hoarding or stealing food are banished, along with their families (even though that

may doom them to all-but-certain death).  His friend observes that those who remain “are going to hate you,” to which Shea replies, “At least they’ll be alive to do it.”  Elliott brings his inimitable sense of world-weariness to the role.  For him, every day is a struggle to keep on living after the tragic loss of his family in a flashback.  He is stern and unyielding, but it is for a good reason:    “The only hope these people have is to follow without question.”  But, it’s clear that behind his tough exterior, he is a man of conscience, who cares about the welfare of his charges.  In a moving scene, he is in tears over the toll of losses along the way, confiding to his longtime colleague that, “We’re making too many widows.  Too many orphans.”  His friend replies that, “Their deaths aren’t our fault,” to which Shea says, “They’re our responsibility.  That makes it our fault.”  Shea’s friend and fellow war vet is played by another of the series’ standouts, LaMonica Garrett.  Their close relationship is a highlight of the story — a story which is enriched by strong characterization and evolving relationships.

Elsewhere among the cast, Eric Nelson is an unexpected treat as the sweet-natured young cowboy Ennis who falls for Elsa (and vice-versa), while James Landry Hébert (as Wade) and Noah Le Gros (as Colton) also make an impression.  That trio of cowboys get all the funny lines.  When Colton observes, “This is the strangest outfit I ever worked for,” Wade has a laconic rejoinder:

“It’ll test your noggin.”  Later, referring to the willful mother-and-daughter combination of Margaret and Elsa, Colton dryly observes, “Well, I can see where the girl gets it.”  Wade replies, “The apple doesn’t fall far.”  Their brief humorous exchange ends with the youngest member of the Dutton family, who is unaware of the latest crisis, asking the two grown-ups, “Y’all want to hunt for grasshoppers?”  Martin Sensmeier makes an impression as the good-natured Comanche warrior Sam who bonds with Elsa, as do Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Canada’s Graham Greene in short but effective cameo roles.

The theme music by Breton Vivian and Brian Tyler captures the spirit of the series perfectly — it is at once sweeping, bittersweet, and inspirational, reflecting the story’s themes of love and loss and family and and taking responsibility.  The cinematography has a cinematic quality and power — never more so than in the buildup to a devastating storm, with tall golden grasses swaying while threateningly dark clouds gather overhead.  Here is humanity — and nature — in all of its good, its bad, and its ugly.  The travellers are menaced more than once by ruthless, violent men who think nothing of murdering anyone who stands between them and the object of their looting.  A character (Dutton’s sister-in-law Clare, played by Dawn Olivieri) who seems one-dimensionally sour at first gets an emotionally powerful scene before she leaves the story; in the process, we learn why she is so mean-spirited toward others.  There are small flaws.  For one thing, the

pioneers get very short shrift as characters; indeed, most of them are not differentiated as separate individuals.  If you watch the series with the subtitles on, there is unintended amusement in recurring references to “German and Slavic chatter.”  Initially, it seems that only one of them (Marc Rissmann’s Josef) speaks English, but, as things progress, more and more of therm are suddenly able to do so.  Occasionally, the voice-overs tread close to the overblown and pretentious, though, they never quite cross that line.  In one scene, several killers leave the fray of an armed fight to purposelessly pursue Elsa instead, which is less than credible.  The river featured in a dangerous river crossing doesn’t actually look that deep or dangerous.  And, would Elsa, still in mourning for one man, really fall so abruptly in love with another?  On the other hand, there is great poignancy when the settlers are obliged to discard most of their possessions in order to cross the aforementioned river.  Elsa finds a piano there and plays “Moonlight Sonata” as we see the fraught crossing take place with no other audio.

“1883” is wonderfully evocative of its time and place.  It has an elegiac quality that encompasses both joy and heartbreaking sorrow.  It excels at eliciting emotion, at presenting us with characters who hold our interest, and at raising philosophical and spiritual questions:  “Why make a world of such wonder, then fill it with monsters?”  And, “The meanest thing you can do to yourself is to hate somebody else.”  Its travelers are on a literal trek but also a journey of the soul:  “It is always sunrise in my world and there are no storms.  I am the only lightning.  I know death now.  It had no fangs.  It smiled at me.  And it was beautiful.”  So, too, is this lovely find of a period drama — one of the very best things made for television in recent years.  Highly recommended.  For ages 18+:  Occasional (and unnecessary) coarse language and adult subject-matter.  See the trailer for “1883” at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJyD1wkOiXo

“The Enormity of Life” (USA, 2021) (B):  It opens with a voiceover of a man reading a

suicide note in an ironic voice:  “If you’re reading this, it means that I’m dead.  Sorry about that.”   His attempt to hang himself is interrupted by a voice message telling him he has inherited a fortune from a distant aunt.  But money is not a cure for what ails Casey (Brecklin Meyer).  Nor, even, is the romantic love kindled with his lovely single-mother neighbor Jess (Emily Kinney, formerly of “The Walking Dead”).  Though it is unnamed in the film, Casey suffers from the psychological condition known as “anhedonia.”  He puts it this way:  “I’m incapable of experiencing joy.  Those things that make people happy, you know, sex, money, drugs, career, I feel nothing.  And after a lifetime of feeling vacant and numb, I just couldn’t do it anymore…. I will never be normal…. I know in my heart that this world is too big for me.  It always has been.  While I walk among the living, I have never truly felt alive.”  What starts as darkly comedic soon surpasses that genre niche and easy categorization.  It’s part romance, part character study, part straight-faced comedy, and part quiet tragedy.  Its protagonist is a kind, decent, and generous man.  He bonds with Jess’ troubled eleven-year-old daughter Jules (Giselle Eisenburg), who is fearful of mass shootings in a sort of pre-traumatic stress disorder.  Her recurring nightmare about fleeing from a school shooter is in

questionable taste, however, striking, as it does, too raw a nerve right here in the real world to comfortably accommodate depiction in a movie as a precocious child’s obsessive fear.  Casey has affecting relationships with both the daughter and her mother.  He makes their lives better, and seemingly vice-versa.  But it is no easy panacea for resolving his inner angst.  “Why don’t you like yourself?” asks Jess.  “What’s there to like? replies Casey.  “I’m breathing, but I haven’t felt alive since… I don’t know when.”

Directed and co-written by Eric Swinderman, “The Enormity of Life” was just fine until it became truly involving midway through, with an impromptu visit by this incipient surrogate family with three very kind strangers.  Something really clicked in that section, and in all that followed, elevating this small, independent film to something poignant.  The filmmakers were aiming at “joy, fear, sadness, loss, and love.”  They wanted to generate empathy by ‘finding heart, feeling, and humor in a tragic situation.’  They’ve come pretty close to a bullseye.  It’s a shame that the gratuitous coarse language wasn’t left out.  One thing that was dropped, apparently, is the film’s original title, “Anhedonia,” judging from the strikingly artful movie poster on a wall behind the filmmaker in the ten minute ‘making of” extra.  Some suspension of disbelief is needed for the lightning speed at which an extreme makeover is seemingly accomplished; but, by that point, the film approaches magic realism in tone, so something highly unlikely doesn’t seem so unbelievable.  For ages 18+:  Abundant coarse language and adult subject matter.  See a music-video version of the trailer for “The Enormity of Life” at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqVVY1DruM8

“Monstrous” (USA, 2022) (B/B+):  In a picture-perfect evocation of mid-1950’s America, a

mother and her seven-year-old son leave suburbia in their Chevy for a furnished rental house in the California countryside.  The sunshine outside is matched by sunny, upbeat songs on the soundtrack, like “Mr. Sandman,” “See You Later, Alligator,” and The Inkspots’ version of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire.”  Played by the always interesting Christina Ricci (“Black Snake Moan”), Laura is likewise buoyant and cheerful.  With her ubiquitously cheery spirits, bright skirts, and soft sweaters, she’s a walking, talking embodiment of the Fifties feminine ideal.  Indeed, the film does a note-perfect job of conjuring its time: there’s Wonderbread on the counter and Harriet Nelson (from “Ozzie and Harriet”) commercials on the black & white television.  The film’s tone seems coy or arch at first, as though it is intended to be a deliberately exaggerated, satirical depiction of its time and of its characters’ seeming domestic bliss.  It all feels too relentlessly good to be true.  Then, hints of something darker begin:  Laura ignores a ringing telephone at night, and there are oblique suggestions of an escape from an abusive spouse.  The gradually building unease ratchets up, courtesy of a dripping faucett, flickering electricity, a television on the blink, and what may or may not be waking dreams on Laura’s part.  She plans a birthday party for her son, but none of his new classmates show up, a development which unsettles us as much as it does Laura.  Meanwhile, impressionable young Cody (Santiago Barnard) is seeing an indistinct apparition emerge from the adjacent lake and approach ever nearer by night: terrified at first, he soon smilingly greets “the Pretty Lady.”  The film swerves into seemingly conventional horror tropes, before surprising us with something more complex and much more interesting than a standard predatory menace.  This psychological drama, distant kin to the much darker “The Babadook,” seems deceptively simple at first.  The mutability of its story, characters, and tone drew us in, buoyed by its leading lady.  There’s always more to Christina Ricci’s complicated characters than meets the eye.  One cavil: the title feels like a bit of a misnomer, suggesting, as it does, a straightforward supernatural monster story.  But, the film itself, directed by Chris Silverton and written by Carol Chrest, came as a welcome, ultimately poignant, surprise.  For ages 16+ (not suitable for younger viewers).  See the trailer for “Monstrous” at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bRnHRf6zv4

“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” (U.K./USA, 2022) (C/C+):  It has been a case of diminishing returns for the “Fantastic Beasts” series.  The first one, 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” was a pleasant surprise with its shy, gentle, unpretentious lead Newt Scamander (engagingly played by Eddie Redmayne).  His mission in life was humble and humane — the care, feeding, and protection of the eponymous fantastical beasts.  Two of the latter — a sentient twig and a platypus-like mammal attracted to all things gilt — have been his companions ever since.  Things got “bigger,” story-wise, in 2018’s “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” but the inflated stakes (a malevolent warlock cult-leader intent on subjugating non-magical humans) didn’t make for an improved film experience; nor was Johnny Depps ever persuasively charismatic as the would-be genocidal conqueror.  The decline accelerates in this third installment, which is a direct continuation of the inchoate second film, save that Mads Mikkelson replaces Depp as the power-hungry Grindelwald.  Based on books by J.K. Rowling, the “Fantastic Beasts” films involve adult characters, rather than the juvenile leads in her “Harry Potter” series, and, they are a tad more mature in tone.  But, both series inhabit the same fictional version of our world, in which a minority of people have an aptitude for magic.  And they have one glaring thing in common, namely, the sad fact that too much magic is unmagical.  Better to leave more to the imagination than to inundate us with CGI.  Newt remains earnestly appealing and kind.  But the stage is crowded with too many characters, and the movie didn’t need its 142 minute running time.  Credibility suffers when nearly all of the magical folk accept the evil villain and his vicious call for war against the unsuspecting “Muggles.”  Chanted names at an election rally are off-putting, as is the backstory of a same-gender romantic connection between the villain and his opposite number (Jude Law’s Dumbledore).  And the simple expedient of breaking a magical amulet seems altogether too arbitrary a plot device.

Some might find the presence of none-too-subtle allegorical barbs about our real-world troubles with would-be autocrats heavy-handed.  But, for us, they added some hints of substance.  Does this sound like anybody we know (and loathe):  “The world as we know it is coming undone.. [He’s] pulling it apart with hate [and] bigotry.  Things that seem unimaginable today will seem inevitable tomorrow… if we don’t stop him.”  In the aftermath of Trump and the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, these words, too, have real-world immediacy:  “It is this peaceful transfer of power which marks our humanity and demonstrates to the world that, despite our differences, all voices deserve to be heard, even voices which many find disagreeable.”  Ditto for “He does not want to lead you; he just wants you to follow.”  And: “[It’s] funny how historic days seem so ordinary when you’re living them.”  As apt and laudable as those observations, and the story’s moral (“Do what is right, not what is easy”), undoubtedly are, they can’t on their own invest this underwhelming story with real gravitas.  We never really get invested with these characters, despite the occasional mildly touching moment.  The episodic plot is pretty slender; it occasionally drags; and it rarely engages us emotionally.

“The Good Fight: Season 5” (USA, 2021) (B+/A-):  What do two of the smartest, most original series on television have in common?  Quite a bit, actually.  Both “The Good Fight” and “Evil” were co-created by the husband and wife team of Robert and Michelle King (joined in the case of the former series by Phil Alden

Robinson).  Both series are a quirky, highly deft, mix of drama and humor.  And, to the acute frustration of non-streamers everywhere, both series screen only on Paramount+, rather than on the main CBS network.  (“Evil” started on CBS but was moved to their streaming service for its second season; while “The Good Fight” eventually turns up for a rebroadcast in Canada on the W Network.)

“The Good Fight” started life as a spin-off from the Kings’ earlier legal series “The Good Wife.”  Premiering in February 2017, it is an ensemble piece, with women in many of the key roles, that charts the personal and professional lives of members of a mostly black law firm in Chicago.  Some characters (especially Christine Baranski, who reprises her “Good Wife” character as the high-octane lawyer Diane Lockhart) have been constants; others (like the much missed Rose Leslie and the versatile Cush Jumbo) have departed along the way.  Season Five is the first without the firm’s senior partner played by Delroy Lindo.  As much as we miss those characters, others take up the slack.  In these new ten episodes, Audra McDonald comes into

her own as another of the firm’s guiding figures, while Sarah Strong continues her evolution from an executive assistant, to an in-house investigator, to an aspiring lawyer in her own right.  Another “Good Wife” alum, Zach Grenier, is always entertaining as the unapologetically obnoxious divorce lawyer David Lee.  Gary Cole is a continuing strong asset in his recurring appearances as as Kurt McVeigh (Diane Lockhart’s husband).  They come from opposite ends of the political spectrum: he is a conservative advocate for the right to bear arms, but he is also a sober, sensible, and gentlemanly figure.

This season has a real treat for viewers in the person of Mandy Patinkin as a self-appointed ‘people’s judge.’  With no legal background, he brings simple common sense to his self-styled courtroom.  Litigants come there of their own free will but must agree in advance to be bound by his ruling.  His good-natured elan, mischievous sense of humor (he’s not adverse to imposing the equivalent of dunce caps on those who deserve them), and abiding impulse to see justice served are quite irresistible.  The series excels at satire, skewering all that’s unjust, pompous, absurd, and pernicious (January 6th’s attempted insurrection definitely included) in society with sharp barbs.  The series is ambitiously topical (e.g. so-called ‘cancel-culture’) and brave enough to present opposing viewpoints coherently.  Unabashedly liberal in its perspective, it has the grace to include the aforementioned admirable conservative among the ranks of its likeable cast.  And, what other series suddenly breaks into animated musical sections to make a comedic point?  And speaking of music, the award-caliber title theme by David Buckley is by far and away the best on television (and any streaming platforms).  Newly out on DVD (in June 2022) from Paramount, Season 5 has fewer extras than it deserves (with only a few deleted scenes and some bloopers); an episode-length commentary or two would have been very welcome.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

“The Exorcism of God” [“El exorcismo de Dios”] (Mexico/Venezuela/USA, 2021) (C-/C):  After something goes terribly wrong during an exorcism 18 years earlier, an American priest (Will Beinbrink) living in Mexico tries to make up for it by caring for orphans.  But, his demonic foe from years-past is back, this time possessing a young woman in a prison.  Tried-but-true possession tropes (one brief visual is an homage to arrival of the priest beneath an illuminated window at night in “The Exorcist”) are combined here with a conflict within the priest’s own psyche.  His suitability for the task at hand is severely compromised by his guilt over succumbing to temptation.  Reinforcements come in the highly entertaining form of a unconventional older priest (Joseph Marcell, who is the stand-out here), who is an experienced exorcist — and quipster.  He gets all the best lines, such as,  “Mezcal:  The best holy water I’ve tasted in a while.”  (We’d like to see his character loaned out for a guest appearance on television’s first-rate mixture of suspense and dry humor:  “Evil.”)  Things go off the rails a bit in the final reel, with a not-in-good-taste vision of a demonically possessed Jesus, and not one but several possessed female inmates who inexplicably seek to turn the tables on the priest by driving God out of him!  That notion is odd and off-putting.  There’s glaring illogic afoot when the experienced priest confidently shows up for a battle against an enemy he knows in advance he is utterly powerless to defeat.  Isn’t he bound therefore to do more harm than good by being there?  Infiltration of the Catholic Church by malign forces isn’t sufficiently developed to work as a plot device.  The sexual stuff seems inappropriate.  And the fight with the possessed women is more physical than it is spiritual, which just feels wrong somehow.   Contact lenses are overused:  overkill in the makeup department undermines the scare factor.  There are elements of quality here; but it ends up being unsatisfying, hobbled by a screenplay (co-written by the director Alexandro Hidalgo) that loses its way.  Extras include a 24-minute ‘making of’ feature.  A technical flaw:  Much of the dialogue is in Spanish, but the subtitles are too small.  For ages 18+:  Sexual content; nudity; frightening scenes; violence; and coarse language.

“Moonfall” (USA/China/U.K./Canada, 2022) (C-/C):  The Moon is on a collision course with Earth, thanks to a malevolent artificial intelligence intent on annihilating the human race.  An unjustly disgraced astronaut (Patrick Wilson) is called back into service by his former teammate (Halle Berry), and they’re joined by an unlikely ally in the person of an internet blogger with an interest in super-sized extraterrestrial ‘megastructures’ (John Bradley), on a last-ditch mission to set things right.  Bradley steals the show as the resident comic relief, though the levity undermines any hope of taking the story seriously:  (Q) “Are we dead?”  (A) No, we’re just inside the Moon.”  Some one-size-fits-all domestic soap opera (being divorced and estranged from one’s offspring seems to be catching in this script) is uninvolving.  That goes triple for the recurring pointless encounters with a band of persistent hijackers back on Earth.  A news report trumpeting “Mounting Moon Terror” is silly.  And the premise (not only is the Moon an artificial object, it has been commandeered by a hostile A.I. in the form of a swarm of nanites) just isn’t credible.  (The whole idea of “Dyson spheres” deserves a more serious treatment.)  The cast is okay, and Donald Sutherland has a nice cameo.  But, they can only buoy this skaky blend of sci-fi and disaster movie conventions so much, hobbled as it is by mediocre writing.  There is no emotional involvement here at all; but, the film is mildly diverting as a time-waster, with some likeable light moments.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Soapdish” (USA, 1991) (C-):  Real life imitates the skewed version of fiction known as a “soap opera” (those daytime serial dramas that revolve around a dizzying succession of marriages, divorces, infidelities, scheming antagonists, and medical emergencies), as the cast and crew of a fictional television soaper do a deep-dive into a relationship imbroglio.   Sally Field plays the reigning queen of daytime drama, but a rival (Cathy Moriarty) aims to depose her, while her life flies asunder under the strains of a returning ex (a likeable Kevin Kline) and a freshly-minted protege (Elizabeth Shue).  Whoopi Goldberg is along as her human security blanket, while Garry Marshall sums it up nicely with:  “Quiz shows are beating us!  [A] lady cooking sausages almost tied us last week…  When the ratings go down, you have to do something drastic!”  Little does he know that his cast’s off-screen antics are about to outdo their on-screen machinations.  The cast here is better than the mediocre material.  Not quite farce, not quite satire, it is too often unfunny.  Field’s bouffant hairdo leaves her all but unrecognizable for much of the film.  Whomever briefly plays Kline’s date in a Florida bar makes an impression.  Newly out on Blu-ray.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

“Let it Ride” (USA, 1969) (D-):  Richard Dreyfuss plays a man who has a very lucky day at the racetrack.  Dreyfuss has a high likeability factor; but the same cannot be said for this tedious would-be comedy.  Too many supporting players are wildly over-the-top, though a couple of sexpots (Jennifer Tilly & Michelle Phillips) in a VIP lounge generate some appeal, as does Robbie Coltrane as the not easily rattled guy who runs the betting window.  The vaguely seedy settings (a bar and the racetrack) hold no allure for those not so inclined.  The net result is a laugh-free zone — often abysmal, occasionally just mediocre.  Newly out on Blu-ray.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language.

“Sing 2” (USA/Japan, 2021) (B+):  This sequel to 2016’s animated musical “Sing” has an endearing surprise before it even begins, with the cute and diminutive ‘Minions’ from the same studio’s “Despicable Me” series singing to the production company’s name (Illumination):  we loved it!  (See link below if you’re a fan of the Minons.)  The film proper gets off to a strong start with a set-piece from a musical stage version of “Alice in Wonderland.”  Like everything that follows, it is high energy, infectious fun, and mighty creative.  There are highly imaginative renderings of pop songs, like “You Used to Call Me on Your Cellphione” sung by an oversized mollusk.  With its cast of underdogs, catchy tunes (everything from “Bring Me Your Higher Love” to Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights” from the ballet “Romeo and Juliet”), and an inspiring can-do life-lesson (“Guts, stamina, faith. Those are the things you need now.”), this film, written and directed by Garth Jennings, is a treat for all ages.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiTUTXGhEDs

“Coming 2 America” (USA, 2021) (C-):  A likeable young lead (Jermaine Fowler) and a few entertaining moments are all that saves this sequel to 1988’s “Coming to America” from the ignominy of being a complete flop.  Much of what’s here is utterly inane and unfunny; and, without rhyme or reason, Eddie Murphy, reprising his role from the original, is utterly wasted.  His trademark exuberance and manic energy are wholly missing in action.  He’s older here, but why consign him to the ranks of the stuffy, hidebound, and passive?  Miscues start with the misnomer of a title.  Other than a very brief, inconsequential flying visit to America, this story is set in the make-believe African country of Zamunda — a comedic cousin to the Black Panther’s Wakanda.  The screenplay pokes some fun at racial stereotyping, as well, ironically, at unnecessary movie sequels.  And like “Black Panther,” it has a nice women’s-lib ethos:  Zamunda’s women and girls are smart, self-confident, and very effective in battle.  With the focus on its ‘Fresh Prince of Zamunda’ newcomer, though, other characters don’t have much to do.  The screenplay is mostly witless, the stuff of a very poor television sitcom; but, there’s some excitement with a lion and a cute moment with rappers at a funeral.  The film got an Oscar nomination for Makeup & Hair.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“The King’s Man” (U.K./USA, 2021) (C+/B-):  “Reputation is what people think of you.  Character is what you are.”  This prequel about the founding of a private clandestine service comprised of very English gentlemen starts in the Boer War of 1902, then jumps to 1914.  It is oddly inconsistent in tone, juxtaposing grim and melancholy moments with a showily outlandish villain (Matthew Goode, playing against his normally dignified type) who is straight out of a farcical spoof.  A secret international network of servants is kind of ridiculous.  And credibility is strained by the plot contortion that has a pacifist on a mission to assassinate a man in order to get Russia back into the First Wold War!  However, there’s an amazing (and oh-so-funny) duel with a dancing Rasputin to the tune of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” which is inspired by the the real-life historical Rasputin’s stubborn refusal to die.  The darkly humorous fight is the film’s stand-out scene.  There’s a good cast (Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Atherton, Rhys Ifans, Charles Dance, Djimon Hounsou, et al.), but the film is neither fish nor fowl.  It aims at serio-comic adventure, but it is hobbled by its crude talk and over-the-top tone.  For ages 18+:  Sexual talk and some coarse language.

“The Green Knight” (Ireland/Canada/USA/U.K., 2021) (B+/A-):  Here’s a

smart, fascinating, and somewhat revisionistic retelling of the medieval poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” that takes the measure of one man’s courage and honor.  In the 14th century original, Sir Gawain is a young knight who is already renowned for both of those characteristics.  Here, the protagonist is more of an anti-hero: not yet a knight, he hasn’t been tried, let alone proven, under mortal hazard.  “You’re a knight yet?” someone asks him.  “Not yet,” he replies.  “Better hurry up,” retorts his interlocutor.  Gawain replies, “I’ve got time.  I’ve got lots of time” — as much to convince himself as anyone else.  The film’s Gawain is an ordinary young man, a man who is not ready for the challenge which awaits him.  And he seems to doubt whether he is up to the task.  When his uncle (and king) asks, “Is it wrong to want greatness for you?” Gawain replies, “I fear I’m not meant for greatness.”  Perhaps it is impetuousness born of self-doubt that prompts him to

accept the brazen challenge offered at the royal court by a stranger on horseback.  A towering knight clad in green mockingly invites any comer to strike a blow against him, on condition that whomever does so presents himself one year later at a distant Green Chapel to receive the same blow in kind.  Instead of administering a token, symbolic blow, Gawain beheads the stranger — who proceeds to pick up his severed head and ride off, reminding Gawain of his promise to receive the same mortal blow himself one year hence.

What ensues is a gritty morality play.  It is mirrored by a theatrical puppet show in the castle courtyard which marks the relentless passage of time which daily brings Gawain closer to his reckoning.  Following his impetuous act, Gawain’s girlfriend jokes that he is impotent now.  And it seems that he is, in more ways than one.  When he begins his journey, he is easily misled and waylaid by young robbers, losing his weapon (his foe’s axe), his horse, and his armor in one fell swoop.  Later, he betrays the hospitality of a mysterious lord and lady, breaking his word to the former and succumbing to the sexual blandishments of the latter.  Meanwhile,

recurring visual references to Gawain’s enchantess mother hint of a deliberate hidden purpose behind Gawain’s travails.  Are his trials a test, a tough-love invocation designed to prod a callow young man to rise to the occasion, find his better self, and prove his mettle?  At the film’s end, Gawain (and we) get to see the results of the road not taken.  How refreshing to find a film that asks big, intelligent questions — about fate, free choice, and the razor-thin divide between honor and courage and their shameful absence.

Writer/director David Lowery (2017’s highly original “A Ghost Story” and 2016’s surprisingly good “Pete’s Dragon”) is artful, strange, and full of dreamlike imagery.  As mesmerizing as a dream, its poetical sensibility ensnares us along with its reluctant protagonist.  Dev Patel is very good in that role.  The actor’s roots in another part of the world are instantly forgotten; he seems perfectly at home in medieval England.  And he is ably supported by Alicia Vikander (in a dual role), Ralph Ineson, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Chodhury, and others.  There are some perplexing choices on the part of the filmmaker:  the royal court is a gloomy place (indeed the skies are foreboding and lowering throughout the film, with sunshine making nary an appearance); Arthur and Guinevere are inexpicably emaciated and enfeebled (as well as being unnamed); and the chief sexual scene is needlessly graphic.  For devotees of the pure draught of chivalric romance, the revisionist intrusion of flawed protagonists and ignoble choices born of weakness take some getting used to.

But, my, how the film’s aforementioned poetic sensibility captivates, nowhere more so than in the final words uttered by the eponymous antagonist and in this reflection on the ambiguous nature of the color green and how it is a signifier of both vibrant life and rotting decay: “Pull it out by the roots one day, and the next, there it is, creeping in around the edges.  Whilst we’re off looking for red, in comes green.  Red is the color of lust, but green is what lust leaves behind — in heart, in womb.  Green is what’s left when ardor fades, when passion dies, when we die, too.  When you go, your footprints will fill with green.  Moss shall cover your tombstone, and, as the sun rises, green shall spread over all, in all its shades and hues.  This verdigris will overtake your swords and your coins and your battlements, and, try as you might, all you hold dear will succumb to it.  Your skin, your bones, your virtue.”  It’s a reminder of our shared mortality and a harsh indictment of the consequent vanity of all human endeavor; but, then, it may be that some things do matter and endure — chief among them honor and love.  “The Green Knight” won’t be for all tastes, but it is one of the best films of the year.   For ages 18+:  Brief but frank sexual content; violence.  Not suitable for children.

“Les Innocentes” [“The Innocents”] (France/Poland, 2016) (A-):  A

powerful story about overcoming trauma, which turns on compassion, conscience, and the constant tension between doubt and faith.  “Faith is twenty-four hours of doubt and one minute of hope,” says one of its characters.  It concerns nuns at a convent in rural Poland in December 1945.  They have been violated by passing Russian soldiers, and seven of them have become pregnant.  The only soul outside their closed world to learn this awful secret is the female French doctor (Lou de Laâge) who tries to help them.  Two world views collide in the process, setting rationalism against mysticism.  For the nuns, it is a sin for them to show their bodies, let alone be touched — even by a doctor of their own gender.  Their faith is resolute (“Behind all joy lies the Cross”); but, some of them are struggling to reconcile their faith with the terrible events that have been befallen them.

Based on actual events, it may sound like a bleak story; but, in fact, it is a moving, and ultimately uplifting, account of transcendence.  There are hard choices to be made here, setting doctrine against empathy (as embodied by Agata Kulesza’s abbess and Agata Buzek’s Sister Maria), in a story that shows great sensivity to the human condition.  “Les Innocentes” was deservedly nominated for Best Film, Director (Anne Fontaine), Original Screenplay, and Cinematography at France’s César Awards.  The result is haunting, beautiful, nuanced, and poignant.  For ages 18+:  Adult subject matter and one scene of attempted sexual violence.

“Nomadland” (USA, 2020) (B+/A-):  A woman (Frances McDormand’s Fern) hits the road when the only employer in her Nevada town shuts down.  (The depopulated town looses not only its inhabitants, but also its postal code.)  Leaving a fixed abode behind, Fern lives in her van and travels across America, following seasonal work at places like an Amazon warehouse and an RV camp.  “I’m not homeless.  I’m just houseless.  Not the same thing,” says the laconic Fern.  It turns out that there is a whole subculture of people in North America leading a nomadic life.  Surprisingly, many of them are on the older end of middle age.   Some embark on this itinerant lifestyle by choice, many others by necessity occasioned by financial hardship; but, they all come to embrace the freedom of being rootless.  Fellow travelers become a sort of surrogate family, but partings are an inescapable reality for people on the road.  Their solitary life seems lonely; but the film posits the idea that, “In solitude, we can find ourselves.”  There are practical skills to learn, like ‘stealth parking’ and ‘pooping in buckets,’ that go along with a life of rugged individualism and independence.  In the process, these travelers learn resilience, adapatablity, and self-suffiency.  Moments of camaraderie, however fleeting, loom larger on the road — as do sunsets and natural vistas like the Pacific Northwest’s forested coast or the otherworldly moonscape of South Dakota’s Badlands.  Writer/director Chloé Zhao has fashioned a gentle, sensitive account of one woman’s wanderings, using non-actors in many roles, and making the ever-changing setting (the natural landscape) an integral part of the storytelling. “Nomadland” was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning as Best Film, Actress, and Director.  For ages 18+:  Brief nudity.

“Portrait de la jeune fille en feu” [“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”] (France, 2019) (A-):  A female painter is hired to surreptitiously paint a portrait of the daughter of a wealthy matriarch.  The daughter has been promised to a stranger in an arranged marriage in place of her late sister.  The young woman is unhappy about that arrangement, and she welcomes the company of the newcomer, who was ostensibly brought to be her temporary companion.  But the artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) develops an artistic and romantic attachment to her subject (Adèle Haenel’s Héloïse) in this artful, character-driven combination of love story and portrait of the artist and of the living object of her desire.  The setting — the rugged cliffs of Brittany, with crashing surf below — is gorgeous.  And the story, set in the late 19th century, is full of closely observed details — like the shape of an ear, the intensity of a gaze, and the composure of two folded hands.

Writer/director Céline Sciamma says that the film is about the dynamic between love and art.  It is very much a female-centric film, and there is a feminist worldview evident in its pairing of equals.  This is a time, after all, when women aren’t supposed to be painters; when young women are expected to obediently acquiesce to arranged marriage; and when same-sex romantic relationships are unacceptable.  There are only four characters, and they are all woman:  Valeria Golino plays the mother and Luàna Bajrami makes a strong impression as the feisty young maid Sophie.

There are philosophical moments, as when the two lovers and the maid read the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, concluding that the the former “doesn’t make the lover’s choice but the poet’s.”  And there are moments of visual poetry, as when the three young women attend a nighttime gathering of women and girls outdoors and a strange song starts up, beginning with an unearthly monotone half-wail.  There is something primal and beautiful about that scene.  A poetic sensibility infuses the words, too, as when one of the lovers says, “In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of.” 

“Portrait de la jeune fille en feu” won Best Screenplay at Cannes, where it was also nominated for the Palme d’Or (Best Film).  It won Best Cinematography at France’s César Awards, where it was also nominated for Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, and Sound.  And, it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and the Independent Spirit Awards.  For ages 18+:  Brief nudity; brief sexual content; and adult subject matter.

“Ida” (Poland/Denmark/France/U.K., 2013) (A-):  Here’s the story of a

young noviate at a Polish convent in 1962.  Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) grew up in an orphanage and she has devoted herself to a religious vocation.  On the cusp of becoming a nun, she learns that everything she knew about her past is untrue.  She was born ‘Ida;’ she was born Jewish; her parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation; and she has living kin — in the form of an aunt (Agata Kulesza’s Wanda).  After years of silence, said aunt makes contact, and the pair set off on a road trip, filmed in stark B&W, in search of the past.

Wanda is a middle-ranking Communist Party official.  She made a name for herself years earlier by ruthlesly prosecuting suspected opponents of the regime in pitiless show-trials.  Once a true believer, she has become hollowed-out by disillusionment and cynicism:  “What if you go there [to the place where Anna’s parents died] and discover there is no God?”  Wanda doesn’t believe in God, or in anything else.  But, she does develop a regard for the niece she had failed to acknowledge for so many years.

Director and co-writer Pawel Pawlikowski’s goal was “a story closer to poetry than to plot.”  In the search for the truth about the past, Anna’s faith is tried, but it endures.  (The actress who plays Anna was spotted in a cafe; she is paired here with a stage veteran.)  Faith is contrasted with emptiness and despair, and its light prevails.  The film leaves much unsaid, giving us the chance to read meaning into the journey of its two characters.  The result is haunting, beautiful, and memorable — an artful glimpse into the human search for meaning.  For ages 18+:  Brief sexual content.

“Mare of Easttown” (USA, 2021) (B/B+):  A small town in Pennsylvania is the setting for this seven-part miniseries from HBO.  Mare Sheehan is a police detective and single mother in a place where everyone knows everyone else.  Mare’s claim to fame is a game-winning shot in high school basketball.  Her ex-husband lives right behind her, but he’s engaged to marry another woman.  Mare has a daughter who is about to go to university even as she struggles with the suicide of her drug-addicted sibling.  And Mare is raising her late son’s child, ever-anxious that the child’s addict mother may seek custody.  Mare is world-weary and going through the motions in life, burdened by her lack of progress in the case of a girl who disappeared months earlier.  Suddenly, another girl turns up dead, and Mare is saddled, against her wishes, with a partner from an outside police force, as they investigate the dark underbelly of human motivations.

The murder mystery and police procedural stuff is well done, but what distinguishes this miniseries is its focus on relationships.  It is character-driven all the way; and a good ensemble backs up Kate Winslet’s award-caliber work as the lead.  Jean Smart isn’t far behind as Mare’s plain-spoken mother, with Julianne Nicholson as Mare’s best friend, Evan Peters as her fellow detective; and Guy Pearce as a potential new romantic interest.  Cailene Spaeny makes a strong impression in the first episode as a vulnerable and doomed girl.  Shot in the same state where it is set, the series has a tangible sense of place.  There are moments of shock and moments of humor.  They are grounded in an ongoing pace of quotidian domestic life.  Mare’s new partner asks her if there is anybody in town she’s not related to.  There’s a sense of family writ-large here, and it draws us into these characters’ lives.  A distant country cousin to “Twin Peaks,” it shares that series’ theme of dark impulses lurking below the surface in a seemingly benign small town setting.  But, it also touches upon the choices, regrets, disappointments, and lasting connections we all experience in life.  And Mare has some hard-won wisdom to impart.  When her partner confides that, “I think I really just wanted to do something great for once in my life,” many of us can instantly relate.  But Mare has her own take on such yearnings:  “Doing something great is overrated. Cause then people expect that from you all the time.  What they don’t realize is that you are as screwed up as they are.”

The fifth episode offers some startlingly unexpected major developments; but the last two episodes go astray with actions that don’t seem adequately motivated — and, especially, with a few plot twists too many.  Indeed, the surfeit of red herrings in the final episode put a real strain on the story’s credibility.  Nevertheless. for all the things it gets right, starting with Kate Winslet’s fine performance, “Mare of Easttown” is must-see TV.  It was nominated for an impressive sixteen Primetime Emmy Awards, winning in four of those categories, namely Best Actress, Supporting Actress (J. Nicholson), Supporting Actor (E. Peters), and Production Design.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; violence; and sexual talk. Not suitable for children.

“Minari” (USA, 2020) (B):  A young Korean-American family (a husband, wife, and their two kids) moves more than halfway across the United States (from California to Arkansas) in pursuit of better opportunities.  Jacob’s (Steve Yeun of television’s “The Walking Dead”) goal is a farm of their own, where they can grow specialty vegetables popular among Asian-Americans.  Until now, he and Monica (Yeri Han) have been employed by others in chicken hatcheries.  Their new abode (which may have been bought sight unseen) is a humble dwelling built on stilts in the middle of a rural nowhere, without even steps to get up to the front door.  Their story is a low-key, slow-tempo depiction of everyday life:  they deal with moving in, finding water for an irrigation well, money worries, bank loans,  meeting the locals (at the church, where they are regarded as exotica), and frictions over family priorities.  For his part, Jacob is driven to make this new venture work:  “They need to see me succeed at something, for once.”  Impromptu daycare for the kids arrives in person of the feisty, plainspoken grandmother, played by Yuh-Jung Youn, who provides much the film’s energy and humor.  Will Patton is on hand as a helpful, but eccentric local, who ‘speaks in tongues’ and spends his Sundays trudging the back roads with a cross on his back.  His overt oddness makes him an acquired taste; but he grows on the newcomers – and on us

“Minari” has a vaguely impressionistic feel that’s somewhat reminiscent of the introspective, gently-paced films of Terrence Malick.  It’s a gentle slice of life about family bonds and pursuit of the American Dream.  The pace is undeniably slow, which may try the patience of some viewers.  It is consistently well-acted; but it never packs the emotional wallop we’d hoped for.  Although it is more subdued than overtly powerful, it has a dreamy quality that stays with you.  The sound design is effective at conveying a sense of the outdoors, with its birds and bugs chirping

Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, “Minari” earned Oscar nominations as Best Film, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, and it won Best Supporting Actress (for Yuh-Jung Youn).  A few logical incongruities go unanswered.  (1) How (and where) did they return the do-it-yourself moving van, which was far from its point of origin on the west coast?  (2) How did they lift furniture into the house-on-stilts without help – or stairs?  (They had enough trouble just lifting themselves up to the elevated entrance.)  (3) Would such an isolated domicile really have running water and electricity?  (4) Wouldn’t an aspiring farmer have looked into irrigation sources in advance of moving-in?    Technical flaw:  Most of the dialogue is in Korean, but the subtitles are much too small.

“A Girl Missing” [“Yokogao”] (Japan/France, 2019) (B/B+):  Ichiko (Mariko Tsutsui) is a caring and dedicated private nurse for the elderly matriarch of the Oishe family.  Indeed, she’s

almost a part of the family herself.  She is single and dating a doctor.  Suddenly, her ordinary, contented world flies out of its orbit when the youngest daughter (Saki, played by Miyu Ozawa) of the family she works for is kidnapped and the news names Ichiko’s nephew as the chief suspect.  She is shocked and on the verge of telling her employers about her family connection to the young man accused of the crime:  “I don’t want to lie.  And, I have to apologize.”  But, for reasons of her own, the older sister (Motoko, played by Mikada Ichikawa) of the kidnapped girl urges Ichiko to say nothing:  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”  Ichiko tries to live, however uncomfortably, with that lie of omission.  But, inevitably, things come apart at the seams in a character-driven drama about irony, injustice, hidden agendas, jealousy, collateral damage, and revenge.  With some flitting back and forth in time and some changes in the appearance of the lead, it’s initially hard to tell who’s who and what’s going on.  (For example, we wonder for a long while how a male hairdresser figures into the story.)  But, we got our sea-legs about 45 minutes in.  The cast here is strong, but the lead is stellar, with Mariko Tsutsui delivering award-caliber work as a woman who falls afoul of bad luck and the vindictiveness of others.  When she washes away the red paint scrawled on her car, she is also symbolically washing away all vestiges of her past, contented life.  There’s a very effective scene at a traffic intersection late in the film which points out the extremes any of us may be capable of in extremis.  And, there are a few inexplicably odd moments:  Ichiko crawls on all fours in a dream and later indulges in what may be wide-awake barking from a window; and a sexual liaison takes place in a dumbwaiter, for reasons unknown.   The film was directed and co-written by Kôji Fukada, and there’s a 41-minute behind the scenes look at the film’s making included as an extra.  For ages 18+:  Brief sexual content; brief nudity; and adult subject matter.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Love Comes Later” (USA/India, 2015) (B-/B):  A young immigrant woman works in indentured servitude as a motel maid, with no clear end date in sight.  As an illegal immigrant, she’s at their mercenary mercy, though she doesn’t seem to be physically molested.  She’s no saint, herself:  she jimmies the lock on a suitcase and pockets the cash.   In other moments:  an older coworker is suddenly gone, without explanation; and, the protagonist discovers that she is pregnant and considers a pharmaceutical abortion.  Directed by Sonejuhi Sinhi, this 10-minute short film is essentially a series of vignettes, but it conveys a solid sense of character and situation in its brief running time.  For ages 16+:  Adult subject matter.

“Promising Young Woman” (U.K./USA, 2020) (B):  “You know, they put themselves in danger, girls like that.  If she’s not

careful, someone’s gonna take advantage, especially the kind of guys in this club.”   Three respectable-looking young men in a bar observe an intoxicated woman slumped on a coach and discuss her amongst themselves.  She’s a complete stranger to them, but they give voice to what passes for a disapproving concern, though they can’t seem to help assigning some blame in advance for the woman’s potential victimization:  she’s asking for trouble, they opine, being alone and drunk in a bar amongst strangers.  As a practical matter, yes, it is an imprudent place to be making oneself vulnerable.  But, of course, that misses the critical point of moral behavior (and law), namely, that someone’s vulnerability (and/or imprudence) does not create license in others to molest or assault them.  It turns out that Cassandra (an award-caliber performance by Carey Mulligan) is part damaged soul, part avenging angel.  She makes a weekly ploy of feigning heavy intoxication until some ostensibly “nice” guy offers to take her under his benevolent wing and see her home.  Invariably, however, each of the men whom she encounters makes a detour to their own home, where they initiate intimacy with someone who is clearly too intoxicated to consent.  That’s when she springs her trap, abruptly shedding the pretence of drunkenness to confront the males with their transgression.  But, she only gives them a stern talking-to, which is an underwhelming pay-off.  Our heroine is expending a lot of effort (and potential risk to herself) just to admonish someone.  If a scolding would do the trick, the transgressors likely wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing in the first place.  It’s not that we were hoping for violent retribution; but a mere scolding seems kind of pointless.  Maybe public exposure and shaming of some kind would be more satisfying?

The second, even bigger, credibility problem here is that the film seems to be suggesting that every male will behave improperly when no one is looking.  Such a blanket contention defies belief even as it may denote an underlying misandry (or hatred of males).  And, it’s a blow to the viewer when even a genuinely nice guy (Bo Burnham) turns out to have his own inner cad.  It’s a twist that feels heavy-handed and arbitrary.

The film has good points to make, not the least being that even men who seem to be (and earnestly believe themselves to be) “nice guys” are apt to behave like opportunistic predators when a chance presents itself.  Indeed, that opening exchange, with its professed “concern” (albeit a disapproving, judgmental, and paternalistic one) about a vulnerable young woman, proves to be ironic (and hypocritical) insofar as one of the trio proceeds to treat her like prey.  As the story unfolds, we learn that Cassandra’s life has been derailed by the sexual assault (and subsequent suicide) of her best friend, who was raped (while intoxicated at a party) by one acquaintance while others watched.  Nothing matters to Cassandra after that save confronting men who try to take improper (and illegal) advantage of vulnerable women.  Her promising career as a doctor in training goes out the window.  But, is there a double-meaning in the film’s title?  Might it refer as much to the way an ostensibly intoxicated young woman is regarded by ruthless males, as it does to her one-time promise for a successful career?  Her very name, which hearkens back to the ill-fated woman who warns her people of dark deeds and doom in Homer’s “Iliad,” is redolent with meaning.

“Promising Young Woman” is the feature film directorial debut by writer/director Emerald Fennell.  It had Oscar nominations as Best Film, Actress, Director, and Editing, winning for Original Screenplay.  It had four Golden Globe nominations; and it won Best British Film and Original Screenplay at BAFTA.  It’s a deliberately skewed version of reality, not to be taken completely literally, and inhabiting the terrain of satire.  Though its lead has been irrevocably scarred by tragedy, her journey has an unexpected buoyancy and dark sense of humor.  Or, at least, it does until things take an unexpectedly rough turn late in the film – in a truly unpleasant scene we wish had been omitted.  But our spirits were somewhat restored when the film ends on a note of cheerful retribution, fueled by the very effective use of Juice Newton’s song “Angel of the Morning.”  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; sexual talk; adult subject-matter; allusions to sexual violence; and a scene of strong, disturbing violence.

“Wonder Woman 1984” (USA/U.K./Spain, 2020) (F):  Fire the writers!  The blame for this abject failure of a superhero film

starts with them.  The premise, characters, and tone here are all abysmally wrong; the result is a bitter disappointment after 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” which was actually quite good.  That initial installment had the same lead (Gal Gadot) and director (Patty Jenkins, who this time takes on co-writing responsibility); but that’s where the similarity ends.  The first film had some real drama, despite an overblown, effects-driven final battle; and it had three truly powerful scenes, with unexpected emotional heft:  in one of them, the heroine charges an enemy trench during World War One, deflecting the intense fire aimed at her.  It felt fiercely courageous and dangerous and inspiring, and it was propelled by the same track of remarkably emotive music by Rupert Gregson-Williams that also fueled that film’s other two standout scenes.  Hans Zimmer is a very good composer, but his score for the sequel has no such riveting moments.

In the original film, the heroine’s superpowers were mostly understated; it made her more relatable.  Much of her prowess came simply from being a peerless warrior.  In the sequel, she suddenly can fly, sometimes using her magic lasso to catch clouds – a sight that is ridiculous to behold.  Said lasso is her go-to prop here, and it makes way too many appearances in every action sequence.  This story takes place some 70 years after the original, and it is completely different in tone – abandoning drama entirely for a cartoonish, comedic style which fails to connect with the viewer.  The fierce determination of the original is gone, replaced by humor that’s not funny, stakes which are uncompelling (to put it mildly), and two of the most inane and insipid villains ever to be devised.  Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig grate in those roles. The story, such as it is, revolves around an object, “the dreamstone,” which grants wishes – but at a heavy price.  Chris Pine returns as Diana’s long-lost love; but the most welcome returning faces here are Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen (as Diana’s mother and aunt, respectively) in a brief flashback to the isle of Amazons – a prologue which is ruined by larger-than-life overkill.  And, for a genre largely dependent on action, “Wonder Woman 1984” has the fatal flaw of being tedious.

“City of the Sun” (Georgia/USA/Qatar/The Netherlands, 2017) (B-/B):  “They are rich because they want nothing / poor

because they possess nothing / and consequently are not slaves to circumstances / but circumstances serve them.”   Here’s a dreamy, poetic meditation on a place and the dwindling number of people who live there.  The setting is Chiatura, a city in the republic of Georgia in the Caucasus region of southeast Europe.  Here, decades ago, the Soviet Union undertook “a human and technological experiment on a grand scale,” remaking a 19th century city into an industrial-scaled mining center which  used to produce fully half of the world’s manganese and boasted both an opera house and the first cable car used for public transportation.  Intended to be a showpiece and a model community, the city has dwindled.  Set amidst natural beauty, astride a river and sheltered by mountains,

its great industrial structures are crumbling, and at first glance it could be mistaken for a ghost town.  But a remnant of its population remains, and this impressionistic documentary film gives us glimpses into their lives in a series of brief vignettes.  Workers ride a small rail-car deep underground – a mere rump of the 10,000 who once toiled here.  Disinterested kids attend a shambles of a music class.  A septet of older women in white dresses and veils sing for a family occasion.  The power briefly goes out underground; when it is restored a large inflatable tube that carries life-giving air into the subterranean labyrinth suddenly swells to life like an enormous serpent, mayhap Ouroboros itself.  Two girls in sweat-suits jog along the deserted roads in training for competitive track events that might rescue them from the dead-ended place into which they were born.  A man chips away at a concrete behemoth with a sledge-hammer.  Is he kin to Sisyphus?

We are mute witnesses to these mundane moments of ordinary lives in progress.  There’s a certain stark beauty in the oversized decay and neglect that’s reminiscent of the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky.  There’s not a lot of dialogue here, and the pace is ever so gentle; but, it is always very watchable.  The scenes we witness feel random, like a filmic stream of consciousness.  And a brooding, gently melancholic tone prevails.  Its seeming aimlessness – in the absence of story or overt structure – and its slow pace may put some viewers off.  Others, like this reviewer, will enjoy its artful, poetical reflection on life amidst the ruins of a latter-day palace of Ozmandias.  Monuments to hubris may have risen and faded away here, but ordinary lives go on:  the ephemeral and that which endures existing side-by-side.   It is distributed by Big World Pictures, which has a solid track-record of bringing unique quality films to audiences.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Tenet” (U.K./USA, 2020) (C+/B-):  “As I understand it, we’re trying to prevent World War Three”  “Nuclear holocaust?”  “No, something worse.”   Imagine the “Mission Impossible” movies grafted onto the reality-bending mindscapes of “Inception,”  seasoned with the high-octane hand-to-hand combat duels in the Jason Bourne and the current street-smart series of James Bond movies, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s on offer in writer/director Christopher Nolan’s new drama.  (There’s even a cousin to the highway chase and running battle from the second Matrix movie.)  Weighing in at 151 minutes, “Tenet” is part spy drama, part action movie, with an underlying sci-fi premise.  Alas, despite a strong cast (led by John David Washington, Robert Pattison, Elizaberth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Martin Donovan, and Dimple Kapadia), it misses its mark with two of its three main plot drivers, namely, its action and its science fiction components.  The action is solid when it’s one-on-one (or when it involves the inventive use of bungee cords to enter and exit a closely guarded lair); but it disappoints mightily when larger groups get involved.  The film is book-ended by such big set pieces.  It opens with a violent assault on a packed opera house in Kiev.  But good guys and bad guys are dressed alike – in black with masks.  Who’s who, and what they’re up to, is anybody’s guess:  it’s just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing at all.  The same goes for a protracted full-scale battle at the end – set in an abandoned city in Siberia.  A legion of combatants attack, firing madly as they advance, but, we don’t see their faces, let alone their unseen enemy.  It feels fake, obscure, and hollow.

Spoiler alert:  But the film’s worst handicap is its central premise, involving “inverted time” (time travel to the uninitiated), complete with things (like bullets) traveling backward in time.  It’s terminally abstruse, hopelessly opaque, and utterly incomprehensible.  One character, supposedly in the know, advises the lead, “Don’t try to understand it.”  As viewers, we’re obliged to take that advice to heart.  And there are gaping plot holes which leave the viewer either unconvinced or disinterested.  For one, there’s a “temporal war” in progress.  Our future is trying to destroy us: “We are being attacked by the future!”  The very notion is absurd.  Why on Earth would the future have it in for us?  There’s barely an attempt to explain that massive leap of logic; yet it is impossible to ignore the entire herd of proverbial elephants in the room.  And the über-villain here has a pretty trivial motivation – he’s dying and he wants to take the rest of us – every man, woman, and child – with him.  He’s cruel and ruthless, but he doesn’t appear to be a madman, so his scheme just feels arbitrary and pointless

Among the characters, Washington (who was so good in 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman”) is coolly efficient as the unnamed ‘protagonist’ (in an odd twist, he even uses that term to describe himself, in lieu of introducing himself).  There’s an effective scene of him efficiently dispatching a squad of brutes in a restaurant kitchen.  Debicki earns our sympathy as a victimized woman; Branagh brings his customary gravitas as the villain; Pattison gets to emote and amuse as the lead’s chief ally; and Caine is a treat even in his sole scene.  The result has a good cast hampered by a premise that feels gimmicky, impenetrable, and effects-dependent.   It’s worth seeing, but it is ultimately disappointing.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language and a disturbing verbal description of brutal violence.

“Peninsula” [a.k.a. “Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula”] (South Korea, 2020) (C):  “You did all you can.  That’s what matters.” After a zombie plague has decimated Korea, four survivors are induced to reenter that ruined and dangerous no-go zone to retrieve a truck-load of cash.  Two of the quartette are estranged brothers-in-law, haunted and embittered by the events that violently robbed them of their shared close kin during the panicked evacuation of the country four years earlier.  One of them is a past soldier, and he knows how to handle himself – a skill that comes in handy fending-off hordes of fast moving zombies and nearly as bloodthirsty human survivors.  The result is “Thunderdome” meets “Zombieland,” though this film is neither as investing as the one nor as deadpan humorous as the other.  The Mad Max comparison springs from the lethal public ‘games’ staged by the savage survivors and by the film’s manic, high-speed motor vehicle chases.   The latter are competently shot action pieces.  But, what is best here, by far, is a woman and her two amusingly precocious young daughters:  they’ve managed to survive without losing their decency or their sense of humor.  They are key players here, but they could just as easily have been the chief drivers of the entire story – nothing else here engaged our interest and sympathies the way they did.  The film is a sequel to 2016’s “Train to Busan,” but no familiarity with the earlier film is necessary to follow this story.  “Peninsula”  is worth a look for genre buffs but ultimately unmemorable.   For ages 14+:  Moderate violence and mature subject matter.

“Yellowstone” (Seasons One & Two – preliminary review) (B):  We hadn’t heard of this series before, but its first two seasons have just been released (separately) on DVD and Blu-ray, and it has already been renewed for a fourth season on the Paramount Network, where it debuted in 2018.  Our expectations were raised sky-high when we noticed that the series co-creator (and, in its first season, its chief writer) is Taylor Sheridan.  Sheridan has written some first-rate films, namely:  2015’s “Sicario,” 2016’s “Hell or High Water” (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), and 2017’s “Wind River” (which he also directed).   How does “Yellowstone” hold up in comparison?  Well, based on its first episode, “Daybreak,” it’s not on the same level as those exemplary films.  But, it easily held our attention and effectively got us acquainted with its ensemble cast of characters.  The setting is Montana, which is home to the Dutton family and America’s biggest contiguous ranch.  It is presided over by a laconic, suffer-no-fools patriarch, John Dutton, played by the always engaging Kevin Costner.  He has three sons:  Lee (Dave Annable) is a dutiful right-hand man, Jamie (Wes Bentley) is a lawyer and aspiring politician, and the youngest of the three Kayce (Luke Grimes) is a man determined to choose his own path.  The three brothers have a sister, Beth (Kelly Reilly), who uses her skill (we see an early example in a fraught boardroom) at ruthlessly bending others to her will to aid her family:  “I’m not going anywhere.  Just tell me who to fight.”

The Duttons have had their way for a long time.  But other powerful interests are starting to apply pressure on their borders:  there’s an aggressive, unscrupulous new CEO at the native reservation (Gil Birmingham first caught our notice in “Hell or High Water” as Jeff Bridges’ fellow lawman) who is intent on making highly publicized trouble; while a big development company (headed by Danny Huston) has its own designs on the surrounding lands.  Among the solid supporting cast, Kelsey Asbile (as Kayce’s beautiful native-American wife), Wendy Moroz-Grillo (as the state governor), Jill Hennessey (as an ambitious senator), and Cole Hauser (as the self-destructive Beth’s sometime lover) all make strong impressions.

But, it all revolves around the family patriarch.  His youngest sums him up by saying, “If he says he’ll do something, you’re not going to stay him…. He’s reasonable, till he’s provoked.  Then reason don’t factor in at all.”   John Dutton knows ranching, but he also knows the difference between working a ranch and running one.  For Yellowstone is as much a big business and a compact empire as it is a cattle ranch.  The story that unfolds is a gritty distant cousin to “Bonanza,”  marinated with some of the interpersonal ups and downs of “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” and seasoned with a dollop of “Game of Thrones’” fierce loyalties and antagonisms.  Actually, if we had to pick the closest dramatic kin, it would be the epic 1958 western film “The Big Country,” with its lethal rivalry between competing, mutually implacable ranch owners.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language and sexual content.

“Star Trek: Picard” (Season One) (B+):   An iconic character returns in this new series in the enduring Star Trek universe, a franchise that comprises multiple television series and motion pictures over a span of more than 50 years since the original “Star Trek’s” debut in 1966.  Patrick Stewart originated the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which was set in the 24th century and played for seven seasons (1987-94) in 178 episodes, before morphing to the big screen for four films (1994-2002).  This new series, “Picard” takes up the character 20 years after the events of the crew’s last cinematic outing in “Star Trek: Nemesis.”   Picard is a retired admiral now, and he’s reduced to a circumscribed life on his ancestral family vineyard in France, haunted by the loss of Lt. Commander Data (who sacrificed his own life to save Picard’s), embittered by an egregious moral failure on the part of the Starfleet which he’d so long served with distinction, and diminished by aging and loss of purpose.  It’s the same actor, playing the same role, but the character has changed – the effortless optimism, energy, and certainty of purpose have been blunted.  Regrets and disappointment and introspection have largely taken their place:  “The dreams are lovely.  It’s the waking up that I’m beginning to resent.”  But all of that changes when a mysterious young woman who reminds him of Data arrives in desperate need of his help.

Potential spoilers ahoy:  That plea for help sets in motion a journey which is as much a quest to reconnect with the protagonist’s best self as it is a physical transit.  Picard’s two loyal household staffers, both of whom are Romulan refugees (we see far too little of those engaging characters), urge him to “Be the captain they remember.”  And, that could very well be the theme of the series, as Picard rediscovers his inner compass and emerges from self-imposed exile to remind the Federation of its core values.  There’s a dreamy, wistful quality to the series at times, with an undercurrent of nostalgia.  Patrick Stewart and the series’ producers were adamant that they wanted to do something very different in tone and topic from “The Next Generation.”  And they’ve done a credible job at doing exactly that.  But, ironically, the series is at its most moving precisely when it revisits the earlier series – with guest appearances (by Data, Riker, Troi, Seven of Nine, and a certain former Borg named Hugh) from TNG and Voyager, by brief signature flourishes of the theme music from TNG, and by reminders of familiar Picard-isms, like “Engage,” or “Make it So!”

In an extra, Stewart is quoted as saying, ‘We’ve been there, we’ve done that… We have to find a new kind of story to tell.’  But, he was wrong.  The new story is good, if sometimes contrived; but, a new story that reassembled all of the old characters would be better still.  The proof of that proposition is apparent in these five examples:  (1) The stellar best of the ten episodes is a gentle one, titled “Nepenthe,” featuring TNG cast-mates Jonathan Frakes (Riker) and Marina Sirtis (Troi) and a new character in the person of their precocious daughter Kestra (Lulu Wilson).  (2)  The first episode ends with the series’ most dramatic moment – a slow pull-away from a Borg cube. (3) Guest star Jeri Ryan rivets in each of her appearances as the character Seven of Nine from “Star Trek: Voyager” – never more so than when she menacingly utters the words, “We are Borg!”  (4) Data’s brief appearances in dreams never fail to move the viewer.   And, (5) the same goes for occasional brief (but inspiring) musical snippets from Jerry Goldsmith’s TNG theme music.  Yet, each of those series’ highpoints draws its emotive impact and appeal from familiarity with past Trek series:  So, why the rush to distance the new show from its popular predecessor?

In the new series, Picard has a proverbial motley crew, comprised of a brash pilot (played with charismatic dash by Santiago Cabrera), a cynical former colleague (Michelle Hurd), and a skittish scientist (played by the very talented Canadian actress Alison Pill).  They’re all passable, but they feel, thus far, more like types than fully realized characters.  One of the best new characters is ‘Dahj,’ the desperate young woman in the first episode:  we sympathize with her confusion and fear immediately.  The producers congratulate themselves for daring to abruptly dispatch her in the first episode, but it is a wasteful decision.  True, the same actress (Isa Briones) remains, as another character; but we never bond with her (or become as invested in her fate) the way we did with her ill-fated counterpart.  A Romulan of suspect motivations (Harry Treadway) is well-portrayed, but his character is written in a way that feels inauthentic.  Ditto for his distaff counterpart Narissa (Peyton List), who is a case of good acting in service of a one-dimensional character.  Our favorite pair of Romulans are Picard’s household staffers (nicely played by the beautiful Irish actress Orla Brady, who first caught our eye in “Into the Badlands,” and Jamie McShane).  But, they are gone after the first episode.  Likewise, a young Romulan swordsman extraordinaire (Evan Evagora, who is channeling Legolas from “The Lord of the Rings’” movies) has some neat action scenes but always feels inchoate as a real character.

The flaws and missteps in “Star Trek: Picard” were avoidable ones.  They start with a heavy-handed use of disparate ingredients, characters, species, situations, and lore from past Trek incarnations that are thrown up in the air and reassembled in new combinations.  So, we have “rogue synthetics,” Romulans, ex-Borg, Data’s offspring, a ban on artificial life-forms, and an alien spy at the highest echelon of Starfleet.  It alls feels more arbitrary than authentic.  The series, like the companion series “Star Trek: Discovery,” makes the unfortunate choice to treat the events in the Trek reboot films that began in 2009 as ‘canon,’ rather than anomalies.  But, that rewritten history of the future grates with this Trek aficionado.  A fanatical hostility for synthetic life-forms is the engine that drives plot developments here; but it always feels unconvincing and empty.  A flashback to the chief proponents of that absurd creed depicts them as a coven of witches:  ridiculous!  The same goes for the contrived plot point that has a malevolent Romulan passing herself off as a Vulcan to occupy a very senior job at Starfleet HQ.  C’mon.  Doesn’t Starfleet test for imposters?   Or are they the 24th century’s version of the Keystone Kops?   A tale of a respected Starfleet captain committing an atrocity (by murdering two diplomatic envoys), because he is ordered to, is as absurdly far-fetched as it is inconsistent with Trek values: for heaven’s sake, even in the present we have strict prohibitions against obeying unlawful orders.  Almost as unconvincingly, an improbably fortuitous shortcut, in the form of a Borg ‘trans-warp corridor,’ just happens to pass near the protagonists’ ultimate destination, a planet which (somehow) never seems to have gotten an unwelcome visit from said corridor’s original users.  That a villain conveniently manages to hide in said corridor is so improbable, the plot offers only a nonsensical rationale (that he ‘extrapolated from their last course’).  And there is a gaping black hole in logic elsewhere:  A sect of Romulans was behind an attack on Mars and blamed it on androids in order to provoke a Federation ban on synthetics.  But, at what ruinous cost to their own kind:  The attack ended the planned evacuation of the doomed Romulan homeworld, a result which was easily foreseeable, inevitable even, as the evacuation fleet was wiped out in the process.  Isn’t that an instance of cutting off your whole head to spite your face?   Even for fanatics, it’s a ridiculous act, which the viewer cannot accept as believable.  In the last episode, several characters (Narek, Soong, and Sutra) suddenly switch sides and/or act completely out of character.  It’s sloppy, contrived storytelling – and not in the least credible.  A big confrontation with two fleets at the end makes no impression at all and should have been omitted in favor of the series’ general reliance on character relationships.  But, flaws aside, the series entertains; it offers a mildly cerebral approach that makes a welcome change from the over-reliance in much televised sci-fi on action; and it has a solid cast.

There’s a short featurette for each episode (as well as looks at series-wide topics like props), but only one full-length commentary, which is a shame.  The lone commentary correctly notes that, “You come at the show just wanting your captain back, and you quickly realize that’s not what you’re getting.”  As suggested earlier, we’re not convinced that that was the right choice.  Worse still, the iconic values of Trek (idealism, decency, optimism about the future and about human potential, and an insatiable impetus for discovery) are adulterated here (and in “Discovery”) by darker, less exemplary characters and motivations.  It dilutes and somewhat betrays what’s best and beloved about Star Trek.  The new franchise producers likewise repeat the same mistake they made in “Discovery” by sprinkling in a few gratuitous coarse words – words which neither belong in Trek nor somehow make it more gritty and ‘grown-up.’   For ages 18+:  Occasional (and wholly unnecessary) coarse language and one scene of brutal violence.

“Roman Holiday” (1953) (B&W) (A-):   It’s hard to imagine a more charming film than this tale of a young princess who goes on the lam (and incognito) in Rome for a few days to experience a normal life.  Audrey Hepburn delivers a vibrant, winning performance, full of wide-eyed wonder and enthusiasm for the mundane bits of life that the rest of us too often take for granted.  It’s hard to believe that this was her first leading role, and that she was only 24 at the time.  She brings an ageless presence and poise to the role.  It’s no surprise at all that she was awarded with Best Actress for the role at the Oscars, BAFTA, and the Golden Globes.  Gregory Peck plays the American reporter who falls in love with his would-be news ‘scoop,’ despite himself.  It’s a sparkling, romantic classic, shot on location in Rome, and possessed of memorable scenes like a haircut makeover, a visit to the ‘Mouth of Truth,’ dancing on a barge near St. Angelo, and a poignant closing that has feelings achingly conveyed without words.  Paramount’s restored print of the film on Blu-ray has an informative 7-minute analysis from Leonard Maltin (which notes that director William Wyler ‘was more interested in story and performance than in showing-off how he could move the camera’).  Among a nice assortment of other extras, there’s a 30-minute look at Audrey Hepburn’s films for Paramount.  This “elfin, gamine beauty” left a memorable impression not only in her starring debut as ‘a Cinderella in reverse,’ but also in 1956’s “War and Peace,” 1957’s “Funny Face,” and 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”  Who’d have guessed that behind her seemingly effortless grace lay a down-to-earth, unpretentious, and apparently even shy woman?   “Roman Holiday” had ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture, Director and Eddie Albert’s supporting performance), winning three of them – for Actress, Writing (by the then blacklisted Dalton Trumbo), and Costumes.  The result is a must-see classic.

“Star Trek: Short Treks” (B+/A-):  An anthology of stories set in the Star Trek universe, involving different characters, situations, and moods was an irresistible prospect for fans of the Trek franchise.  Installments might involve familiar characters or introduce entirely new ones, whom we might never see again.  And the sky would be the limit as to tone, running the gamut from intimate character stories to intense drama to humor.  Creating a weekly series on that intriguing model hasn’t materialized (yet); but, it got a promising debut as a series of occasional shorts.  These inaugural nine short films are all linked to the time, places, characters, or situations in the series “Star Trek: Discovery.”  In one, a zany Starfleet newbie meets a mixed-up alien teen who regards her home planet as her “sister.”  Another has smuggler and recurring comic-relief Harry Mudd (a man whose every word is suspect) captured by an alien with a grudge.  We get a look at the back-story of the Discovery character Saru.  Born into an oppressed species, he dares to question the way things have always been:  “I saw hope in the stars.  It was stronger than fear.  And I went toward it.”  His words are accompanied by a burst of the classic Star Trek theme, and it’s an inspiring reminder of the Trek ethos.

The anthology’s superlative standout piece has a barely alive man in a life-pod rescued by Discovery, whose sole occupant is the ship’s computer, which has become a sentient A.I. in its thousand years of solitude awaiting the return of its absent crew.  He’s a soldier from some unknown world.  She introduces him to tacos and a romantic movie from Earth’s 20th century (“Funny Face” with Hepburn & Astaire).  Titled “Calypso,” after a section of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the story is poignant and lovely, with compelling performances by Aldis Hodge and (by voice) Annabelle Wallis.   So memorable and authentic in its mere 15 minutes, it has the heft of an entire feature film.  And its words, “You reminded me of what it means to be human,” epitomize “Star Trek” at its best.

Two other installments deserve special mention.  One, titled “Q&A,” portrays a young Ensign Spock’s first day on the job on the U.S.S. Enterprise.  In transit to the bridge, he is grilled by ‘Number One,’ the ship’s severe female First Officer. (Ethan Peck & Rebecca Romijn played the same roles in Discovery’s second season.)  Things get musical – and philosophical:  (Q) “Do Vulcans feel awe, Spock?”  (A) “They do.  But they tend to keep it to themselves.”  Worlds away in style and tone, the short titled “Ephraim and Dot” is a fast-paced animated installment centered on a ‘tardigarde,’ a space-faring creature that made a less cute appearance in Discovery.  Here, it’s at the heart of a very amusing, very inventive few minutes, which unfold with the slapstick humor of a vintage cartoon while they are imbued with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nuggets of Trek lore. Snippets from the classic Trek series take place in the background as the creature dukes it out with a zealous Starfleet maintenance droid.  We eagerly await more “Star Trek” shorts.  (And when they come, why not expand their remit to revisit the time periods, settings, and characters from all of the different Trek spin-off series?)

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“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (USA, 2019) (C):  The

big question here was:  would the ninth (and final) installment in the Skywalker saga improve on a second viewing?  In fact, it does, slightly.  The plot is as nonsensical and non-involving as the first time ‘round:  the long-gone emperor is suddenly back and behind everything; an all-in, unapologetic villain (General Hux) improbably betrays his own side; and there’s a silly “Sith wayfinder” (a magic compass to find a place no one in their right mind would want to go), a clichéd “forbidden desert,” and a new squad of baddies (the ‘Knights of Ren’) who flit across the stage for no reason at all.  Reason and logic play no role here:  a senior officer who asks a sensible question gets killed on the spot for his trouble.  So, who would serve such masters?  As is the franchise’s wont, everything is gratuitous, extraneous, and hollow – an empty simulacrum of a story.  It’s hard to care much about the pointless spectacle of the action stuff, but, it’s buoyed a bit by a solid cast.  The gilt droid CP3O gets the best lines and the film’s only poignant moment; while his round counterpart, BB-8, brings the cuteness.  There’s a beautiful, blink-and-you’ll-miss it visual, with TIE-fighters approaching an ice-blue something.  Perhaps the film’s shortcoming are less apparent on a smaller screen, or perhaps our expectations shrank on a second viewing; but, it managed to mildly entertain, coasting on an inexplicable residual fondness for the franchise, which, sad to say, has hardly ever been rewarded.  Blu-ray extras include a two-hour behind-the-scenes look at the making of the saga.  Not suitable for very young children.

“Ága” (Bulgaria/Germany/France, 2018) (B+/A-):  Here’s a lovely surprise (from director and co-writer Milko Lazarov) set on

the wintry tundra of northeast Russia.  An aging couple (who are ethnic Yakuts) lead a simple, solitary life in their yurt in the midst of the great whiteness – trapping scarce wildlife, ice-fishing, and harvesting their catches as food and as fur garments.  They’re stoical and contented, wistful only about the memory of better times (“Times were good when we had reindeer”) and the absence of their estranged daughter, who has left them for a distant mining town over some past familial conflict.  It’s an ever-so-quiet film, filled with the gentle, unhurried rhythm of mundane routines.  At night, they lie in bed softly singing to each other.  Conversation is sparse; plotting is even sparser.  But it works, thanks to gorgeous cinematography by Kaloyan Bozhilov; ever-so-authentic, naturalistic performances by Mikhail Aprosimov (as Nanook) and Feodosia Ivanova (as Sedna); and its full-body immersion in a different lifestyle and culture.

The film’s gently elegiac tone suggests that it’s a lifestyle whose time is quickly vanishing:  In one scene, Nanook lies on his back on the ice – arms outstretched, crucifix-style – as he sees the condensation trail of an aircraft passing high above on the blue sky.  In another scene, a visitor, who comes by snowmobile, has a portable radio playing classical music, which seems like it comes from another world.  Recurring images of a solitary reindeer conjure the idea of loss – of youth, of a daughter, of a traditional way of life.  Likewise, Sedna’s account of a dream has all resonance of a thing or a person or a way of living that is fading away:  “Everything’s so bright that I go blind.  I forget everything.  I forget who I am, where I’ve been, where I come from, who I used to be.  I forget everything.”

Early in the film, we see a very big sky, with very small silhouettes on the horizon – of a man, a single dog, and a sled.  The use of such very long shots conveys the loneliness and vulnerability of man amidst the natural world.  Set in the very heart of a great stillness, the film has an impressionistic feel.  A sheer rocky cliff looks like the battlements of a fortress, reminding us of something similar in Kluane National Park, while raven calls also bring the Yukon to mind.  One technical observation:  The English subtitles are on the small side.

“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians”

[“Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari”] (Romania/Germany/Bulgaria/France/Czech Republic, 2018) (B-/B):  “It’s not anti-Romanian.  It’s facing our history.”  So says a theatrical director who is preparing a reenactment of the brutal slaughter of 18,500 Jews by Romanian soldiers at the Ukrainian city of Odessa in 1941.  They were among 380,000 Jews murdered by the Romanian regime of Ion Atonescu, which was allied with Nazi Germany.  The film takes its title from his open, brazenly unapologetic declaration that his government intended to kill as many Jews as they could, while they could. It turns out that after Nazi Germany, Romania killed the most Jews.  But are people in present-day Romania ready to acknowledge the crimes of the past?  The Odessa Massacre took place in close conjunction with a military victory over the Russians.  Does anyone want to have that patriotic

moment impugned by association with a dreadful war crime?  Bucharest’s city council certainly does not.  The director is pressured to censor her production, which is planned for a city square, or it will be cancelled by the authorities.  And, ironically, some members of her largely amateur troupe of players and extras are balking at the participation of gypsy reenactors

Writer/director Radu Jude’s (“Aferim!”) heart is in the right place, as it tenaciously attacks the ugly habit of denying genocide.  (Indeed, present-day Turkey goes so far as to criminalize acknowledgement of the 1915-17 Armenian Genocide as being “anti-Turkish;” and, recent governments in Poland likewise frown upon any suggestion of culpability by some Poles in the Holocaust.)   And, it’s grounded in an engaging performance by lead Ioana Iacob.  But the opposing views on the matter are presented, rather didactically, in the form of two protracted debates with the city council’s emissary (played by Alexandru Dabua).  He says, “It’s fine if you discuss Communist crimes.”  And she retorts:  “Do you know why?  When we think of Communist crimes, we think we’re the victims.  Not the guilty party, not the executioners…. But with the… Jews, we’re the perpetrators, not the victims.  We are the executioners.”  Their debates are interesting, but didactic.  Those scenes – and many others, move at a very casual pace.

Scenes that involve marshaling the amateur thespians, selecting costumes, and rambling through the military museum all proceed at a slow pace, often going on longer than we’d expect.  The objective seems to be a contemplative reflection on past wrongs and present opposition by the powers-that-be to exposing said past crimes.  Some chatty (and unnecessarily nude) interludes with a boyfriend are probably meant to give more depth to the heroine, but they feel more like inchoate detours.  The film’s strongest impact comes near the end, when an extended, unexpurgated theatrical presentation yields a highly unexpected reaction from the audience.  The result is not conventional storytelling:  it’s more like a series of vignettes on a theme, unfolding in a very leisurely way and not shy about engaging in polemics.  It might try the patience of some viewers, but it held our interest throughout and chronicled history from a corner of Europe with which many of us may be unfamiliar.  And it has a few good lines, to wit:  (i) “Your naiveté would be touching if it didn’t make my skin crawl,” and (ii) “But such complete lack of empathy… It scared me.”   For ages 18+:  Coarse language (including sexual talk) and graphic nudity.

“Ford v. Ferrari” (USA/France, 2019) (B/B+):  A boy says to his father, “You can’t make every lap perfect,” to which the father replies, “But I can try.”  Here’s a character-driven drama about the human imperative to overcome obstacles, break records, and do the seemingly impossible.  Based on a true story, its underdogs are those recruited by the unglamorous Ford Motor Company to take on the world’s best race cars from Italy’s Ferrari.  Sidelined from racing by a bad heart, Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) now designs race cars.  He enlists a British driver, Ken Miles (Christian Bale), to be his driver.  But, Miles is a prickly fellow who cares not one whit for fitting-in:  “I’m not what they call a people person,” he concedes.  He dotes on his wife and young son (Catriona Balfe in a nicely subdued performance & Noah Jupe), but staying on the good side of corporate overlords and ‘playing ball’ aren’t in his skill-set.  It’s impossible not to see that ‘he’s difficult, but good’ at what he does – namely, winning races.  Still, the corporate bigwigs (Tracy Letts as Henry Ford II and Jon Bernthal & Josh Lucas as his right-hand men) can’t help but meddle.

There’s excitement in the racing scenes, but the film’s strength is the fact that it is anchored in character development.  Besides those already mentioned, Ray MacKinnon (as Shelby’s trusted colleague) and Remo Girone (as Enzo Ferrari) make an impression.  There are some stylish touches, like large shadows of cars cast by passing aircraft lights that have their silhouettes seemingly race across the wall while Miles listens to revving engines on his radio, and effective rapid inter-cutting between his face and that of his chief rival as their two cars are neck-and-neck at the big 24-hour race at Le Mans.  And, who knows, maybe some of what goes for cars goes for life, too – like that aforementioned quest for the “perfect lap,” or the good judgment writ-large that’s implicit in the observation that, “If you’re going to push a piece of machinery to the limit and expect it to hold together, you have to have some sense of what that limit is.”

Among its many awards and nominations, “Ford v. Ferrari” was nominated for four Oscars (including Best Film of the Year), winning for Film Editing and Sound Editing.  Christian Bale was nominated as Best Actor at the Golden Globes and at the Screen Actors Guild.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Frozen 2” (B/B+):  “I believe in you Elsa, more than anyone or anything.”  The unbreakable bond between two sisters gives this musical fantasy its emotive heart.  This sequel to Disney’s 2013 musical fantasy ”Frozen” continues the story of Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and Anna (voiced by Kristin Bell).  Elsa has her magical powers over snow and ice under control, and she has settled into her role as queen of the picturesque Arendelle, situated at water’s edge on a fjord.  But no one else can hear the siren-like voice that’s calling to her from the north and it’s making her restless.  (Oddly, it is never made entirely clear who is behind that voice.)  And loving sister or no, she can’t fully escape the feeling of being different, of not wholly fitting in.  The voice, and a sudden threat to their home, prompts the sisters to set off “Into the Unknown” (the film’s Oscar nominated song) with three friends.

They encounter elemental spirits of fire, water, air, and earth; aggressive giants; and a tribe of aboriginal peoples long mistakenly thought to be hostile.  There are challenges to overcome, sacrifices to make, separations to endure, secrets to unlock, and injustices to remedy.  There are politically-correct subtexts about living in harmony with nature and mending fences with mistreated native peoples; but those messages don’t overwhelm the storytelling.  On the other hand, a little of the slapstick antics of the sentient snowman Olaf goes a long way, and the film has more of that broadly comedic stuff than we’d like.  Still, that juvenile content doesn’t gainsay the film’s powerful moments and poignancy, courtesy of its protagonists’ strong sisterly bond — and some emotive sings.  The message is a positive one (‘You are lost, hope is gone, but you must go on and do the next right thing’); but, when all is said and done, this is a love story (between two sisters), and that’s what gives it its power.  All of the extras (like deleted scenes, deleted songs, and music videos) on the DVD/Blu-ray combo are on the latter disc.

“Jojo Rabbit” (New Zealand/USA/Czech Republic, 2019) (A):  Whimsical, original, and thoroughly engaging, here’s the story

of a 10-year-old boy (Roman Griffin Davis) in Nazi Germany whose imaginary friend is an idealized Adolf Hitler (winningly portrayed by writer/director Taika Waititi himself).  Jojo is a kind and decent child, who has been misled into believing that Nazism is something good.  As the scales gradually fall from his eyes, his imaginary pal becomes less playful and more harshly akin to the genuine article.  His idealistic mother (Scarlet Johansson) knows better: “Love is the strongest thing in the world,” she says, adding that “There’s always time for romance.”  (The irony is that such an inclination to see the world romantically may be exactly what persuades her son that a noxious ideology and its champion are something to admire.)  And Jojo’s unexpected, taboo friendship with a hidden Jewish girl (the enchanting Thomasin McKenzie of 2018’s excellent “Leave No Trace”) eats away at his entrenched beliefs.  Based on the novel by Christine Leunens, the film earned a myriad of award nominations:  it was nominated for six Oscars (including Best Film and Supporting Actress), winning for Adapted Screenplay.  Its dry humor mixed with moments of poignancy, its funny look at childhood, and its sheer originality make “Jojo Rabbit” one of the year’s best films.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Parasite” [“Gisaenchung”] (South Korea, 2019) (A-):

“She’s rich but still nice,” says the head of a poor family.  “Not ‘rich but still nice,’” corrects his wife, “Nice because she’s rich.  Hell, if I had all this money, I’d be nice, too.  Even nicer.”  The man goes on to observe that the rich have “no creases” on them; money is ‘an iron that smooths out such creases.’  How much are we the creatures of environment and circumstance?  If we’re unlucky enough to be poor or dispossessed, does the struggle to make ends meet inevitably color our perceptions of right and wrong, perhaps giving us self-justification for making ethical compromises?  This social satire from South Korea has four members of a poor family insinuate themselves, one-by-one, into the employment of a rich family, as tutors, housekeeper, and driver.  Yet, neither side of that socio-economic divide escapes the film’s satirical barbs.   The rich man implicitly regards servants as

inferiors:  he’s as preoccupied with them “crossing the line,” as he is with their real or imagined shared odor.   For their part, the poor family has no qualms about outright fraud, and they are adept at defaming anyone they want to get out of the way:  there’s no ‘class solidarity’ here – it’s every man (or at least small clan) for himself.

The film is clever, wry, and very well acted.  Much as we sympathized with the troubled lead character in this year’s “Joker,” we like each of these two families, despite their flaws.  The poor family has admirable resourcefulness and a certain joie de vive; their rich counterparts have a kind of sheltered innocence and refinement.  The violence that comes late in the film is meant to be darkly funny; but it’s a somewhat unnecessary course change, in our view.  The simple contrast between the naïve, entitled “haves” and the unapologetically unscrupulous “have-nots” is the strength of the film, which adeptly uses both characterization and situation to propel its narrative.  There’s effective use of imagery – like the many stairs that lead from the raised, sun-dabbled habitats of the wealthy to the murky, low-lying dwellings of the underclass.  And a scene in which the poor lose everything is literally a watershed moment, awash with storm run-off and other unmentionables

Directed and co-written by Bong Joon-Ho (2016’s “The Host”), “Parasite” won the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at Cannes.  Among its great many other awards and nominations, it has six Academy Award nominations, including Best Film, Foreign Film, Director, and Original Screenplay.  It won Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and the British Independent Film Awards; and it won Best Cast at the Screen Actors Guild.  It got twelve nominations at South Korea’s Blue Dragon Awards, winning six of those categories, namely Best Film, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, and Art Direction.  “Parasite” is one of Artsforum Magazine’s Top Ten Films of 2019.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; violence; and one scene with sexual content.

“Terminator: Dark Fate” (China/Spain/Hungary/USA, 2019) (B):  “There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”  It opens with the death of John Connor, a character whom all of the past entries in the series told us was essential to the survival of mankind in its struggle with a homicidal A.I. (and its killer robots).  There’s a new future savior who needs protection this time; but two familiar faces from the original films (Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s killer-bot gone native) make welcome returns here.  The big guy gets all the best lines.  His kinder, gentler T-800 is masquerading as human, raising a family, and employed as a drapery man!  But he still has a big arsenal under wraps, which he matter-of-factly justifies:  “Even without a rogue A.I. taking over, I calculate a 74 percent chance that human civilization will collapse into barbarism.  And in that eventuality, these weapons will be vital to protect my family.  Also, this is Texas.”  Newcomers include Canada’s Mackenze Davis as an enhanced human protector sent from the future, Gabriel Luna as the current killing machine, and Natalie Reyes as a resourceful woman in danger.  We still don’t see why the good guys persist in blasting away at robots who are clearly invulnerable to bullets.  But, it’s a treat to see Hamilton and Schwarzenegger:  they and the others mentioned above keep us in invested in the chase and its recurring violent confrontations.  For ages 18+: Coarse language and violence.

“The Good Liar” (U/K./Germany/USA, 2019) (B/B+):  It opens in London in 2009:  two single seniors meet for dinner after

getting introduced on an online dating site.  We soon learn that something utterly ruthless lurks behind his charming smile and banter.  He’s a multi-tasking crook:  he runs elaborate scams to bilk well-heeled investors (in a joylessly malign spin on “The Sting’s” con-game); but he still has time to romance well-to-do widows in order to defraud them of their savings. On the turn of a dime, he’s also ready, willing, and able to do cold-blooded murder.  The result may be overkill in the all-purpose villainy department; but the improbability of the premise can’t dent the appeal of watching two eminent actors do their stuff – Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen banish any plot shortcomings to sheer insignificance.  And there is able supporting work by Russell Tovey and Jim Carter.  Based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, and directed by Bill Condon, the result is a study in deceit – there’s layer after layer of it here, like the false fronts of an onion:  “Secrets between you, God, the devil, and the dead.  Lying; becoming a very good liar.”  A flashback to another time and place feels a tad out of place, but, as noted, the performances save the day!  Extras include twelve minutes of very worthwhile deleted scenes – all new material that’s not seen in the movie (two of those scenes would have given too much away and were well-excised), and a thirteen minute featurette which explains the choice to transform the story from the novel’s internal character study of a conman to a more equal match-up between two antagonists.  For ages 18+ only:  Strong coarse language; brief nudity; brief strong violence.

“Doctor Sleep” (U.K./Canada/USA, 2019) (B+/A-):  “World’s a hungry place.  And the darkest things are the hungriest, and they’ll

eat what shines.”   Who’d have thought that a horror film based on a novel by Stephen King, which continues the story from his earlier novel, “The Shining,” would be so predominately humane and gentle?   There’s certainly horror here, in the unpleasant person of the ‘dark things’ that prey upon gifted children.  Indeed, one such scene is highly disturbing and should have been left to our imaginations.  It’s there to frighten and to show us just how horrible this death cult is; but their ruthlessness and dangerousness could have been conveyed less explicitly.  Depicting the torment of a child is just in very bad taste.  That scene aside, the heart of the film is the unexpected mentorship by a man who has been troubled all his life by past trauma for a young girl who attracts the attention of the aforementioned predators.  Ewan McGregor and Kyliegh Curran are first-rate in those roles.

Carl Lumbly (as the lead’s kindly mentor from the behind the proverbial veil), Cliff Curtis (as a good Samaritan), Canada’s Bruce Greenwood (as an AA leader), and Zackary Momoh and Jocelyn Donohue (as the child’s parents) all bring admirable humanity to the roles.  Among the villains, the drop-dead gorgeous Rebecca Ferguson makes an unforgettable impression, ably supported by the understated menace of cult subordinates played by Zahn McClarion and Emily Alyn Lind.  Atmosphere looms large here – atmosphere and highly effective characterization.  The result is a strong drama, in which horror is balanced by love, a movie which transcends its genre.  For ages 18+ only:  Coarse language; brief nudity; strong violence; horror; and a scene with disturbing content.

“Motherless Brooklyn” (USA, 2019) (B/B+):  “[Frank] was more philosophical than your average gumshoe, but he liked to do

his talkin’ on the move, so here’s how it all went down.  I got somethin’ wrong with my head.  That’s the first thing to know…. It’s like having glass in the brain.  I can’t stop pickin’ things apart, twistin’ ‘em around, reassembling ‘em.  Words and sounds, especially.  It’s like an itch that has to be scratched.”  So says junior private detective Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton) about his mentor and friend Frank Minno (Bruce Willis).  Frank has been gunned down, and his protégé is determined to unravel the mystery and avenge his boss in a period private eye drama that ably evokes the traditions of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.  The wrinkle here is that Lionel has something amiss with his nervous system.  He has verbal and physical ticks, he shouts, he blurts out nonsense phrases, and he has obsessive-compulsive behaviors.  Is he autistic?  Does he have Tourette syndrome?  Either way, Lionel is often able to turn his differences to an advantage:  turns out he’s very good at ‘listening and remembering things.’  However, he seems a little too self-confident for someone with so many nervous ticks:  it’s a contradiction that arguably strains credibility a wee bit.  But, cavils aside, the film gets high marks for atmosphere with its nice noirish private eye vibe in 1950s New York, its strong characterization, and its fine scripting. The film was written and directed by its leading man Norton from the novel by Jonathan Lethem.  Its tone is note-perfect:  “If you had to pick just one guy to be on your side, he’s the one you’d want.”  In addition to those already mentioned, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe, and the supporting players acquit themselves very well.  For ages 18+:  Frequent coarse language.

“Cairo Time” (Canada/Ireland/Egypt, 2009) (B):  An

American woman waiting to be joined by her husband in Cairo is squired around the city by her husband’s Egyptian friend in this gentle love story. Written and directed by Canada’s Ruba Nadda, it is, as she points out, a very simple and subtle story.  It’s made of casual strolls, quiet conversation, and very understated chemistry.  The always appealing Patricia Clarkson (she’s an Oscar nominee as Supporting Actress for 2003’s “Pieces of April” and 2001 Emmy Award winner for “Six Feet Under”) always brings a grown-up allure and casual, unconscious sensuality to her roles.  She gives off an irresistible warm glow here, and she is nicely paired with Alexander Siddig (he played Doctor Bashir on television’s “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” in 1993-99 and later appeared on “Game of Thrones” and “Gotham”).  The paramours here are reserved and circumspect:  what they feel is expressed only through subtle gestures and looks, rather than overt carnality.  The result is very gently paced:  it revolves around an understated, inchoate attraction and the exotic atmosphere of its setting.  The film’s title derives from the mysterious something that happens when you enter the city:  it is, says the director, “like a time zone all its own.”  In its premise (a couple exploring a foreign city and growing close in the process), it is a far less chatty Canadian cousin to 1995’s “Before Sunrise” and its sequels.   It will be too slow-paced for some; others will find a certain gentle magic here; we’re somewhere in the middle. “Cairo Time” won Best Canadian Feature Film at TIFF in 2009.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Beverly Hills Cop” (USA, 1984) (B+):  “This is the cleanest and nicest police car I’ve ever been in in my life.  This thing’s nicer than my apartment.”  A brash, fast-talking Detroit detective goes to L.A. to find out who killed his best friend.  He has a conman’s way of spinning tale tales, making up stories on the spot – either for cover or just for the fun of it – with irrepressible verve and a loud horse-laugh.  Axel Foley is a street-smart, wise-cracking, B.S. artist and prankster.  And Eddie Murphy was made for this role.  (Surprisingly, though, one of the extras reveals that the character was originally written with Sylvester Stallone in mind to play it.)  His merry bull-slinger is perfectly content to skirt the rules, and that makes him the polar opposite of the ever so polite, buttoned-down, strictly-by-the-book Beverly Hills detectives (Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, and Ronnie Cox) whose paths he crosses.  The entire cast is bang-on, with Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks as utterly convincing, ice-cold villains; Gilbert R. Hill as Foley’s infuriated, about-to-blow-a-fuse boss; Bronson Pinchot as a hilarious art gallery staffer named Serge; and Lisa Eilbacher in the sole female role.

It is impossible to imagine this film without its note-perfect musical score.  A ‘fusion of techno-pop and funk,’ it gives musical life to the story and characters, perfectly capturing their idiosyncratic tone with tracks like “The Heat is On,” the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” Patti LaBelle’s “Stir it Up,” and best of all, the “Axel F Theme,” an electronic instrumental which aurally embodies the mischievous antics of the eponymous protagonist.  The film got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.  Paramount has released “Beverly Hills Cop” and its two sequels (from 1987 & 1994) in a three-movie collection on Blu-ray.  For ages 18+:  Frequent very coarse language; brief nudity; and some violence.

“Gemini Man” (USA/China, 2019) (B/B+):  Will Smith plays a government assassin who has ‘grown a conscience’ and aims to retire.  “72 kills.  That s**t begins to mess with you a little bit.  I just want some peace.”  In his last job, he impressively eliminates a man on moving train with a sniper rifle from two kilometers away.  Trouble is:  he’s been misled as to the identity of his target.  Now, he knows too much; so ruthless figures (Clive Owen and Linda Emond) on the covert borderlands between the state and mercenary private enterprise mark Henry for death.  The wrinkle here is that he’s pitted against himself – in the form of a 20 years younger clone – performed by Smith but rendered on screen by digital imaging.  “Junior” is serviceable enough, but he never seems quite human.  The use of a digital double just skirts being gimmicky:  what elevates the film is the cast, rather than the doppelganger premise.  Will Smith is always engaging; Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes a smart, capable intelligence officer; Benedict Wong is fun as the gonzo pilot and comic relief; and Clive Owen gives some depth to the chief bad guy.  The action stuff meshes well with what’s more important – strong, convincing characterization.  Director Ang Lee (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Sense and Sensibility”) presides over a much better than expected result.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; violence.

“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” (USA/U.K., 2019) (B):  Don’t

be misled by the title, the eponymous anti-heroine of this follow-up to 2014’s excellent “Malificent” doesn’t change from a charismatic wild thing into an outright villainess.  In the first film, Angeline Jolie’s dark fey is embittered and quick to anger, but she has a soft enough heart to gradually become a caring surrogate mother to the human girl (Elle Fanning’s delightful Aurora) whom she cursed as an infant in a moment of anger.   It was a unique spin on the story of Sleeping Beauty, re-imagining it as a story of maternal love and giving engaging reality to its world of Faerie.  The protagonists and their magical world of the Moors make a welcome return in this solid fantasy sequel.  Besides Malificent and Aurora, we’re happy to see Sam Riley back as Diaval, Malificent’s loyal companion who divides his time between human and avian form.  Aurora has become a young woman and she’s intent on wedding her prince charming.  But Malificent has bad memories of romance in general and human suitors in particular.  Her reservations are manipulated by the prospective groom’s mother, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), who we soon learn is the real ‘mistress of (non-magical) evil’ here.

She may be a mere human, but she’s an imperious match for the title character in willfulness and sheer force of personality.  Trouble is: she’s written as too one-dimensional.  There’s a brief explanation for her ruthless ways, but more nuance in her motivations and actions would have been better.  Likewise, the film is too reliant on war (i.e. action) and the effects that accompany the big battle scenes.  Those big set-pieces distance us from the characters, and it’s the characters (and their relationships) who give these films their real power and charm.  The screenplay also undermines its own credibility with little details like an inadequately guarded border to the fairies’ domain, its unlikely proximity to human lands, and an unconvincing naivety that leads the fey folk too easily into a trap.  Cavils aside, it’s a treat to rejoin these characters, and the result has all the romance and imagination one craves from solid fantasy adventure.  Happily, like its first installment, it avoids the tendency of so many ‘fairy tales’ to be childish.  And its central relationships still have the power to bring a tear to the eye.  Not suitable for very young children.

“Joker” (USA/Canada, 2019) (A-):  “You don’t get it, do you?  I don’t think you ever really hear me.  You just ask the same

questions every week… ‘Are you having any negative thoughts?’  All I have are negative thoughts.”  Those poignant words give voice to a man on the verge of a descent into madness and violent psychopathy.  There’s remarkable poignancy in his plight – until he gives free reign to murderous violence, at least.  He is a damaged psyche who is stripped of hope, illusions, and dreams.  An outcast, he is ignored or treated with mockery by others.  He’s in need of help (and he knows it), but there’s none to be had.  Wretched, and utterly estranged from others, he is a pathetic figure; initially, he is also an unexpectedly sympathetic one.  A disability causes him to laugh uncontrollably without warning, though it has nothing at all to do with him feeling happy or amused.  Just as ironically, his mother’s affectionate nickname for him is ‘Happy,’ though, as he says, “I haven’t been happy one minute of my entire… life.”  And, not even his mother holds out hope for his forlorn dream of becoming a comedian:  “Don’t you have to be funny to be a comedian?” she asks.  His journal doubles as a joke diary and a place for dark thought: “I hope my death makes more cents [sic] than my life.”

It’s a star-turn by Joaquin Phoenix.  Directed and co-written by Todd Phillips, “Joker” is nominally an origin story for the nemesis of Batman, but there’s nothing cartoon-like about this character or this story.  On the contrary, it is a gritty character study and an indictment of the cruelty of society (and too many people within it).  Are there enough variations in tone?  Its portrait of society is, after all, unremittingly bleak.  Does it romanticize nihilism or anarchism?  Perhaps, in a way:  its lead figure’s credo is “I don’t believe in anything.”  “Joker” is set in a milieu of class conflict, something that real-life growing income disparity in America may presage; but, the film uses such social centrifugal forces more as set dressing than as a serious reflection on social ills.

Among its great many awards and nominations, “Joker” was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Film and Director, winning for Best Actor and Score; and it won three awards at the Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion (Best Film).  Hildur Guðnadóttir’s music is ominous and brooding; and Charlie Chaplin’s song “Smile” is used to good ironic effect.)  For ages 18+ only:  Coarse language; disturbing content; strong violence; with brutal violence in one scene.

“It: Chapter Two” (Canada/USA, 2019) (C+/B-):  The second of two movies that divided their source material (a long Stephen

King novel) into two parts tells the story of seven misfits who banded together as kids (in their self-style ‘Losers’ Club’) to fend off a horrific evil that was preying on their small town.  Now, 27 years later, they are summoned to return by the one of their number who has stayed behind on watch:  “It’s starting again… Bad things are happening.”   Those bad things are again personified in the truly creepy form of a malevolent clown named Pennywise (a heavily made-up Bill Skarsgård).  The trouble is that the movie (like the book) has that shape-shifting predator flit back and forth between various gaudily horrific forms when the only truly scary one is the least ostentatious – i.e. the creepy clown.  We don’t need the oversized teeth or the arachnid limbs, let alone the garish alternate forms ‘It’ takes:  the clown, with its hungry baleful stare, is what is frightening.  The film assembles a solid cast, led by James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain, but we found the younger versions of their characters more affecting.  Children pitted against a monster make a stronger emotional impact than their adult counterparts.

At its best, the two-part story is a study of fear.  The second film is far too reliant on effects and too ‘in your face’ in its attempts to scare us.  King’s novels, let alone their film adaptations, aren’t normally known for subtlety, but leaving more to the imagination would have made this a better movie.  Things get muddled (in the book and in this movie) when it comes time to half-heatedly explain the nature and origins of the proverbial beast.  Perhaps more could have been made of the all-too-human willingness to be complicit with evil.  The malevolent force here is supernatural (or extraterrestrial?), but the malign miasma that has caught hold of Derry, Maine (personified by Ontario’s charming, picturesque town of Port Hope) has all too many willing collaborators.  Indeed, the act of brutal violence that opens this film is committed by human beings – and it is too ugly and unpleasant to see.  As for the rest of the film, it is unfocused, with a contrived, meandering plot as each of the friends sets out alone in search of pointless artifacts.  (It’s also overly long at 169 minutes.)  There’s way too much foul language, all of it gratuitous.  (The first film had the kids swearing non-stop like troopers, which felt as unrealistic as it was severely off-putting.)  And the effects-driven final confrontation is too garish to really frighten – as per the law of diminishing returns that is so ubiquitous in modern movies’ over-reliance on effects, instead of acting, atmosphere, and real suspense.  For ages 18+ only:  A surfeit of very coarse language; violence, gore, horror, sexual talk, and a very disturbing scene.

“Downton Abbey” (U.K./USA, 2019) (B):  The cast from the successful British drama about life at a grand English estate returns in a big-screen adaptation that takes up shortly after the series left off.   The new wrinkle in the plot is an impending royal visit, but, truth be told, plot is mostly incidental here to characterization and, above all, relationships.  (Indeed, plot strands involving a conspiracy and doubts about an Irish inlaw’s loyalties feel a tad redundant.)  These characters are as unique and endearing as an extended surrogate family.  Maggie Smith is a standout as the indomitable matriarch with a dry wit and impeccably timed barbs:  “I never argue.  I explain.”  Elsewhere, we were most taken by the downstairs staff:  Kevin Doyle’s Mr. Molesley can scarcely contain his star-struck excitement at the prospect of serving the king and queen, only to mortify himself (and everyone else) with an impulsive breach of protocol.  Lesley Nicol (as Mrs. Patmore) and Sophie McShera (as Daisy) make amiable foils in the kitchen.  Jim Carter’s Mr. Carson is called out of retirement as the former head butler and imbues his character with formality, stern dignity, and respect for tradition without ever straying into pomposity.  Phyllis Logan is a treat as Mrs. Hughes, the determined head housekeeper who is a paragon of unflappable good judgment, while Joanne Froggatt is always a favorite as Anna Bates, a study in loyalty, intelligence, and decency.  The result is a treat for devotees of the series and a welcome initiation for everyone else.   We feel genuine affection for this place (the real life Highclere Castle) and these loveable characters, and it’s an affection that will bring us back for encore viewings.

“Abominable” (USA/China, 2019) (B/B+):  We liked this animated adventure at the theater; we liked it even better on a second viewing on DVD.  The story takes the ‘boy and his dog’ motif and runs with it.  The ‘boy’ here is a precocious girl, Yi (played by Chloe Bennett from television’s “Agents of SHIELD”).  The figurative ‘dog’ is a great big ball of white fur in the form of a yeti.  It’s far from home, having escaped captivity, and hiding out on the sheltered roof of Yi’s apartment building in a city in China.  Soon, they’re on the run for the very distant Himalayan mountains, accompanied by a popular, initially self-absorbed boy named Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and a playful younger one named Peng (Albert Tsia).  The mostly Asian-American cast (with Tsai Chin as the grandmother) does very well in a story built around friendship, self-discovery, and family.  And, through Yi, there’s also a healthy girl-power theme and an arc of emotional healing (she’s mourning the loss of her beloved father).  There’s a gorgeous, haunting oriental violin solo (from a score by Rupert Gregson-Williams) that recurs at key moments and a very engaging sense of bonding on this road trip through the exotic countryside. The result is fun, cute, and even a bit moving at times.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo from Universal has a nice array of extras, including two short films.  One of them, “Show and Tell” is a brief sequel to the feature, involving a much simpler animation style than the movie itself.  The other, “Marooned,” has a robot left behind on the Moon, intent on escaping its isolation and getting to the mesmerizing blue orb in the night sky:  It’s a treat – imaginative, funny, and a bit poignant.

“The Goldfinch” (USA, 2019) (B+):  “I dreamt I saw my mother again… As it was, she died when I was a kid.  And when I

lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me some place happier.”   The sudden loss of a young boy’s mother alters his life irrevocably and binds it up with the fate of the 1654 oil painting by Carel Fabritius that gives this film its title.  Jumping back and forth in time in its antihero’s life, the story, from the novel by Donna Tarrt, is a reflection on loss, guilt, coincidence, and fate.  Its central image is one of a bird in captivity, and its chief character is a captive of his own past, forever bound to the pivotal moment in his life.  It’s also a reflection about the essential nature of who we are.  ‘Be true to yourself,’ the maxim goes.  But, what if we lose sight of who we truly are?  “We’re so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that, in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.” There’s a dreamy tone and philosophical quality to the story, and we’re treated to several fine characterizations.

Different actors play certain characters as children and as adult, and both generations acquit themselves very well, with Oakes Fegley & Ansel Elgort sharing the role of Theo, Finn Wolfhard & Aneurin Barnard sharing the role of his flamboyant, devil-may-care Russian friend Boris, Ryan Foust as an ill-fated young chum, and Nicole Kidman, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Sarah Paulson, Ashleigh Cummings, and Willa Fitzgerald in other key roles.   It’s a long film, at 149 minutes, but it holds our interest throughout.  And it ends where it began, having come full circle with the words, “This is the painting I love most.”  Blu-ray extras from Warner include eight minutes about the real-life painting (‘the destruction of a work of art is like a light going out in the world’); sixteen minutes of deleted scenes; and a twelve-minute ‘making of’ featurette.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; drug use; and brief violence.

“Blinded by the Light” (U.K./USA/France, 2019) (B):  “You and me… we were born at the wrong time, in the wrong town, in the wrong family.”   It’s 1987 in the U.K.; there are hard times for the working class under Margaret Thatcher’s government, and in places like Luton, with its high proportion of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, intolerant voices are daring to spew bigotry in public.  Sixteen-year-old Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) may think of himself as English, but his traditionalist father has other ideas:  “They will never accept you… You will always be a Pakistani.  You will never be British.”  Javed ultimately finds his own way with the help of a new-found love for the music of Bruce Springsteen.  The Boss’ hometown in New Jersey might seem like a long way from Bedfordshire, but Springsteen’s songs – about yearning to escape a dead-end life in a parochial setting – strike a chord with the British teen and help launch him on an independent course.  A winning cast makes for an enjoyable film from director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha (2002’s very good “Bend it Like Beckham”).  Kalra is an appealing lead, and he is surrounded by a solid cast, some of whom include:  Nell Williams (as his non-ethnic romantic interest), Aaron Phagura (as his musical mentor), Dean-Charles Chapman (as his longtime friend), Kulvider Ghir & Meera Ganatra (as his parents), Hayley Atwell (as a supportive teacher), Rob Brydon (as a colorful character), and David Hayman (as the seemingly stern neighbor).  Springteen’s lyrics, “You can’t start a fire without a spark,” are apt shorthand for the film’s uplifting arc.  The result is good fun, though greater familiarity with Springsteen’s songs might have enhanced their impact.

“Rafiki” [“Friend”] (Kenya/South Africa/Germany/The Netherlands/France/Norway/Lebanon/U.K., 2018) (B):  The opening credits for this Kenyan film get an “A” mark – thanks

to an irresistible song called “Suzie Noma,” a high energy vibe, and glimpses of urban life in Nairobi which tacitly inform us that this is a middle class setting very much like what we’re used to in the West.  Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) and Ziki (Sheila Munyiva) are twenty-ish young women, both of whom have competing politicians as parents.  Kena is a bit of a tomboy.  She has short hair topped with a backward baseball cap, she’s fond of scooting around the streets on her skate-board., and she plays soccer with the boys; but, she’s still unmistakably feminine.  Ziki is flamboyantly attractive, with strands of multi-colored hair and a free spirit.  Kena aims for university and nursing, while fun-loving Zika wants to travel abroad.  They meet and experience an unexpected mutual attraction – one that’s emotional, implicitly sensual, and perhaps the first either has experienced for someone of the same gender.  But when the community starts to suspect that there’s a romantic interest between the pair, they vent their hostility upon the girls.  Ziki and Kena want none of that small-mindedness:  “Let’s make a pact that we will never be like any of them… Instead, we’re gonna be something, something real.”

It’s a very simple story.  Not a whole lot happens, and some of what does feels a bit heavy-handed.  The source of the girls’ trouble is a vindictive, gossipy neighbor; so, why not simply give her a wide berth?  And would regular folks so easily act-out violently against two girls rumored to have a same-sex attraction?  The depiction of said attraction is pretty chaste, consisting only of some kissing.  But this film was initially banned in Kenya for its same-sex romance, until a victory in that country’s courts overturned that ban.  Despite the slenderness of the plotting, we liked the girls and the film’s refreshing setting of a middle class neighborhood in an African country.  And we loved the opening credits!  For ages 18+: Very brief coarse language; mild sensuality; and brief mild violence.

“The Full Monty” (U.K./USA, 1997) (B):  It opens with a historical newsreel that describes Sheffield, England as “the beating heart of Britain’s industrial north.”  The primary industry was steel, which, in its heyday, employed 90,000 people.  But, 25 years later, industrial decline, unemployment, and urban decay have taken their toll.  In the midst of a custody battle, one down-on-his-luck local (Robert Carlyle, who won Best Actor at BAFTA for this role) hits upon a novel way to raise some money – and his profile:  he and some mates (Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy, Paul Barber, et al.) decide to perform for one night only as amateur male strippers. They sell out the local theater in the process. The result is a likeable enough working class comedy, though it wasn’t as funny or as endearing as we’d expected.  A brief scene early in the film that has three women behaving very coarsely was off-putting.  The two-disc DVD from Fox has a parcel of extras.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; brief nudity (from behind); and one crude scene.

“The Lion King” (B/B+):  Disney’s 1994 animated tale gets the

“live-action look” remake treatment in a film with photo-realistic animal characters.  They’re still ‘animated,’ of course, but the computer-generated animation here yields remarkably lifelike verisimilitude.  Indeed, the film’s visuals often resemble a wildlife documentary.  It’s a lion’s coming of age story from cub to young adulthood; and, for some reason, it works better on the small screen than at theaters.  Maybe the smaller screen means we pay less attention to the visuals and correspondingly more to the characters.  The story has moments of humor, loss, friendship, courage, and duty.  The songs are somewhat uneven:  there’s a big opening with “The Circle of Life,” but the later “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” feels mediocre.  The musical standouts are a humorous excerpt from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (a song derived from outside the film) and, especially, the shiveringly romantic “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”  It’s a first-rate song, and its gets added emotional heft because its words reflect the thoughts of its duo rather than their spoken words.  And there’s a nice moral to the story, which would behoove all of us to embrace:  ‘While others search for what they can take, a true king searches for what he can give.’

“Hobbs & Shaw” (B):  We’ve never seen (or had an interest in) any of “The Fast and the Furious” film series, so it came as an

unexpectedly happy surprise to be so entertained by this spin-off from that series.  Ostensibly built around action sequences, the real secret of this film’s success is its casting and characterization.  Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham play men who dislike each other but who are forced to work together.  Their involuntary collaboration leaves plenty of room for one-upmanship and verbal sparring.  Their dueling quips are a hoot, and so are guest appearances by Canada’s Ryan Reynolds (reprising his droll, fast-patter demeanor from “Deadpool”) and by Kevin Hart – supporting players who are worth the price of admission all by themselves.  Vanessa Kirby makes a strong impression as a highly capable, no-nonsense covert agent; Idris Elba is a one-man army as their cyber-enhanced foil:  when he says, “Look at me.  I’m black Superman,” he’s barely exaggerating.  And Helen Mirren adds to the mix as an incarcerated matriarch.  The result is funny and good fun:  it’s got good action scenes, but its winning attribute is its engaging characters.  We enjoyed it as much on a second viewing as we did on the first.  For ages 18+: Coarse language.

“Toy Story 4” (USA, 2019) (A-): The fourth Disney/Pixar film

about good-natured toys that come alive when humans aren’t looking (call it ‘the secret life of toys’) continues the series that began in 1995 and reunites the voice cast of Tom Hanks (as Woody the cowboy), Tim Allen (as space ranger Buzz Lightyear), and their friends (including Joan Cusack as Jessie the high-spirited cowgirl).  The series hasn’t lost any of its magic – or its unexpected emotive power.  By turns, it’s funny, exciting, touching, romantic, and bittersweet.  Our characters go on a road-trip with their human owners, and Woody is reunited with his lost-love Bo-Peep (Annie Potts), who’s become something of an independent woman and action heroine.  Their relationship provides the story with its heart – that and Woody’s selfless determination to reunite his neglectful new human (a girl child) with the make-shift toy (a melancholy hybrid of plastic fork and spoon voiced by Tony Hale) that she favors.  The theme is all about selfless love, duty, friendship, loyalty, and loss – and those fundamentals never get old.  And there’s both poignancy and wisdom in its take on the inevitable changes and partings that come to us all:  “Then you watch them grow up and become a full person.  And then they leave.  They go off and do things you’ll never see.”  There’s a seeming villain in the form of an unwanted, desperately ruthless doll (voiced by Christina Hendricks) and her little bit creepy ventriloquist dummy henchmen; some overt Canadian content in the form of a motorcycle stuntman doll from the Great White North; a fast and furious encounter with a cat; and comic relief courtesy of a pair of sideshow plush prizes and the gang at the controls of a human-sized RV.  The result is a winner – and one of the best films of the year.

“Crash” (USA/Germany, 2004) (B+/A-):  “It’s the sense of touch… Any real city, you walk… you brush past people, people bump into you.  In L.A., nobody touches you.  We’re always buried behind this metal and glass.  I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”   Here’s a brilliant ensemble drama with a first-rate cast (among them, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Terrence Howard, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillipe, and Michael Peňa) portraying characters from all walks of life whose orbits collide over a 36 hour period.   Moments of rage are contrasted with moments of redemption, as people who are capable of despicable acts in one set of circumstances rise to heroism in another.  It’s about race relations, causality, irony, reaping what we sow, and dealing with what fate hands us.  Its intersecting stories go in wildly unpredictable directions, with a pressure-cooker of emotions.

Directed and co-written by Canada’s Paul Haggis, it’s a first-rate, not to be missed film!  Among its great many awards and nominations, “Crash” earned six Oscar nominations, winning three (Best Film, Original Screenplay, & Editing); it had nine BAFTA nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay; it had Golden Globe nominations for Best Film and Screenplay; it won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast; and it won Movie of the Year from the American Film Institute.  For ages 18+:  Frequent coarse language; sexual content; brief nudity; and mild violence.

“Shaft” (C-/C):  Three generations of Shaft men are united in this so-so blend of humor and action.  Jesse T. Usher plays the next generation of the family, but unlike his long-lost father (Samuel L. Jackson) and grandfather (Richard Roundtree), he’s more preppy than tough-guy.  The suspicious death of a friend causes him to seek out the assistance of his streetwise male kin.  They play by different rules, and lead with their fists (and guns) – all of which is alien territory to the more ‘civilized’ young man.  The result is a ‘fish out of water’ story, in which past Shaft leads play the two older generations.  Jackson, as always, brings his unique charisma to the mix, as a man, years earlier, who “had a choice between being [a] father and being Shaft.”  His son says that Jackson “thinks he’s the black James Bond,” to which Jackson has an apt rejoinder (delivered with trademark Jackson profanity):  “If that [bleep] was real, he’d think he was me!”  There’s an amusing slow motion gun-fight to the counter-intuitive strains of “Be My Baby.”  For ages 18+:  Sexual talk; pervasive very coarse language.

“Annabelle Comes Home” (C+/B-):  The latest installment in

“The Conjuring” series of films has a great scene early on:  Its husband and wife ghost-busting team (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga, who get only limited screen time in this film) are driving home at night with a demonic doll in custody on the backseat as upbeat pop music plays on the radio:  there’s a nice counterpoint between the upbeat vibe and the temporarily quiescent spook in the back.  It comes as no surprise (given the film’s title) that when the couple lock their passenger away in a blessed glass cabinet, their edict that, “The evil is contained” is way premature.  Trouble emerges a year later when they leave their daughter (Mckenna Grace) in the care of a babysitter (Madison Iseman) while they’re away overnight for an exorcism or some such task. The sitter has a friend (Katie Sarife) over to visit, and, well, curiosity about the locked room of unholy artifacts in the basement, threatens to kill the proverbial cat.   To our happy surprise, the result is quite effective:  all three girls are good actors, and we connect with them during the commendably low-key initial 38 minutes:  all three are credible (and appealingly likeable) characters.  The two older girls are of sunny disposition; the youngest one is subdued and subtly ‘haunted’ in demeanor:  “Sometimes I see things, like my mom sees things.”   (The things mother and daughter have a knack for seeing are dead people.)   There are some far-fetched bits – they keep separating, and they’re improbably nosey about going through their employers’ private files, and one teen is a little too determined to poke around in supernatural matters for not entirely credible reasons – but the film is buoyed by its attention to characterization, its quiet stretches, and its able cast.  Michael Cimino provides some comedic relief as the nice boy next door who is secretly smitten with the babysitter.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language; frightening scenes.

“Yesterday” (U.K. 2019) (B/B+):  Imagine waking up to find

that no one but you remembers The Beatles or their iconic songs.  It’s a life-changing state of affairs for a struggling young British singer-songwriter.  Jack (Himesh Patel) has given up his teaching career to pursue his passion; but he’s ready to throw in the towel.  He tells the supportive friend and Girl Friday (Lily James’ Ellie) who has always been in his corner, that “I think I hear something special in my songs, you think you hear something special, and I love you for it, but no one else does, no one ever does…. If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.  It’ll take a miracle.”  Prophetic words, those.  For it’s on that very night that the lights go off all over the world for twelve seconds and Jack gets hit by a bus.  When he awakens, The Beatles (and a few other odds and ends) have been somehow deleted from history (and human memory).  But Jack remembers, and when he sings their songs, he’s propelled from failure to mega-fame.  Is taking credit for songs he didn’t create worth it?  Jack comes to appreciate the much greater value of the things he has always had.  The result is a feel-good, underdog story with a truly winning leading man, a charming romantic story, and great songs.  Along for comic relief is a Type-A agent (Kate McKinnon) who’s not one to mince words as she assesses her seeming wunderkind of a new client as “not very attractive,” even as she offers him “the great and glorious poison chalice of money and fame.”  Written by Richard Curtis (of “Love, Actually”) and directed by Danny Boyle (of “Slumdog Millionaire”), “Yesterday” is a thoroughly charming, upbeat blend of love story and fable, with some gentle life lessons about integrity and appreciating the good tings in our lives.  It’s also one of the year’s best, most instantly likeable, movies.  For ages 18+: Very brief coarse language.

“Aladdin” (USA, 2019) (C+):  “If only they’d look closer, they’d

find out there’s so much more to me.”  She’s a princess in a society governed by men; he lives on the streets and steals in order to live.  She’s more than just a pretty face; he thinks on his feet, guided by quick wits and a good heart.  But they both yearn for the same thing – a chance to show their true potential.  This live action remake of Disney’s 1992 animated musical lacks some of the charm of the original.  Maybe the material is a tad too lightweight to support the more realistic ‘weight’ of live action?  Although no one can top Robin Williams’ manically riffing genie from the original, Will Smith offers a very credible alternative, with moments of outsized flamboyance balanced by a more down-to-earth humanity trying to emerge:  He’s consistently entertaining – and funny.  Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott are just okay as the romantic leads (Aladdin and Jasmine); Marwan Kenzari lacks gravitas (and sheer years, as he is notably younger here than in the original) as the villainous Jafar; but Nasim Pedrad makes an impression in the new role of the lady-in-waiting Dalia (the princess’ confidante and wry love interest for the genie), a character who was not in the original film.  We liked the monkey, the tiger, and the parrot; and this version wisely limits the parrot to single words, rather than the full sentences and full-on slapstick of the original.  Likewise, the sultan (Navid Negahban) isn’t the buffoon he was in the original, though he doesn’t have much to do here.  The stand-out songs are “I Won’t Go Speechless” (a girl-power anthem), the exuberant “Prince Ali,” and “A Whole New World.”  The result is worth a look; but, somehow, animation seemed to suit this material better.

“Aladdin” (USA, 1992) (B/B+):  “Only one may enter here, one whose worth lies far within:  a diamond in the rough.”  So says the sphinx-like guardian of ‘The Cave of Wonders,” a place where a humble metal lamp is worth far more than the assembled treasures that surround it.  The lamp is home to a big blue genie, and his arrival on the scene changes the life of the poor young man who lives by his wits on the streets of Agrabah, a desert city straight out of Arabian Nights.  Disney’s animated feature has adventure, romance, derring-do, a pair of nefarious villains (one of them avian), and comedy.  The comedic stuff is laid on pretty thick.  Every Disney animated film is diminished to one degree or another by its ubiquitous reliance on overly broad comic relief:  Invariably, the character who performs that function is too loud, too screechy, and too much geared to juvenile tastes.  Here, that role is largely the domain of a parrot:  his slapstick routine kind of grates.  But, there’s a lovely musical score by Alan Mencken – with songs by him, Howard Ashman, and Tim Rice.  Robin Williams goes on an improvisational binge as the fast-talking, stream of consciousness genie.  And the story conjures considerable charm.

“Elementary” (Season 7) (2019) (B):  After 154 episodes, this

modern reinterpretation of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes takes a final bow with its seventh season.  When we left them in the previous season, Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) had been obliged to hastily quit their home in the Big Apple and move to London.  It doesn’t take long before they’re stateside again, gradually reunited with their colleagues from New York’s finest (played by Aidan Quinn and Jon Michael Hill, though the former is less in evidence for part of the season).  There’s a casually ruthless (and able) new uber-villain in the person of cyber-tech mogul Odin Reichenbach (his surname will be instantly familiar to fans of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories), who is convincingly portrayed by the understated James Frain.  But, the best treats in these final 13 episodes are reappearances of some favorite characters from past seasons.  The engagingly named Ophelia Lovibond makes an all-too-fleeting return (no more than a cameo really) as Kitty Winter, Holmes’ tough, but emotionally wounded, protégé, who was a regular cast member in a past season.  John Noble drops in for two or three episodes as Holmes’ powerful father Morland, a man with whom the Great Detective has a seriously strained history.  Noble was a stand-out as a cast regular in a past season, exuding gravitas and ambiguity, his subsequent absence was keenly felt by viewers.  He gets some strong moments here.

Alas, Holmes’ one-time love and all-time nemesis, Jamie Moriarty (Natalie Dormer), remains offstage in this season.  We’d have loved to see her back in the thick of things.  But, thank goodness, the show-runners finally brought back a character who made a powerful impression in a single episode way back in Season 4 – a wolf in sheep’s clothing, an incipient criminal mastermind in the seemingly innocent form of a earnest young woman.  Ally Ioannides (who also played Tilda in “Into the Badlands,” the entertaining 2015-19 amalgam of post-apocalyptic conflict, fantasy, and martial arts) positively wowed us as Cassie Lenue.  It seemed as though Holmes might have met his match in her fathomless duplicity and deceit.  Her reappearance here is long overdue.  It is a highlight of the season, even though it is confined to one episode and surprisingly revisionistic in its take on the hitherto unapologetic villain.  The last two minutes of the final episode are simultaneously a just-right way to say goodbye to our intrepid duo and a note-perfect use of the show’s opening theme.

“The Good Fight” (Season 3) (2019) (B+): Starting life as a

spin-off of “The Good Wife,” this series, set at a largely black law firm in Chicago has always had a tone all its own.  It’s satire really, but one that’s anchored in strong characterizations.  Women lead the way here, with Christine Baranski, Cush Jumbo, and Rose Leslie taking pride of place, though Leslie, alas, seemed half out the door through much of the season.  (Is she leaving the series?)Sarah Steele holds her own as a wryly impish fixer employed by the firm; Gary Cole is a welcome presence; and Delroy Lindo and Audra McDonald make their presence felt as senior partners.  The series is infused with pointed social and political commentary, and a kind of theater of the absurd tone often prevails.But, that doesn’t stop us from connecting with these characters – not one bit.  The sharp barbs aimed at all things Trump hit their target, but the series finds things to criticize about his most dedicated opponents, too, as a cabal of power-women stray too far in their ‘ends justify the means’ crusade to deny the man another stay in the White House.  Because the series is made for CBS’ premium channel, it doesn’t shy away from coarse language.

This season’s (with its 10 episodes) biggest treat is the arrival on the scene of the bombastic, larger-than-life, lawyer-as-performer, Roland Blum.  A bearded (and therefore not instantly recognizable) Michael Sheen, with unruly hair, hits a home-run with this wildly outlandish, utterly outrageous, unapologetically untrustworthy crook:  He’ll lie, he’ll cheat, he’ll manipulate, he’ll throws ethics to the winds, but he’ll do it all with sheer élan, and he’ll sure entertain you in the process.  Scenery may be chewed, but it’s an award-caliber performance notwithstanding – the highlight of the season.  And speaking of things that deserve awards, “The Good Fight” has the best opening theme music on television.David Buckley’s theme is intoxicating – a thing of beauty that is at moments reminiscent of Renaissance-era music.  Visually, we don’t know what all the exploding objects are meant to signify (unless it is the explosion of normalcy in the era of Trump and his obnoxious ilk); but, in the Season Two variant of the opening credits visuals, the best comes near the end, when some very disagreeable people (white supremacists on the march; a shirtless Putin; and a speechifying Trump) get the comeuppance they so richly deserve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xWE5R6qEQQ
For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

“The Secret Life of Pets 2” (B/B+):  Max the dog has a happy household, comprising his human and a second canine.  It expands when his human gets first a husband, then a baby.  To his surprise, Max soon dotes on the child:  “He’s my kid.  He’s perfect.”  But his impulse to protect the newest member of the family is making Max a nervous wreck.  It takes a country vacation and some life lessons from a gruff farm dog (very nicely voiced by Harrison Ford) to teach Max how to face his fears.  Meanwhile, a pampered show dog named Gidget has to learn “the way of the cat.”  And a streetwise bunny named Snowball (humorously voiced by Kevin Hart) who has delusions of being a superhero teams up with a spunky newcomer on a dangerous rescue mission.  In the final act, those three separate story strands reunite for an action-driven finale. The result is surprisingly good, with as much attention paid to the chief players’ character arcs as to their hijincks. The home video release has a nice assortment of extras, most notably a pair of short films:  in one, Gidget is endowed with superpowers; in the other, the ever engaging, gibberish-speaking, yellow ‘Minions’ from the same studio’s “Despicable Me” films go to Scout camp and leave mayhem in their bumbling wake.

“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (D+/C-):  Five years have passed since “the world discovered monsters are real,” and the title behemoth is now competing with a gigantic three-headed dragon for the role of alpha monster.  This time ‘round, Godzilla seems largely benevolent, as far as us puny humans are considered – if you don’t count cities trampled underfoot.  (Mind you, there’s extensive collateral damage to cities even in the comic-book inspired superhero movies.)  Let’s face it:  the central premise, of “an ancient and forgotten super-species,” is patently ridiculous.  In terms of simple biology, these towering creatures defy logic (and anatomical possibility):  indeed, as someone here says, “it violates everything we know about the natural order.”  You just have to ‘go with it,’ if oversized combatants are your thing (ditto for the equally bigger-is-not-better Transformer movies).  But suspending disbelief over the plot’s other absurdities is a bridge too far.  Can we believe that a shadowy private organization has resources that rival large nation states – with a private army and secret bases the size of cities burrowed underground?   And why in the name of reason would sane folks vie to find and awaken the monsters – either with a view to controlling them or, even more preposterously, intentionally setting them free to wreck havoc in the nonsensical name of ‘environmental balance.’  The rampages are competently done, from a narrow effects perspective, but the entire enterprise is sunk by its dumb premise and even dumber plot.  For ages 18+:  Very brief coarse language.

“Avengers: Endgame” (B):  The current crop of characters from

Marvel comic books have their final big ensemble piece in this sprawling 181-minute long conclusion to 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War.”  Whether any film (no matter how long) can truly do justice to all its large cast is open to question.  Indeed, the stage may be a bit too crowded here, even though the story focuses on a few of its characters.  A number of them get their moment in the sun, in a story that opens in the aftermath of defeat and grievous loss.  We’re not seeing them in their finest hour:  their failure led to the instant obliteration of half of all life in the universe, and that’s left a stinging legacy of bitterness and despair.  A mute poster on a deserted city street asks, “Where do we go, now that they’re gone?”  But the spark of hope reignites and a somewhat convoluted plan involving time travel unfolds in an effort to undo what has happened.  It all leads to another confrontation with Thanos (Josh Brolin), the uber-villain responsible for the catastrophe.  Along the way, there are moments of healing, humor (especially courtesy of Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a gone-to-seed Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth), and even some poignancy.   There’s even a bit of wisdom:  “Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be.  The measure of a person, a hero, is how well they succeed at being who they are.”

“Styx” (Germany, Austria, 2018) (B):  It opens, curiously enough, with apes wandering in Gibraltar, a scene that recurs later on.  What exactly it signifies is anyone’s guess, except that that mountainous bastion at the meeting place of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic is the embarkation place for a woman (Suzanne Wolff) on a solitary journey by sailboat to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.  She’s an emergency room physician back in Germany, and we divine from her preparations, that she’s also a very experienced sailor, more than capable of fending for herself on a long sea journey.   There’s a poetic sensibility here, starting with the film’s title, which references the mythological river that divides the world of the living from that of the dead.

The film was shot on sea and uses the setting’s actual soundscape, without artificial enhancement.  Its conjuring of solitude and

self-sufficiency are quite masterful (kin to 2013’s “All is Lost”).  There’s artistry here in abundance:  We see the protagonist’s profile in shadow upon a white sail, as her head rests against the mast; elsewhere, when she slumbers on the deck, the sound changes from the ocean to the jungle, with the visuals changing moments later – in a dream of her destination, a place dubbed “paradise” in a book she’s reading about it.  (Apparently, it is an ‘artificial jungle’ planned by Charles Darwin as a living experiment.}  There are calm seas, and dangerous storms.  And there’s scarcely a word of dialogue for the first part of the film.  The situation and tone change when she crosses paths with a floundering boat that’s crammed with desperate refugees.  Authorities from some unknown coastal country warn her by radio not to intervene.  Indeed, getting too close in proximity to a boatful of desperate people may end up swamping her own craft.  It’s a moral quandary:  What should she do, what can she do?   But things get a tad heavy-handed.  Director (and co-writer) Wolfgang Fischer veers toward a didactic social commentary about how the West shuts off its sympathy for those fleeing wretched places.  To some extent, the refugees here (all but one of whom remains faceless) are ciphers – representing all refugees everywhere, rather than specific individuals.  The coast guard authorities on the radio prove to be white; but there are no white countries on the west coast of Africa.  So, they, too, are more representative than real, a point reiterated none-too-subtly by their all-white attire.  Also, we know of no refugees who try to sail across the Atlantic – so the setting, too, must be intended as a placeholder for the Mediterranean.

The point of the film lies in is protagonist’s desire to help the endangered refugees; but, we preferred the first part of the film (before the refugees arrive on the scene), with its artful, poetic depiction of a solitary journey by sea.  The woman’s interaction with the sullen, ungrateful boy who swims to her boat is somewhat off-putting.  (Perhaps that’s by design, to reflect our unconscious feeling that the destitute should feel beholden to us for our beneficence, when we deign to bestow it?)  In any event, the film’s opaque ending is unsatisfying.  The film’s second half falls short of its excellent first half.  “Styx” won Best Actor, Cinematography, and Sound at the German Film Awards, where it was also nominated for Best Film, Director, and Editing.  It won Best Director, Cinematography, and Editing at the Austrian Film Awards and three prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival.  For ages 16+:  Brief partial nudity.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Ashmina” (Nepal/U.K., 2018) (B-):  A young girl (Dikshya Karki) in Nepal earns tips by helping foreign paragliders out of their harnesses and packing up their kit.  One tourist admonishes her companion to be less generous with the tip:  “Don’t give her so much.”  Ashmina would rather be in school, but her family and culture dismiss such aspirations as pointless for a girl.  Adding insult to injury, she’s obliged to hand-over her earnings (one day it is ten euros) to her father.  When she splurges on a treat for herself (a mere ice cream cone) she gets a slap in the face.   This 16-miute short film, written and directed by Dekel Berenson, is a microcosm in marginalization – precipitated by gender, by age, by the yawning gap between the developed world and the rest, and even by the divisions of caste within the child’s own society.  It earned nominations and awards at several film festivals.  A technical shortcoming:  The subtitles are too small.

“Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (USA, 2018) (B+/A-):  Failure is hard to live with, especially when you know that you’re talented.  Lee Israel is a writer whose forte – biographies of celebrities – is no longer in fashion in 1991 America.  She’s “a 51 year old woman who likes cats better than people.”  She’s prickly, frumpy, a tad misanthropic, and probably alcoholic.  She pushes other people away from her; and her wit runs to the caustic.  She has a sick cat and no money to pay a vet; she’s way behind in her rent; her agent is avoiding her; and her apartment is unkempt.  Neither she nor the subjects she chooses for biographies are considered sexy or marketable:  “I couldn’t get you a ten dollar advance for a book about Fanny Brice,” declares her agent (comic actress Jane Curtin of “Saturday Night Live” fame), who adds, “You can be an asshole when you’re famous; but as an unknown, you can’t be such a bitch, Lee.”

Melissa McCarthy delivers award-caliber work in the lead role.  Best known for loud, raucous comedies, she can really deliver the goods in a serious movie.  That goes for the woman she’s portraying, too.  Lee may be down-in-the-dumps, but she’s a talented writer and a wunderkind at her new-found occupation of mimicking the personality and written voice of famous literary figures:  She’s not kidding when she boasts, “I’m a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker.”  It seems that typed missives from such figures command big bucks among collectors.  So, almost by accident, a new career is born, as Lee becomes a literary forger extraordinaire, encouraged by her new-found drinking buddy and sort-of friend Jack Hock.  He’s memorably played by Richard E. Grant, who delivers the film’s other award-caliber performance as an unapologetic scoundrel and a walking, talking personification of flamboyance.

There’s nice work, too, from other players, like Dolly Wells as Anna, the kind bookstore owner who shyly tries to connect with Lee.  Based on a true story, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” had an inexplicably circumscribed theatrical run; but, it’s easily one of the best films of the year thanks to its marvelously nuanced performances and the way its chief character straddles the line between pathos and shamelessness.

Based on Lee Israel’s memoir and directed by Marielle Heller, the film was nominated for Best Actress, Supporting Actor, & Adapted Screenplay at both the Oscars and at BAFTA; and it was nominated for Actress & Supporting Actor at both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language and brief sexual language.

“Shazam!”(C):  In a prologue, a young boy is transported to a magical realm by an aging magician who seeks a champion to inherit his magic.  He is deemed unworthy for that role and grows up to be a spiteful villain (Mark Strong).  He pits himself against the successful candidate, an orphaned boy (Asher Angel) in foster care who transforms into an adult-sized superhero (Zachary Levi) every time he utters the film’s title.  Jack Dylan Grazer provides some laughs as a surrogate foster sibling.  The filmmakers say that ‘the story’s humor and heart are baked into its DNA.’  The engaging thing here is the genial, yet mischievous nature of its superhero.  He may assume adult dimensions, but he’s still a kid, one whom, as the filmmakers say, is “genuinely stoked” to suddenly have superpowers.

“Furie” [“Hai Phuong”] (Vietnam, 2019) (C-/C):  A woman from Saigon is trying to put her underworld past behind her and be a good mother to her young daughter.  To that end, she has moved to the countryside; but, her work, as a debt collector, still keeps her on the wrong side of the respectability tracks.  When her daughter is abducted by human traffickers from the city, she’s in hot pursuit, proving that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned:  “Be brave; even if you’re scared.”  The opening section of the film is quite captivating in the originality and beauty of its rural setting.  Alas, that early promise dissipates in short order.  It’s a shame the film so quickly abandons the countryside for the far less interesting city.  Once there, the plot runs out of steam; and it is replete with implausibilities.  Early on, an endless succession of strangers violently attacks our protagonist on sight. Later, she is drowning one moment (deep underwater in handcuffs), then inexplicably recuperating in a hospital in the very next scene.  (At least, there’s a nice bit of comic relief from a nurse while she’s there.)  Elsewhere, she goes from a protracted knock-down, drag-out with one lone foe to felling other opponents each with a single blow.  The pace slows to a crawl, which is fatal for an action movie; and its interactions with a police detective are awkwardly stilted.  The film has a credible heroine (played by Veronica Ngo, who had a role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) and pretty good martial arts action; but, it’s not quite ready for prime time in its plotting and pacing.   As an incidental point:  the Vietnamese language is not always pleasing to the Western ear, at least in the context of this film.   For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; violence.

“T-34” (Russia, 2018) (B/B+):  Frankly, we weren’t expecting

much from this wartime action movie, but it proved to be a welcome surprise.  It opens in November 1941 with a 27-munte prologue featuring an exciting duel between a Russian tank and several German counterparts in a small village outside Moscow.  With the Russian army in retreat, a junior lieutenant (Alexander Petrov), who is fresh to the front, finds himself in command of the sole remaining tank in the area.  His seemingly hopeless objective is to hold off a superior force; and, to everyone’s surprise, his tactical virtuosity is up to the challenge.  The story jumps ahead to1944.  By now, it is the Germans who are retreating in the face of a relentless Russian advance.  Our protagonist, Ivushkin, has been languishing in a German POW camp.  He and his surviving tank driver (Viktor Dobronratov) are coerced by the German officer (Vinzenz Kiefer) whom they confronted on the battlefield back in Russia to put together a four-man crew of fellow prisoners, repair a damaged Russian T-34 tank, and participate in exercises to train a new crop of German tank crews:  the trainees will be using live ammo, while the involuntary Russian participants will not.  Unbeknownst to the Germans, however, six shells remain secreted in the tank they’re about to face.  Those six shells turn a one-sided target practice exercise into a furious bid for escape and freedom.  The surprising thing is just how entertaining the story is.  The action scenes keep us on the edge of our seats; but the secret of the film’s success is the way it gets us involved with its handful of characters (those named above, as well as Irina Starshenbaum as an interpreter, and the rest of the tank crew).  The villain of the piece might easily have been a snarling stereotype; instead, he’s a canny tank commander in his own right.  The result, written and directed by Alexsey Sidorov, is a bit like “Das Boot” – but on dry land (inside a tank instead of a submarine) and with a more ‘heroic’ (rather than grimly realistic) action/adventure tone.   If it had been made in the Forties, one would call it a wartime propaganda film; but we root for its underdogs notwithstanding.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Dumbo” (C+/B-):  Disney’s live action remake of its classic

animated tale is buoyed by an ever-so-cute baby elephant with big blue eyes.  The story revolves around a traveling circus in 1919 America and the clash of values that ensues between the essential decency of the circus folk and the high-tech hucksterism of a big-city counterpart:  The circus’s boisterous leader (Danny DeVito’s Max) may be greeted by the egotistical metropolitan showman (Michael Keaton) as a fellow “charlatan, con-man, [and] opportunist,” but he’s an innocent version of those things compared to the thoroughly ruthless self-styled impresario from the city.  Director Tim Burton manages to keep his proclivity for garish excess under control.  The kids (especially Nico Parker’s Milly) are engaging, and there’s an air of bittersweet nostalgia to the story.  When their father returns from the war, Milly tells her sibling (Finley Hobbins), with a maturity that belies her tender years, “Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere.  He’s stuck here, like you and me.”  These characters have known disappointment and loss, but magic comes back into their lives, courtesy of a pachyderm who can fly.  It might sound silly, but it’s actually a wee bit inspiring.  And there are moments of humor, too:  (Q) “Is that a monkey in your desk?”  (A) “Just for emergencies.”

“In the Last Days of the City” [“Akher ayam el madina”] (Egypt/Germany/U.K./U.A.E., 2016) (B+):  “Poetry is

everywhere, waiting to be written.”  Here’s a film that proves that assertion with its impressionistic, highly subjective deep-dive into a particular place at a particular time.  It’s Cairo in December 2009, mere weeks before the Arab Spring’s popular uprising in Egypt brought down a tyrant, energizing ordinary people with the short-lived dream of freedom.  But this isn’t a film about politics.  Indeed, plot here is minimal:  What we get instead is more akin to a reverie, impressions of a man’s love for his home city, despite its flaws.  It’s often an interior monologue.  In one scene, we see the speaker:  she’s sitting quietly, lost in her thoughts, with her own words audible over her mute image.  What we see and what we hear are deliberately, artfully, out of synch.   Elsewhere, there’s a mesmerizing scene that shows us the protagonist (played by Khalid Abdalia) walking, while we hear a woman’s warm voice telling a bittersweet story.  The scene, like the film, is very, very gentle and poignant – it snares the viewer, drawing us into the heart of this place and this people.  A woman says, “We all love Cairo.  It’s a siren.”  A man agrees, “I love it, too.”  The woman responds, “But your love is full of sorrow, sadness.  As if it had betrayed you.”

“How can you hear silence in the noise of Cairo?’ someone asks, rhetorically.  But there is a deep well of silence here, coexisting alongside the hustle and bustle of pedestrians on a street   There are painterly yellow skies, with dark silhouettes – of people, palm trees, and buildings – espied from the window of a taxi.  And the film is infused with a poetic sensibility:  “Etimad is still beautiful, but her soft black hair is turning white.”  It’s a feature film debut by director (and co-writer) Tamer El Said, and it’s an artful, introspective contemplation of life and of place, a film that conjures elegy, memory, and the allure of the storyteller.  “In the Last Days of the City” won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival.  Technical flaw:  The subtitles are way too small.   For ages 18+: Brief coarse language.

“Pendular” (Brazil/Argentina/France. 2017) (B/B+):   A young couple shares a former warehouse or factory space as their

combined living and work space.  Esposa (Raquel Karro) is a modern dancer; Merido (Rodrigo Bolzan) is a sculptor.  Each of them embraces expressive, experimental styles in their chosen art form.  They divide the work-portion of open-concept loft into two equal halves, with orange tape demarking the border.  Initially, the film favors a vignette-based approach:  we see the couple at work and at play.  Curiously, the film gives very close attention to seemingly mundane details, like wooden beams being laboriously hoisted with chains as part of an exhibit, and the woman’s preoccupation with the never-explained steel cable that finds its terminus in their home.  It’s a series of moments – from two lives that share the same space, sometimes drawing near, sometimes repelled by incompatible needs or wants.  When the sculpture atelier outgrows its allocated space, the man wants to encroach on his mate’s space:  “It’s becoming impossible for me,” he says.  “What do you want?” she asks.  “A bit more space:  It won’t make any difference to you, right?”  There seem to be literal and figurative meanings to that exchange, and to her way of relinquishing her equal status, which she fancifully describes as a “territorial cessation in accordance with treaty.”

“Pendular” is about the ebb and flow, the give and take, of relationships; the changing delineation between “I’ and “we;” sharing versus selfishness; ceding one’s individuality, autonomy, or equality; artistic sensibilities; the creative process; and the invisible walls that separate us.  Like its duo, it gleans artistry from the mundane (e.g. a dance with two wooden chairs).  Its characters embrace all that is abstract, avant-garde, and experimental; the same goes for the film itself.   It can be obscure at times.  It may strike some viewers as self-indulgent at others (i.e. the seemingly pointless mystery of that aforementioned steel cable).  A couple of moments (referencing art criticism) may be overly arcane.  It leaves us with open questions:  for instance, is the prevailing mode of sexual congress between the couple meant to be domineering – a kind of power-play?  And, who is the man talking to as he plays video games by himself?  What is the significance of said games?  Are they a signifier of something that separates him from his partner, something that they don’t share?

There are artful moments here (nearly all of the dance sequences, for example), erotic ones, and many closely-observed ones (some full of feeling, others practically mundane).  There’s an intimacy in the film’s quiet, introspective, and contemplative series of moments drawn from the intertwined lives of two creative souls.  Directed and co-written by Julia Murat (we believe it’s only her second feature film), “Pendular” won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival for “its outstanding visual quality.”  Technical flaw:  The subtitles are way too small.    For ages 18+ only:  Graphic nudity; strong sexual content; and some coarse language.

“Captain Marvel” (B-):  The first female character from Marvel’s comic book cast of characters to headline her own movie has Brie

Larson as the human pilot who ends up being an interstellar superhero.  Unexpectedly, it improves on a second viewing.  Seeing it on a big screen at a cinema draws all of our attention to its space battles.  But, frankly, we’re not impressed with ‘photon blasts.’  Action and effects have been done to death in countless movies.  On a television screen, however, the effects and breakneck action looms less large (both literally and figuratively), and we can better appreciate the relationships and moments of humor.  Those are the things that make the film worthwhile.  The standout in both departments is Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury (and his not-very-tame adopted cat).  It’s nice to see Clark Gregg (albeit briefly) as SHIELD’s Agent Coulson; and, Jude Law brings charisma to a role that’s a bit more complex than first meets the eye.  That goes double for the alien race (the shape-shifting Skrull) led by Ben Mendelsohn.  The extras include eight minutes of useful deleted scenes (which fill in small gaps in the plotting), a gag reel, commentary, and six featurettes.  It’s a commendable girl-power story, though there’s an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the powers and how interesting their wielder is.

“Us” (B/B+):  In a prologue, a young girl wanders away from her

parents at a seaside carnival, enters an isolated hall of mirrors, and reacts in horror to whatever she finds there.  Years later, she has a family of her own, and she’s unenthusiastic about them taking up summer residence at the self-same seaside resort town.  On their very first night there, her son matter-of-factly says that “There’s a family in our driveway,” adding, presciently, that it’s “a bogeyman’s family.”  That first meeting of the family (Lupita Nyong’o as the mom, Winston Drake as the dad, and Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex as their kids) with their feral look-alikes is easily the film’s best, and most unsettling, sequence.  The doppelgangers are all clad in red coveralls, carrying large golden scissors.  They present a sinister, disturbing specter.  Only one of them speaks, and she does so in a strained, raspy voice (the others are either mute or confined to growls and grunts).  Their spokeswoman (and leader) clearly bears a grudge and takes it lethally personally:  “Once upon a time, there was a girl.  And the girl had a shadow.  The two were connected, tethered together.”

It’s a chilling premise, but the rationale that under-girds it is full of holes.  To cite only one small (non-spoiler) example, we’re told that a child was missing for five minutes; but, when we later see what transpired during that absence, it’s clear that far more than five minutes had to have elapsed.  Logical flaws aside, it’s a solid horror follow-up by writer/director Jordan Peele to his 2017 directorial debut “Get Out,”  a dark fairy tale peppered with moments of even darker humor.  It’s a shame, though, that “Us” so quickly leaves psychological tension behind it as it ratchets up the overt physical horror with a surfeit of violence and gore.  It was more interesting (and creepy) when the menace was unstated and undefined.  For ages 18+ only:  Abundant very coarse language; brutal violence; gore, and horror.

“Isn’t It Romantic” (C/C+):  A young architect (Australia’s Rebel Wilson) is ignored and underappreciated, both professionally and personally – so much so that she feels practically invisible.  Things take a drastic change when she’s knocked unconscious and awakens in an altered reality.  Suddenly, her life is a romantic comedy, literally – with a handsome leading man (Liam Hemsworth) who’s utterly smitten with her, a gay sidekick (Brandon Scott Jones), and the friend-zone guy (Adam Devine) who goes unrecognized as her true love-match.  Suddenly, everything’s bigger, brighter, and cleaner (“everything smells like lavender”) and people are wont to break into choreographed song-and-dance in the middle of the street.  Rebel Wilson is one of those actresses (pretty of face but decidedly heavy-set) whose chief calling card is loud, bumptious, physical humor that too often makes fun of her own girth.  (That sort of screechy scenery-chewer, a one-woman bulldozer, figuratively speaking, with a good heart, is also favored by Melissa McCarthy; while Jack Black may be the male comedic equivalent.)   It’s precisely the sort of thing that we typically find off-putting – along with the unsophisticated brand of humor in most North American romantic-comedies.  To our surprise, this film won us over, with its unlikely, inferiority-complex-beset heroine (“People are treating me like I’m special; and I’m not special.”), nice supporting work by Priyanka Chopra (as a glamour girl) and Betty Gilpin (as a supportive secretary), and an entertaining big dance number to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”   The film is silly but it’s also kind of cute.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” (B+):

Here’s the third (and probably final) installment in the animated film franchise that began in 2010.  Based on the books by Cressida Cowell, it’s the story of a boy and his jet-black dragon.  It’s a friendship powerful enough to be called love, a bonding of two outsiders that seems unbreakable.  But relentless outside dangers and the proverbial call of the wild imperil the close-knit community of Vikings and dragons.  The boy has become a young man.  As Canadian lead Jay Baruchel says, “the awkward, over-eager nerd with low self-esteem turns into the chief” in his character arc over the three films.  Hiccup is proud of “the world’s first Viking-dragon utopia” they’ve created; but circumstances force him to realize that his folk have been relying a little too much on his dragon and not

enough on one another.  And, as one of filmmakers say, a friend must take care not to cross the line between being a protector and being a captor.

The result is a story about the inevitability of change and about letting go.  That gives this installment, directed by Canadian Dean DeBlois, a bittersweet poignancy.  Although there’s more broad humor in the series than we’d prefer, there are always moments of real beauty, drama, and tangible emotion.  In a nice small moment, Hiccup fashions a prosthetic which will enable his dragon to fly without a rider and sighs softly when Toothless does just that.  As to inspiring beauty, look to a moment of the dragon hovering above his earthbound friend:  it’s just a moment, but it’s beautifully rendered.

And two dragons soaring among the night-time clouds against a sky lit by Aurora Borealis has real visual kick.  Composer John Powell returns for this installment, and a couple of his powerful, Oscar-nominated, melodies from the first film (complete with Uillean pipes, Celtic harp, and bagpipes) provide powerful emotional traction, including a triumphal moment late in the film.  There’s even a treat in the end credits, with cutely inventive animation.  The highly recommended Blu-ray/DVD combo set from Universal has a generous array of extras, with many brief featurettes, a commentary, and two unrelated, but very good, short films.  We especially liked the one set in Australia’s Outback called “Bilby,” which revolves around another unexpected friendship.

“The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” (C+/B-):  The latest animated adventure using structures and characters from the Lego build-it-yourself toys seems like kids’ stuff at first, but there’s enough sly humor and engaging sense of innocence here to satisfy grown-up viewers, too.  This time ‘round, the Lego city looks like something out of Mad Max, a few years after alien attacks killed the ‘awesome’ in its inhabitants’ hearts:  “We call it Apocalypseburg; and it’s a heckish place to live.”  Only the hapless figure of Emmet, the story’s sweet and naïve protagonist, is still happy-go-lucky; and he gets an instructive face-to-face look at the road not taken:  Sometimes, innocence and optimism are good things to hold onto.  And there’s a pleasing moral to the story, in song form:  “Everything’s not awesome; but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless and bleak.  We can make things better if we stick together.”

“The Mule” (USA, 2018) (B/B+):  “You lived to get back out there: all the conventions, and the socializing, and being the center of attention.  And they got the fun, wonderful man that you are.  And we got the Earl who just couldn’t wait to get back out there.”  So says Earl Stone’s (Clint Eastwood) embittered ex-wife (Dianne Wiest).  Earl has made a life for himself growing daylilies and showing then at conventions, neglecting, and losing, his family in the process – including a daughter (real-life daughter Alison Eastwood) who hasn’t talked to him in twelve-and-a-half years.  When he loses everything else in his eighties, he’s approached by a man who says, “I have friends looking for cautious drivers like you.”  They’ll pay Earl to “just drive” between New Mexico and Chicago. With his business and home gone (foreclosed upon by the bank), Earl doesn’t have a lot of options (“I’ve never been a plan-B type of guy”).  So, they stash a bag of cocaine in the back of his battered pick-up truck, and Earl hits the road.  One trip turns into many more:  The money’s good, and Earl uses much of it to help others – especially his granddaughter (Taissa Farmiga) and the local veterans’ hall.

Amiable, and looking not one whit like a drug-runner, Earl is a natural at his new occupation.  He wins over his initially surly handler (Ignaccio Serricchio), to whom he even proffers some grandfatherly advice, and the Mexican drug cartel’s top boss (Andy Garcia):  Earl’s candor, charm, and easy-going manner (not to mention his calm quick-thinking in the face of trouble) earn him their respect and even affection.  Although he’s suddenly flush with cash, he gradually comes to realize that there are far more important things.  Reflecting on a lifetime of misdirected priorities, he says, “I thought it was more important to be somebody out there than the damn failure I was here at my own home.”   Besides, his past popularity was ultimately kind of superficial:  Years earlier, when a colleague asked, “Did anybody ever tell you you’re a bit of an a**hole?,” Earl has a flippant reply at the ready, “All the time, even in Spanish.”

It’s a very good cast all-round, with Bradley Cooper, Michael Peña, and (briefly) Lawrence Fishburne as DEA agents on the trail of the cartel’s most successful ‘mule.’  Directed by Clint Eastwood, and inspired by a true story, the result combines, humor, drama, and a very welcome emphasis on characterization.  The prevailing tone is low-key; there’s a gentle poignancy here, along with a redemptive arc and a bit of a Robin Hood theme.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language and brief nudity.

“What They Had” (USA, 2018) (B+/A-): Here’s a welcome surprise – an ensemble character drama about family dynamics.  They may be getting older, but Bert (Robert Forster) and Ruth (Blythe Danner) still live on their own in Chicago.  He seems hale and hearty, and he’s certainly devoted to his wife.  He has a resolute view of what it means to love another person:  “There’s no bells or whistles.  Love is commitment.  Better or worse, sickness and health, death do you part.  That is the promise.”   He’s not fazed by Ruth’s deteriorating memory and reduced clarity of thought.  But his grown son Nick (Michael Shannon) is adamant that his mother should be institutionalized.  And when she goes on a solo walkabout late on a wintry night, he summons his sister Bitty (Hilary Swank) from California to help him pressure their parents into that drastic change.  But Bitty, accompanied by her restive 20-ish daughter Emma (Taissa Farmiga) isn’t so sure.  She’s more sympathetic to her father’s plea:  “She’s my girl… You can’t take my girl away from me.”   The result, written and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, is one of the best films of 2018!

Inexcusably overlooked by the prominent awards, “What They Had” won “Best Grownup Love Story” from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), where it was also nominated for Supporting Actress & Supporting Actor.  It offers very strong performances from a very fine ensemble cast.  A thoroughly involving, gently touching examination of family relationships, it is sad, funny, hopeful, and moving all at once – in its story of “a family that rises to the occasion,” as one of the filmmakers says.  Don’t miss it!   For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

“Never Look Away” [“Werk ohne Autor”] (Germany/Italy, 2018) (B+/A-):   The quest for freedom and truth in a world where those core values are too often crushed by domineering individuals and ideologies is at the heart of this portrait of an artist as a young man.  We first meet Kurt at age six (played by Cai Cohrs) in the company of his beautiful young aunt Elizabeth (the drop-dead gorgeous Sashia Rosendahl who played the eponymous lead in 2012’s “Lore”).  The pair is closely bonded, and the precocious boy seems to share his aunt’s poetic sensibility and artistic perception of the world.  But it is 1937 in Germany, and we fear that bad things lay in store for people who don’t conform.  The chief agent of those bad things is an educated man:  Carl Seeband (played by the estimable Sebastian Koch) is a physician and professor, an accomplished gynecologist, and the head of surgery at a hospital in Dresden; but, he’s also an all-too-willing participant in the regime’s eugenics program, proudly preening in his black SS uniform.  One of his actions in the name of that vile ideology will haunt two generations of these characters.

The story spans 30 years.  The adult Kurt is played by Tom Schilling, with Paula Beer as Ellie, the beautiful love of his life, and Olivier Masucci as the flamboyant art professor who influences Kurt’s life:  “If you aren’t free, completely free, then nobody else will be.  By making yourself free, you are liberating the world.”  Yet that quest for individual freedom plays out against the backdrop of two evil ideologies – Nazism and Communism – that seek to crush freedom and condemn individualism.  Kurt strives to find his unique artistic voice, never realizing the full depth of tragedy that touches those whom he loves.  There are mesmerizing moments in the film, first-rate performances, and visual poetry.  But, much like real life, there aren’t tidy resolutions to all of the story’s threads.  Terrible injustice seems to go unexposed and unavenged.  A villain seems to prosper instead of getting his just desserts.  One capable of monstrous inhumanity also has it in him to save life.  We yearn for justice, for holding evildoers accountable, but we don’t always get what we long for – in real life or in the tale of these characters.  Instead, the film asks us to seek truth through our own integrity and through our own creative expression, urging us to be unblinking witnesses to the events (good and bad alike) around us, even when we can’t make everything right again..

Written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (of the great 2006 film “The Lives of Others”), “Never Look Away” was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Cinematography at the Oscars and for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes.  It won two awards at the Venice Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film).  For ages 18+ only:  Graphic nudity and fairly strong sexual content.

“Shoplifters” [“Manbiki Kazoku”] (Japan, 2018) (B):  What makes a family?  What are the ties that truly bind us?  Are they solely dependant upon a blood tie?  Or can we create families of our own choosing?  Here’s a low-key story about a family of the second sort – six people who aren’t related by blood or by formal tie, but who nevertheless coalesce in a surrogate family in which they each find a measure of security and contentment, happiness even.  Some of them supplement their resources through petty larceny (hence, the film’s title); but all of them have kind hearts.   As to the shoplifting, it’s rationalized thus:  (A) “Whatever’s in a store doesn’t belong to anyone yet.”  (B) “Well, as long as the store doesn’t go bankrupt, it’s okay.”

Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (of 2017’s “The Third Murder” and 2016’s “After the Storm”), “Shoplifters” combines poignancy, warmth, humor, irony, and sadness.  It takes a major, unexpected turn about two-thirds of the way through, and that’s when we learn the back-stories of its characters and get all the moving, emotional scenes.  It’s a story about relationships and the offbeat lifestyle of its characters.  It looks beyond their failings to their fundamental decency, as a surrogate family forged out of convenience becomes a reasonable facsimile of the real thing – flawed but also genuine in its heart.

Among its great many awards and nominations, “Shoplifters” won the Palme d’Or (Best Film) at Cannes; it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA, and Independent Spirit Film Awards; and it won in that category at France’s César Awards.  It earned thirteen nominations at Japan’s academy awards, winning in eight of those categories, including Best Film, Actress (Sakuro Andô), Supporting Actress (Karin Kiki, who plays the kindly grandmother), Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography.  For ages 18+:  Adult situations, including sexual situations.

“Glass” (USA, 2018) (C+/B-):  This drama unexpectedly unites

the chief characters of two seemingly very different films from the same writer/director, M. Night Shyamalan.  In his excellent “Unbreakable” (2002), an unassuming security guard named David Dunn (played in nicely low-key fashion by Bruce Willis) gradually comes to realize that he is both unusually strong and inexplicably resilient to injury.  He was a realistic, entirely believably kind of ‘superhero,’ anchored in the real world; and his awakening is unexpectedly encouraged by a self-styled criminal mastermind (in a frail body) dubbed Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson).  Both are played as real human beings with usual abilities – in one case physical, in the other mental.  Then came the seemingly stand-alone “Split” (2006) in which a serial killer (James McAvoy) afflicted by 23

distinct personalities (one of them a super-human killer aptly called ‘the Beast’) is fond of abducting and slaughtering innocent victims (especially young women, for reasons unknown).  Those three characters, from two utterly disparate movies, are reunited here, along with Willis’ son (Spencer Treat Clark, now grown to young adulthood, from “Unbreakable”) and the bewitching Anna Taylor-Joy (who was so memorably good in 2015’s “The Witch”) as a victim who survived McAvoy’s ‘horde’ of personalities in “Split.”

Despite strong performances all ‘round, the result here is not entirely successful.   The first 19 minutes are very good, as the hitherto unstoppable Beast meets his match in David Dunn.  But things take a sudden swerve into left field, with everyone carted off

to a psychiatric hospital, presided over by a psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) who seems intent on persuading all three men that their special abilities are mere self-delusion.  They are incarcerated without a hint of due process.  Where’s the trial (or even a psychiatric assessment hearing)?  Where’s the legal counsel, not to mention the fundamental right to habeas corpus?  Ignoring such basic procedural steps undermines the credibility of all that follows.  And the setting (a mental hospital) changes the whole tone and flow of the story.  One character is catatonic; the other two are in room-sized straight-jackets.  Those fetters sap the characters of vitality. Further, one of three should be facing serious criminal charges; another is self-evidently neither insane nor a danger to the public.

Another misstep is the recurring overt references to comic books.  They are put forward as a source of information about superheroes and super-villains, and a thematic driving force of the story.  C’mon!  It would have far better to leave that connection implied or simply metaphorical.  Instead, it is explicit and oft-repeated.  The psychiatrist and her covert agenda are another mistake.  She knows too much about her charges, and the conspiracy she represents just isn’t believable.   She interestingly characterizes the three men as ‘the anarchist, the brains, and the reluctant hero,’ respectively.  Why not just leave it with, “I specialize in a particular type of delusion of grandeur” after a mandatory (but absent) court-ordered psychiatric assessment?   Instead, the screenplay has her say more (“I specialize in those individuals who believe they are superheroes”), and, somehow that esoteric field of specialization strains our credulity far more than the film’s actual superhero and pair of super-villains.

Other things that grate include a pretty flawed security system; a hospital staff that’s panicky, irresponsible, and unprofessional; and a thinker who seems hyper-competent with a few too many diverse subjects (everything from computer code to laser-guided surgical devices).  On the plus side, there’s a touching flashback to David and his young son.  But that’s up against hard-to-fathom motivations on the part of the serial killer’s survivor (the only victim who got away).  And a self-affirmation message at the end doesn’t ring true; after all, it’s uttered by a ruthless killer, who is pitiless about harming innocents.  “Glass” has admirably strong performances and remarkable characterization; but it falls far short of its potential, the victim of a flawed premise and off-the-rails storytelling.  For ages 18+ only:  Strong violence; disturbing content; and some coarse language.

“Mary Poppins Returns” (USA, 2018) (B):  “Everything is possible, even the impossible” – and even a successful follow-up to the 1964 family musical classic “Mary Poppins.”   Emily Blunt (“A Quiet Place”) takes over the title role, as she returns to Cherry Tree Lane some twenty or thirty years after her first stint as governess as the Banks’ family governess.  The original kids are gown-up now, with the male a single, widower father of three young children of his own.  Live action interacts with animation as Mary, her new charges, and new character Jack the lamplighter (an amiable Lin-Manual Miranda) embark on playful adventures in aid of the proposition that a little “stuff and nonsense could be fun.”  It’s all about connecting with our inner child, and it’s a fun jaunt.  Its songs may not linger, but they work just fine in situ, with the Oscar-nominated “The Place Where the Lost Things Go” taking pride of place as the film’s standout in the music department.  The machinations of a ruthless and duplicitous banker (Colin Firth) seem a tad dark for this material, as does the threat of the family losing their home.  Besides the leads, the three kids (Joel Dawson, Pixie Davies, and Nathanael Saleh) are as cute as they can be, and Emily Mortimer makes an impression as their aunt.  One curious thing, though, is the choice to present Mary as a somewhat passive figure.  Maybe her brand of magic doesn’t intersect well with mundane realities like mortgage defaults?

“Aquaman” (Australia/USA, 2018) (C+/B-):  This one appealed to us more on the small screen than it did at the cinema.  That’s an unexpected fact, since you’d think a film that so depends on action and effects would make more of an impression on a big screen.  But, ironically, the more a movie relies on effects and action, the more wanting it almost invariably is in story and character development – deficits which are far more noticeable on a cinema screen.  This DC comic book character is half human, half-Atlantean (via his royal mother nicely played by Nicole Kidman):  he can breathe water and command the creatures of the deep, but he doesn’t really fit in, in either world.    Arthur (a.k.a. Aquaman) is a free-spirit, who doesn’t take himself, or the destiny others keep urging on him, too seriously.  He’s fond of sarcastic remarks and quick with his fists:  “I do not work or play well with others.”  That cantankerous loner persona is refreshing in a superhero, and Jason Momoa gives him likeability beneath the gruff exterior.  Amber Heard also makes a strong impression as his flame-haired distaff ally. There’s all the usual pyrotechnics and larger-than-life fisticuffs, but they mostly take place under sea.  All of that stuff is de rigueur – competently done but not intrinsically interesting.  Much better is the banter between Momoa and Heard.  That, and the film’s single best scene, which has an airborne goat do a double-take.  One bit of clumsy anachronism has a clue in a treasure hunt depend on a Roman statue, which, presumably, was put in its place long after the clues were created in what, we can deduce, must have been prehistorical times.   For ages 14+: Brief crude language.

“Viceroy’s House” (U.K./India/Sweden, 2017) (B):  Here’s a thoughtful look at the lives of a few individuals during the final few months of British suzerainty over India.   It tells a macro-story in a micro-setting.  We’re informed of the competing sectarian interests and personalities that led to the division of one land into India and Pakistan, with religion as the diving line.  A Muslim minority in greater India had leaders who advocated partition to make the minority a majority in its own country.  Partition took place, over the objections of Gandhi and others (“Division does not create peace.”); mass bloodshed was its legacy.  (An aside:  With the hindsight of history – even some pretty basic prescience at the time would have sufficed – we can see how empty their leaders’ promises of a secular Pakistan, a country of tolerance for all, proved to be.  As for two countries living side-by-side in “peace,” they’ve had four wars since independence, and when they weren’t at war, they’ve more often than not been in daggers-drawn mode; now, to the imperilment of us all, they are both inexcusably armed with nuclear weapons.)  But those big issues are told from the points of view of a few characters.  There’s Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville of “Downton Abbey” fame), Britain’s last viceroy to India, who is charged with the thankless task of overseeing the hand-over of power to the former colonial subjects.  There’s his smart, capable wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson); and there are two locals in their employ – a Hindu man (Marish Dayal of 2014’s “The Hundred Foot Journey”) and the Muslim woman, whom he loves (Huma Qureshi), though she’s betrothed to another. The always engaging Michael Gambon appears in a supporting role, and other actors portray such key figures as Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah.   The macro stuff in anchored in the down-to-earth individual relationships of the two central couples.  We liked the result.

“Secrets of War” [“Oorlogsgeheimen”] (The Netherlands/Belgium/Luxembourg, 2014) (B):  Two young Dutch boys – Tuur (Maas Bronkhuyzen) and Lambert (Joes Brauers) – are fast friends in their small Dutch town.  It’s 1943, and their country is occupied by Nazi Germany, but for the boys (and us), there’s scarcely any sign that there’s a war on, at least initially.  At first, there are no German soldiers in evidence.  But the wider world gradually insinuates its way into this time of innocence.  Differences between the boys start to crop up as they (and we) become aware of quiet divisions among the townsfolk, between those inclined to covertly resist and those who collaborate.  But the biggest breach between these bosom buddies comes in the form of a new classmate.   Maartje (Pippa Allen) comes from away:  she’s pretty, personable, and new – and her closer connection with one boy leaves the other feeling neglected and jealous.   The result is a quite good coming of age story.  The initial breach between the boys feels a tad artificial:  There’s really not much reason for it, other than the shifting loyalties of childhood, and that trite rationale flies in the face of their genuinely close bond.  But, the story of their relationship otherwise works quite nicely.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is: “So You’ve Grown Attached” (USA, 2014) (C/C+):  A mute imaginary friend named “Ex” is conscious of becoming redundant as his human creator, Izzy, starts to grow-up.  His first impulse is to resist the change; in this 15-minute short film directed by Kate Tsang.   The result is a bittersweet whimsy that tilts in favor of the comedic side of the scales.

“Green Book” (USA, 2018) (A-):  Here’s the irresistible story of

two men who become unlikely friends.  At last – a story that’s founded in relationships!  Based on a true story, a rough-and-ready Italian-American is hired to drive a cultured black musician around the segregationist Deep South for eight weeks in 1962.  Tony Vallelonga, a.k.a. Tony Lip (played by Viggo Mortensen), works as a bouncer at a New York nightclub.  He leads with his fists and lives by his wits, his nerve, and his aptitude for ‘B.S.’   He’s got a good heart, and he loves his wife (an engaging Linda Cardellini), but he’s not without small-mindedness, a capacity for selfishness, and some latent racial prejudice.  Coarse, earthy, unrefined, and brash, Tony is the polar opposite of Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a world-class pianist.  Don is an elegant, cultured gentleman; he is multilingual, highly educated, and genteel.  He also happens to be a black man.  And, in this time and place, that’s a recipe for problems on a road trip to concert engagements south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  Tony isn’t interested in serving as a valet, but he accepts the job as driver and impromptu trouble-shooter.

Tony may be unvarnished, but he recognizes sheer talent when he sees it in action.  The first time he watches Don perform, he feels admiration:  “I saw Dr. Shirley play the piano tonight.  He don’t play like a colored guy.  He plays like Liberace, but better.  He’s like a genius, I think.  When I look at him in the rearview mirror, I can tell he’s always thinking about stuff in his head.  I guess that’s what geniuses do.  But it don’t look fun to be that smart.”  Tony is a good judge of character, and he perceives the sadness and loneliness inside Don.  What’s more surprising is that both men learn from the other.  Don coaches Tony on writing romantic letters to his wife.  He also lives by the admirable credo that, “You only win when you maintain your dignity.  Dignity always prevails.”   Don cajoles Don into loosening-up, putting fastidiousness aside at times (including Don’s first taste of Kentucky fried chicken), and daring to make a scene when the situation calls for it.  The result is kin to “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Odd Couple,” and “Pygmalion.”  The shared journey upon which these two strangers embark is as much metaphorical (and transformational) as it is literal.  Funny, poignant, and always utterly winning, their story is a study in friendship, mutual support, and understanding.

Directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly, “Green Book” won Best Film, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, where it was also nominated for Actor and Editing.  It earned a great many other awards and nominations – at BAFTA, the Golden Globes, the Directors Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America.  The American Film Institute named it the Movie of the Year.  The DVD has three mini-featurettes (each is under five minutes); but, a full-length cast commentary would have been very welcome. “Green Book” is a bona fide treat, one that entertains and uplifts in repeated viewings.   In its own distinctive way, it’s a love story (the love between two friends), and it’s not to be missed.   For ages 18+:  Some brief coarse language; some racial epithets; and adult subject-matter

“Creed II” (USA, 2018) (B):  This follow-up to 2015’s “Creed” continues the story of Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) as the coach and surrogate father figure to a young boxed named Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan), who is the son of Rocky’s one-time opponent and later friend.  Creed Sr. died in the ring years ago in a fight with a large and cold Russian named Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren).  Drago is back, with a son of his son (played by Florian Munteanu), and a two-way grudge match is on. Rocky warns his protégé that Drago fils was “raised in hate,” even as Drago père grimly predicts that:  “My son will break your boy.”  These things follow a familiar pattern – that of the under-dog.  Out hero may start as a world champion, but he’s soon on the ropes, doubting himself, with a come-back arc that gets us rooting for him.  It’s a simple formula, but it keeps on working in the Rocky stories (and their Creed successors).  The determination to overcome the odds gets us invested, as do the down-to-earth relationships.  Rocky remains an engaging character – simple, but full of integrity and heart.  Creed, his fiancé (Tessa Thompson), and his mother (Phylicia Rashad) all work as characters.  And this installment does something admirable in giving the father and son villains some depth:  we can sympathize with them a little, and that makes them stronger as characters than we’d have expected.    Not for young children: Violence.  Technical flaw:  The DVD pixilated immediately (while the trailers were still playing); we had to transfer it to our more robust Blu-ray player.  What’s up with the unreliable playback of so many DVDs lately?

“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” (U.K./USA, 2018) (C-/C):  “Why do strange creatures love you so much?”  This sequel to 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” lacks the freshness of the first film, and it is fatally undone by a “to be continued” ending.   Like the Harry Potter film series, it is too dependant on CGI effects and too superficial in story, though we prefer its cast of grown-ups to Potter’s cast of mostly kids.  Some characters here show a hint of promise.  Foremost among those is its protagonist, Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander:  An unlikely ‘hero,’ he is sweet, gentle, and shy; and, as someone says, “You never met a monster you couldn’t love.”  Other characters, like the transparently villainous magician of the title (played by Johnny Depp in bleached hair), are one-dimensional.  Grindelwald can softly intone all he wants about ‘magic blooming only in rare souls,’ but why anyone falls for his bunk defies understanding.  He’s too much of an obvious baddie (and homicidal psychopath) to be mistaken for the messiah of the magically-inclined.  But, truth be told, the superficiality here is pervasive, immersing even the characters with hints of potential in its relentless wake.  The would-be spectacle fizzles without our meaningful emotional investment in the story or characters.  Like all the films from J.K. Rowling’s brand of magical fantasy, the so-called “magic” is so ubiquitous (and gratuitous) as to be neutered and rendered oddly unmagical.  Despite a few transitory moments of charm, the story lacks heart.  And, please, do not make a movie that stops in mid-story – doing so is an unsatisfying cheat.   Not for young children: Violence.

“The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” (USA, 2018) (B-):  “Everything you need is inside.”  That’s a mother’s dying message

for her daughter and the theme of this live-action Disney adventure about a girl whose ingenuity and courage help her to prevail in the fantasy kingdom where she suddenly finds herself.  With her family bereft by the recent loss of her mother, the last thing Clara wants to do is attend a Christmas Eve party.  But, the host, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), is a fellow inventor, a one-time foster parent to her late mother, and a kindred spirit.  Down a long hallway (in the host’s wildly over-sized mansion), through closed doors, and out into a Narnia-like world of winter Clara goes.  There she finds a kingdom subdivided into four realms (of flowers, snowflakes, sweets, and amusements), a full-sized fairy named Sugarplum (Keira Knightley) to take her under a figurative wing, and a loyal friend in the former of a young border officer.  Conflict has divided the four realms, with ‘Mother Ginger’ (Helen Mirren) as the presumed villain, and it’s up to Clara to find a special key and put things to rights (“Have you come to save us, Clara?”).  It all unfolds to excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet score; but, music (and names) aside, the story has only a remote connection to the ballet.  Mackenzie Foy is the standout as Clara – she’s a beauty with plenty of pluck and determination.  Our second favorite character is a small CGI mouse:  he may not speak, but he’s got plenty of personality.  The book-ended scenes in the real world of 19th century London, with Clara and her family, are nicely grounded in reality (later, there’s a nice flashback with Clara’s mother, played by Anna Madeley).  The fantasy world shows attention to detail, with lavish settings, costumes, hair, and make-up design, but the tone there is often a bit more rambunctious and unsubtle than we’d like.  To be fair, it is a toy-land come to life, so some degree of gaudiness in look and tone comes with the territory.   Still, we can’t help but wonder how it might have bolstered the film’s gravitas if its fantasy world looked less overtly fantastical and instead hewed to a more realistic ambience?   The “Harry Potter” films, for instance, diluted the magical tone of their settings by making the magic there so literal, overt, and ubiquitous.  One thing is certain:  “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” evokes an emotional response at times, so it must be doing something right.  That something is the affecting performance by its lead (Foy’s Clara is sweet and brave at the same time) and the cute appearances of its mischievous mouse.  The presence of black actors/dancers in some key roles feels a tad self-consciously politically-correct.

“A Star is Born” (USA, 2018) (B):  “Why can’t I just be enough for you?”  That’s the question when fame and a rising trajectory get in the way of romantic love.  The latest version of this oft-told tale has a male country singer (Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine) meet and fall in love with a diamond in the rough (Lady Gaga’s Ally) who sings part-time at a cross-dressing bar.  He sees her talent, cajoles her into sharing his big stage, and propels her into stardom:  “All you got to do is trust me.  That’s all you got to do.”  But her rise parallels his decline.  It’s not clear whether his star is on the wane anyway; or, whether his inner demons and substance abuse drags him down.  The spectacle of self-destruction by booze and drugs is, frankly, off-putting (as is the over-abundance of coarse language from both leads); but Cooper somehow nevertheless manages to keep his character sympathetic.  He’s got heart along with his charm:  “Can I tell you a secret?  I think you might be a songwriter… Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.  But, I’m not very good at keeping secrets.”  By contrast, we always feel remote from Ally:  Jack is the emotive heart of the story, with both charisma and vulnerability, while Ally is always more of a cipher, with whom we never fully connect on an emotional level.  At one point she seems detached from her relationship with Jack, even as he declares, “I need to stick with you.”  Her path starts to diverge from Jack’s (or at least he perceives that to be so) when her ambitious (and obnoxious) manager transfers Ally from heartfelt country-esque singer to pop princess with bleached hair, dancers, a surfeit of glitz, and shallow lyrics.  Sam Elliott, delivers another award-caliber performance, after his strong work in 2017’s “The Hero,” as Jack’s long-suffering older brother and manager:  he commands our undivided attention as a man who loves his brother and is deeply exasperated by him at the same time:  “You think maybe he drinks a bit much?” he asks Ally in a triumph of saddened understatement.  The bittersweet songs are a treat, with the duet “Shallow,” leading the way, closely followed by “Maybe It’s Time to Let the Old Ways Die,” “I’ll Always Remember Us This Way,” and “I’ll Never Love Again.”

The film earned eight Academy Award nominations (including Best Film, Actor, Actress, & Supporting Actor), winning for Best Original Song; the song in question, “Shallow,” also won a Grammy.  “A Star is Born” won Director, Actress, Supporting Actor at the National Board of Review. And it got lots of nominations at BAFTA, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and elsewhere.  Though neglected by Oscar, Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut earned him two nominations at the Directors Guild of America.  For ages 18+ only:  A great deal of coarse language; alcohol and drug abuse.

“Gloria” (Chile/Spain, 2013) (B+/A-):  How on earth did Oscar miss this winning story of a 50-something woman who is determined to ‘fake it till she makes it,’ by pushing all of life’s disappointments aside in favor of an irrepressible joie de vivre?  Paulina Garciá plays the title character:  Gloria has been divorced for 12 years; she has two grown kids who don’t seem to need her anymore, an unfulfilling job, and an ever-present sense of loneliness.  But, she banishes sadness with her ubiquitous smile and her readiness to sing and dance.  She’s a regular at a nightclub that caters to middle-aged singles, and that’s where she meets and begins a relationship with Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández), a recent divorcé, who isn’t as free-spirited as our heroine.  It’s a glorious, award-caliber performance by Paulina Garciá.  About 53 when the film was made, she is regarded as ‘the Great Lady of Chilean theater, television, and cinema.’  The only mystery is why she didn’t get an Oscar for this multifaceted role:  She’s a free-spirit, but how much of her élan is there to keep the emptiness at bay?  She goes to a laughter therapy class:  Is it a way to become the person you rehearse?  Does any of a friend’s observation about Chile apply to Gloria’s repressed view of herself?  “It’s so hard to love it… So many things have happened that what Chile used to be now seems like a ghost, as if that Chile were dead…”

Despite a moment of stirring romanticism, courtesy of the words of the Chilean poet Claudio Bertoni (“If I were a peach, you would be a tree.  And if you were a tree, I would be its sap, flowing through your branches like blood.  And if I were blood, I would live in your heart…”), the prevailing tone here is eyes-wide-open realism.  Gloria leads a life any of us can relate to – she’s a human being longing to be wanted and to be happy.  And she seems to be the prototype for the aphorisms, “making your own music” and “dancing to the beat of your own drum.”  The performance is so rich that we wonder if she’s staving off sadness through force of will.  Is she just naturally irrepressible?  Or is she both wounded and indomitable at the same time?

One thing is certain:  if there were a special Oscar category for the best final three minutes of a film, “Gloria” would be the poster-film for that award, unfolding to the words of the eponymous title song.   Written and composed in Italian by Umberto Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi (and sung here by Tozzi), the hit 1979 song – a later (1982) cover version by Laura Branigan sold over one million singles in the United States alone – is the musical anthem for this film’s character, capturing her free spirit and her inner vulnerability alike: “If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?… I will write my story with the word ‘Gloria.’”

Directed by Chile’s Sebastián Lelio (he co-wrote the film with Gonzalo Maza),“Gloria” won the Ecumenical Jury Prize “for its refreshing and contagious plea that life is a celebration to which we are all invited” at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, where it also won Best Actress and was nominated as Best Film.  It was nominated as Best International Film at the Independent Spirit Film Awards; and the U.S. National Board of Review named it among the Top Five Foreign Language Films.  Don’t miss this film!  For ages 18+ only:  Graphic nudity; frank sexual content; and brief coarse language

Postscript:  In 2018, the same director (and co-writer), Sebastián Lelio, remade his winning film for North American audiences (in English), as “Gloria Bell,” starring Julianne Moore.

“Capernaum” [“Capharnaüm”] [a.k.a. “Chaos”] (Lebanon/France/USA, 2018) (B+/A-):  “I’m sick of those who can’t take care of their kids.”  So says a 12-year-old boy who is wise beyond his years.  Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) is poor, neglected by his parents, and streetwise; but he hasn’t lost his intrinsic sweetness of nature and a remarkable sense of responsibility.  He is fiercely protective of his young sister Saha (Cedra Izzam), whom his parents (Kawsar Al Haddad & Fadi Yousef) have in mind to (in effect) sell in marriage to an adult man; and he becomes a trusted caregiver to the infant child of an Ethiopian refugee (Yordanos Shifera) with whom he finds sanctuary and a surrogate family.  Zain has a profane, no-nonsense demeanor at times, but, his spirit is pure.  Precocious, resourceful, trustworthy, and fundamentally decent, Zain has had the misfortune to have been born among the dispossessed, to a life (in the poor sectors of Beirut) where injustice is the norm.  It strains even Zain’s indomitable spirit:  “Life is a bitch!  I was expecting to be a good man, respected and loved.  But God doesn’t want that.  He wants us to be floor-mats, to be stepped on.”

There’s heartbreaking sadness here, as well as shocking injustice, and loss; but, there’s also decency, kindness, hope, enormous empathy, and moments of redemption.  In short, there are inextinguishable lights burning in the seemingly chaotic darkness.  (The significance of the film’s title is unclear:  Capernaum is also the name of a fishing village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, where Jesus did some of his ministry in Biblical times.)

“Capernaum” was directed and co-written by Nadine Labaki, who acted in 2007’s “Caramel” and both acted in and directed 2011’s “Where Do We Go Now?”   Remarkably, she discovered her young lead for “Capernaum” on the streets of Beirut:   evidently, the real-life Zain was a refugee from Syria, and he has now been resettled in Norway.  Among its great many awards and nominations, “Capernaum” was nominated as Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, BAFTA, Golden Globes, France’s academy awards (the Césars), and the British Independent Film Awards.  It won three prizes at Cannes, including the Jury Prize, where it was also nominated for the Palme d’Or (Best Film).  It had nine nominations at Lebanon’s academy awards, including Best Film, Director, Ensemble Cast, Screenplay, and Cinematography.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language and very brief nudity

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (USA, 1979) (B+/A-):  In the ten years after “Star Trek” prematurely left television, there were false starts at reviving it with a new TV series or a movie.  The latter option finally won out, with this classy big-screen adaptation directed by Robert Wise.  Wise didn’t come with a science fiction pedigree, but he knew how to make first-rate films, directing such classics as “The Sound of Music,” “West Side Story,” “The Sand Pebbles,” and “The Haunting.”   Here, he translated Gene Roddenberry’s beloved weekly television series to the big screen with classy elegance and gravitas.  It all starts with the stirringly beautiful original score by the great Jerry Goldsmith.  His music conjures drama, adventure, romance, and real emotional power.  And, in the tradition of classic big movies, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” opens with a black screen and a musical overture.  It hearkens back to the days of epic films.  The story is a grand one, too, putting our heroes face-to-face with something massive, enormously powerful, and entirely unfamiliar.  Without any of today’s CGI tricks, the filmmakers (and visual effects mavens like Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra) conjure an immense alien vista that is strange, ominous, and compellingly beautiful all at the same time.  It’s classic Trek stuff – humanity encountering ‘strange new worlds’ in which we face the unknown (and sometimes, the unknowable).  The antagonist here is utterly alien, but it has a palpable grandeur.  In the end, we do have something in common with V’Ger after all, namely, its “insatiable curiosity” and its questions:  “Is this all that I am?  Is there nothing more?”  Aficionados will delight in the protracted drive-by of the newly refitted USS Enterprise, a sleek starship that has a powerful emotional connection to Trek devotees, though that loving admiration for the ship will be lost on non-fans.  All the original cast is reunited here, led by Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  Portrayed by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley, the trio are cultural icons, giving the franchise its inimitable troika – a man of action, a man of logic, and a man of compassion:  they personify boldness, intellect, and heart.  New faces are present in the form of well-drawn new characters played by Stephen Collins and Persis Khambata.  The genre here is ‘sci-fi adventure,’ but it’s given a serious, grown-up, big-screen look and feel.  For all the many Trek films that would follow in ensuing years (see our review of a ten-film set below), it would be a long time before we’d again see that seriousness of purpose in a Star Trek film – and perhaps never again this film’s sense of awe-inspiring wonder.

“Star Trek: The Stardate Collection (B+/A-):  Here are movies #1 through 10 (1979-2002) from long-enduring Star Trek franchise.  That’s everything but the recent ‘reboot’ films in a ten disc set.  #1-6 featured the original series cast; #7 combined some of the original series cast with the cast from “The Next Generation;” in #8-10, “The Next Generation cast” flew solo. The best Star Trek films (by far) are the first and the eighth:  1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” is classy, intelligent science fiction.  Sadly underrated by many, it translated the television series to the big screen as serious sci-fi adventure, with the accomplished Robert Wise at the directorial helm.  For its part, 1996’s “Star Trek: First Contact” has real dramatic power as it pits the crew of the Enterprise against the deadly, relentless, and effectively scary Borg, who are intent on assimilating Earth at a time in its past (our own near future) when humans haven’t got a hope of resisting them.  Films #2-7 were far less ambitious in tone and plotting than the majestic inaugural film.  And they were marred by a radical (and ham-handedly clunky) rethink in costume design (outfitting the crew in wide, absurdly oversized belts and ugly retro jackets that were loosely inspired by 19th century naval uniforms) and by a preponderance of jokiness and perverse self-parody.

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” (USA, 2018) (B): Two unlikely friends – a big lunk with a good heart and a fearless young girl – are video game characters who met and bonded in 2012’s animated feature “Wreck-It Ralph.” Their story then was surprisingly affecting, dealing as it did with friendship and acceptance.  This sequel takes them much further afield, down the proverbial rabbit hole into the world wide web.   Well-intentioned meddling by Ralph (John C. Reilly) has left Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) gameless and homeless:  “If I’m not a racer… what am I?”   Some online bidding offers the hope of fixing things, but their visit to the internet opens new vistas for the intrepid Vanellope.  Will their close bond survive the changes in perspective?   A quest morphs into a crisis in the relationship, in a story about accepting change and letting go.  It’s cute, highly imaginative (nowhere more so than in a meeting with a bevy of Disney movie princesses), and, well, kind of loveable.  Although it’s not at the top of its game at all times, it’s always entertaining, with bits of sly humor for adults (e.g. “first rule of the internet: do not read the comments”), lots of pop-culture references (C3PO and storm-troopers, now under Disney’s corporate umbrella, make brief appearances), and ingenuity in its depiction of the internet.  Best of all, there’s heart and tenderness in its story of the love between friends.

“The Little Mermaid” (USA, 1989) (A-/A):  Disney’s animated musical re-imagining of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale has lost none of its charm from 30 years ago.  It’s got a fetching, plucky heroine in Ariel, the young mermaid who yearns for the forbidden human world.  She collects knick-knacks from the world of dry land and says, “I don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.”  When she sees a human prince, it’s love at first sight; but that means defying her father (the king of the mer-people) and risking everything for love.  Jodi Benson gives lovely voice to Ariel, the undersea princess with flowing scarlet tresses and a fearlessly adventurous spirit.  Samuel E..Wright is an inimitable treat as Sebastian, the harried crab with a Jamaican accent and his own “hot crustacean band,” who is torn between his duty to the king and his sympathy for his pupil:  “What would your father say?  He’d say he’s going to kill himself a crab.”  There’s a creepy, dangerous villainess in the palpably sinister person of Ursula (Pat Carroll), the harpy-like sea witch.  There’s a love story, an irresistible protagonist, and a rousing struggle between good and evil.  And, best of all, there is a beautiful, Oscar-winning score by Alan Menken and great, memorable songs (with lyrics by Howard Ashman) – with the wonderful likes of “Part of Your World,” “Under the Sea” (which won an Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe), “Poor Unfortunate Soul,” and “Kiss the Girl” (which was an Oscar nominee).  The music is a sheer delight – and so is the film (now in its anniversary release):  With romance, music, poignancy, and humor, it’s a winner on all counts!  It is highly recommended for all save very young children.

“The Cloverfield Paradox” (USA, 2018) (C+):  Here’s a not-bad amalgam of science fiction and horror:  An energy crisis on Earth prompts a potentially dangerous experiment in orbit.  An international crew of seven (plus one) has been trying for two years to make an energy producing particle accelerator work.  When it finally does, all sorts of strange (and very bad) things happen aboard the station and back on terra firma.  It seems that the experiment has ripped open a hole between our universe and one or more alternate ones.  The third film in the loosely interrelated Cloverfield series (see set review below) requires no familiarity with its predecessors.  This one ratchets up the suspense in space as the crew frantically tries to deal with a cascade of catastrophes.  It’s got a very able cast (including, but not limited to Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Bruhl, and Chris O’Dowd) and a good setting (a few people isolated in space under great stress).  There’s some dark humor (especially involving a missing limb) and some inchoate attempts at developing relationships (the latter could have benefited from more attention).  Bits of the plot seem derivative, and some of the multiple mishaps feel heavy-handed and gratuitous.  It may be too full of incident and too thin on story; but, it is serviceable sci-fi.  A couple of backgrounders (at 14 minutes each) take us behind the scenes.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language and violence.  Technical Flaw:  We happened to play this DVD (acquired as a stand-alone, not part of the three-film set) on a normally robust and reliable Blu-ray player; but playback abruptly stalled – stopping entirely on at least two separate occasions – requiring us to jump ahead a few minutes each time.  Beware, lest the entire production line carries the same defect.

“The Cloverfield Movie Collection” (B):  This new set has all three films in the loosely connected Cloverfield series.  Each of the films has its own distinct story and tone; they scarcely even feel like they belong to the same genre.  2008’s “Cloverfield” has a current-day urban city, in which young adults find themselves caught up in an invasion by massive creatures (which may be extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional or both).  It’s a sci-fi monster movie of the subgenre that features oversized leviathans from goodness knows where wrecking havoc, with an up-close-and-personal filming style that keeps us in its protagonists’ faces.   For our money, 2016’s “10 Cloverfield Lane” is easily the best of the trio.  It’s a creepy, claustrophobic dance between three people in a locked underground bunker.  The man in charge (John Goodman) alternates between forced bonhomie and angry outbursts.  Is he a madman?  Is he a prophet?  Or is he malevolent?  The psychological thriller keeps us (and its female protagonist, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) guessing.  It’s a first-rate thriller – and you’d never suspect that it has a science fiction aspect until its final (rather gratuitous) minutes. 2018’s “The Cloverfield Paradox” (reviewed above) straddles sci-fi and horror as it takes us to orbit high above the Earth with a science experiment gone terribly wrong.   For ages 18+: Coarse language and violence.

“A Time for Dying” (USA, 1969) (C+):  Here’s a western we’d never even heard of before.  It’s something of an oddity in tone and plotting.  And, it’s oddly discomfiting.  A young man has left the farm to seek his fortune.  Cass Burning (Richard Lapp) has visions of becoming a bounty-hunter:  it’s legal, even if it is messy work.  But, the truth is, young Cass seems too decent a fellow for his intended calling.  He’s quick on the draw, but he’s never used a gun against another man.  He arrives in Silver City in time for some perverse festivities.  Most, if not all, of the town’s men are eagerly anticipating the stage.  It’s bringing a young woman from the east; she doesn’t know it (though everyone in town does), but what she thinks is respectable employment is actually a contract with the local brothel.  It looks like the entire male population of the town can’t wait to get their hands on her; and her very unawareness of her fate only heightens their lustful anticipation.  There’s something startlingly lewd and lascivious about that central plot-driver (human trafficking and intended forced prostitution).  When she arrives, the blonde, blue-and-wide-eyed Nellie (the fetching Anne Randall) is the picture of innocence.  Being the decent sort of young man he is, Cass rescues her from those intent on having their way with her.  They flee to another town, where a ruthless, drunken self-appointed judge (Victor Jory’s Roy Bean) chews some scenery while he presides over some so-called ‘justice:’ he’s too colorful and boisterous a character here, submerging everyone else in his wake, and the encounter with him is overlong (though the entire film only runs 67 minutes).  There’s a much briefer meeting on the road with a gentlemanly Jesse James (Audie Murphy), who deserved a much bigger role in the story than the mere cameo he gets; conflict with a volatile young gunman (Bob Random’s Billy); and some impulsive heroics in fending off bank robbers.  Spoiler Alert:  But things take a very dark turn at the end for Cass and Nellie, with both of these two naïfs back in dire jeopardy.  It’s hard to say if this film is meant to be a morality tale, with its two innocents beset and befouled by the ugliness of other men (and women).  Is that angle present by sheer awkward accident or by design?  Is it intended as an antidote to the heroic figures of the western?  It has two good characters, who do the right things; but one is shot dead, the other is inveigled back into the pitiless clutches of those intent on serial rape.  Most of the cast here is unknown to us, but they do serviceable work (despite Lapp’s unfortunate hairdo).  It’s not ‘art’ (or superior filmmaking), but is it trying to be artful (or just gratuitously prurient) in painting such a bleak picture of innocents brought to ruin?   Or, just possibly, is it meant to be straight-faced satire of the very darkest hue?  Your guess is as good as ours.   The DVD from Corinth Films could have used a commentary or a panel analysis.  For ages 18+:  Mature theme – not suitable for children.

“The Third Murder” [“Sandome no satsujin”] (Japan, 2017) (B+/A-):  “You don’t need understanding or empathy to defend a client…. You’re not going to become friends.”   That may be true, but this fascinating interplay between a man who has confessed to murder and his high-powered defense attorney ends up having a great deal to do with empathy.  As a lawyer, Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) is not one to let the facts (or the truth) get in the way of a good defense.  But he has his work cut out for him in the murder case against his new client Misumi (Kôji Yakusha).   Misumi already confessed to killing his former employer before Shigemori was retained.  Culpability having thus been admitted, the objective now is to get the charges reduced sufficiently to at least spare his client the death penalty.  Motive may play a role in doing that:  Was the killing premeditated?  Was it done with the legally aggravating objective of robbing the victim?  Was it the result of a grudge?  Or, did someone pay him to do it?  “Which is the truth – a grudge or life insurance?” asks the lawyer’s young assistant.  “Whichever is advantageous for the client, of course,” replies the lawyer.  “We’ll never know which is the truth.  So, we choose whatever benefits his case.”  Is that seeming scorn for seeking the truth born of cynicism or pragmatism?  Misumi’s explanation for his actions are as mutable as the weather, and, despite himself, Shigemori becomes intent on solving this puzzle.  But, identifying his baffling client’s motive is the proverbial ‘enigma inside a mystery wrapped in a riddle.’

Combining elements of drama, mystery, and satire, “The Third Murder” is part character study, part psychological puzzle, and part reflection upon big moral and philosophical questions.  Do “people’s lives get decided for them, regardless of what they want, unfairly,” as both of its two leading characters suggest at different points?  Do we only ever see the truth opaquely (‘through a glass, darkly,’ as it were) and through our own subjective lens?  Truth and motivation are hard enough to discern when they’re our own, let alone another’s.  But this compelling drama is all about truth and motivation – and also about empathy.  It asks “Did he judge?  Did he save?”  The subject of those interrogatives is a man accused of murder, but they have a much broader applicability – in this film and in our own lives – a fact that gets visual expression in the way different people, events, and images (like that of a cross) are paired in the film.

Written, directed, and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda, “The Third Murder” is audaciously original, anchoring the most important moral questions in an intense personal drama.  That intensity is on fine, riveting display in the scenes that put the lawyer and client face-to-face, mere inches apart, separated only by a pane of glass.  Their metaphorical journey together is born of quicksilver – it’s an iridescent, ever-elusive quest to know the truth of a man’s soul.  The impassioned question, “Will you believe me?” will echo in your memory.  The male leads (are they antagonists, or unexpected soul-mates?) deliver award-caliber performances; and every other member of the talented cast adds to the strength of the film.  Suzu Hirose grabs our attention as the victim’s outwardly stoical daughter:  vulnerability and resolve meet in her psyche.  This film is a gradual burn; it goes in unexpected directions; it delves deeply into the psyches of its players; and it draws us in, slowly but surely.  It’s an immersive dive into deep questions.  It’s smart, complex, and wonderfully original, yet completely accessible.  It’s a cinematic work of art.  And, it’s one of the best films of 2017.   Nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film) at the Venice Film Festival, “The Third Murder” got ten nominations at Japan’s academy awards, winning six of them, namely, Best Film, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay, and Editing.  For ages 16+:  Not suitable for younger children

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “A Gentle Night” [“Xia cheng er yue”] (China, 2017) (B+):  A woman and her husband attend at a police station one night in an unnamed Chinese city.   They’re there to report their 13-year-old daughter missing – she never returned from school.  The officer on duty seems uninterested; he jots down some cursory facts and tells them to come back tomorrow.  They return home, with incipient friction just below the surface.  The man is resigned; there’s nothing more he can do now.  But the woman uses an excuse to go back out into the night, on a journey to find answers on her own.   Shuxian Li delivers a study in understated acting and subtlety, conveying much with restrained facial expressions and body language.  Her barely concealed worry is given expression by extraneous sounds – the wail of police sirens, the sharp crack of firecrackers – that give tangible form to the emotional turmoil within.  Written and directed by Qui Yang, this 15-minute short film won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes as Best Short Film.  It has also earned many festival awards and nominations, among them, a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the American Film Institute Festival.  We look forward to the director’s first feature-length film.  Our only quibble is a technical one:  The English subtitles on the Blu-ray are way too small.

“Un Traductor” [“A Translator”] (Cuba/Canada, 2018) (B):  Malin (Rodrigo Santoro), his wife, Isona (Yoandra Suárez), and their young son Javi lead a comfortable middle class life in Havana:  Malin is a professor of Russian literature, while Isona is an artist and gallery manager.  But their lives, and their society’s accustomed certainties, are about to change.  It is April 1989, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has arrived for a state visit.  The alliance between the small Caribbean country and the waning superpower has helped to keep Cuba afloat economically:  it trades sugar for oil.  But fundamental changes are coming to the Soviet Union, and it is no longer in a position to prop up its junior partner.  Suddenly, gas stations run dry, store shelves have only sparse offerings, and people aren’t getting enough to eat.  The university’s Russian literature faculty are reassigned to help elsewhere – as impromptu translators at the hospital, where children afflicted by the disastrous release of radiation at Chernobyl have come for treatment.

Cuba is proud of its high standard of medical care, but its doctors and nurses don’t speak Russian.  Malin doesn’t want to be there.  There may be some pride involved – he’s a professor, after all, not a translator – but, mostly, he is disturbed by the plight of the ill children.   Witnessing their suffering takes an emotional toll on him from the get-go:  “I didn’t choose any of this,” he says.  “These kids didn’t choose, either,” is the reply of Gladys (Maricel Álvarez), the Argentinean nurse with whom he is assigned to work.  From reluctance to whole-hearted commitment, Malin gradually becomes a devoted caregiver:  he starts a story-time, and he brings art, writing, and music to the kids.  But, he becomes so preoccupied with their welfare, he starts to neglect his own family. A line from one of his university lectures seems to reflect his own arc:  “We see a man driven to madness.  Driven to madness by the world he lives in   He escapes by creating his own reality.”  The reality Malin creates is one of caring support for the young patients he tenderly takes under his wing, but his devotion to them is so all-consuming it inadvertently leaves his own wife and child feeling lost in the emotional shuffle.

The result is a very affecting character study, one that’s based on a true story.  (There are some surprising revelations in the film’s closing moments.)  Co-directors (and brothers) Rodrigo & Sebastián Barriuso have assembled a fine cast to tell a nicely calibrated, life-affirming love story that treads the border between sadness and hope.  “Un Traductor” was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; and it was nominated for Editing and Sound Editing by the Directors Guild of Canada.  For ages 18+:  Brief nudity; brief mild sexual content; and a few instances of coarse language.  Note:  For reasons unknown, this DVD would not play on our DVD-player; however, it did play without problems on a Blu-ray player.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “For Dorian” (Canada, 2012) (B+):  This 16-minute short film, written and directed by Rodrigo Barriusto (who went on to co-direct “Un Traductor” in 2018), was produced at the School of Image Arts at Ryerson University in Toronto.  But, if it is a student film, it sure doesn’t feel like one. It tells its simple story with a sure hand and an observant eye for the complicated relationship between a middle aged man and his teenage son.  The boy has Down syndrome.  He’s starting to experience sexual feelings, and they seem to be favoring his own gender.  One or both of those facts discomfits his protective father.  Canadian actor Ron Lea (a veteran of CBC’s original “Street Legal” series) does a lovely, understated job at conveying protectiveness, uncertainty, and suppressed dismay as Oliver, the father.   It’s an award caliber-performance.  Dorian is played by Dylan Harman, an actual Down syndrome teen.  Some of his dialogue is a tad difficult to make out; subtitles would have been welcome.  Tova Smith also makes an impression in her brief appearance as the boy’s babysitter.  One puzzler is the significance of the boy’s preoccupation with the weather.  Is it a placeholder for the awkwardly meaningful talk father and son cannot share; or does the boy simply have a crush on the weatherman?  That question is the sole unsatisfying element of an otherwise first-rate film:  these characters and their relationship could easily support a feature length film.  “For Dorian” was nominated for Best Editing in a Short Film at the Canadian Cinema Editors Awards.   For ages 18+:  Sexual content (suggested rather than graphically shown).

“Here and Now” (a.k.a. “Blue Night”) (USA, 2018) (B/B+):   Here’s a pleasant surprise – a quiet, introspective, gently touching look at a day and a night in one woman’s life, a film that has a poetic sensibility.  It opens with an extreme close-up of a pair of blue eyes.  They belong to Vivienne (Sarah Jessica Parker), a professional singer who has just received some dire medical news.   Out she goes onto the busy streets of New York for an episodic series of encounters with people she knows, a long-lost friend from her youth, and complete strangers – there’s her manager (Common), her band (among whose number is her boyfriend), her visiting French mother (it’s nice to see the glamorous Jacqueline Bissett again), the aforementioned friend from the past (Renée Zellweger), her ex-husband (Simon Baker), her 16-year-old daughter (Gus Birney), and the taciturn ‘Lyft’ driver (Waleed Zuaiter) with whom she keeps crossing paths.  When Vivienne sings at a nightclub (“Sometimes I feel like my heart turns to dust.  Unfollow the rules.”), we’re surprised just how affecting the words and Parker’s voice prove to be.  Vivienne’s story is a 24-hour journey – an interior search for the things and people who mean the most to us and a gentle reflection on life’s choices.  Leading lady Parker says, “[it] leads to a taking of stock, reckoning. reassessing, choices, perhaps regret for the first time.”   This day in the life of its protagonist consists in large measure of what’s “unspoken and internal,” and French director Fabien Constant gives it an impressionistic texture and a European feel.   The DVD from Paramount has a worthwhile 20-minute featurette.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language and mild sexual content.

“The Rider” (USA, 2017) (B/B+):  “I believe God gives each of us a purpose.  To the horse, it’s to run across the prairie.  For a cowboy, it’s to ride….  I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.  I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”  But what if something unforeseen gets between us and our purpose?   Here’s a beguilingly unique story from the Badlands of South Dakota that straddles the border between documentary and fiction.  Chloé Zhao, who wrote, directed, and produced the film, came to America from Beijing to study film at NYU grad school.  Drawn to non-urban settings, she shot her first feature-length film, 2013’s “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.   That’s where she met Brady Jondreau, whose real-life story is the basis of “The Rider.”  Using non-actors, Zhao has Brady, his sister, and his father, play themselves.  There was a script, and some small particulars were changed for dramatic effect; but, otherwise, the film has the feel and factual substance of a documentary, charting the acute dilemma posed for a young man when the only life he has ever known has come to a jarring end.  The film opens with Brady slowly recovering from a traumatic head injury:  he’s been told that his career as a rodeo bronco-rider is over.  Accepting that verdict goes against the grain, as a friend enunciates:  “You don’t let no pain put you down… It’s all the same to a cowboy.  Ride through the pain.  You gotta make sure this head of yours don’t make you scared.”

There’s an elegiac, end of an era quality to the story, though it is keenly focused on one young man’s life.  Sections with little vignettes (horses in a paddock, night following day, playing cards thrown on a floor) give an impressionistic sense of the protagonist’s restlessness during his convalescence.  Will he prove the skeptics wrong and return to the rough-and-tumble of rodeo?  Will he even be able to return to regular (non-competitive) riding?  Something of a horse whisperer, Brady also trains horses and there’s a gentle assuredness in the way he interacts with them.  Brady visits a slighter older mentor and surrogate big-brother, Lane Smith (also playing himself), who has suffered catastrophic injuries.   What Brady says about his crippled friend does double duty as an indirect reference to himself:  “He’ll get there though.  He says he’s gonna ride again.”  He says it, but he probably knows it’s not true – for his friend, certainly, and perhaps for himself, too.

The film is a gently-paced meditation on finding meaning in life, facing disappointment, and discovering strength in friendship and family.  Brady’s sister Lilly, who has some unspecified developmental disability, gives the story charm, humor, and wisdom:  “We’ll seize this day,” she declares to her brother, moments before sweetly addressing the celestial spheres:  “Good night sun.  See you tomorrow.”  The film uses natural lighting to lovely effect:  it’s a setting of big skies and calm beauty.  Its low-key characters draw us in with their authenticity in a story that’s engagingly down-to-earth and humanistic.  There’s much to admire in the cowboy ethos (though not the swearing and drug smoking) and there’s broad applicability in the film’s homely wisdom:  “Ride him like it’s gonna be the last horse you ever get on.  ‘Cause any bronc could be the last one.”  “The Rider” won an art cinema award at Cannes; it was named one of the top ten films of the year by the U.S. National Board of Review; it was nominated as Best International Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards; and it was nominated at the American Society of Cinematographers.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language and drug smoking.

“Lean on Pete” (U.K., 2017) (B+): A 15-year old boy lives with his single-parent father in Portland, Oregon; they’ve recently relocated there, and Charley (Charlie Plummer) has left behind his friends and the high school where he did well at sports.  Charley’s father (Travis Fimmel) loves him, but he’s too immature, selfish, and irresponsible for the role of sole caregiver, though he doesn’t recognize his own inadequacies: “We can take care of ourselves, you and me.  We don’t need anyone’s help.”  Left to his own devices, Charley finds impromptu summer work at a nearby racetrack, assisting a bitter, cynical horse owner (Steve Buscemi), befriending a female jockey (Chloë Sevigny), and bonding with a quarter-horse named Lean on Pete.  When calamity befalls Charley and threatens his new equine companion, they set off together on a cross-country journey in search of the boy’s long-lost aunt (who lived in distant Wyoming the last time Charley had contact with her).  It’s a desperate choice, but it is propelled by the boy’s love for the horse and by his sense of being entirely alone.

They meet others along the way, some benevolent, some not; but there are sections where it’s just the boy and his horse   Alone, and without provisions or shelter, Charley talks to the horse:  “But the truth is, and I don’t mind telling you this, I didn’t want to beg for anything, and I didn’t want them to know what I was living like.  If they ever thought of me, I’d rather them think of me as being okay, playing football and hanging out with Dad.  I’d rather them never see me again than see me like this.”   Quietly introspective, it’s the poignant story of a good kid searching for a home.  It’s a very personal story, with an epic feel.  And there’s a John Steinbeck kind of subtext with implications for the American dream and its failure.  Poor Charley loses everything, but he never (quite) loses hope.  And he never gives up.  He keeps on putting one foot in front of the other in search of those most basic of needs – home, family, stability, belonging, and love.

Written and directed by Andrew Haigh, “Lean on Pete” is based on the novel by Willy Vlautin, who says about his protagonist:  “You pay the price sometimes for being courageous and naïve at the same time.”  There’s a startling development three quarters of the way through the story which we sure didn’t see coming; but we admired this film, and the understated redemptive arc to its character and his journey.  He is never defeated by loneliness and loss; he keeps moving toward his goal.  The result is a gentle, moving character study.  “Lean on Pete” was nominated for the Golden Lion (Best Film) at Venice, where it won Best Young Actor; it was named to the Top Ten Films by the U.S. National Board of Review; and it earned four nominations (Actor, Director, Supporting Actor, & Cinematography) at the British Independent Film Awards.  For ages 18+:  A lot of coarse language.

“Lore” (Germany/Australia/U.K., 2012) (B+): As the Second World War ends, five German children are left without their parents to make a dangerous trek across the occupied, war-ravaged country.  They’d been raised to be true-believers in the Nazi cause – taught to revere their Fuhrer and hate the Jews.  But with Hitler dead and his Third Reich in ruins, these children are on a hard, pitiless road.  There’s no succor and very little sympathy for them in those they encounter: the ragtag survivors are beset by physical hardship and despair, with homelessness and starvation suddenly commonplace.  Desperate times lead to desperate measures, propelling people into actions they might never have deemed possible.  Some prey on others; but the children stick together, finding an unexpected protector in Thomas, a young Jewish refugee.  The journey these characters take is both literal and metaphorical.  At its start, the oldest, Lore (a mesmerizing Saskia Rosendahl in her film debut), defiantly proclaims that, “Before the victory, there is always pain.”  But there can be no victory in these children’s stark coming of age:  their very survival is at stake, even as their cherished illusions disintegrate before their eyes.

As the eldest, the teenage Lore has to take responsibility for her siblings, the youngest being a mere babe in arms.  As their modest resources quickly dwindle, she has to keep the fire of hope burning in her younger kin that they’ll reach safety (their distant grandmother’s house near Hamburg) and be reunited with their absent parents.  She has to eke out rough shelter, find meager sustenance, avoid those who’d use or harm them, discard most of their remaining possessions as they struggle across country on foot, and try to shield the others from the full awful gravity of their plight.  And she has to deal with her own awakening sexuality at the same time – simultaneously drawn physically to their enigmatic protector, even as she compulsively reviles him on indoctrinated racist grounds.   The cast is uniformly strong, with the aforementioned Saskia Rosendahl in the lead, backed by Nele Trebs, Mika Seidel, and André Frid as her  perambulatory siblings, Kai Malina as their mysterious help-meet, Ursina Lardi as their embittered mother, and Hans-Jochen Wagner as the father whom they come to perceive more clearly through the pain of their ordeal.

“Lore” is an engrossing story of the struggle to survive – and of childhood’s loss of innocence.  Directed by Australia’s Cate Shortland (who co-wrote the film with Robin Mukherjee), the film is based on Rachel Seiffert’s novel “The Dark Room,” which was short-listed for the Booker Prize.  It was filmed across Germany, from the Black Forest in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north.  The film’s natural beauty is an oblique reference to the use the Nazis made of nature in support of their most unnatural ideology.

“Lore” won best young actress at Australia’s academy awards, where it earned seven other nominations, including Best Film, Director, Cinematography, and Adapted Screenplay.  It won Best Film at the German Film Awards, where it was also nominated for Cinematography, Costumes, & Score.  The DVD extras include an impressionistic alternate ending (which stands up very well to the one they used); a panel discussion, some deleted scenes, a 16-minute featurette, and a very interesting ten-minute mini-documentary film, “Memories of a German Girl.”   For ages 18+:  Brief nudity; brief sexual content; brief violence; and adult subject matter.

“In America” (Ireland/U.K./USA, 2002) (A):  “There’s some things you should wish for and some things you shouldn’t.  That’s what my little brother Frankie told me.  He told me I only had three wishes, and I looked into his eyes, and, I don’t know why, [but] I believed him.”  Director and co-writer Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot”) has fashioned a wonderfully intimate love story about an Irish family who struggle to overcome past tragedy and all too present poverty as immigrants in contemporary New York.  Touching, heartfelt, and remarkably genuine, it boasts five (count ‘em, five!) award-caliber performances:  Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton are note-perfect as the parents; real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger give the best performances from children in years; and Djimon Hounson is every bit as memorable as their volatile, tormented neighbor – a dying man who is more fully alive than most healthy people:  “I’m in love with you. And I’m in love with your beautiful woman.  And I’m in love with your kids.  And I’m even in love with your unborn child.  I’m even in love with your anger!  I’m in love with anything that lives!”

The film garnered three Academy Award nominations (for Actress, Supporting Actor, and Screenplay); and it won Best Supporting Actor & Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards, where it was nominated as Best Film, Director, Actress, and Supporting Actress.  The U.S. National Board of Review named it one of the year’s top ten films, and awarded it Best Original Screenplay.  Its screenplay was nominated at the Writers Guild of America; it was nominated as Best Director, Actor, and Actress at the British Independent Film Awards; the Screen Actors Guild nominated it for Best Performance by a Cast; it had two Golden Globe nominations; and the American Film Institute named it the Movie of the Year.

“In America” is not only the best film of 2002, it is also easily one of the finest films in years!   And its beautifully poignant story of a family in search of a better life couldn’t be more timely now (in 2019), when resentment toward immigrants is on the rise.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; very brief nudity; and brief sexual content.

“Mission Impossible: Fallout” (USA/China/France/Norway, 2018) (B-/B):  Tom Cruise reprises his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt in this sixth film in the action franchise loosely inspired by the television series (1966-73) of the same name.  But, truth be told, the movies (starting with 1996’s “Mission Impossible”) are inferior to their purported source material by so heavily favoring brawn over brains.  They retain the exciting theme music (by Lalo Schifrin) and the basic premise (a small team of covert operatives taking on seemingly impossible espionage-related missions); but we get a succession of big action set-pieces instead of the clever ruses, impersonations, and prestidigitation writ large of the television series.  That’s a shame, because one of the best moments in “Fallout” hearkens back to that original reliance on outwitting one’s opponents – and surprising its viewers.  Why not tone down the gunfights, fistfights, high-speed car chases, frantic running, and larger-than-life stunts?   Why not use those action elements far more sparingly and instead rely much more on outsmarting the villains in unexpected and innovative ways?   Still, they’ve opted instead for action – and they deliver it well.  There are some clever lines (“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it” and “Why won’t you just die?”) as well as one that sounds a tad silly (“Your mission… is to prevent ‘the Apostles’ from acquiring plutonium”).   There’s a nice bit of irony, when Hunt heroically saves the life of an obnoxious tough guy, only to discover much later that he’s far worse than just disagreeable.  Said tough guy (about whom someone says, “You use a scalpel, I prefer a hammer”), played by Henry Cavill, is an asset to the cast, if not to Hunt’s mission.  But we were especially taken by three female cast members – in the charismatic forms of Rebecca Ferguson, who reprises her role her as a highly skilled British agent (she deserves her own film, as well as a more sensible name than Ilsa Faust!), Vanessa Kirby (as the just as oddly named ‘White Widow’), and Michelle Monaghan as the former Mrs. Hunt.  Sean Harris is also effective as a rogue MI-6 agent.  The result is entertaining, if a bit overlong at 147 minutes (especially in the last section’s protracted helicopter chase and cliff-side punch-up).  Note:  Our copy of DVD pixilated badly during the last 8 or 9 minutes of the film and its closing credits:  Whether that was a fluke or an indication of a defective disc run is unknown.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language and violence.

“Smallfoot” (USA, 2018) (B+):  Here’s a happy surprise – an animated film about Yeti, it features outlandish-looking creatures and a few songs.  We expected it to be silly and cartoonish, perhaps even a chore to watch; but, were we ever wrong.  We really got caught up in this story about empathy, compassion, and daring to question accepted wisdom.  There’s a whole community of Yeti here, with their own society, traditions, and creation story.  They live at the top of a Himalayan mountain, with the world below permanently obscured by clouds.  They dismiss rumors of human beings (the ‘smallfoot’ of the title) as mere myth.  The chief protagonist here (Migo, voiced by Channing Tatum) is a true-believer in Yeti ways, quick to repeat his society’s obedience-driven mantra:  “If there’s a question, causing you to go astray, just stuff it down inside until it goes away.”  But Migo’s enthusiastic conformity cracks wide open when he encounters a smallfoot, setting him, and a few other young skeptics, on a quest to learn the truth.  Along the way, there’s a big (and commendably imaginative) revelation about a society based on “good lies” to “protect our world.”  Who’d have guessed that an animated children’s story that’s mostly comedic in tone (and sometimes musical) would explore such serious ideas?  One song puts it this way:  “All we are is curious; there’s nothing wrong with that.” “Smallfoot” was co-directed by Karey Kilpatrick and Jason Reisig (Kilpatrick also serves as co-writer, producer, and song-writer).  This film is surprisingly good, with a kind of Garden of Eden subtext implicit in the words “ignorance was bliss.”  The result is entertaining, imaginative, and thoughtful all at once – with engaging characters and a welcome message about seeking truth and getting past our fear of what’s different.

“The Nun” (USA, 2018) (C):  Part of “The Conjuring” and “Annabelle” horror series, this prequel to “The Conjuring 2” (no familiarity with that film is needed to follow this one) is set in 1952 at a remote abbey in Romania.  The choice of what looks like Dracula’s castle as the home for an order of Christian nuns is a bit hard to swallow.  In a prologue, two nuns walk down a dark and foggy corridor (why is there abundant fog indoors, we wonder to ourselves?) until they reach a heavy door inscribed with the creepily ominous Latin words “Finit hic Deo” (“God ends here”).  One nun enters, in desperate search of a relic:  She dies, and her companion kills herself, to avoid being taken over by whatever lurks inside.  From that overblown opening, things improve considerably, at least for awhile, as we are introduced to a young novitiate (Taissa Farmiga, younger sister in real-life to actress Vera Farmigga, who stars in “The Conjuring” films), and a priest (played by Damian Bichir), who specializes in looking into the paranormal.  The pair is dispatched by the Vatican to investigate what’s happening at the abbey.  One there, they gain a local ally (and some comedic relief) in the person of ‘Frenchie’ (Jonas Bloquet), a French expatriate living in rural Romania.  He gets all the best lines: “The locals say it’s a cursed place and [my] horse agrees.”  The film is surprisingly good at characterization, especially with the affecting Sister Irene (she’s frightened and brave at the same time) and the irreverent local.  As for the scares, they’re effective enough, if predictable.   Why not go instead for greater subtlety and leave more to the imagination?   Having everyone roam around alone at night is too predictable (and easy) a way to conjure chills.  The castle, the haunted forest, and the sinister graveyard are familiar tropes:  they’re aiming at a Gothic vibe, but they could have tried a more subdued approach, favoring the implied over the overt.  Note:  The DVD pixilated and stalled in two places.   For ages 16+:  Horror and violence.

“Star Trek Discovery, Season One” (2018) (B/B+):  Spanning more than 50 years, five previous television series, and a warp

core’s worth of big screen adaptations, the Star Trek franchise returned to television after a 13 year absence (after “Enterprise” left the air in 2005) with a new series set some ten years before the events of the original series.  That means that iconic characters like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are alive somewhere (they aren’t shown) but not yet prominent as the events depicted in “Discovery” unfold.  For fans, it came as bad news that this new series was broadcast on premium cable channels rather than a mainstream network.  But all 15 episodes are available now in DVD (and Blu-ray).  This Trek aficionado took time to adjust to the latest incarnation.  It’s grittier than the norm (with two utterly gratuitous uses (both in episode 5) of the F-word – a first in the annals of Trek that’s no cause for  celebration.  It is pretty heavy-handed in its handling of a same-sex romantic pairing (the male-on-male kissing may be off-putting to

those not similarly inclined).  And a lot of these particular voyages revolve around the nastiness of war rather than the idealism that’s so intrinsic to the Star Trek ethos.  Indeed, we came within a hair’s breadth of abandoning the series after its 6th episode, in which a starship captain (played by the coldly effective Jason Isaacs) does something so ruthless, so self-serving, so duplicitous, and, yes, so villainous, that it jarringly contradicts everything Trek stands for.  It felt like a slap in the face, a glaring negation of everything we love about Star Trek.  We’re glad we watched the rest, however, because the scriptwriters later come up with a persuasive, internally-consistent reason for what seemed like an irredeemable contradiction in terms.

Klingons figure prominently in this series, though they’ve been partially re-imagined in appearance.  The first one we see (and we see him in uncomfortable extreme close-up) has an oddly pitch-black visage.  What he says is more intriguing than how he looks, for he bitterly decries what he terms ‘the fatal greeting of humanity’ (and its allies):  “We come in peace.”  For this charismatic cultist, the Federation’s purportedly good intentions amount to cultural homogenization – something that is anathema to the proudly bellicose Klingons.  It’s an interesting notion.  “Discovery” is set in the year 2256; but the world of 2018 has similarly bitter tensions between what’s national, ethnic, and/or in some way sectarian and the melting-pot phenomenon of globalization.  Trouble is:  not much is made of the concept – it’s really just a momentary plot device to rally Klingons to take up arms – and as this quadrant of the galaxy’s warmongers, they never need much convincing to fight.  That’s nothing new; neither is it very original.  What’s harder to accept is an act that’s at the heart of this series – namely, that a Starfleet officer would defy her captain, mentor, and surrogate mother figure and stage a mutiny in a moment of crisis.  That same mutineer is the series lead character!  Michael Burnham (played by Sonequa Martin-Green of “The Walking Dead”) has been Captain Gerghiou’s (the formidable Michelle Yeoh) First Officer for seven years.  But, in a sudden confrontation with the Klingons, a stand-off that threatens all-out interstellar war, Burnham is filled with the conviction that only violence earns respect from their enemy, and that the Federation ship should, accordingly, fire first.  It’s against Federation policy (not to mention the explicit orders of her captain), but Burnham tries to do it anyway.  The rest of the series is about her redeeming herself, after an overly convenient reprieve from a sentence of life imprisonment for mutiny.  We had nagging issues with other contrivances, like Burham being orphaned in childhood and being adopted by the Vulcan named Sarek (father of Spock).  It’d be better to keep original characters out of it.  This is the first mention of Spock having a step-sister; and this younger incarnation of Sarek lacks the gravitas and dignity of Mark Lenard’s iconic portrayal of the character in other iterations of Star Trek.  (Spock himself is due to make an appearance in Season 2.)

The warp drive and phaser effects look and sound more like those used in the recent revisionist reboot films than the earlier versions of Star Trek.  A key alien character takes some getting used to:  ‘Saru’ is outlandish in appearance and in background.  Because his species evolved as prey on their homeworld and are naturally fearful, he seems a wildly improbable choice as a Starfleet officer.  But, actor Doug Jones finds the figurative ‘humanity’ within this alien character and makes him sympathetic to the viewer.  The ship interiors look markedly more advanced that those of the original series, though they predate its events.  Worst of all is the experimental organic propulsion system, a ‘spore-drive’ that enables the ship to, in effect, dematerialize from one place and rematerialize in another.  The whole notion is ridiculous and inconsistent with Trek canon.  It also grates because it requires a sentient host to work – the first operator being an involuntary alien.  (Talk about violating the Trek ethos!)  We’re not sure the long side-trip to the alternate universe reconnoitered in earlier versions of Trek was the best destination for the new series:  The ship takes a break from one ugly war to plunge into the midst of another.

Qualms notwithstanding, “Discovery” won us over – not as an exemplar of the things we like best about Star Trek (its idealism, its noble view of humanity, and its optimism about our future), but as a grittier iteration that tells season-long stories (we’d prefer more stand-alone episodes) with excitement, attention to detail, and fair characterization.  (Even characters who feel somewhat one-dimensional or stereotyped eventually get a chance to shine.)  There is some really ugly violence (torture and what seems at first to be sexual coercion) here that goes too far.  But the dialogue that felt stilted and self-conscious in the first episode consistently improves.  And for Star Trek fans, the last few seconds of the season are an emotional treat, as the USS Enterprise (under the command of Christopher Pike – Kirk’s predecessor) flies into view with the original series triumphal music playing.  For ages 18+:  Brief (but gratuitous) coarse language and strong violence.

“Destined to Ride” (C-/C): For Lily (Madeline Carroll), her father’s absence on out-of-town business means spending five weeks on a ranch with her eccentric aunt (Denise Richards, who looks too glamorous for the role but does a good job with it ).  It’s not an enticing prospect for a high school student whose interest lies with cheerleading rather than horses.  But equine connections are in her roots, since her long-deceased mother was a champion rider.  Lily soon takes up the reins, as it were.  The resulting girl-and-her-horse story is fairly likeable fare that feels like a made-for-TV movie.  It runs out of steam occasionally, especially in a flat, no-energy confrontation with an overbearing rancher.  Lily, her aunt, the resident cowboy (Shawn Patrick Nash’s Sam), and a local friend (Cassi Thomson’s Ava) are the standouts in the cast.  There’s not a lot of story here, with a somewhat trivial contest clumsily injected into the plot; what’s there is mostly about friendship and healing.

“Operation Finale” (USA, 2018) (B/B+):  “The truth will out, you know,” says one character. “What is truth?”  Whose truth?” replies his foil.  How we see the world may depend in large measure upon our point of view; but not all perspectives are created equal.  If one man’s (or one nation’s) ideology asserts that its designated “Other” is pernicious and not to be tolerated, can we accept their contention as a valid point of view – either legally or morally?  Of course not.  But just such a clash of world-views (and wills) forms the heart of this dramatic story about the capture of Adolf Eichmann by Mossad agents from Israel, while that senior architect of the Holocaust was living under an assumed identity in Argentina in 1960.  Eichmann went on to be tried by a court in Israel, a case that was broadcast live to the world.  Eichmann may have been the inspiration for what the political philosopher Hannah Arendt dubbed “the banality of evil,” presenting not as a larger-than-life monster but as a matter-of-fact bureaucrat.  In the film, he rationalizes his role (which entailed the mass transportation of Jews by rail to concentration camps) by saying that, “Our work was paperwork; our war, a numerical one…. I only did what little I could in Germany’s fight against her enemies.”

The film deals not with the trial but with the covert operation to capture Eichmann and smuggle him out of Argentina.  Those aspects of the story have spy suspense tropes, with a section that may call to mind the film “Argo.”  But what the film really has going for it is its battle of wills between a mild-mannered Eichmann (nicely portrayed by Ben Kingsley of “Gandhi” fame) and one of his captors (the always effective Oscar Isaac).  Our first impression of Isaac’s character (in a flashback showing the assassination of a suspect in Austria) isn’t a sympathetic one.  Does pulling a man from his home in the night and murdering him qualify as a just act – ever?  Even worse, when the Israeli hit-squad realizes they just got ‘the wrong Nazi,’ their response is “So what?”  Is that sort of lethal ruthlessness much better morally than the Nazis’ crimes?   In any event, Isaac’s character has more facets than we originally suspected.  He’s not just a killer.  For that matter, neither, anymore, is Eichmann.  Isaac’s character favors appealing to his foe’s ego rather than trying to wear him down.  The unexpected result is some candid exchanges between two human beings:  “We’re all animals, fighting for scraps on the Serengeti; some of us just have bigger teeth than others.”   Eichmann is calm about his captivity and prospects.  He doubtless regards himself as a realist, saying that he accepts his fate, but he sees his role in a regime’s monstrous policies through rose-colored glasses (almost literally so, late in the film):  “None of what I say matters.  Your lawyers and your lying press will try the man they think they know – not the one who sits before you now.”  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language & very brief moderate violence.

“The Trip” (U.K., 2010) (B+):  Two British comedians (Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon) embark on a driving tour of England’s Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, reviewing fine dining establishments as they go.  Along the way, we are treated to gorgeous countryside, scrumptious (if often exotic) meals, quaint villages, inviting inns, and witty banter that’s a stream of engagingly nonsensical consciousness couched in feigned rivalry.  The humor is dry, ever so dry, and, since both men are talented impressionists, it is voiced by the likes of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Hugh Grant, Al Pacino, and Billy Connelly.   The free-ranging dialogue is largely improvised, and it is filled with dueling barbs (“Not a connoisseur, are you, with food?”), competing impressions of Michael Caine’s voice, and half-poignant reflections on family, careers, and aging (both men are in their forties).  There’s even a bit of poetry (like Coleridge’s “Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me distemper’s worst calamity”).  The food will make your mouth water, even if it is sometimes pretty fanciful fare, like canopies ‘with a dust of tapioca-based crackers, spiced popcorn, and lollipops made out of duck fat with peanuts.’  Directed by Michael Winterbottom, this traveler’s treat has thus far reunited its funny duo for two equally entertaining sequels:  “The Trip to Italy” (2014) and “The Trip to Spain” (2017).  For dry (and wry) humor, this pair is unbeatable.  For ages 18+: Coarse language.

“The Meg” (USA/China, 2018) (C+/B-):  Here’s the premise:  an immense prehistoric shark known as a ‘megalodon’ has survived its own extinction at the bottom of Mariana Trench, the deepest waters on Earth.  A freezing cold layer of water has kept the occupants of those ultimate deeps cut off from the surface for two million years, until human scientists reach that isolated habitat.  Now, it’s up to a ragtag band of marine biologists, submariners, and divers, led by Jason Statham’s disgraced, but determined, man of bold action, to stop this 75 foot menace before it wrecks lethal havoc.  What you see here is what you get – a relentless aquatic killing machine and the desperate attempts to impede its rampage.  The result is good fun, one that mixes solid action, suspense, a moderate nod to characterization, and, best of all, moments of smart-alecky humor.  Most of the latter is delivered by Rainn Wilson.  We could have used more lines like, “He looks heroic and he walks fast, but he’s kinda got a negative attitude.”   But that subversive humor feels too much like a tacked-on after-thought when it should have more thoroughly infused the film.  “The Meg” is the latest example of Hollywood relying on Chinese money (money, it must be added, that was reaped from the perversely self-destructive export of our entire manufacturing sector to China):   The locations (Shanghai and the Chinese coastline) and the Chinese origin of some of the cast (like the lovely Bingbing Lee) reflect the source of that co-financing and, doubtless, the intended target of much of the film’s hoped-for box office receipts.  But it feels, too ham-handedly, like key filmmaking choices are being extraneously prompted by the national source of the money rather than artistic considerations.  There’s nothing amiss with the cast, but the fact that so many are Asian is because that’s who is paying the piper.

“Crazy Rich Asians” (C+/B-):  Here’s a romantic comedy peopled exclusively by actors of Asian heritage; frankly, that’s the only thing noteworthy about it.   Rachel (Constance Wu) and her British-accented boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) couple fly to Singapore for his friend’s wedding.  She’s American (by Chinese parents); he’s from Singapore.  What she doesn’t know is that he’s the scion of a fabulously wealthy family.  A culture clash of socio-economic proportions ensues.  “You’re not our own kind,” she’s told by Nick’s coldly hostile mother (the estimable Michelle Yeoh), a sentiment that gives the otherwise comedic romp a bit of gravitas.  An unexpectedly touching rendition of the song “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” at a wedding (the film’s standout scene) likewise invests these otherwise lightweight (and too often over-the-top) goings-on with some emotional weight.  There’s a Cinderella subtext at play here, though Rachel is an economics prof, not a scullery maid.  Among the supporting players, several made an impression: Gemma Chan, as Astrid, a cousin with real class; Nico Santos, as Oliver, who casts a satirical eye on his extended family’s foibles; and, the comedienne Awkwafina, as Rachel’s eccentric university pal from a nouveau riche family, whose bumptious antics grew on us.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Christopher Robin” (B+):  “Your life is happening now, right in front of you.”  That’s what his wife (Hayley Atwell) tells a grown-up Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor).   He’s so preoccupied with

work that he’s neglecting the most important things in life – chief among them his wife and young daughter (Bronte Carmichael).  But, that’s when the fantastical companions of his own childhood (Pooh-bear & Company) make an unexpected reappearance.  It opens with some brief whimsical animation set in the Hundred Acre Woods, before switching to live action.   A montage shows us a boy’s transit to manhood:  Taking leave of Winnie the Pooh & Friends, Christopher Robin goes to boarding school, loses his father, meets his future wife, goes to war, has a child in absentia, gets a job, and loses his capacity for fun and light-heartedness.  He’s under severe pressure at work to cut costs or lay-off his fellow loyal staffers.  But the values he’s nearly forgotten are reawakened by his reunion with his childhood chums.  Pooh says, “I should need good luck, for I am a bear of very little brain.”  But he makes up for simple intelligence with an infectious sweetness of nature:  “I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I’ve been.”  The result is a treat – as poignant and heartwarming as it is gentle and charming.  Just like Christopher Robin, we are won over by the gently persistent prodding of our childhood selves:  “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”  The voice cast, winningly led by Jim Cummings (as Pooh & Tigger) and Brad Garret (as Eeyore), is uniformly excellent.

“Incredibles 2” (B-/B):  In this sequel to Pixar’s animated 2004 original, superheroes are out of favor with society and banned from doing their thing by governments.  Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson), his wife Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and their three super-power endowed kids, are out of work and reduced to living at a motel.  Things look up when they’re approached by ultra-wealthy sibling tycoons (voiced by Catherine Keener and Bob Odenkirk), who want to rehabilitate superheroes in the public eye:  “Politicians don’t understand people who do good simply because it’s right.  It makes them nervous.”  But, when the missus is chosen to spearhead the new initiative, Mr. I is grudgingly stuck with baby-sitting duty. The story blends humorous family dynamics, a malevolent hidden agenda, and action sequences; the result is entertaining enough, but it lacks the freshness of the original.  For our money, the adult Incredibles steal the show.  Disney has included the lovely 7-minute short film “Bao” (it also played with the feature in theaters) about a dumpling come to life in a Chinese-Canadian household (look for the CN Tower in the distance) on the combo Blu-ray/DVD.  There’s also a brand-new 5-minute bonus short “Auntie Edna,” which has writer/director Brad Bird voicing the diminutive fashion designer for secret agents studying the eclectic assortment of powers exhibited by the Incredibles’ baby; it’s really an extended scene from the film itself.

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (C+/B-):  This sequel may reassemble nearly all of the cast from 2008’s “Mamma Mia!” but it’s a shadow of its former self.   There are two chief deficits at play

here.  Firstly, one of the key cast members (Meryl Streep) is absent (till a touching cameo at the end) and the new ones are uniformly underwhelming.  Secondly, too many of the songs are unrecognizable.   All of the ABBA songs in the first film were instantly recognizable hits, whereas the sequel seems to rely overmuch on the same group’s ‘B-side’ songs, songs that lack the familiarity and infectious zest of the hits.    Cases in point include the underwhelming opening song and dance number at an Oxford college:  it comes across as corny and contrived.  What is enchanting on a magical Greek isle feels fake in other settings.  But, don’t despair, more familiar songs come along later – with affecting numbers to the strains of “One of Us was Crying,” “The Name of the Game,” Dancing Queen” and others.  The story frequently jumps back and forth in time, paralleling the life of young Donna (on the verge of motherhood, and her daughter Sophie (the charismatic Amanda Seyfried) as a young woman.  Lily James joins the cast as the young Donna, and she gets a lot of screen time (in the absence of Streep); we’ve liked James very much in other settings – but she fails to engage here.  We’re not sure why.  Is it the vaguely grating, overly-hyper way the character is written, or a casting mismatch, or a bit of both?  The three beaux, as young men, are interchangeably insipid. And Cher doesn’t belong in this film.  She plays Sophie’s long-lost grandmother.  Her very profession (a larger-than-life Vegas musical diva) contradicts the way she’s described in the original film.  Interjecting her here is contrived and gimmicky.  Likewise, the estimable Andy Garcia is shoehorned into a role that serves no useful purpose other than an improbable rationale for the song “Fernando.”  On the other hand, it’s a treat to see the familiar faces, and the new song “My Love, My Life” with the long-awaited Streep, is truly affecting.   For ages 16+:  Sexual allusions.

“La Familia” [“The Family”] (Venezuela/Chile/Norway, 2017) (B-.B):  It opens with a pre-teen boy’s raucous play in the streets of Caracas.  Later, walking at night, Pedro picks up some bullet shells, returning home to an empty apartment; it’s empty because his father, Andres, is working multiple jobs to provide for them.  One day, the boy and his friend are menaced by an unknown kid with a gun; they fight back and the aggressor is stabbed. Andres says they have to flee.  Pedro is all bravado:  “I’m not scared, because no one messes with me.”  But his father knows better:   “They’ll kill us…. Everyone is looking out for themselves,” so father and son are on their own.   Pedro retorts, “You let others walk all over you.”  But, here’s a father who’s trying to do the right thing, to be a responsible father, while bereft of allies and resources.  The result is a very quiet film, a character 0study done in minimalist style – just a few days in the life of a working poor father and son.   They have next to nothing – actually, nothing at the end – except each other.  It’s about character and mood more than story; but it’s a worthwhile film.  For ages 18+:  Crude, sometimes coarse language, including very crude sexual language in a song’s lyrics.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Les misérables” (France, 2017) (B):  Set in the Paris district in which Victor Hugo wrote his famous book, this sector is now an ethnic immigrant enclave.   Some kids on a rooftop are playing with an aerial drone; by chance, they observe three white policemen acting badly on their neighborhood patrol:  they are drinking on duty, shaking-down civilians for protection money, and harassing a 15-year-old girl.  The new cop in the backseat doesn’t seem to approve of his more experienced colleagues’ improper behavior; until he suddenly does something far worse.  The difference between him and them, however, is that he has a conscience.  This 15-minute short film from writer/director Ladj Ly is a window into a few hours in the lives of the dispossessed:  There aren’t any heroes here, on either side of the law; but there are moments of morality.  Let the end credits roll for a postscript scene.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language and brief moderate violence.

“BlacKkKlansman” (USA, 2018) (B+/A-):  If ever there was proof that truth is stranger than fiction, this account of a black police detective who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan is it.  The place is Colorado Springs, the time is the 1970s, the detective (John David Washington) is a rookie – brand-new to the force, but full of confidence.  When he responds to a newspaper ad recruiting new members for the local Klan chapter, it’s obvious he can’t go in person, so he enlists a white colleague (Adam Driver) to be his in-person counterpart.  Two detectives sharing the same undercover role get close to the local Klan members and their national leader.  The astonishing thing about Spike Lee’s film is how (darkly) funny it is.  The very premise of a man with dark skin and an afro hairdo getting his membership in a group fond of wearing white hoods is darkly amusing.  Make no mistake, however: there is serious intent here.  One such reminder with an eloquently inspiring speech by a former Black Panther activist (Corey Hawkins) to a group of earnest black university students:  “If I am not for myself, who will be?  If I am for myself alone, who am I?  If not now, when?  And if not you, who?”

Later, two scenes are eloquently juxtaposed:  The first is a Klan meeting, a quasi-religious ceremony with ostensibly righteous words:  “Strong minds, great hearts, true faith… men who have honor… men who can stand before a demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without blinking…. Wrongs will be redressed and right will rule the Earth.”  But those nice words are used to wrap hate up in a pretty package.  That scene inter-cuts with an old black man telling students about a horrific lynching he witnessed as a child.  There, then, is the dichotomy: misused words about honor juxtaposed against a terrible reality.  The film also slyly inserts references that unmistakably connect its time and place to the present:  The Klan’s national leader, wearing a calm, respectable face along with his suit, exhorts his ragtag followers to “get this country back on track, for America to achieve its greatness again;” later, his followers chant “America First.”  And early in the film, the black activist has this to say about racism’s more ‘respectable’ face:  “Affirmative action, immigration, crime, tax reform… under all these issues, everyday Americans can accept it [racism], support it, until eventually, one day, he gets somebody in the White House that embodies it.”

The didactic moments are noticeable as being such, which could be considered a flaw; but, in fact, they work in context.  Elsewhere, in one scene, there is what amounts to a musical number inside a black nightclub, complete with song and dance and the winning presence of the protagonist’s soon-to-be love interest (Laura Harrier).  Elsewhere, we have Klan members saying the most vile things, proudly wearing their baseness and their mindless hate on the sleeves as a perverted badge of honor.  In the last moments of the film, we briefly jump to the events of August 11& 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.  It’s the briefest of epilogues, but, my goodness, it is powerful.  One could argue, though, that its starkness doesn’t fit with the darkly funny tone of the film itself.  It’s a jarring transition from laughing at the absurdity of racists to shuddering at the shameless expression of their hatred in the light of day.   For ages 18+ only:  Frequent very coarse language; very strong racial epithets; and spoken references to extreme violence.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp” (USA, 2018) (B/B+):  This sequel to 2015’s “Ant-Man” may not be as fresh as that first outing, but it’s a genuine treat to be reunited with its characters.  Characterization is something this corner of the Marvel franchise does very, very well.  From the leads to the supporting players, we like these characters and get caught up in their adventures.  There’s a huge likeability factor at work here; the result combines adventure, sweetness, humor, excitement, and a great deal of fun!   As a cast member remarks on a featurette, Paul Rudd brings a “dry, sweet, wicked sense of humor behind [his] boyish face.”   He’s relatable – an ‘everyman’ who just wants to be a good father.  Under house-arrest when the story opens, that task becomes more challenging: “Hey, you try and entertain a ten-year-old when you can’t leave the house.”   Rudd is extremely engaging in the role of Scott Lang.  The same goes for Canada’s Evangeline Lilly as his crime-fighting partner, ‘the Wasp;’ Michael Douglas as his exasperated mentor; Michael Peña as his hilariously garrulous friend; Abby Ryder Fortson as his precocious young daughter; and even supporting players like Bobby Cannavale as Scott’s ex-wife’s new beau.  New cast members include Hannah John-Kamen (as a foe known as ‘the Ghost’) and Michelle Pfeiffer.  The mumbo-jumbo about ‘the quantum realm’ isn’t compelling; but it doesn’t need to be:  What matters here is an engaging cast, good writing, and a whole lot of fun!

 “Solo” (USA, 2018) (B-/B):   The latest stand alone “Star Wars” film has the adventures of Han Solo as a young man.  Alden Ehrenreich brings a suitable combination of swagger, bravado, charm, and as much skill for thinking on his feet as for piloting spacecraft to the role.  Run-ins with the Empire are mostly at a distance here.  Instead, our hero’s chief antagonists are various crime syndicates.   He’s escaped one, by the skin of his teeth, but he’s been separated from the girl (Emilia Clake) he loves in the process.  In desperation, he enlists, aiming to become a navy pilot (there’s a sly recruitment video playing overhead, with a jaunty version of the usually more menacing Imperial March as musical accompaniment).  But Han’s trouble with authority figures lands him in the infantry instead (not as a white-armored stormtrooper, but as some kind of irregular).  That course deviation (on his way back to the girl he lost) brings him face to face with a certain Wookie, and together they fall in with a small band of outlaws.  The company of thieves is nicely portrayed by Woody Harrelson (who becomes Han’s cynical older mentor), Thandie Newton, and Jon Favreau (voicing a multi-limbed alien pilot with a winning sense of humor).  Their dangerous heist on a mountainous wintry world goes badly wrong, leaving them to face the pitiless boss of a criminal cartel (Paul Bettany) empty-handed.  But that confrontation brings with it a fortuitous reunion.  Cardshark, conman, and cape connoisseur Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) joins the mix next; but we found his android copilot, L3-37 (voiced with gusto by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) much more affecting:  she’s got attitude to spare and a fierce droid-emancipation fire burning in her metallic belly.  While there’s nothing particularly memorable or new here, “Solo” gets the job done as entertainment.  It’s a serviceable adventure with action alternating with humor, romance, and even, very briefly, some poignancy and loss.  It’s a coming of age story for the sentimental would-be outlaw, who, even at this early stage in his carrer, can be readily distinguished from his wholly self-interested counterparts:  His mentor says, “I trust no one.  Assume everyone will betray you, and you will never be disappointed.”  But Han Solo has too much heart to adopt that bleak credo, replying, “Sounds like a lonely way to live.”   The Blu-ray from Disney has some extended scenes and various behind the scenes featurettes.

“Ocean’s 8” (USA, 2018) (C-/C):  The ensemble heist movie franchise has moved to the distaff side of the aisle, with an all-female crew headed by Sandra Bullock looking to score many millions in stolen jewels.  Presumably, it’s meant to be a chance for the fair sex in shine in the dubious game of pulling a big-time con, but there’s not much here in plotting or characterization to make it worth the effort.  There’s a superficial nod to gender bias – as in, “A ‘him’ gets noticed, a ‘her’ gets ignored, and for once we want to get ignored.”  In other words, women aren’t taken at equal value as men in some situations in our society; though, truth be told, it’s hard to imagine the likes of Bullock, Cate Blanchett, or Anne Hathaway being overlooked in any setting.   The trouble is that the caper itself is disinteresting, a change of allegiance is completely incredible, and the crooks are mostly unengaging as characters.  Awkwafina (she of the unique nom de plume) and Hathaway fare best, while, surprisingly, Bullock (whom we normally like) kind of grates.  Worst of all, it’s unfunny, except for the brief appearances of James Corden as an insurance adjuster.  (There’s irony for you:  the most amusing character in a story about women happens to be a man.)  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Tag” (USA, 2018) (D+/C-):  “Someone once said, we don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”   Someone may have once said that, but they probably didn’t foresee their words providing the philosophical under-girding for a story about five grown men who’ve spent a lifetime playing tag.  (Did we say ‘story?’  It’s really more of a one-joke notion than a story.)  When their sole untagged cohort is about to get married, these friends assemble from various locales and converge on their hometown and the rec-room that time forgot, in which somehow nothing (not even the cassette tapes) has changed over the intervening decades.  These boy-men take their play very seriously, and the pratfalls incumbent upon trying to lay a hand on their martial arts adept friend (Jeremy Renner, who comes closest to generating laughs here) are sometimes momentarily amusing.  Frankly, it’s a preposterous idea, and a pretty slender thread on which to hang an entire movie; but dumb and American comedy too often fit like the proverbial hand-and-glove.  The cast (Renner, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Isla Fisher, et al.) are likeable at times, and, as noted, there’s a bare modicum of momentary humor in some of the slapstick; but, the proceedings are hobbled both by the premise itself and by the abundant crude language, vulgarity that grates.  As evidence that truth really is stranger than fiction, the notion of a lifetime game of tag is based on some real-life practitioners of horseplay.  For ages 18+:  A lot of very coarse language (all of it gratuitous) including crude sexual talk, and drug use.

“A Quiet Place” (USA, 2018) (A/A+):  A family in danger is a compelling basis for a story, especially when it’s fortified with strong acting and smart writing.   All of those elements are fully engaged here, along with an interesting hook – this family must remain silent, lest something monstrous hear them, hunt them, and kill them.  A man and woman (John Krasinski & Emily Blunt) live on a farm with their children (Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward).  That’s pretty much the entire cast in this powerful union of character drama and nerve-wracking suspense.  Their daily routines have been carefully crafted with near-silence in mind – and we soon see why keeping quiet is a matter of life and death.  To its great credit, the screenplay does not rely on these characters acting foolishly to generate its chills – quite the contrary.  These characters are smart.  Watch closely:  there’s admirable attention to detail here – from the wool game-board pieces to the marked pathways on wooden floors that skirt creaking boards; from a plan to deal with what seems to be a disastrously unquiet impending new arrival to resourceful contingency measures for distracting the deadly threat long enough to escape it; and from newspaper headlines glimpsed in the background to the no-words-needed expressions on these characters’ faces.  Best of all, we like and instantly bond with each of these perfectly realized characters.  They are beset by mortal peril, cut off from whatever may (or may not) remain of humanity, and burdened by loss and a sense of guilt.  But they carry on with life:  They live with the knowledge that sheer terror lurks nearby, but their love for each other keeps them going.

John Krasinski ably fulfills several roles here, as co-star, director, and co-writer (with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck).  Elegant use of sound design distinguishes this film from anything else we’ve seen.  The first 20 minutes or so are devoid of talking; indeed, they are practically silent.  But listen closely for sudden changes in the audio track – ranging from nearly silent to totally so (when we get the perspective of the family’s deaf daughter).  And judiciously effective use of a score by Marco Beltrami ratchets-up the suspense, suspense that is guaranteed to keep you squirming on the edge of your seat.   This film is deliciously suspenseful; and, at month seven in the calendar year, it is securely perched as the best film of 2018 thus far.  Break down doors if you have to, but don’t miss it!  The DVD from Paramount has no extras at all, not even the film’s wonderfully creepy trailer.  For ages 14+:  Not suitable for younger children; violence; nerve-wracking suspense.

“Annihilation” (U.K./USA, 2018) (B/B+):  It opens with an interrogation:  (Q)  “What did you eat?  You had rations for two

weeks.  You were inside for nearly four months.”  (A) “I don’t remember eating.”  There’s a flashback to a deserted stretch of Florida coast.  A meteorite streaks through the sky, impacting near a lighthouse.  Lena (Natalie Portman) has been bereft of her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) for a year, and she is beset by loss and guilt.  We learn that he went off on a secret military mission and has not returned, until, suddenly, he does.  But he’s vague and his words and thoughts seem clouded:  Is he suffering from amnesia or shell-shock, we wonder?  Circumstances land Lena at a secret government facility, Area X, situated near the strange shimmering border of the aptly named “Shimmer.”  Its border is marked by an opalescent wall of air that is impenetrable to radio signals.  And it has been relentlessly expanding since the meteorite impacted three years ago.  Teams of soldiers have been dispatched but none have returned – until Lena’s husband inexplicably does so.  But he’s in a bad way.  Since men have fared so badly, it is decided to send in a team of women – and Lena (a biologist and former soldier) joins a cold, detached, but driven psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Ventress), a friendly paramedic (Gina Rodriguez’ Anya), an expert in magnetic fields (Tuva Novotny’s grieving Cass), and a young physicist (Tessa Thompson’s Josie).

As soon as they enter ‘the Shimmer’ they experience disorientation, losing track of time, awaking in a camp they have no memory of pitching.  There’s something different about the quality of the light here – it’s refracted in some unaccustomed way, creating a gnawing sense of something alien.  And, the further in they go, the more pronounced other changes are:  It’s as if nature itself is rewriting its genetic code, mutating into sometimes beautiful sometimes frightening forms.  The women have no means of communicating with the outside world.  Their brave journey has a bleak poignancy to it, like a journey of the damned:  “We’re all damaged goods here.”  There are mortal dangers here – from both without and within – and the result is an effective meditation on the loss of self-identity.  These women have different motivations for being there, and differing capacities for enduring the intense psychological stress and physical threats.

Director Alex Garland, who also wrote the screenplay (from the novel by Jeff VanderMeer) is the man behind the brilliant “Ex Machina” (2015).  But this film, despite its merits – good performances, a growing sense of dread and doom, and aspirations to the poetical – falls well short of that earlier triumph.

The resolution (or lack thereof) is dissatisfying – the big trek leads to nothing very much.   And computer-generated effects get way too much attention late in the film, with crystalline trees, the unexplained glowing lighthouse, and a pointless encounter with a doppelganger.  What is the purpose of what seems to be an alien incursion?  Does it even have intention, purpose, or sentience?   (These questions are left unanswered, perhaps with the intention of heightening the mystery, but the effect is unsatisfying.)  There’s a seeming twist at the very end that’s all too predictable, but, it, too, ultimately seems kind of pointless.  Also, as far as we know, only one of the five women has a military background, yet all of them carry and use assault rifles like they’ve had experience with them.  (They even ‘talk the talk,’ saying “Copy that” as if they’re used to doing so.  It strains credibility a little.)  Elsewhere, a character is apparently transformed (off-screen) in the literal blink of an eye.  How?  And why?  A later metamorphosis (of a different kind) also occurs at improbable, unnecessary speed – a function more of creating supposed CGI eye-appeal (with a swirling matrix of energy) than as the function of any believable process.  And, in a small, but noticeable, lapse in logical continuity, a mirror image that mimics every move inexplicably approaches when our protagonist backs away from it.

It’s meant to be a mind-bending excursion into the human psyche, a collision of the familiar and the unknown (and unknowable?).  How do we react in the face of terrible stress – with fear or with stubborn resolve?  And, whether by accident or by design, it’s also a poignant parable for the loss of ourselves posed by infirmity and approaching death:  “We are disintegrating – our bodies as fast as our minds.  Can’t you feel it?  It’s like the onset of dementia.  If I don’t reach the lighthouse soon, the person who started this journey won’t be the person who ends it.  I want to be the one that ends it.”  The film gets points for its poetical aspirations; but it is diminished by its relentlessly bleak tone, its jarringly intrusive moments of horrific and gory violence, and its frustrating ambiguity about what these women are seeing and experiencing.  It’s too enigmatic (or is it just inchoate?) for its own good.   The result is more a very commendable try than a fully realized, and satisfying, finished result.  For ages 18+ only:  Violence (occasionally brutal); some gore; coarse language; disturbing content; brief sexual content; and a frightening scene.

“Tell No One” [“Ne le dis à personne”] (France, 2006) (B/B+):  “Tell no one.  They’re watching.”  That’s the disconcerting message a man gets by email immediately after he is sent a brief video of what appears to be his wife caught on a security camera on a busy pedestrian street.  The sender is anonymous; the shocker is that Alex’s wife was murdered eight years ago.  Alex is haunted by Margot’s loss: they were the loves of each other’s lives.  A kind, gentle pediatrician, Alex was a suspect in his wife’s unsolved murder.  And, now he is again, after the police have found two dead bodies buried in the woods near the old crime scene. And, yet, there is that tantalizing, impossible image of his wife, seemingly alive and well.  Can it be possible?  Alex is suddenly thrown head-first into a world of ruthlessness, deception, and violence that is utterly alien to him.  Frantic, desperate, and dizzy with shock and reopened grief, he is menaced by the police on one side and deadly underworld figures on the other.  He’s an everyman in that respect, reacting as we might, if we were thrust into the same situation.

“Tell No One” is a suspenseful Hitchcockian thriller in which things are not what they seem, and in which a neophyte struggles to solve the dangerous puzzle before it is too late.  Director Guillaume Canet (he also co-wrote the screenplay from the novel by Harlan Coben) has crafted a fine mystery – with a strong cast, led by François Cluzet (of 2011’s wonderful “The Intouchables”), Canada’s talented, irresistible Marie-Josée Croze (of 2003’s “The Barbarian Invasions”), Kristin Scott Thomas, André Dussollier, Nathalie Baye, François Berléand, and Jean Rochefort.  The mystery is anchored in a love story; the protagonist is a man with whom we instantly identify:  his desperate struggle becomes ours. “Tell No One” won César Awards (France’s academy awards) for Best Actor, Director, Editing, and Music; and it was nominated in five other categories, including Best Film, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language, brief nudity, and brief violence.

“Avengers: Infinity War” (USA, 2018) (B/B+):  Weighing in at 149 minutes, here’s the 19th Marvel superhero movie to appear in ten years.  Its chief claim to fame is that it gathers together nearly all the characters from the different Marvel franchises and brings them together in a single film for the first time.  It also kills a bunch of them off at the end – or, should we say, the end of the first part of what will be a two-part film (there’s a ‘to be continued’ ending).  The proverbial ‘MacGuffin’ (or plot-propelling device) here are six “elemental crystals” of enormous power that give anyone mighty enough to wield them godlike power over space, time, and reality itself.  There’s a strong villain here, in the purple person of Thanos, though he’s got a truly addled ambition, namely, to “bring balance to the universe,” whatever that means, by wiping out half of all life.  Is he just a tough-love environmentalist at heart?  It’s a ridiculous premise, since he is as sadistic as he is ruthless.  Voiced by Josh Brolin in a motion-capture performance, the character is given some depth and nuance (and even a selective conscience); so he’s not merely a powerful menace.  The film pulls that nuance off, but it takes some suspension of disbelief on our part, since it feels a bit like revisionist history given what we’ve seen of the same character in previous films.  Anyway, as the filmmakers point out, heroes are only as good as their villain, and Thanos is a strong foe, strong enough that the combined forces of Thor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Hulk, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and their assorted confreres are staring defeat in the face:  “I know what it’s like to lose, to feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail nonetheless.”  It’s a credit to the filmmakers that they can juggle so many characters and relationships.  Most of the good guys (and gals) get their moment(s) in the sun in a story that blends humorous banter, romance, danger, determination, great loss, and highly effective action.  There is even some real poignancy.  All in all, it’s a winning entry in the superhero sweepstakes.  We just wish they’d told their story in one film, rather than keep us dangling for a year or more for the next installment.  The Blu-ray from Disney has some short backgrounders and a few deleted scenes.  For ages 12+: Violence.

“Life of the Party” (USA, 2018) (D-):  It seems that comedic actress Melissa McCarthy has sworn an oath of fealty to the “go big or go home” school of performing.  Everything is larger than life, bumptious, and loud in her comedies:  Screechy, dissonant, and profoundly unfunny, the result is like fingernails on a chalkboard.  There have been exceptions, like 2014’s “St. Vincent” (with Bill Murray) to demonstrate that McCarthy can deliver an engaging low-key performance; but “Life of the Party” isn’t one of them.  Here, McCarthy goes back to school, at the same university where her daughter is in her final year, and introduces the ‘kids’ to her own brand of mayhem:  “You’re in college now, and you gotta learn how to party through it.”  But the ‘in your face’ brashness and clumsy slapstick aren’t very endearing; quite the contrary.  There’s a good line about a very odd roommate: “I get a Voldemort vibe from her;” and some of the supporting players (Maya Rudolf, Gillian Jacobs, and Molly Gordon, playing, respectively, McCarthy’s friend, formerly comatose sorority sister, and daughter) fare alright.  The film grew on us marginally as it progressed; but we can’t recommend it.  We’d say ‘Fire the writer,’ but McCarthy co-wrote this film.   For ages 15+: Mature subject-matter.

“Bye Bye Germany” [“Es War Einmal in Deutschland”] (Germany/Luxembourg/Belgium, 2017) (B+):  It’s 1946 in post-war Frankfurt.  Amidst the rubble, survivors scramble to make a living.  For some, there’s another goal in mind – emigration to the United States.  But they need to raise some money first.  One irrepressible man has a plan:  “Let me ask you this:  What do Germans need most right now?”  The answer, he suggests, is linens.  He’s got the contacts to get the product (bed-sheets, tablecloths, towels, and such).  Now, all he needs is a rough and ready sales crew (novices all) who are capable of persuading potential customers that they want what he’s selling.  The wrinkle here is that David (Moritz Bleibtreu) and his six-man team are all Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.  Nattily dressed in suits and armed with a can-do attitude, they aren’t the haunted, forlorn figures we’d expect.  Whatever they’ve endured, they’ve survived, with eyes straight ahead on the future:  “Never forget.  Hitler is dead, but we’re still alive.”  David coaches them to add some showmanship (and a few tall tales) to their salesmanship:  “Peddling is an art… It’s the story that counts.”  But David has worries, too, in the lovely form of the U.S. military intelligence officer (Antje Traue, who played the title role in 2015’s “Woman in Gold” and made an impression in 2009’s underrated “Pandorum”) who is investigating his account of how he survived the death camps.  There are serious moments here; but, overall, the tone is one of wry humor.  It’s a playful, gentle caper film in an unexpected setting.  And through it all runs David’s apt credo:  “If one didn’t embellish life with lies, then it’d be unbearable.”

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Strings” (U.K., 2017) (B): This six-minute short student film directed by Erin Morris is inspired by the real-life work of Amnon Weinstein, an Israeli violin-maker who restores violins salvaged from the Holocaust so their music can endure.  There’s no dialogue, just a series of white line drawings on a black background, with one image morphing into the next.  Impressionistic glimpses of the death camps turn into violins and people playing them.  The images are perhaps too fleeting to permit much conscious reflection on individual scenes, but the overall effect is an impressionistic picture of dichotomies – past and future, death and life, nihilism and the creative spark – all linked by the literal and figurative image of violin strings.  The message?  Why, simply that what’s good persists.   See  http://www.violinsofhope.org/

“Hotel Salvation” (India, 2016) (B):  It opens with a dream:  an old man watches his young boy self and interprets what he sees to mean that, “I think my time has come.  And I think I am ready to die now.”  He announces his desire to go to the holy city of Varanasi, a place people go in search of salvation.  Special hotels there cater to those who believe their time is drawing to a close – you can rent a room near the Ganges River for 15 days, but no more; if you haven’t passed away in that time, it’s time to pack your bags and go back home.  Daya (Lalit Behl) cajoles his reluctant, overworked son Rajiv (Adil Hussain) into accompanying him on this final journey, humorously urging cautious driving on the long trip there:  “Go slow.  Don’t send me up [to heaven] before we get there.”  The result is a gentle meditation on life, mortality, and reconciliation.  It’s a few days in the lives of a father, his adult son, and the others with whom their orbits cross – Rajiv’s independent-minded daughter (Palomi Ghosh), a sweet older lady (Navnindra Behl) whose stay at the hotel has long exceeded the prescribed 15 days, and the hotel’s astute manager (Anil K. Rastogi).

There’s humor here (Daya asks those singing hymns for the dying to sing in tune); there’s the working through of longstanding familial resentments (“It’s easy to blame others for your failures”); and there’s simple wisdom, too:  “Do what your heart says.  The heart alone is the truth.  The rest is illusion.”

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “May the Night Be Sweet” [“Que la nuit soit douce”] (Switzerland, 2015) (B+):  A pair of adults and their two young children gather at the hospital bedside of their dying patriarch.  Later that night, the two children make a surreptitious journey back to that bedside to bring comfort to their dearly loved grandfather.  This six-minute short, written and directed by Frédéric Recrosio, is very simple and very sweet – with a couple of cutely depicted kids at its heart and a heartwarming theme of love, acceptance, and closure.

“Oh Lucy!” (Japan/USA, 2017) (B-/B):  Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) leads a monotonous, unfulfilling life as an ‘office lady’ in Japan.  She gets a shock on the daily commute one morning and it serves as a harbinger of life changes ahead – changes that get underway when she does her niece Mika (Shioli Kutsuna, currently in cinemas in a small but memorable part in “Deadpool 2”) a favor by taking her place in Mika’s English class.  The teacher, John (Josh Hartnett), gives Setsuko a long hug, an alias (‘Lucy’), and a curly blonde wig.  A wildly unconventional introductory lesson in idiomatic English ensues, with a colored ping-pong ball to help with enunciation.  The new flamboyant persona of ‘Lucy’ works for Setsuko; it’s a chance to slough off her normally stiff, reserved demeanor for something freer and forthright.  But the changes get her into trouble at work and spark renewed friction in her long fractious relationship with her sister Ayako (Kaho Minami).

Emotions are stirred and Setsuko embarks to America seeking her heart’s desire. This unexpectedly sweet story plays with a series of dichotomies: carefree vs. careworn, relaxed vs. emotionally aloof, and fun-loving vs. unhappy.  The result is part road trip, part character study, part comedy, part drama, and part culture clash.  It is the first feature film from its director (and co-writer) Atsuko Hirayanagi, who developed it from her 2014 short film of the same name.  Infused throughout is an exploration of identity – cultural and otherwise:  What makes us who we are?  When (and why) do we wear figurative masks in life?  Startlingly unexpected events (there are two or three of different sorts) may rely over-much on shock value, but these characters and their story are engaging and original.  It’s a uniformly appealing cast, with the acclaimed Kôji Yakusho (1996’s “Shall We Dance?”) in a key supporting role.  “Oh Lucy!” was nominated for Best Director and for the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at Cannes.  It’s a shame the DVD doesn’t include the short film that serves as the source of this feature film; but there’s an 18 minute interview and two worthwhile deleted scenes.  For ages 18+:  One scene with sexual content and partial nudity.

“In Syria” [a.k.a. “Insyriated”] (Belgium/France/Lebanon, 2017) (B+/A-):  A family takes refuge (with some neighbors) in their barricaded apartment in Damascus in the midst of Syria’s ugly civil war.  There’s no running water, telephone, or electricity.  They may be the last hold-outs in their building; an unseen sniper preys on any who venture into the street; and the distant thud of explosions sometimes grows near enough to shake the building.  The estimable Hiam Abbass (“The Syrian Bride”) is Yazan – a wife and mother who is determined to stand her ground and protect her charges:  “This is my home and no one will force me out of it.  No one.”  She strides purposefully from room to room in this middle class home, maintaining an outward demeanor of composure as she distracts the others (children and adults alike) with chores – dusting, meals, and fetching water – to distract them from the dangers outside.  It’s not a small home, but being confined within it feels claustrophobic.  And danger comes knocking insistently on the door in the person of some very bad men.

What a gripping, deeply humanistic story!  The film is impeccably cast.  The lovely Hiam Abbass elevates everything she does with her intelligence, warmth, and depth of feeling.  She is simply one of the best actresses working today.  Her character here has to make tough, heart-wrenching decisions.  Others – younger and older – depend on her, so she can never let her air of competent authority slip.  The beautiful Diamand Abou Abboud (“The Insult”) is another strong asset to the film, as a young married woman who is pressed to the precipice of despair.  Every other cast member delivers note-perfect work:  The result is an award-caliber film that brings the wretched misery of the brutal conflict in Syria (in which a regime in need of Western overthrow has for years made lawless, merciless war against its own people) down to the human level of a single day in the life of a family under siege.

Written and directed by Philippe Van Leeuw, “In Syria” won Best Film, Director, Script, Cinematography, Original Score, and Sound at Belgium’s academy awards and two awards at the Berlin International Film Festival.  “In Syria” is one of the best films of the year.  For ages 18+ only:  Not suitable for children; one disturbing scene, which includes sexual violence.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Le Pain” (France, 2000) (B+):  The title of this 19-minute short film translates as “Bread,” and its story pivots around something just that commonplace – the getting of a loaf of bread for lunch.  A couple and their young son have just moved into their home in the verdant French countryside.  The house is full of packing boxes, but the process of unpacking them is paused for lunch.  Father (Zinedine Soualem) is dispatched to fetch a fresh loaf of bread in the village; but he’s known to be delayed by a fondness for conversing,   So, Mother (the wonderfully expressive Hiam Abbass, who also wrote and directed this short film) soon sets out herself, by bicycle.  Into their lives (and that of their son, played by Jules Sitruk) intrudes something unexpected.  The mundane is suddenly pushed aside by that which is most assuredly not mundane.  The result is a portrait of lives lived and altered in the course of one bright afternoon.  We always welcome a chance to see Hiam Abbass on the big screen (see, for instance, 2017’s “In Syria”).  Now, we have extra cause to celebrate her empathetic humanism:  we look forward to seeing more of her work as a director and screenwriter.   For ages 14+.

“Dead Calm” (Australia, 1989) (B):  “I found you.”  Finding one’s true self, healing from emotional trauma, summoning inner reserves of courage, and hewing steadfast to the one we love, are among the metaphorical undertones of those three simple words.  For a person can be lost at sea in more ways than one.  John and Rae are at sea on a sailboat, trying to mend from a terrible loss:  “Calm day, calm sea,” says John soothingly, when Rae wakes distraught from a nightmare.  There’s a subtle moment of foreboding when their little dog barks as he stares into the dawn horizon.  Later, they spot a large schooner becalmed in the distance and a lone man rowing frantically toward them in a dinghy.

What unfolds is a taut, masterful thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition with a poignant love story at its heart.  It’s a story of suspense and survival and unshakeable love, buoyed by strong, award-caliber performances from Sam Neill and a young Nicole Kidman.  There’s a tangible tenderness between them that elevates the film.  Meanwhile, Billy Zane’s volatile character is a discomfiting portrait of what it would be like to be confined in a small space with a madman.  A couple of coincidences (a fallen mast happens to block a retreat, while a randomly swinging piece of heavy rigging nearly brains the same unlucky character) veer close to the shoals of contrivance; but our only real cavil here is a conventional twist that comes with one ending too many.  Based on the novel by Charles Williams and directed by Philip Noyce, “Dead Calm” was nominated for eight awards at the Australian Film Institute, winning four of them, including cinematography.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language, brief nudity, brief sexual content, and some violence.

“You Can Count on Me” (USA, 2000) (B+/A-):  A brother and sister are orphaned in childhood: they sit grasping each other’s small hands at the funeral, and a strong, lifelong bond is forged.  In the present, Sammy (Laura Linney) still lives in the quaint small town where they grew up.  She’s a single mother now to 8-year-old Rudy (Rory Culkin in his film debut), and she works at the bank.  For his part, younger brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) is a drifter and a bit of a ne’er-do-well.  Sammy hasn’t heard from Terry for six months, and she’s full of eager anticipation when she learns that he’s coming back for a visit.  But what prompts his visit is “a bit of a predicament.”  There’s a likeable boyishness to Terry; but he’s unreliable (and maybe irresponsible), though he’s loath to admit it:  “I am not the kind of guy that everyone says I am.”  He gradually connects with young Rory, providing a surrogate father figure; but his interactions with the child aren’t always age-appropriate.   For Terry, the town is a place of painful memories (“It’s a dull narrow town full of dull narrow people”) and he prefers to move from place to place as the spirit takes him.  Meantime, Sammy is contending with a stickler of a new boss (Matthew Broderick) and an on-again, off-again romance (Jon Tenney).  She’s pulled this way and that by the various men in her life just because she feels sorry for them.  Does she enable their failings in the process?

Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, this critically acclaimed film has top-notch, award-caliber performances from its leads.  It was one of the first times we saw Linney, and she sure made a lasting impression.  It’s a quiet film, just a few days in the lives of some ordinary people, but it draws us in with its authenticity and emotional subtlety.   These characters and their complicated relationships feel right and true and strangely familiar.  It’s easily one of the best films of its year.

Among its many nominations and awards, “You Can Count on Me” was nominated at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes for Best Actress and Original Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Actress at the Screen Actors Guild; and the American Film Institute named it the Movie of the Year; while, at the Independent Spirit Awards, it won Best First Feature and Screenplay and was nominated for Best Actress, Actor, and Debut Performance.  It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Best Screenplay at the Writers Guild of America.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language and brief sexual content.

“Land of Mine” [“Under Sandet”] (Denmark/Germany, 2015) (B+):  It’s May 1945 in Denmark and the German soldiers who have surrendered there are prisoners of war.  The first character we meet is Carl Rasmussen (Rolland Møller), a Danish sergeant who has a visceral hatred for the erstwhile occupiers.  He practically spits out his rage when he violently confronts a prisoner:  “This is my land.  Get out!”  Rasmussen soon becomes sole custodian of fourteen POWs, who are obliged to perform a deadly dangerous task – clearing a stretch of beach of landmines.  About 2.2 million mines (more than in all other European countries combined, we’re told) lie beneath 15-20 centimeters of sand.  Rasmussen’s group has been assigned the task of defusing 45,000 of them:  “Only then can you go home.”  But, Rasmussen has been given boy-soldiers, who are not much more than children.  Initially, that makes no impact on his loathing – they are German, and he hates all Germans:  “Denmark is not your friend.  Make sure you understand that.  No one wants to see Germans here.  You only serve one purpose for us.  To clear Denmark’s west coast of German landmines – mines that you brought here.”  The boys are frightened and half-starved.  Their captors (and Danish civilians in the area) don’t care if the prisoners live or die.

Written and directed by Martin Zandvliet, “Land of Mine” raises important questions about our propensity for assigning collective guilt, about the futility of hate, and about our distressing compulsion to create artificial categories of “us” and “them.”  Once we’ve been consigned to the wrong category in that artificial divide, we’re fair game for the worst kind of abuse.  (The film never directly talks about the fact that the mistreatment of POWs is a criminal contravention of binding international law.)  As the director notes in the DVD’s 17 minute Q&A session, his film also has a cautionary message: ‘Don’t become the monster when you fight the monster.’  Although there were, of course, adults among the thousands of German prisoners, there were also youngsters, who were more boys than men.  This film elects to focus on fourteen youngsters, whom the director sees as “innocent boys.”

Will his contact with them awaken empathy in the tough-as-nails sergeant’s heart?   A cold officer thinks so, admonishing Rasmussen:  “You’re not beginning to like them, are you?  Remember what they did.  Rather them than us.”  Key words those, when it comes to the film’s themes.  “Remember what ‘they’ did.”  There’s no reason to believe that these particular boys did anything terribly wrong.  They are simply being saddled with collective guilt for the actions of some of their countrymen.  And the words “rather them than us” could be a rallying cry for all those who are eager to negate empathy (and common decency) toward whomever has been designated as ‘the other’ or ‘the enemy.’  “Land of Mine” covers the waterfront of human emotions – from hate to empathy, from cruelty to kindness, from fear and despair to courage and hope.  The ugly and noble sides of the human psyche are both present here, along with the hope of redemption, the hope that we can be better than our worst instincts prompt us to be.

Among its many awards and nominations, “Land of Mine” was an Academy Award nominee as Best Foreign Language Film.  It got fourteen nominations at Denmark’s academy awards, winning six of them, including Best Film, Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography; it won three awards at the European Film Awards, including Cinematography; and it won the Audience Award at the American Film Institute Fest.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language; brief gore in one scene; some violence; and one scene depicting a degrading assault.

“Hostiles” (USA, 2017) (B+):  Someone once observed that the English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, and the Americans have the western.  Pitting man against ‘the other,’ or against nature, or against himself, the western genre has always been a morality play at its heart – nowhere more so than in this engrossing drama from writer/director Scott Cooper, who says, “We are plumbing the depths of the darkest psyche.”.  It opens with words by D.H. Lawrence, “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.  It has never yet melted.”  And it presents us with characters who fit that description.  But there’s one critical difference, these once implacable foes, so bitterly hostile to each other, so filled with hate and loathing, are capable of change, reconciliation, and even mutual respect.  In our own rancorous times, that message couldn’t be more timely.  Set in the last quarter of 19th century, this character-driven story concerns enemies who are obliged to travel together; in the process, their animosity gradually melts in the face of shared dangers.

The small company is led by a U.S. Army captain (Christian Bale, in a finely understated performance) who is nearing retirement.  Only the threat of losing his pension can compel him to lead the escort of an aging Cheyenne war chief and his family to their distant home after a lengthy imprisonment.  Bale’s character is adamant:  he’s rather see his one time nemesis (or, failing that, himself) dead than free to go home:  “I’ve killed savages because that was my effing job…. When we lay our heads down out here, we are all prisoners.  I hate ‘em.  I got a warbag of reasons to hate ‘em.”   Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) may be old and ailing, but, “There ain’t enough punishment for his kind.”  His colonel (Stephen Lang, as solid as ever in a supporting role) astutely replies, “Yes, well, captain, you’re no angel yourself.”  It’s true:  There’s a mutual history of violence and inhumanity between the white men and the Indians.  It seems insurmountable.

Along the way, the small group picks up an emotionally stricken woman (Rosamund Pike) who has just seen her husband and children viciously slaughtered by Comanches. Yet, she nevertheless has it in her to be kind to the young Cheyenne women in the party led by the captain.  And the reluctant fellow travelers soon have to cooperate in order to survive.  These circumstances gradually precipitate a change of heart that really resonates.  So do the down-to-earth reflections on the effects of violence: A grizzled sergeant (Rory Cochrane) says, “I’ve killed everything that’s walked or crawled.  If you do it enough, you get used to it.  It doesn’t mean a thing.”  But that’s not a comforting prospect for a lieutenant (Jesse Plemons) fresh from West Point:  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”  Elsewhere, we have an officer’s wife who advocates for the Indians (“They’re human beings… They were here first”); but her audience isn’t ready yet to accept those facts.

Intelligent, hopeful, and expertly acted, “Hostiles” is one of the best films of the year.  It’s a tragedy that’s infused with hope.  A study in forgiveness and reconciliation between bitter enemies, it’s about coming to terms with the hostile that lurks within our own psyche and overcoming it.  It’s a riveting portrait of people who confront loss and find redemption, traversing a moral arc that leaves them better human beings at the end than they were at the beginning.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; some violence; and very brief disturbing content.

“A Man Called Ove” [“En Man Som Heter Ove”] (Sweden, 2015) (B+/A-):  How does a grumpy old man get that way?  Owe is 59 (though he looks at least 15 years older).  He’s a widower, and he is bereft without his beloved wife:  “It’s just chaos when you’re not there,” he says at her grave.  Stern, fastidious, and disputatious, Ove is the self-appointed inspector of his residential community, crossly scolding all those (drivers, dog-walkers, and even a stray cat) who breach the rules.  He keeps others at a distance, and he’s intent on shuffling off this mortal coil posthaste in order to rejoin the lost love of his life.  But new neighbors, including an Iranian-Swedish woman, Parveneh, and her young daughters, keep intruding on Ove’s self-imposed solitude.  Will his curmudgeonly ways soften under their influence?  Here’s a poignant blend of humor and drama (you’ll “laugh and cry at the same time,” says the director), in which even the sad moments are strangely heartwarming in their way.  It’s got a very able cast, among them: the esteemed Rolf Lassgård (heavily made-up as the aged Owe), Bahar Pars (Parveneh), Ida Engvoll (as Owe’s lost Sonja with her irresistible smile), and Filip Berg (who plays Owe as a young man).  Flashbacks chart the long course of this one life and of the story’s theme:  “No one manages completely on their own.  No one.  Not even you.”

“A Man Called Ove” was written and directed by Hannes Holm, from the best-selling Swedish novel by Fredrik Backman.  It was an Oscar nominee as Best Foreign Language Film (and for Make-up & Hairstyling).  It won Best European Comedy at the European Film Awards (where it was also nominated for Best Actor and for the Audience Award); and it won Best Actor and Make-up at Sweden’s Guldbagge Awards.  For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

 “A United Kingdom” (Czech Republic/U.K./USA/France, 2016) (B):  It’s 1947, and a young man from southern Africa is studying law in Britain.  One evening, a young Englishwoman accompanies her sister to a church dance.  That’s where Seretse Khama (the talented David Oyelowo, who played Martin Luther King Jr. in 2014’s “Selma”) meets Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike).  He’s black; she’s white.  He’s a prince, heir to the throne of Bechuanaland (now known as Botswana); she’s a commoner.  But they hit it off famously, with a shared love for jazz and dancing, and an instant attraction.  “He scares me a bit, the way he makes me feel,” Ruth confides to her sister.  Attraction becomes a powerful, abiding love.  But everyone is against their union – Ruth’s father threatens to disown her; Seretse’s people are loath to accept a white woman as their future queen; and, because Bechuanaland was a British protectorate at the time, even the British government gets into the act, vehemently opposing the marriage for geopolitical reasons involving the neighboring country of South Africa, which had just instituted the noxious policy of apartheid.

Based on little-known actual events, “A United Kingdom” is a deeply romantic story, anchored in fine work by its two leads.  Its romanticism is hard to resist – witness Seretse’s defiant refusal to leave Ruth behind, even if it costs him his throne: “I will never achieve anything worthwhile if I leave my heart here.”  The couple’s struggles (with relatives and with political ‘powers that be’ in two countries) to have their love accepted are less compelling than the underlying story of their love itself.  Directed by Amma Asante (she also directed 2013’s excellent “Belle”), with a screenplay by Guy Hibbert (from the book “Colour Bar” by Susan Williams), “A United Kingdom” won Best British Screenplay at British Screenwriters Awards, and it was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Terry Pheto, who plays Seretse’s sister) at British Independent Film Awards.  2018’s “Black Panther” got a lot of attention for its story of a powerful black superhero; this more down-to-earth story of a real black leader is even more admirable.

“12 Strong” (USA, 2018) (C/C+):  Mere weeks after 9/11, a small team of U.S. special forces soldiers entered Afghanistan to coordinate with fractious ‘Northern Alliance’ forces in attacking the Taliban in the northern part of that war-torn country:  the objective is to repel them from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.  This film tells the story of those dozen American soldiers, who emulate their newfound allies by riding into battle on horses – a form of combat with which they are utterly unfamiliar.  Chris Hemsworth (who plays the title role in the Thor films) is the team’s stalwart commander, while Michael Shannon plays his retirement age second-in-command.  Interactions with their tribal allies, and the warlord who commands them, are uneasy at first; and there’s a sizeable bounty on the heads of Americans:  “We’re not going to be able to tell our enemies from our allies.”  They don’t have quite the same objectives and their ways of fighting couldn’t be more different; but a mutual respect gradually develops between the Americans and their Afghan allies.  Trouble is: the film ignores the allegedly wretched record of human rights abuses of General Dostuim (well played by Navid Negahban) and his rival warlords.  Nor does the film allude to the war crimes (like the mass murder of POWs) committed by our allies after they defeated the Taliban in the north, sometimes, allegedly, with American complicity.  So, what we see here is somewhat sanitized.  The story of three weeks in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan is one of camaraderie and armed conflict:  Both elements are competently handled, though there is nothing about the story that will linger with viewers.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language throughout and war-related violence.

“A Wrinkle in Time” (USA, 2018) (C-/C):  What if we could travel millions of light years in the blink of an eye?  What if the relentless conflict of moral darkness and light stretches across the universe?   What impact can any of us have in such a cosmic struggle?  Those questions are at the heart of this new adaptation of the classic 1962 novel for young adults by Madeleine L’Engle.  The protagonists are two young siblings – Meg Murray (age 13) and her “prodigious” younger brother Charles Wallace (age 6), who is gifted with genius-level intellect and a barely hinted at incipient gift for something like telepathy.  They are played here by Storm Reid and Deric McCable, both of whom, alas, are awkward and stilted in their roles. Their parents (Chris Pine and an under-utilized Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are both scientists, but their father mysteriously disappeared four years ago, while experimenting with their theoretical concept of a ‘tesseract,’ a way of bending time and space to travel across the universe.  His loss has afflicted Meg, who is also saddled with self-consciousness. Then, three very eccentric ladies come into their lives, propelling the siblings and a new friend from school (Calvin is played by Levi Miller, and he fares best in the child-acting department) on a quest across the universe to find and save the lost Dr. Murray.  Adventures ensue, culminating in a direct confrontation with the very heart of darkness itself.  There, simple (but strong) love is pitted against a powerful will that seeks to dominate all others.

That’s the plot in brief.  In book form, it made for a wonderful classic, full of charm, and wonder, and self-realization through self-sacrifice.  But the film is a major disappointment, squandering the richness of character and story offered by its source material.  Authenticity is missing here, in a film hampered by its aforementioned uneven cast, a major over-reliance on computer-generated effects (and on overly ostentatious make-up and costumes), and a misreading of the story as an action piece, when it is actually anchored in relationships – the bonds that tie family and friends together through thick and thin.  The casting issues aren’t confined to the kids.  Indeed, they extend to the trio of eccentric ladies (they are angels, though that term is not used) played by Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, and Mindy Kalin, all of whom felt like caricatures.  Winfrey is too immediately identifiable as a celebrity for us to accept her in this role.  Instead of downplaying her ‘star-power,’ the film inexplicably emphasizes it.  Her outlandish make-up has her eyebrows morph from pearls to silver foil.  And, in a bid for shallow spectacle, she is pointlessly magnified (in physical stature) to towering height, which renders her remote as a character.  It’s one instance, of many, of the film transforming something magical into something trite and dull.  The screenplay errs by inflating the potency of evil:  “The only thing faster than light is the darkness.”  And it neglects the heart of the story, which is about finding meaning and our better selves: “What if we are here for a reason?”

Director Ava DuVernay did very fine work with 2014’s “Selma,” but she lets magic slip through her fingers here.  The film flips the book on its ear (though it does preserve the ‘dark and stormy night’ that opens the novel).  It relocates the Murray family home from New England to sunny California (complete with palm trees), a setting that just doesn’t feel right.  The book makes much of the flame-red tresses of Meg and her mother (the young Murray was self-conscious and lacking in self-confidence, whereas her mother was an accomplished beauty); here, they are played instead by black actresses.  Someone unfamiliar with the book won’t notice the difference, but the gratuitous change is somehow an irritant for us, perhaps signifying a deliberate foray into ‘affirmative action’ in casting at the cost of fealty to the source.  More importantly, the film is leached of charm, magic, and any hint of emotion.  This story ought to be anchored in its characters – not in invented scenes of a maelstrom pursuing the young protagonists as a forest is felled around them.  (It is weak storytelling when the thing they’re fleeing conveniently hurls them where they want to go, an outcome which renders it a pretty phony threat, for all its sound and fury.)  What we get is practically devoid of character; instead, it offers all that is trite, bland, conventional, and empty – empty, for instance, of deeper meaning (L’Engle’s novel was implicitly infused with her Christian values).

The best sequence (a brief one) comes on the fallen world of Camazotz, where we encounter a suburban residential street.  The cookie-cutter houses are orderly and uniform.  There’s a child on every driveway, each of them rhythmically bouncing an identical ball until they’re called to dinner by their Stepford Wife mothers.  It’s an effective visual incarnation of conformity run amok.  But, far too little is made of that scene – or of Camazotz in general.  It’s meant to be a fallen world (i.e. one that has given in to the darkness), not a CGI free-for-all.  In the book, it represents a totalitarian world – a society of total control.  And that would, had the film explored such themes, have been mighty relevant to the on-going erosion in today’s West of fundamental freedoms, in our panicky quest for ever more supposed ‘security’ from real or perceived threats.  Instead of meaning and emotive power, we get only the superficial.  That’s why this film so disappoints.

“The Paris Opera” [“L’opéra”] (Switzerland/France, 2017) (B+/A-):   Who’d have guessed that a year in the life of a great ballet and opera institution would make such delightful viewing?  The place is the Paris Opera; and its life is the subject of this fine documentary film by Jean-Stéphane Bron.  The institution has a new director (Stéphane Lissner) at its helm and a program that spans nine operas and eight ballets over the course of a single year.  It opens with a musical flourish and the raising of the Tricolor.  We’re at an administrative meeting, where marketing and relations with the state top the agenda.  Then it’s on to an opening night, as guests in formal attire (among them, the president of France) gather. From there, we jump to curtain calls at the end of a ballet, as line after line of the corps move forward to take their bows.  There’s a gorgeous banquet hall aglow with chandeliers.

There’s the recruiting of a talented young bass soloist (from Russia by way of Germany), 21-year old Mikhail Timoshenko, who struggles to add another spoken language (French) to his repertoire as we reencounter him over the course of the year.  A new opera calls for the presence on stage of a live bull, which presents unique logistical issues.  An aggrieved choir needs to be appeased.  A looming strike (which eventually occurs) needs to be planned for.  An operatic soloist falls ill and needs to be urgently replaced at the last minute.  A choreographer, Benjamin Millepied, in his inaugural season directing the dance program, falls afoul of his dancers.  The November 2015 terrorist attack on the city’s Bataclan music hall is met with sorrow and determination by Opera staff and performers, who resolve “To perform, to perform, and keep on performing,” in order to demonstrate ‘a world that is stronger than barbarity.’

The young opera singer is inspired by the visit of an acclaimed star of the opera, Bryn Terfel.  A woman at an electronic control board sings softly along with the performers.  Aides wonder among themselves if the prima ballerina will sweat a lot in the first act, and they’re at the ready in the wings with facial tissues and bottled water.  A choir master frets about tempo and timing: “Every chorus in the world dawdles, but our choir is rushed.”   Management talks about sky-high ticket prices that exclude a large chunk of the population.  A wig-handler goes about her business in silence.  Staff members launder the costumes, while others clean the theaters.  And a kind, elegant grey-haired music mistress from Switzerland inspires her young charges in the Opera’s “Little Violins” program (which seems to be aimed at exposing kids from minority and/or disadvantaged backgrounds to music):  “You’ll enter the world of music by playing it.”

Here, then, are the real people and daily efforts of those behind the aphorism that ‘the show must go on.’  We get a succession of brief scenes, little moments from the workplace lives of some of the 154 dancers and 200 staff at the Paris Opera.  It’s an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the workings of a cultural icon.  All of these individual moments are like strands in a rich tapestry.  The result, replete with fine music and dance, is an ode to creativity and talent and relentless hard work.  The result is a remarkably fascinating and unexpectedly uplifting immersion in the life of a great world center of opera and ballet.  It won best documentary awards at festivals in Russia and Switzerland.  And, it’s not to be missed! 

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:  “Les Indes galantes” (France, 2018) (A):  Here’s a riveting fusion of forms – music and movement that are worlds apart in style.  The music is from the eponymous opera-ballet, first staged in 1735 in Paris, by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764).  “The Gallant Indies” was inspired by several aboriginal chiefs who traveled to France from Illinois to visit King Louis XV.  It finds an unexpected physical partner here in ‘Krump dancing,’ a form of American street-dancing that uses powerful, visceral movement as a deliberately exaggerated form of expression.  It’s all about energy, and it came into being as an alternative to gang-life, a cathartic way to express anger and aggression without resorting to violence.  Its muscular movements are elemental and raw; and its juxtaposition with music from the early 18th century is utterly riveting.  This six-minute short film depicts a piece staged live at the Paris Opera in January 2017.  (Mayhap director Clément Cogitore likes combining seemingly disparate elements.  His excellent 2016 feature film “Neither Heaven nor Earth” was a novel collision between the grittily realistic and the mythical, conjuring a sustained sense of the ominous in the process.)  This appealing short has a simple enough concept, but the exciting, emotional, highly original result is mesmerizing.

“A Fantastic Woman” [“Una Mujer Fantástica”] (Chile/Germany/Spain/USA, 2017) (B/B+):  Here’s the 2017 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film – an unconventional romantic drama from Chile.  Marina (Daniella Vega) and Orlando (Francisco Reyes) are in love.  She’s 30; he’s 57.  His sudden death leaves her numbly bereft – and shunned by his disapproving relatives.  The trouble is that Marina is a transgender woman, that is, someone who started life as a male but who is transitioning (the final physical alterations have not yet been completed, evidently) to being female.  The actress playing Marina is herself a transgender woman.  Interestingly enough, the actress seems fully female in the Blu-ray’s behind-the-scenes material; whereas her character in the film always looks to be, intangibly, still ‘a work in progress,’ – female, yet somewhat slightly ‘off.’

For those of us who are firmly fixed in one gender or the other, a person of transitioned (or transitioning) gender can feel like a person of indeterminate gender.  And there’s something instinctively discomfiting about that.  Indeed, it may feel odd, transgressive, and/or off-putting.  But, maybe that’s a good part of the point in this implicit case for tolerance toward the ways that we are different one from another.  Sometimes instinctive discomfort may be our inner compass telling us something is wrong; but, sometimes, it may be a ‘false alarm,’ set off more by our socio-cultural upbringing than by an innate moral offense.  Something can be alien to us without being inherently immoral.  Something can feel unnatural and unappealing without it being so taboo that it needs to be forbidden and shunned by society.  But where that dividing line lies – between what is subjectively unappealing and what is objectively unnatural – is not always easy to discern.  Marina defends her relationship with Orlando thus:   “It was a healthy, consensual relationship between two adults.”

Doubtless, some behaviors between adults can be consensual and yet still deserving of our opprobrium.  (Two very different examples – polygamy and sadism – spring to mind as things we would condemn as unhealthy for society and blameworthy for their practitioners.)  Where the film’s example – a relationship between a heterosexual male and a transsexual woman – falls on that continuum may be in the eye of the beholder.  But this film doesn’t concern itself with the particulars of the sexual relationship between these two people.  There’s hardly any sexual stuff going on here, anatomically speaking. Rather, its concern is with how the rest of society treats someone who is inarguably different (in at least one major respect, her gender identity) from the rest of us.  Marina is shunned, insulted, and, in one scene, physically humiliated – all by those who think that her being ‘different’ justifies their mistreatment of her.  Their view is devoid of empathy.

The film posits that Marina is not only a woman, but ‘a fantastic woman.’  Daniella Vega says, “Marina is fantastic because she can find fantasy or poetry in barren places, and she’s a fantastic woman because she’s resilient… and because she has the ability to see everything in a dreamlike manner.”  Even if being transsexual is a ‘flaw’ in some way, there’s more to each of us than our flaws.  The director and co-writer, Sebastián Lelio, says this is “a movie about empathy, limitations, [and] meaning…. What are we willing to allow – as individuals and society?  [And] who decides what is legitimate in terms of love?”

The film is replete with imagery of water (opening with waterfalls and the shimmering, lyrical musical score by Matthew Herbert).  There’s an inventive use of reflections, and the sense of self-identity they convey, when Marina sees herself reflected in a large shimmering mirror being carried down a city street.  Later, she reclines naked on a couch, with her private parts covered by a mirror.  The film flirts with moments of magic-realism and aims for a poetical, impressionistic tone:  It earns points for striving for artistry.  In addition to its Oscar, “A Fantastic Woman” won Best Film, Actress, and Director (among others) at awards celebrating Ibero-American cinema (i.e. the films of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal).  The Blu-ray from Sony has an illuminating 33-minute feature.  (There’s also a full-length commentary; but, alas, said commentary seems to be in Spanish only, without subtitles, which is a major oversight.)   For ages 18+:  Coarse language, brief partial nudity, brief mild sexual content, adult subject-matter, and a moderately disturbing (non-sexual) assault.

“Fishbowl California” (USA, 2018) (B-/B):  We weren’t sure we were going to like this low-budget indie at first, but it quickly

won us over with its odd couple relationship.  It’s the unconventional friendship between a 30-ish guy and a 60-ish gal.  Rodney (Steve Olson) is meant to be a lovable loser.  There’s a bit of Mr. Bean to him – he’s almost sort of sweet (a scatological act of petty vengeance goes too far in the opposite direction), sometimes sort of a dolt, and almost always completely self-indulgent.  Other characters don’t mince words in assessing Rodney:  “You entitled punk,” says one; “You’re a weird little man,” says another.  He’s unemployed and not very motivated to do anything about it.  He’s a bit of a ‘slacker,’ if that term is used anymore.  Suddenly homeless, he meets his equal and opposite number in June (Katherine Cortez) – an ornery, stubborn, cigar-smoking, hard-drinking dame (reminiscent of Frances McDormand’s Mildred in “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri”).  She’s hard-boiled and no-nonsense, but somehow they’re good for each others – as friends and foils.  Cortez seems to have worked mostly on the small screen, but she sure makes an impression here.  Olson is good in the male lead (though the way his character is written sometimes teeters on over-the-top), but Cortez is excellent – we’d even say award-caliber.  Their story, directed by Michael A. Macrae (who also co-wrote the film), has a quirky sensibility, with nice dryly comedic bits with assorted supporting players.  Watch for a job interview, for instance, which has Rodney’s prospective employer observing, “I didn’t intend on replacing one idiot with another.”  For ages 18+ only:  Coarse language.  Note:  The DVD stalled as the opening scene was to begin (on three different devices) and had to be forced ahead past that brief technical glitch; but the issue did not recur again during playback.

“20th Century Women” (USA, 2016) (B+):  Dorothea (Annette Bening, who was so good in 2017’s “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool”) is a free spirit – independent-minded, modern, liberated, and ahead of her time.  It’s 1979 in Santa Barbara, California.  At 55, Dorothea is the single mother of teenaged Jamie (Lucas Jude Zumann, who plays Gilbert Blythe in CBC’s “Anne”).  She wants her son to have help figuring out ‘how to become a good man,’ so her enlists the aid of others.  There’s Julie (Elle Fanning) the worldly 17-year-old neighbor who is Jamie’s best friend.  Julie climbs in Jamie’s window most nights.  They sleep together, but only literally.  Jamie wants more (he’s in love with Julie), but Julie craves the innocent type of emotional intimacy they share – something she lacks elsewhere in her life.  And, there’s Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a punk artist dealing with a major health scare who is boarding in Dorothea’s house.  Also in the mix is William (Billy Crudup), a one-time hippy who is doing the one-man restoration of Dorothea big old house in exchange for board.  These five characters form an unconventional surrogate family in this offbeat, quirky, but surprisingly endearing character study.  Five solid performances make for a strong ensemble piece, one of the best films of its year.

Written and directed by Mike Mills, “20th Century Women” was nominated at the Oscars for Original Screenplay and at the Golden Globes for Best Film and Actress.  The U.S. National Board of Review had it on their list of the year’s top ten independent films.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language, very brief nudity, and very frank sexual talk.

“Proud Mary” (USA, 2018) (C):  If you ask us, Taraji P. Henson is the cat’s meow.  We’ve thought so since the first time we saw her – opposite Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 2007’s excellent “Talk to Me.”  She likewise made an impression in “Hidden Figures” (2016) and in television’s “Person of Interest” (2011-15), though even she couldn’t save the recent abysmal “Acrimony.”   Here, she’s in action mode as a cool as a cucumber professional hit-woman employed by a Boston mob headed by Danny Glover and Mary’s ex (played by Billy Brown).  She’s ‘bad-ass’ and deadly.  But, lingering guilt over a past lethal assignment prompts her to keep a discrete eye on the boy she made an orphan.  A year later, she intervenes to help him; but taking him under her wing creates all sorts of trouble in the underworld, inadvertently sparking a mob war.  The premise that a professional killer could segue so abruptly into surrogate mother mode is mighty far-fetched, but Henson charismatically sells her transformative shift in a better self.   And, this is, after all, a kind of gritty fantasy:  The title song plays as Mary single-handedly takes out an entire den of armed mobsters.  And we root for her.  She’s surprisingly sympathetic for someone in her line of work, and we implicitly assume that the victims of her past paid assassinations were probably all bad guys anyway (as opposed to law-abiding citizens).  Henson says the film says that “anybody can change,” even “a dangerous hit-woman [with] the heart of a mother.”  For ages 18+: Some coarse language; and violence.

“Black Panther” (USA, 2018) (B-/B):  A hidden kingdom in the heart of Africa, a young new king, a miracle metal that’s the

foundation of an entire society, and an embittered expatriate – these are the key building blocks in Marvel’s latest comic book-derived superhero movie.  He’s a man in an impervious panther-like outfit, endowed with superhuman strength and reflexes.  T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman, with an accent that’s akin to Nelson Mandela’s) is a dignified, composed leader, and he is surrounded by a bunch of strong women – his Queen Mother (Angela Bassett), his tech-wiz prodigy of a sister (Letitia Wright), the general in charge of his royal bodyguard (Danai Gurira of “The Walking Dead”), and his chief undercover agent and love-interest (Lupita Nyong’O).  The distaff members of the cast, fearless capable women all, are the film’s secret weapon.  And there are numerous other capable and engaging players among the cast, though we’re not sold on the chief villain (Michael B. Jordan) really being a sympathetic character with half-justified grievances, as others have suggested.  With a name (“Killmonger”) that gives it all away, he talks a good game about the oppression of black people, but he’s happy enough slaughtering people of all hues.

It’s a solid superhero movie, but that alone cannot account for its immense success at the box office.  Its black empowerment theme is likely to be the secret of its success.  There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is extraneous to the actual merits of the storytelling.  And there’s something that strikes a false note.  The fictional kingdom of Wakanda is presented as some kind of utopia, but the facts don’t bear out that kind of high esteem.  Yes, they are very advanced technologically – though just how their mere monopoly of a rare metal propels them into advanced scientific and engineering achievements is never addressed:  “vibranium” is just a raw material, after all; it does not magically enhance intelligence or innovation.  In any case, there are few signs that this society is as advanced or enlightened as the story suggests.  Consider these facts:  (1) one-fifth of the kingdom’s people have opted out of participation; (2) those self-same internal exiles like to make their entrance grunting like gorillas, wearing primitive animal masks; (3) accession to the throne is by lethal hand-to-hand combat (how ‘civilized’ is that?), though a defeated combatant has the option of yielding instead of dying; (4) a total stranger, who is both a usurper and a self-proclaimed mass murderer, is accepted as a legitimate claimant to the throne; and (5) this supposedly peaceable kingdom falls into ferocious civil war at the proverbial drop of a hat.  Among the Blu-Ray extras, there’s a brief summary of the first ten years of Marvel comic movies (some 18 of them, if memory serves).  For ages 13+: Violence.

“The Insult” [“L’insulte”] (France/Cyprus/Belgium/Lebanon/USA, 2017) (B-/B):  A two-word epithet, uttered in angry exasperation, creates a feud between two men that grows into a conflict between two communities in Beirut, Lebanon.   That city and that small country have seen deadly internecine violence, involving both indigenous factions and ‘outsiders’ (large numbers of Palestinian refugees).  It’s a place where nominal so-called religious affiliation is just code for hostile political camps, ranging from the right-wing Christian Phalange party, to Hezbollah (a Shi’a Islamist party supported by Iran), to the Palestinians.  The second half of the twentieth century saw various sectarian groups in Lebanon break into bitter, ugly, and protracted violence against their foes.  The film alludes to a massacre of Christians by Palestinians in the small town of Damour in 1976; but there was also the infamous massacre carried out by Phalangists in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, which coincided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.  This film takes place in the present: violent conflict inside the country has ended, but there is a legacy of civil war, brutal violence, rival paramilitary forces, check-points, entrenched social and political division, and abiding resentment.

It is precisely those resentments (and the sectarian hatred they perpetuate) that fuel the anger, pride, obstinacy, and sense of grievance that lets something as small as two crude words spark an escalating conflict that quickly spirals out of control.   It all starts with a balcony gutter.  Water from a planter is falling on the heads of passers-by below.  When the foreman of a construction crew asks for access to the apartment, he is rudely rebuffed by the tenant.  Tempers flare, words are uttered, apologies stick in the craw, and, later, something truly hateful is said, a brief physical blow is struck, and what started as a needless dispute between two men comes to represent the veiled hostility of two communities.  The whole thing ends up in court.  Directed and co-written by Ziad Doueiri, the film is a morality tale about causality and fault.  Someone loses his job, someone else has a miscarriage. How far-removed from the underlying conflict, born of mutual stubbornness, do such events have to be to attribute responsibility or blame?   When do words spoken in anger (“I wish Ariel Sharon had wiped you all out,” an uttered wish for genocide) become unlawful hate speech?  Can we escape the dark legacy of past grievances and the mutual antagonism it fuels?

The film holds our interest, but it never fully connects us with either of its antagonists.  Tony (Abdel Karam), the Beirut native and card-carrying Phalangist, is all seething anger; a state that’s too infrequently mitigated by any kinder, gentler moments, even with his lovely wife (Rita Hayek).  Yasser (the Palestinian engineer who is under-employed, but content, as a construction foreman) is conscientious and efficient when we first see him on the job.  But he soon recedes, becoming all but invisible under a cloak of quiet, oddly impassive, brooding.  He won’t apologize for calling Tony an “effing p***k,” the words that ostensibly start the feud (though Tony’s barely veiled bigotry is the real catalyst); nor does he say much at all.  Between his frowning silence and Tony’s anger issues, it’s pretty hard to relate to either man.   They skirt becoming clichés, rather than fully realized individuals, which is a missed opportunity.

Likewise, the screenplay is somewhat heavy-handed in telling their story, when nuance and subtlety would have been more satisfying.  We get hints of it from other characters, like Tony’s wife, who sarcastically asks her husband, “Which came first, the gutter or the p***k?” and Yasser’s (Christine Choueriri) who sensibly tells him, “You insulted a man, now fix it.”  Yasser’s immediate employer (Talal Jurdi) is likewise a sympathetic character.  The actors (Camille Salameh and Diamond Abou Abboud) portraying the opposing counsel do good work.  But the legal case struggles with wildly implausible courtroom antics (that have both lawyers improperly speechifying in mid-case) and inadmissible digressions into historical stuff and matters not germane to this specific case getting didactically trotted-out.  Over-all, the film is good, but a tad heavy-handed, falling short of its full potential.  The DVD from Cohen Media Group has an interesting 33-minute conversation with the director.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language

“All the Money in the World” (USA/Italy, 2017) (B-): The big news about director Ridley Scott’s film was the last minute replacement of a key player, which necessitated re-shooting all his scenes mere weeks before release.  The idea was to detach the film from any scandal associated with Kevin Spacey by replacing him with Christopher Plummer, after the film had already been shot.  That adds to the film’s curiosity value, though, of course, it has no bearing on the merits of the finished work.  It’s based on the true story about a young American kidnapped for ransom off the streets of Rome in 1973.  He is targeted because his grandfather, John Paul Getty (Plummer), is the richest man in the world.  (What a 16-year-old kid is doing blithely strolling alone at night in an area favored by prostitutes, without any provision for his security, is never addressed.)  The story moves between the victim’s mother (Michelle Williams), her greedy father-in-law (Canada’s Christopher Plummer), the kidnapped teen (Charlie Plummer, who is no relation in real life to his kin in the film), and a fixer (Mark Wahlberg) employed by Getty to deal with the situation (in the film’s most satisfying line, he ultimately gets to denounce his employer as a “rapacious old eff.”

The trouble is that neither the story nor the characters ever really connect with us.  They always feel distant, and there’s no emotional impact.  The most human of the bunch is an implausibly likeable and halfway decent kidnapper (Romain Duris’ Cinquanta), though his fundamental decency is a bit hard to accept as realistic.  Wahlberg’s character is surprisingly ineffectual for an ex-spy; Plummer (the elder) does a good job as a thoroughly unlikable miser.  Williams should be the emotional anchor here, surely, since her son is in mortal danger.  But her character is a cold fish, emotionally opaque.  There’s something too studied, mannered, and reserved about her.  Is it a flaw in the performance, or the way they’ve deliberately portrayed her character?  Either way, we get nothing to hang on to.

We sure didn’t need the brutal violence of the mutilation scene.  Why not take care of that awful business off-screen?  Plot-wise, there’s a great deal of flitting back and forth between Rome and the U.K. by plane.  Why not pick up the telephone, instead?  Williams’ character also has a daughter, but she’s barely seen.  We’re told Getty Sr. has a bevy of other grandchildren, but we get no sense at all what kind of relationship he has with them.  A sudden pivotal change of heart late in the film is too abrupt and unexplained:  there’s no accompanying character arc to support it.  Why does no one suggest that Getty hire a crack squad of investigators and enforcers to track down and deal with the bad guys?  Why does it likewise never occur to the villains that they are apt to be making a lethal enemy of a rich and powerful figure?  Christopher Plummer was an Oscar nominee as Best Supporting Actor for this role.  For ages 18+:  Some coarse language; some violence; brutal (and disturbing) violence in one scene.

“Paddington 2” (U.K/France/USA, 2017) (B/B+): “He looks for the good in all of us and somehow he finds it.  It’s why he makes friends wherever he goes”   That’s the simple, but uplifting, gist of the continuing story of Paddington, the sweet, kind little talking bear in a floppy hat and rain-slicker.  More of a teddy-bear than the sort you’d encounter in the wild, he immigrated to England from South America in 2014’s “Paddington” and found an adoptive human family.  His adventures continue here as his quest to earn enough money to buy an antique book for his aunt runs afoul of a master of disguise who is intent on stealing self-same book. Paddington ends up in the hoosegow, framed for a heist he did not commit, but before long he wins the inmates to his cause, with generous helpings of marmalade.  The loveable ursine lead (gently voiced by Ben Whishaw) is surrounded by a very accomplished cast of thespians from the British Isles, among them Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins (of “Maudie”), Brendan Gleeson, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon, Peter Capaldi, and, in a key role, Hugh Grant.   The result is sweet, funny, and endearing – good fun for all ages.

“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” (U.K., 2017) (B+/A-):  Here’s a lovely surprise – an original, beautifully acted love story

about a deeply romantic love and the inevitability of loss:  “Every glimpse of you could undo me” say the apt lyrics of the end credits Elvis Costello song.   It’s based on the real-life love story between a one-time Hollywood screen star and her younger English paramour.  She’s in her mid fifties; he’s in his late twenties.  She’s come down in her work, now playing roles in modest British stage productions; he’s an actor at the beginning of his career.  Gloria Grahame was “a proper film star,” as one character puts it, in the Fifties, “a bloke’s actress” best known as a femme fatale (someone recognizes her and says, “I recognize that pout”) in film noir dramas like “The Bad and the Beautiful” (which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), “In a Lonely Place,” and “The Big Sleep.”  She played Violet, the gal who didn’t get George Bailey, but who did get redeemed from the looming danger of becoming a fallen woman, in the classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”   She also played Ado Annie, ‘the girl who couldn’t say no,’ in “Oklahoma!”  Although the film doesn’t specifically mention it, Grahame also appeared on many television programs once her film heyday waned with the arrival of the Sixties.

Annette Bening delivers a beautiful, award caliber performance as Grahame – at once sexy, vulnerable, and sweet, she is simply irresistible.  She’s got her character’s ‘baby-girl’ sexpot voice down pat (for those not instantly familiar with Grahame’s voice, a more recent vocal cousin might be Melanie Griffith), but there’s also a warm maturity about her, and we want to bask in her glow.  And, if there were any doubt, middle age can be sexy – just witness Bening’s disco dance workout.  But, as strong as Bening is (and she ought to have had an Oscar nomination for this role), this isn’t a one-woman show.  Jamie Bell does very strong work (perhaps his best ever to date) as Peter Turner, upon whose memoir the screenplay is based.  And there are excellent supporting turns by Julie Walters as his mother, Kenneth Cranham as his gentle, soft-spoken father, and (in her single scene) a glowing Vanessa Redgrave as Grahame’s English actress mother.

Much of the film takes place in he eponymous working-class burgh of the title, but there are excursions to L.A. and New York; and the film handles the transitions in setting (be it geographical, or, more importantly, temporal) with artistic originality.  In one case, the camera circles the room; when it completes its 360-degree transit, we’ve returned to the present (1981) from a prolonged flashback to the late Seventies.  Another cinematic switch takes place when Peter is on the telephone – night becomes day and grey Liverpool becomes sunny California.  (Grahame sure has a room with a view there:  It’s a modest home, but it’s right on the ocean!)   Later, we see bits of several related scenes from Grahame and Turner’s relationship over again – this time, from her point of view.  That change of perspective (and with our new knowledge of what is really going on) creates very affecting results.  And a touching read-through between the pair from “Romeo and Juliet” uses Shakespeare’s words to give voice to this 20th century couple’s deep feelings.

Directed by Paul McGuigan, with a screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” had BAFTA nominations for Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay; and four British Independent Film Award nominations, including Actor and Actress.  The result is one of the best films of the year.  It’s a story about powerful emotions – and it moved us.  It’s not to be missed!    Among the extras on the DVD from Sony are a commentary and a conversation with Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, the director, and the real-life Peter Turner.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language, mild sexual content, and brief nudity.

“Hobbyhorse Revolution” (Finland, 2017) (B+):  And now for something completely different, here’s a documentary film from

Finland, written and directed by Selma Vilhunen, about the hitherto unknown sport of competitive hobbyhorse riding!  Yes, that’s right – hobbyhorses, the cotton batten-stuffed, felt horse’s head attached to the end of a wooden pole. Evidently, there are 10,000 “horseists” in Finland, thousands more in Sweden, and a growing following elsewhere. The girls range in age from pre-teen to mid-teens, and the story follows several individuals at the older end of that range.  There’s something oddly fascinating about the result.  Maybe it’s the seriousness with which these girls take their hobby.  Each of them maintains a ‘riding diary,’ and they have breeds, ribbons, stables, bridles, reins, and brushes for their faux horses.  Their competitions include hurdle events and dressage.  It’s a full-on simulacrum of the real thing (except without real horses).  It’s a heady mix of innocence, joyous play, and active imagination.  But there are also hints of obsessiveness, with personalities ascribed to their inanimate steeds:  “He rides as you ask him to.  If you say trot, he trots.  You don’t have to use your whip for it.”  Elsewhere, there’s a moment when such remarks sound as if they may have a sexual double entendre meaning; but the moment is ambiguous:  doubtless, the actual conscious intent is innocent, or, in the alternative, something is simply getting lost in the translation to the English subtitles.

We are bemused by the sheer conviction of these ersatz equestrians.  And, truth be told, there is unexpected artistry in their movements.  Each girl’s own legs mimic the movements of her imaginary equine mount – trotting and sauntering with uncanny verisimilitude.  When you get right down to it, maybe the girls’ hobby isn’t as eccentric as it seems:  it both emulates real horseback riding techniques and may also be distant kin to rhythmic gymnastics, with the hobbyhorse as a prop.  In the end, it’s a girl-power fable, complete with a sweetly triumphant ending.  The girls are by no means objects of pity or mirth; but there’s something ineffably bittersweet about their story, as they trot and canter to the sound of their own drummers.  For ages 18+: Occasional coarse language.  [Note:  There’s just one flaw here:  The subtitles are way too small and hard to read against light backgrounds.]

“In Between” [“Bar Bahar”] (Israel/France, 2016) (B/B+):  Here’s a low-key look at the lives of three young Arab women who share a flat in Tel Aviv.  Laila (Mouna Hawa) is a lawyer by day and a party-girl after dark.  She drinks, she smokes, and she dances the night away.   Salma (Sana Jammelieh) is a DJ and bartender, sporting a facial piercing and a quiet preference for her own gender.  The newcomer, Nour (Shaden Kanboura), is working on her final exams in computer science.  She is conservative, engaged (through what seems to be an arranged pairing), and traditionally attired in a headscarf.  The other two are utterly secular, modern, and worldly.  All three are engaging characters in a story about relationships.  We like these women, even if aspects of their behavior (e.g. drinking to excess and experimenting with drugs) may not appeal.  We expected a collision in values and lifestyle among the three, but that would be too conventional.  Instead, the tensions actually appear elsewhere – with their respective families and partners.

The result isn’t about Middle Eastern politics.  Instead, it’s about three women trying to inhabit the space between the demands and expectations of their families and culture.  What lies between traditionalism and modernity, between gender-specific compliance and individual freedom?  These interesting, sympathetic protagonists seek to find their own way between competing allegiances and overbearing demands to conform.  Who will support them, and who will not, is a question that yields some unexpected answers – with gentle kindness coming from a more ‘traditional’ man and harsh rejection from an ostensibly liberal one.      

Written and directed by Maysaloun Hamoud, “In Between” earned nominations in twelve categories at Israel’s academy awards (including Best Film and Director), winning for Best Actress (M. Hawa) and Supporting Actress (S. Kanboura).  For ages 18+:  Coarse language; and sexual content (in the form of sexual violence) in one scene.

The DVD’s accompanying short film is:   “Scent of the Morning” [a.k.a “Sense of Morning”] (Israel, 2010) (B-/B): In 1982, the city of Beirut (in Lebanon) was under attack by land, sea, and air by the Israeli armed forces.  But this quixotic 8-minute short film, written and directed by Maysaloun Hamoud, isn’t interested in the geopolitics of that conflict.  Rather, it all takes place in small apartment of a lone young man who lies awake in bed.  It’s 5:30 a.m.; but the din and flash of explosions outside makes sleep impossible.  A voice-over narration immerses us in his stream of consciousness thoughts:  it’s a blend of the poetic, the whimsical, and the darkly humorous (the explosions are likened to “daybreak riding on fire… roosters made of metal”).   The sleepless figure in striped pajamas claustrophobically stalks his small apartment, becoming ever more obsessed with one thing – a cup of coffee:  “I want the aroma of coffee.  I want nothing more… I want five minutes truce for the sake of coffee.”  Coffee – is it a distraction to forget the incessant danger brewing outside?  Or is it just a quotidian signifier of normality in a world seemingly flying off its hinges?  Either way, it’s couched in a kind of arch poetic tone (“coffee is the sound of taste, the sound of the aroma”) that plays with our expectations of what rises to the poetical:  When you get right down to it, maybe it’s the most mundane trappings of our lives that are most deserving of elegy?   The result is very simple, but engagingly sly.

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (USA, 2017) (B/B+):  “Something inside me has always been there; but now it’s awake, and I’m afraid.  I don’t know what it is and what to do with it, and I need help.”  The ‘something’ that Rey (Daisy Ridley) is talking about is ‘the Force,’ and the person from whom she is seeking help is an embittered and reclusive Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).  But his response isn’t what she’s looking for:  “You need a teacher.  I can’t help you.”  Luke’s rejection of the Force, the Jedi, and further involvement in the galaxy’s unending conflict is one of many unexpected turns taken by the latest installment in the “Star Wars” series.  Had it followed the established patterns, a warm mentor and protégé relationship would have ensued – and Luke would have returned as the hero of the struggle.  But things are a bit more complex in writer/director Rian Johnson’s film.  And that’s a very good thing when it comes to a couple of characters whom we wrote off as uninspired (and irritating) in the first film in the new series, 2015’s “The Force Awakens,”  namely, the fallen son of Han Solo and Leia, and his evil master, an alien being with the unimpressive name of Snoke.  To say that Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) was underwhelming in the first film is an understatement of galactic proportions.  His peevish whining and pointlessly poseur ways made us long for the good old days when Darth Vader commanded the screen.  To our astonishment, the second film actually makes him interesting.  And the filmmakers are sly enough to overtly reference one of his silliest affectations, a completely pointless (and improbably heavy) face covering:  His master tells him to ‘take that ridiculous thing off,’ words we longed to say ourselves.  And Adam Driver conveys conflicted much better than he did the one-dimensional treachery of the first film.  There’s still no convincing rationale for the son of two of the original series’ heroes turning to the dark side, but now, at least, the character comes across as multi-dimensional.  Just as startlingly, the CGI villain-in-chief, Snoke (Andy Serkis in another ‘motion-capture’ role), graduates from cartoon to visceral menace in this installment.

The story’s two main branches involve Rey’s interactions with Luke on an isolated world portrayed by the striking Irish island of Skellig Michael, and the diminished Rebel fleet, led by Leia (the late Carrie Fisher), in imminent, protracted, danger of annihilation at the hands of pursuing ‘First Order’ ships.  The pursuit storyline is pretty basic, but it’s meant to keep the suspense on simmer with alternating moments of action and character development.  It’s nice to see more time devoted to the latter, as we can take only so many space battles and explosions.  A long side-trip by two characters to a casino planet works okay on its own merits, but it feels like an unnecessary digression in the context of the overall story.  And, a dark side hall of mirrors sequence is kind of pointless.

The film has welcome cameos (guess who says, “The greatest teacher, failure is”), nicely quiet interaction between Luke and Rey on that aforementioned real-world island marvel, and a great line, when Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux sarcastically asks Kylo, “Do you think you got him?” after a massive concentration of fire against a single foe.  There are some new Puffin-like critters (the Porg), who seem to have been cynically designed by product marketers to be cute – and, guess what, they are irresistibly adorable.  There’s the occasional trite remnant of franchise lexicon, like “Reach out with your feelings.”  Some crystalline felines look neat, but that’s the only reason they’re there.  That’s a trait they have in common with too many other alien beings and technological contraptions in the franchise, which, characteristically, always leads with the assumption that there’s no need for the subtle or understated when overkill will do.  And there’s a curious instance of a key character inexplicably surviving exposure to the cold vacuum of space – with no protective gear.  It’s meant to be inspiring, we suppose, but our raised eyebrows got in the way of our appreciation.

“The Last Jedi” is a marked improvement over its disappointing predecessor, “The Force Awakens.”  Truly satisfying movies in the “Star Wars” franchise are few and far between.  “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) still towers over the rest, as the reigning best of the series (by a parsec), with 2016’s stand-alone prequel, “Rogue One,” taking second place, thanks in part to the return of Darth Vader and its more serious tone.  But “The Last Jedi,” which in some respects resembles “The Empire Strikes Back,” is hard on the heels of the second-place winner, propelled by its attention to characterization and its degree of originality in taking some unexpected turns.

The DVD/Blu-ray combo-set from Disney has a nice array of extras, such as fourteen deleted scenes, a full-length commentary, and an interesting look at Andy Serkis’s performance in a key scene, without the CGI overlay.  Sadly, the trailers for the film are missing in action (as they were for “Rogue One”) when they ought to be de rigueur inclusions on every DVD.  “The Last Jedi” was nominated for four Oscars in technical categories.  The genre-based Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films gave it 13 nominations, though, curiously, no wins.  For ages 13+: Violence.

“Downsizing” (USA, 2017) (B):  “We are proud to unveil… the only practical, humane, and inclusive remedy to humanity’s greatest problem.”  If over-population (and its consequent ever-increasing consumption of resources and creation of waste) is the problem; then is a scientific breakthrough that can shrink an adult human being down to a mere five inches high the solution?  It’s touted as the magic bullet to sustainability:  Those who opt to join “the community of the small” will consume only a tiny fraction of the resources they once did and produce a correspondingly negligible amount of waste.  Their footprint upon planet Earth will be small, very small indeed – both literally and figuratively.  And, for those motivated by more crass considerations, getting small means that your financial resources will go a long, long way.  Living small means living the high life:  Dream-house mansions become attainable for the average guy.

Paul (Matt Damon) is one of those average guys – a man whose goal of med-school was derailed by the need to care for his ailing mother.  He’s doing okay as an occupational therapist, but a modestly bigger house is beyond the means of him and his wife (Kristen Wiig).   So, they decide to go small.  (Their $152,000 in equity translates into $12.5 million in the world of the small – enough live on, very comfortably, for life.)  But things don’t work out as planned.  Paul finds himself single.  Without the combined resources that were to finance a lifetime of leisure in the small world, he’s obliged to take unfulfilling work in a call center (yes, the small world has those, too).  His dreary life seems to be the sum total of a succession of disappointments.  But, that’s when things take some unexpected turns thanks to quirky strangers who enter his life – in the form of an irrepressible jet-setting neighbor (Christophe Waltz), a one-legged Vietnamese refugee who works as a domestic cleaner (Hong Chau), a self-styled sailor (Udo Kier), and the prominent scientist who invented the downsizing procedure (Rolf Lassgard).

The result is a fable about finding meaning and happiness in life – with a story that combines straight-faced humor, social satire, romance, and redemption.  It requires two-fold suspension of disbelief – first, to accept that such a thing could be scientifically possible, and second, to accept that anyone would want to be shrunk (it’s an irreversible process).  Early in the film, someone remarks, “I don’t get it.  Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?”    It’s a good question.  And think about the impracticality of the whole thing:  Only organic material can be shrunk; therefore, everything else would have to be made from scratch – all the buildings, furnishings, clothing, cars, books, DVDs, CDs, machines, tools, light bulbs, dental fillings, toothbrushes, string, aspirin, et cetera ad infinitum – all of that would have to be recreated at the scale of 2,744 to 1!    Talk about reinventing the proverbial wheel!

Damon makes a likeable every-man.  At first, Hong Chau comes across as a wee bit (pun intended) of a stereotype, verging on caricature; but she grew on us (pun intended again).   Indeed, Hong Chau was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globes; while the film was nominated for Production Design at the Art Directors Guild and for the Golden Lion (Best Film) at Venice.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language (which, in one scene, is of a sexual nature).

“The Shape of Water” (USA, 2017) (A-):   Here’s a made-in-Canada fairy tale for grown-ups from director (and co-writer) Guillermo del Toro, who, incidentally, makes his home in Toronto part-time.  Poignant, whimsical, poetic, and romantic, it’s a thing of beauty, leavened, like life, by intrusions of ugliness, pain, and loss.  As its director says, “The shape of water is the shape of love.  You don’t know who you’re going to fall in love with… so it’s formless.”  This most unconventional of love stories opens with a narrator’s references to “the princess without voice,” a “tale of love and loss,” and “the monster who tried to destroy it all.”  We meet a sweet, seemingly unprepossessing young woman.  Her daily routines are accented by recurring splashes of a muted sea green, touches of teal that prefigure the importance of water in what’s to come.  Elisa is a quiet young woman – quiet out of necessity as she was born mute.  She lives above a cinema – the Orpheum, named, we suppose, after Orpheus, the Greek poet and maker of divine music who sought to rescue his beloved from the underworld.  Elisa enters an underworld of a more practical sort in the Gothic dungeon of a secret government facility where she works as a cleaner.  And there she encounters a beloved who is most definitely in need of rescue.

Shackled and tormented by a cruel captor, the facility’s new ‘asset’ (marked for study and vivisection) is a humanoid amphibian.  He’s an object of fear and loathing to some; but Elisa feels no fear of him; rather, she feels fascination and a slowly developing attraction.  He’s the loneliest thing she’s ever seen.  He is beautiful to her, and she to him:  “The way he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.  He sees me as I am.  He’s happy to see me every day.”   It is Elisa’s nature to be kind to him, smuggling him boiled eggs, playing music for him on a phonograph, teaching him sign language, and ultimately risking everything in an effort to save him.  And in del Toro’s hands, it’s not the creature who is the monster of this story.  Instead, we get a story infused with ‘heart and morality,’ as one of the cast puts it, a variation on “Beauty and the Beast,” in which the beast does not transform into an ordinary man at the end.

While wholly original, the film can claim some kinship to “Amélie” in its first act, with charming moments of whimsy that, for instance, have Elisa tap dance her way down the hall outside her apartment.  Her best friend is a single older man, a commercial artist who loves old movie musicals and prefers traditional painted illustrating to the photography that’s displacing it.  Loving attention has been paid to the 1960’s set design:  it’s a time when all eyes are trained on modernity and the future.  Traditional ways of doing things (and traditional values) are getting overlooked; but, not by Elisa.  Sally Hawkins delivers her second award-caliber performance of the year (after her masterful work in “Maudie”).  There’s an innocence and sweetness to her that is extremely engaging.  We were somewhat surprised by the filmmakers’ recurring references to her sex life.  But, then, she’s meant to be a woman, not a girl – good but not naïve, and not without physical desire.  The rest of the cast is likewise first-rate, with Richard Jenkins (as Elisa’s friend at home), Octavia Spencer (as her amusing friend at work), Michael Stulhbarg as a sympathetic scientist, Michael Shannon (as the cruel villain of the piece), and a heavily made-up Doug Jones as the sentient amphibian man who is object of Elisa’s love.  And watch for Canada’s Nigel Bennett as a Russian spy, and Nick Searcy as an unforgiving military man.

Much like del Toro’s 2006 masterpiece, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water” (which comes close to equaling that earlier film) juxtaposes moments of whimsy and innocence with moments of violence and harshness.  It’s a drastic, even jarring, juxtaposition, but both elements feel completely authentic – and, remember, this is a fairy tale for grown-ups.  It combines gritty realities with poetic flights of fancy.  But it’s not for viewers under the age of 18, that’s for dead-certain!

“The Shape of Water” is one of the very best films of 2017.  It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, and Cinematography; and it won Oscars as Best Film of the Year, Director, Music, and Production Design – all of them richly deserved.  It won the Golden Lion (Best Film) at Venice, as well as three other awards there.  The American Film Institute named it Movie of the Year.  The National Society of Film Critics (USA) named Sally Hawkins as the year’s Best Actress.  It also earned a great many other nominations and awards – at BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild, and elsewhere.   It’s a must-see film.   Its DVD and Blu-ray extras shed very interesting behind-the-scenes light on the look, meaning, and music of the story.   For ages 18+ only: Nudity; sexual content; coarse language; violence; and some briefly gruesome content.

“Becoming Jane” (U.K./Ireland, 2007) (B+/A-):  Though her witty novels about 18th century English women and the society they inhabit are beloved by readers the world over, very little is known about the life of Jane Austen herself.  This charming biopic combines fact with speculation and plays very much like an Austen novel itself – complete with a smart, observant heroine, a circle of family and friends populated by well-drawn characters, and an affair of the heart that’s beset by social conventions of the day:  “Affection is desirable; money is absolutely indispensable.”  Best known for lighter fare, Anne Hathaway pulls off the role admirably and she’s ably supported by James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Lucy Cohu (who makes a strong impression as Jane’s cousin Eliza De Feuillide), Ian Richardson, Anna Maxwell Martin, and Maggie Smith.  “Becoming Jane” had three nominations (including Best Film) at Ireland’s academy awards and a Best Actress nomination at the British Independent Film Awards.  The result is irresistible – a must-see for all devotees of Austen’s timeless tales.

“Dunkirk” (The Netherlands/France/U.K./USA, 2017) (B+):  It opens with a handful of British soldiers making their way in silence down a deserted street in a French town, while printed propaganda flyers float down from the sky promising their imminent doom.  Then, sudden gunfire:  They bolt, but all but one of them is felled by the unseen enemy.  And that enemy (the advancing German forces) remains all but unseen for the entire movie.  Interestingly, not seeing the foe actually adds to the sense of approaching menace.  The surviving soldier makes it to the beach, where thousands of British soldiers are mustered, forlornly waiting for rescue before they are captured or annihilated.  Enemy planes fly by, dropping bombs – death is near.  Writer/director Christopher Nolan’s account of the events of May 26 – June 4, 1940 has three overlapping fields of play, each with its own time-frame:  A full week unfolds on the beach, on or near ‘the mole’ (the sole anchorage in the harbor); one day unfolds at sea (aboard one of the civilian boats that joins the ragtag evacuation armada); and a single hour takes place in the air above the Channel (with an RAF Spitfire pilot).

On the beach, we follow the story of one, then two, then three infantrymen (Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, and Harry Styles) and their desperate efforts to get off that beach.  They employ ingenuity and outright deceit to survive.  Every gambit they try seems to fail.  Are they unlucky?  Maybe, or maybe not:  After all, they survive each effort (sunken ships and more) to try again (and again).  Their story has scarcely any dialogue.  But their desperate struggle to survive couldn’t be clearer.  Meanwhile, aboard a small private boat, the shell-shocked survivor (Cillian Murphy) of a U-boat attack panics at the prospect of heading back into mortal danger:  “I’m not going back.  I’m not going back…. If we go there, we’ll die.”  But the civilian skipper (played by Mark Rylance with admirable humanity and dignity) is not for turning:  “We have a job to do… There’s no hiding from this, son.”  His quiet courage, calm, and sense of duty are doubtless qualities shared by the many civilian crews who answered the call to rescue their endangered army.  And, in the skies above, a lone surviving Spitfire pilot (Tom Hardy) desperately tries to protect his countrymen below from airborne attack.

We get many stories in miniature, with moments of hope, fear, and loss.  There’s the British naval commander (Kenneth Branagh) supervising the hazardous queue atop the very exposed mole.  There are cries of “Don’t leave us!  Help us!” in the dark of night as a solitary ship pulls away from the shore.  (Those left behind will soon have reason to be glad they are not aboard.)   There are moments of panic, and even fleeting instances of cowardice, but many more of courage.  For those on the beach, at sea, or in the air, the key word is determination.  That quality, perhaps more than any other, is what saw the astonishing deliverance of more than 300,000 men from a dire and seemingly hopeless fate.

Sound and music are used to strong effect in the film, with composer Hans Zimmer delivering an ominous score that effectively conveys urgency and relentless tension.  The music also incorporates a modified (slower) musical quotation from “Nimrod” (instantly recognizable and inspiring music from Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” beloved of anglophiles everywhere).  And, visually, the large expanses of sky, sea, and sand reduce the size of the story’s human players to very small figures in a very dangerous environment.   Among its many nominations and awards, “Dunkirk” was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Film), and it won for Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing.  Both the American Film Institute and the U.S. National Board of Review placed it on their list of the year’s best films.    For ages 18+:  Brief coarse language.

“Darkest Hour” (USA/U.K., 2017) (A-):  “We shall not flag or fail.  We shall go on to the end… We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be… We shall never surrender!”  It’s easy to see why Gary Oldman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill:  He delivers a bravura performance as the newly appointed British Prime Minister in May 1940.  France and the Low Countries are in the process of being overrun by the German blitzkrieg, and the British Army is surrounded, facing annihilation.  A decisive leader who can unify the nation is needed, as never before.  But, Churchill is disliked by his own Conservative Party, and senior figures in that party are keen on dumping him unless he agrees to negotiate with the enemy.  (We wanted to shout at those advocating ‘seeking terms’ from the Nazis that this is a war cabinet, not a capitulation cabinet!)  Churchill’s instinct and conviction is that the United Kingdom must fight on, alone if needs be, until the bitter end:  “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!”

“Darkest Hour” follows a few days in the life of Churchill, days when Britain was in mortal peril.  The film is structured around several of his speeches – to Parliament, or to the nation via radio.  Oldman the actor disappears, and Winston Churchill appears before our eyes in all his stubborn rhetorical glory.  He is a fallible human being, capable of self-doubt despite all his bluster; and he inspires a spectrum of reactions in others.  King George VI confesses to feeling a little afraid of his new Prime Minster, never knowing what he will say next.  Churchill says about himself: “I am unwanted.”  And, in an amusing sequence, the camera flits between different pairs of parliamentarians as they walk the halls of Westminster talking about Churchill:  “He’s an actor, in love with the sound of his own voice…. I love to listen to him.  But we must never take his advice.  He has a hundred ideas a day.  Four of them are good, the other 96 downright dangerous.”

There’s an excellent supporting cast here, with the likes of Kristin Scott Thomas as Churchill’s wife Clementine, Lily James as his new secretary, Ben Mendelsohn as the king, Ronald Pickup as the former P.M. (Neville Chamberlain), and Stephen Dillane as the political rival Viscount Halifax.  But all eyes are on Oldman in this finely crafted character study, which combines drama, inner conflict, humor, wit, and abundant humanity.  (Look for an affecting scene with Churchill interacting with ordinary people aboard the underground train.)  Among its great many nominations and awards, “Darkest Hour” earned six Academy Award nominations (including Best Film), winning for Best Actor, as well as Makeup & Hairstyling.  Oldman also clinched Best Actor wins at BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Golden Globes.  The result, from director Joe Wright, is one of the best films of the year – and not to be missed!

“Molly’s Game” (USA/Canada/China, 2017) (B):  Jessica Chastain plays another strong, smart, and driven woman in this story of an Olympic contender skier who is sidelined by a severe fluke accident, moves to L.A. to hang out and enjoy life for a year, and ends up cannily running two of the biggest and most exclusive high-stakes poker games in the United States:  “Poker was my Trojan horse into the highest level of finance, technology, politics, entertainment, [and] art.  All I had to do was listen.”   Based on a true story, the film jumps back and forth in time, charting Molly Bloom’s rise and fall.  Her ambition, her intelligence, and her resourcefulness give her material success in a seemingly glamorous life in which she nightly rubs shoulders with an array of the rich, the famous, and the powerful: “All I knew was schoolwork and skiing.  I always thought sophistication would be easy to learn if I ever needed it.”   She gets a lot of money, exclusive connections, and a sense of adventure.  But what matters more to Molly are the sense of ‘identity, respect, and a defined place in a world that was otherwise inaccessible’ to her.  Commendably, she keeps her core sense of integrity intact in the midst of a somewhat unseemly world.   And she does it all on her own, as a woman in a man’s world.  Trouble is: she runs afoul of men who resent her independent success, and that’s followed by troubles with both sides of the law.

While gambling holds no allure at all for this reviewer, the character-driven emphasis of the story does appeal.  It’s an award-caliber performance by Chastain, with nice supporting work from Idris Elba and Kevin Costner in particular.  (We only wish we’d seen more of Costner.)  For his part, the too-young Michael Cera seems wrong for the role of one of the gamblers in chief.  Watch for Canada’s Graham Greene in a small role as a judge.   The film was nominated for Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, BAFTA, the Writers Guild, and the Golden Globes; for Director at the Directors Guild; and for Actress at the Golden Globes.   For ages 18+:  Coarse language; also violence in one scene.

 “The Man Who Crossed Hitler” [a.k.a. “Hitler on Trial”] (U.K, 2011) (B/B+): “Some Germans believe that in the fight against fascism the greatest weapon is the law.”  Here’s a remarkable true story about a brave young lawyer in Berlin, a man of conviction and decency, who took it upon himself to show his fellow Germans exactly what Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were, in the admirable (but naïve, alas) expectation that they would reject the man, the party, and the ideology, once their ugliness was exposed to the light of day.  In 1930, the Nazis’ political fortunes were on the rise in the unstable Weimar Republic:  Hitler was not yet Chancellor, but his party had captured a captured more seats than ever before in the Reichstag.  Relocating from Bavaria to Berlin, Hitler was now a player on a much bigger, national stage, intent on enticing support from the middle class and from powerful industrialists.  The latter, along with more traditional political conservatives, imagined that “office will tame [Hitler].”  Surely, they insisted, his bark must be worse than his bite.  (Talk about rash and unfounded assumptions!)  Meanwhile the Nazis’ private army of thugs – the self-styled ‘storm-troopers’ of the Sturmabteilung (or SA) – clashed violently with real or supposed foes (like communists) in the streets, with sometimes deliberately lethal results.

One such incident (a mass killing at a Berlin dance hall) prompts a young German lawyer to take on the mantle of private prosecutor in a legal case brought against two of the perpetrators.  He embarks on a daring strategy to discredit the man behind the street thugs.  In his quest for absolute power, Hitler was then in the midst of attempting a delicate balancing act – enabling the violent thugs who sought out lawless aggression and physical violence, while at the same time presenting a more reasonable (and therefore palatable) façade to the middle class and industrialists whose votes he craved.  The prosecutor’s strategy?   Why, it was to subpoena Hitler to appear as a witness and expose the lie that this man of violence was a respectable politician.  “Wouldn’t it be fun to expose the man who gave the orders?”  Putting Hitler on the witness stand under fierce cross-examination would force his violent minions and the respectable folks he was wooing to face each other, exposing the contradiction while leaving these two incompatible groups “gawping at each other like cretins, wondering how the hell they belong in the same party.”

The result is a fascinating character study from the BBC, written by Mark Hayhurst and directed by Justin Hardy.  Its chief protagonist, Hans Litten (Ed Stoppard) is audacious, quick, and witty.  He is courageous, though his friend tells him “[his] ego is the size of the Brandenburg Gate.”  The people around Litten are all based on their real-life counterparts – with his close friends Margo (Sarah Smart) and Max (John Hollingworth), his mentor Rudolf Olden (Anton Lesser), and his strong-willed mother, Irmgard (Ruth McCabe):  “To our valiant friend… tomorrow, let’s see him smash fascism.”  There’s a counter-intuitive alliance of convenience with a surprisingly erudite SA leader (Ronan Vibert’s Walther Stennes) who rankles under Hitler’s momentary wish for the Nazis to present a respectable false face.  They seek to thwart a tyrant-in-the-making (played by Ian Hart) who can barely suppress his hatred and rage.   There are surprising moments of humor here – and much to admire in the protagonist’s valiant effort to expose and denounce evil.  And, here are words which we should closely heed today:  “Law is a process whereby a strong man voluntarily imposes restrictions on himself, bound by a weapon that he puts into the hands of his weaker brother.  It is what we call civilization.  [Hitler] does not conceive the law as an instrument to protect his brother, but as a tool to destroy his enemy.  He will want you to live without the law.  And therefore he will want you to live without ideas.  Your very thoughts will make you a criminal.” 

“Mrs. Brown” (U.K./Ireland/USA, 1997) (A-):  Queen Victoria is deep in mourning over the death of her beloved husband, when the Scottish Highlander charged with caring for her riding pony comes into her life.  The forthright, unembellished, and plainspoken John Brown is not one to mince words.  Indeed, his very first words to the monarch aren’t constrained at all by rank or royal propriety:  “Honest to God, woman, I never thought to see you in such a state!  You must miss him dreadfully.”  The Queen is surrounded by bowing and shuffling courtiers who maneuver for their own ends.  John Brown has none of that:  “I speak as I find,” he gruffly declares.  These two stubborn, willful, and proud people become dear friends, as a seemingly platonic love develops between them.  Brown doesn’t suffer fools gladly, however; and his imperious manner does not endear him to Victoria’s courtiers and family.  The result is an utterly charming unconventional love story with wonderfully winning performances from Judi Dench and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly.  Antony Sher and Geoffrey Palmer make impressions as the bemused Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Queen’s disapproving chief courtier, respectively; and watch for a young Gerard Butler as Brown’s younger brother.

Among its many (eminently well-deserved) awards and nominations, “Mrs. Brown” was an Oscar nominee for Best Actress and Makeup; it won Actress and Costumes at BAFTA, where it was also nominated in six other categories, including Best Film; it won Best Actress at the Golden Globes; and it was a Screen Actors Guild nominee for Actress and Supporting Actor.  It’s one of the best films of its year – a character-driven film that’s at once touching and funny.

“Your Sister’s Sister” (USA, 2011) (B-/B):  Jack (Mark Duplass) and Iris (Emily Blunt) are best friends.  Mark has been out of sorts ever since his brother died a year ago; so Iris makes an intervention, dispatching Mark to her father’s cottage on an island off the coast of Washington state:  “You just sit there and you look out at the water and you think about your life.”  But, unbeknownst to either of them, Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) is already at the cottage.  Heartbreak and too much to drink are catalysts for impulsive actions, and things get complicated in a hurry in this romantic comedy about two best friends who secretly love each other.  Shot in just twelve days on a small budget, this is a quintessentially “small,” independent film.  It deliberately relies a lot on improvised dialogue, striving for a naturalistic feeling and authenticity.  Not every moment does feel authentic (things briefly feel forced on occasion), but some do – very much so.   A case in point:  There’s a very nice scene with the two sisters lying on their sides in bed at night, facing each other with whispered confidences.  (It’s so engaging and genuine that we get an encore later on.)

Writer/director Lynn Shelton juxtaposes close-ups of the three leads and mostly indoor settings, with some gorgeous location cinematography to give this relationship-based story a sense of place.  We weren’t sure we were going to like this film at first, but it grew on us with its sweet and gentle romanticism, despite a surfeit of coarse language.  Duplass has a boyish charm that only occasionally goes too far; the aforementioned relationship of the two sisters is truly engaging; and there are serious ideas, too, with which those who have known heartbreak and deep disappointments can relate: “I’m tired of being dead, and I want to come back to life.”  For ages 18+:  A lot of coarse language and some sexual references.

“Remember the Night” (USA, 1940) (B+):  Here’s proof positive that they don’t make ‘em like they used to – in the form of a romantic comedy structured as a road-story.  A deputy district attorney in New York (Fred MacMurray) gets a shoplifting case to prosecute right before Christmas.  The accused is a glamorous woman (Barbara Stanwyck), who is unfazed by the charges that may land her in jail.  When Lee’s case gets held over till after the holidays, her prosecutor, John, generously helps her get bail, rather than see her languish in custody till the New Year:  “Look, when court reconvenes, I’m going to try my best to put you in jail for a good long time.  That’s my business, but you haven’t been convicted yet, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t enjoy Christmas like the rest of us.”  But his well-intentioned act yields an unexpected complication:  Lee has nowhere to stay, so she joins John on a cross-country trip by car to his small-town, mid-western home:  he aims to keep her out of further trouble until he gets a chance to seek her conviction.  She is worldly, with a veneer of cynicism born of a hard-luck background; he’s a clean-cut, straight-shooter from a loving home (Beulah Bondi plays his mother).  Are they different sorts of people?  You betcha.  But their good-natured sparing gradually turns to admiration – and then to something more.  It’s part road-story, part romance, part odd-couple ‘screwball comedy,’ part redemptive fable, and one hundred percent charming.  “Remember the Night” was directed by Michael Leisen (1934’s “Death Takes a Holiday”) and written by Preston Sturges (“The Lady Eve,” “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Great McGinty,” and “Unfaithfully Yours”).

“Jacknife” (USA, 1989) (B):  A shaggy and boisterous man shows up, unannounced, on the doorstep of a brother and sister early one morning and bulldozes his way into their lives.   ‘Megs’ (Robert De Niro) and Dave (Ed Harris) served together in Vietnam, and the war has left its mark on each of them.  Megs has wrestled his demons under control; but Dave is an alcoholic, leading a narrow, constricted life with the sister he simultaneously neglects, takes for granted, and depends upon over-much emotionally.  Martha (Kathy Baker) is a high school teacher.  She has never married:  we’re told she’s plain (though she’s lovely) and overlooked by men, but she catches Megs’ interest and he hers.  The result is a very well-acted character drama, a psychological and emotional pas de trois that follows these fraught relationships.  The story and look of the film feel slightly dated at moments, but the acting holds up very well indeed.  For ages 18+:  Coarse language.

“Six Shooter” (U.K./Ireland, 2004) (B):  Here’s an Oscar-winning 26-minute short film from writer/director Martin McDonagh that has his characteristic pitch-black humor and foul-mouthed dialogue. A man named Donnelly (Brendan Gleeson) learns that his ailing wife has passed away at the hospital in the wee hours.  He’s in a near-state of shock, scarcely registering what the doctor tells him, before catching a train to go home.   Chance seats him next to a mouthy, obnoxious young man (Ruaidhri Conroy), whose garrulous stream of harsh remarks is tailor-made to give offense to all within earshot.  Donnelly himself is too numb with grief to pay much heed to his smart-alecky seatmate’s nasty observations; but a couple seated nearby (David Wilmost & Aisling O’Sullivan) are increasingly agitated by the verbal assault.  Dire consequences ensue.  Is the verbally offensive young man a sociopath, we wonder?   He certainly misbehaves like one, showing not a whit of concern for the feelings of others:  Either he is sadistically intent on causing harm or shockingly indifferent to the toxic effect of his words.  “Have you no respect for the dead?” someone asks him. “I haven’t, no.” he matter-of-factly replies.

The result is an irreverent full-body immersion in the darkest of dark humor, which is all but impossible to review without giving too much away.  Suffice it to say that a character’s final exclamation (‘What an effing day!’) is a triumph of understatement in light of the harrowing events that unfold.  “Six Shooter” won an Academy Award as Best Short Film (Live Action) and it won Best British Film at the British Independent Film Awards.  For ages 18+ only:  Abundant very coarse language; gun-related violence; and some (not very disturbing) gore.

“Mamma Mia!” (USA/U.K./Germany, 2008) (A-):  About to be married, a young woman secretly invites three of her mother’s past suitors to the festivities.  One of them is, unwittingly, her father, but no one, including her mother, knows which one.  That’s the story that was fashioned around a bevy of smash songs from ABBA.  The story may be slender, but the music is utterly irresistible.  That goes for the setting, too.  The idyllic Greek isle that’s home to mother and daughter (Skopelos, Skiathos, and Pelion are among the filming locations) should have gotten a sky-high tourism boost after this film. And the cast is wonderfully appealing.  Pride of place there goes to Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried as mother and daughter.  The two are absolutely radiant.  Streep has delightful energy and free-spiritedness; Seyfried is simply gorgeous, with a smile and eyes that light up the screen.  And both of them can sing!   DVD extras include a deleted musical number, a director’s commentary, and a sing-along version with on-screen lyrics to the 22 songs.  “Mamma Mia!” was nominated as Best Film (Comedy/Musical) and Actress at the Golden Globes; and it had three nominations at BAFTA, including Best British Film.