Delayed Reaction: 13th

The Pitch: Why are prisons so black, and why are there so many?

Most documentaries break down into two camps: they either have a question or an agenda. Question docs tend to play like free form writing. They seem to come together as the film progresses. Agenda docs are like term papers. There's a thesis, evidence, and a conclusion that matches the thesis. I normally like the question docs more. Agenda docs often feel like they are hiding something. Like they are dodging topics at the risk of their argument falling apart. Occasionally, an agenda doc is well enough done that I have no problem liking it. 13th is one of those.

I've never doubted that the legal system has been corrupted, intentionally or through willful ignorance of consequences, to target minorities, but I had never seen it all laid out before. DuVernay lays out a compelling argument with a wealth of information. I'd be curious to hear what the counter-argument is to this. I don't need to hear it in 13th though*. They take on enough topics head on, that "devil's advocate" isn't needed.

*One documentary that did need that was Blackfish. You'll notice that I don't have a Reaction for that. That's because I stopped watching before the end. I felt too strongly like information was being strategically withheld to make their point.

Some touches I liked more than others. The use of the cue card saying "Criminal" every time the word was used had a cumulative effect. The rap interludes to move between topics bored me. It felt like they were using them to underline points that were already bolded.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Good Neighbor

The Pitch: Some teens try to trick a mean neighbor into thinking his house is haunted then suspect that he may be up to something more nefarious.

I saw a trailer for this a while ago that got me excited for it. It looked like it was flipping the script on Paranormal Activity and turning it into Disturbia. That looked fun. It turns out that this is more of a twisty thriller with a healthy dose of teen problems. That isn't a bad thing, but it's not what I was looking forward to.

James Caan gives a good performance as the neighbor, but the movie does nothing with it. Caan's odd behavior is mostly seen as curious, not dangerous. Having the police officer check out the locked basement early on took out all the tension from the mystery. The court scenes had a similar effect. Showing the trial in the future immediately removes several possibilities for where the story is going, and then it just annoyed me to not know what the trial was for. The film doesn't commit to a POV, so I ended up being annoyed by both of the boys doing the experiment. The twist at the end would've played really well if the rest of the movie had been better. Instead, it's like hearing the punchline to a joke that someone kept messing up in the setup.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Neon Demon

The Pitch: The modeling world as a surreal, waking nightmare.

First of all, I totally get why this would evoke strong reactions, positive and negative, from people. To some degree I admire how boldly polarizing it is. It has a pitch black view of the world, more specifically the modelling world. It goes overboard to make its points. Refn is one of those directors who shoots his films with such assurance that you just assume he knows what he is doing and that the movie is going somewhere. It turns out, that's debatable. I kind of loved the bizarreness of the ending. It fit with the rest of the movie.

Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, and Abbey Lee are giving ice-cold performances. They are props more than characters. Fanning, I think, was giving a good performance. It's a little hard to tell. I'm still trying to figure out what Keanu Reeves was doing in this. I don't get why he would take a small role like the hotel manager. He was fine, just not required for the part.

The plotting is nearly as thin as the characters, but Refn strings together enough cool visual and bizarre moments that I actually liked the movie, which I wasn't expecting to. There's definitely moments of excess and times when Refn is trying to have his cake and eat it too (He's commenting on the objectification of the modeling world, but this is also shot in the male gaze). I don't figure I'll ever want to revisit the film, but it was worth seeing once.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Love & Friendship

The Pitch: Jane Austen by way of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Whit Stillman is smarter than me. That's just a fact that I accept. After enjoying but being befuddled by Damsels in Distress and now Love & Friendship, I know that so much of what he is doing is going to breeze right over my head unless I rewatch and come prepared.

Love & Friendship is a lot of fun. All the actors are having a great time taking the stuffiness out of the Victorian trappings. They talk quickly and cleverly, moving from one witty jab to the next before any can be fully appreciated. Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Emma Greenwell, and all the other actors who I don't know the names of fit perfectly in the setting. I liked this film, but I really do need to see it again to pick apart what I liked about it. Stillman has a mastery of language and dialogue that it downright intimidating. So much of it blew right by me. By the time it ended, it took me by surprise how much time had passed and story was covered. I feel dumb now, in a good way.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: La La Land

Formula: Crazy, Stupid Love * Singin' in the Rain

It's nice when you can look forward to something and not be disappointed by it. That's the problem with hype, isn't it? Something looks good, so you start looking forward to it. Somewhere along the way, your anticipation gets in the way of the actual thing, and you end up disappointed by it. It's happened to me countless times. Not with La La Land, and it wasn't for a lack of hype. I've been looking forward to this movie ever since I first heard about it. It's Damien Chazelle's follow up to 2014's Whiplash, which was one of my favorite films of that year. It pairs Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling together again, which worked delightfully in Crazy, Stupid Love. It's a musical in the style of the 1950s classics, which is a genre I've come to like a lot. Even the bad version of this movie is a one that I'd still give a passing grade to. A good version of this movie is one I'd find easy to love.

La La Land tells the story of an aspiring actress, Mia (Emma Stone) and an unsuccessful Jazz pianist, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling). She dreams of becoming a famous actress and he dreams of opening a Jazz club. These two dreamers have a meet-cute (a couple of them, in fact) and start dating. When their relationship starts conflicting with their aspirations, they must figure out how they can make it work or if they can make it work. It's a pretty thin plot, all things considered, and that works for it. There has to be time for music and dance numbers after all.

To the surprise of no one, Stone and Gosling are great together. They have terrific chemistry. They aren't Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly, but they are nice in the song and dance numbers. Chazelle likes doing long shots to show off the work they've put into this. I didn't realize either of them can sing (because they aren't already talented enough as it is), so that was a nice discovery. I've loved Emma Stone since Superbad and this is easily the best she's ever been. She's the Oscar favorite for this and it's hard to argue with that. Gosling is damn charming. He isn't at Stone's level here, but that's saying more about her than him.

While not my forte, I can say that I really loved the music. I'll probably be buying the soundtrack. "City of Stars" and "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" - both used in many of the trailers - are beautiful songs and my favorites from the film. The score is excellent as well. I was enjoying the movie plenty up to that point, but the last two song and dance numbers are what likely propelled this to the top of my list for 2016. The end of the film hit me as hard as anything I've seen in quite a while.

La La Land is a great movie. It lovingly pulls from the classic Hollywood musicals and makes something new out of them. It pairs a talented director with the ideal leads for this kind of film. It's a crowd-pleaser in the best sense. I'm doing my best to restrain myself from over-praising it, but it's hard. I loved the hell out of it.


Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend 

After the Credits

(Some thoughts for if you've seen the movie)

-I've been thinking about why I love La La Land and cared so little for The Artist. It seems hypocritical because they play off a similar love of Hollywood and musicals. I liked The Artist for those things. It's a wonderful recreation of a kind or film that isn't made anymore. I'm all for film conservation and all that. La La Land and The Artist are about fundamentally different things though. The Artist is a sour reflection of a bygone era that condemns Hollywood and films for daring to evolve. It only barely comes to terms with modernizing by the end. La La Land's judgments are about abandoning your dream, not giving in to change. Sebastian's problem isn't that he's playing this pop version of Jazz. It's that he doesn't care about that music and he's doing it anyway. La La Land isn't stubborn about change. It's stubborn about aspirations.

Movie Reaction: Fences

Formula: Fences (The Play)

I have nothing profound to say about Fences, the new Denzel Washington-directed movie based on the August Wilson play. The screenplay was also penned by August Wilson, and he wrote a play for the screen, not necessarily something cinematic. That's just what it is, a filmed play. To some degree, I appreciate that. August: Osage County a couple years ago tried to mask that it was a play written for the screen and felt off balance the whole time. Fences knows exactly what it is, which made it a lot easier to enjoy.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis reprise the roles they won Tonys for in the 2010 revival of the play. They are the reason to see this. These are big, meaty roles full of huge moments that allow Washington and Davis to shine. Davis probably just won her first Oscar with this and Denzel has made a strong case for deserving his third. This will be one of those cases like Dallas Buyers Club where the film stands no chance for Best Picture, but the actors will gobble up the acting awards from a lot of voting bodies. Those two in particular are just so damn good. But, others like Jovan Adepo, who plays Washington and Davis' son are very good too, just not at their level.

For those unfamiliar with the play, it's about a black family in the 1950s. The father, Troy (Washington) is a demanding man, especially to his son, Cory (Adepo). Troy is committed to doing what he feels is right and never owing anything to anyone else. His wife, Rose, adores him and the life she's made with him. This requires her to give a lot though. Troy has his demons, especially those chasing him from his past. Theirs is a dysfunctional family, but it works for the most part. It's best to look at Fences as an acting delivery system. The story is like the pitcher during a Home Run Derby. It's just stringing together plot that allows the actors to shine. I talk about plot-driven vs. character-driven story a lot. Fences might be best described as performance-driven story. Things keeps happening in order to give the actors something to do.

As long as it is being watched in the right way, Fences is a good movie. It's imbalanced, but the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses. If nothing else, it has made me very interested to see a stage production of the play. Washington and Davis are fantastic throughout. Washington's direction is very restrained. He doesn't get in the way of the performances at all. He doesn't add much either. No one can say that Fences isn't exactly the film everyone involved intended to make. I'm just not sure it's one designed to be loved by everyone.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Audrie & Daisy

The Pitch: The story of two victims of sexual assaults and how differently their stories end.

I found out about this documentary from a Drew McWeeny post. I didn't know much about it and I wasn't quite prepared. This is a tough film. It's essentially about the experiences of victims of sexual assault and how if affects their lives afterward in just about every way. I had plans to watch another movie that was kind of dark after this and, instead, I ended up switching to my Coupling DVDs to cheer me up.

There isn't anything adventurous about the film. It tells two stories (mainly) and uses another victim of assault to link them. It dives deep into the "Scarlet lettering" and victim-blaming that occurs. The things that happened to these girls are objectively bad and it's telling their stories. There's no interest in trying to explain any other "sides" or figuring out why people react the way they do. That's a story for another project. I hope I never get "used" to hearing stories like this, although I'm certain I've seen an SVU for every angle of these stories.

This is a great film for presenting a perspective; one that is commonly ignored or mishandled in film and TV. I can't say I'm glad I saw this, because that's clearly the wrong word, but it is worth seeing.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Jackie

Formula: 1 / JFK

Legacy is a funny thing. It's not about what you've done. It's about how you'll be remembered, which is often very different. You don't have as much control over your own legacy as you think. It's defined by other people. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to have someone who makes it their job to shape and protect your legacy once you are gone. For John F. Kennedy, that person was Jackie.

Jackie is not your standard biopic. It isn't concerned with covering Jackie Kennedy's whole life. In fact, other than a few scenes during JFK's presidency, it all takes place during the week or two that follow his assassination. The spine of the film is Jackie giving an extensive interview - mostly off the record, she points out often - at her temporary home in Massachusetts, and she jumps around telling the events that followed her husband's death. It certainly covers the "greatest hits" - the assassination, LBJ's inauguration on Air Force One, Kennedy's funeral procession - but it is far more about the moments in between, when Jackie is figuring out how to define her husband's legacy.

It is a marvelous character study. Natalie Portman dominates the film, to the point that it's alarming when there's a scene that she isn't in. In my opinion, it's the best work Portman has ever done. She disappears into the role and it's mesmerizing. This Jackie is always thinking, always processing. She plays the small moments with the same intensity as the big ones. The fact that Portman isn't the per-ordained Oscar winner this year is a testament to how strong the 2016 Lead Actress race is. Billy Crudup as the unnamed journalist interviewing her is wonderful as he just tries to keep up with Jackie. John Hurt has a small, key role as a priest she speaks with. It's the moments with those two characters that we get the most insight into how her mind works. Peter Sarsgaard plays a Bobby Kennedy who has to be both a grieving brother and a present politician. Greta Gerwig has the definition of a supporting role as Jackie's lifelong friend and dutiful social secretary. All of them are very good, but Natalie Portman is running laps around them.

I want to single out Mica Levi's score. I don't know much about music, so my vocabulary is rather limited on the topic. I just know that the music is a key part of the film. It uses a lot of string instruments and is often unsettling. It's an abrasive score but it fits. I never thought I'd find the song "Camelot" to be so haunting.

I really, really liked Jackie. It's more focused than a normal biopic and more substantive than other films that focus so much on a single character (Still Alice comes to mind). It's more than just how effectively Natalie Portman can channel Jackie Kennedy. It's about coping with tragedy and shaping events to mean something greater. Nothing feels big in moment, when you're in the middle of it. It's what you leave behind that becomes significant.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Passengers

Formula: Z for Zachariah + Moon

There isn't a place for Passengers in the current Hollywood model. It's a $110 million character study. That's not a thing. Not these days, at least. A studio doesn't want to devote that much money to something that doesn't look like a blockbuster. It took getting two of the biggest stars in the world and an Oscar nominated director to get this made, and I'd still wager there was a lot of studio influence involved.

Passengers is about a spaceship making a 120 year journey to a new planet. It has 5000 people on board. That is, until one of the hibernation pods breaks and one of the people, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), wakes up 90 years too soon with no way to go back to sleep. For a while, he recreates the pilot of The Last Man on Earth [in space!] until a fellow passenger, Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), wakes up too. They try to make the best of that hopeless situation as the two prettiest people in space. Meanwhile, the ship is slowly breaking down and they have to fix it or else everyone dies.

The movie is divided neatly into about four parts: Jim alone, Jim and Aurora together, Jim and Aurora apart, and an action movie. Part one is fine. It's needed to establish things. Pratt can handle doing a scene by himself or talking to his robot bartender (Michael Sheen). The middle parts with Aurora are where the movie thrives. There are some fantastic moral debates. Pratt and Lawrence play off each other nicely. I'd watch a RomCom with them any day. It's the final part that bothered me. It bails Chris Pratt's character (who has done so bad things) out entirely, which undercuts everything about the movie before that. Really, everything in the last 20 minutes is afraid to make a bold decision. I can't prove that the ending was influenced by a studio executive, but what happens at the end of the film is exactly what I imagine when I hear the term "studio interference". And the thing is, I'd happily watch the movie that it becomes in the end. It just doesn't fit with the first 3/4s of the movie.

This is a film that couldn't work without charismatic leads, since so much of the film is one, two, or at the very most three actors in a scene. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence are smart casting decisions. Pratt especially breaths life into scenes that should be quite dull (reminiscent of Sam Rockwell in Moon). Lawrence has a more difficult role. She has to go through the same emotions that the audience already saw Pratt go through and then some. She handles it well though.

The film looks great. They could've easily scrimped on the sets, given the claustrophobic setting, but the spaceship feels sufficiently large (to a point) and believably futuristic. I question the business model of the Homestead Corp. (who owns the ship) and Aurora's motivation for making the trip. Those are things you just have to accept though. The movie isn't about that.

The individual pieces of Passengers are good. They don't all fit together well. It doesn't know if it wants to be a "serious movie" or a blockbuster. It's entertaining throughout. I wasn't bored by it. Many parts are quite clever. I love the questions it asks and don't like the answers it provides. It's an uneven movie that I could easily enjoy despite that.


Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend 

After the Credits

(Some thoughts for if you've seen the movie)

OK, let's talk about Jim for a moment and how the movie goes too far to let him off the hook. He did a bad thing by waking Aurora. For a while, it makes him sit with that, both before and after she finds out. The "drowning man" analogy that Lawrence Fishburne's character gives is a perfect counter to it. I was very curious to see how the film would resolve this.
It turns out, the solution was to go overboard to excuse it. Let's take a tour through the beats:

1) Without Jim and someone to help (cough - Aurora - cough), the ship would've failed and everyone would've died anyway.
2) By holding the exhaust door open, Jim gets a heroic, redemptive act, but one that someone doesn't kill him.
3) It requires Aurora to have to save him after his tether breaks. By the way, if I learned anything from The Martian, it's that what she does is nearly impossible. That scene may have spent all of my "One big leap" allowance.
4) She also has to bring Jim back from the dead in the infirmary. At that point, it would've been subtler if they just flashed "SHE REALLY DOES CARE FOR HIM" in big bold letters on the screen.
5) There's a way for her to go back into hibernation is she wants. That makes it Aurora's choice to stay with Jim, absolving him of all wrong doing.

I'm not saying the movie had to have a sad or bittersweet ending, but the majority of the movie certainly wasn't building toward a wholly happy ending.

Delayed Reaction: Jane Got a Gun

The Pitch: The Magnificent Seven  - 6

Occasionally, it's fun to watch a movie that I know was in production hell for a while. I recently watched Get A Job which was in release hell. Jane Got a Gun had a lot more variety. Director changes, rewrites, recasting (both finding new actors for roles and changes the roles that actors were originally cast in), studio bankruptcy, and delayed release. The only consistent thing I could find was Natalie Portman, who I believe was a fairly active producer as well as the star. I'll be honest. The movie does plays like it had trouble coming together. It had the same "let's just make this and be done with it" attitude that The Good Dinosaur had. The film began as a Black List movie in 2011 and (like many blacklist final products) it's hard to see why. It's fine. It's basically a "defend your land" movie with a touch of "lovers separated by circumstance". Jane (Portman) has to defend her house from a criminal boss (Ewan McGreggor) and his gang who are after her husband (Noah Emmerich), so she calls in help from her neighbor and former love (Joel Edgarton). Nothing's all that memorable. I think there's a version of this film in which Ewan McGreggor could've taken over as the central protagonist, a la Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds (or maybe Val Kilmer in Tombstone is the better comparison, despite not being a villain in that). Portman and Edgarton are fine and that's it. I won't pretend the Star Wars reunion (Portman and McGreggor, obviously, but don't forget that Edgarton played Owen Lars in Eps II and III) didn't entice me somewhat. It doesn't really play into the film though (It's not like Portman and McGreggor did much together in those movies anyway). I keep hoping that director Gavin O'Connor will wow me again the way he did with Warrior, which I adore. It's ably shot. Nothing more.

I have to quit being so negative. The bare bones of the movie is fine. It mixes flashbacks with the present effectively. The relationships between the characters are explained well. The showdown at the end is satisfying in all the ways you want and ends nicely.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Get a Job

The Pitch: It's sure hard to get a job...not really. It's hard to get a job you succeed at...not really. It's hard to get a job you are passionate about...that sounds about right.

There is exactly one reason why I saw this movie: Marc Maron mentioned it enough. That's a first, I think. You see, this film has been on the shelf for a while. I was filmed in 2012 and came out [barely] in 2016. In that time, I think Marc Maron has had half the cast on his WTF podcast and he inevitably mentions this movie that they worked on together even though they weren't in any of the same scenes. Kind of like how The Lone Ranger's aggressive marketing beat me down, that echoed talking point got me to see Get a Job.

Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alison Brie, Bryan Cranston, John C. McGinley, John Cho, and Jorge Garcia is the cast of a movie that I'm going to see: on opening weeking, under normal circumstances. This final product is pretty dismal though. None of the characters are interesting enough and it couldn't settle on a tone. It wavered between gross-out comedy, buddy comedy, and serious commentary on  employment opportunities in uncomfortable ways. Teller's character just feels entitled. Maybe I'm getting older, but the "guy who doesn't want to work for a stuffy corporation" is a trope I have no interest in. I think there could be a whole movie about Cranston, as Teller's recently unemployed father. Like Teller's roommates, his father just felt like a distraction, given the amount of time the story received. Kendrick started off somewhat interesting, but got too silly after she was laid off. Alison Brie was wasted (a phrase I'm getting far too used to saying). Occasionally, I'll reference "Whoever's available" movies. These's are movies that don't have a specific reason for existing and the casting appears to be whoever had a hole in their schedule at that time. Everyone is in the movie just to have something to do. It's the equivalent of eating something for lunch simply because it's noon. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is a good example of that. Rapture-Palooza is too. Get a Job fits that description as well.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Formula: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope + Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Sequels are hard. Most films are intended as a complete story, so finding a way to continue the narrative can feel forced. Prequels are even harder because the stakes have a ceiling. In essence, the film must take the audience from A to C in the narrative when the audience already knows what C is. You know, Bilbo is never in danger in The Hobbit because you know he makes it to Lord of the Rings. That puts a lot of pressure on B (going from A to C) to be entertaining, so that the movie becomes about the journey, not the destination. Direct prequels are the hardest kind of prequel. An origin story can take place so far before the original movie that the world is unrecognizable, but an immediate prequel is literally working around a story that has already been told and has no wiggle room. That's what makes Rogue One so impressive. It's a direct prequel and barely feels limited by it.

No series knows the dangers of prequels better than Star Wars, so it was almost surprising to hear that they were doing another one and upping the degree of difficulty. You see, Rogue One is the story of the Rebels who secure the plans to the Death Star. It's a single line from A New Hope that is expanded into an entire movie. To make that work, the movie needs to be about more than the Death Star plans. And it is.

Rogue One follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of the lead engineer of the Death Star (Mads Mikkelsen). Her father was taken from her as a child by the Empire. She's survived since then as a criminal but is pulled into the Rebellion, at first, against her will. Circumstances have made her the only person with the needed connections to get the information about the Empire's new planet destroyer, so she has no choice but to help. In a lot of ways, it's a very traditional story. Jyn's initially resistant to helping the Rebellion but comes around by the end. She picks up a motley crew of characters to help her along the way: a Rebel Captain (Diego Luna), a reprogrammed Imperial droid with an attitude (Alan Tudyk), a former Imperial cargo pilot (Riz Ahmed), a blind zealot of the Force -who isn't a jedi- (Donnie Yen), and his longtime friend/protector (Wen Jiang). The climax involves Jyn climbing to the top of some tower to do something that everything depends on*. It's a familiar formula.

*Seriously, the number of big movies that rely on that setup is staggering. It's one of those things I can't un-notice once it was pointed out to me.

The movie works around the limitations set by A New Hope very well. It takes a convenient conceit from the original film (Why does the Death Star have this massive weakness?) and works it into the story. The fact that the heroes of Rogue One aren't featured in A New Hope gives this a different kind of ending than other Saga Star Wars films (i.e. the ones with "Episode" in the title). In essence, it uses the limits set by A New Hope as the spine of the narrative and relishes in the challenge of filling the holes in the story. It's a pretty impressive example of reverse-engineering (which is normally something I hate).

The cast is delightful. I'm a big fan of Felicity Jones in general, so it's fun to see her in this world. Jyn Erso is tough, but not in the way that a lot of films would make her, in which "tough female" ends up meaning "superhuman badass". Diego Luna is a good counter to her. They are both rule breakers, but one works in the system and the other works outside of it. K-2SO, the droid voiced by Alan Tudyk, throws so much shade. It's like if C-3PO learned sarcasm. I loved it. Really, all the characters, even Ben Mendelsohn as the director behind the construction of the Death Star and Forest Whitaker as the fanatical Rebel who raise Jyn after her father was taken, are types. It's a big cast in a self-contained story. That's a hard thing to get around. There isn't the time to fully flesh everyone out. The characters all fit into this universe though and have enough individual flavor to stand out, which is all I needed from them.

Rogue One isn't the Star Wars movie that's going to suddenly make you a fan of the franchise. That shouldn't count against it. On a technical level, it's every bit as good as The Force Awakens. The climactic battle is up there with Geonosis and the assaults on the Death Star from the original trilogy. The stakes feel high despite already knowing the outcome. There are enough call-backs to other movies to entertain attentive fans while not so many that it gets annoying. On a gut level, it does feel lesser to the Saga stories just because it is a side-story. If it isn't about the Skywalkers, it's not tapping into the same nostalgia for me. Sorry. However, for what it is, it is very good and I look forward to these individual adventures going forward nearly as much as the Saga stories, which is a helluva lot.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Nocturnal Animals

Formula: Hell of High Water / Nightcrawler

Nocturnal Animals is fashion designer Tom Ford's follow up to A Single Man, which frankly, was much better than anyone had reason to suspect for a debut feature from a fashion designer with no previous ties to the film world. Nocturnal Animals is a more ambitious project, with a larger cast and more moving parts. He's assembled a top notch cast and the film, to no one's surprise, looks great. Sadly, he tries to do a little too much and handicaps the actors with some ham-fisted dialogue throughout.

The film tells the story of Susan (Amy Adams), a wealthy socialite in Los Angeles. She's feeling unsatisfied with her life. Her husband (Armie Hammer) is barely trying to hide that he's sleeping around. They are running out of money and everyone in the community knows it. Then, out of the blue, she is sent a manuscript for a novel written by her ex-husband, Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal), who dedicates the story to her. The story, which is depicted in the film as Susan reads it, is a fictionalized account of a man (also played by Gyllenhaal) who is terrorized by some men in West Texas and looks to get revenge. It's a grisly tale. Susan doesn't know what to make of it being dedicated to her. She starts thinking back to the days when she and Tony were together and everything that has led her to where she is now.

The movie is full of a lot of great topics worth exploring. Ford clearly has a lot on his mind about the choices we make and where they lead. The film definitely got me thinking more than most do. The delivery is off though. It's like every conversation Amy Adams has is spoken in generalities or trying to make universal points. No one talks like people. For example, in a flashback, Susan talking to Tony about her family sounds like a description she read in a book somewhere, like she didn't actually know them. It's very nearly "show, don't tell" territory. I think there's some purpose to that. The scenes from Tony's story are much looser than the scenes with Susan in the "real world". That seems like a purposeful contrast, but the flashbacks in the real world are equally lifeless even though they are meant to reflect a freer time for Susan. So, I'm either missing something or this goes beyond a directorial choice.

This would be a good time to point out that there is a difference between character nuance and performance nuance. Amy Adams is doing good work throughout the film. Even the best actress can't make bad dialogue good though. The most she can do is find a way to make it work, which is what she does. On the page, her character isn't nearly as interesting as she makes her. Everyone else in the real world is too one-note to matter. Actors like Armie Hammer, Michael Sheen, and Laura Linney only get a scene or two to make an impression. The fictional world is carried by the trio of Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, and Aaron-Taylor Johnson. Gyllenhaal is mostly reactive to the other two and does well with it. Shannon has fun hamming it up as a detective working with Gyllenhaal, almost like he's doing an impression of a Jeff Bridges character from True Grit or Hell or High Water. Taylor-Johnson lives it up as a scumbag and has a wonderful scene on a toilet (and that's all I'll say).

Thankfully, the film looks every bit as pretty as you'd expect from Tom Ford. Between the beautiful photography and Adams' non-spoken performance, I started to wonder if he could've just dropped all the dialogue from the real-world scenes altogether. I wouldn't've minded that. The opening credits are mesmerizing. I wanted to look away but couldn't.

I was looking forward to this movie a lot. Ford impressed me with A Single Man. The premise of Nocturnal Animals is intriguing. Films that are about telling a story are like catnip for me (Stranger Than Fiction, The Princess Bridge, even Alex and Emma). Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal are two of my favorite working actors too. I'm still holding out hope that maybe the movie is just smarter than me and I'll figure it out in time. For now, I'll settle on this being a pretty disappointment with actors I like doing the best they could.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend 

Delayed Reaction: How to Be Single

The Pitch: Four women navigate dating in New York City.

It was never a question of if I would see this movie, only when. Deadpool bumped it out when it was still in theaters, so I settled for HBO. I've liked Dakota Johnson since Ben & Kate, the quickly cancelled but immediately charming FOX series from a couple years ago. Rebel Wilson, when not the center of attention, is a lot of fun on screen (See Pitch Perfect and the sequel). Alison Brie should be headlining movies by now (movies that do better than the very enjoyable Sleeping with Other People, that is). Leslie Mann I've liked for years, but after This is 40 and some inspired work in The Other Woman, I'm excited to see her in any comedy. Even the men of the movie (Damon Wayans Jr, Anders Holm, Jake Lacy, Jason Mantzoukas, Colin Jost) have made the rounds on just about every comedy series over the last 5 years. The story of the movie doesn't even matter as long as I can see those actors play off each other.

The script is credited to the writers of films like He's Just Not That Into You and Valentine's Day* which makes perfect sense. This is, after all, essentially a dating anthology. Everyone fits some broad archetypes and that works. Mann and Lacy are sweet together. Brie and Holm have a nice, non-storybook ending. Nothing was funny or poignant enough to really stick with me, but most things aren't. It's like a Leslye Headland movie with a duller edge.

*And also to a writer for Ben & Kate, which either explains or is the result of Dakota Johnson's presence.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Everybody Wants Some!!

The Pitch: Boyhood was really hard. Might as well go back to something more familiar.

Is there anyone who meanders better than Richard Linklater? The Coen brother are great at building a story that ends up having no significance (Burn After Reading, The Big Lebowski, Hail, Caesar!). Cameron Crowe certainly understands how to have a relaxed pace (Almost Famous, Elizabethtown). I can't think of anyone better than Linklater at building a movie out of the events that would be skipped over in another movie though. Boyhood is essentially an anthology designed as a character study. There's not really a "plot" per se. The Before series is just a collection of conversations. Even his more traditional films (School of Rock, Bad News Bears, Bernie) aren't as concerned with the plot as you'd expect. Of course, Dazed and Confused is the obvious movie to bring up when discussing Everybody Wants Some!! It's tough to find two more similar movies in terms of pace , setting, and structure.

Everybody Wants Some!! is a damn enjoyable movie. Why it's an enjoyable movie is a little harder to answer. After all, it's as plot-light as possible. It follows a college baseball team in 1980 over the three days leading up to the beginning of the fall semester. It fits the "slice of life" category of movies where there's no central climax or story, but there are several small stories that resolve themselves in their own way all with the same characters. Those are tricky. There's less of a "safety net" for them. In a traditional film, the two big things I'm going to notice are story and character. If one struggles, the other can make up for it or distract from it. A movie like this relies entirely on the characters. If you don't want to be around these characters, this movie becomes a slog.

Linklater is great at building characters, thankfully. I don't think any character is wholly likable, except maybe Blake Jenner in the lead role: the straight-man POV character. Glenn Powell and Juston Street* are the breakout characters for me, but the bench of memorable characters is so deep that I imagine I'd get a different combination from anyone I ask who as seen it. This is my second Zoey Deutch movie in not that long. It looks like she set to start popping up everywhere pretty soon.

*It took three tries for me to not instinctively type "Jason Street".

Pretty much all the small adventures - the parties, baseball practice, ping-pong - worked for me. None overstayed their welcome. It touches on some greater concerns of the characters (I like how the talk of going pro looms over all of them) without weighing down the overall tone. Sure, the relationship dynamics fit a several-week span more than just three days, but I didn't care much about that in the moment.

Oh, and thank god that I'm lazy or else I would've never known about the retro video at the end of the credits with all the actors rapping in character. That was delightful and perfectly fit the rest of the movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Mascots

The Pitch: Best in Show for the mascot world.

The only note I made while watching this was "An empty calories version of Christopher Guest". That's all that needs to be said. The humor is very familiar. A lot of guided improvisation with a bunch of actors who do it well. Guest has no trouble putting together a strong cast of his regulars, like Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Fred Willard, Ed Begley Jr., Jennifer Coolidge, etc. and adding capable newcomers like Zach Woods, Chris O'Dowd*, and Sarah Baker. There's a couple good laughs, but this is mostly going through the motions.

*Oh yeah, O'Dowd was on Guest's HBO show Family Tree, so even he's not new to that repritory cast.

I'll admit, I think I have a bias against these Netflix released movies. There's a reason why their best film so far (Beast of No Nation) was from a director that no one outside of True Detective fans had heard of. It's not like Martin Scorsese is bringing his next opus to Netflix. The established filmmakers who are willing to have their work distributed by Netflix (Adam Sandler, Ricky Gervais, Christopher Guest) are not bringing their A-game when they are still getting paid upfront for a B-. If that's not actually how it's working with Netflix, Mascots isn't convincing me of that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Manchester by the Sea

Formula: This is Where I Leave You / Big Daddy*
*I'll fully admit that this is one of my worst formulas ever.

Can you ever go home again?

There's an entire sub genre of movies based on that question. It's one of the most common questions asked in film. Just at the top of my head, I can think of This Is Where I Leave You, The Judge, Adult Beginners, The Hollars, and Young Adult that are about that same question. And that's just recently. Push a little further back and there's Garden State, Elizabethtown, Coming Home, Grosse Pointe Blank, Beautiful Girls, and a good deal of Sandra Bullock's output (Hope Floats, Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood). What I'm trying to say is Manchester by the Sea isn't breaking new ground. The thing that makes it better than just about any of the movies I just listed is how it tackles the follow-up to that question: What if home wants you back but you can't let yourself return?

The film begins with Lee (Casey Affleck) living a lonely life as the janitor for some apartment buildings in Boston. He's surly, drinks a lot, and gets in fights. One day, he gets a call telling him his brother has died and he has to return to his home town of Manchester. He ends up with custody of his teen nephew and stuck in this town that he left for a good reason. Let's just say that his brother dying isn't the first bad thing that's happened to him in his life. Several flashbacks catch the audience up with what's going on in the present, where he's making funeral arrangements and figuring out what to do next.

There are some fantastic performances throughout the film. Casey Affleck is incredible. He's like a cross between Coach Taylor in Friday Night Lights and Joaquin Phoenix's character in The Master: a reserved, raw nerve. It's a very internalized performance and enough to convince me that he's the better actor of the Affleck brothers*. It's appropriate that Coach Taylor himself, Kyle Chandler, plays Lee's brother. I was already aware of how good he is at holding back in a role while giving plenty. Lucas Hedge's is Lee's nephew. He has a tricky role. His father's death isn't a complete surprise, but it's still a shock to the system. His mood varies wildly and he pulls it all off well enough. Michelle Williams is Lee's ex-wife. She isn't in the film much, but she has one scene in particular that's rightfully making her an award season favorite this year. The performances are by far the greatest strength of the film.

*Ben's a pretty good director though, so it's still unfair how talented both of them are.

One of the hardest things to do in a film is to successfully meander. People like Richard Linklater and Cameron Crowe have made a career out of it, but it's hard to get right. On one end, you risk the movie being listless or feeling padded. On the other end, you don't lay enough out for the big moments to feel earned. At almost 2 and a half hours, Manchester perhaps wanders a little longer than it needs to. I somewhat question the need to know about the nephew's two girlfriends, for example. It's forgivable because the bigger moments are damn good.

I don't know if this will make sense, but the film is shot it a way that isn't patronizing. Far too often, when filmmakers leave the big cities or sound-stages, they do this thing where they fixate on the things that "poor people" live with. It's normally done out of a genuine interest, but it's pretty elitist. Manchester avoids that. This isn't the nicest part of the world, but it's shot without judgment. Houses seem comfortable. Some areas look nicer than others, not trashed or pristine. It feels like a real place, not a fetishized "quaint" town.

Manchester by the Sea is a familiar movie done incredibly well. It's carried by fantastic performances, especially Casey Affleck in the lead role. It only gives the audience about 80% of what they want to see in a given scene, and that restraint pays off more as the story progresses. It covers some dark topics and has a weird sense of humor that can come out of nowhere at times. It never allows the audience to get completely comfortable in a very deliberate way. It all comes together as a rewarding trip to Manchester.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend 

Delayed Reaction: The Invitation

The Pitch: Some friends get together for a dinner party and discover that their hosts belong to a cult and may be up to something more.

Now that's a slow build. If nothing else, the film is patient and confident in that patience. I prefer a simmering dread over jump scares and this delivers the former with pleasure. That said, it didn't quite work for me. Either the build-up took too long or the pay-off wasn't interesting enough. It's hard to say which. My attention started to drift before all the shit when down at the end. When the shit when down, I wish it could've found a way to maintain its earlier tone rather than turning into a survival thriller. Clearly, I wanted something more from the movie, but I'm not astute enough to identify what it would be.

John Carroll Lynch is pretty perfect for his role. Even though I still most associate him with The Drew Carey Show, a close second is the number of different movies in which he's played a creep. The rest of the cast looked like well-to-do Los Angelinos, so good job with that. 

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Modern Romance

The Pitch: Albert Brooks is a neurotic man who tries to make his relationship work.

Albert Brooks sure is unlikable in this film. It's a character type that he has mastered. He's neurotic, self-obsessed, and an ass. He's also charming and endearing at times. I'm not sure what to make of the movie. It's funny, although most of the jokes are more "funny to think about" than "laugh out loud", or they are the kind of jokes you appreciate more with subsequent viewings. I'd almost categorize this as a "slice of life" movie in the vein of recent Coen Brothers films (Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail, Caesar) or the Grown-Ups movies, since it's often just a collection of scenes from different parts of Brooks' day. Most of it is tied to his relationship with Kathryn Harrold. Sometimes it's just him doing his movie editing job. The Quaalude scene is certainly fun in the way that it keeps going and going: a nice, slow train wreck of sorts.

Brooks and Harrold match each other well throughout. The film wouldn't work if I didn't buy into the relationship. I question her participation in the relationship more than his. They are trapped in a place where they are about 85% "in love", which is probably more honest than most RomComs in the world.

I want to figure out the appeal of Albert Brooks amongst a certain type of comedy nerd, so I'll be checking out some of his other films. Based on this, I'm not sure I get it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Breakfast at Tiffany's

The Pitch: Truman Capote has this book. We're going to adapt it, but change a bunch of stuff.

I'm hitting a phase where every other movie I see is a well known classic. Often, watching the films has been as much about the why as the what. The 'what' of Breakfast at Tiffany's is the story of a woman who tries to leave her life behind for the allure of the big city. It's got some interesting twists and turns but feels entirely conventional. The 'why' of it - why the movie is so well known still - is three pronged.

Mostly, it Audrey Hepburn. She is iconic and if there was a higher word than iconic, I would use that. Her first scene, is as recognizable as anything in film. The lack of Oscar recognition (not even a nomination) for the costume design really is one of the biggest black marks in the Academy's history. I know Marilyn Monroe was Truman Capote's choice for the role (and I supposed she could've made it work), but the final product is so tailored to Hepburn that it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role. The second 'why' is the music. "Moon River". You just don't beat that. I can't imagine any other song working better. The third 'why': Mickie Rooney. His "yellowface" routine has aged horribly. I cringed at those scenes. Even if the character was played by a Japanese actor, it would still be pretty awful. Adding the Mickie Rooney aspect just pushes it over the edge. The only saving grace is that he's not a central character, so there's not that much to deal with.

Overall, it's a fine film. The images amount to more than the final product. Hepburn really makes it all worth it. In that respect, it can't match the other films of hers that I've seen like Roman Holiday or Sabrina. Holly Golightly certainly bridges the gap between Princess Ann and Eliza Doolittle.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Beyond the Lights

The Pitch: Remember the Britney Spears song "Lucky"? Ok, take that and make her black.

This is a 2014 star vehicle for Gugu Mbatha-Raw, about how hard it is to be a pop star. That's a tough sell, because we've been conditioned to believe that the rich and famous live easy lives. All that's comparative though, and happiness is something that eludes people in every tax bracket. This film does a great job presenting Mbatha-Raw's side of the story. She's famous but she's also micro-managed. She has a very specific image that she's trying to maintain (sexy but accessible, glamorous but relatable). It's all too much. The scene with her removing her hair extensions and eyebrows, etc. does a great job showing just how much of a facade her public face is.

I decided to watch this because Mbatha-Raw's episode of Easy got me curious to look her up again. I've known about her for a while, but she's somehow still looking for that breakthrough role. She really should be a star by now. It was pure coincidence that earlier the same day I watched The Birth of a Nation. That day became an unexpected crash course in the range of Nate Parker, who is fine in this. Mbatha-Raw is who really shines, selling the audience on a character who can potentially come off as insufferably privileged and/or entitled. I bought into her emotional journey far more than I expected. The second most impressive character has to be Minnie Driver as her over-bearing mother. "Parent living vicariously through the success of the child" is virtually a trope by now. She manages to add some extra shading to it, switching between mother and manager at unexpected times. It isn't a deeply complex story, but the performances make it sing.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Deliverance

The Pitch: You know what would make canoeing more exciting? Hillbilly rape and banjos.

Dueling banjos and "Squeal like a pig". What more do you need? This is a film more remembered for its moments than the final product. There's a reason for that. Those are iconic elements. Dueling banjos is just plain catchy and the use of it is perfect for establishing the setting. "Squeal like a pig", well, that's just twisted. That scene is boundary pushing if made today. 40 years ago, that's enough to be a phenomenon. The movie as a whole is pretty solid though. Between The River Wild and Mean Creek, I've seen enough of the sub-genre over the last year or two, but this is the best of them. Burt Reynolds is at his peak machismo in what I believe was a star-turn performance, and Jon Voight gives things a bit more complexity. It's a much smaller movie than I expected and that works in its favor. Seriously, is a "low budget action movie with A-list actors" even a thing?

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Denial

Formula: (My Cousin Vinny + 40 Years of experience + England) / Schindler's List

I've been keeping this weekly movie streak of mine going for quite a while now. A little over four years now. I'm stubborn about maintaining it, almost to a fault. Some weeks (like all of this November) it's very easy to keep it going. New movies are always coming out and I like to see a variety of genres. There are tough times, when none of the new releases appeal to me and no smaller movies have expanded out to a theater near me. The first weekend in December is almost always a tough one. You see, normal people take their time to see movies. Studios don't bother releasing anything of note that weekend because they assume people are still digesting the several big releases from Thanksgiving. Well, I have no patience. I saw four movies last weekend and left myself nothing for this weekend.

Or so I thought.

Denial is the second Bleecker Street production I've seen this year, the second that I saw because nothing else looked very good, and the second that has blown away my expectations. The first was Eye in the Sky back in April, which is sure to be toward the top of my year-end movie list for 2016. Denial isn't quite at that level but is very good in its own right.

The film tells the story of Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, who was sued for liable in England by Nazi scholar and Holocaust denier, David Irving for claiming that he was distorting facts and presenting them as truth. It starts with their first encounter - Irving loudly interrupting one of her presentations - and follows through the different stages of her trial. The stakes are higher than they should be because, in England, the burden of proof is on the defendant, meaning, Prof. Lipstadt must essentially, 60 years after the fact, prove that the Holocaust happened in order to win her case. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that? This trial was in 2000, which is far more recent than I would've assumed. And, if Prof. Lipstadt loses, she risks legitimizing the belief that the Holocaust didn't happen, that it was just an exaggeration.

What keeps the film engaging throughout is how it resists the urge to go bigger than it needs to. It's a movie about people doing their jobs and doing them well. That's the same thing that made Spotlight so good last year. Because, while Deborah is the lead, she's mostly an observer. The central conflict of the film isn't between Prof. Lipstadt and Mr. Irving. It's between her impulses as the client and her lawyers' knowledge of the system and what it will take to win. It's a film about building a legal case, methodically and strategically. It's about people putting months of work in to make sure things are done right. It's about the smaller fights that win the bigger battle. That sounds kind of boring, but it's not. I'd rather see people struggling because something is hard rather than because a random plot complication demands it.

Rachel Weisz manages to put on Prof. Lipstadt's Queens accent without getting lost in the caricature, which is damn near award-worthy on its own. She does a good job keeping the focus on her character even when she's technically not doing much. I don't know anything about the real David Irving, but if you are looking for an actor who can be foul while also on the fringes of being aristocratic, Timothy Spall is the perfect choice. Andrew Scott is sufficiently stuffy while also being a man of conviction, as one of Lipstadt's two lead lawyers. Tom Wilinson, as the other lead lawyer, is about as un-showy as he can be. The cast is much larger than that - mainly to point out how many people are involved in a single-case like this - but those four are at the core.

It's a small movie, to the point where it could just as easily be a TV movie. That's probably why it's barely had a release beyond major cities. The fact that Irving never feels like an actual threat means the stakes never get high enough to pull me in the way that something like Spotlight does and is about the only thing keeping me from raving about Denial rather than just highly recommending it. Regardless, this is a strong example of a type of movie that I wish would be made more often. Thank god for these slow weeks at the theaters or else I never would've seen this.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Life Itself

The Pitch: Let's figure out why Roger Ebert is someone we all know.

This is where I include the realization that I'm writing a review about a movie about a man who wrote reviews of movies just like this.

Sometimes, all a documentary needs to be is a substitute for a Wikipedia article. I know of Roger Ebert more than I know about him. It's a name that I've known as long as I can remember. Why do I know him though? What made him or Siskel or "two thumbs up" so well known? Life Itself does a fine job covering Ebert's life in a variety of ways. It doesn't get into any one topic in much detail because there isn't the time. That's fine. It covers his origin, the Pulitzer, his relationship with Gene Siskel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Cannes, and his later jawless years when he developed a strong online presence. Personally, I'm more interested in the reviews and his process for those, but I understand the broad approach the film takes instead.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend