"The Burial" and "Nyad"

"The Burial" is the kind of legal drama that you don't see as often as you used to, but is so utterly likable and enjoyable, you have to wonder why they don't make more.  Tommy Lee Jones plays Jerry O'Keefe, the elderly owner of several funeral homes in Mississippi.  After the shady Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp) backs out of an oral agreement to buy several of Jerry's businesses, with an eye on driving him to bankruptcy, Jerry decides to sue.  Because the case will be tried in a Florida community that is overwhelmingly African American, his young lawyer Hal (Mamadou Athie) convinces Jerry to hire a flashy African-American personal injury lawyer, Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) to join his legal team.  Soon after, Raymond hires his own African-American lawyers, including the formidable Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett).

Set in the '90s, roughly around the same time as the OJ Simpson trial, it's safe to say that race and justice are issues on everybody's minds in "The Burial."  The unlikely attorney-client relationship between Jerry and Willie is one that both of them have to be talked into, and is one that is questioned and tested multiple times.  Jerry is a good, decent, man who doesn't have much experience with people who aren't from his own walk of life, but eventually proves open-minded and willing to try.  Jerry may be the gentlest and most lovable role that Tommy Lee Jones has ever had, with hardly a trace of the famous hardass from his action movie days.  Willie E. Gary, meanwhile, is far more doubtful and has good reason to be.  Putting aside the racial dynamics, he's a personal injury lawyer, not a contract lawyer.  He's also honest about the fact that his successes are largely thanks to his charisma and larger-than-life persona, and Jerry's case is well outside of his comfort zone.  Jamie Foxx has been having a very good year between "The Burial" and "They Cloned Tyrone."  He absolutely runs away with "The Burial" the second he comes onscreen, full of energy and charm.  It's so much fun to watch him put on a show in the courtroom, become friends with Jerry, and clash against Jurnee Smollett's rising young hotshot.    

And it's the scenes with Smollett that I feel like are really the point of the movie, smuggled in amidst all the feel-good scenes of our smart, capable protagonists outmaneuvering the unscrupulous baddies in a legal system that actually works for once.  Willie E. Gary and Mame Downes are both African-American lawyers who have had to overcome a lot in order to achieve what they have.  It's bad luck that they're on opposite sides of the case, but they're absolutely kindred spirits, who understand each other in a way that no other characters in the movie do.  Between the two of them, they're able to lay out some uncomfortable truths and have a meaningful, interesting conversation about race and law and justice - a conversation that would otherwise be very difficult to have in this movie.  I wish the story had been about the two of them from the outset, but then "The Burial" would be a very different kind of film, and sadly a far less accessible one.  

Now, switching gears, let's talk about "Nyad."  I feel I should get a few caveats out of the way first, since the swimmer Diana Nyad is a somewhat controversial figure, and it's not clear if the feat of endurance swimming depicted in this film - swimming from Cuba to the Florida Keys over 48 hours -  followed all the rules to actually count as the achievement it's supposed to be.  I'm always a little wary when films like this are made, because everyone involved would have surely known the controversy would end up back in the spotlight again, probably reflecting badly on the film.  However, I was also sufficiently convinced that Diana Nyad is such an interesting figure, it doesn't matter if she officially finished her swim in accordance with the rules or not.

Annette Bening stars as Diana Nyad, giving one of the most physical, grueling performances I've ever seen in any sports film.  Bening not only doesn't try to hide her age and hardly seems to bother with makeup, but is constantly shown with her features sunburned, blistered, chapped, bloated, and obscured in unflattering ways by her gear.  The film begins with Nyad's 60th birthday party, and takes us through her multiple attempts at completing the swim she failed to accomplish when she was in her twenties.  "Nyad" was directed by the team of Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who made the mountain climbing films "Free Solo" and "Meru," and they rarely indulge in beauty shots of their subject.  Instead, it's her stubborn perseverance that's kept front and center, along with Nyad's relationships with the core members of her support team - her navigator John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) and her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster).       

It takes a while for the film to find its groove.  Diana Nyad has a difficult personality, and she's not easy to warm up to, so we see most of the film through Bonnie's eyes.  Bening is great in the film, but it absolutely wouldn't work without Jodie Foster as the ordinary everywoman figure, trying to be supportive of an impossibly demanding friend.  Every time the film strays too far from this relationship - into flashbacks to Nyad's past as a celebrated swimmer with a problematic coach, for instance - the film feels like it's on unsteady ground.  However, when the film is in problem-solving mode, piecing Nyad's team of shark experts and weather experts and equipment specialists together, adding more and more information gathered from each failed attempt, it's riveting to watch.  And "Nyad" knows when to be a crowd-pleasing sports movie in the end, with a great big, emotional finale that feels well-earned by the time we reach it.  

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"Last Vegas" and "Run All Night"

I love watching movies on airplanes, because I inevitably end up watching films that I never would have otherwise. Today, let's talk about "Last Vegas" from 2013 and "Run All Night" from 2015. Neither are especially good films, but I count them as lucky finds worth another look in retrospect.


"Last Vegas" is one of those films built around the hook of putting a group of older actors together for life-affirming shenanigans. A lot of these movies have involved heists, and Morgan Freeman shows up in a high percentage of them. He's in this one too, playing Archie, one of four childhood friends who grew up together in Brooklyn, but are now scattered across the country. The other three are Sam (Kevin Kline), Paddy (Robert DeNiro), and Billy (Michael Douglas), who is finally getting married after decades of bachelorhood. A bachelor party is in order, so everyone heads for Las Vegas, though Paddy has to be tricked into coming because he and Billy have been on bad terms for several years.


I've seen this formula played out a few times too many over the years, especially with the "Book Club" films. "Last Vegas," however, is in the running for having the best execution of it that I've seen yet. This is a genuinely entertaining, feel-good watch, and lives up to the talent involved in a way that too few of these films do. It'll probably come off as too pandering and pleasant for some, with contrivances piled upon contrivances, but all the characters are well fleshed-out, and their relationships are well constructed. Billy and Paddy end up getting into a love triangle with a lounge singer named Diane (Mary Steenburgen), and the romantic scenes actually work as romantic scenes. Each of the four leads gets a personal subplot, a chance to banter with their fellow screen legends, and a few good laughs and moments of pathos. It's honestly lovely to see.


I'm sure I was influenced by the fact that I was watching "Last Vegas" ten years after it was made. The lead actors are now in their late 70s and 80s, and we don't see them onscreen as much anymore. Midrange comedies like this aren't common either, at least not as theatrical releases. Older audiences only seem to be getting more underserved as time goes by. Frankly, it's been a long time since I've seen any studio comedy for older audiences as well put together as "Last Vegas," with this kind of budget and cast. I don't see more coming anytime soon, so we'd better appreciate the ones we have.


Now, on to "Run All Night," which is one of four action thrillers that Jaume Collet-Serra has made with Liam Neeson. They always remind me of the gritty 70s B-movies that used to star Charles Bronson, full of improbable standoffs and desperate men. "Run All Night" struck me as a very solid picture, maybe even the best of all their collaborations. Sure, it's a little long and the visual flourishes are a bit much, but it boasts an unusually strong cast, a good premise, and a rare opportunity for Neeson to play against type.


In "Run All Night," Neeson is Jimmy Conlon, a hitman for one of Boston's Irish mobs, who has become a grimy drunk with age. His adult son Mike (Joel Kinnaman) will have nothing to do with him. His sympathetic boss, Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris), is a childhood friend who keeps Jimmy on the payroll regardless. All the violence and mayhem is kicked off by Shawn's screwup son Danny (Boyd Holbrook), who Jimmy is forced to kill in order to stop him from shooting Mike. Shawn retaliates, setting both the mob and the police against the Conlons. Other characters include a police detective played by Vincent D'Onofrio, an assassin played by Common, and Nick Nolte in a role I won't spoil.


There are all of the usual car chases and shootouts that you would expect from an action movie, but underpinning this is a pretty sturdy story about father-son conflict, with Neeson playing a regretful hitman who is trying very hard for an eleventh hour redemption. Early scenes show him being pathetic and sleazy, trying to numb the pain with alcohol, while Kinnaman manages to not come off as an asshole for rejecting his help over and over again. It presents a nice contrast to Neeson's recent run of male power fantasy vehicles like "Taken," since Jimmy can't dodge any consequences and his kid doesn't trust him at all.


To be sure, if you've seen any similar media, every twist and turn is telegraphed far in advance, but the performances are good, and it feels like there are honest efforts being made from everyone involved to do right by the material. I know exactly why I skipped this movie the first time around, but I'm glad I got to take a second look.

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It's "The Killer"

"The Killer" is everything you'd expect from a David Fincher film, which may not be a good thing at this point in his career.  It's very much in the mold of his earlier work like "Fight Club" and "Seven" - very concerned with visceral style and masculine violence.   The alienated hit man lead, played by Michael Fassbender, is good at his job and fun to watch.  The story is based on a French comic book series, and has a simple, straightforward narrative of revenge and retribution - well, at least it looks that way at first.  

The unnamed Killer is introduced to us while he's preparing for his next job.  Through his  constantly running narration, we learn that the Killer lives a very disciplined, very restrained lifestyle that's all about maintaining his professionalism and dedication to his work.  He meticulously describes every step in his routine, from his workout regimen to weapons maintenance.  Unfortunately, the job goes wrong and he's forced to flee the scene.  His employers retaliate by sending people to his home in the Dominican Republic, where the killer's girlfriend ends up in the crossfire.  This results in the Killer going on a rampage to find and kill everyone he deems responsible - his handler (Charles Parnell), the people who hurt his girlfriend, The Expert and The Brute, (Tilda Swinton, Sala Baker), and the mysterious Client (Arliss Howard).   

Fincher hasn't lost a step when it comes to constructing action and suspense sequences.  There are so many individual pieces of "The Killer" that are as good as anything he's ever made - the wonderfully tactile Florida fight scene with Sala Baker, the opening scenes with the Killer on the job, and the whole sequence where a poor, doomed secretary named Dolores (Kerry O'Malley) crosses paths with the Killer.  Just because the narrative is simple doesn't mean it's not satisfying to watch play out.  And after so many years of slick John Wick fight scenes, it's a treat to see a Fincher deliver his far more effective, impactful execution of similar material.  There's so much storytelling and character detail packed into every encounter, and a good amount of wry humor too.  

In the end "The Killer" is a character study at its core, and it's one that spends a good amount of time dismantling the cool image of the typical movie contract killer.  Unlike Melville's "Le Samourai," or Refn's "Drive," the point is not to get you to sympathize with the protagonist, but to get you to realize how far the Killer is from the cool facade that he's constructed.  We watch him screw up and break his own rules repeatedly.  However, just as telling are the little details like his obsession with The Smiths and his habit of using ancient sitcom characters' names for aliases.  Fassbender is very good in the role, after a long break from acting.  He's got the requisite cool factor, but also nails the moments where, vitally, the Killer is absolutely not cool.  

That brings us to Tilda Swinton as the Expert, who gives the best performance in the film by far, and lends the third act a welcome boost when she appears.  As with many other films, I'm inclined to like "The Killer" more because Swinton is so good in it.  The Expert is the bon vivant to the Killer's ascetic, the contrasting element that helps illuminate all the ways in which he's lacking.  She essentially takes over the story for a while because her dialogue replaces his narration, and makes it clear that while the Killer is the protagonist, we really shouldn't be rooting for him.

I liked "The Killer" an awful lot, but I'm concerned that David Fincher is making this kind of movie again.  He's revisited similar subjects and themes many times over his career, but "The Killer" feels like a genre exercise in a way that is extremely safe.  There's not much bite to the cultural commentary, not much novel about the filmmaking, and way too much of it feels familiar.  It's unambitious, which bothers me a lot, because Fincher has always, dependably, been the kind of filmmaker who pushes buttons.  Then again, if he just wants to blow off some steam, homage some of the greats, and have a little fun, who am I to say that he shouldn't?  

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"Blue Eye Samurai" is a Bold Step

Despite not having anything remotely in common when it comes to subject matter or genre, it feels like the closest antecedent to Netflix's new animated series "Blue Eye Samurai," is "Arcane."  These are both shows that are aimed at adult audiences and feature graphic violence in abundance, but they don't fall into the category of high-octane exploitation that earlier experiments with adult animation like "Spawn" and "Afro Samurai" did.  Instead, these newer shows are more ambitious, concerned with telling compelling stories first, and ensuring that the sex and violence they feature doesn't feel too gratuitous.  

I was very cautious about "Blue Eye Samurai," because the vast majority of the people who worked on it aren't Japanese, even though a few of the key creatives like  Amber Noizumi, who co-created the show with her husband Michael Green, are.  The primary animation studio, Blue Spirit, is French Canadian, and the audience is clearly meant to be a Western one.  The animation style can't escape some comparisons with Japanese anime, but it sets itself apart with animation that is more fluid, and character designs that are more European-influenced.   It'll probably rub some people the wrong way that "Blue Eye Samurai" chooses to portray heroines with very individualistic, proto-feminist attitudes, and there is some uncomfortable focus on sexual content and Orientalist exoticism.  However, it's also clear that the creators aren't trying to pass off the show as something authentically Japanese.  There's a great love of Japanese culture on display, and everyone did their homework, but the underlying story is unapologetically, aggressively from an outsider's perspective.  And in this case it's a good thing.    

The show is set in Japan's Edo period, when foreigners were expressly barred from existing in the country.  The title character is Mizu (Maya Erskine), a blue-eyed, mix-race woman who disguises herself as a swordsman with tinted glasses, and is on a mission for revenge in a world that is incredibly hostile to her.  Along the way she picks up a cheerful comic relief sidekick, Ringo (Masi Oka), who was born without hands, and is pursued by a rival swordsman Taigen (Darren Barnet), who Mizu defeated and left disgraced.  A parallel story follows Taigen's fiancee Akemi (Brenda Song), a rebellious noble-born woman who resists being married off to someone else.  The major antagonist ends up being a loathsome Irshman, Abijah Fowler (Kenneth Branagh) with designs on killing the shogun and taking over the country.  And you'd better believe Branagh has a great time with that Irish accent.

Action fans will appreciate the wonderfully violent and gory swordplay scenes, created by Jane Wu, where Mizu demonstrates that she's a badass over and over again.  However, the brutality feels earned because the rest of the show is equally as harsh and unforgiving.  Edo era Japan was rough for everybody, and "Blue Eye Samurai" doesn't shy away from showing the worst parts of it, specifically focusing on the plight of women.  There are a few episodes spent in and around brothels, and several scenes with Akemi specifically discussing the futility of her rebellion against the established gender dynamics of the time.  I've seen a few older Japanese films that have addressed such topics, but never in anime, and never in a genre piece like this.  There are a few female warriors who show up from time to time, but it's never anyone as cold and dangerous and impossible to dismiss as Mizu.    

And that's why "Blue Eye Samurai" hits a nerve.  It's not the familiar revenge story or the impeccable animation or the excellent performances of the actors, but the point of view that stands out.  This show talks frankly about sex, but is almost never salacious.   It expresses Western attitudes, but all the Western characters depicted are evil, rapacious, and vile.  The female characters are so active and so vital, it can be unnerving.  I'm sure you could make a show like this in Japan, but nobody does.  Yes, there are anachronisms everywhere, and modern music needle-drops, and Mizu should die at least a dozen times during the course of the story, but I've never seen an animated series tell this kind of story so whole-heartedly, and I really need them to make more.

With the recent release of "Scavengers Reign," and the new seasons of "Invincible," and "Pantheon," all coming within the same few weeks, it feels like we've finally reached a point where animated adult dramas are finding a foothold.  Let's hope it lasts.      

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Your 2024 Oscar Nominations

It's that time again! The ten Best Picture nominees this year are an eclectic bunch that includes "Barbie," "Oppenheimer," "The Holdovers," "The Zone of Interest," and "Past Lives."  At the time of writing, I haven't seen as many of the nominees as I would like, but I've been following the race all season, and I've seen enough of the contenders to have some opinions.  For the most part, none of the films on the list are surprises.  "The Zone of Interest" doing so well while "May December" and "The Color Purple" only got one nomination apiece is unexpected, but there's nothing totally out of the blue like there's been in some years past.  

Best Director is a different story.  Greta Gerwig and Alexander Payne were widely expected to be in the running instead of Justine Triet and Jonathan Glazer.  You can definitely see the effect of the more international voting body, putting their weight behind "Anatomy of a Fall" and "Zone of Interest."  Meanwhile, "Barbie" is missing in several key categories including Cinematography and Editing, so I don't see it having much of a shot at trophies on Oscar night.  Perhaps the biggest snub of the year is Margot Robbie not being nominated for Best Actress for "Barbie."  However, America Ferrera did make it into Best Supporting Actress, which is nice to see.  

Looking at the acting categories, I happy to say there are no major issues with representation this year, thanks to "Killers of the Flower Moon," "Rustin," and "American Fiction."  There would probably be more acting nominees of color if "The Color Purple" had managed to get its act together.  However, it's wild that "May, December," got no acting nominations.  I understand why Charles Melton couldn't squeeze his way into Best Supporting Actor, because that category is so crowded this year, but Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman whiffing is more of a shock.  Nobody from "Past Lives" made it either.  Instead, "Nyad" got both of its nominations in acting categories.  I'm also a little disappointed that "Maestro" is taking up so much real estate - it's a well made film but too self-important for its own good.  Bradley Cooper's recent spate of campaigning is not helping things.  

Counting up the total nominations by film, the frontrunners are who you'd expect them to be - "Oppenheimer," "Poor Things," and "Killers of the Flower Moon," with "Barbie" losing some momentum.  With the understanding that I haven't seen several major contenders like "American Fiction" and "The Zone of Interest" yet, right now I'm rooting for "The Holdovers," especially for Paul Giamatti.  I think it's probably Christopher Nolan's year, however, and he's overdue for some Academy recognition so that's fine.  I'm also secretly glad that I won't have to pay as much attention to less successful contenders like "Napoleon" and "The Color Purple," which I didn't much like.  However, it's good to see some of the others, like "The Society of the Snow," "The Creator," not being overlooked.  I feel a bit warmer now towards "Past Lives," which only got Best Picture and Best Screenplay nods, and clearly just made it into the race by the skin of its teeth.   

Amusing single nominations abound this year.  The Flamin' Hot Cheetos movie, "Flamin' Hot," is now an Oscar nominee, thanks to shrewdly including an original Diane Warren song on its soundtrack.  The Golda Meir biopic that nobody seemed to like scored a Makeup and Hairstyling nomination.  "Godzilla Minus One" scored the kaiju franchise's first nomination in Best Visual Effects, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is in Best Original Score (possibly John Williams' swan song), and that wacky vampire Pinochet film, "El Conde," got a Best Cinematography nomination and deserved it.  Wes Anderson struck out again with "Asteroid City," but he did get a Best Live Action Short nomination for "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar."

Focusing on the positive, I'm so happy that "Nimona" made it into the Best Animated Feature race, though "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" probably has this sewn up.  Best Song continues to be the most chaotic category, but I will look forward to the performance of "I'm Just Ken" on Oscar night, and no doubt Margot Robbie will still show up to the ceremony in another spectacular Barbie outfit, nomination or no.

Notable also rans include "Asteroid City," "The Iron Claw," "All of Us Strangers," "Priscilla," "Ferrari," and "The Killer."  Despite rumors of a late "Saltburn" surge, one did not appear.  It's absolutely tragic it got nothing for production design - or Rosamund Pike.  But, oh well.  It was a very good year at the movies, and the state of the Oscars this year reflects that.

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"Henry Sugar" and Three More

Wes Anderson's adaptation of "The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar" as a forty minute short works beautifully, and so do his three other shorts based on Roald Dahl stories that were released with it.  They all feature the same production team and principal actors, and I think that they're best watched together.  Add up all their running times, and it's roughly equal to that of a full length feature.

All four shorts - "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," "The Swan," "The Rat Catcher," and "Poison," are told in the same style.  Wes Anderson fans will be familiar with the extremely distinctive, fanciful sets, tightly controlled cinematography, and deadpan performances.  Anderson pushes all of these elements further than usual, really emphasizing the artifice of his storytelling choices.  It feels like we're watching short theater plays, where the beautiful sets are constantly being rolled in and lifted out around the performers.  Without leaving the frame, Anderson can travel through multiple locations, or even just change the viewer's perspective on a location.  Props are brought into frame by visible stagehands, who come back to collect them later.  Costume and makeup changes happen onscreen, and some actors will play multiple roles in the same story.    

The effect of all of this is really something special. Even seeing that all the sets are facades, and that a levitating trick is accomplished by having the actor sit on a box that's been painted to blend in with the set if you look at it in just the right way, it's impossible not to be charmed and impressed by all the painstakingly created elements of the production, and the windup clock precision with which it's all deployed.  It's like watching a magic trick where the magician is showing you, step by step, how the illusion is accomplished, and still being wowed by the effect.  In addition, I came away very impressed with how much skill and artistry are required for such a feat.  I found the style a little overcomplicated and intrusive in "Henry Sugar," but it didn't bother me at all in the other shorts, possibly because of the nature of those stories, and possibly because I'd gotten used to it by that point.  

Dahl's prose is given special prominence, with a character rapidly narrating each story in the first person, as the events play out.  In "Henry Sugar," which runs twice the length of the other shorts, there are actually three narrator characters, as the stories are nested inside one another, with a fourth meta layer provided by interjections from Roald Dahl himself, played by Ralph Fiennes in every installment.  The other major members of the ensemble are Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Richard Ayoade, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley - notably all male and all British.  This is by far the most British production I've ever seen from Anderson.  His last Dahl adaptation, "Fantastic Mr. Fox," adjusted the characters so that they could be played by Americans.  "Henry Sugar" feels far more like a tribute to Dahl, and adapts more personal material, so sticking closer to the originals feels appropriate.  

It's hard to say much about the performances, because they're all so rigidly limited by Anderson's style, but some of the actors are more comfortable here than others.  Fiennes and Friend have both worked with Anderson multiple times now, and seem right at home.  Cumberbatch puts in a very good effort, while Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley don't seem to have any trouble keeping up.  Richard Ayoade doesn't get as much to do, but some of his reaction shots are priceless.  Everyone does a great job of never breaking the immersion, while really leaning into the theatricality, and occasionally peeping over the fourth wall.    

Despite the fantastical nature of some of the stories, these skew more adult than most Dahl adaptations, and "Henry Sugar" is the only one with an unambiguously happy ending.  "Poison" is probably my favorite, for acknowledging the less comfortable  parts of Dahl's work that other adaptations have been keen to avoid.  The shorts left me curious about Dahl's other short stories for grown-ups, which may have been the point of the whole exercise.  And after this and last year's "Matilda" musical, I feel like Dahl's work is in relatively safe hands with Netflix.  Little experiments like this shorts collection are increasingly rare, and I'm glad that Anderson got the chance to return to the Dahl universe.  

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Let's Talk "Red, White, and Royal Blue"

I wasn't originally going to write this review, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about this movie.  "Red, White, and Royal Blue" is an LGBT rom-com, which isn't the rarity it used to be only a few years ago.  It's based on a popular LGBT romance novel, which I have not read.  The resulting movie adaptation is one of those fluffy, cuddly, impossible pieces of wish-fulfillment in more ways than one.  First, there's the premise of the son of the US president falling in love with the crown prince of the UK.  Then there's the US president being the first woman to occupy the office, with a subplot devoted to her reelection campaign and getting out the youth vote in Texas.

Anyway, the extremely photogenic Taylor Zakhar Perez plays First Son, Alex Claremont-Diaz, and only slightly less photogenic Nicholas Galitzine plays Prince Henry.  The two can't stand each other at first, but end up in the middle of a massive storm of bad publicity after the opening scene, and are stuck on a public relations tour together to assure everyone that they haven't mucked up US-UK relations.  Very quickly, they fall for each other, spend a lot of time trying to hide their relationship from everyone around them, fail spectacularly, and eventually have to decide whether they want to risk everything for love.  It's a very typical rom-com, but the production is significantly more expensive than most, with a cast list to match.  Uma Thurman plays our Madame President, with Clifton Collins Jr. as her husband, Sarah Shahi as her chief of staff, and Rachel Hilson as Alex's best friend Nora.  On the other side of the ocean, Stephen Fry puts in a touching appearance as the fictional King James III.

The movie does absolutely nothing that I didn't expect it to, from the meet cutes to the plucky besties to the unexpectedly sympathetic and/or supportive parental figures.  The alternate history and political fiction are mildly fun, but completely unrealistic.  The romance never gets beyond showing mild groping, though there are pointed discussions about sex.  The performances of the two leads are enthusiastic, but very mediocre, and nobody else gets much material to do anything with.  Sarah Shahi gets in one really good rant (which is more than she got to do in "Black Adam,") but that's about it.  The production is content to stick to a very glossy, very chintzy, and very familiar look.  This is the directing debut of lauded playwright Matthew Lopez, but he seems to have been content to follow the well-established rom-com model, and I can't say I blame him.  He's giving the intended audience what they want.   

I guess the unremarkable nature of "Red, White, and Royal Blue" is what caught my attention.  The tabloid-ready premise is an attention-grabber, but the actual story is told in about the safest, most non-controversial way possible.  From what I've read, apparently everything involving American politics was greatly toned down, and even mildly controversial elements like a sexual predator character and Alex's parents being divorced were removed.  The press isn't nearly as vicious as I was expecting, and public sentiment is almost immediately on the side of our unlikely couple.  Alex and Henry don't even face as many hurdles as most heterosexual couples I've seen in similar rom-coms, like "The Prince and Me."     

I don't watch many romantic comedies, so I'm not sure if all of them have been similarly neutered, or if this has something to do with the young target audience or the LGBT audience or what.  High profile LGBT romances might be more common than they used to be, but that doesn't mean that they don't still have to tread lightly, considering the state of the culture wars.  The movie is lightweight, cutesy, saccharine fluff, but it's also a sign of the times.  We might be getting tired of having these conversations about representation and normalization, but we still need to have them.  I doubt Stephen Fry wouldn't be playing the King of England in this movie if Alex were a she. 

And maybe next time we'll get an LGBT rom-com with the guts to be a little more political and a little more daring.  Maybe.  Baby steps.

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"Leo" and "Mutant Mayhem"

Let's talk about some movies starring animated reptiles today.

Netflix's animated film "Leo" was a hard sell for me.  Adam Sandler's has a mixed record when it comes to films he'd written himself, and I hadn't enjoyed any of the animated ones.  Also, the title character that Sandler plays is an elderly lizard who sounds like all the other off-putting elderly characters that Sandler has played over the years.  Fortunately, Leo is considerably more interesting than most Sandler comedy leads.

Leo and his turtle pal Squirtle (Bill Burr) live in the terrarium of the fifth grade classroom of Mrs. Salinas (Allison Strong) as class pets.  When Leo learns that he's reaching the end of his natural life span, he starts secretly talking to the kids in the class to give advice on their problems. He helps talkative Summer (Sunny Sandler) be more considerate and make friends.  He helps rich snob Jayda (Sadie Sandler) become more grounded.  He helps held-back class bully Anthony (Ethan Smigel) and Eli (Roey Smigel), the kid with helicopter parents who have a literal drone following him around.  He even helps the miserable substitute teacher, Mrs. Malkin (Cecily Strong), who takes over while Mrs. Salinas is on maternity leave.

As you can probably tell from how many of the kids are voiced by children of Adam Sandler and co-writer Robert Smigel, "Leo" is a vanity project.  However, it's well-written, keenly observed, unusually timely, and completely kid-appropriate.  There are a lot of fun little running jokes and subversions that I appreciated, like the kindergarteners acting like swarms of piranhas, and none of the major characters really being a villain, though several of them do villainous things.  The animation is just good enough that it doesn't draw much attention to itself, and thankfully avoids a lot of the gross-out tropes I associate with some of Sandler's past efforts.  If you're a "Hotel Transylvania" fan, many of the same creatives are involved.  I went in with low expectations, and was happily surprised.

The new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie, however, was one of the better films I saw from last summer.  I'm very familiar with the '90s Turtle cartoons and movies, and frankly this was never my franchise.  However, the new "Mutant Mayhem" movie from director Jeff Rowe, and written by a team that includes Rowe, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg, is one I can count myself a fan of.  It's a total reboot, starring the four mutant turtle brothers, Donatello (Micah Abbey), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), and Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), who now sound and act like actual, real-world teenagers.  They spout pop culture references, constantly talk over each other, sneak around behind the back of their protective foster father Splinter (Jackie Chan!), and get excited and silly when they discover something cool.  There's this wonderful new energy and verve to the characters that is so appealing and infectious.

In this version of the story, the Turtles want very badly to join the normal, above-ground world, but they're aware that they're scary mutants and have to stay hidden.    They decide the best way to win over the public is to use their ninja skills to become heroes, and soon befriend a high schooler named April (Ayo Edibiri) who helps them out.  There's a larger criminal conspiracy going on involving the evil corporation responsible for their mutations, and a bunch of other mutants voiced by celebrities who are the result of other accidents and experiments.  However, the bulk of the screen time is wisely devoted to the four Turtles and their growing pains. 

   

I love the way this movie looks, taking the "Spider-verse" film as a starting point, and creating a much more rough-hewn visual style that sometimes looks like choppy stop-motion animation, and really goes for the more exaggerated expressions and movements associated with old school traditional character animation.  Everything looks a little uglier, a little weirder, and a little more off-kilter than the depictions of these characters that we've seen before, but there's also so much more personality and emotion there too.  April finally feels like a real person.  The Turtles aren't just collections of tropes, but distinct individuals.  This is one of the best reboots of any franchise I've ever seen, especially since it makes so clear that the current generation of kids is the target audience, and the creators are concerned with appealing to their sensibilities more than anyone else's.  And thank goodness.

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On "Oppenheimer"

I wasn't able to see "Oppenheimer" as Christopher Nolan intended, not having access to any large format showings.  However, this is true for most of the viewers of this film, who will end up watching it on much smaller screens.  There's definitely a sense that this was intended to be a piece of spectacle, even though the scope of "Oppenheimer" is fairly small, and there's nothing that you could really call a set piece or action sequence.  The only exception is the testing of the first nuclear bomb, a spine-tingling event marked by slow motion renderings of flame and smoke.  Even this is brief and fleeting, intended to evoke somber awe instead of excitement.

"Oppenheimer" is structured more like a conspiracy thriller and courtroom drama than a typical biopic.  It takes place in three different points in time, nested like so many other Nolan films.  In 1959, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), is being questioned by the US Senate for his part in disgracing J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), which may cost him the position of Secretary of Commerce.  In 1954, Oppenheimer is undergoing similar questioning by government officials, intended by Strauss to discredit and diminish him.  Framed by the two different interrogations, we learn the trajectory of  Oppenheimer's career as a physicist, from his student days in the 1920s, to leading the Manhattan project to build the first atomic bomb during WWII, to the fame, notoriety, and controversy that followed.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is a fascinating figure, a scientific genius who let himself be convinced that building the bomb was necessary to end WWII, and came to regret it.  He was politically at odds with the government, and constantly under suspicion for marrying his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and maintaining a sporadic love affair with psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), both Communists.  He interacted with every major scientific mind of his era, including having a fateful conversation with Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) that bookends the film.  Nolan portrays him as brilliant, but also disconnected and naive about his ability to stay on the right side of history, and only concerned with the consequences of his achievements when it was too late.  The structure of the narrative forces him to confront himself and his worst failings, even as the film is simultaneously making the case for how unfairly he was treated after the war.  

Aside from the achronological storytelling and abrupt editing, there's not much flashy visual blandishment going on in the film.  Every part of Oppenheimer's era is immaculately recreated with great attention to historical detail, of course, but it's nothing too different from a more typical biopic.  Most of the big, dramatic moments are in conversation or testimony.  The Strauss timeline being in black and white is the only major stylistic decision I can think of.  Instead, what gives "Oppenheimer" its weight is the intense focus that Nolan affords to Cillian Murphy's performance, and willingness to treat intimate moments as momentous.  So much of the film is simply Murphy thinking and reacting, often wordlessly, as Oppenheimer races to be the first to weaponize nuclear power, and then has to live with the consequences.  "Oppenheimer" doesn't strike me as cold the way most Nolan films are, maybe because his canvas so much of the time is human faces blown up on IMAX screens, the subtlest emotions magnified to magnificent proportions.  Cillian Murphy delivers a great performance, anchoring a film that is often awash in scientific and political babble, with too many characters to keep track of.

Good grief, Christopher Nolan stuffed this cast with great actors.  You have major talents like Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, and Gary Oldman barely getting half a scene apiece.  The visual shorthand of familial stars is necessary, however, because so many people contributed important pieces of this story, and Nolan seemed determined not to leave out any of them.  Standouts include David Krumholtz as Oppenheimer's close collaborator Isidor Isaac Rabi, Jason Clarke as attorney Roger Robb, who spearheaded the witch hunt Oppenheimer endured in the '50s, and Matt Damon as the excitable director of the Manhattan Project.  Blunt and Pugh don't get enough to do because "Oppenheimer" spends little time concerned with its subject's private life, but are afforded enough opportunity to remind us of what formidable actresses they are.  Robert Downey Jr., however, delivers my favorite performance, playing Strauss as a miserable, petty man who is driven by an imagined slight. 

 I also found Nolan's screenplay impressive for how willing it is to dive headfirst into difficult subjects without making anything easy for audiences.  Politics and paranoia are discussed heavily, along with the moral issues around the use of the bomb.  However, the writing is so efficient that it never feels like the pace slows down, even when the race for the atomic bomb transitions into the disposition of the two inquiries.  This doesn't feel like a three hour movie, even if it has the weight of one.  Likewise, this doesn't feel like a biopic despite J. Robert Oppenheimer rarely leaving our sight.

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My Favorite William Friedkin Film

I had to think long and hard about whether I wanted to write this post, because William Friedkin is one of those directors who has made some iconic films, but I think I'd keep my distance if I ever met him in real life.  He was an intense, sometimes maniacal artist by many accounts, a rule breaker and a risk taker who went to dangerous extremes to get what he wanted.  Some of his films would have been very different if he hadn't directed them - much safer, less shocking, and less impactful.  He wasn't afraid of controversial subjects like homosexuality, blowback from institutions like the Catholic Church, or an NC-17 rating.  

And then it happened.  Last year we got disturbing reports that many online copies of "The French Connection," the Best Picture winner of 1971, had been clumsily edited to remove two racial slurs.  The dialogue isn't important to the plot, but it is important to the whole tone and verve of the picture.  "The French Connection" is a suspenseful crime thriller about a racist, alcoholic, deeply unpleasant NYPD detective named Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman in a porkpie hat, trying to break up a ring of French drug smugglers.  It's probably best known for the spectacular chase sequence where Doyle follows his suspects in an elevated train by car, which cinematographer Owen Roizman notoriously filmed parts of in real Brooklyn traffic.  

The first time I watched "The French Connection" was about twenty years ago on DVD, and I wasn't too impressed.  By then the film was noticeably showing its age and I found the sequence of events difficult to follow.  However, everything clicked for me when I watched the film a second time with Friedkin's commentary, which explained how the events were based on real drug smuggling cases, and highlighted the impressive amount of detail that went into every frame.  Friedkin began his career as a documentary filmmaker, and his work reflected what he observed in real life.  Popeye Doyle was a racist because the detectives in that era were often racists, and Friedkin saw no reason to whitewash this truth.

Of course, Doyle is more than this.  He's such a memorable figure, because he's so different from the portrayal of police officers we usually saw onscreen in the '60s.  As a detective, Doyle is not particularly smart, and he's certainly not noble, but he's doggedly fixated on getting the job done and will employ any means necessary to get his man.  He'll break the rules, employ unnecessary brutality, and endanger innocent lives without hesitation.  Like Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry who debuted the same year, Doyle is comfortable working outside the system and can be characterized as an anti-hero.  The difference, however, is that Doyle isn't cool, isn't ever framed as admirable, and exists in a much closer approximation of reality where his recklessness has more consequences.  I don't know if Doyle is how William Friedkin saw himself as a director, but the parallels are undeniable.  

The film's ending also reflects Friedkin's commitment to realism.  The drugs are discovered but the mastermind Charnier gets away.  Doyle is transferred out of narcotics.  The various criminals arrested during the film receive different fates, seemingly at random.  Some serve time in prison while there's not enough evidence to charge the others.  I didn't seek out the sequel, "French Connection II" for a long time because it changed the fates of Doyle and Charnier to conform to the more typical outcomes we'd expect in a cops-and-robbers story.      

As for William Friedkin, the success of "The French Connection" gave him the clout he needed to make his next picture, "The Exorcist" with the amount of creative freedom necessary to really shake up the status quo.  I'd have written this entry about "The Exorcist," but my superstitious mother would never forgive me.  Friedkin's run of commercial successes was short lived, but he continued to push boundaries for the rest of his career, and his influence on the filmmaking profession remains considerable.  It's sort of fitting he died right after the censorship of "The French Connection" was discovered last summer, his work becoming a focal point of controversy yet again.

What I've Seen - William Friedkin

The Boys in the Band (1970)

The French Connection (1971)

The Exorcist (1973)

Sorcerer (1977)

The Brink's Job (1978)

Cruising (1980)

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

Bug (2006)

Killer Joe (2011)

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023)

Catching up on "One Piece," Part I

Minor spoilers ahead.

I intended to watch some of the backlog of prestige miniseries and other older shows I've been putting off while we were in a content lull.  Instead, I've been bingeing "One Piece."  A lot of "One Piece."  In fact, I've watched so much that I want to put down some thoughts before I get any farther into this series.

The pirate adventure "One Piece" is notorious for being one of the longest continuous manga and anime series, with the anime running since 1999, and now having amassed over a thousand episodes.  This makes it very intimidating for newcomers to approach, but since the live action version of "One Piece" premiered over the summer, there's been a lot of renewed interest in the franchise.  I count myself as a casual fan of "One Piece," as it was the last anime that I regularly kept up with through fansubs, back in the era when the only legitimate releases of the show I could access were the severely edited 4Kids versions.  My memory's not great, but I'm pretty sure I made it through the "Thriller Bark" story, which would have been in 2008.  The show was less than 400 episodes at that point.

I stopped watching because I found out from the manga readers that there was going to be a big timeskip, and multiple story arcs where most of the regular characters were going to be benched for an extended period of time.  I figured I could take a break until the gang got back together in the anime.  However, this didn't happen for several seasons, and I lost track of the show.  Fifteen years later, hearing nothing but good things about the later part of the series, I was finally ready to pick up where I had left off.  The anime world is very different from what it was in 2008.  Anime is a lot easier to access. Netflix and Hulu have a couple of seasons of "One Piece" each, and Crunchyroll has all the episodes, many of them offered on a free ad-supported tier.  It has been very easy to binge a ton of the episodes, and I've churned through five major arcs in a little over a month - bringing me to the end of "Fishman Island," which seems to be the halfway point of the whole "One Piece" series.   

Those five arcs of "One Piece" cover one hundred and eighty episodes that aired over roughly three years.  They're very eventful and advance the series significantly.  However, the individual episodes don't cover a lot, and "One Piece" is notorious for filler, recaps, previews, long opening credit sequences (some run two and a half minutes!), and "Dragonball Z" style fights that last multiple episodes.  If you're good at skipping these (and I am) it's easy to blaze through a ton of episodes very quickly.  Frankly, I don't know if I would have had the patience to wait for weekly releases - which looking back probably contributed to me dropping the show back in 2008.  One of the biggest roadblocks to me picking up the show again was that I'd already learned most of what happened in these arcs - curiosity would get the better of me and I'd look up what the Straw Hat Crew were up to every few years.  However, I wasn't sure I wanted to invest all the time to watch the events play out. 

My perspective on "One Piece" has changed significantly.  I'm even more obviously not the target audience anymore for a "shonen" series aimed at older boys and male teenagers.  "One Piece" is better in handling female characters than many of these shows, but there's still a tendency to rely on bad tropes and sexed up character designs.  The immature humor and over-the-top melodrama can be grating, and some of our hero characters are turning into silly caricatures of themselves - and many are very childish to begin with.  The Sunny Go now has a nine person crew, and there's very little time for anyone to get the spotlight beyond Luffy and whoever he's trying to save at the moment.  So Zoro gets lost more.  Sanji's perviness is worse.  Usopp and Chopper are always panicking.  Most of the crew interactions are strictly comedic, which is fine, but this gets a little tedious as someone who loves "One Piece" for the ensemble. 

Then again, the five arcs I watched represent one of the roughest parts of "One Piece" for Luffy's crew as a crew.  They're only together in two of them - "Sabaody Archipelago" and "Fishman Island," with the two year timeskip happening in between.  Nobody gets a real subplot or side mission, the way you'd see in previous arcs.  "Fishman Island" is also one of the worst regarded "One Piece" stories, because it flubs an ambitious story about an oppressed community that had been set up in previous arcs of the show.  One thing that "One Piece" has always done well has been its worldbuilding.  It has a ton of interesting minor characters who keep coming back throughout the series, often changing and growing and revealing new sides to themselves.  "Fishman Island" does offer some new background information for certain characters and conflicts, but there's nobody to really get emotionally invested in.  The villains are dull, new friends like the Mermaid Princess are a bust, and the fights are nothing special.

But when the show is good, it's good.  The three arcs where Luffy goes solo - "Amazon Lily," "Impel Down," and "Marineford," are really one, long, epic quest to save his brother Ace from execution.  These have some of the best storytelling and payoffs in the whole show.  The scale and the scope that "One Piece" does so well is fully on display as Luffy ends up in the middle of a literal war between different government and pirate factions.  Tons of new characters are introduced, we learn much more about some of the familiar ones - including big chunks of Luffy and Ace's backstory - plus lots of future conflicts are set up.  Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to avoid the spoilers for the end of "Marineford" back in 2010 if you were anywhere near the anime and manga fandoms when it happened.

Yeah, so the last big roadblock for me getting back into "One Piece" has been the "One Piece" fandom.  I haven't seen too much really concerning behavior, but the "One Piece" fans are exactly what you'd expect for a series aimed at young male viewers.  It's actually a plus for me that I'm so far behind, so I'll have less of a risk of running across spoilers for future  arcs I know very little about, like "Dressrosa" and "Wano," and I can avoid the bulk of the insane hype and drama that seems to erupt on social media every few months.  I get to be a casual fan of "One Piece" this way, and that's vital.  I'm too old and too contrarian to deal with the die-hards anymore.  My timing has been very deliberate too. Now that so many people are getting into "One Piece" via the live action series, the fandom spaces are seeing a welcome influx of newbies, and we're all just going to have to learn to get along.

I want to emphasize that I really do enjoy and appreciate this franchise.  I love that "One Piece" has such a unique style all its own, that the heroes are so optimistic and spirited, and the series has been consistently fun to watch.  It never gets bogged down in personal agendas or love quadrangles, never seems to run out of interesting characters, and knows how to play the long game when it comes to storytelling.  I stuck with the show for years because I was so attached to the characters and it wasn't quite like any other anime running.  It's managed to maintain a wonderful mix of absurdity and sincerity for decades now, and its creator Eiichiro Oda isn't slowing down.  However, "One Piece" definitely has its rough spots, and is a challenge for even the most dedicated media fan to stick with.  

I'm looking forward to the rest of "One Piece," and I intend to watch the remaining arcs much more slowly.  Getting through this chunk of episodes was really me pushing to get the hard part done with, and hopefully I've managed to get across why this was the hard part for me.  "One Piece" is far from the only fandom I've had some of these problems with, especially as I've been getting older.  But "One Piece" is proving to be worth the effort - so I'm giving it another try.  It will never be the best show, or my favorite, but I remain very fond of it.

I'll be back with updates, and maybe even a few reviews of future arcs.  Stay tuned.

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A Film "Afire"

I've now seen half a dozen of Christian Petzold's contemplative melodramas, and it's remarkable how consistent they are.  His latest, "Afire," is set in the present day, but has a fable-like, portentous quality to it, similar to his previous "Undine."  Far too topical wildfires are a major thematic element, threatening the small tourist town on the Baltic Sea, where our story takes place.     

I'd classify "Afire" as a romance, but the film is really more of a character study of the protagonist, Leon (Thomas Schubert), a young writer in crisis.  He's agreed to come to the seaside, at the invitation of his friend Felix (Langston Uibel), intending to spend time working on his latest novel.  They arrive at Felix's parents' holiday home, only to discover that they'll have to share it with someone else - a young woman named Nadja (Paula Beer) is already living there for the summer, and frequently has her boyfriend Devid (Enno Trebs) over at night.  Felix is happy to cohabitate, but Leon finds this situation unbearable.  

I think everyone has met someone like Leon before.  Some of us have even been this guy.  He's one of those socially awkward, deeply insecure types who is constantly making excuses not to socialize.  His physical appearance and his background clearly have something to do with it, but the matter is never addressed directly.  The one thing Leon can do is write, which he uses as a justification to be arrogant and ungenerous, imagining himself as better than those around him.  He's so self-centered and thinks so much of himself that he inadvertently says hurtful things, gets jealous over anyone else getting attention, and fails to notice what's going on with the people closest to him.  All of the other characters around Leon are in the middle of stories we only get glimpses of, because our POV stays with Leon, and Leon isn't paying attention.  

However, that begins to change as Leon takes an interest in Nadja.  Self-reflection is not an easy process, and Leon flounders mightily before he starts to make an effort to recognize both what's wrong with his writing and what's wrong with his own way of seeing the world.  Nadja is perhaps kinder to him than she should be, but that's mirrored by the attitude of the whole film, which sees something in Leon worth reforming.  I greatly enjoyed Thomas Schubert's performance, which gives Leon a childishness and a sadness that keeps him sympathetic, even in his worst moments.  Paula Beer is lovely and enigmatic.  There's a fine balancing act going on between how Leon sees her, and the woman she actually is.  It's wonderful to gradually learn about her background and her situation - things that Leon is too dense to ask her about in a straightforward way.  

The film unfolds slowly, but deliberately, first acclimating us to this seaside community under the looming threat of disaster, then establishing all of the characters and their relationships, and then following Leon as he muddles through his attempts to connect with Nadja and work on his novel.  Petzold is always so adept at capturing these elliptical encounters, where things almost happen, or are about to happen.  The visuals are so evocative and their significance is so clear, even if the symbolism is murky.  The absence of someone has just as much impact as their actual presence.  The tone of "Afire" is more humorous and tragicomical than I was expecting, because Leon is such an exasperating mess of a person.  However, I don't think that Petzold is ever making fun of him for his pretentions, remaining remarkably empathetic to Leon throughout his bumpy journey to enlightenment.  

Finally, I want to take issue with some of the marketing I've seen for "Afire," which has erroneously described it as a gay romance or some kind of apocalyptic disaster story.  These elements are important parts of the film, but "Afire" is a thoughtful drama about a struggling writer, first and foremost, and the actual romantic relationships are largely happening in the background, along with the forest fires.  And this is a film that is so good at being what it is, I feel oddly defensive about it being mistaken for anything else.     

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My Top Ten Films of 1942

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

My Favorite Blonde - Bob Hope's brand of zany slapstick comedy took me a little while to get into, but this team-up with Madeleine Carroll is irresistible.  The espionage hijinks, the staged fight scene, and the performing penguin are all highlights, but the rapport between Hope and Carroll is what really makes this screwball picture work.  Hope subsequently made two other "My Favorite" comedies, alas neither with Carroll.  

Yankee Doodle Dandy - James Cagney has a reputation as the ultimate screen tough guy, but my favorite of his roles is as songwriter and entertainer George M. Cohan.  Watch Cagney sing and dance and charm the pants off of everyone he meets in this patriotic biopic of the guy who wrote "You're a Grand Old Flag" and many other familiar tunes.  Watch Cagney act with unerring skill, tugging the heartstrings as deftly as he raises our spirits.  

Now, Voyager - One of the best Bette Davis films is a romance about a shy, unconfident woman who finally gets the opportunity to pursue life on her own terms.  Unfortunately, she falls in love with a man who isn't free to love her back.  It's a small scale, tender story about very adult characters and concerns, with a resolution that is beautifully bittersweet.  It also features one of the best final lines of dialogue to be found in any movie.

The Pied Piper - I adore Monty Woolley as an aging grump who doesn't like children, but somehow ends up shepherding a passel of small children through wartime Europe to safety in the UK.  Otto Preminger plays a Nazi officer who thinks our hero is a spy in disguise, but he isn't all that he appears to be.  Then Anne Baxter shows up in France to lend a hand.  All in all, this is one of the most unexpectedly charming war movies ever made.    

Casablanca - You must remember this.  Bogart and Bergman.  A murderer's row of great character actors in supporting roles, including Rains, Veidt, Hereid, Greenstreet, and even Lorre.  Some of the most quotable dialogue ever written.  The rousind Marseillaise sequence.  The oft parodied final farewell sequence on the runway.  Sam playing "As Time Goes By," which still serves as the Warner Bros. theme eighty years later.  Play it again, Sam.

Mrs. Miniver - One of the most effective WWII propaganda films ever made, making the conflict more personal as it depicts the effects of the war on British civilians.  Greer Garson plays the title character, the steadfast matriarch of a British family surviving the Blitz, serving as a stand-in for all victims of Nazi aggression.  The film was a smash hit and unapologetically used by the U.S. government to make their own case for entering the war.   

Bambi - The last of Disney's first wave of animated classics gives us the circle of life in a lovely paean to the natural world.  It's easy to forget that this is the film that both charmed audiences with the adorable baby animals, ice skating sequence, and April shower song, and then traumatized a generation of children with the death of Bambi's mother.  Actually, considering how well the film has held up, it's multiple generations of children now.

To Be or Not To Be - Everyone in WWII had to do their part, even a troupe of Polish theater actors who happen to include Jack Benny and Carole Lomabrd.  I keep forgetting that this is an Ernst Lubitsch film and not a Billy Wilder one, because this is about as satirical and political as Lubitch ever got.  However, the farce is excellent, the performances are a delight - especially Benny as the hammy leading man - and the Nazis got exactly what was coming to them.  

Went the Day Well? - More WWII propaganda - this time an extremely tense thriller that depicts a fictional infiltration of a British village by the Nazis.  The villagers are smart and resourceful, but so are the enemy, leading to multiple dashed plans to alert the authorities, slowly escalating hostilities, and eventually violent clashes.  The heroes are so ordinary, the losses hit very close to home, and the relative lack of melodrama makes it all the more sobering.

Random Harvest - However, I'm not one to turn down a good melodrama.  They really don't make enough of them these days.  Two of the brightest, and often forgotten stars of this era, Greer Garson and Ronald Colman, play a loving couple whose lives are upended due to amnesia - not once, but twice.  It's a ridiculous premise, but a sublime piece of cinema.  

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The 2024 Films I'm Anticipating the Least

I write this post every year to get some of the negativity out of my system about lousy current Hollywood moviemaking trends, and call out what I expect to be the worst examples in the coming movie year.  I want to tread very carefully this time out because the recent strikes have made a mess of the 2024 release calendar, things are still in flux, and we're lucky that some of these titles will be making it to theaters at all.  As always, please keep in mind that I hope that I am wrong about all the movies mentioned in this post, and that they turn out to be good cinema.  However, it is likely that this will be the last time you see discussion of any of these titles on this blog.  

Let's start with the superhero genre.  With the DCEU taking the year off, and Marvel looking at more delays, Columbia Pictures may end up dominating the year with three "Spider-man" adjacent films - "Kraven the Hunter" delayed from 2023, "Madame Web," and the third "Venom" movie.  "Kraven" made last year's list, so I won't repeat myself, but "Madame Web" has been saddled with the screenwriters from "Morbius," a first time feature director, and a February release date.  I like the stars, Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney, but the live action Sony Spider-man Universe films without Spider-man have all been pretty miserable to date.  The third "Venom" movie might end up delayed until next year because of production delays, and will be the directing debut of Kelly Marcel, who wrote on the first two "Venom" movies.  I didn't like either of them, and I have no reason to expect that the latest movie won't be more of the same.  

On to the children's films.  Some older franchises are coming back with some concerningly high numbered sequels.  In March, "Kung Fu Panda 4" is on the slate.  I loved the first "Kung Fu Panda," and thought the sequels were okay, but Dreamworks has been leaning on this franchise awfully hard.  There have already been three different spin-off series, two of them taking place in the gap between 2016's "Kung Fu Panda 3" and the newest movie.  Then there's "Despicable Me 4" which is actually the sixth film in the franchise counting the prequels.  I gave up on this series after "Minions" and have no interest in returning for more.  Finally, "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" is on the slate for a December release, but also ran into filming delays, so we're more likely to see it in 2025.  Jim Carrey is not expected to return, and Robotnik will be recast.   

Speaking of franchises, we're getting another "Godzilla x Kong" film from Adam Wingard in April, after the wildly unsatisfying "Godzilla x Kong" film from 2021.  Fede Alvarez is who ultimately got the job of making a new "Alien" film, and I am well past the point of caring about that universe.   I hold out some hope for the new "Garfield" reboot because they got Mark Dindal to direct it, and the new "Twisters" with Lee Isaac Chung.  I think it's also too soon to write off the new "Planet of the Apes" movie, which recruited  Wes Ball from the "Maze Runner" movies to direct.  At least that one still has the writers from the Matt Reeves films onboard. 

You may have noticed a lack of horror movies this year, because most of the big franchises are on hiatus, and the track record for original horror films has been very good lately.  The only one I'm preemptively ruling out is "Speak No Evil," an American remake of the Danish film from 2022, and that's because just hearing a synopsis of the original creeped me out so badly, I think I should keep my distance.  

 

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The Significance of "Scavengers Reign"

I love the recent run of adult-oriented animated shows we've had, and "Scavengers Reign" may be the most exciting title for a couple of reasons.  The biggest one is that where most adult-oriented shows have been taking their cues from American superhero media or Japanese manga and anime, "Scavengers Reign" is a hard science fiction series with roots in European bandes dessinées, and specifically the work of Jean "Moebius" Giraud and his fellow artists from the heyday of "Métal Hurlant." 

The plot of "Scavengers Reign" is simple.  The survivors of a crashed cargo spaceship, the Demeter, struggle to survive on the alien planet of Vesta Minor and find their way back to the ship.  We follow three groups of characters.  The gruff captain, Sam (Bob Stephenson), and a scientist, Ursula (Sunita Mani), form one duo.  A woman named Azi (Wunmi Mosaku) had the luck of escaping with some salvaged equipment, including a vehicle and a robot, Levi (Alia Shawkat), who is slowly evolving into something more sentient through its interactions with the planet.  Finally there's Kamen (Ted Travelstead), a haunted man who forms a mutually destructive symbiotic relationship with a strong, violent alien that uses telekinesis.  

"Scavengers Reign" immediately sets itself apart by plunging the audience into the world of Vesta with almost no explanation.  We don't learn the characters' names right away, or the particulars of what happened to the Demeter.  Instead, we just follow the characters as they navigate Vesta, a planet teeming with life, and all of it incredibly alien in a way that little science-fiction media bothers to be anymore.  It immediately reminded me of Rene Laloux's films, with their surreal, psychedelic imagery, and the unnerving level of impersonal violence and brutality.  The creatures of Vesta can be incredibly dangerous, with threats coming in the form of everything from the hulking beasts to completely innocent-looking pollen clumps floating on the breeze.  One minute, our protagonists can be completely fine, and the next minute they're fighting for their lives because a chance interaction with something seemingly benign has gone horribly wrong.  

However, there's also a sense of interconnectedness and harmony in the ecology of Vesta.  The show is full of these little vignettes of alien life cycles and demonstrations of how the various life forms are linked to one another.  Ursula views Vesta as a puzzle, where working out how everything fits together gives them a better chance at survival.  Azi is initially worried by the organic matter that invades Levi's systems, but eventually realizes that they're beneficial, allowing the robot to grow beyond its original limitations.  There are scenes of incredible beauty and strangeness, and I honestly would have been perfectly happy if "Scavengers Reign" never bothered to do any of the standard stuff of setting up a larger storyline or creating interpersonal conflicts among the survivors.  

Originally, "Scavengers Reign" was an eight-minute short film created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettners for Adult Swim, which followed other visitors to Vesta interacting with the planet's life forms.  The short is totally dialogue free, and the early parts of "Scavengers Reign" are similarly light on conversation, heavy on visual storytelling.  Kamen's segments in particular are trippy and difficult to parse at first, because we don't know who we should be rooting for.  Fortunately, he's also the character who has the trippy flashbacks to a troubled relationship with his girlfriend Fiona (Shawkat), and hallucinatory visions that eventually reveal what happened to the Demeter and the rest of its crew.  

There are additional human characters introduced later in the season that push "Scavengers Reign" into a more recognizable action thriller mold.  This is done well, and I was perfectly happy to watch Sam, Ursula, Azi, and Kamen reach conclusions to their stories.  However, the more experimental, more existential early episodes are what the series is really worth watching for.  It's been such a long time since I've seen any animation that felt like it had the DNA of "Fantastic Planet," "Heavy Metal," "Aeon Flux" and the weirder Western animation of my youth.  The fact that "Scavengers Reign" seemed to come out of nowhere was such a wonderful surprise.  

And it makes me hopeful for more animation like it getting a chance to exist in the future.      

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