BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee’s film packages a poignant, harrowing message about institutionalized racism in a wholly entertaining, traditional package.

blackkklansman posterA member of the Ku Klux Klan is nestled with his wife in their bed. As they spoon, a soothing love song adorns their pillow talk. They whisper sweet nothings about killing n—ers and dreaming of a better tomorrow.

This is one of several unsettling scenes in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman.” And it’s not just because of the language. The scene isn’t staged as a laughable parody, but as the genuine sentiment of two ordinary, real Americans who have internalized their hate so much that to them, it feels normal.

“BlacKkKlansman” shines a light on how violent racism and prejudice becomes institutionalized and normalized. But Lee also gives some hope, despite a bittersweet ending and a grim coda that invokes the Charlottesville riots of last year, that positive change can be embraced as well.

He does it through a film that’s as radical as it is traditional. It’s as much a wake up call and blatant parable for 2018 as it is a subtle indictment of the world beyond Trump’s America. With any luck, “BlacKkKlansman” will rattle some cages and startle people into action. But Lee’s managed to do it with as entertaining and compelling a movie as he’s made in decades. Continue reading “BlacKkKlansman”

Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham’s directorial debut is a dreary character study and cynical commentary posing as a coming-of-age story

Eighth Grade PosterKayla Day, who is about to graduate eighth grade, spends what feels like an eternity to apply make up and get dressed just so she can roll back into bed and take a selfie with the caption “Just woke up like this!” She will get exactly zero likes on that Instagram post, the same number that she has on her YouTube channel where she regularly posts self-help tips about how to not be phony. And as she sends her image into the world, she’ll toss her phone onto her bed, anxious at what might come back her way.

This is the protagonist of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, a girl young enough to have grown up with the expectation that in order to be liked, you have to get likes. You have to brand yourself and act as an influencer in every aspect of your online presence in order to give the impression you have a personality. The only problem is that Kayla (Elsie Fisher) has no friends, digitally or in real life. She’s drearily alone with no actually discernable interests, and yet she is still unhealthily self-absorbed and addicted to her phone. This is an unhappy person.

And yet what’s weird about Burnham’s Eighth Grade is that it’s framed as a coming of age story rather than a commentary about life in a digital age. It strives for awkward humor and a warming story of growth and self-discovery. But watching it is sadder and more cringe-inducing than you might anticipate. Burnham may hope that Kayla represents a large swath of teens at this tricky age. But ultimately, Kayla feels like an extreme, and it’s depressing to watch a character who seems to dislike herself this much. Continue reading “Eighth Grade”

Christopher Robin

Marc Forster’s Winnie the Pooh story doesn’t feel like it’s for kids or nostalgic adults and would be delightful at 75 minutes long

Christopher_Robin_Poster
Disney

Oh bother. Get out the sad bastard meter. Do I really have to say something negative about “Christopher Robin,” a Winnie the Pooh movie of all things? How miserable of a human being do I have to be to not see Marc Forster’s film as precious, cute and adorable?

It is those things, but it’s also maudlin and looks like a parody of a Terence Malick movie and would’ve been delightful if it was say, 70 minutes long instead of pushing two hours.

Far be it from me to say that you can’t have a wonderful movie about a beloved, talking CGI bear. Go see the “Paddington” movies. In fact, someone asked me as I sighed my disappointment with “Christopher Robin,” didn’t you grow up with Winnie the Pooh?

Well of course I did. Everyone did. The character is over 90 freaking years old. This is as surefire of a nostalgia play as Disney could’ve hoped for. So it’s perplexing that at times “Christopher Robin” feels like it’s a movie for no one in particular. Continue reading “Christopher Robin”

Every Mission: Impossible Movie Ranked, From Worst to Best

Where does Tom Cruise’s latest, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” rank among the six films?

Did anyone ever expect the “Mission: Impossible” franchise to have this much longevity? In every movie, Tom Cruise dons a ridiculous prosthetic mask, pulls off an impossible heist and even ends up forking over the thing he just stole to the very person he’s trying to keep it from in the first place. But across 22 years, six films and five directors, each “Mission: Impossible” movie has varied wildly in tone, style and cast while pushing the limits of wacky, action set pieces and preserving the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the original TV series. With “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” the sixth film in Cruise and Paramount’s franchise hitting theaters Friday, we chose to accept this nearly impossible mission of trying to decide which ones we like best. This list will self destruct in five seconds. Continue reading “Every Mission: Impossible Movie Ranked, From Worst to Best”

Ocean’s 8

Gary Ross’s film has a strong, gender flipped cast, but it’s a hollow retread of Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11”

The real heist of “Ocean’s 8” is how they managed to fool us into thinking this was something new. Gary Ross’s film is effectively a remake of Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11,” but with a gender-flipped cast. And instead of a radical experiment, a fresh point of view on a spectacularly male franchise, “Ocean’s 8” is an incredibly safe, unassuming, if amusing, retread with some slightly different faces.

“Ocean’s 8” starts just as Soderbergh’s film does. Danny Ocean is up for parole, but this time it’s Debbie Ocean, played with George Clooney’s same suave charm by Sandra Bullock. She’s been spending her entire prison stint concocting a brilliant heist, and now she’ll assemble a team and make it happen. Also, Danny Ocean is dead…maybe.

You know, you don’t actually have to do this, Elliot Gould explains to Debbie in a cameo. Sometimes just knowing you can pull off the job is satisfaction enough. To hear that line, it sets decidedly low stakes for “Ocean’s 8.” Even Debbie Ocean is only in it for the thrill and precision of the heist and little of substance, so why are we?  Continue reading “Ocean’s 8”

Ant-Man and the Wasp

After two massive cultural events, Marvel throws a softball with a breezy, slight and skippable entry

If the Marvel Cinematic Universe is basically an epic TV show, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” shows Marvel has no qualms about making a throwaway episode. You make two of the biggest cultural events of the year, and then you follow it up with a breezy family comedy with Paul Rudd?

Does anyone else feel like they’ve been cheated into watching a two-hour commercial for “Avengers 4?” And I’ll say upfront, anyone hoping for a juicy post-credits stinger will be sorely let down.

It’s a shame, because “Ant-Man and the Wasp” could be charming if it didn’t also carry the burden of being a Marvel movie. For everything about Peyton Reed’s film that reminds you of an indie darling, all the action and exposition make the whole package feel slight as a superhero movie. Continue reading “Ant-Man and the Wasp”

Avengers: Infinity War

Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the MCU – No Spoilers!

Avengers Infinity War PosterI’m starting to be less cynical about Marvel. 2017 was a good year for the MCU, and “Black Panther” might be the best movie of the year so far. So in the case of “Avengers: Infinity War,” I’m willing to accept that this is a movie of teases, surprises, punch lines and cliffhangers all stuffed into a giant package.

It’s designed to make you cheer, applaud and gasp. It’s supposed to be catnip for people who all their lives never thought they’d see these characters meet up anywhere outside their imaginations. It wants to have you guessing at what’s next even beyond asking what you just saw. It’s obviously going to be shameless, empty fun, even at the expense of substance. And “Infinity War” is all of the above in droves. Continue reading “Avengers: Infinity War”

Blockers

Kay Cannon’s teen sex romp “Blockers” follows the formula for a good studio comedy — and does so with a rich, diverse cast

BlockersHere’s the formula for a successful studio comedy in 2018: A diverse group of people and personalities making fools of themselves, getting real about stuff, and telling a lot of dick jokes.

Here’s a great one from Blockers: “I’d rather eat 10 dicks than one Mounds.” This is an accurate statement, and it would’ve still been funny if Paul Rudd told it. But instead it’s more appropriately told by a teenage girl excited to learn that the condom her boyfriend will be using will taste like an Almond Joy.

Kay Cannon, who wrote all three Pitch Perfect films but is directing for the first time, gives Blockers the familiar Apatow-sheen (it’s produced by Seth Rogen), but she jumbles the cast enough that it feels fresh and doesn’t fall into the same tropes. It flips the script on the male teen sex romp and makes the parents an integral part of this ensemble comedy. It doesn’t short change any member of its talented cast, and it even finds time for some heart-tugging moments about parenting and adulthood. Continue reading “Blockers”

The Death of Stalin

Armando Iannucci’s “The Death of Stalin” is a hilarious and profane political satire with a scarily powerful history lesson

Death of Stalin PosterIf Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin is about Trump’s America in any way, it’s that sheer incompetence looks really funny right up until the point that things get scary quickly. No one is doing better fictional political satire on TV or film than Iannucci. And while Veep nor The Death of Stalin are direct portraits of today’s political climate, they find clever and often profane parallels in unexpected characters and situations.

The Death of Stalin actually imagines the bureaucracy of a dictatorship, making organized murder the stuff of bumbling fools and power-mad idiots. Set in the waning days of Stalin’s life, it imagines how Stalin’s cadre of Soviet leaders, including Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale), Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) and Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin) scramble to determine just what to do with Stalin at death’s door, all as they conspire to rise to the top and avoid their own heads on the chopping block. Continue reading “The Death of Stalin”

Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” his ninth film, may be his grimmest yet, but it’s perfectly at home with his best, most familiar work

If anything, Wes Anderson is very consistent. His films all share his brisk pacing, deadpan humor, diorama creativity and color, and precise attention to detail. And they’re all good.

This is even though each of his nine films is wildly different and ambitious in ways unique to each project. He’s put his quirky, fantastical stamp on coming-of-age romances, family dysfunction dramas, children’s fables and French New Wave cinema. You could make a case that any of Anderson’s films is the “Most Wes Anderson” film. I wrote as much about his previous film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which found him globe hoping, going to dark places and using his dioramas to examine legacy and loss. That’s all true even though his other films have these qualities in spades, in their own ways.

So where does that leave Isle of Dogs, his second stop-motion animated film following the wonderful Fantastic Mr. Fox? It feels like Anderson at his ugliest, dabbling in washed out horizons, muted colors and grizzly characters, though you can find parallels in his past films. He’s fully embracing his Japanese influences from Akira Kurosawa and kabuki dance, though eagle-eyed viewers must’ve known he’s a fan. And it also feels like his most grim movie, with an immensely percussive score lending gravitas and stakes to an otherwise pleasant story about dogs. You know where this is going.

Isle of Dogs is exactly like all of Anderson’s films and none of them. It dazzles with animation and moods that Anderson has never dabbled in before, and yet it feels at home with his best work. Continue reading “Isle of Dogs”