Last Christmas

First Hit: It started off on the silly side, and by the end, I was very touched by this heartfelt story.

I’d seen the previews for this story and thought, oh, this could be a silly sort of way to spend an hour and a half. However, I’m glad I didn’t judge the movie by the preview. It has a beautiful and deeply touching message.

The story begins with watching a young Kate (Madison Ingoldsby as young Kate) being the lead singer in a Yugoslavian church choir. Her mother, Petra (Emma Thompson), Ivan her father (Boris Isakovic), and her sister Marta (young Marta played by Lucy Miller) are in the audience watching. There is a moment in this scene that plays out later with the sister Marta looking at another person in the choir.

Roll into the future, and the twenty-something years old Kate (Emilia Clarke) is living in London as is her whole family. Kate is working at a Christmas store that’s open year-round, owned by “Santa” (Michelle Yeoh), who loves Christmas and the magic it brings. Kate is her employee and dresses like an elf. We get that Kate isn’t a perfect employee but that Santa likes her for some reason.

Kate rushes out of the store to make singing and acting auditions but is usually late, rarely prepared, and seems to have lost her ability to sing as well. We soon get that Kate’s in a rut, which is compounded by her almost always homelessness. She’s often shown dragging around her roller suitcase. At times, when she needs a place to sleep, she picks up guys in bars, sleeps with them, but something invariably happens, and she’s back on the streets.

Her friends, like Jenna and Rufus (Ritu Arya and Ansu Kabia respectively), give her a room, but within two days, she’s messed this up, and they ask her to leave. She tries to reconcile with her family, but her mom is tough, and her father hides from her mom as much as possible. She and her sister Marta (Lydia Leonard) seem to be at each other’s throats, and there appears to be no love lost anywhere. The family dynamics are really screwed up.

All during these scenes, we are under the impression that Kate has no common sense, is flighty, and very ungrounded. Some would say unlucky. There is some hint that something happened to Kate about a year ago, but at this stage in the film, we are not privy to that part of the story. Did this event cause this ungrounded flighty nature?

One day Tom (Henry Golding) pops into her life one day and impresses upon her to take a walk with him. She declines, but on the second random meeting, they walk, and you can see his caring and compassion for others, including Kate. The chemistry is strong between them, and he just seems like a wonderfully lovely person who’s taken an interest in Kate. She wants to see him again and asks for his mobile number, but he says he doesn’t use it, and it’s kept in a kitchen cupboard at home, so giving Kate his name would be useless.

On one of the walks, Tom takes her to a homeless shelter. Thinking he’s trying to get her to stay there, she discovers differently; he volunteers his time at the shelter and says she could help as well. But as Tom is prone to do, Tom disappears for days at a time. No one seems to know where he is.

 Kate begins to sing outside the shelter, collecting money, hoping that Tom will pop-up again. Alas, he doesn’t, but just as she becomes even more despondent Tom shows up again.

One evening she tells him what happen to her a year ago and why she doesn’t feel like a whole person anymore. It is genuinely a sweet scene. He tells her that she can change her life by being open to others and by making kinder decisions. She’s not a victim and can change her life.

Tom’s influence has a positive effect on Kate. She starts to make amends with “Santa,” her mom, dad, and sister. She volunteers more at the homeless shelter and is more thoughtful. An example of this is early in the film we see her getting picked up at a bar from some guy using a standard line. Now, we see her in a bar, she gets the same pickup line from another bloke, and she makes a better decision.

A fun secondary story is about “Santa” trying to find companionship dates for herself. One day “Santa” meets “boy” (Peter Mygind), and how they engage with each other is so sweet and funny.  

I cannot delve into what happens to Kate that made her feel the way she does, nor how Tom is there to help her see the light, but the story is sweet, and the ending was fun and touching.

Clarke is a hoot and actually inspirational as the film moved along. She did a great job of making this character work. Golding was beautiful as the man who pops into Kate’s life to provide hope and inspiration. Yeoh is hilarious as the Christmas store owner who can see Kate’s sweet side. Mygind was excellent as “boy,” the man who brought joy to “Santa’s” life. Arya and Kabia are fantastic as Kate’s friends, who keep supporting and allowing her to get better. Thompson was oddly funny and entertaining in her role as Kate’s mother. Isakovic was terrific as the browbeaten husband of Petra and Kate’s father. Leonard was harsh in her role as Kate’s sister, with whom there were a lot of animosities. I didn’t think this part of the film was developed enough, and their conversations felt too jarring at times. Thompson and Bryony Kimmings wrote this screenplay in such a way that it didn’t telegraph the ending, and that was a good thing. Paul Feig got the feel of this story right.

Overall: After the end credits, I was surprised by how much I ended up liking this film.

Men in Black: International

First Hit: Certainly not as good as the original, but at least we’ve got “women” involved.

I never thought of the “Men in Black” as a domestic only group, but I guess I was wrong. I mean, how could aliens be on earth and only lived in the United States? So for me, the premise in the title was weak.

We begin with young Molly (Mandeiya Flory) looking out her window witnessing her parents being neuralysed by Men in Black (MiB) agents because of a commotion in the house. The uproar came from a young alien the agents were tracking, and Molly thinks it’s cute, so she helps the alien escape, but not before learning a word from the alien. You know that this will mean something later in the film.

We jump some twenty years into the future and Molly (Tessa Thompson) is still focused on becoming a MiB agent to work with aliens because she likes the alien she met and saw what happened to her parents after they were neuralysed. We are meant to believe that the single early childhood event has become her singular whole life focus.

Attempting to find where MiB headquarters is located in NYC, Molly sets up computers to track incoming aliens. Finding a MiB encounter, she follows the agents back to their offices. Slipping into the building, she gets caught and quickly tells them, she wants to become an agent carrying a neuralyser. After extensive interviews, she’s given a chance to prove herself as a probationary Agent M.

Her assignment takes her to London (hence the International in the title), where she meets High T (Liam Neeson) who assigns her to work with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth).

Agent H is shown in several scenes to be a play-boyish rogue of sorts, loving to gamble, and drink taboo elixirs. Agents H and M are assigned to meet Vungus, the Ugly of royal alien family heritage. But during this meeting, Vungus is killed by evil twins who can manifest themselves as pure energy.

Because Vungus gives M a secret weapon before he dies, she and H are being tracked by the twins who want this weapon to destroy Earth. Will M and H save the world?

This is the short version of the plot. There are other aliens in the mix as well as a storyline that High T has been protecting H since their encounter with the Hive who tried to destroy Earth many years earlier.

What didn’t work for me was that the plot felt too manufactured to be engaging. It lacked a flow to it, and therefore, it pulled me out of engaging with the story. I’m not sure why the writers needed the character of Riza as the recipient of the weapon. Yes, she was an arms agent, but it seemed like it was created as yet another plot device and character. Additionally, some of the acting (Neeson in particular) felt stiff and done for the money and not for the story. Many of the visuals were fun, like when M and H test the weapon Vungus gave M. The twins when they changed to pure energy was fun to watch.

Tessa Thompson was engaging and fun to watch. Her character made the story work. Hemsworth was a bit too silly and laissez-faire for the critical role as protector of the Earth from aliens. The part was built this way, and I thought he could have toned down some of the silliness. Neeson appeared too disengaged from the story and role. The heavy makeup and powder, as seen in the closeups, didn’t help. Rafe Spall as Agent C was very good as the one who wanted to be seen as having more power and engagement in the London MiB office. Emma Thompson as Agent O was good as the authoritarian in-charge person. Rebecca Ferguson (as Riza) was attractive in a role I didn’t think was needed. Matt Holloway and Art Marcum wrote the screenplay that seemed too manufactured as a way to use the MiB name. F. Gary Gray directed this film.

Overall: Not sure this film added any greatness or enhancement to the MiB franchise.

Late Night

First Hit: I thought Emma Thompson as Katherine Newbury, was excellent and engaging in this role, but the rest of the film flopped along.

The overall story premise was good if looking at it from 100,000 feet. Young aspiring comedy writer who is a woman of color breaking into the all-white male writing team for Katherine Newbury who is a successful twenty-five plus year veteran late-night comedy talk show host.

But the failure is that there is little meat on the bones of Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) finding her way from being a quality inspector at a Pittsburgh chemical producing plant (“the factory”) to being hired, with no experience just because she’s female of color.

This old part of Patel’s story is set up with a few lines of dialogue and fewer sparse scenes that hold no reason or inclination as to why she thinks she could even interview for the job as Newbury’s writer, let alone get the job.

Granted, the hiring and firing of her staff writers by Newbury is illegal and problematic, but they do try to be funny and point out weaknesses in people, companies, society, and specifically Newbury. But this isn’t the film’s message, or at least we hope it isn’t. What are the lessons?

Lesson One: If you’ve got a dream, work hard at it, get good at it, don’t just point out negatives of someone else’s work, provide input about changes, make your information excellent, and maybe you’ll make it. This was Molly’s path to getting seen and heard. However, its failing is that we never learn why she felt she could be a comedic writer in the first place. I think she believed that because this may be Kaling’s own story, it would come across, it didn’t.

Lesson Two: The second message is about forgiveness of past deeds and waking up to a changing world. But it’s about making changes to stay relevant that is the primary focus of lesson two. This was Katherine’s lesson. And how it plays out publicly with one of her young guests, what she has to let go of, and her long ago affair was rather good.

I thought the scenes in the writing room were weak and of little impact. The film could have dug into how difficult it is to create comedy by leveraging the characters and writers; #’s 1 – 8. The numbers relate to how Newbury labeled her team instead of using their names. Realistically, this was a device to prop up Katherine’s meanness. The heartfelt scene when she thanked everyone and uses everyone’s name except #6’s, was OK until she forgot his name. Another plot device to say, Newbury has learned something but still has more to learn.

What I’m saying is that every scene was a manipulation for the benefit of the two lessons mentioned above.

Thompson was strong focused and powerful as the aging talk show host who gave up everything to be in her position. She carried the right tenor and clarity of purpose. Kaling seemed lost and lazy in this role. I know little about her in other characters, but this one just fell flat. It was more about the situations she found herself in that were interesting, but the two major crying jags were not necessary and seemed like another plot device to manipulate other characters and the audience. John Lithgow, as Katherine’s husband Walter, was excellent in his limited role. Hugh Dancy as charming and seductive writer Charlie Fain was Okay. Again, he was a distinct plot device and not a real good character with history or background. Reid Scott as monologue writer Tom Campbell was better. There was an engagement in the role which came through. Denis O’Hare as Newbury’s right-hand person Brad was very good. His frantic ways of fixing all of Katherine’s problems was engaging and like a people pleaser. Ike Barinholtz as Newbury’s designated replacement Daniel Tennant was suitable. His facial expressions when being interviewed on Newbury’s show, and she re-directed the intent was perfect. Kaling wrote a mediocre screenplay that meandered and lacked solid footing. Nisha Ganatra directed this and got some excellent performances and also weak scenes mostly due to script failings.

Overall: This film failed at delivering all that it could, and this was mostly due to Kaling’s script and acting.

Beauty and the Beast (3-D)

First Hit:  Although sweet enough, this film is why I generally don’t like musicals.

Those that have read me for years know I’m particular about and generally not a fan of musicals. The songs have got to work, not take me out of the flow and feeling of the film, and make sense. Songs that are difficult to understand or take too much thought, or fail to help the film’s flow, are not worth singing or having in the film. This movie fails to meet my tolerance levels from the get go and therefore it was hard for me to sit through it.

In the prologue, prior to being introduced to the oddity of Beauty (aka Belle - Emma Watson) and the townsfolk, the film sets up the reason why we have the Beast (Dan Stevens). He’s full of himself and because he doesn’t care about anyone else, a spell is put on him by the Enchantress (“Agatha” - Hattie Moran) that damns him and others around him to a life of non-humanness unless he is loved by another. The Enchantress gives him until the last petal of a rose, encased in a glass cover, falls to find someone to love him. When the last petal falls, he dies and the others are doomed to a life as inanimate objects.

After the brief prologue, we segue back into the local town we have Belle prancing and walking through town with the townsfolk singing out how odd she is because she reads books. Because we’ve no other background, except knowing that her dad Maurice (Kevin Kline) is a tinkerer, lives with his daughter and her mother is long gone; were just suppose to believe she's odd. It was hard for me to believe this. The film story just wants us to believe this "oddity" story.

Belle is being wooed by Gaston (Luke Evans) who is all brawn (self-labeled) and no brains. Belle sees through Gaston and spurns him at every pass. Gaston’s man Friday LeFou (Gosh Gad), is one of the best parts of this film with fanfare, flair, and a jousting way, he quips through this role only to backtrack on them later.

One of the difficulties of listening to the songs was that Watson’s singing was overly processed and, at times, sounded like it was through a vocoder and unnatural. I’m not sure if this was done for effect or because Watson doesn’t have the kind of singing voice that worked for the character. This use of processing singing voices cropped up in multiple places throughout this film.

Although many of the characters were cute, Lumiere (Ewan McGregor), Maestro Cadenza (Stanley Tucci), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson), Madame de Gerderobe (Audra McDonald), Chip (Nathan Mack) and Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), I only found an occasional enjoyment watching their interaction with each other and with Beauty or the Beast.

For the most part, within fifteen seconds after a song started I wanted it to end as these songs were taking me out of story.

Watson was good and believable as Belle, although I really didn’t like what was done to her voice when singing. Her slight English accent and obvious intelligence was helpful in making this film seem enchanting. Kline was even keeled, believable and strong as Belle’s father. His character felt grounded. Stevens was OK as the Beast although the CG Beast was what the audience mostly experienced. Only in the beginning and end did we have Stevens as the Prince. Evans was good as the swashbuckling Gaston. Gad was the best part of this film. He was funny and was obviously committed to his role. The remaining of the actors were basically CG objects for most of the film which makes reviewing their work difficult. Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos were responsible for the screenplay. Given it is an established story, their modifications were OK. Bill Condon had a clear vision of what he wanted and for the most part it was executed well, however it just isn’t my cup of tea.

Overall:  My wife loved the film, and I was occasionally amused and mostly bored because the songs took away from the actual story.

Bridget Jones's Baby

First Hit:  Occasionally funny but generally slow and simply didn’t work.

The very first film of this series, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was fun and it worked in many ways. Being introduced to Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), a woman who struggles with her weight, is lonely and falls in love with two men. The second was somewhat more of the same; but by this film, the main thing we’ve dropped from the plot is the weight although there are references to weight in the film.

Another constant in the previous films are her two love interests Mark (Colin Firth) and Daniel (Hugh Grant). However, because Grant dropped out of project, he's referenced in a plot device funeral. Here Bridget is successful at her job as producer of a television program. She is celebrating her 43rd birthday and ends of doing it alone in her apartment. She goes to Daniel's funeral and runs into Mark.

A few days later, her coworker Jude (Shirley Henderson) decides to take Bridget to a rock-in-roll festival where she happens to fall into bed with Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and they have a sexual evening. Running into Mark again at a Christening, she has sex with him as well. Having sex with two different men in a short period of time (within a couple weeks of each other), she becomes pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. That is the plot of this film.

Jones is pregnant, she’s going to keep the baby, she doesn’t know who the father is, and she may lose her job at work. Generally, this plot has a bit of interest but the execution is mediocre. At the end of the film a newspaper article comes up stating that Daniel is still alive, God I hope this doesn't mean there is another film planned.

Zellweger seemed out of place and unengaged in the part. Dempsey seemed to put the most energy into his part although there didn’t seem to be chemistry between him and Zellweger. Firth did well by keeping his stogy, disengaged self in tack. Henderson was delightful and carried her scenes well. Jim Broadbent as Bridget’s dad was his wonderful self and Gemma Jones as Bridget’s mum was good. Emma Thompson co-wrote and also played Bridget’s physician in a wry manner. The other co-writers were Dan Mazer and Helen Fielding. Overall the script was not very strong because it was more rehashed material, although the overall story idea could have been interesting. However, this film is too long and falls apart because of less than engaged acting and lapses of interesting direction by Sharon Maguire. For instance, the scenes of Mark and Jack carrying Jones to the hospital weren’t funny and could have been cut.

Overall:  Despite some funny moments, this film didn’t work and wasn’t worth the price of admission.