Dumbo

First Hit: Overdone, overreaching, and overproduced leaving little to the imagination — dumb.

Director Tim Burton has a habit of creating worlds and often what we see is his complete vision. He tidies the storyline in such a way that the audience can only watch and not imagine themselves. With fantasy, I think it is important to leave things to the imagination.

With Dumbo he’s created a world where we have to feel sorry for the Medici Circus because it has fallen on hard times. The circus is run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito). The train cars are perfectly faded. There is the strong man who is also the accountant, as well as assorted clowns, snake charmer, and other mixed people. The only animals that are left in this dilapidated circus are dogs with colored fur and elephants.

Two children are running around the circus, Millie and Joe Farrier (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins respectively). They are being taken care of because their mother has died and their father, Holt (Collin Farrell), had to leave the circus to fight in the war.

Upon the father’s return, he’s missing an arm which adds to the depressing scene. Holt’s act with the circus was riding horses, and when he returned with one arm, he discovered the horses were already sold. He’d hoped he’d do a one arm riding act. Max tells Holt his new job will be to tend the elephants, including the new huge one who is pregnant.

When the elephant gives birth, they find out the baby elephant has enormous, I mean really huge, ears which makes him the laughing stock of the circus audience. Here is where I see a mistake, why is the audience laughing? It is merely a ploy used to make everyone feel even more bad for the Medici Circus clan.

The children are fascinated by the big-eared pachyderm, and through an accident of inhaling a feather, Dumbo sneezes and ends up leaving the ground. Soon the kids discover they can induce Dumbo to fly by flapping his ears and coaxed by a feather.

The circus is about to fold when evil villain V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) and his girlfriend, Collette Marchant (Eva Green) come to see the flying elephant. Vandevere likes what he sees and buys the Medici Circus, and now everyone works for Vandevere.

Unfortunately, V.A.’s money man J. Griffin Remington (Alan Arkin) puts conditions on V.A. and Dumbo’s performance. This enhances the sadness because Dumbo’s mom is taken away again and now the Medici Circus team wants to retaliate.

You can easily imagine what happens. The whole story is to make everyone feel bad, then let Dumbo save the day along with the kids.

The most positive aspect of this film was the quality of the pictures. Burton does this well, and he’s to be commended for this, but otherwise, the movie is predictable and sadly lacking soul. The computer-generated Dumbo was a work of thoughtful art, but at times, he seemed to human-like.

Farrell was reasonably adequate to the role, but there was nothing for him to stretch into and make it his own. Keaton was OK as the villain, he’s good at it. DeVito was charming as the small circus owner, but I found it hard to believe he owned or ran the circus. The actual running of the circus, like putting up tents, seemed to happen through magic. BTW: The tent poles were longer than a train car, so I kept wondering how did they get them from place to place? Parker was stunning. Her intelligence and maturity were well beyond the child character she played. She embraced this role and was the best thing in the film. Hobbins was equal to the task as well, and it is his and Parker’s performances that kept me engaged. Green was excellent and put something of herself into this role and made it work. Arkin was sardonically perfect for this role as an arrogant banker and money man. Ehren Kruger wrote the screenplay which seemed too buttoned up and left little to the imagination. Burton was himself. His visuals were good and generally dark in character. I also thought that Vandevere’s “Dreamworld” was overdone and took the film too far out of any sense of wanting this film to be real and down to earth.

Overall: Everything was perfect and the way it was to be seen, therefore when I left the theater, nothing came with me.

American Assassin

First Hit:  Mildly entertaining.

The story begins with Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien) and Katrina (Charlotte Vega) frolicking in the water in an undisclosed foreign location. They are in love and, with his phone, he’s videotaping their time together which concludes with him asking her for her hand in marriage. She accepts and he goes to the beach bar to get them drinks to celebrate when a group of terrorists start shooting everyone on the beach. Mitch gets hit with two slugs and Katrina is shot dead.

The film moves forward eighteen months and Mitch has recovered and he’s clearly aiming for revenge because he’s taking mixed martial arts lessons, shooting lessons and has mastered Arabic because he’s communicating with ISIS operatives. He’s trying to get close to the people who killed his fiancé so that he can kill them, specifically Adnan Al-Mansur (Shahid Ahmed). He plans to infiltrate their organization by pretending to be a new western recruit, get close and kill him and everyone in that cell.

His plan gets foiled because he’s being watched by the CIA who find him fascinating and possibly someone they want on their team. Deputy Director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan) recruits him to be taught by a black ops trainer Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton).

Typical issues arise as the young guy with guts and a clear personal mission tries to learn and be better than the grizzled veteran. Some of these scenes are rather good. As Hurley gets Rapp ready to become an operative, Kennedy learns that an old CIA operative, who goes by the name Ghost (Taylor Kitsch), has a stolen a small atomic device. This part of the story is not very well done, because the story wants the audience to believe that it is radical Iranian’s who are going to get the bomb, but there are too many hints to the contrary.

Because Ghost felt that Hurley left him to die, he wants to get back at Hurley by blowing up the sixth fleet.

Some of the bomb effects were interesting, as were some of the close fighting action that the agents get into. However, the film was predictable.

O’Brien was strong enough to make his character work. He used his intensity well. Lathan was very good as the CIA Deputy Director. Keaton was both strong and mediocre. I think the mediocre part was more of a scripting issue than Keaton’s fault. Keaton can be an excellent antagonist and more could have been done with this role. Shiva Negar as the in-country Iranian CIA agent Annika, was excellent. Kitsch was solid as the vengeful rogue agent. Stephen Schiff, Michael Finch, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz all participated in creating the screenplay. This might have been the problem, too many cooks. Michael Cuesta directed this and the strengths were the fight scenes, which were well choreographed along with the interaction between Annika and Rapp were great.

Overall:  This could have been more exciting with more clarity in the story and it wasn’t.

The Founder

First Hit:  Michael Keaton makes a very interesting story fantastic.

The Founder is about Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) and how he built the fast-food empire McDonalds.

There are numerous reasons for me to be engaged with this film. One of them being my own franchising experience. In the mid-late 1970’s I worked for Century 21 International Inc. which was then in its franchising heyday. At that time they also became a public company. More recently I was Chief Operations Officer for Bar Method International, Inc. which among its businesses franchised Bar Method exercise studios throughout the United States and Canada.

With this background, it is safe to say I know something about the trials and tribulations of franchising. This film is amazing at highlighting many of the difficulties of franchising and how quality control of the product is key. One of the questions this film points out is: Do "investor owned" franchises work? This film tells that story and more.

The film begins with Kroc out on the road trying to sell mixers. We learn during the film, he has a history of trying to sell all sorts of products and ideas. He's a somewhat haunted man chasing success. To help him, he listens to records on persistence and positive thinking while on the road selling these state of the art five spindle milk shake mixers. He drives from carhop restaurant to carhop restaurant hoping to make a sale. His wife Ethel (Laura Dern) appears to be quasi-supportive and would like a more stable life, be seen as higher up in their social standing, and go to the country club for dinner more often. She appears lonely and does her best to keep their household together.

One day a he calls his office and learns that some hamburger stand in California bought five of his mixers. He’s astounded and doesn’t believe it. He calls and gets Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman) on the phone who says, “yes”, the order is incorrect, he didn’t order enough, he’ll take eight mixers. So instead of going home he drives from Illinois to California to meet the guy who wants eight of his mixers.

Upon arriving he’s shocked to find long lines in front of the order window, thinking it will take forever to get his food, he finds out that the line goes fast, he orders and gets his food within 30 seconds. Sitting down on a bench, he takes a bite, loves what he tastes and notices that everyone is loving the burger, fries and soft drink they bought.

After Dick and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald give him a tour of their restaurant operation, he is struck by lightning. He wants in. He wants to be a part of this amazing food delivery service. Serving a limited controlled menu that is prepared the same way every time served within 30 seconds from when the customer orders and pays.

He works out a deal to open franchises under very strict guidelines as indicated in the contract they all sign. Trying to open McDonalds franchises proves to be a test in courage to make sure they meet the strict guidelines. It is through this process that he discovers the right type of person needed to be a successful franchisee, meets his future wife Joan (Linda Cardellini), and what it takes to make money in the franchising business. The rest of the film is about how this journey begins and how he, Ray Kroc, becomes “The Founder” of McDonalds.

Keaton is absolutely amazing as Ray Kroc. He’s wired, fired and inspired. Above all he's persistent in his actions which leads to his achieving his wants and dreams. Offerman is sublime as Dick McDonald. His intellect, ability to create processes that work, and stubbornness are perfect for someone who wanted to protect and perfect his creation. Lynch is very good as the more emotional and feeling based brother. He’s there to support his brothers ideas. Dern has a minimal role which has little range and is very subdued. Cardellini is wonderful as Kroc’s second wife Joan and her character is a perfect match for Ray. Robert D. Siegel wrote an amazing script that did enough research to know what it takes to create products and processes capable of being franchised. John Lee Handcock did an outstanding job of taking the story and letting Keaton act out the story.

Overall:  This was great acting in a wonderful script about something most everyone in the world has experienced, McDonalds restaurant.

Spotlight

First Hit:  Excellent writing, outstanding acting, powerful scenes, and a story that turned out to be spot-on.

This is a story about how Catholic Priests took advantage of young boys (and girls) by molesting them and getting away with it for years.

It begins with the Boston Globe getting a new Chief Editor named Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) and while doing his due diligence of current staff, discovers that the Globe has a small group of reporters called “Spotlight”. This team digs deep to uncover meaningful stories that make a difference to Boston and beyond.

An old article comes across his desk about priest abuse and he asks Walter “Robby” Robertson (Michael Keaton), head of the Spotlight team, if this is the kind of story they work on. The team of Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) are asked to take a deeper look. As they begin to dig, the level of cover up by Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) and his crew of Bishops and Priests becomes grossly apparent.

Many people are involved with the cover up including the creation of a cottage business where lawyers and their law firms defending the church reap high fees while the abused is paid next to nothing and told to keep quiet. There were many heart breaking interviews with the abused including Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup) who, with needle marks in his arm, tells how this has affected his life and his family.

The script was sharp, always on point, and reflected a caring towards giving the audience a clear understanding of the problem. This film never lagged and reflected the urgency required to make a difference.

Ruffalo was superb. His ability to be smart, urgent and both careful and reckless and the same time was perfect. Schreiber was excellent as the steady hand looking to make the paper relevant again and seeing that this story was worthy of the effort being put in by his staff. Keaton was amazing as the leader of Spotlight, knowing when to reign in or let his staff loose. The confrontation with Ruffalo was respectfully wonderful and intense. McAdams was strong and especially good in her interviews with the abused. Her empathy and ability to obtain information was excellent. James was wonderful. I loved his caring about the home near his house and how he wanted to ensure everyone knew about the danger lurking inside for young kids. Crudup was so strong in his portrayal of an abused man that I felt his pain while he spoke. Cariou was very good as the Cardinal who tried to come across as Teflon. One of the most outstanding parts is by Stanley Tucci as an independent attorney working for the abused. His role was amazingly great because of him. McCarthy and Josh Singer wrote a remarkably strong pointed script. There was no fat, just great dialogue. McCarthy directed this film with a purpose, to tell a difficult story with clarity of purpose.

Overall:  I was fully engaged and entrenched in this story in every way.

Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

First Hit:  One of the most amazing films I’ve ever watched.

What struck me and continues to strike me about this film was the way it was filmed. It is filmed like it all came from one camera with no edits.

Although I was amazed from the very beginning, there is a scene, where the camera is on a balcony ledge, looking up at a dark sky with a building in the background, the lights in the building change, the darkness of the sky changes to morning, and then the camera backs off the ledge moves down the building it was on and finally backs into Riggan’s (Michael Keaton) dressing room where the action picks up again.

The shot is phenomenal as are most of the shots in this film. What makes all this better is that the acting is also sublime.

This story about a man who wants to revitalize his acting career on Broadway after becoming famous as a superhero named “Birdman”. Not that the film is suppose to have a similar real life link to Keaton’s own acting life as Batman, - it does. But it is much more and deeper than this. It is about finding a place to be relevant and honest with oneself in some way.

Joining Riggan in the play he is putting on is Lesley (Naomi Watts) who has been striving her whole life to do an opening night on Broadway. Then there’s current girlfriend Laura (Andrea Riseborough) who wants to have a baby but struggles with Riggan’s inattention and is angelic in the play.

Lastly, on stage with him is Mike (Edward Norton) who is Leslie’s boyfriend and New York City stage actor supreme. His method rankles and enhances Riggan’s vision for the play. Although the story interacts with and at times becomes the story, the overall story is about Riggan becoming who he a man he likes and cares about.

Keaton is at his absolute best as Riggan and Birdman. He’s naked on the screen, we can see him. Watts is superb. Her execution of her role is perfect. Riseborough is great. The scene where she tells Riggan that she is pregnant is touchingly wonderful. Norton is beyond amazing. His command of the role is perfect. He shows just the right amount of arrogance and thoughtfulness. Emma Stone is truly a wonder. Her role as Riggan’s daughter is one of the most startling pieces of supporting work on the screen this year. Her hauntingly, desperate, and thoughtful view of the world is perfect. All of these actors gave Oscar worthy consideration performances. Zach Galifianakis as Riggans attorney and co-producer was also very, very strong. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Nicolas Giacobone wrote this amazing screenplay. Their use of words to make emotional points was spot on. Inarritu’s direction of the cinematographer, actors, and execution of the story will have him considered at Academy Awards time.

Overall:  An amazing piece of art, and that is what this film is, an outstanding and sublime piece of art.