Roma

First Hit: Outside of the beautiful black and white photography and languid movement of the story, I left the theater with little.

This is a personal story. It is one from Director Alfonso Cuaron about his youth and for the person who raised him. Cuaron, raised in Mexico, opens the film with Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) cleaning up a large home in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City.

Cleo is one of two live-in housemaids for Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), the mother, and mostly absentee father of four children. Cleo cares about the house and loves the children.

She meets a young man Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) who is part of a martial arts group. They spend intimate time together and she gets pregnant. He doesn’t want anything to do with a child and walks away from the relationship.

With Antonio deciding to leave his family, Sofia trying to hold the family together, and Cleo pregnant, the film drops in and out of the stories while framing each of the shots in very well framed sets.

The beach scene, the scene where Cleo visits Fermin’s martial arts class, and the last hospital scene are extremely touching and encapsulate the power of choices and situations of consequence.

Aparicio is excellent as Cleo. Her quiet demeanor and steadfast devotion to the family were wonderfully portrayed. Tavira as the mother was good. The moments of giving up and the moments of taking charge were subtle, yet palpable. Grediaga was OK in his small but pivotal role. The scene of him parking the car in the garage was wonderfully shot. Guerrero was strong as the boyfriend who disowned his relationship with Cleo. Cuaron created a powerfully visual film, but I had difficulty caring about the film in the end.

Overall: This movie seemed like a creation of love, although the audience to feel it might be small.

The Favourite

First Hit: A stark, intense musical score underscores the bizarre and tension filled interrelationships between the queen and her court.

The film is bizarre in that it always feels like it’s on the edge of chaos in both the way the film is presented and in its content. There are a couple of dance scenes, where it appears that the dancers are doing very traditional 18^th century dance, then there are moves that are contemporary in nature.

Would one really believe that a queen would purposefully throw herself on the floor, cry and scream, in front of her government? Would the queen purposefully fall down and fake a fainting spell while addressing Parliament because she doesn’t know what to do?

These on the edge of reality scenes are mixed with scenes that reflect the time period. Yet the costumes are angularly odd in their accurateness, restrictiveness, and color. The use of blacks and dark colors in odd angles for the Queen and her immediate court were inspired and pointed in the feeling they created for the audience.

Under it all was this music. Sometimes it was just two notes, one sounding like it came from a keyboard and a dissonant one from a violin in a scratchy intense tone. Back and forth these notes went while growing in volume creating tenseness.

Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman) is a mixed-up individual and leader of England. She’s ill-informed, helpless, petulant, inquisitive, always  feels victimized, a baby, and a physical wreck.

In odd scenes we see her stuffing her mouth with cake, throwing up, all while playing a game of solitary. Or deciding to build a huge palace for her right-hand woman Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz). The palace she wants to build for Sarah is huge and in celebration of winning the war with France. When Sarah indicates that England has only won a battle not the war, the queens states “oh, I didn’t know that.”

Sarah cares about the government, makes most all the decisions, is strong willed, cares for the queen, driven to keep the queen’s childish ways from ruining England, and sleeps with the queen providing her with sexual pleasure.

Abigail (Emma Stone) enters the court early as a kitchen worker. She was once a Lady of fine standing, but her family fell on hard times, and since then she’s been tossed around the country as sort of a homeless rag doll. She's all about self-preservation. She knows Lady Sarah from her prosperous earlier times and when Sarah discovers that Abigail is part of the queen’s home, Sarah decides to keep tabs on Abigail by making her a personal servant.

Abigail, we learn early on, is out for herself and discovers that she likes the queen, sees that the queen is manipulable, and knows that if she can get in the queen’s good graces, she will make a better life for herself. When Abigail manipulates the queen into letting her marry one of the queen's court, we see how interested she is in loving her new husband on their wedding night as she services him while dreaming up new ways to cement her relationship with the queen.

The battle lines are drawn between Abigail and Sarah; who will become the queen’s favourite?

Coleman is unbelievable. Her ability to show compassion, petulance, chronic illness, being uninterested, and all the time being head of state was fascinatingly amazing. She will get an academy award nod for this performance. Weisz continues to show me, time and time again, how powerful she is at carrying an underlying tones and feelings while outwardly showing something different. Her performance here is outstanding and deserving of an award nod. Stone is sublime in this quirky role of self-preservation. She is both raw and sweet while being kind and conniving. Another award-winning performance. There are many other actors in this film, all giving wonderful performances. The wildly quirky and strangely interesting screenplay was created by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Mixing this brew of a bold visionary story, powerful music, and a cast of gifted actors was the clearly deft hand of direction by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Overall: This was a strange brew of color, sound, and dialogue in scenes that seemed to always teeter on the edge of sanity.

Green Book

First Hit: Excellent acting, engaging story, and both funny and thought-provoking make this film fun to sit through.

The story starts out having to show the ability of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) to manipulate a situation to his benefit and then his questionable racist views. The first by absconding a hat of a big time crime boss and the other putting glasses in his kitchen trash can after being used by two African American plumbers after fixing his sink.

The first event closes the Copacabana Club because of destruction caused the by hat owner where Tony works as a bouncer. This leads to his unemployment. Weighing a job option from the hat owner because he finds the missing hat (the one he stole) or a possible job driving for Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), who is “not a real doctor” but a three-time Ph.D. in music and related areas.

As a driver for Dr. Shirley, he’d be driving him to concerts throughout the south. As a sophisticated classically trained black musician in the 1960’s, he will not be well received by some of the people they may run into during the tour. Tony sees this as an opportunity to make good money and he knows Dr. Shirley will need protection. The “Green Book” is giving to Tony and lists African American friendly hotels and restaurants in the south to help his navigate the south.

The film really defines the differences between these two men and the deep truth they both believe about how people need to be treated. During the film their friendship unfolds in glorious ways; during the long drives, over meals, and over drinks. To watch each, unpeel their veneers and support each other during the tribulations each finds themselves in was truly engaging.

The letters Tony writes, as dictated by Dr. Shirley, to his wife Delores (Linda Cardellini) are both funny and sweet. The ending scene when Dr. Shirley meets Delores was perfect.

What stood out for me was the ways each of the characters learned and grew from their relationship during this trip. In true life they stayed close friends for the rest of their lives and died within months of each other.

Mortensen was phenomenal as Tony Lip. Yes, his accent slightly changed during some of the scenes, but his spirit and acting made this small error a non-issue. He was great and may be up for an award during awards season. Ali was no less phenomenal than Mortensen. The ability to capture his character's schooling and skills in a character in such a reserved, yet engaging way, was sublime. Cardellini was wonderful as Tony’s wife who shared her husband with Dr. Shirley. Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie wrote an outstanding script. The dialog between Tony and Dr. Shirley was filled with quips and a subtle unfolding of two very different people to each other. Very well done. Peter Farrelly did a wonderful job of setting up scenes and sets that reflect the time and era of the 1960’s.

Overall: This was a very entertaining and thoughtful film filled with moments of sadness and joy.

Instant Family

First Hit: This was a very funny, touching, and poignant film about foster care and love.

Based partially on a true story, Pete and Ellie Wagner (Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne respectively) are enjoying a wonderful life together. They have built a successful business of flipping homes together. However, when they visit her family during one of the holidays, the family gets into a heated, yet hilarious discussion about kids.

They attend a Foster kid information meeting, which is hilarious, that is led by Sharon (Tig Notaro) and Karen (Octavia Spencer). As they learn more about the foster children and their needs, the more they are touched and consider adopting.

They select an older girl Lizzy (Isabela Moner) who has two younger siblings Juan and Lita (Gustavo Quiroz and Juliana Gamiz respectively). after learning that they will have to take all three the first week or so, starts off fairly well and when Pete and Ellie go to their foster support group they think, they’re “pretty good at this.” But then it happens, Pete and Ellie are faced with the difficulties, resentment, and behavior issues that foster care children can bring to the table through no fault of their own.

Watching Pete and Ellie, learn to fall in love with the kids was very well done. It was a subtly evolved piercing their outward bravado.

The scenes, although obvious in nature, allowed the actors to grow into the family dynamic and situation with both comedic and heartbreaking outcomes. When the biological mother comes back into their life, it was obvious that Lizzy hoped it would work, but the pressure overcame the mother —again. When Pete and Ellie meet with their support group, the comradery of people facing like and different difficulties with their foster children was both amusing while containing some real life challenges.

The quick quips between Sharon and Karen were extremely well timed and appropriately funny.

Wahlberg was strong as the charged up wanna be dad, fixer, and solver of problems. Although he can come off as pressing the character at times, in the end, he was perfect. Byrne was excellent. I loved her movement from reluctance to strong advocate. She showed sensitivity, warmth and strength. Moner was brilliant as the teenage girl that had been thrust into a parenting role and then had to let go and become a teenage girl learning how to grow up. The two scenes with the hairbrush were perfect: First sensitive, touched; followed by resentment and hurt. Quiroz and Gamiz were wonderful as Moner’s younger siblings. Quiroz showed a wonderful sensitive side, while Gamiz was both sweet and strong-willed. Spencer was fantastic and very funny as one of the foster case women. Notaro was equally wonderful and funny as Spencer’s straight woman and co-case worker. As a team they were perfect for this story. Julie Haggerty as Jan, Ellie’s mother, was wonderfully naïve, yet insightful. Margo Martindale was perfect as Pete’s overbearing, loud, and strong willed mother whose insights to raising children were helpful. Sean Anders and John Morris wrote a funny screenplay that made use of real-life experience. Anders did a good job of making this film work. His actual experience with foster care and adoption was apparent.

Overall: This film worked because the story had a ring of truth and the actors embraced their characters.

Nobody's Fool

First Hit: Although a few funny bits, it was overdone, too long, and way too predictable.

You’d think with a good cast including Tika Sumpter (as Danica), Tiffany Haddish (as Tanya), and Whoopi Goldberg (as Lola) there would be a funny redeeming story with meaningful exchanges but this fails at both ends.

Here Danica is a advertising executive trying to get promoted. One of her team members Kalli (Amber Riley) is appropriately loyal, however her boss Lauren Meadows (Missi Pyle) is so far-fetched it makes the agency they work for seem fake and foolish. It was either a huge mistake to cast Pyle in this role or to make this role look foolish. The meetings with Meadows teams vying for the opportunity to create the ad program for a new fragrance were stupid.

Danica is a very controlled person who has done everything she can to put her life together, work hard, and create a nice life for herself. Tanya is her sister, who spends a fair amount of her time in jail for drugs or prostitution. As the film begins Danica gets a call from their mom, Lola, telling her that Tanya is getting out of jail and that Danica has to pick her sister up and also provide a home for her. Reason is that the last time Tanya stated with her mom, she ripped out all the copper wire and plumbing to sell for dollars. It cost Lola $35,000 to fix the home.

Danica was also dumped by her fiancé one week before their wedding and for the last year has been emailing, texting and having phone calls with Charlie (Mehcad Brooks) who is an engineer on an oil derrick. She’s never met him, seen him, skyped him (he says bad Wi-Fi connections), but is in love with him. She claims that he’s the perfect man, meets everything on her list and cannot wait to meet him.

Adding to this story Danica is being actively pursued by the owner of a local coffee store. The owner Frank (Omari Hardwick) gives Danica her daily coffee for free and it always comes with a single red rose. But despite his pursuit Danica doesn’t pay him any mind because he doesn’t meet the items on her list.

The hilarity sections ensue when Danica picks up Tanya from prison and takes her back to her apartment. Tanya is so overboard you cannot help but laugh at some of the dialogue. Because Tanya needs a job and needs to attend AA meetings, Danica escorts her to her office to help her get started. On the way they stop by the coffee store and Frank offers Tanya a job because she fixed and served coffee at the prison. Then Tanya and Danica discover that Frank hosts AA meetings in the store after hours because he also has a prison record and wants to make his life right.

Tanya also believes that her sister Danica is being “Catfished” by this unknown entity named “Charlie.” This is because there’s never been any real face to face contact between him and Danica.

With these setups there is bound to be some hilarity and funny scenes, and there are. But the ending is obvious, it takes too long to get there, and the office scenes are unfathomable.

Sumpter is OK as Danica. Her character is too smart to fall in love with a phone voice and the story's handling of the office she worked in was poorly done. Sumpter had to walk a fine line in this film to make it work, and unfortunately, she didn’t get much help from the script or director. Haddish’s role is over the top and for the most part doesn’t work. There are a few hilarious scenes but they rely on a gross pushiness of her character. Goldberg’s role as their mom was minor and mostly useless. She had a few good lines but overall, I’m not clear why the role was needed. Hardwick was excellent and the best part of this film. His consistently honest character, a person working to make his life right, was wonderfully portrayed. Pyle’s role was horrible. I do not believe that anyone acting like this would actually be in a position of leadership in any advertising agency. This was an issue with Pyle, the script, the director or all three. Brooks was OK. I thought his caricature of a suave man on the internet and when he first meets Danica, then turning into an obnoxious self-focused jerk at dinner was to far a stretch of the character. Riley as Danica’s team member was OK. She seemed to be acting the role versus being the role, and that’s not a good thing. Tyler Perry wrote and directed this mess. It is unfortunate he overdid all his characters and made this film seem cartoonish. The film ended up not being un-funny and not dramatic.

Overall: Unclear idea and overdone execution made me wonder how this film got made.