Films that rose above the fray in 2018

This was a particularly good year for films. At first I didn’t think so but after I reviewed the films I watched and wrote about this past year, I was pleasantly surprised. I was entertained by outstanding acting, strong and poignant films about racism, and out loud laughs. My next post will be about the Oscar nominations.

Game Night: This film was funny from the get go and I laughed out loud all the way through.

Leaning Into the Wind: Andrew Goldsworthy: If you liked the film River and Tides, you’ll love Leaning....

The Death of Stalin: There are very funny moments, but I couldn’t help but wonder was his regime filled with that much personal corruptness? Probably.

Flower: The acting lifts this bizarre storyline to funny, engaging and entertaining levels.

Red Sparrow: Although long at 2h 19min, it had enough twists, turns, and detail to keep me fully engaged.

You Were Never Really Here: Beautifully shot scenes, dynamic soundtrack, but this oddly paced film tells a story of redemption, salvation or deeper despair.

Beirut: I really liked the way this film was put together and came to fruition.

A Quiet Place: Well done film and the silence of the actors made all the difference in the world.

Deadpool 2: First Hit: This film is fun, irreverent and filled with out-loud laughs.

RBG: Excellent film about a woman who lives within her strength and defined and changed U.S. law.

Disobedience: Extremely well-acted film about how antiquated thinking can split families and a loving relationship.

Hotel Artemis: Who says Hollywood cannot create a unique and well-acted film.

Blindspotting: Extremely powerful and pointed film and raises the bar for Best Picture of the Year. In my view this unnominated film is by far and away the best film of 2018.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot: A unhurried film revealing the power of how forgiveness of others and self, can make one’s life different.

Three Identical Strangers: A truly amazing story about how sciences’ curiosity didn't take into account the effects on human beings.

Sorry to Bother You: What I liked about this film is that it is funny, unique, and unlike any other film I’ve seen.

Leave No Trace: Sublimely acted and evenly paced film about a man and his daughter living in a public forest.

Puzzle: I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant film about a woman finding herself through a passion.

BlacKkKlansman: Fantastic film about race relations in the United States while reminding the audience about how far we have to go.

Eighth Grade: Outstanding acting and script gives us an insightful view of what it is like to be in the Eighth Grade today.

Fahrenheit 11/9: Covers a lot of stuff but I think it was mostly about Presidents and people in power managing and acting poorly.

Pick of the Litter: It was an fantastic and interesting way to learn about how guide dogs are taught to be amazing caretakers for the blind.

First Man: Compelling reenactment of an audaciously brave time in the 1960’s where we were challenged by President Kennedy to go to the moon.

The Hate U Give: A fantastic film about the existence of racism and, as indicated here, in our police departments as well.

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

Boy Erased: Outstanding cast delivers sublime performances in a powerful story about LGBT conversion programs.

A Private War: Rosamund Pike (as Marie Colvin) gives a deeply complex performance of a war correspondent who brought personal stories of war victims to the forefront.

Bohemian Rhapsody: Accurate or not, this film was fun, well-acted, engaging, and joyful.

Can You Ever Forgive Me: Excellent acting about a caustic, friendless author that finally finds her voice.

Mary Queen of Scots: Saoirse Ronan (Mary Stuart) and Margot Robbie (Queen Elizabeth 1) give powerful performances in this adaptation of how Mary Queen of Scots tried to claim her title to the throne of England and Scotland.

Vice: I liked this oddly created film about a powerful yet enigmatic man who really ran our country for a period of time.

Ben is Back: Extremely well-acted story based on 24 hours of a mother and her addicted son’s return for the holidays.

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

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

Shoplifters: Wonderfully engaging film about a Japanese family who chose each other while fighting to stay nourished and together.

The Upside

First Hit: Both funny and pointed, the relationship between Dell (Kevin Hart) and Phillip (Bryan Cranston) highlights taking responsibility for where they find themselves and opening up to something new.

Kevin Hart can often overwhelm a film with a frenetic energy that can push the meaning of the film aside. However, director Neil Burger was able to reign in Kevin’s tendencies with a clear vision and focused script.

Here as Dell, newly released from prison, we are introduced to him attempting to get signatures on a form that proves he’s trying to seek employment. Dell makes it clear the jobs that the computer system spits out for him are not fitting while seemingly he seems to forget he’s a felon and if Dell doesn’t seek to prove he’s job hunting, he’ll end up back in jail.

Thinking that he’s applying for a position as a janitor in an extremely high-end apartment building in New York City, he ends up in a room with other hopeful people who are highly trained to be a full-time on-site caretaker of Phillip, a wealthy quadriplegic man.

Yvonne (Nicole Kidman) is Phillip’s executive taking care of all Phillip’s affairs, schedules, and hiring. As qualified people are interviewed, Dell gets impatient and barges in an interview, asking Phillip to sign a form. There is humor in the asking a person with quadriplegia to sign the papers, and as the exchange goes on, the hook is that Phillip senses or feels a challenge with Dell and someone he can trust not to try to resuscitate him if he starts to have trouble breathing. Phillip gives the impression he’s looking for a way out of his life.

Carrying his deep sorrow for his wife who passed because of cancer he blames himself for the choice he made to go paragliding in a storm. His accident caused him to lose function of his arms and legs. The guilt of this accident took away his ability for him to be available to his wife as she went to the stages of dying. Phillip carrying this pain is the burden he lugs through the film.

Dell, on the other hand, wants to be a father to his young boy Anthony (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) who he's rarely seen because of his time in prison. His son’s mother, Latrice (Aja Naomi King), is angry at Dell for not providing and not being there for his son. When Dell met his father in prison, and his father said “welcome home” he realized he had to change his ways, that is his burden through the film.

This story is about these two men, together, learning about how to live and grow from their mistakes while learning about how to unburden themselves from their past decisions.

There were visible signs throughout the film about how Phillip would find love again, and that was disappointing. However, there were amazing and funny moments as they discover what they have in common.

At times, I think the film dragged a bit. However, I don’t know what pieces I’d change.

Hart was elegantly constrained in this role which allowed a fullness of character. His interactions with Latrice were well done. Cranston was brilliant as the quadriplegic multi-millionaire. His ability to carry a level of remorse deeply hidden, and allow its uncovering was terrific. Kidman in a minor role was beautiful. She brought just the right amount of integrity and deep longing. Winston was great as the son who wanted his father to be there for him and was rejected numerous times. King was fantastic as a woman who loved Dell but was waiting for him to show up. Jon Hartmere wrote a sharp and well thought out screenplay. Neil Burger had a strong vision for what he wanted to see, and he was able to achieve a developed heartwarming film.

Overall: This was a very entertaining, funny, thoughtful and enjoyable film.

Stan & Ollie

First Hit: This is an outstanding, beautiful, love story about how two men spent their lives together making audiences laugh.

Like a married couple, Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly) spent years of their lives together. In that time together, their bond of respect and friendship developed while on the road doing shows and making films making people laugh.

This film begins with the men doing a scene for a movie in their heyday. They are kibitzing in a trailer talking about the number of marriages Oliver had, all the money he had to give to these ex-wives, and his love for the ponies. The scene they shoot is one of their favorite dance routines, and it is a sight to behold.

Stan, on the other hand, was always working, writing, and thinking of gags for the duo to use in their films or stage act. As they enter the set to shoot a scene, Stan wants Oliver and himself to start their own production company because they do all the work and manager-producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) and the film company is making all the money. Stan can get out of his contract, but Oliver cannot. They split up.

We see a brief scene where Oliver does a movie (“the elephant film”) with someone else.

The film then shifts to sixteen years later, and they are in their sixties. Their old movies still show in theaters, but few people see them, and they receive no royalties for their work. They both need money and Stan, who has never stopped working, is attempting to get financing together for a Laurel & Hardy film version of Robin Hood. To help them finance the film and to demonstrate their draw, they decide to tour England, Ireland, and Scotland to drum up interest. The hope is that the possible financier will see them in a London show.

The tour starts slowly, and they play tiny second-rate houses, stay in second-rate hotels, and the crowds are small. However, the people who do come to the shows, love them. Harry Landon (Richard Cant), their tour organizer decide they have to do some promotional newsreels. So, the film shows them promoting their shows and all of a sudden, the theaters are packed and their playing in front of audiences of 2,000.

When they reach London their respective wives, Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Kitaeva Laurel (Nina Arlanda) show up to see the big show in one of London’s most prominent theaters.

Lucille and Ida are a hoot together and separately as they are very different people and care about their husbands differently. However, the tour has been tough on both, especially Oliver. His weight challenges his heart, and his ability to move has been difficult. Then the underlying animosity, because Oliver did a film without Stan, comes out in a public argument.

Oliver has a mild heart attack and decides to retire. Stan tries to go on with a British replacement, but he cannot, it’s not Oliver, his partner, friend, and original cohort.

As the film winds up, Stan and Oliver do one more show and do their dance routine, it is sublime and brought such joy to my heart watching them.

Reilly was amazing. His expressions and ability to be Oliver Hardy was beyond anything I thought he could do. I was transported to 1957 as a little boy laughing out loud watching Laurel and Hardy on our black and white television. Coogan was equally fantastic as Stan Laurel. His routines, the one with the egg, were sublime. Arlanda and Henderson, Laurel and Hardy’s respective wives, were hilarious. I loved watching them snipe at each other and then, when watching their husbands’ last show, holding hands. Huston was superb as Hal Roach as was Cant in his role. Jeff Pope wrote a divine script. Jon S. Baird took this script and these amazing actors and made superb, finely crafted film.

Overall: I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film and would watch it again.

Welcome to Marwen

First Hit: I loved the concept and thought behind the film, but on screen it lagged.

Using computer graphic (CG) actors in combination with real life actors is becoming more modern place in films. Here it is effective to create a world that Mark Hogancamp aka “Cap’n Hogie” (Steve Carell) creates after his memories have been literally kicked out of him. This is a true story.

Prior to the film’s beginning, Hogancamp is a graphic artist who goes into a bar, gets drunk, says something like, I like to wear high heels, to a group of four jerks. The jerks take offense, call Mark gay and beat and kick him to death’s door.

All his memories are beat out of him and his manual dexterity to draw is gone.

To keep his creativeness alive, he builds a miniature WWII village called Marwen (Mark and Women) in his side and back yards. Because so many women helped him recover, he finds dolls that represent them, and they are fighters against Nazi soldiers who appear when Hogancamp’s fears get triggered. The Nazi soldiers represent the men who nearly kicked and punched him to death.

Hogancamp’s alter ego is a doll called Cap’n Hogie who leads and fights with the women of Marwen. Together they battle the Nazi soldiers again and again.

In the battle sequences the film turns to the CG representation of the dolls. In these roles they are wonderfully done. However, as Hogancamp returns to reality, he finds himself taking pictures of the dolls that he’s staged in various poses throughout Marwen, sometimes even fighting the Nazis.

Nicol (Leslie Mann) moves in across the street and they strike up a friendship. Hogancamp falls deeply for Nicol’s kindness and kind inquisitiveness about what happened to him, the town of Marwen, and his cadre of doll women that keep the town of Marwen safe. He likes her so much he finds a new doll to represent her in his Marwen world.

Nicol’s boyfriend is a brutish jerk, much like the men that beat Hogancamp up. There are a couple of intense making scenes when Mark is talking with Nicol and the boyfriend appears.

Hogancamp is being pressed by his real life women friends, his lawyer, and Nicol to testify at the sentencing trial for the men that beat him. He’s reluctant to go to the trial and show opening, which causes him to slip into the dream world of Cap’n Hogie and the women fighters killing the Nazis intensifies.

Additionally, the brother of Roberta (Merritt Wever), one of the real-life versions of his fighters, is having a photography show of Hogancamp’s photos of Marwen in New York City. This event and the trial hearing are bringing things to a head for Hogancamp in the real world so the battles in Marwen are becoming more ferocious.

I thought the segues between real life and CG were really well done. The over done shooting and machine gun fire seem a bit excessive, but then again, they were dolls, so I guess it was required. The CG version of Nicol was wonderfully created and effectively done and captured the essence of Nicol.

Carell was good as Hogancamp. His Cap’n Hogie was even better. However, I cannot put my finger on what didn’t work and maybe it was because there were too many doll scenes. Mann was crazy wonderful. I loved her gentle kindness and empathy. She was perfect in this role. Wever was outstanding as the owner of the craft store where Hogancamp got all his supplies. Her support and getting Mark into a show in New York City was wonderfully portrayed. Caroline Thompson and Robert Zemeckis wrote this screenplay. I think they spent more time in the CG active doll world than needed and could have done more digging into the background of the story. Zemeckis directed this film.

Overall: I loved the end of the film when they showed a captioned picture of the real-life Mark Hogancamp.

Vice

First Hit: I liked this oddly created film about a powerful yet enigmatic man who really ran our country for a period of time.

Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) powerfully found his way into and as a guiding influence in our government especially during the President George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) years.

The scene that points out his guile was when during the transition from Clinton to Bush, when he, not only had is standard office in the Senate (as a tie-breaker vote), but also had his team find an office in the House side of Congress (that’s where the money bills are created), in the Defense Department, and other places in the seat of our government. He moved in and out of these offices to wield the influence of the Executive branch where ever he could.A

He believed in the Unitary executive theory whereas the President possesses the power to control the entire executive branch of government. Sort of like Nixon’s belief when interviewed by David Frost; “If the President does it, it isn’t against the law.” Cheney believed he, as the lever puller for George Bush, he could do no wrong and nothing he did was illegal. A couple of his feats include; torture of captured combatants, invading Iraq when there was no proof that the country had anything to do with September 11 attack on world trade towers.

It was a focus group that indicated that the American public wanted a country as an enemy and not a concept (Al-Qaeda), so we invaded Iraq, because both Bush, H. W. Bush, and Cheney had wanted to this for a long time. This is just a smattering of the bold divisive actions Cheney took as VP.

We see his earlier years as a college drunken mess. His stint as a lineman in Wyoming. Drinking and fighting in bars after work. His comeuppance by his wife Lynne (Amy Adams), who said after one drunken bout, you either shape up or ship out.

He does shape up and becomes an intern in Congress working for Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell) – (the truth is that he worked for Congressman William A. Steiger), then into the White House, eventually rising to Chief of Staff for Gerald Ford (Bill Camp). Then he was elected to Wyoming’s only Congressional seat. This was followed by becoming Secretary of Defense for George H. W. Bush and oversaw Desert Storm, which he believed didn’t go far enough.

The film shows many of these events with sincerity while mixing in scenes with a level of irreverence, and also scenes of Cheney fly fishing in Wyoming. But watching Dick and George’s mistake in both leaving Iraq while pumping up a radical person, resulted in ISIS (Desh). These mistakes are Bush’s and Cheney’s legacy.

Like with the Big Short, director Adam McKay mixes his film’s stories up in ways that various impacts on people. For me this approach was effective, but it was Bale’s Cheney that was amazing.

Bale was Cheney. I believed I was seeing the real guy on the screen. Nothing he did seemed out of character with whom the public knew something about but not how the man thought. And even with this film, most of Cheney’s screen time is watching him think. He wasn’t an impulsive man, that’s clear. Adams was fantastic as Lynne Cheney. Her drive and power over Dick were clear and direct. Carell as Rumsfeld was strong. I never got much of an impression from the real Rumsfeld through his brief public appearances so I’ve nothing to compare this performance to. Rockwell was wonderfully cast as George W. Bush. His breezy, thoughtless manner comes through just as one saw the real Bush in public. Justin Kirk as Scooter Libby was good. LisaGay Hamilton played Condoleezza Rice one of the people Cheney didn’t see eye to eye with. Tyler Perry played Colin Powell who reluctantly spoke at the UN for the bombing of Iraq, although he never believed it was the right thing to do. Alison Pill played Cheney’s older gay daughter Mary whom is stood behind by her family early on in the film and then when the younger daughter Liz (Lily Rabe) runs for office, Dick turns against Mary’s lesbian ways so that Liz can get elected as the Representative of Wyoming. Power was what drove Dick in life and not even family got in the way. Adam McKay wrote an interesting script that reflects the way he likes to create a movie. Dancing across the information while willing to mix it up in ways that are different. I happen to like it.

Overall: The acting is superb and the way this story is told is probably not everyone’s cup of tea.