THE DEATH OF STALIN

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

Maybe The Death of Stalin would be easier to appreciate with a detailed knowledge of early 20th-century Russian history, which I do not possess. This quasi-comedy, directed and co-directed by Veep creator and writer Armando Iannucci, seems to rely at least somewhat on such a shorthand, so much going on in the immediate wake of Joseph Stalin's death that I sometimes found it difficult to keep up. So much dialogue going on at such a pace, even with it spoken in English, subtitles would have been helpful.

The promotions for this movie overtly state that any similarities to current events is intentional, although comparing the circumstances of 1953 Soviet Russia to any current superpower's situation strikes me as comparing apples to oranges. Suffice it to say that the story presented here details the farcical struggles of Stalin's inner circle to realign each person's respective powers in the wake of his death.

The Death of Stalin is undeniably entertaining, but considering its nearly universal acclaim, I did not take to it quite to the degree that I expected. I must admit there were ways it made me uneasy. We are clearly meant to see all these men as power-hungry fools -- and here this is presented in a very similar vein, actually, as the events on HBO's Veep -- but it is also made explicitly clear that these are all truly horrible men, responsible for the countless deaths and imprisonment of innocent people.

I'm all for allowing anything to be subject to a comedic eye, but who can we possibly relate to here? Sympathetic characters are not a necessity in satire, true, but I'm not convinced the satirical element is strong enough here. Then again, any truly sympathetic character in this story would clearly bring down the mood Iannucci is going for.

Instead we get subtle glimpses, such as the uncultured people brought in off the street to fill empty seats at the symphony, when only half the audience is retained to recreate a performance just given but not recorded, but Stalin has called to request a recording. This is the sequence that begins the film, and we see connon people resigned to this random fate for the evening, biding their time knitting or eating from a pickle jar.

There's also something odd about the casting: much like Tom Cruise in Valkyrie (2009), none of the actors here are actually the nationality of the characters they play, and no attempt is made even to change the native accents of the performers. So these are all either British actors (Simon Russell Beale as Lavrenti Beria; Jason Isaacs as Field Marshal Zhukov; Monty Python's Michael Palin as Vyacheslov Molotov) or American actors (Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev; Jeffrey Tamboor as Georgy Malenkov), playing Russian historical figures with British or American accents. Admittedly this is little more than a matter of preference, but it would have felt more authentic to me if at the very least they had Russian accents. As it is, it feels a little like watching a movie about zany meetings between Western leaders with inexplicably Russian names.

All of that notwithstanding, such distractions are not that difficult to get past. The Death of Stalin is a densely layered cinematic work, one could argue in the tradition of Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove -- a surface veneer of jaunty lightheartedness that is spread thinly over something deeply depressing and truly dark.

I just wanted it to be longer on the funny stuff and shorter on the darkness, although it would not take much effort to look past the latter in order to better enjoy the former -- which is perhaps part of the point. I got pretty good chuckles at regular intervals. That fleeting mirth just gave way to an unsettling realization of the cycles of history repeating itself.

Everyone thinks: How can I work this to my advantage?

Overall: B

A WRINKLE IN TIME

Directing: C+
Acting: B-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C+
Special Effects: B+

If the original Madeleine L'Engle novel A Wrinkle in Time was any good -- and I'll just have to take your word for it on that -- then you're probably best just sticking with that. It seems to have been fans of the novel who were truly excited for the film adaptation, and maybe the memory of the book fills in the many broad gaps in the film. Taken on its own, the movie really doesn't work.

Watching this film, I kept thinking it was like The Never-Ending Story as seen through the prism of the world of Pandora in Avatar. The strikingly colorful visual palate is one of its enduring redeeming qualities, a feast for the eyes as a backdrop for a story that makes little sense. The effects are, with a few exceptions, very well rendered, and the cast seems to be having a great time as they move through them.

That said, A Wrinkle in Time is wildly imaginative in terms of its visuals, but fatally dull in content. It's rather a downer through much of it, contributing to an inconsistency of tone. Meg (Storm Reid) is a bullied teenager with no self-esteem, and this aspect of her character is the one plot point that ever proves truly affecting. The rest of the time, she and her adopted little brother Charles Wallace -- and for some reason he's always referred to as both names, "Charles Wallace" -- move through one fantastical world after another, with no concrete sense of why it's happening.

Three strange women show up: Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), turning Meg's bummer of an existence into one of mystery and fantasy. These three women, to their credit, are fun to watch, although making Oprah Winfrey of a size so giant as to make her seem like a god is a little on the nose.

The great flaw of A Wrinkle in Time is the script, which is clearly written with deep intent, but packed with dialogue that falls flat, filling characters' mouths with lines that are slightly off, never sounding like the natural way anyone talks in the real world. This approach might work better if the only world they ever inhabit were a fantastical one, but it's applied even more in the "real world" in which the film begins. Charles Wallace overhearing two teachers gossiping about his sister -- the way they talk to each other, which they believe is in confidence, has no sense of authenticity.

Perhaps in keeping with the whole fantasy aspect -- fantasy disguised as "science," mind you -- all of the kids cast are impossibly beautiful, and Deric McCabe as little Charles Wallace is exceedingly precocious, almost creepily so. Levi Miller as Meg's schoolmate and ultimate friend Calvin is a particularly handsome young man, and Storm Reid as Meg seems as carefully curated as any of them, although as a performer Reid seems to have the best handle on nuance. Otherwise the kids all seem straight out of central casting for a sort of generic perfection, giving them all a veneer of flawlessness that strips them of character.

So what of the story? This is the greatest challenge of the movie, since we're meant to believe Whatsit, Who and Which are assisting the kids in finding Meg and Charles Wallace's scientist father (Chris Pine), who has been missing for four years, but it's never made clear why. It's nice to see Meg develop into a more fully realized version of herself and gain some confidence, but that's a story that can be done a lot more effectively without the fantastical trappings thrown at us here -- and yet, those trappings are the only interesting things about the movie. I literally nodded off six or seven times, I found the story so dull.

I'd say that A Wrinkle in Time had great potential that it failed to realize, except I can't even figure out what its potential was. I left the movie just wondering what was the point.

I've gathered you all here today to ask what the hell the point of all this is.

Overall: C+

ANNIHILATION

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

Judging by the trailers, you might expect Annihilation to be . . . kind of dumb. An alligator with shark’s teeth? What is this, a Sharktapus SyFy Channel sequel that somehow got a theatrical release?

It wouldn’t be far off – just “enhanced” thematically for the slightly more cerebral set. “Slightly” being the operative word: when we first learn that Lena (Natalie Portlan) is a biologist professor, she’s teaching a college class about how cells multiply in terms so basic she might as well be speaking to nine-year-olds. Still, the students hang on her every word and scribble in their notebooks. Because it’s a college class, you see!

Annihilation is written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous film, Ex Machina, was inexplicably hailed by many critics as an original vision, its broad derivativeness mysteriously overlooked. Calling something "derivative" isn't always fair, as it can be applied to literally any story, but there are also levels, and Ex Machina did it a high capacity. Annihilation is by contrast not an original script, and although I never read the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, by all accounts this adaptation radically alters it -- and by necessity of form: the narrative of the novel strictly speaking is un-filmable.

Not that it matters. Does Annhilation work on its own terms? The validity, or necessity, of its own terms may be up for debate, but I would say that yes, it does. The finished product is like a cross between 2001: A Space Oddesy, Sunshine (which Garland also wrote, incidentally) and Alien, with a climactic sequence that might well be great to watch while high. It's mesmerizing and mysterious and unsettling and beautiful, and honestly would have worked just as well as a short film: start with the apparent meteorite hitting the lighthouse at the beginning; end with that last bit. Granted, nobody watches film shorts. I'm not sure many more are watching this movie but whatever.

Here's what I love about it. Annihilation's principal cast is nearly all women. It's worth supporting for that reason alone, but it also makes for a much different movie than if these characters had all been men. The way the story explains it is the previous teams were all culled from military, by dint of averages making them all men; this time they are sending in scientists, which yields more women, I guess? Never mind how many more scientists are actually men, but there you are. The leader, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is a psychologist. Others include a physicist (Tessa Thompson), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez) and a surveyor (Tuva Novotny). Oscar Isaac plays Lena's husband, missing for a year after his own excursion into the shimmer and recently reappeared mysteriously and out of sorts, and he gets no more screen time than any of the women. He spends much of it unconscious on a cot. To be honest, the scenes where he's awake and disoriented aren't Isaac's best work.

Still, the concept is interesting enough, if fundamentally preposterous: the "shimmer" covering a wide area around the lighthouse hit by the meteorite is creating an otherworldly ecosystem in which, because of "DNA refraction," different species are taking on each other's characteristics and sort of fusing with each other -- hence the alligator with shark's teeth. In another filmmaker's hands you would expect a whole lot more chaotic action, but Garland focuses on its mystery, and on its psychological effects.

To its credit, Annihilation delves into the truly fantastical sparingly, showing us what could be characterized as monster creatures maybe three times. This also makes for some deeply unsettling images, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places. Trees that grow trunks into the shape of human forms are very well rendered and, although they appear in an otherwise green and lush environment, they really gave me the creeps. And a bear-like creature that takes on the deathly-distorted skull-like facial features of one of its human victims might just give me nightmares.

It would be off-base to call Annihilation a "thriller," though. It's kind of everything, which is one of its problems (to judge by its iMDB page, it's an "adventure drama fantasy horror mystery sci-fi thriller"). This is a movie that can't quite decide what it wants to be,  its many detours through "the shimmer" just a road put in place to get us to that trippy sequence at the end, which itself offers no concrete answers. It's just an elaborate setup for the fairly predictable reveal at the very last second of the film.

Still, the characters are compelling, occasionally patronizing dialogue notwithstanding; and the production design is impressive. The biggest surprise may be the special effects, which turn out to be the best thing about the movie -- the trailer made it look like it might be filled with hokey-looking cross-bred animals, but they actually turn out to be well rendered. I just kept wondering what a real-life biologist might be thinking in the audience while watching this movie, probably rolling their eyes constantly. For everyone else, it might easily seem deceptively "intellectual" -- or at least entertaining. Annihilation has that going for it, for sure: even with less action than expected, there are no lulls. This is one of those ridiculous stories made better by being told well.

Let's all do The Shimmer!

Overall: B

THE PARTY

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B

It's a bit of an irony that a feature film clocking in at the incredibly short time of only 71 minutes has more of the feel of a typical short film, but one that goes on rather too long. That includes the plot twist revealed at the very last second. It's almost as though The Party doesn't quite know what it wants to be. On the upside, you don't get much of a chance to get bored.

Although even with this movie, it takes a few minutes to really get things going. The action takes places entirely in the house of Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is preparing for a dinner party in the kitchen, fielding countless calls of congratulations while her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) sits drinking and listening to records in the living room, in a sort of stupor that lasts pretty much the entire film.

Janet has just been elected Shadow Minister for Health, and is hosting a dinner party with several intellectual friends -- each of them written with a broadly satirical flair by director and co-writer Sally Potter (Orlando) -- to celebrate. Women's Studies professor Martha (Cherry Jones) is there with her much younger partner, Jinny (Emily Mortimer), who is newly pregnant. Tom (Cillian Murphy) shows up without his wife who is never seen but understood to be a close friend and coworker of Janet's. And easily the best character of them all is Janet's best friend April, an idealist-turned-cynical-realist played by Patricia Clarkson, who never disappoints; she arrives with her insufferably anti-science and recently-separated husband, the German Gottfried (Bruno Ganz).

These are the only seven characters ever seen onscreen, the living room, kitchen, bathroom and backyard the only locations ever used, giving The Party very much the feel of a stage play being adapted for the screen. It is perhaps no coincidence that all the actors here have had successful stage careers. Except unlike most plays adapted into movies, The Party for the most part works very well. The writing isn't quite as clever as everyone involved clearly thinks it is, and the movie would have benefited from more of the snappy editing that characterizes the movie trailer much more than the movie itself. Yet, it's easy to get sucked into this story soon enough, on the strength of two key components: the performers, who across the board elevate the material (Clarkson most of all; she's the biggest reason to see this movie); and especially the cinematography, shot in black and white by Aleksei Rodionov in a way that puts all the tight quarters in effectively stark relief. Seldom is a location so static this compelling to look at.

Although one of the characters is never seen, there are four couples at play here, each of them with significant news and/or a secret that will be revealed in turn, often with terrible timing. I won't spoil what any of them are, should you decide to check this movie out, except to say that one of them brings a gun. It's no spoiler to say whose hands it ends up in, because the opening shot is of Janet opening her front door and pointing the gun directly at the camera, the point of view of whoever is standing at the door. And we don't get to find out who that is until the final shot, which recreates that scene but extends to Scott Thomas's last line.

To all The Party a dark comedy would be an understatement, and that's a big part of its appeal, at least for those with interest. The characters spend a lot of time barely stopping short of being parodies of themselves as they have high-minded, academically philosophical conversations about very typical things like love and politics, infidelity and betrayal. It's as though it doesn't matter what their socioeconomic background, people still have conflicts over the same shit.

The Party would have done better with some greater clarity, either by fleshing out its themes as a feature film or by tightening up the action as a short film. Still, I was more than sufficiently entertained. You might be too, on whatever streaming platform you see it on eventually.

This party has a bit of a hostile vibe.

Overall: B

FACES PLACES

Directing: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

I suppose it's natural to wonder what might get lost in translation with foreign films, considering in this case that the original French title, Visages Villages, actually translates literally to Faces Villages. But, since they rhymed in French, naturally they wanted it to rhyme in English. I guess not that much is different between the words "villages" and "places." Except, you know, nuance.

Thankfully, a whole lot of this pleasant and charming documentary needs no translation, so much of it is reliant on visual art. Faces Places is by, about, and features the photography and art of a relatively odd-couple set of friends, thirty-three year-old JR, and 88-year-old Agnès Varda.

They travel the French countryside in a small truck, on the sides of which, the walls behind the cab in which JR drives and Agnès rides shotgun, is printed the image of a giant camera. The truck has been rigged to print out giant, poster-sized sheets of photographs within minutes (maybe less?) of them being taken, like it's a giant Poloroid camera. They stop from town to town, getting to know the locals, taking their picture, and then pasting them as giant photo murals on the sides of buildings.

This makes for a great many truly unforgettable images -- I was tempted to say indelible, except that in many cases weather washes the images away -- my favorite of which is of an old German bunker deliberately knocked off a cliff, and which happened to land propped up on its side. It essentially became a work of art in its own right once landed there, but now JR takes an old, 1950s photo of an old photographer friend of Agnès's and pastes it larger than life across its face.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, however. They take photos of three wives of dock workers and paste them in massive sizes onto stacked shipping containers. JR gets photos of Agnès's feet and also a close-up of her eye and pastes them alongside train cars. One young woman becomes a local celebrity after a lovely shot of her sitting with a parasol is pasted huge against a building in her small hometown.

Faces Places is, for the most part, just a succession of stops on Agnès and JR's meandering tour of their country, their subjects emotionally reacting to photographs of them being turned into giant public wall art. And indeed, this alone is often genuinely moving, in the midst of the fun of just hanging out with these two photographers, their friendship seeming relatively unlikely, until Agnès and brought to meet JR's still-living, 100-year-old grandmother. He clearly loves her dearly.

We also get a fair amount of scenes between JR and Agnès that are quite transparently staged, and with this, mileage may vary. JR has evidently tried to make it part of his persona to refuse ever taking off his sunglasses, no matter how much Agnès pesters him about it. This becomes something intended as a plot point in the telling of their story, but winds up coming across much more as a gimmick.

But, okay, fine. Faces Places is not always straightforward when it comes to being a "documentary." One could argue that's part of the point, this film itself being a unique work of art in its own right. This makes the occasional, subtle artistic flourishes perfectly appropriate.

And if nothing else, the friendship and affection between JR and Agnès is genuine. That and the art they create, which is shared generously here, easily makes Faces Places worth seeing.

My favorite of many fantastic images in FACES PLACES.

Overall: B+

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

Directing: A-
Acting: A
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

It's sort of unfortunate and backward, that the thing that makes A Fantstic Woman truly stand out is its lead is a transgender character played by -- gasp! -- an actual trans actor.

To be clear, I don't subscribe to the idea that non-trans actors playing trans characters is inherently wrong. It's an age-old debate also often had by people in the disability community: should every disabled character be mandated to be played by an actor with whatever disability the character has? My argument has always been that this is the very nature of acting itself: playing the part of something you are not. It's all make-believe, right? (There's always a line, of course, and something like blackface crosses it.) The flip side of this argument is that people who are trans or disabled -- or gay people or people of color -- should be cast more often in parts that are for anyone, not expressly written for whatever characteristic by which they are most defined by the outside world.

That said, much like the superb Tangerine (2015), A Fantastic Woman is indeed a trans story, and having a trans actor play the part certainly gives it a fresh authenticity. This doesn't have quite the unique vision of Tangerine, which was unlike any other movie ever made (in more ways than one), but Daniela Vega as Marina Vidal certainly gives it a unique perspective.

There is also a certain fascination in seeing a story like this told from the point of view of another culture, here specifically Chile. A lot of people treat Marina terribly, and a lot of it is pretty typical of trans stories: harassment, being called a "faggot," humiliating treatment from local law enforcement even when they are insisting they are there to help. It's tempting to complain about A Fantastic Woman from this perspective, but for two things: first, these things in reality remain all too common; and second, who am I to judge this as a reflection of a slice of Chilean culture? I don't live there.

Marina's story is indeed a sad one, though, which, while not nearly as tragic as it could be (Boys Don't Cry this is not, thank God), can get pretty heavy. At the beginning of the story, Marina is happily coupled with a man much older than she is. But one night she wakes up to find him having an attack of some sort, and not long after she rushes him to the hospital, she dies there. A Fantastic Woman is the story of how Marina deals with this blindsiding event while the man's family treats her terribly. One particularly searing line, when Marina is getting kicked out of the funeral she has been explicitly told not to come to: "Have you no respect for other people's pain?" As though Marina's own pain, which is easily just as intense as anyone else's, if not more so, is meaningless, a notion to be discarded along with her humanity.

While Marina endures emotional traumas one after another (starting at the very hospital she rushes to, where she is misgendered by police and asked to produce an ID that has not yet been changed), she moves through this story as a paragon of resilience and strength -- and without contrivance. She occasionally makes ill-advised choices, but never fatal ones, and stays a course that runs between resolve and defiance. Even in the midst of a life turned upside down by a random, tragic event, of all the people in this movie, Marina emerges as the hero.

Perhaps to add something adjacent to levity, director and co-writer Sebastián Lelio sprinkles in occasional stylistic flourishes: Marina walking against massive guts of wind; the occasional visions of her beloved Francisco. There's even a night club dance number, which sounds out of place in a story like this, but Lelio integrates it seamlessly. A lot of these diversions are cut into the movie's trailer, which makes it seem a bit more stylized than it actually is; most of it is much more straightforward. But using such flourishes sparingly only helps it.

If anything makes A Fantastic Woman worth seeing, however, it's Daniela Vega, quietly intense in the title role. She makes choices one might call brave, and offers a kind of representation never seen onscreen, with a frank and realistic portrayal of daily living as a trans woman. She exists here just as a regular person, after all -- she's just a waitress, not a sex worker, much as the police might assume her to be. She led a normal life until unfortunate circumstances befell her and ignited the small mindedness of those around her, and this is a film that depicts how it's the rest of society, not her, that is in urgent need of an attitude adjustment.

Yes, it's true: Marina is indeed a fantastic woman.

Overall: A-

GAME NIGHT

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Typically a broad comedy with a large ensemble cast can easily fall under the weight of its star power, but somehow Game Night manages to avoid such a trap. It's engaging and consistently funny and offers just what you expect, and want, from it.

It's hardly a new concept, the story of unwitting participants in a game of some kind that feels like it may or may not have fatal consequences. The twist here is that the participants are told from the outset that it's a make-believe game, and they go on thinking it's fake for some time after things actually get real.

With a large assortment of characters, most of them well-established friends who go to each other's houses for weekly Game Nights, it's rather an accomplishment that this group of seven consists of truly distinct, well-drawn personalities. Max and Annie (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, both practically made for these kinds of roles) are the uber-competitive gaming couple who tend to host the Game Nights. Four of their typical guests are one longstanding couple, Kevin and Michelle (New Girl's Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury), and one other good friend, Ryan (Billy Magnussen) and a different date every week, all of them so similarly vapid that the rest of the group have difficulty tearing them apart. That is, until this week, when Ryan brings his work friend Sarah (Catastrophe's Sharon Horgan). Ryan and Sarah are particularly fun to watch since they flip the typical gender script, and it's Sarah constantly marveling at Ryan's airheadedness. Sharon Horgan excels at expressions of incredulousness.

Crashing the proceedings is Max's brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler), who brings in the "next level" element, turning a typical night of board gaming into a "murder mystery" night. The group is warned that sometime in the evening one of them will be kidnapped and it's up to the rest of them to follow clues and find him. And Game Night is so packed with familiar faces that even Jeffrey Wright shows up as one of the game-actors, but his part barely counts as more than a cameo. Later Michael C. Hall shows up in the final act, his familiarity almost a distraction, but I still won't spoil how he fits into it all.

I will mention, though, Jesse Plemons (who was previously seen on Friday Night Lights along with Kyle Chandler) as the creepy-weird cop neighbor constantly trying to get invited to Game Night, but Max and Annie keep trying to avoid him. Plemons winds up factoring into the story pretty significantly, including not one but two sudden twists in the plot, and in terms of performance he might just be the MVP of the production. It would have been nice to find out whatever happened to his wife who used to be the better Game Night player but has since left him, which we really never find out, but whatever. You can't expect perfection, I guess.

Too often I find myself marveling at the number of stars who all read the same terrible script and somehow thought it would be a good idea to make it into a movie. The most refreshing thing about Game Night is it's actually the type of movie that is usually mediocre at best, but this one is fun and clever throughout, with solid comic performances throughout. Game Night does flirt with mediocrity at times, but never quite dips to that level. It doesn't exactly flirt with greatness, I'll concede, but so what? This is a movie whose twisty plot of hapless characters in over their heads is never overtly contrived, which we could use more of. It's simply a good time for an hour and forty minutes.

Oh no, they don't realize it isn't a game! Fun for us, though.

Overall: B+

EARLY MAN

Directing: B
Acting: B-
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B
Animation: B-

I'm not into sports. I don't follow soccer -- or "football" everywhere in the world outside the U.S. -- and thus don't even quite understand it. I thought Early Man was going to be a cute and silly movie about cavemen (and cavewomen) of the Stone Age fighting against people of the Bronze Age to preserve their dying way of life. Turns out it's a movie about how people of the Stone Age invented soccer, and then used a match against Bronze Age players in a wager to keep their valley.

Okay, what?

I'm trying to be fair here. But Early Man is wonky from the start even from outside its massive focus on soccer. It can't even get its history right in broad strokes, its opening scene depicting humans and dinosaurs co-existing. What is this, produced by the curators of the Creationist Museum? At least Jesus never pops up.

Yeah yeah, it's just a cartoon -- or more accurately, stop-motion by Aardman Animation, which previously brought us delightful feature films like Flushed Away (2006) and Shaun the Sheep (2015). Its full history is admittedly slightly spotty, but they are capable of very fun and clever storytelling. They make quite an effort at it with Early Man, but honestly, this movie just didn't speak to me.

There are occasional giggles with moderately effective gags here and there, but the story focuses far too heavily on this soccer game. The Bronze Age people have come to mine for ore in the small, lush valley where the Stone Age people, who are sweet but a little boneheaded, make their home. Young Dug (Eddie Redmayne) finds himself accidentally scooped up and taken to the Bronze Age land, where he happens upon a soccer pitch (it is called a pitch, right? -- you see how much this movie is not made for me?). He befriends a young woman named Goona (Maisie Williams) who has dreams of playing the game in front of all the fans, and she trains the Stone Age team and winds up joining them.

The story features the requisite lessons of teamwork being more effective than self-advancement, nothing especially new or inventive there. Early Man is relatively fun overall, I'll concede, but neither its animation nor its script features even half the inventiveness that we can typically expect from Aardman. In fact, the animation designs are goofy as hell, even by Aardman standards. Honestly I found myself disinterested, close to bored, relatively early on. The least they could do is give it a less misleading title than Early Man -- like, I don't know, Early Football Players -- and make the story clearer in promotional materials.

But, I can imagine this movie working a lot better for other people, to be fair -- specially people with more than a passing familiarity, or an eager interest, in the sport of soccer. I do not. Thus, I would need the movie to offer something more substantial than this one does to sustain my attention. But, that's just me.

Hognob here is the most watchable part of the movie.

Overall: B-

BLACK PANTHER

Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A
Special Effects: B+
Production Design: A-

For obvious reasons I can't speak to what Black Panther must mean to black audiences. I'll let them speak for themselves. What I can say is it's easily the best superhero movie (or, more accurately, comic book adaptation) since 2008's The Dark Knight, and arguably the best since 1992's Batman Returns, or by some measures the best ever made.

This is certainly a film that stands on its own, in spite of it being (unfortunately) part of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe," in a way no other Marvel adaptation has achieved since the unveiling of this shared "universe." This all started with Iron Man (also 2008), a relatively strong start to what was followed by an entire decade of superhero movies that virtually all follow the same formula, to the point that I now actively avoid these movies as a general rule. It's just the same shit, different month.

Every once in a while, however, a delightful exception comes along. Last year's Logan was one them. Not even that could stand up to the import of Black Panther, how much this film can mean to so many people. Everyone wants to see reflections of themselves in the heroes they see onscreen. I suppose all that's left is for a movie about a legitimate superhero who happens to be gay to come along, but I'm not complaining. I mean, Black Panther has plenty of eye candy, at least.

Although it clocks in at 134 minutes, this movie has a lot going on, and director and co-writer Ryan Coogler presents it with consistent efficiency -- especially the backstory of the fictional African country of Wakanda, succinctly explained in a matter of seconds. It turns out Coogler is another in an increasing line of directors of smaller but excellent films (in his case, 2013's Fruitvale Station) given the reigns of a massive blockbuster. Coogler turns out to be an inspired choice, a man who clearly knows how to weave serious cultural issues with subtle perfection into the narrative of blockbuster entertainment.

And the story does a bit of a bait and switch in a rather satisfying way, turning the notion of a supervillain on its head. This movie's "bad guy" isn't who it seems at first, and the villain that emerges is by no means intrinsically evil. The major players here all agree that problems the world over need addressing, a fight for the oppressed. The debate is regarding the secret technological resources of Wakanda, whether it should be shared, and how. In fact, the story of Black Panther is written with such precision that it allows audiences to engage in that debate themselves, without supplying easy answers.

This is perhaps what impresses me most about Black Panther: even in a movie packed with action, a movie still recognizable as a comic book adaptation, none of it is contrived -- that being the key difference from nearly every other superhero movie of the past decade. It characters of royal blood and themes of family rivalry are almost Shakespearean. It deals with succession to the throne and ritual battles, all with production and costume design with fantastically authentic African influences. The hero just happens to be a man who suits up in an alien technology-enhanced panther costume.

Not only is Black Panther  unapologetically African, it is also quite defiantly feminist -- it's probably the most female-empowered action movie since Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). The two main rival characters here may be men, but they are surrounded by the most badass women warriors (led by Danai Gurira, with an even balance of poise, strength and humor), without whom Black Panther would be nothing. And there is diversity to these women's abilities; they aren't all just warriors. Black Panther has a sister (Letita Wright) who is a genius with the "vibranium" technology, designing his weapons and defenses for him, as well as for the entire country. Angela Basset is perfectly regal as his royal mother. Lupita Nyong'o is the skilled spy he's in love with.

And I haven't even mentioned Chadwick Boseman as the title character, with shades of Bruce Wayne in his struggle to reconcile duties between alter egos. The difference here is a much greater responsibility and global question rests on his shoulders. Michael B. Jordan is hot as shit as his rival, "Killmonger" (a cornball name that nevertheless works). Or even key parts by Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya, and Forest Whitaker, Sterling K. Brown, Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis. The latter two almost seem deliberately to subvert the "token black character" concept, here being pretty clearly token white characters -- the only white characters of any significance in this vast ensemble cast -- and yet they are used both playfully and effectively, with layered and knowing performances all their own.

The setting moves around the world a bit, from London to Oakland to South Korea -- Korea featuring a pretty nifty car chase sequence -- but the vast majority of the story takes place right there within the gorgeously rendered country of Wakanda. I can't say the special effects are especially cutting edge here, but the story, the writing and especially the editing, are so strong as to render that immaterial, providing a true sense of place, even though it's entirely invented.

In other words, in a multitude of ways, Black Panther is a historic film, a point that cannot be understated, even though the film itself is executed with brilliant understatement all its own. On the surface, it's a tightly polished action adventure, with stakes that matter and characters that feel authentic -- all elements sorely lacking from most comic book movies these days. This is not just another story about cookie-cutter heroes we have no reason to feel emotionally invested in because they are ultimately invincible. This is a story with emotional heft, a playful heart, and real-world concerns. You really could not ask for more than what this movie delivers.

Black Panthers takes the Marvel Universe in a new direction.

Overall: A-

Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animated

Dear Basketball: B
Negative Space: B+
LOU:A
Revolting Rhymes Part One: B+
Garden Party: B+ ["Highly Commended"]
Lost Property Office: B
Weeds B
Achoo: B- Dear Basketball (USA, 6 minutes) precipitated a fair amount of humor on Twitter about basketball player Kobe Bryant somehow becoming an Academy Award nominee -- because he wrote and narrates the poem that makes up the audio of this entire short. I don't particularly see any pressing reason to make fun of it. I have close to zero interest in basketball, sure, but I can still recognize sincerity when I see it. This isn't the greatest poem in the world, but that's beside the point. This is effectively evocative with its animated pencil drawings and earnest delivery. Negative Space (France, 5 minutes) is a light hearted little stop motion short, with rather odd looking characters that sort of look like papier-mâché, about a boy who learned how to pack suitcases from his father. This one kind of touched me in a personal way because my stepmother also taught me how to maximize space in luggage by rolling up my clothes. This kid has a few more rules, hence the aversion to "negative space" used inefficiently, which serves as a cute little punch line at the very end. LOU (USA, 7 minutes) is far from the longest short in this year's group of nominees, but, it should come as no surprise that as the Pixar submission, it's easily the strongest. This one, about stolen toys come to life to teach a playground bully a lesson, has charmes that practically leap off the screen. Here Pixar continues its knack for presenting stories that are equal parts enchanting and moving. Revolting Rhymes Part One (UK, 29 minutes) is based on a story by Roald Dahl, and is thus a suitably twisted mashup take on several fairy tales at once: Little Red Riding Hood (who here becomes a vengeful badass); Snow White; and the Three Pigs. The story is narrated by the wolf who has lost his two nephews, and we find out how that happened. This one is by far the longest of the animated shorts, but with a pacing that never lulls, it remains engaging and fun from beginning to end. I might be more tempted to dismiss Garden Party (France, 7 minutes), if not for its stunning, photorealistic animation. It's mostly of frogs, each of them lazily exploring what increasingly becomes clear is an abandoned mansion whose inhabitant has been shot and killed. Thus, it goes from peaceful and beautiful to dark and disturbing pretty quickly. Lost Property Office (Australia, 10 minutes), the first of the "Highly Commended" shorts used as filler to stretch the full prohram to a barely feature length 83 minutes, is another stop motion short, this one in black and white with impressively detailed, art deco cityscapes. It's just a man who ultimately gets laid off and finds a way to turn all the junk he works with into an escape, but it does have its charms. Weeds (USA, 3 minutes) is the shortest of all the shorts here, but as a brief parable about "daring to dream," does wind up being memorable, as we watch a dandelion struggle to escape the fatally dry and hot part of a sidewalk and make it to where a nearby sprinkler hits. Short as it is, it's easy to see this one only barely missing out on getting an Oscar nomination, particularly considering its crisply rendered animation. Achoo (France, 7 minutes), on the other hand, is easily the weakest of all offerings here, and it's too bad it gets presented last instead of allowing something strong to be used for going out with a bang. At least there is a "bang" here, as it tells us how fireworks were created -- by a dragon with a cold. The animation here is well done, but the story is somewhat weak, and I can't really decide how I feel about the rendering of the one Chinese human character, who is a little too much of a caricature, even for a cartoon.

Overall: B+