THE GOOD LIAR

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

In terms of what is the greatest appeal of The Good Liar, this movie might better be called The Good Actors. You can rarely go wrong with the likes of Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren. And you wouldn’t be with this film either, even though it’s far from either of their best, and it’s a tad predictable.

Still, there’s a certain satisfaction in where the story goes, even if it is telegraphed early on. Maybe not exactly what the twist will be, but certainly that there will be a twist, and what the nature of the twist will be. That kind of softens the effect of a so-called “twist.”

One thing I kind of love about it, is that Ian McKellen is an out gay man, and he plays both a straight man and a villain here. He’s quite convincing, too—so much so that, I didn’t even think about this until well after the movie was over. This is the way things should be, and a testament to how great an actor he is. Helen Mirren is, of course, capable of more than meeting his match.

As The Good Liar begins, the opening credits are intercut with shots of these two, filling out online dating profiles of people of “distinction”—that is, old. Neither ever say how old they are, although it still feels like McKellen is playing a bit younger than his eighty years of age. He does so convincingly, against the eternally sensual Mirren, who is 74. Not as great an age difference as you might expect.

McKellen plays a con man, and a surprisingly spry one for his age. This makes it very easy for him to play up sympathies as he fakes frailty. But, and this is part of the predictable part, Mirren’s Betty McLeish has some tricks up her sleeve herself. And this is where it gets tricky, in a sense where The Good Liar can’t really win. If Betty is just a helpless old lady who gets duped, it’s too stereotypical; if Betty gets the better of McKellen’s Roy Courtnay, it’s rather predictable. This movie sets a bit of a trap for itself.

That said, there is greater satisfaction in the details. Not just that there is “more than meets the eye” when it comes to Betty—which we expect from the start—but in exactly how and why that is the case. These characters’ rather distant pasts eventually come into play, and there is some element of surprise in how they play out.

In a sense, The Good Liar is kind of a mystery, one in which I found myself thinking the predictable thing better actually be the case, or else I’ll be pissed. Better to be unsurprised than pissed, I suppose. It’s nice to see parts this meaty for actors in their seventies and eighties. It would be nice if they had a bit more depth, but we take what we can get, it’s so rare that a movie is carried by actors with careers as long and storied as these. It’s surprisingly modern, too, including how Russell Tovey’s part as Betty’s grandson is ultimately contextualized. That’s also, in the end, part of the movie’s overall contrivance.

In the end, The Good Liar is adequate entertainment, an engaging but flawed showcase for a couple of truly great actors, having a bit of fun. Which is perhaps the best descriptor for the film itself: a bit of fun.

The good actors.

Overall: B

THE WOMAN WHO LOVES GIRAFFES

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

Perhaps one day, a few decades from now when many of our favorite animals will have inevitably gone extinct, a narrative film will be made about Anne Innis Dagg, the “Jane Goodall of giraffes.” Giraffes on the Savanna, or whatever.

For now, we have the documentary about her, written and directed by longtime stunt coordinator Alison Reid, in her feature documentary debut. From the point of view of those who love giraffes, it’s too bad this particular animal is not as “sexy” as gorillas or tigers or elephants—they just don’t get as much attention. Maybe because they don’t have the regal appeal or the hominid sympathies of other animals. Giraffes, by comparison, are a gangly, goofy animal. It says something that the film is only playing for two days at the Siff Film Center theatre. By the time you read this (if anyone is even bothering to read this), it will no longer be in theaters.

Not that it commands attention in a theater, honestly. If you care about the threats against animal species facing extinction, take a note of this title: The Woman Who Loves Giraffes. Surely it will be available streaming on one platform or another soon enough.

This is not just about the animals, though, of course. It’s about—you guessed it!—the woman who loves them, Anne Innis Dagg. And her story is indeed a fascinating one: she traveled to Africa to study wildlife before Jane Goodall did, and wrote what was for decades the only reliable or comprehensive book on the subject of giraffes in 1976. She shortly thereafter dropped from widespread academic attention, having been denied tenure by a sexist university system in Canada. This particular struggle gets focused attention in the documentary, a sort of feminist detour during which Dagg published several other books on women’s issues.

But, in the early 21st century, Dagg experienced a sort of renaissance, having been invited to a conference comprised of many giraffe experts who regarded her seminal 1976 book as the “Bible” for giraffe studies. Thus, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes becomes a nice tale of struggle and renewal.

Dagg, for her part, has a particularly winning personality, which makes for a lot of nice interview footage. She seems full of life and hope, even now in her eighties. She’s clearly just generally pleasant to be around, and her passion is infectious, especially for animal lovers. I’m not sure it’s so much so for those who are a little more indifferent to these issues. If anyone wants a bit of sensationalism, I guess I could mention there is one scene in which Dagg speaks to a man while he is literally shoulder-deep into a pregnant giraffe’s vagina.

The bummer of it all, really, is that, well, the world is on fire right now. This movie ends with the requisite insistence that “you can help” and the organizations that need support, but, this is not going to be especially high on anyone’s priority list right now. The most dire needs are policy changes at the federal level, not just in the U.S. but in the 21 African countries where wild giraffe exists. Good luck with that!

As ever with documentaries of this sort, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes makes a point of what’s still possible, how these animals could be saved if just enough people do the right thing. Unfortunately, I left this movie thinking about how we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Or render extinct, as the case may be.

Someone tell me where these guys buy their mascara!

Overall: B

FORD V FERRARI

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

Okay, so Ford v Ferrari is pretty damned long too—two hours and 32 minutes, to be exact. A good way to make that seem less significant is to have seen The Irishman the day before: compared to that movie’s three and a half hours, this seems like a quick excursion. There’s also the fact that Ford v Ferrari is so entertaining, so full of speed and suspense, it really never feels particularly long. This is that rare movie that anyone could love, and it’s not even a damned superhero movie.

In that sense, Ford v Ferrari is a pretty classic original motion picture. Director James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Logan) offers something that feels a lot like movie-going was in the past, when box office successes weren’t dominated exclusively by endless returns to IP. A standalone movie could break through on the strength of its own merits. It’s on pace to be by a wide margin the #1 movie this weekend, which feels like a good sign—even if its predicted earnings are far lower than your average blockbuster debut.

The extraordinary thing about Ford v Ferrari is that I really have nothing to criticize it for. It may not quite be a masterpiece of cinema, but it sure does hold up as near-perfect movie entertainment. I don’t even tend to have much interest in sports movies of any type, but I had a blast watching this. But that’s one of this movie’s many strengths: it easily transcends the “sport” it is ostensibly about.

A fair amount of this movie’s widely positive critical response has noted that, even though it’s about two race car drivers (Matt Damon and Christian Bale, both fantastic) helping the Ford Motor Company win the 24-hour Le Mans race in 1966 France, it hardly celebrates the massive corporation that’s behind it all. Tracy Letts is perfectly cast as Henry Ford II, who is throwing all the money he can at this endeavor for no real reason other than being personally insulted by the CEO of Ferrari. Josh Lucas plays a more direct, meddling villain as Ford’s second-in-command Leo Beebe, but Ford is still characterized as a pretty out of touch rich guy with an easily bruised ego. He’s equally easily manipulated by both Beebe and Carroll Shelby, the retired race car driver played by Matt Damon.

The trailers for Ford v Ferrari make it look a little too much like the movie is about a rivalry between Matt Damon’s Carroll and Christian Bale’s British immigrant race car driver/mechanic Ken Miles, but the “v” in the title is not between these two characters. Carroll and Miles are very good friends, both working for the Ford Motor Company to become the first Americans to beat Ferrari in the Le Mans race. And Damon and Bale have great onscreen chemistry.

I suppose one unanswered question is in regards to Carroll’s personal life—does he have a wife, or romantic partner of any kind? Look up Carroll Shelby an you’ll discover he was married seven times. We do not meet a single one of these women in Ford v Ferrari; apparently he had several affairs. Maybe James Mangold felt any focus on that would distract too much from the story at hand—the movie we’ve got is well-packed with story as it is. Still we do get significant focus on Ken Miles’s apparently very supportive wife, Mollie (Caitriona Balfe), as well as on their son Peter (Noah Jupe). Carroll Shelby actually had three children, none of whom appear in this movie. It is a little odd that no part of Shelby’s personal life plays into the story here, and yet a whole lot of Ken Miles’s does. I guess if I do have any criticism of this movie, that would be it.

That said, it’s a testament to how gripping a movie Ford v Ferrari is that I didn’t even think about these things until sitting down to write the review. The story at hand is all about two friends who built a race car that broke records, and it is fun, engaging, almost always amusing, and often genuinely suspenseful. The many racing scenes are incredibly well edited, giving a multi-dimensional and easy to follow view of what it felt like to be a part of them. There is danger that comes with it, and inevitably, tragedy. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this movie is packed with dynamic characters, whether we are meant to root for them or not.

This movie is an unexpected delight, something you can confidently recommend to just about anyone you know. It’s sort of sad how that makes it unique. Movies like this just don’t come along much anymore, and the world could do with more like it: something that is not especially challenging but doesn’t particularly need to be, but is still very well-made on every level. To say it exceeds expectations is an understatement.

It’s so much better than it looks!

Overall: A-

THE IRISHMAN

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

It’s been widely reported that The Irishman runs three and a half hours long, so there’s a good chance you already know it, but it bears repeating. Be warned: this movie is a bit of an endurance test. I do have recommendations for how to deal with it, however. First, don’t drink any fluids for at least six hours before seeing it in a theater. But, if you can’t get out of having to use the bathroom, then I recommend seeing it at Seattle’s Cinerama theatre. Not only is it the best movie screen in town, but they also play the live sound from the movie playing over the speakers in the bathrooms, so at the very least you don’t miss out on what might be critical dialogue.

That is, it’s what I can recommend or the next week, which is the extent of this film’s theatrical release. It plays at Cinerama through Wednesday 11/20; it plays at the Landmark Crest Theater in Shoreline (which is far cheaper; $17 at Cinerama vs. $4 at the Crest) through Thursday 11/21. This has also been the subject of much media coverage regarding this movie, because it will be available streaming on Netflix very shortly thereafter, on Wednesday, November 27, the day before Thanksgiving.

Thus, the biggest burning question is: Is it worth finding a movie theater to see it in? And having seen it, I can tell you definitively—no, not really. That is, unless you are a cinephile or cinema purist, which I kind of am. It’s why I went out of my way to see it at Cinerama: I knew director Martin Scorsese preferred it be seen in a theater, and I personally prefer the cinematic experience broadly. But, you know what? Although The Irishman is a fine movie, it’s short on action and long on a uniquely meditative tone. Honestly, you might as well deal with that at home.

It’s not like it’s some grand achievement in cinematography, either. This movie is told almost entirely in flashback, with Robert De Niro as the title character (or, Frank Sheeran) narrating. The story unfolds over decades, from the forties through the seventies, in blue collar neighborhoods run by mobsters, in environments with pretty muted colors, with the occasional exception of things like a brief excursion to Florida. Still, none of the visual language of this films demands to be seen on a large screen. The Irishman is much more an actors’ showcase, and a very, very long one at that. This is therefore a rare example of a movie’s brief theatrical release having value only in terms of qualifying for Academy Awards, as opposed to a brief window of opportunity to see film as it was originally intended. This is one movie that will work fine, maybe even better, on your TV screen.

And real emphasis should be put on it as a showcase for actors—specifically, male ones. The cast here is a massive reunion of Scorsese favorites, including Harvey Keitel in a surprisingly small role as the most powerful mobster; Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa; and most notably, Joe Pesci as crime boss Russell Bufalino, Frank Sheeran’s longtime mentor. Other familiar faces fill out the supporting cast, including Ray Romano as Russell’s cousin Bill; Bobby Cannavale as hitman Felix “Skinny Razor” DeTullio; and Jesse Plemons as Jimmy Hoffa’s son Chuckie.

But, at the risk of sounding insufferably “woke,” you would think a movie three and a half hours long would find at least some quality time for the women in these men’s lives. It’s genuinely striking, how much screen time women in this film get just to be speechless window dressing. Just because I feel bad for them, I feel like naming the key actors who played these roles: Welker White as Jimmy’s wife, Josephine Hoffa (who gets the most lines of all the women, and it’s still only a few); Aleksa Palladino and Stephanie Kurtzuba as Mary and Irene, Frank’s respective first and second wives; and most notably, Anna Paquin as Frank’s eldest daughter Peggy. Peggy actually figures in as a key part of Frank’s story, and still, Anna Paquin appears in several scenes with no dialogue at all, until maybe two scenes with limited dialogue near the end. In short, The Irishman goes out of its way to waste the ample talents of its female supporting cast, while simultaneously squandering ample potential for character development.

Now, okay, yes, to be fair, this is Frank’s story, and his story revolves around his relationship with crime bosses. De Niro, Pacino and Pesci—who came out of retirement for this role, not having been in a feature film in nine years—all give fantastic, arguably award-worthy performances. But it’s still possible to put the focus on these characters without giving so many women such blatant short shrift, with not so much as dialogue in scene after scene. (I’m certainly not the only one who noticed.)

That aside—and, frankly, it’s a difficult thing to set aside—The Irishman remains a surprisingly engaging film considering how long it is, the longest mainstream film released in two decades. The final ninety minutes or so are certainly the most pertinent, and they are only thus because of the time spent on the story that led up to it. The film ends with Frank as an old man, reckoning with the long-term consequences of his past. It’s a larger-than-life life, which ends with a bit of whimper. And, much like Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, there is greater context to consider: it’s a longtime director using a film as a storytelling tool to reckon with his own past. A meditation on a life lived, achievements and mistakes in all; a bit of a theme in the world of film in 2019. Is it a journey worth going on with them? Sure it is, especially if you are already a fan of the director’s other work. Is it an essential part of his body of work? That part remains up for debate.

So are we just going to keep talking for 209 minutes, then?

Overall: B

LAST CHRISTMAS

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

Here’s a strange and unusual thing for the holiday season: a movie in which nearly everyone is phoning it in—except, curiously, the actors. It’s easy to dismiss a film as schmaltzy as Last Christmas outright (and I was tempted), but that itself can be a sort of trap. Emilia Clarke gives a lovely performance as Kate, the central character gradually revealed to have made a mess of her life in the wake of a heart transplant. And Emma Thompson exceeds expectations as her Yugoslavian immigrant mother.

Still, Last Christmas has a pretty big problem, and I mean besides the hokey fact that it’s loosely based on a song by WHAM! It features some solid characters, who could be the building blocks of a great story. Paul Feig, as director, and Emma Thompson, as co-writer (along with Bryony Kimmings), seem to know of this potential, and yet they couldn’t be bothered. It’s like they got to the point of half-baked and then they all decided, well, that’s good enough!

Except it really isn’t. Spoiler alert! There’s a so-called “massive twist.” I won’t reveal the twist here, although if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve already figured it out, and it is practically slapping the viewer in the face with “hints” the moment Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) appears onscreen as Tom, the mysterious man who takes an interest in Kate, just when her life seems to have hit rock bottom.

Golding has an endearing screen presence, which helps with all the holiday cheese going on here. The same goes for Michelle Yeoh (also Crazy Rich Asians) as the owner of the massive year-round Christmas shop where Kate works, dressed as an elf. Unfortunately, Yeoh’s own ample charms are more than neutralized by a romance with a customer, and the subplot there is so insanely cloying you might want to keep a barf bag handy.

The semi-romance between Kate and Tom is not far behind. Once the “big reveal” about him happens, try not to think too much about the many practical questions it brings up. I’m still unsure whether the audience is meant to think of him as real or as a figment of Kate’s imagination, because those questions get no easy answers either way.

I won’t lie, though—Last Christmas still got to me. It might stir your emotions a little bit too, if you love George Michael (whose songs make up most of the soundtrack), or you love Christmas, or Christmas movies, or all of the above. I’m not sure how much we need all this as early as an opening date of November 8—three weeks before Thanksgiving—unless the studio just wanted to get their junk out of the way early. Because just because I found myself getting involved in the story doesn’t make it something of high quality. There’s a reason why formula works.

There is one single scene, which indicates the better movie that could have been. Kate is home at her parents’ house, having a dinner with them and her sister (Lydia Leonard) to celebrate her sister’s promotion. There’s a round of dialogue that begins to crackle with energy, the kind that can make for a fun, unique story about a multi-ethnic, immigrant family. There are even brief bits about Brexit that are actually woven into what passes for a story in this movie pretty well. I actually laughed two or three times during this one scene, which was about even with the rest of the movie put together. I wish another movie could be grown out of this scene, one in which a Christmastime setting, even holiday sentiment, is still permitted, but just not laid on so thick.

But that’s what Last Christmas does: it lays it on thick with what doesn’t really work, and skims over what does. That’s also what makes it so easy to overlook the solid performance among all of the lead actors. They have the kind of rapport you’d like to explore further. Just in some other movie.

Save the Most Schmaltz for Me

Overall: B-

PAIN AND GLORY

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

There is so much that can be unpacked with Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, Pain and Glory, it’s potentially exhausting. But, it really depends on how much of a film nerd you are; how much you know about Almodóvar himself as well as his film history; and how much you care about “autofiction,” a term which gets mentioned a couple of times in the film.

For the average viewer of the film—not to mention the average reader of this particular review—how much of Pain and Glory is fictionalized autobiography on the part of its director perhaps means little. These are the things that get widespread attention in critical responses, but for you and me, how much does all of that matter? Perhaps it could be said that “it’s unlike anything else” is a phrase that gets bandied about a lot among critics (including me), and still this film takes that notion to a different level. As in, nothing else would be like this, given its incredible specificity: this is Antonio Banderas’s eighth collaboration with Almodóvar since their first in 1982, giving them a longstanding relationship with a kind of intimacy all its own; now, even if in the context of “autofiction,” Bandaras is basically playing Almodóvar, while also being directed by him.

As you can plainly see, context can really make a difference in meaning, and these sorts of details are undeniably fascinating, at least to anyone with a particular interest in film, or in film history, or in the body of work of Pedro Alomdóvar in particular. But, what interests me more is how Pain and Glory plays completely on its own merits. What if you watched this movie having no idea that it was “autofiction” at all? What if you didn’t even know who Almodóvar was, and just happened upon this movie, or went to see it just because the trailer piqued an interest? I would argue the film’s is of much greater value if it works either way.

So, what’s the answer, then? I can’t say with absolute certainty, since, even though I am far from an Aldomóvar expert (I have seen about ten of the 22 feature films he’s directed), but my sense is the answer is yes, it works. It just doesn’t work quite as well, doesn’t have the same gravitas, without the knowledge that this is a meditation on a long career and how a man’s past informs his present, both on the part of the main character and on the part of the director.

Antonio Banderas does not play a character called “Pedro Almodóvar,” but rather a very, very similar character by the name of Salvador Mallo. Salvador is well into the fourth decade of his career, now stalled, in large part due to an array of health ailments, most of which cause chronic pain. A re-issue of a film from the beginning of his career prompts him to reconnect with said film’s star, Alberto Crespo (Asier Exteandia), as they have both been invited to co-present. They don’t “make amends” so much as allow each other to appear in each other’s lives again.

In signature Almodóvar style, the story unfolds at a very purposefully steady pace. Pain and Glory moves relatively slowly, and is pretty short on action. It is almost entirely composed of quiet conversations, even as Salvador slips into a worrying habit of casual heroin use as a means of dealing with his chronic pain. It’s the same with the many flashbacks to Salvador’s childhood, in which Penélope Cruz (this being her sixth Almodóvar film) plays his mother, who is self-conscious about their poverty.

These flashbacks ultimately culminate in a subtle revelation about Salvador’s (and, ultimately, Almodóvar’s) sexuality, as does a present-day visit by an old flame. In time, Pain and Glory reveals itself to be largely about Salvador as a gay man, although it’s also almost pointedly sexless about it, even with a full-frontal male nude scene among the flashbacks, and a present-day passionate kiss that is far more romantic than erotic. But, sex is beside the point. Salvador’s sexuality is merely one of several avenues on which he must reconcile his past with his present.

It seems clear that Pain and Glory, with its signature meticulousness in both writing and visual storytelling, would benefit from multiple viewings. That is, if a film like this is of interest to begin with. A whole lot about this film is very typical of Almodóvar films, not least of which is its cinematography (by José Luis Alcaine, who has also been collaborating with Almodóvar since the eighties), with its many visuals characterized by solid colors on costumes and interiors. In this case, it’s a lot of solid red. In any case, Pain and Glory serves as a rich visual tapestry, with nothing seen anywhere in frame ever being an accident. Every single detail, every color, every placement of an object, every movement and every word spoken, is all fraught with purpose.

Like any filmmaker with a large body of work, the quality of Pedro Almodóvar’s films has varied a great deal. I found Volver (2006) and Broken Embraces (2009) to be near-perfect expressions of cinema; I also found Talk to Her (2002) and The Skin I live In (2011) to be impressive cinema yet uncomfortably problematic. I’m So Excited! (2013) was a genuine disappointment. The one common thread among all of them is the clear deliberateness of anything seen onscreen.

With Pain and Glory, though, the concern is almost entirely with a filmmaker’s beginning and where he is now, and not so much with anything that came in between, at least in terms of his artistic output. It’s about where a person comes from, and how that informs where he is now, on several fronts. And really, as with most Almodóvar movies, it is much more for Almodóvar fans than it is for fans of film in general. It’s possible, of course, that an Almodóvar novice could be introduced to his work via this film, and if they like it, then be compelled to explore his other work. You could certainly do worse than that.

Looking back: on fiction, on nonfiction, on “autofiction.”

Overall: B+

HARRIET

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

There are great things about Harriet, and there are less-than-great things about Harriet, and the first thing about it to distract me was a little odd: as soon as Harriet and her husband John opened their mouths in the opening scene, I thought to myself, damn—those slaves sure had excellent dentists! Their teeth shone with such pearly-white perfection, it made them look like . . . actors.

Which is to say: there’s a lot wrong with Harriet. Or if not wrong, then certainly sort of off. There’s a vague indecisiveness to its tone, as though director Kasi Lemmons can’t decide if it’s a straightforward biopic or a spiritual treatise. This makes it all the more impressive how often star Cynthia Erivo, as Harriet Tubman, rises above all that. Any time Harriet is absorbing in spite of its imperfections, it is because of her. She has a unique talent for conveying vulnerability and strength in equal measure, easing from the former to the latter over the course of the film.

There is no denying that Harriet Tubman, as a historical figure, was an extraordinary woman. A century and a half after she escaped a life of slavery in Maryland, she remains an enduring symbol of both racial justice and feminism. Learn just a fraction of her accomplishments, and it becomes clear that it is far from hyperbole to say she deserves to be the both the first black person and the first woman to be pictured on American currency. (The complications of conflating her accomplishments with material wealth is a conversation for another place and time.) And setting the inevitability of artistic license in movies aside, Harriet depicts a large number of real, historical events that are genuinely amazing. For that reason, you could make the argument that Harriet commands attention. I can see this being a useful tool in near-future American school classrooms.

I just wish a better movie had been made about her. A woman as towering a figure as Harriet Tubman deserves representation in a film that is better than “not bad.”

Which brings me to the genuinely weird bits. Harriet has been subject to some debate as to whether she is depicted as “psychic.” And it is true, she has several premonitions throughout the film, which seem to guide her path as she moves back and forth from north to south and back, leading increasing numbers of slaves to safety. In my view, this isn’t a suggestion of psychic ability so much as Kasi Lemmons, who co-wrote the script with Gregory Allen Howard, infusing into her an element of the divine. This begins relatively early, in a scene in which Harriet leads a group of fugitive slaves safely across a river, apparently thanks to the power of prayer. It doesn’t quite make Harriet Tubman Christ-like, but it does bring her within a stone’s throw of it.

Now, it’s well known that Harriet Tubman was a deeply religious woman, who indeed believed she was guided by God. And I don’t even have issue with her being depicted thus in film. It’s just that Harriet takes it one small step further, taking that notion rather seriously. It seems to say: she was right. Is it so wrong to want a depiction of this woman in which she becomes extraordinary on her own merits?

No human being is without flaws, and Harriet falls into the trap of rendering its hero an unassailable saint. Even when she talks of being “humbled,” it is just more evidence of her sainthood. By the end, Harriet devolves momentarily into sappy dreck, with the requisite “inspirational speech” met by a rapt audience offering her appreciative applause, like countless other movies over the past countless decades. I saw that and could only think: Really?

Such scenes of misguided corniness are augmented by an intermittently obtrusive musical score by Terence Blanchard. And I don’t often note the music in movies, except in Harriet the score often gives way to beautiful spirituals, sung by the slave characters. Harriet is peppered with these interludes, and they possess a powerful, haunting beauty. Lemmons wisely makes use of the incredible voice possessed by Cynthia Erivo, whose vocal talent has already been showcased in last year’s Bad Times at the El Royale. As such, Harriet would have benefited from less of its cheesy score, and a lot more of those acapella spirituals.

Erivo is well supported by others in the very large cast, most notably by the almost ethereal Janelle Monáe as a proprietor friend of Harriet’s in Philadelphia. And, in spite of its moderately fluid tone, Harriet does pack an impressive amount of detail into its storytelling without ever making it feel rushed—a true rarity in biopics. There is much to debate about Harriet, not about the woman but about how this particular movie depicts her. At least Cynthia Erivo carries the weight of an often odd and sometimes contrived script with a dignity all her own. Setting aside the supposed premonitions, it might just still teach us something about the weight and importance of our own history.

Harriet as superhero: she means business.

Overall: B

JOJO RABBIT

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

You’d think a movie marketed as an “anti-hate satire” would be more . . . satirical. What JoJo Rabbit is, rather, is—adorable. And it’s kind of hard to retain any satirical bite when you’re adorable.

Don’t get me wrong, though; adorable has a lot going for it. That’s why, even though this movie has divided critics, it also made the rounds of film festivals as a huge audience favorite, winning the audience award at the Toronto Film Festival. That’s an award that usually goes to an eventual Best Picture Oscar nominee, and has predicted the Best Picture winner half of the past ten years. Critical ambivalence combined with delighted audiences is often a recipe for Academy success.

Would JoJo Rabbit deserve any Oscars? I’d certainly hesitate to go that far. But then, I’d surely have said the same of Green Book, and I absolutely did say the same of The Shape of Water. I won’t deny that I was entertained my this movie, but I also feel a lot of the aforementioned ambivalence.

Maybe you won’t, though. Especially if you are interested in this film, and have little interest in the “wokeness” of the criticism—criticism I would argue is largely justified. JoJo Rabbit is part of an uncomfortable history of “feel-good” films about the Holocaust, which also somehow manage to dilute the truly grave realities of the Holocaust. And it’s a neat trick, allowing viewers to pat themselves on the back for empathizing with victims without ever truly considering the horrors they faced. with antisemitism (among other forms of bigotry) actually on the rise, is now the best time for a movie like this?

I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. I’m much more comfortable merely judging whether JoJo Rabbit works as a movie, and it does . . . kind of. As directed by tTaika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Thor: Ragnarok), the tone is occasionally not quite well tuned. Curiously, the comic conceit of Hitler (played by Waititi himself) as the imaginary friend of 10-year-old JoJo is rarely as funny as intended. And yet, the more dramatic, human elements, this story of an indoctrinated boy’s mind being opened by the teenage Jewish girl being protected by his mother, generally work remarkably well.

And great performances go a long way. I’m tempted to say young Roman Griffin Davis as JoJo is worth seeing the movie all on his own. He’s not just almost unbearably adorable, but his performance is astonishing. His screen presence is the light that fuels everything that actually works in this movie. Scarlett Johansson is also wonderful as his politically subversive mother; Sam Rockwell is a bit of a hoot as a boozy soldier not especially passionate about Nazi ideals; even Rebel Wilson is fun Fraulein Rahm. Alfie Allen is a bit wasted as Sam Rockwell’s soldier sidekick, and young Archie Yates is a bit wooden as JoJo’s friend Yorki. This is Yates’s only credit on IMDb, though, and wooden or not, he’s still plenty adorable too. So, don’t tell him I said he was wooden. He’s got plenty of time to practice on other movies.

The thing is, a movie like JoJo Rabbit would retain far more power if released much sooner after World War II. One particular problem with it being released nearly eighty years later is how abstract that war now is to many viewers, and how this movie in many ways just turns it into a cartoon. I’m all for disarming with humor, but it’s hard to take power away from something so few people still have any active memory of to begin with. The end result is a film that doesn’t really take history seriously. JoJo Rabbit would have a lot more edge to it if it were set closer to now, replacing Adolph as JoJo’s imaginary friend with, say, Osama bin Laden. The point is, Waititi is totally playing it safe.

To be fair, and to give it some credit, JoJo Rabbit does go to some dark places. These moments are almost uniformly fleeting, however, lest the viewer be genuinely challenged in any way. And that’s what satire is supposed to be—it’s a type of challenge. This movie is not that at all. What it is, though, is fun. And adorable. And, more than anything, incredibly sweet. Its sweetness is truly irresistible, even when some of its oddball humor doesn’t quite land. Do we want to contemplate whether it should be sweet? Most critics seem to, while most audiences absolutely do not, and that’s their prerogative in either case.

Guess Who’s Not Really At Dinner

Overall: B

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

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

And here we have yet another franchise, which once represented a leap forward in movie making, “wiping the slate clean” of later installments of the film series and just pretending they didn’t exist, relegating them to “alternate timelines.” This has already been done several times over the past decade, from Star Trek to Superman to Halloween. At this point, the practice is so common it practically qualifies as a bandwagon.

So now Terminator has jumped on it, with Terminator: Dark Fate presenting itself as a direct, 28-years-latere sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It ignores the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (which was . . . fine), released in 2003; Terminator Salvation (2009); and Terminator Genisys (2015), which was the first of these films I never bothered watching thanks to its diminishing returns. I would have skipped Terminator: Dark Fate as well, but for its hook: the direct sequel to what was by far the best and most successful film in the series, and the return of badass heroine Sarah Connor, as played by Linda Hamilton.

The future those original Terminator movies never envisioned, however, was one ruled by comic book movies. When not even Star Wars has the cultural caché it once had—ironically, thanks to flooding the market with five movies in five years, Marvel-style—what chance does a sixth Terminator movie have?

Not much, unsurprisingly: box office returns are already disappointing. This would mean more if the movie were actually great, but it’s not. It’s fine—honestly, about as good as the long-forgotten Rise of the Machines (remember all the chatter about Arnold Schwarzenegger reviving the role as a transparent means of re-entering the cultural consciousness in the early days of his bid for Governor of California?)—but it needs to be better than that to make any meaningful, lasting impact. The days of massive success for a movie like T2: Judgment Day are long gone.

It’s easy to compare Rise of the Machines from 2003 to Dark Fate, because Dark Fate essentially replaces it as an alternate “part 3.” The only edge Dark Fate has over it, though, is that Linda Hamilton returns, she’s even more of a badass than she was in Judgment Day, and now she’s 63 years old. Her presence, and Hamilton’s deadpan delivery as a no-nonsense maternal figure who also happens to be ruthless, makes Dark Fate far more fun than it ever would be otherwise.

And that’s the thing about it: Dark Fate is undeniably entertaining, if by turns also cheesy and fundamentally lacking in logic. I have two particular points of contention with the logic, the first of which is how Arnold Schwarzenegger’s presence is played out and explained. He plays yet another Terminator, somehow aged thirty years even though he’s a robot, whose motivations here run completely antithetical to the canonical rules of the universe of this franchise, and it makes no sense. He’s not even a “protector” Terminator here, so the idea that he would develop some sense of independence without outside intervention (as happens in Judgment Day) simply doesn’t hold up. I suppose you could argue that Skynet—who no longer exists in this installment, not even in the future—became self aware, so why not a Terminator? Except that all Terminators are Skynet, even those stuck in a past whose future has been changed so Skynet no longer exists. Now it’s “Legion.” Are you following this?

Anyway! That brings me to my second point of contention: the “protector” sent to keep the young heroine out of harm’s way this time around is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an “augmented human.” Grace not being a robot herself—albeit with robotic elements grafted under her skin—may seem like a fresh take on the role, except practically speaking, it sure seems like a step backward from what once amounted to near-indestructible Terminator vs. near-indestructible Terminator. Maybe in this new alternative future Sarah Connor created, they never actually got around to making “protector” Terminators. We can rationalize anything if we try hard enough!

By the way, spoiler alert! John Connor is dead now. He is dispatched early on in the narrative of this film, a flashback to the late nineties, in a matter of minutes negating everything done in Judgment Day to stop it. I guess that’s one way to explain the continued absence of Edward Furlong. There is a new young person fated to be the leader of the future, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a young woman from Mexico City. Side note: one of the few uniquely compelling elements of Dark Fate is how downtrodden Latinos and illegal border crossings are woven into the plot. Another is that the future “savior” is now a woman, as opposed to some woman’s son.

It’s often said that movies are only as good as their villains, and on that point Dark Fate stands on questionable ground. Gabriel Luna presents as a similar villain to Judgment Day’s Robert Patrick, but nowhere near as sinister, with a much more wholesome look about him. Also, again this Terminator can appear as any human it touches, which means it appears as other characters so often, Luna’s cumulative screen time is not all that long.

There’s also the legacy of James Cameron movies representing huge leaps forward in special effects technology, of which Judgment Day was a prime example (followed by the likes of Titanic and Avatar). Not one subsequent Terminator sequel has come even close on this front. In fact, in sharp contrast to when Robert Patrick melted into mercury-like metal and wowed viewers, we watch Diego Luna morph into a slicked black substance reminiscent of oil and we think, I’ve seen better. In Cameron’s defense, he did not direct this one (Deadpool’s Tim Miller did), but he did return for the first time as producer, and also gets a story credit. Frankly, writing was never one of James Cameron’s strengths.

In spite of these many criticisms, though, it all comes back to Linda Hamilton. Without her, I would happily dismiss Terminator: Dark Fate outright. If you were a huge fan of the first couple of Terminator movies, Dark Fate will provide some closure and some satisfaction the other subsequent sequels couldn’t. It’s the fifth time Arnold Schwarzenegger has appeared in these movies (the one exception being Terminator Salvation), and his very presence feels shoehorned in just as an excuse to reunite him with Hamilton (who comes in second by appearing in three of them). It can’t be denied, though: it is fun to see them together onscreen again. Dark Fate is dark and preposterous and sometimes dumb and cheesy, but I won’t lie: it’s never not fun.

Uneasy allies bast away at a common enemy: logic in action movies.

Overall: B

THE LIGHTHOUSE

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

What. the fuck

?

Overall: B+