THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS

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

Maybe I’m just in a cynical space right now, but when it comes to The Matrix Resurrections, I just wasn’t feeling it. And believe me, I tried. I really, really wanted to like this movie. Sure, there are dim hopes for such a thing when it’s the fourth movie in a franchise, but eighteen years later, it was also an opportunity for redemption after the progressive letdowns of the 2003 sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Comparatively speaking, the best I can say for this new movie is it’s better than Revolutions was. I suppose. And I would rank Reloaded above this one only because of the thrilling reaction I had to it when it first came out. It may have been bewilderingly convoluted, but it was also packed with deeply exciting action sequences.

Nothing has ever had any hope of comparing to the cultural impact, the decades of influence, brought upon us by the 1999 original, however. It begs the question: why did the Wachowskis bother trying? They had a spectacularly memorable premise but, even when initially conceived as a trilogy, they had nowhere concrete to go with it. My most vivid memory association with the original Matrix isn’t even from its initial theatrical run—it was one or two years later, when it was given a rare re-release in theaters. I discovered I was in a theater full of devoted fans, who broke into cheers as soon as the open title appeared onscreen. It hit me then that The Matrix was a classic science fiction action movie that would be loved for years.

And here we are, 22 years later. To “resurrect” is to bring back from the dead. The Matrix was, indeed, loved for years, but it’s now been a full generation since its release. If the fans are honest with themselves, the movie’s continued influence on other filmmakers notwithstanding, its cultural relevance died a while ago. It was slowly fading into oblivion, only to have Lana Wachowski, this time without Lilly (turns out she was the one who made the smart choice), come along and give us the Matrix movie absolutely no one needed.

Resurrections wants us to play along with its many winking nods to the previous trilogy as a single entity, with meta references such as Keanu Reeves’s Thomas Anderson once again living a droning existence in the Matrix, only in this version, he is an award-winning game designer . . . of a trilogy called The Matrix. Characters refer to this trilogy of games, and ask questions about it, that the movie clearly assumes we all have about the movies. Except, of course, no one has been spending a lot of time debating the merits of the Matrix trilogy in a decade and a half.

I gave this movie the benefit of the doubt for a good half of it. But then it registered to be, with absolute clarity, how this movie has nothing more to offer than yet more sameness. Even acknowledging their diminishing returns, each of the first three movies at least showed us something we had never seen before. The third movie spent a disappointing majority of its time outside the Matrix and in the movie’s “real world” of machine overlords, which was nowhere near as interesting but at least it was different.

The Matrix Resurrections offers us absolutely nothing new. Nothing new in the story, nothing new in its visuals. The legacy of this franchise is of something so groundbreaking it sent ripples through the entertainment industry. Even with some movie critics being surprisingly effusive about Resurrections, I have a feeling audiences will greet it with a collective yawn. That’s what it deserves, anyway.

Frankly, I don’t think we needed to see Neo as a 57-year-old. And I don’t mean to be ageist here; all things otherwise being equal, one of the few things I love about this movie is how both the male and the female leads of an action movie are in their fifties; Carrie-Ann Moss, who looks fantastic, is 54. I just hate to see them in something so stale, and there’s something about the context of the Neo and Trinity characters that favors the memory of them in their thirties. Reeves fares far better in the John Wick franchise, which thus far has miraculously gotten better with each film. I have my doubts about a fourth, but I’d still be far more interested in a fourth John Wick film. Which, apparently, we are indeed getting in 2022.

I mean, shit, the least The Matrix Resurrections could do is give us a movie packed with thrilling, cleverly staged action sequences. There’s a climactic scene of Trinity driving a motorcycle with Neo riding behind her, through San Francisco streets with programmed citizens overtaken by the Matrix and attacking them like zombies, right down to multiple people just jumping out of high windows at them like human bombs. That sequence is pretty cool, but it also comes far too late in a two and half-hour movie which, up to that point, is mostly forgettable.

I also have to admit, I miss Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. His absence actually makes logical sense, given he played a computer program that would never age and Weaving obviously has. Side note: how Neo and Trinity age is a plot point of its own, as they have only aged twenty years whereas the film is actually set sixty years later. Jada Pinkett Smith’s returns as Niobe, now under some thick and somewhat unconvincing old-age makeup. If we assume she was about 30 in the last movie (Pinkett Smith was 32), then Niobe would be around ninety now. Without Hugo Weaving, however, we still get an Agent Smith—now played by Jonathan Groff, adequately but with nowhere near the sinister screen presence Weaving cultivated.

The other new faces to the franchise includes Neil Patrick Harris, as Thomas Anderson’s (Neo’s) in-Matrix therapist. He predictably serves as catalyst for inevitable plot twists that don’t land as twists at all. There’s also Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, previously seen in HBO’s Watchmen series, as a new version of Morpheus, a manifestation of the version of him programmed by Neo in the video games he designed.

And that brings us back to the meta elements of Resurrections, a device I quite enjoy when it’s done well, but even that didn’t really work for me here. The Warner Brothers company itself gets name checked, as we are told they are demanding a fourth sequel—and they are going to make one with or without Mr. Anderson. The glib implication is that this very movie would have been made with our without either of the Wachowskis, but I get the distinct feeling that absolutely everyone involved here is quite consciously making an attempt at cashing in.

If this all seems familiar, it’s because it’s the same shit, different millennium.

Overall: C+

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

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

Nightmare Alley has a beautifully shot, gorgeous production design, and is editing in such a way that you don’t quite register its skillful construction until well into its second half. Which is to say, this film noir by the exceptionally gifted director Guillermo del Toro is a bit of a slow burn, but one that really pays off.

I have to admit some relief in how much I enjoyed this movie. Del Toro has a bit of a spotty history when it comes to my own tastes; Pan’s Labyrinth—my 10th-favorite movie of 2006—made an indelible impression, whereas the widespread acclaim and love for The Shape of Water (otherwise known, by me anyway, forever as Elisa Fucks a Fish) in 2017 left me legitimately bewildered. If nothing else, this is a director with a sensibility all his own, even as he veers into disparate genres.

In fact, Nightmare Alley is a departure for him in how straightforward it is. Instead of featuring anything truly paranormal, this is about carnival workers and illusionists who dupe people into thinking something supernatural is going on, but it’s all just smoke and mirrors (sometimes literally). I kept half-expecting the story to veer into something otherworldly, just because it would be on brand for del Toro, but this is a story entirely rooted in the real world.

This brings me back to the cinematography and production design, because these things alone give the film a look and tone that stops just short of feeling otherworldly. It’s a big part of why it’s easy to wonder whether we might see some magic onscreen.

Instead, the first hour or so is comparatively gritty, as we see Bradley Cooper’s Stanton Carlisle wander his way into a job with a traveling carnival. Most of the characters here are not seen again once the setting changes dramatically and the story skips forward two years, and yet a bunch of Stanton’s fellow carnies are played by a parade of famous faces: Willem Dafoe as their leader; Ron Pearlman as the strong man; Toni Collette as “Zeena the Seer,” David Strathairn as Zeena’s magician husband; and Rooney Mara as Molly, the woman who can withstand electrical current—and who develops a relationship with Stanton and thus goes away with him, ultimately developing a lounge act of their own.

It’s too bad so many of those great actors, while making for a great ensemble, don’t get any scenes that truly showcase their talents. This changes with a couple of new characters after the dramatic setting shift in both time and place, and we get the reliably fantastic Richard Jenkins as eccentric millionaire Ezra Grindle; and easily the best reason to see this film at all, Cate Blanchett Dr. Lilith Ritter, the psychiatrist who treats both Grindle and his wife, and who is slowly convinced to plot with Stanton to take Grindle as a mark.

I suppose the wild breach of ethnics involved in using recordings of patient sessions, in order to be convincing as a “mentalist” who can reads minds, is immaterial to the overall story here. It’s plot mechanics, but Guillermo del Toro has them well oiled. It takes a while even to figure out whether we (or Stanton) are supposed to trust Lilith, which is how things go for the mysterious women of film noir.

I mostly appreciate Nightmare Alley just for how cleanly the story winds up coming together. Spending so much time with Stanton working the carnival seems, in the moment, like a pointlessly extended prologue. But, he’s spending that time learning about the nefarious ways in which the carnival takes people for their money, in many cases exploiting both people and animals in rather disturbing ways. One of these ways is the basis for a bit of a plot twist at the end, which I saw coming about five minutes ahead, but I don’t mind predictability so long as it’s satisfying.

And I found Nightmare Alley to be very satisfying—surprisingly so, in fact, after the extended first act somewhat alters expectations. This movie isn’t necessarily the movie you expect going in, but it arrives at something else that still manages to be all that was hoped for it in the end. The fact that it takes a while for that to become clear is part of what makes it work. This is a film that makes you wonder whether it’s working at first, and then proves itself. Whether that’s what del Toro intended is anyone’s guess, but ultimately this is a movie that competently speaks for itself.

Just when you think you’ve got the tables turned, you find yourself turned around.

Overall: B+

DRIVE MY CAR

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

I’m going to be an outlier with this one. Not to say that Drive My Car is bad per se, while seemingly every other critic in the world regards it as a masterpiece—but, to say that this movie is fine. It’s not bad by any stretch, and I fully recognize that I may be missing what makes it a supposed masterwork. Maybe I don’t have the education needed to appreciate it fully. But if that’s the case, of what use is that to what few readers I have here?

There’s a lot to say about Drive My Car, to be sure, starting with the fact that over on MetaCritic.com, this movie is the sixth-best-reviewed movie of 2021, the second-best of the fall releases, and I kind of don’t get it. I could go and read some of those reviews to get a sense of what I may have missed and realize the movie is greater than I thought it was, but I’ll do that once I finish writing this. I don’t want my takes here to fall under their influence, lest my reaction become less genuine. And, to be fair, although MetaCritic has far more reliable metrics than Rotten Tomatoes, that site still faces legitimate criticisms: the 1-100 point scale given to each review that then is averaged is subjective to the scorer; it’s better just to find the few critics with a sensibility that speaks to you and seek out their reviews. (I will say this: most of my favorite sources for movie reviews loved it.)

What I keep thinking about is what the people I know would think about this movie. How many people in my life would have the patience, time, or bandwidth to sit through a three-hour, subtitled Japanese film that is incredibly quiet and measured, features largely deadpan deliveries, and features an incredible amount of stage-performed dialogue from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya? I can think of maybe one. Okay, two: another friend did see the movie with me, after all. And when we left the theater and I said there was no need for it to be nearly that long, she emphatically agreed with me.

I will admit, the only reason I saw this movie at all was because the critical consensus was so shockingly high. And, I can even see how that happened. But, that also makes it a cliché: the independent or international feature that critics go apeshit for but audiences largely regard with indifference. There was a pretty good number of people at the showing I went to yesterday, especially for one as early as 4:30 and in the middle on an ongoing pandemic (not to mention at the start of a ramp-up to an unprecedented surge of infections, although a lot of people still haven’t quite registered that), but it was also in a theater known for showing these kinds of films, owned by SIFF, in a city of movie lovers.

I can’t even describe the story that makes it sound exciting, or worthy of such massive critical praise. Stage director Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), grieving the sudden death of his actor-turned-screenwriter wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), lands a residency job at a Hiroshima theater directing Uncle Vanya. For insurance purposes, the theater company gives him no choice but to allow them to hire him a driver for his car, a quiet young woman named Misaki (Tôko Miura). The story is ostensibly about the developing relationship—always platonic and vaguely paternal, never romantic, which is a relief—between Kafuku and his driver Misaki. But also figuring into the story prominently is the very young and hot actor Kafuku hires to be his Vanya, Kôji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), who may or may not have been having an affair with Oto before she died. And, to a lesser extent, a few of the other cast members of the play, particularly the Korean man who helps cast and produce it, as well as the mute Korean woman cast in the play even though she communicates via Korean sign language.

There’s a kind of intersectionality at play in Drive My Car, which I found at times fascinating and at times mystifying. What does “diversity” mean from such a wildly different vantage point from my own—from Japan, for instance? There are no queer characters here (at least not identified; I did wonder somewhat about Misaki), and they are all Asian. But, there is a truly unusual degree of multilingual representation, from the casting of a woman who speaks Korean Sign Language, to a common stage design element featuring about five different languages of subtitles on a huge screen behind the stage. I found myself a little jealous of that: I want to see a play with subtitles! Furthermore, Kafuku speaks only Japanese and English, yet he casts actors who speak other languages but neither of his. This is never presented as a challenge in the casting of his play, and he even happily casts someone who doesn’t speak Japanese, even though the scripts they are reading are translated from its original Russian to Japanese. How does that work? The movie doesn’t bother to get into it.

And god knows, it had the time. When I say we see a lot of line readings of Uncle Vanya, whether in rehearsal or in actual stage performances, I mean a lot. If you combined that with the amount of time we spend with Kafuku practicing lines from a recorded cassette of Oto reading the rest of the dialogue, while in the car as Misaki drives him, and then cut out all that Uncle Vanya content, this movie would be at least half an hour shorter. Maybe more.

It seems clear there is great meaning to this movie’s plot, among the content of those Uncle Vanya lines, some kind of direct emotional corollary that I just couldn’t register. Maybe I could if I had ever studied or even read Uncle Vanya, but I have not. And how much crossover is there in that Venn diagram, really, of people both audiences of Uncle Vanya and people intimately familiar with the Chekhov text?

To be fair, Drive My Car is still skillfully plotted. The story is really about Kafuku and Misaki quite gradually discovering themselves to be kindred spirits; it must be about a third of the way through the movie before Misaki even appears. Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi likes to take his time to occasionally baffling degree: the opening credits occur fully forty minutes into the film, so far into it that it took me several moments to realize they were opening credits, as I was confused as to what the names onscreen were supposed to mean. Before that moment, though, we spend plenty of time getting a sense of Kafuku’s marriage, the nature of their relationship, and even their sex life, a part of which is both how the film opens and ultimately becomes a pivotal plot point.

Which is to say, Drive My Car has plenty to recommend it, and I don’t consider it to have been a waste of time. That said, what it does have to recommend it just takes so much time to come along, I’m hard pressed to imagine many people prioritizing it over the countless other entrainment options they have. This movie is “a ride” only in the literal sense, but its effect is a lot more like an extended, leisurely stroll. Even the performances are curious, in that the delivery is so stiff and deadpan most of the time, with the notable exception of when we see the actors performing their scenes from Uncle Vanya. Only then do we see them become in any way animated. otherwise, people stand still, hands at their sides. Even in the emotionally climactic scene between Kafuku and Misaki, as Kafuku breaks down, Hidetoshi Nishijima emotes plenty in his performance, but he’s still otherwise standing perfectly still.

Thus, there is something simultaneously emotionally raw, and emotionally detached, about Drive My Car. It’s technically dense with nuance, when it comes to plotting and story construction, but it rarely even employs the use of a score. That’s not to say we need to be emotionally manipulated here, but something about the performances feels detached from the reality of everyday human living. Perhaps something is getting lost in translation, culturally, from Japan to my local theater. Or maybe it’s just me. Plenty of American critics were clearly deeply moved by this movie, but I found it a sort of fascinating curiosity at best. There’s even a brief coda at the very end, revisiting Misaki at a later time, and it plops us, without any context whatsoever, right into the middle of the pandemic: she’s shopping at a grocery store, everyone is wearing face masks. This movie has nothing to say about COVID, though; it just brings us into the apparently current day at the end. Clearly the production up to that point had been prior to the pandemic.

And now I have reached a truly unusual 1500 words in this very review, offering an overlong take on an overlong movie. In my defense, spending several minutes reading this review might be more efficient than three hours watching the movie. Drive My Car does offer rewards to those with patience, and I consider myself among that group. My struggle here is not knowing how many such people are out there.

You might feel like this about halfway through the movie.

Overall: B

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

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

I guess I have to admit that Marvel Studios has genuinely grown on me in recent years. Somehow, even with mostly the same template for story arc as every other movie before it, lately they’ve managed to offer superhero movies I actually find compelling. This took a bit for me, because I grew so tired of superhero movies in the early 2010s that I mostly blew them off for several years, only bothering with the truly exceptional ones like Black Panther or Thor: Ragnarok or Logan. Even the latter two of those three examples, I never bothered to see in theaters and only discovered their delights later on streamers. After being underwhelmed by the likes of Thor: The Dark World or Avengers: Age of Ultron (what a turd), I was mostly over it. There are better movies to see.

Even as Marvel pulled me back in a bit in more recent years, I never bothered to see Tom Holland’s previous two Spider-Man movies in theaters to review; Homecoming (2017) looked pretty blah to me, and when I finally watched it sometime last year on Disney+, it basically met that expectation. Only a few months ago I finally watched Far From Home (2019), which was a little better but had a seriously dopey villain in Jake Gyllenhaal’s “Mysterio”—a persistent problem in all three of the Spider-Man franchises, to be honest. Only Alfred Molena’s Doctor Octopus from 2004’s Spider-Man 2 has proved to be particularly memorable or easy to swallow.

Enter Spider-Man: No Way Home, which I must say, is worth the wait—and clearly owes its existence, at least in the form it has taken, to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, unquestionably the best Spider-Man movie ever made. I really don’t want to spoil anything, as this movie is absolutely best experienced coming in as cold as possible, with no knowledge of what’s coming—although I suppose it should still be said, you’ll have to have been familiar with not just the Tom Holland films, but all of the Spider-Man movies that came before, in order to appreciate it fully.

Granted, if you care at all about the MCU, you’d have to be living under a rock not to be exposed to any of the rumors long swirling around about this movie. Nevertheless, I will neither confirm nor deny any of it! I will only say that director Jon Watts (Cop Car) and co-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (both of whom wrote the previous two Spider-Man movies) offer some genuinely thrilling moments in this film. The audience laps it up, and it’s nice to be in a crowd where that’s happening not just in response to fan service, but to genuinely clever plotting.

Spider-Man: No Way Home may be my favorite Marvel movie that neither tries for overt comedy nor has anything to say about anything outside of its own very American world. Or, in this case, universe. Or universes. It’s still a world as presented within the confines of this film. What I mean to say is, this movie doesn’t go so much for nuance or social commentary (J.K. Simmons’s conspiracy theorist news anchor notwithstanding), but it does featured layered and impressively intricate writing, even if it does feel a bit rushed. Peter Parker’s meeting with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, who serves as a vital yet convenient plot device, feels a little too easy as the inciting event for the story here. This is where we get into the sorts of things that made me step away from superhero movies as long as I did, but in this case it’s a minor quibble; the rest of the movie makes up for it.

Because this movie never takes itself too seriously, but neither does it trivialize its own proceedings. It strikes the perfect balance there, and manages to be earnest in only the right places. I actually shed a couple of years near the end, making this the first Marvel movie ever to make me cry. And it was just an emotional goodbye scene. So, either Marvel producers have finally gotten their shit together, or I’m just getting old and soft. It could be both.

I should mention the special effects. There’s nothing groundbreaking happening onscreen in this movie, but at least for the most part it’s convincingly rendered. One of the things that turned me off of Avengers: Age of Ultron was how cartoony it looked, in CGI scenes meant to look real. By and large that doesn’t happen here, although there’s a few moments when the rendering of Spider-Man leaping through the air looks like a transparently CGI effect. Those moments are progressively fewer in these movies, though, and I appreciate that.

I watched Doctor Strange for the first time just last night, in anticipation of this movie, and although I’m glad I did, it’s not necessary to have any appreciation for No Way Home. It just provides context for a couple of details related to that character that might not make total sense in this movie otherwise, but it has no bearing on Spider-Man’s own story. The amount of detail and connected backstory at play in the MCU remains one of my primary complaints about it, and it really is true that if you have never seen the Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield films, the experience of this movie will be wildly different, and more of a challenge to appreciate.

If you have, however, Spider-Man: No Way Home ties things together in a way you never thought possible. And this is extraordinarily rare for me, especially for superhero movies, but my advice is to see this as soon as possible, so you can experience its surprises and delights without spoilers. I had a blast at this movie, and it’s been about 17 years since a Spider-Man movie did that for me.

Spider-Man protects Zendaya from her rabid fans.

Overall: B+

WEST SIDE STORY

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

When Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story was released in 1961, itself an adaptation of an original 1957 Broadway play by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, it was a bona fide sensation. This mid-1950s musical set in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, was the second-highest grossing movie of 1961 (to be fair, making less than half the gross of that year’s #1 movie, 101 Dalmatians), grossing $43.7 million—the equivalent of $406 million today. It then went on to be nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and it won ten of them.

In the context of its time, the West Side Story of sixty years ago was a perfect movie in the eyes of many—an audience of people who wouldn’t have any concept of what “brownface” even is, let alone have any issue with it. Only over time, over decades of long-established “classic movie musical” status, have people grown to understand its deeply problematic elements. This same movie that won Rita Moreno the first Oscar given to a Hispanic woman also cast white actors, notably Natalie Wood in the co-lead part of Maria, as Latin characters.

Say things like “it was a different time” all you want, watching movies like that is increasingly hard to swallow. Enter Steven Spielberg, who reportedly loved this movie since childhood, to offer the remake everyone thought no one needed, only to prove he could update it for modern audiences in nearly all the right ways. His 2021 West Side Story, which is less a remake of the 1961 film than a new adaptation of the original play—with some of the censored lines that didn’t make it into the 1961 version reinstated. (Conversely, some of the harsher lines about Puerto Rico in the “America” number are toned down a bit.)

There are some astonishing things about this version of West Side Story, not the least of which is the casting of Rita Moreno, who played Anita in 1961, as a replacement for the “Doc” drug store owner character. Here she is his widow. This is the only truly overt nod to the 1961 movie as opposed to the original play, and it’s amazing to think that Moreno was 30 years old in 1961. Consider that 1961 was sixty years ago. Just this past weekend, Moreno turned ninety. Granted, this movie that was originally supposed to be released a year ago but was postponed due to the pandemic, was shot in 2019, so onscreen Moreno is 88. Still a jaw droppingly vivacious screen presence.

So, let’s address the issue of Ansel Elgort in the co-lead part of Tony—something that has become an unfortunate stain on the legacy of a West Side Story clearly meant to correct problematic issues. Given Elgort’s multiple credible allegations of sexual assault, that leaves this West Side Story problematic in its own right, and I must admit: this knowledge marred my experience of the movie. And I thoroughly enjoyed it! But, I was also regularly distracted by the very presence of Elgort onscreen.

Previous to this, I thought of Elgort the actor as . . . fine. He was competent but bland and forgettable in The Fault in Our Stars (2016); he was serviceable in the otherwise thrilling Baby Driver (2017)—a movie which, incidentally, costarred fellow douche Kevin Spacey. The point is, Elgort was never quite poised for movie stardom. Some may have assumed West Side Story might put him over the edge—again, he is serviceable, and his singing is actually surprisingly good—but it’s pretty clear now that is never going to happen.

It’s hard to fault the rest of the people involved in the film, however—in a highly collaborative medium. As already noted, shooting took place in 2019; the allegations broke in 2020; Elgort’s deflections have been fairly unconvincing, but this all happened after the film was done. It’s not like he could be recast. The closest I can get to putting a positive spin on this is to note that all the bronzer used in the 1961 film—even on the Latino actors!—is right there onscreen, whereas this issue with Spielberg’s film is behind the scenes. If you can’t stomach seeing this movie after learning about Ansel Elgort, I absolutely won’t fault you for that. But if you can take the film at face value, and judge it solely as Spielberg’s vision of a genuinely improved film experience, you might just find yourself wowed by it.

It should be noted that this West Side Story has an incredible ensemble cast, with Ariana DeBose every bit as good as Rita Moreno ever was in the part of Anita; a truly dynamic screen presence in David Alvarez as Bernardo; a uniquely charismatic screen presence in Mike Faist as Riff; and an essence of effortless vocal purity in Rachel Zegler as Maria.

And then there’s the part of Anybodys, portrayed as a tomboy in the 1961 film (and, presumably, in the original play), but strongly suggested—though never explicitly stated—to be a trans boy as depicted by Iris Menas in the Spielberg film. This also certainly gets into deeply sensitive territory, but, all things considered, both Spielberg and Menas handle this character incredibly well. This could have been a choice that crashed and burned, and instead the part, which gets a slightly expanded character arc (as does that of Chino, a pivotal part with no real dimension in 1961), is handled with nuance and humanity. That said, I can’t quite decide how I feel about the decision to keep the “my brother wears a dress” line in the “Gee Officer Krupke” number, except to say that it fits with the characterization of the Jets as insensitive dipshits.

Most importantly. Spielberg shoots West Side Story in a way that infuses it with crackling energy, employing cinematography that makes its viewing an invigorating experience. This is the case from the opening shot, which trades the 1961 version’s famous overhead shots of Manhattan skyscrapers with an overhead tracking crane shot of blocks of rubble recently bulldozed, immediately and pointedly contextualizing the story with gentrification. A few Black characters are used briefly at times throughout the movie, clearly in the service of this point. The story just happens to be about rival gangs that are either white or Puerto Rican.

And yes, there is still ample choreography—one of the things that made me love this movie, actually. Once enough decades passed to render West Side Story dated, some have made fun of the seemingly effeminate nature of “tough guy” gangs incorporating ballet moves into their repertoire. Well, they kind of still do that here, but Justin Peck’s choreography is updated just enough to accept the way they move as a part of a modern movie musical. Choreography isn’t just for dancing, though (although there are multiple dance numbers here that are great, especially during “America”). It’s also for fight scenes, and there are moments in this adaptation that are surprisingly violent. The opening sequences marry the two, in fact: introductions of the Jets and the Sharks have them dancing aggressively through the streets, until we wind up at a beautifully shot mural of the Puerto Rican flag, which the Jets then begin defacing with paint from cans cleverly picked up during all that previously choreographed movement.

The great thing about West Side Story is now it all fits together in the end. This is the kind of movie that pulls you along as what seems like simply decent entertainment for a while, only for things to click into place in a way that systematically reveals how expertly constructed it was all along. To say that film adaptations of stage plays, even musicals, are hit and miss is an understatement. But, how much I thoroughly enjoyed this one can’t be overstated.

Just think of it as Spielberg’s best work in years.

BEING THE RICARDOS

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

There’s a lot of reasons to be skeptical of Being the Ricardos, and yet writer-director Aaron Sorkin systematically proves all of them unnecessary. To varying degrees, it’s a pleasant surprise on all fronts.

I suppose the one glaring exception, upon reflection, would be its climactic moment, which is rife with cliché—the very same thing that happened in Sorkin’s much-discussed movie from last year, The Trial of the Chicago 7. On the other hand, at least in Being the Ricardos, the huge audience applause we get at the end of the movie comes from an actual audience, as it takes place on the sound stage of I Love Lucy.

Much of this movie is set on the stage of that show, in fact, offering a bit of a “how the sausage was made” vibe to the storytelling. I would not begrudge anyone who is not into that part, honestly. I happened to find it compelling. Furthermore, Sorkin uses it to narrow the focus of what otherwise might be called a “biopic,” thereby doing what I have long wished most biopics would do: it limits the scope of the life being covered.

The story Sorkin tells here is about Lucille Ball being investigated as a Communist by the House Unamerican Activities Committee, in 1953, during production of the second season of I Love Lucy. Sorkin takes us through a single week of production, and thus the production of one episode of the show. We get flashbacks here and there, mostly regarding the early stages of the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and it works.

In fact, this is one of the things that most surprises in how well it works—Aaron Sorkin is usually so distinctive, you can recognize his dialogue in seconds. I found myself thinking about how, if I did not know this was written by Sorkin, I would never have guessed it. I tend to love his writing, actually, but this is still a benefit to the movie. The writing is still very good—in fact, it’s more natural and less stylized, even as it is recognizably polished. It just doesn’t veer into Sorkin’s characteristic territory of “over-polished.” Quick aside, I found myself amused maybe halfway through the movie, as it occurred to me I had not seen one of Sorkin’s infamous “walk and talk” scenes. Minutes later, there was a “walk and talk.” Just the one, though. It felt almost knowing in its inclusion. Is Sorkin trolling us now?

As for casting, it must be said that the greatest skepticism of this production has long been the idea of Nicole Kidman playing Lucille Ball. It just sounded like such a misguided idea, but the finished film illustrates how great talent should never be underestimated. Maybe wait until the finished product is before us before judging, because Kidman is excellent in this role, easily the best thing in the movie. As for Javier Bardem in the role of Desi Arnaz, there has been controversy regarding this, as Bardem is from Spain, thus of European descent, and his being a Spanish speaker notwithstanding, it’s actually not far removed from the history of casting white people in Latino roles. This is certainly a valid point, but, given that I am neither Latino, Hispanic, nor Spanish myself, I’ll leave this one for them to sort out—except to say that, while Barden is an undeniably great actor, it would not have been difficult to find a Latino actor just as talented.

To be fair, Sorkin also could have cast another actor just as talented as Nicole Kidman to play the role of Lucille Ball. But, this is the movie we’ve got, and the two leads are very good in their roles. But, especially Kidman. Still, the Bardem casting puts at least a mild but undeniable funk on the reception of the film. We also get J.K. Simmons as William Frawley and Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance, the actors who played Fred and Ethel, and they are both excellent as well. As is usual for Sorkin movies, it’s largely an ensemble piece—albeit one where everyone revolves around Lucille Ball as the central character—and the rest of the cast is filled out with a lot of relatively familiar, if not outright famous, faces.

Altogether, Being the Ricardos is a riveting journey through a week in the lives of some of the most famous people the U.S. has ever seen (they make it a note to point out that I Love Lucy used to get sixty million viewers; the most successful broadcast television shows today get a fraction of that). Sorken effectively humanizes them, as well as everyone around them, and even when the typical score crescendo occurs in a transparent bid to manipulate our emotions, I am powerless to it. This movie doesn’t break any new ground, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway; anyone with an interest in Lucille Ball’s story is bound to as well.

For some of us anyway, it exceeds all expectations.

Overall: B+

ENCANTO

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

Encanto is Spanish for Charm, and when it comes to this movie . . . it has its moments. It’s hardly a complete waste of time, but, when it comes to a magic house containing a family of people who nearly all possess a magical gift, I expect the experience to be a little more . . . well, magical.

I don’t quite know how to put my finger on it, except to say that Encanto is adequately entertaining, which leaves it below the standards of your average Disney Animation feature. Granted, even with their own slight falterings over the past decade or so, Pixar is a far more reliably great source for feature animation, but Walt Disney Animation Studios has more than proved its own capability, from Bolt (2008) to Zootopia (2016)—even Frozen (2013) is quite good, if you can get past how wildly overrated it is. Listen to me, over here harping on kids whose obsessions have made a movie “overrated.”

I suppose that brings us to a possibly crucial distinction with Encanto. Will kids like it? I don’t have a clue, although I would bet money it won’t hit a zeitgeisty nerve the way Frozen did. I can only speak from my jaded adult perspective, which isn’t even as jaded as I can try making it out to be; I am powerless to the charms of animated features, when their charms are effective.

I do find myself wondering how Encanto will play in Colombia, the nation in which the film is set, with most of its voice talent either Colombian or of Colombian descent. This of course elicits immediate comparisons to the stellar 2017 Pixar film Coco, with its Mexican setting, cast and themes. Bestowing such homage to any other country and culture, provided it is done with sincerity and sensitivity (and ethnically appropriate casting), would be wonderful. I rather wish Colombia had gotten the same treatment, but this pales a bit in comparison. But what do I know? I’m just a white guy who has never been any closer to Colombia than Texas. Clearly, though, the power of representation cannot be overstated, and yet it’s not difficult to find mixed reviews or debates among Colombian people.

For me, Encanto just didn’t reach me the way I wanted it to. There was something inaccessible about it, perhaps partly because of the original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of mostly Puerto Rican and not Colombian descent. He’s also very much an American, and although the songs here have certain flair that reference Latin styles, it hews far closer to Broadway tunes. They are very competently written songs, but nothing within the realm of unforgettable or classic music. (The music of Coco came across as far more specific to the culture being represented.) As a result, much of Encanto comes across as a by-the-numbers musical.

It’s quite pretty, at least; there is no question the animation is the best thing about it, with its tropical landscapes and floral tableaus. The protagonist is Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), the only person in her extended family who was never granted a magical gift. She has a mother who can heal people with her cooking; a sister who can make roses bloom at her touch; a cousin who is so strong there is nothing she can’t pick up; another cousin who can shape shift; another who can communicate with animals. A reclusive uncle, Bruno (John Leguizamo, by far the most famous voice in the cast), can see quasi-abstract visions of the future. Mirabel is the only one in the family really seen talking to the house itself, which communicates right back, but apparently this doesn’t qualify as a “gift.”

All of this makes for a lot of fun and often amusing antics, but it also serves to convolute the plot, which never quite finds true clarity. Sure, it’s a little boneheaded to demand that a cartoon make logical sense, but having a fully coherent narrative structure isn’t too much to ask. This movie’s team of three directors and eight writers seem to have thrown all their ideas at a wall and just run with anything that did not immediately slip away. Unfortunately, this movie’s story immediately slipped away from my memory as soon as I left the theater.

Encanto is fine, but its disappointment lies in how much better it could have been, instead of something the skates a little close to rote. All films are a collaborative effort, but none more than an animated feature, and the animators go a long way to making this movie watchable—although, alas, I can’t say it commands viewing in the theater. This would have done just as well as a streaming release, or maybe even better. The filmmakers do well in their casting of Latin voices, and showcasing Colombian culture and history, however superficially. It occurred to me that this is an animated feature film without a single non-Latino white character in it, and the characters onscreen run the gamut of skin tones, from quite pale to Black. These are very much good things, and hopefully a step toward such diversity of representation more often. Here’s hoping the next one to come along has that spark of narrative magic not yet reached.

At least it’s pretty.

Overall: B-

JULIA

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

I don’t know why I keep watching documentaries about chefs this year. I’m nothing close to a chef, nor do I particularly have any interest in chefs, or cooking shows—watching people cook onscreen bores me. It’s like, who cares? A lot of people, obviously, or else there would not be countless cooking shows in production for decades now. I’m just not one of them. But, I do love a compelling feature film, regardless of the genre or the subject.

And, the year 2021 seems to have a thing for documentary features about celebrity chefs: Wolfgang, about Wolfgang Puck, has been streaming on Disney+ since June 25; Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain was released theatrically July 16 and is currently available on VOD for about six bucks. And to be certain, Julia will be available either streaming or VOD in a matter of weeks, which seems to be the new standard these days—so, do you need to see it in a theater? Only if you want to support your local theater chain, but otherwise, not particularly. It’s an engaging enough film, but it won’t be any less so on your TV or computer screen.

I will say this: Julia Child’s story is surprisingly romantic, particularly the period where she fell in love with her husband, Paul Child, while enlisted during World War II. Julia Child was fictionalized onscreen in the fun feature film Julie & Julia in 2009; it’s a bit surprising she hasn’t been immortalized in any other narrative feature. That film only features her as a character, played fantastically by Meryl Streep, in half of it, as it switches between her far more compelling storyline and that of a contemporary woman played by Amy Adams. The world needs a full narrative feature just about Julie Child. There could easily be multiple; I’d love a movie just about her and Paul’s World War II courtship.

Of course, a great many things made Julia Child a distinctive, groundbreaking and historic personality. All these other celebrity chefs who have gotten their own documentary treatment, arguably owe their existence in the pop culture lexicon to Julia Child, who started her local PBS cooking show The French Chef in 1963. Having been born in 1912, Child was already 51 when that show debuted, and her fame and success as we know it only followed thereafter; she kept working on into her early nineties, passing away in 2004.

She started her cooking show career in her fifties and still managed to stretch that career over 51 years. Co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West do a good job of presenting the many sides of Child, her blind sides and prejudices, and how she grew and changed and opened her mind over time. Child was clearly a complex woman, a person who never self-identified as a feminist but wound up adamantly pro-choice and would commonly ask during tours of restaurant kitchens where all the women were.

This is what made Julia work for me: although it features a plethora of shots featuring her cooking, it isn’t about the cooking itself as much as it is about her, how she came to prominence in a male-dominated industry—and, of course, how she influenced a cultural change in American attitudes regarding the tactile joys of cooking being prioritized over the mid-twentieth-century obsession with convenience and time saving.

Surely it’s just because none of the old footage was vivid enough for contemporary visual standards, but Cohen and West spend a fair amount of time cutting away from old clips of Julia and interviews with her colleagues and friends, to intersperse shots of succulent dishes being prepared, cooked, chopped or tossed. When it comes to Julia Child, the historical results speak for themselves; and considering it’s clearly not possible for Child to have been preparing the food in these clips, I found them both pointless and redundant, if not outright distracting. It’s really Julia Child who is the vivid screen presence, and they could not have gone wrong just showing more endless tables of the food she actually did prepare onscreen, degraded film quality notwithstanding.

In any case, the quality of the many documentary features this year about celebrity chefs is as varied as their subjects. Overall, Julia falls in the middle: it’s fun, if a bit lacking in getting to the true substance of who she was. She clearly comes across as an extraordinary woman, but there is little question there was far more nuance to her than this one film has time for. It’ll be a great choice for any fan of Julia Child or of cooking shows—or of cooking in general; these movies are typically great for foodies—but for the rest of us, it’s merely fine.

Undeniably one of a kind: Julia in her element.

Overall: B

tick, tick ... BOOM!

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

Point of clarification! Is it tick, tick… BOOM! or is it tick, tick… Boom! or is it Tick, Tick… Boom! or is it Tick, Tick… BOOM! People all over the place are capitalizing it in all different ways and it’s kind of driving me crazy. Well, the original Broadway program wrote it as tick, tick… BOOM! So does the movie poster, so, thank god we got that cleared up!

Point of presentation: tick, tick… BOOM! is semi-autobiographical, produced originally by Jonathan Larson as a solo work in 1990, later produced as a Broadway musical in 2001, after his game-changing RENT premiered in 1996. Spoiler alert, Larson died of an aortic dissection in 1996 at the age of 35, the day of RENT’s first Off Broadway preview performance. The film adaptation, which has been streaming on Netflix for two weeks now, makes his death clear from the very start, and considering it’s also a matter of historical record, it’s not exactly a crucial plot point. It is relevant, however—and I must confess I never knew anything about the Broadway show before the release of this film, which is also Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut. He proves to be well suited to it.

As usual, all I can personally speak to is how well it works as a movie, on its own terms. Audiences intimately familiar with Broadway productions may well have arguments otherwise, but I found tick, tick… BOOM! to be an invigorating watch, with infectiously catchy music and impressively structured lyrics. Perhaps the only thing that keeps it from reaching the same excellence as the 2005 film adaptation of RENT is simply that RENT redefined what theater could be. They can’t all manage the same such achievements, although as a movie experience, tick tick… BOOM! still comes close. Even though it’s increasingly awkward having to type out that objectively odd title.

And, to be fair, RENT changed what theater could be, but it had no such effect on film. It was simply translated well to film, granting it a far greater audience—the same thing being done for tick, tick… BOOM!, in this case largely because it’s streaming. The two stories do make great companion pieces, both of them far superior works to the first musical the semi-fictional Jonathan Larson creates, the play-within-a-play of sorts in tick, tick… BOOM! It sure has fun music, though, and I loved hearing every song he wrote for it, which, by extension, he also wrote for tick, tick… BOOM!

I kind of couldn’t get enough of the music in this movie, actually. From start to finish, every song hits its mark, none of them a miss. This movie wouldn’t be half as compelling without it, even though Andrew Garfield is an inspired casting choice for the lead. This may be the first time I truly saw Garfield lose himself in a part; watching him in this movie, I only ever saw Jonathan Larson, never Andrew Garfield. He has a vivacious spirit not seen in any of his other performances, an almost destructive optimism about him, the kind of attitude that struggling artists must have in order to find success, however long it takes. Furthermore, once you learn that Garfield never had any vocal training prior to this but took lessons for a year before production started, his vocal delivery is particularly impressive. This may because I have had no formal training myself, but to my ear he sounded every bit as good as any of the other professional singers in the cast around him.

The layered, meta element in tick, tick… BOOM! is tricky but well executed, by both Miranda’s direction and the screenplay by Steven Levenson, who does a much better job here than he did with the hot mess that was Dear Evan Hansen. (In his defense, that one was a hot mess before it was adapted from the stage.) In sharp contrast to many decades of the twentieth century, for maybe the past thirty years or so movie musicals have been very hit and miss with both commercial and artistic success. An unusual number of movie musicals are being released in 2021, and although still not all of them are great, the batting average has been surprisingly good. tick, tick… BOOM! is one of the good ones, the kind of movie that is easy to recommend as entertainment for eclectic audiences.

And this is in spite of the specificity of its subject matter, which, much like RENT, is set at the peak of the AIDS crisis—in this case, 1990, the year Jonathan Larson turned 30, something he does a bit of hand wringing about. Actually he does some irresistibly catchy singing about it. As it happened, Larson was straight—his strained relationship with girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) due to his obsession with his work is a key plot point—but his best friend Michael (Robin de Jesus) is gay, their existence in the world of theater and their many mutual friends thus being very connected to the death toll in that particular pandemic. When Jonathan’s agent (played by Judith Light, a delight as always) offers him some advice to move on to the next play and “write what you know,” we know that ultimately that advice will result in both tick, tick… BOOM! and RENT.

As a gay man with a straight best friend myself, I found something very comfortable and comforting about the depiction of such a relationship in film—and not just that it exists, but that it’s in a film set thirty years ago. I was fourteen years old in 1990, and in my world at the time, it seemed impossible that I could be gay and have any straight men even like me, let alone be close friends. It’s just a lovely thing to see that I was being proved wrong, even then, without realizing it. Even now we don’t see relationships like this in movies or TV very often, so it’s another of many things that make tick, tick… BOOM! a treat.

Andrew Garfield wows in a delightful and moving movie musical.

Overall: B+

C'MON C'MON

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

It’s tempting to say young actor Woody Norman, who was ten years old at the time of filming, is incredible in C’mom C’mon, the latest film by writer-director Mike Mills, and maybe he is. The use of a child actor is always tricky though, and I suspect a lot of the credit goes to Mills himself, his impeccable direction, and the editing by Jennifer Vecchiarello (who, incidentally, edited last year’s also-excellent Kajillionaire). On the other hand, young Woody Norman, who is now twelve, is apparently British and did accent work for this role, indicating that he has a far more nuanced understanding of the acting process than one might assume of a preteen. Well, that settles it then: Woody Norman is incredible in C’mon C’mon.

Still, it must also be said that Mike Mills is a name to remember. This is the guy who brought us both Beginners (2011) and 20th Century Women (2016). I don’t know if Mills has a recognizable cinematic style, and that is to his credit; I can only say that his films tend to range from very good to excellent. C’mon C’mon falls on the “excellent” end of that spectrum, which is clear very quickly after this beautifully shot, black-and-white movie starts. Why avoid any color, you might ask? My theory is that it so much more effectively puts its emotional component into sharp relief. This is a family drama, and also a story of an uncle bonding with his very young nephew—a kind of relationship rarely depicted onscreen, at least in terms of familial bonding.

It’s also wonderful to see Joaquin Phoenix in such a warm, sweet, and moving role, especially after being in garbage like Joker. Phoenix has long proved himself to be an incredibly versatile actor, but here he moves away from “larger than life” or quirky or even “romantic lead” in favor of “everyman.” His Uncle Johnny is a middle-aged, somewhat frumpy guy, focused on his work as a radio journalist as he avoids direct answers to his nephew Jesse’s questions about why he’s unmarried and alone.

Johnny’s sister, Jesse’s mother, Viv, is played by Gaby Hoffmann, and it’s easy to believe her and Phoenix as siblings who have been estranged since the death of their mother put a strain on their relationship a year ago. But, Viv’s separated husband (Scoot McNary) has mental health issues that require her attention, so Johnny offers to look after Jesse while Viv attends to her husband.

In the meantime, Johnny’s job has him interviewing teenagers all over the country, for his latest radio journalism project. I did find myself wondering how Johnny really makes a living doing this work, but perhaps that’s beside the point. C’mon C’mon’s production moves between so many cities Johnny effectively travels to four corners of the country: Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, and New Orleans, four of the most truly distinctive cities in the country. In each city, he asks teenagers about their expectations of their future living in America, and these are real interviews conducted with real kids, seamlessly integrated into the narrative. The film is dedicated to one such kid who was later killed in a shooting, and its title card is the only moment in the film presented in color.

These interviews are sprinkled throughout this film about a childless man getting a crash course in parenting, which makes C’mon C’mon a uniquely sweet and deeply moving film. It made my cry, and not at all the way most other films do—it’s just because of its broad depth of humanity. There’s no reliable way to characterize this movie’s effectiveness. It just has to be experienced. I’m not a parent myself, but it’s easy to imagine how deeply affected those who are might be affected by this movie.

Ultimately, you night say, it’s about emotional vulnerability, within the context of the hopes and dreams we have for the very children that drive us crazy. This movie is very honest about parenting, and about what it’s like to deal with children, in a way that few movies really are. Jesse doesn’t exist to amuse, or be precocious, or serve as a plot catalyst in the way children typically are in film. He just is, and he exists as a wholly dimensional human being—as do Johnny and Viv. The characters in C’mon C’mon have a very naturalistic, casual existence. It’s how they are shot and edited that turns them into art.

And, without irony, that is what I would call this film: a work of art, and an unparalleled one at that. It’s unique in a way that the Academy rarely recognizes, and yet it’s easily one of the best films of the year. It’s only in theaters currently but presumably will be streaming soon, and either way, it should be seen at the soonest opportunity. C’mon C’mon is a tonal accomplishment that seeps into your pores, like a warm bubble bath.

You’ll just have to trust me on how great this movie is.

Overall: A