'Ralph Breaks The Internet' A Review

Ralph Breaks The Internet is an animated family film the sequel to 2012's Wreck-It Ralph. The retro arcade that is the home to Ralph(John C. Reilly) and Vanellope(Sarah Silverman) finally gets wifi and as such the video games characters have access to the monolithic internet. After the steering wheel of Vanellope's game is broken her and Ralph travel into it to search for eBay the mysterious place that has the only replacement wheel needed to fix her game. Through the journey their friendship is tested and Ralph's clingy behavior may cause an unmendable riff between them.

Both Reilly and Silverman bring there considerable talents to bear and in this installment are given richer emotional subtext in which to play in. There overt conflict relatable to anyone in a relationship or friendship as well as the implication of it an extended metaphor for our reliance on social media and our devices in general. Both the emotional text and the social commentary in the subtext are played with balance and honesty without sacrificing the mostly light tone of the film or its humor. The supporting cast is a parade of celebrity cameos and just solid character work. Most notably the scene with Vanellope and the Disney princesses is particularly fun. And on a more personal note Alex Moffat's turn as gamer kid Jimmy was delightful.

Visually packed almost to the point of clutter, the film juggles a series of allusions and references while still maintaing a streamlined and relatively pointed narrative. The soundtrack may not be as good as the first film but giving Vanellope "Slaughter Race" is particularly effective and pleasing. As depicted the internet is incongruously clean and positive but that is to be expected in a film aimed at grade schoolers and it throws enough issues and imparts enough applicable lessons that it gives this incarnation of the internet if not "truth" at least a version that can teach and is digestible by children.

Entertaining and emotionally satisfying with, at its heart, an important lesson- how to let go. A must for families with children, perhaps an evening in for those without.

Rent It.

Train Tides

Each route a line
each line a color
each color the cornucopia
of neighborhoods it touches
at the center,
Chicago's pulsing uroboros
the Loop
with trains
like tendrils
reliably crawling
(rarely running)
out and out and out
to the city's
ever dilating boarders
and back again.

We, the passengers
make up
the shifting personality
of each mercurial car
at times affluent or raucous
subdued or supportive
for some
the crowd, the press, the hassle
is but inconvenience
the stalwart CTA
merely function
but we are all citizens
of this City of Broad Shoulders
from the cackling homeless
to the loquacious elderly
to the misanthropic teens
covertly smoking between cars
and to all those more calm
and better mannered.

We are
the roiling mass
the humanity
that populate our
undersung metropolis
and the L
the Petri dish
in which we congregate
what could be more worthy
of participation.

'Widows' A Review

Widows is a heist/thriller set in Chicago. The film opens on a team of criminals who are killed, and their score destroyed, during a failed robbery. Jamal(Brian Tyree Henry) the crime boss who was robbed is a prospective alderman facing off against longstanding alderman's son Jack(Colin Farrell). In order to make a final campaign push Jamal taps Veronica(Viola Davis), the widow of the criminal leader Harry(Liam Neeson) who was killed, to pay his $2,000,000 debt. Veronica plans a score with the other widows in order to pay that debt.

Davis brings her colossal emotive abilities to bear paired with an unflinching authority to give the relatively commercial story some incredible nuance. Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo round out the crew and all give solid performances. Debicki is given more to do, has more of an arc and transformation and as such shines a bit brighter, certainly showing some promising range above and beyond her previous turn as one of the villains in MI6. Erivo also stands out doing a lot with little, giving a commanding physical performances and conveying deep emotion and meaning with silence and looks. The remaining cast all give good performances Henry and Daniel Kaluuya as Jamal's brother and muscle especially but the titular leads are given virtually balanced screen time with their male supporting counter parts and as such it feels a bit uneven.

Visually the film is stunning, no surprise from co-writer/director Steve McQueen, the beginning heist sequence, an extended unbroken take care ride, the robbery the film culminates in all are breathtaking pieces of cinematography. McQueen bring his same impeccable casting, his clarity, and his sense of tension to this commercial tale as he does to his prestige dramas and indie films. As such this feels more like Michael Mann at his peak rather than standard action fare. And there is a point, a message, a theme greater than a cool heist. Its success varies but the attempt and incorporation into the genre is seamless.

The other thing he gets right is Chicago. Filming almost exclusively on the streets of Chicago neighborhoods and eschewing tourist landmarks he gets the feel of the city right. Any setting rendered truthfully elevates a narrative and any film not set in NYC or LA is a relief.

See It.

'Creed II' A Review

Creed II is a sports drama, a sequel to 2015's Creed, a continuation of the Rocky franchise. The film opens on a dingy apartment in the Ukraine. Ivan Drago(Dolph Lundgren) the Russian boxer who killed Apollo Creed in Rocky IV and was eventually defeated by Rocky has been ostracized by his homeland and has raised his son Viktor(Florian Munteanu) in exile hoping to one day retain his former boxing and social glory through his son. Adonis Creed(Michael B. Jordan) gets his title shot and wins but find the mantle of the champ uncomfortable. His relationship with Bianca(Tessa Thompson) grows as they make a life together. When Viktor surfaces in the US and challenges Adonis to a title bout his ambition, home life, and relationship with mentor and trainer Rocky(Sylvester Stallone) is put to the test.

Jordan gives a layered vulnerable performance, continuing to give Adonis emotional complexity belied by the typically straightforward genre. He balances that perfectly with his undeniably impressive physical look and performance. It's a delicate balance, one Stallone himself was only able to strike periodically, that of imposing and capable physical presence as well as accessible and varied feeling. His relationship with Thompson's character is more at the forefront in this installment and the two take full advantage of their excellent chemistry, Thompson continues to portray Bianca as a strong and caring partner who has her own ambitions and passions further complicating their dynamic which in turn makes it even more engaging. Stallone has played Rocky so often it is like a second skin, it is so natural and so familiar it cannot help but be a success. Rocky is a friend, father figure, and mentor for multiple generations. A true American hero who has ascended from fiction to myth. He isn't given as much to do as in the proceeding film but he is a comforting and inspiring presence as always. The big surprise is Lundgren and to a lesser extent Munteanu as the Drago father and son. A significant amount of time is given to their story and as such Ivan is no where near the paper-thin villain he once was. Lundgren gives all the hard edges we are use to but also surprising depth- failure, ambition, a twisted paternal pride. Their story runs in odd parallel to Adonis's own allowing the story to transcend boxing telling an almost operatic tale of fathers and sons.

There are some striking shots and sequences, the training montages especially, the boxing matches are engaging but the visual flair and innovation Coogler brought is somewhat lacking under the helm of director Stephen Caple Jr. which isn't necessary a bad thing. Caple's focus is much more on the familial aspect and tendrils of the Creed story. A breathtaking one take boxing match is lacking but what replaces it is an emotional roller coaster of love, legacy, discord, and ambition.

See It.

'The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs' A Review

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a western anthology film, the latest from the Coen Brothers. Six short start studded vignettes make up the film ranging from darkly comic, to darkly romantic, to just plain dark. Every section feels like a short film, the only thing connecting the pieces is the genre- western,  and as such, although beautiful and well acted, the film has little coherence and only a passing narrative satisfaction.

The Coen Brothers always have a remarkable cast and this is no exception- Liam Neeson, Tim Blake Nelson, Clancy Brown, Tom Waits, Stephen Root, Brendan Gleeson etc.- however they are all older white men(save for Zoe Kazan in a relatively thankless role). Not to say that any and all films need to have some element of diversity or inclusion but to get away with this kind of one-sided casting there has to be a reason and the quality of the work has to be high. The film is fine, kind of boring and derivative of the Coen Brothers previous work, worth a watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It is not original or interesting enough to get away with this kind of casting. The argument of "historical accuracy" officially holds no water. Narrative filmmaking is fiction therefore anything is possible. We are, and have been, saturated by the stories and performances of older white men. Take out the politics if you want the fact is diversity and inclusion makes for fresh and interesting storytelling. Don't get me wrong I love all the actors listed above but there performances and narrative impact suffer because every vignette centers around or is at least supported by one of them in such a way that they bleed together and are difficult to differentiate. The western has been a contentious genre since the beginning of it's decline from popularity and pervasiveness in the 70's. What would revitalize it, for a start, would be better more imaginative casting.

Visually, no surprise, the film is immaculate and striking. The score immersive and effective, especially paired with the actual songs in the first vignette from Nelson's singing cowboy. The problem is that ultimately the film is lazy and has no ambition. The Coen Brothers are aging and successful, the can do whatever they want with seemingly no parameters, oversight, or input and as such they can occasionally let their most lethargic ideas run slothfully wild.

A decent accompaniment to laundry folding but not much else.

Stream It.

Rancid

There is little
closer to purgatory
than the crowded
stuttering
stuffy train
during the evening
rush hour
but I discovered
there are degrees
of suffering.

The woman
appeared
relatively normal
twenty-something
Nordstrom's parka
innocuous
but she lugged with her
a neon teal and pink gym bag
which carried with it
a fetid stink.

The stench
filled the car
with such cringing force
you could not help
but ponder
it's deriving source
unwashed cloths perhaps
left fallow for years
or possibly
days old vomit
left to congeal and rot.

Dante did not
reconstruct
this particular misery
in his Divine Comedy
but I have to think
this banal woman
and her noxious sack
have some special place
for inflicting punishments
in the fiery hereafter.

'Suspiria' A Review

Suspiria is pedantic attempt at a genre picture, a remake of the 1977 cult classic. The movie opens on a Mennonite home where a woman lies dying. Cut to the frantic rain-soaked Patricia(Chloë Grace Moretz) running through the streets of 1977 Berlin to her psychologist Josef Klemperer(Tilda Swinton) to rave about the dance company of which she is a member that is run by witches. Cut to Susie(Dakota Johnson), presumably the daughter of the previously pictured dying Mennonite woman, who has come to Berlin to audition for said dance company run by Martha Graham surrogate Madame Blanc(Tilda Swinton). After a startling audition she is accepted.

Swinton, as is no surprise as she is one of our greatest living actors, is competent and compelling in both roles. She grounds the heightened and more operatic element with a realism and emotion which the story desperately needs. Unfortunately no one else in the entire ensemble takes the same approach. Their styles are a shotgun blast from bizarrely restrained minimalism to cacophonastic scenery-chewing incomprehensibility. I don't fault the actors themselves(except one) because its clear they received absolutely no direction when it came to actual performance. Moretz, typically good to great and never below charming(see The 5th Wave), puts in categorically the worst performance of her career- unhinged not as a character but as a clearly floundering and cringe-inducing actor saying lines that are ludicrous and devoid of any actual meaning. The one glaring black hole in the ensemble as far as talent is Dakota Johnson who basically replicates her Anastasia Steele role in Susie, which exceedingly peculiar given this is a completely different movie and a different character with a starkly different tone. Her portrayal is tissue-paper thin, she telegraphs naive so hard it comes across as vapid, you would expect such a clearly vacant performance on a middle school stage rather than a wide release motion picture. Unfortunately the supporting cast is filled out with interesting actors, dancers, and models who aren't given a chance to do much of anything and are constantly cut out and around in favor of the yawn-inducing Johnson.

There are a few visual flourishes most notably the evocative dream sequences. The dance pieces would be incredibly effective and elevate the movie if they weren't edited so frenetically. The camera is never aloud to sit still long enough to actually see the dance. There are so many cuts and flourishes and close ups all the meticulous(and truly impressive) choreography is almost totally wasted.

As to the themes, there are none, or maybe there are so many and they are all so lazily developed(read not at all) that it comes to the same thing. The Holocaust, the Lufthansa Flight 181 hijacking, purity, feminism, paganism etc. etc. are brought up but not explored or developed. It's as if the mere mention or implication of them paired with a disconnected albeit heightened style is suppose to suffice in place of an actual point of view or something new or of value to say.

No surprise the movie is pretentious, negligent, boring, and provides (the barest trace of) style over substance as it was directed by Luca Guadagnino perpetrator of Call Me By Your Name.

Worst of the year contender.

Don't See It.

'The Girl In The Spider's Web' A Review

The Girl In the Spider's Web is an action/thriller, a continuation/soft reboot of the Dragon Tattoo series. This installment finds the titular Girl aka Lisbeth Salender(Claire Foy) as the freelance hacker now turned freelance hacker/avenger. We open on Lisbeth mitigating some sweet justice on a corupt abusive CEO. She's then tasked with retrieving an NSA program that can access the entire world's nuclear arsenal. Her (successful) hack alerts NSA special agent Edwin Needham(LaKeith Stanfield ) who immediately departs to retrieve the program but she's also alerted an unknown crime syndicate. A high stakes game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

Certainly a more inspired casting choice than Rooney Mara, Foy does well as the beloved title character. She's not as dynamic as the originator of the role Noomi Rapace in the Swedish trilogy but she has the confidence, physical competence, and electricity that the role requires she just isn't given the material with which to soar. The issue isn't with her performance necessarily it is with the script which distills an emotionally complicated thriller into a thin James Bond wanna-be. Foy is an inspired choice, as is LaKeith Stanfield and Stephen Merchant(as the creator of the McGuffin) but the script doesn't allow these exceptional casting choices to do much beyond the rote mainstream.

The film begins with a very stylish scene, Lisbeth in white face paint literally stringing up a guilty man in his luxurious an austere high rise apartment. It's a striking compelling sequence, setting Lisbeth up as some kind of feminist Batman. But after that scene both the style and the substance dissipate quickly into predictable and relatively bland genre fair.

Stream It.

The winds of change have begun to blow

The winds of change have begun to blow
not gust or gale
but cooling breeze
a soothing balm
on a sweltering afternoon
not a clean cleansing down pour
but the promise of relief to come
for storms do not break from still stagnant skies
but must build and roll and break
before the lightening strikes
cleaving the air
and purging the land of heat and grime
not yet
the machine of history runs slow
and the race for Liberty marathon not sprint
but the winds of change have begun to blow
and the strength of the old guard withers
we need not repeat the sins of our forebears
activism followed by contented consumerism
the soul of America is at stake
and we will be the ones to decide
if She lives or if She dies
twisted by fear into the grave
or resurrected by compassion
the winds of change have begun to blow.
It is our time now.

'Bohemian Rhapsody' A Review

Bohemian Rhapsody is a biopic about the band Queen focusing on the late lead singer Freddy Mercury(Rami Malek). The film opens, as many of these do, on a late career come-back-like performance then cuts back to Mercury's youth following his life chronologically and ending on the show in the first scene. He meets two aspiring musicians while he's a baggage handler, the three pick up a bass player, and Queen after some fits and starts is born.

Malek goes for broke in his portrayal of Mercury and its mostly a success, the actor gives the performance tons of energy, tons of charm, and perhaps manages to capture a little bit of Mercury's magnetism. He clearly relishes the role and that interest and joy is contagious. The other band members provide a great foil and balance to Malek with more low-key but engaging turns. Lucy Boynton as Mercury's wife Mary has a bit more of a thankless one-dimensional role but does well with what is given her. Allen Leech as Paul Mercury's personal manager is pretty boring and unbelievable as the mustache twirling manipulative villain of the story.

The story structure is relatively rote, in the tradition of many of the musical biopics of the last fifteen years, visually the film is adequate but not particularly unique. What makes the film rise above of the expansive use of Queen's music, with an interesting and compelling choice to have Malek lip-sync and exclusively use Mercury's vocals. The other thing the film gets right is the spirit of the band, sometimes effectively but somewhat awkwardly explicitly stated in scenes. They are the outcasts, they make positive music, they try to touch people and get them together in a positive way. This message, more than anything, is what makes the film compelling. This is a message we can latch onto in our devise times- one of repeated explicit inclusivity and positivity. Is the film perfect? No. Terribly unique in form or structure? No. Periodically bogged down by manufactured drama? Yes. But at the heart of it is Malek as Mercury and the band, which mostly get along just fine, making music that people love. That's it. And that is what people respond to.

The message of the film is certainly at least a little tainted by the involvement of Bryan Singer. And as consumers of art we must grapple with the art vs. artist question, if we separate them and by how much. For me the film works despite Singer and is in no way a success of his. The film works because of the enthusiasm and chemistry of the actors, the fact that ultimately there is minimal drama and much of the film is the band and the various characters getting along, and most importantly the delightful and affirming music of Queen.

Say what you want but the infectious stomp-stomp-clap of We Will Rock You is undeniable.

See It.