Category Archives: 2018

Colette

Colette                 4 ½ stars

Another movie from last year that I just caught up to is Colette, a film that created a lot of buzz at Sundance in 2018.  This film stars Keira Knightley as Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the acclaimed female French writer of the early twentieth century.  In the film, the young Colette from rural France marries the successful Parisian writer, known as Willy (Dominic West) and is transported to be among the intellectuals in Paris.  Willy is not really that much of a writer but he has created an industry of creating literary works by having writers ghost-write under his name.  Soon he figures out that Colette has a talent for writing and persuades her to write about her experiences creating the series of novels about “Claudine”.  What follows is a story of redefining gender roles and telling of stories that overcome the societal restraints of the time.  Some of these norms that are overcome even involve women in bisexual or homosexual relationships, quite a break from the traditions of the early 1900’s even in France.  Eventually, the couple reaches a crisis when Colette asks that she be given the rights to her own work.  The film was directed by Wash Westmoreland and was co-written by him and his partner, Richard Glatzer.  Sadly, Glatzer did not live to see his project reach the screen.  But you can have the opportunity to see Keira Knightley’s acting talents in this film based on the true story of one of France’s finest female writers.

Mirai

Mirai                      2 ½ stars

Mirai is a Japanese animated movie that came out last year by anime director Mamoru Hosoda.  The story is about a young boy of 5 or 6 who has to deal with the addition of a baby sister to the family, one that he has a hard time accepting.  There is a lot of misbehaving on the part of young Kun until he is visited by the young teenage version of his little sister who guides him through some odd crisis with his family.  He is also visited by the human version of the family dog who joins in the adventures.  Kum also goes through some other strange adventures when he leaves the house and encounters people that have key roles in his life.  I haven’t seen any of Hosoda’s previous work but I wasn’t thrilled by the story of a little boy who is something of a brat and is slow to respect others in his family.  It’s not up to the level of work by Hayao Miyazaki who brought us Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises.  Those were truly exceptional animated movies that I still remember.  Animation is a way to tell a story with some very fantastic elements that can’t be done with live action.  I hope that Hosoda can succeed in coming up with some truly fantastic stories with a moral message.

A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place                     2 ½ stars

Last year’s hit monster movie, A Quiet Place, was a type of post-apocalyptic movie in which humanity has been nearly wiped out by ravenous creatures that have ultra-sensitive hearing, but are completely blind.  Thus, the remaining humans can only survive by remaining absolutely quiet in all that they do.  The story focuses on one family living in a house in the woods who have learned to live without talking and raising food without making any sound.  This movie was well received by critics and audiences, but there was too much for me to get over.  There were good performances I am sure, but the holes in the plot were obvious, like how could they possibly raise a field of corn without making any noise.  And there is no real background about how this all came about.  Any good horror movie has to provide some explanation for how the disaster came to be.  I actually enjoyed this year’s Bird Box more than A Quiet Place.  The movie earned an Oscar Nomination for Sound Editing, presumably for the sounds that the monster makes, but I feel like I’ve seen this before in horror movies.  It may have been the best horror movie of 2018, but then I couldn’t find one from last year that I really liked.

Monsters and Men

Monsters and Men          4 stars

Monsters and Men is one of a string of recent movies addressing police brutality against unarmed black men.  This one takes an approach similar to Crash where separate independent lives intersect around a common event, here the killing of a young black man at the hands of a white police officer.  Each of the three young men have their own way of dealing with the tragedy.  Manny, a hustler has just started a new job in security when he happens to be at the scene of the shooting capturing it all on video.  Now he must decide whether to release the video and subject himself to retaliation or keep quiet and be complicit in the crime.  Black police officer Dennis knows what the offending police officer is like and must decide how to respond to the ensuing investigation.  And young star athlete, Zyrick has to decide if he should participate in the resistance against the police which may jeopardize his chances at becoming a pro athlete.  These are situations that have been portrayed in many crime dramas, but it feels like a fresh approach here.  The director/writer, Reinaldo Marcus Green is completely new to the industry.  I hope we see more from him.  This film received much praise at Sundance two years ago as it took on this very hot topic.  I missed it back then but am glad I finally had the chance to see it. 

Cold War

Cold War                              4 stars

Cold War by director Pawel Pawlikowski is a passionate and tragic love story between two talented musicians who are caught up in the tensions between the East and West during the Cold War in Europe of the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Music teacher Wiktor meets young student Zula in a dance and music ensemble where the talented young people are taught folk songs and dance in post-war Poland.  The two are obsessed with each other while also training for performances that serve the communist state.  Eventually, Wiktor comes up with a plan to defect to the west, but Zula is reluctant to leave her home and travel to Paris where life would be foreign to her.  The movie then covers the period in the fifties when tensions were the highest, but still the pair are able to meet in various European cities as the ensemble goes on tour.  Even though the two have their own separate lives by now they still have a passion for each other accompanied with fierce disagreements and fighting.  This is all set against the background of musical performances that compare the communist influenced folk music of the East with the decadent jazz and pop music of the west.  And the entire movie is shot in black and white giving it a depressing feeling.  Pawlikowski says that his inspiration was the marriage of his parents which was characterized by separations and fighting and a tragic ending, thus he had a real story to tell.  Pawlikowski made the movie Ida, another tragedy set in Poland back in 2014. Cold War was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award last year.

Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2                                       4 stars

After an absence of 14 years, Pixar has brought us the sequel to their animated hit, The Incredibles.  At least they did in 2018, but I just got around to this one.  The colorful animation and fast moving action scenes are all still here as Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl struggle to adapt to more mundane life as being a superhero has been declared illegal.  Apparently, the criminals didn’t get the message as first the Underminer tears up the city and then newcomer, Screenslaver arrives to take over the city.  The switch here is that it is now Elastigirl who must bring the criminals to justice while husband, Mr. Incredible stays home to take care of the kids.  Things of course don’t work out that way as it is discovered that baby Jack Jack has developed superpowers that outmatch anything the rest of the family has and then the criminal Screenslaver gets the upper hand over our superheroes.  It will be time for the whole family plus their friends to team up and protect the city from this threat.  There is plenty of action for the kids and funny dialogue for us adults in the two hour long return to The Incredibles world.  It’s too bad that we had to wait for 14 years for this sequel, perhaps one of Pixar’s best to find its way to the screen.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Ralph Breaks the Internet            4 ½ stars

For my first movie while being stuck at home because of Coronavirus I picked Ralph Breaks the Internet, the sequel to Wreck It Ralph, the well received movie about a video arcade character from the eighties.  It’s appropriate to see this one as it includes the release of a virus that wreaks havoc on the population.  Ralph (John C. Reilly) spends his days either in his videogame at the arcade or hanging out with his best friend Vanellope (Sarah Silverman), that is, until an accident leaves Vanellope’s racing game, Sugar Rush, disabled making her a character without a game.  Ralph gets an idea when he learns about the internet and a thing called e-Bay, where almost anything can be found at a price, so the set off into the world of the internet where they meet all kinds of interesting characters.  The charm of the movie is the presentation of the things we run into when online, such as annoying pop-up ads, web searches, (Mr. KnowsMore), Chat pages and characters from popular movies.  Of course the best of these is the collection of all the Disney princesses in one place when they try to help out poor Vanellope.  The quest is aided by Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), the head algorithm of the website BuzzzTube who comes up with some hilarious ways for ralph to make money with ridiculous videos.  The breaking of the internet comes about with a misguided attempt by Ralph to try to change the path that Vanellope has chosen for herself.  It’s a funny family safe movie that has a lot going for it in spite of the virus.

Annihilation

Annihilation                                        2 ½ stars

Annihilation by Alex Garland is a movie I was curious about when it came out in 2018 but didn’t see then.  It has a look of a fantasy adventure from the previews with its characters venturing into a strange landscape full of new plants and creatures giving it a biodiversity look.  Let me assure you that that is not what it is like.  It’s a full-fledged science fiction horror movie with a strange alien presence that has invaded earth.  For reasons I won’t go into the biologist character Lena (Natalie Portman) volunteers for a mission to enter an area on the Florida coastline taken over by the alien presence that is referred to as The Shimmer. It’s an area surrounded by a strange force field defeating all communication with those inside.  She is joined by psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), physicist Josie Tessa Thompson), paramedic Anya (Gina Rodriguez), and anthropologist Cass (Tuva Novotny).  It doesn’t help our confidence to hear that a previous expedition has never been heard from again.  The group discovers that they have lost some of their memories after entering and encounter strange plants and animals that are growing and taking on characteristics of other species.  Soon one member is attacked by a giant crocodile that the women dispatch with heavy machinegun fire.  (They are very well armed.)  One by one, the group are either picked off by strange creatures or by their own actions as their minds turn them against one another.  Until Lena must face the alien presence alone.  One can compare this movie to the science fiction film Solaris as there is a similar theme.  The film is based on a book, Southern Reach by Jeff VanderMeer and has been compared to the ancient myth of Orpheus.  It has a very slow moving and menacing tone to it with plenty of ominous music.  It’s very pretty to look at with some shocking surprises but it doesn’t make my list of great science fiction films.

Border

Border                                  4 ½ stars

The Swedish made movie, Border has to be one of the most unusual movies of 2018 or for that matter any year.  It concerns a young woman, Tina, who works as a customs inspector and possesses a most unusual and valuable talent.  She has the ability to smell emotions in people such as guilt, shame and fear which is instrumental in catching individuals trying to smuggle illegal goods into the country.  She even gets involved in a police investigation of a child trafficking ring.  Her unique qualities don’t end there though.  Tina’s appearance is especially striking as she has to be one of the most unattractive women ever to appear in film.  She has a protruding forehead and a very heavy jawline so one would always notice her in a crowd.  If I would have checked ahead I would have known that the film was nominated for the Academy Award category of Best Makeup and perhaps wouldn’t have been so surprised by her appearance.  Tina lives in her isolated shack of a house with her lazy boyfriend who likes to watch lots of TV and enter his dogs in dog shows.  Besides that she makes regular visits to her elderly father in a nursing home.  Then one day her world is changed forever when she meets a man on the job who resembles her in many ways including the facial features.  And she finds that her special skills don’t work on Vore which is very confusing to her.  As she spends more time with him she finds that they have much more in common such as an interest in walking through the woods, insects and worms and the occasional snack on maggots.  And that is far from the most bizarre thing about the movie.  As she makes a connection with Vore certain hidden aspects of her life become clearer to her especially when things get weird.  And then the movie gets even weirder.  And then when you think it’s as weird as it can get, it gets so weird that I can’t even describe it.  Something happens that I have never seen in a movie before and it might make you uncomfortable in mixed company.  It is certain that Vore has a very different take on people and the world than what Tina has ever felt.  Ultimately, I think the movie is about realizing who you are and finding your place in the world.  I know that despite all the weirdness I liked it.  I can’t spoil the surprises for you.  It will be more fun to find it out yourselves.

Free Solo

Free Solo                                                             4 ½ stars

It has been called awe inspiring and a celebration of one of the greatest athletic achievements ever.  Free Solo is a documentary from National Geographic  that covers rock climber, Alex Honnold’s quest to be the first person ever to climb the 3,000 foot face of El Capitan without a rope.  The film was three years in the making and includes interviews with Alex, his rock climbing friends, his girlfriend and his mother.  The film crew play a part in the film as well as they go into it not knowing how it will turn out.  One climber describes the event as a gold medal Olympic event, but if you don’t win the gold, you die.  We see how Alex studies the climb and memorizes every move he has to make on the rock’s most dangerous parts.  The film never shies away from the danger as it reminds us of many other free solo climbers who have died in pursuit of their dreams.  Certainly not for the squeamish, the final climb is a thrill to watch, even if you know the outcome ahead of time.  And it’s a good way to visit the national parks in a time when no one can.