Apparently, it takes an animated superhero to defeat Disney/Pixar.
I don’t mean to imply that the animation giant from Mouse House is deserving of villain status. Far from it. But they’ve dominated the Academy Awards category for best animated feature and short for a dozen years at least. It was time for new blood.
That’s why I think it’s great that “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” won the animated Oscar. Aside from simply being the best animated feature film of 2018, it also has a welcome theme about how anybody can find their inner superhero.
The idea is that several alternate universes collide, bringing a half-dozen or so different versions of Spider-Man into this existence. Peter Parker is still around, but as a burnt-out, middle-aged and paunchy version of himself.
The real star is Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore), an Afro-Latino teenager who finds himself manifesting the same Spidey powers. Other iterations include a couple of spider-girls, a film noir version (Nicolas Cage) and even a pig version named Spider Ham (John Mulaney).
They’re all battling Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), who’s building some kind of massive collider machine, along with a host of other reimagined Spider-Man foes: Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, etc.
Told in a cool visual style that feels like flipping through a comic book, this is one new take on a well-worn hero story that’s truly fresh.
Video bonus features are sumptuous. Aside from the lack of a filmmaker commentary audio track, it’s just about the whole hog.
“We Are Spider-Man” is a deep-dive documentary into how anyone can find the hero inside them. “Spider-Verse: A New Dimension” looks at the film’s signature visual style.
Other features focus on the voice actors cast; a tribute to Spidey creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko; an Easter Egg challenge; character designs; “Alternate Universe Mode” with alternate and deleted scenes; music videos; and an all-new short, “Spider-Ham: Caught In a Ham.”
A psychotropic hothouse horror flick boasting artsy ambitions and filled with taut bodies getting squidgy with each other, “Climax” is a purely cinematic experience, if not an especially enjoyable one.
Strike that -- I don’t think filmmaker Gaspar Noé (“Irreversible”) makes movies with enjoyment in mind, so that’s not a fair yardstick to judge them by. I’ll put it this way: I think “Climax” largely accomplishes what it sets out to do, but I doubt very many people want to see a film of these intentions.
It's about two dozen or so young French dancers who are ensconced in a remote, snowed-in building for three days so they can rehearse. They’ve been brought together by a famous choreographer (never named or shown) who asks them all sorts of probing, uncomfortable questions in the audition interviews that act as the opening.
Clearly, they’re being set up for mischief.
Set in the 1990s, the story is supposedly based on a true story, though Noé’s screen titles are notoriously unreliable. “Climax” starts with the traditional end credits at the beginning, and then the opening credits happen halfway through -- though they list some people who are clearly not in the cast.
And then there are his “chapter” introductions. The first reads, “Birth is a unique opportunity.” What follows is an intensive, intricately choreographed dance ritual of astonishing athleticism and grace. Shot in a single long take with a Steadicam roaming all around, it’s a technically magnificent sequence that celebrates youthful suppleness and vigor.
(I could practically hear my knees creaking just watching it.)
Then there is the second chapter, “Life is a collective impossibility,” in which the dancers have a party celebrating the end of their work. They dance some more, gossip, talk about who they’ve slept with or are planning to sleep with, and so on. But someone has apparently spiked the sangria, leading to increasingly disjointed behavior.
It’s a little fun and flirty at first, as we expect to see some bed-hopping and other lascivious spectacle. (Noé is, after all, the man behind the “Love,” with its bold, unsimulated depictions of sexuality.) But things quickly sour. The woman overseeing the troupe locks her little boy in a utility closet and then loses the key, the men start to fight each other and the women experience crescendoing bouts of mania.
Then comes the last section, “Death is an extraordinary experience,” and… well, you can probably figure it out. The camera starts twisting around like a seething serpent, flipping sideways and upside down until we’re often not even sure what we’re looking at.
Don’t expect to get to know any of the dancers as bona fide characters beyond a few superficial traits. David (Romain Guillermic) is the lothario of the group, always in conquest mode. Selva (Sofia Boutella) is the alpha female, setting the pace by dint of sheer verve. Mamadou Bathily is Dom, the outsized dancer -- “a woman-and-a-half in every direction,” as Thomas Harris would’ve said -- who tries to intimidate others.
Interestingly, the group is roughly halfway split between Europeans and Africans, though there don’t appear to be clear demarcations of cliques between the two.
In the end, I’m not really sure who “Climax” is made for. Mostly, I think Noé made it for himself, along with his small but ardent wave of devotees. It plays like a middle-aged fantasia about what it’s like to be young and beautiful and carefree, and how that must be resented and punished.
Usually in a horror movie it’s a madman with a knife meting out the destruction, but here the youngsters themselves share their own punishment, everyone taking a turn as victim and victimizer. I appreciated its shabby beauty, but ultimately it’s nothing more than a bad acid trip.
Imagine the "Godfather" films, but set in Colombia during the 1960s and '70s as a clan of people bound by culture and tradition try to maintain them in the face of burgeoning wealth resulting from criminal ventures. That is "Birds of Passage," a film of majestic sweep and squalid human failings.
It is the story of Rapayet (José Acosta), a wayward member of the Wayuu tribe native to parts of Colombia and Venezuela, although his tale is more the sun around which other characters orbit rather than the center of attention.
The Wayuu have been there before the Spaniards, the white man or anyone else. Their community is proud but insular, regarding all others as alijuana -- outsiders who are lesser. This even includes Rapayet's friend, Moisés (Jhon Narváez), a black man who regards him as a brother. If Moisés is boisterous and unpredictable, Rapayet is retiring and methodical.
Think Fredo and Michael.
As the story opens a young woman, Zaida (Natalia Reyes), from one of the more prominent families is coming of age. It's an elaborate celebration that brings many people together, preceded by an entire year of ritual isolation where she weaves a complex tapestry to prove she is a full-fledged woman. Wearing a colorful dress, she dances with a young boy in a teasing game. Then Rapayet claims his own dance -- and his intentions to marry her.
Alas, the family is demanding an exorbitant dowry. This is the idea of Úrsula (Carmiña Martínez), the strict matriarch of her clan. She is the keeper of a sacred talisman and believes that falling from the Wayuu way means utter damnation.
Úrsula does not like Rapayet, though she has some regard for his uncle, Peregrino (Jose Vicente Cotes), a "word messenger" who is trusted to carry important communications between the families.
To get the dowry, Rapayet hatches a scheme to sell a large quantity of marijuana to some American Peace Corps members, depicted as carefree hippies who just use the excuse of international service as a means to get high and party. They buy the weed from Rapayet's older cousin, Aníbal (Juan Bautista), an itinerant merchant of the stuff.
The first big score leads to increasingly bigger ones, and soon enough Rapayet has become the head of major narcotics operation. (Interestingly, they only ever deal in marijuana, not the harder and more lucrative cocaine that thrived in the same region.) He and Zaida have children, and Úrsula operates as sort of the sneering majordomo of the family.
Eschewing the simple wood-and-stone huts of their people, they build a stark white castle in the middle of nowhere -- a symbol of their wealth and, to other Wayuu, their pride.
Moisés proves to be an unreliable partner, spending freely and using his influence with the police and local politicians to make a big name for himself. This leads to conflict with Aníbal, and Rapayet finds himself pressured by his people to choose a side. He attempts a third way, which leads to his utter downfall.
(I'm not giving anything away -- a framing sequence uses
an old man's singsong lament to preface that this is the tale of a man's
rise and fall.)
Further complicating things is Leonidas (Greider Meza), surely the Sonny Corleone of this story -- a hot-tempered force of nature whose pure verve would be admirable if he didn't keep letting it get him into deeper and deeper trouble. He is Úrsula's son, and ostensibly the head of her portion of the family. No doubt she would prefer to see him replace Rapayet.
Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra directed, from their own story turned into a screenplay by Maria Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal. Despite the realistic edge to much of the tale, "Birds" has a lyrical, almost mystical feel. Zaida is the seer of the family, visited by dreams that portend how their ancestors feel about their ambitions and actions.
"Dreams prove the existence of the soul," one character observes. By the end Zaida confesses that she hasn't had any such dreams in years.
This is a grand, haunting tale of tradition and hubris, and how clinging too fiercely to our desires only ensures they will eventually slip our grasp.
When "The NeverEnding Story" came out in 1984, I pretty much loathed it to its core.
I thought of the movie as being to the fantasy genre what Ewoks were to Star Wars: egregious cutesy-fu claptrap ginned up to mollify small children. Sword-and-sorcery movies had a brief heyday in the late 1970s and early '80s, taking their spirit from the blood-and-guts "low" fantasy of Conan creator Robert E. Howard. (As opposed to the "high" fantasy of Tolkien and G.R.R. Martin, featuring kings and world-ending stories.)
These movies had barbarians and dark sorcerers and nekkid ladies and magical items and all the other stuff that rubbed the erogenous zones of my fecund pubescent brain.
Then here came this kiddie fantasy with a cloying pop song theme, a dragon that looked more like an amiable poodle than a reptilian titan, and starring a boy with not a wisp of hair below his earlobes as the purported greatest warrior in the land. It was even rated PG, for God's sake, not even taking advantage of the new PG-13 label that the MPAA had made available just three months earlier.
Bleah.
I haven't seen it since it came out, banishing it from my brain. I was not even aware that there was a sequel in 1990 and a third film four years after that.
But I've encountered a few pop culture references to it from time to time, and learned that many other Gen X kids have an abiding relationship with the movie. So I thought I'd give it another chance in the company of my boys, who at ages 5 and 8 would seem to be the prime intended audience for the film.
I learned several things right away I hadn't expected:
It's better than I remembered. Once you accept that it's a children's movie, a lot of my earlier grievances wash away. It's the same way people of my generation eventually had to accept that the Star Wars movies (at least the George Lucas ones) were primarily aimed at kids.
I was astonished to learn it was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, his first English-language film. It still seems an odd choice for a filmmaker known for tense realism ("Das Boot," "In the Line of Fire").
It really is a simple, gentle story about using your imagination to wander into new worlds to explore, and encourages reading as a way to do so.
In the red column, the theme song by Brit pop star Limahl is still just as horrid as I recall. ("Ah-haha-aha-hahaaaaaa...") The special effects, which weren't very special even for 1984, have aged terribly -- a mix of miniature puppets shot to look bigger and crude lasers and other lighting effects that had already been surpassed by "Star Wars" seven years earlier.
Although the film was primarily intended for an American audience, it was a West German production and reflects the generally less sophisticated filmmaking infrastructure they had in the early 1980s.
The film largely relies on two child actors: Barrett Oliver plays Bastian Balthazar Bux, a nerdy outcast in modern times, and Noah Hathaway is Atreyu, the aforementioned mightiest warrior of Fantasia. The story posits Bastian as reading a story about Atreyu, and they come to be aware of each other's existence as the tale progresses. The screenplay, by Petersen and Herman Weigel, is based upon the book (with no capital "E") by Michael Ende.
Bastian is bullied at school and looked down upon by his stern father (Gerald McRaney), a widower flailing at being a single parent. Bastian runs into a mysterious bookshop while running from the bullies (I'm guessing the setting is Chicago or some other Midwestern metropolis) and encounters an old man reading the titular book. He warns Bastian that some books are different because the reader actually experiences what is being read. Bastian "borrows" the book, hides himself in the school attic and tears through the whole thing.
There he discovers the world of Fantasia (Fantastica in the novel), whose very existence is being threatened by The Nothing -- depicted as a primordial swirl of dark energy that is gobbling up the land piece by piece. The Empress (Tami Stronach), the ancient monarch (but appearing as a small child) who normally protects the realm has been stricken by sickness, so Atreyu is recruited to battle The Nothing. For his quest he is given the amulet called an Auryn, adorned with serpents devouring each other, which as near as I can figure demonstrates no actual powers during the course of the entire movie.
I won't bother to go through all of Atreyu's quest, but it's divided up into episodic encounters with various fantastical creatures. Some fall pretty flat, like the giant turtle known as Morla the Ancient One, who directs him to the Southern Oracle for answers. The way to the oracle is through several magical gates, including one with twin statue guardians who zap intruders with laser beams out of their eyes if they lack confidence.
In the end, the boy warrior survives this test by simply diving fast through the portal. The guardians still make laser-eyes at him, so I guess speed is really more important than resolve.
Along the way he picks up Falkor as his ally. Dubbing himself a luckdragon, he has fluffy white fur and a long tail, and is voiced by Alan Oppenheimer, who also vocally played several other supporting character, including the giant stone-eating Rock Biter and Gmork, the dark wolf hunter who serves The Nothing.
Falkor gives Atreyu rides and saves his bacon on several occasions. His legs are set so far back on his body that for the flying scenes he at first appears to be a limbless serpent. He apparently can even fly through the void of space, as demonstrated after Fantasia is reduced to just a few floating fragments.
Other cute/scary fantastical supporting creatures appear throughout, though most hang around just long enough to show off their creature makeup/effects. Among them are the Nighthob (Tilo Prückner ), a goblin-like creature that rides a giant bat; Teeny Weeny (Deep Roy), a hobbit-ish figure who rides a "racing snail;" and Engywook (Sydney Bromley), a wizened gnome scientist who has lived for decades at the first gate to the Southern Oracle with his shrewish wife, studying the way forward without every attempting it.
I've noticed it's a bulwark of children's stories to have characters who seem to have no purpose in existence outside of waiting around for the protagonist to show up so they can lend assistance (or opposition, in the case of the Gmork).
I'm still not prepared to call "The NeverEnding Story" a good movie. It's a relic of its time and intentions: to make a kiddie-friendly fantasy movie as cuddly counterpoint to Conan & Co.
But the first rule of criticism is to critique the movie they made, not the one you wanted. I didn't understand that at age 14, but I do now.
I didn’t think “Green Book” could win the Academy Award for Best Picture, but I’m thrilled that it did. It’s very rare for my favorite movie to take the top prize at the Oscars. Furthermore, its chances seemed dimmed after a concerted (and I think largely unfair) backlash against it.
I’m even now hearing people offhandedly refer to the film as “racist.” A movie recounting an unlikely friendship between a famous black artist and a bigoted Italian-American tough in the early 1960s is racist? Apparently not being sufficiently “woke” is now grounds not just for dismissal, but castigation as representing the very evil institution the movie exists to assail.
The assault on logic aside, I care not. The loss is theirs.
Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen play Don Shirley and Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, two men as different as they could be. Shirley is black, educated, imperially slim, proud and serenely confident. Tony is squat, rude, earthy, unpretentious and unsophisticated. Both are sure of themselves and equally dismissive of the other.
Shirley, a jazz pianist, is about to embark on a lengthy concert tour in the South and needs somebody to drive him and watch his back. Tony needs a paycheck while the nightclub where he works as a bouncer is closed for repairs.
They predictably clash and confront, needle and rebuke. But slowly, gradually, they start to form a bond.
First it’s over little things like contemporary pop music and friend chicken. There are moments, confrontations with rednecks and such, in which Tony is obliged to stand up for Shirley. Likewise, the musician finds himself inclined to show grace toward his backward employee, such as helping him write beautiful letters to his wife.
These are some of the finest performances of Ali and Mortensen’s careers. They fully inhabit their characters, showing us their grace as well as their faults. In the end, their friendship becomes a balm that soothes the ache in their souls.
Ignore the haters, and revel in this beautiful story about overcoming hatred.
Bonus features are not terribly expansive. There are three making-of documentary shorts: “Virtuoso Performances,” exploring Mortensen and Ali’s turns; “An Unforgettable Friendship” about the real-life friendship between Shirley and Vallelonga; and “Going Beyond the Green Book,” which looks as the film’s cultural impact.
So sayeth Marvel’s newest(ish) addition to the MCU, Captain Marvel aka a Carol Danvers aka “Vers.” She’s a human who’s been serving the Kree, a mighty alien do-gooder empire, for as long as she can remember -- which isn’t very far back. But after her adventures return her to Earth some pesky memories start reviving, throwing her entire self-conception into doubt.
This is one hero’s journey that mostly takes place between her ears.
If “Black Panther” was the (stupendously overhyped and overrated) answer to the cultural collectivism craving an African-American superhero -- “First ever!,” they squeed, forgetting Blade did it 20 years earlier -- then “Captain Marvel” is the more finely attuned answer for the gender-balance scales.
There’s definitely a grrl-power theme to this production, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who also wrote the screenplay with Geneva Robertson-Dworet. But it’s not especially in our face. More, it’s little moments where our interplanetary badass has a smile asked of her by some surly biker dude, or an older male mentor demands that she prove herself -- on terms he sets out himself, of course.
It’s an entertaining, invigorating tale introducing us to a figure who’s been described in comic book lore as possibly the single most powerful hero there is. Brie Larsen is a wonder as Carol, playing the role with a mix of confidence, self-questioning and wry humor. Her character’s default mode is to act a little remote, letting people prove themselves to her before she warms up.
Chief among these is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the S.H.I.E.L.D. boss who first had the idea of putting together a team of supers. The story is set in 1995, nearly a quarter-century earlier, but the 70-year-old Jackson pulls it off without the CGI help Robert Downey Jr. used, just a hairpiece and a little helpful makeup.
When Veers crash-lands into a Blockbuster Video store -- Google it, youngsters -- Fury is sent out to investigate. He briefly tries to put the cuffs on her, which doesn’t work so well for a woman capable of firing photonic blasts from her fists. Fury ends up following her around, leaning in to the role of wise-cracking sidekick.
The movie’s first half does take its own little time sorting out the story threads. I got a bit impatient around the one-hour mark. And you’d have to be pretty blind not to see the big turn the tale’s going to take. But the last act is an action- and emotion-packed humdinger well worth the long-winded windup.
Jude Law plays Yon -Rogg, Ver’s commander and best Kree friend; Lashana Lynch is Maria, a steadfast human pal from back in her days as an Air Force test pilot; Annette Bening plays an Earthling scientist who curiously also takes the form of the Supreme Intelligence, the AI ruler of the Kree.
The bad guys are the Skrulls, green-skinned shapeshifters who’ve been attacking the Kree outer systems. Their leader is Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who at one point captures Vers and sifts through her fractured memories for clues to his nefarious plans.
But if there’s a string running through “Captain Marvel,” it’s that it’s up to each of us to define ourselves rather than blindly queue up to the line others have drawn. Vers/Carol spends much of the movie wondering who she is, even as so many others seek to instruct her on the matter.
And, thank goodness, here’s a superhero movie that feels no impulse to inject a totally unnecessary romance into the mix. She is Captain Marvel, and that’s enough.
As I’m writing this Olivia Colman was just revealed as the surprise winner for the Best Actress Oscar, beating out heavy favorite Glenn Close. She was absolutely wonderful in “The Favourite,” although anyone who’s honest recognizes that hers is the supporting role, while Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are the leads.
Here’s a handy primer for mainstream movies: lead characters act upon their world and make things happen (or have things happen to them); supporting characters have little of their lives depicted other than that which impacts the protagonist(s)’ journey.
To put it into grammatical terms, leads are the subjects and supporting characters are the objects.
“The Favourite” is the embellished true story of the court of Queen Anne of Britain in the early 1800s. Widowed and without heirs, Anne (Colman) has become the creature of her friend, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), a “court favorite” who more or less acts in the stead of the monarch, who is either too sick or too disinterested in the running of her government.
As the story opens England’s war with France is still raging, and there is much debate about whether to end it or continue. Marlborough is opposing the Tory party leader (Nicholas Hoult) in deciding to press on or give in.
Enter Abigail Hill, a cousin of Marlborough’s fallen on hard times who begs a job as a scullery maid in the palace. Seemingly young and witless, Abigail soon realizes that the relationship between Anne and Marlborough is filled with both romance and abuse. She slyly worms her way in between the two women, eventually taking Marlborough’s place in the queen’s bed.
Like “Dangerous Liaisons” a generation ago, “The Favourite” is a period costume drama that beats with a vibrant modern heart. It’s a tale of love, betrayal and intrigue -- with the boys mostly on the side.
Bonus features are rather scant, consisting of a few deleted scenes and a making-of documentary: “The Favourite: Unstitching the Costume Drama.”
