Review: "The Traitor"

"Cosa Nostra" translates literally as "our thing."

Otherwise known as the Italian mafia or the mob, it has existed in various forms for a long time, and in the movies a bit less so. After the "Godfather" movies life began to imitate art, or maybe it was after the James Cagney films of the 1930s. Mobsters liked how they were glamorized on the big screen and took to imitating the Corleones et al.

As the late, great William Goldman reminded us, the mob we saw onscreen was a cuddly version of the real, malevolent killers who preyed on human weakness like a cancer. There's one scene in "The Traitor" that reminds us of this, where a teenage boy is killed for no other reason than who his father is, but not before chopping off his arm -- just because.

This Italian film stars Pierfrancesco Favino as Tommaso Buscetta -- that's "boo-SHET-a," not "boo-SKET-a," you should know -- the man who is largely credited with breaking the dam of omerta, the code of silence that held back a river of bloody secrets held by the mafia.

His testimony in a variety of trials in the 1980s and '90s resulted in the arrest and conviction of hundreds of mob leaders who had previously been seen as untouchable.

Needless to say, Buscetta became an instant pariah among his former peers. Many of his family members were murdered just because of their association, and there's one astonishing scene where his own sister screams to reporters that her brother should kill himself before he will be forgiven.

You probably recognize Favino from a few American movies like "Angels & Demons" and "World War Z." With his dark, craggy looks and smoldering glare, he's the sort of actor who can play cops or scoundrels, or scoundrel cops, and everything in between.

This is a long (2½-hour) movie from director Marco Bellocchio, who also wrote the screenplay along with four others whose names are too long to spell out. But I never found my attention wandering, even though the first part is largely a bunch of scheming and shooting while the second part is a succession of court scenes and the spaces between them.

As an Italian-American friend of mine once said, mafia movies tend to be just a lot of Italians killing each other and then wailing over their dead children. "The Traitor" certainly has that, but what it's best at is showing us how one loyal soldier felt compelled to break with the mob after 40 years.

I won't get into listing all the real mafia leaders names -- again, all those letters -- but suffice it to say that by 1980, when the story opens, things had changed in Cosa Nostra. Men like Buscetta swore loyalty at a young age and could convince themselves they were men of honor, even as they stole and killed for living.

They were criminals, but had their own rules and code, including such things as never endangering children or women.

By 1980 heroin and other drugs had taken over, and mobsters used to making millions were suddenly looking at billions. It was too much for Buscetta, who decamped his family to Brazil to avoid the constant wars and reprisals.

Maria Fernanda Cândido plays his third wife, Maria, with whom he had several children along with two grown sons, Benedetto and Antonio, from a previous marriage. Think Fredo and Sonny, respectively. They decide to stay in Italy and make names for themselves in the organization, and I don't think I have to tell you what that means.

Fabrizio Ferracane plays Pippo Calo, one of Buscetta's oldest and dearest friends, who urges him to return to Italy and take up the fight against their enemies. Luigi Lo Cascio is Contorno, a fast-talking Sicilian who has a way of making enemies of all the right people.

The other big figure in the story is Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi), the judge assigned to interrogate Buscetta after he was extradited from Brazil. There he had been tortured and hounded for years, without giving up so much as a whisper of information.

But after a couple of sessions with the quiet, probing court officer and the sharing of cigarettes, Buscetta finds himself opening up. He is angry over having innocent people killed for no reason, including those close to him. In his mind, it's the senior mob leaders who have broken faith, not him. His life is forfeit, so why not do something meaningful with it while he draws breath?

Things go from there. I was amused by the raucous Italian trials, where the defendants are locked up en masse at the rear of the courtroom, freely shouting insults at Buscetta during his testimony. Meanwhile he must face forward toward a line of judges (while protected by a bulletproof glass partition) and they essentially trade barbs while rarely making eye contact.

There's a lot of thematic similarities to "Goodfellas" here, as a guy who had been with the mafia since he was a teen finds himself forced to choose between sacrificing himself and everything he loves for nothing, or try to make it count for something.

Favino gives a lovely, layered performance as a man who was far from a saint but had an undeniable sort of bull's courage. Though his name is still spat out in much of Sicily, "The Traitor" bears witness to a terrific true story.

Review: "I Still Believe"

“I Still Believe” is a good old-fashioned three-hanky romantic tearjerker. Boy meets girl, girl runs from boy, boy chases and catches, girl gets sick, and the tears start flowing. It’s been a familiar formula with minor variations since “Love Story” 50 years ago.

It’s a heartfelt, engaging movie bristling with music, light, joy and sadness.

You could actually enjoy this picture beginning to end without realizing it’s part of the faith-based film pipeline. There’s no overt proselytizing and it has recognizable actors like Britt Robertson, K.J. Apa, Shania Twain and Gary Sinise.

If this biographic of musician Jeremy Camp weren’t set at a Christian college and feature songs with lyrics about faith and forgiveness, it would be pretty indistinguishable from any other flick at your local cinema.

I say that not as praise or disapproval, but simply observing how you can measure the success of outlier movements by when they join the mainstream.

I can’t say as I’m a big fan of Christian pop music or Camp’s songs in particular. To my ears there’s a generic sameness to them, starting with plaintive, plucked guitar strings and inevitably building to soaring crescendos for pronouncements of faith and glory. It’s a white-people aural pudding.

(Speaking of, good luck finding many POC in the movie.)

Apa plays Jeremy, an impressionable kid from Lafayette, Ind., who moves out to California to attend bible college circa 1999. There he meets Melissa (Robertson), who seems a little older and wiser, and immediately is struck by the strong pull they have. Jeremy has a gift as a singer/songwriter, and dreams of following in the footsteps of Jean-Luc (Nathan Parsons), an alumnus who broke out big.

Apa brings a lovable decency to the role. With his dark, lanky good looks and breezy charisma, his Jeremy sort of reminds me of Jim Halpert from “The Office,” minus the snark. Jeremy’s parents (Sinise and Twain) are struggling financially and have a younger special needs son, but there’s love and support all around.

I really like Robertson as a performer. She hasn’t broken through in any big movies, with “Tomorrowland” and “The Space Between Us” both missing and starring roles in several short-lived TV/streaming shows. There’s a probing intelligence behind her eyes, and she takes what could have been a very reactive role and really becomes the engine that drives this movie’s emotional momentum.

We see her fear at falling for someone so quickly – especially, as we soon learn, because Jean-Luc has feelings for her. Melissa asks Jeremy to keep their (chaste, of course) romance a secret.

But then she falls ill with stomach cancer, just as Jeremy’s music career is taking off. He sings to the audience of his love for God and his fiancé, and begs their prayers to heal her. For a while it seems like a miracle is in the offing.

No, this isn’t a particularly subtle or sophisticated movie. But it’s a well-told one, by directing team the Erwin Brothers, Jon and Andrew, with Jon also supplying the screenplay with Jon Gunn. They’re all veterans of the Christian film school and seem to know its rhythms well.

Young love is powerful, transformational… and sometimes tragic. “I Still Believe” gives us the highs and the lows, and what comes after.

Reeling Backward: "Erik the Conqueror" (1961)

"Erik the Conqueror" is pretty well a total trash movie. How I love it so.

This 1961 Italian/French production is more or less a ripoff of 1958's "The Vikings" starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. Cameron Mitchell and Giorgio Ardisson play sons of the Viking king who are separated as children and become enemies as adult warriors.

It's shot in DayGlo-bright colors by director Mario Brava, who spent 40 years bouncing around between adventure and fright films. Some call him the Italian master of horror.

The most interesting thing about "Erik" is that the title character is a purely tertiary figure. Ardisson wears a resplendent blond pompadour and loses every fight he's in. The real center of attention is his older brother, Eron (Mitchell), the bloodthirsty inheritor to their father's colonialist ways.

Mitchell was 13 years older than his acting counterpart, with short-cropped copper hair that suddenly turns brown for awhile about two-thirds of the way through the movie. Eron's characterization similarly flips all around, from calculating war chief to egotistical revenge artist to conciliatory lover of all men.

Twin sister actresses Alice and Ellen Kessler play the ladies the brothers fall for, Rama and Daya. They feel like they belong in a 1960s television comedy, constantly pretending to be each other, getting into capers and giving the high hat to impudent boys.

The Vikings apparently have some very dire rules about female vestal virgins dallying before their marriage, and at one point the eldest chieftain sacrifices her own daughter for having a tryst. Both the girl and her lover are tied to racks and taken out to the wilderness for the vultures to feast upon them.

Eron watches this, knowing that he is secretly carrying on an affair with Daya. However, it appears they are careful not to fully consummate their love.

In a terrific sequence, Eron vies for the title of Viking war chief. His main opponent is Garian (Joe Robinson), a blond muscleman, and to settle the issue they are required to smith their own weapons on the spot and then fight to the death with them.

I love the idea of that -- it's like having a car race but the drivers must first build their own vehicles. Eron wins but spares Garian's life, naming him his chief lieutenant.

The backstory is that 20 years earlier, Eron and Erik's father, King Harald (Folco Lulli), captured a portion of Britain but was betrayed and their colony destroyed. The villain was Sir Rutford (Andrea Checchi), who was ordered by the English king to seek peace with the Vikings but instead massacred them. For good measure Rutford also assassinates his own liege when he arrives to administer justice.

During the fight, Harald orders his boys, then perhaps ages 3 and 8, spirited away to safety but they are separated and Erik washes up on the British shores. There he is found by the just-widowed Queen Alice (Françoise Christophe) and claimed as her own child -- no one apparently contradicting the possibility of the king siring a semi-grown son before his death.

Harald had both boy branded with the same serpent tattoo he has on his chest to prove their lineage, which seems like a fairly easily faked bit of evidence. I had a vision of a "Spartacus"-like scene where men rise to their feet, tearing open their shirts and declaring one after another, "I'm Erik!"

Just as Eron is named the Viking war chief, Erik is made Duke of Helford by the queen and leader of the British naval forces. Each side apparently only has one ship, which clashes in the North Sea in a spectacularly foggy and cheap-looking contest.

Erik's forces are defeated, with the help of an agent of Rutford who sets fire to the hold. He washes up on the shore and is revived by Rama, instantly falling in love.

Eron takes Alice prisoner, suddenly morphing into a wild boasting barbarian. He names Rutford his regent and instantly leaves England, warning the knight not to betray him like he has done to every single monarch he's ever served. It sort of begs the question of why you'd invade a country just to put somebody else in charge of it.

The fight scenes are staged pretty well, with plenty of speed and heft. The final duel between Erik and Eron, with the titular character again getting his ass handed to him, is sweaty and exciting. Of course, it ends with some shirts getting ripped open just in time for them to recognize one another as brothers, instantly transforming from mortal enemies into besties.

The reunion literally lasts about 30 seconds before Rutford has an arrow fired at Erik, which Eron takes in his stead. As he lies dying, he pleads to see Daya last one time. Rama, in an act of extraordinary compassion and/or cruelty, poses as her sister to see him off.

"Erik the Conqueror" was pretty well hacked apart for its various international edits, being released in late 1961 in Italy as a 98-minute film but not making it to the States until mid-1963 at 81 minutes.

Interestingly, most versions leave off the very last bit of the ending, in which Eron's funeral ship is set on fire by Daya wielding a torch. The final excised shot makes it clear that she stayed aboard, sacrificing her own life to be with her love.

I'm not even entirely sure why I liked "Erik the Conqueror" so much. It has terrible production values, a silly story and many of the actors aren't even speaking the same language, resulting in some hilarious dubbing mismatches depending on what language the soundtrack is in.

It has the feel of a Spaghetti Western before there was such a thing, bounding with fleshy vitality even as it brazenly borrows from mythology and other movies. It's Hammer meets Leone meets Harryhausen.

Review: "Greed"

Tonally “Greed” is a sticky wicket. It seems very much to be a satirical send-up of the billionaire class from writer/director Michael Winterbottom starring his frequent muse, Steve Coogan, who have made the “Trip” series of movies and TV show together.

Wearing a gloriously saturated spray tan and glaringly white fake teeth, Coogan’s Sir Richard “Greedy” McCreadie is a buffoonish figure with a hint of steel underneath. A wheeler-dealer extraordinaire, McCreadie is the self-proclaimed master of High Street, the center of the British fashion world.

His MO is famous: he swoops in and buys up a clothing brand, strips it of all its key assets to line his own pockets, then washes his hands when the enterprise topples. He uses the nefarious but perfectly legal levers of finance to essentially use a company’s own value to buy itself, passing off one debt to cover another.

The story centers on preparations for McCreadie’s massive 60th birthday party in Monaco. It’s a Mediterranean mecca of wealth where the rich and famous park their yachts and their assets in its tax-free haven.

The shindig promises to be a bacchanalian feast of delights and pomposity. Everyone is to dress in ancient Greek clothing – Sir Richard is a big fan of the film “Gladiator” -- and they’re even building a Parthenon to witness staged fights with a real lion. Alas, the lion seems old and meek and the cut-rate Bulgarians brought in to do the job are mucking it up.

Isla Fisher plays Samantha, McCreadie’s ex-wife. She’s the very picture of unearned privilege. Despite their divorce they remain quite close, in no small part because his business enterprise uses her as the primary stakeholder for those aforementioned tax cheats.

And it’s clear the old fires still burn, despite the fact each has hooked up with a younger, hot companion.
A couple of other framing stores mix in: flashbacks to an interrogation before a British Parliament committee, during which McCreadie flashes his famous contempt for his perceived lessers (which is everybody). And a mild-mannered writer, Nick (David Mitchell), has been hired to write McCreadie’s “official biography, so he hangs around in the background acting as the audience’s eyes and ears.

Dinita Gohil plays Amanda, an Indian-Brit who acts as the tycoon’s majordomo, trying to handle a thousand details for the impending party. Shirley Henderson is McCreadie’s mother, who carefully isntalled the chip on his shoulder long ago. Asa Butterfield plays Finn, the son who openly despises his dad, musing about his affinity for Oedipus.

In one of the more amusing side bits, Sophie Cookson plays the pampered daughter, Lily, who is trying desperately to launch her own “famous for being famous” brand a la the Kardashians. (McCreadie is vexed to learn Kim is richer than he is.) She has a reality TV crew following her around to film staged turmoil with her boyfriend.

That’s the world of the McCreadies: faked and overpriced.

It’s a typically on-point performance for Coogan, but the story tends to go into respective cycles where he’s constantly raining verbal abuse upon his staff (without ever actually firing anyone, strangely) or twisting elbows making deals.

“Say four and shake my hand,” is his go-to move for lowball offers.

Toward the last third “Greed” grows much angrier and sadder, as we’re asked not just to resent McCreadie and giggle at his excesses but condemn him for the way he leaves a wake of ruined prospects behind him. Problem is, we’ve spent 70 minutes or so laughing at him so it’s hard to suddenly take him seriously as a villain.

The movie ends with what must be the longest string of title cards I’ve ever seen, with all sorts of facts and figures about how big-name fashion brands exploit workers in developing countries, paying them a few quid a day to make clothes that sell for a hundred times that.

Mixing rage and laughter is a very tough amalgamation, and not one “Greed” pulls off very well. Despite plenty of nice pieces, this movie is less than the sum of its parts.

Review: "Onward"

“Magic was real but faded away” is a central theme of most fantasy fiction, from “The Hobbit” on down. Ours was once a world of elves and dragons and unicorns, until technology took over, the magic was forgotten and things got boring.

If only we could recall the wonderment…

“Onward,” the new animated film from the Disney/Pixar, starts from an interesting halfway point. In its universe blue-skinned elves, massive trolls, pixies and other fantastic beasts rule the land instead of humans. But they also misplaced the magic and things grew dull. Until, that is.

The movie is basically a Dungeons & Dragons campaign with a mix of modern and medieval elements. Two elven brothers, Ian and Barley Lightfoot, receive a magic staff from their long-dead father. Cast the spell of “visitation” and dad will return from the afterlife for one day to spend with his sons.

Things go awry and only half of their father reappears -- the bottom half. They’re able to tap out some basic communications with feet but it’s not terribly satisfying. So their quest is to recover a rare Phoenix Gem so they can finish the spell and get their special day to bond.

Ian (voice by Tom Holland), just turned 16, is the shy and awkward kid. Dad died while he was a baby so he has no memory of him at all. His older brother, Barley (Chris Pratt), is twice his size and has 10 times the confidence, tooling around in a beater van he calls Guinevere and an ardent fan of Quests of Yore, the movie’s barely disguised stand-in for D&D.

Ian clearly needs to be more adventurous, while if anything Barley could stand to tone things down a bit. Their mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) quips about Barley setting a record for longest “gap year.” It’s not hard to envision that in a few blinks Barley could become that boisterous middle-aged guy you see in the hobby shop who has lots of passion but no career or family.

Directed by Dan Scanlon (“Monsters University”) from an original script he wrote along with Jason Headley and Keith Bunin, “Onward” has plenty of cleverness and nice throwaway jokes, like the road gang of surly pixies. (Another favorite: unicorns are omnipresent, bedraggled pests that raid your garbage like raccoons.)

They even make a joke about how these types of movies always have a missing parent, by giving us half of one -- and not the meaningful bit.

I liked Octavia Spencer as the Manticore, a once-famous adventurer who now runs a cheesy tourist trap and had to sell her legendary sword, the Curse Crusher, because of tax trouble. She gets around to lending a hand, once the karaoke machine is fixed. Mel Rodriguez voices Colt Bronco, a cop centaur who’s dating the brothers’ mom in between flinging off crusty jokes.

Of course, there is the obligatory “life lessons” stuff that every animated movie aimed at kids seems required to have. (Can’t it ever just be, “Watch a really good story and enjoy yourself”?) Here it’s about cherishing your family and what you have, even as you strive for something more.

It seems Ian is a natural at being a wizard, and with Barley’s help he gradually begins to master each spell in the Quests of Lore manual. If only this were true, I would’ve fireballed my algebra teacher long ago.

Recently my sons and I started playing D&D, or at least our version of it. I haven’t played since the 1980s and don’t remember the rules very well. We take turns being dungeon master, and basically we just tell each other stories and roll a few dice to resolve conflicts.

There’s a refreshing simplicity to “Onward.” (Not to mention being the first non-sequel Pixar feature in three years.) It’s an agreeable middling Disney cartoon feature, and  kids will undoubtedly enjoy the spells and wondrous critters. (‘Ware the gelatinous cube!)

 I won’t say it heralds the return of the missing magic, but there are plenty of sparks and few enough fizzles.

Video review: "Queen & Slim"

Angela and Earnest only had one date together, but it lasted six days and left an enduring legacy.

That's the story of "Queen & Slim," a powerful drama starring Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya in a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde tale with overtones of race, power and regret. It's not based on a true story, but has the weight of authenticity as they flee the authorities as virtual strangers and become soulmates along the way.

The movie begins with an all-too-familiar anecdote: a young black couple are driving at night when they are stopped by police on flimsy grounds. The officer (Sturgill Simpson), twitchy and white, orders them around and overreacts to Earnest's complaint that it's cold standing outside while the cop fruitless searches his trunk. Things escalate, shots are fired, and soon they're on the run, labeled as cop-killers.

The movie, directed by Melina Matsoukas from a script by Lena Waithe, diverges from a typical crime potboiler. Angela and Earnest, or Queen and Slim as they come to be known, are not in a relationship. They just finished their first date after meeting on Tinder, and frankly it didn't go very well. He was condescending, she was abrasive, and without intervention they likely never would've seen each other again.

Angela is also a criminal defense attorney, which you'd think would compel her to stop, surrender and let the system of law in which she operates take over. But no -- she knows all too well how the courts are rigged against African-Americans, and it's she who insist they flee.

Eventually they become a media sensation, dubbed Queen and Slim, carrying authorities on a chase from Ohio to Louisiana and Florida. Initially traumatized by their situation, they gradually embrace the experience and their roles as outlaw icons.

At one point Slim asks a young boy to take their photograph in front of their getaway car. They have traded in their looks of benign young professionals for street clothes from her uncle (Bokeem Woodbine), a hostile New Orleans pimp, and look very much the part of hardened criminals. This picture becomes a lesson in how an image can be distorted through its proliferation in pop culture.

I admired the way the filmmakers never quite join in the celebration of the duo, understanding that many of their actions are wrong, and that people have varying reactions to them according to their own beliefs. A black mechanic who fixes their car is indifferent, even contemptuous, while a rich middle-aged white couple (Chloe Sevigny and Flea) offer life-saving help even as they regret the uprising of anger left in their wake.

"Queen & Slim" is both angry and sorrowful, suspenseful and lyrical. We travel along with these two, feeling their sense of doom with every mile. We are hesitant to cheer or condemn them, but just wish their journey would keep going.

Bonus features are ample, starting with a feature-length audio commentary track by Matsoukas and Waithe -- two (or more) are always better than one with these. There are also four making-of documentary shorts:

• "A Deeper Meaning," looking at the film's themes and reverberations
• "Melina & Lena," about the two primary principle creatives
• "Off the Script," showing the evolution of the screenplay from first draft to final
• "On the Run with Queen & Slim," a travelogue of the settings and behind-the-scenes action

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Seberg"

Jean Seberg was an "It Girl" before we really had a name for that. She was a struggling American actress who went overseas and became an overnight success in the French New Wave, with an iconic role in "Breathless."

With her short pixie blonde haircut and torrent of real-life affairs and marriages, Seberg was also on the bleeding edge of the sexual revolution. Her career stalled in the late 1960s and early '70s, and by 1979 she was dead at the age of 40 in an apparent suicide.

Her story has largely been forgotten, but the biopic "Seberg" gives us a fuller telling, including the reason for her disgrace: a vicious and deliberate campaign by the FBI to discredit Seberg for her alliance with the Black Panthers, including her relationship with leader Hakim Jamal.

Kristen Stewart plays Seberg in a nuanced role that reflects her long, slow slide into paranoia and dispiritedness. At the start of the story she is so powerful and independent, driving her expensive sports car into hostile black neighborhoods without any fear of reprisal. She is in command of her own choices.

By the end, she has been withered down to a fearful, spiteful creature who feels very much at the mercy of circumstances beyond her control.

Anthony Mackie plays Jamal, and their early romance -- while both are married -- is quite torrid and erotic. There's one red-hot scene where they practice her acting lines with a real gun as Seberg casually flaunts her body to him: part enticement, part declaration of her sole ownership of her womanhood.

Otto Preminger picked Seberg from obscurity as a teenager to star in "Saint Joan," a traumatic experience both emotionally and physically. She learned to move past her victimhood, using men as they seek to use her.

But then the feds get their hooks into her, for really the slimmest of reasons. It was their (illegal) practice in those days to infiltrate and discredit upstart political organizations that threatened the status quo. Their surveillance of Jamal reveals their affair, and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (never seen but felt) seeks to use it to sow dissention among the Panthers.

Jack O'Connell plays Jack Solomon, the young FBI agent put in charge of the case. At first he sees it as part of the job, but comes to resist the hard tactics against a woman choosing her own causes and associations. He eventually takes steps to warn her, though they are not accepted for obvious reasons.

Vince Vaughn plays the mercenary partner, drinking hard and caring little about anything except following orders. His ethos is simple: do the job, reap the rewards. Colm Meaney plays a higher-up who has to crack the whip on Solomon's waffling.

Zazie Beetz plays Dorothy Jamal, Hakim's wife, who can accept a certain amount of philandering from her revolutionary spouse but draws the line at a famous white (in her eyes) dilettante. The women's eventual clash is bone-deep in its impact.

It's a well-acted movie, a slow-burn dramatic thriller than some may need time to warm up to. Director Benedict Andrews and screenwriters Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel opt for mood and lingering moments over move-the-ball plotting.

My main complaint about the film is it becomes too much the story of a G-man's conflict about participating in a starlet's destruction than the psychological terror she is experiencing. The movie needed to keep the focus on Seberg with Solomon as a tertiary character, but instead the middle section in particular almost feels like "The Lives of Others."

The revelation of the campaign against Seberg was actually revealed by the FBI literally days after her death, and figured into Congressional investigations of the time. her memory was pretty well mislaid after that, until now.

A disclaimer: I saw "Seberg" almost three months ago during the busy runup to the awards cycle. I didn't have time to rewatch it before writing this review, so my recollection for details may have frayed though I think my emotional memory is solid enough to write about it. Do with this information as you will.

Review: "Emma"

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
                    --George Knightley

I confess I do not have anything more than a hazy recollection of 1996’s “Emma” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, the second major film adaptation of Jane Austen’s iconic novel. Many saw it as a cinematic watershed, but its inability to last long in memory is a generally good indicator of my disagreement.

The third, nearly a quarter-century later and starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the intrepid Emma Woodhouse, surely will.

This is a sumptuous, mature and vibrant telling that cleaves quite closely to Austen’s novel. The book concerns itself with the trivialities of 1800s British aristocracy, and yet the movie has such a depth of feeling that it seems about the most important of things: love, trust, family, fellowship.

I am astonished to learn that director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton are both rookies making their feature film debuts. (Though de Wilde is a veteran of music videos.) This feels like the sort of confident, authentic work of people completing their dozenth movie, not their first.

At the center is Taylor-Joy, who announced herself with authority while still a teenager in “The Witch.” With her preternaturally wide, wise eyes and soft but direct voice, she is very much the picture of a pampered and privileged young noblewoman of countless blessings -- “handsome, clever and rich,” in Austen’s introduction.

Emma is sort of a kindlier version of Glenn Close’s carnivorous marquis from “Dangerous Liaisons,” a self-appointed matchmaker and string-puller. Instead of the intrigue of the Paris royal court we have the pastoral affairs of the town of Highbury where Emma plies her trade. She loves to make marriages while eschewing the notion mightily herself.

She lives with her father (Bill Nighy), a widower who is constantly terrified of chilly drafts and boring parties. He’s a stiff and a snob, but in a charmingly retiring way. Their constant companion is their neighbor, George Knightley (Johnny Flynn), who came into his considerable inheritance at a young age. He and Emma enjoy a friendly sibling-type rivalry, cattily exchanging barbs and remonstrations.

Flynn’s Mr. Knightley is fetching in a rough, scarred sort of way, and pokes fun at his more dandy-ish colleagues who drive a carriage 17 miles to London and back for a haircut. Flynn is briefly nude in an early scene for no reason I can detect, and if it were not for this the movie would not even warrant its mild PG rating.

As the story opens, Emma successfully fends off a marriage proposal from country squire Robert Martin (Conor Swindells) for the hand of her best friend, Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), an orphan of low station but pure heart. Instead she intends to match Harriet with the obsequious local vicar, Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor), but finds her interpretation of the lines of affection at cross ends.

Two figures are much talked about but do not actually arrive until nearly midway through the movie, shaking up the state of Highbury’s gossiping and hobnobbing. Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) is the son of Emma’s former governess’ new husband, and is thought quite handsome and charming, especially by himself. Jane Fairfax is another orphan of little means but is well-educated and accomplished, provoking Emma’s seething jealousy.

If you don’t recall the book or previous movies, I won’t spoil the fun of the various romantic intrigues, as unexpected assignations occur and fleeting exchanges of manners are misinterpreted as testaments of undying love. It’s all so very British.

Yes, it seems quite frivolous at first. But the cast and crew invest great import and emotion into their words and deeds. Here is a lovely, musical film that shows us the difference between wealth and gentility, and between romance and true affection.

Reeling Backward: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008)

No, we're not reeling back very far this week. The fifth installment of the Indiana Jones chronicle was supposed to come out in 2020, but has been pushed back to the following year. That gives us a chance to look back on the mightily controversial previous one, 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

It seems like it's been forever since that film, but if the schedule holds it will have only been 13 years since the last Indy movie, whereas it was 19 years between 1989's "The Last Crusade" and "Skull."

This seems like a good time to ruminate on the passage of time in film franchises and the aging process of actors.

There were a whole bunch of old jokes about the movie and in the movie, as star Harrison Ford was in his mid-60s when "Skull" was made. (The original trilogy roughly covered his 40s.) Pop culture was inundated with quips about him being the same age as Sean Connery was when he played Indiana Jones' doddering old dad in "Crusade."

In point of fact: Ford was several years older than Connery was, since in actuality the two actors are merely 12 years apart in age.

Ford will be 78 or 79 as they wrap up shooting of the sixth Indy movie, whose title is still a secret. Since all the movies have roughly tracked with the actor's actual age at the time they were made, it would seem the new one will be set in the 1970s.

Thanks to "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," the underrated TV series that ran from 1989 to 1993 (plus a few made-for-TV movies that were later re-edited into more serial episodes), the character's birth year is firmly established as 1899. Easy for me to remember, as it's also my paternal grandfather's.

George Hall played "Old Indy," the contemporaneous "host" of the TV show, who then would have been in his 90s. Notably, by then Indy had lost his right eye and wore a patch beneath wire-rim glasses. I'll be interested to see if this injury is explained in the new movie, sort of the way Ford's real-life chin scar was added into "The Last Crusade."

Astounding fact: When he stars in the next movie Ford will be older than Hall was when he played Old Indy.

Seeing "Skull" for the first time in many years, I was struck how frail Ford already appears to be in the action scenes. He actually moves around pretty well, including some jumps and swings he apparently executed himself. He even wriggles feet-first through a small opening between the cargo area of a truck and its cabin, looking relatively spry.

No, it's the punches where this Indy pulls his.

Old-school stunts have been a calling card of the Indiana Jones series, including plenty of fistfights. Punches are always accompanied by a signature sound effect that sounds more like a whiplash than the collision of flesh and bone.

Here we get the same aural crack while Ford's punching arms appear to be moving in slow motion. Indy's enemies -- the Russians this time -- still fly around the screen like they've been struck by a charging bull. The result is the fight scenes seem comically fake.

In general Indy subcontracts most of the heavy fighting to the greaser teenage character, Mutt Williams, in what is seen as Shia LaBeouf's breakout into adult roles. Of course (half-hearted spoiler warning here), about halfway through the movie it's revealed that Mutt is the son of Indy and his long-lost (or mislaid) lady love, Marian Ravenwood (Karen Allen, eternally radiant).

It's Mutt who takes on Irina Spalko, the sword-carrying scientist/kook played by Cate Blanchett in a torrid Ukranian accent that's just begging for a "moose and squirrel" reference. They duel with blades while each standing in the back of vehicles speeding through the Amazonian jungle in one of the film's signature scenes.

Spalko and Indy never exchange more than a few harsh words. Oh, I think she slaps him once.

Mutt first appears wearing EXACTLY the same outfit Marlon Brando did in "The Wild One," right down to the motorcycle and skewed riding cap. Once he and Indy start talking and he references his mother, I think most people guessed at his progeny. When Marian turns up as his mom, the cat's out of the bag and we're just waiting for the reveal to arrive. Mutt and Indy look nothing alike though there is a resemblance to Marian.

From this point on the movie (intentionally) becomes a hammy family sitcom, as the three exchange quips -- "Honey," "Daddy-O," "Junior" -- while fighting the rooskies and, in Mutt's case, literally swinging with the monkeys.

Ford's Indy has definitely mellowed at this point. He's not as excitable or egotistic. I enjoyed the part where they get caught in quicksand and Indy begins patiently explaining the difference between quicksand and a dry sandpit, emphasizing the difference in viscosity.

He's more pedantic professor than grim grave-robber these days.

Perhaps my favorite moment in the film is soon after meeting Mutt, when Indy tosses a line about having known "a lot of Marys" in his lifetime, and the young man leaps from the table, ready to fight a perceived insult of his mother. The Indiana Jones from "Raiders" or "Temple of Doom" would've quickly taken up the challenge, warranted or no.

Instead, he holds his place, looking directly but softly into the younger man's eyes. "You don't have to get sore all the time to prove how tough you are. Sit down. Please, sit down."

Pat Roach, the hulking wrestler who was Indy's punch-pal in the first three movies, had died in 2004 so Igor Jijikine was recruited to play the muscleman antagonist in this movie. He and Indy actually exchange a few good hits before the Russian is eaten alive by giant Amazonian ants. The CGI in this scene was attacked as hoky, but I think it still looks pretty good and certainly was fine compared to contemporary films.

With regard to the two biggest knocks against KotCS:

Yes, the "nuke the fridge" bit is ridiculous. Even if the blast didn't kill him the impact from traveling a few miles like being shot from a cannon would've. But plausibility has not been a hallmark of Indiana Jones movies.

I mean, in "Temple of Doom" an evil shaman reached into a dude's chest and pulled his heart out. Or take the scene where they're flying along in a mine cart, jump across a huge chasm and land exactly on the skinny rail lines on the opposite side.

Gimme the algorithms on that actually happening, perfesser.

On the space aliens revelation, I'm actually 100% fine with that. The film is set in the late 1950s, and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas explicitly said at the outset they wanted to do a science fiction  Indiana Jones flick. I mean, we see the incredibly elongated skull about halfway through the movie -- did you think thiswas going to end anywhere other than (not so) little spacemen?

Again, the first movies involved 1) the Lost Ark of the Covenant, 2) Evil demon magic, and 3) the actual frickin' Holy Grail. To those who loudly pshawed at lead fridges and aliens, I pshaw right back.

I'm genuinely curious what the forthcoming -- and, I've got to think, last -- Indiana Jones movie will hold. I can't imagine they'll try to present Indy as still being capable of even the scaled-down feats of KotCS. We've already heard Mutt won't be back, so is Indy going to recruit another stand-in for the boldest stunts?

They're also not going to kill him off, not without upsetting the established canon that has Indy living until at least the 1990s. There was a lot of talk a few years back about rebooting the franchise with Chris Pratt or someone else starring. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative, and perhaps even provided the final push needed for a fifth one starring Ford to get made.

Ford has joked about wanting to kill off all of his iconic characters, and he finally succeeded with two of them, Han Solo and Rick Deckard, just within the past few years. Curiously, he has never expressed similar thoughts about Indiana Jones, and in fact has been quite vocal about wanting to bring him back.

Indy's already older than his dad, so to speak, and is even senior to the eldest version of the character ever depicted. Whither Dr. Jones? Only time can tell, and how much can truly be left?

Video review: "Knives Out"

"Knives Out" is a supremely entertaining movie, though it's not hard to discern what it's all about: poking fun at the conventions of the Agatha Christie-style murder/mystery while wantonly indulging in every single trope inherent to the drama.

It ended up earning writer/director Rian Johnson, late of the much-maligned "The Last Jedi" entry in the Star Wars saga, an Academy Award for his original screenplay. It is indeed an intricate instrument of misdirection and humor, pointing the audience this way and yanking them that way, while forcing us to look here when we should be looking there.

It's a fun movie with a "big twist" that you know is coming, though still devilishly difficult to guess. It's the sort of flick you walk out of theater overhearing somebody loudly proclaim, "I saw it coming all along!", and know he's a dirty liar.

It's the prototypical "mansion with a dead guy and a bunch of suspects" setup. The uber-wealthy Thrombey clan has just encountered the death of patriarch Harlan (Christopher Plummer), a famous mystery novelist, under suspicious circumstances. It appears he took his own life, but is this really true?

 Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is the Southern-fried private investigator on the case. Certainly there is not shortage of people with sufficient motive to see Harlan dead. This includes:

• Walt (Michael Shannon), who oversees his dad's publishing company and has tried for years to get him to sell his work for movies and whatnot
• Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), the hard-bitten daughter who insists she's an independent success but is burdened with a lout husband, Richard (Don Johnson) and a peculiar son with Nazi-ish tendencies.
• Joni (Toni Collette), the New Age-y daughter-in-law who puts off an aura of self-confidence but is always hard up for cash
• Hugh (Chris Evans), the cad playboy grandson who recently had a loud falling out with Harlan, and seems to always be disappearing and reappearing at opportune moments

Other characters floating around the story are the police detective (Lakeith Stanfield) who outsources most of the detecting to Blanc; Katherine Langford as one of the nicer grandchildren; and Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan's caretaker who was much closer to him than any of his own children.

Far be it from me to give anything away. All I will say is that "Knives Out" is that rare movie that seems to dare the audience to guess where it's going, but always manages to stay a few steps ahead.

I wouldn't call this one of the best movies of 2019, as some have. In the end it's a fun, clever movie that exists to be fun and clever. Is that really such a bad thing?

Video extras are quite comprehensive. Johnson provides a feature-length commentary track along with his director of photography, Steve Yedlin, and actor Noah Segan, who has a rather small part. Johnson also provides his own "In-Theatre" commentary and stars in his own featurette, "Planning the Perfect Murder."

Additionally there are two deleted scenes with commentary, a Q&A with director and cast, some marketing photos and "Meet the Thrombeys" viral ads, and "Making a Murder," an eight-part making-of documentary.

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Review: "The Call of the Wild"

No, the CGI dog isn’t that great. Is it terrible? It certainly didn’t play well in the trailers for “The Call of the Wild.” And people have enjoyed dunking on the movie for the weird dynamic of using a human actor in green spandex to act out the part of a giant canine, which animators then digitally painted over.

But you know what? It actually doesn’t matter that much. The CGI may be a bit jarring at first next to a bunch of humans, but by 10 minutes in it didn’t bother me anymore. It’s probably not much worse than the critters in “The Lion King” from last year, the difference being there were no humans to foul up the juxtaposition.

I went into “The Call of the Wild” not expecting much. Honestly, I only went because my boys saw the trailer during “Sonic the Hedgehog” and insisted they wanted to see it. Pick them up from school, a little Chick fil-A, a boys’ night out and momma gets some well-earned solo time.

So I was surprised to find myself increasingly engaged in the story of Buck, the spoiled dog who is shipped off to Alaska for a life of adventure and peril in Jack London’s iconic novel. By the time he’s dog-napped from a comfortable existence as the pet of a wealthy judge and winds up part of a dog sled team, the animation issue had already slid away.

As good as the first half is, the second is pretty spectacular. Harrison Ford only shows up a couple of times during the early going, and in fact at first I was worried he was only going to be a bit player.
But his character, John Thornton, and Buck reunite around the 40-minute mark and the rest of the way it’s all about their relationship.

This is truly one of Ford’s most sensitive and soulful performances. I know that may sound strange for a dog movie, but it is so. There’s no steely hint of the action hero he was for so many decades, or the rapscallion charm of Indy or Han. It’s a truly vulnerable performance you can’t get out of a younger actor.

His John Thornton is a man steeped in regret, who has come to Alaska to make one last attempt at finding meaning in a life that has fallen into shambles. His son, who always dreamed of going on an adventure in the hinterlands, passed away and it eventually doomed his marriage. He spends his days in a tent on a hill outside town, drinking and stewing.

It is not an exaggeration to say that John probably wouldn’t have lived much longer without meeting Buck.

They leave the prospecting village, where Buck had been part of the mail delivery team, and go off for that adventure. It’s not too difficult to see that John is substituting the dog for the son he lost. But it gives him purpose and drive again.

As you may remember from childhood readings, Buck falls in with a pack of timber wolves, and spends more and more of his time away from John. The man is old and wise enough not to resent this, seeing it less as a fraying of bonds as the natural evolution of a pup who must eventually leave one family and start one of his own.

The movie, directed by Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch”) from a screenplay by Michael Green, follows the first part of the novel fairly well but departs in significant ways in the second. There are no other prospector partners for John, no attacks and reprisals on savage Indians (with not-terribly-concealed racial animus).

The search for gold is wholly dispensed with as a worthy endeavor; John and Buck travel to the edge of the world and find the mythical “lost cabin” that supposedly marks the way to a fortune of gold, and in fact they quickly find large nuggets of the stuff in the nearby river. But John uses it as pieces on a chess board or stuffs it into his pockets like lost buttons.

Dan Stevens plays Hal, the villain of the piece who does covet gold for its own end. If there’s a quibble to be had with the movie, it’s the sneering cartoonishness of this character, as he’s written and played. John and Buck encounter him early in the story, and Hal forms a hatred for them that seems far out of proportion to any offense they gave.

They may as well have named him Snidely and given him extravagant mustachios to twirl.

But, like the animation that brings Buck to life, this weakness quickly recedes in importance. The heart and soul of this movie is the bond between man and dog, and how two who are lost find a semblance of home in each other’s companionship.

There’s a wonderful stillness to this movie that we don’t see much at the cinema anymore. I reveled in scenes of Buck and John just encountering a beautiful vista, and simply stopping for a moment to take it all in. At 100 minutes, this is the rare movie that neither tarries nor feels like it’s in too much of a hurry.

I went to “The Call of the Wild” to kill time, and came away genuinely moved, and rejuvenated.

Video review: "Jojo Rabbit"

I’ve been reading anonymous testimonials from Oscar voters who said they wouldn’t even watch “Jojo Rabbit” because they found the premise offensive. With the proviso that they should do their job, it is a tough subject matter, especially when you just blurt it out:

In Nazi Germany, a young boy struggles to make his way after his father goes missing in the war, substituting in his imaginary best friend, Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, I know. Doesn’t exactly sound like the setup for a great comedy, does it?

Give “Jojo” a try, because it’s a terrific movie with wonderful performances -- including Scarlett Johansson as the mother, who deservedly got an Oscar nomination out of it.

Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) struggles to fit in with the other kids in the Hitler Youth club. Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson play hilariously inept/cynical instructors putting the kids through the motions. Jojo gets blown up by a hand grenade during training, suffering scars to his face that make him even more self-conscious.

His only real solace is talking to Hitler, played by Taika Waititi, who also wrote and directed the film. Hitler is sympathetic and helpful, but there’s also a clear note of manipulation to their interactions.

Things grow more complicated when Jojo discovers Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a slightly older Jewish girl, living in a hidden space in their house. He’s old enough to realize this means his mom, Rosie, is hiding her there and that if he turned the girl in his family would be broken up. So they slowly start to interact, with the start of a friendship and maybe even an adolescent romance growingt there.

Yes, “Jojo Rabbit” has a little bit of a “quirky for quirky’s sake” vibe to it. But it’s weirdly entertaining, and despite the jokes we find ourselves growing quite attached to these characters.

It may seem strange to feel something for German Nazis, but this is a dark comedy that finds a little bit of humanity in everyone. 

Bonus features include outtakes, three deleted sense, a feature-length commentary track by Waititi and a making-of documentary, “Inside Jojo.”

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Review: "The Photograph"

I've been a fan of LaKeith Stanfield since I saw him in his first movie, "Short Term 12." I think he's one of the finest young actors working in film today, though he's mostly had small parts in big films or big parts in small films. Most people would probably recognize him as the crazy neighbor in "Get Out."

I'm less familiar with Issa Rae, other than I thought she was about the only good thing going on in last year's execrable "Little." She has natural screen presence and solid comedic timing.

So I was excited to see them together in a romantic drama, "The Photograph." It's a fairly standard new-love sort of story, in which two wounded people meet, fall in love and then contend with challenges to their young relationship.

But writer/director Stella Meghie lends the story a certain kind of slow-burn soulfulness. We spend a lot of time in extreme close-up shots with this couple, almost like we're being enveloped in their embrace.

He plays Michael Block, a writer for the fictional Republic magazine. It's one of those quasi-intellectual New York publications where reporters apparently work on a single story for a couple of months. He recently broke up with his girlfriend, Tessa (never seen), and is contemplating a move to work for the Associated Press in London.

She is Mae, the daughter of a semi-famous photographer, Christina Eames, who has just died. She's the assistant curator for a museum in Queens that apparently pays well enough for her to afford a lavish, sprawling penthouse apartment in the Big Apple.

Mae's relationship with her mom was strained by her dedication to work, and is making her way through a long letter her mother left for her -- with another one she's supposed to give to her father.

They connect through the way every journalist finds love in the movies: by sleeping with a source. While interviewing a fisherman in New Orleans, Isaac (Rob Morgan), Michael comes across photographs by Christina, is intrigued by them and looks up Mae, who is organizing an exhibit of her mother's work.

He asks her out, and things go from there -- including a rendezvous in Louisiana that kicks things into another gear.

(Seriously, Hollywood: having sex with your sources is kind of a big no-no in journalism. Like, end-your-career kinda stuff.)

The story slips back and forth in time, as we witness the new romance begin to bloom and watch as an old one between Isaac and Christina founders. They are played in the flashback sequences by Y'lan Noel and Chante Adams, respectively, and their onscreen chemistry is just electric.

Lil Rel Howery plays Kyle, Michael's older brother, who offers ribbing advice and an example (cautionary tale?) of stable family life. Kelvin Harrison Jr. is Andy, a younger colleague of Michael's who looks up to him, and Chelsea Peretti plays Sara, their passive-aggressive boss.

Mae and Michael are both in the process of discovering things about themselves, and about each other. Mae wonders if she will have the same trouble maintaining deep relationships her mom did. Michael questions if he's capable of staying in one place and sinking down roots.

Some may find it an odd comparison, but tonally this movie reminded me a lot of "The Notebook," and not just because of the Southern setting. It's a movie about the joy of falling in love but also leavened with a sense of regret and loss. We hope good things will happen to these people, knowing that hearts break at least as often as they leap.

At the center is Stanfield and Rae. They're both beautiful in an offbeat sort of way, him with his slouching charm and her with a smile that could easily turn into a frown or a boisterous laugh. We enjoy just sitting back and watching them go.

"The Photograph" isn't the fastest-paced romance, but sometimes it pays to slow down and just bask in the moment.

Oscars postmortem 2020

It was a historic night at the Oscars, though not a particularly great one if you think the best films should prevail. C'est la vie.

"Parasite" became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, and also the first Cannes Palme d'Or winner to also take the Academy Award in 65 years, the last one being "Marty."

It's pretty rare for my favorite movie to win Best Picture, so I'm used to disappointment. I liked "Parasite" but it didn't make my top 10 or even my list of also-rans. I found it intellectually interesting but not very emotionally engaging. None of the characters really stood out to me.

Oddly, the maid is the only person I found myself somewhat identifying with. It seemed like it borrowed too obviously from other movies, particularly "Shoplifters" and Kurosawa's "High and Low," and the Tarantino-esque bloodletting ending pretty well lost me.

Lack of competition

Still, in an overall weak year for films there wasn't really a strong frontrunner to oppose it. Even though "1917" won most of the key preliminary awards, including the usually predictive Director's Guild prize, I think the groundswell of support for picking a foreign film swept people up.

I hear a lot of people calling for this to be the start of a trend, with more foreign films vying in categories beyond the International Feature. "Cinema is the global language," yada yada.

Honestly, I hope not. Aside from truly exceptional films from abroad, the Academy Awards have always explicitly been part and parcel of the Hollywood industry.

As I've said before, whenever people complain about foreign films not winning more Oscars, I ask them to remind of all the American films that won a slew of prizes at the Korean/Spanish/Swedish/whatever film awards. There's nothing wrong with being an institution primarily aimed at celebrating work from a particular country or language.

Nobody complains when the BAFTAs always go to British movies.

(Notably, Cannes and many other film festivals that give out coveted awards are explicitly international by design.)

I've noticed more and more foreign films creeping into the short film, documentary and animated categories in recent years, to the point of dominating them. Only one out of five documentary features and live action shorts were set in America, and as it turned out they both won.

I guess nativism is fine for those "smaller" categories.

I think "1917" was hurt by not having any acting nominations. Actors make up the largest bloc of Academy voters, and they love movies with meaty parts. Casting a couple of unknowns who were as much stuntmen as thespians undoubtedly diminished its chances, even with a few name actors in bit parts.

Playing footsie with QT

So it fell to "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" to take up the slack, and I think in the end people recognized it as a wonderful-looking movie with some nice performances and a haphazard train wreck of a script. But I lost track of how many times Quentin Tarantino drew praise from the stage, even by people who weren't in his movie.

It's the oldest story in the world: young, rebellious upstart becomes part of the institution. Strange the way he's beloved in the #MeToo age, given the fetishistic way he divides up women's bodies into subjects for his leering gaze. In an age focused on giving women their voices, here's a guy who literally resurrected a starlet so he could render her wordless.

Bong Joon Ho paid homage to both Tarantino and Scorsese in his acceptance speech, and then seemed to realize he couldn't leave out the other two guys, so he slipped in some half-hearted praise.

It was definitely a spread-the-love around night, with the four for "Parasite" leading the parade. All four favorites in the acting categories won, which is a little boring. Usually when you go into the ceremony with four locks, it means there's going to be one upset.

My money was on Renee Zellweger, who ended up winning for "Judy," a perfectly fine but not great movie. That's actually a not uncommon occurrence for someone to win Best Actor or Actress without their film receiving any other nominations.

I honestly don't pay much attention to the speeches -- that's when I'm tweeting out my responses to the award -- though I couldn't help zero on Joaquin Phoenix's utterly kooky and cryptic callout for... not stealing baby cows' milk, or something. It's not too often you hear an Oscar speech that talks about artificial insemination.

Look, dude, eat what you want and I'll do the same.

The utterly placid "Toy Story 4" won animated feature, thus securing this as the Disney/Pixar award even when they produce substandard fare. Thus it goes that the "How to Train Your Dragon" saga comes to a close with zero Oscar wins, losing to a Mouse House movie every time. How depressing.

In terms of predictions scorecard, I was right on 20 out of 24, which is pretty good for me. I think my best ever was 21. I missed on musical score, best picture, best director and sound editing. I actually got all the short film categories right, which is usually where I run astray.

So we pull the shroud over 2019, a slightly subpar movie year imho. Many of my favorites didn't even rate nominations, which isn't all that unusual. In the scramble to find foreign films to honor, a lot of terrific homegrown ones like "Harriet," "Late Night" and "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" were overlooked.

Reeling Backward: "The Longest Yard" (1974)

"The Longest Yard" became an iconic sports comedy without being especially funny or having particularly good gridiron action. It was remade several times around the globe, including a 2005 version starring Adam Sandler in which Burt Reynolds switched from the lead in the original to the grizzled old coach.

I haven't seen the newer one, and based on my viewing of the 1974 version and my general aversion to Adam Sandler comedies, I don't plan to.

It's a classic underdog story, in this case a bunch of inmates at an unnamed Florida prison who are enlisted to take on their guards, who play on a semi-pro team that's the pride and joy of the egotistical warden. They're supposed to just give the guards a tune-up for their upcoming season, but of course they have to go all out for the win.

Their leader is Paul Crewe (Reynolds), a former NFL quarterback who had his career cut short for shaving points. He hasn't touched a ball in a few years but is blackmailed by the warden into putting together a team.

The film, directed by Robert Aldrich ("The Dirty Dozen") from an original script by Tracy Keenan Wynn, is tonally weird. It never gets overly dark but there's some fairly abusive behavior by the guards and one horrific scene where an inmate is burned to death. But then we're supposed to laugh a few minutes later at all the male-bonding hijinks.

It pretty well ignores the darker aspects of prison life like gangs, drugs and rape. The biggest inter-prisoner conflict is racial as the black inmates segregate themselves from the whites, refusing to join Crewe's team at first. There are no Latinos to be seen and one token American Indian named, tellingly, as "The Indian."

As a protagonist Crewe seems more like an amalgam of traits than a coherent, well-defined character. I think the film would've been improved by giving us more of a glimpse of his life prior to the start of the story, where he's the boy toy of a wealthy woman, Melissa (Anitra Ford). He obviously loathes himself and the low state he's fallen to, essentially a hustler who sells his body for status and security.

I would've loved to have seen something about how he was doing exactly the same thing as a football player, but socioeconomic analysis is not in the mix.

In the opening scene Crewe lies sleeping while Melissa, wearing a skimpy negligee, tries to wake him for sex. He hautily refuses, throwing her off of him, and their encounter escalates in violence as he goes to leave, ending their relationship. Crewe eventually responds to her slaps and scratches by squeezing his hand over her face and then throwing her onto the ground. Despite her taunting, it plays as mean-spirited misogyny now.

He steals her Maserati -- actually a Citroën SM, a well-made but spectacularly ugly European import -- leads police on the sort of wild smash-up chase that became a hallmark of Reynolds movies, drives the car into the bay and later drunkenly assaults a couple of officers. Somehow this results in a sentence of just 18 months with parole.

Unfortunately, Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert) threatens to find ways to extend Crewe's sentence and make his time as miserable as possible. He's assigned to the swamp reclamation crew, which basically consists of just shoveling out muck and then slopping it back in. The other prisoners target him as "Golden Boy," contemptuous of someone who had it all as a pro quarterback and cheated his way out of the game.

Eventually he forms a bond with a few, notably Caretaker (James Hampton), the apple pie-faced hustler who can get you anything inside the prison, from drugs to getting laid... with an actual woman! Michael Conrad plays Nate Scarboro, an older NFL veteran who is recruited as coach. Nothing is ever whispered about either man's life or how they ended up in prison.

The middle section of the movie is the standard "putting the team together" sequence, much like "The Dirty Dozen," where men are briefly featured as they join the team, and then their struggles coming together as teammates.

Unfortunately, the movie introduces guys and then almost immediately shunts them to the collective background. We meet Samson (Richard Kiel), a super-strong giant with a bit of a glass jaw, who continues to stand out simply because of being 7'2". But Sonny (Sonny Shroyer), a simple-minded hayseed, gets lost in the shuffle, as do most of the others.

Even Shokner (Robert Tessier), the bald-headed murderer feared by every man in the prison, is given a lavish introduction and then quickly becomes just another piece of beef in a football helmet. Crewe and Caretaker talk about how Shokner knows karate, so we keep expecting him to pull some chock-socky moves on the gridiron that never arrive.

The film was notable for using a lot of real former football players, including from the NFL, Canadian leagues and big-name college programs. These include Mike Henry, Joe Kapp, Ernie Wheelwright and Sonny Sixkiller. The most notable was Green Bay Packers legend Ray Nitschke as Bogdanski, the most fearsome player on the Guardsmen team.

In perhaps the film's signature moment, and certainly one of its genuinely funniest, Crew intentionally hurls the ball into Bogdanski's crotch in retaliation for his dirty play, leaving him stunned and woozy. Then for good measure, they do it again on the following play.

Stern-faced Ed Lauter plays Wilhelm Knauer, the guard captain and leader of their team. He beats Crewe to a pulp on a couple of occasions, but ultimately comes to respect him in the end. John Steadman is Pop, the prototypical elderly prisoner who serves as a warning beacon to Crewe. Harry Caesar plays Granville, an older African-American who is the first black man to sign onto the team and becomes its soul.

Charles Tyner is Unger, the uber-creepy prisoner who takes an unhealthy like to Crewe, then tries to kill him when his advances are rejected. (This is close as the movie comes to addressing sexual relationships between male prisoners.) Alas, Caretaker instead becomes the unintended victim of Unger's light bulb arson trap.

Bernadette Peters turns up briefly as the warden's secretary, sporting a truly magnificent bouffant of blonde hair. She acts very surly and distant but later solicits sex from Crew in exchange for access to the guards' medical records and practice films. This time, the transactional nature of sex doesn't seem to bother him.

The last third of the movie is the game itself, filmed mostly in long shots from the sidelines peppered with close-ups in the huddle or when Crewe is calling audibles. Aldrich occasionally mixes in some split-screen, sometimes with three or even four images in the frame, but they're cropped poorly and not very effective.

In general I think you'd get a better game on contemporaneous TV, even with 1974 technology.

In my opinion, "The Longest Yard" isn't a particularly standout role for Reynolds, who found overnight success with 1972's "Deliverance" after struggling for 15 years in television and low-budget movies -- describing himself as a "well-known unknown."

"The Longest Yard" along with "White Lightning," "Gator" and culminating with "Smokey and the Bandit" solidified Reynolds' star persona: the cackling, macho scamp who always seems to be operating just on either side of the law. The keening, high-pitched laughter that would become his aural trademark is heard several times throughout "Yard."

By 2020 Reynolds is now firmly in the dim past of America's cultural memory, but for a good dozen years or so he represented the apogee of male sex symbol. Dark and brooding looks tempered with an easy smile and twinkle in the eye made him a hot commodity at the box office and in pop culture.

His nude centerfold in Cosmopolitan in 1972 was perhaps one of the unwittingly greatest PR moves in Hollywood history, though he later said he regretted it. His generously hirsute torso seems practically bestial compared to the denuded times in which we now live. Thick and muscular in "Deliverance," his body is appropriately more wasted in here, befitting a character who probably only exercised regularly when he was getting a paycheck for it.

With the arrival of shaved, 'roided-up figures like Schwarzenegger and Stallone in the mid-1980s, Reynolds' day as an A-lister was effectively done.

So "The Longest Yard" isn't a deep character study, a laugh-out-loud comedy or a good football movie. I liked a lot of the ingredients that went into it but not how they were assembled. If I knew nothing about the film's history I would guess it was a pretty average-ish flick that was soon forgotten.

This movie is like the nobody in high school who become a multimillionaire, but nobody can really figure out why.

Video review: "Ford v Ferrari"

Sports movies are seldom big hits, and car racing movies in particular have historically been seen as box office poison. Even rarer still is for such films to receive praise from their peers in the form of industry awards.

“Ford v Ferrari” is that exceptional success story, a truly terrific racing movie that sold a lot of tickets and got four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It’s certainly one of my favorite movies of 2019.

One of the reasons this film is so enjoyable is that while the racing scenes are directed very well by James Mangold, they’re not the heart of the movie. That’s the relationship between Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon), an ex-racer and struggling designer, and stubborn British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale).

These are very different men, at least upon first glance. Shelby is an affable cowboy/gearhead who’s a natural leader. He knows when to stand tall and when to compromise, which he knows he must do in accepting the lead of Ford Motor Company’s nascent racing team. Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) wants to show up his nemesis, Enzo Ferrari, who has dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans, winning seven of the last eight races.

On the other side of the coin is Miles, who is an independent-minded purist. All he wants is to run the best race possible in the best car he can pull together – which he often does, by himself, with spare parts. He has to be convinced – pushed, literally – to accept the job of lead driver for Ford.

In the end, these two men forged an everlasting bond while accomplishing one of the greatest feats in sports history… even if it’s one most people have never heard of before.

Remember when the Americans beat the Soviet Union in hockey at the Olympics? The Russians were mere pikers when it came to dominating their sport like the Italians had Le Mans.

The screenplay by Jason Keller, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth is tight as a snare drum, despite the 2½-hour running time. Terrific supporting performances bolster the tale, including Caitriona Balfe, Ray McKinnon, Josh Lucas and Jon Bernthal.

The script didn’t get an Oscar nomination, which seems like an oversight, while Bale getting snubbed in the Best Supporting Actor category will go down as one of the Academy’s bigger flubs. “Ford v Ferrari” goes as fast and as far as any speed flick ever has.

There aren’t a lot of video extras, but what they have is substantive. There’s a pre-visualization of the race sequences used to map out the action beforehand; “The 24 Hour Le Mans: Recreating the Course” featurette, which looks at how archival footage was used to reconstruct the track; and “Bringing The Rivalry to Life,” a one-hour documentary on the making of the film.

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