The Beguiled - Sofia Coppola (2017)

Remember earlier last year, right around Cannes time, when Sophia Coppola's "The Beguiled" was all anybody could talk about? We were all so sure the film would be renowned and celebrated come award season?

Surprisingly, Coppola's newest masterpiece, based on the novel by Thomas Cullinan, and the screenplay for the picture of the same name from 1971, has been overlooked, forgotten in just a few short months. 

Who knows why, but it's clearly a mistake most in the film community are making. They have a penchant for tunnel vision and short memories.

At any rate, we'll move on, knowing we're smarter than they are.

The plot of Coppola's latest offering looks, on its face, to be a pretty typical period romance. And it is. For the first hour, "Beguiled" paints us an emotional and typical love triangle. You can almost see the cover of the cheap romance novel with Colin Ferrell flashing his muscles under a white shirt that, for some reason, is torn open. 

Coppola starts the film out as a parable about showing simple kindness to all mankind, even one's enemies. 

A girl finds a wounded soldier Corporal John McBurney, (Colin Farrell), in the woods one day and brings him to a small school for girls. The girls are reticent about allowing a Yankee to recuperate in their proper southern school.

They reluctantly agree to let him stay with them because it's "the Christian thing to do." Soon, there's a spark, a small one at first, of romance between the Corporal and the school's Headmistress, Miss Martha, (Nicole Kidman in an chilling, muting, intense performance).

Then, Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) decides she'd like the Corporal for herself. 

Next, as we are just realizing another girl, Alicia, (Elle Fanning in turns a performance from pure into a vapid temptress), squeezes herself into the love triangle, Coppola takes a dark turn at the start of the third act. It's surreal watching the story unravel the true hostility that had been boiling under their skins all this time. 

The Corporal changes from a possible love interest to a villain on a dime. Coppola manages to make the change subtle and disruptive at the same time. Farrell gives the performance of the film as the third act makes the whole story the embodiment of what Southern Gothic really is.

Every character, each of the girls at the school, loses some innocence. The girls' virtue turns violent and that is the tragedy behind "The Beguiled." 

That is what  makes this film so dark.

That is what makes this film so lovely.

Quote Of The Day - Hope You've Seen This

Him: "It's not your fault. Nothing is ever enough. I couldn't create if it was. And I have to. That's what I do. That's what I am. Now I must try it all again."

Roman J. Israel, Esq. - Dan Gilroy (2017)

Dan Gilroy's legal drama/thriller "Roman J. Israel, Esq." is one of the most ambitious films to come out in 2017. It wants to be so many things: thriller, drama, an attempt at a biography, and squeezed between all that, just a bit of romance.

Roman, played by Denzel Washington, is an introverted lawyer who has dedicated decades of his life to fighting for civil human rights.

For decades, Roman has stood in the background, under the wing of his boss and mentor. He's not one to seek the spotlight. He prefers his quiet but important work to practice than the kind of legal work that brings one glory.

When his mentor is incapacitated by a stroke and later dies, Roman's world turns upside down. Now he has to be integrated with humans. Roman feels a great weight put on his shoulder. He feels alone in his determination to see that their clients' civil liberties are defended.

George Pierce, (Colin Farrell) represents a significant power shift in the firm. He now runs Romans' office and aims to turn the law firm on its head, threatening Roman's important civil work in the firm. Roman's smacked down every time he tries to work on one of his civil rights cases.

Roman's life, and his career, are put on the line as he has to start to decide whether or not he can learn to work as a lawyer focused on money.
This misery continues through the second act. We wonder if Roman has a breaking point. Are there circumstances under which he would be willing to sell out?

The rest of the film kind of melts into a law-thriller. There's no center, no focus. Roman's story feels incomplete as if we are just watching a merging of several sub-plots.

The trailer makes "Roman" come off as a civil rights film, but it's a disappointment when you find it's more or less just about a guy going through midlife crisis.

And the half-hearted romance they throw in could have easily been cut from the film without missing a single beat. Maybe that's why the film feels so unfocused.

But "Roman J. Israel Esq." does have virtue.

We watch Roman as he tries to take on not just one case, but the entire prison system.  It shines a spotlight on how malicious our justice system really is.

He insists that, "A person is more than the worst thing they've ever done."As we can see in the U.S. today, with mandatory minimums and unbending, merciless Prosecutors, the punishments handed down are usually excessive ,especially when it comes to young black men.

Of course, lawmakers who point this out are labeled "soft on crime," which would hurt their careers. That is why it's up to the courts to fix this problem and that's why I do hope a lot of people see this film. It's a fight most of America either doesn't know about or doesn't care about. That's why Roman's struggle is worth it.

As for Gilroy's effort itself: The entire film feels uneven and will leave you unhappy and confused. Hell, I can't even decide if it's a thriller or a drama.

So, I guess come for the politics, not the quality of storytelling.

Because in a word, meh.

I, Tonya - Craig Gillespie (2017)

Some people are deserving of a celebration of their life. Whether revolutionary (Spike Lee's "Malcolm X"), controversial (Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Downfall"), or bizarre ("Milos Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt"), biographical films don't always work.

There are three such films: educational, boring as hell and the odd ducks. (And when I say "odd duck," I do so with loving affection. People who think "odd" is wrong are fascists.)

Craig Gillespie's film "I, Tonya," which follows Figure Skater Tonya Harding, from her abusive childhood right through her boxing career is among the oddest of the odd ducks.

From the start of her earliest years, Harding (Margot Robbie), has never had anything or any companion save ice-skating. It's the standard life of a young figure skater. Practicing eight hours a day, having been forbade from eating anything delicious and stuck with her mother (Allison Janney).

In this film, Harding's upraising with her terrifying mother is given priority over her skating career, her troubled relationship with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), or even "the incident."

Harding's mom is definitely one of the mothers who decided to raise an athlete instead of a daughter. Janney plays the role of a controlling mother openly, controlling to the point of abuse, I felt like picking up the phone and calling social services. You can actually feel the venom spitting from her lips anytime she's anywhere near Tonya. She is brought to vivid life by Janney who makes her performance. Allison Janney is really the revelation of this film. She has popped up in my nightmares these past few days.

Aside from the way Tonya is, and isn't, nurtured, the film takes us through her relationship with Jeff Gillooly. We can see she falls back on funicular, when Gillooly starts beating her just like her mother has always done.

She struggles, with more than her figure skating. She also has to a great deal of energy with her mother's derision and Gillooly's twisted distortion of what support looks like.

"I, Tonya" has earned all of the accolades it's getting right now. It's gritty and honest. It stands among some of the darkest comedies I've seen.

Three Billboards Outside Belling, Missouri - Martin McDonagh

From my vantage point, Martin McDonagh's film, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," was unexpected. It had popped into the movie theaters around the start of December, without a lot of promotion. Or else I haven't been paying attention as carefully as I should.

Well, it has all eyes on it now, and rightly so.

Seven years after her daughter is raped and murdered, Mildred (Francis McDormand), has lost her patience with the police and their ineffective investigation.

Rather than repeatedly going to the cops, Mildred decides to take matters into her own hands. She takes out advertising space on three billboards which together, spell out, "Raped while dying" "And still no arrests?" "How come, Chief Willoughby?"

To say this causes a stir would be a silly understatement. The entire town comes rushing to defend Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson).

Sadly, in their minds, Mildred turns from a sympathetic mourning mom to a shrew throwing blame on who the towns considers to be a good man.

One the cops under Willoughby's wing, Dixon (Sam Rockwell), takes the situation very personally. To Dixon, Willoughby is the ultimate father figure, cop, and man, and how dare Mildred say anything bad about the man?

Things get ugly very quickly. It starts with just a small tit-for-tat between Mildred and Dixon then whirls up to the exercising of true hatred and then the story explodes.

"Billboards" is a cautionary tale about vengeance. The films demonstrates what can happen when even the most ordinary people allow rage and hatred to burn hotter and hotter.

I do understand why everybody is making such a big deal out of this film. Firstly, the performances by Frances McDonald and Sam Rockwell are a marvel.

And Woody Harrelson excels as he plays the world-weary Chief Willoughby.

As far as the story goes, it's a beautiful, escalating screenplay. In many films structured like this, the acceleration is sloppy and the movie loses its way. But McDonaugh takes us through what someone is capable of in their grief and holds it all together. That's why the film more than the ordinary eye-for-an-eye movies.

"Three Billboards Outside Belling, Missouri" may look like a run of the mill film of  escalating one-upsmanship, but it's so much more than that. The performances are close to perfect. Pair that with an incredibly subtle but intensely emotional screenplay as its foundation, and you have a small masterpiece.

So yes, "Billboards" lives up to the hype. It actually is among the best pictures of the year.

The Sexual Politics of "It"

Andy Muschietti's elegant adaptation of Stephen King's "It," in summer 2017, was warmly accepted by critics and audiences alike. But it was a horror film and didn't really spark of a debate on sexual politics or the nature of fear.

Most people don't associate horror films with social messages, but there are exceptions.

In February 2017, Jordan Peele offered up a perfect retort to our current national policy of "Trickle Down Racism." "Get Out" was the most political, meaningful film of 2017.

Likewise, last summer's explosively popular "It" has a lot to say about the feminism inherent in the way Beverly (Sophia Lillis) is portrayed. "It" is a progressive and unique look at the sexualization that every woman faces as they come of age.

The thought of Beverly's transformation from child hood to womanhood terrifies Beverly. The bulk of the film is relatively bloodless. The boys' fear comes in the form of sickness and suffers. But blood symbolizes Beverly's fear. When the concept of blood, after buying her first tampons, enters her life, the attention, even subservience, of all of her male friends shows its bizarre nature. They clean up her menacing, bloody bathroom without question. They would never question it. No matter what she said, the boys would be her servants. Why?

Critics of the film and the 1986 novel accuse the story of sexualizing children. To the contrary, it offers a decidedly woman's point of view that every teenage boy needs to see. It takes the focus off themselves and makes them think of what it really is to be a woman, or at least the hurdles Beverly faces.

An article from last summer on the website by Aja Romano: "It: the most surprising scene in the movie has nothing to do with clowns,"goes into a very particular and open study of the imagery of the film. The article digs down into a young woman's fear and how that fear is so bloody. Literally.

Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig (2017)

Do you like coming-of-age movies where a self-conscious teenage girl is surrounded by high school malevolence and simple and thick sleazebags finds her "inner-cool?" Well, you are in luck, my friend.

When you take a casual look at "Lady Bird", it seems formulaic, but it feels more natural than your typical cookie-cutter film. But the film has a voice that can't be dismissed as an element of any genre. 

"Lady Bird" is the story of Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan), a young wallflower who feels like at the age of seventeen, she is already stuck in a never-ending rut. And she craves adventure. More than anything, she wants to get the hell out of Sacramento.

Of course, her best chance is college. She's set on New York and is willing to almost anything to get there.

Standing in her way is her mother (Laurie Metcalf), who, no matter what, is determined to make her daughter go to a Catholic school. 

Watching the bittersweet relationship Lady Bird has with her mother is compelling. The two of them have excessively strong wills and fight constantly. And they turn on a dime, from the gentle way she holds a crying Lady Bird to punishing her by refusing to talk to her.

The unconditional love between Lady Bird and her father, Larry (Tracey Letts) makes the family dynamic so fascinating to watch. He serves as the one constant in her life.

Aside from her home life, the tension between Lady Bird and her two romantic interests make for some of the very best dry and ironic comedy I've seen in a while.

Gerwig's spirit and tone is quickly becoming an important voice to be reckoned with.  She has matured since her collaboration with Noah Baumbach on his masterpiece, "Francis Ha." I'm not discounting "Frances Ha", in fact it's one of my favorite film of the decade. "Lady Bird" shows a fresh, new voice we haven't heard before.

Greta Gerwig's directorial debut stands on the shoulders of the work she has done with Baumbach, but she has a striking, raw authentic voice that's rare in modern cinema.

And Saoirse Ronan is so endearing, she could easily become this generation's Molly Ringwald.

I've seen the film twice now and it still feels crisp.

On its face, "Lady Bird's" story should feel ordinary. What makes it great is the characters Gerwig has created and their quirks and dialogue that is freshly built for each one differently. 

And Saoirse Ronan is so endearing, she could easily become this generation's Molly Ringwald.

I can see Gerwig with a career as a kind of indie John Hughes. But I don't see her sticking to any kind of mold. Her writing is too fresh to fall into that trap.

Since 2012's "Frances Ha", which she co-wrote with Baumbach, I've been curious to see what we can expect from Gerwig and if "Lady Bird" is an indicator of things to come, the future of indie comedy is bright indeed.

The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro (2017)

I have to tell you. My head is swimming. Do you know the kind of feeling you get when you've just been introduced to a book or a song or a film that was so beautiful, you actually get light-headed?

I had that experience twelve years ago when I saw Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth." When the movie was over, I froze. I was so overwhelmed that I sat right in my seat until someone came to clean the theatre.

And that's the feeling I'm experiencing right now. I just finished watching del Toro's "The Shape of Water."

The film is about a mute cleaning lady who works at a top-secret government facility in the '60's. Her world is changed forever when she comes across the U.S.'s newest specimen.

He looks like a swamp monster. He came from the Amazon. The government wants to examine him to see if holds any information they can use in the race to the moon against the Soviets.

You see the Soviets sent a dog to space and now we have to one-up them. So they found a creature with a different physical make-up than humans to see if he was fit for space travel. The government plans to either shoot him into space or vivisect the creature to see if they can't see what makes him tick. They just want any clues that can help them speed up their race to the moon.

Meanwhile, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute cleaning lady, comes across the creature and doesn't see anything in him but a graceful soul, cut off from everything in the world. Dumb from birth, Elisa knows exactly how he feels.

Her friends, Zelda (Octavia Spencer) a co-cleaning lady at the base, and an older man Giles (Richard Jenkins) understand how she feels. And that says something about what kind of friends they are. If your friend came to you with a story about how she's attracted to a swamp-thing, how sympathetic would you be? Or would you dismiss her as a freak?

But Elisa's friends accept her feelings at face value and agree to help her rescue him.

They are up against Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), the agent in charge of this project. He looms over the whole film like a dark shadow. He is a sadist and, when all is said and done, is eager to destroy the creature Elisa has fallen for.

The film evolves into an elegant fantasy/love story.

It's about how the forces of evil can take the shape of the institutions we are expected to trust and accept. And conversely, how the misfits are often the good guys.

One of the most brilliant pieces to this films is Sally Hawkins' performance. Del Toro asks her to go to places most actress have never been to and she dives into her character, her innocence, boldness and goodness seamlessly.

Watching all of this wonder through her eyes is part of what makes this film so exceptional.

So please, seek out and enjoy this intense, dark, beautiful fairy tale.