Review: A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.

It's easy to relate to Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) - a stand-in for Tom Junod, who wrote the piece "Can You Say... Hero?" for Esquire in 1998. He's a cynical writer - much like myself - who's not a big fan of sentimentalism or overeager sincerity. And yet, he can't help but admit that Fred Rogers - that's Mr. Rogers (Tom Hanks, who doesn't look like the man, but nails his mannerisms) to you - seems like a pretty sincere guy who means every word he says.

It's hard not to love Mr. Rogers - not just for the ways in which he talks matter-of-factly to children about such heavy topics as death and war and helps them find methods of channeling their anger or hurt into something constructive, but also in how radical his show was at the time it premiered in 1968. One of his most famous episodes involved him inviting an African American friend to bathe his feet in the same tub as Mr. Rogers at a time when a number of corners of the United States were still segregating pools. That's not referenced here, but Vogel comes to realize pretty quickly during his interviews for the Esquire piece that Rogers is the real deal.

Marielle Heller's "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is set up like an episode of a Mr. Rogers show. He waltzes in singing his theme song, takes off his shoes and dons his red cardigan. He displays a picture board with photos of friends - one of whom is Lloyd - and talks about the fact that his friend has a problem. This sequence is, of course, in the realm of fantasy, but it sets up Vogel's dilemma. By the way, did I mention that Mr. Rogers is a supporting character, and that the film is centered around Vogel's new fatherhood and distant relationship with his previously absent father (Chris Cooper)?

As the film opens and Vogel gets his Esquire assignment - he doesn't take well to writing about a "smarmy children's show host" - Vogel is on his way with his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), to his sister's third wedding (some good jokes are to be had on this matter). There, he runs into his father, who's drunk as usual, and fisticuffs ensue. Feeling pretty low, Vogel heads to Pittsburgh with his assignment of interviewing Rogers.

From the start, he finds the TV personality disarming. For starters, Rogers not only gives rather candid answers, but he also questions Vogel about his own life, and listens intently. Vogel isn't too pleased about this at first, but he eventually rolls with it. There's a moment in which Vogel is attempting to get behind the mask, so to speak, of whom he believes Rogers to be, only to find that the man is exactly the same person in the flesh as he is on TV. Rogers tells him that he tries to get children to find ways to cope with life's harsh elements by finding ways to channel their anger and frustration - whether it's swimming laps (which Rogers does himself) or pounding the low keys on a piano.

Heller, whose previous film was the hilariously melancholic "Can You Ever Forgive Me?", once again focuses her lens on a troubled soul - Vogel, that is, not Rogers. Her latest film has a really great final sequence involving Rogers shooting an episode of his TV show, and then sitting down at the piano. What he does while playing speaks to the fact that even the kindest of souls might have their own demons, and need ways to keep them at bay.

Rhys, who was so great on "The Americans," really carries the film in the lead role, and Hanks is, not surprisingly, very good as Rogers - although he doesn't look like him, what other actor could inhabit the man's inherent kindness and patience better than Hanks?

While last year's lovely documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" got to the heart of who Rogers was, and was a tearjerker in its own right, Heller's film uses the character of Mr. Rogers to show how adults can continue to learn by putting themselves in children's shoes and remembering how they felt at a young age - a piece of advice that Rogers imparts to Vogel during their interview. This is a cathartic film about kindness and understanding at a time when our world could use a little more of both.

Review: The Irishman

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Martin Scorsese's final word on the mob genre is more of a funereal affair than one might expect from the director of such vivacious gangster classics as "Goodfellas" and "Casino." While the director's three-and-a-half-hour opus bears some stylistic resemblances to those previous films, it also focuses on regret and mortality, and in doing so reminded me of Sergio Leone's long and fragmented - albeit brilliant - "Once Upon a Time in America."

The film opens with a long winding tracking shot - the type employed in "Goodfellas" - through a nursing home in the early 2000s, where we find an aging man named Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro in his best performance in ages) sitting in a wheel chair. The song "In the Still of the Night" plays on the soundtrack, and it will act as a motif in the picture. Frank begins narrating his story - first as voice over, then out loud - and it's a doozy of a tale that spans from World War II to the early 21st century and includes the Bay of Pigs, the JFK assassination, the famed Umberto's mob hit in Little Italy and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa (portrayed by a wily Al Pacino).

Frank claims to have some involvement in each of these historic milestones, although we get the impression that he's possibly an unreliable narrator. Indeed, some have questioned the veracity of Sheeran's claims in the book "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt, to whom Sheeran told his story, but "The Irishman" isn't as concerned with the historical record as it is this particular character's portrayal of it, and how it comes to haunt him as he withers away into old age.

For a movie obsessed with death, sin and regret, "The Irishman" is often one of Scorsese's funnier movies, from an ongoing joke involving Frank and Philadelphia crime boss Russell Bufalino's (a fantastic Joe Pesci) wives wanting to pull over to have a smoke during a road trip to a scene in which a mobster (Bobby Cannavale) catches a lower level crook in a lie regarding his mother's death. Also, Frank - who was involved in numerous murders and frequent violent behavior - relays the story with a cheerful tone, that is, at least for the film's first two-thirds.

Anna Paquin has a bit role as Peggy, one of Frank's four daughters, and much has been made over the fact that she has so few lines in the film. Her character, described as a shy girl, acts somewhat as a witness to Frank's behavior. Early in the movie, she's shoved by a grocer and her father responds in an extreme manner. Later, as his crimes become more violent and he sneaks out of his house in the night to perform them, it is often Peggy there watching on the staircase. She might not know exactly what he's up to, but she knows it's something wrong.

Frank's parenting is one of two things that haunt him during the film's final 30 minutes, in which we see him estranged from his family, picking out a coffin and trying, but failing, to express remorse while talking to a priest. The other thing that plagues his soul is the disappearance of Hoffa, to whom Frank was a right-hand man and good friend.

The relationships between two sets of men - Frank and Russell, who acts as a father figure to Sheeran, and Frank and Hoffa, who often share hotel rooms together when traveling to visit local union chapters - is often the heart of the movie. During one hotel stay, Frank notices that Hoffa likes to keep his bedroom door slightly ajar when he sleeps at night. That shot bookends the film, but in the second instance looking in on a room inhabited by an ailing Frank. There's a world of meaning to be read into it.

Scorsese is arguably the greatest living filmmaker, and "The Irishman" feels like a retrospective of his work - while at the same time having a tone that's different from his previous mob movies. Stylistically, the picture owes as much to his recent "Silence" as it does "Goodfellas." It also employs another trait that might have seemed like an indulgence with another director, but works well in adding to the somber atmosphere: when a number of mob figures are introduced, text appears on the screen next to them indicating the date and manner in which they were killed, and most of the time it's not by natural causes.

And oddly enough, "The Irishman" reminded me of David Lynch's fabulous "Twin Peaks: The Return" in some ways. That film also used an oldies ballad - "My Prayer" - to act as a motif that tied together pivotal scenes, while also driving home the fact that while you can look back on the glory days, you can never quite recover them. Much like Lynch's work, Scorsese's latest doesn't have the youthful, exciting vibe of "Goodfellas," but rather a mournful looking back by an old man on a turbulent life full of regrets.

This is one of the year's best movies, and it's the type that you need at least two viewings to fully grasp. At age 77, Scorsese might be winding down the genre with which he has long been associated, but "The Irishman" isn't just a greatest hits package. Instead, it's a powerhouse movie that observes a man who, by the nature of his work, shouldn't have lived as long as he did, and his punishment is to live with the ghosts that he helped to create.

Review: Ford v Ferrari

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

I've never particularly been a car aficionado, so while the concept of flashy vehicles traveling round and round in circles and loud engines revving didn't exactly sound like my cup of tea, James Mangold's period piece racing movie "Ford v Ferrari" is actually pretty good.

The film tells the apparently true story of Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts, whose portrayal gives the impression that the man had some sort of painful, chronic gas) giving the go-ahead to create a Ford vehicle that could defeat the much faster Ferrari in the grueling, 24-hour Le Mans race in France - a feat that had never been performed by an American car up until 1966 when this film is set.

The two men credited here with accomplishing this feat did so at a time when they'd nearly hit bottom. We meet race car driver Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) at the film's beginning as he has just won a race, but learns shortly thereafter that a heart condition will prevent him from ever racing again. Ken Miles (Christian Bale) is a cranky British driver who finds out that the IRS has shut down his mechanic's shop, and he is desperate to find a way to support his wife (Caitriona Balfe) and young son (Noah Jupe).

When Ford learns that Ferrari is verging on bankruptcy - his strive for perfection in his automobiles has cost him a pretty penny - he and some of his corporate stooges (played by Jon Bernthal and a particularly slimy Josh Lucas) come up with a scheme to purchase Ferrari, although the deal might prevent Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) from racing his cars at Le Mans. Ferrari insults Ford and strikes up a deal with Fiat, and we later learn that having talks with Ford was merely a bargaining tool for the Italian carmaker.

Angered, Ford becomes determined to defeat Ferrari at Le Mans, despite the Italian car being significantly better made for racing and the fact that Ferrari had won the coveted prize for many years in a row. Shelby is brought on board to lead the effort, and he insists that Miles is the driver, although Lucas' Leo Beebe is hellbent on keeping Miles from being behind the wheel during the race due to Miles' occasionally erratic behavior.

"Ford v Ferrari" is in many ways a typical sports movie, but it's unique in that it asks us to root for two guys - Miles and Shelby - who are doing the bidding of some others - Ford and Beebe - who are not so likable. Beebe is a corporate shill who wants nothing more than to perfect a brand for the purpose of making large profits, while Ford is portrayed as a casual bigot and the type of guy who threatens his workforce to come up with bold ideas - that he seemingly can't come up with himself - or he'll fire them all. In some ways, the snootily-portrayed Ferrari is the more sympathetic of the two carmakers because there appears to at least be some passion involved in his enterprise.

The film is loaded with gripping racing sequences, although the picture hits most of the formulaic beats you'd expect. It's Damon and Bale who keep us interested throughout as two men who have an occasionally love-hate relationship, but also grudging respect for one another. For those unfamiliar with how the 1966 Le Mans turned out - as well as the fate of those involved - there's some honestly earned emotion late in the picture.

"Ford v Ferrari" has some trappings of a blockbuster film - it's sleek design, fast paced action sequences and visual style - and yet it's the type of movie that doesn't get made much anymore, at least by major studios, which mostly deal in franchises, sequels and pictures that are preprogrammed for success. Mangold's film employs some old-fashioned storytelling, and for the most part it's pretty enjoyable.

Review: The Good Liar

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

It's somewhat of a task to review Bill Condon's "The Good Liar" while keeping in mind not to give away spoilers because the entire film is a series of plot twists that inform where the story goes next. That being said, I'd imagine a number of viewers will see where the picture is heading ahead of time - I did, at least in terms of the film's biggest plot twist, despite not being able to foresee the various details regarding it - but I still make it a point to try not to ruin movies for those who want to go in knowing little to nothing.

The film is a thriller about a con man named Roy (Ian McKellen at his most vicious) who pulls off a variety of schemes to bilk wealthy people out of their money, and doesn't mind resorting to violence when necessary. In the film, he meets a widowed woman named Betty (Helen Mirren) online, and we know all along he's coming up with ways to steal her money - which, according to Betty, adds up to a few million dollars.

"The Good Liar" is a cat-and-mouse type of thriller, in which various twists realign what we think about each of the characters and cause us to reassess who we think will come out on top. Betty has a grandson named Stephen (Russell Tovey) who suspects something is up with Roy, and who continually drops warnings to his grandmother, who is quick to come to Roy's defense.

The picture includes several flashbacks to World War II-era Germany - the film itself is set in 2009 for reasons obviously involving the characters' ages - that slowly unveil exactly what is going on and why various characters act the way they do. The film doesn't exactly do this organically - scenes set in the past pop up at the end and reveal details at which no one watching the film could have guessed, rather than laying clues throughout the movie.

On the one hand, we cringe when Roy swindles Betty into merging her bank account with his - this takes place after the two have hit it off and, during a somewhat unbelievable sequence, decide to become roommates - but on the other, we always feel as if the rug is about to be pulled out from under us again.

Condon's body of work has included heavy dramas (the great "Gods and Monsters" and "Kinsey"), musicals ("Dreamgirls") and even a "Twilight" sequel (not one of his better outings as a director), but "The Good Liar" fits more in line with some early, low budget mysteries that he made. While his latest is better than those pictures, "The Good Liar" mostly works because two great actors are able to play off each other and have a little fun in the process. It's an amusing enough thriller that works in spite of some storytelling choices that are at times a little obvious and as well as a good showcase for its great leads.

Review: Pain & Glory

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Looking back and moving forward is the best way to describe the theme of "Pain & Glory," the latest film from the great Pedro Almodovar and the director's best movie in 13 years. As the title says, it's a film about pain, both the physical and spiritual kind, while the glory is mostly considered by the film's lead character - a retired filmmaker named Salvador (Antonio Banderas in what is likely a career best performance) - as a thing of the past.

At the film's beginning, Salvador, who no longer makes movies due to a series of physical ailments that make it painful for him to move around too much, is contacted about an upcoming screening of a film he made 30 years before that he didn't like at the time, but has now achieved status among critics as somewhat of a classic. At the time, Salvador had a falling out with his leading man, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia), because he didn't believe his performance worked well in the picture, but he's now come to respect it.

Salvador reconnects with Alberto, and their friendship gets off to a rocky start after Salvador, during a question and answer session on their film, once again insults Alberto's performance. It also doesn't help that Alberto gets Salvador hooked on heroin to compensate for the lack of relief from the medications he takes. Alberto takes an interest in a piece of writing titled "Addictions" that he finds on Salvador's computer, and wants to turn it into a stage production, but Salvador refuses on the grounds that the work is too personal.

But he eventually relents, leading to one of the film's most moving sequences after Alberto is approached by a man named Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), who inspired a key character in "Addictions" and was Salvador's former lover, after a performance.

Scenes from various periods of Salvador's life are intertwined throughout the film, and it's only during the very last scene when we realize exactly what Almodovar is up to. It's a clever ending that makes you view the material a little differently than at the time you were watching it.

There are some lovely scenes depicting Salvador's childhood, during which he is raised by his mother (Penelope Cruz) in a small Spanish village. Salvador and his mother live in a home that looks like a cave, and it's there that he will have a formative experience involving an illiterate young man who has agreed to paint their house in exchange for reading lessons from Salvador. There are other scenes from a seminary where Salvador grudgingly attended school and flashbacks to moments with his ailing mother before she died.

Clearly, Salvador is a stand-in for Almodovar and the film feels as if it's a deeply personal one. Federico, who was a drug addict at the time of his affair with Salvador, tears up during a line in Alberto's performance of "Addictions" in which the play's author notes that he doesn't know if  Federico was saved by the place he ran off to, but that the cinema saved him.

Many filmmakers - most notably, Federico Fellini - have made autobiographical films about the making of movies that grapple with such topics as upbringing, artistic stasis and mortality, so it's no surprise that "Pain & Glory" has seen some comparisons to "8 1/2." It's the director's most openly emotional film since "All About My Mother," and it's a tribute to the concept that while great art is often borne out of pain, the glory that results has a healing power. This is one of Almodovar's best films and one of the finest pictures of the year.

Review: Doctor Sleep

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Making a sequel to an iconic horror movie like "The Shining" is seemingly a daunting task because it's unlikely any other director than Stanley Kubrick could match the original's foreboding style and mysterious aura. Director Mike Flanagan does sort of an interesting thing with "Doctor Sleep," a film based on Stephen King's sequel novel, by marrying some elements of Kubrick's 1980 film with King's own take on the story.

King famously hated Kubrick's film - which I'll never quite get, although I understand the original story was a personal one for the author, while the director had his own specific vision for the narrative - so Flanagan must have done some wrangling to get his blessing for a film that follows up the original ending of the 1980 film (which differed from that of the book).

"Doctor Sleep" is an imperfect film - the picture's lead group of villains, known as the True Knot, are at once compelling and slightly ridiculous, the former mostly due to Rebecca Ferguson's sinister presence as Rose the Hat, who leads a band of villains who capture young people who "shine" and basically eat their soul, and the latter because the story over-explains how "the shining" works and how the True Knot feeds on the "steam" of those who have it as they are dying. It's sort of similar to when they explained "the force" in those "Star Wars" prequels.

That being said, there are some very strong sequences in the film - including a horrifying scene in which a young boy played by Jacob Tremblay is devoured by the True Knot and the visit in the finale to the Overlook Hotel, although it plays heavily on nostalgia - and Ewan McGregor gives his best performance in some time as Danny Torrance, the young boy who escaped Jack Nicholson's crazed father in the original film and has now grown up into an alcoholic who lives in a dingy apartment.

But Danny meets a kind man (Cliff Curtis) who gives him a chance and gets him into AA, and eventually finds himself in a long-distance "shining" friendship with a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran), who makes her powerful presence known to the True Knot and, as a result, puts herself in grave danger.

While "The Shining" worked brilliantly as an epic - and epic-length - horror film,  the running time for "Doctor Sleep" feels a little on the longish side, but it mostly remains compelling throughout. It takes some guts to make a sequel to a film that is among the most revered in the horror genre, especially 39 years after the fact, but Flanagan's film mostly works. No, it doesn't hold a candle to Kubrick's visionary work, but it's one that horror movie fans will certainly want to seek out.

Review: Parasite

Image courtesy of Neon.

Once again incorporating elements of genre, while at the same time defying them by vacillating between tones and moods, Bong Joon Ho's Palm d'Or winner "Parasite" is every bit as good as you've heard. This bleak, hilarious, violent and strangely moving tale of the haves vs. the have nots is the Korean director's latest thrilling take on the structural inequality that has become a topic du jour around the globe in recent years.

Following two fantasies that tackled the subject - the very good "Snowpiercer" and "Okja" - the director's latest is more down to earth in its storytelling, although the director's flare for the fantastic is only kept at bay for so long.

The film starts out as a comedy, of sorts, as a young man named Kim Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) who lives in squalor with his semi-con artist family - father Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song), mother Chung-sook (Hye-jin Jang) and teenage sister Ki-jung (So-dam Park) - is given a golden opportunity: a more well-to-do friend is leaving to go abroad and suggests that Ki-woo take over his position as tutor to a rich young girl named Da-hye (Ji-so Jung).

Ki-woo manages to impress Da-hye's easily fooled mother, Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo), and then somehow finagles his sister into a job tutoring the rich family's hyperactive son, Da-song (Hyun-jun Jung), as well as nabbing a maid job for his mother and a driver gig for his father, who shuttles around Yeon-kyo's businessman husband, Dong-ik (Sun-kyun Lee).

The catch is that the entire Kim family pretends as if they are not related as a scheme to bring in more money in the hope that they can escape their impoverished way of life. However, a few people stand in their way - the Parks' current driver and a longtime housemaid named Moon-gwang (Jeong-eun Lee), who had worked for the previous owner of the house, a rich architect. These people are easily pushed aside at first, although one later returns and stumbles upon the Kims' plot. As it turns out, Moon-gwang is harboring her own secret in the basement of the Parks' luxurious pad.

Part social commentary and part Hitchcockian thriller - all the while a Bong Joon Ho picture in every way - "Parasite" juggles its various tones deftly, moving from sly comedy with a satiric dose of social commentary to bloody thriller without one hardly noticing the change in mood. It's difficult to switch back and forth as the director does here, but he manages to do so impressively. And just when you think the film has settled on a violent and bleak finale, you get a coda that powerfully drives home the filmmaker's thoughts on income inequality.

There is much humor to be found in the film's first half and more than a few plot twists and nerve jangling moments later in the picture that would feel at home in a classic thriller, but it's the way that the director does so while also exploring the injustices the rich heap upon the lower class that serves them and the resentment built up by those who are at the mercy of others with greater economic status that's so impressive in "Parasite."

When all eventually explodes, it's less cathartic than it is horrifying. A final, naive letter from one character who survives the melee to another powerfully drives home the hopelessness of the cycle in which several of the film's characters are stuck. "Parasite" is a real stunner, and certainly one of the year's best movies.

Review: Jojo Rabbit

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" works a whole lot more than I thought it would - or than it should, for that matter. Films that incorporate lighthearted elements - or are outright comedies - involving the Holocaust always take a certain amount of risk in terms of tone - although there have been good ones by Mel Brooks and Roberto Benigni. Waititi makes it clear from the start that his picture is going for laughs, although it later draws other emotional responses.

The picture kicks off feeling like a kookier version of a Wes Anderson Holocaust movie. The lead protagonist, Jojo Rabbit (Roman Griffin Davis), so named for his inability to follow a command from an SS crony to kill a small woodland creature, is a young zealot who is part of the Hitler Youths. At the film's beginning, Jojo disastrously attempts to show off while throwing a grenade, and this quickly cuts his Hitler Youth days short.

No matter because Adolf Hitler himself happens to be the boy's imaginary best friend (and played by the director). I know, this sort of whimsical approach shouldn't work, and there are some valid complaints that are sure to be had as portraying Hitler as such a fun-loving guy. Then again, keep in mind that this is how the naive Jojo views the fuhrer, whose introduction via stock footage clips compares to him to a pop music star.

Jojo's mother (Scarlett Johansson) doesn't approve of her son's obsessions - so much so that she's hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic - and isn't too pleased with her home country either. But for Elsa's sake, she tows the line.

"Jojo Rabbit" is actually a pretty funny movie - a joke about German shepherds will leave even the most hardened cynic in the film laughing loudly, I gather - and it's a coming of age film with its heart in the right place. It also helps that the cast is so good, especially the three leads, but also Sam Rockwell as a vainglorious Nazi captain and Archie Yates as Jojo's best pal.

Oddly enough, the film's biggest flaw is Hitler as Jojo's imaginary friend, but not in the way you might think. If anything, this plot device plays it a little too safely and could have been utilized for more pointed commentary. There are also a few scenes involving Rockwell's character that, although the actor is good in the movie, are a little too far fetched to believe.

That being said, the film doesn't exist merely to poke fun at Nazis, and in its final moments it makes a rousing pitch for humanism in horrifying times. There's a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke - a poet cited more than once in the film - in the film's finale to provide backup evidence as such and a shockingly sad moment late in the film in which Jojo discovers a well-known pair of shoes in a place he might not expect them. The scene is so terribly sad that one almost forgets all of the comedic bits that came before it.

All in all, "Jojo Rabbit" mostly works. It's not often that I find myself using the expression "delightful" when it comes to movies about the Holocaust, but it applies well enough here. Waititi's film is often funny, but when it aims for the gut, its punches land pretty hard.