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.

Review: Dolemite Is My Name

Image courtesy of Netflix.

I'm forever grateful to Rudy Ray Moore for introducing me to the insult "rat-soup eating motherfucker," a phrase he deploys liberally in "Dolemite," the 1975 blaxploitation cult classic that I first saw in high school - and which is only topped by the even-more-insane sequel, 1976's "The Human Tornado" - and has acted as an inspiration to several generations of hip hop artists. Moore has been dubbed the "Godfather of Rap" due to his X-rated rhyming boasts and toasts that have been sampled or pay homage to by the likes of the Wu-Tang Clan and Snoop Dogg (who makes an appearance in Netflix's new movie, "Dolemite Is My Name").

Directed by Craig Brewer, this biopic doesn't necessarily differentiate itself stylistically from a number of other movies about oddball dreamers who found success due to luck and pluck. On the other hand, Moore is a singular character and his rags-to-riches chronicle is certainly colorful and entertaining. It's also a nice comeback film for Eddie Murphy, who'd fallen into PG-rated obscurity in the 21st century, only to be revived by his role in "Dreamgirls" before mostly falling off the map.

"Dolemite" could be a relaunching pad for the comedian-actor — who'll soon be seen in a sequel to "Coming to America" and a fourth "Beverly Hills Cop" picture - and it would be well deserved. Murphy's foul-mouthed foray back into very R-rated territory is long overdue, and he shines as Moore, a man who's significantly more modest than one might expect considering the nature of his Dolemite character.

As the film opens, he's managing a record store in California and struggling to get a career off the ground. Moore is older, overweight and seemingly without much inspiration. Some R&B tunes he recorded in the 1960s never hit the charts and his stand-up act at a local nightclub mostly exists to introduce musical acts.

One day, he finds inspiration in a bum who wanders into the record store, regaling all who will listen with braggadocio stories involving feats of strength and sexual conquests, all in a hilarious rhythmic pattern. Moore seeks out the bum and records the stories he tells, and then uses those stories to create a stage character known as Dolemite. Once he introduces the character into his own act, people start to take notice.

Moore operates as a DIY entertainer, recording a "live" comedy album with a group of people he knows in a rented room, and then capturing the attention of a record company after the street sales of his comedy record take off. He applies this same strategy after deciding to make a "Dolemite" movie, enlisting the help of famed actor D'Urville Martin (a hilarious Wesley Snipes) and some film school students, who thankfully know how to operate cameras and other equipment (Moore knows nothing about making a movie).

For those unfamiliar with the "Dolemite" movies, they are lovingly clunky - hilariously profane, ridiculously violent (albeit noticeably fake) and featuring the most unrealistic kung fu fights possibly ever filmed. Whether they're "good" in the traditional sense is beside the point - they're infectiously and outrageously amusing.

That sense of joy is captured in the making of the film in Brewer's picture. Some elements in the movie get a little old - for example, how many times do we need to hear Moore's mantra that Dolemite is his name and "fucking up motherfuckers is my game"? - but it's overall a highly entertaining two hours spent with a great host.

The film is a great vehicle with which Murphy can relaunch his movie career, and a loving tribute to storytellers — think a much raunchier Ed Wood in this case — who make up for a lack of technical skill with passion, good humor, a love for their collaborators and a knack for salesmanship. "Dolemite Is My Name" is a lot of fun.

Review: The Lighthouse

Image courtesy of A24.

With just two films, director Robert Eggers has introduced his own brand of Gothic horror involving tales of America's past. His debut, the eerie 2015 folkloric horror chronicle "The Witch," was set in colonial New England, while his latest, the gloomy and broody "The Lighthouse," is set in a remote locale in the late 1800s.

His latest picture is a visually stunning tale of madness in which two men - a crusty old lighthouse keeper named Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and a younger man known as Ephraim (Robert Pattinson) - arrive to keep watch of the titular structure for a period of several weeks.

From the start, their relationship is rocky. Thomas has no qualms about bossing Ephraim around, calling him diminutive terms such as "lad" or "dog" when barking out his orders - which include that his young protege get drunk with him and listen to his long-winded tales. Ephraim must also suffer through Thomas' seemingly never-ending farts, although Ephraim himself is occasionally devoted bodily function - namely, an already much-talked-about - and rather delirious - masturbation scene.

Although I wouldn't dare give it away, the secret to "The Lighthouse" lies within a famous Greek myth, which is somewhat referenced throughout the film, but is made abundantly clear in its mysterious final shot. Also, Ephraim becomes obsessed with a seagull at the lighthouse, and when he goes against Thomas's command to leave the birds alone - the older man claims that harming the birds will bring bad luck - a brutally comedic scene halfway through the picture hints at the characters' fates.

Although there is tension between the two characters throughout the film, it increases once Ephraim witnesses an odd event through the cracks of the lighthouse's floor. He becomes obsessed with what he believes to be going on in the lighthouse and is increasingly jealous that Thomas has claimed the top of the structure for himself. Ephraim's eerie and erotic dreams involving mermaids can be read as another bad sign as the mythological creatures are known for summoning sailors to their dooms.

"The Witch" opened to much acclaim several years ago, and while I had great respect for that film's authenticity and found it to be creepy - especially that goat - I didn't quite love it as much as some others did. I believe "The Lighthouse" to be a fairly large step up as a sophomore feature. It's visually stunning and Eggers uses the locale as well as lighting, editing and its claustrophobic 4:3 ratio to great effect.

It also helps that the film's two lead performances are strong. While Dafoe is obviously being encouraged to ham it up a little as the mad Thomas, Ephraim's descent into insanity takes a fair amount of heavy lifting on Pattinson's part - and he manages to nail the role. Both actors rise to the challenge in what appear to be physically demanding roles.

Whether you completely understand "The Lighthouse" might depend on your knowledge of Greek mythology, and whether you enjoy it might depend on your capacity to stomach grim, surreal arthouse horror cinema. But there's no question that this is a film exhibiting a decent amount of vision, and it's further proof that Eggers is one of the more exciting new voices in horror.

Review: Zombieland: Double Tap

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

As is the case with most sequels, "Zombieland: Double Tap" doesn't have any real reason - or need - to exist. The original film by Ruben Fleischer was an amusing enough horror comedy that mostly worked due to the casting - pairing a wisecracking, gun toting Woody Harrelson with a nebbish sidekick (Jesse Eisenberg) and two sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who can take care of themselves against a horde of flesh eating zombies.

This sequel picks up some time later and the only real development is that a new strain of zombie - who is compared to the central villain of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" - is making life more challenging for the survivors. Otherwise, "Double Tap" is mostly an excuse to get the gang back together for more wisecracks, exploding zombie heads and retreads of old jokes. It has its moments, but this sequel is mostly forgettable.

As the film opens, the central four characters are living in the abandoned White House. Tallahassee (Harrelson) seems to want to move out on his own, while Columbus (Eisenberg) has proposed to Wichita (Stone), causing her to panic and flee with her sister, Little Rock (Breslin), who is being suffocated by Tallahassee's overbearing fatherly ways.

In other words, their flight is merely an excuse to thrust the four characters back out into the world and fight more zombies. Along the way, they pick up a slew of new characters, most of whom are completely unnecessary to the story and exist merely to either be picked off or be the butt of running jokes, most of which aren't that funny.

Zoey Deutch has the unfortunate task of portraying Madison, a ditzy blonde who Tallahassee and Columbus discover in a shopping mall. Her utter cluelessness is meant to be funny, but the joke never goes much further than "look at this airhead." Even less necessary is a pair portrayed by Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch, whose behavior and partnership is meant to be the mirror image of that of Tallahassee and Columbus. This new pair only exists to provide exasperation to Wichita and their onscreen time culminates in a silly fight.

Even worse is a hippy character (Avan Jogia) who claims Bob Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd songs as his own, and convinces Little Rock to run off with him to a nonviolent commune known as Babylon, where the film's final scenes take place. The only remotely interesting new character is a woman (Rosario Dawson) who oversees an Elvis Presley museum, of sorts, near Graceland, although those scenes exist merely to set up a bunch of Elvis-related jokes. A modestly amusing cameo during the credits is the film's only genuine surprise.

"Double Tap" isn't necessarily a bad movie. It has a few laughs, it's competently made and all involved appear to be having fun with it (possibly more so than the audience). But there's not much of a reason to exist, other than some studio head thinking that a sequel to a fairly popular, decade-old cult movie could bring in some money. Those wanting a retread of the original will likely have a good time, but "Double Tap" otherwise offers little else.

Review: The Laundromat

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Adam McKay's "The Big Short," a chronicle of the 2008 financial crisis, has introduced to moviemaking a now oft-borrowed style of presenting complex information - actors portraying characters (or as was often the case in "The Big Short," portraying themselves) who stop in the middle of a scene's action to describe how a particular thing works (derivatives, for example).

McKay used the stylistic trait again - but to much lesser effect - in last year's "Vice," a mixed bag biopic on former Vice President Dick Cheney. Steven Soderbergh has adopted the style as his own in "The Laundromat," a star studded drama that feels more like a series of short stories that all have something to do with the Panama Papers data dump of several years ago.

It helps the film that the scandal, although complex and likely confusing to some, makes for compelling viewing material, and the picture has righteous anger bubbling below the surface at how the 1 percenters of the world have prevented, as the movie points out, the meek from inheriting the earth. However, that style incorporated by "The Big Short" feels a little worn out in Soderbergh's film, and the schtick involving narration from two crooked attorneys who run shell companies and are portrayed by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas wears a little thin.

It is Meryl Streep - no surprise there - who carries the film as a woman named Ellen Martin whose husband (James Cromwell) died while taking a ferry boat cruise after a wave struck the ship. Ellen tries to navigate the settlement process and gets screwed, all the while we discover that the ferry boat company (operated by Robert Patrick and David Schwimmer) also get shafted when it turns out the insurance they've purchased through a con artist (Jeffrey Wright) in the Bahamas is a scam.

The numerous instances of corruption coursing through the film's various stories all point back to the company operated by Mossack and Fonseca (Oldman and Banderas), showing the international reach of shell companies and the damage caused by them.

In one story, a businessman's (Matthias Schoenaerts) dealings with the Chinese leads to a murder. In another, a wealthy man (Nono Anonzi) who's having sex with his daughter's college roommate uses bearer shares as capital to prevent his family members from turning him. This sequence, which is equally funny and tragic, is the best of the film's stories.

But Streep's Ellen is the hero of the film. She tracks down Wright's shady character in the Bahamas and puts in some legwork to get to the bottom of Mossack and Fonseca's corrupt enterprise, leading to a monologue of sorts in the final sequence during which we learn that the actress has been portraying more than one character in the film (it's a genuine surprise). By the picture's end, you might not completely understand shell companies, but you can comprehend enough to be enraged.

Soderbergh is a director who bounces back and forth between studio fare (his "Ocean's 11" movies) and low budget indies with experimental attributes (most recently, "High Flying Bird"). "The Laundromat" falls somewhere between these two types of pictures. Its cast is full of A-list actors, but its style and spirit feel more in line with his lower budget fare. It doesn't always end up working - its stylistic choices occasionally get in the way of what the film is trying to say - but its material is riveting enough. Plus, it's proof that Netflix is going somewhat out on a limb with its original content. The film is certainly worth a look.

Review: Gemini Man

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

In his two most recent films - "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" and, now, "Gemini Man" - Ang Lee has shot in a 120-frames-per-second format, which is about five times the standard Hollywood movie format. In the case of the former film, the format was distracting, whereas it's more impressive this second time around. However, in both cases the material accompanying the visuals isn't particularly impressive.

"Billy Lynn" was based on an acclaimed novel, but in the case of the film the material didn't translate particularly well to the screen. "Gemini Man," on the other hand, has a plot that might have felt at home in a late 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie. Its specifics are somewhat nebulous and the story is often a little silly, even if the action scenes themselves are carried out well enough.

In the film, Will Smith plays Henry Brogan, a government-paid assassin who decides to call it quits once he hits his 50s and realizes that killing people for a living ends up weighing on one's conscience - who knew? Brogan's ruthless former boss (Clive Owen) isn't too concerned about losing his top gun since he, unbeknownst to Brogan, cloned him years ago and has been training a young man - Smith again, but with a CGI face, courtesy of de-aging technology - to take over Brogan's position. But first, he must take Brogan out.

Thrown into the mix is a young agent (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who has been hired to keep an eye on Brogan, although he quickly figures out that she's keeping tabs on him, and an old pal of Brogan's (Benedict Wong) whose only purpose seems to be to supply Brogan with whatever he needs - a getaway plane, a place to crash, etc.

"Gemini Man" includes some very well executed action sequences, most notably one in which Brogan flees from his clone via motorcycle through traffic. In fact, the film's many action sequences are made all the more intense by the 120-frames-per-second format, although the format also gives the non-action scenes a feel that falls somewhere between a video game and a cheaply made TV soap opera.

Ang Lee has made some great movies - "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Ice Storm," for example - and in recent years, he has been one of the directors at the forefront of new technology - his most two recent films, but also "Life of Pi." While that latter film went on to win him an Oscar, his most recent two films have focused on the technology at the expense of the storytelling.

I hope that if Lee continues to pursue utilizing this format, the material next time will be as emphasized as the visual component. Lee is a great director, but "Gemini Man" is an often great-looking, but otherwise bland, action movie.

Review: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Fans of "Breaking Bad," one of the best of the Golden Age of Television shows, might want to enter "El Camino," Netflix's two-hour film that chronicles the further adventures of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, without expectations - not because the film isn't good, but rather because it's not what one might expect.

The final seasons of "Breaking Bad" moved at breakneck speed and included a fair amount of tension and violence. There is a little bit of both in "El Camino," although the picture moves at its own pace and is not exactly plot driven. As an epilogue to the acclaimed show, it works pretty well. The AMC show always focused on consequences, and this new Vince Gilligan-directed movie concerns itself with that subject matter from start to finish.

The film picks up just moments after Jesse fled the shootout that claimed the life of his captors, but also former mentor Walter White (Bryan Cranston). Much of the film's two-hour running time concerns Jesse on the run, mostly from the law, and figuring out how to make a getaway.

His first stop is to visit his two cronies - Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), who spend most of their time squabbling. But while the duo is obviously there for comedic effect - in an otherwise moody film - there's also something sort of moving about their interactions with Jesse, whom they help hide out after they notice the horrendous state he's in.

"El Camino" is a long overdue goodbye for a "Breaking Bad" character whose fate was left somewhat unresolved. The TV show went out with a bang like a western - and "El Camino" features a shootout late in the movie that is a direct nod to that genre - but this epilogue film is much more mournful and solemn. As we watch Jesse sneak around Albuquerque trying not to get caught - all the while saying goodbye to his parents and making arrangements to flee the city - the film has a dirge-like quality to it. It involves watching one of the show's protagonists flit around to many of the old haunts, but only to find that everybody's mostly gone.

The second half of the movie involves Jesse's efforts to steal some money from the apartment of the sociopathic Todd (Jesse Plemons), who Jesse killed in the show's finale. The movie also intercuts flashbacks to which we've previously not been privy - involving a discussion at a diner with a pivotal character, but also scenes from Jesse's captivity and an incident in which he helps Todd clean up a terrible mess - with the present scenes.

Jesse's attempt to take the money from Todd's apartment leads to a conflict with a group of men, one of whom played a small role in Jesse's captivity. That accounts for the action in the film's final third, but the more engaging subplot is Jesse trying to convince a man (played by the great Robert Forster, who died the day this film was released), who once offered to help Walter flee for a price, assist him in his getaway.

"El Camino" is a solid second finale for "Breaking Bad." It's not quite as good as the show, but it's a great vehicle for Paul, who is excellent here, and acts as a nice sendoff for one of the show's most beloved characters. By the time he died, Walter had alienated (or killed) everyone he knew, but Jesse had obviously left a group of people behind - Badger, Skinny Pete, his parents - who still cared about him, so it's fitting that his character should have the final say.

There aren't too many surprises in the film's ending, but it's satisfying nonetheless. It's impressive that Gilligan waited six years to wrap up his iconic show, and the movie jumps right back into the show's rhythm from its opening moments. "El Camino" might not go out with guns blazing as "Breaking Bad" did, but it's a welcome epilogue for one of TV's greatest shows.