Review: Fences

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Denzel Washington's filmed adaptation of August Wilson's 1983 play is a tour de force of acting and an overall very good translation of the Pittsburgh playwright's (arguably) most famous work. In the film, Washington plays Troy Maxson, a garbageman who was once a promising baseball player, but never made it, and now lives out his years having backyard conversations with his wife Rose (a very good Viola Davis) and pal Bono (Stephen Henderson), a former fellow convict who now works alongside him as a sanitation worker.

When not engaging in conversations behind his house with Rose and Bono on everything from baseball to death, Troy is haranguing his son, Cory (Jovan Adepo), an aspiring football player whom he does not want to become disappointed after being let down by the world of sports as he once was. In fact, Troy goes a few steps beyond discouraging his son, which leads to conflict as the two increasingly see eye to eye less and less. Also in Troy's orbit are an older son, Lyons (Russell Hornsby), from a previous wife and a brother (Mykelti Williamson) who has been left shell shocked after World War II.

Washington, who previously directed "Antwone Fisher," shows once again that he has talent both in front of and behind the camera. But if there's anything that holds "Fences" back, albeit just slightly, it's that it is often too obvious that the movie is an adaptation of a play. In other words, most of the action is set within a small, confined space and much of the dialogue is in the form of monologue. At times, the picture feels like a filmed play.

That being said, it's a terrific showcase for its cast, who more than does justice to Wilson's poetic words. Washington, always great, does a terrific job of creating a character who can be both sympathetic and a bit of a cretin within the same scene. And Davis is spellbinding as Rose, especially during a particularly grueling scene in which she finds out one of her husband's secrets and responds accordingly. Troy may have the greater capacity to hurt others, but when Rose tells him he's a "womanless man," he looks absolutely punched in the gut.

Although Troy and Rose are the film's two lead characters, it's ultimately Cory who becomes the most significant character, especially during two final scenes, one a confrontation and the other a return home.

"Fences" is about many things, one of which is how no matter how hard parents try to help their children, they end up hindering them by passing on their bad traits along with the good ones. Cory seems to recognize this during the film's finale when he joins a duet with a younger sibling of a song Troy used to sing. This is a powerful film with a great cast that makes Wilson's beloved play come to life onscreen.

Review: Passengers

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Not quite as bad as you may have heard - but still not very good and ultimately misguided - Morten Tyldum's "Passengers" can't quite sail by on the abilities of its stars. The film takes an intriguing concept - that I'm going to have to spoil, so stop reading at this point if you don't mind knowing a major plot thread in the picture - and rather than explore its complexities, takes a standard route that ends up making it creepier than it needs to be.

Tyldum's previous film was "The Imitation Game," an enjoyable historical thriller and Oscar nominee, but his latest mostly falls flat. The movie's concept could have made for a better movie: a spaceship carries some 5,000 passengers to a faraway planet, where they'll begin a new colony. No, Earth isn't in ruins - although we never see it - as is the case in most futuristic films, but rather the voyage gives its passengers a chance to start anew.

The catch is that the journey takes more than 100 years to reach its destination and, therefore, those aboard are frozen into a deep-sleep hibernation that will preserve them during the century-long trip. However, one passenger - a mechanic named Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) - awakens early by accident and, realizing that he'll live and die alone aboard the ship while all of the others sleep, has to make a very difficult decision. And, here's that spoiler alert again: Rather than choosing to be alone, Jim finds a passenger named Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence), whom he cyber stalks and then awakens.

But Aurora is led to believe that she accidentally woke up in the same manner that Jim did and he struggles with whether he should tell her that he effectively ruined her life so that he wouldn't be lonely. Although his behavior is, well, reprehensible - albeit understandable, considering the circumstances - this could have made for an emotionally complex science fiction film.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers decide to go the typical Hollywood route and plunge the two leads into a romance. Of course, the big reveal for Aurora eventually comes and she's none too happy about it. However, further technological deterioration on the ship as well as a convenient early wake-up call for another crew member (Laurence Fishburne) - again, conveniently someone who has a deeper knowledge of the ship - prevents the film from exploring much further the consequences of Jim's actions.

The final 30 minutes or so involve the three passengers attempting to save the ship from bursting into a big ball of flame caused by an asteroid striking one of its mechanical parts. And the way that the film wraps up Jim and Aurora's story - complete with a rescue out in the cosmos - doesn't satisfy the complex situation that the two characters are actually in. To cap things off, there's a particularly strange moment very late in the film in which a name actor literally serves as an extra.

"Passengers" could have been a thoughtful take on Elton John's assertion that it's "lonely out in space" and the material is there - Jim's decision to essentially destroy another person's life in order to fulfill his own needs - for a genre movie that could have been provoking. But the filmmakers ultimately throw peril in the two characters' paths so that they can come to some sort of reconciliation and, frankly, it doesn't feel earned. Lawrence is a bona fide movie star and Pratt is a likable lead, so this film feels like a wasted opportunity.

The Top 10 Movies of 2016 (And Runners Up)

Moonlight. Image courtesy of A24.

So that happened - 2016, that is. No, it was not a particularly good year to be a human being during the past 12 months. But great art, although not a remedy, is certainly a balm for troubled times. And there was a lot to praise at the movies this past year.

2016's best films were movies about making a connection - or healing wounded relationships. Some of the year's top films were about finding beauty in the small details or living a life with passion that involves trying new things. A few of my favorite films were overtly political, while others more subversively so.

Two of the films in my top 10 had song and dance in their hearts, while others observed the grieving process, faith, race and sexuality, economic matters and parent-child bonds. Since it's always difficult to narrow down the year's best films to 10 selections, I've included 10 runners up that involve subjects as diverse as the U.S. prison system, a landmark Supreme Court case, fascism, a sci-fi thriller and period pieces.

In fact, there were so many movies that I liked this year that I'd feel remiss not to give a shout-out to the following films that didn't quite make my top 20: Tom Ford's very dark revenge thriller "Nocturnal Animals," Nate Parker's incendiary "The Birth of a Nation," Arnaud Desplechin's relationship dirge "My Golden Days," Pedro Almodovar's return to form "Julieta," James Schamus's excellent Philip Roth adaptation "Indignation," Joachim Trier's powerful family drama "Louder Than Bombs," Lorene Scafaria's lovely "The Meddler," Karyn Kusama's extremely creepy "The Invitation," Jacques Audiard's 2015 Palm d'Or winner "Dheepan," Yorgos Lanthimos's inventive "The Lobster," Noah Baumbach's fascinating documentary "De Palma," Tom Tykwer's adaptation of "A Hologram for the King," Gareth Edwards's fun non-trilogy prequel "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" and Peter Atencio's hilarious "Keanu."

Also, I'm not including Ezra Edelman's highly acclaimed, eight-hour documentary "O.J.: Made In America" because it is technically a TV movie and, naturally, there are a number of films that I either missed (and will catch up with on Netflix in 2017) or have yet to review. These include: Denzel Washington's "Fences" (reviewing on Dec. 31), Asghar Farhadi's "The Salesman," Ben Affleck's "Live By Night," Stephen Gaghan's "Gold," Anna Biller's "The Love Witch," Gan Bi's "Kaili Blues," Mia Hansen-Love's "Things to Come," Ken Loach's "I, Daniel Blake," Pablo Larrain's "Neruda," John Lee Hancock's "The Founder," J.A. Bayona's "A Monster Calls," Theodore Melfi's "Hidden Figures," Kirsten Johnson's "Cameraperson" and Chan-wook Park's "The Handmaiden."

So, without further ado, here's my list of the year's best films, starting with my 10 runners up (numbers 20-11). I'd love to hear from you. Tell me in the comment section which films were your favorites from the past year.

Review: 20th Century Women

Image courtesy of A24.

Warm, witty and insightful, Mike Mills's "20th Century Women" is his second film in a row that pays homage to a parent, the first being 2011's "Beginners," which chronicled the story of a father (Christopher Plummer) who came out of the closet at age 75. In Mills's latest film, which is his best to date, Annette Bening - in one of her finest performances - plays Dorothea, a chain smoking, modern woman who had a son at age 40 and attempts to raise him as he becomes more rebellious and precocious, circa 1979 in Southern California.

Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) constantly refers to his mother as having "come from the Depression" to explain away her idiosyncrasies, although Dorothea is far from being the only eccentric individual in his life. There's also Julie (Elle Fanning, very good), Jamie's lovely, slightly older friend, with whom he is secretly in love. She sneaks in his window most nights and camps out with him, but merely in a platonic way, and - much to his chagrin - bluntly describes her sexual experiences.

Dorothea and Jamie also house two lodgers - Abbie (Greta Gerwig in a career best performance), a wise and wily, red haired photographer who has survived cervical cancer and serves as Jamie's guide to seducing women and learning about punk rock music (the film has a great soundtrack, but also a lovely score by Roger Neill), and William (Billy Crudup in his best performance in a while), a former hippie turned mechanic and carpenter who is unlucky in love and attracted to both Abbie and Dorothea.

Each character is given his or her own complicated history and mini-chapter and Mills is generous in providing at least one great scene for each of them. In a story line that could have turned too precious, Abbie schools Jamie in 1970s feminism, sexuality and psychology, quoting from and getting him to read everything from "Our Bodies, Ourselves" and Judy Blume's "Forever" to M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Traveled." Her instruction also extends to music and there are a number of scenes in which she takes Jamie - and, in one instance, Dorothea - to local punk clubs to dance to the likes of the Talking Heads, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Devo.

In one of the film's more charming sequences, Dorothea, completely confused about the merits of punk music, tries to understand how the Talking Heads and Black Flag are technically in the same musical realm. She and William quickly give up on attempting to dance to the latter and settle instead on the Heads' "The Big Country." Generational disconnect is handled deftly in the picture - Dorothea once considered herself a rebel, wanting to be a pilot during World War II, but now considers her son and his cohorts, especially their musical tastes, to exist on another planet.

The movie arrives at its truths through subtlety. There's a fair amount of drama to be found in "20th Century Women," but there aren't many big dramatic scenes or monologues. Among the picture's most effective sequences is one during which Dorothea and a group of adults watch Jimmy Carter's July 1979 "Crisis of Confidence" speech, which makes her ponder the future for her son and his generation. At the film's end, the characters describe their own futures and how they turn out and, while not quite as sad, it reminded me of the powerful coda of "American Graffiti." The film's funniest scene is a dinner discussion that involves everything from Abbie's menstruation to the finale of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

"20th Century Women" is a sweet natured coming of age story about a young man and three strong willed women from different generations who guided him to becoming a better person. The picture, much like "Beginners," feels semi-autobiographical and, from what I understand, is. It features a terrific cast, great writing and period detail that captures its era without banging us over the head. And its characters feel like actual people - good at heart, but flawed, with room to improve and the yearning to do so.

Review: Paterson

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios.

With "Paterson," Jim Jarmusch has made one of his most meticulous, laid back and visually lovely - as well as best - films. The picture spans the course of a week in the life of a bus driver from Paterson, New Jersey who happens to be named Paterson (Adam Driver in a great understated performance), his wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and her adorably grouchy bulldog named Marvin, who happens to be the best on-screen pet since "Inside Llewyn Davis," a film to which this picture bears more than a few similarities.

Paterson lives a rigorously routine existence. Every morning, he awakens on his own by what his wife refers to his "silent alarm watch," heads to the depot where he boards the bus he'll drive all day, takes a lunch break sitting in front of the Paterson Falls where he writes poetry, comes home to have dinner with Laura, walks Marvin and pays a visit to a local bar, where he cavorts with an odd assortment of characters, including a barkeep (Barry Shabaka Henley) obsessed with the town's history of celebrities (Lou Costello and the Vivino brothers, for instance), a young man smitten with a girl who has lost interest and a set of pool-playing twins.

Until the finale when Marvin does something very naughty that throws Paterson into what appears to be some sort of spiritual agony, there is very little in the way of drama. Laura prepares for a bake sale where she can sell her cupcakes, but also designs the home's curtains and sends off for a guitar that she intends to learn to play so that she can become a country singer. Paterson writes his poetry, drives his bus, walks Marvin and visits the bar.

But there's something going on underneath all of this that you don't ultimately realize is taking place until after Paterson's aforementioned moment of grief and a chat with a stranger visiting the town who, much like Paterson, loves poetry and, especially, the hamlet's laureate, William Carlos Williams, who lived in Rutherford, but wrote an epic poem about Paterson. "I breathe poetry," the stranger tells Paterson, who finds the inspiration that he needs at that moment in time. This chance meeting, which rivals only the offbeat encounter between the protagonist of "A Serious Man" and a neighbor in his driveway, is also a mantra for the film itself: if you can "breathe poetry," or, find beauty in the mundane, then your life will be all the richer for it.

But "Paterson" is also concerned with how, for many people, what one does in his or her spare time often best defines them. So, while Paterson is a bus driver dreaming of being a poet (the film's poems written by New York School member Ron Padgett), Laura ponders being a country singer. There's also a barkeeper who wants to be a chess player, a laundromat employee (Method Man) who dreams of being a rapper and Paterson's beleaguered boss, who wishes to have any other life than the one he has.

Although Paterson's existence is routine almost to a fault, we sense there is more going on there. During a scene in which he breaks up a potentially dangerous scene at the bar, the film cuts to a shot of a framed picture of Paterson in military garb. There's a melancholic aspect to his character, but he seems content. He loves Laura, he seems to find amusement eavesdropping on his bus's passengers (two young wannabe anarchists and two young men bragging hilariously about their near-conquests) and his poetry inspires him.

His life, much like our own, is frequently grounded in the mundane, but he recalls that his father used to sing "Swinging on a Star" to him. One of the lyrics of that nugget asks "would you rather be a fish?" Jarmusch's latest film finds beauty in life's smallest details and explores how by observing the miraculous in the commonplace, we can all "breathe poetry" in our daily lives.

Review: Toni Erdmann

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Simultaneously a father-daughter bonding story, critique of soul sucking corporate culture and sexism in the workplace and statement of purpose by an artist who clearly believes that life is made more tolerable by the occasional act of anarchy, Maren Ade's "Toni Erdmann" is a slow burn comedy that is, at once, a generous and moving work of humanism and screamingly, tears-running-down-your-face funny.

Clocking in at a whopping 162 minutes, Ade's film builds and builds on the tension between its characters and results in several scenes of hilarious catharsis towards its finale. The film opens, however, on a scene that should be mundane. Winfried (Peter Simonischek), an aging German school teacher given to folly, receives a package from a mail carrier, but tells the man that the item is for his brother, whom we come to find out is Winfried, wearing a pair of false teeth, revealing shirt and ridiculous wig. The man is a prankster and the audience to which his gags are best suited are, indeed, the children whom he teaches and, at the film's beginning, leads in a school performance that involves wearing makeup that making them look like rejected members of KISS.

On the other hand, Winfried's grown daughter, Ines (Sandra Huller), is not so amused by his antics. We first meet her as she haggles over a business deal on her cell phone, while her father - who rarely sees her - and the rest of the family wait patiently in the kitchen to celebrate her birthday. Ines's grandmother registers a series of hilarious looks of disapproval as Winfried dons yet another absurd costume to pester his daughter. But the parent and child hardly speak to one another and Ines quickly returns to Bucharest, where she works as a consultant attempting to pull off a major contract extension with an oil company in a deal that will result in the loss of numerous jobs.

After his beloved dog dies and he is left mostly alone, Winfried decides that his daughter needs more frivolity in her life, so he makes an unannounced visit to her in Bucharest, first appearing in the lobby of her workplace wearing his wig and fake teeth, which prompts her to pretend as if she doesn't notice him, though she clearly does. Ines, although she loves her father, is clearly annoyed by his arrival and, alternately, a nervous wreck due to the contract she is attempting to secure. While Winfried is clearly a person in need of connection, Ines's idea of such a thing is, rather than having sex, demanding that her lover jerk off on a petit four.

Winfried attempts to instill his sense of gaiety in his daughter and awkwardly attempts to notify her that she needs more joy in her life. This doesn't go over well and the trip ends up being a bust. A particularly painful sight to behold is Ines and Winfried standing silently for an uncomfortable period of time as they wait for the elevator in her building to arrive. But as soon as the doors have closed, Ines sprints to the roof and waves goodbye to him on the street with tears in her eyes.

For a while, we observe Ines taking part in mind numbing negotiations with the representatives from the oil company - including a squirm inducing meet-up with her father in tow at a bar, where Ines references the possibility of the oil company's layoffs against her own good judgment - and being the victim of casual workplace sexism - for example, the oil company president's suggesting that Ines take his wife shopping. To make matters worse, Ines's response during most of these scenes is feigned groveling or choosing her words so that she ends up agreeing with everything that is said to her.

Then, most unexpectedly, Winfried pops back up in disguise as Toni Erdmann, a life coach whom Ines awkwardly explains away to those who bear witness to his entrance as being part of the contract negotiation. But as they are forced by obligation - that is, Ines's inability to shake her father and, once he has ingratiated himself with her colleagues, convince him to leave - to spend time together, Ines begins to appreciate his wily behavior and she, in turn, exhibits a bit of anarchy herself.

Much has been written about two scenes in the film's final third, but suffice it to say that a karaoke rendition of Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All" serves not only as a great comedic centerpiece, but also a moving commentary on all that has gone on before. And a brunch held by Ines that acts as the finale, which features what has to be one of the funniest nude scenes of all time, left the audience with which I saw the film in hysterics. That scene is then followed by a bittersweet coda involving a family reunion, of sorts, and a sort of understanding that has been gained between the film's two leads.

Ade's previous film, "Everyone Else," was a critically acclaimed film about a couple whose relationship was tested while on a beach vacation and while I liked it, I was much more taken with - or, frankly, blown away by - "Toni Erdmann," a film that is moving without being maudlin, clever in the way it juggles its various themes involving family ties and workplace culture and, as I've mentioned, extremely funny. The film is long, especially for a comedy, but it earns its running time by using it to ratchet up the tension between the characters, only to have it explode into hilarious catharsis. This is one of the year's finest films and an indication that Ade is a major filmmaker with a distinctive and wildly imaginative voice.

Review: Julieta

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Bursting with color and the type of melodrama we've come to expect from his films, Pedro Almodovar's "Julieta" - which covers some of the same territory regarding mothers and their children that the filmmaker mined in "All About My Mother" and "Volver" - is a return to form for the director following his amusing, but slight, "I'm So Excited."

As the picture opens, the titular character (Emma Suarez) is planning to move from Madrid to Portugal with her boyfriend, Lorenzo (Dario Grandinetti), but something appears to be weighing on her mind. So, when she bumps into an old friend of her daughter on the street and discovers that her estranged child has been sighted, she throws out her plans, moves into an old apartment she once inhabited and begins to write a long letter to her daughter.

The film is told mostly through flashbacks that span from the 1980s to the present. A younger Julieta (Adriana Ugarte), a classics teacher, sets out on a train journey where two significant events occur: she takes on a life-long guilt for not being able to foresee that a lonely passenger who attempts to talk to her will soon commit suicide and then meets her future husband, Xoan (Daniel Grao), with whom she has a one night stand in a train car.

Shortly thereafter, Julieta tracks down Xoan, who has a wife in a long-time coma, and moves to his gorgeous seaside home, where she is met with suspicion by a housekeeper, Marian (Rossy de Palma), who actively attempts to sabotage their relationship. Also, Xoan has a friendship with one of his wife's friends, an artist named Ava (Inma Cuesta), that is questionable at best. But Julieta and Xoan have a daughter, Antia (played at various ages by Priscilla Delgado and Blanca Pares), whom they adore and life moves along smoothly for a while, although Julieta can't get over the fact that her mother is ailing, while her father has taken a younger housemaid as a lover.

But tragedy strikes and Julieta and Antia move to Madrid, where her daughter can be closer to a good friend named Beatriz (played by both Sara Jimenez and Michelle Jenner), who is the friend whom Julieta ran into on the street at the film's beginning and set the course of the story into motion. The mother and daughter eventually heal, but Julieta begins to have an emotional attachment to Antia that could be considered unhealthy for both of them.

Now a teenager, Antia goes on a spiritual retreat to the Pyrenees and, to her mother's shock, completely falls off the map, leaving Julieta to search for her for, well, let's say a long time. I won't give away the specifics of the story, but suffice it to say that the groundwork for the break between the mother and daughter is laid early in the film.

Although "Julieta" plays out almost as a mystery - Almodovar has long flirted with Hitchcockian storylines in films such as "Bad Education" and "Volver" - his latest is, at heart, a drama about bonds, whether familial, romantic or friendship. Suarez gives a terrific performance as the lead character, with whom we sympathize even as we question her decisions. The film, not surprisingly, looks gorgeous and has the stylistic touches - a red car driving along a green mountainous road, multi-colored towels covering a character stepping out of a bath, etc. - you'd expect from Almodovar.

And while the film may not rank among the director's best films - namely, "All About My Mother," "Talk to Her," "Volver" and "Bad Education" - it's a picture with more depth and feeling than his previous movie, "I'm So Excited," which was often funny, but lightweight and a minor entry in his oeuvre. Almodovar is a singular talent and his latest film is a visually and thematically rich feast for the senses.