Arts - page 6

By Sam Stashower ’22

Alright, so, Joker. Bit of a throwback, right? It only came out a year ago, but what even is a year ago in these quarantine times? Feels like at least a decade’s come and gone since Todd Phillips’ Oscar-winning comic book film graced our cinema screens (it also feels like at least a decade since any movie graced our cinema screens, but that’s neither here nor there). Remember when Joker was a thing? Remember when it was the thing? There are few benefits to the 2020 pandemic — okay, there are no “real” benefits, but bear with me — but one thing you can say is that all the shit we’re going through right now really puts the nonsense of last year in perspective. Or maybe not; I’m really grasping for good things here.

It seems almost quaint, given our present circumstances, to look back at 2019 and remember how, for what seemed like a significant amount of time, just about everyone on the interwebz were super up in arms about this comic book movie where a clown went around, laughing and killing people (occasionally at the same time). But it’s actually true; ridiculous as it may seem with the benefit of distance, there was a legit energy surrounding this film when it came out. This film, against all odds, seemed to premiere at just the right time to completely encapsulate the tenor of the nation. 

Whether you came down on the side of it being “good, actually” or “bad, actually” The legacy of Joker isn’t so much about how it was as a movie than about how it was received. Which, I mean, there was precedent for that. Even before the movie came out, it was more interesting and exciting as a conceptual thing than as an actual movie we’d maybe get to watch. Tracking this movie from inception to completion was a fucking trip, let me tell you. Cast your mind back to 2017, in the blissfully innocent days where the DCEU —- DC Comics’ answer to the recent MCU success —- hadn’t been totally consumed by the release of a new cut of a movie that had already come out. It was actually quite the contrary; the recent success of Wonder Woman had apparently convinced the higher-ups at DC to de-emphasize the “extended universe” side of their film output, and start focusing on smaller, more interesting projects. That’s how we got Shazam! and Aquaman, two very solid DCEU movies with nary a mention of the “extended universe” stuff between them. 

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. I’m specifically remembering when, in August of that year, we got this announcement: that Warner Bros. and DC Films were developing a standalone Joker film —- completely separate from the Jared Leto incarnation, who at that time was also getting a solo film, I think? —- with Hangover mastermind Todd Phillips directing the thing, and co-writing it with Scott Silver. Oh, and Martin Scorsese was attached as co-producer.

Just…re-read that for a second. Bask in the fittingly Joker-like insanity of it all. The director of The Hangover trilogy was going to helm an apparently super-serious take on the most famous villain in comic book history. He was going to write it with a man whose only previous foray into the superhero genre was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a movie best remembered for having Deadpool in it, except not really. And Martin Scorcesse —- THAT Martin Scorsese, who at the time had just released his religious epic Silence, and had never had anything to do with superheroes one way or another (boy howdy, would that change) —- was going to produce the thing with him.

I gotta be honest: for a while there, I kind of doubted that this thing would ever even come out. I remembered all those weird Spider-Man spinoffs Sony was desperately trying to get off the ground a while back —- remember the insane “Aunt May as a young, sexy spy” idea they were actually considering at one point? —- and just assumed the “Martin Scorsese-produced standalone Joker movie from the Hangover guy” (seriously, just look at that sentence) would go the way of those. Everything about this movie’s pre-production fed into that idea; I seem to remember it looked like this would actually get made in tandem with that aforementioned solo Jared Leto Joker movie…which, Jesus, what an idea, huh? Whatever you may feel about this film, be thankful we dodged that fucking bullet.

Instead, as you know, the crazy bastards actually made it, and then at some point between them wrapping the shoot and the thing actually coming out, everyone on the internet I guess unanimously decided to get really invested in the film. And I gotta be honest; even now, one year later, I still don’t get it. My response coming out of that opening weekend theater could be summed up as such: “Huh, so I guess it’s Ghostbusters 2016 all over again.”

Mind you, I don’t mean in terms of quality. I didn’t love Joker, and my opinion of it has only gone down in the months (and now year) following its release, but if nothing else, it’s better than Ghostbusters 2016 (which somehow became “Answer The Call” when no one was looking). What I’m talking about is more the way the cultural conversation warped around them, turning them into these kind of barometer tests for where you stood, or what you stood for. Choosing to see – or not to see – these movies was suddenly a political act. And then the movies actually came out, and everything kind of fizzled out. My guess is that everyone who got real riled up online, who bought a ticket determined to have a “take” on these two culturally important movies, saw them in their opening weekend, and left the theaters with a general sense of embarrassment that they’d gotten so worked up over something so fundamentally milquetoast.

It’s very well known by now, but it bears repeating: Todd Phillips is a huge Martin Scorsese fanboy, and Joker is packed to the brim with overt references to his films Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this; directors “borrow” from their predecessors all the damn time (Star Wars is a high-profile example of this paying off, and it could be argued that Quentin Tarantino has based his whole filmography on this very practice), and the fact of the matter is, if you’re trying to get inspiration for your gritty, grimy psychological character study, as Phillips clearly was, you can’t really do better than Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. 

But there’s a fine line between “homage” and “ripoff,” and what I think happened here was that Phillips went for the former, and then stumbled headfirst into the latter. References to other movies are meant to enhance your experience of watching a new film; think of it as a fun little easter egg, a reward for paying attention. Again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, provided you can find a proper balance between referencing other things and finding your own voice. And for the life of me, I never got the sense that Joker ever found its own voice.

Let me try to give an example of the difference. Y’all remember Event Horizon? If not, this is the month for it; it’s a really fun little cult horror movie about astronauts in space. It’s super camp, super gory, and very Halloween. It’s also a movie that, within the first couple of minutes, seems to go out of its way to remind you of another, much more famous, and generally regarded as “better” movie. Right away while watching the film, you almost can’t help but notice parallels between Event Horizon and the Ridley Scott masterpiece Alien. The spaceships they’re on have almost identical aesthetics to the Nostromo and the planet LV-428, the way the working-class crewmembers banter with each other is very similar; hell, there are a handful of shot setups in Event Horizon that are just straight-up lifted from Alien. 

And yet, I would never call Event Horizon an Alien ripoff, for one fairly significant reason; it’s a completely different movie experience. Event Horizon is a gonzo, campy bloodbath, a movie more akin to a haunted house ride than something that’s actually trying to scare you, whereas Alien is almost painfully protracted and suspenseful. Event Horizon borrows the aesthetics (and a lot of the setup) from Alien, but it uses those aesthetics as a springboard to tell its own story. 

Joker, as mentioned, also borrows a lot from Taxi Driver and King of Comedy. The plot of Joker is basically just those two movies put in a blender, with a clown slapped on; it’s a movie about a mentally ill loner, slowly being driven mad by isolation and social degradation (Taxi Driver), who also aspires to be a stand-up comic, but keeps getting rebuffed, which doesn’t help much with his deteriorating mental state (King of Comedy). And I want to repeat: there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Honestly, if you’d put me in charge of the “Joker origin story project,” I’d probably come up with something similar. Telling the Joker’s origin by way of a Scorsese riff is a legit inspired idea.

The problem is, Joker doesn’t use the aesthetics of those other, classic movies, as a way to spin off into its own thing; it re-appropriates them basically in service of the same kind of experience. Both Taxi Driver and King of Comedy tackled pressing social issues (albeit different ones, and in different ways) in a way that was aggressively un-sensationalized and down-to-earth. They featured characters that were mentally ill, and presented a world as seen through their eyes. That’s…I mean, that’s basically Joker, to a T. 

And if that were the end of it? Alright. But when watching Joker, I couldn’t ever really shake the feeling that Todd Phillips, in spite of his obvious love of those Scorsese classics, and especially in spite of his obvious (and, given where his career had gone with those Hangover sequels, surprising) technical skills, didn’t really get the point of what he was doing.

I want to emphasize something, before we really get into this; Joker is an exceptionally well-made movie. It won the Oscar for Best Original Score and was nominated for cinematography, and the fact of the matter is, it deserved both (not to denigrate the other nominees in each category; I’m just saying that both nominations were very deserving). It has a terrifically expressive visual palette, managing to evoke a nonspecific era of the past without ever lathering it on too thick. And the music to the film is simply magnificent; the same year that Joker came out, Hildur Guðnadóttir also lent her talents to the HBO show Chernobyl. Now, the score for Joker only has a tenth of the power that the Chernobyl score had, but in all honesty, that’s all it needed.

So it looks great, sounds great, and the acting, as I’m sure you all know, is excellent across the board. The problem, then, is intention and depth. What makes Taxi Driver and King of Comedy such enduring masterpieces, to the point where they’re still widely seen and discussed to this day, isn’t their technical skills, or the acting, or any of that. That helps, no question, but what really gives those movies their power is their themes and the power of the story they’re really telling.

Taxi Driver and King of Comedy are movies where the main characters are mentally ill, and prone to extreme violence. The films are told from their point of view, and at several points, we’re invited to feel pity for them. But —- crucially —- we’re never on their side. At all times, Scorsese is careful to keep us at enough of an arm’s length away from them so that, whenever they do something reprehensible, we have distance to recognize it as such.

Joker has no such distance, and for a lot of the movie, accidentally seems to revel in his acts of wanton murder and cruelty. It takes moments that should be chilling, or sobering, and accidentally repurposes them as badass or kewl. At the same time that Rupert Pupkin was sweatily kidnapping talk-show host Jerry Langford, Arthur Fleck was dancing down the stone steps like the awesome rebel the movie seems to think he is. The song’s change – from “Rock and and Roll Part 2” to a more quietly bombastic, ominous track from Guðnadóttir – doesn’t actually do much to alter the impression that we’re watching someone formidable, and not pathetic, which is the understanding Scorsese had when making those movies.

That understanding is totally lacking from this movie, as evidenced by Todd Phillips’ whole post-movie demeanor, which was frankly baffling. I’m not just talking about his now infamous answer as to why he was making a movie like this now: that “woke culture has killed comedy” quote, the kind of statement that’ll give you a hemorrhage from eye-rolling too hard. No, I’m actually talking about his even more idiotic comparison to John Wick, where he openly questioned why audiences “hooted and hollered” to that character killing 300 people while his movie was held to scrutiny. 

I’m just…wow, right? It’s been a straight-up year, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around how someone could think those two things are equatable. An escapist fantasy about a guy who goes on a killing spree against the mob to avenge the death of his dog, vs. a movie that, in every single scene, goes out of its way to insist on its own importance, to the point of actively stealing its best bits from two of the most highly-regarded movies ever made. 

He made that movie, and yet his whole demeanor after-the-fact screamed, “Why are you even asking these questions?” Dude, you made the film that way. The same goes for Phoenix, who made some waves when he just up and left an interview when asked if the Joker might incite violence. He came back later, claiming that he just needed to “compose himself” and “think about the answer,” and I’ve got to ask: did any of these people ever stop to think about the kind of movie they were actually making?

I really don’t think so. In the cold light of day, with a year removed since its release, Joker reads more and more like a movie made by a guy who wanted more than anything else to have that “serious movie” cred, so instead of actually sitting down and developing the point he wanted to make, he took two of his favorite movies, grabbed around for some hot-button social issues of the day, then threw everything at the wall, in order to see what stuck. Is Joker about mental illness? Yes! Is it about society? You bet! Is it about the media? Totally! Is it about class struggle? You’d better believe it! Does it have the focus or the narrative clarity to actually develop any of these ideas beyond the most basic surface-level texture?

…’cause the Scorsese movies did.

The Farewell

The beauty of cinema is its ability to connect us empathetically with people in situations we might not otherwise be familiar with, or even aware of. For myself, I was unaware of the Eastern practice of not telling an elderly when they’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, thus lifting the burden of dying off of them (“In China, we have a saying: when someone gets cancer, they die. But it’s the fear that really kills them.”) This touching, tender portrait of a life caught between two societies never asks us to choose which is better; it only asks us to relate. Before watching the film, I secretly wanted Awkwafina to turn out to be brilliant because I imagined some drunk Hollywood idiot mispronouncing her name at the Oscars. Now I’m annoyed that she was snubbed, because I wanted her to win all the awards in the world, because holy shit, she is an incredible actress.

Parasite

I don’t like how the phrase “Hitchcockian” gets thrown around willy-nilly. Yet I’m also at a loss for how better to describe Bong Joon Hoo’s brilliant social thriller, which largely contains people committing crimes, trying not to get caught in the act. As a work of socio-political commentary and a piece of entertainment, Hoo excels at both, with the message of the film never interfering with how gut-churningly suspenseful or gut-bustingly hilarious it is, or vice versa. This was the well-deserved Best Picture winner at this year’s Oscars, and while I have no doubt that they only got it right by accident – they are the Oscars, after all, and they are stupid – this one time, they did absolutely get it right. Director Bong knows the score: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” he said in his acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Preach.

High Life

It feels like each year these past couple of years have had at least one sci-fi masterpiece to them. 2015 had The Martian, 2016 had Arrival, 2017 had Blade Runner 2049, and 2018 had Annihilation. And now…2019. High Life is the first film from French writer/director Claire Denis to be shot in english. With that in mind, it’s fascinating how nonverbal the film is; made with all the subtlety and depth Brad Pitt’s Ad Astra could only dream of, High Life relies on feeling and emotion rather than empty spectacle. Fascinatingly, the film’s director, Claire Denis, is French, and this is her first ever English-language film. Yet more proof as to the universal language of cinema; that one-inch barrier is looking pretty flimsy, huh?

Monos

Painted faces and long hair. A stick sharpened at both ends. These are just a few of the images Monos dances before our eyes in service of its tale about teenage soldiers, making its chief literary allusion pretty clear long before a literal decapitated pig’s head pops up in the movie. Following a group of Colombian child soldiers engaged in an unspecified conflict, Monos isn’t shy about invoking Lord of the Flies, which might be a tricky prospect if the film itself weren’t so well-judged.

Her Smell

Her Smell is an intensely psychological experience, a cococophany of sight and sound that culminates in a brutal depiction of mental disparity. Elizabeth Moss gives the performance of a lifetime as “Becky Something” and Cara Develenge finally gets to show her stuff in a movie that doesn’t suck. Much like Uncut Gems, the way the film depicts downward spiraling and addiction is cinematically gripping and nerve-wracking, but unlike Uncut Gems, there’s a glimmer of real and honest hope to the proceedings. A masterpiece.

Rocketman

It’s incredible the turnaround I had on this movie. I went in with nothing but dread, having detested the laughable Queen biopic attempt from just last year. Now the same director was going to do one for Elton John? Well, as it turns out, Rocketman is a redemption story; one for director Dexter Fletcher, a man who does deserve our respect for taking the mangled corpse of Bryan Singer’s failed movie, wrangling it together in something like a coherent narrative, and dragging it over the finish line. That’s no small feat, and Rocketman could be seen as a well-deserved victory lap. Fletcher’s in control from the beginning, and his superior skill is apparent from the word go. Rocketman is a fun, lively musical, one which gleefully transcends the usual boring old biopic conventions in favor of making a “true fantasy.”

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

It’s fitting, considering the subject matter, that the best way to describe Portrait of a Lady on Fire is “cinematic artwork.” This French film (yet more proof that Bong Joon Ho knows the score; the “one-inch barrier” of subtitles mean nothing here) is just getting its wide release now in 2020, which in some respects makes it a 2020 film. Which means it might end up on two Best Of lists! Honestly, it’s so perfect, I’d accept that.

Uncut Gems

What’s ultimately most surprising about Uncut Gems, the pressure-cooker thriller from the directors of Good Time, is how it isn’t actually all that far removed from what we might consider to be a “normal” Adam Sandler movie. Once again, he’s playing a loud, abrasive asshole, an idiot manchild who gets in over his head in a bad situation, and keeps digging himself deeper through no fault but his own. The difference here is context; namely, that the Safdie brothers have constructed a movie that knows that the main character doesn’t deserve to win. This simple understanding would be enough to push this into the upper echelon of Sandler flicks, even without its impeccable script, its spine-tingling score, and the best performance Sandler has ever given. Yes, better than Punch Drunk Love. 

Knives Out 

As a young lad who grew up with the works of Agatha Christie, Knives Out was my movie. A delicious balancing act between genre throwback and 21st century update, Rian Johnson’s best film yet (yes, better than Brick, and even Looper) is a sly and intelligent mystery film, one that trusts its audience to keep up and understand what’s going on. Every clue is fairly laid out before us, thus allowing us the privilege to play along with Daniel Craig’s brilliant detective, without fear that the film will cheat us on the solution.

The Irishman 

For a hot internet minute there, Martin Scorcese made headlines for comments where he appeared to go on the attack against Marvel. “I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema,” he was quoted as saying, and while his comments were clearly more about his own personal taste in films than anything else, the nerd rage that followed was very real. And while the “controversy” was no doubt capitalized on/exaggerated by hit-desperate clickbait sites, I have to imagine there were quite a number of Marvel fans out there positively tearing their hair out at the release of The Irishman, “real cinema” if ever such a thing could be identified. Less a sprawling gangster epic than a mournful elegy of time gone by, Scorcese crafted the epilogue to end all motherfucking epilogues with this movie, a capper on a career that no one can match.

There was a moment, a tangible moment, where Director Bong transcended from “well-respected director” and became a bona-fide Savior of Cinema. It was right after Parasite won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language. It was a significant win, signaling many more to come (not that we knew that at the time). Director Bong got on the stage, along with his translator Sharon Choi, and proceeded to deliver this iconic quote: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”

It’s been five months since Parasite was released in the US last year, and just one month since its historic (and well-deserved) win at the Academy Awards, so famous for getting it so spectacularly wrong, who here got it spectacularly right (it’s a decision so good, it almost makes up for Green Book two years ago. You know, almost). Here’s how you know this one’s gonna last, how we’ve got a long-lasting masterpiece on our hands; it’s been a month, and the feeling about Parasite winning all those Oscars is still one of elation. Apart from some inane ramblings from our Commander in Chief (weird, how easy it is to block that out after a while. We’ve had some practice…), there’s been absolutely nothing substantial in the way of pushback, or backlash, or any “Hot Takes” about the validity of the movie; was Parasite reeeeeeeeaaaally that good? Everyone seems to be on the same page that, yes, yes it was. Parasite is now in the coveted position that films like Schindler’s List, No Country for Old Men or Unforgiven have, where there were other good movies that came out those years (seriously go back and look; 2007 was stacked when it came to content), but general consensus seems to be, “Yeah that was the right call.”

Months (and many viewings) later, what I initially said about Parasite still holds true. If you’ve not seen it yet, the best thing to do is to go in as blind as possible. The joy of Parasite has to do with how seamlessly Director Bong (who wrote the movie along with Han Jin-own) toys with expectations; I mentioned in my initial review that, for American audiences who only know Director Bong through his slightly straighter genre pieces, like his monster movie sendup The Host, or his action movie Snowpiercer, the free range he has over every genre or tone in the book might throw them for a loop. Is this a drama? A comedy? A parable? A social satire? Who cares? It’s anything and everything, and it is magnificent.

As has been said before, and with more eloquence, the parasites in Parasite are very human. Or maybe it’s society. Either way Parasite has to do with an impoverished, unemployed family of four; a son, a daughter, a father and a mother. There is a striking opening scene in which a fumigation crew starts dusting the street outside, and the family makes the decision to leave their windows open. After all, this way their roach problem gets dealt with. For free! Things kick off when a friend of Ki-woo—the son in the family—asks him to fill in as a tutor to the daughter of a rich family. The friend is going on vacation, and doesn’t trust any of the other tutors at his school not to make lecherous advances at the rich family’s underage daughter. He suggests to Ki-woo that the latter assumes his identity; a deception, sure, but a harmless one. 

Things take an interesting turn when Ki-woo – under the assumed name “Kevin” – first arrives at the house of the wealthy Park family. Or, more accurately, their mansion. They live on a hill in the sky, surrounded by luxury, with wide open space and amenities as far as the eye can see. The contrast between them and the Kim family – who we see live in a sub-basement hovel that routinely gets pissed on by drunk passerbys – is striking. The difference between the two families is made immediately apparent; their social standing is emphasized by the geography. They are literally miles above the poor. Thanks to the hedges, they don’t even have to look at them most of the time.

Upon finding himself immersed in their world, “Kevin” concocts a plan. It’s innocent enough – the Park family’s hyperactive son needs an art therapist, and in an apparently off-the-cuff flash of inspiration, Ki-woo suggests his sister. Never mind that she’s not got a degree in any of the places “Kevin” suggests that she has; a bit of light forgery will soon fix that. As for the fact that she’s got no idea what the responsibilities of an art therapist actually are? Eh, she can fake it ‘till she makes it.

It’s down to Director Bong’s extraordinary skills as a storyteller that I still didn’t quite know where the story was going from this point forward. It was only when Ki-jung – AKA “Jessica” – engaged in a blatant act of manipulation in order to get the Park family driver fired, that I began to connect the dots. Sure enough, for a while there Parasite becomes a downright Hitchcokian thriller of false identity and unbearable suspense, as slowly but surely the entire Kim family has invaded the home of the Park family, posing as the help.

And that’s only the beginning. From there, well, that’s where the conversation lies. Is Parasite a scathing satire on Capitalism? Is it – I already did this multiple questions thing earlier. Here’s what it is; brilliant, and totally in control of itself. It completely and perfectly wrangles every plot thread and thematic undercurrent in a fashion that seems singular. It’s multiple messages, but at all times, it all seems to be coalesced into one message. Like I said in my initial review, I never felt that Director Bong was just throwing whatever he wanted at the wall, and seeing what stuck. There’s a purpose to every tonal shift; absolutely none of it is “random.” Every zany digression, or apparent non-sequitur, it’s all built into the very fabric of the film. And the end result is a film experience that I couldn’t predict the end of, or even the next scene of, but in the end it all worked. 

There are layers upon layers to Parasite. This is a smart, complex, important, but ultimately enjoyable movie, and you have no idea how much it warms my heart and gives me hope that so many American audiences responded so rapturously to its release. Director Bong knows the score: once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you really will be introduced to so many more amazing films. Trust me; it’s true.

Review by Sam Stashower

By Grace McLean

“I want to love glitter and also stand up for the double standards that exist in our society. I want to wear pink and tell you how I feel about politics. And I don’t think that those things have to cancel each other out.”

On Friday January 31, 2020, Miss Americana was released on Netflix and I, being the Taylor Swift lover that I am, started watching during my workout. I was 2.5 miles into my bike ride when I began to cry. Not teary eyed. Full blown sobbing. I quickly rushed out of the gym and continued crying outside in the cold. I grew up with Taylor Swift. Not in the sense that we were neighbors. But somehow her music always reflected what was happening to me. And yeah, Taylor Swift has no clue who I am but who cares. I find meaning in her music and it helps me get through tough times. However, I wasn’t expecting Miss Americana to affect me like it did. 

The documentary is about many things. It’s about being a woman in the music industry. It’s about a girl who often gets mocked in the public eye. It’s about a girl finding love with a boy and herself. But at its core, the documentary is about change. From changing from a country singer to a pop icon to changing from judging her body to respecting it as it is. It shows Taylor’s change from becoming the girl who was quiet, never shared her opinion, and followed the rules to a person who spoke up about politics for the first time, focusing on what’s healthy for her, and doing what she wants to do. 

The documentary shows Taylor in a different light than what the media has shown her in the past couple years. Not as the girl who dates a lot and plays the victim but as women who has struggled with an eating disorder, been through a sexual assault trial, and struggling with her mother’s diagnosis with cancer. It shows her as a person. Not a Grammy-winning artist but as a woman who has just as many personal and private problems as anyone else. She has anxiety and is self-conscious. Taylor even says that after Kayne West interrupted her on stage by saying that Beyoncé should have won, she believed that the boos were directed at her instead of West.

I think everyone should watch Miss Americana. It is a beautiful and powerful documentary that everyone should watch. Even if you don’t like Taylor Swift, you should still give it a try.
 

by Simon Wickwire

While there is a decently sized fanbase for Sonic the Hedgehog, the idea of this movie seems about 20 years too late. Sonic as a video game mascot today does not have the same impact he had during the 90’s Well that idea may not actually be the case, because Sonic had the best opening weekend at the box office for a movie based on the video game, beating Pokemon: Detective Pikachu by $4 million. And it is even more shocking considering its release date was moved back by four months to change after Sonic’s original design design that was so horrific and unsettling that the internet screamed for it to be changed. Now that we have a sonic with a far less horrific design, the question of the day was whether the delay was worth it? The answer: eh, kind of? 

Ben Schwartz (Parks & Rec, Duck Tales) brings the perfect amount of energy in voicing him. Whenever it comes to celebrities being brought in to do voice roles, it usually is to just slap a name on the poster to get people to come see it. Even though Schwartz’s name is not on most of the posters,it should be because he is a big reason for a lot of the heart the film has. With Schwartz having voice acting credit in the past, you never feel like it is a celebrity doing a voice. 

A bunch of the advertising, has put in the forefront that Jim Carrey’s performance as Doctor Robotnik is a return to form for what made him one of if not THE biggest comedy actors to watch in the past couple decades. Carrey plugging back into his Pet Detective Energy helps contribute as to why the movie feels like the movie is from the nineties, with Carrey getting a few good laughs in there. 

With the positives discussed, we can get to the aspects that don’t shine as well. In general, the movie’s plot is very predictable and the human characters besides Robotnik are nothing that special, starting with James Marsden’s (Westworld) “Tom.” Marsden’s character arc is copied and pasted from basically every other family film script: a loving husband that feels that he has far more potential and learns along the way that being himself is perfectly okay as is. But Tom has a surprisingly sweet comradery with the animated blue fur ball that isn’t actually there, even with the vast comparisons to 2011’s Hop, another film where Marsden interacts with an animated rodent goes on a road trip with. Some of you probably have forgotten that movie existed, huh? 

However, being far more memorable than that lackluster Easter flop, Sonic the Hedgehog realizes that the audience is there for sonic and you get plenty of him on screen. It is perfectly acceptable family fun that has a good heart behind it with a fun dynamic between the two leads. It is a good step in the right direction for better video game movies and hopefully future ones can learn from this one as well as Detective Pikachu. I’m looking at you Tom Holland, you better not mess up Uncharted.

“Hello neighbor.”

The first things we see and hear in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood should strike all the right pangs of familiarity. Set to the gentle, calming tinkles on a piano, we see the grainy film images of the red house, then the street, then the yellow blinking streetlight, then the door, and out the door comes…Mr. Rogers. Yes, he’s being played by another person––a different icon of American kindness––but somehow we know it’s HIM. It’s not just the mannerisms––the zipper that goes all the way up and then comes down a little, the bit with the shoe––but something more fundamental.

It’s not just Tom Hanks that has the tenor of the man down; it feels as though all of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood exists on the wavelength of Fred Rogers’ quiet heroism. It’s patient, calm, honest, and open. It’s tempting to describe these qualities as “saintly,” but, as we’re told, Mr. Rogers doesn’t like that word. It puts him on a level of unattainability, and that won’t do. We all have it within ourselves to be Mr. Rogers. We’re all human.

That’s the hard lesson Lloyd Vogel learns over the course of the movie, because this isn’t actually a story about Mr. Rogers. Rather, it’s about just one of the many, many people he saved. “Someone has hurt Lloyd,” Mr. Rogers tells us in the beginning, and we see that hurt has transformed him into a cynical man; not a monster, or an unrealistically cruel person, but a man who perhaps understandably scoffs at the idea that Fred Rogers and “Mr. Rogers” are actually one and the same.

But they are. They are, and soon Lloyd finds himself on the receiving end of Mr. Rogers pure, unfiltered empathy, and it’s almost too much for him to take. There’s some potential tension towards the beginning, especially in the early interview scenes, where Vogel’s hard-hitting interview style clashes with Rogers’ almost infuriating kindness. Matthew Rhys plays this tricky role with extraordinary precision, hitting all the right notes to ensure that we sympathize with him and long for his salvation (well, I say “extraordinary,” though anyone familiar with his stellar work on The Americans knew long ago just what he was capable of).

It sounds strange to say, considering that he’s widely considered to be one of the all-time great American actors, but Tom Hanks isn’t the man I would immediately think of when asked who should play Mr. Rogers. He’s very much of a type, and while it’s reductive to say that “he always plays Tom Hanks” – he doesn’t – it’s true that he does have a persona that usually shines through no matter what he’s doing. 

What Marielle Heller manages to do is channel Hanks’ inner goodness into a performance that evokes Fred Rogers more than it tries to imitate him. Heller, fresh off of another quietly affecting biopic (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) is directs the thing with clipped restraint, content to mostly stay out of the story’s way.

“You love broken people,” he says. “Like me.” You might remember that line from the trailer. What’s not included is Mr. Rogers’ response: “I don’t think you’re broken.” What follows is the definitive scene of the movie, where Mr. Rogers asks Lloyd to join him in thinking about the people who loved him into who he is today. Lloyd agrees, and the restaurant where they’re eating goes quiet. And as the camera slowly zooms in on Tom Hanks’ face, we realize that the movie is inviting us to do the same. So we stop. And we think.

“James Bond does not drive a Ford.”

“Well, that’s because he’s a degenerate.”

This just feels like a throwback, doesn’t it? There’s something about Ford v Ferrari that evokes the days of cinema gone by, even though its closest analog I can think of is Ron Howard’s criminally underseen masterstroke, Rush (there’s also Le Mans, a 1971 Steve McQueen picture, but I’ve not seen it). It is, for better or worse, and old-school racing picture about companies trying to one-up each other and cars that go really, really fast.

The film begins as such, with the Ford Motor Company being out-maneuvered by Enzo Ferrari. So incensed by this humiliation is Henry Ford II that he becomes obsessed with defeating Ferrari at Le Mans, the most prestigious – and dangerous – race in the world. To do so, he conscripts the only American to ever win Le Mans: Carroll Shelby, a cowboy hat wearing Matt Damon, who was once on top of the world, but had to retire from racing due to a heart condition.

A question might already have occurred to you; how in the world does Ford v Ferrari position Ford, which was one of the most powerful companies even back then, as the underdog? Quite simply, it doesn’t take their side. We’re with Ford only so far as we’re with Matt Damon, and he’s not always treated very well by them. For instance, he wants Christian Bale’s volatile Ken Miles to be the one to drive in Le Mans. Problem is, his hostile reputation puts him at odds with what the higher-up want a “Ford driver” to look like.

That’s only the beginning of Ford’s attempts to micromanage Damon (after, of course, promising him complete freedom to conduct himself however he wants). On the one hand, bravo to Ford v Ferrari for being very clear-eyed about how shamelessly and soullessly a big corporation would work to remorselessly screw over a group of people who are trying, for all intents and purposes, to give them the biggest win of their lives. 

On the other hand, this is a long, long movie, and a lot of it is a little meandering. A lot of the non-racing running time is committed to making the same point over and over again about how big companies are not Matt Damon’s friend, but he just can’t see it. James Mangold began his career with character-driven films like Cop Land and 3:10 to Yuma, and went on to make Logan, arguably the most character-driven superhero movie ever made. Here, there’s an element of that that’s missing. In something like Rush, the emotional core is the relationship is the constantly evolving rivalry between Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl. Here, the Bale/Damon dynamic never really gets close to that level, nor does any other relationship, for that matter.

This would be more palatable, I think, if the script were just a bit better. Right at the beginning, we see a bunch of German investors who are interested in investing in Damon and Bale. They’re told, however, that Bale is “difficult.” One won race later, and the lead German investor has a moment to helpfully inform us that, “He’s difficult…but good.” Thanks, I needed that.

That’s not the last of the clunky lines Ford v Ferrari throws our way, and trust me, they all hurt just about as much as that wrench Bale throws at Damon. Fortunately, they’re all made worth it by the exemplary racing sequences. Those make it absolutely worth it to have seen the film on the big screen. I don’t know if it’s better than Rush in this regard – I’ll have to rewatch that film to see – but it’s bloody good all the same. Mangold accomplishes a great feat, in that he very effectively puts you in the car with Bale as he’s racing for his life, always inches away from death.

I’ve seen Ford v Ferrari described as a “dad movie.” Yeah, that’s accurate. It’s certainly a throwback to the era they’ll remember. Josh Lucas plays a great “you’ll love to hate him” villain who comes to embody the corporate side of racing. Caitriona Balfe is great, but she’s also more or less just playing “the wife.” Noah Jupe’s also great, but he’s also just playing “the son.” And for a movie called Ford v Ferrari, there is basically no input from Ferrari beyond the opening and closing minutes. Still, it is entertaining, and, for all its pacing and scripting issues, very cinematic.

Jojo Rabbit is a movie that will confuse some, annoy more, and anger most. It’s an “anti-hate” satire that’s been accused by some of heinous bowdlerization; of being a “Heartwarming Holocaust feel-good flick” that ignores, or paves over, the atrocities of the time.

Interestingly, though, I’m not seeing that much in the way of controversy about this film. Sure, there were the expected “OMG THIS IS THE MOST DANGEROUS FILM SINCE JOKER” headlines from the increasingly desperate clickbait-based “news” sites, but I guess those were non-starters, because there haven’t been that many. If I had to guess, I’d say Jojo Rabbit is too good-hearted and pure to really get that worked up over, in spite of its tricky material.

Again, that sentence might seem very strange to anyone who hasn’t seen the movie. A good-hearted and pure movie…about Nazis? Trust me, it works. I think that’s partially because this isn’t “really” about Nazis, or Nazism. The iconography is used, as well as some surface-level trappings, but really, it could be anything. What Jojo Rabbit is about is cliques. The Third Reich is portrayed as an elitist social club, and little Jojo is a lonely little kid who wants in with the big boys, to such an extent that he’s blind to the club’s rotten core.

Again, to many people, this will come across as wildly misguided. Writing it all out, I find myself amazed at what Taika Waititi has pulled off. From where I’m sitting, Jojo Rabbit is a perfectly judged film, a balancing act that spends nearly two hours riiiiiight on the edge of dipping into monstrously poor taste, without ever crossing the line. 

In a couple of ways, what Taika Waititi has done here reminds me of a sillier Spike Lee film. It’s thrillingly fearless, with a direct line to your emotional core. It has no need for such things like “subtlety,” nor should it. But whereas the films of Mr. Lee are usually vivaciously angry, Waititi is stubbornly feel-good, even in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

This isn’t exactly smiles and sunshine always. There is darkness creeping around the edges of the film, occasionally taking stabs at its heart. Don’t believe for a second that the horrors of living in Nazi Germany are glossed over, or made completely frivolous. This is a kind movie, but it’s not a facetious one.

You know how I’d describe this movie? Cathartic. I needed to see this movie, in a way that I’m still at a loss to explain. A special word must go to Roman Griffin Davis, making his acting debut as young Jojo. Think about that; this is his first movie. This is his first job, period. What he does in this movie is extraordinary. He took a character that could’ve gone so wrong, and made him one of the most brilliant original characters of 2019. I found myself completely engaged with the movie because I was invested in the fate of Jojo’s soul. 

Again, this won’t work for everyone. This is a wavelength movie if ever there was one; you gotta get on board with what it’s doing, or be completely lost at sea. I can imagine some out there will find themselves completely unsympathetic to Jojo’s plight. I can imagine some out there will find what Waititi does here completely wrongheaded. I can also easily imagine some out there feeling comfortable denouncing this movie without bothering to see it (I have absolutely no sympathy for that last group there). Regardless, as someone who actually saw the damn film, I found myself treated to a resonant, fully-realized film, one that knew exactly what it was doing, and did it with a smile.