2019 Movie Best-of List: How'd We Do?

The years just get crazier and crazier, don't they? Our theaters were filled with horrors, maniacs, and badly needed heroes – as always, holding up a mirror to the world we live in.

Having a look back at last January's 2019 preview, I can't help but notice that only about half of the films I ended up putting on my "Best of" list below were on my radar last January as being hotly anticipated. Meaning there were plenty of surprises this year that I wasn't expecting. Overall, it felt like a bit of a middling year, without nearly as many earth-shattering watershed moments as I was hoping for.

There are still quite a few top contenders for 2019 that as of this writing, I have yet to see, including 1917 (which I have a very good feeling about), Parasite, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit, Dolemite Is My Name, Knives Out,  Little Women, Ford v Ferrari, Bombshell, Judy, The Two Popes, Rocketman, Hustlers, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, The Farewell, The Lighthouse, and Just Mercy. 

That's a pretty big list, and my choices below may very well morph a bit, once I'm a bit more caught up.

But sitting here on New Year's Eve, as we prepare to turn the old page, these (links to full reviews below) are my top six that are giving me the most lasting impressions:

Us – Jordan Peele continues to weaponize the horror genre to make deft commentary on race, society, and the current state of life in America. Unsettling as hell, and hard to shake. 

Avengers: Endgame – A phenomenal, rip-roaring finale to this initial chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Many threads both epic and intimate are finally woven together, in a crowd-pleasing and emotional farewell to some truly iconic heroes.

Midsommar – For pure mind-rattling dread, it's hard to beat director Ari Aster right now. Midsommar is the polar opposite of what many folks will expect atmospherically from a horror film – which only serves to make it all the more effective. Unforgettably disturbing.

Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood – Can we really be nearing the end of Quentin Tarantino's oeuvre? If so, he's in no danger of wearing out his welcome – not with films like this. Some of the best work you're ever likely to see from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, in an unrepentant love letter to the late nineteen-sixties. Sorry, Charlie. 

Joker – Probably my favorite film of the year – and the one I was most skeptical regarding. Thanks to the phenomenal work of director Todd Phillips, and a sure to be legendary performance by Joaquin Phoenix, Joker is an entirely new way of upending a comic book villain's origin story – equal measures heartbreaking and terrifying. An unflinching look at the outcome of trauma. 

Uncut Gems – A genuine sneaker wave, with an unlikely lead, Adam Sandler redefines his image in an off-putting, panic-inducing ride of compulsion and consequences. The most stressful time you'll have at the movies this year, and hypnotically unforgettable.

UPDATE!

Dolemite Is My Name – Just watched this phenomenal Eddie Murphy bio about the career of seventies cult comedian turned blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore, and it's utterly glorious! Murphy has never been better and it's easily the best comedy of the year. Currently on Netflix. Watch it!!!


There you have it – not nearly as big as a list as last year, when I picked eleven.

Honorable mentions to Toy Story 4 and The Irishman, with fond appreciation for Downton Abbey, The Lion King, Captain Marvel, Frozen 2, and Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, plus big portions of both Alita: Battle Angel, and Terminator: Dark Fate. These were all plenty of fun in their own way.

This means it will very shortly be time for my annual look ahead at the 2020 films I'm most excited for – and that promises to be one heck of a list, as we step into the first year of the Roaring Twenties. So stay tuned!!!

Downtown Abbey: Armchair Comfort

I did not get to the movie continuation of Downton Abbey when it opened in theaters here this last September. However, having recently debuted on home video, it's actually a film experience that's perfectly timed for viewing during the holiday season.

Downton ended its televised run nearly perfectly, serving delightful departing resolutions to all the members of the Crawley household - both upstairs, and downstairs.

So when news broke of a film expansion that would further franchise Downton, loud came the cries of, "Is this movie necessary?"

Well, perhaps not "necessary," but a return to the comforting environments and challenges of Downton is welcome indeed. It's a genuine pleasure to spend time with these characters again, and it's a delight to see that making a feature film in no way tarnishes the gleam of the series, or the characters as we left them.

Set in 1927, the film begins with the arrival of news that King George V and Queen Mary (Grandparents to Queen Elizabeth II) will be visiting Downton during a royal tour of the English countryside (inspired by a similar visit made by the royals in 1912 to Wentworth Woodhouse). This of course sends everyone into a dither, as both the Crawley family and their servants, become intent on making sure they're seen at their absolute best.

Simply put, if you're a fan of the series (as I am), I can't imagine you not absolutely loving this film.
Everything people are fond of - and take comfort from - is there. The beloved characters, the splendid period detail, the machinations of plot, the manners and emotions - it's all right where it should be, and Downton achieves exactly what it's meant to - feeling like a larger, lavish, but absolutely fitting bookend to the TV series. It's by no means squeezing too much juice from the lemon. Series creator and screenwriter Julian Fellowes knows his characters well, and the cast slips back into their roles with engaging grace. Series veteran Michael Engler directs with a sure and lively hand, though there's a bit of over-reliance on sweeping drone shots of the Downton estate - kidding, who isn't? Engler does a marvelous job of controlling the tone, and letting the actors find genuine immediacy in their circumstances.

As always, the cast is first-rate. Tom Branson (Allen Leach) gets the lion's share of the Crawley family plot, and does a great job, comfortably wielding movie star charisma. Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nichol), and Daisy (Sophie McShera), along with poor old Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle), enjoy rolling up their sleeves and mixing it up with the royal household staff, who mean to enforce their territorial prerogatives over the Downton maids and valets.

No surprise, however, that it's Tom Barrow (Robert James-Collier) who carries much of the emotional weight, with an interesting look at the beginnings of suppressed gay relationships determined to dream of a life beyond covert meetings in the shadows.

It's a hoot to see series favorite the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) lock antlers with a royal relative played by Imelda Staunton, making for a Professor McGonagall/Dolores Umbridge Harry Potter reunion! Amusingly, Staunton is also married to Jim Carter, who plays Carson!

These days, the phrase "fan service" has become something of a four-letter word. But for fans who've loved and struggled along with these characters since the series' debut in 2010, that a film has lovingly been made with every effort to actually please fans shouldn't be something that's scowled at. It should be cause for celebration.

At one point, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) finds herself wondering if she's simply had enough of Downton, and wonders if she should just up and sell the place, when she's reminded that "Downton Abbey is the heart of this community," and that perhaps they should battle on.

Perhaps the same could be said for future cinematic outings. If they can approach each chapter with this much care and fondness, occasional visitations would be welcome indeed. I'd love to see a Downton chapter set another 12 years in the future, as the country enter World War II. After all, what could be more British than that?

Definitely recommended for any fan of the show. 

Uncut Gems: High Anxiety

Talk about your long shots. Six months ago, if you'd told me one of my favorite movies of the year was going to be an Adam Sandler picture, I'd have probably scoffed - maybe even snorted. But then again, I'd never heard of the Safdie brothers.

Goes to show, you should never dismiss. Because I'm here to tell you, Uncut Gems is flat-out one of the best films of the year, and Adam Sandler's a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination (when I first saw the trailer, I thought it was John Turturro). I'm unfamiliar with the previous films directed by siblings Benny and Josh Safdie (Daddy Longlegs, Good Time), so I was completely unprepared for the level of craft and energy they bring to this story of a hustling New York City jeweler's relentless descent into high-stakes gambling and moral chaos.

It's fitting that Martin Scorsese is one of Uncut Gems' Executive Producers, as the film has so much of that same raw Mean Streets energy and street character. Sandler is Howard Ratner, a fast-talking diamond district proprietor who reflexively turns every interaction into a possibility to score, upping the ante of risk with each deal he makes. The film reminds me of the early-nineties films of Abel Ferrara (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant). In fact, while it's supposedly set in 2012 (characters have cell phones and iPads), the vibe, music, and look of the characters all scream late-eighties/early-nineties. The soundtrack by Daniel Lopatin is particularly retro synth-heavy, giving the movie a hectic, Vangelis-meets-Times Square flavor.

Uncut Gems is an unmedicated anxiety attack. It's the most stressful experience you're likely to ever have in a theater. Howard is easily one of the most annoying characters you're ever likely to meet, but he's the shark who believes that he'd die if he ever stopped moving forward, constantly propelling himself into the next ever-tightening situation.

The Safties - along with casting directors Francine Maisler and Jennifer Venditti - deserve a special award for casting. The faces in this film! There are so many amazing and eccentrically real-life faces peppered throughout, which gives the movie a completely convincing street level quality. People look odd and dress badly. It's one of the most New York of New York movies I've seen in ages. The cast includes basketball player Kevin Garnett (who plays himself), LaKeith Stanfield, Idina Menzel, Julia Fox, Judd Hirsch, newcomer Keith Williams Richards, and the hypnotic Eric Bogosian, whose time-worn face projects incredible intensity and angst. Everyone is utterly fantastic and convincing.

Cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, The Lost City of Z) does truly heroic work here, shooting between the drab glare of jewelry store florescents and a myriad of chaotic night environments. The camera - along with Howard - is in nearly constant motion, phenomenally edited by Ronald Bronstein along with Bennie Safdie. No other movie would dare plunge its camera deep into the inner molecular structure of a rare opal, and emerge in the midst of a colonoscopy.

If the film has a soul mate, it's Todd Phillips' Joker. Both films are remarkably well made, featuring protagonists inexorably sinking into fateful quicksand. They also both playfully evoke music and environmental details of eighties and nineties New York to an immersive and compelling degree, creating environments of nearly smothering moral decay.

The filmmaking craft on display here is absolutely top-shelf, and I can't wait to see what the Safdies have in store for us next. To sustain this escalating tone of anxiety and suspense for the entire running time is an incredible achievement, and I'll never look at Adam Sandler the same way again. Uncut Gems is a phenomenal film - but hard to take. When the lights come up, you're probably going to need some epinephrine - and a shower. Very highly recommended.

The Irishman - I Heard You Paint Houses

"I'm a little bit concerned..."

As a movie fan, I've spent a long time kneeling at the altar of Goodfellas. The dynamic energy and visual punch of that film is nothing short of iconic. So no shocker that I've been among the legion of Martin Scorsese fans chomping at the bit to get a look at his return to the mob genre.

Produced by Netflix, The Irishman debuts on that platform on the 27th, but I'm lucky enough to live in a town where it was booked in an actual theater, because it just feels wrong to see a Scorsese picture on TV for the first time. So cue the sound of squealing tires, there was no way I was missing this!

I'm delighted to say, the experience did not disappoint. It's a massively long film. At 3 hours and 29 minutes, it's longer than either of the Godfather films, longer than The Return of the King, longer than Titanic. It's a Scorsese opera, a multi-decade saga focusing on one man's journey into the America of organized crime.

Based on the memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, by Charles Brandt, The Irishman is the confessional of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a World War II veteran who returns home from combat where he's learned to kill when ordered, meeting Pennsylvania crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), who quickly puts his marketable skills to work.

I don't want to get into too many details or spoil the rich tapestry of surprises that The Irishman has in store, but know that this is vintage Scorsese - a filmmaking legend at the height of his powers, teamed-up with his veteran crew of choice. This is Scorsese and De Niro's ninth collaboration together, along with legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain, Argo, The Wolf of Wall Street). The screenplay by Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List, Gangs of New York, Moneyball) is a rich, novelesque feast of dialogue, leaning heavily into David Mamet territory.

The story spans a twenty-year stretch from the fifties to the seventies, with a deft wraparound structure featuring Sheeran looking back on what he's been left with - or without. As Frank changes, so does America, with events from the Kennedy and Nixon eras looming large behind them. With the passage of time and the sequence of choices, comes regret: "You don't know how fast time goes by 'til you get there." In every sense of the word, The Irishman is about mortality.

A mob story from Scorsese is bound to be violent, but Scorsese and Schoonmaker know when to get graphic, and when to suddenly look away, to create an even more jarring impact. The violence is matter-of-fact and never glamorized.

Eventually, Frank's orbit intersects with Jimmy Hoffa - Al Pacino, his first time working with Scorsese. Ever since Scent of a Woman, we've seen many a loud, grandiose performance from Pacino, but that's only a starting point for him here. The braggadocio and ego of Hoffa is a perfect fit for Pacino’s Hoffa, who reveals the layers of paranoia and need for control that drive him. I think it's a tremendous performance, that can't help but remind one of the current occupant of the oval office.

A huge part of what makes The Irishman tick is the digital "youthification" of the actors, letting us see a younger De Niro, Pacino and Pesci earlier in the story. It works incredibly well, and was never distracting, allowing the filmmakers to tell a truly long-form narrative with the same cast, who uniformly turn in some of their best work. I was particularly taken with Pesci, whose Russel Bufalino is a remarkably controlled and elegant piece of work. He's terrifying, without ever resorting to oversized theatrics. It's a terrific performance.

The Irishman may be one of De Niro's greatest roles. Coming right on the heels of Joker, this is an actor who shows no signs of mellowing, who's only delving deeper and delivering even more remarkable work.

My only disappointment is at how small Harvey Keitel's role is, as Angelo Bruno. He has incredible presence, which makes you want to see that much more of him. Also, there's a lack of substantial female roles in the film, with no equivalent of Goodfellas' Lorraine Bracco, or Sharon Stone in Casino. Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, and the ubiquitous Jesse Plemons all shine in supporting roles - and keep a sharp eye out for Jerry Vale!

The Irishman is a story told from the mature perspective of both a character and a director with long miles of seasoning and life experience - like Kurosawa's Ran. It's the kind of epic we don't see much these days, but it's gripping, poignant, and often quite hilarious. Netflix is tempting, but if you're fortunate enough to live somewhere that's showing The Irishman on the big screen, do yourself a favor and run.

Yes, it's long. The Irishman takes its time. But Scorsese and his story earn it. To quote Goodfellas, "Paulie may have moved slow, but it was only because Paulie didn't have to move for anybody."

Terminator: Dark Fate - Hot Lead and Cold Feet

It's been 28 years since James Cameron unleashed Terminator 2: Judgement Day, still deservedly regarded as one of the best sequels of all time. Cameron is a master of set piece kinetics, and Judgement Day delivered like crazy, along with dynamite characters you cared about, and a solid dose of humor. Audiences couldn't get enough.

In the intervening years, there have been three previous efforts to resurrect the franchise, with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), and Terminator Genisys (2015), with the The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series sandwiched in there in 2008. Without substantial involvement from James Cameron, none of these projects found any lasting success.

The good news is, for Terminator: Dark Fate, Cameron got involved again - though being too busy making numerous Avatar sequels, farmed out directing duties to Deadpool director Tim Miller, with a screenplay by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray. The team decided to pretend that none of these failed Terminator sequels ever existed, positioning Dark Fate as the first direct sequel to Judgement Day. More good news - they largely succeed, and the film is rated R. But they don't wholly succeed, and given the film's box office under-performance, it's easy to see why.

Part of the problem is they essentially go the remake/sequel hybrid route, with Dark Fate attempting to exhume the fundamental dynamic of the original (1984) Terminator, a heroic soldier from the future going back in time to try to prevent a hostile Terminator from assassinating the woman who brings their reign of terror to an end - a move that feels like calculated franchise avarice more than storytelling.

The result is a frustrating experience, in large part due to the casting. The headline here is Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire) as Grace, essentially the Kyle Reese character - a cybernetically enhanced future soldier with simply phenomenal combat skills. It's a star-making performance, and Davis throws herself into the role with 300% commitment and 1000 watt star power. With Grace, Davis jumps to the immediate front of the line for all heroic action roles, male or female - period. Imagine a short-tempered sci-fi Valkyrie version of Megan Rapinoe. Davis kicks every kind of ass there is, and is thankfully in nearly every scene of the film.

Likewise, an incredibly savvy move is luring back Sarah Connor herself, Linda Hamilton, who brings a very similar take to the character to what Jamie Lee Curtis achieved in last year's Halloween sequel - a hardcore, gun-toting sexegenarian, in a new chapter that ignores all the previous lamer chapters that came before. Hamilton is awesome, and has definitely not mellowed with age. She does vigilant paranoia and rage better than anybody, and when she teams up with Davis, the two make a serious house on fire.

Also got to hand it to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pulls anchorman duty in a surprising way that genuinely works. I wish he'd entered the plot sooner than he does, but it totally satisfies, and his scenes with Hamilton have genuine sparks and poignancy to them. These three all do fantastic work.

So what's my problem? Sadly, it all of the other "main characters." As Dani Ramos, the "Sarah Redux" role of the Terminator's target, I'm not sure what's going on with Natalia Reyes. You might be tempted to say Tim Miller's better at directing action than actors, but he got one hell of a phenomenal performance out of Mackenzie Davis, so I don't think that's a fair take. Sad to say, Reyes just doesn't come off well as an actor here. She's plaintive and confused, and sometimes she gets very frustrated and mad. I found her an incredibly annoying and forgettable character.

So, too, with the antagonist. You gotta have a lethal, frightening villain in a movie like this, and as the zany "Rev-9" Terminator, actor Gabriel Luna is frustratingly lacking. He's no Robert Patrick. He never looks threatening; he almost seems affable at times; but mostly just comes off as goofy. This Terminator is the not-very-inventive cousin of T2's liquid metal Terminator, but with the ability to somehow morph off its fleshy human shell to move independently from its own endoskeleton. Now there are two of them! It makes no sense, and unfortunately, Luna's Rev-9 endures the shoddiest of the film's computer-generated effects.

There's also an embarrassingly preposterous mid-air action sequence that defies every disbelief-suspending implausibility in the history of mid-air action sequences. It's truly ludicrous. Thankfully, it's redeemed by a far superior climax ground battle, where Miller manages to capture some of that old Cameron visceral inertia.

I enjoyed seeing a genuine Terminator sequel, especially with the callbacks to Sarah Connor and the dynamic presence of Mackenzie Davis. Huge chunks of it are outright fantastic, and really enjoyable for action fans. But it's a movie that too often runs hot and cold.

The meat of this sandwich is really great, but the bread containing it is just way too stale. 

Joker: Joaquin Phoenix Gets the Last Laugh

The DC comics movie universe hasn’t had an easy time of it.  While Wonder Woman and Aquaman were hits, too often, attempts to mirror the successes of Marvel’s shared franchises have delivered disjointed and ungainly results.

Which is why it’s so phenomenally refreshing to see filmmakers given the creative freedom to go in the exact opposite direction – which is exactly what’s been achieved with Joker, easily one of the best and most resonating movies of the year.

Director Todd Phillips’ background is largely in comedy, with three Hangover movies, Starsky and Hutch, and Old School among his credits. At first glance that might make him a surprising choice for a film as dark and painful as Joker, but I’m betting that much exposure to comedy makes him ideally suited to have a unique perspective on the frustrations of comedians who can’t quite seem to connect, or overcome their own internal shadows.

Phillips (along with 8 Mile and The Fighter screenwriter Scott Silver) has made an origin story like no other. We don’t have enormous set pieces, or eye-popping CGI. We have a small, intimate portrait of a diminished, marginalized man – a survivor of trauma and alienation, struggling against mental illness, as the environment around him sinks ever deeper into decay.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is the kind of professional clown you’d see working at a used car lot – a recipient of more bruises and derision than of audience laughter. He lives with his frail mother, struggles through visits with his social worker, all the while harboring dreams of being a successful comedian.

Judging by the theater marquees, this Gotham is the New York of 1981, back when Times Square was still a squalid mess. A city of rot, the garbage forever left uncollected. Phillips and cinematographer Lawrence Sher (Godzilla: King of the Monsters and The Hangover films) do a remarkable job of evoking the gritty, washed-out vibe of late-seventies, early-eighties New York films - which is no accident, as Joker owes a deep inspirational debt to a pair of Martin Scorsese films of that vintage: Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982). Arthur Fleck is practically a blood relative of Comedy's Rupert Pupkin. 

Holding his lackluster life up against the late night TV comedy luminaries he idolizes, it's no wonder Arthur has had low points where he's not sure if he even exists. Arthur trudges through his life, somehow a magnet for indignities and abuse, slogging home up a vertiginous flight of stairs that makes the one in The Exorcist look like a molehill in comparison. It's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel meets Barfly. 

How much can one soul endure before it starts to crack?  Arthur is broken, but so is the city he lives in. 1981 social services for the mentally ill were too little butter spread across too much bread, and the film does a remarkable job of getting into the skin of a man who's sick, who wants to belong, but who's been essentially abandoned and left to twist in the wind.

Joker is completely and utterly lit from within by Joaquin Phoenix, in one of the most detailed and immersive performances I can remember. His work is simply phenomenal, and reflects a craftsman who's clearly done an enormous amount of preparation. Arthur's laugh, his posture - the way he runs. It's truly convincing and compelling work, and for my money, Phoenix leaps miles ahead of the pack this year. This is by no means a mere villain's origin story. This is a story about trauma and the shadow of adversity, and what that does to someone when their last scrap of dignity has been snatched away from them. Phoenix manages to bestow incredible empathy for Arthur throughout his plight, even as his tethers to reality and sense of self begin to slip free.

Do not take your children to this film. Joker is not a superhero movie. There are moments of shocking violence in Joker's world. With everything that happens in this movie, I was expecting to come away feeling bleak and depressed, and was surprised to see how exhilarated I felt. The craft by both actors and filmmakers is simply that good. The oppressive dread of Gotham/New York powerfully enhanced by a score from Hildur Guðnadóttir (HBO’s Chernobyl).

In addition to Scorsese, Phillips and Silver mine shrewdly from past DC lore, including graphic novel The Killing Joke, by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland, as well as Frank Miller and Klaus Johnson’s opus, The Dark Knight Returns. 

We live in a world where sociopath loners have become more and more disturbingly commonplace. Don't make the mistake of thinking Joker glorifies or romanticizes them. Far from it. But by wrapping trauma, mental health and societal discontent in the thin cloth of comic book familiarity, Phillips has crafted a cautionary tale for our times that never forgets that there's a person behind the mask and makeup. The kind of wounded, broken person we walk past without noticing every day. Joker asks that we not forget them, and that we all do more than simply look away.

It Chapter Two: Derry Redux

The kids are back in school, and Halloween's mere weeks away, so that must mean it's horror movie season. Incredibly it's been two years since director Andy Muschietti's adaptation of It blew the doors off the box office - a genre classic, and a massive success. It's no secret I'm a huge Stephen King admirer, and I absolutely loved the first film, so there was no way I was missing Muschietti's follow-up.

Where the 2017 It focused on the characters as teens, Chapter Two picks up 27 years later, with the older Losers now scattered on the wind, their terror in Derry forgotten, grinding away in adulthood. Only Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa) remained in Derry, and when terrible murders begin again, he picks up the phone and starts calling. "You need to come back."

Compared to the young unknown cast of the first film, it's a different experience seeing the characters embodied by name actors. Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader fill the lead roles of Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier. It's good casting, and these three do great work inhabiting older incarnations of the characters. Hader is particularly effective as the aggressive comedian of the group. Bill Skarsgård continues to go to phenomenally disturbing and successful extremes as Pennywise. All the ingredients are there - more famous, bigger, longer! But I found those aspects of the picture worked against it, and there were also a few key elements missing.

This time screenwriters Cary Fukunaga and Chase Palmer are not part of the mix, with Gary Dauberman handling things solo. It's a big story with a lot to juggle, and things aren't always handled as deftly as they were in the first film. Likewise, original cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy) has been replaced by Checco Varese, and the shot compositions simply aren't as iconic as in the first film.

Chapter Two begins with a truly awful homophobic assault that King included in his novel after a similar event in Maine that actually occurred. Regardless, the scene is hard to watch and feels equal parts dated and oppressive. This scene is quickly followed by a brutal sequence of Beverly on the receiving end of her husband's domestic violence. In short, the tone starts off pretty bleak and off-putting right out of the gate.

Once the gang has returned to Derry and accepted that their fuzzy memories of the past are returning, the film gains strength. This is a great example of a film with a second act that's much stronger than the first or third. That middle section of the picture is where things are most compelling and the cast really gets a chance to shine. A scene where Beverly has to return to her awful childhood apartment and meet the elderly woman now living there gives Chastain - and the film - some of their best moments. The core of this movie is having to face past trauma and how it's forever damaged you. Adverse Childhood Experiences, indeed. This is where the story uses horror as it's meant to be used, as metaphor to deal with the brutality of life. The various scenes where each of the now-adults must face their past and look it in the face are fantastic, and for the most part extremely well done - for the most part.

The film is way too self-referential, and overflowing with "homages" and clumsy references to other films and even other King works. One effects sequence blatantly cribs an infamous scene from John Carpenter's The Thing, then tosses off the exact accompanying oft-quoted barb of dialogue, just to make things worse. That's not just painful, it's embarrassing.

There seems to have been a desire to make the climactic face-off with Pennywise the biggest, most drawn-out finale in horror history. They definitely succeed on the drawn-out part. It Chapter Two is a behemoth 2 hours and 49 minutes long (compared to the original's 2 and 15), and it feels it. It's easily 40 minutes too long, with a telescoping ending that tries the patience of the audience to a grim - and dimly lit - degree.

I have a huge amount of fondness for the story of It. It reminds me of my childhood friendships to an uncanny degree. I wanted to love Chapter Two, and there are large parts of it where I did. But there were too many long stretches where I just felt detached and depressed by the loudness of the machinery, and the meanness of spirit. 

The Hills are Alive: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

My biggest regret with Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood is that I'm not able to immediately sit down and watch it again - because I absolutely can't wait to. This review is spoiler-free, because if you're a Quentin Tarantino fan, my main goal here is to propel you out the door and get you into the theater muy pronto, as this is one of his absolute best, easily on a par with Pulp Fiction, possibly even surpassing it.

I loved this movie. I also think the less you know about it going in, the better off you are. As you might suspect, this is Tarantino's love letter to the Hollywood he grew up being formed by. It's 1969, an era of Screen Gems and Quinn Martin Productions - of Mannix, The Green Hornet and Matt Helm. He references everything from Land of the Giants to Sergio Corbucci, and it's a tidal wave of giddy nostalgia wrapped up in a supremely engaging story driven by two fantastic characters. The sixties were coming to a close, darkness was emerging and society was changing. It was a summer where American was changed forever.

In one of the all-time great casting coups, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt team-up in roles we'll be quoting for a long, long time. Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) is an actor now past the heyday of his TV western prime. His series Bounty Law looks an awful lot like Steve McQueen's Wanted Dead or Alive. Rick's getting older now, and times are changing. DiCaprio is wonderfully open and vulnerable in his anxiety about an uncertain future. His former stunt-double and best friend is Cliff Booth (Pitt), who's more often Rick's chauffeur and handyman these days. Both of them are finding that the world around them is changing, with the potential to leave them in the dust. I honestly don't think either of them have ever been better. DiCaprio is raw and in constant motion. Pitt is unflappably cool and centered - a seasoned bad-ass who doesn't rattle easily.

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood feels like it was written to perfection. Every scene has a purpose, and its constantly fascinating. Nothing's wasted, and nothing feels indulgent. It's also hilarious. At 2 hours and 41 minutes, it feels like a brisk half-hour. It also feels like Tarantino is maturing magnificently. To have this fall on the heels of The Hateful Eight is evidence of a writer/director at the height of his powers, who's wildly in love with character and narrative. The picture is full of terrific scenes - too many to count. With the attention to period detail and morning-after apprehension, it shares a magnificent kinship with Boogie Nights, while staying very much its own unique thing.

Massive props to production designer Barbara Ling and legendary Cinematographer Robert Richardson. They time-travel the audience with remarkably effective ease.

There so much more I'd love to talk about, so many scenes I want to dive into, but you need to taste the wine first, then we can discuss and unpack. It may only be August, but for the time being, Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood is the best picture of the year. Very highly damn recommended.

The Lion King: A Roaring Success

In the current Hollywood jungle, Disney is the apex predator. Disney now owns 40% of the domestic box office marketshare, and they've had a colossal year. With hits like Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Toy Story 4, they've amassed global ticket sales in excess of $7.67 billion, the all-time record for a single studio, and The Lion King is a big slice of that pie, soon to be the latest offering to crest the billion dollar mark. The year's barely half over, with Frozen 2, Maleficent and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still to come. Point being, these cats know what they're doing and they know how to satisfy an audience.

I was a little surprised when Jon Favreau was announced as director, as his 2016 literalization of The Jungle Book covered such similar territory. Maybe that was the appeal - to explore a similar conceit and make it feel unique. Whatever the case, Favreau does a tremendous job here. I've been surprised by the somewhat lackluster reviews The Lion King has received, as this feels exactly like the experience the trailer promised. There's great fealty to the source material, whose dialogue and songs have become downright iconic - yet depicting the characters in such a vivid photrealistic style feels fresh and engaging. You'd swear that Rafiki (John Kani) is a living, insightful primate.

Supremely smart move to have James Earl Jones return to voice Mufasa, sounding as strong and focused as ever. He's wonderful, as always. JD McCrary and Shahadi Wright Joseph feel just perfect as the younger incarnations of lion cubs Simba and Nala, with Donald Glover and Beyoncé (Knowles Carter) as the grown-up versions. Alfre Woodard and John Oliver are also outstanding as Sarabi and Zazu. But it's Chiwetel Ejiofor who truly rules here as vindictive uncle Scar. The character design of all the animals is excellent and astonishingly convincing, but the design of Scar is utterly amazing, and Ejiofor inhabits him with pitch-perfect conviction and malice. 

Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen play comic relief duo of Timon and Pumba, and if I have one issue with The Lion King, it's Eichner's Timon, who's a bit much, putting it mildly. He dials it up way past eleven, and threatens to give new life to sterotypes that likely do more harm than good. It's Timon channeling Paul Lynde. 

Favreau does a superb job weaving this all together. He's been the home run hero for Disney and I'm a little giddy to see what he's come up with overseeing The Mandalorian for Disney+. The Lion King feels like it was exhaustively storyboarded, as the shot composition has a fantastic, classicist style that makes this iconic, Shakespearean fable feel like it's been faithfully honored. The pace never lags, and it's a perfect summer outing for every demographic of the family to share together. It's fun, and like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast before it, does a heartfelt job of keeping the story alive for new generations of young moviegoers, who are clearly enjoying the experience. 

A Midsommar Night’s Scream

Fans of Real-Deal horror films: take note. Not schlocky gore-porn (lower-case) horror, but the legit article. In a summer that's featured plenty of tepid franchise fatigue, director Ari Aster (Hereditary) has served up something unique that (for the most part) you haven't seen before. It's also (like his previous outing) easily one of the most disturbing pictures of the year.

A couple and their grad student friends travel to a remote, pastoral Swedish village for the town's historic mid-summer festival. Dani (Florence Pugh) is on unsteady ground with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and recovering from traumatic tragedy. The beginning of Midsommar has a lot in common with Hereditary, particularly in the emphasis of grief. Midsommar also features a character in the throes of agonizing, keening grief, so painful and unflinching that it threatens to shatter the soul. Aster is particularly fond of scenes where the audience feels like they shouldn't be watching. Of lingering on shots where 99% of other directors would cut away. Often in horror and suspense, what's not seen can be more effective and unsettling than what is starkly depicted. Aster's unblinking eye doesn't exactly dare you to look away, but rather makes you feel complicit.

Beyond the setup, I'm not going into any further details as far as plot. The less you know the better - and the more unhinged the film is likely to leave you. While Midsommar is upsetting, it's also much funnier in places than I was prepared for. Aster and his cast do a great job of letting the characters reveal their lack of self-awareness as they interact with both a village of unfamiliar citizens, and each other. The dialogue is terrific. Having a cast consisting of virtually all unknowns makes it very easy to lose yourself in their circumstances with no pre-associations. Keep an eye on William Jackson Harper - that guy is going places, I'll guarantee.

Unlike most genre pictures, thanks to the Land of the Midnight Sun, much of Midsommar takes place in broad daylight, which is unnerving and surreal, and incredibly effective. There are few shadows to hide in. Production Designer Henrik Svensson has done world-class work building and decorating the village structures with a mind-blowing amount of historical, foreboding detail. Hereditary cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski lenses the serene bucolic village and its inhabitants in lush, immersive style, including the absolute best, most disorienting inverted camera I've ever experienced. There's a dreamlike quality to many of the images, and they'll likely be staying with you for longer than you might prefer. If the film sound intriguing, I'd strongly urge seeing it in the theater and not waiting for home video, as Aster and Pogozelski have crafted real cinema here that cries out to be appreciated on the big screen - if your brain can handle it.

Amidst the current marketplace, Midsommar feels powerfully original and vivid. Aster takes his time (2h 27min), letting things play out with natural, unforced eccentricity. It joins a small corner of the genre you might think of as folk horror, and owes a profound debt to Robin Hardy's 1973 The Wicker Man. It seems there's a new wave of adult horror cresting, with films like The Witch, and Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us - and Ari Aster is right at the front of the pack. A bright spot in the summer movie season that just may detach your retinas. For genre fans, highly recommended. 

Spider-Man: Far From Home, Far From Perfect

After the stellar success of Avengers: Endgame, any superhero outing is likely to pale in comparison. Though in many ways, Spider-Man: Far From Home serves as a post-banquet confection or coda to Endgame, as it's set in the days following the global annihilation/resurrection of The Snap (or "Blip" as it's called here), with an emerging hero - Tom Holland's Peter Parker - who like much of the world, is still picking up the pieces after the death of his beloved mentor, Tony Stark.

Did Tony intend for Peter and Spider-Man to take on the mantle as leader of The Avengers? Those are intimidatingly big shoes to fill, and a heavy burden to contemplate. Fortunately, Peter's school is headed to Europe for a class trip to Venice, and beyond.

The plot thickens when Peter's recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and a new ally called Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), as a gaggle of inter-dimensional Elemental creatures (a water being, a molten thing, etc.) are threatening the tourists. All Peter really wants to do is find time to be closer to MJ (Zendaya), so he can express how he really feels to her. Turns out that's all the audience really wants, too.

Directed by Spider-Man: Homecoming helmer Jon Watts, the film is most successful when the focus is on these young innocents abroad, who have terrific chemistry together. Jacob Batalon and the other school pals are back from the first film, and when they're just left to interact and stumble giddily towards independence, there's genuine fun to be had. Holland and Zendaya are terrific together, especially when Holland's awkwardly trying to express himself. He carries the picture. I found when Parker's more angst-ridden and Stark-haunted, things were less engaging. I have to say I enjoyed Homecoming much more.

Part of that may be Gyllenhaal's character, who just wasn't as gripping or involving as I'd have liked him to be. It doesn't help that he's often surrounded by an avalanche of eyeball-numbing CG, swarms of lethal drones that caused this viewer to check out in Act 3. The story wasn't as compelling and the stakes didn't feel as personal. And as in Captain Marvel, they seem to be using Nick Fury more for laughs these days, and he's not nearly the bad-ass he used to be in The Winter Soldier. 

More Ant-Man than Avengers, Spider-Man: Far From Home is diverting enough, but it swings nowhere near the heights of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's a fun summer escape, but by no means a Marvel classic. Now that Marvel Studios has concluded Phase 3, here's hoping Holland gets the true Spidey opus he deserves. 

Toy Story 4: Purpose Lost and Found

No lesser luminary than Socrates once exclaimed, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates, meet Woody.

Kids who grew up with the Toy Story gang 24 years ago now (gasp!) have children of their own. Roles change, some people outgrow toys - and some of us don't. People adjust to new chapters in their lives - and as it happens, so do some toys.

Disney's Toy Story franchise has remained wildly popular across age groups, serving as a touchstone for play, adventure, and the importance of friendship. But the films also wrestle with existential themes of self, purpose, reality, abandonment, belonging and loss. It can be a heady and emotional mix, but it's that depth of feeling that has endeared the films to more than one generation of children (and their parents), beyond the assembly line plot mechanics of so many other films. Like Finding Dory, there's a lot going on beyond the fun and games.

In Toy Story 2, Woody (Tom Hanks) faced awareness that he wasn't just a toy, he was part of a beloved TV franchise, with companions he'd utterly forgotten. In 3, Buzz, Woody (Tim Allen) and the gang face the sobering realization that their "kid" - Andy - is growing up, and their circumstances need to change, finding renewal with a new, younger child, Bonnie, where they've continued on in the interim direct-to-video shorts Toy Story of Terror and Toy Story That Time Forgot, their plaything family expanding as they joined Bonnie's existing toys.

In Toy Story 4, Woody looks still deeper at his sense of self, of belonging and his place in the world - and the toy tribe expands even more. Bonnie (Madeline McGraw) is playing with Woody less and less, and has palpable anxiety at the prospect of going to kindergarten. Her savior? Her own imagination, and an arts and crafts amalgam of pipe cleaners and googly eyes she calls "Forky." Forky (Tony Hale) is stunned to discover he's not only come to life, but that he's now become Bonnie's favorite, the vessel for all her emotional dependence and need for security. He's also surreal and cute, and like Star Wars’ BB-8, a genuinely successful creation that actually transcends the deliberate genesis of a focused team of designers. Kids love Forky - I know mine does.

Before kindergarten begin in earnest, Bonnie's parents decide to go on a road trip in a rental RV, so the toys hit the road, some becoming lost - some literally, some figuratively. Toy Story fans have wondered why Bo Peep (Annie Potts) wasn't in the third outing, and in an exciting prologue, we learn why. Stranded in a small town with a particularly Twilight Zone-feeling antique shop, Woody and Bo are reunited, and Woody tangles with devilish dolly Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) and her gaggle of ventriloquist dummy henchmen. The theme of an individual's voice is prominent throughout the story. Buzz diligently works the suggestion of listening to his "inner voice," while another character is threatened with the theft of their actual voice box. Chew on that!

In addition to Forky and Gabby Gabby, other new characters include Evel Knievelesque Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), "Canada's greatest stuntman!" and the hilarious carnival prize-pair of Ducky and Bunny (Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele), all of whom do a great job of stealing scenes at every opportunity.

Potts is fantastic as Bo Peep, who's become an empowered staff-wielding she-warrior who'd be right at home in either Middle Earth or Fury Road. Her voice work is tremendously varied and full of emotional character moments. She's wonderful, as is Hendricks. In fact, there are so many new characters in Toy Story 4 who take center stage, that you find yourself missing time with the original gang and wishing there was more of them. I really wanted more of Jessie (Joan Cusack) and Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton)! But evolve we must. We spend a lot of time in that antique shop (I've never seen dust so convincingly rendered!), and Woody spends a lot of time navel-gazing (Sorry, Socrates). When climactic escapes occur and venues change, it feels downright liberating. The film is full of emotion, and I found it to be surprisingly more poignant/serious than I expected, and on a first viewing, less outright hilarious than the previous films.

It may take another viewing (or two, if my 10-year-old has any say in the matter) before I completely warm up to this new, different Toy Story. It definitely feels a bit less familiar. Pixar never phones it in, and they have a remarkable ability to depict characters and situations that kids absolutely connect with and lastingly embrace. If anything, Toy Story 4 surprised me with some its choices, though that's likely a good thing. Resilience, loyalty, courage, self-sacrifice and the necessity of change aren't what you might expect from a kids' movie, and it's refreshing to see these values at work here. I suspect my fondness for this movie is only going to increase, especially when it hits the cycle of near-perpetual home video replay constancy in my not too distant future.

Forky fans can also look forward to Forky Asks a Question, debuting when Disney+ begins streaming this November. In the meantime, definitely see Toy Story 4, easily the best family film in theaters, and a visually remarkable, emotionally moving treat everyone can share together. 

Plodzilla: King of the Monsters

Oh, how I wanted this movie to succeed. After the overall disappointment of 2014’s Godzilla, once again, I let a well-cut trailer fuel my optimism, and was excited for a colossal buffet of mega-monsters, with Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah joining the mix to wreak havoc on buildings and citizens alike.

Directed by Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat, Krampus), Godzilla: King of the Monsters is essentially two movies: one, about 40 minutes of pretty excellent effects work showcasing Godzilla and the classic bestiary of behemoths. The monsters are nicely rendered and pretty cool. The other movie, sadly, is the one with the actors in it – a life-sucking assortment of poorly drawn characters that have been handed some of the worst dialogue in recent memory.

Vera Farminga and Kyle Chandler are estranged married scientists, both of whom have a connection to Monarch, the secret organization that has been monitoring the world’s reemerging kaiju. They have a daughter – Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown, who vaguely yearns for them to reassemble as a family. These are all good actors, who tackle their roles with conviction, determined to bring intensity to every scene. Much wide-eyed Jurassic Park open-mouthed gazing ensues. Wind and rain lashes at them, as they lean into the green screens. Poor Brown has virtually no dialogue but screams like she’s on fire, or evoking Drew Barrymore’s Scream phase. Charles Dance (the late Tywin Lannister) is some kind of villain, glowering and causing havoc.

The monsters emerge at various global locations, with a massive stealth bomber the only means to quickly cross huge distances between events. The timeline and logistics are beyond confusing. We’re in China, then suddenly Antarctica, then Boston. How did we get here? How did we get here so fast?! Ludicrous occurrences take place involving nuclear weapons, like when a nuke’s shockwave hurls an intact submarine popping up out of the ocean – or when characters squint against the proximity of a blast like it’s a dust storm.

Avengers: Endgame was a three-hour movie that felt like forty minutes. King of the Monsters is a two-hour and twelve-minute movie that feels like seven and a half hours. There are some exciting sequences to be sure – but if those scenes were oxygen, you’d suffocate by the time the film lurches to an end. Mothra has been nicely redesigned, looking way more believable than its cinematic forbearer. King Ghidorah is fantastic, and genuinely freaky and terrifying. The monster scenes are well executed, they’re just not particularly inventive or awe-inspiring. There’s a curious detachment to the destruction that numbs the audience. The blame has to go to Dougherty and co-writer Zach Shields, who went with a script that feels lifeless and dialogue that sounds like reading a weather report.

Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island was deliriously more entertaining and fun. We’re getting another chapter in this “shared universe” saga in 2020, with Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Let’s hope that next installment’s more Skull Island than Godzilla, at this point. It’s clear that director Dougherty has great affection for Ghidorah, Godzilla and the rest. It just seems that he didn’t know how to craft a satisfying story around that reverence, which is a shame, because these actors – and the audience – deserved much better.

“Safe passage to us all.” Deadwood: The Movie - Justice Served

“What a grand surprise after such a piece of time.” 

 

After three seasons, when HBO’s Deadwood ceased production back in 2006, it definitely left fans feeling like there was more to be said – more story left to be told.

In the 13 years since the show left us, Deadwood’s enthusiasts have only grown more fond of this uniquely profane, Shakespearean Western. We’d been hearing for some time that HBO was considering getting the band back together, of reuniting a cast that had been scattered for more than a decade. It seemed like an unlikely challenge in logistics, at best.

But sometimes pipe dreams can make themselves tangible, and creator/screenwriter David Milch has pulled off a wildly successful closing chapter for this cultish collection of characters and the barely-tamed town they call home. There’s a lot that’s amazing about Deadwood: The Movie, one of the best things being how openly it acknowledges that time has moved on, leaving its mark on both landscape and denizens alike. A decade has passed, and it’s 1889, with South Dakota having at last been granted Statehood. In a vivid opening shot, a relentless locomotive bursts out of tunnel, bearing down on the town like the inexorable approach of change – of the future. Sprouting telephone poles are now the investment crop of the day, making it that much harder for Deadwood to keep itself apart from the outside world’s encroachment. The train’s arrival marks the return of the town’s most ruthless adversary, George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) – now a California senator and a determined backer of the progress knocking on Deadwood’s door. 

 

There’s a lot more gray on view since we last saw these characters – some of whom are now downright old. Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie) stands as a distinguished reminder of a more gracious past, when he greets returning Alma Ellsworth (Molly Parker) at the train station. Lawman Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) – now a U.S. Marshal – is older, more distinguished, still an active family man. Saloon owner Al Swearengen’s (Ian McShane) health is in decline, his liver failing after long years of strain. Hearst’s return in an even more elevated position of power is the catalyst that sets things in motion.

The film makes deft use of flashbacks, but I would highly recommend revisiting the series’ finale (3.12, Tell Him Something Pretty), as an extremely helpful refresher on where things left off.

Deadwood was always a show that emphasized character over plot, and that prominence continues here, though the bittersweet story Milch has crafted serves as a more than fitting return – and sendoff – to these characters. This is a show that loves actors, and the cast seems to really be savoring the miraculous opportunity to be back working together after such an absence. In addition to Callie, McRaney and the other cast veterans, Paula Malcomson and John Hawkes are superb as Trixie and Sol Star, who are still together and about to bring a child into their lives. Malcomson’s recklessly impulsive balcony harangue of Hearst is truly something to behold. Kim Dickens, Brad Dourif, Franklyn, Ajaye  and Anna Gunn, are among the many familiar faces Deadwood welcomes back. Robin Weigert is spectacular as Calamity Jane, but the great William Sanderson is disheveled sublimity as E.B. Farnum, Deadwood’s “titular” mayor, exasperating Hearst with obsequious apologies for “wanton leakage.”

 

If events conspire to rob Deadwood of its symbolic soul, the characters aren’t going down without a fight. Olyphant’s years on Justified have served him well, and perhaps no other actor can so immediately inspire fear of imminent reprisal just by walking towards a building. “My job ain’t to follow the law, Al. My job is to interpret it, then enforce it accordingly.” Massive kudos to director Daniel Minahan (a Deadwood veteran, along with Game of Thrones), who does a magnificent job of reconjuring Deadwood the town, as well as crafting pitch perfect moments for all the cast to shine. Milch has a wonderfully focused and economical screenplay that never drags and never feels rushed. The script is equal parts elegy and suspense, including an auction that had me with me on the edge of my seat. Despite the insistent arrival of electricity, it feels like the lights of Deadwood are starting to grow dim – in the most personal of ways. When Al Swearengen finds himself defending his mental state to Doc Cochran – “Mistaking Friday for Tuesday – well, secure my burial plot.” – we can’t forget that creator Milch was himself diagnosed with Alzheimer’s just before production got underway.

 

Make no mistake – Deadwood: The Movie is a small miracle. It stands as a moving, compelling example of what can happen when a community of artists makes an opportunity to serve justice to story and characters they all hold dear. Very highly recommended. 

Parasite edges Tarantino to win Cannes

Despite its six-minute standing ovation, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood came up empty handed at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with the coveted Palme d'Or going to Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer), for Parasite, with Mati Diop’s Atlantics winning the runner-up Grand Prix award.

Tarantino had hoped to nab the Palme d'Or, the same trophy he won 25 years ago for Pulp Fiction. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was extremely well received, but the dark comedy Parasite elicited flat-out raves, with jury president Alejandro González Iñárritu calling the Palme d'Or decision,"unanimous."

Sifting through the ashes: Game of Thrones series finale

By now you’re either so tired of reading about these final episodes of Game of Thrones that you’re ready to hurl yourself from an open window, or you’re just so desperate for validation of your own reactions that you’re willing to read anything - even this! 

We’ve been obsessed with this show since 2011, and it’s only natural that after such a long, intense ride - that when the breakup finally happens, there’s confusion, there’s accusation, betrayal...and a fair portion of grief. So how did I react to all this? 

Things started to go south for me this season with Brienne and Jaime. His decision to leave her and go back to Cersei – and more than that, Brienne’s weepy reaction to his leaving, essentially turning her into a male-dependent rom-com character. This only galled me all the more on Sunday, where she dutifully fills in his pages in The Book of Brothers. This undermined her character so much, depicting her as a mopey and delusional torch-bearer. Oh, what I would have rather seen her write about him! Or better yet, rip his page right out of the book and burn it to ashes, which would then settle among the countless other ashes that fill the remains of King’s Landing. 

I would have rather had it that Jaime came back to put an end to Cersei and try to kill her himself. Essentially seeing her as the vampire that she is, who’s ruined his life, and that the only way he can ever be free would be to put an end to her. Because the entire doomed lovers rubble burial for those two was beyond lame. Cersei’s last great act of evil was ordering the execution of Missandei, which was a heck of a moment, one of the best of the season (despite the improbability of her being captured by them in the first place – but then improbability and convenience have ruled these last few episodes more than anything else). Cersei is an epic character, and she cried out for an epic demise. Some final last stand act of malice, that needed to surpass her destruction of the Great Sept at the end of season 6. What she got instead was a totally anticlimactic and unsatisfying demise that left the audience wanting mightily. Then Tyrion so easily finding their bodies (huge face-palm). They were in the subterranean basement of the Red Keep when colossal tons of brick and stone came crashing down on them. Yet somehow their corpses magically floated up to the top of said tonnage, so Tyrion only had to remove a few stray bricks to reveal them?! Come ON….!

 

I have to ask myself what the point of this story was all along, and how crazy it felt to dispatch the Night King and his legions so early in the season. Because the only theme I can see is “the leopard can’t change his spots” – that your fate is sealed and you can never escape it. Jaime was fated to love Cersei no matter what. Jon Snow is fated to spill his guts and blurt out the truth no matter what. Daenerys is fated to succumb to her family’s curse of fiery madness and rage no matter what – despite seven previous seasons positioning her to be a liberating force for good. For me, she’s emblematic of those plot decisions that are just so vexing. We’ve invested ourselves in her so heavily for so long, to have her just freak out and commit mass genocide is a complete betrayal. It wasn’t “Red Wedding” clever, or “Stabbing Littlefinger” clever – it felt like a cheat. An act of duplicity that felt like a slap in the face to everyone who’s been cheering her on to victory, and symptomatic of how the writing has undermined most of the female characters on the show this season. From Sansa’s jaw-dropper to the Hound that her abuse helped build her character, to Missandei being put back in chains, to Cersei’s narrative lack of climactic action – ending with Daenerys being forced to fulfill the eye-rolling trope of all powerful women being too emotional to lead, therefore they must be insane. That women can’t be trusted with authority because they feel their emotions too much. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, The Unburnt, Breaker of Feminism.

 

But if you’re going to turn our deliverer into an angel of the apocalypse, the penultimate episode The Bells was without a doubt tremendously well executed. If you’re going to obliterate King’s Landing, the director and effects teams involved depicted it in amazing fashion. We finally got Cleganebowl, which was visceral and exciting, yet somehow nowhere near as intense as Brienne’s big fight with the Hound, or the Mountain’s clash with Oberyn Martell, both from the exceptional season 4. Having these two brothers finally have at each other after years of audience expectation is at least one example where the writers made sure to deliver the goods. In contrast, the fight between Jaime and Urine – I mean Euron – Greyjoy was disposable and perfunctory.

 

What we’re given is that Daenerys gives in to the dark side – well and fully. In the finale, the Queen of Ashes is depicted in Third Reich conqueror imagery, her legions arrayed before her in perfect symmetry, a massive red Targaryen banner draped across the ruins of stone. In a phenomenal bit of shot composition, her last dragon spreads its wings behind her, a final symbol that this Queen is fully possessed by the supernatural shadow of her family’s predisposition to fiery wrath.

 

The last big moment of the series is Jon Snow’s murder of Daenerys, abetted by a hefty dose of narrative convenience. The Queen has gone to survey the Iron Throne, when Jon finds her – alone. There is simply no way in conceivable reality that Daenerys would ever, ever be alone and vulnerable to attack like this. She’d be surrounded by Unsullied soldiers wherever she went. But she is, with Drogon lurking outside evidently meant to be sufficient protection – and she’s completely unsuspicious of Jon’s intentions when he kisses her – then stabs her. Then the rest of this final episode collapses like the Red Keep. Like many an event that might have seen implausible to depict, we don’t see Jon discovered by the Queen’s troops. Presumably Jon just blurts outright that “I’ve just killed the Queen,” because that’s what Jon does. But all that just happens offscreen, rather than him being immediately killed for matricide. Drogon inexplicably flies off with Daenerys, so Jon could have told any story he wanted. Then we have tiresome scenes of expository dialogue which end with Tyrion nominating Bran to be King. Then we roll through a series of Return of the King mini-endings, with Jon being sent back to the Night’s Watch, Tyrion again being Hand of the King, Sansa ruling over an independent north, etc.

 

I guess like a lot of viewers, I’m still coming to terms with the choices they made and the closure of this story.

Will I warm up to more of it over time? Possibly. But for now, those are my gut reactions. It’s been a long, passionate relationship, Thrones. You rocked me hard, and kept me up nights. When you turned on me like you did, it hit me hard. But here’s the thing: While I might have wanted you to act differently at times, and I wish you didn’t have those problems you don’t like to talk about...I still love you, baby - and I guess I always will. 

Avengers: Endgame - The Last Stand Goes Out with a Bang

Now that the dust has settled a bit (if you call $2.485 billion in global box office “dust”), it’s time to opine a bit more freely than I did in my initial gush, and see what’s what.

So: let’s speak plainly. If you have still not seen Avengers: Endgame, stop reading now and go no further. Spoilers abound. Beyond here there be monsters. Tread lightly…

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You still here? You’ve seen the movie, yes? Good!

There’s simply never been a coordinated release effort like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starting with Iron Man back in 2008, we’ve had 21 films leading up to Endgame, each building on what came before, overlapping at times, clues of what’s to come being dropped throughout – perhaps the most amazing part being their staggering success and overall critical fondness. Some outings may be more beloved than others, but there’s never really been a flop. Presided over by producer Kevin Feige, the MCU kept taking chances, insisting on quality, and showcasing spot-on casting. An entire generation of kids has had the thrill of growing up with these pictures – and appetites haven’t faded. Black Panther and Captain Marvel stand as examples of fresh new characters expanding the MCU, and being eagerly embraced by fans. While there’s occasional talk of “superhero fatigue,” it doesn’t impact the MCU box office – and Endgame’s receipts are careening into the stratosphere.

In 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with directors Anthony and Joe Russo, did a remarkable job of making one movie serve as a sequel to half a dozen (or more), while standing on its own as dynamic and satisfying filmmaking. They also delivered the biggest gut-punch third act audiences had felt since The Empire Strikes Back. Audiences went nuts for it – and if you haven’t watched it lately, watch it again. Does it ever hold up. The same creative team is back, and they’ve made a final chapter that knocks the cover off the ball – a rip-roaring and heartfelt conclusion to this massive saga, that knows how to satisfy an audience. It’s not just curiosity, either. You don’t get this kind of box office phenomenon unless you connect with the fans and somehow pull Excalibur out of their collective subconscious stone. This is what happens when the audience goes back more than once – and keeps going back.

Endgame opens on the tranquil farm of Clint Barton – Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – absent from Infinity War, enjoying peaceful time with his family, teaching his daughter to shoot arrows – which she does well. This a prime example of the Russo’s deft ability to manipulate tone and emotions. Then suddenly, Barton's all alone. Just wind...and ashes - and we're right back at the nightmare that ended Infinity War: The worst thing that could happen...has. Thanos has snapped his fingers, using the Infinity Gauntlet to obliterate half of all life in the universe. It can't be undone. 

"Five Years Later."

Avengers: Endgame is overflowing with surprises. If you'd told me that Rene Russo and Tilda Swinton were going to have more scenes than Samuel L. Jackson, I'd have laughed in your face. But it's true - Frigga and The Ancient One have bigger parts to play than Nick Fury. The Russos maintained a Robert Mueller degree of secrecy, wisely only using footage from the first few minutes of the film in the trailer. So the air of the unexpected was palpable. And there are major surprises - Five Years Later being a big one. And those five years have not been kind to everyone left standing. 

The biggest (literally) surprise is Bruce Banner. Who's somehow taken mindfulness to a whole new level and incorporated his verbal, scientific personality into the enormous body of the Hulk. He's "Professor Hulk." The Snap was societal trauma writ large, and the surviving Avengers are as traumatized as anyone. Hawkeye has become a ruthless vigilante assassin - Ronin - a man alone, stalking the underworld as an executioner fueled by grief and rage. Thor - Thor's unrecognizable, having completely let himself go, an obese, beer-guzzling Lebowski. 

Then Scott Lang (Ant-Man) shows up, having been trapped in the Quantum Realm. For survivors of The Snap, it's been five years. For Lang, it's been five hours. Realizing access to the Quantum Realm could allow them to navigate through time itself, the group theorizes that time travel could allow them to go into the past and hijack the Infinity Stones and undo the actions of Thanos in the present. Now, your enjoyment of the film may to some degree depend on your comfort and tolerance of time travel as a storytelling conceit. Me, I've been drinking that Kool-Aid since Star Trek and countless other sci-fi staples, so I had no problems at all. But time travel makes some people crash their Excel spreadsheets out of frustrated fealty to consequence and continuity, and they demand that every sequence leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind. I maintain that time travel is whimsy. Because there's a lightness of touch and giddiness to the mid-section of Endgame's temporal mayhem that I found absolutely delightful. A sequence that finds Tony Stark going back to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in the seventies and encountering his own father, the very day before Tony's going to be born, is priceless. That's using the device of time travel to beautifully serve character and satisfy the audience all at once. There is a tremendous amount of just plain fun to be had in Endgame, which I think is a big factor in its success. Don't overthink. 

Markus, McFeely and the Russos never forget the emotional investment we've put into these characters over the years, and there's plenty of sentiment - and genuine heartache - woven throughout the film. As hilarious as the film can be at times, it's also deeply melancholy when the fates must be paid their due. Avengers: Endgame is 3 hours and 1 minute long, but it absolutely flies by, and you feel like you've been carried through the full range of emotions by the time it's over. I found the time travel and twists clever and engaging, and the thrills and surprises never seemed to let up. It's a lot to process, and I'm chomping at the bit to get back into the theater for a second viewing. 

This is a cast that realizes they've been a part of something special, and they shine powerfully. Downy does some of his best work here. When the cocky mask drops and we see the gaunt, traumatized, fearful man within. Scarlett Johansson does a superb job, getting some great scenes with Jeremy Renner. Huge props to Karen Gillan's Nebula, who pulls double duty throughout the film. She's a ferocious talent. Chris Evans continues to be the heart and soul of the Avengers films, and he shines here. Josh Brolin continues to hypnotize as Thanos, making him one of the most indelible villains in action cinema. He's a complex, flawed character, not just a foe. Everyone involved truly seems to be giving it their all, and working towards an ending that they can be lastingly proud of. From where I'm sitting they've succeeded mightily.

Endgame brings us near the very end of Phase 3 of the MCU, which officially concludes with July's Spider-Man: Far From Home. Then begins a whole new era, with the beginning of Phase 4. Some of our Avengers will continue on, and some will not. But this is far from the end of these vast, multi-chapter, long format stories, which audiences love. We'll see more sequels and be introduced to even more new characters. The Marvel Comics back catalog is vast. And now with Disney's acquisition of Fox and its group of Marvel properties, it's only a matter of time before new incarnations of the X-Men and Fantastic Four join this ever-expanding cinematic universe. Thanos: meet Galactus. Until then, True Believers, you've got one hell of a final chapter to enjoy. This is movie history.