Review: STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

 

     This is, apparently, the end of the Star Wars series that started way back in 1977. And it's all over. We now know the stories of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia, plus their parents' stories, plus their kids' stories, and this is the end. It's over. Goodnight. And at a certain point near the end of the over-long Rise of Skywalker, when there are light saber battles going on at the same time as a fight in the sky involving flying ships shooting lasers at each other, I realized that this is a perfect time to end this thing. Not only because this has all been done before, but because I'm tired of it. This is boring. This is been-there-done-that. There is nothing new to add and nobody is going to outdo Star Wars from '77 or Empire from '79. That lightning in a bottle magic is ancient history and won't be repeated in new installments, so why even try anymore? This is the end, and it'd be nice if Disney actually realized that and did us all a favor and retired it forever.
     The best character in Rise of Skywalker is C3PO and the best scene in the entire film is when the "Star Wars" logo slams up onto the screen with the great beginning of John Williams' iconic score. I suppose that's saying something, that the best things literally involve nothing new about this modern trilogy of films. It's also pretty surprising that The Last Jedi, which most Star Wars fans think was akin to being stabbed in the back, is probably a better film than this final feature. So what happened exactly? What went wrong? Why have we arrived here, when a by-the-numbers, fairly entertaining, filled to the brim with fan service film is ultimately disappointing?
     Supposedly, before George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he had been talking to the old gang (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill) about reprising their roles. There's not really any point in wondering what a George Lucas written/directed 7th Star Wars film would have been like, because we're never going to see it and it probably would have been just as terrible as the awful prequel films. But in retrospect, did Disney do any better? Yes, the JJ Abrams directed 7th installment, The Force Awakens, was a good film. It was fun, simple, entertaining, and it was great to see Ford and Hamill and Fisher back in their old roles. Ultimately it was a misstep, though, as the story they concocted deprived the fans of what they wanted to see all along: a film not only starring the original gang back, but a film with them all together. But no, they came up with a story that left Luke Skywalker absent until the climax, killed off Han Solo before he could ever be in scenes with Luke, then killed off Luke in episode 8, then Carrie Fisher died in real life after episode 8. Disney ruined what everyone wanted to see in the first place. And while the new characters in The Force Awakens were supposed to carry the storyline, by the end of this final picture we now realize that the new character's storylines and arcs aren't that compelling, interesting, bold, new, or worth caring about.
     Besides Disney and the unfortunate script choices of The Force Awakens, you can blame writer/director Rian Johnson for the rest of the problems of this new trilogy. After the introduction of Rey, Finn, Poe, Snoke, and Kylo Ren in episode 7, you were curious and interested in their future. What drama would unfold between them? What great adventures would we see? What compelling stories would unfold? But after setting up the beginnings of the story, JJ Abrams left and gave the reigns to Rian Johnson, who apparently had other plans. Johnson killed off Snoke in episode 8 for no good reason, depriving episode 9 of a new, major, big bad to defeat. Johnson also threw away the plot surrounding the mystery of Rey's parents. Johnson not only killed off Luke Skywalker, but he made him give up on the force. So what does JJ Abrams do when he returns to finish off everything in episode 9? He changes everything back! It's almost like episode 8 never happened. Luke Skywalker is now back with the force and a gung-ho hero as if his mysterious, cranky-old-man phase never happened. The evil, big bad villain that was Snoke just becomes the evil, big bad Jedi villain, The Emperor, who somehow never died, simply because they needed a villain thanks to Johnson's failure. And that bit about Rey's parents? They might be somebodies in episode 7. In episode 8 they're just nobodies. Well it's episode 9 and now they're back to being somebodies. Cohesion, people! Is it that hard to write a three movie outline and stick to it? Thanks to a ton of mistakes in the writer's room, this new trilogy ends up a complete mess on numerous levels. And it's not even that the films are terrible. They're not. This new one actually has a great first half and some great special f/x and a fairly interesting story. The problem is that ultimately the potential for something epic and awesome was squandered.
     When episode 9, The Rise of Skywalker (which, let's face it, is the ultimate spoiler title), opens, we find the evil Kylo Ren searching and finding a beacon that will take him to a hidden realm amongst the stars where The Emperor, Senator Palpatine, is hiding. The last time we saw The Emperor he was being tossed down a shaft by Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi. It would've been nice if this trilogy had a great, all-star villain that is evil throughout three films and at the end there's an epic battle against him. Sadly, that's not in the cards.
     The rest of the plot has Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbaca, and C3PO travelling to various worlds looking for the second beacon so that they, too, can find where The Emperor is hiding and kill him and also stop his army, which is now known as The Final Order. Is it me, or does it seem like in every Star Wars movie the villains have a whole army and a ton of ships and are ready to rule the universe and kill everyone but they lose...and then the next movie it happens all over again? Doesn't it take time, money, and people to build a whole army? Not only is this plot repetitive but it's ridiculous.
     During their adventures, Rey, Finn, Poe, and the crew are involved in a few interesting and exciting sequences. There's an entertaining, fast-paced battle with the heroes on flying vehicles racing across a desert planet. There's a pretty cool light saber battle on the remains of a Death Star ship that crashed in an ocean with giant waves. C3PO's quips and memory wipe storyline are amusing. Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron is a good hero. Finn and Rey, however, are the big stars and don't really get enough that's interesting to do to shine. Carrie Fisher is back thanks to unused old footage, but with so little footage to work with, it ends up being unsatisfying and weird.
     What The Rise of Skywalker does have, if you care, is fan service. You want fucking Ewoks? You got 'em! You want Lando Calrissian? You got 'em! You want Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill? You got 'em! What the film also has is cringe inducing silliness that a lot of the others have as well. While nothing in this film is as stupid as Jar Jar Binks or Leia flying through space, seeing The Emperor shooting lightning bolts at Rey while she painstakingly tries to fight it off with her lightsaber is groan-inducingly bad. And while Kylo Ren was at least once a semi-intriguing figure, his ultimate arc in this picture feels forced and unearned. And that's the big problem with this film and with these three new Star Wars films. The great drama of Luke vs. Darth Vader, the chemistry between Leia and Han, the bold, new, exciting scenes in Jaba the Hut's lair and the Walker assault on Hoth are nowhere to be found. This trilogy is just nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing worth caring about. Sure it's entertaining in spots, pretty to look at, amusing, sometimes funny, but it doesn't have the edge, that visceral excitement that the originals had.
     The last shot of Rise of the Skywalker is fantastic. It's Tatooine and there are two suns setting and the John Williams' score is playing and you should feel alive, you should feel like pumping your fist and leaving the theater with a big smile on your face. The problem is that the scene happened already. It was with Mark Hamill as Luke in Star Wars in '77. Disney can't even come up with anything new. They're recycling. And it's not working anymore. **1/2

Review: 1917

   
     Every year at Universal Studios for Halloween they introduce a bunch of new maze attractions. They're usually focused on random horror or something in pop culture. They did a maze based on The Walking Dead where you had to walk through a post-apocalyptic wasteland while zombies pop out. This year they had a frozen tundra maze with a Yetti where you have to walk around a Yukon gold mining set. The first half hour of the new Sam Mendes' film, 1917, is like if they did a WWI maze. You have to walk through trenches, across a muddy, desolate field filled with corpses and dead horses, weave through barbed wire, escape through cavernous, dark, subterranean tunnels. The reason the movie feels like this is because the film is in real time and, through motion picture magic, is just one shot. The camera seemingly never cuts and so you're travelling through these trenches and across this barbed wired landscape like you're really there. And that's the gimmick. A one-shot, real-time, World War I movie. And these days, with the endless plethora of war movies, TV shows, games, and books, you kind of need a gimmick to stand out.
     I've always complained about the saturation of WWII "entertainment." It sometimes seems like Hollywood often has no ideas anymore so they throw out Hitler and Nazi's and voila, movie made. I also can't really complain, as I read two WWII books this year, Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five, and thought that one of the year's best films was the Hitler comedy, Jo-Jo Rabbit. But I have often wondered why they make so many WWII movies and TV shows and never touch WWI. I'm not entirely even sure what happened in WWI. Do they even bother to teach it in school? There's no compelling Hitler villain, no nuclear bombings, no greatest generation victory. So perhaps 1917 will change that. Or not. While it is a WWI film, it's an "in the trenches" affair, meaning you get to see and feel what it was like on the ground without any kind of obtrusive, outside interference like politics or history. You're literally thrown into a trench and off to the races for two hours without barely a breath. Which means that this is mere entertainment. Which is good and bad.
     The most famous one-shot film is probably Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, although it's been tried numerous times. I remember that lame Johnny Depp movie Nick of Time did it, and Mr. Robot did it in an episode in their third season that included an office building attack. The last interesting movie that tried it was Victoria, from Germany, which had the audacity to actually film the entire thing in real time (it even featured a bank robbery...which isn't as good as it sounds). 1917 does, unfortunately, deliver a one-shot film in real time but gives us a trick in the middle. The trick ultimately ruins the gimmick and cheats the audience. The reason for this is obvious; director Sam Mendes wanted to showcase sequences at night and during the day and couldn't do that in two hours if it takes place in real time. I don't mind the cheat, as the visually cool night sequence uses shadows, the lights of flare guns, and the light of a church on fire to induce great dramatic effect. And that's basically what's good and what the purpose of the film is, ultimately. It's an attempt to get our pulse racing, to heave us into this world at the lowly, teenage soldier boy, grunt's level. To experience war how it was. And for the most part, the film succeeds.
     The basic story of 1917 is quite simple. Two British soldiers are tasked with travelling by themselves to warn another infantry about a surprise attack. The problem is they have to travel miles across dangerous territory in the middle of war torn France to do it. This premise reminded me of the movie Cold Mountain, which was a take on The Odyssey. Traveling alone, constantly threatened, across a country broken by war while getting into various adventures at every turn, meeting new friends and villains along the way, never thinking you'll get to your ultimate destination but doing anything to get there. It certainly helps if you care about the protagonist, and at least early on you do, as George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman, who play the two soldiers, do a good enough job playing off each other as just two dudes stuck together in war and making the best of it. Mendes mentioned that he didn't want to cast stars in the main roles as you'd obviously know who would die if there was a major movie star cast. Mendes probably should have taken that advice for all of the roles, as it's unfortunately jarring when Benedict Cumberbatch shows up as an officer and it takes you out of the movie. But that's a minor misstep, and obviously the movie was expensive to make so they need some names. And while the movie is good not great, it only has a few flaws. The one glaring one is the sequence featuring the cute, young, French lass that practically falls in love with one of the soldiers two seconds after meeting him. Ugh. I suppose they thought they needed a slow, peaceful, somewhat happy scene amidst the carnage but having a bombed out city just happen to have a pretty, French girl show up out of nowhere to be kind is ludicrous. And while the film attempts to be realistic in the real-time, one-shot, horrors of war right in your face, right now, right here, really happened, feel it type of way, it doesn't exactly help that one of the soldiers practically becomes Superman by the end by being shot at a dozen times and living, running and avoiding multiple bombs going off around him, somehow not drowning in a river, somehow not being killed by a plane, tunnel collapse, etc., etc., etc. I guess if you really did make a movie about the realistic side of war it'd be the most boring thing ever filmed, so Hollywood has to pizzazz it up.
     Sam Mendes, who also co-wrote the film with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, is pretty much the perfect fit for a film like 1917. It's sort of an art house film and sort of a typical, big budget, entertainment picture and he's been straddling that line all of his career. He of course made it big twenty years ago with American Beauty, and the last we saw of him in the movie world he was directing two James Bond flicks that were entertaining but not particularly memorable. He directed two good shows that made it to Broadway in the last few years that I saw, The Ferryman and the Alan Cumming Cabaret return. And 1917 is pretty much the opposite of a meaty, wordy Broadway show. 1917 doesn't really have any great characters or story. It's all sumptuous visuals and it looks gorgeous (Roger Deakins, director of photography, should win the Oscar). The big money shot, which features one of the soldiers running across a field avoiding bombs, looks impressive in the trailer but the obvious, fake, special f/x mar it on screen in the final, longer version. But there are numerous other, wonderful, impressive, stylish as hell scenes filled with high tension that are worth the price of admission. The sequence with the crashing plane heading right at the soldiers is awe-inspiring. And the best sequence involves the soldiers running for their life in a subterranean, German tunnel. The use of shadows and light is excellent. The picture is beautiful to look at. Few squabbles aside, it's one of the better films of the year. Another war picture to entertain us. I suppose that's never going to change. ***

QUENTIN TARANTINO MOVIES--RANKED

1- PULP FICTION: This will always be Quentin Tarantino's best movie and it's my favorite movie ever made. Watching this movie is akin to being stabbed in the heart by a needle full of adrenaline like Mia is in the film. The opening scene about robbing a coffee shop is a fantastic opener that leads to the awesome Dick Dale beach guitar jam on the opening the credits. There's almost too much great, memorable dialogue to even mention. And there's a ton of crazy, awesome set pieces. The Gimp and Samurai sword sequence? The date & dance? The exploding head in the car? It felt new, fresh, and alive when it came out. It twisted around with time in a unique way, had great characters, and had a note perfect ending with a great song. Just an all around exceptional picture. ****

2- RESERVOIR DOGS: Sure, Tarantino basically re-made the Hong Kong film, City on Fire. But Tarantino has never exactly been a great storyteller, anyway. Even Pulp Fiction has no story, it's just pretty much a bunch of random scenes mixed together. But why Reservoir Dogs is great is simple: it's so fucking cool. Like Pulp Fiction, it has great music. And like Pulp Fiction, it has some terrific dialogue exchanges like deconstructing Madonna's "Like a Virgin" or Steve Buscemi's character not tipping. The Michael Madsen scene when he dances to "Stuck in the Middle with You" is a classic and one of Tarantino's best scenes. It's brutal, bloody, and super engrossing. That Tarantino actually followed this up with an even better film still shocks me. ****

3- INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: After the mild disappointments that were Jackie Brown and Kill Bill 1 and 2, I probably figured that Tarantino wouldn't be making another masterpiece like Pulp Fiction, but his WW2 film was, to me, anyway, a return to form. It's no Pulp Fiction, but it's a wild, bizarre, very entertaining film with a great performance by Christoph Waltz that won the actor an Oscar. There's, sadly, no great music nor classic/memorable dialogue like in his earlier films, but there are some excellent set pieces like the basement bar sequence and shoot-out and the memorable movie theater invasion that results in Hitler being blown away. The last shot isn't Pulp Fiction perfect, but it's a good ending to what will probably be Tarantino's last really good movie. ***

4- KILL BILL 1: I'm not the biggest fan of either Kill Bill movie...but the first one does have one of Tarantino's most exciting scenes; the sword fight in the dojo when Uma Thurman slices and dices about a hundred henchmen and one school girl assassin. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is a mixed bag. One of the reasons why none of his films after Pulp Fiction are excellent is that there's no good music in them. He started as my favorite director ever because his films had scenes, opening montages and endings set to glorious, catchy tunes that made you feel alive. For whatever reason, he stopped putting good songs in his movies and they suffered because of it. The epic fight scene is worth the price of admission here, though, and saves the uneven film. This is also the film that kind of flipped him around as being a better director than writer. Which, sad to say, was a bad thing in the long run. ***

5- JACKIE BROWN: After Pulp Fiction, this was a major letdown, although it's a fairly entertaining film on its own. The problem is that it doesn't have that boost of adrenaline that his first two movies have. This feels softer, safer, and almost by-the-numbers. He adapted an Elmore Leonard book, which meant he wasn't going to be having any super bloody, over-the-top sequences, nor crazy fun/ridiculous dialogue like in his first two films. It's a good film, just not a great one. ***

6- THE HATEFUL EIGHT: A lot of critics savaged this film, which I'm not entirely sure why. It has people talking for long stretches and tons of blood...so...typical Tarantino, right? I'm not entirely sure what people expected. This is an Agatha Christie type of locked room mystery film that I'm a huge fan of. Perhaps that's why I was entertained even though the film is almost three hours long. Walton Goggins and Samuel L. Jackson are great. The bloody finale is great. There isn't really a lot of memorable dialogue or classic lines here but the picture looks fantastic and the score by Ennio Marricone is awesome. ***

7- DEATH PROOF: This was part of Grindhouse, Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's ode to old-school, drive-in Grindhouse movies. It's basically about Kurt Russell killing people with his car. Which sounds stupid...and it is...but that's kind of the point. There are some excellent car chase and car racing sequences in this film. It's not particularly a good movie, but it's certainly an entertaining one and totally bonkers and wild. Like any Grindhouse film, it's the type that if you went and saw it at midnight with a rowdy crowd you'd have a total blast. ***

8- KILL BILL 2: This is the lesser of the two Kill Bill films, though it does have some interesting things in it. The trailer fight with Elle and The Bride is great. The training sequence with the wise old man is amusing. The film, like all of Tarantino's later features, looks great. The problem with both Kill Bill films is that there is a lot of dullness between the fight and action sequences. The last half hour with the conversation between Bill and The Bride is boring. And both Kill Bill films lack cohesiveness...they just feel like a bunch of random scenes stitched together that never unite into any sort of great masterwork. **1/2

9- DJANGO UNCHAINED: Christoph Waltz won another Oscar for his performance in this...but I thought his performance was cringeworthy and his character fairly lame. I think the idea behind this film is much better than the execution. Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be having a grand old time in this but Samuel L. Jackson's character doesn't entirely work. A former slave turns into a bounty hunter and ends up killing a bunch of people and blowing up a plantation? Sounds amazing! It's entertaining in spots but unfortunately it's one of Tarantino's lesser films. **1/2

10- ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD: Even Tarantino's worst films are still pretty good, so I can't say that this is awful or bad, it's just kind of an all over the map mess that isn't exactly well written in terms of story. Story? There is no story, it's basically just people driving around for two hours. The film is kind of about Charles Manson and the Sharon Tate murders...sort of. But it's mostly about an actor and his stuntman. I think the scenes with the actor and his stuntman work but the Manson scenes and the Tate scenes don't entirely work or mesh with the rest of it. There's an awkward sequence of Margot Robbie as Tate going to see a movie that she has a part in and literally just watching the film. Robbie is more a weird, ethereal specter than any kind of human being. Why we watch her going to a Playboy mansion party is beyond me. But that's just how this movie is...a meandering film with too many pointless sequences. DiCaprio as Rick Dalton is great, however, and his meltdown in his trailer is perhaps the films best scene. Brad Pitt apparently plays Superman, as he not only beats up members of the Manson family but also Bruce Lee (not to mention getting a blow job offer by a cute, young girl a minute after they meet). The big Spahn Ranch scene looks great but is sadly lackluster in its execution. The violent finale that people at my screening were laughing out loud at just feels weird, not cathartic or exciting like its intent. So that's the ending? Okay. The worst part of the entire film is the last shot. What made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction great were the excellent songs that kicked in when the credits rolled. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood ends with a lame overhead shot of people standing in a driveway talking while the credits roll over the action and there's no fade to black. The ending music is a dull, slow, instrumental melody. So we don't get a great last line? A great last shot? A great last song? Ugh. **

Review: BOOKSMART

   
     Ah, the high school film. Making high school seem like it was some sort of over-the-top, zany, rollercoaster ride full of wall to wall adventures when in reality it was probably either disappointing, boring, or both. You could argue that if anyone attempted to make a realistic film about high school it would be the stupidest, dullest thing to ever see the light of day. But last year's Eighth Grade was fairly realistic, albeit about, well, middle school, and that wasn't stupid or dull or monotonous, it was perhaps the most awkward and cringe worthy film I've ever seen...it was also glorious. But the newest high school film, Booksmart, is out, and it's back in the typical, Hollywood high school realm. Starring two actresses in their twenties, featuring ridiculous, unrealistic parties, misadventures, and just-for-laughs antics that'd never happen in real life anywhere ever. I remember an actress from England mentioning that the high school "experience" that it so prominently featured in the endless amount of Hollywood films and TV shows doesn't really exist outside of the United States. It's ours. We own it. And is that a good thing? Because after being the football star that wins the big game, deflowering the prom queen or inadvertently driving your car into the principal's pool during a hazy, wild night of debauchery...is their anything left that's exciting in life? Is that a good thing to teach our kids?
     The best high school films will probably always be Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Dazed & Confused. These days, it's hard to fathom something real and serious like the abortion plot even showing up in a teenage comedy like it did in Fast Times. These days the best high school films are mostly like Superbad; they're superfluous, funny films that aren't completely bonkers or silly but still edgy and riotous. And Booksmart seems to either want to be Superbad or just copies it because they're all the same. Jonah Hill's sister, Beanie Feldstein, is one of the stars in Booksmart, so it's not difficult to call this a female Superbad. The plot is basically the last night of high school before graduation featuring two nerds that decide to have fun for once and go to some parties. Um...what could go wrong? Early on, the script is whip-smart and features some very clever lines like the one where a tough bro in the bathroom laments that, "I'd fuck her...but I'd have to put a bag over her personality." Hilarious! Unfortunately, the witty one-liners seem to go deserted once we enter the party and night life section of the film. Sure, the film is fun and entertaining, but what it doesn't have is any great, classic, memorable set pieces. We also get a lot of disappointing scenes like the party on the boat with no people and just about every scene featuring an adult. The principal, played by Jason Sudeikis (who is director Olivia Wilde's husband in real life), is given an atrociously unfunny storyline. And Amy's (Kaitlyn Dever, who's a total, bonafide star) parents, played by Will Forte and Lisa Kudrow, are groan inducingly awful. The Barbie doll drug scene doesn't entirely work, although it's at least an attempt and trying something different.
     What does elevate the film from being just a forgettable, lame, random teen flick is probably the fact that this is a film written by women, directed by a woman, with two main characters that are women, one being a character that is a lesbian. I suppose that would be enough to shout for joy in male dominated Hollywood, but there are some excellent things about the film beyond that. Olivia Wilde, forever known as the hot, blonde bartender from The O.C., does a terrific job directing her first film. The film looks great, has a great flow and feel, a kinetic vibe with non-stop music, and is super enjoyable throughout even though it never does move into great film territory. If anything, you can blame the script. While there are parties, sex scenes, drugs, drinking, laughs, and even a serial killer...there needed to be at least one truly, gut-busting, hilarious sequence. Just give me one! And honestly, for a comedy romp, the greatest scene in the entire film is a poetic, melancholy one. Amy is pining for a skater chick that she finally meets up with at a party. They go swimming at the party and Amy is underwater with bodies swimming all around her and she's alive and this is her night and she's young and beautiful and it's a gorgeously shot, very moving sequence. Then of course we get conflict and a sex scene and a gross-out, as per usual high school films.
     The two main characters, played by Feldstein and Dever, do have great chemistry together and play the type of characters that are a nice buddy comedy team that you could probably watch do any type of movie together and it'd be a lot of fun. While the other, assorted high school chums are a mixed bag in terms of enjoyment (the drama kids are unfortunately unwatchable...the long-haired kid that fucks a teacher plot seems out of place and goes nowhere), the one highlight is Billie Lourde (Carrie Fisher's daughter), who lately has been stealing the show every season on American Horror Story. Lourde, playing a drugged out, fur-coat wearing, space cadet blonde that keeps popping up everywhere out of nowhere is actually probably the funniest thing in the whole movie. In real life, Lourde is 26. So the funniest thing in this high school film is a 26 year old that plays a character that is literally the most unrealistic high school character ever. I suppose that tells you something about the high school film genre. You've gotta push the boundaries to their breaking point until they're completely nothing like real high school for it to be entertaining. Go figure. **1/2

Review: US

   Everyone loved Jordan Peele's Get Out. It made a ton of money when it wasn't supposed to, established Jordan Peele as one of Hollywood's big time directors, and it even got a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars. It was the kind of film that so many people talked about and got such a cultural buzz swirling around it that if you didn't like it or didn't get it or thought that it was overrated...well, you probably kept your mouth shut. But let's face it: Get Out was overrated. It wasn't a terrible picture. It was an interesting, current twist on The Stepford Wives. It was Peele's first film as a writer/director, so Get Out's problems can be overlooked. It was an okay film but it fell short in a lot of categories, like the undecided comedy/horror of it that never fit to the rushed, gory ending that would have been better drawn out. Get Out is already a cultural touchstone, so breaking it's balls is akin to shouting for help in an empty forest. But Peele's latest picture is out, titled Us, and it has yet to emerge in the zeitgeist and garner a place. I'm here to let you know that Peele is, apparently, stuck doing horror movies with a sociological slant for the rest of time. And Us may just get as much notoriety and love and buzz as Get Out because it's very similar, but I doubt it. Us is a movie where a writer/director has carte blanche. Peele could have done whatever the heck he wanted to after the success of Get Out. And it shows in both bad and good ways. Us is a bit darker, serious, and more bloodthirstily sadistic than Get Out. There's less comedy, the film looks terrific, but it's also the type of film that probably needed someone to edit Peele's screenplay or, at the very least, ask pertinent questions and be given substantial answers. 
     The story has a family going to their vacation home in California. They drive a boat, hit the beach, hang out with another family. It's the perfect life! But then a strange family shows up in their driveway holding hands and not moving. Okay. So scary! And then the shit hits the fan when this strange family decides to kill them. Then it's hunt-and-chase-and-kill for an hour until the credits hit. The strange, murderous family turn out to be doppelgangers. Lupita Nyong'o is the mother, Winston Duke is the father, Shahadi Wright Joseph is the daughter, and Evan Alex is the son. All four of them also play their doppelgangers, which works, thanks to the doppelgangers being either masked or hidden in shadow most of the time. And if you think there's more to this movie than wouldn't-it-be-scary-if-your-evil-twin-showed-up-to-kill-you then you wouldn't be wrong exactly, though the film would probably be better if it didn't attempt to make it more about that. Get Out was a horror movie but also tried to say something about white liberalism and black life in modern times. Us is, I guess, supposed to be about class difference and the 1% in the U.S., hence the title. We all have a dark part of ourselves, even our country! The doppelgangers come from an underground bunker below the beach in Santa Cruz. Where did they come from? It's slightly hinted at that it was some sort of experiment, but even that feels like a lame cop-out since nothing is explained nor even really attempted to explain. Everyone just has an evil twin underground, okay? And they're not really evil, they're just pissed off that they're underground and their life sucks while their other self is up on the surface living it up on the beach. Kind of like the upper class vs. working poor? I guess that's the intent, although who the fuck knows what that's even supposed to mean amidst a horror movie/thriller or if it's supposed to be revelatory.
     The best part of the film, and, really, the only part that matters, is the hunting-and-killing horror aspect of it all. A lot of it reminded me of The Strangers. In that film, strangers show up at a house to kill people for no reason and it's full of action and suspense without answers. Us has some exciting sequences. We get chases and a fight on a boat and the family driving away in a car with a killer on the roof. The film isn't particular scary, although it's creepy in part, well shot and looks terrific. Lupita Nyong'o gives a good performance as both sides of the coin and Elisabeth Moss is great as a short-lived, vain Real Housewives type of character. I think one huge problem with the film is that the entire time you're waiting for answers or a great, final reveal. There is a twist at the end that's fairly obvious, but no answers to the big questions are revealed. Who are these doppelgangers? At least say they're from another dimension or alternate universe like they do in the comic books (Peele definitely reads comic books, as DC's Forever Evil is very similar to Us, as is the current Batman Who Laughs doppelganger storyline). And why are the doppelgangers holding hands across America like that dumb 1980's charity event? And why did they ruin the big fight scene at the end with awkward cuts away to Nyongo's character ballet dancing? And the rabbits?
     I'm sure moviegoers will be just as baffled as me at this film in a way that moviegoers weren't with Get Out. That film may have had an obvious, societal critique undertone but at least casual people watching it got it and could enjoy it. I'm not sure anyone will enjoy watching Us in a way that they did Get Out, which is why that made a boatload of cash and Us probably won't after it's first weekend.
     Whatever Peele is trying to say with Us, it never reveals itself. Yep, the 1% rules in America. We know this. Everyone knows this. Are you just using a horror film to state a fact? Perhaps it'd be best for Peele to just make a straight up horror movie, forget the ridiculous symbolism that goes nowhere, get a co-writer so your films aren't half-baked, and finally make the masterpiece you're definitely capable of. **

THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS (BEST PICTURE) REVIEWS

BLACKKKLANSMAN: This is the first year that I can remember when I actually saw every film nominated for Best Picture. That's even more surprising since they nominate more than five films now. But the internet has totally fucked Hollywood. I saw all of these films but none in theaters. BlacKKKlansman I watched on DVD, Roma was released on Netflix, and the others were all illegally put up online thanks to the DVD screeners that the studios send to the members of the Academy that end up leaked online. What's not entirely shocking is that none of these films are great films. I can't even remember when a Best Picture winner ended up on my Top 10 list of the year. I haven't even seen a few Best Picture winners in the last few years; Spotlight and A King's Speech. And the last two year's Best Picture winners, The Shape of Water and Moonlight, were good but not great. As for BlacKKKlansman, the critics loved it but I felt that it wasn't that good at all. Denzel Washington's son plays the main character, a Colorado police officer in the 70's that infiltrates the KKK through telephone conversations and by using a white, real-life stand in played by Adam Driver, who got a Best Supporting Actor nomination (John David Washington was not nominated). Spike Lee got his first ever Best Director nomination for this, but he's obviously made much better films in the past. I think John David Washington is as bad an actor as his father is; he never acts like a real person for some reason. The movie is somewhat entertaining but never reaches any kind of great, poetic energy that some Spike Lee films have. It's an okay film. ** out of ****.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY: Rami Malek, the star of USA's awesome TV show, Mr. Robot, is Freddy Mercury. The film is basically about Mercury and Queen's rise and fall. It culminates in a pretty accurate, long adaptation of Queen's legendary 1985 Live Aid performance. For what it's worth, go watch that Live Aid performance on YouTube because it's a hell of a lot better than this film. While the movie is entertaining, it's also awful, silly, and really bad in parts. Malek does give a good performance, but the fake teeth he wears in the film are so distracting it's hard to notice much of anything else. Some have said that the film downplays Mercury's homosexuality, and I suppose that's true since his ex-wife is more prominent than any of the men he dated and slept with. What may have hurt the film is that the director, Bryan Singer, was fired late in production thanks to stories that came out that he had sex with underage boys. Singer's name is still on the film, which certainly isn't a good thing since new revelations about him just came out the other day. The film is an entertaining bad movie, if that makes any sense. **1/2

THE FAVOURITE: Yorgos Lanthimos is kind of like David Lynch in that their films are always interesting but usually never that good. The Favourite, much like Lanthimo's last picture, the super bleak and depressing The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is gorgeously shot. The Favourite looks incredible. The acting from the three women, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Coleman (all three received nominations, Stone and Weisz for Best Supporting Actress, Coleman for Best Actress), is excellent. And the script does have some nifty, fun, and amusing dialogue. The story, a tale about a real life English Queen and two women that lie to win her affection in the 1700's, is rather dull. The problem is that the first half is compelling and then it goes downhill, turns into a boring slog, and abruptly ends instead of building up to some sort of exciting, dramatic conclusion. **

GREEN BOOK: This film won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, which is why everyone says that it's a crowd favorite. The critics have not been so kind, and there's a ton of controversy about the film and how it deals with racism. Some say that it showcases the "white savior" narrative. After I watched it, I felt like it white-washed history. Making a buddy comedy about the horrors of segregation and racism in the 60's does seem to be a bad idea. Viggo Mortensen gives a pretty good performance as an Italian driver that has to drive Mahershala Ali's concert pianist through the South. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy while a real musical, Bohemian Rhapsody, won the Best Drama Golden Globe. The film is never boring, although it definitely feels wrong and out of place in today's world. I guess this is why a bunch of older men and women, like those that are members of the Old Hollywood Academy, like it. It takes them back to when racism was simpler. **1/2

ROMA: This is Alfonso Cuaron's latest, after a long stint of inactivity since Gravity. Roma was released on Netflix, which is why a lot of people probably actually saw it. It tells the story of a maid in Mexico City in the 70's and it's in black and white. The film looks gorgeous but is boring. It does feature 2018's best scene though, when the maid, played by Yalitza Aparicio (who got a Best Actress nomination), gets to hold her baby in the hospital for a very brief moment before they take it away. The scene is as heartbreaking as 2017's best scene, The Florida Project's next to last scene when the police are taking the daughter's mother away. There are a few sequences in this film that are mesmerizing to look at and beautifully staged. But, unfortunately, it's pretty to look at but that's about it. **

A STAR IS BORN: The first half hour or so of this film, Bradley Cooper's re-make, is great. Then it devolves into Lady Gaga turning into a star and Cooper hitting the bottle. If they had changed the ending and had the two of them reuniting on stage and the ending was happy then this movie would have perhaps been a masterpiece. This will probably end up winning Best Picture. It seems like the one film out of all of these that both audiences and critics have enjoyed. The sequence when Lady Gaga's character is forced on stage to sing, "Falling" with Bradley Cooper early on is the movie's highlight. **1/2

VICE: This was the best film out of all of these nominations. This is Adam McKay's Dick Cheyney biopic. McKay of course made zany comedies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights, so this isn't a boring, serious, biopic. It has tricks and plays around and goes for broke. It's, above all else, both entertaining and horrifying. Christian Bale disappears into the role as Cheyney, and while Sam Rockwell got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing George Dubya, I think Steve Carrell was awesome as Donald Rumsfeld. Amy Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actress as Lynne Cheyney, but I didn't think she did all that much to warrant that. This isn't a great film but it's a good one. ***

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2019

1- ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD: This is Quentin Tarantino's latest, a film about a has-been actor and his stunt double, played by Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, in the late sixties during the Manson murders. The actor lives next door to Sharon Tate, hence the connection. The star list is huge: Al Pacino, Margo Robbie as Tate, Kurt Russel, Bruce Dern, Dakota Fanning, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Lena Dunham. So far, the plot hasn't exactly been revealed. Which is kind of a shame because by the time the film finally hits U.S. theaters after a probable Cannes premiere every secret will be spoiled. But I'm curious; will this be like the rewrite of history that Inglorious Basterds was and we'll have Brad Pitt and DiCaprio hunting down and killing the Manson family members? And I think that sense of mystery is mostly why this is such an anticipated film. It's stars are fictional characters so this isn't strictly a Manson film. Tarantino will obviously never make another great film like Pulp Fiction, but at least he's one of the more entertaining and interesting filmmakers out there. I'm really curious if the studio let him pay big bucks for some of the rare songs off The Beatle's White Album. If I know Tarantino, "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" will be making an appearance.

2- STAR WARS: EPISODE IX: There's no title or trailer yet to this, the final installment in the new trilogy. J.J. Abrams is back on board as director, though, which is a good thing since The Force Awakens was better than The Last Jedi. The problem with this film is that they killed off all of the big stars like Luke and Han and Lea won't be in it for long since Carrie Fisher died in real life. That means we're left with the story of Rey vs. Kylo Ren, which, let's face it, isn't all that exciting. But J.J. Abrams and a massive budget should produce a fun tale. Let's hope it ends on a high note.

3- SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME: So where is he? France? Who cares? It's fucking Spider-Man, the second best super hero (Batman, obviously, is the first). What we do know is that this is the second entry in the Tom-Holland-as-a-high-school-Peter-Parker series and that Jake Gyllenhaal is Mysterio. I loved the first film in this series. It was super fun and action packed and had surprises and was funny. This is what comic book movies should be: fun, not dour like the Avengers films of late.

4- IT: CHAPTER 2: I admit it: I didn't even really enjoy the first It film that came out in 2017 that much. I forget why, but I did read the book right before I saw the movie...so perhaps I didn't like how much they cut out. I think I was also angry that the best part, the clown, wasn't even in it that much, and that they resorted to lame special f/x for a lot of the supposed, "scary" monster bits. This sequel is the kids all grown up and visiting Derry again to battle Pennywise as adults. Bill Hader, James McAvoy, and Jessica Chastain star in this.

5- GLASS: There really isn't much better than going to see the latest M. Night Shymalan film on opening night in a packed, rowdy theater. While his movies usually never turn out great, they always entertain and surprise. And with Split, he seemed to finally get his mojo back after selling his soul and making The Last Airbender and After Earth. His latest, Glass, is the third part of his super hero trilogy that started with Unbreakable, a film I didn't all that much cared for. Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis are back from Unbreakable and James McAvoy and Anya-Taylor Joy are back from Split. I guess this will sort of be like a typical hero vs. villains super hero story? Expect twists, even dumb ones, as usual, and this should be as stupid and as wild as all of Shymalan's features, just how we like them.

6- THE GOLDFINCH: Donna Tartt's mega hit book was one of the best books I've read. Making the 700 plus page epic into a two hour film is, quite obviously, impossible. It's too bad they didn't make this as an HBO mini-series or something, although it doesn't really matter; the book was so great no film will ever touch it. What the film does have going for it is that while Tartt's writing is great, so is the story. It's a hell of a page turner with a fantastic opening sequence and such exotic locales as Vegas after the mortgage crisis and eventually Amsterdam. The film stars Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, and Sarah Paulson. It was directed by Brooklyn's John Crowley. I think it'll be pretty hard to fuck this one up.

7- GODZILLA 2: KING OF THE MONSTERS: Remember how dumb Garth Evans' Godzilla was? Godzilla turned out to be a good guy fighting other monsters when all we really wanted to see was Godzilla destroying cities? Well looking at this title I'm guessing it's more of the same...but I'm still a sucker for mega-budget, disaster, sci-fi, monster epics. Who isn't? This one stars the girl from Stranger Things and the Nordic vampire from True Blood.

8- THE NEW KING OF COMEDY: This is the new Stephen Chow film, a man that is definitely an acquired taste if there ever was one. Case in point: his movies are always the highest grossing films in China, the world's most populated country, yet most Americans have no idea who the hell Stephen Chow is. Even Jackie Chan is famous in the U.S. these days yet Chow probably never will be. He's written/directed/starred in some classics, though, like Shaolin Soccer, Journey to the West, and Kung-Fu Hustle. I even loved his last feature, The Mermaid. Chow is basically a stupid comedian. The comedy is dumb, silly, ridiculous, yet wonderful. The New King of Comedy is a sequel to his '09 feature and is basically about bad actors. Should make a billion dollars and be hilarious and you'll never even know it exists.

9- ZOMBIELAND 2: I put the first Zombieland on my Best of 2009 list (it came in #7). Ten years is a long time and I vaguely remember it (didn't Bill Murray play himself?). But certainly I loved it for some reason and the whole crew is back for a sequel. Director Ruben Fleischer hasn't done too much of anything good lately (he directed the poorly reviewed Venom last year but did make the entertaining 30 Minutes or Less in 2011), but I love zombie movies and Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg are always great. The plot involves "evolved" zombies. So, what, they fly now?

10- JOKER: Joaquin Phoenix, Hollywood's best actor, is playing The Joker. That's really all you need to know. This movie doesn't make any sense of course. This is a DC film. The Joker in the DC films is Jared Leto. They didn't re-cast him, this is just a separate film from the Suicide Squad universe for no reason. Don't worry, nobody understands the logic behind this. Robert DeNiro also stars and the director is the guy that made The Hangover. I suppose this will either be awesome or awful, and so far it doesn't sound or look like the usual Wonder Woman or Aquaman DC films. Who fucking knows? Phoenix should give a performance for the ages, so there's that.

THE TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF 2018 REVISITED

1-SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY:  The script is good. Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "The Return of the Jedi," wrote it with his son. The final product is unfortunately not as good as the script. Ron Howard came on board late as director and it kind of shows. The film feels slapped together and never really achieves a unified whole. It is entertaining in spots, though, has some cool looking set designs, and does feature a great performance by Donald Glover as Lando. **1/2

2- HOLMES & WATSON: This movie was an ultra-bomb. Not only did it fail at the box office, it even failed with both critics and audiences. I didn't see it but bet it's still hilarious. 

3- THE PREDATOR: A disappointment. After Shane Black's masterpiece, "The Nice Guys," what could go wrong? Apparently everything. While it does feature some of Black's trademarks, it mostly seems like just another bad, dumb "Predator" sequel made by an unknown hack that used to direct video game commercials. *1/2

4- FANTASTIC BEASTS: CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD: I enjoyed this, although it's not as good as the original film. Everyone seemed to dislike this film for some reason. ***

5- ISLE OF DOGS: Good film, although not as good as Wes Anderson's live action pictures. And it's not as good as the trailer, as I predicted. ***

6- THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT: Boring. Who makes a movie about a serial killer boring? You'd think it'd be difficult. The movie does have a great last sequence, though, when Jack travels down to hell and tries to cross the bridge back up to Earth. Finally, after two dull hours the movie gets interesting for ten or so minutes. *

7- JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM: This is another movie that a lot of people hated that I thought was super entertaining and awesome. I give up, really. If you think this movie is bad then what the hell did you think of "Jurassic Park 3"? Seriously. The scene of them running down the hill while a volcano is going off and dinosaurs are running past them is one of the best scenes in all of the "Jurassic Park" films. This was sheer popcorn bliss in my eyes. ***1/2

8- EARLY MAN: Amusing, albeit not as funny as Aardman's other works. I'm still laughing thinking about the staring dog from "Shaun the Sheep". **1/2

9- HALLOWEEN: I didn't see this. It got good reviews.

10- X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX: This was pushed to February 2019 and then June of 2019. That doesn't bode well but it still looks great.