Florence Foster Jenkins

3 Stars (out of four)

This looked like an enjoyable and uplifting tale about a woman who can't sing and yet brings joy to people because of her pure and unbridled enthusiasm for music.  That enthusiasm just makes you want to stand up and cheer.  But unfortunately, this is real life and the movie delivers on that instead.

The movie is about the titular heroine Florence Foster Jenkins (played with her usual aplomb by Meryl Streep), a VERY rich New York socialite who has had a lifetime love for music and loves to sing.  There is only one problem, she has absolutely no talent and a tin ear.  Her actor husband (Hugh Grant), who loves her deeply, has kept her surrounded by sycophants and pays off people to praise her performances.  And while he does love her, he has a girlfriend on the side that Florence doesn't know about.  One day, Florence makes a private recording for her friends that somehow gets on the radio.  It instantly becomes a big hit, especially with soldiers returning home from WWII.  What she doesn't know is they are all laughing at her.  She decides to put on a free concert at Carnegie Hall for them which starts disastrously until everyone begins to appreciate that she is singing her heart out.  And while everybody is still snickering, the concert ends with thunderous applause.

So, the movie advertises itself that it is uplifting, that despite this poor woman's obvious lack of talent, people will still love her.  However, like real life, this is not meant to be.  But what makes this movie incredible is the beauty and intimacy of those small moments we share with our family and friends.  That despite everything else that happens to us in our lives, it is in those small moments of humanity, of kindness shared, that make life worth living.  Despite Hugh Grant's character being somewhat of a heel, he truly does care and love Florence, and does everything he can to make her dreams of singing come true.  Some would say that it's cruel, playing an elaborate hoax on her, but she goes along with it, as well as all of her friends.  Her circle of friends know how much she loves what she does, and they wholeheartedly support her, even though they know she is terrible.  We can all identify when we have to tell the little white lie to someone to make them feel better.  This movie shows just how important those bits of humanity are.  My only real complaint with the movie is that the tone is very confusing. At first, they set the movie up as if it is a comedy, to laugh at Florence's ineptitude.  But then it switches tone to where we become complicit in the lie everyone tells her.  Because we know just how much she loves what she does, we end up rooting for her and feel proud of her when she finally sings at Carnegie Hall.  Perhaps there is a deeper message here.  Always pursue your dream, or whatever makes you happy, and damn anyone who tries to take that joy from you.

Hell or High Water

3 Stars (out of four)

I was a little sad about this one.  I thought it would be a rousing, sorta modern upgrade to 1967's Bonnie and Clyde.  They have similar themes born out of similar circumstances, bank robbers who rob banks in the name of social justice (sorta).  Both impart a dissatisfaction with the age in which they were filmed.  Bonnie and Clyde signaled the end of the old Hollywood Studio system and ushered in a new, arguably better age of dramatic storytelling that would resonate with younger viewers in a time of turbulent social change.  It very much mirrored the social tides of the Civil Rights Movement.  Hell or High Water sells itself on a similar theme, one more in tune with the Bernie Sanders and "Occupy" movements of late; movements extremely suspicious of corporate and government institutions.  This is the Bonnie and Clyde for the Millenial movement, young people dissatisfied with their place in life who need a convenient scapegoat, in this case, corporate America.  It has some great performances and takes its time telling a slow-burning story, but unfortunately leaves you oddly unfulfilled at the end.

Hell or High Water is the story of two Texan brothers:  a divorced father (Chris Pine) and his older, ex-con brother (Ben Foster), who rob banks to save their family ranch.  They only rob bank branches that hold the deed on their ranch, with the intent to buy it back with the money they stole, essentially paying the bank back with its own money.  Hot on their heels is a retiring Texas Ranger (Jeff Bridges in a standout performance) who is convinced (correctly) that the robberies are related.

I have no real complaints about the story itself; in fact, I loved it.  The biggest problem with the movie is the brothers' relationship.  As they are the main characters, and this is very much a character-driven story, you would think there would be a lot devoted to them and their motivations.  And while the movie does touch on some of that, it is curiously haphazard.  You come out wanting to know more, especially Ben Foster's character, who is an unpredictable hellion.  Yes, they love each other and yes, they are doing these crimes for a greater purpose, but in the end, I didn't feel like I knew them very well.  You learn a lot about each one of them individually, but not the relationship that binds them together on this highway to disaster.  All we get are tired tropes: abusive father, distant mother, but since we meet neither of them, we can't judge anything for ourselves.  Ditto with Chris Pine's character trying to reconcile amicably with his ex-wife and kids.  We see the result of his character arc, how he has changed.  It would have been much more interesting to see how he got there.  That's what I mean by feeling unfulfilled with the story.  We only see the results of life-changing experiences, not the events that precipitated them.  Those events, in my opinion, are the more interesting story.  The bank robberies are merely the culmination of those events.

The Jeff Bridges character and his interactions with his half-Mexican, half-Native American partner are much more interesting and funny, if you think an older white guy throwing constant racial epithets at his partner are funny.  But there is a greater dynamic going on here, that is how rough men bond.  Many movies try to show this, Jaws being probably the best example of male bonding that I have seen.  Despite the racial slurs, both men have a real respect for each other that goes beyond surface insults, that ironically, allow these men to express their feelings for each other.  It's an odd dynamic, but it is there.  

So the movie, by those who have short attention spans, will seem slow and boring.  But it is in those moments of reflection where this movie shines.  It gives the movie deeper resonance, a time you can reflect, as the characters do, on events that transpired and what's ahead.  This helps because the movie is very ham-fisted in ramming the point home that the economy sucks and our characters are victims of something far beyond their control.  All in all, the movie is very good and worth a watch for those who can abide by a deliberate storytelling pace.

Star Trek Beyond

3 Stars (out of four)

I have to hand it to Paramount.  After thoroughly and irreparably blowing Star Trek: The Next Generation's chance to have a movie franchise in, they wisely chose to go back to the well of what made Star Trek so great in the first place, the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise on her five-year-mission.  However, if they aren't careful, it's still possible to totally blow this chance to keep a good franchise going.

So, we pick up with Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and the U.S.S. Enterprise beginning her five-year-mission of exploration.  Actually, we're in the middle of that exploratory mission, when the Enterprise gets sent on a rescue to help a crashed vessel in a nebula.  Of course, in true Star Trek fashion, they seem to be the only ship in the quadrant (Really?  Quadrant implies four.  Are we to believe the Federation has no more than four vessels?) that can handle the crisis.  They go in, and are immediately attacked by a really bad guy which causes Kirk to crash the ship (Yes, again.  For those of you keeping score, this is now the third time the Enterprise has been destroyed.  But since the other two crashes happened in a parallel future which has been wiped out of existence, technically, they never happened.  Are you with me so far?) on a remote planet.  Then there is a whole plot about a lost Federation starship captained by a man who now hates...oh, does it really matter? It's Star Trek!

The Star Trek new (old?) cast is finally coming into its own.  This movie has finally allowed the new cast to truly take the reins from Shatner & company and spread their wings on their own.  The first movie had to introduce us to the new cast.  The second had to finally kill the necessary nods to nostalgia so this third movie can finally be truly owned and inhabited by the new cast.  Truth be told, the criticism of this being an excellent TV episode and a not-so-great movie is absolutely on the money, but that really doesn't matter.  The writers have hit upon why the original crew made such good movies and The Next Gen cast didn't.  It has nothing to do with one cast being better than the other, but rather story structure.  The original Trek is really about Kirk, Spock and McCoy and their evolving relationship with each other.  Everybody else is secondary, no matter what Takei, Nichols, Doohan or Koenig think, Shatner is correct that the big three are the stars.  This is an ideal amount of deep characterization for movies as you only get 2+ hours every 3-4 years to see these characters.  A cast as diverse as The Next Gen was always better suited for TV.  Seven principle characters over seven years gives you ample opportunity to explore and get to know each character in detail.  Now that we completely know and love them, each character not given adequate screen time will be cheated.

Star Trek Beyond has finally began exploring the big trio's new, evolving relationship, and I loved it.  We are beginning to see the forging of what will be a lifetime friendship.  Frankly, I don't care about Uhura's love story or capability, Sulu's gayness or Scotty's emotional depth.  While the movie does a fairly good job of addressing everyone, it becomes perilously close to losing its focus.  This time, the story worked well.  A lesser writer could still botch it up in the future.  If the series is going to remain viable and not be a convoluted mess like The Next Gen movies were, it needs to stick to the Kirk/Spock/McCoy formula.  The only Next Gen movie that actually worked, (First Contact) worked precisely because they stuck to this formula.  In fact, it only focused on Picard and Data.  Everyone  else was given good, but supporting performances in service to the larger story.

So, all in all, it was a fun, but rather limited story.  The final reveal of the bad guy and his intentions gets a little convoluted.  But in the end, this is a very satisfying romp and makes me want to see more.

Suicide Squad

I'm 3 Stars (out of four)

So, considering the near-unanimous savaging this film has been getting from critics, I went in expecting a hot mess.  "But were they right?" you may ask, and my answer would be...

Sorta.

I will say, however, I was entertained by this film and did not feel ripped off.  But could it have been better?  Did it fall short of its promises?  Yes, it kind of did.  It falls short on every level, actually, but still manages to be entertaining.  So, don't listen to the critics.  That's why you have me to tell you what's good and what isn't.  It seems mainstream critics think every film should be belle arté, but I think it's fine to have artistic candy for the brain sometimes, and Suicide Squad definitely fits that category.

So, the movie is about the US government putting together a team of super villains, almost all of whom are killers and psychos, to battle even bigger threats out there.  The premise being: what if Superman tore off the roof of the White House and took the President?  How would we fight that threat?  There is a major side plot as well where the Joker (well played by Jared Leto) is trying to save his co-dependent, psychotic girlfriend (played by über-hot Margot Robbie in hooker-chic short shorts) and break her out of prison.  The movie has a lot of other bad guys, too, but do they really matter?  Not particularly.

This movie has been hyped for almost three years and been delayed at least once for extensive reshoots.  The word is that Warner execs were panicking when they saw how dark the original cut was, and they wanted to lighten the tone for a more family-friendly, PG-13 crowd.  (Just as a side note.  Does anyone remember when PG-13 was NOT family-friendly, but warning parents this may be a bit extreme?  Now PG-13 is essentially a pussified R so they can get more butts in the seats.). Now, I'm not suggesting that Suicide Squad or any superhero film should be R-rated, particularly in a post-Deadpool world, but the studios keep wanting to make very edgy films for what is essentially a children's medium.  This is the first fundamental problem.  All film studios should follow Marvel Studio's lead and put this more adult-oriented stuff on pay-TV and concentrate on a good story rather than attitude.  DC has made two fundamental errors with their properties.  The first was making each film in isolation from all the others.  Marvel has carefully planned their multi-year strategy introducing characters and a continuing story-arc gradually, and it has reaped large dividends because of that planning.  DC is beginning to rectify this problem with Dawn of Justice, but it is too little, too late, and they are scrambling now.  The second error was going for the gritty, brooding atmosphere of Batman in everything they do.  It works for Batman, but not necessarily Superman, so now they are painted into a corner where everything is dark and joyless.

So enough of the macro issues, what about Suicide Squad?  Its biggest issue is its tone.  They're reaching for dark and gritty, especially since each of these "heroes" are villains.  There was obviously a lot of post-production tinkering, because you see glimpses of real menace underneath everything, particularly the Joker/Harley relationship.  There are hints of extreme mental and physical cruelty they inflict on each other and other people.  Frankly, I would rather see an R-rated film about these two.  That would be fascinating, but quite impossible to do.  But this malefic undertone is glossed over and diluted, so you get a confusing/irritating cognitive dissonance that falls short of being either standard superhero fare or a more gruesome psychological study.  It's almost as if the movie is just there, unwilling to commit to any tone other than banality.  The movie tries to make up for this with antihero-cool attitude, but again falls laughably short.

Other fundamental issues are that the DC rogues gallery is much more interesting than its heroes, who are pretty bland in comparison.  Add to that the fact that, outside of the Joker, we have never met any of these characters before.  So, the movie must waste time explaining everybody and what they do before the action can start.  To be fair, the movie actually did a great job doing this.  The first act, where we meet all of them and how they got caught and what drives them is actually pretty good.  It is a great Exhibit A on how to save a deeply flawed script by quick introductions to the characters in an ingenious sleight-of-hand to distract you from the other story problems.  But now we come to another fundamental issue: why should we care about any of these people?  They are killers, after all.  "Cool" does not make up for the fact they are all killers and deserve everything that's coming to them.  This movie revolves on an axis of adolescent boy-fantasy regarding how the world works.  If I'm cool or tough enough, it doesn't matter what I do or what a bastard I am.

Finally, the story has technical problems.  They are trying to use the Tarantino-esque method of non-linear storytelling (the story is not told in sequence but rather a combination of flashbacks and present action), and the timeline gets muddy because of it.  There is also inconsistent pacing.  This becomes particularly egregious when we finish the second act.  A big battle has just been won and the final battle is imminent.  Suddenly, for no particular reason, they all decide to have a drink in a conveniently open bar in a war-torn city and discuss their feelings.  After which, they make the pact of "all-for-one-one-for-all" and go on the "slo-mo" badass walk.  (See Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol. 1)  This movie is cliché-ridden, not particularly funny (although it thinks it is), and really is a pointless place-holder until the good DC movies come out.  (Wonder-Woman, Justice League, Flash, Aquaman)  Dawn of Justice is at least setting up the next movie.  Suicide Squad does that only in the last two minutes.  Otherwise, it stands on its own, again in isolation, in kind of a pointless exercise of expanding the DC universe.

After all that, you're probably saying to yourself, "Gee, that's a lot of negative stuff you just said, and yet you still thought it was entertaining?"  Yes, I do.  Despite its many flaws, in the end, it is pure escapist entertainment.  It has the mentality of a not-so-mature 12-year-old boy, but it is still a fun little fantasy, A road that I didn't mind traveling down, despite everything wrong with it.  Sometimes the journey can be fun.

Jason Bourne

2 Stars (out of four)

In what is rapidly becoming the summer of missed blockbuster opportunities, Jason Bourne now adds its name to the heap of overly-hyped, low-performing tentpole thrillers.  It's becoming sad and repetitious this summer, with so many possibilities and so many failures.  I was really hoping this one would be different with the return of Matt Damon playing our titular hero.

The movie is about Matt Damon returning to the role of the hero that has redefined the spy thriller actioneer.  Do you really need to know anything else?  You do?  Well, he is again trying to live a life in peace, but the bad guys/good guys of the CIA can't let him be.  When more information from his past shows up, this supposedly patriotic hero (they make a point to mention this many times throughout) does everything in his power possible to dismantle the organization that protects us all.  When a traitorous coward like Snowden is praised for his patriotism (there's a movie coming out about him, too, from, you guessed it, that other patriotic paragon Oliver Stone), it's no wonder this is what is considered laudible and worthy of emulation.

So, back to the story in a moment.  First, I am very disappointed with director Paul Greengrass.  He has done the equivalent of an actor phoning in a performance.  Considering he has already directed two other fairly good Bourne movies (Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum), and basically rewrote the visual lexicon of action movies in the process, he falls back to tired and lazy directorial techniques that are beneath his abilities.  He makes extensive use of hand-held cameras (or the vomit-cam as I call it with its ability to make one nauseous).  Combining MTV-style frenetic editing with the use of the vomit-cam to get as close to the action as possible, all we are sure of is that there is something kinetic and exciting happening on-screen.  It would probably be pretty cool if we could actually see it, but all that is really visible is a blur of action.  I realize newer directors make extensive use of hand-held cameras because they think it's cool and edgy (it isn't), and that it's cheaper (it is).  But for a seasoned professional like Greengrass, who knows how to frame, choreograph, pace and shoot action quite competently, it just looks lazy and sloppy.  The Bourne movies changed the spy movie aesthetic so completely that the James Bond franchise is copying its template, much to the detriment of the last four Bond flicks.

Bourne doesn't particularly need a good performance, but Damon delivers his usual better-than-average style here.  He is the one bright spot of the movie, or rather, Bourne being in a Bourne movie is.  But the story is hackneyed and cliché-ridden through and through.  The movie is basically a simple revenge flick packaged as a chase film.  No new ground is covered, and now Bourne is in danger of picking up the tired Bond formula.  An event forces him to action, he meets a contact/lover who becomes the sacrificial lamb, he cries, then gets mad, and then spends the rest of the movie on a kill-crazy rampage until all the other guys are dead.  And while the Bond franchise has suffered trying to be Bourne, the inverse is true as well.  They are fundamentally different stories and heroes.  Yet despite studios knowing this, they are repackaging the same vanilla, crowd-pleasing over and over again to satisfy the beast.  I would rather see Bourne go back to its roots of a man out of place, or find another original hero.  If this is the best we can expect from Bourne, it is breathing its last.  Instead of a vibrant and exciting new take on the spy, it sinks into the morass of cookie-cutter sameness that has been plaguing franchises.