Movie and TV Reviews: Being the Ricardos, The Duke, Encanto, Licorice Pizza, Marry Me, Worth, ...

Being the Ricardos: This is an Aaron Sorkin biopic about Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman), Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), and the other cast and crew of the iconic show I Love Lucy. The film is about the week leading up to one episode of the show: the table reads, the production, the blocking, the run-throughs. It is also about three crises facing the Ricardos that week (historically, they were actually in different weeks, but they were shoehorned into one to add drama): The media is alleging that Desi is cheating on Lucy, the media has picked up that Lucy was once registered as a communist (to please her uncle), and Lucy and Desi want to incorporate Lucy's new pregnancy into the show, which may cause trouble with some conservative segments of the viewing public. It also highlights Lucy's keen insight into exactly how to run the show, from the media issues down to the actors movement in specific scenes.

Aaron Sorkin's name comes first in the previous paragraph because his heavy-handed touch nearly ruins this film. If you've never seen another Sorkin production (The West Wing, Sports Night, Molly Bloom, etc) you will find nothing wrong with this movie. If you have, it will be difficult to watch this movie and disappear into the characters, because every time one of them opens up her/his mouth you hear the characters from Sorkins' other movies speaking. In other words the characters are not new, fresh characters or biopic approximations of the original. Instead they are collections of witty dialog with certain personal characteristics.

It is a tight production, highly dramatic with snappy dialog and good acting ... i.e. a Sorkin production. But he gives the actors the same lines and characters that he gives in all of his movies, much in the way that Woody Allen did. I just didn't feel this was Lucy Ricardo. It is still fine to watch once.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (TV series): This show is set between the two Blade Runner movies. A girl has amnesia and flashes of being a replicant. She goes to seek vengeance on people who abused her, and to seek answers as to who she is. She meets help, and kills enemies, along the way.

Blade Runner purists are like purists everywhere: they don't like anything that is not a perfect extension of what they already know, and they hate strong female characters. So they didn't like this. Some of them also abandoned the show after the first 1 or 2 episodes because there are no blade runners until the 4th or 5th episode.

Some of them also didn't like the show because the animation quality is not "great", which may be true if you are familiar with many other anime series, but not true if, like me, you are not. It seemed fine to me. And because the action was "like a video game", which is may be true if you are familiar with many video games ... ditto.

I thought there was too much violence in some of the episodes, the first in particular. And the story arc teases some characters as important who turn out to not be. Other than that, I thought it was fun, captivating, and captured the Blade Runner world well. Lots of atmosphere, callbacks to the movies, and the same general plot about replicants, police, a big corporation, and a seedy underworld. The story is not wholly original or deep; not all of the 13 episodes are essential viewing. But I enjoyed it, and I think if you are a fan of the movies - but not a purist - you will like it.

The Book of Boba Fett (TV series): The Mandalorian was the best thing in Star Wars since the original trilogy, and I had hopes for this. As we learned in that series, Boba Fett somehow escaped from the Sarlac pit and stayed on Tatooine to take over the Hutt operations on the planet. He has an assassin for help, Fennec Shand. In this series, he walks about Mos Isley trying to assert his authority but running into resistance of various kinds. The backstory of what happened to him to get to this point is also part of the first 4 episodes, out of 7.

The first 4 episodes are fine. Not great television if you are not already a Star Wars fan. The story meanders from past to present. The backstory is a traditional story of an encounter with the natives and being taken into their tribe (Sand people). The present is mostly introducing characters for some eventual conflict. Not as bad as some people made out, but somewhat mediocre, not essential viewing.

Episodes 5 and 6 had nothing to do with Boba Fett, at all (he gets like 10 seconds of screen time altogether in both episodes). Instead, we get the continuing story of the Mandalorian, and it is fantastic. Then, in episode 7, you get a merged story of both of them: The Mandalorian, Boba Fett and his crew, and the big conflict this was all leading up to. It was good.

I think you can skip the first 4 episodes and just watch the last 3. You won't miss much. if you are a Mandalorian fan, you must watch the last 3 episodes, at least. And here is looking forward to the next season of The Mandalorian.

Duke, The: The essentially true story of a pensioner (Jim Broadbent) in Newcastle Upon Tyne who, in 1961, steals an expensive painting from the British National Gallery in London with some idea of forcing the British government to make the TV tax free for veterans and the elderly. The government thinks they are dealing with a sophisticated art theft gang and are shamefaced when he turns himself in and returns the painting of his own volition.

Helen Mirren plays his very sour and ornery wife Dorothy. A host of other actors (the most famous of them being Matthew Goode) play family members, locals, and lawyer (Goode).

This is a light movie. Subplots include their daughter who died in a car crash (years ago) and a little about their sons who have their own relationships. Mirren's Dorothy is so mean-spirited and sour at the beginning of the movie that it nearly sunk it for me: too much negativity in a supposed comedy movie. But I made it through and I enjoyed it more in the second half. Okay to watch, not worth going out of your way for.

Encanto: A huge success of a Disney movie, about a multi-generational extended Colombian family that escaped some kind of conflict and ended up in a magical village with a magical house that protects them. The family owns the house, and the rest of village relies on them or something (not clear). Each member of the family has a magical gift that they gain when they come of age, ... except our protagonist, Mirabelle. Poor Mirabelle. And they don't talk about Bruno, an uncle whose magic was predicting calamitous events (mostly minor ones) and who seems to have disappeared.

One day Mirabelle sees cracks appearing in the house. And she tries to find out why and how to save it.

Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs, many of which are super good. I am not a fan of his endless rap-style narrative songs (Hamilton, In the Heights), but the score was done by someone named Germaine Franco, which must have helped. I say many of the songs were good: they were all good, but some of them, particularly the first song, had voices that were too low or too fast and I literally did not understand a word they were singing until the second of third time that I watched the movie (or until I looked up the lyrics online).

Not all of the movie makes sense, especially the central conflict. I don't really understand who learned what or why, or what changed. But it was pretty, colorful, tuneful, with sweet, pathetic, or vibrant songs, and it was fun to watch.

Hawkeye (TV Series): Another Marvel TV series. I saw a few episodes of Agents of Shield, Agent Carter, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones, but I never watched the rest of these series. I saw the entirety of Wandavision, which I most enjoyed (more after the first 3 episodes), and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was mediocre okay except for the last episode which was silly.

This series was probably the best of the bunch. This may be due to the charming Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop, who joins Hawkeye as a fellow archer protege, and the captivating Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova out to kill the man (Hawkeye) who killed her sister (Natasha Romanoff).

Kate runs into a criminal organization selling black market extraterrestrial tech from the NYC event (Avengers) and tries to get involved, as does Hawkeye. The plot is not that important, serving as a basis for scenes between: Hawkeye and Kate, with Hawkeye trying to keep Kate out of the way as he does serious work, while she wants to help; between Hawkeye and Yelena and between Yelena and Kate, who arrives as a wildcard to complicate matters; and between Kate and her mother and her mother's boyfriend, who may be involved with the criminals. And some Avengers cosplayers. And lots of quips and archery.

Wandavision is still the most original of these shows. This one is simply tight and well-structured. Worth watching is you enjoy the Marvel movies.

Licorice Pizza: This is a weird comedy hi-jinks movie. It is wild, original, infused with historical 1970s California detail, and full of frenetic energy. It is partly about Gary (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour), a 15 year old boy who is a driven entrepreneur and child actor. He spends some of his time pursuing some kind of relationship with Alana (Alana Haim, from the music group), a 25 year old who floats between jobs, including photographer's assistant, political campaign assistant, and working for Gary. He spends part of his time creating businesses, such as mattress store and a pinball parlor. And it is partly about Alana and her family and choices. And it is partly about early 1970s Hollywood and a lot of crazy people.

Speaking of parts, part of me didn't like this movie while I was watching it. The narrative wanders all over the place, the characters are often unlikable, and the plot is hard to follow. Another part of me was thrilled at watching something so interesting and unusual. It is atmospheric, with memorable scenes and characters. I really need to see it again.

Mind you, the premise of a 15 year old boy maybe having a relationship with a 25 year old woman is somewhat disturbing, and the movie doesn't do enough to make us think that there is a problem here. But I think an original film like this is worth watching, and I applaud its gumption. The supporting characters are played by some astoundingly great actors, including Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper.

Mitchells vs. The Machines, The: This highly recommended film was disappointing, boring, bland, and stupid. It is action, gags, and shallow, heavy-handed family drama, the kind that changes tone too abruptly and too frequently to be funny. The kind that transparently and unsubtly tried to shove poignant emotions at you without going through the work of making you care about the characters. The kind of drama that makes no sense considering the context of what is happening on screen. The plot is unoriginal - an AI goes wild and sends robots around to kill everyone, and the child protagonists are the only ones who figure out how to stop them. Heard that one before?

It is also a tech based movie about runaway AI, so of course the tech also makes no sense, which doesn't matter but is annoying, nevertheless. It is nice that the unambiguously gay daughter is part of the family and not at all part of the plot, which is pretty groundbreaking for a family animated film. How this got so much praise from the critics is beyond me.

Marry Me: Jennifer Lopez plays a global pop star, about to marry a fellow global pop-star in a big televised on-stage wedding. Then she discovers he has been cheating on her. So she jumps at the chance to marry some dude in the audience holding a "Marry Me" sign in a leap of faith/moment of desperation/act of revenge/something. The sign-holder just happens to be a single dad (Owen Wilson) and a math teacher. And it wasn't even his sign (he was briefly holding it for his lesbian friend (Sarah Silverman)). He goes along with it ... out of compassion for someone who is in trouble, or something?

This movie makes no sense, from beginning to end. So many questions are just unanswered. Why does she do this? Why does he do it? How is this legal? She doesn't know his name or if he is even single when they marry. Why would he do this without regard for his 10 year old daughter? Why does he leave the concert without his daughter? What's happening??

I hoped that, with suspension of disbelief at the initial premise, that I could flow with the rest of the movie and maybe that would make some sense. Unfortunately, this movie feels like it was written by the 10 year old daughter. It hits every romcom plot point without once making any character or narrative sense in how it gets there. No work is put into how they fall in love, or why one of them tries to break it off, or how they end up in each location. These things just happen.

It's a bad movie. Very bad. I enjoyed Jennifer and Owen on screen, because I think they have some charm. But that's about it. Sarah's ubiquitous over-presence was grating, sad to say.

Saint Frances: Bridget is a very sad 34 year old who gets an abortion. Then she gets a job as nanny to Frances, daughter of two very sad women, Maya and Annie. Everyone is always sad, except for Frances who is sometimes sad. Near the end, some people are occasionally less sad.

I had to stop watching this for a while so that I didn't kill myself. It is technically well put together, if kind of gross (too much period blood dealt with dryly and comedic) in some places. It is kind of a comedy, despite everyone being miserable. If you can survive the first three quarters, the last quarter yields some redemption. Although the characters are original, the story is really not. The couple may be lesbian, but the story remains the same. It was well acted and well cast. Worth watching if you can stomach it.

tick, tick, ... BOOM!: The first of the only two plays from Jonathan Larson, and the second that we can now watch as movies, the other one being Rent (tragically, Larson died a few days before Rent's theater run began). The movie version of Rent is a well known cinematography failure, even though the songs are good. This one also has good songs with a slightly less depressing story and, thankfully, adequate cinematography. Andrew Garfield stars as the frenetic optimist Jonathan Larson, who wrote this autobiographical story about trying to write his actual first play, which never went into production.

The movie includes performers who starred in Rent, as well as cameos from other Broadway performers. The story pays homage to Steve Sondheim, played by Bradley Whitford (and one actual voicemail recording from Sondheim himself).

If you like musicals, and particularly Larson's style of modern, gritty but hopeful NYC musical, this is a must watch. I enjoyed it.

Worth: The true story of a lawyer (played by Michael Keaton) who specialized in assessing the value of human life. He is hired to administrate the Sept 11 compensation fund. His job is to get 80% of the people to sign onto the fund. If they don't, then a) the airlines may go out of business, and b) individual expensive lawsuits may result in some or many of the victim's families getting little or nothing. And c) it is good, politically.

Of course, putting value on people's live makes the victims furious: why is a CEO worth more than a janitor in human terms? Is the money symbolic, compensatory, punitive, a coverup, or a relief? This was well made, but rather long for a story that could have been told in a half hour television episode. It doesn't hit that hard, but tackles the subject well enough. It's okay watching if it's on TV.

Turning Red: A Pixar movie about a Chinese-Canadian girl who is going through puberty. She discovers that her ancestor's totem of a red panda means that she actually turns into a big fat red panda whenever she gets emotional. She has friends, a tiger mother, plans to see a boy band, and assorted other relatives. She has to undergo a ceremony to get rid of this new panda curse, but until then she begins to control it and use it to get what she wants, economically and socially.

This movie is a big old bunch of metaphors, one of which is nearly explicitly spelled out in the film. The first time she "turns red" and tells her mother to stay out of the bathroom, her mother thinks she has had her first period and brings her medicine and pads. While it doesn't get more explicit than that, it is still quite a concept for a Pixar movie. But that's what this is all about, isn't it: she smells funny, she can't control her emotions, she has longings for boys, she isn't in control of her body, she hates how she looks, etc, etc. Metaphor, anyone?

Unfortunately, aside from the metaphors, the story and conflict are pretty banal. She hides what she is doing from, and lies to, her over-controlling mother, so naturally there is a blow up and then some mutual understanding. It's just that some of Toronto (circa 2002) gets wrecked in the process. It's nowhere near as interesting as Encanto, but fine for younger kids.

Movies (and TV Series) Review: Hustlers, Last and First Men, Long Shot, Looking for Alaska (TV), Minari

Hustlers - Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu star as high payed exotic dancers on Wall Street who drug and steal from the executives that visit their clubs, justifying their actions by assuming that all of their victims are probably wealthy and criminals themselves. Based on a true story, they recruit other women to their gang. They eventually rob someone who desperately needs the money they stole. He goes to the police and, eventually, the police have them arrested.

I generally don't like movies that sympathize with bad people, so I took some umbrage at the sympathy that the filmmaker gives to these women's endeavors. Too much time is spent "humanizing" and justifying these women's activities by showing their struggles and families, and not in a scary Godfather-like manner. Stripping is portrayed as well-paying and glamorous; I believe that the reality might be less so for many women and men. But the characters are appealing, and some moral sense is maintained by the end of the movie. Certainly it is well-acted and shot, full of sound and energy. I mostly enjoyed it but was left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Last and First Men - This is not a movie, it's literally one person (Tilda Swinton) reading an essay about a far future version of humanity sending a message back in time to us, with a description of the future history of human evolution. The visuals are shots of black and white brutalist WWII Yugoslavian sculptures, there is a musical score, but no characters or motion. It could be an audio book or a radio play from the 1930s. It is based on a 1930 book by Olaf Stapledon.

It's pleasant enough, but you really have to be in the mood for it. I suspect it will attract a midnight college crowd of stoners.

Long Shot - Seth Rogen plays Fred, a passionate populist journalist who gets involved with Charlotte (Charlize Theron), a left-wing but pragmatic politician. Charlotte was once Fred's babysitter (she was 16, he was 13), but now Fred is a decent guy but a shlub, ala Seth Rogen, while Charlotte is high class, on her way to the presidency. Charlotte hires Fred as a speechwriter, despite his reservations about some of her policies. They fall in love, but politics gets in the way.

It's dorky guy gets hot girl, exactly how you think, but a little better: these kinds of misogynistic "bro" movies, especially Seth Rogen movies, are not my cup of tea, but this one is passable, in the way that Zach and Miri Make a Porno was passable.

So what do we have? It's sometimes funny, sometimes sweet, sometimes grating, predictable, and annoying, but not memorable or important. A supreme male fantasy, but the two leads have some chemistry. An okay watch if you want to pass the time.

Looking for Alaska (TV series) - This very sweet, never boring miniseries is based on John Green's first novel. If you know Green's other works - The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns - then you know the theme: teenagers looking for meaning and some manic-pixie dream girl or guy trope, and then a subversion of that trope. I liked this miniseries more than I liked either of the two above movies.

Miles (Charlie Plummer) moves to Florida to attend Culver Creek Academy, which seems move like a summer camp than a school. He meets and befriends Chip (Denny Love), who is on the outs with most of the other students, Alaska (Kristine Froseth), Chip's friend and fellow prankster, and a few other oddballs. They have interactions and scrapes with other students, teachers, the headmaster, and so on. Meanwhile, the mysterious Alaska has secrets and might be in some kind of trouble. Alaska sets Miles up with Lara (Sofia Vassilieva), whom he likes, but he probably loves Alaska. I cringe a little at scenes of bullying, but luckily they were few and short.

Eight bittersweet episodes allow us to see a multitude of characters fully fleshed out in a way that a 130 minute movie does not. Everyone does a great job.Mostly it is about friendship, integrity, loyalty, and secrets, and how all of these conflict. The cinematography and soundtrack are also great. Worth watching.

Minari - This is a sweet, quiet movie about a South Korean immigrant family trying to get by in America. In 1983, the parents, Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Yeri Han), work as chicken sexers. Jacob initiates their move to Arkansas, with their children David and Anne, where Jacob hopes to grow Korean vegetables for the underserved Korean and curious American populations. In the meantime, Jacob's non-English speaking mother comes to live with them. She and David have to share a room.

Contrast this movie with First Cow, a similarly quiet tale that utterly failed for me. First Cow was boring and unengaging; it looked great and was acted well, but I didn't care what was happening. This movie is similarly quiet, looks great and is acted well, but the script is smart, the characters are sweet and/or funny, and the conflicts - the mother wants to move back to California, the farm is harder to run than it looks - work well.

It is always worth gaining insight into other cultures, especially ones that have enough overlap to make the differences stand out. The grandmother and kids are especially captivating. This is worth watching.

Movie and TV Reviews: Lady Bird, The Post, Molly's Game, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Westworld, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

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Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig's first outing as a director is a smashing success. I have complicated feelings about Greta, in that I admire her intentions in writing and playing in quirky comedies, such as Frances Ha. However, I felt that her movies were not quite there yet, not quite jelled. The characters were too unrelatable, and the plots too chaotic and off-putting. This is the first one she really gets right.

Christine is a teenager who calls herself "Lady Bird" for no discernible reason. The movie is basically an arc in the life of Christine and her relationship with her mother as she navigates the last year of high school in Sacramento. She makes and loses friends, fights, makes up, and fights with her mother, and tries to get into a college on the East Coast that will get her far away from her family.

I have been a big fan of Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement to Hanna to Brooklyn. She and Laurie Metcalf, as well as the rest of the cast, give perfect performances. If there is any flaw to the movie it is that it could have been more: more sweeping, maybe have another deep relationship arc in addition to the main one. But that's hardly a flaw. Worth watching.

The Post: Hanks, Streep, and Spielberg give us another newspaper drama, this one about the publishing of the Pentagon Papers that broke the story about how a series of US presidents and higher ups were all lying about the Vietnam War, pretending that the US was fighting to liberate South Vietnam when they knew all along that the war could not be won and the real aim was to broadly fight China.

It's a good movie, if not a great one. Roughly on par with other newspaper movies I've seen, including Spotlight and All the President's Men., but with a narrower aim. The main conflicts are a) publish or not? and b) can Streep's female character assert authority at the paper without making a major blunder? Streep plays the owner of the Washington Post, a position she inherited from her late husband, and a woman bullied by her all male board. She is seemingly willing to let them bully her until she finally takes a stand. Hanks plays the chief editor who is pushing to report a story while the government wants to sue them for espionage.

If you happen to draw a parallel between the historic ideals of freedom of press versus a tyrannical, corrupt president and anything happening today it's because we once trumpeted these ideals very clearly. Reality has a bias toward the truth, which any amount of modern obfuscation cannot truly suppress. And it is good not to lose sight of the ideals for which we stand.

Molly's Game: If it's been a while since you've seen a Sorkin picture, you'll find it is like riding a bicycle. You will immediately be expecting to see Josh Lyman or Sam Seaborne walk in from some corner of the screen.

This is the story of a woman who uses some incredible insight, people skills, and brass balls to end up running a high stakes poker game for important celebrities and executives, first on the West Coast and then on the East. The enterprise lasts until the feds and the mafia move in on her. The story is told from a series of flashbacks interspersed with her finding a lawyer and navigating her legal case. It is based on a true story.

Jessica Chastain does a fine job in the lead role. Everyone else does fine, except Kevin Costner who seems out of place as her often distant but high pressuring father. Regardless, it is a Sorkin story, which means witty, clever, entertaining dialog and characters who are ten times brighter and more accomplished than most people you will ever meet. Well crafted with great cinematography.

Goodbye Christopher Robin: The story of A.A. Milne, his wife, and his son Christopher Robin, how the Winnie the Pooh books came to be, and the effect they had on their lives. Spoiler: on the one hand the books are the most successful children's books of all time. On the other hand, they destroyed the life of Christopher Robin and his relationship with his parents. The movie actually gives us a slightly happier ending than the real life events.

Milne's wife is shown to be a bit of a shrew, with just enough redeeming moments to make her two-dimensional, but not really likable. Alan Milne is more sympathetic, although he blatantly and blindly uses his son poorly without much thought. It's all pretty tragic.

It's a decent movie for what it aims to be, somewhere on the same level as Becoming Jane or Miss Potter. It is well acted and lovingly directed and filmed. It tells its story well enough. But it's not a very important story or movie, for all that, and only the falsified, slightly happier ending gives the viewer any kind of comfort.

Westworld (season one): I saw a few episodes of Humans and couldn't get into it. I was a little concerned about the level of violence I heard about in this series (I won't watch Game of Thrones). Somehow, the fact that the violence happens to robots makes it easier to take, although the question remains exactly whether the robots are or are not conscious, so you have to decide that for yourself if the violence is watchable or not.

I am a huge fan of Evan Rachel Wood; she and everyone else do fine jobs. Unlike Humans, the stories are quite captivating, with a number of whodunits and what's going to happen nexts that got me hooked. The stories take place in the facility that creates and maintains the robots, as well as in the play world of Westworld, and they include scenes that occur as flashbacks from the robots' perspective, despite the fact that the robots are not supposed to have memories.

There is nudity, but respectfully done and never gratuitous. The sex scenes are all pretty unsexy.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season one): The next series from Amy Sherman Palladino (Gilmore Girls, Bunheads), this one succeeds better than Bunheads did. Bunheads had a few great scenes, but it was too unrestrained in ridiculous plot and ridiculous dialog, which made it hard to relate to. This series only has one Bunheads-style conversation that set my teeth on edge in episode two. Thankfully that was the only one.

Midge is a perfect 1950s Jewish housewife who is supported by her husband and who in turn supports his occasional forays into standup comedy. He's not good at it, and one day he decides that she is not supportive enough of him and he leaves her. She then discovers, albeit reluctantly, that SHE is good at comedy. Cue a lot of denial, drinking binges, and attempts to make a go at standup comedy, all the while continuing to navigate her 1950s Jewish family, neighbors, friends, children, and still husband, all of whom remain blissfully unaware of her secret life as a comedienne.

It's not as good as Gilmore Girls, which had the great triple relationships between the three women, as well as their suitors, husbands, and the funky Connecticut town Stars Hollow as color. The supporting characters here are not as fun, there is no funky community background. But we have a few great scenes with a young Lenny Bruce. The best scenes are the ones where she does her Lenny Bruce style-standup, something which could not really have happened in the time period of the show, and so represents a kind of wish fulfillment on the part of Amy and for the viewers.

Amy's dialog is distinctive, and it's fun to hear. I just wish the show also had a teenage daughter.

Movie/TV Reviews: Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, Stranger Things Season 2, The Big Sick, Frantz

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Dunkirk - This is a fantastic Christopher Nolan movie, but not one I want to see multiple times. Okay, maybe one more time, but that's it.

The story is a slice of the evacuation at Dunkirk, the famous retreat of British (and French and Belgian) soldiers from France at the opening of WWII. While French soldiers held Germany at bay, Britain evacuated over 300,000 soldiers after expecting to only be able to rescue 30,000 or so. The evacuation was assisted by some air cover and by owners of small crafts, such as motor boats and so forth, taking the 25 mile sea trip to France and back. The beach was under attack a lot of the time.

The movie presents one week of the story of a foot soldier making several attempts to gain safety on a ship, interspersed with one day of the story of a civilian motorboat owner who travels to France to pick up some of the soldiers, interspersed with one hour of a pilot providing air cover. All stories converge by the end.

The interspersing of the stories was good in theory, but a little confusing due to the shifting time frames. There is no sensationalizing the war, either for or against. The stories are about fear, desperation, heroism and tragedy and survival, and how these are instantiated in humans. It's a war movie with little in the way of fighting; mostly it's about ducking and covering and running. But it's also about bravery and morality.  It is not presented as a traditional story.

The acting and directing are sensational, and so is the cinematography. Most sensational is the sound, which heightens the gripping visuals and makes them either pathetic or harrowing. Very beautiful, often educational, and a real demonstration of what movies can be. I can't remember if there are any women in the movie.

The Big Sick -  The best rom-com I've seen in quite a while, this was very funny and quite heartwarming. Written by and starring Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley), it tells a fictionalized version of how Kumail met his American wife (played by Zoe Kazan) and the difficulty he/they endured from his parents (played byAnupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff) and (to a lesser degree) her parents (played by Holly Hunter and Roy Romano). The central part of the movie is a) the fact that his parents reject her because she is not Pakistani and b) that he spends a lot of time in the hospital with her parents when she suddenly falls into a coma ... after he had allegedly already broken up with her.

It's funny and it's touching. It's well acted and directed. But mostly, the script is great. It's funny. Worth seeing, especially on a date.

Frantz -  A reworking of a very old movie, this tells a story set just after WWI. A German woman goes every day to the cemetery to put flowers on the grave of her fiance Frantz who was killed in the war, and one day she meets a man ... a French man .. who also starts putting flowers on the grave. She is living with her former fiance's parents, and they are all grief-stricken. The Frenchman shows up, but anger and intolerance runs high. Until he says how he was great friends with Frantz and can't get over his death. This is kind of believable, since Frantz was a humanist, pacifist, and Francophile before the war. But ... what kind of relationship did this guy really have with Frantz?

As a modern viewer, our immediate suspicion is that the guy was Frantz's lover, something not even considered or asked by the protagonists in the movie. The movie confirms some things and then goes in other directions, and then in yet other directions. Intolerance runs on both sides of the border, lies are condemned but met with other lies, and who knows where it will all end up. Will they get together?

The movie is beautifully shot, costumed, and acted. The direction is lovely. It was enjoyable. However, it suffers from a few flaws that are the result of heavy handedness by the director. I will give a teeny example.

One of the scenes in Germany has this young Frenchman, all alone, while the German patrons, who have previously expressed their contempt for all people French, stand in a bar and sing their national anthem out of respect for Germany's soldiers. The Frenchman looks lost and even frightened. In the hands of a more competent director, we would expect to see the young lady at some future time in the movie, say, pass by a sports stadium or train station where French people are singing the national anthem. That would display the dichotomy without descending into heavy handedness. Instead, we see a scene where she is all alone, while the French patrons, who have previously expressed their contempt for all people German, stand in a bar and sing their national anthem out of respect for France's soldiers. Come on. I actually laughed out loud at this and said "Come on!" in the movie theater. And this kind of thing happens again and again. The Frenchman knocks on her (fiance's) parents door, and then later we see her knock at his family's door in an eerily similar shot. And on and on like this.

The director also shoots mostly in black and white but fades into color during certain scenes, which had the potential to be lovely (as it was in Pleasantville, Wizard of Oz, and other movies), but ended up also feeling heavy handed and obvious, essentially adding nothing to the movie that wasn't already patently obvious from the settings and story.

Honestly, I would have thought this was the director's second or third film, but it seems he has been making movies since the late 1980s. So he should know better.

Despite these misfires - and the fact that no blame is assigned to anyone for the war, it just kind of happened - the movie is otherwise lovely and sweet, with a story that really picks up and captivates you (especially after the first major reveal).

Blade Runner 2049 - It's good, although maybe not as good as it could have been. It fits seamlessly in with the first movie, without being a retelling of that movie, which is about as well as one could hope for.

The first Blade Runner had its faults - a little too much staring at visuals, a little undeveloped romance (even a little rape-y), a few plot-holes and inconsistencies - but it was beautifully filmed and acted, had an intellectual script unlike any other science fiction movie since 2001, and created a genre and look for many other movies to copy. This one doesn't really break any new ground; if anything, it feels like it inhabits the same space as Ghost in the Shell 2017. However, it has a few unique twists on the hero/destiny journey which make it rather brave in some ways. I suspect that its ending is a reason that it didn't perform overly well in the box office, but actually its ending is just right when you think about it.

As for its acting, visuals, plot, and directing, they're all good. I was confused about certain elements of the movie - how can androids have babies / grow up from being babies? What kind of biological functions do they have? Do their cells wear out? Do they go through teething, adolescence, and puberty? What do they eat, do they eliminate, and how do they metabolize? None of that makes any real sense.

I have to see it again to really get some of the confusion cleared up. In any case, it's certainly worth going to see.

Stranger Things (season 2) - Well, I just saw it and it blew me away, much like the first season did. There is really not much to say about it. It's a great story, starts off a little slowly for the first few episodes like last season, and then gets rip roaring. There are a few new characters and they are all fantastic.

The show is now part Andromeda Strain, part Aliens, and part Harry Potter. If it has any fault, it feels so neatly wrapped up that I can hardly imagine a need for another season. These two were just perfect.

Moriarty or Mutants: I Review the Marvel and DC TV Show Pilots, plus Shannara, Humans, and Six Movies

TV

But first, more about Supergirl - In my initial review, I said that the dialog was horrible, the action sequences senseless, and the premise that having a girl superhero movie be more about relationships than kicking ass was insulting to women. I wasn't going to watch any more, but then I did. It continues to intrigue me, a little, despite what it still does wrong. Actually it really only does a few things right.

Melissa Benoit is cute and clumsy in the right ways as Supergirl; she acts well, instead of wooden and/or eccentric like the rest of the cast. Laura Benenti and Peter Facinelli play characters who may or may not be bad guys, which is nice. These two make the show rise above the usual Moriarty or Mutants that is the staple of comic book derived TV shows. Supergirl is some of both, although it's mostly Mutants.

• A Moriarty show: One bad guy of exceptional and unbelievable intelligence and power always survives, attacks or taunts the hero, performs a dastardly deed in every episode (often with unexplained motives), gets tracked down, confronted, and then narrowly escapes in every episode.
• A Mutants show: In every episode, the hero has to fight yet another villain who has some mutated power - typically resulting from the same source that gave the hero his or her power. The hero is initially overpowered, but rallies to put away or kill the mutant by the end of the episode. There is always another mutant. It is never explained why all these mutants hang out in the proximity of the hero, instead of going literally anywhere else in the world/universe to do their mean things, nor why they attack one or two at a time.
  Some shows like to use both of these.

Supergirl's action sequences - like the action sequences in every sci-fi and fantasy show I have seen (with the exception of Blake's Seven) - continue to bore me. No one important ever dies, superhero powers or weapons are conveniently forgotten, no one has an ounce of strategy, and no one is ever in serious trouble. What happened to the kryptonite guns and blades?  Why is everyone attacking innocents in a convenient 50 mile radius of Supergirl's apartment?

In this show, unlike shows with male protagonists, the superhero requires a team of others to help her, can't manage her abilities without training, must learn that powers are not the solution to everything, and has to wear a short skirt. Instead of being bothered by these points, my reaction is: well done. The other shows should really be more like this one (I'm not talking about the short skirt, although I don't really mind it, since her legs are not the central shot when she is on screen). Supergirl is more vulnerable and not always able to come up with a solution, which makes it more than just a bunch of punching and kicking, snarling villains, and threats and intrigue all managed by a lone hero karate chopper who never gets hurt.

Short skirt aside, I enjoy women protagonists more than male ones, except when they are invulnerable karate choppers (I'm looking at you Black Widow).

Other Marvel and D.C. Shows ...

Since I realize that pilot episodes are usually the worst, I really need to see more episodes of the rest of these shows to make proper judgements. But here they are, anyway. These are listed in the order that I viewed them.

Daredevil - Not entirely bad, but also not too good. You know the basic story: he's blind, he's a lawyer, he whacks people with a stick. A Moriarty. None of the characters were interesting. Brooding and dreary.

The Flash - A Mutants show that predates Supergirl and is a bit similar, with a male protagonist who runs really fast after a weird explosion but who needs a team to help him learn his powers. Many others were also caught in the explosion. I think the problem here is that I didn't find any of the characters appealing. It's a knock off, much smaller version of X-Men. Again, none of the characters were interesting. In the last scene of the pilot, it has the tired cliche of the supposed friend who turns out to be something else by turning his head and looking malevolently at the camera. Boring.

Agent Carter - As I have a preference for female protagonists who have time to do more than kick things, I liked this one more than most. It's the continuing story of Agent Carter from Captain America and her occasional run-ins with Papa Stark and other riff-raff. I nearly considered watching additional episodes, but I was thoroughly disgusted when, in the last scene of the pilot, it had the tired cliche of the supposed friend who turns out to be something else by turning his head and looking malevolently at the camera. Please stop presenting people whose eyes glow red when no one is looking, or who secretly keep tabs on the main character by pretending to be their friend. It's bad writing and bad filming. I HATE these silly "cliffhangers" of pilot episodes; it's a totally unnecessary trope.

The acting was good but the plot was forgettable, as Marvel plots are. Only Carter has any character, although not much; on the other hand, there is hope that some of the other characters may become more interesting, given the chance. But I will probably not watch another episode unless I am bored.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - A totally forgettable Mutants show, going by the pilot. It has a group of misfit powers. My friend says that the show became something else entirely after the fifth episode, and it's one of his favorites. He says I should watch more.

Legend of Tomorrow - Very clunky pilot episode, with too many introductions and cliche characters and intrigue - which is to be expected when you introduce ten main superpower characters in 45 minutes. Good production values for the most part, except for when it wasn't (such as the opening scene). Some of the characters could become interesting, like the ones that have lived and died for 4000 years, but it's more likely that we're never going to really explore their psychology, like how they deal with living a long time while their friends die. Instead I expect to just see the occasional run-in with a past familiar face. It's a big fat Moriarty.

Unnhhhhh ..... maybe I'll watch a second episode.

Jessica Jones - Not bad, again because it's not all about butt kicking; and its no accident that this is because the protagonist is female. However, it suffers from a severe Moriarty problem. Jessica is a private eye who also happens to be a retired power, but whose path once crossed, and will now cross again, a guy who controls people's minds in nasty ways. Krysten Ritter is a fine actress, but the characters had shallow development (in the pilot, at least). Again, I may watch another episode if I am truly bored.

Arrow - I finally watched the original D.C. show and I see what the fuss is about. This show is neither Moriarty nor Mutants; Arrow's hit list of targets is a little like Mutants, but the list isn't endless and they don't have mutant powers. The story is original - well, actually, it's basically a take on Bat-Man. He returns from a shipwreck where his father died and so did the girl he was banging (his girlfriend's sister). His relationships, such as to his ex girlfriend and best friend, are well done. Some of it didn't make any sense - how did he learn all that technology when he was out of commission for so many years (and you know that computers don't work like that, right?) and it's unbelievable that he can be shot at at point blank range by dozens of machine guns and never hit by a bullet - but I gave it a pass because of the interesting plot. I will probably watch more episodes.

iZombie - This is another well done story, and rather unique. Basically, zombies exist but are not well known; being a zombie is something you can hide from your friends and family, so long as you get to work in a morgue and eat brains. And it gives you ex-machina crime-solving abilities. That means that, in future episodes, Ms brain-eater is going to get just the right flashes at just the right times, which is awfully convenient. And oh yeah: zombie may be a curable illness. I gross out easily, so I didn't like the gory parts, but the "fades from comic panel to real life action sequences" are fun and stylish. If I was into crime-dramas at all, I might watch more of this, but I'm not.

Gotham -  A solid, well-acted police/detective serial. Follows the story of James Gordon's early days on the police and the boy Bruce Wayne, sprinkling in early looks at half a dozen future criminals in the meantime. Lots of mob and crooked policemen. It's Mutants, with some Moriarty thrown in. If I liked crime/detective shows with lots of violence, I would probably watch more episodes, but I don't.

Other Shows ...

The Shannara Chronicles - This is a PG fantasy series, loosely based on the Elfstones of Shannara (the second book in the series). The acting is wooden or eccentric. The plot turns a good and powerful story into a series of cute meets and irrelevant action sequences. A magic tree that holds back hordes of demons is dying; one elf has to take a seed and bathe it in some mountain fire to make a new tree. I stuck around for the first three episodes, but I got bored by the plot distractions, like arranged marriages, deaf leaders, and people running away from responsibility. These aren't inherently bad ideas, but they are done without grace. The scenes engender no empathy, nor do they create any emotional connection to the characters. The funny scenes aren't funny. The tense scenes aren't tense.

Manu Bennett as Allanon is perhaps the best thing going for the show. Possibly Ivana Baquero's or Poppy Drayto's elf women characters will become something interesting eventually. Austin Butler's Wil Ohmsford is a complete blank, so I have no hope for his character becoming anything at all.

Humans - A foreboding take on human-looking androids, as depicted by the movies A.I. and Ex Machina. Here you buy them as companions or servants, but they are obviously going to be sexually and physically abused. An interesting question would be whether this can exacerbate, or help sublimate, abusive behavior against real people, but I don't know if the series gets (got) into that question.

Instead, the story is about displacement and other kinds of social dynamics, and (having read the series synopsis) eventually the same issue explored by movies like Ex Machina and Blade Runner: whether or not androids can really be sentient, and thus granted equal rights like humans.

It's not bad, but it also didn't quite grab me. I think the human characters were just not that interesting in the pilot. It might get better after the pilot, when the characters become more familiar. I might try a few more episodes.

Movies

Suffragette - This movie is not, unfortunately, the story of the Suffragette movement. Instead, it is a series of scenes depicting the suffering undergone by some of the suffragettes. To have been the story of the movement, it would have had to have shown how the suffragettes' activities gradually came to win over the hearts and minds of the people. None of that is shown.

The movie is just a repetition of women plotting, protesting, or breaking windows, followed by the women being ignored, beaten, arrested, abused, or otherwise mistreated. That's it. Details of the unfair situation of, and the abuse and sacrifices made by, the main character, played by Carey Mulligan, are shown. I found it hard to tell the other women apart, since they had no differences in character, other than being a bit louder or weaker. The one man shown to be slightly supportive - a husband - is given almost no role and no voice. And then someone dies and the movie ends. Great cinematography, but kind of a waste for such an important topic.

Steve Jobs - Three half-hour scenes in the life of Steve Jobs, all right before product launches. For what it is, it's okay. Jobs is shown as a prick, as usual. I don't know that it adds anything to what we know about Jobs from what we already know from the previous movies. We learn a bit more about product launches, and a bit more about what it was like to be Jobs' daughter.

My main problem here was that Michael Fassbender looks nothing like Jobs, so it was hard to believe him in the role. Another problem was Jeff Daniels as John Scully; Daniels acts exactly like his character from Sorkins' The Newsroom, and the pacing and camera shots, and even some of the dialog, is lifted straight out of Sorkins' TV shows, so the movie seemed like another episode of The Newsroom. Don't talk to me like I'm other people!

The Peanuts Movie - An aberration upon humanity. I can't step away from the fact that I've seen all of the original Peanuts movies and many of the shows, and read the comics; perhaps I would see this a bit differently as a newcomer. I recognized many of the one-liners, characters, and even short set-up scenes from previous Peanuts media, but the majority of the movie was slapstick: characters getting smashed or hit, falling down, bonked on the head, jumping into a bush, screaming, or otherwise, in fast sequence after sequence. The original material barely surfaces for a few seconds before another pratfall or smack in the face. Maybe a little kid who enjoys seeing people get hit or hurt will enjoy the movie. Otherwise, it is blasphemous. There is a reason that many cartoonists don't want other people continuing their work after they're dead.

The Little Prince - An odd, but not too odd, animated movie that tells the story of The Little Prince in the first half of the movie, while simultaneously telling the story of a girl and her mother who move into a new house. The mother has the girl's entire future planned out to a ridiculous degree; the girl makes friends with her neighbor, who turns out to be the aviator of the eponymous story. The second half of the movie sees the old man going to the hospital and the girl's search for The Little Prince who is now an adult and has forgotten all of the lessons of the book.

It doesn't take a genius to know what will happen next, but kids will enjoy it, and hopefully their interest in reading the book will be aroused. Watchable as an adult.

Big Eyes - A nifty movie about Margaret and Walter Keane (Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz). In the early 1960s, Walter painted many kitchy paintings featuring kids who had big eyes. These became very popular, and Walter hobnobbed with the media, celebrities, and the art world until Margaret suddenly left him, and shortly afterwards claimed to have been the actual artist. This was demonstrated as undeniably true in a famous courtroom battle, although Walter continued to claim to be the real artist until his death. It's a movie about a woman who supports a Big Lie by her husband; I would think it would be hard to relate to by today's women. None of the women I know could or would do such a thing for so long, but maybe there are still many who would. I felt that the moment of her first willingness to go along with the lie wasn't presented sufficiently, but that may be simply because I am a man. Anyway, the rest of the movie is interesting, moves well, is acted, scripted, and directed well, and is worth watching on a small screen.

Joy - A small story starring Jennifer Lawrence as the real-life Joy Mangano, a woman from a dysfunctional, poor extended family of leeches who invented the miracle mop and marketed it on television. It's pretty grim for most of its running, even though you know it has to turn out well somehow, eventually. J-Law is fine, as usual, and the rest of the cast and directing is, too. Something is missing from the story, however. Either they told the wrong parts of the story, or the story isn't that interesting. It tries to make up for this by presenting all the weird characters that surrounded Joy, but the movie spends too much time on those characters, who are not interesting stories. It's ok for watching on an airplane ride, but I wouldn't seek it out.

Reviews: Supergirl (TV pilot), Bridge of Spies, Ant-Man, Trainwreck, At Middleton

Supergirl (TV pilot): SNL did a skit that lampooned what a Black Widow Marvel superhero movie would be like, It simultaneously lamented the lack of female-centered Marvel movies and anticipated that, if Marvel were to produce one, it would be more like 27 Dresses than like Iron Man. Because, after all, women in movies must be portrayed as having to deal with relationships, romance, and sucky jobs at fashion magazines.

Astonishingly, when the trailer to the Supergirl TV show came out, the trailer looked remarkably like the SNL spoof: a female superhero show that appeared centered on a girl with a sucky job at a newspaper with love and self-identity issues (and a little action). Was it really going to be The Devil Wears Prada with a cape?

The answer is: it's not quite The Devil Wears Prada with a cape; it's about 80% like that, mixed with some of the worst writing that modern TV science fiction has to offer. Melissa Benoist is fine as the protagonist, but she has to deal with her tired cliche of a bitchy female boss (nowhere near as interesting as Perry White, or even Miranda Priestly), the tired cliche of a jealous, antagonistic sister, and the tired cliche of having to figure out how to be true to herself. Come on.

Far worse is the nonsense inflicted on us by the action (mild spoilers). One of the enemies (one of many escaped criminals, all originally from Krypton, and all therefore with the same powers as Supergirl) decides to kill as many innocent civilians as possible in the city, so he begins by driving at night on a deserted highway, in a truck, for several hours until Supergirl can conveniently catch up to him. This enemy who had proved to be stronger than Supergirl at their first encounter, is weaker in the second encounter, because why not? While struggling over an item held by the enemy, the enemy simply holds on for a minute while Supergirl overcharges it, rather than do, say, anything else. When the item explodes, while both of them are holding on to it, only the enemy is blown back by the explosion, and not Supergirl, because why not? Of course, the enemy never uses any of his other superpowers.

Supergirl's other "antagonists" are the supposed good guys who don't believe in her until she proves herself. They have kryptonite darts and kryptonite handcuffs which they only use on Supergirl instead of on the Krypton enemies, because ... plot?

It's just ridiculous, from beginning to end. Supergirl fan crushes over a guy, awkwardly tripping over her words and giggling, just like in the SNL parody. Superman does the same in his movies, but we know he's doing it on purpose. Speaking of Superman, we have the same problem with this show as we have with the Marvel movies that feature only one of the Avengers: having established that another hero exists in this world, where the heck is he when the Earth is faced with hundreds of super-criminals?

And speaking of Superman, we neither see Superman (except in blurry profile) not hear the word "Superman" during the entire pilot, despite many, many references to him. We hear "Kal El", "that guy", "my cousin", etc etc. It rapidly became very jarring. I can only surmise that there is some kind of licensing problem with both the image and the word.

I won't be watching future episodes.

Update: Okay, I lied. I watched the next episode. Wow, it is MUCH better than the first episode. The actions sequences now - sometimes - make a little sense. The plot is not - always - ridiculous. The dialog is not - always - forced and unbelievable. It has gone down from 90% annoying to only about 20% annoying.

Supergirl is setting itself up as an oddball superhero story, one in which the protagonist, while possessing superpowers, is unable to function without assistance from a myriad of human sources. It starts her off with her powers, yes, but she requires all kinds of training to be able to use them in ways that don't cause collateral damage and are effective against others of her kind. On the one hand, the fact that they did this for the one superhero show that features a woman is a bit insulting. On the other hand, it's the kind of thing that should be done a lot more often, so it's actually an intriguing idea. It's a superhero show functioning more like a Mission Impossible show.

They also used the word "Superman" several times, so there goes my theory.

Bridge of Spies: Another Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg collaboration based on a true story. Hanks plays the everyman with a perfected moral sense (he is kind of typecast this way, by now): lawyer James Donovan who acts as defense lawyer in the late 1950s for accused and actual spy Rudolph Abel and then negotiates With Russia and Germany to swap Abel for downed American spy pilot Frances Gary Powers and another hostage.

The first half of the movie is about the trial, in which Donovan succeeds in keeping Rudolph alive. The second half is about the negotiations in East Berlin around the time that the wall is first going up. Everyone does a fine job. Mark Rylance is so captivating as Abel, that it is a shame he disappears for the second half of the movie. The tension is well developed despite the paucity of things actually happening - half a movie, essentially, on a single negotiation. Other tensions - such as the effect on Donovan's family and reputation for publicly defending a spy at the height of the Cold War - are cursorily developed. The fact that the story is true (or true enough; some parts of the story, such as a third hostage and the experience of the downed pilot, were left out) adds to the enjoyment.

Watchable on the small screen.

Ant-Man: I nearly skipped this entirely, but I had time to kill as I was home alone and sick. I abandoned it about 3/5 of the way through. Marvel movies are bad enough with their cookie-cutter plots, great visuals and cool stunts, one-dimensional characters, funny quips, and important objectives of, you know, saving the world (or the universe, or whatever). This movie lacked the great visuals and important objectives. The plot was so narrowly defined and the objectives so straightforward and the plot so cookie-cut, that it felt like it had been generated by a computer. The ending was so forgone that the plot lacked tension. I was bored.

Trainwreck: Amy Schumer is funny, even hysterical, in small doses. At longer exposures you feel like she's recycling material to fill time. The jokes wear thin, and what's left to carry the movie is the plot, which is not bad but not particularly groundbreaking. Amy plays a woman who doesn't understand relationship commitment, while also playing the daughter of a sick man and the sister of a married woman. She meets Mr Right, so to speak, but it's not clear why he would be interested in her. That's actually the excuse she uses to push him away, but it's not given a satisfactory answer.

The movie isn't exactly a train wreck, but neither is it satisfying. It's disjointed. And we get yet another entry in the cliched trope of bitchy female bosses.

At Middleton: Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga play parents who meet-cute while bringing their children to visit a college. They are both married (to other people), but that doesn't stand in the way of a day-long series of romantic explorations and companionable interactions, the type you would expect to see in far better movies or with younger characters.

Garcia and Farmiga are charming, but they lack a script with any value. They visit all of the romcom cliches and speak some scant sentences that lack any depth and often appear completely out of place. Maybe three or four times it seems like they are going to have a substantive conversation, but it goes nowhere after the first sentence. The events they experience are forced upon them by the screenwriter: They play Chopsticks together. They climb a bell tower. The smoke weed and act silly (always one of my least favorite movie scenes, as it is cheap and boring to watch people giggle and dance around while pretending to be stoned, and all such scenes are always the same and a waste of screen time). They dance in a fountain. They almost kiss several times. They reveal that they are bored in their marriages. Ho hum.

Worse, the lack of discretion they exhibit is unbelievable, and the delusional movie trope that someone can be cured of acrophobia - and, apparently, the need to wear glasses - just by having spent a few fun hours with someone of the opposite sex is insulting to the intelligence. The kids also have some screen time, but their scenes are not significant.