Movie Reviews: Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Emma (2020), Knives Out, Joker, Little Women (2019)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (aka Star Wars IX): A somewhat messy, but entertaining movie, that does its best to wrap up the trilogy of movies that started in The Force Awakens (Star Wars VII), as well as the trilogy of trilogies that make up the Star Wars canon.

The resistance is pursued by the first order, Rey is entangled with Kylo Ren, Palpatine has returned and is about to launch a ridiculously huge army (this really makes no sense), and Poe and Finn and Rey have to defeat them all. And there are light-sabers.

The movie has many things going for it, including decent acting, good characters and a few good character arcs, some good action sequences, some funny and some touching moments, great visuals, sound, and music, and a reasonable wrap-up of some parts of the story.

It also has many problems, of two main types: those that are the fault of Rian Johnson and the terrible mess he left us with Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi, and those that are J. J. Adams fault, essentially the same problems that we saw in his Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens.

People criticize this film for the sins of the trilogy: the trilogy has no cohesive story arc. This is because VIII deliberately destroyed dozens of story arcs that were started in VII, and, even worse, destroyed many of the essential elements and ideas of the entire SW universe: good isn't good, bad isn't bad, heroes aren't heroes, the Force is universal, there is no resistance, etc, etc. To write IX, you either had to ignore much of what happened in VII (and pretty much the rest of Star Wars) or much of what happened in VIII.

IX chose the latter by awkwardly retconning lines and characters from VIII. This was only partially successful. Snope was set up in VII and made meaningless in VIII; VIII desperately tried to remove the concept of overarching villains from the series, which was terrible. So IX tried to shoehorn in the old emperor Palpatine as pulling the strings behind Snope, but it did so quite badly, without any surprise reveal and in without any real threat or dramatic presence. In VII, Rey had some kind of important background and story; VIII tried to destroy any meaning to her background and story. So IX tried to subvert what happened in VIII, but it did so quite badly. She has a story again, but it didn't make any sense, didn't give us any real dramatic interest, and left dozens of important hints from VII unanswered. And so on.

As for IX on its own, maybe Adams was hobbled from making any kind of sensible story by trying to fit in VIII and also wrap up a trilogy of trilogies. While VII had a pretty decent (if predictable) story, the story in IX is sometimes insane. The "Goonies-like" treasure map that they find, and how they find it, is unbelievable nonsense. The new force powers are cool in abstract, but don't fit the story or the trilogy. Characters appear for fan service, or don't appear (or don't appear much) for no sensible reasons. The end threat scenes are Marvel-level and just too unbelievable to take seriously. The dialog is forgettable; the only memorable line is "A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect", and it is memorable because it is a metashot at Rian Johnson's disrespect of the lightsaber at the beginning of VIII.

Still, there are many good scenes, and each scene, other than the ones with Palpatine and the ridiculous end battle, are entertaining and well-shot. It was nice to end the movie with callbacks to both of the original trilogies. The movie doesn't add up to the sum of its scenes; the story just isn't any good. Lucas may have hired some so-so actors and written some clunky dialog, but I always loved the stories (even the prelude trilogy). It's almost possible to forget all this while watching this movie; almost, but not quite.

Emma.: Like the recent attempts at the Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina, this movie is unfortunately directed by someone who is in love with process and sets, but has no interest in actors other than to use them as props for their photography. It's no surprise to me that the director is most well known for her photography.

The sets and actors fly around the landscapes, and the camera takes notice of all of the scenery and settings, but little of the characters. The movie would still have been a little better than the above two mentioned movies (which were not watchable). Unfortunately, the director or screenwriter's second major mistake destroys the movie.

Emma is supposed to be sympathetic but flawed. Book Emma as a heroine is full of good intentions and good Christian works, beautiful manners and kindness to everyone, though served poorly by her self-righteousness and blinded by lack of insight. That's not what we get here. In this movie, Emma is loathsome, snobbish, and entirely unsympathetic. There is no chemistry between her and Mr. Knightly, and no apparent reason for him to fall in love with her. Maybe that is the fault of the actors, maybe of the directors; it's hard to say.

I guess Emma learns something by the end, as she must, but she doesn't retain much of it, doesn't change her character, and doesn't become any more sympathetic. So, if you remove the pretty shots and sets, the story is about an obnoxious, unsympathetic snob who makes a few mistakes and realizes one or two of them by the end, is sorry and fixes one of them, but otherwise doesn't change, and then a handsome rich man marries her. Mmmm ... okay? That's not a very interesting story.

Honestly, stick with the 1995 version with Gwyneth Paltrow, which was silly but faithful, at least.

Knives Out: A gem of a movie, this was unexpected fun. Lots of great actors in an old-fashioned, southern whodunit. Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, and the rest of the cast are exciting and lovely, and the script is tight, tense, and funny, with multiple flashbacks from alternate points of view. This movie is also by Rian Johnson, who redeems himself in my mind after having ruined the Star Wars franchise.

In a family house, a grandfather has a questionable relationship with all of his children, their spouses, and their kids, and somehow he ends up dead. Was it one of them? Or the nurse? Or suicide? Who will inherit his fortune? Enter private detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) to figure it out.

Captivating. Worth watching on the small screen.

Joker: This controversial origin story was actually quite good. Joaquin Phoenix does nearly as good a job as the Joker as Heath Ledger did in The Dark Knight. The sound and visuals were fantastic.

Arthur Fleck is a clown who is poor, who has a sick mother and no father, and who, every day, gets beat up and the sad end of the stick in Metropolis, which is NYC at its most disgusting and ready to boil over. He also has a disease that makes him laugh inappropriately, which is, as you may guess, likely to get you hated, ridiculed, and beaten up on occasion. He is also a failed comedian who loves a Johnny Carson type (played by Robert De Niro). One day while in clown makeup he shoots three entitled white dudes, partially in self-defense but mostly because he has nothing left to lose, and he (maybe?) inadvertently starts a revolution with himself as the cult leader. In the end, some or all of what happened is revealed to be a fiction of his imagination, so it's not clear how much of it to believe.

Although I admit that the movie was well made, I still didn't like it too much. It's not that, as some critics said, it excuses violence by the downtrodden or entitled white men; the movie makes it pretty clear that this guy is an exception who is disturbed, and that some or all of what happens might be in his deranged mind. It's more that the movie doesn't say much more than that. He's a deranged guy who suffers and ends up killing people. Okay, that's all? I wished it would have given us something more. Dark Knight had The Joker, and it gave us much more to think about and much more story. This gave us very little. It seems like an homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, both of which also gave us a lot more in the way of character, story, and moral complexity.

Still, amazing performances, some great cinematography and directing, and fascinating in a "can't look away from the car crash" kind of way.

Little Women (2019): Gillian Armstrong's 1994 version of this book, starring Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst, Claire Danes, Susan Sarandon and others was a sweet and innocent classic, faithful to the book: it was moderately feminist, slipped over a lot of the transcendentalist morals, and cut out much of the last half of the book.

Greta Gerwig's new version, starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern and others, is quite nice, strongly feminist, and very different. It adds scenes hinted at in the book, removes others, and thoroughly changes the character of Amy. The book and the 1994 movie are Jo's story, with input from the others adding to, and contrasting with, Jo's sentiments. This movie is equally Amy's movie (played by Florence Pugh), and she tromps, scowls, and grabs at opportunities and the scenes whenever she appears. We are now far from the transcendentalist roots that informed the source material.

But the story is still the story, which needs no explanation here. It is split into flashbacks, since we start with Jo trying to publish her book. Gerwig as a writer and actress starred in movies with excessive quirkiness that sometimes detracted from the stories. As director, in Lady Bird and this movie, that hand is present with some excessively quick dialog and quirky characters, but it is lighter, allowing the actors and story to properly flow and shine.

Euronimoes

Dave Ross wrote to tell me about his print and play game Euronimoes, which is in its third and final edition (hasn't required any updates in 4 years).

Print and play games are great for time when you are stuck at home, because they: are craft projects (sometimes minimally), free, and usually light, simple, and family-oriented.

Euronimoes fits the bill, as a Euro-style pattern building game, which requires only one or two sets of Dominoes (0-6) and a few poker chips for each player, and the free rules from his site.

On each turn, you take a Domino into your hand, either from a "market" or the draw pile, and then play one from your hand into your personal pattern space (see the above figure, for example). Dominoes in the market cost -1 (you gain a chip) up to 3 chips, while taking a random Domino always gives you 1 chip.

Columns in your space must always form runs up or down (if touching), and you score the lowest tile in each run; lowest score in the end wins. There is also an option to build upwards and take off more points from your score.

That's about it; details are in the free rules.

Codenames Online

We have been playing Codenames remotely with family and friends at https://www.horsepaste.com/ .

 

The spymasters view the board with the relevant words highlighted, which is actually easier than looking back and forth at a mapping card. The other players click on a box when they want to guess a word.

You need some other means of communicating open at the same time, as you play.

There are some other sites that also have working versions of the game, none of them official. The site of the game publishers https://codenamesgame.com/ indicates that they are working on providing an official version of the game.

Board Games in the Time of Corona

If you are lucky (?) enough to be stuck at home with other people, and they are willing, then board games are a good way to connect, if the rest of the time everyone is on their own electronic devices (as it is in my house).

Game nights and game day is out of the question, but nearly every game we might want to play, including Tichu, has a free online version, some with better interfaces, and some with worse. Check them out before inviting others to play, and then use your usual game group communication platform to organize session times.

I tried playing Codenames via Zoom (I didn't know about the online version at the time). This did not work well for me, since there was an issue with focusing our camera on the board and with lag times between the various video participants. If you have less lag time in your area, you may experience better results.

Yehuda

5 Awesome Online Games You Must Try

The following is a guest post.

   

There are many games online, ranging from good to bad and therefore fun and not fun. But there are games that stand above the rest. Games that have people coming back for years or even decades. Games that are so fun that they’re considered classics.

Not that you shouldn’t explore yourself on what games to play, but, if that task seems too daunting or you need a place to start, this is it. Chances are you’ve heard of most if not all of the following games, and there’s a good reason for that. They’re fun. Many people believe such and therefore it is likely that you will also think so.

Many games are considered classics and if you’re ever bored or unsure of what to play, then classics should be a goto. If you don’t know what classics to refer to then look no further for the classics that you seek include solitaire, jigsaw puzzles, sudoku, mahjong, and crosswords; while these apply in real life as well, this refers to online for infinite play.

Solitaire

As the above may suggest, the first game you must try is online solitaire. Solitaire is a game of multiple names, two of which being, Patience, or card solitaire. In general, solitaire is a term used for single-player games of concentration and skill involving a set layout of a certain item, which could be tiles, cards, stones, etc. Which is why it can be called card solitaire.

Each game of solitaire acts as a puzzle, every card is laid out in a specific position so as to randomize each solution, which could be in your favor, or not. As said, each card is laid out specifically in a layout, to solve the puzzle you have to sort the cards and conform to the specific rules of the game, whichever it may be. It’s a fun puzzle game that is certainly satisfying to beat.

Jigsaw Puzzles

There’s a very high chance that if you know any game on this list, it’s actual jigsaw puzzles. And if you do know about them then you probably also know that to play jigsaw puzzles you had to buy the different sets and couldn’t do other images unless you bought that specific set, well, no more. The era of online fixes that issue.

Thanks to it being online you can do puzzles with any website given image, some even let you choose your own image as well as your difficulty. If achieving a certain goal and also being able to see it right before your eyes is something you desire, then jigsaw is your best bet. Truly a game that will never disappear, and therefore, you should play it.

Sudoku

The game that used to be known as Number Place is as the original name would entail. You are given a grid of 3x3 squares and within those squares, there are 3x3 other squares (boxes). In each square, there is a given amount of numbers within those boxes and the empty boxes are the ones you insert puzzles to complete the square.

You complete the puzzle by having every box within the puzzles filled in with a number. This seems easy at first since you might just be thinking you can repeat numbers, but that’s where the rules come in. In each square there can only be a singular number of 1-9, this also applies to rows and columns, no number can repeat vertically, horizontally, or… boxically.

For a game that contains many numbers, you don’t actually need to know any math so don’t let that frighten you. Sudoku is a game loved by many for many years ever since it was popularized in the late 1980s.

 

Mahjong

A game that was developed in China during the Qing dynasty, Mahjong, is a popular game to this day worldwide. Mahjong is a game of tiles that involves skill, strategy, and just a bit of luck. Commonly the game is played with four people but there are variants for three. The game is set with 144 tiles with Chinese characters and symbols being written on them.

Each player is given 12 tiles, with each turn the players can draw or discard tiles until they have completed a legal hand using the 14th drawn tile to form melds also known as sets as well as a pair, which is known as an eye. The game can also be won with special sets. Which this being online, there should be no shortage of opponents which can include A.I.

Crosswords

A need to play by any sense of the word, crosswords are word puzzles and word search games that take place within a square. The goal of the game is to form words or phrases using the white boxes based on sentences, references, or clues given which pertain to a certain square number. The clues and such are also labeled as being either vertical or horizontal.

The square also contains black or shaded areas that are meant to separate boxes which essentially separate words to make it easier to distinguish the correct answer. The way to complete the puzzle if by filling in each set of boxes with the correct word or phrases. The bonus with this being online is there there will be no shortage of crosswords or topics to choose from.

Must-Play Games

As previously said, there are many games out there both in the real world and online. With online, however, there’s no shortage of anything for any of these games which means that you can endlessly play without worrying about paywalls; paywalls being the requirement to buy more sets of puzzles to enjoy said puzzle.

To recap, what you must play include solitaire, the card game, jigsaw puzzles, the puzzle piece game, sudoku, the number placement game, mahjong, the tile game, and finally crosswords which is essentially the word placement game. Each of these games is beloved by many and definitely should be a place to start or go if you’re ever wondering what to play.

The Case of Turner Prize: Are Too Many Ties Devaluing the Concept of Competition?

CNN reports on the winners of this year's Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. All of the finalists asked to be given the prize jointly, as a group, and so all of the contenders "won" in a competition in which no one lost.

This, combined with what some people see as a pattern in recent years, has irked some people. These people see this "tie" and equate it with the concept of spoiled Millennials who get "participation trophies" or prizes for trying. What has happened to cutthroat competition and actual winning.

The Arguments For and Against

The arguments against the Turner prize tie, in this case, are that the refusal to announce a single winner is indicative of snowflakes, who can't handle being losers. That too many winners devalues the concept of winning, and of competition in general. And that it lacks drama.

The arguments in favor are rather specific to this event. The artists decided that their works were complementary, rather than competitive, and did not feel that a competition was the right way to judge them. That felt that they had already "won" by having reached the shortlist for the prize. Alex Farquharson, the director of the Tate Britain gallery which organizes the prize, argues that times have changed and that competition may not be the right format to judge these kinds of works, anymore. Andrew Russeth, a writer for the Daily Mail, writes "This notion of having artists compete in public and one walk away the winner feels a little demeaning and unpleasant."

Some Points to Consider

As for the arguments against, it is important to divide up those activities in which competition really brings out the most effort and the best results versus those in which we have stuck absolute competitions because we were too boring or lazy to provide a better framework. The Olympics doesn't have a single winner, because we don't make the downhill skier compete against the figure skater; the disciplines and forms are too different to compare. So maybe, when it comes to art competitions with very loose frameworks, it is silly to compare different kinds of entries in different subjects, and with different intents. Maybe the Turner Prize is overdue for a restructure.

When it comes to "participation trophies", there are two hands here. On the one hand, participation trophies are not just a Millennial issue; that is lazy, biased journalism, and the usual "look down at the next generation" attitude of Boomers who have suddenly publicized a concept that has existed for generations. Everyone who joins the army (and doesn't screw up too badly) gets stripes and awards during and after service. Everyone who shows up for work gets paid, and often gets bonuses, even if they aren't the number one worker. Even the specific concept of participation trophies is a century old.

On the other hand, participation trophies are not "everyone gets a trophy". They are, unless severely mishandled, a reward for having put in effort. In the same event, different people, i.e. winners, get specific prizes, while everyone who at least put in effort gets the participation trophy. The recipients of these trophies are not morons, and they know that trophies for winning and trophies for participation have different values. But studies show that encouraging effort is better motivation than acknowledging talent. When you tell someone they have won, they stop trying; when you tell someone that they are smart, they often find a way to not be, act, or appear smart. When you tell someone that you see their hard work and you think it is worthwhile, they may end up trying harder, and, sometimes, they may eventually win or get smarter.

However, announcing the Turner Prize as a tie is lazy; if you set up a competition, you should not change the rules in the middle when you realize that the competition was the wrong format. They should have, originally, defined better categories that were more conductive to direct competition, or they should have defined goals for which prizes could be given to all, or a list, of people who met these goals. But, since they didn't, they should have awarded a winner and let the artists figure out how to deal with this.

Competition is not inherently evil. It brings out efforts and results that would not happen without it. When mishandled, it can bring out people too focused on the goal; they might even short circuit the permitted methods to get to that goal. Winning, when handled well, can be a goal or a stepping stone to more effort. Losing, when handled well, is not something to be afraid of. Competition against others should always be, in parallel, competition against ourselves. And for that, a job well done results in a self-award that does not require any external acknowledgement.

Comparing All Four Versions of A Star is Born

There are four movies called A Star is Born, all roughly following the same plot (here be spoilers):

An aging, alcoholic, male entertainer is just beginning to exceed the tolerance people allow him for his talent with the ridicule and distress he engenders with his destructive, obnoxious antics. Just at this time, he hears or sees a young woman with talent languishing in a small-time position and takes it upon himself to short-list her into fame and fortune. She initially resists, but falls for him and takes the opportunity. She becomes absorbed into the soulless hit-making factory of Hollywood and becomes wildly successful,, while the world turns away from him. They marry and move in together. He runs out of opportunities and people call him a has-been, in so many words; he even ends up taking phone calls or interview requests for her from people who don't even know him. She wins an award (Oscar or Grammy) and he shows up late to the ceremony and interrupts her speech with some kind of drunken scandalous antic. She asks her manager to give him some pity opportunities; he turns them down. She resolves (more or less) to quit the business in order to live a smaller life with him, since she realizes that he can't handle the situation as is (with her being successful and him not), but he discovers this and decides to kill himself in order to prevent this. She spends some time in self-pity. In the end, she publicly performs or says something to acknowledge his importance to her.

1937: Leads are Esther Victoria Blodgett aka Vivki Lester (Janet Gaynor) and Norman Maine (Fredric March). This is a fine film, although very much a period piece of the time it was made, so there are some rushed dialog, odd pauses, harsh sound, and bad lighting. The plot is well-paced and scripted. The actors are both likeable. The main actors recite some of their speeches woodenly but passionately at the camera (or just off to the left) and there are some hysterics. Everyone else talks like a 1930s gangster.

In this version, the main characters are actors. Esther starts on a farm and travels to Hollywood but meets rejection. Norman gets her into his pictures when he sees her waitressing. Someone directly and quite rudely tells Norman that he is washed up. Norman punches him, so Vicki has to bail Norman out of the police station. Norman overhears Vicki planning to give up her career, so Norman walks into the ocean  Vicki ends the movie by looking at the camera and calling herself Mrs. Norman Maine.

This is a fine and memorable movie, worthy of being redone.

1954: 17 years later. Esther Blodgett aka Vicki Lester (Judy Garland) and Norman Maine (James Mason). In this version, the main characters are actors / vaudeville performers singes and dancers. Norman finds Esther singing in a nightclub. The movie is punctuated with several musical performances that, I suppose, were entertaining to audiences of the 1950s. Anyway, they look a lot like bad musicals from that era, like the Road movies and so forth.

I have a hard time conveying the contempt I have for this film. It's mostly in two parts.

Firstly, the acting is always fairly terrible, but sometimes it rises to the level of horrifically terrible. The actors stare at the screen in horror with long pauses, bite their knuckles, fling themselves onto furniture, and weep or shout like idiots.

But mostly, James Mason's Norman grabs, yanks, hurls, pushes, interrupts, orders, and otherwise abuses Judy Garland's Esther throughout the whole movie, yet the movie conveys this as rough but charming. It's sickening. By the time she falls in love with Norman, he has done nothing but pull her through doors, push her into cars and rooms, and otherwise abuse her, but all she can think of is how he takes her breath away (duh, by never letting her think or talk). Most of the abuse comes from Norman, but some of it comes from other people, too. She is a rag doll. It's jaw-droppingly painful to watch. The very little agency she has in the film is to sing and dance, or to wail and cry over how sad it is that she can't do anything for Norman ("She can't! She can't! She can't! Ohhhhh aaahhhh aaahhhh!")

Norman overhears the fateful conversation and is (overacting) horrified and drowns himself. After getting yelled out and yanked by a few more people, Vicki ends the movie by looking at the camera and calling herself Mrs. Norman Maine. And then ...

1976: 22 years later. Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand) and John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson). This movie is thankfully a step up from the previous one. It's diverges a bit from the others as to how it fills in the plot scenes. The main characters are now singers. The movie starts with a big crowd and drunken stage performance.

They took the main outline of the plot and decided that everyone already knows it, so the movie is about 50% plot and 50% Barbra and Kris being playful and making love. It's very 1970s, not only the hair styles and crowd scenes, motorcycle and car driving, but with the casual flashes of nudity and almost relaxed attitude toward infidelity (it's an insult, but apparently an easily forgivable one). And now we have cocaine, not just alcohol.

The result is somewhat loosely plotted and kind of boring. We skip all the scenes of how she turns into a star (she just does, in a 2 minute montage), we skip her changing her name (she pooh-poohs that idea after being asked by a reporter), we skip the courtroom bailout scene, and we skip most of the conversation that is supposed to lead to his death. She yells at him once for sleeping around, saying that she doesn't want him to drag her down, and he races off into the desert and dies (whether by accident or deliberately is left a bit vague). She ends the movie by singling another song, no name assertion.

It's not only that neither of the main characters are likeable. It's that they don't have much in the way of character to like or to not like. John is kind of sympathetic. Esther is kind of ... well, she's just Barbra Streisand.

But Barbra can sing, and she sings fine. So fine that you kind of wonder how it is that she was languishing in obscurity to begin with.

This is not worth watching, but the soundtrack is lovely. And then ...

2018: 38 years later. Ally (Lady Gaga) and Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper). The main characters are singers. The movie starts pretty similarly to the 1973 one (with better camera-work and sound), but the alcoholism is more subtle.

This one is, by far, the best one, with incredible performances, scripting, directing, and shooting. The music is amazing, and Lady Gaga is a great singer (okay, Barbra was better, but that's a given for just about anyone). Possibly the only issue I have is the rushed scenes leading up to his decision to kill himself. Ally only half-heartedly tries to throw Jackson some pity-bones (she says one quick sentence about not go on tour without him). The scene that struck me as most wrong was that someone flat out says to Jackson that he is a drag on her career and should disappear, rather than him overhearing it (like he does in the first two movies). It's not that this couldn't or wouldn't happen, it's just a less sympathetic way to depict it happening.

Jackson hangs himself instead of drowning. And Ally ends by introducing herself as Ally Maine, and then she sings a final song while she looks directly into the camera.

Bradley and Lady, as well as everyone else, do a great job of pacing and acting. They are likeable and tragic. The songs are pretty great, too. And the story is, apparently, timeless.