Author: Marc Sanders

PULP FICTION

By Marc S. Sanders

No one can deny that Quentin Tarantino’s classic film, 1994’s Pulp Fiction is one of the greatest screen accomplishments of the latter half of the 20th century. It’s strange, lurid, scary, unforgivingly funny and altogether different from practically anything that came before it. How did the Weinstein brothers with Miramax films prophesize the energy it would surge in mainstream audiences?

When I first saw the film I was apprehensively going with two college friends who insisted I see what they experienced from a prior viewing. Suddenly, I realized that alternate surf 70s rock, black suits, and a kinetic visit to the restaurant known as Jack Rabbit Slims could entertain and make me look further than just a facial close up.

Tarantino entertains the lens of his camera by making his audience the camera. A drug dealer scrambles to find a medical book to awaken a boss’ wife who is dying from a potent heroin overdose, and the camera stands in place only frantically swinging left and right. The camera doesn’t move while everyone in the scene remains in a panic, frightened of administering an adrenaline shot. The camera stands still to allow the audience to stand in the room as well. It’s very unusually funny, but unnerving and suddenly we are amid the clutter of crime and drugs frightened of a terrible fate.

Another scene follows two gangsters down the hall as they debate whether a foot massage equates to fellatio on a woman. They look serious as they earlier regretted bringing shotguns to their destination but here they are having a debate likely reserved for men’s locker room talk. Is a foot massage really worthy of dropping a guy out of a four story window into a glass enclosed garden below? I mean, apparently the poor guy developed a speech impediment.

Tarantino used Pulp Fiction as an excuse to show how criminals inadvertently lead their lives to the unexpected, beyond a cliché cop bust. Two guys might be settling a personal vendetta, but somehow get interrupted by a redneck gang rapist and his chained up “gimp.” Two other guys might be trying to deliver a briefcase and yet somebody’s brains splatter all over the inside of a car. Another guy might have left behind a family heirloom gold watch as he and his girlfriend run for their lives, or they might suddenly acknowledge a moment of clarity when death seemingly walks out of a bathroom door.

Some might not agree but I always consider Tarantino’s colorful film characters to be rather two dimensional. What you see is all you see. There are no hints at an underlying motivation or a background to anyone you meet in Pulp Fiction, or any of his other films. Normally, that’s a negative in my book but with Quentin Tarantino it is what’s expected. He’s a masterful script writer of the situation. A well known fan of kung fu and lurid crime movies of the B variety, gangsters like Vincent Vega, Jules Whitfield, Marsellius Wallace, Butch Coolidge and Winston Wolf (even the names are entertaining) get caught up in just a random moment in time. Beyond the incident nothing else matters, and just to make it fun Tarantino uses his favorite editor, Sally Menke, to scramble everything out of order. I like to think the script was assembled this way to demonstrate that what happens in one instance doesn’t reflect what happens in another. Every brief moment is bookended. Again, two dimensional characters who don’t reach an intended karma. It doesn’t matter what’s been done before or what will be done next. It only matters in the moment.

The cast is great. Likely, you know who all the players are by now. The best compliment is that they obviously listened closely to the director’s vision. They spoke his language which had yet to be very mainstream before this film’s release. They are a pioneering cast of great talent and many owe quite a bit to Tarantino for jump starting and reviving their careers.

Pulp Fiction is a rousing expedition in sin and surf music symphony with endless quotable and un-PC dialogue that revolutionized filmmaking and brought about risk taking movie makers. It’s just exciting and fun and wild and it especially became a favorite upon seeing one of my favorite kinds of scenes-a dance sequence. If you incorporate dancing into a non musical film, you’ll likely win me over.

Spoiler alert: Vincent & Mia win the dance contest, and right they should. Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” became that other popular film song once Pulp Fiction hit the scene.

Thank you Quentin Tarantino.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

By Marc S. Sanders

If you are going to rewrite history then go crazy.  Go big and bloody.  Go for broke.  Don’t hold back.  Quentin Tarantino didn’t hold back when he penned and directed Inglourious Basterds, my personal favorite of his films.

To date of when this review is published, Tarantino has directed nine films and if ever the maturity of a director is so evident, it really shows with Basterds where three quarters of the picture is performed in either French or German.  English is secondary here, and Italian is limited to only a couple of “Bonjournos!”  and “Gorlamis!”

Tarantino presents early 1940s France when Germany occupied most of the country and practically rounded up all of the Jews.  In 1941, a cunning detective of a Nazi Colonel, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz performing as one of the greatest villains of all time) visits a French dairy farmer to ensure there are no unaccounted-for Jews scurrying around; scurrying around like their beastly equivalent, the rat.  Landa is the hawk that will most assuredly find them.  This scene is the best written moment within Tarantino’s catalog of various scripts and dialogue exchanges.  The Landa character offers justification as to why a Jew needs to be exterminated to the point that he nearly had me (a conservative practicing Jewish man) believing in his hateful philosophy.  The lines crackle here with Waltz doing most of the talking while the sad dairy farmer can do no more than respond with certifying Landa’s interesting points.  Tarantino closes the peaceful discussion with horrifying violence though.  Hans Landa may be complimentary of a farmer’s milk and his three beautiful daughters.  He may be eloquent in his dialogue albeit French, German or English, but he is a ruthless enforcer of law …of Nazi law at least.  I also would like to note Tarantino’s tactful way of using props like the pipes the characters smoke, the glass of milk that is consumed by Landa and the ink pen and spreadsheet he uses for accounting of the Jews in the area.  There’s an uncomfortable intimidation in all of these items as they are handled by Waltz, the actor.  Later in the film, Waltz will send a chill down your spine as he happily enjoys a delicious strudel with whipped cream.  Inglourious Basterds is a great combination of directing, editing, cinematography and acting.

The film diverts into a few separate stories, namely the title characters led by Aldo “The Apache” Raines, played with Tennessee redneck glee by Brad Pitt.  The Basterds consist of mostly Jewish American soldiers tasked with going deep into enemy territory and literally killing and scalping one hundred Nazi soldiers, each.  However, keep at least one alive during each encounter with a carved souvenir on their forehead, to spread the word of the Basterds intent.  This is deliberate B movie Dirty Dozen material and it works because it doesn’t take itself seriously.  Tarantino maintains that pulpy fiction narrative.  A cut to an over-the-top crybaby Adolph Hitler asks, “What is a Hugo Stiglitz?” and then we get a quick pause with big black block letters across the screen spelling out HUGO STIGLITZ.  This guy is a bad ass; a German turncoat who only wants to kill fellow German Nazis.  He’ll shoot them up until they are dead three times over.  He’ll stab them in the face twenty times through a pillow.  He’s not a suave killer.  He likes it violent and bloody messy.  The Basterds are fans.

The heroine of the film is Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), a Jewish girl who is living undercover as a cinema owner in France.  By implied force she is tasked with presenting Himmler’s proud film of Nazi Germany’s finest war hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), recreating his bird’s nest three day sniper battle against an army of three hundred men.  This is where Tarantino does best at writing what he knows, and what he knows best is anything about cinematic film.  He literally uses his knowledge of film and film reels to bridge his story while setting Shoshanna on a mission to actually end World War II in one swift motion.   

In addition, he captures the adoration of film lovers and celebrity status.  Zoller is as heroic a celebrity as John Wayne or Zorro.  When he is recognized in the coffee houses or on the street, he humbly stops his ongoing flirtation with an uninterested Shoshanna, to give an autograph or pose for a picture.

Furthermore, Tarantino applies the scientific knowledge of how 35mm film is more flammable than paper as well as how to edit a film reel to an unexpected moment for Shoshanna’s Nazi audience.  He knows the architecture of a European cinema with its lobby and balconies and seating capacities.  He allows his characters to speak on an intellectual level by discussing great film artists of the time – filmmakers not as well-known as Chaplin here in the United States, but just as great or even artistically better. The art direction of the cinema both inside and out is adorned with washed out, distressed classic noir films.  Shoshanna changes out the lettering of the curved marquee top of the theater as well.  It might sound mundane, but to me it’s all atmospheric.

Beyond the subject of cinematic art, a bad guy will weed out a spy disguised in Nazi garb by recognizing how he signals for three drinks with his hand.  There’s a right way and a wrong way to place an order with a bartender.  Inglourious Basterds may be a fictional historical piece, but it also will give you an education. All of this reminds me that Quentin Tarantino has graduated from the simplicity of Reservoir Dogs to something bigger and grander and glossier.  Production money with a large budget will lend to that status of course, but Tarantino still had to learn to truly know what he was doing.

I will not spoil the ending here.  It’s a bloody blast for sure.  Moreover, it’s shocking.  If anything, Inglourious Basterds introduces an exclusive universe that resides in the mind of Quentin Tarantino where the textbook is thrown away, burned, riddled with bullets and blown up; it is where something else altogether happened, and you know what? I really wish it did actually happen this way.

MICHAEL CLAYTON

By Marc S. Sanders

The corporate world can be murder sometimes.  Just ask a well known “fixer” like Michael Clayton. 

George Clooney plays the title role that’ll leave your head spinning while watching the film, and thereafter keep you thinking about how frighteningly true much of what you’ve seen, in this fictional account from master writer Tony Gilroy, could potentially be all too real.

Michael Clayton is a lawyer who does not practice law but rather “fixes” sticky situations for his law firm.  When the attorneys of the firm don’t have enough imagination to swindle their client from bearing responsibility or surrendering to guilt, they turn to Michael.  Michael will know what to do.  Ironically, Gilroy’s script (which is also his directorial debut) will have you believe that Clayton is at a career midlife crisis moment where he understands that nothing really can be fixed or simply swept under the rug.  Not even money can buy any of us out of a guilty situation when there’s nothing to work with but the black and white facts of actual guilt.  Early on in the film, Michael explains to an aggravated high-priced client that there’s no getting out of the fact that a late-night hit and run is nothing else but a late-night hit and run.  Can’t undent a car.  Can’t bring a bicyclist back to life.  Can’t fix what is permanently broken.

Moving on to the main storyline will demonstrate the same ideal.  If knowing admission of guilt and wrongdoing is documented on paper in plain English, then there’s no getting around this.  Moreover, there’s no getting around the fact that one of the best lawyers in Michael’s firm, played expertly by Tom Wilkinson, is consciously arrested in his own guilt of ethics violation.  To be considered one of the greatest lawyers in the country, would you factor in how to squeak out a win at no costs? Would it be when you can accept that your own client is guilty of wrongdoing and help them from that point?  I don’t know.  I’m not a lawyer.  The point is that Tony Gilroy implies that Wilkinson’s character, Arthur Eden, was once considered among his peers in high esteem in order to earn the reputation he has. Then another way when perhaps that reputation was based on actions not so honorable.  As Arthur struggles with this conundrum, maybe it’s only telling that his wealthy corporate client, an environmental weed killer manufacturer and his law firm colleagues easily think it’s nothing like that.  Arthur must be literally losing his mind.  It’s the only explanation.  He’d have to be crazy to literally strip his clothes off in the middle of a witness deposition, and later run after the witness in a freezing cold parking lot, while stark naked.

The pawn of the corporate client is represented by a shark named Karen Crowder (a brilliant Tilda Swinton, putting on the American Ivy League grad persona).  Karen is only insecure in how capable she’s actually considered when behind her closed doors.  She nervously practices what she will say at presentations for the corporation or interviews that hold her client in the highest regard.  She’s also desperate to maintain a calm and unpanicked appearance of this firm who clearly caused the death of many people that were exposed to their product.  Karen will make certain this knowledge never sees the light of day.  Karen talks to her mirror while stuttering over her lines.  By the way, if Karen was so confident in what her corporate client stands for, then would she even have a stutter to begin with?  This is where Tilda Swinton is great with Gilroy’s script.  What she knows would be the death of her career. Then again, this is her career we are talking about here. 

Tony Gilroy’s script is deliberately muddied in its first act.  Random scenes that carry no relevance to one another occur.  Michael sits at an underground poker table. Arthur spews off endless speeches that give a voice to madness. An army of lawyers led by a shrewd Sydney Pollack are up late at night sifting through piles and piles of documents.  Karen talks to herself while smoothing out the wrinkles of her suit while getting dressed in the morning.  Then a car explodes, and the movie sends us back in time to four days prior.  This might seem frustrating on a first viewing, but I urge anyone interested in seeing the film to be patient.  Gilroy demonstrates that if crime truly occurs within the offices of corporate high-rise buildings, then it’s not going to be anything but complex.  It’s only when it is gradually simplified like a math equation, do we see how justifiable the desperation of these crimes really are.  Murder and attempted murders and violations of law and ethics are committed in the film Michael Clayton, and yet no one is carrying a gun. 

This film boasts a brilliant cast ready for complicated characters.  Clooney is far from his charming other characters that evoke cuteness and handsome tuxedo clad appearances.  He’s a tired professional soul, exhausted on the heavy lifting he does for his firm and their apathetic clients.  He’s failed at his dream of running a New York City restaurant with his recovering alcoholic brother and he’s mounted in debt to loan sharks.  Wilkinson is old and past the age of winning at all costs.  He can’t sleep with the contributions he’s lent to criminals he’s legally served and rescued on paper.  Swinton is the younger one of the trio with a massively rich and successful future ahead of her, while holding on to the same mentality of what Clooney and Wilkinson’s characters once had.  The only issue is that maybe she’s taking a few too many steps way too far. 

Tony Gilroy has written brilliantly faulty characters who must function with strength, but are weakened by their lack in morale or inability to recover from never having morale, and the actors he’s directed in this film deliver the message sensationally.

Michael Clayton is a smart film, and Michael Clayton is a great, great film.

ROMA

By Marc S. Sanders

Alfonso Cuaron’s new film, Roma, is a masterpiece in cinematography, sound, and empathetic storytelling. Shot in beautiful, multi-dimensional black & white, it tells the story of a house servant named Cleo who tends to a family living in the city section known as Roma during the year 1970 in Mexico.

Cleo is portrayed beautifully with quiet reservation by Yalitza Aparicio. I imagine this actress is not well known to mainstream audiences. Perhaps she is not well known to Mexican or Hispanic audiences as well. However, it would be so refreshing if the positive response of this film opens up opportunities for her within more widely known fare, much like Precious did for Gabourey Sidibe.

Cleo seems content to cater to the family that contains four young children and their mother. The father appears stern in his mannerisms until one day he leaves for a conference taking place in Quebec. However, allusions to this conference indicate a different story when his absence lingers on longer than expected. During this year, Cleo gets pregnant by Fermin, the cousin of a friend. Fermin leaves Cleo to deal with the pregnancy on her own, and in the moments when he returns to the story, it is not promising that he will commit to fatherhood.

Cuaron writes and directs a relatively simple story amid turmoil in a very confused country that centers on riots among the young citizens and men who are not noble enough to dedicate themselves to the women that cross their lives. Family is not convenient either. When a conclusion dawns upon Cleo near the end of the film, you can’t help but understand her position. What she has seen is gut wrenching.

To further compliment this work is to appreciate the visual sense and sound of the film. This is not a sci fi special effects extravaganza like Cuaron has accomplished with his Oscar winning Gravity, or the dystopian action depicted in his under appreciated Children Of Men (masterful steady cam work in that film, especially). Cuaron takes advantage of a crowded bustling lower middle class city with an overpopulation of dogs, planes flying overhead, music, and crowded streets of different happenings. I watched this film with my new 7 point sound system and this film is perfect proof that I made a smart purchase. Cuaron hooks your senses to engage you in his setting. Therefore, the setting justifiably serves the title of the film.

The photography is sensational as well. Cuaron hardly does a close up on any of the characters. Rather, he opts to go deeper to show there’s more going on in any one given moment than just what is in front of you. The first example of this is during the opening credits that are displayed over the course of several minutes on a tile paved driveway. First you are just looking at tiles. Then you are looking at Cleo’s soapy mop water splash across the tiles. Now you have a reflection of the sky above and you get a sense of how high the sky goes as a passenger jet plane casually flies overhead. Dimension is gradually introduced and the theme of Cuaron’s filmmaking continues on during the course of the picture.

Later, at a pivotal point in the film, when Cleo delivers her child (I don’t think that’s a spoiler), Cuaron puts the silhouetted profile of Cleo close to his lens and then to the right deeper into the room you watch as the hospital staff tend to the newborn; seeing the baby, seeing the towels held by the staff, watching the staff tend to the baby. Cleo is separated from the activity but she remains in the room, exhausted and discombobulated from what she has just experienced. A moment like this, I would imagine, would be good material for film students to examine. Cuaron proves that what you show in a moment can be limitless in the scope of a lens. Nothing is impossible.

Because the film is in black & white, the activity of the hospital staff never appears to upstage or overshadow the experience that Cleo is enduring. Had this been in color, a viewer could have been distracted by the blood and the sweat and lighting in the hospital room. It’s all there. It’s just not as distracting as a colorized moment might have suggested. Cuaron’s choice of black and white permits you to focus on everything. So, a scene like this is so wisely conceived.

Roma will likely be selected as a nominee for Best Picture and Director. It deserves it, much more so than many other films I saw in what I consider 2018 to be a weak year for inventive filmmaking. I highly recommend this film. If you don’t have a good sound system or a high definition TV to watch it currently on Netflix, then find it at a local cinema. To immerse yourself in this film, requires the best in sound and visual quality.

I will admit that it takes some getting used to reading the subtitles translating both Spanish and Mexican, and Cuaron takes his time setting up his story. You have to be patient with the film. However, I watched the film on Saturday, December 28, 2018 and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

Please check out Alfonso Cuaron’s beautiful film, Roma. I think you’ll be glad you did.

VICE

By Marc S. Sanders

Christian Bale is one of the greatest method actors working today. He’ll put on muscle mass for Batman. He’ll shrink himself down to a skeletal 100 pounds for roles in The Mechanic and his Oscar winning turn in The Fighter. In Adam McKay’s new film, Vice, Bale puts the weight to present an uncanny resemblance to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Without Bale and co-star Amy Adams as wife Lynne Cheney, Vice would not succeed. Both will be nominated for Oscars this year. McKay can expect nominations for himself and Best Picture.

McKay approaches Vice similarly to his winning film The Big Short, where a historical debacle of great proportions is told from a comedic approach. However, the gags of Vice don’t necessarily measure up to the absurdity of the real estate investment collapse of The Big Short. Cheney’s accomplishments were just too sad, too tragic, too shocking to laugh at entirely.

Dick Cheney was a drunk who suffered multiple heart attacks. He got kicked out of Yale University. His daughter, Mary, is gay. His other daughter, Liz, went into politics herself and dismissed her sister’s sexual orientation. Dick has remained married to his very wise and very aggressive wife Lynne who more or less rescued him from a wasted life. Dick Cheney shot his close friend accidentally while hunting, and never apologized for it. He was fortunate to receive a heart transplant that continues to prolong his life, and Dick Cheney became Vice President of the United States for two terms. You don’t have to like the guy but you have to admit he’s got a colorful past.

It’s all in the movie. Immediately, McKay puts in a few words of a byline that this film is based on fact to best of their knowledge but they more or less tried their fucking best.

My impression of what could be considered a very divisive film was actually not divisive to me at all actually. Bale along with McKay’s screenplay show a Dick Cheney who truly sees no other way to carry on a political career than with a silent yet ruthless touch. Later, it required more aggressive tactics not labeled as torture and not appearing beyond his authority even if he is only the Vice President. Bale has the voice down, the walk and as noted before the appearance. This film will likely win Best Makeup.

Having recently seen three potential nominees for Best Actress in The Favorite, I have to say Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney beats them all. This is not an Amy Adams we’ve seen before. Lynne is depicted as smart, aware in a mindset of no nonsense bullshit. She gets the job done, and if she had her way she’d take the job herself but she’s aware of her limits as a woman. Adams easily shows her Lady Macbeth in a scene where daughter Mary reveals herself as gay. Dick promises to love Mary no matter what. Adams as Lynne does not. Adams offers an expression that kills. Right there in this scene is her Oscar moment. This is one of the best performances I’ve seen all year.

Back to Macbeth for a moment, McKay has a great imagination for gags including elevating the fantasy of Dick and Lynne reciting MacBeth to each other in bed while mulling the possibility of becoming George W Bush’s running mate. It’s more than that for Dick. Both know this is absolute power…finally. I’d accept if their decision to run came down to something like this. It takes an ego trip to obtain power after all. If you’ve already been denied power before, the power trip only becomes more powerful on another occasion.

The Shakespeare gag works. Some others fall a little flat. Some really win. Out of the blue, prior to running on Bush’s ticket, McKay wraps up the first portion of Cheney’s life and literally rolls end credits. Then a phone rings and Cheney’s biggest story begins. The end credits moment is a great psyche out.

Vice is not a perfect movie. A huge misfire occurs midway through the end credits that derails McKay’s best effort at a neutral point of view for the Republican. It’s a moment that screams of present day chaos of opinion. McKay said screw it and folded his hand to take advantage of showing how he really feels. Before this scene, McKay and his cast embraced the Cheneys despite their hard to swallow viewpoints and actions. If you are going to make a movie about Dick Cheney or Barack Obama or Mickey Mouse you, as the storyteller, have to develop an appreciation for the centerpiece. If all you are going to do is bash and mudsling, then perhaps you are not qualified to tell the tale. McKay failed at the finish line.

Still, the journey is always interesting. There are things to learn here, things to recollect and things to question how it all came to be a reality.

A good cast is offered including a surprising appearance by Tyler Perry as Colin Powell; make a movie about this guy and get Perry back. Steve Carrell plays a buffoonish Don Rumsfeld. Was Rumsfeld this stupid and this haphazard? I don’t know. McKay uses him to play the fool and the jester. I doubt Rumsfeld has a loyal fan base ready to wave pitch forks. So who cares, really? It’s in the past.

A casting misfire is Sam Rockwell. Moviegoers are too familiar with the real George W. Bush especially in 2018 following the loss of his parents and his deeply appreciated eulogies. Rockwell teeters on 12:45 am Saturday Night Live material, as he chomps down on chicken wings, with a good ol’ boy Texas dialect. I know people want to believe Bush 43 was this stupid. I’m just not ready to accept that. Ironically, a producer on this project is Will Farrell, widely known for his George W Bush on SNL. Farrell would have been a better George here.

Compliments also go to Jesse Plemons as a narrator with an unknown connection to Cheney. Plemons’ delivery plays well on an even keel.

Vice is a complicated film about a hard man to like with little to know redeeming qualities. Adam McKay is cornering the market on films about American absurdities of the past. He’s good at this kind of filmmaking. This isn’t his best film but it still works. Just get ready to leave the theatre as the real end credits roll. Again, it’s a moment that serves the film’s worst flaw as McKay leaves his imagination at the door. Everything before that was right on track. Adam McKay…next time, don’t think too hard.

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER VERSE

By Marc S. Sanders

Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse is a spectacular new take on a beloved American tradition.

You know you are in for something good when Peter Parker’s Spider-Man introduces himself by reminding the audience how we know his story and the impact his alter ego has had including a cheesy street dance (Spider-Man 3) and an awful looking popsicle stick from the neighborhood ice cream truck. Then it swiftly jumps to a Brooklyn kid named Miles Morales, a good student who loves art and loves his mom and dad as well, even if he gets embarrassed to be seen stepping out of his dad’s patrol car.

Miles resides in one universe that we soon learn is separate from other universes that each have a spider version of their own. Look out though, because the universes are about to collide thanks to the dastardly Kingpin.

I’ll save the rest of the storyline for you to check out. There are some terrific surprises embedded in Miles’ journey to becoming a Spider-Man mixed with tragedy and surprising humor.

The animation took me a little to get used to but it was not a challenge. It’s a slick rainbow of different splashes of color. The action moves fast and I even got chills when a variation of Peter Parker encourages Miles to take a leap of faith, a moment that is inspiring for any young kid no matter if they are a boy, girl, White, Black, Hispanic or whatever.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse reminds you that you can be whatever you want to be. Nothing and no one can stop you. Sure, its lesson sounds trite and done before but this film allows you to soar through inspiration. It’s difficult to describe the exhilaration, really. You have to see it for yourself to understand. Some might not accept this interpretation of the wall crawler. Some will embrace it. I never expected to love this film as much as I did. I was reluctant to see it and only opted to do so, once the incredibly positive reviews came out. This film is worthy of its praise.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse might just be the best animated film of 2018.

THE FAVORITE

By Marc S. Sanders

Director Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favorite. Wow! This is a weird one.

This film focuses on a competition of one-upmanship between two ladies, one a servant named Abigail (Emma Stone); the other a close friend, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) of Queen Anne during 18th Century England. As Queen Anne is frail physically, and often mentally (she insists on keeping 30 rabbits running loose in her bed chamber), Abigail capitalizes on opportunity to win the admiration of the Queen over Lady Sarah, a cruel woman in her own right. The humor is more shocking than overt or witty.

It becomes laughable to witness the shenanigans of the highest of aristocrats from mud baths to duck shooting to naked fruit tossing at one another. Sometimes, you ask why? Then again, it is probably because a lower class, say the majority of the free world, would like to stick it to the upper class and show them as the fools that they are or that we wish them to be. A royal vase is always nearby if a lady feels the need to vomit; not a bucket, a vase.

Olivia Colman is very good as the Queen, seemingly incapable of making decisions and being subtly overruled by the influence that her friend Lady Sarah carries. If the Queen really wants to reduce the taxes imposed to prolong a war with France, Lady Sarah will make certain that just the opposite is done. The Queen will unsurely oblige and back up the message that Sarah makes to the Cabinet. Sarah has no reluctance in abusing and humiliating the servants, the men in the Cabinet or anyone else, including the Queen. She will happily admonish the Queen by criticizing her makeup just as she is to meet with a Russian diplomat, thereby allowing herself to run the meeting while the Queen retreats to her chambers.

Abigail has come from wealth but due to hard times, has become recruited to be a servant destined to take care of menial tasks or be humiliated by being forced to watch an English officer pleasure himself, falling into “mud that stinks,” or taking cruel showers with a rough sponge. An opportunity arises however, when she discovers a natural way to bring relief to the Queen’s frail legs. Soon, Abigail is becoming intimate with the Queen much to the dismay of Sarah and now the cruel games of back and forth begin.

No one is really likable here. It’s a competition in royal politics, and politicians of any nature in any setting are never entirely liked. To hold stature, requires ego. Ego, however, is not a strong enough word for how these three ladies treat each other. The frail Queen is just as guilty. If she feels slighted, she will disregard those that have won her over in prior moments, particularly to her first friend Sarah and later to Abigail. When Sarah goes missing, the Queen declares she better be dead when she eventually begins to worry. If she’s not dead, the Queen will surely slit her throat. Abigail wins the Queen’s affections but will ultimately be used cruelly as well.

Eventually, all of this back and forth has to end of course, and Lanthimos along with screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara bring in a sneaky last “stick it to ya” moment.

I’d never seen a film by Yorgos Lanthimos before. I’d heard good things about his other film The Lobster, though. Here, he’s got a camera angle I rarely see in films. There are times when a wide shot of a room, like the Queen’s chambers or outskirts of the palace are shot through the bottom of a glass, where the edges of the caption are curved outward, almost like looking at the film through a view finder or a telescope. Not sure why he opted for this technique. Perhaps it was to up the ante on the strange environment of it all; to offer a discomforting feeling towards watching this community of Establishment behave behind closed doors.

Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone are also very good. A film like this could have played like a bad day time soap opera cat fight. Yet, when you have Academy Award winning actresses like Weisz (The Constant Gardner) and Stone (La La Land), you are watching a period piece that will stand out albeit very strangely.

Yes. Once again, The Favorite is a very strange film. A good film and a weird film that takes some patience and getting used to. Four people walked out of the theatre I was in, but there was still plenty of laughter from the crowd. The best of the year, like most critics claim? Maybe not. Then again, most of the critics’ common choices for best of the year is indicative that 2018 really was not a great year as a whole for movies. I’d argue prior years have offered a better collection of films to treasure, admire, award and salute. In another year, The Favorite would be trumped by many other candidates.

AQUAMAN

By Marc S. Sanders

The next installment in the DC Cinematic Universe takes place in the ocean. Too bad the ocean is just too murky. James Wan’s Aquaman is muddied in long, boring, unsurrendering exposition and CGI. It is a film based on the most famous of all the undersea super heroes who is destined to be King of Atlantis. HE’S HALF MAN! HE’S HALF FISH! HE’S AQUAMAN, AND HE MUST BE KING!!!! That’s about all we should have to know to appreciate the storytelling of this film. However, Wan left me guessing just what the hell everyone was talking about for most of the film. King Orm (boring Patrick Wilson) declares takeover of this kingdom and take over of that kingdom and I’m like what, who, how, why???? Who the hell is he talking about? Why is this a threat? What will this mean for everyone? Shut up! Stop talking! Show me something! In the immortal words of Syndrome (from a better super hero film), “Stop Monolouging!!!!”

The first problem is when we are brought from one ocean floor to another and another and another and they all have location names like Kingdom of the Starfish Curtain or Dwelling of the Stingray Horse or some such thing. So what? These locales are literally shown for no more seven seconds before it moves to another location. This isn’t Krypton or the Batcave. We get to go to “Somewhere In The Atlantic Ocean” or “Somewhere In The Indian Ocean,” but so???? And????? Wan seems too proud to uncover these geographical areas that hold no measure.

Then there is the cast of characters. We got Dolph Lungren with a red beard, Willem Dafoe with a slicked back ponytail, Amber Heard beautiful as the love interest Mera, Nicole Kidman with her alabaster skin looking angelic as a queen and mother to Arthur Curry (the Aquaman title character) and Patrick Wilson, blond, white and curiously looking like the Hanna Barbera Aquaman during the days of Super Friends. Wilson is the big bad here and he’s kind of boring, kind of not intimidating, kind of the guy who looks too innocent to ever be cast as a villain in any film.

Let’s go off subject for a moment, shall we? Jason Momoa is the best thing about Aquaman and he makes a great Aquaman. I knew that when I saw him in the role in last year’s Justice League (a much better film; yes the Joss Whedon cut). Momoa is ripped, muscled and tattooed perfectly with long flowing charcoal hair, a perfect beard and sparkling blue eyes. This guy looks great on land while downing full pints of beer with his dad, or under CGI water. As I became less and less interested as the movie went on, I found it curious that the image of Momoa’s Aquaman is destined to defeat the image of Patrick Wilson’s (supposedly) ruthless King Orm, also known as Ocean Master. It’s as if the gorgeous motorcycle dude is meant to erase the much maligned (see countless GIFs and a couple of Big Bang Theory episodes) Hanna Barbera blond boy image.

The CGI does its best. After all, how else do you film a movie that primarily takes place under the ocean? It’s colorful. The effort is there. What I took issue with was the great battles between all these kingdoms. I couldn’t tell who was fighting who, who was with who, and who lived and who died, not to mention how they fight. Was it with spears? Laser guns? Swords? Hammers? Pies? What?????? I know these are underwater battles, but why can’t any of these great kingdom of kingdoms movies learn from the best like Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films or Ridley Scott’s Gladiator? There is something more literal in those grand battles. You could always recognize who was charging at whom. In Aquaman, it’s mass hysteria, riots in the ocean streets.

The villain Black Manta is next best thing after Momoa. Played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Unfortunately, he’s not given much to do. He’s out for revenge against Aquaman. That’s been done before. What saves the character is the costume and helmet. Now this is a villain!!!!! He looks badass with red sonic blasts shooting out of his eyes and he’s agile; the filmmakers at least got the image and movements of this guy right. The best scene of the film takes place on land in what looks to be the Greek Isles. Lots of rooftop jumping, statue shattering, and wall breaking with good fisticuffs are in play here between Momoa and Abdul-Mateen. It’s a good long scene. Then, oh yeah, we gotta go back to Wilson and Dafoe talking about something somewhere that’s labeled with some “legendary” location amid some coral.

James Wan and the writers of Aquaman try too hard. There’s too much going on here that doesn’t belong. I don’t know how a pre teen kid nor an adult could sit through these boring conversations of fiction that is unfamiliar to many. Again, none of this is the stuff of legend like Lord Of The Rings, or Krypton, or Gotham City, or even Star Wars or Star Trek. If only Wan and crew didn’t elevate the importance of things that even they show are just not that important. Stick with the simplicity guys. At least, you got the Atlanteans riding Sea Horses. Nice touch, there!

MARY POPPINS RETURNS

By Marc S. Sanders

PL Travers’ character Mary Poppins is synonymous with the flavor of Disney. You may visit a Disney Theme Park or Cruise Ship or watch a classic film, and you might think to yourself this sidewalk, this room, this cast member’s uniform appears like something out of Mary Poppins. Walt Disney Studios and all its products would be something entirely different without the exactness of the most popular nanny in film. Ironically, until now, since 1964, has there been only one Mary Poppins film…and, well one PL Travers biography.

Director Rob Marshall (Oscar winning director of Chicago) has been recruited to bring the magical character back complete with her bottomless bag and her umbrella in Mary Poppins Returns. Perfectly cast is Emily Blunt in the role. Because this new installment that jumps to the next generation of Banks children is not a franchise reinvention, Blunt beautifully carries on the rigid mannerisms and casual magic that Julie Andrews effortlessly brought to the part. Blunt is not mimicking Andrews however. I think she takes the purpose of Mary more seriously actually. Andrews would smile at the fantasy. Blunt responds as if animated dog carriage drivers are seemingly normal. I also detected another dimension of maybe sadness or melancholy from Blunt as she observes the anguish of the children’s father Michael (Ben Whishaw, a great performer) now all grown up and reluctant to accept fantasy as a means to save the Banks’ home from foreclosure. When this Mary Poppins has to depart this family at the end, for a moment, I felt like she didn’t want to, like she needed this family as much as they needed her; not something I got from the first installment. Alas, this is 2018 and people are more attuned to the harshness of the world. Maybe Mary Poppins is as well.

Lin-Manuel Miranda adopts a cockney accent and fills the role of Jack, a street lamp vendor, all too familiar with Mary. What Dick Van Dyke brought to the original, as Bert, the chimney sweep, Jack offers to this film. Miranda is great. The best musical performer of the last five years (Hamilton, In The Heights). He opens the film with the whimsical new song “Under The Lovely London Sky” and Marshall and company make sure the audience catches on quick. It’s not “Chim Chim Cheree” but it’s a fun tune that provides a little mystery to the legendary nanny and the goings on at Cherry Tree Lane. Miranda is the only one I can think of to play this role today. Ten or fifteen years ago, it might have been a younger Hugh Jackman.

Cameo appearances abound from Meryl Streep showing another side of her not seen before as a gypsy like cousin of Mary’s, Angela Lansbury, so fortunate she is still performing, and best of all Dick Van Dyke who can still provide a little tap and two step in his spring.

Amidst an entirely new and well versed soundtrack that feels comfortably familiar, the film includes imaginative scenes like diving into an ocean through the bathtub, spinning into the animated (CLASSIC ANIMATION) world of a priceless porcelain bowl and soaring into the sky with a balloon that is just right for you. These are great scenes because they are so silly but Emily Blunt as Mary encourages you to take all this fantasy seriously. “Everything is possible,” she says. “Even the impossible.”

Walt Disney felt that way too. So without Mickey Mouse or Mary Poppins, there really is no institution called Disney. With these brands however, they are all practically perfect in every way.

RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

By Marc S. Sanders

You and your family are likely to be entertained with Disney’s Ralph Breaks The Internet featuring John C Reilly voicing the title character and reunited with Sarah Silverman as his trusty, spunky video game racer companion Vanellope.

Reilly and Silverman have perfect timing. Their voice work plays so well, it wouldn’t be too outrageous to see them do a live action comedy together one day.

Disney has made another winning animated film but this Ralph plays superbly as a comedy. As the title suggests, Ralph and Vanellope end up in the world wide internet and beginning with an out of control bid on an item in eBay, they cause a mess of trouble for themselves. Along the way their friendship is tested as they realize things never can stay the same forever. Honestly, Disney’s films have offered up more fleshed out life lessons in other films. Never mind though. It doesn’t weigh down the film in kitschiness.

There’s much to offer in high speed car chases with Gal Gadot as a stunning tough, leather clad roadster in a game called Slaughter Race; a far cry from the innocence of Sugar Rush but still a reminder of the violent fare offered up today. No worries, parents, it’s all shown in a G rated fashion nonetheless. As well, Ralph comes face to face with user commentary that isn’t always the most flattering and the trends of You Tube videos.

Everything is familiar to a 2018 viewer and we are seeing new things as we actually get an imagination as to how the internal workings of the internet engage with one another. It’s an invented engineering of science as we see how viruses might interact and an “Ask Jeeves” encyclopedic character voiced by Alan Tudyk rapidly presumes your question as you offer up a word at a time.

The all time highlights of the film come from the Disney Princesses and how they socialize outside of their films. It’s so hysterical. Maybe the funniest moments on screen of the entire year. Even more impressive is that the original voice actors were recruited to reprise their respective parts like Jodi Benson as Ariel, Ming Na Wen as Mulan and Idina Menzel as Elsa. You read it here first. Disney will be offering a comedy featuring all of their princesses in one film. I’m telling you. It’s coming. I know it.

Ralph Breaks The Internet is an hysterically inventive comedy. It only falters slightly in its overly long final act featuring a gigantic Ralph made up of millions of little Ralphs (just see the movie to understand what I mean), and the lessons are kinda throwaway, but the gags are fast. The animation is sharp and colorful and the voice cast is second to none.

This is a film that’s worth multiple viewings. You’ll have great fun each time you watch it.

NOTE: Stay to the end for an exceptional end credits scene. I mean its truly exceptional. TRUST ME!!