The Front Runner (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Jason Reitman

Starring:  Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons, Sara Paxton, Alfred Molina, Bill Burr, Kaitlyn Dever, Kevin Pollak, Mamoudou Athie

Gary Hart knew more about politics and policy than he did human nature.   When he was the clear leader for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, and likely the future President, an alleged affair brought his campaign crashing down in a matter of three weeks.     Besides his own moral shortcomings, Hart failed to see the changing world around him.    He tried in vain to talk about economic policies when the world only wanted to know about the woman who was seen entering and leaving his Washington townhouse one Saturday night.   Was Hart naïve?   Arrogant?  Out of touch?    Possibly all three.    Four years later, Bill Clinton sidestepped questions about alleged affairs to win the presidency.    Now, we have a sitting chief executive who was elected despite a history of philandering and even being caught on tape bragging about grabbing women's private parts.   

The Hart scandal represented a shift towards tabloid journalism.    Ben Bradlee (Molina) tells a story of how Lyndon Johnson told the Washington Post that women would be coming in and out of the White House and expects the same "courtesy as Kennedy".   In other words, there was an unspoken agreement between the media and the president not to approach certain subjects.    The agreement was broken with Hart, because the story was simply too juicy to pass up.    The Post did not break the story (the Miami Herald did), but everyone jumped on the bandwagon.    Gary Hart could complain all he wants about the Herald reporters camping outside his home and breaking a story he felt was no one's business, but the truth is, he opened that can of worms himself by challenging reporters who ask about his previous marital separation to follow him and proclaiming, "You will be very bored,"   They picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Hart.   

Hugh Jackman plays the photogenic Hart as a man who is much more comfortable discussing politics than himself.    When asked about Donna Rice, the woman seen at his apartment, he defensively handles the reporters' questions and further fans the flames.    He thinks a brief denial would be enough to quell the story, but it only made the media dig deeper.    Soon, Hart's long-suffering wife Lee (Farmiga), who has come to terms with her husband's nature, has reporters camped outside her Colorado home 24/7 and can't escape a matter which is humiliating enough without millions of people watching or reading about it.

The Front Runner's approach to its subject keeps us on the outside of Hart, while bringing us inside on the long hours and damage control expertise needed to handle such a high-profile campaign.    Why anyone would want to undergo the scrutiny a president endures is beyond me.     Gary Hart was likely thinking the same thing, but someone has to do it.    The Front Runner is not as interested in involving us with Hart as it is the turmoil surrounding him.   In a way, the movie is an example of its own point:   The salacious details are much more compelling than the people involved when the media sinks its teeth into such a story.    Gary Hart couldn't find a way to survive it, and it appears he was four years too early.    Had he run in 1992, maybe we would be talking about his presidency than a presidency which never happened.    We'll never know. 

Traffic (2000) * * * *

Directed by:  Steven Soderbergh

Starring:  Michael Douglas, Benicio del Toro, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Don Cheadle, Miguel Ferrer, Dennis Quaid, Luis Guzman, Steven Bauer, Clifton Collins, Jr., Albert Finney, Erika Christensen, Topher Grace, Amy Irving, James Brolin

With marijuana being legalized in numerous states, the jury is still out on whether this is the first step towards legalizing other more addicting, deadlier drugs like cocaine or heroin.    Whatever the future holds, Traffic's message is as relevant today as it was when it was made eighteen years ago:   The War on Drugs is a losing proposition.    Even a government as large as the United States' can't possibly come up with adequate money or resources to fight it.    The cartels can outspend any government, and trying to shut them down is equivalent to Whack-A-Mole.   One is knocked down, then another pops up elsewhere.

Traffic does not take the defeatist approach, however.    Its message is hopeful.   The war on drugs can't be won in one fell swoop.   Its customers need to get clean and, one by one, a client who decides to stay clean is one less customer the drug pushers can sell to.    Writer Stephen Gaghan and director Steven Soderbergh understand that drugs are a national health crisis, and many years later, it seems we are only coming around to this realization.    The cartels depend on keeping their products inexpensive so the customers can continue to buy them cheaply.    Robert Wakefield (Douglas) is a judge appointed the new drug czar (even that title makes him sound like the head of a powerful cartel) who naively believes his "ten-point plan" and cooperation with corrupt Mexican government officials will even make a dent.    Then, the drug issue hits closer to home for Robert, as his teenage daughter Caroline (Christensen) gets hooked on hard drugs and Robert realizes there is no ten-point plan which can rescue her.    How would it look for the U.S. drug czar to be unable to control addiction in his own household?    Which is the point: addiction is not something which can be controlled by external forces.    It can only be controlled by the addict. 

Traffic contains other stories which interlock either directly or indirectly to Robert's.    A Tijuana cop (del Toro) is caught up unwittingly in the war between rival cartels, and just tries to use his wits to stay alive.    We also have a California millionaire (Bauer), who is arrested by the DEA for drug trafficking and leaves his wife (Zeta-Jones) desperate and with no access to the frozen accounts.    She believed her husband was a legit businessman, but discovers otherwise, and her story takes a surprising turn.    We also meet the DEA agents (Cheadle and Guzman), who spend their time in a van wise-cracking and performing surveillance while trying to extract information from a cynical government witness (Ferrer), who wonders aloud about what putting away one drug trafficker will mean in the grand scheme of things.

Soderbergh keeps the tension ratcheted as lives sacrificed to the drug wars are played out.    Morals are out the window as the participants just try to survive one more day.    Caroline, once an A-student and a young woman with a bright future, is now prostituting herself for a fix and, if she can see her way to the other side, will spend the rest of her days as a recovering addict.    That is the upside.   The downside is death or prison.    There isn't much in-between.    For Javier Rodriguez (del Toro), his own interaction with the cartels leads to his own private hell.    He sees friends murdered and lives destroyed, but he must keep his wits about him in order to survive.    del Toro (who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role) keeps everything close to the vest, relying on the slightest facial expression or body language to convey his thoughts to us.  

If there is a character we can identify the most with, and I surely could, is Robert, who is trying to juggle his daughter's drug crisis with his professional responsibility to his new position, leaving his wife (Irving) to handle the ever-worsening problem almost on her own.    Caroline is soon stealing valuables from her home and traveling to the inner city for her next high.    Her boyfriend (Grace) explains to Robert that drug dealing is more lucrative than getting a real job because a dealer can make more in two hours than others can make in a forty-hour work week.    What would you do if presented with that opportunity? 

Traffic allows us to come to our own conclusions about whether the war on drugs is really worth it.    It doesn't beat us over the head with pious morality, but instead presents its issues in realistic terms and asks us to decide.    This makes Traffic all the more engrossing.   What would we do if we were in their shoes?    Despite the movie's own leanings that the war on drugs can't practically be won, it gives us a hopeful ending in which one of the characters achieves his dream of seeing a baseball field built in his hometown.    He understands that giving people a way out of their harsh lives in one step towards winning.  

Creed II (2018) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Steven Caple, Jr.

Starring:  Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Florian Munteanu, Wood Harris

I'm sure just as night follows day that there will be a Creed III, with another son of a fighter from Rocky Balboa's past itching to avenge his father's defeat from thirty-plus years ago.    Adonis Creed (Jordan) apparently doesn't have any other heavyweight contenders to fight.    The division just sits around waiting for the Viktor Dragos of the world to rear their ugly heads.    But, I am through fighting the fact that any Creed movie will ostensibly be a Rocky movie for the younger generations.  There is nothing that Adonis Creed doesn't go through in Creed II that Rocky didn't experience in the Rocky films.    These movies are what they are.   I can roll my eyes at the potential Clubber Lang, Jr.-Adonis Creed match in Creed III, but it's coming and I can't do anything about it.   If you recall in Rocky III, Clubber disses Apollo Creed when he tried to shake hands with him before the first Rocky/Clubber brawl.    So, Adonis will have to avenge that.   

With all of that being said, Creed II is a serviceable sequel to 2015's Creed, which saw the rise of Adonis Creed, son of Rocky's formidable foe turned buddy who was killed in the ring by Soviet monster Ivan Drago (Lundgren) in 1985's Rocky IV.    Now, years later, Creed wins the heavyweight title and is soon challenged by Ivan Drago's monstrous son Viktor (Munteanu), who ferociously knocks opponents out much like his old man did.    Creed takes the fight, knowing that Ivan killed his father in the ring, although Adonis would've been maybe a few months old (if that) at the time of his sperm donor's death.    Creed's trainer Rocky (Stallone) is afraid of history repeating itself and dredging up old regrets and demons.   He chooses not to train Adonis for the fight, and Adonis gets his butt kicked, but manages to keep the title through a disqualification.    But, nonetheless, his body and spirit are shattered, and his fiancee Bianca (Thompson) is now pregnant, so Adonis needs to figure out if stepping back into the ring with Viktor is a wise move. 

Creed II kills time until its inevitable finale, which like Rocky's fight with Ivan Drago takes place in Russia and if I were the Dragos, I would not fight within 1000 kilometers of Russia.    They do better on American soil.   The primary issue with Creed II, and its predecessor, is that Adonis doesn't have the personality or the charisma to keep us engrossed.    He's something of a dud, and the peripheral characters like the wise, aging Rocky, the down-on-his luck Ivan, and even Adonis' adoptive mother Mary Anne (Rashad) deserve more screen time.    They are just plain more entertaining to watch.    I would've liked to have seen Viktor's relationship with his dad fleshed out more.    Just how does he feel about being Ivan's pawn in his attempt to regain the respect of the Russian powers that be vicariously through his son?    Creed II seems to forget that the Ukraine and Russia are no longer part of the same country. 

As the wiser, older, and slower Rocky Balboa, Stallone hits the right notes.   This version of Rocky suits him considering that Stallone is now 72.    Just please don't let Rocky back in the ring.    Lundgren himself hints at his own inner torment during his heart-to-heart with Rocky, and I would've preferred to see Ivan and son presented as more than just mere one-dimensional villains for Adonis and Rocky to crush.   We know Ivan has fallen on hard times since his loss to Rocky thirty-plus years ago, and there is ample opportunity to show us how and why.    Viktor is not given much dialogue, and thus isn't allowed to anything but a Ukrainian wrecking machine.    There is a story here Creed II isn't into focusing on. 

Jordan looks the part of a boxer and can authentically move around the ring, but as a character he's dull.    But, since the movie is titled Creed II and not Drago I, or Rocky VIII, the movie has to be about him.    I watched the movie in a Dolby surround sound theater, and the body blows and head shots deliver some wicked thuds.   The fight scenes are well-done, and manage to remain somewhat convincing even for a Rocky film, and they all reach surprising conclusions.    But, I remain staunch in my belief that we don't need to see any more Rocky Balboa or Adonis Creed.    There isn't any direction which can be taken that hasn't already been covered.    But, if you're going to end the series at some point, at least do so before Mason "The Line" Dixon's son decides he wants to box for a living. 

Green Book (2018) * * * *

Directed by:  Peter Farrelly

Starring:  Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini

I could listen to these two guys talk all day.    Green Book is about two men from very different backgrounds who forge a friendship in the racially tense 1960s.    The film is a road movie, but transcends the clichés associated with the genre with two distinct, unforgettable performances and warmth, truth, and humor.    You think just by the plot description (based on a true story) that you know Green Book will check off certain boxes and arrive at a predictable conclusion.    You would be only sort of right, and you would also be moved by this poignant and often funny journey.

We first meet Tony Lip (Mortensen), a paunchy bouncer at the Copacabana in New York circa 1962.  Local mafioso frequent the place to see singers like Bobby Rydell grace the stage, and Tony Lip isn't above roughing up patrons who get out of line, even if they are connected.   After the Copa is closed briefly, Tony Lip bounces around the Bronx finding odd jobs and taking bets on whether he can eat more hot dogs in one sitting than the local diner record holder.    He adores his wife Delores (Cardellini) and his kids, while also preferring not to work for the local mob bosses who want to hire him as muscle.   Tony Lip is an affable guy, who hasn't quite reached enlightenment as far as his racial attitudes.    Those more or less mesh with the times.    His reaction to witnessing black repairmen drink from his glasses tells you all you need to know.

Soon, concert pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Ali) ("a doctor of piano playing" as Tony puts it) inquires around about needing a driver for his fall concert tour of the South, and Tony's name comes up.   Doc lives in a posh apartment above Carnegie Hall.   It is full of antiquities and Caribbean-inspired decorations, including a throne which Doc sits in when interviewing Tony for the job.   The two men's backgrounds and approach to the world could not be more evident.    Tony smokes, stuffs his face, talks endlessly, and murders the English language, while Doc is proper, mannered, impeccably dressed, and educated.    But, in a twist you wouldn't expect, Doc is not condescending of Tony, and Tony is not threatened by Doc's mannerisms.    They are a study in contrasting personalities who find each can learn from the other and find common ground.

It comes as no surprise that Doc's façade hides immense shyness, while Tony is surprisingly understanding and enlightened when he learns more about Doc.   What makes Green Book such a treasure, is how both men remain themselves, while allowing themselves to grow and see things from different perspectives.    We know Doc will encounter racial prejudice during the trip.   The "green book" is a book published by AAA noting establishments which would welcome blacks.    This is how integrated racism and discrimination was back then.   Even though we still have a long way to go towards racial equality, at least such books are no longer published.  

Mortensen and Ali are a delight to watch at every turn in Oscar-worthy performances.    They never have to reach for laughs or sentimentality.    We feel an instant connection with them.   We are touched when we see their lifelong friendship evolve before our very eyes.    It is refreshing to see that they aren't at each other's throats in the beginning and warm up to becoming friends, which would be typical of a lesser film.    Each understands the other, accepts their differences, and work from there.    The changes each man goes through are subtly drawn through humor and observance of their natures.    Doc is Tony's guy, and Tony never wavers in his duty to get Doc through his tour and protect him from some of the more cruel people they meet.  

Green Book, directed by Peter Farrelly (yes, that one who directed Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, and even The Three Stooges with his brother Bobby) never steps wrong.   It knows who Tony is and knows who Doc is, and we can wholly believe how and why they became friends and remained so until they died within four months of each other in 2013.    There is a crucial point in the film in which Tony makes a discovery about Doc he may or may not have suspected earlier, but he comforts Doc by saying, "it's a complicated world".   This is exactly how Tony would, and should say about this situation, and it is a pleasure to see this movie stay so true to Tony's, and Doc's, voice.

Boy Erased (2018) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Joel Edgerton

Starring:  Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton, Flea, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan

A different type of abuse is at the heart of Boy Erased, based on the Garrard Conley memoir about a gay teen sent to "conversion therapy", or a center where a group of religious zealots attempt to exorcise the homosexuality out of teens.    The movie doesn't take place in the 1940's or 1950's, but in 2004, and enlightenment has apparently befallen the Love in Action center, led by the villainous Victor Sykes (Edgerton) who foolishly believes homosexuality is caused by external factors like alcoholic uncles or faulty DNA.    The abuse here is trying to suppress people into forsaking their sexual identity through a system of tyranny, guilt, shame, and manipulation.    Phrases like "God will not love you until you rid yourself of this sin," are used in order to somehow force these impressionable kids into squelching their true emotions.    You would think in the 21st century, most of society would have come around to the understanding that there are homosexuals in the world, but it appears our confidence is misguided. 

Boy Erased is Joel Edgerton's follow-up to The Gift (2015), which was one of that year's best films.   He proves once again he is an excellent director, expertly managing the complex themes and emotions at play.    The sequences at the therapy center rile up the most outrage, while the quieter, subtler scenes between Jared (Hedges) and his spiritual parents are the most powerful.    Boy Erased doesn't make the mistake of turning Jared's parents (Kidman and Crowe-both remarkable) into insufferable, backward creeps, but instead shows them as loving parents who never thought they would have to encounter homosexuality in their son.   Marshall (Crowe) runs a successful auto dealership and is a pastor at his local church.    Nancy (Kidman) is a supportive wife and mother who never questioned her husband's actions...until now.   Jared plays basketball, has a girlfriend, and soon attends college.    But, his girlfriend doesn't turn him on and he soon comes to understand his same sex desires.    Jared tries to hide his sexual orientation, but an encounter with a college friend (Alwyn) turns ugly and forces Jared's feelings into the light. 

Marshall consults with church elders and pays thousands of dollars sight unseen to Love in Action in hopes it would "cure" his son.   Sykes runs the center like a prison, and in many ways, it is one.    He conducts exercises such as role playing, confessions, lessons in "manliness", and drawing up family trees to figure out where in the genealogical line "things went wrong".   Sykes is a supposedly converted homosexual, although I am at a loss to determine what that means.    Sykes, and others, mistakenly believe you can rid someone of their desires through physical action.    In the case of one wayward teen, parents and friends publicly whip him in order to cast out demons.     These disturbing scenes would almost seem like parody or satire if such places didn't actually exist. 

Edgerton never plays Sykes as an over-the-top fanatic frothing at the mouth.   His cruelty is more subtle and hidden in a façade of support and love.   Hedges, who with this film and previous strong work in Manchester by the Sea, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Lady Bird, is forging quite a terrific body of work.    His Jared is quiet, trying to be all things to all people and go along, but soon forges his assertiveness and stands up to Sykes after comprehending that what's going on is just plain wrong.    Hedges provides a sympathetic center, and the people in his life need to adjust to him, not the other way around.    Kidman and Crowe both have their own quietly moving and triumphant scenes in which they understand their own complicity and short-sightedness and find ways to learn and grow.  

Boy Erased is not an anti-religion film, but an anti-small mindedness one.    When Jared finally musters the courage to escape from the center and choose to live life on his terms, I felt exalted and nearly shouted "YES!" from my theater seat.   And Jared's final conversation with Marshall feels nothing short of true, complex, and human, which could be said of the movie itself.  

Office Christmas Party (2016) * *

Directed by:  Josh Gordon and Will Speck

Starring:  Jason Bateman, T.J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Courtney B. Vance, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry, Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn

Office Christmas Party nearly transcended its objectives and almost morphed into a potent satire on political correctness and its effect on the workplace, until it decided to dumb things down and play it safe.    To my astonishment, I found myself caring a lot more about the events of Office Christmas Party more than I ever had a right to.    We know things will turn out well in the end for everyone, but the party itself isn't simply an excuse to showcase lazy sight gags and gross-out humor.    The man throwing it wants to prove his worth as a boss to his joyless staff and his cold CEO sister, and we find ourselves interested to see how that would turn out.   

But, then the movie flies off on its least amusing subplot involving an escort and her unstable female pimp and all hope for something fresh is out the window.   It's a pity.   Office Christmas Party has some very funny and adept comic actors all over it, and in many cases, they bring some inspiration and energy to a routine plot.    So, why lose faith by falling back on a car chase, gunplay, and over-the-top desperation to cause the movie to wheeze on its way across the finish line?    It's a tribute to Office Christmas Party that it even had a chance to work.    Although, like in numerous movies in which an all-out bash is at the center, I find myself wondering how much money was spent on the decorations, the endless supply of alcohol, food, and drugs, and then how much it will cost to clean up.    That is more intriguing than watching a guy swing half-naked like Tarzan from a string of Christmas lights.

We first meet the workers of the Chicago branch of Zenotek, which produces computer servers, but misses out on the big clients because it isn't Dell or Intel.    The branch is struggling financially, and the boss Clay Vanstone (Miller) wants to throw a Christmas party (or a "non-denominational gathering with a one drink maximum") to liven up the branch's sour morale.    Matters get worse when Clay's no-nonsense, resentful, sleek sister/company CEO Carol (Aniston) shows up and informs her brother of some grim news:  They have two days to land a huge client or be closed down.    Clay, his right-hand man Josh (Bateman), and the firm's top techno geek (Munn) pitch a stuffy client and invite him to the Christmas party which Carol forbade them from throwing.    Can they close the client and keep everyone's jobs?    Will they be able to throw the party without HR manager/resident party pooper Mary (McKinnon) having apoplexy over the inappropriate behavior which is sure to follow?

The party itself doesn't present many huge comic opportunities, but it doesn't sink the movie either.   We witness debauchery, lust, and inappropriateness on a massive scale, and I still haven't seen a truly riotously funny movie party since Sixteen Candles.    We know what will happen next, and Office Christmas Party checks those boxes.    This is not a movie you watch for strong character development or even its plot.    But, I must say the first hour or so kept me compelled until the bottom fell out and the movie ended with a whimper.  

Widows (2018) * *

Directed by:  Steve McQueen

Starring:  Viola Davis, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, Liam Neeson, Robert Duvall, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Carrie Coon, Jacki Weaver, Lukas Haas, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jon Bernthal, Garret Dillahunt

Despite its good intentions and wanting to be About Something Important, Widows has enough characters and plots to fill three movies, while not giving us any reason to care about this one.    Characters are introduced and then shuffled off screen for such long periods we forget why they are in the movie when they reappear.    Viola Davis plays Veronica, one of the widows of the title, who is overly hardened in some scenes, while an emotional mess in others.    She has the most screen time, but in a movie set up for us to sympathize with her plight, we find we don't care as much as we should.    This is nearly fatal to Widows, which becomes so congested and crowded it requires a traffic cop to keep things moving.

The first shot of Widows is a lovey-dovey moment between Harry (Neeson) and Veronica, a married couple whose careers couldn't be more distinct.    Harry is a criminal, while Veronica is said to be the head of the "teacher's union", although there is not one scene in the movie in which she is seen working at any office.    They appear to be in love, or in rampant lust, before Harry leads a heist which goes horribly wrong and results in the deaths of he and his crew.    The heist went askew because Harry attempted to steal the money he was robbing for a local drug lord Jamal Manning (Henry), who wanted to use the money to fund his election campaign to run for Chicago ward alderman against connected career politician Jack Mulligan (Farrell).

Fresh from her husband's funeral, Jamal shows up at Veronica's apartment demanding she pay back the $2 million her late husband stole from him.    It's of no consequence to Jamal that Veronica knew little or anything about her husband's job; she has thirty days to pay him back or else.    The "else" is in the form of Jamal's menacing, violent brother (Kaluuya), who is usually itching to hurt or kill someone.    With very little money or means, the desperate Veronica discovers a secret notebook Harry kept detailing his next job, which would net $5 million.    Veronica enlists the help of Linda (Rodriguez) and Alice (Debicki), widows of two of Harry's deceased crew members to pull off the job, and soon Belle (Erivo), a babysitting acquaintance of Linda's who is hired on as the getaway driver.

Veronica, Linda, and Alice are not the group from Ocean's 8 and to the movie's credit, they are never made out to be a cohesive unit.    They are amateurs, and they behave like it, although I am still at a loss to explain how they were able to muster up a second getaway car in the end.    But, Widows isn't merely content to deal with just Veronica's plight.    Linda, Belle, and Alice all have their own sad stories to be told, as well as Jack Mulligan, who would like nothing more than to lose the election and get out of the political business.    Because Widows has to juggle all of these characters and subplots, we never get involved enough about any of them to care.    And yes, there is a twist thrown in which, after the initial good-natured "you got me" moment subsides, doesn't make a lot of sense and isn't adequately explained.     Why did the person take such an enormous risk to deceive everyone else?    Even after the explanation, I am left with more questions than answers.

So what we have is a caper movie with some politics and violence mixed in, but it doesn't know what it wants to be.    It's all over the map.    It wants to be all things to all people, and winds up being not much more than a bloated movie with wasted potential. 

Sausage Party (2016) *

Directed by:  Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Starring:  (voices of)  Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Edward Norton, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Nick Kroll, Michael Cera

We have singing, doubles entendre, sexual innuendo, gross-out humor, and naturally, weed smoking (considering Seth Rogen and company are involved) in Sausage Party, but what we don't have is laughs.   This stuff is supposed to create amusement and chuckles, and yet there are none to be found.    Sausage Party opens with a musical number featuring food items dancing and singing about going to the "Great Beyond", not knowing of course that such a place means they are goners.   
The number drones on seemingly endlessly, and puts the movie behind the eight-ball.    It doesn't recover and actually finds ways to get worse from there.

The participants in Sausage Party are hot dogs, buns, bagels, flatbread, etc. who are excited when the doors open at the supermarket where they reside for the July 4th sale.    Like lonely puppies, they ache to be thrown into a shopping cart and taken away to what they think is paradise.    A hot dog named Frank (Rogen), doesn't want to go just yet, mostly because he is in love with a hot dog bun named Brenda (Wiig).   He wants to get inside her, since hot dogs and buns go together.    Brenda and Frank are accompanied by Sammy Bagel Jr. (Norton-doing a Woody Allen impression) and other assorted drinks, vegetables, candy, etc. on an adventure which we don't much care about.

The plot isn't really the reason anyone would want to see Sausage Party.    Those with the sense of humor of a ten-year-old will be amused (maybe), and laugh because they figured out just what Frank and Brenda want to do with each other.    But, would a ten-year-old understand the villainous douche?    Or even what a douche is for?   Or, excuse me, feminine hygiene product.   I picture Rogen and Jonah Hill, who co-wrote the script with longtime Rogen collaborator Evan Goldberg, cracking themselves up at the thought of a, ahem, feminine hygiene product regaining its strength by sucking the liquid out of an open juice box at a strategic point on its "body".    They might be the only ones amused.    Sophomoric humor can be funny, but not when its goal is to amuse the filmmakers more than the audience.    More to the point, aren't these guys getting a little old for this shit? 

The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) * *

Directed by:  Fede Alvarez

Starring:  Claire Foy, Sylvia Hoeks, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephen Merchant, Sverrir Gudnason, Vicky Krieps, Claes Bang

Reflecting on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), it was a dark mystery with emotionally wounded and goth Lisbeth Salander at its center.    The film was as gloomy as its wintry Swedish landscape, and it worked on that level.    I would never have pegged Lisbeth, the titular Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, to evolve into a James Bond-like action hero.    But, she has, and in The Girl in the Spider's Web, we see how limiting that can be.    Lisbeth Salander is a character more befitting in isolation than in the middle of an international espionage tale, but here she is in hand-to-hand combat and car chases with the bad guys. 

Claire Foy (First Man, Unsane, The Crown) assumes the Lisbeth Salander role from Rooney Mara, who was Oscar-nominated for the 2011 film.    Foy is immensely talented, and could have easily essayed the role for its strengths if the screenwriters weren't so determined to make her an action star.  What made Mara's Lisbeth so fascinating is all but stripped away in this follow-up.    Foy broods for a few moments and callously kicks female lovers out of her bed so she can immerse herself in her work as a computer hacker, but those simply remind us of what we don't have anymore:  a mysterious, pained, flawed protagonist.   We now have a vigilante who acts as an avenging angel for women terrorized by men.   This would be an interesting direction to go into also, but soon the plot takes over.   Foy has the dragon tattoo on her back, but that's where the similarities end.

We gain some background on Lisbeth's childhood trauma as she escapes from her abusive father, leaving her beloved sister, who was reluctant to leave, to suffer further abuse.   Lisbeth slides down a snowy mountainside to freedom, but she is always haunted by guilt at leaving her sister behind.   But, there is no time to dwell on these matters, as a penitent computer engineer (Merchant), who created a program called Firefall which could control the world's nuclear silos, hires Lisbeth to steal Firefall from the NSA so it can be safe from any government's hands.    Shortly after successfully hacking into the NSA and stealing the program, Lisbeth's apartment is blown up by creepy thugs and an NSA agent (Stanfield) is on her trail. 

Lisbeth is now on the run, and after a series of unfortunate events, finds herself protecting the brilliant son of the engineer while evading a shadowy group called The Spiders led by, you guessed it, Lisbeth's estranged sister Camilla (Hoeks).   Camilla dresses and behaves like a dominatrix, while making mistakes uber-villains so often make.   Such as:  Instead of simply killing the hero, she plays games with him/her and allows them time to escape and thwart the villain's plans.    The villain's success rate improves dramatically if the hero is taken out of the equation.   Take it from me, I'm correct, because I've obviously seen more spy movies than the villains have.

The Girl in the Spider's Web reduces the characters and the events to typical action movie fare.  Little attempt is made to distinguish Lisbeth from countless other heroes.   She can adapt herself to any situation, and even knows how to repel the effects of a paralyzing poison by crushing up amphetamines with her one free hand.    Thank goodness the amphetamines were nearby, as was something to crush them, and that she still had the strength to do all of that while the poison was seizing her body.   I'm sure she learned all of this in the Swedish special forces training we never knew she had.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) * *

Directed by:  Bryan Singer

Starring:  Rami Malek, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazello, Gwilym Lee, Lucy Boynton, Aiden Gillen, Mike Myers, Tom Hollander, Allen Leech

Bohemian Rhapsody is about as flat as Freddie Mercury was energetic.   There are fleeting moments in which things perk up, but otherwise Bohemian Rhapsody goes the safe route in depicting the story of Freddie Mercury and those three guys who backed him up.    Make no mistake, this is mostly the Freddie Mercury show, and as Queen's most famous member, it should be.    With that being said, why make Bohemian Rhapsody if it provides less insight than documentaries which have been made about Mercury and Queen?    There isn't much covered here that isn't already part of Queen lore, along with plotlines created thanks to dramatic license, which is par for the course in biopics.   In some cases, these changes are for the better.    And if you're going to make a movie about one of the most charismatic lead singers in rock history, shouldn't the wattage be turned up?    One of Queen's 80's hits was "I Want to Break Free" and we get the impression Bohemian Rhapsody would like to do the same thing.   There's a TV movie of the week feel to it. 

Bohemian Rhapsody uses Queen's classic July 1985 Live Aid performance as the pinnacle of the band's career and then backtracks from there.    Beginning in 1970 London, Farrokh Bulsara, from a conservative Zanzibar family, transforms into flamboyant Freddie Mercury shortly after joining the band who would soon become Queen.    He meets a woman named Mary (Boynton).  She soon becomes his fiancée, but even if we didn't know what we already know about Freddie, she would soon realize this engagement would never turn into a marriage; partly because Freddie is often on the road, and mostly because he's gay.    The fact that he wanted to buy a pair of women's pants on their first date should've been a dead giveaway.    One of the unintentionally hilarious pieces of dialogue in the movie occurs when Freddie reveals a secret he has been struggling with:  "I think I'm bisexual."  Mary replies, "No, Freddie, you're gay,"    

Freddie's relationship with Mary was a complex one, but the movie doesn't mine this for all of its dramatic worth.    Mary disappears for large stretches, and we never gain the sense of how special their friendship was to each other; so special that Freddie reportedly left his estate to her and only she knows the location of his ashes.    As far as Freddie's scenes with his fellow Queen members, they mostly seem to be standing around waiting for Freddie to show up and interact with them.    There is little, if any, belief that Roger Taylor, John Deacon, and Brian May have lives of their own.    Yes, they are given spouses and there is sparse dialogue referencing their families, but that's about it.  

I enjoy scenes in musical biopics when we learn about the making of famous songs.    Bohemian Rhapsody is surely one of the most layered, complicated, and groundbreaking songs ever recorded, and sadly the movie shortchanges the difficult process of creating it.   When the band plays the song for EMI executive Ray Foster (Myers), Foster utters a line in which the famous head-banging to the song in Wayne's World is slyly alluded to.    Negative critical blurbs populate the screen about Bohemian Rhapsody, but soon the song would be regarded as a classic.    There are other brief scenes in which the inspirations for songs like "Another One Bites the Dust" and "We Will Rock You" are referenced, but not in any interesting way.

Rami Malek (with prosthetic protruding teeth and all) looks somewhat like Mercury, and his stage performances are convincing enough, but the screenplay doesn't give him much depth or insight.    We superficially understand the problems drugs, alcohol, and a voracious sexual appetite played in his eventual demise to AIDS in 1991, but we've seen similar themes in countless other biopics.   Malek does what he can to bring Freddie to life, but he is hampered.    Bohemian Rhapsody feels like a generic rock star biopic than something which specifically reveals Freddie Mercury to us all.    With help of some CGI and cutaway shots, the energy of the Live Aid performances is adequately captured (albeit lip-synced like the rest of the movie's musical performances), but you could cut out the middle man and simply watch the clip of the show on YouTube and gain a greater appreciation. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Marielle Heller

Starring:  Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Anna Deveare Smith, Ben Falcone, Jane Curtin

Lee Israel committed her forgeries in a time where people would still believe you, or even care, that you had a long-lost letter from Fanny Brice or Noel Coward which just so happened to turn up in the closet you were cleaning out.    Book shop owners (remember book shops?) respond with sheer joy and awe when Lee would provide them with a relic letter typed up on an old-fashioned typewriter.    After all, who would try to sell letters written long ago by almost forgotten writers who wasn't on the level?    To quote Sean Connery from The Untouchables after Eliot Ness told him he was a treasury agent, "Who would pretend to be that, who is not?"

Can You Ever Forgive Me? stars Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel, a prickly biography writer who rubs people the wrong way and can't understand when her agent tells her no one is interested in Fanny Brice biographies anymore, especially in early 1990's New York.    The movie stars Melissa McCarthy, but it is not a "Melissa McCarthy movie" such as bombs like The Heat, Life of the Party, Tammy, etc., all of which turned her into a loud, shrill character who we couldn't wait to part company with.   Her Lee Israel is a sloppy, alcoholic, defensive mess whose only friends in the world are a twelve-year-old cat and flamboyant fellow alcoholic Jack Hock (Grant), who assists her in her future forgeries and may or may not be homeless.    Lee's apartment is so filthy and disgusting that even the exterminator won't go in there until it is cleaned.    She is so far behind in her rent that homelessness may soon be on the agenda for her.

McCarthy's Lee Israel is subdued and pounded down by life, but when she discovers book shop owners actually want to buy real letters from Dorothy Parker and Noel Coward she finds hidden in her books, she schemes to forge other ones.    Lee buys several different typewriters, bake the letters in the oven to give them an aged appearance,  and masterfully learns to fake the writers' signatures in order to fool trusting shopkeepers into forking over several hundred dollars for each.    We know this pyramid scheme can't possibly last, because all it takes is one suspicious collector to bring the whole operation crashing down.    Lee's goals are modest:   She wants to pay her bills, have her sick cat treated at the vet, and buy a steak dinner once in a while.    She knows she won't be buying yachts with the money she makes, but at least she won't be out on the street and her cat will be well again.

McCarthy disappears into the role of Lee, and even though she isn't the most pleasant person in the world, we can still enjoy watching her.    She and Grant have great chemistry.   Both are lonely souls who have seen better days, and their friendship is one borne out of desperation, lots of drinking at bars in mid-afternoon, and a need for companionship.    But, surprise, surprise, they find they might even like each other's company.   There is no hope for romance, since both Lee and Jack are gay, but their relationship is at the heart of why Can You Ever Forgive Me? works so well.  

For many a moon, I've lamented that Melissa McCarthy wastes her talents in roles and movies which appealed to the lowest common denominator.    She doesn't throw any throat punches in this movie, and her performance is a study in how less is definitely more.   I pray she decides to stay on this path, stretching her talents in challenging movies which may not light the box office on fire, but at least provide us with some depth and versatility.     In Can You Ever Forgive Me?, we find that as much as Lee Israel wanted to keep the world outside, we can't help but care about her.   

Beautiful Boy (2018) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Felix van Groeningen

Starring:  Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Timothy Hutton, Kaitlyn Dever

As a father who lost his son to addiction three years ago this month, I went into Beautiful Boy expecting to cry, and frankly I was disappointed that I didn't.    Beautiful Boy is a story of a father anguished by his son's addition to crystal meth (and soon heroin), and many of the same situations and emotions I went through are shown on screen, but Beautiful Boy frustratingly holds back.   It doesn't wander out to the edge of the emotional cliff, and that makes all the difference between a solid effort and a powerhouse which blows you away. 

Based on true events, Beautiful Boy tells the story of David Scheff (Carell), a freelance writer whose late-teen son Nic is deep into drug addiction as the movie begins.    He started with weed, and soon progressed into pills, alcohol, meth, and then heroin at a frightening pace.    He forsakes college for the drug life and soon we see a life wasted before his father's very eyes.    David is divorced from Nic's mother, but is remarried to the nearly saintly Karen (Tierney) with whom he has two younger children.    One of the noticeable gaffes of Beautiful Boy is its lack of utilization of the mother figures in Nic's life.   Karen barely has any scenes in which she speaks more than one sentence at a time, and her job is mainly to hug Nic when she sees him and scowl as Nic robs her house and makes her husband's life hell.   Nic's biological mother (Ryan) lives in Los Angeles, and we see her all too briefly.   This is a movie about David and Nic.   Period.   The other people exist on the periphery and rarely have a chance to intervene or make their mark on the movie.

Beautiful Boy is told in a non-linear chronological style, which at times is quite involving.   We see David sitting a coffee shop table awaiting his son and he thinks back to sitting at that same table years ago with the loving, wide-eyed Nic who existed before addiction grabbed a hold of him.    I have had the same flashbacks, as most parents of addicts have, and David wonders how the same lovely child has grown up into the shell of a person he sees now.    Carell, who has impressed in previous dramatic roles like Foxcatcher, is equally adept here in making David someone we can identify with and feel sorry for.    Although frankly, the scene in which David buys drugs himself and snorts them doesn't go anywhere.    Why does he do this?    To understand what his son is going through or to see what the big deal was?    He wanted to be the best dad to Nic, and found to his disappointment that it wasn't enough to stop him from using.    Because, unfortunately, no amount of love, sanity, or reason can compel an addict to free himself from drugs.    It is something he or she must do on their own.   When we hear Nic say, "this is it, I'm done with drugs," he means it at the time.    But, then the yen for the drug comes calling and all bets are off.    David's heartbreak occurs because he thinks Nic will follow through this time, and when Nic uses again, everything goes back to square one.

Timothee Chalamet is being touted for an Oscar nomination for his work, but his character only has so high of an emotional arc it can reach.   He is either high or killing time until he gets high again.  He is a vessel for drug abuse; a zombie-like presence.   The performance is technically proficient, but doesn't allow us to see inside.   Nothing about Beautiful Boy would suggest Oscar-worthiness.   We have seen better, more resonating depictions of addiction on screen before.    Some of the more powerful and harrowing were 1987's Less Than Zero, 1986's Sid and Nancy, and even the more recent A Star Is Born.   Beautiful Boy seems to know the words without knowing the music.   And speaking of music, due to the movie being titled Beautiful Boy, I was not surprised when John Lennon's song was shoehorned into the proceedings.    It all adds up to a near-miss which has the potential to tell a powerful story and doesn't have the courage to take us on a guided tour of hell. 





 

My Dinner with Herve (2018) * *

Directed by:  Sacha Gervasi

Starring:  Peter Dinklage, Jamie Dornan, David Strathairn, Mireille Enos, Oona Chaplin, Andy Garcia

What My Dinner with Herve gets wrong is its portrait of its subject as a cliché.    In this movie, Herve Villechaize, the diminutive actor famous for his roles in Fantasy Island and The Man with the Golden Gun, is a drunken, bitter has-been who ultimately commits suicide because of the compounding heartbreak he has encountered in his fifty years on the planet.    We've seen tales of woe concerning stars who once had the world for the asking, but then pissed it away.    Herve Villechaize did indeed commit suicide in 1993 at fifty, but the cause was more health-related than anything else.    Herve's body stopped growing, but his internal organs continued to grow unabated, causing ungodly physical pain as they pressed against his bones.    My Dinner with Herve does not mention this condition; instead focusing on the old, overused narrative it employs.    Worse yet, it is told through the eyes of a recovering alcoholic reporter conducting what would turn out to be Herve's last interview.  

My Dinner with Herve is seemingly based on writer-director Gervasi's experiences with Herve in the last days of his life.    The Gervasi character is now Daniel Tate (Dornan), who is thirty days clean and sober after ruining his marriage and nearly his career by drinking.    His editor hands him two assignments:   A hatchet-job interview with Gore Vidal and a fluff piece on Herve Villechaize.   Since both live in Los Angeles, Daniel can do a two-for-one for his employers and get himself back on track.    Daniel makes the mistake of booking both interviews for the same night.    When his dinner with Herve runs long, Gore Vidal bails on the interview after Daniel arrives nearly thirty minutes late.    Herve then contacts Daniel again, inviting him to a limo ride into the debauchery-laden LA nightlife and giving him an in-depth interview at the same time.     Daniel, still pissed at himself for screwing up the Vidal interview, reluctantly goes along and makes his displeasure with his subject apparent as they visit strip clubs and Herve drunkenly crashes the limo. 

We learn of Herve's sad life, peppered by momentary glimpses of happiness thanks to his brief brush with fame.    He was born with dwarfism, raised by a loving father and a cold mother who resented Herve's condition, and travels to America in search of stardom.    A talented painter, Herve eschews that for acting, and after busting into an agent's office, he is soon booked as the villainous Nick Nack in The Man with the Golden Gun.    While Nick Nack is well-received, Herve doesn't work for another four years, living out of his car when the Fantasy Island role of Tattoo comes along.    Herve says "De plane, de plane" and a star is born.    Within a few short years, that stardom dissipates as Herve drinksto excess, womanizes, and then exhibits jealous, vindictive divo behavior which disrupts the Fantasy Island set and causes him to be fired.   All to excess naturally.

Peter Dinklage does not look like Villechaize, but makes him captivating nonetheless.    With his thick French accent and bravado, Dinklage gives us a fleshed-out portrait of a man who defied the odds by living to fifty, even though doctors assumed he wouldn't live past twenty-five, and becoming a household name despite his size.   We see a man who has his good traits overshadowed and consumed by his negative ones.    He is left with self-inflicted regrets and shouts of "Hey, de plane!" from loud, obnoxious fans in public.   He hates being washed up, and knows that job prospects of a fifty-year-old dwarf in Hollywood are virtually non-existent, especially one with his troubled reputation.

My Dinner with Herve didn't need to hedge its bets by introducing the Daniel character.    He is a cynical dullard who sucks the life out of each scene he's in.    When Daniel returns to his life after his interview with Herve, he is a changed man, and we don't much care.    I can't blame Dornan, who only acts as he was directed, but couldn't someone have thought to breathe life into this ultimately unnecessary character?    Many movies employ the device of having a reporter follow his/her insane subject to the depths of hell, but rarely has it been this ineffective, distracting, and momentum-stopping.    We are left with a Dinklage performance which tempts us with might have been.