The Good Liar (2019) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Bill Condon

Starring:  Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Russell Tovey, Jim Carter

It is our pleasure to witness Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen onscreen together as a con man and his next mark, an elderly former teacher who isn't quite the pushover he expected.    Mirren and McKellen make The Good Liar much more palatable than the material.    However, the movie trudges towards its inevitable ending, one which doesn't surprise us because it is telegraphed by holding onto shots of certain characters a moment too long.  

Someone in the movie has to be a liar, because the title gives it away.   The Good Liar opens in 2009 with Roy (McKellen) and Betty (Mirren) agreeing to meet in person after connecting on an online dating site.    Both use false names, and each confesses to using pseudonyms, but that is just the beginning of the deceit for Roy, who in his twilight years is a con artist who bilks unsuspecting people out of hundreds of thousands of pounds with fraudulent investment schemes.

Betty has a nice home in the London suburbs, and quietly has stashed away nearly three million pounds in her accounts.   Roy ingratiates himself into staying at her home and plots his next move with his business partner Vincent (Carter), who pretends to be a financial analyst.    Betty and Roy become companions, although hanky panky is off the table per Betty, and they travel to Berlin where part of Roy's shady past comes to light thanks to the research of Betty's ever-suspicious grandson, Steven (Tovey).    Steven smells a rat from the beginning, and his voiced concerns are promptly dismissed by Betty.




We're set up for a thriller with twists, and I won't reveal those twists, except you can see them coming from a mile away.   There is no other way for The Good Liar to end, so it isn't a question of how it ends, but why things play out as they do.    When The Good Liar is over, we see one good liar, one better one, and a movie which isn't satisfying enough for either.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Marielle Heller

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Chris Cooper, Susan Kelechi Watson, Maryann Plunkett

Fred Rogers created a soothing, calming persona amidst the madness of the world around us.    He was so kind, gentle, and near saintly that the more cynical would simply count the minutes until the other shoe would drop and dear Mr. Rogers was exposed as a phony.   This was not the case.    As documented so excellently in last year's Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Fred Rogers the children's show host and Fred Rogers the real person were practically one and the same.    He would not have it any other way.   Mr. Rogers believed if you presented anything less than your true self, a child would sniff it out right away.

Who better to play Mr. Rogers than Tom Hanks, the actor who epitomizes the kind everyman?   A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is based on true events, but it is not a Mr. Rogers biopic.    Fred Rogers is the catalyst for the sad, angry reporter interviewing him for an Esquire article to forgive his own father and let go of the anger which has been gnawing at him for years.    This is not a simple thing.    Lloyd Vogel (Rhys) carries that emotional baggage around in his face and his posture.    He looks sad, he is sad, and he takes his anger out on those who love him.    His reputation as a writer is not a good one.    He can write, but he tends to take his frustration with the world out on his interview subjects.  

Lloyd isn't thrilled with being assigned what he thinks is a puff piece, but he soon learns he is being interviewed by Fred Rogers as much as he is interviewing Fred Rogers.    That is because Fred feels Lloyd's pain and tries to ease it.    He cares for Lloyd and wants him to deal with his emotions in a much healthier way.    Mr. Rogers discusses forgiveness and handling negative feelings on his show, and now Lloyd is someone for him to practice on.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood doesn't present Lloyd's troubles in a perfunctory way.    His story is compelling, made more so by his father Jerry (Cooper) who clearly wants to make amends for his past misdeeds.    Lloyd won't let him in, and Jerry is heartbroken by his son's unwillingness to let bygones be bygones.    Jerry wasn't a great guy once upon a time.    He drank, and he left his family as Lloyd's mother was dying from cancer.    At his sister's wedding, Lloyd punches Jerry, and feels no catharsis, just more regret.   Lloyd's scenes aren't just built in to kill time until we see Mr. Rogers again.    Even when Mr. Rogers isn't present, his spirit is all around.

Hanks doesn't give us a Mr. Rogers impression, but instead he dissolves into the uniquely generous man whose presence is missed...especially today.   The role is a natural for Hanks.    However, it would give me equal joy to hear Chris Cooper's name read for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.   Hanks is practically a shoo-in for the nomination in the same category.    Cooper takes what could've been a one-dimensional role and filled it with life.    The fact that Jerry wants so badly to reconcile with his son makes his scenes with Lloyd all the more touching.    Rhys is also perfectly cast.    His face tells the story, and with a countenance like that, the acting takes care of itself.  

Marielle Heller, who directed last year's delightful Can You Ever Forgive Me?, takes potentially sappy and melodramatic material and makes it moving.    You hear the instantly recognizable twinkles which made up Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood's theme music.    Some of the segues between scenes take place with sets built just like Mr. Rogers' land of make believe.    And watch the final scene in which Mr. Rogers takes his own advice and bangs the low keys on the piano when something is troubling him.    We didn't need any other words besides that to empathize with the man who gave joy to so many others.

21 Bridges (2019) * *

Directed by:  Brian Kirk


Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, JK Simmons, Sienna Miller, Taylor Kitsch, Stephan James

Despite the participation of Joe Russo and Anthony Russo (of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame), 21 Bridges is a by-the-numbers police drama with few thrills and, upon reflection, some serious plot holes.    Chadwick Boseman (of Black Panther) provides a sturdy lead as Andre Davis, a cop brought in on a case involving eight cops killed in a shootout with armed drug dealers.   Davis has a Past, which necessitates an internal affairs hearing held hours before the killings.    He has killed nine people in eight years, which must be some kind of record, and internal affairs is concerned he may have an itchy trigger finger.   

Davis is asked to spearhead the tracking of the dealers (Kitsch and James), who expected to steal fifty kilos of cocaine stashed in a restaurant safe.    There are three hundred kilos, not fifty, and the dealers are surprised to see eight cops descend on the place so quickly.    A deadly shootout occurs, the dealers flee the scene, and Davis is soon asked by the precinct captain (Simmons) to find the dealers and swiftly dispatch justice.    Davis suspects the dealers are heading to Manhattan, where they can unload the drugs less conspicuously in the wee hours of the morning, and demands the mayor close the island to make it impossible for the dealers to escape.    Judging by how easily the dealers are found, this is equivalent to using a shotgun to kill a mosquito.   The dealers, especially James, are allowed some depth and a backstory.  

Davis is assigned a partner in Frankie Burns (Miller), who worked in the same precinct as the deceased cops.    There is little suspense as to what will happen, why, and to whom.    The villains may as well be wearing t-shirts stating, "VILLAIN," and one of them makes an amateurish mistake which allows Davis to discover that person's involvement.    I also found it particularly odd that Davis, who as you may recall is under investigation for killing nine people in eight years, is allowed to leave the crime scene shortly after dispatching more people with his gun.    Surely, someone would have questions, or have him at least fill out a report.    He is allowed to leave as if he simply rescued someone's cat from a tree.

If IA didn't like him at the beginning of 21 Bridges, they will like him considerably less at the end. 

Ford v. Ferrari (2019) * * *

Directed by:  James Mangold

Starring:  Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Catriona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Noah Jupe, Ray McKinnon

The best scenes in Ford v Ferrari involve the racing of the Ford vehicle challenging Ferrari's supremacy at Le Mans, a harrowing 24-hour race which never had an American-made car win the event.    Ferrari was in the midst of a five-year run of domination when Ford CEO Henry Ford II (Letts) turned an insult from Enzo Ferrari into a mission to dethrone him at Le Mans.   Henry Ford II wasn't exactly a nice guy either, and neither was his right-hand man Leo Beebe (Lucas), a corporate snake who makes it his mission to undermine Carroll Shelby (Damon) and mercurial driver Ken Miles (Bale) at every turn.   Why?   Because Miles doesn't behave like a "Ford Man" and even when Miles finally succeeds in making his way on to the race team, Beebe doesn't sit back and take it.   He's a prick because he can be. 

As if putting the Ford team through a daunting 24-hour hell race isn't enough, Shelby and Miles have to withstand corporate interference and politics just to get their car on the track.   Shelby is a successful racer turned race car designer, while Miles is a stubborn hothead racer who alienates corporate sponsors and is in trouble with the IRS.    But both would love to not only win Le Mans, but give Beebe the symbolic finger in the process.  

Ford v Ferrari is a satisfying film with authentic racing scenes and some great chemistry between Damon and Bale, who play guys with different personalities with a love of race cars at their core.   This is where they find common ground.    That, and telling guys like Beebe and Ford where to go.
Do they win Le Mans?   I won't spoil it for you, but the ending, which one would think is a screenwriter's invention, actually happened.    As does Miles' fate shortly after, which truth be told makes the final fifteen minutes more of a downer than Ford v. Ferrari needs.

If you're a racing enthusiast, you'll love the technical jargon thrown about by the mechanics and techs working on a superior race car.   You'll also love the Le Mans scenes.    Those not as crazy about races will still love the give and take between Shelby and Miles, and the convincing recreation of the period in which Le Mans was the center of the racing universe.  

 

Midway (2019) * *

Directed by:  Roland Emmerich

Starring:  Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Nick Jonas, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss

Midway is Pearl Harbor minus the insipid love triangle.   The CGI-aided visuals of the opening Pearl Harbor attack scenes are surprisingly cheesy.   The actors stand or run in front of unconvincing CGI sets behind them.   The air battle scenes, which fly by in a blur, look better but it's hard to keep track of what's happening.   All we know is the United States won an important military battle with three more years of war still to go.   I sincerely hope this isn't a spoiler for you.

I guess a World War II movie wouldn't be complete without a soldier or pilot with a Noo Yawk accent taking center strange.    Here, it is Dick Best (Skrein), a 1970's porn star name if there ever was one.   Dick is a cocky pilot stationed in the Pacific who can't wait to shoot down "some Japs" and raises the ire of his superiors for being, well, cocky.    Like most of the characters in Midway, he's pretty easy to forget. 

After Pearl Harbor is attacked, military strategist Edwin Layton (Wilson), whose previous warnings about a pending attack by the Japanese fell on deaf ears, is commissioned by incoming Admiral Chester Nimitz (Harrelson) to figure out where the Japanese will attack next.   Through the use of eccentric code breakers stationed in a basement somewhere, Layton correctly predicts Midway Island in the Pacific would be the next target.   

Midway resembles Pearl Harbor in another way:   It depicts the Japanese as stoic, almost dispassionate players in their own war.    Yes, the movie even gives us the Japanese general ruefully reciting the famed line, "We've awoken a sleeping giant,"   That they did.    The Japanese would make far more despicable villains if they weren't presented as quiet, uninteresting, and sticklers for maintaining their honor in defeat.    Filmmakers take much more liberties with Nazis, thus at least making them villains whose demise we can actively root for.    The Japanese seem almost reticent in their imperialist designs.

Midway doesn't differentiate itself much from other movies about famed World War II battles.   Most of the battles take place in the air, so we see planes buzzing around, machine guns being fired as if there is infinite ammunition, and close-ups of the pilots shouting orders as if they will help us make sense of the action.   If you like airplanes lifting off from and landing on vast aircraft carriers, then this is your movie.   In the end, after the USA successfully prevents the island from falling into Japanese hands, we see celebrations and American brass hugging each other, while the Japanese commit ritualistic harikari.    We're happy for the Americans, I suppose, although we're not sufficiently moved.    It was a turning point in the war, but millions more will die before it's all over. 

Ozark (2017) * * * 1/2 (first season on Netflix)

Starring:  Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner, Jason Butler Harner, Esai Morales, Peter Mullan, Sofia Hublitz, Skylar Gaertner, Lisa Emery, Jordana Spiro, Harris Yulin, Marc Menchaca

With his ability to analyze, forecast, extrapolate, and problem solve, I can't imagine Marty Byrde (Bateman), a Chicago financial analyst who launders millions for a Mexican drug cartel, didn't foresee at least the possibility of the trouble he faces in Ozark.    His life isn't exactly rosy before he learns at gunpoint that his partner has been skimming from the cartel.    His wife Wendy (Linney) is cheating on him, and he views the video footage from a private eye's hidden camera repeatedly.   Is he angry or being voyeuristic?  

His cartel contact Camino del Rio (Morales) kills Marty's partner and stuffs him in a barrel of acid.   Marty survives, but only after convincing "Del" that there are beaucoup money laundering opportunities in the Missouri Ozarks.   Del gives Marty and his family 48 hours to leave Chicago, relocate to the Ozarks, and then set up shop.   Marty assumes incorrectly he can quietly launder the eight million dollars his late partner stole from Del because it's the Ozarks, after all.    He's wrong, and in many ways, puts himself and his family in even further danger by stepping on the toes of the criminal element there.

The crime families of Ozark are the Snells and the Langmores.   They each encounter Marty and both profit and suffer from his involvement in their lives.    The Langmores are what the Snells would consider rednecks.   The Snells live on a vast poppy farm which feeds their heroin distribution ring.    The Langmores think smaller, and nineteen-year-old Ruth (Garner) is the driving force behind their schemes to get rich quick.    The Snells quote the Bible, but they surely don't follow its spirit.   The Langmores don't pretend to be religious at all. 

On the periphery is FBI agent Roy Petty (Garner), who smells a rat when Marty's partner goes missing and Marty withdraws eight million from his various bank accounts before skipping town.  Roy camps out at a local Ozark hotel, ingratiates himself with Ruth's closeted uncle Russ (Menchaca), before seducing him into becoming his lover and later informant.    During the eighth episode of the first season, we witness Roy's mother succumb to a heroin addiction back in 2007, and this fills in the background as to why his obsession with taking down Marty and the cartel isn't strictly part of the job. 

Ozark is wonderful noir drama with a lead character who is a criminal, and a family who is complicit in his crimes, although one can forgive his two children since they are teens and have nowhere else to go.   Marty's life is a pressure cooker of robbing Peter to pay Paul and trying to prevent his house of cards from blowing away in the wind.   Bateman expertly conveys this, and even though Marty is a criminal too, we sympathize with him to an extent.   His reasons for getting in bed with the drug cartel aren't excuses, but the opening speech of the first episode gives us a window into what makes Marty tick.   I suppose we care more for Marty because there are lines he won't cross, lines which the Snells and Langmores obliterated long ago.   Laura Linney delivers her usual excellent work.   She doesn't just sit on the sidelines; she thinks and schemes just like her husband.

At least through season one, Ozark does not attempt to paint Marty as a hero or a victim of circumstance.    He made his bed, now he must lie in it, and what compels us to keep watching is wondering why he felt he needed to make this bed to begin with. 

Last Christmas (2019) * * *

Directed by:  Paul Feig

Starring:  Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, Lydia Leonard

Kate (Clarke) is an aspiring singer who has lost her zest for life.   She had a heart transplant last Christmas, and this Christmas she is ducking her mother's calls, sleeping on a different couch every night, screws up at work, and has meaningless sex with random strangers.   She may as well wear a t-shirt when she walks into auditions saying, "Please don't hire me,"   One day, she meets a handsome stranger named Tom (Golding).   He is a nice guy, but something is off about him, and we can't put our finger on it until we can.   Kate lowers her guard, lets the stranger into her heart, and maybe she can make this Christmas something special.

Last Christmas is charming, yes, but it isn't exactly what you'd expect.   The trailers make you think Kate and Tom are mismatched souls who wind up embracing in the end on the way to happily ever after.   Tom has a positive impact on Kate's life, so much so that she begins volunteering at a local homeless shelter where Tom works, which she would never dream of doing a few weeks ago.    But, there is more, and Last Christmas isn't a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy.

George Michael's music, with the ubiquitous Last Christmas leading the way, is featured heavily in the movie.    Thankfully, the cast doesn't break out into singing Faith or I Want Your Sex.   It is part of the movie, but doesn't distract from the task at hand.    Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding are both likable and vulnerable, and we care about them, which is the first step in making a worthwhile rom com.   A subtext is the treatment of foreign-born people in post-Brexit England.    Kate's parents are immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, and even after living many years in the UK, they are still affected by xenophobes.

Without giving away any spoilers, I can say with confidence that Last Christmas charmed me with its sweetness and its two leads, who we hope can find happiness in whichever way they can.  

Harriet (2019) * *

Directed by:  Kasi Lemmons

Starring:  Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn, Leslie Odom, Jr., Janelle Monae, Jennifer Nettles, Zackary Momoh

Harriet is the first movie made about Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who risked her own freedom to return to the South and aid other slaves in escaping to the north.    It was dangerous enough for her to travel 100 miles from Maryland to Pennsylvania on foot with her owner on her trail, but Tubman would reportedly rescue nearly 150 slaves from bondage in the years leading up to the Civil War.    She was a hero, and her heroism is such there was talk of her replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 dollar bill.   So why is Harriet such a disappointment?    Why is such an inherently powerful story made inert?    The early scenes of Harriet (born Minty Ross) enduring starvation, the weather, and the ever-present threat of discovery to make it to Philadelphia are riveting, and the rest of the movie doesn't match that power. 

Harriet begins in 1849 in a Maryland plantation.   Minty, later Harriet (Erivo) marries a free man (Momoh) in the hopes of earning her own freedom and ensuring her future children are legally born free.    Her master puts the kibosh on that plan, and after learning she will be sold and separated from her family, Minty goes on the run at night and miraculously eludes capture.    Once Minty reaches Philadelphia, she changes her name to Harriet Tubman and works with an organization which assists escaped slaves in assimilating to their new surroundings.    Despite being free, Harriet can't rest easy knowing her family is still enslaved, and proceeds against the objections of organization leader William Still (Odom) to travel back down to Maryland to help her family escape.  

Even after leading her family to freedom, Harriet has visions from God telling her to go back and help more slaves escape, and she does just that.    She is dubbed "Moses" and the evil Gideon (Alwyn), son of her former master makes it his life's mission to capture and kill "Moses", not knowing that Moses is indeed his former slave Minty.   We know eventually there will be a showdown between Harriet and Gideon.   What we don't expect is how unsatisfying it is.   Harriet holds Gideon at gunpoint and belts out a speech about how evil slavery is and how the Southern way of life will soon go by the wayside.   With slave hunters bearing down on her, she is busy lecturing Gideon about things the audience has already surmised. 

Erivo gives us a determined, resourceful Harriet.   Odom is saddled with the frustrating character whose job is to tell Harriet she can't or shouldn't do something just so Harriet can basically say "hold my beer" and go and do the very thing she was told she can't do.   Alwyn is sufficiently hateful as Gideon, with his eyes almost permanently stuck in the narrowed position.  Harriet feels much like a superficial, made-for-television version of the Harriet Tubman story.   We see the events unfold without ever being absorbed in them.   There is a great movie to be made about Harriet Tubman, and Harriet isn't it.

Jojo Rabbit (2019) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Taika Waititi

Starring: Roman Griffin Davis, Scarlett Johansson, Thomasin McKenzie, Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson

You laugh at the satirical early scenes of Jojo Rabbit so that you may not cry.   What's sad is that the Nazi regime actually recruited children to help carry out their despicable, deadly agenda.    The main character of Jojo Rabbit, a ten-year-old named Johannes (Davis) is ecstatic to be starting his first day of Hitler Youth training camp, and it takes a certain broken type of individual not to be appalled.  
What does one learn in Hitler Youth training camp?   Well, falsehoods about Jews and how to behave like a violent sociopath, just to name two items.   

Taika Waititi walks a delicate, delicate tightrope with Jojo Rabbit, which he wrote, directed, and co-starred as Jojo's imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler.   Yes, that one.   Waititi is fresh off directing Thor: Ragnarok, which made a boatload, so getting Jojo Rabbit greenlit was probably smoother than usual.    Imagine a first-time writer/director pitching a satirical view of Nazi Germany in which Adolf Hitler is the imaginary chum of the ten-year-old protagonist?    And Hitler is portrayed as an egomaniacal goof?   Good luck.

But, the movie was made and the results are a triumph of balance between the humorous, the sad, and the horrifying.    Jojo is all in on the lies spread about Jews.    He never met one, but surely he could recognize one because of the horns growing from their heads.     Jojo's mother, Rosie (Johansson) sees what is going on and finds it makes no sense.    People are dying and the war is soon to ravage their small, quiet, previously undisturbed town.   Her husband is off fighting in Italy and hasn't been heard from in months.   Soon, Jojo meets his first Jew, a teenage girl named Elsa (McKenzie) who he is terrified to discover hiding out in the bedroom of his dead sister.    Jojo is at first horrified and ready to contact the Gestapo, but realizes this will result in his mother being hauled away and shot.    Jojo and Elsa are frosty towards each other at first, then they develop a friendship which blows all of Jojo's previous beliefs completely out of the water.

Hitler pops in often, trying to compel Jojo to resist Elsa and continue obeying the laws of the Fatherland.    Hitler's impatience with Jojo grows with each visit, and finds even he can't stop Jojo from discovering his own humanity.    I won't reveal the payoff to Jojo's relationship with the imagined Hitler, but it is enormously satisfying and mostly inevitable.    The other adults in Jojo's life are hardly role models, although Capt. Klenzendorf (Rockwell), the inept leader of the local Hitler Youth chapter, does provide the depth we've come to expect from characters played by Sam Rockwell lately. 

Jojo Rabbit is as varied in tone as the emotions it dredges up within the viewer.   There is humor and satire, but we don't venture into Springtime for Hitler territory.    The themes dealt with are not taken lightly, and treated with the gravitas they deserve.    We are left with a powerful, unsettling movie experience.    The happy ending is a tad too happy, considering what has happened and how the two main characters are going to face their uncertain futures without any family to speak of.

Dolemite Is My Name (2019) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Craig Brewer

Starring:  Eddie Murphy, Keegan Michael-Key, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg, Craig Robinson, Mike Epps, Tituss Burgess, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Ron Cephas Jones

Rudy Ray Moore is singularly focused on obtaining show biz success by any means possible.   He made some raunchy comedy albums back in the day, but by the early 1970's, Rudy is working in a record store; his early recordings forgotten.    At age 47, he is looking for one last big break, and stumbles across it in the form of a wino who frequents the record store bugging the customers for change.

Rudy learns the winos who hang around the corner from the store have funny stories to tell, and he supplies them booze and listens to them, incorporating them into a self-made comedy album which becomes an unexpected hit.    He then adds musical rhyming poems to his live shows and years later was dubbed "The Godfather of Rap".   Despite a strong following and a tour, Rudy craves more recognition.    He decides to make a movie starring himself as hip pimp Dolemite, the character he created on his comedy albums.    He hires an assortment of has-beens and never-wases to star, write, and direct, while begging, borrowing, and stealing to ensure the movie is completed.  

The finished product reminds me of a movie Bob Bowfinger would've been proud of, but it isn't the point whether the movie (also titled Dolemite Is My Name) is good or not.   What matters is the nerve and determination Rudy showed in getting it made and distributed at all.    But, get it made and shown in theaters he did, and it became a hit.    Rudy and his friends would make seven more films, and I'll bet they had a ball doing it.  

Dolemite Is My Name is a return to form for Eddie Murphy, who spent the better part of the last twenty years starring in family-oriented comedies and disappearing for long stretches from the movie scene altogether.    In the middle of all of this, he scored an Oscar nomination for his role in Dreamgirls (2006) and then followed up with Norbit and Meet Dave.   It hasn't been an ideal twenty years for an actor and comedian as funny and talented as Murphy.  

We can't help but root for these people who only want a taste of showbiz success.    Because Rudy and his cohorts aren't supremely talented, they need to claw and fight for their piece of the pie.   Murphy and his co-stars form a family who fight, argue, bond, and sweat together, but ultimately love each other.    This is what helps Dolemite Is My Name transcend its biopic origins and transform into something special.   

I thought of 2017's The Disaster Artist, which documented the making of the cult film The Room, which is unseen by me but said to be one of the worst films ever made.    Opinions are subjective, and the point isn't that a bad movie was made, but that one was made outside of the studio system and biopic movies are being made about them.    When was the last time you saw a movie made about someone who derided Dolemite Is My Name or The Room?   Let me know when you find it.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019) * * *

Directed by:  Edward Norton

Starring:  Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Ethan Suplee, Cherry Jones, Leslie Mann, Michael K. Williams

Lionel Essrog (Norton) is a private eye in 1950's Brooklyn with Tourette's Syndrome, which at the time didn't even have a name.    He knows his mouth and his brain do not always work in sync, and he blurts out things when he shouldn't.    Edward Norton resists the urge to overdo Lionel's tics and sudden outbursts, and we accept these aberrations as part of who he is.   They feel ingrained in the character, and less of a distraction to the story.  

If there is a story that doesn't need any distractions, it's Motherless Brooklyn.   It has the look and spirit of 1950's private eye dramas down pat.   Granted, there is a bit more plot and running time than is needed, but we remain involved in Motherless Brooklyn's tale of big city corruption and secrets among the haves and have-nots.   Lionel, who lives in a small apartment building underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, is clearly a have-not.    He works for a small-time detective agency specializing in garden variety surveillance on cheating spouses.    But Frank (Willis), who runs the agency, is asked to dig up dirt on a powerful bigwig and unearths evidence which gets him killed.    Lionel wants to find out why his beloved mentor Frank was killed, and finds the web he finds himself entangled in becomes harder and harder to escape.

Along the way, we meet the city's most powerful man, Moses Randolph (Baldwin), whose primary function is to uproot entire non-white neighborhoods and raze them to make way for parks and expressways.    The ruthless Moses doesn't let anything stand in the way of his work and, by extension, his legacy.   Lionel finds Moses is not easy to take down, and the conclusion is more of a truce between Lionel and Moses than a resolution of their beef.    It would've been less believable and more conventional if Lionel were holding Moses at gunpoint. 

Besides Moses, we meet Paul (Dafoe), Moses's ne'er do well brother who feeds Lionel information, Laurie Rose (Mbatha-Raw), who works for the center publicly opposing Moses' eviction of people from their homes, and has more than a passing connection to these events.    Thankfully, Norton wisely chooses not to make Laurie an obligatory romantic interest.    If you consider all that Lionel has going on, a relationship is the last thing on his mind.

There is more, and I won't reveal how everything dovetails, but Motherless Brooklyn is held together by a strong central performance by Norton and a lovingly captured a sense of time and place.  

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) * *

Directed by:  Tim Miller

Starring:  Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta, Natalia Reyes

I wrote at the end of my Terminator: Genisys (2015) review that there isn't anything more that can be done with this material.    I'm Terminatored out, and Terminator: Dark Fate is a retelling of the same story, only Skynet has been replaced with another technology called Legion which will take over the world and eradicate the human race in the near future.

Here is a question which never occurred to me until now:   With the planet in ruins and any remaining humans using any available resources just to stay alive, how exactly do they send one of their own back in time to protect the future leader of the resistance?    Same goes for Legion, who likely went ahead and destroyed their own headquarters with the same nuclear blasts.    Ok, let's suspend our disbelief and just accept that both sides know how to utilize time travel.    The action in Terminator: Dark Fate begins in 1998, shortly after the judgment day date came and went thanks to the actions of Sarah Connor (Hamilton), John Connor, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's hero terminator assigned to protect John in Terminator 2.

Another terminator (also played by Schwarzenegger), who didn't get the memo that judgment day was avoided, kills John and leaves Sarah living off the grid while hunting terminators for the rest of her life.    Cut to 2020 Mexico, a new model Rev-9 Terminator (Luna) and a mostly human (save for a few cyborg parts) woman named Grace (Davis) battle over a young woman named Dani (Reyes), who one day will become the leader of the resistance against Legion.    Grace was sent back to protect Dani from being terminated by the Rev-9, who like previous terminators is impervious to pain and can repair itself back to normal after being shot, stabbed, blown apart, and crushed.    Sounds like Michael Myers. 

Sarah Connor shows up at the scene just in time to help Grace and Dani with help from anonymous texts directing her to where the terminators are.   How does this source know this stuff?   Again, let's just suspend our disbelief so we don't drive ourselves crazy.   The identity of the source is not a shock, although the movie perks up slightly when Schwarzenegger reappears as the terminator who offed John, but after living among humans has grown a conscience and human emotions.    He is remorseful for killing John and joins the mission to protect Dani from doom.

Switch out the name Dani for Sarah Connor and Legion for Skynet and you have the same story as every other Terminator movie.    Terminator: Dark Fate is supposed to be the direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, so like last year's Halloween, we are asked to forget all about the other Terminator movies we saw.   The problem is:  This Terminator movie is not much different than the sequels it wants us to erase from our memories.    We have the chases, things blowing up, bodies flying around, and the Terminator absorbing more shotgun shells than ever before.    It's all old hat by this point.    The original Terminator worked on the level of a horror film in which you can't escape the bad guy who keeps on coming.   Terminator 2: Judgment Day took this idea to a superior level of excitement and masterful technology.    Every other Terminator film has tried to reclaim the magic of the first two, and it simply can't be done.   Time to move on.