With Oppenheimer, filmmaker Christopher Nolan has made nothing less than the Lawrence of Arabia of the 21st century. Like David Lean’s 1962 masterpiece, Nolan’s picture is epic and grand in both scope and scale, while delicately humanizing a figure about whom most of the populace – myself included, at least, until I saw the movie – know little-to-nothing.
While the grandeur of recreating the first human-made atomic reaction has transfixed media coverage and those anticipating the film’s release, Oppenheimer’s true triumph is in unlocking the mystery of the man. By the time we reach its conclusion, Nolan’s film has given us a crystal-clear understanding of who J. Robert Oppenheimer was. We understand what drove him to unleash an unimaginable weapon upon mankind and how that work tortured him for the rest of his life.
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With A Quiet Place Part II, director John Krasinski has delivered a cinematic experience every bit as exhilarating and taut as the original. At only 97 minutes, this sequel is lean, allowing Krasinski – who wrote this installment solo, without the help of Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, the writing team behind the original – to keep the suspense ratcheted up for nearly every minute of the picture. As exciting and thematically rich as Part II is, though, Krasinski’s screenplay also suffers from a few logic problems that the movie can’t quite overcome. Still, this is a hell of a ride, especially as seen on the big screen, where the movie’s thrills come at you larger than life, the way movies are meant to be experienced.
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It’s impossible to say if author P.L. Travers would have liked the second Disney film to feature her most beloved creation, the magical nanny Mary Poppins, any more than she liked the first. As documented in the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks, Travers disliked almost everything about what became one of Disney’s most cherished movies, 1964’s Mary Poppins. She hated the musical numbers, she hated the animated characters, she hated the changes Disney made to the Poppins character. If Saving Mr. Banks is to be believed, she hated the general whimsy of the picture. That’s the exact quality that has made it such an enduring piece of pop culture.
The new sequel Mary Poppins Returns – a project which Travers stymied for decades and her estate finally approved years after the author’s death – manages to conjure some of the whimsical magic of the original. But the movie also suffers from being over-plotted to within an inch of its life. It’s true that the original has a message, but it never becomes as overbearing as the one in Mary Poppins Returns. The actress portraying Poppins in the new film, Emily Blunt, also has the insurmountable task of living up to the iconic performance of Julie Andrews. Both of these factors make Mary Poppins Returns a shadow of the movie that it attempts so very hard to evoke.
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I don’t have kids, and I plan on never having them. As actor Sam Rockwell once said in an interview, “I definitely don't want to become a parent. It's not my bag.” Same here. So, I’ll never understand that special bond that a parent has with a child. I’ll never have that feeling that I would do anything, including sacrificing my own life, for the well-being of my children. John Krasinski, the director, co-writer, and star of the new horror film A Quiet Place does have kids. He wanted to explore the qualities of the parent/child bond when he did a rewrite on Bryan Woods and Scott Beck’s original screenplay after he signed on to direct the film.
I can’t say from personal experience if Krasinski got it right. You’ll have to ask a parent. As someone who is in a committed romantic partnership, though, and has bonds with friends and family, I can say he nailed this story of protecting your loved ones. A Quiet Place is absorbing, gripping, and terrifying.
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Any discussion about The Girl on the Train should begin and end with the movie’s star, Emily Blunt. The actress delivers the most searing depiction of alcoholism on the big screen since Nicolas Cage’s Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas. From her ruddy face, to her slightly slurred speech and wobbly motion, Blunt inhabits wholly the character of Rachel Watson. She’s an incredibly damaged woman, keeping her drinking barely under enough control to believably be a functioning member of society. If she were in a better movie, Blunt would be a shoo-in for her own Oscar nomination next year.
Unfortunately, the rest of The Girl on the Train lets Blunt down.
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If the Oscars nominate Sicario for a best picture award next January, it will be one more example against the argument that “Hollywood” is nothing but a bunch of looney liberals who promote a far leftist agenda. A few handicappers currently have it as a top tier contender. The film is about the U.S. government’s escalating tactics to stop narcotics from crossing the border between Mexico and the States. It is Zero Dark Thirty for the war on drugs, playing like Dick Cheney’s wet dream. The movie is a perfect representation of how neocons like Cheney and his ilk envision prosecuting not only the war on terror, but all wars. They alone get to decide what the rules of engagement are. Sicario is a reactionary, far-right fantasy that’s all the more depressing because it’s probably not that different from reality.
The film begins with FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) en route to raid a house in Arizona where a Mexican drug cartel is suspected of holding kidnap victims. When the raid is over, Macer and her SWAT team make a gruesome discovery: the cartel hid dozens of bodies inside the walls. The situation gets even worse when several FBI team members are killed by an improvised explosive device rigged in a backyard shed. Macer’s boss introduces her to Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), a mysterious figure who is leading a new task force. The explosion and deaths in Arizona have changed the game, Graver explains, and they need to take the fight to the cartels. He wants Macer to join his team, but she has to volunteer. She does, with the stipulation that she can bring her partner Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) along. Their convictions are soon put to the test. Witnessing blatant disregard for the rule of law and an invasion of sovereign territory, Macer eventually suspects the use of torture, as well. All in the name of fighting the war on drugs.
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