The Reel World

"You have to start somewhere."

I could sense a great disturbance in the Force. I could not quite put my finger on the reason, but there appeared to be much to worry about with the debut of the first ever Star Wars film that was not one of the driving episodes in the epic story of the Skywalker family and friends. There was worry that Disney might have been pushing their luck with these sidetrack stories. The Force Awakens was very good, but should the Mouse House really be tempting fate with such "filler" material? Then there were the disturbing reports that the film required so many rewrites that as much as $5 million had been spent on the services of Tony Gilroy to provide those touch-ups. There were reports of extensive reshoots, and all of this was enough to have Star Wars fans worried. We needn't have wasted the stress or time. Not only is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story just fine. it's better than fine. It's actually a very good movie.

In 2009 Tom Ford, the famed fashion designer, came into the Hollywood scene with his stunning first-time writing/directing effort, A Single Man.  It was a somber film that garnered numerous accolades and left many of us wondering what he would be doing next.  It’s been seven years, but we finally get the follow-up film we’ve been waiting for.  Nocturnal Animals is clearly a film that cries out for award attention with its December release and a cast that for better or worse could make a dramatic reading of a telephone book an engaging experience.  When the trailer dropped for the film, I was sold on its stunning visuals and its ambiguity that had me hooked and curious about what Ford would have in store for us. Unfortunately, I exited the theater feeling I had just witnessed the most passive-aggressive revenge film I had ever seen, and to be clear, I don’t view this as a good thing.

Nocturnal Animals without a doubt makes its impression in its opening moments that if I’m being honest, it has to be one of the most memorable opening sequences I’ve seen this year.  I wouldn’t dare spoil this for any filmgoer, but I have to admit it left me scratching my head as to how it all connected to the rest of the film.  I have my own theories, but that is something to be shelved for another day.

"Santa ain't no arms dealer?"

OK, maybe he's not selling arms to the Middle East, but when Billy Bob Thornton puts on the Santa suit, there's no telling what kind of dirty dealing might be going on. Bad Santa was a kind of surprise hit back in 2003. It made a respectable $60 million at the box office and pretty much disappeared from most people's holiday film radar. Let's be honest here. Bad Santa wasn't going to make the list for traditional family gatherings in quite the same way as It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle On 34th Street, or even among the irreverent favorites like A Christmas Story. I just can't see the grandkids on granddad's knee watching Santa tell some kid to go f#%@ himself. The whole Spirit of Christmas thing, and all. But it was a rather funny movie. Still, I never expected there would be a sequel. But someone's Christmas list must have been begging for some naughty, and Billy Bob is back, older if not any wiser. If you can handle some rough language and a rather raunchy good time, Bad Santa 2 might just be on your Christmas list, too.

Brad Pitt appears to be making this World War II thing a bit of a niche. In recent years he went from Inglourious Basterds to the superior Fury and now to Allied. I wish I could say that he's getting better, but Allied marks a step backwards for the actor in more ways than just the performance. It's an unfortunate aspect of Hollywood that sexy rumors and scandals sell more theater tickets than a good movie. Hollywood power couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have called it quits, and the scuttlebutt is that it was Pitt's fling with Allied co-star Marion Cotillard that caused the split. I don't know if any of that is true and honestly wouldn't care a hill of beans if it were. I only bring it up because if Pitt was having some kind of on-set torrid romance, it's a shame that none of that passion ever made it to the screen. These two have about as much romantic chemistry as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Too soon?) If only that were all there was to sink this period drama.

Max Vatan (Pitt) is a member of military intelligence during World War II. He's dropped into French Morocco to take down a high-priority target. The inside contact for the mission is the famous French liberation legend Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard), who poses as his wife. Together they complete their mission and return to England where their fake romance has blossomed into a real one. They are soon married with a child. Both are enjoying a break from the spy world as the war continues to rage about them. It's wedded bliss until Vatan is told that his wife might not be who she says she is. She might be a plant and a German spy. Needless to say his world tumbles down around him as he tries to stay one step ahead of his superiors to discover the truth.

In the summer of 1974 The Paper Lace released a song called Billy Don't Be A Hero. It has the distinction of being the first and perhaps only hit record to top the charts twice in a year by different bands. The second release in 1974 was by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. For some reason the song was playing over in my head as I watched Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. I'm not sure if it was because the title characters share the same name or because both deal with war. The song was written about the Civil War but was thought by most to be about Vietnam, likely because of the release dates. Vietnam was an unpopular war, and the same can be said for the war in Iraq. The similarities continue. The song ended up fading as summer candy pop music, and the same is likely to be the fate of this film.

Billy Lynn (Alwyn) became an unexpected hero during a firefight in Iraq. The enemy had shot and was attempting to take away his commanding officer. He ended up killing an enemy combatant in hand-to-hand combat. Washington, sensing a growing impatience with the war among the American people, decides to parade Lynn and his company on a two-week goodwill tour. The final stop was a half-time show at a Cowboys game with Destiny's Child. During that few hours Lynn has flashbacks of not only that moment in the war but his family. His sister, played horribly by Kristen Stewart, is trying to get him to go AWOL and to a psychiatrist so that they can make a point about the war. Lynn's torn between his duty and his sister. Throw in a fling with a Cowboys cheerleader just for giggles, and you have the makings of a rather disappointing film.

“I'm writing a book about magical creatures.”

The wizarding world J.K. Rowling conjured for her “Harry Potter” series captured the imaginations of children (and many, many adults) throughout the globe because it was precisely that...a fully realized, living and breathing world with its own lingo and lore. So while spinning off a corner of that universe might seem like a blatant cash grab, Rowling's imagination has provided particularly fertile ground for new franchise opportunities. (OK, OK...the part where Warner Bros. agreed to make five of these before the first one even came out *does* feel like a cash grab.) For example, this latest crowd-pleasing stab at a billion-dollar series is based on...a fictional textbook mentioned in Rowling's “Potter” saga.

Howard Hughes used to be a very big deal for a very long time. Warren Beatty was a big deal for a long time as well, and they have a lot in common. They were both renowned horndogs. Hughes was not only extremely rich, but enormously famous. The Hughes Tool Company, which was instrumental to the oil industry, was the original source of his wealth, but Howard Hughes became better known for his forays into the movie business and aviation industry. There has already been a movie about Hughes called The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but Warren Beatty has been working on a Hughes movie since the 1970’s when he frequented the Beverly Hills Hotel where Hughes had multiple bungalows. Beatty lived a similar kind of fantasy life and identified with Hughes. Beatty has become notorious for taking a long time between projects because of a nearly legendary perfectionism. It has been 18 years since Beatty’s last film. He has been rumored to have done many projects over the years but rejected them all. This may be Beatty’s swan song, since he is now 79 years old. Beatty looks pretty good and seems as sharp as ever. And one of the things that becomes clear immediately is that Beatty understands that both Hughes and Beatty himself are pretty much past history.

The focus of the movie Rules Don’t Apply is two young lovers. One is Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich, a huge hit in Hail Caesar and the star of the upcoming Hans Solo movie) and Marla Mabrey (Lilly Collins, The Mortal Instruments, Mirror, Mirror). Collins is the daughter of Phil, by the way. She also is a dead ringer for a young Elizabeth Taylor at times. Mabrey is one of numerous ingénues that Hughes has acquired much like he acquires companies. Forbes is one of Hughes staff drivers with aspirations for much greater things. Forbes is assigned to driving Mabrey immediately after her arrival in Hollywood with her mother. This is 1958 Hollywood, which coincidentally is about the same time that Beatty had arrived to make his mark. The loving depiction of the time is clearly personal for Beatty. The depiction of 1958 is perhaps more vibrant than I would have imagined possible, and during the course of the movie which takes place over a number of years into the 1970’s we get a similar loving look at numerous world locations.

"There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived..."

The problem is that this starts out with the kind of story we've seen a thousand times before. The alien invasion theme is nothing new. H.G. Wells was describing it back in the 19th Century with War Of The Worlds. Unrelated Orson Welles scared the crap out of a depression-era radio audience with the same story. Independence Day gave us a brilliantly visual story that also begins the same way: alien ships begin to take strategic positions around the world. Here we go again, right? Wrong. We should have guessed from the beginning that when director Denis Villeneuve tackles a genre, he's going to turn it on his head. We’d seen him do it before. Last year's Sicario gave us a "war on drugs" film that wasn't like anything that came before it. Prisoners could have looked like a Taken sequel. I mean, how many ways can a tough guy deal with a kidnapped daughter? Of course, Villeneuve showed us there was at least one more way. He does it again with an alien first-contact film that is a blend of The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and maybe a little bit of the Twilight Zone classic To Serve Man, without the special sauce recipe. But mostly it's a cerebral journey that mines much of the same ground that Christopher Nolan did with Interstellar. Except that Villeneuve did a better job. Oh, and he spent $120 million less to do it. You still might be scratching your head when you leave, but you will also have some wonderful themes to ponder on the drive home. Arrival might well be one of the best films I'll see in 2016.

“Heroes like the Avengers protect the world from physical dangers. We safeguard it against more mystical threats.”

Back in 2008, Iron Man was entrusted with kicking off Phase One of Marvel's Global Takeover Cinematic Universe. The film centered around an arrogant hero brought low who builds his own costume — and essentially creates his own superpowers — by scraping together spare parts in a cave. As the years have gone by and Marvel's brand of superheroism has proven to be infinitely more bulletproof than comic book characters who are actually impervious to gunfire, the studio has earned the right to get a little Strange.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all when it comes to films about World War II, Mel Gibson helms a film that hits you with such an emotional wallop that I’ll say it right now: just hand the man the Oscar for this film.  It’s only November; how can I be so sure of this? Well, of course there are some titles to keep an eye on as we enter award season, but I honestly can’t imagine a title coming out that can achieve what Gibson did.    I’m sure by now you’ve seen the ads for the film that draw comparisons to Saving Private Ryan.  It’s a bold statement, but I’m writing this to say that Hacksaw Ridge isn’t the best war film since Saving Private Ryan, it is a superior film to it as well.  I honestly can’t think of a war film that has ever balanced the raw violence of war while maintaining the humanity of its characters and draw out so much emotion.  It’s based on a true story, and the only injustice I see is that this film wasn’t made sooner.

Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) isn’t like most guys enlisting for the war; he’s not bloodthirsty and out to avenge our country after the attack at Pearl Harbor.  Desmond is a man who has been overcome with the sense of duty to honor and protect his country, only the problem is, he refuses to touch a weapon in the process.  Instead he sees that he can help by being a combat duty medic on the front lines.  It’s a notion his superiors and fellow comrades see as ludicrous.  But Desmond refuses to back down from his principles, even when his platoon has mostly turned on him and the Army is ready to court-martial him.  Why would a man go through such lengths and risk losing so much, simply because he won’t carry a weapon?  That’s where the front half of the film pays off.