Logan (2017)

With the mega-success of Deadpool last year, an R-rated superhero film that was both gory and funny, and with a gross that positioned at is the 9th best-earning comic book movie of all time domestically, it was only natural that soon after we would be getting more gory, R-rated superhero offerings. And first out of the gate is Fox, once again, this time with the third and best solo-Wolverine movie, Logan.

Set in the near future, in 2029, Hugh Jackman once again returns to the role of Logan a.k.a. Wolverine, the character that catapulted him to stardom. Jackman has aged over the last 17 years, and so, naturally, the invulnerable Wolverine is also showing his scars, his self-healing powers slowing down and his body self-destructing. A limo driver in El Paso, he tends to a 90-year-old Xavier (Patrick Stewart), whose brain is aging and powers going haywire. Through a series of circumstances, Logan is called upon to shepherd a young girl, Laura (Dafne Keen) to safety in North Dakota, and so he, Charles, and Laura embark on a road trip while mercenaries looking to recover Laura pursue them.

The film earns it's R-rating; never on screen has Wolverine's claws dealt so much gruesome, brutal damage. It wouldn't be that startling for a seasoned-gore movie viewer, except that all previous iterations of Jackman's Wolverine has been toned down PG-13 violence, where the real impact of those adamantium claws isn't felt. Laura also possesses claws, and does her fair share of dismembering, but the movie balances the excessive violence with the weight of how much killing weighs on the soul. Unlike, say, Hit Girl from Kick-Ass, who glibly jokes and cusses, this littler girl kills because she must.

As far as R-rated superhero offerings go, this one is really effective and very good. With a rather long runtime (137 min.) it takes it's time to let the characters talk and express their grievances; the problem in general with the X-Men films is that they are so full of characters that you barely get any time to make them interesting beyond their defining superpowers. By honing on this smaller story, the film is probably the best the series has ever been at developing characters. It does't hurt that Jackman and Stewart wear these roles comfortably, as they have for nearly two decades.

While I don't want all my superhero films to be grounded in reality, this approaches it's realistic and dark tone in a way the DC movies have been trying to do since Christopher Nolan helmed Batman, and failing to do. The inherent problem with making the DCEU serious is that Batman is the only character who feels like he could possibly exist in our reality. Once you add Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aqua Man to the mix, things get really silly, and the tonal mesh doesn't work (it also doesn't help that Zack Snyder is a terrible storyteller).

X-Men is also a pretty silly premise; various people also possess godlike abilities (telekinesis, teleportation, and a whole host of other improbable powers). Yet Logan is able to make all the outrageous powers feel like they carry weight; or maybe it's just because the director, James Mangold (The Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma), has a more assured hand at balancing the tone with the characters.

Logan is not without it's faults; a video documenting children in a hospital contains footage no one could ever get, and edited in such a way to elicit the most emotion (the woman who is delivering this video has some dynamite cutting skills); and there is a stopover at a farm in the middle of the movie that drags a little and leads to a fairly predictable conclusion.

But, overall, this is probably the best X-Men film. Not because it's ultra-violent, or is probably (hopefully?) the last time we see Hugh Jackman in this role; it's because it takes the time necessary to make us care about the characters. Too often that is something overlooked but major Hollywood films, and in particular superhero films. Marvel's heroes (and I mean the Disney division, as I know Wolverine is a Marvel character) are all defined mostly by smart-ass quips; while Logan also contains that edge, there is a deeper layer of hurt and humanity that comes out over the course of the film. In many ways, Logan is a character study dressed up in superheroes clothes.

The 89th Annual Academy Awards: Won vs. Predicted

I had 17 picks right for about 1 minute, before La La Land's win was taken away because of an historic upset. Craziest thing I've ever seen in the Oscars. So I got 16 right. Here are the my correct vs. incorrect predictions:

Best Picture
Won: Moonlight
Predicted: La La Land

Best Actor
Won/Predicted: Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea

Best Supporting Actor
Won/Predicted: Mahershala Ali in Moonlight

Best Actress
Won/Predicted: Emma Stone in La La Land

Best Supporting Actress
Won/Predicted: Viola Davis in Fences

Best Animated Feature Film
Won: Zootopia
Predicted: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Cinematography
Won/Predicted: La La Land

Best Costume Design
Won: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Predicted: Jackie

Best Director
Won/Predicted: La La Land

Best Documentary
Won/Predicted: O.J.: Made in America

Best Documentary Short
Won/Predicted: The White Helmets

Best Editing
Won: Hacksaw Ridge
Predicted: La La Land

Best Foreign Film
Won: The Salesman
Predicted: A Man Called Ove

Best Makeup
Won: Suicide Squad
Predicted: Star Trek Beyond

Best Original Score
Won/Predicted: La La Land

Best Original Song:
Won/Predicted: "City of Stars" for La La Land

Best Production Design
Won/Predicted: La La Land

Best Animated Short
Won/Predicted: Piper

Best Live Action Short
Won/Predicted: Sing

Best Sound Editing
Won: Arrival
Predicted: Hacksaw Ridge

Best Sound Mixing
Won: Hacksaw Ridge
Predicted: La La Land

Best Visual Effects
Won/Predicted: The Jungle Book

Best Adapted Screenplay
Won/Predicted: Moonlight

Best Original Screenplay
Won/Predicted: Manchester by the Sea

Top 10 of 2016

A time honored tradition that everyone honors. My tradition is to usually wait until the Oscars because, being a normal human being, I can't see everything and I want to give it all a fair shake before I decide my top 10. So, without further ado, here is my personal list of the 10 best films of 2017.

10. Everybody Wants Some!!, 117 min. R

Richard Linklater's spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused (1993) and follow-up to the 12-year epic Boyhood (2014) is a simple, light, entertaining of one Freshman's (Blake Jenner) first weekend at college, before classes begins. He meets his baseball team (who all live together in one house) and together they bond, chase women, and generally have a good time. There's not too much in the way of drama in this movie, and honestly, it's very pleasant. Linklater's characters have a way of philosophizing in a way that isn't too over the top, yet feels natural and down to earth. It's a general good time spent with these folks for one brief weekend, and sometimes that's all you need from a movie.

9. 10 Cloverfield Lane, 104 min. PG-13

10 Cloverfield Lane was barely on anyone's radar 14 months ago; then, a trailer dropped with the title and all of a sudden people were excited for a follow-up to the successful 2008 monster movie, Cloverfield. Yet what audiences got was a much better, much smarter film that really has nothing to do with the first one, except for the possible presence of aliens. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a young woman who ends up in a nasty car accident and wakes, leg fractured, in the car of John Goodman's character Howard, a bizarre, scary, but benevolent host in a bunker. According to him, the world outside has been attacked and she should be lucky he rescued her. From her point of view, he's crazy and trying to keep her in his bunker (although the presence of a third party, played by John Gallagher, Jr., supports his claim). While by no means perfect (the final 10-15 minutes get a little absurd), what you get for most of the runtime is a genuinely thrilling, that keeps the audience guessing. Goodman is fantastic, and Winstead's character does mostly smart things to herself alive, a refreshing change of pace from many movies of the same genre. I hope they continue doing movies like this, anthology films that bear the Cloverfield brand, even if their connection is tenuous. It produced a fairly terrific little thriller that surprised many people back in March.

8. Hell or High Water, 102 min. R

A western set in the modern era, Hell or High Water arrived in late August without much fanfare, flying mostly under the radar until it picked up several Oscar nominations. It's a fairly simple film, almost Coen Brothers-esque, written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by David Mackenzie. It follows two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) as they rob several banks in West Texas, and the two detectives (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) who pursue them. The movie gets a lot of tension out of the conceal and carry laws in Texas; walking into a bank isn't a simple endeavor, as many citizens consider themselves heroes. With memorable dialogue (one distinct scene takes place at a local restaurant with a sassy waitress) and a fairly ingenious reason for the crime, Hell or High Water paints a modern portrait of Texas both stark and affectionate.

7. Hunt for the Wilderpeople, 101 min. PG-13

Director Taika Waititi is quickly making a name for himself; he directed 2014's blisteringly funny mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows and is helming Marvel's forthcoming Thor: Ragnarok. With this film, he tells a simple but elegant story of a boy, rebellious and orphaned, who is adopted by a farming couple. The mother embraces him until her passing, and the husband (Sam Neill) decides not to keep him. The boy, Ricky, escapes into the wilderness and, with Neill's character, they set off on their own, while a national manhunt ensues for them. It's a charming, simple, and lovely little film that everyone should check out. Waititi is a director to watch, and I fully look forward to Ragnarok.

6. The Fits, 72 mi. NR

This was a strange, quiet film I randomly sought out last summer; it details the story of a tomboyish girl, Toni (Royalty Hightower) who joins a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in, random kids begin having unexplained fits, almost like seizures but not quite. Unable to diagnose the situation, the parents and teachers are perplexed, while the other girls in the troupe begin seeing the fit as a right of a passage. It all adds up to a strange, but quiet and entrancing little film, with a superb leading performance. It's a film that's hard to define or label, but was one of my favorite movie going experiences of the year.

5. Paterson, 118 min. R

I've never been enamored with Jim Jarmusch; I'm not sure if his meandering content is for me, or if I watched some of his movies at the wrong age. But I highly enjoyed Paterson, a slice of life moving starring Adam Driver as the title character, who also inhabits a New Jersey town of the same name (many characters remark on this coincidence). A quiet, reserved man, the movie follows a week of his life, of his everyday routine waking up, eating cereal, going to work and driving a bus, listening to various conversations on the bus, writing poetry, coming home to his mailbox bent, take the dog for a walk to the local pub, where he has one beer. It all sounds very mundane, yet it is fascinating for that reason. We all exist and have routines that we follow, that are wholly uninteresting. Yet Jarmusch makes this interesting, a fascination portrait of a man who's just like all of us.

4. O.J.: Made in America, 467 min. NR

2016 was the year of O.J.'s return; from a hit FX series, The People vs. O.J. Simpson, to this nearly 8-hour documentary that ran on ESPN but had an Oscar qualifying run in theaters (it's up for best doc). And boy is this documentary amazing. It details the life of O.J. Simpson, from his start in poverty, to his rise as a USC star athlete, to his time with the Bills and his career as an actor. Parallel to this is a portrait of race relations in America in the 60s, specifically in Los Angeles with Watts Riots, and leading to the L.A. Riots in 1992 in response to the verdict of Rodney King. What this documentary does so expertly is parallel these two stories and ultimately tie it together in explaining O.J.'s acquittal. Stunning interviews with some of the Jurors on the case, as well as Mark Furman and many other key players (O.J. himself is never interviewed) provide someone like myself with a very detailed, comprehensive look at the whole affair. I was only 5 when O.J. ran away in the Bronco; I was too young to know what was going on, much less to even care. But this documentary (which is on Hulu as of this writing) must be seen by anyone interested in learning about the O.J. case.

3. Arrival, 116 min. PG-13

I've gone back and forth on director Denis Villeneuve's films (Prisoners, Sicario, and Incendies); he's a talented director who effectively establishes mood, but his films don't always land. With Arrival, I feel he's made his best film, a moody sci-fi piece that meticulously details the arrival of Aliens to our world, and how we would respond. Amy Adams plays a linguist professor drafted into helping the government translate the Alien's language, a series of noises, and a circular language that is beautiful to behold. The movie embraces it's sci-fi tropes well and leads a fairly devastating revelation about certain events you've seen play out during the movie. I won't spoil it, but Arrival is surely one of the best films of the year.

2. Manchester by the Sea, 137 min. R

Kenneth Lonergan's aggressively depressing film about a loner man (Casey Affleck) who must assume custody of nephew after his older brother's sudden passing is a touching, moving film about pain and loss. Affleck is terrific in an understated role, acting more with small emotions than with grand gestures. The film doles out another tragedy in backstory about halfway through that is almost too unbearable to comprehend, and you might feel that Lonergan goes a little far. But really, this is a movie about how grief and loss can really tear someone apart to the point that they never recover. People deal with grief in different ways and death is a reality we all have to confront at some point in our lives. This is a very quiet, touching, moving, beautiful film with fantastic performances. The directing and writing is simple and not showy, and though comedy is harder to do than drama, it is also damn hard to do drama without making it melodrama.

1. Don't Think Twice, 92 min. R

I don't know if I just love lauding movies that change my emotion, but Don't Think Twice was quite the emotional gut punch. Following a New York improv troupe, all close friends, the film focuses on one member (Keegan-Michael Key) who gets his big-break on an SNL-like show, as his fellow improvers suddenly realize that in their early 30s, they are not going to make it after all. Written and directed by Mike Birbiglia, who also plays a supporting role, this movie is fantastic in that it truthfully and honestly assesses that we are not all meant to achieve great things. Some of us have to accept that we will never achieve true greatness and will have to accept other roles, but it doesn't mean we can't do what we love. And some of us who do succeed find out it's not so easy to carry our friends with us. It's a movie that effected me greatly, and made me really reflect on where I am in my aspirations and position in life. Not many movies do that.