Weathering with You (2019)

Original Japanese Title: Tenki no ko

Director: Makoto Shinkai

A decent and somewhat imaginative enough anime flick, though one that I didn't find quite as good as the same director/writer's Your Name from a couple of years prior.

The movie follows Kotaro, a high-schooler from a small, isolated Japanese island, who runs off to Tokyo to be a part of the big city. Inexplicably, the metropolis has been suffering a months-long rainstorm with no end in sight. After living on the street for a while, Kotaro lands a menial gig doing research for a small-time gossip newspaper for a scruffy but friendly hustler. Kotaro soon runs into Nana, a young girl who seems to be able to manipulate the weather. Specifically, through prayer, Nana can have the storm clouds open and allow the sun to shine through. Kotaro helps her monetize this strange power, but eventually Nana is convinced that she is going to die because of this supernatural gift.

The movie is touching and has some very palpable human drama and humor in it. And like Shinkai's previous film, Your Name, I love that the supernatural elements are never really explained. It allows one to read into them whatever they wish - something that I wish more filmmakers had the courage to do. One may raise an eyebrow or two at the melodrama, especially during the third act, but it doesn't completely ruin the magic of the film.

The voice acting is fairly solid, but it is very much an anime film, meaning that you can expect some pretty over-the-top reads and bombastic emoting. The dialogue itself is fine, but one will have to be ready for a lot of top-of-the-lungs declarations of intentions and feelings. Some of it is typically humorous, but some of it is meant to evoke empathy. It doesn't always work very well, but this is just one of the elements of the genre that a non-Japanese viewer has to accept.

So it's a solid anime flick for those who enjoy the genre when it puts away the absurd superpowers and form-fitting action wear. There are better Japanimation dramas, to be sure, but this one is worth checking out if you like others that you've seen before. I would start with Your Name, though. 

Retro! The Hills Have Eyes (1977); I, Tonya (2017)

The Hills Have Eyes (1971)

Director: Wes Craven

This was one of a few 1970s, grindhouse-style horror "classics," along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that I had never seen. While I've always been able to appreciate a good horror movie, watching this one reminded me that my appreciation only goes so far. Simply put, these grittier, wilder flicks don't do anything for me.

In a short 89 minutes, the movie chronicles a small family; including an elder married couple, their four children and children-in-law, and an infant granddaughter, whose trailer breaks down in the middle of a desert closed to the public. A weathered old man at a worn out service station gives them parts, but also warns against some sort of menace out in the wastelands. Sure enough, a pack of savage cannibals emerges and terrorizes the family over the next 24 hours.

A film like The Hills Have Eyes is really just too sweaty and wild for my tastes. Don't get me wrong - it's an impressive feat that Wes Craven pulled off here. On a razor-thin budget, he created an entire mood of agoraphobic menace amidst a blasted landscape that could be the stuff of nightmares. Still, I only found the movie so compelling. I admire Craven's willingness to not just threaten the innocents in this movie, but to actually kill a few of them, which in my mind is in keeping with true horror. That aside, the film only did so much for me.

I, Tonya (2017)

Director: Craig Gillespie

An entertaining "based on real accounts" telling of the infamous ice skater-on-ice skater crime that was the entire Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Anyone who grew up in the U.S. and is over the age of 35 almost certainly remembers the Harding/Kerrigan scandal, wherein Kerrigan was infamously bashed in the leg by a man hired by associates of Harding. It was one of the biggest, weirdest stories during the early years of sensational, 24-hour news cycles. Using on-the-record testimony from both Tonya Harding and her former husband Jeff Gillooly, the movie offers their versions of the wild story. There are bizarre characters everywhere in it, and none of them had the smarts or awareness to deal with what they had unleashed.

I knew and remembered a fair bit about the entire affair from when it all broke, since I was in my late-teens at the time. This movie, though, offered plenty of fascinating nuggets about those involved and their more personal stories. While realizing that more than a little of the narrative is coming from Harding's own accounts, I couldn't help but admire and sympathize with her in a few ways. Unlike most stars in the women's figure skating world, she grew up dirt poor. She also had a vile and abusive mother who bullied her daughter constantly. Still, Harding broke into the world of "ice princesses" and became a champion, such was her raw skill and power on the ice. But through bad relationship decisions and an inability to reckon with her dysfunctional husband, Jeff, she ended up the center and the blame of the entire scandal.

Though there are certainly sad elements about Harding's life - and they are depicted as such - the movie manages to balance that with a humorous tone much of the time. The root of most of it is in the breathtaking ineptitude of the dopes who end up orbiting Harding during her time leading up to and through the Winter Olympics in 1992 and 1994 (this was when the reshuffling happened, resulting in the Winter Games occurring only two years apart). Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) and especially his buffoonish friend Shawn Eckardt (Paul Walter Hauser) provide plenty of laughs just for how doltish they are. Then there's Tonya's mother, LaVona, played in an Oscar-nominated, foul-mouthed performance by Alison Janey. The circus of characters keeps things entertaining, despite the strain of darkness that runs through their lives.

There's always something questionable about making a "bio-memoir" about people who are still alive, especially when it's not long after the actions which made them (in)famous. I suppose it's easier to swallow when nobody was killed. But this is the movie's final message and question: since it was Tonya Harding herself who came out of the affair as the primary villain, being banned for life from the sport which was the one thing that she was great at, who are we looking to blame when our collective narratives fall apart? This is what elevates I, Tonya above merely a salacious re-telling of gossip magazine fodder or strange sports trivia. 

Joker (2019)

Director: Todd Phillips

Extremely well-done film that was compelling but grim enough to not demand a re-watch by me anytime soon.

Ostensibly offering a possible origin story for arch Batman villain "The Joker," Joker tells the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally troubled, severely down-on-his-luck man who is trying to find some place for himself in a grim and deteriorating city. Fleck is an aspiring stand-up comedian who lives at home with and cares for his invalid mother, while trying to make ends meet through menial clowning jobs around the depressed metropolis. In addition to generally being very awkward socially, he suffers from emotional swings and a condition which causes him to laugh hysterically and uncontrollably at random moments. When Fleck is bullied one night on a train, he lashes back and kills his tormentors, setting in motion a spiral into violence and true madness for not only Fleck but also the entire city.

More than any "comic book" movie I've seen, Joker has a very clear vision, and it is exceptionally dark. Writer and director Todd Phillips has himself admitted that he sort of hoodwinked Warner Bros studios by dressing up his movie as an origin story for one of the most famous villains in modern pop culture (in an interview on NPR, Phillips pointed out how the title of the movie is "Joker" and not "The Joker"). What he really offered was a brooding commentary on the state of modern U.S. society and its social ills. Fleck can easily be seen as one of the countless people afflicted with mental illness and carrying the burden of caring for unwell family members, but who have been abandoned by the world around them. Fleck and his mother have no other family, no friends, and early in the movie, Arthur's public assistance and medical care are stripped away from him, leaving him to deal with his myriad difficulties on his own. One doesn't have to look very far in the real world to see much of what is portrayed in Joker. The clarity and commitment to this theme distinguish this film from any other "comic book" movie that I can think of (and I've seen tons of them).

For a better comparison, one need only look at several of the grittier films by Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. Todd Phillips doesn't bother disguising the fact that he's drawing heavily from movies like The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, or even the more recent First Reformed. All of these movies deal with angry men who are already teetering on the edge of sanity, and whom we see pushed off. Arthur Fleck is the latest version of a Rupert Pupkin, Travis Bickle, or Toller - people who are struggling to keep a toehold in society but fail in spectacular or violent fashion. What is impressive is not only that Phillips decided to draw from such dark inspirations for this kind of movie, but that he so clearly succeeded.

Arthur, in the middle of one of his uncontrollable and often
out-of-place bouts of laughter. As of now, Joaquin Phoenix is
the second actor to win Oscar Best Actor playing the
notorious villain of comic book origins.

By this time, I probably don't need to point out that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is brilliant (I write this only about a week after he won Best Actor for the role). It is truly a marvel, as painful as it is to take in. All of the supporting cast does a fine job as well, including Robert De Niro himself as an echo of the talk show host character played by Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy. These performances, along with outstanding costume and set design, lighting, cinematography, and an Oscar-winning musical score, shape the story into something that really is a piece of art.

It must be said, though, that the movie is just as depressing as it sounds. Also in keeping with its inspirations and themes, this is not the easiest film to take. Yes, there are a few moments of dark and gallows humor in a few places, but for the most part this movie is one gut punch after another. And just like those aforementioned Scorsese and Schrader films, Joker is a great movie that I find too tough to take more than once in a very rare while. 

Little Women (2019)

Director: Greta Gerwig

Somewhat surprisingly, I found this movie excellent and highly entertaining.

For a touch of perspective, I'm a mid-forties Gen X dude who thoroughly enjoys sports, Marvel movies, and dirty humor. Like, a lot. But those aren't my only interests, and I'm able to appreciate things outside of my normal comfort zones. Exhibit A: I found Little Women to be a delight.

The movie mostly follows four sisters who live with their parents in Massachusetts during and several years after the American Civil War. As with many families, the four siblings have different attitudes, talents, and temperaments. Jo is a free-spirited rebel; Meg is something of a romantic; Amy has an eye for sophistication and feels rivalry with Jo; and the youngest, Beth, is sickly but possessed of considerable musical ability. Over the course of roughly seven years, the four sisters deal with interpersonal drama and tragedy, as they and their mother deal with their own aspirations, often while their father is away for the war.

The story is based on an immensely popular novel written by Louisa May Alcott, aimed at young female readers and published in the 1870s. Given that, it was no surprise for me to find that the story has a relatively gentle mood, and it never gets terribly dark. It also wasn't surprising that there was a bit of sappiness and sentimentality laced into the overall work. Despite this, though, I found the movie completely enjoyable. It helped that Gerwig made some very smart creative decisions in her changes to Alcott's original story. Melding Jo with Louisa May Alcott herself (whom the character was based upon originally, anyway) was an organic and highly effective choice. It also allowed for a bit more direct commentary on gender biases and a certain amount of progress which bold young women had carved out for themselves during times when such things were far from easy.

Just one of the many, many shots that is composed and framed
so well that you may not even realize how pleasing it is to
simply look at. There's often a coziness to the film that makes
one feel quite welcome, especially during the "good" times.

Probably the primary reason is just how technically excellent the entire film is. The narrative is laid out in a perfectly-executed, non-linear fashion, often using visual cues to let us know that we have jumped either backwards or forwards in time, drawing poetic connections along the arcs of characters' lives. Beyond that, all of the visual elements are stunning. Thanks to top-notch costume work, set design, lighting, and cinematography, the various tones and moods come right through the screen with every ounce of power that you would hope.

Then there's the acting. It's as good as it gets. Yes, there's the aforementioned sappiness here and there, but that's outweighed by some solid drama and innocent humor executed masterfully by an outstanding cast. Once again, Saoirse Ronan shows why she's one of the best young actors around, nailing the primary role of Jo. Not to be outdone, though, Emma Watson and Florence Pugh are great as Meg and Amy March. The one prominent male character, "Laurie," is played to with impish, self-absorbed charm by the waifish Timothee Chalamet, whom I hadn't seen play a major role before this.

Obviously, all of the elements are there, and it all comes together as well as possible. Yes, the film is geared for a very wide audience, so older and more serious viewers will find themselves rolling their eyes in a few moments. But this is such a well-told story that it's difficult for even a fairly cynical 'Merican fella like me to not appreciate its clear merits.