Zootopia (2016)

Jack loved and I liked this animated story about racism, sexism, and stereotyping in which a female rabbit (prey) befriends a male fox (predator) and joins the police force which is made up mostly of male predators in a civilization that prides itself on prey and predators living together peacefully.

We don't see a lot of animated movies--our granddaughters are still too young for features--so each year we try to pick the animated feature Oscar winner to see and this year we did! Ginnifer Goodwin (after I wrote about her in A Single Man she did a lot more TV) voices the heroine Judy Hopps and Jason Bateman (last blogged for The Family Fang) is the sly fox Nick, heading up a cast of dozens, also including Idris Elba as the police chief, J.K. Simmons as the mayor, and Jenny Slate as the assistant mayor (most recently in these pages for The Jungle Book, La La Land, and Obvious Child, respectively). This is the first feature acting credit for Colombian pop star Shakira--voice of Gazelle--who, naturally, sings on the soundtrack as well.

So many above-the-line crew! Three directors: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush, two screenwriters: Bush and Phil Johnston, and seven people credited with the story: Howard, Moore, Bush, Johnston, Jim Reardon, Josie Trinidad, and Jennifer Lee with an impressive array of credentials. Howard co-directed Tangled, Bush wrote Moana (2016) (also Oscar-nominated this year), Johnston was profiled for co-writing The Brothers Grimsby, Reardon was co-screenwriter of Wall-E, and Lee was co-director/solo screenwriter of Frozen. All of the above do voices in the movie except Reardon and Lee.

Prolific composer Michael Giacchino's (last scored Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) entire soundtrack can be streamed from this link, which begins with the Shakira track. My favorite so far is Walk and Stalk. Plus there are some songs, listed here, including a rap song which I can't find online, with vocals by Daveed Diggs, who was in the original cast of Hamilton.

We watched this on Netflix ten days ago and it's also available to rent on our cable station. If you see it, you might enjoy reading some of the many, many trivia items on imdb. Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are averaging 98 and 92% and it's sure to get a bump in receipts after its Oscar win.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

We were rooting for this spectacular documentary about writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) to win the Oscar last night. Samuel L. Jackson reads Baldwin's words--about Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and race in general--in voice-over and Baldwin is credited as screenwriter. Director Raoul Peck and his editor have assembled a creative mix of archival and other footage which kept us and a packed Saturday afternoon audience spellbound for its entire 1:35 length.

We're so used to Jackson's (last blogged for The Legend of Tarzan) humor and snark that's he's almost unrecognizable when you can't see his face. With a terrific list of songs and original music by Alexei Aigui (he's new to me but here's some of his previous work on soundcloud), the music complements the visuals perfectly.

Though the movie (the only nominated documentary we have seen so far) lost to the seven hour O.J. doc and it has only four entries on my list, it has garnered many other nominations and some wins and we highly recommend you see it. It is playing here and there around the country and its DVD release is set for May 2, 2017. Rotten Tomatoes' critics are right with us, averaging 98% and its audiences close behind at 85.

One bit of trivia you won't miss when you see it--pay attention to the apology montage. Can you guess who is the one public figure whose apology is a sorry-not-sorry?

2017 Oscar nominated shorts

I was thrilled that Sing (Mindenki in its native Hungarian language) won the Oscar for best live action short last night. Piper, which won best animated, is also my favorite. It wasn't included in its category's presentation, but I found it online and you can see it here. If I find Sing online I'll update this post because the drama is so good that all my singing friends should see it, too.

About two weeks ago we saw the live action nominated shorts presentation on a big screen (every year the shorts are released in theaters a few weeks before the Oscars and are rentable online a few days before). All five films have subtitles. Mindenki /Sing (25 min) was first. It's based on a true story about an elementary school choir, and opens with beautiful music as a girl about 9 is touring her new school. Then stuff happens. The Oscar went to director/co-writer Kristóf Deák and his co-writers Bex Harvey and Christian Azzola. Here's its official site. Silent Nights, from Denmark (30 min), is about a Ghanaian homeless man and a Danish woman. It's a drama and very good, too. Timecode, from Spain (15 min), is a hilarious story about two guards at an underground parking lot--an unlikely setting for comedy. Enemies Within (Ennemis Intérieurs in its native French, 27 min) is a powerful drama about racial profiling, and La Femme et le TGV from Switzerland (30 min) is also based on a true story about a middle-aged woman who loves to wave at the TGV train every day as it passes her window. I thought it might win the Oscar instead.

Piper (US - 5 min) is about a baby sandpiper who learns to co-exist with the sea. It's wordless, very cute, and produced by Pixar, whose pictures often win the Oscar in this category. This went to director/writer Alan Barillaro. Last Wednesday we watched the rest of the nominated animated shorts program at home after paying $12.99 to iTunes. Blind Vaysha (Vaysha L'aveugle - 8 min), a Canadian film in English, is a depressing fantasy about a little girl who can see only the future with one eye and the past with the other. Borrowed Time (7 min) is American, about a sheriff who relives a traumatic incident. Hated it, too (Jack didn't hate Borrowed Time). Next was Pearl (6 min), made in the USA, which was my favorite of this show, but I didn't love it. A homeless dad and daughter live in their car and stuff happens. It's not as depressing as it sounds. I had already seen it, and you can, too, on this link. Pear Cider and Cigarettes (35 min) hails from Canada and is a long involved story, narrated in English about a guy trying to save his friend from from addiction. It's cool, with great music, but pushed a few buttons for me. The filmmaker is selling it on his website and you can view the trailer there.

Added up together, missing Piper, the animated shorts program would have come to under an hour so it's padded with "commended" shorts. Indice 50 (7 min), from France, is a silly little fluff about a family on a beach with mosquito problems. We're pretty sure that SPF (sun protection factor) translates to indice in French. Once Upon a Line (8 min), USA , has imaginative drawing that reminds me of one of my favorite childhood book serieses, Harold and the Purple Crayon. A man leads a dull life, meets someone, and stuff happens. The Head Vanishes (10 min) is from France and Canada and our version was dubbed into English, about a woman who carries her head in her arms as she takes a train trip, while her strange companion calls her Mom. I've gone completely blank on Happy End (6 min) from the Czech Republic. It opens with a fat man driving a tractor and drinking. Sorry. Last was Asteria (5 min) from France, a comedy about human space pioneers.

We didn't see the documentary shorts. Here's the website for all the programs. You can rent them there if you want.

Neruda (2016)

This fictionalized story of a detective searching for the Nobel-Prize winning Chilean poet left us pretty cold when we saw it over three weeks ago, even with the best efforts of Gael García Bernal as the former and comedian Luis Gnecco playing it straight in the title role (after I wrote about Bernal in Rosewater he starred in 32 episodes of Mozart in the Jungle and Gnecco is new to me).

Director Pablo Larraín has two 2016 releases--this one came out before Jackie. Guillermo Calderón (also new to me) wrote the script about the real poet and his Communist activities in the 1940s. I had trouble, as I recall, following it, though I think I liked the music by composer Federico Jusid (last scored The Secret in Their Eyes).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are in opposition to us, averaging 95% to its audiences 72. There are many other movies you should see before this one, IMHO.

Julieta (2016)

Director/writer Pedro Almodóvar's latest, about a woman longing for her estranged daughter, with flashbacks to before the birth, is predictably sensuous, passionate, and saturated with color and we predictably liked it a lot. In fact, there's so much plot that that sentence does it no justice.

The two actresses in the title role, Emma Suárez as the 50-something Julieta and Adriana Ugarte in her 20s, are dynamic and, well, passionate. Both are new to me but have plenty of experience in their and Almodóvar's native Spain. Ugarte, especially in early scenes in her fabulous 80s wardrobe (designed by Sonia Grande), strongly reminded us of Sharon Stone--compare this photo to that one.

Almodóvar (last blogged for I'm So Excited) adapted this script from three short stories: Chance, Soon, and Silence, from the 2004 Alice Munro book Runaway. Apparently he considered making this an English-language movie but changed his mind and set it in Spain.

The entire moody soundtrack by Alberto Iglesias (last blogged for scoring I'm So Excited), Almodóvar's frequent collaborator, can be streamed from this link.

Though not Oscar-nominated, Julieta has a number of nominations and was chosen as one of the Top Five Foreign Films by the National Board of Review. Rotten Tomatoes' critics average 84% and its audiences 75. We saw it on the big screen three weeks ago, but fans of the fiery Almodóvar should not miss it when it comes out on DVD late next month.

Toni Erdmann (2016)

I loved this story of a practical joking father trying to reconnect with his workaholic daughter despite its excessive length (2:42). Jack liked the second half a lot, though we both agree it could have been much shorter. Director/writer Maren Ade (MAR-in AH-day) apparently said she thought cutting it would hurt its pace and, frankly, its languidness didn't bother me as much as it did Jack.

Ade also said she doesn't really consider it a comedy (I agree) though it has lots of hilarious moments and some pretty funny, intensely awkward scenes. Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek (both new to me) are quite wonderful as the leads and the supporting cast works well.

Nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar (it's a German production, with dialogue in German, Romanian, and English) and much lauded at Cannes a year ago, its American remake is already in motion with Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig to star and Ade to produce along with Wiig, Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and more (those could change, but they would be great). I predict that the remake will be more the speed of us short-attention-spanned Americans.

Speaking of the Oscars--this Sunday!--here's the running list of nominees, sorted alphabetically.

If you suffer from Motion Picture Motion Sickness (here's my complete MPMS list), sit in the back because the camera does swing wildly from time to time.

No composer is credited, though a Gabriel Grote is listed for additional music. There's nothing posted online.

Rated R for nudity and sex, this is not for kids but is much beloved by Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 93% to its audiences 80. I recommend it for those with patience. You will be rewarded.

Paterson (2016)

Jack and I really liked this dreamy, visually beautiful, lightly plotted movie about a poet/bus driver played by Adam Driver, named Paterson who works in Paterson NJ, who recites poetry in his head while driving and writing it in a notebook when he's not. Driver's (last blogged for Silence) Paterson is a taciturn, sweet fellow, with a daily routine. The movie takes place over seven days. Each morning we see the day of the week hand written on the screen, and he wakes up next to his creative wife Laura (she spends her days in all manner of artistic pursuits), played by Golshifteh Farahani (goal-SHEEF-ta; she was in Body of Lies, though I failed to mention it). The poetry is also hand written on the screen in the same fine font. I found I had to move my eyes away from the words to take in the magnificent pictures. Several times each day Paterson walks Marvin, played by an English Bulldog named Nellie, who won the Palm Dog, yes, Dog, at Cannes for her role. She made all the noises and was a very good girl. Alas, she is no longer walking the earth. Apparently the director/writer Jim Jarmusch originally wanted a Jack Russell but the trainer convinced him an English Bulldog, THIS English Bulldog, would better fit the script and Jarmusch was happy with the casting.

At the bus depot each day, Paterson listens to his dispatcher (Rizwan Manji, a funny guy, is known to me for 22 episodes of Outsourced, five of Backstrom, and two of Mom) complain about his life, and each night he chats with the bartender, played by Barry Shabaka Henley (dozens of credits including The Terminal (2004) and The Big Year). There's a cameo by Method Man of Wu Tang Clan (most recently in Keanu) as a rapper in a laundromat, and by Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman (the leading kids from Moonrise Kingdom) talking on the bus about anarchy (part of that exchange is in the trailer). Another conversation by construction workers on the bus was one Jarmusch actually overheard somewhere.

I've been a fan of Jarmusch (his last picture was Only Lovers Left Alive and this year he made an Iggy Pop documentary--watch for the Iggy reference in the bar) for years. Jarmusch wrote the poem Water Falls and all the other original poems in the movie are by Ron Padgett. The movie was inspired by the William Carlos Williams long-form poem Paterson, which is the home town of Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and more.

Cinematographer Frederick Elmes (last blogged for A Late Quartet) provides the remarkable photography, aided by The Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, in front of which the character Paterson eats lunch every day. Laura's fabulous wardrobe is attributed to Catherine George (also dressed characters in Reservation Road (2007), Choke, Life During Wartime, and Snowpiercer, among others) and her decor to production designer Mark Friedberg (The Ice Storm (1997), Runaway Bride (1999), Pollack (2000), Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Broken Flowers (2005), The Producers (2005), Across the Universe (2007), Darjeeling Limited (2007), Synecdoche, New York, State of Play, The Beaver, the mini-series Mildred Pierce, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Selma, just to name a few).

If you followed the link above to the trailer, you'll hear one track from the wonderful soundtrack. Sadly, I cannot find any other links online and I have searched doggedly. Jarmusch's musical trio Bad Rabbit has apparently been renamed SQÜRL and was credited for the music in Only Lovers Left Alive as well. I really liked all of the music in Paterson, including a song played on the jukebox in one of the scenes in the bar, and am hoping that the tracks will be released/revealed at some point. For my purposes while writing today, I opened Spotify and am listening to other tunes by SQÜRL.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics love this as we did, averaging 96%, while its audiences are a more tepid 76. No longer playing in our part of the world, the movie's showtimes in other places can be accessed on its site and its DVD release is set for April 4, 2017. We recommend it highly. After you see it, you may want to read two New Yorker articles, one only about this movie, and another, about Paterson and Neruda, about which I will write shortly.

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Jack and I had avoided this, a story of a real WWII conscientious objector who saved many lives in Okinawa without firing a gun, due to its violent content but made ourselves go yesterday because of its many nominations. Andrew Garfield, as in Silence, plays another deeply religious man whom Japanese men want to kill. His performance as Desmond Doss has him high on the list of nominations. Trivia: raised in England by his British parents, he and his father were both born in LA. Many actors in the movie are Australian with mostly believable American Southern accents, notably Hugo Weaving (most recently in The Dressmaker), wonderful as Desmond's tortured father, Rachel Griffiths (came to my attention in Muriel's Wedding (1994), then was in, among others, My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Hilary and Jackie (1998) (it's about two classical musicians, not two first ladies), 63 episodes  of Six Feet Under (2001-05), and 100 of Brothers & Sisters (2006-11)), somewhat underused as his patient mother (but the movie was too long already at 2:19--I wouldn't have minded missing a half hour of battle scenes. More on that in a moment), and Teresa Palmer (new to me) is sweet as the love interest Dorothy.

I have seen three of the four movies directed by Mel Gibson, an American raised in Australia––The Man Without a Face (1993), Braveheart (1994), and The Passion of the Christ (2004)––and, despite what we think of him as a person (feh), he's proven his talent behind the camera. More trivia: Mel's son Milo Gibson plays Lucky in his screen debut. Co-writers Robert Schenkkan (co-wrote The Quiet American (2002) and solo wrote the TV movie All the Way based on his award winning play) and Andrew Knight (new to me despite a number of credits--I did like his now-cancelled series Rake) have given the director a first act that's about half of the movie (props to the production design team headed up by Barry Robison, designer of October Sky (1999), Wedding Crashers (2005), Pitch Perfect, Million Dollar Arm, and more) and the intense war stuff in the second and third act, with Vince Vaughn's (last blogged for Delivery Man) comic timing lightening up the drill sergeant's early scenes.

When we go to a movie of this length, Jack likes to consult the app RunPee. He told me when to run out for Rogue One and I did so, without reading it myself. Turns out the poster said it's "a rehash of information delivered earlier in the movie." Time to once again quote my favorite definition of a chick flick, courtesy of Sylvia cartoonist Nicole Hollander, "...too much talking, not enough hitting." It turns out that I would rather hear the talking and skip the hitting. So for those of you with a similar bent, here are my run pee suggestions for the longest fighting parts. Do be prepared to put your hands up, as I did, to shield your delicate eyes from gore even in sections I'm not suggesting you miss. My times are approximate. At about 1:12 there's a ten minute battle sequence and another from 1:30-1:35. There was no need for me to see them. The special effects with the flamethrowers are right at the beginning (don't leave, just put your hands up) and repeated throughout these battles. Once is enough. The part of this movie that Jack missed, at the guidance of RunPee, had the men sitting and sadly talking. I made the right choice.

Rupert Gregson-Williams (covered in The Legend of Tarzan) has composed lovely music that can be streamed from this playlist.

With 35 producers, this is going on my Producers Plethora list, though it's going to be hard for anything to win the top prize, which has been at 39 for three and a half years.

Award season has brought this movie back for a second run and Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences average 86 and 94% respectively. That said, if watching this violence is going to have a lasting effect on you, don't worry about missing it entirely.

I leave you with this cartoon, about birds of prayer.

The Founder (2016)

Jack and I enjoyed the story of Ray Kroc's setting in motion the McDonald's empire, from its good acting to its wonderful set design and great picture cars, to its script that's not very flattering to the lead. Michael Keaton (last blogged for Spotlight) gives quite the tour de force, taking Kroc from his desperate days as a failing restaurant supply salesman to his determination and ruthlessness leading him to success. As the McDonald brothers who actually founded the first fast food restaurant in the country, Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch (most recently in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Jackie, respectively) play it straight and right to the point. Characters played by Laura Dern (last in Certain Women), B.J. Novak (Saving Mr. Banks), Patrick Wilson (after I wrote about him in Young Adult he was in ten episodes of Fargo, among other things), and Linda Cardellini (covered in Welcome to Me), and more, all participate along the way.

Director John Lee Hancock (profiled in Saving Mr. Banks) works here from an original screenplay by Robert D. Siegel (wrote The Wrestler and Big Fan and directed the latter), which was on the 2014 Black List of the best unproduced scripts of that year.

Production Designer Michael Corenblith (Oscar-nominated for Apollo 13 (1995) and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and nominated by his peers in the Art Directors Guild for the latter as well as Frost/Nixon, the TV movie Game Change, and Saving Mr. Banks, his resumé also includes Edtv (1999) and Dinner for Schmucks) shows us the 1950s just as we remember it (the anachronisms listed on imdb didn't bother us one bit).

Carter Burwell's (last in these pages for scoring The Family Fang) pleasant soundtrack can be streamed in its entirety from this link and you can read the list of source music songs here.

AARP's three nominations put this movie on the list of award winners and nominees. Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are averaging 82% each. We liked it. You can wait for the small screen but it's good.