I, Tonya

Aussie director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) never asks for the audience to suspend disbelief while watching I, Tonya. In fact, the film opens with Margot Robbie as an older, spent Tonya Harding announcing that the film is a mix of truth and lies. Each member of the stellar ensemble -- Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Paul Walter Hauser -- goes for broke in this retelling of the low-class horrors that created a world-class figure skater and then all but ruined her life. Janney, an effing scream as Tonya's witch of a mother, cusses and smacks her way through the picture, dragging on cigarillos while abusing her daughter and destroying all goodness in her path. When Tonya finally moves out and in with boyfriend Jeff Gillooly, she simply exchanges one variety of sociopath for another. It's Gillooly and his portly numbskull of a friend Shawn who came up with the idea of sabotaging "America's Darling" skater Nancy Kerrigan. How and when sabotage, which started as sending some intimidating letters to Kerrigan, became bashing her on the knee is disputed but that's the wonder of this madhouse of a picture. It's all a Crockpot of truths, half-truths, mis-rememberings and full-blown lies that the audience is welcome to believe or not. Robbie and Stan are truly inspired as the warring couple, who in the end stopped just short of killing each other.

Hostiles

In Hostiles, director Scott Cooper (Black Mass and Out of the Furnace) takes viewers on a journey across some beautiful U.S. territory to tell the story of a sad and hollow Army officer in the 1890s (Christian Bale) who rediscovers his humanity while escorting an ailing Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) and his family from a New Mexico prison post to his traditional burial grounds in Montana. Bale's Capt. Joe Blocker refuses the mission at first, bearing nothing but hatred for all Indians, but relents when his pension is threatened. He starts out with a full (and familiar) contingent of men (the clueless private, the untested West Point lieutenant, the loyal black corporal, the world-weary sergeant who is one stiff drink away from self-destruction) but are soon joined by the widowed and childless survivor of a ranch raid and slaughter (Rosamund Pike). As these stories go, Blocker's party is slowly picked off by Comanches and other hostiles along the trail, putting into question whether they will arrive at the destination. Cooper, who directs raw, brutal films about men refusing to give in to untenable circumstances, offers in Hostiles a picture that takes full advantage of the stunning vistas of New Mexico and Colorado but invests most of the movie's impact in quiet moments between these men and women, when they reveal the devastation that violent hatred has laid on them.

Mudbound

Mary J. Blige's Oscar-nominated performance as the quietly determined, fiercely sacrificial mother of a WWII tank commander (Jason Mitchell) who returns home to the Mississippi Delta is a well-modulated study of power and presence in film. Blige's character, Florence Jackson, is a supporting role but she doesn't just grace the margins of the scenes she's in, seasoning the proceedings with homespun bromides and nods. Instead, she pulls attention to her when she's present because of the weight of the burden she carries: She is caring for her family who live as tenants on a farm that seems cursed while being pulled to tend to the children of the landowners.  Rob Morgan plays her husband, Hap, a farmer who preaches on Sunday about freedom in this lifetime. He's committed to his family's safety, which means entering through back doors and obliging even the most heinous of souls if they're white. This rankles his oldest son, returned veteran Ronsel, who finds friendship and trust in his fellow veteran, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), the younger son of the farm owners. Their perilous friendship eventually leads to disaster for the men but not before helping them both to heal a bit. Mudbound, directed by Dee Rees, deals candidly but also artfully with our country's miserable past; with insatiable desperation; the horrors of race hatred; the lingering, debilitating effects of war. It's a wrenching, difficult picture that does, however, convey the message that love will bring the victory in the end ... and maybe in this lifetime.

Call Me By Your Name

Italian director Luca Guadagnino's beautifully intriguing 2015 film A Bigger Splash was saturated with sensuality, with the film's characters -- an aging rock star, her handsome new stud, her former record producer and his daughter -- often lounging about an impossibly charming villa on an Italian island, nearly naked, bumping uglies and egos, opening old wounds and creating a few fresh ones. Guadagnino's latest film, Call Me By Your Name, is just as evocative but trades the emotional explosiveness for romantic insight and tenderness. It's the early '80s and an archeology professor (how good is Michael Stuhlbarg?) and his wife (Amira Cassar) and their son (the captivatingly Raphaelite young actor Timothee Chalamet) are joined at their Italian villa by an American graduate student (a smoldering Armie Hammer) for a few weeks to help the good professor with some cataloguing and soak up the local culture. Chalamet's young Elio is charged with introducing Hammer's Oliver to the villa, the town and nearby swimming holes and in short order Elio's nascent homosexuality, heretofore suppressed by his interest in a pretty French girl (Esther Garrel), is enlivened, which excites and frightens him. Screenwriter James Ivory's elegant depiction of those first stirrings is masterful, relying on silences, glances and nuance to show young Elio's awakening, uncertainty, frustration, confusion, ardor and, as we might expect, ultimate heartbreak. But when the characters speak, their words can be as lush as the verdant countryside that surrounds them. Call Me By Your Name is a lovely picture that features a marvelous monologue, from father to son, in the last reel that is more splendid by half than it needs to be. Bravo.

Molly’s Game

Writer / director Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game is a loquacious work about former Olympic Class freestyle skier Molly Bloom (a tireless Jessica Chastain) who is introduced to the world of high-stakes poker after an injury and ends up running million-dollar operations in Los Angeles and New York before being nabbed by the feds. The story has the crackling dialogue of Sorkin’s work but a fairly static feeling due to the nature of the story -- poker games. The script is lousy with poker language but doesn’t handle the translation of insider lingo with nearly the aplomb of The Big Short (several actors from which are featured here). Sorkin tries to layer the story (based on true events) with some insights about Molly’s motivations, with most of that contained in some oddly unsatisfying scenes between Molly and her father (Kevin Costner). This is a commendable directing debut for Sorkin, and Chastain manages the enormous title role like a champ. The movie's unsung hero is Idris Elba as Bloom’s enthusiastic attorney whose scenes with her capture much of Sorkin’s talky rhythm and ethos.

Darkest Hour

British director Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour is an artful and intense treatment of Winston Churchill’s first days as England’s prime minister, as Nazi troops storm through Europe, pushing British fighters to the beaches of Dunkirk. Gary Oldman’s robust portrayal of the maligned Churchill, caught on the horns of a dilemma, is a marvel and fills nearly every frame of this elegantly composed and beautifully written film. A scene that depicts a supremely conflicted Churchill interviewing citizens in a London subway car is a distillation of the man’s indomitable spirit and, as we discover, that of the English people. It’s a stirring, thrilling moment in a movie that packs enormous dramatic power. P.S. Kristin Scott Thomas's performance as Churchill's wife, Clemmie, provides a nicely tempered theatricality to a film that does not lack for big, blustering exchanges between scowling, jowly men.

Golden Globes I

I've seen all of the Golden Globe nominated pictures except Call Me By Your Name and I, Tonya but will hazard a guess at winners in best pictures because neither of those directors was nominated. Best Picture Drama nominees are Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Last year's winner was Moonlight, a much loved and admired film about a gay man's journey of self-discovery. I get the sense that despite what reviewers describe as a sensitive and provocative narrative and outstanding performances by its two leads, Call Me By Your Name hits the same notes as Moonlight and so might be eliminated for that reason.
Dunkirk strikes me as the kind of big scale / big message / big risk picture that often receives awards for its daring. Director Christopher Nolan, who is greatly admired as an auteur, was nominated for best director. It's a large ensemble drama that experiments with point of view and time and though it featured several notable performances not one was nominated. Also it was released early in the year and may have been forgotten.
Steven Spielberg's The Post is an entertaining picture but in no way is as strong as his reputation and that of his cast would project. Meryl Streep, though quite good, did not have to stretch for this performance; it's well within her range. The same is true for Tom Hanks, who along with Streep has been nominated and whose Ben Bradlee is actually more of a supporting role to Streep's Katharine Graham. I feel their nominations were more by default than merit.
Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water is a beautiful picture with many elements Del Toro's fans have come to expect -- bold visuals, sentiment and magic. That Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins, not exactly Hollywood A-listers but outstanding character actors nonetheless, have been nominated along with Del Toro suggests the Hollywood Foreign Press sees the movie as a thoroughgoing work with committed performances in front of and behind the camera.
In 2008, the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men was denied the Best Picture and Best Director wins though the Coen's did receive the award for best screenplay. Three Billboard's, though directed by nominee ballsy British director Martin McDonagh, feels like a Coen Brothers picture because of its sardonic tone and bloodletting and, yes, Frances McDormand, a Globe nominee. Like No Country, its dark coloring and ambiguous ending might be a bit too much for voters more willing to celebrate the liberation of the spirit of a earthbound mute custodial worker who saves her life by sacrificing it. I think The Shape of Water will win.

Golden Globes II

Golden Globe's Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy is an odd assortment of films, all but one of which (I, Tonya) I've seen, so I might amend this in a few weeks. None of the directors of the films in this category was nominated.
The Disaster Artist is being singled out for the phenomenal work of its lead actor and director James Franco. The film, itself, while quite funny in spots, feels more like an extended SNL sketch than a motion picture, however, and so might be docked for underdevelopment.
Jordon Peele's highly celebrated Get Out has a sketch comedy premise, being the brain child of a sketch comedian, but a serious message, several intensely violent passages and an overall feeling of dread. The wonderful young British actor Daniel Kaluuya has become both the face of the film and, for some, of black male oppression, which the film has as its core message. While Get Out is a more assured and finely crafted picture than The Disaster Artist, it might be penalized for being tonally ambiguous.
The Greatest Showman is a dazzling musical with a truncated story about P. T. Barnum's rise and near fall as an entertainment impressario. It succeeds with a winning score and several fine musical performances (including star Hugh Jackman's) but the narrative is paper thin and the film's emotion is carried almost completely by the singing.
Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, is the most successful of the projects I've seen on this list. This story of a rebellious teenager and her disapproving mother is familiar but also remarkably fresh, made so by two terrific performances (Saorise Ronan and Laurie Metcalf). I suspect I, Tonya's mother / daughter pairing of Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, both of whom are nominated, might be Lady Bird's strongest competition in this category. Again, I might make a different call after seeing Tonya.

The Greatest Showman

A-list movie and Broadway composers Pasek and Paul's score for The Greatest Showman, much like last year's celebrated La La Land, is the true star of this fairly conventional story about the rise and near fall of Phineas T. Barnum, of circus fame. The book that ties the dozen or so synth pop songs casts Barnum (a terrific Hugh Jackman) as a champion of society's outcasts (led by Zendaya as a black aerialist and Keala Settle as the bearded lady), at first more as a means to turn a buck but later to challenge high society conventions. Because of this, the show's strongest and most thrilling numbers are the anthemic ensemble pieces, most notably "Come Alive" and "This is Me," which will undoubtedly be adopted as anthems for LGBTQ or other marginalized communities. First-time director Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman is a dazzling picture in the mold of contemporary Hollywood musicals that will find its largest audience with dreamy-eyed pre-teens from Columbia to Calcutta.

Downsizing

Alexander Payne’s cautionary tale Downsizing shares much with Payne’s better earlier films — Election, Sideways, About Schmidt — which are stories of aging men having varying degrees of success contending with “life” — which is to say “other people.” Downsizing initially makes human extinction the matter at hand but craftily turns the sci-fi narrative about human miniaturization something much more immediate and intimate. It is, perhaps, the film’s subtlety that will leave some viewers perplexed. My advice would be to follow Matt Damon’s Paul through all of his large and small crises of identity and conscience because it is there you’ll find Payne’s very human and relatable message. The wonderful Asian actress Hong Chau is a delightful surprise.

The Shape of Water

Guillermo del Toro's films are always memorable, unique cinematic visions. Crimson Peak, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and Pacific Rim were all extravagant and beautiful, in their way, often filled with unsettling images and certainly not the rosiest of outlooks. Del Toro's take on Beauty and the Beast, The Shape of Water, uses a smaller, more intimate canvas than those films to tell the story of a mute custodial worker (Sally Hawkins) in the late '50s who falls for an amphibious ... man-creature (Doug Jones) that was captured in the Brazilian jungle and confined to a military installation to be studied for possible weaponization. She plots a daring rescue with the help of friends and, for a time, has an affair with the creature. This fantastic story is, of course, not actually a fairy tale romance at all but an indictment of our frightful incapacity to care for others. The ubiquitous Octavia Spencer, Richard Jenkins, Michael Shannon and Michael Stuhlbarg offer their usual fine support but, for me, the exquisite art direction and lovely, balletic scenes between Hawkins and Jones elevate the film from superior motion picture to art.

All the Money in the World

Ridley Scott’s fact-based morality tale about the spoiling effects of great riches is uneven and occasionally preachy but sustained by the performances of both Michelle Williams as Abigail Getty and Christopher Plummer as her father-in-law, monster mogul J. Paul Getty, who at the time of the story was the richest man in the world. The two square off after her son J. Paul III (a wan and effete Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped in Rome by Italian opportunists or anti-capitalists, depending on whose version of events you’re citing. The senior Getty — as sour a character as I’ve seen — is not interested in paying ransom though he claims to love his grandson. He enlists the assistance of fixer Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to negotiate a deal and neutralize the boy’s mother, who Getty considers too eager to spend his money. Little goes as planned, culminating in the boy’s transferral to even more brutal handlers and his eventual mutilation. The film’s dynamic pull is in Getty Senior’s chilly remove from these events and Mrs. Getty’s brittle panic as a mother who loves her children but is estranged from a family into which she married but has found unsuited for much else than accumulating wealth.

Godless

My final assessment of Godless is its effect is greater than its parts, which are uneven and too often rely on obvious tropes. I liked the questions it raised about kinship, survival, faith and madness — any one of which might have carried the series. But add to that gender roles, race, predatory capitalism and fake news and you have quite a stew.


Though I really liked the way the characters talked, the series did not serve its audience well by not translating the German and Paiute. It seemed lazy.

I was saddened more than ticked off by the side story of the Buffalo Soldiers. Their fateful encounter with Griffin and his marauders felt more like a device than anything. It was truly puzzling why the show's creators handled their story so peripherally. The “barely there” love story between the white deputy and the mulatto daughter of a Buffalo Soldier was clunky and peculiar. Why was she biracial when every other member of her family was dark-skinned. And why was the mixed white/Paiute boy so clearly full-blooded native? Setting aside these matters I do embrace Godless’ message of determination and sacrifice.

Dark

The coolness of Dark is not just in its Germanic dreariness but in the story’s deliberate time-bending trippiness that feels more sophisticated than much of what I’ve seen on American television and avoids being as manifestly geeked out as Dr. Who. At its core, Dark is the story of disintegrating kinships in a small town that is also home to a nuclear plant. Children are disappearing, just as they had 30 years prior, and sadness and madness have taken residence in the remaining spaces. This fairly miserable storyline is given greater spark by the mysterious cave just outside of town that yawns and growls and transports unwitting townspeople into the past and future and generally menaces and confounds. Like I say, cool stuff.

She’s Gotta Have It (series)

 Spike Lee has jacked up the empowerment edge for the Netflix version of his 1986 film She's Gotta Have It (his second full-length feature). DeWanda Wise is the eponymous "she", Nola Darling, an artist living la vida loca in Brooklyn, untethered and sexually liberated, juggling three amorous suitors (Anthony Ramos, Lyriq Bent and Cleo Anthony) and a host of Mc-jobs while trying to launch her career as a painter. While Lee's film was mostly about Nola's right to be as casual about intercourse as any man, the series appears to be carrying layers of pro-black and pro-woman messaging for these violent and uncertain times and a soundtrack of soul and R & B that will send many of the program's older viewers hunting for that '90s slow drag mix tape they listened to in college.

Lady Bird and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri are both rich character studies about unlikable people behaving badly for good reasons. Writer and director Gerwig, who starred so affectingly in 2015's Maggie's Plan, pours an abundance of wit and wisdom into her story of dyspeptic 17-year-old Catholic schoolgirl Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) who aches for more than her hypercritical mother (Laurie Metcalf) and kind but overwhelmed father (Tracy Letts) can give her. To assume that Lady Bird's unhappiness stems from parental dynamics, religious strictures or the "Midwesterly" sameness of Sacramento might be to overlook the more obvious answer -- Lady Bird is young, enormously self-involved, talented but under-motivated and cursed with bad judgment. In short, she's a teenager but rarely has the angst of those years been captured so vividly. To me, this is less about coming of age milestones (first crush, first sexual experience, getting the driver's license, prom) than it is about more nuanced experiences -- learning one's true value and that of other people.

British writer / director Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards is a bloody uncompromising tale of grief and recompense. The dynamic Frances McDormand stars as Mildred Hayes, a local shopkeeper whose daughter was raped and murdered by unknown parties months before we meet her. Anger and frustration lead Mildred to rent the billboards of the title and post messages to local law enforcement (and the world) that she's not happy. Named on the billboard is the chief of police of Ebbing (played by Woody Harrelson) who tries to reason with Mildred while keeping tabs on a loose-cannon police officer (Sam Rockwell) who has a reputation for brutalizing townspeople, especially blacks. Aside from these three superb performances, the film's narrative intricacy (the law of unintended consequences is almost a character in the film) is what makes the story so compelling. Both films feature a fine performance by the young actor Lucas Hedges, whose role as Patrick in last year's Manchester by the Sea won him an Oscar nomination.

The Post

Steven Spielberg’s The Post has its moments of intrigue (delivered primarily by Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham) but is, in the end, a pretty prosaic treatment of the 1971 Pentagon Papers case and the birth of the animus between The Post and the Nixon administration. The Post and the New York Times were co-defendants pitted against the Defense Department, which claimed the papers exposed the nation to enemy threat by reporting on U.S. military operations in Vietnam, operations that were mischaracterized and misrepresented by senior officials. Tom Hanks delivers a solidly controlled performance as Post editor Ben Bradlee, who along with Graham would usher the formerly cuddly paper into an era of aggressive watchdogging that culminated with the Watergate investigation. What makes the film really compelling — beyond these heavy matters — is watching the evolution of Graham from society doyenne into a principled newspaper woman who dared to believe in a free and unencumbered press.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok will (re)introduce fanboy-metal heads to Led Zeppelin's screeching opus Immigrant Song (1970) in a new but not necessarily unrelated context. Kiwi director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) takes the sword 'n' sandal aesthetic that's always been part of Thor's Marvel mythology (and Zeppelin's more fantastical compositions) and blended it with time and space travel, netherworld apocalypse and sibling rivalry -- all to a headbanger score and a laugh track.... (More on that in a minute) In this film, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is reunited with two of his favorite sparring partners -- Tom Hiddleston's Loki (Thor's adopted brother and eternal foil) and Mark Ruffalo's Hulk on a planet that stages gladiatorial contests between prisoners. The meetings, like much of this film, are played for laughs -- and the broader the better. Jeff Goldblum, a veteran actor with Swiss watch comedic timing, is a scream as the Grandmaster of the games. The villain(ess) for this edition is a scene-chewing Cate Blanchett as Hela, sister to Thor and Loki and goddess of death, a title she takes most seriously. The siblings reunion is brought about by the passing of Asgardian king Odin (Anthony Hopkins), who had imprisoned Hela for showing too much gusto in her work. Now she's back and ready to claim what's hers, i.e., all life in all realms of existence. Joining Thor, Loki and Hulk is a besotted Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who adds a fresh level of spice to the heroic concoction. Much has been written about the comic tone of this film, and it's undeniable, but I think film promoters and early reviewers may have primed the pump a bit much. Most of the laughs are honestly earned, a good many are forced and there are a few that, to me, were too shticky for the proceedings. Still, audience members at the screening I attended were laughing from credits to credits. Fans will love Thor: Ragnarok and it will make everyone involved with it even richer than they already are.

American Made

Director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) is a master of finding the humor in even the most dire situations. When he teamed with the eternally affable Tom Cruise for the sci-fi "Groundhog Day" feature Edge of Tomorrow, the result was a major scre. Liman's American Made adds to that mix the nearly unbelievable story from the '70s and '80s of hot shot commercial pilot Barry Seal, who is hired away from TWA by the CIA (Domhnall Gleeson) to conduct secret airborne surveillance o...f rebels south of the border. He is later coerced by the Colombian Medellin drug cartel to smuggle cocaine into the U.S., and then blackmailed by the CIA to transport rebel fighters to the U.S. for training and then, later, to smuggle arms to Contras in Nicaragua. The backdrop, of course, is the American-backed, Latin America-based "anti-communist" crusade of the Reagan era that evolved into the Iran-Contra conspiracy. By that time, Seal had already amassed millions of dollars in cash, while building a family with his lovely and fertile wife Lucy (Sarah Wright) in a small Arkansas town known for nothing before the Seals moved in, bringing a smuggling operation and mountains of money with them. It's a tale well told and Cruise is as breezy and winning as ever.

Marshall

In "Marshall," television director Reginald Hudlin (known to many black-film audiences as the director of House Party and Boomerang) delivers an entertaining though at times frustrating bio pic on the Civil Rights lawyer and later Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a film that will be a welcome palliative in these "take-a-knee" times. South Carolina's own Chadwick Boseman plays Marshall with a bluster not often seen in portrayals of African American historical figures. ...It's a refreshing take but in some scenes gives the great man a brutishness that belies the delicate work he was engaged in as the NAACP's only attorney in the 1940s. I suspect that for some, Marshall, the man, will come across as pretty unlikable. In his dealings with Jewish attorney Sam Friedman (a terrific Josh Gad), Marshall is portrayed bullying the diffident Friedman into being co-counsel for a black man in Bridgeport, Connecticut, (another great performance by Sterling K. Brown), accused of raping his white employer (Kate Hudson) and tossing her into a reservoir. Marshall and the NAACP (represented by Roger Guenveur Smith as Walter White) needs to win the case to demonstrate to donors the organization is still vital. Though the film is about the trial, of which I was not familiar, it is mostly about the dynamic between Marshall and Friedman, who would go on to become an important civil rights attorney in his own right. True to Hollywood tropes, racist whites are portrayed as menacing specters that emerge out of the mist to terrorize. This characterization, of course, plays well for motion pictures but ignores the true perniciousness of systemic racism and turns it into simple villainy.

Brawl in Cell Block 99

That S. Craig Zahler's Brawl in Cell Block 99 ended up in a cineplex with little fanfare belies its grindhouse sensibilities -- there is nothing subtle or understated about the film. This story of a decent bad man who takes a wrong turn while trying to do better by his wife is as artful as a crowbar but its bluntness is what makes it so entertaining. Vince Vaughn plays Bradley Thomas, a stoic bruiser-bagman who winds up on the wrong side of a botched drug deal and is sentence...d to prison. His humorless partner in the deal (Dion Mucciacito) wants restitution and kidnaps Bradley's pregnant wife (Jennifer Carpenter) to get him to do a favor behind the wall. It's a given the favor is wetwork but Bradley will do what he must -- facedown the sadistic warden (Don Johnson), snap bones, pummel and mutilate. Vaughn as the Bradley beast is fun to watch but the brawling might be excruciating for some.

Brad's Status

Mike White writes keenly observed film stories about people struggling with those small but indelible moments in life when they feel emotionally exposed (Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, Year of the Dog). White's latest, Brad's Status, which he also directed, stars Ben Stiller as Brad, the neurotic father of a high school senior (Austin Abrams) on a college visit weekend to Cambridge so son can interview at Harvard and Tufts, Dad's alma mater. Brad's neurosis, which is deeply ...rooted in an entitlement that he's blind to, leads him to question the rightness of nearly every person, thing or event in his life. His insufferableness, which is mostly interior throughout the film, does boil over on occasion, leading to some wonderfully uncomfortable exchanges. Brad is by most measures a successful man, living in Sacramento with his dutiful wife (Jenna Fischer) and his son, a talented musician whose emotional makeup bears little resemblance to his flinty and judgmental father. Brief encounters with Brad's estranged posse of college buddies (all of whom are wealthy and living the life) leads Brad to some realizations but not those the audience might hope. Stiller's performance as this insecure and selfish man is one of the best I've seen this year.

Blade Runner 2049

Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario) is an undisputed visionary whose best pictures feature stunning camerawork and breathtaking tableaux in service of complex narratives that never lose sight of the human element. Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 is a near-epic sequel to Ridley Scott's masterpiece from 1982 that is as thoroughgoing an exposition on humanness as I've seen in a while. It stars Ryan Gosling as an LAPD detective in 2049 who, like Harrison Ford's character 30 years earlier, is commissioned to track down replicants (artificial humans) originally created to slave for real humans but now deemed defective and when found are to be destroyed. Gosling's "K" is himself a replicant, an obedient model, who answers to a severe police lieutenant he calls "Madam" (Robin Wright) and lives alone in a teeming and desolate post-apocalyptic La La Land with a holographic companion named Joi (Ana de Armas). While "deactivating" a rogue replicant (Dave Bautista) on a remote farm, K discovers bones buried beneath a tree and this discovery opens the door to a trail that leads to replicant manufacturer Wallace (Jared Leto), his deadly enforcer Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) and eventually Ford's Deckard. Villeneuve uses 35 years of cinematic advancement to expand Scott's original vision and explore with greater effectiveness, IMO, central questions about truth and authenticity, human connectivity and memory. Blade Runner 2049 is both visually and intellectually arresting but it might be too long and deliberately paced for some tastes. Highly Recommended.

Mother!

The degree to which viewers will be horrified by Darren Aronofsky's boffo, bloody cringefest fable, Mother!, will correspond directly to how much the viewer fears uncertainty and losing control -- which is to say a pretty good number of us. Few will be able to resist sympathizing with the befuddled and manic "Mother" of the title (Jennifer Lawrence), though her pregnancy isn't introduced until the second act. Before that, she's just manic and frustrated because her poet husband (Javier Bardem) is blocked -- both on paper and, apparently, in bed. One afternoon, a mysterious man (Ed Harris) and his fantastically inappropriate wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) show up at the couple's spacious Victorian-era country home that she's restoring herself, bringing with them all manner of horrors. Again, depending on your level of OCD, you will either find Man and Woman (as they're called in Aronofsky's screenplay) a nightmare or just weird. But shortly after them come their feuding sons (real-life brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson) whose bloody battle ends the first act. The film's second half is what some critics are extolling as visionary filmmaking and, to me, it is indeed extraordinary. The mother's descent into hell (actual or psychological) is chaotic and unnerving and mesmerizing and provokes all manner of conjecture about the meaning of her miserable trip. For one, I think Mother! is another of Aronofsky's musings on love and obsession and how easily they are mistaken for each other. But interpretations will surely vary from person to person. Highly recommended.

It

The Stephen King I've enjoyed most showcases the horrors we do to one another rather than the horrors of the undead -- though those are duly represented. In Andy Muschietti's It, a rag-tag band of pre-pubescent outcasts must contend with their hellish homelives while running from Bill Skarsgard's toothy and voracious sewer rat clown, Pennywise. As the manifestation of many a moppet's nightmares, Pennywise is a fine fiend who finds the group of youngsters, led by the fairly intrepid but mopey Bill (Jaden Lieberher) and the mouthy and vulgar Richie (Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard), in the last reel, formidable foes -- made so by the coldness, abuse, neglect and manipulation they've suffered at the hands of their parents and schoolhouse bullies. And that's really what this delightfully twisted scarefest is about -- facing your fears and kicking their asses. It's not child's play. Recommended.