Director: Morgan Neville
Stars: Joanne Rogers, Betty Aberlin, McColm Cephas Jr.

Synopsis: An exploration of the life, lessons, and legacy of iconic children’s television host, Fred Rogers.

[/info]

I am not going to say that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is “the movie we need right now”. This isn’t the only time that we could benefit from watching 90 minutes of selflessness, sincerity, caring, and love in a theater. This movie, and Fred Rogers, are worthy of adulation in any era. I do not have a tremendous fondness for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, having only seen it a handful of times, but there has always been an aura surrounding Fred Rogers (or, at least, the idea of Fred Rogers). In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, director Morgan Neville deconstructs the icon “Mister Rogers” to show the man behind the myth. Turns out, Fred is more like his on-screen persona than you would readily believe. The film won’t have the staying power of many other films you will see this year, but sometimes an experience like the one Won’t You Be My Neighbor? provides is more than enough. Oh, and there is a high likelihood you will cry.

For the uninitiated, Fred Rogers was a beloved American television personality. He was mild-mannered to an extent that you rarely see on television. His unrelentingly calm demeanor and forbearance even strike some viewers as “awkward” or “creepy” (a fact that is explored in one of the documentary’s most interesting stretches). In a world where educational television has been inundated with bright colors, loud personalities, and general sensory overload, the muted, patient, calm Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood doesn’t really have a place. That fact is, perhaps, the most interesting thesis of Won’t You Be My Neighbor: postmodern sensibilities, the need for immediate satisfaction, and a general cultural cynicism have made sincerity a pop culture commodity devoid of value, even in children’s programming. It’s easy to consider this some sort of political statement in our current situation, but I believe it extends much further than that. It is a commentary on our culture, not our government (granted, it is a very short leap to get to the political interpretation).

Beyond the principles of Rogers’ programming, we also see that he was very keen on speaking to children about important, often tragic, world events. What was so remarkable about Rogers in these instances was that he never spoke down to the children. Even when tackling issues such as the Vietnam War, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, or the Cold War, Rogers gave the children the benefit of the doubt, believing that they could comprehend and interpret these concepts on a level much higher than the one most adults would give them credit for. The reason for this, the movie shows us, may be because Fred Rogers, the man, was not nearly as assured as his on-screen persona. We don’t spend a lot of time exploring Rogers’ childhood, but we do see that he has been concerned with with his own fallibility for his entire life. There seems to have been a piece of his childhood anxiety in his creative work.

This quest to never stray from his moral path led him to a seminary when he was a young man and he became an ordained minister. However, he believed his true calling was on television. Rogers found the content on TV to be mostly abhorrent (even in the 50’s and 60’s). He was always interested in childhood education and decided to create children’s programming at a public television station in Pittsburgh. Rogers was the lifeblood of the entire program. He wrote the show, hosted the show, and voiced the many puppet characters he created for the more whimsical, abstract segments of the show.

One puppet on the program, Daniel Striped Tiger, is the closest thing to a Fred Rogers surrogate on the show. Daniel was a shy, timid creature that wanted desperately to understand the world around him. The bad things that people were capable of baffled him and he was very interested in morality and friendship. You see a special side of Rogers when he controls Daniel. Through Daniel, Fred is able to verbalize all of the things that he is afraid to say away from his TV studio. Mister Rogers had questions about the world just like everybody else and was always looking for his place in it. In his later years, he became more insecure than ever, as it seemed that children’s programming, and maybe the world as a whole, had passed him by. There is one scene where he attempts to address a TV audience following the events of September 11th and, for the first time in the entire documentary, he is speechless. In that moment, he questioned whether his attempts to teach had made even a minute impact.

=Don’t let this description put you off, though. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is, first and foremost, a celebration of Fred Rogers and his achievements. He made an incredible impact on many, Manny people’s lives. We see the man’s advocacy for civil rights, education, and child psychology. We see him embrace a crew on his show that looks much more like a biker gang than a Mister Rogers fan club (he even cracks a joke about one crew member sending him a photo of his bare butt). Fred Rogers lived up to the lessons of his show. He truly loved us the way we were. He truly wished the best for us. Forget the political climate, the world could always use more of that sentiment.

By the end of the film, many people’s popcorn will have been doused by tears and you will float to your car knowing that this there is unconditional love in this world. There is no lesson to be learned here, just a display of the best of humanity. The film has not completely stuck with me, but when I was in the theater, there is no doubt that it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Overall Grade: B+

[divider]

Hear our podcast review on Extra Film:

[divider]

Director: Paul Schrader
Writers: Paul Schrader
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Ethan Hawke, Cedric the Entertainer

Synopsis: A priest of a small congregation in upstate New York grapples with mounting despair brought on by tragedy, worldly concerns and a tormented past.

[/info]

This is the question that is being asked throughout the entirety of the newest film from legendary writer Paul Schrader, a question that makes this one of the most interesting, thought provoking films of the year. How would God feel if he found out what we did with his creation? And more importantly, how would he feel about us, as a population, doing next to nothing in order of fixing the damage that we have afflicted on this world?

First Reformed follows Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke), a man that recently turn back to the church after his marriage fell apart due to his son enlisting in the military and dying overseas in Iraq. He is the Reverend at the First Reformed Church in the small town of Snowbridge, New York, a job was given to him by Reverend Jeffers (Cedric Kyles) at Abundant Life Church, a mega church within the same town, but more on that later. After service one morning, Toller meets Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a pregnant woman who asks Toller to speak to her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger), whom seems troubled by the reality of the upcoming child. But Michael is not scared of becoming a father, he is an environmentalist and is scared to bring a child into a world that is dying due to global warming.

While this is going on, Toller is also dealing with the 250th anniversary of the church he resides over. He is dealing with the pressures from Abundant Life and Edward Balq (Michael Gaston), a business man that owns an industrial company within the town, to make sure everything goes over well with this ceremony. Balq feeds Abundant Life who feeds First Reformed, something that doesn’t go over well with Toller. And as the film plays out, both stories collide upon Toller, who we see throughout the film as someone struggling with his health, as well as his faith in the world around him.

While the films story on the surface about a man struggling within his life and beliefs is fascinating enough as it is, Schrader’s film is not singly focused on that. This film is a subtle yet bombastic battle cry to not just one man or one woman, but to all human beings on this planet. Schrader argues that when the world is gone, religious beliefs and disagreements we have about climate change won’t matter because there won’t be a world to live in. Schrader is not bashing religion in this film, on the contrary, he wants their leaders and followers to stop resisting and join the party, believe the science so solutions can be made. Schrader screenplay is a multiple layered sermon and with that, Hawke is the perfect vessel to preach Schrader’s gospel.

Hawke, whose work over the last couple years in films like Boyhood, Born to Be Blue and Before Midnight, has given new life to his career and made him one of the best actors working today. If all those roles have been appetizers leading to a main course, then this is one hell of a main course. Hawke’s performance is one of the most realistic portrayals of someone with a crisis of faith that I have ever seen put to film. Just like Robert De Niro’s cab driver in Taxi River, Hawke takes a usually innocent profession, a priest, and gives him a sense of terror and unpredictability that will define the rest of his already glowing career. All the supporting character, Seyfried, Kyles, Ettinger, Gaston and Victoria Hill play their parts beautifully but they are here to either heal or hurt or help Hawke’s Toller make his final decisions. Those decisions lead to what could be the most divisive ending for the rest of the year, and one that I have been thinking about since the moment I left the theater.

But back to Schrader, whose direction is as simple as you can find it, yet is the right move for the film. A close box frame on the screen signals that this director wants you to feel uncomfortable about what you are hearing and seeing on the screen. You aren’t going anywhere in his hands, keeping your eyes close to the screen, right where he wants them, making you focus on every word and action being said by Hawke and company. Like I said before, it a battle cry, an awakening if it were, and you need to hear what Schrader has to say. Our world is falling apart, in its first original form, and regardless of what you think about the subject of climate change, Schrader is set on making you feel something by the time the screen goes black.

It’s not often an artist is given the tools he or she needs these days to make the kind of film that challenges us in the best sorts of ways. What Paul Schrader has done is very similar to what George Miller did with Mad Max Fury Road, in that it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how long you have been out of the game, you can still innovate and take us into the next phase of true cinema.

Overall Grade: A+

[divider]

Hear our podcast review on Extra Film:

[divider]

Director: Stefano Sollima
Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Stars: Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, Isabela Moner, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine, Elijah Rodriguez

Synopsis: The drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the U.S. border. To fight the war, federal agent Matt Graver re-teams with the mercurial Alejandro.

[/info]

“No rules this time,” said the poster and later repeated by the open-toed CIA operative Matt Graver (Josh Brolin). Since that isn’t the last time it’s referenced, the rejection of principles can be classified as a motif. One of many, of course; showcases of the desert and Mexico as hell’s downtown also come often.

Thing is, the previous mission, the one in 2015, wasn’t exactly a thumper, so “again” sounds like a goof. Or is this rulebook-shredding thing has a meta touch to it, how it invalidates the “three-parter” vision of Taylor Sheridan-written’s “frontier trilogy”? Regardless, when it comes to mining more shine from Matt and also-returning hitman Alejandro (Benicio del Toro), it’s best to consider the viewers who may feel blindsided. And when the main task is to legitimize the new op, or somehow make the heart link up with the left-field workings, Sicario 2, or Soldado, or — inhale — Sicario: Day of the Soldado, responds with static.

As with Sicario, bombs detonated on U.S. soil kickstart the battle of the ongoing drug war, but this time they are wrapped around people rather than locked beneath a shed. The explosives can either be a part of the border crossers or the group who entered a grocery store. The need to dramatically overreact again arises, and so the DoD — actually has a face this time, that of Secretary of Defense James Riley (Matthew Modine) — designates Matt, and afterward he to Alejandro, to get things done. What was planned is this: kidnap Isabel Reyes (Isabela Moner, electrifying), the cosseted daughter of a cartel leader, under the guise of a rival gang so the factions tear themselves, and their businesses, apart.

Since Matt and Alejandro debuted as deliberately inscrutable badasses, having them as protagonists, or actually men on a mission, in Soldado invites awkwardness. When the mission goes wrong, as it has to, Alejandro and Matt are forced to play a game of chicken with Isabel at the center; the aesthetically wolfish sicario sees her as a victim while the person who hires him is forced to treat her as a loose end. There’s no denying that Brolin, Del Toro and especially Moner bring only premium spark to the frame, but their respective character’s reconstruction of a moral compass is toothless next to Kate Macer’s loss of it. Call her a refresher, tour guide or audience surrogate, Kate is the reason we enlist; her annoyances at the system, rebellions and, mainly, defeat mirror that of us. No such bridge exists in Soldado, and if you’re thinking Isabel is one there’s a chance you were distracted when the principal’s office scene, or her intro, plays out.

The damaging coldness also resides in Sheridan’s at-first-unrelated narrative about Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez, acute), an aspiring and taciturn trafficker. This is Soldado’s “Nogales” story with the subtext drained, giving more time of day for garish brutality rather than spiritual toll. At least director Stefano Sollima excels in this aspect, and despite a different set of eyes he showed willingness to readjust them so the film belongs in the Sicario universe — callbacks to Denis Villeneuve’s steady, near-serene style are often heard, which aid a couple of the set pieces. A move most gracious, yet not the one needed.

Much like Sheridan’s writing here, and hopefully it’ll be the only anomaly, Sollima’s coverage of Soldado scrubs many areas and always removes the psychology. There was no attempt to dive a bit deeper into the unfoldings, to see which corner they inhabit within the grander, and topical, fabric. All the elements can’t thicken themselves as a result, and among them one is (the terroristic threat) a case of gross misapplication and another (pressure from superiors) is talent-wasting stuff. Sorry Catherine Keener, yet not so to the milquetoast POTUS whom your character Cynthia disapproved of. Whereas Sicario assumes the swagger of a thinking actioner, all Soldado does is staying active to a ruinous degree. The larger it grows and the longer it paces, the more it loses its grim-but-reverential tang in the first place.

At least Dariusz Wolski’s photography and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score, along with Del Toro’s perpetually hypnotic bearing, preserve the original’s imprint (Guðnadóttir is a frequent collaborator of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson) so not all is lost. Still, they serve as a reminder that the hitman’s pre-soldiering days are of better standard.

Overall Grade: C-

[divider]

Listen to our podcast review on Episode 280!

[divider]

Director: Brett Haley
Writers: Brett Haley, Marc Basch
Stars: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane

Synopsis: A father and daughter form an unlikely songwriting duo in the summer before she leaves for college.

[/info]

Brett Haley’s Hearts Beat Loud is the movie that 2018 needed. It’s a film full of heart, laughter, joy and humanity – the exact remedy to a polarized society that finds itself drowning in anger and divisiveness. There is endless charm to Hearts Beat Loud and the experience will leave you full wanting more of these characters.

The film centers on father-daughter duo of Frank (Nick Offerman) and Sam (Kiersey Clemons) during the summer before Same leaves for college. Frank is a widower and Sam is all that he has left. So, this is his last chance to bond with her before his nest becomes empty. Since they both love music, the two of them decide to jam and work on some music together. In particular, they create a song called “Hearts Beat Loud” that garners some notoriety, and it puts some doubt in Sam as to what her next step in life will be. Additionally, Sam falls in love with Rose only complicating her dilemma.

Hearts Beat Loud has an irresistible allure, but what makes it rich is that it quintessentially avoids exposition and unnecessary details that many films tend to get trapped in. Haley and Marc Basch’s screenplay is not interested in explaining things about these characters or where they find themselves in this story. Instead, the film presents them as who they are right now, and allows for the audience to catch up and fill in the missing gaps on their own as the story progresses. As a result, we find out details such as Frank being a widower, Frank being a musician before Sam was born, Sam being the daughter of a bi-racial couple, that Sam is gay and we even find out what happened to Sam’s mom (Frank’s wife). However, those nuances are offered naturally as they would happen in conversation. In some cases they come through imagery alone. The film never relishes in these details and Haley never points a finger at them. He simply presents Frank and Sam as they are right now in their lives, and how that relates to their current emotional state.

Haley’s subtle and naturalistic approach makes Frank and Sam, and their connection in this film, that much more authentic and attainable. He trusts in the audience to participate and be smart enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together in a way that is bold and even daring given certain jumps in time. For my money, it’s some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen in 2018.

Hearts Beat Loud also thrives because of Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons, an odd paring that seems like it shouldn’t work on paper. They look nothing alike, yet on screen they could not be more palpable. They have a chemistry that is magnetic, which helps compliment Haley’s writing, and in turn it makes their father-daughter dynamic more than believable.

Offerman needs more leading roles that allow for him to flex his scruffily and rugged muscles. He’s really good here as Frank. He’s balances out his dramatic performance with well-timed humor in a way that felt incredibly seamless. Clemons is equally as great and demands the screen. The camera is in love with her and she emulates an exuberance that is a breath of fresh air. Sasha Lane is also great as Rose in this film. I didn’t love American Honey like most others seemed too, and I honestly feel like she’s better here. She reverberates a lovable charm herself that gives credence to her relationship with Sam. Ted Danson and Toni Collette also offer supporting roles that help make the film sublime. Danson is especially hysterical.

The concoction of Haley’s writing, and how he uses the camera to focus on ambiguity, and the performances in Hearts Beat Loud lead to some of the best scenes of the year. In a music store near the end, Frank and Sam are playing some of their music together and Haley captures this with astounding craftsmanship. The sequences play out like a music video in some ways, but it feels true to the moment and the relationship of Frank and Sam. What works best about the scene is how Haley lingers on the reactions of these players. During one song there’s an extended shot of Rose emoting from Sam singing to her, and Lane lights up the screen. There’s another moment where Frank reacts to Sam questioning whether she should stay home with her dad instead of going to school, and Offerman’s ability to act with his eyes is mesmerizing and poignant. The whole sequence is a delight from beginning to end.

I cannot recommend Hearts Beat Loud enough. While the screenplay lacks exposition, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have nuance. There are many layers to these characters that come about in ways that are somewhat unexpected. Their motives feel genuine and give this film a warmth that is comforting. It’s a captivating piece of cinema that fundamentally showcases why connection and bonding is important to coping with life’s hefty turns. Also – it’s just really fun. The music is great, the characters are wonderful, the story is sweet and sometimes that’s what we need to escape for two hours these days.

Overall Grade: A

[divider]

Hear our podcast review on Extra Film:

[divider]