Ford v. Ferrari – 8

For a welcome change, a red-blooded bromance, mavericks-against-the-establishment, Americans-vs.-Italians action drama, made memorable by the protean Christian Bale’s portrayal of race driver Ken Miles. Matt Damon is solidly good, as he always is, and the rest of the supporting cast is almost as fun to watch. My only quibble – and in such a long movie having only one is remarkable – is that the Ford VP bad guy (Leo Beebe) is wildly overdrawn; but hey, what’s wrong with setting up a villain to root against. That’s what this film provides, in spades: a chance to root.

Little Women – 7

Not having read the book, I first struggled to identify the four sisters, then I continued to struggle with Greta Gerwig’s constant cutting between “seven years earlier” and the present. Then I had to adjust to the semi-saccharine tone of the girls (with the occasional exception of nasty little sister Amy), the mother, and the neighbors all doing good and constantly playing happily together. All the jumping around certainly kept me on my toes, and Saoirse Ronan is a delight to watch. Timothee Chalamet was as beautiful as ever, although I’m wondering if by now I’ve seen too much of his beauty. And speaking of beauty, the camera shots were a little too beautiful: they distracted my attention from the actors and didn’t seem in keeping with the homespun story. As my (female) companion said, “I liked it, but I didn’t love it.”

Harriet – 5

Sorry, I know I’m supposed to feel warmhearted about Harriet Tubman’s story, but the movie left me cold. First, the characters were too, pardon the expression, black-and-white. Second, Cynthia Erivo may have looked like Tubman but was neither inspired nor inspiring enough to convince me. The two supposedly rousing speeches she gave, to abolitionists in Massachusetts and Union soldiers, were flat and left me cold. She was presented as a black Joan of Arc, but I never saw it. Third, the escapes with the runaway slaves, however grounded in historic fact, seemed wildly implausible. Harriet may have made it out on her own, through daring, luck and the kindness of strangers, but the film offered no evidence for her repeating the feat with a half-dozen others, old and young, with an armed posse and bloodhounds on their trail. Janelle Monae was excellent, but the rest of the film was bleached of subtlety or shading.

1917 – 5

Despite theoretically compressing 18 non-stop hours into a two-hour film, the pace was so slow that I kept overanalyzing  the absurd story. Yes, war is senseless, but if 1,200 lives are at stake, can’t you do better than send a total greenhorn and whomever he chooses off on a horrendously challenging rescue mission? And why do they have to crawl over corpses through no-man’s land when there is an armed caravan of Allied troops driving up the road ahead of them? And when our hero meets this caravan, why is he sent off alone on this crucial mission? And what about the planes flying overhead? Can’t they deliver a message? And why are our heroes loath to hurt the Germans when they encounter them? As other critics have noted, we bounce from obstacle to obstacle like a video game, without any effort at characterization; and this movie competes with Harriet for glossing over how the end zone is miraculously reached. Having Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch in the roles of commanding officers only accentuated the inappropriateness of entrusting our two with anything.

Honeyboy – 5

Enough already of movies about losers, fathers as bullies and situations that make you scream, just leave, for Pete’s sake. If I want to be miserable I can read the New York Times, I don’t need to spend two hours in a movie theater. The film’s structure resembled Pain and Glory, but that may be giving Shia LeBoeuf too much credit by association. It was undoubtedly cathartic for him to make a movie about his tortured childhood, but it didn’t help me any.

Laundromat – 7

This is the third “whistleblower” film I’ve seen this week. Whereas the first two – The —Report” and “Dark Water” – were unremittingly serious, Laundromat is a comedy, with Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas hamming it up as Mossack and Fonseca, name partners of the Panama City law firm recently exposed for its tax-evasion and money laundering (hence the film title) practices. Tying the narrative thread is Meryl Streep in a comic role as a small-town widow intent on finding out what happened to the insurance payout from her husband’s death. The movie presents a series of anecdotes illustrating the unsavory tactics of M&F clients – none of which, unfortunately, helped me understand what exactly M&F did. Yes, they created shell corporations in tax havens, but how did that work? What was clear, because the movie came out and said it, is that “they system” allows the rich to get richer through often-legal tax avoidance, and the meek won’t be inheriting the earth any time soon.

Dark Waters – 7

Mark Ruffalo reprises his role from Spotlight, except this time it’s just him. Although “based on a true story,” or at least a magazine article, it seemed so unlikely that a brand new partner would take on this case just because the plaintiff knew his “Grammer,” and even more impossible that he could conduct the research, discovery, motion practice and trials seemingly by himself. If there was another side to the story – as there always is  – we never got an inkling. Granted, this all simplified and heightened the drama, but the absence of subtlety and strict adherence to formula pushed the film more toward average than exceptional. Anne Hathaway was good as an unusually restrained and supportive spouse.

Queen & Slim – 6.5

More important as a sociological statement than a movie Queen & Slim was ripped from the headlines of white police abusing blacks, and the odds stacked against blacks in that situation. Daniel Kaluuya was as wonderful as he was in Get Out, and his relationship with Jodie Turner-Smith was original and charming. Their encounter with the policeman echoed the story of Sandra Bland I had just read about in Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book; and the fusillade that killed me recalled Bruce Springsteen’s song, “43 Shots.” In between, however, there were slow spots, as their picaresque flight from an unlikely “nation-wide manhunt” moved from one set scene to another. I felt as though the director was stretching to come up with subplots, or secondary messages, and none struck me as terribly successful. Still, the movie kept my attention and made me think, which makes it stand out on those terms alone.

Marriage Story Deep Dive

What was interesting about Marriage Story was the relationship between Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, two of my favorite actors.  The attraction was clear, but so was the inevitable conflict. You didn’t see one as right, the other wrong; or one good, the other bad. You saw two individuals – fortunately, talented – who each needed, or expected, something from the relationship that the other wouldn’t, or couldn’t provide. It made sense that at the end, post-divorce, they could remain friends.

What didn’t make sense was most everything else. I know there must be lawyers who take over their clients’ cases and drive them in directions they don’t want to go, and there are clients who don’t know better; but the Ray Liotta and Laura Dern lawyers were so extreme I couldn’t enjoy watching the movie.  Why didn’t either Charlie or Nicole say, Hey, this isn’t what I want, and why am I paying you so much? When Nora Fanshaw tells Nicole, “I got you a 55-44 split on child custody,” over Nicole’s desire for a 50-50 split, I smelled an ethics violation as well as a director’s need to overemphasize a point to caricature. Of course, all the other characters were pretty cardboard, and what was Wallace Shawn doing in this realistic film playing, as usual, Wallace Shawn?

One other nagging issue: while I understood Charlie’s need for control, as a theater director, I couldn’t accept his irrational need to keep his son in New York, let alone the alternate life he had to set up in LA. How did he think he could take care of a young boy with a demanding job and no relatives for backup and uncertain financial prospects; whereas Nicole, in addition to being the mother, had a mother and sister ready to help and seemingly a better job? Wasn’t this reason enough to work out a mutually acceptable settlement instead of a fight?

Hustlers – 2

No redeeming social value. Weak acting (except Julia Stiles, who appeared to drop in from a different movie), threadbare plot (no suspense or even forward momentum), endlessly repeating scenes (strip club, strip club backstage, ludicrous sexual encounters), unsympathetic characters (sex club customers and stripper-hustlers), plus gratuitous cartoon effects (the stripper who continually vomited). Jennifer Lopez has a pretty smile but can’t carry a movie, as she is asked to here. Or maybI have a blind spot for the all-girl genre flick: Support the Girls and Oceans 8 scored just as low, with Widows not much better.