FilM

A bit forced

In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we get our older Luke and Leia movie. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher get to do what Harrison Ford did in The Force Awakens by spending a little more time—in the case of Hamill, a lot more time—in their iconic roles.

Both stars shine in their frankly incredible opportunity to play in the Star Wars sandbox 40 years after the original’s release. When this film focuses on the saga of Luke and Rey, it is nothing short of epic. When the camera is fixed on the late Carrie Fisher, who gets more quality screen time than her glorified cameo in Force Awakens, it’s heartwarming and, yes, sad. The Leia stuff gets a little kooky at times, but I’m trying to make this a spoiler-free zone.

When writer-director Rian Johnson takes the action to the characters of Poe (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and a new character named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the film falters. Poe, so engaging in Force Awakens, seems underdeveloped here. While the Resistance fights an oddly prolonged and bizarre space battle against the First Order, Poe just whines a lot—to the point where you are actually happy when Leia smacks him across his head.

The film picks up where The Force Awakens left off, with Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke in a staredown. Rey is looking for tutelage, but Luke is in full hermit mode, wants nothing to do with that Jedi stuff anymore, and desires to be left alone with his alien milk. While on the island, Rey starts having some sort of psychic Force conversations with Kylo Ren a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver). Will Luke train Rey? Will Rey find out who her parents are? Will Adam Driver do obligatory partial nudity in this film? I’m not telling.

What I will tell you is that there’s too much going on in The Last Jedi, and a lot of it feels like filler. Besides the aforementioned, stalledout space battle, there’s a clunky sequence in a casino that goes on far too long, a lot of distracting cameos, and new characters inhabited by Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro, who bring close to nothing to the proceedings.

Am I overthinking this? Yeah, of course I am, but I’m a dude who has spent the last 40 years worshipping Star Wars. Anything you put up on the screen within a Star Wars production is going to have the likes of me—admittedly, somewhat of a loser—taking that shit apart. I’m saying some of this movie seems a little half baked, and also overstuffed. If there’s any kind of movie I want to be over two and a half hours long, it’s a Star Wars movie. But, at that length, it needs to be a really good Star Wars movie, not a so-so one. The Last Jedi is so-so.

I’m of two worlds when it comes to The Last Jedi. It’s part Best Star Wars Ever (Luke, Leia, Rey, Ben Solo) and part Worst Star Wars Ever (Poe, Finn, the girl with the flip hair, and just about any time Domhnall Gleeson speaks). I’m recommending it for the Luke and Leia goodness, Daisy Ridley’s continued greatness as Rey, and inspired moments of fun and humor. But, man oh man, it goes into “Jar Jar bad” territory a little too often for my tastes.

Johnson has been given his own, new Star Wars trilogy to work on, a saga supposedly away from the Skywalkers. I’m hoping the guy gives us something a little more balanced in the future. He’s made great movies (Brick, Looper) and crap movies (The Brothers Bloom) in the past. The Last Jedi falls somewhere in between.

So, as Yoda would say, “A great Star Wars this is not. Like it just fine, I did, but there is a tremor of over indulgence in the Force. Be mindful of this for future times in edit bay, you must.”

One final note—Porgs are awesome. Ω

Not sure if it’s The Last Jedi or The Fate of the Furious, but it’s a good eighth movie either way.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi 12345

4The Disaster Artist James Franco does Tommy Wiseau, director of The Room—the greatest bad film ever—a cinematic honor with this movie in much the same way Tim Burton glorified shlockmeister Ed Wood over 20 years ago. Franco directs and stars as Tommy, complete with the awesome, long, vampire-black hair and chipmunk cheeks. He also nails the Wiseau mystery accent. For the first time in a movie, Franco costars with brother Dave, who gets one of his best roles yet as the also legendarily bad Greg Sestero, friend to Tommy and costar in The Room. The film starts in San Francisco, with Greg struggling to remember lines in a savagely bad acting class attempt at Waiting for Godot. Strange classmate Tommy lumbers onto the stage to butcher a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire, and a friendship is born. The two agree to work on scenes together, bond in their lousiness and, thanks to Wiseau’s strange and unexplained apparent wealth, move to Los Angeles to fulfill their dreams to become actors. After a stretch of unsuccessful auditions, the pair decide to make their own movie, and this is where the film really takes off. Fans of The Room will rejoice in hilarious recreations of such iconic moments as “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” and “Oh, hi Mark!” The Disaster Artist—which is actually based on the book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever—is heartwarming for multiple reasons. It’s fun to see a misfit make it, even though it’s in a roundabout sort of way, and it’s fun to see that accomplishment depicted by the Franco brothers. May this be the first of many future collaborations.

5Lady Bird Greta Gerwig makes her solo directorial debut with a semi-autobiographical look at her life growing up in Sacramento, California and she immediately establishes herself as a directing force to be reckoned with. Saoirise Ronan, who should’ve won an Oscar for Brooklyn, will likely get another chance for her turn as Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, a Sacramento youth with an artistic yearning for the East Coast and some distance between her and her domineering mom (Laurie Metcalf). This is a coming-of-age story like no other thanks to the insightful writing and brisk directorial style of Gerwig, who makes Lady Bird’s story a consistently surprising one. Ronan’s Lady Bird is a rebel with a good heart, a theater geek who stinks at math, and an emotional rollercoaster. She also gets a lot of laughs, especially in her showdowns with Metcalf, who has never been better. Lucas Hedges, on a roll after Manchester By the Sea and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, is funny and sad as one of Lady Bird’s young love interests, while Odeya Rush is golden as Lady Bird’s best friend, Jenna. Tracy Letts is perfect as the nice dad dealing with warring factions in the household, while Timothy Chalamet (currently racking up awards for Call Me By Your Name) gets perhaps the biggest laughs as aloof other love interest, Kyle. This one is a triumph for Ronan and Gerwig, and, while it would never happen, I’d love to see a sequel about Lady Bird’s college years.

3The Man Who Invented Christmas In 1843, when Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, folks were just getting into that thing we call the holidays, with stuff like Christmas trees and gift giving. Dickens’s novel about a miserable miser named Ebenezer Scrooge, who transforms from an evil, greedy monster to a kind philanthropist throughout its five chapters, helped take the celebration of Christmas to a new level of tradition. The boldly titled The Man Who Invented Christmas spins an entertaining and clever take on how and why Dickens got the idea for the story that would change the world. Coming off a couple of flops after the success of his Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) is doing clumsy book tours to pay the bills. Desperate for a “hit,” he gets an idea for a Christmas book, one in which a greedy man is haunted by ghosts of the past, present and future. The story is meant to be a cautionary yarn about the evils of selfishness, and perhaps less about the joys of Christmas and redemption. As Dickens gets further into his book—and his own psyche—the theme changes to one of hope, and his classic is born. Director Bharat Nalluri, working from a screenplay by Susan Coyne, based on the book by Les Standiford, gets the unique opportunity to tell the making of A Christmas Carol while, in some ways, making yet another version of the famed story itself. The film features Dickens conferring with the fictional characters in his story as he creates them, so we get an Ebenezer Scrooge, this time played by the great Christopher Plummer. Of course, he winds up being perfect for the role.

5Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri This marks the third film—and the third masterpiece—for writer-director Martin McDonagh. It also marks another astonishing film achievement for Frances McDormand, who will bore into your chest cavity and do all kinds of crazy shit to your heart as Mildred, a justifiably pissed off mother who has a few issues with the cops in her town. It’s been five years since Mildred’s young daughter was raped and killed by unknown murderers, who finished their awful deed by burning her body. Mildred, who isn’t even close to getting over the tragedy, spies some old, dilapidated billboards on the way home and gets an idea. One meeting with a sloppy advertising agent (Caleb Landry Jones) later, and some guys are commissioned to put some alarmingly provocative signs up on those billboards. Woody Harrelson is first rate as the man being called out in those billboards for not finding the killers. Harrelson’s 2017 has been astoundingly good. Sam Rockwell gets the high-profile acting showcase he deserves as racist deputy Dixon. Rockwell’s Dixon, the town drunk and racist homophobe who has a thing for throwing people out of windows, undergoes a transformation that is a kind of movie miracle. McDonagh knows how to write a script that keeps you in it for every line. While the film is somewhat a murder mystery, the solving of the crime takes a back seat to watching these folks play off each other. There are scenes in this movie that will knock you on the floor. The whole cast is incredible; McDormand and Rockwell will both destroy you.

4Thor: Ragnarok Somebody was smoking some laced wild shit and licking frogs when they put together Thor: Ragnarok, a film so nutty it easily surpasses the Guardians of the Galaxy films as the screwiest offering in the Marvel universe. When you hand the keys to the Thor franchise over to a director like Taika Waititi, you know you are going to get something bizarre. Waititi is the New Zealand comic actor/ director responsible for the hilarious vampire faux documentary What We Do in the Shadows and the funny family drama Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Borrowing from a host of Marvel comics, including the famed “Planet Hulk” storyline, the hallucinogenic plot drops Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a crazy garbage planet bent on round-the-clock, violent entertainment and led by Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, finally getting a high-profile role worthy of him outside of a Wes Anderson film). The Grandmaster cuts Thor’s hair, dresses him in gladiator gear, and throws him into the ring for a weaponized bout with his prized competitor. That prized competitor is the Hulk, held captive on the planet for the past couple of years. He’s been nothing but the Hulk the whole time, with Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) trapped inside him. Thor and Hulk have a battle royale for the ages, followed by some great scenes where the Hulk actually speaks. There’s a whole other apocalyptic subplot going on, where Thor’s long-lost sister Hela (a striking and devilish Cate Blanchett decked out in black) is causing major havoc on his home planet of Asgard. Blanchett immediately sets herself high in the ranking of Marvel movie villains. She’s played a baddie before, but never this entertainingly.