ENCANTO

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Music: B
Animation: B+

Encanto is Spanish for Charm, and when it comes to this movie . . . it has its moments. It’s hardly a complete waste of time, but, when it comes to a magic house containing a family of people who nearly all possess a magical gift, I expect the experience to be a little more . . . well, magical.

I don’t quite know how to put my finger on it, except to say that Encanto is adequately entertaining, which leaves it below the standards of your average Disney Animation feature. Granted, even with their own slight falterings over the past decade or so, Pixar is a far more reliably great source for feature animation, but Walt Disney Animation Studios has more than proved its own capability, from Bolt (2008) to Zootopia (2016)—even Frozen (2013) is quite good, if you can get past how wildly overrated it is. Listen to me, over here harping on kids whose obsessions have made a movie “overrated.”

I suppose that brings us to a possibly crucial distinction with Encanto. Will kids like it? I don’t have a clue, although I would bet money it won’t hit a zeitgeisty nerve the way Frozen did. I can only speak from my jaded adult perspective, which isn’t even as jaded as I can try making it out to be; I am powerless to the charms of animated features, when their charms are effective.

I do find myself wondering how Encanto will play in Colombia, the nation in which the film is set, with most of its voice talent either Colombian or of Colombian descent. This of course elicits immediate comparisons to the stellar 2017 Pixar film Coco, with its Mexican setting, cast and themes. Bestowing such homage to any other country and culture, provided it is done with sincerity and sensitivity (and ethnically appropriate casting), would be wonderful. I rather wish Colombia had gotten the same treatment, but this pales a bit in comparison. But what do I know? I’m just a white guy who has never been any closer to Colombia than Texas. Clearly, though, the power of representation cannot be overstated, and yet it’s not difficult to find mixed reviews or debates among Colombian people.

For me, Encanto just didn’t reach me the way I wanted it to. There was something inaccessible about it, perhaps partly because of the original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of mostly Puerto Rican and not Colombian descent. He’s also very much an American, and although the songs here have certain flair that reference Latin styles, it hews far closer to Broadway tunes. They are very competently written songs, but nothing within the realm of unforgettable or classic music. (The music of Coco came across as far more specific to the culture being represented.) As a result, much of Encanto comes across as a by-the-numbers musical.

It’s quite pretty, at least; there is no question the animation is the best thing about it, with its tropical landscapes and floral tableaus. The protagonist is Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), the only person in her extended family who was never granted a magical gift. She has a mother who can heal people with her cooking; a sister who can make roses bloom at her touch; a cousin who is so strong there is nothing she can’t pick up; another cousin who can shape shift; another who can communicate with animals. A reclusive uncle, Bruno (John Leguizamo, by far the most famous voice in the cast), can see quasi-abstract visions of the future. Mirabel is the only one in the family really seen talking to the house itself, which communicates right back, but apparently this doesn’t qualify as a “gift.”

All of this makes for a lot of fun and often amusing antics, but it also serves to convolute the plot, which never quite finds true clarity. Sure, it’s a little boneheaded to demand that a cartoon make logical sense, but having a fully coherent narrative structure isn’t too much to ask. This movie’s team of three directors and eight writers seem to have thrown all their ideas at a wall and just run with anything that did not immediately slip away. Unfortunately, this movie’s story immediately slipped away from my memory as soon as I left the theater.

Encanto is fine, but its disappointment lies in how much better it could have been, instead of something the skates a little close to rote. All films are a collaborative effort, but none more than an animated feature, and the animators go a long way to making this movie watchable—although, alas, I can’t say it commands viewing in the theater. This would have done just as well as a streaming release, or maybe even better. The filmmakers do well in their casting of Latin voices, and showcasing Colombian culture and history, however superficially. It occurred to me that this is an animated feature film without a single non-Latino white character in it, and the characters onscreen run the gamut of skin tones, from quite pale to Black. These are very much good things, and hopefully a step toward such diversity of representation more often. Here’s hoping the next one to come along has that spark of narrative magic not yet reached.

At least it’s pretty.

Overall: B-

JULIA

Directing: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I don’t know why I keep watching documentaries about chefs this year. I’m nothing close to a chef, nor do I particularly have any interest in chefs, or cooking shows—watching people cook onscreen bores me. It’s like, who cares? A lot of people, obviously, or else there would not be countless cooking shows in production for decades now. I’m just not one of them. But, I do love a compelling feature film, regardless of the genre or the subject.

And, the year 2021 seems to have a thing for documentary features about celebrity chefs: Wolfgang, about Wolfgang Puck, has been streaming on Disney+ since June 25; Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain was released theatrically July 16 and is currently available on VOD for about six bucks. And to be certain, Julia will be available either streaming or VOD in a matter of weeks, which seems to be the new standard these days—so, do you need to see it in a theater? Only if you want to support your local theater chain, but otherwise, not particularly. It’s an engaging enough film, but it won’t be any less so on your TV or computer screen.

I will say this: Julia Child’s story is surprisingly romantic, particularly the period where she fell in love with her husband, Paul Child, while enlisted during World War II. Julia Child was fictionalized onscreen in the fun feature film Julie & Julia in 2009; it’s a bit surprising she hasn’t been immortalized in any other narrative feature. That film only features her as a character, played fantastically by Meryl Streep, in half of it, as it switches between her far more compelling storyline and that of a contemporary woman played by Amy Adams. The world needs a full narrative feature just about Julie Child. There could easily be multiple; I’d love a movie just about her and Paul’s World War II courtship.

Of course, a great many things made Julia Child a distinctive, groundbreaking and historic personality. All these other celebrity chefs who have gotten their own documentary treatment, arguably owe their existence in the pop culture lexicon to Julia Child, who started her local PBS cooking show The French Chef in 1963. Having been born in 1912, Child was already 51 when that show debuted, and her fame and success as we know it only followed thereafter; she kept working on into her early nineties, passing away in 2004.

She started her cooking show career in her fifties and still managed to stretch that career over 51 years. Co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West do a good job of presenting the many sides of Child, her blind sides and prejudices, and how she grew and changed and opened her mind over time. Child was clearly a complex woman, a person who never self-identified as a feminist but wound up adamantly pro-choice and would commonly ask during tours of restaurant kitchens where all the women were.

This is what made Julia work for me: although it features a plethora of shots featuring her cooking, it isn’t about the cooking itself as much as it is about her, how she came to prominence in a male-dominated industry—and, of course, how she influenced a cultural change in American attitudes regarding the tactile joys of cooking being prioritized over the mid-twentieth-century obsession with convenience and time saving.

Surely it’s just because none of the old footage was vivid enough for contemporary visual standards, but Cohen and West spend a fair amount of time cutting away from old clips of Julia and interviews with her colleagues and friends, to intersperse shots of succulent dishes being prepared, cooked, chopped or tossed. When it comes to Julia Child, the historical results speak for themselves; and considering it’s clearly not possible for Child to have been preparing the food in these clips, I found them both pointless and redundant, if not outright distracting. It’s really Julia Child who is the vivid screen presence, and they could not have gone wrong just showing more endless tables of the food she actually did prepare onscreen, degraded film quality notwithstanding.

In any case, the quality of the many documentary features this year about celebrity chefs is as varied as their subjects. Overall, Julia falls in the middle: it’s fun, if a bit lacking in getting to the true substance of who she was. She clearly comes across as an extraordinary woman, but there is little question there was far more nuance to her than this one film has time for. It’ll be a great choice for any fan of Julia Child or of cooking shows—or of cooking in general; these movies are typically great for foodies—but for the rest of us, it’s merely fine.

Undeniably one of a kind: Julia in her element.

Overall: B

tick, tick ... BOOM!

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-
Music: A-

Point of clarification! Is it tick, tick… BOOM! or is it tick, tick… Boom! or is it Tick, Tick… Boom! or is it Tick, Tick… BOOM! People all over the place are capitalizing it in all different ways and it’s kind of driving me crazy. Well, the original Broadway program wrote it as tick, tick… BOOM! So does the movie poster, so, thank god we got that cleared up!

Point of presentation: tick, tick… BOOM! is semi-autobiographical, produced originally by Jonathan Larson as a solo work in 1990, later produced as a Broadway musical in 2001, after his game-changing RENT premiered in 1996. Spoiler alert, Larson died of an aortic dissection in 1996 at the age of 35, the day of RENT’s first Off Broadway preview performance. The film adaptation, which has been streaming on Netflix for two weeks now, makes his death clear from the very start, and considering it’s also a matter of historical record, it’s not exactly a crucial plot point. It is relevant, however—and I must confess I never knew anything about the Broadway show before the release of this film, which is also Lin-Manuel Miranda’s directorial debut. He proves to be well suited to it.

As usual, all I can personally speak to is how well it works as a movie, on its own terms. Audiences intimately familiar with Broadway productions may well have arguments otherwise, but I found tick, tick… BOOM! to be an invigorating watch, with infectiously catchy music and impressively structured lyrics. Perhaps the only thing that keeps it from reaching the same excellence as the 2005 film adaptation of RENT is simply that RENT redefined what theater could be. They can’t all manage the same such achievements, although as a movie experience, tick tick… BOOM! still comes close. Even though it’s increasingly awkward having to type out that objectively odd title.

And, to be fair, RENT changed what theater could be, but it had no such effect on film. It was simply translated well to film, granting it a far greater audience—the same thing being done for tick, tick… BOOM!, in this case largely because it’s streaming. The two stories do make great companion pieces, both of them far superior works to the first musical the semi-fictional Jonathan Larson creates, the play-within-a-play of sorts in tick, tick… BOOM! It sure has fun music, though, and I loved hearing every song he wrote for it, which, by extension, he also wrote for tick, tick… BOOM!

I kind of couldn’t get enough of the music in this movie, actually. From start to finish, every song hits its mark, none of them a miss. This movie wouldn’t be half as compelling without it, even though Andrew Garfield is an inspired casting choice for the lead. This may be the first time I truly saw Garfield lose himself in a part; watching him in this movie, I only ever saw Jonathan Larson, never Andrew Garfield. He has a vivacious spirit not seen in any of his other performances, an almost destructive optimism about him, the kind of attitude that struggling artists must have in order to find success, however long it takes. Furthermore, once you learn that Garfield never had any vocal training prior to this but took lessons for a year before production started, his vocal delivery is particularly impressive. This may because I have had no formal training myself, but to my ear he sounded every bit as good as any of the other professional singers in the cast around him.

The layered, meta element in tick, tick… BOOM! is tricky but well executed, by both Miranda’s direction and the screenplay by Steven Levenson, who does a much better job here than he did with the hot mess that was Dear Evan Hansen. (In his defense, that one was a hot mess before it was adapted from the stage.) In sharp contrast to many decades of the twentieth century, for maybe the past thirty years or so movie musicals have been very hit and miss with both commercial and artistic success. An unusual number of movie musicals are being released in 2021, and although still not all of them are great, the batting average has been surprisingly good. tick, tick… BOOM! is one of the good ones, the kind of movie that is easy to recommend as entertainment for eclectic audiences.

And this is in spite of the specificity of its subject matter, which, much like RENT, is set at the peak of the AIDS crisis—in this case, 1990, the year Jonathan Larson turned 30, something he does a bit of hand wringing about. Actually he does some irresistibly catchy singing about it. As it happened, Larson was straight—his strained relationship with girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) due to his obsession with his work is a key plot point—but his best friend Michael (Robin de Jesus) is gay, their existence in the world of theater and their many mutual friends thus being very connected to the death toll in that particular pandemic. When Jonathan’s agent (played by Judith Light, a delight as always) offers him some advice to move on to the next play and “write what you know,” we know that ultimately that advice will result in both tick, tick… BOOM! and RENT.

As a gay man with a straight best friend myself, I found something very comfortable and comforting about the depiction of such a relationship in film—and not just that it exists, but that it’s in a film set thirty years ago. I was fourteen years old in 1990, and in my world at the time, it seemed impossible that I could be gay and have any straight men even like me, let alone be close friends. It’s just a lovely thing to see that I was being proved wrong, even then, without realizing it. Even now we don’t see relationships like this in movies or TV very often, so it’s another of many things that make tick, tick… BOOM! a treat.

Andrew Garfield wows in a delightful and moving movie musical.

Overall: B+

C'MON C'MON

Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A
Editing: A

It’s tempting to say young actor Woody Norman, who was ten years old at the time of filming, is incredible in C’mom C’mon, the latest film by writer-director Mike Mills, and maybe he is. The use of a child actor is always tricky though, and I suspect a lot of the credit goes to Mills himself, his impeccable direction, and the editing by Jennifer Vecchiarello (who, incidentally, edited last year’s also-excellent Kajillionaire). On the other hand, young Woody Norman, who is now twelve, is apparently British and did accent work for this role, indicating that he has a far more nuanced understanding of the acting process than one might assume of a preteen. Well, that settles it then: Woody Norman is incredible in C’mon C’mon.

Still, it must also be said that Mike Mills is a name to remember. This is the guy who brought us both Beginners (2011) and 20th Century Women (2016). I don’t know if Mills has a recognizable cinematic style, and that is to his credit; I can only say that his films tend to range from very good to excellent. C’mon C’mon falls on the “excellent” end of that spectrum, which is clear very quickly after this beautifully shot, black-and-white movie starts. Why avoid any color, you might ask? My theory is that it so much more effectively puts its emotional component into sharp relief. This is a family drama, and also a story of an uncle bonding with his very young nephew—a kind of relationship rarely depicted onscreen, at least in terms of familial bonding.

It’s also wonderful to see Joaquin Phoenix in such a warm, sweet, and moving role, especially after being in garbage like Joker. Phoenix has long proved himself to be an incredibly versatile actor, but here he moves away from “larger than life” or quirky or even “romantic lead” in favor of “everyman.” His Uncle Johnny is a middle-aged, somewhat frumpy guy, focused on his work as a radio journalist as he avoids direct answers to his nephew Jesse’s questions about why he’s unmarried and alone.

Johnny’s sister, Jesse’s mother, Viv, is played by Gaby Hoffmann, and it’s easy to believe her and Phoenix as siblings who have been estranged since the death of their mother put a strain on their relationship a year ago. But, Viv’s separated husband (Scoot McNary) has mental health issues that require her attention, so Johnny offers to look after Jesse while Viv attends to her husband.

In the meantime, Johnny’s job has him interviewing teenagers all over the country, for his latest radio journalism project. I did find myself wondering how Johnny really makes a living doing this work, but perhaps that’s beside the point. C’mon C’mon’s production moves between so many cities Johnny effectively travels to four corners of the country: Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, and New Orleans, four of the most truly distinctive cities in the country. In each city, he asks teenagers about their expectations of their future living in America, and these are real interviews conducted with real kids, seamlessly integrated into the narrative. The film is dedicated to one such kid who was later killed in a shooting, and its title card is the only moment in the film presented in color.

These interviews are sprinkled throughout this film about a childless man getting a crash course in parenting, which makes C’mon C’mon a uniquely sweet and deeply moving film. It made my cry, and not at all the way most other films do—it’s just because of its broad depth of humanity. There’s no reliable way to characterize this movie’s effectiveness. It just has to be experienced. I’m not a parent myself, but it’s easy to imagine how deeply affected those who are might be affected by this movie.

Ultimately, you night say, it’s about emotional vulnerability, within the context of the hopes and dreams we have for the very children that drive us crazy. This movie is very honest about parenting, and about what it’s like to deal with children, in a way that few movies really are. Jesse doesn’t exist to amuse, or be precocious, or serve as a plot catalyst in the way children typically are in film. He just is, and he exists as a wholly dimensional human being—as do Johnny and Viv. The characters in C’mon C’mon have a very naturalistic, casual existence. It’s how they are shot and edited that turns them into art.

And, without irony, that is what I would call this film: a work of art, and an unparalleled one at that. It’s unique in a way that the Academy rarely recognizes, and yet it’s easily one of the best films of the year. It’s only in theaters currently but presumably will be streaming soon, and either way, it should be seen at the soonest opportunity. C’mon C’mon is a tonal accomplishment that seeps into your pores, like a warm bubble bath.

You’ll just have to trust me on how great this movie is.

Overall: A

THE POWER OF THE DOG

Directing: A
Acting: A
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A+
Editing: A

The Power of the Dog won me over in a big, big way—also in a way that makes me very hesitant to reveal too much, especially in regards to the distinct turn the narrative takes about halfway through. It’s precisely that turn that made the movie great in my eyes, which puts me in a tricky position: how can I convince you how great it is if all I can tell you about is within the first half which, honestly, had me a little skeptical? Like, I was literally wondering how this movie was so criticially acclaimed. But, then I understood.

To be fair, it’s clear that not all audiences understand, at least not to the same degree. There are notable discrepancies between critical reactions and audience reactions: an incredible MetaScore of 88 on MetaCritic, where the user score is at 76; an astronomical 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the user score is 73%. Over at IMDb.com, the user rating is 6.9/10. Clearly the average viewer doesn’t hate this movie, but they also aren’t lionizing it the way critics are. Well, I guess I am just following my own flock here, because I am definitely falling down on the side of the critics—even though I spent the first half of the movie wondering if that was even possible.

Written by Jane Campion, whose 1993 masterpiece The Piano won her an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay as well as two acting Oscars (Best Actress for Holly Hunter and Best Supporting Actress for then-11-year-old Anna Paquin, the second-youngest person ever to win an Oscar), there’s something very fitting about The Power of the Dog’s distinctive tone and visual style. This film’s production comes from a unique position, in that it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was already filming in Campion’s native New Zealand before the pandemic hit. Knowing that New Zealand was arguably the safest place on the planet for the first several months of the pandemic, it’s somewhat surprising to realize this movie was filmed there just coincidentally. Besides that—and I apologize if this creates the same effect of your viewing experience—I found myself consistently distracted by the beautifully shot landscapes, as the story is set in 1925 Montana. Who knew any part of New Zealand could plausibly stand in for Montana? There are multiple expansive shots of a roadway winding through rolling hills with distinctively large boulders dotting the landscape. Does any part of Montana actually look like that?

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The Power of the Dog also has a fairly small cast, another coincidentally convenient thing about it having been shot during the pandemic, and its principal characters are fewer still, only four people: Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), the central character, is a gruff rancher with a penchant for tormenting virtually everyone around him, but especially his brother George (Jesse Plemons), whom he calls “Fatso”; George’s widow wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst; fun fact, she and Plemons are a real-life couple); and Rose’s barely-grown son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

And this is what I’m getting at when I refer to the first half of the film, as it is packed with tension, Phil going out of his way to make life difficult for his emotionally calloused brother, or striking terror in the hearts of Rose or Phil. Curiously, he never does this with physical violence; in fact there’s no violence inflicting onscreen between two people, although there is a bit against animals. More than once I was really afraid there would be, and that was kind of the point: there doesn’t have to be violence in order to stoke terror—only the threat of it. And, more to the point in this story, the violence is of a more mental sort. Phil, a deeply repressed man, has great skill at getting under the skin of others. In effect, he’s a 1925 version of a bully—an incredibly subtle one, but a bully nonetheless.

The thing is, none of this is headed anywhere near the direction you think it is, when the narrative takes its turn. Everything about The Power of the Dog is subtle, and this turn of events is no exception. Tensions continue thereafter, but of a very different sort. There’s a twist at the end that is quite impressive in its subtle execution, considering how fucked up you slowly realize it is.

The Power of the Dog is a bit of a narrative puzzle, and over the course of its second half they fall into place, linking inextricably into each other, with deep satisfaction. This is a superbly constructed film, easily Campion’s best since The Piano, a film destined to be a part of the upcoming Oscar conversation. So much of it could easily have been bungled in someone else’s hands, but this a solid piece of work that only could have come from Jane Campion. I’m eager to tell you more about its revelations, but I must resist, and implore you just to set aside a couple of hours, sit down and watch this film, going in cold: just watch it. It’s streaming on Netflix so getting that far won’t be a challenge. Getting to the end will be more than worth the time.

Taking the path you don’t see coming.

Overall: A