ISLE OF DOGS

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+
Animation: A-
Production Design: A-

Isle of Dogs is only Wes Anderson's second foray into stop-motion animation, but he turns out to be uniquely suited to the form. Plenty of his live-action films seem like they might as well be animated, with their static shots of stunningly detailed, colorful tableaus. This gives a strangely static tone to many of his films, as though the characters live in a world just off from the real one.

That's not so much of an issue with animation, as was the case with Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). What makes Isle of Dogs the superior of the two films is a sentimentality that's missing from many of Anderson's other films. Rather than being witty and clever just for its own sake, this film gets to the heart of the bond between people and their pets. And rather than being multiple species who all wear clothes, these are dogs who actually act more like dogs than people -- sure, they talk, but it's still more realistic and thus more relatable.

The plot is surprisingly complex, set in Japan twenty years in the future, a corrupt mayor declaring all the dogs in the city of Megasaki infected by a canine virus a public menace and exiling them on the island of the title. The first of these dogs is one named Spots, his master being the mayor's distant nephew, Atari (Koyu Rankin), whose parents died in a terrible bullet train accident. Months after all the dogs have been exiled, Atari flies a small plane to the island in search of Spots, and a group of dirty alpha dogs helps him search for him.

To be honest, fun as it looked, the trailer for Isle of Dogs gave me slight pause. The voice cast features a couple dozen famous talents, most of them American. How was Wes Anderson going to handle this, having the story set in Japan? This seemed potentially problematic. In the end, he comes up with some clever devices, while retaining several Japanese actors actually delivering lines in their own native language -- in fact, Atari has many lines, and Koyu Rankin delivers nearly all of them in Japanese.

Many of the Japanese lines are delivered neither with subtitles or translations; no such efforts are made when it makes no difference to understanding the story. That said, very occasionally, subtitles are used. Most of the many television news reports featured are handled by a character who is herself an interpreter, played by Frances McDormand. So what of audiences who actually speak Japanese, then? This film is clearly made for American audiences first and foremost, which alone makes the use of Japan as basically a complex prop itself problematic, but as someone fluent only in English, I cannot speak for such people. You might do well to read this Vulture piece featuring the perspectives of several Japanese speakers, a fascinating read indeed, on the whole pretty positive in response to the movie but also offering many totally fair criticisms.

Really, Isle of Dogs could just have easily been set in any American city in the future, without using Japanese language and styles as a gimmick -- or perhaps it even still could, if set largely in a given city's International District, using, say, the bilingual child of Japanese immigrants. I mean, I quite enjoyed it all, to be honest. But it must be acknowledged that I speak from the perspective of a white guy with limited understanding of Japanese culture.

Now, dogs -- that's a different story, even though -- confession time! -- I am much more of a cat person, and would be delighted by a film of this sort featuring cats as the main characters. As it happens, cats do feature in this story, just none of them being given any lines. They don't talk. They are just grumpy looking props for all the villainous city leaders attempting to eradicate all dogs. To be fair, even as props the cats are put to good use and are nearly always amusing in their own right.

But the essence of Isle of Dogs gets down to my favorite exchange of dialogue in the movie: Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson) asks Chief (Bryan Cranston), "Will you help him then, the little pilot?" When Chief responds, "Why should I?", Nutmeg replies, "Because he's a twelve-year-old boy. Dogs love those." All the dogs speak English, by the way; the opening titles offer the explanation that "all barks" are translated. In any case, it's this kind of sentiment that informs the story, and makes it likely that any dog-loving twelve-year-old would likely love this movie. Ironically, the film is rated PG-13 due mostly to some surprisingly graphic elements, such as the somewhat striking scene depicting a complete human liver transplant. (It makes sense when you watch the movie.)

Honestly, if there's any element of Isle of Dogs not deserving of praise, it's the persistently stoic delivery of the voice acting, typical of all Wes Anderson movies. Actor performances are never his strong suit, even with such an incredible roster of voice talent, here including Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum as the rest of the alpha dogs; Liev Schreiber as Spots; Harvey Keitel as Gondo, the leader of dogs from the island's pre-existing animal testing facility knocked out by natural disasters; F. Murray Abraham as Jupiter, the island's most-respected elder statesman dog; Tilda Swinton as Oracle, Jupiter's prophetic sidekick (the subject of a great running gag); Yoko Ono as one of the city's assistant scientists; Ken Watanabe as the Head Surgeon; and Greta Gerwig as the arguably unnecessary foreign exchange student who is American and therefore provides a lot of context via her lines delivered in English. It's fun to recognize all these people's voices, for sure (and especially the "Y" and the "O" tied around the assistant scientist's braids), but to a person, the delivery is the same: nearly always soft-spoken; almost monotone; just short of wooden. Possibly the one exception is Jeff Goldblum, who is incapable of speaking in anything but his specific Goldblum voice.

It's the animation that gives them all personality, and this movie's incredible animation must be acknowledged. This part is indeed on the same level as Fantastic Mr. Fox, with an attention to detail that is truly a sight to behold, itself reason alone to see the film, particularly on the big screen. Combined with cinematography made all the more impressive when it's stop-motion, production design on the level of excellence all Wes Anderson films are known for, and the nearly universal relatability of kids who love their dogs unconditionally, Ilse of Dogs (say that out loud) transcends all the reasons it gives to nitpick. Most people watching aren't going to bother with the nitpicking, and will easily surrender to its ample charms.

Atari and the alpha dogs in search of Spots.

Overall: B+

READY PLAYER ONE

Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-
Special Effects: B-

In the long run, trafficking in nostalgia is a fool's errand. That is, if you want your product -- your work, your art, whatever -- to be remembered beyond its initial run. Then again, a strong case could be made that it's naive to make such a statement: if the product makes a ton of money as soon as it's unleashed on the public, does it matter? With Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg is clearly just cashing a check.

Spielberg is objectively one of the greatest directors of the twentieth century. In the 21st century, his record is a little spottier: one would be hard pressed to come up with a great movie he's made in twenty years; it's been a decade since his output was excellent (Munich); about the same time since he offered something both of a genre and tapped into the zeitgeist of its time (War of the Worlds). Those were both films which, for varying reasons, people are likely still to be talking about ten or twenty years from now.

Ready Player One is undeniably entertaining, but unfortunately -- especially given it's directed by Spielberg -- easily forgotten. It's one pop culture reference after another, a constant parade of reminders of other, superior works. Also, no less then three times during this movie, I was taken out of it to think to myself, Okay, that was dumb.

The plot is beyond preposterous, and lacks the absorbing world-building of, say, Minority Report (2002), Spielberg's last memorable science fiction film -- some elements of which are now a bit dated, but it holds up surprisingly well after sixteen years. In 2034, no one is going to be saying the same of Ready Player One. The visual effects look dated even now -- clearly a deliberate decision, to make us feel like we are watching the interior design of a VR video game. The problem there is that it looks like virtual reality in 2018. Surely in the year 2045 -- only nine years before the setting of Minority Report, incidentally -- virtual reality will be hardly distinguishable from the sight of reality.

Sometimes, in Ready Player One, it actually is, such as when our young hero, Wade (Tye Sheridan) visits the recorded memories/messenger of the designer of the "Oasis" (Mark Rylance), or as in what is possibly the movie's most thrilling sequence, and the players find themselves in the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. This is one of the few moments when Ready Player One transcends the pitfalls of trafficking in nostalgia, even without any sight of Jack Nicholson or Shelley Duvall. (There are other delights, and I won't spoil them.)

If all of Ready Player One were like that sequence, when it suddenly becomes smarter than it has any right to be, it could have come within spitting distance of a classic, even as it still relies on a cascade of pop culture references, mostly from the eighties. The game designer, you see, was obsessed with eighties pop culture; he packs the "Oasis" with such references, which makes his obsessive players obsess over those same details as they attempt to find the "easter eggs" needed to obtain three keys that will give them full control of the Oasis universe in the wake of his passing.

Occasionally we get non-eighties references, such as The Iron Giant (released in 1999) or even King Kong, who shows up in an admittedly very cool car race sequence near the beginning of the film. That's a lot of fun to watch.

The time spent inside the Oasis quickly gets tedious, though, and not nearly enough is shown of the real-world environment of 2045 -- "The Stacks," stacked trailer homes in booming Columbus, Ohio, of all places. There are some well-timed sight gags as the visuals switch between the interior of the Oasis and the players in the real world with their gear on, but that's about as far as it goes.

Instead, what we get is a sensory-overload movie-turned-video game, which we as the audience aren't even actually playing; we just watch the characters play it. True, countless people do exactly that on YouTube, and maybe I'm just becoming a geezer who doesn't understand contemporary youth. This doesn't change the fact that Ready Player One is even less nutritious than popcorn entertainment -- it's cotton candy for the eyeballs. When, in another decade or two, movie buffs are still talking about the lasting impact of Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark (ironically, Spielberg references are peppered in the novel of the same name, which Spielberg scrubbed from his own movie adaptation), they will not be talking about Ready Player One.

This movie will surely make plenty of money. But we're talking about a guy who has not once, not twice, but three times made the highest-grossing movie of all time, in 1975, 1982 and 1993. Ready Player One is far from the same league, and its director is better than this. It offers a lot of fun in the moment -- sure, okay, whatever. It doesn't have to be Schindler's List. But it still could have stood some substance to call its own, instead of borrowing it from countless other properties and weakening it to nothing of consequence in the process.

Tye Sheridan reaches out and touches no one.

Overall: C+

THOROUGHBREDS

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

I love a good one-word title. And then the conceit of Chekhov's Gun: If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Plenty of educated people might find it hacky for me to bring this up at the very beginning of a review, but I guarantee you plenty of my readers have never heard of Chekhov's Gun, so work with me here.

Thoroughbreds gets right to this concept, and as a result I thought of it in a way I'm not sure I ever have while watching another film. The opening shot is of a horse -- this movie is not about horses, but they feature prominently in the story -- with a teenage girl we later learn to be Amanda (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl's Olivia Cooke) staring it down. This goes on several seconds too long for it to be comfortable, until she reaches out to touch it. Fade to black, and there is a brief shot of a knife being set down. That would be, of course, Chekhov's Knife.

Rather than acts, Thoroughbreds is presented in "chapters," and indeed we learn what the deal was with that knife soon enough. It's pretty gruesome, and never shown onscreen -- Amanda and her friend Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy, all steely looks and piercing eyes) simply talk about it. There's a sort of foreshadowing to this technique by debut feature writer-director Cory Finley, which may or may not have been a means of saving on production budget, but it's memorably effective either way. By the end, the climactic incident is just as gruesome and also occurs offscreen, the camera lingering an unnaturally long time on Amanda passed out on a living room couch.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Suffice it to say that Thoroughbreds is a unique vision with DNA derived of that in movies like American Pyscho -- it's also been compared to Heathers, although that strikes me as a stretch. The latter is much more about how women back stab each other, in that case literally and fatally; Amanda and Lily never betray each other. It's a little more like they're Patrick Bateman's psychotic granddaughters.

The script here really should be commended. This movie is mostly tense and measured dialogue between two characters, always falling just short of feeling natural but featuring a delivery that gives it a mesmerizing quality, perfect for the darkly comic tone it's going for. Amanda, at first coming for tutoring lessons for which her mother is paying Lily, admits early on that she feels no emotions: "I'm a skilled imitator," she stresses, more than once. There is a false sense at first that she is the dangerous one and Lily is the one who will be drawn into her vortex of blithe immorality. On the contrary, Amanda's skills come from keen observation, and it's an astute one when she says to Lily, "Empathy isn't exactly your strong suit."

These young women come from affluent families, Lily's particularly so, and she has deep hatred for her stepfather (Paul Sparks, perfectly cast). This guy never really treats Lily that badly, and when Amanda overhears some of his criticisms she even notes that he's not far off base. Lily being such a spoiled rich girl is perhaps part of the point; nevertheless, Amanda, ever the rational one, poses the question: if they could get away with killing him, why not? When she's got a point she's got a point!

They blackmail a local loser drug dealer into doing the job for them, so they could both be out of town and thereby have "airtight alibis." This guy comes in the form of the late Anton Yelchin, in one of the very last performances before his death. I didn't even realize it was him until the end credits began with a memorial dedication to him. Is it a great and powerful final performance? I'd love to say it is. It's fine.

It's Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy, really, who make this movie. In ways specific to each of them, they both become increasingly unsettling as the story unfolds. It's kind of The Bad Seeds for the 21st Cenutry, but with girls a few years older, and a targeted adult who has no idea what kind of danger he's in. Stepdad is just a moderate douche, thoroughly clueless.

It's us, as the audience, who either fear or know what's coming, and that's what makes Thoroughbreds work like a truly well-oiled machine -- almost too oiled, at times, with its obvious precision. Every gesture is a clearly made decision, as though every frame were a meticulous diorama. The perfectly framed cinematography is at times hypnotic, especially when paired with Erik Friedlander's strange but effectively percussive score.

There's something about Thoroughbreds that makes it feel within a stone's throw of perfection -- like something very subtle and unidentifiable is missing, but in the end that doesn't matter nearly as much as how well its over-polish actually makes it work. It features a glossy veneer that belies its gritty insides. None of these characters are particularly relatable, but they command undivided attention anyway. Cory Finley has taken some very wrong things and done something very right with them.

Just wait until you find out what happens upstairs.

Overall: B+

LOVELESS

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Russia, Russia, Russia! Anyone sick of hearing about Russia might hesitate to see Loveless, the new movie by Leviathan (2015) director Andrey Zvyagintsev. And, like Leviathan, I don't seem to be quite as in love with Loveless as many other critics.

Somewhat ironically, although the critical consensus is barely lower on Loveless, I actually liked Loveless better than Leviathan, which had rather bored me -- but, although Loveless lives up to its title and is about miserable people who lack empathy, it was at least compelling, in its way. It's also very well shot, full of indelible images that find beauty in what otherwise might be drab landscapes and cityscapes.

The premise is simple. Married couple Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are going through a bitter divorce, both of them distracted by separate lovers as they contend with trying to sell their apartment. Lost in the mix is their twelve-year-old son, Alexey (Matvey Novikov), neglected and willfully ignored, until he overhears his parents bitterly trying to pawn him off on each other, like an unwanted pet. Although he is the very first character seen onscreen, very little is seen of Alexey, because he disappears.

Did he run away? Was he kidnapped? Was there an accident? It takes two days for Zhenya or Boris even to be faced with these questions, because they've both gone to their respective new flings' homes. Zhenya returns late and assumes Alexey is home asleep; wakes up late assuming he's gone to school. She only finds out he's missing when the school calls to ask why he's been gone for two days in a row.

It gradually becomes clear that this story is less about Alexey specifically, than it is about Zhenya and Boris and their patterns of unsympathetic and narcissistic behaviors. Soon enough they are traveling to the home of Zhenya's bitch of a mother, and we get a sense of how Zhenya became the detached mother and wife she is. Boris, for his part, is with a new young girlfriend who is herself pregnant, and he is clearly repeating the very same cycle all over again.

Zvyagintsev pointedly peppers the narrative with radio and TV news reports of conflict in the Ukraine, as well as speculation about irrational public expectation of the Mayan "end of the world" in 2012, when most of the story is set. This is clearly a commentary on the state of modern Russian society, although it's never particularly straightforward. Granted, a shot of Zhenya jogging on a treadmill in a tracksuit with RUSSIA written across her chest is a little on the nose.

Still, when it comes to these people who are more concerned with taking selfies than they are with nurturing relationships, this is a story that could just as easily take place anywhere else -- such as, say, the U.S. There is a universality to this story, bleak as it is. People like this exist everywhere, although there may be something to be said for specific cultural trends that discourage empathy.

Loveless is fairly well done, but it isn't exactly a good time. It feels more like commentary than entertainment. Taken just as the story of a miserable couple who basically misplace their young boy, it doesn't have much to recommend. It's often very pretty to look at, and that's the most pleasant thing about it. None of the people here are all that fun to hang out with. If you're looking to have a good time, I'd steer clear of this one -- but if you want something to contemplate on, you could do worse.

Mother Russia in all its maternal glory.

Overall: B

OH LUCY!

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

If you happened to see the trailer for Oh Lucy!, the surprisingly dark Japanese/American dramedy expanded from a 2014 short with the title by Japanese writer-director Atsuko Hirayanagi, you might expect something a little more sweet and charming than it really is. It's unclear what they were going for with the promotion of this film, but then, it's understandable to think maybe they just didn't quite know where to go with it.

It's a unique story, unlike anything else you'll see at the movies, that's for sure. Roughly half takes place in Tokyo and half in Southern California, with the majority of the dialogue spoken in Japanese: the one American part among the leads, and thus the one major American actor, is the source of most of the English spoken. If Hirayanagi was looking for a pretty average yet handsome American guy, Josh Hartnett was a good choice. He's sort of the poor-man's Ashton Kutcher (why have these two never played brothers?), and Kutcher himself isn't exactly the richest choice either.

Here Hartnett plays an American teaching English in Tokyo, but we don't meet him until the title character, Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima, fantastic) is persuaded by her niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna) to take her place in the class. Setsuko has a much better relationship with Mika than Mike's mother Ayako (Kaho Minami) does, and things between the sisters are rather strained as well.

Lest you think this movie is too lighthearted, suicide figures somewhat prominently: the beautifully shot opening scene has a stranger whispering "Goodbye" into Setsuko's ear before hurling himself in front of an oncoming commuter train. Just a barrel of laughs from the very beginning, this movie! I get the feeling there is some thematic threads here connected to Japanese culture -- Japan is known for its relatively high suicide rate -- about which I don't know near enough to make any useful observations.

John, the English teacher, focuses on American English and specifically how casual Americans are, immediately hugging each student practically as soon as they enter. Does John's class in any way resemble typical real-life English-as-a-second-language classes in Japan, I wonder? I have my doubts. His attire, glasses, the way he parts his hair -- they all come across a bit more like someone outside the U.S. might imagine such a teacher.

Still, John has his deceptive charms. Setsuko only gets to take one of his classes; by the time she returns, she discovers he has disappeared and is to be replaced by a new teacher. A little too conveniently to be plausible, she catches John and Mika leaving in a taxi cab as soon as she leaves the building. Before long, Setsuka and her sister Ayako are flying themselves to Los Angeles in search of the return address on a postcard Mika has sent.

Once Setsuko and Ayako find John at his apartment, John feels a little more authentic. It's not as certain the same could be said of Setsuko, who gradually reveals herself to be a little unhinged, at the same time John is gradually revealed to be a bit of a deadbeat. Before long, Mika is being pursued in San Diego, relations get muddled, and there is a spectacularly awkward sex scene in the front seat of a car.

Fear not, though: even as dark as Oh Lucy! gets, it still veers in the end toward a redemption of sorts. At many turns, this movie challenges suspension of disbelief, but it's never egregious enough to give up on it. It's well shot and well edited, which alone keeps things moving and prevents the story from ever being dull or overly indulging in its contrivances. If nothing else, it's a story that unfolds in a plethora of unexpected, if sometimes mystifying, ways.

Japanese-American linguistics: doing oral across the Pacific.

Overall: B

LOVE, SIMON

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

The first line heard in Love, Simon is "I'm just like you," and, I would argue, that is a misstep. Granted, I'm a middle-aged gay man living in a world contextualized in a far different way than can safely be assumed of any of the young-adult audience this movie is clearly aimed at -- kids who, in all likelihood, don't even realize how radically different the world really is for them. Part of that extraordinary difference is the fact that, although this is a story about a gay teenager struggling with the coming-out process, that target audience includes young adults both gay and straight.

Should I say that my review is aimed more at people at minimum in their thirties, then? It may be a little unorthodox to refer to someone else's review in my own, but Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson wrote a great one, which I related to significantly -- much more so, as it happens, than I did to the movie itself. And yet, I also did not feel quite as disconnected from the film as that review left me expecting I would. Either way, I do find myself wondering how different a review might be from, say, a teen critic writing for their high school newspaper.

The cynic in me, a part of myself I have spent years trying to loosen up, wants to dismiss Love, Simon as a simple, gay fantasy. My own experiences prompt me to ask: In what world would a gay teenager have such an understanding family and such an accepting close circle of friends? Well, here's a novel idea: maybe the real world? Nowhere in Love, Simon is it suggested that all gay kids in 2018 America have the same kind of experience -- only that we do finally live in a world where some of them do, and that does not make their stories any less worth telling. Also: it's not for nothing that the world see even clearly privileged kids with wonderful parents struggle with the uncertainty of coming out.

I don't really subscribe to the criticism that Simon is problematically presented as "straight acting" -- director Greg Berlanti gives no indication that we're to assume all gay kids are like Simon; only that they do exist. This movie still shows us the slightly more stereotypical sort in the one other openly gay kid at Simon's school (Clark Moore, surprisingly subtle, all things considered), who is more effeminate and always at the ready with one-liner retorts. He is also far more self-assured than Simon is. In any case, here we see both ends of the spectrum.

Still, my opening statement still stands: Simon immediately telling us "I'm just like you" serves only to muddle all these points. The set-up is by far the most contrive part of Love, Simon, and comparisons of his family's home to the upper-middle-class home sets of Nancy Meyers movies are apt. I heard that phrase "I'm just like you" and immediately thought, Uh, no you're not. And here my response is quite realistically similar even to that of many kids a third my age -- plenty of kids grow up in families poor enough that their economic problems far overshadow social anxieties, or in families that closer resemble that of the TV show Roseanne (or, to update that to the 21st century, One Day at a Time) than that of Simon.

Simon's little sister (Talitha Bateman, just as adorable as this movie asks for) is an aspiring chef, regularly cooking elaborate meals for the entire family. This is just the most obvious of several things about Simon's family which, if not entirely ringing false, comes across as at least slightly off from realistic. 

And a lot of this set-up in the beginning is presented through countless awkward interactions. I don't do awkward very well: for about the first half-hour, I was squirming in my seat and averting my eyes from the screen more than I do at horror movies.

And then: somehow, Love, Simon coalesces, and proves surprisingly affecting. Suffice it to say that I was touched by it enough to cry several times, and if you're someone who would be interested in this movie to begin with, it would be wise to bring tissues. I may have wept at Simon's parents saying all the right things to him, but it was because I was so happy any gay kid could be so lucky -- it did not have the twinge of bittersweet wistfulness (something I feel regularly about the gay kids who have it better than I did) that I really expected.

Even better, Nick Robinson is well cast as the handsome semi-schlub who is the title character. The casting of his circle of friends barely falls short of feeling self-consciously diverse, but the performances all around make them feel authentic. I have been saying for decades that kids are smarter than adults tend to give them credit for, but I only just discovered they are also more sophisticated than I gave them credit for. The activist kids today working for gun control prove that much, if nothing else. None of that stuff comes into play in Love, Simon, but the real world currently shows us that, like the kids in this movie, kids are on average a lot more worldly than they used to be.

Nick Robinson is 22 years old, by the way -- and here he's playing 17. Funny, back in 2013's lovely The Kings of Summer he was eighteen, playing 15. I guess he's had a young face for a while. This kind of casting is often complained about, but it's only a problem if the actors' age is obvious. Robinson very much looks the part of a high schooler, and he plays one with true depth of understanding.

We are treated with Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel as Simon's doting parents devoid of judgment, and even if they are not likely "just like yours," they certainly fit the parts perfectly in Simon's world. The great thing about Love, Simon is how little noteworthy is its very existence -- another gay story devoid of what used to be obligatory tragedy. Boring is better than tragic, and although Simon's life is not all that exciting, his story is neither tragic or boring. Any story can be compelling if told the right way, and once both Simon and Love, Simon get past their awkward missteps, this story is as compelling as any -- perhaps for different reasons, but for audiences older and younger alike.

Overall: B+

THE DEATH OF STALIN

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

Maybe The Death of Stalin would be easier to appreciate with a detailed knowledge of early 20th-century Russian history, which I do not possess. This quasi-comedy, directed and co-directed by Veep creator and writer Armando Iannucci, seems to rely at least somewhat on such a shorthand, so much going on in the immediate wake of Joseph Stalin's death that I sometimes found it difficult to keep up. So much dialogue going on at such a pace, even with it spoken in English, subtitles would have been helpful.

The promotions for this movie overtly state that any similarities to current events is intentional, although comparing the circumstances of 1953 Soviet Russia to any current superpower's situation strikes me as comparing apples to oranges. Suffice it to say that the story presented here details the farcical struggles of Stalin's inner circle to realign each person's respective powers in the wake of his death.

The Death of Stalin is undeniably entertaining, but considering its nearly universal acclaim, I did not take to it quite to the degree that I expected. I must admit there were ways it made me uneasy. We are clearly meant to see all these men as power-hungry fools -- and here this is presented in a very similar vein, actually, as the events on HBO's Veep -- but it is also made explicitly clear that these are all truly horrible men, responsible for the countless deaths and imprisonment of innocent people.

I'm all for allowing anything to be subject to a comedic eye, but who can we possibly relate to here? Sympathetic characters are not a necessity in satire, true, but I'm not convinced the satirical element is strong enough here. Then again, any truly sympathetic character in this story would clearly bring down the mood Iannucci is going for.

Instead we get subtle glimpses, such as the uncultured people brought in off the street to fill empty seats at the symphony, when only half the audience is retained to recreate a performance just given but not recorded, but Stalin has called to request a recording. This is the sequence that begins the film, and we see connon people resigned to this random fate for the evening, biding their time knitting or eating from a pickle jar.

There's also something odd about the casting: much like Tom Cruise in Valkyrie (2009), none of the actors here are actually the nationality of the characters they play, and no attempt is made even to change the native accents of the performers. So these are all either British actors (Simon Russell Beale as Lavrenti Beria; Jason Isaacs as Field Marshal Zhukov; Monty Python's Michael Palin as Vyacheslov Molotov) or American actors (Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev; Jeffrey Tamboor as Georgy Malenkov), playing Russian historical figures with British or American accents. Admittedly this is little more than a matter of preference, but it would have felt more authentic to me if at the very least they had Russian accents. As it is, it feels a little like watching a movie about zany meetings between Western leaders with inexplicably Russian names.

All of that notwithstanding, such distractions are not that difficult to get past. The Death of Stalin is a densely layered cinematic work, one could argue in the tradition of Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove -- a surface veneer of jaunty lightheartedness that is spread thinly over something deeply depressing and truly dark.

I just wanted it to be longer on the funny stuff and shorter on the darkness, although it would not take much effort to look past the latter in order to better enjoy the former -- which is perhaps part of the point. I got pretty good chuckles at regular intervals. That fleeting mirth just gave way to an unsettling realization of the cycles of history repeating itself.

Everyone thinks: How can I work this to my advantage?

Overall: B

A WRINKLE IN TIME

Directing: C+
Acting: B-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C+
Special Effects: B+

If the original Madeleine L'Engle novel A Wrinkle in Time was any good -- and I'll just have to take your word for it on that -- then you're probably best just sticking with that. It seems to have been fans of the novel who were truly excited for the film adaptation, and maybe the memory of the book fills in the many broad gaps in the film. Taken on its own, the movie really doesn't work.

Watching this film, I kept thinking it was like The Never-Ending Story as seen through the prism of the world of Pandora in Avatar. The strikingly colorful visual palate is one of its enduring redeeming qualities, a feast for the eyes as a backdrop for a story that makes little sense. The effects are, with a few exceptions, very well rendered, and the cast seems to be having a great time as they move through them.

That said, A Wrinkle in Time is wildly imaginative in terms of its visuals, but fatally dull in content. It's rather a downer through much of it, contributing to an inconsistency of tone. Meg (Storm Reid) is a bullied teenager with no self-esteem, and this aspect of her character is the one plot point that ever proves truly affecting. The rest of the time, she and her adopted little brother Charles Wallace -- and for some reason he's always referred to as both names, "Charles Wallace" -- move through one fantastical world after another, with no concrete sense of why it's happening.

Three strange women show up: Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), turning Meg's bummer of an existence into one of mystery and fantasy. These three women, to their credit, are fun to watch, although making Oprah Winfrey of a size so giant as to make her seem like a god is a little on the nose.

The great flaw of A Wrinkle in Time is the script, which is clearly written with deep intent, but packed with dialogue that falls flat, filling characters' mouths with lines that are slightly off, never sounding like the natural way anyone talks in the real world. This approach might work better if the only world they ever inhabit were a fantastical one, but it's applied even more in the "real world" in which the film begins. Charles Wallace overhearing two teachers gossiping about his sister -- the way they talk to each other, which they believe is in confidence, has no sense of authenticity.

Perhaps in keeping with the whole fantasy aspect -- fantasy disguised as "science," mind you -- all of the kids cast are impossibly beautiful, and Deric McCabe as little Charles Wallace is exceedingly precocious, almost creepily so. Levi Miller as Meg's schoolmate and ultimate friend Calvin is a particularly handsome young man, and Storm Reid as Meg seems as carefully curated as any of them, although as a performer Reid seems to have the best handle on nuance. Otherwise the kids all seem straight out of central casting for a sort of generic perfection, giving them all a veneer of flawlessness that strips them of character.

So what of the story? This is the greatest challenge of the movie, since we're meant to believe Whatsit, Who and Which are assisting the kids in finding Meg and Charles Wallace's scientist father (Chris Pine), who has been missing for four years, but it's never made clear why. It's nice to see Meg develop into a more fully realized version of herself and gain some confidence, but that's a story that can be done a lot more effectively without the fantastical trappings thrown at us here -- and yet, those trappings are the only interesting things about the movie. I literally nodded off six or seven times, I found the story so dull.

I'd say that A Wrinkle in Time had great potential that it failed to realize, except I can't even figure out what its potential was. I left the movie just wondering what was the point.

I've gathered you all here today to ask what the hell the point of all this is.

Overall: C+

ANNIHILATION

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

Judging by the trailers, you might expect Annihilation to be . . . kind of dumb. An alligator with shark’s teeth? What is this, a Sharktapus SyFy Channel sequel that somehow got a theatrical release?

It wouldn’t be far off – just “enhanced” thematically for the slightly more cerebral set. “Slightly” being the operative word: when we first learn that Lena (Natalie Portlan) is a biologist professor, she’s teaching a college class about how cells multiply in terms so basic she might as well be speaking to nine-year-olds. Still, the students hang on her every word and scribble in their notebooks. Because it’s a college class, you see!

Annihilation is written and directed by Alex Garland, whose previous film, Ex Machina, was inexplicably hailed by many critics as an original vision, its broad derivativeness mysteriously overlooked. Calling something "derivative" isn't always fair, as it can be applied to literally any story, but there are also levels, and Ex Machina did it a high capacity. Annihilation is by contrast not an original script, and although I never read the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer, by all accounts this adaptation radically alters it -- and by necessity of form: the narrative of the novel strictly speaking is un-filmable.

Not that it matters. Does Annhilation work on its own terms? The validity, or necessity, of its own terms may be up for debate, but I would say that yes, it does. The finished product is like a cross between 2001: A Space Oddesy, Sunshine (which Garland also wrote, incidentally) and Alien, with a climactic sequence that might well be great to watch while high. It's mesmerizing and mysterious and unsettling and beautiful, and honestly would have worked just as well as a short film: start with the apparent meteorite hitting the lighthouse at the beginning; end with that last bit. Granted, nobody watches film shorts. I'm not sure many more are watching this movie but whatever.

Here's what I love about it. Annihilation's principal cast is nearly all women. It's worth supporting for that reason alone, but it also makes for a much different movie than if these characters had all been men. The way the story explains it is the previous teams were all culled from military, by dint of averages making them all men; this time they are sending in scientists, which yields more women, I guess? Never mind how many more scientists are actually men, but there you are. The leader, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is a psychologist. Others include a physicist (Tessa Thompson), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez) and a surveyor (Tuva Novotny). Oscar Isaac plays Lena's husband, missing for a year after his own excursion into the shimmer and recently reappeared mysteriously and out of sorts, and he gets no more screen time than any of the women. He spends much of it unconscious on a cot. To be honest, the scenes where he's awake and disoriented aren't Isaac's best work.

Still, the concept is interesting enough, if fundamentally preposterous: the "shimmer" covering a wide area around the lighthouse hit by the meteorite is creating an otherworldly ecosystem in which, because of "DNA refraction," different species are taking on each other's characteristics and sort of fusing with each other -- hence the alligator with shark's teeth. In another filmmaker's hands you would expect a whole lot more chaotic action, but Garland focuses on its mystery, and on its psychological effects.

To its credit, Annihilation delves into the truly fantastical sparingly, showing us what could be characterized as monster creatures maybe three times. This also makes for some deeply unsettling images, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places. Trees that grow trunks into the shape of human forms are very well rendered and, although they appear in an otherwise green and lush environment, they really gave me the creeps. And a bear-like creature that takes on the deathly-distorted skull-like facial features of one of its human victims might just give me nightmares.

It would be off-base to call Annihilation a "thriller," though. It's kind of everything, which is one of its problems (to judge by its iMDB page, it's an "adventure drama fantasy horror mystery sci-fi thriller"). This is a movie that can't quite decide what it wants to be,  its many detours through "the shimmer" just a road put in place to get us to that trippy sequence at the end, which itself offers no concrete answers. It's just an elaborate setup for the fairly predictable reveal at the very last second of the film.

Still, the characters are compelling, occasionally patronizing dialogue notwithstanding; and the production design is impressive. The biggest surprise may be the special effects, which turn out to be the best thing about the movie -- the trailer made it look like it might be filled with hokey-looking cross-bred animals, but they actually turn out to be well rendered. I just kept wondering what a real-life biologist might be thinking in the audience while watching this movie, probably rolling their eyes constantly. For everyone else, it might easily seem deceptively "intellectual" -- or at least entertaining. Annihilation has that going for it, for sure: even with less action than expected, there are no lulls. This is one of those ridiculous stories made better by being told well.

Let's all do The Shimmer!

Overall: B

THE PARTY

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

It's a bit of an irony that a feature film clocking in at the incredibly short time of only 71 minutes has more of the feel of a typical short film, but one that goes on rather too long. That includes the plot twist revealed at the very last second. It's almost as though The Party doesn't quite know what it wants to be. On the upside, you don't get much of a chance to get bored.

Although even with this movie, it takes a few minutes to really get things going. The action takes places entirely in the house of Janet (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is preparing for a dinner party in the kitchen, fielding countless calls of congratulations while her husband Bill (Timothy Spall) sits drinking and listening to records in the living room, in a sort of stupor that lasts pretty much the entire film.

Janet has just been elected Shadow Minister for Health, and is hosting a dinner party with several intellectual friends -- each of them written with a broadly satirical flair by director and co-writer Sally Potter (Orlando) -- to celebrate. Women's Studies professor Martha (Cherry Jones) is there with her much younger partner, Jinny (Emily Mortimer), who is newly pregnant. Tom (Cillian Murphy) shows up without his wife who is never seen but understood to be a close friend and coworker of Janet's. And easily the best character of them all is Janet's best friend April, an idealist-turned-cynical-realist played by Patricia Clarkson, who never disappoints; she arrives with her insufferably anti-science and recently-separated husband, the German Gottfried (Bruno Ganz).

These are the only seven characters ever seen onscreen, the living room, kitchen, bathroom and backyard the only locations ever used, giving The Party very much the feel of a stage play being adapted for the screen. It is perhaps no coincidence that all the actors here have had successful stage careers. Except unlike most plays adapted into movies, The Party for the most part works very well. The writing isn't quite as clever as everyone involved clearly thinks it is, and the movie would have benefited from more of the snappy editing that characterizes the movie trailer much more than the movie itself. Yet, it's easy to get sucked into this story soon enough, on the strength of two key components: the performers, who across the board elevate the material (Clarkson most of all; she's the biggest reason to see this movie); and especially the cinematography, shot in black and white by Aleksei Rodionov in a way that puts all the tight quarters in effectively stark relief. Seldom is a location so static this compelling to look at.

Although one of the characters is never seen, there are four couples at play here, each of them with significant news and/or a secret that will be revealed in turn, often with terrible timing. I won't spoil what any of them are, should you decide to check this movie out, except to say that one of them brings a gun. It's no spoiler to say whose hands it ends up in, because the opening shot is of Janet opening her front door and pointing the gun directly at the camera, the point of view of whoever is standing at the door. And we don't get to find out who that is until the final shot, which recreates that scene but extends to Scott Thomas's last line.

To all The Party a dark comedy would be an understatement, and that's a big part of its appeal, at least for those with interest. The characters spend a lot of time barely stopping short of being parodies of themselves as they have high-minded, academically philosophical conversations about very typical things like love and politics, infidelity and betrayal. It's as though it doesn't matter what their socioeconomic background, people still have conflicts over the same shit.

The Party would have done better with some greater clarity, either by fleshing out its themes as a feature film or by tightening up the action as a short film. Still, I was more than sufficiently entertained. You might be too, on whatever streaming platform you see it on eventually.

This party has a bit of a hostile vibe.

Overall: B