KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS Review

Sometimes things just click. We've all seen instances where they don't. In fact, most movies seem like they could be examples of experiments that don't always pay off in the way the writers/directors/creative people hope they might, but this feels especially true when it comes to Laika productions. Coraline was a solid venture and a full on experience in the style of animation and kind of twisted tone of story that the production company would come to specialize in. With ParaNorman the studio would essentially excel at achieving what they set out to do. Complimenting the twisted and frightening elements of their storytelling with humorous characters and eccentric production design that was just quirky enough so as to not be legitimately scary. It was only with 2014's The Boxtrolls that the pieces felt as if they were all present and yet the final product didn't come together as those in charge of story and execution aspired it might. There were still elements that were visually stunning about the picture, but the script found trouble communicating its larger ideas with a premise that didn't hook audiences as well as the infinitely comforting ParaNorman did. This brings us to Kubo and the Two Strings and how Laika has more or less again found a balance of all these ambitions it desires to display both visually and story wise. It may not be a perfectly balanced package of all these ingredients, but as a whole Kubo is endlessly charming and to go one step further, wholly enchanting. Whether it be in the outstanding visuals that are abundantly creative at conveying the necessary story points of this folktale like narrative or the fully realized cast of characters that make stop motion animation feel more life-like than ever Kubo is a genuine treat. Why it is so hard to define or provide concrete reasoning as to why something works so well when all the pieces fall into place is simply by virtue of the fact it is more about the emotional reaction it stirs up in the viewer rather than anything analytical. Though Kubo has a few shortcomings in trying to clearly relay exactly what its story is trying to say as well as in the fact it didn't hit me with as much emotional heft as I expected given the first act of the film packs a tough punch it is still too beautiful and very much an achievement in visual storytelling that it would be a shame to hold too much against it.

WAR DOGS Review

As the wise one, The Notorious B.I.G., prophesied long ago, "the more money we come across the more problems we see." Though Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) lived his life by the codes taught to him in 1983's Scarface it was this piece of knowledge spit in the 1997 hit of the same name by B.I.G. himself that ended up resonating most in Diveroli's life. Diveroli comes to learn this wasn't just a catchy phrase spurned by a rags to riches hip hop artist, but that those words carried real weight in the fact that the more wealth one begins to attain that jealousy and envy are things that simply come with the territory. In War Dogs, director Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover) along with co-writers Jason Smilovic (Lucky Number Slevin) and Stephen Chin have taken the incredibly outrageous true story of Diveroli and his childhood best friend David Packouz (Miles Teller) and turned it into something of a strange hybrid of a war drama and comedy where the drama and comedy is inherent to the situation when one has two stoners who become big-time weapons traders. As troublesome as it may be, it is indeed a true story lifted from the article originally published in Rolling Stone by Guy Lawson. It is at one point a case study in all that is wrong with government procurement systems done in satirical fashion as it also criticizes government procurement systems by exploiting how easily two twenty-somethings from Miami secured millions of dollars' worth of weapons contracts from not only the Pentagon, but to arm America's allies in Afghanistan. While Phillips and his co-writers are certainly quick to ridicule and expose this process for how asinine it would seem to give such power to any such individual who wants to sell guns and ammo the writer/director is also quick to supply a throughline of the benefits provided these two young men and the lessons and knowledge they no doubt retained even if much of their time was spent snorting cocaine and hanging out in clubs when they should have been in the office conducting business given it was midday in most of the countries where their clients were located. Phillips simultaneously wants to celebrate that such individuals were able to pull off something as massive as they did, no matter how circumstantial it ultimately was, while at the same time exposing the government for how loosely and even thoughtlessly it spends the tax payer's money. Still, War Dogs isn't a highly political film and it certainly doesn't have its head in the clouds about ideas or themes it could potentially relay from the insane situation it chronicles, but by more or less delivering a straightforward account of the story and allowing the characters and situations to speak for themselves the larger implications are automatically present.

CAFÉ SOCIETY Review

Café Society is a movie I wanted to like more and more as the film played on, but as it did so I actually liked it less and less. Beginning with the standard narration from writer/director Woody Allen that drops us into this tale of a young man looking for a place where the grass might be greener things are promising enough. We are introduced to a cadre of family members around our protagonist, Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg), who will inevitably inform where this current inclination to leave his father's failing jewelry business and move across the country to Los Angeles will actually take him. It is 1930's Los Angeles no less and so Bobby is struck by the great seduction of movie stars, movie star parties, and the most beautiful of people to allure him to the city. It is a place considered mythic to the otherwise unrefined Bobby who has been stuck in Manhattan his entire life. The promise of new beginnings, though somewhat stalled by the disregard of his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell), and the downright gorgeous cinematography of Vittorio Storaro that bathes all of golden age Hollywood in gold lends Café Society this vibrant and crisp feeling that resonates strongly with the modern audience hoping to catch a glimpse of the glitz and glamour of 1930's Hollywood that is well-documented, but too rarely brought to life. This fascination can only last so long though, when it becomes clear Allen's latest isn't necessarily about the introspection of this period in history or even a story that compliments the time period in lending insight to the names and faces we all know, but would like to know better. Instead, Café Society becomes a story solely about the romantic plight of Bobby, an Allen surrogate that Eisenberg again plays tremendously without the burden of having the actual Allen co-star alongside him as he did in 2012's To Rome With Love, but as with that film Café Society ends up offering little more than Allen's insecure yet intellectual quips on love, life, and religion among other things. Unfortunately, at this point such musings without an exceptional story on which to convey them simply feel like little more than standard meditations. It is unfortunate there isn't more imagination and wonder behind this latest excursion of Allen's for Café Society's potential initially feels as fresh and crisp as Bobby's outlook upon arriving in Los Angeles.

ANTHROPOID Review

It is mind boggling how many stories continue to be mined from the time period in which World War II took place whether they directly have to deal with certain events of battle or just repercussions of the German invasion that so many countries suffered from. While it is even more impossible to imagine the amount of stories that have yet to be told around interesting, fascinating, and downright terrible acts that came out of this period in history what makes this new film from writer/director Sean Ellis even more telling than its compelling story is the fact it delivers such a small and contained piece of that larger puzzle while at the same time still conveying how grandly devastating so many of the actions that occurred during WWII were. Anthropoid operates in this realm well, slowly initiating the viewer into its world and set of circumstances before we realize the full extent of what our two protagonists have really volunteered for. The movie takes a risk in not attempting to largely develop or humanize these characters until the second act of the film, but rather Ellis and co-screenwriter Anthony Frewin (who was an assistant to Stanley Kubrick on a number of films) use this first act to delve into the history of the situation and present it to the audience in a way that at first feels labored in that it's all work, no play. As we come to feel something for these people and as we come to know a more expanded cast of characters the sympathy builds as does the understanding for the purpose of the colder, but vital scenes that bring us into this mission. The history lesson is important, but more it is understanding the type of thinking that crafted these situations and as a result, our history as we know it, that is key to understanding the character choices and actions that come to take place in the third act of the film. We all know war is hell-even if we've never actively participated the history books and movies have told and showed us this countless times before-it is that Anthropoid is able to give a sense of the scope of that saying in its single, largely unknown account of these actions that makes it not only a story worth telling, but one that is executed in an entertaining and incisive enough fashion that it deserves to be seen as well.

Full Trailer for ARRIVAL Starring Amy Adams

Paramount Pictures released a short, one-minute teaser for the latest Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) film last week and honestly that probably would have been enough for a long time, but by the end of that exceptional tease we were already promised a full trailer less than a week down the line and here we are-with a full minute and a half more footage to better wrap our heads around what exactly Villeneuve will be exploring this time. Each of the directors last three films have been in my top fifteen of the year and so it is something of an understatement to say I'm excited to see what he does next though the fact the films screenplay was penned by the guy who wrote Final Destination 5 and The Thing re-make is a bit concerning. That said, he also penned Lights Out which has been getting great reviews (I still need to see that one) and so maybe it is all in the execution which is something Villeneuve excels at-just look at Prisoners especially. With Arrival, the director has paired with Amy Adams for the story of an expert linguist who is recruited by the military to determine whether the aliens on a craft that has landed have come in peace or are a threat. The trailer looks insanely tense and well photographed, but unfortunately it feels as if it gives away more than I was hoping it would. The aspect of focusing on language and the breaking down of how we communicate with an invading species though is insanely interesting and seems to have given way to a number of interesting facets that have been explored throughout the film all of which garner strong repercussions on the life of our protagonist. Arrival will play at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and Venice Film Festival before opening on November 11th and features a supporting cast that includes the likes of Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg.