Zootopia
Dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore & Jared Bush
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As far as I'm concerned, Disney Animation Studios are crushing Pixar in terms of their quality of movies as of late. Even though Inside Out was fantastic, with Frozen, Big Hero 6, Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph, Pixar's output of farming dinosaurs and sequels no one asked for hasn't been up to snuff lately. Zootopia continues Disney's winning streak, and this is my favorite of their current re-renaissance (which is really saying something).
The story follows Judy Hopps, a small-town bunny who moves to the big city of Zootopia to realize her dreams of becoming a police officer - despite the fact that "prey" are never usually given that privilege. Her parents are terrified for her and provide her with stun guns and fox repellent before leaving for the city. Once in Zootopia, she's relegated to the lowest position of parking duty, and while unfulfilled with her new life, strikes up an uneasy relationship with a fox hustler, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). The two eventually work together past their misunderstandings to uncover a political conspiracy to keep the public afraid of "predators." There are surprisingly deep themes with this story - there's a feminist angle with Hopps trying to be a police officer, there's a racial angle with her and the city's false assumptions about predators, and there's an interracial buddy cop movie in there, all wrapped up in a fun, hilarious package about furry CGI animals for kids.
The animation is absolutely incredible. I'm sure a team of 100 sweaty, hunched-over animators were assigned to create new "fur" programs or something for Disney, and the effort paid off. The world-building on display is as impressive as Mad Max: Fury Road; every inch of the city is filled with little visual gags that each build off each other. The joke-per-square-inch of this movie is staggering, and many are genuinely funny (like the sloth bit from the trailers). Although it's animated, I think this film also gives Jason Bateman possibly his best comic performance to date, allowing him to tap into his snarky attitude even in tense situations.
I could go on and on, but to avoid spoilers, I'll just say I loved just about everything about this movie. It's funny, beautifully made, doesn't feel like too many cooks were in the kitchen despite having 3 directors and 8 writers attached, there's an actually interesting mystery at its center, and its heavy-handed themes like racism aren't eye-rollingly didactic, they're always presented in clever, unexplicit ways so as to make the audience make their own connections as to their meanings. Zootopia is one of the best animated movies I've seen in years, probably since Up, and even the annoying Shakira song at the end isn't enough to lower my rating.
Rating: A
10 Cloverfield Lane
Dir. Dan Trachtenberg
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Although 10 Cloverfield Lane has the namesake of the 2008 sleeper hit found-footage monster movie Cloverfield, it's an entirely different beast than its predecessor. The status of this spiritual sequel was kept hidden for a long time under the codename "Valencia," and the original script that it's based on had nothing to do with the Cloverfield brand. It wasn't until production began that the filmmakers noticed similarities in tone, and decided to tie it into the "Cloverfield" universe. The trailer was also released surprisingly late for a studio-backed film, only about 3 months before its release. So the movie was already shrouded in mystery before it even came out, with its connection to the first film left intentionally vague. 10 Cloverfield Lane is one of those rare movie gifts that comes out of nowhere to surprise us all: it's a claustrophobic, tense, well-acted thriller whose only flaw, in my opinion, is its completely forced and arbitrary connection to Cloverfield.
The film follows Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, aka, the crush of any straight man watching), a costume designer who gets into a rough car accident. She wakes up to find herself in an underground bunker with two men. One is Howard (John Goodman), who took it upon himself to "save" Michelle from her accident, telling her that a massive chemical attack has made the air above unbreathable and their only chance of survival is to stay inside for a good long while. Also there is Emmet (John Gallagher, Jr.), who, unlike Michelle, wants to be in the bunker and mostly trusts Howard's word. But despite the creature comforts offered by the shelter, Howard's increasingly controlling and menacing nature makes the others scared, and Michelle attempts to devise an escape plan.
The trio of actors that make up the bunker are fantastic and play well off each other. Winstead tells us everything we need to know through her eyes alone, and brings both a vulnerability and a determination to the character. John Gallagher, Jr. was also great as a likable goof - a much needed element to this pretty dark film. But the stand-out is John Goodman, who is definitely the most complex character here. The film keeps you guessing whether or not he's outright crazy or he's just an eccentric survivalist, and as the two others try to figure him out, they, along with the audience, are terrified that it's the former.
While I love the slow, intense thriller aspect between these three actors, I do think that the way in which the Cloverfield element works its way into the story completely feels like an afterthought. Just calling it Cloverfield in the title is somewhat of a spoiler anyway, because you already have pre-conceived notions of what that even means. That's the one aspect of the film I found hugely disappointing, big enough that it put a damper on my enthusiasm for the rest of the film.
Despite its questionable tie-in, I'm happy that this is a big step up for debut feature director Dan Trachtenberg, who I'd been following for years on the now defunct Totally Rad Show video Podcast. I knew he'd be onto bigger and better things after he made a short film based on the video game Portal that went viral, and I hope that perhaps after the success of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Valve will give him the rights to a big budget movie for one of their properties - yes, please make a Half-Life movie! In the meantime, check this one out if you want to see a great little movie from a (hopefully) up-and-comer we'll see more of down the line.
Rating: B+
Dir. Michael Moore
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Michael Moore may be a controversial figure in the world of documentary for making aggressively liberal, one-sided arguments, but that doesn't stop his films from being entertaining and thought-provoking. I consider Bowling for Columbine and Roger and Me to be two of the great all-time documentaries, and I typically connect with the satirical edge Moore gives his subjects. Where to Invade Next may not be as outright funny as some of his previous films, but it does fit alongside his best: it basically follows Moore as he visits various European countries to examine how they view various things, like work, education, health care, vacations, sex, prisons and all sorts of other topics, and through his travels, tries to show and tell Americans that there are other, possibly better ways of running the country.
Even if you don't ultimately agree with Moore's ideas, Where to Invade Next is a fascinating cross-cultural examination that will get the conversation going on positive change. If anyone has a right to be cynical about America it's Michael Moore - it's been 14 years since Bowling for Columbine and gun control is just as bad as it's ever been - but Where to Invade is refreshingly optimistic. While it's not perfect, I think any American would benefit from watching this film.
Rating: B+
Son of Saul
Dir. László Nemes
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This year's winner for Best Foreign Feature at the Oscars, Son of Saul is a Holocaust drama that's told in a unique way. Shot entirely in "Academy Ratio" (meaning it's framed in more of a square than a rectangle), the film stays almost entirely on a medium shot of the lead actor with everything in the background out of focus. The plot follows a Jewish worker, Saul (Géza Röhrig), working at Auschwitz as a "sonderkommando," helping dispose of the bodies at the gas chamber. The way the film was shot is a bold, artistic attempt to get you inside Saul's frame of mind, keeping the horrors of the situation at a distance while remaining intensely focused on the job he has to do (it's also an economic choice; Son of Saul hardly has Spielberg Schindler's List cash to put tons of extras and period detail on the screen). However, despite the uniqueness of the idea, I personally found it disorienting in a bad way. I don't know if this was the point due to its subject matter, but I felt nauseous watching this, and I usually don't have problems with these kinds of things (3D, IMAX, "shaky cam" stuff never bothers me).
Also making the experience a chore was the lead actor. He simply has zero empathy. His unchanging, depersonalized performance gets tiring quickly. This pretty much killed the movie for me, since the entire thing literally rests on his head. In concept, I like the idea of closely following one man in the middle of such a large-scale loss in an attempt to put a human face on this tragedy, but unfortunately Röhrig's blank-slate didn't leave me with much to go with. Not to mention the confusing plot and dialogue. Saul's plan to rescue his son seems doomed from the start so there wasn't much tension for me. Son of Saul is one of those movies that has a lot of snob appeal (super-serious subject matter, technically innovative cinematography, confusing plot), but I personally found it a slog to get through.
Rating: C
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