Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark: November 2017

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Coco and Roman J. Israel, Esq.

“Baby, baby, baby, you’re out of time”

The Rolling Stones, "Out of Time" (1966 Aftermath album, U.K.; 1967 Flowers album, U.S.)

Reviews by Ken Burke

Coco (Lee Unkrich)

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): 12-year-old Miguel Rivera, living in Mexico, longs to be a musician (he’s quite good on guitar in his secret sessions) but is forbidden from even being around music by his extended-generations-shoemaking-family—particularly grandmother Elena—because his great-great grandfather abandoned his wife, Mamá Imelda, and baby daughter (now great-grandmother Mamá Coco) decades ago to share his musical talents with the world. As the annual celebration of Día de los Muertos approaches, Miguel longs to enter the talent show honoring fabulous-but-long-departed-entertainer Ernesto de la Cruz, but Grandma smashes his guitar so he sneaks into Ernesto’s tomb—convinced the great man is his ancestor—to borrow the famed instrument displayed there but becomes magically transported to the Land of the Dead where he meets his ghostly-relatives (all as walking, talking, fully-clothed skeletons) who refuse to give him the needed transport back to the Land of the Living (it needs to be accomplished before sunrise or he’s stuck forever with the dead) unless he renounces his musical interests. Instead, Miguel decides to seek out Ernesto—as famous in death as he was in life—both to bond with the grand ancestor and to get passage home from him, although the situation becomes complicated, bordering on tragic, when he encounters Héctor, also desperate to get Miguel back to the Land of the Living so he can take Héctor’s photo to his long-lost-daughter, the only person with any vague memories of him, so it can be put on an altar in his honor, preventing him from disappearing forever.

Coco’s a fabulous delight, combining colorful visuals, a sentimental-yet-embraceable-story, vividly-drawn-characters (both conceptually and literally, as this is an animated movie), infectious music, and a celebration of connection now sorely needed in our increasingly-hostile, divided world. I enthusiastically recommend Coco, with easy access because it’s everywhere throughout the planet.

Here’s the trailer: (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this:

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: As the annual celebration of Día de los Muertos arrives in the Mexican town of Santa Cecilia, most of the Rivera family’s eager to put up the traditional ofrenda (altar) with photographs of their departed ancestors in order to welcome the once-a-year-return of these spirits, although Abuelita (Grandmother) Elena (voice of Renée Victor) has no use for: (1) any remembrance of her grandfather (whose head’s been ripped off a family photo) because he left his wife and little daughter, Coco (Ana Ofelia Murguía as the old woman)—Elena’s mother, now elderly and invalid—to share his emerging musical career with the wider-world; (2) any presence of music within this family (who turned to a stable career in shoemaking upon the decision of abandoned-ancestor Mamá Imelda [Alanna Ubach]) in disgust toward the memory of her grandfather, which poses a huge problem for 12-year-old Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez), who’s secretly developed a solid talent as a guitarist in imitation of his idol, the long-deceased-but-still-widely-beloved Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) with a fabulous singing and movie career cut short by a freak accident in 1942 when he was crushed by the falling of a huge bell. Miguel’s only audience so far is his street dog, Dante (Grandma doesn’t care for the mutt either), but he hopes to change that by sneaking away from the family festivities to participate in the town’s musical festival honoring Ernesto. Elena learns of his plan, putting an end to it by smashing the boy’s guitar; determined to follow his dreams Miguel asks other musicians to borrow their instruments—to no avail—so his ambitions embolden him to do the unthinkable: sneak into Ernesto’s lavish gravesite to follow the celebrity’s motto of “Seize your moment” by borrowing his famed guitar, then make a presence for himself at the competition on the night of this long-awaited Day of the Dead (most of this movie’s dialogue’s in English, for the benefit of us gringo patrons, so I’ll largely go that direction as well), because, as this story progresses, Miguel’s convinced Ernesto’s actually his long-estranged great-great-grandfather.

Upon entering the tomb memorial and strumming the storied guitar, however, Miguel suddenly finds himself transported to the visually-mesmerizing-Land of the Dead, emitting the same yellow-orange marigold glow that characterizes all these many departed spirits (somehow Dante travels there as well, to provide some ongoing physical-comic-relief). Almost immediately Miguel meets his dead relatives, presided over by matriarch Imelda (we see nothing of any generation preceding her, possibly verifying how you disappear completely, even from the Land of the Dead, once you’re no longer remembered by any of the living, the greatest fear of these departed souls), who joyously welcome him but know he needs to be back in his own world, which can happen if given the blessing by a family member; however, Imelda refuses to allow such unless he promises to give up his attraction to music (she still hasn’t forgiven her long-departed-husband). Refusing this condition, Miguel sets out to find Ernesto, hoping to share his delight in romantic songs as well as return to where he belongs, a challenge he must meet before the sun rises concluding the Day of the Dead, lest he remain with these spirits forever (or maybe until he’s forgotten and vanishes also). In a parallel subplot, we find Héctor (Gael García Bernal), a mischievous skeletal presence, also anxious to cross the grand marigold bridge back to the Land of the Living in order to reconnect with his long-lost-daughter, but he’s not allowed out because there’s no photo of him on an altar recognizing his memory; these 2 story aspects come together when Miguel meets Héctor, who says he has a relationship with Ernesto (estranged we later find out), so they’re off to attend the famed musician’s lavish party with the goal of Miguel taking Héctor’s photo back with him in order to bring it to the daughter, reconnecting them with still a little time left for Héctor to cross that amazing bridge to the Land of the Living (much more beautiful than any Trump-proposed-wall, I assure you).

⇒Once they’ve gained access to the impresario’s festival (Miguel’s honored by Ernesto as the descendant he claims to be, Héctor sneaks in with a disguise), though, Miguel learns the truth that Héctor and Ernesto were once partners but the former decided to return to his almost-forgotten-family, taking with him the many songs he’d written which Ernesto popularized with his flamboyant performance skills, so—to preserve his budding career—Ernesto killed Héctor. Miguel’s horrified to learn all this but soon suffers a worse fate when Ernesto has him thrown into a huge pit to prevent the boy from revealing the truth about this tarnished-star. Héctor’s tossed down there too, soon providing a bit more revelation he’s truly Coco’s father, heartbroken he died before being able to return to his wife and baby (Imelda’s aware of his presence in the Land of the Dead but still refuses to see him, remaining angry about her abandonment). Rescue from the pit arrives in the form of Imelda’s giant, winged spirit-guide-cat (somehow Dante’s turned into a little spirit guide as well), allowing Miguel and Imelda to interrupt Ernesto’s Sunrise Spectacular celebration, revealing his awful truth to everyone, after which the charlatan’s pursued by the huge cat-beast, resulting in another termination (Can the dead die another time?) from another giant bell. Once Imelda learns the truth about Héctor’s absence she forgives him, then sends Miguel back to his home where he awakens Mamá Coco’s memory of her father, singing his song written for her (but popularized by Ernesto as a romantic ballad), “Remember Me” (with the additional overtones of the dead needing to be alive in the minds of the living lest they vanish from all existence), which allows a musical embrace by Elena and the rest of the family at last. A year later, Coco’s now joined the deceased who all come back for the Day of the Dead family reunion, highlighted by Miguel’s joyful music.⇐

So What? My initial response to the planned release date of Pixar/Disney’s Coco was “Why wasn’t it planned for the weekend before Halloween (given its focus on the annual Day of the Dead* celebration) instead of coming out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving?” In more-enlightened-retrospect (and regardless of what competition it might have faced a month ago—the less-than-spectacular Jigsaw [Michael and Peter Spierig], Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, even as these movies are more specific to that holiday unlike Coco’s true emphasis which transcends the mercantile-spookiness we’ve now come to associate with All Hallows' Eve [originally a harvest festival/remembrance of the deceased, strongly influenced by Celtic tradition]), especially after having seen it on Black Friday (instead of doing any shopping that day, except for dinner after the movie**) following our annual Thanksgiving gathering with as many of my wife, Nina’s, family as can be rounded up on a given year (if we got everyone in the immediate lineage together it would take the largest house that any of them owns, although lots would still have to be drawn to decide who’d feast in which room because even the banquet hall at Hearst Castle might be inadequate to contain everyone at the same grand table), I was in the best mindset possible for Coco’s intended focus on family, living or otherwise. Family’s also the ultimate theme of the Disney animation, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure (Kevin Deters, Stevie Wermers) which precedes Coco—a short (but not very, at 21 min.) sequel to the hugely-popular Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013; review in our January 24, 2014 posting [please be tolerant of my atrocious older layout]), where Olaf, the enchanted snowman tries to help royal sisters Anna and Elsa create a Christmas tradition, because they never had one when growing up, only to accidently burn/destroy everything he gathered before they reveal the heartwarming (or intended as such) reality to the heartbroken creature that pictures of Olaf shared between the isolated siblings were a valued annual tradition—so Olaf is truly a part of their family.

(I'll ask for just a bit more toleration here, indulging me while I go exploring an extended sidetrack.)

*It's not really parallel to Halloween, though, as these days are often confused, especially by gringos who don’t realize in either case they should be celebrating something else than how much alcohol can be consumed. Technically—despite some observances of Día de los Muertos as running anywhere from October 31 (or before, for the truly impatient) through November 2, it should only occur on the latter (regarding deceased adults, with departed children the focus of Nov. 1) to correspond to what the Roman Catholic Church designates as All Souls Day (and the previous All Saints Day), where their emphasis is intended to be on prayers for the release of those departed currently in Purgatory, awaiting the final cleansing of their sins before entering Heaven (anyone who’s joined God and the angels beyond the Pearly Gates is already a saint—even if they haven’t been declared as such yet by the Vatican—so they’re honored, maybe prayed to but not prayed for, on Nov. 1, All Saints Day, while those unfortunates condemned to Hell are beyond the aid of prayer anyway; prayer also doesn’t help those in Limbo—the pleasant-but-not-marvelous-afterlife for good souls not saved by baptism so they can’t ever go to Heaven [sort of like the difference between being a Californian in Pismo Beach vs. Malibu***]; hey, this is all Church lingo as I couldn’t possibly make it up, although I internalized it for years before moving on to other beliefs—or a lack thereof).

However, Día de los Muertos isn’t so much about helping release the dearly-departed from the soul-restoring-fires of their temporary home in Purgatory as it is about remembering them as they have this annual opportunity to return to the Land of the Living in order to visit once again with their still-alive relatives and descendants. You can get more on this much-loved Mexican holiday if you like by visiting the 2^nd reference to Coco in the Related Links section of this review, farther below.

**The obvious choice would have been Mexican food—or more likely the Tex-Mex style inhabiting U.S. restaurants, but Nina’s still off-and-on dealing with some intestinal problems so we “made do” with a delicious Italian dinner, awaiting the time when she’s ready to delve into some salsas again.

***Honestly, I find unique delights in both, although—just as I’d probably prefer Limbo if you’re supposed to sit around Heaven praising God all the time (just like another prominent leader seems to expect)—I’d likely be more comfortable in Pismo than Malibu unless I really hit it big in the lottery.

(OK, back to the actual review, where we were talking about the Disney short that runs just prior to Coco.) Olaf’s … a sweet little story, complete with new songs and other characters from Frozen, but it does seem to be too much of a ploy to reinvigorate sales of Frozen merchandize, it feels a bit too much like a recap of that previous hit, and it certainly goes on long enough—especially for those restless audience members ready to celebrate Mexico rather than Norway, with their bladders already contemplating the main feature's near-2 hr. running time (110 min.)—there’s now even social-media-encouragement to come late for Coco in order to miss Olaf … (although, given the popularity of Coco, that’s likely to leave you with a poor choice of seats, so maybe get there notably before official screening time, then have someone save your spot while you peruse the snack bar).

Despite the ongoing complaints about mixing Olaf … with Coco (the problems are more about narrative confusion and unexpected, extended showtime-length for the younger viewers, not necessarily about the visual quality/welcome character recognition of the animated short), once you settle into the feature, traveling back and forth from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead (with the former showing solid research on what Miguel’s town would look like, the latter being an ongoing image-extravaganza from the opening shots of the lavish city where the departed dwell to the ornate luxuries of Ernesto’s private compound), you can easily forget about Olaf and his companions, concentrating instead on the constantly-active, surprisingly-serious-at-times-but-light-hearted-in-most-others flow of this story, with lots of humor including the soul-skeletons constantly finding themselves dismembered only to quickly reconnect. ⇒(So, I guess if any permanent damage came to Ernesto it was because the huge bell crushed his bones to dust or maybe it was one of those time-dislocation things that occurs in the afterlife—except for the precision of the annual Day of the Dead recurrence—where I have to assume Miguel and his family later promoted the truth about Héctor and Ernesto, leading to gradual disregard of the formerly-famous-star in our sphere, resulting in his disappearance from the Land of the Dead as well—or maybe he just receded into the shadows after being exposed as a Milli Vanilli-type-hoax, no longer to be revered even in the afterlife.)⇐ Everything about this movie is an ongoing delight, from the spectacular images to the engaging voice characterizations to the sincerity with which the project was undertaken, not to further exploit age-old-idiotic-representations of Mexicans but to honor an uplifting aspect of their culture emphasizing connection rather than increasing isolation (as well as holding evildoers accountable for their transgressions, no matter how famous or powerful they are).

Bottom Line Final Comments: The parallel-downside to being part of a social group frequently underrepresented in commercial media (thereby denying you along with others like you a sense of established, respected existence in your culture) is existing in representation based only on stereotypes so what acknowledgement you do have is an absurd caricature of the complexity that defines you. So, for Mexicans in particular, Hispanics in general, Coco presents a marvelous opportunity for sincere presentation, with its all-Latino voice cast in a vehicle distributed by the enormous brand allure and global presence of Disney, with hopes the many previous exaggerations (or falsehoods) perpetuated in movies (explored marvelously in The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in American Cinema documentary [Nancy De Los Santos, Alberto Domínguez, Susan Racho; 2002], which you can rent cheaply but also can get a glimpse of here [3:22]) could be overcome, which seems to be the case (as best I know it), with positive testimony from Latino/Latina viewers (2:58)—although there may be naysayers I haven’t yet read about—coupled to the fact Coco (playing for the last month south of our much-debated-border) has already become the all-time-box-office-champ in Mexico. While I can’t speak any more directly about how appropriate Coco is to what it attempts to celebrate as far as Mexican heritage is concerned (3 DNA tests on my adopted-as-a-baby-body confirm a high majority of British Isles and Scandinavian ancestry for me, although 1 of those findings showed a whopping 9% Native American [not even a trace in the other 2, so believe what you will about such results]), I found this movie—with what little I know of Mexico, despite having lived most of my life in Texas or California, with short visits only to several vastly-non-representative border cities—to be in no way shallow or demeaning but instead respectful of an honored cultural tradition (no matter how many celebrants may overindulge, just like gringos on Halloween—or even worse from our cultural-appropriation-standpoint, Cinco de Mayo), charming in its depiction of the characters, sincere in its emphasis on the importance of family, especially when a family becomes openly-accepting to the individuality of all of its members.

Box-office-love for Coco has been quite solid globally as well, with a so-far-accumulated $155.2 million worldwide, with about $72.9 million of that coming from domestic (U.S.-Canada) screenings, a tremendous northern North American opening-weekend-haul (making it #35 on the entire domestic 2017 totals list with less than a week in release [much more to come I’m sure over the next month], as well as being about #10 [as best I can estimate] for 2017 domestic opening weekends, with 3 of the top 5 [#1 Beauty and the Beast {Bill Condon; review in our March 23, 2017 posting} at $174.6 million, #2 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 {James Gunn; sorry, no review from us} at $146.5 million, #4 Thor: Ragnarok {Taika Waititi; review in our November 15, 2017 posting} at $122.7 million] also from Disney, so they've had plenty to be thankful for this year) and other overseas markets still awaiting its arrival. The critics also have been extremely supportive, with the aggregate-sites of Rotten Tomatoes offering 96% positive reviews (of 169, a most impressive result) even as the usually-more-reserved folks at Metacritic present an average score of 80% (notably hight for them; based on 43 reviews, about normal for them), a result I’m glad to see and agree with as there’s little about Coco to complain about (except the total time you’ll sit there if you watch all the previews and Olaf … in addition to the main feature, so plan your restroom breaks accordingly).

Rather than belabor this review any further—except to encourage your attendance at one of the most honestly-intended (while-still-being-thoughtful) feel-good-movies of the year (or any other year) in Coco, I’ll just move along to my standard review-close-out-tactic of choosing a Musical Metaphor (one last observation—closely connected or more freeform—from the perspective of the aural arts) which, obviously enough here, is “Remember Me” from the soundtrack, a song you can find at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iDxU9eNQ_0 sung in English, then Spanish, with lyrics shown for both languages along with active illustrations from the movie. If you’d like a little more of that, here’s another version from a Disney celebration sung by Gonzales and Bratt (with an ironic reminder at the video's start of the kinds of social failings movies like Coco might be an antidote for, with a short intro from this movie’s [and much of Pixar’s products] executive producer, John Lasseter, one of the more recent notables to step back from the limelight following accusations of sexual misbehavior—if not outright crime in some cases—although it’s not clear yet what’s being referred to in Lasseter’s case while he’s on voluntary-6-month-leave to somehow deal with it). So, even uplifting-Pixar’s not immune from the troubles we often attend movies to escape from, but if you can ignore as best you can the small contributions of Lasseter to this video (and Coco’s credits) I think you’ll still find Pixar’s latest offering to stability-starved-audiences to be among their best yet.

SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy)

An idealistic, old-school, frequently-antisocial lawyer has been the research wizard of his small firm for years, but when his eloquent courtroom partner dies he’s left with no other options except to work for a slick, corporate-style firm that he detests until fate provides him with an opportunity to reverse his meager fortunes, with the details easily implied in the previews.

Here’s the trailer:

Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

Had I gone only by the collective critical consensus on this movie (RT 52% positive reviews, with MC yielding a surprisingly-slightly-higher 58% average score) I’d have never bothered to see it, but the combination of Nina and me being willing to watch Denzel Washington just sit there and read the phone book (Millennial readers of this blog—if there are any—may wonder just what a “phone book” is; if so, here's a reference [although it’s been dinged for insufficient citations, but I’d say it’s sufficiently accurate]) and a notation in an early-Oscar-considerations-article I read noting his performance here as being nomination-worthy sent us out to our local theater on a Tuesday afternoon to find the house close to full (although in its second week of domestic release Roman …’s just now expanded from 4 to 1,669 venues so it hasn’t had much of a chance to make any impact yet, yielding only about $6.2 million in receipts against a $22 million budget). While the story’s more about a complicated lawyer than any “arresting” case he’s trying (in fact, the brief courtroom scenes are just preliminary hearings, not trials at all), it’s a great character study of a brilliant-yet-largely-antisocial-man whose advocacy for social justice in the 1970s carries over into his personal passions today, just as his hairstyle, clothing choices, photos/posters on his apartment walls (Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis, etc.), even his cell phone (a mere clamshell model, just like the antiquated one I use [while Nina does amazing data-searches on her iPhone]) point back to earlier ages, largely because lawyer Israel is still fighting the same difficult battles for the socially-marginalized that he has for decades as so little has changed in that aspect of our national culture.

To accomplish this he’s worked most of his professional life in the L.A. 2-man-firm run by William Henry Jackson, him being the talented voice in the courtroom, Israel the effective-legal-strategist working behind the scenes (like with Ernesto and Héctor in Coco), every item in his office hosting a reminder Post-It note. As our current story begins, though, the public partner suffers a fatal heart attack so his niece, Lynn Jackson (Amanda Warren)—working from her uncle’s instructions—brings in hugely-successful-lawyer George Pierce (Colin Farrell, effectively smarmy) to shut down the firm, leaving Roman initially without work until he runs out of options, then begrudgingly accepts Pierce’s offer to put his encyclopedic-skills in motion at a much more corporate environment Israel detests.

By chance, he’s assigned to defend Derrell Ellerbee (DeRon Horton), connected to a homicide but willing to divulge the location of his notoriously-dangerous-colleague—the actual shooter—Carter Johnson (Amari Cheatom). Roman turns down a plea-bargain-deal for Ellerbee who then dies from a stabbing in jail, Pierce is furious about Israel taking responsibility for deciding to reject the D.A.’s offer (Roman’s convinced the drift of our justice system to plea-bargains rather than actual trials is essentially un-Constitutional, has been working for years on a massive class-action brief to the Supreme Court challenging it, but needs the clout [and resources] of someone like Pierce to complete it), then Roman gets mugged on the way home to his modest apartment, all of which causes a turn in him so he secretly reports Johnson’s whereabouts to the uncle of the man he killed (leading to his arrest) in order to collect the $100,000 cash reward, with which he treats himself to a weekend in Santa Monica buying suits, staying in a swanky hotel, eating bacon-turkey-honey/maple-glazed donuts (a frivolous upgrade from his usual diet of peanut butter sandwiches), then comes to work eager for a hefty salary in charge of the firm’s pro bono division, earning him newfound-respect from Pierce. ⇒This all collapses when Roman suddenly finds he’s assigned to defend Johnson, who knows Israel snitched on him (both a dangerous and an illegal move), so he’s totally paranoid, attempts to escape in a U-Haul truck with all his possessions in a frantic drive to the desert (mistakenly thinking he’s being followed in a tense-then-funny-scene), decides to turn himself in (after sending the vast remainder of his bounty money back to the uncle) but is shot down by a Johnson hitman before he can get to a police station. Yet, we understand he’s made an impact by the direct testimony of how inspirational he is to civil rights advocate Maya Alston (Carmen Ejogo) as well as Pierce’s decision to finish and file Roman's enormous anti-plea-bargain-brief.⇐

While there’s nothing all that memorable about this movie after a reasonable time has passed to mull over it (speaking of which, all of Roman …’s events occur in an incredibly-brief-3-week-span, even though the scenes’ contents imply considerably more time than that)—save for the crucial pleas for social justice—Washington gives another of his carefully-studied, impactful performances (as many other critics also note), this time about a crusading idealist with poor social skills (Maybe he’s somewhere on the autism spectrum?) who nevertheless almost forces those who can tolerate him to admire his genuine passion (he’s always handing out his business card but remembers who someone is if they contact him) so I’ll wrap this up by encouraging you to see Roman … for a touching, well-constructed experience (despite those same critics claiming a disconnect between Washington’s outstanding performance and the unresolved narrative he’s struggling to elevate) exploring a guy who truly wants to be around for you when he’s needed (especially if you’re being used as a faceless commodity in our criminal-justice-system), leading to my Musical Metaphor choice (stolen right from the end-credits section of their soundtrack, just like with Coco), The Spinners’ “I’ll Be Around” (from their 1972 Spinners album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfG47NsWVYA, a video from TV’s Soul Train (probably from 1972 as well [dedicated to Nina's dearly-departed-Dad, a curiously-white-bread-regular-viewer of the show]). As far as I know, I’ll be around again next week as well with more reviews so until then try to not get arrested (unless you know a passionately-dedicated-lawyer concerned with something more than large billable hours).

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

We encourage you to visit the summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about Coco:

http://movies.disney.com/coco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP1brWUDrD0 (11:08 traditions, mythology, and references within the movie)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coco_2017

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/coco-2017

Here’s more information about Roman J. Israel, Esq.

http://www.romanisraelmovie.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ozEs6ANAyQ (15:35 interview with writer-director Dan Gilroy and actor Denzel Washington)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/roman_j_israel_esq

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/roman-j-israel-esq

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By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken*

*YouTube keeps deleting links to this Eagles performance so I keep putting a newer version back in but you’ll just find dead links in our previous postings prior to November 15, 2017, so don’t be confused.

P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"

—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.

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Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 19,726 (a dip from previous numbers but I’m back to 5 continents again, excluding Africa and Antarctica); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week:

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Lady Bird and Justice League

Conflict Resolutions

Reviews by Ken Burke

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): It’s clear from the start Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson’s a dissatisfied senior at a Catholic high-school in 2002-2003 Sacramento, CA, yearning for an upgrade to an elite East Coast college (even though her family finances, grades, and marginal extracurricular activities hardly support such ambitions). Throughout this very-funny-but-at-times-heartbreaking-look at the life of a teenage girl un-romanticized for filmic purposes (in arguing with her mother she suddenly jumps out of a moving car, then wears a cast on her right arm for much of the story; she and a friend snack on unconsecrated Communion wafers; she secretly throws a math teacher’s grade book away forcing him to accept the students’ memories of how they were doing in order for her transcript to improve; she gets suspended for challenging an assembly speaker about abortion; she buys a pack of cigarettes and a Playgirl on her 18^th birthday just because she can) based loosely on the younger life of actress-turned-screenwriter/director-Gerwig we also encounter a combative-but-caring-mother, a reclusive-but-helpful-father, some various passing friends and/or love interests, and revelations of how a seemingly-stable-family can be on the brink of financial disaster in this thriving-in-some-places, disastrous-in-others contemporary economy we’re all enjoying/enduring. Lady Bird’s clearly one of the best-written, best-acted films of the year with solid Oscar talk already swirling around, especially Best Supporting Actress consideration for Laurie Metcalf as Momma Marion. This film’s not in a lot of markets yet but hopefully will be expanding on a much wider basis as pre-awards-season continues to build up our expectations and anticipations.

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: We begin with an onscreen-quote from Joan Didion, “Anybody who talks about California hedonism hasn’t spent a Christmas in Sacramento,” which sets the tone for this bittersweet, frequently-funny tale of Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson’s (Saoirse Ronan) senior year at Sacramento’s Immaculate Heart of Mary all-girls-high school, in which her mission in life is to escape the brain-dead (in her opinion), pseudo-wild-west-realm of her homeland for the supposed-intellectual/artistic-wonders of East Coast colleges, even though her mother, psychiatric nurse Marion (Laurie Metcalf), prefers—in a sarcastic, demeaning manner—self-named Lady Bird should try for a school closer to home (maybe Sac City College with a transfer to UC Davis [but far too agriculturally-boring for our aspiring protagonist]), especially later when Dad Larry (Tracy Letts) loses his job, then has to compete against much-younger-competition including his adopted son, Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues)—a bit older than his biological McPherson sister but also living at home, along with girlfriend Shelly Yuhan (Marielle Scott) whose parents kicked her out due to her openness to sex. Added to Lady Bird’s mostly-self-imposed-troubles are her attempts to find her own romance, which looks promising when she follows close friend Julie Steffans (Beanie Feldstein) into auditions for the combo-school-musical (with nearby all-boys St. Francis Xavier High) where she shows better talent than most of the others then falls for Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges)—a charming representative of every Catholic school’s multi-sibling, hard-drinking Irish family (families)—but soon is crushed by catching him kissing Julie’s supposed boyfriend in the school restroom during a dance. On a much-lighter-note, the Junior Varsity coach has to take over as director of the next play, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which he diagrams for the actors as if it's a football game.

Lady Bird’s attentions move to budding-bass player/anarchist Kyle Scheible (Timothée Chalamet)—so "enlightened" he smokes clove cigarettes—part of the upper-crust-circle of Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush) whom Lady Bird tries to befriend but ultimately falls woefully short in the financial department when Jenna learns Lady Bird’s been using Danny’s grandmother’s upscale address to hide her real home on the “wrong side of the tracks.” Kyle helps Lady Bird lose her virginity, then she’s again devastated to find out he’s had prior experience (yet asks “Are we still going to prom together?” even though she decides to go with Julie, helping overcome her friend’s loneliness) ⇒so she rekindles the Julie connection, makes peace with Danny who desperately needs a friend as he’s terrified of coming out to his “Reagan Country” family and classmates, anxiously awaits word from the East Coast colleges she secretly applied to (financial-aid-applications supplied by Dad, even as he’s struggling with bouts of depression), finally gets on a waiting list at Sarah Lawrence (in Yonkers, NY just north of Manhattan)—where she’d need massive aid, given the roughly $54,000 tuition-plus-fees-rate (housing’s another $10,000; $2,800 for health insurance), then is accepted much to Mom’s anger, goes there, finds some letters Dad snuck into her luggage from Mom (but never given to her daughter) in which she finally admits her true care for Lady Bird, starts calling herself Christine but lies that she’s from San Francisco, almost immediately gets so drunk at a party she has to go to an emergency room, then calls home to leave a message for Mom about how much she really does love her because Marion’s seemingly-hard-hearted-attitudes are ultimately intended to help Christine live a better life than Mom had to do with alcoholic, abusive Grandma.⇐

So What? Given my overall admiration for the extensive attractions of the cinematic universe (not to be confused with the much-more-limited-environments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe [MCU] or the DC Expanded Universe [DCEU], both of which will be explored in the next review just below), with its collection of superb talents including actors, scriptwriters, and directors, it’s a triple joy to celebrate an artist in one of those areas becoming a notable force in the others as well. That’s the case here with Gerwig, building on her marvelous presence as an actor in such films as Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012; review in our May 30, 2013 posting), Mistress America (Baumbach, 2015; review in our August 27, 2015 posting), 20^th Century Women (Mike Mills, 2016; review in our January 27, 2017 posting), and Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller, 2016; review in our June 28, 2016 posting) as she’s now created a marvelous script, further enhanced by her debut in directing it (which is gaining traction as a screening presence, now jumping up to 238 domestic [U.S.-Canada] theaters after starting small, which accounts for the mere $4.9 million in ticket sales during its 3 weeks in release, with hopes strong word-of-mouth will lead to much wider exposure [up to #8 in domestic sales last weekend, but its debut on November 3, 2017 in just 4 venues yielded an average of $93,903, best yet for 2017, as well as being the highest ever for a female-directed-film—to go along with Patty Jenkins now holding the record for highest-grossing-live-action-film directed by a female, with her stupendous Wonder Woman {review in our June 8, 2017 posting}]). One factor that may help ticket sales for Lady Bird is buzz about Oscar nominations, with some of the strongest consideration being voiced for Metcalf as Best Supporting Actress, although—depending on what else is released between now and the end of the year—I hope that Ronan garners some consideration for Best Actress along with Gerwig for her Original Screenplay.

Some might grouse about how original the script is given Gerwig’s admitted much of what we see on screen’s inspired by her real life as a Sacramento native (just like Didion), although she clarifies nothing’s specifically autobiographical, but since when should any writer be penalized for drawing upon true experiences rather than fabricating all of them? (Even Mario Puzo admits the book [and resulting script] for The Godfather [Francis Ford Coppola, 1972] is based on research about the actual Mafia, even though the specific events of the Corleone family are fictionalized.*) What becomes quasi-autobiographical for me, though, and even more so for my wife, Nina, includes the Sacramento setting (where I have a close friend who formerly lived there as well as long-time friends now residing in CA’s capital city, whom I’ve visited there a couple of times in recent years) along with the much-more-important aspect of both Nina and I being raised Catholic, attending Catholic school (me through 8^th grade, her all the way through high school), and the depiction of a parents-child-relationship Nina admits (with permission for me to write this, although she’d prefer I not get into detailed descriptions about one of her priests that now fall into the Roy Moore-Al Franken morass) resembles her own with an overbearing mother constantly in conflict with a rebellious daughter while the father remains the “good cop” in the background, often secretly undermining Mom’s decrees because he has such a hard time saying “no” to his devoted offspring.

*But, as art and life continue to intermingle, the recently-deceased-Sicilian-Mafia-“boss of bosses,” Salvatore Riina, came from the actual town of Corleone (source of the mob film family's surname) where portions of both The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II (Coppola, 1974) were set and shot.

Nina and I agree, though, that Gerwig doesn’t lay any attacks on Catholicism as such (except Lady Bird’s humorous refusal to even consider attending a Catholic college [which also brings up memories for me that I was a close-to-be-hired-faculty-candidate at 2 prominent CA Catholic colleges where I had to wrestle at the time with how I’d be able to reconcile my own evolving rejection of this faith—and all others, except for their meditative and “good works” aspects—with the environments I’d be teaching in, but not being chosen at either place—probably for the best—resolved those conflicts]) nor does she present any of the Immaculate Heart nuns (especially realistic-but-tolerant Sister Sarah Joan [Lois Smith], who laughs off Lady Bird and Jenna’s “Just Married Bride of Jesus” adornments to her car) as being like some of the scary presences we faced in the classroom (although at the Homecoming dance there’s a bit straight out of Nina’s memory where a nun tells the dancers to pull apart by at least 6 inches [for Nina, it was a priest insisting the distance be the length of his flashlight], but even there the couples are allowed to full-body-press as the night goes on while a girl isn’t sent home for wearing a “Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy” T-shirt).

Bottom Line Final Comments: As you’ll find in reading on through the rest of this posting, I’ve gone on at length about the DC superheroes in Justice League even though their movie earned just 3½ stars of 5 from me while Lady Bird easily garnered 4 stars (with my ongoing inner deliberations right up until posting time as to whether I should enhance it to my rarified-4½), yet I’ve given less space to describing/analyzing Lady Bird (including no mention until now of the short but touching role of Stephen McKinley Henderson as Father Leviatch a troubled priest who joined the clergy after the death of his son, seeks help from Marion). Unfair as that may seem (and indicative, as usual, about how I return to childhood memories whenever these superhero movies pop up, as they constantly do, celebrating known quantities for a specifically-targeted-audience while showcasing the constantly-evolving-triumphs of Computer Generated Imagery [CGI]), it’s also an indication of how tightly-effective Lady Bird is, that all you have to do is see it (or maybe just read about it if your critic [even me] is eloquent enough in trying to translate audiovisual mastery into words accompanied by limited illustrations) to know how marvelous is this rare combination of well-crafted scripting, acting, on-screen presentation. (Verified by the even rarer phenomenon of the critical-consensus-site Rotten Tomatoes offering a pure 100% response of positive reviews, even though that represents a survey of 155 critics [at least by the time I went to post], something I’ve seen from them this year only one other time in regard to an RT film that I also reviewed, Dolores [Peter Bratt; my review in our September 6, 2017 posting], but that other 100% was based on only 33 reviews so it was a slightly-more-achievable-conquest [not to take anything away from this great documentary]; over at the other noted critical-consensus-site, Metacritic, you’ll find a 94% average score for Lady Bird, this time the sole-highest-score for anything both they and I have reviewed so far during 2017 [76 films or movies—I’m specific in these terminology applications—to be precise].)

I try (unless I’m just completely conceptually stumped) to end each review with a Musical Metaphor to provide a final perspective on what’s under consideration but from the viewpoint of the aural artforms, so in this case I kept thinking about The Beatles “And Your Bird Can Sing” (recorded in 1966, released in the U.K. on their version of Revolver, in the U.S. on the eclectic-compilation Yesterday and Today [the one intended to be released with the "butcher" cover until cooler, more-public-image-conscious-heads prevailed]), but since Beatle music became available on iTunes it’s not readily available in free sources anymore so I’ll give you multiple options of the best versions I can find: a guitar-player-video-game (seemingly with the original song plus animations of the Fab Four) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs1_Y1aizIM, then a tribute band (possibly called The Tribute) from 2008 and the actual band Wilco from 2013. What comes to mind for me is how Lady Bird (with reflections on The Beatles' song’s likely reference to a “bird” as a young woman, maybe John Lennon making snotty comments to Mick Jagger about Marianne Faithful, as has been suggested by various sources), when we observe our protagonist over this important transitional year of her life, would say to those around her she considers ostentatious—with their various ornamental birds of splendor—that “you don’t get me, you don’t get me” (which could also refer to how her more-unique-persona’s rarely understood by anyone around her, especially long-suffering-Mom), but, yet, for those in whom she perceives a glimmer of intrigue—such as Kyle, maybe even Jenna—she can also offer the consolation of “When your prized possessions start to weigh you down Look in my direction, I’ll be ‘round, I’ll be ‘round,” although where she’ll be “ ‘round” to in a few more years'll be anybody’s guess; maybe Gerwig and Ronan will treat us to a revisit someday.

Justice League (Zack Snyder [and Joss Whedon])

Yeah, technically it's a spoiler I'm showing Superman alive again here, but I think the word's out already.

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): When we left the story in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice last year the world at large had finally been introduced to Wonder Woman (along with glimpses to us of The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg) but was faced with the tragic death of Superman during battle with the monster, Doomsday. This current movie picks up with the intrusion of a long-banished supervillain, Steppenwolf (the resemblances here to the plotline of Thor: Ragnarok are noticeable, but any of this could have come from previously-published-comic-book-sources for all I know so I’ll just chalk it up to coincidence), determined to acquire the 3 powerful Mother Boxes from the Amazons, Atlantis, and humans in order to remake our planet at the command of even-more-evil-Darkseid (not shown this time but surely in the Justice League's future). In order to combat the powerful Steppenwolf and his army of flying demons Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince seek out the 3 previously-unknown-superheroes noted above, although their recruitment efforts fail (except with The Flash) until further disasters finally bring about this new warrior amalgamation. That’s all I can say without getting into spoiler territory except, as you might expect, there are many loud, violent battles (within the realm of PG-13 limits) that will either satisfy you if you listen to me (and a few others) or be a complete waste if you agree with the general critical consensus which has been harsh on many attributes of this movie (except for Gal Gadot’s ongoing impact as Wonder Woman, possibly because so many of us reviewers are star-struck-males), so read on if you wish, choosing carefully if considering buying your own ticket.

Here’s the extended trailer (8:50):

Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

Many critics complain about the quality of the CGI work; illustrations such as this may prove them right
at least some of the time, with the additional problem of there being few differentiated promo
photos that I can find to illustrate this review so please just bear with me as best you can.

What Happens: (Despite scathing reviews, attendance was so good in my Hayward, CA neighborhood that when I arrived for a screening last Sunday afternoon it was already sold out so I had to zip over to nearby San Leandro where that theater quickly filled up also; therefore, I couldn’t take notes with my little flashlight as usual, resulting in this summary being based just on memory [considerably more compressed than what I’ve usually offered with these DC superhero movies as I note in the next section of this review], but I think you’ll get the important points well enough.) The world in general, along with Lois Lane (Amy Adams)—now writing kitten stories for The Daily Planet until she’s over her grief—Martha Kent (Diane Lane)—forced to move from her Smallville farm due to foreclosure—and Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck)—holding himself responsible, due to previous clashes with the Kryptonian superhero—mourns the death of Superman (Henry Cavill; as seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice [Snyder, 2016; review in our April 1, 2016 posting]), but social disrupters are becoming bolder in his absence (Wonder Woman [Gal Gadot] breaks up a terrorist bombing attempt in London; Batman encounters a mysterious, deadly humanoid-insect-creature we later find out’s called a Parademon). Even bolder is the return of the huge, monstrous Steppenwolf (voice and motion capture by Ciarán Hinds)—from the distant, deadly world of Apokolips, under the command of the grotesquely-evil Darkseid—(after Steppenwolf was banished eons ago by a combo force of Amazons, Atlanteans, Olympic gods, humans, and Green Lanterns) to take command of the 3 Mother Boxes (1 protected on the Amazons’ Themyscira island, 1 protected in Atlantis, one hidden somewhere by humans) so as to remake Earth by Darkseid’s will.

After the first of many active, violent clashes Steppenwolf steals the Amazons’ Mother Box, leading Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) to alert daughter Diana Prince/Wonder Woman so soon she and Batman are rounding up other previously-hidden-superheroes to join in repelling Steppenwolf. Young Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) eagerly joins up, a loner desperate for friends to whom he can prove his fast-speed-superpowers as The Flash can be used for social benefit (sorrowful his father Henry‘s [Billy Crudup] in prison, wrongly convicted of killing Barry’s Mom); however, dedicated loner Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa) prefers to stay beneath the oceans in Atlantis where I assume he rules (his mother was queen) but he’s more preoccupied with bitter memories of being abandoned (later explained as for his own protection in that previous war against Steppenwolf) until the Atlantean Mother Box is also taken during a savage battle. Similarly, Victor Stone (Ray Fisher) is in angry self-isolation about not only being turned into a quasi-human by his father, Silas (Joe Morton)—a member of the team still analyzing the semi-destroyed Kryptonian spaceship from Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013; review in our June 19, 2013 posting)—as the only means of saving his son’s life after a horrible accident but also because of his constantly-manifesting-yet-not-always-controllable superhuman powers, cybernetic abilities; he rejects the team-up offer until Dad’s kidnapped by Steppenwolf in his attempt to force likely humans to surrender the last Mother Box.

⇒Turns out he’s right because Silas has the Box (used to turn his son into the character we’ll know as Cyborg). Our now-unified-team (with plenty of inner tensions, just like when the Avengers first connected) manages to free the human captives, then—after some intragroup-soul-searching—decides to dig up Superman’s body, immerse it in the incubation waters of the Kryptonian ship, zap this soup with the Mother Box. Superman revives but he’s not yet himself so he fights with the group (more or less to a draw with Diana) until he’s calmed down by the arrival of Lois, brought by Wayne’s colleague, Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons). Superman flies off with her to the Smallville farm, recovers his memory, knows it’s his duty (as always) to join in the battle against Steppenwolf, who slipped in during this last battle scene to make off with the unguarded, vital 3^rd Mother Box.⇐

⇒This monster, surrounded by his demons, has taken refuge in an abandoned nuclear facility in a remote part of Russia, soon to be attacked by our original 5 Justice Leaguers, with local civilians being led to safety so our heroes can give a full-fledged-fight to the evil ones. Many of the Parademons are dispatched (although plenty more remain), but Steppenwolf proves difficult to conquer even by Wonder Woman while the Boxes are slowly merging, unleashing the power desired by Darkseid. Just as you’d imagine, Superman arrives in the nick of time, works with Cyborg to keep the Boxes apart, helps turn the tide against Steppenwolf whose new-found-fear causes his own demons to attack him, then these beasts all fly away leaving our heroes committed to ongoing work as the official Justice League (with headquarters in the being-rebuilt Wayne Manor, an acknowledgement of its destruction in the non-DCEU-canon-movie [but still from DC/Warner Bros.] The Dark Knight Rises [Christopher Nolan, 2012; review in our August 5, 2012 posting] although Batman’s retirement with Catwoman there doesn’t really mesh with Wayne’s ongoing life as the Caped Crusader), all of them recommitted to their best (now more public) natures, even as Lois gets her moxie back, Martha reclaims her farm (billionaire Bruce simply bought the bank that acquired it; why he didn’t do so earlier, knowing Clark’s secret identity, is something we don’t bother with explanations about). An extra scene within the credits shows Flash and Superman about to test each other to see who’s the fastest (no winner shown), followed by a post-credits scene: Lex Luthor's (Jesse Eisenberg) escaped from Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum, recruiting Slade Wilson (Joe Manganiello)—I don’t know anything about him yet—in forming a counter-league of villains.⇐

So What? As with my older reviews of the various movies from the MCU—all of which I’ve seen except Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn)—and the DCEU—all of which I’ve seen except Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)—previously released over the past decade (feel free to compare the titles from these links to the summary of Two Guys reviews in the Related Links … section farther below to read my accounts of any of them if you like), mostly all I can do—except for sharing a bit more knowledge of the major DC superheroes from my comic-book-reading-days of years past (rekindled for some of DC’s terminations of their universe [or multiverse, as the case may be] in order to give their characters’ storylines a fresh start, keeping them at roughly their same ages rather than have them grow older as the publishing decades continue to mount)—is respond to these huge-budget-enterprises based on what fills the screen instead of making much commentary on the wealth of backstory references (Easter Eggs) these cinematic stories incorporate from their connections to other, earlier incarnations of these superfolks in print, TV shows, video games, etc.

Young Barry Allen (The Flash) can hardly believe how his life's just changed by being recruited into the JL.

With that in mind, those of you who pick up on the myriad in-the-know-insertions to be found in Justice League are welcome to address such in the Comments section of this posting far below, although you might want to first watch the 2^nd entry of Related Links to this movie (not quite so far below) where you’ll find a good number of those things already accounted for (many of which were previously unknown to me). Further, once you’ve seen Justice League (or at least read enough about it if you’re turned off by the barrage of negative criticism—also addressed here, in this review’s next section) you might have some unanswered questions which, I admit, provide some fodder for negativity from those other reviewers, ⇒such as how does Clark Kent’s reappearance (shown briefly in the post-Steppenwolf/happy-times-wrap-up) get explained, given that he died (and was buried) in the chaos created by the Superman-Doomsday battle in Batman v Superman …?*

*Here’s a short video (5:36) exploring the Kent question (Which now causes me to wonder if Clark's body is the one previously buried, what supposedly became of Superman's body after the Doomsday battle?) along with other unanswered aspects of this movie: After that final confrontation, what happened to the Mother Boxes? Why wasn’t there more about Darkseid? Will Cyborg turn on the Justice League when they battle Darkseid, given the connections to his life-generating-Mother Box? Where was Green Lantern? (The previous Green Lantern movie [Martin Campbell, 2011]) isn’t officially part of the DCEU [just another DC/WB story], but the Green Lantern Corps is briefly seen battling Steppenwolf millennia ago, so where are they now?) Why was no one else—human, Atlantean, etc.—helping the newly-formed Justice League confront Steppenwolf? (Although, if it took such a mighty army to subdue this cosmic monster long ago it's amazing he could be taken down by just 6 superheroes now, but let's not completely spoil the plot, shall we?)⇐

However, if you’re willing to admit such questions are pushing the rationale for a simple entertainment-based-superhero-movie derived from comic-book-sources (even as they may distract from the continuity of what’s on screen, but makers of such fare always face a problem when they have to deal with character origins—especially multiple ones in this case, with Steppenwolf, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg all having to be given some quick-and-dirty-context within a narrative structure that doesn’t exceed the 2-hour-running-time-standard so favored by both audiences and theater owners, although this particular tale could have used some extra minutes to better launch the new characters)—I’m willing to cut Snyder (and Whedon, who stepped in to finish off this project after Snyder’s 20-year-old-daughter committed suicide) some slack regarding all these complaints (most, if not all, of them will likely be answered in upcoming DCEU movies anyway), but I must say the ancient battle of Steppenwolf and his demons vs. all of the various aligned warriors would also have been more impactful if more time had been devoted to it, allowing us to get a better sense of the gods as part of the protective force (I couldn’t have told you Diana’s half-brother/future nemesis Aries [David Thewlis] was even in there had I not read it later) as well as better noting the presence of the Green Lanterns (especially for those of us who find delight in these Power-Ring-bearing-characters, despite the lambasting of that maligned Ryan Reynolds’-starring-attempt to give some screen presence to these members of the DC superhero pantheon).

Further, I’ll agree with the criticisms (although not as forcefully as many of my colleagues) about how the many battle scenes set in the present get repetitious, but not so much in narrative structure (after all, most superhero movies spend an awful of screen time on huge fight situations, both to answer target-audience-expectations and to show off the continually-evolving-visual-power of CGI) as in dark settings with the Parademons and superheroes all bouncing (destructively) off various surfaces in wide shots that at times make it difficult to quickly see who’s the valiant hero, who’s the vicious antagonist. Yet, in context of the entire storyline, we do get some nice quiet moments when the League’s tentative members begin to reveal their inner conflicts, displaying the variety among these character types providing a bit more diversity (especially with the powerful female presence of Diana, quickly establishing herself as being equally capable as her male companions—if not more so in some scenes—as she emerges as a group leader along with Superman, as Batman proves pivotal in the recruiting efforts but obviously faces limitations the others do not as being the only ordinary human in the group [despite well-developed muscles, combat training, and intellect], dependent on huge machines to give him a fighting chance against such exaggerated opponents) than within Marvel’s ever-growing-Avengers-cast where variations on feats of bulk strength are often all we have to differentiate one character from another (their scripts aren’t yet as overcrowded as are the other Marvel movies featuring the huge casts of X-Men [and women] mutants, but the Avengers are getting to be almost too many to keep up with; I’ll just hope the Justice League maintains some limits on its membership, even as I know they have so many in the vault to call on).

There’s no doubt the many Avengers group and solo movies have set the modern standard for this aspect of the fantasy genre (there’s too much magic and pseudo-science going on here to call these stories sci-fi) as the DC/WB entries sputtered along over the years (with the exception of such offerings as Superman [Richard Donner, 1978], Superman II [Richard Lester, 1980], Batman [Tim Burton, 1989], and the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy [2005, 2008, 2012]—although as I note below, I also find the more recent Superman stories to be reasonably effective, even if other critics don’t), losing their opportunity to be standard-setters rather than catch-up-aspirations, but especially with the commanding presence of Wonder Woman to enliven future Justice League stories I hope the DCEU will finally become a more-viable-parallel-of-possibilities alongside MCU.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Going in the opposite direction from the RT critics’ embrace of Lady Bird, we find those surveyed by this site for Justice League gave it a miserable 40% positive reviews (with the folks at Metacritic not amused either but at least a bit more generous—unusual for them—with an average score of 46),* so, once again, I find myself vastly off-beam from most of the critical collective regarding recent cinematic exploits of some of DC/WB’s most famous protagonists, but that’s also been the case with both of the previous contemporary Superman stories. (Man of Steel [my aforementioned review with considerable backstory on what I’ve known of this character in older vs. more current incarnations—and a run-on-paragraph layout that now makes me cringe] to which I also gave a hearty 3½ stars [remember, I rarely go over 4, even for Lady Bird] compared to RT’s 57%, MC’s 55%; Batman v Superman … [my review offers another lengthy analysis, indicating my better knowledge of these characters than the backstories of the MCU protagonists, but at least this one’s got better layout for all the verbiage] with me once again at 3½ stars while RT was even lower than now with a mere 29%, MC was about equivalent to today with 44%; we all did agree on Wonder Woman [as my review layout continues to improve—an ongoing project] where I’ve given one of my only four 4-star-ratings to a superhero film** in 6 years of writing for this blog while RT answered with 93%, MC went rather high for them with 76%.) Audience response has been considerably better with worldwide grosses after just the debut weekend already in the vicinity of $279 million (about $94 million of that domestically), but even that success is being downplayed as being inadequate compared to what these characters seemingly should be able to draw (a reasonable point, in that Marvel/Disney’s Thor: Ragnarok [Taika Waititi; review in our November 15, 2017 posting] has taken in about $739 million worldwide after 3 weeks, while DC/WB’s Wonder Woman soared to almost $822 million worldwide since it’s June release, even the much-maligned Batman v Superman … raked in about $873 million worldwide in 2016).

By putting this photo in here it's clear Superman comes back to life; that's not really a spoiler by now, is it?

*A summary (6:54) of their complaints comes down to these factors, whether you agree with them or not: Uninteresting villain in Steppenwolf; CGI’s not sophisticated enough; poorly-CGI-erased-mustache on Henry Cavell (he had to wear it during shooting Justice League because he was also shooting M:I 6—Mission Impossible [Christopher McQuarrie, scheduled for July, 2018 release] at the time as shown in the photo just above; no fake fuzz for M:I 6 ... I guess); Affleck’s portrayal of Batman is too reserved, as if he’s atoning for his actions in Batman v Superman …; the plot’s too redundant of the Avengers concept (true at some level but the Justice League [and their 1940s predecessors, the Justice Society] was in the DC comics long before Marvel but WB’s just not done the same superb job of building the DCEU franchise as has Marvel with their MCU); Superman’s not as inspiring as he was before; Cyborg’s not as well-developed as are The Flash and Aquaman; overall weak plot, not rescued by strong characters. I'll say most of this didn’t feel that way to me.

**2 of the others went to Marvel: The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, 2012; review in our July 12, 2012 posting) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Webb [the perfect directorial name for his version of this arachnid-inspired-franchise], 2014; posted on May 8, 2014), with DC getting 4 stars for The Dark Knight Rises—but, sadly, all these reviews are still from the infamous CLE (crappy-layout-era).

I’d already seen a good many negative reviews of Justice League before I could get to a theater so I was prepared to be disappointed in something I’d waited decades to finally see realized on the screen. Fortunately, I also got a bit of uplift from my Australian colleague, Jason King, at his Salty Popcorn site, where he joyfully gave it 4 of 5 popped kernels, giving me reason to believe I’d be more satisfied than disappointed. After all, just how bad could anything be that features this mesmerizing version of Wonder Woman? Or is that an inappropriate remark about her? I don’t mean to trivialize in any manner the needed revelations coming out now about all the horrible harassment that’s been going on in recent decades—as well as forever, prior to our times—by men in power against women who felt they had little hope years (decades, centuries, millennia) ago about speaking out against their power-wielding-abusers. Still, can I just honestly, objectively say Gal Gadot is a beautiful, mesmerizing, sexy screen presence without that coming across as sexist, patronizing, or demeaning? If not, I guess I’ll have to join the ranks of the apologizers—even though my wife, Nina, knows this is all just reasonable male appreciation for a strong, attractive female screen presence, just as there are movie-star-men she’s quite happy to get frequent looks at—but until I’m called to task, I’m still going to say I find both Gadot and her Amazonian character to be superb enhancements to superhero-screen-presences, giving viewers of both the singular Wonder Woman release (earlier this year) and Justice League excellent reasons to become acquainted with this aspect of the DCEU, even if Affleck doesn’t suit your tastes as Batman, Cavell may not have the charm of Christopher Reeve from those earlier Superman tales, or neither Aquaman nor Cyborg have been developed enough to feel like they could carry their own movies the way a proper rendition of Green Lantern could—even though I still think Reynolds fits that character as well as he does the most offbeat of the Marvel crowd in Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016; review in our February 23, 2016 posting) but I know we’ll never see him with a Lantern ring again.

For the Justice League Musical Metaphor I’ll just be lazy (while admitting I can’t think of an alternative, anyway) and use the same first song the movie does under the final credits, John Lennon’s “Come Together” (from The Beatles’ 1969 Abbey Road album [giving me double-Beatles-Metaphors this time—"And you know that can't be bad"]) because of its minor reference (in a otherwise surreal collage of lyrics about such things as “ju-ju eyeballs,” “toe-jam football,” “walrus gumboot") to mutual cooperation, seemingly a reference to the formation of this somewhat-difficult-to-unite-but-effective-when-it-occurs-group of superheroes (a description just as apt about The Beatles in this last-stage of their increasingly-dysfunctional-career—although some say the song’s chorus celebrates mutual orgasm which maybe gets us back to that brief flirtation between Wonder Woman and Aquaman, a decent pairing of semi-immortals, given that Superman’s still smitten with merely-human Lois Lane), with a new version done by Gary Clark Jr. (again—the old man admits—I don’t know a damn thing about him) which you can find at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7imYeuAfkg as the official video of this song with scenes from the movie interspersed with footage of Clark (Gary, that is, not Mr. Kent) or, if you like, here's one with the same music but just movie shots, or maybe, if you don’t need to hear this with the same sense as all of the cinematic explosions of Justice League, you’d be content with just the original audio version (with lyrics under the screen), taken from The Beatles’ 1, a 2000 compilation of their 27 U.K. and U.S. #1 hits.

So, feel free to come together in any manner you prefer until next we meet in the Two Guys in the Dark corral. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving or Joyous Indigenous Peoples' Day or happy-however-you-prefer-to-mark-this-current-holiday-weekend intended to help unite us all toward better days.

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about Lady Bird:

https://a24films.com/films/lady-bird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlmQfR7GWZo (46:53 interview with writer-director Greta Gerwig)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lady_bird

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/lady-bird

Here’s more information about Justice League:

https://www.warnerbros.com/justice-league

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l4xK-EpfTg (11:22 breakneck-speed-delivery of commentary on context of other recent DC movies, Easter Eggs from DC comics and other media products, cameos, and the 2 post-credits scenes [OK, 1 of them’s mid-credits], along with a little Star Wars commentary toward the end)

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/justice_league_2017

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/justice-league

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my new email at kenburke409@gmail.com. Thanks.

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken*

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 24,770; below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week: