Author: Stephanie Platter

JOJO RABBIT (2019) movie review

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REVIEW in HAIKU:
Waititi’s Hitler
Youth film laughs while the world breaks
Moral conundrum
REVIEW:
A MUCH darker film than is advertised. I wasn’t going to see it. I’ve seen enough WWII films. Everyone knows that the Holocaust wasn’t funny.

Then the trailer suggested a playful new take from the Hitler youth side about a boy whose imaginary best friend is Adolf Hitler.

And it is playful and funny, so over the top it’s like satire. Until it isn’t. Until it gives up the game we are enjoying and slaps audiences with the weight and reality so hard and fast, you’re left reeling. I get it. War is ugly. But the set up and smash hurt too much.

Acclaimed director Taika Waititi  must have known the rollercoaster he’d be sending people on, known that making a PG-13 film about a war isn’t possible.

It opens much like a Wes Anderson scene from Moonrise Kingdom, young scouts at camp with a bit of a bumbling scout master. Now switch scouts for Nazis and camp games to battle tactics. Boom and the games are up and the rest of the film is recovery time for the boy, then home with his mother and imaginary friend, Hitler, until he finds a young Jewish girl in his attic.

It’s violent and dark and makes us laugh. This is NOT a children’s film. I’m not certain what audience this was made for. But it’s brutally awakening, as it should be. It’s either a wickedly brilliant social commentary on the politics of present day, or it’s a cruel Jekyl & Hyde creating a humorous play within a hideous scenario. A perfect scene is the little boy who has scrounged through garbage cans for food scraps, sitting at a dinner table across from Adolf gorging himself on the feast of a unicorn head. It’s gruff and grim and cannot possibly be as happy as it looks. The payoff does not match the promise. And perhaps that’s the point.

 

RATING: C+ …it adds up= A for visuals and unique story, perhaps even for social commentary… F for fooling me into loving characters who were going to be killed in such an abrupt and unforgivable manner… I’m still not all right. 

PADDINGTON 2 (2017) movie review

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The fabulous and famously snuggly bear with a blue coat has been living joyously with a family in London for the past few years, and he is now ready to find a job in the real world. His motives pure, it’s the execution of his big ideas that always gets him into – often very literal – sticky situations.

Sweet Paddington Bear makes his small world a better place, even when his world shrinks again and when he ends up behind bars.Even when all of his friends seem to turn on him, his thoughtful, genuine, neighborly heart wins the city’s affections and teaches us all not to judge a book by its cover and that a bit of marmalade can heal all.Don’t miss Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, and Hugh Grant in their silly-sweetest roles to date. Life is a stage in Paddington 2, and all players look to be having the time of their lives.

JOKER (2019) movie review

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REVIEW:
The dance of the madman.
Is slow.
Is emotional.
Is gripping.
Is the insidious dripping of water that finally drives you insane.
Is akin to slowly painting on a mask in wide, calculated brush strokes.
His reality remains skewed and sharp and sour.
Comes from a long festering narcissism.
Is fueled by fear and devastation, longing and loss, abuse and pain.
He’s alone and aware of it.
He’s had enough, and then he snaps.

Joker (2019) is a slow building crack in one man’s glass persona. So intensely introverted, the long-suffering soldier, son. Arthur says he feels he never existed until people started taking notice of his first acts of violence. Now people see him and smile, or better, they fight. He becomes the hero he’s always dreamed of being.

The smile motif also carries through into the classic crying clown, ever masking true emotion with a painted expression.

His small world shatters slowly, in tiny pricks to his subconscious that he fights until he has little fight left.

Therein lied the fear of the fateful masses who watched this color-soaked film on its first weekend of play as I did. He is anyone with a long-laden life of abuse and neglect. He’s the potential product of his poverty, of an angry society a-smoke with crime fascination.

Joaquin plays the role of a lifetime, memorable, wrenching, wicked, vain. He really lives it and we are left leering at his laugh-lines as they deepen.

He is to blame for his crimes, yet we can take up the mantle as caregivers for our neighbors, help them people feel seen, show all a kindness, so-called deserving or not.

Only the children in this film have time for him. They look without judgement beyond the mask into his childlike eyes blurred by abuse.

It’s a dance on a triple tiered stair and a late night subway ride. Joker’s loner journey of broken dreams and bad luck becomes a midnight rampage of death-tolled insanity. You never would have known that this writer /director also made The Hangover. The Hangover, then this.

 

RATING: R (for raw & rough, and for remind me to pick up a psych text book and read it next time instead of sitting again through this exhaustingly tragic film) 

 

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (2018) movie review in haiku

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REVIEW in HAIKU:

 

Surprise! McMarthy

Can act without slapstick or

hijinx. She’s got chops.

 

Review:

Melissa McCarthy surprised me. She brings layers of grief, sensitivity, and longing to the character of Lee Israel. Lee is a writer with too much responsibility and very little hope until she finds she has a talent for forgery – writing “lost letters” in the voices of famous authors. Her comrade is the equally down and out, but is somehow able, perhaps by example to bring her out by showing just how low you can go in desperation.

It’s another sad tale with disagreeable characters written with gruff realism by Nicole Holofcener who somehow always manages to write dispicable people who remind us of ourselves, making this another odd cocktail of a tale: one of sorrow AND human resilience.

STAR WARS IX (2019) movie review

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*spoilers; also don’t be shocked by a positive review… and don’t hate SW8 lovers…

REVIEW:

The finale’ to three trilogies has a lot to live up to, especially after the controversial penultimate Ponzi scheme that was the Rian Johnson debacle. Once again playing to OG fans in the safest of safe ways, JJ Abrams blinks past the memory of two years ago and allows respect to renter the universe. Sure, mock the risk-averse take on a timeless classic, but don’t tell me you don’t love Rey’s new kick flip force moves, or throwback speeder races, or a visit to Endor.

This time, Luke’s saber must be earned, falling rocks mean something, pogs get only a flash, and you can continue to ship Poe and Fin. Abrams fans will also see revivals from favorite faces of Charlie from Lost and two favorite characters from JJ’s hit 90s TV series Felicity: Greg Grunberg and Keri Russell . This film has everything from Sarlackian sinking sand pits to movable monster chess, Wookies in handcuffs, and Lando Calrissian.

It’s a date with the old franchise that raised you – plus a few of the new tricks like lightspeed skipping and interdimensional force fighting. Leia’s role is a perfect compliment to her character and career. And my favorite aspect of this film was the new perspective on the balance of the force that created resolve and unexpected connectivity between all nine films: Rey uses the force to heal. All others use the force to see or to fight, but Rey follows her heart and lays a hand of healing on her enemies, building relationship, forging heroes.

Kylo Ren’s journey becomes the echo of the Anakin story we all cared enough to follow over four decades. The which, I am grateful to have lived through. Star Wars and I have had a long journey together, and in this great wide universe, there will be conflict but we are never alone and there is always hope.

 

RATING:  7.5;  C+ …not the hateful 8th, but perhaps a recap of 7. I gave the “Honest Trailer” for this one all aces.

FORD VS FERRARI (2019) movie review

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REVIEW:
What’s not to love about being in a fast car with Christian Bale for two hours? Director James Mangold filmed exquisite racing scenes putting audiences behind the wheel flying over famous raceways.

Damon, the same, consistent character, even with his hint of a southern accent plays the charmer. As always, if you love him already, you’ll love him in this. Each actor plays a likable caricature, which I’ve decided is the outcome of historical films that take themselves too seriously. As the story went, Henry Ford II did take on the Enzo Ferrari, who was always at the top of the speed game. It took a pure driver in love with racing, who had already seen battle, to go to war in the most difficult race in the world.

RATING: B (Being a nice way to spend an evening…)

REVIEW in HAIKU:
Bale drives cars as fast
As Damon can design them
Classic speed racers

 

5 FEET APART (2019) movie review in haiku

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REVIEW in HAIKU:

 

A broomstick away

Romeo’s touch could kill her

Sassy Juliet

 

-OR-

 

Social distancing

gets in the way of teen love

not Fault in Our Stars

 

 

 

 

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (2019) movie review

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REVIEW in HAIKU:
Hanks’ Fred is spot on
two hours free counseling
With Mr Rodgers

REVIEW:
Get ready for the gut punch you never thought you needed. A kids show with a Seinfeldian slow-talker who changes his shoes a lot can’t possibly be life-giving, right? It’s almost as though you’re doing some pre-therapy during those oblivious childhood years as Mr Rogers subliminally offers acute preparation for the hardships of life. Divorce. Death. Conflict. Racial tensions. Forgiveness. He never shied away from hard topics. Neither does this real film covering a real article written by a journalist who meant to expose the mean side of Fred Rogers, digging at the alleged sharp-shooter. Instead, that journalist is forced to confront his life tragedies and forgive the man he blames: his own father. Daddy issues run deep.

Rogers is not the main character, but his words and attentive aid for the man trying to smear him become a catalyst for many rescued relationships. That’s what the puppets and the trolley and the fish tank and the shoes were all about: healing.

Go experience your own healing, as Tom Hanks masterfully embodies all of the tension that is getting close enough to others to hurt with them, to pray for them, and to maybe help them find their hearts again.

RATING: A (A must-see, A tear-jerker, A timeless tribute)