“Toy Story 4,” the supposedly last film in the franchise, was enjoyable and poignant.
Bonnie, who doesn’t want to start kindergarten, is glad when she makes a toy friend on orientation day she calls Forky (Tony Hale). Soon Bonnie and her family, along with the toys, are off on a road trip.
When they get to their destination, the toys find themselves reunited with an old friend named Bo Peep (Annie Potts), who is now on her own and doing just fine without a kid to love her. While in an antique store, Forky gets separated from Woody (Tom Hanks), and is being held by a doll named Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) with not so good intentions, one of which is to take Woody’s voice box so that she can finally have a child of her own to love her. Her ventriloquist dummies create an unsettling and creepy vibe.
Woody and Bo Peep devise a plan to bring Forky back to Bonnie. Woody knows that this toy means a lot to Bonnie and makes it his mission to do whatever it takes to bring it back to her. Knowing that his worth as a valued toy may be fading, he wants to be able to make a new toy feel cherished. This, he tells Bo in a poignant scene, gives his life a sense of purpose.
A new toy in this fourth chapter is Duke Caboom, voiced by Keanu Reeves, a stunt car motorcycle driver, who feels that he was never able to fulfill his potential to do the stunts that his packaging promised. Despite his seemingly low self-worth, Reeves’ character comes across as suave and Reeves’ line readings are wittily performed.
Also, introduced for the first time are Bunny and Ducky, voiced by Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, respectively. They are carnival prizes waiting to be won and like Reeves’ character provide comic relief with their big personalities.
Hale provides solid voice work as Forky, a toy who initially believes he is trash because he is after all a plastic utensil as opposed to a real toy. Whenever there is a garbage bin, he immediately tries to throw himself in. Another toy, usually Woody, stops him and reminds him that he is in fact seen as a toy by Bonnie and therefore has worth. The way this plays out is humorous. Forky does, though, evolve over the film and develops a sense of loyalty.
While not as good as the first two Toy Story pictures and probably not as good as the third, the heartfelt storyline and fun action scenes give audiences what they’re looking for in a Pixar movie, emphasizing the need for belonging and at the same time independence.
“1917,” a harrowing World War I movie, centers on two young British soldiers – Lance Corporal William Schofield (George MacKay) and Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), who are told they are to immediately seek out Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is planning an attack with his men on the Germans, believing that they are retreating.
The only problem is that this is a trap because the Germans are anticipating this move. Blake is eager to embark on the trek since his older brother is stationed with Colonel Mackenzie’s troops.
The editing structure of the film is such that it appears to come off as one continuous take, as the viewer is right there with these young soldiers from first frame to last, giving us an up-close and intimate look through their perilous journey. This particular filming technique was most recently featured in the Best Picture Oscar winning “Birdman.”
Director Sam Mendes makes sure that the key characters do not get lost in the narrative and that we deeply care and are invested in their plight. Both MacKay and Chapman give heartfelt, empathetic performances, particularly MacKay in the latter stages. The comrades’ loyalty to each other is able to ring true.
What “1917” may remind some of is Peter Jackson’s World War I documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old,” which shows actual footage of British soldiers engaged in trench warfare and ordinary military life. Both pictures employ techniques to immerse the viewer in what it must have been like to experience the “Great War” as a soldier.
To its credit, “1917” does not shy away from exploring moral quandaries present in wartime. An example comes when a German pilot’s plane crash lands near the two young soldiers and they have to decide what to do. Blake wants to give the soldier water and assist him, while Schofield wants nothing to do with him. This moral difference leads to a bitter conclusion.
Well into the film, when Schofield late at night finds himself hiding in a barn, he encounters a young French woman with a newborn baby. While this is a tender scene, it also was lacking in a narrative sense. It did not make sense why Schofield would have spent as much time as he did with this woman and the baby, considering the time-sensitive mission at hand.
The film is beautifully shot and is exceedingly effective on a visceral level, showing the horrors of war and the bravery that occurs.
For every debut feature I review, particularly those funded from the smallest and most independent of production companies, there should be an assumption, if I don’t say it explicitly, that I have nothing but respect for the brave directors leaping into something incomparable to anything else. Nothing is easy in filmmaking least of all if it’s your first real attempt, and no matter the final product, the effort is to be applauded.
Eli Batalion is no exception and his work with his feature debut “Appiness”, while lacking in critical areas, are surprisingly solid and well worthy of applause. The film follows Eric (Batalion), an almost-thirty stuck in a dead-end job he hates, and Raj (Varun Saranga), his high school buddy in almost the exact same situation except he’s good with women and Eric isn’t. Once both free of their hated vocations they find themselves lead to one idea, to make an app so successful that when they sell it to the highest bidder, they’ll never have to work another day in their lives.
Things don’t go exactly according to plan, as anyone who has ever seen a movie would guess. In fact, there’s an air of predictability marring the entire film; quite simply nothing happens that feels like any form of original thought. The only saving grace in this respect is the humour. It’s nothing new, there’s too much toilet humour and a lot of very on the nose sexual references, yet beyond all odds and logic, the film is quite funny. There’s plenty of laugh out loud humour especially from the utterly silly friendship between Raj and Eric who share so much and yet aren’t even really friends.
All in all, they are likeable characters, all of them. As a trio, when including Eric’s love interest Jeanine (Amber Goldfarb), they are uniquely endearing. Unfortunately, despite this being a strength of the film, it becomes more of a detriment. Their friendship, and the whole film for that matter, has the distinct feeling that it would have worked better in a television format. Despite dramatic reaches for inspirational moments and attempts at heartfelt silver screen romance Appiness never feels like more than an extended sitcom episode. The many quirky side characters don’t help in this respect, like tech blogger Sierra (Jayne Heitmeyer) who is a not so secret dominatrix, or Vito (Carl Alacchi) the mob boss with a thrown in and needless cameo that only amounts to him being fooled into the film’s resolution.
Looking further only reveals a tragic lack of depth. Everything is surface level with only the potential to matter rather than actually meaning anything. Both Eric and Raj have deep engrained family issues that only result in gags and cheap payoffs. And the romance angle amounts to quiet guy gets girl just because they meet coincidentally and like computers. The pieces are there, it is perfectly modern in terms of the overarching story, the characters are likable, the performances are strong in the aspects they need to be, but when there’s no substance, not even a façade, then what’s the point of watching?
And even after saying all that I think there’s something here. There’s a moment in the film, where Eric and Raj argue on a bridge where everything feels important and complete as if finally capturing all of what Batalion intended. It’s the best shot in all of Appiness and the beauty of it inspires the characters words to actually mean something, if this moment can be taken and expanded upon something quite wonderful could come out of it.
Despite a likeable cast and some funny moments, Appiness lacks too much depth to be considered worthwhile.
Pop singer Taylor Swift reveals intimate details of her life while showcasing backstage and onstage concert footage.
Reviewing a movie like Miss Americana is something that seems extremely difficult for me to do. Why is that? Because it is a documentary all about pop star Taylor Alison Swift. You might be thinking “So what?”. Well, in short, it is because that Swift herself has interacted with me on the internet a few times in the past, and has served as one of my all-time biggest inspirations. She is my idol.
For those who are unaware, in January 2015, I wrote a post on social media service Tumblr, opening up about my experiences with being bullied while attending school and in my life in general. In my post, I explained how Taylor Swift and her music genuinely helped me to overcome my bullies and to keep my head up high. I thanked Taylor for her music, her personality, and for just being her.
Never in a million years did I expect to get a response from her. “She is Taylor Swift”, I thought. She is a megastar. One of the most popular and influential celebrities in the world. But, much to my surprise and immense delight, she did exactly that. On January 23, 2015, just two days after my post went up, she posted a long reply just to me. I could not believe it. In the post, she supported me and comforted me and told me so much helpful advice. To this day, I still think about that post and how much it means to me. In that moment, I felt like Taylor was actually my friend, and that was the best feeling in the world.
But as I am a film critic, I have to be careful not to go into any movie with bias. No matter who is in it or what it is about. I may like Taylor Swift but I didn’t like Cats. So I went into Miss Americana careful not to just say it was great because it’s a movie all about Taylor and I love Taylor so it must be great. I had to watch the film under a critical viewpoint and so that is what I did. Now that I have seen it, I can happily report that it is the first truly amazing movie of the new year and the new decade. Finally, a great movie. It felt like one would never come. But alas, here we are.
Taylor Swift has never been more open and honest as she is in Miss Americana. As a lifelong fan of hers, watching this film was extremely eyeopening as I got to learn more about her personal life more than ever before. Even if you are not a fan of her or her music, I think this movie has something for everybody. It is a fascinating film, that, at its core, is a movie about a woman who, for her whole life, has been told she has to be restrained. She has to be the “nice girl” and she has to do and say whatever people want her to say. With Miss Americana, Taylor is finally saying enough of that. She is no longer going to be controlled by people. She is going to be who she is, and she is going to share her opinions and thoughts. Taylor Swift felt restrained for years. For her whole life, really. But now, she feels more alive than ever before. She feels like she finally has a voice, and she definitely does, and she wants to use it, which is so great.
Watching this story is so inspiring. Like I said, I truthfully feel like you don’t have to be a Taylor Swift fan to really enjoy this movie and get an amazing experience out of it. Not only is it an incredibly uplifting and feel-good movie, but it is one that is going to speak to a lot of people, especially her fan base. This movie is going to mean a lot to so many people and that is such an exciting thing.
Something that I never expected however, was the emotions I would be feeling. Miss Americana has some scenes that hit me so hard in my emotions and I never saw it coming in a million years. I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming either, to be honest. The film was being marketed as an open and honest film about Taylor and we would get to see her like we have never seen her before. Surely I should have expected something emotional to happen, but I just didn’t.
There is one scene in particular in the film that honestly left me with tears rolling down my face. It’s a genuinely sad and emotional scene that left me in complete and utter awe. Those who have already seen the movie probably know exactly what scene I am talking about.
Plus, it is terrifically directed by Lana Wilson, who has previously directed the two features After Tiller and The Departure. Her direction here is incredible and I truly hope she continues to make films because it is incredibly evident that she is a raw talent.
Something that I wished was different about Miss Americana was its running time. Clocking in at just eighty five minutes in length, it does feel like it’s over before you know it, and it would have been nice to have had the running time extended just a little bit, that way the film could have felt more grand as a whole.
It’s also a film that has some genuinely amazing editing. There are some moments where we will see behind the scenes footage of Taylor and her producers thinking of lyrics for new songs on her new album, and we will cut to her actually singing the final version of the song on stage. Edits like that feel powerful and bold and I loved it.
Also, yes, the music here is phenomenal, because almost all of the music used throughout the film is Taylor Swift’s music from various different albums. From the likes of Lover, Reputation, and even her self-titled debut studio album.
But, like I said earlier, this movie is not great solely because it has some of Taylor Swift’s best hit songs playing throughout. It is not great solely because it is a film all about Taylor Swift. It is great because it is an open, honest, raw, and emotionally powerful look at one of the world’s biggest celebrities. It’s an inspiring story of finding your voice and finally using it when you wanted to for your whole life. It brought me to tears and it will stick with me for an incredibly long time. It’s not just for Swifties, it’s for everybody.
Miss Americana is an emotionally powerful and raw look at Taylor Swift, and is an incredibly inspiring story of finding and using your voice.
When The Painted Bird ends, there’s such a corrupted feeling about everything for a few moments, as if we don’t deserve the privilege of watching someone go through such atrocities when someone lived them. It’s worth noting that the events of the novel by Jerzy Kosinski, which the film adapts, aren’t autobiographical, but others more than likely lived out horrifyingly similar situations.
The Painted Bird is about a nameless young Jewish boy (Petr Kotlar) and his terrifying fight to survive in war-torn eastern Europe during World War II. We meet him left in the wake of his parents leaving him in the hands of an elderly woman, and things quickly go awry seeing the boy become homeless and hopeless facing persecution at every turn. Quickly, his innocence decays, leaving us only a husk of a child who fights horror after horror with little to no chance of escape.
This is the most challenging viewing experience of any film I’ve ever seen. There were many moments where my hand rose to shield my eyes as startlingly real atrocities occurred. Václav Marhoul directs with such a heavy hand that throughout the impact only rises and rises to a melancholy crescendo. There is no pure instance of love in the harsh world of The Painted Bird, what few moments there are always come with a catch.
The purest love comes from a priest played wonderfully by Harvey Keitel, yet he is sickly and unfortunately ignorant seeing him leave as quickly as he arrives. Without him, there is little to no light in amongst the dark. Throughout there is brutal murders, assaults, a case of incest and one of bestiality and even an eye-gouging that would make Game of Thrones fans shudder.
Yet for all the desire to disengage and look away from this hellscape, you never do. You peak through your fingers as they cover your eyes, you fear even blinking in case someone finally ends the odyssey of the boy. In a film so full of desolation and death anything is possible, which forms an uncommonly engaging experience.
And none of that would work so well without its star. Debuting actor Petr Kotlar isn’t called on to do much, in fact, he hardly has any lines and rarely shows emotion. Despite this, he still stands tall as a performer, and it’s his ability to make himself absent that makes his performance so compelling.
He manages to come across as if the real little boy on the inside, whom we glimpse at the beginning, has run away and is outside of the body that we see for the rest of the film. He wholly encompasses tragic transformation and embraces his duality as it all comes full circle for the briefest of moments at the end, it’s that brilliant. For an actor so young this is an unbelievably complete and controlled performance that would take a level of maturity most teens aren’t capable of let alone 9-year-olds.
There can be no understating how important of a story this is. People need to see this as a timely reminder of why we should always actively avoid war. It isn’t worth stealing the youth from unknowing children, nothing is. Yes, many disgraceful acts are unique to World War II, and the world will hopefully never see the likes of them again. But more war breeds more death and breeds more stories like this one; we must never let humanity become a monstrosity in this way again, and The Painted Bird speaks more to that than any film ever made.
The Painted Bird
will stay with you long after the credits roll, more than likely it will stay
with you forever. Which is good, let it serve as a reminder never to let this
happen again.
