Itsy Bitsy (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

This is no nursery rhyme.

With revamped creature features hitting the screens in recent years (Crawl, 47 Meters Down, The Shallows), it was only a matter of time somebody tried to revitalize the killer spider. Micah Gallo was that somebody, and his vision is one of pure terror. Itsy Bitsy concerns Kara (Elizabeth Roberts), a nurse and single mother of two, who relocates for a new job: a live-in nurse to an ailing archaeologist/sociologist/collector (I'm not sure we're ever told, but he's played by Bruce Davison). Of course one of his artifacts get broken by a crazed assistant, and out crawls a giant malevolent spider.

Thankfully, Gallo does not let his limited budget take control of his imagination and alter the tone of his film. This easily could have become a sort of Jumanji-meets-Sharknado mess of goofy, silly puppets and gags about suburban arachnophobia. Especially given that his main antagonist is apparently the embodiment of a vengeful spider-god to whom natives sacrificed their children, and the spider itself is brought to life with almost entirely practical effects. This could have been a disaster. Instead, it feels a little too real.

Indeed, Gallo removes all trace of humor from his film, making it sad and tense and unbearably grim. Atmospheric from the start -- a chilling opening sequence depicts the natives worshipping an Alien-esque giant black egg -- things only get creepier as a typical suburban house becomes the hunting ground for an eight-legged child-stalker. It's got a visceral, grounded charm that never quite wears off, and things never quite lighten up the melancholic mood. Thematically, the spider may be an extension of the actual villain of the story: Kara's sense of guilt at losing a child, and losing her husband as a result, seems to have her primed for a reset. She sorely needs one, as her addiction and anger issues threaten to alienate her from her two beautiful remaining children. More than once I felt she was her own villain; the spider is just set dressing. Very mobile set dressing.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The second Maleficent works as a fairly typical sequel to its predecessor, meaning that it is similar to the first in style, function, and theme, while expanding its world and heightening its effects. The problem with that this time around is that the first one already had a bit too much breadth and artificial imagery.

Set five years after the first dark fantasy (appropriate, since it has been five years since the first movie), Mistress of Evil begins with Prince Phillip asking Queen Aurora to marry him. Maleficent and Ingrith -- Phil's royal mother, played by a particularly delicious Michelle Pfeiffer -- are not too happy about this arrangement, and at a family dinner they verbally spar to provoke violent reactions. The dinner ends disastrously: Maleficent is wounded fleeing the castle, and Ingrith is revealed to be a bigoted, genocidal villain. Maleficent rallies the fairy forces and launches an assault on Ingrith's castle Ulstead, unaware that the bitch has discovered a way to kill fairies.

And if a plot that goes from an awkward dinner party to fairy genocide seems bizarre to you, that's only the beginning. Maleficent, in reimagining the fairytale, mostly told a familiar story from a different angle. This sequel, however, adds to an ended story a wholly new chapter, a thankless task that tries desperately to combine fan service, artistic integrity, and novel entertainment. What it accomplishes more successfully, however, is artistic excess and a dizzying mix of impressionistic shorthand in both plot and design. If only it had leaned in and embraced its own heady weirdness, we could have had a new camp masterpiece.

Alas that we are left with the sundry pieces of disparate fantasies. While the central story is thick enough -- mother/daughter relationships, geopolitical strife, racist allusions, genocide and war -- it packs in suggestive imagery and themes that are as bizarre and unwelcome as they are clever and interesting. The Dark Fey, as the race of Maleficent-like horned fairies are apparently called, live in what appears to be a giant floating cocoon of woven reeds with a magical cave with various biomes packed tight together. Their leaders (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ed Skrein) have a strange MLK/Malcolm X approach to their human oppressors. It seems the flowers that bloom where fairies have died can be crushed into a dust that can kill other fairies. A particularly weird subplot involves a little mushroom pixie and a porcupine imp getting abducted and tortured before falling in love. In the climactic battle, Ingrith locks a bunch of lovely forest creatures in a church and gasses them to death using organ music.

The list goes on, and each example gets a bit weirder. Perhaps the most irritating to me are the two big plot points late in the film. First, Ingrith's scheme to frame Maleficent for cursing her husband is undone when it is revealed that she herself pricked the king with the same spindle that cursed Aurora. So, apparently, even though Maleficent's curse specifically identified Aurora as the recipient, somehow it also worked against her soon-to-be father-in-law? Second, when Maleficent sacrifices herself to save Aurora, she is revived from death due to her bloodline, apparently passed down from a legendary Phoenix. She is revived as a giant phoenix, and really it's just awful that she didn't get to become a giant dragon.

Despite its maze of half-baked allegories and attempts at relevant imagery, Mistress of Evil manages to keep its pace, its sense of style and fun, and our interest. It continues to make an iconic villain a misunderstood antihero, which I'm ambivalent about, but certainly can't be said to be forgettable.

Joker (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Forget Brightburn. Joker is the comic book horror movie of the year. It's also one of the most daring, haunting, and unforgettable cinematic features of 2019.

We're quickly pulled into the world of one Arthur Fleck, an earnest but rather bad party clown who lives with his mother in Gotham City. Facing poverty, abuse, and crime slowly breaks Arthur, whose apparent mental illnesses are exacerbated as he tries to care for his ailing mother and make himself a star. When he finally defends himself by killing two thugs -- and executing a third in a chilling scene -- he becomes a pseudo-vigilante in the crime-ridden, deeply divided city. Having (perhaps unwittingly) started a social rebellion, he continues his ascent to infamy, especially losing it when he discovers that his father is Thomas Wayne. At least, so Arthur's possibly insane mother says. But when you have so little and the world still shits on you, you take what you're given and you run with it.

Disturbed yet? You should be. Joker is essentially asking us to understand how domestic terrorism happens, and to do so by shoving our own complicity in our faces. This movie is ugly. Ugly in its portrayal of evil: prevalent, pitiful, and terrifying. Ugly in the way it considers mental illness: Arthur's only explicit condition is a tendency to laugh when least appropriate, but there are clearly more serious problems here. Ugly in its lack of totally sympathetic characters: Arthur is arguably the one we're supposed to identify with, and therein lies the horrific nature of the film. Ugly in its depiction of Gotham's unjust class divisions: but wait, that hits a little too close to home.

This Gotham is America. Just as Us sought to blast open US cultural wounds with dynamite, Joker slyly unmasks the hideous face beneath the veneer of our sociopolitical culture under Trump. Wayne seems to be a benevolent guy, but is his money really going toward projects that will help the disenfranchised of Gotham? We never really know on any big scale, but we can see nothing is helping Arthur or his mother. And that so many people are so quick to praise, support, and even emulate the "killer clown" (who pointedly killed the Wayne Enterprises businessmen first) even to the point of setting Gotham on fire suggests Arthur is less unique than we at first supposed.

Sure, we can argue that sympathizing with a terrorist is a dangerous move for a film to make, especially in the current climate. But what is art if not challenging and disturbing? Moreover, while the film perhaps does a disservice to the mentally ill or to the poor, isn't the film far more critical of those who treat Arthur and his ilk with disdain, contempt, and violence? And frankly, the ugliness of Joker helps make it one of the most beautiful movies of the year for me. Joaquin Phoenix's performance is unbelievably daring, the cinematography (Lawrence Sher of Godzilla: King of the Monsters) is suggestive and precise, the score (Hildur Gudnadottir of Mary Magdalene and Chernobyl) is one of my favorites yet this year.

In fact, Joker has become one of my favorites of 2019. It's the kind of movie you cannot watch without needing to reflect and discuss afterward. You can spend time dissecting fanbase concerns about an iconic character's origin story, and you can needle your way into hyperspecific critiques of certain scenes (like how soft-spoken, often noncommunicative Arthur, on live television, is able to suddenly deliver a scathing manifesto about his newfound place in Gotham and the order of the world as he sees it). But the sheer mysterious power of this film is undeniable. Whether you're interested in the cinematic homage to other films, the social commentary, the psychological issues, or the aesthetics involved, you won't really be able to reach a consensus with anyone. And that's what great cinema is all about.

Judy (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Rocketman may have been the feel-good musical biopic of the year, and a brilliant gaddam bit of cinema, but Judy has the heart, soul, and enough nostalgia for this gay musical-lover to steal his heart. In what is essentially the real-life version of A Star is Born, we're subjected to the absolute evil that is showbiz fame. Here we see the monstrous aftereffects of Old Hollywood and exactly why it had to die. It also makes the #MeToo movement feel all the more justified, for those viewers who perhaps thought it was a "popular" or incendiary smear campaign.

Judy attempts to capture the final months in Judy Garland's life. Ravaged by the drugs she was given and the food she was denied, her frail and failing body and mind are forced into extreme situations to make money. She is forcibly separated from her children, sent overseas, and obligated to perform in order to stay afloat and, hopefully, return to her family. The film takes us within her mind, where her children are the only things that matter anymore, and she just can't get to them. The drugs make sense in this context, along with the booze and the men she tries to love.

Some parts of Judy's real-life story are, of course, blurred here. Mark Herron, her fourth husband, is entirely absent from the proceedings. We're introduced to her third (Rufus Sewell) and fifth (Finn Wittrock) in turn, however, and we see the dangerously abusive interactions between them. Judy is not blameless here, but the frequent flashbacks to her own childhood abuse spark compassion and understanding if not justification. The relationship she shares with her oldest daughter Liza is beautiful but only onscreen momentarily, while her professional relationships are as volatile as those she shares with her husbands. What makes its mark, however, are the relationships she shares with her fans. One especially poignant scene depicts her enjoying an evening with two gay superfans, a lovely bit of fan service to her legions of gay supporters and enthusiasts. "You won't forget me, will you?" are Judy's final lines in the film.

Rising majestically above the already strong biopic itself, Renee Zellweger returns to the silver screen with her most accomplished performance yet. Unbelievably technical in execution, the calculation and physical work she put into becoming the celebrity is palpably exhausting. And yet it never once distracts, never once disappoints, and never once reveals the facade. Zellweger is Garland onscreen, in the smallest of twitches and in the grandest of swigs from the bottle. She even sounds uncannily like Garland in her later years, belting out classics onstage and crooning "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" from her leisurely pose on the floor.

I wept through the entire movie. Sure, I laughed a few times and smiled through my tears, but by the end I was utterly dehydrated. By the time the final text appears -- L. Frank Baum's "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others" -- I completely lost it. Be prepared with tissues, a hanky, and a water bottle.

Under the Silver Lake (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

In a magnificent turn from the director of It Follows, this neo-noir comedy thriller is as enigmatic, ambiguous, and downright infuriating as movies can come. Where his previous flick was a streamlined, hyper-simplistic jolt of horror, David Robert Mitchell's latest is a sprawling, endlessly complex assault on the mind. Think Mulholland Drive meets Inherent Vice, and you'll start to approach where this film gets its kicks. But Under the Silver Lake is a wholly unique experience, one whose plot, visuals, and design are made to at once stun, terrify, and mock you.

Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a mess. Jobless, aimless, but utterly likable, he spends his time investigating conspiracy theories and studying minutiae of pop culture for secret coded messages. For example, he studies every episode of Wheel of Fortune to analyze each of Vanna White's eye movements, certain there's a pattern and therefore hidden meaning. When he befriends his new neighbor -- who caught him spying on her -- and she disappears the next day, he embarks on a detective mystery that carries him across L.A. to find her, stumbling on a series of interconnected, bizarre conspiracies that are stupid, hilarious, and deadly.

The plot here is really of little consequence. The odyssey of weirdness has no clear meaning, and Sam tends to come upon clues willy-nilly with little or no clear rhyme or reason. Cereal boxes and guitars and obscure song lyrics and dog killers and prostitutes all seem to share sinister purpose. Moreover, the film itself -- the way it is presented, and the design of certain elements of cinematography, sound mixing, music, and editing -- contains countless hidden messages as well. Case in point: the opening images (literally the first 10 seconds of the film) are symbols of a unicorn, tiger, snake, and lion. I didn't realize it until I stumbled onto Reddit, but the first letter of each of the animal names correspond to the first letter of each word in the film's title. WHAT? Apparently flocks of cult fans online have been working out the film's hidden messages, including deciphering firework sound effects as Morse code.

And this is where the film gets endlessly fascinating. Not because of all the hidden codes and messages, though it is truly mind-boggling to imagine the production designers and director coming up with all these impossibly dense Easter eggs. But because the film itself seems to be saying that all such searches for meaning are inherently stupid, pointless, and wasteful. Sam ends up completely unfulfilled, though arguably pleased with himself to some extent, and we are left with a partially solved mystery that seems more likely to be a red herring than an actual solution.

Along the way, Sam has shown himself to be sociopathic, violent, headstrong, and unable to function in an age of pop culture inundation. Sure, he's sweet and handsome and earnest, but there's not much to admire here. By the end, the film has transformed from a postmodern noir mystery to a coming-of-age search for transcendence, and ultimately to a screaming tirade against searching for any kind of hidden meaning in life. It's not saying religion, philosophy, or even secrets are bad -- perhaps -- but in making fun of us for reading into a film about being read into, there seems to be a message for anyone looking too close at ridiculous clues.

But, then, maybe that's reading too much into it.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2019)

Score: 3 / 5

A fascinating Gothic mystery graces the screen with little pomp or circumstance, and absolutely no delusions of grandeur, which helps make it memorable. Based on the novel by Shirley Jackson (which is now certainly on my reading list), We Have Always Lived in the Castle is interesting, diverting, and just chilling enough to make up for its disappointing lack of style or atmosphere.

The psychological thriller focuses on two sisters, Constance and Merricat Blackwood, isolated in their stately mansion on lush New England grounds. Side note: this movie feels distinctly Southern Gothic (a la V.C. Andrews) except for the clearly not-Southern setting. Their only companion is the aging Uncle Julian, and the three are the only survivors of a tragedy that took the lives of their parents, their aunt, and their brother. And, before you can ask, the "tragedy" was murder by poisoning.

In the unprepossessing story, we have a litany of horrific tropes that make the proceedings move along with intrigue if not directorial flair. Merricat (Taissa Farmiga) practices protective magic to keep the Blackwoods safe from angry, fearful, and vengeful townsfolk. Shady cousin Charles (Sebastian Stan) shows up with one eye on Constance and the other on the family treasure. Merricat attempts to stop Charles and ends up setting fire to the house, which is then raided by the villagers. Ultimately, the two sisters remain together, their secrets are revealed, and we suspect they will live in happy, agoraphobic isolation until death. They're so pale and creepy they may well remain together long after death, too.

The Gothic tale -- a sort of morbid parable -- is buttressed by lovely costumes, set pieces, and subtle score, but all are occasionally undercut by direction and cinematography that feels a little too precious, almost as though it was filmed as a Hallmark special. It doesn't help that the narrator -- or at least Merricat, from whose perspective we are clearly meant to view the story -- is unreliable and tends toward the sociopathic. Shouldn't that flavor the lens of the film? Perhaps it's only a measure of my personal preference, but I prefer the weirdly campy, aggressively uncomfortable aesthetic of Stoker, which seems to me a comparable piece.

Downton Abbey (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

They're back!

As a standalone film, the new Downton Abbey leaves a lot to be desired. Almost no time is spent developing any characters -- or even introducing them to first-time audiences -- or establishing the extensive history of the Crawley family and household. The plot is breakneck and often unnecessarily messy, compounded with jolting editing that takes us upstairs, downstairs, and outside within brief minutes. And, apart from a fabulous opening sequence and a single happy(ish) ending we'll discuss anon, there is precious little closure. As a much better ending to the beloved series than the final season finale, this feature works well enough to stopper the drama. One might well hope we'll return to Downton again, though the state of that reunion could make me recant that wish.

But this movie is not meant to be standalone, of course. Instead, we are treated to a ravishing feast for eye and ear. The incredible period detail of the series is brought gloriously to life on the silver screen, rapturously transporting us to 1927, about two years after the last time we visited the Crawley family. King George and Queen Mary are bringing their entourage to Downton, and the whole town is abuzz with excitement. With preparations underway, it's only a matter of time before trouble boils over, and we are the intimate spectators of the proceedings.

For better or worse, this film feels remarkably like any number of the episodes, balanced by the unique voice of writer Julian Fellowes. His interest in the upstairs/downstairs drama reaches a Gosford Park level of tension unlike most in the serial show since the first season. When an assassin appears in town to murder the king, Tom and Mary are caught in a chase for life or death. When the royal staff attempt to bully and oust the Downton staff, the Bateses lead a campaign of sabotage for a taste of the glory and honor to serve their monarch. When an estranged cousin (Imelda Staunton) reappears at Downton, Lady Violet schemes her way into her good graces to settle an inheritance issue once and for all. When Carson is brought back to run the house, Barrow leaves angrily, stumbling upon the greatest misadventure of his life.

It is to these last two events I wish to devote my final thoughts. First, Thomas Barrow has long been one of my favorite characters and the series has dealt him few decent breaks. Here, he makes a friend from the royal staff who takes him out for a night on the town. When a gay club (or whatever such havens for "perverts" might have been called) is raided by the police, Barrow is rescued by his newfound friend. In the most natural and lovely turn of events, the two ultimately express their shared affections and promise to keep in touch. It's a beautiful arc that, to my eyes, carried the film and finally allowed Barrow a more optimistic moment than I ever thought he'd get.

Second, Lady Violet, having exhausted her schemes for the present -- making some small peace with her cousin and maneuvering Tom into the good graces of her cousin's daughter and benefactor -- excuses herself to have a quiet chat with Mary. In the most emotional scene I can remember from the series, she reveals that she is dying. While denying any pity or remorse, she encourages her granddaughter to carry out her legacy and continue to love Downton for her sake. It's a devastating moment that pretty clearly ushers Maggie Smith out of any future connection with the series, and will require you to be well hydrated in advance.

While I normally can't stand this kind of fan service, here it works magnificently because this Downton Abbey has no delusions of being anything but an extension of the series. It delivers fans exactly what we want and expect from characters we love, while dishing out more of its soapy, silly, and profoundly earnest drama by the bucket. I've done a little bit of crying during the run of this show, but after the hiatus, I certainly did not expect to weep as the opening music started up again, as Tom held his beautiful daughter, as Barrow was finally given hope by a good man, or as we said goodbye to Lady Violet.

But, damn, I really could have done without that wretch, Daisy.

*For my review of the sequel, see Downton Abbey: A New Era*