The Flash (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Barry Allen, as his alter-ego The Flash, is tired of being a second-tier superhero, the "janitor" of the Justice League, cleaning up after his more famous comrades and taking care of the "lesser" criminals; he's also never quite gotten over the destruction of his family, when his mother was suddenly murdered and his father imprisoned for the crime. So when, near the beginning of this film, his emotions get the better of him and he unintentionally runs fast enough to go back in time, he sees an opportunity to save his family. He takes it, against the advice of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), and chaos ensues. Time travel. Alternate realities and dimensions. Franchise amalgamation. Lots of fan service. It's all nothing new to us in the age since the DCEU branched into the CW; hell, it's taken for granted now, when the Best Picture Oscar most recently went to a multiverse-spanning drama in Everything Everywhere All at Once. But, as is typical of this franchise -- and, increasingly, the MCU as well -- The Flash is at once a rousing and delightful romp through sci-fi fantasy and a messy, pandering attempt to generate money and collect all existing versions of the media under one banner.

Ezra Miller stars, of course, and he proves himself capable of leading a manic film like this with his signature eccentricities (real-life shenanigans notwithstanding). His performance won't be to everyone's taste -- I found him grating at best -- but he certainly commits to his dual performances once his present-day character meets himself from 2013 and they team up. 2013 Barry is unbearable, whereas present-day Barry is thankfully more grounded, and it's clear at least that Miller had fun with the duality. Specifically as he starts realizing how annoying he can be to others, Miller's Barry rises wonderfully to the occasion to become the hero he always wanted to be. The problem is that we've seen this story before, more than once, and so I found myself wondering time and again why the studio wanted this story at this time. Its bizarre mashup of It's a Wonderful Life and Back to the Future is neither original nor particularly relevant, though Christina Hodson's screenplay (she also wrote the wonderful Birds of Prey) deftly captures the focus of Barry's story on his relationship with family and his inability to cope with lasting trauma, and those quiet moments of character development shine brightly in this otherwise deeply chaotic flick.

Director Andy Muschietti clearly has fun with this material, and so it's hard to say exactly whence comes this chaos. Its breakneck pace and insane visuals may lie with Muschietti, but he also embraces the warm closeups and thematically crucial scenes, giving them due pause and reverence. Notably, any scene with Barry and his parents -- Maribel Verdú and Ron Livingston -- are deeply emotional and wonderfully realized. Perhaps its hectic, overstuffed screenplay are to blame, but most segments of the film are directly relevant to the full story it wants to tell. The bizarre score and visual effects -- cartoonish and immature, both, at best -- made me more than once wish the producers had seen the new Spider-verse movies and taken some inspiration. Then again, maybe they did just that, as I repeatedly forgot that The Flash is primarily a live action feature amidst the sheer volume of CGI.

Speaking of which, it should be noted that, in the film's climax (we'll get to it in the next paragraph), Barry repeatedly runs back through time to alter the outcome of his battle against the villain, and keeps entering the Speed Force, depicted cleverly and eye-poppingly as something like an hourglass chronometer with elements of pop-up book mechanics and theatre in the round. As he does so, alternate timelines manifest before his eyes, and soon enough alternate dimensions begin to materialize and collapse together. In this sequence, other Warner Bros properties make cameos in ways that would be exciting if the Spiderverse movies and X-Men movies and MCU hadn't already done it. It's still fun and all to see Christopher Reeves and Nic Cage and Henry Cavill all as Superman, Adam West as Batman, Teddy Sears as Zoom, Helen Slater as Supergirl, and even the Joker as performed by both Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson. It's a little weird because they all appear to be created completely digitally (which will alienate viewers who can't glide over the uncanny valley), and the organic magic feels a bit forced, but it's still a clever and ultimately harmless way to renew interest in all the previous versions of these characters and retroactively unite them under a single franchise banner.

Some will decry the franchise's repeated use of General Zod's 2013 invasion of Earth as depicted in Man of Steel, but I do find its inclusion here interesting and satisfying, as it underscores the film's determined message that there are some crucial, "canonical" events that ultimately cannot be changed no matter the circumstances or attempts to alter the past. This is something pretty much every multiverse movie has flirted with or simply skirted, but The Flash comes right out and says it, making his stand against Zod that much more riveting because Barry has to try and assemble his own team to fight Zod (Michael Shannon). The other Justice League members don't exist in this alternate timeline, except for a different version of Batman, played by Michael Keaton in a delightful return to the role. Together, they mount a rescue for who they think is Superman but who turns out to be Supergirl (Sasha Calle), then they revisit the climactic battle time and again. The action is peripatetic at best, to say nothing of the dubious visual effects, but the dialogue is fascinating as the two Barrys argue over whether repeated time travel will solve their problems or create a worse mess. I'll give you one guess what they learn.

Thankfully, and this is where the film most strongly succeeds: Barry swallows the tough pill and accepts the awful truth that he cannot save his family. Far too many superhero movies endorse bad behavior and wish fulfillment -- indeed, enthusiastically embrace, if you recall the original two Christopher Reeve-led Superhero movies -- on the part of both the irresponsible, self-denying hero and the audience hoping for a "happy" ending. The Flash eschews this tendency, forcing Barry to make a melancholic decision and accept for the first time the fate that brought him to his current life. And sure, it ends on a hopeful note, especially regarding his incarcerated father, but that didn't stop me from weeping in the cinema during the finale sequence. After so much adrenaline-fueled chaos, that was an emotional turn I was completely unprepared to handle.

Morbius (2022)

Score: 3 / 5

I'm so tired. Fandoms can be nice places to meet people and see creativity blossom in support of franchises that mean a lot culturally and personally, but increasingly they seem filled with toxic, hateful people who just want to tear other things apart in cruel and hypocritical ways. While the MCU is currently blessed with a fairly solid fanbase, almost all others suffer, even those adjacent to that behemoth. Take Sony's repeated attempts at breaking into Marvel properties, each of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. Its most recent attempts seem bent on exploring the villains as antiheroes, hence the Venom series and upcoming Kraven the Hunter film. The latest, based on one of my favorite characters from the comics, is very much in line with the odd aesthetic choices Sony has cultivated, and I am totally here for it. Apparently not everyone has been, but as usual, the clamor online largely sounds like angry children decrying the film as "bad" or "terrible" without actually stating reasons for their hatred and without acknowledging that their opinions aren't objective. So let's talk about Morbius.

The "living vampire" here takes the form of Jared Leto, who for the first time in several years actually looks and acts kind of normal on screen. He's recognizable, despite lots of effects to make him initially appear sickly and frail, and it's refreshing to remember he can actually perform when not covered in prosthetics and hiding behind caricatured mannerisms. Surprisingly physical here, his Dr. Michael Morbius is instantly believable in the film's early scenes, desperate to cure himself of a rare blood disease. His previous work has resulted in blue, artificial blood that works for many people, including children with similar illnesses, and has won him a Nobel Prize that he rejects early on. He just wants a better life and permanent salvation.

Anyone could guess that he'll end up getting the opposite. And soon enough, after collecting vampire bats from Central America and experimenting on them, he ends up splicing genes and fusing blood with them, transforming himself into a super strong, super fast vampire. Most of the middle of the film, as with many origin stories of super people, occupies its time with its protagonist learning the limits of his powers, which include echolocation and, somehow, a keen ability to fly. His bloodlust is sporadic, and it occasionally turns him into a monstrous gargoyle-like creature; at one point he says "You won't like me when I'm hungry" and it's unexpectedly hilarious in a delightful, metafictional way. The film's mythology leaves much to be desired, but then, don't most of these stories? As Morbius himself once notes in the film, there isn't as much "science stuff" to it as he first thought, and I think the screenwriters included that little gem just to piss off the hecklers.

With Leto's tortured performance in the middle of all the chaos -- and trust me, the plot is pretty chaotic, to say nothing of the action -- I found a lot of surprisingly thematic meat to chew on. Much like Tom Hardy's nuanced and vaudevillian turn as Venom, Leto digs into physical movement and earnest emotion as Morbius, questioning the extent of illness or addiction as it relates to his behaviors. Less effective is what the visual effects crew does to him; his appearance is great, but the CGI around him never quite manages to make sense. Smoky trails of residue follow him around when he moves quickly, in effects that feel ripped from these kinds of movies in the late '90s or early '00s, and when his ears prick up, they look rippled and pulsing like cords on a harp in an effect that had me actually retching in my seat. It's uniquely horrid.

If he's a hero, why do his attempts to help others result in murder (especially graphic murder)? Why, in the film's early scenes, does no one blink an eye that Morbius's ethically shameful and completely illegal experiments lead him to international waters for the deed? But then, does it matter? It allows for some fun nods to other vampiric fiction, such as the drifting ship littered with bloodless corpses (Dracula) named the Murnau (director of Nosferatu). It also allows the characters to return home changed, a crucial moment in any superhero film, which sets up the primary external conflict for the plot. Enter Matt Smith as Morbius's surrogate brother, jealous and wealthy man with the same blood disease who takes the same "cure" but embraces the more monstrous side of his new identity. He's the primary villain, apart from Morbius fighting with his own impulses and lusts, and Smith is really wonderful in the film. 

I love that we finally have a superhero film that is an honest-to-Stan-Lee horror film. I don't love that it's only PG-13, like Venom, and so can't quite give itself over to the necessary elements that could make it fabulous like Deadpool. It's never quite as dark as it wants to be, though I felt suitably icky with dread multiple times, such as when a nurse walks down a hallway with motion-sensor lights and gets stalked by a vampire. It's not nearly as gory or violent as it should be, and most of the action is sadly unwatchable due to uninspired cinematography, an excess of VFX, and bewildering edits. But it's still a fairly good time, despite a general lack of humor, and hopefully a suitably dark entry in the burgeoning Sinister Six franchise for Sony.

Worth (2021)

 Score: 4 / 5

The rare biographical/historical movie more concerned with theme than with plot, Worth debuted on Netflix this month just in time for the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. I've rewatched movies about that terrible day recently, and I'm struck by how few actually dramatize the events of it; perhaps it would be in poor taste, or perhaps none of us who remember it want to relive it. United 93 and World Trade Center are perhaps the only ones that capture the reality of what happened. Others tend to use 9/11 as a touching stone, exploring what happened after in politics (The Report, Lions for Lambs), international war (Zero Dark Thirty, Redacted), or even on a personal level (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). Then there are those that try to recreate the sensations of that day on a metaphorical level (Cloverfield, and just about any disaster movie that involves skyscrapers collapsing). Worth belongs to the family of political aftermath, though its thematic questioning takes a slightly different track, all the more weighty as the last twenty years have caused much suffering for the surviving first responders.

As its title indicates, Worth questions the value of human life. Specifically, that's what its lawyers are trying to accomplish while setting up the 9/11 Victims' Compensation Fund, a congressionally mandated effort to help the families of those who died during the terrorist attacks. Michael Keaton and Amy Ryan play Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, respectively, the partnered lawyers selected to define the goals and functionality of the fund and then facilitate its rollout. Shortly after the early establishing scenes, which primarily introduce Feinberg as the practical, logically-minded numbers man, the government asks him to head up this sticky project. His cool rationality belies some relative enthusiasm in fulfilling what he sees as his duty, though he knows it will be a thankless task; he repeats his aim for "objectivity," removing emotional baggage from the proceedings. But it bears a hollow ring. After all, how do you set up a single formula -- one that is "fair" -- to ameliorate the losses of loved ones across the board?

Director Sara Colangelo and writer Max Borenstein work hard to demonstrate for us the complex nature of the protagonists' task. They constantly reference the different kinds of people directly affected: can you compare the worth of a CEO and a school child? A custodian to a lawyer, a pilot to a firefighter? The insurance companies certainly will try to contrast those price tags, to say nothing of grieving families. Speaking of which, what about single parents to multiple children, or gay lovers who were unable to marry, or primary providers to elderly or ill parents? The unbearable nuances of these vastly different situations all need to be explored and calculated before the fund's two-year deadline hits. Our filmmakers use a clever shorthand in building these questions and raising our awareness by splitting up the legal team and having them interview potential recipients of the fund.

It's a fascinating and moving film for many reasons, but its greatest strength lies in letting its starring cast -- which it balances very well -- take a backseat during the long middle section, focusing our attention on the interviews with victims' families and on their heartwrenching stories. And while these scenes get everything right on their own, they serve a dramatic purpose less humanitarian: they exist mostly to show the development of Feinberg's character from Mr. Scrooge-y Objectivity to an ex-Mr. Grinch whose heart has grown three times its size.

And then there's Stanley Tucci as Charles Wolf, the husband of a woman who died on 9/11, who plays a sort of popular populist arguing against the bureaucracy and red tape inherent in the fund's formula. His trope, a wise man on the fringe, acts as devil's advocate and mentor to Feinberg, but I wanted more understanding of him as a character. The film's deus ex machina is in fact delivered by Wolf, whose ultimate public approval of the fund got it to surpass its goal only in the eleventh hour. But the film skates over exactly why, turning it into a rather silly dramatic moment when Wolf meets with Feinberg and decides, quite arbitrarily, that he's a good person. It's a baffling misstep in a movie that gets so much right. Thankfully, though, it's not nearly enough to sink the ship, and Worth is more than worth bringing up again when September rolls around.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

 Score: 5 / 5

"The whole world is watching!"

Aaron Sorkin's latest movie is an astounding project, on par with so many of his pieces in terms of wit, beauty, and urgency. It is also, now, very possibly my favorite of his films (closely contending with Steve Jobs) simply as a result of its massive scope and thrilling timeliness. Manifesting the best of his work, The Trial of the Chicago 7 teaches as it dramatizes, assembling an amazing cast and letting each major player have glorious moments in the spotlight, and cuts through difficult ideological and historical complexities even as it entertains. Molly's Game was a solid directorial debut, but here is Sorkin at his finest, both as writer and burgeoning director, and it deserved so much more than a Netflix premiere.

The film's prologue features stock news footage from the '60s, quickly and efficiently painting the scene: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and King, President Johnson increasing the draft for an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, and the looming Democratic National Convention in Chicago to find a successor to JFK, as Johnson would not campaign again. These scenes are interspersed with the main characters of our story, eight young men leading or representing various liberal factions, as they prepare to head to the Windy City to participate in the convention. We suddenly skip to five months later, when all eight have been arrested for conspiracy to incite rioting. Which, of course, happened in August 1968.

Apart from these eight central characters, we're quickly introduced to their legal counsel, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt as lead prosecutor and Mark Rylance as attorney for seven of the eight defendants. The film, as you might have guessed, closely follows the trial and highlights the absurd length of time taken to determine justice; justice, unfortunately, is not the goal here, and it is often repeated that the publicly scrutinized trial is a political farce. Sorkin seems hell-bent to paint it in all its complex enormity but without too much razzle-dazzle we might expect from a Chicago courtroom musical. At key points, he allows flashbacks so that we can see the various outbreaks of violence that comprised the convention protests and riots; it is in these scenes that we see perhaps most clearly the urgency of Sorkin's screenplay, as the corrupt police force engages in brutal and illegal behaviors against the protestors.

Indeed, the timeliness of this film was surely why it was released when it was, on Netflix in mid-October, just as bills against protests gain support in various legislatures and the country was on the brink of its most important election in many years. The incredible Frank Langella graces the screen as the villainous judge Julius Hoffman, the kind of juicy role he always deserves and rarely gets, a Trumpian character at once terrifying and eminently watchable; he is only clearly evil in the moments when his incompetence fractures. And, given the turmoil of the DNC in 2016, our political climate is definitely ready to revisit this most infamous of debacles in popular sovereignty.

All the actors are giving masterclasses here, all the more so because they are actively supporting each other in this massive movie. Sorkin displays his incomparable ability to make even frantic, emotionally charged, intellectually intricate dialogue sound beautiful, but he also caters dialogue to the characters he's created. Even if it's at times weird that the "Yippies" (played by a delightful Jeremy Strong and Sacha Baron Cohen, who I liked for the first time in a movie) speak in such a polished manner, the actors uniformly make Sorkin's instantly recognizable style palatable and believable. Mark Rylance deserves perhaps the most credit, as he allows brief pauses each time before he speaks, allowing us to believe his lines are actually not scripted.

The beats pile up quickly, and it's hard sometimes to gauge where the facts morph into fiction. But, while he is attempting to teach us parts of history, Sorkin is more interested in the ideas and feelings involved for us in 2020. So even if he doesn't get all the facts exactly right, the sensation of the story he's telling is no less harrowing for its dramatization. More importantly, it's not really trying to teach us any clear moral lesson, a tendency Sorkin often flirts with; rather, he's showing us the dangerous theatricality in the courtroom and the internal war the U.S. government waged on its own citizens, and one key way that war was handled by some of the most outspoken, irreverent, and idealistic young people of the times. It's a story for us, for now, and in that, it is one of the best movies this year.

Dumbo (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It's a weird story, this time helmed by a weird director, but it somehow manages to work much more smoothly and -- dare I say it? -- beautifully than expected. From what I know of the original Disney animated film (which, admittedly, is not much as I've never seen it), this film at once remakes and expands. The first half of this new version is the remake, the second half is where Tim Burton and writer Ehren Kruger imagine a new, updated, and much more interesting story.

Essentially, Dumbo is born in circus captivity (thankfully, this time, not delivered by storks) and deemed useless as a result of his deformity: unusually large ears. It's hard to imagine so many people in the circus of freaks and in the general public who would laugh so cruelly at the adorable little guy, brought gorgeously to visual life here. But that's more a question of the story than of this film. When Dumbo's mother Jumbo is sold after attempting to protect her son, Dumbo learns with the help of his mousy little human friends (who take the place of his cartoon mouse companion) that he can fly. He uses his newfound ability to gain fame, new opportunities, and hope to find his mother again.

Leave it to Tim Burton to highlight the theme of odd uniqueness, of physical difference, and stretch it out ad nauseam. Dumbo's caretaker Holt, played by Colin Farrell, returns home after WWII with only one arm, reuniting with his two children in tearful remembrance of his wife and their mother who recently passed away. He soon discovers that he cannot perform, as the circus has sold his prized horse; he is instead given the job of tending to the new elephant -- apparently a demeaning task for the gentle and handsome man -- with the brutal other caretaker. His children are similarly odd, especially the older girl who wants to be a scientist. (ugh. Tim Burton isn't known for featuring diverse character tropes.)

Yes, it's all really weird, especially when Danny DeVito's ringmaster gets into full swing. Fortunately, though, he's not the villain of this film. After Dumbo's power of flight manifests, DeVito's circus is sold to Michael Keaton's all-but-mustache-twirling CEO of Dreamland, a sort of awkward parody of Disneyland that feels like a bizarre meta-commentary from a Disney movie about Disney. This is where things get really interesting. Issues of capitalism never really coalesce into an argument, but rather flavor the suddenly grayscape environment with trippy, decadent visuals. Keaton's character seems a blatant critique of Walt Disney, and I'm still not sure how, or why, or what it means.

Kind of like the film as a whole. It falls short of making any statements, or really even justifying its own existence. It's (thank heaven) not a hallucinatory Burton nightmarescape of clowns and magic; rather it's surprisingly, blissfully, grounded. While the people may not act quite normal and the excesses far from realistic, it allows you time to appreciate the subtle joys and sly critiques utterly absent from the (again, as I remember) more bombastic, fantastic, and kind of racist original. Then again, I wished more than once for more of an aesthetic purpose to this exercise, beyond seeing Colin Farrell getting all dewey-eyed, fawning over Eva Green.

While it doesn't rise to the magnificent events of more recent Disney remakes, it certainly works better than Cinderella, and we can all be grateful for that.

P.S. -- I found myself more than once wondering the rating of this film. PG! More than once, I wished for PG-13 or even R, just to see what Burton might do. Then again, I'm kind of glad he reigned it all in. But this flick is chock-full of Easter eggs, and some far dirtier than expected. You actually see the mermaid's nipple at one point, in the fabulous Disney tradition of sexual imagery. And, my favorite, when Dreamland comes crashing down, the sign loses its "D", reading "reamland" and suggesting that Keaton's capitalist character just got fucked.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Score: 3.5 / 5

After seeing two previous cinematic incarnations of the character, my Spidey senses were tingling heading into this flick. I suspect Disney/Marvel Studios execs were even more nervous, judging by the excessive advertising and merchandising for their newest flick (in the middle of a year with two other big-budget sequels). We knew the villain from promos, we've already met this Peter Parker (in Civil War), and we've been disappointed in the character before. And while Homecoming is neither my favorite version of Spider-Man nor even one of the better Marvel Studios films, it boasts some inspired choices that might affect the successes of future MCU pictures.

Tonally not unlike Ant-Man, this flick knows how to have fun. Sweet and funny in an uncomplicated way, Homecoming panders to a younger audience. Though its basic comedy won't please everybody, it's executed with such precise timing and earnestness that it pulled more than a few chuckles from my throat. More important, the movie is uplifting and even gleeful in a way almost no other superhero movies are. Most of the credit for that goes to the writers. While movies written by committee aren't usually impressive, the six writers here focused their energies on changing the very structure of the genre. The superhero arc is a mere plot device; the movie works because it's a coming of age story and a high school comedy. This might just signal an evolution in superhero cinema: Maybe superhero movies have to be something else too.

Of course Tom Holland deserves his credit, too. This Spider-Man bothered me as a fan (Why are we changing MJ's name? Why are we changing Aunt May's character?), mostly because of how ridiculously high-tech his suit is. The cool thing about Spidey is that he's young and witty, yes, but it's just him. The kid with tingling senses who can climb walls and made his own web-shooters. Here, half the movie is him battling with the tech in his suit (given to him by Tony Stark, whose films feature the same gimmick). Holland, though, manages to work around all that and staking his claim in a character who, in his hands, just loves being Spider-Man. His wide-eyed wonder and innocence infects us until we're as happy with his situation as he is. And though you can take or leave the high school drama he faces, we believe his struggle against realistic, believable stakes every minute along the way.

While Tyne Daly and Donald Glover are memorable but woefully underused (especially Glover, whose character is the Prowler -- a personal favorite hero/villain -- and the uncle of Miles Morales, suggesting a future POC Spider-Man in the franchise's future!), Zendaya and Jacob Batalon make fabulous turns as Peter's friends. Michael Keaton as the Vulture, however, steals his scenes with a down-to-earth energy and unusual charm for a villain. Can we even call the character a villain? He's a hardworking, average guy who just wants a slice of the good life, to provide for his loving family and reap the benefits of his many years' toil. The movie could have done more in exploring the socioeconomic dynamics of him and his journey, but even as it is, Adrian Toomes is one of the most surprising and believable characters in the franchise. Sequels may or may not include Keaton's Vulture, whose final scene is a real shocker.

Fair warning if you're feeling that superhero fatigue: We'll be seeing more Spider-Man solo movies. This flick gives the character a clean slate and lots of room to grow. It establishes his part in the MCU without making him another Avenger (thank heaven!) and makes a pretty strong statement about that decision (the scene where Tony Stark offers him a place in the team is jaw-droppingly audacious). With its youthful energy and themes, Homecoming offers a different sort of dish for us to chew, and will undoubtedly affect the flavor and texture of forthcoming installments: Consider the final scene featuring Cap, a big "Eff you" to the convention of post-credits teasers. Whatever happens next, we can hope that the movies keep as strong a sense of place as this one does (it's basically a love letter to Queens, and it's beautiful). And I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for a Mysterio appearance.

IMDb: Spider-Man: Homecoming

The Founder (2017)

Score: 3.5 / 5

If you thought we'd never need a movie about McDonald's...well, you'd be right. But for one of the most unexpected films in recent memory, The Founder isn't all bad. In fact, it's surprisingly well done (puns about burgers? Please no). Yet it has a few fundamental flaws, principal of which are its tonal inconsistency and narrative structure. While it seems ridiculous to be too critical of a movie about McDonald's (I'm sorry, but for fuck's sake, look at your life and look at your choices) there's just enough decent plot material here for a decent movie, it just wasn't handled well by screenwriter Robert D. Siegel.

The story is arresting in its timeliness. Michael Keaton plays Ray Kroc, a travelling salesman whose grandiose ambitions lead him to developing a franchise out of a small fast-food restaurant. As the franchise grows, his success waxes and wanes in turns as he makes business decisions that satisfy consumers but alienate him from his peers, friends, and family. Though, as we know, his efforts prove wildly successful to the protagonist and his company, the original founders find themselves railroaded, usurped, shanghaied, cheated, robbed, and generally given the shaft. It's alternately an inspiring vision of the American dream and a damning indictment of capitalism, with apparently no logical bridge or thematic inspiration behind the shifts. Unless that, of course, is the central message, in which case it could have been more eloquently explored.

Director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Alamo, Saving Mr. Banks) does his tried-and-true thing of crafting mythic Americana on screen, one that plays it safe and works hard to maintain its nostalgic illusion. Unlike his previous films, however, Hancock here keeps all sentiment out of his film. While it works for the most part, heightening the tension and keeping the film calculated and cold -- fitting for the monomaniacal character at its center -- it also doesn't work in its dramatic sensibility. We're supposed to feel for the neglected and scorned wife (played by a criminally underused Laura Dern), and the hardworking brothers who actually founded the restaurant (played to perfection by John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman), but we don't because their personal lives are so poorly incorporated into the otherwise clinical script. Admittedly, the film would work without much personal life brought into it, and yet a central twist late in the film is Kroc's abandoning of his longsuffering wife in favor of his colleague's (Patrick Wilson) younger spouse (Linda Cardellini).

The only real reason you should watch this film is Michael Keaton. As Kroc, the famous real-life antihero, he is a chillingly glib and viciously entrepreneurial figure, a Machiavellian conman, "Professor Harold Hill's on hand" and so forth. While the intimate look at his life never gets microscopic, we can understand his drive, ambition, perseverance, and success. And yet, at each and every turn, he defies sanctification. Keaton -- by virtue of his performance far more than the screenplay -- denies our access to his own humanity, resisting empathy and daring us to hate him. Fortunately for us, that's easy to do by the end of the film. Besides him, however, the film is confused and uncertain of itself. Too bad it can't sell itself as well as its protagonist sells himself. Ultimately, as you might suspect, the film leaves us feeling as empty and vaguely unsatisfied as the food its subject produces.

IMDb: The Founder

Spotlight (2015)

Score: 5 / 5

It could easily have given itself over to sensationalism, given its lurid subject. But, much to its credit, it didn't, and it ended up being one of the best movies this year.

Spotlight is that magical movie that shines because all of its comprising elements are so thoughtful, calculated, and impassioned, and they all blend together seamlessly. Everything about this movie is about as perfect as it could have gotten. Not a moment of screen time is wasted. Not a breath of dialogue is cast aside. Even Howard Shore's score is so understated that I often forgot it existed, until I realized its subtle tugging at my heartstrings.

Concerning the Spotlight team of the Boston Globe in 2001, the film follows a group of journalists who labored to, pardon, shine a spotlight on the epidemic of child sex abuse by Catholic priests. As they uncover the conspiracy, they learn that the entire city is implicated, including clergy, lawyers, judges, and even journalists. As one of the characters describes it in a revealing conversation, "If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse them." It's a damning indictment, all the more horrifying because of its truth.

The script is perfect. Written by Josh Singer (The West Wing, Fringe) and director Tom McCarthy, the dialogue clips along at a furious pace, but never sinks into melodrama and never sacrifices plot for clarity. McCarthy's attention to emotional beats and character arcs is pretty amazing, considering that his film could easily have gotten swept away with its frenzied plot, numerous characters, and thematic concerns. He keeps everything anchored on his main characters -- Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton are a wonder, but never break ranks with the fabulous ensemble -- and follows them to their climactic end. That keeps the film emotional but never sentimental.

McCarthy and his editor keep the film streamlined and taut, roiling through the tumultuous plot with a firm resolve to spare no details and to face the evils head-on. Their breakneck pace keep the film feeling more like a thriller than a biography or drama, helped along by an ensemble prepared to go into the dark subject matter. Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (Silver Linings Playbook, Black Mass) helps with that, too, painting a picture of urban duplicity, where the whitewashed facades are at once pure and decadent, holy and monstrous, reflective and deceptive. Together, they keep our focus on the characters' emotional rollercoasters as they hear stories from survivors, lies from lawyers, sins from priests, accusations, condemnations, revelations, confessions, and ultimately more stories.

It's a brutal movie. Sweeping? No. I don't think a sweeping movie on this subject is possible. Partly because the problem is too widespread. Partly because the problem itself isn't a pleasant one that everyone talks about. Partly because one of the best ways to understand the issue is to hear directly from the victims and survivors, and no movie could possibly have the time or resources for that scope (and my favorite documentary, 2006's Deliver Us from Evil, handles it brilliantly, in my estimation, for reference). As the tagline declares, we need to "Break the story. Break the silence."

IMDb: Spotlight

Birdman (2014)

Score: 5 / 5

The obvious frontrunner for this year's award season is also uncommonly good. Too often, it seems, the movie that gets the most hype (for whatever that's worth) is also sentimental or traditional, and sometimes both. A lot of people tend to attach baggage to the Best Picture Oscar, wanting it to be timely or eternal, classic or fresh, comfortable or edgy, and so forth. My main consideration for Best Picture is how state-of-the-art it appears to be: Technically original, aesthetically fresh, pushing boundaries, and (more subjective, obviously) appropriate to popular culture. Birdman is all of these things, and then some.

I know you've heard people raving about how great this film is, and like me, you probably got a bit annoyed partly because nobody is talking about the film's plot. So what is this thing? Michael Keaton plays an actor who is attempting to re-create his career following the success of a series of "Birdman" movies in which he played the titular superhero. Two decades later, he is writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play that opens soon and is having nothing but trouble taking flight (yes, flight). Besides his dramatic attempts onstage, our protagonist is plagued by conflict in his personal life as well, with his friends (Zach Galifianakis), girlfriend and actress (Andrea Riseborough), ex-wife (Amy Ryan), daughter/employee (Emma Stone), and co-star actor (Edward Norton) and his girlfriend/actress (Naomi Watts).

This all-star cast rocks their individual roles, and intelligently embody the world of the film as its ensemble. This is very "meta" stuff, but our actors fit comfortably into their supporting roles, just as their fictional counterparts maneuver into place around their leading man. Edward Norton and Emma Stone arguably have the most complex characters and perform them with remarkable strength, but truly all the characters (and their actors) are almost stunningly well-written and fully realized. But they aren't the only good things about this movie.

Director/co-writer Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Biutiful, Babel, 21 Grams) helms this black comedy with such ingenuity, intelligence, and skill that it is immediately understood as a consummate work of art. For all the themes and motifs we could eke out of this complex film -- from its not insignificant title to its final shot -- Inarritu directs with an eye for beauty and magic. Stunning special effects happen somewhat unexpectedly, as Keaton's character is empowered by the voice of Birdman in his head to move objects with his mind and levitate, and the heavy lighting transforms what we see on screen into a tableau of fantasy and wonder.

It's technically incredible. Besides the awesome lights, Inarritu makes the two-hour film look like a single, continuous shot. It was obviously not filmed that way, but the effect is brilliant: we get a real-time peek into a man's life. When Keaton is alone we see his secret powers, the emotions of his encounters with other people are raw and fresh, and we see his show from casting to opening night as one single episode. Inarritu plays with his own technical approach, then, in that we see many moments separated by time as one shot; in one scene we see magic juxtaposed with the most mundane of daily activities; we see more profound drama offstage than on. Inarritu is making a movie about movies, a film about theatricality, with timely references and modern theatre concerns, replete with magic and mayhem, that ultimately emphasizes the beauty, complexity, and wonder of life. This movie is, literally, everything.

IMDb: Birdman