Roofman (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

A criminal with a heart of gold takes center stage in Roofman, biopic of sorts masquerading as a crowd-pleasing comedy. Drastically changing tone for writer/director Derek Cianfrance (The Place Between the Pines, Blue Valentine, The Light Between Oceans), this movie capitalizes on the winning charms of its leading actor, Channing Tatum, doing what he does best. Yet, as fascinating as the real story is, the film consistently skews toward fantasy over reality, choosing to paint the struggles of its titular robber as a desperate lifelong adventure for family and belonging. Rather than diving into what could have been a strange and enlightening character study, Cianfrance pushes us into conventional rom-com beats that, while sweet and often slightly off-key, whitewash the story and ignore its more chilling implications.

Nominally about Jeffrey Manchester, a former Army officer who becomes a gentle and kind robber in order to make a living, the film oddly distances us from knowing his inner life. Tatum's capable performance -- though a far cry from his recent devastating presence in Blink Twice -- cannot rescue the film from a series of unanswered questions posed by itself about him. He's shown to be head over heels in love with his young family, yet he chooses not to provide for them using legal means. On the suggestion of an old military friend (LaKeith Stanfield), Jeff instead uses his training in observation and action to cut holes in the roof of fast food joints, kindly restrain the limited employees opening the store (usually by asking them to get their coats and wait in the freezer until the cops come), and take whatever is in their safe. Even when interviewed by the media, who provide the film's title for their mysteriously gentlemanly criminal, the employees praise Jeff's thoughtful and gentle manner.

Yet it's never clear why he can't hold a job on his own, despite some brief early remarks about American society using and discarding discharged service members. And it's wholly unclear why, despite his obsessive desire to connect with his daughter (almost never his wife or infant twins, mind), he doesn't actually try to be a self-sufficient civilized individual. His most recent crime ends with the police arresting him at his daughter's birthday party, surely traumatizing her, and then he's whisked away to prison with only an occasional afterthought about what he has done to the girl he loves most in the world.

Jeff is described as resourceful and brilliant by other characters, but we see almost none of it. His chameleonic wit and charm disguise him from suspicion, even when he shows up to a church looking (and surely smelling) like the dregs of society. Thankfully, the film depicts the church he finds as truly good Samaritans, lovely people led by Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba (it's an aggressively weird pairing, but they uplift the middle of this film in a necessary way). They warmly accept him as he is and help provide for him.

The problem is that he's also lying to them. He's living in a hidden space in a Toys R Us store, bathing in the employee bathroom sink, eating candy, and acting a fool in the aisles by night. He fixates on the cruel and stupid manager, Peter Dinklage, and a beautiful young woman and mother who recently went through a divorce. Kirsten Dunst's presence as Leigh is an unexpected but heartfelt delivery of a salient millennial crisis right now, when what we were promised by those we love -- and society in general -- has been broken and we're left to pick up the pieces. Her pathos is emphasized when Jeff, who followed her to the church, meets her and she clearly wants to try dating again. But money is an issue, as are her teenage daughters; would a single man be interested in a quiet pizza night at home with mother and daughters? Maybe not every man, but one who's functionally starving, desperate for family time, and eager to escape the prison he's built for himself will absolutely be there.

And he goes overboard. I don't want to spoil any more, but Jeff's personality quirks don't stop when he finds love. He's a great influence on the girls, who he shockingly quickly befriends, yet his behavior is peripatetic, somewhat unpredictable, and almost always materialistic. At one point, Leigh literally tells him point blank that they just want him to be with them, yet he continues to throw money and toys and flowers and candy and balloons and even a damn car at them. Meanwhile, he gets paranoid about the unsustainable life he's eked out and sure that someone will identify him, so he reaches out again to his army friend, wanting to pay an exorbitant amount for a new identity and a one-way ticket to a country without extradition. These things don't add up coherently, and while that might be the point, it makes Jeff as presented in the film to be something like a sociopath, whose integrity is nonexistent despite his nonviolent crimes. He's going to devastate the people he claims to love, and he does it both willingly and seemingly intentionally. I don't get it. And that's not even approaching the topic of his criminal compulsions, which to be rationalized in our minds does not match with the character we see here.

It's a fun enough film, and really sickly sweet, until it isn't. And I was most struck with its hypocrisy late in the film, when I wondered how this charming man might have fared, especially in the deep South of the film's setting, had he been non-white. Or unattractive. Why is it that this guy, who has been convicted of many crimes and sentenced to several decades in prison, is afforded the benefit of our romantic and humorous affections whereas so many other incarcerated men are not? Is it by nature of his wacky escapades and bizarre life's work? Then why the overwhelming focus on his romantic life and not on his psychological state, the institutional realities that compel him to commit crimes, or the material impacts of his frankly idiotic financial and relational decisions? I want to know why he thought endless consumerism would make him a good father, a good husband, a good man. I want to know why he seeks to give women around him a life he thinks they deserve rather than honoring what they say they need from him. I want to know what he thinks of the ways veterans are treated and how and why he so terribly chose anarchy in an effort to make a better life, especially in the context of a distinctly charitable church network. There's a lot of charm in Roofman, to be sure, but there's a dispiriting lack of curiosity, turning what should be a humanist saga into a simplistic and generic tangent.

Wicked: Part One (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

We've waited twenty years for this. And it's perfect.

Perfectly cast, with special attention to appropriate diversity and character actors knowingly leaning into our expectations of them. Perfectly designed, bridging the gaps between the Technicolor fantasy of the original film and the steampunk postmodernity of the classic Broadway show. Perfectly translated musically, with a depth of sound and patience in letting melodies drift across scenes unusual for movie musicals. Perfectly realized sets and a shocking lack of CGI. Perfectly bypassing the specificities of its source book (one of my most hated novels) in favor of the pop culture phenomena that are The Wizard of Oz (1939) and the titular stage production. Perfectly directed by the up-and-coming premiere musical film director of the 2020s, Jon M. Chu, whose work here feels like the joyous consummation of his talents after Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights. 

Perfectly paced, perhaps even as an improvement on the stage musical (this point may be controversial, as a subtracted outro for "Something Bad" and a delayed climax for "Defying Gravity" may well disrupt longtime fans' immersion). Perfectly honoring the original, including cameos and even visuals ripped from our collective memory (Elphaba's extended cape as she levitates in the finale is exactly what we need to see at the end of Act 1, and it's gloriously realized here). Perfectly performed roles that could easily have been impressionistic or impersonated (Ariana Grande skews close to Chenoweth's iconic delivery while offering boons of her own, while Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey internalize their characters more to bring fresh dynamics, and Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum subtly play against type to suggest insidious design). Perfectly costumed, adding substance and character to already well-rounded people, making the visuals pop with tactile pleasures. Perfectly choreographed, honoring the original while injecting the large numbers with adrenaline, giving even unexpected moments some zazz.

Most important, it's perfectly suited to the present, perhaps even more so than it was twenty years ago in George W. Bush's America, in the days of our "War on Terror," with drones surveilling seditious activity and a con man in power demonizing people of color while attempting to harvest their resources for his own grandiosity and control. Minorities are being ousted, hunted, and caged, making the magical wonder of Oz a parallel thematic pleasure to the increasingly dark oppression embodied in metallic crystalline urbanity. Relevancy can be hard to come by, and often feels forced in situations like this; not so, here, where the material feels long overdue and yet disturbingly timely to an uncomfortable degree.

This is less a review that a laundry list of perfections the film realizes, so I won't belabor it. I hope that they add some music to the second film, as even the show doesn't have quite as much in the second act, and dark and action-heavy as it is, I'd prefer Schwartz to tinker therein. Except for the Wizomania bits of "One Short Day," nothing substantively new is added to the first act, which is totally fine for me, but does make me hopeful for some novelty to be taken with Part Two. Specifically, I'm eager to see more dynamism from Nessarose and the spectacle of magic, twisters, and action that largely occurs offstage in the stage musical. But in all, this film feels like the kind of culture-spanning blockbuster we got all too frequently pre-Covid and rarely get anymore in this age of direct-to-streaming small releases. I hope its success revives the form and our social integrity when it comes to collective cinematic experiences. We'll just have to wait until next November to see if they stick the landing.

Spoiler: they will.

(Side note: I'm learning that, apart from general ignorance about Jon Chu's previous films, many people are also unfamiliar with Cynthia Erivo's previous work in Bad Times at the El Royale, Widows, Harriet, The Outsider, Genius: Aretha, and of course her stage work in The Color Purple among other great credits. Y'all need to make sure you catch up, because she is not slowing down any time soon and is one of the best artists working right now.)

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

A prequel book based on the backstory of the antagonist was probably not what most fans expected ten years after the Hunger Games books were published. However, once its release, it was a sure thing a film adaptation would be in the works. Thankfully, director Francis Lawrence returns to the franchise, carefully maintaining aesthetic and thematic through-lines with the earlier films. This story is set sixty-four years prior to Katniss Everdeen's first time in the titular games, so very few of the characters are the same (though some names like Heavensbee and Flickerman reveal ancestry in fun ways). And while the world is slightly different than the one established previously, it's instantly recognizable as the chilling world of Panem. Here, it hasn't been a dystopian hellscape for long, and this film dramatizes what is only the tenth annual Hunger Games.

It's a remarkably faithful adaptation of the novel, one that honors its story and characters admirably given the book's length (well, the film is plenty long to accommodate) and scope. The primary difference I noticed is that the book features detailed and long-winded philosophical conversations between the young Coriolanus Snow and his colleagues as he climbs the ranks of students, mentors, and finally gamemakers. The film slyly bypasses these, making the film notably more action-oriented than the book, though that's surely not a bad thing given its target audience and the flavor of previous installments. I personally like this series the farther it gets from the titular games; it's the politics and historical references I find most fascinating, and this story feels like a huge step in the right direction (like Mockingjay and its sequel). Additional references to things like District 13, Katniss, Mockingjays, and more are fun in the moment, though they do leave me wanting more.

And it's arguably partly due to the odd nature of the source material here. The book is as odd as the film in that while it's lovely to return to Panem and the ideas in the series, it begs the question of whether Collins has more "origin" stories to tell -- about Coin, for example, or the First Rebellion against the Capitol, when District 13 went underground -- because that would be super cool if they were written as such. The thing about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is that it's hard to tell if it's meant to be a standalone prequel. Especially its ending, which features a missing protagonist and the imminent rise of a villain, doesn't quite wrap up this story in satisfying dramatic terms, making us wonder if this is meant to be the start of a series focused on a young Snow.

The film belongs squarely to Tom Blyth in his performance as a young Coriolanus Snow, and it's a gripping performance, due to his striking beauty and arresting presence on screen. It's a shame he neither looks nor acts like Donald Sutherland, but then, who does? What Blyth brings, apart from youthful curiosity and desperation, is a sense of profound entitlement based purely on his own ambition. He's not from the wealthiest of families -- his too-brief scenes with Grandma'am (Fionnula Flanagan) and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) indicate their filial warmth and financial duress -- but he's terrifyingly smart; Snow clearly changes his physical presence and mannerisms once he leaves home and is out among his peers and superiors, making himself more like them and even above them. He navigates a world of appearances and facades with deft footwork and a chilling poker face, developing his manipulations even as his integrity begins to crumble. There comes a point when he can't be bothered to justify or even label what he's doing as moral, much less his goals. It's just so subtle -- and was in the book, too -- which makes Snow such a fascinating and insidious character.

As for the film itself, I had a grand time soaking it all in. Due to its earlier time period, the design of costumes and props is retro, seemingly inspired by '50s decor, perhaps best showcased in the Hunger Games operational hub. A wall of old-style televisions, in front of wood paneling, displays views from within the arena while commentator Lucky Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman) hosts the first-ever national broadcast. He's delightful but in a more restrained way than his descendant, played by a zany Stanley Tucci, though this film features very little camp or comedy. The Capitol is a more dangerous place in this era, so its glamor is notably minimal, perhaps explaining why we get to know so few of its denizens in this film. Peter Dinklage plays Casca Highbottom, the dean of the Academy who co-imagined the Hunger Games and now is mentally tortured by the horror he has wrought with its implementation. Dr. Volumnia Gaul, sadistic and megalomaniacal head gamemaker, is played gleefully by Viola Davis, who imbues the eccentric character with camp and chews so much scenery she'll surely need dentures.

As I said, it's a fabulous film, much heavier and more bitter than I expected and almost devoid of humor, one that very much honors and continues what has come before. Rachel Zegler (West Side Story, Shazam: Fury of the Gods) plays Lucy Gray Baird, a traveling musician and burgeoning revolutionary who gets conscripted into the games, and her stunning voice and surprising physicality help her a lot, because her acting chops feel a little out of their depth here (though she's also not given much dynamics to play with by the screenplay, in which she's pretty one-note, so to speak). When the games do happen, in the middle act, it's more brutal than before, perhaps because of the starved and sick competitors (it's clear they'll be pampered in subsequent years, as the games become more spectacular and popular) and perhaps because of the comparatively small arena. But it's in the final act that I was most intrigued, after Snow and Baird have developed something more than mentorship connections that feel distinctly romantic or manipulative. While Lucy Gray is more fully herself, "Coryo" is steely and cold, and their fraught dance of tension during the denouement and emotional climax is a haunting and deeply uncomfortable end to the larger-than-life story. Which is to say, it's brave and bold and memorable, and not at all what I expected from this franchise at this late point.

Cyrano (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

When I heard the story of Cyrano de Bergerac had been adapted into a new musical, the news was terribly exciting. It's much modernized, of course, from the 19th-century play, but still largely made to look period. The primary updates are twofold: first with the addition of music, and second with the casting of Peter Dinklage as the title character. Why is this significant? Well, anyone familiar with the story would tell you that Cyrano is most known as the story of a French soldier and poet and musician with an enormous nose. The character has internalized the ugliness projected onto him by society and decided that he is unworthy of love; when he falls in love with the beautiful and lonely Roxanne, it is from behind the ink and pages of their correspondence.

Erica Schmidt's adaptation (on stage and now on screen) changes Cyrano's source of melancholy, away from the traditional nose issue -- often played with obnoxiously, laughably large prosthetics -- to profoundly brilliant effect. With Dinklage in the role, his stature becomes the target of derision and scorn, providing the story a sobering dose of realism and relatability in 2022. It helps, surely, that Schmidt and Dinklage are married and probably worked on this material together as a labor of love before putting it on the boards. Dinklage imbues boldness and unabashed romantic heft into every beat as the iconic character, and it's his "biggest" role yet, emotionally and performatively speaking. He even gets his chance -- thanks surely to the director -- to have a smattering of the sort of swashbuckling scenes that made Errol Flynn and other studly stars the romantic leads of old Hollywood classics. The handsome Christian, Cyrano's rival in love for Roxanne who is not given the comedic opportunities he deserved (and that this film desperately needs), is played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., while Roxanne's courtier, the foppish Duke, is played surprisingly well by Ben Mendelsohn. The lady herself is played by a charming Haley Bennett, who fits the musicality of the film much better than her co-stars.

It's all sort of cutesy and sweet, but it never really coalesces into a satisfying cinematic experience. True, it has been almost entirely reimagined visually -- by the visionary genius of director Joe Wright -- and so it resembles almost nothing, I imagine, of the stage musical in any practical way. But I suspect it wouldn't be satisfying on stage either, unless Schmidt botched her own work in translating it to screen. The music itself is atrocious, with every song performed in the same tempo and almost always a similar key. There are no variations between song style, rhythm, harmony, or content. No songs advance the plot, introduce characters, or offer spectacle; instead, they serve as Shakespearean soliloquies, allowing characters to express deep emotional revelations. This might be effective in opera, but not musical theatre. Further, the lyrics to the songs are endlessly, annoyingly repetitive, often with a single phrase or couplet repeated many times in the background like a contemporary Christian band. 

Thankfully Wright handles the numbers quite well, allowing gentle choreography to inform the background of each song, with unlikely ensemble members dancing as if they were in a Regency-era ball. Two especially well-shot numbers -- thank you, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey -- will stick in my brain for a while; the first is in Christian's first song, as rows of soldiers dance with their fencing blades on the parapets of a seaside fort, and the second is when the Duke approaches Roxanne for what he intends to be the night of their consummation through the dark, foggy streets. These kinds of visual flourishes provide depth and artistry to a film otherwise devoid of meaningful inspiration. Sound harsh? Check the repeated use of shots of various characters running down alleys as papers (presumably love letters) flutter in the air around them, as if the production designers were determined to recreate the opening scenes of Chris Columbus's Rent. 

It's not "bad," of course, and sometimes it's effective in absorbing your full sensual attention. The trio song of letter-writing, when the papers start to fly around, is a downright sexy sequence, and many repeated shots of Roxanne on her bed caressing her letters are pretty erotic. Wright could have leaned more into the conceptual conceit of isolating his characters more until the crucial moments that they do finally connect, obviously through letters but even more importantly when in person. Filming in this way might have helped make the narrative more dynamic and more accessible for younger audiences as well as audiences hungry for a nice period romance after two years of pandemic-related isolation where we so often relied on written words to keep us all connected. 

I Care a Lot (2021)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Spoiler alert: Marla Grayson doesn't care.

Marla Grayson cares about her clients. She cares about getting lonely, elderly folk into nursing homes. Working closely with a doctor friend who can help her identify well-off patients on the brink of dementia, Marla petitions the court for an order asserting the patients can no longer care for themselves. Acting as the new legal guardian, she spirits her wards away to a nursing home whose manager is also working in tandem with Marla. Meanwhile, as guardian, Marla can siphon away every penny from her charge, leaving the infirm destitute and any remaining family or friends at arm's length.

Marla Grayson cares about her peers. Dr. Karen Amos (Alicia Witt) takes care of the first steps, and manager Sam Rice (Damian Young) does most of the heavy lifting -- via his staff, of course. And there's Marla's partner in business and in love, Fran (Eiza Gonzalez), who researches the potential wards to make sure there aren't any troublesome kids or spouses and that there is in fact a nest egg in store. The movie begins with another success story for Marla, as the court -- headed by a friendly and naive judge (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) -- denies a challenge to her guardianship. Shortly after, though, the ward dies, and the unexpected vacancy leads Marla to make a rather quick decision.

Marla Grayson cares about money. Her doctor friend recommends Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a "cherry" as the vampiric women put it. She has no known family and she has a lot of money. Marla seems to be little more than the epitome of avarice, an entrepreneur who pirates booty out of people to dim to stop her and from a system too corrupt to save. She points out more than once that her methods are, largely, quite legal, implying that she's simply using the tools given to her by a culture of greed, misogyny, and ageism (it's interesting that her lesbian identity is never an issue in this movie). Despite her apparently passionate defense of her behavior to the judge early in the film, when her ward dies, she smoothly pulls her picture off the wall and trashes it without so much as a blink. Pike's cold, bitchy excellence is dazzling to behold in even these briefest of moments.

Marla Grayson cares about her appearance. Played to utter perfection by Rosamund Pike and her full star-power glory, the character is a vampire in broad daylight and light, monochromatic suits. Often shielded by oversized sunglasses, her sassy blonde bob, and smoke from her large vape pen, she nevertheless is always on the offensive, calculating her next move and searching for vulnerability. My favorite scene of hers is when Jennifer Peterson's dubious lawyer (Chris Messina) shows up, looking phenomenal in many-piece suits of vibrant hues, and the two square off in her office. It's a deadly game wherein two sociopaths slowly rip through the constraints of politeness. It's wicked fun, and the movie never quite recovers from it. At least, not in terms of performances; from here out, it's all about the plot.

Marla Grayson cares about control. She controls her clients, manipulates her fellow conspirators, and even the movie itself. From the start, we're put tightly in her headspace for most of the movie, even subjected at the beginning and end to her voiceover, a cold and ruthless diatribe about the nature of fairness in a world that has never been fair to her. But this isn't a revenge story; at least, it's not hers. Because before long, strangers start showing up looking for Jennifer Peterson. Large men attempt to break her out of the care facility. Her lawyer materializes, though he has no proof of being her lawyer. And when something terrible happens to Dr. Amos, Marla and Fran realize too late that they've finally targeted the wrong "cherry." Dianne Wiest, known for her idiosyncratic lilting voice and sickly sweet mannerisms, shifts into a terrifying creature eager for vengeance; she's a Lear raging against the ties that bind, but the difference is that she has hope of her own deliverance. "He's coming for you," she giggles darkly through blurry eyes in the nursing home, even as Marla determines to torture her in the meantime.

Marla Grayson cares about herself. And so, when Fran tries to downplay the imminent threat caused by Jennifer and the men looking for her -- I won't tell you who or why, because it's an absolute delight when it happens -- Marla rebukes her naiveté. "Don't get fooled by old people. Even sadistic, immoral assholes get old." One wonders what will become of Marla when she ages. Then again, she may not. The film begins with a cool, stylish air of pitch-black comedy, a satire of society and money and age plastered with vivid colors and underscored by synth-music that wouldn't be out of place in a John Carpenter movie from the '80s. But by about the halfway point, things get a lot darker and almost all of the comedy drops out, leaving a crime thriller that doesn't thrill so much as titillate. We watch with morbid interest as the chase becomes a standoff and the players seek the upper hand in brutality.

In the end, Marla must face an enemy she never expected, and decides that she wants to live. But her ability to care about most of the things that were so important to her before slip from her grasp. So, much as our former first lady declared to the world, "I really don't care, do u?" Marla Grayson, as we've established, doesn't care. She just wants. And it's as satisfying as it is terrifying.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Score: 5 / 5

Martin McDonagh's newest film might also be his best, a razor-sharp black comedy that delves deep into the hearts of people in pain. While never quite as absurdly funny as Seven Psychopaths, and not as fabulously [insert descriptor here] as In Bruges, this movie is surprising in its heart, its depth, and its timeliness. And here I thought Coco would be the timeliest movie this Thanksgiving weekend.

Mildred (Frances McDormand in one of the best screen performances this year), grieving after the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter seven months prior, rents three rundown billboards near her home in rural Missouri. Infuriated with the apparent apathy of the local police force, she uses the billboards to openly criticize their incompetence and presumably spur them to action, though that is never explicit. The town quickly turns on her, largely because Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is dying of cancer, and Mildred and her son (Lucas Hedges) are harassed and threatened with arson and violence.

Mildred remains firm in her convictions, despite everyone else's hatred. Her righteous anger is not always sympathetic, however, which is where McDonagh hammers home this little morality play. While it is exciting, funny, and somewhat empowering to see a strong, unapologetic woman in her position, her sense of justice is decidedly skewed; though we might applaud, for example, when she attacks her sadistic dentist, we cannot help but cringe because we see her as a cannon starting to come loose. Mirroring this anti-hero is her foil, a racist and homophobic officer named Dixon who takes immense pleasure in "allegedly" torturing suspects. His psychotic anger breaks the surface early on, and only intensifies in his hatred of Mildred and her disrespect for authority, as he sees it. His stupid, evil anger is an exact opposite of Mildred's -- he brutalizes the young man who leased the billboards to Mildred as well as his girlfriend -- until, that is, it isn't. Dixon undergoes a radical dramatic shift that suddenly aims for vigilantism.

Three Billboards, in addition to being an idiosyncratic satire of rural law and prejudices, is also a riveting drama about the morality of anger. Of course we start sympathizing with Mildred, but as the other characters slowly show their cards, we begin to suspect we've been playing the wrong hand. Anger begets violence, bigotry begets violence, and it's all funny until the violence begets worse violence. McDonagh, in an incredibly risky move to play it safe (figure out that paradox), ultimately reveals no sense of justice. By the end, no one is humbled or gracious. No justice has been served, though it may be argued that some of the characters have reached a better understanding of each other. And there is no real resolution. There is only the suggestion that violence may come again, at the whim of whoever is angriest for the best reason. 

These themes feel like a clarion call for America's heartland at a time when such righteous anger burns in many of our hearts. The film is even titled after a textual phenomenon that so many of us hate, but so many of us re-enact via posts on social media for our own corporate brands. It's speaking to us about the absurdity we reveal in ourselves and the violence we can do with our words, about our choice to ignore other people's stories and feelings, and about the dissolution of both legality and morality in an age when vigilantism is lionized.

And it's entertaining as hell.

IMDb: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri