How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

writ and dir. Dean DeBlois
based on Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon book series
feat. Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, F. Murray Abraham, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler

Hiccup and all his human and dragon pals are back, this time to run for their lives from overzealous dragon hunters. Continuing the storyline of the more compelling saga of dragons in current day media, Hiccup and his pals now go about freeing dragons from bad men and give them a home in their overcrowded village. When they cross the wrong baddies, the master slayer of Night Furies, Grimmel (F Murray Abraham drawn to look so much like Ciaran Hinds I mistook him for the wrong long face) enters the picture, aiming to wipe out our dragon loving clan, with a special targe on Toothless, perhaps the last male Night Fury. As bait, enters a white feminine Night Fury, termed Light Fury for the sake of delineation. 

Hiccup, now leader of the village, makes the bold move of picking up the whole town and moving them in search of the mythical, perhaps nonexistent Hidden World, a dragon paradise where supposedly dragons live in peace and harmony. Along the way, they find a new temporary home and wrangle with the budding love of the Night Furies, soon inseparable, and dangerous for all as Grimmel sets his traps to take his Night Fury prize and return dragons to the largely incompetent evil men. 

The third installment of HtTYD manages the same alchemy as the first, recognizing the beauty of these creatures and their worlds, and allowing the high flying beasts to soar quietly and elegantly for dreamy passages that always outflew Avatar in breathtaking fanciful flights. The design of an endless array of dragons dazzles and overwhelms, blasting a broad palette and a range from oafish beasts to spritely little bombs of color and fire. 

And the story rides high as well, the future of our longtime heroic couple essentially certain, their support and appreciation of each other recognized and demonstrated in a fashion that allows them to both be young folks growing up and mature leaders of dragon-loving cartoon Vikings. And with them, we have even younger love, as expressed between the Night Furies, their own adolescent fumblings untarnished by bad dialogue, instead played out through amusing bouts of courtship and high flying acrobatics, fueled by the teleporting talents of the breed. 

As our humans track the progress and changes happening to their reptilian pals, the story takes it up another notch, one disregarded by most animated films. If your steed and pet can communicate, live, and love, then how can it remain your trusty mount? Shouldn’t it be treated like an equal and permitted to have its own life? It’s a satisfying turn and avoids any of the common tropes of finding a special world and immediately wrestling with the imminent risks of opening paradise to darker forces. 

The film holds onto charm and smarts better than most animated features and though it suffers for having to carry the herd of doofus characters established as foils to Hiccup in the first film (and book, I presume), often running them in the most obvious directions, even those D stories have a few highlights and don’t douse the fire that the film fuels the rest of the time. Cheers to the creative team and keeping one director (Dean DeBlois) for all three installments. 

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

writ. Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou

feat. Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Bill Camp

This offbeat sequel to The Shining tells the tale of the comeuppance of that whiny little Danny Torrance, facilitated by the mind-numbing drivel of a mouth-breathing halfwit android played by Barry Keoghan. A hospital stands in for the Overlook this time around and Colin Farrell in the Jack Nicholson role, now a surgeon who is so shell shocked (and possibly under attack from a beard-shaped parasite) from frame one that he largely speaks in platitudes and avoids showing any warmth. Don’t worry, whenever it gets especially slow-paced or you expect hear some obvious bit of important exposition that familiar heavy score blares up to cover any coherence from coming down the pike.

Nicole Kidman appears as though she doesn’t know which movie she’s in, trying to please hubby and kids until shit gets weird enough long enough that she rightfully demands that hubby lift a finger to do something about their situation. You know that irritating trait of many a horror or thriller film where the viewer enters a normal world and spends time with the characters seeing their lives before the crazy shit starts happening. Don’t worry, none of that here. We jump right in cranked high with unlovable people and terse interactions that would make that other viewer wonder what the hell is going on with these weirdos and expect some big reveal of a significant bit of backstory that explains why they all act like aliens from the very beginning. Sure, there’s a secret and it comes out eventually, but it’s not the kind that explains away a phony family dynamic or the stilted dialogue between all parties.

Killing comes off as needy, a showcase of exaggerated tensions and desperately aggressive dramatic machinations. It comes very late to the one big question at hand and stumbles through an implausible b-story romance that flaunts the unreality further. And even in the late game, petty idiotic tiny choices, like the parents searching in all the wrong places for their daughter when everyone knows exactly where she is, are asserted as though to insist upon a kind of formalism, but instead annoy viewer and take one out of the story. It’s as though the filmmaker anxiously set out to turn Hitchcock’s idea of taking an unlikely premise and playing it out as believably as possible and turned it on its head, taking an unbelievable premise and playing it out as unbelievably as possible.

First Reformed (2018)

dir. and writ. Paul Schrader
feat. Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfreid, Cedric Antonio Kyles, Victoria Hill, Michael Ettinger, Michael Gaston

Paul Schrader presses down on Toller (Hawke), a man of the cloth who possibly hasn’t earned the outfit, and the viewer shares the squeeze. First Reformed takes the slowly spinning vice approach to drama, modern questions and doubts closing in slowly yet relentlessly, arousing curiosity at first, until it becomes hard to breathe. Toller, a damaged pastor, hides in an old church near Albany, NY, with a scant congregation and a handful of tourists who drop by for its landmark status and onetime role in the underground railroad. Winter has settled into his heart and the town, and he clings on just to get by, while somehow in the position of caregiver.

When pregnant Mary (Seyfreid) sits quietly in a pew and later approaches Toller to help her depressed eco-conscious husband, she sets into a motion a series of events that will challenge the already fragile pastor. To give much key plot would spoil the experience, but Toller is forced to both work to spreads his faith as well as confront that which it doesn’t provide. Schrader (both writing and directing) works a neat bit of magic, weaving positive hopeful messages of the church into the fabric of the story powerfully enough to warm the heart and make one reconsider harsh criticisms of that institution, then transforming bible quotes into mantras of militant protest that remind the viewer how the church has always fallen on the side of power and money, over goodness and glory, a survivalist at its core.

Ethan Hawke captivates in a way I haven’t seen, shouldering his character’s emotional and physical pain in wincing steady measure, the poison inside him barely contained in his rigid frame. As one who’s long seen Hawke as a touch overly enthusiastic, leaning hard into characters that would benefit from a gentler touch, the restraint here sears into my gut much like whatever is eating his. 

The film pits the worries for a sick planet against faith and love, and questions the possibility of finding peace and purpose in a world conflicted and corroding. Toller’s uneasy struggle to carry on illustrates how impossible it might be to find this sedate soulful center. But the spiritual power of human touch won't be extinguished and the ability to find another heart that can reach yours might be the true antidote to our time’s climatic and climactic crises.

But it’s an uncertain solution, not all will make it. And these dueling outcomes leave my stomach clenched long after finishing the film, my hand wavering as I weakly resist Toller’s instinct to reach for the whiskey bottle.

Leave No Trace (2018)

dir. Debra Granik

writ. Debra Granik and Anne Rosselini, novel by Peter Rock (My Abandonment)

feat. Thomasin McKenzie, Ben Foster

A father and his daughter live in the wet green wilderness, foraging for food, water, and firewood, tending to their camouflaged camp and each other. Why they hide, we don't know, but they're steering clear of parkland personnel. Dad runs drills to see how quickly Tom can hide without showing tracks by which pursuers could find her. When she does poorly, they do it again. Only when they trek to the city do we know Portland, Oregon is nearby, though the stunningly photographed, damp dense forest screams Pacific Northwest.

And so starts Leave No Trace, landing the viewer in an unfamiliar world, nesting with two loving fugitives in their private paradise.

The story plays out beautifully and deliberately, that city trip revealing Dad’s veteran status, subsequent stops hinting at the opioid epidemic which seems to have strafed Dad's life, though he's clean. When Tom is spotted and the two are subsequently caught, their peaceful world is overturned. What follows is a fearful journey for the two, questions about their lives and Dad's mental well-being, as well as what's good for a developing child, and who should decide that answer. Their heartache, how they miss each other as they go through the bureaucracy's judgmental gauntlet is palpable. Better still is the humanity shown even by those bureaucrats, social workers who aren't just enforcing laws but also aiming to help the family. It's these touches that lend the film such depth, no easy answers to who is right or wrong.

They are thrown into unfamiliar social situations, and without backstory it's unclear if Tom has ever been around people, perhaps all social situations new and strange. Upon being reunited, the pair's world has changed, the societal rules pressing into their dimension. This feels unfair, the arguable paradise of their initial world challenged by the flat walls of an ordinary domicile. But, it's all of life and opportunity at stake here, and what's best for Dad might not be the same for Tom. And what if Dad doesn't have the capacity to judge that correctly. 

The drama that comes on the path of figuring out those answers is powerful and intimate, with single lines of dialogue changing the dynamic between the pair. Dad’s needs play against daughter’s, and the middle ground proves elusive. At its heart, the film is about the damage that one can and can’t endure, and the life one must live even if that's at odds with the needs of a loved one, forcing changes in the relationship. This complicated territory is challenging even to describe, and the elegance and simplicity with which the film delivers messages and emotional punch without sacrificing love or ever seeming less than completely genuine is astounding.

Of course, films fall into categories and subcategories, genres and story types, and I find that most films show themselves in the first few minutes and you know what you’re in for. Not every twist and turn or the precise ending, but you get the drill and could map out much of what’s to come. Much of the joy of watching Leave No Trace comes in not knowing what comes next. Of course, a few key conflicts will come. We do start with a school-age kid hiding on public land. But nearly everything else is a surprise, detail after detail of discovery, each new location and world unexpected, natural, and special. That's rare in films, particularly American ones, and it swells the heart to share Tom and her father's ride through earnest life adventures.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

dir. David Slade
writ. Charlie Brooker
feat. Fionn Whitehead, Craig Parkinson, Alice Lowe, Will Poulter

Charlie Brooker and Black Mirror have brought loads of intelligent entertainment to the small screen, playfully delivering a tech-centric version of The Twilight Zone. I've long thought this tech-centric aspect narrows the focus too much, often leading down obvious and overwrought pathways of social media obsession or nanny parenting. But on the flip side, there are gifts of tales exploring the afterlife, the eerie powers of near-future tech, and self-referential delights. 

For anyone who read Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, the Bandersnatch experiment can't help but intrigue, even if a clear look back at those books would likely trigger little more than faint recollection of storylines and no specific title that ranks among favorite childhood reads. It's for this that I wonder if Bandersnatch was a doomed experiment from the start. As an Atari and early computer game player back in that day, dipping into the gaming world of the mid-80s excited me, as did seeing Will Poulter playing an adult instead of a wide-eyed kid. I found an early satisfaction in watching the story unfold while participating, curious where it would take me. And, I'm admittedly a sucker for any hallucinogenic ride to deeper consciousness and the other side of the looking glass. But right about there, my magic carpet took a dark dive that felt irreversible (and not my experience at all on such real life illuminating rides), with my choices becoming increasingly lame and narrowly differentiated. I would hesitate, thinking both ideas were lousy, the stuff of bad melodrama where kids (or adults) throw things and break expensive, important equipment. 

But the greatest gaff for me came when I found a loop that trapped me between choosing Netflix or Kill My Dad, locking me in repetition until I picked one. This turned my stomach, perhaps a cheap inside joke, like The Simpsons ripping on Fox, something perhaps about addiction to TV. Regardless, it rubbed the wrong way. 

Perhaps for the eager viewer, willing to restart and try every option, there is some satisfaction in the variety found, but as one who essentially went through once, while accepting a late loop offered at the end to try a few more choices, Bandersnatch came up short.

Most significantly, the only two alternate endings I saw felt virtually the same, despite a major difference (game success). And I recognized, therein lies the weakness in the concept. Since it's not a game, you don't Win by coming out "successful" and since there isn't a fixed path, a singular story, you don't win by enjoying a well-told tale either. This kind of undertaking needs far more ambition and (likely cost-prohibitive) budget to reach the scope of a world one could fall into and get lost, like an expansive modern game where you can accomplish set goals or wander off to find adventures that don't stick to the central narrative. Instead, Bandersnatch feels like a lose-lose situation.

Bird Box (2018)

dir. Susanne Bier
writ. Eric Heisserer (screenplay), Josh Malerman (novel)
feat. Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson


--> Here there be spoilers. Ah, Netflix, you're a mad mess of productions. Living in Los Angeles while both Roma and Bird Box were released, it was fascinating to see both plastered over every available surface, including Bird Box buses that I took solely for mobile billboards, something you can park on the Venice boardwalk where there isn't a board to buy until I passed again to see a troop of meekly smiling suckers in blindfolds standing around the bus. 
While I don't know the BBB experience, it's at least shorter than the film viewing one, as well as partially blindfolded. The billboards alone were enough to give the scent of a reverse engineered apocalyptic sci-fi romp. What if the plague came in through the eyes and everyone had to be blindfolded?! And once the weed is slept off, you're stuck carrying that out. 

Bullock plays Malorie, a pregnant overwrought misanthropic artist who hates humanity enough that you can't fathom why she skipped the abortion before the don’t-look-or-you’ll-kill-yourself wind plague comes to town. The character is all broad strokes, sneers and castigating "wit" perhaps meant to be excused as artist's temperament. Sarah Paulson plays Jessica, Malorie's nice sister, briefly riding along for exposition until the aforementioned wind kicks up. We then slip into a low rent Stephen King's The Mist situation in a house where a real melting pot of characters fake conflict while annoying John Malkovich, who I wondered for a minute if he was playing himself, actually pissed at these intruders using his house as their sanctuary. 

Chaos and shouting carry the flick this far, but then we start breaking our world's rules, first with a blind drive through what we'd seen as impassable streets hours before, aided by a magical blinking console light. That alone would be fine, a film will stretch what's possible and needs twists. Fine. 

But there are too many successive amazing feats completed in blindfolds that quickly move from intriguing and challenging to tiresome and laughable. You can't help but wonder if the root of the story is a slim, God will save you, message. Maybe that would jibe with the crazy people who can survive the view, but in turn become even greater enemies. Then, maybe it's a Catholic Church-inspired apocalypse and the clear-eyed gnostics with their direct contact with the higher power are the most savage and lost, thus encouraging good people to operate blindly. Nah.

Instead, it feels like no one spent considerable effort thinking about how much time really passes in the film, instead just blocking out a handful of action scenes and those high risk blindfolded tasks. It's reminiscent of the faults of the count of those disappeared in The Leftovers (1 in 100 doesn’t affect everyone that deeply) or where you’d get all that damn sand in A Quiet Place. Yes Malorie, you’d name those kids, and no, even you wouldn't think you'd done everything for their survival.