Wonder (***)

WONDER is a dead-centered drama about a disabled boy growing up and beginning his first year in school. He is born with Treacher Collins Syndrome, with the results being a malformed face and frequent trips to the hospital. I say dead-centered because the film does little in terms of taking chances or exploring the world it has set up. It's surely an entertaining movie, but there is much more I wish they would have explored.

Jacob Tremblay is the talented boy who played Jack in Room a couple years back. He's a child actor of talent and skill. His character, "Auggie," is a shy boy who wears a space helmet to hide his deformity. He's excited to leave his home-schooling regimen (led by his mother, Julia Roberts) and yet fearful to start - also probably based on his mother's trepidations. His first day goes as expected: a couple bullies, a lot of staring, and pointed questions about his personal life. He makes a friend or two over the first few months, and little by little he begins to open up.

I suppose it's a similar basic concept to a movie like "Mask" or "Jack" where a boy has trouble fitting in at school and then eventually finds a way to fit in. The structure takes an interesting approach in the way it breaks down into chapters covering each of the main characters' lives. We have Auggie, then a section about his sister Via and her boyfriend, then Jack Will, Auggie's main friend... The idea is clever in the way we can explore all the lives effected by such a simple disease, but at the same time the movie doesn't seem too invested and eventually the sequences mostly fall flat. There's a great deal of time spent on Via and her failing friendship to her best friend, but little comes in the way of payoff that gives that section closure. They are scenes led by good actors, but does the movie even care about these kid at all?

In the end, the film doesn't offer much in terms of a conclusion, it just kind of stumbles across a finish line. Imagine a movie about a sad child who finds the courage to make friends and accept his disease. How do you think such a film might end? You're probably right. We have good actors here (Julia Roberts is especially heartwarming, her husband played by Owen Wilson is a curious choice) but in the end the movie plays it safe. It's without a doubt an emotional film, and you might get a little teary-eyed while watching it. Beyond that, the story is simply adequate.

Coco (****1/2)

COCO is the dazzling new Pixar movie that, for all it's worth, might very well be one of the best films of the year. It's surely one of Pixar's most accomplished movies, combining an intricate story, multiple characters and settings, and the flavor of Mexican culture. This is the year's most beautiful film. The screen is bursting with creativity and has heart to match.

It's unfortunate to read that COCO is Pixar's last full-length original picture until this decade is over. The studio is focused on sequels more than creating original stories, which is a shame, because this film is nearly flawless. The story follows a young boy named Miguel who lives in a small Mexican town. He comes from a long line of cobblers that all work out of a humble studio. Long ago, Miguel tells us, his great great grandfather was an accomplished musician, but after running away from his family to pursue fame, the house forever banned music from the premises. Nearly 100 years later, the rules still apply. Miguel has a passion for a 1950's television star named Ernesto de la Cruz and practices guitar in hiding.

The story begins on the Day of the Dead when the family prepares for the celebration. Through various plot points and missteps, Miguel ends up in the afterlife and witnesses the dead crossing a floral bridge to visit with their living family members. The only problem is that Miguel is still very much alive. After running into his ancestors, the movie becomes something more familiar - it's a journey to try and get Miguel home.

Pixar's team clearly immersed themselves in Mexican folklore and culture, and the results are beautiful. The screen is so full of detail that at times I felt as though blinking was hampering my experience. Everything from the reflection in Miguel's eyes to the heat wave coming off a candle is perfectly captured. Some say that computer generation is the easy alternative to hand drawn cells, but the level of work achieved here makes me beg to differ. We even meet a variety of spirit animals of all sizes and colors that accompany the dead around this incredible city. They fly around to give us visual acuity and establish where we are and why.

For all it has to offer, COCO still feels weighted down by an extended subplot that leads into darker territory than I have seen before in a Pixar film. I think this is because most of their films deal with cute animals or talking robots. When the same stakes are placed against a living person, it feels more intense. I wonder if younger children will understand all elements of this film, or if they will find it scary. I suspect they'll simply enjoy going along for the ride. Yes, the movie is filled with skeletons (who visibly lack jaw bones and sunken eye sockets... They are in no way scary beings), but the ultimate message of the movie is one of family, memories, and tradition. The introduction of various characters and the way they all tie together at times feels a bit too coincidental, even for a cartoon. What are the odds that Miguel bumps into a stranger in a town of millions - a stranger who holds the key to the film's conclusion, no less?

It wouldn't be Pixar without an emotional climax, and I will tell you that this one caught me off guard. We can expect what is coming, but the final 10 or 15 minutes of this film hit me as hard as anything I have seen in a movie. It's a quiet moment with a boy, a guitar, and his family. I defy you not to react. The film builds slowly and layers in characters and themes that for the most part I found myself happy but wishing for minor changes (Miguel has a dog sidekick named "Dante" who is clearly there for unneeded comedic relief). The end is the most perfect knot to conclude this story - bringing all characters together (living and dead) in a quiet moment of music and healing. The results are simply magical.

Murder on the Orient Express (**1/2)

"My name is Hercule Poirot and I am probably the greatest detective in the world."

For the hero of a film to utter such a line and not elicit laughter from the audience would be a marvel. It made me chuckle, heck, who wouldn't? MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is the famous Agatha Christie "whodunnit" where the final reveal is probably the least exciting aspect. What this film fails to see, unlike the marvelous 1974 film starring Albert Finney, is that the charm of this story is the wild characters (like Poirot) who inhabit this train, a micro-chasm of a world. It's one step removed from having characters named Mrs Peacock and Mr Green... The problem here comes with my first point: this movie doesn't know how to laugh at itself.

The story is set in the 1930's as world-famous detective Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, also the director), settles a case and decides on taking a long holiday through the orient. He's instantly recognizable and sports one of the cinema's great moustaches - I've never seen anything like this thing. One thing leads to another, and he is called back to London to work on another mystery. The fastest route is a luxury sleeper car - the Orient Express. We meet the band of cooky characters little by little: the gangster-turned-art dealer (Johnny Depp), the religious nut (Penelope Cruz), the doctor (Leslie Odom, Jr), the Princess (Judi Dench), etc... The train departs and off we go.

Who gets murdered, well you can venture a likely guess based on the trailer. Who killed them? You'll have to wait and see. Branagh directs this film with a distinct visual style that attempts to overcome a clunky script with no clear development, passion, or care. We recall the shot from the original teaser trailer in which the camera slowly moves through the car and each character admits their alibi. It worked fine to introduce us to these people for a preview, but in the film it feels a bit more forced. Likewise we listen to each of these characters speak. Some of them (Branagh especially) can manipulate the words to feel original and fresh. Others (not saying names) are all but reading off cue cards just off screen.

The train is caught snowbound on the very night of the murder, thus the stage is set. One by one, Poirot interviews the passengers, asks them their story, etc. Each is more slithery than the last, and it's a wonder he doesn't solve the case even quicker than we would expect. This being a modern adaptation of a classic book, we need a couple action scenes and some moments of peril. How would the audience stay engaged otherwise? Even thus, the film feels segmented, flat, a bit overworked and a bit under realized.

I remember the 1974 film more vividly for its wild characters and it's attention to tone. A movie like this shouldn't be so sober, and with such an iconic finale, why NOT have some fun along the way? The closest we get is Branagh (can I mention him any more? He's the one shining star in a cast full of icons) playing a detective who is as giggly as he is somber. For the man to have directed himself to such a fine performance, you would think it would have been more infectious among the cast. Even now writing a review 12 hours later, I can barely remember a single face from the cast or one line they spoke. This is the most extravagant cast of the holiday season, and the film lets it all go to waste.

I didn't adamantly hate this movie, but there are so many better written and acted films out there now. Did we need a remake of Murder? I would argue yes. I doubt not a single movie-goer today would recall Albert Finney or Ingrid Bergman in the first onscreen adaptation, and this is a story that has a massive appeal in the setting, mystery, and appeal of death and gore. I only wish that the final result could have been more compelling. As it is - go to see this movie for Mr Branagh, but feel free to take liberal bathroom breaks throughout. You won't be missing much.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (**1/2)

Frances McDormand has certainly found her best role, maybe since Fargo, but the movie simply doesn't live up to her standards. Playing a woman who is in mourning following the rape and murder of her daughter, McDormand is a woman trapped in the 'anger' stage of grief. She swears, kicks, curses, screams. The movie itself takes a more obvious approach, and here is where it began to fall apart for me.

Martin McDonagh is a skilled English director mostly known for "In Bruges." Here he shifts the setting to Nowhere, USA and maintains the same copious amounts of blood and violence. It's a standard flick: Mildred Hayes (McDormand) rents out 3 billboards on a deserted country road near her house (the road is all but abandoned after the highway went up) that call out the police chief for his failure to catch her daughter's killer. The daughter met a violent death, and Mildred feels like the local officers would rather pick fights with black people than actually solve crime. The chief, Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) sympathizes with her but admits that the case has gone cold.

Most of the movie is spent on Mildred, her memories of her daughter, her relationship to her ex-husband (John Hawkes), her quiet son (Lucas Hedges), etc. I found myself wondering why these billboards caused such a stir, especially when we know they are on a back road that few (if any) citizens likely drive down. I also wondered why she assumes the police are all racist, when only one (Sam Rockwell) really shows any distain for his work or presents himself as a villainous creature. The officers we see are mostly respectable, small town men who surely know Mildred and would want to help. Willoughby clearly wants to. We spend a lot of time with his story, too. His family, his wife... There's a major plot element regarding him that I won't share here, but the latter half of the film is overflowing with voiceovers of Harrelson reading letters to various people in the town. It's a bore.

McDonagh is no stranger to violence, and there are several moments out of left-field that left my jaw agape. It's one thing for Mildred to be upset at her situation, but by the end of the film I came to see that there were no real moral characters left. I suppose that's the message here: that violence begets violence. The movie is a dark comedy, but that is one aspect of the story that feels brushed over in favor of wilder visuals and funnier quips. Did I like Mildred? Of course. Frances McDormand has scene after scene of fiery intensity that we don't often associate with the Oscar-winner. She makes the film work with what she was given. It's too bad that she's one of the only elements I found enjoyable.

From segmented flashbacks (can you believe the last thing Mildred told her daughter was "I wish you were raped!" - what irony) to predictable dialogue that didn't knock my socks off, THREE BILLBOARDS feels like a movie that sounded good on paper and then was lost in translation on its way to the big screen. I didn't buy the forced sentimentality of this movie, nor did the ambiguous ending leave me feeling anything other than "that was weird." I am happy that the film took risks and had many twists and turns that I would not have expected. From the first scene to the last, I would never have guessed this is how these characters would end up. It still left me desiring a lot more. It either needed a bigger story or a smaller, more stripped down approach. What this film feels like to me is a gray area that appeals to the masses on violence and gratuity alone. If you can honestly tell me that you haven't seen these same characters a million times over in the past (from the racist cop to the snappy mother to the abusive husband to the grieving wife), then I will tell you you need to see more movies.

Lady Bird (*****)

LADY BIRD might not be a perfect movie, but it was perfect for me. I've challenged myself to see more movies this year than any year past, and with a list of upwards of 100 movies in 11 months, I don't know if any movie has moved me or touched my heart like this. It's effortless in a way that seems impossible. It broke my heart and then carefully put it back together again. For first-time director Greta Gerwig to pull it off, that's something special indeed.

The film is about a young girl named Christine (who goes by "Lady Bird", played by the brilliant Saoirse Ronan) who lives in Sacramento but dreams of life on the east coast. She daydreams about liberal arts colleges and complains to her friends about how miserable their city is (Sacramento is like the midwest of California). It's surely the best "teen" movie I've seen since The Edge of Seventeen, which was the best since 2007's Juno. Do we need to classify these stories under such a genre? It's so limiting. Yes, the high school comedy is something we know inside and out - and yet this is a movie that is elevated so much higher. It's a deeply personal story that almost transcends any genre. It's a slice of life.

Much of Lady Bird's senior year is spent exploring her relationship with boys. She participates in the theater production of Merrily We Roll Along (where her awkward friend Julie gets a better part). There she meets Danny (last year's Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges), a bright redhead from an Irish Catholic family. Lady Bird writes his name in the space just under her windowsill. She daydreams about making out with him, and through her assertiveness she makes it happen. We learn early on how fiery this young girl is in a remarkably well-written scene with her mother. You saw it in the trailer, I'm sure. Lady Bird and her mom (Laurie Metcalf, who is flawless) are listening to "The Grapes of Wrath" on tape, crying in the silence and beauty of the words. It's a calm, reflective moment - bookended with the scene's conclusion in which Lady Bird jumps out of a moving car. Look at how they get from point A to point B and tell me Greta Gerwig isn't a talented writer. Later in the film Lady Bird falls for a different boy named Kyle (Timothee Chalamet) who is paranoid about government tracking and is a quiet romantic who reads poetry by himself at loud house parties. It's quite funny.

What makes this film so special is that is a story told by Gerwig who herself has had the opportunity to reflect back on her childhood. We can see her so clearly in Ronan's character (and if you've seen any of Greta Gerwig's performances we can understand the type of person she is). There is a sense of regret, longing, even enlightenment here. Lady Bird so eagerly wants to go to an expensive school, but at the same time her father (Tracy Letts, again brilliant here) has been laid off, and her mom is barely making a living as a nurse. At first we can sympathize with her parents, both hearty people who only want what's best for their children. By the end of the film we see Lady Bird's transformation: that she can understand everything her parents have done for her as well. It's a beautiful evolution that is captured in small moments here and there...

Greta Gerwig herself has said that this film is not as autobiographical as it appears (though she was raised in Sacramento), but what I was struck by is how insightful her story is into growing up in general. I think a lot of us could project ourselves onto Lady Bird. She goes to a Catholic high school, she goofs off with her friend, she yells at her parents, and then when she finally moves away she has a chance to think about all that she really had to begin with. There are two incredibly emotional moments in the film that are all the more effective for how they are set up. One shows Lady Bird being driven to prom and making a calm realization while listening to Dave Matthews Band, and the other is when Lady Bird leaves a message on her parent's answering machine. They're both moments of clarity for Lady Bird, they're quiet, and they hit me so hard that I will be the first to admit I became emotional.

This is a movie that demonstrates so many people at the top of their game. Certainly Greta Gerwig is going to skyrocket as one of the industry's most insightful writer/directors. Saoirse Ronan is destined for her third Oscar nomination. Laurie Metcalf as the mother finds all the right notes and her final scene is a heartbreaking moment of silence in her car. Where the movie could have gone flat, it became that much more special. I know there are more accomplished movies that will come out with more polish and greater star power. I guarantee that in a year from now, this is something I will still remember as vividly.