Author: Amy Diaz

Soul (PG)

A middle-aged man hangs between life and “the Great Beyond” just as his dreams of being a working musician appear to be coming true in Soul, an animated movie from Pixar.

Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx) teaches band to high school students, who have varying degrees of interest in his instruction, but his real passion is to get a full-time paying gig as a professional jazz musician. He has chased this desire, to much disappointment, for years. His mom, Libba (voice of Phylicia Rashad), urges him to quit chasing this dream and accept the teaching position (and its pension and health care and steady paycheck) permanently. But then Joe has an audition with Dorothea Williams (voice of Angela Bassett) for a position as a piano player in her jazz band. He gets a chance to play a gig with her that night that could put him in as a regular. So delighted is Joe as he walks down the street contemplating this new future that he doesn’t realize there’s an open pothole in his path until he’s fallen into it.

He suddenly finds himself a bloop of glowy, vaguely person-shaped blueness, headed on a pathway through the stars up to what he’s told is the Great Beyond. Joe is definitely not interested in the Beyond; he wants to go back to the city and play jazz. Luckily, the afterlife doesn’t have the strictest security ever and he’s able to stumble away from the path to the Beyond and into the Great Before, a sort of nursery area for new souls. He’s mistaken for a mentor and is given new soul 22 (voice of Tina Fey) to mentor. His task is to help her find her “spark” and get her ready to go to Earth.

But 22 wants none of Earth and its whole “life and eventual death” thing. She’s had lots of mentors — all of whom have given up in frustration at her lack of a “spark.” Joe sees an opportunity; he’ll help 22 find her spark and earn the badge that lets her go to Earth and he’ll take the badge to return to his body and she can stay in the soft new souls land forever. Thus do they set off to find 22’s purpose.

Along the way, Joe and 22 do make it to Earth for a bit, though 22 winds up in Joe’s body and Joe winds up in the body of an emotional therapy cat. That cat, who (as Joe) can talk (at least to 22) and do things like push elevator buttons, is the most actively kid-like element of the movie. Similar to how Inside Out used personifications of emotions and personality traits rendered as physical spaces, Soul gives dimension to spiritual elements — for example, a place called “in the zone” where living people’s souls go when they’re playing a great basketball game or lost in a musical performance, and a variant of that location where souls go when they’ve lost connection to life and greater purpose. Soul is thoughtful and beautiful and I’m not sure I totally understand who this movie is for.

I mean, it really is beautiful — beautiful looking in how it blends the different visual ideas about an afterlife with the “real” world, beautiful sounding in its lovely score that mixes jazz and other musical styles. And it has some really beautiful ideas about life and what gives a person’s life meaning. I recently finished a rewatch of the series The Good Place, so maybe I am particularly susceptible to big-picture “what does it all mean” ideas rendered with a bit of cartooniness. I liked this movie and I think I would have liked it even more on a big screen, where I could have been even more enveloped in all the visuals. But where Inside Out was tethered to the kid-world by the girl the emotions operated in and the kid parts of her life experience, like imaginary friends, I’m not sure how kids connect to Soul. My younger kids saw parts and seemed to enjoy the music and the little soul blobs, but there is a level of zaniness missing here. (And the “lost souls” idea is expressed in a way that feels just disturbing enough that it would stick with younger kids, perhaps popping up in their brains at, like, 2 a.m.) I rewatched the movie with my elementary-aged kid and her interest seemed to wane as the movie went on. The idea that singular focus on your big break, the life milestone that will really “start” your life, will cause you to miss what your actual life is, for all its joy and heartbreak, is interesting to me. Do such concepts have any meaning to kids? I mean, my kid laughed at some of the butt jokes, so it wasn’t a total loss.

This doesn’t make the movie less successful as a, like, piece of film but as a PG movie on Disney+ it did make me wonder if when this movie goes on during family movie night, it will be the kids falling asleep and fiddling with an iPad while the parents are paying rapt attention. B+

Rated PG for thematic elements and some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers with a screenplay by Pete Docter & Mike Jones & Kemp Powers, Soul is an hour and 40 minutes long and distributed by Disney. It is available on Disney+.

Featured photo: Soul

Wonder Woman 1984

Diana Prince suits up in her golden armor for an all-too-brief fight sequence in the otherwise extremely long Wonder Woman 1984, a sequel to the 2017 Wonder Woman available until near the end of January on HBO Max and in theaters.

Though we last saw Wonder Woman hanging with Batfleck and the other Justice League-ers in roughly the current day, this takes us back to 1984 when Diana (Gal Gadot) is working in antiquities (for the Smithsonian, I think?) in Washington, D.C., and trying to discreetly protect people from baddies and other danger on the side. Despite a full professional life, Diana has a lonely private life, still aching from the death of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) during World War I. Despite Diana’s inner sadness, her outer awesomeness has fellow museum science and antiquities person Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) wishing that she could be like Diana. Barbara makes that wish while holding an artifact that claims to grant wishes, though both Barbara and Diana initially have their doubts about the authenticity of the item. Diana has also made a Steve-based wish while holding the artifact. While they might not believe in the artifact, we see the little wind blow-y effect in their hair and so we are not so surprised to see their wishes come true: The formerly awkward Barbara can suddenly walk with ease in heels projecting sexy confidence and finds she has increasing physical strength. Diana is approached by a man she’s never met before — who then says and does the last things Steve Trevor ever said and did, and suddenly she can see that it’s him, returned.

After initially just giving in to the delight of having Steve back, Diana and Steve decide to go figure out how it is that he has returned. Unfortunately, by the time they start their quest, the artifact has been stolen by Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who had long been on the hunt for it. A large donation to the Smithsoneon and some flirting with Barbara gets him access to the artifact and he convinces her to let him take it to get it looked at by an expert. What he actually does is, essentially, wish for all the wishes by wishing to become the artifact (which at some point people start calling “the Dreamstone”). People wish on Maxwell to get their heart’s desire and in return he takes something — their company, their wealth, their henchmen, etc. Their wishes seem to take from him too; he gets weaker and sicker-looking with each wish. Diana and Barbara discover that their wishes have a cost for them as well. These individual costs, however, are minor compared to the mounting societal costs as more and more people wish on Maxwell for more — more nukes, more power, more money. Diana discovers that this may be a feature, not a bug, of the Dreamstone, which has a dark history and was forged by a god known as the “god of lies.”

The lies are seductive and the truth is often sad and bittersweet but the world has to acknowledge and live in the truth to save itself — I think this is the working philosophy of this movie, which I feel like would have played a little different in the alternate timeline of June 2020 (the movie’s original release date), where all anybody is thinking about is the election and we’re all seeing movies in the theater, than it does now. There are some choices made with Pascal’s Max (some of the elements of his character read pretty Trump-y) that make me feel like this movie, without being overtly political, is trying to say something about the state of discourse. I feel like that element is maybe one of the many “too many accessories” that this movie should have taken off, Coco Chanel “take one thing off” style. (I always misremember that quote as “before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take three things off” and I feel like three is the minimum number of things this movie needs to take off.) There is a lot to do with Max that takes away from the development of Diana, Diana and Steve, Diana and Barbara, and Barbara and her own sense of self. Somehow, this two-and-a-half-hour movie feels like it doesn’t have time to give us any relationship or theme in depth — and yet the movie does not fly by. More editing? Less story? More editing of fewer plotlines and a more consistent tone — this movie just felt all over the place and needed streamlining in all things.

That said, there are nice elements. Because we can, I went back to watch some of the highlights of this movie before I wrote this review. The scenes between Diana and Steve do a good job of capturing the sparkle of that pairing, even if somehow the sparkle isn’t sustained. There is a nice start to a friendship between Diana and Barbara but then there is just so much plot business that it kind of gets lost. And there are some fun action stretches, nothing quite as fun as the No Man’s Land scene from the first movie, but nice work, to include an intro that gives us little-girl-Diana in Themyscira and brings back Robin Wright and Connie Nelson. (Much like Thor and Asgard in the Thor movies, Diana in Themyscira feels like a stretch where the movie really knows itself and what it’s doing.) And we get the golden armor that has been part of this movie’s marketing, though not for nearly as long as you’d hope given the general coolness of it.

Wonder Woman 1984 is a sequel to maybe the best recent vintage DC Comics movie and one that had a lot of Strong Female Lead hopes-and-dreams stuff attached to it. Living up to that is a tall order, and this movie doesn’t quite. But that’s not going to stop me from watching it, or at least parts of it, again. B-

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Patty Jenkins with a screenplay by Patty Jenkins, Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham, Wonder Woman 1984 is two hours and 31 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

It was a horrible and great year for movies

What even is a 2020 movie?

This year’s Oscar race will include films that at least dip a toe in theaters by Feb. 28. I spent at least the first month of this year watching 2019 movies as they trickled into local theaters. And then there’s that long stretch, between March 13 and right this moment, when I have seen exactly three movies on a big screen. Do all those small-screen movies — some great, some blech, some perfectly shrug whatever — count as part of 2020 cinema?

Yes. Like Stephen King used to say when he’d do his annual favorite film list in Entertainment Weekly, whatever we see this year is on this list for a great movie of this year. And, as much as I love the hot popcorn and cool air conditioning of a movie theater, it hasn’t been all bad for movies in 2020. After an Oscar season that was excitingly accessible, it was a silver lining to the terrible 2020 cloud to have movies like First Cow, Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Hamilton available to view as they were having their moment, instead of waiting for films to filter out of the big cities. And those movies are on a pretty long list of good and great films that came out this year. Finding a way to balance the fact that Ammonite is available to every interested Kate Winslet fan (I haven’t had a chance to rent that VOD release yet) and that most movie-lovers are also movie-theater-lovers and want them to survive will be the challenge of 2021 and beyond. (Some new movies are still hitting area theaters before they get to small screens, including Christmas Day releases News of the World and Promising Young Woman, but, of course, big budget theater-only releases are still far fewer than normal.)

But first, we have to get through winter.

What follows are my picks, not just for the best films of 2020 (endless movies also means there are endless movies to catch up on and plenty of 2020 greats that are still on my to-watch list) but for the films that might offer you some fun, escape, artistry and entertainment as we wait out the socially distanced season and hope for a return to more robust movie theater offerings sometime soon. (The streaming locations listed here are based on December offerings, which may change in January.)

• Excellent movies I saw this year that are technically 2019 movies: Portrait of a Lady on Fire was totally robbed during last year’s award season; it is beautiful, swoony, bittersweet and at times haunting (currently on Hulu). I didn’t get to review Little Women, the adaptation of the classic novel by director Greta Gerwig, before I did my 2019-in-review roundup; this is a perfect movie (currently on Starz but I may have to spring for the two-movie bundle that also comes with the 1994 Little Women and sells for $16.98 on iTunes).1917(currently on Showtime and available for rent or purchase) was also a basically perfect movie that dazzles with the visual feat of a “one-shot” movie that takes soldiers through battlefields on a mission during World War I. If you want to make an argument for the supremacy of seeing a movie in theaters, 1917 does a good job of selling that point.

•2020 movies that literally saved my life: I mean “literally” in the figurative sense though an argument for “literal” could be made as the precious moments of peace and quiet these movies brought to homebound children in the spring and summer of 2020 meant a calm cup of coffee or some other sustenance-providing thing for me. Trolls World Tour(available on Hulu and Peacock if you didn’t buy it the second it appeared on iTunes) may not be the best movie of 2020 but who cares, all of my children were happy to watch it the first time it came out and continue to watch it now. It is a bright and fun animated movie with cute music and, if you need to feel like your kids’ media has merit, it has some decent stuff about celebrating differences.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmaggedon(available on Netflix) is another movie that kept all the kids entertained, but this one has legitimate claim for a “year’s best animation” prize. From Aardman Animation of Wallace & Gromit fame, this tale of sheep and their fellow farm animals encountering a friendly young alien is sweet, well-crafted and full of funny sci-fi Easter eggs. It’s also basically language-free and very little-kid friendly.

• More good kid fare: The Willoughbys (on Netflix) is a beautifully animated story about four siblings trying to dump their neglectful parents and learning to appreciate their kind nanny. It has shades of A Series of Unfortunate Events and just the right amount of Ricky Gervais. Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe(on Disney+) is another great movie about siblings working together that called to mind The Simpsons in its ability to pack every minute and every frame with jokes (though still with the right amount of slapstick for the little viewers). The eight-minute short Once Upon a Snowman (also Disney+) shows us snowman Olaf’s adventures between his “Let It Go” creation and his finding Anna.

• Add this to the family holiday rotation: Eleventy bazillion Christmas movies hit screens this year but here are three that are worth holding on to for next year — Jingle Jangle(on Netflix), a fun musical about a toymaker and his plucky granddaughter; Lego Star Wars Holiday Special (Disney+), totally great use of both Lego and fan-service, andMariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special (AppleTV+), which is like the grown-up (but family-friendly) version of Elmo’s Christmas Countdown (and both feature Jennifer Hudson!).

• Excellent movies I’ll never watch again: A movie can be great and a stone cold bummer at the same time. Thus, Never Rarely Sometimes Always with its heartbreaking performance by Sidney Flanigan as a young woman who needs abortion services but runs into so many obstacles is definitely on my list for 2020’s best and I don’t think I can put myself through seeing it again. (It’s on HBO Max and available for purchase.) Another movie great at stoking rage is The Assistant, a quiet film about a young woman working her first job for an unseen but monstrous movie producer boss. (It’s currently on Hulu and available for rent or purchase.)

I doubt I’ll bring myself to watch The Invisible Man again. Elisabeth Moss brings genuine terror not to the idea of an invisibility suit in the wrong hands but to the toll of domestic violence and, sure, this is one of those Universal Pictures horror movies but Moss deserves some awards attention for her top-shelf performance. (Available on HBO Max and for purchase.)Blow the Man Down is a smart movie with excellent performances (Sophie Lowe, Morgan Saylor and, as always, Margo Martindale) and a Coen Brothers-y feel (it’s available on Amazon Prime) that feels like an atmospheric mystery novel read in one sitting.

• Pretty good middle-of-the-road movies: We need not just great movies but pretty good movies that might be able to stand up to casual rewatching.

Netflix has a fair amount of these offerings. I have already rewatched parts of Will Ferrell’s wacky comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. I liked the Charlize Theron superhero movie (based on a Greg Rucka comic) The Old Guard and truly hope there will be a sequel. And I wouldn’t mind a next chapter of the kinda stupid Mark Wahlberg-fronted Spenser Confidential, an upbeat procedural that shares some DNA with the TV show Spenser for Hire.

The “Tom Hanks on a Navy boat in World War II” movie Greyhound (Apple TV+) delivers exactly on that premise. I liked Melissa McCarthy in Superintelligence (HBO Max); it might not rival Spy or The Heat but it’s an enjoyable comedy. Love and Monsters(available for rent or purchase) is an optimistic movie about the end of the world. I’d even put Birds of Prey (now on HBO Max) in that category, especially if you can fast-forward to the last half-hour.

• Pretty-good good movies: A rung up, you’ll find movies like Valley Girl (available on Hulu), a jukebox musical update of the 1983 film. An American Pickle (HBO Max), the “two Seth Rogens” movie was funny, sure, but also sweet and contemplative. The Sunlit Night (now on Hulu) has some of those qualities as well, and a solid Jenny Slate performance. I liked the indie Buffaloed (also on Hulu and available for rent or purchase) for its spunkiness. Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks (Apple TV+) was a crisp gin and tonic of a dramady. Unpregnant (HBO Max) is the comedy, Booksmart-ish version of Never Rarely Sometimes Always, based around a sweet friendship. Vampires vs. The Bronx (Netflix) offers fun horror and something to say.

• Great docs: This was a great year for documentaries and at the front of the pack is Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (on Netflix) that is about a camp for kids and teens with disabilities in upstate New York in the mid-20th century but sprawls to cover the political movement for legal protections for the rights of people with disabilities (and introduced me to American hero Judith Heumann). Another solid Netflix offering is Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, which brings us the life of a hugely popular TV personality. In Netflix’s Dick Johnson Is Dead, a filmmaker deals with the dementia and mortality of her beloved father with grace and humor.

On AppleTV+, Boys State gives us the best and worst of present-day American politics as filtered through a high school government program in Texas.

And speaking of young nerds (and I mean that in the very best sense), watch a pre-Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda and his crew of improv rappers make theater and song and comedy in We Are Freestyle Love Supreme.

• More of the best movies I saw this year:The best movie I saw in theaters this year (at least, of 2020 offerings) wasEmma (currently on HBO Max and also available for rent or purchase), a beautiful and stylish-looking and cleverly cast and acted adaptation of the Jane Austen novel.

The 40-Year-Old Version (Netflix), about a woman reinventing herself, and The Vast of Night (Amazon Prime), a sci-fi suspense film, are two movies with an indie feel that nevertheless earn their place next to any glossy mainstream fare.

Palm Springs (Hulu) was one of those woulda-been theatrical releases that wound up on a streaming site, which means I’ll be able to watch this charming rom-com with Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti again and again.

Remember when everybody was raving about First Cow(currently on Showtime; available for rent or purchase)? They are right! This Western about friendship and baked goods is gentle and charming.

Enola Holmes (Netflix) puts the plucky little sister of Sherlock and Mycroft in the middle of her own mystery to solve (and the women’s suffrage movement). This bubbly action and adventure has a sweet story about mothers and daughters at its heart.

Mank (Netflix) is the most awards-season movie to ever awards-season with its Old Hollywood setting and its behind-the-scenes look at the writing of Citizen Kane using Kane-like visuals but it also would actually deserve those awards for its technical and performance feats.

Speaking of eyeball-grabbing style, Black Is King,Beyonce’s visual album riff on The Lion King, is absolutely beautiful (visually, musically, fashion-ally) and heartfelt (on Disney+).

Make room on the Oscar nominations list for all kinds of entries for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which features what appears to be the last Chadwick Boseman performance we’ll ever get and another knock-out Viola Davis role.

Two more movies with standout storytelling and performances: Shirley(on Hulu and available for rent or purchase) a gothic thriller mixed with a Shirley Jackson biopic starring Elisabeth Moss, and Spike Lee’sDa 5 Bloods(Netflix), another chance to see strong work from Chadwick Boseman.

• Absolute best time with a movie in 2020: Hamilton. As I said, what even is a 2020 movie? Can a filmed 2016 theatrical production count as a movie from this year? I say sure. Hamilton was a joy to watch (and rewatch; it’s available on Disney+). The experience of watching a Broadway play with its original cast and shot in a way that made it feel alive and not locked on a stage (even though this was on a stage it felt less boxed in than, say, Netflix’s adaptation of the musical The Prom) is maybe one of the most optimistic parts of whatever happens next in movies. More art to more people — let’s hope we can find a way to have that and our movie theater popcorn too.

2021 ‘at’ the movies
Who the heck knows what 2021 will bring, but here are some early 2021 movies that I’m looking forward to:
• One Night in Miami Directed by Regina King, this movie tells the story of a fictional meeting between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown, according to Amazon, where it will be available on Jan. 15.
• The Little Things This Denzel Washington movie is slated to be released by Warner Bros. in theaters and on HBO Max on Jan. 29.
• Supernova This movie also sounds like it has awards potential with Stanley Tucci playing a man with early onset dementia and Colin Firth playing his longtime partner. It has a Jan. 29 theatrical release date.
• Nomadland Based on the nonfiction book of the same name, this movie is showing up on some top 10 lists and earning Frances McDormand buzz for her performance. The movie currently has a theatrical release date of Feb. 19; no word yet on streaming access.
• The Many Saints of Newark This Sopranos prequel movie is another Warner Bros. release and could hit movie theaters (and HBO Max) March 12.
• In the Heights This movie was on my list of things I was excited about for 2020 last year and I am hoping it will see the light of screens this year. Currently, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pre-Hamilton musical is slated to hit theater screens (and HBO Max) on June 18.

Featured photo: Trolls World Tour