Weekend Mullings - Toy Story 5

After seeing Toy Story 5, I decided to re-watch the previous films (except for the first film, because I've seen it more than any of the sequels, and also the primitive state of the animation just kind of depresses me at this point), and I'll stand by my probably overly simple take that after Toy Story 3, the films should have been re-titled. The first three films are about the toys living in the Andy's world, with a very clear ending to that arc in Toy Story 3. Toy Story 4 and 5 are in Bonnie's world, and despite still containing the core characters (to varying degrees) that have defined the series, they are in a new story era. I wish the titles of the films acknowledged this.

Taken with this mindset I also feel it's easier to forgive some of last two films' shortcomings. It would be impossible to omit Woody and Buzz from the franchise entirely, but the gradual reduction of their screen time together feels less like a loss, and makes more sense in the context of this new era, especially because we've got a little girl as the toys' kid now; of course Jessie should take center stage. 

Bonnie was a pretty shy kid in Toy Story 4, and as Toy Story 5 begins, that hasn't changed. She's still happy to play alone with her toys, but she is also beginning to long for the companionship of other kids, but finds it hard to connect. Knowing so many kids these days are "connecting" (scare quotes very much intentional) via screens nowadays, Bonnie's parents buy her a "Lilypad," thus opening Bonnie up to the world of online gaming, chatting, and cyber bullying. Whoops!

Seeing how miserable the device is making Bonnie, the toys try to intervene, but only manage to make things worse. So they decide to try and connect Bonnie with a real friend, someone who matches Bonnie's level of quirk. This quest also brings Jessie face to face with some traumas from her past.

(Also, there's an army of shipwrecked Buzz Lightyears making their way to Bonnie's town, in a side-story that eventually pays off, but is a bit of a head-scratching distraction until that happens.)

Bonnie is such an anxious little kid, having to watch some of things she goes through can be rough, especially for anyone who's either been that anxious and shy kid (hi!) or has been a parent to one. It's not a surprise to say I cried more than once, Pixar movies often reduce me to a sobbing mess. But I feel like it's been a while since one was so overtly heart-tugging, and even painful to watch at times.

Which is not to say the movie is a total downer! There are plenty of laughs. Greta Lee is great as the voice of Lilypad, the perfect benevolent villain. And I love Joan Cusack's Jessie finally getting to be a hero. Of course Woody does show up to lend his help, but he's an aging Woody, and a lot of laughs are milled out of that. I also really loved the pastel animation used to depict Bonnie's playtime scenarios, an approach I'm really surprised hasn't been used sooner in the series.

Toy Story 5 will never be my favorite Toy Story movie, but I think over the years, and perhaps after the release of even more Toy Storys, it may become the one I appreciate the most, for tackling a complicated and often painful aspect of modern childhood.

Weekend Mullings - Disclosure Day

I want to live in the kind of world Steven Spielberg envisions in Disclosure Day. A world where people not only want to believe, but actually would believe if presented with proof of alien life. A world where reaction to proof wouldn't immediately be an exclamation of "That's A.I.!" or "Fake news!" But if the collective shrug that was the response to the release of government UAP files this past May is any indication, I'm not sure people would even bother looking into a revelation long enough to debate its validity. 

This latest alien adventure from Spielberg is more Close Encounters meets Minority Report than it is E.T. the Extraterrestrial, though it's fun to think that Close Encounters and E.T. actually take place in the same universe as Disclosure Day, and were just two more alien events in our history that have been covered up by covert operators. 

Josh O'Connor stars as whistleblower Daniel Kellner, who is determined to release 79 years worth of secret film, video, photos, documents, and alien tech proving that the United States has had contact with aliens since Roswell. And a lot of that contact was not so great for the aliens. On the run from Wardex, a secret branch of the U.S. government, and its head, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), Daniel and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), fight to stay two steps ahead of their pursuers. Meanwhile, Kansas City TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) begins to suspect she has a higher calling after she suddenly develops a kind of ESP where she can read people's thoughts, along with a fluency in Russian, Korean, and an alien dialect. Together Margaret and Daniel soon learn they have a history that explains how they've ended up on the same quest.

Disclosure Day is not a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it definitely has a lot in common with it, including this central relationship between two strangers who are drawn together by alien encounters, and a government that is trying to suppress the truth, though this time that suppression feels more nefarious. And this desire to suppress the truth doesn't just involve people in power. Jane, a Catholic who once studied to become a nun, questions Daniel's intentions because she fears the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe could somehow destroy people's religious faith so much that it could bring about societal collapse. 

Spielberg seems more interested in delving into this existential threat than into anything evil the government might be up to, but frankly I think he ignores just how intertwined stubbornness and faith can be. I'm not sure the knowledge of intelligent life outside of our solar system would make that many people give up the belief that we're still smarter. Or stronger. Or better.

Even if I don't really believe the reality of that faith-based concern, I did appreciate its inclusion, as it allows Spielberg to get philosophical while also giving us a some of the action he's historically good at. There are plenty of well executed chases and action sequences, including a banger involving a car and some trains, to keep this two-and-a-half-hour movie from feeling long. 

Not all of it hits. Josh O'Connor is just not that...interesting? At least compared to Emily Blunt, who gets to be weird, and funny, and vulnerable. And Coleman Domingo spends the majority of the film talking on the phone while wandering around what looks like a 1990's sitcom set, and the ultimate reveal of just where he is doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Disclosure Day is almost definitely not Spielberg's final film - he's already started working on a Western - but it does feel like it could at least be the culmination of the one realm of his career. He lands on a hopeful, and yes, somewhat hokey - in the best Spielberg version of hokey! - message about our place in the universe, and the power of empathy. I may not entirely buy it, but I want to believe it.

Weekend Mullings - The Mandalorian and Grogu

I'm going to come right out and say when it comes to the Mandalorian franchise, I can't even pretend to be an impartial critic. I just love Grogu so much!  The Mandalorian and Grogu could have been two hours of Mando and Grogu sitting in a cockpit, not talking, with Grogu occasionally eating a snack, and I'd have come out satisfied. So even though this ultimately just feels like a few episodes of the series filmed in IMAX, I don't care. And more importantly, why would I care? Because it's a cash grab by Disney? Yes, and...? I wanted more of the series. I got an enjoyable movie. I'm not going to nitpick this.

The film opens with a scenario that feels like the cold open of a James Bond movie. Mando and Grogu are on an assignment on an icy planet, attempting to capture an Imperial warlord. After their successful mission they report back to Ward (Sigourney Weaver), the New Republic commander they've been working for. She has a new mission for them that involves Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), son of Jabba, who as been kidnapped.

This first half of the film plays like a Star Wars version of a gangster story, with Mando and Grogu fighting crime bosses and corrupt "prize fighting" on a planet visually reminiscent of Blade Runner. It even features a cameo by gangster film godfather Martin Scorsese as a diner cook with four arms and some loose lips.

The second half finds Mando and Grogu on a more traditionally Star Wars-y world, with lots of fighting against various androids and aliens. And this part of the film also allows Grogu to take center stage, often with the help of an (almost literal) handful of delightful Anzellans. 

The Star Wars universe is filled with abandoned children, and both heroes and villains with daddy issues. The story of Mando and Grogu has always followed in that vein, though it is becoming, more and more, a saga about a reluctant father learning to accept that responsibility, and then accepting that he will eventually have to let go of it

But it's also a movie about Grogu waddling around behind his dad, getting into places he shouldn't, eating whatever he can find, and learning how to become a...whatever it is an adult Grogu becomes. And that is the way. That is the way, and it is enough for me.

Weekend Mullings - Obsession

One of the oldest horror plots out there is a Monkey's Paw story; how a wish granted goes terribly wrong. It's the central conceit of Obsession, the feature film debut of 26-year old director and comedian Curry Barker, who got his start doing Internet sketch comedy with Cooper Tomlinson in a duo called "that's a bad idea." I bring up his age, and his background, because I think it informs a lot of Obsession, and the things that work in the movie, as well as the things that don't.

Bear (Michael Johnson) has long been in love with his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette), but is too afraid to confess his feelings. When purchasing a gift for Nikki at a new age crystal shop, he also buys what appears to be a novelty gift called a One Wish Willow, a stick that, when broken in half, is supposed to grant the user one wish. After another night of chickening out over confessing his love to Nikki, Bear breaks the One Wish Willow, wishing for Nikki to "love him above anything else in the world." 

He gets that wish, and the horror movie plot falls into place. Nikki does "love" Bear, but it's an obsessive and violent love that Bear, though freaked out by much of her behavior, goes along with - for way too long. From the beginning of their "relationship," Nikki has weird episodes, but they are tempered by cliched love story moments, like watching movies together on the couch, sharing breakfast, laughing over strangers at a diner...and sex. And that's where the film gets...icky.

Nikki has no free will, and this is proven definitively when one night, while Nikki is sleeping, the voice of the real Nikki comes out, begging Bear to put her out of her misery. The real Nikki is a prisoner, and that means all of their sexual encounters have been, essentially, rape, a fact the film just ignores completely.

The script tries to walk the line between portraying Bear as a villain and a victim, but by giving the real Nikki no agency, and no real establishment beyond "manic pixie dream girl" before her imprisonment, we aren't really able to feel sorry for her, because the things she does are so, so horrifying. Bear's victimhood is established from the very beginning: he's a sad sack, lovelorn loser and Nikki is a curse on his life.

And all of this is huge bummer because there is so much in this movie that is good. There is effective dark humor that runs throughout. Barker has a gift for tension, and keeping things just out of frame, or in partial darkness, leading to truly creepy moments. But the biggest highlight is Inde Navarrette's performance as Nikki. She holds nothing back, fully inhabiting this possessed character, balancing between funny and furious, in a performance that includes some jaw-dropping physicality.

I mentioned director Curry Barker's age earlier because I do believe, or at least hope, that someone with a little more life experience would be able to expand beyond the "bitches do be crazy!" cliches in the story, and move the audience's sympathy away from Bear. And maybe someone with a little more filmmaking experience would skip the animal death that opens the film, knowing that's going to turn off a large swath of the audience right off the bat. And perhaps someone with more developed tastes would veer away from the moment of nudity near the end that is so distasteful and unnecessary it took me completely out of the movie.

Obsession is good. I just wish it were better. 

Weekend Mullings - The Devil Wears Prada 2

Junk food is popular for a lot of reasons, but one that immediately came to mind after watching, and enjoying, The Devil Wears Prada 2, is that it is invariable; you know you're gonna get the same thing every time. And because of that, you know you're going to enjoy it, even though it's probably bad for you and may make you feel a little ill afterwards. I had fun while watching The Devil Wears Prada 2, even if a lot of it left a bad taste in my mouth.

It's been twenty years since these character last shared the screen, and credit to all of the cast's surgeons and dermatologists, because absolutely none of them looks any different. Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is still running Vogue Runway magazine, though the print edition is a lot thinner these days, and Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is still at her side. Andy (Anne Hathaway) has had a successful journalism career, albeit winning an award and losing her job on the same day; she's victim to cuts that seem to hit newspapers on a weekly basis. And Emily (Emily Blunt) has remained in fashion, now an executive at Dior.

One of those contrived scenarios that can only happen in movies finds all of these characters back together again, revolving around Miranda, who has her hopes set on a big career move. Indeed, many of the plot points hearken back to the first film, as that's what we expect from our sequels. But I was pleased to see the film pivot a in a few ways that, while not exactly surprising, were at least not entirely predictable. 

Andy starts the film as a single gal, focused on her career, but about a third of the way into the film she has a meet-cute with an apartment flipper named Peter, played by Patrick Brammall. This romantic plot-line feels entirely forced and unnecessary, but at least he's a step above both of the shitty men Andy had to deal with in the first film, and this time she doesn't make career decisions based on how this random dude feels about them.

I'm not certain, but I think Streep has more screentime as Miranda this time around, but more is not necessarily better. She definitely has moments that are memorable, like how absolutely exhausted she looks after having to hang up her own coat. But I can't think of a single line that's as quotable as anything she says in the first film. Miranda as a character works better as a spice than a meal.

This sequel is obviously working with a much larger budget and reputation than the original, resulting in a lot of cameos and fashion flashing across the screen. And I do mean flashing, as director David Frankel never lets his camera linger on any of the couture long enough to really take the clothing in. But I guess that's what streaming and pause buttons are for.

While the story is filled with pretty clothes, fancy apartments, European landscapes, and beautiful people, ultimately, none of the characters stands on very steady ground, with careers and lifestyles that are not guaranteed. And that's because of one ugly truth the film hammers home: billionaires are both the cause of, and potential solution to, all of life's problems. (h/t: Homer Simpson.)