The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Although all of their films are identifiably Coen-esque, the Coen brothers have a large number of lanes they can work in -- they run the gamut from wacky, to serious, to comtemplative, to you get the idea. With it's omnibus approach, the Ballad of Buster Scruggs services all of their various proclivites.

In each of the six vignettes in this anthology, the brothers take time-honored archetypes and twist them around to drive home a cental thesis -- the universe is relentlessly cruel and we are hapless participants in a rigged game. It's simultaneously a homage and a critque of Westerns.

Some of the stories aren't as good as the others, but they are all distinct, masterfully realized and have an O. Henry vibe to them. My favorite is the first, which stars a never better Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs, an inverted Roy Rogers type that's secretly a nihilistic Bugs Bunny. He deserved a Supporting Oscar nomination, and maybe even a win. He's a force of nature. Of course, he got no recognition.

It's also just a flat out beautiful film, marking the first (and probably only) experience the duo have on digital. It's grown in my estimation since I watched it, and it's nature as an anthology means it'll be super easy to revist. Any one of these stories could be a major contender for best short Oscar, but, at its current length, the film was shut out. Nevertheless, this is uppertier Coens, and that's saying something.

Paddington 2

This is a sneaky good franchise. The first Paddington was an utter delight filled with great visual pinache reminscenct of Wes Anderson, a sense of madcap fun reminsicent of silent era stars, and, best of all, a large dose of heart. The casting was great and Paddington himself is an eminently winning creation, brought to life beautifully with crack VFX work.

The sequel matches the first in almost all categories -- it equals the impressively designed doll house introduction to the Brown family with the magical use of a pop-up book to highlight the attactions of London, while surpassing it in others (Nicole Kidman was fun in the first, but didn't have as much to play with as Hugh Grant does here).

Writer/director Paul King is doing something really great with this franchise. The Bafta's showed this movie some love last year, but there was no Oscar nominations, despite worthy work on set design, score, VFX and costuming. No matter. It's one of the best films of 2018.

Avengers: Infinity War

I've been colder on Avengers movies than most. I've found them enjoyable, but rate them as mid-tier entries in the MCU. That changed with this film, which is the movie Avengers was always supposed to be. The mix-and-match character pairings all work like gangbusters, and the emotional stuff -- especially Iron Man/Spiderman and Thanos/Gamorra, really lands. It's incredibly impressive they pulled all of this together so well and in such a casually subversive way.

I am especially delighted the filmmakers and Josh Brolin made Thanos such a vivid and well-realized protagonist -- a crazy thing to write since he's the big villain. He's not as affective in the sequel, but here he's a near perfect movie villain, which marks a refreshing change of pace. Obviously, the characters who disappeared were always going to come back, but this one left me legit excited to see the payoffs in the follow-up anyway.

Mission Impossible: Fallout

I know it's the sixth film in an action franchise staring a grade-A jerk, but these movies are awesome generally, and this one is specifically top tier.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is the first film in the series to repeat with a director and it also serves as a direct sequel (the love interest and villian from Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation return) as well. I was initially hesitant to much of thar, but the film is all the better for it given how great Tom Cruise's chemistry is with Rebecca Ferguson's Illsa Faust and uow insync Cruise is with Christopher McQuarrie.

I love how this one distinguishes itself by leaning into the neurosis of Ethan Hunt -- so much of what has become fun about watching Cruise in these is in his daring, physicality and reaction shots, but here they really build out the character as an anxiety timebomb, and I love that.

The helicopter chase scene is bananas, the Paris car chase scene is even better, and the bathroom fight scene is worthy of all the memes, but my favorite moment is how Cruise plays the realization that his ex (Michelle Monaghan) is in the same location as an armed nuclear bomb (the start of which is shown below). The way he says Julia crushes me every time. Cruise pulled a similar trick in showing vulerability in a key moment of Edge of Tomorrow, and these scenes encapsulate so well why Cruise is the best action movie star out there. Not only can he do his own stunts, but he can absolutely bring the acting chops.

My one critique is that the opening scene (and thus much of the plot) necessitates a level of stupidity on the part of these very smart operatives, but it's not enough to dim the wattage here. This is a great entry in a phenominal franchise.

You Were Never Really Here

It's crazy how this Hollywood system consistently limits the access of female filmmakers, resulting in great female directors having massive gaps in their filmographies.

Private Life writer/director Tamara Jenkins has three films to her credit, and went 9 and then 11 years between them. Lynne Ramsay is another great example of this. She's had multiple movies taken away from her due to creative differences, and as a result she's only made 4 feature length films since her first 20 years ago.

You Were Never Really Here is typical of her work -- uncompromising, sparse dialouge, vivid imagery. It's an extremely lean (85 minutes) and lyrical film about Joe (Joaquin Pheonix), a hired gun who rescues traffiked girls via brutal methods. He is haunted by a traumatic past that clearly includes sexual abuse from his father, and more opaquely includes emotionally exhausting work in the FBI and the military (we literally only see short snapshot flashbacks with little to no explanation).

Joe spends most of his free time doting on his elderly mother, but when he gets involved with a conspiracy that goes all the way up to the Governor, his life is turned upsidedown. Plot is beside the point here, in a film that got none of the accolades of Joker, another Pheonix vehicle that mines similar territory.

Pheonix is front and center and he uses every ounce of his skill to fully inhabit Joe far beyond the limits of the minimal script. Ramsay shows off a bit with some choices, but my favorite aspect is her atypical approach. In one scene, Joe infiltrates a baddie compound, and we see static shot after static shot of the place, but each shot includes the aftermath of his actions (you can tell by the bodies on the ground).

In another, Joe lies on the ground next to a mortally wounded would be assassin and then the two begin to sing a song together. When the baddie reaches out to hold Joe's hand whole he dies, Joe allows him the kindness. The vulnerability of the scene (shown below) is overpowering. So to is this hypnotic gem of a film.

Private Life

Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti star as a couple trying to have a kid by any means (adoption, artificial insemination, etc) necessary. They decide to pursue an egg donor, and ultimately ask their step niece Sadie (Kayli Carter) to thr chagrin of her parents (the always welcome Molly Shannon and John Caroll Lynch).

The film feels raw and real, and Giamatti and Hahn have a great lived in tenderness with eachother. Hahn is the star here, but my favorite scene in the movie involves Giamatti discussing how he's almost relieved when the egg donation fails and they seemingly are out of options. He's just exhausted, and ready for the ride to end.

Still, the movie ends on a hopeful note; the couple gets a call about a potential adoption (we see flashbacks on a failed experience in this regard) and flies out to meet the mom for a meal. The credits roll and we never get the answer about what happens. But they're together, holding hands, and looking to the future. That's something.

Neither actor got awards traction, but they should have. Same goes writer/director Tamara Jenkins (The Savages), a true gift to film fans who does not work nearly enough.

Blindspotting

Every once in a while, I'll watch a movie that just flat out floors me. Blindspotting is that type of movie. 

This is basically an Oakland-set bromance between lifelong friends, Collin (Daveed Diggs) and Miles (Rafael Casal). Collin and Miles are black and white respectively, something that doesn't effect their relationship with eachother, except that it totally does. Collin struggles with the way people automatically decide to view a big black guy in Oakland, especially now that he has a rap sheet. He's serving out the final days of a year-long probation for assault, but that's really just one moment from his life, and he feels the pressure of being judged for it. 

Meanwhile, the white Miles feels a constant need to prove he is not some street poser, because of the way he looks (like an outsider, not the old Oakland guard). This is ""blindspotting,"" a kind of bias that the film literally defines for us. When something can be interpreted in two ways, but you can only see one of the interpretations, because you have a blindspot.

Miles is a good guy, and a good friend, but he's a loose cannon, something that isn't great for him personally, but certainly isn't great for Collin, since, as a black man, he isn't likely to be given an inch by police, or by society. Somehow, this film insightfully critiques police brutality, gentrification, white priviledge, cultural bias, our broken probation system, institutional racism, the gig ecnonomy, and appropriation, while also being highly entertaining. 

The film is sharply funny while always keeping a sense of impending dread. It's unique in it's approach, because the two leads constantly fall into spitting free-style rap verse, something that is introduced as something fun they do when passing the time or working for a moving company, but ultimately works as a soliloquoy of sorts. This tactic is used beautifully in the climax, in which Collin inexplicably ends up, gun in hand, in the house of a cop he saw shoot an unarmed black man. It is incredibly emotional and potent and perfect (see video below).

Diggs came to prominence for his award-winning work in Hamilton, and he brings all his rapping skills to this role, not to mention a plethora of heart and pathos. He's electric. But really everything about this movie is just a slam dunk, from the song choices to the editing, it's all just right. In most movies, one would expect Miles it be a constant irritant, but the script (cowritten by Diggs and Casal, long-time friends who also produce) makes him entirely three dimensional. I'm not doing the movie justice by writing about it. It needs to be seen.