"The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

In the past few years—since the release of the first “Lego Movie”—a lot of people have come to realize, or at least feel, that everything’s not awesome. Like, in the world—not everything’s awesome. Nor is everything cool, even when you’re part of a team.

And if not everything is awesome in the real world, well then, I suppose it may not be awesome in the Lego world either. And, indeed, in “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” it’s not. Just as the broader state of the world can be a major buzz kill, so too untoward environmental dynamics can rain on Finn’s (Jadon Sand) Lego parade.

The destabilizing baby-in-chief in Finn’s world is his sister. She wants to play too. But in her own way. And the pre-existing tenants of their local Lego world—which, recall, include Emmet (Christ Pratt), Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), MetalBeard (Nick Offerman), Benny (Charlie Day), and so many others—are rightly terrified by this development.

Emmett, ever the optimist, tries to reach out to the new sister-made Lego Duplo creations. But things don’t go well. And before you know it, Bricksburg is Icksburg—a dystopian “heck” scape ala Mad Max.

Some of the more heroic Lego characters—particularly a bunch of the literal superheroes—head out to baby sister’s Lego world—i.e., the “Systar System”—to fight back, but when they don’t return, those who were left behind begin to lose hope.

Except, Emmet, that is. He’s still listening to his uplifting pop music, ordering super sugary coffee from a run-down coffee shack, waiving hi to all these mean biker dudes and terrifying robots, and, well, I guess making the best of it all.

Until, that is, his best friends get taken away by General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz), the general of the Duplo army. It’s strange, actually. General Mayhem comes along to say that their leader—Queen Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish)—wants to marry the leader of Bricksburg (now Apocalypseburg), whoever that is.

Batman thinks it’s him, but then so do a bunch of other people, so General Mayhem takes them all away. Emmet is clearly not leadership material, so he gets left behind.

But that’s when Emmet finally sounds the alarm, gets pissed, kicks it into gear, and pursues the enemy. With the help of a familiar sounding bad boy, Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt), Emmet makes it to the Systar System where his friends are being held.

Well but now they’re not actually being held. It’s more just where they live now. They seem happy and content. Almost too content. And Queen Wa’Nabi is nice, I suppose, but in a creepy I-may-actually-dismember-you sort of way.

But Emmet and Rex don’t buy it. Neither does Wyldstyle. They think everyone has been brainwashed. So it is up to them—or at least they think it is up to them—to shake everyone back to reality, or what they think is reality.

While watching “The Lego Movie 2” I laughed just about as much as I expected to laugh. Pretty close. Which, first and foremost, is praise for the movie, because I expected to laugh a lot. I liked “The Lego Movie” and really liked “The Lego Batman Movie”. And this sequel is cut from the same witty cloth.

Like the previous movies, “The Lego Movie 2” is funny, irreverent, fast-paced, and quirky in all the right ways. Kids will love all the fast action, exploding Legos, and slapstick humor, while parents will crack up at sharp puns and cultural references. So, yeah, this is a Lego movie. And that’s a good thing.

But, with that said, I didn’t laugh more than I was expecting. And I liked “The Lego Batman Movie” better. Also, while the moral in “The Lego Movie 2” is both well executed and timely—and I really do appreciate its addressing the not awesomeness in life—it won’t exactly blow you away with its profundity.

So “The Lego Movie 2” is, you know, good. Not great. But good.

Roma

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Cleodegaria “Cleo” Gutierrez’s  (Yalitza Aparicio) life is, in many ways, not her own. She’s not a slave exactly. She’s a live-in-maid for a middle-class family in Mexico City in the early 19070s. But almost everything she does—every decision she makes—she does with an eye toward her employers’ needs.

Take the kids, for example. Cleo is basically a second mother (or more like the first mother) to the four kids in the family she works for—certainly she does more of the thankless, nitty-gritty work than Sra. Sofia (Marina de Tavira), the family’s matriarch. Furthermore, when Cleo learns that she herself is a mother-to-be, among the first things she considers is whether she can keep her job, how the family will react, etc.

This isn’t the only part of Cleo’s life that is wrong-way-round. She typically only gets off work after everyone else is in bed, so her social life is rarified, to put it mildly. And even the dynamics of the family she serves—strife and all—affect, beset, and toss Cleo about as if it was her family, her world, her life.

One could imagine this setup playing out in various different ways. For example, one could call to mind Alice from “The Brady Bunch”—an ever present part of the family who is represented as being happy and well adjusted.

On the other hand, it’s easy to take a more bleak perspective on Cleo’s plight. After all, she’s a paid actor in others’ drama. She does what others want her to do, and she does it how they want her to do it. Again, in this way, her life is not her own. Which sounds bleak.

However, in “Roma”, Cleo isn’t portrayed along either extreme. The picture is more complex and nuanced. On the one hand, Cleo’s predicament seems problematic, unfortunate, and borne of a clearly immoral system. But, on the other hand, it’s hard to escape the feeling that her life is deeply good—sad but beautiful. When Cleo, who should have never been in this situation—this life, this exploitation, this hardship, this unfair and inexcusable ordeal—embraces a family that is not her own, and clasps them together within her shielding arms, the feeling is just, thank God Cleo is here.

Now, of course this feeling is totally problematic. After all, that Cleo is desperately needed can hardly excuse her subjugation. It doesn’t somehow make it right, or even O.K.

But “Roma” is not about telling you how it is, morally speaking. This is not a sermon or stump speech. It is a look at the life and spirit, the ups and bitter downs, of a woman who the world overlooks. It does not depict the triumph of an ordinary life. Instead it shows its depth. Cleo’s life isn’t glamorous. It is hard and often boring and sometimes fun but never buoyed by sustained pleasure. Yet it is not meaningless. Far from it.

“Roma” is a beautiful film. It is careful and measured. It does not grasp beyond its reach or stumble into the traps of political or social bloviation. It is transcendently modest—in its acting, directing, cinematography, and so on. It cherishes everyday life without exaggerating or even particularly exalting it. It finds meaning in simple things—not just pleasures, but pains also. This is the stuff of life.

"Ralph Breaks the Internet"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Some people can’t help but wreck everything. Take Ralph (John C. Reilly). Whether it’s bricks and stone, windows and doors, or indeed, as it turns out, even if it’s things as diverse in kind as cityscapes, the World Wide Web, and personal relationships, Ralph—aka “Wreck-It Ralph”—was born to lay things asunder.

He can’t help it really, God bless his oafish soul. Although, as we know from “Wreck-It Ralph”, he is a sweet guy when it comes down to it, Ralph’s DNA—i.e., his gaming code—precludes delicacy. Everything Midas touched turned to gold; everything Ralph touches turns to rubble.

Which is why it is a minor miracle that, six years into his relationship with Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman)—a hotshot racecar driver from the Sugar Rush arcade game—their friendship is, not just intact, but thriving. They hang out every night in the arcade—they tell jokes, play guessing games, and sneak into other arcade games.  Vanellope sometimes says she’s bored—mostly because her game is too simple. But, if you ask Ralph, everything is perfect.

That is, until he breaks Vanellope’s game. Dammit, Ralph! He was trying to help—he was trying to fix Vanellope’s boredom by adding a track to her game. But, as usual, Ralph just mucked everything up. Specifically, he breaks a piece of Sugar Rush. So the game gets shut down. Now Vanellope is game-less—which, for a video game character, means she’s like homeless or something. Just great, Ralph.

But Ralph is going to fix it. He hears that the broken part from Vanellope’s game is up for auction on EBay. So Ralph and Vanellope use the arcade’s recently acquired wifi to travel into the world wild web. Luckily, they find EBay, move right into their auction, and quickly win the bid for the part. Easy as that.

But, small technicality: They don’t have any money. Oops.

Still, Ralph is determined to fix what he broke. So he puts together a bunch of viral videos—e.g., one of him imitating other famous characters, one where he does the cinnamon challenge, one where he just chomps his food really loudly in front of a camera—to gain likes, which of course means advertising, which of course means money money money.

Meanwhile Vanellope is off doing her own thing around the internet. And she’s loving life. Her old game was very simple, very predictable, and thus very monotonous. But the internet … oh, the internet. The possibilities are endless. She races ultra-fast cars on new and exciting tracks, has slumber parties with Disney princesses, participates in heists, and, in her downtime, shoots hoops. For the first time in a long time, Vanellope feels like she could have an exciting future in front of her.

But then there’s Ralph. That’s not how he feels—he just wants to get back to the arcade and spend his days hanging out with Vanellope. And he can’t see how anyone could feel differently. So, for all the fixin’ Ralph has done (or at least tried to do), all is not right in his world.

Maybe that’s just life. Maybe, sometimes, for someone like Ralph, the best way to not break something is quit trying to fix it.

And so, as with the original “Wreck-It Ralph”, this movie packs in a nice little moral. When the moment comes, the point, or perspective, is delivered with feeling and impressive emotional subtlety. It’s not a particularly drawn-out moment—the depths of its import are hardly plumbed here—but, still, it’s nice.

More generally, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is consistently charming. Take just about any scene and you’ll find yourself amused and endeared.

However, one could complain—and I do hereby complain—that, for the most part, this movie is totally formulaic. It’s as if the only standard for success for movies like this is that they string together a bunch of likeable scenes. Set aside whether it all hangs together in an innovative or interesting way. Forget the fact that a story is more than the sum of its parts. Just be happy at each moment. That’s enough.

Yeah, well, maybe it is enough—and it almost certainly is for “Ralph Breaks the Internet”. It would just be nice to see the best of the best—the movies that break the box office and wow the critics—being a bit better.

"Mid90s"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Stevie (Sunny Suljic)—a 13-year-old boy growing up in LA in the mid-90s—is a sweet kid. But he doesn’t have anyone to look up to. His dad is gone. His mom is, well, mom. And his older brother is just about the biggest tool in the shed.

So I guess it’s no surprise that Stevie looks elsewhere for role models. And, to his mom’s chagrin, what he finds is a bunch of foul-mouthed skateboarders. Ray (Na-kel) is the leader of the pack. He’s the best skateboarder—he’s really good—and he’s also the coolest. Then F_S_ (Olan Prenatt) is next in age, talent, and coolness level. He’s the clown of the group. Whereas Ray is serious about his skating—he wants to go pro—F_S_ just wants to skate and party and not take anything too seriously. He thinks trying too hard is “cheesy”.

Then there is Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), who is mostly-quiet, videos everything, and apparently got his name because he’s only as smart as a fourth grader. Finally, there’s Ruben (Gio Galicia), a somewhat younger kid with a stony, brash exterior, but maybe only because he has some serious stuff going on at home (which he rarely visits).

That’s the crew. You get some vague sense that they go to school some of the time, but, really, it’s like the never ending summer for these skateboarders. They skate and hangout and skate and party (booze, cigarettes, drugs, girls) and skate, skate, skate until the sun goes down.

All this skating in “Mid90s” is occasionally interrupted with the awkward, sometimes poignant, moments that constitute growing up. Stevie has his first beer. He hooks up with a girl for the first time. He fights with his brother, but then has a talk about how their parents let them down. He hears about how Ruben’s dad beats him, how Fourth Grade can barely afford socks, and about how the tragedies in Ray’s family dwarf anything he has ever experienced.

Most of these characters are likable in their own ways. Despite teenagers in general being, well, the worst, it’s hard not to fall in love (actually, better say like) with some of these kids.

However, this is a short movie—only 84 minutes. So there’s not a lot of time for character development—especially the gradual, trickling character development that’s required for a coming-of-age movie like this. Aside from maybe Stevie and Ray, we are only left with hints of depth—we see a rag-tag bunch of larks that promise, but don’t really reveal, roundness of character.

Most coming-of-age flicks are all about the characters. “Mid90s” is also all about the nostalgia—about Super Nintendo, skateboarding videos, baggy jeans, and Nike high tops. This movie is bathed in the past, which, I expect, will be most effective for those of us who actually grew up in the mid-1990s.

This movie also reminds you—or me, at least—of how annoying teenagers are. Yeah, awkward moments can be charming. And, yeah, yeah, I know being carefree and even irresponsible is just part of growing up. Nonetheless, as I sit here on this side of puberty, watching and hearing these kids who, definitely more than average teens, are reckless, troubled, aimless, and often just plain mean, I can’t help but sympathize with Stevie’s mom, who thinks this particular gang of misfits ought to be disbanded.

I know we are supposed to feel that, dammit, these are Stevie’s people and that’s how it goes and that’s so important. But when is too much too much? Given how these kids are portrayed in the movie, I don’t know that I could fault Stevie’s mom if she decided to move to the middle of nowhere, or send her son to boarding school, or something—anything!

And I think all of this speaks to an awkward (though not necessarily damning) tension in Jonah Hill’s debut filmmaking. It’s kind of like the tension between Ray and F_S_—Ray is serious about what he does; F_S_ thinks being serious about anything is cheesy. Jonah Hill doesn’t seem quite sure whether he wants to be serious—whether he wants to make some point or rather just have some fun making a movie.

Much of the movie feels like the latter—like he’s just showing us, and reminding us, how it was growing up in a certain time and place. But then there are more serious moments, too, and, to give voice to the F_S_ side of me, many of these moments teeter, though maybe don’t quite topple, into cheesiness.

So what would I say about Jonah Hill’s first attempt at writing/directing? Uneven. But I would also say it shows promise. Maybe, hopefully, this movie is as much part of a coming-of-age tale—with all the usual awkwardness and bad decision-making—for its filmmaker as it is for its characters.

"A Simple Favor"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

The aptly named Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is an annoyingly on-top-of-it mom. Most parents feel accomplished if just everyone still has a pulse at the end of the day. But not Stephanie. This single mom (that’s right, she does it by herself) is an ever-vigilant watcher of her son, Miles (Joshua Satine), she volunteers at Miles’ school far more than is required or needed or even wanted, she cooks gourmet dinners, and she puts Mr. Clean to shame, all while maintaining a cheerful demeanor and snappy appearance.

Oh, also, by the way, she has a popular mom’s video blog as well. Yeah, she’s on top of it.

Yet Stephanie doesn’t have any mom friends (I wonder why). She wants them. Desperately. But she just can’t find them.

That is, until Miles and his classmate, Nicky (Ian Ho), absolutely insist on having a play date. Stephanie is game. But then walks in Nicky’s mom, Emily (Blake Lively). Emily is smart and sharply dressed, but also busy, short-tempered, crass, and just wants to make it clear that she’s not having any of it, no matter what “it” is. She eventually agrees to the play date, but only because she’s lazy with her son and doesn’t want to put the effort into telling him no. Plus, it dawns on her that Stephanie is basically a free babysitter.

Stephanie and Emily end up getting to know each other a bit. And they are quite an odd pair. Whereas Stephanie is wholesome, sweet, a bit naïve, and, most of all, way into the whole mom thing, Emily doesn’t care, not ever a little bit, about the whole mom thing—path of least resistance for her—nor does she care about politeness, niceties, social convention, early-afternoon sobriety, or just about anything else other than her high-powered job in the fashion industry. Emily is doing Emily, and that’s about all there is to it.

Yet the relationship between Stephanie and Emily works for both of them. Stephanie has a mom friend—a hip one at that—and Emily has, well, someone to pick her kid up from school when she’s running late (which is a lot). It’s a strange relationship, to be sure. But it’s oddly symbiotic.

Then one day Emily goes missing. Earlier in the day she called Stephanie to ask her to pick up Nicky, which, as ever, Stephanie was happy to do. But then it was dinner time, and then bath time, and then bed time—and still no Emily. It’s only after several days that Stephanie is even able to get in touch with Nicky’s dad/Emily’s husband, Sean (Henry Golding). But he doesn’t know where Emily is either. No one does.

So Stephanie does what any good friend would do: She takes to her blog. She gives updates, encourages people to keep a look out for signs of Emily, shares her latest theories on what’s happened, and so on. Out of love for her friend, or maybe just boredom—what else is she gonna do now that her bestie is gone?—Stephanie takes on the role of detective, piecing together any clues that may lead to Emily.

As Stephanie digs deeper and deeper, it starts to look like Emily is not who she seemed. But, then, Stephanie ends up not being who she seemed either. I guess nothing is as it seemed.

Indeed, “A Simple Favor” is one big plot knot—twist after twist after tangled twist. These plot twists don’t exactly defy expectations, at least not by the end, because there are so many of them that you sort of just stop expecting things.

Which isn’t necessarily a criticism. Plot twists are nothing new, and there’s a way in which they can pretty easily start to make a movie feel gimmicky, even formulaic. But the unique set-up of this movie—a couple of martini-loving moms meeting for playdates—together with charming performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, keep this movie feeling fresh and fun.

Sure, there are some moments to groan about—like when a dorky dad foils an attempted murder at the very last instant, as if that ever happens, in a way that definitely never happens, and then goes all preachy on the potential perpetrator about how parents stick together … blah, blah, blah. All right, there’s some of that. But, still, you could be doing worse than to sit back, grab a martini, and unwind with this people-pleaser while the kids do, well, whatever it is they want to do, as long as it’s in the other room.

"BlackkKlansman"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

It’s not every day that an undercover cop successfully infiltrates a criminal organization by becoming one of them. After all, it must be hard. It’s got to be a real high wire act. I suppose that’s why they make movies about it.

But those old cop thrillers are downright pedestrian compared to what Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) of the Colorado Springs Police Department did back in the 1970s. He infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. He became a member! Also, by the way: He’s black.

This happened. Really. In real life. A black police officer joined the KKK.

But, actually, Stallworth starts his undercover work as a wire-wearing informant against, ironically, the Black Panthers. He attends rallies, talks to group leaders, and even cozies up to local-agitator-turned-love-interest, Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier). Stallworth is understandably conflicted about this project. He doesn’t seem fully on board with the Black Panthers’ agenda, but he does care about what they care about. And the racism he faces in, for example, in his own police department, is plenty to make him doubtful that the Black Panthers are merely the unhinged terrorist organization his superiors describe it as.

And it’s certainly no KKK! Whereas the Black Panthers assignment was given to Stallworth, surveilling the KKK is a project he sought out. He isn’t conflicted at all about taking them down.

What he does, seemingly of his own volition, is cold call the local KKK leadership (and, eventually, Grand Wizard David Duke himself) and establishes contact by telling them how honest-to-goodness racist he is. Name a non-white-protestant group—he professes to hate them all. It’s music to the KKK’s ears.

But then it’s time to meet them. Um. Problem. Black guy hanging with the KKK? Not really a thing. So Stallworth has to convince another cop, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), who is Jewish but passes himself off as of purest Aryan descent, to be the in-person version of Ron Stallworth.

Talk about a high-wire act! What starts as a little poking and prodding quickly becomes some real deep doo-doo. The only question is, who’s it going to be on?

As for-real as this all seems, Stallworth is, interestingly, portrayed as a bit naïve. He hates racism, of course, and knows it’s a real problem. But throughout the movie—and especially in the beginning—he doesn’t take the KKK very seriously as a threat. He thinks they’re a joke. A really bad joke, to be sure, but more of a fringe sideshow. He doesn’t think they are a real force to be reckoned with, especially not at any national, political level.

So he laughs and he jokes about the KKK, and although he does take his work very seriously, when the prospect of nailing some of these baddies becomes real, it’s almost as if he thinks, well, that’ll be that—we’ll have settled this whole white nationalist racism stuff.

[Cough] Of course he’s wrong about that. But this is one of the more brilliant aspects of “BlackkKlansman”. It’s easy to see evil in the KKK. But it’s not always easy to see how deep, how widespread, and how dangerous that evil is in American culture. Even Stallworth, the very man who took on the KKK, can, it seems, underestimate his enemy—in certain circumstances, he can even see “both sides” of the conflict.

Both sides. Really good people. America first. Make America great again. These not so subtle allusions to contemporary politics are peppered throughout the movie. But the lack of subtlety here is also brilliant, I think. Director Spike Lee puts these things side by side, almost as if he’s holding up two photos for us to compare, and says, “Here” and “Here”—just look at this madness.

When Stallworth closes his case, it seems like he thinks, maybe even for just a moment, that the white nationalists are finished—that maybe, probably, the KKK and their ilk will fade into the uglier annals of human history.

45 years later, and here we are.

"Sorry to Bother You"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Cassius Green’s (Lakeith Stanfield) job prospects are not very impressive. Just to get a telemarketing job, Cassius makes up some story about having worked at a bank, he puts together a fake “Employee of the Month” award that he proudly props on his knee throughout the interview, and he even brings in some giant trophy he supposedly won in high school (he didn’t). Just to get a telemarketing job!

Alas, Cassius’ fake news is quickly debunked. But, luckily, as the interviewer points out, the standards for getting a telemarketing job are not exactly sky high—pretty much anyone can get the job. Plus, the interviewer figures Cassius’ fabrications show initiative.

And thus Cassius’ bottom-of-the-barrel scraping finally turns up some dregs. He has a job! It is a terrible job, of course, but Cassius is just the man for it.

In fact, Cassius turns out to be a great telemarketer. Though he is meek and uncommanding in person, Cassius finds his groove on the line. His main trick—passed down to him by Langston (Danny Glover), an old veteran telemarketer—is to speak in a “white voice” … you know, like how white people talk. And Cassius has a great one (in fact, it is literally a white voice—it’s spoken by David Cross (aka Tobias from “Arrested Development”)).

So Cassius is on his way up. Literally, actually. The “power callers”, as they are mythically referred to, work upstairs—they even have their own special elevator with like a 500-number security code. It’s a telemarketer’s dream to ascend to such lofty heights.

Except some telemarketers—well, most of them you’d have to think—know that upward mobility isn’t much of a thing in the telemarketing biz. They are lowly peons, and they know it.

And they hate it. After all, they bring in all the money, but they hardly share in the profits. So through the encouragement of a perennial rabble-rouser named Squeeze (Steven Yeun), the employees of the telemarketing firm decide to band together, unionize, and then strike. And Cassius, along with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tess Thompson), and his best friend, Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), are right there on the front picket lines.

So when Cassius is called in to his boss’s office, he thinks he’s going to be fired. Instead, he’s promoted. Well, then, um, you see, things are different. Lowly-peon Cassius was up in arms, defiant, a rebel for the cause, etc. But upper-crust Cassius, well, that’s not so simple—he has bills to pay, after all, and, plus, it’s not like he is against what his friends and former colleagues are fighting for.

Thus, Cassius finds himself in one of those classic capitalist conundrums. It’s easy to fight the system … until it’s about to get you paid.

And, indeed, “Sorry to Bother You” is at its very best when it is hitting these notes—specifically when it is rendering its blistering critique of capitalism, consumerism, wage slavery, plutocratic politicians, and basically everything about how our economy is ordered nowadays. It is sharp, incisive, and, more often than not, spot on.

“Sorry to Both You” is also funny if you have the right sense of humor. I don’t think I have the right sense of humor. (Or maybe I was just mad that my MoviePass didn’t work. Again. Ugh.) Still, I could see that, if I did have the right sense of humor, I’d find the movie funny—maybe even quite funny. It is strange, surreal, quirky, understated, and dry. Cassius and Detroit, in particular, have a certain warmth and liveliness to them that comes, at least in part, from their not being cookie-cutter characters.

And that’s a relief—a relief that the movie is (potentially) funny and warm. Because otherwise it might just piss you off. Maybe it will anyway. For what it is tackling—specifically, the plight of non-elite workers—is not a happy topic.

So, one way or another, this movie is evocative. It may make you laugh. Or cry. Or both. But it should stir something up.