Great Christmas Movie Moments

Posted on December 24, 2018 at 8:51 am

All of these movies are classics, and here are some of the highlights.

This adorable Nativity play is endearingly natural and the enjoyment we see in Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman seems entirely authentic. The play’s dialogue was indeed made up by the children themselves, with the lead played by the son of the film’s musical director, not an actor.

It’s a Wonderful Life

George Bailey tries so hard to resist falling in love with Mary but when they are so close, he just can’t help it.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is my favorite Christmas story, and the Mr. Magoo version with songs by the team from “Funny Girl” is one of my favorite versions. Here the Cratchit family celebrates with joy.

White Christmas

Two ex-GIs turned successful entertainers pay tribute to the General who did so much for them.

A Christmas Story

Any scene from this classic is worth including on a list of best Christmas movie moments, but I’m going to go with the very sweet final scene, with the family finding itself in a Chinese restaurant after their dinner suffers a catastrophe.

Miracle on 34th Street

A little girl who does not believe in Santa Claus learns he might be real when she sees Kris Kringle (Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn) with a war orphan who does not speak English.

An Affair to Remember

Yes, it would have been so much more sensible if she just told him the truth. But we still love the ending of “An Affair to Remember.”

Claymation Christmas

This is just plain adorable!

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Great Movie Moments Holidays

Aquaman

Posted on December 20, 2018 at 5:37 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language
Profanity:	A few bad words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Scene in a bar, some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/fantasy peril and violence, chases, explosions, monster, sacrifice/suicide of parent, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 21, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 26, 2019

On “Entourage” they made fun of the idea of an Aquaman movie as third-tier cheesiness. Even the San Diego Comic-Con fanboys on “The Big Bang Theory” have no respect for Aquaman. He had a very small, unmemorable role in the Justice League movie. So, can a big-budget comic-book movie about a superhero whose powers are — talking to fish? Breathing under water? be any good? Well, throw in some riders on sea-horses, a drum-playing octopus, a majestic, wildly imaginative candy-colored underwater city and a superhero with the grooming aesthetics of a Son of Anarchy, throw out all of the laws of physics and many of the laws of logic, and the answer is oh, sure, why not?

Aquaman is a hoot. In this version of the story, Aquaman is the mixed-race son of a human lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and an undersea princess (Nicole Kidman) who met when the princess, running away from an arranged marriage, got injured and washed up on the shore. Fortunately, she speaks English, which turns out to be the universal language of all of the undersea kingdoms, who can speak under water as easily and be heard as clearly as though they were on land. See above re laws of physics. Anyway, the human and the underwater princess fall in love and have a much-loved baby named Arthur until her people track her down and she has to go back to protect her husband and child. We will later discover that she returned to the forced marriage, had a son who became heir to the throne, and was killed for having committed the sin of having a “mongrel” child.

Arthur (yes, as in Camelot) grows up with some connection to his undersea heritage, including a Merlin-like guide (Willem Dafoe). He serves as guardian to humans at sea, and early on we see him take on some pirates. One is killed, in part because Arthur refuses to save him, and his son (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) vows revenge.

Meanwhile, another underwater princess (Amber Heard as Mera) is trying to persuade Arthur to claim the throne. Arthur’s half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) is working to unite all of the underwater kingdoms so he can declare war on humans. He has a point — they are upset about all of the poison and junk we keep dumping in the oceans. But we won’t dwell on that because Orm is pretty evil. We know that because he looks like Draco Malfoy and has no sense of humor. And besides, what’s more important is that there is SO MUCH to look at. Each underwater city and population is wildly imaginative and spectacularly gorgeous. If the storyline gets overstuffed, more labors of Hercules than the usual superhero saga (thank you for skipping the origin backstory, by the way), it is a lot of fun, an expert mix of action, adventure, humor, family, and a little romance.

NOTE: Stay for a post-credit scene.

Parents should know that this film includes extended comic-book/fantasy peril and violence with weapons, explosions, spears, knives, suicide sacrifice, monster, characters injured and killed and some disturbing images, along with a few bad words.

Family discussion: What did Arthur understand because of his dual heritage? What made him change his mind about what he thought he wanted?

If you like this, try: the comic books and “The Guardians of the Galaxy”

Bumblebee

Posted on December 20, 2018 at 5:34 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended sci-fi/action-style violence, weapons, explosions, mayhem, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 21, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	April 2, 2019

You know how Transformers turn from cars into robots and robots into cars? Well, with this movie, an origin story for fan favorite Transformer Bumblebee, who “speaks” via audio clips from the radio. The ridiculously bombastic Transformer series just kept getting bigger, louder, and dumber. Roger Ebert famously called one of them a “horrible experience of unbearable length” and they got worse after that. This Bumblebee has transformed itself, kind of, into a more warm-hearted “ET” plus Herbie the Love Bug-style story with a retro soundtrack, directed by LAIKA’s Travis Knight. And it’s…better. Not great, but it won’t make your ears ring or your brain cells melt.

Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) is an unhappy teenager living in San Francisco in 1987. She is still mourning for her dad, who died suddenly the year before, and counting the days until she can leave home. Everything seems an affront to her — the terrible uniform she has to wear working at the amusement park food stand, selling lemonade and hot dogs on a stick, her mother’s odious boyfriend who has moved into their home and thinks he can tell her what to do, and the monstrous unfairness of not having a car. So she spends much of her free time sulking and wearing an endless assortment of t-shirts from various edgy 80’s bands to show how righteously disaffected she is.

Meanwhile, after losing a battle to the evil Decepticons on their home planet, the good-guy Autobots led by Optimus Prime (still voiced by Peter Cullen, thank goodness) put their top soldier, Bumblebee (voiced by Dylan O’Brien) into an escape pod and tell him to set up a safe place on a remote planet called Earth. He arrives in the middle of a military wargame that leads to a chase, and is soon tracked down by two Decepticons (voiced by Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux), who permanently damage his voicebox and his memory cells. Later on, when Charlie wheedles a beat-up old yellow VW bug from a junk dealer, it turns out to be Bumblebee, and he and Charlie begin to form a friendship.

This takes us back to the first “Transformers” movie, oh, so many explosions and robot fights ago, when it was about the relationship between Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf) and his special space friend. Bumblebee’s inability to communicate, until Charlie figures out how to give him access to a radio and he figures out to use sound clips from it to “talk,” give a special poignancy to those first encounters. But that is undermined in part by subsequent scenes, which spend too much time on weak sub-plots about mean girls and the nerdy but lovable boy next door. It is nice that Charlie is very clear about setting boundaries with the boy, and he respects that. The movie could have skipped the scenes of Bumblebee inadvertently trashing Charlie’s house TP-ing the bully’s house and overturning her car, diversions that go nowhere and are not nearly as merry or endearing as they are intended to be as Knight seems more interested in the mechanics of the scene than what they add to the storyline.

All of this is of course just building up to lots more action as both the military and the Decepticons (best line in the movie is when Cena points out that the very name Decepticon should make us worry) come after Bumblebee. The Decepticons first appear to befriend the humans (and incidentally invent the Internet). So, lots of bombast and shooting and chases and explosions.

No matter what, I always enjoy seeing cars turn into robots and robots turn into cars, and I appreciated the lower-key, retro setting. If the series is not completely transformed, it does remind us why we liked the Transformers to begin with, and that’s a good start.

Parents should know that this film has a few bad words and extended sci-fi/action-style violence with characters injured and killed, weapons, explosions, and mayhem. Humans are vaporized. A positive element of the movie is Charlie’s clear boundaries with the boy who likes her.

Family discussion: Why does Charlie trust Bumblebee? Why does Agent Burns change his mind?

If you like this, try: “The Iron Giant”

AWFJ Nominees 2018

Posted on December 20, 2018 at 3:51 pm

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced our awards nominees for 2018.

AWFJ BEST OF AWARDS
These awards are presented to women and/or men without gender consideration.

Best Film

BLACKkKLANSMAN
THE FAVOURITE
GREEN BOOK
LEAVE NO TRACE
ROMA
VICE

Best Director

Alfonso Cuaron – ROMA
Debra Granik – LEAVE NO TRACE
Yorgos Lanthimos – THE FAVOURITE
Spike Lee – BLACKkKLANSMAN
Adam McKay – VICE

Best Screenplay, Original

EIGHTH GRADE – Bo Burnham
THE FAVOURITE – Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
FIRST REFORMED – Paul Schrader
ROMA – Alfonso Cuaron
VICE – Adam McKay

Best Screenplay, Adapted

BLACK PANTHER – Ryan Coogler, Joe Robert
BLACKkKLANSMAN – Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Spike Lee
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? – Nicole Holofcener, Jeff White
THE HATE U GIVE – Audrey Wells
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK – Barry Jenkins
LEAVE NO TRACE – Debra Granik, Anne Rossellini

Best Documentary

FREE SOLO – Elizabeth Chai Vasarheliyi, Jimmy Chin
LIYANA – Amanda Kopp, Aaron Kopp
RBG – Julie Cohen, Betsy West
SHIRKERS – Sandi Tan
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS – Tim Wardle
WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? – Morgan Neville

Best Animated Film

INCREDIBLES 2 – Brad Bird
ISLE OF DOGS – Wes Anderson
MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER – Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Giles New
RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET – Phil Johnson, Rick Moore
SMALLFOOT – Karey Kirkpatrick, Jason Reisig
SPIDERMAN INTO SPIDER-VERSE – Bob Perischerri, Peter Ramsay, Rodney Rothman

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparacio – ROMA
Glenn Close – THE WIFE
Olivia Colman – THE FAVOURITE
Viola Davis – WIDOWS
Lady Gaga – A STAR IS BORN
Melissa McCarthy – CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams – VICE
Claire Foy – FIRST MAN
Regina King – IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Thomasin McKenzie – LEAVE NO TRACE
Emma Stone – THE FAVOURITE
Rachel Weisz – THE FAVOURITE

Best Actor

Christian Bale – VICE
Willem Dafoe – AT ETERNITY’S GATE
Ben Foster – LEAVE NO TRACE
Ethan Hawke – FIRST REFORMED
Rami Malek – BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Viggo Mortensen – GREEN BOOK

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – GREEN BOOK
Steve Carrell – VICE
Adam Driver – BLACKkKLANSMAN
Hugh Grant – Paddington
Richard E Grant – CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Michael B Jordan – BLACK PANTHER

Best Ensemble Cast – Casting Director

BLACK PANTHER – Sarah Finn, Casting Director
BLACKkKLANSMAN – Kim Coleman, Casting Director
CRAZY RICH ASIANS – Terry Taylor, Casting Director
THE FAVOURITE – Dixie Chassay, Casting Director
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK – Cindy Tolan
VICE – Francine Maisler

Best Cinematography

BLACK PANTHER – Rachel Morrison
THE FAVOURITE – Robbie Ryan
FIRST MAN – Linus Sandgren
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK – James Laxton
ROMA – Alfonso Cuaron

Best Editing

BLACK PANTHER – Debbie Berman, Michael P Shawyer
THE FAVOURITE – Yorgos Mavropsaridis
ROMA – Alfonso Cuaron, Adam Gough
VICE – Hank Corwin
WIDOWS – Joe Walker

Best Non-English-Language Film

BURNING – Lee Chang-dong, Korea
CAPERNAUM – Nadine Labiki, Lebanon
COLD WAR – Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland
ROMA – Alfonso Cuaron, Mexico
SHOPLIFTERS – Hirokazu Kore-eda Japan

EDA FEMALE FOCUS AWARDS
These awards honor WOMEN only.

Best Woman Director

Elizabeth Chomko – WHAT THEY HAD
Debra Granik – LEAVE NO TRACE
Marielle Heller – CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Tamara Jenkins – PRIVATE LIFE
Karyn Kusama – DESTROYER
Nadine Labiki – CAPERNAUM
Rungano Nyoni – I AM NOT A WITCH
Sally Potter – THE PARTY
Lynn Ramsay – YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Chloe Zhao – THE RIDER

Best Woman Screenwriter

Diablo Cody – TULLY
Deborah Davis – THE FAVOURITE (with Tony McNamara)
Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini – LEAVE NO TRACE
Nicole Holofcener – CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (with Jeff Whitty)
Tamara Jenkins – PRIVATE LIFE
Lynne Ramsay – YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Audrey Wells – THE HATE U GIVE
Chloe Zhao – THE RIDER

Best Animated Female

Elastagirl, INCREDIBLES 2, Holly Hunter
Gwen Stacy, SPIDER-MAN INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, Hailee Steinfeld
Meechee, SMALLFOOT, Zendaya
Tracy Walker, ISLE OF DOGS, Greta Gerwig
Vanellope, RALPH BREAKS THE INTRNET, Sarah Silverman

Best Breakthrough Performance

Yalitza Aparacio – ROMA
Elsie Fisher – EIGHTH GRADE
KiKi Layne – IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Thomasin McKenzie – LEAVE NO TRACE
Letitia Wright – BLACK PANTHER

Outstanding Achievement by A Woman in The Film Industry

82 women who stood on the Palais des Festivals steps at the Cannes Film Festival to protest gender inequality in festival programming.
Ava DuVernay for hiring women filmmakers for QUEEN SUGAR and other projects.
Megan Ellison for challenging the status quo and producing projects by unique and diverse voices.
Nicole Kidman for a banner year of performances in DESTROYER, BOY ERASED and AQUAMAN, and for opening opportunity or women in production.
Rachel Morrison for paving the road for women cinematographers with her Oscar nomination for MUDBOUND and scoring as DP on BLACK PANTHER.
Shondra Rhimes, Reese Witherspoon and all the women speaking out in the #MeToo movement.

EDA SPECIAL MENTION AWARDS

Actress Defying Age and Ageism

Glenn Close – THE WIFE
Viola Davis – WIDOWS
Nicole Kidman – DESTROYER
Sissy Spacek –THE OLD MAN & THE GUN
TEA WITH THE DAMES – Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith

Bravest Performance

Toni Collette – HEREDITY
Olivia Colman – THE FAVOURITE
Viola Davis -WIDOWS
Nicole Kidman – DESTROYER
Melissa McCarthy – CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Charlize Theron – TULLY
Mary Elizabeth Winstead – ALL ABOUT NINA

Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent

Anna Faris – OVERBOARD
Jennifer Garner – PEPPERMINT
Dakota Johnson – FIFTY SHADES FREED
Jennifer Lawrence – RED SPARROW
Melissa McCarthy – Everything except CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Amy Schumer – I FEEL PRETTY

Most Egregious Age Difference Between The Lead and The Love Interest Award

MANDY – Andrea Riseborough and Nicholas Cage
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE FALLOUT – Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise
OVERBOARD – Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez
RED SPARROW – Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton
SIBERIA – Ana Ularu and Keanu Reeves

Remake or Sequel That Shouldn’t Have Been Made

DEATHWISH
FIFTY SHADES FREED
OVERBOARD
THE PREDATOR
ROBIN HOOD

AWFJ Hall of Shame Award

Abusers Weinstein, Moonves, CK, Rush, Franco, Singer, Rose, Lauer, et al
FIFTY SHADES FREED
THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS
RED SPARROW

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Awards

Mary Poppins Returns

Posted on December 18, 2018 at 10:25 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some mild thematic elements and brief action
Profanity:	Mild language in a song
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril, references to sad death of parent
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 19, 2018
Date Released to DVD:	March 18, 2019

If I may borrow from the original “Mary Poppins movie” for a moment, the new sequel, “Mary Poppins Returns” is a very jolly holiday with Mary indeed. Inspired, like the first, by the book series by P.L. Travers, this movie has Emily Blunt taking over from Oscar-winner Julie Andrews as the magical nanny who arrives once again just as the Banks family needs her most.

In the first film, she was nanny to Jane and Michael Banks. She took them on magical adventures that included a tea party on the ceiling and diving into a chalk picture for an animated musical number with dancing penguins. But the real magic she brought to the Banks family was a reminder of what was important. The fond but distracted parents learned that it was more important to fly a kite with the family than to keep the job that supports the family and its domestic employees or fight for the rights of women. (Well, the 60’s was a complicated time. But the message of family connections is still valid.)

This sequel very sweetly brings Mary Poppins back, once again arriving from the sky via a parrot-head handled umbrella, again to care for the Banks children, meaning the now-grown Jane and Michael Banks (Emily Mortimer and voice of Paddington Ben Wishaw). Oh, and Michael’s three children, too, who have taken on too many adult responsibilities as the family still mourns the loss of their mother. Jane works for the rights of workers and does her best to help her brother and his children, who still live in the old house on Cherry Tree Lane.

They may lose the house, though, as Michael cannot pay the bank, yes, the same one his father worked at, what he owes. It’s now run by Mr. Wilkins (Colin Firth), who promises he will do everything he can to help Michael, but who shows up as a wolf in an animated adventure when Mary Poppins takes the children into the design on their late mother’s porcelain bowl, so perhaps he should not be trusted.

Jane and Michael remember Mary Poppins, but now believe that they only imagined the magical adventures. They have lost their ability to see magic in the world. Mary Poppins, with her brisk, no-explanations manner, has come back to show them how to find it. And that means a visit to another of her eccentric relatives (Meryl Streep, enjoying herself enormously), and journeys undersea via the bathtub and into the sky with balloons. And it means singing and dancing, too, with a wild music-hall-style number in an animated theater and a tender ballad about The Place Where Lost Things Go. Plus, Dick van Dyke is back. And he dances.

We take it for granted that this movie would have visual Disney magic. No one assembles a more gifted collection of production designers, costume designers, and visual effects designers than Disney, and no studio has a better, more organic sense of its own history and culture. So when Disney decided to revisit the 54-year-old classic based on P.L. Travers’s novels, after having already mined its own history with a movie about the making of that movie, it was fair to expect that it would look and feel as though we had never left. The magic touch is there, with gentle references to the earlier film, including the animated adventure with a retro, hand-drawn, cel-based look along the lines of Disney’s specialty, and an enchanting appearance from Dick Van Dyke, who played two characters in the original. Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins and “Hamilton’s’ Lin-Manuel Miranda as her lamp-lighting friend are practically perfect in every way. And, as “Saving Mr. Banks” reminded us, the real magic, is that at its heart it is not just about fantasy adventures but about healing the family. The songs, the special effects, the imagination are a lot of fun but what makes this movie top ten-worthy is the heart.

Parents should know that there are references to a sad death of a parent, worries about money, and some situations with mild peril. A song has some mildly spicy lyrics with references to nudity.

Family discussion: Which was your favorite adventure? Why didn’t Mary Poppins stay?

If you like this, try: the books by P.L. Travers and the classic original film