"The Secret Life of Pets" Review

The Secret Life of Pets is an animated adventure comedy film directed by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney that stars the voices of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Lake Bell, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Albert Brooks, Steve Coogan, Dana Carvey, and Ellie Kemper. It follows the various pets of residents of a New York City apartment building, specifically Max (C.K.), a terrier, who feels his territory immediately intruded upon when his owner brings home a second dog, a giant sloppy hairy dog named Duke (Stonestreet). While attempting to get rid of Duke, Max and Duke accidentally find themselves involved with a group of rogue ex-pets who, after suffering abuse by humans, have taken to the sewers to plot their revenge on mankind, led by a vicious bunny played by Kevin Hart. Led by a tiny wide-eyed puppy named Gidget (Slate), the rest of the pets of Max's building band together to go out into the streets of New York to find Max and Duke and bring them back home before day's end, and your requisite goofy animated hijinx occur as a result and it's all good fun.

Pets is produced by Universal/Illumination Entertainment, the same folks behind the Despicable Me/Minions series, so if anything, you can expect plenty of well-constructed cuteness and infectiously likable characters, although I have a sneaking suspicion that thankfully none of the characters in this film will reach quite the heights of day-ruining ubiquity of those little screaming yellow tumors (by the way, get to the theater late if you're like me and hate Minions, because before the film begins you're treated to a five-minute short film of shrieking, babbling nothingness that is largely bereft of laughs). No, Pets gets by on a bit more than just expelling "aww"s from the audience; it also has a fair amount of charm and genuine wit, especially when working to draw comedy from the universal truths about the animals that we love.

The Secret Life of Pets is by no means a trailblazing achievement of animated filmmaking, even though most of the visuals (which, by the way, were produced on a relatively measly budget of $75 million) are pleasant and bright, and the cartoony action is animated with noticeable fluidity and with beguiling character put into every movement. The film aims to be undemanding, funny, and pleasant family entertainment, and it delivers in spades. You'll never exactly be emotionally invested, but it'll certainly provide small children with enough bright colors, silly characters, and fun slapstick to keep them entertained, as well as enough Looney Tunes-esque charm and smarts to keep parents mostly satisfied.

Along with the cutesy moments, fun slapstick, and mostly funny jokes (there's the seemingly requisite poop/butthole jokes that sometimes get into eye-rolly territory, but there's also stuff like Kevin Hart's character making a surprisingly smart quip about hipster culture), the film's saving grace by far is its fun cast of characters, bolstered by the brilliant work of its voice cast. None of the characters have any significant depth, but they're all individually and identifiably silly enough to each have at least one moment in the comedic spotlight, and to the point that I actually remember most of their names, which is an achievement for a comedy movie.

The standouts, to me, are Louis C.K. as Max, Jenny Slate as Gidget, and Kevin Hart as the bunny. I kind of hate Kevin Hart, and fans of his loud broad humor will immediately get a kick out of his absolutely bananas character. And I have to say, I'm kind of over the animated kids' movie trope of making bunnies evil/threatening, but I'd be lying if I said Hart doesn't bring unbridled energy to the character. Louis C.K., one of my favorite human beings on the planet, elevates his cookie-cutter protagonist character to being a perfectly sarcastic but still cheery and likable dog, with some wonderfully dry humor that I can only imagine was written specifically for him or was ad-libbed by Louie himself (such as him describing Duke as "scary and frightening and the death of all good things"). And Jenny Slate, as well as having the most likable and most frequently funny character, has a voice perfect for animation work, and her character Gidget is palpably lovable.

All these things make up for the film's undeniable weak point, the story, which aims to be nothing special and ends up being just that. You can probably understand the general direction of the story just by my synopsis of it, even if you don't get all the details right. Unfortunately, the least interesting relationship of the film is between our two main characters, Max and Duke, who stay completely undeveloped until the last third of the movie. The film is too busy moving the audience from one brightly-colored comedic action setpiece to the next, and honestly this is perfectly acceptable. The movie breezes by and is a delightful diversion.

Overall, The Secret Life of Pets is not a groundbreaking film by any means, and its plot is fairly recycled and lacks any sort of depth, but it's bright, cheery, funny, silly, cute, fast, and undemanding, and honestly, after the last couple weeks, that's all I needed. What's the hurt in a movie asking nothing of its audience other than laughing at its silly adorable characters for 90 minutes and delivering pretty consistently on that? If you need a fun and easy-breezy time at the movies for the summer, The Secret Life of Pets has plenty of vocal talent, pretty animation, and fun slapstick to give you what you're looking for.

Grade: B

"Swiss Army Man" Review

Swiss Army Man is a dark comedy-drama fantasy film directed and written by Daniel Scheinert and Dan Kwan, also known as "Daniels". It stars Paul Dano as Hank, a young man lost on what appears to be a deserted island and, in the moments before committing suicide, discovers the dead body of Daniel Radcliffe washing up on the shore. He names the body Manny and, after a series of farts, erections, and spontaneous bursts of water, finds out that Manny's semi-dead body (he's not autonomous of his movements but can speak and, as I said, get boners and toot) possesses fantastical powers, making him almost like a handy human multi-purpose tool, hence "Swiss Army Man". The two embark on an absolutely fucking bonkers journey through the wilderness to get back home to the love of Hank's life, and what began as a flatulence-infested brainfuck slowly reveals itself to actually be a bizarre, hilarious, and actually sort of touching examination of loneliness, mortality, obsession, and the human condition. No, really.

This film is one of my favorites of the year so far, not necessarily because it's flawless in its execution, but because it's so refreshingly weird and original. This is what the independent film circuit is for - strange, funny, thought provoking films that won't resonate with everybody, but are just crazy and inspired enough (and have just barely bankable enough stars) to find an audience. I'm that audience. As a fan of dark humor, unabashedly weird shit, and main characters who are in all likelihood severely deranged from whose perspective we witness the story, Swiss Army Man intrigued me ever since it triggered walk-outs and sneering dismissals from numerous critics at Sundance. Call me stupid, but I'm much more interested in a movie that drove people out in the first 10 minutes than a movie that got endless rave reviews. Still, it seems this movie is striking just the right chord that it needs to.

It's worth noting that I'm fairly familiar with Daniels' previous work, which is mostly in short films and YouTube videos. They sort of come from the Tim and Eric crowd, though I actually find much of their work to be more inspired, both in terms of concept and in filmmaking. The Daniels are very visual directors, and Swiss Army Man really shows their knack for framing, as their cinematographer Larkin Seiple gives us many gorgeous looking shots of the wilderness. They also seem to be very self-aware about cliches in filmmaking. Plenty of scenes in the film have all the ingredients of a heart-wrenching Hollywood moment - tearful overracting, building and soaring musical cues, and striking camerawork of beautiful landscapes - but the Daniels, being the self-aware gents they are, use these same elements to present things like a corpse propelling himself into the ocean toward the sunset Free Willy-style... with his farts.

That's what's great about this film - it's not enough to just be unabashedly strange and different, though I always admire it. And it's also one thing to be strange and different but have something resembling a point. Swiss Army Man does what every beautifully weird movie does and actually uses its weirdness as the construction of the point. It's not just smart and weird - it's smart in a weird way. A really weird way. While numerous moments in the film could easily be seen as a complete farce, and indeed they are absolutely hilarious in the most juvenile of ways, the film challenges you to take them seriously as the basis for its themes of feeling outcast and not understanding social norms that, when you actually strip it down after the big reveal in the third act (which is actually done rather subtly), is actually sort of heartbreaking.

And this all works and makes sense with what the movie sets out to do. The film operates like sort of a fucked up fairy tale for adults, in that it incorporates fantastical elements, and even the semi-romantic friendship of a troubled boy and a creature (in this case, an asocial cyber-stalker and a talking corpse with a boner), to make larger points about life - in this movie's case, that point being that to some degree, one's suppression of their own strange behaviors can often lead to them festering, getting worse, and ultimately becoming dangerous and actively detrimental to the person's health. And Radcliffe's Manny is sort of the childlike friendly creature the boy befriends who is largely unaware of the human world, learns innocently, and eventually is introduced to sadness, only to later corroborate the liberation of the main character. In this case, the film uses its fantastical elements and presents both them and the philosophical conclusion we get from them in the most ridiculous way possible. The film is all about how existence, life, and social interaction is senseless, messy, strange, confusing, and sometimes sad, so why shouldn't the journey to learning that reflect that?

Say what you will about this film being juvenile bullshit for angsty millennials, but the farts and boners and talk about sex and shitting is all toward a great truth - that we're all farting, fucking, shitting apes slowly dying looking for meaning and happiness and love before we become, the movie suggests, essentially trash. We fake somethingness before we go to nothingness. That the movie is committed to explore these themes in a unique way, wears its strangeness as a badge of honor, and elicits some arrestingly top-notch acting work from Paul Dano and especially Daniel Radcliffe is, I think, testament to its success.

Overall, once again, Swiss Army Man is hit or miss for people, so if you see my rating and the 65% Rotten Tomatoes rating and think this means critics thought it was fine and I thought it was brilliant, I don't think you understand how this film works. This is a love it or hate it film, and I just happened to love it. It does start losing its touch for a bit toward the end but luckily picks it right back up, and there are a few times where I wish it went further or committed more to its ideas rather than sometimes opting instead for a silly laugh. But, all things considered, it's clever, thoroughly entertaining, and wholly original, and one of the weirdest films I've ever seen. And those are descriptions few films can claim, which I think makes it worth a watch.

Grade: A-

(PS - God bless this film's distributor, A24, for taking the risk with this film and so many others. The company's only four years old and they are killing it. Some of their other films include Room, Green Room, Ex Machina, and The Lobster. As a movie fan, good on you, guys.)

"Weiner" Review

Weiner is a documentary film directed by Josh Kriegman and Elysa Steinberg that follows former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner's campaign for Mayor of New York City in the fall of 2013 after (and at one point during) a major scandal where Weiner was found to be sexting several different young women and tweeting pictures of his wiener to them that forced him to resign from the Senate. The film gives a wildly uncensored look at the inner workings of his oft-troubled campaign, and the personal lives of both Anthony and his wife Huma, both of whom enjoyed considerable success in American politics before Anthony's sexting crisis. We're also given insight into Weiner's opponents, the mainstream news media's coverage of the scandal, as well as the general New York popular opinion of Weiner which fluctuated constantly during his campaign. What follows is probably the most entertaining, intriguing, and bafflingly candid documentaries about an American political figure probably that I've ever seen.


Weiner is an absolute roller-coaster to watch. The film actually spends surprisingly little time on pointing out the unfortunate pairing of Anthony's surname with the general subject matter of his downfall. Instead, we get an intensely intimate portrait of a man constantly gasping for attention that has a bit of a sexual addiction which has led to a frequently fractured marriage and an even more frequently fractured political career. This is all presented in such a candid and brilliant way that the film often exudes the same kind of hilarious vicarious embarrassment felt in the awkward situations of the best episodes of The Office, although here it's all real life.

Directors Kriegman and Steinberg are very careful to allow the viewer to feel genuine empathy toward Anthony Weiner, while also realizing the absolute scumbagginess of his actions. This is a very refreshingly unbiased political documentary - so much so that I don't even think it should be called a "political documentary", so much as just a documentary about politics. The film acknowledges why Weiner was popular before the scandal; he was a Democratic senator who, rather than engaging in pleasantries with his opponents, angrily and often rudely called out Republicans for what he perceived as inaction and negligence to help middle-class Americans. He's driven in a way that seems untouched by financial favors or self-interest and seems to genuinely want to try and fix problems, albeit very obviously trying to garner as much media attention to himself as possible in the process.

Then we all saw his dick. The scandal derails his marriage and his political career, but after a few years, Anthony decides that his quest for helping the working man (and/or his endless need for attention) had not yet been finished, and could be properly resumed now that he had faded from the public eye. His campaign gets off to a rocky start, his marriage even rockier, but he insists on the issues and insists on his moral compass, and his campaign team orchestrates a marketing strategy to reconvince the American people that Anthony Weiner's days of promiscuity are over and that he's getting back to working for Americans. Of course, though, Anthony Weiner's life is nothing if not filled with scandal and public outcry.

And the viewer gets a front-row seat to every blistering drop in polls, every painfully awkward meeting with the campaign staff, every deafeningly silent glares between Anthony and his wife, and every tiny cog being turned so carefully within Anthony's mayoral campaign to convince the American people that he won't let them down again, a promise that eventually even Anthony himself admits he can't say he'll keep. There's a widely known theory that most politicians are sociopaths built to absorb power, respect, validation, or at least attention, and while Weiner isn't the slimiest example, his need for attention - be it from the news media with his belligerent onscreen tirades or from young women eager to give him a vote in exchange for dick pics - is always his downfall. And he knows it. And it destroys him. And we see all of it.

And that is what makes Weiner such an uncommonly compelling documentary. At one point toward the end of the film, after a run-in with a previous sexting partner attempting to run something of a smear campaign and a particularly cold argument with Huma at the campaign's end, the man behind the camera speaks for the first time, asking Anthony, "Why did you let me film all this?" While later Anthony says he hopes the documentary will help people understand his plight in trying to fix problems as a politician but always being dragged down by his own demons and the admittedly vicious news media and political punditry, his facial expressions and immediate answer indicate that he really doesn't know. He supposes, we surmise, that he just can't keep his face off any camera put in front of him, even if it reveals him to be a bad person.

Honestly, allowing Kriegman and Steinberg to make this film was one of the best decisions Anthony Weiner could ever make. Not only do we get an intriguing look at the inner workings of a political campaign, but also the turmoil ravaged on both the political and personal life of a man whose flaws are constantly pushed back on him by a media that craves scandal and a political landscape that craves dominance over the opponent, resulting in an endlessly entertaining and thought-provoking character study, as well as one of the best documentaries of the last several years. It may get an A+ upon a second viewing.

Grade: A

"Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" Review

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a musical comedy film directed and written by the members of the comedy rap group The Loney Island - Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. Andy Samberg leads a huge ensemble cast of actors and musicians alike playing fictional pop star Conner4real, who became a solo artist after breaking away from his popular group the Style Boyz, a sort of fictionalized version of the Lonely Island themselves. The film unfolds in a mockumentary style and acts as a sort of This is Spinal Tap for the mainstream pop music industry, with the likes of Justin Timberlake, Nas, Usher, Carrie Underwood, Ringo Starr, Arcade Fire, Mariah Carey, DJ Khaled, T.I., 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, and Adam Levine's hologram all making cameos. The supporting cast includes Tim Meadows, Chris Redd, Maya Rudolph, Joan Cusack, Imogen Poots, Bill Hader, Chelsea Peretti, Will Arnett, Mike Birbiglia, Nick Kroll, and Will Forte. In short, the film does all it can to completely immerse itself in modern pop, and is pretty surprisingly star-studded for having such a small budget.


I was super surprised to hear about Popstar's positive reception. I loved the Island's last film Hot Rod, but it was sadly not very warmly received by critics. Unfortunately, this movie's positive reception hasn't been matched by box office success, even with its minuscule production budget. But either way, Popstar is a refreshingly original and relentlessly funny modern comedy that is at times a brilliant satire of modern music.

Let's start with the negatives. There aren't many problems I actively have with the movie, other than I wish it went farther in some places. The film is presented in a mockumentary style, but it doesn't always completely commit to it both in editing, camerawork, and acting style as Spinal Tap did. It has celebrity interviews and intertitles, but it still feels very produced and not very candid, which sort of takes away from the mockery of concert docs that it wants to be. The film, being written by three guys who became popular making SNL digital shorts, also feels very episodic and, while it has a general flow and a definite storyline, doesn't feel quite as much like a complete comedic story like Hot Rod does, and feels very much like it's a series of sketch ideas strung together by a basic plotline. Samberg and company are comedians first, musicians second, and filmmakers third, and it shows.

The satire also isn't quite as biting as it could be, at least of the workings of the industry itself. The personality and ego of pop stars, their lack of rationality, ridiculous public controversies, and general demeanor of the Biebers and Kanyes of the world are flimsily explored, and the film only really goes for the superficial low-hanging targets without going into the full core of the industry's absurdity like a truly great work of satire would. The film's saving grace, however, is that with its relatively simple ambitions, it delivers in spades with a sense of humor that is still smarter and more consistent than most modern comedies.

Unsurprisingly, the movie's greatest source of its smartest, sharpest, and funniest jokes come from the music. There are several genuine toe-tappers in the film, specifically the film's opening number and a song equating one of Conner's sexual experiences to the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Probably the smartest song is titled "Equal Rights", an outrageous and very obvious parody of Macklemore's popular gay rights ally anthem "Same Love". The songs often succumb to the Loney Island's sort of simplistic songwriting technique of listing funny things that rhyme, but much like most of the spoken dialogue in the film, they're funny, fast, and relentless.

And these jokes would be nothing without good comedic performances, which this film has plenty of. Andy Samberg, unsurprisingly, absolutely steals the show, and this is by far his greatest screen presence to date. Popstar may not fully commit to its parody in the way of filmmaking, but the one facet of the film exuding complete authenticity to its subject matter is Samberg's portrayal of Conner. Samberg masters the body language, mannerisms, speaking patterns, and cocksure lack of empathy both in the musical performances and during his own dialogue. Once the whole Lonely Island team finally pairs up, their chemistry is palpable, and the realization that this is very much a film made by friends for themselves is actually pretty sweet.

Overall, Popstar doesn't reinvent the mockumentary or musical satire, and doesn't even really fully commit to either, but thankfully does fully commit to being a breezily paced and often belly laugh-inducing comedy with some genuinely great musical numbers bursting with wit, wonderful comedic performances led by Andy Samberg, and some fun celebrity cameos - essentially everything you'd expect in a Lonely Island movie. If you're a fan of their work at all, you'll have a great time with this one.

Grade: B+

"The Lobster" Review

The Lobster is a dark comedy film directed by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) and starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, John C. Reilly, Lea Seydoux, Jessica Barden, Angeliki Papoulia, Olivia Colman, and Ben Whishaw. It follows a man named David (Farrell) in a dystopian future where older single people are taken to The Hotel where they must find a lover in 45 days or be turned into an animal of their choice and released into The Woods. David, upon his wife leaving him for another man, checks in at The Hotel on his quest to find love where he meets a large ensemble of bizarre unnamed hotel patrons, choosing to become a lobster should he fail to find a lover. All the while, the hotel patrons are prohibited from masturbating (but required to be sexually stimulated by a hotel maid to keep their drive up) and are shown propaganda giving examples of the benefits of monogamous relationships, such as not having to die alone and being less susceptible to sexual assault from strangers. All of this, if you haven't figured out, is an allegory for modern society's treatment of romantic relationships. And I think it's brilliant.

The Lobster has been getting a lot of goodwill on the indie circuit since its wide release this spring, and I think it's well deserved. This is sort of 2016's Her, in that it's a very subtle sci-fi drama with some dark humor elements that examines society's treatment of love and relationships. Photographed beautifully by Thimios Bakatakis, the film is painted in dull grays and whites, and every character is monotone, emotionless, uninterested, and speaks of even things that they purport give them unspeakable anguish with a measured, rational tone and diction completely devoid of pathos (their personalities also interestingly and cleverly match with their animal of choice). 

This is perfect for the film's absurdist strip-down of modern single life - love is reduced to requisite, mandatory, and controllable, and people are reduced to beings of sex, procreation, and pursuit toward monogamy, as if they exist for nothing else. Personal interests and personality traits exist solely to attract and use as fodder in the search for a mate. Friendships exist solely to complement romance. Children exist solely to validate long-term commitment. And if one is unable to find romantic love, they're cast out as animals, living as creatures without meaningful lives or direction, capable only of fulfilling base carnal desires. 

It's some depressing stuff, and the film is relentless. The clever visual and narrative metaphors between the operations of The Hotel and the anti-romance rogues of The Woods and the general attitudes of modern society toward relationships and love, especially for singles in their thirties and forties, are plentiful, non-stop, and always intelligent, striking, and usually pretty devastatingly funny. The film's script is endlessly creative, and for a movie populated with monotone characters devoid of emotion, has quite a bit of personality. This is mostly thanks to Lanthimos's effective use of violence and dark humor.

But this is not regular dark humor - The Lobster's dark humor is pitch black, to the point that many of the film's greatest examples of irony and allegory expel not just uncomfortable laughs of disbelief from the audience, but also shivers at the incredibly striking brutality and coldness of the world our characters live in that, ironically, in the pursuit of getting everyone to fall in love, has seemed to completely remove empathy or heart. Suicide, nihilism, animal abuse, domestic violence, physical disabilities, and the darkest tendencies of the human heart in long-term commitment are the most memorable and effective deliverers of the film's laughs and gasps.

Like any good work of absurdist fiction, though, The Lobster doesn't only demonize and ridicule the "you must marry" aspects of society. The loner life gets an ample ribbing especially in the film's second act, often being shown to be just as callous, selfish, and disregarding for human life as society's fervent insistence on monogamy. You might think that the film then makes the conclusion that one should just do what one feels is correct in love, but even that gets its share of criticism for lack of definitive purpose. Ultimately, this is an absurdist/nihilist/agnostic's wet dream. Which may have something to do with why I love it.

I've spent most of this review speaking about the screenplay, because I think without a doubt that is where the vast majority of the movie's strengths lie. But in terms of direction, cinematography, performances, and music (the soundtrack is filled with eerie, loud, and often unsettling classical pieces), the movie is a great example of extremely solid allegorical/satirical sci-fi filmmaking as well. Farrell, Reilly, Weisz, Seydoux, and Colman give the standout performances, and the film exudes odd beauty from its often strikingly disturbing images and subject matter.

Overall, The Lobster is a just-about-perfect work of social satire and incredibly witty science fiction whose brilliant screenplay, Lanthimos's sure-handed direction, and the cast's many wonderful performances make for a great absurdist and slightly nihilist breakdown of societal tendencies regarding love, sex, and relationships. I don't know if I could recommend it to everyone - it's not quite as sweet or silly as Her, and often actively tries to be off-putting and disturbing in tandem with its narrative ambitions. So, if being kind of depressed and disheartened with human nature for two hours doesn't sound like something you'd like to try out, it may not be for you. But if smartly crafted satire and incredibly dark humor interest you, The Lobster delivers in spades.

Grade: A

"A Bigger Splash" Review

A Bigger Splash is a romantic drama thriller film directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Dakota Johnson, and Matthias Schoenarts that is apparently a remake of a 1960s erotic film called La Piscine. Swinton plays an aging rock star on vacation in Italy with her boyfriend (Schoenarts), and their vacation is interrupted by Swinton's ex-lover Fiennes and his teenage daughter Johnson. Fiennes makes clear that he has come to visit for the sole purpose of trying to seduce Swinton back to him, and Johnson is pretty obviously trying to fuck Shoenarts. What follows is an unconventional and bizarre indie romance that seems simple enough for the most part.

This is going to be a very short review because I have no idea what to make of this film. On a completely superficial level, I enjoyed all four of the main performances, though I've heard undying praise for Swinton who honestly never floored me. Fiennes is the star for sure, in my opinion, playing Harry Hawkes (the only character whose name I remember) beautifully as someone who is belligerent and fun-loving and yet heartbreakingly selfish and emotionally disturbed. Johnson is ridiculously cryptic as his daughter (with whom he has a very uncomfortable relationship), and is appropriately sexy and actually pretty compelling especially in the third act. Schoenarts's character seems to be the most grounded, since he's oddly the most removed from the fast and furious showbiz life despite being a filmmaker himself, but has his own demons to work out as well.

Honestly, this is really about all I could say about this film. The first hour or so goes by following seemingly meaningless interactions between the four main characters underscored by some brilliant and striking imagery of an Italian island as well as some deafening string-heavy music, creating a palpable sense of unease that ultimately explodes with one event about halfway through the film. Between this and the four actors' brilliant performances, I can say honestly that I was thoroughly intrigued throughout the film, but could never really put my finger on what it was going for, and I still can't say I do even a month out.

I'm not opposed to ambiguity or a film being difficult to decipher, and I'm sure upon a second viewing I'd have more to talk about, but, while intriguing, so much of this movie's runtime was spent with me wondering where the fuck it was going. Once it proved to me that it was not going where I thought, I was pretty much completely lost. Choppy flashbacks and some odd directorial choices in terms of what a shot lingers on or what a character does or does not say add even more facets to the confusion. Maybe I'm just a dumbass, but I really don't know where to go from here.

Overall, A Bigger Splash has an intriguing storyline with compelling and well-written characters performed beautifully by its four main actors, especially Ralph Fiennes, and also offers some magnificent camerawork and scenery. But it's also super cryptic, confusing, and felt sort of unsatisfying in its ambiguity. Better minds than me will need to decipher it properly, but if it sounds like it may pique your interest, by all means see it and explain it to me.

Grade: B-

"Finding Dory" Review

After a really long hiatus for not much of any reason, I'm finally getting to actually writing reviews for all the films I saw this June. And I'm gonna start with Finding Dory, which is an animated comedy adventure film from Pixar and a sequel to the hit 2003 film Finding Nemo. Set one year after the events of Nemo, the film follows clownfish father and son Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo's blue tang friend Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), who suffers from short-term memory less, suddenly having sort of visions of her past with her parents, who she has not remembered in years. Dory becomes determined to find them, finding remnants of her past on the way and eventually being led to a marine life research institute and museum on the coast of California, with Marlin and Nemo desperately following behind her. There she meets a stretchy, cranky, camouflaging octopus named Hank (played by Ed O'Neill), a whale shark (Kaitlin Olson), and a beluga (Ty Burrell). Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Dominic West, Idris Elba, and Sigourney Weaver provide supporting voice roles.

With the exception of last year's Inside Out, Pixar has been exceptionally unexceptional since Toy Story 3's release in 2010. I seem to be in the minority, but I think Finding Dory is a continuation of that. Finding Nemo is a nearly perfectly crafted animated family adventure film with a fluid screenplay filled with charm and wit that navigates its huge supporting cast and myriad of obstacles incredibly well, never slowing down but never growing stale, and ends up being a fairly subtle but very sweet and intelligent statement on over-protection and the importance of being able to let go, another example of Pixar's penchant for slightly unconventional but important and well-communicated messages in children's films. Finding Dory, on the other hand, aims to make a thinly veiled statement about mental disabilities and differences in general and the importance of using your own strengths and weaknesses to their advantage, and mostly succeeds, but at the expense of doing anything fresh or exciting.

Don't get me wrong - this is a competently done animated film, and if you've already scrolled down to see my score for it, you know that I must've had some kind of good opinion of it, and I do. Finding Dory is also a lot of fun, and unlike Cars 2's embracing of its predecessor's crowd favorite supporting character in Mater, actually adds a fair amount of dimension to the character of Dory. She's no longer simply the source of silly jokes, but something about her condition is actually a little bit heartbreaking. In my opinion, none of the movie's tear-jerkiest moments ever come close to the depth or emotional weight of Dory's speech to Marlin during Finding Nemo's third act, and for that matter neither does DeGeneres's once again wonderful vocal performance, but Pixar plays the requisite Pixar notes well enough, and it seems to have worked out for them. This goes without saying being a Pixar film, but the animation in the movie is absolutely brilliant, and the film gives you plenty of luscious undersea landscapes to ogle at their vivid attention to detail and beautiful colors.

Unfortunately, much like Cars 2, while this film's character is much more compelling (and far less annoying) than Mater, the film's narrow focus on Dory subtracts from every other character in the film, both our main characters from the last film and most of the new supporting characters, who exist without much depth and aren't particularly funny. The notable exception is Hank the octopus, who is by far the best thing about the film, both O'Neill's gravelly and curmudgeonly vocal performance as him as well as the wonderfully imaginative physical humor his character brings in. Other than that, every character feels flat and mostly useless, to the point that you sometimes forget that Marlin and Nemo were actually the emotional crux of a whole other movie. It's almost like Finding Dory is less a sequel to Nemo and more like an anthology film where we follow the exploits of a side character that give dimension to, but are mostly inconsequential to, the characters of the main story.

I think therein lies my biggest problem with the film - it doesn't feel like it needed to be told. Especially considering it's been thirteen years since the first film, this feels like too little too late. Something about the way the screenplay flows, as well as the film's flimsy premise and the timing of its release, make me think that the film began with the decision to make a film about the favorite character from Pixar's second-highest grossing film, rather than beginning with the decision to tell a story. Dory and her friends jump effortlessly from one impossible cartoonish scenario to the next with the only emotional weight being delivered through quick snippets of dialogue (all of which are incredibly on-the-nose), and especially during the third act gets particularly ridiculous, to the point that it mostly feels like the writers were throwing out weird ideas for stuff to happen without having it flow well together. And I think that quality comes out of the fact that Finding Dory mostly exists because of Dory's popularity.

I don't want to seem like I'm bashing on the film, because I did like it, but I thought it was incredibly average, which automatically puts it at the lower end of the Pixar crop. The message is nice enough, though maybe not entirely accurate (be yourself and things will work out), but feels tacky and conventional, and its connection to mental illness stigmas seems mostly concocted afterward by social media posts and isn't a totally complete picture using just the film's script. The movie moves along fine enough, but never seems to build to anything in a satisfying way. And, probably most importantly, it doesn't feel like a part of the Nemo universe that was worth waiting 13 years for. That said, Dory is done justice, and once again, the requisite (albeit more superficial and simplified) Pixar notes are hit well enough to most likely appease most.

Overall, Finding Dory is a perfectly fine family film that I'm sure kids will enjoy and will probably provide adequate nostalgia for fans of the first film. For me, though, it was much less intelligently crafted than Finding Nemo and didn't go nearly as deep as Pixar's best efforts, and outside of Hank, wasn't ever quite funny or charming enough to make up for that. That said, the film does a good job delivering the tear-jerky moments as well as a fair amount of charm and requisite visual splendor, albeit, in my opinion, lacking cohesion or anything matching the emotional weight of the first film. Again, I liked it, but "average" isn't a great descriptor for a Pixar film. I'm sure I'll like it better than Cars 3 next year though.

Grade: B