Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016)

Director: Steve James. 88 min. Not Rated. Documentary.

I've heard that in Iran's banks, you hand the teller your debit card, who asks for your PIN number to process transactions. Crazy, huh? Not by their standards. A similar East/West cultural misunderstanding is at the heart of Abacus: a small family-owned Chinese bank in NYC’s Chinatown becomes the sole indicted bank after the 2008 financial crisis, not necessarily because they were "small enough to jail", but because ... that’s how Eastern communities work. And in their own geography, they work fine - and the West will never get a clue. Watch this to better understand your neighbor.

Mo says:

Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

Director: Dan Gilroy. Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo. 122 min. Rated PG-13. Crime/Drama.

Pure-hearted idiot-savant, more focus on idiot than savant, who acts as a behind-the-scenes law firm "esquire" (i.e., official nobody), finds himself exposed to the real world (filth included) when his front-runner partner is incapacitated by a heart attack. The amount of naivete this character displays makes it difficult to imagine how he made it this far, not only in law, but in life; and while through transformative changes in mannerisms and gait, Washington makes great strides at delivering an interesting ‘loser’ persona, the strong commanding "Denzel look" still creeps out from behind those eyeglasses. Not sure that was the intention.

Mo says:

Phantom Thread (2017)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville. 130 min. Rated R. Drama/Romance.

A fashion designer, at the top of his game, whose god complex may be a sign of weakness. A humble waitress, initially timid, who roars like a lion through her meekness. Now imagine a romance between the two. Here's where Daniel Day-Lewis, in his last masterful presence before a very unfortunate retirement, and Lesley Manville, as the domineering sister (whom I yelled about 7 years ago), work wonders. Day-Lewis' presence notwithstanding, this reminded me of Scorsese and The Age of Innocence, and how a ruthless, unforgiving director like P.T. Anderson is able to make a film of such unimaginable delicacy.

Mo says:

Strong Island (2017)

Director: Yance Ford. 107 min. USA/Denmark. Documentary.

Young director narrates the story of her brother: a 24-year-old, murdered  in the 90's by a white man in Long Island. With an opening statement like: "These people weren't wealthy; their wealth was that they were white ...", you'd think this is another story about the justice system cruelties against blacks. While that's definitely worth discussing, this goes far beyond that. The director, as opposed to her other interviewees, talks into the camera in extreme close-up, with long silent pauses forcing you to listen, and be involved. Rarely do you see total strangers so ... exposed. Obviously, she has nothing to lose.

PS: Sundance Special Jury Prize winner, nominated this year for Best Documentary Feature Oscar, available on Netflix.

Mo says:

My Top 10 (Actually 12) Movies of 2017

The year 2017 may have been a horrendous sociopolitical year, but it wasn't too bad for movies.

It was a good year for superheroes (Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnarok, Logan, Spider-Man: Homecoming), a good year for that small beach on the French coast (Dunkirk, Darkest Hour), a good year for Star Wars (finally), and a great year for Laura Dern (pivotal roles in the best movie of the year and the best TV show of the year, Twin Peaks: The Return). In 2017, I approached my usual quota of 10 MoMagics a year quite rapidly - always a favorable sign.

But most notable of all, the anti-Trump movement in cinema was born with tremendous applause with Get Out; continued with the racism-oriented Detroit, the misogyny-themed Battle of the Sexes, the xenophobia horror It Comes at Night, 'the-President-is-a-moron' Kingsman sequel, and even the Pixar statement in Cars 3; and finally received last-minute helping hands from a few grand-masters, with Ridley Scott delivering All the Money in the World, and Spielberg, The Post. It's that old adage that when the times get rough, people's creative juices start flowing; so Trump's presence may have had some rare benefit - for the film community.

On a more personal note, some of these movies were so worthy, they merited multiple viewings in the theater: twice for Thor: Ragnarok and Blade Runner 2049, and thrice for Dunkirk and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But on the same note, my tastes weren't congruent with the prevailing atmosphere, as I failed to discover the commonly-believed earth-shattering significance of Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, Call Me by Your Name, I Tonya, or Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Before I post my top 10 of the year, a disclaimer. My list contains 11 items, which is actually a 12-movie list in disguise. The two additional are both incredibly mesmerizing "ghost stories", which actually aren't scary at all. They both deserved a MoMagic!, but due to certain constraints, ended up getting Mojos. Just that years from now, looking back at my yearly top 10 lists (it happens a lot), I didn't want these small gems to be forgotten.

So here they are, my top movies of 2017, in alphabetical order, and not in order of favorites:

1. Beauty and the Beast

2. Blade Runner 2049

3. Coco

4. The Disaster Artist

5. Dunkirk

6. Get Out

7. A Ghost Story / Personal Shopper

8. Murder on the Orient Express

9. Okja

10. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

11. War for the Planet of the Apes

Best Movie of the Year: If I was asked for only one reason why Episode VIII was such a grand event, I would say: Rian Johnson made it possible for a 40-year fan like me to 'love' a new Star Wars movie again. That's it. Before The Last Jedi premiered, I was undecided between Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk for the best movie of 2017. But then The Last Jedi opened, and that just sealed the deal.

MoMagic!

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Worst Movie of the Year: The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Square (both by rising newcomers) would've been strong contenders for this award ... but no. Darren Aronofsky, a very respectable filmmaker, became cocky and made a selfish movie for his own artistic interests, without any regard for the audience. He made a film aimed at bewildering us, so when we ask: "What the hell was that?!", he could say: "I don't know; what do you think it was? ..."  and conveniently stand aside. Even the movie's title (lowercase 'm' and exclamation mark) is self-promoting. So annoying.

MoCrap!

mother!

Discovery of the Year: This year's discovery was neither a director, nor a running movie theme. I found this film from nearly four decades ago; a Michael Mann film as great as the best crime stories, and shockingly, the film-maker's directorial debut. Mann has consistently made one grand movie after the other, and his first was so groundbreaking, it later inspired other crime shows and even video games (watch here). Don't miss the James Caan-starring Thief.

Discovery of the Year:

Thief (1981)

The Square (2017)

Director: Ruben Östlund. Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West, Terry Notary. 151 min. Rated R. Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark. Drama.

The entire idea behind The Square is one question: how far do people go to help others ... when their own interests are jeopardized? This question, asked through numerous vignettes in the life of a Stockholm museum curator, could be interesting to explore on film. But in one instance, boasted as the movie's signature scene, the director becomes too aggressive, and forces on the viewer a prolonged and extremely disturbing situation that is already a foregone conclusion - without offering any payoff or closure at the end (a running theme throughout the movie). While a structurally sound film, sadistic manipulation is unforgivable.

PS: This is by the Swedish director of the fantastic Force Majeure, another film that explores a baffling ethical puzzle. At the time, Östlund totally lost it after watching live on TV that his film hadn't been nominated for a Foreign Language Film Oscar (insanely documented here). The Square won the more coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, but I hope Östlund is shut out of the Oscar race once again when the nominees are announced tomorrow morning - just because of pain he inflicted upon me with this one.

Update (01/23/2018): He wasn't shut out. The film was nominated.

Mo says:

Last Flag Flying (2017)

Director: Richard Linklater. Cast: Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, J. Quinton Johnson. 125 min. Rated R. Drama/Comedy.

A road movie, about a trio of middle-age Vietnam War veterans, on a trip to bring a fallen son of the Iraq War back home. Again we have a favorite Linklater theme: characters talking during long sequences in cars and trucks and trains, and never a bit boring. The conversations between the grief-stricken Carell, the no-nonsense atheist drunk Cranston and the Jesus-loving Fishburne are occasionally preachy, but the captivating performance by the TV-rooted Cranston (compared to a film heavyweight like Fishburne) makes those moments forgivable. Would love to see how veterans welcome this sharp, tear-jerking criticism of America's wars.

Mo says:

Absence of Malice (1981)

Director: Sydney Pollack. Cast: Paul Newman, Sally Field, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Josef Sommer, Wilford Brimley. 116 min. Rated PG. Drama.

Upon receiving her second Oscar for another film, Sally Field famously said: "I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" While ridiculed for it at the time, a movie like Absence of Malice is an attestation to her claim. Watching Field, Newman, even Wilford Brimley ... they're all just so, likable. The story is a fore-bearer of our times, about how journalism was becoming reckless, how reporters were racing to be the first to report, without fully authenticating or understanding how they could destroy lives. But mainly, the cast's magnetism is what makes this satisfying.

Mo says:

Lucky (2017)

Director: John Carroll Lynch. Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, David Lynch, Ron Livingston, Tom Skerritt. 88  min. Drama.

Very becoming as the great Harry Dean Stanton's one-to-last movie. Co-starring longtime Stanton collaborator David Lynch, developer of his similar persona (The Straight Story, Twin Peaks), rather than a story about a nonagenarian's end-of-life regrets, it's a statement on 'human loneliness' - and where to go with that once your time is almost up. The slow pace, the desolate yet beautiful cinematography, the pauses between dialogue, all give you time to ponder: this will happen to you too. Stanton's reunion with his captain from a movie 40 years prior is a gem, and at the end, you'll genuinely miss the actor.

Mo says:

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)

Director: Angela Robinson. Cast: Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote, Connie Britton, Oliver Platt. 108 min. Rated R. Biography.

Another Wonder Woman movie, by another female director, in the same year, but vastly different. Real-life story of a psychology professor, inventor of the lie-detecting machine, who enacted his unwelcome theories on human behavior (in my viewer and even his wife character's opinion, another excuse for his sexual escapades) through the most famous comic book super-heroine of all time - including illustrations of bondage of sadomasochism. Wonder Woman's lie-detecting magic lasso was an interesting trivia point, but at the end (especially that ending), you're not sure why you should be rooting for these characters ... because they're not sure themselves.

Mo says:

City of Ghosts (2017)

Director: Matthew Heineman. 92 min. Rated R. Documentary.

Harrowing story of modern journalism, showing the day-to-day lives of the very, very brave men and women of Raqqa, Syria, the self-declared capital of ISIS: the ones inside secretly capturing and sending out images of ISIS' ghastly atrocities, the ones outside in Turkey and Germany broadcasting them to the world (through the website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, "RBSS"), while constantly on the move and being taken out by ISIS agents, one by one. The fact that Raqqa was recently captured by American-backed Syrian forces provides a slight sense of relief throughout the film, but the horrors of fundamentalism linger.

Mo says:

The Post (2017)

Director: Steven Spielberg. Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons. 116 min. Rated PG-13. Biography/History.

This "Pentagon Papers exposé" can be considered a prequel to Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men (1976), as Spielberg recreates the Washington Post offices mood and look from that film to a tee. And while that film was about sniffing out the truth against all odds, Spielberg adds a few more ingredients for his (first?) Trump era movie: speaking out the truth, even at your peril, even if you lose longtime friends. First time Hanks is out-shined by another actor (of course, the mighty Streep), and the climactic ending is spoiled, because after all, the Post still exists today.

Mo says:

All the Money in the World (2017)

Director: Ridley Scott. Cast: Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Plummer, Romain Duris, Charlie Plummer, Timothy Hutton. 132 min. Rated R. Biography/Crime.

The true hostage-taking story of 16-year-old Paul Getty III, grandson of "the world's richest private citizen", set in a dark 70's mood reminiscent of Spielberg's Munich. Scott's latest ponders: compared to money itself, what is anything worth? When that's the goal, worrying about ethics, honor, family, shame, ... is not only meaningless, it's laughable - highly conceivable as Trump's modus operandi, and possibly Scott's target. While Plummer's performance is laudable, his last-minute replacement of disgraced Kevin Spacey is both distracting (which scene is CGI?), and overshadows the true powerhouse act delivered by Williams, as the mother desperate to secure her son's release.

PS: Can you believe Ridley Scott? Eighty-year-old filmmaker delivering both a decent sixth blockbuster episode of a franchise, and a Trump-themed movie about greed with a sudden switch of an actor at the final moment, all in the same year. The man is a true gem.

Mo says:

Thief (1981)

Director: Michael Mann. Cast: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson, Jim Belushi, Robert Prosky, Dennis Farnia. 122 min. Rated R. Crime.

Imagine someone, waking up in the morning, taking a shower, dressing up, eating breakfast, preparing to get to work on time. That’s James Caan's "Thief": a professional, detached from everyday mundane issues (including death), calmly treating his work as a job like any other. Just remember the dozens of crummy 80's-90's crime movies, every single one of which happened in LA, to understand the hypnotic concept-driven contrast Michael Mann pulls off - a notion he later expanded in Heat (1995) (as though it wasn't already perfected here). And the accompanying Tangerine Dream soundtrack is a match made in heaven.

Mo says:

MoMagic!

Mayhem (2017)

Director: Joe Lynch. Cast: Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, Steven Brand. 86 min. Unrated. Action/Horror.

A zombie movie in disguise: a viral infection suppresses all forms of emotional inhibitions - and the protagonists are infected too! Hence, extreme violence runs amok, and our hero and heroine take part in its full glory. The fact that the violence is a metaphor for corporate ruthlessness in America (a character notes one of the female board members sounds nicer ever since she's been infected), is the stamp of a true zombie film - in lieu of its lack of brain-eating undead. But that's where the fun ends, and all you have left is characters spilling lots and lots of blood.

PS: Steven Yeun (Glenn from The Walking Dead) better be careful. He can get stuck doing zombie films for the rest of his life.

Mo says:

Loving Vincent (2017)

Director(s): Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman. Cast: Douglas Booth, Chris O'Dowd, Helen McCrory, Saoirse Ronan, Jerome Flynn. 94 min. Rated PG-13. UK/Poland. Animation.

This film is like a beautiful canvas ... literally. Using motion-capture, more than 100 animators tell a flashback story of Vincent van Gogh's last days, by painting over images of live actors with van Gogh's post-impressionist style. So the artist's aficionados will recognize numerous of his famous paintings smuggled into the story. The imagery is so hypnotizing, so calming, you not only understand van Gogh's brilliance ... you're distracted from the story, and paradoxically find yourself dozing off. I appreciate the insane amount of work to bring this film to fruition. Just that film was probably not the right medium.

Mo says:

Molly's Game (2017)

Director: Aaron Sorkin. Cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong, Chris O'Dowd, Bill Camp, Graham Green. 140 min. Rated R. China/USA. Biography/Drama.

I'm not well-rounded in poker, but even if you are, you'd still need to be fully caffeinated to follow Aaron Sorkin’s first shot at directing. The grand-master writer of The West Wing, A Few Good Men and The Social Network, has created such an impressive product of rapid dialogue, dizzying editing and spell-binding acting (with great monologues by Elba and Costner, and Chastain's continuing crusade of strong female roles in a male-dominated world), you’d suspect this to be Sorkin's attempt at self-promotion, declaring: "This is how you make a movie." Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Trivia: This film reunites Kevin Costner and Graham Greene, the main stars of Dances with Wolves (1990). Cool, huh.

Mo says:

The Florida Project (2017)

Director: Sean Baker. Cast: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe. 111 min. Rated R. Drama.

Honest truth: just a few minutes in, I was thinking this is a combination of Tangerine's storytelling, and Wes Anderson's visual style. And of course! It's made by Tangerine's director. Can't pinpoint a specific story-line here; other than it displays random vignettes in the lives of a few cute, smart, foul-mouthed preschoolers in a Florida motel/project, how their parents survive, and how their heart-of-gold manager (Dafoe) fends for them. You will laugh, you will mesmerize, and you will cry - but by God, you'll never be bored, and think twice the next time you pass by one of these projects.

Mo says:

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Director: Jake Kasdan. Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Bobby Cannavale, Colin Hanks. 119 min. Rated PG-13. Fantasy/Adventure.

Remember the unseen jungle in the 1995 original, where the Robin Williams character returned from after 26 years? Well, we see it here now. Other than that, a modern switch from board-game to video-game, and a subtle homosexuality theme slipped in by changing a character's gender and having her/him fall for another male ... the sequel is a remake: players are accidentally (and much less believably) sucked in, and need to act as a team to end the game. There's even a cruel/crazy/loving father waiting for his son to come home. Enjoyable fun, and "the Rock" can surprisingly be funny.

Mo says: