Shazam! (2019)

Director: David F. Sandberg. Cast: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Asher Angel, Djimon Hounsou. 132 min. Rated PG-13. Fantasy/Comedy.

Any polishing of the currently rusty superhero sub-genre is welcome. Well ... maybe not any. Shazam! is a nice rejuvenation of the 70's TV show, but doesn't keep the material available to kids, as profanity, violence, and themes of killing your own family members keeps it just short of an R rating. So, besides Deadpool, if you're not making a superhero movie for kids, then who are you making it for? We're living in an era where you're prone to cringe and worry, when the POTUS speaks on prime-time TV, or superheroes and super-villains duke it out on the screen.

Mo says:

Welcome to Marwen (2018)

Director: Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Steve Carell, Eiza González, Gwendoline Christie, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Mann. 116 min. Rated PG-13. Japan/USA. Biography.

What I've never been able to wrap my head around, is Robert Zemeckis still being a child - and I don't mean that in a good way. He's determined to show us "cool" ... without substance; always seeking out the most eye-popping glamour or newest movie-making technology. This film continues the trend: based on a true story (documented in the 2010 film Marwencol), he uses CGI animation, shocking imagery, and topless Barbie dolls, to attract our attention to a man's recovery from a brutal hate crime. Strange how you'd train under a mentor like Spielberg, and hardly grasp his film-making maturity.

PS: Another documentary-to-live-action transformation, after Zemeckis turned Man on Wire into The Walk. Enjoyed The Walk immensely better than Welcome to Marwen.

Mo says:

Us (2019)

Director: Jordan Peele. Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss. 116 min. Rated R. USA/Japan. Horror/Thriller.

I know you shouldn't score a movie based on a director's other merits, and I know Peele's Get Out probably created insurmountable expectations. But coming out of Us, I found myself unsatisfied for at least a minimum of logic to the dark science-fiction the film's horror is based on. And when that's missing, you're left with an overlong home invasion movie, supposedly a metaphor for how America destroyed itself. Of course, a nice ending twist suggests Peele is replacing Shyamalan for cool twist endings - but long story short, the director is not in control of his material here ... at all.

PS: You'll find references to The Shining or DePalma's split-diopter shots, but somehow I kept being reminded of It Follows. Lo and behold, I later discover the two films were shot by the same cinematographer.

Mo says:

The Mule (2018)

Director: Clint Eastwood. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Dianne Wiest, Taissa Farmiga, Laurence Fishburne, Bradley Cooper, Michael Peña, Andy Garcia. 116 min. Rated R. Crime/Drama.

In his "last movie" for the nth time, Eastwood tells the true story of a 90-year-old who became a drug cartel mule. Perfectly cast as a clueless but self-assured nonagenarian, Eastwood once again manages to pull it off, and attract our sympathy as a man who has selfishly ignored his family all his life in pursuit of some trivial dream. And of course, there is a fulfilling ending to the story, but again, Eastwood made me wonder what motivated him here to think: I have to make this movie before I die ...

Mo says:

Creed II (2018)

Director: Steven Caple Jr.. Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren, Brigitte Nielsen. 130 min. Rated PG-13. Sports/Drama.

Amazing how Rocky movies never lose their charm - at least enough to watch the next installment. We've watched Rocky movies all our lives, and even the worst ones remind us of specific life periods; a fact which the franchise makes full use of. Imagine: after Apollo's son is trained by Apollo's trainer's son to go up against the son of Rocky's nemesis in Rocky IV (and predictably, loses), Rocky takes it upon himself to train him, again, to fight, again (wild guess to what ends). And we still watch it. Even Brigitte Nielsen repeats her three-decade-old throwaway role. That charming.

Mo says:

Bumblebee (2018)

Director: Travis Knight. Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena. 114 min. Rated PG-13. USA/China. Action/Sci-fi.

I watched this just because of its insanely high ratings, but then realized it's just another Transformers movie.

Mo says:

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Director(s): Anthony Russo, Joe Russo. Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Brie Larson, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Evangeline Lilly, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Danai Gurira, Dave Bautista, Tilda Swinton, Jon Favreau, Hayley Atwell, Natalie Portman, Marisa Tomei, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, William Hurt, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Redford, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Stan Lee. 181 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Fantasy.

Finally, the 3-hour conclusion - to a 10-year, 20-movie journey (just look at the ensemble cast). The Russo Brothers have tied all the loose ends, assured the continuation of Marvel’s money-making process, and even fit the narrative to two of the major actors' ending contracts with the studio. I can feel the sarcasm in my words. But no; this is a decent movie, and takes its time to tell a good story. But at the end of the day, it's just a bookend. After all, how could it have ever met the once-in-a-lifetime peak its predecessor Infinity War achieved?

Mo says:

Apollo 11 (2019)

Director: Todd Douglas Miller. 93 min. Rated G. Documentary.

A 100% Tomatometer winner, which I'd call a "pure" documentary: a compilation of footage (some previously unseen) of man's first lunar mission, and except for a few soundtrack notes ... nothing else. No narrator, no manipulating sound-image juxtaposition, no directorial point-of-view, nothing. And amazingly, it’s still engaging. Similar to last year's dramatized version, First Man, the fascinating historical moment is how they landed the lunar module seconds before exhausting fuel; but also similar to how between another 100% documentary, Man on Wire, and its counterpart, The Walk, I preferred the dramatized version, here again ... I’d go with First Man.

Mo says:

Captain Marvel (2019)

Director(s): Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck. Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou. 124 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Sci-fi.

Impressed, by how Marvel has tried to come up with a Wonder Woman equivalent ... and succeeded. After a beautiful opening tribute to the late Stan Lee, the indie directors are in no rush to tell their story - they minimize the number of big-budget action scenes, and replace them with the strong foundation of a good story, slowly developing characters for Carol Danvers, a young Nick Fury, and the multiple complicated villains. By the end, you've seen a Marvel movie that similar to Black Panther, works independently on its own terms. And boy, is that post credits scene awesome.

Mo says:

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Director: Robert Rodriguez. Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Edward Norton. 122 min. Rated PG-13. Action/Sci-fi.

Robert Rodriguez has been making entertaining movies for so many years, but still doesn't get it. He still doesn't know that eye-popping CGI effects never replace (or even undermine) a good story, and females should not become action heroes (with total disregard for what made a female unique for the role) just because it's cool. And then being so self-assured, to actively move the entire plot towards an incomplete ending ... on the very first installment? To show your main villain in the last scene, to prepare for a sequel? Lots of guts.

Mo says:

Suspiria (2018)

Director: Luca Guadagnino. Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Grace Moretz. 152 min. Rated R. Italy/USA. Horror.

Forget the critics: the horror in Dario Argento's giallo movies was all about "the mood" (his stories weren't necessarily scary), and this remake of his 1977 film recreates exactly just that - in updated form. Guadagnino's version does have some discomforting moments, but what I took home were the colors, the costumes, the music, the sounds (or lack thereof). Yes, the ending is corny, but there has rarely been a movie in recent memory where I was so engrossed solely in its haunting atmosphere, I wanted to stay there for a very long time. A must-see for horror lovers.

Mo says:

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Director: Marielle Heller. Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells. 106 min. Rated R. Biography.

True story of an out-of-work author with writer's block in the 90s, who with the help of a loyal friend, forges letters of famous authors, based on her knowledge of their style. McCarthy again proves she's a force to be reckoned with (I dare you not laugh when she's laughing), and Grant comes out of the shadows to make a stance on his own. The film has its moments (is a "rejuvenating" life of crime worth living?), while the noteworthy material (e.g., the collector's mindset, the value of copy versus original) is sourly downgraded. Nominated for 3 Oscars? Really?

Mo says: