The Wrong Todd

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Todd’s girlfriend Lucy accepts a job in Seattle, whether he’s prepared to follow or not. Todd (Jesse Rosen) doesn’t react particularly well. The next day, Lucy (Anna Rizzo) storms out mid-fight and then the doorbell rings. Todd answers. It’s Todd. Another Todd, a doppelganger, or evil twin, or future Todd from another dimension. At any rate, New Todd has arrived to make things right, and he wrestles Regular Todd into a time machine (ish) and sends Todd to some sort of alternative universe.

Once there, Regular Todd is out of his depth. Someone else lives in his house. His best friend Dave (Sean Carmichael) has a mustache, and a baby (and we’re not sure which one is more surprising), and Lucy is dead. Everyone living thinks this Todd is crazy.

Meanwhile, back in the original timeline, New Todd is the perfect boyfriend who of course would go anywhere for the girlfriend he loves, and lights candles for, and dances in the living room with. If stealing someone’s girlfriend is the best way you can imagine to exploit parallel universes, you’re a pretty lame dude.  And this guy’s gone to great lengths – extraordinary lengths to steal Lucy away from Regular Todd, but the script goes to no lengths at all to establish Lucy as the kind of woman who’s worth all that. I’m not  sure I’d split a plate of nachos with Lucy, if we’re being honest.

Directed by first-timer Rob Schulbaum, the film is relatively low on production values but stuffed with questions about identity and relationships and taking things for granted. And about the rules of the universe(s) too of course – this wouldn’t be a sci-fi dramedy without them!

Hope Springs Eternal

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Hope is a high school student dying of cancer. She’s got a Make-A-Wish boyfriend, an F-average, and a social media presence that’s based solely on her disease. None of that matters because she’s terminal. But being terminal gets her attention, and flowers, and cupcakes. It means the popular girls at school know her name. So when she suddenly goes into remission, can you really blame her if she’s reluctant to tell people? She’s been Cancer Girl since she was 12; Hope doesn’t know how to navigate the world as a normal person. She wasn’t supposed to need to.

It turns out, things get kind of murky when you allow people to believe that you’re dying hope3-e1532546746939when actually, you aren’t. And things are already a little slippery because Hope attended school like she never had to worry about graduating, and now suddenly, she does. And her boyfriend committed to her like it was a very short-term commitment and now that it’s open-ended, the passion has pretty much fizzled out.

The thing about all these movies about young, cancer patients is, they tend to make heroes out of the dying. But cancer doesn’t make you a good person, or smarter than your peers, and it doesn’t magically bypass those awkward teenage years. Hope Springs Eternal gets this right. It’s not trying to fuck you up with forced tears and emotional manipulation. Hope is a nice enough kid, but cancer has made her selfish. She is not a saint, and that’s a powerful cinematic temptation. Cancer has also become her only real identity, so I don’t blame her for being disoriented when that’s taken away. Although remission is usually a positive thing, for Hope it’s a little more complicated. High school is such a vulnerable time, especially for young girls, and there isn’t exactly a manual on how to survive surviving.

Mia Rose Frampton, daughter of Peter Frampton, is luminous and very watchable. The rest of the cast is a little more hit and miss, but oh the whole it’s a sweet little movie, a touch of Eighth Grade and a touch of The Fault In Our Stars, a smidge of Mean Girls, but mostly its own little thing, post-cancer, full-life.

Nancy

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Nancy is as complicated a protagonist as we’ll meet in a movie, and perhaps only an indie movie like this could pull it off. Between online forums and meeting strange men in diners, Nancy weaves a story about lost and/or current pregnancies, and it’s unclear if (and perhaps unlikely that) any of it ever happened.

After years of taking care of her mother, Nancy (Andrea Riseborough) is at odds when she dies suddenly, leaving Nancy alone in a house she hates, and shards of a life she andrea-riseborough-im-nancy-1mostly resents. One night, she hears a story on television about a little girl, Brook, who disappeared 30 years ago. An inkling is all it takes, and soon Nancy is contacting and visiting Leo (Steve Buscemi) and Ellen (J. Smith-Cameron), the little girl’s parents, believing or half-believing or half-willing herself to be the kidnapped child, now grown up.

The only person who wants it to be true more than Nancy does is Brook’s mother, Ellen. Leo is much more skeptical, and admits they’ve had false hopes before. A DNA test is quickly procured but as they await the results, Nancy movies in and cozies up and Ellen can’t help but get attached. Ellen has been a mother without a child for 30 long years; she’s got a spot underneath her wing that’s Nancy-sized, to say nothing of the hole in her heart.

The psychology of this movie is fascinating. It really explores the depths and nature of intimacy. Riseborough is fantastic. She’s got a haunted look about her; there’s a back story that’s simply implied in her downcast eyes, her uncombed hair. Smith-Cameron is also exceptional. Her shakiness and fragility are evident in every quaking breath. Her need is enormous. A talented cast really makes this story, well-crafted by writer-director Christina Choe, come alive.

The Mercy

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Donald Crowhurst is hawking navigational tools for sailing that nobody really wants. When a contest is announced that would reward the fastest sailor to navigate the globe without stopping, Crowhurst decides it’s the perfect way to showcase his product, generate press, and make himself known. He’s the last man in the water, but he hopes to make up for it by speed. The problem is, he’s just a hobbyist, an amateur sailor, and he’s going up against the world’s best.

Of course, sailing around the world is the kind of competition that’s very solitary, and MV5BMjMwMTE2Mjc5NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzk5NTAyOTE@._V1_SX1500_CR0,0,1500,999_AL_difficult to measure. The irony is that though he’s a master of navigation, sailing-wise, it’s being away from his family that is disorienting to him. Out on his boat, alone for months, never seeing land, rarely hearing the voices of his children, Donald (Colin Firth) goes slightly mad, as one would. It’s a test of endurance, but also of mental fortitude. Though the sea and the elements thwart him at every turn, he himself is his biggest obstacle, and every day is a struggle not to quit.

At home, his wife Clare (Rachel Weisz) tries to keep the family afloat while putting on a cheery face for the children even though she frequently doesn’t know if her husband is dead or alive.

Because they’ve bothered to make a movie out of this ‘incredible true story,’ I thought I knew how it would go. I was wrong. The Mercy doesn’t exactly break new ground cinematically, but thematically it’s as crushing as it is absorbing. Colin Firth is astonishing. Frequently on screen alone, his descent into madness is magnetic. It glues your eyeballs to the screen. Rachel Weisz is no slouch, of course, but as the little woman back home, she’s given much less to do other than look fetching in a head scarf. However, when the film does call on her to be something more, you know she answers is as only she could.

The Mercy is a big lungful of salt water. It’s a surprise. It gives you a jolt. If Colin Firth is the film’s compass, Rachel Weisz is its buoy.

 

Top 10 Cameos of 2018

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10. Nick Offerman, Bad Times at the El Royale: To be honest, this slot could have gone to any cameo that Nick Offerman was doing, such is my love for the man. But having him appear in this tiny role is a brilliant move, because it signals to viewers that this piece of film will be more important than it seems, and it heightens the reveal when we start putting the pieces together.

9. Terry Crews, Sorry To Bother You: I hardly recognized him with all this hair! I love Terry Crews, and this cameo was superbly well-timed for the climate of 2018, only adding to the movie’s timeliness and social necessity. Crews plays Sergio, Cash’s uncle, who is losing his house but still allowing Cash to live there, despite the constantly missing rent. Sergio is to Cash what Crews is to all of us – affable and dependable.

8. Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic World: Though his screen time is small, his impact is big. Of course this is the cameo we all wanted and needed when Jurassic Park was getting a reboot. We had to wait for the sequel of course – was it worth it? No! We wanted more. And to be honest, this second Jurassic World could have used a stabilizing effect. Long live Jeff Goldblum, best-selling jazz musician, fyi.

7. Mike Myers, Bohemian Rhapsody: To be honest, I’m 100% over Mike Myers, like miles and miles past, and yet even I had to admit this was good casting. It’s a tiny role, but an interesting one. He plays a record executive who tells Queen that Bohemian Rhapsody is worthless. “We need a song teenagers can bang their heads to in a car. Bohemian Rhapsody is not that song.” Mike Myers is, of course, one half of Wayne’s World, the movie that sent Bohemian Rhapsody back up the charts doing that exact thing.

6. Dave Franco, If Beale Street Could Talk: I’m not sure how Dave Franco came to be in Barry Jenkins’ film, but I understand why they kept it under wraps. He’s one of the more recognizable names in the young cast, but no one wants to take away from the leads and their impressive accomplishments in this film. Franco’s scene is among my favourite (though admittedly, it’s a looooong list). He’s showing apartments to he young, expectant couple, who are imagining their lives there. Fonny recruits him to do the pretend heavy lifting as they move in the invisible furniture and dream of their future.

5. Goldie Hawn, The Christmas Chronicles: The minute Kurt Russell as Santa Claus starts referring to the Mrs. (Claus, that is), we start hoping for a Goldie cameo, and by god we got one. It’s a Christmas miracle! And just like Russell gives us hot Santa, Goldie makes Mrs. Claus into a real babe. And to round out the family experience, Goldie’s son Oliver Hudson has a small role as well.

4. Brad Pitt, Deadpool 2: Pitt actually considered playing Cable until scheduling conflicts meant he couldn’t commit, but fans loved his ultra-brief role as The Vanisher. Pitt wasn’t the only cameo, just the only recognizable one: buddy Matt Damon also appeared, but under heavy prosthetics. That guy loves a good cameo!

3. T-rex, Ready Player One: It was tough for Steven Spielberg to direct a book adaptation that referenced himself and his movies so heavily. He edited many out (and his production team left some in, as Easter eggs), but a few were undeniable, and for me, the T-rex was superbly done and a thrill to see. Seriously though, probably everyone has a favourite cameo from this movie, and there are hundreds to choose from.

2. Samuel L. Jackson, Life Itself: This was an indulgent little pleasure right at the beginning of the movie that establishes Life Itself as something to question constantly and watch apprehensively. But it’s Samuel L. Jackson, a man that can lend his coolness to any project he chooses.

1.  Stan Lee, Ralph Breaks the Internet: Stan Lee made plenty of cameos in 2018, as he’s done for many years, but since Ralph is animated, and not a Marvel movie, I wasn’t expecting to see him pop up in this. We saw this screening just 3 days after he died, and his cameo inspired a theatre-wide hush in respect for the great man, fallen.

Christopher Robin

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I read this thing the other day about how, one day, a parent will put down their child, and never pick them up again. There’s a last time you’ll bathe them, a last time you’ll feed them, a last time you’ll kiss them goodbye. And while it makes perfect sense, it also struck me as perfectly tragic, because you never see it coming. You never tuck your kid in and know that this is the very last time you’ll do it. Kids grow up in bits and bobs.

Christopher Robin grew up like all kids must. Now he’s a grown man (Ewan McGregor) just back from the war, and his boss at the luggage company has tasked him with finding a way to reduce costs by 20% – if nothing else, it’ll be people let go. That means working MV5BOTc2MmE3ZWMtMjk4NS00ZDUxLWFkYjctZjE0MTgyZDZiZTQzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjQ4ODE4MzQ@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,999_AL_through the weekend, which means letting down his wife and daughter. You may remember a young Christopher Robin, denizen of the Hundred Acre Wood, best friend of Pooh (Winnie The). But even Christopher Robin had to grow up; there was a last time he visited Pooh and Piglet and Tigger et. al in the Wood, but no one knew it was the very last time until he just never came back and he never came back and never came back.

But just as his wife and daughter are concerned they’re losing him to work, to life, to serious pursuits more important than time with them, Winnie The Pooh materializes in London to save his old pal and remind him of the value of play. This movie was breaking my heart left and right, its nostalgia tinged with a definitive brand of sadness. But Pooh and friends are adorable as always. They aren’t primary-coloured, Sunday morning cartoons, nor are they “live-action” CGI like Mowgli. The animation has Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore looking like antique stuffed animals. It gets you right in the feels.

My mother took my young nephews to see this, but though PG, this movie is not really for kids. It’s a little like Hook, about a man who, as a boy, would get lost in other worlds and imaginary friends, but as grown up, was too consumed with work and had to travel back to his childhood friends to remember the important things. Although some kids may have the patience to sit through grown ups moaning about work and efficiency, this one’s mostly for the older folk, the ones among us who need the reminding, and don’t mind a trip back to simpler times to do so.

Forever My Girl

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It’s the best day ever: not many people can say their wedding day coincides with their first hit single hitting the radio, but Liam is just that lucky, and Josie is his beautiful bride. Almost the whole of their small Louisiana town has shown up to see these pretty young things get married – all but one very important person: the groom. Josie is left at the altar because Liam’s star is shooting upward, and I guess marrying your high school sweetheart just doesn’t jibe with his country heartthrob image.

MV5BNTY1N2I5MjEtZDNkZS00OTgxLWFhM2MtNTM0NGY0MzBmNjRhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDg2MjUxNjM@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1497,1000_AL_Cut to: 10 years later, a mutual friend dies, and Liam, a mega star, leaves his world tour to go back to that small town, which he’s never really escaped. And wouldn’t you know it – Josie is the first person he runs into. Well, Josie and her kid.

Like all country music, lots of the sound track is incredibly on the nose. But there’s lots of it, so if obvious country music is your jam (and let’s be honest – is there any other kind?), then you might be in hog heaven. Or at least in pig purgatory.

Alex Roe is definitely a guy who can play a country singer – you know, a multi-millionaire who still wears a beat up ball cap and a pair of work boots even though the feet inside them are manicured, to manipulate you into thinking he’s a working guy with a broken heart, just like you, when really his stubble is carefully curated by half a dozen stylists and his heart doesn’t even get involved between the groupies and the blow. But his lyrics are all about pick up trucks and the love of his country. He strictly drives Mercedes of course,  and his flags are just accessories he trots out for music videos.

But Liam? Oh, Liam’s good people. I mean, yes, he abandoned the love of his life on their wedding day and then didn’t return her call for eight years, but he was young! And he wrote songs about it! Jessica Rothe plays the jilted girlfriend, and she’s as wallflowery as the character. The kid, however, is a bright spot. Precocious children usually drive me bananas, but Abby Ryder Fortson pulled it off. Too bad the grown-ups weren’t half as charming.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

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I did not think the world needed another Jungle Book movie. I felt the same about Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book. I am too young to have any warm feelings toward the Disney cartoon – that movie felt old-fashioned to me as a kid, and I couldn’t watch it. We never read the books, and I was never a boy scout. And don’t get me started on this “live action” nonsense – this may be more sophisticated animation, a less cartoony cartoon, but this stuff is 95% computer-generated.

Anyway, as you may have gleaned: a “mean” tiger named Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) eats some humans in the jungle. He’s the menacing villain of the story, even though the tiger was only doing as tigers do. But white people think they own MV5BOWNjOGFlNTAtZDlmMS00ODdjLWFiMjQtYjMxNTUwYjY1OWMwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjUwNzk3NDc@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,732_AL_everything they see and touch and feel, and are surprised not be welcomed with open arms whenever they attempt to colonize new lands. The jungle was never meant for humans, and almost everything about the jungle makes that abundantly clear. Anyway, the dead humans leave behind a baby, Mowgli, who is accepted by and raised by a  literal pack of wolves. Mowgli is mentored by a black panther named Bagheera (Christian Bale), and a bear named Baloo (Andy Serkis). They try to teach him the ways of the jungle, but they also know the strange animal called man is edging in on their territory, and it can only be an asset to have one of them among them.

At PG-13, this is a darker, less family-friendly version of the Jungle Book. Mowgli’s story has always had something to say about fitting in, and whether how we look has ever been the best way to judge who is one of us, and who is not. But, we’ve obviously been told this story several times before, and Serkis’ version gives us nothing new, just some special effects and his trademark motion capture that actually brings nothing to the table. There’s no charm, there’s no heart. Andy Serkis may have donned the green suit to give life to Baloo, but he’s never seemed more cold and aloof. He’s not the same Baloo that people have loved for generations. This isn’t the same Jungle Book. It’s dark and it’s bloody – so, for the rare person who wishes beloved children’s books played more like war movies, I guess this is pay dirt – but for the rest of us, this is a miss.

 

The Little Mermaid (2018)

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A young reporter, Cam, and his sickly niece Elle take a night off from closely monitoring her health (a persistent cough that causes her to fall to the floor ahem), to take in the circus that’s just come to town. Among the elephant and fortuneteller lurks an even greater mysery: a real live mermaid, Elizabeth.

She’s kept in a tank and it looks pretty real, but it must be some trick, right? Wrong. This mermaid is being kept in slavery by the evil carnival barker, and it’s up to Elle, who idolizes her, and Cam, who’d like to, um, romance her, to save her.

You might have been excited to know that a live-action version of The Little MermaidMV5BYzA5ODc3MTctNmQwNC00YjdhLTgxNTEtZTczYTQyMTQ4N2RlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjQ3NTcyNzQ@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,745_AL_ was hitting Netflix, but that would make you a fool. It’s an abomination. The plot is as poor as the production values. Seriously, the special effects were short-bus special, and the effect was that I hated it, and felt embarrassed on its behalf.

Pointless, absolutely, but also completely boring. Kids won’t have the patience for it, and parents won’t have the forgiveness. The rest of us are just chumps for watching. If I had a mermaid tail, I’d flip it dismissively as I swam decisively away. If I’d lost my voice in exchange for legs, I’d flip it the bird. If I suddenly used a fork as a comb, well, I’d get on the short bus because mermaids are the least of my trouble.

Dumplin’

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Willowdean, aka Dumplin (Danielle Macdonald), feels like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Her aunt Lucy always had a knack for making her feel at home and helping her to navigate life greasier spots, but aunt Lucy is gone now. Thank goodness for her best friend Ellen (Odeya Rush), a fellow lover of all things Dolly Parton. Willowdean’s mother, Rosie (Jennifer Aniston), is practically a celebrity in their small Texan town. She was Miss Teen Bluebonnet 1991, and is the pageant’s current director. Their house looks like Miss America barfed all over it, except in aunt Lucy’s old room, still not empty of her belongings, but that won’t be true for long, if Rosie has her way.

MV5BNTIwODk1MjYzMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzQxMzU3NjM@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1301,1000_AL_Dumplin’ is based on a novel by Julie Murphy, and it’s kind of like a Love, Simon for fat girls (we deserve love too!). Willowdean doesn’t have the perfect figure, a fact all the more noticeable standing next to her mother, a literal beauty queen, and the town’s image of perfection. So it’s a mystery to her when Bo, the heartthrob that works with her in the local diner, seems to be interested in her. That can’t be right, can it?

Overweight women struggle to find acceptance in the world, and remain almost invisible, undepicted, in Hollywood. Weight will be the last taboo, clearly. So when Willowdean enters the pageant, it’s an act of rebellion. Her mother isn’t thrilled and the pageant institution wants to preserve its ‘sanctity’, but when Willowdean shows up, she’s like the Joan of Arc of fat girls, inspiriting several other ‘unsuitable’ girls to sign up.

It’s interesting to watch Willowdean struggle, to know in her head that people’s judgement about her weight is complete bullshit, but also to have internalized it, to use that bit of self-loathing as as a defense mechanism. It takes a lot of strength to confront these stereotypes, and to have Willowdean do it as a high school student, so young and vulnerable, keeps our compassion levels high – as well as our concern. It makes us watch with a critical eye. Who is complicit? Store that sell a minimum of (small) sizes? Magazines that wrongfully equate weight with health? Movies that would have you believe that a boy who likes a fat girl is a hero? The pageant system itself, which celebrates a very narrow definition of beauty and weighs intellect and swim suit wearing equally?

There’s nothing in the rules that says “big girls need not apply” but all too often, fat girls see barriers everywhere. Sometimes they’re just barriers we just mentally put there ourselves after being conditioned by society to feel somehow inferior or unworthy. Dumplin’ is asking us not to buy into that – not of each other, and not of ourselves. A number on a scale is incapable of determining beauty, and it’s not even close to measuring a person’s worth. The film doesn’t follow the book’s exact plot, and it wisely edits a lot of the romantic drama, because this story is most of all about self-acceptance, as every story should be.