Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron Hook Up in 'The Long Shot'

Seth Rogen seems to have a long running fantasy of charming a woman who appears lightyears out of his league- in this case, not only is she Charlize Theron, but also the US Secretary of State running for president who used to babysit him. Couldn’t possible aim any higher, could he? The joke is that the premise is unrealistic, but it also seems to be that Theron really does just want to be charmed by the stoner guy that Rogen plays in most of his movies. Don’t know if I’d buy it in this one.

2019 Oscar Predictions, Part 1: Sound, Shorts and Visual Effects

The first part of my official Oscar predictions for 2019 are as usual, the sound, effects and short awards. Let’s get straight into it, shall we?

VISUAL EFFECTS

Tough category, but the actual visual effects were most memorable in this Spielberg movie

• Avengers: Infinity War

• Christopher Robin

• First Man

• Ready Player One

• Solo: A Star Wars Story

Unfortunately, the precursor awards did not help us out much on this one. The VES Society is notoriously unreliable here and they went for Avengers, while BAFTA chose Black Panther, which wasn’t even nominated for the Oscar. So I’m kind of at a loss. My gut tells me it could be Avengers, First Man or Ready Player One- the latter is probably the most deserving based on the effects themselves, but with the whole Academy voting, will it just be the most widely seen movie? That would default to Avengers, I assume. But Marvel movies don’t tend to win this category, so I’m honestly not sure. I should probably go with my instinct and base it on the effects alone.

Winner: Ready Player One

Alternate: Avengers: Infinity War

Dark Horse: First Man

SOUND MIXING

Musicals tend to win sound

• Black Panther

• Bohemian Rhapsody

• First Man

• Roma

• A Star is Born

Every year I get more and more frustrated that they still haven’t combined the two sound categories into one award and just called it Best Sound. I promise you the majority of the voters have no idea what the difference is between mixing and editing, and even though I’ve looked it up myself, I constantly forget it. So there’s only the hint that the winner of the sound awards is usually the same movie, and usually either the action or musical nominee of the bunch. In this case, I think that points to Bohemian Rhapsody (it won BAFTA and CAS, the sound guild). So I’m choosing it for both.

Winner: Bohemian Rhapsody

Alternate: A Star is Born

SOUND EDITING

There’s a chance for A Quiet Place on this one, but I’m sticking with the musical

• Black Panther

• Bohemian Rhapsody

• First Man

• A Quiet Place

• Roma

Sticking with my usual prediction of one movie for both of these, I have to go with Bohemian Rhapsody. I do feel like there’s a chance for A Quiet Place here (it won one of the top two prizes for this at the guild awards for sound editing- the other was Bohemian), but I’m just sticking to my rule.

Winner: Bohemian Rhapsody

Alternate: A Quiet Place

ANIMATED SHORT

Pixar’s Bao seems to be the frontrunner

• Animal Behaviour

• Bao

• Late Afternoon 

• One Small Step

• Weekends

So I did my homework and actually watched all of these (they’re available on youtube), and I really think One Small Step is the most obvious, heart tugging, Disney-like short of the bunch, even though it’s not actually Disney. But most people seem to think the quirky Pixar one, Bao, is the frontrunner. Pixar almost never wins this category though, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from. I don’t think Bao is so much better than their past shorts that they’ve lost with. The people who vote on these tend to be the animators who’ve actually seen them all…then again Bao is likely to be the most widely seen of the bunch, so it could get more votes from non-animators. Pixar is the safe bet.

Winner: Bao

Alternate: One Small Step

Dark Horse: Weekends (won the Annie award, but not against this competition)

LIVE ACTION SHORT

This is a total wild guess on my part

• Detainment

• Fauve

• Marguerite

• Mother

• Skin

I have not seen any of these, so I’m gonna have to guess. All I know is that Detainment is being protested by the real life person whose child it was based on, so that one’s out. All of these are apparently about children in jeopardy of some sort, so that’s not a clue either. I’m going with Marguerite, because I heard that’s it’s the only one with a semi-happy ending, which makes it stand out from the bunch.

Winner: Marguerite

Alternate: Fauve

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Currently playing on Netflix if you want to check it out

• Black Sheep

• End Game

• Lifeboat

• A Night at the Garden

• Period. End of Sentence.

I watched A Night at the Garden on youtube and it’s creepy yet very effective. But it’s the shortest one (seven minutes) and made up of archival footage entirely, so I don’t know if it will win. However, it does leave a big impact in its short running time, a reminder of Fascist sentiment in America in 1939, and Fox News wouldn’t let an ad run for it on their network, which kinda says it all. Could it pull it off? Still not sure. Period. End of Sentence. is currently on Netflix and has a strong pro-feminist message, so that could be the winner too.

Winner: Period. End of Sentence.

Alternate: A Night at the Garden

Dark Horse: Black Sheep

WGA Offers Up Surprise Winners in 'Eighth Grade' and 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?'

Whoa! Eleventh hour plot twist! The Writers Guild veered away from the supposed Oscar frontrunners in Green Book and BlacKkKlansman to go instead with Bo Burnham’s film Eighth Grade (not even an Oscar nominee) for original screenplay and Can You Ever Forgive Me? in adapted. This is a huge deal, because it’s extremely rare for a non-Oscar nominee to win the WGA at all, and I’m not sure what that means for BlacKkKlansman’s chances on Oscar night, since all it has going in now is the BAFTA award. In fact, as far as precursors go, the writing awards are all over the place: Green Book won the Golden Globe, If Beale Street Could Talk won the Critics Choice, Leave No Trace (not Oscar-nominated) won the Scripter prize, BlacKkKlansman and The Favourite (not eligible for WGA) won at BAFTA, and now this result. We’re shooting in the dark on Oscar night for both screenplay awards.

WGA Winners

• Adapted Screenplay: Can You Ever Forgive Me?

• Original Screenplay: Eighth Grade

MPSE Golden Reel Winners

A Quiet Place was unsurprisingly lauded for its sound

In other news, the guild awards for sound editing came in tonight, and Bohemian Rhapsody and A Quiet Place took the top two, with Spider-Man winning a couple as well. I’d probably stick with Bohemian for both sound Oscars, just to be safe.

• Effects/Foley: A Quiet Place

• Dialogue/ADR: Bohemian Rhapsody

• Musical: Bohemian Rhapsody

• Music Score: Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse

• Foreign Language Feature: Roma

• Feature Animation: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

'Vice' Wins Makeup Guild Awards & 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Takes Top Cinema Audio Society Honors

The final guilds are weighing in this weekend, and Vice solidifies its Oscar frontrunner status in the makeup & hairstyling category with wins tonight from the Makeup Guild:

Vice is recognized for its makeup & hairstyling

Best Contemporary Makeup: A Star is Born
Best Contemporary Hairstyling: Crazy Rich Asians
Best Period and/or Character Makeup: Vice
Best Period and/or Character Hairstyling: Mary Queen of Scots
Best Special Makeup Effects: Vice

Meanwhile, the Cinema Audio Society (the guild for sound mixing) gave their top award for sound mixing in a live action feature film to Bohemian Rhapsody, which should wrap up the Sound Mixing Oscar for that movie after winning BAFTA last week. I would probably bet on it for Sound Editing too, but that guild will announce its winners tomorrow, so we’ll see if it differs.

• Live Action Feature Film: Bohemian Rhapsody

• Animated Feature Film: Isle of Dogs

• Documentary Feature Film: Free Solo

Lightning Round Reviews 2018: February, Part 3

Getting closer and closer to the end! It was a pack of some really good ones this week, which shows why I really can’t make my top ten without seeing as much as possible from the whole year. Missing out on Shoplifters (and Free Solo, to an extent) would have been a crime. Next week should be my last reviews for 2018 (or at least enough to finally make my ten best- there may be some stragglers included in the first batch of 2019 next month). Enjoy!

HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING * * * (Dir. RaMell Ross)

A new kind of look at the South

An entirely different kind of documentary, a near experimental film that challenges an audience to appreciate the brief glimpses into the lives of black people in Hale County, Alabama, along with some striking imagery, fashioned together in a way that doesn’t necessarily tell a story but provides you with intimate moments nonetheless. RaMell Ross makes his first foray into documentaries, as a prologue tells you that he took his camera out when he moved to Alabama to coach basketball and teach photography in 2009. From there, the camera does the work for us, as we are treated to the barest moments in the lives of several people just briefly introduced with names that flash by on the screen (toddler Kyrie steals the show) as Ross catches them playing basketball, giving birth, moving, driving, being pulled over and simply living life in a mostly impoverished rural area. These moments capture joy, grief, boredom, hopefulness, disdain, and show the beauty and ugliness of the every day, but the most striking images are of a bonfire blowing smoke through the trees, a half moon lit up in a phosphorescent glow, and a brief look at an old plantation home juxtaposed with black and white minstrel footage. There’s a kind of poetic realism in Ross’s look at the Black Belt in the South, an abstract yet intimate vision of a part of America rarely seen in films or television. It’s worth seeing for these cherished snapshots of real life happening outside your typical vantage point.

THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN * * * (Dir. David Lowery)

Two acting icons find an easy chemistry together

Is it possible for a movie to exist solely as a paean to the everlasting cool of Robert Redford? David Lowery certainly gives it a shot with this laconic, laidback, smooth tribute to the man, the legend, the icon. And why not? Certainly his very presence alone is enough to carry a movie, no plot necessary. He does get the barest threadbones of a story, that of a career criminal named Forrest Tucker who just loves robbing banks, and now at the ripe old age of 74, wants to continue doing just that. Of course he’s not a violent criminal or anything. He’s a “gentleman” bank robber, who flashes his never used gun and smilingly asks for the money, a scenario in which everyone always obligingly offers it. Wouldn’t you? Senior citizen or not, if Robert Redford, still smooth and charming as ever, politely asks you to hand over the loot, you’d do it. Sure you would. Set in 1981 (purposely as a throwback to the height of Redford’s own career I think), Tucker and his occasional partners in crime (Danny Glover and Tom Waits) are pursued by a not exactly dogged, but interested and half admiring detective (Casey Affleck) across several states, while Tucker pursues a romance with Sissy Spacek, a local widow who seems to have no problem with his occupation. She won’t commit any crimes herself, but she’s lived a life and is charmed by him too. Their budding romance is the sweetest and most natural part of the movie, as the cop’s pursuit is a bit halfhearted. Casey Affleck looks on the verge of falling asleep in every scene and only comes alive when he and Redford come face to face- you can practically feel his giddiness at just sharing the screen with him. But that’s how we all feel, isn’t it? Redford’s star presence and near seven decade career is one to be revered, and if the reports are true that this will be his final film role, he could not have gone out with any more fitting a salutation. The movie is as cool and unbothered as he is, and will ever be. 

FREE SOLO * * * 1/2 (Dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin)

Facing death on the cliff- this one deserves its IMAX treatment

If part of the purpose of documentary filmmaking is to capture real events as they occur, then the last act of Free Solo is a miracle in and of itself, having been caught on film at all. One of the most dangerous activities known to man is free soloing- the act of mountain climbing without a rope. One of the most successful athletes in this field is Alex Honnold, a 33-year-old climber who agreed to have a film crew follow him as he trained to make the climb up El Capitan, a rock formation in Yosemite National Valley, and become the first human to free solo it successfully. The film gets some pretty stunning footage of the mountains and cliffs alone, but does not shy away from the ethics of even making a movie about this activity- as co-director Jimmy Chin says on camera, this is a massive risk, as there’s a better than even shot they will capture the death of their subject, which they and he know well before going into this. But the movie is also a character study of the kind of person who would want to partake in these death-defying climbs, and Alex himself provides an eccentric oddball portraiture of what we suppose it must take to be a successful climber. He’s rigid and unemotional, robotically focused and mostly fearless. He acknowledges that El Capitan is scary but he doesn’t seem to feel fear of anything and attempts only minimally to imitate the human emotions of people he sees around him. His girlfriend Sanni tries to be supportive in the face of his void, emotionless state of being, but you can’t help but wonder how much more she can put up with. All of this makes for fascinating viewing for the first two thirds, but the real achievement of the movie is the gripping final act, as you watch a miraculous feat of human daring captured on film. Anyone will feel the heart pounding anxiety and unbearable suspense, despite knowing that this film would probably not have been released in the event of a tragic ending, like most free soloers eventually experience. The fact that it didn’t leaves you feeling in awe of what you’ve witnessed, like the filmmakers themselves, and thankful that they (and Alex’s) luck held out in reaching and preserving the glory for all to see.


SHOPLIFTERS * * * * (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Secrets and lies abound in this unconventional family drama

At its core, Shoplifters is a movie about empathy. It asks you to empathize with a family of six- a mom and dad, two kids, an aunt and a grandma, all living together in a house barely big enough for one, all struggling to survive in the kind of abject poverty we all recognize and wish we didn’t. This family does whatever it takes to make it, and holds each other together through the rough patches (which are daily), and even if the dad teaches the kids his only skill, shoplifting, as a survival tool, can you blame him when you look at what they’re up against? Family stays together, takes care of each other, helps each other. But what constitutes the meaning of the word family? To the outside it looks like a unit, exactly how I described it. But as this extraordinary film progresses, various layers unfold that reveal piece by piece exactly what sort of “family” this really is and challenges you to ask yourself if the assumptions you held about families still hold in the face of an upside down reality. Writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda has made a humanist masterpiece in Shoplifters, the kind of film that will grab anyone by telling a universal story with empathy for each fully realized character. The performances given by this ensemble cast are natural and so authentic you feel yourself becoming absorbed in the lives of these people and believing in the lies they tell themselves to strengthen the bond between them, even as it flies in the face of the moral clarity we pretend to hold dear. Is it right to do what’s wrong for who you love? Is it wrong to create your own universe of rules and morals that apply to a select few and then abide by them as long as the rest of the world doesn’t see you doing it? These questions sneak up on you in a film that settles deep in your bones with the kind of impact rarely achieved and reserved for that of a master storyteller. It’s by far one of the best films of the year.

Elsa and Anna Are Back in 'Frozen 2'

I was never the biggest fan of Frozen, so I’ll just let others be psyched for this teaser. I thought it was alright, but no more than that. Be honest, the songs do not compare to anything that came out of the Ashman/Menken renaissance canon. They just don’t. Objectively. Anyway, why is Elsa having trouble getting over a wave of water? I will assume her powers are debilitated somehow. I’m sure November can’t come fast enough for a lot of people (but not me- I like Zootopia much better and would prefer a sequel to that).

New Musical 'Yesterday' Asks What if the Beatles Never Existed?

Danny Boyle’s new movie is a fantasy musical romance where the lead gets hit by a car and wakes up to a world where the Beatles never existed, but he still knows all their songs. So of course, in very short order he becomes the world’s greatest songwriter. Could be fun, but it doesn’t look like a comedy, more like a romantic drama with all that Beatles music (the rights for this must have cost a fortune). A tribute movie to the Beatles kind of reminds of that trippy musical Across the Universe- remember that one?

'Aladdin' Trailer Drops During the Grammys

Oh god. Is anyone else going to have nightmares about Will Smith’s Genie tonight? Ugh. This whole thing looks garish and ugly and horrifying, but I’m guessing it’s blue Will Smith that will generate the most chatter. I really wish they would…not make these movies.

'Roma' Wins Best Film at the BAFTA Awards

Well, there you have it. The British Academy has spoken and Roma has taken its first Best Picture prize from an industry group. Of course, BAFTA does not use the preferential ballot that the Academy does for its top award, which means there’s still a race at the Oscars. In fact, BAFTA hasn’t matched Oscar Best Picture for the last five years, because of that. But BAFTA can provide a lot of clues in other areas and often portends the winners in many technical categories. For example, I would now predict Vice for editing, Bohemian Rhapsody for sound, and watch out for this Best Supporting Actress race, because Rachel Weisz could now sneak in and pull off her second Oscar. The Favourite was well loved by the Brits, walking away with seven trophies including Best British Film- they will vote for that movie somewhere at the Oscars too, and Weisz could be its big award (plus she really is the lead of that movie). It also looks like Rami Malek is indeed locked for Best Actor now, and same with Cuaron for Director. And Spike Lee wins for Screenplay, which looks set to repeat at the Oscars too. I’ll be using this winners list as well as the guild ones to make my final predictions, which will be coming in about a week.

2019 BAFTA WINNERS

• Best British Film: The Favourite

• Best Production Design: The Favourite

• Rising Star: Letitia Wright

• Best Hair & Makeup: The Favourite

• Best Editing: Vice

• Best Animated Feature: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

• Best Sound: Bohemian Rhapsody

• Best Documentary: Free Solo

• Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

• Best Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman

• Best Original Music: A Star is Born

• Best Original Screenplay: The Favourite

• Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

• Best Cinematography: Roma

• Best Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: Michael Pearce and Lauren Dark, Beast

• Best Special Visual Effects: Black Panther 

• Best Film Not in the English Language: Roma

• Best Costume Design: The Favourite

• Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

• Best Actor: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

• Best Actress: Olivia Colman, The Favourite

• Best Film: Roma

Olivia Colman wins Best Actress for The Favourite- can she beat Glenn Close at the Oscars?

'Cold War' Wins the ASC Award; 'Leave No Trace' Wins Scripter

Non-Oscar nominee Leave No Trace won the Scripter prize- a rare occurrence

In a bit of a surprise tonight, the American Society of Cinematographers gave their top award to Cold War over Roma, both black and white films with gorgeous photography, but Roma was expected to prevail in this category. I think it still will at the Oscars- the ASC has only a 50% hit rate with the Academy lately. Meanwhile, the USC Scripter dinner was held tonight and the prize for screenplay (along with its source material) went to Leave No Trace, a film not even nominated for screenplay at the Oscars. This almost always goes with the Oscar winner for adapted screenplay, but obviously that won’t be happening this year. Spike Lee is expected to come out on top and finally win his first competitive Oscar for BlacKkKlansman- as long as it wins that WGA award next weekend, things look pretty set for that to happen easily.

Albert Finney 1936-2019

Albert Finney passed away today after a short illness at the age of 82. The five-time Oscar nominated British actor appeared in films and television for over six decades. Some of his most notable films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Tom Jones (1963), Two for the Road (1967), Scrooge (1970), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Shoot the Moon (1982), The Dresser (1983), Under the Volcano (1984), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Erin Brockovich (2000), Big Fish (2003), Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007) and Skyfall (2012), which was his final film role. He was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar four times (Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, The Dresser and Under the Volcano) and Best Supporting Actor for Erin Brockovich. He won an Emmy for playing Winston Churchill in the 2002 HBO film The Gathering Storm and was nominated for two Tonys for his Broadway work in the 1960’s. Do yourself a favor and check out some of his work this weekend- he was one of the greats.

The trailer for 1963’s Best Picture winner Tom Jones:

!967’s Two for the Road, a romance he co-starred in with Audrey Hepburn:

Lightning Round Reviews 2018: February, Part 2

This week I have four entries I missed last year- two westerns, an Oscar nominee for animated film and a teen drama that makes a play for more serious consideration. If all goes right, there will be just two more entries left fo finish off the films of 2018.

THE SISTERS BROTHERS * * * 1/2 (Dir. Jacques Audiard)

John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix are two deadly assassins on an unusual journey

Writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) chose some rather interesting material for his English-language debut- a darkly comic historical novel by Patrick deWitt, which he co-adapted into an atypical western designed as a showcase for its rich cast of character actors, but also turns out to be an offbeat buddy movie/violent shootout/black comedy. It starts off at a meandering, slow pace but becomes more involving as the story develops, eventually morphing into several things at once, one of them a bleak look at the nature of inherited violence in emotionally damaged men. You wouldn’t expect so many tonal shifts out of a modern western (so few of them get made these days), especially one that stars John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as Eli and Charlie Sisters, two hitmen brothers out to finish a job during the California Gold Rush of the 1850’s. But the plot’s not that important, as anything you might predict turns out to be something a bit different, even with all the shadings of the old-fashioned western still percolating on the fringes. Audiard isn’t trying to reinvent the genre so much as put his own French spin on it, which he does with a splendidly jovial tone (and score by Alexandre Desplat) with spurts of violence, family melodrama and a genial sense of humor- the movie actually gets more entertaining as it goes on, when you stop trying to figure out where it’s going and let the characters lead you there with blinders on. Once you surrender to the very specific treats this film has to offer, it’s a singular delight.

THE HATE U GIVE * * 1/2 (Dir. George Tillman Jr.)

Amandla Stenberg shines in this YA drama with a purpose

20-year-old Amandla Stenberg is a big talent, an appealing newcomer who carries this heavy-handed drama from George Tillman Jr. (based on the young adult novel by Audrey Wells) through most of its melodramatic handwringing, which is unfortunate, since the subject matter is so important and the movie itself so timely. Stenberg is Starr, a 16-year-old who lives in the rough neighborhood of Garden Heights, plagued by gang violence and drug dealing. Her father is an ex-con himself who has to give his kids the “talk” at 10 years old- the one about how to deal with police as a black citizen when you’re inevitably pulled over. Starr’s mother sends her to Williamsen Prep, a private, mostly white high school in a different neighborhood in order to protect her, forcing Starr to navigate life as two versions of herself- the one at school with her white friends and boyfriend (Riverdale’s KJ Apa) and the one at home with her black friends, family and omnipresent threat from gangs and cops. The first half of the film deals with these issues very succinctly, as the way Starr maneuvers through the two worlds illuminates what passes for normal life if you’re a teenager and person of color just trying to fit in. Then a tragedy occurs as Starr becomes the witness when her childhood friend Khalil is killed by a police officer when the two are pulled over, causing her worlds to collide. The movie presses hard on the issue of unarmed black men being gunned down by law enforcement, who often face no justice when a grand jury chooses not to indict, or even when cops are found not guilty in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary. Tillman Jr. deserves credit for not stepping away from the inflammatory topic and confronting the issues it brings up directly (especially in a film aimed at a teen audience), but the movie becomes bogged down with too many contrived incidents, as Starr’s family is pursued by the King Lords, a gang with ties to her father, leading to several clumsily directed scenes that tip from earnest to overwrought. Authentic emotion and outrage mix with histrionics that are the trappings of nearly all material wrung from young adult novels, overshadowing and weighing down the film’s social relevance. 

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS * * * (Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

Tom Waits is a prospector digging for gold in the old west

Anthology films are inevitably, hit and miss. They’re almost designed that way, as a movie comprised of six shorts aren’t usually all of a director’s best work (especially if they’re all from the same writer-director, as this one is). As such, the Coen Brothers’ Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a mostly charming entertainment, a play on classic western tropes in the same way much of their past work can be defined as a play on other genres, like the screwball comedy, film noir, gangster movie, etc. But with their own, unmistakable Coen flavor of course. In this film, many Coen collaborators, along with some new faces, show up to play a part in a western short story- from Tim Blake Nelson as a singing gunslinger, to James Franco as an unlucky bankrobber, to Tom Waits as a crazed prospector. My favorite is the longest, the fourth in a series of six vignettes set in the Old West, starring Zoe Kazan as a naive Oregon Trail traveler who navigates an unbearably polite and practical courtship of a cowboy guide (Bill Heck). Each short offers its own amusements, whether it’s in the reliably quirky and darkly comic Coen dialogue, the gorgeous cinematography shot by Bruno Delbonnel (Inside Llewyn Davis, Darkest Hour) all over the American southwest, to the original music and authentic costumes. You can see nods to every myth of the American Wild West, from what we’ve read in stories to what we’ve seen in classic westerns like Stagecoach and Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Not everything is gold however (the Franco short in particular is rather pointless, and Liam Neeson’s huckster taking advantage of a handicapped man as a sideshow attraction takes too long to get to its payoff), but what is here is done with such artistry and affection for its source inspiration that it makes for a fond, enjoyable diversion.

MIRAI * * * (Dir. Mamoru Hosoda)

Flights of fancy make Mirai something to remember

Mirai, or Mirai of the Future, is a loving, magical realist look at the impact a newborn baby has on a family’s life. Toddler Kun is profoundly affected by the birth of his sister Mirai, and the changes it wreaks on the household, as he loses the constant attention of his parents. As a result he fashions a fantasy world in the courtyard of the family home, where he meets the grown version of his sister, the human version of his dog Yukko, and other relatives at different stages of their lives, both living and dead. Each of them has a lesson to teach him about growing up and learning to accept the changes life brings, and though nothing about the message of this film is particularly new or enlightening, the beautiful images of the handrawn animation still enchant, since this is a style most U.S. studios have completely given up on and that Japan still does so well. Especially memorable is the extended climactic sequence that sees Kun lost in his own mind and trapped in the word of runaway children, an expansive and intimidating Tokyo that would scare the pants off any kid who contemplates running away from home. The scene extends to the exploration of a literal family tree that Kun falls into, given a chance to see the past, present and future of his family all at once. The imagination displayed in these scenes are the unforgettable parts of the movie, the parts that make it stand alone among the great scenes in animation this year.