The Last Jedi (4/5 Stars)

The merit of “The Last Jedi” will be reassessed when the third movie of the new trinity comes out. There are several interesting developments in this movie. The question is whether they are going to lead anywhere. I feel like I have been in this place before. I am reminded of the middle seasons of LOST and “the Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” These were incomplete but intriguing stories. However the later installments could not fill in the holes. This might be the sad fate of “the Last Jedi” too.

For those who have seen “The Empire Strikes Back” many times, the structure of “The Last Jedi” should seem very familiar. Like “The Empire Strikes Back” most of the characters are fleeing the bad guys while one person is engaged in Jedi training. This happens in “The Last Jedi”. Poe, Finn, and the last of the rebellion are fleeing General Hux’s large battle fleet while Rey seek Jedi training with Luke Skywalker. There is a difference however that renders uneven the first half of the movie. Unlike “The Empire Strikes Back” the fleeing characters have no respite from the pursuing forces, like say hiding out in an asteroid field. Thus, it seems like the time period in which the movie takes place is much shorter than the previous film. Although technically this may seem like it would make the movie more exciting, it also makes less sense. After all, Rey’s Jedi training seems to be a week or a month long at the most, whereas it seemed like Luke Skywalker had at least a year in “The Empire Strikes Back.” The movie then would seem to be wielding a rather liberal view of how a person with force abilities would be able to attain the abilities of a Jedi master. There is a decent if not completely satisfying explanation to this and it is one of the more interesting features of this installment.

Like “The Empire Strikes Back”, “The Last Jedi” expands the audience’s understanding of the Force (this is bound to create seas of unrest amongst fans who like religious zealots already believe they know all there is to know about the Force). As Luke Skywalker seems to be explaining it, the Force is not something individuals attain. It is a force that exists within the very fabric of the universe. It has two sides, dark and light, but neither are its natural state, which is a balance. If a Jedi or Sith were to use the Force, the Force would create an opposite to render balance to the universe. A person who wants to use the Force for good, may end up making things worse because to use the light side of the Force is to create a Sith who uses the dark side. Perhaps then the wise thing to do is to not use the Force at all, which is why Luke Skywalker closed himself off from it and exiled himself to the furthest part of the galaxy. Because the only ones using the Force in the world at the time of “The Last Jedi” are the Dark Sith Lord Snoke and the Sith Lord Kylo Ren, a very strong opposite has emerged in Rey, which may be the reason why her training is so very brief. Maybe.

It is hard to tell where a more nuanced understanding of the Force will lead a franchise that is so ingrained in the notion of a fight between good and evil. This episode seems to be deliberately muddying the waters of such a black and white vision. The most interesting and confusing character is Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver) who seems to be oscillating somewhere between the light and dark side of the force, not exactly sure of which path to follow. Where he ends up and whether it makes sense will decide whether this trilogy is a good one.

The least interesting person in the first film, Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) also became more nuanced and interesting in this one. As I mentioned in my review of “The Force Awakens” the Star Wars movies are generally guilty of blockbuster narcissism in which large events are dictated by a few familial connections. However, it is revealed in this movie that Rey does not have a connection with anyone. If Kylo Ren is to be believed, she is a nobody from nowhere. I love that. That is great. It unties Rey from any kind of pre-ordained fate. Kylo Ren seems to feel like he should be a Sith because his grandfather was Darth Vader. However, Rey could probably be whatever she ultimately decides to be. It is impossible for me to tell how her arc in the last film will go.

The “Star Wars” franchise still propels its weird relationship with violence. “The Last Jedi” in particular seems to consider the futility of violence while showing as much of it as possible. The majority of characters introduced in the “The Force Awakens” met violent deaths by the end of “The Last Jedi”. For those looking between the lines, this has the tendency to render the lighthearted moments of these movies in a rude light. Some of the battles feel like World War I suicide missions. At one point Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) decides that it is best to retreat than keep moving forward. He does this after most of his comrades in arms have been blown to smithereens. A decent leader would probably have made the retreat decision before sending most of the army to its death. Furthermore, because there is no policy discussion that would enable the viewer to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, the war may as well be about the colors of their uniforms. In any case, I felt several times in this movie that the good guys should have probably just given up. That may have been the point of this movie, which will be expanded further in the last one. Or the last of the trilogy may simply feature a battle in which the good guys win (like “The Return of the Jedi”). That would be the obvious thing to do, but it would also render stupid all the interesting points that were made in “The Last Jedi.” Like I said before, much is hinging on how all of this is resolved.

The Founder (3/5 Stars)

This movie never really makes up its mind about what it thinks about Ray Croc, the man who franchised McDonald’s, a small family owned chain in Southern California, into a global company. Is he a hero or a villain in this story? Does he represent good things like ambition, persistence, and work ethic? Or does he represent bad things like bullying, cutting corners, and unfair dealing? Or is he half-good or half-bad? I actually think the last one may be closer to the truth, but the movie is ambiguous.

Now the creators of the movie may have felt that keeping the movie ambiguous is a way of portraying Ray Croc in a half-good/half-bad way. But saying nothing about either thing isn’t the same about saying something about both things. “The Founder” would have been a much better movie if its creators were more insistent on having more of a point of view. A much better movie with a very similar plot is David Fincher’s great movie “The Social Network.” That too told the story of a small business that grew into a giant and the collateral damage of early partners it left in its wake. That movie is superior to this one because it was explained to the audience why it was necessary that the collateral partners were pushed aside and explained why that wasn't completely fair, whereas “The Founder” never quite makes the argument that Ray Croc was wrong in how he expanded McDonald’s (he is shown maintaining a great product and giving business opportunites to many hardworking normal people) and never quite makes the argument that Ray Croc was right in how he cut out the original founders, the McDonald’s brothers (Ray Croc’s real estate deals are shown in a slippery manner and the movie blatantly shows the infamous hand shake deal that courts later said couldn’t be proved.)

The lynchpin of the whole thing was a milkshake that didn’t need a freezer. It was an insta-mix. You put it into a glass of cold water and stirred it for a couple minutes. The McDonald’s brothers (played by the perfectly cast Nick Offerman and John Carrol Lynch) balk at this even though Ray Croc and all the other franchisees prove that it will save them a lot of money. What does the movie think? Did the McDonald’s brothers have the right to stop all the other franchisees from saving money with insta-milkshakes? Are the original standards of McDonald’s sacrosanct and not worth the expansion of the franchise? This could be clearer.

Another thing mixed up in this could be clearer. Ray Croc was married to a woman who didn’t share his ambitions. The woman who came up with the Insta-milkshake became his later wife after he divorced the first one. What does the movie think about this? It kind of waffles here too. It is under the impression that the first divorce is not a good thing. But it can’t admit (because I don’t think the evidence is there) that the second marriage was a bad thing. When I watched the “Social Network,” I felt it was making an argument that the company, Facebook, and its success was important enough to warrant hurt feelings and disloyalty to members that weren’t on board with the program of making it the biggest and best thing ever. “The Founder” is in the same position, but doesn’t make the argument. I’m not entirely sure what “The Founder” thinks of McDonald’s. Does it think it should have stayed in San Bernadino? Or does it think it should have expanded across the world? This is an important question because Ray Croc was responsible for the second scenario and he could not have done it with the McDonald’s brothers as his business partners.

Ray Croc is played by Michael Keaton, one of those actors that is sort of beyond definition. He looks white-bread neutral and yet the man has played Beetlejuice, Batman, Birdman, and a police sergeant that moonlights at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and quotes TLC lyrics. He is an off-kilter surreal actor playing in a boring white man’s body. He is perfect for Ray Croc, whose weird enthusiasm and persistence, renders him borderline uncanny valley. That is he looks human but there is something not quite right. Like L. Ron Hubbard, he seems to have brainwashed himself. Early scene of him as a traveling milk-shake salesman has him alone in his hotel room listening to self-motivation records on a loop. It would be nice if the movie had an opinion about that.

The first McDonald’s in San Bernadino looks and feels like a great restaurant. In fact, it reminds me of the best fast food restaurant I’ve ever been to: In-N-Out. The menu is only burgers, fries, and soda/shakes. The quality of the food is great. The people working there are clean cut and well paid. As a mainly Southern California restaurant, the restaurant is airy and people can easily eat outside. Contrast this with your average McDonald’s today. A depressing conglomeration of colors and menu options, all of which contain substandard ingredients, and a general aura of uncleanliness confined in the commercial space of a crowded urban area (at least in NYC). Of course we don’t see what McDonald’s became in “The Founder,” and I really don’t know what the makers feel about what happened.

Wild (4/5 Stars)

Best-selling memoirs based on a solitary exploration of one’s self can be apt for cynical ridicule. Take the example of whoever wrote “Eat Pray Love.” Once I heard that she was paid upfront to write a book about going on an exotic vacation to become enlightment I sort of lost all interest. I mean how can someone plan enlightenment and what kind of enlightment could it possibly be it was already in he works to sell the experience. I can give Thoreou a pass for ‘Walden’ because of its novelty; there was no expectation that it would make money. I can also give a pass to Christopher McCandless from ‘Into the Wild’ because somebody else wrote that story about him. He was not about to share it with the world. Finally I am going to give a pass to Cheryl Strayed whose bestselling book ‘Wild’ was the basis for this movie. The main reason is that even though this is a chronicling of her hike on the 1,000-mile Pacific Crest Trail, the heart of the story is not really about her. It is about the untimely death of her mother, which precipitated in Cheryl a self-destructive cycle of heroin addiction. Her hike and the book she wrote about it was an attempt to for lack of better words, get over it.

This movie was directed by Jean-Marc Vallee and adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby in a surprisingly cinematic way given that Hornby is a novelist (High Fidelity, About a Boy) and not a screenwriter. What is not surprising is that the movie’s writing has a preternatural sense of rhythm to it, one of Hornby’s distinctive strengths. Many lines of story are blended together with the main voyage of the Pacific Crest Hike with flashbacks and past dialogue and music coming in and out in a seemingly unorganized (but actually very probably meticulously organized) way. It feels like you are on a hike. You know, you are walking alone along a path in the wilderness. Everything is quiet but your thoughts and they meander in and out from present thinking, past memories, and the music you are playing in your head. I think Nick Hornby has done a very wonderful job of adapting a story that could easily be stilted and confining into something that feels like a seamless meditation of past, present, and a little of the future. If the book is anything like the movie in terms of structure, I would be very interested in reading it.

Anchoring the movie is Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed. This is one of those roles that basically guarantee an Oscar Nomination if it is done competently. Reese pulls off a competent performance and probably will be nominated. She does two things particularly well. One seems less about acting but deserves some recognition anyway and that is hiking around a movie set in the wilderness with a 50lb backpack. Reese happens to be 5’1” and movie star thin so there is that. The second has to do with being 38 years old and playing a young twenty-something character. This has less to do with having wrinkles than it is about inhabiting a person who is not mature the way that Reese Witherspoon obviously is in real life (a producer of this film actually) and more importantly in the movie roles she generally gets. This is most readily apparent in scenes opposite Cheryl’s mother (wonderfully inhabited by Laura Dern). The mother obviously adored and glowingly remembered by the child, is a bittersweet portrait. After escaping an abusive marriage, she started over with two kids, supported herself, went back to school (at the same high school as Cheryl) and somehow had a good attitude about it all. Then at age 41 she developed cancer. The doctor told her she had a year to live. She died within a month. And Cheryl absolutely grieved off the deep end of her life. This aspect of the story is what allows it to sidestep the memoir trap I mentioned above. Cheryl Strayed was not motivated to experience the journey as a quest of self-fulfillment but as a way to try to recapture the strength of those she had around her and lost. The story is not so much about her as a strong person as it is about the people in her life she drew strength from. And that lack of self-aggrandizement is what makes the commercialization of the story okay.

There is one other aspect of this movie that needs mentioning and it is in direct contrast to the most obviously comparable movie, Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild.” That too was about a person going into the wild alone, meeting new people, and pushing physical limits. One of the main differences though is that “Into the Wild” was about a young man whereas “Wild” is about a young woman. Without seeing this movie I would not have expected the most noticeable discrepancy is the overwhelming fear of sexual assault in the latter. Meeting new people for Christopher McCandless is a genrally pleasant experience. He gets drunk with Vince Vaughn. He talks philosophy with wanderers. He crashes a barbeque of a couple in the Grand Canyon. These same sorts of encounters happen in “Wild” but first Cheryl has to figure out if the person she is meeting is potentially dangerous. This is constant for every meeting. It really distracts away from watching the scenery. I wish it would just be paranoia on the side of Cheryl and almost all of the guys she meets in the movie (and it is mostly all guys on this trail) are totally cool. But then she does meet this one asshole and it turns out that it is a good idea for Cheryl to be cautious all the time. Come on people, this is why we can’t have nice things.

The Master (4/5 Stars)

Good luck trying to brainwash a crazy person.

Suppose you were a charlatan, somebody who falsely claims to have special skills or expertise. Now suppose you were a very ambitious charlatan, not just an ordinary con man peddling nonexistent charity or selling used cars as new, but someone who with the gall to claim access to the divine. Let’s go even further now and head into L. Ron Hubbard territory. Suppose you had the chutzpah to start your own religion and suppose you had the personality and intelligence to actually pull it off on a grand scale. We have gotten this far so we must assume that one of two things is true. One: you are correct about the secrets of the universe. Or two: You’ve got to be some sort of megalomaniacal psychotic sociopath.

This is an important thing to keep in mind as one watches “The Master,” mainly because the sociopath in question, Lancaster Dodd played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in another brilliant characterization, is such a nice, friendly, and warm fellow. He likes singing. He likes dancing and he loves giving speeches. It is easy to forget that he spends the vast majority of his day lying, cheating, and stealing from those who follow him. Lancaster Dodd, modeled after the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, is an evil person. His entire demeanor is a well-rehearsed act played to disarm the senses, gain trust, and to ultimately control his followers. I believe the common term is brainwashing, although how Dodd works is more like hypnosis (don’t tell him that!). The to remember about someone under hypnosis is not that they do not know the truth. They just don’t care. They have intentionally submitted themselves to a fantasy.

In that view it does not actually matter what is the fantasy. A cursory study of the beliefs of Scientology reveal an absolutely ridiculous plethora of science fiction looniness. It boggles the rational mind. Given that Hubbard was not insane, why would he base a religion on something so unbelievable? Think about it this way: What if the ridiculousness of it all was simply a byproduct of an enormous ego. Perhaps the next step in self-glorification from creating a religion that men will follow blindly, is creating an absolutely absurd religion that men will follow blindly. The absurdity grotesquely emphasizes the personal magnetism of the leader. If the Pope can get priests and nuns to give up family and sex for a life of service to God, if Napoleon could get men to die for ribbons and medals and country, what does it say about Hubbard if he can get bank accounts for thetans and other like rubbish? Perhaps that is what makes him truly a Master of men.

The religion in this movie does not actually encompass any of the tenets of “Scientology.” It doesn’t need to; the actual belief system is arbitrary in front of the central conflict between the master's cult of personality and his would-be followers. In particular, one relationship between Dodd and ex-Navy man Freddie Quell, played in erratic fashion by real life crazy man Joaquin Phoenix, is the central driving force of the story.

Freddie Quell is an animal. Possibly suffering PTSD from his service in WWII or simply just crazy, he is an aimless drifter with no friends, family, or money. He starts fights with innocent bystanders, mixes death-defying cocktails with intoxicants such as rocket fuel and paint thinner, and thinks sex in an uninhibited fashion. The man is a walking id. Lancaster Dodd has many bullshit reasons of why he would seek the company of Freddie Quell as a protégé, plenty going under the guise of “helping him.” What this relationship really amounts to however is a vanity project. Lancaster Dodd has successfully brainwashed old rich ladies, several ex-wives, and a small legion of believers, and now he is aiming for bigger game. He wants to be able to control a man who is uncontrollable. Freddie Quell could be the Great White Whale for charlatans. Here is a man who will not join the following for all the usual reasons. He has no family or friends in the group. He does not seek influence over other people. He has no interest in making money (unlike for instance the oilman submitting to a baptism in order to build his pipeline in Paul Thomas Anderson’s last movie, “There Will Be Blood.”) And lastly, he is certainly not affected by peer pressure in any conventional sense. If Freddie Quell joins the following and stays put it will be because he truly believes and that in turn glorifies the controlling power of the Master. Quell may be deranged but he has no lying in him, (which is perhaps what makes him so deranged.)

Boy does Lancaster Dodd throw the book at Quell and gives the man everything he has got. Every scene they have together is a mind-battle between two heavyweights. Perhaps one of the best scenes involves a Dianetics inspired interrogation where Dodd peppers Quell with a multitude of intensely private questions. Notice how Dodd gains the upper hand. Mind control works like ju-jitsu. You can’t win by getting the other person to fight against himself.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s writing is on a level far above the average movie. A character like Lancaster Dodd is so hard to pull off. Take a scene that takes place in a high society party. Dodd is explaining how people have had past lives and are repeatedly incarnated. When they go through “processing” they can recall their past lives and gain insight into their present and future lives. “Processing” can even solve certain types of Leukemia. A man at the party intends to confront Dodd on this point. I think we can all agree that “processing” cannot cure Leukemia and that professing such a belief is absurd if not downright odious. Would it surprise you that Lancaster Dodd wins this argument and wins it handily, leaving the man speechless and embarrassed? It is not movie magic with unrealistic dialogue happening here. The time-travel man wins the debate against the skeptic because he is such an intelligent speaker that he is able to run logical circles around ordinary men on even the most absurd of topics.

Combine that with another strange musical score from Jonny Greenwood (who also did “There Will Be Blood”) and you have one of the most fiercely original movies of the year. Here is to hoping it does not take Paul Thomas Anderson another five years to make his next movie. 

Everything Must Go (3/5 Stars)

Nick Halsey has just been fired from his job of 16 years as vice-president of sales. It wasn’t a problem with his work. It was a problem with his drinking. There may have been an incident with a woman at a conference in Denver. It’s hard for him to explain his behavior because he can’t remember what happened. It seems though, from the way he walks and talks (one part resignation, one part vague guilt mixed in with a measure of self-loathing/pity) that he certainly believes he could have done something bad. On the way home from work he stops by the mini-mart and stocks up on PBR. He intends to drink it as quick as is comfortably possible. The house he comes home to is empty. All the locks on the doors have been changed. All of Nick’s furniture and stuff has been moved to the front lawn. On the door is a letter from his wife explaining that this is the last of these letters. Nick finds his easy chair, plops down on it, and continues drinking. His suburban neighborhood has bylaws that state a yard sale can be held for, at the most, five days. So given the front of selling his stuff, Nick has about that amount of time to hang out on his front lawn, drink some more, and decide whether he has hit rock bottom or if there is still plenty of self-destruction left to go.

“Everything Must Go” is directed by Dan Rush and based on a short story by Raymond Carver. I haven’t read any of Carver’s stuff but after seeing this movie and Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” (itself a very good movie that compiles several of Raymond Carver’s stories), he makes my impossibly long list of books that would be so great to read some day if only it didn’t take so damn long to read books. The movie itself is very much like an elongated short story. It is contained entirely within five days, it takes place almost entirely on Nick’s front lawn, and attention is spent more on small details than big action. The ambition and budget is limited. For what it is, as they say, it is what it is, and as they also say, it does a fine job of doing what it does. There is nothing wrong with “Everything Must Go.” It’s just a small movie. If you are in the mood for that sort of thing, add a star or two to the rating up top.

Nick is played by comedian Will Ferrell in a role that is hard to believe anyone else could pull off as well. The sight of a man living on his front lawn with all his stuff is absurd and the location of this movie, being a suburb in sunny Arizona, lends the movie lots of light, which bounces off all the furniture in bright colored hues. All the lawns around him are bright green. Nick even owns a Tiki Bar and a George Foreman grill. This lends the movie a cheery tone even if its subject is so dreary. Nick isn’t getting drunk in a dark bar like Nic Cage in “Leaving Las Vegas.” He’s out in the open and fresh air. A comedian like Ferrell looks like he belongs in such a situation. And since all of this creates such an expectation of comedy, it is that much more effective as a drama when Ferrell doesn’t try to go for any jokes whatsoever. Sure there may be some witty asides to smile with (especially the talks with a bored kid played by Christopher Jordan Wallace whom Nick hires as a salesperson), but overall this movie takes alcoholism seriously. And watching a funny man that is too drunk to be funny is not funny. It’s especially sad. Even more so when one considers that the irresponsible man-boy characters that Will Ferrell usually portrays would perhaps at one point meet the same fate if they lived in the real world. It has been noted with surprise from many critics that Will Ferrell is a good actor in this movie. I agree but do not take it as a surprise. I can only assume that those critics don’t consider comedy acting as “Acting!” Watch “Old School” again and see Will Ferrell strike some of the same notes he does here. Besides being hilarious in that movie, he also realistically loses both his wife and home to drinking.

I’m sure there are a myriad of reasons why some people drink too much. Nick Hasley here seems to be doing it almost as a self-imposed punishment. A major theme of the movie involves Nick’s quest to find a reason as to why he deserves to be a happy functioning sober person. In this search, he employs the kid, a neighbor who just moved in next-door, played by Rebecca Hall, and his AA sponsor played by Michael Pena. He even goes so far as to contact a woman, played by Laura Dern, he hardly knew in high school and hasn’t spoken to in 20 years. She wrote in his yearbook that she considered him to be a diamond in the rough and suspected him to be nice even though he was a jock. So Nick, because I guess he was curious as to why someone who hardly knew him would think something like that, looks her up and shows up on her doorstep. He says he was just in the neighborhood, but come on, this is the suburbs. Nobody goes anywhere on accident there.   

And here I’m going to now pause and take my geeky liberty to talk about city planning and real estate development. If anyone living in the suburbs decides to watch this movie, please take a special interest in the scene between Will Ferrell and Laura Dern. It is the perfect example of why every house needs a porch. A grown man that just shows up on your doorstep after 20 years is inherently a weird thing. Under no circumstances should that man be let inside the house. This is something Laura Dern conveys quite explicitly in her body language. However, it is perfectly fine to talk to him on the front porch. After all, there is a possibility that he isn’t insane and you still have the ability of being able to walk inside the house and lock the door. Thus, having a porch gives one the ability to talk to strangers without sacrificing privacy or safety. It is elemental to making friends in a neighborhood. This nice conversation could not have realistically happened had Dern not had a porch. Now contrast this with the fact that Nick’s house doesn’t have a porch. In fact, even though this neighborhood is in Arizona, a place with such great weather that porches would be the most obvious things ever, none of the surrounding houses have porches. That is distressingly normal in suburbs that have been built in the last quarter century. What effect this has on the neighborhood is keenly observed in this movie. Take note that the only neighbors Nick has regular conversations with during his five day yard sale is the woman who has recently moved in across the street and the kid on the bike. In my opinion, this is completely realistic. Really, the only time one can strike up a random conversation with a suburban neighbor is the week they move in. After that it is awkward and usually an invasion of privacy. After all, you need a reason to invite yourself into somebody’s living room. Without a porch, taking the initiative to talk to people in the suburbs is more likely to be rude than friendly. The kid by the way doesn’t live in the neighborhood. His mother works there as a home nurse. She can’t afford daycare so she brings him along. He spends his days biking the desolate streets. He talks to Nick mainly out of sheer boredom. That too, I can personally attest, is completely realistic.