Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Good Tomb Raider. Bad script. Run Lara, run!

You would be hard pressed to find a more perfect Lara Croft than the muscle ripply, super athletic, perfectly skin toned Alicia Vikander. And she does a pretty good job of bringing Lara Croft to the screen. Sadly, there’s not much of a story for her to work with to really shine through. What you have with “Tomb Raider” is a shoestring plot designed to progress Lara from scene to scene where she is either chasing or, much more often, being chased. Some of those scenes are pretty darned cool, like the bike chase scene at the beginning for instance, but most are of the lackluster “look at me, I’m running through the jungle!” type. What this movie really needs is Jackie Chan choreographing the chase scenes. Now THAT would be a movie well worth watching.

The progression of the movie is as follows: Lara finding herself, lots of fun! Lara going on her mission, eyerolling because every problem would have been easily solved by ubiquitous technology. Lara arriving, eyerollingly damsel in distressy, Lara finally getting down to some Tomb Raiding, enjoyable. The movie ending, wow, that was about the laziest set up for a sequel I have ever seen.

What’s equally disappointing is Vikander has some pretty solid backup and they’re wasted too. Dominic West of “The Wire” fame finally gets to use his natural British accent as Lara’s father, Richard Croft, but is pretty lackluster in the role. Then there’s the villain, Mathais Vogel, who is played by one of the greatest villain portrayers of all time, Walter Goggins, but his entire raison d’etre is diluted to “I just want to get off this island”.

In the right hands, the Vikander led “Tomb Raider” vehicle has some great promise. These are not the hands we are looking for. There is just enough enjoyment in this movie to make it passable, but there’s certainly not much to make it recommendable. Unless, of course, like the video game it’s based on, you’re just in it for Lara Croft.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Not an easy book to translate to a movie, but a reasonably good job was done. A little too much CGI fluff for my taste.

“A Wrinkle in Time” was probably my favorite novel growing up. I have read it countless times. Meg was my first literary crush. So when I found out a movie version was coming out, I was excited! I didn’t have high hopes, of course, because how in the world do you turn “A Wrinkle in Time” into a movie? But still, excited. What would they do? Who would they cast? How will they mess it up? The answer to the latter is they did about as good a job as can be expected for such a complex, idea driven book. Still doesn’t make it a good movie, though.

My biggest complaint about what they did was throw in way too much useless CGI scenes into the movie. All at the expense of taking out actual story lines! There was no Aunt Beast! How can you get rid of Aunt Beast!? I have read that they actually shot the Aunt Beast storyline and decided to remove it to preserve the mood of the movie. A poor decision in my mind. The rest of the movie wasn’t even good enough for me to care at this point if they ever do release an uncut version. Ok, that’s probably not true. I’ll still probably hunt down the Aunt Beast scene and watch it.

As for the casting, it’s pretty solid. Meg (Storm Reid) was much of what I thought Meg would be. Perhaps not quite mousy enough, but her stubbornness and insecurity shown through wonderfully. I couldn’t even begin to have an opinion on how you cast the three Mrs.’s, but Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) were about as good of an interpretation as I can come up with. Mrs. Witch (Oprah Winfrey) was…meh. There was always a lot of mysteriousness wrapped up in Mrs. Witch, even fear, but instead we get a benevolent giant Oprah Winfrey. Calvin (Levi Miller) was pretty spot on. Charles Wallace (Denc McCabe)? Way off! Well, that’s not true. The IT possessed Charles Wallace was awesome! Regular Charles Wallace was way too cheery. His weirdness was there, but he just wasn’t weird enough. He exhibited more emotion that I pictured the book character to be capable of.

There is not a lot to recommend for the movie version of “A Wrinkle in Time” unfortunately. I’m not even sure there’s much to recommend for children. It doesn’t have the feel of a good children’s movie. That’s not to say the movie is bad. It’s fine. It’s just adrift in that weird Black Thing where it doesn’t quite fit categorizing.  There is still lots to recommend for the book, though! Go read that instead. Then read the other books in the series. Then read them again!

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A psychological experiment disguised as a tense thriller.

It is very difficult to come up with words to describe “Annihilation”. The only word that comes immediately to the tongue is mind-fuck. Those of you who are hoping for a classic sci-fi movie, be warned, this is definitely science fiction, but of the variety that uses its genre to tell a story that is mostly not science fiction. Yep, this is a thinker. It deals more with relationships and loneliness and loss and mortality and mental health and the definition of self. There is a lot going on here and it moves pretty quickly with ideas being thrown at you at a pace that is hard to keep up with. Perhaps that was intentional.

The story is wrapped around an extraordinary event. A meteor strikes a lighthouse and throws up a Shimmer around the lighthouse. Meanwhile, Lena (Natalie Portman), a former soldier and now a biologist, is in an almost fugue state over the disappearance her husband, Kane (Oscar Issac), who was on a secret military mission. A year after he left for the mission, he mysteriously shows back up at their house with no recollection where he’s been or how he got back. If you think it may have something to do with the Shimmer, you win a prize!

The Shimmer is beautiful and hypnotic and scary.  So much thought went into designing its otherworldly vibe. It is accompanied by a soundtrack that is half haunting acoustic guitar and half industrial gutturals. It is interspersed with moments of effective terror. The denouement has one of the trippiest extended sequences you will ever see in a movie.

The two movies are not the same, but I was very much reminded of “Arrival” when watching “Annihilation”. Both take extraordinary science fiction events and weave a story around them. Whereas “Arrival” was more about communication and language, “Annihilation” is more about states of mind and psychology. It is a very strange movie, though. Much stranger than “Arrival”. Which makes it very difficult to whole-heartedly recommend. Much like the material involved, this is more of a know thyself decision.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Good story. Good villain. Good design. Good god go see this movie.

You don’t necessarily expect a Marvel movie to have depth to it. You go in expecting a fun little story with some comedy and wonderful visuals woven around some impossibly strong beings with imaginative backstories fighting a one-dimensional villain that is used to push the plot. “Black Panther” completely breaks the mold by combining all of the best elements of all the movies and intertwining them with legitimate and deep social commentary.

Wakanda is an extremely reclusive, technologically superior, and imaginary African country run by a monarch which practices a policy of non-intervention with the outside world unless Wakanda’s immediate interest is concerned. Wakanda has the resources and the expertise to help those around them, they just decide not to in order to preserve their way of life. Wakanda’s newest monarch, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is theoretically amenable to changing that fact, mostly because of the influence of his girlfriend, Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o). Wakanda’s isolationist tendencies come back to bite them when a poor decision by the previous monarch shows up in the form of Eric Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) to reclaim power from T’Challa. Killmonger runs on a campaign of Wakanda First with a side of Make Wakanda Great Again and wrests control from T’Challa.

Eric Killmonger is probably the best single-shot villain that Marvel has ever produced for a movie. His story is a bit over the top, but his ambitions make sense and his motives are clear. Plus, he’s kind of right except for the whole “enslave the world” thing. It is absolutely irresponsible of Wakanda to sit in absolute comfort while those around it suffer. Killmonger rips that conceit right open while showing the dark half of the interventionist spectrum. He also exposes the fact that blind loyalty to tradition can have chilling and devastating effects. Not bad for a Marvel villain day’s work.

“Black Panther” is also spectacularly beautiful from start to finish. The costume designs are exactingly perfect and if the people behind it do not win an Academy Award, it is a true travesty of movie justice. They pay homage to so many African traditions and put a futuristic spin on each. The graphics, too, are outstanding. Wakanda is a stunning blend of traditional design with technological elements. Afro-futurism at its best. All this is also tied together by a steady backbeat of a melange of African and Hip Hop. Basically, the entire movie exudes so much cool, you’d expect to see Jidenna traipsing in the background of each scene. Excuse me for a second while I go watch the “Classic Man” video.

I am guessing most of the arguments around “Black Panther” will be whether it is the best or second best Marvel movie ever made. Other’s number one and number two picks will vary, but “Black Panther” will be either or in just about everybody’s estimation. Except racists. And I’m not saying you’re necessarily a racist if “Black Panther” isn’t in your top two, but you’re on the same side as racists. That’s all I’m saying. Regardless whether you’re racist or not, you should definitely go and see “Black Panther”.

I would be remiss if I did not mention how culturally significant “Black Panther” is. I went to a 10:40 AM show, which is usually populated by my brother and myself and a couple of older folk who have been awake since 5 AM. This showing was in the largest theater and was probably about 80% full. And while the showing is usually predominantly White,, this was easily majority Black. I have never seen so many Black teens at a movie in my life. There was also a fairly large showing of older folk, some dressed in traditional African garb! It was a delightful movie watching experience made even better by the diverse audience. Maybe Hollywood is finally coming to realize that there is a massive audience for well made and minority led movies.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars

Bottom Line: Being better than everyone means nothing if they don’t want you in their club. The press is horrible. The 24 hour news cycle is toxic. You are also horrible. This movie tells you all of that in a really funny and entertaining way.

All of you probably know of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie), but do you really KNOW Tonya Harding? Probably not. Even “the incident”, which was played ad nauseum and is the only reason most people even knows of Tonya Harding, has a different retelling for just about everyone who “remembers” it. “I, Tonya” retells her story fairly and respectfully and hilariously using much of the real words of the real individuals. The hilarity stems mostly from the fact that everyone involved with Tonya was a complete moron and incapable of doing anything right. Except her mom, LaVona Golden (Allison Janney). She is a straight devil. But also hilarious in ways that should make you cringe when you know this movie character is a real person.

This film is superbly acted and both Margot Robbie and my super crush Allison Janney deserve their nominations. Especially Allison Janney. Even Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gilooly probably deserved a best supporting actor nomination. The other Oscar nomination is for best editing and again, very deservedly so. The film is shot in a mocumentary style very fitting for its comedic story. The director also makes judicious use of breaking the fourth wall. Editing for a film like this has to be exacting in order to make the shots both believable and seamless. All the more amazing is the fact that the movie really tackles some serious social issues like class and domestic violence and the media and you. Yes you. You are a horrible person.

You can’t help but feel a little sad for Tonya Harding after watching “I, Tonya”. She was dealt a horrible hand. Bad family. Bad husband. Not too bright. Entire U.S. Figure Skating association against her solely because of her background. Her entire life was pretty much destroyed and she probably didn’t deserve to be for the sins she committed. But could she skate! She was probably the single best skater in her time. She was the first American woman to land the triple axle jump in competition. To understand how rare that feat is, she did that in 1991. The first woman to land a triple axle in the Olympics just did so in 2018. Only eight women total have accomplished this feat. So yeah. Big deal.

It is rare to come out of a movie and feel so delighted. And guilty. But mostly delighted. “I, Tonya” is easily one of the best movies of 2017 and probably will be up there for 2018 as well. Get to the theaters while you can and if you miss it, be sure to subscribe to whatever streaming service picks up this gem.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: An appropriate movie released at the appropriate time given current events. A strong press is essential for a strong democracy.

Do you know who Daniel Ellsberg is? Well you should. It is a shame that his story is not on the tip of the tongue of every American. He exposed top secret documents exposing decades of lies and misinformation across four different Presidential administrations. You may know those documents as the Pentagon Papers. Those papers prove that we were in Vietnam for as long as we were mostly just to save face and say we have not lost a war. We sent children to die and we killed children just so we would continue to feel good about ourselves. Sure, some would consider Ellsberg a hero while others would consider him a traitor. And sure, every whistle-blower from Edward Snowden to Chelsea Manning probably did what they did with Ellsberg’s legacy in their minds. But Ellsberg taught us important lessons: A strong Executive branch is exceedingly dangerous and a robust and fearless press corp is democracy’s best check against a strong Executive branch when the Legislative branch colludes with the Executive branch. HAHAHA! I’m just kidding. We’ve learned nothing. We still love our bullies and sociopaths and our press is at best ineffective and at worst complicit.

“The Post” tells the story of Daniel Ellsberg. Well, not really. “The Post” tells the story of how weird and incestuous the press can be with politics and how even something as groundbreaking as the Pentagon Papers almost never saw the light of day partly because of that incestuous relationship. The heart of the story follows Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), the owner of the Washington Post and a woman in a good ole boy’s club. Her husband was the previous owner and she took over after his suicide. She is just taking the Post public in order to raise some money to afford some good reporters to produce good news. During all this, the Pentagon Papers falls in her lap and she has to juggle the opposing interests of her friends, like Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood), her board, her investors, and her newsroom and decide whether to publish the Papers or not.

Meryl Streep absolutely steals the show and Kay Graham is an incredibly interesting character. I don’t know how true to life Streep played Graham, but all the lilts and affectations and conflicting emotions and strengths that Streep portrays Graham as having make her very worthy of the nominations she has received for this role. She is helped by Tom Hanks as Bob Bradlee, the executive editor of the Post. Watching the two of them butt heads is a delight. It is a spectacular cast all together, but Streep is easily the star.

This being the only of the Best Picture nominees I have seen, I can’t really say whether it should win or not, nor can I say whether it deserved the nomination given the field it was up against. What I can say is that “The Post” is well worth your time for its history and its story and its acting and for the mirror it shines onto present events.