Battle Hymn (1957)

Battle Hymn aka I Fly By Faith tells the true (though Hollywoodized) story of Dean Hess, a protestant minister and air corps flyer who accidently drops a bomb on a German orphanage during the second world war. This event haunts Hess and later while serving as a flight instructor for Korean troops during that peninsula's war in the early 1950's, he helps to found an orphanage and evacuate hundreds of Korean children to safety from incoming communist forces. Based on Hess's own memoire, the films stars Rock Hudson in the lead role, doing his tortured conscience shtick which he had done for director Douglas Sirk before. This is a nice enough story, its about truly admirable things being done, but as cinema it comes off rather flat, and usually Sirk is able to get more out his material then is really there, here he isn't. One standout however is African American actor James Edwards, who played a lot of serviceman in his career, as Lt. Maples, this is one of the most respectful well rounded roles for a black man I've seen in a mainstream 1950's film. Anna Kashfi, Marlon Brando's first wife, plays the mixed race woman who runs the orphanage, who in real life was fully Korean, but this is a Hollywood movie from the 50's. **1/2

To Hell and Back (1955)

War hero turned (mostly westerns) movie star Audie Murphy plays himself in this film adaptation of his (largely ghostwritten) memoir of the same name. To Hell and Back, after briefly visiting its subjects poor, rural Texas childhood, focuses on Murphy's remarkable military career. With a falsified birthdate the young and relatively small Murphy tried to join, and was rejected by, the marines, the navy, and the army paratroops, before ending up a grunt in north Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. The young solder excelled and gained confidence, eventually earning a battlefield commission as well as every possible commendation for bravery the army offered at the time, along with awards from the French and Belgian governments. He took risks, and he did so to save the lives of his friends, seeing some of the things he did its amazing to think they actually happened. This is an inspiring story well told, a tribute to what was best about mid century America, as well as a massive box office hit. I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to any WWII movie fan who hasn't seen it yet. ****

Incredibles 2 (2018)

Incredibles 2 is the long delayed hit sequel to the 2004 Pixar hit The Incredibles. That 14 year gap is so noticeable that the cast and director address it head on in a small prolog before theatrical showings of the film, mostly just saying  'yeah, we get its been a long time, we hope you agree it is worth the wait'. (Also before the film is a short called Bao, which isn't going to make much sense at first but give it time). I kind of wish I'd re-watched the first film before seeing the second as the action begins just where it ends in the original, with an attack on the city by The Underminer (catch phrase: "I'm always beneath you, but nothings beneath me."). The fall out from the battle leads directly to the cessation of the ex-superhero protection program which places Bob (Craig T. Nelson) & Helen (Holly Hunter) in potentially dire economic straights.

Help comes shortly thereafter when the couple, along with Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) are approached by media tycoon brother and sister Winston (Bob Odenkirk) & Evelyn (Catherine Keener) Deavor. The Deavor's want to change the law to make superhero's legal again, however they decide that Elastigirl not Mr. Incredible is their best bet to make that case to the public. Therefore while Helen is out fighting the good public relations fight, Bob is at home having misadventures with the kids, the funniest of which involves Jack Jack and a rather persistent raccoon (Disney has had a lot of success with raccoons lately, I wonder if they can find a way to work one into Star Wars).

The narrative eventually takes shape around a plot to spoil the superhero's eventual reintroduction into the world, this is merely adequate for story purposes, the characters and humor carry the movie. While the original film was taken up by many conservatives for its 'when everybody is super, no one is' message, taken as a critique of liberal prejudice against remarkable people (which I don't 100% buy but that's another matter), Incredibles 2 is kind of slack on the social commentary front. The closest it comes is Bob's laminations against 'The New Math', "Why would they change math?". This seems a little past its prime observationally, but I suppose is also in keeping with the Incredibles mid-century modern aesthetic. Which begs the question, is this franchise suppose to be set in the early 60's? Certainly the cars, and the clothes and such look it, but they've also got hover trains and things. Anyways Incredibles 2 was probably worth the wait, I enjoyed it, it just wasn't as good as I had hopped it would be. ***

Isle of Dogs (2018)

With Isle of Dogs director Wes Anderson returns the retro stop motion animation style of his 2009 film Fantastic Mr. Fox. I was concerned this movie might just feel derivative of the earlier work and run out of steam, but it held its own, I'd say it's probably even better then the previous film. Isle of Dogs is dry, funny, idiocentric and quirky (the human characters mostly talk Japanese, sometimes untranslated, while the Dog's  speak English). There are a heck of a lot of characters in the thing, most of them neurotic, and they are voiced by a range of celebs from Bryan Cranston to Yoko Ono. In short it is a Wes Anderson film, and if you are open to his particular sensibilities, lightly Disneyfied,  you should enjoy this, if your instinctual reaction to hipsters is to punch them, you still might like this. I recommend, but note the PG-13 rating. ***1/2

First Reformed (2018)

I had not actually seen a trailer for First Reformed until after I saw the movie. I had read a review of the film and thought it sounded interesting, I find that movies that take the subject of religion seriously are rare and generally worth seeking out. I was surprised by First Reformed and found it took some directions I was not expecting it to take, so you may or may not want to watch the trailer (or even read this review, though I'll keep spoilers to a minimum) because you'll have a different experience of the movie if you go in mostly unaware.

I tend to think of the film as having two parts, the first was more what I was expecting, the 2nd was not. Roughly the first half or so of the movie has an awful lot in common with one of my all time favorite films, the 1963 Bergman masterpiece Winter Light. The two films share so many central elements that Paul Schrader's film is obviously intended as homage. Both films center on pastors of small congregations in the snowy north of their countries. Both pastors wives are gone, in Winter Light through death, in First Reformed through divorce. Both pastors are in existential crises, both have had affairs with women in there congregations, both of these women look alike and are more interested in the pastor then he is in them, and in each case the pastor kind of hates the woman. Both pastors are called upon by women in their congregations to provide council for husbands who have become obsessed with a pending end of the world, in Winter Light that concern centers on the prospect of nuclear war, in First Reformed ecological disaster through corporate greed and short sightedness. In both films the pastors do not feel themselves up to the task, though they still try.

If you look at the credits of First Reformed's writer and director Paul Schrader you will find the subject of obsession, both religious and secular to be probably his most consistent cinematic theme in both his writing and his directing over 40 years, Obsession (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The Mosquito Coast (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Autofocus (2002), even Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005). However the film that First Reformed is most often compared to here is Taxi Driver (1976), and if you are familiar with that film the reasons for this will be made obvious in the viewing of this one. While psychological portrait is central to what this film is, and Ethan Hawke in the lead reminded me just what an underpriced actor he is, the film is also a eulogy for the decline of religious faith in American life.

Hawke's Rev. Ernst Toller is the pastor of First Reformed Church in Snowbridge, New York, a pre-revolutionary war structure gearing up for its 250th anniversary, and long of more interest as a "tourist church" then a place of spiritual community. Even the associated Abundant Life Church, more modern and evangelical in its sensibility, sports an anemic youth choir, and though we only see it on weekdays seems more then anything like a business far past its peak. The religious interest of many in the film seems mundane and work a day, and those really struggling for meaning, including the pastor, seem to have a hard time finding it in faith.

A gorgeously stark film, imitating Bergman's cinematography of quite nature shots, long head and upper torso shots (which have an oddly haunting effect on a big screen), and playing unusually long stretches of conversation out with minimal camera movement. The score often has the quality of an electrical hum, at first almost subliminal but building. The sense of mounting tension and dread to the piece is magnificent. Amanda Seyfried and Cedric (The Entertainer) Kyles are also quite excellent in supporting parts, each understated in their own way. First Reformed is not the kind of movie you expect to see in the summer, to me it was perhaps the greatest experience of cinematic surprise I've had in a theater all year. It left me a little dumbstruck.  ****

Wake Island (1942)

The Paramount release Wake Island was showing in U.S. theaters in August of 1942, it is about a battle that happened in December of the previous year. One of those early War pieces of Hollywood propaganda that was rushed into production, you can almost see the seems in the thing, its slap dash but was meant to fulfill the role not only of cashing in on the war, but of energizing public support for it. While there is not a lot of depth to the portraits we see on screen, the characters are more types then real people, we like them and they are martyred before our eyes. While hundreds survived the battle no one survives the film, which is an interesting decision because of it what it says about how the war was framed for the public, it needed to be worth dying for. Most of the performances here are bland, but Robert Preston and William Bendix have a workable buddy comedy thing going on. **

On Chesil Beach (2018)

When I read the novel On Chesil Beach a number of years ago their was a scene where I so disagreed with a characters decision that I threw the book down in frustration. That is the only time I can remember having an emotional reaction of that physical intensity to a work of literature. So I steeled myself ahead of time for this film version. It is the story of a virginal couple on their wedding night at hotel on Chesil Beach in England in 1962. Florence (Saoirse Ronan, who interestingly made her first big impression on the screen in the adaptation of another McEwan book, Atonement in 2007) came from a wealthy but distant family of the upper classes, who other then her sister she could never really relate to, while her husband Edward (Billy Howle) came from an aspiring family of lower class roots, his father a headmaster at a small school, his mother mentally unhinged for as long as he's known her.

The couples making it to this moment is quite an accomplishment in its self, much stood in the way of their ever being together. While the bulk of the framing story takes place over a period of around six hours, we see the journey this sympathetic couple took through flashbacks. One of the things I love about McEwan's writing is a tendency to digression, it's seeming meandering, but its meticulous filling of the gaps, and even more intentional leaving of ambiguities in the narrative. Since the author is adapting himself here, his 2007 novella of the same name, the films feels very organic, very true to its source material. But the ability of the movie to succeed lays almost entirely on the leads, and both Ronan and the lesser known Howle are up to the task, giving generally subtle, and at times quite moving performances.

This is a beautiful, sad movie, I found it quite affecting. The story uses its historical setting, and sympatric young leads to evoke ideas of innocence. Yet McEwan being McEwan he wants to explore the ambiguity in that innocence, its perils and its promises. Those paths which are taken and those that are not. What the world may have gained through sexual liberation, and what through the coarsening of those mores it may have lost. It is about love, and context, and circumstance, expectations and mistakes. It finds a power there that can still stagger. ****