Another gloriously beautiful sunny Fall day in Toronto and I had only two films this day. I originally had four films but in my haste to pick films, the times overlapped, so I needed to make changes. My first film was the most conventional studio film of all my picks. Just Mercy is the dramatization of attorney Bryan Stevenson’s first case after graduating from Harvard and instead of moving into a powerful firm, moved to Alabama to take up the cases of men on death row who had been falsely convicted.
Stevenson is played by Michael B. Jordan (“Black Panther,” “Creed” “Creed II”) is a very conventional leading man role. Brie Larson (“Captain Marvel”) plays Stevenson’s assistant Eva Ainsley who helps him get started in his work in the South. Jamie Foxx plays Walter “Jimmy B” McMillan, convicted of murdering a young white girl who at the time was serving time on death row.
This film is director Destin Daniel Cretton’s biggest film to date after having directed Ms. Larson and Woody Harrelson in The Glass Castle (which I’ve never seen). The performances were very good on all sides, and the continued failures to get McMillan acquitted despite obvious evidence of his innocence was frustrating and depressing. In a predominantly white audience, the gasps of outrage and sniffles in the audience showed that the film hit the emotional buttons. However, it was not the most stylistic directorial job. Mr. Cretton and Mr. Stevenson introduced the movie.
The second film of the day was a much lower hyped project. Proxima is the story of a French woman, played by Eva Green, preparing for a one-year space mission to the International Space Station then Mars. Besides Ms. Green as the lead, the film was directed by Frenchwoman Alice Winocour. The film centers on the preparation and the issues that Ms. Green’s character faces as a single mother, interaction with her former partner and with the other astronauts training for the mission.
What was interesting is that even though the film does not cover the mission itself, it was filmed at the training center in Star City Russia where all of the Russian space rockets and training have been conducted for decades. The astronauts finish their training and blast off from Khuzestan, which is the regime that real astronauts going to the international space station endure, even Americans. That of course brought a high level of authenticity to the film.
I liked the film a lot especially handling the male characters. SPOILER ALERT: her ex-partner starts off as the stereotypical “absent dad” being inconvenienced by having to take care of his daughter full time. The other man who starts out as a stereotype is an American astronaut played by Matt Dillon. He starts out as a complete ass who seems to be a bully to the French astronaut and trying to have sex with her. In the end, the partner turns into a good supportive father to the girl and gives support to his ex. Dillon’s character and Ms. Green’s character end up bonding as astronauts on the mission, instead of having either some ham-fisted and unnecessary romance or sexual harassment situation.
I did have one slight disappointment and you may be surprised as to why. Ms. Green has been known as a sex symbol in films like Casino Royale, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and the sequel to 300. She has not been shy to be topless in her movies, and she is beautiful. I did find it a bit odd that there are two shots of her topless although the first one was more in character. She was changing clothes in the same room with the men, leading to a slight comment from Dillon’s character. OK – maybe they do change in the same room and her back was turned so you could only see the side of her cleavage; but more problematic to me was a decontamination shower near the end of the movie with a full topless shot. I thought that this was unnecessary and not even titillating (no pun intended). Maybe I would have had even more of a problem with it if it hadn’t been directed by a woman. Still, a minor point.
Ms. Winocour introduced and had a Q&A after the film. What was interesting is that while Ms. Green was unable to attend, she actually films a short intro apologizing for not being able to attend and welcoming everyone to the film. Nice touch.

When choosing my films, there were a couple of films that I felt I needed to see at all costs. One of mine was “Dolemite Is My Name” the story of comedian Rudy Ray Moore who in the 1970s became the second most popular Black recording comedian after Richard Pryor. Eddie Murphy comes back as Moore, playing a role instead of playing Eddie Murphy and he was very funny. Moore is portrayed here as an entrepreneur of the higher order – making the records himself, promoting the, traveling around adding people to his group of comics, producers and crew.
The story culminates in Moore’s idea to make a film: “Dolemite” during the time of blackexploitation and kung fu films. The scenes showing the making of the film and all of the problems and issues with sets, money, and director D’Urville Martin, a popular character actor in many of the black films of the day, played hilariously by Wesley Snipes.
This film is supposed to get a limited theatrical release then go to Netflix. My suggestion – if you remember Rudy Ray Moore, or are a fan of 1970s black movies and comedy records, see this one way or the other. While Mr. Murphy and Director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) could not attend, Oscar Award Winning Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter did answer questions, With all of the wide 1970s fashion, she did a tremendous job.
My next film was also a comedy and a British one, which means that it was a lock to be on my list. “Greed” is a parody of the fashion industry with Steve Coogan playing the lead. He reminded me of a fashion-type Malcolm Tucker – loud, brash, unpleasant, willing to cut anyone down. Coogan is a favorite of mine due to the Alan Partridge shows and “The Trip” movies with Rob Brydon. Coogan’s Trip director, the extremely prolific Michael Winterbottom directs this. Coogan’s character is throwing himself a very expensive 60th birthday party in part in an attempt to overshadow a government investigation that shows that the man isn’t a genius at fashion, just a corporate raider to buys abd sells and bankrupts stores then moves on having cleaned them out.
The party is being held on the beach by the villa, but there are a number of problems: foreign workers hired because they are cheap find out the Greek workers make more money, then strike; a group of Syrian refugees are living on the public beach next door within sight of the party and Coogan wants them gone; celebrities who promised to show up are cancelling; and there’s the family including estranged wife, kids on a reality show, and a youngest son who is looking for ways to kill his father. Running through all of these stories is the fact that garment workers in third world countries make cents per day while the industry makes billions per year. Paying more to the workers would have little effect on the price of garments, but trims the profit margin.
The film is hilarious and doesn’t bring the message home until the very end, which makes it palatable. A heavy handed message would have turned the film into a polemic which are usually the realm of documentaries. Good news though – after the screen, I went up to Mr. Winterbottom and asked if there were any more “Trips” being planned. He told me that “The Trip to Greece” had already been filmed.
One of the most successful anime films of all time in Japan was Your Name, the story of high school aged kids linked in a strange, almost supernatural way. Director Makoto Shinkai continues focusing on teenagers in his new film Weathering With You. A young runaway from the country comes to Tokyo because he doesn’t get along with his parents and there’s nothing for him in the small town, but on the ship, he nearly dies in a storm and is saved by another passenger. The storm the ship encounters is not rare, it seems that Japan is getting historic amounts of rain. The sun never comes out.
Turns out the passenger has his own ramshackle business and the boy works and lives there with the man and a girl about his age. Eventually, he meets a young girl who befriends him and is taking care of her younger brother with no parents around. The girl finds out that she has the power to make the rain stop in certain small areas for a limited amount of time. Eventually, the two start a business making good weather for parties and weddings.
Obviously heavily influenced by Hayao Miyazaki, Mr. Shinaki’s characters are more linked to the real world, but instead of strange creatures, the kids themselves are trying to manage the real world pressures of being teenagers with the world of the strange. Very well done.

I am a big fan of director Taika Waititi even since the hilarious vampire film “What We Do In The Shadows” and “Thor: Ragnarok,” I was intrigued by his latest film “Jojo Rabbit.” This is a World War II story featuring a 10-year-old being indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth, and he is a true believer. His imaginary friend is a manic Adolph Hitler, played by the director as a mix between Hitler and Bugs Bunny. At the same time, Jojo eventually finds out that his mother (an excellent short performance by Scarlet Johannsen) is hiding a Jewish girl inside the walls of their house near the end of the war
Besides Ms. Johannsen, the Youth leader is played with comedy and heart by the always excellent Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson. The young man at the center of this film, Roman Griffin Davis, holds his own with sincerity and is believable as a young man who finds out that his original beliefs could be wrong. Very funny with moments of sadness and poignancy and tension. It’s a more audacious Inglourious Basterds. I should mention that it won the coveted People’s Choice Award today (For the record, I never vote for any film – just my preference).
It seems like this is a great year for farces, perhaps because of the political situation in the world, especially in the United States. My next film, Bad Education is the story of the largest school embezzlement scandal in American history. The School Superintendent, played by Hugh Jackman who at first looks like isn’t involved, just that he is a closeted gay man. As the story unfolds, Jackman’s character was involved up to his neck, but not as much as the treasurer played by Alison Janney.
As often happens in life and movies, the crime is only discovered through extreme stupidity on the part of Janney’s family. Writer Mike Makowsky was a student at the Long Island school at the time, and he brings a sense of the ridiculous to the proceedings. Jackman and Janney are always good and are here. There is a scene near the end of the movie in which Jackman is at a gay bar with his lover (not to be confused with his spouse who is another man in NYC) and Jackman is grudgingly pulled out on the dance floor and Jackman has to dance arhythmically, which considering his Broadway history and his most recent film “The Greatest Showman” was probably some of the hardest acting he’s ever had to do.
Every year, I see at least one documentary and this year, I saw two. The first, entitled “This Is Not A Movie” refers to the old film “Foreign Correspondent” which had a large influence on journalist Robert Fell, who has been a correspondent in the Middle East for 40 years. In that time, mush has happened in the area: Lebanon war, Israel/West Bank controversy, and of course September 11th. Canadian Yung Chang does a very good job of covering Fell and getting his impressions of the region.
It was good, but it was too long. After awhile, all of the tragedy starts to look alike and while there is an overall theme (needless to say, the U.S. and Israel don’t come off very well historically), I think they could have shortened the sections and still made the same point. Still a good movie, but it could have been tighter and even better.

Even though it is coming to Netflix, I wanted to see “The Two Popes” a fictionalized story from director Fernando Meirelles about the relationship between Pope Benedict, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, and the man who would eventually become his successor, the future Pope Francis played by another acting legend Jonathan Pryce.
Hopkins is the gruff, grouchy traditionalist Pope while Pryce is more liberal. They get their opportunities for debate and discussion, and both men wanted to retire. Of course, only Pope Benedict was able to achieve that. The film was very frank in showing Pope Francis’ history and reasons he didn’t feel that he should be Pope. The same was not done for Benedict’s history other than being called a Nazi by several people.
The two acting legends do a terrific job of playing off each other and not chewing the scenery. It was not a contest and both men came up winners. Worth seeing.
My most anticipated film was “Joker.” As a comic book fan, I had to see this film early given the opportunity and everything you head about the film is true. Joaquin Phoenix does provide the performance of a lifetime, taking Heath Ledger’s Oscar Winning turn on the character in “The Dark Knight” and amplifying it.
I’m sure that if you’ve read anything about the film, you know that it was visually influenced by Taxi Driver and thematically by The King of Comedy. So, they cast Bob DeNiro to play the talk show host who helps push Arthur Fleck, the future Joker over the edge. (I also thought about scenes in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns during these television sequences.
The film was very intense and very disturbing – it can be seen as a manifesto for every deranged loner out there, who is just waiting for a chance to commit a mass murder. However, the film did make an interesting point about making the Joker a symbol to people of a class war. The rioters were shouting “Kill the Rich,” which is an interesting political message. They also linked in the story of Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s father and provides a very interesting view of the double murder of his parents that eventually leads to Bruce becoming Batman.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of “Wasp Network,” the latest film by Olivier Assayas (“Carlos,” “Clouds of Sils Maria”). This film tells the story of Cuban people who are defecting to the U.S. in the early 1990s, but are actually spying on the U.S. government and the Cuban anti-Communist movement in Miami.
Edgar Ramirez, Gael Garcia Bernal play two of the spies; Penelope Cruz and Ana de Armas play the women left behind to pick up the pieces. It was hard to get a read on the film’s position: was it on the side of the spies or of the anti-Communists. At the end of the day, it tried to walk a fine line, which it predominantly did. The weakness was in one character who defected, seemed to be a spy, but was a famous actor who married Ms. De Armas’ character but I was never sure how much spying he actual did, and what his motivation was.
My last film was a documentary that will eventually be on Showtime: “Ready For War” is the story of primarily Hispanic soldiers who, suffering PTSD and other ailments, make bad decisions, get arrested and then deported by the U.S. government. It focuses on three vets: one who runs a place to help deported veterans; a second from here in Chicago who was deported in a very public case; and a third “El Vet” who was recruited by the drug cartels to train and use their military training to kill.
It was a harrowing documentary, well worth seeing.
So, now it’s time for my list of the films I saw from “worst” to “best.” I must say that I saw no bad films this year, making the ranking this year very difficult, but it is tradition for me to do so.
13. This Is Not A Movie
12. Wasp Network
11. Just Mercy
10. Ready for War
9. The Two Popes
8. Proxima
7. Weathering With You
6. Bad Education
5. The Personal Story of David Copperfield
4. Greed
3. Dolemite Is My Name
2. Joker
1. Jojo Rabbit
That’s It for 2019. Thanks for reading. Hope to be back next year.

The problem with not having a great deal of time to blog is that there is a backlog of things you want to write about. So, here are a number of thoughts before Labor Day:
• Cubs fans are in a lather – the Cubs remain solidly in the hunt for the NL Central title or a wild card berth, but they have been very poor on the road until the last series in New York. Chicago fans are notoriously frightened, but I still don’t see, even if they collapse how they can fire Manager Joe Maddon. The guy won a World Series and it’s only been three seasons ago. One would think he’d have a job nearly for life (but I thought the same of Joel Quenneville too…)
• While the men’s side of the U.S. Open remains boring with Djokovic, Nadal and Federer dominating; the women have been a joy, especially the women of color. Besides watching the continued strong play of Serena Williams, Taylor Townsend defeated defending champion Simona Halep yesterday; 15-year-old Coco Gauff continues her magic run at Wimbledon, staying alive at Flushing Meadows. Naomi Osaka, the number 1 player in the world at this time is playing well. It’s going to be a fun weekend/next week.
• The college football season starts in earnest tomorrow despite Florida and Clemson already having played big games. Of course, my attention turns to the Big Ten: will Ohio State continue to dominate in the post-Urban Meyer world (and will Fox Sports college coverage gain from Urban); if they don’t win this year, will Michigan fans turn on Jim Harbaugh; what will the Northwestern offense look like? How good are Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska this year? Time will tell.
• Will it take an act of God for the White Sox to bring up Luis Robert? The season’s over, rosters expand to 40, Robert has torn up all three levels in the Minors. I know that if you keep him down all season, you get another year of control, but, if he blossoms, he will be better adjusted for next season. And if he performs well down the stretch, that means more tickets people will buy for the end of this year and next year, so the money you “lose” with earlier player’s rights will be made up by ticket revenue. You know that Sox fans are wary – give them something to talk about all winter – bring him up!!!
• The NFL season starts for real next Thursday with the Bears and Packers opening the league’s 100th season as befits the first two teams in the league. The Bears question marks are at kicker and QB, but the defense should remain strong. I have written often here (note White Sox management), that sports teams sell fans either wins, or the hope/expectation of wins. Remember three seasons ago when the Bears were bad and there was no reason to watch their games? Fans disguised as empty seats were all over Soldier Field. Now, the fan interest is back, the team in interesting and should be good. I’m ready.

Football at a sport is at an existential point in its history. Head injury under the cloud of CTE has frightened parents into keeping their sons off the playing field. All down the line, high schools down to Pop Warner teams are having serious problems fielding teams. In some high schools, there is no junior varsity team – all players are needed on the varsity teams. (Of course, with athletics being the one semi-realistic dream of the poor, the colleges are still full of terrific athletes.)
On the pro level, more and more players are retiring early. Players with noted intelligence and career paths in medicine, science and the arts are opting out early rather than face the possible debilitation of those skills and ambitions to brain injury. Even if it’s not head injury, the sheer number and severity of other injuries to knees, legs, shoulders, ribs, internal organs are causing players to quit earlier than in the past, The most recent, big name player to come to this decision is Colts QB Andrew Luck.
Luck has not had very much good luck in his career. After taking the league by storm as a rookie, he made 4 Pro Bowl appearances and led the Colts to the AFC Championship Game, losing to the New England Patriots (the infamous “deflate-gate” game). Shoulder injuries, knee injuries, calf injuries (that had kept him out of the 2019 preseason) are among the numerous injuries Luck suffered over the past four seasons. Luck returned last season and led the Colts to a five game winning streak and winning nine of the last 10 games. The Colts upset Houston in the playoffs before losing to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
After that performance, expectations were sky-high in Indianapolis. They were contenders, and with Luck now back, they had a legitimate chance. So, the fans were upset to say the least. They booed Luck when the word got out over social media in the Colts preseason game last weekend. Luck said that he could not handle the continuing ritual of “injury, surgery, rehab” that has been his NFL and personal life the past few years. The fans were also angry about the amount of money Luck has already earned and will keep. Colts owner Jim Irsay’s comment was telling “he’s leaving $500 million on the table. That’s half a billion dollars.” (“No sh*t, Sherlock.” For a billionaire who inherited his money from his father, once again Irsay shows his complete lack of understand of how most people live and think.)
Luck attended Stanford, so he’s not dumb. He now has a wife and child at home, which changes one’s perspectives noticeably. I can understand his decision to leave the game – even with the money, if you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point? He has millions of dollars from football and if he manages his money well, he should be
It’s too bad Colt fans cannot understand.

Everyone is finally admitting that the NFL Preseason is nearly meaningless. They’re not games that count, but the tickets are just as expensive as regular season ones; the starters play very little or not at all to keep them from injury. It appears that the practice of having 4 preseason games will be a hot topic. The players just want to eliminate the games, the owners would love to lengthen the season by 2 games. We will see what happens.
However, the Chicago Bears have taken a very interesting tact, few of the starters have played a down and it appears that they won’t play a down. On defense, this is less an issue – the Bears had a formidable defense last season and all but one starter returns. The biggest question here is how the defensive scheme will change now that Vic Fangio is now head coach in Denver and Chuck Pagano has the job. Still, Pagano’s defenses on other teams were extremely aggressive, which makes we fans and observers less nervous.
The question is the offense, especially quarterback Mitch Trubisky. Despite having a decent season last year, Trubisky did not show himself to be trending toward elite status. A lot of his effectiveness came from his ability to run to get out of trouble. He did not, for my money, show the kind of talent that Andrew Luck or Patrick Mahomes has shown right out of school. It’s not fair to compare Trubisky to other top rookie and second year QBs – the scheme is different and Trubisky is in his second scheme in his short career. Plus, defenses plan to stop running QBs, which leads these players to have mediocre sophomore seasons and sometimes displays their weaknesses to a degree that they are next as good (Robert Griffin III comes to mind). This is not to say that Trubisky is a run first QB or has the natural skill and speed running the football as other QBs.
It’s just that most fans can’t see Trubisky play. Unless you travelled to Bourbonnais for training camp or have some access to the field at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, you haven’t seen more than snippets on the news or on the sports networks. Admittedly, it’s probably not a bad thing to practice against one of the best defenses in the league every day. If you can move on them, you can have success against almost every oher team. By the same token, reports of bad interceptions thrown by Trubisky may be in part caused by that defense which caused more turnovers than any other unit.
But Chicago fans are a nervous bunch. They tend to look for the world to crash around the team. That is why the 1985 team is so revered – their championship cannot be taken away. Especially nerve-wracking is the offense. For decades, the Bears have never had a franchise QB. The last top QB in the league wearing a Bear jersey was Sid Luckman who retired in 1950. The fact that he and the underwhelming Jay Cutler hold most of the teams passing records illustrates the problem. So far, Trubisky has been a bit of an enigma: seems OK, but can we give him the ball with the team behind and be certain that we really have a chance? Will Trubisky ascend to the status of “elite QB” with Rodgers and Brees, or Brady and Wilson?
We as a fan base don’t know. And that makes us nervous.