The House With the Clock in its Walls (2018)

I describe this as a kid-friendly fantasy thriller. And so it is appropriate that the IMAX screening is preceded by Michael Jackson's Thriller, in new glorious 3D. Michael Jackson is good fun and the transformation scene in 3D is actually really freaky. The whiskers shoot out in 3D!

As for the main event, the movie is well-acted and cutely cast. If you like Young Sheldon, you'll love Lewis. Man, this kid is Sheldon-level weird, a social outcast. His potential friend Tarby is a real stereotypical greaser character. The school is really remarkable in how retro it feels. Cate Blanchett is divine. She really acts like she wants an Oscar no matter what the role is. And Jack Black is perfect for kids movies. He blends just the right amount of humor and charm. The movie is really quite fun overall.

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Sorry to Bother You is a wickedly funny dark comedy. The social commentary in the film is bold and brilliant. The premise of the movie as seen in the trailer is absurd in itself. LaKeith Stanfield plays a telemarketer who has to put on his white voice in order to be taken seriously over the phone. His white voice is non other than David Cross, Tobias Funke himself who sounds supremely white. From there, the movie takes several unforeseen left turns through organized labor, modern slavery, human experimentation, and communism. The movie is genuinely scary at times because we see this absurd alternate world that is not-all-that-far from our own reality. We are slaves to a system of exploitation for profit without regard to human rights or dignity--not to mention the millions of people that live in actual slavery.  This vision of the world we live in is so dark that you can't help but laugh out of pure discomfort. 

Eighth Grade (2018)

Eighth Grade is an excellent coming-of-age dramedy by first-time director Bo Burnham, best known for stand-up comedy. Burnham's astute and sensitive take on modern adolescence is refreshing and dare-I-say spot on. Elsie Fisher, just fifteen years old, brilliantly plays Kayla. The cadence of her speech, simultaneously unsure and forcibly confident, full of 'likes' and 'ums', is so realistic.  She sounds so natural. The audience gets to see both sides of Kayla. We see her private persona, introspective, incisive, thoughtful and confident. We see her try to better herself in public, forcing herself to emerge from her shell. We see her nerves and excitement.  It's a must-see, especially for high schoolers not-far-removed from their own eighth grade experiences. I was also very impressed by the use of music, with accented beats pushing the movie forward. Enya's Orinoco Flow is used to great effect, an unusual choice that pleasantly surprises.

Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

Searching for Sugar Man is an incredibly unlikely story. It's a tale of what-could-have-beens. Rodriguez is a musician from Detroit of immense songwriting talent and a good voice to go with it. He released an album in the late 60s that did not do well in the United States. Unbeknownst to him, his music was the soundtrack of a generation of Afrikaaners. On the other end, the Afrikaaners knew little about Rodriguez, just that his music spoke to them. Rodriguez has been living a normal life out of the spotlight. The documentary is one-part history, one-part investigation, one-part revelation, and all parts humanity itself.

Searching (2018)

The innovation in storytelling in Searching is that the entire film is told on screens. I was a little misled; the execution of the episode of Modern Family in which the episode is told entirely on a single computer screen is the high standard. Searching is not just on computers, it is also on TV news, security cameras, CCTV, etc. I was a little bothered by the reliance on news stories to tell the story. I understand that it is a commentary on how modern personal tragedy can easily blow up on the internet and all over the news. But the external attention also detracts from the personal nature of the conflict between father and daughter that most interestingly drives much of the drama. Similarly, I feel like the gimmick of the screens sort of detracts from what is an excellent thriller. Oftentimes, we're watching John Cho talk on the phone through the webcam on his computer. There's no particular reason for this. Many of the shots look forced because of this "screen requirement." John Cho is great, as always. And let's just take a quick moment to acknowledge the Asian American cast with standard American accents acting in non-specifically-Asian roles. That is a quiet revolution right there, though it took an Asian director to do so. More of that!

Simon of the Desert (1965)

I don't think I got it. It wasn't as surreal as his other works that I'm familiar with. It wasn't even obviously satirical to me. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. Though that cut in the end is pretty funny if it's meant to be. Rock 'n' roll is the devil's music.

A Ghost Story (2017)

The cinematography is beautiful. The soundtrack is beautiful. The aspect ratio works. That one monologue is delivered at such an impactful pace, constantly moving forward, and deeply spelling out the point of the movie. That all said, damn is this movie slow and boring. I'm impressed as anyone that Rooney Mara ate a whole pie, but it does not make for interesting footage. I also can't stand Casey Affleck, even under a sheet when you can't see him. It is beyond me how he won an Oscar; he literally just plays his own low-energy self in this role and in the one that won him an Oscar.

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Starting with the message, I think this film is a perfect example of historical dramatization usable as a primary source on the period in which it was produced. Spike Lee, never one for subtlety, is very on the nose about calling out Trump, featuring all his favorite slogans and footage of the man himself at the very end. So not only is the movie thematically poignant, it is necessary as blatant white supremacy rears its ugly head in public.

The style is not obviously Spike Lee. By no means is it slow, but it doesn't have the kinetic forward energy that pushes along some of his earlier works. There are some tinges of blaxploitation, alluded to directly. There are experimental cuts and edits that are a little too film school for someone so experienced--the floating heads watching Stokeley Carmichael's speech are sort of strange, the titles over the Charlottesville footage look a little childish (or rushed? as if the titles were so insignificant he just used the default in the editing software). The allusions to Birth of a Nation are obvious, but the opening scene from Gone with the Wind followed by Alec Baldwin's un-polished monologue are unusual directorial choices. I love the use of music. The main theme sounds exactly like an undercover cop soundtrack stereotype. There are also some tracks of more rah-rah Saving Private Ryan-esque music used subversively. The 1970s dialogue and costumes are right on. If not for that, well, it could have been 2018.