Hawkeye (2021)

Jeremy Renner finally gets his due. Is a 300 minute miniseries more prestigious than a feature film nowadays? Maybe. I think he probably got a longer end of the stick than Scarjo did with Black Widow. In the grand scheme of the Marvel Universe, this is probably not that important, but I think that's what's so refreshing about it compared to the complex Loki. They can go small. What they created is a Christmas movie, or an extended Christmas episode. It's designed just to make you smile and it does the trick. Christmas in New York is magical, isn't it? Hailee Steinfeld is fabulous as Kate Bishop, the rare Hawkeye fan who was inspired to pick up archery and becomes something of a hero in her own right. There is a deaf played by Alaqua Cox. Following the success of The Sound of Metal and CODA, it was a pleasant surprise to see a deaf character thriving in the hearing world, and multiple hearing characters signing to her, entering her world, handicapping themselves for her benefit. There is also a pretty good gag (prediction?) about a Marvel musical. Maybe they forgot about the Spiderman musical. The song and choreography are painfully accurate; I can see it transitioning to Broadway for real and succeeding.

Green Book (2018)

Green Book is a good movie thanks to the strength and charm of its leads, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen. To be clear, Mortensen plays the very stereotypically Italian lead though he's the less interesting character. I think Ali actually doesn't get enough screen time because he's so good. I thought there would be more piano. And more Green Book but it barely even features. But the movie is much more about the alleged friendship between Tony Lip and Don Shirley. It's a pretty conventional story. In fact, so conventional that we've seen it before in Driving Miss Daisy.

The Founder (2016)

This movie tells the story of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's--that's not McDonald's the restaurant, but McDonald's the chain. It was a very interesting story that I didn't know about, a story of American business. It is really specially American. Ray Kroc essentially steals the idea and runs with it. He's concerned with money and money only. Who's the hero in this movie? I don't think it really glorifies American business. Michael Keaton does not play a particularly likable character. And his character does despicable things in the name of greed. And really, we have him to thank for America's fast-food reputation. Fast food could've been tasty and fresh and still fast if the McDonald brothers had any say. They were about quality control. Where is that now?

And the movie is really all about business. Ray's personal life is totally secondary. Laura Dern's role is very small. She plays his wife. And as their marriage falls apart, we don't really get to much insight. His second wife features in a few scenes. But we don't really see their relationship develop. It's all business all the time.

The best scene is the one in which the McDonald brothers explain their brilliant concept to Ray Kroc. There is a great rhythmic cadence to the scene that has excitement and momentum. It's really magical how they build their restaurant from the ground up bringing a new restaurant design and concept to the world. The brothers have fantastic awkward chemistry with each other, co-telling this story. The scene works really beautifully.

Welcome to Me (2014)

This movie was very strange. Just listen to the premise: a woman with borderline personality disorder wins the lottery and uses her winnings to buy a talk show.  She basically aspires to be Oprah. How do you make a personality disorder funny? Leave that to Kristen Wiig.  This movie has the same feel as The Skeleton Twins--it is sort of slow, has its moments, but drags in the middle. Wiig lives in a casino for some reason, has some weird obsession with swans, and she silently, uncomfortably stares into the camera a lot.  Basically, her character is pretty crazy and Wiig just runs with it. It's so ridiculous that it just barely works. This only works because of her, and Joan Cusack is pretty funny too.