"Pressure" - What do you know about pressure?

Does anybody actually like talking about the weather? I don't mean extreme weather like tornadoes or blizzards. I mean the kind of weather that dominates almost all small talk, especially after your older relatives run out of personal ailments to describe to you in excruciating detail. I'm sure you've been on a call with someone and they inevitably asked "How's the weather out there?" Ugh. Hearing that question makes me cringe the same way as when someone says "are we having fun yet?" as they walk past me in the hall at work. So...let's talk about Pressure, an entire movie centered on talking about the weather.

Ok, Pressure isn't just one hundred minutes about of a bunch of guys talking about the weather. It's one hundred minutes about a bunch of guys arguing about the weather. I realize that sounds as boring as a graduation ceremony or the movie Fences. But they aren't arguing about just any weather. They are arguing about the weather expected for Operation Overlord, a.k.a. D-Day. That's much better than listening to your uncle describe how the rain makes his knees hurt.

I've said in the past how much I appreciate movies that depict historical events, especially events I know nothing about. Pressure is one such movie - I had never heard that D-Day was postponed by one day, let alone that it was postponed due to weather forecasts. Dr. James Stagg (Andrew Scott) is tasked with leading a team that would gather weather data and provide a weather forecast for the invasion day to General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser). This was no small responsibility, as the invasion included paratroopers, naval landings, and air cover - all of which could be led to catastrophe in bad enough conditions. Conditions like high waves, high wind, dense cloud cover. During a scene depicting a meeting between Stagg, Eisnehower, and several other high ranking military leaders, all will be made clear.

Like any historical drama film, there are a few liberties taken with the story to heighten the suspense. And a film about weather forecasting absolutely needs that thumb on the scale. It's the weather. The primary liberty is that Stagg is brought in to lead the team just seventy-two hours before the invasion. In the real world, he had been working with the team for months. But drama works best with a clock, and there isn't a better way to build drama than to bring in an outsider at the eleventh hour to save the day.

Also on the team is Irving Krick (Chris Messina) and he is the polar opposite of Stagg. Krick is a flashy American with a magnetic personality whom everyone likes. He believes the best way to forecast is to compare current conditions with historical data to predict what will happen. Conversely, Stagg is a brusque, no-nonsense Scotsman whom everyone finds to be disagreeable. He believes the best way to forecast is to collect as much data about current conditions as possible, analyze the data to predict what will happen, and to constantly remind everyone that the weather in Northern Europe doesn't give a crap what happened in the past. At one point, he will literally call Krick's methodology moronic, and Krick's indignation is so palpable you can almost taste it.

That's the beauty of this movie. It pits these two men against each other in a very short window of time, each of them trying to convince Eisenhower they are the smartest guy in the room. The suspense builds really well, particularly every time they show the sun shining as Stagg is adamantly stressing how poor the weather will be when it matters. And to top it off, there are some good supporting performances from Fraser, as well as Kerry Condon as Eisenhower’s aide, and Damian Lewis as British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. And that’s what I know about Pressure.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back and, like always with these movies, go read more about history.

"The Mandalorian and Grogu" - Just like old times.

Did you know it's been seven years since the last Star Wars movie (The Rise of Skywalker) was released? It's hard to believe, but that's because Disney has released seven different streaming series during that time, two of which have had multiple seasons (Andor and The Mandalorian). The obvious question here is why send The Mandalorian and Grogu to the silver screen?

The short answer is The Mandalorian and Grogu scratches that Star Wars itch. Much of what I want to say about M&G is the same as what I said about Solo: A Star Wars Story. M&G is a perfectly adequate movie that plays things very safe. It does the things we want it to do, but doesn't really give us anything new to play with in our heads. It's a solidly entertaining movie, but not one that makes you crave more. Unless, of course, you crave more because you're the kind of Star Wars fan who says "May the fourth be with you" on May 4.

The obvious expectation going into M&G is that it will just feel like an extended episode of the series. That's not a bad thing, by the way. Star Trek features ten movies of that nature (the three in the recent reboot trilogy don't count) and at least half of those were pretty good movies. M&G doesn't feel so much like an extended episode, but more like an entire season condensed down into an extended episode.

M&G features the titular characters hunting former Imperial officers who are up to no good. M&G opens with an action sequence where Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu (Grogu) take out one these officers, then return to a New Republic base for payment and their next assignment. The base is run by Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver), who scolds Mando for killing the Imperial instead of bringing him in alive for questioning, then offers him a new Razorcrest ship as payment for that mission, as well as for the next mission. She wants Mando to rescue a kidnapped Ratta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White) and take him to the Hutt twins (Jabba the Hutt's cousins; Ratta is Jabba's son). In exchange for Ratta, the twins will provide the whereabouts of Imperial crime lord Janu Coin.

Since the Hutts have never been fleshed out in official Disney Star Wars canon beyond crime lords, this movie seems like the perfect opportunity to do that. Or rather, a full Season Four of The Mandalorian seems like the perfect opportunity to do that. Two hours and twelve minutes is not enough time to develop a crime syndicate and spend more time developing Mando and Grogu and develop a storyline where it feels like there's something more to them hunting down former Imperials and develop a brand new character in Ratta. And the movie has to spend significant time on action scenes because this is Star Wars.

Since this movie is called The Mandalorian and Grogu, not The Hutt Gambit or subtitled with something Huttese, the Hutt twins and their syndicate get the barest minimum of development. Ratta gets a decent amount of attention, but his character is barely more than a side quest for our title heroes. Likewise with Janu. In fact, midway through movie, Mando and Grogu complete the greater task regarding the capture of Janu, reinforcing the perception that the movie is really just a couple of episodes of a series. The latter half of the film is an extra Ratta side quest.

Despite those shortcomings in the story, the rest of the movie reminds us why we keep coming back for more Star Wars. For one thing, the visuals are downright awe inspiring. The ships look amazingly real, as real as the full-scale models filling Galaxy’s Edge at Disney World and Disneyland. And the creatures, particularly the dragonsnake, appear just as real. So, when the battles and action scenes play out, you can’t help but soak them in without ever blinking.

For another, the movie doesn’t have any glaring flaws. It takes care of business, giving us some new and interesting characters and some simple plots to follow. And it gives us a bit of playfulness with Grogu and Pascal. The closest thing to a flaw was the choice to have Ratta speak English the entire time. I know it was done to help disassociate him from being an evil Hutt, but it was weird the entire time.

Without a doubt, this film would have worked much better as a limited series, if not a full season of The Mandalorian. But I’m not going to complain. It’s been seven years since we got a Star Wars film and Andor is the only other one that people would like to see a movie from. You know, like Rogue One.

Rating: Ask for a couple of dollars back because even safe Star Wars movies are still Star Wars movies.

"Mother Mary" - Wake me up before you go girl.

Up until the screening of Mother Mary, I had seen three of director/writer David Lowery's films. Here is what I said about them in my year-end reviews.

·       A Ghost Story (2017) - This movie could be the new title of my "A Waste of Time" category as it is literally 85 minutes of Casey Affleck in a sheet doing and saying nothing.

·       The Old Man and the Gun (2018) - What if elevator music robbed a bank?

·       The Green Knight (2021) - A very weird movie, with possibly the most shoulder-shrugging ending I’ve ever seen. And not weird in an intriguing way, but weird in that same shoulder-shrugging way.

I didn't know Lowery wrote and directed Mother Mary until ten minutes ago. In other words, I didn't go into the film expecting weird, boring, or weird and boring due to seeing those other three films. In fact, I wasn't expecting anything because I only knew three things about the movie beforehand - the title, starring Anne Hathaway, and the synopsis of the film saying a pop star reunites with her former costume designer. The obvious question now is if Mother Mary is weird and/or boring.

On the first count, yes, it's weird. It's not remotely as weird as The Green Knight, but it's definitely weird. Just look at the movie poster. It depicts a red sheet skewering a falling Hathaway. And there are two other versions of the poster that say "This is not a love story" and "This is not a ghost story." It's weird that a movie poster has to tell you what it's not. Twice. That's a pretty good sign that the movie is going to be confusing. Incidentally, the poster with the ghost story disclaimer was displayed on the screen of our theater prior to the film starting and my immediate thought was "wait, there's a ghost in a movie about a dress? That's weird."

Hathaway plays pop star Mother Mary. Mary is starting a comeback tour following an on-stage accident and she needs a dress that is "her," to put it in Mary's words. She decides that only one person knows her well enough to create such a dress - her former friend and designer Sam Anselm (Michaela Cole). Mary shows up at Sam's estate to make the request, Sam reluctantly agrees, and the rest of the movie takes place in Sam's studio, which is a repurposed barn. And when I say the rest of the movie, I mean all but two minutes of the entire one hundred twelve-minute runtime.

On the surface, that sounds really boring. And it very well might be. Mary and Sam have been estranged for ten years after Mary unceremoniously dismissed Sam as her costume designer. Now that Mary has come back begging, Sam takes the opportunity to talk everything out. And I do mean talk. Like, the entire movie. With the exception of one scene, the two practically never stop talking. They even talk when the movie shows us flashbacks of various events in Mary's career. And they aren't just talking like normal people. Sam insists on speaking in cryptic metaphors. At one point, Mary even calls Sam out on it, asking "are you going to keep speaking in metaphors? Because it's exhausting." Amen, sister.

I'd like to say the movie stops being boring when it gets weird, but even a couple of seances and an actual ghost can't save this movie's tedium. Neither can two great performances from Hathaway and Cole break the ennui. It isn't just the speaking in metaphors or being stuck in a barn that makes the movie a challenge to stay interested in. Much of the dialogue is delivered in a sing-song way that threatens to the lull the audience into a sleep-like trance. On paper, lyrical-sounding dialogue is an interesting idea, but Lowery fails to pull it off. It doesn't help that the lighting in every scene is dark and shadowy, including the flashback concert scenes. Put those things together and you have a recipe for a very soothing nap.

If there was one thing I was very interested in was that same preshow screen promising songs performed by Hathaway (written by various artists like Charlie XCX, FKA Twigs, and Jack Antonoff). And they didn't disappoint, at least the bits that actually played during the film. All of them are weird songs, but in ways that really appeal to me. So, you can sympathize at how annoyed I was when the movie would move on before much of the songs got played. If there was anything that would break through the boredom, it's good music, but I guess that would have taken too much time away from the barn scenes. The answer to our question is pretty boring and weird in the mostly the wrong ways.

Rating: Ask for twelve dollars back and don't be weird about it.

"The Sheep Detectives" - Wait, did you say sheep?

The Sheep Detectives isn't a story about human detectives investigating sheep. It's about sheep investigating the murder of their human shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman). It's a silly premise, but it's exactly the kind of story that gets made into a PG-rated film. The remarkable thing about this film isn't that a studio greenlit a project about sheep detectives, it's that the finished film doesn't treat its target audience - families - as complete idiots.

It could be that this film is smarter than typical family films because the (German) novel it's based on - Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann - isn't a children's book, but a regular adult mystery novel (set in Ireland). I haven't read the novel, so I can't speak to its contents. Since the movie doesn't feature over-the-top absurd characters or poop or fart jokes, I can only assume the book doesn't have those things either. And I'm very, very glad for that.

With such a silly premise, it's easy to assume the movie wouldn't take itself seriously at all. That's what I assumed. The preview all but told me to make that assumption. One example is the preview makes Emma Thompson (playing George's lawyer Lydia Harbottle) come off like every ridiculous family-friendly villain. That's not to say she is or isn't the murderer, but when seen in the full context of the film, Lydia is quite the opposite of ridiculous. In fact, she might be the best non-ovine character in the film, if not the best character altogether. Emma Thompson is taking this movie seriously (while also clearly enjoying herself in this film), as is the rest of the cast and crew.

Don't worry though, there is a little bit of silliness in the film. Once again, the sheep are the detectives. For this to work, a couple of conceits must be made. One conceit is that the sheep have a complete understanding of the entire English language, which they seem to have gotten mostly from George reading them mystery stories every evening. While the humans in the movie still only hear baaaa, the sheep are speaking English for the audience. Another conceit is that nobody in the town is surprised when sheep are roaming around town or behaving in weirdly human ways. I've spent a good amount of time in places where sheep are a significant industry and never once saw sheep wandering around town, let alone inside hotels or pubs. Of course, I've never been to Ireland, so maybe sheep are more free there.

On the serious side, the movie is a straight-forward whodunit. The movie introduces us to George, a bunch of individual sheep, and a handful of locals, and then George dies. The smartest sheep, Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is convinced that George was murdered and determines that they must find the killer. Much of this revolves around giving hints to various humans, including the town's only cop, Tim (Nicholas Braun). Shortly after George's death, Lydia arrives in town to read the will, which in all mysteries means gathering all of the suspects. Clues and motives are revealed until the killer is finally unmasked. And like all fun mysteries, the clues are such that anybody paying attention can deduce the killer's identity before the obligatory unmasking in the climax.

The best way to know that the film isn't pandering to the lowest common denominator is that it sprinkles some fairly heavy social themes into the story and treats them respectfully. The obvious one is life after death, but from a sheep's perspective. Another good one is dealing with tragedy, though this one comes with an odd detail. The sheep can choose to literally forget things, which I don't recall being a stereotype of sheep. Several times in the film, the sheep decide they must forget bad things so they don't feel sad or other seemingly negative feelings. The forgetting doesn't play into the main plot, but the issue of coping with life events comes to a head late in the film and is dealt with really well.

I'm as surprised as you that this movie ended up so good and so adult. If you are skeptical because you also saw a preview, I promise you the preview does not do this movie justice. The mystery is fun, Jackman and Thompson give their usual great performances (with an assist from the very likable Braun), and the movie really is good for the entire family. And all on the idea of sheep detectives. Yes, I said sheep.

Rating: Worth your money for the entire family.