“Dumb Money” - Cha-ching!

People love to fantasize about striking it rich in various ways. Winning the lottery, nailing the parlay at the track, becoming a YouTube star, or inheriting a fortune from cranky old Aunt Ethyl after she falls into a pile of fur coats and suffocates to death. What’s that? Aunt Ethyl is okay? Thank goodness.

Of all the various ways to get rich, playing the stock market might be the one people believe they have the best chance at. Like the recent explosion in legal sports gambling, investing in stocks has become radically easier thanks to the Internet. And, like all those other get-rich avenues (including good old-fashioned casinos), the stock market is rigged to favor the house. Oh sure, we the underdog have a chance to win it big, but that chance is tinier than Aunt Ethyl’s generosity.

In Dumb Money, Keith Gill (Paul Dano) is the underdog. Keith is a lower-middle-class financial analyst by day and a vlogging webcaster by night. Under the excellent monikers Roaring Kitty and DeepFuckingValue, Keith discusses his personal financial choices in YouTube videos and posts on a subreddit page called WallStreetBets. Believing that GameStop stock is undervalued and the company itself is worth investing in, Keith invests his life savings ($53,000) in the stock and posts a screenshot of his portfolio to prove to his viewers the investment is real. As the weeks and months go by, he continues to vlog about the stock’s progress, using his portfolio spreadsheets as the background in his videos to maintain credibility. And Keith’s investment risk is real, as his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and baby are in this boat with him.

Meanwhile, the villains of the story are betting the opposite of Keith. Hedge fund managers Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) and Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio) have heavily invested in short sells of GameStop stock, believing the company is on the brink of bankruptcy. Plotkin and Cohen are always featured talking to each other on the phone while walking around their ostentatious mansions. Occasionally, another hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin (Nick Offerman), will call in to offer smug support. Offerman-as-Griffin perfectly oozes contempt and condescension at his less-rich counterparts, but is willing to help them in the same way the witch is willing to help Hansel and Gretel.

Finally, we have the rest of the common folk, a.k.a. retail investors, derisively referred to as Dumb Money by the villains. The common folk are you and me and nurses and salesclerks and massively indebted college students (America Ferrera, Anthony Ramos, Myha’la Herrold, and Talia Ryder in this movie’s example) who have proverbial pennies to invest in the stock market. As Keith’s videos start to gain attention and new followers, the previously mentioned common folk invest what various amounts they can in GameStop stock, inspired by Keith’s easygoing honesty.

As Keith and company follow the slow, steady, upward climb of their stock, we are treated to updates to each person’s value. In an ingenious bit of inspiration, the film introduces every character we meet by giving us their name and net worth (in dollars) printed on screen, ranging from Keith’s solid $90,000 to Keith’s brother’s (Pete Davidson) dozens of dollars to the college students’ six-figure debts. The 99% of us can easily relate to those people. And we also get the same for the hedge fund managers, with their eight- and nine-figure fortunes. The 99% of us can easily hate those people.

In case you weren’t aware, Dumb Money is based on recent true events. While the common folk were invented for dramatic purposes, Keith and the hedge fund trio are actual people. As the stock price continued to climb and GameStop didn’t go bankrupt, the hedge fund managers started to panic about a “short squeeze.” In very basic terms, the hedge funds were all losing massive amounts of money while the commoners were actually realizing the American Dream. Adding to the story is that the investing turned into a cause. When the subreddit community realized that the rich hedge fund managers could just bail each other out, the community vowed to hang on to the stock and keep buying to drive the price ever further. The film does a great job of building the tension by bouncing between the various characters, making us wonder if the commoners are going to cash out and the hedge fund managers are going to go broke before the reality that rich people rarely ever lose comes crashing down on the community.

As good as the story is, the performances really make the film. While Dano does a decent job of delivering a protagonist that we can get behind, my favorite characters are the trio of hedge fund managers and the two college students. As much as I enjoyed Ferrera’s nurse and Ramos’ GameStop clerk, the two college students’ throwing caution to the wind was so much more fun to root for. Almost as much fun as rooting for Plotkin to end up under a pile of trash like the Duke brothers from Trading Places.

Perhaps the best aspect of the movie is that the filmmakers subtly make the film better by doing the opposite of a couple of things that normally make movies worse. One is that they open the film in a chaotic and off-putting way, using abrasive music and quickly jumping between a bunch of characters. They throw a bunch of dissonant stuff at us really quickly, practically daring us to walk out of the film before it’s even really started. The other is that most of the characters have almost no development beyond their name and net worth. Character development is usually key to get the audience to sympathize with characters. In this case, we need the commoners to stay common. Anything more and they might feel artificial, even special. That’s why showing us their names and net worth works so well - that’s all we need.

Despite knowing how the real-life story played out, I was still captured by the film. Why wouldn’t I be? I love an underdog story as much as anyone, especially one where the underdog has a chance to strike it rich. Just like me, if I can find a couple more fur coats to add to the pile.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back because this investment was worth it.

“The Fabelmans” - It’s not Fabelman. It’s Fabel-Man. He’s a fable...man.

After watching The Fabelmans, I wondered what certain directors’ childhoods might look like. I imagine Martin Scorsese had a nanny who was also a hitman. Baz Luhrmann rarely ate food that wasn’t laced with LSD. George Romero constantly buried his friends on the beach. Quentin Tarantino definitely tortured animals. Stanley Kubrick was the kid in The Shining. And Steven Spielberg? For sure a kid with a video camera at all times, maybe even a clapboard tucked into his belt. The Fabelmans shows that video camera and more.

Similar to James Gray’s Armageddon Time, The Fabelmans is a fictionalized depiction of parts of Spielberg’s childhood. Unlike Armageddon Time, The Fabelmans has a plot and also a point. It’s right there in the title - Spielberg is going to tell us a story with a moral.

Spielberg’s analogue is Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle). We first meet young Sammy as he is being coerced into a movie theater by his parents, Burt (Paul Dano) and Mitzi (Michelle Williams) to see The Greatest Show on Earth. Sammy is scared of seeing giant people on screen and parents assure him that they aren’t really that big. Once inside, Sammy is transfixed by what he sees on screen, instantly falling in love with moving pictures. This could be the end of the story, one quick anecdote to explain Spielberg’s love of film, but Spielberg is a better storyteller than that.

Back home, Sammy tries to recreate the train wreck scene from the movie. While Burt scolds Sammy for not taking care of his trains, Mitzi encourages Sammy, lending Sammy Burt’s 8MM camera. After a successful recreation, Sammy starts making films with his three sisters, gradually working out how to do different kinds of effects and clearly having fun. Sammy has clearly found his calling, much to the chagrin of his computer-building father and delight of his pianist mother. Then, his father gets a job offer in Phoenix, Arizona and the family moves there, taking with them Burt’s best friend and business partner Bennie (Seth Rogen).

It’s in Phoenix that the film really gets into the meat of Spielberg’s childhood story. After several years of honing his craft, now-teenage Sammy is making complex, elaborate films. As a Boy Scout, Sammy figures he can earn his photography badges through making films and enlists his entire troop in his projects. He also captures on film a family camping trip, one that inexplicably includes Bennie. It is through all these films that Sammy discovers how powerful film can be. More than just showing the things that are happening, Sammy realizes he can manipulate how audiences perceive what they are seeing and also that film can also capture things that weren’t intended to be seen. This is all classic Spielberg and, yes, we are being manipulated by him.

One more promotion for Burt, and the family is once again on the move, this time to Northern California…this time without third-wheel best-friend Bennie. Here, we get a couple more fables in the form of Sammy dealing with being bullied at school for being a Jew, Sammy navigating his first romantic relationship with a devout Christian, and Sammy grappling with his parent’s relationship falling apart. That’s a lot of crap for a seventeen-year old to deal with and he finds his way through it all with film.

All of these small stories (and a couple others) add up to a solid narrative explaining why Spielberg is the way he is. At no point does the film ever feel trite or that Spielberg is indulging himself, rather that Spielberg keeps the perspective that he’s trying to entertain an audience. The story flows quite nicely, there are heroes and villains, and we feel for Sammy throughout his childhood. I also quite enjoyed LaBelle’s performance, who really sells us on every emotion Sammy experiences. Plus, there are a couple of scene stealing moments from supporting roles in Judd Hirsch (Sammy’s uncle) and the Christian girlfriend (Chloe East).

If I was going to pick one director who could pull off making a movie about them self, I’d pick Spielberg. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical going into The Fabelmans because how could I not be? It’s blatant narcissism. But nobody is better than Spielberg at crafting a story and he proved it again with The Fabelmans. I even would have been okay if he showed young Sammy with that video camera tucked into a holster on his belt.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, which is what we expect from Spielberg.

“The Batman” - I only work in black. Or really, really dark grey.

Batman has had quite the adventure throughout his Hollywood career. Starting way back in 1966 with two dudes wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants, there have been ten live-action films. After that ridiculous (even at the time) depiction, 1989’s Batman embraced the idea that Batman is dark. As we’ve seen far too many times, young Bruce Wayne watched his parents get murdered in front of him, so of course he should be depicted as dark. Which means the movie should also be dark. Unfortunately, Joel Schumacher didn’t get the memo, which led to the franchise turning into an absolute joke with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, featuring more neon than all of Las Vegas. Schumacher also reminded us why Robin sucks.

Christopher Nolan understood the assignment, giving us two great movies and one mediocre movie, all of which took the darkness to a new level. While Zack Snyder kept most of the darkness for the DCEU, we’ll just pretend the DCEU doesn’t exist. Yes, that includes the Snyder cut of Justice League, which I refuse to watch because Snyder’s movies reminded us that Snyder sucks. Incidentally, Snyder sucking is how we got to today’s The Batman, a movie that is another reboot of the caped crusader. And if you thought The Dark Night was dark, wait ‘til you get a load of The Batman.

(SPOILERS - They’ll be so minimal you’ll barely be able to see them.)

The film starts off with nine-year old Bruce Wayne watching his parents get murdered in an alley. Just kidding. Like with the new Spider-Man films, we don’t have to watch Bruce’s parents die for the umpteenth time. Instead we are simply told that it happens. We also don’t have to watch adult Bruce (Robert Pattinson) become Batman, learn the origin of trivial things like the bat-signal, or watch how any of the villains became villains. They all just are. Thank you, Matt Reeves (director/writer/producer).

The film actually starts with the murder of the Gotham City mayor and Batman narrating about criminals being afraid of the shadows whenever the bat symbol is shining in the night sky. The most important part during the narration isn’t what we are seeing or what Batman is telling us, it’s the slow, ominous music telling us the kind of movie and Batman we’re about to experience. When Batman finishes beating up a gang of hoodlums on a subway platform (preventing them from assaulting a train passenger), the music hammers home its final note while Batman growls that he is Vengeance. This guy definitely knows how to properly wear his skivvies.

Perhaps the best decision by Reeves was to lean the story more into Batman as the world’s greatest detective. With the investigation of the murder of the mayor underway, Detective James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) has enlisted Batman to help. Gone is the idea that Batman is helping Gordon clandestinely, as Gordon walks Batman through a phalanx of cops at the crime scene. At this point, we know Batman has existed for two years, operating as a vigilante, but surprised to see how openly. It’s a very cool scene, setting a tone of uneasiness between the cops and the duo of himself and Gordon, leaving us to wonder when and how that situation will go sideways.

It is quickly revealed that a serial killer calling himself the Riddler (Paul Dano) is responsible for the murder. Left at the scene are clues and riddles specifically for Batman to solve. This continues throughout the film as the Riddler kills more prominent Gothamites, always leaving something for Batman to continue the chase. As the investigation moves along, we are asking the same questions as Batman and Gordon. What do the victims have in common or how are they related? What is the Riddler’s true end game? Batman’s investigation leads us to the introduction of the other major characters in the film. Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), the biggest crime lord in Gotham, Penguin (Colin Farrell), a lieutenant to Falcone, and Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), a waitress in a night club run by Penguin. We know all of these people are somehow connected to the Riddler’s killings and the first third of the film expertly puts us on the edge of our seats in anticipation. Of course, then the film straps one of Jigsaw’s death traps to one of the victim’s faces and we recoil into the back of our seats.

Hey, did I mention this film was dark? I won’t spoil the details of the different killings, but at one point in the movie, my exact thought was “wow this reminds me of Se7en.” My next thought was that I was glad I didn’t bring my nine-year old son to this film, silently thanking the film for being three hours and screening on a school night. But, yeah, it’s dark. Really. Really. Dark.

As I said, Batman needs to be dark. It’s no mistake that the most well-received films in the franchise are the dark ones and the most hated films in the franchise are the comic-book-y ones or the Snyder ones that are only visually dark.* But it can’t just be dark for lighting purposes (looking at you Zack). The darkness has to have a purpose and The Batman puts that purpose in a death grip that is equal parts story and character building. In fact, The Batman goes so dark that nobody, not even Alfred (Andy Serkis), can be presumed a safe bet to emerge from the film unscathed.

(* Side note: the 1966 film has a 79% approval on Rotten Tomatoes based on 33 reviews, only one of which was actually written in 1966. That approval rating is almost certainly borne out of nostalgia for a show that lasted just two years rather than for actual quality.)

The immediate question I have now is what is going to happen to the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) films? Warner Brothers and DC never had much of a plan for the DCEU to begin with, but rebooting Batman (and the Joker, for that matter) as dark and gritty, borderline horror seems like an obvious sign that they have zero plan or faith for a coherent DCEU. There is also the problem with the latest DCEU films being decidedly comic-book-y. It’s kind of hard to see the current Harley Quinn and Shazaam existing in this retooled Batman world. Well, maybe Harley.

As for The Batman itself, it’s easily the frontrunner for best film of the year. I admit I was very skeptical about Pattinson as Batman, but he had me believing in him before the halfway mark. Add in equally good performances from the rest of the cast, the slow burn as the investigation was allowed to run its course (rather than be squished into a two-hour timeframe), the great music and visuals, and the perfect amount of action as to not overwhelm the other elements of the film but still be plentiful. If not for a stray storyline about Bruce maybe - but it’s never clear and dropped by the end of the film - being bankrupt, the film was as close to flawless as any I have seen. Which is saying something for a film this dark.

Rating: Worth double what you paid for it and triple if you skipped the Snyder Cut.