Live Twice, Love Once (2019)

A widowed, retired professor is diagnosed with Alzheimers and decides to track down a teenage crush. His granddaughter stows away with him and soon her parents have joined the trip as well.

Though the story sneaked into "feelings engaged" territory a couple of times, it always felt cheap somehow. Like this fixation on a ghost from his youth is somehow cute or romantic, when it felt to me that it simply reduced his actual life to second-best. I just could not get on-board.

C

Trial by Fire (2019)

Based on the true story of Todd Willingham, a young father with a checkered past found guilty and put on death row for the killing of his three children in a fire. Though he works hard in prison to learn what he can about the law and appeal his verdict, it's only once author Elizabeth takes an interest that any progress is made.

It's got a lot going for it: the case is interesting, the weaknesses of the justice system are on full display, and the two leads do a good enough job that I was rooting for success, but it all felt a bit too basic. I want to be angry about the cruelty of the justice system: lawyers who give less than their all, investigators using junk science, people who are willing to lie (plus the officials who solicit those lies), and the zookeeper-mentality of prison guards all deserve reform. But this felt more like a book report about the case than an exposé.

C+

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

A female painter arrives at a remote estate in order to produce a portrait of its young mistress, intended to inspire a proposal from its Milanese recipient. The mistress has refused to sit for a portrait and resents her fate, made hers by the elder sister's suicide. What starts as subterfuge -- spending time together so that her likeness can be captured without disclosing that's what's happening -- becomes an actual bond. When the matron of the house leaves for several days, the two women become even closer as they help a young servant terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

It's an absolute stunner of a romance. Quiet yet inevitable and, ultimately, impossible. The last scene wrecked me.

A

Villains (2019)

A young couple is robbing gas stations on their way down to Florida, but hit a snag when their car ironically runs out of gas on a little-traveled road. But, hey, there's a house right there with a car in the garage and no one's home! Too bad that house has some truly twisted owners and they arrive home before the robbers can get out of there.

I've seen this kind of thing before -- where the scariest people in the room are also weird enough to seem easily beatable -- but this felt a bit brighter than most. I think it was the young couple, who clearly believed in each other and were the opposite of hopeless. I wasn't rooting for them in the generic "get yourselves out of there!!" way; I truly hoped good things for them.

The denouement was an especially sweet touch.

B-

Eye for an Eye (2019)

Notorious drug lord Antonio has been granted compassionate release from prison due to his health. Rather than heading home to his sons, he opts for a nursing home where he'll be under the care of the compassionate nurse Mario. But Mario has a personal beef with his new patient: his brother died of an overdose while dealing for him.

This was truly tense at times. While I sympathized with Mario, it was impossible to truly be on his side. He compromised his workplace and his family over blame that was at least as much his brother's as it was Antonio's. It's possible that I'm just too practical to really get swept up in this type of story -- but I'd still call this effective.

B-

Mister America (2019)

After representing himself in a mass murder trial which resulted in a hung jury, Tim Heidecker decides to run to unseat the San Bernardino District Attorney who prosecuted him. He's not a resident, he's not a lawyer, he hasn't done his due diligence to even get on the ballot, and he's got no political experience. But he's got a film crew following him around and a woman who believes in him (and, more crucially, foots the bills).

I had no idea what was going on here, so I did a little research. Heidecker has this whole web of shows and media -- including the "On Cinema" podcast mentioned in the movie -- and this character has evolved from that. Maybe if I had been in the know I might've liked this a bit? Based on how unfunny my ignorant self found every bit of what I saw, I doubt it's likely, but I'm willing to consider it a possibility.

D

Sibyl (2019)

Sibyl is a therapist is in the process of dropping her clients to pursue writing. But when a young actress reaches out to her for help, she is compelled to take her on as a client. The actress is soon depending on Sibyl for guidance while Sybil finds herself using their sessions as inspiration for her novel.

While I was completely under its spell while watching, afterward I realized that the story was basically a circle. No progress or real change was achieved, which made the film itself feel rather insignificant. But Sandra Huller: wow. That woman can act.

B-

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)

Zak, a man with Down Syndrome, has been parked in an old folks home. He doesn't like the slow place there, especially as he has a passion for wrestling and dreams of going to a wrestling school he's seen advertised. He breaks out and soon falls in with Tyler (Shia LeBeouf), a sullen guy on the run from a mess he's made.

While LeBeouf is good and I liked the budding romance with the woman from the nursing home who is tasked with tracking them down, it's otherwise a mess. The story is all over the place and, unfortunately, Zak's not an actor. So, despite some sweet scenes, it just doesn't work.

C-

High Life (2019)

A young man and his infant daughter are the sole survivors of a deep space mission. We learn in flashback that the experimental mission was populated with criminals, making it doubly dangerous. The woman in charge was conducting reproductive experiments -- often against the rest of the crew's wishes -- and I was never quite sure whether her experiments were sanctioned or if she was just a weird perv.

There was so much that I didn't understand and the bouncing back and forth in time willy-nilly didn't help. It took me nearly a week to get through this joyless slog.

D+

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

Jimmy Fails IV is obsessed with his childhood home: a multi-story house in San Francisco that his family lost decades earlier. Despite the fact that others live there now, he makes a weekly trek from miles away to do upkeep tasks like painting the window sills, even though the current occupants have made it clear they want him to stop. When it becomes vacant, Jimmy moves in and attempts to establish squatter's rights.

Though I was interested for the first 45 minutes or so, I had to stop it to go somewhere and then wasn't motivated to finish it up for a full week, making it clear this wasn't terribly compelling.

C

Luce (2019)

By all accounts, Luce is a major success story. After experiencing strife and war in his East African home, he was adopted by a white couple in America and is now enjoying his senior year as the pride of his school. But when he turns in a concerning essay, his teacher decides to search his locker, which somehow becomes the worst decision of her life.

I was wowed by this film. It was complex and forced me to shift allegiance several times, but without feeling as though I'd been fooled by red herrings. The more I found out about each person's perspective, the more I could empathize with that person's actions. Though there were definite sides to the story, right and wrong was subjective.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. really delivered here, somehow both sympathetic and terrifying . There are a couple of especially effective bits: 1) the juxtaposition between when he's practicing his speech and mourning his lost self, represented by his original name, and then delivering that speech to an audience and playing it for laughs and 2) the final scene where he seems to allow himself to temporarily discard his carefully controlled persona during a solo run.

A-

Britt-Marie Was Here (2019)

Britt-Marie is in her 60s and has never held a job, instead focusing on housewifing for the last 40 years. She walks away from her marriage the minute she finds out her husband is unfaithful and secures a job as a youth soccer coach hours away. Though she knows nothing about kids or the game, she buckles down and gets to work and well, you get it.

This movie is ripe for an American adaptation. There were so many gaps in the storytelling and the children (with the exception of one) weren't given any distinct personalities. Britt-Marie herself is so buttoned-up that I wasn't even sure what, exactly, she was feeling. I think this is supposed to be a female "A Man Called Ove" -- it's by the same author -- but we never really got to the heart of Britt-Marie, and that's a real problem.

C

In the Aisles (2019)

A young ex-con goes to work as a stocker in a big box store. A lot of the other workers used to be truckers, but that business shut down and the store moved in, so they did too. The new guy keeps his head down, learns the job, and develops a crush on a married stocker in the aisle next to his.

It took me a long time to finish this because nothing much happens. It's quiet and drawn out and we don't get very deep into anyone's life. And while that does turn out to be the (very effective) point, it's a slog to get there.

C-

The Vanishing (2019)

A team of three men arrive at an island lighthouse to serve their weeks-long shift as keepers. Their isolation is increased due to the fact that their "outbound" calls can't be heard from their broken radio. When they discover a damaged lifeboat with a body and locked trunk nearby, they disagree about how to handle things -- a stress that is only increased when other men come searching for their missing crewmate and the trunk.

Though it's extremely well-acted (I seriously had no idea that Gerard Butler had any chops), it did seem like the descent into madness happened far too quickly for one of them. But, what do I know. Between this and "The Lighthouse," maybe the truth is that keepers are on the brink of madness always? 

C+

Sweetheart (2019)

Girl washes ashore on a deserted island along with another guy who quickly dies of injuries. She's practical -- just gets down to figuring out what she's going to do -- and I liked her for that. But the island's not as deserted as she thought. When the sun's down, an amphibious monster is on the prowl.

I liked how tight and no-nonsense this was. My main complaint was the amount of open-mouthed acting the lead did. Shock? Fear? Surprise? I now know they can all be expressed by arranging your mouth into a silent "ahhhh." I don't think they should be expressed that way, but they obviously can be.

C+

The Son (2019)

Lorenzo, a middle-aged painter with an ex-wife and estranged children, has found love again and they are expecting their first child together. She rejects a series of doctors and insists that -- since she's a scientist -- she can best administer her own prenatal care. The further along she gets, the more Lorenzo is removed from the decision-making. Eventually his studio is relocated to the attic and she's moved in her own childhood nanny, with whom she converses in Norwegian (which Lorenzo doesn't speak).

It's a highly effective film. It jumps back and forth between pre-birth and post, so we find out that there's a restraining order on Lorenzo and then jump back to see the lead-up to that event. I thought we were getting another one of those "guy with friends who love and trust him ridiculously refuse to believe him" movies, but as more of the story gets revealed, it's difficult not to sympathize with those friends.

Though the ending seems a bit abrupt and somewhat unresolved, I enjoyed the ride.

B

Little Monsters (2019)

A directionless guy volunteers to chaperone his nephew's field trip in hopes of getting to know the hot teacher. He gets more time to accomplish this than expected as they're soon trapped in the gift shop while zombies do their best to reach them. Also in the gift shop is a famous children's show host who is not what could be called "kid-friendly."

Lupita Nyong'o is charming as the teacher. Other than that: it's kind of humorous, but felt way longer than it was.

C+

The Nightingale (2019)

An Irish ex-convict in Australia has been waiting for her ticket of leave from a British officer for months, but he is refusing to give it because he enjoys raping her too much. That she's married with a child is of no matter to him. Though she has played nice in hopes of eventually securing her release, she finally chooses the path of vengeance when he leaves her nothing else to live for.

Though the film is full of brutality, the most upsetting thing is the inhumanity of the soldiers. They're worse than monsters and it's terrifying that our current-day cops and soldiers operate similarly: a veneer of respectability that hides/excuses depravity.

B

The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

A milquetoast is mugged by a group and, in response, he decides to take up karate. The problem is that he seems to have stumbled into an alternate-universe dojo where "sweep the leg" would be about the most mild decision one would make in combat.

It's not bad, but it gets super old super fast. It should've been a short.

C-

Share (2019)

Mandy, a popular high schooler, wakes up on her lawn after a party with her friends. Though she doesn't remember what happened, a video of the night is soon making the rounds and her parents are insistent that she go to the police.

This is so low-key as to almost make the events seem mundane... which, nowadays, I think is possibly true. Mandy wants to put it behind her and go back to normal, but normal may not be a possibility any longer. It's such a frustrating story that I know so many kids have experienced: desiring justice but without the stigma.

B