Review: Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Won't You Be My Neighbor?/Focus Features/94 min./Dir. by Morgan Neville/Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and language

When he passed away 15 years ago, Fred Rogers left an enormous hole in the culture of America and, indeed, the world.  His simple messages of kindness, love, and self worth seemed quaint and even square at times during his life, but it wasn't until viewing the superb documentary about his life, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, that I realized how brave and borderline radical his philosophies were and continue to be.

Detailing his life from his training as a Presbyterian minister to his death in 2003, Won't You Be My Neighbor? is, like Rogers himself, simple and resolute.  The film radiates his love of children and his emphatic belief that every child, indeed every person, can be loved and show love.  Using extraordinary behind-the-scenes footage of his life and his show interpolated with interviews of family, friends, and co-workers, Neighbor paints the portrait of a man who was every bit the kind and gentle spirit in real life that he was on his Peabody award winning children's show.

Deciding to leave the seminary to use television as his pulpit, Rogers decided that children's television could be more than clowns and action heroes.  He saw this medium as an opportunity to teach children of their worth and how to deal with real-life trials and feelings.  Death, self-doubt, and fear were not verboten subjects in the neighborhood, they were topics to be discussed and handled with love and understanding.  Using these simple ideas, he created a unique and never-to-be-replicated identity on the television landscape.  His radical kindness helped mold the values of an entire generation and, as beautifully shown in film, actually saved the very existence of Public Broadcast Television.

The documentary, directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville, presents a portrait of a life dedicated to good.  Not a perfect life, but a life filled with perfect love.  Neville brilliantly uses small animated vignettes as chapter headings for the different sections of the film.  In these vignettes, Rogers himself is represented by an animated version of Daniel the Striped Tiger, a character that Rogers has on occasion referred to as a surrogate for his own hopes and fears, and these animated sections are not only charming, but they are beautiful reminders of the imagination and love of simple things that abounded in Rogers' mind.

For readers who may be wondering how on earth a documentary about Fred Rogers could be PG-13, know that the rating is because of two reflections of cast and crew members: one recalling how the crew would try to shock him by taking inappropriate pictures on his camera and how he winningly dealt with it and another recalling how Rogers handled learning the truth about a cast member's sexual orientation.  While neither scene would be particularly appropriate for small children, they both help paint a more complete picture of Rogers humor, compassion, and complexity.

It's difficult for me to speak about this film without hyperbole because I can't express fully how deeply moved I was by it.  In a world that screams at us about how we must put all of the focus on how horribly different we are, here is a film detailing the life of a man that simply believed that we were all part of the same neighborhood.  That we all were capable of great love and that we were all in need of that love in return. This is an profound, uplifting, and inspiring reminder of the great good of which we are all capable.  As Junlai Li, the director of the Fred Rogers Center shares, the question isn't "What would Fred Rogers do?".  After taking in the goodness and love that he spread, the question should be "What will we do?"  This is one of the most beautifully simple, yet deeply profound movie going experiences I have ever had.  If every person in the world could watch this film and take its messages to heart, our world would be a radically better place.

Grade: A+

Movie Review: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp/Marvel Studios/118 min./Dir. by Peyton Reed/Rated PG-13 for some sci-fi action violence

Many have asked how I manage to maintain my film blog and teach full time at the same time.  Given the fact that this is my first entry for 2018, I think the obvious answer is.....I don't.  As I was deciding to write a review for Marvel's latest, I kept thinking, "but I haven't even done reviews of any of the summer movies yet, so I need to a big summer entry and then a review."  Well, that was just too much for me to wrap my brain around, so here's the brief catching up on summer movies: Avengers:Infinity War - Fun, epic, genuinely surprising, devastating. Solo:A Star Wars Story - Action-packed, enjoyable, underrated. Ocean's 8 - Smart, amusing, well-cast.  Incredibles 2 - Bright, funny, a blast. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Dinosaurs are cool and have an inherent understanding of which humans are disposable, which are evil, and which deserve narrow escapes.

OK.  We're caught up. Now on to Ant-Man and the Wasp.

When Ant-Man was released in 2015, it was widely expected to be the first bomb from the MCU.  It came with the baggage of extremely well-publicized behind-the-scenes drama, the final director was best known for the very un-Marvelesque cheerleading comedy Bring it On, and....well.... it was titled Ant-Man.  However, Marvel Studios knows precisely what they're doing and by casting the imminently likable Paul Rudd and making it more a heist comedy than action film, it became a delightfully surprising bit of candy-flavored fluff that hit with audiences and critics alike.

A year later, the size-shifting superhero made a big impression (pun intended) in Marvel's superhero dust-up Captain America: Civil War by being responsible for one of the most memorable moments in the entirety of the MCU.  The idea of Ant-Man was no longer just a goofy joke, but a relatable hero that audiences looked forward to seeing more from.

So more is what we get with Ant-Man and the Wasp.  As the title suggests, Rudd's character isn't the only central protagonist with Evangeline Lilly's Hope Van Dyne (a.k.a. The Wasp) being the perfectly matched yin to Scott Lang's comedy infused yang.

After the events of Civil War, Lang is on house arrest while Hope and her father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) are on the run, basically fugitives for contributing to the delinquency of a superhero. With his release from house arrest only a few days away, Scott spends his days rocking out on his drum set, building elaborate cardboard forts/adventures for his daughter Cassie (winningly played by Abby Ryder Forston) and consulting with his security business partner and former partner-in-crime, Luis (Michael Pena, once again stealing any scene he's in).  However, after Scott has a dream/vision involving Hank's wife Janet, the original Wasp who was thought to be lost in the quantum realm (a dimension discovered when an individual shrinks to a sub-atomic level), he is brought together with Hank and Hope in an effort to find Janet.  The only problem is there is an individual known as Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) who is equally intent on accessing the quantum realm for more mysterious reasons.

Ant-Man and the Wasp maintains the light touch of the original, even if the stakes seem a little more elevated.  It moves away from the heist movie paradigm to more of a heroes on-the-lam/race against the clock vibe, and it works swimmingly.  Once again, Rudd is relaxed and effortlessly likable, but Lilly is given much more to do this time around and she does it with grace and humor.

Speaking of humor, it actually works more consistently this time around.  While I loved the original, there were moments when the humor felt a little awkward and forced.  I felt much less of that this time around, which might be a result of having the same creative team from beginning to end, a luxury that the original did not have.  In particular, Lang's humor feels more genuine to the character.  In addition, the screenplay manages to touch on some of the most enjoyable aspects of Pena's performance in the first film without making them carbon copies (his ranting flashbacks are back, but even more funny).

Another fun aspect of the film is that it makes much better use of San Francisco as a setting.  The exciting, surprising, and quite funny finale is almost a San Fran travelogue with major sequences on Lombard Street and the Pier.  Even the Pier's copious number of gulls gets a particularly amusing shout-out.

Much like the first film, direction, special-effects, and music are all solid.  Reed is not the most artistic director to make a Marvel movie, but he knows how to stage action sequences and use the camera to elicit laughs.  Christophe Beck once again provides the musical score, but his themes (including a new theme for the Wasp) take on a bit more weight this time around, particularly as they are transformed in the closing credits.

The reason for the themes sounding a little more somber in the closing credits is the mid-credits sequence. The film is completely independent from MCU references (other than the aforementioned Civil War references) throughout the movie, however the mid-credits sequence ties directly to the finale of Avengers: Infinity War.  If you haven't seen that movie and don't want it spoiled, leave when the credits begin. Suffice to say that you'll want to see Avengers 4 all the sooner after this.

The Ant-Man movies are doing a great job creating their own little niche in the MCU.  With greater humor, lower stakes, but all the fun and action expected from a Marvel film, they're perfect summer escapism.

Grade: A-