Review: "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

It feels like not long ago at all that I was a young lad, sitting in front of the tube, absolutely mesmerized by Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Perhaps unlike many fellow fans of my age, I was actually vastly more enchanted with Fred Rogers himself than the puppeteering of his Neighborhood of Make-Believe. During those latter segments, I mostly zoned out, whereas I was downright entranced by Mr. Rogers and his direct, honest and affectionate rapport with me, the viewer. (In my area, PBS aired the program right after CBS did The Price Is Right, so I guess you could say my formative years were spent idolizing Mr. Rogers and Bob Barker.)

Fives decades since the premiere of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and falling the same year Rogers would have celebrated his 90th birthday, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, the latest picture from Morgan Neville (whose Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal and the Oscar-winning 20 Feet from Stardom are among the best documentaries from recent years), wholeheartedly does the TV legend justice. It's an absorbing, entertaining and deeply affecting look at a man whose kindness and empathy are sorely missed in this trainwreck of times.

Won't You Be My Neighbor? traces Rogers' entry into the modest world of children's television in the 1950s. While trained and ordained as a minster, Rogers is perplexed by the limited and lackluster small screen offerings for kids, programs that generally consist of lame slapstick comedy, pies thrown in faces, clowns haphazardly dancing before the camera, etc. He partakes as a puppeteer in The Children's Corner, a new local children's television program in Pittsburgh, and, though he sticks with the show for several years, ultimately finds the proceedings don't quite live up to the superior vision he has in mind. 

So, Rogers develops a new program, which, over the 1960s, slowly but surely generates attention and acclaim, not just in Pittsburgh but nationally. Unlike most of the garbage infiltrating the airwaves and directed at children, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is a thoughtful, warmhearted program that never for a second dumbs itself down for its audience. It also delicately touches upon issues that countless parents undoubtedly haven't a clue how to discuss with their kids. 

Among the most striking moments of Won't You Be My Neighbor? is Rogers' testimony before the United States Senate in 1969. President Nixon has proposed deep budget cuts, including toward funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Rogers speaks before the Senate committee, his comments particularly directed at the chairman, Senator John Pastore. Pastore, at this point unmoved by pleas for retain such funding, is ultimately completely won over by Rogers, who speaks to the important of social and emotional education through public television. He even recites lyrics to one of his songs from the show. Pastore's reponse? "Looks like you just earned the $20 million."

Such is among countless moments to treasure in this documentary. His friendship with Francois Clemmons, the African-American vocalist who for more than two decades portrayed Officer Clemmons on the program - one of the first black performers to have a recurring role on a children's television series - is fascinating and we're also treated to a plethora of insightful interviews with Rogers' cast and crew, plus his delightful wife Joanne.

I suspect Rogers himself would have been quite pleased with this project. It's a perceptive and compelling picture, never mawkish, yet immensely poignant. Watching this film and spending an hour and a half with the man, it's hard not to feel some sense of sadness that Rogers isn't around right now, in times sorely lacking his gentleness and understanding. While I'm not exactly attune to today's offerings, I suspect the bulk of current children's television doesn't quite operate on the same level as Rogers' efforts.

More now than ever, we need a little Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood in our lives. 

A

Review: "Hereditary"

Oh, what a pleasure it is to see Toni Collette right where she belongs, on the big screen, in a leading role worthy of her sky-high talents.

Collette, who should've won that Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her devastating turn in The Sixth Sense, has a field day in her latest picture, filmmaker Ari Aster's dizzying horror flick Hereditary. Right up there with the legendary likes of Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby and Shelley Duvall in The Shining, this is one of the all-time great performances to grace this genre.

In the film, Collette portrays Annie Graham, wife to Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and mom to teenage son Peter (Alex Wolff) and younger daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro). Annie is kinda-sorta grieving over the recent loss of her estranged mother Ellen - they weren't terribly close and, as we soon discover, Ellen put her family through a whole lot of hell, especially Annie's brother, who ultimately committed suicide. 

When tragedy strikes another member of the Graham clan, Annie finds herself drawn to Joan (Ann Dowd), a member of a support group she has joined. Joan, who lost both her son and grandson, has been communicating with the latter through a seance. Annie, to the great chagrin of her family, decides she'll do the same at home - and what a poor decision that is, as the house becomes ravaged by malevolent supernatural forces that threaten to bring every Graham down. 

I'm hoping to steer clear of spoilers but let's just say fans of Rosemary's Baby, Poltergeist and The Exorcist are bound to have a blast with Hereditary. Aster has no doubt been inspired by the classics, without ever resorting to rip anything off. The film looks incredible, photographed by Pawel Pogorzelski, and Aster's screenplay, while a sad and scary affair for the most part, hardly lacks a sense of humor. Only the picture's ending doesn't quite satisfy, playing as curiously silly vis a vis the genuine horrors that precede it.

What's especially stirring here is the acting - Collette has never been better and she's matched by an ensemble also operating at the tops of their game. Byrne's understated approach gels nicely with Collette's hysterics, while Dowd is an irresistible, if unsettling delight. Both Wolff and Shapiro effectively contribute to the film's spine-chilling atmosphere.

Hereditary won't be everyone's cup of tea and I do fear its conclusion could overshadow the rest of the proceedings for some. That said, I doubt we'll be encountering another picture this genuinely terrifying over the remainder of 2018.

A-

Review: "First Reformed"

Oh, how I expected and wanted to love Paul Schrader's First Reformed.

I consider Schrader one of the finest screenwriters of the past half-century, his contributions especially to the likes of The Yakuza, Obsession, Taxi Driver and Bringing Out the Dead exemplary examples of his genius on the page. While Schrader's directorial efforts have proven decidedly more scattershot, rarely does he bore and, on occasion, he has delivered a real knockout, with Affliction perhaps being his masterpiece.

The thought of Schrader teaming with Ethan Hawke, an actor I've admired in many pictures, from Reality Bates to Richard Linklater's Before trilogy, for me set expectations rather high for their collaboration on First Reformed, a film that looked positively spine-tingling in its trailer.

Alas, I left First Reformed floored with the contributions of merely one of these two men. For while Hawke's performance as the despondent Father Toller is a truly mesmerizing portrayal, among the actor's most startling work to date, the film around him is a meandering slog that rarely suggests the brilliance of Schrader's past work. 

Hawke's Toller is the pastor of a microscopic church in upstate New York. Still beside himself over the death of his son, Toller has descended into alcoholism and chosen to ignore the illness that is undoubtedly ravaging his body. Toller is sleepwalking through life until the entrance of Mary (Amanda Seyfried). Mary is pregnant with the son of Michael (Philip Ettinger), an environmentalist who can't bear the thought of bringing a child into a world he views as doomed. 

Toller finds himself consumed with reflection on Michael's concerns and is all the more rattled by the discovery of a suicide vest in the couple's garage, shortly followed by Michael's suicide. His health gradually failing and dependency on booze increasing, Toller continues to counsel Mary while also finding himself at odds with Edward Balq (Michael Gaston), a chemical magnate concerned with Toller's newfound interest in environmental causes.

First Reformed is beautifully shot by Alexander Dynan and has that same unbearably dreary look and feel of prior, superior Schrader works. Hawke does heaps of heavy lifting but in the end, Schrader's curiously uninvolving script and the plodding pace of the proceedings left me on the verge of dozing off. The picture may be more dignified than the flamboyant likes of American Gigolo and Cat People but it isn't remotely as compelling.

Hawke's committed turn aside, First Reformed is a monotonous miss.

C+

Review: "Book Club"

God bless Candice Bergen. She may be the lone Oscar-less star of Book Club's quartet of acting queens but, with an irresistibly dry comic delivery and penchant for stealing scenes with remarkable ease, she manages to emerge something of an MVP.

That isn't to say Bergen runs away with the show - how could she, after all, with the comparably sparkling Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton and Mary Steenburgen sharing the screen? Book Club may be a glorified sitcom but it emerges a must-see for these four star turns alone. 

No doubt, you've seen the previews and know what's coming - this foursome of fabulousness reads the notorious Fifty Shades of Grey as their latest book club selection. The sordid trilogy, as expected, will have an impact on their respective lives that opens their eyes and results in loads of laughs. Indeed, there may not be many surprises on the horizon in Book Club but that isn't say the proceedings aren't, for the most part, an absolute pleasure from start to finish.

Fonda's Vivian is the most colorful and carefree of the bunch, unabashedly enjoying the company of men with no strings attached - that is, until a beau from the past (Don Johnson) comes strolling into town wanting something more meaningful than a one-night fling. Keaton's Diane (could they not change the name?) remains uneasy about getting back into the dating game, having a year back lost her husband of 40 years. The dashing pilot Mitchell (Andy Garcia, a romcom natural) enters her life and immediately begins courting her but Diane is slow to reciprocate. 

Then, there's Bergen's Sharon, a distinguished federal judge who hasn't had romance on the brain in ages and whose ex (Ed Begley, Jr.) is now shacking up with a blonde bombshell about a third his age. Sharon makes the leap into online dating, where, among her matches, is the kind accountant George (Richard Dreyfuss). Finally, Steenburgen's Carol has been antsy for months over her stale marriage to Bruce (Craig T. Nelson). Reading Fifty Shades makes her more determined than ever to spice things up.

Among this sea of subplots, Bergen has the funniest moments and Keaton and Garcia have the sweetest. Fonda's a hoot, basically doing a slight variation on her turn from Grace and Frankie, but her scenes opposite Johnson lack the tenderness of the Keaton-Garcia ones. Steenburgen, I'm afraid, draws the short straw. Her dynamic opposite Nelson is a bland imitation of Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones in Hope Springs.

Writer/director Bill Holderman and co-writer Erin Simms lean heavily on their cast to do the heavy lifting - thankfully, they've been graced with an ensemble that's plenty game to lift the ordinary into the almost-extraordinary. 

Book Club is certain to satisfy film buffs (like myself) who crave at least one Nancy Meyersesque picture a year.

B+

Review: "Tully"

With their third big screen collaboration (well, fourth, if you count his producing duties on Jennifer's Body), director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are more or less proving themselves the James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala of suburban dramedies. (Which, I suppose, could make Charlize Theron their Emma Thompson).

Tully, their latest picture, is not quite on the level of their prior efforts, Juno and Young Adult. It lacks the sparkling ensemble of the former and the writing isn't quite as sharp and gut-punching here as it is in the latter. (Nor is this film in the same league as Up in the Air, Reitman's masterpiece.)

That said, this film remains wholeheartedly worth a look, if exclusively as a showcase for Theron, who once again proves herself one of the finest actresses working today. 

Theron is Marlo, a wife and mother of two, about to give birth to her third child. Already exasperated by her two kids, especially her car seat-kicking, chicken nugget-guzzling son, Marlo is approached by her brother Craig (Mark Duplass), who suggests she consider hiring a nanny for nighttime duties. Marlo resists at first - that is, until little baby Mia graces the earth and proves a suffocating bundle of joy. 

Ultimately, Marlo does give in and into her life arrives Tully (Mackenzie Davis, in a fetching, irresistible performance). Like a gift from the heavens, Tully is masterful in not only handling Mia but also providing Marlo with peace and surprising insights about motherhood and the importance of taking care of oneself. Marlo finds herself enlightened and invigorated by Tully's presence - the question is, how long can their bond last?

Tully is especially satisfying and perceptive in its first half, with Theron soaring in this expertly written role. Cody continues to compose rich, shrewd dialogue in a fashion rarely seen in today's comedies. By the hour mark, Tully becomes more haphazard and uneven, until an 11-'o-clock-hour twist instills the proceedings with much of the freshness found earlier. 

Unlike Juno and Young Adult, Tully isn't much of an ensemble showcase. Davis is a true delight, while Ron Livingston has the rather thankless duties of taking on Drew, the amiable, hardworking husband who hasn't a clue about the struggles of motherhood. Lia Frankland is sweet as their daughter Sarah but neither her role, nor anyone else's beyond Marlo and Tully, is much fleshed out.

Tully may be a second-tier effort from its director and writer but it finds Theron operating at the top of her game and sports that dazzling turn from Davis - for them alone, it's well worth watching.

B+