Coen brothers. Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

After the series of flops--though one must admit that these are flops only for Coen brothers--they attempted a redemption. The movie is very uneven: the titular segment is such a garish collection of commonplaces of the westerns that whether it is ironic or serious is hard to understand.

By the end it gets much better. Beginning with the scabrous, enigmatic character of Liam Neeson, the movie acquires its wings lost in the first segment. John Waits' segment is plain--but many people could say of John Waits what I already said of Charlize Theron--anything deeper than their counting on screen makes their fans drool. Two last segments are wonderful.

Cuaron, Roma.

Perfect, but boring movie. Yalitza Aparicio in the principal role is great. Yet, despite all critics' prognoses for it bagging the Big Oscar, it was given to inept, but politically correct "Greenbook."

Note: Obviously, Cuaron was traumatized by his father walking out from his family with a much younger mistress but himself repeated this exploit at least twice.

The Kid Who Would Be King

Horribly inept movie with primitive dialog and illogical plot turns, which got 86% approval on rottentomatoes because of what? Serkis Jr. as a main character? Patrick Stewart in a colorless supporting role? Usually, only political correctness fare gets this high rate because otherwise critics are accused of racism or misogyny.

Death of Stalin

Primitive romp, yet closely following Khruschev's memoirs. Bold shaven Steve Buscemi is believable as Khrushev despite great disparity in heights but the further the narrative is from the main character, the more it is slides into a bad caricature.

Green Book

A movie with a beautiful premise of role reversals (white man as a servant of a black master). But it is a single-note tune, which is a accidental pun because the movie is about musicians. But Viggo as a working-class Italian is wonderful. Mahershala Ali was given, figuratively, only a single note to play with but he plays it well. Remarkable is the inclusion of Nick Vallelonga, son of the principal character, both as a screenwriter and as a cameo. This is life intruding art in its most tangled form.

Vice

The movie is not bad but it fails to show the evolution of the inscrutable psychopath within the rarest of the rare--the family of psychopaths--Lynne, Dick and Liz. In particular, nothing is told about his family and influences before his marriage to Lynne. This cannot be surprising--after all there is no rational explanation of the behavior of psychopaths other than some people enjoy hurting other people. Low IQ psychopaths become serial killers and hurt dozens; high IQs go to the media, Wall Street, the CIA and the State Department and, in the case of some, to the Presidency and hurt millions.

However, Cheney in the Dreyfus cameo in W is really shown as a pure evil without any explanation or comment. Paolo Sorrentino in Il Divo is superb in showing another inscrutable, Giulio Andreotti in minute details such as him attentively reading obscene graffiti on himself on the Roman wall or discussing household finances with his wife after the day of plotting corruption, treason and murder. But Sorrentino is the greatest director after the death of Italy's generation of the greatest (Fellini, Rosselini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti and Zavattini). Christian Bale is a fine actor but he was not given enough substance to work with.

Isle of Dogs

                                                                                 

I watched "Isle of Dogs" without most English subtitles for the Japanese dog conversations, so my impression may be slanted. It is a sound movie, though the plot development (but not the premise) seems too formulaic to reach to the level of the Wes Anderson's best movies (see my review for "Budapest"). There are typical "Andersonisms" appearing in each of his movies: people running perpendicular to the line of sight. But there are also great cameos--corrupt mayor of the city with the large cat tatoo on his behind--or the hacker in the makeshift tent defeating the mayor poisoners' army when everything seems to be lost. And, of course, the star cast (Murray, Swinton, Goldblum, Balaban, Herwig, Schrieber) "for the love/life of dogs"--what can be better? In the language of Magical Max, only the MLT sandwich.