Peanut Butter Falcon

Peanut Butter Falcon is a great feel-good movie where two outcasts on-the-run see the best in each other and let that lift them up. Zak is a 22 year old man who defines himself by his downs syndrome. The state has put him in a nursing home where he's the youngest resident by 50 years. He breaks out and runs into Tyler (Shia LeBeouf), a ne'er do well blue collar worker who is trying to escape his own set of mistakes. When Zak tells his newfound friend of his disability, Tyler responds, without missing a beat, by saying "I don't give a s--t," in the tone of W.C. Fields quote "I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally." He is equal parts unforgiving and accepting. Zak is not used to that response. He shares that he's hoping to travel to the wrestling school of the "Saltwater Redneck" a pro-wrestler he's obsessively idolized as his hero.

The film was created around actor Zack Gottsagen, who the filmmakers met through a camp they were participating in. It serves as a great dissertation on how to interact with someone who is disabled. We see many calling him a "retard" as well as those that are his advocates, this group focused on Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) a social worker from the nursing home that has befriended Zak and taken him as a special case. She's out looking for Zak hoping to track him down after his escape. She meets Tyler who tells her to stop calling him "retarded," too, pointing out that treating him as disabled is the same as telling him he is disabled. This is a paradigm shift for both Zak and Eleanor and one that they both seem to have needed to hear.

Tyler's got his own lessons to learn, as well. Upon introduction you wonder why he's so against the world and eventually learn of some of the baggage he's carrying. Zak provides an outlet to face and accept some of those things within himself. Perhaps this sounds a bit sappy, but it's told truthfully, and with a lot of humor. The amazing cast is rounded out with people like John Hawkes, Bruce Dern, and Thomas Haden Church along with a couple of professional wrestlers representing Zak Gottsagen's own interests.

Shia LeBeouf is real against Zack and that relationship makes this film shine. LeBeouf has been a bit of a punching bag in Hollywood since his rise to blockbuster stardom with the Transformer movies. As with so many child actors with huge success, he struggled with substance abuse and adjustment and then started to make a lot of very crazy-seeming choices. I've always been endeared to his more quirky decisions and find the "Do it" motivational video un-ironically inspiring every time I watch it. In his more recent performances he uses his reputation to his advantage. We all know he's a bit damaged and a bit lost and we feel that in his character here.

This is a buddy film and a road-trip flick and as such, Peanut Butter Falcon has the requisite soundtrack needed to be on part with the best of those genres. It's a film that feels like a labor of love. This is an example of a great independent film with a modest budget coming in with all the quality and heart you could want. I look forward to what co-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz have for us next.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

If there's one thing I can say definitively about The Rise of Skywalker, it is that I was entertained the entire time. I had a lot of fun. I mean, how do you end a saga of 9 films all out of order, with 5 directors, two studios, and all over 42 years? Expectations from fans, from studios, for the box office and for yourself to create something that you can put your stamp on and send out into the world. The pressure is on director JJ Abrams in such an intense way. There is no way to please everybody. I admit that throughout my viewing I was holding on to hope thinking, "I've enjoyed it this far... it's ok... oh they did that?! I can handle that. Whoa! now that's a choice...," and so on.

The experience of watching Rise is an exercise in battling reluctance. A reluctance, based in cynicism, to analyze, to call out as pandering, to avoid cliche. A reluctance to what? A reluctance to giving in and accepting where the story is taking you, where you know it is heading, and in deciding to go there with it and enjoy it.

I feel like the Great Debate to rage on for eternity will be, did Rian Johnson do a way better set up for Rise with his installment, The Last Jedi, than previously thought, or did JJ Abrams reverse everything Johnson did that was original just to pander to fans? After watching this my respect and appreciation for The Last Jedi (which I enjoyed, overall, for the record) grew quite a bit. How upset were people about Darth Vader's announcement in The Empire Strikes Back? Maybe a lot of people were upset on what it was suggesting before they had the last installment to iron it out. For all the merits of The Last Jedi, I had thought that it had missed the opportunity to be the perfect middle piece in a story arc. I feel like Rise shows me that where I thought they had taken a left turn, a fully-formed arc really does exist. I now fully see the light.*

And the core of story of Rey carries through from Episodes VII and VIII. In Rise her and Kylo Ren's struggle to turn each other to their respective sides of the force, and her questions and feelings about her origins, are all explored to their conclusion. At a key moment, Rey is presented with a choice without a clear solution. The ultimate question deciding the fate of the galaxy is given as a puzzle where it seems the only answer is to give in to evil. On one hand we know something must end but on the other, to end it would be giving in to that very evil. This is a wholly relatable choice for every one of us and is the question between reluctance and doubt or acceptance and letting go.

Beyond the story, this was a visual spectacle with the use of light in the frame perhaps the most artful  since The Empire Strikes Back. I can think of one frame that stands out: all black except for the sliver of Rey's face, white and gray in the right third of the frame, as she looks off, unsure of what's coming, but determined. It was striking. Some may say the strobe-like flash lighting (for which an epileptic warning is given prior to the film) is partly an effort to distract from the glossy-eyed, aged, and burned-looking face of Palpatine, whose role is reprised by Ian McDiarmid. It does serve to keep you from looking too closely at his make-up, another thing I was as reluctant to do as I was to accept him in this film. But still, the effect of the light was almost like alternating between a black and white photo and its negative, and kept you guessing as to what the next move was. It's a visual theme throughout. 

The colors and framing are rich and deep, unlike the flat, over-digitized cityscapes and vistas which, at times, kept the prequels feeling empty. Like all the Star Wars films, you are presented with lush world-building. This is at its best when it hints at other great stories on the outlines. Keri Russell's character Zorri, her unexplained backstory with Poe, and the settlement in the rocky, snow-globe-of-a-world she is introduced in are a great example of this. There are other interesting planets that are introduced along with new ways to interact with the galaxy and even to use the force. We're being stretched a bit, something Johnson prepared us for.

In the end, this gives you everything you expect, and a bit more. Some will be satisfied at getting just that, while others may find that limiting and perhaps even eyeroll-inducing. For your own sake, treat it like the force: just give in to it and let it flow through you.

*Though the whole Admiral Holdo storyline with not telling anyone the plan is still reprehensible and frustrating.

------Spoiler Talk Beyond-----

------ Seriously, Spoilers ahead ------

------ You were warned! ------

Random spoilerly thoughts:

I wanted the turning of Ben to happen but I wasn't sure it really ever would or how it would. I would've loved to sit with Ben Solo a little more. I felt reluctance about The kiss between him and Rey but it felt right in the moment, it was what I found I had hoped for. This is what I mean - a reluctance and then acceptance. Because, guess what? To not do it just because people feel like an ending where a guy and a girl kiss is what's expected, is the wrong reason. These two had a tension between them that was, if not wholly committed to as sexual tension, was deeply emotional and a need of release of some type was what anyone would feel in that moment.

The scenes with Leia on this first viewing were hard to watch without analyzing how much and to what extent they were able to mine from unused, or even used, footage from the previous two films. I noticed she said lines that were a bit vague, stood in basically one angle when seeing her actual face (and so coming from one scene, likely), and had a lot of silent looks rather than lines. But what else could they do? And really, in the end, it works and is a better ending to her story than just writing her out.

Luke's admitting he was wrong really puts TLJ into focus for me. Yoda basically indicated that in TLJ itself already so I have to realize Luke has an arc of his own that this brings to a close. We understand his choice to run away now because Rey felt exactly the same way when she saw what was happening in herself in the hunt for Palpatine.

A list of throwbacks that come to mind right now after having just left the theater:

• Chewie gets his medal!
• Luke as force ghost
• Wedge Antilles in final battle
• Do we see Lando and Nien Nunb in the same frame together?
• Death Star II (I question the proportions of size, I would've guessed the eye of the space station was like the size of Rhode Island and so not walkable)
• Han Solo in Ben's mind, no force ghost?
• Sith Dagger that's basically the coin from Goonies - I laughed at that!

Bold choices that were made that you've just gotta accept:

• Go all in on Sith v Jedi
• Bring back Palpatine
• Take us to a hidden Sith planet, Exega, with a Sith temple very much like the one in Rebels
• Create an entire thousand-strong Star Destroyer fleet - each a death star unto itself - out of whole cloth?
• Ret-con Leia and Luke's training (w/digital recreation) - also serving to make Leia's force float slightly less crazy