A SIMPLE FAVOR 3.5***

     I came into this movie not knowing what to expect. If you've seen thrillers like Gone Girl you get the general gist of this movie.   What  I was not ready for was the excellent blending of comedy into such a gripping suspense thriller. Between Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively there are  plenty of laughs to go around especially when both share the screen time together. Their chemistry is stunning.  

Anna Kendrick plays Stephanie, an uptight  single mom who, when not doting on her cute son, keeps up a cooking/crafts VLOG ( a “vlog” is a video log of a person’s thoughts, opinions or interest usually collected on YouTube) with a tiny audience. One day, while picking up her son at school, she encounters  a mom of a different kind, played to BASIC INSTINCT perfection by Blake Lively. A case study in dead-eyed assertiveness, her Emily oozes strong-willed fashionista while Stephanie has her  meek but sweet passive-aggressive down pat. Quicker than you can say, "Play Date!" the women bond at Emily's gorgeous home over martinis and swapped stories about their wicked pasts.  

After being asked  "a simple favor" by  Emily  to pick up her son from school, Emily’s then total disappearance sends  Stephanie into a spiral of mystery, passion, and shocking discoveries. Stephanie does all she can to find Emily, taking such Nancy Drew action steps as scanning through microfiche at the library and snooping around Emily's office at a NY Fashion Design empire.  As she searches for clues, Stephanie learns that neither she nor anybody else knew Emily very well at all.

Take every trashy supermarket novel and Lifetime Network movie imaginable, stew them together into a pot, and you've got yourself Director Paul Feig's ( did “Bridesmaids”, “Heat” and “Spy” ) newest film. That's not a bad thing at all, though, thanks to Feig's strong direction and a wickedly talented cast led by the always phenomenal Anna Kendrick. Kendrick's    (especially when comedic) is right on point with every single line, mannerism, and endearing little fumble she makes, It's easily one of the most fun performances of the year. Lively's performance is also outstanding. Some people think she only has opportunities because she is married to Ryan Reynolds. But she is quite talented as well as gorgeous.

Overall the movie was a lot of fun and as well as a puzzler. The plot maintains its twists and turns as you would expect in a mystery/thriller and and at the same time delivers many funny quips and laughs that don’t feel overused or out of place. 

Rated R (for sexual content and language and some  nude images, drug use and violence.

OPERATION FINALE   2.5****

          Hollywood loves a true story, especially the kind most of us have either forgotten or never heard of. “Operation Finale” fits squarely into this field considering it’s a recognizable true event.

Adolf Eichmann (Ben Kingsley), a Nazi SS Lieutenant Colonel was the logistical mastermind of the holocaust. A powerful Nazi who, unlike his colleagues (Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels), survived World War II,  escaped Germany and  fled to Austria, then Argentina. His whereabouts remained a mystery until one day in 1960, when a chance encounter between his nephew Klaus  and a German Jew . Word soon gets to the Israeli Mossad ( similar to our CIA) director who dispatches a team to Buenos Aires. Their mission is to find Eichmann and bring him back to Israel to stand trial. The group  is led by Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac).  If they succeed, Jews the world over will experience some relief from the years of unspeakable atrocities.  It's a compelling premise, all the more so for being real.  

Why, then, don't we connect with it on screen as much as we might? The answer may lie within a simple plot point. For reasons for which the film does not elaborate, the Israeli air force refuses to fly into Argentina to extract Eichmann. This leaves El Al, the nation's commercial airliner. But El Al won't risk such a venture without a signed note from Eichmann consenting to his departure. Thus, a large portion of the film details the Mossad's efforts to convince Eichmann-perhaps gently, perhaps not-so gently to consent to such a seemingly absurd action.

It is in this waiting that the movie loses steam.  Also it is quite difficult to generate tension when we know the outcome. We know they get Eichmann to Israel for trial.

 A slow script cannot hide Kingsley's  magnetic creepy portrayal of the reclusive and manipulative Eichmann, nor Isaac's complex, restrained passion as the team’s leader.  

Operation Finale is the kind of film you see once, admire and appreciate, and probably don't see again. In fact that is reality for probably 90% of movies, even the good ones.  

NOTE: “Eighth Grade” is an amazing “slice of life/coming of age” film. As an aside,  I cannot identify as well with “middle school” life as most of you will. Way back in my day in Greenville NC we did not have middle school. We had elementary that went from 1^st thru 7^th grade and high school that went from 8^th thru 12^th. I could compare this character’s finishing 8^th grade and middle school with my first awkward scary year in high school as an 8^th grader.)

EIGHTH GRADE   4.0***

   If you want to understand what it may feel like to be an eighth-grade girl today, go with the perspective of comedian and first-time director Bo Burnham’s movie “Eighth Grade” and experience the anguish, self-doubt, loneliness, and hope of making it to high school with enough of your identity intact to make it through. 

The film centers around 8^th grader Kayla Day (played by Elsie Fisher), who goes through many struggles during her last week of 8^th grade classes prior to entering high school. From the opening scene alone, we understand Kayla's character and emotions rather quickly. Her awkward tone is demonstrated through her self-created You Tube videos (which are seldom watched by anyone), especially with her using the awkward "ums" and "likes" to collect herself. In addition, we see and experience the sympathetic side of Kayla and her constant mood swings, showing how relatable her character truly is. However, the most dramatic aspects come from Kayla's self-imposed negative relationship with her father (a single parent), who seems just as concerned about Kayla's difficult life as she does, which helps to create the right amount of emotional depth.

“Eighth Grade” is a brilliant rendering of the adolescent mind with enough social-media exposure to either crush Kayla or move her forward to self-understanding. Kayla and the other teens spend an enormous amount of time on their smart phones, occasionally doing smart, creative things, but most often texting and surfing.  In almost in every screen situation they are seen looking down at their phones.

This is a movie that is so good that words do not do it justice. And Elsie Fisher’s  performance  is so masterful and realistic and sympathetic that you'll find yourself cringing when she cringes, laughing when she laughs, and crying when she cries; you'll share in her happiness and her sadness; and you'll be glad to do it because her performance is without a doubt one of the best one of 2018 and should garner her a “Best Actress” Oscar nomination. She gives one of the best portrayals of a teenager I have ever seen on film. She doesn't deliver lines like an actor, but instead with all the unevenness and unsure feelings one would expect from a teenager. She doesn't look like a supermodel so you buy every single second of her self-doubt, her nerves and anxieties. Now, don't get me wrong, all of the performances in this film are excellent; but Elsie shines so much more brighter.

It is Rated R for language and some sexual material which is unfortunate because it should be seen by middle and high school students. So if you have a 12 or older son or daughter, take them to see this movie.

The HAPPYTIME MURDERS 1.5***

     Rated R for strong crude sexual content and language throughout, and some drug material.

I’m putting the “R” rating first because this is NOT a children’s movie !!! In  fact many adults will or should forego this movie because the simulated sex going on with the puppets is so graphic and crude that many will be offended. You ask how can that be with puppets, well they figured it out.

The story:  Puppets live in L.A. along with humans, but only as second-class residents. The puppet hero is Phil, a down-and-out private detective, salvaging a meager living after being booted from the  LA police force for an unfortunate incident. He's a classic example of a film-noir PI, complete with a dumpy office in a seedy area, and a devoted ditzy secretary (Maya Rudolph). When the puppets who starred in an old sitcom called the Happytime Gang start getting bumped off, his efforts to solve the crimes  lead to his reluctantly reuniting with his former LA police partner (McCarthy).   Enter Melissa McCarthy in her normal foul-mouthed role. She swears in direct proportion to how un-funny her role is; as if doing that will make up for a really bad script. In this she doesn't need to swear too much but she does anyway.  

It gets very weird. This is what happens when sexually repressed puppeteers have to do nice, fluffy kiddie films for fifty years. When they finally get a chance let go: they really let go. Including bad language, graphic simulated puppet sex (including Phil having hot and heavy sex with another puppet and shooting a ton of silly string all over his office  but not with his gun),  and cow-milking with extreme prejudice. I think the Director wanted to embarrass the audience and succeeded quite well. Although indulging in a lot of tastelessly vulgar stuff may have been meant to provide humor, it actually proves to be quite off-putting and more offensive than funny.  

On one positive note, I will say the puppetry is excellent. The puppeteers and technical wizardry behind making these puppets characters as convincing and believable as they are is an achievement. But all the negatives of the movie far offset the fine puppetry.