Richard Jewell (2019)

This was a very good film, with one near fatal flaw.
Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) is a lump of a man, but he is smart enough, just lacks a little common sense, such as pushing a smart-mouthed college student, illegally drinking beer in his dorm room. But he still adores law enforcement and is thrilled to have a job working security at the 1996 Olympics, Centennial Park where nightly concerts are held. That night, in addition to battling diarrhea, he also argues with some young men over shooting beer cans but then discovers a book bag, just shoved under a bench. Now, most would have ignored it, thinking that someone just stashed it, not wanting to carry on their backs while watching the concerts, but not Richard, he insists that it get called in and it's a good thing that he does. Turns out, it's a bomb, so they try to clear the area but the bomb explodes anyway, killing two and injuring more than one hundred.
And Richard goes from hero to suspect in the blink of an eye, thanks to his former boss calling in his suspicions to the FBI.
Here is where the fatal flaw happens. Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), a hungry reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, goes to her FBI contact, Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) and bribes him with sex to get a tip that Jewell is being investigated. Not only is that scene untrue, it's also demeaning to women. It highlights the loose morals of both characters. Honestly, while I like Wilde and think she's a solid actress, I felt that her character was unnecessary. The film worked well without her, with the scenes between Richard and his attorney, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) and his mother, Bobi (the great Kathy Bates). It dealt with how the FBI was pulling at threads trying to get Richard to be the guilty party when they knew he couldn't have done it. It took them eighty-eight days to figure that out.
It also details how disruptive the press and FBI can be in your life. They take everything from the house, down to Bobi's underwear and tupperware, and she's devastated. I don't blame her.
Despite the incorrect actions of Kathy's character, the film has heart and great performances. It's a shame that that one mistake turned this film from a top film of the year to one that's just middle of the road. Grade: B+
Side Notes:
-The Jewell's beagle is just adorable.
-At first I was upset that they created a slight romantic angle between Watson and his secretary, Nadya (Nina Arianda) but it turns out, that was true. They got married and had two children.
-Also, what sort of first name is Watson? I feel bad for him.
-I can't believe that it took the FBI six years to find the actual bomber, Eric Rudolph. He hid for six years and then just confessed? That's probably another film.
-Sam Rockwell was quite good in this film as well and probably should have been in bigger contention for major awards than he was.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

While this film was overly long, it was also three hours of looking at Leonardo DiCaprio and that is always worthwhile. He's far too good looking and talented to be real.
This film traces Jordan Belfort's (DiCaprio's) journey from naive and sober young stockbroker to one of the richest men in the country who gained everything he owned through illegal methods and money-laundering. He divorces his first wife, Teresa (Cristin Milloti) and marries that also way too attractive and talented Margot Robbie, the lovely Naomi who gives him two children despite knowing that he's a drug addict and womanizer.
Certainly, the film is a bit bizarre, almost like The Big Short, with narration and the occasional breaking of the third wall. And that scene where Jordan and his vice president minion, Donnie (Jonah Hill, with bleached teeth) are super high is just bizarre but also shows how great those two actors are. And it is a miracle that Jordan was able to drive home and didn't kill anyone, sure he banged into a bunch of cars and fixed objects (which is also unacceptable), but at least no one got hurt.
Sure, none of these characters are good role models or even good humans, but the acting is great and the film has a real feel to it. It is also ridiculous how Scorsese can go from the family-friendly (and brilliant) Hugo to this film where drugs, sex and cursing are in absolutely every scene. Nevertheless, it is great. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-Despite fourth billing, Matthew McConaghey's role is nothing more than a cameo, with roughly five minutes of screen time. He's still great.
-I'm surprised that Naomi didn't divorce him earlier.
-Jordan receives only three years in prison, that's light for everything he did.
-Kyle Chandler is brilliant as the investigating FBI agent. He's also great. I love when he plays the good guy.

Sweetness in the Belly (2020)

While the title has nearly nothing to do with the film, it was good nevertheless, white washed, but good anyway.
Sure, it is completely bizarre that non-religious British parents are going to abandon their daughter at a Sufi mosque in Morocco, but you kind of just have to go with it.
Now, Lilly (a surprisingly good Dakota Fanning) is an adult, and has fled the battle-torn Ethiopia for Britain, where she has special status due to the color of her skin, though she is too naive to realize that. But she's one of the first to be given an apartment, though she isn't lonely for long, opening it up to a new mother, Amina (Wunmi Mosaku), her newborn and young son. Amina's husband was beaten and jailed and she was raped at a refugee camp, so her pain is not the same as Lilly's. Lilly was also separated from her doctor lover Aziz (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who fought for the resistance against the military. Needless to say, only one of them has a happy ending, though there is promise for the other.
While Lilly's character is a bit unrealistic, Fanning finally shows the promise of becoming a great actress, not to mention the rest of the cast is pitch perfect as well, and the screenplay is tight, in what is hopefully a good translation from the printed page. It shows how resilent people can be which is never something that can be overlooked. Grade: B+
Side Notes:
-Big Bang Theory's Kunal Nayyar is decent in his small role as a British doctor. Lilly really likes her doctors.
-Lilly is also very eager to change bedpans.
-The side project that Amina and Lilly start of reuniting refugees with their families unfortunately gets stuck on the back burner and is merely an afterthought, when it should have been the focal point of the plot.

Palm Springs (2020)

While time loops in films are not new, this one still manages still to be fresh with an important message.
Nyles (Andy Samberg) is the boyfriend of Misty (an underused Meredith Hagner) who is a bridesmaid at the wedding of peppy young couple, Abe (Tyler Hoechlin) and Tala (Camila Mendes). Here, he befriends the maid of honor and Tala's sister, Sarah (Cristin Milloti) and saves her from giving a disastrous toast. But then, she falls into a cave and gets stuck with Nyles, reliving her sister's wedding over and over again, except for what they do changes, sometimes with good success, other times, not so much.
There is even a twist that not even I saw coming, which while I wasn't happy with it, the film goes in a direction that makes the time loop saga refreshing. While Nyles continues living the day, just trying to have a good time, Sarah, instead is hellbent and determined to find a way out and when she finally finds a plan that she thinks may work, Nyles is reluctant to join her, not wanting to take the chance of dying or jumping into an unknown point in time.
Sure, the ending is a bit odd and a moment is just ridiculous, and the important point is sort of muddled over, but it is there nevertheless and worthy of a discussion. And Samberg and Milloti have unexpectedly great chemistry which always ends plenty to a film. Grade: B
Side Notes:
-J.K. Simmons and Peter Gallagher have interesting small roles.
-Why would anyone ever wear a Hawaiian shirt and swim trunks to a wedding?
-If you don't think a marriage will work out, you shouldn't go through with it.
-You will feel bad for the goat, who plays a shockingly important role.

Wild Rose (2019)

Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) believes she should have been born in America, given her love of country music. But instead, she was born in Glasgow where she has made plenty of mistakes and bad choices, one right after another.
She's just been released from prison where her kids barely remember her and she's stuck as a cleaning lady, but fortunately for her, Susannah (Sophie Okonedo) her boss soon becomes her biggest fan, giving her opportunity after opportunity but Rose-Lynn just isn't honest with her and thus, her actual life gets in the way.
And it doesn't help that the only person she can lean on is her mother, Marion (Julie Walters) but even she's skeptical and pissed off that Rose-Lynn constantly breaks her promises to the kids. However, she comes through in the end, giving Rose-Lynn the Nashville money.
Nashville turns out to be a good thing, though she doesn't make it, she is inspired nevertheless and finally finds success in her hometown, a place where she's finally glad to be.
While the film has been done before, some ordinary person just trying to get famous, Jessie Buckley gives such a memorizing performance that the idea does seem fresh and she's great a singer. The supporting cast is also great. Grade: B+
Side Notes:
-The father or fathers of her children is not in the picture nor is he even mentioned.
-For someone who is banned from the Glasgow Grand Ole Opry, Rose-Lynn is there a lot anyway.

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Any other year, Tom Cruise would have won an Oscar for his memorizing role as Ron Kovic. Too bad he was up against Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, which is one of the best performances of all time.
Cruise ages from the bright-eyed, naive teenager to the hardened and paralyzed veteran, who rapidly also becomes disillusioned with the Vietnam War, just as so many Americans also were.
Moving swiftly (too swiftly, skipping over his time at basic training and his first tour in Vietnam), the has glimpses of his second tour, where he accidentally shoots a fellow American in the hazy orange sunlight, before getting shot in the shoulder and foot (not sure how that would lead him to getting paralyzed from the chest down). Not only will he never walk again, despite his stubborn pride insisting otherwise, he also can't have children, which I think affects just as much, if not more than the whole never walking again.
When he returns to his hometown, he is greeted as a hero, even though his own younger brother (he is the oldest of six) is against the war. Ron has tons of struggles, including drinking. It isn't until a near-death experience in Mexico, that Ron finally pulls himself together. He confronts the dead soldier's family, where his confession is met with mixed reviews. He, then, proceeds to protest the war along with fellow veterans, eventually being invited to speak at the 1976 Democratic convention.
Cruise carries the film and he is excellent. The other actors really don't have big roles though everyone is great as well. I would have liked a bit of an epilogue explaining what Ron's done since then and there is really no love story, which always upsets the romantic part of me. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-Kyra Sedgwick (who was actually young once) is good as Donna, Ron's high school girlfriend, but when she appears later, romance is never discussed and what appears to be a wedding ring on her left hand is never explained.
-The scenes at the Bronx hospital are especially horrific, that place is absolutely rank.
-This film also brings up good points about racism in America.
-Willem Dafoe is also great as another disabled veteran Ron meets in Mexico.

The Great Santini (1980)

Despite being forty years old, this film is still surprisingly relevant.
While clouded under the muddled father-son relationship of narcissist, asshole Naval pilot Bull Meechum (Robert Duvall) and his oldest son, Ben (Michael O'Keefe, in his breakthrough role), this film also has the ever present struggle between races.
While the Meechums are white, and though Lillian (Blythe Danner), the mother is southern, they aren't racist and in fact, Lillian encourages a friendship between Ben, a shining basketball star, and Toomer (Stan Shaw), their maid's son who loves his stray dogs and making honey. But there is bad blood between Toomer, who does have a limp and slight stutter and one of the locals (as this is Beaufort, South Carolina), Red (an unrecognizable David Keith) but while Red accidentally shoots Toomer, instead of another one of his dogs, but the rest of Toomer's slightly unclean but ever loyal pups mauls Red to death. Toomer dies too, in the Meechum's car. That sequence is also memorable because Ben finally confronts his father and says in near monotone, "No one ever tells you anything." Which is true, as Bull is extremely controlling and can't stand losing, not even when Ben puts up a fair fight and once Ben finally wins, Bull changes the rules and bounces the ball off Ben's head just to get an emotional reaction out of Ben, which doesn't happen.
Now, the film isn't perfect, with some rough transitions between scenes, and the younger two Meechum children barely have any personality or anything to do, and the film doesn't focus much at all on how Bull is at having his own squadron, but the acting is solid, Duvall and O'Keefe certainly deserved their Oscar nominations. Danner was also shockingly underrated in this film as she was great. Despite these noticeable flaws, the film is a must watch. Grade: B+
Side Notes:
-There is also a lot to delve in to in regards to Lillian's relationship with Ben, and then there is also the fact that Ben took his sister, the delightfully droll Marianne (Lisa Jane Persky) to the prom.
-The family dog deserved more screen time.
-We were also missing the needed scene of how Bull reacted to Ben getting benched for the rest of the basketball season.
-Leaving at three am is really a good idea as there is a lot less traffic.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

While this film is completely ridiculous, it is a classic screwball comedy.
Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) is bonkers, walking around totally unaware of her surroundings. Cars must have been very different back in 1938, as she simply climbs into a random car and can just drive away with it. One of these cars belongs to Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) who is a paleontologist, just hours away from getting married to the stiff, boring Alice (Virginia Walker). But instead of marrying Alice, David spends hours with Susan, who hoodwinks him into helping her delivery her present of Baby (a leopard) to her Aunt Elizabeth (May Robson) and one wrong thing happens after another, including the dog stealing the prized bone which will complete David's skeleton of brontosaurus. And then Baby escapes, they fall into a river, mistaken identities abound and eventually everyone ends up in prison before Baby somehow wanders into the jail, proving that they are really telling the truth, after all. Of course the practical David and zany Susan end up together.
So, while the film is relatively basic, it nevertheless takes an implausible plot and makes it seem as though it could (or at least parts of it) could have actually happened. The comedic timing is impeccable and Hepburn and Grant are great and have excellent chemistry. I found this film to be much better than their most famous pairing in The Philadelphia Story. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-I wonder how they made the fight between the dog, George, and Baby as realistic as they are.
-This film contains one of the most awkward dinner scenes ever.
-Susan has a lot of nerve taking David's clothes while he's in the shower.
-Alice's marriage to David would have been more of a business transaction than a love match.
-It is explained what Susan does for a living.