Three Movie Reviews

Over the weekend, I saw three movies – one a little old, two brand new.

First there was the film adaptation of Andy Weir's novel Project Hail Mary, which I really enjoyed. Upon reviewing my review of the book, I see that I've been salivating over this movie since last September. Oh, cruel, cruel Hollywood, holding out on a really decent movie for so long!

So, at the risk of repeating what I said in my book review, the story is about a guy named Grace who wakes up from an induced coma with no memory whatsoever. By a combination of science and a slow drip of returning memory, he gradually works out that he's on a mission to Tau Ceti, something like 12 light years from Earth, because it's smack in the middle of a cluster of stars – including our sun – that are dying due to an interstellar plague of energy-eating microbes; and yet it (Tau Ceti) doesn't seem to be affected. He was apparently one of three astronauts sent in a ship propelled by these astrophage ("they toot, they scoot") to find out what Tau Ceti got that they ain't got and, for some reason, he's now the only one left alive. Soon after he gets to Tau Ceti, he encounters a representative of a completely non-anthropomorphic alien race who is also there for the same reason and, tragically, also the only surviving member of his crew. The fate of both their worlds depends on them figuring out what is keeping Tau Ceti peppy and how to send that home.

Rocky, the alien from 40 Eridani, is a surprise in the book but no effort was expended on keeping him a surprise for the movie. It works well for what it's billed as: a heartwarming, thought-provoking, near-future sci-fi buddy comedy featuring a lone human and a puppet (not CGI) alien. Alien who somehow conveys a distinct personality and a whole range of moods without having a face, or really almost any other recognizable characteristic of people as we know them. He eventually gets a voice, thanks to a computer subroutine that Grace programs to translate his complex language of musical tones. And the two of them develop a beautiful friendship that makes it possible for an audience to sit throughout a more than two-and-a-half-hour movie without complaining. Meanwhile, they're laughing, crying, feeling all kinds of emotions, and while the flashbacks do keep it from being altogether a one-man show, Ryan Gosling's acting as Grace deserves a lot of the credit for that.

Besides Gosling, the cast also includes academy award nominee Sandra Hüller (Zone of Interest) as the head of the Hail Mary Project, who dragoons Grace into sacrificing his future to save humanity; James Ortiz as the voice and lead puppeteer of Rocky; Ken Leung (Lost) as one of Grace's ill-fated crewmates; Lionel Boyce (The Bear) as a sympathetic security guard; and a one-line voice cameo by Meryl Streep. The screenplay is by Drew Goddard, who also wrote the screenplay for Weir's The Martian; directors are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 and 22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie, and writers/producers of the Spider-Verse movies. So, a quality team there! And the results are a tremendously successful movie that, for just this moment, seems to be restoring audiences' faith in the possibility of really good movies. And by really good movie, I mean one that I've already seen not once but twice, at full theater price, with no regret whatsoever.

Three Scenes that Made It For Me: (1) Rocky's first hug, awkward in so many ways, all of them just right. (2) The dangerous mission to scoop "taumoeba" out of the atmosphere of the planet Adrian (just try to guess where that name came from) and all of the thrilling and devastating ways it goes wrong. (3) Hüller's karaoke scene, which (according to an excerpt from an interview that I saw online the other night) she apparently refused to do unless the song could be Harry Styles' "Sign of the Times." In the context of the story, it was a haunting choice.

The second film of the weekend was a streaming-on-TV presentation of The Ride from 2018. It's a fictionalized biography of BMX champion John Buultjens, starring rapper Ludacris and Rizzoli & Isles alum Sasha Alexander as his adoptive parents. Very fictionalized, it turns out. You actually see the guy himself at the end of the film, and there's no way the technology used by the teenaged version of his character existed when he was that age. Apparently he's from Scotland as well, while the kid in the movie seems to be from the L.A. area. But regardless of all that, it's an emotionally stirring story about a kid brought up in an abusive, racist home who, after a spell in juvenile detention (afte he stabs his dad to protect his mom), gets a chance to experience a loving family ... from an interracial couple. And also, despite never having learned to ride a bike, he goes on to win a big BMX championship.

I'm not going to belabor the synopsis. The kid is troubled. He's trouble. He gets a hard start in life and, by the time his teens hit, he's a hard young man. He's slow to accept a black man as his foster (and eventually adoptive) dad. He has a tendency to get into trouble. He's a fighter – a survivor. And as his attitudes change and his goals come into focus, he faces an old threat in a new form: the skinhead gang his father belonged to, and that his older brother still belongs to.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The young bookworm, who has never gotten on half so well with people as with books, wins over the prettiest girl in history class by giving her a hint based on his knowledge of ancient Greek heroes. (2) After some behavioral hiccups reveal his longing to learn how to do BMX bike tricks, young John accepts some help from his foster-dad. (3) The tough older brother comes to the rescue when the Aryan Brotherhood targets John and his new family.

Finally, yesterday's matinee was The Pout-Pout Fish, based on the children's book by Deborah Diesen and featuring the voices of Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), Miranda Otto (Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings), Jordin Sparks (2007 winner of American Idol), Amy Sedaris (BoJack Horseman), and Remy Hii (Crazy Rich Asians). Unlike Project Hail Mary, which I've been waiting to see since last September, I'd never heard of this movie until the day I saw it. It was part of the appeal, to tell the truth.

The part-American, part-Australian movie tells the story of a grumpy blue fish with a perpetual frown, who likes to keep to himself. A young sea dragon named Pip disturbs his tranquility, and after a mishap destroys both of their homes, they go on a quest to find a legendary, wish-granting fish known as Shimmer. Meanwhile, cuttlefish whose habitat is becoming uninhabitable due to a kelp infestation, sets off to seek the same source of magical help. Their paths cross multiple times, colliding as well with dolphins, sharks, whales, jellyfish, gossipy starfish and all kinds of other denizens of the deep in a series of adventures that range from funny to thrilling to scary and a little sad. Of course everybody learns lessons and they call come together at the end to solve the problems that threaten everybody's way of life in this diverse little corner of the ocean.

I thought it was an adorable movie, with a tender heart, a sharp sense of humor and gorgeous imagery. So I'll get right to Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) a trio of bedazzled, but very carnivorous, dolphins menaces the hero pair. (2) The cuttlefish use their power to hypnotize all the fish on the reef in their dastardly plan to redevelop it as their own habitat. (3) Mr. Fish (I love the name) remembers why he believes in Shimmer.

556. Doctors of the Church Hymn

I had been toying with the idea of adding a "Doctors of the Church" hymn to my ongoing hymnal project, based on the commemorations of Dr. Martin Luther (Feb. 18), C.F.W. Walther (May 7) and the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession (June 25), which were among the propers in Lutheran Worship (predecessor to Lutheran Service Book) under "Minor Festivals." I didn't get any traction until I spotted the tune SALUS MORTALIUM (Erfurt, 1663) while working on a different project, and it caught my fancy. Here's what it looks like, with the first stanza of the hymn and some performance instructions that speak for themselves, I think:

And here's the full text:

Christ, who the doctors did astound,
In latter days, by grace profound,
You deigned the gospel to propound—
Alleluia!—
Through learned men of spirit sound.

Martin Luther:
2. We praise Your providential hand
For nerving Martin's "Here I stand,"
Whose witness, like a glowing brand—
Alleluia!—
Stirred faith to flame in many a land.

3. Grant in these latter days such nerve
That from Your word will never swerve.
Equip us with men apt to serve;
Alleluia!
Your faithful church through them preserve.

C.F.W. Walther:
2. We thank You for the prudent mind
That You to Ferdinand assigned,
Which Law and Gospel's limits lined—
Alleluia!—
And that with pastor's care entwined!

3. Lord, from Your word's well-ordered stores,
Feed us on these as other shores!
Unclose to us salvation's doors;
Alleluia!
Help us use rightly what is Yours!

Presentation of the Augsburg Confession:
2. We thank You for the noble men,
With Philipp's perspicacious pen,
Who spoke a unified Amen—
Alleluia!—
And trained the church on Christ again.

3. Still by their witness, Savior, bless
The church, that we Your name confess,
Keep what is good, avoid excess—
Alleluia!—
And gain the crown of righteousness!

Concluding stanza:
4. Propitiator for our race,
Bless all who Your appearing trace,
That many may the truth embrace—
Alleluia!—
Your pledge of justifying grace!

555. For a Chastened Church

Christ, who with braided cords
The temple purified,
Purge us as well of seeming lords
That turn our steps aside.

Cleanse all our aims and means
Of what beguiles our eyes;
Dispel the sentiment that leans
On that which in us lies.

Make ours a fellowship
That on Your nurture thrives;
Let no drop slip twixt cup and lip
Which faith and love revives.

If it must be with pain
Your discipline we feel,
Give us provisions that sustain
Our hearts with pious zeal.

On You, O Savior, fix
Our eyes, our doctrine plumb;
Deliver us from Satan's tricks
And strike our grumbling dumb.

For by sure word and sign
You work Your gracious will:
Let us therefore these treasures mine
And spread Your kingdom still.

TUNE: I'm thinking about SWABIA by J.M. Spiess (†1772), which has been variously paired with such hymns as "Forever with the Lord" (Ev. Lutheran Hymnary), "Jesus, my Truth, My Way" (Ev. Lutheran Hymn-Book, The Lutheran Hymnal), "Praise we the Lord this day" (TLH) and "How wide the love of Christ" (Lutheran Service Book). A nice, modest, sturdy tune that hasn't been overexposed, I think. ART: Bernardino Mei (†1676), Christ cleansing the temple, public domain.

The Bride!

Last night I traveled an hour in each direction to see either this movie or EPiC (Baz Luhrman's documentary/concert film about Elvis) and at the moment of stepping up to the cashier, I plumped for this movie, primarily because it had an earlier showtime. Maggie Gyllenhaal wrote and directed this loose adaptation of Bride of Frankenstein, featuring presumptive soon-to-be Oscar winner for best actress Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) in the title role and Christian Bale as a Frankenstein's Monster who comes to Chicago sometime in the 1930s to ask a reanimator, played by Annette Bening, to jump-start a dead woman for him because he is perishing of loneliness. The corpse they happen to dig up is that of Ida, a mobster's moll who was possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelley when she took a fatal tumble down a flight of stairs, but the Bride doesn't remember any of that. She comes to vivid, shocking life, engaging in scandalous behavior, leading "Frank" on an interstate crime spree, and you know, trying to live out Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's dictum that "well-behaved women seldom make history."

It's a take on Bride of Frankenstein that takes its departure from the idea of Shelley as a woman of revolutionary talent who was robbed of her opportunity to push her mother's feminist ideology by her own early death from brain cancer. The ghost, manifesting through Ida/the Bride (sometimes going as Penny) in fits of British-accented literary wordplay, wants to get the story out so badly that it costs the girl her life. Kind of. She was also, kind of, rubbed out by the gangsters she ran with, including a revolting fellow named Lupino who collects the tongues of people he had silenced and who, in one scene, blithely shoots one of his stooges between the eyes, wipes a splash of blood off his cheek, and carries on eating lunch entirely undisturbed. But now, as the Bride, she has become the more flamboyant half of a cross-country murder spree duo, trailed by a none-too-diligent detective (Peter Sarsgaard) and his sharp-as-a-tack secretary (Penélope Cruz), who have spotted a pattern: The killings go wherever movies starring a certain smiling crooner and dancer (played in a bunch of movies-within-the-movie by Jake Gyllenhaal) are playing. Because, as you know, Frankenstein's monster is a big fan of musical comedy. Joking aside, there's a tender spot here that furnishes one of the film's tragic themes.

So, enough synopsis. Trust me, the paragraphs above don't come close to doing justice to this movie's storyline. It's just a taster of an astoundingly weird movie. It's definitely an original, if you'll pardon the contradiction with the plain fact that it's adapted from previous work. It's so unlike what I am accustomed to seeing at the movies that I frankly couldn't tell while I was seeing it, and still don't know, whether I liked it or not. It's either a brilliant movie despite significant flaws or a disaster with flashes of brilliance in it. Frank and the Bride each reveal facets of themesleves that touch me deeply, striking right to the heart. They also do some awful things and get involved in some icky scenes, at both ends of the high-low class spectrum. They can't seem to stop making horrific mistakes, bringing to mind the proverb, "No matter where you go, there you are." But they keep doing surprising things, too, like ... well, let's get to that in ...

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The monster couple crashes a tuxedos-and-champagne affair while dodging cops in New York City. Frank finds himself standing before Ronnie Reed, the movie star he is not very ambiguously in love with, declaring his feelings and experiencing soul-crushing rejection. In one scene, the movie shows its full range of tone, from the monster's heartbreaking vulnerability to an outrageous "brain attack" dance in which the reanimated couple leads a ballroom full of unwilling participants before concluding in a tense, armed standoff with police and a violent escape. (2) Frank tells the Bride the story of how he proposed to her. He's lying, of course. But it's the lie she desperately wants to hear because she has no memory of her life before "the accident." Her need is so touching, and his lies are so clever and entertaining, that you can almost but not quite dismiss the niggling note of doom that buzzes through the scene. (3) In a later scene that forms a matching pair with No. 2, Frank admits the truth to the Bride and actually proposes marriage to her in a moment that brings the tragedy of their romance to a shattering height.

It's a strange, strange movie. A lot of it is improbable to the point of absurdity. Some of it comes close to feeling like a hallucination. It has a fat streak of revolutionary feminist wish-fulfillment running through it (the "brain attack" spreads, you know), turning the corner into an alternate history where anything can happen and you just have to live with it. The monsters become the latest rage. The movies become a lifeline for a creature who, on one hand, has apparently lived for over a century and, on the other hand, really seems capable of dying of loneliness. It has Annette Bening playing a genius who can only be talked into violating every covenant of scientific ethics by the appeal, "I thought you were a mad scientist." It has Jake G. as an actor who, upon hearing that his cheerful screen persona saved a man from oblivion, laughs it off with a cruel put-down. It has a heavily accented Penélope Cruz as a character whose name, Myrna Malloy, is perhaps the most preposterous thing said aloud during the entire film. And all kinds of other stuff the surprise of which I wouldn't spoil for all the world. Still not sure whether I think it's a good movie or a bad movie, it's definitely a movie I'll be thinking about for some time to come.

Hoppers

Last night I broke a three-week streak of not seeing any movies because nothing was playing that interested me. I went to see this new Disney-Pixar animated feature, and despite coming away feeling as if clubbed over the head by environmentalist propaganda, I really enjoyed the movie. Everyone I've mentioned it to assumes, from the title, that it's about bunnies. Actually, it's called "Hoppers" because of a hand-wavy gadget that allows a group of scientists to "hop" their minds into a robot designed to fool wildlife into carrying on with their business, the better to study said business. They've got one that looks like a bird, a bunny one to be sure, but the one that main character Mabel hijacks resembles a beaver.

Mabel, an undergrad at Beaverton University, has grown up taking solace from the diverse wildlife that inhabits the glade near her late grandma's house. Now the town's greedy Mayor Jerry wants to route a ring road right through the glade, and nobody seems to care enough to help Mabel stop him. Apparently the only option left is to get the animals, that have mysteriously moved away from the glade, to move back before the bulldozers arrive. So, Mabel takes drastic measures, running off in robot beaver form to infiltrate the animal community and try to sway the mammal king, also a beaver, to help her save the glade. Her meddling in animal politics leads to one disaster after another, and despite her lofty ends, her means are pretty questionable. Pretty soon, Mabel, King George and a handful of his most faithful followers are on the run, with other classes of animals out to get them and, particularly, to "squish" Jerry in order to stop the bypass being built. Ironically, Mabel finds herself having to protect humans from rampaging wildlife, all to restore the balance that she (and Jerry, don't forget) have knocked akilter.

It's a fun thrill ride, with lots of laughs, some emotional beats that hit hard, and flawed characters who make mistakes and grow from them, get knocked down and pick themselves up again, lose battles and keep fighting, hurt each other and forgive each other, and engage in meaningful discussion about such beliefs as whether or not everyone is basically good. It's got lots of action and outrageous imagery, including a gigantic shark that goes aerial – if you have to ask, just see the movie – as well as an evil insect that "hops" its mind into a robotic human body as part of a dastardly plan to turn the tables on mankind. There are triumphs and defeats and an ascending sequence of gosh-wow spectacle. Friendships overcoming communication barriers and differences of worldview. Chases. Rescues. And never a dull moment.

The voice cast includes Saturday Night Live alums Bobby Moynihan as George the beaver, Melissa Villaseñor as Ellen the bear, Vanessa Bayer as Diane the shark and Ego Nwodim as the fish queen, Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as Mayor Jerry, Kathy Najimy (Sister Act) as Professor "Sam," the brains behind hopping; Dave Franco (Now You See Me) as Titus the insect king, the unrelated Eduardo Franco (Stranger Things) as a stoner beaver named Loaf, Meryl Streep as the insect queen (Titus's mother), and Joe Spano (Hill Street Blues) as the old man Mabel spends a day with while trying to get signatures on a petition.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Mabel (in beaver form) and friends ride along with a terrified Mayor Jerry during a car chase with Dr. Sam and her grad students, who are trying to get their robot back, while Diane the shark attacks from overhead. "You will feel a biting sensation, followed by death..." (2) The council of the animal monarchs meets, and Mabel does not do as George instructs and let him do the talking. The disaster is terrifying and hilarious! (3) Mabel befriends Ellen and Loaf – actually by offending them when she prevents the bear from eating the beaver. Naturally, this violates the pond rules, particularly "If you have to eat, eat." Mabel: "Sorry. Go ahead and eat him, then." Ellen: "I can't now. You've made it weird."

Revelations

Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus: Revelations
by Lydia Sherrer
Recommended Ages: 12+

In this second book of "The Lily Singer Adventures," Atlanta, Georgia-based wizard Lily performs the ultimate act of rebellion against her mother and her mentor, who have both withheld knowledge from her – knowledge about her magical heritage. How? By going and finding out for herself, to her great cost. Were it not for a cat familiar who has suddenly picked up the ability to speak (or rather, Lily has learned to understand his meows), and a certain ne'er-do-well male witch (not that witches e'er do well, generally speaking), Lily might lose her very self.

So, once again, wizards in Lily's world have an inherited connection to a Source of power, manipulated with runes, charms and incantations in an ancient tongue, while witches like her friend Sebastian have no such ability. Instead, they achieve magical power by making deals with powerful beings like the fae (Sebastian's specialty) or, gulp, demons. One of the demon-summoning kind goes up against the duo in the first part of this novel, which is (once again) structured as two novellas connected by an "interlude." Lily and her wizard mentor have been tasked with protecting an ancient clay tablet on display at a local museum when it's rumored that someone plans to steal it. The rumor comes true when a hired witch summons a greater demon to break through the wizards' protective wards. Luckily, a mysterious Someone has forged a link between Lily and her protective cat, Sir Kipling, and plugged both of them into a supply of power beyond anything she's been prepared to understand.

The interlude finds Sebastian doing some witchy detective work to find out who hired the witch who attempted the museum heist. Unfortunately, Lily isn't ready to hear him when he tells her that he thinks it's the wizard they encountered back in Book 1, who has extended an invitation to learn more about where she (and they) come from. She's so tempted by the possibilities of what she may learn that she won't even listen to her cat's advice, and hares off to the stately home of John Faust LeFay – a name that ought to set off alarm bells in any scholarly mind. Of course he turns out to be the father she hardly remembers, whose very name her mother always refused to speak. Of course he and his social-climbing mother, Ursula, have plans for Lily's future representing a level of control she isn't keen on submitting to. Of course John turns out to be a monster, and falling into his clutches may be a mistake Lily won't be able to unmake. Not without help, at least.

Once again, this adventure points up the dangers of power and the desire for it, of meddling in little-understood forces, of opening pathways to evil and of withholding information that may do good. Lily and Sebastian face some chilling adversaries in this book, and their odds of survival are never lower than when there are misunderstandings between them. Petty jealousies – her over a cute witch he dallies with, him over a handsome FBI agent who takes her on a date. The secrets and silences of Lily's mother and her mentor, who happens to be Sebastian's highly disapproving aunt, don't help. And of course, her hard-headedness becomes a danger of its own, when even her cat is talking sense at her and she won't listen. What it leads to is a threat that isn't resolved at the end of this book, but only postponed – a threat that hangs over not only Lily but the entire world of "mundanes," or unmagical muggles like you and me. It's a thought to make one shiver, and perhaps hasten to curl up with a cozy cup of tea and the third book in this series, Allies.

Besides about eight books in this series (plus novellas, short stories and whatnot), Lydia Sherrer is the Kentucky-based, cat-loving author of the novel Accidental Witch and the short story Ashes of Hope and co-author with John Ringo of the "TransDimensional Hunter" quartet.

554. Exhortation to Parents of the Baptized

Bring your babes to Christ, believers,
Nor withhold them from His face:
For they are the prime receivers
Of His sorely needed grace.

To be saved, dear sisters, brothers,
We must be just such as they:
Helpless, needy, nursed on others
Hour by hour and day by day.

See! Our sin, a death-shroud weaving,
Threads its way back to the womb;
While baptism, to Jesus cleaving,
Plaits new life upon our loom.

In Christ's tomb your child is resting;
Death becomes a holy sleep,
And Christ's Easter life comes, wresting
Them from hell and Satan's keep.

Now you have your dear child given
Unto God, His own to be,
Heir with Christ of earth and heaven,
From sin's sovereignty set free.

You receive them back as stewards,
Henceforth only yours in trust.
Nurse them therefore on His true words
And return a yield robust.

Oh, take care! Be wise and humble,
Guiding them upon their way.
Woe if any make them stumble,
Leading Jesus' lambs astray!

Oh, take care! The way is narrow
Where their steps the Lord would train;
Satan meanwhile nocks his arrow,
Menacing with might and main.

Watch and pray with love unsparing,
Parents of the Lord's baptized,
Every hour and day preparing
To commend them back to Christ:

Arming them from love of sinning,
Nurturing them on His word,
Their baptism but beginning
Life eternal with the Lord.

Tune: FREUEN WIR UNS ALL IN EIN, Michael Weisse, †1534. It was a tune for "Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding" in Lutheran Book of Worship and Lutheran Worship. Art: Baptismal font in the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, Texas, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.