Movie Nation

“The Star” is a tepid comic re-telling of the Nativity Story as seen through the eyes of the talking, joking, saving-the-day animals who accompany Mary and Joseph, and the Three Magi, to Bethlehem.

The animation is stunning as befits the current state of the CG animation art. But the jokes — and yes, it’s supposed to be a comedy — flail and fail at every turn. There’s barely a laugh in it, and take away Tracy Morgan (voicing a numbskull camel transporting a wise man), even that’s gone.

You can sense, on screen, the tension between Sony Affirm, the faith-based studio offshoot distributing this Birth of Jesus holiday story, and Sony Pictures Animation, which KNOWS how to create funny characters, deliver a sight-gag and give a funny voice actor something funny to say.

Maybe the folks at Affirm smothered the comic life out of it. Maybe they got handed the movie when Sony Animation realized “This isn’t funny.”

Either way, as we follow Mary, from the moment the Almighty (a column of light) tells Mary (Gina Rodriguez) she’s going to raise the Son of God — “Thank you! Do I say thank you?” — through the perilous journey from Nazareth to the town with “no room at the inn,” pursued by Herod’s minion and his dogs, “The Star” begs the grownups in the audience to play a game of “Pin a Name on the Voice Actor.”

As in, “That’s Kris Kristofferson (as ‘The Old Donkey”). There’s Ving Rhames (as a vicious tracking dog). And who’s that impersonating Cheech Marin? Gabriel Iglesias! Do your OWN funny voice, Fluffy. No stealing! Christopher Plummer! (Herod). Kristin Chenoweth (as a mouse-like pygmy jerboa, who overhears God’s plan).

Steven Yeun voices “Boaz,” the little donkey who escapes a life of millstone slavery to live with the newlyweds, Mary and Joseph (Zachary Levi), plotting his escape with doltish dove Dave (Keegan-Michael Key, funny-ish) until he realizes Mary’s in danger.

Meanwhile, Herod’s gotten wind of the “newborn king” about to become a threat and sent his dogs looking for him. The camels (Oprah, Tyler Perry and Tracy Morgan) carrying the wise men? They’re taking bets on where they’re headed.

“Birthday party!”

“Maybe a baby shower!”

“What’s a baby going to do with Frankinsense? BIRTHday party!”

Maybe they’re both right. But only very young children will find anything funnier and more entertaining in “The Star” than that.

MPAA Rating:PG for some thematic elements

Cast: The voices of Steven Yeun, Keegan-Michael Key, Gina Rodriguez, Tracy Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Zachary Levi, Ving Rhames, Mariah Carey, Christopher Plummer, Kristin Chenoweth, Kris Kristofferson, Gabriel Iglesias

Credits:Directed by, script by . A Sony Animation/Sony Affirm release.

Running time: 1:26

A Mexican boy needs the help of his ancestors to realize his dream of becoming a famous mariachi in “Coco,” an enchanting musical and the most charming Pixar movie in years.

And how does a Mexican lad confer with, debate and persuade his dead relatives to lift the family’s edict that no Rivera can ever be a singer? By visiting the colorful Land of the Dead on “El Dia de los Muertos,” the fall celebration called “The Day of the Dead.”

Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) idolizes the late singing film star Ernesto de la Cruz, taking Ernesto’s motto to heart.

“Seize your moment! Reach for that dream, grab it right and make it your own!”

But “a Rivera is a shoemaker, through and through,” his big extended family reminds him. NO singing. Somebody in the past was a no-good musician who abandoned his wife and daughter. They’re not having any mariachis in their clan.

There’s a big singing contest in the Santa Cecilia town square. Miguel knows, in his heart, he could win it. If only he can get his hands on a guitar, master playing it and sneak away from the family to enter it.

The contest is on the Day of the Dead, and it is while Miguel is in the cemetery, paying his respects to the remembered dead that he spies an instrument that could change his life. Except that it’s in the locked crypt of the town’s most famous expat, the great Ernesto himself.

And stealing it transports him into the world of the dead, who are lining up to visit the living who remember them on this festival day. Miguel must meet Ernesto, fend off his own dead relatives (who KNOW why the family cursed musicians forever and ever) and negotiate a return to the land of the living in time for the Big Show.

Benjamin Bratt does a Latin Lover purr, and croons a tune or two as the great Ernesto, a silky smooth romancer from the Golden Age of mariachi. Gael Garcia Bernal also sings, as Hector, a desperate, long-dead corpse who must wangle his way back to visit the living so that he’s not forgotten forever.

The songs, by a rotating team of writers, are lilting and fun, especially a tune called “Un Poco Loco” that Miguel (Gonzalez is a marvelous child singer) and Hector perform, on the fly, to win an audience with Ernesto.

Ernesto’s theme song long ago was “Remember Me,” a lightly haunting love song that conveys the movie’s message. The dead are never truly gone so long as some one remembers them.

The colors are as vibrant as you’d expect, considering the subject matter. It’s a Pixar movie treatment of a subject the engaging “Book of Life” used as a setting a few years back, with the standard “Follow your dreams” Pixar messaging.

The afterlife is peopled by skeletons and run like a busy border crossing, a clever touch with a little political edge to it. And the jokes, respectful of the culture the film embraces, rely on the average viewer’s familiarity with all-things-Mexican to come off.

A skeleton sneezes at Miguel’s stray dog (Dante, a Mexican hairless), who has followed him into the underworld.

“I am TERRIBLY allergic.”

“But Dante doesn’t have any hair!”

“And I don’t have a nose. And yet, here we are.”

The whole enterprise is amusing, warm and embracing, so much so that English words fall short of perfectly summing up this enchanting, charming film.

Only a Spanish word will do. “Encantadora.”

(Read Roger Moore’s interview with “Coco” star Anthony Gonzalez)

MPAA Rating: PG for thematic elements

Cast: The voices of Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Sofia Espinosa

Credits:Directed by Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina, script by Adrian Molina and Matthew Aldrich. A Disney/Pixar release.
Running time: 1:49

Anthony Gonzalez is an Angelino child actor whose big break is a movie where he’s A) the leading man, B) he sings and C) that is already the biggest hit in Mexican box office history.

No, we don’t see his face. But he’s every bit as cute as Miguel, his character in “Coco.” And the fact that it’s a Pixar cartoon means this “El dia de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead) comedy will be around forever means that at 13, he’s already achieved a form of screen immortality, just like Miguel’s hero, the legendary mariachi singer Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt’s voice) in the film.

“Coco” opens in Los Estados Unidos (The United States) on Nov. 22. We caught up with Anthony in Miami.

Q: So, a Pixar movie. You’re starting out on top, right?

Anthony Gonzalez: Hahaha! Yeah. I’ve wanted to be an actor, ever since I was four, and it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. And part of that dream has to be ‘Be in a Pixar movie,’ if you’re a kid, right? I grew up watching their movies, and it was just incredible to me that I got this chance! A dream come true!”

Q: Did you get to do your scenes with any of the other voice actors there, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Sofia Espinosa? Pixar sometimes does that to make the scenes play more realistically.

Anthony: Oh I wish. I was in a booth alone, just me and director Lee Unkrich (“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.”) and (producer) Darla Anderson and Adrian Molina (co-director). They ran lines, and they’re awesome people that I look up to and want to be like someday.

I had no idea what the movie would look like. They’d show me bits of it. Then I saw it, this beautiful, colorful world of the dead! I couldn’t believe I was in it until I heard my voice coming out of Miguel’s mouth. I just cried when I saw it. I’ve seen it four times now, and I’ve cried four times.

Q: So what did you know about El dia de Los Muertos before making the movie?

Anthony: I thought I knew a lot about it. It’s my culture, after all. There are Mexican members of my family. We’ve celebrated it since I was six, because my grandfather, who was very special to me, passed away. He was very supportive of me and my music career. But making the movie, I learned so much more. Being in a movie that shows this wonderful part of Mexican culture makes me proud. Grandfather too, I hope.

Q: The songs (by Adrian Molina, Kristina Anderson-Lopez, Germaine Franco and others) give you plenty of chances to show off your singing. Did you have a favorite?’

Anthony: I have four songs to sing in the movie. And because it’s a musical, the songs share a message. I think I loved ‘Proud Corazon’ (Proud Heart) the most. I sing that at the end. The rhythm, the instruments and arrangements and the message are amazing. And you know, the song that Miguel’s hero Ernesto sings (his signature song), ‘Remember Me,’ is just a beautiful ballad. I got to sing that one, too, and I realized, when we were done, that it’s what the whole movie is about, “please ‘Remember Me’ after I’m dead and gone.”

Q: I cannot imagine young Anthony Gonzalez had mariachi music on his iPod before making this movie. Were you a fan?

Anthony: I started singing mariachi when I was younger, in La Placita Olvera (an LA historic district near Union Station). I love it!

Q: So, you aren’t as self-conscious as most boys your age are about singing in front of people?

Anthony: My siblings all love to sing, and they’d perform in La Placita Olvera. They looked like they were having so much fun. They’d laugh, and everybody would come take their pictures and clap along. I had to try it. You can’t be scared to step on the stage and try something that looks that much fun. That first time I stepped on stage and sang, I knew it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Q: Ok, you already had the great singing voice. But like Miguel, do you play the guitar?

Anthony Gonzalez: Haha! Well, I took lessons for a while, but I stopped because I wanted to focus more on my singing. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I’m going back to taking those lessons. A mariachi has to be able to play!

Q: Record deal yet?

Anthony: Oh I wish! I hope so! Someday.

(Roger Moore’s review of “Coco” is here). 

Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis and a holiday season release schedule is all you really need to know about the intentions here.

Yeah. Bring on the nominations. Anderson goes for a British period piece and sexual intrigue thriller? “Phantom Thread” opens Dec. 25. 

Love the concept — sign language, measured footsteps “so they” can’t hear/find you. Love pairing up Emily Blunt with husband John Krasinski, who could use a hit. (:Special K,” as Emily calls him, also directed it.)

A chilling and yes “quiet” hint at horrors to come. Headed our way April 6.

So there’s a nice dust-up starting between the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Jordan Peele, the sketch-show comic who wrote and directed “Get Out.”

The Golden Globes-givers say “Get Out” will be entered in the “best musical or comedy” category for consideration.

It should get in (weak year for comedies) and has a strong chance of winning.

And Peele is pissed. He takes issue with the category. He’s jokingly called the horror tale of an affluent community where black lives are taken to prolong rich which lives “a documentary.”

He wants it taken seriously, which is fine. But press him and he’d have to admit “Get Out” not only has laughs, that was its intent. It’s a darkly comic satire. “Dr. Strangelove” is the quintessential satire worth referencing here, a movie about accidental nuclear war, as serious as a heart-attack — and funny.

And sending up something in the culture.

The playwright George S. Kauffman famously joked that “Satire’s what closes Saturday night,” as in “nobody gets it and nobody will buy tickets.” That wasn’t the case with “Get Out,” a stunning smash of the spring, a real eye-opener.

As I am tired of explaining what “satire” means on Facebook, let me just link to the Wikipedia definition of it. 

And while there may be a disconnect between how black and white audiences take it, the Globes got this one right. It is satire. And Peele, while stirring up publicity, is sharp enough to know that straight out. He’s not one of these people I’ve had angry emails from over the years when I’ve characterized an African American satire (“Dear White People”) as “a dark comedy.” Nothing to do with pigeon-holing, not “dark” as in skin color. Dark in tone, touching and torching some deep, secret “how people REALLY feel” truth.

Does Peele really want his movie competing with the likes of “Dunkirk,” “The Post,” “Florida Project,” “Darkest Hour” and the other crowded list of late-year best picture possibilities?

No. If he’s lucky, he’ll have a trophy to take home, because the worst case scenario is that the equally dark and funny “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” will get shoved into “best musical or comedy,” and then it’s anybody’s race to call.

So let me say this for the first time in my life. The Golden Globes got it right.

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is a film Jeremiad whose time has come.

A searing, dark comedy tearing into unaccountable racist, homophobic police, the impotent rage of the wronged, the small-mindedness of small towns and the redemption of the seemingly irredeemable and starring a “Justice League” of America’s greatest character actors, it’s one of the best pictures of the year.

It veers from explosive laughs and blasts of violence to the sullen silence of life-consuming grief. The dialogue tickles and scalds, the action surprises. And, no surprise here, it was written and directed by the brilliant, brittle Irishman Martin “In Bruges/Seven Psychopaths” McDonagh.

The Oscar-winning Frances McDormand is Mildred Hays, an Ebbing, Missouri divorcee utterly deflated by grief. Then she notices those three, long-abandoned billboards on the little-used road home.

She has a purpose. She has an outlet. And before The Most Out Gay in the Village Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones, terrific), who owns them, can find a reason otherwise, she’s rented those three billboards — questioning why no progress has been made in the police case about her daughter’s rape and murder.

“How come Chief Willoughby?”

Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell, brilliant) is furious. And Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) is dismayed.

Profanely dismayed, because this is a McDonagh movie, after all. Almost everybody curses like a Show Me State sailor. Parents — the sheriff has two little girls with wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) — and kids (Lucas Hedges plays Mildred’s embittered surviving son) alike, no matter. Let the blue streak commence.

Mildred wants results. The town, subjected to embarrassing regional TV coverage, wants her to stop. And that’s when her chess game of publicity and public shaming turns into war.

Cops here, she complains, are too busy “eating Krispy Kremes” and “torturing black folks” to find a killer. And that brings back her brutish ex-husband (John Hawke), brings out the worst in her dentist, the condemnation of the local priest and prompts the pleas of her son to stop amidst a rising tide of threats and counter-moves by the police.

Every “I know how hard it’s been for you” earns an eye-roll. Because no, you don’t.

And every criticism and threat brings another odd ally to her side — ad agency Red, the “town midget” (Peter Dinklage), black co-workers and billboard posters.

It’s a less showy film than some of McDonagh’s other work, but there’s beauty in the Ozarks foothills, in the sideways glances Mildred aims at one and all, at the self-aware irritation reflected in her eyes in her station wagon’s rear view mirror.

And as topical and zeitgeisty as this picture purports to be, McDonagh makes sure he gets in his shots at the Catholic Church blended with story arcs laced with Biblical shots at redemption. Even the irredeemable have inner resources that might be tapped, souls worth saving.

And Mildred? McDormand (“Fargo”) stuns at every turn, never letting us feel a false moment as a vengeful harpy with a deep well of compassion, a guilt-ridden parent looking for closure.

There’s a Randy Newman song that perfectly describes Mildred’s actions. “I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do.” That ethos is the anchor of a great character in a film filled with them, the beating heart of one of the best pictures of 2017.

MPAA Rating:R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references

Cast: Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Peter Dinklage, John Hawke

Credits:Written and directed by Martin McDonagh . A Fox Searchlight release.

Running time: 1:55

There’s something about the “new girl” in school that makes us wary.

The hair may be dyed blonde with streaks of pink, the shorts cut-off in that timeless teen “bad girl” fashion.

But she’s utterly unquestioning when Beaver (Daniel Webber) angles to copy off her English quiz paper. Her confidence goes well beyond any “I’ve figured out I’m a dish and have power over my male peers” years.

“I don’t DATE high school guys.”

And that casual way she handles a cigarette, that voice — smoky, sexy and wise.

“Where you from?” she’s asked.

“Which time?” is her too-clever come-back.

We’ve already seen the unfashionable corner of California where she’s moved, and the drugs. And we’ve picked up on Beaver’s peripheral connection to that, young, dopey and unsophisticated younger brother to Troy (Grant Harvey), both of them easily bullied by Wyatt (Pablo Schreiber),  a muscle-bound billboard for tattoos, intimidation and “cooking.”

When Wyatt hisses “I ain’t goin’ to jail for your mistakes,” Troy, one of his street dealers, takes it to heart. Beaver is new enough to this to be terrified.

And then, voila, “Kat” (Eliza Taylor) pops up, in school, at their beer busts, in their parties and when they’re not looking, in their business.

“Thumper” is a standard-issue police procedural of the “21 Jump Street” variety — cop young enough to pass for high school goes undercover to break up an epidemic in the making, a town where overdose deaths are making the news.

But writer-director Jordan Ross, of the MTV series “True Life,” maintains tension and fills in the fascinating back stories on these characters, peeking beyond drug abuse and arrest statistics, humanizing the entire genre eco-system.

These kids aren’t just “bad,” they have problems at home and narrowly focused options for escape, financial and personal. The villain may be a brute, but Schreiber’s Wyatt is introduced as a doting dad, on “suicide watch” for the toddlers he’s ill-equipped to have in his life. He has a point of view and a chip on his shoulder about how life put him here.

And Taylor, an Aussie TV and film (“The November Man”) actress, lets us see the distractions, pressures and lying on the fly necessary to pull one over on people who may not be that bright, but have the adrenaline of paranoia supercharging their suspicions. We may know pretty much where this is going. But she holds our interest through every interruption along the way.

All of the traps set for our heroine are tropes of the genre, the suspicion that even half-stoned teens have when she doesn’t smoke meth or shoot up with them, for instance. The only one that rings false is her attraction to Beaver.

Yes, the connection and empathy we buy into. The temptation? Nope. The kid’s a kid, and not that sharp at that.

But Ross, his leading lady and her terrifying quarry make “Thumper” a familiar yarn that’s engrossing, unnerving and very well told.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with violence, teen drug abuse, sexual situations and profanity

Cast: Eliza Taylor, Pablo Schreiber, Daniel Webber, Lean Headey, Grant Harvey, Jazzy De Lisseer

Credits: Written and directed by Jordan Ross. An Orchard release.

Running time: 1:30

Victoria Negri‘s “Gold Star” is a simple you’ve-got-to-come-home-again tale of a daughter forced to leave her life in the Big City to go back and take care of her infirm father.

It’s no shock that “Vicki,” the character Negri wrote for herself and plays in the picture, is the better for it.  But there are wrinkles to this sensitive story that add interest, elements of plot, romantic complications and the like.

And perhaps the best of those “wrinkles” is the late Robert Vaughn, as “Gold Star” was his final film.

As stroke victim Carmine, he doesn’t speak. He’s lost the use of his legs. But he’s still got that impressive Vaughn mane of hair, which helps explain why, at 90, his second wife (Catherine Curtin) grouses about the things you don’t think about “when you marry somebody twice your age.” He’s still dashing, still has that twinkle about him. And he beautifully underplays the unspoken life-lessons he’s teaching his youngest daughter, getting across what he means with just a tear, just a moment of need.

Vicki has a life in the city. Sure, she’s a music school drop-out who isn’t doing anything with her talent. But she’s got a live-in bartender/pothead/would-be-guitar-hero boyfriend, so that’s something.

Mom’s increasingly strident demands that “I NEED you here,” cannot be ignored. So Vicki tries her hand at popping back into New York (Mom and Dad live in Connecticut), clinging to the life she has there.

Even after she meets a “nice guy” at the hospital. Chris (Jacob Heimer) is a dutiful grandson (his grandfather is ill), a law student and a bit boring and anal retentive. Whatever possibilities exist there, she’s got to get over her innate stranger danger.

“I’m not going to kill you and wear your skin,” Chris re-assures her, puncturing her “Silence of the Lambs” fantasy.

Chris is kind, gets along with her father and seems intent on injecting himself into her life.

And Vicki is torn, upset at seeing how empty her New York life was, still resentful at the thought of a long-term provincial future, and seriously stressed about the nursing care she’s expected to provide (but untrained for). Diaper changes?

“I’m not supposed to DO that,” she shouts at the old man, as if his hearing is gone, along with his ability to speak.

There’s not a lot to this, aside from the good acting. “Gold Star” (What do we get on our report cards when we’ve been good?) has maybe one decent surprise.

But it’s the comfort zone Negri creates around this “We’re all going to deal with this, sooner or later” subject and the warmth Vaughn projects in a seriously circumscribed performance make it worthwhile.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with sexual situations, marijuana use

Cast: Victoria Negri, Catherine Curtin, Robert Vaughn, Jacob Heimer

Credits: Written and directed by Victoria Negri.  A Big Vision release.

Running time: 1:30

You know the bar’s been lowered by a genre, a franchise and a studio’s difficulties in a genre when “Justice League” gets a lot “Well, not BAD for Warner Brothers” reviews.

What promises to be a “Wonder Woman” sized blockbuster for a studio and comic book universe (DC) starved for a chunk of the Marvel Movie Money premiered to a lot of grade-on-the-curve shrug reviews. On Metacritic. 

A 51 is a passing grade, sort of. But that reflects a lot of folks saying, “Well, OK. Sure. Whatever.” Variety and the LA Times swoon, most everybody else? Shrug city.

The jokes are there, they just needed more of them. The effects are great. The story? Villain? Generic, been there, seen that. Silly, to boot.

Warners imposed a 2:50am Eastern embargo on reviews, promising one of those “Da Vinci Code” “everybody’s review posts at the same time” situations for a movie with a lot riding on it.

Of course, you can’t see the legions of reviews posted in the wee hours of the morning on Rotten Tomatoes, which is (perhaps understandably) trying to expand its business by no longer just aggregating critics’ reviews, but creating its own critics and putting them on video (more ad bucks) and sometime Thursday “unveiling” the RT number (always less subtle, less “accurate” than Metacritic). That’s not cricket, of course, punishing those of us who hustle and have a readership for the sake of their “anointing” two young and telegenic nobodies of color as America’s movie authorities.

This is what critics posting there see when wondering why they waited up into 3am to post a review.

“Dear Reviewer, the Tomatometer score for this movie/TV show will populate on RT on Thursday morning. Please submit your review as you would normally, but please note it will not immediately be displayed on the site. Thank you and please let us know if you have questions! RT Staff”

It’s not exactly ethical that they’re promoting their show by withholding others’ reviews on a site where those reviews are typically aggregated. That’s not the bargain readers, or reviewers, strike with aggregators.

A bit like Fox deciding to run its own car on the NASCAR circuit, and starting the race 10 minutes earlier with only their car running, and covering that as the actual event.

But they’ll  figure this out. The Internet can be a meritocracy, and plucking and promoting their own “critics” and forcing film fans to watch them on video may not go over the way they think.

And MRQE is a little slow jumping into RT’s intentional “You can only see our reviewers” handicap. Do the math, guys. Here’s your chance. Stay up late with the rest of us.