The renowned Studio Ghibli and animation legend Hayao Miyazaki return with their highly anticipated “The Boy and the Heron”. It’s the 82-year-old Miyazaki’s first feature film since 2013 – the year he announced his retirement after the release of the critically acclaimed “The Wind Rises”. But to the elation of his many fans, the beloved filmmaker had a change of heart and began working on a new feature-length project in 2016. After a lengthy production (one made lengthier by the COVID-19 pandemic) it has finally made its way to theaters.

To be completely honest and forthright, I’m hardly what you would call a Miyazaki connoisseur. I haven’t seen all of his movies nor have I ever felt inclined to. That’s not to say I haven’t respected him as a filmmaker. Quite the opposite. I’ve often lamented the fact that his movies have rarely registered with me in the same way they do with his legion of passionate fans. That said, Miyazaki’s career is nothing short of inspiring and his legacy is undeniable.

“The Boy and the Heron” sees Miyazaki drawing from his own childhood to tell a warm-hearted coming-of-age story. It’s told from the perspective of 12-year-old Mahito (voiced by Soma Santoki), a character whose experiences echo Miyazaki’s in a number of ways. Both were deeply affected by the losses of their mothers. Both had fathers who worked for companies that manufactured parts for fighter planes. Both were part of families forced to evacuate to other cities due to bombings in World War II.

“The Boy and the Heron” gets its title from Genzaburō Yoshino’s 1937 novel of the same name, but their connection is largely thematic. This is very much an original Miyazaki story set in the turbulance of 1943. A few years after the loss of his mother and amid the growing chaos from the war, 12-year-old Mahito and his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura) leave Tokyo for the countryside to live with Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura), Shoichi’s new pregnant wife who is the younger sister of Mahito’s late mother.

Still grieving his mother’s death, Mahito is cordial but lukewarm towards the kindly Natsuko. During the day, while Shoichi is away running a nearby air munitions factory, Mahito mostly avoids his ‘new mother’ and her gaggle of elderly maids. He spends chunks of his time exploring the grounds which is where he discovers a creepy old tower grown up and in disrepair. Even stranger is his encounter with a bizarre and pesky talking grey heron (Marsalis Suda).

Things move further into the fantastical after Natsuko wanders off into the forest and goes missing. As parties search for her in our world, Mahito, paired with the suspicious Grey Heron, venture into the tower which turns out to be a gateway to a parallel universe. It’s an bizarre place filled with wild characters, weird creatures, and profound truths that may help Mahito cope with his sadness and find happiness in what he still has.

There is a lot in “The Boy and the Heron” that Miyazaki fans will recognize. There is the exquisite hand-drawn animation featuring painterly compositions with gorgeous backgrounds and rich detail. There are his classic themes of loss, grief, and childhood, all treated with his signature sense of optimism. It seems these and other Miyazaki trademarks have made the film a little too familiar for some ardent lovers of his work. But as someone who sees himself as more of an admirer than an authority, I found myself mostly swept away.

Admittedly the movie did lose me a bit in the second half where the wackiness reaches its height. Yet I was still captivated by how Miyazaki maintains his thematic connections throughout. And the way he steadily mirrors reality with the otherworldly is impression. It all leads to a truly touching ending that brings the entire story to a beautiful conclusion. As for Miyazaki, if this is his final feature, he has gifted us with something delightfully charming and artistically precious. “The Boy and the Heron” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

George Clooney returns to the director’s chair with “The Boys in the Boat”, a biographical sports drama based on the true story of working class University of Washington rowers who defied all odds to represent the United States in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The film is written for the screen by Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”) who is adapting Daniel James Brown’s 2013 nonfiction book of the same name. It’s really good material.

Whether he hits or misses his marks, I’ve mostly enjoyed Clooney’s classical directing style (a style that’s rarely as appreciated today as it once was). With “The Boys in the Boat” he has delivered one of the bigger surprises of the year – a film with the kind of old-fashioned crowdpleaser quality that still resonates for many of us. It tells yet another inspirational underdog sports story yet one rich with humanity. And it takes place within a period setting that’s captured with impeccable authenticity.

Standing out among the film’s many strengths is the tough yet affecting performance from Callum Turner. He brings grit and pathos to the character of Joe Rantz. Abandoned by his father shortly after his mother died, Joe has been raising himself since he was 14-years-old. Set in 1936, we meet Joe living in the hull of a rusted out car. Each day he walks from his homeless community in Seattle to the University of Washington where he’s working on a degree in engineering.

But Joe gets some bad news. He still owes for his current semester and he’s given two weeks to pay his balance or he’ll be kicked out. Desperate and unable to find a part-time job, Joe decides to try out for the rowing team after being told he can earn some money. He joins dozens of other young men vying for the eight open spots on Washington’s junior rowing crew. Overseeing the grueling tryouts is former rower and seasoned university coach Al Ulbrickson (a terrific Joel Edgerton).

To no surprise Joe makes the team which gets him in a dorm and helps pay for his school. But he quickly learns that rowing is all about the boat and the team you put in it. And as a brotherhood forms between the eight young men, they begin to realize some unexpected potential. Soon the junior crew is outshining the varsity team leaving Coach Ulbrickson with a decision – does he endure the scorn of his boosters and do the unthinkable? Does he take his junior crew rather than his varsity guys to the Olympic qualifiers?

Without question many of the film’s themes are familiar ones. Topics such as defying the odds and overcoming adversity are inherent to stories like this. But that doesn’t make them any less impactful especially when they’re handled as well as they are here. But beyond these more traditional ideas, it’s the movie’s setting that steers it into more unexpected waters.

On the precipice of a Second World War, the 1936 Summer Olympics were held in Nazi Germany. Adolph Hitler saw hosting the event as a means of promoting his party’s antisemitic platform. It’s a necessary part of the film’s true account and Clooney approaches it smartly. He doesn’t linger on the obvious and he doesn’t give in to the urge to spell everything out. Instead he allows us to take it in and absorb it. The scarlet red Nazi banners and black swastikas; the appearance of Hitler himself, and the chilling cheers from the mass of supporters. Clooney lets his images speak rather than spinning us off on an unnecessary side story.

The performances are great throughout. I’ve mentioned Turner who is a revelation and Edgerton who seems to be able to plug into any role and nail it. There’s also a great turn from Peter Guinness who plays a wise old boatmaker and the team’s mentor. Hadley Robinson is utterly charming as Joe’s sweet but forward love interest. And then you have the collection of young actors who bring character and personality to the rowing team. It’s a fine ensemble.

In some ways “The Boys in the Boat” shares a common framework with many other sports movies. But narrowing this one down to just a ‘sports movie’ would be dismissive. There’s so much more to this uplifting and sincerely human feature. The heart-pounding races are brilliantly shot and edited while the production design and costumes help transport us. But it’s Clooney’s ability to create and define the personal stakes as well as deliver satisfying emotional payoffs that make “The Boy in the Boat” more than your run-of-the-mill feel-good sports flick.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

Colman Domingo gives his all in the frustratingly uneven biopic “Rustin”, the latest project from director and five-time Tony Award winning playwright George C. Wolfe. The film is the third feature from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and is based on the true story of Bayard Rustin, a civil rights activist who was instrumental in organizing the 1963 March on Washington.

Co-written by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black, “Rustin” attempts to cover a lot of ground which is both admirable and its Achilles heel. Breeze and Black show that the story of Bayard Rustin is one that’s well worth telling. But it’s their rocky storytelling that left me thinking his story would have been better served as a documentary. As it is, “Rustin” is all over the place, skittishly bolting from one scene to the next, and never settling in one place long enough. It ends up shortchanging everything from the social activism to its half-baked love triangle.

Domingo is handed a role that seems custom-made for Oscar attention and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Yet great actors have a way of overcoming that and Domingo almost does. He gives a performance that’s routinely too big, but not necessarily because of anything he is doing. It’s the script that has him constantly speaking in mini-monologues and stagy soliloquies. More organic conversations are often replaced by moments that seem aimed at Oscar voters. It’s a nagging issue that’s hard to overlook.

Again “Rustin” tries to cover plenty and in fairness there is a lot to Bayard Rustin’s story. Wolfe mostly keeps things focused on the days leading up to and surrounding the historical march on Washington. We see his falling out and eventually reconciliation with Martin Luther King Jr. (wonderfully played by Aml Ameen), his constant run-ins with NAACP head Roy Wilkins (a curiously cast Chris Rock), and his targeting by Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (the always stellar Jeffrey Wright).

Wolfe puts a lot of time into Bayard’s planning of the march and his work in convincing the major civil rights leaders to get onboard. That proved easier said than done in large part because of internal disagreements. Then you had those who saw Bayard’s sexuality as a liability for their cause – a conflict that the film ham-fistedly force-feeds rather than explores.

I can’t speak to the overall accuracy of “Rustin” since he is someone I knew little about. That alone testifies to the need of a movie about his life. But unfortunately this hopscotch storytelling makes it hard to know what’s accurate and what’s not. This is especially true for characters like Wilkins and Powell who are written more as plot devices than historical figures. Just some of the problems that keep this mostly well-meaning biography from being the powerful film it could have been. “Rustin” opens in select theaters on November 3rd before streaming on Netflix November 17th.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

The spooky movie season is in full bloody bloom with fans being treated to an assortment of horror films of all shapes, sizes, budgets, and sub-genres. One such chiller is “The Bell Keeper” from executive producer and star Randy Couture. This low budget feature has a few interesting ideas and it does what it can with the resources it has. But it’s a clear victim of its limitations and its almost endearing schlockiness quickly erodes into something tougher to bear.

Directed by Colton Tran and written by Joe Davison, “The Bell Keeper” attempts to add its own twist to some well-known horror conventions. Unfortunately those few flashes of originality get lost in the movie’s numerous mind-melting issues. It’s the kind of film you want to stay onboard with out of sheer appreciation for the passion and effort. But that gets increasingly hard to do and any good will we had is quickly lost.

The film’s problems don’t lie in its production quality. The filmmakers actually do a good job with what clearly was a minuscule budget. Instead it’s nearly everything else that brings the movie down – cringy dialogue, bad performances, obnoxious characters, a haphazard script and shoddy storytelling. And that’s not counting the hilariously bad finish where we’re inundated with hokey exposition, even worse dialogue, laughably bad ‘action’, and an awful final swing at an emotional ending that doesn’t connect at all.

Storywise the movie follows a group of insufferable friends shooting a documentary aimed at debunking popular urban legends across the country. The group consists of the director, Holly (Cathy Marks), her cameraman and boyfriend, Matthew (Mike Manning), the doc’s prima-donna host, Megan (Alexis B. Santiago), and the meat-headed goof, Gabriel (Capri-Antoine Vaillancourt) whose role I still haven’t figured out.

After recruiting Matthew’s pot-growing little brother Liam (Reid Miller) to shuttle them around in his Winnebago, the group heads off to Bell Lake. Once there, they pay a visit to a secluded campsite where many have allegedly vanished by the hand of an axe-wielding killer named Hank (Couture). Legend says if you ring an old church bell near the site it will summon Hank who…you know…gets to hacking.

Of course our dimwitted group rings the bell and Hank does indeed appear. I won’t spoil where things go but there is a neat little twist. Sadly it never goes anywhere interesting. Instead there is a bunch of silliness about a satanic priest, three sacrificed virgins, an evil curse, and a portal to Hell. It’s all just as silly as it sounds and not the slightest bit compelling.

A few other characters pop up including a great cameo from Bonnie Aarons (“The Nun”). We meet a young woman named Brittany (Kathleen Kenny) who is searching for her missing brother. She’s easily the most likable of the bunch and the lone bright spot. On the opposite side is Chaz Bono who gives a grimace-worthy performance playing one of the most unconvincing sheriffs you’ll ever see on screen. “Grimace-worthy” fits the movie as a whole which, despite its efforts, is never as good as its concept. Not even close. “The Bell Keeper” is available now on VOD.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS

I’m not sure there’s a genre that Nicolas Cage hasn’t dabbled in. The seasoned cult favorite has led mainstream action films, starred in small arthouse dramas, and played in hilarious off-beat comedies. He’s been in war movies, fantasy adventures, martial arts films. He’s done voicework in animated features, portrayed Marvel superheroes, and even took on the iconic role of Count Dracula.

One genre Cage has revisited several times is the American Western. His latest film, “Butcher’s Crossing” sees him once again in the Old West, but this time within a refreshingly unique story. Directed, co-written (with Liam Satre-Meloy), and co-produced by Gabe Polsky, “Butcher’s Crossing” is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by John Williams. Contrary to the more romanticized views at the time, the book was an early deconstruction of the Old West and Polsky’s movie follows right in those footsteps.

The story opens in 1874 with an eager young man named William Andrews (Fred Hechinger) arriving in the small Kansas town of Butcher’s Crossing. Unfulfilled by life at Harvard, Will dropped out of school and travelled west in hopes of finding himself and experiencing what he in his naïveté perceives the American frontier to be. His first glimpse of the cold, unfriendly Butcher’s Crossing gives him pause. But he’s quick to toss aside his first impression, looking forward to what adventure might await.

Will’s first stop is to introduce himself to a crusty trader named McDonald (Paul Raci) who buys and sells buffalo hides at ever-changing market values. Will’s father once helped McDonald back east and Will hopes that connection will help get him into one of McDonald’s buffalo hunting parties. But McDonald denies him a spot, warning him that it’s a pitiless life that can ruin a man.

Not to be discouraged, Will convinces a self-employed buffalo hunter named Miller to take him on. Played by Cage who’s bald with a jet-black beard and a hard-to-decipher twinkle in his eye, Miller tells Will of a hunt deep in the uncharted wilds of the Colorado territory. It has more buffalo with thicker hides which of course means more money. All he needs is $500 to $600 to fund the hunt which Will agrees to supply with little hesitation.

Joined by a superstitious camp cook Charlie (a nearly unrecognizable Xander Berkeley) and a crass and brutish skinner named Fred (Jeremy Bobb), the four-man hunting party make the arduous journey to a sprawling patch of land high up in the Rocky Mountains. It’s there that they set up camp near a massive herd of buffalo and where Miller’s intensifying fixation leads the group down a physically and emotionally treacherous path.

Once it gets its pieces in place “Butcher’s Crossing” shows itself to have a sharp psychological edge. The notoriously savvy Cage makes the beguiling Miller fittingly hard to read. In one sense he’s an alluring larger-than-life presence that you can’t turn away from. But over time we can’t help but join Will in questioning Miller as his epic hunt devolves into a near maniacal obsession.

The movie’s slow-burn pacing proves to be a good fit for the story. The characters, their relationships, their circumstances – it all changes over the course of three grinding seasons in the mountains. The performances are authentic and nuanced, especially from Cage who is surprisingly (and effectively) restrained. And the stunning cinematography not only captures the natural beauty of the setting but also the remoteness of an untouched countryside.

While the film is rich with gorgeous scenery and picturesque horizons, Polsky often contrasts it with a compellingly uncomfortable close-up look at the buffalo trade. It’s a resonating conflict that brings out many of the film’s major themes. It leads to a final act that is harsh, brutal, and increasingly bleak. But it’s befitting for a story such as this – one that may have a few minor hiccups (such as underusing Rachel Keller) but that does a lot with its gritty and edgy premise. “Butcher’s Crossing” opens Friday (October 20th).

VERDICT – 4 STARS

Perhaps the most unexpected of choices for a superhero movie was Blue Beetle, a comic book character who has had three distinctly different variants over the last 80-plus years. He’s never been what you would consider a top-tier superhero either in power or popularity. So following the box office disappointments that were “Black Adam”, “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”, and “The Flash” (soapbox: all of them deserved bigger audiences), it’s hard to see “Blue Beetle” being the big boost DC Studios needs.

But comic book movies have proven to be a weird thing and at times impossible to predict. “Blue Beetle”, from director Ángel Manuel Soto, has been touted by DC’s new creative head James Gunn as the first confirmed on-screen character in his own rebooted cinematic universe. That alone might spur the interest of those already invested in what Gunn is doing. I liked DC’s old guard (well, most of them) and remain unsure about Gunn. Unfortunately “Blue Beetle” doesn’t do anything to win my confidence in DC’s new direction.

“Blue Beetle” is based on the most recent iteration of the titular character, Jaime Reyes (played by Xolo Maridueña). Fresh out of college, Jaime returns to his fictional hometown of Palmera City where he reunites with his tight-knit and spirited family. They include his noble father Alberto (Damián Alcázar) and his supportive mother Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo), his crass younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), his caring grandmother Nana (Adriana Barraza), and his conspiracy theorist uncle Rudy (George Lopez).

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. Jaime learns that a lot has changed while he was away. His father suffered a heart attack, they lost their family store, and now they’re about to lose their house. So rather than go to graduate school, Jaime pledges to help his family get back on their feet. He thinks he’s found a way after he’s offered an interview at mega-corporation Kord Industries by Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), the niece of the company’s CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). But things quickly fall apart.

It turns out that Victoria has sinister plans that involve a “world destroying” alien weapon called the Scarab. Through a series of rather silly events Jaime finds himself in possession of the Scarab which (for some reason) chooses him as its new host and grants him superpowers. He gets some admittedly cool looking blue and black exoskeleton armor and the ability to conjure up energized weapons just by talking to the little voice that comes with it. How does all of that work? Heck if I know. The movie doesn’t explain much of anything.

And that’s the basic setup for this woefully by-the-numbers origin story. Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer’s copycat script is frustratingly predictable and formulaic to the point of feeling generic. And that’s a real shame considering the long overdue Latino representation. “Blue Beetle” is content with lazily latching onto Latino culture rather than telling an interesting and original story within it. Thankfully there are a couple of good scenes where Soto tones down the silliness and lets his characters breathe. But they’re few and far between.

It gets pretty maddening over time. The writing leans heavily on its domestic charms yet confines its characters within a conventional copy-and-paste story. Along the way it makes several heavy-handed statements on class, race, sexism, immigration, imperialism, etc., but none of them have bite. As for Maridueña, he shows moments of leading man promise. But even he’s dragged down by material that has him either screaming incessantly or acting like a Peter Parker knock-off.

To make matters worse, then you have the movie’s big baddie which (if only this was just hyperbole) is one of the worst villains in comic book movie history. I wish I was being overly dramatic, but Sarandon’s Victoria Kord is as clichéd and on-the-nose as any antagonist you’ll see. There’s nothing remotely interesting about her, her actions, her evil plan, her motivations. Even her shortchanged henchman (Raul Max Trujillo in a thankless role) is more compelling.

By the third act things really get hokey. The CGI kicks into overdrive – some of it is kinda cool; some of it is kinda suspect. And of course we get even more screaming from Maridueña. The warm and sudsy ending puts a nice cap on it all, but I wish it left me feeling like it was clearly wanted me to feel. Instead I was grumbling about all the wasted potential. Hey, at least the Bug ship (yes there’s a Bug ship) was pretty cool. But should a Bug ship be the best thing in a movie that has family as its centerpiece? Probably not.

VERDICT – 2 STARS