Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” wasn’t the only delightful, endearing musical of 2016. John Carney’s “Sing Street” also celebrates the wonder of music but not in the star-studded dreamland of Los Angeles. Instead Carney plants us in inner-city Dublin circa 1985. There isn’t an ounce of glitz or pageantry in “Sing Street” yet its music, just like in “La La Land”, is packed with spirit and meaning.

Following the blueprint of his 2007 film “Once”, Carney cast musicians ahead of actors for “Sing Street”. The premise is as simple as they come – a boy forms a rock band to impress a girl. It doesn’t get much more complicated than that. But the film comes alive as Carney fills in the gaps around that simple premise. His characters brim with personality. And of course there is the music.

Leading Carney’s group of acting unknowns is Ferdia Walsh-Peelo who plays Conor, the youngest of three siblings. His family’s financial woes lead his parents (nicely played by Aiden Gillen and Maria Doyle Kennedy) to make the decision to remove Conor from his expensive private school to a free but significantly rowdier state school. As the new kid, Connor quickly finds himself the outsider among the school’s many ruffians. Constant run-ins with the class bully and the abusive principal only make things worse.

At home things aren’t much better. His parents’ marriage is falling apart and their disconnect effects the entire family. Conor’s sister Ann (Kelly Thorton) is an aspiring architect drowning in melancholy. Jack Reynor is a scene-stealer playing Conor’s older brother Brendan, a disillusioned college dropout who spends the bulk of his time listening to his records and waxing eloquently on the virtues of rock-and-roll. You could say he is Conor’s music and life professor.

Life brightens up a bit when Conor meets and instantly falls for Raphina (Lucy Boynton with a surprisingly layered performance). She’s an aspiring model who Conor convinces to star in his band’s  music video. But there’s one problem – he doesn’t have a band. So he puts together a misfit group of musicians and calls their band Sing Street. As they begin to create music it not only draws him closer to Raphina but it offers him a form of expression and an escape from the cruddy life surrounding him.

“Sing Street” is Carney’s semi-autobiographical reflection on his teen years in Dublin. He pulls a lot from personal experience which is a key reason the story and the characters feel so authentic. I would also challenge anyone who grew up on 80s music to watch this and not be giddy with excitement. There is so much eye-lined, hair-sprayed, acid-washed nostalgia. Duran Duran, A-Ha, Hall and Oates, Joe Jackson – just some of the artists we get to hear. And wait till you see Conor’s fashion choices which change with each new band he discovers.

I’m still wrestling with its ending, but for the most part “Sing Street” hits all the right notes (horrible music pun absolutely intended). Carney juggles well timed humor with deep-seated realism and surrounds both with a head-bobbing collection of classic tunes and original songs. There are good performances throughout, particularly from Boynton and Reynor, but the real surprises may be Carney’s collection of acting unknowns who make up the band. Their camaraderie is infectious and watching them create music and find fulfillment gets to the true heart of “Sing Street”. And what a big heart it is.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

There are a handful of moments in “Southside with You” where I saw glimpses of a different movie – a better movie hidden just under the surface. They are brief moments where we get small tastes of character depth, moments where the actors feel more natural and less scripted, moments where the film hints at developing its own unique identity. Unfortunately these are only ‘moments’ and they tease us with what this film could have been.

First time director Richard Tanne’s starry-eyed treatment of President Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date is a strange bit of bio-fiction but full of meaty potential. Tanne, who also wrote the screenplay, uses the familiar true framework of their first date and fills it in with inventions of his own. The problem is a big chunk of his fiction does more to hurt the film than to help.

The movie begins on a warm summer Chicago day in 1989. Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) is a Princeton grad and now lawyer at Chicago’s Sidley Austin law firm. She is assigned to mentor a Harvard man and summer associate named, you guessed it, Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers). Michelle is portrayed as ambitious and focused. Barack is more laid back and charismatic. Michelle is adamant about keeping their relationship professional but agrees to go out on a ‘not-a-date’ outing with the future leader of the free world.

Barack picks Michelle up in his beat-up yellow Datsun and the two spend the day in Chicago. They hit a museum for an art exhibit. They take a stroll and have lunch in a park. They attend a community event where Barack served as organizer before heading to Harvard. They hit a bar, watch a movie, and end it with ice cream and a kiss. I mention all of that because it doesn’t really spoil anything. Tanne wants this to be about what they say instead of where they go. He tries to emphasize the conversations and pulls heavily from Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy. Perhaps a bit too much.

The walk-and-talk formula works so well for Linklater because the conversations feel incredibly organic. Several things factor into that. First he has more seasoned actors. But the big difference is Hawke and Delpy contribute to those scripts. Their input helps make those exchanges their own. Many of Tanne’s conversations feels heavily scripted. Despite the best efforts of Sumpter and Sawyers, their dialogue is often dry and stilted. The actors are better than the material and there are moments where you see them rising above it and falling more comfortably into their characters. Sadly, the film doesn’t allow them to do it consistently.

Back to Tanne’s inventions, one instance where it works is in the fictitious bar scene. Tanne slows things down and loosens his grip on his actors. It allows for the most open and authentic scene in the entire film. I loved it. But then we get moments such as the community event which probably happened some time later in their relationship but here is used as a pretty significant and obvious plot device. There is also an encounter outside of the movie theater that actually happened but Tanne significantly alters. The result is a noticeably clumsy and contrived scene that simply doesn’t work.

Sadly too many things don’t work. Perhaps I’m looking at it all wrong. Maybe it should only be viewed as a lightweight romantic date movie, but I’m not convinced it works through that lens either. I tried to imagine if the story or romance would hold an ounce of interest if the two involved weren’t the future president and first lady of the United States. Without their connection the answer was a resounding “No”. And even with their connection the movie doesn’t fare much better.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

I’m curious as to whether there is any middle ground with Melissa McCarthy. She’s a comic with a very in-your-face brand who does variations of the same shtick in practically every film she makes. Now if you enjoy that you’re likely to appreciate every one of her films to varying degrees. If you don’t then you’re going to struggle with every movie she makes.

Her action/comedy “Spy” is no different. It is full-blown McCarthy bouncing back and forth between self-deprecating, ‘fish out of water’ humor to loud, obnoxious, profanity-riddled “comedy”. Fans are sure to find it entertaining. I don’t fit that description which explains why I found it tedious, juvenile, and at times unbearable.

McCarthy plays her usual character – a sympathetic oddball eccentric. This time she plays a CIA Operator named Susan Cooper whose job is to sit behind a desk and relay information to debonaire field agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Susan aspires to be a field agent herself but lacks self-confidence. Plus she likes working with Bradley mainly due to a small but obvious crush. But he (like nearly everyone else in the film) doesn’t take her seriously which does nothing to boost her spirit.

Bradley is sent on a mission to retrieve a suitcase nuke from terrorists but things go terribly wrong. Susan is allowed in the field by her mean-spirited and reluctant boss Elaine (Allison Janney). Her job is strictly to observe, but a series of mishaps thrusts the desk-bound operator deeper into the wacky, violent spy world.

Director Paul Feig had a hit in 2011 with “Bridesmaids” but followed it with the appallingly bad “The Heat”. And this year he is credited with directing the terribly bland “Ghostbusters” reboot. “Spy” doesn’t do anything to even out his track record. There is little new here. We get the standard McCarthy weight and appearance gags. We get a vomit gag. We get body part gags. And so on and so on.

The movie does introduce a number of quirky side characters most notably Jason Statham as a belligerent and oafish field agent and Rose Byrne as the evil villainess. Both fall into their parts well. Unfortunately both characters are undercut by Feig’s puerile writing. His insistence on forcing profanity in their every sentence makes them sound ridiculous. Perhaps the one reasonably authentic character is found in Susan’s loyal friend Nancy (Miranda Hart).

The story itself tries to be a globe-trotting spy spoof but its antics get tiring. It attempts to change things up midway through by giving McCarthy’s character a profound transformation. The problem is it doesn’t feel genuine or earned. Even worse I found it made Susan shallower and far more annoying.

Yes I know people loved “Spy”. I know it made a ton of money at the box office. I know it was critically praised and sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. So be it. I simply don’t see the attraction. It is another in a long line of modern comedies that cling to the same methods. Much like McCarthy, if you like that type of humor you’ll probably like “Spy”. If you want something fresh, intelligent, and outside of the modern norm good luck finding it here.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS

Poor, poor DC Entertainment. Since Christopher Nolan’s departure from their cinematic playground DC has had a rough go of it. 2013’s “Man of Steel” faced more than its share of scrutiny. This year’s “Batman vs Superman” was the fashionable punching bag for both critics and many viewers alike even prior to its release. Now we have “Suicide Squad”, a DC attempt at being subversive and unique while also bowing to the overblown criticisms regarding the serious tones employed by the first two films.

Here’s the problem, critics have greeted “Suicide Squad” with the harshest reception yet (and that’s saying something). To give you a taste, “trash”, “toxic”, “unpleasant”, “disastrous”, “sadistic”, and “putrid” are just a handful of the colorful terms used by critics to describe David Ayer’s supervillain antihero ensemble piece.

I would love to dismiss all of the negativity as smug nonsense or as some form of bias against the DCEU. Unfortunately the film itself doesn’t allow me to do that. “Suicide Squad” may not deserve to be called “putrid” or “toxic”, but it should be called out for its host of faults, annoyances, and its flat-out shoddy execution in nearly every department.

I’m a generally positive guy and I tend to give a movie more credit for its fun factor and unique vision. I’m not sure you could call “Suicide Squad” a fun movie. It certainly wants to be colorful, funny, and cool. At times it seems like Ayers has convinced himself his film is all of those things. But a bright, fluorescent title screen is about as colorful as it gets, and you can count the mildly amusing moments on one hand. Also someone should tell Ayers that it takes more than a crazy amount of classic rock, a smattering of tattoos, and Will Smith’s attitude to be considered “cool”.

As for a unique vision, nope. Aside from its ‘bad guys doing good’ angle (something that isn’t completely original itself), “Suicide Squad” doesn’t offer a single unique idea. The story is so poorly constructed and presented through such base level storytelling. Devious government operative Amanda Waller (played with stone-faced disinterest by Viola Davis) wants to create a covert strike team made up of metahuman criminals. There just happens to be a bunch at a high-security prison installation. A weird, out-of-the-blue threat arrives. It’s time for her team of misfits to get to work. It’s as simple as that.

To be fair, Ayers does try to add a hint of depth to the team. His bigger stars get their own weird backstory snapshot at the beginning of the film. Will Smith plays Deadshot, a lethal assassin who hits everything he shoots at. Margot Robbie play’s Harley Quinn, an ex-psychiatrist who has a freakishly dysfunctional relationship with Jared Leto’s Joker (more on him in a second). Everyone else gets their own flashback shoehorned in at random junctures, but they’re more or less disposable. Killer Croc, Katana, Boomerang, whatever.

And then there is Joker, the character most people were talking about prior to release. The marketing would have you believe he is a significant player in the story but that’s not the case. He simply pops up in a few scenes mostly connected to Harley and then in a couple that feel completely disconnected. As for the Joker himself, I do give Leto credit for trying to put a unique spin on the character. But I have to say I hate the grillz, the tattoos, and the jewelry. He reminded me of James Franco from “Springbreakers”. Beyond that Leto isn’t given much space to present his version. We do get small glimpses of DC’s greatest villain, but not enough. This simply isn’t a Joker I care about watching.

While there are a few energetic moments and a fun performance from Robbie, “Suicide Squad” mostly maintains a generic look and feel throughout. A bland story, uninteresting chemistries, a boring and ridiculously lame central threat. But what stands out the most is how poorly this film is made. Bad pacing, horribly chopped-up story structure, and dull forgettable action. Every hint of what the film could have been is buried under a ton of poor execution. It clearly does a lot of box-checking for its studio, but in doing so it forgets to do the most important thing – make a good movie.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS