Can stand-up save this marriage?

 

  Bradley Cooper keeps his camera close to his actors in Is This Thing On?, the story of a New York guy who steadies his life during a separation from his wife. How? He tries his hand at stand-up comedy. 

   Cooper's movie focuses on Alex Novak (Will Arnett), a guy who works in finance. Alex seems dejected by his separation from Tess (Laura Dern), his wife of 20 years, but he's not doing much to buck the tide of marital failure.

  Parents of two 10-year-olds (Calvin Knegten and Blake Kane), the Novaks don't argue or ever seem to fret about money. We're asked to assume that their marriage has gone stale. We're also told that the two 10-year-olds are "Irish twins," siblings born in the same year.

   The breakup goes smoothly enough. Tess and the kids remain in the Novaks' suburban Westchester County home, and Alex finds an apartment in the city. He buys a VW van to transport the kids back and forth.

   A bit at loose ends, Alex discovers stand-up almost by accident. Wandering around his new neighborhood, he spots The Olive Cafe, a club that looks inviting. In the club's basement, comics use open-mic nights to polish  their acts.

   To avoid the club's $15 cover charge, Alex signs up to do a set. On stage, he begins talking about the new phase of his life. He's doing what he thinks a comic might do in his situation.

  Cooper shows a fair amount of Alex's burgeoning act, which centers on his new status as a single guy. He has a few clever lines and learns how to work an audience, but -- in my view, at least -- he's not especially funny. 

   The odd and slightly disturbing thing about Alex's journey doesn’t get much play. What’s Alex’s  public display about? Does he really require a microphone to get on with his life? Is he just another part of our current moment of hear-me excess?

   Alex and Tess have a circle of friends, but Alex develops a new cohort, aspiring comics who are trying to find a breakout moment. 

   Scenes with real comics (Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe, and Reggie Conquest) add authenticity, as does Amy Sedaris, who plays a showbiz-savvy booker. The movie needed more of her.

   Cooper mostly stays off-screen. A thick bushy beard functions almost as a disguise. He plays Alex's buddy Balls. (Hey, it's in the credits.) An old college pal of Alex's, Balls works as an actor, but his career seems wobbly. 

   Disarmingly credible, Dern's Tess, a former Olympic volleyball champion, tentatively approaches the idea of expanding her horizons. Tess decides to revitalize her routine by becoming a coach. The upcoming Los Angeles Olympics beckon.

   A pivotal scene arrives when Tess goes on an impromptu date -- her escort is played by Peyton Manning -- and winds up at a club where Alex performs a bit in which he reveals that he's had his first sexual encounter since the breakup. 

   Initially miffed, Tess responds to Alex's frankness; it seems to re-light her spark, and Alex begins, as he puts it, "an affair with his ex-wife."

   Is This Thing On? might be Cooper's least momentous directorial effort. His previous work teamed him with Lady Gaga in a remake of A Star is Born, which he followed by playing Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, a look at the emotionally conflicted life of a musical genius.

   Aside from a couple of group gatherings, the  supporting cast remains on the periphery. Andra Day portrays Balls' bitchy wife. Christine Ebersole and Ciaran Hinds appear as Alex's parents. Hinds has a nicely anchored scene with Arnett toward the end, but the movie belongs to Arnett, whose likability   keeps Is This Thing On? from derailing.

    Is This Thing On? was inspired by the true story of English comic John Bishop whose experience resembled Alex's. I guess such knowledge, revealed in interviews with Cooper, shows that Alex's transition to comedy isn't as far-fetched as it might initially seem.

   I wasn’t enthusiastic about Is This Thing On? The  movie is tolerable, but Cooper doesn't find much bite in its two-hour and four-minute runtime -- either in Alex's stand-up or in the movie itself.  

   

A frustrated father and a troubled son

 In adapting his stage play, The Son, for the screen, director Florian Zeller finds emotional moments that ring true amid many that miss badly. Zeller, the French playwright who directed The Father (2020), explores what happens when a father (Hugh Jackman) -- divorced and remarried -- tries to keep his mentally troubled son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) from ruining his life. Jackman's convincingly exasperated performance reflects the difficulty of communicating with a kid who dissembles and has little insight into his self-destructive behavior. The New York-based story kicks off when Nicholas's former wife (Laura Dern) asks Jackman's Peter for help dealing with Nicholas, who has been skipping school. Peter and his wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) take in the seventeen-year-old, a decision that's complicated by Peter and Beth's situation; they've recently become parents to a new infant son. Nicholas's increasing inability to cope diverts Peter's attention from work and the important Washington job he's about to land. During a trip D.C., he's lectured by his high-achieving, bullying dad, played by a briefly seen Anthony Hopkins in a powerful scene. Among the movie's problems: We don't really get to know Nicholas, partly because he keeps himself hidden and partly because he's reduced to a single dimension: The problem kid who resents his father for leaving his mother. The movie contrives to reach its expected conclusion with Zeller adding a misguided scene that just doesn't play. Too bad. The Son misses an opportunity to deal convincingly with a difficult but important subject.

Critics' Choice goes to 'Once Upon a Time'

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood won four awards at the Critics Choice Association's 25 annual Critics' Choice Awards, the most of any 2020 nominee. In addition to best original screenplay, best-supporting actor and best production design, director Quentin Tarantino's movie took top honors for best picture.

As a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, I vote in the movie segment of the Critics' Choice awards, which also honor outstanding work in television.

In this compressed awards season, it's notable that the Critics' Choice Awards were given out on Sunday, the night before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was slated to announce 2020's Oscar nominees. Stay tuned.

Here, though, are this year's Critics' Choice winners:

BEST PICTURE
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

BEST ACTOR
Joaquin Phoenix – Joker

BEST ACTRESS
Renée Zellweger – Judy

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Laura Dern – Marriage Story

BEST DIRECTOR (TIE)
Bong Joon Ho – Parasite
Sam Mendes – 1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Quentin Tarantino – Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Greta Gerwig – Little Women

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Roger Deakins – 1917

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh – Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

BEST EDITING
Lee Smith – 1917

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Ruth E. Carter – Dolemite Is My Name

BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
Bombshell (Lionsgate)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avengers: Endgame

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Roman Griffin Davis -- Jo Jo Rabbit

BEST ACTION MOVIE
Avengers: Endgame

BEST COMEDY
Dolemite Is My Name

BEST SCI-FI OR HORROR MOVIE
Us

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Parasite

BEST SONG (TIE)
Glasgow (No Place Like Home) – Wild Rose
I’m Gonna (Love Me Again) – Rocketman

BEST SCORE
Hildur Guðnadóttir – Joker

And, if you like numbers, here are totals for movies that won more than one award:

ONCE UPON A TIME … IN HOLLYWOOD - four
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor – Brad Pitt
Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino
Best Production Design – Barbara Ling, Nancy Haigh

1917 – three awards
Best Director – Sam Mendes (Tie)
Best Cinematography – Roger Deakins
Best Editing – Lee Smith

AVENGERS: ENDGAME – two
Best Visual Effects
Best Action Movie

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME - two
Best Costume Design – Ruth E. Carter
Best Comedy

JOKER – two
Best Actor – Joaquin Phoenix
Best Score – Hildur Guðnadóttir

PARASITE -- two
Best Director – Bong Joon Ho (Tie)
Best Foreign Language Film

A giddy (maybe too much so) ‘Little Women’

A great cast elevates Greta Gerwig's helping of Louisa May Alcott's oft-told story.

Greta Gerwig has directed the seventh version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women to reach the big screen. First published in 1868, Alcott's novel has passed through so many generations that I remember my mother mentioning it to a female cousin of mine who's now in her 80s.

As a member of the generation that grew up watching black-and-white movies on TV, I’ve seen director George Cukor's 1933 version, which starred Katharine Hepburn as Jo March. As a reviewer, I admired the 1994 version in which Winona Ryder portrayed Jo under Gillian Armstrong's direction.

So much for my Little Women bona fides.

In Gerwig’s version, we meet the sisters of the title after they’ve already become adults. Putting chronological storytelling aside, Gerwig moves the narrative backward and forward in ways that struck me as initially confusing but probably will present less of a problem for Little Women devotees who don't need a scorecard to keep up with the characters.

Gerwig and editor Nick Houy proceed at the kind of frantic pace that you might expect from someone who was trying to stay one step ahead of a tax collector. This distractingly giddy tone is augmented by Alexander Desplat’s score, which — truth be told — sometimes seems intent on becoming as prominent as one of the characters.

Eventually, the story begins to cohere, thanks in no small part to the fine cast that Gerwig has assembled.

Saoirse Ronan lands the role of Jo and brings every bit of ambition and hurt to a character who has become a women’s lit staple.

Early on, Jo -- who aspires to be a writer -- brings a story to a publisher (Tracy Letts). Although Letts' character accepts the work, the movie's main point is made: Women should secure their future by marrying. The world doesn't have much use for strong, independent-minded women who want to forge their own way.

As Letts' character puts it, a woman's story either should end in marriage or death.

Ronan captures Jo’s growing determination — not to mention her resistance to the advances of the young man who loves her (Timothee Chalamet's Theodore Laurence). The movie includes one of the great scenes of rejection when Jo tells Theodore that they'd make a terrible match. This time, it's the guy who's crushed.

Florence Pugh, seen earlier this year in Midsommar, gives the movie’s most surprising performance as Amy, the sister who paints and connives and who, of course, ultimately loves Jo and all her sisters. Relationships strain but the bonds of sisterhood prevail.

Neither Ronan nor Pugh imprisons her performance in period trappings. Both seem as if they exist both and in the present and in the 19th Century; the story takes place during the Civil War and is set in motion by an absentee father. Mr. March (Bob Odenkirk in a piece of unexpected casting) has gone off to be a chaplain to the Union's troops, leaving the sisters and their mother (an excellent Laura Dern) to keep the home fires burning in Concord, MA.

Emma Watson plays Meg, the sister who seems to have totally adjusted to the idea of home and hearth. Jo pushes Meg to assert herself as an actress but Meg insists that she finds her fulfillment in domesticity.

Sister Beth (Eliza Scanlen) plays piano and is assigned the thankless task of providing the movie's great tragedy when she contracts scarlet fever.

Early on, there's a suggestion that Jo might find happiness with Friedrich Bhaer (Louis Garrel), a French professor of languages, but she pushes him aside when he insults her writing.

Chris Cooper has a nice turn as Mr. Laurence, grandfather to Chalamet's Theodore, who everyone calls "Laurie." And Meryl Streep turns up as Aunt March, a woman who sometimes plays the role of family scold but who takes Amy to France for painting, culture, and grooming for marriage.

At times, Gerwig puts speeches about female assertion into the mouths of the characters, making points that already have been dramatized. It's a form of underling that the movie didn't need and which seems like an unnecessary bow to contemporary gender demands.

None of this is to say that the period isn't well-represented. Cinematographer Yorik Le Saux, production designer Jess Gonchar and costume designer Jacqueline Durran all should be credited for first-rate work.

Like so many before her, Gerwig clearly loves the material. Many will love the movie back. Forgive me for being someone who would have liked it more had Gerwig, especially in the early going, not seemed to be straining to keep the movie lively.

Can a divorce really be amicable?

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play a divorcing couple in director Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story.

In a divorce, it eventually becomes clear to one or both partners that the person in whom they had placed their trust no longer is the person they believed them to be. Suddenly, the most intimate person in one's life becomes an unfamiliar antagonist.

This isn't true of every divorce, but it's the underlying dynamic that drives Marriage Story, the latest movie from director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha, The Meyerowitz Stories. The always insightful Baumbach tells the story of two creative types who love each other, but whose marriage has run out of gas. Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) has decided that her acting chops have sustained the career of her husband (Adam Driver), an acclaimed experimental theater director. Driver's Charlie reaps the rewards and adoration. She's an also-ran.

Eventually, the situation proves intolerable for Nicole -- that and the fact that Charlie has slept with a member of the Manhattan theater company he runs.

To pursue her career, Nicole moves to her hometown, Los Angeles, a city that Charlie loathes. She eventually lands a big role in an important TV show.

For his part, Charlie's career begins to stall and he can't accept the idea that his family, which includes a young son (Azhy Robertson), no longer can call itself New York-based.

Baumbach begins the movie with a nifty bit of trickery. We hear the content of letters in which each of the spouses lists the good points about their mate. The movie then undermines what seems an expression of love and goodwill by telling us that these letters were written at the suggestion of a mediator after the couple agreed to divorce.

The movie is less the story of a marriage than the story of a break-up. What appeared to be a good marriage was fraught with difficulties, the most important being Charlie's self-absorption. Early hopes for an amicable divorce eventually wind up in the hands of lawyers.

Laura Dern portrays Nicole's lawyer, a shark who knows how to find blood in the water and move in for the kill, isn't afraid to soften her hard edges. Ray Liotta turns up as Dern's male counterpart, another lawyer whose strategy involves biting into the nearest jugular. Liotta's character takes over after Charlie tries to do business with a reasonable, realistic lawyer, a terrific Alan Alda in full mensch mode.

Baumbach works hard to turn Marriage Story into an equal opportunity movie for each side. He evidently doesn't have a taste for the kind of drama that rips us apart, and he introduces comic elements that stem from Nicole's mother (Julie Hagerty) and her sister (Merritt Wever).

An attempt at farce in which Wever's character serves Charlie with divorce papers is overwrought to the point of annoyance. And there are two instances of characters doing musical numbers that easily could have been cut from a movie that doesn't quite know when to end. But I guess you could say the same about Charlie and Nicole's marriage.

Can he be saved from death row

Strong performances but director Edward Zwick's anti-capital punishment movie is too on-the-nose.

Director Edward Zwick takes a direct hit at capital punishment with Trial By Fire, a drama based on the real-life story of a Texas man who was sentenced to die for a heinous crime. Todd Willingham was convicted of starting a fire in which his three children died.

Zwick serves up the drama in three acts. In the first, we meet a Texas couple, a low-down George and Martha -- Willingham and his wife (Emily Meade) -- who engage in no-holds-barred screaming matches, some of which turn physical.

Tragedy strikes early. Willingham wakes up one morning to discover that his house is on fire. When he can't save his children from the blaze, he winds up being charged with arson and murder.

At Willingham's trial, Zwick exposes gaps between the facts of the case and the testimony of police, witnesses, and experts. To make matters worse for Willingham, his alleged crime is viewed as horrible enough to deprive him of any public sympathy.

The movie's third act takes place in a Texas prison where Willingham awaits execution on death row. Still seething with anger, he fights with other inmates but insists on his innocence.

Late in his 12-year stay on death row, Willingham encounters Elizabeth (Laura Dern), a woman with whom he begins a correspondence. Initially wary, Elizabeth soon sets out to prove Willingham's innocence, a task that puts her in touch with key players who helped put Willingham on death row.

All of this plays out in ways that make the movie feel longer than its two hours, perhaps because Zwick digresses with flashbacks and because some parts of the story unfold independently of one another.

It’s no spoiler to tell you that Zwick ultimately takes a shot at Texas-style justice and the state's then Governor Rick Perry. He also designs the movie to show one of the major flaws in the argument for capital punishment. Death sentences can involve overzealous police work, shoddy defense counseling, and corrupted witnesses. Valid arguments, of course, but they give Trial By Fire a position-paper aura.

O’Connell and Dern give fine performances, as does Meade, as Willingham's wife. Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai) has an eye for a good story. But heavy-handed didacticism makes parts of Trial By Fire feel rigged, costing the story some of its power. As a result, Trial By Fire's anti-capital punishment stance most likely will speak only to the already converted.

A welcome 'Star Wars' addition

Director Rian Johnson takes the reins for Last Jedi and the result mostly satisfies.

Now, where were we?

If you're among the zillions of Star Wars enthusiasts, you know that the last chapter (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) concluded with young Rey (Daisy Ridley) finding her way to a remote island where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) had withdrawn from all things Jedi, including battling whatever evil currently had harnessed the dark side of the series' fabled Force. Luke, we learned, had hung up his Lightsaber.

Now comes Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the next installment of what's billed as a Star Wars sequel trilogy -- and the plea for Luke to shake off his funk continues.

This edition should please fans as it deftly barrels its way through two and half hours with only a few lags as the screenplay fulfills expositional obligations.

Director Rian Johnson (Brick and Looper) picks up the reins from J.J. Abrams and gives us a Star Wars with a bit of nuance, flashes of humor and plenty of well-crafted action.

What brings the whole enterprise to life -- aside from the generosity of its spectacle -- are the inner torments of characters who embody the great Star Wars theme: the tension between the light and dark sides of the force. This clash, of course, includes the knowing acknowledgment that even the most morally superior characters might be a hairsbreadth away from answering the dark call.

In a way, the plot of any Star Wars movie could be its least important attribute. You already know that Rey has found Luke Skywalker, so the only remaining question is whether she persuades him to leave his island retreat -- formally known as the planet Ahch-To -- and return to action as an inspiration for the Resistance, which is busy fighting the First Order.

The First Order, of course, is run by Supreme Leader Snoke, a cadaverous-looking creep played by Andy Serkis with the usual CGI boost. Snoke has great power, but looks so decayed, you half wonder how he lifts himself out of bed in the morning.

Disney, which has taken charge of the Star Wars franchise, has cautioned critics against revealing spoilers. I don't consider it a spoiler to tell you that unlike its 2015 predecessor, this edition includes more than a cameo appearance by Hamill. His Luke quickly establishes himself as a cranky, bearded figure who has shed every bit of the wide-eyed enthusiasm of his character's youth.

A bit of sadness tempers the fun. The Last Jedi marks Carrie Fisher's last performance. Fisher appears as General Leia Organa, head of the Resistance, and yes, Fischer's presence is more than ceremonial. (Fisher died a year ago this month.)

Johnson does a good job of weaving new characters into a mix that brings back Adam Driver, who digs as deep as he can as Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren tops Snoke's list of prospects to become the new Darth Vader. Ren, you'll recall, killed his father, Han Solo, in the last episode.

Look for Laura Dern, with purple hair, as Vice Admiral Holdo, evidently the second in command of Resistance forces after General Leia. Benicio del Toro plays DJ, a hacker who knows how to disable a device that figures heavily in the plot. Del Toro gives Last Jedi a sly, juicy boost. Finn (a returning John Boyega) and Rose Pico (newbie Kelly Marie Tran) are forced by circumstance to trust del Toro's genially larcenous character.

As you can tell, many characters populate this increasingly complex story. Oscar Isaac returns as the dashing pilot Poe Dameron. Also returning: Domhnall Gleeson as General Hux, another First Order purveyor of evil, and Lupita Nyong'o, the goggle-eyed pirate Maz.

Ridley already proved herself a worthy addition to the Star Wars fold and does nothing here to convince us that we weren't right to welcome her for what evidently will be a long run.

Johnson and his production team gives us plenty of visual diversion -- from Luke's monkish stone hut (it looks like something sculptor Andy Goldsworthy might have created) to the imperially sized vessels of the First order to the obligatory trip to a bustling casino planet -- it's called Canto Bight -- where rogues, aliens, and intergalactic swells meet and mingle.

New creatures pop up, notably cute little Porgs, a type of seabird that inhabits the planet Ahch-To. Thankfully, the Porgs are used sparingly enough not to create an overdose of cuteness, the dreaded Ewok effect.

Look, directing a Star Wars movie requires an ability to juggle a large cast of characters without creating too much confusion, as well as a commitment to preserving Star Wars mythology without miring the series in undue reverence for its past. Every new Star Wars movie must earn its own stripes.

Johnson gets the job done and, in the bargain, makes us the beneficiaries of his success.

Another loner living on the margins

Based on graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, Wilson gives Woody Harrelson a much-deserved chance to carry a movie. Harrelson plays the title character, a loner who's part misanthrope and part zhlub, a guy whose rebellious streak has extended long past its expiration date. Wilson qualifies as one of those marginal figures that sometimes make it to the pop-cultural center ring, something on the order of Harvey Pekar, who became the subject of the movie American Splendor -- except Pekar actually did something: He wrote comics about his life. Wilson doesn't seem to do anything, aside from hang around his cluttered apartment and strike up inappropriate conversations with strangers. Evidently on his own since his marriage dissolved 17 years ago, Wilson seems to have nothing going for him. Mildly funny and ultimately able to find some pathos, Wilson nonetheless proves a dull entry into the world of downbeat literature that Clowes helped create with Ghost World, which became a movie 16 years ago. Despite its repetitive feel, the movie deals with a variety of events: the death of Wilson's father, Wilson's reunion with his ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern), and the discovery that Pippi gave their infant daughter up for adoption. Wilson thought the baby had been aborted. As Wilson tries to worm his way back into Pippi's life, they drop in on Pippi's sister (Cheryl Hines), a visit that erupts into an implausibly brutal fight. Wilson and Pippi's weekend with their biological daughter, whom they track down at Wilson's insistence, results in Wilson's imprisonment for kidnapping. That's a lot of plot for a movie that doesn't feel as if it's going anywhere. Judy Greer becomes a late-picture love interest as the movie reaches its mildly sunny conclusion. A bearded Harrelson gives himself over to the role, holding the movie together with a shambling walk and hints of Wilson's decency. It couldn't have been an easy task because Wilson isn't the most intriguing of characters. Director Craig Johnson (Skeleton Twins) fully enters Wilson's world, but never really convinces us that it's worth joining him.

He saw the future: It was hamburgers

Michael Keaton excels in The Founder, the story of how McDonald's became McDonald's.

Everyone knows McDonald's, the ubiquitous hamburger chain. Not everyone knows the story behind one of America's -- and now the world's -- premiere fast-food operations. Founded in 1940 in San Bernardino, Ca. by the McDonald brothers (Mac and Dick), the restaurant revolutionized the drive-in food business by doing away with car hops and anything else that might slow the delivery of burger to customer. The McDonald's slogan: Buy 'em by the bag.

After some meager attempts at franchising, the brothers decided to focus on perfecting their formula.

But in 1954, Ray Kroc entered the brothers' lives. It was Kroc who grew McDonald's into a national phenomenon through an increasingly slick franchise operation.

According to the new movie, The Founder, the brothers were a couple of burger nerds who brought a high ethical standard to their work. Kroc ... well ... not so much.

In The Founder, Michael Keaton gives a terrific performance as Kroc, a man who always seems to be calculating the odds. Kroc doesn't just have ideas; he has bursts of inspiration, and he prides himself on his persistence, which he regards as more important than talent.

Keaton registers Kroc's thoughts with the quickness of a pin ball bouncing off bumpers; he makes Kroc a burger evangelist who understood that no ambition is too grand, and who eventually wrested control of the company from the brothers.

In some other era, an epiphany was something spiritual; as the '50s turned to the '60s, an epiphany shrunk in size. It was the light that dawned in Kroc's eyes when he first saw the San Bernadino McDonald's with its 15 cent hamburgers. You almost can hear Keaton thinking Kroc's thoughts: This, by God, is the future.

At one point, Kroc tells the McDonalds -- beautifully played by Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch -- that he envisions McDonald's as part of a small-town trinity: Church (with its cross); town hall (with its flag) and McDonald's with its patented Golden Arches serving as a bridge between the secular and the holy.

Lively direction by John Lee Hancock takes us from Kroc's days selling milk-shake mixers to the peak of his corporate success, which -- of course -- left the McDonald brothers bobbing helplessly in its potent wake.

Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks) understands that few of us go to movies for moral lessons, so he makes sure to entertain. A sequence in which the McDonald brothers perfect their fast-food assembly line by drawing various positions in the McDonald's food chain on a tennis court becomes exactly what one of the brothers calls it, "a burger ballet."

As Kroc ascends the ladder built by his dreams, his ruthlessness becomes clearer; he sheds his first wife (Laura Dern). Before that he meets the woman (Linda Cardellini) who'll become his next wife. Gradually, he grows into the image he has created for himself, and it's exciting to watch Keaton expand Kroc's ego to match his achievements.

In a powerful scene toward the movie's end, Kroc explains to the exasperated Dick McDonald that the thing he most wanted to appropriate from the brothers was their name. He figured McDonald had an all-American ring that forever would elude a man named Kroc. He wound up taking not only their burgers, but their identity.

I can't say that Hancock, working from a screenplay by Robert D. Siegel, has made the Citizen Kane of fast food, but he's made an entertaining movie with enough substance to give you pause.

Let me summarize with something that may sound familiar in these days of ascending Trumpism:
The McDonald brothers were about burgers; Kroc -- in what probably could have been an even tougher movie -- was about being hailed as a conqueror.

When houses stop being homes

99 Homes humanizes the devastations of the mortgage crisis.

In 99 Homes, director Ramin Bahrani -- who made his mark in the film world with 2005's Man Push Cart -- takes an exacting look at what happens when homes are in foreclosure and the vultures descend, a situation that in 2007 came to be known as the subprime mortgage crisis.

The set-up: Michael Shannon plays an unscrupulous real estate hustler who has amassed a small fortune, and Andrew Garfield portrays an unemployed construction worker who's evicted from his home, but winds up working for Shannon's Rick Carver.

Set in Florida during the darkest days of the recession, the movie early on finds Carver showing up at Nash's door with a couple of sheriff's deputies. They give Nash all of two minutes to gather his belongings and move his mother (Laura Dern) and young son (Noah Lomax) out of the house.

Nash initially resists, but there's no forestalling the inevitable. The family winds up in a bad motel with few prospects for improving its lot. At this point, you can feel hope swirling down the drain.

For his part, Carver wastes no time on hope. He's too busy scheming: He works for banks, but knows how to scam the government for money. He'll also offer insultingly meager amounts of cash to take over a home for a quick flip. He calls the program "cash for keys." How about taking $3,500 for your home before the sheriff shows up?

Unlike Carver, Nash has a conscience, and Garfield does a fine job of mining Nash's uneasiness. He's in a position that's bringing in unexpected amounts of money, first as a handyman for Carver and then as a participant in evictions. He's required to push people around the way he once was pushed around, but he's never comfortable in the role.

Shannon makes Carver a credible character, a man whose ethos springs from a dog-eat-dog reading of reality. He saw his father get screwed by the system, and vowed that he'd never share such a fate. Carver isn't about to be the dog that's eaten.

Carver's a businessman who learned how to shut off his emotions so that he could capitalize on other people's suffering. An amoral pragmatist, he's willing to give Nash an opportunity to flip the script on a society that has left him out in the cold. There's no bailout for losers, Carver insists.

Bahrani's movie revolves around two conflicting notions of housing.

To Nash, the home from which he was evicted is the cornerstone of his family's stability. He grew up the house. His mother operated her haircutting businesses there, and his son knew no other residence.

Carver's view of homes couldn't be more different. To him a house is nothing but a box and an opportunity to make money. Boxes have no emotional meaning and neither do the deluded people who live in them.

Carver used to make money by selling people homes. Now he makes money by throwing them out of their houses. He understands the irony, but doesn't much care.

Garfield, the British actor who took a turn at Spider Man, does fine work as a guy who wants to earn a decent wage with his hands, but finds himself dabbling in a world where money has become the only measure that matters.

Bahrani isn't afraid of social relevance, which may be why the movie's at its best when it's showing us what life is like for people who find themselves looking at their belongings on the front lawn and not knowing where the hell to go next.

It's an important image to absorb, but when you review the story in your mind, you may realize that Bahrani is better at presenting telling incidents and episodes than he is at delivering a fully enriched narrative.

Still, 99 Homes puts us in touch with a devastating moment from which many have yet to recover -- and perhaps never will.

Looking for renewal in the wilds

Reese Witherspoon carries Wild across the finish line.

Mired in a downward spiral that included drugs and promiscuity, Cheryl Strayed avoided the obvious. Rather than following the customary 12-step path to recovery, she took many thousands of steps.

In an attempt to quiet her demons, Strayed embarked on a 1,000-mile solo trek on the exceedingly difficult Pacific Crest Trail, which runs through California, Oregon and Washington.

To hike the Pacific Crest, one must adjust to sea-level altitudes, as well as to heights of more 13,000 feet -- not to mention the threat of snakes, wildlife, wild swings in weather (heat and snow) and scary isolation.

The resulting trek, which Strayed made in 1995, transformed her life and led to the publication of Wild, a best-selling 2012 memoir about her shattered life and restorative wilderness journey.

Actress Reese Witherspoon joins with director Jean-Marc Vallee (The Dallas Buyers Club) to bring Strayed's story to the screen, presenting Strayed's inner and outer journeys -- both of which resound with hardship.

The resultant movie allows Witherspoon to seize an opportunity to appear sans make-up and, at times, without psychological defenses. She's certainly up to the challenge.

Because Strayed traveled alone, her story has been taken as a statement of feminist triumph. Strayed entered a male domain and proved that she could survive the arduous hardships of the trail. Viewed that way, the story acquires additional heft.

Although not without its tensions, Strayed's wilderness adventure is presented in straightforward fashion. She began with a ridiculously heavy backpack and boots that were too small. Gradually, she learned how to keep herself going.

Strayed met men along the way, and Vallee treats most of these meetings as friendly and helpful, although one proves potentially threatening, something along Deliverance lines.

Strayed's plunge into a wanton life began with the death of her 45-year-old mother (Laura Dern) from cancer. That blow was followed by estrangement from her husband (Thomas Sadowski), who made several futile attempts to rescue her from self-imposed degradation.

Vallee chooses to deal with Strayed's torments by replicated the way our minds tend to be flooded by unwanted thoughts. It's a valid approach, but the movie's many flashbacks don't always work, perhaps because they often feel abrupt and fragmentary, as if they've been shot out of a cannon.

As Strayed hikes, she's constantly confronting images of sexual abandon and heroin addiction. She also recalls happy times with her loving mother (Laura Dern), a woman who had a bad track record with men. We learn about Strayed's relationship with a younger brother, who had his own difficulties accepting his mother's death.

British novelist and screenwriter Nick Hornby (About a Boy and An Education) seems to dispense with a third act. The hike ends, Strayed tells us that everything in her life (good and bad) may have been necessary for her to reach the purifying moment with which the film concludes.

That's a triumphant ending on the page; somehow -- or so it seemed to me -- it didn't seem quite so moving on screen.

When Strayed finally has her big emotional catharsis, she drops to her knees and weeps after an unexpected encounter with a boy and his grandmother. Vallee shoots this scene from behind Witherspoon. We see only her back and that ever-present backpack, prominent though reduced in size from the movie's early going.

Something about that image didn't feel right to me. I don't know exactly what I wanted so see at that precise moment, but it sure wasn't that damn backpack.

Still, Witherspoon's performance, the range of scenery captured by cinematographer's Yves Belanger's camera and the amazing fact of the story -- a brave soul with no-previous experience conquered the Pacific Crest trail on her own -- prove sufficient fuel to keep the movie marching forward.