Dogs Bark

Tale As Old As Time - - The Shape Of Water (2017, Canada/USA, Color, 123 min) - - 30 December 2017

Strongly recommended. The shape of water is fluid in motion. It requires repression to form it. Once it is set free, the shape of water is without limit. There is no Other anymore. Elisa Esposito is repressed by muteness . . . her simple life. Her friends are repressed by prejudice, by bigotry, by the dismissal of compassion and conscience. The Creature (Doug Jones, Hellboy) is repressed by our ignorance. Such is the premise of Guillermo De Toro’s (Pan’s Labyrinth) very grown-up (and erotic!) fairy tale, The Shape Of Water. It is easily the loveliest movie of the year. Elisa was written by De Toro only for Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) - - with a smile at Audrey Hepburn. Supporting work by Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) are superb. All deserve Oscar nods, as does another wonderful Alexandre Desplat (The Imitation Game) score. Do not miss this movie!

Madness In the Ozarks - - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017, USA, Color, 115 min) - - 16 December 2017

Strongly recommended. The magic of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri lies in a few choice moments of revelation. The story is one of constantly shifting sympathies. We begin by identifying with Frances McDormand’s (Fargo) Mildred Hayes, played as an uncompromising opponent of banality, as far from Chief Marge Gunderson as North Dakota is from Missouri. Mildred is cold inside, frozen in a parent’s inconsolable grief. Trashing our nascent empathy, she spins off through an increasing arc of her own angry madness, the humor of Martin McDonough’s (In Bruges) sly script extending the lunacy. The magic resides in McDormand rare and masterful exposure of Mildred’s humanity. Further, she is offset by Sam Rockwell’s wacky sense of justice, the pair escalates their contentious ambiguity until - - at the end - - we have no idea where these two remarkable characters will wind up . . . literally. This is a fascinating movie.