All Is True (2019) **** (Pictured Above)

The last days of William Shakespeare have always been clouded in mystery. In the intriguing drama All is True, director/star Kenneth Branagh engages in some heavy speculation as to how the Bard came to shed his mortal coil. We find 51-year-old Will (Branagh, looking uncannily Shakespeare-like) puttering in his garden in 1616, turning away admirers and still grieving over the long-ago death of his young son Hamnet. He does still have two grown daughters (Kathryn Wilder and Lydia Wilson), but they’re not much comfort to him — nor is his long-suffering wife Anne (Judi Dench). You’d expect the script — by longtime Mr. Beanwriter Ben Elton — to be a bit wittier, if not madcap. But as director, Branagh walks us through the story with the patience of a gardener pointing out his favorite flowers — in this case a series of sterling performances, especially by Ian McKellan as an old friend who drops by to trade recitations of Will’s sonnets. All is True may or may not be true, but as the immortal words roll off these two masters’ tongues, the authenticity of Shakespeare’s genius is unmistakable.

The Lion King ***   

The trouble with Disney's live-action remakes of its classic animated films has always been a simple one: Each has lacked, through no fault of its creators, the initial spark of genius that infused the original works. There's a unique energy that is born of audacity, and it's evident in every frame of  films like Dumbo, The Little Mermaid, and, yes, The Lion King: a cartoon that combined elements of Shakespeare's Hamlet with a particularly violent episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. On the heels of Disney's recent Dumbo debacle, the studio had nowhere to go but up with its Lion King remake, and this new version of the 1994 movie offers an undeniably lush vision. But technological wonders only get you so far, and the film ends up not so much a re-imagining of the first take as a lavish hack job. I'm happy to report James Earl Jones is back to lend his rolling tones to the voice of Mufasa — but as much as I like Billy Eichner, this update gets nothing but raspberries for failing to bring back the great Nathan Lane as Timon. 

Maiden ****

Through sheer determination — often of the most reckless kind — 24-year-old Tracy Edward in 1989 became skipper of the first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round The World Race (now known as the Volvo Ocean Race). Through old home movies, director Alex Holmes introduces us to Edwards as a surly, rebellious teenager who escaped a troubled home life by becoming a cook on private yachts. An aimless existence seemed guaranteed for her until, inspired by a chance meeting with King Hussein of Jordan, Edwards became obsessed with the notion of showing the male-dominated world of yacht racing that women could do a lot more than rustle up grub for macho sailor men. The rampant sexism of the era is reflected in news clips (“How will they avoid cat fights?”) and in the dismissive comments of male counterparts. That condescending tone barely softens even after the crew survives a harrowing passage near Antarctica, but the women mostly refuse to take the bait: They plug along, eyes on the horizon, through seas both smooth and scary. Edwards and her cohorts, interviewed for the film and looking ready to set sail again on a moment’s notice, provide the film’s heartfelt narration.

Mike Wallace Is Here **** 

For more than four decades, few things struck fear into the hearts of corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen more than the words, “Mike Wallace Is Here.” That’s the name of this eye-opening new documentary from director Avi Belkin, who goes way, way back into the archives of early TV to create this sometimes stark, sometimes heartbreaking portrait of the man who invented the hard-hitting TV interview. There's a wealth of striking footage from 60 Minutes, the newsmagazine he launched with cohost Harry Reasoner in 1968 and which, he candidly recalls, "No one thought would last." And vintage footage from his gritty 1950s New York City interview show reveal he was honing his interviewing skills long before that. But perhaps most striking are clips of Wallace as a  a cheery, chatty 1950s game show host, happily handing out prize money to delighted contestants — or chirpily pitching everything from cigarettes to refrigerated pie crusts. It's at those moments we realize Wallace at some point sat down and, through sheer calculation and determination, invented the steely-eyed reporter that defined his career. 

The Quiet One ****  

The Rolling Stones were the Bad Boys of the British Invasion, but while Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Keith Richards cranked up the sexual energy onstage and fueled their happy hedonism with drugs and booze, off to the side stood tall, serene Bill Wyman, plucking away at his bass guitar, staring off into the distance beyond the screaming fans, and heading home to his country house where he doted on his young son. That, at least, is the narrative posited by this music-packed documentary that draws upon Wyman’s exhaustive collection of home movies, interviews, and concert footage amassed during his 31 years as a Stone (he retired from the band in 1993). 

We find him in the present day, hunched over a computer screen scanning old photos, surrounded by shelves of cameras, props, costumes, and gold records. Wyman is an amiable tour guide through the Stones’ story, and he comes off very much like a kindly grandfather regaling his grandkids with outrageous war stories. There’s rock-and-roll bombast aplenty in the film, but the best moment is one of the quietest, when Wyman tries to tell about the night his hero, Ray Charles, invited him to play bass on his next record. “I turned him down,” says Wyman, fairly bursting into tears. “I told him, ‘I’m not good enough.’”

The Spy Behind Home Plate  ***

There’s an old Borsch Belt joke: What’s the thinnest book ever written? Why, Jewish sports heroes, of course! But you could rustle up a pretty thick volume about Mo Berg, a journeyman baseball catcher who roamed from team to team in the 1930s, then slipped into Europe during World War II on behalf of the U.S. government to enlist defections from rocket scientists. Paul Rudd played Berg in last year’s The Catcher Was a Spy; now director Aviva Kempner has created an exhaustive documentary that enlists both athletes and historians to strip away the mythology surrounding Berg. What emerges is the portrait of a brilliant Princeton grad whose genius for language and strategy served him on the ball field and his country on the battlefield. 

Sword of Trust  ****  

Writer/Director Lynn Shelton has produced some of the sharpest comedy on TV (Fresh Off The Boat, New Girl, Madmen) but she loosens up considerably in this ever-surprising improvisational comedy. Jillian Bell plays a woman who inherits a seemingly worthless antique sword from her Alabama grandfather — but when she and her partner (Michaela Watkins) take it to a pawnshop, they become embroiled with an underground network of Southern “truthers” who believe the sword proves the Confederacy won the Civil War. Marc Maron, disheveled and determinedly downbeat, is brilliant as the pawnbroker, and the entire ensemble plays together like a well-oiled — if wildly off-kilter — machine. 

This Changes Everything  ****

When Geena Davis made Thelma & Louise with Susan Sarandon in 1991, just about everyone in Hollywood crowed, “This changes everything! Finally we’re going to see more female buddy films!” And when Davis’ next movie, director Penny Marshall’s  A League of Their Own, was a runaway smash, pundits raved, “This changes everything! Now we’re going to see lots of women’s sports movies and big-budget films directed by women!” Nearly three decades later, those hopes ring hollow — so hollow, in fact, that Davis signed on to be executive producer of this often-infuriating documentary. Through interviews, news clips, and visually clever analysis of legal documents, filmmaker Tom Donahue crystalizes Hollywood’s dirty secret: It’s not that movies by women, about women can’t be successful at the box office — it’s simply that the industry’s all-powerful boys’ club is determined to keep women out of the driver’s seat. Donahue gets some of Hollywood’s most famous women to step forward on behalf of those who struggle daily against the male-dominated entertainment industry. The likes of Meryl Streep, Jessica Chastain, Sandra Oh and Reese Witherspoon make their indisputable case, but the real hero is Davis, whose nonprofit foundation uncovered groundbreaking statistical proof that women aren’t just underrepresented when it comes to directing, producing and writing films — they are downright invisible. 

Toy Story 4 ****  
Toy Story 3 was such a perfect wrap-up of what we all assumed was a trilogy, it's hard not to on some level resent the appearance of a fourth installment. Yes, it's nice to spend another hour and a half with Woody and Buzz & Co., and Pixar's mastery of computer animation continues to push the boundaries of the miraculous. But there's an air of desperation here, especially in the frayed storyline, which spins off in too many directions with no clear destination — a radical departure from most Pixar films, which are models of streamlined storytelling. First we find Woody stashing himself in the backpack of the toy gang's new owner, a little girl named Bonnie, as she heads of for her first day of Kindergarten. There she creates a new "toy" — really just some googly eyes pasted on a spork and a pair of pipe cleaner arms. Delightfully voiced by Tony Hale (Veep), Forky would  have been a perfectly sufficient focus for the film as he learns that even though he's trash, he's loved by a little girl, and that's enough. But no, soon we're off on a road trip in a motor home, and through some incredible coincidence Woody happens to spot Bo Peep, his old flame from the original Toy Story, in an antique store. But that reunion only leads to a dark tale of a creepy talking antique doll who rules over a small army of hideous ventriloquist dummies. Then there's a made chase through a carnival, etc. etc. The whole thing resembles an explosion in a writers' room — yet there's no denying the moments of visual bliss, and the endearing qualities of the characters, old and new. 

Yesterday ****  (Pictured Above)

Nearly sixty years after they burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, the music of The Beatles is the stuff of elevator music and supermarket soundtracks. Director Danny Boyle's new musical fantasy takes advantage of that universal familiarity with the group's songs, but it also captures something that those of us who were around in those days have all but forgotten: The sheer exhilaration of discovering The Beatles. Himesh Patel plays Jack, a struggling British musician who wakes up one day to realize he's the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles, or any of their songs. As he strums out tunes like "Yesterday" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" — first for his friends, then for an ever-growing audience — he is hailed as the greatest singer-songwriter of all time. Pulling off a conceit like that would be a high wire act for any filmmaker, but Boyle wisely doesn't dwell on any sort of explanation for this surreal case of global amnesia (a delightful running joke has Jack casually discovering a selection of other things missing from this alternate reality). Instead, he lets his appealing cast, and more than a dozen timeless songs, sweep us along with the whimsical narrative. Jack does need to deal with conflicting pangs of guilt over making his fortune on the shoulders of others — but some sly musical references note that pop music has been doing just that ever since John Lennon and Paul McCartney first started jamming together. A poignant episode near the end drives home the film's familiar but timeless message: There's a price to be paid for getting everything you ever wanted.