He's Back ... Finally!

We've all been waiting with bated breath, on the edge of our seats, ready to explode with joy and the moment is finally upon us. After a 23-year self-imposed hiatus, the 80s-90s nerd star Rick Moranis is back! How did we do it without you, old friend. His return will be in the much anticipated - by someone, I imagine - reboot of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It's ironic, because I was just thinking that that franchise, whose last film was a straight-to-video flop in 1997, really needed to come back into our collective consciousness.

It will be directed by Joe Johnston, the talented auteur who made the 1989 original film and went on to make other gems like Jumanji, Jurassic Park III and Captain America: The First Avenger. Thank god the franchise train goes on unabated by taste, talent or quality!

There's Just No Accounting for Taste

So I've been gone for a while, but I'm off the sports beat for the summer and thought I would start occasionally posting my thoughts on politics and popular culture again here. To get us back in the swing of things, I thought I would start, in my usual curmudgeonly manner, with another head scratcher regarding human tastes in the popular culture landscape of today. 

We do know that some of the biggest franchises and stars are essentially immune to bad reviews these days, particularly by the now paramount measure of opening weekend box office. In fact, one could well argue that the critics and average moviegoers have diverged more and more over the years as the quality of Hollywood mainstream films has arguably declined while dedicated franchise audiences have proliferated (and really kept the business profitable). There has always been a tension between critics and moviegoers on this point, with the former more likely to want beauty and a message in their films and the latter more likely to want to be entertained and empowered by what they watch. Critics understand that film is about desire, at least some of them, but it is audiences that often unknowingly are going to the movies to have that desire sated in the formulas that have now worked for almost a century. So that divergence is understandable, though moments still arise when the distance becomes hard to reckon with. 

One such space is the Adam Sandler universe, where a "comic" personality like Laurel and Hardy before him, leaves the critics cold while continuing to bring in huge audiences. His latest foray into the critically panned but successful film is Murder Mystery for Netflix. According to the streaming site, an incredible 30 million people watched the film over the weekend, which, at $9 a ticket, would have brought in the third biggest opening weekend ever ($556 million). 

There is, apparently, a tinge of Agatha Christie (once the best selling author in human history) in the story, which mostly revolves around "clever" dialogue between Sanders and Aniston, but that is not enough to explain that sort of an "opening weekend." Instead it might be that the familiar is becoming more and more appealing as we work our way through the most abnormal political moment in American history. Or that a fan base once solidified, will keep buying your popcorn, even if they know there are better brands one or two shelves down. But maybe, most of all, it just reminds us of H. L. Mencken's point that "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

Unlocking the Oscars: Best Picture

I have now gone through watching the majority of the films up for major Oscars. It was over a month of heavy movie viewing and reminds how narrow the vision of the studios is, releasing most of the top films of the year so late in the season. And yet some gems have emerged out of the rubble of their obsession with remakes, sequels, prequels and franchising. I thought I would briefly explore the films up for best picture, and some of the others that could or should have been on that list. Later, I will look at some of the other major categories and my thoughts on who I believe should (and probably will) win. For now, the films that are, or should be, considered for best picture.

Spotlight: A+

This tour de force had a disappointing Golden Globes, unable to win on any of its three nominations. That, however, should not undermine the appeal of this engrossing film, punctuated by an ensemble cast that played off each other with surprising cohesiveness, with Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber and John Slattery excellent, along with the rest of the players. The story covers the Boston investigation into allegations that the city’s Archdiocese covered-up countless incidents of sexual abuse by priests for many years. It fits smugly with the best newsroom films of all time, alongside Face in the Crowd, Network, Broadcast News and its closest analogous story, All the President’s Men. It is difficult to capture the slow moving nature of a story that took months (or years, if you want to be technical) to uncover and report, but the director and screenwriter Tom McCarthy (with Josh Singer) found a way to maintain the tension throughout, picking out elliptical moments that made the story come alive. The anger and shock one may feel as the story unfolds is well-founded, of course, and the film is masterful in revealing the subtle ways that so many players become complicit in this tragic tale. If one considers a film as a text made up of its component parts, from narrative, directing and cinematography to acting, editing and mis-en-scene, it is hard to find a better film this year.

The Big Short: A-/B+

A fascinating exploration of the financial crisis that intermingles images of the figures that foresaw the crash to come and those who most acutely felt the tidal wave of economic destruction. It provides a rich tapestry of the architects of the crisis as well, from the greedy Wall Street Kings of the World and their sycophantic ratings agent collaborators to the seedy figures across the real estate landscape. There is some excellent acting here, from Gosling, Carell, Pitt and the supporting players (though I was less impressed with Christian Bale than the Academy) and a crispness and experimental flair to McKay’s directing that seems to fit the tone of the story perfectly. Some will be turned off by the frequency with which the film breaks the fourth wall, but one imagines the average viewer needs the knowledge provided by a series of stand-ins (even if Selena Gomez seems an odd choice to explain CDOs). While 99 Homes provides a compelling, neorealist portrait of the personal costs of the 2007 financial crisis, The Big Short is another film, alongside the excellent documentaries Inside Job and Capitalism: A Love Story and the fictionalized Too Big to Fail and Margin Call, that seek to provide some context and understanding to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Combining humor with drama it digs deeper to ask the salient question of whether we need to do more now to ensure that past is not prologue once again and to address the growing inequality in the world that now sees 62 individuals controlling the combined wealth of the bottom 50 percent of the globe’s population. We need more films like this, that move beyond slick Hollywood malarkey to sift through the wreckage of our contemporary political, economic and social realities.

Room: A

It is hard to describe this small but moving film that seems to sneak up on you until it tears your heart to pieces. The performances of the two leads, the excellent Brie Larson and the inchoate talent Jacob Tremlay, is startling in its sincerity and intimacy, giving us a bird’s eye view of a mother’s love for her child and the lengths to which she will go to keep him safe. Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did) has constructed an emotional masterpiece, first capturing the claustrophobia of their confined space and then the awe and wonder of the world beyond it, through the eyes and voiceover of a child who has lived in an isolation so foreign, and yet familiar, to the audiences viewing these diametrically opposed spaces on film. It is a story so moving you will cry in despair and in the exultation of ultimate triumph, wondering if the resonant message transcends its humble limitation to speak to a larger universal truth. Brie Larson is my pick for Best Actress, following up her victory at the Golden Globes.

The Martian: B+

This is a very engaging and, surprising for Ridley Scott, funny movie that does a majestic job of creating a compelling world on Mars, with the juxtaposition of the enclosed spaces of our abandoned astronaut and the grandeur of the red landscape beyond the most fulfilling mis-en-scene seen this year. However, while I thoroughly enjoyed the film and thought it did a good job of building and then maintaining suspense throughout, it appeared to fall prey to a Disneyesque resolution and denouement that ultimately left me feeling like I had watched a Hollywood film from the 50s (or a Ron Howard “joint”). It is an amusing ride, without doubt, but a little too pat to compete for best film of the year, at least in my estimation.

Mad Max: C+ (Cinematography: A)

A visual spectacle without much of a plot, there is still something imminently watchable about this technical achievement by George Miller. The story is typical post-apocalyptic tripe, though with elements of feminist empowerment generally missing from these films (forgoing The Hunger Games and Divergent franchises) but it is the cinematography that truly stuns and makes up for a story a precocious seven-year-old could follow without much effort. On the other hand, the chase scenes are stunning, some humor is thrown in to soften the violence and I did, begrudgingly, find myself rooting for the heroes in the end.

Brooklyn: B+

There is nothing really unique or new in Brooklyn, except perhaps its focus on a female lead as the newly arrived Irish immigrant trying to make her way in America, while the people she left behind suffer her absence. Saoirse Ronan does offer a stellar performance and the budding love between Ellis and Tony (Emory Cohen) is compelling, if a little light on passion and poignancy. The supporting cast is excellent and it is one of those wonderful films that combine Hollywood’s penchant for happy endings with just enough artistry to move beyond the banal. My major problem with a film I thoroughly enjoyed was it seemed like she might have had a better life back in Ireland with a man who seemed much more interesting than the American who became her betrothed.  

The Revenant: A

Some have labeled this film "torture porn," and there is certainly an argument for that claim. And yet the film is so beautifully rendered that I think the survival and revenge narratives are almost beside the point, and one shouldn’t forget the events are based on a true story. Every shot seems perfectly structured from the costuming down to the natural lighting. Action scenes are dizzying in their complexity, one becomes an active participant in much of the action on screen and the grizzly bear attack alone is truly stunning. The movie does seem story light at times, but for a feature that clocks in at over two and a half hours, there is rarely a dull moment. This is down to the craft of Iñárritu and cinematographer Lubezki, who have shown extraordinary versatility in the films they have shot together. A cinematic achievement that is truly worthy of watching on the big screen, as I did last week.

Bridge of Spies: B-/C+

Like most Spielberg movies, this film is nice to look at and has its moments of suspense, but the story seems to lack the gravity we are led to believe is warranted and has a rather anti-climactic ending that one could have predicted from the very start. Tom Hanks is good without being excellent, overwhelmed at times by the exceptional performance of Mark Rylance as the unrepentant but likable Russian spy trapped in the middle of this true Cold War swap. As is often the case with Spielberg movies made for adults, there seems a rather Manichean structure of good and evil, the average man thrown into action for country and the heroic search for justice against the odds and a loving family in the background. It is a pleasant film that seems a couple of decades late and that I could have just as easily done without.  

Other Contenders

Carol: A-

Another film snubbed by the Golden Globes and Oscar nominators is this Todd Haynes picture, with two exceptional performances from the leads, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. The movie is a bit of a slow burn early, as the characters and narrative are methodically developed, but it comes alive in the second half as the mutual attraction is finally consummated and then, as one would expect, ripped apart by the conventions and homophobia of that era. Haynes has shown himself adroit at capturing an age in prior efforts, in particular the 50s (as he also did in his masterful deconstruction of melodrama in Far from Heaven), his use of color, set design and careful attention to the nuances of historic detail placing you squarely within that idealized but false utopian past. But what makes this film so compelling is the subtlety of the performances, the unfolding of attraction and a relationship that, but for one sequence, exists in innuendo, in body positioning and in the slightest shifts of facial expression. Mara’s character, Therese, is certainly a hard nut to crack with the sense that we never fully understand her mercurial nature or what she is really feeling, but juxtaposed against the regal tragedy of Blanchett as the eponymous Carol, the duo create the perfect romantic dyad. And as is the tendency with a Hayne’s film, the ending exists at a new uncertain beginning with the budding core of all great films - hope. Even as a case can be made for both actresses getting an Oscar nod, Blanchett for Best Actress and Rooney for Best Supporting Actress, we know beforehand that Haynes will have to continue his wait for the Best Directing Oscar he so richly deserves (he failed to even earn a nomination; as was the case with the film overall).

Steve Jobs: A

Even as I type this review on a MacBook Air, surrounded by my iPhone and iPad Mini, I have to admit a mild disdain for the “heroic” purveyor of “iLife.” Apple has improved our lives in countless ways with user-friendly products that fill ever corner of our digital age, but there is an abiding sense that, more than any other company besides maybe Facebook, Apple is at the heart of the insularity and alienation that same age has brought upon us. And so I stayed away from a film written by one of my favorite screenwriters, Aaron Sorkin, until two weeks ago. It is a mistake I am glad I finally rectified. For this is among the best films of the year without question. Michael Fassbinder is not so quietly making his case as the actor of our generation, protean in his ability to move through disparate roles and tonalities with an acuity few have ever exhibited. None of us really know what was going on in the mind of the troubled genius this biopic is based on, just as we can’t be sure Sorkin was right in his psychoanalytic exploration of Mark Zuckerberg, but even if the film is afield of the truth, it is a compelling portrait of genius and its costs. The film is rather insular itself, built around the precursor to the unveiling of three of the most important products in Jobs’ career. Yet the film is not really about any of these products, rather it is about the most important relationships of Jobs’ life – with his unacknowledged daughter, the co-creator of Apple, his mentor and his assistant. There is a certain theatricality to the narrative structure and one could certainly see it as a play, but director Danny Boyle’s (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) blocking and use of space and background throughout takes the setting and gives it filmic signatures that surround the story with visual splendor. Fassbinder should win the Oscar for this performance, though he might lose out to DiCaprio, but if I were to pick the most enjoyable moviegoing experience of the year, Steve Jobs would be right near the top.

The Hateful Eight: B

One cannot write about the best films of the year without at least considering Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film. And while there is wonderful cinematography and dialogue throughout, with some stunning shots of the wildly open landscapes in the opening sequences and some clever camera movement later on, the majority of the film takes place within an enclosed space that only allows so much of the filmmaker’s mastery of the language of cinema to shine (though one can argue he maximizes this space like few could). Unfortunately, while the first two acts are excellent, if below his best work, the third act sees the story fall apart and left me with a fundamental question that far too much Hollywood fare has over the past decade – what’s the point? The acting is excellent, if largely within the scope of the actor’s range, though the performance of Jennifer Jason Leigh certainly stands out. Samuel L. Jackson does Samuel L. Jackson rather convincingly, but without the material that has made him among the more interesting of Tarantino’s persistent players. The problem to me is the narrowness of the story, its tendency to feel almost formulaic within the Tarantino universe and its less than satisfactory conclusion, though I certainly understood the symbolism he was eliciting. Certainly a film to watch for Tarantino fans, particularly if you can catch it in 70mm, but arguably the least compelling film since Jackie Brown, which I still liked more than this more ambitious but ultimately disappointing Western.

Trumbo – B+

This smaller film did not make the cut for Best Picture, but Bryan Cranston did garner inclusion in the Best Actor category. It is a good film that might have been great but for its own relative insularity and unwillingness to move the story far beyond its micro concerns. Hollywood has made a number of films dealing with HUAC, the Hollywood Ten and the blacklist that followed, and this is arguably the best since The Front (1976). It does an interesting job of contemplating the most talented of those ten original blacklisted moviemakers, the surrounding figures supporting and challenging the anti-communist rhetoric and of exploring the relationship between art, commerce and politics. More impressively, it keeps us engaged as we contemplate a topic difficult to “show” on film – the process of writing a script. In the end, it is an entertaining film that never quiet captures the artistry of its subject’s best work.  

Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (A-): while I found Spectre almost unwatchable in its constantly shifting vistas, non-stop action and unnerving solemnity, this was a nice fifth addition to the MI universe, coming four years after Ghost Protocol. I still prefer the first De Palma film, but the addition of Simon Peg over the past three installations has all but erased memories of John Woo’s spectacle-infused, plot-non-existent second film. One could argue, in fact, that this is a franchise that has now hit 80 percent, with four of the five films providing enough enjoyment to keep at least this viewer happy. The first film was one of the better adaptations of a television series onto film and found Brian De Palma at his maturing best. The second was the aforementioned unbearable John Woo film, that forget that character development, story and plot sort of matter when we pay money to see a film (though maybe he was just ahead of the curve in 1996). The third gave us an overwrought but exceptional performance by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman that juxtaposed well with a slightly more somber Cruise. And while the level of suspension of disbelief we need to watch the last two films with any semblance of seriousness is stretched to its limit, Cruise has gotten his groove back here.

Trainwreck (B+): 2015 was not a great year for comedy and so this film appears to stand near the acme, unless, of course, you agree that The Martian somehow belongs alongside this Apatow joint (maybe it actually did in 2015). I was less impressed than many with the film, thinking its crassness and then Disneyified ending undermined the much better middle section. Bill Hayder and LeBron James were both great, though, and Amy Schumer, though not necessarily my cup of tea, certainly brought the house down with some of her jokes. I have grown weary of contemporary comedy, with its tendency to go for the easy joke, to resort to racism when no easy joke is available, to bathe in scatology or to embrace schadenfreude with the verve of a Nazi torturer. Unfortunately, this film sometimes falls prey to those tendencies, unable to extricate itself from proximity to the gallows humor that passes for brilliance in contemporary America. It’s an entertaining film at times, that might have benefitted considerably by recasting John Cena to an extra, but hit most of the romantic comedy marks we seek.

Spy (A-): since I brought up comedy, I thought I would close with a pretty funny film I thought moved Melissa McCarthy beyond her own tendency to mire herself in the muck. Here director Paul Feig mixes physical humor with clever dialogue and adds a surprisingly funny turn from action-hero Jason Statham. It is a much better and more mature brand of comedy to me and, like Kingsman: The Secret Service from last year, though with much less violence, provides a timely remixing of the tired spy-action thriller genre.

50 Shades of Grey (C--/D+): there are an endless array of bombs one could select among the blockbuster successes of the year, but this stinker has the aroma of the worst of the bunch. The acting is stale, the lifestyle porn elements tiresome, the melodrama largely flat and, worst of all, the S&M that everyone was waiting to see more PG-13 than NC-17. The problem from the start, to me at least, was the lack of clarity of Anastasia Steele’s motivation (Dakota Johnson) and the Blue Steel coolness of Cristian (Jamie Dornan). Cringe-worthy dialogue, a love story we’re not really rooting for, too much sensuality where one assumes violence should have been placed and a completely unsatisfying ending all combined to make $571 million worldwide (on a budget of $40 million). Not bad for the worst hyped film of the year!

MPAA Tries to Kill Another Moore Movie

The MPAA’s ongoing battle with Michael Moore continues to fester as they tagged yet another of his films with an R-rating (The Guardian). The latest is Where to Invade Next, a film that will get a limited release in late December. Like Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and really all of his films, the decision appears to have move to do with politics than any substantive issues with the film.

Moore, of course, released the top grossing documentary of all time with Fahrenheit 9/11, which earned an impressive $119.2 million domestically and another $103 million overseas, despite the attempts by the MPAA to stop it from wide release. That movie was R-rated without any credible explanation but a clear attempt to keep American children from hearing ideas outside the conservative mainstream. And his other films haven’t done so bad either, with Sicko at $10 ($24 million domestically), Bowling for Columbine at #12 ($21m) and Capitalism: A Love Story at #19 ($14m) – each also the recipient of the dreaded R-rating.

With Where to Invade Next, the film was given an R-rating because of “violence, drug use and brief nudity.” The violence is footage of the brutal murder of unarmed Eric Garner by the NYPD. The drug use is a discussion of how Portugal ended their war on drugs 15 years ago. And the nudity is 2 seconds of Germans at spa for a vacation to alleviate stress – part of their socialized healthcare. Moore argued, “It’s amazing how 25 years have passed – we invented the internet, gay marriage is legal and we elected an African American president of the United States, but the MPAA is still intent on censoring footage that is available from any evening network news show.” The organization has always been shrouded in secrecy, well documented in another documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated (the film was in fact rated by the MPAA, as NC-17 for “some graphic sexual content”).

The rating appears to be just the latest parry in a battle for the hearts and minds of America, being fought with equal vigor by the right and left. Both seem almost equally intent on quashing the voices of any non-believers. We have seen it with the MPAA for decades now, but it is also quiet clear in recent debates among GOP presidential contenders on who should even be allowed to ask them questions. On the left, it exists in protests of respected conservatives invited to give speeches on campus, in trigger warning discourses that want to whitewash history, literature and politics and in once respectful left-leaning publications that have become click bait rags no better than Fox News in their skewed (and uncritical) perspective.

In the upcoming election, we will hear a lot about the perils that ISIS, gays, immigrants, “big government” and the like pose to the country. Yet I believe political insularity and an inability to compromise with, or even listen to, those who hold different perspectives is the most dangerous threat to our collective future.

Hollywood's China Censors

Interesting short piece on the ways Hollywood is altering their blockbuster films to ensure they can get past the Chinese censors, as they continue to infiltrate the mainstream China market: NPR. It was bad enough when the CIA was redacting Zero Dark Thirty, but this is taking things to a whole new level. After years of portraying our political enemies in a negative light, it appears globalization has turned Hollywood from its traditional Americanized ideological commitments to commerce full stop. 

Movie Review: Ida (2013)

The fifth film from acclaimed Director Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida is an extraordinary artistic achievement with splendid acting, beautiful cinematography and an empathetic script that forgoes the maudlin and happy endings Hollywood so often relies on. The film follows a novitiate nun in 60s Poland who is sent out into the world to discover the truth about a family that left her in the monastery from a very young age before taking her vows. What she finds in that world is an alcoholic and promiscuous aunt who informs her that she is Jewish and that the rest of her family were killed during the Nazi control of the country. What follows is a slow moving but riveting narrative that takes them to nightclubs, hotels and the countryside to confirm what happened to her family and find their remains.

The film is in many ways a return to his roots for Pawlikowski, combining a minimalistic mis-en-scene with some of the best framing and shot selection one is likely to see in cinema these days. There is little dialogue throughout and no effort to make that dialogue profound, with the relatively short film (clocking in at just over 80 minutes) relying on the actors and their surroundings to transmit the more complex emotional and philosophical themes of the film. And it accomplishes this with a gentle flair and great nuance in the subtext, starting with the important choice to film in black and white, which perfectly capturing the somber mood of the narrative and lead characters, the epoch and the film’s intent. A second way is through the shots themselves, and the fascinating choices Pawlikowski makes, like placing the two women discernibly low in some shots or shooting from odd angles like up a staircase. A third way is in the nuance of the ways the characters interact with those around them and the relatively low tremble of anti-Semitism they find wherever they go.

The acting of the two leads is truly extraordinary with Agata Trzebuchowska making her debut as the young nun-to-be Wanda and the truly excellent Agata Kulesza as the aunt, Wanda Gruz, an important judge during the early Communist years who has been worn down by time and life. The incredible thing is that the lead is not even an actress, having been spotted by the producer at a café and hired almost on the spot. Some may find the ending upsetting, but I think it fits well with the narrative structure and no matter what you think of the denouement, it is worth watching for its mastery of the art of filmmaking and showing us what Hollywood so rarely accomplishes with substantially more money and talent. Grade: A-

Movie Review: The Imitation Game (2014)

By any reasonable measure, this has been a pretty bad year for Hollywood. One could argue this has been the perennial argument for many moons now, but the best of last year seem to trump the best of this year by a long shot. Most troubling is the lackluster slate of films for the busy Holiday season, usually packed with a cornucopia of Oscar-hungry, art house inspired offerings. One film that does stand out from the crowd, however, is The Imitation Game, a British-U.S. historical film that should remind the industry that quality doesn’t necessarily mean failure (while production costs are unavailable, the film has already made $22 million worldwide).

The movie follows the exploits of renowned British mathematician, logician and cryptographer Alan Turing, focusing primarily on the period during WWII when he and a small team of geniuses built the machine that would crack the German Enigma and ultimately lead to the end of the war. Turing is played by the consistently excellent Benedict Cumberbatch, again engaging a complex, anti-social genius as he has as a modernized Sherlock Holmes, a rebooted Khan in Star Trek and a young MI-5 agent in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He is surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast of British stars including Keira Knightly as Turing’s confidant Joan Clarke, Downton Abbey’s Allen Leach as Soviet spy John Cairncross, Matthew Goode (A Single Man, Watchmen, Brideshead Revisited, Imagine Me & You) as the affable rival/ally and Mark Strong as the secretive leader of the project.

The story is told non-chronologically in three interchanging periods of Turing’s life, as a schoolboy in love with a young man named Christopher, a year before his suicide when he is charged with indecency (for homosexual sex) and as he is hired and ultimately succeeds in building the machine that many claim single-handedly cut two years off the war and saved in the proximity of 14 million lives. And it is this multilayered narrative device that lies at the heart of the genius of the film. For it is not just an inspiring tale of triumph against great odds, a biopic of a mercurial, and irascible genius or a political film against homophobia – it is all three wrapped into one. On top of that, it asks fascinating questions about the importance of mathematics and statistics to a modern world where calculations often affect the lives of millions without any democratic processes or even accountability to the masses (no one knew about the Engima codebreaking story for almost 60 years).

Each of these stories is told deftly without the saccharine-drenched ingratiation we have become accustomed to since Hollywood first discovered the importance of the close-up and reaction shot or the base humor that seems to stand in as the only alternative to schadenfreude these days. Serious questions are asked about the costs of withholding the secret information they attain each day, while recognizing that the strategic use of that information ultimately saved millions of lives. Questions are also asked of the military and secret services, with the latter generally shown in a negative light (which does parallel the Hollywood treatment of most institutions as inept and ineffective). Turing himself is not left untarnished by his reputation as a difficult anti-social that treated others terribly, while simultaneously finding the humanity in his struggle against the demons of his sexual desires being illegal and his anti-social mentality causing him to essentially die lonely and in pain. Knightly, in particular, is impressive as the woman who helps him overcome the demons to solve the enigma and learn to play well with others, seemingly having left behind her tendency toward cloying and emotive performances behind.

Turning was perhaps most famous for building the first “computer” and establishing the modern foundation of the idea of artificial intelligence before everyone learned of his work against Enigma. And it is this legacy that will probably make him one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, whose work could well define the next two centuries and beyond. This film doesn’t sit at those heights, but it is a welcome diversion that shows that quality films still can be made about important topics without the need for ingratiating emotional manipulation or endless explosions. Rating: A

Dick is a Dick (Liz the Devil); Surprise, Surprise!

I find it amusing when liberals become apoplectic after the latest detestable Dick Cheney statement. It wasn’t so funny when he was essentially running the White House, but now that he is gone, does anyone take this latest incarnation of the devil seriously? His latest crime? Claiming that capturing the guilty implicitly justifies incorrectly torturing or even killing the innocent. Don’t believe me? Well, from the horse’s ass’ mouth itself (Daily Kos) :

CHUCK TODD: Let me go to Gul Rahman. He was chained to the wall of his cell, doused with water, froze to death in C.I.A. custody. And it turned out it was a case of mistaken identity.

DICK CHENEY: --right. But the problem I had is with the folks that we did release that end up back on the battlefield. [...] I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.

CHUCK TODD: 25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released.

DICK CHENEY: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are-- [...]

CHUCK TODD: Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error?

DICK CHENEY: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.

Dick Cheney is arguably one of the worst human beings to live since World War II, and certainly among the worst Americans. The question that we should ask is why the media continues to take his opinion so seriously, beyond Fox. And while we’re on the topic of evil, it is certainly interesting to see Fox already get involved in the Elizabeth Warren potential campaign for President. Fox Business host Melissa Francis claimed that Wall Street would devote all its available resources to quash a Warren run because bankers and traders think she is “actually the devil.” To make sure we weren’t confused, she went on to state, ““I mean, without question, Elizabeth Warren is the devil. So, they’re going to put any money they have behind Hillary Clinton, which should be a help.” (Raw Story). So caring about, like, the people and questioning the greed that has hurt so many over the past decade or three makes one the devil? I am beginning to think we live in some bizarro alternate universe and physicists simply forgot to mention it to us.

And speaking of evil, how pathetic is it that Sony pulled the release of the Interview, essentially allowing North Korea and cyberterrorists to win? I don’t think any of us will really be missing anything by having to rent (or simply ignore) the latest dumb, self-congratulatory Seth Rogen comedy (with perennial idiot savant (minus the savant) James Franco) to come out of Hollywood, but it is a dangerous and troubling precedent to set. Now Sony is questioning their own decision, but I think it’s too late.

Movie Review: The Theory of Everything (2014)

The Theory of Everything has received rave reviews from critics (81% on Rotten Tomato), has been well-received by audiences (84% of RT) with $13.6 million in box office receipts so far and just received four Golden Globe Award nominations (to go with 7 other nominations and 3 wins already). It follows the extraordinary story of one of most famous living scientists – the theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author Stephen Hawkins – and his courtship and marriage to Jane Wilde, his growing fame and his triumphant attitude in the face of heartbreaking physical travails. Given that both of the main characters are still alive, this might be the beginning of the problem with the film for me.

To start, it is an extraordinary acting performance by Eddie Redmayne, who has already impressed in My Week with Marilyn (2011), Good Shepherd (2006), Like Minds (2006) and on the London stage. He seems to be channeling Hawkins from one moment to the next, contorting his body as it begins to fail him while finding a way to communicate his humanity and brilliance in the process. And Felicia Jones is also impressive as the wife struggling to keep her love alive as her husband’s body collapses before her. The story starts as Hawkins meets his future wife at a Cambridge party. The two are immediately drawn to one another and have a few lovely dates before the news emerges that Stephen has a motor neuron disease (similar to Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and that he has two years to live.

Jane’s love is so strong that she agrees to marry Stephen anyway, maybe unsure of the reality that he will live for 40 more years and counting. In any case, his body quickly begins its decline and we watch her love and patience taking care of him in a way that begins to appear more like a nurse than a wife. His fame grows after finishing his doctorate, as do the challenges of their marriage. But they have three beautiful children and continue to struggle to make the marriage work (though the majority of that struggle appears to reside with Jane). And while one can certainly find inspiration in the power of love and his triumph over his physical limitations, a question started to plant itself in my head as the movie hit the halfway point – what is the point?

Warning: spoilers to follow

Is this a love conquers all story? Well, no, since the two ultimately part and both remarry others. Is it a story of genius? Maybe, but there are very few moments where we get a glimpse at what that brilliance actually entails (unlike, say, Good Will Hunting or A Beautiful Mind). Is it simply an inspirational story of overcoming obstacles and reaffirming the human spirit? That appears to be the most accurate description, and while the end certainly gives us a final parry on that score, it too often falls flat for me.

I imagine it is the sort of film that will win more awards and continue to be hailed by the majority of critics. Audiences will flock to it and cheer on the love story and Hawkins victory over the worst of odds. But I believe at its heart it suffers from a schizophrenic inability to decide what it is, and instead takes the safe path toward a film that the whole family can enjoy and you will leave feeling slightly inspired, if not tired, at the end.

James Marsh’s directing is certainly adept and occasionally inspired, the main players should win awards for their acting and the story is ultimately very nice. But it lacks heart and really a raison d’etre that is truly worthy. One short scene, for me, sums up all of its flaws. Jane takes off Stephen’s glasses and cleans them, wondering aloud why they are always so dirty. It is the perfect metaphor for The Theory of Everything. For while rose tinted glasses provide a wonderful way to look at the world, one hopes a film occasionally takes them off so we can explore the deeper depths of the reality we actually live in, with all its faults and foibles. This film rarely does so. C+

Sandler Finally Getting His Due?

It appears Adam Sandler has finally got a long overdue comeuppance for the years of selling the American public his degraded, grade D form of juvenile humor (Salon). The man who has given us a violent golfer, a violent dad, a violent businessman (in his best turn in Punch Drunk Love), a man who has to go back to elementary school to gain a fortune, a mentally-challenged (and violent) waterboy, an airhead, an angry man and a violent hairdresser, has mellowed in recent years making the crass and really, really boring Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2. But audiences appear to have finally tired of his shtick, with his new film Blended having a terrible opening weekend (it’s $20 million in arrears at the moment), matching the failure of That’s My Boy (which lost $35 million) and Jack and Jill (made $5 million, though it did gross $74 million).

Is Sandler just suffering from the curse of growing old as a comedian? Cool can only last so long, and many huge stars move onto family comedy to stay relevant – and keep the money coming in – including Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin, to name three. Sandler has partially made this move with films like Grown Ups seeking to keep his aging fan base watching. But like almost every box office draw before him, though he has lasted longer than most, he might have finally neared the end of the road for selling crap to the masses. But why? Is it that America has grown weary of stupid, unintelligent and unintelligible comedy? Or could it be that hearing Sandler admit that he made a film for $40 million to have a paid vacation in Hawaii turns off a country that continues to suffer through an economic malaise for the vast majority of the population? Has our taste improved? Well, I can’t help but think of H.L. Mencken here and his quote, “No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” Has Sandler finally disproved the point? Well, one can dream …

Top Ten Sports Films of All Times?

What are the top ten sports films of all times? Hard to say of course, and it depends on both the criteria you use and your subjective tastes. But here is my list, with some honorable mentions below. 

1.  Bull Durham: the smartest, and funniest baseball film ever made

2.  Rocky: the original inspirational, American dream sports film

3.  Hoosiers: a great underdog story with a heart to boot

4.  Raging Bull: violent, disturbing and artistically brilliant

5.  Field of Dreams: anyone who ever had a complicated relationship with their father, can't help but love it (in spit of themselves)

6.  Pride of the Yankees: the sad, but inspiring story of Lou Gehrig

7.  The Natural: though I much prefer the novel by Malamud, hard to ignore

8.  Vision Quest: sort of cheesy, but great wrestling fare about youth & desire

9.  Caddyshack: greatest one-liners of any 80s film (slightly ahead of Fletch)

10.  The Hustler: a young Newman plays the luckless loser with great aplomb

Honorable Mentions: Slap Shot (silly but funny in parts), The Color of Money (the follow-up to the hustler with a young Tom Cruise), Jerry Maguire (really a love story, but funny, moving and a great buddy-love story), Hoop Dreams (best sports documentary by a country mile), White Men Can’t Jump (among the best sports-oriented scenes in a film), He’s Got Game (Spike Lee joint worthy of consideration), Chariots of Fire (great film with an even greater soundtrack), Bad News Bears (Walter Matheau at his cynical best) and Eight Men Out (the story of the fixed World Series with a great cast). 

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

As I'm sure most of you have heard, one of our truly great actors passed away this past weekend. Philip Seymour Hoffman started out playing a mixture of prep boys and creepy characters on first Law & Order and then in films like Happiness, Next Stop Wonderland, Magnolia and The Talented Mr. Ripley. 



Many began to notice his impressive acting chops, but it was Magnolia (a sensitive male nurse to a dying man), State and Main (an honest writer surrounded by crooked, cynical Hollywood stars) and Almost Famous (as the infamous, curmudgeonly Lester Bangs) that showed the range of his talent. From here bigger roles began to come his way, from his short turn as a two-bit con artist in Punch-Drunk Love to again playing a creepy high school teacher in 25th Hour to his brilliant portrayal of Truman Capote. 

Around the same time, he showed his adroitness at comedy as the obnoxious sidekick in Along Came Polly, in Amy Sedaris' vehicle Strangers with Candy and in the dark The Savages. And he continued to show his ability to move from one extreme to the other with ease playing a believable sociopath alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible III, a flawed priest in Doubt, a manipulative brother in Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, a false prophet in The Master and an enigmatic revolutionary in the Hunger Games series.

Beyond these achievements, he was active on Broadway as both an actor (I saw him on Broadway in A Long Day's Journey into Night), director and producer. He made two to three movies a year and had just finished production on a television series. His real achievement was to make his characters so believable, so human in their flaws, pathos and even evil. Rather than falling prey to the actor's desire to always be likable, he felt unencumbered by that need -- instead finding the truth of those characters. A true character actor in an era of cult of personality where many of our "greatest" actors played themselves over and over again, he will be sorely missed. RIP.

The Persistent Nihilism of Martin Scorsese (Review: Wolf of Wall Street)

The Wolf of Wall Street is an entertaining, often hilarious film that seems to perfectly capture the amoral, heartless world of greed and classless hedonism that Wall Street embodies. There are prostitutes, orgies, drug binges galore, people rolling around in money, yachts, expensive cars and beautiful penthouses and mansions. It provides a telling window into how easily people can be taken in by a huckster and how often the old adage a fool and his money are soon parted really is. Leonardo DiCaprio again shows his acting chops, surrounded by an adequate, if not sterling, supporting cast (Jonah Hill is generally funny in a role that takes emoting to a whole new level). DiCaprio plays the real-life Jordan Belfort, who made an unimaginable fortune selling penny stocks to suckers across the income ladder, building a firm from scratch that took on the big boys before finally getting caught by the feds; though he only serves three years in a minimum security prison for the wealthy before heading out on the inspirational speech circuit.

The film is the latest in a growing list of what I call lifestyle porn: films and television that show us the lavish wealth and sex lives of the rich and famous. The genre took off in the 80s with Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Dallas and, of course, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, among many others. The rich were everywhere from sitcoms (even blacks became rich in the 80s, in The Jeffersons and The Cosby Show) to rom-coms to teen romances, where a poor girl invariably ended up with a richer and more popular boy (or vice versa, as in The Breakfast Club). More recently, we can think of The Kardashians, Real Housewives of …, The Apprentice and Entourage. Wolf follows in this tradition, taking the orgasmic bacchanalia to heretofore unrealized levels. There is midget tossing, crack smoking, a long rumination on the inherent benefits of Quaaludes, nudity, insane wealthy, copious cocaine use, brutal violence, money thrown about with abandon and plenty of sex. The film ends up feeling like a combination of one of those screwball comedies from the 80s with plenty of sex, nudity and partying with a more mature, though sardonic character study. Belfort is not only a hedonist but really a bastard without many redeeming qualities beyond his ability to rally the troops, his generosity with his fortune and his good-time-Charlie attitude.

And yet it is hard to watch the film without thinking that Scorsese is celebrating this character, who I believe embodies a more crass, exaggerated version of almost everyone who is successful on Wall Street. Greed is their call to arms, their raison d’etre and their only redeemable quality. Creating wealth is something to admire and Wall Street is tasked with managing risk and funding the future; both essential roles for our economy. But does Belfort play either role? Is he anything but a shyster who takes money from people too dumb to realize they are betting on almost sure losers? I couldn’t help but leave the film thinking we are supposed to respect Belfort as a self-made man that lives the life we all want. And yet, even if this is true, should Scorsese feel any accountability to how this portrayal might be read by the viewers watching the film? Is there any sense that maybe this wealth was built on the back of a lot of suffering – with all those people on the other side of the trades losing their savings, their homes or even worse? One could argue instead that Scorsese is simply doing a very entertaining infomercial for Wall Street and the continued decline of American culture.

The real question is whether Scorsese feels any accountability for his work at all. There has always been a rather troubling celebration of violence in his films that glorifies it as a sign of masculinity and eroticizes it for the viewing public through slow motions and other film tricks. There is the rather negative portrayal of women as sluts to be used for sex and monsters that simply want the money and power of the men they seduce. And there has been a tendency to celebrate money as the god on the altar to whom we all bow and pray. But beyond this is a tendency to celebrate the worst aspects of American capitalism as if crime really does pay in the end. Sure Henry Hill ends up ratting on his friends and living in the suburbs, but he looks back fondly on his days of killing, gambling and drug running. And this is a common trend in Scorsese films, where the protagonist often loses what he had, but rather than learn a lesson from the loss and find some ethical, moral or deeper personal value, they simply look back with nostalgia and regret for the loss. We see this at the end of Casino, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Age of Innocence (in a more complicated way) and Raging Bull. Maybe we should read their ultimate failure as the moral of the story, but it often feels as if Scorsese is asking us to feel that nostalgia right along with these protagonists, to forgive their past sins and feel sorry for them having been punished for them in the first place.

Martin Scorsese is among our greatest directors and has made an impressively diverse array of quality, entertaining films or over 40 years. His filmmaking and editing is nonpareil and has moved the industry forward in countless ways. His mixture of cinema verite (in the past) with strong narrative structure and voiceovers has created some of the most compelling films of our time. And his films almost invariably contain a perfect mix of humor, drama and breathtaking action. But it is worth asking what audiences have been sold all these years. A mentally unstable taxi driver kills a bunch of really bad guys and gets away with it. A group of mobsters die, but our hero always makes it to the other side, with his memories intact but his past long gone. A Wall Street crook lives a life of lavish luxury, loses his wife and friends but is back selling at the end, as if little has changed. Underneath it all may be an inkling of ethical responsibility, but really it just feels like nihilism. It could be that the world is meaningless, that there is no justice, that the bad often win and the good suffer, that love is fleeting and unhappiness reigns supreme. But shouldn’t art aspire to something more? Shouldn’t art at least pretend that there is something deeper at the heart of our lives? That they mean something more than pleasure and pain? Scorsese will continue to entertain us with beautiful mis-en-scene, riveting action, compelling plots and characters, first-rate editing and plenty of laughs, gasps and maybe, on occasion, tears, but will he ever truly inspire us? I guess we’ll have to wait and see …