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Reviews
Una mujer fantástica (2017)
For the Insight it Provides
There is always something a bit 'off' about foreign flicks. I suspect it is mostly a cultural thing and my feelings probably reflect more on me than they do on the film, but foreign films seem, to me, intrinsically challenging - I have to work hard to understand them.
I don't think it is entirely the language thing, although not being really proficient in any language except English, I find that the captions to be a bit stilted and often not entirely consistent with what I think I am seeing. Perhaps it is my 'American' requirement for vivid action and intense emotions - I admit our culture doesn't exactly value subtlety and nuance (just look at who we have for a President!). Foreign films frequently seem to dwell too long to make a point, and sometimes the 'point' seems to be a bit trivial or irrelevant anyway.
Such are my complaints with the winner of the Foreign Language Feature Film Oscar for last year, A Fantastic Woman. This is a long movie and contains many items of questionable value. A terrific example is one of the central 'puzzles' of the movie which involves a key, tagged with the number 181. This particular key occupies significant precious moments in this movie, however the ultimate meaning of it is entirely empty. One might say that is indeed the point, but how many times does that point have to be made? (I'm reminded of an exchange between my wife-to-be and the reverend who married us when, after I proposed that we drink wine out of a two-spouted vessel to suggest our union, she remarked "how many times do you have to symbolize that?" )
Mostly, the characters in this movie are devoid of compassion and totally unlikeable. The story line is linear with a few minor twists, but nothing particularly surprising. And the cinematography, editing, and production values are essentially unremarkable. So, as a movie, A Fantastic Woman fails to deliver.
Nonetheless, I liked it. Not because of any of those characteristics, but because I found the main character, Marina Vidal, mesmerizing. She is played by Daniela Vega, a transgender Chilean who is, by trade, an opera singer. She was brought on the movie team, initially, as a consultant, because she is of the sex and gender characteristics of the main character. After awhile, the director decided that she should actually play the main character. And she did that. She may not be another Meryl Streep, but she brings her own sufficient identity to this character and that was real enough.
I admit up-front that I don't understand 'transgenderism'. I have on some occasions marveled at a male body and wondered about what love might be like with another man, so I can understand, or at least think I can understand, the fundamentals of homosexuality. However, I have never had any questions about my own body (well, it is way too fat right now, but that's not what I mean...). I'm talking about some sense that I don't belong in this body - that being a male is not what I was ordained to be. So, it is difficult for me to relate to the transgender identity. I don't deny that it is real; I don't believe it is wrong, or that it needs to be 'fixed'; but I just don't get how it works. To sum it up simply, after a discussion with my wife on this very movie, my question is why would you want to make love to a body that you feel is so alien that you don't want to be in one like it? Why would a transgender male be interested in a relationship with another man? I can't figure that out.
So the Marina character is intriguing to me - I want to understand what makes her tick and why she is the way she is. A Fantastic Woman doesn't completely answer that question, but it is the best exploration of that identity that I have found yet. The movie shows her confusion and her pain. And while she is still somewhat aloof, we are allowed more insight into the transgender psyche than I have ever been allowed before.
Nelyubov (2017)
What a Depressing Experience
Watching this movie, I really wondered exactly why Russians felt it necessary to make it. Perhaps someone felt it necessary to prove to Westerners that, yes indeed, Russians have sex too. There is a large amount of fairly explicit sex scenes involving the main two couples. Although two of the four are married, they aren't having sex with each other. Maybe that too, was something the Russians were trying to tell us - that even they are as capable of infidelity and decadence as any of us Westerners! I don't know - did I really need to know that.
Ok, yes, the sex scenes involved attractive bodies and their was a certain amount of arousal involved. But the entire movie was, on balance, just plain unsatisfying. The title really captured the essence of the movie - the thing was plainly and fully without love. The characters were physically attractive, but emotionally weak and undeveloped. By the time the movie is over, the viewer doesn't want to have anything to do with them. And, honestly, I question whether it was worth the two hours of my life.
While 'loveless' describes the relationships between the two adults, the main storyline is really about the couple and their child. While the married couple is actively exploring their sexual lives with other people, they seem to completely forget that, at some point, their sex lives actually resulted in something - something they have come to completely neglect. I'm not sure this movie can be further spoiled, but I will refrain from saying what happens to the kid. Let it suffice to say that you won't be happy with how that resolves either.
The director of this movie, Andrew Zvyagintsev, is the same person who brought us Leviathan five years ago. (The lead actor was also the same in both movies.) Leviathan was, however, terrific and explored the interplay between the Russian state and individual lives - I enjoyed that movie immensely. So I am challenged to understand why he is giving us this depressing mess.
There are a couple of scenes of the countryside that are beautifully framed. And the cinematography does a good job of using low lights and shadows to bathe the scenes in a non-emotional context. But aside from perhaps honestly portraying Russian society as depressingly empty, I fail to see why this thing was even nominated.
Teströl és lélekröl (2017)
On Becoming Human
I don't think I've ever seen a movie that is so directly connected to the sense of touch as this one. With subtle cinematography, the camera exposes us to a large smorgasbord of surfaces - leaves and snow on a forest floor, crumbs on a smooth counter-top, dissipating heat from the hairy limbs of a dying cow, the arousing pleasure of sexual stimulation. Everywhere the movie encourages us to understand how important the sense of touch is to being human.
And how sterile and disconnected life is when touch and feeling are missing. We never quite understand how Maria, the main female character, became the way she is at the beginning of the movie. She is a quality engineer at a slaughterhouse and it is her responsibility to grade the beef products according to how much fat content they might contain. She knows the regulations and also can precisely judge, from visual observation alone, exactly how many millimeters of fat each cow has. She is so robotically qualified to do her job, that her workmates all think of her as part of the machinery.
Except for Endre, who, having a physical disability that also makes him stand out from the rest, develops an attraction to the new woman. The movie is largely the story of how their relationship develops. But this is not exactly a normal relationship. In the first place, the two share a very unique way of communicating which is so critical to the story, that I can't really say much more in this writing. Additionally is that, for reasons unknown, Maria is a true stranger, not just to romance and sex, but actually to human contact of nearly any kind. Although she possesses remarkable mental skills and can remember, precisely, any conversation or date, she is completely immune to the emotional effects of simple things like music. Her emotional development is nearly zero and it is the movie's strength that shows how she struggles to learn the basic elements of being human.
It is remarkable that this story unfolds in the context of a slaughterhouse. Yes, there are some early scenes in the movie which, although avoiding the actual moment of death of an animal, still show visceral scenes of processing an animal from feedlot to butcher shop, including the beheading and draining of blood of the animal. These scenes are certainly not for the squeamish. But they are also an important way to establish the significance of human feeling, by building it on top of a setting where feelings are routinely kept at bay. At one point, Maria is found petting one of the animals which challenges the normal rules of behavior since, in the very near future, she will be attaching a quality grading tag to the animal's skinned carcass. Although the story could have been told in almost any kind of setting, developing it in a slaughterhouse provides a powerful opposite to the main theme of the movie. It is also an interesting backdrop to the beautiful scenes of two deer roaming the forest in search of food, and each other.
At a time when Hungary is in the news because of political backpedaling into a right-wing, cold, and unfeeling cultural environment, it would be interesting to explore how those current politics relate to the themes of this movie. Unfortunately, that essay awaits a more knowledgeable author. But, from this example, it is very clear that the film scene in Hungary is a strong and dynamic one. While I am unaware of any other credits for the actors and director of this film, they have produced a remarkable movie - one that will keep your interest while you explore in your own mind, just what it means to be human. (For those reasons, I give it four stars, maybe even 4.5!).
Strong Island (2017)
Perception and Justice
Oscar Nominations:
Documentary Feature
My father was an attorney and he used to say that you knew that a court case had been decided correctly when both parties to the lawsuit left the courthouse unhappy. It has taken me decades to understand exactly what that means, but I have come around to understand, like we often do about our fathers, that he was exactly right.
I've been a party to two major civil lawsuits in my life and, in both cases, I have felt that the judge's decision, while not exactly against me, ended up not giving me the satisfaction I felty I deserved - the decisions seemed faulty and unjust.
That is what happens in the documentary Strong Island, the story about William Ford Junior who is killed in a garage after a misunderstanding with the mechanic there. Reilly, the mechanic, pulls a .22 rifle on the young man and, in a set of very unlucky circumstances, fires a single, fatal shot to Ford's heart. There are a number of unusual and tragic aspects to the story, but, in the end, and after a long criminal court case, Reilly is found innocent and that he acted in self-defense.
The film is produced and narrated by Yance Ford who was/is William's sibling and who is motivated by a profound sense of injustice in the case to try and understand why Reilly was freed. (In an unusual twist that makes the movie additionally intriguing, Yance is transgender and becomes a man in the years between when his/her brother was killed and when he makes the movie. Although his gender shift is not materially relevant to the story, it, nonetheless adds an intriguing undercurrent about the mutability of perception.). Yance is convinced that his brother was murdered and has difficulty reconciling his beliefs and feelings about his brother with the outcome of the judicial system.
To confound the situation even more, the Williams are a black family and Reilly, who is white, is also part of what appears to be a sleazy chop-shop operation with possible connections to organized crime. It also becomes obvious that institutional racism plays a big part in the outcome of the story (surprise, surprise).
Besides being a difficult and emotional story, the movie works in many ways and Yance has done a masterful job crafting an effective documentary. The movie employs a novel technique of telling important details by presenting old, often bent, photographs of the people and events in the family's history. The snapshots are surprising in how effective they are in deepening our understanding of the family and their history, moving from the Jim Crow south to the racially segregated enclave in Suffolk County Long Island. (The title "Strong Island" comes from a rap song where that term denotes the white gangs on the island, of which Reilly was possibly a member.)
A second technique Yance employs is to layer the information. As the story begins to unfold, we are presented with the information just as it might have been presented to the grand jury. But Yance only gives us enough so that we will obviously see things from his point of view. And from that point of view, it is clear that the grand jury's failure to indict Reilly is an obvious case of institutional racism.
But then, there is the 'Corvette incident'. At first it really isn't clear that this was a big deal at all. In fact, as Yance tells it, we understand that it represents a time when, as his sister, she had immense pride and respect for what her brother did. Slowly, though, it dawns on him (as he is filming this movie) that it was much more than that - it was the reason that his notion of justice was not to happen.
In the end, Strong Island illustrates that, despite how obvious events might appear to one group of people, when the story is told to uninvolved strangers (a grand jury), the situation gets interpreted very differently, and what is 'justice' to one person, is just not seen that way by someone else. And so the Ford family is not happy with the court decision. Was justice served? It depends on who you ask.
Strong Island is a thought-provoking and well crafted documentary. It operates almost like a mystery, exposing layers of information that make the case so much more interesting. It also effectively portrays a family in tragedy and the personal journeys family members must make in trying to reconcile tragic events and their own values. It is seldom easy.
Icarus (2017)
Interesting Movie, but Shouldn't Have Won the Oscar
Icarus starts out much better than it finishes. In the beginning we are watching a cyclist learning how he can 'dope' himself up in such a way that he can avoid getting caught. He is working with a Russian whom, it turns out, is intimately connected with not only the Russian Olympics program, but is also intimately involved with the laboratory which was responsible for testing athletes at the Sochi Olympics. We watch with fascination as the cyclist, and the maker of this film, injects himself with testosterone (and steroids?) in order to gain an unfair advantage in competition.
As the movie evolves, however, we lose sight of the personal and become wrapped up in the political - the unbelievable lengths to which Russian goes to win medals at those Olympics, apparently including outright fraudulent analysis of athlete's urine samples. At the end of the movie, it rightly becomes more of an international spy thriller involving Putin and lesser Russians in what amounts to a massive scandal to defraud the world. Trying to keep all of this straight becomes a difficult exercise and a bit bewildering.
This IS the movie that brought down the Russians and resulted in their being banned from many future sporting events. As such, it is a significant and meaningful movie and one that probably won the Best Documentary Award simply because of the political impact.
But that doesn't necessarily make it a good movie. In comparing this one to some of the other documentaries in this year's competition (I'm thinking especially of The Last Men in Aleppo, and Abacus: Small Enough to Prosecute), this movie failed to generate significant emotions. In these other two movies, my sense of injustice made me feel horribly angry at men in power. Icarus, on the otherhand, made me feel a little curious, but I didn't leave the movie with any new understanding of Putin or the Russian state's moral failings. Sure, they were obviously committing moral, and legal, crimes of huge proportion, but there was nothing surprising about that.
OK, perhaps that was because the story has already played out. In Abacus, I had never heard of that bank before, nor did I have any understanding of what legal proceedings finally emerged after the 2008 financial crisis. In the Aleppo movie, I had never seen anything about the White Helmets before and so gained a valuable new perspective on the Syrian civil war.
But Icarus simply laid out the details in a story where we already knew the outcome. Perhaps if the filmmakers personal story about doping was explored more, than the impact might have been greater. What happened in the races he entered? What was the reaction from his competitors after they found out? How did he personally suffer from his actions? Perhaps that would have made for a the better movie, by providing a personal context for the Russian story. Instead, the movie turns from his story, to that of the Russian doctor who had to defect to the U.S. and is now under witness protection.
In short, the film fails to identify a focus and carry it through. It is a movie worth watching, only to understand the context for the Russian Olympic doping scandal and the reasons it broke. But the movie is not, in itself, a consistent and well organized documentary. For these reasons, I just give it a 6 stars. Watch only if you are interested in the topic!
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016)
What Happened to Justice?
Documentaries may be about true stories, but that doesn't mean they can't stir up emotional responses in the viewer. The last documentary I read, about first responders in Aleppo, Syria, made me feel anger against the callousness of governments, and sympathy for the strong and courageous men who have to deal with the consequences. This movie, too, made me rail against not just the enormous insensitivity of my own government, but also just how incompetent it seems to be.
"Abacus" is the name of a small federally chartered savings bank, with just six branches, operating in New York's Chinatown. It was founded by a Chinese man, born in Shanghai, who immigrated to the United States as a child with his parents. He went to law school and practiced law for a while and then decided to help his native community by operating a bank that could provide credit to other Chinese immigrants who have a native mistrust of banks, government, and pretty much any institution who wants a share of their money. In addition, to operating his bank, successfully for many years, he, with his devoted wife, also raised four amazing daughters, three of which also became lawyers and the fourth, a physician. In short, this was an impressive family - smart and hardworking.
The documentary camera spends a lot of time with this family, in their offices, and frequently in Chinese restaurants eating big, and appetizing, Chinese meals. We learn that the family is close-knit, loving, and commanding a sense of humor, in addition to being smart and committed to both their family and their community.
They had to have those qualities, in order to survive an ordeal that lasted five long years and would threaten their bank, their reputations, and their freedom. Abacus Federal Savings Bank was not just the first, but the only bank in all of America that was charged and prosecuted with felony charges as a result of all the financial misbehavior that created the 2008 financial collapse of America. You have to think about that a bit. If, like me, you've been waiting for ten years now for leaders of America's biggest banks (like Chase, Goldman-Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Citibank) to actually pay for the suffering they caused Americans because of the greedy deals they fraudulently packaged and promoted, then this documentary will do nothing except make you angry.
Instead of going after the banks that were 'too big to fail', instead, Cyrus Vance, the D.A. For the Southern District of New York, instead took the incredibly easy and cowardly approach of trying to punish a small community bank that had, at worst, committed some omissions of proper oversight over some of its employees. The Sung family, and the managers they employed, were definitely guilty of failing to adequately oversee several of their mortgage processors, because, frankly, they trusted them more than they should have. But, after five years of building a case, the assistant district attorney couldn't connect all the dots to prove criminal intent on the part of the owners, she instead developed absurd theories based on cultural misunderstandings and career advancement goals. No doubt she had encouragement from Vance who was desperately looking for an example that would pretend to show that they were indeed doing something about the financial crisis. They found a bank that was "small enough to jail!"
I've been concerned for some time now about the lack of leadership in our political institutions. It seems we have embraced leaders who are not only just plain stupid, but who also are motivated by the basest of impulses. This movie does nothing to alter that opinion. I give the movie 8 stars for so effectively making me angry!
Last Men in Aleppo (2017)
Movies Aren't Always Fun
Not all movies are fun, and this one sure isn't. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good movie.
The emotions raised in this movie are one's of disgust and sympathy. Disgust for the actions of the Syrian government, and its Russian allies, in bombing the crap out of one of their own cities (Aleppo). The destruction portrayed here is, frankly unimaginable, as you see the bombs being dropped on a city that probably has more bombed out homes and apartments than livable ones. How, you can't help but ask, can a government do that to its own people? Is there really any justification for this kind of behavior?
There aren't many reviews in IMDB for this movie, but one of them is from a Syrian government sympathizer who claims that the images and story presented here are nothing but anti-government propaganda. Well, if that is what it is, then they have gone to incredible lengths to create an alternative, fictional universe and the filmmakers deserve awards not for documentary feature, but best special effects. I don't know how you could fake many of these scenes.
The sympathy comes from the story that unfolds in this documentary for a small band of dedicated Aleppans (?) called the White Helmets. These people are sort of the equivalent of a fire department, except that fighting fires is probably the smallest part of their job. Mostly they spend days on end digging people, some of them alive, but most of them dead, out from under the collapsed buildings where they used to live. Most of the bodies are those of children and women and the horror of finding unattached limbs is not sugar-coated here. How you ask, can these people continue to live here.
And, an even bigger question is how can these White Helmets do this kind of work day after day? We see one of the men, a leader of one of the brigades, find some small amount of solace in creating a gold-fish pond in his courtyard. His love for his family, and his city, is so strong and, especially at the end, it is difficult not to cry for him.
This is not a feel-good movie - there is no way you can laugh during this movie, nor feel better about the prospects of these people. But it is a powerful and effective documentary that opens your eyes to both what is evil in men, and how much good can be found in those who fight it. I give this 4 stars (out of 5).
Mudbound (2017)
Tightly Crafted and Emotionally Powerful
Part of what makes this movie special is that it is a moving picture about black history in America. There have been several of them in recent movie Oscar history. But perhaps what makes Mudbound extra unique is that it is a movie made by and with black women. Dee Rees, who both directed and co-wrote the screenplay (with Virgil Williams), is the first black woman to receive an Oscar nomination for Adapted Screenplay. Rachel Morrison is the first woman to be nominated in the Cinematography category and went on after this movie to film Black Panther, which might very well earn her another nomination. And finally, Mary J. Blige, is the first black female American to win nominations in two Oscar categories in the same year. In Mudbound, Blige played the lead black female character and also sang and wrote "Mighty River". She credibly demonstrates both her acting and singing abilities in this movie.
None of these talented women won the Oscar in their respective categories, but, still, Mudbound is an impressive movie and deserves to be seen not just for these skills, but for the acting talents of Carey Mulligan (An Education and Suffragette) and an ample cast of lesser known, but very talented supporting actors. This movie is tightly constructed and doesn't waste the viewers time, but is filled with the raw emotion that derives from difficult struggles born of poverty, race, war, and gender boundaries. The movie shows very clearly how racism blossoms when groups of people are struggling just to make ends meet and, to somehow justify their own net worth, end up denying that of others.
I was especially impressed with the numerous dualities that the movie sets up and then maintains throughout the movie. It seems that everything operates in pairs and the story is one of how each of the pairs solve similar problems in similar, but different ways. There are two families, one black and one white. They both have sons who go to war. (WWII). Both sons come back struggling with different kinds of legacies from their war experience, one with PTSD from the war itself, the other from the misplaced conception he learned of his role in society as a black man. They both attempt to make a living from the muddy land of Mississippi, one as a struggling white farmer, the other as his black sharecropper. They both suffer terrible physical tragedies, one a miscarriage, the other a broken leg.
Both families pay substantially for 'mistakes' that weren't their creation, and neither family emerges unscathed. Life isn't easy, and Mudbound makes sure we understand that. This movie is a raw, emotional experience, but it works very well. I give it 8 stars (out of 10).
The Greatest Showman (2017)
The Music is Wonderful
What a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting this movie to be very good. With a metascore in the mid-forties, the critical reviews are really pretty bad. But audience reaction is nearly 80% positive. In fact, The Greatest Showman is a lot of fun. If you like a good musical, then this movie should be in your watchlist.
The songs are written by the same Oscar winning team that wrote the music for La La Land and many of the crew members on that successful movie worked on this one. The songs are terrific and will keep your knee tapping all through the movie. This is Me, nominated for original Song Oscar, is sung, initially, by the fat lady (with a beard no less) and really brings together the ultimate message of the movie - that all people matter, regardless of what they look like. Another terrific song (Never Enough) is sung by the Voice's Loren Allred, dubbing for the actress Rebecca Ferguson. And finally, Zac Ephron and Zendaya have a beautiful duet involving a lot of aerial trapeze and rope tricks as they play a young couple in love. Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams, as Mr. and Mrs. P. T. Barnum, have several songs of their own. The music is clearly not from the time of the movie (mid-1800s), but is still powerful and uplifting. The music is all just feel-good.
And It pretty much has to be, because the movie, as a movie, leaves a lot to be desired. This is the feature film directing debut of Michael Gracey who is mostly known for doing commercials. He's done a couple of other movies, but none of them are recognizable. Jenny Bicks is one of the writers, mostly known for her Sex and the City TV scripts. Bill Condon, who won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay Gods and Monsters, also worked on the script. But try as these three might, the story does not carry this movie. There are holes in the plot big enough to drive a circus elephant through and although Jackman and Williams do credible jobs, these are not their most outstanding performances. (Jackman was nearly perfect in Les Miserables and Williams had an outstanding performance in All the Money in the World, also in this year's Oscar movies.)
The film tries to make up for sloppy directing and an inadequate script with dazzling visual effects (there are 406 people credited for visual effects alone) employing CGI enhancements to many of the musical numbers. I'm sure that a good chunk of the $84 million budget went to the visual effects work. I do give the team credit for making it difficult to tell what is natural and what is computer generated. The movie also has a team of six editors, several of whom have won previous Oscars in editing, who had the unenviable job of trying to piece together a movie from all the musical scenes. And, for the most part, they do a good job. But an editor can only work with what has been filmed!
So, basically, the critics are right - this movie is sort of a mess, lacking a coherent vision and a carefully written script. And yet, the movie does manage to convey a positive and entertaining message. It does that from its musical performances which, by themselves, manage to captivate the audience and inspire us to feel good about being human (which is all-to-difficult to do these days.). Sit back, turn the volume up, and just absorb the songs - just don't spend a lot of time trying to put them together into a story.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
The Visuals are So Much Fun
This year's Best Picture Oscar winner, The Shape of Water, cost a little over $19 million dollars to make. (It has already grossed ten times that.). Most of the other Best Picture nominees came in with budgets far less. Get Out, for example, cost just $5 million dollars to make and has returned revenue of more than a quarter billion dollars. Dunkirk, probably the most expensive best picture contender, cost quite a bit more to make, with a budget of around $100 million dollars. (Not surprisingly, it too is turning a profit with revenue of more than $500 million.). The point here is that it doesn't take a block-buster budget to make a good movie.
When you look at the movies nominated for Visual Effects, however, there is an entirely different economic system at work. I couldn't find budget numbers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but it has already grossed more than $1.3 billion dollars. Blade Runner 2049 cost $150 million to make and, as the least successful of these five movies, it has only grossed $259 million, still returning a profit of more than $100 million to the studio. War for the Planet of the Apes also cost $150 million to make and has grossed more than three times that amount. Kong: Skull Island was a little more than expensive, coming in at $185 million but has grossed almost $569 million.
So Visual effects are expensive to produce, but almost always reward the risk with hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. But the most expensive movie of the entire year, or at least of this year's crop of Oscar-nominated movies is this one, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. With a budget of more than $200 million dollars, it has a world-wide gross at this point of more than $863 million dollars. Guardians invested heavily in special effects and has been handsomely rewarded.
And where, exactly, does that kind of money go? Well if you can't tell by watching the movie, then just study the credits (which are kind of fun in their own right). They list 1533 people spread among multiple companies all dedicated to providing the mostly computer-generated graphics that make up the bulk of the movie. (There are another 49 people credited for 'special effects' and, to be honest, I don't know what the difference is). Most movies don't have that many people making up the entire crew and here they are all producing the stunning visuals.
And they are spectacular. In fact, I would say this is a must-see movie just because of those visuals. There is a set of scenes taking place at the core of a rather special planet that is reputed to be the most complex computer-generated sequence ever brought to film with scenes composed of several million polygons, a measure of CGI complexity. The result is a set of moving images that is stunningly real and strikingly beautiful as well. And that is just one scenario out of many in this movie. And large numbers of this team worked on the Oscar-nominated visual effects for the first Guardians movie, but also for all three Iron Man movies, Captain America, the Avengers, Master and Commander, and War of the Worlds. This is an experienced and accomplished team with lots of successful, mostly comic-based, movies under their visual effects tool belt.
This is, as the title conveys, episode 2 of the franchise, and I'm sure there will be more coming down the pike. The main characters in this one are the same as in the first one and portrayed by the same actors. Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill, whose parentage is the subject of this movie. In addition to this role in two movies, he also played in the TV series Parks and Recreation, and the movies Jurassic World and the Lego Movie. Zoe Saldana plays the green female Gamora (one of my favorite characters). Saldana also played Uhuru in a Star Trek movie and is best known as Neytiri in the CGI classic, Avatar. My favorite character, though, is Drax, a philosophical brute (as contradictory as that sounds) with a terrific sense of humor. Drax is played by Dave Bautista who has also performed in this year's Blade Runner movie as well as the Avengers. Vin Diesel provides the voice for Baby Groot, a CGI character that is cute in this movie, but will likely be more central in future movies as he grows up. Diesel is more of an action star, famous for roles in the Fast and Furious franchise. Finally, Michael Rooker plays Yondu, one of the more interesting, and important, characters in this movie, but I haven't seen anything he's played in before these two Guardian movies. The point is that this cast of characters is not exactly known for their acting ability, but they do have credentials in the comic book and action movie worlds - talents that help infuse their performances here, but will not likely get them any Oscar nods.
The only major actor who does have Oscar pedigree, is Bradley Cooper. Cooper, a serious dramatic actor, was nominated for roles in Silver Linings Playbook, American Sniper, and American Hustle, all of which were terrific. In Guardians, though, we never see Cooper. Rather he provides the voice for the intelligent raccoon, Rocket - the genius engineer with a heart of gold who really saves the Guardians, as well as the Galaxy!
Both Guardians movies were directed by James Gunn who, along with some twenty other writers, mostly of Marvel comic books, was also responsible for the script for both Guardian movies. He has written and directed a few other movies, none of which I have seen and none of which received any Oscar mentions.
So the acting, directing, and writing are not exactly Oscar level - this isn't a movie to see if that is what you want. But, in addition to the Visual Effects, there is also Oscar awards to be found in the Cinematography, Film Editing, Costumes, and Makeup Teams, with many of those credits for comic book type movies like the Guardians, or the Avenger series. There is talent at work in this movie, even if it is 'below-the-line'.
In the end, though, this movie should be seen for two reasons. First are the spectacular visual effects - in my opinion, the best of the year and the most visually exciting of any movie in this year's crop. Secondly, though, is that this is a funny movie. The movie pokes fun at itself, and all comic book movies, without crossing the line into parody. Drax's subtle humor is almost painful, and yet he has an infectious laugh. Baby Groot, like his predecessor in the previous movie, has a single line 'I Am Groot', but it is in the inflections that he communicates and by the end of the movie, you can almost understand him; and he's cute. Gamora and Peter provide the romantic interest, although Drax starts to get it on with another female character and those scenes too are an interesting mix of tenderness and fun. The themes it explores are obvious, and sometimes trite, but the movie brings a level of humor to the mix that makes it fun to explore, even if you know it won't be real deep.
But the visuals - yes, the visuals are outrageous.
Wonder (2017)
For Tremblay and a Simpler Moral Order
Julia Roberts, one of the outstanding actresses of my generation, is in this movie. But, playing a Mother of a somewhat unusual child, this isn't one of her outstanding roles. Roberts, nominated for four leading or supporting Oscars (Pretty Woman, Erin Brockovich, August: Osage County, and Steel Magnolias) won the Oscar for her leading role as Erin Brockovich. We know Roberts as a beautiful and talented performer who plays strong and sometimes vulnerable women.
Her performance in Wonder is important and, at times, critical to the story. But at every turn she is overshadowed by her son, Auggie. 'August' is played by Jacob Tremblay, a fine young actor who isn't even 12 years old as I write this. He has starred in a few kids movies starting in 2013, but had his breakout performance as a dramatic actor in Room, the 2015 movie which takes place, almost entirely, in a room no bigger than a shipping container. There Tremblay plays Jack, Brie Larson's son who was born and lived nearly a decade in a single room. The movie brought Brie Larson a Leading Actress Oscar and I was surprised that Tremblay did not receive an Oscar because his performance was so precisely effective. I surmised that we would see him again, and I haven't been disappointed. (He has also appeared in two other movies since Room, Before I Wake and Book of Henry, neither of which I have seen). If Julia Roberts isn't enough reason to see Wonder, then see it because of Tremblay's performance - you won't regret it.
Tremblay and Roberts receive support from Owen Wilson (Oscar-nominated for writing the Royal Tenenbaums), and Izabella Vidovic, a young actress primarily known for TV roles. Wilson plays Nate, Auggies dad and devoted husband to Roberts character, while Vidovic is Via, Auggies sister who has problems of her own, but still manages to be a hugely positive influence on her brother's life.
And Auggie's life is more than a little difficult. Born with a rare genetic disease, his face was horribly disfigured. Even after multiple plastic surgeries, he still presents a disturbing visage. The story is about his first year in public school, fifth grade, after being homeschooled and relatively sheltered from the cruelties of prejudice and fear of the unknown. Predictably, many of his new classmates react with revulsion and disgust. But the story is how, over the course of multiple interactions, Auggie develops his own special character and how that becomes evident, and accepted, by his peers.
The story is based on a book, which I haven't read, by R.J. Palacio, who also co-produced this movie. The screenplay was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky who has written mostly for TV, but was senior writer for another movie out this year, Beauty and the Beast (with Emma Watson). He also wrote and directed another Emma Watson movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, however I haven't seen that one. Other than those two movies, Chbosky isn't particularly known for a whole lot and it isn't surprising that Wonder wasn't nominated for any 'above the line' artistic awards. The movie is solid, but outside of Tremblay's performance, there isn't anything outstanding about the writing, directing, or acting.
The only Oscar nomination Wonder received was for Makeup and Hairstyling. And, as to be expected, this was for the makeup and prosthetics applied to make up Auggie's face. The artist was Arden Tuiten who, although not receiving Oscar nominations for his previous work, was instrumental in creating the appearances for Pan's Labyrinth, Maleficent, and Unbroken. In Wonder, he creates an face that masterfully conveys the intended effect that is immediately distancing, but at the same time has enough humanity, especially in the eyes, that allows for the possibility of seeing through it. Auggie is definitely ugly on the outside, but his face hints at the beauty of the soul inside. He could have created an effect much more off-putting, i.e. 'uglier', but didn't.
There are a couple of other 'Oscar credits' in this movie. Some members of the sound team were nominated for Blade Runner 2049 and Life of Pi. The Cinematographer was nominated for his photography in Forrest Gump. And the costume designer was nominated for the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnussus. So there is some recognized talent working on this movie.
Wonder works for what it is trying to do - it is a family movie attempting to message against bullying and prejudice. And it is a very effective tear jerker - the characters it creates are more than sympathetic and the situations become very effective lessons for school age children and the kinds of problems they face at that age.
For adults, it will definitely pull tears while you watch it - I don't know how you cannot cry, given the suffering and triumphs of Auggie and his family. But the next day, I realized that I had been manipulated - my emotions got played for everything they were worth. There might be help for school age children dealing with pre-adolescent kids. But none of this translates very well to my world. There is nothing here telling me how to deal with a President who throws childish tantrums and bully's reporters as if he were in grade school! No, it would be nice if goodness triumphed like it does in this movie. But I don't see that happening - it isn't that easy in the real, adult, world.
And maybe that's the only reason to see this movie - as an escape to a simpler moral order where good always triumphs over bad, mature feelings transcend childish ones, and people actually grow-up as they get older.
Looper (2012)
Just a Whole Lot of Fun
I still vividly remember watching the beginning of the first Star Wars movie as the introductory words scrolled up the screen. And then, as the underbelly of the spaceship came into view, a chill went up my spine. I was mesmerized by the details as the ship grew bigger and bigger until it's form filled the entire screen. Then the story kicked in and I was hooked forever on the ongoing battle between good and evil and the wonderful cast of characters engaged in the Force.
That was more than 40 years ago and here we are today watching number 8 in the nine-part Star Wars trilogy of trilogies. The characters have aged, just as I have, and there is at least one new generation, just as I have one or two children, and a step-granddaughter. But the story is still the same and the movie still delivers the same wonderful combination of fear and hope that our uncertain future will turn out OK because people will, eventually, gain the courage to use the Force for good instead of evil.
Of course, my generation is dying off now. Carrie Fisher, who never really had any other roles than that of Princess Leia, died shortly after filming for this movie ended - it was her last performance. And Mark Hamill, as Luke Skywalker, has also aged, returning in this and the previous movie, The Force Awakens, as a wise and much more powerful Jedi, but one who isn't all that happy about having to awaken from decades of isolation. His role in Last Jedi is, of course, critical and helps give continuity to the whole enterprise.
But let's face it, neither Hamill nor Fisher qualify as outstanding actors. They were cast in the originals as unknowns and they readily adapted to their newfound roles. They became famous, and probably rich, because of those early movies, but neither of them went on to any other great performances and neither of them ever received any Oscar nominations.
The same fate probably lies for the next generation of Star Wars heroes, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Adam Driver, who all give fine performances as the current heroes and villains. Ridley's role as Rey is a welcome contrast to Princess Leia, showing that gender differences, even in action and science fiction films, is changing in favor of greater equality. All three of these characters were in the last episode, The Force Awakens released in 2015, but since that time, each of them have managed to appear in only one other major film and, like Hamill and Fisher, none of them have yet been nominated for an Oscar. That they are young is, of course, one of the reasons, but the Academy has nominated younger people, and there are plenty of nominees who are around their age and moving up the Hollywood ladder quickly.
So one conclusion is that Star Wars actors just aren't great actors, and there may be some truth to that. But I also think that there is an inherent, and perhaps necessary bias against movies in the science fiction or fantasy genre. This bias arises because of the increased difficulty of 'suspending disbelief'. It is relatively easy to imagine what the world was like in Europe of the 1960s, the setting for All the Money in the World. But it is another several degrees of difficulty to imagine what a world is like 'a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away'.
And so, several things happen when we watch one of these movies. We pay much more attention to what our senses (primarily sight and sound) are telling us because we need to pay attention to all the details we can in order to build our understanding of this new world. That means, also, I think, that we tend to appreciate simpler story lines and more obvious characters. There isn't room for really complex characters with difficult emotional sequences because we aren't even sure what our own emotional reactions are to worlds that are so new and different.
Star Wars movies succeed, I think, because the concepts are so simple and basic - they truly are about the fight between good and evil at a very basic level. The moral clarity is strikingly obvious and is part of what makes these movies so much fun. The acting, directing, and writing aren't Oscar-level performances, because they don't have to be in order to give us a good time (and sell tickets!).
The writing and directing story on this movie illustrates what I mean. The Star Wars saga was started, 40 years ago, by George Lucas, and he retained a strong interest in the story line through the first trilogy and into the prequel trilogy. So he had a pretty firm idea of what the story line would be over the time and space of nine movies (a trilogy of trilogies). However, as happens to many huge and ambitious projects, he eventually lost control and when the franchise was sold to Disney, they basically granted full creativity rights to each new production team.
With this iteration in the cycle, number eight, they gave full creative control to Rian Johnson, who as writer and director was able to determine the direction of the movie. It is said that he wasn't even required to consult the writer and director of the previous film in order to see what his vision of the story line was supposed to be - he had full control and he took it.
So what is Johnson's history? Well, not much! He has never been nominated for an Oscar and his filmography, as writer and director, points to only one major film, Looper from 2012. He is also noted for Brick and Brothers Bloom, neither of which have I ever heard of. Looper is an interesting movie, but is of the sci-fi genre and received only modest recognition among the sci-fi award circuit. This is not to say that Johnson is a bad writer or director, but it does show that he isn't mainstream, so his creative direction is not going to give this movie an edge in the awards circuit. (He also brought the cinematographer and film editor from Looper to work on this movie.)
In the end, then, these kinds of movies are rewarded for how they please the senses. And this Star Wars was nominated in four categories, all 'below the line'. those categories all had to do with what we see and hear and how those characteristics contribute to our understanding of how the Star Wars world works; how the reality is created. And in that area, the movie has some outstanding credentials.
The Visual Effects team is noted for work on dozens of important science fiction and fantasy movies. Members of the team received Oscar nominations for previous Star Wars Movies as well as the Dark Knight, and they won Visual Effects Oscars for Golden Compass, Babe, and Inception. These people know how to create stunning visual worlds and make convincing representations of how they operate.
The Sound Department includes artists who received Oscar nominations for either Sound Editing or Sound Mixing that include previous Star Wars movies, as well as Wall-E, There Will be Blood, Benjamin Button, Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fight Club, King Kong, the Hobbit trilogies, Pirates of the Caribbean series, Never Cry Wolf, Skyfall, and War Horse. They won Oscars in one or both of these categories for The Lord of The Rings movies, Bourne Ultimatum, and the English Patient. In short, this team knows how to create the sounds that help define the alternative universe as real and plausible.
Finally, the soundtrack for a movie goes a long way to helping us define our emotional reaction. Music can help build tension, or it can soothe our soul - it can send us deep into fear, or give us hope. And who did they get to do the original music for this movie, than John Williams, who has provided the soundtracks for most, if not all of the Star Wars movies, including creating the original theme for the music of the first one. Williams is possibly the most awarded artist in the entire film industry with more than fifty nominations for original music spanning a time period of more than 50 years! (His first nomination was for Valley of the Dolls, in 1967.). He has won the Oscar for original music for the first Star Wars movie, as well as Schindler's List, E.T., Jaws, and Fiddler on the Roof. This man knows how to compose movie music.
Despite these four nominations in the important technical art categories, The Last Jedi failed to win a single award. To Star Wars fans, however, I'm not sure that matters a whole lot - I know it doesn't for me. If the primary purpose of a movie is to be a fun experience, then The Last Jedi wins for sure.
All the Money in the World (2017)
Even Plummer can't make up for a so-so script
By now, even casual movie buffs are aware of the messy politics surrounding this movie. Kevin Spacey was the original actor designated to play J. Paul Getty. And, in fact, they were less than a month from movie release date when it was alleged that Spacey was guilty of sexually assaulting multiple younger men. The production team quickly decided to fire the man and reshoot all of his scenes. They turned to Christopher Plummer, a seasoned actor, who, in two weeks memorized his lines and reshot every scene that Spacey had played. For two weeks they brought back Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams to act with him in their shared scenes, over a hectic Thanksgiving holiday. (The discrepancy in emergency pay between Wahlberg and Williams generated yet another scandal that clearly shows how gender differences are still alive and well in Hollywood.)
Most in the industry believe that Plummer saved the movie from a public relations disaster. And that, plus the fact that he did a fabulous job even though he was just 'filling in' yielded him an Oscar acting nomination. Even if one didn't know that he had only a couple of weeks to master a very difficult role, most viewers would agree that he managed a terrific performance, capturing whatever subtleties a man as obsessed with money as Getty might actually muster.
I don't know how to judge the veracity of the portrayal of Getty, at the time, the world's richest man. But Plummer successfully creates a man who, though obviously smart enough to amass, and to keep, a huge fortune, still seems morally and emotionally bankrupt and cold. I guess we expect men like this to demonstrate eccentricities, but is it really possible that they are also so remarkably empty inside? Plummer delivers that kind of character and does it well.
Why he was nominated for Supporting Actor, instead of Leading Actor, is somewhat of a mystery to me. It is true that Michelle Williams, as J. Paul senior's ex-daughter-in-law and mother of at least some of his grandchildren, has the most screen time and the maximum emotional exposure. But the movie isn't just about her efforts to get the richest man in the world to part with just a little bit of his money in order to save his own grandson. It is also about the reasoning of that man and his emptiness that guides his decision-making. Plummer deserved a nomination in one or the other category for his performance.
In researching Plummer's history, I realized I don't really know much about him. His nomination in this movie is just his third Oscar nomination, even though he is approaching 90 years of age. he was nominated in the supporting actor category for the 2009 movie The Last Station, and then, a year later won the Oscar for supporting actor in a movie called Beginners. He is known for earlier performances in something called the Insider and then played a doctor in A Beautiful Mind. Aside for A Beautiful Mind, I haven't seen any of these movies, and I guess I find that surprising, given that it seems we all know his name.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, I'm more familiar with Michelle Williams movies. Although not nominated for her performance here (and I don't think this is her best performance, although she is the central character), she has received four previous Oscar nominations, starting with her breakout performance as the wife in Brokeback Mountain. Then she was nominated for leading actress in Blue Valentine and My Week with Marilyn (as Monroe herself). Finally, she had a terrific supporting role in Manchester By the Sea last year. I've seen all of these movies and agree she brings talent to them. Her performance here is satisfactory, but not compelling. And why does she seem to have to close her eyes whenever there is an important set of lines to deliver - maybe she can only summon up emotion when she isn't looking at her coactors?
The third most important character in All the Money in the World, is Mark Wahlberg who plays Getty's head of security. Wahlberg had an early intriguing role in Boogie Nights but gained fame, and was nominated for supporting actor for his performance in The Departed. Although he delivers a credible performance here, the role is really kind of milquetoast - there is nothing that stands out for me except for maybe his final dialog with Getty which seems to come out of nowhere and makes no sense.
So we have three very good actors, only one of which comes across in a convincing manner. Part of that failure might just be the fault of the director, Ridley Scott. Scott has an outstanding collection of movies under his belt including the Martian, Thelma and Louise, the original Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. (He received Oscar nominations for directing all of those except Blade Runner.). This is an impressive list of movies that just represent the cream of his filmography which includes dozens more movies and television episodes - he is a very busy man.
And that might be the problem with this movie - maybe he has spread himself too thin to effectively direct. In 2017 he also released the latest installment in his highly successful Alien movie series. Perhaps by putting so much of himself into that movie, where he has a long and important history, he didn't have sufficient creative resources to make All the Money as good as it might have been, coaxing better performances out of Williams and maybe even Wahlberg. It didn't help that he had to reshoot critical scenes because of the Spacey exit.
But a director and actors can only do so much with the material they are given. And I think the biggest problem with this movie was the script. Based on a book by John Pearson, David Scarpa wrote the screenplay for this movie. But I can't say I know much about the man. He also wrote the scripts for Cleopatra, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Last Castle. I've never seen the last movie, and the first two were not notable for their lines. He has never received an Oscar nomination. (According to his IMDB entry, he has never received any awards of any kind.). I'm at a loss as to why a director with as much going as Ridley Scott, would choose to work with the script from an unknown.
Analyzing the pedigrees of many of the rest of the crew on this movie, there are a couple of movies that seem to form a core for this team - they are all Ridley Scott movies and include the Martian, The Gladiator, and Prometheus. So, if you like how those movies feel and look, you will likely appreciate this one too. Still, I think you will have a tough problem getting around the script. Aside from Plummer's performance, this is only a so-so movie.
The Disaster Artist (2017)
Offensive
I'm not exactly sure, but I think this movie was supposed to be funny. IMDB classifies it as a comedy (as well as a drama). The making of the picture involved a lot of comedian type actors (e.g. Seth Rogan). And it was nominated for a lot of non-Oscar awards in comedy categories. So, I guess it was a comedy, and I do remember that I chuckled once or twice.
But I did not find this movie funny. Instead I felt curiously awkward, like being made to watch someone humiliate themselves for no real purpose. When I did laugh, I had to force myself to cut it short because instead of seeing things as an expression of humor, I found them pathetic and downright embarrassing. This is the kind of thing people try to forget and hide from others, not something you want people to appreciate and laugh at.
I admit, though, that this might just be me - if you enjoy the kind of humor that is often at someone else's expense then you might just love this movie. I suppose it follows a tradition of movies based on finding humor in people who really have scraped the bottom of the barrel. Maybe there is value in that, and I'm just to obtuse to see it.
Let me explain a bit. (Oh, and this is a true story...)
In the late nineties a strange man named Tommy Wiseau befriends a younger man, Dave, who shares an interest in acting. They decide to move to Los Angeles and pursue careers in the movie industry. The younger man, who is also much better looking, actually scores a success or two and even finds a girl friend, while Tommy, who really does have serious personality, not to mention language, issues completely strikes out on all fronts.
Inexplicably, Tommy has money, lots of it. And so he gets the brilliant idea of writing, producing, and acting, with Dave, in a movie of his own creation. That he is passionately dedicated to the idea is an understatement. That he has absolutely no idea what he is doing is also an understatement. But because Tommy is rich, he is able to move forward, and with obvious determination, actually succeeds in bringing his movie to the screen. "The Room" has its screen debut in 2003. Although it cost more than $6 million to make, it took in a whopping $1800 on opening weekend. Tommy, however, bought out the theater for a full two weeks so that it would be eligible for Oscar nominations.
That The Room is a bad movie is another understatement. The Disaster Artist reproduces many of those scenes and lets just say that this is not a movie that anyone, except those with lots of time to waste, will spend money to see. The Metacritic score for The Room is a 9 (out of 100) and is the lowest score for any movie I have ever read about. It is so bad, that it has become a Saturday midnight cult film.
I kid you not, "The Room" is a real movie - you can even rent the DVD from Netflix!. And, unfortunately, The Disaster Artist is also a real movie. The screenplay was nominated for an Oscar. James Franco, the actor who plays Tommy Wiseau, won the Golden Globes award for an actor in a musical or comedy for his performance, and the movie itself was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Whereas nobody really treats "The Room" as anything remotely credible, the Disaster Artist, which tells the story of how The Room was made, is actually viewed as a serious work of art.
The Disaster Artist screenplay was written by the team of Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber. These two writers are fairly young and have worked together primarily on romantic comedies. They wrote 500 Days of Summer, Spectacular Now, and Fault in Our Stars, all of which have received various minor awards from groups such as the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. The only movie of theirs to be recognized more globally was the Golden Globe nomination for 500 Days of Summer. My point is only that this team, and this movie, is playing in the minor leagues.
There are occasional lines in the movie that might actually be considered funny. But for the most part, the major reaction one gets is a deep-seated feeling of profound embarrassment for Mr. Wiseau.
And that leads to an important indictment for those who made this movie. I was reminded, while writing this review, of the fact that the small-minded and morally deficient President once made fun of a disabled reporter. I have the exact same reaction to this movie, that I had towards Trump: Mr. Wiseau needs some help. He doesn't need a full length movie advertising his personality flaws. And he certainly doesn't need to be made fun of.
Molly's Game (2017)
Excellent Writing and Chastain Isn't Bad Either
Molly's Game is a long movie - 140 minutes - but it is a testament to the writing that it doesn't feel that long. The story is complex with many threads. Keeping the threads straight and savoring the complex language is part of the enjoyment of watching this movie.
Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for this movie, adapting the book "Molly's Game". The book, written by the main character Molly Bloom, is the true story of her life, which originally started as an almost-Olympic skier. As the movie lays out in the first few moments, she isn't able to pursue her skiing career and settles into running the most exclusive, and high stake, poker games in the country. The book, and the movie, is all about her rise and fall in her second career.
That she is involved with some very interesting characters in this career is a given and the movie puts together a terrific cast of characters that play the poker players, both in Los Angeles and New York. The viewer will learn more than she ever wanted to know about playing this kind of poker. But the cool thing is that we are learning along with Molly, because, at the beginning, she doesn't know anything about the game herself. Only through the same kind of persistence and hard work that she had applied to skiing, does she become such an expert that, although she never plays the game herself, she is able to understand every little nuance of what is happening at her table.
It is one of the great strengths of the story that it is able to bring the viewer up to speed so quickly. Indeed, this movie is more about the mind than it is about the body - more about the language than the action. And that is why it received a well deserved nomination for writing. As is often the case with adaptations, I can't tell if the excellent writing comes from Aaron Sorkin's screenplay or Molly Bloom's original book. Whichever it is, let's just say it works.
An important device in the movie is Molly's narration. The voiceovers are frequent and sometimes lengthy, but certainly help keep the film moving forward. Molly's explanations of her own actions are an important part of understanding the complex events and the narration fills in important gaps. I suspect that much of the narration are almost exact quotes from the book, but, having not read the book, I can't say. At any rate, they are an essential element.
But there is also some very powerful dialog. Molly's conversations, always with men, are critically important to understanding her intellectual power, which is considerable. I think that a key aspect of the movie is that it shows a woman achieving mastery, on her own terms, over a group of powerful men. The most interesting point of the movie is how she does that and, importantly, why she chooses to do so!
But Molly isn't the only intelligent character in this movie. There is a powerful monolog by her attorney, played by Idris Elba, detailing why Molly shouldn't be prosecuted that is wonderfully rich in both words and ideas, and, mostly successful. And there is a critical conversation between Molly and her Father (played by Kevin Costner in one of his best recent performances) where the essential motives for Molly's behavior, and identity, are made clear. That is a conversation that will draw tears from most viewers as it explores the father-daughter relationship in important ways - and makes it clear that despite what daughters think, fathers are fallible human beings too!
Sorkin has written numerous other movie screenplays that illustrate his ability to develop complex plots and difficult subjects. Moneyball, The Social Network, Steve Jobs, and A Few Good Men were all written by Sorkin. He was nominated for an Oscar for Moneyball, and won the Oscar for The Social Network. All of those movies explore complex worlds of technology or sports, or both, and yet convey a level of excitement and emotion that is normally not associated with them. If you liked these movies, you will enjoy Molly's Game. (As an aside, Molly's Game is Sorkin's first attempt at directing.)
And, as icing on the cake, there is Jessica Chastain as Molly. She wasn't nominated for her performance here and I don't really understand why. This was maybe not an award winning performance, but it was worthy of a nomination. Her character is complex and Chastain successfully illustrates the difficulties of a woman being successful in a powerful man's world. That in itself makes the performance worthy. She has previously shown talent in movies like Zero Dark Thirty, Interstellar, and The Martian, and securing Oscar nominations for Zero Dark Thirty and The Help. It is said that Molly Bloom herself wanted Chastain to play her.
Molly's Game isn't a perfect movie by any means. But if you are interested in a true story about an intelligent woman figuring out how to control powerful men, this film fills the bill. Along the way, there are terrific lines of dialog and monolog that illustrate the value of good writing.
The Post (2017)
Wrong story and wrong actress
Does Meryl Streep need yet another Oscar? She's been nominated 21 times since 1979, three times for supporting performances, the rest for leading actress. And she has won the Oscar three times for Iron Lady, Sophies Choice, and Kramer v. Kramer. Streep has been hailed as the world's best living actor and will surely rank among the all time best. It seems that all she has to do is appear in a movie and she becomes an Oscar favorite.
And so it was this year with The Post, Steven Spielberg's drama detailing the second chapter in the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the early 70s. After the Nixon administration successfully brought an injunction against the New York Times for starting to publish the massive Pentagon study of the Vietnam war, the Washington Post obtained the papers and then the paper's new publisher, Katherine Graham, had to make an existential decision about whether to pick up where the Times and left off and risk the legal hell that the Nixon administration was sure to bring upon them.
We already know the outcome, of course, as history tells us that Ms. Graham did indeed approve the publication of the papers. And, of course, Nixon did threaten her and the paper with treason charges. However, shortly after the government began their crackdown, newspapers all over the country picked up the ball and began to publish their own stories based on the papers. At that point, the toothpaste was well out of the tube and wasn't going back in. Shortly after, the Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, determined that the rights of a free press transcended the privacy rights of the government and that the first amendment was not to benefit the governors, but rather the governed as a necessary and important way to counter the improper use of government power.
The reason to see this movie is not because it is exceptionally well done. In fact, although nominated for Best Picture, it definitely does not deserve it. But the picture should be seen because of how relevant it is to today's political world. As our unfit President labels any press institution that remotely criticizes him (or has the audacity to actually report his bad behavior) 'Fake News', the first amendment rights to a free press are under attack. I never anticipated that in my lifetime I would be witnessing the systematic destruction of one of the few institutions capable of stopping the accumulation of fascist power. And yet, Trump, and his mindless minions actually claim that he has the power to shutdown those news organizations that he does not like, simply because he is the President. That this is frightening is an understatement.
But the value of this movie is that it shows what can, and should, happen when a President claims undue power. Nixon's attack on the press was halted by the Supreme Court. Forced to adopt other means, he sent third rate burglars into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist office and the Democratic Party Headquarters in Watergate. Those actions eventually brought him down. We can only hope that Trump's assaults on the press will have similar effects.
So, the reason to see this movie is because it is astonishingly topical. Some of the lines used by politicians on both sides are almost verbatim quotes of statements heard today. The arguments are not just similar, but nearly exactly the same. The good thing about all that is that, 45 years ago, the press survived and corrupt power fell. The bad thing is that we seem not to have learned a damn thing and, miserably, we are letting history repeat itself.
But having said that people should indeed see this movie because of its relevance to current day politics, I don't think it is a particularly good movie for several reasons.
In the first place, I don't understand why the movie is about the second chapter in the story, the Washington Post story, instead of the original publication of the papers by the New York Times. I get the fact that there is a gender story underlying the Washington Post story. Katherine Graham had just inherited control of the Washington Post newspaper because, after both her father and her husband died, she was the senior family member available. And I understand that she had a horrendously difficult, and risky, decision to make in picking up where the Times had been stopped. She was likely exposing both her family and her employees to potential treason charges that could have destroyed everything she and her family had built up.
But the decision by Sulzberger, of the New York Times, to originally begin the publication and then to fight the Nixon administration for the right to continue, seems to me to be an even bigger decision. The Times took the initial, very risky, step, and yet, aside from a mostly irrelevant 2003 television movie (The Pentagon Papers), there has been no movie describing the family and business crisis that had to have happened at the Times. Theirs was the riskier decision, so where's the movie about Ellsberg and the New York Times? In short, I think we're not seeing the best and most interesting story here.
And then, there is simply the problem of Meryl Streep's fame. Graham is new to her role as leader of the Post and there are many scenes in the movie where she shows indecisiveness and inability to speak up, especially in a room full of men. Meryl Streep, on the otherhand, we know has no problems taking on nearly any situation. Whether it is the British government (Iron Lady), the fashion world (Devil Wears Prada), or deciding which of her children should live (Sophies Choice), Streep moves her characters forward forcefully - they are not weak. So when she plays a character that has difficulty making decisions, it is not convincing. Not because the character couldn't be weak, but because Meryl Streep doesn't play those kinds of characters!
In the movie, there is a critical, climactic scene where she, as Graham, makes the immediate and final decision to go ahead and publish their story in the morning's paper. She is in a room full of men, dressed in what appears to be her bathrobe. They have just had heated conversations about the importance of the decision and the possible consequences which include the complete loss of the paper, jail sentences for the leaders, and unemployment for hundreds of workers. Graham, on the phone, pauses for just a few seconds, furrows her brow, hesitates a couple of times, and then says to publish. She hangs up the phone, and announces that she is going to bed.
The scene may or may not be accurate, and it very well may be what Katherine Graham did. But it is not what Meryl Streep would do. We would have more understanding of what went through her mind to get to that decision and, here, we have nothing. It is unfortunate that actors end up getting typecast, but they do. And it is difficult, often, for the viewer to separate the character from the actor. In this case, though, Streep shouldn't be playing Graham. As fine a job as Streep did, this isn't best actress material for her, because it isn't the right role for her. I don't fault Streep so much as Spielberg for casting her.
So, there you have it. The movie is worth seeing because of its relevance to contemporary politics. But it is a highly flawed movie because it is the wrong story with the wrong actress. All of that makes it difficult to rate, but I'm inclined to give it just 3 stars.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Unsatisfying Ending
If you enjoyed There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice, or Boogie Nights, you will like Phantom Thread. There are so many connections between these four movies that it isn't surprising they share a lot of common characteristics - long takes; soft, natural lighting; an emphasis on indoor scenes; and camera studies of characters' faces. These are all signs of movies from Paul Thomas Anderson who wrote and directed all four of these films. Not surprisingly, this isn't his first nomination, having received writing and/or directing nominations for all four of these films as well as Magnolia.
And he frequently brings his own team together for these films. Composer Jonny Greenwood, who received a nomination for the excellent original music in Phantom Thread, also composed the music for There Will Be Blood and Inherent Vice. Mark Bridges, who won the costume award for this movie, also did the costumes for all three of Anderson's other big movies as well as winning the Costume Design Oscar for The Artist in 2012. Clearly, this group of film makers have been making this kind of movie together for several decades.
And don't forget Daniel Day-Lewis, who was nominated for Leading Actor in this movie. He Won the Oscar for There Will be Blood, and so has a rewarding relationship with Anderson that goes back more than a decade. An accomplished actor, Day-Lewis has received Oscar nominations for five other movies, and won the acting Oscar for Lincoln, and My Left Foot. Casting him as Reynolds Woodcock in this movie was a perfect choice as Day-Lewis has a great knack for playing powerful men, who retain tragic flaws. Day-Lewis has the uncanny ability to project both strength and cautious vulnerability which gives his characters just the right amount of empathy.
In Phantom Thread, Day-Lewis had the good fortune to play off of two powerful supporting performances. Newcomer Vicky Krieps plays his muse and love interest. I can't say I've seen her in any previous movies, but I suspect we will be rewarded in future movies. She has a wonderful ability to project emotion with her face and can exhibit joy and sadness with inflections in her eyes. In tense, emotion-laden scenes with Day-Lewis, she can hold her own. I'm kind of surprised she didn't receive her own nomination.
Probably, though, the studio wisely reserved the supporting actress nod for Lesley Manville who did a terrific turn as Woodcock's sister and business partner. Although this is her first Oscar nomination, she is an accomplished actress on stage and British television. She has a terrific scene with Alma, Krieps' character, early in the movie where she actually smells her almost like she's a bouquet of flowers. The scene establishes not just her uncanny and sophisticated sensibilities, but also expresses her powerful position as Woodcock's second-in-command. She has several other turns of equal ability.
Jonny Greenwood's original score dominates the movie and seems nearly perfect. It is difficult to pin down exactly what year the movie is supposed to take place, although there are clues that suggest sometime in the mid-50s. Greenwood's music takes a lot of themes from 50s big band music, classical music, and 50s movie backgrounds. After working with Thomas for two decades, he has managed to understand his message and here he creates music that helps maintain the tensions between all three personalities.
Although I haven't done the comparisons with the other nominees yet, I'm kind of surprised that this movie won the Costume Design Award. Perhaps it is because the movie is about a dress designer, so the costume guild rewarded the movie more because it was about one of their own. Of course, the dresses he designs for Alma and the British royalty who use his services are beautiful, I don't know that they are exceptionally so. But it is definitely true that he makes Alma look stunning several times over. So maybe the award is deserved. (I must admit that costumes and makeup are two awards where I don't feel much competence in judging!)
Ultimately, though, this is Anderson's movie, and its successes, and failures, fall on him!. As the writer and director, the movie is his brainchild from conception to delivery. The movie definitely has some good points. It is a powerful personality study that delves into one particular man with a curious combination of strengths and weaknesses. He does a great job in developing Woodcock's character, and, although we may not fully like him, we do gain a sufficient understanding that we can respect him. His use of the two women, his sister and his muse and lover, to more fully explore his complexities is commendable.
But in the end, and especially at the end of the movie, I don't think it works as well as it might have. Without giving away some critical plot points, there is a climactic development between Alma and Reynolds that just isn't consistent. We know that Reynolds discovers something important about Alma, but the film doesn't tell us how he got there - the development of the plot point almost seems like a scene or two is missing. And yet it is exactly this development that determines the final outcome of the couple's relationship, and the denouement of the movie plot. As a result, I felt bewildered and uncomfortable - Anderson just sort of abandoned me out in the ozone somewhere. It is a difficult scene and I think both Day-Lewis and Krieps had hard times understanding it themselves, and yet it is perhaps the most important scene in the movie.
But it might be the case that this was just me. Out of the 27 movies nominated for this year's general Oscars awards, Phantom Thread received the highest IMDB audience rating and the fifth highest critics metascore. The audience reaction, in particular, surprises me as this is not, generally, the kind of movie that kindles positive audience reactions. It is a beautiful movie to watch, but can be slow at times, focusing on personalities, not actions. Couple that with, what for me was an unsatisfying ending, and you get a curious set of ratings. (Nice to occasionally have things that remain unexplained.)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Technical Masterpiece
Oscar Nominations:
Cinematography (Roger Deakins) - Winner
Visual Effects (Nelson/Nefzer/Lambert/Hoover) - Winner
Production Design (Gassner/Querzola)
Sound Editing (Mancini/Green)
Sound Mixing (Bartlett/Hemphill/Ruth)
Blade Runner 2049 is a technical masterpiece! And the Oscar awards reward that excellence with five nominations in the visual and aural arts and two wins, in Cinematography and Visual Effects. It is a long movie (2 hrs, 43 min) but the immersive experience in this dystopian world keeps your focus and rewards your attention.
Surprisingly, this was the first win for Roger Deakins after 14 nominations for cinematography for movies ranging from Shawshank Redemption and Fargo to Skyfall, Prisoners, and Sicario. Deakins has a unique talent for using camera angles and filters to create a distinct feel for each film. The dark shadows of Prisoners help convey the underlying fear while the long, unbroken drone shots in Sicario brought out the unbroken tension. In this movie, he manages to sustain the damp bleakness of perpetual rain in Los Angeles and the yellow-poisoned air of Las Vegas - futures that seem possible but not pleasant.
Blade Runner also took the Oscar for Visual Effects. The visual effects team previously worked on films like Benjamin Button, Captain America, Beauty and the Beast, Armageddon, and Superman Returns. The visual effects run the gamut from CGI to actual stunt work, but in all cases the realism supplied gives the film a remarkable consistency and credibility. These aren't effects purely to stun the senses, but rather they help tell the story in a future world that is already tough to imagine.
The production design team has received previous Oscar nominations for movies like Bugsy, Road to Perdition, Into the Woods, and Golden Compass. In Blade Runner 2049 they have created a world that is consistent in its details and striking in its rich texture. The sound editors won the award last year for Mad Max : Fury Road, and received previous nominations for Fifth Element and one of the Star Trek Movies. Previous nominations for the sound mixers include Life of Pi and the Martian. The point here is that the teams working on the technical aspects of this movie are long on credentials, and their work shows in a very overwhelming movie.
As is usually the case, even with very good science fiction movies, Blade Runner did not receive any nominations in the directing, writing, or acting categories. And that is unfortunate. Dennis Villenueve, the director, also directed Arrival, another very good sci-fi flick. He also did the two excellent movies, Sicario and Prisoners, both of which manage to create a terrific tension in the audience. In Blade Runner 2049, he manages to sustain a complex story over a considerable length of time and still tie all the loose ends up.
Speaking of story, one of the writers, Hampton Fancher, also participated in the original Blade Runner movie from nearly thirty years ago. He has managed to maintain consistency between these two efforts and address some of the big questions that were left from the original movie (i.e. is the Blade Runner (Harrison Ford) a replicant or not?). His cowriter, Michael Green, was also nominated for Logan, however, I didn't like that movie and blame the writer for most of its plodding disinterest.
Ryan Gosling plays the main character, K, and he is just perfect in this role. Harrison Ford comes back to play an older version of his original character, Deckard, and brings with it some of the wisdom that comes with old age. Clearly the story is about these two men and the discoveries they make about each other, and themselves.
However I think some of the most interesting characters are women. Robin Wright plays a terrific chief of detectives and K's boss. Sylvia Hoeks (Luv) is the main villain and battles both Deckard and 'K' with super-human abilities. Ana De Armas is a fresh, face and plays Joi, K's love interest who isn't exactly real. And Mackenzie Davis is a hooker who, in one of the most intriguing scenes in the movie, merges with Joi. Carla Juri, as Ana, plays a very important figure with some special characteristics, essential to the main story line. In all these cases, the women are playing supporting roles, but the movie is much more interesting because of them.
Blade Runner 2049 is a complex story and the viewer has to pay attention to keep from getting lost. But because it is also such a technical tour de force, that is easy to do. The visual world created here demands that you open your senses and the story line rewards you for doing so.
I, Tonya (2017)
It's Not My Fault
"It wasn't my fault" is a line we hear over and over in this movie - it should probably be a secondary title, as the movie seems to serve as a 'sort of' apology for what they call The Incident, the 'whacking' of Nancy Kerrigan's knees. Everyone is aware of that incident - it was, for a while in the 90s the lead story in the news, capturing the tabloid interests of America by combining a forum for competition in skating, social class, and good looks. Tonya Harding captured more than her fifteen minutes of fame.
The movie does not definitively answer the question of what, exactly, Tonya's role was in the trailer-mafia story. Telling the tale from the mouth's of several of the participants, I don't think we yet have the final truth about whether Ms. Harding plotted the 'whacking' in advance. If the movie truly represents her confession about the matter, then she was at least knowledgeable after-the-fact and participated even dim-wittedly in the cover-up. For that she was punished greatly, being banned from the sport that had defined her life for nearly twenty years.
If we are to believe Tonya, though, 'none of it was her fault'. No, instead it was the judges who could never get past her background; her coach who never gave enough; her husband, who she loved despite the marital violence; his friends whose egos exaggerated their mildly nefarious plot; and, especially, her Mother who, despite giving her as much as she was able, never really gave her any support at all. Whatever happened was always TO her, not BECAUSE of her.
And so the movie leaves you with a very ambivalent set of feelings. You'd like to at least understand Tonya's role in The Incident, and perhaps leave with a little sympathy for her fate. But you can't - there is no acceptance from her here, and no humility. Its all about how awful her life was and how, whatever happened, it has its explanations outside of her.
The movie comes to us from the fertile imaginations of writer Steven Rogers and director Craig Gillespie. Rogers wrote StepMom, a movie from a couple decades ago starring Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts about a dying wife and mom who selects her replacement. I remember the story as being effective and intriguing, although it was not a huge success. Gillespie is best known for directing Lars and the Real Girl which had some genuinely weird and funny moments which he succeeds in bringing to I, Tonya.
One device they bring to this movie that succeeds wonderfully is telling the story in two ways - one in conventional movie scenes, and the other as a series of interviews with each of the characters, separately, sitting in chairs and recounting the events as they remember them. Then, as an added effect, at certain points in the movie the characters break the fourth wall by speaking directly to the audience through the camera. Although this stunt is a dangerous one because it often fails, in this case it seems to add credibility as well as a certain sense of humor to an already twisted story-line.
The movie received a well deserved Oscar nod for film editing. Tatiana Riegel also worked with Gillespie on the Lars and the Real Girl project. In I, Tonya, she succeeds in putting together a tight movie with no extra fat - every scene adds to the film and helps tell the story.
Margot Robbie, as Tonya, does a credible job, and I can understand the nomination for leading actress as the Harding character was not an easy one to play. But I couldn't help but think, as I watched the movie, that she was miscast. Simply put, Ms. Robbie is too attractive to play the Tonya role. Robbie is five inches taller than Harding and doesn't have nearly the muscular build that gave Harding a huge part of her image as a redneck female (Harding was often referred to as Thunder Thighs and she could bench press more than her own weight). Robbie shines in roles like Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, or Jane in Legend of Tarzan, or Naomie in Wolf of Wall Street, or even as herself in The Big Short - yes, she works best in more glamorous roles. She gets an A for effort here, but it's simply the wrong actress for the part.
Allison Janney, on the otherhand, is damn near perfect as Tonya's mother, Lavona. As she chain smokes and swears through the entire first half of the movie, we get a real clear insight into how Tonya turns out the way she did. That Lavona is cold and hard is real enough, but she also gave as much of herself to Tonya as she could afford to give without losing her own identity. Her methods were often crude, but her motives seemed, to me, honest. Janney succeeded in playing a very complex character without dominating her scenes. She was, in fact, a Mother.
I, Tonya is not a perfect movie. At times it doesn't seem to know whether it is a tragedy or a comedy - and works at being both. When it presents violence, which is frequent and fundamental to the story, it sometimes does so with intended comic effect. That can become disorienting to the viewer. Combine that with the almost documentary tone, and the frequent audience asides, and you have a work that is both interesting and challenging to watch.
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)
Even Denzel Can't Save This Movie
Denzel Washington is one of the iconic actors of our times. He has appeared in countless movies, thrilling audiences in heart-stopping flicks like the Taking of Pelham 123 and the Book of Eli. But he has also portrayed complex historical characters in movies like Malcolm X, Glory, and Hurricane. He has been nominated for acting Oscars seven times before this movie, and won Oscars for performances in Glory and Training Day. He is, in short, an important actor delivering memorable performances.
And so, like I did for Lady Bird, I had high expectations for this movie almost entirely on the fact that Denzel Washington was playing the leading role. Unfortunately, this movie is another example of why a movie must be seen as a team effort - that even a good performance by an actor cannot save a movie experience from an underdeveloped script or uninspired direction.
That this movie has good intentions should go unstated. It hints at a compelling story with a moral arc from a hidden character with strong moral direction, to a less than noble period after biting at the apple of greed, to an unsuccessful attempt to regain the high moral ground. The viewer really wants to root for Israel, and you might even shed a tear or too for him, but after sleeping on the movie's message, you just can't recognize greatness.
One of the recurring characteristics of a Denzel movie is that, at some point, he will stand back and deliver a stinging soliloquy that appropriately captures the moral essence of his character. He does that here too, and it is fun to listen to.
But it isn't very credible. That Israel undergoes profound changes, largely not of his own intentions, is a given. But the movie fails to yield the underlying reason for those changes. I suppose you can understand how someone can be tempted by the material rewards of monetary success for Israel to do what he does, but the movie does not communicate to us the particulars of why that leap makes sense to him. It does an even worse job of explaining how his boss (Collin Farrell) makes the almost opposite leap.
I don't blame the actors here - they are both very good. Perhaps it was the editing which ended up leaving critical transition scenes out. But it might just be that the writer and director, Dan Gilroy, got a little sloppy. And there isn't an excuse for that. He was appropriately nominated for his complex script for Nightcrawlers of three years ago which gave Jake Gyllenhall a terrific role. So he should have been able to deliver on this one - but he doesn't.
This is a simple but confusing movie that, unfortunately, even Denzel Washington cannot save. There are moments that are fun displays of the actors genius, but they are few and far between. Watch it for Washington, but only if you've got some time to give away.
Lady Bird (2017)
Not Quite There Yet
I had very high hopes for Lady Bird. Before I started watching this year's Oscar movies, I really though it had a good chance of being my favorite picture of the year. I happen to like female actresses (ok, that might be a bit sexist, but its true anyway); I had seen and really liked Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn (a role that also got her another leading actress nomination); and I like 'coming of age' stories because of all the awkward drama surrounding sex, love, and figuring out what to do with the rest of your life. So this movie had a lot going for it and expectations were high.
Unfortunately, it fell short - it was a good movie but not a great one. The movie seemed clumsy at a few points and needed more polish. Compared to another 'coming of age' movie from this year, Call Me by Your Name, its comedy was just not quite as funny and its drama not as compelling.
Lady Bird was also a major disappointment at the Oscars. Although it received five nominations, including Best Picture, and only five other movies received more, it failed to win a single Oscar. Even more significant was that all five nominations were 'above the line' - meaning in the acting, directing, and writing categories - which was more than any other picture except the Best Picture winner, Shape of Water. Clearly this was a movie that was expected to do a lot better than it actually did.
I suspect the reason lies in the politics surrounding the Academy and the motion picture industry this year. Harvey Weinstein's casting couch has been permanently cast aside, generating the #MeToo movement to highlight the gender inequities in the industry. While female actresses have always been around, albeit with characters generally less developed, the percentage of writers and directors that are women remains abysmally small. That this movie would come along, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, instantly propelled it into the spotlight and the nomination roster. It was the right movie to illustrate that the academy was making strong efforts to change its sexist foundations. It was a movie about women, made by women and so received multiple and significant nominations.
Unfortunately, this is Ms. Gerwig's freshman effort. Yes, she has a long list of acting credits, and she has co-written lines and screenplays in over a dozen movies and television shows. She has even co-directed before (Nights and Weekends), but this is her first movie ever where she is solo writer and director. And like anyone's first efforts at something, her sensitivities are a little tentative and her convictions uncertain. Some of the plot points remain underexplained, especially the motivations of the parents. That Ms. Gerwig has talent is obvious, but she needs time and practice to refine her craft - we'll see her in the Oscar program again, I'm sure.
Much the same argument can be made for why Ms. Ronan did not win in the Leading Actress category. She gave a convincing performance, but she is still very young (23 years old at the time the movie was made) so she can still benefit from more acting experience. I loved her performance in Brooklyn (from a couple years ago). In that movie, as well as this one, she captures the innocence of a young woman without being naive. But, like Ms. Gerwig, she needs seasoning. She is rising fast - this is her third Oscar nomination - but she is not yet a Meryl Streep.
Laurie Metcalf plays Marion, Lady Bird's mother. Metcalf is better known as Jackie, Roseanne's sister in the recently rebooted TV comedy series. Marion loves her daughter, but is also under huge stress as she tries to keep a family together suffering from serious external and internal pressures. As a result, she is unable to give her daughter the full support her large ambitions require. Metcalf was nominated for Supporting Actress for her role in this movie and it is well earned - her performance is credible, if not Oscar-worthy.
Lady Bird is a 'coming of age' movie with all of the pros and cons of that genre. Set in Sacramento, California around 2002 (the same place and time that Ms. Gerwig graduated from high school), the movie recounts Lady Bird's senior year - prom, sex, the senior play, cliques and friendships, and college admissions. She has great ambitions that her family has trouble supporting, but ends up fulfilling at least part of her dreams and grows up substantially in the process. Ronan's performance stirs our laughter and our tears.
I had great expectations for this movie. I enjoy watching movies from and about strong women. Given that this movie received five Oscar nominations, all 'above-the-line', I was expecting a powerful dramatic experience. In the end, though, the movie was smaller than I had hoped for. It promises a certain high-level of emotional experience, but just doesn't quite make it. Maybe that is part of riding along with people as they grow; maybe another movie with the same cast and crew but a few more years experience, might deliver a bit more punch
The Shape of Water (2017)
This Year's Big Winner
Oscar Nominations:
So what is 'The Shape of Water'? I suppose that question might have two different meanings, so lets start with the simplest question 'how do you describe the form that real, liquid, water takes? Seems like an easy question until you try to answer it. 'Like a liquid', doesn't really cut it, and something like 'a blob, or pool, of liquid' ends up being circular. Ultimately, to answer that question, one has to end up saying something like 'it takes the form of whatever container it is in'. And that may be about as good an answer as it gets.
Interestingly, the answer seems to work in response to the same question about the movie 'The Shape of Water' - it will likely take on the form that each viewer wants to see in it. The movie has a moving, shifting, and yes, fluid, nature to it that defies easy categories. If, like me, you find it convenient to peg movies with genre labels to help understand what emotions and thoughts it will likely inspire, the exercise with this movie will be a little frustrating.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), puts it in boxes labeled Adventure, Drama, and Fantasy. And I suppose it has elements of those. There is a plot-line involving Russian spies, and a scheme to steal an important 'asset'. And the 'asset' in question isn't exactly human, at least from outward appearances and so represents a fantastical creature of the imagination. Certainly, some of its deepest moments reflect heartfelt emotion tinged with tragedy.
But the movie could just as easily be called a work of science fiction, because of its setting (a 1960s research lab) and similarities to other science fiction classics (like Creature from the Black Lagoon). There are moments that provoke laughter as you see buffoonish characters, bumbling their way through a scenario that almost evokes scenes from the Three Stooges, or the Carol Burnett show. At times it could certainly be considered a 'thriller'. And, as the trailers convey, it is also a romance, even with requisite, and non-gratuitous, sex scenes.
In short, this movie defies description and that is, I think, part of its intriguing charm. This movie, like water, takes the shape of the container that you put it in. The fact that it succeeds so well, regardless of how you look at it, is a testament to the high quality of the film. It meets or exceeds expectations.
And the expectations were high. The Shape of Water was the Oscar darling this year, receiving the most nominations (13), and winning the most awards (4), including Best Picture of the year. It received nominations above and below-the-line, reflecting the fact that it was a balanced movie with quality attention lavished in nearly all aspects of the movie craft.
The Shape of Water is the brain-child of Guillermo del Toro, who wrote, directed, and produced the movie. He was nominated for the original screenplay and won the Oscar for directing it. This is not his first trip into Oscar-country - he was nominated in 2006 for both writing and directing Pan's Labyrinth, a movie that shares a lot of traits with this one, including a fantastical creature, and relationships that can only be characterized as surreal. The earlier movie might be considered practice for this one, which achieves a level of surrealism that seems even more plausible. Del Toro has displayed his science fiction and fantasy roots in writing and directing the Hellboy series and the first two Pacific Rim movies (not counting the most recent one, released earlier this year.). And he showed how easily he can coax human sentiments out of non-human characters in his fabulous Hobbit movies. In a real sense, Shape of Water might be considered as the highest expression of his art form.
The vision of the writer and director is important, but without great actors, the message doesn't get delivered. Casting Sally Hawkins in the leading role, as a mute and very sensitive janitor, Elisa Esposito, was a stroke of genius. She was nominated for leading actress - but lost to Frances McDormand in Three Billboards - and was previously nominated for her supporting role in Blue Jasmine (with Cate Blanchett). Although she normally plays supporting roles, her facial expressions and body movements, in this movie, convey her strong acting abilities even though she has no real dialogue throughout the entire film.
As noted before, with the Three Billboards movie, it helps when the entire acting ensemble is of high quality since the acting gets reinforced as each actor plays off the others. Hawkins is lucky to work with several exceptional supporting actors, two of them also receiving Oscar nominations. Richard Jenkins, who plays her next door neighbor, Giles, and the sympathetic narrator of the movie, received a leading actor nomination for the Visitor several years ago. And Octavia Spencer, was previously nominated for her supporting role in Hidden Figures, and won the Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The Help, plays Elisa's co-worker at the research laboratory. She is a perfect verbal counterweight for Elisa's silent machinations.
Not nominated, but playing critically important roles, are Michael Shannon as the government- spy-bureaucrat-villain, and Doug Jones, who plays the all important creature (and also never speaks!). The combination of these actors creates a fluid ensemble that flows together perfectly.
A great movie, though, isn't just above-the-line. del Toro was able to bring together a team of craftspeople of exceptional talent. The movie won nominations for cinematography, film editing, costumes, and production design, winning the Oscar in the last category. The design does a terrific job of evoking a 1960s science fiction setting, in combination with a feel from an early James Bond movie (think Thunderball). The camera work makes use of lots of contrasting lights and darks with light sources reflected off of metal surfaces. And the creature's costume is a perfect job of suggesting creepiness and beauty at the same time, part of successfully suggesting multiple emotions. (Apparently it took Doug Jones three hours to get into costume every day!).
Shape of Water also received nominations for sound editing, sound mixing, and original score. Because so much of the movie revolves in and around water, there were special challenges in rendering sounds that reflected that environment. And although I hate to say it, the music from Alexander Desplat is so 'liquid' in nature that he certainly evokes the spirit of the movie, and deserves the Oscar for original score - his second Oscar and ninth nomination.
The Shape of Water is a very big movie in a tight, compact package. Although I haven't seen all of the Best Picture nominated movies yet, this one clearly deserves the Oscar so far. It will puzzle you, confound you, and astound you, all at the same time. It takes the shape of whatever container you want to put it in, and leaves you better off than you were before.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Superb Acting
Oscar Nominations:
Three Billboards is chock-ful of surprises. About the time you think you know what's next, it turns out you were dead wrong and something entirely different happens. It just isn't possible to guess where this movie is going. And that's clearly the fun with this movie.
Although it doesn't really deal with a 'fun' topic. It's mostly about anger. At the beginning of the movie, Mildred Hayes (McDormand's character) has lost her daughter to tragic and disturbing circumstances. Although the local police department has apparently made some effort at solving the case, the DNA evidence leads nowhere and the cops are stymied both by the lack of leads and personal reasons. Mildred, angered by the lack of justice, vents on them.
But anger is a dangerous emotion that often gets channeled in unexpected directions. We never have all the facts and the conclusions we reach, especially in anger, can turn around and bite in the most unforeseen ways. Sometimes the fallout can be funny, as it often is in this movie. But it can also turn tragic, and it does here too.
A huge part of the success of this movie ascribes to Frances McDormand. She won the Leading Actress Oscar for her performance here and, although I haven't seen any of the other nominated performances yet, I can imagine she deserves it. But then, when does she not return a terrific performance? She is best known for playing supporting character roles and was nominated for Supporting Actress Oscars for North Country, Almost Famous, and Mississippi Burning. But probably her most famous role was as Marge Gunderson in Fargo where her understated performance constantly moved back and forth between comedy and drama. She won the Oscar for that performance and brings many of the same characterizations to this role, twenty-two years later.
She does not operate in a vacuum. She has two wonderful supporting actors to play off in this film. Woody Harrelson plays, in his typically droll way, Willoughby, the small town sheriff. Willoughby is really trying hard to make a life for himself, his family, and his town, but is unable to make it due to problems entirely beyond his control. Harrelson has been remarkably active in the last few years, appearing in five other movies released this year, including an 'apocalyptic' role in War for the Planet of the Apes. He has received Oscar nominations for his performance in this movie, as well as in The Messenger, and The People vs. Larry Flynt. His career dates back to his role in 1985 in the TV series Cheers, and has starred in dozens of movies since then. His anger in Three Billboards is perhaps the most inconsolable and is resolved unexpectedly.
Sam Rockwell plays the most troubled character, James Dixon, and the one with the most uncontrolled anger. His arises from deep psychological problems generated by a severely dysfunctional family. Dixon's role is pivotal and seems to provide the emotional energy that drives everyone else. Rockwell won the Oscar this year for Supporting Actor and this was his first nomination. Although he has appeared in dozens of movies, almost entirely in supporting roles, I can't say that I recognized him. After his performance here, and his Oscar win, I suspect we will be seeing more of him.
To have three actors in one movie all receiving Oscar nominations (and two of them winning), is not very common. Last movie with ensemble recognition that I can remember would be American Hustle. But what that should tell you is that the acting is tremendous. And when you get three superior actors interacting in the same movie, the effects are enhanced and reinforced. They play off each other to best advantage, and result in a more powerful film. (Shape of Water, the Best Picture winner, also had three actors nominated.)
But, importantly, this isn't just an acting vehicle. Martin McDonagh wrote and directed the film, and received a writing nomination. He also received a Screenplay nomination for In Bruges which shares similar qualities with this movie in tone and story-line. Both films oscillate between comedy and drama, both films have an undercurrent of violence (maybe a tad stronger in the former movie), and both films leave you a little shocked at your own reaction. McDonaghs credits, as both writer and director, are a short list at this point, but he is still young enough that we will likely hear more from him. Although Three Billboards is a good movie, I don't think McDonagh has yet earned an Oscar.
Finally, the movie received two more, below-the-line, nominations, although it did not win either. The Film Editing, by Jon Gregory (who also did In Bruges) was indeed tight, but I think Baby Driver was more successful. And Carter Burwell was nominated for his Original Score. He did the music for Fargo and appears to have some insight into McDormand's characters. He was also nominated for the music for Carol from two years ago. His music is quirky enough to fit the twists and turns of this film.
This movie is far from perfect, as many critic and audience reviews point out. There are so many points in the movie that one could identify as unrealistic and improbable. If you require complete fidelity to the real world, then you are likely to be disappointed in Three Billboards. But if you want to experience a look into how people in today's world handle anger in all its manifestations, then the movie provides both funny and serious food for thought.
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
A Must See (For Most of Us)
This is the fourth (out of nine) of the 2018 Best Picture Oscar nominees I've seen and, so far the best of a very competitive field. It is also my favorite movie of the entire list of Oscar-nominated movies so far. Of course, expectations were already very high - both critical and audience reviews placed Call Me By Your Name in the top three or four movies of the year. But if I say that it meets expectations, I'm not being completely fair.
To say this is a 'coming of age' story is an accurate statement, but I don't think it goes far enough. As I watched this movie I became very much aware of just how important human contact is to all human beings - how touch, and sexual expression, are so much more than simple human experiences but rather seem to emerge from the core of what it means to be alive. The gut-wrenching challenges that arise in adolescence as we learn how to channel and interpret these needs and impulses is a key part, maybe one of the most essential parts, to growing up.
Call Me By Your Name does not let us down in the exploration of this critical human experience. And I think most of the credit needs to go to the young actor, Timothée Chalamet, an American who, when the movie was filmed was just 20 years old himself, barely into his own understanding of what this all means. He was nominated, but did not win, for Leading Actor this year. However I do not doubt that we will be seeing more of him in the near future. He appeared in 3 other films last year and has at least three more due out this year.
He plays 17 year-old Elio, who is spending a hot summer with his liberal academic parents in a Northern Italian villa surrounded by small town and pastoral scenes complete with swimming holes, calculated to encourage pleasure and self-paced discovery. He is a complex person with interests in music and history and, of course, his changing body. That he is confused and torn by everything going on is a given. He has ample opportunities to explore his budding sexuality and is hot to pursue a French girl, who is more than willing to explore with him.
But his interests turn with the arrival of Oliver, an American graduate student who has come to live and study with Elio's father who is a Greco-Roman scholar. Oliver is played by Armie Hammer. We've seen Hammer before in the Social Network and Lone Ranger. He is certainly attractive enough, and his role is vital to this movie. But I wouldn't argue that he out-performs Mr. Chalamet, by any means.
Oliver appears, at least initially, to be interested in the Italian women around him. But he also develops a fondness for Elio, attracted by his intelligence and honesty. Rapidly, this develops into a gay romance as Oliver and Elio spend increasing amounts of time, and intimacy with each other. Love scenes are not explicit, but are honest. They are not at all gratuitous, but display the profound physical basis for their emotional intimacy. (Oh, and BTW, you will never look at a peach the same way!)
Although audience reaction to the movie has been generally strongly favorable, there have been a number of very negative responses. Mostly these comments seem to be coming from people who are having a hard time with homosexuality. There are also people who claim that the movie's liberal supporters are being hypocritical by ignoring the Elio/Oliver age difference and the 'moral' issues involved there. However, these critiques are not significant, nor even relevant, when you understand that the age of consent in Italy is 14 (Elio is 17), and the relationship is voluntary at every step of its progression. Yes, Oliver is several years older than Elio, but if having sex with someone younger than yourself is a crime, then half the population is guilty in pretty much every sexual encounter. So, for me, the age thing is not an issue. (Us Americans tend to forget that a lot of the world is less prudish than we are.)
So that might leave as a potential problem, for some, the fact that this is a gay relationship. If that is a concern, then pay particular attention to the Father's talk with Elio very near the end of the movie. Although I don't particularly like the Father, I found his talk with his son to be the kind of conversation I wish my own Father could have had with me - I think the world would be a much better place if we all were more like these characters. In fact, for me, the movie provoked thoughts in my own mind that I've often had before - thoughts that argue that maybe we would all be a little emotionally more healthy and mature if we acknowledge that sex and reproduction are related, but not the same thing. And that touch and pleasure are such intrinsic and necessary parts of being human, that the gender of the partner is not really important.
Clearly Elio's relationship with Oliver is important to him. And, like so many relationships, the association between pleasure and pain becomes obvious and inevitable. The final scene in the movie, at the fireplace, is a tremendous statement of both Chalamet's acting skills, and of the power of love, and loss.
The movie won James Ivory the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay. (At 89, he is the oldest person to win an Oscar.). However, I can't say that I recognize any other movies he has written. Furthermore, it is difficult to evaluate the writing of an adapted screenplay unless you have read the source material, which I haven't. I can say that this movie was infinitely better than Logan, the other nominee in this category that I've seen.
It was also nominated for the song Mystery of Love, by Sufjan Stevens. I've been listening to that song as I write this review - it definitely works, especially "how much sorrow can I take".
Certain people shouldn't watch this movie - and you probably already know who you are. For the rest of you, this is a must see experience. One of the best of the year. 4.5 stars (out of 5).
Darkest Hour (2017)
Another Terrific British Historical Drama
The British make different kinds of movies than us Americans do. Americans, always in love with making the most amount of money in the shortest period of time, tend toward the blockbuster spectacles. We invest millions of dollars in special effects computers and, all-too-frequently, measure the success by how quickly the investors see the return.
British films, however, seem to focus more on characters and history. Perhaps because they have a richer history to draw on, I'm not sure, but instead of dazzling displays of technical skill, their films develop their characters and nurture their language. Dialog is much more important and they pay careful attention to their use of language. (Granted, the English accents are sometimes difficult to understand - so much so that sometimes I turn on the English captions in order to comprehend the speech.). As a result, they also tend to develop tremendous character actors. Judy Dench is one of them and we have already seen, and reviewed, her movie this Oscar season, Victoria & Abdul, where she does a terrific job portraying Queen Victoria at the end of the 1800s. The movie, like a lot of British films, does not have a huge range of action, but instead focuses on the conversations and interactions of the characters - something the truly demands high-performance actors if it is to succeed. It certainly does with Dench.
It also does with Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. Oldman, another English actor, has received multiple accolades for his performances in three Batman movies and his role as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies, but his only other Oscar nomination was for his leading role in Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy. His performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour finally brought him a Best Acting Oscar and it is powerfully deserved. He delivers a commanding performance and is clearly responsible for this movie's success. Oldman's performance seems to allow you inside the heartfelt mind behind Churchill's agonizing decision making in May, 1940. Britain had to make critical choices about its future direction as Hitler's assault on Europe reached nearly definitive and final control. Although Churchill seemed at one point to waiver seriously in favor of Chamberlain's strategy of appeasal, he ended up expressing the long-awaited courage that Britain needed at that time, its Darkest Hour. (Roosevelt, on the otherhand, comes across as a cowardly weasel!)
In addition to being Goldman's vehicle for his first Oscar, this movie also won the Oscar for Makeup and Hairstyling. I suspect the acknowledgement goes mostly for the superb job they did on Oldman. The prosthetic nose and jowls they gave him are seamless and I, for one, had to look very closely to recognize Oldman. Although Victoria & Abdul were also nominated in the Makeup category, primarily for the work they did in aging Judi Dench (although they didn't need to age her much), the better work was here in Darkest Hour.
The movie also received nominations for Production Design, Costumes, and Cinematography. I can say that the sets and decorations seemed mostly accurate, although others have identified flaws with certain objects in scenes that didn't belong there. The clothing seemed 1940ish, but since I'm not quite that old, I can't say for sure how accurate it was. Was it of higher quality work than in Phantom Thread (the winner)? - I can't say. But it was certainly more than adequate to represent the scene. And the cinematography was certainly in tune with the title, as nearly all scenes were very dark, reflecting the deep pessimism of the times I suppose, but also requiring some imagination at times to visually understand what was going on!
Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas are the only two females with more than a few lines in the movie. Thomas plays his supportive wife, and James is his secretary. Although the movie has her helping Churchill in major ways with his speech writing, that appears to be a movie license as she did not join his team until later. Another key supporting role comes from Ben Mendelssohn who plays King George VI. In this movie, at least, the king plays a pivotal role in giving Churchill the courage to stand his ground against a withering sea of opposition organized by Chamberlain and Halifax. Whether that is true or not, I don't know.
The movie does take other liberties with the known facts. There is a very important scene that takes place in a London Underground where Churchill meets with London commoners just before giving his major, "Darkest Hour" speech. Apparently there is no historical basis for that scene, although it clearly helps give Churchill the fortitude to fight Hitler and take an entire nation with him.
So the movie may not be totally accurate to history. As long as we acknowledge that, then it is acceptable because a movie isn't required to be 100% accurate as long as it portrays the essence of what happened. And it seem to me that is what British film makers have a special ability to do. The director, Joe Wright, has never been nominated for an Oscar but did direct such great period pieces as Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Hanna, and Anna Karenina. The writer, Anthony McCarten, received a writing nomination for the Theory of Everything, another British biopic about Stephen Hawking. (It is interesting that a lot of the technical crew for Darkest Hour also worked on the Theory of Everything.)
McCarten was not nominated for the Screenplay Oscar for this movie and for a very good reason. The real writing in this movie was done, not in the screenplay, but by Churchill himself as he composed his blistering speeches. Darkest Hour seems to recognize that fact by emphasizing the man and his words as the main vehicles for moving Britain through the dark days of May, 1940. After possibly the most important speech Churchill gave to Parliament, a legislator turns to Lord Halifax and asks 'What just happened?'. To which Halifax replies "He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." That is indeed what happened and it changed the course of history.
And that is what British movies seem to do. They aren't about action and superheroes - Americans do that well. Instead they reflect on history, tradition, language, and character. And that would be the reason to see the Darkest Hour.
For Oldman's performance and a tour through an important piece of history, I give Darkest Hour 4 stars (out of 5). (Also be sure to see Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, dealing with the same time period with a very different artistic perspective.)