Silver Screen Evenings

A cinefile shouting into the void.

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AFI’s Top 100 - #87: 12 Angry Men (1957), or I Have The Anger of 12 Men Inside Because This Isn’t Higher Up the List

I love very few things more than a “bottle” setting, or a singular setting that contains all of the content of the work, like a ship in a bottle. It has the ability to limit the expanse of the work, but can also suffocate intentionally, or simplify to the emotional core. 12 Angry Men (1957) is almost exclusively contained within the confines of a juror’s room, and boy does it make you sweat just as much as the characters to be in there.

In the brilliant text written by Reginald Rose, based on his teleplay of the same name, Twelve jurymen are released from court to decide their verdict in a trial against an 18 year old boy for the murder of his father. In what initially seems as a cut and dry case to eleven of the twelve jurors, Juror No. 8 (Henry Fonda), is not quite so sure. “Supposing we’re wrong?” He uses reason to break down the evidence previously presented in court before the action of the film, so fastidiously, that one by one the other jurors have trouble fighting off the encroaching idea of reasonable doubt. But not before an awful lot of yelling occurs.

Henry Fonda, who also partially bankrolled the movie to make sure it was produced, is clearly our hero, but moral designations are not assigned to those based on their choice of guilty or not guilty. Juror No. 3 (E. G. Marshall) coolly sits in the sweltering room and reflects upon the case with little emotion and logic alone. He cannot be said to have a personal bias influencing him, like the “excitable” Lee J. Cobb with his own disappointing young adult son. The side of not guilty cannot be seen as white knights when the greasy Juror No. 7 (Jack Warden) changes his vote from guilty when the tides begin to turn because his priority is and always was getting to his baseball game on time. There is a moral grayness that is not resolved, nor is it resolvable, in this case. Judgement is not passed on whether the defendant is or is not a murderer - there is only the decision that there is enough doubt to pause when someone’s life is at stake.

The claustrophobia that crushes down upon the explosive, almost real-time arguments is expertly manufactured by the prolific Sidney Lumet (“Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Verdict,” and 47 others) and cinematographer Boris Kaufman (of the infamous Kaufman filmmaking brothers). The film was shot using increasingly longer focal lengths, which gives the illusion of the walls closing in around our ensemble. Even the ceiling feels like it’s pressing down upon the viewer by the third act, as the film gradually moves from shooting above the characters, to eye level, to below eye level. The visual tension tightens its grasp until the very last shot, a wide of Henry Fonda walking confidently off into the summer evening down the steps of the courthouse (one of the only exterior shots at all).

This creativity is necessary in a film trapped so thoroughly within its singular location, but the blocking, too, achieves great effect in such a confined space. When Juror No. 10 (Ed Begley) fires off his ultimate racist diatribe, after generously sprinkling the film with offensive remarks previously, the jurors in turn quietly stand from the table and turn their backs to him. This is deeply arresting visually in a movie that revolves around each juror speaking his turn. Each character, despite remaining nameless, gets their moment to show their well constructed and disparate personality. It may have only really headlined Henry Fonda, but the entire cast portrays the moral quandary played across the mind of each character excellently.

I will give this film all 12 Jurors for being the best courtroom drama of all time - there I said it - and for its amazing creativity in the face of limitations that not only highlights the spectacular script but enhances it. Now give me a stage play version of this, and I’ll be really happy.

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Room (2015), or TV Planet Worlds Are Better than the Real One

When I think too hard about the concept of infinity, my brain shorts out a bit and must reboot by returning to thoughts of the tangible world that I know. Now imagine that an incomprehensible notion is instead “outside.”

Jack (Jacob Tremblay) and Ma (Brie Larson) live such a confined existence that Jack greets the objects in his sparsely furnished room as proper nouns – Door, Sink, Toilet – because, in his mind, the things in Room  are the only objects that exist. They are his friends, but none more so than Ma.

Ma, a young woman who was kidnapped at seventeen by a man called Old Nick by the duo (played by Sean Bridgers), has lived in captivity in a modified garden shed in her assailant’s back yard for the past seven years. She and her five-year-old son are each other’s only companions. Ma survives wholly for her love of Jack, ignoring her own suffering at the hands of Old Nick’s nightly visits, and devoting all her time to keeping Jack healthy and entertained. She teaches him as best she can while protecting him from the harsh reality of their existence. Jack, for his part, knows no better about the world outside Room except what the TV shows, though he is convinced the TV Planets, as he calls them, are not real. Only he and Ma are real. Only he and Ma matter.

After Jack’s increasingly curious nature puts both he and Ma in harm’s way, Ma decides to make a change and find a way out of Room forever. The aftermath blows Jack’s conception of the world wide open, and conversely only causes Ma’s existence to deteriorate. Each step of Jack’s growth is given adequate time and attention, which lends itself well to satisfying pacing. The film neither flies nor drags at any point, but marinates and broils exactly as long as it should.

Room’s screenplay is written by Emma Donoghue, the author of the source material, and while – as with any adaptation – some content is lost or condensed, having Donoghue on board goes a long way in preserve the essence of the novel. The film deals entirely in complex and upsetting subjects, but it is never a broad tragedy. Donoghue and Director Lenny Abrahamson focus often on the possibly mundane details of living and making it day-to-day against adversity, be it making a snake of egg shells and string in place of toys, or the unusual gravity of Jack’s first haircut. They also sidestep some of the worst of violent imagery by following only Jack’s perspective, so that there is a pervasive feeling of unknowing fear, and a frustration at a lack of solution on everyone’s part.

The makers of Room seem to have taken great care to treat the story with respect and sufficient gravity to prevent their creation doesn’t become a lifetime movie. There is no happy ending. That is to say, it isn’t solved at any climactic point - be it an escape attempt, a reunion, a new milestone met. Even the actual ending of the film indicates a continuation for its protagonists. Life, as it is dutifully shown, is harder than making it to a checkpoint. It is a rare and poignant moment that feels open to possibility, but also like a completion of a circle.

Highest praise, beyond the story-telling itself, should go to its actors. Brie Larson draws immense empathy and, in her entire body of work, has brought a naturalism to her performances that engender a deep kinship with viewers. She has been on the radar since her excellent turn in Short Term 12, another draining role, and I truly believe this will get her the recognition and opportunities for further triumphs. Larson is a starlet that will soon drop that suffix, I predict.

Jacob Tremblay should be given his due moment of appreciation for his turn as Jack, as well. Abrahamson worked very closely with the young boy to get the best performance out of Tremblay, and it shows. Watching the gears turn as he adapts to the new domains he inhabits with each passing moment in the wide world is enthralling. In one scene, Jack looks up at the vast sky, enrapt with it’s expanse, with both wonder and fear. His trepidation paired seamlessly with his child-like elasticity makes his development over the course of the film exciting and touching to watch.

Most emphatically, I cannot commend the connection between mother and son as acted by the two. They are each other’s only companions for so many years - for Jack’s entire life - and their bond and trust in the other is the through line of the film. Their lives and sanity wholly depend upon each other. While being in Room is duly alien and claustrophobic, there is a very truthful sense broadcast of the bond of mother and child. As an audience, we may not ever be able to comprehend their tribulations and sufferings, but we can sympathize with the lengths a mother goes to amuse, teach, love, and protect her child. We can understand seeing our parent as the light of our world. We know Ma and Jack in our own families, and that makes Room all the more tender.

Best Picture Nomination

Best Director Nomination: Lenny Abrahamson

Best Actress - Lead Nomination: Brie Larson

Best Adapted Screenplay: Emma Donoghue 

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The Revenant (2015), or Tough Man Toughs Out Tough Stuff

I will say, the only thing this fine film exemplar of the “rugged individual” of American romanticism is trumped by is an EAGLE. Otherwise, it knocked the rest of the Man vs. Nature bit out of the park, with excellent overlays of historically contextualized human conflict, be it motivated by prejudice, hatred, or greed. The strength of The Revenant lies deep within its untouched landscapes and the men who struggle to survive within them.

In the wilderness of the West in 1823, a frontiersman named Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is hired as a guide for a fur trapping group, but runs into life-or-death-or-death-or-death situations, beginning with a brutal attack by a defensive mother grizzly bear. It’s grueling to witness. The ensuing acts follow Glass as he comes close to slipping away and pulls himself out time and again, rising up like a ghastly apparition.

I rather think James Fennimore Cooper would have enjoyed this film, but it doesn’t quite match the fireside tales of yore; it’s much more grisly (GRIZZLY? Don’t mind me.). The hopeful resilience is replaced with desperation. It’s bloody and violent in a manner that might upset weaker stomachs, or even moderate ones.

The bear mauling scene deserves special attention as one of the most memorable scenes of 2015. It was stunning in its untamed, adrenaline inducing action. The collective pulse of the audience races as the struggle continues on almost endlessly but not slowly. Even the mouth breather in the theater seated behind me was auspiciously silent.

The excruciatingly and masterfully long sequence is one of several long takes staged by Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his partner-in-crime, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, whether truly single takes or flawlessly seamed together in the manner of their previous race horse, Birdman. Frankly, I don’t care. They’re awesome in the traditional sense of the word. And terrifying.

In early scene depicts an ambush on the trappers perpetrated by the local First Nations people tribe. It plays out like a scene from Apocalypse Now with visceral gore set against a backdrop of the bright red pelts strung up to dry, the remains of the natural bounty of the land the trappers are reaping without attention to consequence.

Lubezki flits and darts through the sparse coverage and across the water as if the camera was a fearful man fleeing for his life as well. His contribution to the film is a character unto itself and places the audience squarely in the action, getting so close to DiCaprio that the actor’s breath sometimes fogs the lens. He and Iñárritu carefully chose locations that had never graced the screen before so that it would all seem as fresh and undisturbed as it might have for Glass.

Lubezki sets himself up for a potential Triple Crown following Birdman and Gravity before it with Revenant. His vivid imagery was far and beyond my favorite aspect of the film, giving the weight and liveliness to the wilderness that is required of a Man vs. Nature conflict. The sweeping landscapes, flow of water though ice, eye-catching bright spills of blood, and the never-ending horizon over the antediluvian deciduous forests – it’s truly something special to behold. Lubezki provides for our eyes the wonder and fearsomeness of a land untouched by foot or tool.

While the frontier may be the star for me, it is impossible not to give credit where credit is due to the human cast. Even the horse cast did great, but sadly they aren’t given a line in the credits for me to reference. Leo might have his shot at the golden man finally this year, though I will qualify that with the observation that I don’t find this to be his personal best performance in his career. However, depending on who else is in the stables with him, to continue this horse racing metaphor I’ve apparently latched onto, Leo may just claim the top prize and snag an Oscar.

The sheer physical toll exacted by a role such as Hugh Glass must be enormous, and DiCaprio attacks this part with full vigor and soul. He carries the movie, as the titular apparent ghost back from the grave, often alone and without lines or dialogue of any kind. The whole throat injury caused me to have a squeaker of a voice deal, though….quite a shame. It doesn’t aid his performance, I feel, and became distracting when he finally reunites with someone and has a real conversation for the first time in basically an hour.

The ensemble provides commendable support to our beleaguered protagonist. Tom Hardy is at his best – underutilized even! – as a quick to anger mountain man trying to get paid for his labor and time, and learning the harsh reality of the value of men like him in this harsh environment. Hardy gives more complexity to the role than might have otherwise been possible for a character so clearly lined up to be the nefarious and dirty villain to be reviled. 

His foil in Andrew Henry, played by Domnhall Gleeson (Star Wars 7, Brooklyn, Ex Machina, and I’m pretty sure every movie this year), who is not so dynamically built – whether by fault of writing or Gleeson’s performance – but his moral conflict and desire for justice are intriguing. Will Poulter stands out in a supporting role of a very green trapper who is the avatar for the audience’s horror and helplessness in the actions unfolding.

As much as they were a part of the plot, the First Nations characters left more to be desired in their writing. The most important one, Hugh’s half Pawnee son, Hawk, played by Forrest Goodluck, was a blatant metaphor for the massacre of Native American peoples to the degree he isn’t really a character himself. His performance was well enough, just sadly an underutilized character in which Goodluck could not blossom.

Flashbacks to a vague and underdeveloped idyllic past feature Hugh’s Pawnee wife and Hawk’s mother (played by Grace Dove), but are not meaty enough to sufficiently engender proper empathy, and fall fall short. The wife, in fact, is such an afterthought that she doesn’t even get a name. Mrs. Glass, we shall call her I suppose, is one of two “prominent” female roles – both First Nations women – the other being Pawaqua (Melaw Nakehk’o), the chieftain’s missing daughter appears in I believe only two scenes, at which times respectively I was momentarily confused as to her purpose or identity before recalling that Pawaqua even existed.

Both women, and Hawk too, exist entirely as a call to action for the men in their lives. Pawaqua motivates her Dad to vengeance; Hawk and M’Lady Hawk Mom do the same for Hugh Glass. I would be upset about the women and minorities being used as props in a movie clearly about white dudes who are bad asses, but it’s so tired and boring a trope to have loved ones be kidnapped or killed to catalyze the action of a story, or to further marginalize minorities, that I can’t even muster up the energy to be ticked off.

Towards the latter portion of the film, Iñárritu takes Revenant to a place less The Last of the Mohicans and more The Last Unicorn, unfortunately. The spiritualism or borderline magical realism elements just aren’t welcome additions to a story that thrives in its realistic survival sequences. The real story of Hugh Glass is so steeped in mythos that it leaves excellent room for artistic license, shall we say, which is a boon but also may have been pushed too far.

Iñárritu was never one for subtlety, after all, which can be a good thing for his striking imagery, but doesn’t always benefit the plot or the character exposition. I confess that the motif of the swirls, which was likely linked to whatever spiritual take-away I was meant to garner, was quite lost on me. And at a lengthy 156 minutes, it could have behooved Iñárritu to trim some of it down.

It is an exhausting business watching The Revenant, but it leaves you rather thankful that we’ve had a mild winter this year, huh? Plus, I’ve never had to sleep inside the hollowed out carcass of a large animal. It’s the little things, am I right? This film is more than a survival flick. We can leave that to Everest. It lingers on the mind with a slow and creeping staying power not unlike Glass’ own resurgence. I suspect Revenant will have its own resilience under scrutiny, as well, and will find success.

Nominations: 

Best Picture 

Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Best Actor - Lead: Leonardo DiCaprio

Best Actor - Supporting: Tom Hardy 

Best Cinematography: Emmaunuel Lubezki 

Best Costume Design: Jacqueline West 

Best Sound Editing: Martin Hernandez, Lon Bender 

Best Sound Mixing: Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom, Chris Duesterdiek

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman, Robert Pandini

Best Visual Effects: Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith, Cameron Waldbauer

Best Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione

Best Production Design: Jack Fisk, Hamish Purdy 

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Foreign Film Weekends - France: La Passion de Jeanne D’Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), or Falconetti the One Hit Wonder and Dreyer the Exceptionally Creative

Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer created his 1928 magnum opus silent film for the Société Générale des Films of France (which is why I am counting this as French not Danish), and chose the French legendary figure, Joan of Arc as his subject. He poured over original manuscripts of the trials and historical documents to create the script and tapped the unnerving and heartrending acting force that is Renée Jeanne Falconetti, a stage actor with no other major film credits. Nor does she need any to prove her merit. Dreyer pushed his muse to deliver a plaintive performance of a near broken woman by almost breaking the actress herself, and shooting her without make up and with ­lighting designed specifically to make her look gaunt and grotesque.

These techniques are not what we know or expect of cinema today – or even of Old Hollywood or the “classics” that spring to mind. Dreyer’s technique, smack in the middle of the era of German Expressionism and French avante garde – wasted little time on spectacle or glamour and went straight in pursuit of soul and art. Some unusual (by our current expectations) choices include the cinematography choices. Dreyer’s masterpiece is shot chronologically at his behest. It made up entirely of mid shots and close up. There is not one establishing shot to be found. Indeed, that wouldn’t even be possible. The dreary locales were interconnected in an intricate set of moving parts modeled, designed, and built by Dreyer himself to achieve exactly the claustrophobic, bare, and off-putting effect he sought after. The inspired complex was the most expensive film set ever built at the time, and for all that effort; only small glimpses and portions of it are visible at any given moment.

Other approaches taken by Dreyer can be considered almost commonplace today, but were pioneered in part by the director. He painted his behemoth of a set pink to make it a soft grey on the black and white film, which separates it from the stark white sky. He also tended to film characters besides Joan, especially adversaries, in high contrast lighting that provides incredible fall off shadowing (all the more threatening), while giving Falconetti a gentle, even wash of light to balance her out – yet still reveal every imperfection upon her visage. Using lighting to harshly reveal and obscure or alternatively gently illuminate is a passing thought that was still undergoing development as an artistic aspect of film at the time. Dreyer also developed the method of shooting antagonists from below (digging holes in the floor to lower the rig of the camera) in order to visually portray them as looming and menacing, as well as setting characters in the edges of the frame to cause visual unbalance and discomfort. 

Such innovation provides a natural progression for Jeanne D’Arc aesthetically (though “logical” cut sequences are few and far between, but more earnestly reflect the harrowing experience of Joan), but the film most magnificently draws one into the struggle and the distressing reflection upon this martyr’s last days. Poet Hilda Doolittle, known as HD, wrote at length about her appreciation for the drama, gushing for page after page about it’s magnitude of importance. “His is one film among all the films to be judged differently, to be approached differently, to be viewed as a masterpiece, one of the absolute masterpieces of screen craft. Technically, artistically, dramatically, this is a masterpiece” she effuses (Doolittle, 39).  Most strikingly, HD contemplated the difficulty she possessed as she wrestled with the subject matter, with the emotional reaction she felt, and with the film as a piece itself. She muses, “[Dreyer’s The Passion of Jeanne d’Arc] is a film that caused me more unrest, more spiritual forebodings, more intellectual rackings, more emotional torment than any I have yet seen” (42).

For its time, and for any following decade to be sure, Jeanne D’Arc is a masterpiece. It is unlike other films in many ways, but perhaps in this context, most especially in its richness. The feat of artistic direction, of cinematography, of divested acting, of the collaboration of all facets of the creative process, all culminate to fashion a piéce de résistance that is unlike anything predating 1928, and still viably respectable in the hereafter.

For its sheer innovation and ingenuity, I bestow upon Jeanne D’Arc 89 new techniques because that’s probably how many there are here. 

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AFI’s Top 100 - #88: Bringing Up Baby (1938), or THE BABY IS A BIG CAT I DID NOT EXPECT THAT

Yes, you might say, “But there is a leopard right in the cover image!” and to that I reply, I am no observant. Never have been, never will be. You duped me, Director Howard Hawks! Got me real good.

Handsome goober paleontologist David Huxley (Carey Grant) is rather stressed lately. Namely, by nabbing the last bone to his prized Brontosaurus skeleton, his next day marriage to the puss-faced Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), and efforts to secure a cool $1 million (my expert calculations on inflation tell me that in the present day, that would be a lot) for his museum from a wealthy prospective donor, Elizabeth Random (May Robson). Proto-Manic Pixie Dream Girl Susan Vance, a motor-mouthed eccentric who is actually the niece of the donor, wrangles him to look at her new Brazilian pet leopard, Baby (Nissa the Leopard), and decides to try and entrap him in her (misguided) wiles to win his affections. The ensuing harebrained shenanigans that Susan leads the respectively clumsy duo into pit them in an enjoyable battle-of-the-sexes-turned-romance that screwball comedy dreams are made of.

Fun fact: leopards are native only to Africa and Asia, not South America. It’s details like this that don’t really matter when you get into the thick of the film, however. In truth, it’s best to leave all prior contexts at the coat check, otherwise it becomes a game of clichés. There’s a dog who buries a valuable object; zany! Confusion of identity (even leopard identity); crazy! There’s an Irish drunk who drinks; wahoo! The list goes on. But rather than deriding Bringing Up Baby for its reliance on age old tropes, I’ll give it a pass for taking time-tested comedy aspects and making them entertaining in their own right. Where I may raise my eyebrow at some of the dopey mischief, it never made me outright groan.

The prolific classic maker Howard Hawks (Scarface (1932), His Girl Friday (1940), The Big Sleep (1946), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) for instance) was not entirely well honored by his contemporaries – in fact, Baby was reviewed very poorly despite screening well with audiences – but I think he gets it. The late 30s Depression-era filmography was kind to light comedies of this sort. Audiences needed a boost of genuine and simplistic humor to uplift their states of mind. Baby is cheery and never complex. While the tomfoolery flits here and there, one barely needs to follow the plot (what plot there is) to take pleasure in the exploits of the perplexing Susan and mild-mannered David.

The couple, Hepburn and Grant, star in their second feature together of four, followed by Holiday (1938) and the pinnacle Hepburn film, The Philadelphia Story (1940). Despite repairing the two as romantic leads - in all of which they have excellent chemistry - this is Katherine Hepburn’s first and only screwball comedy. Reportedly, early in the shoot she was so exaggerated and frankly unfunny that Hawks brought in Vaudeville veteran Walter Catlett to tutor her. Catlett was later hired as Baby’s bumbling Sheriff Slocum at the behest of Hepburn. Hepburn is lovely in the film, attractive and madcap, but there is still an air of trying very hard. A for effort, though. I prefer it to actor’s who phone it in. Carey Grant is gifted with more experience in comedy as well as a significantly less annoying character (how does one make a part that’s description is “annoying” endearing after all? Hepburn did quite well in that light). He is flustered and compliant to the whims of Susan in due turn and admirably plays the easy foil to her loony lady.

Bringing Up Baby and its ilk are effectively the 20th century answer to Shakespearean comedy. Sparring couples, witty dialogue, mischievious capers. Screwball rom-coms lift the spirit of Much Ado About Nothing and All’s Well That Ends Well straight off the pages and smack onto the screen. That’s what silly comedy is good for: to help alleviate present sorrows with a brief respite of uncomplicated absurdity and a happy ending. And with a film as jocular as Baby, it doesn’t have to be innovative. Just amusing.

Bringing Up Baby gets 70 animal actors, despite only having two in the cast (the other is a pup named Skippy!). A good time to be had by all, I can nearly guarantee it.

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Michael Moore Hates America (2004), or Master Manipulators

I must admit I could not make it through Michael Moore’s much acclaimed documentary, Bowling For Columbine. I couldn’t make it halfway even. The egregious efforts of Moore to shock and appall are the defining characteristics of his style: disquieting and attention-seeking. You have to hand it to him; it is an effective method of drawing attention to a genre of nonfiction that is often overlooked by the masses. Though where the line is drawn between provocative and seditious is vague in this case. The responsive documentary, Michael Moore Hates America, is a commentary upon Moore’s blurred lines. When does the masterful editing and one could even say fabricating of a story in documentary form become pure story telling? It can be hard to tell, even in expose docs like America.

The one undeniable truth that can be given to Michael Moore’s Columbine is that it is incendiary. It whips viewers into a frenzy of confusion and anger over a disappointment of a country. But is it an unfair depiction? Though documentaries are meant to be works of nonfiction, even newsreels are subjective. The subjectivity comes about in the editing process. Clips are chosen or cut to create an engaging narrative story – but that is exactly what it becomes: a story. It is not just a motion picture documentation of history any longer. It is a commentary. The moment the puzzle working of the edit begins, a documentary film loses credible objectivity.

Wilson shows in America how fallacious ”nonfiction” film can be. The memorable opening scene in which Moore walks out of the bank with a rifle slung over his shoulder was staged and cut in an unfair manner. The Charlton Heston speech after Columbine, too, was an amalgamation of more than one speech of his over a long period of time. It paints a picture of these somewhat to entirely unwilling stars of the documentary that is not what they expected or what they deserved, frankly. It is not truthful.

However, there can be an argument that no documentary is truthful. Wilson deceives a speaker for the town of Davison in order to get footage for his Michael Moore centric doc, but does not admit to this until later. This is the most overt example, but certainly there are other little bits added and corners cut here and there to shape the film into a cohesive whole. Who is to say the Moore is not doing the same thing, only to a higher level? 

There should rightly be a discussion about gun violence in America. Is depicting the country and its citizens in an inflammatory manner inexcusable or simply a canny method to arouse interest? The fact remains that it cannot be called “truth.” Much like reality TV is “reality,” documentaries must fall under these same ramifications. The creators of documentaries don’t document so much as they manipulate. They create the story they want to portray from slices of the truth sewn together in a new and debatably illuminating way. Is it forthright? Maybe not. But it is intriguing.

Michael Moore gets 2 indignant huffs, and Michael Moore gets many. That’s my final word. 

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AFI’s Top 100 #89 - The Sixth Sense (1999), or An Emotionally Driven Ghost Story

M. Night Shyamalan may not have a spiffy reputation these days (no one mention the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie and maybe it will cease to exist), but anyone who can remember this turn of the millennium classic in the making’s first release, knows of its notoriety. And for the later generations, the out-of-nowhere surprise is ruined, but hey. It’s still a good time. 

Eight-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) has a problem. He sees dead people. Ghosts visit him with requests they cannot solve themselves (see: dead people), but cannot move on without resolving (see: ghosts). Cole becomes the first patient of child psychologist  Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) after his recovery from an altercation with a former patient that ended in shots fired. Crowe shows no signs of external injury, but is still dealing with the emotional shockwaves caused by the incident, and his marital troubles with a wife who won’t even speak to him. Together, Dr. Crowe and Cole delve into the unwilling little medium’s powers and uncover secrets and their consequences. 

First, let’s give a hand to Mr. Shyamalan, the director and writer of this sort of thriller. It really is impeccably written, despite it’s author being written off in Hollywood today. The actors, for their part, take the dialogue and understated ghostly horror and play it organically. Bruce Willis, known best for action-y type roles, tends to act flat - which isn’t so bad when a movie doesn’t call for depth, but can get him into trouble, vis a vis the previous year’s Armageddon (1998). Here, Willis expresses himself with unprecedented subtlety and subdued seriousness that may just be his usual flatness in a different context, but he has an earnestness to his performance that makes it work. It’s Willis at his best. 

Haley Joel Osment more than keeps up with his adult costars, in fact outshining them in most cases. For an actor so young, Osment conquers a role that foists upon him the bulk of the dialogue and reaction. He emotes the terror and confusion and loneliness that Cole is plagued with and has excellent timing and inflection in his tête-à-têtes with Dr. Crowe. It brings a chilly discomfort to the viewer that taps into that long forgotten part of the psyche where children’s fears lie. It may make you squirm or shiver, depending on how viscerally you feel that guileless trepidation. 

They say that kids are more readily able to reach out to the spirits that haunt this world yet because they haven’t yet grown up to block the connections with cynicism and disbelief. I say, despite the catchphrase and the twist ending being beaten to death in pop culture, give The Sixth Sense its due and try your best to watch it with child-like wonder and innocence. 

The Sixth Sense gets 34 unseen ghost people because of its slow-build horror, authentic and gripping acting from its two leads, and good plays on an old story. Now excuse me while I go ponder the implications of the ending for a while. 

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Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), or Meta-Theatre-Movie-PoMo-Performances: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Camera Work)

There is something to be said about the gamble of constructing an entire movie around a principle actor that just cannot be played by anyone else. It’s risky, but oh, that sweet, sweet harmony it creates if it works out. In the case of Birdman and its star, Michael Keaton, it hits the right note very consciously. 

Washed up, over-the-hill action movie star Riggan Thomson (Keaton), whose former Birdman superhero role parallels Keatons own turn as Tim Burton’s Batman, has staked his remaining repute (and all of his finances) on a theatre adaptation of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” in a play to regain some respectability and artistic recognition. It may just cost him. 

The players of this film, technical and on screen, must have works awfully hard to make it look easy - just as the theatre team, with Riggan at the helm as showrunner, director, writer, and star - drove themselves mad. The ensemble performance is extraordinary, as actors weave in and out of the single train of thought projected in the movie. Ed Norton (as the fickle and explosive, but talented Mike Shiner) also plays somewhat to a mirror image - or exaggeration really - of himself as a serious actor, man, but brought a surprising and satisfying comedy to the larger than life character who could only exist in the world of theater. Conversely, Zach Galifianakis plays a very un-typified lawyer/agent/producer/something fellow, friend to Riggan at the very least I could deduce.  He brings a certain amount of humor, true, but Galifianakis primarily brings an intensity and sarcastic edge to the satirical drama. 

The ladies of Birdman, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, and Amy Ryan, all do wonders with what is given to them - that is to say, little. But they all play excellent foils to Riggan in turn. The standout female role goes to Emma Stone, the cynical and fragile daughter-slash-assistant of Riggan. Their relationship - and her sizzling interactions with Mike Shiner - draw more attention than any other. Stone delivers a blistering monologue to her father about how no one, most especially he, doesn’t matter in this world. So get over it. 

But he can’t. Riggan has invested everything in this play and even as the tempest of the theatrical world wreaks havoc as opening night nears, he can’t let go. So much so that he begins to hear the rasping voice of his former alter ego, Birdman, and even sees a physicalized specter of the masked avenger. Birdman taunts him and follows him about whispering negative and illicit criticism worse than the worst your low self-esteem could muster. But the co-morbid possible superpowers Riggan himself has? Seemed like one too many gimmicks in one film. 

Speaking of which, one feature that got a great deal of buzz beyond the meta acting was the incredibly creative cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki of Gravity acclaim. He and the mastermind Director/Writer Alejandro González Iñárritu spent countless hours on a makeshift soundstage crafting and choreographing the blocking that winds in and around the St. James’ Theatre that was necessary to give the illusion of a single long take that comprises the entire film. It’s reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), which also attempted somewhat more clumsily to achieve the effect (though for a 60+ year difference, I can only imagine Hitchcock would have done much better as González Iñárritu has done). For his part, Alejandro González Iñárritu - known best for the gorgeous downers Babel (2006) and Biutiful (2010) - worked to fabricate this project perfectly from top to bottom in order to perfect its post-modern winking, meta but satisfying acting, and mind-numbingly intricate motion. 

For all its acrobatics, Birdman is best when it toys with gimmicks and tropes and transfigures them into lively constructions that are not entirely new - just well done. It’s superb acting and blocking is immersive, but there is still that feeling I can’t shake that González Iñárritu is somewhere with a raised eyebrow and an “ehh? ehh?” asking me to ponder his satirical and inventive brilliance, watching me until I nod in appreciation. And I do. But try not to be so aware of it next time. This film and it’s creators are too knowledgeable of their own ingenuity and it is palpable. Still, there is a life to Birdman, a whispering voice that I just can’t shake from my mind. 

For the lauded best movie of the year, I give 8 curtain calls, because while it is deserving of praise and is astonishingly amazing, I think it has received enough attention without the added useless opinion of a nobody blogger. Go back to the awards circuit for more fawning, if need be. 

OSCARS 2015

Best Motion Picture of the Year (Win)

Best Directing (Win): Alejandro González Iñárritu 

Best Writing, Original Screenplay (Win): Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo

Best Achievement in Cinematography (Win): Emmanuel Lubezki OscarBest Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Nominated): Michael Keaton Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Nominated): Edward Norton Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Nominated): Emma Stone Best Achievement in Sound Mixing (Nominated): Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Thomas Varga

Best Achievement in Sound Editing (Nominated): Aaron Glascock, Martín Hernández

Honorable Mention: Antonio Sánchez for Original Scoring (disqualified by the Academy for using in large part the works of classical composers such as Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky), whose original music composed for the film, predominantly frenetic and jazzy drumming, does a great deal for the film and even plays a part in it (as part of Riggan’s fantasy world). My two cents. 

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Foreign Film Weekends - South Korea: Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom/Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring (2003), or the Circle of Life but not the happy Lion King kind. 

Director Kim Ki-duk is known for his “arthouse” films, but also courts controversy over depictions of animal cruelty, violence, and perhaps misogyny in his films (think Oldboy, another South Korean affair, but like....way less). With Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring, Kim may not have shied away from questionable animal cruelty, but drew a very different kind of attention in relation to the tone of his film. 

Spring is a Buddhist fable. I felt like I was experiencing something very important in watching something so simple and so meaningfully derived. Much like the religion it abides by, Spring embraces the sometimes painful existence one experiences within the wheel of life (a Tibetan Buddhist concept), which is bound - or doomed? - to repeat itself, just as the seasons roll around each year. 

The film is broken down into five parts, the titular order of seasons, that follow the lives of an elderly monk (Oh Young-soo) and his apprentice monk who live on a floating one room house on the isolated Jusan Pond, which serves as both hideaway from the world and temple for prayer and meditation. As a child, the Child Monk (Kim Jong-ho) learns the suffering of cruelty and of guilt upon the soul when he sees the consequences of his juvenile torment upon animals. As an adolescent, Boy Monk (Seo Jae-kyeong) experiences the fires of love and lust when The Girl (Ha Yeo-jin) stays at the hermitage to become well. The Young Adult Monk (Kim Young-min) receives penitence from his master to clear his tormented soul of anger and fear. Finally, the monk, now a grown man, survives the old monk and pursues peace of heart and presence of mind through Buddhist practices and atonement, and eventually becomes the master himself to a new child novice (Song Min-young). 

The plot unfolds naturally and leaves the commentary upon the season’s of a man’s life to be colored by the presence of Buddhist iconography and symbolism, rather than guide or force any meaning to be gleaned. There is no exposition to be found here. One might even lose some appreciation for the depth of the symbolism without a knowledge of Korean and Buddhist metaphor. I took notes and looked things up after finishing my screening, and felt sad that I did not make connections during my viewing that could have influenced my understanding better. 

The raft house is almost an ark with the number of animals featured in this film - a dog, a rooster, a cat, many snakes, some fish, frogs, and a turtle. And a partridge in a pear tree. All of them have meanings that, as a non-eastern or non-Buddhist viewer, I simply did not get. For instance, there are many and sundry a snake in all of the chapters of this film, which I so western-ly associated with sin and corruption a la Adam and Eve. However, serpents in Buddhism symbology are guardians and mythic protectors, who watched over the monk in Spring especially when he needed it in the “winter” of his life when he was alone (I think I saw half a dozen of the buggers). The Elder Monk has a white cat, whose tail he uses to ink the rites of atonement for the Younger Monk to carve out. Korean culture traditionally portrays felines as creatures that drive away bad spirits and unseen tormenters, which the young monk most certainly required at the time. Roosters equal new beginnings and hope for the budding relationship of the monk’s youth, Turtles equal longevity and predictions of the future, as the new apprentice child seems destined to repeat the monk’s mistakes. And there I was, just thinking, “oooh! a kitty!” Clearly a lot stands to be lost from this complex film without proper context, which not all may have. 

No matter what the background of an audience, there are a few unalienable qualities to Spring. Firstly, Baek Dong-hyeon’s cinematography under Kim Ki-duk’s direction is masterful. It is simple and gorgeous. Long and distant wide shots of the lake, the landscape, and the little raft house show its isolation, cloistered in the mountains under the watchful gaze of ever-changing nature surrounding it. The final shot of the film sees a Buddhist holy statue placed atop a mountain by Adult Monk looking down upon the lake without judgement and at once, I felt peace and satisfaction, which I often don’t with open ended movies that perhaps lack closure to my tastes. This open end doesn’t leave loose strings, though, but depicts life as continuous and cyclical, and I understood. 

Composer Ji Bark really helped me find that zen with his beautiful, peaceful, and occasionally very eastern sounding scoring. A song written specifically for the film is sung in the fifth act, and it is aching and timeless, modern and traditional at once. It is transcendent of the strictures of time just like the film which it accompanies. 

Yet Spring is not unaffected by time, just not dependent upon it. It shows the circle that life may and often will follow, but it gives the simple hope of learning from the grand design of nature. Kim is quoted in an interview saying, ''If we were able to remember life's lesson from spring we wouldn't repeat them, but like winter which rots away the leaves and freezes over everything, like the seasons' patterns, our patterns in life will make us forget and repeat our past mistakes. This is not only a Buddhist idea but one of the facts of life.” 

The seasons of our lives and of human existence continue to follow each other in turn. Spring is a meditation upon one man’s individual life, but also upon the human experience and the hope life provides. 

I’m feeling all introspective and philosophical now, so I’m going to give Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring 60 nice snakes for its objectively stunning cinematic style and grace, for its simplicity of expression within the most complex concept we have - life - and for it’s motifs which were awesome when I knew what they actually meant. 

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Foreign Film Weekends - South Korea: Secret Sunshine/Milyang (2010), or Deeply Upsetting and Quietly Amazing

Jeon Do-yeon’s grieving protagonist, Shin-ae, does not stand up to tragedy with the stoic strength of a martyr, nor does she weep quiet and beautiful tears. She wails, she heaves, she moans, she flails. She laments. Shin-ae is a fallible and flawed woman played to perfection.

After the death of her husband in a car accident, Shin-ae moves with her young son, Jun (Seon Jung-yeop), to the husband’s childhood hometown, Miryang. When Shin-ae asks her first local aquaintence, the puppy-like Mr. Kim (Song Kang-ho), what Miryang is like, he replies, “There’s nothing strange about it. It’s like everywhere else.” Shin-ae desperately hopes the small town is her escape from the sadness of her former life in Seoul, but like Mr. Kim says, Miryang, with it’s nosy and judgmental residents, is no different.

Shin-ae opens a piano school and goes about trying to make friends and find land to invest in, but she struggles to fit in. She doesn’t quite finds her solution when a cataclysmic misfortune befalls her. What ensues after this game-changer about a third of the way in changes the tone from a hushed slice of life comedy to a horror. Secret Sunshine becomes a compelling study of grief and solace and the relationship between them and within Shin-ae’s utterly changed life.

Jeon takes this unimaginably difficult role in stride, winning her the best actress award at the 2007 Cannes Festival. Jeon is a Cannes darling, and well recognized on the festival circuit, for good reason. She must carry the film, so prominently about the turmoil of this one woman, but does so with visceral candor. Shin-ae is a guileless wreck, which Jeon emotes excruciatingly as the character whips violently between extremes of devastation at great loss and blind joy and the discovery of faith in God.

A most agonizing scene encompasses this searing pain when it presents an evangelical Christian congregation engaged in jubilant song. A long, fixed shot trains itself on the parishioners as they sing their hymn, which is steadily drowned out by a dreadful and guttural howling from out of shot – an overcome Shin-ae, who quiets when the pastor places his hand upon his new congregant. The sequence takes no mysticism or exaggeration to the evangelical gathering. Director Lee Chang-dong, not a Christian himself, seems to contemplate the hold Evangelical Christianity has on South Korea in the latter half of his film. Korea, second only to the US in evangelicals and Protestant Christian missionaries sent abroad, houses eleven of the twelve biggest evangelical churches in the world. It is a massive cultural force in the nation that Chang-dong manages to represent in its complexity and in its draw through his harrowed convert protagonist and the smiling veterans that surround her.

Lee Chang-dong navigates the multiplicity of faith with the same grace with which he maneuvers through minor interactions and major horrors in turn. The comfort of finding God fills her life with radiant joy until she attempts to show how great a believer she is by going to forgive the culprit of her afflictions. When she meets him, his face mirrors hers: full of the bliss of being born again in faith. Her last bastion was God’s support behind her, but He had already touched the malefactor, as well. Shattered, Shin-ae is derailed from her newly meaning-infused life.

Secret Sunshine does not explicitly agree with or mock religion, though. It expresses skepticism, and features as much diversity in those that number the ranks of organized religion as Lee can managed, but it does not do the one thing the evangelicals set out to do – preach.

Instead, the film reflects on how life can be cobbled together into a meaningful existence through lying to oneself. This doesn’t even necessarily entail coping, just surviving. Shin-ae refuses to acknowledge glaring issues in her life, such as her late husband’s infidelity and dishonorable behavior, or the ulterior motives of her neighbors and fellow Christians. She lies about being wealthy enough to buy property to impress the townsfolk in a place she pretends will be different for her. Kim, the almost pathetic semi-stalker of Shin-ae turned singular support system, is wildly in denial about his clearly unrequited feelings, not to mention his fake piano credentials for Shin-ae or his fake new conversion to Christianity to spend more time with her. Most broadly, the film even tackles the lie of religion – but not to tear it down. Faith is a knowing lie of survival.

Shin-ae muses to Kim as she looks up to the blindingly blue sky that Miryang, in its literal translation, means “secret sunshine.” This invisible warmth is the key to the titular film. Some suggest it is the relief found in religion, in faith in what cannot be seen, but Shin-ae finds this assuaging of her anguish to be evanescent. Jeon ends her bright performance in a dark film with her face basked in sunlight, as the camera pans to a patch of dirt similarly bathed. Perhaps the secret sunshine Lee is pursuing, moving his protagonist’s sights from the heavens to the land, is a grounding in the simplicity of earth rather than the complexity of the unknown.

Secret Sunshine gets 27 good cries, which is approximately how many times I cried heavily during this film, actually. 

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The Big Lebowski (1998), or A Mainsteam Cult Classic And Jumbo Shrimp on the Side 

The Big Lebowski  is arguably the first cult smash hit of the Internet age. The Coen Brothers followed their Oscar winning 1996 hit Fargo with a bizarre dark comedy, to the confusion of even the most affectionate of Coen fans, and it bombed at the box office. However, through word of mouth – or more like the word passed along chats and online forums, the quirky mess of a comedy took on a life of its own on video and found a life of it’s own.

Lebowski is a foolhardy comedy of miscommunication, which is often a common theme in Coens movies, though never quite in this vein of ridiculousness. Aging hippie bowler, The Dude (Jeff Bridges) - more formally Jeffrey Lebowski - is caught up in the high octane shenanigans of another, richer Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) when strangers break into his home and urinate on his rug, looking for the Big Lebowski. The wealthy Lebowski’s young floozy of a wife (Tara Reid) is then allegedly kidnapped and The Dude is sucked into the negotiations, with the detrimental “aid” of Vietnam vet and bowling friend Walter (John Goodman), the influence of his “f***ing lady friend” Maude Lebowski of the greater Lebowski clan (Julianne Moore),  and the innocent and almost negligible presence of his sweet bowling buddy Donny (Steve Buscemi). The Dude, who just wanted his rug cleaned, experiences “a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what have yous” before the adventure finally comes to a close when everything is said and done.

The bread and butter of cult hits is quote-ability, which Lebowski has in spades, albeit very few of them are expletive free. The liberal serving of curse words perhaps even furthers the notoriety of the lines. Another cult requirement is outlandish and farcical characters – adjectives that can be ascribed to really any of the characters from The Nihilists to Treehorn the adult filmmaker, but most especially to the eccentric Walter and The Dude.

From there, how Lebowski took on a life of it’s own is a mystery, and may just be The Dude’s only stroke of real good luck. The film has spawned a large fandom, in which viewing is practically a right of passage for high school boys and film lovers alike. Midnight screenings happen regularly on a national scale, with out loud quoting from the audience to rival and Rocky Horror Picture Show screening. There is a Lebowski Fest in Louisville, Kentucky yearly. There is even a religion, Dudeism (It’s verifiable; just Google it), that guides its disciples of the Dude to learn to Dudeify their lives to the fullest (pro tip: Always keep a Credence tape in your car). It’s a bona fide cultural phenomenon.

This begs the question, though, has Lebowski gotten too big? Does it’s widespread cultural permeation and easily identifiable trademarks draw it out of the dark and shady realms of cult notoriety and thrust it into the limelight? One could argue that it loses some of its cult authenticity when it’s no longer that hard to find, generally unwatched/unliked flick that just you and a few of your nerd friends watch at a midnight screening. Lebowski is beloved by two or three generations of white teenaged boys and/or potheads. 

Whether it deserves to be a cult sensation is not up to my judgment, but it’s status thoroughly permeates the social sphere of American culture, so clearly many would affirm its worthiness. It is certainly one of the stranger additions to the Coens’ repertoire, but one of the most lasting. I think boils down to Lebowski’s ability to be broadly comedic, but niche in some respects; more or less dark and edgy in it’s humor, but widely understandable; quotable; visually stunning and still narrative driven; and above all, effortlessly quotable.  The Big Lebowski had the odds stacked against it as a hit, but when the universe asked it to become a cult, well, “The Dude abides.”

I’ll toast to this cult classic getting a bit too big for its britches with 10 White Russians. What a ride. 

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Flight (2012), or Denzel, My Man.

Addict and pilot Whip Whitaker, played by the illustriously charming Denzel Washington even in this grim role in Flight, tosses on a pair of aviator sunglasses as he departs for his flight from Florida to Atlanta, Ga. He oozes the cool and the square-jawed composure we’ve come to expect of a Denzel character. Only the audience sees the bloodshot and dilated eyes beneath the shades – indicative of his drug and alcohol habits the previous night and even that day in the airplane. Washington does not shy away from the harrowing aspect of addiction in order to preserve his cool guy image, but rather, expertly harnesses the chill façade as a method of showing a man who has lost everything and yet has no remorse.

On the fateful day veteran flyer Whip Whitaker takes to the skies, he mixes some vodka into his orange juice, does a line of cocaine, and passes control to his co-pilot (Brian Geraghty as Ken Evans) as he passes out. He comes to during the most stomach-lurching and realistic plane accident scene I have seen in recent memory – that reminds me why I find air travel so unnatural and risky. Whitaker is able to invert the plane to pull it out of a perilous nosedive, then right it and crash land it in a field. As the plane passes overhead, heroin addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly) shoots up with a blend so powerful it’s called “The Taliban.” Whip and Nicole later meet in the hospital in the aftermath and kindle a romance. Only six people die in the crash, and Whip is lauded as a hero for his inspired maneuvering. He retires to his father’s farm for a time, attempting to get clean, but when tox screens done during his unconscious period in the hospital turn up positive for cocaine and alcohol, Whip is dragged into a legal battle of a lifetime.

Denzel Washington garnered himself an Oscar nod for his performance, and truly he is the force keeping this film aloft. Rather than a melodramatic and emotional performance, Washington takes the complex character fabricated by screenwriter John Gatins and portrays all of the falsity of the front of an addict with all of the palpable agony, seen only through Washington’s emotive eyes.

A strong ensemble duly supports Washington, and includes discerning lawyer Don Cheadle, Whip’s dealer and garish Hawaiian shirt purveyor John Goodman, and Justin Martin as a son who has lost faith in his prodigal father. Kelly Reilly’s performance as Nicole is believable; I take ire only with the decision on the part of Director Robert Zemeckis to introduce her via a completely detached cut to her and her drug deal in the midst of the foreboded flight. It left the interesting action and gave me a character I didn’t want to care about at the time, which doomed her to my apathy for the extent of the film.

Zemeckis’s first live action endeavor since the impressive feat, Cast Away (2000), reminds us all how well the man can create when he is not spending a decade or so of his time on dreary motion capture movies like Beowulf (2007). He certainly breaks no molds with Flight, but Zemeckis keeps the enormous beast of a film chugging along in the sky almost ‘til the bitter end. He partners with Director of Photography, Don Burgess, to provide secondary camera movements and visual narration that floats about lightly in a field, sprints down plane aisles, speeds alone the light of coke, and mires itself in heavy close ups. The crash scene walks the delicate line between nauseating and unrealistic to deliver a horrifyingly real experience. Outside of the action, a long, still close up on a miniature bottle of vodka captures all of the desperation for a drink that Whip feels the night before his trial, all of the yearning and internal conflict – in just a motionless close up.

Zemeckis does not, however, escape the quagmire of Hollywood narrative convention, and falls victim to pop culture in this instance, where he has played it to his own advantage in the past (see flicks like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Of 1988). Flight has alcoholic mood swings itself, from disaster drama to romance to family drama to courtroom procedural to inspirational tragedy in turn. It’s like the movie, with its impeccable woven character, Whip Whitaker, cannot decide in which genre to place him.

The ending too, while duly bitter and lonely, is a bit cloying for me yet. Whip confesses to intoxication and faces his sentencing without any regrets at his decision to do right finally, and then sobers up in prison in order to give a final speech about not feeling remorse for doing right, hoping to rekindle his relationship with his son. Hollywood probably wouldn’t allow an addict to be an addict at the end of a film, I suppose. There needs to be that redemption in order to seal the deal and give it ample opportunity to be a hit, which Flight arguably was indeed.

I can’t help but feel that the salvation obsession in cinema is not to the benefit of this particular film, though. The draw of Whip Whitaker is his uncomfortable reality. There are many scenes in this film that are striking in their attention to detail to real life, to the point that audiences could become uneasy with how familiar the goings-on are. The truthful portrayal of substance dependence is the engaging factor, so to have the two addict characters clean up and find love makes me grimace almost as much as watching a pilot snort a line before taking off. The ultimate convention of Flight causes the intricate machine that is the complexity of the film to shudder to a halt and crash land.

How about 3 lines of coke for our dear Flight attendants? One for Denzel, one for the return of Zemekis to live action, and one for the plane scene. Have fun. 

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Whiplash (2014), or Wax On, Scare Off: A Volatile Teacher-Student Dynamic: The Musical! (Kidding).

Not since Gordon Gekko have we seen a mentor so poorly suited to the job. Though admittedly there isn’t so much illicit activity here as in Wall Street (1987), there is more ethical grey area in the beneficially of these questionable teaching practices. Writer/Director Damien Chazelle punches life into the stale teacher-student genre with the depraved relationship of a jazz teacher and his percussionist that provides no “warm and fuzzies” or rewarding conclusions. 

An ambitious young jazz drummer, Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), is a first year at New York’s elite Shaffer Conservatory. After a chance encounter with notorious teacher and band conductor Terence Fletcher (Oscar winner J.K. Simmons), Andrew is invited to be an alternate in his prestigious jazz band at the conservatory. Fletcher is infamous for a reason; his explosive and abusive treatment of his students, constantly berating and mocking them, peaks as he flings a chair at Andrew when he cannot keep tempo with the band during a rehearsal of the piece, “Whiplash.” 

Fletcher believes that the impetus of fear drives his students to greatness and perfection beyond any other instructional tactic, using the less than credible anecdote of when Jo Jones threw a cymbal at Charlie Parker’s head when he played poorly, humiliating him and pushing him to achieve the legendary status he did as Bird. And Fletcher does humiliate them. He physically and mentally abuses them often to their breaking points, but at other times it seems to be perversely gainful. 

The over-investment and aggression can be seen recently in mentally ill mentor John du Pont of Foxcatcher (2014) too, but his pupil fairly consistently does not profit from the guidance. Andrew, however, starts on a path to becoming a jazz phenomenon. Andrew breaks up with his girlfriend (Melissa Benoist) to better focus on his music, playing until his hands bleed and then playing some more. He becomes something of Fletcher’s protégé and is tested heavily by his teacher. 

The character of Fletcher could have been a parody of the vindictive and quick-tempered mentor had he not been played by the tour-de-force of J.K. Simmons. The man dresses in all black. He effectively radiates “villain.” But there are times when Andrew succeeds, even manages to impress his mentor, that Fletcher’s teaching style almost seems worthwhile (if dehumanizing). The lasting psychological damage wrought on his students is only too apparent, though.

Miles Teller, who arguably will be Hollywood’s next young star, has all of the chops to keep up with Simmons. Andrew has a perfect youthful balance of contradictions – ambitious and nervous, fearful and ultimately aggressive. Andrew has talent of his own, but the defining line between his own doggedness and the drive of Fletcher is increasingly murky. 

The two actors could have carried this film to a pleasant reception, but the entirety of its production is tight and well tuned. Chazelle doesn’t miss a beat and infuses his film with tension and drama almost akin to a thriller at times, despite a frequent location being the dark rehearsal rooms of a school building. Sufficient credit must also be given to cinematographer, Sharone Meir, who never bores the eye even in what could be repetitive positions and shots (Andrew sits at a drum kit for who knows how much of the movie). Whiplash is also exceptionally well edited by Tom Cross, who does some conducting of his own as he cuts and dashes about to the rhythm of the performances. The subtle visual choices made by this team weave a symphonic artistic display all of its own. 

Whiplash is not only the name of a song the band plays but the feeling the viewer may experience upon finishing the film. It is a draining and mercurial story that bursts out of the gate from the start and does not lose its tempo. The implications of Fletcher’s detrimental instruction upon his pupils played out before one’s eyes in Andrew and in others causes a niggling and cringe-worthy sympathy pain that can be obscured but cannot be ignored. One thing can be relied upon: Whiplash neither rushes nor drags.

For this little number, I’m going to give Whiplash 900 drum rolls for its consistency, skillfulness, and drum-related subject matter. 

OSCARS 2015 

Best Actor Win: J.K. Simmons

Best Editing Win: Tom Cross 

Best Sound Mixing Win: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley

Best Picture Nom

Best Writing Nom: Damien Chazelle

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The Family (2013), or A Confusing Maybe Mob Movie Slash Heartwarming Family Flick? 

Reportedly, the work f**k is said 300 times in Goodfellas (1990). Well, The Family doesn’t near this record, but a film centered around Robert DeNiro’s most recent turn as a New Yorker (former) mob boss Giovanni Manzoni derives a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humor from the dirty word. DeNiro’s son, Warren (John D’Leo), says it best when he describes his father’s articulation of the word to be almost poetic for it’s ability to cover the gambit of human emotion and expression – in just a single exclamation. French director Luc Besson’s The Family, however, never really explores that spectrum very thoroughly. In the plodding, almost grueling dark comedy, the humor sits somewhere above crude, but certainly falls quite short of wit.

Audiences can yet revel in the absurdity of the violence perpetrated by a family of lunatics. The Manzonis – patriarch Gio, his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose Italian-American accent fades in and out as it suits her, and the kids Warren and Belle (Dianna Agron) – have been uprooted from their seat of power in the Brooklyn mafia scene by the Witness Protection Service (helmed by exhausted FBI agent Robert Stansfield played by Tommy Lee Jones) after Giovanni rats on his mob “family.” The Manzonis settle into a small Normandy town after…let’s say, unsuccessfully settling in to locations in Paris and the French Riviera.

It’s no wonder they had to be moved so abruptly, with they way this family carries on. Gio is burying a body he’d brought from the Riviera before he even enters the house. Maggie blows up a grocer’s shop after he makes fun of her when she asks for peanut butter. Belle has a penchant for beating people up. Warren is a budding con artist with a knack for forgery and manipulation. What a nice nuclear family unit.

While watching DeNiro break a plumber’s legs in twelve places for trying to swindle him or drag a man behind his car for even less can provide surprising humor for its absurdity, the family generally comes off as simply bad people. Maggie tries to rediscover her Catholic faith and inadvertently mentally scars a priest during confession. And while I feel bad for her, I can hardly blame him for asking her to go.

The climactic sequence is the first time their brutality finds its mark on deserving targets – bounty hunters – instead of random French citizens whose crimes generally peak at mild rudeness. After Belle’s first day of school, she is cornered by the boorish advances of some local teens and retaliates by beating the leader to a pulp with a badminton racket. She pauses before leaving to give a speech about treating a woman right that almost could have been awesome and justified in motivation, but trailed off into something sort of confusing. I want to want to support her, and her entire family, but there was just something keeping my fist from hitting the air.

Giovanni’s talk-back at a local film society after a surprise viewing of Goodfellas has everyone on their feet, but I never quite made it to the same level of appreciation as I do for Scorsese’s flick. The Family spent a lot of time winking at its audience but not enough making a direct connection.

Four badminton bludgeonings! Not terrible, still mostly enjoyable, just long and occasionally off-putting. 

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Jerry Maguire (1996), or Tom Cruise at His One-Dimensional Best, Plus Cuba Gooding Jr. Is a Good Time. 

Writer-Director Cameron Crowe (“Singles,” “Say Anything”) likely could not have predicted how much money he would be shown from this 1996 flick. Jerry Maguire stars Tom Cruise as the titular agent to professional athletes in a sports rom-com (an oxymoron almost, but cohesively done here) who has all the appearances of a blow hard but a kind heart just waiting underneath the surface.

Jerry is able to explore other avenues than just mindless pursuit of money and success after his agency company quite promptly and publicly fires him. He is let go for having a crisis of heart that leads him to issue a memo about the imbalance of concern between client needs and financial benefits to be reaped from them. When he takes a grand “Who’s with me!” stand, Jerry is met by uncomfortable stares and excuses – with the exception of unconventionally pretty accountant Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), who believes in him, and later his only remaining client Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr. in an amusing turn back to back with his role in Boyz N the Hood).

Jerry’s supporters carry him through his downward spiral and stick with him while he regains his footing. There are many bright, funny, and tender moments that provide the film with more than the somewhat clichéd sports-related portion of it achieves. Widowed Dorothy’s son, played by the precocious and almost excessively adorable Jonathan Lipnicki, plays well on screen with both his mother and her paramour. Rod Tidwell’s wife, Marcee (Regina King), conveys as much heart as everyone else, but cuts through the saccharine mushiness that can often entrench a rom-com.

Truly, there are numerous saccharine soundbites (“You had me at hello.”), but Jerry Maguire nonetheless pulls it off with aplomb. It has stellar cast, many of whom one might think would be too big for an unassuming film such as this. Their unwavering belief and caring for one another makes one fond of each character in their own right. Like any good romance, the men learn a good lesson about the true meaning of success in life, one that the women who stand behind them already knew. And if that isn’t the mark of a solid rom-com, I don’t know what is.

I think the thing that is so problematic about this eye-rolling portrayal of women is that it is so deeply ingrained in a genre which relies heavily upon formula and stereotype. The trope character who is slightly unique is the boon of rom-coms everywhere - so original! So dreamy and different! But if the characters were really that different, we wouldn't enjoy the movie. Just look at The Vow (2012). The good looking couple don't really end up together at the end, even if the wordy epilogue informs us they do eventually. But NO KISS!?! Not a good movie. 

I have no qualms with the implementation of stereotype in order to build the format of a film, the genre depends upon it, but I take issue with the moral conventions subconsciously delivered: The sexually active, business shark fiancee Avery (Kelly Preston) has a memorable scene because it's a sex scene (and certainly not a "love making" scene). She is an ice queen who takes what she wants and Black Widows her way on out of there as soon as she's tapped Jerry dry. 

Now speaking of widows, our special snowflake Dorothy is for sure not a divorcee (despite the irritating subplot of a divorced women group that is seemingly omnipresent in her living room) because that would make her not morally untouched. She is demure and sweet and not sexually forward, but rather gentle and easily seduced by our smolder-y Cruise protagonist. Good girls are not sexual beings, bad girls are. They stand behind their men rather than think of themselves. 

It's such a pity too, because the idea the film ascribes to is much more aligned with "love is a worthwhile endeavor, not just financial success or fame" or something of the like. But the clarity of the tender love story is slightly muddled by the tropes of the women's character development. Or maybe I just couldn't see it well because my nose was so scrunched. 

I don't want to end negatively, because I do think it is an enjoyable film. Jerry Maguire does good things for the romantic genre and is fantastically performed by a cast of A-listers. I will show it the money, I will. 9 Office Goldfish in sandwich bags seems like a sufficient rating. What an uncomfortable decision during his grand exit... Oh, Jerry. You dog. 

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The Fault in Our Stars (2014), or One of Many YA Novel Adaptations That Isn’t as Good as the Book, But It Had A Good Jumping-off Point So It Was Still ‘Aight.

Okay? 

Okay. 

That's what I would call this movie. Okay. A fact that I want so much to take back in a loud, "KIDDING. I LOVED IT." shouted from the rooftops, but...ehhh. 

The Fault in Our Stars is the movie adaptation of author John Green's bestselling YA novel centered around the love story of two teens whose lives revolve around cancer.

Cancer is a rather heavy subject for a romance, let alone a teen romance, and the plot does not shy away from the heavy, but that's the real catch. It lays it on far too think. I mean, bro. It's already a movie about cancer kids - a fact which the characters seem hyperaware of in a meta- fashion as they discuss cultural perspectives on their valiant fights or deaths. But Stars just couldn't fathom the stars of Green's excellent novel into a complete constellation of a film.

Shailene Woodley plays Hazel Lancaster quite well considering the difficulty the pithy and highly verbal lines she is given. They don't taste so good in the mouth Ansel Elgort, her romantic lead Augustus Waters. Where Woodley is effortless and darkly charming, Elgort is puckish and handsome but not charming or clever in the way the character calls for, both in the writing and to keep up with his Hazel. But they are both attractive, and that goes a long way in a romance, I will admit.

I adore the book beyond belief, so I love these characters very deeply. Perhaps the language Green can get away with simply doesn't translate to screen, or perhaps the melodramatics were just given a good plumping up. I don't know where the disconnect between the written and the spoken began, but I sure felt it.  

The lows were dutifully low, don't mistake me, but there should have been a wider array of emotionality in the story to make these lows all the more poignant. With a few saving graces of moments like Mike Birbiglia's cancer support group leader in the Literal Heart of Jesus, or Willem Dafoe's disappointing alcoholic author Peter Van Houten (whose raw intensity and desperately uncomfortable scenes were absolutely striking), there was a solid glimmer of the stellar story that John Green molded. It just didn't rise to the occasion granted by the text. 

I am forced to give The Fault in Our Stars 6 easily quotable lines taken from the book. It pains me to give this film a mediocre review because I did enjoy it enough and I so wonderfully enjoyed the book, but you know what they say...

"Pain demands to be felt."

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Into the Woods (2014), or A Fun Time and So Pretty and Musically Pleasing and God I Am So Biased Don’t Listen To Me

Preface: I am biased. I am a theater person. I am a musical theater person. I enjoy spelling it “theatre.” I have even seen Into the Woods on stage. I am what the interwebs might call a “fangirl.”

So with that kept in mind, I totally loved this film. Boy, did I enjoy myself thoroughly. I can’t decide if it has the staying power of other movies, or even of other movie musicals like the hugely popular Chicago. Into the Woods is kind of a tough musical. It isn’t one to slide down and digest easily – it requires attention and thought throughout the viewing process to keep up.

But oh, those lyrics! "We've no time to sit and dither / While her withers wither with her." 

Smashing. Tell me that’s not a kick ass line. I defy you to write something better. Snaps, Sondheim. I give you two uninterrupted minutes of snapping. With both hands.

I think the film’s magic begins with snappy tunes and the many familiar fairy tale characters – well now we’ve got ourselves a Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), a witch (Meryl Streep), some charming princes (Chris Pine and the less memorable Billy Magnussen), Jack of beanstalk fame (Daniel Huttlestone of Les Mis fame), Little Red (Lilla Crawford) and her Wolf (Johnny Depp), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and some new additions of the childless Baker (James Corden) and the Baker’s Wife (Emily Blunt in an excellent turn). 

The real spell is cast in the latter portion of the tale. “Be careful what you wish for” just doesn’t cut it for these poor dears, as life totally falls apart in the kingdom. Everyone must keep living past their “happy ending” and that sort of…sucks. A lot.

It’s dark as s***, man. Hans Christian Anderson would be giggling with ghoulish pleasure at the downward spiral. From the highest of golden highs (I bot am and am not referring to Jack’s altitudinous gold stealing) to the most heart-tearing of lows for each individual, no one is safe.

The fighting power is what keeps its from just being depressing. The crowd of stock characters find new freshness in their groundedness in Into the Woods that their two dimensional selves never had before. And for their part, the near clichéd parts are played with aplomb by the ensemble.

Standouts include the indecisive Cinderella played by Kendrick with nice subtlety in her soliloquy “One the Steps of the Palace” and outrageous schtick when called for, as well. The great coupling of Corden and Blunt as the Bakers, who had great chemistry. I clutched tightly to the exuberance and tragedy of their lives from minute one to the fade to black. And obviously, the eternally fabulous Meryl Streep, whose rendition of  the ambivalent and yet outraged “Last Midnight” is like a stream of electricity plugged right into the film. Got the tinglies, I did!

I think each did the story justice, but the story is the thing I leave thinking about when the credits roll. Beyond the banal platitude about reckless wish-making, a theme of the film can be said to be “watch what you do and say around children, because they absorb more than you think.” These common fairy tales shape their minds and their understanding of the world, so we must be careful what we feed their minds. Do we shelter them like Rapunzel, or let them wander naively like Little Red and Jack? Do we let them become their fathers or teach them differently? These are people that we as care-takers mold and fashion into who they are likely to become – that’s a serious undertaking and one that affects all without discrimination.

Little Red "excited and scared" Riding Hood sums what I take from the film best when she sings "Isn't it nice to know a lot! / And a little bit not."

I bestow Into the Woods 14 repeating leitmotifs of weaving musicality from a score and book of just lovely and clever songwriting. I can’t decide if this is truly a family film, yet, but I know it’s worth a peak. I just wish that Hollywood would make more of these smart and unusual musicals and adapt them.

I wish….

OSCARS 2015 

Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nom: Meryl Streep 

Best Costume Design Nom: Colleen Atwood 

Best Production Design: Dennis Gassner (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration)