The Litmus Configuration

Welcome to The Litmus Configuration, the first and only movie review outlet on the World Wide Web.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Captain Phillips

Paul Greengrass returns to familiar territory with Captain Phillips the true-life story of the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama and the subsequent hostage taking of the ship’s captain that occurred late in 2009

The film gets off to a good start, with the first hour aboard the Maersk making up the strongest portion of the film. Tom Hanks of course playing the titular role of Captain Phillips, charged with piloting the container ship through relatively dangerous waters off the east coast of Africa. The sense of foreboding and isolation is beautifully established and by the time the ship’s crew is forced to try and outwit or ward off the pirates intent on boarding the ship it’s clear we’re in good hands.

Once the ship is boarded however, and Phillips finds himself the lone hostage of the otherwise unsuccessful pirates my affection for the film and the parties involved began to wane. Did I want to see the hostage freed from his captors? Sure. Did I start to see the captors as being stuck between a rock and a hard place themselves? No doubt. The film just never managed to pull me any deeper under the surface. Not a fault, I don’t think, of the creative team behind the film, more the subject matter they are tasked with turning into a high seas adventure.

It’s not that the film isn’t enjoyable and as far as a thrilling escapism goes it does a fine job, I just couldn’t help but feel that this was perhaps a missed opportunity to dig a little deeper into the circumstances surrounding the event itself. Greengrass gave it a good crack of course, and there were some attempts to show that the motivations driving both the victims and perpetrators of piracy are not entirely dissimilar and that both of these ‘occupations’ are becoming more hazardous in an increasingly competitive world. It just seems to me that they should have either avoided this angle entirely or gone all the way with it, as it seems to have been all but abandoned by the film’s ‘America, Fuck Yeah!’ finale. I guess I just left feeling that the film was missing something.

It’s hard to talk about why without drawing comparisons with Greengrass’s earlier film United 93, which more effectively dealt with superficially similar subject matter and left a far more lasting impression on me than Captain Phillips is likely to. But I’ve got a theory as to why it didn’t feel as substantial as it might have, and why, comparatively at least, I felt it fell short. The failing as I see it is that the reasons driving all the players here to do the things that they do are fairly dry. The pirate captain, so to speak, Muse (played admirably by debutant Barkhad Abdi) states at one point that their illegal boarding of the Maersk is only business, which is essentially true. And what are Captain Phillips, and the Maersk, doing so close to the Somali coast? Conducting business (I wondered about this though, and have since heard some reports that Captain Phillips was perhaps a more arrogant and foolhardy captain than he is shown to be here. These are not ambiguities the film is interested in though, so let’s just drop it hey!) Whatever the case, this leaves us with two opposing forces who are really only concerned with the bottom line, until that is they’re worried about their own lives. They’re acting according to the whims and requirements of the free market (admittedly though, the lengths that are gone to rescue Captain Phillips from his situation are driven by something more.)  Which I think is why the events that play out here, borne as they are from a purely fiscal motivations, are far less disturbing and ultimately not as engaging as those events that play out in the truly horrific United 93, driven as they are by illogical and unpredictable forces – chaos, not commerce.

Watching the film is undeniably tense, sometimes edge of your seat stuff, it’s just that in retrospect, exhilarating and exciting as the events here can be in the moment, they wash away far quicker than they have any right too. And aside from Phillips and Muse there are very few characters we are given the opportunity to be all that invested in. It’s true, however, that Hanks’ performance, especially in the closing minutes of the film, is reason enough to give it a look.

I just wish Captain Phillips had been more concerned with the idea that all the players in the film are in some way victims of a dispassionate global economy. Because when it came to this film and the clashing of two competing business models, comprised alternately of misplaced security and desperation I found it hard to really care. When the truth is, I feel like I really should.

This one’s good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Jack Reacher

People have lately been likening Gravity to a theme park ride and I think the same comparison can be made of Jack Reacher. There’s really not much too it, it’s a bit of fun, it’s a ride – revelling in it’s simplicity. Reacher rolls into town as soon as an old associate is implicated in a horrible crime, whereupon he sets about righting wrongs and bringing the true bad guys to justice, mix, repeat, etc. That’s really about all there is to it. And, for the most part, the film handles this set up as neatly and matter-of-factly as possible. The horrible crime alluded to here being the one major exception and the only bum note of the film, resulting in the opening credits sequence being actually quite jarring and unpleasant compared to what follows.

And I did not expect to like Jack Reacher. I figured, at best, it was likely to be a pleasant diversion but the truth is, Jack Reacher is in fact a fantastic diversion and I’ll gladly be forking out my hard-earned to see the next in the serious without a moment’s hesitation.

The thing is, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, it looked like it was going to be a rougher hewn version of the Mission Impossible mold, another opportunity for T Cruise to take an existing property and prop himself up with it, which, hey, if that’s what’s really going on here, so be it. There was the scuttlebutt surrounding the production of the film, as fans of Lee Child’s books posted furious screeds far and wide, huffing and puffing about the casting of Cruise, an actor who is, admittedly, about as far removed from the physical dimensions of the titular character as it is possible to be. Six foot tall, glowering, commanding, not adjectives you find all that often in celebrity profile of Cruise. It did seem a little rich. And given Cruise’s off-field performance over the last 10/15 years (the guy is undeniably a kook) it’s sometimes easy to forget that the truth of the matter is two-fold, because it is an equally undeniable fact that Tom Cruise is a charisma factory. He’s not six foot tall, they said – so what, he’s Tom Cruise. He’s not being played by an actual hulking milquetoast drifter they cried – so what, he’s Tom Cruise. He owns every scene he shows up for in Jack Reacher. Obviously – he’s Tom Cruise.

None of which should have ever mattered in any case, as the devil here is not in the details, if he’s anywhere he’s in the over the top spook of a villain played by the legendary Werner Herzog. (Which, I mean, really, how has it taken Hollywood this long to cast Werner in a role like this? It’s so damned obvious in hindsight – as if it always was.) Werner of course sensibly plays it down, safe in the knowledge that simply by being there his character is menacing as fuck.

And, for all the basic plotting and the absence of ambition, the film is actually kind of great. Most admirable, and surprising, is the commitment from cast and crew to play the whole thing without an ounce of the smug self-awareness, so common these days in films of this nature, and a crutch they were no doubt tempted by at every stage of the production. The result is a juicy thriller with added pulp that takes itself completely seriously so that you don’t have to. One opportunity after another rolls by for the director, Christopher McQuarrie, or the cast, to hedge their bets, wink knowingly at the camera and insist, “Hey, isn’t this all so funny and hard boiled?” and bless their steely resolve because they resist every last one of them. If you’re ever in any doubt as to their commitment to playing it straight, wait for the moment when Cruise, practically staring down the barrel of the camera, delivers the line, “I’m not a hero. I’m a drifter, with nothing to lose.” There’s not a hint of self-awareness for miles. It’s beautiful.

I guess sometimes all we’re really looking for in a movie is some cheap thrills. Look no further. And while Jack Reacher doesn’t amount to anything big or especially clever, it is something… It is… It is… I know. It’s a frosty cold Coke on a warm summer’s day, in a tall glass, with plenty of ice. (Apologies for the buzz marketing.)

This one’s good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Rush

“No, really, even if you’re not into racing or cars, or Chris Hemsworth – you should really go see it,” is probably the kind of thing you’ve heard people saying about Rush. Possibly from the same people who were saying the same kinds of things about Senna a couple of years ago. And they’re all right. As in correct. You should. Unless you’re of the persuasion that there’s nothing better than fast cars and flying champagne corks in which case you’ve already seen it – and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

I know I’d written the film off long before release, having seen the poster and notched up Hemsworth’s casting in the role of a rapscallion Formula 1 driver (James Hunt) as a strong indicator of what we were in for. But then I heard the whispers, unlikely sources telling me it’s better than I’d think, that there’s a lot more too it than bitumen and motor oil (Claims that, come to think of it, are not dissimilar to those F1 fans themselves try to make about the sport. They might be right about that too. I’ll never know). What I do know is, Rush was a surprisingly well-told, even heartfelt, rendering of the lives and fortunes of two not quite forgotten characters from the days of F1 past.

And I guess it shouldn’t be a huge surprise, Ron Howard has a fairly encouraging strike rate when it comes to these things, and does a respectable job here – mostly getting out of the way of the story and letting events play out with as little embellishment as possible. I’d underestimated Hemsworth too, who, it turns out, is capable of more than the lug-headed charm I’d assumed was his meal ticket (and don’t get me wrong, when it comes to interstellar superheroes, I’m all about Hemsworth’s lug-headed charm). Rush also manages to avoid a lot of the gripes I’ve started to develop with regard to the recent glut of biopics and their tendency to plough the same tract of land time and time again. It helps that the film plays out, for the most part, over a relatively condensed period of time, leaving childhood traumas and nursing home regrets almost entirely out of the picture. Additionally, the film smartly shares the load between the two leads, playfully shifting perspective back and forth between them, muddying all the while where our sympathies and affections should be spent. It’s a great dynamic, and, for a film that kicks off as the James “Rhymes With C*#t” Hunt show, there’s no question by the time the credits roll that the film actually belongs to Niki Lauda and Daniel Brühl’s laudable brilliant portrayal thereof.

Maybe not so surprisingly, it is the odd relationship between these two men (their wives and partners, played by Olivia Wild and the always welcome Alexandra Maria Lara unfortunately don’t much more to do than you’d expect) that turns out to be the film’s greatest strength. I know I was actually quite touched by the begrudging affection the two of them develop over many years of being simultaneously repelled by, and attracted to, the differences they find in each other.

While none of this is to say that there’s anything especially new about Rush – they haven’t exactly redesigned the engine that lies beneath the hood of these types of films – the thing is, if you’ll allow me to push the analogy to its very limits and are willing to excuse the grinding of some gears, Rush is, undoubtedly, a well-oiled and finely tuned advancement on a familiar model, that manages to gain a few precious seconds on the lap times of its many predecessors.

This one’s really good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Bernie

  Richard Linklater’s Bernie is the story of Bernhardt ‘Bernie’ Tiede (Jack Black), the assistant mortician in the small town of Carthage, Texas, who despite all appearances to the contrary (he is literally a choir boy) finds himself on the wrong side of a murder investigation (well, one of the wrong sides) when a wealthy but reclusive widow, who also happens to be the manager of the local mom and pop bank, goes missing. Refreshingly, for the story of a small town murder, the film is never played as a whodunit, at least not in the traditional sense – it’s the question of “Who is Bernie Tiede?” that the film is really concerned with, the answers to which are far from definitive.

From the beginning he’s painted as a supremely nice guy, nice to a fault, in that he comes across as disinterested, even incapable, of taking care of himself. Certainly not to the same extent that he’s able to take care of others. And, thanks to his habit of checking in on the recently bereaved, he finds himself involved in an ambiguously platonic relationship with the prickly and universally loathed town matriarch/bank manager, Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine), someone in whom only Bernie can see the good. The relationship curdles as her jealousy over Bernie’s time and commitments leads her to tighten her grip, taking advantage of his servile nature to the point that he’s practically her indentured servant. Not being able to take it anymore Bernie eventually reaches a point where he can see only one way out.

In the immediate aftermath, incapable as he is of confessing to the crime, he goes about concealing the murder from the woman’s family and the town at large. A deception that, it turns out, is not too difficult a feat, for a while at least, given that she had settled into the role of a prickly loner, who repelled all company but Bernie’s, long before her death. Bernie carries on, albeit wracked by guilt, continuing to take care of her estate, as he had been. Furthermore, where others might take the opportunity to secure the fortune for themselves he acts on her behalf as the town’s patron, splashing money on initiatives all over the place. Assuaging his guilt to some extent, sure, maybe, but puzzling out the truth isn’t quite so easy as his actions are clearly no great departure from the Bernie we knew before he pulled the trigger. 

Honestly, though, the plot becomes almost incidental to Black’s brilliant and affectionate portrayal of the man, which becomes the heart of what turns out to be an oddly sweet film. Not to mention an unconventional and uniquely paced narrative. It’s a remarkable job really, seeing the film deals with the real life murder of an elderly woman because, like many of the people in the town, it’s hard to be all that tough on Bernie. Linklater himself is clearly sympathetic to Bernie and the situation he winds up in without necessarily condoning his method for getting out of it. And it seems to me, the way things play out with regard to the discovery of the crime, the investigation and the subsequent trial, that Linkalter is even making an argument for the inherent goodness of people like Bernie and the small towns of Anywhere America.  

Considering the down-home scope of its ambition, it would be unfair to judge ‘Bernie’ too harshly or praise it too highly. But for a film dealing with a fairly bleak subject the warmth it exudes is impressive and more than welcome. I keep thinking back to the scene where Bernie leads the town’s gospel choir in a rendition of Amazing Grace and how thanks to Black’s Bernie (and killer set of pipes) it was like I was hearing the song for the first time.

This one’s good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Gravity

Gravity is such a prefect example of a film in which the effects (and my, god, the effects!), are used solely in service of the story. The incredible and years long process of capturing the effect of zero gravity without having to actually leave the planet is seamless to the point of invisibility, exactly what this film needed it to be. As far as this viewer was concerned these astronauts, Sandra Bullock’s Dr Ryan Stone and George Clooney’s Matt Kowalski, are in space, floating in space alongside actual man made structures while their very human story played out. Speaking of which, and in vast comparison to the complex technical feat of putting these images on screen, there’s something to be admired in the purity and simplicity of the narrative Gravity weaves. People in danger, let’s say mortal peril, use everything at their disposal to get themselves out of danger. It’s like Jaws if those blokes had to worry about the water and not the shark.

And make no mistake, Gravity is frightening. There are moments in this film, possibly the whole 90 minutes, potentially far more terrifying than any number of B-grade torture porn horror flicks. One of my movie-going partners had a particularly hard time with it, and I’m pretty sure would’ve walked right out of there were they not paralysed with fear. But there’s nothing cheap about the moments of terror throughout and even during Gravity’s most existentially bleak moments, the blackness, and the void never quite get their hooks in as the film is just so nice to look at. Whether it’s an orbital satellite ripping itself to pieces thanks to seen and unseen forces, or a couple of lone humans drifting languidly over the Ganges, it’s beautiful from start to finish.

It’s no surprise that the production team, director Alfonso Cuaron especially, spent such a long time with the thoughtful and beautiful rendering of the film because at the heart of it, and Gravity has a big beating heart, the film is really just dealing with the idea of human connection. How our connections to other people work to our benefit and how sometimes maybe they don’t. It deals with the idea of loss and letting go and planting your feet in the ground and living among others – at the very least the film argues this is an idea worth fighting for.

An argument could be made, and has been elsewhere, that the dialogue can be somewhat heavy handed in places. I guess this is probably a matter of personal taste, and as I see it, to set this story up and have it play out as quickly as does, almost in real time, with the emotional toll it takes, accusations of heavy handedness are a little churlish. Having said that, upon a second viewing, I do concede there are clearly some lines that are a little on the nose, pretty much all of which I’m willing to forgive. The thing is, for every moment someone spouts a cheesy line that probably should’ve been buried away as subtext, there’s a moment of pure silence that speaks loud enough to drown out the cheesiness. The stunning shot of Ryan, curling slowly into the feotal position, is worth the price of admission alone, or there’s the lovely moment following a quietly tragic confession from Ryan where Kawolski just keeps his mouth shut, and simply switches off the country music he’s been piping through both of their suits – Hank Williams’ An Angel Is Hard To Find. Have a listen to the lyrics of the song and go back and watch the scene. Just brilliant.

Whether you’re looking for a thrill ride miles above the surface of the planet, or a touching allegory for our lives on this planet, Gravity delivers. Not incidentally, there was one scene during which I was reminded of a goofy joke a high school history teacher of mine was fond of telling: an astronaut sails past the last man made object between them and the blackness of space, their fingertips desperately trying to gain a hold on the quickly receding structure beneath them. “If a person’s reach does not extend their grasp,” my teacher would proclaim, on more than one occasion, “then what’s a heaven for?” He’d let us stew on that for a minute, let the silence descend on the classroom. “Alternatively,” he’d suddenly pipe up and carry on, “if a person’s reach does not extend their grasp, then what’s a metaphor.”

This one’s great.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

And Everything Is Going Fine

Less of a documentary and more a compilation of Spalding Gray’s spoken word performances, Stephen Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine gives a cursory introduction to, and exploration of, the life and work of the pioneering monologist.

Somewhat of a precursor to the tribe of confessional monologists littering today’s landscape, your Davids (Sedaris and Rakoff), Mike Daiseys and the Moth crowd, Gray was ahead of his time when it came to the art of live storytelling. Kicking off in the early ‘80s, he would always present his shows in the same fashion, taking his seat at a bare wooden desk adorned with a notepad, pen, glass of water, and a lamp, he would sit and talk to the audience for an hour, hour and a half, and tell them a story regarding whatever was up with him at the time.

There are some great moments throughout this account of the man’s life and art, and it’s never in doubt that he’s skilled at spinning a tale and injecting a vibrancy that you might not expect into the set up of a person sitting at a table talking about themselves. It’s a shame though that Soderbergh doesn’t do the greatest job in bringing to the screen what was clearly special about Gray.

I trust Soderbergh’s instincts (he’s the world’s pre-eminent GBV celebrity fan for god’s sake, I’m not going to start questioning the guy’s taste) in wanting to anthologise and honour the guy, and can see that Gray is worthy of a cinematic tribute, I just can’t help but feel Soderbergh’s done him a disservice in what is a too-often bland compilation of his performance and interviews.

It could be that in jumping back and forth between snippets of Gray’s monologues, without the knowledge of where they fit into a performance as a whole, it only appears that his work tends more toward the self indulgent as opposed to the sublime. And it could well be that And Everything Is Going Fine would be better appreciated by those already familiar with Gray’s work. What’s certain, though, is that as a documentary presumably intended to celebrate Spalding Gray and his work it doesn’t lead me to want to dig much deeper.

The film does have its moments, and Gray certainly comes across as an engaging and admirable performer, not afraid to shine a light on the darker aspects of his life and personality – the knowledge that Gray ultimately took his own life having suffered from mental and physical illnesses in his later years makes it difficult to watch some of the more soul-bearing moments. There is one great scene, towards the end of the film, when Gray gets up from his table, in what I suspect is a break in tradition, to dance around the stage, the sound of Chumbawumba’s Tubthumping blasting from a boombox in his hand. It’s the one truly joyful moment in the film and makes a good case for the act of doing over endless rumination.

This one’s not so good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Heathers

So, Heathers, one of those classic '80s movies I didn't catch at the right time and will for evermore have missed the boat on.

I will say, and it’s certainly no fault of the film, considering the events of the years following its release Heathers can be hard to watch in places without being put-off, while the sands of time have not been entirely kind in other ways leaving the general vibe of the thing a little jarring in comparison to a lot of similar 80s high school flicks. Was it true to its time on release? Or was it a retro '80s pastiche right out of the gate? Full marks if it was the latter, but either way the it didn't entirely live up to the promise of a cult classic experience I was hoping for. (Curse you, relatively high expectations!) It gets off to a good start with a brilliant croquet themed credits sequence but then people start getting killed in ugly ways, for dubious reasons, by increasingly unsympathetic characters. It's hard to know exactly what Daniel Waters was going for when he wrote it. Maybe it was making a case for finding the middle ground between keeping up with the Joneses or dropping out and becoming aggressively disinterested in the Joneses. I'd like to think so, but the film’s intentions are a little too muddy to really make the case. It's a shame as there is some great stuff in there, and Waters clearly had big ambitions for the film having initially lobbied Stanley Kubrick to direct — I imagine a lot of calls going unreturned. And, hey, I'm all for intentionally ambiguous films but I feel like somewhere in there an argument was trying be made without it ever being made entirely clear what that argument was. Gripes aside, there's some fun stuff in there, a few chuckles strewn about and it's fun to see Christian Slater and Winona Ryder figuring their personas out. It really hit me watching a young Slater how he was just doing a Nicholson impression from the get go – a good one, sure, but you know. And Ryder’s fantastic, I'd say it's worth watching if only for her line reading of "Heather, my love, there's a new Sheriff in town.” Yeah, she was really doin’ it. '80s movie I should've seen a long time ago when you would've seemed revolutionary, sorry, but I was never completely on board – I hope you're content with being cultishly adored.

This one's not so good.

[thelitmusconfiguration]

Iron Man 3

The advance buzz promised a moodier installment of the Iron Man franchise, in what seemed like a tilt at Christopher Nolan’s darker take on Batman but, as it turns out, what we get is a tonally consistent, even slightly goofier, addition to the Iron Man story. Sure, there are some token scenes of a mildly tortured Tony Stark scattered throughout, but he’s at his best, and most interesting, when kitted out in the slick, protective outer layer he’s honed over the years to deflect from and shield his anxieties and vulnerabilities. The mechanized, rocket-propelled, hi-tech clobber he throws on from time-to-time can be pretty cool too (I hope you’re all seeing what I clumsily did there).

We catch up with Stark enjoying some downtime, having been holed up in his workshop since the inter-dimensional excitement of Avengers: Assemble, tinkering with new and varied incarnations of his now iconic suit. One of these is the Mark 42, a voltron-like self-assembling suit, which is still experiencing some hiccups in its execution – will these wrinkles have been smoothed out by the third act? Will the Mark 42 learn to come together as planned? We hold our breath.

Meanwhile America is under threat from a mysterious, generically Middle Eastern geezer calling himself the Mandarin who, in a surprising development, is threatening a wave of unspeakable terror on the American public. It doesn’t take long for the Mandarin to strike a little too close to home and force Stark to leave his basement and enter the fray, at which point the swaggering billionaire genius is blindsided at his seaside mansion and forced to go back to basics and get off the grid, repair his damaged suit and uncover the Mandarin/overcome some panic attacks/save America, etc.

Reuniting Robert Downey Jr. and writer/director Shane Black was clearly a smart move and goes a long way to making up for the disappointing Iron Man 2. Downey Jr. supposedly put the director’s name forward as a favour, giving Black his second late-career boost after Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Which, not incidentally, makes a neat counterpoint to Jon Faverau putting up his own fight to cast a then down and out Downey Jnr. in the initial installment. Black has repaid the favour with a story that moves at a suitably quick pace, if not always coherently, and demonstrates a solid grasp on the character of Tony Stark – giving him some of the best lines of the franchise in the process. It’s nice to see some of Black’s meta leanings also turn up here – a couple of scenes between Stark and a young hastily employed side-kick, in particular, do a great job of poking fun at the two-dimensional character sketches required for a Summer blockbuster while still playing by those same rules.

It’s a movie based on a comic book so I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not perfect. Why the Mandarin and his cronies have a beef with the USA and what exactly their end game is doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, for example. And the exact nature of the bio-enhanced legion of baddies that Iron Man comes up against, their weaknesses and strengths, seems wildly inconsistent. But it is a lot of fun while you’re in it. That Downey Jr. is fantastic is no surprise, the character and the real life human have been bleeding together for years now.  And it’s actually kind of impressive how closely the story and Stark’s development adheres to the wider Avengers universe, if you’re into that kind of thing, by weaving in all that has come before into how Stark and the world at large have been affected by the upping of stakes.

While a lot of the supporting cast are mostly incidental to Stark’s one-liners and the CGI suit, Ben Kingsley’s unexpectedly playful portrayal of the Mandarin is pretty damn wonderful. Hat tip to Black here as well for making some bold choices with the character and creating one of the film’s highlights in the process, no mean feat when you consider how easily the whole generically Middle Eastern vibe of the Mandarin could have sunk a lesser film.

If this is the last of the Iron Man franchise, it’s a solid way to wrap up the trilogy, easily on a par with the first installment. I’m sure some could even complain that they’re too similar but surely they succeed when they do because of their adherence to such familiar templates – scatter a small arsenal of Checkhov’s guns throughout the first act, hang with Tony in the second, have them all go off in the third. Bon appétit. Whatever the case, by the time all the pieces do come together it’s not dissimilar to the drone-like elements of Tony Stark’s Iron Man Mark 42 suit, not as elegant or as precise as you (or he) might have hoped, but it gets there in the end.

  This one’s good.