At the Cinema - December 2018

Red Sparrow – 9

December is hectic for the dedicated movie nut.  Allegedly, the studios hold back their best movies to the last month of the year, so that if they’re hits, they might carry their momentum through the holiday season and right up to the Oscar voting period.  I wish they didn’t do that, and this year it is essentially a bust.

How was I to know that if I just turned on HBO I’d catch a better 2018 movie than most of the year-enders? Red Sparrow was a movie I had no interest in seeing when it originally came out.  It got modest reviews, and it's slow and long, but that's ok when I'm home and can hit the pause button for a bathroom break. That's nothing in the binge world we operate in.  I’d underestimated Jennifer Lawrence.  She’s perfect as Dominika, a Russian operative known as a sparrow, trained in mind and body espionage.  This is an spy thriller in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock – simple, suspenseful, and twisty – but not too twisty.  I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but if you liked movies like Notorious – check it out.  And if you like Jennifer, and who doesn’t like Jennifer, you'll be suitably impressed.

On the Basis of Sex – 9

If you like the Notorious RBG, you’ll like this movie.  At the beginning of the year all I knew about Ruth Bader Ginsburg was that she was an aging Supreme Court Justice who usually ruled liberally and was thus a Democratic darling.  First came the documentary which told the story of her early legal challenges on gender discrimination.  Now comes a movie dedicated to her first case.

Despite her time as a standout at Harvard Law School, and eventual graduation at the top of the Columbia law school, she could not get hired by a law firm in New York, so she became a law professor.  Her beloved husband, a tax attorney, calls her attention to a case in which a man has been discriminated against for a tax break that only a woman is allowed.  She sees the opportunity to establish gender discrimination, and takes the case with her husband.  She will eventually argue several times before the Supreme Court, but this movie chronicles that first case, in a very low-key and sincere tone, which is not to say it isn’t riveting.  Felicity Jones is perfect as the gentle pit bull - No special effects, just a special American during a pivotal time in our history.

Creed II - 8

Michael B. Jordan is back as Adonis Creed and all the elements of a Rocky sequel are there, highlighted by great training sequences and great fights.  This time the battle is with the son of Ivan Drago, who figured so prominently in Rocky IV – the cold war version of Rocky.  Sylvester Stallone, who looked like he was on death’s door in the first Creed, wrote and acted in this one, and he continues to ride this wave.  How different life would have been if Rocky had flopped back in 1976.

I must say this.  All the Rocky’s have had good to great character development and this movie is up to that challenge.  The best part of this movie is actually Tess Thompson, who plays Creed’s pregnant love interest, who is a deaf singer.  She lights up the screen and is real and accessible.  I have never seen her in anything but the Creed movies.  I understand she has been a successful actress for a while, but let’s hope she gets to star in a movie soon.  I think she can carry one.

The Mule – 8

In what may be Clint Eastwood’s last directorial effort at 88, he puts together a movie that is so low-key and matter of fact it could be a documentary.  Basing this on a true story, I’m sure he took great glee in playing someone older.  Broke and estranged from his family, at 90, Earl Stone makes the desperation move of becoming a drug mule for the Mexican Cartel.  His spotless driving record, and the fact that he’s got nothing to lose has him not only enjoying the new cash flow, but trying to reconcile with his family.  His daughter, played by his real life daughter Allison is his biggest challenge. 

The cartel is not easy to work for, and their demands predictably increase.  Meanwhile DEA agent Bradley Cooper is on his trail.  Eastwood still has his on-screen charisma, and the movie has some real, but low-key suspense as it rolls along.

The best part of the movie though, is the soundtrack.  The highlighted song is one of my favorites, More Today than Yesterday by the Spiral Staircase.  It’s a road song staple for Earl in one form or another, and it permeates the soundtrack.  Good choice.  It's a song that's been around as long as Eastwood.

Vice - 7

Christian Bale is fantastic as Vice President Dick Cheney in this undoubtedly unauthorized biopic.  Amy Adams is terrific as his wife.  The cast does an incredible job.  Unfortunately, the script and the director are all over the place.  Adam McKay is trying to make a multimedia presentation out of a fairly straight forward narrative.  His point of view seems to bounce back and forth like a pinball.  We all know how it ends, but what he chooses to highlight versus what he leaves out is a little baffling. It's a story worth telling, and while I've liked director Adam McKay's other movies, this one is a runaway train.  I prefer the Oliver Stone "W."

 

The Favourite – 5

I’m predisposed to being opposed to royalty.  What goes on in England is beyond me.  The fascination with royalty in an era of democracy has always baffled me, and when the British Royalty questions start on Jeopardy, I know I’m in trouble.  Don’t know.  Don’t care.  Can’t figure out why the British cling to this.

So, when this movie started getting rave reviews, I had to really swallow my predisposition to check it out.  I shouldn’t have. 

This is the story of Queen Anne, whom of course I knew nothing about, but I was about to learn that she had 17 miscarriages or stillborn children with her husband, which would have been an interesting but gruesome story except for the fact that her husband never appears in the movie, but she has a lot of rabbits.  I’m sure that means something, but it went over my head like a high fastball.

The movie is a meandering (and I suppose somewhat fictional) chronicle of the Queen’s relationship with two women (played to the hilt by Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz) who vie for her attention, so that they may influence her.  Quite a rivalry.  Which will be the favorite?  Olivia Coleman is terrific as the obese and sickly Queen, and there’s some humor, as well as some interesting historical information, as Great Britain is at war with France, but mostly the movie just plods along until one of the most unsatisfying endings you will ever see.  I didn’t understand it, but that’s no surprise.  The group of ladies sitting behind us had obviously seen the movie several times and they cackled with great satisfaction throughout, so maybe I just missed it, but I’m not going to try and find it. 

Scanning the Satellite

Love Gilda – 8

Anyone who watched Saturday Night Live and the original Not-ready-for-prime-time players back in the 70’s owes it to themselves to check out this CNN documentary about the glorious Gilda Radnor.  Using diaries, audiotapes and video we get Gilda’s story, from her insecurities, to her struggles with success, and her uneven love life.  It takes us through her battle with cancer.  It’s a loving portrait of her and her lasting impression on our culture.  If you loved Gilda, you love her story.

At the Cinema - November 2015

Spectre – 8

James Bond has become a measure of time, and I’ve been married for 11 installments.  We’ve seen them all.  You can usually count on some good stunts, a ridiculous story, a couple of Bond girls, at least one martini, and an ending whereby the world has been saved again, all in a movie that goes on about a half hour too long. 

One other thing you can count on with the current Bond, Daniel Craig.  He is the most clean shaven dude in the history of cinema.  A que ball would be jealous.  He looks like he has had every facial hair surgically removed.  A five o’clock shadow must be a matter of national security.  I found myself saying throughout the movie, “man, did he shave again?”  Of course, when I go to a George Clooney movie I enjoy watching his stubble change from scene to scene.  So, there’s that.

Spectre delivers on the tried and true 24 picture formula.  After the heaviness of Skyfall, which I did not terribly enjoy, I was not expecting much from 2^nd time director Sam Mendes.  In fact my thinking was that with the additional seriousness of Skyfall, there was nowhere to go, from a story telling standpoint.  Bond’s past had been revealed, dissected, and resolved, so now what?

Well, spoiler alert – what’s love got to do with it?  Yes it had appeared that Bond had done some serious relationship time in the past, but leave it to Mendes and Craig to surprise me.

The villain here is played by Quentin Tarantino go-to baddie Christoph Waltz who is as convincing as he is conniving.  The Bond Girl here is played by Lea Seydoux and she brings something extra to the role, and I’m not the only one that noticed – Bond notices too, and when the damsel is in distress, Bond ramps up his intensity.  Maybe that’s why he keeps shaving.  So, in a plot that is almost identical to Mission Impossible 5, it’s soon them against the espionage world, and the world doesn’t stand any more of a chance than stubble would.

Truth – 8

This is an often fascinating portrait of CBS 60 minutes producer Mary Mapes and anchor Dan Rather, the team that tried to tell the story of George Bush’s alledged AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard.  Mapes was fresh off breaking the atrocities of Abu Ghrabi, so she was a hot journalist looking for her next Pulitzer.

There’s a 2 part allegation here.  The first is that Bush got preferential treatment in being allowed to enroll in the Texas Air National Guard rather than be subject to the draft and a Vietnam tour. 

The second is much worse.  It alleged he went AWOL for a long period.   The second part falls apart under scrutiny after Rather breaks it on the evening news.  The shaky nature of the research eventually costs Mapes her job, and Rather is soon ousted from CBS after a long and distinguished career. 

The movie tries to be a great journalism expose like All the President’s Men, but it falls well short of that masterpiece.  The movie leaves you with the impression that Bush probably did something wrong, but we didn’t really know what.  It’s an interesting part of American history that doesn’t get solved here, probably because only one man knows the truth, and he’s not about to talk about it.

On a personal note, I was never a Dan Rather fan until about a month ago, when I discovered his show on AXS (Mark Cuban’s channel – 340 on Directv.)  It’s called The Big Interview, and he does 1 hour sessions with a wide variety of famous people like Carlos Santana and Aaron Sorkin.  He asks the questions I would ask, so naturally I like it.  Certainly a better way to go into the sunset than his expulsion from CBS.

The Hunger Games – Mockingjay part 2 - 3

Finally, it’s over.  In a finale that is as excruciating as having your wisdom teeth put back in, just so you can have them pulled again, the 9 lives of Katniss Everdeen comes to a merciful end.  I will, and I suggest you do as well, equate the 8 hours or so that you may have invested in the Hunger Game series as just a day at the office, one that went from bad to worse, and by the end of the day you were ready for several of James Bond’s martinis.  Just one of those horrible work days that will fade from memory, after it sits in the pit of your stomach for a few days.

The series, which was mildly interesting at first, jumped the moat when the money grubbers decided to split the finale into 2 parts, effectively stretching one movie into two so that they could dip into the wallets, well mostly purses, of the gullible public just one extra time and enhance the stock price of whatever studio funded this repetitive repetition.

Even Jennifer Lawrence, who became a star over the course of the series, looks bored by the elongated end.  She should get not an Oscar for this, but some kind of lifetime achievement medal of honor, for giving so much time and effort.  And poor Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  He’s still appears in this blotation device, even though he’s been dead for years. 

So, what’s so bad about this installment?  First, the ending of the movie is obvious in the first five minutes.  If you don’t see the ending arrow coming a mile away, well you don’t get out much.  Secondly, halfway through the movie, a new species (I think – it all kind of runs together) is revealed, turning it into a horror movie.  It’s like we were suddenly transported into a different movie, Night of the Living Halloween Evil Dead.  I wanted to run for my life, into another movie, any movie.  The only thing like it I’ve ever seen was when the Ark of the Covenant was opened in Raiders of the Lost Ark and it suddenly became a supernatural movie.  Not that I’m comparing this to Raiders, oh no.

Now I was assured by a woman of the female persuasion that the book was great, and I’m sure it was.  But I’ve never cared a whit about how a book compares to a movie, and all I can say is I’m glad it’s all over.  Hats off to a terrific cast that performed diligently as the script(s) unraveled.  Now let’s go to the dentist for some real fun.

Brooklyn – 9

Movies are best when they do just a few things well.  Transport you to a different time and place, tell a simple story well, and stay on the appropriate pace.  Check, check, and check on this beautifully crafted story of an Irish immigrant in the 1950’s who has a job waiting in Brooklyn.

In a time when immigration is a most volatile word, we sometimes forget the simple reason our great nation was built with immigrants.  They wanted to leave where they were and come to America for a better life.  That was the goal.  Just a better life.

Eilis Lacey, played impeccably by Saoirse Ronan, (and the whole cast is perfect) is a young girl who will find love as she comes out of her shy, homesick shell while she adjusts to her new home.  The conflict will be when she has to return home for family reasons.  Does she commit to her new life in America, or retreat to the comforts of home?  This is a gentle movie, a real movie that bears no resemblance to the video game clones in the other stalls of the Cineplex.  My suggestion would be to go see this on throw-back Thursday.  That would be perfect.  It will return you to a simpler time, when immigrants believed the inscription on the Statue of Liberty was sincere, and movie makers believed you could tell a good story without computer assistance.