At the Cinema - September 2020

The Social Dilemma – 10

I spent an amazing week watching 10 hours of historical examination that will blow your mind.  At this point, I’m going to assume that most people already have a viewpoint on the events of the last 4 years and this is all unlikely to change minds, but I urge everyone to drink these things in. 

The first of two astounding documentaries comes to us on Netflix.  The Social Dilemma is an examination of the cause and effect of social media on our lives today.  Think back to that unsettling first time that you realized that something you were looking for was suddenly being advertised to help you out, right there on your computer screen.  How did they know?  Oh, they know.  In fact, they know everything, and this movie explains how.  It starts with how merchants realized it was more cost-effective to market on-line to just the people who were looking for their product, rather than on the local TV news or in the Sunday paper. 

But that’s only the beginning.  Pretty soon it became obvious that social media could be used to spread lies, conspiracy theories, and political influence.  It’s all covered here and it’s not pretty.  Everyone should watch this, and I plan on watching it again.  I want to again try to answer the central question.  With the suffocating presence of social media, are we better off, or worse off? 

 

Agents of Chaos -10

This second documentary comes to us on HBO and it’s a further autopsy of social media.  Alex Gibney is the premier documentarian of our time, and this takes him two parts to dissect the Russian impact on our elections.  The first of the two parts is an examination of the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg in 2013.  They gain experience on how to influence public opinion during the Russian invasion of Crimea.  It is an amazing story that serves as practice for bigger things to come.

As it enters part two, the troll farm turns its attention to the United States and enters the perfect storm of American politics as candidate Hillary Clinton promises a hard line foreign policy, and candidate Donald Trump seems to be willing to extend a hand, because he has done business in Russia.  The troll farm goes to work.  How and why they do this will both fascinate and horrify you. 

The Comey Rules – 10

Completing the triple crown is a docudrama on Showtime.  This is a two-part blazer starring Jeff Daniels as James Comey.

If you are a Star Trek fan you know the importance of the exercise called the Kobayashi Maru – the no win scenario.  No-win? That pales in comparison to the dilemma facing FBI Director James Comey as the 2016 election approaches.  The quagmire he is in is that the election is between two candidates that are under investigation by the FBI:  Hillary Clinton for her misuse of email, and Donald Trump because he appears to be getting Russian assistance.  

Two weeks before the election he decides to reopen the email case against Clinton, (and the movie explains why, and why it was such a difficult decision), and he also knows that 4 people in the Trump campaign have ties to Russia as they try to influence the election.

This is a riveting recreation of events, often supplemented by actual footage.  The superb casting includes Holly Hunter as Sally Yates, and Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump,who enters the second part and pretty much dominates the movie from then on.

What to make of it all?  Well, it is based on a Comey memoir, but it is narrated by Rod Rosenstein, and he is at times brutal on Comey.  In addition, I guess we could conclude that Comey and the FBI were not up to the magnitude of these two investigations, but who would be?  Decide for yourself, but I’ll call it another Kobayashi Maru.

Blaze – 8

I’m not a fan of country music so I had never heard of Blaze Foley, or maybe he wasn’t famous.  I don’t know.  But I now know that he was a brawling giant of a man who wrote some awfully gentle music.  Ben Dickey brings Foley to life under the direction of Ethan Hawke.  The movie is a little long, about 3 songs too long, but if you like music, you’ll like this movie.  Foley was definitely unique enough to warrant a biography.


21 Bridges – 8

One of Chadwick Boseman’s last films has him as a detective Andre Davis, who says policework is in his DNA because his father was a cop killed in the line of duty.  He has a history of justified killings in the line of duty.  When a routine drug heist goes wrong and seven policemen are killed in the resulting shootout, he must catch the robbers by 5 am or the FBI will take over.  He orders all 21 bridges coming into Manhattan closed so the killers are trapped on the island with Davis and his sidekick for the night Frankie Gray, played by Sienna Miller.  This is a fairly tense story, much more complex than I have laid out here, and it’s one of those action movies where there is a long chase scene on foot that would have lungs bursting.  Just once I’d like to see the sprinters collapse at the end of a movie run like this.

Apparently the late Boseman did 7 movies while fighting colon cancer.  Bosman had quite a canon of excellent work, playing not only The Black Panther, but real-life heroes Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Ernie Davis, and James Brown, each with great gusto.  Oddly, my favorite role of his is as a Ray Lewis-type linebacker in an otherwise cliché-ridden film, Draft Day.  He jumps off the screen with his intensity.  A great Actor gone to soon.

 

Classic Movie Report

Tokyo Story – 9

This Japanese classic was released in 1953, the year I was born.  That makes it 67 years old, although I am only 47.  This may be the most acclaimed movie of all time.  In the Sight and Sound polls, it was picked as the third best movie of all time by film critics, behind Vertigo and Citizen Kane.  In the poll of directors world-wide, it was picked as #1.  So, it has quite the reputation.

Filmed in glorious Black and White, it chronicles grandparents who still have one daughter living at home, a school teacher.  The rest of their kids are grown and live in or near Tokyo.  They decide that it may be the time to visit their busy children.  When they go to Tokyo, they find that their children are selfish and preoccupied and their grandchildren are distant and uninterested. The widow of one of their sons who went missing in action, is actually the warmest to them.  It’s heartbreaking and sad.  It is also a little jarring to see how the Japanese lived in the 50’s.  No furniture.  I don’t know if it’s still like that or not, but they sit on the floor, dine on the floor at a small table, and sleep on a pad on the floor.  I actually would have liked that, as I find myself on the floor trying to get comfortable a lot.  Sad movie, but worthy of its rep.

The Lady Eve – 9

Preston Sturges' classic screwball comedy is #110 on the S&S top 250 movies.  I think it would be more accurately called a pratfall comedy as most of the big laughs come when Henry Fonda is launched into a spill, usually caused by Barbara Stanwyck’s Eve/Jean.  Jean is a card shark on a cruise ship who targets the rich Charles (Fonda) and their whirlwind relationship consists mostly of Jean wrapping Charles around her finger and turning him every which way but loose.  Charles Coburn and William Demarest are terrific in supporting roles, and the movie is pretty funny most of the time.  I have a weakness for screwball comedies, and this is a good one.

 

Modern Times – 10
The Gold Rush – 10

My monthly Charlie Chaplin diet included The Gold Rush, his 1925 silent classic, ranked #159 on the Sight and Sound top 250 movies, and the even better Modern Times, ranked #63  It is amazing how well his little gems hold up, compared to some of these other classics filmed in the 50’s and 60’.  I’m becoming a big fan of Chaplin and his comedic timing has probably never been equaled.  I understand his place in cinema history and why his genius is so revered.


The Thin Blue Line – 9

This highly acclaimed Errol Morris film may have been the first great documentary, and is ranked 183 on the S&S top 250.  Morris went to Texas in the mid 80’s to do a small probe into the mindset of death row inmates and became enamored of an inmate named Randall Adams, who insisted he was wrongly convicted of the murder of a cop.  Morris and his camera began to investigate the crime, and found enough doubt to make the case for Adams’ innocence as the centerpiece of the movie.   It’s a little dated but still effective. 

 

Vernon Florida – 5

Which led me to be curious about Errol Morris’ first documentary, especially when I heard him say it was his favorite movie.  It is a 60 minute piece consisting of only interviews with local characters in Vernon.  He originally went to Vernon to examine its reputation as the fraud capital of America, where people would go to great extremes, like sacrificing a limb, to get declared disabled and hopefully cash a big check.  Morris doesn’t go into that.  He finds the locals fascinating, and this is 60 minutes of quirk.  I would not agree with Morris on his assessment.

At the Cinema - February/March 2018

Black Panther – 9

 

Atticus Finch is dead.  The days of great book adaptations set forth as high budget, high brow movies have officially ended.  The source material of the day is comic books.  Marvel is here, and we’re going to have to deal with it.  It makes some sense.   The stories are unbounded by reality, the colors are bright, and the stories are plentiful.  It’s ripe for Hollywood’s favorite tool – the sequel.

 

Most of the Marvel universe has spawned blockbusters.  Well-funded, well-conceived, and well executed.  My favorite type of movie?  No, I’d rather see a Martin Scorsese original, and see how he was going to use “Sympathy for the Devil” again.  Black Panther is the latest, and you’re talking Jaws/Star Wars/Titanic world-wide momentum here. It is already the 10^th highest grossing movie of all time.   Is it up to the hype?

 

Mostly, yes.  The screen oozes with the charisma of the stars – Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o (wow she grew up fast) and Angela Bassett to name a few.  The story, of the hidden kingdom Wakanda in Africa with an advanced technology – a bullet to the spine can be healed in 24 hours – based on the strongest element vibranium, is original and spectacular.  The king of the country is decided in a challenge ritual fight, they have spies all over the world, and they’re sitting on their technology, not trusting the world enough to share.   Oh, and the New King is about to be challenged.

 

Of course, the fight scenes are overlong and too fast and blurry to really see, and there’s an air battle that’s so lifted out of Star Wars, that you expect Hans Solo to sweep in and save the day.  But, with the brilliant Ryan Coogler at the helm as director, there are so many original, really cool concepts, that I’m going to do the unheard of – look forward to the sequel. 

 

 

 

Eric Clapton:  Life in 12 Bars – 9

Eric Clapton is one of those musicians who has provided the soundtrack for my life.  He’s not been a constant presence, but a sporadic one, with classics interspersed throughout the years – songs that I love, like Layla, Sunshine of Your Love, Can’t Find My Way Home, and many more. 

 

I thought I knew a little about him, but oh, was I wrong.  This Showtime documentary covers the life and hard times of Eric Clapton.  He thinks his youth is going along swimmingly until he realizes his mother isn’t his mother, slap, it’s his grandmother and the shy young introvert withdraws more than he already has.  Fortunately, his withdrawal is deep into the Blues music coming mostly from America.  It’s a theme repeated over and over as his life goes on – the music saves him, but never cleanly. 

Eric’s female, drug, and alcohol indulgences are everything you would expect of a rock star, and it surprises him and us that he didn’t go the way of Hendrix and all the early departing rockers.  But the music is still there, and amazingly, so is he.  He plows on through and keeps on entertaining. 

Thankfully.

At the Cinema - October 2017

Marshall – 9

I knew nothing of the plot of this movie other than it was about Thurgood Marshall. I was thinking it would be a biography of the late Supreme Court Justice.  It was nothing like that.  Instead it is mostly a courtroom drama focused on one case in his early career.

Thurgood Marshall was a traveling civil rights lawyer and worked for the NAACP in their early days. The charismatic Chadwick Boseman plays him as a slightly arrogant, angry, but ultimately brilliant lawyer.  We learn in the closing credits that he argued before the US Supreme Court 35 times in civil rights cases, winning 32 times before eventually become the first black Justice. 

In this tightly constructed story, Marshall is sent to Connecticut to defend a black man (Sterling Brown) accused of raping his white employer (Kate Hudson).  I kept waiting for someone to say he was going to break up a chifferobe.  The judge (a terrific James Cromwell) won’t let Marshall verbally participate in the trial so he is forced to be the puppet master for the local lawyer played by Josh Gad.  To say they fight an uphill battle would be an understatement.

It’s compelling and enlightening and a great take on the career of a legal and civil rights giant.

Blade Runner 2049 – 8

Extraordinary in every visual way, the sequel to the classic Science Fiction movie Blade Runner asks for a little more in the plot twist department than I am willing to give. 
To be honest, I never thought the first movie was anything special.  When I bought the laserdisc I got the director’s cut which had eliminated the annoying narration, but it still fell short of the classic status others have granted.  It was an interesting take on the future, but it wasn’t a Road Warrior.  And for that matter, this is no Mad Max:  Fury Road.  If you are a Blade Runner lover, you’ll probably love this update.  I give it an A for cinematography, an incomplete for the story.

Meanwhile,

What an interesting sports month.

While the NFL popularity is being tested, the World Series was special. 

In recent years both sports have been slowed by Replay Reversals and Rule Change malarkey.  Can anyone tell me how long you have to maintain control of a football for it to be a catch?  Did anyone think Major League umpires missed so many calls? 

Anyway, as much as I love football, and the New Orleans Saints in particular, baseball still rules my heart.  I know the young generation is being raised on soccer, but us geezers don’t understand it and we care much more about real pizza than real Madrid.   Football has an inherent unfairness in that you could conceivably get 5 possessions in a row via onside kicks.  I even used to hate it when we played make it, take it in basketball.  Anyway, no such luck in baseball.  You’ve got to get 27 outs (sometimes gloriously more) to take the game, and it matters not whether that takes 2 hours or 4.  It is a timeless game and there’s magic in those 60 feet 6 inches, and those 90 feet.  Post season heroes are sometimes born, while ace pitchers somehow can’t get the job done in October.

I was so starving for baseball when I first moved to Mississippi I remember listening to the Houston Colt 45’s on the radio.  Their stars were Sonny Jackson and Joe Morgan and I know what a long wait it has been for baseball fans in Texas.

As so often happens (see New Orleans), a championship can take on special meaning in face of a disaster, and in a year that has been anything but heart-warming, the Astros provided some joy to a beleaguered region by winning the World Series.  And earlier this year I saw this picture of the two leading contenders for American League MVP that sums up why baseball is so great.   It’s about hand/eye coordination, not size, so there’s a hope and a fairness to it all.  Bravo.