1917 (4/5 Stars)

The technical achievements of 1917 alone are enough to warrant a viewing of this movie in a theater where one can experience in focus and isolation the high level of skill the creators exhibit. The Director of 1917 is Sam Mendes and the cinematographer is Roger Deakins. This is the fourth time they have worked collaborated. Notably, they previously worked together on James Bond’s Skyfall. What this movie attempts and largely achieves is one long broken shot, a technique first attempted by Alfred Hitchcock in the middling movie “Rope” and perfected by Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Innaritu in the more recent movies “Gravity” and “Birdman”. “1917” efforts fall somewhere in between.

The digital revolution in filmmaking has made long shots much easier to edit and cheaper to produce. Surely it still takes much skill in creating a movie that relies so much on logistics and choreography, but, at the end of the day, when everything in movies now seems possible and comes out every week, it is just as important to ask whether any story should be shot in one take. Let’s consider for a moment exemplary uses of the technique in “Gravity” and “Birdman”.

“Gravity” is a great example of the utility of long shots, especially in action sequences. Long takes build up the you-are-there suspense to a scene, a sort of kinetic energy if you will, that makes watching them especially exciting. When done well, the audience has a perfect sense of where everyone is and how fast everything is moving. Any danger presented is more immediate more serious because there is not present the safety of editing, which too often in lesser movies bends time and space to aid the protagonist. How many times have the main characters not gotten hit by that train which is barreling down on their stalled car. “Gravity” was set in space. Its subject does not particularly lend itself to a one-shot technique, but there is no reason why it wouldn’t be appropriate. As it is an action movie, it the one-shot technique greatly enhances the overall effect of the movie.

“Birdman” is not an action movie, so it is a particularly good example of using the one-shot technique as a way to develop an appropriate subject matter. That movie was centered around a Broadway play. Plays and movies are written differently due to differences in the immediacy of the audience and the fact that movies have editing. By taking out the editing, “Birdman” allowed a movie audience to experience “play writing” in a cinematic experience.

“1917” is a movie about World War I. There is plenty of action in any war and the long takes here make those sequences in this movie more exciting. The storyline is sparse and includes a journey of two British soldiers through enemy lines with the mission to call off an assault that will certainly be ambushed and end in slaughter. We follow two Lance Corporals, Black (played by Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (played by George MacKay) as they march through no-man’s land, tunnels, fields, a burned-out city, and forest, till they get to their mission’s endpoint. They have until the next morning to stop the assault, so a time limit is set and the journey happens pretty much in real time. George MacKay has a face that belongs in the 19^th century and does a good job inhabiting the old world. There are several more prominent stars in the cast that pop up now and again in what are essentially cameos. Colin Firth is a general. Andrew Scott is a lieutenant. Mark Strong is a captain. Benedict Cumberbatch is a colonel. Everyone does a fine job.

A journey story with a time limit is good for a one take technique. But (and I realize this may be a bit unfair) is a plot about a journey with a time limit appropriate for a World War I story? After all, World War I more than any war before or since was not about going places in a hurry. What generally defined that war was that nobody went anywhere and took an exceedingly long time not to do it. World War I was about hoping a bomb didn’t land on you while you waited in the mud.

Sam Mendes has made a very good movie and he dedicates it his grandfather, a World War I veteran. Do you think his grandfather would have recognized the subject matter of this movie? Is such a mission that we see here likely to have occurred in a World War I setting? Do you think the veteran would have laughed at the sheer distance the characters make within a day? At least the mission seems to be generally futile. That at least is in the spirit of World War I.

Uncut Gems (5/5 Stars)

The comedian Artie Lange once described the lure of a gambling addiction. He’s sitting at his home with a friend watching a football game, Browns v. Rams, two terrible winless teams.

“What a boring game, I don’t care about this game,” says his friend.

“You want to make it interesting?” says Artie, “How much money do you have in your savings account?

“$800”

“Put $1,500 on the Rams.”

Suddenly you are watching the most exciting game of your life.

Artie’s anecdote came to me while watching “Uncut Gems,” a whirlwind of a movie about a compulsive gambler, Howard Ratner, played by Adam Sandler. The movie starts with Howard Ratner in the hole six figures deep with loan sharks circling and his family falling apart. We do not have much sympathy for Howard. It seems highly likely that he legitimately owes the money (he probably gambled it away) and that his wife should definitely divorce him (he is cheating with an employee at his jewelry store). But Howard has a plan or at least chutzpah and he is about to take us on a fast and frenetic tour of the diamond district in NYC at a very specific time in 2012. It’s all or nothing game time. He is betting big long shots to either save everything or lose everything. Whether or not he wins feels besides the point. Who cares if the Browns win or Rams win. Everything is on the line and it is exciting.

This movie is exciting, remarkably so. It was written and directed by a relatively new team of writer/director brothers Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, and their natural talent sparks off the screen. The movie’s plot is all walking and talking. There are no special effects, no fight scenes. And yet, “Uncut Gems” feels like it has more action than most blockbusters. And it is continual action. It starts off frenetic and keeps the pace for the entire movie. This is great writing, stirred with great direction, finished with great editing. I would love to see the Safdie brothers get their hands on a comic book blockbuster. It would be interesting to see if they can translate their skills through the machine. The outcome, if successfully, ought to be the best of both worlds.

The plot is exceptionally clever. Howard Ratner’s crazy scheme involves getting his hands on a lucky rock, a solid block of uncut gems, smuggled in from black Jews in Ethiopia. He loans it to a professional athlete who believes the rock is lucky and will help his game. Howard then bets big on the personal stats of the professional athlete. As his bookie says to him, “that’s the dumbest fucking bet I’ve ever heard of.”

But who is this professional athlete? Well, it is Kevin Garnett, the real professional basketball player. And guess what, there is Kevin Garnett, cast in this movie as himself. And when does this movie take place? It takes place during the 2011-2012 Eastern Conference semifinals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. These are real games and the actual ESPN footage is shown in this movie. And here Garnett is in this movie acting as his approximately seven years younger fictional self, looking to give his historical self an edge via a lucky stone. Because “Uncut Gems” is such a great movie, it may have the effect of cinematically immortalizing that playoff series. Print the legend sort of thing. For what it is worth, Kevin Garnett’s performance is the best by an NBA player I have ever seen, but then again that bar is decidedly low (looking at you, Shaq)

The casting in this movie is perfect and contains the kind of names that make you believe the Safdie Brothers may have some special pull in the acting community. Adam Sandler pulls off a great performance. Everyone who has seen “Punch Drunk Love” knows he can be a good actor, if only he showed up and cared more than once a decade instead of doing a fourth Hotel Transylvania. The Safdie Brothers somehow made him care. They also got three of the more interesting Jews in the business: Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirch, and Idina Menzel. And these guys aren’t especially in the business anymore as far as I know. Eric Bogosian is a monologist. Judd Hirsch is retired. Idina Menzel is on Broadway. Then there is the irreplaceable LaKeith Stanfield who always seems to be underutilized.

Overall, “Uncut Gems” is one of the best movies of the year. I think they should pass it out in all major movie studios to those in charge of the action blockbuster department. If only movies with 100 million dollars budgets were this entertaining.