No Time to Die (5/5 Stars)

 

James Bond was never intended to be the adult in the room. The early films are exercises in juvenile wish fulfillment, specifically those of white boys. Imagine being a very important person (agent of a world superpower government) possessed with extraordinary skills and intelligence in exceedingly dangerous (see exciting) situations that will never have to actually deal with any of the repercussions. The cleanup is another department. As a bonus to all of this, as a very important person dealing with the less civilized parts of the world, you are offered exotic women by the local power brokers, and if other situations, the women just naturally flock to you because you are more handsome, wealthier, the plot calls for it, etc. I like the old James Bond movies, in particular I recommend “You Only Live Twice” but I will admit they are a guilty pleasure, you know like pornography.

I bring this up in this review for “No Time to Die” because it is quite extraordinary how grown up the franchise has become. With massive popularity comes responsibility (via criticism) and the James Bond of 2021 is more an elder statesman than a juvenile delinquent. What is even more amazing is that the quality of the movies have not diminished. “No Time to Die” is just as entertaining as “You Only Live Twice.” Indeed, “No Time to Die” retains many of the old James Bond tropes: exotic locales, gorgeous women, a disfigured villain in an island fortress, but the mood and tone are of an entirely different genre. “No Time to Die” is like a great cover version song of an old classic. You know the song, but you had no idea it could work so well in such a completely different way.

This is Daniel Craig’s fifth outing as James Bond. The story picks up right where “Spectre” of several years ago left with the hopeful retirement of James Bond with Lea Seydoux, that gorgeous French woman. This one is directed by Cary Fukunaga (True Detective Season 1, Sin Nombre) who also shares a writing credit with the duo of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. (Purvis and Wade, IMDB relates, have written the last seven James Bond movies dating back to 1999’s “The World is Not Enough.” They are getting very good at it.) The retirement does not last very long though as Lea Seydoux’s past comes back to haunt her with James as the collateral damage. This movie is two and a half hours long, its locales span continents from Italy, to Cuba, to Sweden, to Japan, the main villain’s plot, and even his identity, comes quite late, yet it never moved slow and I never felt restless. I was in good super competent hands.

In particular, this movie is a course in actions sequences that work. Unlike the digital acrobatics of Marvel blockbusters, the stunts in “No Time to Die” have a down-to-earth visceral feel to them. It looks like that car really crashed and rolled, that the telephone pole fell down on a live set, that the stunt man really did drive that motorcycle up the side of that Italian building (wow!). At one point, in an extended one shot sequence, Daniel Craig shoots and fist-fights his way up a crowded stairwell. Whatever they are doing, it is just so much better than “Shang-Chi”.

A good James Bond movie is a series of fun set pieces, strong men, and beautiful women. The opening car/motorcycle chase with Lea Seydoux through the Italian village is great. So is the spy mission in Havana, Cuba with Ana de Armas as sidekick. Finally the infiltration of a villain’s island fortress with Lashana Lynch. In between there is humor deftly brought to the fore by wisecracking Ben Whishaw as Q and Naomie Harris as Moneypenney and the classic James Bond score providing the punctuation. In the villain department, Christoph Waltz reprises his Spectre mastermind Blofeld now locked away in a maximum security prison while outside a new threat in the form of Rami Malek.

It is the villain subplot that is finally where this movie comes up short. The danger is real enough. The British government was secretly developing a type of airborne weapon that attacks certain genomic sequences. In this way, the government could conceivably release the virus in a room and it would only kill one person, the intended target. Of course, this weapon is stolen and repurposed so that it may attack whole groups of people with similar genomic sequences, maybe an entire race of people. Evil enough, but the movie does not actually go so far as to suggest what group of people the bad guy is interested in killing. The bad guy’s island fortress is located between Russia and Japan and a simulation of the weapon seems to mainly central Europe. Noone in the movie is from Central Europe. Perhaps the franchise felt that to actually pinpoint a target was not necessary given that the members of the audience could all agree that the idea is nefarious supervillain territory regardless of what group is being targeted. Still, the lack of this detail, harms the viewer’s ability to understand the motivation of the villain, which in turn harms the drama. A minor quibble. Otherwise Rami Malek with his creepy delivery and bug eyes are classic Bond villain.

At the end of this movie, you may come to the realization that this really will be Daniel Craig’s last dance and that the franchise will have to turn to a different actor in any new installment. So who should it be? Well, I think whoever it is, they should redo the entire feel of the franchise, taking it perhaps down a few notches from the stripped down, brutish, and semi-seriousness of Daniel Craig. How about Dev Patel and, please, more irresponsible sex. Being responsible is great for a few movies, as a change of pace, but overall, James Bond should be having more fun.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (4/5 Stars)

 

Writer/Director Armando Iannucci is one of my favorites. He is responsible for the early career of the British comedian Steve Coogan (David Partridge) and the best TV show about British politics (The Thick of It). Thereafter, he made a great movie that crossed over his British political show into American politics (In the Loop) and then seamlessly transferred his skills to one of the best shows about American politics (Veep). Since leaving Veep, he made a masterpiece, The Death of Stalin, which I called in my review a perfect marriage of artist and subject matter. His work, a worthy successor of Monty Python, is defined by that very British and very cruel sense of humor (a worthy American successor of Monty Python along the same lines is South Park). 

In the spirit of Monty Python then, And Now for Something Completely Different! For the first time in Iannucci’s career, he has expended money on set design and costumes. The Personal History of David Copperfield is a lark to look at it. It adapts the 19^th century Charles Dickens' novel with color and flair. The stolid realism of his political films is completely gone. Moreover, the movie's storyline zips and churns through scenery and characters in a frenetic and fantastic pace. It is a giant leap in style for Iannucci and he accomplishes it like a natural.

The screenplay which Iannucci co-wrote with longtime collaborator Simon Blackwell. I have not read this particular Dickens work novel, but having read other of his books, I expect the screenwriters put in excellent work, omitting much extraneous details were successfully edited out while successfully retaining the emotional core and finding room for plenty of jokes. This does not feel like the usual Dickens adaptation, which is all the better because I have never felt Dickens to be especially adaptable.

In fact, I’m not sure I particularly like Dickens. I'm not sure I approve of the way he gave characters names that automatically signaled how you are supposed to feel about them, as if a book could be judged by its cover. Anyhow, if one were to adapt a Dickens book, what with all its contrivances, this would be the movie to show it is to be done. The unabashedly caricatures of personality are here. David Copperfield is as earnest as earnest comes. Mr. Murdstone is a mean monster. Uriah Heep is a total piece of shit. It is an unfair story told in an unrealistic abstract way as if to signal to the audience like a B movie would, hey this is not real life, have fun and enjoy yourself.

This brings me to the most noticeable part of the movie, what the movie has termed “color blind casting”. As you may suspect, this 19^th century British novel about British people ought to be entirely populated by British people. However, Iannucci has cast an Indian in the title role (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame), and several black people, some other Indians, and a Chinese man (Benedict Wong) in several of the supporting roles. 

Does this work? I am reminded of one of the stupider conversations I ever had with someone, a former roommate that attended the same college as Lena Dunham. He believed that Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in The Revenant could have been played just as well as a black man. (This role is based on the real-life personage of a fur trapper in 1820s America in the Louisiana Territory). I thought that point of view was idiotic. The movie was attempting to be as realistic as possible. It went so far as to shoot only with natural light. An undisguised black man as the protagonist would have been absolutely weird. I still stand by this sentiment, but at the same time, as a resident of New York City, I have seen many productions of Shakespeare plays which rely on color-blind casting. And for Shakespeare plays, color-blind casting works very well. After all, Shakespeare never had production value so there is very little realism in his works. The merits of his plays rely almost exclusively on the poetry of his words and acting, which can be done by anyone who can master the correct accent and style of performance. The color blind casting here works in the same way. There are many different ethnicities represented by the actors, but every single one of them speaks their lines in perfect 19th century English accents. (Not coincidentally I suppose, but the actors, if not British, come from places that have ties to the British Empire, in particular India, Africa, and Hong Kong. There are no Latin or Arab cast members).

The way the movie is presented is itself more abstract then realistic. Within this environment it makes sense to simply find the best actors around. Dev Patel, who has a very Tom Hanksian earnest everyman quality to him, is well cast in the lead role of David Copperfield. And I always like seeing Benedict Wong in anything. It would have been awesome if that was Chloe Sevigny in blackface, but apparently there is a black woman who looks just like her with the name of Rosalind Eleazar. The rest of the cast that is white is a who’s who of interesting actors: Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, and Peter Capaldi amongst them. Then there is Ben Whishaw who plays Dickens’ classic creep Uriah Heep. He does a particularly good job at making one’s skin crawl as soon as he shows up on screen. I am reminded once more by how much Dickens hated lawyers.

The movie moves swiftly from interesting caricature to interesting caricature and through comedic interludes and dramatic pratfalls. It ends with a artistic cop-out that is becoming as cliched as a story ending in marriage or death. The main character aspires to be writer. He writes a book about the people within the story. This story is published and becomes wildly successful. And The End, Happily Ever After.

I have seen this sort of ending perhaps a dozen times. What does it mean? Does it not say that all the hardships we endure in our lives can be automatically validated if the general populace pays attention to it and bestow upon the writer fame and fortune? Is that true? If two people have an argument, and only one is famous, and as a result only one side of the argument is told, is there then only one side of the story, and the argument won. Perhaps I am being a little cynical. However, it has been postulated that David Copperfield is a veiled autobiography of Dickens. If it supposed to be at all objective, is it fair to give your step-father the surname of Murdstone or to name anyone you once knew Uriah Heep. Apart from that, I really did like this movie.

The Lobster (4/5 Stars)

“The Lobster” is such an original movie that to describe it would necessarily require a comprehensive rehashing of the plot. I simply cannot say it is like some other movie you know. But to not rehash the entire movie and only focus on the beginning would also be to sell itself short because one of the more interesting characters (Rachel Weisz) is only introduced halfway through and what happens with her and the main character, i.e. the Lobster (Colin Farrell) is more interesting than what happens in the first half. But for the second part to make any sense, one needs to understand the first part, and I can’t do that without giving it all away. So just take my word for it: Rachel Weisz is great in this movie and I can’t tell you why.

It starts with The Lobster checking into the Hotel on the Seashore next to a Forest away from the City. He has been recently divorced. The Hotel, a creature of the State, will allow him to stay for 45 days to find himself a mate. If he doesn’t they will turn him into an animal. He gets to choose the animal. He chooses Lobster. It isn’t a completely arbitrary choice. As he explains the animal will live a long time and he likes the sea. So it works in a way. And that in a nutshell is how this movie works (more a miracle the more I think about it). It chooses seemingly arbitrary and bizarre rules to follow and then with a totally straight face follows them without flinching. The result is an sincere, engrossing, and surprisingly consistent romantic comedy. And it is a romantic comedy as strange as that may sound when applied to a movie such as this.

No State in the known world would ever force people to find a mate within 45 days before turning them into an animal. And that is likely because no state in the known world deals with the kind of hopelessly anti romantic people that inhabit this movie. Colin Farell along with his new guy friends John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw do not want to be turned into animals. Neither do the females at the Hotel. But at the same time there seems to be an unwritten rule that couples need to have a unique trait in common. Ben Whishaw has a limp. John C. Reilly has a lisp. There is this really hot girl who eventually gets turned into a pony because she can’t find anyone else who has great hair.

The Hotel has seminars and mixers in which relationships are promoted in the least appetizing way possible. There is a rule against masturbating in the hotel and the maids, as part of their job desciption, are to dry hump the guests (but not to climax) in order to stimulate them to find mates amongst the other guests. As Colin Farrell understatedly intones, “Awful, just awful.”

If this is a satire on something I don’t know what that could possibly be and honestly I do not really care. I don’t want to think there is an agenda behind this movie. If there were it would be a stupid way to push it because nothing in here has anything to do with reality. The only way it works is by its own rules all by itself. And encapsulated as such, it sets its rules out clearly follows them steadfastly and exploits them for humorous and romantic effect.

To make matters more interesting, the outcasts of this mandatory romantic society are a guerilla band of loners who carry out terrorist missions targeted to break up the couples at the retreat. The guests at the hotel are given tranquilizer guns and every once in a while bussed to the woods where they can earn an extra day for each loner they capture. There is a heartless woman guest (played by Aggeliki Papoulia) that is particularly adept at hunting other human beings. She is at 158 days currently. Hilarity and Tragedy ensues when The Lobster tries to woo her by pretending to be heartless as well.

The movie is filled end to end with interesting details: for example when the loners celebrate they listen to electronic music with headphones. That way even when they are celebrating together they dance alone. And in the city, a person shopping alone can be stopped by the police and asked for their marriage certificate. The movie was directed by Yorgos Lathimos and also co-written by him. He is obviously a type of insane.

Anchoring the movie is Colin Farrell who has turned into a special actor. I remember him quite well as someone I would point out as rather bad (or at least miscast). He was doing these great epic roles (Alexandar, The New World, Miami Vice) and doing them, frankly, not so well. But then he had a career turnaround in “In Bruges,” in which he played a down and out suicidal loser who, quite importantly, had the same accent as his very own Irish brogue. It was a revelation. His true calling was not as blockbuster hero. It was as a loser and he has excelled in that role ever since. His turn in “True Detective: Season 2,” “Seven Psychopaths,” and most importantly this movie prove that he is at his best playing broken men. Colin Farrell brings a pathos and honest humor to this character that seems entirely tuned to him. This is his best role and I would argue an Oscar nomination for it.

Rachel Weisz, as we all know and I hope I have written about before, is great and a very big movie girlfriend of mine. I wish I could tell you what she does in this movie without giving away the last half of the movie except to say, like everything she does, it is perfect. (I never got to rave about her comedic performance in “The Brothers Bloom” but for fucks sake wasn’t that revelatory). She’s worthy of a great romantic gesture. I’ve said too much already.

John C. Reilly rises to the occasion again as a welcome competent face in a movie totally out there with no money backing it. I’m reminded a little bit of his work in “Cedar Rapids.” He is a great team player. Also there is Lea Seydoux playing against type as queen of the loners given she is currently one of the sexiest women in movies (Blue is the Warmest Color, Mission Impossible). Then there is Ben Whishaw who is also very good. Everybody in this movie, amazingly, is very good at playing people who do not resemble humans in a world that does not resemble reality. It’s great acting drawn from great directing and writing by Yorgos Lathimos who, as I related before, is probably insane. Anyway I vote for an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay, the key word being Original. Want a cold breath of fresh air in your movie going experience. Go see “The Lobster.”

Spectre (3/5 Stars)

It would be unfair to comment only on the drawbacks of Spectre without at first highlighting the things it brings to the table that other films simply cannot accomplish. That would be the epic globetrotting landscapes of the James Bond franchise. This movie directed by the returning Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) with a new cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema (Her, Let the Right One In) is especially impressive in this regard. It was shot on film in the classic style and plays great on a big screen (I saw it at the Ziegfeld). The exotic locales include Mexico City during the Dia de los Muertos festival, Rome bathed in a nighttime orange-green glow of conspiracy, London in a chilly bureaucratic blue, a supervillain headquarters in the middle of the desert, and at least one beautifully soft lit train interior great for white tuxedos and fistfights. It really looks good but enough about that.

Spectre seems to be the culmination of the last three Daniel Craig Bond films. At various times in the movie the images of past characters find themselves on screen. Included are Eva Green from Casino Royale and Judi Dench from Skyfall. Conspicuously absent are any characters from Quantum of Solace; a movie that I really liked for reasons everybody else hated i.e. a realistic supervillain scheme. All of the shadowy bad guys in the previous movies are connected to a secret organization called Spectre that has an octopus as a mascot. It’s really big and does a lot of things. And here is where the last series of movies finally experiences a thematic disconnect between the reactionary pedigree of the franchise and the radical version of the Daniel Craig James Bond.

The James Bond supervillains have historically been colorful silly things. They generally have some outlandish goal like wanting to take over the world (or blowing it up). They have exhorbitantly expensive secret lairs. They have exotic henchmen with quirky ways of killing people. None of these things are all that believable. The Daniel Craig series of movies took the silliness out of the franchise. They took away almost all of the gadgets. They took away the scene stealing physical deformities of the villains. They involved evil schemes that were more or less real (in fact the scheme in Quantum of Solace actually happened which is the main reason I thought the movie had some serious chutzpah.) Heck even the blatant promiscuity is gone. I believe Daniel Craig refuses sex at least once in each of his movies. In this one, the refusal takes place within the first ten minutes during an impressively long tracking. It feels like a nice inside joke. The effect of all this seriousness combined with the retention of superior action sequences and decent character development has produced, I would argue, the best Bond movies in the franchise. Spectre has the look of the last three art house Bond movies but the plot of one of the old sillies. The whole thing feels like a setup to the production of more of the forgettable kind of Bond movies. It seems counterintuitive to me that the last three great James Bond movies would culminate into a standard James Bond movie. But that is me. James Bond movies do have a structure and the franchise has been around for a very long because that structure works for the most part.

If you have many Bond movies there are plenty of tropes here that you will recognize. The running joke of Bond’s propensity to destroy all of the equipment built by the continually annoyed Q (Ben Whishaw) is on full display here. Bond flirts with Moneypenney (Naomi Campbell). Bond rebels against M (Ralph Fiennes now). Bond gets captured by the bad guy, tied to a gurney, and uses a trick watch to escape. There is even a scene involving the love interest (Lea Seydoux) tied to a chair with a ticking time bomb and Bond has to decide whether to save her and probably die or just save himself. You have seen all of this before, but rarely in the Daniel Craig series, (or shot so beautifully by a great director and cinematographer team), which always took itself more seriously than the previous installments.

Nowhere does the disconnect present itself so glaringly then when the evil scheme presents itself. Spoiler alert I guess although I don’t think you will care so much by this reveal. The scheme is a world dragnet of surveillance, the sort Edward Snowden told us about and is in vogue currently as a supervillain plot. James Bond’s part of the British Secret Service MI:6 is portrayed as the responsible old fashioned way of doing spy stuff. Of course it isn’t. I mean the first scene of this movie has James Bond going AWOL in Mexico City having a fistfight in a helicoptor over a parade of several thousand innocent bystanders. It is a seriously dangerous irresponsible stunt by a agent going rogue agaist all orders. I know this is a James Bond movie but I wouldn’t judge the scene on its safety to the public if the movie itself did not intend to grandstand against the surveillance issues of our times and take the position that those are worse. There are too many dramatic conversations where characters inveigh vaguely against the danger of a police state in between set pieces of extraordinary violence that only with movie magic would not kill scores of innocent bystanders.

But let’s be positive about some of those set pieces because they are very good. My favorite parts of the movie have to do with the henchmen, played by a former pro wrestler named Dave Bautista who first came on the movie scene in last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy. He is a big brute of a man. After an awkward introduction he becomes the antagonist for a great car chase through Rome. It’s thrilling and very prettily shot and I was impressed that they got access to the Vatican. James Bond gets away but Dave Bautista catches up on a train as James Bond, in a white tuxedo, and Lea Seydoux, in an elegant dress, are sitting down to drinks. He bursts in from another car and havoc ensues. The fight is interesting in that it becomes clear that James cannot win it. Bautista is too big and too strong. It is a very cool thing to watch. I was wondering if they could end it in a way that wasn’t bullshit. They did.

I wish Cristoph Waltz was more entertaining as a Bond villain to me. On paper he would seem to be perfect. But I can’t say it was a particularly memorable performance or character. Oh and the bad guy from BBC's Sherlock Holmes is in this movie as well. He had far more potential on paper too. 

Skyfall (4/5 Stars)

Arthouse Bond

M recites Tennyson; Q critiques an oil painting, Adele sings the theme song, and the villain displays homoeroticism and serious mommy issues. This is not your father’s James Bond and considering how this movie ends will probably not be your father’s Bond for several more movies.

What is a James Bond movie? I do not count myself as a huge expert in the franchise. I have seen all of the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig movies but only two or three of the Sean Connery ones and none from the 70s and 80s. What I can tell though is that they all have a similar format: Action Sequence: either escape or chase. If in cars be sure to run into fruit carts - Song and Credits – Mission Briefing – Gadgets – Exotic Locale – Exotic Woman - Disfigured villain with crazy plans – Action Sequence: guns if men, melee weapons if women – Sex – Action Sequence: explosions this time? – Pithy one-liners over martinis and poker – Action Finale: use any gadgets not previously used – Sex: if not all gadgets have been used, here is your final chance – Credits and hook for next movie.

Of course, the problem with any formula movie is that they tend to be formulaic. At the same time, if one tried to do something that strayed from the formula, they might capture the wrath of die-hards that flock to these movies to get just what they have come to expect. It’s the franchise paradox: Do something original and make the core audience uncomfortable or do something standard and succumb to a barrage of comments that the first movies were better. It’s a lose-lose situation (not counting the box office.)

It is kind of amazing then that “Skyfall” can be persuasively debated as the best James Bond movie in the fifty years of the franchise. It is actually debatable. Whether this is true or not should be left to someone who has seen all the movies. (Not me!) I do however feel comfortable in saying this: This is the best-looking James Bond movie ever.

In this sense, the franchise has embarked on something truly original. It has gone through the trouble of hiring an Oscar caliber heavyweight duo to be the director and cinematographer of this movie. I am speaking of Oscar Winning director (American Beauty) Sam Mendes and his frequent collaborator and perhaps the world’s best living cinematographer Roger Deakins. I do not know the name of many cinematographers but many a time I have seen a truly good looking movie, looked up the credits and found the name Roger Deakins. Amazingly he has never actually won an Oscar, but there is hardly a year that goes by where he has not been nominated for one. His list of nominated movies include: True Grit, The Reader, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country for Old Men, The Man Who Wasn’t There, O Brother Where Art Thou? Kundun, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption.  I believe after Scorsese finally won for “The Departed,” Roger Deakins has rightfully taken over the title of most snubbed. He should be nominated for this movie it is about time that he finally won.

Outside of a Tarantino movie or something from China, this particular skill is rarely used in action thrillers. But here it is. When James Bond engages in a fistfight with a sniper on the 50^th floor of a building, they are silhouetted against a serene vision of skyscraper blue. When he tussles with some heavies and a couple of komodo dragons in a casino, the scene is ensconced in delicious Chinese red. Back in Scotland the moors are distinctively gray, bearish, and heavy with the past. When there are explosions, the characters are framed just right for the audience to feel the full effect of the raging fires. Take your girlfriend to see this movie and if she doesn’t approve of the sex and violence tell her she does not appreciate great art. How many times after a James Bond movie do you expect to truthfully be able to say that again?

But hey we did not see this movie for the beauty of it, did we? Let’s talk about sex and violence.

The action has thankfully been returned to “understandable” after that sojourn into chaos, which was “Quantum of Solace.” I especially liked how each set piece differed in the type of action from the chase scene in the beginning to the standoff in the end. It’s good stuff and people die well, especially the victim of that giant lizard.

The women are not especially memorable and Daniel Craig continues his trademark Bond style of not being particularly focused on swinging his way through his movies. This is the third movie in a row where a female is introduced, seduced and murdered (by the bad guys) in a span of let’s say five to ten minutes. In fact, I think it is fair to say the Bond Girl in this movie is none other than Judi Dench, as the MI6 boss, M. Her part in this movie is substantial as the bad guy’s plot revolves around specifically exacting revenge on her. Much has been said about the misogynistic nature of James Bond, but like “Casino Royale,” this movie provides an actual excuse for his behavior. Bond is already taken. He is married to England and M, well, that abbreviation may as well be for ‘mother.’ At least that is what the bad guy, a disgruntled ex-MI6 agent out for revenge, played by Javier Bardem, seems to think.

It has been noted before that the novelty of franchise movies is contained in its villains. They are after all are the newness of the installment. I think it is a less of an insult to Javier Bardem’s Julian Asssange tinged cyberterrorist and more of a big compliment to the sure-handed competence of the last three movies to say that Daniel Craig’s orphaned thug of a James Bond still remains the most interesting character in these stories. That’s a big thing. This is not just a great Bond movie; it is a very good movie in general. Not just for diehards, for everyone.

Cloud Atlas (5/5 Stars)

Earning the Melodrama

Ultimate Truth, Matters of Life and Death, Good and Evil, Chance and Fate, Love and Hate, The Inherent Nature of Man, The Shape of Things to Come, the Natural Order of Things, The Meaning of Life. All are weighty and serious subject. But just because something is serious does not a good movie make. In fact, it is far more difficult to make a good movie out of something serious than it is to make a good movie out of something trivial.  Bad movies about weighty subjects are worse than just bad. They are disrespectful. The best example I can think of is any movie about the Holocaust. If you are going to bring that up, it better be in a great movie. It is a subject that simply should not be half-assed. In this way, I tend to judge movies like “Cloud Atlas” which contain all of the above themes in a hypercritical way. They have to earn their melodrama. 

This movie is based on the book “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell and has been screen-written and directed by Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”) and Lana and Andy Wachowski. The Wachowski’s have made great and terrible movies before. Very rarely are they ever in between. Their best has to be “The Matrix,” a movie with such top-notch action sequences that plenty of people probably did not notice its strong currents of philosophy and theology. Their worst was “V for Vendetta,” a disturbingly obvious piece of left-wing propaganda. Both movies display exceptional talent on behalf of its directors but as Roger Ebert is wont to say, it is the best directors that often make the worst movies.

It is my pleasure than to let you know that “Cloud Atlas” is one of the best movies of the year. It is a beautiful movie of great scope and ambition that sets out to achieve many many things and succeeds in practically all of them. The little inconsistencies or confusing tidbits that do exist can be readily filed under “who gives a shit.” 

“Cloud Atlas” is composed a six different stories employing the same actors that take place in different times and places, seamlessly edited together. The first story takes place in 1849. The main character, a procurer of Maori slaves played by Jim Sturgess, takes ill on a long ocean voyage between New Zealand and England and forms an unlikely bond with a Maori stowaway.  The second story takes place in 1936 London. The main character, a young “degenerate” played by Ben Whishaw, infiltrates himself within the household of an aging composer with plans to become an invaluable apprentice before revealing his true identity as a disinherited relative. The third story takes place in 1972 Long Island. The main character, a reporter played by Halle Berry, is investigating a corporate conspiracy to cover-up an impending meltdown at a nuclear power plant. The fourth story takes place in 2012 London. The main character, a down-and-out publisher played by Jim Broadbent, comes into a stroke of good when his client murders a book critic which makes his book, "Knuckle Sandwich," become a best seller. Unfortunately the author’s thug friends want their piece of the profits and the publisher has already spent it all on old debts. The fifth story takes place in 2144 New Seoul. The main character, an artificial human made specifically for slave labor played by Doona Bae, is rescued from her fast food restaurant/prison and becomes the symbol of a violent revolution. The sixth story takes place 106 winters after an apocalyptic doom maybe on Hawaii. The main character, a pacifist goat herder played by Tom Hanks, deals with a vicious tribe (not unlike the Maori) with the help of an interstellar human trader looking for a secret among the ruins of an ancient civilization that will save her dying planet.

The greatest achievement of "Cloud Atlas" is that all of the stories are equally good and what makes them equally good is that they reside in different genres with drastically different characters and yet find a way to complement each other. Take for instance the 1936 London. It is bereft of the action found in the car chases in 1972 conspiracy thriller and the futuristic cityscapes in 2144 science fiction epic, but it forms the important musical component of the movie which finds itself in every other storyline. Or for example the idea that a single theme, let's just call it "freedom," can be explored in wildly different ways, whether it is terms of the broad comedy in the 2012 storyline which culminates in the escape attempt from a nursing home by a quartet of elderly residents to the love story in the 1936 storyline between homosexuals that earns them the rejection of society to the actual revolution against a futuristic totalitarian state in 2144. These different stories comment on each other in unexpected ways from the 1972 discovery by Halle Berry of the Cloud Atlas Sextet written in 1936 which inspires her to continue her investigation in the face of mounting danger to the 2012 spontaneous shouting of the Jim Broadbent character during his first and failed escape attempt that "Soylent Green is People!" at once an absurd and funny exclamation given the seriousness of the reference in contrast to his own situation, but also a recurring and foretelling expression of something horrifying that was true before 1849 and will become true again in 2144. 

I think it is worth just going out and saying it. "Soylent Green is People!" is a reference to cannabilism from a 1972 science fiction movie about a futuristic dystopia in an overpopulated NYC in which a mega-corporations attempts to sell people as food to unwitting consumers. Cannabalism is a major theme in "Cloud Atlas." I'm not saying you are going to see people eat people in this movie, but it is brought up several times in this movie's debate about social darwinism and the natural order of things. The historical basis of this starts in the 1849 storyline. It should be noted that the slaves on the plantation are not any regular slaves. They are the conquered Maori tribe of New Zealand, which just happened to be a tribe of vicious warriors that practiced cannabalism and had successfully conquered and eaten all the other peaceful tribes around it before the Europeans conquered and enslaved them. So when the plantation owner (Hugh Grant) gets into a philosphical discussion with the young procurer (Jim Sturgess) about the natural order of race and brings in his Maori slave butler (Keith David) to defend his case, it is actually a pretty good question. Are the weak meat that the strong do eat?

"Cloud Atlas" is a three hour movie that feels like 90 minutes. There is so much in here and the pace is so quick that it recalled my experience in watching Robert Altman's "Short Cuts." It is sort of imperative that this movie be seen on a big screen in a movie theater. The scope requires a large screen and the plot's complexity requires your full attention. To wait to see it at home on DVD or streaming would be a mistake. 

For the most part I understood everything but some of the details in the sixth story about the Hawaiian goat herder. This had largely to do with futuristic linguistics of the characters. They had tons of slang that resembled English but not enough. I must confess I did not quite understand why Hugo Weaving was dressed up as some humongous evil leprecaun that apparently only Tom Hanks could see and hear. But that is not to say I did not enjoy the sixth story as well. I garnered enough of what it was about to sort of understand what was going on. It was sort of like listening to a song by Beck. The words sounded good even when the phrases didn't make any sense. 

And as far as using the same actors to play a multitude of roles in all the different storylines, was it necessary? No, but it sure makes watching the movie a lot of fun.

I'm Not There November 26, 2007

I'm glad I know a fair deal about Bob Dylan. I once saw a four hour documentary on the guy. If I hadn't seen that, for certain I would have been hopelessly lost in this movie. It doesn't even attempt to explain Bob Dylan's life in any sort of factual way. If you don't come into the movie knowing certain landmark plot points (say for instance, the significance of a motorcycle accident) then you will not have the slightest idea what is going on. The movie is a landmark experiment in the structure of a biopic. It uses five actors and one actress to portray fictionalized versions of the same man. To its credit the movie works well enough to transcend the gimmick into a theme. But its not perfect, and a movie that could have been one of the years best is only somewhat superior.
There are six stories basically. The goal I bet would be to give each one equal weight and edit flawlessly back and forth between them. They edited flawlessly but didn't succeed in making them all interesting. I'm sure everyone who sees this film will agree there is one storyline and Dylan that is far superior to the others. This is the electric Jude portrayed by Cate Blanchett in a role that is sure to be nominated. Filmed in a stark contrast black and white this story is the funniest and certainly most memorable. Blanchett is uncanny. She's even more uncanny when considering in her last movie she played Queen Elizabeth I. There are plenty of great moments.
The drawback of the other stories is that they share too many similar themes to this one. Take for instance the Ben Whishaw storyline which consists only of a press conference. There isn't enough here for a story. I think they should have split up the lines amongst the other actors.
The Heath Ledger storyline doesn't have enough dialogue in it to hold it up. It's baseless, I didn't know what to think about it.
The real shame of this movie was the misuse of the Christian Bale storyline. This described the early folk career of Bob Dylan, but it doesn't get close to it. It's told in mock documentary style. We see the man from a distance and instead get an interview with Joan Baez. I would have loved to get to know this Bob Dylan more. He did exist at one point. Instead they made this story the prelude to the Cate Blanchett story. Too bad. 
Another weird thing is that they didn't use any of Bob Dylan's really famous songs. The only ones I recognized were "Times are a Changing, Mr. Jones, and Idiot Wind." Everything else was new. I haven't the slightest idea why they didn't choose to include such classics like 'Girl From North Country, Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall, Don't Think Twice, It Aint Me Babe, Like a Rolling Stone, Blowin in the Wind, or Stuck in the Middle with you.' I don't think they would have been that distracting honestly, and the movie would have surely benefitted from them.