The Ides of March (3/5 Stars)

Coach Clooney benches his star athlete.

 I remember this coach from my youth. He taught our 8th grade basketball team. His son was the star of the team. The father seemed to go out of his way to limit the son’s playing time or to scold him for subpar performances. Nobody had a harder time on the team than the best player on it. It was almost if the father was going the extra distance to not play favorites and in the end probably hurt the team by shortchanging the best player on it. The director of the “Ides of March,” is none other than George Clooney and and Coach Clooney has cast himself in a very important role, the candidate in a presidential election. However, the movie is not so interested in the candidate. It is more interested in the Machiavellian machinations of the people behind the candidates: their chiefs of staff, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, and a young press secretary, played by Ryan Gosling. Now these other actors are very capable, but the story never sticks because the candidate is not put to good use. What did Machiavelli say? The Ends Justify the Means. Now, both campaigns in this story are playing dirty politics. The question should be for which candidate are the dirty tricks justified.  In other words, would Clooney the candidate make a better president than the other guy. Personally, I didn’t really care whether Clooney was elected or not. He exists in the background of the script giving stereotypical liberal platitudes and talking points. His opponent doesn't have more than a couple lines. They are both unformed characters and not up to the task of caring about. In effect, neither is worth what the other characters would do to help or harm them. Who cares what the means are if the ends aren’t justified? Coach Clooney should have given himself a bigger part.

 The story centers on the Ryan Gosling character, a young upcoming press specialist. Whether he is idealistic is not really established as he is very good at his job of saying things and at the same time not saying them. The movie is concerned not with Republicans or Democrats. It is limited only to the Democratic primary in Ohio. In this way, the movie sidesteps real political debate. Since everyone sort of agrees, the focus is on the dirty tricks that will have one candidate gain an advantage over the other. There is a senator who has about 300 pledged delegates in his pocket and is willing to sell them for a choice cabinet position. There is also shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who want to impose Operation Chaos upon Ohio. This is a stunt that urges Republicans to vote for the inferior Democratic candidate in hopes that it will help the democrats during the real presidential election. Finally there is the Paul Giamatti character, the chief of staff for the opposing campaign, who asks young Ryan Gosling for a drink in a bar. Ryan knows he shouldn’t go but does anyway. Giamatti asks Gosling to leave the one campaign and join his. This sets off the main storyline about loyalty and idealism and all those good things that will be shattered by the time the movie ends. Of course none of this should take anyone by surprise. Who looks at politics today or anytime before and doesn’t think of men in backroom smoking cigars and hatching schemes. Well, maybe today they don’t smoke cigars anymore.

 This is all done rather competently, but lately I have found that so many of the dramatic movies I see have been sort of ruined by watching HBO. The political scenes in “The Wire,” are far more detailed and involving than what is seen here. That is the difference between a story of a campaign briefly and competently told in two hours and one brilliantly and comprehensively told in twenty. The “Ides of March” Ohio primary is chump change when compared to the Baltimore politics of “The Wire.” 

Another not so great part of “The Ides of March” is perhaps the obligatory young intern who sleeps with people she shouldn’t be sleeping with. Or is it the other way around and she is a victim. It isn’t very clear the way Evan Rachel Wood, a 24-year-old, plays the teenage character. She looks and acts much more older than she is supposed to. In fact, her relationship with the Ryan Gosling character is mainly comprised of her seducing him not the other way around. When things happen, and something rather dramatic does happen to her at the end, it doesn’t seem like something that would really happen to the strong willed and confident character we've seen for most of the movie. Not that I’m an expert on women or anything.

 Overall the movie is good enough and certainly not crap. You’ve got nice familiar faces doing well jobs with decent material. Is the movie all that memorable? Well, no. You’ve probably seen it before and wouldn’t consider storyline all that shocking or new. Is it probably better than most of everything in theaters right now? Sure, but I think that speaks more to the weakness of this years movies. “Take Shelter” was good. You should see that movie, especially for Halloween.

 

The Wrestler (4/5 Stars) 02/07/09

As I was watching this movie I couldn’t help but remember the prophetic line in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s final movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Faced with a newer sleeker computer generated special effect driven terminator Arnold flatly admits that he is no match for the newer design. “I am obsolete,” he mechanically intones. How true I thought. Just this year several great films have sounded the death knell in the age of the Schwarzenggerian model of the American action hero. The movement reached its height in the eighties with such stars as Ahnold, Sly Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Steven Segal. But as special effects have taken over the modern day action blockbuster, these great hulking muscle men have been supplanted with newer sleeker models. Twenty years ago the ‘Incredible Hulk’ was a role for the muscle man Luc Ferrigno. Today, aided with computers, that role has been taken over by an actual bona fide actor, Ed Norton. The ascendance of such relatively diminutive actors like Tobey Maguire (Spiderman), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), and Shia Lebouf (Transformers) has made apparent that real acting skill is now more important than steroid-toking ability. Even in the Terminator franchise, Arnold has officially been replaced. In his stead is Christian Bale (Batman) who may have a great physique but is certainly more impressive because of his acting chops. 
The Wrestler is a noble swan song for the eighties muscle man. It would make a great double feature with the fine documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster* which takes on practically the same subject. It was in the news in December that Mike ‘Mad Dog’ Bell, a has-been wrestler in the documentary, had committed suicide. Knowing this The Wrestler was especially meaningful to watch. The Wrestler is about a wrestler named Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (played beautifully by Mickey Rourke) who had his hey-day in the late eighties. Since then he has fallen on hard times. He now performs in smaller venues like community centers. At his age, wrestling has a very noticeable effect on his body. He walks with so much pain. Wrestling may be fake in the sense that the outcome is determined beforehand, but what this movie really makes apparent is that people are really getting hit in the ring, they really do fall from high places, and when they bleed they really are bleeding. Wrestling, in that sense is very real. So real, in fact, that when Randy suffers a heart attack after an especially brutal bout, it seems like the appropriate reaction to what he has just been through. The Wrestler does for muscle men what Sunset Boulevard did for silent film stars. It is an empathetic story of a person stuck in thier own obsolescence. Even if Randy’s health didn’t fail, he still would have no chance for a comeback. The era is over and he is left behind. What makes the movie a tragedy is that Randy has severed any personal ties he has had with his family and thus has nothing to fall back on now. His only relationship is with a stripper (Marisa Tomei) who maybe is only being nice to him because he’s a customer. His daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) hates him. The movie is comprised of attempted reconciliations and mistakes. But it seems Randy can’t live without wrestling, something the doctor has told him to avoid. 
This is called Mickey Rourke’s comeback movie. That’s ironic to say after his character’s failure to comeback in the movie itself. Still it is a great performance, which should put him in contending for the Best Actor Oscar. Marisa Tomei also is worthy of her nomination. It is my personal opinion that she looks better right now than she did almost fifteen years ago when she first won an Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. My god is she smoking. It’s ridiculous to be in such great shape at her age. Evan Rachel Wood also does good work. The entire movie is wall-to-wall good performances. 
The director for this movie is, quite surprisingly, none other than Darren Aronofsky. Seeing any of his other films you would never have guessed. All the trademark Aronofsky camera moves and edits are gone. What is present is a completely different style. He has completely reinvented himself. Consider for a moment that his last movie was The Fountain. Wow, this is definitely the opposite of that movie in every way. As always I’m very interested in what the guy is doing next. 
One last thing: Bruce Springsteen’s soulful ballad at the end of the film should have been at least nominated for an Oscar. The fact that it isn’t is a true disappointment. If I were NBC I would be so pissed off at the Academy this year. The fact that neither Wall-e nor The Dark Knight was nominated for Best Picture probably cost them 30 million viewers already. To have the chance for Bruce Springsteen to perform at the ceremony and not have him nominated probably cost them another 10 million. What could have been a record setting viewer ship has all but disappeared. Instead we have The Reader and a couple of unknown Indian songs from ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ which frankly I didn’t think were impressive enough to remember. At least Robert Downey Jr. was recognized for Tropic Thunder.

Across the Universe 12/21/07

Every musical succeeds or fails on its songs. It's not good enough for only a couple of them to be good, the entire soundtrack must be awesome, after all, we are stopping the storyline of the movie just to hear them. They have to be worth the diversion. The songs in Across the Universe are all covers of the Beatles, so right from the beginning the movie has more than a chance to be a very good movie. In fact, you could take away the entire plot and it would still be worth watching. I bet you could even put the movie on shuffle mode and switch back and forth randomly.
The plot, itself, threadbare and exists primarliy to provide the movie with an oppurtunity to have a beatles extravanganza. In fact sometimes there isn't even any dialogue between the songs. Once one is finished, another is amped up. 
Like the Beatles there is no shying away from experimentation be it visually or auditory. Every beatles song is a cover. And the resulting mix can be described as hit, hit, hit, pretty good, hit, and miss. The best ones are the gospel version of 'Let it Be.' The sweet duets of Dana Suchs and Martin Luther who do fantastic imitations of Joplin and Hendrix respectively. The blown up war versions of 'Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Helter Skelter," and too many more I can recall. The big dud was Eddie Izzard's 'Mr. Kite.' 
It was impressive just how many Beatles songs they could fit into this movie and they also did a great job of making sure the best ones were involved. There's a somewhat downside to that though as it thins out the charachters. Like for instance, the asian chick, Prudence, is a bit of a sideshow. All I really know about her is that she's a lesbian. She sings a few songs about that and then dissapears. I haven't the slightest idea what her deal was. 
Then there's the movies love story between Jude and Lucy. It's okay. Alot of that has to do with who this Jude guy is. He's a sad sack English lad who turns into a starving bohemian artist bemoaning the world's current state of affairs. I really don't have much sympathy or respect for dudes like that. When he's all grumpy and crying I'm like get a real job you bum. I mean its not like the Beatles sat around all day doodling strawberries. They composed that one song and moved on! 
Um...I should probably stop preaching. The movie is pretty cool but you might just want to buy the Soundtrack CD instead.

Running With Scissors 04/20/07

This movie starts out like this: (Blackout) Maybe this is how I should tell the story of my life (paraphrased somewhat.) 
Bad news bears alert! Do you know what you're doing or not? You don't know where to start this movie? Maybe it should start like this? We need a little more confidence here in the tale. Why even a voiceover? just start it: This is what happened. Authoritative, direct. Don't waste my time, figuring out what you're trying to do at the beginning. 
This movie suffers from a more mild identity crisis. It tries to be a comedy, but there's nothing funny about a true story like this. Sure one can insert humor in here and there as comic relief but don't expect me to laugh at these poor poor people. They easily win my pity not my scorn. Mental illness of course can be very serious. Especially when you're mother is seeing an even crazier shrink who drugs her out of her mind in order to adopt her kid along with his monthly child support check. Throughout the movie we get the sense that author is somewhat afraid of people's reactions. So he puts up this fence to show that he himself is above the entire mess. He makes it known and clear to the audience that this movie is supposed to be funny. Which wouldn't be a problem if what really didn't make people laugh is someone telling us outright that we should. Like I said before this movie needs more confidence. Not just in themselves but also in the audience. They need to trust that we will want to find the story interesting or funny. Is that not why were here watching the movie? Paticularly in the first quarter the movie holds our hands a little too much. It gets better though.
We have good performances all around. Most notably from the adults, Cox, Bening, and Baldwin, who seems to be in every movie nowadays. The younger charachters not so much, but then again there's not much to them and its probably pretty hard to play a homosexual schizophrenic as if you know what you're doing. 
The director's ability is somewhat in flux also. Again toward the beginning. He loves doing interesting things with the camera sure and I respect the ambition but there's a reason we have an editing room. Like bad jokes in comedies, if a montage doesn't work or has no purpose than it shouldn't be in the picture. We have quite the montages in this film, slow motion, pop music, fast-forward, snow from the ceilings. About three quarters of them work. Another quarter doesn't. Where's that asshole producer when you need him.
Is this is going to turn into that review that bashes the picture the entire time but then recommends it. Unfortunately yes. Why? Because as I said, it has problems. But three fourths of the time it works, and the story is more interesting and ambitious than most of the stuff out there. So while it may not have reached its perfection as a story, the goal was set up high and a failure at this level is respectable.