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.

Hail, Caesar! (4/5 Stars)

The new Coen Brothers movie “Hail, Caesar!” is not so much a satire of the big studio soulless entertainment of film’s first half-century as much as it is a celebration of it. After all, the big all encompassing studio has long since been a ripe satirical target. However the type of entertainment it would produce, as if art were something that could be manufactured en masse in a factory, did have its admirable attributes, lots of which are on display in this movie. Here we have five “types” of movies that the producers churned out: a western with trick horse play, a Busby Berkeley dance number, a high society melodrama, sailors tap-dancing a la “On the Town” and finally a biblical epic starring the biggest movie star of them all, Baird Whitlock (played by George Clooney). The Coen Brothers put on fine displays of them all. It is entertaining though it hardly means anything. But if that is all you want in a movie, than this is a very good one. It delivers just that.

Ostensibly the movie is about Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a producer. He is not the boss of the movie studio (that guy is in New York) but he is the highest-ranking person on the lot. His job is all sorts of things and takes day and night to do it. To over simplify things, he keeps the productions running and the stars (who are full-time employees of the studio) out of trouble. He solves problems. Take for instance the case of DeeAnna Morgan (Scarlett Johannsson) the mermaid in the synchronized swimming number. She is pregnant and unwed. Eddie, conscious of what it looks like to the moral movie-going public of family friendly pictures, helps her as only the representative of a huge corporation could. He plans to keep the pregnancy a secret, hire a professional person (Jonah Hill as Joseph Silverman) to adopt the newborn, and have this person give the child up for adoption back to DeeAnna a few days later. The professional person is just that. Whenever a star does something stupid, he is keen to be framed for the crime. It is let on that he spent six months in jail for a drunk driving incident.

On one of the last days of shooting the big biblical epic "Hail, Caesar" Baird Whitlock is kidnapped from the set. The kidnappers ask for $100,000. Eddie does some math and is content to pay it after realizing it will cost more to delay shooting a week (not to mention the bad press). The kidnappers happen to be a study group of communist screenwriters. They are not so rough on Baird. After slipping him a mickey and spiriting him to an isolated beach house, he is let in on the study group. They calmly and professorially explain Communism to him. He is receptive although that may be only his dim nature.

Mirroring this is the studios treatment of Jesus in “Hail, Caesar” which seems to look a lot like Ben Hur. The studio wants to give the people what they want (Jesus!) but do not want to offend anyone (an opinion on Jesus!). To that end, Eddie invites three priests from three Christian denominations and one rabbi to his office. He shows them the script and asks their opinion. There is nothing to object to as Jesus is seen only once in one scene with his back towards the camera (like “Ben Hur”). Nobody agrees on Jesus but nobody objects to the script because nothing is actually said about Jesus. Hollywood has pulled this fast one from time immemorial and for good reason too. Whenever an artist has something to say (take for instance Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ,”) they are met with protests. Jesus remains hidden from big studio mass-market films to this day. 

Not that the Coens do the communists any favors. It turns out, through a lot of intellectual rigamarole and bandying about, the Communists want the ransom money because they are greedy. That claim it as payback for their services because they have been blackballed but are still working. The fact that they care about money does not bother them. An old venerable man explains that history is a science and that the Communist Revolution will come so it does not matter whether the study group acts selfishly. In fact to act selfishly will hasten the revolution so acting in their self-interest is in furtherance of their cause anyway. I dislike communists and though I have sympathy for anyone who is unfairly kept unemployed (what kind of good capitalist would I be if I were not) I love the fact that Hollywood Communists are being made fun in this movie for their stupid political beliefs. I have seen nothing but tragedies about them so far (thanks a lot McCarthy for turning them into noble sufferrors) so I consider this as a relief on the subject. The only thing worse than letting the Communists write screenplays was not letting them write screenplays. At least that way people could have a demonstration of how dumb is the philosophy.  

But I get carried away. The point of the movie is the studio fun. On great display is Alden Enrenreich (as Hobie Doyle) who is the cowboy of the film. He actually can do all sorts of tricks with a lasso. In fact, on a dinner date he takes a noodle of spaghetti, makes a lasso out of it, and hooks his dates thumb from across the table. Amazing! Now that’s entertainment. Also Channing Tatum does a great tap dancing number as a sailor who is not gay among a bunch of other sailors who are also not gay. The song is called “No Dames” and is about how when they are all at sea together there will be no dames. It is not gay. It is sad. Do not be tricked by the smiles and tap dancing.

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.

True Grit (4/5 Stars)

Papa Ross must have been one hell of a man.

It’s a good thing. Joel and Ethan Coen have now made four movies in as many years. Earlier in their career it always took them two or three years to string together a movie. This was because they always insisted on Creative Control and made movies that never made a lot of money. But that has changed. The word has gotten out that the Coens make good movies. They may be oddball at times but always good. I would suspect that people going to see True Grit (which is the Coens highest grossing movie ever) aren’t going because they fondly remember the original 1969 version or the book it was based upon or even the stars (Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon). I would suspect they are interested because it is a Coen Brothers movie. There are some filmmakers that plain don’t suck. The Coen Brothers are a couple of them.

It is an unwritten rule of the Coens that each movie they do should be unlike any movie they’ve already done. “True Grit” is no exception. It is purely Coenesque in that it isn’t. Get it? It’s an outright Western. It stars Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl out to avenge the death of her father by the hands of an outlaw named Tom Chaney, played by Josh Brolin. She sets out to hire a U.S. Marshall to go after Chaney. Given a list of names, she decides upon the roughest one, a man by the name of Rooster Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges. He is a man of True Grit, a whiskey guzzling grizzly bearded cantankerous itchy-trigger fingered old fool. A real character as they say. Jeff Bridges, aka The Dude aka the most comfortable actor in the world, is the perfect casting choice for the role. Also on the trail of Chaney for a completely different murder is a Texas Marshall named LeBeef, played by Matt Damon. Damon plays the role as if he's never seen a Western. Here, he’s striking surprised and neurotic nuances that rarely come from cowboys. Then again his character has to deal with Mattie Ross, one of the smartest and most confident girls ever to exist in a western. She’s throwing everyone for a loop here. That includes the bad guys too, both Tom Chaney and the Pepper Gang, led by none other than Mr. Pepper, played appropriately by Barry Pepper with the help of a really nasty set of dentures. Chaney by the way is one of this year’s stupidest sounding bad guys. Brolin plays the guy as if he’s more likely to use a book as toilet paper than read it. He murdered Papa Ross for the stupid sum of two gold pieces. There are no qualms about going to kill him.

“True Grit,” is true to its name in that it has a lot of grit, but let it be known that this movie is also very funny. It’s not a Comedy mind you, but most of the characters are what you would call witty and their different styles make conversation a minefield of quick insults and comedic insights. Cogburn is blunt, abrasive, and clumsy. Mattie is saracastic and a smart-aleck. Damon seems to have self-esteem problems, which regularly pokes holes into his Texas Ranger Pride. They spend most of the time on the trail arguing with each other. Mattie regularly gets the best of Damon. Damon picks on Cogburn. And Cogburn, well he’s got a bottle of whiskey and will not be ashamed.  All of this is done in 19^th Century Western talk, which is different but still decipherable if you listen closely.

Here’s a good question: Is the character Mattie Ross realistic? Forget that she’s a girl. What fourteen year old do you know, boy or girl, can intelligently discuss areas of the law with adults, negotiate deals with horse traders and bounty hunters, or have the confidence and wherewithal to hunt down their father’s killer upon their own initiative. What were you doing at the age of 14? Parents back then must have expected a bit more pluck and self-reliance from their kids, that and Papa Ross in particular must have been one of hell of a educator. Give credit to her church as well. Most of her righteous confidence comes straight from the Bible, which she quotes many times. Anyway, someone somewhere did something right.

“True Grit” isn’t one of the best movies of the year, but it is a good one and may get some Oscar nominations simply because it does an extremely competent job at being good. It would not surprise me if the Coen’s longtime cinematographer Roger Deakins got his 9^th Oscar nomination or if the movie itself got a Best Picture nomination. Don’t ask me if this is better than the original movie because I haven’t seen it.

A Serious Man (4/5 Stars), October 11, 2009

Who can say to him, “What are you doing?” (Job 9:12)

Oy vey, the Book of Job gets adapted into a movie by the Coen Brothers. With such source material, it is much funnier than you would think it could be. But this is not a comedy. It’s not even really a drama. And although its got some elements of horror, it can hardly be classified as that either. It’s probably best classified as essay porn (and yes I just made that genre up). It’s a thinker that many religion teachers may someday make their students write a term paper on. Like all Coen Brothers’ movies this one has very little in common with any previous Coen Brothers’ movie. They’ve previously done such works as The Big Lebowski, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, Raising Arizona, No Country for Old Men and Burn After Reading. This movie takes place in a Minnesota suburb in the late sixties. Above all else, it is very Jewish. Like I said nothing like their other movies. But just as quirky, darkly comic, and very original. 

The book of Job was the first book of the Bible I ever read. It always had a scary magnetism to it like a well-written horror story. It is very different from the lovey-dovey New Testament. There is no ‘consider the lillies’ sentimentality in it. In this book terrible things happen to good people and they seem to happen for no reason at all. Job in the course of a day loses his entire fortune, family, and health. Why? He has no idea. He always was a pious god-fearing man. Three friends visit him and insist that he must have done something wrong to deserve his fate. After all God is just. He rewards the good and punishes the wicked. But Job is steadfast. He declares his innocence and voices his desire to obtain an explanation for his sorry state. He doesn’t curse God; all he wants to know is why. Why has God forsaken him?

In this movie, the character of Job is Lawrence Gopnik (played by Michael Stuhlberg), a family man and physics professor about to receive tenure. Sure enough, bad things start to happen to Larry. His wife wants a divorce and asks him to leave the house. Why? She doesn’t say. The tenure committee is receiving letters denigrating his moral standing. They are anonymous. His neighbor is oddly hostile and may be encroaching on his property line. His oafish sickly brother (Richard Kind from Spin City) has taken up space permanently on his couch. Then there is marijuana, Jefferson Airplane records, strange deaths, and a daughter who seems to do nothing but wash her hair anymore. Larry is at a loss as to why all these things are suddenly happening. He didn’t do anything. What does it all mean?

A friend says that maybe these things are happening because God is trying to tell him something. What it is she doesn’t know but she suggests that Larry talk to a rabbi. Larry goes to three rabbis. Rabbi Scott (Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory) seems to be about twenty years old and admits he doesn’t have the kind of life experience that advises a person in Larry’s situation. He does suggest that Larry “consider the parking lot” outside. At times it only looks like a parking lot, but if you look at it a different way and strip yourself of the knowledge of how asphalt and cars work, it can actually look somewhat wonderful and mysterious. In this way Larry can see God in the world. This advice doesn’t go over well, especially since Larry is the kind of physics professor who deals in paradoxes like Shrodinger’s cat and uncertainty proofs. There is a scary/funny scene where Larry fills a giant blackboard with a large complex math proof that proves nothing except that there is no way of knowing anything for certain (it will still be on the midterm though). Such is the annoying thing about God. You can get the best education in the world and not learn a thing about his plans, but steep yourself in ignorance and you can see him in everything, even a parking lot. 

The second Rabbi is not very helpful either. All he does is make jokes. To his credit they are some of the best laughs in the movie. (Did you hear the one about the Goy’s teeth?) But he out and out admits that he hasn’t the slightest clue what God is doing. The way he does it though explains so much about Jewish Comedy. It basically springs from a very human response to a sort of cosmic absurdity: That the people especially chosen by an all-powerful God were fated to be the most put upon and terrorized people in human history. What does that tell you about the nature of God? We laugh because there are no tears left. 

Every person in the movie tells Larry that there is one person he must talk to, and that is Rabbi Marshakt, a very old and wise man. Unfortunately Larry can’t get to the guy, as he is too busy thinking. His son is able to do so though after his bar mitzvah. What the rabbi says to him is worth the great suspense the movie creates for the moment. What it means is something else of course. Is it profound or is it a joke? I suppose it depends on how you feel about the source. 

The Coen Brothers have taken pains not to cast anyone you are remotely familiar with. The only people I recognized were Richard Kind and the delusional nerd from The Big Bang Theory. This gives the movie a very personal and distinct feel to it. There aren’t even any stock Coen Brother actors in this movie. The only person to be in a previous film is Michael Lerner (Barton Fink) and he has but one scene and if I remember correctly no actual lines. It is a very memorable performance nonetheless. 

This movie ranks up their with all the other great Coen Brothers films. It’s not on their top tier with Fargo, The Big Lebowski, or No Country for Old Men. But it is on par with the likes of O Brother Where Art Thou, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Raising Arizona. It may get awards because it happens to be the type of movie that gets nominations. But besides the haunting original score, I can’t say anything in particular jumped out at me. As always Roger Deakins does a superb job as the cinematographer. But unfortunately this isn’t the type of movie that gets noticed for that. His much deserved Oscar will have to wait another year. 

There is one scene that particularly weighs on me as I write this review. One night Larry’s brother goes somewhat nutty and has a breakdown in an abandoned pool at the motel they are both staying at. He denounces God and wails that Hashem has never given him anything. He is especially distressed by his recent blacklist from a neighborhood poker game. All he had in life was playing cards and now he can’t even do that. As bad as Larry’s situation is, it is not as pathetic as his brother’s. Larry, frustrated and confused more than ever just blurts it out: Maybe instead of depending on God, you should help yourself out. What a good question, I mean if God is unknowable why bother with him at all? And perhaps the final scenes are a very cynical answer to that question. 

Revolutionary Road 03/22/09 (4/5 Stars)

Call it the feminist argument against Suburbia even though there is no explicit statement to that effect. What this movie illustrates though is why and how the suburban housewife becomes desperate. If I recall correctly, this is the second movie in the year 2008 that Kate Winslett killed herself in. And if I’m not mistaken, she has received a Golden Globe for this one and an Oscar and another Golden Globe for the other (The Reader). Surely, this will spawn jokes about actresses jumping at roles in which they die tragically in order to bait the Oscars. Hilary Swank has gone by that way twice already (Million Dollar Baby, Boys Don’t Cry). Anyway back to Revolutionary Road. I will admit that I liked this film, enjoyed it even. But that isn’t because it’s warm or funny or romantic. I liked it because it makes manifest in artistic form everything I believe about suburbia, in that, it describes it as empty and hopeless. This movie is preaching to the choir. I already thought that such a story was completely possible, and very rational. Call this movie Max Propaganda. I have had ideas of buying the DVD and hosting an anti-suburbia party in my New York City apartment. In it, we would play ‘Revolutionary Road’ on mute in the living room and celebrate the fact that we don’t live in such desperate, empty, and hopeless places. I really want to watch this movie in Paris. See the film, you’ll know what I mean. 
Anyway, now really back to Revolutionary Road. It concerns the volatile marriage of Frank and April Wheeler (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett respectively). They live in a suburb. Every morning Frank gets into the only car they own and commutes into the city to work at a job he hates. April stays at home, and stranded in the morass of nothingness that is suburbia (and with no way out because Frank took the only car to work) she does household chores and slowly goes insane with boredom. There is a particularly good shot of her taking out the trash and standing silently in her driveway looking down Revolutionary Road. You would expect tumbleweed to blow through the place is so dead. The only respite she seems to have from this existence is when a neighbor stops by. Then she has someone to drink coffee with for about five minutes. Other than that, she spends the day completely alone. After a couple of fights, April comes up with a crazy idea. Why don’t they completely ditch the godforsaken place and move to Paris. She would get a job and he would have time to find himself. Frank thinks about it and says that he will. April falls in love with him again because he seems to understand.
But does he really? There is this idea out there about suburbia in general. That the way it is set up and structured is fundamentally unfair to women. The effect of its design nullifies the responsibilities of the man to his family. He commutes to a distant place where he has free rein to do whatever he wants (Frank in this movie has an affair). In contrast, the wife is stuck at home and forced to raise the kids on her own. Is it a control thing? Did men (all the city planners were men) purposely design a system of living that gave themselves freedom to screw around while encapsulating the women in isolated places, thereby constricting their freedom. Whether there was malicious intent or not, the result is a system where women are deprived of the ability to take care of themselves and thus are dependent on their husbands for everything: money, shelter, and especially social connections. So when Frank decides not to go to Paris, April, of course, cannot also. Is it any wonder that the women of the baby boom generation, which grew up in these homes, took their college educations, got jobs, and exploded the divorce rate in the seventies? Surely they must have noted in some abstract way that the life of a suburban housewife is some sort of scam. 
Frank’s character in this story is given the benefit of the doubt. Once he is offered a raise at his job and April becomes pregnant, he thinks that the choice to stay has a certain amount of logic to it. Like many men, he doesn’t get why April would be unhappy. They have a beautiful house, nice kids, and all this stuff. And if she really feels bad about it, they now have enough money to send her to a shrink. This conveniently forgets the idea that stuff doesn’t make up for a lack of a life and a semblance of independence. (If that were true there would be a hell of a lot more women becoming nuns.) But whatever, you know, I suppose that’s a hard concept to grasp what with all that American Dream house with a white picket fence and two cars propaganda garbage. 
The director Sam Mendes has made good films about suburban malaise before (American Beauty) but they were never as biting as this. I loved a few scenes that brought back vivid memories of my own experience. A father asks his kids what is on TV and is answered with vacant stares directed at static, the whole presentation aspect of playing house: where so much energy is expended to impress the rare guest, and when the couple gets double parked when they visit a local bar they can’t leave because the local bar is too far away from their home. Just the overall quietness of the entire thing, where nothing is happening, nothing has happened, and nothing will happen was eerily familiar. There is possibly no truthful way to tell a story set in suburbia without it being boring. That’s why very few movies are set there. 
Michael Shannon got an Oscar nomination for his role as a crazy man that basically reiterates the only sane way to look at Suburbia. (See my comments above). For once I would love to see a rational person say these things, but I guess a mental patient is better than nothing. He does a very good job. He’s one of those actors you wish were better looking and thus would get better roles. See him in ‘Shotgun Stories’ if you want to see that guy do some great work in a leading role.

Doubt (4/5 Stars) 12/12/08

Required viewing before you see this movie is the superb documentary 'Deliver Us From Evil.' It is about five years old and concerns itself with a Catholic priest named Father O'Grady who was one of the most notorious pedophiles in the church. He had maybe over a hundred victims. Whenever anybody complained, he was promoted. 

'Doubt' takes place in 1964 about a year after the Kennedy Assassination and during the great 'freshening up' of the Catholic Church. It is important to note though that it was adapted from a 2005 Pulitzer prize winning play. So although it takes place in the sixties, it is very much of today's time. Everything you have heard about priests in the last decade bears down on the edges of this story. But far be it from this movie to only have one Big Issue. It throws in a couple more like the alleged child victim being the first black kid to be desegregated into the school, a conflict between the old Catholic Church and the new one, and an unflattering view of church hierarchy and sexism. The mere fact that this movie can get through two hours without dodging any of the issues and without directly offending everybody is probably the reason it got the Pulitzer. I think it deserved it. (Sort of, I mean if the Pulitzers wanted to be respectable they would start giving out awards to the most substantial art-form in the world right now. Need I say the word 'movies.' If they did that I could give out a list of more deserving titles. But I have no doubt that this would make one hell of a play.) 
Like a play there more talk than walk, but I don't think it will bore anyone without Attention Deficit Disorder. There is a trio of very good performances. Leading the pack is Meryl Streep who always seems to get the best roles. She will definitely get an Oscar Nomination. If she hadn't already won so many they would probably throw the Oscar at her for this one. Her character is one of her best. A very stern, strong, and disciplined nun. The type little kids would fear as they walked to the principals office. But this is no caricature. Streep infuses into the character much to admire. For instance she takes on the parish priest she suspects with very little evidence and absolutely no authority. Love her or hate her, this woman has a lot of guts. If the priest were guilty, and he might be, Sister Aloysious is the type of person you would want around. 
The priest is played righteously by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I don't care if this guy is innocent, he's still an asshole. He might be really nice to the black kid, but he's a complete jerk to the nuns. He sits in Meryl Streep's chair, he uses his sermons to get back at Amy Adams, he seems to completely disregard the sacrifice the sisters make every day. I've got a problem with the Catholic Church in general and how it treats its woman, and I think this movie makes it quite clear what is wrong. The nuns get up at five am to pray. They eat in silence. The men eat with music playing and laughter in the air. The nuns teach history and discipline the students. The priest teaches gym. The women wear the most constrictive and ugly black cassocks. The men dress in flowing gowns and get the fame of preaching sermons. What makes Meryl Streep's performance so great is that it captures that torn conviction of a true believer who knows that her superiors are not as saintly as she is. She is like many of us, forced into dead end jobs and seeing younger less experienced people rise through the ranks to be the boss. No wonder she is such a bitch. 
Rounding out the trio of great performances is Amy Adams who does a terrible job at not being beautiful. She is the shy type of nun. (Nuns come in two types: shy and mean. Over time the shy become mean.) There is some talk of giving an Oscar Nomination to the mother of the black kid who only has one scene in this movie. I do not understand this sort of thing. Every year the Academy will pull a stunt like this, give a nomination to an old veteran that does a big boo-hoo with a tiny unsubstantial role that nobody will ever remember (Ruby Dee, anyone?). It would be a real travesty if they gave it to this woman because a much better, much more important performance is staring them right in the face. And that is the one by Amy Adams. Her character is important because it is the middle ground between the two fighters. We see most of the story through her eyes. Both Meryl and Philip try to win her to her side. and it is Amy's reaction to them that sways our point of view back and forth between them. 
In the end we are not very sure if it happened or didn't happen. This doesn't make the movie any less suspenseful. In addition to gripping my coat the entire length of the movie I was looking fervently into the corners of the screen to glimpse any extra evidence of what actually went on. Both sides are plausible, both sides are realistic, both can't be right. This movie is not big enough to get serious Oscar treatment, but it should be enough for an acting nomination for Meryl Streep and an Adapted Screenplay Nomination for John Patrick Shanley. The cinematographer is the great Roger Deakins who is perhaps the most unduly snubbed cameraman Hollywood has ever produced. Like all of his movies, this one has a very original, crisp and beautiful look to it. The way it is shot makes us feel the cold winter breezes. I don't know enough about cinematography to justify a prediction but I would say its about time that the Academy started throwing Oscars at Deakins. He's the only cinematographer I know by name and for good reason. (For examples of his work look at No Country for Old Men, Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and The Shawshank Redemption.)

Burn After Reading 09/15/08

The problem with this comedy is that it doesn't know where its priorities are. Out of the great ensemble within, there is only one purely comic character. His name is Chad and he's a absentminded gym employee played by Brad Pitt. Unfortunately he is the last character introduced and the first one to leave, prematurely at that. As far as I'm concerned, they should have made that guy the main character. He's profoundly more interesting to watch than anybody else. 
There's a bare bones feel to the entire movie. The plot may be original, and yes I haven't seen anything like it, I'll also concede that it has its moments, but it still isn't anything really special. Clocking in at a long hour and a half and ending arbitrarily (some may say lazily) it lacks any real bite or a fever pitch that usually accompanies your average Coen brothers movie. What this movie is, if anything is a weird footnote in the career's of its very accomplished cast. The Coen's have just won the Oscar for best picture, Swinton has just won an Oscar, Clooney has just been nominated, Brad Pitt is a huge star, and Malkovich and McDormand have always been well respected. Put that together with a supporting cast including the likes of J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins plus the great cinematographer Roger Deakins and it's a wonder how this movie could be so forgettable.
There are basically two plots that interweave. One features the misplaced memoirs of Osbourne Cox, an ex-CIA man, that falls into the hands of gym employees (McDormand and Pitt) who try to blackmail him. The other plot line has to do with several extra-marital affairs involving Swinton, Clooney, and McDormand. The first plot is consistently funny. The second is completely vacant of laughter and hangs around taking up space, draining away the life of the movie, and wasting time in general. Swinton may be a good dramatic actress but she is completely lost here, not that the script gives her much help. The largest laugh along this story line comes when Clooney is impressed by the white pine floor of McDormand's apartment. It's a random throwaway line that is funny simply because it has no connection with the scene. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It often doesn't in this movie. There's a complete lack of jokes in some scenes. The cutesy dialogue may garner a giggle, Clooney may mug and gain a snigger but there simply isn't enough material here. And I don't care who's telling a penis joke, the Coen brothers or Rob Schneider, there needs to be some sort of context to it before it becomes funny. Come on Coen brothers, you're better than that. 

No Country for Old Men 12/05/07

I very much want to see this movie again. and I say this because three quarters of the movie was fantastic, and the last quarter was confusing, bewildering, and criminally anti-climatic. The ending was so bad, that I started to question myself: Was it possible that I completely missed the entire point of the movie. It's possible. The Coen brothers are some of my favorite directors, and they have never made a completely worthless movie. Perhaps there was a deeper meaning to this picture, that I missed.
This type of omission has happened before. I remember when I saw 'The Departed' for the first time. I completely misunderstood the woman psychiatrists' role. I kept on expecting her to do different things at different times and was confounded at every turn. When I saw it a second time, her charachter worked perfectly. I wonder if that's what happened here. Next time I hope to pay more attention to what Tommy Lee Jones is saying and hope to not get so caught up in the cat and mouse chase between Llewllen Moss (Josh Brolin) and Chigurh (Javier Bardem). I'll add more to this review if and when I see it a second time.

P.S (added later)
I saw this movie a second time, and it is brilliant. I give my highest recommendation to it, and suggest that people see it twice if they are going to see it at all. The second time everything made sense. My expectations weren't getting in the way of understanding it like they did the first time around.

In the Valley of Elah 09/28/07

This will probably be the first of many movies I see about the Iraq war. and that's pretty significant because the war is still going on. They waited five years after Vietnam ended before they made The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. The first movies about WWII that didn't include bullshit John Wayne viewpoints happened decades afterward. But here we are with 'The Valley of Elah' a movie about returning veterans from Iraq that has been released in the midst of the war itself. Is this a good thing or bad thing? I don't know. Probably a good thing. It keeps people aware of what's going on right now, it'll maybe even keep them interested.
But there will proabably be better movies than this that will talk about the same issue and be about the same things. There was something about this film that simply put, was boring. It simply expected to much from me. Let me put it this way, a soldier goes missing and dies. But why should I feel sympathy, I know nothing about this kid. I've never met him and not until the last ten minutes do I even see him or hear him talk in any coherent way. I don't feel sympathy for the guy, and I have a hard time of relating to the mother and father when they lose him. I feel for them on a universal level. They've lost their son. But I don't feel for them personally, and when there are these long slow scenes when people cry I feel disconnected and removed. I'm bored.
The good part of the movie is that it somewhat works as a detective story and Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron provide solid work as they try to solve the case. Theron in paticular is fantastic, I wish the movie would have been more about her. We get a glimpse into her life and I wish I had seen more of it. There is a paticularly good scene when Tommy Lee Jones tells her son a bedtime story about the fight between David and Goliath in the Valley of Elah. It's fantastic hearing the old grizzled man talk about bravery to a seven year old. Good times. Still I can't quite recommend the movie. It's just too emotionally demanding for a subject (the boy) that is so curiously absent. 

Jarhead 11/09/05

"All wars are different. All wars are the same. Mine lasted four days, four hours and one minute." says Swofford, the jarhead. Desert Storm itself was such a joke that most of the army wasn't needed. All the U.N. needed were planes, which shot the hell out of Saddam's troops before the troops could get there. In fact, you don't see any real combat in this movie. Just bomb drops in the distance. The closest Swofford comes to getting hurt is friendly fire. That was the gulf war. That's all it was. Just a lot of hanging out in the desert, four days of nervousness, then everyone went home. 
This movie captures it perfectly, and the reason that this is just a good war film and not a great one, has more to do with the not-so-great war, then the film. I have to mention Roger Deaken's, the director of photography for this film. At times he creates the illusion that the soldier's are occupying works of art, not Iraq. Of great beauty are the oil fires, caused by Saddam. They blaze with glory in the Arabian sun, and I was awed by the magnificence of the hell imposed by them. A perfect backdrop of the movie and the war itself. I think what we all remember from Desert Storm more than anything else were those great plumes of Fire out in the middle of the nothingness of the Arabian desert. That's how this war was different.