Asteroid City

 

Somewhere over the last decade, I became a fan of Wes Anderson movies. I have enjoyed them all but not all of them are great. The previous film from the director, "The French Dispatch" is the least interesting of the films for me. It's style is elegantly in line with the visual flair of Anderson, but the content just seemed a little too on the nose for me. It was a movie filled with references to language and the way that we use words was the focus of the film. It did at least have that to hold it together. "Asteroid City" does not have these kinds of ambitions. There is a singular story told through multiple levels that will keep us amused and detached simultaneously,  and for me it worked a lot more effectively because I could not detect a point or theme, i only saw an entertainment. 

Once again, if you are not willing to be presented with artifice being passed off as a story, you should skip this, but if you look at the crystal blue sky and the phony desert horizons in the opening part of the film, and they make you laugh, then you are in the right place. This film cruises on the look Anderson can achieve in the circumstances he and his cowriters have conceived. This is a film, conceived as a play, being described by a documentary about the creation of the story. Every step we take leads down a different path and sometimes, just as you are getting involved with something that is happening on screen, the camera pulls back and we see the story from a completely new perspective, although the attitude and the moods remain the same. 

The film is filled with the usual suspects. Anderson has developed a company of players that he wants to have in his movies and when you see how they fit in, you can't blame him for wanting to keep some consistency. Jeffery Wright returns for what I think is his second Anderson film, and his delivery of General Gibson's speech is perfection. I'd love to have the laminated version that all of the attendees were promised, I think I could read it everyday and still laugh out loud. Jason Schwartzman is back for his seventh film with Anderson, and he has his biggest role since being the star of "Rushmore" back in 1998. He has mastered the deadpan delivery that is a signature of  Anderson's words. Even when he is supposed to be reacting strongly to a moment with co-star Scarlett Johansson, he still manages to keep the reaction dulled down to fit with the character. Edward Norton, Bryan Cranston, Adrian Brody and Willem Dafoe all show up for repeat appearances in one of these unusual films. Tom Hanks shows up in his maiden voyage on the good ship Anderson, apparently replacing the usual presence of Bill Murray who is surprisingly not in the film. Although he is in the movie for only a couple of seconds, I really want to believe that Jeff Goldblum was in the alien costume, although it is clearly some of the animation that has been used in Anderson's two best films, "Isle of Dogs" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox". 

I mentioned the production design early on. The black and white sequences are fine, with some effective lighting and clever use of backstage tropes. As usual though, the colorful and cinematically electric visuals in the sequences that are in color are the thing that will hypnotize you. There is a filter on some of the scenes that will make you feel like you are driving through the desert on a summer evening, cruising Route 66 in 1956. There are two or three moments with some blue shading that are subtle but make the actor's eyes pop on screen. Cinematographer Robert Yeoman has done a fantastic job of bouncing between styles, and evoking moods with the lighting of this film. Also, as usual, the production design team should be given all the awards this year for their fake sandstone towers, two lane blacktops and especially the train that opens the film. This movie is just a visual delight. 

The story dances around grief as a subject, but it also touches on authoritarianism, love, music and family. None of the subjects are really the point of the film. This is a bauble, made to look amazing, with a stack of nesting doll type storytelling that reveals one new thing after another. It is not so much emotionally engaging as it is visually and intellectually evolving. Don't get caught up in whatever plot you might pick out, just sit back and watch the circus perform. If we are going to get movies that are all about the spectacle of how they look, this is a nice alternative to the CGI worlds of James Cameron. Both can be breathtaking, but one feels warm while the other simple seems to celebrate technology.  

A Man Called Otto

 

I understand why film buffs get irritated when there is an English language remake of a well regarded foreign film. It seems disrespectful to the original and it suggests that American audiences are too lazy to read subtitles. The former is always going to be in the eye of the beholder, although most adaptions are probably done out of affection for the original work, if there are too many changes it would support that conclusion. The later is in part probably true. It does seem that foreign language films have difficulty reaching American audiences because subtitles are distracting and require a different sort of engagement. The biggest reality though is that you need to adapt to the audience. American audiences are not so much unsophisticated as they are locked in their own paradigms. We relate more to familiar surroundings, to experiences that we are likely to encounter. We are a racially mixed culture but there are enclaves within the broader culture that have limited experience with some parts of the world. Every writer, speaker and artist who is trying to reach a particular audience knows that they need to craft their work in a way that the intended audience will respond to. 

The source material for this Tom Hanks vehicle is a well regarded Swedish film that was the highest grossing foreign language film in the U.S. the year it was released. It was nominated as the Best Non-English film by the Academy Awards that year. It brought in less than 3.5 million at the boxoffice in the States. Assuming an average price of $10 a ticket, that means that it was seen by about 35,000 people in a theater in America. That is a small segment of the potential audience, regardless of why so few got around to seeing it. An English language remake gives the story a second bite of the apple and a chance to let the audience find it. If you want to criticize the film and compare it's artistic merit to the original, that is fine, but first evaluate the film that you are criticizing, rather than it's reason for existence.

I have to admit that I did not see the Swedish film. I wish I had. Whether it played outside of my range of theaters, or was released in an inconvenient window, I don't remember. I did hear about it but resigned myself to catching up with it another day. "A Man Called Otto" will not be a substitute for seeing "Ove", but it is the film that is in front of audiences now, and that is the context in which I will offer my opinions.

Most people probably think of Tom Hanks as the avuncular nice guy that is his public persona. He has played roles that have made him very popular but not all of those parts were happy go lucky characters. Some of them are quite dark. Otto Anderson is a much darker character than might be suggested by the trailer for the film. To begin with, he is not just a crotchety old man, he is a man who has lost something in his life that propped him up and helped him balance any anti-social inclinations with a more practical attitude. Robbed of the main source of happiness in his life, he has allowed despair to take over and guide him. We can recognize that this is a bad choice, but someone in the midst of his situation is not likely to be thinking in different terms. I can say from personal experience, that without some intervening force, depression and self destruction are paths that might be taken without much effort.  Fortunately, the right kind of force is what is the catalyst for this story. 

Otto has been forcibly retired, in a period of great need to feel useful, and the consequence is that he sees nothing ahead that would be worth waiting for. Suicide seems a delicate subject to use for comedy, but it has been done before. Otto seems serious in planning his exit, but the intervention of an unexpected force, bad timing, or poor quality materials foil his attempts and point his life in a different direction. The movie has fun with those moments but it also builds a character that in spite of his brusque manner, we hope can be redeemed. This is a sentimental heart tugging story that works on both the comedic and the dramatic playing fields. I have no problem with a crowd pleasing film and this is engineered to please the audience.

There were three or four spots that I  had to close my eyes and take a deep breath to get through. That is not due to any disturbing visual in the film, but rather because I was recalling moments from my own life that parallel Otto's. Younger audiences can still relate to the experience, but when a moment plays as if it were a repeat of your own life, it takes a second or two to recover. A couple of small coincidences contribute to that, the car Otto drives is the same model and color my daughter dives and the car parked on the street in front of Otto's house for every exterior shot, is the same color and model of the car I drive regularly. Substitute old dog for feral cat, and multiple illnesses for one terminal disease, and it just hit close to home. 

This is a mainstream film, made to appeal to adult audiences and gain as wide acceptance as possible. Not having seen the original yet, I have nothing to take umbrage at, and I am happy to say that in this "steaming" heavy world, where these kinds of movies usually end up, I saw it in a full theater with mostly adults in attendance. Maybe I liked it more because I related to the subject so much and I have no reason to look down on it as a remake. I just laughed, cried and thought about my own life a little more hopefully after the movie was done. 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It was just over a year ago that we got a documentary about Mr. Roger's Neighborhood with the title "Won't You be My Neighbor", and it was very satisfying. So that begs the question, why are we getting another film on the subject?  The answer is complex. While this film has the trimmings of a biopic, the subject of the biography is less Fred Rogers than investigative reporter Tom Junod who is called Lloyd Vogel in this film. His fictionalized story is really about the impact of meeting Mister Rogers had on his life. When a movie is "inspired by" real events, there is probably a great deal of difference between the story and reality. I am sure this is the case here, except when it comes to the sincerity of how Fred Rogers moves us.

The film is told in a truly original and interesting style. The writers,  Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster and the director,  Marielle Heller, have chosen to make the film as if it is an extended episode of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood". The main character is introduced by Mister Rogers on his program as a friend. He then tells the story of Lloyd as one of the direct, simple and profound stories that you could find on the show.  Ultimately it gets embellished with elements of the show including songs, puppets and the neighborhood made of miniature houses and buildings. This is a full blown drama about a man's life, but it is being told by another man who better understands the issues being faced than the protagonist does.

Tom Hanks embodies Fred Rogers in a pitch perfect rendition of his voice and demeanor. When moments come up that suggest from the magazine writer's point of view that something is off about Fred Rogers, Tom Hanks calm, grounded and moral persona reclaims the ground and makes us a little embarrassed for even thinking as the writer did for a minute. This is a reflection of the original article that Tom Junod wrote for Esquire "Can You Say..."Hero?"." We writes in Mister Rogers voice and relates incidents that reveal who Mister Rogers is, in the same soft manner as the subject himself. That this is successfully transferred to a film is a admirable achievement and the work of the director, writers and Tom Hanks is responsible for this.

A number of plot points will seem a little conventional to seasoned movie goers. There is estrangement between father and son. A parallel story concerns the relationship a new father is building with his son. Death inevitably creeps into the narrative as a dramatic tool to pull us in to the world the actors are portraying, but it all works very well. Chris Cooper is an actor I am always glad to see in a movie and he shows up here as a cliche, but finishes as a crescendo. Matthew Rhys plays the writer/son/bio-subject and he is also fine in the film. There are many moments of drama that he has to carry, but there are moments of levity that he manages to make real as well.

I really liked this film. I can't say that it is one of the best of the year, there is a lot about it that is strange and may be a little too abstract. If you can buy in to the premise, it will take you to some emotional points that are worth experiencing. but without the element of Fred Rogers, they would come across as cliches. I felt better as a human being after seeing it, and I'm not sure anyone needs a better recommendation for seeing it than that.

Sully

Tom Hank"s character, the real life hero Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, has a fortune cookie fortune that he looks at in one scene of this film. "Better a delay than a disaster".  I feel a little bit as if this describes my relationship with the movie, I wanted to see it but put it off for almost a month. After the screening, I felt as if it would have been a disaster if I'd missed this movie. This is a film and a story right up my alley. It is a true life drama, with a humble hero and a group of people who all did whatr they were supposed to do. The outcome is one of the amazing stories of modern aviation.

Having recently listened to a lengthy podcast in which the work of director Clint Eastwood was somewhat criticized, I may have lowered my expectations a bit. I did think "Jersey Boys" was a misfire but "American Sniper" was an effective film about the Iraq war and the toll it took on multiple people. It was dramatically shot and there are some incredibly tense scenes in it. This film is directed in a straightforward manner as is most of Eastwood's work. The fact that the near disaster at the center of the story remains clear and coherent is mostly a result of choices the director made about how to film it. One criticism that came up was that the side stories that explored some of Sully's background were confusing in time and story placement, well I did not find that to be the case at all. [That is mostly the screenwriter's responsibility]. There is a little bit of ambiguity about the process of the NTSB and how long that hearing process took, but that is hardly confusing to the story.

I did think that the script went a bit of a ways to create drama from the investigation but you have to have a little dramatic license to give the film a narrative backbone. The real themes of this film are about self doubt and doing your job. Until Arron Eckhart and Tom Hanks know what the voice recorder and aviation data reveal, there is enough doubt for even a confident man to wonder if something else could have been done. "Sully" and co-pilot Jeff Skiles knew they did the right things but only from the inside. There is plenty of PTSD to go around between them, but except for some nightmares about what might have happened if they had acted differently, we all feel confident as well.

The other theme of this movie was well expressed at the end by Captian Sullenberger when he deferred credit. It was not he alone who was the X factor. Every crew member did their job well. The cabin crew remained calm as they prepared the passengers, the passengers followed directions and helped each other, the ferry captains acted immediately and saved lives by doing so, the water rescue tem from the NYPD was in place and doing their jobs as well. I recommended another Aaron Eckhart film from a few years ago based on the same premise. "Battle L.A." may not be a great movie, but it was great at showing how when people work together, and do their jobs to the best of their ability, the outcome is more likely than not to be success.

Hanks and Eckhart both are low key and credible as the professionals who made a difference that day on the Hudson and above. They also rock those mustaches that the real heroes appear to favor. Laura Linney as Sully's wife does not get to do much more than talk on the phone, but it worked pretty well as a dramatic device, especially that first call after the landing. The technical crew who shot the effects and then put together a set to work on in the water are deserving of some respect as well. This was a very realistic depiction of the "forced water landing".  In the long run, the movie does not have deep messages to impart to us, it just gives us a good condensed version of events that we can marvel at and appreciate, as we look at real people who deserve to be called heroes, even if they don't see themselves that way. 

Steven Spielberg Blogathon: Directing Actors

Steven Spielberg is rightly credited with being the most effective visualizer of stories working in the last forty years. He took a liability like a non-functioning mechanical shark and managed to create an extremely visceral film out of it. That "Jaws" works is largely a function of his ability to feel how a movie will play to an audience. He took the extra step when making that film, of shooting additional material in the pool of one of his collaborators, to get the audience reaction right. The opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a litany of visual and emotional elements from the Saturday serialized films of the Golden Age, but updated and intensified as only Spielberg has been able to manage. The brutality and honesty of the first half hour of "Saving Private Ryan" is a testament to being able to connect with an audience's emotions in the strongest possible ways. Plenty of horror films have been as graphic and disturbing, but none have carried the power of those horrifying images the way that this World War II film managed to do.

Many have criticized his sentimentality in visual language. "Warhorse" although successful has been savaged by some for the Spielberg palate of color, lighting and cinematography. Had the film been made by someone other than Spielberg, it would be seen as a piece of artistic achievement rather than a three handkerchief cash grab. Some pretty picky elements of "War of the Worlds" earned that film scorn from some, even as it delivers the kind of frenzied panic and fear that audiences had not experienced since "Jaws" thirty years before it. He was hammered again for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" for letting CGI and Shia LeBeof come between the fans of the series and the story being told. The same creative elements in "Minority Report", at least the visual ones, become a source of strife in other pictures. Like all artists, he cannot please every audience every time. There is one skill that he has managed to use consistently, without the same kind of criticism his visualization of a story sometimes gets. That talent is the directing of actors to excellence on the screen. Some of the finest performances over the last four decades have come from actors working with Steven Spielberg.

It is true that a talented actor can pull the weight of a movie on their shoulders and carry it for the audience, but they can only do that with a supportive director who knows what the story counts on. With young actors or inexperienced film actors, the role of the director is even more important. George Lucas has a great instinct for what looks good on screen. He can tell a story that will pull the audience in most of the time, but he does not seem to have the right touch with actors in the same way that Spielberg does. Martin Scorsese develops a troop of actors to work with and as they tune into him, they become more and more reflective of his sensibility. Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DeCaprio have worked with Scorsese on multiple projects. Spielberg has only one actor that he has featured in more than three films (Unless you are pretending that Crystal Skull does not exist). People may not realize it but Tom Hanks has only been directed by Spielberg three times in a starring part. To get a great performance out of a great actor is still difficult. There are plenty of pairings that did not pan out, but Spielberg manages to get actors in the right frame of mind, to give them the space to do their best work or maybe he just exerts enough control to stifle the actors excesses.

Casting and script are part of the process as well. I don't mean to suggest that Spielberg can magically turn a marginal performer into an Olivier, but he can make sure that the right actor is in the part and that their strengths are played to. A good example is Christopher Walken.

Walken is an actor loved for his eccentricities and quirks in delivery. He may be the most imitated actor around because his voice and mannerisms are so distinctive and therefore more easy to imitate. In "Catch Me If You Can" he gives an Academy Award nominated performance that is largely successful because the usual quirks are held to a minimum. Instead of being a cartoon, which is how he is usually used in movies, Walken is given a chance to be a real human being. His flaws are not overplayed and the natural way in which he interacts with the other performers is far different than, oh let's say, his three minutes in "Pulp Fiction". Spielberg knows what he wants from his actors and it appears from the product that he knows how to get it.

He is perhaps best known as a director of actors for his work with children. The main child performances in "E.T." are the source of this reputation. Henry Thomas is the lead, and he carries the movie, but he could not have done it without the help of a patient director. I recently watched Thomas's next film, "Cloak and Dagger" and while he is a good screen presence, he lacks the depth and naturalness that came from working with a knowledgeable actors director. It had to have helped the kids immensely to have shot the film in continuity so the kids always knew where they were in the story for their performances.  Christian Bale delivers an amazing child performance in "Empire of the Sun". Both of these young men are talented performers but it took Bale almost twenty more years to break thorough as a widely recognized acting powerhouse. Both of these films depend on the child performer to carry the picture. Unless you are cast because you are cute, hot or a well known commodity, it is hard to imagine a kid without a strong director being able to hold an audience in their hands.  

His one obvious failure in this area was with "Hook" which was filled with so many kids that most of them don't get a chance to have personality and those that do are burdened with the broadest kinds of direction possible. Maybe Charlie Korsmo was adequate in his role but the other kids ran over Spielberg with their quirks. On the other hand, the kids in "Jurassic Park" are excellent, and you will believe Haley Joel Osment is an android.


Spielberg has had the advantage of working with many established stars but it is the first time or novice performers that he has been able to get the most out of. First time stars Oprah Winfrey, Whoopie Goldberg, and journeyman actress Margaret Avery were nominated for the Academy Award in their first major roles. Directors get credit for so many things on the set that they may have little input on but the one thing they have the most control over is the casting and performance of the actors. Sometimes the director does get lucky. In the movie "Lincoln", Spielberg had had his heart set on Liam Neeson for the title role at first, but as time went on, minor differences emerged in how the two saw the character being portrayed. After the project was repeatedly put on hold Nesson bowed out. I have no doubt that he would have given a towering performance but when Daniel Day-Lewis is your fallback casting, and he is driven to make the character come to life, fortune has smiled on you.

I've not read enough to know how important Spielberg was to Day-Lewis' performance, but I do know they kept late hours and shared information and inspiration even in the middle of the night. It is an interesting piece of trivia to note that of the dozen actors Spielberg directed to Academy nominations, Daniel Day-Lewis is the only one to have actually won.

Tom Cruise made two appearances in Spielberg films as distraught fathers. He has to sell the characters demons and weaknesses in both films while also handling an incredibly physical performance in front of green screens and doing stunt work. If you compare his performances in "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds" to other roles in action films, there is a level of quality to those performances that certainly was enhanced by working with Spielberg. Nothing in "Oblivion" comes close to the anguish that Cruise displays when confronting the pre-crime scenario that John Anderson goes through as he confronts the man he believes took his child. Because this performance is buried in an action film it is easy to overlook the quality of work that the two of them achieved here.

 While all three leads in the movie "Jaws" were excellent, there are two performances that stand out. The flashy role and the greatest match of actor to part I can think of is the pairing of Robert Shaw with the character Quint. At least four sets of hands were on the script for the famous monologue, Spielberg knew what words mattered and enhanced the performance with camera work and sound design that makes that moment one of the essential film scenes ever.  The second performance is one that is often overlooked, Roy Scheider as Chief Brody is subtle and sometimes heartbreaking. Spielberg knows how long to let some of those moments linger in time. The dinner table scene is a wonderful example of the creativity that can come out when the director and the actor work together.

"...as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.”--Steven Spielberg

Saving Mr. Banks

Everyone has their own Christmas traditions. Some open gifts on Christmas Eve, many go to Mass on Christmas morning, at our house we also attend to ritual, the Christmas film screening. The decision of what film to choose depends on what is fresh and seems appropriate. I'm still not sure how we ended up in 2007 seeing Will Smith battle hyperactive zombies after a plague, it must simply be timing. Last year we knew all the way back to the summer months that we would see "Les Misérables" on Christmas day. The trailer was the perfect bait for us. Well this trailer also sold us early on, it is the concept of the film and the stars that made "Saving Mr. Banks" our planned on Christmas film experience since we first heard of it. The story of how Walt Disney convinced a reluctant P.L. Travers to give him the rights to the character of Mary Poppins seems a natural for a family holiday film. Two words, "It is".

There is a bit of a caution warning to begin with. The story does have immense charm and humor, and there are moments of delight, but all of those moments seem more meaningful because around the edges is a dark cloud of family history that is the source of Traver's reserve. Those moments are at times sad, frightening and they might be bewildering to the very youngest family members. I can't imagine that anyone will be traumatized, but you should go in forewarned because the back story of P.L. Traver's family is not ultimately  a happy one. The story is told through a series of flashbacks and forwards from 1901 to 1961. Those transitions are made in very effective cinematic techniques that are not subtle and may put off film hipsters that object to heavy handed story telling but they will please traditionalists with the craft in which they are interjected into the story. 

Emma Thompson plays Travers as a truculent woman who is unable to be appeased by the most logical appeals a professional film story teller might make. She comes off as unpleasant and dour. At first you might be inclined to wonder how it is that this woman is responsible for the marvelous character she has created. It seems that the performance is to be all frowns and facial ticks conveying unhappiness. As the story develops though, it is clear that there is a trans-formative process occurring. She never becomes cuddly but she definitely becomes human. Here there are some obvious Hollywood tools employed, including a tentative friendship with a wise minor character that delivers some positive energy despite the negativity flowering off on Thompson. It helps that this character is played by the talented Paul Giamatti, who can convey patience and kindness with his eyes as well as anyone can. There is also a very obvious moment when a musical breakthrough occurs and it is shown in a extremely conventional way; a way that completely works and should bring a huge smile to your face even if you don't like being manipulated. 

It is hard to imagine better casting than Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Even though his voice and appearance might not automatically make you think of Disney, his warm demeanor and the audiences personal history with him as an actor, create a wonderful shortcut to the man that the film wants us to believe Disney was. There are only a couple of hints dropped at the tough minded businessman he was capable of being, for instance his reluctance to invite Travers to the premiere of her own film, but with the force of nature that Thompson represents Travers as, we need the Uncle Walt image to balance the story. Also in the cast are Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak as the Sherman brothers, the genius team behind the song of the Mary Poppins film. Novak gets some laughs for daring to be honest with Mrs. Travers and Schwartzman gets to play the piano and vamp the songs in rehearsal/story meetings. Bradley Whitford is Don DaGradi, the screenwriter who must work with the team to massage the story to Travers liking. Whitford is a personal favorite from his time on "The West Wing", but he is also a skilled comic actor who helps these scenes work both in their comedy aspects but later in their dramatic moments as well. 

The director is John Lee Hancock, who did two terrific sports themed films in the last dozen years or so, including directing Sandra Bullock to her Oscar win in "The Blind Side". It is quite possible he will have overseen another Oscar nominee in Emma Thompson's Travers. He has effectively used the same sentimental palate that Steven Spielberg uses, including warm colors and camera shots that evoke emotional isolation for children. I was especially impressed with the screenplay of Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, who between them do not have any credits suggesting that they could accomplish what they have done here. This is a story that turns dark occasionally and the mixture of the light and dark are matched very effectively. Hanks and Thompson are both well served in the last third of the film, when the pieces start to form a more complete picture and allow us to see the complexity behind then difficulty of the characters. I don't know if Walt would have approved of his monologue to travers as he reveals his ability to identify with her, but Hanks sells it and it is very nicely written.

Maybe the best teaser poster of the year.

I have never made it a secret from any of my readers that I am a sentimentalist. The idea of this movie is enough to bring a tear to my eye. In the last twenty minutes I gave over to it completely and I am not ashamed to say that my face would have been soaked if not for the discrete presence of a handkerchief in my hand. This movie did for me exactly what I wanted it to, it intrigued me, entertained me and moved me. While it may have done so at times with a heavy hand, I frankly don't care. Leaving a film with indifferent emotions and only an intellectual experience is not a goal I seek from films. I like when my brain is stimulated, but I also like when my heartstrings are pulled. This movie did enough of the former not to be insulting, and enough of the later for me to treasure it.