Before you read this post, you must first say the secret password...
If you answered correctly, you already know how funny this movie is. I can't give away the jokes, let me just say that if you thought the opening credits of last year's "Deadpool" were amusing, be prepared for several guffaws before the movie really starts here. Director McKay and the team of writers came up with the right mocking attitude for the film. Kids may sometimes not understand the jokes, but there is plenty of eye candy to keep them happy. Adults on the other hand will laugh out loud at the satire directed at almost all superhero film tropes, but especially those associated with the Batman movies.
Many of us who find the constant angst and introspection of comic book characters to be emphasized a bit much in the last ten years, will enjoy the takedown performed by this movie. Although it is an echo of some of the same themes as mentioned in the LEGO Movie , the story here is far different and the emphasis is on wild visuals that will keep you engaged the whole time that the movie is rolling. Will Arnett returns as the voice of LEGO Batman, and his gruff tone, sometimes whispered asides and general self inflating attitude make this a Batman far different from any we have seen before.
There are movie fans who are dismissive of fan service references in movies. They disapprove of the Easter Eggs that fanboys would jones over. This movie is a plateful of scrambled eggs, with a moment from Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy dropped in right beside a campy reference to the Batman of the 1960s television series. Imagine the Dark Knight battling a shark with repellent from his utility belt and you will get the idea. Poison Ivy kills a half dozen penguins flying on a bombing mission when she accidentally kisses them. Moments from "Batman and Robin" live next door to "Batman vs. Superman". The people who micromanage the fun out of the DC Universe films need to watch this movie and maybe let some of the creative forces that were contributors here could be turned loose on the Justice League or future films from the DCU. The writers here seem to get that there should be some fun in the characters they are bringing to life.
Just as three years ago, the look of this LEGO movie is amazing. A combination of computer generated blocks and LEGO sized characters come to life in some great ways. The theme of creativity is not deeply explored in this movie as it was in the previous LEGO film, but that does not mean that the film making has lost it's creative edge. The production design and color palate of this movie are cartoon/toy exploding sugar treats for the eyes. When you hear Arnett's sardonic comments in contrast to the chipper immature Micael Cera as Dick Grayson, you just half to laugh. It is another insider joke that Alfred is voiced by Ralph Fiennes, while Lord Voldemort, who does appear in this movie, is voiced by someone else. Real Batman fans will love the casting of Billy Dee Williams as the voice of Two Face.
The original songs in the film are also very amusing. None of them are as catchy as "Everything is Awesome", but they contain just as many jokes and are integrated into the film really well. The source music from other films is also used at the right time and if you appreciate Superman, you will be glad to know we get the John Williams score music in a couple of places. The Batman Theme from the 60s TV show has been mocked so much in the last fifty years that you might have thought all humor had been milked from it already. You would be wrong and Will Arnett proves that. There are also three or four film clips in the movie taht are not animated and will delight you for the clever way they are used.
All in all, this is a really great movie and a fine way to launch the quality films of the year. We can now move aside the remnants of 2016 films and the forgettable January fodder that fills in the spaces between the awards contenders. Here is a movie that will certainly be well thought of all year long. Let's just hope that the travesty that occurred regarding it's predecessor and the Academy does not repeat itself. I can't wait to go back and see this again. No doubt there are big chunks of humor buried in the dense backgrounds of every scene that will deserve to be discovered and enjoyed, while all the time we get to relish the stuff we loved the first time through.
In the last few years, we have lost a number of terrific actors that were the basis of our movie obsessions in the first place. 2016 , whether accurately or not, was seen as being particularly brutal. We might have hoped for a respite from bad news but in January, character actor Miguel Ferrer left us. He was just shy of being sixty two, and coincidentally, almost half his life ago, he made an amazing contribution to one of the greatest films of the 1980s. It is the 30th Anniversary of "Robocop", a movie that brought Mr, Ferrer to greater audience awareness and set the stage for characters that he would play for the rest of his career.
Last night, the American Cinematheque arranged a screening of the film and provided two wonderful guests to speak about the movie and their colleague. Peter Weller, Robocop himself, was present as was principle screenwriter Ed Neumeier. Weller was quite clear that he was mostly done talking about the film after an extensive promotional tour ten years ago for a box set release of the film and a 25th Anniversary salute he participated in five years ago. It was the cause of acknowledging his friend Miguel Ferrer that brought him out on this evening, and he along with Mr. Neumeier focused on the passion of the film making rather than all the geek related issues that he has talked about and which have been covered in other places for years.
Dr. Weller (he has a PhD in Renaissance Art from UCLA), showed his spirit from the start of the program. The Q and A was scheduled for after the screening, but when the dialogue track of the film was not coming through the sound system, he was the one who jumped up and notified the management. He and Neumeier then did an impromptu fifteen minutes while the technical issue was being fixed. At one point he jokingly incited the audience to riot because of the snafu. Once the sound issue was resolved he took a seat (just two seats down in front of me) and watched the film with the rest of us. When he returned to the proscenium after the film, he told us that it was not his usual custom to watch the movie over and over, but that his wife had left him there and taken the car, so he thought it would be appropriate to watch so he could once again recognize the elements that Miguel Ferrer brought to the movie. He noted how Bob Morton, Ferrer's character, was both irritating and admirable. He had repulsive characteristics but also personality quirks and an attitude about Robocop, that made everyone love the movie so much more. His performance is a spark plug in the first half of the film. He is not a heroic character, but rather the satirical version of the yuppie climber in the corporate world of the times. Everyone in the theater practically cheered when Morton, looking at Robocop and seen from his perspective, shakes his finger and tells Robo, "You are going to be a bad mother****er."
Weller and Neumeier were also effusive in praise of the director of the movie Paul Verhoven. While the script was done and the concept set, Verhoeven infused the story with the biting satire it is remembered for. The energy and tension of Robocop's first scenes in the police station and laboratory were due to his design of the camera movements and lighting. As a director himself, Weller said he could now relate to the way Verhoeven operated in what they called 7th gear. The whole crew would be amped up and tuned in and working in synchronized speed to get the next shot and keep the process moving. You could hear the passion in Weller's voice on several of the subjects that came up, but he first reached this level of emotion when praising the director who's fortunate and wise hands the project fell into.
Dr. Peter Weller Center, Screenwriter Ed Neumeier on the right
Neumeier was quite gracious in giving credit to the director as well but also pointing out how the actors make the words mean something more than the writer might ever have imagined. He gave Kurtwood Smith, the actor who played villain Clarence Boddicker, credit for the improvised "Guns, Guns, Guns" line that made his negotiation scene so much funnier and intense than it might otherwise have been. He also noted that Weller is the one who came up with the Robocop line to his wounded partner Lewis, "They'll fix you. They fix everything." A line that allowed closure of that part of the story with a sense of hope for the audience, but also a sense of sorry at the costs.
The subject of the awkwardness of acting came up in response to an audience question that I could not quite make out, but it was one of the more eloquent moments of Weller's conversation with us. He described the degree of commitment and courage it takes to really look at a fellow actor at a close distance and connect with them on camera. In his view, you need to be fearlessly real to be able to covey the emotions that a character might be feeling. He completely won me over with the example he chose to illustrate that point. He describe how Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHaviland had to have that sort of intensity in front of a camera merely inches from one another's face in the balcony scene in Robin Hood. Mr. Weller, excuse me, Dr. Weller, you are a man after my own heart. I may have to find a higher place on my mental shelf for every word you said as a result of that illustration. Thank you.
One more point to show how engaged and enthusiastic Weller was last night. An audience member asked him to take a question from a little boy who was at the screening. Weller rightfully pointed out when the boy shared that his age was nine, that he should not have even been allowed in the theater, but he joked it away and took the question. It was the kind of question you might expect a nine year old to ask, "How did it feel to play the coolest robot ever in the movies?" Weller answered by asking his own question of the boy, "After being here tonight and standing up to ask your question, how does it feel to be the coolest kid in your school?"
Both Neumeier and Weller were quick to point to the contributions of everyone on the movie. They had praise for the sound effects team, and for Phil Tippet's stop motion effects. The make up guy who did Weller's face for the movie was praised as was the body motion artist he had worked with for six months to get Robocop's movements down. Even the local video store that provided a copy of Ivan The Terrible for Weller to watch in modifying his movements got some love. An extra treat was provided when Weller pointed back to where he had sat watching the movie and he introduced actress Diane Robin, who played the model who asked Bob Morton just before he was murdered if he was going to call her. She looked great and the audience got the solid feeling that everyone on that set had cared about how the movie came out.
My two daughters are both fans of the film and I managed to wrangle them into the theater last night. In fact they got there well before me and they saved seats for my friend Michael and I. I was so glad to see him there for this wonderful event. I look forward to sharing some time at the TCM festival in April.
I will save an analytical post of the film for another day, but I will add one final note here. When the movie finished, the roar of the crowd was loud, and it reminded me of the first time I saw the film back in 1987. The crowd could have torn the place down with their enthusiasm. Last night, Peter Weller could have done the same thing. A fantastic evening. Thanks one and all.
This year for my birthday gift to you all, here is a list of quotes from movies, one for every year I've been around. Think you can name them all?
1958
Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas: A policeman's job is only easy in a police state.
1959
Roger Thornhill: Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes?
1960
Calvera: If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.
1961
Holly Golightly: I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead.
1962
James Bond: That's a Smith & Wesson, and you've had your six.
1963
George Washington McLintock: You women are always raising hell about one thing when it's something else you're really sore about.
1964
Joe: I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it.
1965
Alec Leamas: I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life.
I am aware of the controversy that has cropped up leading to the release of this film and I will have a few comments at the end of the post. We are going to start with what made it to the screen first. There is an immediate way to recognize how the story in the movie and the marketing of the film rely on the audience who loves dogs to simply show up. The name of the Director is never mentioned on the teaser poster, in the trailer, nor any material I'd seen leading up to the events this week. In fact, in most of the writing about the behind the scenes video clips that have leaked, they never said the name of the film's director, it's Lasse Hallström. This is a two time Academy Award nominated director, who has a string of well regarded movies on his resume, and there is not one "From the Director of..." tag lines to be seen in the studio material. It was not until the credits that I saw his name. This guy made "My Life as a Dog", "The Cider House Rules", "Chocolat" and a movie that I admired very much from just a couple of years ago, "The Hundred Foot Journey". I can see why he was chosen to direct, and my guess is that his name will not put as many butts in the seats as a good picture of a dog.
People who love and own dogs will be able to identify with this film immediately. I think all of us have voiced our own dogs thoughts at least in our heads, but many, including me, have done it out loud with regularity. We anthropomorphize our animals all the time. With the right story line and voice casting, this movie should be catnip [yeah I know] to all the dog lovers out there. Who can resist the notion that our animals think about us and the things we do just they way we think about them. Comedic actor Josh Gad, who has several successful voice performances under his belt, manages to get the wistful, empathetic tone of a dog just right. "Bailey", the lead character in our story, is just that kind of dog. The screenplay then provides several lives for "Baily" to lead, while clearly indicating which story is the main spine of this work.
Frankly, this movie could be just a kids film, but it is really much more. Let's admit up front that it is an infernal machine. This device is designed to drain us of all moisture residing anywhere in our heads. Since the dog has several incarnations in the film, it is no spoiler to say that we get several on screen and off screen deaths of our hero. There are at least four times that a dog steps off the stage and it is likely to be accompanied by your tears. The dog is also a hero in the lives of most of his owners. He literally saves lives a couple of times, and also saves the heart of the people who's lives he has entered. There are moments of dog/people love that will force your eyes to well up again. In his soft and warm voice, Gad provides "Bailey" with humor, pathos and an opportunity to consider the foibles of human existence.
The director manages to make all of this happen in an atmosphere that is usually great to look at, even when the environment is not very appealing. "Bailey's" life as a German Shepard K-9 officer is not particularly warm except for two or three minutes. The warmth of the apartment and life he shares as a corgi is easier to relate to and see beauty in. It is however in the two most extended sequences, that pretty much bookend the story, that we can see Hallström do the thing that he is best at. He makes the countryside look like the farm life that city dwellers dream of and farm hands and rural types want their lives to be. Canada stands in for Michigan and the suburban scenes set in the sixties look like a fond memory of a mostly idyllic childhood. Ethan, the kid who loves and grows up with "Bailey" is played by three different actors. Both of the younger performers are engaging, but there are some story elements that are a bit much and they still seemed natural. The one place it fell down a bit was near the end of the first long segment. Ethan changes for various reasons but the performance does not quite get us there. It doesn't matter too much because we are crying our eyes out at the dog's story at that moment. This is a good piece of misdirection by the director from a plot point that feels a little artificial. In the last segment, things don't start out so well for our canine hero, and this is another time when the director manages to let a few well placed shots and a montage of time convey the events in the story. We are spared an even uglier look at human behavior than we might have had otherwise.
Denis Quaid is Ethan all grown up. His story gets a bit short shrift. Ultimately we see that much like the other lives "Bailey" has come into, Ethan is lonely and in need. I was pleased to see Peggy Lipton in the film. I am currently re-watching "Twin Peaks" in preparation for it's return this Spring, and Lipton as Norma is great. Her adult version of Hannah does not have a lot to do but it does work well with Mr. Quaid and it finishes off the movie in a way that should make audiences satisfied. My daughter read the book that the film is based on just last night. She told us after the movie about the ending of the book, and I'm glad that the film spared us another parting. There are just so many tears I can afford to surrender without having to give up my man card.
Addendum:
Now as for the controversy. The clips of the German Shepard in the water that have shown up on line are about the mildest form of "abuse" you can imagine. My dogs are more reluctant to get in the water at bath time and they are in greater danger than the canine star was. So either that makes me a heartlessly indifferent dog hater, or the world has gone mad with overly sensitized social media consumers. PETA, who is behind the boycott movement against this film, is an extremist organization that objects to animals being used for any entertainment purpose (or any other reason for that matter). It is in their interest to move mainstream thought on issues like this in their direction. Whales and Elephants are bigger targets (literally) but they have been more successful there. Pet ownership is something they also see as problematic. In a nation of pet owners, it's hard to find a wedge issue to gain entry with. This is their opportunity to push the outside of the envelope. Ultimately I hope they fail because this movie is more likely to inspire responsible pet ownership and thus better treatment for dogs. The twisted logic of this "Animal Rights" organization deems anything which makes dog ownership seem appropriate, is undesirable.
I had a great visit with Todd at the Forgotten Filmcast, where we talked about this Richard Pryor Vehicle. [Yes that is a Pun]. Click on the image to visit the site and listen in.
Last night we spent the evening with one of the funniest men on the planet. Although there was a host who supposedly was conducting the interview, I'd b surprised if he asked a dozen questions in the nearly hour and a half presentation. Brooks at age ninety, roamed the stage, rarely sat and frequently belted out songs from his films or in one case an American Standard that was the crux of a great joke.
There were probably more than 4,000 people at the show last night. The Mircrosoft theater is the former Nokia Theater where we had gone two years ago for The Godfather Live. I think it changed sponsors just after we were last there. The room is spacious and the sound quality was excellent. Just after 8 pm, a title card came up on the screen which had been playing a series of trivia questions about Brooks and the film. The card announced that the Governor would be joining us in 93 minutes, harumph.
We got a Digital screening of one of the classic comedies of all time. Complete with every politically incorrect joke that was in the film when it originally played in 1974. Just a few months back we had gone to a screening of Blazing Saddles along with Willy Wonka, in tribute to the late Gene Wilder. I don't think there is much more to add about the film, so I will simply refer you to that post if you want to knoe my view of the movie. ( Blazing Saddles).
When Mel came out after a joyously laughed at 93 minutes of lunacy, he received a deserving standing ovation which he quickly dismissed. He had fish to fry and he dove right in. The interviewer (I think it was Steve Halberman, but I could have that wrong) asked one question and fifteen hysterical minutes later we got to a follow-up question. Brooks makes the whole evening seem like an intimate experience with friends. Many of the stories he has told before, but they all sound fresh and unrehearsed and there are enough bits of improvised shtick to make you feel like this was all for the first time.
One interesting moment was when a question was read by the host from an audience member, who turned out to be Dom Deluise's nephew. Mel could not say enough nice things about Dom and of course he had a great story. The whole evening was filled with anecdotes about Harvey Korman, Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Pryor, Carl Reiner, Sid Cesar, and a dozen more. Mel told jokes, exaggerated a little and sang his heart out a couple of times without any accompaniment. It was a bravura performance by a man who is rightfully a National Treasure, and as sharp as a tack in his tenth decade of life.
I'd be happy to go to a screening of "Young Frankenstein" and repeat the whole process over again tonight. This series of shows is billed as the Back in the Saddle Tour, if it comes to your town, be sure to splurge on some tickets and see the man live.
It's January, so I'm ready for my annual dose of Liam Neeson kicking someone's ass. So today we saw this and he did it, the only problem is that it was my ass he kicked. This is a sad story about the worst thing that can happen to a kid. As it builds up to the climax, I became more and more effected by it. At first I thought I was withstanding the story pretty well but then I turn around and there is Mr. Neeson's voice, ready to help knock me down and remind me that I am a human being who is a big cupcake.
This is a story that seems like it should be familiar but it is told in a very unique way. As I mentioned, the arc of the narrative concerns the loss of a loved one and the young man that has to face this truth is struggling with a way to confront it. The Monster that comes is not friendly but in a strange way is very supportive. The story is direct but there are three specific moments when the monster tells a tale to young Conor. Much like A Christmas Carol, Conor is visited on separate occasions and each time he a story is shared with him. Buried inside of each tale is a lesson, but it is never a clear lesson and Conor finds the stories increasingly confounding to the task he has of finding a cure for his mother.
A third of the way into the film, Conor's Grandmother appears. She is played by Sigourney Weaver, using the slight British accent that she probably picked up in "The Year of Living Dangerously" or "Half Moon Street". The Grandmother is stern and foreboding in young Conors life. He sees the future that he despairs of in her and does not sense the warmth that he and his own mother have. Part of the story will have to manage that relationship more delicately. His father is an expatriate living in Los Angeles. He does not appear to be a practical lifeline even though he wants what is best for his son. Mom is played by Felicity Jones and she is suitably beautiful and haggard as the path of her disease progresses. Louis MacDougal plays Connor and his most affecting scenes are with his Father, the bully who abuses him, and ultimately the two women who have and will dominate his life.
The real story here is a child trying desperately to reconcile himself with the loss of the most important person in his life. The Monster represents the turmoil and the tragedy that he is facing, but it never acts exactly the way you expect the story to go. Ultimately there is a turning point, and we can see that coming, but the path there is torturous and may leave some audience members a bit slack jawed. One of my favorite things about the film is that it contains some beautifully animated sequences that illustrate the tales being told. I suspect the water color paintings are based on the illustrations used in the book from which this film derives. Although containing some fairy tale elements, they are not really Disney friendly. Conor has to try to make sense of them and it is a final turn in the story that helps bring it all together.
Neeson is the voice of the Monster but his image does appear in a photograph that suggests Conor's Mother in her childhood with her own father. Neeson has done voice work before. As Aslan (or God if you like) in the Chronicles of Narnia he was suitably ponderous. His two faced cop in the Lego Movie was just the right touch of sardonic indifference. In this film his voice is ferocious and soothing and sometimes harsh. In the end it is a comforting voice, maybe like all of our fathers, a bit scary at times but also a voice that we feel we can trust. Grief and guilt need to be met with a purposeful and supportive figure. Until Conor can find that in the adults around him, he has a Monster to call upon. This is a sad story that may be tough for children to endure as well as soft hearted adults. It is however a worthy drama and ultimately redemptive, but in a painful way.
This event was scheduled prior to the death of Debbie Reynolds. The host Ben Mankiewicz, did not mention her passing in the intro or the conclusion of the presentation, so that material was already in the queue, but there was a dedication card before the movie began. It is certainly a deserving tribute because you can clearly see in every scene she appears in, Debbie Reynolds was special. It's interesting that at one point in the story, R.F. the studio head takes notice of Reynold's Kathy Seldon. He calls her out of the chorus line for having that something special and unique. That is exactly what you can see in Reynolds. Her smile is effervescent, her face just glows, even when buried in a crowd of other actresses, and her line delivery is spunky and confident.
This movie does not need any defending. Mankiewicz suggested it might be one of the greatest musicals of all time, he qualifies that by pointing out that many would say it is "The" greatest musical of all time, present company believes that to be the case. For almost two hours I sat with a smile on my face, a laugh in my heat or a tear in my eye. Evey time you turn around there is another great number. As far as I can tell, other than the compilation film "That's Entertainment", this is the only movie where Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly worked together. That is almost incredible to believe when you watch the "Fit as a Fiddle" or "Moses Supposes" sequences in this film. They perform with such synchronicity, you would believe they'd been working together for years.
Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont is a hoot and a half. The opening segment where Kelly as Don Lockwood tells the background of their Hollywood "Romance" is so great because they hold her voice until the perfect moment. She still plays a bitchy star with her silent performance up to that part, but once she starts speaking, the laughs become bigger. Last year the whole scene with Ralph Fiennes and Alden Ehrenreich in Hail, Casar! was cribbed from Lina's diction lesson. Hell it was funny sixty-four years earlier, it should be funny again. Both films are tributes to old Hollywood and they make us aware of some of the foibles that the star system presented to the studios.
There were more than a hundred and fifty people at the afternoon screening today and I am happy to say they were not all of retirement age. I saw a Mom with her two little girls, maybe six and eight. There were four kids who came in together in their late teens, an couples of every age throughout the theater. "Singin' in the Rain" is a national treasure to be taken out and shared on a regular basis. In fact the last time I saw it on the big screen was a Fathom Screening from five years ago for the 60th Anniversary.
My Daughter and I are working up a project for this year where we will be posting on the 52 films from the TCM Essential Book we purchased last year. Instead of working through the films in order of the year they came out like the book did, we are going to try to do screenings of the movies as much as possible and let that dictate some of the order. "Singin' in the Rain" was up this weekend, an we just thought of doing this project last week, so this is a natural to start. I Think most of our posts will be Vlogs on Youtube, but I will link them here and put up a page to list all of the links as well. The loss of Debbie Reynolds is a sad way to begin the project, but the joyous film she starred in will live forever and she and it should be celebrated.
I am a sucker for movies based on historical events. I don't mean those that are just inspired by true events, I mean stories about history. All narratives are subjective so I recognize that the emphasis of some stories is going to change from one story teller to another, but the key events , they stay the same. A battle is won, a President is Elected or killed, or a human achievement is accomplished. You don't have to make those things up. It is one of the reasons that I look forward to "Dunkirk" next summer. It is a key incident in the outcome of WWII, and even though the story may be dramatized, the events are real. "Hidden Figures" is exactly that type of movie.
For kids of my generation, the American Astronauts were the biggest heroes we could imagine. As a child, I never much paid attention to the technicians I'd see on television, at their stations, monitoring all that could go wrong. I did however come to recognize them from mission to mission. This movie tells the story behind the scenes of the behind the scenes of the early space missions. The fact that it is an empowering women's film and an important achievement in civil rights is what helps make it so much more interesting and worth telling. A movie about people sitting at desks doing math, sounds almost like the equivalent of watching paint dry. It may be important but it is only going to be of interest to someone who knows the numbers. The people who put those numbers together here are what the story is all about.
Taraji Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monae are three bright math whizzes, working at doing computations for NASA, and facing two strikes. In 1961, women were largely excluded from the military and science community at NASA and these women happen to be black. They are not however, shrinking violets, they are empowered by their talents and more importantly their mission. Although there is a civil rights story here, it is largely powered by the exigencies of trying to build the math and engineering required for Americans to gain a foothold in the space race. There are a few of the traditional symbols of the movement, MLK speaking on television, violence in the south, and protests about segregation. The two obvious illustrations in this story are not however overtly about a struggle to achieve equal rights but to build an effective team. Henson's character Katherine, has difficulty doing her job because of the bathroom situation. She is excluded in an overtly racist manner by a coffee pot. When Kevin Costner's program director confronts these injustices, it is for building meritocracy, not to correct a social injustice. All of the women characters certainly want social justice, but first they want to be allowed to do their jobs and do them to the best of their ability. That is the most ennobling part of the story that I saw.
This is a film that could easily be a prism viewpoint of the space race as told in "The Right Stuff". Many of the events and characters repeat in the time periods covered. Just as the movie focusing on the Mercury astronauts rightly pointed out, this film amplifies why the recently deceased John Glenn was a national hero. As the three women represent the hidden struggles of the space program and America's self defeating institutional racism, Glenn represents the best in all of us. We want the talented and professionals to do their jobs so everyone else ca. These women showed that there were barriers preventing that from happening, and those barriers shackled our potential. We may not be completely out of the woods on these problems, but thank goodness we don't have the same attitudes with the same prevalence today.
The film manages to be highly entertaining and accessible to all groups. There may be a few small children who would not enjoy it much but everyone else should be happy to see this. There is humor, tension, and heroic drama throughout the film. The few characters that might be seen as villains of the piece are mostly just trapped in the mindset of the time and need some opportunities to grow, just as the oppressed women did. Americans of all races should be proud of the accomplishments of the space program in the sixties. It should be a unifying experience to take the steps to the stars, and this movie reminds us that it would not have been possible if we did not all move forward together.
This is a tale of two tales. The first half of this movie is compelling and emotionally engaging. It has a fantastic child performance and it says so many things about what is wrong with some aspects of the world that you will want to act after seeing some of it. The second half is anti-climactic for the most part. The extended story of our hero does not play out completely and it raises different issues that seem to be only tangentially related to what we started with. There is another solid performance as well, but it is overshadowed by the legacy of the younger version of our lead character.
Young Sunny Pawar plays the hero of the story, a kid named Saroo, who gets separated from his family in one of the biggest and most populated countries in the world. The circumstances of his "disappearance" are accidental, but much of the trauma that follows is deliberate and frightening. He is a child of maybe five, several hundred miles from home, in which direction he has no idea, and the only name he knows his Mother by is Mum. The family was scratching out a living doing manual labor and pilfering small amounts of commodities that are unwatched. He ends up in Calcutta, a city teeming with people, many of whom are looking to exploit a child.
We want authority figures and government agencies to be reliable, but as they appear here, it seems they are as much a part of the problem as some of the criminal element. There are some competent people who do finally end up helping Saroo connect with a different family in a country even further away. When Sunny Pawar is playing the character of Saroo, everything seems real and the stakes are so high as to keep us enthralled. When a twenty year period goes by with a single title card, and Saroo is played by Dev Patel, the stakes seem so much lower and the emotions feel like they are straining for significance. Saroo's identity crisis might have been a solid film if the movie had worked backwards. Instead it plays out like some psychological drama that would make an interesting hour on TV.
The complicated relationship the adult Saroo has with his adopted family is told in the most bare bones way possible. There are cryptic references to his adopted brother's drug use and emotional damage. Nicole Kidman as his adopted mother spends a lot of her time weeping for the problems of Mantosh, her second adopted child but Saroo never reaches out to either his mother or father for help in his crisis. They are the two most supportive parents you can imagine, and he is so wound up about his memories of his real brother and mother, that he can't bother to ask for help. This section of the movie is so frustrating because we can't figure out why he feels that way. Even when he has a supportive girlfriend to exchange exposition with.
I know this is based on a true story. When the film ends and we get some clips and a scroll of the truth, it is very compelling. If the film had been a documentary, or the story structure were different, I think I'd have been really more impressed. As it is, I liked the movie a lot, but it depended on the resolution of the search to redeem a dull passage that takes up a big chunk of the film. I've heard award talk about Patel and Kidman, but if anyone in this movie deserves to be honored for their performance, it is a little boy from India who made us care in the first place.
I saw a headline a couple of weeks ago that declared the movie star dead. That proclamation was based on the disappointing box office opening of this film. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt have had great success in films in the last few years. Lawrence has arguably been the most bankable star, man or woman, since the start of the Hunger Games series, and Pratt starred in the colossus "Jurassic World" and "Guardians of the Galaxy". Their pairing may have been the reason this film finally got a greenlight after years in development hell. The lower than expected returns are supposedly an indicator that star power can"t save a movie. The truth is, a movie succeeds or fails for many reasons, and while the star may be one of those reasons, there are usually others. The weakness of this films performance should not be unjustly laid at the feet of the two leads.
"Passengers" is sold to us as a love story in space. The trailers make the film look like an adventure with the star crossed lovers battling to save themselves and the ship they are traveling on. I'm going to avoid spoilers as usual, but I will say that there is a twist in this story that is much darker and deeper than the film clips suggest. Maybe this is not a great movie, but it was better than I expected and the production values are top notch so I think I can recommend it to people who like science fiction and a lot of drama thrown in.
The provocative part of the story occurs for reasons that audiences will understand but may be horrified by. There is an interesting "what would you do? question at the heart of the film. The follow up question of how to handle the choice that is made is less complex because the story takes a very traditional turn into action tension and drama. The second act of the film is where all of the real emotion is and when the story veers back to the usual plot points, there is less that is interesting about it. For the vast majority of the movie, the two leads are the sole human characters on the ship. Michael Sheen, who is great, does have a side part to play, but he essentially is a tool for exposition and philosophy to be engorged in out loud. Lawrence and Pratt have to sell the human elements. I thought their chemistry was solid and that they made a somewhat believable couple under the circumstances.
The failure of this movie to connect with audiences may have more to do with marketing than anything else. The trailers and ads ignore the real conflict of the film entirely and focus on the romance and adventure. There is a hint of a secret plot but that is a red herring, every shot with Lawrence Fishburne and Andy Garcia in it is misleading to the audience. Garcia must have a fantastic agent to get billing and paid for his contribution to the film. I suspect there may have been more of the story that got trimmed, and in the long run that is probably best.
The appearance of Fishburne in the film, signals the start of the last section of the movie and a return to standard action adventure activity. The idea that a solo engineer and a well read but not expert passenger, can handle the issues that crop up is a little hard to swallow, but since the whole idea of the film is hard to swallow to begin with I guess I can live with it. The action beats are not surprising but the special effects work is solid and there is one final twist that does pay off from the earlier section. In essence it helps redeem the film and make it a bit more worthy. "Passengers" is not an essential film but it is entertaining and it should make for a good date night film for all those future "Netflix and Chill" evenings ahead.
Several old favorites were in my list of older films that I saw again on the big screen at some point this year. Every film you see listed here has a post if you are interested. Just check the archive list for 2016.
I would be a little alarmed at the number of adults at a 10:15 am screening of what is basically a kids movie, except for the fact that the three of us who went to see it were also all adults. "Sing" delivers pretty much what it promises in all the promotional material. This is a film cobbled together around the premise of animals singing in an "Idol/Voice/X-Factor" style competition. If you like those sorts of reality competition shows, than this is likely to please you. If you just like anthropomorphized animals in cartoon form, while this should satisfy you as well.
Buster Moon is a koala bear who falls in love with the theater as a kid. Every choir singer, high school actor, or member of the glee club can identify with that. If you did dramatic interp on the speech team, worked as a stage hand on a high school play production, or you were an aspiring rock singer with a group of your friends forming a band, you have the bug. It is an infection that makes live performance so much fun and invigorating that you can get over your self consciousness and be willing to stand in front of an audience and potentially look foolish, just on the off chance that someone else might enjoy it. "Sing" is all about that idea. While there is a little bit of that "can do" theme in the film and story, most of what makes up the movie is a cartoon version of performance.
I've got nothing against cartoons at all. I love animated movies and Bugs and Daffy filled my childhood with beloved memories. I never really looked to cartoons to give me life lessons. So the thinness of the theme in this film does not really bother me because it is really just there to help make the running time worthwhile. The story is very episodic with Buster as a Brooks-like producer trying to put together the successful show that has eluded him. His plot-line involve financial shenanigans and theatrical mishaps. Rosita is a pig mama to bacon factory of piglets, she also longs to sing. Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon reunite from the film "Mud" to voice Buster and Rosita. Rosita and her family have all the Rube Goldberg devices from a Road Runner cartoon in their segments of the story. There is also a plot about gamblers after a cheating card player and a shy talent who is literally the elephant in the room. Kids will laugh at the fart jokes and adults will enjoy sampling the wide range of music performances in the film.
This movie comes from the same studio that brought us "Despicable Me" and it's sequel, as well as the "Minions" movie. I thought last year's "Minions" was mostly an excuse to string together pop hits and fill the movie with something more interesting than the story. "Sing" solves that problem by making all the pop hits be the story and therefore freeing us the obligation to shoehorn all the songs into the movie. I don't know that the personalities of the characters matter that much. So many voice actors get used just for atmosphere and not for any other reason. The singers are all fine but no performance stood out in a way that would make it a signature moment in the film.
The movie is lite and entertaining enough for the holiday season. Kids home for the Christmas Vacation will be able to see this with parents who will not hate watching the "let's put on a show" attitude of the characters. No one is going to have this on their list of greatest animated movies ever, but it combines the animal world of a film like "Zootopia" with singing performances that are entertaining enough for the short time that each one of them runs.
This is my first opportunity to write about this film for this blog. The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood California has obtained a new 70mm print of of the film and they screened it nine times during the holiday season. We made it to the final screening, and to be honest, I'm kicking myself for missing the eight prior screenings. My daughter went with me and she is apparently not a fan of the film. I saw another blogger recently dismiss 2001 as over hyped and boring. Everyone will of course see a film through their own prism, and that is probably why I am willing to go to bat for a movie that does not need any defense from me at all. "2001: A Space Odyssey" is one of the great achievements of cinema. It is one of the reasons that I can look people who think those of us who dislike a film like "The Tree of Life" are intellectually shallow, and say "Bullshit". This film is more profound, deep and well made than a dozen avant-garde movies that today's audiences might respond to.
I come to this film with a long history. When I was ten years old, a friend of my father, who happened to be one of the projectionists at the Cinerama Dome and Pacific Theater in Hollywood, arranged for our family to attend one of the "road show" presentations of the film. Somewhere [probably the notorious box in the garage] I still have the souvenir program for that exhibition. I remember that my Mother and Father took me, and that my brothers did not go. It was a school night because I had to get up the next day, and I talked about the movie with my friends. [I doubt Arthuro Salazar will remember, but if he does, maybe he can confirm my story]. My parents thought that the movie was strange, and I certainly would not disagree, but I also thought it was wonderful. I was a precocious ten year old, so I probably thought I understood the whole thing, but of course I could not really have done so. I next saw the film at some of the numerous screenings that happened over the years at the Cinerama Dome. Some of you old enough to know may recall that some people liked to get high and then lay on the floor at the foot of the screen during the final twenty minutes of the film. I was not one of those folks but I did see them now and then. The visual impact of the film on the curved giant screen in 70mm was enough to convince me that what I was seeing was important.
I have watched it a dozen times on home video and in theaters since those days and every time I find new things about the movie to appreciate. Since we won't be getting any more Stanley Kubrick films, we have to make due assessing the legacy he left us, and that is a rabbit hole I love going down. At last nights screening, I saw and heard a half dozen things that made me think about the themes of the film or the technique of the film maker. I probably won't get to all of them today, but I hope there will be future opportunities to write about and share my thoughts on this film.
The print last night was struck from a road show version of the film, so it included an overture, an intermission and exit music. The lights are lowered before the start of the film, but not entirely. As the music plays, you are bombarded with a variety of classical and tonal music that seems ethereal to start with. You can tell from the mood being established that this is not going to be your average popcorn munching experience in the dark. The sound design of the film starts before the movie does and then comes that opening, the one that has been parodied and copied ever since it first startled audiences in 1968.
The juxtaposition of the stunning space imagery with the Dawn of Man sequence that the movie starts with is one of the things that seems to befuddle people. The posters and title promise space adventure but the movie begins with a long section devoted to ape like creatures learning to use tools. "2001" plants the idea that human development may have been achieved by extra-terrestrial intervention. While this is not necessarily at odds with Judaeo-Christian beliefs (maybe the monolith is God planting a seed from the tree of wisdom) , it certainly is a novel approach. The idea that creatures who forage for food, ignore the animals around them as a potential source of nourishment, and then huddle in fear of the night, could be given a slight push to start the evolutionary process is original and deep. Kubrick lets us see the small changes in these creatures and then in a cascade of images we discover tool use and everything changes. The final shot of this sequence, when the man-ape flings the bone he has used as a weapon into the air and as it comes down a quick edit turns the falling object into a modern satellite is one of the great edits in film history. Along with Lawrence blowing the match out in "Lawrence of Arabia", Kubrick and Lean create an artistic standard for editing which will define all future films.
One place where a viewer who criticizes this film can at least find some ground is found in the next segment. Dr. Heywood Floyd's trip to the Moon to deal with the discovery of an alien object, becomes a chance to show off some visually. There are three segments where we track a space vehicle as it makes a landing or approach. The space plane has to synchronize with the rotating space station (all to the Classical score that is leisurely and idyllic.] We soon get another great effects moment as the Lunar Lander approaches the surface of the moonbase and a gaping hole with teeth-like doors opening to receive it, provides us another chance to marvel at the four million year jump in time that the transition edit allows. Finally, there is the space bus which transports Floyd and the other scientists to the excavation site, and it is all computer screens and sound effects to show off the technological innovation of mankind but also the director. The pace of each of these episodes is slow and deliberate. The fact that they are nearly back to back might make the film seem repetitive. In addition, the segments between each of these landings is separated with interactions in which the characters engage in banalities with only the slightest amount of exposition. Kubrick's characters are really drawn in a cold manner. I don't mean that they are heartless but that their personalities display almost no personality or human warmth. Even the phone call Floyd has with his young daughter feels perfunctory. While conceding that these moments are longer than most people are used to today, it can also be said that all films prior to the 1980s were slower at coming to the point. Sometimes the brushstrokes rather than the images are what distinguish "art" from a mere representation. I would say that these are some indulgences that an artist like Kubrick is entitled to make and that in the scheme of things, they make the picture work better in other parts of the story.
The sound emitted by the monolith both for early man and for Dr. Floyd's group, is mercilessly loud and penetrating. The audience will experience the same things the actors do. Again, this is a deliberate choice that the director is responsible for, and it works. Maybe it is a little annoying, but it makes the sections with long periods of silence even more effective.
Once we are on Discovery One, the silence takes over again. There will be moments punctuated with sounds and with music, but frequently, the mundane tasks of the three active crew members are surrounded with no sound at all. There is a reason that Ridley Scott's "Alien" was promoted with the phrase "In space, no one can hear you scream." The vacuum of space overpowers the technology of man. As awesome as the difference 4 million years in time can make in human technology, it is suddenly dwarfed by the enormity of space and the thundering silence that is returned as we shout out in defiance of those barriers to human exploration. The astronauts labored breathing as the do an EVA to replace a part of the communication system is loud and ever present, until suddenly it isn't. We can see poor Frank's body tumbling silently through space, and there is no warning or outcry. Only when HAL decides to erase the other human crew do we get a return to sound levels that are loud and powerful. The warnings that go off as the astronauts in hibernation die with no visible violence, are all mechanical. When Dave chooses to enter through the airlock, the exploding bolts and the violent ejection of astronaut from the pod are shown silently, until an atmosphere can be restored.
What should be the most obvious sound element and yet it could be easily overlooked, is the voice of HAL 9000. Douglas Rain deserves special mention because his is the dominant role in the last half of the movie. Hall is just personable enough to be easy to interact with, but the voice is so measured and unflappable, that no one would confuse him with a human, except by comparison to the two cold Kubrickian astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole. Hal fits into their band of awake travelers just right. It is not until Dave becomes desperate enough to re-enter the vehicle in the dramatic fashion that was open to him, that either of these characters displays much emotion. The volume and distortion of HAL's voice is one of those sound elements that make this movie work so well. There was one visual element that I thought added a bit to the drama of Dave's act of desperation. As he has the pod release the body of Frank, the arms of the pod pull back up into a crooked position and they resemble the arms of a boxer, surging forward to confront their opponent in the center of the ring. Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist, and I have no doubt that the image was purposeful.
Maybe the most controversial part of the film is the trip through time and space as Dave takes his pod and enters the giant monolith orbiting Jupiter. The light show and special effects might seem quaint to audiences used to CGI intense scenes in all kinds of films. It may have been a little indulgent, but it is not nearly as long as some people complain it is, and if you watch the images closely, you will see foreshadowing of events related to the birth of a new human entity. Those hippies who wanted to use this segment to supplement their high, give critics of the film an entree into pointing out the excesses of these moments. Focusing on the visual instead of the metaphysical elements at this point is exactly the opposite of what one should be doing.
Even though he made one of the greatest comedies of all time, "Dr. Strangelove", Kubrick is rarely thought of as a humorist. Although this film is serious and there are dry stretches with no warm characters to relate to, Kubrick manages to find the funny in a few spots. One obvious example is Dr, Floyd having to read the ten part directions for using a zero gravity toilet.
If you are not familiar, here it is for you:
In another moment of humor, that exists in tragic circumstances, HAL pleads with Dave to respond to him and to allow him to go on with the mission.
"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think
you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."
I mentioned earlier that last night's screening was a road show version that includes an intermission. The break here occurs at the most chilling moment in the film for the audience. Frank and Dave have taken precautions to avoid being overheard by HAL as they consider what to do if they discover HAL is malfunctioning. The final shot before the lights come on is a silent shifting of the camera from Frank's lips moving to Dave's lips movie as we look through the pod window and we realize that HAL can understand everything that is being said. The lights come up and there is a ten minute interval for us to ponder what might be coming.
The break at the screening was certainly longer than 10 minutes, and it needed to be. Unlike most public events, the line at the men's room was the one that snaked down the lobby, while the women's facilities had no visible line at all. This may be a reflection of the slightly male heavy geek culture intruding into the practicality of plumbing. The Egyptian hold more than six hundred people and it was essentially packed last night. We sat in the back right corner of the balcony for this show. The size of the screen and the 70mm projection meant that just about every seat in the house would be acceptable.
Our view of the Ceiling at the Egyptian last night.
Amanda and I discussed the film for the entire ride back to our home, about forty miles from Hollywood. She admires the film but said that she does not need to see it again for another 10 years. She is as passionate about films as I am, and as an example, we see Lawrence of Arabia, just about any time we can find it on the big screen. Her lack of enthusiasm for this movie is understandable but a bit disappointing to me. I still feel in awe of this movie, every time I see it. I don't feel the passage of the long sequences as a burden to be borne but an experience to be savored. We talked about why our feelings are different and she had a nice way of putting it. "It feels like an experimental film with sections of more narrative form put into it, instead of a narrative feature with segments that are experimental edited in". So it is a matter of what you need a film to be.
This movie is not really about character and although there is a plot, it is very abstract in nature. The "sequel" "2010: The Year We Make Contact" is a much more traditional story. It is not ground breaking and certainly not as cerebral as this film is, but it is definitely more accessible. This may be a topic we tackle when we finally get around to starting the podcast we have been promising to launch.
These are not all my thoughts on this film, but they will serve as a staring point for now. If you have not seen "2001" on the big screen, do yourself a solid and find an opportunity to do so. If the theater sound is set up correctly, and you get a 70mm print, you will find it to be a very different experience, and one that you can talk about for a long time with your friends. My kid may be happy to wait ten years to see this again, but I'd be willing to go again tonight if I had the opportunity.
Since Gene Hackman, my favorite actor , retired a dozen years ago, he has been replaced in my esteem by another American actor who embodies the potential of everyman in dramatic situations. I first saw Denzel Washington in a comedy with George Segal as his father, back in the very early 1980s. The movie was "Carbon Copy" and it was not very good but Denzel was. Since then, he has won two Academy Awards and starred in a string of box office successes that would please any acting career. Earlier this year he appeared in a remake of "The Magnificent Seven", which was solid if not spectacular. He has now directed himself in his third film as a director, the screen version of the August Wilson play, "Fences".
As a director, Denzel has stuck closely to the boundaries of a stage play. There are one or two moments that move the scenes beyond where most of the play is set, but the vast majority of the film still is located in the kitchen and the backyard of his character Troy Maxson. The play addresses issues of black life in the first half of the last century. Troy is a man who has turned himself around from a thug in his teen years to a responsible adult in middle age, but he has deep resentments against the society that restricted his potential because of the color of his skin, and like all of us, he has difficulty escaping the shadow of his own family. As a consequence, we see that he is a stern father while being a loving husband. His views of family are solid but he also has some strong views on masculinity that threaten the peaceful life he has found and they undermine the progress that he has made.
The script is by the playwright himself, so it is no surprise that the dialogue sounds like the words of a play. Even though the dialect and slang are of a particular culture and time, the words sometimes sound so complete in their sentences, that you might wonder who the characters are cribbing from. What plays on the stage often works because we are so willing to suspend our disbelief due to the context. In a film, I think audiences expect things to play out a little more naturalistically. Characteres talk over one another in films, actions take place in the background, visuals drive our interest in the story. A play requires turn taking to be able to follow what is being said, the scenes are set in locations that are not likely to have wild visuals that draw our eye because the focus is supposed to be on the characters. There is nothing wrong with the story here, and the performances are top notch, but the film never moves or feels like real life, it feels like a play.
The dialogue however is a joy to listen to when it is being delivered by consummate professionals like Denzel and his co-star Viola Davis. The two leads are convincing as a long married couple at odds over the life of their teenage son, and the crisis that raises it's head in the second act. Mr. Washington has the right degree of belligerence and resignation in his voice. When events are against him, he gets his dander up and spouts off like a man certain of his position. When faced with his own failings however, he becomes truculent and the warmth that he often displayed along with a good deal of humor becomes sullenness that is not very appealing. Viola Davis is the most supportive partner a man could have, and at times she seems to be the most powerful force in her husbands life. When Rose is confronted with Troy's weakness, she is defiant herself, but ustimately becomes a passive force for good. Davis meets both challenges directly and she will probably win the award she deserved back in 2011 for "The Help".
Steven Henderson, who had a small one scene role in "Manchester by the Sea", a film I saw earlier this week, has a much more substantial part here. As Troy's oldest friend, he provides wise counsel that largely gets ignored. He is the voice of the audience, yelling for Troy to try to think about an issue in another way, but who ultimately understands the intransigence of his friend. Having played the part on Broadway, he seems to have the relationship mastered. Mykelti Williamson has played a variety of roles over the years. He was memorable as the stony Elliston Limehouse in the TV series "Justified". As Troy's combat injured brother with reduced mental capacity, he seems to be repeating his most famous role as Bubba Blue in "Forrest Gump". Denzel the director must be aware of the similarity of the characters, and while Williamson does a good job, the comparison is going to linger over the performance and that seems to be a shame.
I don't want to sound down on the film. I thought it was well made and there were a couple of nice things the director added to the mix. The golden gate that Saint Peter is manning was nicely visualized, and the use of old murals in the city buildings added some texture to the story. This is a film worthy for the performances and the dialogue. If you are unlikely to ever see the play that the movie is based on, by all means check this out. If you are a theater person, expect a very familiar and comfortable experience. As a film, it is a little talky and workmanlike in it's visualizations.
After a week of serious films aimed at awards season, it was time for an afternoon palate cleanser. There are certainly Twelve Days of Christmas movies that you can watch, but this season, new films were limited to "Bad Santa 2" (have yet to pull the trigger on that one) and this collection of comedians and comic actors who get a chance to act out for a couple of hours. It is exactly as stupid and meaningless as it looks in the trailers. Although it wants to be a holiday "Hangover", it is mostly mildly amusing and in bad taste.
Jason Bateman has the straightman role once again, Jennifer Aniston plays a bitch, and everyone else manages to fit their character stereotype without having to work very hard. An IT company is closing down some branches, and rival siblings of the late company founder have different attitudes about it. In order to land an old school tech client, looking for a unique company, the current managers of the branch scheduled for closing go all out in order to throw a raucous Christmas party, to show their family ties and creative spirits.
The film plays on every fantasy of old school holiday parties you can imagine. Drunken confession, check. Photocopies of private parts, Check (plus an update with a 3D printer). Casual, ill advised hook ups that lead to awkward day after exchanges, you betcha. Throw in a hooker, a bunch of cocaine, and some loose cash and you have the movie.
It won't rot your brain, but it will insult your intelligence with fart jokes and physical humor that defies the ability of modern medicine to repair.
I had popcorn, Coke Zero with both lemon and lime, and three or four chuckles. This film will never be on anybody's Christmas Movie Draft List, and it will be forgotten by the time the New Year gets here. Everyone earned their pay, and I got out of my wife's hair for two hours. Merry Christmas.
I'd considered a video post for this film comment so that you could hear the tone in my voice as I spoke about it. I have been told by family members and some of my students that I have a way of sounding that can be harsh and sharp and bitingly dismissive, often without any intention. Well let me say, I have every intention with this review but I thought better than to subject you to the bile of my notes in an auditory fashion and will leave them to your imagination instead. I hated this movie. I hated the characters, I hated the attitude, and I hated that I was so irritated by it. The trailer suggests that this is a thriller with a revenge theme built in. There is a revenge theme in the movie, but the thriller part is all a distraction to show off creative story telling tools which only makes the movie more irritating.
Director Tom Ford made one movie before this, the well respected "A Single Man". He is apparently best known as a fashion designer. In this movie it shows. The film is full of images that are designed to evoke a reaction. Amy Adam's character Susan, has a house that is all clean lines, grey and black contrasts, and there is almost nothing to suggest that human beings actually live there. It is as if it were put together by a sales stager for Hollywood mansions. The offices she works in look like outtakes from the set of "2001", round rooms with tiered levels all in white. Since she is an art dealer/curator and Ford moves in those circles, maybe he has it right, but the impact is to make the pretentiousness that he seemingly is mocking, feel even more pretentious. If you can get past the opening titles without thinking about how hypocritically artsy they are, maybe you will be able to enjoy this film. I prefer the way Susan sees it, she speaks of her opening that night as being "Shit". You might think that Ford is saying the same thing, but that is not the attitude the camera takes nor is it the viewpoint of the editing. There is nothing subtle about the way this movie is made. Ford even goes so far as to have the word REVENGE, mocked up as a piece of art on display at the offices of Susan's company.
The one aspect of the film that I do admire is the narrative structure of the film. There are three stories being told simultaneously, and that works to make the connections between them understandable. Jake Gyllenhaal plays two parts, Susan's ex husband Edward and the lead character in the novel that Edward has written, Tony a husband and father. We get plenty of Tony's stopry and if it had been the plot of the film without all of the literary and personal baggage surrounding it, this might have been an effectively dark thriller. Instead, it turns out to be a piece of work designed to be a big "FU" to his ex wife. We barely get any of that story and Ford the scrip[t writer relies on a five minute piece of exposition with Laura Linney, as a way of short cutting that part of the story. It just does not work. Armie Hammer plays Susan's current husband and his moments in the film feel so thin that they might just be some applique that Ford is putting on his dress to try and make it more interesting. Again, it doesn't work.
There were two references that occurred to me as I was watching this movie.The first is "The World According to Besenhaver" a novel within a novel, from the book The World According to Garp". In that book, the violent and revolting story is told as a way of expunging a character's guilt. The author becomes famous for the book but ultimately has very negative feeling about it's success. "Nocturnal Animals" is the title of the book Edward has written and dedicated to his ex-wife. Rather than exorcising his demons, the story allows them to run wild and attempt to punish Susan for her abandonment of their life. In the visualization of the story, Tony's wife and daughter are doppelgangers for Susan and her own daughter. The anguish and destruction of Tony as a character is Edward vomiting his bile on Susan's consciousness. The second reference that this film evoked in me was to a film called "The Rapture". In that film, a woman who finds redemption in her life in Christianity, has it ripped away from her in the most cosmic manner imaginable. This film has two equally unfulfilling endings, one for the novel and one for the lead character. Having devoted two hours to the film, I felt ripped off by an incomplete resolution to one story and an unsatisfying but at least understandable ending to the other.
The performers are all fine in portraying characters that are flawed, but ultimately those characters are reprehensible. Susan is the shallow and unsatisfied woman her mother predicts she will be. Hammer never establishes any character that would matter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a character that we all might enjoy seeing tortured to death. Gyllenhaal is sympathetic as Edward when he and Susan are together, but as the unseen author of the manuscript, he is a monster. Only Michael Shannon as the fictional Bobby Andes, a West Texas detective with a strong sense of justice elicits any of our sympathy. The film is clever and well shot and acted but it will make you want to take a long hot shower before you go out into civilized society again. The dark characters of Gyllenhaal's movie "Nightcrawler" were also awful, but that movie had something to say about the world and especially the media. This movie is a cruel joke played on an audience who might be expecting a thriller and who are subsequently tortured themselves by having to endure the unpleasantness that passes for art in Mr. Ford's film.
