The Holdovers

 

There seems to be a long line of movies about students and teachers at elite boarding schools. From "Goodbye Mr. Chips" to the "Harry Potter" series, something about the confines of elite education seems to fascinate us. Often the stories focus on the conflicts between rich entitled students and their poorer scholarship counterparts. Sometimes it is the ennui that privilege seems to inflict on the rich kids, which an inspirational teacher tries to overcome. Often, the ethical standards of the institution present a conflict with a student's sense of right and wrong, and the story tries to resolve that. "The Holdovers" joins that deep genealogy of academic settings and personal angst.

If you watch the trailer, you will get the premise immediately. Like young Scrooge in the Dicken's story, a student gets left at school during the holidays. In this case it is a student who seems to be thriving in his classes, although struggling with his peers. Newcomer Dominic Sessa plays Angus, a bright but but petulant kid who has been thrown out of three other elite schools and is on the brink of being removed from Barton Academy, the setting of the film in New England.   The teacher who ends up having to watch over the students during the holidays is history instructor Paul Hunham, played by the great Paul Giamatti. Giamatti has been largely engaged in television wok for the last few years, and I am unfamiliar with the shows he has been spending time on. I welcome him back to the big screen because he is a welcome presence as a dramatic actor with a gift for reaching the humor in even deep drama. That is exactly what he is doing here, and I think his performance will be one that is recognized by the end of the year honors that will soon be upon us. Mr. Hunham is an acerbic curmudgeon, who can see the faults in others and is not blind to the ones in himself. 

Both of the main characters eventually get left together with the occasional influence of a third character, Mary Lamb, the cafeteria manager of the school played by  Da'Vine Joy Randolph from "Only Murders in the Building". The film is set in 1970 and Mary worked at the school chiefly to allow her son to attend, but is now a grieving mother who lost her child to the Vietnam War. So you have a disaffected student, a bitter teacher and a depressed mother, stuck at the school together for a two week period. Maybe it sounds like there will be a lot of well worn plot points as these three people manage to bond and help one another through this period, you would be right in assuming that. You would be wrong though in thinking that the film will be trite as a consequence. It is really much cleverer than the set up. Each of the three characters reveal histories that give us insight into their conditions. The plot does not play out in the obvious ways that have been set down for it, and there is enough humor in the characters to keep us from wallowing in their tragedies.

In our modern film era, filled with superheroes, paid assassins, and horror premises that sound more interesting than they are, it is such a joy to have an adult drama to take in with an audience. We cab see a lot of what is coming in the story, but not everything. We have seen these kinds of characters before, but they are well played and still engaging. And the time period of the film reflects the characters and the emotional tone of the story, no anachronisms here. This is not a post modern twist on "The Dead Poets Society", it is instead a counterpart story. Characters, like people in the real world, gain insight into others and as a consequence into themselves as well. I think that is a universal concept that can be told in a movie on a repeated basis, as long as the characters are interesting, and here they are.

Alexander Payne has made some excellent films in the last twenty years or so. "Sideways" is a jewel, "Nebraska" was excellent, and "the Descendants" while not my favorite, was widely respected and worth your effort. His previous film "Downsizing" was an apparent misfire, the word of mouth on it was so bad that I never bothered to see it. "The Holdovers" seems to be a return to form and for my point of view, one of the best films of the year. 

The Dark Knight

 

This movie came out before I had started the blog and this is the first time I am getting to write about the film. I said it last night when I posted an update on Facebook, this is the jewel  in the crown of Christopher Nolan's Batman Trilogy. Both "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight Rises" are excellent films, but the middle film is the finest second act in a superhero trilogy you are likely to encounter. We are past the origin story and Batman is a looming presence over Gotham. The crime lords are beginning to chaff under the attention they are getting from the District Attorney, and things seem to be turning around for the city, just as Bruce Wayne wanted. Enter the Joker, a figure of chaos, who at first seems like an enemy and then a potential ally to the underworld kingpins, but looks are deceiving, as we will be reminded on a regular basis. 

The opening set piece with the daytime heist of mob money from one of the banks secretly controlled by the criminal elements of the city, is a terrific starting point. The crime is filled with audacity in execution and violent subterfuge by the man who planned it. When the last clown standing takes off his clown mask and reveals the clown make-up he is sporting, we know that we are in the company of a deranged criminal who does not follow any rules or patterns. This will undermine both the criminals and the cops for the rest of the story. This is the performance from the late Heath Ledger that won him a posthumous Academy Award, and it was richly earned. Ledger gives the Joker mannerisms that suggest he is bat shit crazy in every scene, but he also has a voice that commands respect because of the level of intelligence behind it. In the scene at the fund raiser, when he takes notice of Rachel Dawes, he pushes his sweaty  hair back behind his ear, with a knife in his hand, like he is primping for a meet cute, while armed and dangerous. When he gets caught and is baiting the officer who is standing watch over him, he manages to smirk in an antagonistic way, in spite of the fact that he is still covered in his trademark make-up. Ledger underplays so many scenes despite being the most flamboyant character in the story. 

One of the things that makes this film work well is that Bruce Wayne gets to be part of the plot in addition to being Batman. His love triangle with Rachel, his planning of the extraction of the accountant from Hong Kong, and the series of moments when he seems set to reveal himself, are all more engaged in the story than the billionaire usually gets. When he manages to safe the life of the man who is going to reveal his identity, it is in his best detached and clueless rich guy persona, a part he plays regularly in the film. Christian Bale has to do most of his acting in these scenes since the costume does so much in the Batman moments. One of the jokes that people sometimes make about Nolan's Batman concerns the gravelly voice that the Batman uses to cover who he is. I think too many people believe it is just an attempt to intimidate criminals (which it is) but they ignore that he is also avoiding being identified. 

Director Christopher Nolan has put together a great series of action sequences which are mostly justified by the plot, even if logically they can't all come out the way they are supposed to. I have already mentioned the opening heist, but Batman has a heist of his own when extraditing Lau from Hong Kong. The spectacular removal from the building is a moment from a 60s era James Bond film, but played as serious rather than comic. The stunned security men are befuddled at the smashed window and the pane flying into the upcoming day looks just brilliant. Both the Joker and Batman have an action scene that plays out their own plans simultaneously, as Harvey Dent, claiming to be Batman, is transferred across town, there are gun battles, crashes, the end of the Batmobile and the birth of the Batpod, and it climaxes with a tractor trailer cartwheeling front to back on the streets of Gotham.

Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, is the White Knight of the city that Batman wants to step aside for, but of course the Joker has a different goal. Certainly Harvey has reason to feel embittered and resentful. The fact that he can be tipped over to the Dark Side has been hinted at a couple of times in the course of the film. I just think that the final Two Face challenge is such a reach that it is the only flaw in the carefully constructed plot. It works, but only barely, and I think you have to see the film several times to be convinced that it is not just a plot contrivance. 

The film is filled with actors who do a fine job in their parts. Most of the criminals get short shrift but the cops, many of whom are tainted, get a chance to show off a bit. Eric Roberts is slimy as hell,  Morgan Freeman is as cool as you would hope, but the heroic center of the film is Jim Gordon, played by Gary Oldman. Gordon is a cop who tries to play it by the book but knows that the Batman is the linchpin on pushing Gotham back from the brink. His part in the capture of the Joker is a fun twist and his distraught father in the last scenes are demonstrations of Oldman's talents. 

The electronic and orchestral score makes a dramatic impact on the film, although the lack of melodies probably keep it from being memorable. Humming along to the strum and dang of the score is not really possible, but the score is effective time after time in evoking emotions and mood. The action scenes have the parts that are most like traditional tunes, and Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard have divvied up the two antagonists to create wholly different personas for them musically.  It is a very distinct score from the Tim Burton Batman films and several elements from the first film are repeated here, in completely appropriate ways.

Even though the Joker succeeded at spoiling Harvey Dent as a hero, Batman and Jim Gordon snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by changing the narrative and turning Batman into the dark figure of the story. The combination of Batman's faith in the citizens of Gotham on the ferry, and the sacrifice he makes to become a fugitive, give the story the bump it needs at the end to reach an emotional crescendo. The final narration from Gary Oldman makes the conclusion pay off with goosebumps.  

Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary National Cinema Day

 

It's hard to believe that it has been 30 years since "Jurassic Park" opened. It was June of 1993, and I remember were we saw the film, who I was with and there is even a little story about the evening that made it stand out a bit more. My kids were five and seven and I was not going to take them that first night. Grandma and Grandpa babysat and we went to see the movie with out friends Tim and Jamie Martin. We got together two or three times a year for a movie or dinner so it was sort of a special evening, not just another Friday at the movies.

The Edwards Atlantic Palace Theater in Alhambra was just a couple of years old, it was in pristine condition and one of the first really nice multiplex theaters that would come along in the 90s. The audience was packed, we were seated about two thirds back from the screen, in the center section. Three or four teen boys sat in front of us and I was a little concerned because I know kids can be a little full of themselves when they are on their own. Those guys were cutting up for each other and smarting off about the crowd, but I ignored it through the trailers. When the movie starts, the screen is dark and the ominous music and thumping begins the film. One of the kids in front of us shouts out so everyone in the theater of 500 people can hear, "Oooh, Scary!" and he and his buddies laugh out loud. I leaned forward and said to them in a voice menacing and loud, "You haven't seen scary until you've pissed me off. Knock it off!" They looked back at me, with my shaggy long hair and beard and I think they thought they had crossed paths with Charles Manson. They shut up and we did not hear from them for the rest of the film.

This lead to a great evening of entertainment where we could marvel at how well Steven Spielberg could engage us, scare us, ratchet up the tension and then release it with some humor. The screening we went to last night was a 3-D presentation. Unfortunately, the audience was full of restless kids younger than seven, and the AC in our theater was off. It was National Cinema Day, the second year that Theaters have tried to get folks back in front of their screens, and it seems to have worked.  The house was packed. In spite of the deficiencies and distractions, the movie still works.

I'm not sure why it worried me that Nedry loses all the embryos or that Dr. Grant throws away his velociraptor claw, but those things still seem important, even though they are not. The way Tim and Lex bond with Dr. Grant is what gives the movie it's heart, and everything Jeff Goldblum does gives it a mind and a sense of humor. The movie works on a lot of levels and it still tickles me that the T-Rex ends up being more hero than villain in the story (with the exception of the blood sucking lawyer).

Enjoy some memories or make some new ones. Watch Jurassic Park, go to the movies. Just take the little kids to something more appropriate for them, and be a little bit considerate to your fellow theater companions. 

KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: The Eiger Sanction

Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.

The Eiger Sanction

This is the second time I have written about this film for the blog. The first was on my original Movie a Day project that started the whole blog. "The Eiger Sanction" was number 73 on that summer countdown. As one of the few films on the project from Clint Eastwood, that was not a western, it should stand out a little more. I was probably a little underwhelmed when I wrote about it thirteen years ago because it was a slow burn that took ninety minutes to get to the featured premise of the movie, mountain climbing spy action. 

In filling the time before we actually arrive in Switzerland to ascend the Eiger, there first is a series of scenes and plotlines that feel only slightly connected to the plot. The best is Clint going to Europe to execute one of the killers he has been sent to "sanction". He is Johnathan Hemlock, an executioner for a secret agency known as C-2, that is directed by a mysterious Albino called Dragon. Hemlock wants out and is refusing to continue to work for C-2, but Dragon blackmails him into performing this last sanction by threatening his art collection, which is Hemlock's main motivation for working in the field in the first place. Like Charles Bronson in "The Mechanic", Hemlock appreciates art and music and uses his wealth to acquire a fantastic collection that today would be worth hundreds of millions. 

In my original post I warned that this film might be a little tough for modern audiences to accept. The intervening years have made that even more the case. Hemlock passes himself off at one point as an effeminate delivery man to throw off the prey he is after. When he gets a chance to gain revenge against a former friend who is a raging homosexual by 1970s standards, he is particularly cruel. The name the antagonist has for his dog is not only insensitive but nearly as objectionable as if he had named to dog with the "N" word. Like Ethan Hunt or James Bond, Hemlock ends up in bed with another asset of the company and gets trapped into carrying out an even more elaborate "sanction" of an as yet unidentified counter agent. That woman is named Jemima Brown, and there are plenty of jokes about pancakes and ethnicity. There is an extended sequence of Hemlock training for a climbing expedition, and an attractive woman of Native American heritage becomes a sex object with the added bonus of jokes about Cowboys and Indians. 

A few things that I do want to draw attention to. First of all, the opening section of the film is set in Zurich, as a man drinks his beer next to a canal or river, and then strolls through some older traditional parts of the city to his apartment. All the while, there is no dialogue and the music is by the great John Williams. 

I feel like I have seen a dozen movies from the era that repeat the same kind of sequence at the start. It was a trope of the era and if you listen to the music clip above, you will hear a familiar piano style tune that has been enhanced with some jazz and electronic tools to make it sound more mysterious. It's not a bad thing at all, it just feels overly familiar, although it may not have been so when the film first came out. 

The main reason to see the film is for the suspenseful climbing sequences that take place in the last half hour of the film. The movie was made on location and there are no blue/green screen composite shots in the film. Eastwood did his own climbing in this section as well as some the ascent of the Totem Pole edifice in Monument Valley (although he and George Kennedy were helicoptered to the top and professional climbers did the main ascent). 

On the Eiger, there were dangerous shots that actually lead to some injuries to  a camera operator, and a another climber, helping with camera shots was killed by falling rocks. Eastwood did the ultimate stunt at the end of the film when dangling by a rope several thousand feet above the valley floor. He actually drops when he cuts the rope above him, it is hard to imagine that a movie studio could get insurance for an actor/director in that scenario today (Tom Cruise being the exception maybe). 

The plot gets convoluted as it usually does with a spy film. There are double crosses, mixed motives, and attacks from unanticipated sources around every corner. There is a sense that this is a more serious sort of James Bond film, but then "Dragon" runs the command from his light free subterranean lair, and the other operative we see is an ineffectual lug who has less knowledge of karate than I do. I will say there is one trick I learned from this film. If someone is following to close behind me, instead of tapping the breaks which interferes with my momentum, I sometimes turn on my head lights which activates the rear lights and makes whoever is following, think you are breaking. 

I will recommend the film to those who like a slow burn, a satisfying action climax and don't mind a little 70s sexism and racism spicing up the film.  

Meg 2: The Trench

Ah, now eventually you do plan to have megalodons, in your megalodon movie, right?

For a movie featuring giant sharks, there is an awful lot of tangential story development and action that features big sharks only in the background. At least Spielberg had a reason the shark was not seen much in the opening act of Jaws. Director Ben Wheatley seems to think this is an espionage, action thriller and that the sharks are not really why we are coming to see this movie. The movie starts with a James Bond of the Oceans sequence, then spends a big amount of time playing Armageddon games. Then the movie transitions to Die Hard on the high seas, before turning into Jurassic Park of Thailand. Finally we get to the good stuff, and what do we have? Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. 

Look, this was always going to be a popcorn picture that we laughed at a little, but still felt like it should be taken seriously. That does not happen. There is nothing you can take seriously in this movie. When we start meeting the new characters, the first one is basically working on his Iron Man suit. The villains you can pick out in a few seconds of screen time and the set up for the climax moment is presented as if the character who will use it did it as an afterthought. 

I like Jason Statham films a lot, but there are getting to be too many "Fast and Furious" imitators out there and if he is going to be in all of them, he will be overstaying his welcome. He is great in the action scene opening, and he does a great impression of Ed Harris without the liquified oxygen. When we get to the actual shark battles that come at the end, he looks good enough on a jet ski, but the cars and motorcycles of the other series probably make this feel like a repeat. So many of the shots have a deliberately cartoon feel to them that there is no suspense at all. I understand the presence of  sub-titles since the film is partially produced by Chinese interests and will be marketed there, but some of the Chinese style shorthand in storytelling, makes the film even more like a Syfy weekend programmer, in spite of it's budget.

Shortcuts are taken everywhere. How did the most technologically advanced company in the world not know that part of it's resources were being given steroids, so that an even more advanced technology can make the impossible, possible? The cash and resources can't be covered up like a bookkeeping mistake. The usurping of the chain of command is also something that just does not get explained. Maybe Chinese audiences expect that from capitalists, I don't know or understand. The secondary heavy, a bad French sailor, is smart enough to know that a boat engine will draw a meg to a boat when he is warning his troops, but twenty minutes later, he is clueless and we know bad stuff is going to happen to him. 

After we have escaped Blofeld's drilling platform, oops, I mean Jing Wu's scientific sea station, we relocate to an area that will give the audience the surrogate thrills they are seeking, but it pays off a lot less interesting than the first fill. Even with Megmouth Cam. To punch it up, other characters have to become action heroes, and against all odds they do.  Of course it requires the bad guys to ignore the common threat to everyone on "Fun Island". Yes, it is actually called "Fun Island". It's been five years since the last film, and that interval resulted in the laziest writing you are going to get in this summer's film lineup.

"The Meg" was so much fun, you just assumed that a sequel would have it's moments. No, it doesn't. it's like a beached shark instead of a beached whale. The crowds will stand around it for a little while, but after a few days, the smell will drive them away. 

Fast X (AKA Fast Ten Your Seatbelts)

 

I don't know what to say about these movies that has not already been said by me and a thousand others. "The Fast and Furious" series has gotten bigger and more preposterous with each entry, and the connection to reality disappeared around the fifth one in the series. They are extremely well made, over the top action films, that you can enjoy the heck out of, as long as you are willing to give up any sense of reality. The physics are silly, the characters are cartoons, the stunts are Rube Goldberg sequences that will make you want to go back to your childhood and play "Mousetrap". Every movie has the same tropes in it somewhere, there is a racing scene, shots of girls wiggling their hind ends to hip hop songs at the race scene, and then there are the character beats. Vin Diesel's Dom gets serious and says he has to go it alone, the team mocks that idea, Letty defies the notion, and they all end up working together. There will be new characters introduced, usually with some family connections. A Secondary character will return to be sacrificed at some point in the story, and a dead character will be resurrected. There is also usually a double cross somewhere ion the story, and/or enemies come together for a common purpose. 

"Fast X" or "Fast Ten Your Seatbelts" as my friend Mark Hofmeyer would call it) has all of those moments. Like a Roger Moore 007 film, it checks off the essentials, tosses them together and then gets by on it's stars. Michelle Rodriguez continues to glower at everyone who might be an opponent, and if there is a woman to be taken down, she will get the sequence that requires that ass whopping. Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris will do their Abbot and Costello routine, fall out for 30 seconds and then bond again. They are the comic relief most of the time, although there are other characters that do get to put some comedic spin on what they are doing. The characters of Han and Ramsey are along for the ride on this one, but they have almost nothing to do for most of the story. Charlize Theron likewise, is in the story, but the segment with her and Letty is mostly shoehorned in to give them something to do while the rest of the action is taking place. 

The best thing that the makers of this franchise have done, is introduce new characters on a regular basis. Those characters can come back and be part of the action in the next films. Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham and Jon Cena all started out as antagonists to Dom's team, and end up working with them in later films. Helen Mirren is not given a lot to do, but when she shows up, she classes up the film a bit. I try to avoid spoilers in my essays so be careful with this next bit, although anyone who has followed the series knows that it is true. Characters die in the films, but they all seem to come back somehow. We get a couple of those moments and the film itself is a bit of a tipoff because of how it ends.

Fresh faces keep things lively in the eleven films so far (which includes the Hobbs and Shaw spinoff). Jon Cena was the anti-Dom in the last film, and now he is back as a semi-autonomous surrogate father for several scenes. He seems to be having a great time and I enjoyed his sequences more than most of the others. However, it is clearly Jason Momoa who is having the most fun with this movie. His character is flamboyantly evil, and Momoa plays him with gusto and panache. The character is written as a stylized villain, and the actor embraces the character the same way that John Lithgow took on Lord John Whorfin in the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension. His costumes, hair, eyebrows and voice all scream "I'm the Bad Guy!! Pay Attention to Me!". It is exactly right, even the use of the extended arms in a crucified like position as a visual exclamation point that the character has a habit of posing in, feel like a comic book bad guy should be. The retcon sequence that brings Dante into the story is not as elaborate as the one that got Cena's Jacob in the last film, but it was managed well and it works. 

The one new wrinkle this film gives us is that it ends on a cliffhanger moment. All of our heroes appear to be doomed and the bad guy has won. There are several strings that you can pull at to come up with more story. For example Brie Larson could find her Dad Kurt Russell and start a new hunt on the villain. Jason Statham is on his way to protect his Mama from the bad guy, so that can be a path to follow. And Letty's new alliance with Theron's Cipher has been set up with a twist that I saw coming three movies ago. Regardless of all that potential, I am confident that the dead will rise, the strings will be tied up, and if Dante, Momoa's character is not sent to hell, he will become an anti-hero ally in entry number 12. I heard they were going to stop after the next one, but I also thought Han was dead. 

KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: Three Days of the Condor

 Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy. 

Three Days of the Condor

This week's Throwback Thursday is a real treat, one of the great paranoia films from the 1970s Starring Robert Redford and Fay Dunaway. "Three Days of the Condor" is a spy film about a guy who is not really a spy, he just works with them. As an analyst , Redford as Joe Turner, codename Condor, trips over a secret plot by a covert group operating inside of the CIA. 

"Listen. I work for the CIA. I am not a spy. I just read books! We read everything that's published in the world. And we... we feed the plots - dirty tricks, codes - into a computer, and the computer checks against actual CIA plans and operations. I look for leaks, I look for new ideas... We read adventures and novels and journals. I... I... Who'd invent a job like that?"

I like to think there is a job like that, it is something I might have liked doing. I may not quite have been ambitious enough about espionage to become James Bond, but I could probably do this. The opening few minutes of the film establish the mundane existence of most of the employees of the CIA. They file reports, process data, gather statistics and read a lot of things they may have no interest in. Condor is a bit of an iconoclast in his working group. He mocks the security measures that gatekeep the front door of his office, he rises a bicycle with a motor on it to work (and he is consistently late to the exasperation of his superior), and he by-passes the back door security when it rains. His diffident nature is what allows him to accidentally escape the fate that befalls his co-workers. The event that sets up the rest of the story is shown as a brutal, passionless, exercise by professionals to take out a leak, by murdering seven innocent worker bees. 

While Turner is not a field operative, he is still pretty smart and capable. Condor may be a little panicked about what has happened, but he is also now highly suspicious of everyone. That sense of paranoia infuses the film with the suspenseful atmosphere that director Sydney Pollack was certainly shooting for. It takes a while for we the audience to figure out what is going on, Turner is trying to do so while being hunted, and it is a complex plot. The elements of a procedural are there, as Condor ties to fit pieces of information together to understand what has happened. There is also a 007 trope of involving an outsider, as both a ally and a romantic partner, and that is where Dunaway comes in. She does not show up in the first half hour of the film, and the tense and fearful relationship she has with Condor is believable. That period of antagonism and disbelief makes it easier for us to swallow a romance between the two that might otherwise have seemed an illogical contrivance.

Operating on his own, Turner seeks more information about the command structure that might have taken something he wrote in a report as a threat. Once Dunaway is on board, he has a collaborator who allows him to try various means to identify who in the CIA is after him and why. For my money, the best part of the story is the contract agent Joubert, a tall taciturn European, who leads the hunt to wipe out the leaks, especially Condor. Joubert is played by the great Max Von Sydow, who seems to have done a similar role as an unreliable spy in a half dozen other films. There is a terrific shot right at the stary of the attack on Condor's work group, where Von Sydow is crossing the street and we see his reflection in the uneven waters on the street and in the gutter, right after it had been raining. Along with the execution sequence, this is one of those moments when a professional like Pollack was the right choice to put the script on the screen. 

Joubert has two other strong moments in the film. In one, he is riding in an elevator with Condor and a group of unaffiliated people. He knows who Condor is, but Turner doesn't know him, he only suspects the man who is polite in the elevator. It is a scene of tension and a little bit of humor as they play cat and mouse while the elevator descend to the lobby. At the end of the film, in an odd twist, Joubert becomes a different figure and he now does a little bit of talking and mentoring. Von Sydow played Blofeld in the 1983 James Bond offshoot, "Never Say Never Again" and it would have been fun to see him in that role in a series of Bond films. 

Also in the cast is John Houseman, who appeared in "Rollerball" a TBT film I wrote about earlier this year, shows up in another of those roles that would define his later career. After winning the award for Best Supporting Actor in 1973 as the imperious Harvard Law Professor Kingsfield, he was the go to choice for dry, humorless corporate mandarins. The CIA in this film is filled with unreliable types who act ruthlessly in order to achieve their objectives. Houseman is a senior to Cliff Robertson's character, who at first is trying to help Condor, and then suspects Turner, and finally seems to turn into the same kind of man as the rest of the CIA has become. 

Along with "The Parallax View", "The Conversation" and Redford's next film "All the President's Men", "Three Days of the Condor" would lead you to believe that there is always a conspiracy, everyone is watching and listening, and the good guys don't always win. That is definitely 1975 for you.  

Furious Six [AKA Fast and Furious 6] 2013

 

While the movie can't quite decide what it's title is, that fits because it also can't decide on what sort of film it is. Is it a heist film, a spy film a racing film, who knows? Maybe since it has all of those elements we should not be too worried about classifying it, and more worried about the whiplash we get as we move from one action sequence to another. Maybe the transitions are supposed to be made easier by the brutal fight scenes that break out around them. 

Logic aside, Furious 6 has some great things going for it. The return of Dwayne Johnson gives the extended plotline a little more coherence. Johnson drips charisma and he gives Vin Diesel someone to act against who disappears into the scenery. This time he is accompanied by another DSS agent, in the form of Gina Carano, another actor with charisma to match the counterparts on Dom's team. Carano's character, Agent Riley,  engages in an extended fight with Michelle Rodriguez's Letty in the London Underground. These characters are as brutal as any man would be in a similar fight, and I suppose the justification for this is so Letty can have some combat scenes and not have to be pounded on by one of her male co-stars. The resolution of Riley's storyline is disappointing because she could have been a compelling recurring character. I guess they have enough of those already, so adding to the reoccurring cast was undesirable. 

Location shooting in London looks great, and as a Bond fan, I always appreciate when Great Britan is featured at the center of a spy story. The villain of this episode is Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans, and his character is basically Bond gone bad. As if Dr. No persuaded double o seven to join SPECTRE and commit international terrorism on a scale only dwarfed by the events of 9/11. Most of London gets bruised in the early section of the film, and then Spain gets the destruction of hundreds of cars with passengers in them for a chase scene involving a tank. I've read that the tank crushing of the cars was real and not just a CGI animation. I can believe it because the weight and mass of a tank in comparison to some European sedan would be massive. There was an incident several years ago where a deranged Army Vet stole a tank and decimated a neighborhood in San Diego. You can see in the news footage that a tank can in fact run over a car with impunity. Where the scene gets it wring is in the use of a couple of cars to try and anchor the tank so it will flip. It is also a big stretch to see Dom, flying through the air to catch Letty and then landing safely on the road. 

A good suspenseful climax that gets drawn out by a series of complications is always welcome, but it needs to be somewhat grounded. The plane/car chase here is just not acceptable for suspense purposes, but it is fine for spectacular action. Cars getting on and off a plane, a harpoon gun taking down the whale of a cargo jet, and an extended fight sequence in the belly of the plane are all fun but at no point do you think this is going to come out wrong for our heroes. Even the apparent death of one of the female crew is nearly dreamlike, we never see the outcome, just a moment of vanishing, but into the dark and we are not sure how far of a fall is there. Characters in this series get revived from the dead all the time, so i would not "Wonder" if a certain actress were to return in a future film. 

The best payoff in this movie is the thirty seconds of Jason Statham, glaring at the camera and scowling as he makes a threatening phone call that will set up the action in the next film. I think the best way for me to keep track of these movies which are all fun but forgettable, is to check the location and stunt moments. Furious 6: London Car Flipping, Spanish Tank Chase, NATO base with the longest runway in the world and a car plane chase. There, that should help you remember more than Letty does for most of this film. 

Dr. No (60th Anniversary) Fathom Events

I was unable to find a Fathom Events Trailer for the screening of Dr. No last night, so instead you get this original trailer which is a lot of fun in itself.

I was only four when Dr. No was first released so I obviously did not see it then. It wasn't until the late part of the sixties that I caught up with it in a double bill with either "Thunderball" or "Goldfinger", I can' quite remember the match up. Whichever one it was , the other played on a separate bill with "From Russia with Love". That's how I first saw the original four James Bond films. 

Three of my five favorite 007 films are from the original Sean Connery list. "Dr. No" clocks in at number 4 of all the James Bond films for me. It was the first film in the series that launched my sixty year love for all things Bond. It is a fairly faithful adaptation of the book with a few minor changes (there is no giant squid and SPECTRE has been retconned into the film series). 

Dr. No looks great on the big screen, this was a Digital Projection so there were no flaws from the film stock, it looks like it was from the remastering done for the Blu-ray set that came out ten years ago. I have been to Jamaica, although not Kingston, and the ocean and islands do look like what you see in the film. It is a beautiful place although I know there are some dark places that you probably don't want to visit. 

When I was getting ready for "Spectre", I did a countdown of 007 films, with the top seven reasons to love each film. For "Dr. No" here are the seven things I picked. There are some additional reasons you should invest in seeing this film. Although he is the first of the sacrificial lambs to go in Bonds place over the years, Quarrel is also one of the most memorable. John Kitzmiller, who played Quarrel, was an actor I'd never looked up before, but there are a couple of important highlights to mention. He won the Best Actor Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1947, but even better, he was born in my parents hometown of Battle Creek Michigan. The parts that don't age well are when Bond orders him around when they are on Crab Key, you know, "Fetch my shoes" and that kind of stuff. Still he was a salwart companion and ally of 007, and he died bravely fighting dragons. 

This was the introduction of the Monty Norman theme, jazzed up by John Barry, which has had some controversy over the years but for which the late Mr. Norman deserves credit for writing. The theme gets used as a running score element and is mixed with some of the Island tunes that set the locale. The scene in the nightclub with all of the patrons dancing to "Jump Up" has plenty of visual charm in a simple way, and the "Three Blind Mice" calypso version is used with the Maurice Binder titles and transitioned to a live shot very effectively at the end of the titles. This is also a film notable for not having a pre-title sequence. 

As a Fathom Event, they always put in a little extra. The Trivia screen shots were a nice touch before the movie, and they included a statement from Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson on the passing of Sean Connery from two years ago. After the movie, there was a long featurette on Daniel Craig called "Being James Bond", it is not on my Blu-ray copy of "No Time to Die", but it was clearly prepared as a promotional piece for the last of Craig's Bond films. This was a legacy screening so it did not feel inappropriate to me to include it in the show. 

The Gray Man

So before I talk about the movie itself, a little bit of background on the film, exhibitors and myself. This is an expensive Netflix production, that is getting a limited theatrical release ahead of it's debut on the Netflix steaming service. The reported budget was near $200 Million and that looks like it made it to the screen. The Directing brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, who did some of the most successful MCU films, were in charge for this show. The reason that the release is limited probably has something to do with the fact that several film chains require exclusivity to theatrical for a set amount of time, and Netflix was not prepared to accept those conditions.  AMC is one of those exhibitors who will not play a movie that is going to compete with itself, at least not after the pandemic restrictions which had call most bets off. I am happy to see a film on streaming, but I much prefer the theater experience, so when given the opportunity, I took it and traveled to a nearby town to be able to see this since it was not within a ten mile radius of where I now live. With rare exceptions, this site is devoted to the cinema experience. There is too much content on streaming for me to keep up with, and I don't want to review TV. However, since Netflix make the effort to put this in theaters and I made an effort to see it in one, it will get some attention from me here.

"The Gray Man" is a spy film, which focuses on the assets that are primarily in place to kill someone. Although there may be comparisons to Mission Impossible" or the James Bond films, this is really closer to "Atomic Blonde", "The Hitman's Bodyguard", "The Accountant" or "The Eiger Sanction", which all pretend to be spy films but are really cat and mouse games between paid killers. "The Gray Man" is not a character that works in intelligence, they do not infiltrate conspiracies to bring them to an end, there is not really much suspense in the work they do. The Gray men exist in the shadows, executing directions that have been given to them rather than forging their own path. Sierra Six, Ryan Gosling's character in this film, is basically a weapon for action, not a tool of investigation. As long as you keep that in mind, you will probably be able to enjoy this film for what it is. 

The Russos have managed, along with the screenwriters and editors, to cut the story down to the minimal outline required in order to have a plot, and then filled in that skeletal structure with as much screen action as is possible, staying just this side of the nonsense that shows up in the "Fast and Furious" franchise. There are wild shootouts in crowded locations every few minutes. There are also over the top car chases on city streets between the shootouts and while they are happening. Cars don't fly between buildings or swing from one cliff to another, but people do emerge from wrecks that would kill most of us at half the speed, and they simply jump up, dust off and get in the next ride. The foot chases are sometimes tough because of the shaky cam that is used to film them, but the car chases are problematic so often because the use of frequent close ups keeps us from observing the context and knowing what the risks are.   

There are certainly joys to be had in the overkill that is employed in providing mayhem on screen. All of that is OK for an audience interested in pyrotechnics only. Any viewers who were looking for a plausible story with characters facing consequences for their choices will be disappointed. It is as if the CIA, sent it's own forces en masse to London, to collect Julien Assange or to Moscow to get Edward Snowden, and along the way they wiped out half of the security services of those countries and there were no ramifications. That's because this movie is not about anything, it is simple a diorama for moving the toy soldiers around and blowing things up. If you have seen the MCU films the Russo Brothers have directed, you will see that they are quite capable of showing interesting mayhem. They continue to be able to do that. 

Gosling is delivering an understated character as an action hero pretty well. He keeps the sardonic quips to a minimum and provides a voice that is exhausted, injured or optimistic as the situation calls for. His co-star and fellow agent Ana de Armas, is proficient physically as she was in "No Time to Die", but her character here lacks the joyful enthusiasm of that character and she is simply another action figure without much personality or purpose. That was certainly not the actress's fault, it is the screenwriting team that left her high and dry. Chris Evans plays against type in this film, as he did with his previous effort which starred  Ana de Armas, "Knives Out". The antagonist Lloyd Hansen is a psychopath with skills but no off switch. The notion that the CIA deputy director that turns him loose had any idea what was coming, undermines the credibility of the plot. Evans is not required to do much, but his hostile passive aggressiveness, combined with actual torture, will make you hope he gets what is coming to him. As usual, the gravitas of a film he appears in is provided by Billy Bob Thornton, who in the last couple of decades has become one of my favorite on screen performers. 

This film seemed to have a stink on it before it opened. I'm not sure why. It is not great but it is certainly not a terrible picture. It is an action film that goes all in on that avenue and abandons any attempt to make us care much about who gets killed except for the two leads. If you see it in a theater, you will get your entertainment value, but not much else. 

Star Trek The Motion Picture (4K Director's Cut)

 

I went to see "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" on opening day at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The crowd was massive, the movie was gorgeous and our mood afterward was hopeful. The film did not play like a space war rip off of Star Wars" but rather an extended version of a cerebral episode of the original series.   There were sequences that felt long, and the special effects got more attention than the characters, but I was happy it existed, I'd waited ten years for Trek to rise from the dead and when it did, I make two or three trips to see it in theaters.

The home video market started in the early 1980s, when sell through pricing became real and the idea of owning your favorite film, not just renting it was a dream come true. Trek was one of the early franchise adopters of the sell through price, where a film was sold to a general audience rather than just video rental stores. When STTMP was available, a longer special edition was sold and it had some different
effects shots and additional scenes to tantalize us. I owned that edition on VHS and on Laser Disc, as well as a Laser Disc version of the original theatrical cut. I suppose it was my purchase of a collection of Star Trek films from the first to the fifth in a Laserdisc Box set that made me complacent about updating the films when they had subsequent releases.  

I have never seen the Director's Cut by Robert Wise from the 2001 DVD offering. I bypassed it, figuring ist was simply a remaster of the Special Edition. It was not until I saw the film last night that I saw what substantial improvements in the story had been made by the inclusion of two previously cut scenes and the trimming of other moments here and there. This 4K version is a remastering of the Director's Cut from 2001 and of course it is digitally enhanced to improve the video and the audio. 

My choices for the Fathom Event were limited, and I ended up at a theater here in the Austin Area that I had not yet been to. This was a Regal Theater and coincidentally, I had just removed the Regal App from my phone because it had been two plus years since I had used it. There were a couple of drawbacks to this location. While they did have a digital presentation, the screen was not sufficiently shielded from lighting in the theater, especially the forward Exit signs, so the image was soft at times. The theater also lacked a dynamic stereo system for the audio tracks so the presentation did not show off the technical aspects of the 4K release as dramatically as one would have hoped. [The biggest drawback of the theater is that they serve Pepsi products, resulting in my usual movie thirst going unquenched.  I'm a Coke guy.]  One thing that I did approve of however, was the traditional theater seating. No tiers, no electronic lounge chairs, just a slight sloping of the theater floor. The big advantage of this was that it enhanced the chatter between me and some other guests before the film started. Instead of being isolated from one another by the admittedly more comfortable confines of today's stadium and  lounge chairs, we felt like a group of kindred spirits revisiting an old friend on screen but also new friends in the audience. 

The film itself is vastly improved over the theatrical version. I liked the sequence where Spock weeps for Vger because he sees himself in the emptiness of pure logic and realizes that there can only be more if he moves beyond that. In the end sequence, Mr. Scott activates a self destruct protocol, which would be a very Kirk maneuver in the face of overwhelming odds to try to defend the planet Earth. You can find other places on line to explore the differences in the various versions, that's what I did. Here is one that is pretty thorough without getting too technical (The Movie Sleuth).

One of the complaints that people have made over the years is that so much time is devoted to fetishizing the Enterprise in this film. There are multiple tours of the exterior of the ship, and whenever possible, a scene is shown of the interior that is not on the bridge. I think one of the things that makes the first outside view of the Enterprise feel so long is that there is basically no dialogue for the sequence. Kirk and Scotty are in a small shuttle, traversing the immensity of the ship and they say nothing, all of the acting is done with their faces as the detailed model is explored in depth. This was a moment of fan service that might put off non-Trekkers but it was needed by the long time fans, because dammit, we had waited so long for it to become a reality.

The Special Effects of the Vger Cloud, Ship, Probes and union with humanity were beautiful back in 1979 and they continue to impress still. The slingshot warp drive effect with the sonic punch is still cool. I was struck by a moment in the film that had been done in a completely different film a few months earlier. The James Bond Space story "Moonraker" had used the idea of geosynchronous orbiting objects spreading death like a necklace around the planet. Here we had the same general idea, visualized in a way that was slightly different but did seem to be cut from the same cloth. Another 1979 parallel that I realized was that two great science fiction film scores came out this year and they were both from the same mind. Jerry Goldsmith first brought us "Alien", but finished the year with a completely different sounding score for "Star Trek", including a theme that was subsequently used for the "Next Generation" TV series and run of films. The attack on the Klingon ships is also a noteworthy motif that we will hear in subsequent adventures.  It was worth the trip to the theater just to listen to the music, even if the sound system was not optimal.  

  

Trekkers are glad to see their favorite crew return after a decade off. Kirk's interactions with Captain Decker start off with an uncharacteristic bite, but when the good Doctor joins the crew and moderates his old friend, the Kirk we knew seems to come back to life before our eyes. Had Spock been a pure Vulcan, we get a chance to see how his calculating nature might have diminished the character in the larger scheme of things. When his analysis of Vger's defect is complete, Spock returns as well to the character that we all fell in love with during the Original Series. Chekov has the best moments of the secondary characters, but everyone gets a spotlight here and there and it made us anticipate new adventures even more.

Although the story did seem to have elements from the television episodes, the time given to some of the philosophical questions raised was much greater and deeper in this film. I like a space battle as much as the next person, but Trek was always about more than action, it was about ideas. This is the Star Trek film that cleaves closest to the spirit of the series. It may lack the action elements that people want in a movie, but it has the soul that fans of the original love. 

"The human adventure is just beginning."

Men

 

In 2015, I listed Alex Garland's debut directorial effort as my favorite film of the year. It was a provocative science fiction film that had big ideas and themes to build around. It reminded me of a lot of 70s science fiction films and the ending was a bit nihilistic. like the three Charlton Heston sci fi films of that era. I waited on his second film "Annihilation", because something in the marketing warned me that it was going to be a tough go. I watched it finally, just a few days ago and my instinct was correct. "Annihilation" is beautifully mounted and skillfully assembled, but the story feels incomplete and there is not an discernable theme to pull it together. I don't need the theme to hit me over the head but when it is so obtuse that I don't care to think about it, I believe the film maker has come up short. That brings us to his newest film, "Men". Will this be a thought provoking horror film, one that potentially says something about the title subject, or will this be an exercise in abstraction, satisfying only those who have enough imagination to impose an idea on the film? 

Let me make a couple of comparisons for you that might make my point clearer. Robert Eggers has directed two films that I have come to loathe, because of his instance that internal logic and a plot are less important than mood and exaggerated characterizations. David Lowery, made a movie that I loved, a reimagining of "Pete's Dragon", that mixed sadness with hope and a clear story. He then followed it with the acutely dense, slow and cryptic "A Ghost Story" and last years "The Green Knight", both of which have much going for them, except a point. I'm afraid that Alex Garland has joined their cult of artistic ambiguity and instead of prompting thought, his films now stimulate irritation. "Men" is a horror film that works on atmosphere in the first two acts, and then revulsion in the third, all in aid of shrugged shoulders as some might ponder what it was all about, and others ponder why they bothered.

The set up of a woman, damaged by a marriage that ended in a tragically ugly way, seeking solace in the countryside, seems perfectly fine as a starting point. There is a juxtaposition of beauty in the natural countryside with the ugliness of people she encounters in the small village and the manor house that she has leased for a few weeks.  It won't take you too long to figure out why all of the men she encounters become increasingly creepy. The subtle similarities are there for us to catch on to, and that is great, but it is not clear why her fears are manifesting in this manner. There is a very strong suggestion that all of this is a projection of her feelings about her husband and their relationship, but there are also signs and evidence that this is far from just a mental breakdown, and in fact there is a malevolence that is imposing itself on her in real life. I don't see a third way to explain what is going on and the bifurcation of sources here is never really resolved which is very deflating to the film. When a final character appears at the very end, there is another element that evokes possible meaning, but the strain that you would have to go through to get there is not worth the effort.

If there is anything to recommend the film more positively, it is the three pronged fork of Rory Kinnear, Jessie Buckley, and the special effects team that does dramatic work in the last act. Kinnear is a prolific television actor in British episodic programs. He has been best known to me as Bill Tanner, "M"'s Chief of Staff in the James Bond films of Daniel Craig. Here he manifests some startlingly different character traits, across a plethora of opportunities. It is best to let you discover those on your own if you are inclined to see the film. Jessie Buckley has captivated me since "Wild Rose" and her character here is vastly different than that role. Harper, the woman Buckley portrays, is emotionally fragile but also self sufficient and a bit stubborn. She can scream with the best of them, but she can also fight back, and in an interesting way at the end, her battle is the most passive strategy you can imagine. I'm not sure it makes sense, but she sells it. Finally, if you are a fan of body horror and creatively grotesque visual effects, the climax of the film will impress you as far as the gore facto is concerned. There is a Russian style nest of dolls sequence which will nauseate you enough to at least get an ick factor out of this horror film.

The aggressively woke title of the film, seems to mean nothing in the long run. If you were expecting a political or social commentary from the film, prepare to be disappointed. At best, the theme of one man's obsessive possessiveness , is cloudy. It might be there, or it might just be a figment of your imagination. Whoa, that's the same problem as the whole film, imagine that. 

The Quiet Man

 

I'm not sure there is a better way for a teetotaler like me to celebrate St. Patrick's Day than to spend two hours immersed in Irish  countryside with two great stars of the past. Skip the Blarney Stone and shamrocks, give me John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in John Ford's "The Quiet Man" and I will feel like I have been transported to Ireland for a short time on this day.

John Wayne was the biggest star in movies for years and that is in large part due to his many appearances in Westerns. He made other types of films as well, War Movies, Historical Dramas but undoubtedly, his greatest  role outside of the oaters was as Sean Thornton, in this 1950 classic which is basically a romantic comedy. Paired with Maureen O'Hara for the second of their five on-screen performances, the two of them really manage to convey sexual chemistry in an otherwise staid setting. There is a moment when they are trapped by the rain in a ruin of a church, where she accepts his jacket for warmth and his white shirt clings to him as it gets wet, she seems to be doing the same thing.

While the romance is supplied by Wayne and O'Hara, the comedy is supplied by the cast of supporting players in a variety of ways. Barry Fitzgerald as Michaleen Oge Flynn, cabbie and matchmaker, has a dozen wisecracks that will make you smile and a sly take on all the romantic goings on. Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick and Victor McLagen all provide moments of laughter as well, and the dozens of townsfolk all add in their two cents here and there. It's certainly not politically correct but it is funny when a local woman provides Sean Thornton with a stick that he can use to beat his wife. As usual, context is king, so watch the scene before you judge. 

This really is a cultural journey as well into the country traditions of Irish courtship. One of the big conflicts concerns Sean's unwillingness to press the issue of Mary Kate's dowry payment. It is a big enough issue of face to her, that she refrains from the marital bed in spite of clearly longing for the physical presence of Sean. That it is resolved by her chucking the cash away after it has been obtained shows that the money was not the point but her status was. Of course no one other than the Protestant Minister knows the reason that Sean is reticent to raise a fist to his brother in law, and that probably contributes to the culture clash even more. An American audience would probably see the issue Sean's way, but he has to finally understand it from her perspective, which is what a real marriage is about anyway, and shows that they truly do belong together. 

John Ford won his fourth Oscar for Best director for this film and it is easy to see why. The romance, although nearly instantaneous in attraction, still plays out over the course of the film, letting us get to know the two characters really well.  There is just enough time with the townsfolk for them to be seen as charming rather than overbearing, and frankly the movie looks gorgeous. As Sean and Mary Kate escape their chaperone on a tandem bike and ride around the countryside, it is easy to see how someone could fall in love with a place and wish to be transported there. For the length of the film, that's what Ford manages to do, put us in the Ireland of our imagination and make us fall in love. Happy St. Patrick's Day all. 

The Batman

 

I have seen several comments in social media over the past few months, which question the need for a new Batman movie. That is a little understandable since the character has been trotted out a dozen times or more in the last thirty years and the D.C. Extended Universe has not made the best use of the character possible. That last bit has been rendered obsolete by the latest film which does in fact make "The Batman" a relevant character and which manages to give him something a lot more interesting to do than battle interdimensional beings from outer space. Instead of trying to fit Batman into a super hero story modelled after the MCU Infinity war, director Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig have set him in what may be the most realistic version of Gotham City we have seen in the movies and given him a task that doesn't require technology from the future. 

It seems that every iteration of the caped crusader in the last couple of decades has gotten grimmer and grimmer, and this is the current end point. The Batman is facing a job that makes him the equivalent of Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in the movie "Se7en", he must track down a serial killer who has a hidden motive and a set of elaborate clues that he leaves behind. This story goes to some bad places, and it might be appropriate to nickname our hero "The Darker Knight". The killings are gruesome, the clues are also pretty forbidding. We are spared seeing some of the crimes, but we do see enough to be put off by the actions of the villain, even though some of the victims seem deserving of some kind of retribution. The killer is known as The Riddler because he leaves clues that are language puzzles, for the Batman to figure out. For two thirds of the film, the character is only seen in a get up designed to limit any forensic clues and to hide his face. There is a vocal performance but it may be enhanced through audio technology. When actor Paul Dano finally appears on screen as the character, he sparks up the movie considerably, having been built up so well in the first couple of acts, his mild mannered dementia is plenty creepy even though he is not a physical threat to the hero. 

This story is set relatively early in the career of "The Batman", and we don't get the usual origin story, we are simply dropped into the set up as if these activities have been going on for a while. Lt. Gordon has a tentative working relationship with the masked vigilante, and that connection is resented by most of the cops but the authority of Gordon allows Batman into crime scenes where he is both forensic investigator and  profiler. This film could aptly ne subtitled "C.S.I. Gotham". The puzzles are sometimes answered quickly by our title character but just as often, he and Gordon struggle to come up with solutions and they follow a macabre path to the next clue to try and bring them closer to the killer. Gordon is played by Jeffery Wright, who is making a career out of playing second fiddle to the main characters in films (see James Bond and The Hunger Games). His low key persona and low modulated voice are good counterparts to the title character. "The Batman" is played by Robert Pattinson, who seems to have shed the "Twilight" baggage and is building a very credible resume of films, including "Tenet" from two years ago. Usually, the actor cast in this role gets his best moments as Bruce Wayne, but this is the least Bruce Wayne heavy Batman film I have seen. Wayne is a secondary character and The Batman is front and center for the key events in the movie. The Wayne Family plays a more prominent role in the film than Bruce himself does. 

Gotham is a dark place with lots of evil around every corner, but much like the Nolan Trilogy of films, the city looks fairly normal, except for the fact that no one turns on a light and it rains almost continuously. The thing that is disturbing is how much the corruption, feckless law enforcement, and gang related violence shown in the movie, mirrors the cities like Chicago. It is taken as a given that the politicians are craven tools of special interests, in this case the mob. Two characters that are known to officials, including the police, but for which no one seems able to do anything about are Carmine Falcone and his underboss known as The Penguin. It is an open secret that they run the city and why The Batman and Gordon should be surprised at who all turns up as a victim of the Riddler is unclear. The targets are pretty well marked. The Riddler is starting at the top of the Official List and working his way down. What is a surprise is how easily one of the victims fall prey to the serial killer when he should know that his role in the crime world is connected to the first two victims. The part of the Penguin was secondary, but it was significant enough to draw Colin Farrell to it, even though he is unrecognizable in costume and make-up. As a lynchpin to the story he does have a very solid sequence that includes our introduction to the new version of the Batmobile. 

The movie looks great when seen on a big screen, I am less confident that it will translate to home viewing, unless home audiences are willing to change the settings on their televisions in some dramatic ways to see what the hell is going on on screen. For a nearly three hour movie, there are not as many action set pieces as you might expect, although there are plenty of hand to hand fistfights where Batman punches the crap out of dozens of opponents. It's not quite at John Wick levels of preposterousness. Pattinson's Batman has a temper and he definitely takes it out on the bad guys. When he punches someone in the face, he is not doing so indifferently, he means to punish them, without necessarily killing them. There are no real light moments in the film, but the presence of "Catwoman" Zoë Kravitz, does give us some quiet moments with a hint of romance. Her character is like Farrell, a keystone for the story but not a main character. Wright and Pattinson are the dynamic duo in this film and Dano is the formidable opponent. There is a hidden villain who shines in the few scenes he gets and that is John Turturrow's Falcone. Be aware that there is a surprise plot turn in the last half hour of the film, That storyline is only partially set up and it feels a little tacked on, although is is explained in a very effective way.

Some people have gone so far as to say this is the best Batman film ever, and have even called it a masterpiece. I can't go quite that far but it is top tier and on a par with the Nolan trilogy, but be warned, the seriousness of the plot up until that final turn, will remind you more of "The Silence of the Lambs" than any previous Batman film. Not a lot of humor, but some good characters effectively realized and a main plot that is driven more by detective work  than the action man with the marvelous toys. 

Traditional Top Ten for 2021

 

The usual top ten list for the previous year was split up between theatrical and streaming because theaters were closed and product was sparse. Although everything is still not as it once was, I can say things are better and we return this year to a list of films that were seen for the first time in theaters. There were a number of movies on the list that could be accessed at home, but this site continues to be devoted to an "in-theater" experience for the most part. I may make mention of a couple of streaming products, but most of those were not covered on the site before so there will be no link to a review for them.

Ten Favorite Films of 2021

As I have said in the past, my opinion on the list reflects my reaction to a film, not always it's aesthetic qualities, although those often line up. 

10. The King's Man

I have loved all of Matthew Vaughn's films. Last year I participated in a podcast reviewing his work and discussing with the hosts whether he qualifies as an auteur. You can find that discussion on The Popcorn Auteur at this link: Here. The films in this series have usually been frenetic exercises in action and violence, laced with a heavy dose of humor. "Kingsmen: The Secret Service" is basically an absurdist James Bond fantasy that is well aware that it is exactly that. "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" did what a sequel usually does, expand the universe that it is operating in and adding characters that we will want to see in further entries. "The King's Man" goes in a different direction. In essence it is an origin story of the organization that we were introduced to in the first two films. It is a clever mix of the fictional with authentic history. There are some absurd concepts here, like the idea that Mati Hari seduced Woodrow Wilson, but it is kind of in keeping with the way U.S. Presidents have been portrayed in the other two movies, so it least Vaughn is consistent. 

The film has not received the same enthusiasm from critics and audiences as the first film did, but I found it to be very entertaining and I was happy it finally got a release. The movie has been ready for two years and it finally escaped Covid jail during the recent holiday season. 

9. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is gearing up the next phase in their agenda, and that requires new heroes to step in for the departing leads in the Avenger's films. Captain America, Iron Man, and Black Widow are now off stage. 

The Hulk appears to be semi-retired, but Thor is coming back and the second wave of Marvel Universe heroes are still kicking around. "Shang-Chi" introduces a new character to the films, a sort of magical Bruce Lee character who gets an origin story in this film from the very end of the Summer season. The story is really solid, and we get some characters that will be fun in small does as well as the main lead who is great. The villain in the stury is also excellent, and is played by a respected Asian actor with a long history of good films, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung.

There was a lot of enthusiasm on the Lambcast when we covered this in September. The film also seemed to open the valves a little on the slowly awakening box office. 

8. Nightmare Alley (2021)

I need to include the year of release here because this film is a remake of a noir classic that came out in 1947, and we would not want the two of them to be confused with one another. Admittedly, that is unlikely because the current version is directed by Guillermo del Toro, who has an incredible eye, even though his storytelling skills are sometimes a bit underwhelming. Stanton Carlisle is one of the great Noir figures that actually has crept into the vernacular. Carneys, grifters, psychics and fortunetellers can pick out a fellow traveler when they admit that they are a friend of Stanton Carlisle. In this version, Tyrone Power has been replaced by another handsome face, Bradley Cooper.  

The elaborate production design and incredibly deep cast is used to support a horrifying outcome for a man who we follow and probably root for, but for whom we should have no sympathy. The ambitious huckster manages to think he is the smartest guy in the room, only to discover that there are people even more vile than he and sometimes more clever. I think the film pokes along a little more slowly than is best, but the story still works and the movie looks great. 

7. Nobody

This was a movie that came out of nowhere for me. Prior to seeing a trailer, I had no idea it existed nor any reason to be interested. Once I saw the premise however, I had high hopes that it would be just what the doctor ordered. Theaters around the country were not all open when this film dropped last March. Too many people were still reluctant to go out to a film, but not me. I was ready for this and when it was over I was gassed. This hit every button on my lizard brain and made me so happy, I actually watched it as a rental a few weeks later when I spent an evening back in California with my friends.

"Nobody" is a John Wick style action film with a less than likely badass as the central figure. Bob Odenkirk from "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" doesn't look like an intimidating tough guy, and that is part of the pleasure of this film. He is a guy that people underestimate when they look at him, but know to fear when they learn who he was. The fistfights are not kung fu battles but brutal beatdowns using basic force. The gun battles are stylized, but they are not the elegant special effects works of Matrix style action. This movie was simply the most fun I had at a movie next to one other film on this list. 

6. The Sparks Brothers

At the start of the year, the Edgar Wright film that I would have most been looking forward to was "Last Night in Soho" . I was not even aware that Wright was doing a documentary, much less on a band with a cult following in my hometown and in Europe. Sparks was a band that I was a fan of in the 1980s, but they fell off of my radar for 30 years. Apparently, they just kept making the great, odd music that they had always done. There were projects that went nowhere and albums that did not generate sales, but the creativity never faltered and this documentary shows it.

Wright includes the usual talking heads but spices it up with performances, videos and animation to cover the history of the band in a mostly chronological fashion. The movie is not just informative about the bands travails, it is also entertaining as heck and much of that is provided by the two brothers that make up the band. 

5. Spider-Man: No Way Home

This is getting people back out to the movies, it is setting records for box office and the full theaters seem to be a good indicator that people will come out of their covid induced hibernation if a movie is only available in theaters and it is something people want to see. "No Way Home" is the third Spider-Man centric film to star Tom Holland. Although he appears in three other MCU films, the ones with Spider-Man as the main character seem to harken to the early days of comic book movies when the stories were fun and not just grim exercises in creating worldwide threats. 

We were led to the idea of a multiverse by the animated Spider-Man movie "Into the Spiderverse", just a couple of years ago. This film takes advantage of the concept by dipping into the previous Spider-Man films for stories, villains and some other potential fun. The audience gasp at particular moments in the film, lets you know that this is a movie that is connecting with it's fans. The term "fan service" is often used to deride elements of a film that are designed to pander to the audience, but when used properly, this "service" represents the connection that a franchise has with it's fans and that relationship is an important one for most of us who love movies. 

"No Way Home" gives us a chance to reconcile our feelings about plots that were left dangling in the earlier Spidey films and allows us to reassess those movies and somewhat repair them in our memory. This was the movie that was the most fun that I had in a theater this last year and I look forward to catching it again as soon as I am able. 

4. Ghostbusters Afterlife

Everyone who was waiting for a Ghostbusters sequel which did not suck, finally got their wish in November of 2021. "Ghostbusters Afterlife" had been delayed more than a year and a half by the Covid-19 reshuffling that studios had to do to try and save their projects form theatrical disaster. The really unfortunate part of this is that "Afterlife" was a perfect Summer release, and now it will be a fond memory, but not of sunny days and warm nights spent in a theater. 

The young cast that carries this film is impressive, but even more impressive is that this is a true sequel and not a reboot like the 2016 misfire. The original characters are in the story for just a bit, but it is a juicy bit and it does not take away from what the new cast has done to bring us into the story. Down the road, this may get the most rewatches by me of any film on the list, it is fun and when June gets here, I will be looking for this as a companion to the original "Ghostbusters". 

3. Free Guy

This is an original concept but it feels like a franchise film because it operates in the world of videogames. This is another film that had multiple release dates but finally escaped in the summertime to give all of us a reason to go to the movies. The premise felt convoluted the first time I saw a trailer, but it turns out to be relatively straightforward once you are watching. A video game character becomes self aware in the game he exists in and interacts with a real player to foil a villainous plot. "Free Guy" is an odd name choice, but the character is Guy and it just makes sense. 

Ryan Reynolds proves that he can be his own most valuable player when the material is good. I have not tired of his casual, relaxed vocal style yet. His manner is perfect for a non-playable character in a computer game. This film also has the benefit of the best trailer for a movie this year. See it when you click on the link to the review. 

2. Dune (2021)

A visionary film from a visionary film maker. Denis Villeneuve has made two terrific science fiction films before this, Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival.  The visuals in those two movies were spectacular and they promised a great deal for a revised version of "Dune". This movie lived up to that promise. This is an ambitious film, that is attempting to do something very difficult, translate a book that is full of ideas, into a movie that is more than just the visuals. 

I'm a big apologist for the David Lynch version of the story, but Villeneuve has something that Lynch was denied back in 1984, time. This movie is only part one of a two part film. It is already longer than the Lynch film, and we still have the second half to look forward to. I am not the biggest fan of  Timothée Chalamet, but he manages to be convincing as Paul Atreides, especially in the early part of the story where Paul is supposed to be young and a bit uncertain. 

There is a great cast in this film and we will certainly see more of them in Part 2 when it arrives in two years although the electric Jason Mamoa will be missed as Duncan Idaho's part in the story is complete at this point. Baron Harkonnen is barely used and will be more prominent down the road, and some characters from the book have not even been hinted at in the film so far. 

1. Belfast

When I see a film, I always hope to connect with the characters and share the emotional ride that the story takes us on. "Belfast" is a personal reminiscence of  writer/director Kenneth Branagh, harkening to his youth in the violence torn hometown. While "The Troubles" are a part of the story, the real focus is on the family at the center of the picture. A young boy is confronting the confusing world he lives in while being nurtured by a fiercely stubborn mother, an unwillingly absent father and nurturing grandparents.

The emotions and hopefulness are engulfing, just the way I like. Some may see it as sentimental clap trap, they can take a flying leap. This is a wonderfully acted drama that has more heart and cares more about it's characters than any movie that has come along in a long time. Frankly, it was not even close to being dethroned from my top spot, despite how great some of the other films are. It is small, in black and white and emotionally perfect. The actors are also fantastic.