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I saw just 10 films in May 2015, another slow movie-watching month, but my wonderful public library did serve me well again in June, and I did make one trek to the movies to see Pixar’s latest animated delight…
(Ratings are on a 5 star scale. Note that a classic only becomes a classic after a decade or more.)
(Titles in purple have been expanded for Flix Pix columns.)
> And those 10 flicks are:
JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT. (2014)***+
THE YELLOW ROLLS-ROYCE (1964)***
DAVE CHAPPELL’S BLOCK PARTY (2005)***
ST. VINCENT (2014)***+
FOXCATCHER (2014)**
MOMMY (2014)****
STILL ALICE (2014)****
EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS (2014)***
INSIDE OUT (2015)****+
ROSEWATER (2014)***+
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JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT (2014) ***+
> Hey, this was good!
. Screen hunk Chris Pine, (A.K.A. young Capt. Kirk), was the right man for the job, in this reboot of the Tom Clancy franchise. Fine actor and capable cinema technician Kenneth Branagh directs and plays the ambitiously bad guy- and does both well.
. It’s a Hitchcockian story, in that it’s about a guy who thinks he’s committing to a desk job as a security analyst, but ends up being drawn into a life-and-death game of high stakes international intrigue. This guy has a background though: as a post 9-11 Marine enlistee and subsequent war hero, he is the ideal candidate for the post. When all hell breaks loose, Pine gives us a compelling window into a man who is suddenly scared shitless by the mess he finds himself in. His CIA operative Kevin Costner reminds him that he is a trained Marine. If he can fall back on that training, he just might survive.
. It’s got real tension, thanks in large part to the big three actors, rounded out by a typically fetching Keira Knightley as Jack’s love interest. And here, the relationship feels like more than just window dressing. Pine and Knightley are good enough actors to make you really feel their deep devotion to each other, even in perilous moments of razor’s edge tension. It helps ground this otherwise operatic action film a little, in human emotion.
– Sure, it’s a commercial effort, but a good one. Kept my interest- and it paid off in the final reel.
THE YELLOW ROLLS-ROYCE (1964) ***
> This is a curiosity: a mainstream Hollywood anthology film that tells three consecutive stories, all connected by one classic yellow Rolls-Royce and the people who own it through the years.
(WINCHESTER ’73 did this with a gun; 20 BUCKS did this with a $20 bill.)
. All three stories involve romance and infidelity.
. The first segment is not very good really. Despite fine actors stuffy Rex Harrison and pouty Jeanne Moreau in central roles, their aristocratic world is just so formal and artificial, leaving them so habitually alienated from their own feelings and desires, it is a cold, depressing affair to watch, and a real tragedy of the human heart. Fortunately the sequences get better as they go along.
. The second segment stars George C. Scott as an infamous Chicago gangster on holiday in Italy with his henchman, (a gruff but affable Art Carney), and his bored, eternally dissatisfied moll, (a delightfully vital, sexy Shirley MacLaine), when his gal begins to be wooed by a slick Italian Lothario. Some real fun here.
. In the final segment Ingrid Bergman is a no-nonsense, stiff-upper-lip socialite determined to ignore the outbreak of pesky little annoyance World War II, which threatens to disrupt her visit to Yugoslavian royalty. She is unwittingly tricked into transporting a guerilla resistance fighter played by a typically intense young Omar Sharif, across the border into his homeland, where he is a wanted man. Her fine automobile is requisitioned for the freedom fighters, and soon, her heart follows into the fight. This is the best of the three stories- and yet, we still feel like there is no actual ending to the film.
– That’s just an inherent flaw in the anthology format, I believe.
DAVE CHAPPELL’S BLOCK PARTY (2005) ***
After the giddy acclaim of his overnight cable TV sensation with The Chappelle Show, down-to-earth local boy Dave wanted to give something back to his Detroit neighborhood. It was an inspired impulse that bore sweet fruit. Gathering respected artists from the hip-hop community, he produced a free, all day “block party” concert that looks to have been a huge boon for the local community. Dave succeeded in making lots of people happy, and recording some groovy musical performances on film as well. Generally, hip-hop is not my thing. (I’m too old, to rural, too white for it to speak much to me.) But there were some great performances her from Erika Badu and Questlove and the Roots that really rocked! The film itself didn’t do much for me, as I am just not plugged in to this community and can’t really relate, but I am so glad this pale, old, country hippie was exposed to these very cool sounds! Thanks Dave.
ST. VINCENT (2014) ***+
> Everything about this tart human comedy is better than it looked in the trailers- from the sparkling performances, to the witty script that usually manages to be less cloying, precious and manipulative than we might fear.
(Oh sure- there’s a bit of that in the final act, but first time feature filmmaker Theodore Melfi wisely keeps the mood and atmosphere muted by reality for most of the film.)
. It’s crisply filmed and edited and it features another role the great Bill Murray seems to have been born to play. Oh yeah, his slovenly, alcohol-fueled misanthrope makes an unlikely babysitter, alright! But what is newly-single mother Melissa McCarthy to do? The real world just isn’t presenting her with any viable alternatives other than to surrender her beautiful child to a petty, vengeful ex-husband.
. The boy actor is perfect. We barely see him “acting” at all- and Ms. McCarthy is a real revelation! Her bona fides as a broad, comic actress are well-established by now, but I was not prepared to see her play the “straight man” so effectively and heartbreakingly as she did here. Melissa McCarthy is not a “comic”. Melissa McCarthy is an actress, and she may have some very good work ahead of her if casting directors continue to show the imagination they showed in casting her here- not something Hollywood casting directors are famous for…
– This film had a lot of heart, and there’s just no down side to that.
FOXCATCHER (2014) **
> It was impossible not to conflate this movie with the film WHIPLASH…
. They both came out the same year, both were recognized as Best Picture nominees, and both tell the stories of coaches that are so driven and intense as to be mentally abusive to the acolyte they are trying to mentor.
. Both films had celebrated performances from the obsessive perfectionists that drove the respective stories: J.K. Simmons, (who took home the statue for WHIPLASH), and here, an almost unrecognizable Steve Carrel, playing an obscenely wealthy and megalomaniacal wrestling coach- treading in territory a million miles removed from the satirist of The Daily Show and the goofball newscaster of ANCHORMAN. In character as heir to the DuPont fortune, Carrel’s prosthetic nose is only the most obvious alteration: but there is much more at work in this extraordinarily detailed characterization. Mr. Carrel has created a whole new human being behind that schnozz, that is startling and complicated and very, very original. (Again, the “comic” turns out to be the “actor”.) He imagines himself a great wrestling coach, stewarding Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, but really, he is just a monster.
. The problem is, the performance is so obtuse, so inner and inscrutable that it has no real payoff. Sure, he is involved in a major crisis at the end- but although what happens is no great shock to us, is also not really documented along the way. The groundwork is laid in only the most rudimentary way: Look out: this guy is crazed! So we are not surprised when he does something crazy- but we wonder why. It feels like there is a pivotal scene missing where we should have been allowed inside the strange billionaire recluse’s head. Without it, the film feels as cursory as Vanessa Redgrave’s nearly nonexistent cameo as his disapproving mother. She is there just long enough to babble in one scene about a train set, then frown disapprovingly from across the room in another.
. This respected film was low on my list, among the celebrated films of 2014, because it didn’t look like I would enjoy it much. And I didn’t. Ultimately, I wondered: why FOXCATCHER? Despite some fine acting, it seemed depressing and pointless to me.
– Two stars is the best I can muster for this.
MOMMY (2014) ****
> This French-Canadian import is a difficult film about raising a “difficult” child through his most difficult period.
. MOMMY is set in a near-future, when Canada has amended the law so that any parent of an uncontrollable child can relinquish them in the care of a state-run mental institution, until they’re 18 and/or “socialized” enough for release. Rejected from a private school for violence, this “Mommy” has her hands full when her hyperactive teen with ADD and impulse-control issues, suddenly comes home from the school to live. This humanly flawed woman is a tough single mother, struggling to negotiate a difficult life made almost untenable by the impulsive actions of her out-of-control son. Vulnerable actress Anne Dorval seems a bit of a MILF, even to her own son who has issues with personal boundaries in an attachment disorder that can be very creepy indeed. He is such a volatile youth, that one never knows where he will careen next, making him a very dangerous character when overwhelmed by his anger or hurt.
. Enter the somewhat detached neighbor, Suzanne Clément, a true MILF herself! Ms. Clément is gorgeous to gaze upon, but she is also deftly and breathtakingly nuanced and quietly intense in a memorable performance. She plays a neighbor with an unstated trauma in her recent past, that precipitated a halting stutter which she has not been able to shake. She gradually befriends the mommy and the son, to her own personal consequence when she has to endure the almost unendurable pain of the wrenching climactic decision.
. Much of this is palpably difficult to watch. But along the way, there are moments of sheer giddy transcendence, peals of laughter, the intimacy of sharing, the miracle of human bonding and the testing of the deep, tenacious bonds of love. All the principals give great performances and the resonant soundtrack contributes to the emotional pitch beautifully. And the little coda at the end?
– It is perfectly perfect.
STILL ALICE (2014) ****
> Tough, tough film about a tough, tough diagnosis. Julienne Moore as a linguistics professor facing the memory-robbing wasting of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
. Moore gives a subtle, nuanced performance that certainly ranks among the best in her considerable career. Alec Baldwin and Kirsten Stewart are among her shocked and baffled family, trying to come to grips with the unthinkable reality. I like seeing Alec Baldwin play straight roles, but I must say that his classic turn in 30 Rock tainted him a bit, in that he was so damn funny there, it became harder to accept him as a serious actor. And Kristin Stewart reminds us that as the teenage vampire flavor of the month, she has been underestimated too.
. A celebrated college professor, Moore is attached to her intellect. It defines her, and when she begins to feel her mind slipping away, it is the ultimate horror. She records a video to her future self, explaining that if at some time in the progression of the disease she is unable to answer any of the simple quiz questions she created for herself, she is to take her secret stash of sleeping pills and end the struggle. This is a powerful mainspring for the story. Will that moment arrive, and if so, will she follow the directions of her past self and end her life? Pretty powerful stuff! And the ending scene between mother and daughter?
– It is just about perfect.
EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS (2014) ***
A gift to the memory of his brother Tony, a fellow director who took his own life in 2012, this Ridley Scott effort is a big step down from his usual fare, but nowhere near as bad as the critics sneered. It’s a thoroughly modern take on the Moses myth, unlikely to please any fundamentalist Christian, featuring an unlikely Christian Bale as the celebrated religious figure. As with all his films, it’s big, epic fantasy, and quite entertaining despite its many flaws. Unfortunately, it is peppered with great actors doing little to nothing, from Ben Kingsley to Sigourney Weaver, to John Turturro to Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul. Yeah, the Biblical plagues are a hoot to watch, but the film is like what they used to say about Chinese. No matter how much you feast on it- you are hungry an hour later.
INSIDE OUT (2015) ****+
> This 15th pairing of Walt Disney and Pixar Studios has been hailed by many as the best of the lot, and if you’ve seen the others, you know that is saying something! Impressively, it shattered AVATAR’s opening box office, making it the biggest opening for a film not based on previous material.
. It’s the animated story of a young girl named Riley and the turmoil she goes through when her happy Midwestern life is suddenly uprooted, when her parents decide to move to California. The story is told partly by characters living inside her mind- personifications of her competing emotions: Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness. It sounds so fresh and new- but it’s an old idea really. (I remember doing an improv about this in high school!)
. People love this film. I loved it. But let’s be real: it’s no UP or TOY STORY 3, which were far superior animated films. For some reason, it took me a while to warm to INSIDE OUT- perhaps because that, as an adult, I am not moved by such child-centric character design that looks like something generated for Saturday morning cartons. But as the film progressed, I realized that, as with UP, this was actually rather adult fare. Really it’s the story of how people struggle to integrate the various loose threads of identity into an integrated person- a pretty sophisticated idea!
. San Francisco is so lovingly rendered that I recognized particular freeway onramps! Yes, (even if it does not approach the great art of Hayao Miyazaki), there is a high level of artistry here. The visuals are imaginative, the vocal talent form Amy Poehler to the perfectly cast Lewis Black are uniformly good. But the best thing about INSIDE OUT is that it makes the case that our sadness is an important part of ourselves- not something to be denied, degraded and ignored, but something to be acknowledged and dealt with- even embraced.
– Yep, it’s no wonder audiences adore this film: it’s a fantasy about very real stuff that every human faces, and in an age when most commercial films are just that- commercial enterprises slapped together by marketers, this is a film with soul- a beautiful rumination on the strength and frailty of the human heart.
ROSEWATER (2014) ***+
> Celebrated social critic and witty funnyman Jon Stewart took a leave of absence from The Daily Show to make this, his first feature film, and based on the results, one hopes, it is not his last.
. I gather that he was kind of let down by the reception for the film, which was a bit restrained, and by the tepid box office response, but the fact is- Jon Stewart made a very good film here, deserving of your support. When an Iranian journalist was jailed and tortured for daring to do a comic segment on his satirical TV show, Stewart felt a deep responsibility and personal obligation to do everything he could do to help free this unjustly imprisoned man.
. As a storyteller, telling the story of Maziar Bahari was the best and most obvious thing Stewart could do, and he does a great job of putting his ego away and telling a compelling story in a straightforward and effective way. Perfectly cast, for his wonderful ability to engender empathy, Gael García Bernal gives another fine performance as a man straddling two cultures, who finds himself trapped in an almost surreal nightmare of lunacy and ignorance.
. Bahari’s interrogator likes to believe he is serving his country, and convinces himself that the enhanced interrogation techniques he uses on his prisoner are not torture. (Hm. Where have we seen this before?) But that’s just denial and self-delusion- something people are very good at.
. The Iranian authorities must hate this film, for the unblinkingly negative view it takes of them, showing them as so paranoid and dogmatic, they can’t differentiate between comedy and reality. (After this, I sure can’t imagine Jon Stewart ever being granted a visa to visit Iran!) ROSEWATER serves as an important reminder that we are not helpless. We can promote social justice and effect real change when we band together to make our voices heard.
– Thanks, Jon Stewart, for making the voice of your conscience heard.
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That does it for this month. Keep watching! See movies. Talk about them. Support the cinematic voices of today. Share your reactions.
Viva cinema, thespians and lesbians!
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