Widows (a movie review post)

There are times when I read a book or watch a movie then refer back to the blurb about the work and wonder if the person who wrote that blurb actually partook of the material. I've come to decide that the answer to that is "no." The writer of the blurb watched, maybe, the first 10 minutes of the movie or read the first chapter or two of the book, enough to give them an idea of what they assumed the work was about, then wrote the summary based on that. And, you know, maybe that actually works for some material, maybe even most material, but, for anything complex, it does not. So, despite the talk to the contrary, Widows is not a heist movie [and, just to say it, The House on the Corner is not a haunted house story (or a heist story)]. Sure, it has a heist in it, but that doesn't make it a "heist movie."

What, then, is the movie about? In a word, I'm going to say that the movie is about betrayal. Betrayal and the far-reaching effects of it. I would say more, but anything else would be all spoilery, and you should really see this movie without it being spoiled for you. I mean, Gillian Flynn co-wrote it, so you know it's gonna have some twists in it, and I don't want to ruin those for anyone.

The movie does begin with a heist, a heist gone wrong. Tragically wrong. Which is what sets in motion the events of the rest of the movie, as the widows of the men killed try to pick up the pieces of their lives. The women, all of them, are interesting and complex characters and each is extremely well acted.

The movie rests on the very capable shoulders of Viola Davis, whose character, Veronica, is dealing with two tragedies plus the threat of violence against her. She is cold and hard and determined, and every part of Davis exudes these characteristics. She is more than believable in her role.

As may be expected by Steve McQueen (remember, he made 12 Years a Slave), the movie deals with themes of racism, while not actually being about racism. It's also politically relevant, pitting Jack Mulligan (played by Colin Farrell), who could pass for a somewhat progressive Democrat (at least, he's trying to do things for the betterment of the people whom he wants to represent), against his father, Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall), a flaming racist Republican who only wants power for the sake of the power and not allowing African Americans the chance to have any. There's a great scene between the two of them... Well, that's all I'm going to say about that.

Also, I'll admit to having a Duvall bias. Between The Natural and Lonesome Dove, I came to love him as an actor while I was a teenager. And I tend to always think that Colin Farrell doesn't get the attention he deserves. He's not necessarily great at picking roles, but he's a great actor.

On the other hand, Liam Neeson has become a cardboard cutout of himself. Fortunately, this is another of those roles for him where he just gets to be that same kind of guy. Which is to say that he was just fine and did everything that was required of him in the movie.

Of the movies being talked about for Best Picture nominations this year, this is not my pick. However, of the movies my wife and I have seen so far of the probable nominations, this is the one we have talked about most since seeing it. I'm telling you, this movie has layers. It is the only one that we've decided that we actually must see again (though that will likely not be in the theater) because, now, knowing how it ends, we want to see some scenes again with that knowledge in our heads.

Also, I don't know that I'd say this is a "must see" movie, but it's very good and worth seeing. At least it is if you like movies that aren't quite as straightforward as they may seem and that will make you think, because this movie is likely to make you think. You probably can't ask more of a movie than that.

Spotlight (a movie review post)

It might be early, especially since I haven't finished seeing all the potential best picture nominees, but I'm going to go on record with Spotlight being my pick for best picture this year. Looking at lists of other potential nominees, I'm just not seeing any that I believe will have what it takes to be a better movie. That's not to say that some other movie might not win, because, hey, Eddie Redmayne got best actor last year for sitting in a chair and drooling. (Yes, I'm still upset about that.)

So, just to be clear, Spotlight is not about what it's about. I think the perception or, at least, the easy way of saying it is to say that Spotlight is about the scandal in Boston over the abuse of mostly young boys by priests in the Catholic church. That is the easy way to say it, but the movie isn't really about that. It's the story of the reporters who broke the story about the abuse going on within the Catholic church.

In part, it's about how hard it is to sit on information while you dig for even more information. It's about what it's like to think you have one story, the story of one man abusing his power, to find out that what you have is a much larger story, the story of a whole institution supporting that abuse by that man and many others just to avoid embarrassment. What do you do when you fins out what is already a horrific story goes so far beyond that?

One of the telling things for me is that the actual reporters involved in breaking the story are saying that this movie really nails what happened. They're saying that this movie, more than any other, really gets at the heart of what it's like to be a reporter and to investigate a story.

The acting is amazing. I'd like to say that Mark Ruffalo, as Mike Rezendes, stole the show, but he really doesn't. Which is not to say that Ruffalo puts in a performance that is less than to be expected, because he doesn't. Ruffalo is superb. It's just that all of the actors are performing at that same level. So, in the scene were Rezendes loses it at Robby, Michael Keaton shines just as brightly as Ruffalo.

Stanley Tucci, an actor who never seems to get as much credit as he deserves (I mean, compare this role to his role as Caesar Flickerman), is perfect: understated and intense. Liev Schrieber is commanding. John Slattery is conflicted; you never know which way he's going to go as things unfold, and that's a huge credit to the actor, as he did all of that non-verbally. You can see, almost feel, his conflict as the depth of the scandal unfolds. And Rachel McAdams, an actress I've never really had a care for one way or the other, has demanded respect from me.

All things Marvel aside, if you can only see one movie this year, this is the one it should be. As an overall film, nothing has had better performances from an entire cast, and no other movie has dealt with a topic like this. And the movie does that well. It could have been just about hammering the Catholic church; it could have stayed at that level and focused on how horrible the church is for allowing that kind of abuse to go on for, at least, decades, but, by showing us the story through the eyes of the reporters, it rises above that. It becomes something human and personal. We don't have to see the horror to know the horror (unlike, say, 12 Years a Slave, which felt the need to show us all the brutality in explicit detail). As such, Spotlight is more subtle and, by way of that, more powerful.

Selma (a movie review post)

I have to wonder if it's the historical controversies over this movie that have caused it to be so overlooked by the Academy. Not that that has stopped them from being all over movies like The Imitation Game but, then, those are less controversial controversies. Yeah, I know Selma got a best picture nomination, but that seems almost as if it was only a token nomination (because they had to) rather than any serious consideration of the film.

The thing is, I think the controversies, especially the ones around LBJ, have to do with perspective rather than actual fact. In other words, both sides are correct and both sides are wrong. Sure, Lyndon Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights Act and not even against his will, but that doesn't mean he didn't also act as an impediment to King. That's really the kind of thing that depends upon which side of the fence you're on. It's an awfully small thing to be arguing about in a film like this.

And what kind of a film is this? Well, it's everything that 12 Years a Slave was not. Where 12 Years is emotionally distant, Selma is emotionally gripping. Where 12 Years is brutally graphic, Selma shies away from actual depictions of violence. The club goes up, but you rarely see where it falls. What you do see is the aftermath and the emotional turmoil. You see purposeful, personal, systematic persecution of a people rather than the rather impersonal depiction of slavery from 12 Years and the isolated vendetta-style conflict. In Selma, it's not someone with a chip on his shoulder abusing a loan slave, it's a culture of persecution against a race. It's deliberate and it's illegal, and it was maddening to watch the injustice. Selma shines a bright light on what was a culture of intolerance and ignorance.

Look, I grew up in the South, and this movie made me wish that I had been alive in the 60s and could have marched with King myself.

That David Oyelowo was overlooked for a best actor nomination is frustrating at the very least. That Eddie Redmayne received one for sitting in a chair is an injustice. As far as I can tell from what people who know have been saying, Oyelowo was pretty spot on and, from the clips I've heard of King speaking, it sounded to me as if he nailed it. What I do know for sure, though, is that he nailed the speaking style of the Southern black preacher. I've been to some of those Southern Baptist meetings with black preachers, and Oyelowo, when he is delivering King's speeches, would have fit in flawlessly. It's also worth noting how monotone Oyelowo was when he was practicing those speeches to himself, but it was a tremendous transformation when he moved in front of a crowd.

The other acting is also great. Tom Wilkinson was spectacular as LBJ, as was Dylan Baker as Hoover. I have a fondness for Wendell Pierce and really enjoyed him as Rev. Williams. And Tim Roth... well, I wanted to punch him in his big, old nose. He needed someone to punch it. Stephen Root is also always good, and we didn't get less than we expected. Carmen Ejogo was also good as King's wife, but I don't actually think that one was an Oscar performance... except when you see that Felicity Jones was nominated; Ejogo was at least as good as Jones.

On top of everything else, though, the movie is timely in its relation to how you deal with terrorism, because that's what had been going on in the South for 100 years. I don't remember the exact quote, but there is a conversation between King and another man while they are in jail, the gist of which was something along the lines of standing up for your rights as a person and how to deal with the fact that the people who have been keeping you down will continue to try to knock you down. You just stand up again. It really resonated with what Charb said about dying on your feet rather than living on your knees. Some of King's followers did die, but they died on their feet for something they believed in, and it allowed those that came after them to start out on their feet. It's a powerful message.

The Oscar Challenge

Some of you may have noticed the spate of movie reviews on my blog, lately, and the more astute of you may have noticed that most of these (nearly all) have been for movies that are nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. See, several years ago, my wife and I decided to actually try to see the movies that were nominated before the awards were given out. [She's not all that into the big, blockbuster-type summer movies (with some exceptions (Avengers)), so this our movie thing that we do together.] It didn't go so well that year, because we waited until after the nominations were announced, and many of the movies were no longer at the theater and not yet available on DVD. Since then, we've been working on our technique.

Last year, we managed to see six of the nine nominated films before the awards ceremony (we've seen all but one, at this point). Although I was glad that Argo won (for Affleck's sake), I think Lincoln was the better film. At least, Day-Lewis won for best actor, though, because anything other than that would have just been wrong.

This year, we are up to six of the nine nominated films (as I write this, because I think we'll be at seven before this actually gets posted). Of course, my belief is that the count should be seven of 10, because Saving Mr. Banks certainly should have been nominated. Some of what I've read suggests that it didn't get nominated due to Meryl Streep and that she was actively campaigning to keep that nomination from happening. And I get that a big part of the Academy Awards is political, but that kind of stuff just bothers me. And, no, I don't know Meryl Streep, so I can't say that that's true, but I did read about her anti-Disney speech, and I do know that that film should have been nominated.

But maybe it wasn't nominated so that it wouldn't win. I mean, if it was nominated, it would be difficult to justify picking a different movie over it, like, say, 12 Years a Slave, but, if it's not nominated at all, then it can't win. Which is messed up logic, too, but the Academy people do like to go with "important" movies and, maybe, it's still too close to The Artist's win in 2011 for them to go with another Hollywood-ish film even if this one is deserving (as opposed to The Artist, which wasn't).

Anyway...

At the moment, from the nominated movies, I'm going with 12 Years a Slave as the eventual winner. I don't think it's the best film, but I do think it's the most likely to win. Of the ones I've seen, I think Dallas Buyers Club is the most deserving of the Best Picture Oscar, but I don't think it will win. I do hope that Matthew McConaughey gets Best Actor, though; he was tremendous in a similar fashion as Day-Lewis in Lincoln.

Did I say there should be 10 nominations this year? Actually, I don't really think that. I think there should only be nine, because The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't deserve its nomination. It's this year's Beasts of the Southern Wild, the movie that people can't bring themselves to say that they don't get. Sometimes, when a movie doesn't make sense, it really just doesn't make sense. Don't pretend you get it by talking about how deep it is and how other people just don't understand, especially if, then, you're not going to bother explaining because, you know, if you didn't get it on your own, you just can't get it. Do people still believe that line? I suppose they must.
Anyway, I've already been through that class, so it doesn't work on me. Heck, I've been on the other end of that, so it really doesn't work on me. [Seriously, one of my English profs in college would give A's to any paper that was just outside of his understanding. Or, you know, if it was too confusing but you could make him think he just wasn't "getting" it. Rather than look like he didn't get it, he'd just give the paper the A.]

Captain Phillips is this year's Life of Pi for me. It's the movie I just can't manage to make myself want to see. We knew when it was out in theater that we should go see it. We talked about it a lot. It always came down to, "Well, do you want to see it?" "No, do you?" "No..." And, so, we never went to see it, and there's probably no way, now, to see it before Oscar night without buying it, and I really don't want to do that. Although, if we manage to get in the other two beforehand, we might break down. It has been mentioned.

And, yeah, I did, eventually, see Life of Pi, and, yeah, it would have been a cool movie to see in the theater just for the visual aspect of it, but, beyond that, I wasn't overly impressed (you can click the link and read the review if you want).

I guess the real question from all of this is, when all is said and done, "Do I feel, really, like I've watched the year's best movies?" Yes, actually, on the whole, I do, especially this year. There are movies I enjoy more just for the thrill of watching them, but I don't have any illusions of that making them better movies than they are. As with food, enjoyment does not equal quality or goodness (for you). Look, I loved Thor: The Dark World, and I would (and will) watch it again, but Dallas Buyers Club is a better movie. I'll probably never watch Dallas Buyers Club again; it's not the kind of thing you want to watch again (most people, anyway); but I'm really glad I saw it the one time, because it was a powerful and moving movie.

So, mostly, yeah, I think they do a pretty decent job of picking out the "best" movies. The movies with something to say. Except 2011. I don't know what was going on that year. At any rate, that we watch these movies allows me to step a little outside of the movies I would normally watch. It's like (exactly like) reading a book outside of your favorite genre, and it's always good to experience new things. Some of them will suck (Wolf), but some of them will be extraordinary and you'll be really glad you stepped outside of your box even if you're just going to get right back inside (because I totally plan to see Robocop). The thing is, if you do it enough, you'll find that your box isn't quite cube-shaped anymore, and that's a good thing.

Oh, and just to throw it out there, my wife is totally going for American Hustle. I think it's the hair.

Hungry Like a Wolf (a movie review post)

There are, occasionally, those movies that come along where the best response I can generate for them is, "Well, that was interesting." The Wolf of Wall Street is one of those movies.

It's not a bad movie--certainly, the performances are great--but I can't say that it was a good movie, either. It... well, it just was.

I suppose the main issue I have with it is that I'm not sure what the movie was trying to say. What it was about. Sure, the movie is about Jordan Belfort, but, usually, when you make a movie about someone's life, it's because you think there is a message people can take away from the story about that person's life. For instance:
12 Years a Slave: Survive. Plus, you know, slavery is bad.
Dallas Buyers Club: Don't succumb to the system if the system is wrong. Plus, you know, rich, white men don't care about anything other than taking your money from you.
Saving Mr. Banks: Creation is a personal act and the creation remains a part of the creator. As Walt said about Mickey, "He's family."
Those are just some of the ones from this year. But I don't get a sense that there is any real message in Wolf. No underlying theme. Maybe the movie is just too chaotic for that. At any rate, I didn't feel like I came away with anything at the end of the movie other than Belfort was really screwed up.

All of the characters are screwed up. Or too flat to be screwed up. Like Belfort's first wife; she's not screwed up, not in the movie, anyway, but we never see her as anything other than this background character that is mistreated. And the FBI guy doesn't seem to be screwed up, but he's "FBI Guy" and can't be screwed up, because that's his cutout. The rest of the characters are just screwed up.

Also, I'm pretty sure it's not just me that has an issue with discerning a meaning in this movie. Well, my wife didn't see one, either. But! In doing my research, I found a reviewer who went to see this in a theater full of the kind of financial guys that Belfort was. They certainly saw the movie differently from me as the reviewer said they cheered "in all the wrong places." When Belfort would do something bad (like when, after he's sober, he rips up his couch to get at his hidden stash of drugs), the guys in the theater would cheer for him. I take that to mean that there is no clear message in the movie, because, if there was, those people would not be cheering.

But maybe Scorsese did it that way on purpose? Maybe he's just presenting the story of the man's life and letting people come away with their own message? Certainly, the actors (DiCaprio and Hill) have taken a lot of flak over their portrayals (which I just don't get; why is Scorsese not taking any heat over it? He's the one that presented it the way it is), that they were glorifying the drug use and partying and, well, everything that they do in the movie. I can understand why some people might think that the movie is an endorsement of that behavior. The problem is that you just can't tell.

Not to mention that the movie resorts to that starting in the middle of the action thing and then jumps back to the beginning. For no purpose, evidently, other than to start with dwarf tossing. Why? It doesn't make the story better. It serves no purpose within the story. Why does everyone and their dog feel like you have to start somewhere in the middle and then go back to the beginning to explain whatever weirdness you're seeing? It's a cheap trick, and I'm so tired of it.

There's also that the movie is three hours long. Three hours long of wondering what the point is to get to the end to find out that there was no point. Granted, it was a quick three hours due to the frenetic pace of the movie, but not really a satisfying three hours. And it was three hours after being cut down for being too long. It makes me wonder what they took out.

Anyway... I'm actually disappointed that this movie has received a best picture nomination and that Scorsese has received a best director nomination. I suppose I can't fault them for the best actor and supporting actor nominations, because they did deliver great performances, although, as my wife pointed out, the character of Belfort has become DiCaprio's norm, so it wasn't a stretch for him. There's not a great chance he'll win, anyway, so I can live with the nomination.

In the end, I think what's happening with this movie is what happens with any movie like this that critics can't figure out: Instead of just saying they don't know, they say it's great. That way they mask their ignorance. Personally, I think Scorsese missed with this one and everyone is too afraid to say so.

12 Years a Slave

I grew up in Louisiana. The best thing I've ever had to say about that is that I was not born there. Fortunately, though, in having to grow up in Louisiana, I did at least grow up in the best part of the state. Well, the least Louisiana-ish part of the state. And I went to the best high school in the state (which is still the best high school in the state the last time I checked). At the time I went there, at a time when Louisiana was ranked around 47 in education, my high school was one of the top ranked high schools in the nation. That's an aberration that no longer exists.

All of that to say that my educational experience was in no way typical of the area in which I lived and, actually, not typical to most of the nation as a whole. At least not at that time.

And all of that to say that the evils of slavery were strongly impressed upon us, and I picked up a firm belief that all men should be treated equally. At the time, I thought these things were normal for all people; it wasn't until later (only a couple or few years, actually) that I realized that a belief in equality is not a universal belief. In fact, it's a minority belief.

With all of that in mind, it was somewhat difficult to sit through 12 Years a Slave, which is set in Louisiana.

And not just set in Louisiana; being a true story, that's where it actually happened. And with that comes the acknowledgement that a lot of the beliefs displayed in the movie are still very much prevalent. That makes me sad. I mean, I grew up around people that routinely referred to unemployed African Americans as "porch monkeys" or "porch niggers" and knew plenty of people that believed "blacks" would be better off if they were still slaves.

Let me state explicitly at this point that I grew up in what was probably the least racist part of Louisiana and Louisiana is probably not the most racist state in the south, although Louisiana did do a good job of trying to elect a KKK dude as governor in the early 90s. That still horrifies me, especially so considering that David Duke got the majority of the white vote, something he claimed as a victory.

12 Years a Slave is possibly the most brutal movie about slavery I've ever seen. It's unflinching in its portrayal of the inhumanity involved in selling slaves and the attitude of them being nothing more than just, basically, livestock. This is summed up no better than a line delivered by Mistress Ford to a female slave just separated from her children, "You'll forget about your children soon enough," as if she was a dog being separated from her pups. Of course, Eliza did not forget about her children.

However, as brutal as the film is, it is very much detached from the emotion of the things that are happening in most circumstances. You see the horror, but you don't really feel it. In that, it's almost like watching a documentary. It's more clinical than visceral, a drawback for a movie like this, and I'm not sure what causes the disconnect. It's not a lack in the quality of the acting.

Chiwetel Ejiofor does a great job of bewilderment after he's kidnapped at the beginning of the movie. He make us believe in the unreality of his situation. At least, it's unreal from his perspective. Solomon Northup was, after all, born a free man and the idea that he's been taken into slavery is a bit beyond his conception. The problem, I think, with the movie overall is that Ejiofor never really seems to believe in the situation he's in. It's as if every moment he's waiting to wake up, and that may have been what made me feel removed from the action of the movie. I'm not sure that's all of it, but I know that's some of it.

Michael Fassbender, on the other hand, is completely "within" his character, Edwin Epps. Fassbender is not someone I've thought much of as an actor thus far. Not that I've thought he was bad, he's just been someone I've mostly shrugged off as, "eh, what's the big deal?" But he did a great job as Epps. He was completely believable as cruel and erratic. And Sarah Paulson, who played his wife, was wonderful(ly horrible) as his cold, bitter wife.

Many of the other actors were also quite good in their smaller roles. Giamatti, Cumberbatch, and Pitt were more than adequate, but their roles didn't require anything more of them than to be the kind of characters they frequently are. Pitt, in particular, seems to have chosen hos role specifically (he did produce it) to deliver the message he wanted to deliver, and he fit well in that part. Paul Dano was also quite good. Actually, Dano is good enough that I always have a hard time remembering who he is when I see him on screen. He seems to gravitate toward parts that are kind of slimy, but he fits so well into them, that he mostly disappears.

The most unsatisfactory part of the movie, though (and this is kind of spoilery, but, if you have any grasp of racial history in the United States, it shouldn't be anything unexpected or surprising), is the bad guys go unpunished. Of course, this is because the bad guys went unpunished, so it's more that it's an unsatisfactory part of history; no fault of the movie. It does, however, stir up feelings over the injustice of how Northup was treated. That's actually a positive aspect of the movie, because you should feel that Northup was treated unjustly. He was treated unjustly.

It was a good movie but not one that I felt was great. There's almost no way it won't get a best picture nomination, but I don't think it's going to win. I don't think it ought to win. From a movie standpoint, it was just missing... something. Something ineffable, I guess. That doesn't make it a movie you shouldn't see, though. Evidently, the message that all men should be treated equally is still a message that needs to be delivered.