BRIDGE OF SPIES: Caught Red Handed

Bridge of Spies puts the cap on my grand Spielberg retrospective. To see the reviews go here.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Matt Charman, Joel & Ethan Coen
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch
Runtime: 141 mins.
2015

Bridge of Spies reaffirms my suspicion that Spielberg is the most sneakily subversive mainstream filmmaker in the business. The story, as penned by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, follows insurance lawyer James P. Donovan (Tom Hanks) as he is tasked with defending the most reviled man in the country--a suspected Russian spy--during the height of the Cold War. Nobody ever has any doubt about the truth of this accusation. We see him doing spy stuff in the furtively filmed opening sequence. But that isn't the issue at hand. Donovan believes that as an attorney it is his job to give the defendant Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) the most capable representation possible, and for this the entire country begins to resent him, too.

I won't reveal how, but around the halfway point the movie takes an abrupt turn into more intrigue and Cold War spy business. It's a great twist, and Spielberg's grip remains tight on the narrative, though I personally preferred the front half. Sure, it was the dull courtroom drama part, but as I hinted above there is some brilliant subversive commentary about fear, media, and American culture.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD - Furiouser and Furiouser

Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton
Runtime: 120 mins.
2015

The current age of Hollywood has been defined by the resuscitation of long dead intellectual properties. Film producers have been picking through the elephants' graveyard of defunct franchises in an effort to find bankable properties that have preexisting brand recognition. The idea is that if we recognize a string of words in the title of a new product as something familiar that existed ten or twenty or thirty years ago, that's free advertising. It's treading water. It's safe.

So we've been given the dubious gifts of humongous updated versions of Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and The Evil Dead. Coming down the pipeline are new Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, Terminator, and even National Lampoon: Vacation updates. Not to mention the impending annual release of Star Wars film after Star Wars film.

These safe choice reboots elicit little more than a shrug from folks with the slightest degree of better judgment. Dipping into the pool of nostalgia just because it is relatively risk-free never produces anything worthwhile. The businessmen at the top do this because the built-in fanbases will bring in enough $$$ to turn a profit on these films regardless of quality. They aren't passion projects. They're where passion goes to die.

I can't wait for the Full House reboot.

But what about reboots that see the original creators return to the franchises they birthed decades ago? Surely there is some merit in this, surely the passion can be rekindled? Unfortunately we have seen this a few times, and we have let ourselves be excited, only to have the rug pulled from under us. George Lucas returns to Star Wars in 1999. Steven Spielberg returns to Indiana Jones in 2008. Ridley Scott returns to Alien in 2012. Crushing disappointment after crushing disappointment after crushing disappointment.

Everything mentioned above is what Mad Max: Fury Road is not. Now let me tell you what Mad Max: Fury Road is.

WE ARE THE BEST!: It's the Best

In which three young girls kick ass and take names--ideologically.

Director: Lukas Moodysson
Writer: Lukas Moodysson
Cast: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne
Runtime: 102 mins.
2014

Normally going into these things I have a structure outlined in my head, and I work through the review beat by beat. I don't have that for We Are the Best! I think, in the spirit of punk, I'll bang this one out as I go along.

We Are the Best! follows two thirteen year old girls in 1980's Sweden as they sort of fumble around from day to day, hating what they hate and loving what they love, until they happen into this idea that they should really just start their own punk band--despite having no previous musical experience. Once they recruit an unlikely third member--a young Christian girl who has years of experience on the guitar--the band starts becoming something and taking on a central importance in their lives. Meanwhile they deal with drama and trauma surrounding school, parents, and especially love interests.

More than all that, this movie is about the spirit of PUNK. And the spirit of GIRLS. And the spirit of GIRLS doing PUNK.

But more than THAT this movie is about those girls--as people.

I'm going to reiterate because that is the most important thing I can say about this movie, as it is 2014 and this sort of thing is still a revolutionary concept in cinema:

We Are the Best! treats children as though they are people. We Are the Best! treats girls as though they are people. These are two of the most egregiously uncommon achievements of contemporary film, and two reasons why We Are the Best! has to be considered one of the most incredible things to be released in 2014.

WHIPLASH: Crack That Whip

In which the protagonist's task is more challenging than getting pictures of Spider-Man.

Director: Damien Chazelle
Writer: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Miles Teller, J. K. Simmons, Paul Reiser, Melissa Benoist
107 mins.
2014

When you're young, movies have a direct line into your soul. They're like a flu shot--sometimes shocking, sometimes painful, inserting themselves into your body and altering your nervous system. Whether a child enjoys a movie or hates it is not necessarily beholden to quality or craft. Sometimes the things that make or break viewing experiences for kids can be a familiar image, or a character who talks a certain way, or the fact that the main character has a cat. This is why children can so easily watch movies with a sense of wonder, or a sense of terror, or a sense of unlimited empathy. It's also why children sometimes attach themselves to complete dreck.

As we stuff more and more movies into our craw, that sense of wonder gets calloused. We grow harder to please. We recognize obvious sentiment as obvious sentiment; tropes and cliches finally register as we see them for the seventh or twentieth time. We acquire expectations. We watch movies with our third eye open and wary. We criticize.

I just now made up that opaque reference to a third eye so let me try to explain it. One eye open picks out colors and shapes. Two eyes open situate those shapes in three-dimensional space. It would make sense that having a third eye open would situate physical objects in a greater contextual fabric, a fourth dimension if you will. That which is seen becomes important within the tapestry of time--it becomes historical, cultural, social. That third eye is our critical awareness, our consciousness of meanings and implications.

All of this speculation is totally irrelevant to Whiplash, because all I want to say about it is this:

HER: Artificial Emotional Intelligence

In which I am uncharacteristically honest and sensitive.

Director: Spike Jonze
Writer: Spike Jonze
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde
Runtime: 126 mins.
2013

I try to sound smart on my movie blog. I try to identify and engage with what I deem to be the key aspects of any given movie. I talk about things I know a little bit about, like performance or story. I talk about things I really know nothing about, like sound design or editing or cinematography. I try to be honest. But perhaps more than that I try not to sound stupid or inane.

I do this because I'm afraid of being wrong. That has always been my fear. So I try to make ironclad arguments instead of tossing out a bunch of unsystematic sensory impressions. Sometimes, during the act of watching a movie, I am already formulating what sort of points or narrative I want to craft in a potential future post.

That's probably the right tactic for a movie blog, but it's not the conversation I want to have about Her. The golden rule of criticism should be to approach a piece of art or entertainment on its own terms, and evaluate how successful it is within those parameters. As I was watching Her, it became apparent that the right way to talk about the movie would be to share how it impacted me on a personal level.

OBVIOUS CHILD: Laughing Ladies

Director: Gillian Robespierre
Writer: Gillian Robespierre
Cast: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffman, Gave Liedman, David Cross, Richard Kind, Polly Draper
Runtime: 84 mins.
2014

"It was nice to be able to enjoy a comedy movie all the way through without once feeling uncomfortable about its treatment of women."

So said one of the friends with whom I saw Obvious Child. Can you imagine that? If every single comedy film you watched made you feel not only uncomfortable, but personally attacked? As if the movie is having a joke at your expense, and you're not invited to laugh? You would have to go into every comedy film with a certain amount of trepidation, or at least wariness. You would feel like you need to become expert at shrugging it off so as not to be the wet blanket of the post-movie discussion of best lines and funniest moments; you would fail at shrugging it off.

I'm not saying that's how it is for everybody, but it's the status quo for a whole lot of women who watch comedies. Luckily there are exceptions. And if I feel like Obvious Child is a breath of fresh air, I can't even conceive how fresh and funny it must feel to its female audience.

SNOWPIERCER: Crazy Train

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Writers: Bong Joon-ho, Kelly Masterson
Cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Ko Ah-sung, John Hurt, Ed Harris, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer
Runtime: 126 mins.
2014 (2013 in South Korea)

In the online film community that I haunt, there has been a lot of rumbling about people going to the wrong movies. Or rather, that rumbling always exists, it has just been exacerbated recently by a few factors. Between the movie you came here to read about, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the excellent Edge of Tomorrow (as well as the much-hyped forthcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Mockingjay: Part 1), 2014 is turning out to be a banner year for mainstream sci-fi films--and yet, everybody and their reluctant mother is going to see the predictably steaming pile that is Transformers: Age of Indistinction.

That is why my goal in writing this particular review is to mobilize you to get out and go see Snowpiercer, a film that you likely haven't heard anything about, except perhaps snippets here and there: whispers in dark alleys, notes passed under restroom stalls, covert communiqués exchanged away from the watchful eyes of the Transformers marketing campaign.

In the world of Snowpiercer, the Earth has succumbed to a new ice age, brought about by humanity futzing with the atmosphere in an effort to counteract global warming. Now everything is dead. Cue the Snowpiercer, a massive train that contains the only remaining human life. It operates as a self-contained ecosystem that circles the entire globe once per year. All is not well on the so-called Rattling Ark, however. Our protagonists live in squalor in the tail of the train, cut off from the relative comfort and prosperity of the front-dwellers by a series of gates and armed guards. The gates only open once per day, for about four seconds, to allow the delivery of the nasty looking protein blocks that sustain the lives of the tailies. Guess what, though? Our hero, Curtis (Chris Evans), is planning a revolution! If our ragtag band of misfits can unite in order to press forward, and if they can wrest control of the Eternal Engine (that which sustains all life on the train) from the industrial despot Wilford, then they will have all the bargaining chips necessary to upset the established order.

But that's just the beginning. What sounds like a familiar plot opens out and contorts in all manner of unexpected ways--without ever leaving the cramped confines of the train.

EDGE OF TOMORROW: Fresh Repetition

Director: Doug Liman
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt
Runtime: 113 mins.
2014

What if a big budget summer blockbuster could be more than ingratiating?

What if that blockbuster didn't focus on visual effects at the expense of all else?  What if it treated every aspect of the film with respect and attention?  What if it tended to script, performance, pace, and tone in equal parts?

What if that script had a more pristine structure than some Oscar contenders?

What if this film came from a director whose filmography has been radically hit or miss?  What if it came from a team of writers who have arguably one excellent film between them--a film that came out in 1995?

What if the star was a former Grade-A man's man of a movie star, who has recently been perceived as "going off the deep end" and "box office poison"?

What if, despite the presence of said man's man movie star, the real badass of the film was the female protagonist?  What if the male protagonist was cowardly and hopelessly out of his league, and he had to learn the ropes from her?  What if the film didn't relegate her to the position of trophy girlfriend?  What if the movie didn't focus on their romance and instead allowed them to be real characters with a real, mature, and evolving relationship?

What if, in addition to all of this, the movie delivered on everything that is expected of a blockbuster action flick?  What if that delivery was a heavy dose of sci-fi and some of the haul-assed best mech action and convincing special effects this side of Avatar?

Actually I liked these effects better than Avatar's.

This is Edge of Tomorrow.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL: Tainted Laugh

Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Lea Seydoux, Bob Balaban
Runtime: 100 mins.
2014

Some of my best movie-watching experiences have been in movie theaters: the uproarious midnight showing of The Avengers; the palpable tension of Looper; the oppressive atmosphere of Sinister.  Sitting on the floor in the aisle of an empty movie theater during Gravity and getting lost in space.  Experiencing The Dark Knight in IMAX.  Hating every moment of Knowing.

"Movie theaters are fun" is certainly no groundbreaking statement, but I think it's one we have to think about and reaffirm every so often now that the way we consume entertainment is shifting drastically.  At any rate, I was more than pleased at having the opportunity to see Wes Anderson's new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, this past Saturday with a few friends.  We had the movie theater experience, and we had it hard.

AMERICAN HUSTLE: Neither Profundity Nor Moribundity

Director: David O. Russell
Writers: Eric Singer, David O. Russell
Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K.
Runtime: 138 mins.
2013

American Hustle lives in the endlessly entertaining realm of smart cinema, breezing past clever and falling short of intelligent.  It never even brushes its gaudy sleeves against profound, but the good thing is it never tries.

Our heroes are Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), lovers and small-time con artists who get nabbed by F.B.I. agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper).  They make a deal to participate in a sting that, thanks to DiMaso's wild and dangerous impulses for glory, spirals into a situation too big for our savvy con artists to handle.  Irving's ditzy, manipulative wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is a wild card who only complicates matters.  Through all of this, the characters struggle to find something real and genuine in love and friendship despite the constant subterfuge.  But the plot isn't really what's important here.