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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.7

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<dl dt_class="field"> The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0421715/">6/10</a> An F. Scott Fitzgerald story directed by David Fincher and starring Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Julia Ormond sounded great on paper. It was a good movie, although at 2:45 a bit long, with many interleaving vignettes and stories from the lead character's life. Benjamin Button is a man who was born old and lives his life backward. The filming and plot reminded me of <i>Forrest Gump</i> with Pitt playing Gump and Blanchett playing "Jenny". Pitt even says "Mama" all the time, in almost the same accent. I'm kind of ambivalent. I won't recommend it, but won't tell you to stay away, either. 50/50 (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1306980/">7/10</a> Joseph Gordon Levitt is Adam, a young man with cancer. Seth Rogen is, for once, in a very sympathetic role, playing a very good friend. Anna Kendrick plays his therapist and Anjelica Huston is fantastic in a supporting role as his mother. When Huston meets Adam's therapist, she just stares at her without saying anything and you can see the thoughts racing. Is this a potential mate? What did my son tell this lady about me? All without a word spoken. The movie is decent and is some of Rogen's best work. What is it with Rogen's predilection with co-stars who never open their eyes beyond tiny slits? All in all, recommended. The Graduate (1967) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061722/">6/10</a> <div>Dustin Hoffman is a college track star who becomes the target of Anne Bancroft's amorous designs. The famous seduction scene is actually an attempted rape. We're trained to think that a woman treating a young man this way is doing him a great favor, but that's only because she's attractive (although not to him; he consistently refuses her advances). If the tables were turned and an older man were so aggressive with a 20-year--old woman, we wouldn't find the scene nearly as funny. The affair fails to spark on the first attempt, but he soon calls her and they meet up again in a hotel. You can see future echoes of <i>Rainman</i> in Hoffman. That is, once you've seen this movie, you have no trouble believing that a casting director would call Hoffman to play a severely autistic man. Katharine Ross is absolutely lovely and plays Mrs. Robinson's daughter. Ben's parents<fn> pressure him into dating Elaine, he treats her like utter crap and they hit it off. Of course. Mrs. Robinson is upset and threatens to spill the beans. Ben spills them first. This only temporarily stills Elaine's ardor for Ben. Because he's persistent, right? It's not stalking because it's the 60s, right? It's adorable because he's short? Maybe because his prospects as an entitled, nouveau-riche loafer are unlimited? Enough pestering and Elaine starts to take Ben's proposals seriously. And the whole "I fucked your Mom" thing is, for him, "in the past". This makes him the perfect representative of our culture, 50 years later. The person who slept with Mrs. Robinson is someone else, a perpetrator of an act for which the current-day Ben is not responsible. Then he breaks into a house because of course he does. This movie is about an amoral psychotic stalker with no notion of consequences---like a child. Perhaps that was the point of this film? That the entitled sons of elites are broken by design? Elaine finds this break-in attractive---perhaps she's also broken?---and abandons her other man at the altar and runs away with the entitled man-child. Mrs. Robinson gets a few sharp licks in, but they're not evident on Elaine's face, fortunately. The Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, while famous and somewhat appropriate, is irritating. Simon and Garfunkel are nearly objectively terrible. The movie is filmed quite well, but hard to recommend.</div> Red Dragon (2002) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289765/">8/10</a> Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as Hannibal Lecter in this prequel to <iq>The Silence of the Lambs</iq>. Ed Norton plays his FBI foil in the hunt for the "The Tooth Fairy"---Francis Dolarhyde---expertly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. The Tooth Fairy stalks his prey by watching their family video tapes and meticulously planning their denouements. He is interested in capturing their essence so that he may "become" the Red Dragon, depicted many decades ago by painter William Blake. Dolarhyde even goes to the museum where the original painting resides and eats it. He clearly has issues. Emily Watson is very good as Dolarhyde's blind girlfriend, who almost but not quite succeeds in saving him from himself. A well-made and well-paced psychological thriller with good acting all around. Recommended. The Final Cut (2004) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/">6/10</a> The underlying premise of this movie is of a world in which people have "Zoë" implants, which record every moment of a person's life. When someone with such an implant dies, a "cutter" is engaged to make the "final cut" of a person's life, for their "Rememory" ceremony. The first hour was quite good, but then it kind of sprinted to the finish. Robin Williams was good in the lead; Mira Sorvino was wasted. Still, recommended for the first hour and the concept was interesting. The Hundred-foot Journey (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2980648/">7/10</a> A well-made movie based on the book. Just as in the book, the film gets quite rocky about halfway through. The pretty Marguerite is portrayed as a woman who can only befriend an Indian man when she is certain of her superiority, when she knows that he poses no threat to her life. She comes out looking just as petty as all of the other French people in the movie, which is a bit heavy-handed but not too disturbing. Hassan rockets to fame, wins over the mean lady, gets her a Michelin star, takes Paris by storm, gets his own Michelin stars, then returns to the village to open a restaurant with Marguerite and his family and everyone lives happily ever after (with lots of Michelin stars, which is what's important here). Helen Mirren is, as always, a pleasure. She is nicely balanced by Om Puri and Manish Dayal as Papa and Hassan, respectively. Recommended. Magic in the Moonlight (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2870756/">7/10</a> This latest entry from Woody Allen features Colin Firth as an incorrigible skeptic and rationalist and Emma Stone as a psychic medium. It was obvious that there was a scam going on, but it wasn't obvious whose scam it was. I thought it was Firth in cahoots with Stone when it was his friend who was in cahoots with her, getting his revenge on Firth, who'd rubbed his superiority in his friend's face since they were children. In the end, though, Firth gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after. Lovely scenery and a lighthearted story; both Stone and Firth are very good. It's not Allen's best by a long shot, but it's fun. Recommended. American Graffiti (1973) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069704/">5/10</a> <div>This is a movie about how a bunch of just-graduated high-school--age kids spend a single night in the dog days of the summer of '62 in Modesto, California. They do what kids do, they try to score booze and they fight over girls and they cruise and try to race cars and they basically spend all evening doing stupid stuff and it's supposed to be significant because they don't know any better. One couple breaks up because he wants to do it and she doesn't is only made somewhat saucy by an offhand comment he makes about a story she once told him about watching her brother, for which she throws him out of the car with extreme prejudice. My interest is short-lived as the movie careers toward the expected ending of everyone getting back together and everything working out for everyone, except of course for the guy whose car gets wrecked but at least the guy he was racing can go on thinking that he's the best guy in the world because he's the fastest guy in high school. I recognized Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard. It felt like a cross between <i>Dazed and Confused</i> and <i>Stand By Me</i>. Not recommended unless you grew up in the fifties or early sixties, in which case the movie is probably nostalgic as hell.</div> Enter the Void (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1191111/">6/10</a> <div>What the hell did I just watch? In a sentence, it's the story of a reincarnation. This movie tells the story of a young man living in Tokyo with his sister. He is a drug dealer; she is an exotic dancer. They drifted to Tokyo because that's where their parents once told them that they would move, just before they were killed in a horrific and graphically depicted traffic accident. The brother and sister spent many years separated by the foster-care system and---once reunited in a way that had more than just overtones inappropriate to a fraternal relationship---they ended up there. We see this all in a nearly dialogue-free series of flashbacks from the point of view of the brother and then his soul, after he is killed in a drug deal gone bad. Scenes from their childhood are interleaved with a patchwork of scenes from just before and just after his death, with repetition for different viewpoints. There is also a healthy dose (no pun intended) of very trippy, psychedelic camera work. The sound is muffled and the ethereal soundtrack is omnipresent. It's an interesting concept and reasonably well-done---and it's obvious that the director put his heart and soul into it and believes in the concept, which is what keeps you watching---but at two hours and forty minutes, it's almost unbearably long. Paz de la Huerta hates clothes, if you're into that. Actually, nobody really wears clothes for the last twenty minutes or so, but it's highly trippy and emotionally distanced. Not recommended.</div> Lucy (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/">6/10</a> It's the Scarlett Johansson show and she stars as a sad-sack student who gets caught up in a drug deal with a nasty new drug. Morgan Freeman plays the most token role I've seen him play yet, as a scientist who specializes in people with advanced abilities born of being able to use more than 10% of their minds. This is patently ridiculous, but Luc Besson does his best with it, depicting Lucy progressing her way up the evolutionary ladder in 10% increments until she becomes God at 100%. A reasonably fun romp but not really recommended. Big Night (1996) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115678/">8/10</a> <div>Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub play Italian brothers---named Primo and Secondo---with a restaurant in New Jersey that is on the verge of closing because they cook authentic Italian food and the customers are sparse and mostly <iq>Philistines</iq> (as Tony Shalhoub says). Isabella Rosellini plays Tucci's wife, who's onto the fact that he also has Minnie Driver as a girlfriend. Ian Holm plays a rival restaurateur who promises to help out by delivering Louis Prima to the "big night". Liev Schreiber even shows up for a little while. It's nicely filmed and well-acted, with dialogue in English and Italian with English subtitles. Fun soundtrack, too. The scene of destruction at the end of the big meal, just before the "Dolci" is wonderful, reminiscent of almost something like <i>The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover</i>, with a long, lingering shot of the table. The final scene is beautiful and (almost) without words, as Secondo cooks an omelet for the waiter, scooping out a third for him and a third for himself. Minutes later, Primo walks in. Secondo says nothing, but gets him a plate and fork, scoops the remaining third into a plate and sets a place for him. Secondo thinks for a second, then drags a chair over, next to his brother, and begins to eat. He puts an arm around him. The waiter leaves. Fin. Nothing has changed and they will pick up the fight for another day. Recommended.</div> Freeway (1996) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116361/">4/10</a> A take on "Little Red Riding Hood" that stars Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland. Brooke Shields plays Sutherland's wife, Mimi Wolverton. (Get it?) It alternated between creepy and really not very good. Kiefer Sutherland is terrible; Witherspoon is OK in some scenes. Not recommended. One Hour Photo (2002) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265459/">7/10</a> Robin Williams plays a photo developer at a local big-box store. He is wound up <i>really</i> tight, becoming obsessed with a young family, particularly the mother. He makes copies of their pictures and hangs them on his wall in a gigantic mosaic. When he discovers from other pictures that the woman's husband is cheating on him, he snaps and vows revenge on him. The first step is to get the pictures into his obsession's hands. Then he goes to the hotel where the husband and his lover are having a tryst and he attacks them, forcing them into lurid positions while he takes pictures. Williams is brilliant, inhabiting the role. Recommended. The Bank Job (2008) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200465/">6/10</a> This is a heist movie starring Jason Statham, based on the supposedly true story of the 1971 Baker Street Robbery. A private bank in London is the target and Statham and his "gang" (quotes because they're very low-level and inexperienced) are hired through a front by very well-connected politicians looking to keep the contents of one of the boxes from ever seeing the light of day. So they stage a robbery to cover up what will be the real theft. Statham and his gang are not in on this and are in no way interested in this part of the heist. They turn the tables, discover the pictures, find even more pictures, bargain with and blackmail everyone involved and live happily ever after. Statham does almost <i>no</i> ass-kicking in this one, so look elsewhere if you're looking for that kind of thing. It was OK, but the only thing recommending it is Statham. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2278388/">8/10</a> <div>Every time I see a Wes Anderson film, I think that that movie is the ultimate expression of Mr. Anderson, that there is no way to make a film more "Wes Anderson". For example, <i>Moonrise Kingdom</i> was one such. This latest installment in the long-running series of quietly zany films starring quirky characters has an unbelievable number of big names: Ed Norton, Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman (no surprise there) and a handful of other familiar faces. Perhaps the summation of the lead character played by Fiennes applies equally well to Anderson himself: <bq>To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it - but, I will say: he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace!</bq></div> Happy People -- A Year in the Taiga (2010) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1683876/">7/10</a> This Werner Herzog documentary follows the lives of a few hunters and trappers in the deep Siberian Taiga throughout a whole year. It is a cold, solitary existence. These people---and their dogs---are incredibly resilient, hardy. Herzog explains with typically Herzogian wonder how a dog runs 100 miles without having eaten for more than a day. The dog prances up after having paced a snowmobile the whole way and jogs into the cabin. Amazing. Not one of Herzog's best but interesting nonetheless. Inequality for All (2013) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2215151/">8/10</a> <div> This Robert Reich documentary focuses on the increase in inequality in the U.S. since 1980, analyzing the effects, the reasons behind it, the winners, the losers, the logic behind it and possibly ways out of it. It discusses in clear terms the real problem with concentrated wealth from a macroeconomic standpoint viz. that the rich don't spend very much of their income relative to the size of that income, which is overall a bad thing for the economy. Money and liquidity pools in a few hands and doesn't get re-used. Restaurants don't stay open if either everyone is too poor to eat there or they have more than enough money to eat there but can only eat dinner once per day. <bq>Big companies are designed <i>not</i> to generate good jobs in the United States. Big companies are designed to make profits. This isn't a matter of fault. You know, the head of GE is on the president's Jobs Council. Well, GE has been creating more jobs abroad than it's been creating jobs in the United States. So who is taking care of the American worker? Who is looking out for the American worker as GE and other big companies and Wall Street and the very wealthy, who basically have capital all over the world [...] As they have more and more political power, who is actually working in a way in Washington and in state capitals that improves the well-being of the American workforce? The answer is <i>nobody</i>.</bq> How did people cope then? First, women went to work because they had to. A single salary no longer supported a family. Then, people started working longer hours, multiple jobs. After that? Debt. Amass debt to keep your head above water when your salaries no longer suffice. As he shows in a diagram, this is a response to the cycle of: <ul> Wages stagnate Workers buy less Companies downsize Tax revenues decrease Government cuts programs Workers are less educated Unemployment rises Deficits grow Wages stagnate, etc. </ul> In such a society, it makes absolutely no sense from a societal standpoint to allow large amounts of wealth to be concentrated into a few hands that don't do anything with it---that can't realistically do anything with it---other than use it to make even more money. It's wasteful and monstrous. If everyone else was doing fine and the extremely wealthy were still a natural outgrowth? Fine. But think of it like this: if a plane crashed and there were 50 survivors. How would the other forty-nine feel about the one guy who managed to wake up first and collect all of the food for himself, declaring that they would have to buy their supplies from him? How well would such a society work, do you think? What would you do? Highly recommended.</div> Lost in La Mancha (2002) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308514/">6/10</a> This is a documentary about just one of Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempts to film <i>The Man who Killed Don Quixote</i>, an adaptation of the famous book. The film was beset by problems, not least of which were scheduling with the principals, capturing the scope of Gilliam's vision within a budget that was far too tight and, finally, the ill-health of the Jean Rochefort, the man who was to play Don Quixote. The film was tantalizingly close, with several scenes filmed that showed that Gilliam was making something special. According to Wikipedia, he made no less than seven separate attempts to make this movie. Happily, it seems that just in November of 2014, he has, once again, obtained funding and will have éminence grise John Hurt in the lead role. Fingers crossed! Saw it in English, French and Spanish with Italian subtitles. The Zero Theorem (2013) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2333804/">9/10</a> <div>Terry Gilliam's latest film is another futuristic vision, about a confusing world filled with distraction and nonsensical ephemera. The world is much like what ours today would probably look like to a traveler from the 50s. Video advertisements chase you down the street. The park has a gigantic X composed of "do not" signs, forbidding everything from food and drink to pets and what looks like bat-girl. Christoph Waltz plays a programmer of some sort, Qohen, employed by a faceless corporation to design "entities". He is dissatisfied with his lot in life and wishes only to be able to stay at home, an abandoned-looking church with his own more subdued technology scattered about. There is no doubt at all that this is a Gilliam film, with shades of CGI-enhanced Brazil about it. There are also callbacks to other Gilliam movies, especially near the end, where reality becomes ... squishy. The shaking doors letting in cracks of light reminded me of the rampaging Samurai in <i>Fisher King</i>. The costumes are wonderfully low-tech, but mixed with CGI backgrounds. Melanie Thierry plays a woman inordinately fascinated with Qohen and Matt Damon, Peter Stormare and Tilda Swinton round out the indy flavor. David Thewlis plays Qohen's boss. Qohen's request to be able to work at home is granted by Management (Damon) but only if he works on the Zero Theorem, something that's driven others mad or off the job. Thewlis shows Qohen to his new office, in what looks like an apse dominated by a gigantic, ducted and wholly Gillianesque (if not a bit Quake III-ish or Biohazard-y) supercomputer rearing spire-ward out of a moat of coolant. As ever, when Gilliam manages to project what his inner eye sees, it's a delight. The visualization of programming is also fascinating: we see Qohen constructing a formula by flying around 3-D blocks with formulae on them and slotting them in where they're supposed to go. As the camera pulls back, we see that the task is not as simple as it at first appeared: the possible slots for each block are nearly infinite, a 3-D landscape fractal in nature. It is in this wonderfully non-expository way that Gilliam lets us know that Qohen is brilliant. Christopher Nolan also makes nice movies but God love him, he would have just had another character describe Qohen's brilliance. And still, the project takes its toll on Qohen. He drives himself forward, programming despite his inability to move forward without taking steps back. Sleep-deprived, badly nourished, he is the epitome of a developer, of a scientist slavishly pursuing his goal, but without organization or good work habits. Help shows up in the form of management's son, a hotshot programmer who <iq>can sprint, but can't go the distance</iq>, as he puts it. He's played well by Lucas Hedges, who reminds me for all the world of a young Anthony Michael Hall. He and Qohen close in on the Zero Theorem. The software interfaces are pure Gilliam---Qohen types URLs into the address bar with what looks like an IBM Selectric ball hovering over it, as a simulated read-head. More help is sent in the form of Bainsley, an online virtual-reality cam-girl enchantingly played by Melanie Thierry. Her plea for him to run away with her illustrates another instance of Gilliam's mastery of "show, don't tell". At the beginning of the film, he reiterates that he doesn't like to be touched; by the time she pleads with him, she is leaning all over him, her face against the back of his head, her hand on his cheek, all without complaint from him. Damon's Management clues Qohen in, at the end, in a speech that reminded me of his Loki character from <i>Dogma</i> or perhaps also a bit of Will in <i>Good Will Hunting</i>. <bq>The saddest aspect of mankind's need to believe in God, or to put it another way, a purpose greater than this life, is that it makes this life meaningless. You see this is all just a way-station on the road to some promised eternity.</bq> Highly recommended. </div> The Big White (2005) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402850/">7/10</a> <div>Set in Alaska, this movie feels kind of like an even wackier version of Fargo, if you can imagine that. The scenery is spectacular; you feel cold just watching it. The cinematography is playful; for example, at one point a car drives past with a red shark fin sticking up past the top of the snowbank. It turns out to be an upended surfboard. Robin Williams finds a body in a dumpster and takes it upon himself to dispose of it, claiming that it was his long-missing brother. His wife, played by Holly Hunter, is a little...off. She swear a lot and seems to have self-control issues, but she's cute and she's funny. Williams's attempts at disposal become increasingly desperate. Giovanni Ribisi plays an insurance adjuster who's highly suspicious of Williams's claim to his brother's insurance policy. Alison Lohman plays his psychic-hotline wife. The cops and characters reminded me a lot of the quirkiness of <i>Northern Exposure</i>. Robin Williams is great as a sad sack who's just trying to scrape together enough money to help his wife (who has problems but almost certainly doesn't have Tourrette syndrome, as she claims). <bq><b>Williams:</b> I had to borrow money to pay for this coffin. <b>Ribisi:</b>: Well, you're breaking my heart, Mr. Barnell. <b>Williams:</b>: I doubt that.</bq> Tim Blake Nelson is one of the killers who comes looking for the body. He kidnaps Williams's wife and then starts counseling her on her fake Tourette's Syndrome. Woody Harrelson plays the long-lost brother, back from the "dead" once he sniffs out that a life-insurance policy was paid. It gets complicated, stays quirky and is all resolved in a more-or-less satisfactory manner in the end. Recommended.</div> Requiem for a Dream (2000) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/">9/10</a> <div>tl;dr: Drugs are bad. More precisely, addiction is bad. This film is the story of a mother (Ellen Burstyn), her son (Jared Leto), his girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and his best friend (Marlon Wayans). Nice, huh? Spoiler alert: the film ends with the mother strapped to a bed in a mental hospital, withdrawing from a severe amphetamine addiction, the son lies in a hospital, his left arm amputated because of a festering needle wound, the best friend on a work gang in prison, suffering beatings and malnutrition and the girlfriend curled up on her couch at home, cuddling her scag, earned by performing in a private sex show for her new pimp. The mother never quite recovered from the death of her husband and the son isn't around enough to take care of her. She spends her days watching a self-help guru's (Christopher McDonald) infomercial. She gets an invitation to the show but can't fit into her dress. She resolves to lose weight by the time she gets her actual invitation. After a day spent trying it the old-fashioned way, she makes an appointment with a diet doctor and starts her downward spiral. The son and his friends are already well on their way, shucking and jiving for enough money to buy a stash for the night. They resolve to follow the junkie dream: they pool their cash and start selling instead of just using everything they have. This actually works OK for a while, but the friend is busted by the cops on a deal and the money they've saved is used for bail and nearly gone in one fell swoop. The son and his girlfriend predictably fight over the lack of drugs and he heads out with his friend to Florida to make a big score. She can't wait that long and calls a dealer who wants women rather than money in exchange for drugs. The plotting is straightforward, but the shooting is interesting, making use of repeated quick shots---taking a pill, the various stages of preparing a shot of heroin, pupils dilating---to show the passage, and sameness, of time. Saw the director's cut; recommended, but not for the faint of heart.</div> Movie 43 (2013) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333125/">8/10</a> This is less of a movie and more of a collection of high--production-quality skits starring brand-name actors. The list of well-known actors and actresses is very long. The best skits star Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant playing Truth or Dare on a blind date. Another stars Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman on another blind date, where he has an obvious deformity that only she notices. Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler and Seann William Scott catch a leprechaun. Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell and John Hodgman are superheroes at a speed-dating evening. Emma Stone is fantastic as a customer who flirts with a supermarket cashier played by Kieran Culkin. Aasif Mandvi, Richard Gere, Jack McBrayer and Kate Bosworth are at a marketing meeting, trying to fine-tune the iBabe. Elizabeth Banks and Josh Duhamel are in a twisted segment starring live-action--cartoon Beezel, a dirty, filthy cat who hates the girlfriend. I saw the alternative version, which doesn't include "The Pitch" but does include "The Thread". The skits are pretty professionally done and were quite funny. It's certainly not for everyone, but I recommend it. The Interview (2014) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/">7/10</a> Seth Rogen and James Franco play writer/director Aaron Rapaport and star Dave Skylark, respectively, of a sensationalist TV-interview show. It turns out that President Kim of North Korea is a huge fan of the show and wants to be interviewed for it. Before they can leave, they are approached by the CIA in the form of Agent Lacey (played by Lizzy Caplan), who wants them to use the interview as an opening to kill the president of North Korea, for all of the usual stupid reasons. To its credit, the movie does discuss the hypocrisy of the U.S.'s policy but also emphasizes that North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship. It's a comedy, though, not a political film, so that it wasn't too jingoistic---and that they, spoiler alert, didn't end up killing him, but humiliating him instead---meant it was easy to focus on the for-once decent acting and funny script. This is no <i>This is the End</i>; it's actually recommended. Slavoj Žižek: The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2152198/">9/10</a> <div>This is a very good movie starring preëminent philosopher Slavoj Žižek discussing ideology for two hours. He uses examples from movies to show how insidious prevailing ideology is---either overtly or very often, subtly pushing a powerful ideological agenda while superficially negating a weaker one. These are the films that purport to be radical or "edgy" but still kowtow to the deeper ideologies in our culture, those that almost no-one dares to question. Highly recommended. Here's an example. If you like this kind of philosophy, then you'll love this movie. If you can't figure out why I would select this quote, then you should probably skip it. <bq>I think Breyvik's manifesto is well worth reading. It's palpably clear there how this violence that Breyvik not only theorized about but also enacted is a reaction to the impenetrability and confusion of global capital. It's exactly like Travis Bickle's killing spree at the end of <i>Taxi Driver</i>. When he's there, barely alive, he symbolically with his fingers, points a gun at his own head---clear signs that all of this violence was basically suicidal. On the right path, in a way, Travis, in the <i>Taxi Driver</i>. You should have the outburst of violence, you should direct it at yourself, but in a very specific way: at what in yourself chains you, ties you to the ruling ideology.</bq></div> Silent Running (1972) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/">7/10</a> <div>Bruce Dern plays Lowell, an environmentalist serving out his eighth year on a spaceship with giant biomes attached to it. He crews with three morons who don't care anything for the forest. They just want to return to the now-homogenized and fully tamed Earth. They are ordered by command to destroy the biomes and return to Earth, a prospect at which the three are overjoyed. Lowell cannot abide it and kills the others and steals the ship, heading out past Saturn. He befriends his robots, still missing humanity but transforming the robots into new friends. When he comes back into range of Earth, he realizes what he must do: he has already lost one robot and another is severely damaged. He jettisons the entire biome with the remaining healthy robot as its steward, to keep it from being destroyed by humanity. He blows himself, the damaged robot (Huey) and the entire rest of the ship up. This prescient film predates <i>Star Wars</i> by several years but already had the long, silent shots of gigantic space-cruisers and also the anthropomorphized robots. There were several scenes that <i>Interstellar</i> lifted almost wholesale. For example, Lowell is also a wanderer who has essentially left mankind, like Cooper in <i>Interstellar</i>. He befriends his robots in a similar fashion, even attempting a repair in the same way that Cooper does. This is a terribly sad movie---particularly the interactions with the robots as they mourn one of their own or when another must be left to fend on his own---but recommended.</div> Scarface (1983) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/">8/10</a> <div>This is the story of a Cuban immigrant, part of the so-called "Cuban crime wave" that arrived in Miami. Al Pacino plays Tona Montana, a low-level thug with aspirations, almost no education, less mercy and a bull-headed take-no-prisoners attitude. He's dangerously mean but ruthlessly efficient, clawing his way almost easily up the crime-world ladder in Miami. It's directed by Brian DePalma and written by Oliver Stone and amazingly brought to life by Al Pacino. The movie is otherwise packed with stars: F. Murray Abraham, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Loggia and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Montana rises higher and higher, becoming more and more addicted to cocaine (breaking the second rule of dealing) and more and more suspicious that everyone's trying to screw him over or take his money. He grows his business in order to avoid having to deal with anybody. It's still amazing to see someone inhabit a role like Pacino. Here he is talking to his wife, <bq>You got nothing to do with your life, man. Why don't you get a job? Do something, be a nurse. Work with blind kids, lepers, that kind of thing. Anything beats you waiting around all day, waiting for me to fuck you, I'll tell you that.</bq> And here's what he tells the cop who busts him on the RICO ACT, delivered with utterly dead eyes. <bq>You wanna waste my time? Okay. I call my lawyer. He's the best lawyer in Miami. He's such a good lawyer, that by tomorrow morning, you gonna be working in Alaska. So dress warm.</bq> And this speech, delivered after Pfeiffer has left him publicly at a restaurant, filmed in a single-shot as he slowly leaves the restaurant. <bq>What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what's that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way.</bq> By the time of his famous denouement, he has lost everything, done every terrible thing, lost everything. For his one good decision---he called off a hit because it would have killed children---he is chastised by his partner as <iq>a little monkey</iq>. He is a man with everything, but nothing left to lose. He is a stupid, simple man ruled by simplistic rules and overarching passions---no-one can ever be with his sister, for example---and he ruins everything he touches. His wife has left him, he has no legacy, no son, his former partner is going to war with him, he just shot his best friend to death and his sister and mother both hate him. He seems happiest when he can let everything go and succumb to the mindless rage. In the end, the rage and the cocaine combine to make him a minor god, impervious to pain and bullets. At least for a little while. Recommended. </div> Haywire (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1506999/">6/10</a> I watched this movie despite the low rating on IMDb because of the all-star cast: Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Ewan Mcgregor, Michael Douglas and Michael Fassbender with Gina Carano as relatively believable super-agent, all directed by Steven Soderbergh. I have a feeling that he had a contractual obligation, though, because while it was utterly clear that he'd filmed it---even the soundtrack felt familiar---it kind of felt like he phoned it in. There are long, well-choreographed fight scenes (although Gina's head is cut off in several shots, when the stunt-double took over) but there are also long chase scenes. Plus points, though, for at least showing people getting tired during ridiculously long fight scenes. Also for making them start the fights violently and surprisingly in order to finish them quickly. Minus points for not finishing them quickly. Plus points for showing her putting on make-up to cover up the bruises she would have definitely received. Also for not making the heroine more emotional about finishing a fight without a drawn-out confession, etc. Minus points for making her destination when running from everyone her Daddy. Plus for making extensive use of choke-holds, leg-locks and arm-bars, but minus for not ever hitting anyone in the nuts. It passes the time; recommended if you're the kind who needs to see every Bourne-esque action movie. King Solomon's Mines (1985) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089421/">3/10</a> If you've already seen <i>The Quest</i> and all of the Indiana Jones movies as well as all of the <i>Mummy</i> movies, then this one will fit right in. It stars Richard Chamberlain as Allan Quartermain, a real-life British civil engineer, portrayed here as an adventurer-for-hire. Sharon Stone plays the femme fatale and John Rhys-Davies plays the same role he always plays in this type of movie. The map in this movie is the same as in <i>Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</i>: you follow along the <iq>fertile valley</iq> until you get to the <iq>breasts of Sheba</iq>. On the other hand, they totally copied the drop-ceiling trap from <i>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</i>. I'd seen this movie a few times when I was younger and had fond memories of it. They don't, unfortunately, hold up. The scene in the biplane is just painfully bad---and Sharon Stone can't act her way out of a paper bag. Either that, or she's deliberately spoofing this kind of terrible movie? It's honestly hard to tell. What is clear is the Euro-centrism that had previously escaped me. When they get to the mines, they find the gallery of queens. They are all white. In Africa. Not recommended. Snowpiercer (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/">9/10</a> <div>This movie is about a world that froze. It froze because humanity released a chemical to counteract global warming and the geo-engineering was far more efficacious, far more aggressive, than expected. The only humans left are on a bullet train that travels the frozen wastes, a microcosm of humanity, with the elite at the front, dining on steak, and the dregs at the back, under draconian police rule and subsisting on protein bars. Chris Evans and Jamie Bell star as the protagonists. The world on the train, at least at the back of the train is nearly a uniform gray. The color palette makes Quake II look like Pokemon. This is in stark contrast to the vivid yellow coat worn by the first denizen of the front of the train that we encounter. These people don't speak a word but they are portrayed as the purest evil, not even considering those at the back of the train as human. She's just shopping for a child of the appropriate size. As punishment for insubordination, the brutally cold outside world is used. A man's arm is stuck outside to be frozen off. Tilda Swinton uses the time to deliver a speech. She is, as usual, perfect, delivering lines like <iq>you suffer from the misplaced optimism of the doomed</iq> with aplomb, though they make no sense. John Hurt is also very, very good, showing up as a man without an arm and a leg and having clearly been an agitator in the past (because the aforementioned limbs had been frozen off, we are led to believe).<fn> It also stars my favorite Korean actor, Kang-ho Song, who plays a totally cool badass who knows how to get through the train. There's a lot of symbolism, with the initial revolt coming when the back of the train realizes that the guards <iq>have no bullets</iq>. It's also beautiful when they see sunlight for the first time, looking out a window that they don't have in their own section. The train measures time by its transit around the tracks; new year is when they pass a particular bridge in the orbit around the world. The train blasts frozen chunks of ice out of the way; everything stops for this, even the protracted axe-battle. And then the tunnel disadvantages the side without night-vision goggles. There's a clue where the movie is headed when Swinton's Mason says of the reason that they only serve sushi from the aquarium twice per year: <bq>Enough is not the criterion. Balance. You see, this aquarium is a closed ecological system. And, um, the number of individual units must be very closely, precisely controlled, in order to maintain the proper, sustainable balance.</bq> Basically: it's nothing personal but if we don't treat most of the people like animals, the train's ecology can't survive. The kindergarten indoctrination scene was really well-done. Still, lessons about closed systems aside, ... fuck those guys. If the only way to maintain humanity is to subjugate most of it, then let's all watch the world burn. And the scenes of decadence become more obscene the further forward they go. At the final gate, at the head of the train, Chris Floyd tells his story of how the "tail section" started out, a tale of woe and heroism straight out of a concentration camp. <bq>You ever been to the tail section? Do you have any idea what went on back there? When we boarded? It was chaos. Yeah, we didn't freeze to death, but we didn't have time to be thankful. Wilford's soldiers came and they took everything. A thousand people in an iron box. No food, no water... After a month, we ate the weak... You know what I hate about myself? I know what people taste like. I know that babies taste best... There was a woman. She was hiding with her baby. And some men with knives came. They killed her and they took her baby. And then an old man-no relation, just an old man-stepped forward and he said, "Give me the knife." And everyone thought he'd kill the baby himself. But he took the knife and he cut off his arm. And he said, "Eat this, if you're so hungry. Eat this, just leave the baby." I had never seen anything like that. And the men put down their knives... You've probably guessed who that old man was. That baby was Edgar. And I was the man with the knife. I killed Edgar's mother</bq> And finally we meet Wilford, the owner of the train, God of this little world. He reveals that the insurrections are just exciting ways of culling population, that the current uprising had been planned to end in the dark tunnel, after which the remainder of tail-section would have had much more room to live. He reveals that Gilliam was working with Wilford, despite his heroic sacrifice in the citation above. We learn that the train needs a driver. Ed Harris as Wilford also holds forth on the train society, a microcosm of our own, seemingly channeling his role from <i>The Truman Show</i>, <bq>We need to maintain a proper balance of anxiety and fear, chaos and horror in order to keep life going. And if we don't have that, we need to invent it.</bq> This and other themes are quite nicely addressed in a way that draws many more people in than would otherwise consider such advanced philosophical notions of how we live, why we live and what can legitimately be done about it. Whose lives are important? Do you risk losing it all because of an injustice? (E.g. do the tail-enders revolt, possibly destroying the world, just to keep the front-enders from living off of them?) The technique of reducing the entire world to just the train makes it much easier to see these problems in stark contrast, unlike when the exact same situation prevails at the global level. Showing the revelers partying and living large in <i>the next car over</i> makes the injustice much more obvious, in a way that people have trouble seeing in their own world. There are concessions to more mainstream thinking, though. It's only when "the children" are threatened that people are actually incensed about human suffering. And the ending had to rescue the hope for humanity, whereas the entire rest of the film pointed to the hopelessness of it all. A pity, because an ending showing the train's carcass becoming slowly engulfed in snowdrifts would have been much more apropos. Still, kudos for great actors, a great script, making viewers think and for daring to make such a good sci-fi, action and philosophically and politically relevant film. Highly recommended. </div> Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story (2007) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0841046/">8/10</a> This biographical movie stars John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, a musician whose career inexplicably spanned decades, several musical styles, wives, children and musical collaborators. John C. Reilly really carries the film, which feels much less like a spoof than I expected. It was a great, funny fake documentary about a musician that never was, but stands as an amalgamation of the last 50 years of rock music. Much better than expected. Pretty good music, all performed by the more than capable John C. Reilly. Recommended. </dl> <hr> <ft>I just realized that Hoffman's father in this movie is Higgins from <i>Magnum P.I.</i>.</ft> <ft>And, with the beard, it's utterly evident why Terry Gilliam chose him as his Quixote in his latest attempt at filming that book</ft>