F.I.L.M. of the Week (January 13, 2012)

13 01 2012

If you’ve been wowed by “The Artist,” no doubt you wondered where the dream team of writer-director Michel Hazanavicius, actor Jean Dujardin, and actress Bérénice Bejo came from … and maybe you even wondered where you could get more.  Well, thankfully for the Americans who are discovering their abundant charm, the three of them have teamed up before in “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”  As a parody of James Bond and other entries into the super-spy genre, it’s a spot-on tongue-in-cheek take to remember.

Dujardin, often said to be the French equivalent of George Clooney, stars as Hubert Bonissieur de la Bath – code name OSS 117.  In 1955, he’s sent to investigate the death of fellow agent and close (perhaps too close) friend Jack in Cairo, where he stumbles into a web of international espionage involving Egyptians, British, Russians, and Nazis with a very personal score to settle.  He also has to deal with women fawning all over him, including his femme fatale escort Larmina El Akmar Betouche, played with charm by Bejo.  Together, and at times separately, they work to get to the bottom of Jack’s murder with intrigue and hilarity following them always.

Hazanavicius is an incredibly astute observer of style, and much like “The Artist” felt like a movie straight out of the 1920s, “OSS 117″ feels like pure 1960s campy fun.  The difference is in the approach – while the early Bond movies were cool but unconsciously a little corny, this movie is unabashedly and fully intentional in their ridiculousness.  OSS 117 is an outrageous character, as clumsy and bumbling as he is suave.  He spends more time insulting Larmina’s culture and customs than he does wooing her, yet she’s totally seduced nonetheless.  Hazanavicius toys with our preconceived notions of the genre in such clever and crafty ways, subverting them so effectively and often that I doubt I’ll ever watch a Bond movie in the same way.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (January 6, 2012)

6 01 2012

With previous Oscar winners George Clooney and Tilda Swinton coasting towards another nomination for “The Descendants” and “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” respectively, it’s as good a time as ever to feature a movie they starred in together, Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton.”  The 2007 Best Picture nominee (and winner for Swinton’s performance) is a gripping legal thriller that never takes you farther than a deposition room but provides legitimate fodder for thought beyond the annals of the court.  Gilroy presents three characters, played by Clooney, Swinton, and Tom Wilkinson, who each must consider what place morality and truthfulness has in their lives and in their jobs as lawyers.

It all begins with Jerry Maguire-esque moment of awakening for Wilkinson’s Arthur Edens, an incredibly respected New York attorney, who suddenly realizes that he no longer wishes to deny his conscience by representing UNorth in a class action lawsuit that violates his ethics.  After meeting with the victims of the company’s agrochemical products, the class action suit suddenly gets a human face for him … and Arthur feels the need to purge this skin of falseness so urgently that he strips naked in the middle of a deposition room.

While Arthur has a history of mental shakiness, Clooney’s Michael Clayton, the fixer for their firm Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, knows that there’s something more to the meltdown that a few chemical issues.  Michael, facing staggering debt from a failed restaurant and questioning the value of his job, is forced into a rigorous self-examination that Clooney animates with the perfect balance of internalized and externalized emotion.  He proves himself to be one of the best, if not THE best, actor of his generation at exploring tortured souls.  He realizes Michael’s flaws so vividly but finds some hidden nobility so we care about the journey even while vacillating on our opinion of the character.

Meanwhile, the scene stealer is Swinton’s Karen Crowder, the general counsel for UNorth.  She’s an über-Type A perfectionist who labors and frets over the smallest of details and really has no idea how to handle a situation like Arthur’s, which threatens to undo years of litigation and jeopardize millions of the company’s dollars – not to mention their reputation.  As he descends into madness (or a divine clarity depending on where you stand), she descends into a professional hell where her off-the-record, back-alley decisions make the difference for the fate of the lawsuit.  Karen, like the rest of the characters in the movie, are so richly written by Gilroy, who uses them to explore complex issues without ever being preachy or turning “Michael Clayton” into a silly morality play. In an era where “Inside Job” shows the actual moral bankruptcy of corporate America, the four-year-old movie remains incredibly relevant.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (October 7, 2011)

7 10 2011

I don’t quite know what inspired me to watch “25th Hour” recently, but I’m certainly glad that I did.  Spike Lee’s 2002 film about the heavy weight of the past and the future that we carry around in the present got little attention at the time, but over time, it has gained some passionate backers, namely Roger Ebert.  That inspired me to check the movie out, and while I don’t think it’s one of my favorites of the decade, it’s good enough to qualify as a “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

David Benioff’s script captures a day of solemn importance in the life of Montgomery “Monty” Brogan, played with typical excellence by Edward Norton.  We follow Monty in the last 24 hours before he must head up to prison to serve a 7 year sentence for dealing drugs.  He is remorseful for his past, apprehensive for his future, and filled with anger and hatred in the moment.  As he spends a day in a sort of purgatory state, we see the uneasy state of his relationships with his friends (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Barry Pepper) and girlfriend (Rosario Dawson) as they all offer a sort of false optimism.

While this story is quite limited, what makes “25th Hour” such an interesting film (and one that I suspect will be increasingly viewed as a reference for future generations) is how poetically Spike Lee juxtaposes Monty’s biography with the larger tale of society, here post-9/11 New York City.  After the film’s prologue, Lee rolls the opening credits over various takes of the two bright beams of light shining to the heavens from Ground Zero.  Much like Monty, the site is a reminder of the emptiness of that day, while the lights represent a brighter future that can still be rebuilt once the ashes are removed.

In perhaps the film’s most memorable scene, Lee employs a sort of Allen Ginsberg-meets-NWA rhythmic lyricism to express the pent-up rage that many New Yorkers felt in the wake of the tragedy.  It’s an unsettling, no-holds-barred diatribe against the city and everyone in it, and a man like Monty about to lose everything is the perfect person to deliver it.  Yet “25th Hour” is not just a movie of anger; indeed, Lee, ever the New York filmmaker, makes his movie an admiring tribute to the city’s strength and perseverance.  Even as Monty heads off to the pen, there’s a smiling child on the bus in the next lane willing to smile at him.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (September 30, 2011)

30 09 2011

Some movies have such a powerful, heartbreaking intensity that you only need to see them once.  They don’t grab you by the shirt; they grip you body and soul.  ”Revolutionary Road,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week,” is one of these movies if you haven’t already figured that out.  In 2008, it was plagued with what I like to call the curse of the Oscar frontrunner – predestination for incredible levels of greatness that it couldn’t possibly live up to its hype.  But now with that season firmly behind us, we can now see it for its incredible capacity to captivate and move us.

Sam Mendes has a particular knack at peeling back societal façades of contentment and revealing the dark underbelly of suburban society, first with “American Beauty” and then with this adaptation of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel about the 1950s.  Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) are a typical couple – meeting after the war, they have big dreams and aspirations.  Yet Frank winds up taking a miserable desk job at his father’s company and moves them out to Connecticut when April gets pregnant.  A few years later, he has almost disappeared into a grey flannel suit and she into an apron.

However, neither can shake the idea that they have bought into an empty illusion, that there has to be more to life than to be just like everyone else.  Roger Deakins’ haunting cinematography emphasizes their Stepfordian conformity and echoes the story’s implication that they are trapped not only in this house but in this life.  However, April refuses to dismiss what Betty Freidan called “the problem with no name” in her manifesto “The Feminine Mystique,” proposing that the family move to Paris to reclaim their livelihoods.  While she brings in the money in a secretarial position, Frank would be able to relax and discover what truly makes him happy.

They start to go through with the plan, and for a moment, this ideal setup revives a failing marriage.  Even in spite of protests by friends and neighbors left aghast, particularly realtor Mrs. Givings (Kathy Bates) and their best friends the Campbells (Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour), they keep their heads held high.  In fact, the only person who seems to see their logic and rationale is John Givings (Michael Shannon), Mrs. Givings’ brilliant but possibly mentally ill son who has the best perspective on the times of anyone.

Nevertheless, the idea becomes just an idea, no longer a plan of action, leaving an embittered Frank and April to confront their problems with a pugnacious brutality.  In their arguments, Mendes and scribe Justin Haythe fully accomplish Yates’ goal of indicting the glorified hollowness of the 1950s.  While “Revolutionary Road” is beautifully written and directed, the film’s aims are best achieved through the tour de force performances by DiCaprio, Winslet, and Shannon.  As first the paradigm of suburban contentment and then its victims, the Wheelers truly needed to be personified by two actors who can fully realize the tragedy.  It just so happened to play out that these two people are world-famous star-crossed lovers thanks to James Cameron’s “Titanic.”

This may very well be the best work in the diamond-crusted careers of both DiCaprio and Winslet, which is saying a lot.  The fact that neither of them received Oscar nominations for the movie is absolutely criminal, although lack of awards recognition should hardly be the ultimate judge of their performances.  They both perfectly calibrate every scene, every emotion, every last movement so that it resonates with a scarily beautiful ring.  Kate Winslet is particularly striking as the active wife defying stereotype and lashing out against the image of the perfect housewife, making her final act devastatingly crushing.  And with powerhouse Michael Shannon as the mouthpiece for Yates and the Wheeler’s foil, the acting of “Revolutionary Road” is what drives that fist of furious emotion right into the gut.

For that very reason, I must warn you that this movie is not for the faint of heart.  Its mind-boggling emotional power doesn’t end when the credits roll; it may linger in the form of a depressing mood or a bleak outlook on life for anywhere from 1-3 days.  But don’t let that keep you from missing one of the best movies of 2008, and for my money, one of the most formidable films on society in recent memory.  You need only see it once to achieve the full effect – although if you want to see it twice like me, it’s still phenomenal.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (August 19, 2011)

19 08 2011

Anne Hathaway can do so much better than the romantic rut she’s leading herself into. The actress seems to have an incredibly fiery, passionate base of detractors, something that I really don’t understand. Clearly they haven’t seen “Rachel Getting Married,” Jonathan Demme’s 2008 film that is my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

Hathaway, in a stunning performance that deserved the Oscar nomination it received, plays not the title character but rather her sister, Kym, who is on furloughs for the weekend from rehab. She’s unlikable with a prickly exterior, something portrayed with gusto by the normally charming actress. Yet underneath her thick-skin lies a vulnerable and hurting person, still reeling from tragedy earlier in her life. Caught at a crossroads between moving on and accepting responsibility, she stands uncertainly and without confidence to face a world colored by the consequences of her actions.

Hathaway brings such a vibrant and visible contrast of these two sides of Kym to the screen, fully realizing her from her flaws to her fears to her love to her guilt. It’s one of those miraculous performances by an actress that carries such tremendous emotional nuance that it continues to reward those who dare to take the gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride with the movie again.

What makes “Rachel Getting Married” even better is that every aspect of the film is on par with Hathaway’s towering performance.  Jonathan Demme’s direction is impeccable, capturing the intensity of every moment with a fly-on-the-wall sensibility.  The tension and the mood is right in every moment, although I will give my one caveat in this glowing review: fast forward through the wedding reception dancing.  It’s a bloated sequence that offers a lot of excess with a few cutaway shots to Kym.  Surely it couldn’t have been that way in the brilliant script by Jenny Lumet, director Sydney’s daughter, which paints a portrait of a family torn asunder by a disaster yet forced to put aside the past and come together for a wedding.

The bride, Rachel, is burdened on what should be the happiest weekend of her life by her sister Kym’s re-entry into society, something that comes with many bumps.  With the skilled Rosemarie DeWitt behind the wheel, Rachel weathers these events with increasing emotional fervor until she reaches a breaking point.  It’s a tour de force to rival Hathaway’s work, snubbed of a deserving Oscar nomination – and maybe even a win.  She’s pitch perfect throughout as she tries to maintain her happiness and sanity in the presence of the self-proclaimed “God of Death.”

The sisters are also estranged from their mother Abby, played by Debra Winger, whose performance epitomizes art imitating life as the actress herself has been practically estranged from serious cinema for over a decade.  Her emotional distance echoes her reaction to the divisive family tragedy as she has tried to totally move on and forget the whole thing.  Winger’s quiet character is very mysterious and, like Hathaway’s Kym, holds much to be discovered in her work the second time around.  While Abby may not be easily embraceable, neither is the movie.  But the difference between the two is that “Rachel Getting Married” as a whole is truly endearing, a powerful portrait of the power of love and family through countless issues.


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F.I.LM. of the Week (August 12, 2011)

12 08 2011

Long before Jesse Eisenberg got slapped by Laura Linney, worked at an amusement park with the annoying “Twilight” chick, fought zombies, escorted grey-haired Michael Douglas around a college campus, created social networks, or robbed a bank with a bomb strapped to his chest, he made one heck of a performance in a little movie called “Roger Dodger,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”  His cinematic debut at the age of 19 still stands as one of his most impressive works, full of the same richness, depth, and neuroticism that has made the Oscar-nominated actor one of the brightest shining faces of a new Hollywood order.  Alongside seasoned pros like Campbell Scott and Isabella Rossellini, Eisenberg propels the movie to some impressively high heights.

Long before Ryan Gosling turned bar pick-ups into an art in “Crazy Stupid Love,” Campbell Scott’s Roger Swanson saw everything in the world through the lens of sex.  In a brilliant take on evolution in the opening scene, he composedly explains how it is the final utility to left to man – and how in the future, once it’s gone, men will be totally obsolete and unnecessary.  Soon after, he’s dumped by his stalwart mistress and boss Joyce (Rossellini) and left in the doldrums to wallow in fear of his irrelevance.

But a surprise comes in the form of his 16-year-old nephew Nick, played by the tense and naive Eisenberg, who has heard that his uncle is quite the libido-driven lothario and wants a sort of real-world sex-ed class.  Roger begins by exposing Nick to all the sex around him that he’s totally oblivious too and then dumps him in situations for seduction with some beautiful older women.  Despite being with a living, breathing manual for these kinds of moments, Nick can never execute, scaring Roger into thinking that the night will have to end with a prostitute.

It’s a fascinating evening as Nick is forced to confront his sexual limits amidst Roger’s mid-life crisis which is forcing him to confront the implications and consequences of his own sexual behavior.  Scott and Eisenberg animate these fascinating self-examinations with a humorous yet probing seriousness.  They are undoubtedly helped by writer/director Dylan Kidd, whose script is intelligent and asks some challenging questions to both the characters on screen and the audience watching them.  A fan can only hope that Eisenberg keeps getting golden material like this to highlight his exceptional showmanship.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (August 5, 2011)

5 08 2011

I decided to hold using Charles Ferguson’s “No End in Sight” for my pick as “F.I.L.M. of the Week” (contrived acronym meaning First-Class, Independent Little-Known Movie) as I didn’t think it would be proper to publicize a movie critical of the government when Washington was in the midst of a debt ceiling deadlock.  But now that the debacle has put postponed the doomsday clock until 2013, I figure now it’s no longer kicking a man while he’s down.

Much like he did in his Academy Award-winning documentary “Inside Job,” Ferguson sees a blunder and ruthlessly investigates and holds everyone responsible.  While he has a pointed emphasis on the cabinet of George W. Bush, no one goes unexamined in this tale an operation gone tragically wrong in the face of simple, avoidable mistakes that were the result of clarity-blinding egos.  Ferguson is simply the best documentarian out there at taking complex things like the War in Iraq and breaking them down into simple, understandable components without dumbing down the entire movie.

He shows how the Persian Gulf War fought under the first President Bush led to mistaken assumptions that the Shi’ites would welcome a United States invasion, just as Donald Rumsfeld mistakenly believed that we could invade them with half the troops.  By giving us this tragic set-up, Ferguson makes the botched administration of the occupation magnify in disastrous impact.  While some might argue that Ferguson only presents one side of the story, his interviewees are highly competent and he, along with narrator Campbell Scott, matches their level-headed retrospect.  It’s less a call for heads as it is a call for reason and logic.  If Libya were to go south, I guarantee Ferguson would make “No End in Sight 2″ and point the same finger at President Obama.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (July 29, 2011)

29 07 2011

Was “Midnight in Paris” not enough Woody Allen for you this summer?  Was his latest film so dazzling that you are suddenly curious to delve deeper into his extensive filmography?  If you answered yes to either of these questions, perhaps you ought to check out “Small Time Crooks,” Allen’s 2000 annual that bubbles with humor and excitement in a way that only he can deliver.

It’s a recipe for chaos when the blundering criminal Ray (Allen) asks his short-tempered manicurist wife Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) to be a front for his latest thieving operation.  She runs a cookie shop aboveground while he and his dim-witted partners from prison work underground to tunnel into the vault of the adjacent bank.  The success story, however, gets inverted when Frenchy’s cookies become a runaway sensation and Ray’s robbery totally fizzles.

All of a sudden, fast forward a year and Frenchy and Ray have incorporated their cookie company, coming into more money than they could ever dream of.  How they react, however, is totally different.  Ray wants to remain the same, humble to his low-brow roots, while Frenchy becomes obsessed with joining the elitist art crowd of New York City … which is less than happy to take in white trash with money like her.

Their divergent paths lead to inevitable humor as Ray becomes involved with Frenchy’s spacy cousin May (Elaine May) and Frenchy recruits a high-class aristocrat, David (Hugh Grant), to train her for entry into high society.  It’s not incredibly deep, but it’s a fun examination nonetheless of class in America and how money can affect some parts of our lives but leave other aspects totally unaffected.  And in that uniquely Woody Allen fashion, “Small Time Crooks” can make you laugh in spite of its mopiness and defeatism.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (July 22, 2011)

22 07 2011

Director Will Gluck has made two hilarious movies in “Easy A” and “Friends with Benefits.” The two share quite a few things in common, but one not-so-flattering similarity I noticed was a slightly unfavorable portrayal of homosexuals. In “Easy A,” Dan Byrd’s gay teen Carter participates in an elaborate subterfuge with Emma Stone’s Olive in order to convince the masses that he is heterosexual. In “Friends with Benefits,” Woody Harrelson’s Vogue editor plays a one-note gay character that is totally defined on screen by his homosexuality. (He does get a slight pass, however, because the character is supposedly based on the president of Screen Gems.)

While I certainly don’t consider Glick a hateful person who would deliberately reinforce negative stereotypes, cinema has seen better, more respectful portrayals. Dwelling on my observations, I couldn’t shake one movie from my mind that handles homosexuality with decency: “In & Out,” Frank Oz’s 1997 comedy. It’s a funny, touching movie that hits on some big issues without every feeling preachy or activist, and as such, it is my pick for the “F.I.LM. of the Week.”

A high concept comedy rooted in reality, namely in imagining the fallout of Tom Hanks’ Oscar acceptance speech for “Philadelphia,” the movie follows small-town professor Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline), unintentionally outed by his Academy Award-winning former pupil (Matt Dillon) … on the week before he is about to marry his longtime girlfriend Emily (Joan Cusack).  He expects it all to blow over quickly since his marriage should be proof enough that he is straight.  Yet his sexuality is relentlessly scrutinized everyone and is only amplified by the presence of press and the prejudices of the town.  Howard is forced to confront the idea that the facade he projects to the world is just that, and Oz finds humor in his self-examination every step of the way.

When watching “In & Out,” you have to remember this came before “The Kids Are All Right,” before “Milk,” and even before “Brokeback Mountain” made gay issues a mainstream conversation topic.  It was considered very bold at the time and still retains some of that power today.  It’s relevance is due largely in part to its very level-headed perspective, most clearly articulated in its conclusion.  Sexuality is not what defines our identities, and this is what I think “Easy A” and “Friends with Benefits” seemed to be missing.  Our identity should be defined by our character, and “In & Out” glorifies this to the highest level.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (July 15, 2011)

15 07 2011

With the final installment of “Harry Potter” now in theaters, millions of Americans will see Snape’s finest hour, which wouldn’t be nearly as compelling without the incredible talent of Alan Rickman behind Rowling’s well-crafted character.  His creepiness and eeriness for the past decade in the role has introduced him to a whole new audience, few of whom know him as the nefarious Hans Gruber for “Die Hard.”  However, the role that even fewer recognize him for – and everyone should – is his hilarious turn in “Galaxy Quest,” a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek satire on the “Star Trek” show and fan base.  It’s been a favorite of mine since I was seven, and now is the perfect time to feature it as my “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

Rickman plays Alexander Dane, a peeved British supporting actor in the “Galaxy Quest” television series whose character happens to have some unfortunate gills on his skull.  He and the rest of the cast, which includes the hilarious Sigourney Weaver as the show’s sex appeal, are at the mercy of their drunk leading man, Tim Allen’s Jason Nesmith, when it comes to maintaining their show’s cult appeal.  Doing a great Shatner rip-off, Allen so nails the fame-crazed has-been that we so love to lampoon – and thankfully, Rickman and Weaver are there every step of the way to give him a light slap when necessary.

But one fateful day, the cast of “Galaxy Quest” gets drawn into the universe that they only knew on studio lots.  The actors find themselves totally hopeless in the face of actual peril but must exude some aura of control to keep the Thermian aliens under the impression that they know what they’re doing.  Their quest through strange worlds in space gives a new meaning to science-fiction and acting for all aboard.

It doesn’t matter if you are a Trekkie or not, whether you are a crazily obsessed fan of something or just know someone who is, you will totally be able to laugh along with “Galaxy Quest.”  It sends up obsession and taking anything too seriously to hilarious effect.  Not to mention it holds up exceptionally well on repeat viewings!


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (July 8, 2011)

8 07 2011

It’s always interesting to see the humble roots of Hollywood directors.  Some of them start in short films, others in behind-the-scenes work like cinematography or unit direction.  In the case of Seth Gordon, who directs this weekend’s big opener “Horrible Bosses,” it was documentary film.  His first feature length film, “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters,” is actually much better than any of his narrative work and is thus my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”

Gordon’s movie seems to have a whole lot more in common with the classic mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” than it does with “Inside Job” or any of the other Academy favorites this year.  At times, it is so ridiculous that it makes you question whether it’s actually real.  But as the saying goes, sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, and that DEFINITELY applies here.

However, questioning plausibility isn’t the only question that “The King of Kong” makes you ponder.  It cleverly asks the audience, without preaching or making it plainly obvious, to reconsider what they think is a sport and who they think is an athlete.  We’ve so narrowly defined athletics to games played on fields and courts by people with enormous physical prowess.  But basketball and baseball took time catch on – so are we entering the age where videogaming becomes a sport?

We are entering the fourth decade of gaming, and Donkey Kong champions Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe sure fit the bill of an athlete.  They have learned the ins and outs of their game; they have practiced nonstop; they have trained and toned their minds to meet the game.  So why can’t they be called athletes?  What makes their rivalry any different that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson’s?  We laugh now, but they sure think they will be the Cy Youngs of their sport.  The joke could one day be on us when more people watch the HALO championship than the Super Bowl.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (July 1, 2011)

1 07 2011

Back at the end of 2009, my first year of blogging, I caught some heat for including Tony Gilroy’s sophomore directorial venture, “Duplicity,” among my top 10.  To quote directly, “Duplicity? Really?”  There was also a slightly more detailed explanation of someone’s distaste for the movie, with that blogger describing the film as “dull.”

So now, with Julia Roberts headlining “Larry Crowne,” I have the perfect opportunity to defend the movie that charted as the 7th best movie of 2009 for me as the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”  For my money, “Duplicity” was a fun, sleek, and stylish spy thriller that kept you on your toes every step of the way.  Coming after the flop that was “Quantum of Solace,” espionage was desperately in need of a facelift.  And at the beginning of 2009, originality wasn’t exactly plentiful at the theaters.

And in addition to being insanely well-written as an espionage movie, it also doubles as a romantic comedy with a dynamite couple in Julia Roberts and Clive Owen (who shared the screen as lovers in Mike Nichols’ “Closer,” a past F.I.L.M.).  The two play all sorts of games with each other, but since they are both corporate spies, all the lying, cheating, and stealing is for their job.  As the movie cuts back and forth between their history as lovers and their current scheming, it keeps us wondering where the line between work and play is drawn by these two spies.  Do they draw it at the same place?  What happens when this line is crossed?  By mixing the two genres, Gilroy gets us more engaged than ever in the business of these spies.  (Not to mention he cuts out all the contrived mumbo-jumbo we’ve been told to tolerate time and time again by Hollywood.)

Owen’s Ray Kovacks and Roberts’ Claire Stenwich are fascinating to watch unfurl courtesy of their nuanced portrayals.  First spies for competing governments, then from competing corporations, their alliances are never completely evident nor are their motives fully crystalline.  But as their quest to be the smartest guys in the room takes them on a crazy path that only a brilliant screenwriter like Tony Gilroy could imagine, their worlds and minds begin to unravel, ultimately laying them bare.  Some might call the movie’s never-ending plot twists excessive and ultimately self-destructive, but in the current Hollywood climate, “Duplicity” doesn’t have enough to compensate for the lack of complexity in a calendar year.  The twists can be electrifying if you choose to let them shock you, and the movie’s ride can be tremendously rewarding for those with the commitment to follow it.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (June 24, 2011)

24 06 2011

Documentaries often criticize institutions and expose corruption, garnering the genre as a whole a sort of muckraking infamy.  However, not all fit the stereotype.  Take, for example, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” a Oscar nominated documentary that’s my pick for this week’s F.I.L.M.  The movie celebrates the First Amendment right to the freedom of speech against the backdrop of an infamous incident in American history, focusing on one man who made a stand for the rights of American citizens to be informed.

Daniel Ellsberg is not your average Pentagon worker during the Vietnam War.  After becoming gradually disillusioned with the country’s mission after seeing the war both from a combat and administrative perspective, he began working at a think tank called RAND.  However, he still contributed to a study covering the conduct of the war; the documents would later be classified top-secret and known as “The Pentagon Papers.”

Knowing that these papers would implicate the Johnson administration in deliberately lying to the American people about the Vietnam War, Ellsberg decided to make copies of the Pentagon Papers and leak them to the media.  To the fury of Nixon and his staff, excerpts were published in The New York Times in June 1971.  The fallout eventually led to a Supreme Court case, which upheld the right of the newspaper to publish classified material without government censure.

“The Most Dangerous Man in America” also provides a very interesting portrait of Ellsberg himself, showing us what psychological forces led this man to take such drastic action in order to inform the American citizens of what their government was really doing.  But the beauty of the documentary is in the questions that it raises: what is the role of the media in maintaining transparency of the government?  Of the citizens?  Do we have a right to know everything the government does?  These questions are especially relevant now with WikiLeaks and their publishing of American defense secrets.  While the movie gives you Ellsberg’s answers, it also lets you ponder your own response to these big ethical questions all while celebrating the liberty our Constitution so vigorously protects.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (June 17, 2011)

17 06 2011

In preparation for “The Tree of Life,” I made my way through the entire Terrence Malick filmography (which, by the way, isn’t hard since he has made all of four films in 37 years) for the first time.  I had heard so much praise for the director’s movies, yet the only one I thought was unequivocally worthy of it was “The Thin Red Line,” my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”  Malick’s distinct style and imagery seem uniquely fitted for a movie like this, where men with killing machines are juxtaposed with the beauty of nature and the people who live in harmony with it.

Set in 1942 during the American offensive on Guadalcanal, Malick’s nearly three-hour film has the ambition and grandeur of an epic poem, and it certainly feels like one.  The beauty and the savagery Malick captures with the lens tells another story all on its own, and together with a script that plumbs for perspectives on the most primal questions of human existence, the movie’s visceral intensity can make for sensory overload.  In my opinion, it’s the only one of his films where I felt truly moved by the imagery and rambling philosophical narrations (both trademarks of his work).

Of course, I’m not going to pretend like I have a deep understanding of the movie, only that at surface level with some shallow analysis, it’s a satisfying watch.  It certainly doesn’t feel as esoteric or obscure as his other films.  I will say that I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the only one of his movies I really liked was his only adapted script.

The characters, although I’m sure still twisted for Malick’s own purposes, come from the novel of the same name by James Jones.  The men in the movie – with the exception of the now extremely famous – all look alike, so it gets a little confusing at times to separate the individual storylines of C Company.  However, as long as you are willing to accept “The Thin Red Line” as a movie of ideas and images instead of a movie of events, then you will be swept off your feet by Malick’s fim that doesn’t fall anywhere on the typical pro-war/anti-war spectrum.  It celebrates life in the most threatening settings known to mankind.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (June 10, 2011)

10 06 2011

With “True Grit” now available to watch at home, I figure the celebration shouldn’t be just of the Western genre but of the Coen Brothers in general!  I haven’t made it through their entire filmography – don’t shoot me when I say I haven’t seen “Blood Simple” or “Barton Fink” – but I have found a gem among their movies that deserves more attention and laud.  I present “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” a quintessential example of the film noir style but still a flawless example of the Coens’ own unique filmmaking conventions.  (And for the record, I think it’s much more deserving of a Best Picture nomination than “A Serious Man.”)

Billy Bob Thornton, complete with his low and thick Southern drawl, plays the solemn and stern Californian barber Ed Crane, completely unremarkable in just about every way.  He feels emasculated and numb to the world around him, somewhat because he couldn’t serve in World War II due to his flat feet and also because he senses his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with her boss Dave (James Gandolfini).  Yet the game changes a shady salesman shows up with a proposition that could make Ed a very rich man.  What ensues is a crazy, unforeseeable chain of events that pushes Ed to the brink … and he still manages to stay stolid.

“The Man Who Wasn’t There” could easily be labeled a textbook for the conventions of neo-noir, just as “Double Indemnity” could be the textbook for the original school of noir filmmaking.  The lighting and the sets really shift our moods to darkness, and the crisp, clean cinematography of Roger Deakins makes the film’s look simply irresistible.  But any fan of the Coens know that they can’t just stick to outlines or formulas, usually blending in elements of dark comedy and nihilism with any genre they tackle.  Their take on film noir is just sublime, and any fan of the directors will certainly love watching a movie that feels straight out of the 1950s but has their signature spin.


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