Pi (1998)

The first feature film Darren Aronofsky directed was ironically the last of his directorial canon I had yet to watch. Seeing it now I can't help but view it through the filter of his later work, and notice how it so early establishes his signature motif, all of Aronofsky's films are dark tales of an obsessive character (or characters) coming mentally unhinged. In the case of Pi it is a brilliant shut in Jewish mathematician living in a run down New York apartment. The character Maximillian Cohen (played by the still largely unknown Sean Gullette) is on the verge of uncovering a mathematical code that could be the key to everything from successfully predicting the stock market to communing with God, his obsession to unlock its secret is not likely to go well for him. Shot in a grainy black and white and concerning an awkward loner in a grimy urban setting this film has been rightly compared to David Lynch's first feature film Eraserhead, and like Erasherhead I don't know if I'll ever be completely sure what I think about it. I imagine seeing Pi around the time it first came out would be a drastically different experience then seeing it now, especially after seeing the rest of Aronofksy's canon, this film very much informs the ethos of the directors next feature film Requiem for a Dream, even down to the oft repeated ritual drug montage. An odd picture which I can appreciate in a detached manner, but which I never really felt much of a connection with. ***1/2

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Having now seen both films I can tell you that White House Down is by far the better big budget 2013 action movie about the White House being attacked by terrorists. White House Down is of course a Roland Emmerich movie and is best treated and appreciated as such, while Olympus Has Fallen I think goes for a shred more credibility then the other production, it is still a Gerard Butler action flick and it is still bad. A mindless mediocrity really, but elevated to the level of really annoying me by the stupid, stupid decisions characters in this movie make. The President of the United States (Aaron Eckhart) puts the nations nuclear defense at risk simply because he doesn't like seeing the people around him tortured, which should not at all be in the same category as the potential deaths of 100's of millions, while the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) acting as president with the president and vice-president in enemy hands, seriously considers abandoning our South Korean allies to the despotism of the North, throwing at all tradition and common sense by negotiating with terrorists. Neither of these scenarios would come anywhere bordering serious consideration by any sane person or even politician. Credulity here for me was strained to breaking, and I sat through nine seasons of 24. *1/2. And that half star is just for casting Ashley Judd as First Lady.

The Walk (2015)

Robert Zemeckis is probably the first director that I knew by name, and he has made many of my favorite films over the years, the Back To The Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit,  Contact, Castaway and Forrest Gump. However I feel like I've been neglecting him of late, until last week the most recent of his movies that I'd seen was The Polar Express, and that was more then 10 years ago.  I'd intended to see The Walk but never got to it, so when it ended up back in the local dollar theater last week I made a priority of seeing it, and I'm glade I did. The Walk tells the story of French 'wire walker' Philippe Petit, and his successful 1974 traverse of the then new Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. "1,350 feet (400 meters) above the ground, he rigged a 450-pound (200-kilogram) cable and used a custom-made 26-foot (8-metre) long, 55-pound (25-kilogram) balancing pole. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire. The next week, he celebrated his 25th birthday."-Wikipedia.

As amazing and impressive as this feet was it is made more remarkable, and more interesting as a movie plot, by the fact that Petit and a small group of confederates made this event happen on their own, illegally, and after many months of secret planning, though Petit himself came up with the idea of performing 'the walk' when he first learned the Twin Towers were to built in 1968. The movie of course focuses on this seminal event in the charismatic Frenchman's life, though it does manage to work in his relationships with his mentor the (Czech?) wire walker Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) and his then girlfriend Annie Allix (Charlotte Le Bon, very lovely). Petit's story it goes without saying has been told many times before, most notably in the Oscar winning 2008 documentary Man on Wire (which I haven't seen), though I think Zemeckis tells the tale in what is probably its perfect medium, on the big screen in 3D, if you have an opportunity to see it this way you really should.

So the visuals of course are outstanding and the story solidly engaging, a real ode to tireless determination and achieving ones dream, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's portal of Petit so charming and natural that its really a more impressive performance then it might at first appear. The exquisite melding of human story with state of the art visual effects is what Zemeckis does so well, and so naturally that it to is a performance whose true greatness might not at first register. I don't think this movie could have been done any better. ****

Spotlight (2015)

Spotlight, as of now, is the best movie I've seen from 2015. It tells the story of the Boston Globes famed 'Spotlight' team and its investigative look into wide spread child sexual abuse by priests in the Boston area and the efforts of the Catholic Church to cover it up. This is straight forward good film making, there are no big flourishes in the cinematography, the acting is grounded and realistic, the subject matter is grim, but it's just damned compelling. Set primary in the year 2001 its interesting how quaintly old fashioned the world of only 15 years ago already looks on screen. Though things have only gotten worse for the newspaper industry since that time this film reminds us of the important role papers can play as venue for long form journalism, in many ways this films closet cousin is probably All The Presidents Men. The films excellent ensemble cast includes Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and the wonderfully understated Micheal Keaton. The Globes stories eventually resulted in the downfall of abuse enabling Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, at least within the American Church, though John Paul II gave him a regrettable soft-landing with a position in the Vatican.The Globe is also generally credited with removing what was left of the guise of plausible deniability that the Catholic Church had been using as shield against really dealing with the problem of sex abuse by priests, and though the extent to which they have successfully dealt with it subsequently can be argued, at least there is no more denying its a problem. ****

The Hitch (2014)

I don't usually post reviews about things I watch on the internet but this one was so impressive I felt I had to. The Hitch is a youtube documentary made by non-professional first time filmmaker Kristoffer Seland Hellesmark, that tells the life story of the late iconoclast Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011). Told mostly in Hitchens own words the film is compiled from the vast trove of Hitchens interviews and speech's available online. Highlights include the tragic story of his mothers death, and Hitchens seemingly mold breaking support for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when you hear him tell it it's an 'almost thou convinces me' moment. Since I brought up the biblical allusion yes of course Hitchens strident atheism, perhaps the thing for which he was most famous by the time of his death, is discussed, but really not until the last 25 minutes of this only 82 minute film. I know Hitchens was and is controversial, and I have plenty of my own problems and disagreements with the man, but there is something about him that I have long found just very engaging. Even if your unfavorably disposed toward the man I'd recommend giving this short doc a try, I think that if you do you'll find something in Christopher Hitchens, an uncommonly articulate man, with which you can relate. ***

Joy (2015)

The David O. Russell directed Jennifer Lawrence flick is fast becoming something of a tradition, with Joy the newest entry on this roster. Of Russell's Lawrence/ Bradley Cooper trilogy, the other entries being Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Joy is by far the weakest entry, but still ranks as one of the better films of last year. Based loosely on the life of Joy Mangano, the New York divorcee who invented the 'miracle mop' in the early 1990's and now controls something of a home shopping empire, this is an inspiring story of persistence and ingenuity paying off a big way, a modern day Horatio Alger tale. There are many times along that path to success that things could have easily gone south for Joy, but a combination of luck, persistence and talent won out for her (the pessimist in me needs to point out how Joy's story is an exception not a rule). It's an enjoyable, quirky flick, with an excellent cast and a sense of almost playful optimism that still acknowledges harsh realties of life. Joy's extended family is one of the more fascinatingly dysfunctional ones I've seen on film, and the fact that she succeeded out of that odd environment makes her great success, already inherently unlikely, all the more impressive. ***1/2

Mr. Nobody (2009)

I first became aware of the existence of this film through an episode of Brows Held High. I generally agree with Kyle Kallgren's take on things and he saw the movie as an interesting failure and that's how I approached the film going into it. To my surprise however I didn't think the film an interesting failure, to me it worked, and it worked well. That is not say its not flawed, it is, and much of what  Kallgren called out the film for I more or less just ignored. The framing story and absurd 'moral' at the end, these more or less didn't work, but the core of the film did. Mr. Nobody is about the many different directions a persons life can take, and weaves back and forth between these alternate, constantly splintering timelines in the life(s) of Nemo Nobody.

Born in England in 1975 the primary splinter point in the existence of Nemo Nobody was his parents divorce when he was nine years old, he could have gone to Canada to live with his mother, or stay in the UK with his father, in this film we get to see both realties and then some. The circumstances in which Nemo's life finds him, and the choices he makes results in this same man being many different men or versions of himself, sometimes finically successful, sometimes not, sometimes in a happy relationship, sometimes in a bad or strained one, sometimes even a widower, or leaving a widow, sometimes Nemo is a kind and pleasant person, sometimes he's a bastard. This to me is just fascinating, circumstances mean so much in a life, and we could all be so many different people. As a literary concept this to me seems very underexplored, there should be more movies and books built around this concept, and it could be a hell of a good cable TV show. 

The parts of Nemo's lives that to me were the most interesting were the ones that got the most screen time, his teenage years and his 30's, I could watch variations on those for a long, long time. You even get to where you can put together, without it being overly spelled out for you, why Nemo becomes different kinds of people depending on his circumstances. For example the Nemo that stays with his father generally grows into a more patient man then the one that grew up with his mother, there are reasons for this, you are shown them, but its never directly addressed, I found this extremely satisfying. And while Mr. Nobody again suffers from a surplus of ideas, themes and motifs, there are some gems among that plethora of plot, and I found this to be an extremely fulfilling viewing experience. ***1/2

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

Jodorowsky's Dune serves as an interesting companion piece to the most recent Star Wars movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky is a Chilean born film and theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, actor, author, poet, musician, comic book writer, spiritual guru and all around odd and interesting guy. He had tremendous cult success in the early 1970's with his surrealist features El Topo and The Holy Mountain, the former of which is often credited as the first 'Midnight Movie'. In 1975 Jodorowsky begin pre-production on his planned film version of Frank Herbert's epic 1965 science fiction novel Dune. Jodorowsky and his associates actually got surprisingly close to getting the ambitious project made, they had a script completed, lots of story art, had lined up skilled experts in production design and special effects, had preliminary locations scouted, major rock groups like Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd set to do the music, and had assembled a diverse cast including David Carradine, Mick Jagger, Orson Wells, silent screen legend Gloria Swanson and the ultimate surrealist Salvador Dali as the mad Emperor of the Galaxy. They even managed to raise $10 million of the projected $15 million dollar budget. However studios not yet accustomed to making big budget science fiction movies, fearful of cost overruns and suspicious of the eccentric director at the head caused the whole project to unravel in 1976. The next year director George Lucas's first Star Wars movie was released, a turning point that to a large extent would redirect the course of the commercial film industry to the present day.

Jodorowsky's Dune is the path not taken, had his surrealist since fiction epic been made and released prior to Star Wars the whole course of the modern film industry could have looked significantly different. That may have been a good thing, or it may not have been, we'll never know. Even though it was never actually made Jodorowsky's Dune still managed to influence film making for years to come, its influence can be inferred in such later films as Alien, Star Wars, and The Terminator. In fact Dan O'Bannon, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss and Jean Giraud, talents that Jodorowsky had assembly for his Dune would later all be involved in creating the distinct visual styling's of the Alien movie franchise. A theatrical Dune movie would later be made by director David Lynch and producer Dino De Laurentiis and released in 1984, it would largely be thought of as both a box office and creative misfire, so maybe Jodorowsky was in fact lucky in his failure. The film about that failure however is a good one. ***