Contraband (1940)

Released in the United States under the title Blackout, Contraband is an early Powell/ Pressburger World War II movie, a subject and setting which the writing and directing duo would return to numerous times with more memorable movies. Set in the early months of the war this movie has a strong "quota quickie" feeling to it, is very dry in a distinctly British kind of way, and is in no hurry to get where it is going. A nominal thriller, though it really doesn't feel all the much like one until towards the end, the film star Conrad Veidt as the hero, a Danish sea captain, and one of my favorite lesser knowen leading ladies Valerie Hobson as the love interest. The night club brawl at the end, and indeed any scene with the staff of the Danish restaurant The Three Vikings, the standout and most P & P part of the movie. Tonally a lesser cousin of Night Train to Munich **1/2

Mr. Holmes (2015)

Sherlock Holmes has proven himself particularly well suited to reimagining, and Mr. Holmes gives us a perspective on the character that I don't think I'd seen before. Based on the 2005 novel A Slight Trick of Mind by American author Mitch Cullin, Mr. Holmes has two primary narratives, one concerning Sherlock's last case as a professional detective, just after the first world war, and one concerns him late into his country retirement just post world war two. In the latter narrative Holmes is fighting a gradually failing memory to record the details of his last case, one that continues to haunt him. That case proves to have shades of Hitchcock's Vertigo, as Holmes (sans Watson, who has married and left Baker street) is hired to follow a man's trouble wife, a woman who may be having supernatural visitations, may be being manipulated to think she is having them, may just be crazy, or may be something else, but who will have a profound impact on Holmes life and prompt his retirement from private investigating.

Back in the 1947 narrative Holmes in living in his country home with his house keeper (Laura Linney) and her young son (Milo Parker) with whom he develops a strong bond, and together they attempt to solve the mystery of what is killing Mr. Holmes honey bees. There is also a side plot consisting of flash backs to Holmes post WWII visit to Japan, where he went in search of  a substance that might be able to slow down the deterioration of his mental faculties.This sequences contains a moment where Holmes happens upon a young lady severely burned by an atomic bomb blast, the juxtaposition of the aging Victorian detective coming face to face with the horrors of the atomic age is quite effective.

The writing is sharp and the construction of the piece quite intricate, as is appropriate for Holmes. Ian McKellen's casting in the title role is quite the cue, surprisingly he had never played Sherlock before, and the thought of the Holmes movies a younger McKellen could have made, well the potential would have been great. This is a reteaming of McKellen with his Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon, the two seem to really click. This movies does something with the Holmes character that makes him come alive in a new way, and adds a late in life crinkle that shows him still dynamic, still developing, at the age of 93, and that's a very satisfying proportion. ***1/2

20th Century Women (2016)

This is a movie where I think one of the things I will always remember most about it is that I first saw it on January 21st 2017, the day of the massive anti-Trump women's marches around the planet. It was indeed poignant counter programing for inauguration weekend, and it is easy for me to imagine that if Hillary had won the election, this being the first film she would have shown in the White House theater. 20th Century Women is to no surprise a very feminist movie. Though it may seem ironic that the film was written and directed by a man, it is something its creator thinks of as a "love letter" to the women who raised him. Says its auteur Mike Mills: "It felt like I was raised by my mom and sisters, so I was always appealing to women in the punk scene or women in my world. I always leaned to them to figure out my life as a straight white guy. So I wanted to make a movie about that."

Set in Santa Barbara, California, the film centers on a 15 year old boy named Jamie (a solid performance from newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann) and "the women who raised him" in the summer of 1979. This triumvirate consists of his independent single mother, a drafts woman named Dorothea (Annette Bening), Abbie, a newspaper photographer and aspiring artist who rents a room in Dorothea's turn of the century home, and Julie (Elle Fanning), Jamie's childhood friend and object of some frustrated desire. The main cast is rounded out by Billy Crudup as William, an auto mechanic and another of Dorothea's tenants, who is helping her slowly renovate the house in exchange for a reduced rent.

20th Century Women is a movie in which it could be said that not a lot happens, though in fact quite a bit actually does, though its not a strongly plot driven film, rather its about the social interactions between some very well drawn characters, portrayed in fine performances all around. While the sense of period nostalgia is present, though not overplayed, the film evokes a broader nostalgia towards the shaping women in ones life. The movie moves around via narration, a few flashback (and even forward) scenes, and period footage through the lives of its characters, filling in both the back story and future fates of its principles. In doing so the movie presents itself as memory, reminiscence of a brief period, a couple of months one summer, that continue to stand out in the lives of its characters as one of those treasured moments, a perfect time that seems a touchstone for both all the came before and all that would follow. It is a film that I found to be both surprisingly powerful, and sometimes surprisingly funny. 20th Century Women fires on all cylinders, it is far from a traditional commercial property, both passionate and reflective, and left me kind of melancholy, but in a good way. Sometimes a loosely focused, kind of ambiguous text, can say more then something precisely messaged. This film really does feel like a love letter. ****

Allied (2016)

This World War II espionage film by director Robert Zemeckis is good, but feels a little late, and a little safe. I can image myself loving this movie if it came out around 2002, but this nicely constructed film sadly feels like something I've seen before, no doubt in part because we've seen Brad Pitt in a couple of really good World War II movies already. Pitt is never really that interesting in this film, at least not until towards the end when faced with the prospect that this good solders wife, and mother of his child, may in fact be a Nazi spy. Marion Cotillard has the plumb part and gives by far the most impressive performance in the film, she's enticing, yet vague, and possibly dangerous, human gossamer.

The movie takes its lead from those really good British "question the identity of your loved ones" films from during The War, like Ministry of Fear, The Adventures of Tartu, or even Night Train to Munich. There is also some of The Small Back Room here, along with Five Graves to Cairo, and a good chunk of the film is actually set in Casablanca. Zemeckis always does well with his homage and period settings, though ironically this is one of his lest distinctly Zemeckian works, it feels like the kind of film most any competent director could make. I don't blame Zemeckis for trying, in fact I think he succeeds, and what director doesn't have espionage movie, and World War II film on their moving making bucket list. This is at heart still a good movie, and I found the ending effecting enough to bump it up a half star, but it's sadly not the masterpiece it makes motions of wanting to be. Still I'd say worth seeing. ***1/2

The World According to Garp (1982)

Early Robin Williams dramady in which he stars as T. S. Garp, the "bastard son" of feminist icon Jenny Fields (Glenn Close). The film is based on the book of the same title by novelist John Irving, whose work I'm not very familiar with, but to me this movie felt a lot like something John Updike might write. Off kilter humor combines with a few shockingly difficult moments, and a deep sense of empathy for human weakness resulting in some level of profundity. There is one plot twist here which is pretty amazing, something I don't know how you get past if it happens in your life. The film is very deftly handled by George Roy Hill, a director who was something of a specialist in adapting wide ranging novels into film (Slaughterhouse-Five, Hawaii). The cast is good all around and contains some very strong work from Close, John Lithgow (who plays a transvestite), and Mary Beth Hurt, who probably should be better known then she is. Williams ably demonstrates his promise, foreshadowing later and better known dramatic roles. This movie pretty well blew me away. ****

The Accountant (2016)

This film greatly exceeded the expectations I had for it. I had been a bit on the fence about going to see it in the theater or not, but I did and was very impressed. When the movie ended, the audience clapped, in a dollar theater. That says something. I won't say too much about the plot, it's a crime movie, a thriller, has a few good moments of wry humor. The big 'twist' isn't much of a twist, I figured it out fairly early on, but the twist wasn't the point, the movie gives you the clues, it's not really trying to trick you. There is some franchise potential here but in the end I don't really want them to make a sequel, this movie stands on its own too well and anything more isn't needed. Good cast all around, Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, John Lithgow. Bill Dubuque wrote it and now I'm interested in seeing his other work. I tried but I can't think of another film quite like it, for me probably the big movie surprise of 2016. ****

Island in the Sky (1953)

Very much a product of its time, this disappointingly dry and too often boring film by the very solid director William A. Wellman, is often overshadowed by the more emotionally accessible, and color filmed, 'airplane in trouble' film he made the following year The High and the Mighty. Island in the Sky tells the story of the civilian crew of a (supply?) plane that goes down in the north of Canada during World War II, the crews efforts to survive, and the efforts of others to rescue them. The movie features a large cast headed by John Wayne, and including Lloyd Nolan, James Arness (pre  Gunsmoke), Andy Devine, and Regis Toomey, there are almost no women in this movie, it is a story about noble, if too often boring, men. There are far more engaging movies built along similar lines, and the scenes featuring the characters involved in the rescue efforts are routinely more interesting then those involving the lost crew, who I never felt all that invested in. The film is perhaps most notable as the only movie that I can recall seeing where John Wayne convincingly conveys a sense of fear in his performance, when it starts to look like he is indeed going to die in the icy wilderness. Still probably not worth you time unless your a very committed Wayne junkie. This film has the form down pat, but its lacking in emotional core. **

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

The second film by fashion designer turned film director Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals is adapted from the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by the late novelist, critic and literature professor Austin Wright. This movie is kind of tough going, not a lite or happy film. The opening sequence is of an 'art' exhibit featuring obese naked woman wearing marching band hats, a way I suppose of telegraphing that this is going to be a movie about ugly people, even if the actual cast is good looking. This is not surprisingly a very 'literary' movie, nicely structured and very well put together. There are two primary narratives, the 'framing' narrative focusing on Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), a rich art gallery owner living in Los Angeles whose marriage is gradually dying, and the second the narrative of a novel that Morrows first husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) has written, dedicated to her, and sent an advance copy before publication. The action switches between Susan and her life, the novel's narrative as she reads it in sections, and flashbacks through the rise and fall of her marriage  to Edward. We see how each of these narratives feeds into the others and tells us more about Susan and Edwards relationship and why it failed.

The narrative of Edward's novel is like something out of Cormac McCarthy or early Ian McEwan. It is set in Texas, where both Susan and Edward grew up, and concerns a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) who while traveling by night through a rural part of the state with his wife and daughter is forced off the road by some rough redneck local boys, and is left for dead in the middle of nowhere while his wife and child are rapped an murdered (to further push home that the wife in the novel is a stand in for Susan, red headed Amy Adams ins replaced by red headed Isla Fisher in these sequences). Gyllenhaal eventually makes it back to civilization and teams up with a local police detective played by Michael Shannon. in probably the most memorable characterization of the film, and over the course of years they work the case to bring the perpetrators to justice, and when it looks like one of them might get off, they start to discuses going outside of the law to see that justice is served, and that is where I will leave you with that story line.

The move is full awkward and tense scenes, particularly during the novels narrative, and none of those is more tense then the prolonged sequence on the side of a desert highway at night, in which those three roughens menace Edward and his family, it can be really hard to sit through because you know where this is ultimately heading. The movie is filled with great actors, often in little more then cameo parts, such as Laura Linney as Susan's mother, and Michael Sheen and Jena Malone as Susan's friends. Aaron Taylor-Johnson won the Golden Globe for best supporting actor as the ringleader of the gang that terrorizes Edward's family. This is a very dark, very fine film, a real achievement for all of those involved, yet I'd have to advise most people I know against seeing it. This is a rough one, but still ****

Captive (2015)

This is the story of that Georgia woman who got the escaped killer who had taken her hostage to give himself up to the police by reading to him from pastor Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Life. In actuality its more complicated then that of course, both Brian Nichols and Ashley Smith were 'broken people' and that helped them to relate to each other enough to prevent the crises from getting worse and more people from dying. This is an interesting enough story in an off its self, but it is also interesting that it was made into a theatrical style movie, though I think it may have been released straight to video. I believe this story had also been previously done as a TV movie, which is what this movie feels like a slightly more polished version of. It's also ostensibly a Christian movie, which is why it at first felt a little weird to me that Kate Mara was cast as the lead, given my impression of her is of being a rather sensual actress. Mara is good in the part however, as is Daivd Oyelowo as Nichols, and Michael K. Williams as Detective John Chestnut. The movie is capably enough directed by Jerry Jameson, who has mostly done TV work along with a few disaster type movies such as Airport 77 and Raise the Titanic, so he was an appropriate choice for this. **1/2

Swiss Army Man (2016)

This is that movie where a haggard Paul Dano rides the farting corpse of Daniel Radcliffe across the ocean from the island on which they were marooned. Well its more complicated then that, but its still as weird as you'd expect, if not weirder. The movie did not take the cop out ending I was expecting it to, though its certainly not a straight forward resolution. This films odd humor mixes well with some poignancy for what at heart is a meditation on loneliness. Kind of a brave performance by Dano, and a very still performance by Radcliff. Film felt like a cross between the works of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. ***

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (2016)

Fortuitously timed documentary about the relationship between mother/daughter stars Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher. I suspect this was originally planed to air closer to Mothers Day but was moved up after the films subjects died within about a day of each other last month. Reynolds and Fisher's relationship had been strained in the past, and Fisher had written a thinly disguised book about that called Post Cards from the Edge, which later became a (pretty good) movie with Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. By the time this documentary begin production Fisher and Reynolds relationship had largely healed and the two were very close, living for around 2 decades or so in neighboring homes on a small "compound" outside Los Angeles. It's a very charming relationship they had with each other, and I found myself wishing they had been relations of mine and I had been able to visit them periodically, it would have been great fun just to sit in a room and watch them interact. The film gives you a good sense of how frustrated Reynolds was by her declining heath, she seemed to want to do nothing more then perform. Fisher seems like a delightfully wry character who had achieved a impressive peace with herself given a prolonged rough patch. This film is a wonderful portrait of a beguiling relationship. ***1/2

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The Wolverine (2013)

The previews for the upcoming third Wolverine standalone film Logan, looked pretty good, and surprisingly "indie" for a superhero movie. So in preparation for seeing that I decided to watch the other two Wolverine films. I did the same thing with the first two X-Men prequels in prep for watching Apocalypse this summer, and I was impressed by both those movies, Apocalypse less so. The Wolverine movies were a mixed bag.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was the first of what I think was supposed to be a series of 'X-Men Origins' films, an idea that later got absorbed into the prequel trilogy. This movie was mostly rehash of preexisting lore, I did like that they fixed Wolverine's age somewhat, we find out that he was born (presumably in Canada) in the 1830's, and the montage at the beginning of Wolverine fighting in various historic wars was cool. On the whole though the movie was nothing special, there is a kind of long con perpetrated on Wolverine that I didn't really care for, also the chronology is really messy and hard to pin down, as is true of all of the Fox X-Men movies. This film also seemed more of a 'spiritual', if that's the right word, continuation of the original trilogy whereas The Wolverine feels more a part of the prequels, which is ironic because it is set in 'the present day' while the first movie is the prequel. 

The Wolverine I actually quite liked, because it didn't feel all that much like an X-Men movie, more like some other movie that they dropped Wolverine into, at least until towards the end but even that mostly worked for me. This was really an innovative and unexpected way to do a Wolverine film and I hope to see more superhero movies take a similar approach. The movie is largely about intrigue surrounding the pending death of a elderly patriarch to a large Japanese business empire, a man who had become obsessed with Wolverine and mutants more generally after Logan saved his life from the atomic bomb blast on Nagasaki (portrayed in a very well done sequence at the beginning of the film). I know that Hugh Jackman has announced his retirement from the role, but I would have been up for seeing a similarly handled series of Wolverine films from him, let's hope that Logan lives up to or even surpasses this entry.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) **
The Wolverine (2013) ***

La La Land (2016)

La La Land really cleaned up at the Golden Globes last night, setting a record by sweeping all seven categories in which it was nominated. Now it's a real good movie, but I think one of the reasons it was able to do so remarkably well is 2016 was kind of a weak year for movies, and also Hollywood is a town where even the foreign press like to participate in its navel gazing. La La Land, more effectively then any film I've ever seen, manages to recapture the essence of a Gene Kelley movie musical of the 1950's. Both Singing in the Rain and An American in Pairs are well represented in the films motifs, and yet even more remarkably the nostalgia here is not overpowering. While it harkens back to an earlier age it consistently feels organic rather then forced, these characters are contemporary even as they evoke an earlier time, and the film doesn't try to shoe horn too much in, or make Ryan Gosling sing all the time. The opening number is joyous, the stylized one at closing is of a type we haven't seen in around 60 years, and Gosling and Emma Stone doing a little lite footwork on the street while looking for her car, well that just feels right. Still while I greatly appreciated the film I never quite felt the sense of enrapture I think it was aiming for. A fine score by Justin Hurwtiz. ***1/2

The Humbling (2014)

The Humbling is Director Barry Levinson's rendering of the 2009 Philip Roth novella of the same name, which if my memory serves was the first book of fiction I ever read in a digital format. Levinson takes his liberties with the book, including changing the ending, and if anything he improved the final product. I recall being disappointed in The Humbling when I read it, in part because I had recently finished Roth's The Human Stain, which is by far the superior novel (the general critical response to The Humbling was that it was one of Roth's weaker efforts). But time and change of format breathed some new life into this for me, with the story benefiting from edits and of course the presence of Al Pacino in the lead. Pacino plays the acclaimed actor Simon Axler, who at 67 finds his talent abandoning him, seemingly all at once one night on stage, and forcing him to retreat into an unwanted retirement. It is in his exile, after a brief stay at a mental institution, that Simon connects with the daughter of old theater friends from decades before, Pegeen Mike Stapleford (Greta Gerwig, a growing favorite of mine) a drama professor at a university near Axler's home, and who despite being a self professed lesbian, soon begins a sexual relationship with Simon. There is of course much fall out from this, and in general everything in Simon's life continues to progress downhill.

While the book did the better job of conveying the relentlessness of Axler's decent, the movie is more enjoyable, in part for that very reason. The supporting roles here make great little characters parts for the likes of Diane Wiest, Charles Grodin and Dylan Baker. Buck Henry's (The Graduate) contribution to the screenplay is well marked, he is the perfect scribe for making cynicism more palatable, and I'm kind of surprised he was still writing. The Humbling is not a great movie, but it makes the most of what it is and elevates presentation over content, which is novel for a 'smart' movie. ***

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Best known as the movie where they drag a boat over a South American hill, Fitzcarraldo is another of obsessive director Warner Herzog's films about obsession. Klaus Kinski plays "Fitzcarraldo" Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, loosely based on real Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald. The Fitzcarraldo of the movie is a man obsessed with opera, and who has the very impractical dream of building an opera house in the Peruvian jungle and bringing world renown tenor Enrico Caruso there to play at its opening. A business man who has already had more then his fare share of failures, Fitzcarldo leverages money from his wife's (Claudia Cardinale) business, which seems to be a bordello operating under the guise of a school for domestic staff, to purchase a used boat and stake a claim to some remote land covered in rubber trees. With a misfit crew he heads off up the river, however its the wrong branch of the river, but this dose not concern Fitzcarlado, who seems pretty confident they should be able to drag the boat over a hill when they get to the proper isthmus. Needless to say, this proves a pretty complicated challenge.

This was surprisingly a much lighter film then I had expected it to be. Kinski's character is manic, but ingratiatingly sow, a charming, slightly unhinged dreamer, I particularly liked how oddly strong his and Cardinale's marriage is portrayed to be. This film appropriately conveys the outsized dreams of the Peruvian rubber boom of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the kinds of eccentricity sudden immense wealth can engender. This film was actually shot in English but I didn't know that when I started the film so I watched it with the German audio track and English subtitles on, no need for you to make the same mistake. This is pretty great, pretty odd movie. ****

Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Unusually smart "coming of age" comedy/drama from writer and first time director Kelly Fremon Craig (Post Grad) . The film stars Hailee Steinfield as Nadain Frank, a socially nominal high school junior, who feels her world go into crises when her best and only friend Kristia (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her popular older brother Darin (Blake Jenner). Nadain's beloved father Tom (Eric Keenleyside, seen in flashback) had passed away from a heart attack nearly four years prior, and having never really connected with her neurotic mother Mona (Kyra Sedgwick), she seeks solace from her grumpy history teacher Mr. Brunner (Woody Harrelson), pines for distant bad boy Nick Mossman (Alexander Calvert), and gradually befriends nice guy classmate Erwin (Hayden Szeto, charming). Nadain's situation is awkward and unenviable, but like many teenagers, owing to her state of social development, she compounds her problems by taking things out of proportion, something which the film itself does an excellent job of not doing. This is one of the best written and emotionally realistic movies about high school I have ever seen. The performances are uniformly strong with Steinfield's the standout, and I don't think an Oscar nomination would be out of place here, she is deceptively good and true in this. Perhaps the only thing lacking from Edge of Seventeen is Stevie Nicks in the soundtrack, how did that happen? ***1/2 

There are still 2016 releases that I really want to see, but here are the 16 best films of 2016 that I actually saw during the year 2016.

16.Rules Don't Apply
15.Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children
14.Sully
13.Deepwater Horizon
12.Passengers
11.Whisky Tango Foxtrot
10.Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
9.Finding Dory
8.10 Cloverfield Lane
7.Indignation
6.Snowden
5.Jackie
4.The Light Between Oceans
3.Zootopia
2.Weiner
1.Sing Street