The Congress (2013)

The Congress is a film by the Israeli writer/director Ari Folman, who is best known for his 2008 feature Waltz with Bashir, a biographical film about his experiences in, as well as the aftermath from, serving in the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon war, the story rendered in a verity of animated styles. The Congress is inspired by and rather loosely adapted from the 1971 Polish science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. Lem's book was a satirical expose of communistic efforts to control the world populace through the use of hallucinogenic drugs, Folman's The Congress takes that same basic premise but recasts its perpetrators as the entertainment industry and its corporate overlords. Folman's device for getting us into this satirical, speculative work of science fiction is through the actress Robin Wright, playing a fictionalized version of herself.

The Robin Wright of the film, like the real Robin Wright, had gone from being a pretty big star in the 1980's and 90's to less of one in the early 21st century. With one of her two kids suffering from a worsening degenerative illness, and quickly needed a lot of money to take care of him, Wright agrees to have her likeness digitally scanned by a major studio, and to give them a 20 year lease on the use of her image, which they can manipulate in computers to have a younger version of herself  appear in almost anything they want, within the limitation of the lease which bars the use of her likeness in pornographic, and select other types of films.

Twenty years after signing the deal Wright travels to a conference of The Futurological Congress at a resort hotel in the desert to discuss the possible renewal of her images contract. Upon entering The Congress she is required to take a hallucinogenic drug which causes her and all around her to appear in the style of Ralph Bakshi-esque absurdist animation. While the live action first act of the film is genuinely compelling and full of interesting ideas and intriguing performances by Wright, Harvey Keitel, Paul Giamatti and others, the remainder of the film, largely done in animation, is less compelling. Which is not to say that this later part of the film doesn't  have its moments, it does, but the  animation style and general oddity of the proceedings get to where they outstay their welcome. The plot becomes increasing unpredictable, and seemingly less focused, as The Congress is attacked by terrorist and Wright ends up spending 20 years in a coma, only to be reawakened in a world were people see each other not as themselves, but as animated aviators like one might see on some contemporary online forums. The film does indeed have some interesting things to say, but is arguably overwhelmed by its style. I will probably need to give this film another look at some point in the future, but for now I give it  **1/2.

The Sweeney (2012)

When I went to Scotland five years ago The Sweeny had just been released in theaters and I saw ads for it on the sides of buses and in magazines. When the film received little or no theatrical distribution in the United States I never thought I'd see it, but more then a year ago I ran across a cheap DVD copy in a Hastings and picked it up, though only now am I getting around to watching it. Having seen the movie I now understand why it didn't receive a wide release here, as some of the filmmakers state in the audio commentary track, other then James Bond the British are not known for making action films. There are one or two good action segments here, but on the whole they are on a smaller scale then you would expect in a big budget American release.

The movie itself is based on a popular 1970's British cop show of the same name, and focus on  Detective Inspector Jack Regan (here played by Ray Winstone) and his partner and protégé Detective Constable George Carter (here played by musician Ben Drew). The two are part of a 'Flying Squad' an organized crime command who are working a case concerning a series of robberies, a suspicious death, and Serbian nationals. Regan is also under the close watch of an internal affairs officer (Steven Mackintosh) whose wife (Hayley Atwell) he happens to be having an affair with. The film has a few intriguing elements, including an informant who Regan pays off with stolen gold, and makes me curious about the TV version, but on the whole I had a hard time caring much about these characters and the case they were cracking. Watchable as a curiosity, but not much more then that. **

Selma (2014)

Selma is from the straight forward, inspirational, one man can change the world, suitable for a high school history class school of filmmaking, and it works. It's a little surprising that a mainstream theatrical film about the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches had not been made before, but if this story was waiting for the right man to play Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., it found him in the British born David Oyelowo, who respectfully humanizes the legend. The film has a strong supporting cast as well, and takes time to fill its audience in on a few of the lesser known elements and side stories related this famed civil rights milestone. Every once in a while, if done right, a film of this safe inspirational type can be a grand thing. ****

Colossal (2016)

Colossal is one of those films where it would be a lot easer for you to just watch the trailer then for me to try to describe the film's plot to you. In short it is about a woman whose life is a disaster (Anne Hathaway) who returns to her childhood home town to sort things out, only to find that under certain conditions, a giant monster will mimic her movements at a given time and lay waste to Seoul, South Korea. Written and directed by Spaniard Nacho Vigalodno (and apparently that is his real name) Colossal combines fantastical elements, principally campy Kaiju, with a story tackling life failure, resentment, and alcoholism. It also boasts one of the most notable tonal shifts I've ever seen in a film, as well as Jason Sudeikis. It's nice to see a movie where going into it you have no real idea of how it might end, and this movie rejoices in defying convention. The short Canadian film that proceeds it in theaters is very much worth seeing as well. ***

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

My favorite quote from a critic that I've found about Kingdom of Heaven is by David Edelstein from Slate: "An epic about Christian crusaders who happen to be liberal humanists willing to die for the sake of religious tolerance. That's just ... weird." Making a popcorn movie about The Crusades for modern, liberal western audiences, especially less then five years after the events of 9/11, seems a bit of a tough sale. Ridley Scott was up for the challenge however, giving it a variant on The Gladiator treatment,  I was surprised at the extent to which the movie grew on me during viewing. It's not a great movie, its somehow both odd and derivative, and I have a very hard time caring about Orlando Bloom in anything he does. Be that as it may, it was fun, has a great siege sequence near the end, and manages to keep things consistently just barley on the respectable side from being out right campy. Strong supporting cast, including Eva Green in her "Hollywood" debut, the always welcome Jeremy Iron and Brendan Gleeson, as well as Edward Norton hidden behind a mask the whole time. My late brother gave me this movie for Christmas 10 years ago and I put off watching it because I didn't think I'd like it, but the movie won me over. ***

The Peacemaker (1997)

Wanna be Tom Clancy movie has a beautiful White House nuclear expert (Nicole Kidman) and a roguish special forces Colonel (George Clooney, still getting his leading man sea legs) engaging in some lite battle of the sexes banter as they track down stolen Russian warheads. When the secondary villains motivations are reveled at the end, they are more then a little stupid. Funny how the geopolitical situation of two decades ago now seems rather quaint. Watchable on first viewing, but not enough there to make me want to see it again. **1/2

Your Name (2016)

The Japanese animated film Your Name (that title just comes across as a bad translation) has accomplished what perhaps no other 'body swapping movie' ever has, garnering a 97% fresh ratting on Rotten Tomatoes. That is what convinced me to see the film, and while its good at being what that description implies, about half way through the story veers in an unexpected direction and becomes something much more. The plot concerns a country girl and city boy in Japan who suddenly find themselves switching bodies at random in conjunction with the appearance of a passing comet. Again the movie indulges some of the expected tropes of that genera, one which I believe is more pervasive in Japan then it is in the west, but never feels truly exploitive, indeed it holds back and gives some depth to the proceedings, before adding some fresh and unexpected crinkles. I was impressed with the quality and intelligence of this film, and in fact kind of moved by it. While I'm not generally big into anime, there are certainly a fair number of gems coming out of this world of film making, and Your Name is definitely one of them. ****

In a World... (2013)

I first became aware of actress Lake Bell as a pretty, though seemingly not particularly talented supporting cast member on the first season of one of my favorite shows, Boston Legal. Bell's career would likely have remained a slight one had she not done what Billy Bob Thornton and others had done before her, namely write and direct herself in her own staring vehicle. The result of this effort for Ms. Bell is In a World... a likable comedy about a woman trying to make her way in the overwhelming male dominated world of theatrical trailer narration. Bell plays Carol Solomon, a voice coach and daughter of a famed narrative artist named Sam Sotto (Fred Melamed) who ends up in a competition with her father and another rising star in the voiceover world Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) to resurrect the titular catch phrase of the late voiceover legend Don LaFontain, for the trailer of an upcoming Hunger Games -esque film quadrilogy. Though primarily a vehicle for Bell the film has a number of likeable supporting performances from fellow lesser knowns Michaela Watkins, Demetri Martin, Talulah Riley and others. The film certainly paid off for Bell. since its release she has had the female lead roles in middle sized releases like Million  Dollar Arm and No Escape as well as a featured voice role in The Secret Lives of Pets. In a World... is a pleasantly small scale film, even though its about schilling epic movies, and I found myself rather charmed by it. In addition to seeing more of Lake Bell on screen, I would be interested in her doing more work behind the camera as well, I think she shows promise. ***

Duel (1971)

Director Steven Spielberg's first professionally produced full length feature is based on a short story by Sci-Fi 'man for all seasons' Richard Matheson, and shot as a TV movie vehicle for Dennis Weaver, star of the then popular series McCloud. The film was so well received after its broadcast debut that additional scenes were filmed and it was released theatrically abroad. The plot concerns a middle aged businessman (Weaver) who is mercilessly pursued by the unseen driver of a dirty tanker truck after he cuts him off on an isolated California desert highway. This may be the first movie about road rage, and the persistent menace of the unseen driver well foreshadows the (at first) visually obscured presence of the relentless shark in Spielberg's Jaws, the film that would cement him as far above the TV movie pay grade. Weaver does a good job of anchoring the piece, better then I'd expected actually, he plays the whole situation rather realistically which just makes things all the more tense. For its a director a work of genius in utero. ***1/2

Trekkies (1999)

This cheaply done documentary looks at a selection of obsessed Star Trek fans aka Trekkies. I'll say it, as someone who once identified as a trekkie, there is something more then a little sad about these people, though at least their obsession is a largely benign one. Interesting time capsule of Trek fandom during the 1990's, which with three different Star Trek television series in production during that decade, was probably the high point of the trekkie subculture, which of course feed into the larger, and less stigmatized comic con culture of today. **

The Book Theif (2013)

I've said before that we are perhaps more then a little glutted on holocaust dramas, and that may deaden us some to the impact of those horrible events. Ironically I think that The Book Thief, the film adaptation of the 2005 novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, may work because it's not trying to overwhelm us emotionally. It tells the story of Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse) the daughter of a communist woman who is adopted by a middle aged couple in a small German town in 1938. The movie covers her growing up over the course of the second world war and contains a prolonged sequence where the family shelters a young Jewish man named Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), the son of a solder who saved the life of Liesel's adopted father (Geoffrey Rush, the films best performance) during the first world war. Eventually Max decides to leave his shelter with the Hubermann family for their own protection. After Max leaves Liesel and her father have a conversation about how they sheltered Max for so long, at great risks to themselves, now he's gone, they don't know if he will survive, so what does it all mean then? That moment of existential reflection, on the part of good hearted German gentiles, was the highlight of the film for me, and perhaps justification alone for its existence. This is a reflective film, and refreshing small scale for what is still a World War II epic of sorts. None the less it is more then a bit cliché and safe, though perhaps my biggest complaint is having actress Sophie Neilsse play the same character from around ages 12 - 19, she always looks the same and its distracting. Still the movie has a few moments of restrained poignancy. ***

Winchell (1998)

A great example of the kind of biopics HBO was putting out in the 1990's, Winchell is a broad survey course of the life of lighting rod columnist and influential radio personality Walter Winchell, which like a vigilant teacher is very focused on hitting on the all the main points of interest, if not exploring them very deeply. Held together by the duel performance of  Stanley Tucci as Winchell and Paul Giamatti as Herman Klurfeld, Walter's chief ghostwriter and later biographer (upon whose work this movie is based). The main thesis of the film is that Winchell chief fault was not so much being an asshole, but rather being an asshole who outlived his time, and whose desperation to recapture past relevance did great harm to his legacy. Winchell's an interesting man, one whose influence is still strongly felt today, in fact I can't help but think that he bears some responsibly in making the Donald Trump presidency possible, even though he died in 1972. A good enough movie, but you'd doubtless be better served reading Klurfeld's book, I also recommend watching and listing to clips of Winchell online, or even reading Philip Roth's excellent counterfactual novel The Plot Against America, in which Winchell plays a major part. **1/2

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

My first thought upon learning about the existence of this sequel to director Danny Boyle's breakout 1996 film about heroin addiction, friendship and betrayal on the mean streets of Edinburgh is that, in spite of the original films open ending, a sequel wasn't necessary. Well I was wrong, T2 is not just an excuse to get the boys back together two decades on, but works as the second half of a now complete whole. It shows the consequences of decisions made in the first film, the effects of the passage of times on the characters and the world around them, peoples natural gravity to behavioral consistency, but also their ability to change. Lighter in tone then the first film, this is more enjoyable viewing then the original,  though not as substantive, and a little less of an achievement. Yet it is still quite an achievement, this shows what the recent cinematic propensity to long bleated sequels is capable of achieving. One of the best films of the year so far. ****

Split (2016)

I'd say Split is the best M. Night Shyamalan film I've seen since The Village in 2004, though I also hear good things about his previous film The Visit (2015) which I have not yet seen. In Split one can certainly feel Shyamalan's signature style and mood, though applied to sufficiently different subject matter to impart a renewed sense of freshness. The plot concerns a man with multiple personalities ( a miniature showcase for James McAvoy's talents) who kidnaps three teenage girls from a mall parking lot and holds them in an industrial basement environment for purposes other then what you might at first think. Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula play the girls, with Taylor- Joy the lead and standout performance of the three. There is also a converging subplot concerning McAvoy's therapist played by Betty Buckley, very different from her part in The Happening.  Not perfect but still good and intriguing, and there's a pay off at the end that is worth the wait. ***1/2

Get Out (2017)

Get Out is a horror films about a black man (Daniel Kaluuya) who travels to the country with his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) to meet her wealthy parents for the first time, and that's about all the setup I feel I can give it. This race relations themed horror movie is creepy in a way I don't think I've ever encountered before, and that mood is what dominated my thinking throughout the viewing experience, I was just creeped out. However only after leaving the theater did I begin to see what a brilliant black comedy it was, along with being an unusually smart horror offering. A fitting directorial debut for funny man Jordan Peele. Worth seeing in the theater  ****

From Russia With Love (1963)

Well I finally got back on track somewhat with my plan to try and see all of the Bond movies by the end of the year. I'm only on number two chronologically but of the half dozen Bond films I've seen so far (3 Brosnan, 1 Craig, and now 2 Connery) I'd defiantly say From Russia With Love is my favorite. I really like these early Bond films, they are not so gadget centric, Bond's a more believable character then he would become, the pace is not in a hurray, and there is a supporting character who dies in this movie that I actually cared about. The teasers a misdirect and the opening music sequence probably the weakest I've seen, but after that I found it very satisfying. SPECTRE seems like a legitimate threat here, but not near godlike as in the most recent Bond movie. Daniela Bianchi may be my favorite Bond girl. I really look forward to seeing more Connery Bond. Loved this. ****