State of Play (2009)

State of Play is the Americanized film adaptation and condensation of the British television mini-series of the same title. While capably executed throughout at first I couldn't help but dwell on how the film embodied existing and well worn genera conventions, Russell Crowe plays a grizzled reporter straight out of the 1970's, while Ben Affleck plays the golden boy, rising star politician with a secret, almost a pre-request for this kind of film. There are also the House of Cards parallels, the political mistress pushed in front of a DC subway train, and the presence of Robin Wright in the cast (and yes I am aware that series came out after this). About halfway through the movie however the story folds over on top of itself, complicates, and explores some interesting and ambiguous dimensions. The reporters friendship with the politician and his wife makes him far from an impartial broker, even if he gets at the truth, because he is the one that did it's tainted. The film also explorers the persistence of character flaws throughout of our political/media system, how everyone is compromised, a hero in one context can easily be a villain in another. I quite liked that. If anything this movie is too star heavy, and three actors in this movie whose names I would not have recognized when this film first came out, today are all established TV and movie regulars. State of Play manages to peak just above the merely good, so I give it ***1/2

Under the Skin (2013)

Some Spoilers

I had not realized until researching the movie to write to this review that Under the Skin is based on a novel of the same name by Michel Faber which came out in 2000. I suppose that makes sense because even though this movie is very visual the film that it reminds me of the most, likewise a very visual work, is also based on a novel, namely Arthur C. Clark's 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are certain visual cues in this film which evoke the earlier movie but don't copy it, a solid white, and later a solid black featureless chamber, the construction of a human type eye in the opening scene, and whatever it is that is happening to the men collected by our protagonist. Our protagonist is played by Scarlett Johansson, she is an alien given human form and her assignment is to collect human males, though for what purpose exactly is never made clear, it seems they are being taken as samples.

Because this nameless alien looks like Scarlett Johansson she doesn't have a lot of trouble luring unsuspecting men back to her dilapidated house, which is possibly her ship in disguise, possibly some kind of portal, and is located somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh Scotland. Scarlett is not used to being in human form, she is not used to being around people, or the sensory stimulation, sounds, smells, and such of the Earth environment in which she finds herself. While at first very single minded in her mission, driving around Scotland in a van, pulling over to the side of the road to ask some man for directions, sizing up her pray, flirting, and doing whatever ever it is she thinks she needs to do to get the man in the van with her, in time this changes. Something inside her snaps, she seems to develop sympathy, or at lest overwhelming curiosity about the humans, goes off script, goes rouge, and wanders about Scotland, pursued by her helper, an alien in male form who drives a motorcycle.

Johansson gives a great performance, a character of few words she really feels alien. That performance, as well as the direction of Johnathan Glazer, primarily a commercial and music video director, takes a premise that could easily be exploitive sci-fi and deepens it, makes it contemplative, at time stunning, and unlike most anything I've seen. A kind of art house Starman for lack of a better comparison. Beautiful locations, a few of which I had actually been to on my trip to Scotland about a year before this movie was filmed. Under the Skin really wowed me, I was not expecting this. Sometimes graphic, and sometimes slowly paced, I found it consistently fascinating, but it is certainly not for all tastes. ****

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Some spoilers

Jurassic Park 5. I came into this movie suspicious, first off the very premise, Isla Nublar is going to erupt and its going to kill all the dinosaurs unless they're evacuated. Look we all know John Hammond, John Hammond spared no expense, he did not put his dinosaur park on a geologically active island, they try to cover for that by saying the island only recently became reactive, that's a lazy cover for lazy writing. Speaking of lazy writing, Hammond had an estranged business partner who has never been mentioned until now, and in overly obvious casting he is played by James Cromwell. This whole movie is just trying to get dinosaurs onto the North American mainland, I get that, they are trying to move this franchise into Planet of the Apes territory, but they could have tried harder, and don't even get me started on the villains. All that being said the climax at Benjamin Lockwood's California estate is fun to watch, and there is a little twist there that expands the scope of the franchises concerns above simply dinosaurs, but to other kinds of mucking with genetics and nature. The exploration of this hubris could go in interesting directions in the future, however if this film is any indication it probably won't. Please prove me wrong, various Spielberg affiliated production companies. **

Pottersville (2017)

Pottersville is like a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie that has been drinking moonshine. I say 'drinking moonshine' because that is what Michael Shannon's character Maynard Grieger does after the mild mannered small town shop keeper catches his wife (Christina Hendricks) having an affair with the sheriff (Ron Perlman). What makes the whole thing worse, or at least weirder, is the couple were snuggling in Furry costumes when he caught them. A drunk Maynard improvises a Furry costume of his own and runs through town at night where he is mistaken for bigfoot. The bigfoot sightings bring curious tourists who bring money to the town, hard hit after the closing of the local mill. So Maynard keeps going out at night in his bigfoot costume, eventually attracting the attention of a cable TV monster hunter (Thomas Lennon) who teams up with a famed local hunter (Ian McShane) to try and capture bigfoot, putting Maynard's strange but good natured scheme, and possibly his very life, in danger.

Pottersville is delightfully weird for its first third or so, but the filmmakers aren't able to sustain the concept, more strange twists were needed I think to keep the film sharp and surreal, instead it loses steam and becomes a more conventional comedy/ redemption tale. Shannon plays his character straight, which is really the right choice here. Judy Greer is charming as Maynard's loyal assistant at the general story, and the only person in town who truly seems to appreciate what a good and charitable guy he is. The supporting cast is an interesting mix, they give it a good go, Ian McShane probably being the standout, but again the stories payoff just can't live up to its inspired set up. **

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is the second film in director John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" after Fort Apache (1948) which I have not seen, and Rio Grande (1950) which I have. The film covers about a week and is principally concerned with the final mission of Captain Nathan Brittles before retirement. Set in the American south west in the summer of 1876 Brittles, played by John Wayne in some old age makeup (Wayne was in his early 40's when this movie was made but is playing a man closer to 60) is charged with leading his troop to investigate possible Indian agitation in the aftermath of The Battle of the Little Big Horn. This mission is made more complicated because he is also tasked with escorting his CO's wife and niece to meet what may be the last stagecoach to visit the area for some time.

The film is beautifully shot, principally in Ford's beloved Monument Valley, but there is some stage work, even one purported exterior which is surprisingly effective in a stylized way. Brittles is a man who has given his whole life to the army, and lost his wife and daughter, presumably to Indian attack, about a decade or so prior to the action of the film. Brittles is not sure what he is going to do with himself after retirement, and there is a valedictory melancholy to the proceedings, with Wayne giving one of his better, more nuanced performances. The supporting cast is effective, though they are really playing more types then rounded characters this works for the film. There is also a bar fight with Victor McLaglen which is somehow both perfunctory and very involved at the same time.

I loved this movie, its everything you want out of a John Ford western. It's beautifully shot, its iconic, it's earnest and reflective but also lite and funny, It's got action, some fine character actors and its got a poetic soul. This would easily be a top 10 western for me, and I'm very grateful that I got to see it on a big screen, that helped the effect enormously, its really how Ford is meant to be seen. ****

Horror High (1973)

From bottom of the barrel Crown International Pictures comes Horror High. Horror High features child actor Pat Cardi in his final onscreen role, though he is still around and directing. Cardi is Vernon Potts, he's a science nerd and almost everyone at his high school, including some of the teachers, are horrible to him. One of the people who isn't horrible to him is Robin Jones, a comely lass who looks like a red-headed Jane Curtin and is played by Rosie Holotik, whose like 28 but playing 16. Vernon invents a 'Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde' formula and after the mean old janitor kills his guinea pig 'Mr. Mumps' its revenge time, and Vernon goes on to kill four people in as many days. Austin Stoker plays Lieutenant Bozeman, he's the lead detective on the case and he's black which is progressive for the early 70's, and while I liked him he should have locked down that dang school and brought more then two officers with him. This movie was filmed on a shoestring which strains credulity of the story a little bit (as if the secret formula doesn't already) because this school should have been a media circus, but they didn't have the money for sufficient extras. However this is a fun bad movie with an unexpected hokey charm amid the murders. **1/2

Skyscraper (2018)

The Towering Inferno meets Die Hard. This movie is made up almost entirely of parts of other movies, yet while watching it this did not make me angry, on reflection though... This was close to a neutral viewing experience in some ways, the likability of Dwayne Johnson carried the thing, and there are a few moments on the giant crane where the sense of height is so effectively conveyed that I actually felt a little uncomfortable. While competently handled, this is also and extremely disposable movie. **

Les Misérables (2012)

This Les Misérables is the long belated film version of the long running 1980 Broadway musical based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo. Growing up in the 1980's you just absorbed some of this music from cultural osmosis, it could hardly be avoided. I never read the novel and had only the vaguest grasp of the story until I saw the 1998 film version with Liam Neeson in about 2003. I was blown away by that thing, very powerful, I had not realized previously that it was all an extended metaphor about grace and mercy and the Christian concept of atonement. Still I had not returned to this story until just last week and this music version brought it all back, and I'd forgotten a lot of it, what an amazing story and impressive movie. I hadn't expected the extent of the scale of the piece, its surprisingly effects heavy and I wonder if this much money has ever been spent on a Hollywood musical. The one real flaw of the thing is that while Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe are matched as actors, they are not matched as singers, I wish they'd brought in someone with stronger pipes to play Javert. Anne Hathaway made me cry and I'd like to see more of Samantha Barks. A 158 minute investment, but worth it. ****

Monuments Men (2014)

My viewing of the movie The Monuments Men, particularly its first half, was hampered by two conflicting desires of what it should be. 1) I was aware of the Robert M. Edsel book which inspired it, the story of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, an Allied effort during World War II to preserve the architectural and artistic treasures of Europe from destruction or theft by the Nazi's, I wanted to hear that story. 2) The story of the Monuments Men reminded me of the 1964 John Frankenheimer film The Train, which is about the efforts of the French resistance to stop a Nazi train filled with stolen art treasures from making it Germany as the Allies descended on Paris, I wanted this movie to be that. Both as 'true history' and as the kind of all star World War II adventure film this country loved to make mid-century, The Monuments Men is kind of wanting, which is not to say it is without its charms.

As history The Monuments Men is very condensed and simplified, historian Nigel Pollard of Swansea University in Wales gave the film 2 out of 5 stars for historical accuracy saying: "There’s a kernel of history there, but The Monuments Men plays fast and loose with it in ways that are probably necessary to make the story work as a film, but the viewer ends up with a fairly confused notion of what the organization Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA) was, and what it achieved. The real organisation was never a big one (a few dozen officers at most), but the film reduces it to just seven men to personalise the hunt for the looted art."
(https://www.historyextra.com/period/historian-at-the-movies-the-monuments-men-reviewed/). Historical inaccuracies aside the story is at least intriguing enough that I want to read the book to get the full take and learn how much of the events on screen are true and how much is not.

As World War II film epic the movie certainly channels tropes of that genera, with the team being put together at the beginning, and seeing recognizable stars from Matt Damon to Bob Balaban assembled in period uniform. I liked seeing these people together, and then the film immediately sets them apart, splitting them up into small groups to cover more historical ground, before reteaming them again at the end. While I know this was more historically accurate, on a cinematic level it was somehow less satisfying, their individual adventures were uneven, when they are together it is more fun. There are a number of moments in the film that really work, even if sometimes cloyingly, like the Christmas eve sequence with Bill Murray. There are also a couple of first rate telling off a Nazi sequences, and who doesn't like those? Okay more people then I would have assumed four years ago.

The nostalgic aspects of the movie, not just the period setting but a good deal of the films construction, along with the fact that it is about 'regular' people, who are not action heroes, doing something for the greater good, it's refreshing. Despite its faults, The Monuments Men grew on me, though it should be approached as a starting point, to both real history and some truly great movies, and not as the destination. ***

Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

I don't' usually do reviews of movies which I had previously seen before on this blog, but for Blackbeard's Ghost I will make an exception as its been more then 30 years. Growing up it was not unusual in the last day or two of the elementary school year for the students to be taken to the gym to watch a projected movie, this is in part so the teachers can use the time to clean out their classrooms. For my Kindergarten year that movie was Blackbeard's Ghost, a 1968 Disney live action comedy staring the studios all purpose leading man Dan Jones. I loved this movie and I think I had my parents rent it for me a short time later, but after that it wasn't until last week that I saw it again. It held up remarkable well, yes there are some pretty major plot holes, and the sense of the passing of time in the film is unclearly, even badly handled, but otherwise I really liked, perhaps too much.

I can totally see what would have appealed to me as a young kid about the movie. First off Peter Ustinov really goes for it, he ain't phoning in Blackbeard, he's having a blast with the part. The old pirate's ghost was accidently summoned by Jones, the newly hired track coach at a small college, I think somewhere in the Carolina's. Blackbeard can be released from the limbo he's been in for the last 250 years if he does a good deed, and he has decided that deed will be to help a bunch of old women (descendants of his crew mates) keep the old inn built on what had once been pirates hideout. You see a group of gangsters have bought the mortgage on the place and are calling it do, the plan is to force the old ladies out because the jurisdictional status of the island on which it is located is ill-defined, so that mob plan to build a fancy casino there. To raise the needed funds Blackbeard decides to cheat at gambling, which means making Dean's loser track team win, by using his supernatural powers to throw long jumpers higher, turn runners around and replace batons with hotdogs and soda bottles. Blackbeard is invisible to everyone but Jones so there are charming special effects of him moving objects around, driving a motorcycle ect. This is precisely the kind of thing a 5 or 6 year old me would just love, only later in life would I recognize the charms of the love interest, Suzanne Pleshette. Anyway Blackbeard's Ghost is great, I heartily recommend, and I think even contemporary children, of the right age, will really enjoy this film. ***

Mazes and Monsters (1982)

Tom Hanks feature film debut was this CBS television movie based on the 1981 Rona Jaffe novel of the same title. Mazes and Monsters was of a species of cautionary tale born from urban legend, public unfamiliarity with the new phenomena of rolling playing games (such as Dungeons & Dragons) and in this case the tragic short life of James Dallas Egbert III. Egbert was a child prodigy who in 1979 as a 16 year old student at the University of Michigan mysteriously disappeared, this was initially attributed to his involvement with the game Dungeons & Dragons, but later came to be seen as the result of severe depression and stress. Egbert was recovered alive in Louisiana about a month after his disappearance, he would take his own life about a year later.

While a character named Jay Jay seemingly based on Egbert appears in the film (played by My Bodyguard star Chris Makepeace) he is not the character around whom the film revolves. That role goes to Hanks, and thankfully so because he is by far the best actor among the D & D (or rather M & M, because of intellectual property rights and libel laws) group with whom he principally associates. A troubled young man Hanks Robbie Wheeling is a recent transfer to the fictional New York area Grant College, who despite getting in trouble at his last school for excessive involvement in the fantasy game, quickly gets back into it at his new campus. Robbie and Jay Jay's group of four is rounded out by art student Daniel (David Wallace) and a girl Kate (Wendy Crewson, Tim Allen's Ex-wife in the Santa Claus movies) with whom Robbie becomes romantically involved.

Robbie eventually spurns Kate however, when he starts hallucinating and hearing voices after the group engages in some LARPing in the forbidden caverns near campus. Robbie decides he most go celibate to concentrate on the purity of his Cleric character, and a short time later up and disappears, leaving behind an elaborate homemade fantasy map. The lead detective on the case (Murray Hamilton, who played the mayor in Jaws), can't figure out what happened to Robbie, but his friends eventually determine that he's gone to New York City and go there to find him. Could the 'Two Towers' on Robbies map possibly in fact be the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center? Of course they are, but I won't spoil the ending.

 Mazes and Monsters is a rather odd film, especially for a TV movie. The central characters are suppose to be college kids, but they don't act much like you'd expect college kids to act. The film takes its subject matter seriously and for the most part really plays it straight, which given the silly nature of a good chunk of the material makes for an interesting tonal dichotomy. Robbie has had a difficult home life and appears to be suffering form some kind of schizophrenia so mental health not D & D should really be where the focus is on this story. The film also has some original songs about love and friendship which felt odd for a prime time TV production, rather then an after school special. The movie is quite watchable and an interesting curiosity of its time, it's not good, but could still be worth seeing. **

Somewhere (2010)

Some might accuse director Sofia Coppla's 2010 film Somewhere of being portentous, and some might be right. I generally like Ms. Coppla's directorial work, but this film is easily the most off putting example of it that I have seen. In lieu of style Coppala holds shots for longer then you normally would, or lets scenes play out longer then seems necessary. Not a lot happens, and there's not a lot of character development. Stephen Dorff is the lead, he plays an action movie star who is essentially dead inside, which makes me want to make an unflattering joke about Stephen Dorff, but Dorff can't really be that dull, can he? The most likable character in the thing is Dorff's daughter played by an 11 year old Elle Fanning, who is obviously Coppla's surrogate as this film is about the behind the scenes Hollywood she grew up in. I have no doubt that the film is observant, and their are some intriguing areas plumbed here and some potentially memorable scenes, such as Dorff going to an Italian awards show and having no idea what's going on. However this film is not fun to watch and the story would likely have worked better as a novella. I don't often tell people not to see movies, but don't see this movie, if I thought it was blah, you'll likely hate it. *1/2

The Martian (2015)

I put off seeing the film version of The Martian until after I had finished Andy Weir's novel, which is the story of a marooned astronaut and the efforts to save him. The book is kind of amazing, a combination of wry humor, scientific literacy and mood that is really engaging. I listened to a good portion of the audio book while on a recent trip, usually I alternate between music and a book, but Weir's story was so good that it was all I listened to for the last four or so hours of the drive. While the film version isn't as good as the source material, its still pretty darn good. I was concerned they wouldn't be able to fit everything into the movie, there is so much martial, but there was really only one major plot point they largely skipped over, namely difficulties with the solar cells on the final rover trip. While the movie can not convey the full sense of both monotony and peril that you get in the novel, it does a reasonably good job. Matt Damon is good in the lead, and the supporting cast crams a lot of recognizable actors into the proceedings, especially for a story that doesn't have all the many developed characters in it. The coda at the end which resolves various character arcs isn't in the novel, but I think the movie needed it. This is a story of human ingenuity, and of the human capacity for good, and its smartly written, there are simply not enough movies like this, it is appreciated. ***1/2

Moana (2016)

The animated-musical-adventure-comedy Moana continues the Disney Studios quest to endow every people and region of the world (in this case the south pacific) with their own Disney princess. Well not a princess exactly, a chiefs daughter, as the films titular protagonist would no doubt correct you, because she would indeed correct you. That attitude firmly sets Moana as part of the revisionist Disney fantasy formula, which has really kicked into gear the last ten years or so. Though set in the distant past Moana (Auli'i' Cravalho) is a contemporary, ultimately liberated heroine, and a good role model for young girls. This 'modernity' is still very well integrated into a classily mythological story, a heroes journey straight out of Joseph Campbell. I rather admire the structure of the film. Dwayne Johnson is the comic relief 'side-kick/ co-hero' Maui, a demigod adapted from Polynesian legend in a way that is understandably not loved by all Polynesians, but I thought it was fine, good natured. There is also a comic relief chicken, and coconut people. Catchy songs co-wrote by Lin-Manuel Miranda make this the best Disney musical in some time, and in some alternative universe somewhere, that giant shiny crab was voiced by David Bowie, the way it was meant to be. ****