Category: Nominees – 2010s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darkest Hour – 2017

First and foremost, I have to say that Gary Oldman is a genius.  His performance as Winston Churchill in this film might have been the best performance of his career, and that is really saying something.  His career as a film actor began in 1982 and has been going strong ever since.  He is widely considered one of the best actors of his generation, and I have to agree.  He took home the Oscar for Best Actor for this film, and I believe it was very well-deserved.  He was simply brilliant.

The movie is about Winston Churchill’s first few weeks of his appointment as the British Prime Minister in May of 1940.  It does not follow everything he did during World War II.  The story being told is that of how he inherited the position from his predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, played by Ronald Pickup, and how he was the only politician directing the country toward war with Hitler, even though the German forces had not yet reached British soil.

You see, Churchill was not the Conservative Party’s first choice to fill the post.  They wanted Viscount Halifax, played by Stephen Dillane, because they thought he would be a strong leader who would find a peaceful resolution with Hitler.  However, Churchill is chosen because he is the only candidate whom the opposing party would accept, despite his questionable track record in past wars.  Churchill is portrayed as one of the only men who never for an instant believed that Hitler would deal honorably and honestly with England.  Because of this, Chamberlain and Halifax conspired against Churchill so that if he would not even consider peace talks with the Third Reich, they would step down from their positions as his advisors and call for a vote of no confidence in his leadership, and thus depose him.

So that was the main conflict of the plot.  Churchill believes that war is inevitable, and Chamberlain and Halifax believe peace talks with Hitler is the way to go.  Churchill’s involvement in the evacuation of Dunkirk was merely a subplot.  Another was his relationship with his wife, Clementine, played by Kristin Scott Thomas.  Yet another was his tenuous relationship with King George VI, played by Ben Mendelsohn.  A fourth sub-plot was his companionable relationship with his personal secretary, Elizabeth Layton, played by Lilly James.  And I’ll be honest, I was expecting more.  I was expecting the story of how he led England through the entire war, the invasion, the air raids and the bombings, to their eventual victory.  In that respect, the film’s resolution was a little anti-climactic, though maybe that was the fault of my own expectations and not the movie.

Chamberlain and Halifax almost have him convinced that he needs to open surrender negotiations with Mussolini, when the King, with whom he has never been on good terms, steps forward and gives Churchill and his war plans his support.  Then Churchill gets on an underground train and talks to a random group of British citizens.  Every single one of them tells him of their willingness to fight to defend their homes.  These two things give Churchill the courage to defy his opponents and continue to call for war instead of peace.  But by this time, the German attacks are imminent, and Chamberlain changes sides, giving Churchill the full support of Parliament.

So Churchill convinces someone to change his mind.  That’s the climax.  It was in keeping with the slow pace of the movie.  It wasn’t terribly dramatic, especially since it is based on true historical events.  We already knew what was going to happen.  The fiery speeches he gave were what sold the ending, but were they enough to inspire me?  Unfortunately, I don’t think so.  But that doesn’t mean that it was a bad movie, just a slow one.  It was worth it just to see Oldman portray the iconic figure so wonderfully.

So, how historically accurate were the events depicted in the film?  Well, according to my research, it looks to be about half truth and half fiction.  According to Wikipedia, historian John Brioch said, “The situation in 1940 was as dire as depicted, but liberties were taken with the facts.  The on-screen shouting matches over possible peace negotiations were fictional.  Churchill privately said he would consider terms offered by Hitler, but the film implies he never considered this. The ride on the London Underground was fictional, and there is historical evidence that most British people were not immediately inspired by Churchill’s speeches.”

Also, Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker was quoted as saying, “…when the Conservative grandee Lord Halifax challenged Churchill, insisting that it was still possible to negotiate a deal with Hitler, through the good offices of Mussolini, it was the steadfast anti-Nazism of Attlee and his Labour colleagues that saved the day – a vital truth badly underdramatized in the current Churchill-centric film.”  That would be Clement Attlee, the man who would succeed Churchill as the Prime Minister.  In the film he was played by David Schofield, and yes, his part was almost negligible.  So once again, we see that truth is sacrificed for drama, but as we know, that happens all the time.  It was still a good movie that I enjoyed watching, though I probably won’t be watching it again any time soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call Me By Your Name – 2017

This was a small but intimate movie that dealt with a subject that only one other Best Picture nominee, 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, has ever dealt with.  A homosexual relationship.  Sure, other films have featured gay characters, but never has it been the whole focal point of the plot.  And this movie handled it in a sweet and tactful way.  The narrative was more about the emotional relationship and not the physical, which was all for the better.  And the emotions in question were those of a seventeen year old boy named Elio Perlman, played by Timothee Chalamet.

He is a young Jewish, Italian-American, living with his parents, played by Michael Stuhlbarg and Amira Casar, in northern Italy.  Every year, Professor Perlman, an archeologist, would invite a student to live with him for six weeks as a research assistant.  The story begins as Oliver, an American student played by Armie Hammer, arrives to begin his residency.  Elio has a girlfriend, Marzia, played by Esther Garrel, but he slowly develops an attraction to Oliver. 

Over the course of the film, Elio’s feelings for Oliver grow.  Once he tells Oliver of his attraction, Oliver begins to respond in kind.  There were several things about their relationship that I appreciated.  First, though there was one sex scene, it was kept very brief with a minimum of nudity.  Second,  the movie was really a coming of age film.  The gay relationship was just the vehicle used to achieve Elio’s journey from boy to man.  But that being said, I don’t really think of Elio’s character as gay.  I think he was just a sexually active teenager who was exploring his own sexuality.  If the movie had progressed further, I imagine Elio would have gone back to Marzia and been happy, though he would always carry a wistful memory of the affair with Oliver.

So not only was the film sensitive in a way that you rarely see in films, especially when it comes to the touchy subject matter, but it had an air of loving calmness that didn’t seem to have any specific agenda.  I liked that the movie wasn’t trying to enlighten or educate.  It wasn’t fighting for approval or acceptance.  It just told its story without demanding anything of its audience.  In that way, the real star of the movie was the script.

And I would be remis if I didn’t mention the incredible beauty of the filming locations and sets used in the movie.  The lush landscapes of Northern Italy were breathtakingly displayed.  And it was no wonder.  The film’s director, Luca Guadagnino, used the very countryside in which he himself currently lived.  His love for the land was obvious, and during filming,  he often treated the cast and crew to dinner at his own home.  The house used as the Pearlman’s residence was the Villa Albergoni, a beautiful but uninhabited 17^th-century mansion in Moscazzano. 

But as far as the actors went, they all did a great job.  I have to give special props to Chalamet, the film’s lead, and Stuhlbarg, playing his father.  The role of Elio was a very complex one to play for such a young and inexperienced actor, but he really stepped up to the plate and turned in a subtle and nuanced performance with which I was really impressed.  And the more I see of Stuhlbarg, the more I am convinced that he is an incredible actor.

The relationship between Elio and Oliver progresses and flourishes until the two take a trip to Bergamo together.  It is like their last hurrah before the inevitable time when they must be parted.  One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the one near the end after Oliver has gone home to America, where the Professor has a private little talk with his son, letting him know that he is fully aware of the nature of Elio and Oliver’s special relationship.  He goes on to say that he not only approves, but is jealous, as he’d, in his own youth, had an opportunity for a similar relationship, but had allowed it to go unexplored.  It was a very loving and touching moment between a father and son that was superbly written and perfectly executed.

End even more than that, Professor Perlman reveals one of the film’s major themes in very plain language that I feel is worth repeating here.  He said, “How you live your life is your business, just remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now, there’s sorrow, pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”

The advice is a true pearl of wisdom.  It is a universal truth that is applicable to anyone in an ending relationship, gay or straight, young or old, man or woman, friend or lover.  Over the years, I have tended to avoid most gay films because I found most of them too preachy or clumsily handled.  But in the final analysis, I find that this wasn’t really a gay film.  It was a coming of age film that happened to be about a gay relationship.  A subtle difference, to be sure, but one that I believe needs to be recognized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manchester by the Sea – 2016

This was an incredibly depressing film, and I know exactly why.  It was because at the end of the film, the protagonist fails.  One of the major themes of the narrative was a man’s struggle to overcome the emotional tragedy of his past, in which he feels personally responsible for the deaths of his three young children.  The situation which, in most films, would facilitate his character arch and culminate with catharsis and healing, was the death of his brother, and his unexpected guardianship of his teenage nephew.  But though the man tries his best, he cannot overcome his own sense of guilt and depression.

But I think that his inability to get past his own grief and move on with his life is what sets this movie apart from most other dramas and makes it good.  The film ended on a depressing note as he admits defeat, realizing that he cannot care for the boy.  He makes arrangements for others to take the responsibility from his shoulders.  He returns to his life of loneliness and sorrow, feeling that it is all he deserves.  It doesn’t get much more depressing than that, does it?

The film starred Casey Affleck as Lee Chandler.  Affleck took home the Oscar for Best Actor for his incredible performance, and I think it was well-deserved.  He displayed an emotional depth that was heart-wrenching to watch.  Like many other dramas, this film told two stories at the same time.  First was the present-day one in which he has to deal with his brother’s death and everything that goes along with it like funeral arrangements.  He also has to become a sudden father to a boy he hardly knows.

But the whole time, he is shown to be an extremely introverted and angry man, not the kind of man who is capable of being a parent.  It is only through the second story, told through flashbacks, that we learn why he is so sour, so defeated.  We learn that one night, when he had been married with three children, he had gotten drunk and high on both marijuana and cocaine.  Then he had started a fire in the fireplace, and left the house to buy more beer.  He had forgotten to put the fire grate in front of the burning logs.  The resulting fire had burned all three of his kids to death.  His wife, Randi, played by Michelle Williams, survives, but divorces him.

I can’t say enough how great a job Affleck did in this film, but I also have to give special props to Michelle Williams.  She did a great job throughout the entire movie, but there was a particular scene which many critics single out as powerful.  A chance meeting on the street between Lee and Randi gives the two grieving souls a chance to reconcile.  Randi, who has been able to move on with her life, tries to apologize for the way she treated him after the tragedy.  She attempts to tell him that she regrets leaving him, and that she still loved him.  She begs him not to give up on his own life.  But Lee cannot listen to her tearful pleading, believing that he deserves everything, including his own unassuageable sense of guilt.  I have to agree.  That scene was probably the emotional climax of the movie, and both actors were incredible.

There was so much emotional depth to this film.  The superbly melancholy score by Lesley Barber really set the sorrowful mood.  Even the director, who also happened to be the man who penned the script, Kenneth Lonergan, really knew what he was doing.  First, the script was powerful and compelling.  The dialogue was never unnecessary or expositional.  It was real and always character driven.  Second, the directorial choices he made were perfectly executed to foster the emotional separation of the characters, using very few close-up shots and mostly showing the actors from a bit of a distance.  Critics also like to mention the delicate balance between the comedic dialogue and the drama, but I don’t get that at all.  For me, the drama was so heavy that any dialogue which might have been comedic became sad and un-humorous.  And that wasn’t a bad thing.

The story took place, as you might imagine, in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, which is the full name of the town most people know simply as Manchester.  The area has a very specific feel, its own unique look and aesthetic, and the movie did a phenomenal job of capturing the spirit of the town.  The story took place in the winter, which was actually an important plot point as John’s body could not be buried until the hard winter ground had thawed, stretching out the grieving process for all the characters.

And lest I forget, other actors in the film that deserve to be mentioned were Lucas Hedges, playing the part of the teenage boy, Patrick.  His character was well-written as a typical teenager, self-centered and trying not to wear his heart on his sleeve, even though his emotional psyche is actually a fragile mess.   John’s best friend who helped Lee through all the post-mortem difficulties, and who eventually ends up adopting Patrick, was wonderfully played by C. J. Wilson.  And lastly, I have to mention Patrick’s mother, Elise, who had a history of substance abuse and an inability to connect with her son, played by Gretchen Mol.  They all did a wonderful job and deserve to be recognized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lion – 2016

I went into this film knowing only that it starred Dev Patel, an actor who is always a pleasure to watch.  He is consistently good in every film in which I have ever seen him.  That being said, he is only in about half the film.  The first half is about the main character as a child, and the second half is about him as a young adult.  It was based on a true story, making the drama all the more compelling, and it had an incredibly touching ending.

The movie tells the story of a five year old child named Saroo in Khandwa, India, wonderfully played by Sunny Pawar, who is tragically lost.  He isn’t abducted, but through his brother’s poor choices, he ends up trapped on a train that takes him across the wide country and deposits him on the streets of Calcutta.  The boy is too young to know his mother’s actual name, or that of the tiny district in which he lived.  But even if he had, he would still have been lost.  His limited ability to speak was only in the Hindi language, and in Calcutta, the people speak Bengali.  So there he was, a five-year-old, alone on the streets of a strange city and he can’t even ask for help, and because there are already so many homeless children living on the streets, he is just one among hundreds.

Saroo is eventually picked up by police who put him in an overcrowded state-run orphanage and adopted by a couple living in Australia.  Sue Brierley, played by Nicole Kidman, and her husband John played by David Wenham are the perfect parents.  They love him dearly, and take him to their home in Hobart, Tasmania.  Eventually, the adopt a second Indian child named Mantosh, played by Keshav Jadhav, who turns out to have a mental disability, causing him to go into fits of rage and self-injury.

Twenty years later, the adult Saroo, played so well by Dev Patel, is moving to Melbourne for schooling.  While there he meets Lucy, an American Student played by Rooney Mara, and the two begin dating.  But while at the home of some of his Indian friends, Saroo is reminded of his childhood.  His friend suggests using Google Earth to search for the place from which he had come.  But once he begins, he becomes so obsessed with the impossible search that he quits his job and his schooling, and distances himself from Lucy.  He ignores his family and barely seems to even care for his own needs.

But the search is fruitless.  He tries to calculate a workable search radius using his sketchy memories of how much time he’d spent trapped on the train, and the landmarks he had seen through the window as the train had sped to its destination.  He begins to give up hope, but when he tries looking outside his search radius, he recognizes the rock quarry where his mother had worked, and from there, he quickly finds his home.  He reconciles with his family and Lucy, and makes the journey to Ganesh Talai.  There he finds and has a tearful reunion with his birth-mother and sister.  He breaks down in tears when he learns that his brother, Guddu, had actually died the night he had gotten on the empty train.

The acting was very good, the directing was perfect, and the sweet ending easily brought tears to my eyes.  So often, nowadays, movies based on true stories really focus on the tragedy and not enough on the happy resolution.  But director Garth Davis really did a great job of giving us that incredibly joyous ending.  Not only does Saroo find his mother, played by Priyanka Bose, but she, who had never given up hope, finds her lost son.  And to make it even more powerful, before the credits began to roll, images of the real Saroo and both of his biological and adoptive mothers meeting and hugging really pulled at my heartstrings.

I have very few negative things to say about the film.  For me, the biggest thing is pretty minor.  The first half of the movie really sucked you in and made you care about the unfortunate boy on the streets of a foreign city.  It was well-paced and consistently engaging.  But the second half of the film really didn’t have very much story content.  It seemed like the screenwriter, Luke Davies, did his best to stretch it out, and we start getting all these little sub-plots that didn’t have much to do with Saroo’s quest to locate his home.  For example, his strained relationship with Mantosh and their reconciliation was sweet, but ultimately a little superfluous.

There was one scene in particular that I really liked, and that was the one in which the adult Saroo goes to Sue to confess to her his search.  He had shut her out, afraid that she might think him ungrateful because he was looking for his lost family.  During their conversation, he says that he is sorry that she was not able to have her own children.  I really liked her response.  She says that she could have had children, but she and her husband chose to adopt instead.  She tells him that they were in agreement that the world already had too many children, and that by adopting, they could help a few of the lost ones.  It was another sweet moment of reconciliation and understanding in which both Kidman and Patel did a great job.  And on the whole, it was a film that was well worth watching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La La Land – 2016

This was a good movie, there is no doubt about that.  But I don’t think it was as good as it thinks it was, and certainly not as good as all the attention it got.  When this film came out, movie-goers thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.  But was it innovative?  No.  Look at the 2001 Best Picture nominee, Moulin Rouge.  That musical was better with just as many sparkly special effects and stronger dancing.  Was it deep?  Not really.  I would call this movie bittersweet, but not deep.  Was it groundbreaking?  Not at all.  It was a rehashed story that we have seen over and over again, this time set to music that was supposed to be a reminder of the golden age of musicals.  Was the music spectacular?  I don’t think so.  It was alright, but like most music from those old Hollywood films, most of the songs ended up being pretty vapid and unmemorable.  It may sound like I didn’t enjoy the film, but I did.  It just wasn’t as awesome as everyone made it out to be.

All that being said, I applaud the filmmakers for making an original musical specifically intended for the big screen, though I have no doubt that at some point someone will probably adapt it for Broadway.  As such, it was smart of Director, Damien Chazelle to use a ton of recognizable locations in Los Angeles, the city in which the story takes place, something that would be incredibly challenging to do in a live performance.  The film was praised for many things, including the directing, the lead actors, the music, and the fantastic aesthetics.

The movie starred Emma Stone as aspiring actress Mia Dolan, and Ryan Gosling as passionate jazz pianist, Sebastian Wilder.  The two have been living in the City of Angels, trying to follow their dreams, but not having much success.  They have several chance meetings and a relationship slowly develops.  But once the romance begins to take off, it seems like smooth sailing.  Sebastian dreams of opening his own jazz club and being able to play the kind of music he wants to play.  Eventually he encourages Mia to write and produce her own show.

But as their relationship soars and stumbles, their careers eventually pull them apart.  Sebastian tries to be responsible for Mia’s sake and takes a steady job as a pianist in a band that performs music he doesn’t like. It takes him out on the road for months at a time.  Mia’s one woman show is a flop, and when Sebastian’s career makes him miss her one performance, She has had enough.  She ends their floundering romance and abandons her dreams of becoming an actress.  But a casting director had actually gone to Mia’s show.  The only way she can find Mia is to go through Sebastian, who goes out of his way to find her and convince her to give her acting career one last chance.

Flash forward five years.  Mia becomes a successful actress, but we quickly see that she has married another man.  She and her husband stop into a random jazz club that happens to be owned by Sebastian.  In a beautifully done little montage, the two former lovers lock eyes, Sebastian begins to play their love theme on the piano, and together they imagine what their lives could have been if they had somehow stayed together.  When it is over, Sebastian gives her a fond smile, and Mia and her husband leave.

Tis true that we have seen the story played out before, but why not?  It is a good story, and this ending was not the stereotypical ending.  In an old Hollywood musical from the 1930s, the protagonists would have ended up together.  For that matter, the romance would probably have been ridiculously instantaneous instead of slowly and maturely developed, one more thing La La Land did well.

I have to give special accolades to Gosling who took his role very seriously.  He learned to both tap dance and play the piano for the part.  I was actually quite impressed!  While watching the movie, I could tell that he was really playing the piano, and playing it well.  He was doing things that were incredibly hard and making them look easy.  However, it was Stone that took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her efforts.  And I have to mention another bright spot in the movie, Sebastian’s friend who was doing the jazz fusion music that Sebastian hated was John Legend.  Now there is a real musician who really did a great job with his limited screen time.

Unfortunately, it was Gosling’s dancing and Stone’s singing that were my biggest issues.  They cast actors, whereas I think they should have cast dancers and singers.  After all, the singing and dancing were supposed to be the movie’s big draw, and when it came down to it, Gosling’s dance moves seemed somehow hesitant and yet forced at the same time, and Stone’s singing voice sounded untrained and too breathy for my tastes.  And you wouldn’t even have to sacrifice your big names to get higher quality.  Just look at Catherine Zeta-Jones in the 2002 Best Picture Winner, Chicago.  Both her singing and her dancing were incredible, proving that such a level of performance is still possible, even today.  Stone and Gosling acted their parts well, but didn’t seem to measure up where it counted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidden Figures – 2016

This was a well-made film that tells the story of three black women in the late 50s and early 60s who work at NASA.  They are mathematicians, each of whom, in their own ways, were crucial to the success of the United States in the Space Race.  They not only had to deal with the blatant racism prevalent at that time in history, but they had to contend with unfair sexism as well.  However, they each persevered and fought back against these terrible injustices.

Before the opening credits even appeared on the screen, I already knew how the movie was going to end.  Unfortunately, in a film like this, the notion that any of the trio would not prove her competence and even superiority, or would not exceed the expectations of the white men and women who looked down on her, never even crossed my mind.  I’m not saying that the film wasn’t enjoyable, or that it was without merit.  On the contrary, I really liked the movie.  But there were no surprises because I knew the three women would all be complete successes.  And I was right.  In that respect, the movie was all too predictable.

So really, the movie wasn’t just about how the three women were smart and successful.  This was also a movie that was about how women and black people have been historically mistreated and how they had to fight to earn respect and equal treatment.  This is an unfortunate truth, and movies like this are important to put in front of the public.  Fortunately, the story was both entertaining and informative.  The acting was good and the casting was incredible.  The directing was spot-on and the sets and costumes were perfect. 

The film starred Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Goble Johnson, a brilliant mathematician who worked as a human computer.  She was a genius in the field of analytic geometry.  Janelle Monáe played Mary Jackson, an aspiring engineer in an era when neither women nor black people were considered competent enough to excel in the field.  And then there was Octavia Spencer, once again turning in a great performance, this time as Dorothy Vaughan, an incredibly intelligent mathematician and supervisor who taught herself to became an expert with the new IBM computers, using the FORTRAN programing language.  The three women work at NASA in the gender segregated and racially segregated  division of West End Computers of the Langley Research Center.

Kevin Costner played Al Harrison, the director of the Space Task Group where Katherine is assigned to work.  Katherine and her work is constantly demeaned by her racist co-workers, led by the fictional composite character of Paul Stafford, played by Jim Parsons.  Kirsten Dunst played Vivian Mitchell, the women’s supervisor who claims not to be racist, but who does nothing to help Dorothy get the supervisor’s title to go with the work she does.  And the final recognizable name in the cast is Mahershala Ali, playing Jim Johnson, the wonderful and charming young military man who falls in love with and eventually marries Katherine.

Of course, by the end of the film, all three women prove that they are smarter than anyone expected and they earn the respect of their white, male co-workers.  The plot was inspiring, empowering, and yet completely predictable.  Katherine figures out the math that nobody else can so that America ends up winning the Space Race, Mary goes to court and convinces the white judge to allow her to attend night classes at an all-white college in order to get her engineering degree, and Dorothy teaches herself computer programing so that she and all her black co-workers won’t be put out of a job by automation.

Critics of the movie make the point that the movie’s lack of historical accuracy seemed to be unnecessary, though to be honest, I thought the filmmakers did just fine adhering to history.  However, there were a few scenes that were made up in order to advance the filmmakers’ agenda.  For example, in the film, Katherine had to leave her desk for forty minutes every time she had to go to the restroom because the colored restrooms were half a mile away in another building.  In reality, she simply used the white restroom and nobody really complained.  Also, the scene in which Harrison smashes the Colored Ladies Room sign and angrily abolishes the colored segregation at the facility never happened.  And in reality, Mary never had to go to court for anything.  She simply asked the City of Hampton for an exception to attend the whites-only high school and it was granted.

Critics said that these and other fabricated scenes were guilty of creating a “white savior” trope in the movie.  The film’s director Theodore Melfi, said, and I’m summarizing here, that he was offended by the accusation because his movie wasn’t a “black” film.  It was just a film.  The fact that it happened to be about black people was immaterial.  And maybe this is true, I don’t know.  There are valid arguments to be made for both sides of that slippery coin, and I’m not going to say who was right.  I suspect they both were.  But what I can say is that I liked the movie, as did most of the people who watched it.  It was definitely a worthy nominee for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hell or High Water – 2016

This was a movie of which I knew absolutely nothing before watching.  I didn’t know who was in it or what it was about.  But in a way, I think this might have been for the best.  Everything was a surprise.  Everything was fresh.  And considering that the plot had a few unexpected turns, it was nice to not see them coming.  The film sported three big names, Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster.

Pine and Foster played two brothers, Toby and Tanner Howard, who are the film’s anti-heroes.  They are bank robbers who successfully rob several banks at gunpoint before their criminal activities are brought to a well-conceived and captivating end. Bridges plays the grizzled old lawman, Marcus Hamilton, along with his long-time partner, Alberto, played by Gil Birmingham, the two of whom run them to ground.  What really made the movie for me was the great character writing, especially when it came to the two brothers.

Taylor Sheridan, who wrote the screenplay, and David Mackenzie, who directed the film, really had a good sense of the characters and their motivations.  Toby was the brains of the pair who had a very specific goal in mind for the conclusion of the crime spree.  Tanner was just a simple criminal who got off on breaking the law and loved his little brother enough to do anything for him.  Even the characters of Marcus and Alberto were well-written, their close friendship being the perfect way to flesh out their personalities.

All of the actors did a really good job, but the one that stood out to me was Ben Foster.  Despite the fact that his character was crazy, dangerous, had a complete lack of morals, and enjoyed murder just as much as he enjoyed robbing banks, he had a strange kind of charm that was attractive, in a Texas redneck kind of way.  And I really loved the obvious affection he had for his brother.  Foster really understood his part and played it perfectly.  I know he was the bad guy, but he ended up being my favorite character.

Pine did a great job as the criminal mastermind that ultimately got away with the robberies without ever killing anyone.  I liked that Toby, despite his determination to steal enough money to pay the reverse mortgage on the family ranch, is a reluctant criminal.  It is revealed that oil had been discovered on the land and he wanted to leave it all to his sons and his ex-wife, Debbie, played by Marin Ireland.  And he is incredibly smart.  He knows how to pull off the heists while leaving no evidence that could lead the police to them.  The cleverness with which Toby is able to cover their criminal tracks was actually pretty cool.  It is only Tanner’s wild and unpredictable nature that fouls things up.

However, it was Bridges that got most of the acting acclaim for the film.  In fact, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his efforts.  I’m not sure if I agree with the nomination.  I’ve seen Bridges play the same part in several other movies, the most notable of which is the 2010 Best Picture nominee, True Grit.  I’ve seen him play the same character often enough that I almost question if we are simply seeing him play himself over and over again.

The story was good, but it was the engaging climax that elevated it to great.  The last bank they intend to rob turned out to be Toby’s one oversight.  He forgot that they were hitting the bank on a Friday which is most people’s payday.  The bank was unexpectedly full of patrons along with an armed security guard.  They tried to be in control of the situation, but inevitably, things went bad, civilians were killed, and Toby is shot, though not fatally.  They are chased down, and in a touching moment of self-sacrifice, Tanner allows Toby to get away with all the money he needs to save the oil-laden ranch, while he starts a murderous shootout with Marcus and Alberto.  Alberto is killed and a grief stricken Marcus takes Tanner out with a perfectly placed sniper shot to the head.

Another thing I liked about the film was the cinematography.  Whether you like the vast landscapes of the dusty Texas prairies or not, they were shown magnificently in this movie.  There was one little scene in particular that stood out to me in which the two brothers, on the evening before the narrative’s climax, were just playing in the fading light of the day, chasing each other in circles like children.  It was like a tender moment between the brothers, both of them knowing that it might be the last such moment they would ever share together.  It was a touching scene that was beautifully shot.

The movie was a pleasant surprise on a number of levels.  The story was smart and engaging, the visuals were well-constructed, and the acting was above par.  And the critics apparently agree as the film was nominated for four Oscars.  If you ask me, the one that was the most deserved was the one for Best Original Screenplay.  It was the well-conceived and engaging characters in the great script that was the movie’s best feature.  By the end of the film, you feel like you really got to know them, and that’s just darn good writing.  Congratulations to everyone involved!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hacksaw Ridge – 2016

It is difficult to know where to start this review.  This was a complex movie that was like a many-faceted gem.  There were so many sides, and it looked good from every angle.  It was a good movie that seemed to mark Mel Gibson’s return from the dark side.  As you might remember, he was involved in a scandal in which he was recorded going on a racist tirade against his former lover.  Since then, his career has been dead and he became a Hollywood pariah.  But someone gave him another chance, and Hacksaw Ridge was good enough that it seemed to be something of a comeback for the ostracized celebrity.

The film was based on the true story of the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor for his military service in WWII.  His name was Desmond Doss, played by Andrew Garfield.  The movie starts out by giving us a little taste of the horrific battle scenes that are in store in the second half of the film, before taking us back sixteen years to Desmond’s childhood.  We meet his parents, Tom and Bertha, played by Hugo Weaving and Rachel Griffiths.  We see Desmond grow into a handsome young adult who is a picture of innocence.  He sees and instantly falls in love with Dorothy, a nurse, played by Teresa Palmer.

His father is a WWI veteran who is upset when his sons join the military, wanting to spare them the horrors of war.  One of the biggest themes in the film are the nature of religious faith and remaining true to your religious convictions.  When Desmond goes to basic training, he excels in all its physical rigors, but due to his strong Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, refuses to touch any firearm or weapon.  He refuses to kill.  Even when faced with the scorn of his fellow soldiers and a court-martial, he refuses to quit the army or compromise his beliefs.  As a result, he is allowed to train as a medic and go into battle without carrying a weapon.

Then the film shifts and we go into the mouth of hell with Desmond and his comrades.  Sergeant Howell, played by Vince Vaughn, and Captain Glover, played by Sam Worthington, believe that Doss is a coward and don’t want him anywhere near them during battle.  There are a number of other soldiers who share the same sentiment, like Smitty Ryker, played by Luke Bracey, and Luke Pelger as Hollywood, among others.  Honestly, the film doesn’t give you time to get to know any of the rest of them, and most of them are either killed off or drastically wounded.

Much like the 1941 Best Picture nominated film, Sergeant York, with Gary Cooper, Private Doss relies on his faith to not only help him survive the battle, but to help him perform remarkable acts of courage and heroism.  After several violent and bloody assaults on the battlefield, which is at the top of a 400 foot cliff, the American troops are forced to retreat down to the beach, leaving their wounded comrades to be finished off by the Japanese soldiers.  But Doss remains alone and wanders through the carnage to find the survivors, while avoiding being detected by the enemy troops.  He carries them back to the cliff and spends the whole night and the next morning lowering them down the cliff on a rope.  He ends up saving seventy-five men before being forced to retreat down the cliff, himself.

The battle sequences were incredibly violent, graphic, and intense.  There was so much going on, so many men running around and fighting, explosions, fire, dirt, blood, shouting, screaming, and dying that it was almost sensory overload.  But of course, in film, it all has to be meticulously organized, story-boarded, and coordinated.  To give proper credit, Mel Gibson did a fantastic job of directing the chaos, giving us the best depiction of a horrific WWII battle since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan or The Thin Red Line from the same year.

My favorite performances in Hacksaw Ridge came from the film’s lead, Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, and Hugo Weaving.  Garfield somehow managed to maintain the innocence that the character required, all the way through to the end of the film.  The script was obviously crafted with care, retaining the devoutly religious spirit of his character.   Worthington played the hardened commanding officer, but I particularly liked him in the quiet scene after Doss’s night of heroism, in which he apologizes to the Private and asks for his forgiveness.  And as for Weaving, well, he is a phenomenal actor.  He is always good.

I did a little reading to confirm the film’s historical accuracy.  There were a few little differences from reality like the fact that the battle on Hacksaw Ridge was not the first battle in which Doss had participated.  Also, his heroic saving of those seventy-five lives took place over a period of three weeks, and not a day and a half.  Timelines were condensed, people were combined into single characters, and a few events were made up to support motivations and intensify the drama.  For example, the scene in which his father got drunk and threatened his mother with a gun never really happened.  Maybe they could have left that one out.  I know it was there to help explain why he refused to touch a gun, but I think his rock-solid faith in the fifth commandment, Thou Shalt Not Kill, should have been enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fences – 2016

This was one of those films that I really had no desire to watch.  Not that I have anything against Denzel Washington or Viola Davis, but because I got the impression that I was going to get beat over the head with the subject of racism.  I was afraid that it was going to be one of those movies which, by the end of the film, I was going to be accused of being a racist because I’m white.  Fortunately, that isn’t the focus of the movie at all.  In fact, part of the narrative was about how race relations in America were actually improving in the 1950s, giving black people more and better opportunities than before.

The movie was about a black man and his own childhood experiences which included racism and a father who had no love for him.  It was about how the pattern repeated itself.  As his father neglected him, he also only cared for his children out of a sense of duty instead of love.  Denzel Washington played Troy Maxon, the film’s main protagonist.  At first, I couldn’t tell if he was a good man or not.  He seemed like a good husband and provider.  But by the end of the film, I discovered that he was a terrible husband and only a reluctant provider.  He was a man who thought of nobody but himself.  True, he had a rough childhood, being forced to leave home on his own when he was fourteen.  To survive, he had to become a robber and then a murderer.

While serving time in prison, he meets his best friend, Jim Bono, played by Stephen Henderson.  After his release, he finds that he has talent as a baseball player and joins the professional Negro League.  Troy fathers a child Lyons, played as an adult by Russell Hornsby.  He then meets and marries Rose, played by Viola Davis, and the two have a son, Cory, played by Jovan Adepo.

The drama is actually very multi-layered and complex, too much to go into any real detail.  It all centers on Troy’s relationship with the rest of the characters.  Through his inability to love anyone but himself, he ends up alienating everyone, finding that as he grows older, he is alone.  One of his biggest offenses is that Troy has an affair and fathers another child, a daughter named Raynell, eventually played by Saniyya Sidney.  Thinking only of his own missed opportunities and happiness, Troy refuses to stop seeing his mistress after he confesses his infidelity to his wife.  The girl’s mother dies in childbirth, and Rose agrees to raise the innocent child as her own, though she also rejects Troy as a husband.

The only other character in the drama is Troy’s brother Gabriel, played by Mykelti Williamson.  He is an incredibly interesting character.  He was wounded in WWI and now has a metal plate in his head.  Because of the injury, he has the mental capacity of a child of four or five.  Despite his disability, Troy never directs his anger at Gabriel.  In fact, it is Gabriel’s sense of innocence and religious delusion that seem to pave the way for the redemption of Troy’s soul after his death.  I don’t know.  It got a little religiously metaphysical at the end, which wasn’t a bad thing.  It made for a good ending with a satisfying sense of closure, though I’m not sure if I agree that Troy’s unrepentant soul deserved redemption… but that’s a completely different discussion.

The movie was nominated for four Oscars and won in only one category.  Viola Davis won the Award for Best Supporting Actress.  If anyone was to win out of the talented cast, I’m glad it was her.  She did an incredible job.  Every time I see her, I love her work, her intense performances.  She is truly a master of her craft.  Washington also did a great job, creating a very complex and engaging character.  I also really liked Henderson.  His role seems like it might be one that could be easily passed over, but I really liked both the character and the way he was portrayed, almost as Troy’s conscience. 

The movie was based on a play that was written by August Wilson.  The 1985 play was revived on Broadway in 2010.  This was where Washington and Davis first played their parts, earning them both Tony awards.  Only once before, when they made the movie Rent in 2005, have I seen a movie use the Original Broadway Cast in its production, and both times, I really liked the result.   Obviously, Washington, who directed Fences, made the right choice to do so again.  He and Davis really seemed to understand their parts.  And I’ll say again how wonderful Davis was. 

Denzel Washington also made the decision to be as true to the source material as possible, both in the text of the script and the spirit of August Wilson’s play.  Smart move!  There was a reason why the play was popular, so why change it.  Take note, Hollywood.  It worked.  Stick to the source material and you will have a better film.  In fact, the original play was so well-received that it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for Drama.  I’m glad that this film surprised me by being about so much more than racism and race relations.  It was about real human drama that just happened to have a race related angle.  Great script and great acting.  What’s not to like?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrival – 2016

This was a science fiction movie, so right from the start, I’m excited that the academy is continuing its trend of expanding its horizons when it comes to the Best Picture nominees.  Based on the way the narrative was handled, the caliber of the acting, and the dramatic themes, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this movie had actually won the top prize.  It was nominated for eight Oscars, winning only for Best Sound Editing.  It starred Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forrest Whitaker, and Michael Stuhlbarg.

When twelve gigantic alien ships position themselves around the globe, linguistics professor, Louise Banks, played by Adams, is hired by the U.S. Military to attempt to establish communication.  Colonel Webber, played by Whitaker, also hires physics professor Ian Donnelly, played by Renner.  Louise makes incredible progress when she begins learning their complex written language, depicted by circular ink-blots.  She begins having visions that are either memories or premonitions about a daughter that is either no longer, or not yet in her life. 

The military’s goal is to learn why the seven-limbed aliens, or heptapods, have come to Earth.  However, their vessels are positioned all over the world, and other governments have their own ideas about how to interpret and react to their presence.  A big theme in the movie is the necessity for all people of the Earth to work together in an atmosphere of peace and cooperation.  Unfortunately, with people like Agent Halpern, played by Stuhlbarg, and rogue factions in the military, fear and mistrust of foreign powers hampers this spirit of peaceful coexistence.

In a rather existential turn, we learn that the aliens’ mission is to give humanity the gift of their language which, if mastered, will give humans the ability to see the future, which will then help them after three thousand years.  It is then that we learn that Louise’s visions are of the future.  She learns that she and Ian will fall in love and have a child named Hannah, and that when her daughter is a young adult, she will die of an incurable disease.  We also learn that when Ian finds out that Louise knew of their child’s fate before her birth, he will leave her.  But Louise loves Ian and her unborn baby enough that she decides not to avoid her own destiny.  It was very well-handled and really made me feel for both Louise and Ian.  And I don’t think I would have felt as much connection with their story if it weren’t for both actors’ wonderful performances.

The drama was mostly focused on two things.  First was the whole world-wide cooperation angle, and second was the challenges faced by Louise as she attempts to understand the aliens’ language.  The romance sub-plot only showed up in the last few minutes of the movie when we find out that Ian will be the father of her baby.  There was almost no action, but that was alright since the story kept my interest well enough without it. 

As I watched the movie, I was put in mind of one of my favorite films of all time, 1997’s Contact, starring Jody Foster.  Both it and Arrival are movies about different stories about mankind’s first contact with aliens.  What I liked about them both is that they each hit the nail on the head.  You know there would be mass hysteria, religious cults committing suicide, people wanting to break out the nuclear weapons, and various governments taking matters into their own hands without consulting other nations, in addition to the scientists wanting to establish peaceful communication.  The point is, nobody would agree on how to handle the situation, and fear would keep the world divided.

Now, I have to mention one more thing, which I’m sure was intentional, but which I feel was a flaw with the movie, meaning that this is only my opinion.  The movie was too dark.  No, not in its themes or its narrative.  It was physically too dark.  Very few scenes were well-lit.  The sets were designed with very dim lighting.  People were often back-lit, making their faces difficult to see, or they were shown with shadows covering half their faces.  There were scenes filmed using natural lighting at either dawn or dusk.  Other scenes took place inside dark control rooms or dimly lit bunkers.  Even the big and ominous interior of the alien’s ship was all black with a single white wall, behind which was a smoky landscape housing the dark and inhuman heptapods.  I know this added to the depressive mood of the movie and director, Dennis Villeneuve did it on purpose, but everything was so dim and dark that it made certain scenes difficult to see clearly.

And finally, I have to mention the awesome design of the aliens themselves.  First, unlike most sci-fi films, the creatures were not humanoid.  They were fascinating in their unfamiliar shapes.  Even their gigantic size was captivating!  In a way, they looked like the giant squid found in the deep ocean.  And their written language was so well-crafted and thought out.  They were part pictogram, part Rorschach test, and part abstract art.  It was visually interesting and even beautiful.  Everything in the movie was wonderfully designed, a feast for the eyes, and a fire for the imagination!  Very cool!