VICE (2018)

Rated:  R

STARS: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carrel
DIRECTOR: Adam McKay
GENRE: Biopic

Dick Cheney still stands as one of the most controversial political figures in U.S. history. He championed the invasion of Iraq, the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp where prisoners classified as enemy combatants had no legal rights to prove their guilt or innocence, and the form of torture known as waterboarding, which was illegal under international law. For starters. He never met a situation where the end didn't justify the means. 

It's all covered, and so much more ad nauseam, in Vice, Adam McKay's overly long biopic on the life and times of our purportedly most influential vice president. I don't think it will win him any new converts.

We start with Cheney's wild days as a hard drinking youth and follow his rise to power as a congressional intern, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, and as "shadow president" in the second Bush administration. A straight retelling of factual events can be pretty dry stuff, and Vice is cleverly constructed enough to make that more palatable, with a false ending in the middle and a mysterious narrator whose identity is shockingly revealed in the latter part of the film.

It kicks into another gear with the dramatic and jarring events of 9-ll, with just enough actual news footage inserted to make it uncomfortably real again. Illustrating how Cheney was allegedly calling 
a lot of the shots on that day, with a hapless George W. Bush doing what we remember him best for--deferring to greater minds to take him firmly by the shoulders and steer him in the right direction, like a kid playing pin the tail on the donkey.

Christian Bale, as the younger and the older Cheney, has the voice, facial expressions, and mannerisms down to a T...but it's carried to the point of where it becomes more of a caricature than an acceptably believable portrayal. Sam Rockwell, on the other hand, totally nails George Bush in all of his clueless glory. Steve Carrel, who doesn't look anything like then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is always fun to watch, regardless. Amy Adams gives the strongest performance of the bunch as Cheney's no-nonsense wife, Lynn.

Watching Vice is like reliving a bad dream you had at the turn of the millennium. A cast of good actors making you forget, but only for a short moment, the bad political actors and the scary dream we are living through at the turn of a new year. 

Grade :  B -

JILL'S TAKE

Here we go again....I feel like the Movie Grinch of 2018. (Oops, I meant 2019.) Yet another film that I really didn't enjoy. In fact, I detested it.  Granted the subject matter calls for more talk than action.  And the main character isn't exactly warm and fuzzy.  (I kept wondering how the real Dick Cheney feels about this less-than-flattering biopic.) But the script was a mishmash of fast forwards and flashbacks that made my head spin.  Yes, it covers many many years of political shenanigans--if war and 9-11 can be described as such. But unless you are a history buff, it gets tiresome.  I was far more intrigued by how the Cheneys reacted to their daughter being gay than how corrupt our political leaders are.  

I only wish I could have edited this overly long, overly tedious film.  It's being touted as a sure-fire Oscar contender but I have my doubts.  Maybe for Christian Bale's makeover. Or Steve Carrel's. And Sam Rockwell not only looks like George Dubya, he captures his aww shucks personality perfectly.    

I admit that writing a movie about such an unemotional character isn't easy. We already know about Dick Cheney and his misdeeds.  So keeping the audience engaged in his life story is next to impossible.  And whether the writer tries to distract us with bombs blowing up bodies, or Lynn and Dickie cuddling up in bed, reciting lines from Shakespeare, I felt totally manipulated.

I was really looking forward to seeing Vice which made the actual experience that much more disappointing.  But maybe you won't feel that way....

Grade: D

ARRIVAL (2016)

Rated: PG-13

STARS: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve
GENRE: Sci-Fi / Drama

Here's the deal. If you don't catch onto the "twist" in Arrival (and we're not talking Chubby Checker), you'll likely be confused throughout most of the movie. I caught onto it late, near the end, realizing that if I saw the film again, I'd get a lot more out of it. (Is it just a ploy to get you to buy another ticket?)  A film is always more enjoyable when you know what's going on. Arrival (with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture) is like life, in that sense. You feel your way through it, and at the end you look back and see just where it was you went wrong. But unlike the movies, there are no do-overs. So son, you're going to have to feel your way through it on your own, the way we all did. For if I revealed the twist, it would be a SPOILER!

But hey, it's Amy Adams. I'd like to be able to say I've never seen an Amy Adams movie I didn't like, but a more accurate statement would be I've never seen Amy Adams in a film where I didn't like watching her. 

Amy plays Louise, a noted linguistics professor whose services are recruited by the army when a dozen big UFOs--that look like gigantic cucumbers standing on end--land at various sites around the globe. Louise has the best chance to communicate with the aliens inside, who look kinda like big octopi (octopuses?) wearing burkas. When she and her team make contact with the "heptapods," as they are being called, Louise begins to slowly decipher their language, which consists visually of something looking like circular shaped Rorschach blots. Throughout the film, Louise is seeing dream images of her with her daughter, who succumbs to disease and dies in her teens. 

What's it all mean? Why are the aliens here, and what are they trying to tell us? It has something to do with the nature of time. In the end, there's a message about cooperation among nations, and how we are often too quick to reject what we don't understand, rather than going the extra mile to learn to really communicate.

But Arrival is so sloooow throughout the first half. On the other hand, it's a lot more cerebral than your average earth-versus-aliens movie. There is much food for thought. And the question that looms large--like a huge spaceship sitting in a field--is if you had your life to live over again...knowing how it would turn out...all the shit and all the sorrow, along with all the joy and all the love...would you go along for that same ride again? Arrival is telling us: don't be so hasty as to automatically say no.

Grade: B  

JILL'S TAKE

At the end of Arrival, I leaned towards Tim and whispered, "Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do!" I admit it. I was totally lost. Bored. And completely confused by this "sensitive" sci-fi saga. Maybe, if there'd been a subtitle on the poster that read: "Time isn't what you think it is...", I would've been able to grasp what the hell this movie was about. However, I did learn one important lesson; I now know why I don't enjoy futuristic films. They make me feel extremely stoopid!

That being said, I was also annoyed at how under-used Forest Whittaker (The Last King Of Scotland) was. He's such a great actor and his role here, as some bigwig general, is miniscule at best. The same could be said for Michael Stuhlbarg who plays a nervous Agent Halpern. (Stuhlbarg was absolutely brilliant as gangster Arnold Rothstein in the TV series "Boardwalk Empire.")

If I had to say something positive about Arrival, I'd give high marks to the graphics. (Wonder how these aliens would have said "Good job!"in their ink blotty language?) The visual and special effects guys must have a had field day. I was also relieved that the aliens didn't resemble E.T. or any of those other bug-eyed knock-offs. Still, if my two cents is worth anything, I'd avoid this befuddling film!

Grade: D

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Shannon
DIRECTOR: Tom Ford
GENRE: Drama/Thriller

This film is not directed by Brian De Palma, though if you're a fan (as I am), you may have to keep reminding yourself that Nocturnal Animals is Tom Ford's movie. Ford (A Single Man) admits to an Alfred Hitchcock influence in his work, and De Palma--as I like to refer to him--is the poor man's Hitchcock. He transported the essence of the master into the modern day, with all the realism (erotica, graphic violence, etc) that Hitchcock's repressive era wouldn't allow. Completing the noir effect in Nocturnal Animals is Abel Korzeniowski's mesmerizing score;  it had me flashing back to Pino Donaggio's equally captivating soundtrack in De Palma's Body Double.

All that aside, Ford has given us what surely is the most memorable film of the year!  It grabs you from the opening scene, which cannot be adequately described (nor would I want to ruin it for you)--you've got to see it to believe it!

Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is a Los Angeles art gallery owner who selects themes for their shock value, but she's bored nonetheless. She has a pretty good life--married to a pretty boy businessman who replaced her first husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), of twenty years ago. Edward was the sensitive type. A writer. A romantic. She figured he was going nowhere. 

When current hubby exits early on for a business trip, Susan is left to her own devices. She receives a novel manuscript in the mail. It's from Edward--after all this time. The book is dedicated to her, and as she begins to read, it's clear that the main characters closely resemble herself, Edward, and Susan's teenage daughter. The novel unfolds upon the screen, and suddenly we are following the fictional narrative right along with Susan, drawn into an intriguing world of danger, violence, remorse and revenge.  We alternate between parallel universes--the fictional one and Susan's present day reality-- interspersed with flashbacks to dramatic moments of her previous life with Edward.  

Something happens that causes Susan to question her current relationship, and as she reads on she's becoming emotionally drawn back to Edward through the fictional world he has created. Then he shows up in town. 

They agree to meet for dinner.

I become more and more impressed with Amy Adams' talent with every film of hers I see. She has that rare ability to convey a ton of emotion with nothing more than the slightest twitch up of her upper lip. (Elvis had that same ability, but he was conveying only raw sexuality!) Amy Adams is one fine actor. In fact, there are great performances galore here (perhaps my collaborator will expand on that). 

The themes of loss, betrayal, and revenge are explored in multi-layered and multi-level fashion--and you'll be ruminating on them...connecting the dots...before you hit the theater exit. The only thing that seems slightly out of balance is the amount of time devoted to the the fictional tale in relation to the present day reality. I thought the "real" story could have been more developed. Then again, if all reality stems from imagination (which it does) then who's to say what is real (as The Moody Blues so poignantly posited), and what IS an illusion?  Have you ever been so engrossed in a book--so in love with the characters--that you grew saddened at the prospect of it ending as you turned those final pages? Imagination has grabbed hold of your reality (as indeed it has for Susan) and become part of it. 

And here's my epiphany from this movie: While it appears on the surface that Nocturnal Animals is Susan's story--indeed we are led down that path by the sheer weight of her onscreen time--it's actually Edward's story. But I didn't grasp that until the very end. 

Now go, and tell me what YOU get out of it!

Grade:  B +       

JILL'S TAKE

I always read what Tim writes before I add my "take." And this time, when I came to the line "She receives a novel manuscript," I laughed out loud. Yes, the manuscript is a novel which is what I believe Tim meant. But it is also novel as in "different from anything seen or known before." That definition could easily apply to Nocturnal Animals in general. It's a disturbing as well as memorable film from start to finish. And trust me, the beginning sequence – one I wish I could forget! – sets you up for a whole lot of discomfort throughout.

Nowadays, when I walk out of a movie theater, I usually ask the same two questions, i.e. "What did you like?" and "What didn't you like?" This time, however, my queries were more script-centered, i.e. "What do you think the meaning of X was?" and "What was the film's ultimate message?" Nocturnal Animals is definitely a thinking man's movie.

As Tim's "collaborator," I shall follow his lead and give Amy Adams' costar Jake Gyllenhaal his due. Anyone with such a complicated last name that can become a bankable movie star deserves special praise. But even if his moniker was Jake Smith, his acting would shine through. He's been in so many movies I've enjoyed (Nightcrawler, Southpaw and, of course, Brokeback Mountain) and those eyes of his? Chick magnets for sure.... I'd also like to mention another extremely talented actor in this film. Michael Shannon. He plays the fictional cop in Edward's 'novel' novel. The minute I saw him on screen, I recognized him from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." Talk about intensity? This guy has it in spades.

I could go on and on (and probably ruin the movie for you) but before I sign off, my one miniscule criticism would be that sometimes the director/writer Tom Ford lingered a bit too long on closeups. Who wouldn't with two such beautiful actors' faces?

As Tim was reminded of Brian DePalma, who got his MA from my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College (the first male student to do so, I might add.), I was reminded of Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress. When you see the movie, you'll understand why.

Grade: B ++

HER (2013)

Rated: R

STARS: Joaquin Phoenix,  Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara,  Olivia Wilde
DIRECTOR: Spike Jonze
GENRE:  Romantic drama

The barrier between human and artificial intelligence is transcended in the sweet but disturbing Her from Spike Jonze.  Is it a romantic comedy?  Is it a serious drama?  Is it a provocative commentary on the growing introversion and alienation in our society? Or is it a thinly disguised, potty-mouthed "phone sex" romp?  

It's a bit of all that.

Joaquin Phoenix is Theodore Twombly, and with a name like that, you know he's a nerd.  He wears dorky looking glasses, and beltless trousers that look like something you'd order off the back page of a magazine. He works as a letter writer/creator for people who are too lazy or too emotionally stunted to compose their own missives to family and significant others. 

The film is set in some unspecified futuristic time. Computer operating systems have the ability to speak, feel human-like emotions, and carry on a conversation in a breathy voice that sounds just like Scarlett Johansson. (Ms. Johansson, as the disembodied "Samantha," never appears physically in the movie. Bummer.)

Theodore is in the process of divorcing his estranged wife, Catherine (the barely recognizable Rooney Mara...guess I'm too used to picturing her as the butchy Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.)  There is a touching scene where he and Catherine are sitting together, and all that's left to do is for her to sign the papers and the deed is done. But she is hesitant. If only there were something they could say or do to turn things around. She affixes her signature anyway, and Theodore's fate is sealed. Because he's falling head-over-heels for Samantha--the perfect, intelligent, dedicated companion we all wish we could find. But computer operating systems'  personalities have the ability to grow. And just as it oft occurs in human on human relationships, Theodore and Samantha may be growing in different directions.

I'm sitting there thinking that Theodore is a real loser, because every chance he has to be with a real woman, he turns it down to preserve his love affair with a computer. But it's probably rare these days to find someone who hasn't become infatuated, or at least highly intrigued, by  the disembodied "voice" of an unseen someone they're communicating with on the internet. Follow the logical progression, and maybe Her isn't as far-fetched as it may seem.in the beginning.  

On the other hand, Her is making a not so subtle statement about  all the folks  who walk around with  their heads buried in their iPhones, eschewing the face-to-face contact that we all used to value before technology turned many of us into sleepwalking zombies with our heads up our butts. The people who, in their distracted stupor, will eventually step in front of a bus or tumble down a manhole. 

Darwin's theory at work.  

Grade:  A --

JILL'S TAKE

I've never been a fan of invisible partners. This loathing of mine began when I watched Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh. I don't include ghost flicks in this category as the ghost character usually appears in human form at some point. But HER takes it too far, way too far. To be honest, I don't know if the reason I despised this movie so vehemently is because the message is so disturbing, or I simply got bored with those endless close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix talking to a hand-held computer. In any case, it gave Tim and me lots to talk about afterwards. (Did I mention that I also don't like futuristic films?)

Even more unsettling than the concept of someone actually becoming enamored with a bodyless voice (who, by the way, tries to arrange a surrogate sex partner for them to share!) is the fact that HER has been nominated in four categories for an Oscar: Best Picture, Best Musical Score, Best Production Design and Best Original Screenplay. I even resent the writer/director Spike Jonze (aka Adam Spiegel) for ripping off Spike Jones' name! (Does anybody remember the bandleader's rendition of "Cocktails for Two" complete with honking horns and hiccuping?)

I suppose I should praise HER for it's timely message, i.e. people are so obsessed with tweeting, texting and hashtagging these days that eye contact has almost become obsolete. To me, that's such a depressing thought that I simply cannot bring myself to say anything positive about this meandering, maddeningly self-indulgent film.

GRADE: D -

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE (2012)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Clint Eastwood,  Amy Adams,  Justin Timberlake,  John Goodman
Director: Robert Lorenz
Genre: Drama 

The latest Clint Eastwood vehicle, Trouble With The Curve, is standard formulaic fare, with the major plot developments pretty easy to spot coming straight down the pike.  And yet, I'm still just enough of a romantic sap to have gotten drawn in by the emotionally manipulative Walter Mitty-in-a-baseball-cap climax, which saves the win for this movie in the final inning. 

Clint Eastwood is Gus Lobel, a snarly over the hill major league baseball scout who possesses a sixth sense about evaluating the upcoming young talent he has been hired to observe. And he needs it, because his eyesight is failing. (Eastwood is now 82 years old. In the real world, a Gus Lobel would have been put out to pasture long ago, but Eastwood can pass for ten years younger than his chronological age, so the bounds of believability are not stretched too terribly tight on that score.)  

So Gus's thirty-something daughter, Mickey, (Amy Adams)  an attorney with a good shot at making partner in her firm, puts an important case on the back burner to become dad's seeing eye dog in the evaluation of one particular player--a hot prospect named  Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill.)  But is she ultimately sacrificing her own career for the sake of saving not-so-dear-old-dad's?   (They've had a strained relationship over the years.)     

Enter the obligatory romantic interest for Mickey in the person of Johnny Flanagan, (Justin Timberlake),  former pitcher and now working as a scout for a different team. But Mickey has had trouble getting close to people, and it's tied up with the abandonment she felt about her father's absence during her formative years.

Amy Adams turns in the only noteworthy performance in Trouble With The Curve. though they've tried to make her character some super-human savant, like the ones who have memorized the contents of the telephone book. Yes, she's a chip off the old block, but she spouts off obscure details of decades old baseball games (who were the three batters that Sandy Koufax retired in the bottom of the ninth when he pitched his perfect game in 1965?  That kind of stuff.)   Nobody who doesn't sit around and devote their whole life to memorizing baseball statistics would come up with that stuff, and as an attorney we assume she has better things to do, so here they HAVE stretched the bounds of believability to the breaking point. It may be a small thing in the context of the entire film, but for me the devil is in the details.     

Clint Eastwood will never veer too far from some modified version of Dirty Harry, or the sullen cigar-chomping tough guy from his spaghetti western days, and he growls his way through Trouble With The Curve in similar fashion. He does  get a shot at demonstrating some emotional depth here, but comes off sort of  like Popeye crying in his spinach. But fans won't care, because if they are true fans they have long ago accepted his limited range, and they are in love with the persona--kind of like the way that I will watch anything Zooey Deschanel is in and become completely absorbed into the black holes of her eyes, and not remember or care about anything else in the movie.

It's all wrapped up in a neat bow at the end, but the climactic scene is a real fist-pumper, and for that reason I am grading this movie on the curve. 

GRADE:  B

  

SUNSHINE CLEANING

Rose, (Amy Adams) who makes her living cleaning houses, and her quirky sister Norah (Emily Blunt) need to make more scratch--one of the reasons being that Rose's young son, Oscar, has to go to private school because he got kicked out of public school for licking the walls, licking the teachers, etc. The married guy Rose has known since high school days--and is currently having discreet sex with--is a cop, and he inspires the sisters to start their own lucrative crime scene clean-up service. It's a bloody job, but somebody's got to do it, and Norah and Rose make mopping up after murders and suicides as humorous as that sort of thing can be. Their Dad (Alan Arkin) raised the sisters on his own after their mother took her own life, so doing this kind of work brings up some emotional issues for them.

Just when you think the flick is going to go along like your run-of-the-mill dark comedy, something touching occurs. Rose comforts an elderly woman who's husband has just ended his life, and she begins to feel COMPASSION and EMPATHY for another person. This is the juncture where Sunshine Cleaning makes the unexpected leap forward into something altogether artistic and human.

Norah is an intriguing character in her own right. She scrambles up under a railroad trestle and plays chicken with the train that's thundering toward her. Another powerful scene. We observe that Norah is an adrenalin junkie--she just wants to FEEL something--probably due to the emotions she's repressed about her mother for so long.

The movie was produced by some of the same bunch that produced Little Miss Sunshine,
with Alan Arkin being the one holdover from that film, in which he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. As the dad, he's a schemer and a dreamer, and those traits will figure into the ending of the picture-though his role here isn't large enough to garner a repeat of Oscar recognition.

Rose and Norah are looking for some closure, and as they move toward it, they get opportunities to gain some insight into themselves as well (such as Rose's true feelings about being good enough to be someone's sexual partner, but not good enough to be anyone's life partner).


The best films are the ones that can make you alternately (or simultaneously) laugh and cry,
and Sunshine Cleaning gets the job done.

GRADE: A


TIMMY'S TIDBITS: Amy Adams once worked as a hostess at Hooters (guess she thought it was classier than working at that place called "Boobs." )

Back in the day, Alan Arkin was lead singer of the folk group, The Tarriers. He co-wrote Harry Belafonte's huge hit "The Banana Boat Song" (or "Day-O" for those of you who know the lyrics but don't pay any attention to the title).