FORD v FERRARI (2019)

Rated:  PG-13

STARS:  Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Tracy Letts, Caitriona Balfe
DIRECTOR: James Mangold
GENRE: Action-Adventure/ Drama


It's The Little Old Lady From Pasadena! Go granny...go granny...go granny go! I thought I saw her in the audience on the edge of her seat, enjoying this one immensely. She's part of the target audience, along with teenage boys who love anything that is loud and fast (which explains some of the poor choices we make in choosing mates later on in life). For the rest of us good citizens who fall somewhere in the middle, driving defensively and observing the rules of the road, the testosterone fueled Ford v Ferrari is just a wild fantasy about what it would be like to be a high profile race car driver--where you're not even obligated to flash the middle finger while driving like a maniac, an everyday scenario out on the roadways of every city. A (mostly) true story of big rich boys and their toys. 

We all like an underdog, and this is your classic underdog tale, focusing on the 1966 Twenty-Four Hours Of Le Mans where Ford had employed all of its ingenuity and technical know how to develop a car that would challenge the long standing dominance of Ferrari. 

The principal players are Carrol Shelby (Matt Damon), the only American to that point to win at LeMans, now retired from active racing. And hotheaded Brit Ken Miles (Christian Bale), the best race driver around, but he comes with lots of baggage in the trunk. The familiar talented rebel versus the corporate suits scenario. Shelby becomes the intermediary between Miles and the corporate stiffs--headed by Henry Ford II, played with icy disdain by Tracy Letts-- in his efforts to get Miles accepted as Ford's lead driver at LeMans.

This is Christian Bale's movie. He nails his tough-as- nails character. On the other hand, Matt Damon is always going to have that baby-faced boy next door look even when he's ninety. It's a problem, because his mug doesn't show the depth of character required for playing some of these tough (physically or mentally) guy roles. 

Irish born former model Caitriona Balfe (with a name like that she's got to be good), who plays Ken Miles' wife, gets to shine in a scene where she is driving her husband in the family wagon and decides to show him a thing or two about taking chances at the wheel. (She's really pissed off!) Ironically, it's the most harrowing scene in the movie.

Ford v Ferrari is LOUD! The screech of the tires...the roar of the engines...the smell of the crowd (I saw the IMAX version). I sat there with my thumbs in my ears for 90 percent of the film, and it's two and a half hours long. But the adrenaline rush you'll get may be worth it. The racing scenes are among the most breathtaking that I've seen on film.  

Back in the day, there was always some semi-knowledgeable gear head who would stand there with a cig dangling from his lips who would tell you that Fords were crap. Ford v Ferrari seems to disprove that notion. At least for one magical moment in time.

Grade:  B +

JILL'S TAKE

This movie proves one thing to me: I can be wrong. Before seeing Ford v Ferrari, I had serious misgivings. How was I going to stand watching fast cars whir around hairpin turns for 2½ hours? Since I've always been partial to Christian Bale – except as Dick Cheney in Vice and Michael Burry in The Big Short – I figured I could suffer through the racing bits.

That was my first wrong assumption: those 'racing bits' were mesmerizing! Even for an anti Nascar person like me (who assumes anyone who's into that sort of nonsense is brain dead), I was hooked. Every time that speedometer needle went into the red zone, my heart stopped. I don't know how director James Mangold filmed those racing sequences but they made me—and everybody else in the audience—feel like I was behind the wheel. Truly great cinematography!

My second wrong assumption was about Matt Damon who has never turned my crank. (I figure a motor metaphor is apt here.) His asymmetrical nose bothers me for some reason. But in this movie, I bought his character's love of racing, his commitment to the sport, and his total respect for Ken Miles. He seemed totally authentic. I would've preferred fewer yes men around Henry Ford II. And fewer shots of mechanics changing tires. But on the whole this is one helluva movie. (I was glad they showed the real people it was based on at the end.)

The fellow I went with is a fan of car racing. He felt there was too much personal stuff in the movie (i.e. the fight between the two main characters, the family subplot, etc.). For him, it took away from the action. For me, it added to it. But to paraphrase an old saying, "That's what makes car races!"

I don't think Bale or Damon will be nominated for Oscars but I do think Tracy Letts (who also wrote August: Osage County) could be.

Grade: B+

 

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

HOSTILES (2018)

Rated:  R

STARS: Christian Bale, Wes Studi, Rosamund Pike
DIRECTOR: Scott Cooper
GENRE: Western/Action-Adventure

I like a good western now and then. Part of it, I think, is because back then men looked like men. They had facial hair! (And they weren't waxing their chests.) So I was looking forward to seeing Hostiles because not so many of these manly pictures come around anymore. And from some of the buzz about it, I thought there might be a message in there. 

And indeed there is one in the opening two sequences. Some white settlers are slaughtered by Comanches. After that, some Indians are brutally murdered by the paleface. Graphic stuff, and a pretty clear message that war is futile. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong. In retrospect, of course, we know who was right and who was wrong, if defending your homeland against alien invaders is what any noble people would do.   

It's 1892, and U.S. army captain Joe Blocker (Christian Bale) has been charged to lead a mercy mission of escorting a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family from New Mexico back to their native lands in Montana. That's a long ride on horseback. Blocker balks at first. He's seen too much killing, and he hates those "savages" with every fiber of his being. He reluctantly gives in (after being threatened with court martial) and the party sets out. Along the way they'll be attacked by marauding Comanches and nefarious types of his own race. Blocker is quickly faced with the reality that if his little band of soldiers and Indians are to survive, they must all stick together. He must dig down and find the humanity in himself, so he can recognize it in others.  

Christian Bale's Joe Blocker is one of the best fleshed out characters I've seen in some time. We see his internal struggle all the way through. Can't say as much for the rest of the cast, as there are some uneven acting performances--some pretty good, some not so hot. But what really bugged me throughout the film was that many of the characters--especially the Indians in the traveling party--didn't look authentic. Their faces (other than the old chief) weren't weathered enough. Their skin is baby smooth, lacking the character lines that a hard life of subsistence upon the prairie would bring. They look more like...well...like Hollywood actors!  

If little "details" like this don't bother you, and you're willing to trade believability for edge-of-your-seat action and suspense, you'll enjoy Hostiles. As I heard a guy who was heading for the exit after the movie say: Whole bunch of Indians gettin' shot and killed...and white people too!

That pretty well sums it up.

Grade:  C +

JILL'S TAKE

(Ha, ha.) That guy in the audience pretty well summed up Hostiles. I do, however, want to add a codicil to Captain Blocker being threatened with a court martial if he didn't escort those "savages" to Montana. For me, the game changer was when his superior threatened him with the loss of his pension. Something any modern day racist can readily identify with... ("Money talks, bullshit walks.")

This was a long movie. It had to be in order to make the attitudinal changes believeable. But as this was oh-so-slowly happening, I got to wondering how the average western loving movie goer would react to such psychological meanderings. 

The scenery was gorgeous. Those aerial shots made me aware, as every western does, of just how vast this country is. (Or was.) And if I knew how to say 'great job' in Cheyenne, I'd certainly tell Oklahoma native Wes Studi he was terrific. The final words he shared with homesteader Rosalie Quaid (ably played by yet another Brit, Rosamund Pike) really moved me. But they also made me think about how today's Native Americans would react to this retributive film. Forgiveness—like the proverbial rattlesnake—is a slippery creature....

For me, the slowness of this tale got in the way of the story.

Grade: C

KNIGHT OF CUPS (2016)

Rated: R

STARS: Christian Bale, Brian Dehnehy, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick
GENRE: Drama/Romance


To frame it in language that my uncle Lemuel back in Nebraska would find user friendly: Terence Malick makes weird movies that some consider to be absolutely brilliant, while others just shake their heads and say:  Shit...I'll never get  those two hours back!

Case in point: Tree Of Life.  It was lauded as a masterpiece by many and was nominated for three Academy Awards. I found it to be disjointed and tedious. However, if I were to view it a second time, I might get a better grasp on what Mr. Malick was trying to convey. The same can probably be said for his latest offering, Knight Of Cups.

The "plot" is as follows. Rick (Christian Bale) is a Hollywood writer who drifts in and out of reverie with six pivotal women in his life--played by Imogeen Poots, Cate Blanchett, Freida Pinto, Natalie Portman, Teresa Palmer, Isabel Lucas, and Brian Dennehy. WHOOPS...Dennehy plays his father...heh heh...with whom Rick has flashback encounters designed to give us an inkling of past tragedies.

The characters in Knight Of Cups speak solely through their own interior monologue--in other words, they are talking to themselves. The action moves from one dreamlike sequence to another, through the kaleidoscopic cityscapes and the "beautiful people" of L.A. and Las Vegas--to the beach, to the bedroom, to the boredom (my own).Through all of this cinematically pretty navel-gazing, Christian Bale, as Rick, is trying to figure out who he is...or what his life is all about...or maybe what he is doing in this film in the first place.

It's a lot of weirdness, Uncle Lemuel (which I'm not averse to), but after awhile it gets to be too much of the SAME KIND of weirdness--like watching Freddy Krueger come back to life every damn time they kill him, or listening to Marco Rubio up on the debate stage!

Maybe Malick is making a statement about the dreamlike nature of life. That I can grasp. You sit in your living room gazing at a chair where somebody sat weeks, or months, or years ago and you wonder...were they ever really there?

I didn't love Knight Of Cups. I didn't exactly hate it (it's smattered with " T " and "A"). But it's true. I'll never get those two hours back.

Grade: C


JILL'S TAKE

I suppose after seeing Remember, a movie I felt was one of the best I'd ever seen, it's only fitting that the next one should be – bar none -- worst movie I've ever seen! I have very little patience with stories that have no discernible story. Obviously the producers of this turkey knew what they were dealing with and decided (after seeing the final cut and tearing their hair out) to make the trailer look as if it was a triangle love story between Bale, Blanchett and Portman. That's what I thought I was going to see!

Instead I was subjected to long silences, Tarot card headings, self-indulgent soliloquies and a film that seemed to go on forever. The only people I think might get something out of this meandering mishmosh are the 420 crowd. Warning: Take a BIG toke before entering the theater...

Grade: D ----

OUT OF THE FURNACE (2013)

Rated:  R

Stars: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson,  Zoe Saldana,  Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafole, Sam Shepard

Director: Scott Cooper

Genre: Drama


Out Of The Furnace is evidently trying to make a point about senseless violence. The senseless violence of war. The senseless violence that permeates the drug culture. The senseless violence of clandestine bare-knuckle boxing (the human equivalent of cockfighting). The senseless violence of shooting animals at close range for "sport."  So as you might have guessed, there's a lot of senseless violence in this film,  but the only point that gets made is that Americans continue to possess a disturbing and unrelenting blood lust for senseless violence in their films, TV shows, video games, and sports. (Soccer--another excuse to hold a riot!)  

We're a bunch of sick puppies.

The most sympathetic character here is Russell Baze, (Christian Bale) a steel mill worker in a depressed area of Pennsylvania. More than the rest, you could say he's a victim of circumstance. He has a sweet thing going with his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) until he gets convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sent off to prison. She drops him, but he will attempt a reconciliation when he gets out. 

Russell has a loose cannon brother, Rodney, (Casey Affleck)  who just returned from four tours of duty in Iraq. Russell tries to get Rodney to see the practical wisdom of working at the mill, but Rodney would rather get involved with a scumbag bookie (Willem Dafoe) who sets him up in the world of bare-knuckle boxing. His handler is a twisted sociopath named  Harlan DeGroat, (Woody Harrelson) a local drug mogul whom  you don't want to cross. If you owe money to DeGroat and don't ante up, you could be paying with your life.  Rodney has stepped out of the furnace and into the fire, and there ain't no turnin' back.  

Out Of The Furnace is an old-fashioned revenge tale, pure and simple, which skulks  with a palpable sense of dread toward its inexorable climax, aided by yet another winning score from Dickon Hinchliffe (Winter's Bone, Project Nim, Last Chance Harvey).


Woody Harrelson and Casey Affleck turn in  memorable performances--Affleck as the ticking time bomb, and Harrelson for the brooding evil he summons forth from the darkest regions of the human soul. Why Harrelson, who by all accounts is one of the good guys in real life,  (environmentalist, vegan) continues to take on these kinds of lowlife roles is a curious and intriguing mystery to me--but he probably just wants to demonstrate his range. 

Out Of The Furnace is superb for what it is, but it covers no new ground. In fact, it covers some very ancient ground. The eternal, relentless, and invariably futile barbarism of exacting an eye for an eye.  

Grade:  B

JILL'S TAKE

It's a funny thing about OUT OF THE FURNACE. The script has more holes in it than a pound of Swiss cheese. For this reason alone I'd normally give it low marks. But I was hooked from start to finish. Even when the finish didn't make any sense whatsoever. Kill me, shoot me, but I like violent flicks. And believe you me, writer-director Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart") kept me tense and terrified throughout. I definitely wasn't bored. But after the movie ended, I wasn't particularly inspired, either. Or moved. Just confused.

I could pick on plenty of stuff about this movie that got my nose out of joint: e.g. hard to buy into the idea that skinny Casey Affleck could beat up on guys twice his size. And why did Forest Whitaker choose to play such a minor and meatless role? But I've got to be honest. For all it's flaws and implausibilities, OUT OF THE FURNACE had me jumping at every punch thrown, completely gripped by the madness I kept on witnessing. So even though my head tells me I should be objective about the script's structural flaws (cowritten with Brad Ingelsby) and grade this flick accordingly, I refuse to do it. Why? Because part of movie-going for me (and millions of others, I suspect), is to escape. And OUT OF THE FURNACE is perfect escapist entertainment. Especially for psychopaths....

GRADE: B

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Going in, I figured this to be a film with plenty of potential to insult my intelligence, (what's left of it) but I'm delighted as duck doo doo to report that IT DIDN'T! I'll explain why in a moment.

Terminator Salvation is the fourth in the Terminator series. I saw the original 1984 film with "Ahnuld," but missed the next two, so I had some catching up to do. Fortunately, the blanks were pretty well filled in so that someone totally unfamiliar with this series could get his bearings early on.

The year is 2018, and the war between the humans and Skynet (the machines) has been raging, with the machines having decimated most of humanity. The likely here-I-come-to-save-the-day hero is John Connor, (Christian Bale) leader of The Resistance. The UNLIKELY co-hero is Marcus Wright, (Sam Worthington) a criminal who is executed in the beginning of the film, but gets resurrected (didn't insult my intelligence) to become Connor's ally in the fight--but not until Connor overcomes serious doubts about the guy. Wright has received an "extreme makeover" courtesy of Skynet, and is now a cyborg--part human and part machine (didn't insult my intelligence). Connor is thinking: Whose side is this dude on? Luckily, though, Wright's heart is still human--which is not lost on Blair Williams, (the exotic Moon Bloodgood) Resistance fighter pilot who recognizes the good in Wright from the get-go. This is where the film makes the case for reverence for ALL life--even if you don't know what category to fit it into.

Skynet has a crapload of human prisoners--they plan to develop a new kind of Terminator using live tissue. It's up to Connor to lead the resistance into a climactic attack on Skyynet's headquarters without killing the captives in the process--even though his orders from headquarters (which he rejects) are to bomb the place to smithereens, no questions asked. I like a movie--no matter what the genre--that deals with philosophical issues, and some of them in Terminator Salvation seem to reflect on the Bush-Cheney regime's handling of the Iraq war. There's the issue of "collateral damage,'' innocent civilians being killed as a result of a war strategy that assumes the end justifies the means. And there's a clear poke at the Bush-Cheney policy of torturing prisoners, when Connor balks at some of the tactics he's asked to use by emphatically stating that if we become just like THEM, what's the point of winning?

Now, here's the part where Terminator Salvation COULD have insulted my intelligence, but didn't. Blair Williams, the fighter pilot, is accosted by a number of men. She's a tough cookie--she gets her licks and her kicks in and puts up a good fight, but the men eventually overpower her. Not like that stupid character Jennifer Garner played in that stupid espionage TV series she was in, where she would routinely kick the crap out of half a dozen men all at once without breaking a sweat. That's cartoon stuff--and I can only think that the writers who try to patronize women in this silly kind of way must be hoping that once their wives or girlfriends see it onscreen they'll be extra nice to them in the bedroom.

Terminator Salvation is like the sensory overload of Christmas morning. The clanking bogeymen on the Skynet side--whether on foot, on wheels, or in the air--are such imaginative creations that you can only sit there with your mouth hanging open. It's a thrill ride of immense creative genius, and if there were ever a prudent reason for strapping moviegoers into their seats--this is it.

The only "huh?" kind of thing I can point out is that the movie is set in the year 2018. That's only nine years from now, and I highly doubt that the machines will be ready to challenge man for dominion over the planet by then. Then again, we've already come out with the "Smart Car," so you never know.

GRADE: A-