ARGO (2012)

Rated: R

Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin
Director: Ben Affleck
Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Argo is a real film and a fake film. The fake film is what the real film is about. Ben Affleck does a masterful job of directing the real film, including himself in the pivotal role. (It must have been weird to see him do his split-second switch from actor to director, yelling "CUT" right after delivering his own lines.)  

The fake film Argo is a cover story to spirit six American diplomats out of Iran during the infamous hostage crisis that began in late 1979 and continued on into 1981. Having overthrown the corrupt Shah,  Islamic militants are hungry to have his head on a platter, but he has been given asylum in the U.S. The American embassy has been stormed and fifty-two Americans have been taken  hostage.  But six others have managed to evade capture and are given shelter in the home of the Canadian ambassador. However,  it's only a matter of time before they are sniffed out and meet a truly unpleasant fate.

Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) is a CIA guy who heads to Iran with the hair-brained scheme (but the best one they have) of turning the six fugitives into Canadian crew members of  the nonexistent  movie--supposedly to be filmed in Iran--to get them out of where they are holed up and on a plane to freedom.   

Affleck and company--with special kudos to the editing and music score--deftly ratchet up the tension and suspense throughout Argo, keeping us on the edge of our gooey gummy seats (don't reach underneath there) from start to finish.  

With any film that is "based upon a true story," as is this one, you can expect a certain amount of embellishment of the truth and dramatic license to be taken, and there is a goodly amount of that in Argo.  But when you look into how the real events of this joint Canadian-CIA operation unfolded, (which weren't revealed publicly until years after the fact) you will see where a little tinkering with the truth was necessary to end up with a film as compelling as Argo. 

Now, let me pander a little to the conspiracy theorist lurking somewhere in all of us. Is it just coincidence, or just COULD it be the timing of this movie's release is designed to coincide with the stirring up of anti-Iranian paranoia over that country's impending nuclear capabilities,  and with Israel ostensibly on the brink of making a preemptive strike? Ya gotta sell it to the public, ya know,  just like some people think the "unthinkable"--that 9/11 was staged to provide our government a rationale for the invasion of  Iraq. 

Well,  I'll leave that kind of speculation up to you. But as they say in the world of comedy: Timing is everything.

Grade:  A -

   

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

  

BEING FLYNN (2012)

Rated: R

Stars: Robert De Niro,  Paul Dano,  Jullianne Moore, Olivia Thirlby
Director: Paul Weitz
Genre: Drama 


Being Flynn opens with Jonathan Flynn's bombastic narration: America has produced only three classic writers: Mark Twain...J.D. Salinger...and ME!  Of course, we've never heard of Jonathan Flynn, (Robert De Niro)  so at the outset we know the guy is off his nut. 

The narrative passes from father to son--like the writing ability Jonathon has purportedly passed on to Nick Flynn.  Nick (Paul Dano) weaves a tale about his alcoholic, delusional , con man of a dad who shows up in his life after being absent for most of it. The story centers on a homeless shelter where Nick has landed a job, and where his dad has taken up residence. Faced with having to deal with the man up close and personal, Nick struggles to not become his father--though his sometimes girlfriend (Olivia Thirlby) begins to observe more and more similarities-- as the debate of nature versus nurture is opened once again. We see the nurture aspect of Nick's life in flashbacks to his deceased mother (Julianne Moore) who raised him in her husband's absence.

Jonathan is an out and out racist and homophobe, and Being Flynn is that rare creative work where there are no punches being pulled in the name of political correctness to tone down his offensive language and behavior (the script tries to be faithful to the real Nick Flynn's award winning 2004 memoir, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City.)  And that, in my opinion, is why Being Flynn had such a short run in the theaters. I was all set to see it, but I blinked and it was gone. Suffice it to say the average movie goer may feel squeamish with the in-your-face crudeness that spills from Jonathan's lips at every turn (though I couldn't help but cackle at some of it).  So in a climate where certain words and ideas have essentially been banned from public expression  in America,  let's just quietly make this film disappear, (I can hear them saying) and anyone who really wants to see it can wait for the DVD. Which I did.   

And I say too bad that not a lot of people saw it, because De Niro is on top of his game as an individual who has hit bottom. I was flashing back to Ratso Rizzo, Dustin Hoffman's character in Midnight Cowboy, though the similarity is only that they are two brilliant portrayals of down-and-outers.  But, you'll be happy to know,  the theme here is redemption, and whether it's possible for a man like Jonathan Flynn. Or his son for that matter. With a captivating soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy.

Being Flynn is not a pretty movie. But it is beautiful.   

Grade:  A

THE WORDS (2012)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde
Director: Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal
Genre: Romantic drama/ Mystery


A friend of mine predicts that Jeremy Irons' performance in The Words  will garner him an Oscar nomination. My crystal ball is somewhat murkier on that score. It's a damn good turn, to be sure, but knowing how the Academy normally has to be ga ga about the film itself to bestow such individual recognition--and The Words is getting panned by a lot of critics--all bets are off.  Those who aren't dismissing the film, however, are glowing about it, creating a dichotomy of opinion that I always find intriguing, and therefore ready to jump into the fray and lay out the naked truth...the gospel...the straight poop. (Regular visitors to this site know that I've never dispensed any crooked poop!)

Fact is, that by the time the closing credits were rolling, I was blown away by this movie--but it wasn't until the actual ending that it had grown on me to that degree. The Words is a tale within a tale within a tale, which can make you forget who the Original Storyteller is to begin with...kind of like all of us wee lost souls here on planet earth (the "riders on the storm"  that Jim Morrison sang about). 

Bradley Cooper is Rory Jansen, a talented writer, but apparently not talented enough to get his novels published. When he discovers an old manuscript that he instinctively senses is better and more marketable than anything he has created himself, he does some soul searching--but not a whole lot of it--and decides to claim  the work as his own. Now a celebrated author, Rory's karma catches up to him in the form of the old man who actually wrote the book (Jeremy Irons) 

Interwoven is the story "Old Man" (he is never given a name) created in his novel, about his days as a GI in Paris, the woman he falls in love with, and the personal tragedy they bear together. 

Eventually we are steered back to the creator of both these fictional tales, writer Clay Hammond, (Dennis Quaid). 

Or ARE they fictional?  Heh heh.

Or...has a writer so fallen in love with one of his own characters that the lines between fiction and reality have become so blurred as to be indistinguishable? 

The ending of  The Words  should leave you questioning just what is and what isn't--which may be disconcerting to some--but as a writer I was entranced by the ambiguity...by the possibilities being raised...by  a film that actually made me think enough about it as I was heading for the exit that I forgot to stop and take a pee! And one that I will definitely consider seeing again. The only question in my mind is whether the average film goer is going to find it quite as fascinating as some of us literary types will be wont to do.  

Grade:  B +
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MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012)

Rated: PG-13


STARS: Jared Gilman,  Kara Hayward,  Bruce Willis,  Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand,  Tilda Swinton
DIRECTOR:  Wes Anderson
GENRE: Comedy


You've got your quirky film characters, and then you've got your quirky films, and Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom--a sepia-toned homage to young love--fits the latter category. 


Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are two twelve year old social misfits who carry through on a pact to run away with each other. Sam is a would-be orphan who has  worn out his welcome with his foster parents, and has just "resigned" from his Khaki Scout troop because he feels he doesn't fit in . Suzy is a surly problem child in a family of parents who are bored out of their gourd with each other (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).


Their flight is largely symbolic, because they are on an island off the coast New England, and it's not like they won't eventually be sniffed out by police captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) or the gaggle of Scout Master Ward's charges who are hot on the missing  couple's tail. Willis is playing against type here--as a sensitive kind of guy with a heart, and it's refreshing to see. 


Any film that Bill Murray is in, I'm expecting  him to be the dominant presence, (unless it's a true cameo) displaying his deadpan wit and charm to full advantage. But that takes a back seat in Moonrise Kingdom to the two young stars and Edward Norton's adultolescent Scoutmaster Ward. 


So Sam and Suzy traverse the island, setting up camp and relying on Sam's scouting skills to survive, while exploring  their puppy love in innocently provocative ways. But there's a big storm a-brewing off the coast,  creating a renewed sense of urgency amongst the adults to locate the runaways. The storm could be a metaphor for  all of the institutionalized societal and parental forces forever poised to quash amorous exploration by the young  with an iron fist. 


While  Sam and Suzy are precociously testing the waters of adulthood, some of the grownups in Moonrise Kingdom are cartoonishly dorky and not terribly mature. But the story is set in 1965--a time when most adults WERE still pretty dorky--plaid pants and all.


And while the  film is listed as a comedy, the humor is so unswervingly  deadpan that nary a  chuckle was heard from the patrons at the showing I attended,  though I think most must have been sitting there, like myself,  with a bemused grin throughout. And any film where you haven't correctly guessed what is about to come next goes a long way toward winning me over.


The only misstep, in my opinion, is the magic realism  that literally strikes  from the heavens  in the latter part of the film, turning a tale that was still plausible--if unlikely--into the realm of a cartoon where Wile E. Coyote gets his ass blown up by a bomb, or falls off a cliff,  but jumps back up a second later no worse for the wear.


Tilda Swinton has a turn as the demanding and uncompromising bureaucrat known only as "Social Services," who wants to nab Sam and stick him in an orphanage. Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel also appear. 


With a creative and  imaginative soundtrack by Benjamin Britten.


Grade:  B +


        

THE INTOUCHABLES (2012)

STARS: Francois Cluzet, Omar Sy
DIRECTOR: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
GENRE: Comedy/Drama (French with subtitles)


Rated:  R


I think about the great onscreen couples: Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire in Rocky. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy. And now I must add Froncois Cluzet and Omar Sy in The Intouchables.


The odd couple who find common ground and make it work in spite of themselves has long been an appealing film premise. In The Intouchables, we have rich guy Philippe, (Francois Cluzet) paralyzed and wheelchair bound. Driss (Omar Sy) is a rude, crude, and lewd African dude (an ex-con) who shows up one day at Phillipe's palatial digs to apply for the job of caregiver/companion. After seeing a battery of milquetoast applicants for the job, Philippe sees something in the brash  Driss--a diamond in the rough--and gives him the job.


Driss propositions the female help in the household, and manhandles  people who park their cars where they may be blocking his access to the street.  But what Philippe sees in the man is freedom. With Driss, his spirit can be unleashed, even as he languishes in that chair--the result of a paragliding accident.  


Philippe's intuition is accurate.


Driss is the ultimate instinctive man--totally comfortable in his own skin. The kind of person who makes those who live by convention nervous. He takes Philippe on a wild high-speed ride through the streets of Paris with the cops in hot pursuit. They evade the gendarmes for a while, (some great stunt driving) but are eventually boxed in and surrounded. Apparently, they are now going to pay the price.  The way they finagle themselves out of their predicament is sheer bravado and comic genius.


Philippe's paralysis has not erased his desire for affection, and a subplot has him writing flowery letters to a female  "pen pal." Driss,  in his adorable cut-the-crap way, tells him to simply pick up the phone and call her. They may or may not meet someday--though initially she doesn't know that Phillipe is a quadriplegic.  


The Intouchables is an international hit because it's breezy, uplifting, touching, heartwarming, and funny--with sparkling chemistry between these two fine actors. And it's got a great everybody dance scene (except Phillipe, of course) to one of my favorite Earth Wind and Fire songs.  


Grade:  A

A TITILLATING TRIO NOW PLAYING ON HOME THEATRE: SLEEPING BEAUTY***SHAME***A DANGEROUS METHOD

SLEEPING BEAUTY  (2011)


NR


An alternate title for Sleeping Beauty might have been: Wake Me When It's Over.  That pretty well sums it up for Lucy, (Emily Browning) a college student who sleepwalks through her life of working at odd jobs to get by--the oddest of all being a hired play toy for rich old pervs who have carte blanche to do what they will with her naked body, as long as there is no penetration (house rules) and they don't leave any marks.  


Lucy has been taken on by Clara, (Rachael Blake) the madam of a soft-core brothel, to be a kind of living doll that the pretentious old farts will work out their sexual fantasies upon in various ways--some pretty twisted--as she lies there in a drugged stupor, unaware of anything that has happened to her when she wakes up. Hell of an easy way to make a buck--if you have totally acquiesced to the precept that the end justifies the means.  The delicate, waif-like Browning is perfect for the part--the embodiment of innocence exploited--or at least the appearance of such


We don't get any real insight into why Lucy has numbed out on life, but we see the slippery slope that leads up to her becoming a Sleeping Beauty. She snorts cocaine in a club, then allows the flip of a coin to determine whether she will have sex with a man she just met. She propositions another guy at a bar--as directly and obscenely as any sleazy, tactless guy trying to pick up a woman.  When she does come into some money, she sets fire to a hundred dollar bill, watching dispassionately as it turns to ash. 


 It is apparent that much of  Lucy's behavior is one attempt and then another  just to feel something--the no penetration clause of her employment agreement serving as metaphor for the impenetrable shield between herself and life. Maybe this is writer-director Julia Leigh's indictment of life in the twenty-first century, with all of our technology providing interpersonal contact at the press of a button--but is it bringing us closer in any meaningful kind of way? 


There is a subplot involving an alcoholic friend named Birdmann, who seems to be the only male Lucy can relate to in a normal emotional way, and only because they're an odd couple and wouldn't be relationship material for each other.


Most everyone in Sleeping Beauty has a wistful, far away look in their eye--so if you ask me what the film is about,  I'd say it's about the uniquely human inability to inhabit and be fully present in the moment.  


Grade: B

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SHAME  (2011)

Rated: NC-17

Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is obsessed. With porn, with masturbation, with hookers, with picking up women in bars--wearing an ascot like some classy dude--and ending up rutting with them up against a wall somewhere. 

He consistently ignores phone calls from his sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) as he and his dangling participle navigate au naturel around his upscale Manhattan apartment. Until one day he comes home to find her naked in his shower--totally freaking him out. She stands there in full-frontal repose for a good long while as they converse, neither of them acting like it's any big deal, which might be a clue to something in their shared past, or just an indication that they are totally at ease around one another.  But unlike Ms. Mulligan, their back story is never exposed. 

Sissy needs to put distance between herself and a bad relationship, so she wants to play roomie with her brother for a while. Brandon reluctantly consents. But they are oil and water. She's needy and clingy. He's cold and calculating.  And with the way he dispatches people to follow his one-track mind, not a very likable guy.

In a highly revealing scene, (well, they're all revealing) Brandon and his co-worker,  Marianne--who is interested in him on an emotionally deeper level than most of his consorts--are about to get cozy. But faced with the prospect of beginning something of a "normal" relationship with a woman, Brandon gives an underwhelming performance in the bedroom. After that, we see him back in his element--on top of his game again with some sleazy, anonymous sex played out against a Manhattan high-rise picture window with the drapes wide open.


But the real impact of Shame lies in the relationship between Brandon and Sissy, and whether he'll be able to  recognize her call for help before it's too late. They're both time bombs--he in his controlled way, though near the end his obsession drives him to make some highly risky choices; she in a way that could lead to overtly disastrous consequences. 


It's just a Shame that we don't know more about what makes either of them tick. 

Grade:  B

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A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011)

Rated : R

       

Michael Fassbender is back in a very different kind of role, though sex is still at the forefront in A Dangerous Method--based on the real life love triangle of Carl Jung, (Fassbender)  Sigmund Freud, (Viggo Mortenson)  and Sabina Spielrein. (Keita Knightly).

Ms. Spielrein was  one of history's more  fascinating  characters. Initially a mental patient being treated by Dr. Jung, she went on to be his student, and later became one of the first female psychoanalysts. Keira Knightly's portrayal of Spielrein is straight out of  How To Act Like A Crazy Person 101. Can you say "overacting?" The woman's unbalanced phase could have benefited from just a touch of subtlety-- as I know plenty of folks who are totally off their nut, and they can pass for normal for a couple of hours straight on a given day. 

Speilrein got off on S & M, and in the scene where she is being spanked, (I don't think it was her birthday) Knightly is entrancing with her top falling down, but didn't convince me that she was truly enjoying it.  Maybe this was where she was bringing the subtlety.

Fassbender and Mortenson  give  interesting, chatty performances (and certainly look the part) as Jung and Freud respectively, as they begin their friendship and then have a falling out, with Sabina figuring prominently into the mix. 

Notable quotes: I think Freud's obsession with sex probably has a great deal to do with the fact that he never gets any.

On the subject of monogamy, for example, why should we put so much frantic effort into suppressing our most basic natural instincts?     

Grade: B