My thoughts about movies and TV shows I've been watching

See also my blog on books: Elliot's Reading

Monday, March 31, 2014

True and not so true detectives

While enjoying temporary access to HBO I'm also, sort of, enjoying True Detective - not a great series on the order of The Sopranos or The Wire but pretty entertaining and tantalizing. More than anything, it's about the relationship of the two detectives on the case, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, temperamental opposites yoked together - MM (Rust Cohle) a damaged loner existentialist introvert and Harrelson (Marty Hart) a tough, philandering family man Louisiana cop. The highlights are the long dialogs the two engage in during their long drives across the delta in pursuit of a case, subjects for easy parody of course and also peculiar and elusive - is MM brilliant of sophomoric, or both? The structure of the series is really smart - as the two men are each being interrogated by fellow Louisiana state troopers about a long-ago case - and we move back and forth between this present-day interrogation and the enactment of the case under review, from circa 1995. The two men look quite different in the present (it seems they make Harrelson much younger for the '95 scenes and MM older and far more ruined in the present day); we don't know what's happened to the characters in the interval, nor why the case is under review, and of course over time the strands will weave together. Other highlights are great music from T Bone Burnett and extraordinary cinematography of a region - the delta - seldom seen in such detail. Great shots of oil rigs across the flats, run down communities in the bayous, etc. The weakness, unfortunately, is the relatively uninteresting case at the heart of it all: an investigation of a ritualistic killing with religious iconographic overtones: big nod here to Stieg Larsson, but at least in TD the police aren't the stupidest people on the planet. Despite all of MM's ruminations on being and nothingness, the skills the two men bring to solving this case are pretty rudimentary: poring through old files looking for other  possible ritual killings, a long series of interview each of which yields a valuable clue that they dutifully follow up w/ another interview (gosh, well, she used to work at this brother; gosh, yes, she used to go to a church; gosh, it's strange, someone burned down our church, and so on - that is, the detectives never have to use their intelligence or wits to unearth the facts). The joke is, I guess, that these guys are not really "true detectives," and certainly not in the vein of the True Detective magazine - they're true eccentrics, that is to say, they're characters - in an HBO series.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Why I won't watch (any more of) Doll & Em

Watched the first episode of HBO Doll & Em last night and won't be watching any more. Why watch it? Well, everyone like Emily Mortimer, as this show certainly makes clear, and here she plays herself in a comedy-drama about her hiring her close (best?) friend, Doll, (short for Delores?) as her personal assistant, kind of a mercy hire, as Doll on the rebound from a bad relationship and depression (we don't get much back story). Sounds possibly reasonably appealing - a girlie version of Entourage. Aside from the obvious fact of Hollywood's endless fascination with itself - and ours, too, I guess, as we're all kind of interesting in a look at the private and personal lives of the stars - in some ways "they're like us" as US would have it: they crave ice cream, they have their own Starbucks order, they have spats - in other ways they're not at all  "like us" - with their every whim catered to - well, that's the role of the assistant, and it's obviously a bad mistake to entwine friendship with servitude. There may be possibilities here - especially if the assistant aspires to act herself, and maybe dims the light of the star, a la All About Eve? But if the first episode is representative, this show is one big, or shallow, drink of water - very little happens, and nothing of interest. We get the point in about 10 seconds and aside from one well-paced scene in which it gradually dawns on Doll that she's no longer a gal friend but a servant who's paid to cater to her employer's whims  - there's nothing to make this short series distinct, thoughtful, or even particularly funny or fun. Cut.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Stereotypes about women in business in Love Crime

The French drama Love Crime, quite aptly described in its straightforward title, is a little bauble of a movie, entertaining enough, after a slow and awkward start, as a crime drama in reverse - we have no doubt as to who commits the murder and why; the question is, how does she walk? What's she up to, as she assiduously plants all kinds of clues that seem to us to be self-incriminating? By the end, all the clues are explained and we see how her mind has worked - and yet - as with so many complex crime capers, a million things have to go exactly right for her scheme to work out, and by god they sure do! On any close examination, the whole plot falls apart, so probably best just to enjoy it and accept it for what it is - which is - something that very much reminded me of the Glenn Close TV drama Damages: powerful woman in law/business takes on a protegee who inevitably becomes her arch rival. Cruelty and bitchiness abound, and so does blood, eventually. Although I got a little tired of Damages after three seasons, it's a lot stronger than Love Crime - mostly because of Close (though Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead in Love Crime is very good), but also because it's played out in a fairly complex political-legal drama. Love Crime is ostensibly about advertising and marketing, but it's no Mad Men, believe me: the board room scenes are ludicrous, could have been written by a 6th-grader: We really love your three bullet points! This is a great day for our company! Damages at least makes Close a really awesome and powerful character, whereas Scott Thomas in Love Crime is just needy and nasty - unfortunately, playing into the stereotype that women cannot lead in the corporate or business world because their jealousies and passions get in the way. It's a movie about two women seems to be very much from the (French?) male point of view.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The virtues of the British (movies, that is): Philomena

12 Years a Slave definitely deserved the best picture Oscar nod, but that's not to diminish from some other fine movie from 2013, and in particular Philomena - a really simple, straightforward narrative, with an excellent screenplay, fine pacing (by director Stephen Frears), and two totally solid if mature and unglam stars Steve Coogan and Judie Dench, in other words, an exemplar of the virtues we have come to take for granted among so many fine British movies and TV dramas, with their solid grounding in live theater (and serious literature, too, I guess) and that we rarely see in American films, with their devotion to action, effects, and star power. The movie is about very serious matters - the role of the Catholic church in Ireland in exploiting and abusing pregnant teens, the shameful sale of Irish babies to wealthy adoptive parents (a modest proposal that even Swift never thought of), and the disgraceful cover-up in later years that caused heartbreak and needless pain for so many - all told through the story of the title character who is in quest of the son taken from her by adoptive parents when he was about 3. With aid of an out-of-favor journalist, she pursues many trails, and I won't spoil the ending for anyone here - although it's obvious that the journalist, Michael Sexsmith?, got a great story, and then a book (and then this movie) out of what seemed at first like a light human-interest story. It's not a totally earnest, dreadful, polemical movie like so many movies on a "theme," but has a lot of drama and even humor. I think I've seen some online comments criticizing the movie for veering from the facts, but, come on, it's not a documentary - it's a drama with a point of view, a movie believe it or not for adults.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Werner Herzog's documentaries: A record of life on earth

There has to be a bit of irony in the title of Werner Herzog's documentary about a year in the life of a small village in the Russian taiga. In some ways, sure, the fur trappers and their families in this isolated, rugged part of the world are Happy People, completely independent (which must have felt like a particular liberation under Soviet rule and after), living and working outdoors, crafting thing (canoes, hunting traps, lodges, skis) following traditional techniques passed down for many generations. Yet for most viewers this is far from an ideal or idealized life - I for one would go crazy at the lack of culture and society (and variety) and could not have survived a week in these conditions - would have starve to death, frozen to death, drowned in an icy current, chopped of a hand while wielding an ax or adze, been ostracized for failure to pull my weight, or met some other dreadful fate. My people could not have come from there. And then we get some haunting scenes of the native taiga dwellers, probably related to Mongols, consigned to low manual labor, paid a pittance, drinking up their earnings, nothing happy about these poor people - one can only imagine the squalor of their dwellings (we never see them), as the Russians in the village live in pretty primitive conditions themselves. In fact, would have been interesting to see a bit more of their domestic life - most of the film focuses on the practices of the fur trappers. There are some extraordinarily beautiful frames and sequences, especially the ice breaking up on the wide river in the spring, the long boat ride up to the wilderness. It must of taken tremendous work and dedication to make this film, over a period of a year in a very inaccessible locale. The prolific Herzog (co-directed with Dimtry Vasyukov - had to look that up) is developing over time an amazing geographic record of some of the most remote places on earth, remote both in locale (Antarctica, Alaska) and time (French cave paintings), an extraordinary documentary record of life on earth.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

A fine French film that won't translate: The Intouchables

The French film from ca 2010 The Intouchables is totally engaging and charming and a buddy film like none other - the story of a bonding between a very wealthy Parisian quadriplegic and an unemployed black guy from the projects whom he hires as his aide may at first seem familiar - q.v. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Deep Blue Sea - or was it The Sea Inside?, why so many European films on this topic? - and all "based on a true story" the banner that so many films now fly - and none translatable into American idiom?  That said, the relationship between the two main characters is a rare thing on film, a relationship that grows, evolves, and changes both men over time - somehow film is not as good a medium for character evolution and development as is literature, perhaps the time frame is too short in general, or the demands of plot (and entertainment) are so severe, or because character in film tends to be an established starting point and character may experience hardships and challenges over time and rise above the challenges - a staple of film narrative, obviously, but it's a process that more often confirms character than changes character - or, if there is change, it too often feels superimposed from without - as in Dallas Buyers Club that I posted on yesterday - the lead character become more thoughtful and sensitive when under adversity, but the change is too sudden and profound and we feel a bit set up by the overly crude introduction to the lead. Not in The Intouchables - the plot very  smartly begins kind of late in their relationship, when they're obviously buddies (though we don't yet understand how or why or who they are) and then flashes back and fills in the entire narrative. I'm kind of glad this film has not been re-made in English - I don't think it would work as well - as the attitude throughout toward class, race, and sex is particularly Gallic and would feel very different with a rich American hiring a black man from Watts or Harlem as his aide. It's very serious and profound film but with much laugh-out-loud humor, and except perhaps for a little "surprise" twist near the end that was kept from us, or more accurately from the lead character, for no reason other than entertainment, pretty much every moment in the movie is believable and thoughtful. A very find movie that's flown a bit under the radar because of the language barrier, lack of star power, and a topic that could be a downer but is actually uplifting and moving.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Worth seeing for the 2 leads - Dallas Buyers Club

First off, the 2 leads in Dallas Buyers Club make the movie and Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto definitely deserve awards they've won even if these are prototypical of the type of role all too often recognized: enactment of a character completely against type in this case a Texas redneck whose world view changes when he's diagnosed with aids and a cross-dressing man who becomes his friend. The leads aside the film aptly conveys the fears hat reds and confusions of the early days of the aids epidemic esp outside of the major coastal cities and large gay communities in particular. Also properly exposes the nefarious behavior of drug companies doctors and the FDA all either greedy or shortsighted bureaucrats. That said the movie is for me too schematic and even didactic. The change in personality occurs a little too easily I thought - compare the more subtle and nuanced change in a movie like The Crying Game - and the heavies are too heavy and the sympathetic doc played aptly enough by Jennifer Garner is built upon "every cliche in the book" - uptight doc by end loses the eyeglasses starts wearing attractive clothes etc.  It's a good and very sincere movie and worth seeing but as a narrative it falters and goes on for too long.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Not quite enough - Gandolfini's last film?

On the plus side, Enough Said, a light bauble of a rom-com movie that's a bit light on the com and veers precipitously toward the rom, has four totally likable stars sharing the billing, so it's an easy-to-watch 90 minutes: Dreyfus hasn't changed much over the years, and it's nice to see her so deftly play the role of a 40ish and independent LA-area divorcee looking for love but reasonably confident in her life and self-worth; good to see Toni Collette at last get a chance to be herself in full Australian, a talented actress going all the way back to 6th sense who doesn't have to overplay the part to hold the screen (a la States of Tara), C Keener appealing too in a rare performance as a self-centered diva - showing she doesn't always have play the likable good pal, and of course so sad to see Gandolfini in what I guess is his last role - never quite getting out from under the shadow of Tony Soprano but showing some versatility in as a good guy, sort of a nerd in love. All that said, there's really just so little to this movie - boy & girl meet, girl makes really stupid mistake, boy is hurt and breaks up, but both miss each other terribly and at last put aside pride and get together again. Sounds like about a million 1950s ballads, right? Of course a lot of relationships are exactly like that, and to its credit this film does not romanticize or sentimentalize like, say, As Good as It Gets or that stupid movie with Meryl Streep being courted by Steve Martin. You can actually accept Dreyfuss and Gandolfini as a likely couple - appealing, witty, but by no means glam or perfect. The awkwardness of their first date is handled very well, very credible. It's also one of the rare movies to actually approximate the look of a not-so-great middle-class LA apartment (Gandolfini's), if dreyfuss's digs are a little to H&G for a self-employed masseuse. There are bad marriages in Enough Said but at least not all guys are bad, it's not always the guy's fault. But despite its good intentions, Enough Said is so light that if you let go it will float away - there's nothing new, surprising, or terribly moving here - you can see where it's going with every frame - but if rom-com's your thing you could do much worse.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Completely blown away by 12 Years a Slave

No matter what happens at the Oscars tonight, and I'm predicting it will win best picture, best director, best supporting actress, best adapted screenplay, I was completely and absolutely blown away yesterday by 12 Years a Slave - entirely mesmerized throughout the film from first to last moment, well, that's not exactly true because I couldn't even watch the last moments as I sat in the theater, I'm not ashamed to say, and sobbed like a baby. Just an incredibly moving and sorrowful movie, told with great emotion and feeling and scope - sure, maybe a little over the top at times and, yes, this is not the first time we've seen the horrors of slavery on screen or on TV (remember Roots, the first great TV miniseries that had the whole country focused on this topic for weeks on end in the 1980s, I think), and yes a few of the elements of the film seem a little unlikely, even if it is based on a true narrative - hard to fully accept Solomon's complete naivete at the outset, when he follows two hustlers to D.C., and you have to wonder why there was not a more thorough search for him if he was truly such an established community figure in Saratoga, but laying all that aside, the movie is frightening and horrifying like a nightmare, well acted in every single role in my opinion - looking back on it I feel especially sad for those - Giamstti, Fassbender, et al. - who had to portray those horrible white Southerners, that must have been painful to do. More than any movie I've ever seen, 12 Years shows how the institution of slavery corrupted every moral value of the South, and maybe of the nation - these awful scenes of the young white gentry enjoying a masked ball while the slaves play the fiddle - those are as horrifying as the more brutal scenes of whipping, lynching. Of course this all is made more poignant in that we know that the main character is an educated, skilled, free man with a family back in New York - it's not a story of a "typical" slave born into slavery. If that makes it easier for us to ID with the protagonist, so be it - but it's equally clear that he suffers in the end knowing he may have escaped what so many continue to endure. Inevitably, this movie made me recall our visit to the amazing Rhett House in Charleston, where you can see first-hand the way the slaves lived in squalor next the lavish life of the "masters" - made all the more poignant because the house, at least, now, is a cobwebbed ruin (except for the gallery, where you can see the crappy "art" that the family bought on their many trips to Europe, including a statue, "First Tears," of a little boy crying over the body of a dead rabbit - I literally though I was going to vomit and had to leave the room - impossible to tell if the Charlestown Heritage Society understands that the gallery may be the most awful room in the museum). That said, it's impossible to leave 12 Years without being moved, disturbed, maybe changed - much like a visit to Auschwitz or a Holocaust museum, I imagine, though to date I have avoided any such visit.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

House of Cards Season 2 did everything we could hope or expect

I suppose I should raise a spoiler alert here, but is there anyone who doesn't realize that Season 2 of the Netflix House of Cards will end with Kevin Spacey/Frank Underwood achieving his ultimate goal of rising to the presidency? Yes, the mechanisms of the plot are a bit hard to follow at times and, yes, some of the plot doesn't quite stand up to scrutiny - I honestly cannot figure out why the loathsome (an adj. that keeps coming up, I wonder why) businessman Tusk would rebuff Underwood's overtures to work in partnership and unseat the President and then, in the middle of his House testimony, after pleading the 5th on lawyer's advise, suddenly blurt out "He knew," the words that would lead to the impeachment and resignation? Why? What could Tusk gain by this? If it's to build an alliance with Underwood and later win a presidential pardon, why would he have dismissed U. so curtly when the two met in secret the day before? Anyway, no need to scrutinize the plot after all, as it was a truly exciting season that kept us thinking and guessing - like the great The Wire, it seemed that every word, every on-screen moment was important - it was impossible to say a word to one another during the viewing without hitting pause for fear of missing something telling or vital. Among the great elements in the last 5 episodes we see the incredible torment of Doug and the ex-hooker, Rachel, who has the info that can (and no doubt will, eventually) bring Underwood down; the increasingly hateful Claire Underwood, played almost too well by Robin Wright - suggest she get a truly likable, light, comic part for her next gig for fear of being typed as evil incarnate - especially as she manipulates both the extremely vulnerable young Molly, the foolish photographer with whom she'd once had an affair, and the naive and too-trusting first lady. He final exhortation to Frank U is great. And what about the kinky sex liaison that closed one of the episodes? With this play a role in Frank's final undoing, or was it just a little insight into his character, similar to the drunken gay pass he made in season 1? This season pretty much did everything fans could want or expect - completely entertained over the course of 13 episodes, introduced some new characters of interest, moved Frank along on his upward arc, and set us up for the great downfall (if it follows the 3-season model of the original) - all this without Kate Mara/Zoe Barnes, such an important character in Season 1 (a minor disappointment is that season 2 kept trying, and failing, to build up the investigative journalist angle - with the 2 post journalists shunted out of the picture, Zoe dead, and the newly introduced WSJ reporter not quite having such an interesting role because she doesn't cross any of the boundaries - we'll see what happens going forward; the death of Zoe is a ticking time bomb that will surely explode).