Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Review

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is the final installment of the epic space-opera story of good versus evil produced, co-written, and directed by J. J. Abrams. It is the third installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, following The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017), and the final episode of the nine-part Star Wars saga.

PLOT: Who Cares - Why Even Bother?

REVIEW: “Star Wars” for nearly five decades has been a movie fixture adventure in our lives with its wholly exclusive new concepts and story lines of a basic tried and true distinctive division of “Good battling Evil”. They have in one form or another both enthralled and fascinated us not only with its fantasy visual technology of living and functioning in a “galaxy far, far, away” but also with its beguiling imaginative new verbiage that has become forever part of our national lexicon… “The Force will be with you.”……… “Do, or do not, there is no try.”……….“No, I am your father.”…… “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.……… “Chewie, we’re home”.

At the same time Star Wars has incorporated and woven countless fictional names into the enduring  fabric of iconic film status with its Jedi, Vader, Yoda, The Dark Side, Storm Trooper, Light Saber, Ewok and Droid. Together after years of this plot mixture of whole new language and operatic western cowboy characters to thrill us that have permeated our collective consciousness in the end (as with most things) we have probably seen all that this franchise could ever offer new. Such is the with case with “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" which doesn’t do a lot to distinguish itself from the rest of the eight other stories, as it is not a great film, it still provides a soft enough landing in that expected entertaining and satisfying way. While its not awe inspiring it does not disappoint.

Looking back over all of the nine films I reflectively think that George Lucas probably never intended his Star Wars to be great films, because none of them really are. Rather I believe he intended for people – film fans specifically, to go into theaters to have lots of imaginative new fun. The kind of fun without all of the messy way too real life bloody and deadly carnage we can all readily see in the more dramatically acclaimed films (i.e. "The Godfather"). Certainly if not in films we can clearly get nightly doses of real violence on the evening news, where murder and death seem to never be on any short supply to report and see. So, Lucas (I think) just wanted people to have fun, even when the explosions and laser gun fire still hit their targets making their deadly impact they never really actually killed anyone, there was never any noticeable shedding of blood…………….People did die but it just was just make believe pretend violence, pretend death and destruction. 

In the early beginning Lucas's genius was creating and telling an imaginative story where the fans could also imagine along him and his movie itself of being those actual same characters too. He created and infused life in to totally new fictional characters out of whole cloth which allowed us to temporarily suspend our lives to transitionally pretend to living outside ourselves in a purely fantasy “make believe” world, place and time. Where individual nobility, virtues, decency, self-sacrifice, respect and kindness mixed with a bit of swashbuckling space travel made it all one hell of a ride. In that respect I believe Lucas probably has created a masterpiece of entertainment.

Ultimately like all of the other Star Wars film, “The Rise of Skywalker" was made first and foremost for the servicing of its global legions of committed, at times a bit servile, occasionally a bit nutty but always for better or worse totally devoted fans.

As the theater goes dark on the finale of the Star Wars saga, whether you are a super nerdy fan, a purist film fan (me) or just an occasional passing movie fan, in one form of another its story of space heroes and space adventures has been here on earth very good for us all.

3.25 Stars

The Two Popes - Review

The Two Popes

NETFLIX Original Film

“The Two Popes” is a biographical drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Anthony McCarten. It stars Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (later Pope Francis).

In 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He is called to Vatican City following the death of Pope John Paul II to elect a new pope. Bergoglio is considered by some cardinals as an alternative against the frontrunner, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is eventually elected pope and becomes Pope Benedict XVI. Seven years later, the Catholic Church becomes embroiled in what becomes known as the Vatican leaks scandal involving pedophile priests which then Cardinal Ratzinger had personally handled, in which the offending priests had been returned to a different parish where they continued abuse of children.

Meanwhile, Bergoglio wants to resign from his position as Archbishop but he cannot get the Pope to answer his letters. So, Bergoglio tries to persuade the Pope to accept his letter of resignation, but Benedict angrily rejects the idea, saying it would appear to the world as a vote of no confidence in Benedict’s leadership and weaken the Catholic Church.

Eventually, Benedict confides in Bergoglio about his intentions to resign the papacy and that he also he has changed his mind about Catholic traditions and now sees change (a Bergoglio potential papacy) as being essential for the future of the Catholic faith. A couple of weeks later, Cardinal Bergoglio is elected Benedict’s successor in the 2013 papal conclave and becomes Pope Francis.

REVIEW: There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures with more than 40% of the world's Catholics living in Latin America. And while I am not Catholic I found this story abundantly curious to me. And what I learned is while the many scenes between Pope Benedict and the eventual Pope Francis are predicated on speculation and some implausibility, I still found overall their combined stories; men from different background, different languages and uniquely deferent past personal pains still managed to have rather convincing discussions and debates in the moment.  A verbal jousting of their central beliefs and responsibilities as devout men of faith through the prism of different deep seeded ideological beliefs.

On a side note the film does not do complete justice to both men’s somewhat tainted past. While the film goes into great detail about Francis’s troubles regarding allegations of his youthful involvement of the Navy's kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orlando Yorio and Franz Jalics, in May 1976, during Argentina's Dirty Wars, the film hardly ever mentions Benedict’s youth in 1943 when he was 16 and was drafted with many of his classmates into the Luftwaffenhelfer program of the German Nazi party.

Ultimately, in an odd way the two popes were similar to the movie and TV program “The Odd Couple” where one took on the persona of being the fussy, fastidious and traditionally finicky “Felix Unger” and the other sounded more prone to unpredictability, spontaneity and impulsiveness in “Oscar Madison”. And while they did share these subtle dynamics, the two popes never lost their basic need to always doing what they thought what was best for the church and their faith in God that they loved.

Anthony Hopkins is always great in whatever he does but so is Jonathan Pryce here. They have really great sensational chemistry together when they are in the room alone talking with one another. But it’s my belief it will be Pryce who will get the Oscar nomination as Best Actor next month with his fluid portrayal of Francis through his fluent seamless transitional speaking of Spanish, Latin, Italian and English and back again to his equal gift in capturing the personality, temperament and natural nuance traits that are so uniquely to the current Pope Francis.

“The Two Popes” is less a cinematic movie and more of a cinematic portrait of examination two important men in history. We get to witness them sharing their professional and personal struggles as well on their dealing with complicated matters involving their Catholic faith and their deep moral responsibilities while being the leading stewards to that faith.

3.00 Stars

20th Anniversary of Year 2000 Films

20^th Anniversary of Year 2000 Films

Won Best Picture 

Won Best Foreign Language & Nominated Best Picture **

Nominated Best Picture 

28 Days Almost Famous Bamboozled Big Momma's House Billy Elliot Bounce Cast Away Chicken Run Chocolat Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ** Dancer in the Dark Erin Brockovich Gladiator Gone in 60 Seconds Malena Memento Miss Congeniality Mission to Mars Next Friday Nurse Betty Proof of Life Quills Requiem for a Dream Rules of Engagement Saving Grace Scary Movie Sexy Beast Shanghai Noon Snatch The Cell The Gift The Legend of Bagger Vance The Perfect Storm The Whole Nine Yards The Yards Tigerland Traffic Two Family House What Lies Beneath What Women Want

All the Pretty Horses American Psycho Best in Show Bring It On Charlie's Angels Coyote Ugly Finding Forrester High Fidelity How the Grinch Stole Christmas Little Nicky Love & Basketball Me, Myself & Irene Meet the Parents Men of Honor Mission: Impossible II Nutty Professor II: The Klumps O, Brother, Where Art Thou? Pay It Forward Pitch Black Pollock Red Planet Reindeer Games Remember the Titans Road Trip Romeo Must Die Shaft Space Cowboys State and Main The Beach The Contender The Crimson Rivers The Crow: Salvation The Patriot The Replacements The Way of the Gun The Wonder Boys Thirteen Days Titan A.E. U-571 Unbreakable Under Suspicion X-Men You Can Count on Me

Uncut Gems - Review

Uncut Gems

“Uncut Gems” is a crime thriller film directed by Josh and Benny Safdie who’s previous work was the 2017 film titled “Good Time”. That effort was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. It starred Robert Pattinson as a bank robber desperately trying to get enough money to pay for bail for his developmentally disabled brother (Benny Safdie);  

Now, the directing brothers reteamed to co-write a new screenplay with Ronald Bronstein in another dark tale starring Adam Sandler, Kevin Garnett (as himself), Lakeith Stanfield (“Get Out” and FX Network “Atlanta”), Julia Fox, Mike Francesa, Idina Menzel (Frozen), and Eric Bogosian. Its plot follows jeweler “Howard Ratner” a Jewish gambling addict with an equal philandering sex addiction in New York City's Diamond District. He is constantly on the con which has caused him to get way over his head in debt with loan sharks and low life’s. So, he comes up with the idea of retrieving a very expensive gem he purchased from Ethiopia in order to pay off all of his debts, including to his thuggish Jewish brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian).

REVIEW: In the first 5 minutes of a total film running time of 2:15 minutes, “Uncut Gems” starts out as one of the most visually oddest films I have ever seen. In the first 2.5 minutes you see an Ethiopian miner being retrieved from an accident with a protruding bone from a broken leg. Then the scene morphs to a New York Doctor’s office where we watch “Howard Ratner” getting an obvious colonoscopy. There is metaphor there somewhere to contemplate and or toy with, but I refuse to speculate what the Safdie brothers had in mind. But in any event, what assuredly does transpire for the remainder of my time in the theater is seeing one of the 10 best films of 2019.

Through Sandler’s nomination worthy performance as jeweler “Ratner” you witness the personality of a middle aged man who is dramatically pleasant and occasionally amusing, while also being intensely dark. Someone who has come to a point in his life where he has perfected the gift of operating in the whirlwind realm of 24/7 breathlessly relentless treadmill of non-stop perpetual verbal bull shit just to momentarily extract himself out of a complicated situation. Similarly we also get to witness all those being conned by “Ratner” who are equally breathlessly frustrated; at their total wits end from having to keep dealing with his seemingly endless of excuses of why he does not have their money. And why I normally would think a simply plot line like this would eventually run of steam at some point, it does not. To their credit of the Safdie brothers they cleverly keep injecting just enough and the right amount of plausible subplots to make the entire film a total calculatingly subversive treacherous delight.

While known more for his comedic career in films, Sandler (who is in almost 100% of the scenes) delivers his most complicated chrarcter and the best work of his career. To me his interpretation of “Howard Ratner” personality reminded me of the kind of imaginative acting development actor Dustin Hoffman did in his 1969 portrayal of street hustling and street pimp “Ratso Rizzo” in the Oscar Nominated Best Picture “Midnight Cowboy”. But for me the real strength of the entire film is the way both Sandler and the array of many supporting characters worked so interchangeable well together. All of them having a myriad of different reasons for wanting a small piece out of “Ratner’s” ass and in a sling. Together they keep you the viewer thoroughly mesmerized to their interplay while never really deviating or straying away from the basic plot…………………”Howard Ratner”, is a lunatic hustling con man.

Visually, the Safdie’s have made their “Uncut Gems” stylistically look very similar to one of my favorite film Directors in Michael Mann (Heat and Collateral) with their infusion of many eye level super close ups, moving - walking rapid conversational dialogue and heavy use of night time darkly lite spaces with back ground blue lighting. At the same time they have also borrowed quite effectively the ability of Director Martin Scorsese’ (Goodfellas) to take seemingly insignificant supporting small role characters into people while the personification of utter unpleasantness were still very interesting to have experienced. Together these two styles work fabulously to contribute to two memorable scenes. One was involving Kevin Garnett and Lakeith Stanfield being stuck inside a locked retail security glass door. The second scene involved Sandler’s “Ratner” sex texting while hiding in an apartment closet. While both are somewhat insignificant key moments to the films plot itself, they were nevertheless effectively executed with shrewd aplomb.

 

Overall “Uncut Gems” is just exhilarating to watch and should be on your must see list for 2019. At times it’s excruciating. Other times audacious. Sometimes very sexy. Occasionally cheeky and appropriately funny. And sometimes very shocking.  But in the end it’s daringly bold high level entertainment that did not disappoint.

4.00 Stars 

Little Women - Review

Little Women

“Little Women” is a novel by author Louisa May Alcott which was originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Alcott wrote the books following the lives of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy—the novel details their passage from their childhood to womanhood and is loosely based on the author and her three sisters. Director - Actress Greta Gerwig takes on the challenge of bringing Alcott’s much heralded work to cinema screens again in her 2019 adaptation also called “Little Women”. This is the eighth film adaptation of the 1868 novel with this effort staring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Chris Cooper, and Meryl Streep.

REVIEW: I have not read the book. So, with a running time of 2:15 minutes my general expectations going into the theater was to see and hear a story filtered per usual through the standalone prism on whether it was effectively executed through the cinematic medium of directing, writing and acting.

Now, I had a pretty good sense of the historical period and backdrop it covered and yet I must admit for the first 40 minutes I was thrown off balance, even a tad disoriented by both the whirlwind cadence of some of the dialogue interplay especially between the sisters, as well some difficulty in general keeping an accurate sense of exactly where the sisters were collectively in the various stages of their personal development i.e. teenagers to adult women. But with those technical flaws aside, I still found “Little Women” to be a joyously, merrily, at times exuberant and effervescent, other times sad and despondent, but in the end an abundantly purposeful cheerful frolic. A pleasantly enduring examination of a rare women on the precipice of boldly flourishing for its historic period, as well as being a relevant guide for all women today.

And while “Little Women” was told with much delicacy on its edges it still manages to effectively and critically look at the forged strength of biological bonds and relationships, especially between female siblings while also simultaneously witnessing them as part of a much broader burgeoning historical  moment where women began navigating on their own desires, with the alternative of not acting on their deep primordially passions was a guarantee of a less interesting even soulless life. For them, fail or succeed, Jo and her sisters were emblematic of women’s new open self-determination where the alternative starkly potentially assuredly them to withering away like some laconic leaf on a vine, succumbing to all things predetermined – predestined with the rare uncontrollable exception of randomly being lucky enough to being beautiful to “marry well” (financially).

“Little Women” is mostly about Saoirse Ronan “Jo March’.  A character who in fact did not stoically except things as they were nor was afraid to defy. With positivity she never outwardly catered to conventional thought for herself or by others by playing it patriarchal safe or accepting long-standing antiquated norms. Some of the same norms still with us today, where perceptions and moral traditions still try to confine women to a life of unquestioning obsequiousness and servile servitude exclusively to the needs of men and male society.  

Mostly all of these narrative points come to full fruition in the second half of the film. Largely delivered in a meaningfully smart and audacious feminine way on the acting prowess of an Oscar Nominating worthy performance by Saoirse Ronan. But sometimes inspite of all of her talents on full display as our guide, even her well intentioned journey of her “Jo” to simply wanting to be seen for her talents, her wisdom, her needs, her creativity, and her aspirations, the direction and screenplay by Gerwig still managed at times to get terribly bogged down by its over flowing swaths of niceness, sweetness, lavishness and goodness. So much so at times that the film with its cuteness began to “cloudy up” my empathy, even  to the point of confusing me and me self-asking just how flawed society for women was back then.

With the look and feel of some of Winslow Homer’s wintry forest and summer beach paintings scenes coming to life, there is a lot of buzz for “Little Women” to garner numerous Oscar Nominations next January 2020. And while it will probably not make my top 10 list it assuredly has enough nostalgic appeal to showcase a time where women began to securing their own voices of wanting more from life than just being married.  A life where the sand in their hourglasses stopped flowing downward, rather started flowing upwards and beyond to higher loftier pursuits with the possibilities of having real individual happiness that could be endless and filled with new adventures and even newer dreams to come.

3.50 Stars

A Hidden Life - Review

A Hidden Life

“A Hidden Life” (formerly titled “Radegund”) is a 2019 historical true event drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, and Matthias Schoenaerts with both Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz (Downfall) in their final performances. The film depicts in the early 1940’s the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer and devout Catholic who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. The film had its world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival winning the François Chalais Prize (a film dedicated to the values of life affirmation and of journalism) and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (a Christian award that honors works of artistic qualities which witnesses the revelation of the mysterious depths of human feeling and hope).

PLOT: Austria, 1939 peasant farmer Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), born and bred in the small village of St. Radegund. He is working his land when war breaks out. Married to Franziska (Fani) (Valerie Pachner), the couple with their three young daughters are important members of the tight-knit rural agrarian community - they live a simple life. One day a letter arrives where Franz is called up to basic training that takes him away from his beloved wife and children for months. Eventually, when France surrenders and it seems the war might end soon, he is sent back from training. With his mother and sister-in-law Resie (Maria Simon), he and his wife farm the land and raise their children amid the mountains and valleys of upper Austria.

As the war goes on, Jägerstätter and the other able-bodied men in the village are eventually called up to fight. Their first requirement is to swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Despite pressure from his neighbors, who ostracize him and his family, Jägerstätter refuses. He wrestles with the knowledge that his decision will eventually mean arrest and even death.

REVIEW: I love true films where the triumph of the human will conquers all, especially when the story is rooted in someone standing tall against popular tide for higher principles of decency and good. And while Franz Jägerstätter did in deed sacrifice much through months of brutal incarceration, family humiliation and subsequent sentencing to death by guillotine, I could not find it within me to feel completely sympathetic to his choice of leaving his family and small children behind just for his faith. I was not looking for any sentimentalizing of his story but I wanted to believe his faith emanated from some key seminal moment in his earlier life that gave rise to his profound faith now. Instead I saw him sweeping the floor of the church he attended and taking long walks to reflect on his inner thoughts of the decision he was about to make, but nothing else.

I kept waiting and awaiting for his “Joan of Arc” ascension to pure spirituality for me the viewer to have a basic sense of his deeper higher calling of taking a stand against fascist tyranny. Instead I saw with a running time of three hours was a story about a relatively obscure man that was way too long, filled with way too much cloud gazing cinematography vistas (however Austria is very beautiful though), too many conversations that felt repetitive and already covered and too often spontaneously injected German language scenes without any translating English subtitles, though I easily surmise when Austrian’s raised their voices to speak in German they were expressing the fact they were not happy.  

The final 30 minutes is very powerful as you see Franz and his wife reunite after months of incarceration. Their loving acceptance of his faith and fate is moving though he had an easy out to his fate by serving in the military at a hospital as an orderly if he would just signed his oath to old Uncle Adolph; yet, he still refused. The actual final minutes seeing him struggle whether or not he was doing the right thing and yet also knowing his death was imminent was emotionally unnerving for me.

There is a much better film here to be made by someone having the vision and discipline to tightening its structure by initially just deciding to pare it down to about 1:45 minutes. This Director Terence Malik latest effort was far easier to comprehend than his totally confusing, oddly constructed and utterly baffling 2011 Palme d'Or winning effort “Tree of Life” which was hailed and proclaimed as a masterpiece by some critics;………… not by me.  Instead, while his latest “Hidden” has a more palatable entertaining and worthwhile subject to enjoy, it is still is a film that is burdensomely riddled with editing mistakes, an unconvincing martyrdom as its lead and too much technical displays of national geographic cinematography and nature sounds that over time offered no real added emotional value.

‘Fundamentally speaking, "A Hidden Life” is watchable but overall misses its mark of portraying a simply man’s compelling giant of a humanistic story. The final 40 minutes does make up for its previous two hour plus shortcomings by reminding and reflecting on this man's solemn journey. A journey initially etched in the observance of Franz's family's warmth and loving embrace. A middle transitional journey of Franz taking a moral stand against the tides of hatred and bigotry. A finale journey that included many offered opportunities to continue to living his meaningful life by disavowing his actions, but was still the inevitably journey of his own choosing by making the ultimate sacrifice as a solitary deep internal act of his faith in God.

2.50 Stars

Bombshell - Review

Bombshell

“Bombshell” is a dramatic film directed by Jay Roach (“Trumbo” with Bryan Cranston) and written by Charles Randolph. The film stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie, and is based upon the 2016 accounts of several women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Actors, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Malcolm McDowell and Allison Janney appear in supporting roles.

REVIEW: Probably when this film was first green lighted for production, I wager the Lionsgate Studio research department had the unenviable task of compiling as much factual information to write a credible screenplay that was as close to the known truth as possible, minus accounts from actual witnesses who were probably legally bounded by a gauntlet of NDA’s (No Disclosure Agreements) and CAs (Confidential Agreements). So, with any finished film project dealing with such well-known real life subjects there is always going to be some aspects, especially behind the scenes, closed door, face to face dialogue that is going to be purely speculative at best. HOWEVER, if only half of this story is true (and I venture it probably is) I found “Bombshell” a solidly entertaining dramatization of how an unlikely group of broadcast women exposed FOX News founder and President Roger Ailes as a predatory sleazy CEO and took him down.  

Running 1:48 minutes the story tightly and equally revolves around Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and Kayla Pospisil (Margo Robbie) who was a fictional employee that was meant to represent a composite of several women working at FOX news at that time. And while Director Roach direction and pacing was a bit uneven at times, the principle actors collectively give the story its cohesiveness with serious, smart, pinpoint, sometimes riveting and other times humorous portrayals of women surviving in a whirlwind of sexual impropriety. A boorish and brutish environment where reasonable aspirations to working in front of the FOX News camera made high heels and short thigh high dresses a minimum mandatory accessory for the job, with an even more equal daunting Faustian Bargain to pleasing Roger Ailes on demand who brandished an iron hand authority all the time with unbridled corporate ruthlessness.

Cinematically overall I felt the film was at times was very powerful and other times retrained; willing to shake things up a bit but not so much that anything got so broken to open itself up to being politically partisan. It’s probably why Director Roach never gives any one of the female characters the final banner of being the lead heroin. But even with that fair minded approach the one aspect of this film that stood out the most for me was Charlize Theron’s “Megyn Kelly” which should easily garner her an Oscar Nomination as Best Actress. From her very first two seconds on the screen she not only captures the mannerism and cadence of Kelly’s way of communicating, smiling, and walking, she also without a scintilla of mimicry was able to replicate that very subtle faint smoky tinge of masculinity in her voice. Theron is absolutely brilliant in her performance, along with strong acting work by Robbie who could garner an Oscar Nomination as Best Supporting Actress, as well as some strong technical Oscar considerations for Best Set Design and Makeup Nominations.

In an odd way coming through the filter of Fox News, “Bombshell” is about having some broad open minded empathy for feminism. No matter the political views of anyone even these women at FOX news should have had the freedom to work where they wanted and not be harassed. No one should have to compromise their dreams verses having a career and these women had to. The film effectively captures that point of view and while not shedding any new light on the texture of the “ME TOO MOVEMENT”, it still effectively told this prominent known news story with layers of honest verisimilitude immersed in scenes of poetic justice, moral transcendence, brutality, sensitivity, astute perceptions and of course being “fair and balanced”.

Eeeeeh, but again, their story also very slyly, very surreptitiously and somewhat subliminally also asks the theater viewer to uniquely root almost 100% for these three women which in the end I was not so sure I could. After all it’s called making a Faustian Bargain aka “making a deal with the devil” for a reason and they knowingly did just a bit which ultimately makes this viewer just a little less empathetic in their case.

3.00 Stars  

Dark Waters - Review

Dark Waters

“Dark Waters” is a legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. It is based on a 2016 article "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare" by Nathaniel Rich, published in The New York Times Magazine. The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, and Bill Pullman.

Corporate environmental defense attorney Rob Bilott has just made partner at his prestigious Cincinnati law firm in large part due to his work defending Big Chem companies. He finds himself conflicted after he’s contacted by two West Virginia farmers who believe that the local DuPont plant is dumping toxic waste in the area landfill that is destroying their fields and killing their cattle. Hoping to learn the truth about just what is happening, Bilott, with help from his supervising partner in the firm, Tom Terp (Academy Award®-winner Tim Robbins), files a complaint that marks the beginning of an epic 15-year fight uncovering a massive dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths due to one of the world's largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything including his future to exposing the truth that “99% of all living things today are contaminated" by the carcinogenic synthetic carbon compound “C8”  by the Dupont company.

REVIEW: Equal parts “Erin Brockovich” (a true story) and “Michael Clayton” (not a true story) “Dark Waters” executes seemingly a rather complicated story of chemistry, science, the law and environmental regulations into something easily usable and very consumable with its take it slow, no crescendo  clear recitation of irrefutable facts and data.  And with a running time of 2:06 minutes Director Todd Haynes delivers less an entertaining film and more of “we all need to know this” kind of film. A true and fundamentally relevant film about how one corporation’s greed and corruption literally led to many deaths and many more deaths yet to come. The film itself does a good job in trusting and having faith in the viewer understanding the magnitude and seriousness of what was done without ever getting preachy, propagandizing or ever promoting a political agenda.

"Dark Waters" is not a great movie from an acting perspective (the exception being Mark Ruffalo). Nor is it a very memorable film from a writing and directing standpoint either. For me it was definitely saddled with some clunky directorial and scenes transitioning problems, a feeling of perpetual emotional dreariness and at times was as compelling as me reading a Wikipedia page out loud. But in the end its real strength was as an unmistakable modern-day true story of “David verses Goliath. Always told with authenticity and seriousness that treated its real-life “little guy” victims with genuine respect. It stayed focused on its basic cinematic mission of showcasing how Dupont knowingly was a villain. An up front and center and throughout deliberate bad guy who had to pay for their transgressing misdeeds.

Ultimately the real reason to watch “Dark Waters” is for Actor Ruffalo portrayal of attorney of Rob Bilott whose quiet dogged determination makes him a tower of moral strength and decency even at expense to his own financial well being and his own physical health too. And whether it was him treading about through the muddy farm hills of WVA to the respected legal halls of American court room justice you see how Bilott meticulously worked hard in getting Dupont to eventually confess and pay financial restitution for their willfully clear acts of poisoning the good hard-working people of Parkersburg WV. His cause crusade never gets lost, never diminishes and was never self-promoting or over top. Rather, Bilott the real life character and “Dark Waters” the film both enlighten me as well reminded me about the importance of having good men and good women doing the right thing for good people.

3.00 Stars

Richard Jewell - Review

Richard Jewell

Actor - Director Clint Eastwood has won four Academy Awards. Twice for Best Picture and Best Director for the films “Unforgiven” and “Million Dollar Baby”. These two films and subsequent work typically told dramatic stories involving fictional settings with fictional characters. But in the last 10 years he has moved his directorial camera’s focus to subject matters that are not only true, but uniquely involving “American” unsung heroes who showed acts of great bravery and nobility in moments of crisis. Sometimes they did it against great social ridicule and stigma (“Invictus”) to other times acts involving potential great peril to their very lives itself (“American Sniper”, “Sully” and “The 15:17 to Paris”).

In 2019 Eastwood takes another turn into true biographical dramatic material, one that is  based on previous written work from a 1997 published article called "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell" His film here depicts the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and its aftermath, in which security guard Richard Jewell found a bomb and alerted authorities to evacuate, only to later be wrongly accused of having placed it himself. It stars Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell, alongside Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde.

REVIEW: This is Eastwood’s finest work since “American Sniper”. He has a tried a true directing style of letting the factual events of a story tell itself. He starts out with A that leads to B that goes to C, that reveals D and etc., etc. It’s a minimalist way of executing a film, one that is exclusively devoid of a significant or small subplot nor of any sentimental nuance or emotional flashbacks (we never find out what Richard was like as child).  Instead Eastwood traditionally relies on selecting a fine cast and then letting their exceptional acting prowess do the heavy cinematic lifting to bringing his story and central plot to its meaningful life. At the same time he uses his directorial camera lens like a traffic cop keeping them all collectively in the same driving lane revealing to the viewing audience succinctly, sparingly and always effectively why they are all there in the first………. “Richard Jewell was wrongfully accused and here’s how it happened”.

Overall, I applaud Eastwood’s desire to offer up a reasonable, balanced and plausible explanation as to why the FBI and the Atlanta - national media thought he was “a person of interest” to an “actually suspect”. Overall it isn’t a one-sided, vindictive tirade or attack on the FBI and media. I actually can see myself how Richard could have been easily assumed to be a suspect based on proven profiling technics. But shortly after Jewell’s 15 minutes of fame had subsided a tip comes in about his previous employment as an overzealous campus security officer that turns the tables on him. It’s here where Eastwood tangentially appears to put his thumb on the scales and a little too long suggesting some personal disdain has risen up in him. I am not suggesting the events he told were ever made up by him, but I still got the faint sense he was trying to make a bit of a political point. But he did not have to do it as there was so much factually honest material to keep working with. Still over time I just kept feeling that his “Jewell’” was as much a personal delight for Eastwood the director as well as a personal delight for the private citizen Eastwood and a film designed to be some animus cathartic twisting knife in the sides of federal authority. It’s not overtly blatant, but it’s not subtle either.

Both actors Paul Walter Hauser as “Jewell” and Sam Rockwell as his attorney “Watson Bryant” give Oscar nomination worthy performances. But it is Hauser who controls and commands the screen from beginning to end. His portrayal of the naively innocent, cop want to be, perpetual truth teller was brilliant. His uncanny vocal sounds, his physical looks and mannerisms were so spot on to the real Jewell it felt eerie. He captured both what was endearing and touching about Richard “man child adolescence” persona to his equally frustrating aspects that made him appear to be utterly stupid. So much so there were a few times I personally felt such a strong frustration at his trust for everyone that literally I could feel a desire well up in me to run up to the screen to shake him to say………….”Hey Richard, they’re treating you like a Pillsbury Dough Boy door mat – wake TFU”’.

With a set design and cinematography that is also Oscar worthy including the detail reinvention of the events leading up to bombing that was spine tingling, “Richard Jewell” the film is truly a compelling story. A strong humanistic compelling story. Not about a bad or foolish man but rather a genuinely nice man who did a great thing and yet still got caught in a legal vice looking to crush him all because he told the truth. And yet that was all Richard knew who to be - what to do - how to live. Even at great personal cost to him his innate and ingrained desire to always telling the truth, all the time, to everyone was as natural to him as him taking a breath,...........and honestly, in the end of the day, what is wrong with that.

3.50 Stars

Marriage Story – Review

Marriage Story – Now on Netflix

“Marriage Story” is a 2019 contemporary American comedy-drama film written and directed by Noah Baumbach. The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Azhy Robertson, Julie Hagerty, Matthew Shear and Merritt Wever.

The title of the film is a bit of a misnomer. Running 2:16 the film is largely about the divorce of a young couple named “Charlie Barber” (Adam Driver) and his wife “Nicole” (Scarlett Johansson), his actress wife and former teen star. “Charlie” in his own right is a successful theater director in New York City where he is currently producing a play that stars his wife “Nicole”. But in the opening scene we can already see the couple experiencing marital troubles. To their credit they try to be adults to the apparent inevitable dissolution of their marriage. The try on their own to resolve issues of child custody and financial problems in a fair and amicable away with a licensed marriage mediator. But the mediator's suggestion to keep writing down what they like about one another does not work for either of them. They are stuck emotionally and right where they were before.

Meanwhile, “Nicole” is suddenly offered a starring role in a television pilot in Los Angeles. So, she decides to leave the theater company to temporarily live with her mother in West Hollywood, taking the couple’s young son Henry with her. Charlie elects to remain in New York, as the play is in the process of moving to Broadway. When he flies out to Los Angeles to visit his family, he is surprisingly served with divorce papers. And despite the couple’s agreement to split amicably foregoing the use of lawyers, Nicole has already hired whip smart savvy family lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern), who urges her to pressure “Charlie” into lawyering up himself, resulting in Charlie meeting with “Jay Marotta” (Ray Liotta), a brash and expensive lawyer who urges Charlie to fight dirty.  

REVIEW: It’s rumored that Director Noah Baumbach supposedly based this story on his real life divorce from actress Jennifer Jason-Leigh (i.e. the crazy redneck character “Daisy Domergue” in Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”).  If it is a real recounting of both his marriage and divorce then it was clearly both a cathartic heartwarming and equally heartbreaking experience filled with joy and pain in-between. It’s one thing to live through that kind disruptive experience it’s another thing altogether to put it to pen and paper and then place it up on a giant digital screen for theater audiences worldwide to see.  And yet he did it and in my opinion has delivered easily an Oscar Nominating worthy film for 2019.

With an exceptional screenplay (Oscar nomination worthy) the story takes you on a deeply emotional path similarly like being slowly wrapped inside a tightly bound of string of perpetual personal devastation and brokenness while still trying to being even-handed and empathetic with one another for the sake of wanting the best for their child. A child that keeps both the husband and wife symbiotically connected to one another no matter if some fancy lawyered up legal up worded paper says they are divorced.

Baumbach also makes his film very even handed in his approach as he never takes any cheap shots into making one side more demonstrable the cause for the failure and divorce then the other. This “Marriage Story” shows while we typically think of any legal matters as having someone winning and someone losing, it’s clear that going through a divorce always makes both parents feeling like some kind of common street criminal. And inspite of all of the mutual best efforts to being fair to one another; any attempts to trying to remember the ephemeral euphoric reasons they got married in the first place, when a marriage goes bad it’s like living endlessly in some realm of absolute craziness. No matter how many well intended perfunctory conversations they initially have with another the flood of buried, latent and dormant bitterness invariably comes to the surface to projectile stab each other with.

Laura Dern and Alan Alda give great supporting performances as the competing lawyers. I particularly appreciated how they both played not only their respective legal counsels completely immersed into the expensive, tricky and mind altering nuanced details of state divorce laws.  I also especially enjoy how they delicately balanced being the best lawyer for them as well as being some type of “Oprah-esque” personal confidant and friend. But it is Laura Dern’s work here that is stellar and in my opinion you can almost justify Fed-Ex-ing her winning the Academy Oscar as Best Supporting Actress now.

In addition, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are both certain to garner Oscar nominations respectfully as Best Actor and Best Actress with Driver having the better chance of walking way with the Best Actor Award Oscar next February.

“Marriage Story” as painful as it is to hear these two people verbally joust, then cajole, then self-imploded and then cajole with one another to eventually cry with one another. It’s clear it is hard to mutually agree that you both know you don’t love each other anymore. This film (as a lifelong bachelor) enlighten me to thinking marriage can be like kind of like ice skating with a partner you love dearly hand in hand. Not on some flat even surface but on a slight curved hill………….It can exhilarating, fun, loving and rewarding as long as you stay close to one another at the top and locked hand in hand, but if you don’t pay attention to the details – to be vigilantly careful with the person you are skating with, you might just get too close to the steeply sloped slippery edge. It can be potentially devastating no matter how much you try to regain your balance, no matter who fast you are moving  and no matter how much you flail your arms as you go down the side......... Its always going hurt when you reach the bottom.

I personally have seen six really good films about divorce in my life time. The dramas “Kramer vs Kramer”, “Boyhood”, “Separation” (an Iranian film), “Carol” , “Blue Valentine” and the slightly more comical turn in “Crazy Stupid Love”……………..You can count “Marriage Story” as luck number seven.

4:00 Stars