The Infiltrator Movie Review

The world surely has no shortage of movies about the international drug trade or about law enforcement using everything in their arsenal to take down the cartels. There’s also plenty of movies about the perils of going undercover to take down a criminal organization. The Infiltrator combines both for a premise that is not especially original, but which is often enthralling. There’s something about the story of a person who goes into another world pretending to be something they’re not. There’s the adrenaline rush of going into the danger zone. There’s the excitement of getting to be someone else for a while leading a sort of double life. It’s like getting a chance to be someone and do something that you’re not. Who wouldn’t like the opportunity to see how that fits? Of course who wants to take with it the possibility of getting killed?

Woman in Gold Movie Review

I’m a big “West Wing” fan, so excuse me if you don’t know what I’m referring to when I say, “Crime. Boy, I don’t know.” That is a line from “Posse Comitatus,” the season 3 finale and the lynchpin moment when President Bartlett decides he’s going to take it to his opponent in the election. Woman in Gold is the Holocaust equivalent of that sentiment, an empty gesture at acknowledging something inexplicably awful.

Straight Outta Compton Movie Review

I fail to see what all the fuss and accolades toward Straight Outta Compton is about. Yes, it’s a good movie, well written and acted with a cast of mostly unknown and inexperienced actors. But as a musical biopic, what does it really bring to the table that hasn’t been done countless times before?

The story of the rise of the rap group N.W.A. from a group of friends making music together to a national voice for the powerless inner city black youths in America and FBI pariah is certainly not uninteresting. We’ve all heard of Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. This is where they got their start. Eric “Easy-E” Wright died twenty years ago while DJ Yella and MC Wren are the lesser known members of the group. That Dre and Cube worked as producers on the project should not go unmentioned because it’s pretty clear in the film’s narrative which characters are highlighted most prominently. It’s also worth pointing out that their characters come off as the most morally upstanding while Eric Wright, no longer alive to defend himself, comes across (in spite of a lovely redemption at the end) as the instigator of strife within the group.

American Sniper Movie Review

A Navy SEAL sniper sits on the roof of a building in Iraq. In the street below is an American military convoy. His job is to shepherd those soldiers to safety by keeping a lookout for potential threats. In the city war zone that has been evacuated, any military-age male must be regarded as a threat. First he scopes a man talking on a cell phone. The man steps inside, not knowing how close he came to losing his life. Next a woman and a boy, not more than eleven or twelve years old, arrive on the street. She hands the boy a rocket-propelled grenade. The voice on the other end of the soldier’s com can’t confirm visually. The call is entirely his. Men who engage in war are fair targets. What do you do about a child who is about to kill your comrades?

Selma Movie Review

Upon a second viewing of last year’s Selma, Ava DuVernay’s film about Martin Luther King and his leading the protests in Selma, Alabama, that would ultimately lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I have warmed up to it more than when I first saw it. There was some outspoken backlash bout the Academy’s failure to nominate DuVernay for an Oscar. The same for David Oyelowo, who portrays King and carries the movie through most of its emotional highs and lows. The paltry number of nominations (a Best Picture nod and one for Best Song for which it won) was attributed by some to Hollywood’s refusal to accept black stories or to afford them the same status as stories about white people. These were rich arguments coming the year after 12 Years a Slave won the Best Picture Oscar. That film was about a challenging as they come. No, I think Selma was little recognized in the awards season because it simply wasn’t as good as other movies last year. Unless people believe in affirmative action for movie awards, I see no reason Selma and its director should have bumped other worthy nominees from their recognition.

Unbroken Movie Review

I was afraid Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s second outing behind the camera, would be tacky, maudlin, and sentimental hokum. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong. The story of Louis Zamperini was bought by Universal many years ago and finally put into production after Laura Hillenbrand’s book on the subject became a best seller. Zamperini was an American Olympic runner who competed in the 5,000 meter run at the 1936 Berlin games and then flew bombing missions over Japan during WWII. He was shot down over the Pacific, survived for an astounding 45 days adrift on a raft with two other crew from his plane, was picked up by a Japanese ship and placed in a prison camp where he endured brutal conditions and regular beatings at the hands of a pettily jealous guard.

Foxcatcher Movie Review

One of the lesser known footnotes to modern Olympic history is the relationship of John Du Pont to the Olympic wrestling gold medalist brothers Mark and Dave Schultz. It’s a funny thing that no one pays much attention to the sport of wrestling outside of the quadrennial Olympic cycle, but there’s something so quintessentially American about the sport Of course it’s been around since the ancient games of Greece and eastern Europeans often excel at it, but the American ideal is intrinsically bound to it. It’s a sport based on physical confrontation one-on-one. You succeed based on your own abilities. It is a total make-it-or-break-it scenario. It’s about a fiercely intense combination of brute strength and cunning strategic skills. You have to be tough and strong, but also to outwit your opponent.

The Imitation Game Movie Review

Maybe I’m just not easily impressed anymore. Maybe it’s because I rarely see any of the really bad movies anymore and so by comparison, the stuff that is really good seems so ordinary. The Imitation Game is supposed to be one of the year’s best movies, but it is so utterly conventional, I just found it sort of dull. This is the story of Alan Turing, the British mathematician who helped decode the messages churned out by Enigma, the Nazis’ communication device, which should be a ripe subject for a fascinating story. The machine Turing developed to break the code laid the foundation for modern computing.

The Theory of Everything Movie Review

There are two central characters in The Theory of Everything, the Stephen Hawking biopic directed by James Marsh and adapted by Anthony McCarten from the memoir by Hawking’s ex-wife Jane. Stephen and Jane are equal partners in screen time and emotional heft in the story. This is less a biopic that gets into the inner workings of a genius mind and his struggle to continue working during a debilitating illness than it is a love story about two people overcoming the terrible weight of that illness on their lives.

Wild Movie Review

There are journeys where it’s the destination that matters. Then there are others where it’s the journey itself that defines the story and the character taking it. The latter kind is what makes for better films, in my opinion. In the new film Wild, a young woman hikes the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave desert in southern California to the Oregon-Washington border – a 1,100-mile walk. Along the way she recalls moments from her past that brought her to the decision to make this trek.

From My Collection: A Beautiful Mind Movie Review

The Academy has a great history of awarding the Best Picture Oscar to a generally lifeless, inoffensive work of mediocrity. I can hardly say that A Beautiful Mind is not a good movie (I regrettably put it on my top ten list for 2001), but it certainly isn’t great. It’s not even particularly memorable except in its simplistic depiction of mental illness.

I can’t say with any certainty to what degree John Nash suffered with schizophrenia or how it manifested itself, but I do know that the way Akiva Goldsman incorporates it into his screenplay, based on the biography by Sylvia Nasar, seems almost preposterous, designed specifically to aid the unsubtle viewer in understanding what Nash was going through. I guess I shouldn’t fault the movie for trying to reach a broader audience, but nor should we assume that it has anything new or interesting to say on the subject.

Black Hawk Down Movie Review

As I rewatched Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down for the first time I more than a decade, two other war Berchtesgaden more than a year later. The similarities are numerous. Both are based on books that attempted to recount, in as much factual detail as possible, the events surrounding are large contingent of American soldiers in conflict. Both were released toward the end of 2001, coinciding with post-9/11 American jingoism. Both focus heavily on the responsibility soldiers in combat feel toward each other more than to the ideology or politics behind the war. And both unflinchingly portray some of the horrors and carnage of war. The other is the more recent Lone Survivor, whose primary focus is on the fact of soldiers in harm’s way pulling for each other. The latter film has faced criticism for being a form of war porn, which you could also say to some extent about Scott’s film. But I think the positives to take away from all three far outweigh any negative observations regarding the depiction of blood and guts in battle scenarios.

From My Collection: Bright Star Movie Review

Depicting an artist at work in a film is a tricky thing. The possibilities are greater when dealing with the visual arts because the process of creation is dynamic. But when it comes to filming the story of a writer, what can the filmmaker do to depict process? After all, what is a writer’s process in the majority of cases if not to sit at a desk and think…and write…and drink coffee…and think…and wait for ideas or inspiration? This does not make for very interesting cinema. So the most interesting films centered on writers tend to focus on something that is only tangentially connected to the writing or the finished product. Jane Campion’s Bright Star was a mesmerizing love story to me when I first saw it nearly four years ago and it remained so when I watched it again recently. The movie circumvents the problems of filming a writer’s life and work by making the story about the poet John Keats’ three year unconsummated love affair with Fanny Brawne.

Short Cut Movie Review: Rush

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

It’s a result of severely reduced expectations that Ron Howard’s Rush managed to earn more than a little critical praise last year. As an example of its kind – the race car movie – it’s better than you might expect, but as an example of its kind more broadly – the sports movie – it’s sorely lacking in inspiration and spiritual uplift. The greatest sports movies draw their spectators in and make them stand squarely behind the hero so firmly and with such emotional investment that you can’t help but be overcome with emotion. I think of examples like Rocky or Breaking Away. Alternatively, they set up a tragic figure and become more a study of character and loss like in Raging Bull or Million Dollar Baby. Of the two protagonists in Rush – James hunt, the lothario playboy played by Chris Hemsworth, and Niki Lauda, the cautious and meticulous champion played by Daniel Brühl – neither one achieves either of those apotheoses necessary for greatness of character.

Short Cut Movie Review of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Why do they keep doing it? Why do filmmakers continue to make biopics of famous historical figures that don’t reveal anything that we couldn’t learn from a documentary about the individual? Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom follows Nelson Mandela from the early 1940s when he was a young lawyer until the mid-90s when he was elected the first black President of South Africa. Big deal! Mandela was a great man. He did great things for his country and helped lead the movement – from prison! – to end Apartheid. But what do we learn about him from Justin Chadwick’s sprawling epic that covers fifty years of his life?

Fruitvale Station Movie Review

There has been a change for the better in this country – and I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it has happened during the tenure of our first black president – with respect to public knowledge and outrage at the unjust killings of young black men. Trayvon Martin’s death is the one that made huge national news headlines, but unfortunately his death is one among many that occur year after year because someone, usually a while man and often a police officer, mistakes him for a threat. These young men become names in the news and we learn little about who they were outside of the specific circumstances in which they died.

The Invisible Woman

In the little-known and seldom told tale of Charles Dickens and his much younger lover, director Ralph Fiennes brings a vitality that is often lacking in staid period costume dramas, As an actor, he imbues Dickens with life. It’s easy to imagine him as a hard and severe man what with his novels dealing with orphans, urchins, tough disciplinarians, cruelty, and war. But as played by Fiennes and written by Abi Morgan, he is playful, youthful, and full of vibrancy.

Lone Survivor Movie Review

I think when Marcus Luttrell complains that he doesn’t understand how people could possibly say Lone Survivor, the movie based on his memoir, glorifies war because “there is nothing glorious about war,” he is missing the point. Due respect to Luttrell – he’s been to Afghanistan, watched his friends die, and was incredibly lucky to come out alive, but saying that a Hollywood movie glorifies something is not the same as saying that that something is glorious. No doubt being in war is terrible beyond words. That’s why veterans tend not to talk about the experience of war outside the context of the buddies they made and the stories they told and created. But a movie can make that experience seem, to the uninitiated, sexy, desirable, exciting, fulfilling, and yes, glorious. There’s an extent to which all films that depict war are inherently pro-war. You can’t show an image of something without tacitly endorsing what it represents. Whether or not Lone Survivor goes out of its way to glorify war or whether it is a form of war porn I’m not sure. Does the level of realism make it more or less responsible?

The Wolf of Wall Street Movie Review

These guys who work on Wall Street and idolize characters like Gordon Gecko and live by the credo that “greed is good,” who make every decision based on how much money, power, drugs, or sex it might get them are the subject of The Wolf of Wall Street. Previously it was Boiler Room, which was meant to show the consequences of living that life, but became, like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street before it, a clarion call for a new generation of upper crust wannabes who took entirely the wrong lessons from the movies.

Saving Mr. Banks Movie Review

The Walt Disney Company truly exists now to perpetuate its own myths. They include, but are not limited to, the idea that Walt Disney was the greatest human being who ever lived and was devoted exclusively to making people smile, and that a good wholesome family entertainment can solve most of life’s problems, often with a saccharine song and dance number. Saving Mr. Banks proposes some mythology of its own about the origins of P.L. Travers’ series of Mary Poppins books and the way Uncle Walt convinced her to sign over the rights.