Closed Circuit Movie Review

Closed Circuit is about as grim and pessimistic a view of governments and spy agencies as you’ll get at the movies, but don’t be fooled by the adverts that tout its having the same producers as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. That was a smart, taut, realistic, and pleasurable spy thriller. This is a derivative of every other spy thriller with the exception of an ending that doesn’t have us cheering star Eric Bana as the hero and champion of truth and righteousness.

From My Collection: Thirteen Days Movie Review

The Kennedys are a mythologized family and political dynasty. The brothers John F. and Robert, because of their tragic and untimely deaths through assassination, are lionized more than almost any other political figure of the last century. Because they also had distinctive accents, speech patterns, and styles, it’s difficult to portray them on film without resorting to some form of ghastly imitation. Roger Donaldson’s 2000 film Thirteen Days, about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, gets the casting so right for their roles that at times you almost forget you’re watching icons. You’re really seeing these characters, these men, trying to avert nuclear war and the destruction of life as we know it.

Argo Movie Review

Just about everyone knows or remembers that in 1979 Iranian revolutionaries seized control of the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days, after which all of them went home alive. The story was on the minds of nearly everyone in the country. The incident figured heavily in the sense of national pride when the U.S. hockey team defeated Russia and won gold at the Lake Placid Olympics. My six year old brother was so disturbed by the story that he scratched Iran off a beautiful glass globe that belonged to my great grandfather.

The part I never knew, and what many people apparently never knew, was that six Americans escaped out the back door and hid at the home of the Canadian ambassador while the CIA worked out scenarios for exfiltrating them. Even less known than that was the method eventually used and the cover provided to bring them home safely. The real story was declassified in 1997 and has now been turned into a movie called Argo and directed by Ben Affleck. Chris Terrio wrote the screenplay based on a 2007 “Wired” article by Joshuah Bearman and on a book by the CIA operative Tony Mendez, who orchestrated the escape. Apollo 13 has been playing recently on AMC. What I remembered most about that movie was how great Ron Howard was at building suspense through a story whose outcome we already knew. Those three astronauts survived, but we feel the tension along with them because they don’t know what their futures hold. That’s how I felt during much of Argo.

Anonymous Movie Review

I’m not a Shakespeare scholar. I probably know more than most people but I certainly can’t claim any intimate knowledge of his life and work. I know enough to say that the alleged controversial question of authorship of his works is complete and utter bunk, in spite of what Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi believes. The issue strikes me as little more than the common disbelief among those who have spent lots of time and money on formal education that someone with a lesser education could possibly possess such genius. A major part of the argument has been that Shakespeare’s education was insufficient to prepare him for works containing classical allusions and such. As far as I’m concerned this is no different to any modern day conspiracy theory that suggests for instance that we never really went to the moon and that George W. Bush personally flew airplanes into the World Trade towers.

The Ides of March Movie Review

The Ides of March, a political drama written and directed by George Clooney arrives just as many people in the country are beginning to wonder if President Obama is capable of sticking to the principals he lauded in his campaign or if he is no different than any other politician, making compromise after compromise for political expediency without regard for the values he claims to uphold. That the movie’s subject matter fits snugly into the current political landscape is a bit serendipitous, being based on a play originally produced before Barack Obama was elected to the Presidency.

Fair Game Movie Review

I'm sort of torn about how to approach Doug Liman's Fair Game, a political thriller based on the real-life events surrounding the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame in the time period in and around the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. It's undeniably a well-constructed slow burning thriller and a great deal of the information in the film appears to be mostly accurate, based on several independent journalistic reports. But then it tries to represent itself as a bold and daring exercise in filmmaking that exposes the truth, while at the same time being a completely conventional film.

While I certainly preferred Liman as a director of smaller films like Swingers and Go, his action films, including the first in the Bourne series, although with the exception of Jumper (from what I've read and the bits I've seen it's an unmitigated disaster), demonstrate a slick vision and controlled hand at presenting fast-paced action sequences with sharp visual and staccato, but cohesive editing. Fair Game mercifully doesn't ever find the need to toss in gratuitous chase sequences or to distort what is essentially a mild-mannered, though complex, story into a trove of action movie cliches and trumped up tension.

No, The Government Actually Has Very Little Control

The Adjustment Bureau opens today. Here's political reporter Ezra Klein's take on the idea that some overarching government bureaucracy can possibly control anything more complicated than the organization of a fundraiser.

Nearest I can glean from the trailer, the film concerns a secret agency that has a hand in controlling the outcomes of basically everything in political life. As much as many people would like to believe this is the case, most everyone who works in and writes about politics would probably tell you that the reality of government is generally a disorganized mess.

Shhhh, don't tell this to the idiots in the 9/11 Truth Movement. For them, any outward appearance of disorganization is probably just further evidence of the tremendous depth of the conspiracy. They're so clever they've led every political reporter to the conclusion that government doesn't know what it's doing most of the time!

I don't have any immediate plans to see the movie. For one it's not going to play at the cinema in Seville that shows films subtitled and I refuse to see dubbed films. Also it just doesn't interest me a whole lot. It's unlikely to make my video list later this year.