Movies

THE JOURNEY: distrust and risk on a path to peace

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Timothy Spall and Colm Meany in THE JOURNEY photo courtesy of SFFILM
Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney in THE JOURNEY
photo courtesy of SFFILM

The Journey imagines the pivotal personal interactions between the long-warring leaders of Northern Ireland’s The Troubles resulting in the 2006 St. Andrews Accords, which set up the current power-sharing government of Northern Ireland.   Ian Paisley had lit the original fuse of the Troubles in the mid-1960s by igniting Protestant backlash to Catholic pleas for civil rights.  Paisley then obstructed every attempted peace settlement for over thirty years.  Martin McGuinness had transitioned to political leadership from chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, resisting the violent repression of the british Army with a campaign of terror.  Paisley and McGuinness led the two sides in what was essentially a decades-long civil war, although Paisley would dispute that term.  You could fairly say that both had blood on their hands, McGuinness literally and Paisley morally.  Yet they did agree to share power in 2006.

The Journey uses an entirely fictional plot device to isolate the two of them on a road trip.  (The set-up is unlikely,  but you have to go with it.)  Then The Journey relies on the delightful work of two great actors, Timothy Spall, who plays Paisley, and Colm Meaney, who plays McGuinness.

Beyond the political differences and the blood grudge, the two make a classic Odd Couple.  Spall’s Paisley seems completely impregnable to charm.  The Journey is very funny as McGuinesss’ considerable charm and wit keeps falling flat.  In fact, there are plenty of LOL moments from the awkward situations, McGuinness’ quips and their seemingly clueless driver (Freddy Highmore).  Paisley seems utterly devoid of humor until an unexpected moment.

While The Journey is completely fictionalized, it is certainly true that the two had hated each other for decades, did reach agreement in 2006 and thereafter held posts in the same government and personally got along well, evolving an even affectionate personal relationship.  We also see Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Gerry Adams and an imagined MI5 character played by John Hurt.

Spall and Meaney took on a considerable challenge:  Paisley and McGuinness dominated the political news in Ireland for decades and are well-known to audiences in the UK and Ireland. Paisley died in 2014, and McGuinness died just last month.  The Journey’s screenwriter Colin Bateman, was born in Northern Ireland, and The Journey was financed by Northern Ireland Screen.

Achieving a sustainable agreement with a longtime blood enemy requires deciding which of your positions are sacrosanct principles and which have more flexibility. It requires risking the loyalty of your political base, which will revolt against leaders perceived as selling them out. It requires gauging the likelihood that your opponent will stick to his side of the deal. And, you have to focus on your outcome – the long-term goal, not just on defeating your enemy in the moment.  “Young men fight for the helluvit. Old men care about their legacy”, says Hurt’s character in The Journey.

I watched The Journey in April at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival).  To further explore this topic, here is my list of Best Movies About The Troubles.

DVD/Stream of the Week: DEAD MAN’S BURDEN – times are hard and the women are harder

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DEAD MAN’S BURDEN

I always welcome a new Western, and writer-director Jared Moshe’s impressive debut Dead Man’s Burden takes us to a darkly realistic Old West. The dry New Mexico landscape is beautiful but unforgiving, and the law is three days ride away. The times are hard and the women are harder. The Civil War ended five years before, but families are still reeling from losing a generation of young men.

As the film opens, a man rides away on horseback. A petite woman, young but worn, hoists an 1853 Enfield rifle to her shoulder, takes aim and fires. We later learn the identity of the man, his relationship to the woman and her reason for firing. It’s not what you might guess. And the villain is not who you expect it to be.

Moshe’s story reveals some characters to be bound by duty and others to be opportunistic. They are caught in the same web of circumstance, which funnels inevitably them to conflict. The movie’s final two shots echo an earlier moment, and neatly (if grimly) wrap up the tale.

The cast – Barlow Jacobs, Clare Bowen (Scarlet in ABC’s Nashville), David Call and veteran Richard Riehle – is uniformly good. Jacobs (Kid in Shotgun Stories) is especially well suited for a Western hero, with expressive eyes that narrow like Eastwood’s or Van Cleef’s.

There’s a gunfight that is more historically typical than the usual cinematic facedown in the street. These men, hunters and former soldiers, chase each other through the brush, firing from cover. It ain’t heroic. And Dead Man’s Burden is remarkably unsentimental.

DEAD MAN’S BURDEN

Dead Man’s Burden was shot on 35mm by Robert Hauer, and the look of the film brings out the isolating vastness of the land. Sadly, the sound is substandard, and I had difficulty comprehending some of the dialogue.

Dead Man’s Burden is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Google Play.

BABY DRIVER: an action ballet on wheels

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Ansel Elgort in BABY DRIVER
Ansel Elgort in BABY DRIVER

Baby Driver is an uncommonly innovative summer action movie with the action overtly tied to the rhythm of music.  The credit goes to writer-director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), who knows better than to weigh down his genre movies with pretension.  The beauty of Baby Driver is that it doesn’t aspire to be more than it is, but it delivers a surprising added dimension.

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a professional getaway driver with preternatural driving skill.  The childhood vehicle accident that killed his parents has left Baby with tinnitus, which he covers with music from his ever-present ear buds and several pockets full of iPods.  This gimmick allows Wright to time his chase scenes (and this is a chase scene movie) to the beat of Baby’s music.  Even when Baby walks down the street, he walks musically, evoking the opening title sequence in Saturday Night Fever.

At one point, Baby loses his wheels and continues his escape on foot; his wild run turns into elegant parkour.  In an early vehicle chase, Baby creates a shell game for the cops by matching his car with two identical ones.  And Wright scores one musical chase with the 1971 song Hocus Pocus from the Dutch group Focus; you’ll find it funny – and, if you were around in the early 1970s – you’ll find it even funnier.

The story is pretty basic: Baby is working off a debt to a crime lord (Kevin Spacey), who pairs him with a differently configured set of  robbers for each heist.  Baby falls in love with Debora (Lily James – Lady Rose MacClare in Downton Abbey) and plans to run away with her after One Last Job.  Of course, because he is partnering with a bunch of psychopaths, things don’t go well, and soon he is imperiled, along with Debora and his beloved deaf foster dad.  So there are lots of reasons for him to chase and be chased.

Wright has the perfect star in the baby faced teen heartthrob Ansel Elgort (Caleb in the Divergent/Allegiant/Insurgent franchise and the star of the teen melodrama The Fault in Our Stars).   Elgort’s mom is a ballet dancer (as is his girlfriend), and he tried on ballet before his acting career.  Elgort naturally moves like a dancer and can overtly walk, run and even drive like he’s dancing.

Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm light up the movie with their performances.  Foxx is terrifying as a murderous psychopath with a hair trigger.  Hamm’s bad guy is less flamboyant at first, but takes over the end of the movie with a relentless and lethal slow burn. Baby’s foster parent is played by CJ Jones, a deaf actor playing a deaf character.  It’s not a very textured role on the page, but Jones brings an unexpectedly deep humanity to his character.

The Mexican actress Eiza González, who has been appearing in action and vampire movies, plays one of the robbers.  Besides being beautiful and sexy, González has a magnetic presence and, in Baby Driver, she’s able to match up with Spacey, Hamm and Foxx.    She’s going to star in an upcoming James Cameron screenplay directed by Robert Rodriguez titled Alita: Battle Angel, which looks like a trashy franchise, but it just might make her a star.

Lily James is winning as a good girl with a wild side, in a much different performance than her good girl with a wild side in Downton Abbey.  The rest of the cast is good, too, down to the bit parts.  And it’s always fun to be surprised by a Paul Williams cameo.

The car stunts are first rate.  Baby Driver doesn’t claim to be a great movie, but it is a damn entertaining one and may well win an Oscar nomination for film editing.

 

MOKA: whodunit mixed with psychological thriller

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Emannuelle Devos in MOKA
Emannuelle Devos in MOKA

In the atmospheric ticking clock drama Moka, Emanneulle Devos plays Diane, a Swiss woman whose daughter has been killed in a hit-and-run accident.  Months afterward, she is still consumed with grief.  Impatient with the slow and uncertain pace of the police investigation and with her husband’s attempts at finding closure, Diane launches her own investigation to find the responsible party and make them pay.

Diane starts connecting dots and begins to suspect Marlène (Nathalie Baye), a shopowner from a neighboring town in France.   Diane adopts the alias of Hélène and, creepily, begins to infiltrate Marlène’s life.  Moka is a whodunit mixed with psychological thriller – who is really the perp and what is Diane capable of doing?

I, for one, didn’t see the big plot twist coming.  Director Frédéric Mermoud adapted the screenplay from the Tatiana De Rosnay novel.

The prolific French actress Emanneulle Devos made a splash in 2001 with Read My Lips and popped up last year in the indie Frank & Lola.  Devos has a very compelling quality.  She excels at playing women who are very intense and possibly dangerous, women like Diane in Moka.

Nathalie Baye is the Meryl Streep of France, nominated ten times for France’s Best Actress award.  She started off in 1972 as Joëlle the script girl in Trauffaut’s Day for Night, and had risen to international stardom by 1982 and her performance in The Return of Martin Guerre – one of the greatest acting turns in all cinema. In Moka, Baye’s Marlène is a seemingly uncomplicated woman.  We correctly suspect that she’s  something else under the surface, but we don’t guess what that really is.  It’s great to see Baye take this supporting role and nail it.

Moka is a well-crafted fuse-burner and a showcase for two great actresses.

Nathalie Baye and Emmanuelle Devos in MOKA
Nathalie Baye and Emmanuelle Devos in MOKA

DVD/Stream of the Week: LAND HO! – rowdy geezer roadtrip to Iceland

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Paul Eenhoorn and Earl Lynn Nelson in LAND HO!
Paul Eenhoorn and Earl Lynn Nelson in LAND HO!

Here’s a really fun movie. Land Ho! features a vibrant and irascible geezer who conscripts an old friend into a rowdy road trip to – of all random places – Iceland. It’s a showcase for Earl Lynn Nelson, who essentially plays himself in the movie. Nelson is a 72-year-old Kentucky doctor who is a force of nature and has possibly an even dirtier mind than The Movie Gourmet’s. He is a friend of the 29-year-old writer director Martha Stephens who was INSPIRED to see the possibilities in sending him off on an adventure and filming the results. His friend (and ex-brother-in-law) is played by an actor, Paul Eenhoorn.

It all works. Nelson – an unapologetic hedonist – is funnier than hell, and Eenhoorn stays right with him as the more reserved and sometimes aggrieved buddy. Land Ho! is a string of LOL moments, whether Nelson is providing politically incorrect fashion advice to young women or unsolicited marital advice to a honeymooning couple or pulling out a joint and proclaiming “It’s time for some doobiefication”.

This is a geezer comedy that doesn’t make the geezers cute. Nelson may be a piece of work, but there’s nothing in Land Ho! that isn’t genuine.

I just have two knocks on the movie. It’s only 95 minutes long, but it would be crisper at about 87. And, as The Wife pointed out, there’s really no need for the huge jarring subtitles to let us know precisely where these guys are in Iceland.

Nevertheless, it’s worth a watch. The audience at Sundance loved this movie, and I think Land Ho! is a hoot-and-a-half. Land Ho! is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, and Google Play.

{Note: I got the meet and spend some time with Paul Eenhorn at Cinequest 2015, when he was premiering his film In the Company of Women. Great guy.]

OKJA: a girl and her supermutant pet flee from corporate greed

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OKJA
OKJA
Okja is a master filmmaker’s wickedly biting anti-corporate satire.  It’s an endearing Girl-And-Her-Supermutant story with one of the best comic chase scenes since What’s Up, Doc?.  Okja also carries a strident anti-meat-eating message (see my diatribe several paragraphs below).

Director Bong Joon Ho made Memories of Murder, which I consider a masterpiece of neo-noir and of both the cop buddy and serial killer sub-genres. I have Memories of Murder at #14 on my Best Movies of the 21st Century – So Far. I also loved his affecting drama Mother. As with the sci-fi hit Snowpiercer, Bong Joon Ho got a Hollywood budget for Okja so his imagination could run wild.

And run wild he does.  A malevolent and monstrous corporation has engineered “superpigs” for future human consumption.  In a scheme to “Green wash” the product, they have distributed the least disturbing-looking of these freaks to be raised by indigenous farmers around the world.  One of the superpigs, a female named Okja, is raised on a verdant Korean mountainside by the girl Mija (Seo-hyun Ahn) and her grandfather,  Mija and Okja are best friends.  But Mija will need to find a way to thwart the corporate baddies who have planned all along to turn Okja into mutant bacon.

The chubby and clumsy Okja, created by a first-rate Korean CGI crew, is instantly lovable for her love for and loyalty to Mija – they even spoon at bedtime.  Okja looks and moves  more like a hippo than a pig, which makes the movie’s point about genetic engineering while keeping her adorable.

Most of Okja is pretty funny.  It opens with the artificially happy music of an industrial film (one imagines a title like Your Friend the Manhole).  There’s a slacker Millennial with the worst possible attitude for an employee, sure to be recognized by any boss in the audience. The humor ranges from the sly and cutting corporate satire to the literally scatological comedy when Okja expels manure.

The funniest part of Okja is a cell of sweetly earnest and deluded radical animal rights activists, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), led by Jay (Paul Dano).  One of their members  is so committed to erasing the human impact on the planet that he refuses to eat anything from animals OR plants, and has to be periodically force-fed by his companions when he passes out from malnutrition.  The ALF plans elaborate actions, like repeated rescues of Okja, that play out in mad cap craziness that brings to mind the best of Mack Sennett and Richard Lester.

Okja’s highlight is a chase scene that begins in a tunnel and ends in an underground mall in Seoul.  It’s a triumph of zany thrills.

Tilda Swinton plays twin sisters who are heirs to a vile robber baron industrialist and, with great relish, Swinton depicts them to represent contrasting faces of modern capitalism. One is the corporate leader who wants to make money by exploiting the rest of us, but wants to be loved for it and be perceived as benign; I know a big business leader who continually describes himself as of “the employer community”.  The other is the type of unapologetic, Social Darwinist corporate villain who just doesn’t care what we think – if it has value, she wants it and she will take it.

Seo-hyun Ahn is appropriately steely as the spunky Mija.  Paul Dano is lovable as the clumsily passionate activist leader.  A very broad Jake Gyllenhall plays a corporate spokesman at once despicable, dissolute and ridiculous in his 1970s shorts.

There’s one superb performance in Okja that is escaping critical notice.  Giancarlo Esposito plays Frank, the chief henchman and corporate advisor to both of the twin sister CEOs.   Frank is a master of “managing up”, and one scene in which he spurs a CEO to adopt his idea – and really, really believe that she thought up herself – is brilliantly funny.  In a movie filled with very broad performances, Esposito underplays Frank to great effect.

I do have a problem with Okja’s militant anti-meat perspective.  I advocate knowing where our food comes from, whether it’s the sweet corn that I buy at my farmer’s market from a farmer in Brentwood, California, or the preserved lemons I buy in a jar from Egypt.  Today less than 2% of Americans live on farms, but in my parents’ day, pretty much everyone had experienced firsthand the butchering of meat.

Humans have been eating meat since we could catch another animal (or stumble across one that was already dead).  There is no way to eat meat without killing an animal, skinning and bleeding it and cutting it up.  Even chicken and steers and pigs that are raised free-range, fed organic corn and yada yada still have to be killed and cut up somewhere – they don’t jump into those shrink-wrapped packages themselves.  All that being said, I understand that some people prefer not to see this.

I have toured a meat-packing plant, and the slaughterhouse in Okja is a pretty accurate depiction of the process, although the lighting has been dimmed for a more sinister effect.  I have also seen animals slaughtered for dinner on an All-American family farm, and the slaughterhouse is much cleaner and arguably more humane.

Still, even in Okja, Mija catches fish for dinner, and her grandfather raises – and cooks – chickens.  I respect the members of my own family who choose not to eat animals.  But I think that Okja runs astray by making this perfectly reasonable choice into a moral litmus test.

Some folks will also have a problem with the movie’s extreme changes in tone.  The Animal Liberation Front’s Seoul rescue scene has a very Keystone Kops vibe, where nobody gets hurt.  In the Manhattan chase scene, however, commandos rain down realistic and brutal violence upon the Animal Liberation Front, making the point that corporate forces play for keeps.

I do NOT recommend Okja for children younger than middle school-aged, for whom the slaughterhouse scenes could be traumatizing.

There’s ONE MORE scene at the very end of the closing credits, so stick around.

I saw Okja at a theatrical preview, courtesy of the Camera Cinema Club; most viewers are going to watch this at home on Netflix, but I recommend viewing Okja on the big screen if you get the chance.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE WOMEN'S BALCONY
THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

In theaters this week:

  • The delightfully smart and character-driven Israeli comedy The Women’s Balcony with a community of traditional women in revolt. The longer you’ve been married, the funnier you’ll find The Women’s Balcony.
  • The David and Goliath documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, the riveting story of an American family business bullied into a nightmarish fight for survival.
  • The bittersweet dramedy The Hero has one thing going for it – the wonderfully appealing Sam Elliott.

Here’s my contribution to the argument about the Best 25 Movies of the 21st Century.

My Stream of the Week won the Oscar for Best Documentary feature.  Searching for Sugar Man is the story of a Detroit construction laborer who didn’t know that he was a rock star. You can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On June 27, Turner Classic Movies presents the iconic 1946 film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice.  An essential element in film noir is a guy’s lust for a Bad Girl driving him to a Bad Decision, and when John Garfield first sees Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice, you can tell that he’s hooked.  She’s a Bad Girl, and a Bad Decision is on its way.

John Garfield's first look at Lana Turner in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
John Garfield’s first look at Lana Turner in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE

Stream of the Week: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN – he didn’t know he was a rock star

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SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN
SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

What a story! A Detroit construction laborer named Sixto Rodriguez was also a singer-songwriter who cut two albums in 1970 and 1971. The albums didn’t sell in the US, and he faded back into obscurity. Yet in South Africa – completely isolated by the sanctions of the apartheid era – the artist known as Rodriguez became huge, and his songs fueled a protest movement. Rodriguez never knew of his success, and South Africans believed that he had suffered a dramatic rock star death. The powerful documentary Searching for Sugar Man is the story of some stubborn South African music geeks trying to find out what really happened to Rodriguez, and the startling truths that they uncovered. (The title comes from Rodriguez’ most iconic anthem, the song Sugar Man.)

I have never seen a biographical documentary of a contemporary figure with less comment from the subject himself. There is a brief filmed interview with the eccentric Rodriguez, who reveals very little of his perspective on his own story. His songs can only be written by a reflective person, but Rodriguez is the farthest thing from self-absorbed. Still, the interviews with his family, friends and fans and his songs help us feel like we know him.

It’s a flabbergasting and unpredictable story and well told. Sadly, the young director Malik Bendjelloul suddenly died just fifteen months after Searching for Sugan Man won the Best Documentary Oscar. You can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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THE WOMEN'S BALCONY
THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

In theaters this week:

  • The delightfully smart and character-driven Israeli comedy The Women’s Balcony with a community of traditional women in revolt.  The longer you’ve been married, the funnier you’ll find The Women’s Balcony.
  • The David and Goliath documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, the riveting story of an American family business bullied into a nightmarish fight for survival.
  • Paris Can Wait, a female fantasy with glorious French cuisine to tantalize all genders.
  • You can still find Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer in theaters, perhaps Richard Gere’s best movie performance ever, and strongly recommended.
  • The bittersweet dramedy The Hero has one thing going for it – the wonderfully appealing Sam Elliott.

Here’s my contribution to the argument about the Best 25 Movies of the 21st Century.

School is out for the summer, and my DVD/Streams of the Week are the two surfing documentaries Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants.  Both are available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Here’s an interesting nugget from Turner Classic Movies on June 17. Three different actors play Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled LA detective Philip Marlowe: Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep, James Garner in Marlowe and Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake.

The most famous – and my favorite – of these is The Big Sleep, with its iconic performance by Bogart and its impenetrably tangled plot. It’s also one of the most overtly sexual noirs, and Lauren Bacall at her sultriest is only the beginning. The achingly beautiful Martha Vickers plays a druggie who throws herself at anything in pants. And Dorothy Malone invites Bogie to share a back-of-the-bookstore quickie.

Lady in the Lake is more cinematically inventive.  Shot entirely from the point of view of the protagonist detective (Montgomery), we never see him except when reflected in mirrors. Even without this interesting gadget, it’s a good movie. Audrey Totter plays one of her iconic noir Bad Girls.

Marlowe is less distinguished a film, but James Garner is always watchable.

Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP
Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP

THE WOMEN’S BALCONY: a righteous man must keep his woman happy

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THE WOMEN'S BALCONY
THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

A community of women in a traditional culture revolt in the delightfully smart and funny Israeli comedy The Women’s Balcony.   The balcony in a small Jerusalem synagogue  collapses, and the building is condemned.  The old rabbi’s wife is seriously injured, and he suffers a trauma-induced psychotic breakdown.  Just when it looks like the leaderless congregation will die, a young and charismatic rabbi (Avraham Aviv Alush) appears, enlivens the congregation and repairs the building.  But he rebuilds the synagogue WITHOUT the women’s section.  Profoundly disrespected, the synagogue’s women strike in protest.

The women live in a culture where males have all the power and religious authority trumps all.  The women all have their individually distinct gifts, personalities and rivalries. But they all appreciate the injustice of the situation, and they are really pissed off.  They are very creative in finding way to leverage the power that they do have, and the result is very, very funny.

This could have been a very broad comedy (and a Lysistrata knock-off).  Instead, it’s richly textured, with an examination of ethical behavior and loving relationships.  It’s also dotted with comments on the relations between Israeli Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox and on the importance of food in this culture.  It’s the first – and very promising – feature for both director Emil Ben-Shimon and writer Shlomit Nehana.

THE WOMEN'S BALCONY
THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

There are plenty LOL moments, including a scene where one of the congregants masquerades as the demented old rabbi to secure the needed psychotropic meds.

We soon understand that the young rabbi has a very unattractive side – grossly sexist and power-hungry. But he has seduced the men and then cows them by manipulating his religious authority. He’s tearing apart a closely bound community braided together by decades of deep friendship and inter-reliance. The movie turns on whether the men can recognize when his supposed righteousness veers into what is really unethical and, in one pivotal scene with the old rabbi, indecent.

Two of the male characters, deeply in love with their women, step up and do the right thing. This overt comedy has a very a romantic core.

Most of all, The Women’s Balcony is about mature relationships. Most of these couples have been married for decades, especially the couple at the core of the story, Ettie (Evein Hagoel) and Zion (Igal Naor). Ben-Shimon and Nehana prove themselves to be keen and insightful observers of long-lasting relationships.

A righteous man must keep his woman happy. This may not be written in the Holy Scriptures, but it’s damn useful advice. (It also helps, we learn, if he can make a mean fruit salad.) The longer you’ve been married, the funnier you’ll find The Women’s Balcony.