Photo caption: Callum Turner (center front) in THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. Courtesy of MGM.
The Boys in the Boat is the entertaining true story of the ultimate sports underdog – the University of Washington’s junior varsity rowing team, which won gold medals at the 1936 Olympics hosted by Hitler in Munich (the Jesse Owens Olympics). Again, this was UDub’s JUNIOR varsity boat.
The Boys in the Boat follows a familiar arc for sports movies – the heroes must win the Big Race (actually, three Big Races here). We’ve all seen this before, but director George Clooney gets the credit for keeping The Boys in the Boat from becoming unbearably hackneyed or corny. Best known as a movie star, Clooney has proven himself an able director: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night and Good Luck, The Ides of March, The Monuments Men.
In telling the story, Clooney emphasizes the Depression setting and how impoverished the kids on the team are, especially the main kid, played by Callum Turner. Joel Edgerton plays the taciturn coach, who must gamble his job on an unconventional decision. Few of us have a deep understanding of the sport of team rowing, so Clooney takes us on a rowing procedural.
Joel Edgerton (second from right) in THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. Courtesy of MGM.
I love Edgerton in everything, and he’s starred in Master Gardener, Loving and Zero Dark Thirty. I especially recommend watching him in The Gift, which he also wrote an directed. Edgerton is very, very good here.
Callum Turner is adequate, but Luke Slattery and Jack Mulhern are especially vivid as his two of his teammates.
This story is still celebrated in Seattle, where you can still visit the boathouse and see the team’s memorabilia. One race is staged in the Montlake Cut between Lake Washington and Puget Sound. The coolest race scene has an observation train, with bleachers on the rail cars, keeping pace with the boats racing down the Hudson River.
The Boys in the Boat ain’t the most original film, but it’s enjoyable to watch.
Photo caption: Joel Edgerton in MASTER GARDENER. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Paul Schrader’s deeply engrossing Master Gardener came out in late May, when my life was rich and complicated, so I’m just getting around to writing about it. Better late than never, because it’s a worthwhile watch.
Joel Edgerton plays Narvel, the titular manager of a grand estate’s extraordinary formal garden. Norma (Sigourney Weaver), the proprietor of the estate, has the means to keep Narval’s operation well-resourced and well-staffed. Narvel combines an encyclopedic knowledge of plants with a meticulous attention to detail. His team of year-round assistants respect him and buy into his leadership. It’s well-ordered, above all, and then Norma asks a “favor” of Narvel that he cannot refuse – to take on her troubled grandniece as an intern.
The grandniece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), is a puddle of Gen X attitude, but she’s smart enough to know that she needs to put in the time, if not commit fully. Interestingly, Norma hasn’t had a conversation with Maya since she’s grown into adulthood, and puts off their first conversation until well into the internship. Norma is judgy, and didn’t approve of Maya’s late mother. Norma also relishes her power over Maya, Narvel and everyone- and chooses the time and place of each social engagement.
But, back to Narvel – why is he so exacting in his standards, work ethic and expectations of his team? Is he a martinet, a petty tyrant of flowers and mulch? Does he lack perspective, like The Caine Mutiny’s Captain Queeg consumed by the missing strawberries?
It turns out that Narvel has a past.. A shocking past. And running an estate’s formal garden is the last place you would have expected him to be. There were consequences for the bad decisions in Narvel’s previous life, and those consequences are irreversible. Narvel, far more than others, understands how circumstances and events can change lives forever. That’s why he faces every situation so deliberately. He is anything but careless.
Maya, however, has lived a careless life, and her past threatens all of them. In his bad past, Narvel developed skills that equip him face violence now. And now, facing Maya’s problems, he finds a long-denied chance for redemption.
Quintessa Swindell and Joel Edgerton in MASTER GARDENER. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
The cast is excellent. Edgerton is prefect as a contained man whose regrets power his discipline and determination – and harnesses his determination so as not to lose a second chance. Sigourney Weaver also wonderfully nails the emotional remoteness of Norma, who is also very contained – until she lapses into a Queen of Hearts caprice. Quintessa Swindell, who I hadn’t seen before, is charismatic, and takes her Maya from an apathetic insouciance to someone who has learned, for the first time, what being fully committed really is.
Master Gardener is a Paul Schrader film. Schrader wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull., adapted The Last Temptation of Christ, wrote and directed American Gigolo and Affliction. All very good. All very dark.
Master Gardener is the third movie in Schrader’s late-career, self-described ‘Man In A Room’ trilogy, following First Reformed and The Card Counter. I would name it the “Man with a Code Seeks Redemption” trilogy. When I wrote about The Card Counter, my subtitle was “a loner, his code and his past” – and that would work for Master Gardener, too.
Master Gardener is now available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox. As readers have come to expect, I’ve included the trailer below, but I recommend that you don’t watch it because of spoilers; the story is much more impactful when the plot elements unspool as Schrader intended.
Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT
The character-driven suspenser The Gift is more than a satisfying thriller – it’s a well-made and surprisingly thoughtful film that I keep mulling over. It’s a filmmaking triumph for writer-director-producer-actor Joel Edgerton, the hunky Australian action star (the Navy Seal leader in Zero Dark Thirty).
Simon (Jason Batemen), a take-no-prisoners corporate riser, has moved back to Southern California with his sweetly meek and anxiety-riddled wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall). In a chance encounter, they meet Gordo (Edgerton), who knew Simon in high school. Gordo is an odd duck, but the couple feels obligated to meet him socially when he keeps dropping by with welcome gifts. At first, The Gift seems like a comedy of manners, as Jason and Robyn try to figure out a socially appropriate escape from this awkward entanglement. But then, the audience senses that Gordo may be dangerously unhinged, and it turns out that Simon and Gordo have more of a past than first apparent. Things get scary.
Edgerton uses – and even toys with – all the conventions of the suspense thriller – the woman alone, the suspicious noise in the darkened house, the feeling of being watched. And there’s a cathartic Big Reveal at the end.
But The Gift isn’t a plot-driven shocker – although it works on that level. Instead it’s a study of the three characters. Just who is Gordo? And who is Simon? And who is Robyn? None of these characters are what we think at the movie’s start. Each turns out to be capable of much more than we could imagine. I particularly liked Bateman’s performance as a guy who is masking his true character through the first half of the movie, but dropping hints along the way. Hall is as good as she is always, and Edgerton really nails Gordo’s off-putting affect.
And, after you’ve watched The Gift, consider this – just what is the gift in the title?
The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in LOVING. Credit: Ben Rothstein/Focus Features
The landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned state laws that banned interracial marriage. Loving is the story of the real couple behind that ruling, and it’s a satisfying love story of two modest people who would rather not have been forced to make history.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton convincingly bring the lead characters to life. As the more vibrant character, Negga is especially winning. Edgerton is just as good as he plays the stolid and far less demonstrative husband.
Marton Csokas, with his pitiless, piercing eyes, is remarkably effective as the Virginia sheriff dead set on enforcing Virginia’s racist statute in the most personally intrusive way. Too often, actors seem to be impersonating Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night when they play racist Southern sheriffs, but Csokas brings some originality to his performance.
Loving is directed by one of my favorites, Jeff Nichols of Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud(which he calls his “Arkansas Trilogy”). Nichols specializes in leisurely paced dramas that evoke their settings in the rural South. Nichols’ languid style works well in telling stories that have moments of shock and violence. However, there is no dramatic courtroom face off or thrilling high point as we watch these people live their workaday lives, so Loving drags a bit in places. Nevertheless, Nichols does an excellent job of depicting the ongoing dread of racist terror that these people lived under.
Michael Shannon, who owes his career breakthrough to Nichols’ Shotgun Stories and stars in his Take Shelter and Mud, shows up in a sparkling cameo as a LIFE magazine photographer. If you perform a Google image search for “Richard Mildred Loving”, you’ll find the real LIFE photos, which make it clear that Nichols went to great lengths to make the characters and the settings look very, very much like the Lovings and their environment. I don’t need “lookalikes” in a historical movie, but the makeup and wardrobe on Edgerton and Negga (and especially Richard Loving’s mother) are remarkably close to the real people. And the scenes at the drag race and on the Loving’s sofa are recreated in almost chilling accuracy.
I studied Loving v. Virginia, along with other major civil rights and individual rights cases, in law school in the mid-1970s . Then, the idea that a government could outlaw a marriage between people of different races (and even the word “anti-miscegenation”) already seemed ridiculously obsolete and perversely quaint. But I hadn’t realized that the ruling in Loving v Virginia was only 8 years old at the time I studied it. California had such a law, too, which wasn’t repealed until 1948, and I have a friend whose Filipino and Mexican-American parents were kept from marrying by that statute.
History is made by real people. Loving is both good history and a watchable personal story. You can watch on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in LOVING. Credit: Ben Rothstein/Focus Features
The landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned state laws that banned interracial marriage. Loving is the story of the real couple behind that ruling, and it’s a satisfying love story of two modest people who would rather not have been forced to make history.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton convincingly bring the lead characters to life. As the more vibrant character, Negga is especially winning. Edgerton is just as good as he plays the stolid and far less demonstrative husband.
Marton Csokas, with his pitiless, piercing eyes, is remarkably effective as the Virginia sheriff dead set on enforcing Virginia’s racist statute in the most personally intrusive way. Too often, actors seem to be impersonating Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night when they play racist Southern sheriffs, but Csokas brings some originality to his performance.
Loving is directed by one of my favorites, Jeff Nichols of Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud(which he calls his “Arkansas Trilogy”). Nichols specializes in leisurely paced dramas that evoke their settings in the rural South. Nichols’ languid style works well in telling stories that have moments of shock and violence. However, there is no dramatic courtroom face off or thrilling high point as we watch these people live their workaday lives, so Loving drags a bit in places. Nevertheless, Nichols does an excellent job of depicting the ongoing dread of racist terror that these people lived under.
Michael Shannon, who owes his career breakthrough to Nichols’ Shotgun Stories and stars in his Take Shelter and Mud, shows up in a sparkling cameo as a LIFE magazine photographer. If you perform a Google image search for “Richard Mildred Loving”, you’ll find the real LIFE photos, which make it clear that Nichols went to great lengths to make the characters and the settings look very, very much like the Lovings and their environment. I don’t need “lookalikes” in a historical movie, but the makeup and wardrobe on Edgerton and Negga (and especially Richard Loving’s mother) are remarkably close to the real people. And the scenes at the drag race and on the Loving’s sofa are recreated in almost chilling accuracy.
I studied Loving v. Virginia, along with other major civil rights and individual rights cases, in law school in the mid-1970s . Then, the idea that a government could outlaw a marriage between people of different races (and even the word “anti-miscegenation”) already seemed ridiculously obsolete and perversely quaint. But I hadn’t realized that the ruling in Loving v Virginia was only 8 years old at the time I studied it. California had such a law, too, which wasn’t repealed until 1948, and I have a friend whose Filipino and Mexican-American parents were kept from marrying by that statute.
History is made by real people. Loving is both good history and a watchable personal story.
Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT
The character-driven The Gift is more than a satisfying suspense thriller – it’s a well-made and surprisingly thoughtful film that I keep mulling over. It’s a filmmaking triumph for writer-director-producer-actor Joel Edgerton, the hunky Australian action star (the Navy Seal leader in Zero Dark Thirty).
Simon (Jason Batemen), a take-no-prisoners corporate riser, has moved back to Southern California with his sweetly meek and anxiety-riddled wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall). In a chance encounter, they meet Gordo (Edgerton), who knew Simon in high school. Gordo is an odd duck, but the couple feels obligated to meet him socially when he keeps dropping by with welcome gifts. At first, The Gift seems like a comedy of manners, as Jason and Robyn try to figure out a socially appropriate escape from this awkward entanglement. But then, the audience senses that Gordo may be dangerously unhinged, and it turns out that Simon and Gordo have more of a past than first apparent. Things get scary.
Edgerton uses – and even toys with – all the conventions of the suspense thriller – the woman alone, the suspicious noise in the darkened house, the feeling of being watched. And there’s a cathartic Big Reveal at the end.
But The Gift isn’t a plot-driven shocker – although it works on that level. Instead it’s a study of the three characters. Just who is Gordo? And who is Simon? And who is Robyn? None of these characters are what we think at the movie’s start. Each turns out to be capable of much more than we could imagine. I particularly liked Bateman’s performance as a guy who is masking his true character through the first half of the movie, but dropping hints along the way. Hall is as good as she is always, and Edgerton really nails Gordo’s off-putting affect.
And, after you’ve watched The Gift, consider this – just what is the gift in the title?
The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and a host of cable/satellite PPV platforms.
The excellent crime drama Black Mass tells the true life story of how gangster James “Whitey” Bulger built his Boston Irish gang into a major crime empire under the protection of the FBI. As if we needed an illustrative example, Bulger is proof that psychopathy and ambition is a really nasty combination. And, as Black Mass points out with the FBI characters, even ambition alone can prove to be a vulnerability.
Here’s what really happened: Bulger (Johnny Depp), the ruthless leader of the Winter Hill Gang in South Boston was approached by FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) for help in eradicating Boston’s Italian Mafia. Connolly was as ambitious as Bulger, and the two men shared Southie roots. It was in Bulger’s interest to rid himself of the competition, and he parlayed Connolly’s career-climbing grasping into a de facto amnesty that allowed Bulger to expand his murderous enterprises throughout Boston and beyond – even to Florida jai alai and gun running to Northern Ireland.
It’s an amazing tale, and director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) tells it very well, letting Depp and Edgerton drive the story by inhabiting a pair of characters that become a toxic mixture. With an erect swagger and some of the coldest eyes in cinema history, Johnny Depp is superb as the feral Bulger. The trailer below includes his life lesson to a small boy around the family breakfast table that shows his world view. When the eyes go cold, Depp’s Bulger can terrorize with a touch, a word or even just a glance.
Joel Edgerton is equally effective as the corrupted FBI agent Connolly, who uses Southie bombast and bluster to escape the snares of office politics. Alas, it all finally catches up to him when a new prosecutor directs fresh eyes on Boston’s crime scene. Until recently, I’ve known Edgerton as an Australian action star (he was the the Navy Seal team leader in Zero Dark Thirty and one of the thugs in Animal Kingdom). Edgerton recently wrote, directed and stared in the excellent psychological thriller The Gift, and his performance in Black mass reinforces that he’s a very talented and versatile filmmaker.
The cast is very deep and uniformly excellent, including Julianne Nicolson, Juno Temple, Kevin Bacon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris and House of Cards) and Dakota Johnson. Besides Depp and Edgerton, three other actors popped off the screen for me:
Rory Cochrane plays Bulger’s partner Steve Flemmi. Cochrane is a veteran actor whose most memorable role is probably as the pothead Slater in Dazed and Confused. Now filled out in middle age, he plays a guy who is about half of Depp’s scenes, but says very, very little. As they say, the best acting is reacting, and Cochrane just chews gum and observes, letting his eyes tell us what he is thinking and feeling.
David Harbour plays Connolly’s FBI partner, a guy who becomes entangled in a web not of his own doing. One of the most riveting scenes in Black Mass, he becomes terrorized about, of all things, a recipe for a steak marinade. Harbour is a reliable veteran, but this is among his very best work.
Peter Sarsgaard is always brilliant, and here he gets to become a tweaked out lowlife who involuntarily giggles when he thinks that getting handed a valise full of cash is a good thing when it’s not.
Black Mass is a top rate crime story very well-told. No more and no less.
One more thing: there is a string of up-close-and-personal murders depicted here, including two by strangulation and a host of gunshot executions. It’s not particularly gruesome by the standards of modern crime movies, but DON’T TAKE YOUR 4-YEAR-OLD. A couple at my screening did just that. What are people thinking?
Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT
The character-driven The Gift is more than a satisfying suspense thriller – it’s a well-made and surprisingly thoughtful film that I keep mulling over. It’s a filmmaking triumph for writer-director-producer-actor Joel Edgerton, the hunky Australian action star (the Navy Seal leader in Zero Dark Thirty).
Simon (Jason Batemen), a take-no-prisoners corporate riser, has moved back to Southern California with his sweetly meek and anxiety-riddled wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall). In a chance encounter, they meet Gordo (Edgerton), who knew Simon in high school. Gordo is an odd duck, but the couple feels obligated to meet him socially when he keeps dropping by with welcome gifts. At first, The Gift seems like a comedy of manners, as Jason and Robyn try to figure out a socially appropriate escape from this awkward entanglement. But then, the audience senses that Gordo may be dangerously unhinged, and it turns out that Simon and Gordo have more of a past than first apparent. Things get scary.
Edgerton uses – and even toys with – all the conventions of the suspense thriller – the woman alone, the suspicious noise in the darkened house, the feeling of being watched. And there’s a cathartic Big Reveal at the end.
But The Gift isn’t a plot-driven shocker – although it works on that level. Instead it’s a study of the three characters. Just who is Gordo? And who is Simon? And who is Robyn? None of these characters are what we think at the movie’s start. Each turns out to be capable of much more than we could imagine. I particularly liked Bateman’s performance as a guy who is masking his true character through the first half of the movie, but dropping hints along the way. Hall is as good as she is always, and Edgerton really nails Gordo’s off-putting affect.
And, after you’ve watched The Gift, consider this – just what is the gift in the title?
