Monthly Archives: November 2012

Review: “Lincoln”

30 Friday Nov 2012

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Lincoln

“This American Life”

Grade: B+ (RENT IT)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ISN’T just a man but a monument.  Meanwhile, the movie inspired by his commitment to ending slavery and the Civil War is a mixed bag, a union, as it were, of playwright Tony Kushner’s talky script and Steven Spielberg’s love of spectacle.  What happens when you pair the intensely verbal with the intensely visual?  Sadly less than the sum of its parts, “Lincoln” is a mathematical equation as tricky to decode as “four score and seven years ago.”

Sally-Field-LincolnOn the plus side, there are the performances.  Daniel Day-Lewis is a titan of serious cinema, from “My Left Foot” to the best American film tragedy of the 2000s, “There Will Be Blood.”  This is a Method actor so focused and unfunny that he makes Anthony Hopkins look like Robin Williams.  He nails Lincoln’s reportedly reedy voice and effortless erudition. Reviewing “A Room with a View” back in 1985, Pauline Kael wrote of the actor: “In some scenes I wished the camera were at a more discreet distance from Day-Lewis, because you can see him acting and you’re too conscious of his black hair and mustache – you suspect he’s made up to be ascetic and all profile.” All these years later, Day-Lewis’ profile finally gets the close-up of its career.

On the surface, the casting of Sally Field as Mary Todd seems questionable given that the actress is eleven years D-Day’s senior, but dress any actor in Lincoln’s chin curtain beard and top-hat – and any actress in a hoop skirt and greasy hair curls – and their ages somehow find equilibrium.  The Lincolns’ youngest son Tad (Gulliver McGrath) is seen before the fireplace, studying pictures of slaves disfigured by their masters’ whips. Mary is agonized over the enlistment of her older son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) into the Union Army while, beyond the domestic, Republican abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) and Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) are busy strategizing how to squash the Southern delegation.  “Lincoln,” at its heart, is not a biographical portrait but a study in political procedure. Seward has hired a group of Falstaffian fellows to cajole members of the House of Representations into passing anti-slavery legislation. The stand-out is W.N. Bilbo (a greasy James Spader) who brings some much-needed levity to “Lincoln” as he struts right through the front doors of the White House and delivers some deliciously salty language.

On the other hand, there are elements that subtract from “Lincoln,” or, at least, oppositional elements at work that make the film wobble like a house divided. Thanks to Kushner, “Lincoln,” inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals,” limits its scope to the political wrangling involved in the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery and put one more nail in the Confederate coffin.  As the famed1ea284fabeb8cb8df6779196e5615d49b08dcbaafd7f816ff5ce83b6 Civil War historian Bruce Catton wrote, “To save the Union the North had to destroy the Confederacy, and to destroy the Confederacy it had to destroy slavery.”  Given the misnomer of its title, one expects from “Lincoln” a sweeping biopic that begins with the sixteenth President as a young prodigy growing up in a cramped log-cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Kentucky and ending with a very bad night at the theatre. The maximalist Steven Spielberg is no doubt up to the task.  So, too, is Kushner, the Pulitzer prize-winner who co-wrote the screenplay for Spielberg’s 2005 “Munich” and, oh, just a little play called “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”  Whether Kushner and Spielberg are a match made in heaven should remain in question.  There’s a palpable tension between Spielberg’s love of the panoramic (i.e. the coast of Normandy, the Atlantic Ocean, space) and Kushner’s theatrical impulse to withdraw to the musty interiors of the White House and other Washingtonian halls of power. Regardless, “Lincoln” is destined to dominate next year’s Academy Awards; they might as well host the ceremony at the foot of Mount Rushmore.

Have no fear: there will be Oscars.

Review: “Life of Pi”

26 Monday Nov 2012

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“Pi of the Tiger”
Grade: A- (SEE IT)

POET MARK DOTY asks in his “Meditation” of 2005: “Isn’t the great power of animal eyes that we can’t read them?”

It’s a profound question and the crux of Ang Lee’s dazzling adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, “Life of Pi.” The titular role is played by Suraj Sharma, in his screen debut, and growing up on the Bay of Bengal, Pi locks horns with his unspiritual father (also a zoo-owner in the Indian city of Pondicherry). When Pi gets too close to the Bengal tiger kept in a cage out back, his father admonishes: “The tiger is not your friend.  When you look into its eyes, you see only your own emotions reflected back at you.”  His father’s lesson is that the animal is not a projection of human feelings but something entirely other. To prove his point, he ties a goat to the bars of the cage so that his sons can see that nature is not human but viciously red in tooth and claw.  Due to a clerical error, the tiger has been named Richard Parker, which is the film’s central joke, but also a significant part of the philosophical problem on Pi’s plate.  Notions of the “other” arise from psychoanalytic theories of object relations; the Other signifies everything the Self is not and stands as an obstacle to unity and social cohesion. The animal may look human – it may even have a man’s name – but it is nothing of the sort.  How, then, will Pi learn to live alongside the unknown?

Because “Life of Pi” is a fable, its plot-line is easy to relay.  It’s also the ultimate fisherman’s tale inasmuch as it may all be made-up. The film’s frame-story involves an older Pi (Irrfan Khan) narrating his story of adventure to another storyteller, a young writer (played by Rafe Spall), inside his Montreal apartment.  As a child in Pondicherry, Pi was an omnivore when it came to world religions; he drifted from Christianity and Judaism to Hinduism and Islam.  What do you expect from a mystical little boy whose very name is an abstract mathematical equation?   On being a Catholic Hindu, Pi tells us: “We get to feel guilty in front of hundreds of gods.”

Pi proceeds to recount his father’s decision to abruptly move his family to Canada, animals and all, and the shipwreck that left him stranded on a lifeboat alongside a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and the dreaded tiger.  The biblical overtones should be obvious enough: here we have Pi’s Ark, Pi’s faith tested, and Pi’s Christ-like resilience in the face of godly abandonment and indifference.  This will be lost on children, which is part of the film’s versatility.  Kids will no doubt marvel at “Li of Pi” for years to come because of its technical achievements: incandescent jellyfish, torpedo-like flying fish, an island of meerkats and flesh-eating vegetation.  Adults, meanwhile, will prefer to see Pi’s plight as an allegory and regard the tiger, as William Blake once did, in symbolic terms.

Much has been made of its “Avatar”-like special effects, but “Life of Pi” is also consistent with James Cameron’s 2009 classic in other ways. “Avatar,” too, stages a battle between humans and the animal-like other (those blue dudes with dog-ears and tails in Cameron’s case). If the Other is something too often demonized and ultimately conquered, “Avatar” saw the corporate destruction of the Na’vi of Pandora as a tragedy.  “Life of Pi” doesn’t deny that the battle between self and other is a violent one, but it’s more interested in making peace with the beast.

As in “Brokeback Mountain” (Lee’s last great film), which forced American audiences to reckon with a form of romance they don’t normally see nor understand, “Life of Pi” looks into the abyss of all social relations.  In “Brokeback,” otherness resides in the unreadable eyes of the self-hating Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) while in “Life of Pi,” that same haunting quality is right there in the eye of the tiger. Lee, who is nothing if not unsentimental, refuses to anthropomorphize the four-hundred-and-fifty-pound man-eater and “Life of Pi” is better for it.  Had Disney produced Martel’s book, the film would have ended with Pi and Tiger singing a duet but here, the tiger only stares with indifference and, without a word, slinks back into the jungle.

Review: “Flight”

19 Monday Nov 2012

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“Whiplash”

Grade: B+ (RENT IT)

IF NOT FOR Denzel Washington’s soulful performance as an airline pilot, “Flight” might have never left the runway.  Make that a chain-smoking, vodka-guzzling airline pilot who wakes up, hung over in an Orlando motel room, but goes on to save the day after force-landing his plane in a field outside of Atlanta with 102 passengers aboard.  We’re used to seeing Washington in the stentorian sort of parts that win him Academy Awards, and this unlikely choice of a role will again keep him in the running for a third statue.  Washington is famous for his pearly smile and big-dog swagger, but here, he’s a man who, like the plane he flies, has lost what’s called all “vertical control.”

At the turbulent center of “Flight,” Whip Whitaker is the very definition of the anti-hero – or, the flawed warrior – and one that Washington has agonizingly brought to life. No one had to know that the Captain, who appeared sober when he boarded the plane that morning, was also high on cocaine, having partied into the early morning with one of his flight attendants.  That is, until a pesky toxicology report surfaces after the plane crashes, six lives are lost, and an investigation by the NationalTransportation Safety Board is opened on the causes of the accident.  Director Robert Zemeckis gave us possibly the most terrifying plane-crash scene in 2000’s “Castaway,” a film that similarly explores the painful truth that no man is an island, and “Flight” is a close second.  Zemeckis, known for the visual wizardry of “Back to the Future” and “Forrest Gump,” eschews the predictable aerial shots of the plane in a total nosedive for the pure panic within the cabin where a stewardess, knocked unconscious, ragdolls from floor to ceiling and passengers puke upside down.  The plane is later said to have dropped 4,800 feet per minute and you will feel every foot.

Sensitively scripted by John Gatis, “Flight” is about a different kind of nosedive, that is, Captain Whitaker’s ambivalent attempt to clear his name while, at the same time, cling to the addictive and destructive ways that led up to crash.  He has plenty of enablers around him, including his dealer (John Goodman) and lawyer (Don Cheadle), to ensure that he keeps off-track.  In big-budget Hollywood films such as this one, the twelve steps of rehab usually end in redemption, and “Flight” is no exception.  Whip’s guardian angel is another addict named Nicole (newcomer Kelly Reilly). Despite the fact that Zemeckis and Washington are famous for their flashiness, the most powerful scene in “Flight” is a virtually bare one: inside a hospital stairwell, sneaking a cigarette, Whip meets Nicole, still recovering from an overdose, and a cancer patient (James Badge Dale) from downstairs.  Each has been ravaged by disease in some way and Whitaker is forced, perhaps for the first time, to look at his casual disregard for his life and the lives of others.

When redemption does inevitably arrive in “Flight,” it’s played out in the most public and painful way possible and under the watchful eye of actress Melissa Leo as the Captain’s investigator.  Up until that point, the viewer knows what the public does not, that behind closed doors, the perceived hero behind the plane crash is, in fact, a deadbeat dad, a violent drunk, and in deep denial about his substance abuse.  Yes, he saved the day, but as many high-school drug counselors have been known to say, imagine what he could have accomplished had he not be out of his mind. In this way, “Flight” forces us to rethink some of the just-add-water heroization so prevalent in American culture post-911.   It also takes a hard, close look at addiction and its discontents.

Review: “Skyfall”

17 Saturday Nov 2012

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“Gold Bond”

Grade: A-/B+ (SEE IT)

VAMPIRES, LINDSAY LOHAN, AGENT 007: some things never die. After the franchise flatliner that was 2008’s “Quantum of Solace,” James Bond bounces back to life in the Sam Mendes-directed “Skyfall.”  It’s staggering to think that 45 years ago, the fifth Bond film appeared under the title “You Only Live Twice,” starring its originator: the incomparable, martini-swilling Sean Connery.  He set the gold standard for a Bond as slyly confident undercover as he was under the covers. “Skyfall,” starring the sixth actor (Daniel Craig) to embody Ian Fleming’s hero of the British Secret Service, proves that Bond has more lives than that white cat on the lap of Dr. Evil. “You expect me to talk? Connery asked Goldfinger in the eponymous 1964 film.  “No. . .” replies Auric Goldfinger – all together now! – “I expect you to die.”

Not going to happen. The twenty-fourth Bond installment, “Skyfall” marks Craig’s third turn as 007 and the role, like his tailored silver suit, fits him like a glove. The action sequence that opens “Skyfall” – followed closely by the opening credits in which Adele belts the title song over an opus of a music video – plunges the viewer back into that world of improbable but entertaining stunts.  Set in Turkey, a fight atop a high-speed passenger train recalls the iconic fight scene of “From Russia with Love,” and Bond, like Bourne, appears to plunge to his death after Eve (Naomie Harris) takes a shot but misses.  The order comes from the all-seeing Judi Dench (as M) who won’t see her beloved Bond again until the offices of the MI6 are incinerated in a terrorist attack.  Ralph Fiennes, likely to serve a larger role in the forthcoming Bond films – Craig is contracted for two more – and Ben Winshaw (as the gadget-geek Q) are superb supporting cast members. Behind the camera, the cinematography of Roger (“No Country for Old Men”) Deakins is opulently lush, notably in the Macau chapter.

“Skyfall” could be the best Bondarama since Pierce Brosnan hang up his hat in 2002’s “Die Another Day.” That’s when Halle Berry rose, Ursula Andress-style, like a bikini’d nymph from the sea and Madonna offered a bizarre cameo as a lesbian fencing coach.  Ah, the Bondian world is a strange world indeed.  Recall the goofiness of the Roger Moore years when, in “Octopussy,” circus clowns were killed for smuggling Fabregé eggs and, in “Moonraker,” Bond orbited the earth in a space capsule.  Bond’s world is basically a hetero-male’s fantasy world designed for his pleasure.  Pussy Galore, Holly Goodhead; need we say more? That’s why the queering of Javier Bardem’s villainous Silva gives “Skyfall” a much-needed edge.  When Silva interrogates the agent, he draws in close, strokes Craig’s chiseled face and legs, and tells him not to be nervous as it’s his first time.  “What makes you think it’s my first time?” Bond shoots back.  The scene made the woman seated to my left uncomfortable – or was it the bottle of champagne she and her husband had stashed under the seat? – but the audience erupted in laughter.  Clearly, Mendes and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan are having some fun with Bond’s archetypal straightness and forcing him (and us) to loosen up a little.

“Skyfall” also succeeds in large part because it looks back to the Cold War days – the reappearance of that classic chrome Aston Martin DB5 is a welcomed one – and because the conflict between Silva and MI6 is personally motivated. Bardem, whose yellowy wig is reminiscent of Robert Shaw’s peroxide coif in “From Russia with Love” (1963), was disfigured by another reckless call made by M and he’s out for revenge. Could Silva be based on Wiki-leaker Julian Assange?  He essentially duplicates the role of the killing machine he played in “No Country,” but he’s the right actor to simultaneously titillate and terrify.

Ever since Timothy Dalton took over as Bond in 1987’s “The Living Daylights,” an air of artificiality has hung over many of the later Bond films.  Product placement, mannequin-like models come (barely) to life, gadgets that are more Sky-Mall than “Skyfall” – many Bond flicks are like the golden corpses that litter 1964’s “Goldfinger,” roundly considered the best of the lot.   There is still no escaping some of these conventionalities.  Silva forces Bond to shoot a shot-glass, William Tell-style, off the head of a bleeding and bound Berenice Marlohe – a misogynistic spectacle indeed – and the final show-down at the Skyfall estate, where a young Bond grew up, is overlong and ultimately tedious.  Still, the backstory opens up some new territory for the franchise as it could continue to peer into Bond’s early years as an orphan in Scotland.

“Skyfall” is proof that a solid Bond – like a diamond – is forever.