The big hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the drama Whiplashis about the line between motivation and abuse and the line between ambition and obsession. A young jazz drummer (Miles Teller of The Spectacular Nowand Rabbit Hole) attends an elite music academy (think Julliard) and comes under the attention of a drill sergeant-type of instructor (J.K. Simmons). The teacher-tormentor pushes the kid toward perfection through tough love and, ultimately, abuse. To what extent is the teacher trying to get the kid to excel? And how much of the teacher’s behavior is just sadistic bullying? And how will the kid respond? (The movie’s title reflects both a jazz song and the teacher’s instructional technique.)
J.K. Simmons is a guy whose name you may not recognize, but whose face you will. He has 143 screen credits, most memorably as the of the ironic and supportive father in Juno and Vernon Schillinger, the Aryan Brotherhood leader in the prison series Oz. This is Simmons’ movie; it’s an exceptional performance, that will probably land Simmons an Oscar nomination.
How good a movie is Whiplash? It’s a very good one – taut, and intense. The fact that it’s extremely focused on the two characters and the fundamental questions about their characters is a strength, but also limits it from being a great movie. Still, Simmons, Teller and the unrelenting tension makes Whiplash definitely worth seeing.
On its surface, the brilliant comedy Dear White People seems to be about racial identity, but – as writer-director Justin Simien points out – it’s really about personal identity (of which race is an important part). Set at a prestigious private college, Dear White People centers on a group of African-American students navigating the predominantly white college environment.
Each of the four primary characters has adopted a persona – choosing how they want others to view them. Middle class Sam is a fierce Black separatist (despite her White Dad and her eyes for that really nice White boy classmate). Coco, having made it to an elite college from the streets, is driven to succeed socially by ingratiating herself with the popular kids. Kyle, the Dean’s son, is the college BMOC, a traditional paragon, but with passions elsewhere. Lionel is floundering; despite being an African-American gay journalist, he doesn’t fit in with the Black kids, the LGBT community or the journalism clique. All four of their self-identities are challenged by campus events.
This very witty movie is flat-out hilarious. The title comes from Sam’s campus radio show, which features advice like “Dear White People, stop dancing!” and Dear White People, don’t touch our hair; what are we – a petting zoo?”. While the movie explores serious themes, it does so through raucous character-driven humor. It’s a real treat.
It’s the first feature for writer-director Justin Simien and it’s a stellar debut. Dear White People is on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far. I saw it at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival and have been telling people about it for months.
The title of Convicts 4 (1962) is odd because it’s really the true-life tail of one convict, played by Ben Gazzara, who develops into a fine artist while in prison. It’s based on the autobiography of John Resko, who was sentenced to death for a killing during a robbery; his sentence was commuted, and he developed his skills as a painter in prison, contributing to his eventual release.
Now Convicts 4 is not a masterpiece: some of the scenes are contrived, the dialogue is often stiff and there are some overwrought moments, especially the pre-execution shower and the wintertime escape attempt. interesting story. But it’s pretty entertaining because of the real-life story and the compelling performance by Ben Gazzara – at the height of his charisma.
Resko/Gazzara does have a set of cronies while in the Big House. There’s a particularly unforgettable turn by one of my favorite movie psychos, Timothy Carey, here in one of his most eccentrically self-conscious performances. Ray Walton (My Favorite Martian) plays another loony prisoner, crazier than Carey’s, but not a menacing. The rich cast includes Stuart Whitman, Vincent Price, Rod Steiger, Jack Albertson, Brodrick Crawford and Sammy Davis Jr.
Turner Classic Movies will air Convicts 4 on October 25.
In the World War II movie Fury, Brad Pitt plays the commander of an American tank crew that has fought together from Africa through Italy and France; against all odds, they have survived and are now in Germany during the final months of the war. An unseasoned clerk typist is thrust upon the tight crew as a replacement; he is seeing the horrors of war for the first time, and we relate to the action through his eyes. His eyes don’t see much except for brutality by both belligerents and a Germany that is physically and emotionally devastated.
Unlike the traditional WW II films of the 20th century, these GIs are not atrocity-free. Battle-hardened, war-weary and staggering to the finish, these guys are very tough and they behave in some very unattractive ways.
Fury superbly depicts WW II tank and anti-tank tactics that I’ve never seen handled as well in a movie. There is a tank and infantry assault on dug in infantry supported with light artillery. And there is a tank-on-tank battle between three American Shermans and a German Tiger tank; the Tiger was far superior to the Sherman and the veteran Sherman crews – who don’t seem to be afraid of anything else – know to be terrified of it.
This is not a feel good or a date movie. Fury works as military history and as an action picture – all the way to the final, grim slaughterfest.
In the marvelously entertaining Gone Girl, Ben Affleck plays Nick, a good-looking lug who can turn a phrase. At a party one night, he’s on his A game, and he snags the beautiful Amy (Rosamund Pike). She’s smarter, a good rung on the ladder more attractive than he is, has parents with some money and is a second-hand celebrity to boot. Not particularly gifted and certainly not a striver, he knows he’s the Lucky One. He has married above himself, but he doesn’t have a clue HOW MUCH above until she suddenly disappears.
Based on the enormously popular novel by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the screenplay), Gone Girl is the mystery of what has happened to Amy and what is Nick’s role in the disappearance. Plot twists abound, but you won’t get any spoilers from The Movie Gourmet.
This is Rosamund Pike’s movie. Her appearance is so elegant – she looks like a crystal champagne flute with blonde hair – that pulling her out of Victorian period romances into this thriller is inspired. And Pike responds with the performance of her career. She’s just brilliant as she makes us realize that there’s something behind her eyes that we hadn’t anticipated, and then keeps us watching what she is thinking throughout the story.
Gone Girl is directed by the contemporary master David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac,The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Here, Fincher has successfully chosen to rely on Flynn’s page turner of a story and the compelling characters, so Gone Girl is the least flashy of his films, but one of the most accessible. I’ll say this for Fincher – I can’t remember a more perfectly cast movie.
Kim Dickens (Treme, Deadwood) is superb as the investigating detective – this time almost unrecognizable as a brunette. Tyler Perry is wonderfully fun as a crafty celebrity attorney. The unheralded Carrie Coon is excellent as Nick’s twin sister (I want to see more of her in the movies). Missi Pyle does such a good job as a despicable cable TV personality that I thought I was actually watching a despicable cable TV personality. And David Clennon and (especially) Lisa Banes positively gleam as Amy’s parents. (Carefully observe every behavior by the parents in this movie.)
Just like the thug in The Guard who forget whether he had been diagnosed in prison as a sociopath or a psychopath, I had the ask The Wife, who turned me on to this passage from Psychology Today. It’s useful to read this because, although you don’t realize it for forty-five minutes or so, Gone Girl is also a study of psychopathy.
Psychopaths … are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. Psychopaths are often well educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.
When committing crimes, psychopaths carefully plan out every detail in advance and often have contingency plans in place. Unlike their sociopathic counterparts, psychopathic criminals are cool, calm, and meticulous. Their crimes, whether violent or non-violent, will be highly organized and generally offer few clues for authorities to pursue. Intelligent psychopaths make excellent white-collar criminals and “con artists” due to their calm and charismatic natures.
Gillian Flynn changed the story’s ending for the movie. The Wife, who is a big fan of the novel, didn’t mind. Gone Girl is recommended for both those who have and have not read the book. I understand that there’s more humor in the movie, as we occasionally laugh at the extremity of the behavior of one of the characters.
It all adds up into a remarkably fun movie and one that I’m still mulling over days later. Gone Girl is the best Hollywood movie of 2014 so far.
The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January, set in gloriously bright Greek tourist destinations, may not have the shadowy look of a traditional film noir, but its story is fundamentally noirish. Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst play an affluent couple vacationing in Athens in the early 1960s. They meet a handsome young American expat (Oscar Isaacs from Inside Llewyn Davis) knocking around Greece. The husband quickly and accurately sizes up the younger man as a con man – “I wouldn’t trust him to mow my lawn”. The central noir element is that NO ONE is as innocent as they seem, and the three become interlocked in a situation that becomes increasingly desperate for all three, culminating in a thrilling manhunt.
It’s the first feature directed by Hossein Amini, who adapted the screenplay for the markedly intense Drive, and he does a fine job here with a film that becomes more and more tense each time more information about the characters is revealed.
The Two Faces of January is in theaters and also available streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Jack “Dragnet” Webb and Peggy Lee in PETE KELLY’S BLUES
On October 16, TCM brings something COMPLETELY different, the 1955 Pete Kelly’s Blues, directed by and starring Jack Webb, who we all know from TV’s Dragnet. Made at the downturn of the Big Band Era, Pete Kelly’s Blues is set at during Prohibition in the infancy of Big Bands.
It’s a fairly routine drama about a small time bandleader on the outs with a dangerous crime boss, but Jack Webb loved jazz and worked hard to get the music in the movie right, resulting in quite the period document. Peggy Lee received a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for portraying an alcoholic vocalist. There’s an unforgettable cameo performance by Ella Fitzgerald at the top of her game. The house band includes many real-life musicians who played with Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby and the like, including Matty Matlock, Eddie Miller and Jud De Naut.
Webb never had much range as an actor, but the rest of the cast is excellent: Janet Leigh, Edmond O’Brien, Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, Jayne Mansfield and Harry Morgan. Not a great flick, but worth a look for the music.
The startling documentary Art and Craftis about an art fraud. Of prolific scale. And which is apparently legal. By a diagnosed schizophrenic.
We start with a guy named Mark Landis. He is very good at photocopying (!) great art works, applying paint to make them seem like the real thing, putting them in distressed frames and donating them to museums in the name of his late (and imaginary!) sister. He has done this hundreds of times, fooling scores of snooty museum curators in the process.
Why does he do this? Why can’t he stop? What’s with the imaginary sister? Those answers probably lie within his schizophrenia, a disease which doesn’t impair his skill or his cunning. Landis himself, once you get over his initial creepiness and become comfortable in his Southern gentility and wry mischievousness, is one of this year’s most compelling movie characters.
Why doesn’t his fraud constitute a criminal act? Because he doesn’t profit from selling his fakes, he just gives them away. And he doesn’t take the tax write-off.
How come he doesn’t get caught? These are PHOTOCOPIES for krissakes! Those answers are in the self-interest and professional greed of the museum professionals – embodied by one puddle of mediocrity who becomes Landis’ obsessive Javert.
All of these combine to make Art and Craft one of the year’s most engaging documentaries. I saw Art and Craft at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was an audience hit.
History is a compendium of individual human stories, oft caught up in a world event. That’s what drives the riveting documentary Last Days in Vietnam, which chronicles the desperate attempts of many South Vietnamese to escape before the Communist takeover in 1975. Over 140,000 got out in the initial exodus, including 77,000 through the means depicted in this film – mostly compressed into just two panicked days.
As if there weren’t enough American folly in Vietnam, the first evacuation plan didn’t include any non-Americans, even including the Vietnamese dependents of Americans. Then there were evacuation plans that were never implemented because of the blockheadedness of the US Ambassador. In the final week, young American military and intelligence officers took matters into their own hand, and began a sub rosa evacuation – ignoring the chain of command, breaking immigration laws and risking career-killing charges of insubordination.
Last Days in Vietnam is directed by Rory Kennedy (daughter of RFK), who recently made Ethel, the affecting bio-doc of her mother. Kennedy does a good job of setting the historical stage for those who didn’t live through the era, and then letting the witnesses tell their compelling personal stories.
The talking heads include:
the six-year-old who jumped out of a helicopter and then watched his mother drop his baby sister on to a ship’s deck;
the US Navy vet who plays the taped diary that he sent home to his wife after the fateful day;
the CIA analyst who unsuccessfully tried to convince the deluded US Ambassador that the end was at hand;
the college student who managed to get over a wall inside the embassy, but found that his freedom was not guaranteed;
Ford Administration officials Henry Kissinger and Ron Nessen, who relate the White House view of the events.
One heroic young American officer managed with ingenuity and chutzpah to get out hundreds of Vietnamese. In the film’s most poignant moment, it falls to him to tell the final American lie to the 400 Vietnamese remaining in the US embassy, for whom there were no more helicopters.
I saw the movie in San Jose with an audience that was about half Vietnamese-American, some of the age to have lived through this period. San Jose’s 100,000 Vietnamese population is largest of any city outside Vietnam, and many Vietnamese-Americans still memorialize the subject of this film as Black April. The exit from the theater was somber.
Last Days in Vietnam is a PBS American Experience film, so I expect it to show up on TV within the year.
This week’s DVD/Stream of the Week is this year’s outstanding coming of age movie Very Good Girls. Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen play best buds who graduate from high school and decide they need to lose their respective virginities before heading to college. Both fall for the same guy, and they’re each drawn to him and wary of him. But what elevates this story above those with similar set-ups is that it’s not so much about girl-and-boy but about girl-and-girl and how the circumstances affect their lifelong friendship.
Although there’s potential conflict over the boy and each girl’s family goes through a crisis, Very Good Girls is completely free of emo pretension. Genuine through and through, the story lets us relate to these girls and keep us engaged in what is happening to their bond.
Olsen is 25 and Fanning is 20, but they are entirely believable as 18-year-olds. Fanning and Olsen are right up there with Jennifer Lawrence, Shailene Woodley and Bree Larson as our best young film actresses. Fanning recently made an indie breakthrough in The Motel Life. Olsen has been excellent in Martha Marcy May Marlene and even in the awful In Secret.
The girls’ parents are played by Richard Dreyfuss and Demi Moore and Clark Gregg and Ellen Barkin. It’s kind of a hoot to see the actresses that gave played some of the hottest scenes in 1989/1990 cinema (Ghost and Sea of Love) play the curfew-enforcing moms. Peter Sarsgaard also shows up, at his most pervy.
Very Good Girls is the first film directed by screenwriter Naomi Foner (Oscar-nominated for Running on Empty), mother of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. Foner has a wonderful touch, and I hope we see her direct some more.
It pisses me off that, if Very Good Girls had been about high school boys getting laid, it would have gotten the theatrical release that eluded this film. But we can make up for hat by watching it at home. Very Good Girls is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
