Movies

The Congress: I liked the first part

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Robin Wright in THE CONGRESS
Robin Wright in THE CONGRESS

The Congress is really two movies – a live action fable and an animated sci fi story.  In the opening part, Robin Wright plays an actress in her mid-forties named Robin Wright who followed a star-making performance in The Princess Bride with a series of disastrous career choices driven by her own bad instincts and her need to care for her special needs son.  That son is now 13, her daughter is 17 and they are living in a hangar at a Mojave Desert airfield.  Her agent (Harvey Keitel) approached with a deal from a smarmy studio exec (Danny Huston).  That deal is a Faustian one – she will get a one-time payment in return for having herself scanned so her the studio can use her image in 100% CGI movies; if she accepts the offer, she cannot ever act again – on-screen or in the flesh.

I liked this first part, which is a smart exploration of the issues of art vs. commerce, the ethical limits of using CGI in filmmaking and the rights of individuals over use of their images.  The set-up is very well done, the desert airfield is cool and Wright, Keitel, Huston and the kid actors deliver fine performances.

Then the story takes the Robin Wright character – twenty years later – into an alternative universe for animated characters who have had their humanity scanned away.  She embarks on a desperate search to find out what has happened to her son and whether her daughter is now leading a revolt.  This animated half of The Congress is visually arresting and shows off the talent of writer-director Ari Folman, who made the superb animated film Waltz with Bashir (about Folman’s fellow Israeli army veterans in the invasion of Lebanon).  At this time, I lost interest in the tale.  Now  I’m not a big sci fi fan, though, and someone who DOES appreciate the genre might well enjoy it.  The visuals do sparkle.

The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

A Brony Tale: odd and odder

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I’m not sure I was comfortable learning about the “Bronies”, subjects of the documentary A Brony Tale.  My Little Pony is an animated television series that is made for an audience of little girls and which features flying pastel cartoon ponies. Bronies are fans of My Little Pony who are predominantly male and between the ages of 14 and 30. As one of the My Little Pony voice actresses notes, “my pervert alarm went off”.

I was settled in for a cringefest of a freak show, but surprised to met a biker Brony, an Iraq combat vet Brony, married Bronies and just a lot of seemingly manly and normal-looking Bronies. A Brony Tale raised some serious questions of gender expectations – why can we be so repelled by someone’s surprising taste in a harmless TV show? But then we visit BronyCon – the convention for Bronies – and see a lot of them expressing themselves with very strange costuming (and FanimeCon is held close to my house, so I have a high bar for strange costuming).

A Brony Tale is only 79 minutes long – and could have shaved 4-5 minutes off the voice actress’ journey to the BronyCon.  A Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.  Still mulling this over. Hmmmm…

Tim’s Vermeer: 5 minutes of wow and 75 minutes of boring

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The documentary Tim’s Vermeer tells the story of Tim, an accomplished technologist with plenty of money and time on his hands, who comes across the theory that the 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer used optical devices to paint.  He embarks upon an experiment to prove this theory plausible. He invents an optical device, grinds his own paints, recreates Vermeer’s studio and spends four months trying to copy Vermeer’s The Music Lesson.  Tim, it turns out, is a buddy of the magicians Penn and Teller, so the whole thing has become a film (produced and narrated by Penn and directed – inartfully – by Teller).

There’s one captivating moment in Tim’s Vermeer, when Tim – who is NOT a painter – tries out his Rube Goldberg mirrors with his first ever oil painting.  Tim takes a photo of his father-in-law as a young man and completes an astonishingly perfect copy in oils.

Apart from this moment, Tim’s Vermeer is a yawner.   Although only 80 minutes long, the four months of painting seems like four years.  The film’s content could have been stretched into a 30-minute cable show.  Several critics have been unable to resist pointing out that watching Tim’s Vermeer is, in parts, LITERALLY watching paint dry.

The movie makes one intriguing point:  the idea that art and technology are separate is a modern one.  Now people go to school to learn art OR tech – which wasn’t the case in Vermeer’s time and may not need be today.   It’s interesting to me that, in Tim’s Vermeer, artists were comfortable with the idea that the old masters used technology, but art historians were not.  It didn’t occur to the artists that the use of technology would diminish Vermeer’s artistic genius, but the art historians felt the need to be defensive of Vermeer.  Hmmm.

Tim’s Vermeer is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

SPOILER ALERT:  Tim does paint a reasonable facsimile of The Music Lesson, but it has a paint-by-the-numbers feel and doesn’t have the mesmerizing quality of a real Vermeer.

How to Train Your Dragon 2: action-packed and fun-filled for the young and young-at-heart

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How Train Dragon

By guest bloggers Sean Breen (Nephew 2) & Lisa Breen Strickland (The Wife)

The action-packed and fun-filled How to Train Your Dragon 2 picks up four years after the original movie’s story.  Hiccup, the hero, looks much older and has much more confidence.  As the movie begins his father Stoick offers Hiccup the opportunity to succeed him as the Chief of the Berk – their village and its merry band of Vikings and their dragons. Hiccup is not so sure about this plan.  But before he gets to decide Drago Bloodfist, an arch enemy of Stoick, comes back to the region to continue amassing his dragon army, with the intention of controlling Berk and the world.  Hiccup wants to use his persuasive powers to dissuade Drago from his evil plan.  Hiccup discovers more about himself – his past, present and future – as his plan unfolds.

We found this movie to be entertaining, engaging, and touching — and we liked it! We think that others like us – an 11 year old (or younger) and the young at heart – would enjoy the movie because it is even better than the book.  The way the animators portrayed the dragons was amazing – each so different, some scary, some cute – and some we would like to have as pets (especially Toothless).  It was impressive how they could animate the alpha dragons – with different and very useful skills that were used both for evil (when controlled by Drago) and good (when handled by Hiccup).

We say – grab your favorite nephew or aunt, get your popcorn, Slushee and Diet Coke and go see How to Train Your Dragon 2.

In Secret: predictable, stilted and too many clothes

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in secret

In Secret is a period romance with the look and set-up of a Jane Austin movie, the plot of The Postman Always Rings Twice and the appeal of neither.  A poor orphan girl (Elizabeth Olsen) is dispatched to living with her wealthy relatives, who eventually force a marriage to her sickly cousin Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies).  His hunky friend (Oscar Isaacs from Inside Llewyn Davis) shows up and, before ya know it, he and the young bride are humping like bunnies.  And before you can say “Double Indemnity”, it occurs to them that they could be together forever with a lot of money if only the husband met his end.  This being the 19th Century, the poor cuckold hasn’t yet seen A Place in the Sun or Leave Her to Heaven, so he gets in the boat…

Unfortunately, In Secret telegraphs every point in the plot, so the audience is never surprised.  In Secret fails to deliver the edginess of a noir thriller, but it retains the worst of the Austin period movies – the stilted dialogue and all the boring stuff.

Olsen is a fine actress and she makes the most of the material.  Unfortunately, Jessica Lange, as the family matriarch, has some meltdowns that are embarrassing.

One more complaint: the two lovers may well be having a torrid affair, but one of my pet peeves is movie-sex-in-clothes.  I understand that women wore more layers of garments in the 19th Century, but – trust me – NOBODY has this much sex without undressing.

In Secret is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Witching and Bitching: witty comment on mysogyny inside a rockin’ horror spoof

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WITCHING AND BITCHING
WITCHING AND BITCHING

The rockin’ Witching and Bitching (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi), by Spanish cult director Alex de la Iglesia, features a gang of robbers – one is dressed as a silver Jesus on the cross and another as a Green Army Guy – on the lam rocketing into an occult nightmare.  They run smack dab into a coven of witches – the full-out Macbeth-stir-the-cauldron kind of witches.  This film has the feel of an early Almodovar madcap comedy – if Almodovar were into goth horror. It’s all rapid-pulsed fun – and surprisingly smart.

The underlying theme is misogyny.  The male characters grouse about the stereotypical complaints about women – all while themselves exemplifying the worst of the stereotypical male flaws.  For example, one guy complains that his ex won’t consent to joint custody on the grounds of his irresponsibility – yet he brings their seven-year-old along on an armed robbery.  One underlying joke is that the men see women as bitches, but it’s the men who spend the whole movie bitching.  Another is that the men become trapped by REAL witches whose ball busting far exceeds the men’s most negative misogynistic fantasies.

These Spanish actors are wonderful, including the great Carmen Maura (Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Volver) and appropriately named hottie Carolina Bang. They’re very adept at the deadpan delivery of lines like this:

Driver: This village is damned. They hold witches sabbaths.
Boy: What’s that?
Robber: Like a kegger but medieval.

De la Iglesia maintains a deliciously frantic pace throughout.  The final orgiastic ritual goes on a long time but maintains audience engagement.

This was the first de la Iglesia movie that I’d seen, but I’m definitely going to check out more of his work.  Speaking of which, he nicely sets up a sequel.  But go ahead and watch Witching and Bitching now – streaming in Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.

Life Itself: Roger Ebert’s truth

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Roger Ebert in LIFE ITSELF
Roger Ebert in LIFE ITSELF

Life Itself is the affectionate but not worshipful documentary on movie critic Roger Ebert’s groundbreaking career, courageous battle against disease and uncommonly graceful death.  Ebert popularized movie criticism and evangelized for the lesser known foreign films, documentaries and indies that I love.  In a 2002 cancer treatment, Ebert lost his lower jaw and, with it, his ability to talk or eat.  Astonishingly, this didn’t slow him down; he replaced his television show with a pioneering blog and Twitter account – and remained just as productive and influential as ever.

Filmmaker Steve James set out to make a movie of Ebert’s memoir of the same name, but – just as the project started – Ebert’s cancer returned.  So the story includes Ebert’s final illness and death.  Ebert retained the joy in his life far longer than could most in his situation – it’s a marvel and a model for the rest of us.

James is one of the deserving filmmakers whose art was boosted by Ebert, who picked James’ obscure documentary Hoop Dreams as the best film of the year. Ebert similarly helped directors from Spike Lee in the 1980s to Raman Bahrani in the 2000s. In Life Itself, Errol Morris says that he would have had no career without Ebert and Siskel, and Martin Scorsese says that they saved his career.

But the primary theme of Life Itself is truth.  In his work, Ebert demanded truth from himself and from the cinema that he reviewed.  In this film, Ebert insisted on showing the person he was at the end – with his infirmities on full display.  There are moments of frustration where he is not so lovable and stories about his personal flaws.  We are all packages of virtues and weaknesses; seeing Roger’s weaknesses just adds credibility to his strengths and accomplishments.

Life Itself is a Must See for fans of Roger Ebert and for people musing on their own mortality.  People with less of an interest in Ebert may find the movie a little too long.  But the human story of a life – challenged and then ending – is very strong.

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger: mildly interesting

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WHITEY: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN V. JAMES J. BULGER
WHITEY: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAN V. JAMES J. BULGER

The documentary Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger is about the trial of Whitey Bulger, the Irish mob boss who ruled the Boston crime scene for 25 years until he went on the lam in 1994 and evaded the FBI until 2011.  It turns out that he had been protected from arrest because he had been an informant to corrupt local FBI agents.  In his 2013 trial, he was convicted of 11 murders.

The Whitey Bulger saga has been most notable for the protection by the FBI, the long manhunt and his dramatic capture in Santa Monica.  This documentary focuses on the trial and Bulger’s odd defense.  Bulger was perfectly willing to admit to murderous crimes, but demanded a chance to deny that he had been an FBI snitch (which was totally irrelevant to whether he had committed the crimes that he was charged with).  Equally oddly, the prosecution was intent on proving Bulger’s snitchdom (although not needed for his conviction).

We hear from some of the people who Bulger victimized, and we get a sense of the lives that Bulger ruined, not just the cops and robbers aspect of his story.  We also hear Bulger himself on phone calls to his lawyers.

It’s an interesting story, but the filmmaking has look and feel of cable TV non-fiction shows, repeating over and over the same shots of black SUV’s hauling Whitey to trail and helicopter sweeps across Boston harbor, aerial shots of the Boston federal courthouse,  and the like.  On the whole, I didn’t find Whitey very compelling.

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

DVD/Stream of the Week: True Detective

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true detective
My DVD/Stream of the week – perfect for binge-viewing on the holiday weekend – is the eight one-hour episodes of HBO’s True Detective. It’s a dark tale of two mismatched detectives – each tormented by his own demons – obsessed by a whodunit in contemporary back bayou Lousiana. Woody Harrelson is very good – but Matthew McConaughey’s performance may have been the best on TV this year.

The two detectives are shown pursuing a case together in 1995 and then being interviewed separately about it in 2012.  In the 2012 scenes, McConaughey sits at a table, his eyes dead but occasionally flashing, behind a coffee mug and an increasing lineup of empty beer cans.  He chain smokes and stares down his interrogators – doing very little with frightening intensity.  McConaughey has recently delivered brilliant performances in excellent movies (Mud, Bernie, The Paperboy, Killer Joe, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club) – and this may be his best.  McConaughey is reason enough to watch True Detective.

True Detective is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from HBO GO.

Citizen Koch: righteous but lame

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xxx Koch (center) in CITIZEN KOCH
David Koch (center) in CITIZEN KOCH

The advocacy documentary Citizen Koch exposes the terrible effects of the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allows the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers to anonymously spend unlimited treasure to promote political candidates, measures and legislation that I (The Movie Gourmet) abhor.  Filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, who have worked with Michael Moore, share Moore’s use of documentary to persuade by observation: here are the facts that will lead you to agree with us.

The very best aspect of Citizen Koch is the core story of Governor Scott Walker’s assault on public employees and their unions in Wisconsin.   Citizen Koch meticulously connects the dots between the Koch Brothers’ strategy of degrading the Democratic Party’s strength by weakening public employee unions and Walker’s machinations.  It’s a conspiracy in plain sight.  Citizen Koch is at its best when this thread is told from the perspective of a few Wisconsin public employees – who are themselves Republicans.

Unfortunately, what could have been a superb film on the political conflict in Wisconsin gets flabby and diluted with threads about Citizens United and Charles and David Koch.  The worst part is a fourth thread about Buddy Roemer, a sleazy opportunist who has changed political parties three times but is held up as some sort of beacon of good government; it’s outrageously naive and potentially discredits the rest of the film.

And here’s a little controversy that is illustrative of the Koch Brothers political power.  PBS was going to air Citizen Koch on its documentary series POV, but chickened out because David Koch sits on the board of PBS’ NYC affiliate WNET and is a huge contributor to PBS products like Nova.