Movies

Hers to Lose: an inside look at a campaign spiraling into defeat

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Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayor is an extraordinarily evocative political film, it’s only 30 minutes long and you can watch it for free.

It’s the story of Christine C. Quinn’s bid for New York City mayor in 2013.  At the start of the race, Quinn was the heavy favorite.  She was the City Council President and a dominant force in Manhattan’s Democratic establishment. She would have been the first woman and the first openly gay Mayor of New York City.

Then, as happens in politics, two things went wrong.  First, she had positioned herself as the Democratic partner and heir to Republican Mayor Bloomberg, which helped her immensely in the years of Bloomberg’s popularity in New York; but by the time of the 2013 primary, Bloomberg had become very UNPOPULAR among Democratic primary voters.  Then, as voters looked to an anti-Bloomberg alternative, one of Quinn’s opponents, Bill de Blasio unleashed a killer campaign commercial, featuring his teenage son Dante, that crystallized the aspirations of the electorate.  Quinn sank like a rock in the polls, and de Blasio shot upward.  This was one of those moments in a political campaign when there is just nothing a candidate can do to stop a popular tsunami.

As Hers to Lose opens, we see Quinn – just after her defeat – explaining that she granted access to the New York Times documentarians so they could record her victory.  She is composed, but her eyes are filled with pain.  Quinn had dedicated years of her life to running in this race, suffering political and personal attacks, enduring long hours and living in a fish bowl; to see this film is to appreciate how much she put into the contest and how helplessly she watched her lead slip away.  At its most searing, Her to Lose chronicles the never-ending torrent of abuse hurled at Quinn by haters – especially the single issue opponents of horse-drawn carriages who hang around her building so they can revile her as she begins each day; as one might assume, this vitriol takes its toll.

You can view Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayor here at the NYT.

Seduced and Abandoned: a sly look at money grubbing

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Seduced and Abandoned is director James Toback’s (The Pickup Artist, Tyson) documentary about that overlooked aspect of filmmaking: the pitch.  The camera follows Toback and his star Alec Baldwin through the Cannes Film Festival as they try to get funding for their new movie. The project they are pitching is Last Tango in Tikrit.  One can only imagine…

Toback is shameless in his pursuit of backers: “250 years from now, the only reason anyone will know your name is when it rolls on the screen as producer of my movie”.  When Toback and Baldwin learn that a young actor-wannabe has a very rich dad, they pounce and dangle a newly written role for the son.   Toback is willing to dump Neve Campbell for a younger box office hottie and to change the plot from a Middle East story  so he can shoot in the US.  It’s all very sly.

Seduced and Abandoned is playing on HBO.  Here’s the teaser.

The Motel Life: marginal in Reno

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We glimpse inside the lives of two damaged brothers in the solid little drama The Motel Life.   The younger brother (Stephen Dorff) lost his lower leg in a childhood accident, and is often child-like in his decision-making.   The older brother (Emile Hirsch) tries to look after him, but has his own problems, including drinking so much that there’s blood in his vomit.  The two are at best underemployed and living a marginal existence in seedy Reno motels.  The younger brother blunders into a life-changing jam, and the older one tries to get him out-of-town.  This may be Hirsch’s best performance since Into the Wild, but, in the showier role, Dorff was a little too grimace-y for my taste.

Dakota Fanning is very good as a love interest, and Kris Kristofferson has a brief role, too.  There’s some creativity at work here, as in some animation that represents the younger brother’s illustration of the older brother’s storytelling.  There’s a funny scene when they bet a bank wad constituting all hope for their economic survival on the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight.  And I liked the Reno and Elko exteriors.  The Motel Life is worthwhile, but not a Must See.

12 Years a Slave: unsparing, I repeat, unsparing

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Chiwetel Ejiafor and Michael Fassbender in 12 YEARS A SLAVE

12 Years a Slave is an unsparing, I repeat, unsparing depiction of American slavery.  It tells the true story of Soloman Northup, a comfortable Syracuse, New York, free man of color who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in the South, where he languished for twelve years.  At first, Northup is bewildered and can’t believe what is happening to him, but he is quickly immersed into the horrors of slavery, and remains focused on his own survival in hopes that eventually he can be rescued.  As he is traded from slave-owner to slave-owner, we witness his experience.  All of the slave-owners are brutal in their own ways, but the last one is also a psychotic sadist (Michael Fassbender).  As a result, almost all of 12 Years a Slave’s 134 minutes is the beating, whipping, raping and killing of (and commerce in) enslaved people.  It’s an unrelentingly tough watch.

The fine British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty Things) plays Northup, and his outstanding performance carries the film.   The other startling performance is by Fassbender (who previously teamed with director Steve McQueen for Shame), whose demented role would be lusted after by the likes of Christolph Walz and Gary Oldman.  The acting is uniformly excellent, but I’ll also call out Sarah Paulson as a bitter plantation mistress and Garret Dillahunt (Winter’s Bone, Assassination of Jesse James yada yada, Looper, Killing Them Softly) as a morally weak White trash loser.

12 Years a Slave’s Metacritic rating has shot to an atmospheric 97 because critics are gushing about the groundbreakingly ultra-realistic (and thus horrifying) depiction of slavery by a Hollywood movie (in contrast to the decades of bowdlerized portrayals by the likes of Gone with the Wind).  Give the credit to screenwriter John Ridley (who wrote the story in Three Kings).

Yes, 12 Years a Slave is a landmark historical movie. Yes, it is well-made and centered around a superb leading performance.  But you should know that it is a very grim viewing experience.

Stream of the Week: Parkland

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James Badge Dale and Jacki Weaver on left in PARKLAND

On the morning of November 22, 1963, many folks in Dallas did not expect to be impacted by the Presidential visit – not the medical staff at Parkland Memorial Hospital, not the assassin’s brother Robert Oswald and, shockingly, not the local FBI office.  Businessman Abraham Zapruder did intend to catch a glimpse of the festivities, but as an onlooker, not as a participant.  This is the inventive perspective of Parkland, which sharply dramatizes the events of November 22-25 in Dallas.  We’re all familiar with the actions of JFK, Jackie, Lee Harvey Oswald and LBJ on that fateful day, but these characters are only glimpsed in Parkland, which explores the JFK assassination from the viewpoints of the secondary participants.

It’s a very successful approach.  The four story lines are compelling – the surgeries, the Zapruder film and the reactions by the Oswalds and the local FBI office.  Parkland‘s rapid cuts and handheld (but not too jerky) cameras enhance the urgency.

The cast is excellent, with the most unforgettable performances coming from Marcia Gay Harden as an emergency room nurse, Paul Giamatti as Zapruder, James Badge Dale (the unforgettable Gaunt Young Man in Flight) and Jacki Weaver (Oscar nominated for Animal Kingdom) as Marguerite Oswald.

Parkland is conspiracy-theory-neutral.  It portrays events that everybody – regardless of how you feel about the lone gunman theory – recognizes: the emergency surgeries attempting to save Kennedy (and then Oswald), the processing of the Zapruder film, the Oswald family’s reaction to the events, the FBI’s destruction of some key evidence.

Parkland is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and XBOX Live.

Gravity: woman against nature – an infinitely vast nature

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The gripping visually spectacular Gravity is less a sci-fi film than it is a basic Man Against Nature (mostly Woman Against Nature) survival tale set in space. A catastrophe strikes a space station, and it’s in doubt whether the two survivors (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) will be able to make it back to Earth or be forever lost in space.

The skeleton of the story may be simple, but Gravity is an exceptional experience because  writer-director Alfonso Cuarón, in a triumph of special effects, captures both the messy nuts and bolts of space travel and the potential lethality of the space environment.  I’ve seen my share of space movies, but I’ve never experienced a better sense of the terrifying dark and silent vastness of space.  A human in space is suspended in an infinity in which, without a man-made propulsion device, he/she can only helplessly drift.  Space is not so much hostile to humans as it is indifferent to our tiny existences.

The technical marvels of manned space missions have dulled us to the reality that space-walking astronauts are just one broken tether or one lost grip from floating away and becoming lifeless space lint.  Cuarón brings his audience into that reality, and keeps our tension acute during Ms. Bullock’s Wild Ride.

The Mexico City-born Cuarón will certainly receive an Academy Award nomination for directing.  Now Cuarón is an amazingly gifted filmmaker – he also wrote and directed Children of Men, my #2 movie of 2006 and Y Tu Mama Tambien, my #1 movie of 2002.  Along the way, he also directed one of the best Harry Potter movies – Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azbakan (the one with the Dementors, Sirius Black and the werewolf).

There are essentially only two characters on the screen, and Cuarón benefits from two instantly sympathetic movie stars, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.  Clooney, of course, can do anything on the screen, and he nails the less complex role of a The Right Stuff style space jock.  (In a wonderful nod to Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff, Ed Harris voices the earth-based NASA control chief.)

I’m generally not a huge fan of Bullock but acknowledge her ability to sometimes excel in comedy (The Heat) and to bring something extra to action (Speed).  But I’ve gotta say that she’s never been better than she is in Gravity.  Here she plays the Everyman role of a person with ordinary skills thrust into overwhelming peril – the kind of cinematic part that made icons out of James Stewart and Tom Hanks.  There isn’t a false moment in Bullock’s performance, and she keeps us rooting for her on whole wild ride.

Gravity currently has an unbelievably high 96 Metacritic rating because critics are rightly acknowledging Cuarón’s achievements in directing and special effects.  Gravity is without flaws, and it’s damn entertaining, but I’m not going to rate it as the year’s best; I think that some indies and foreign films are more emotionally compelling and have more textured stories.  But Gravity is definitely the best Hollywood film of the year so far.

Don Jon: guffaws and self-discovery

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote/directed/stars in Don Jon, the story of a Guido whose pursuit of a stunning hottie (Scarlett Johansson) is stymied by his porn addiction.  With help from an older woman (Julianne Moore), he recognizes what will really make him happy.

It’s just a light comedy, but Gordon-Levitt has a very smart take on romantic comedy – one that takes some unexpected turns until a moment of self discovery.  Gordon-Levitt is getting good parts (Inception, 50/50, Looper, Lincoln) and big paychecks (The Dark Knight Rises), so he doesn’t have to write his own stuff – but I’m glad that he gave us Don Jon.

Tony Danza is pretty funny as the Guido dad.

Populaire: witty French rom com from the Mad Men era

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POPULAIRE

The witty French Populaire cleverly dresses up a conventional romantic comedy with a Mad Men-esque 1959 setting and the flavor of absurdity. The result is a pleasing confection that triggers some chuckles, if not guffaws.

A very attractive bachelor hires a very attractive but clumsy young woman as his secretary. As in any rom com, they’re clearly meant for each other, but they must battle through his obsession that she win a speed typing championship that is – and here is the absurdity – portrayed as just a rung below the World Cup in public prominence.

Populaire takes full advantage of its 1959 setting to spoof the fashions, decor and culture of the period, including a wickedly cheesy cha cha cha performance. It’s harmless and good-hearted fun.

(The radiant Berenice Bejo (The Artist) sparkles in a small role.)

Prisoners: intricately plotted and unrelentingly tense

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In the pulsating thriller Prisoners, two girls go missing, and one of their dads (Hugh Jackman) goes vigilante as the lead detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) struggles to solve the case.  Both men are driven and desperate, and they clash as they each race against the clock to find the girls, resulting in unrelenting tension for 2-and-a-half hours.

The tension comes from standard suspense devices (characters peering into basements and entering boarded-up rooms and dark hallways, prowlers slipping though a sleeping household, etc.), but there isn’t a hokey moment in Prisoners.  That’s a tribute to director Denis Villenueve, who directed Incendies (my top movie of 2011).  Plus, an intricately plotted story from Aaron Guzikowski adds a dimension to Prisoners and elevates it from a conventional thriller.   As Gyllenhaal’s cop proceeds through the whodunit, he encounters what we assume are dead-end leads and red herrings.  But everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – ties together at the end.  I sure didn’t see it coming.

The one aspect of Prisoners that didn’t work for me is that Jackman is dialed up all the way from the get go, and there’s little if any modulation in his performance.  I guess that may be the point of the character – he’s a tightly wound guy BEFORE his daughter appears to be abducted – and then he goes full-out maniac for over two hours.

Gyllenhaal is solid in the other lead role.   Terrence Howard is superb as the other dad, a guy  who wants his daughter back just as much, but is more passive, rational and empathetic (and consequently more interesting to me).   Viola Davis, Maria Bello and Melissa Leo turn in their expected fine performances.  And Paul Dano (perhaps his generation’s Christopher Walken or James Spader) is excellent in another of his weirdo roles.

Haute Cuisine: chef battles sexism and bureaucracy

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Haute Cuisine is the French foodie saga of the woman who rose to work as personal chef to France’s president, based on the true story of Daniele Mazet-Delpeuch.  She is remarkably obsessed with sourcing premium ingredients, and it’s not hard for her to satisfy the President, who prefers simple country cooking.   But palace intrigue takes its toll as she battles both sexism in the downstairs kitchens and a soul-killing bureaucracy upstairs.

Veteran French actress Catherine Frot successfully portrays the chef’s determination and moxy.  Haute Cuisine is watchable, but not particularly compelling.  The food, however,  is outrageously tantalizing, and Haute Cuisine goes on my list of Best Food Porn Movies.