Mortal Engines (2018) - Film Review

Mortal Engines (2018)

Cast

Hera Hilmar as Hester Shaw
Robert Sheehan as Tom Natsworthy
Hugo Weaving as Thaddeus Valentine
Jihae as Anna Fang
Ronan Raftery as Bevis Pod
Leila George as Katherine Valentine
Patrick Malahide as Magnus Crome
Stephen Lang as Shrike

Director

Christian Rivers

Writer (based on the book by)

Philip Reeve

Writer

Fran Walsh

Writer

Philippa Boyens
Peter Jackson

Cinematographer

Simon Raby

Editor

Amy Hubbard
Liz Mullane

Composer

Junkie XL

Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for sequences of futuristic violence and action.
128 minutes

How did this truly crummy movie get made? I have a theory. Co-producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, who once upon a time could put together a motion picture that was engaging, coherent, entertaining, and even genuinely dazzling, looked at a bag of money that Universal and sundry other sources of capital left on their table and asked themselves, “Can we whiff as badly as the Wachowskis did with ‘Jupiter Ascending,’ only leaving out the fun pansexual campy parts?” And the answer is, absolutely!

Co-written by Jackson and Walsh (you may remember their “Heavenly Creatures” and a couple of Tolkien adaptations) with frequent collaborator Philippa Boyens, from a sorta-I-guess-must-have-been YA novel (it was published by Scholastic in the States, I see) by Phillip Reeve, “Mortal Engines” begins with the usual voiceover informing us how “that Ancients” destroyed Earth’s civilization in “only 60 minutes,” using bad and terrible weapons technology, and how now the world itself is unmoored, as predator cities scavenge the globe for what’s left of its resources. 

How this translates into visual terms is that whole, or at least partial, world cities now are mobile, going around on giant tank treads. How this engineering feat was achieved is not addressed. Anyway, London, which we still largely think of as genteel, is hauling ass and hunkering down on a much smaller “Romanian mining town,” hoping to steal its salt. On that town is Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar), a teenage girl looking to take revenge on London’s power engineer (or something) Thaddeus Valentine for killing her mom. London’s own Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan), a young historian building up a collection of “the Ancients’” weaponry (the Ancients, in case you’re missing it, were us) the better to dispose of it so as to study war no more, is initially a Thaddeus fan. But once Tom gets too close to Hester’s secret, down London’s garbage chute he goes, the better to find love and adventure with the feisty, reticent Hester. This move, among other things, allows Thaddeus access to the weapons storehouse, which will abet him in constructing a Brand New Superweapon. 

As for Hester, does she have much to be reticent about. In her orphaned girlhood she was adopted by a member of something called “The Lazarus Brigade,” undead robots with high-level superpowers who always get what they want. Her adoptee, Shrike, played by Stephen Lang with a substantial overlay of CGI, was touched by her promise that she would allow him to turn her into a similar robot (because it sounds like such a great deal, right?). But Hester reneged to seek revenge on Thaddeus, and Shrike went apeshit, or whatever the equivalent of apeshit is for super-powered undead robots. The better to keep Hester at bay, Thaddeus frees the very insistent and very destructive Shrike from a floating prison and off he goes to collect on her promise. He destroys so much in his path it’s a wonder that Hester’s many newfound friends even keep her around, but lucky they do, because, surprise, she holds the key to dismantling Thaddeus’ super weapon. The storyline is just packed with surprising plot developments like that. 

Said story’s various components are introduced so haphazardly they can’t help but elicit titters, but even if brought into the picture differently, Shrike, intended as a poignant reminder of What It Is To Be Human, is a terrible idea terribly executed. I know Lang has probably been cooling his heels Down Under waiting for the “Avatar” sequels to start shooting long enough that he’s gotten antsy, but I wish he’d found a better way to waste his time. Even by the lower standards of kids’ stuff, this movie is laughably portentous and kitschy, and gets progressively worse, what with the heavy-handed introduction of the ethnically diverse rebel flyer team and the Dalai Lama lookalike leader of the Asian territory Thaddeus intends to bulldoze. 

But it looks great, right? Not really. Directed by Christian Rivers, a longtime art director for Jackson, the overall look asks the question, “are you sick of Steampunk yet,” and for me, yeah. Never mind that the whole concept of the movie is like someone decided to take Terry Gilliam’s “The Crimson Permanent Assurance” way more seriously than it was ever intended. I did like the near-cavernous tread tracks that Hester and Tom had to run around in on their Way to Love.  

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Once Upon a Deadpool (2018) - Film Review

Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)

Cast

• Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson / Deadpool / Juggernaut (voice) / Himself
• Fred Savage as Fred Savage
• Josh Brolin as Nathan Summers / Cable
• Zazie Beetz as Neena Thurman / Domino
• Julian Dennison as Russell Collins / Firefist
• Morena Baccarin as Vanessa
• Stefan Kapičić as Colossus (voice)
• Brianna Hildebrand as Ellie Phimister / Negasonic Teenage Warhead
• Rob Delaney as Peter

Director

• David Leitch

Writer

• Rhett Reese
• Paul Wernick
• Ryan Reynolds

Action, Comedy

Rated PG-13

117 minutes

 

 

 

Once upon a time, the producers of a little film called “Saturday Night Fever” realized that even though it was making tons of money, its "R" rating meant that those poor unfortunate souls who lacked a fake ID, older sibling, permissive parent or a multiplex with lax security were unable to fork over their hard-earned money to see John Travolta strut his stuff. Unwilling to live in such a world, they gallantly recut a new version of the film that removed enough of the fouler language and dicier thematic elements. Although that version of the film is all but impossible to see today, it served its purpose for both younger viewers and studio accountants.


Now, more than four decades later, the makers of “Deadpool 2” have elected to do the same by taking their decidedly R-rated enterprise and recutting it enough to land a PG-13 rating for a brief theatrical reissue just in time for the holidays, now billed as “Once Upon a Deadpool.” This time around, the reasons behind such a seemingly baffling decision—isn’t the whole appeal of the “Deadpool” movies based on the fact that they are unapologetically violent and potty-mouthed?—are a little more complex. Ostensibly, it is being pushed as a charity thing with Fox donating $1 of every ticket sale to the F--- Cancer organization, which, in keeping with the gimmick, has been temporarily renamed Fudge Cancer. That said, there are crasser business concerns at hand as well. With the last-minute bumping of the sci-fi epic “Alita: Battle Angel” from its holiday berth to next February, Fox had a hole in its schedule that such an endeavor could quickly and cheaply fill. Additionally, with the impending purchase of Fox by Disney, such a project could be seen as a test-run for the potential viability of a more family-friendly version of Deadpool without risking too much on such a gamble. 


To give all involved a little credit, the result is not just a heavily redacted version of the film that will be playing around the clock on basic cable in a couple of years. A new framework has been added to the mix in the form of an extended homage to the wraparound for “The Princess Bride” in which Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) sits at the bedside of Fred Savage (Fred Savage) in order to read the story to him. (Okay, technically, Deadpool seems to have kidnapped Savage, but never mind.) After explaining the premise and then immediately trying to see just how far they can push the limits of the new rating (as they demonstrate, sometimes judicious bleeping can make a scene sound much filthier than it actually is), it then plunges into the film proper, albeit without the blood or the swearing, in some cases by using what appears to be alternate versions of scenes and in other cases by dropping scenes entirely. 


The results, perhaps not surprisingly, are somewhat mixed. On the one hand, the cutaways to Deadpool and Savage are pretty funny as the two riff on everything from the impending Disney-Fox merger, the way that the films sometimes using the snark factor to cover up lazy writing, and the fact that Savage no longer minds the kissing parts of stories that much anymore. On the other hand, the film itself—I assume no detailed description of it is required here—is still kind of dumb, though its freewheeling weirdness plays a little better than it did in the original. At the same time, if you are a parent who has not allowed your kids to see “Deadpool 2” yet in order to avoid exposing them to such crude and violent material, be advised that even this iteration is insanely inappropriate for the little ones (though I suspect that between DVD, cable and the Internet, kids with any interest in seeing it have probably already done so by now).


Is it worth the bother? I dunno. Those not on the Deadpool bandwagon already will probably not be converted by this version and those who are fans may find it to be a vaguely interesting curio they'll watch once. Yes, there is the charity aspect to consider, but instead of buying a ticket and having a dollar of it donated to Fudge Cancer, you could just as easily donate the full ticket price to the organization and skip the movie altogether. But if you do end up seeing “Once Upon a Deadpool,” be sure to stay through all of the end credits.

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (2017) - Film Review

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (2017)

Cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator
Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor
Edward Furlong as John Connor
Robert Patrick as T-1000
Earl Boen as Dr. Silberman
Joe Morton as Miles Dyson
S. Epatha Merkerson as Tarissa Dyson
Castulo Guerra as Enrique Salceda

Director

James Cameron

Writer

James Cameron
William Wisher

Cinematographer

Adam Greenberg

Editor

Conrad Buff
Dody Dorn
Mark Goldblatt
Richard A. Harris

Action, Science Fiction

Rated R for strong sci-fi action and violence, and for language.
137 minutes

While "The Terminator" was a great horror film, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is a great action film. While "The Terminator" was about the horror of an unstoppable harbinger of a technologically-advanced but soul-dead present, "Terminator 2" is, like so many action films before it, a paradoxically violent screed against violence. The film's reactionary politics are essentially dated, though there are several modern fanatics who embody the paranoiac impulses that compel self-styled freedom fighter Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to fight against mental institutions, the police, and common sense to stop artificially-intelligent computer system Skynet from obliterating humanity in a nuclear war. 

But it's important to note that Sarah is not the heroine of "Terminator 2" as she was in "The Terminator," but rather a supporting character who helps raise both estranged son John (Edward Furlong) and cyborg bodyguard/surrogate dad T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The T-101 is the main character in "Terminator 2" since he, as he boasts, is a "learning machine," capable of progressive adaptation. This was the path to war in the era of George H.W. Bush bipartisanship: using one lethal system to combat a more threatening system. Robots don't kill people—people kill people. 

The T-101's burgeoning ersatz humanity makes Schwarzenegger a perfectly re-purposed tool. Director James Cameron had to convince the Austrian Oak to turn his humanoid baddie into a good guy, a jarring transition that was partly difficult for Schwarzenegger to stomach due to the prior failure of "Conan the Destroyer," another sequel that was relatively lighter than its predecessor. But the T-101's role change works as well as it does because viewers—both then and now—don't necessarily expect Schwarzenegger's deadpan killing machine to be capable of serving as anybody's Jiminy Cricket-like moral compass. Still, that's exactly what the T-101 does when he re-unites John with Sarah, and learns from both characters first-hand the value of preserving human life.

The T-101's change from a villain to a hero also reflects the ambivalent optimism at the heart of "Terminator 2." Some cogs in the system can be retrained, but not all systems are benign. The psychiatric institution, represented by vainglorious Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), is tellingly dismissed since it keeps singular iconoclasts like Sarah down, and convinces them that they must genuinely want to re-assimilate rather than just mimic a desire to change (in "Terminator 2," bad machines are good mimics, but good people are bad mimics). The cops, represented by the confounded detectives who interrogate Sarah about her connection to the T-101 and the gas-mask-making SWAT team that tries to prevent the destruction of Skynet, are ineffectual, and hampered by a lack of emotional inspiration. 

But nuclear families, like the ones that surround well-meaning scientist Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) and good-natured survivalist Enrique Salceda (Castulo Guerra), are all positive since they represent a bright future that must be protected (hope must be preserved and defended instead of cultivated and maintained). So it makes sense that Sarah stops being a machine-like human, and starts acting like a human machine when she encounters Miles and Enrique, but is either suppressed, or threatened during her every encounter with security guards, orderlies, and cops.

These central tenets of "Terminator 2"'s fear-mongering worldview are also present in "The Terminator," but they are perhaps more compelling in the sequel since they are a product of Cameron's singularly fanatic creativity. I imagine he identified as the clean-burning machine, his vision hindered only by unyielding crew members, pressing budget restrictions, and the small-mindedness of anyone who doesn't agree that bigger is necessarily better. 

For proof, compare the way Cameron shoots violence in "The Terminator" with "Terminator 2." There's more gore and impact-intensive massacres in the former film while the latter is characterized by the relatively sleek killing style of the T-1000, or even the scalpel-like precision of the T-101, who self-disassembles his left fore-arm in "Terminator 2" much faster than he gouges his right fore-arm and his left eyeball "The Terminator." And while there aren't more collisions and car crashes in "Terminator 2" than there are in "The Terminator," there are bigger explosions. "Terminator 2" oozes barely-sublimated tension that hails from Cameron's highly personal vision, as we see during formative car chases, pyrotechnics, and body-morphing computer effects.

In fact, one major reason to revisit the "Terminator 2" is that the post-converted 3-D makes the film's textures that much richer, especially any surface covered in fire, sweat, or light. Special effects designer Stan Winston's cyborg puppets and computer effects are worth the extra couple of bucks for 3-D, especially his body-deforming designs for the T-1000, like the bifurcated "Pretzel Man," or the porous "Donut Head." 

Schwarzenegger and his mostly excellent cast-mates may not need a glossy technological reboot, but it is nice to be reminded on a big screen, through engrossing close-ups, tracking shots, and complex lighting set-ups, that Cameron knows how to use his human cogs to maximally service his hulking anti-authoritarian blockbuster. His maximalist style pays off big time, making "Terminator 2" that rare genre classic that is every bit as good as its reputation.

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Titanic [3D] (2012) - Film Review comparing the version of 1997 and 2012

Titanic [3D] (2012)

Cast

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson
Kate Winslet as Rose Dewitt Buckater
Billy Zane as Cal Hockley
Kathy Bates as Molly Brown
Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett
Bernard Hill as Captain Edward John Smith
David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy

Written and directed by

James Cameron

Rated PG-13 For shipwreck scenes, mild language and sexuality 

The new 3D version of "Titanic," like the original 1997 version, is a magnificent motion picture. The hour or more after the ship hits the iceberg remains spellbinding. The material leading up to that point is a combination of documentary footage from the ocean floor, romantic melodrama, and narration by a centenarian named Rose. The production brings to life the opulence of the great iron ship. Its passengers are a cross section of way of life that would be ended forever by the First World War. In a way, the iceberg represented the 20th century.

James Cameron's film is not perfect. It has some flaws, but I hate the way film critics employ that word "flaw," as if they are jewelers with loupes screwed into their eye sockets, performing a valuation. We can say there are elements that could have been handled differently. We can begin with some elements that are superb just as they stand.

To begin with, Cameron avoids the pitfalls of telling a story about which "everybody knows the ending." Yes, the Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks. That isn't the story he tells. He uses that as a backdrop for stories about hubris, greed, class conflict, romance and a misplaced faith in technology. The Titanic was doomed the moment it was described as "unsinkable." There is a chilling conversation on the bridge between Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner, and Thomas Andrews, its architect.

Ismay: "But this ship can't sink!"

Andrews: "She's made of iron, sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty."

Its unsinkability perhaps explains why Capt. Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill), despite being warned of icebergs, cranked the ship up to its top velocity and left it speeding blindly through the night. Would the captain of any other vessel have felt confident in doing that? In another sense, many of those on board thought of themselves as unsinkable, including the millionaires Benjamin Guggenheim (Michael Ensign) and the fictional villain Caledon Hockley (Billy Zane). Guggenheim called for a brandy and went down with the ship. Hockley would have thrown women and children overboard to preserve himself. Also on board was the Denver millionaire Molly Brown (Kathy Bates), who survived and is known to history as the Unsinkable Molly Brown. She's shown as one of the few arguing that her lifeboat turn back to rescue passengers freezing to death in the icy water.

Here already I have fallen prey to Cameron's storytelling, and have become distracted from the ship's fate by the fates of those on board. Of greatest interest to us are Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), who is engaged to the snaky Caledon Hockley, and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a steerage passenger who falls in love with her onboard and saves her life. She is the same Rose, known now as "Rose Dawson," who is the old lady, the sole living survivor, brought on board a salvage vessel near the beginning of the film (she's played by Gloria Stuart, who was 86 when the film was made, and topped 100 before she died in 2010). This elderly woman, with such spirit and old, wise eyes, provides "Titanic" with what seems impossible: A happy ending. It is happy for her, at least, because she finds closure with the recovery of a drawing made by Jack and a final scene involving a famous diamond.

The Roses, young and old, provide a through-line from the day the ship set sail until the present day. She creates the psychological illusion that she's the heroine throughout, rescuing the film from a chronological timeline and providing an eyewitness for the crew on the salvage and exploration vessel. Cameron uses her as his excuse for an invaluable narrative device. He has the underwater explorers show her a little animated film that will "explain" to her how the ship sank, but actually explains it to us. This device is used all the time as a chalk talk or imaginary sequence in which the mastermind of a bank heist or prison escape explains the plan to those who will use it; he's really explaining it to us, so we'll understand it when we see it. As if there's not suspense enough when the ship is sinking, we're all the time wondering when it will break in half. Cameron is also not slow to bring the architect Andrews up to the bridge, so he can unroll his blueprints and explain to Captain Smith (and us) how the rushing flood waters will flow over one bulwark after the next.

The class differences onboard become a matter of life and death. The lifeboats are reserved for first class passengers, and those in steerage are locked below behind sliding gates. Crew members enforce these distinctions, sometimes at gunpoint; so loyal are they to their employers that, even though they're going to die, they feel no sympathy for their lower-class comrades. In an early scene, it is by sneaking up to the first class deck that Jack saves Rose from jumping off the ship. She has decided she prefers death to a life among affluent snobs like her fiancée; this shows she has more principle than imagination. Jack becomes the hero only because he flouts all class distinctions, a decision that has its roots deep in 19th century melodrama.

All of these matters take place in a ship created by art design, set construction, modeling, animation and miniatures which are state of the art. James Cameron's films have always been distinguished by ground-breaking technical excellence.

Now to those "flaws." Both of them involve the behavior of characters. There are several scenes involving Jack trying to help Rose escape the sinking ship, and then Rose helping free Jack after he's handcuffed to a pipe in a cabin, and then Jack again helping them to escape. Consider Rose. Of her own volition, she leaves the safety of a lifeboat and dashes back into the bowels of the ship to find Jack. She wades through water up to her waist, slugs an unhelpful crew member on the jaw, finds Jack, and then finds a fire ax to break the chain of his handcuffs.

Plucky, yes? But in all their other escape scenes, Jack pulls her behind him while desperately shouting Rose! Up here! Rose! Down there! Rose! Follow me! et cetera. This grows monotonous and tiresome. It reminds me of one of the early definitions in Ebert's Little Movie Glossary, the "Me Push-Pull You." That's an adaptation of a friend of Doctor Dolittle's, the "Pushmi-pullyu." I define it as a male who treats a woman as a wee helpless creature who cannot save herself but must be pushed and pulled. Given Rose's behavior in finding her way through the flooding ship while saving Jack, she seems capable enough to be allowed the occasional Jack! Up here! (There is also the inconvenience that Rose and anyone else wading through the ice-cold water should quickly be dead of hypothermia.)

Another character I have questions about is Spicer Lovejoy, Caledon Hockley's pistol-packing bodyguard and dirty tricks man. Played by the superb actor David Warner, Lovejoy is a poker-faced tough guy entirely at the disposal of his boss. In the ship's desperate final moments, he is always at Hockley's side with helpful information, such as that a lifeboat on the other side of the ship is allowing men on board. Lovejoy is invaluable to the screenplay, because he gives Hockley someone to speak and plot with. Otherwise the dastard would be reduced to dashing about madly on his own. Nevertheless, whatever Spicer is being paid is not enough.

Now for the final flaw. It is, of course, the 3D process. Cameron has justly been praised for being one of the few directors to use 3D usefully, in "Avatar." But "Titanic" was not shot for 3D, and just as you cannot gild a pig, you cannot make 2D into 3D. What you can do, and he tries to do it well, is find certain scenes that you can present as having planes of focus in foreground, middle and distance. So what? Did you miss any dimensions the first time you saw "Titanic?" No matter how long Cameron took to do it, no matter how much he spent, this is retrofitted 2D. Case closed.

But not quite. There's more to it than that. 3D causes a noticeable loss in the brightness coming from the screen. Some say as much as 20 percent. If you saw an ordinary film dimmed that much, you might complain to the management. Here you're supposed to be grateful you had the opportunity to pay a surcharge for this defacement. If you're alert to it, you'll notice that many shots and sequences in this version are not in 3D at all, but remain in 2D. If you take off your glasses, they'll pop off the screen with dramatically improved brightness. I know why the film is in 3D. It's to justify the extra charge. That's a shabby way to treat a masterpiece.

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SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) - FILM REVIEW 2018

Schindler's List (1993)

Cast

Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler
Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern

Directed by

Steven Spielberg

Based On The Novel by

Thomas Keneally

Drama, History

Rated R

184 minutes

 

"Schindler's List" is described as a film about the Holocaust, but the Holocaust supplies the field for the story, rather than the subject. The film is really two parallel character studies--one of a con man, the other of a psychopath. Oskar Schindler, who swindles the Third Reich, and Amon Goeth, who represents its pure evil, are men created by the opportunities of war.

Schindler had no success in business before or after the war, but used its cover to run factories that saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews. (Technically, the factories were failures, too, but that was his plan: "If this factory ever produces a shell that can actually be fired, I'll be very unhappy.") Goeth was executed after the war, which he used as a cover for his homicidal pathology.

In telling their stories, Steven Spielberg found a way to approach the Holocaust, which is a subject too vast and tragic to be encompassed in any reasonable way by fiction. In the ruins of the saddest story of the century, he found, not a happy ending, but at least one affirming that resistance to evil is possible and can succeed. In the face of the Nazi charnel houses, it is a statement that has to be made, or we sink into despair.

The film has been an easy target for those who find Spielberg's approach too upbeat or "commercial," or condemn him for converting Holocaust sources into a well-told story. But every artist must work in his medium, and the medium of film does not exist unless there is an audience between the projector and the screen. Claude Lanzmann made a more profound film about the Holocaust in "Shoah," but few were willing to sit through its nine hours. Spielberg's unique ability in his serious films has been to join artistry with popularity--to say what he wants to say in a way that millions of people want to hear.

In ''Schindler's List,'' his brilliant achievement is the character of Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson as a man who never, until almost the end, admits to anyone what he is really doing. Schindler leaves it to ''his'' Jews, and particularly to his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), to understand the unsayable: that Schindler is using his factory as a con game to cheat the Nazis of the lives of his workers. Schindler leaves it to Stern, and Spielberg leaves it to us; the movie is a rare case of a man doing the opposite of what he seems to be doing, and a director letting the audience figure it out itself.

The measure of Schindler's audacity is stupendous. His first factory makes pots and pans. His second makes shell casings. Both factories are so inefficient they make hardly any contribution to the Nazi war effort. A more cautious man might have insisted that the factories produced fine pots and usable casings, to make them invaluable to the Nazis. The full measure of Schindler's obsession is that he wanted to save Jewish lives and produce unusable goods--all the while wearing a Nazi party badge on the lapel of his expensive black-market suit.

The key to his character is found in his first big scene, in a nightclub frequented by Nazi officers. We gather that his resources consist of the money in his pocket and the clothes he stands up in. He walks into the club, sends the best champagne to a table of high-ranking Nazis, and soon has the Nazis and their girlfriends sitting at his table, which swells with late arrivals. Who is this man? Why, Oskar Schindler, of course. And who is that? The Reich never figures out the answer to that question.

Schindler's strategy as a con man is to always seem in charge, to seem well-connected, to lavish powerful Nazis with gifts and bribes, and to stride, tall and imperious, through situations that would break a lesser man. He also has the con man's knack of disguising the real object of the con. The Nazis accept his bribes and assume his purpose is to enrich himself through the war. They do not object, because he enriches them, too. It never occurs to them that he is actually saving Jews. There is that ancient story about how the guards search the thief's wheelbarrow every day, unable to figure out what he is stealing. He is stealing wheelbarrows. The Jews are Schindler's wheelbarrows.

Some of the most dramatic scenes in the movie show Schindler literally snatching his workers from the maw of death. He rescues Stern from a death train. Then he redirects a trainload of his male workers from Auschwitz to his hometown in Czechoslovakia. When the women's train is misrouted to Auschwitz in error, Schindler boldly strides into the death camp and bribes the commandant to ship them back out again. His insight here is that no one would walk into Auschwitz on such a mission if he were not the real thing. His very boldness is his shield.

Stern, of course, quickly figures out that Schindler's real game is not to get rich but to save lives. Yet this is not said aloud until Schindler has Stern make a list of some 1,100 workers who will be transported to Czechoslovakia. "The list is an absolute good," Stern tells him. "The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf."

Consider now Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), the Nazi who has power over the Krakow ghetto and later over the camp where the Jews are moved. He stands on the balcony of his ski chalet and shoots Jews as target practice, destroying any shred of hope they may have that the Nazi policies will follow some sane pattern. If they can die arbitrarily at his whim, then both protest and adherence are meaningless, and useless.

Goeth is clearly mad. War masks his underlying nature as a serial killer. His cruelty twists back on his victims: He spares a life only long enough to give his victim hope, and then shoots him. Seeing "Schindler's List" again recently, I wondered if it was a weakness to make Goeth insane. Would it have been better for Spielberg to focus instead on a Nazi functionary--an "ordinary" man who is simply following orders? The terror of the Holocaust comes not because a monster like Goeth could murder people, but because thousands of people snatched from their everyday lives became, in the chilling phrase, Hitler's willing executioners.

I don't know. The film as Spielberg made it is haunting and powerful; perhaps it was necessary to have a one-dimensional villain in a film whose hero has so many hidden dimensions. The ordinary man who was just "following orders" might have disturbed the focus of the film--although he would have been in contrast with Schindler, an ordinary man who did not follow orders.

"Schindler's List" gives us information about how parts of the Holocaust operated, but does not explain it, because it is inexplicable that men could practice genocide. Or so we want to believe. In fact, genocide is a commonplace in human history, and is happening right now in Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. The United States was colonized through a policy of genocide against native peoples. Religion and race are markers that we use to hate one another, and unless we can get beyond them, we must concede we are potential executioners. The power of Spielberg's film is not that it explains evil, but that it insists that men can be good in the face of it, and that good can prevail.

The film's ending brings me to tears. At the end of the war, Schindler's Jews are in a strange land--stranded, but alive. A member of the liberating Russian forces asks them, "Isn't a town over there?" and they walk off toward the horizon. The next shot fades from black and white into color. At first we think it may be a continuation of the previous action, until we see that the men and women on the crest of the hill are dressed differently now. And then it strikes us, with the force of a blow: Those are Schindler's Jews. We are looking at the actual survivors and their children as they visit Oskar Schindler's grave. The movie began with a list of Jews being confined to the ghetto. It ends with a list of some who were saved. The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.

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Widows (2018) - Film Review

Widows (2018)

Cast

Viola Davisas Veronica Rawlins
Michelle Rodriguezas Linda Perelli
Elizabeth Debickias Alice Gunner
Cynthia Erivoas Belle
Colin Farrellas Jack Mulligan
Brian Tyree Henryas Jamal Manning
Daniel Kaluuyaas Jatemme Manning
Jacki Weaveras Agnieska
Carrie Coonas Amanda
Robert Duvallas Tom Mulligan
Liam Neesonas Harry Rawlings
Manuel Garcia-Rulfoas Carlos Perelli
Jon Bernthalas Florek Gunner
Garret Dillahuntas Bash O'Reilly
Lukas Haasas David
Matt Walshas Ken

Director

Steve McQueen

Writer (based on "Widows" by)

Lynda La Plante

Writer

Gillian Flynn
Steve McQueen

Cinematographer

Sean Bobbitt

Editor

Joe Walker

Composer

Hans Zimmer

Crime, Drama, Thriller

Rated R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual content/nudity.
128 minutes

 

 

Most heist movies are built on a sheen of cool genius, masterminded by a gang of antiheroes who are typically seeking a kind of justified vengeance. “Widows” is not like most heist movies. The emotional currents that power Steve McQueen’s brilliant genre exercise are different—it’s societal inequity, exhaustion at corruption, and outright anger at a bullshit system that steals from the poor to give to the rich. McQueen’s masterful film is the kind that works on multiple levels simultaneously—as pure pulp entertainment but also as a commentary on how often it feels like we have to take what we are owed or risk never getting it at all.

McQueen opens his film with an immediate boost of adrenaline, dropping us into the latest “job” by criminal Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) and his crew (Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Coburn Goss) as it goes very, very wrong. McQueen and his incredible editor (Joe Walker, who deserves the Oscar for his work here) bounce us back and forth between the fateful job and quick scenes of introductions to the Rawlings’ crew and their spouses. So we meet Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a fragile, abused woman whose mother (Jacki Weaver) barely treats her better than her awful husband; Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), a mother of two who is just opening her own store; and Amanda (Carrie Coon), who has a 4-month-old child. Before the opening sequence is over, all three will be widows, as will be Harry’s wife Veronica (Viola Davis).

Not long after Harry’s death, Veronica is visited by a local criminal named Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), who informs her that Harry’s final job was to steal $2 million from him and his campaign for 18th ward alderman. With the help of his sociopathic brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya), the Mannings tell Veronica that she has to repay the money just as Harry’s widow happens to find her dead husband’s notebook with all the details on past and future jobs. There’s a lot of information on the next job he had planned, one that looks to net $5 million. Veronica gets the other widows together and they agree to do Harry’s next job. They can repay Manning and have some left over to start new lives.

If only anything were that easy in Chicago. I haven’t even mentioned Manning’s competition for 18th ward alderman, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), part of a long line of Windy City politicians, including his racist father Tom (Robert Duvall). Jack is one of those silver spoon politicians who almost feels like he’s owed the office just by virtue of his last name, never mind the fact that he’s facing a corruption scandal that involves grifting from a project that expanded the Chicago Green Line. Jack is the kind of politician who starts a program to put minority women to work by giving them businesses…from which he then takes a cut. Everything comes at a cost in “Widows.” Everything, to a certain extent, is a transaction. The job that opens “Widows” and then Veronica’s decision to use the notebook instead of just selling it pull back the curtain on a corrupt, broken system, one that feels distinctly Chicagoan while also commenting on inequity around the world. McQueen and his team use the city brilliantly, especially in a stunning single take in which we see Mulligan go from a campaign event in his ward to his home, the camera staying outside the car to show us the rapidly changing neighborhood along the commute.

Gillian Flynn’s script for “Widows” brings together many disparate personalities under one umbrella but the differences never feel forced. Only when you sit back and think about it, do you consider that it is likely not by accident that Alice, Linda, and Veronica are Polish, Latinx, and Black, respectively, never mind their incredibly different economic differences—Veronica lives on the Gold Coast while Alice has to become an escort to make ends meet. In part, “Widows” seems to be saying that corruption is a great equalizer, especially among women betrayed by powerful men. When Tom Mulligan says, “The only thing that matters is that we survive,” it’s a line meant to capture how tightly he’s trying to hold on to a white political legacy, but it’s something any number of characters in “Widows” could say. There are a number of great lines like that but McQueen and Flynn are careful to never allow their film to sink into a political diatribe. The dialogue crackles without ever calling attention to itself or sounding overly precious or preaching.

Part of the reason “Widows” stays above the line where it would feel like mere sermon is that it contains the best ensemble of 2018. Viola Davis can do more with a longing, grieving look out a window than most actresses can do with a monologue. Watch the beat where she’s looking out at Lake Michigan and we see her in reflection, an image of her dead husband coming up behind her. It’s almost as if her grief manifested him. And when Veronica’s drive turns from sadness to anger, Davis makes every beat count. There’s not a single wasted decision on her part. It might be her best performance.

She’s matched by a ridiculously talented supporting cast, all on her level. Debicki was great earlier this year in “The Tale,” but this is her breakthrough role, one that nearly allows her to steal the film. Watch Alice’s body language as she goes from a frightened victim to an empowered woman. She never overplays the transformation, but it's impossible to miss. It’s really the rare kind of film for which there are hard to pick standouts. Henry has a couple of brilliant scenes, although many seem to think Kaluuya steals a few from him (I'm not sure I agree. They're both great.). Rodriguez makes one wish she did drama more often. Cynthia Erivo should be a star any minute now. Even small roles like those occupied by Garret Dillahunt and Coon feel “right.” There’s not a wasted or poorly-considered role or performance.

Finally there are the technical elements of “Widows.” It’s not the kind of flashy exercise of something like “Baby Driver,” but the editing here by two-time Oscar nominee Joe Walker (nominated for “12 Years a Slave” and “Arrival”) is just as good. A film with this many characters and themes and plot points requires a master editor to keep it moving, and Walker finds the perfect rhythm. Hans Zimmer’s score is his most subtle in a long time, especially the way that McQueen uses it, holding back on score almost entirely for the first 30-45 minutes, allowing it to bubble up as the heist gets closer, enhancing the tension of the overall experience.

The tapestry that is “Widows” is so deep that it’s easy to miss some of its smaller patterns. There’s a scene in which Jatemme is following Veronica, listening to a report on the radio about Albert Woodfox, a man who spent 43 years in solitary confinement at Angola. There’s a line from Woodfox in the report that McQueen makes sure we hear: “Nothing you do is gonna change your situation.” “Widows” is about both the truth of that and a few people who decide to fight it.   

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The Grinch (2018) - Film Review

The Grinch (2018)

Cast

Benedict Cumberbatchas Grinch (voice)
Pharrell Williamsas Narrator (voice)
Cameron Seelyas Cindy Lou Who (voice)
Rashida Jonesas Donna Lou Who (voice)
Angela Lansburyas The Mayor of Whoville (voice)
Kenan Thompsonas Bricklebaum (voice)

Director

Scott Mosier
Yarrow Cheney

Writer (based on the book by)

Dr. Seuss

Writer

Cinco Paul
Ken Daurio

Editor

Chris Cartagena

Composer

Danny Elfman

Animation, Comedy, Family

Rated PG for brief rude humor.

90 minutes

 

 

Two of the most beloved Christmas stories are about characters who—at least at the beginning of the story—hate Christmas. Charles Dickens gave us Ebenezer Scrooge, who calls Christmas a fraud until the ghosts show him Christmas past, present, and future to show him what he has missed by hardening his heart to friends, family, and kindness. And Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) gave us the Grinch, a furry green character with a dog named Max, who hates Christmas so much he decides to spoil the celebration of everyone in the community of Whoville by stealing all of their decorations, food, and gifts.

An instant classic since its publication in 1958, the book inspired an award-winning Chuck Jones animated television special starring Boris Karloff, then an overstuffed 2000 live-action feature film starring Jim Carrey in the title role, and now a very watch-worthy full-length animated theatrical release from the people behind “Despicable Me,” with Benedict Cumberbatch (using an American accent) as the Grinch. It does not surpass the Chuck Jones version (or having the book read aloud by a parent, which is still ideal) but it is far superior to the Carrey film and should become a welcome family tradition.

The visuals are delightfully Seussian, all curves and slants. I loved the mitten-shaped windows on one of the houses and the way that Whoville’s Christmas decorations make it look like a captivatingly intricate gingerbread village. In contrast, the Grinch’s mountain top lair is bare and cavernous, empty and solitary, far from the warmth of the Whovian homes.

We really do not need a backstory to tell us how the Grinch got so Grinch-y that he wants to steal all the decorations and gifts or why Cindy Lou Who (Cameron Seely) was awake on Christmas Eve. But feature-length movies are longer than Dr. Seuss poems, so we get a flashback to the young Grinch’s lonely holidays in an orphanage. In the book, two-year-old Cindy Lou gets up for a glass of water but here the elementary-school-age Cindy Lou wants to make sure she sees Santa on Christmas Eve because she wants to ask him for something very special. It is special because it is not for herself but for her loving yet exhausted mom (Rashida Jones). 

While this is not especially inventive, there are some clever parallels as the Grinch and Cindy Lou each have to come up with a plan for Christmas Eve. They write out their schemes with the same two words alone on a huge surface: “Santa Claus.” And both must assemble helpers and equipment without anyone finding out.

The smaller details are the most fun, especially when the Grinch brings on an enormous, yak-looking reindeer named Fred to pull his fake Santa sleigh. Or when a relentlessly cheery Whovian (Kenan Thompson) with the fanciest Christmas decorations in town keeps insisting that he and the Grinch are best friends.

We see the Grinch wake up in the morning for his breakfast, which includes a latte with a frowny face in the foam, prepared by his ever-loyal dog, Max. He then selects one from a rack of outfits labeled according to mood: “Wretched,” “Miserable,” “Very Miserable,” “Nasty,” and “Grumpy.” They are in fact all exactly alike and indistinguishable from his actual skin and fur. All the gadgets and equipment the Grinch creates are delightfully clever, the action scenes are energetic and funny, and the music, with a score by Danny Elfman and some standards and fresh and tuneful renditions of holiday classics, is superb, with a gorgeous Pentatonix rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and Tyler the Creator’s brightly updated version of Thurl Ravenscroft’s classic “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” The message that Christmas is not about presents and candy canes but about kindness and being together is always welcome. And when the Grinch gets invited to dinner with Cindy Lou’s family, you may find your heart growing a couple of sizes, too.

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Welcome to Mercy (2018) - Film Review

Welcome to Mercy (2018)

Cast

Lily Newmark as August
Eileen Davies as Mother Superior
Kristen Ruhlin as Madaline
Toms Liepājnieks as Young Father Joseph
Ieva Seglina as Alyona

Director

Tommy Bertelsen

Writer

Kristen Ruhlin

Cinematographer

Igor Kropotov

Editor

Jordan Maltby

Thriller

Rated NR

 

 

There's a terrific new horror film about guilt, shame, and witches, and its name is "Suspi--" wait, sorry, it's called "Welcome to Mercy," a brooding, atmospheric movie set in a Latvian convent that follows an atheist who becomes possessed by an ancient evil. That may sound like the logline for a tacky throwback to the unabashedly salacious nunsploitation gems of the 1970s, like "Behind Convent Walls" and "School of the Holy Beast." But the best thing about "Welcome to Mercy" is that its creators don't go for cheap thrills ... not many, anyway. Director Tommy Bertelsen and screenwriter Kristen Ruhlin take time to consider what drew disbelieving single mother Madaline (Ruhlin) back to her Latvian home, just to see her long-ill father Frank (Andrey Yahimovich). One answer seems immediately  apparent: to confront her standoffish, estranged mother Alyona (Ieva Seglina). But Bertelsen and Ruhlin are patient enough to make their film's more high concept ideas—surprise: Madaline gets possessed by demons!—subordinate to Madaline's attempts at reconciling abandonment issues that she hopes she won't pass on to her own daughter, Willow (Sophia Massa).

You can tell that there's something different about "Welcome to Mercy" from the way its terrific ensemble cast delivers their oft-pulpy dialogue. These performances are the heart and soul of a film whose ideas could have easily devolved into genre cliches and pseudo-empathetic pandering. "Welcome to Mercy" is, after all, a film where demonic possession is presented as an expression of Madaline's long-unexamined feelings of helplessness. Her secular trauma is given a high-concept horror twist, but with good reason: a world of old world religious/superstitious fear is the one this character was pre-emptively kicked out of, and that she consequently fears.

How can you blame her? Look at the way that Seglina and Juris Strenga, the actor playing the skeletal Father Joseph, play their parts. Their accents and appearances are (necessarily) off-putting: at times, she sounds like Frau Blücher from "Young Frankenstein" while he looks like the evil priest from "Poltergeist II." Still, there's enough humanity in both Seglina and Strenga's performances to make you wonder if Madaline knows what she's talking about when she dismisses both Joseph and Alyona's ritualistic faith as mere superstition. Listen to Strenga—as his character refers to the still-living Frank—add a syrupy pause worthy of Bela Lugosi to the sentence "He was ... a good friend." Or listen to Seglina deliver a master class in inflection as she--as Alyona rejects Madaline's claim that Yelina "abandoned [her]"—delivers a line that, from a lesser actor, would come out on the wrong side of Meryl-Streep-y camp: "I did not! A-ban-don YOU! I wanted to give you a BET-TER life.” 

That sort of pitch-perfect heightened tone is, admittedly, the sort of thing you have to see to believe. Still, the creators of "Welcome to Mercy" deserve praise for giving their story enough weight to make some timeworn horror conventions (Look out, stigmata!) seem new again. As a screenwriter, Ruhlin brings sensitivity to her characters in a way that none of the other authors of this season's big horror films did (sorry, fans of this year's "Halloween" sequel!). As a writer, Ruhlin gives Madaline enough time and humanity to worry: maybe she's unconsciously hurting her own daughter because she doesn't understand why or how much her mother hurt her. That lingering should help many jaded horror fans to suspend their disbelief, which is essential since Madaline (the audience's surrogate) must willingly submit to the prodding concern of the sisters of Mercy, a secluded convent whose nuns supposedly have the "spiritual disciplines" needed to help Madaline become unpossessed.

Madaline's dilemma sounds incredible, but it's supposed to, from Seglina and Strenga's Boris & Natasha-style accents to the superstitious, rural trappings of Frank and Yalina's home (so much garlic and hay!). This is how a skeptical urbanite sees the world she was (in her eyes) forced out of as a child. It's small, and a little backwards, so it's also easy to pigeonhole. 

Realistically, the most exciting thing about "Welcome to Mercy" isn't its exceptionally creepy scare scenes—ever wonder what the world looks like according to a victim of possession?—but rather its creators' thoughtful consideration, not only of how it feels to be abandoned, but also what it feels like to understand why you were seemingly left behind. "Welcome to Mercy" is, in that sense, a rare horror movie whose creators seriously represent both sides of a dilemma, and is therefore more mature than it seems at first glance. Bertelsen and Ruhlin understand why people fear religion, but also why we look to it as a balm for secular guilt and shame. In horror movies, Love is usually the world's one-size-fits-all cure. In "Welcome to Mercy," it's a more complex sentiment: forgiveness.

 

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