The Reel World

In 1959 when Ben-Hur came out, it was a massive undertaking that nearly closed the gates for MGM after nearly bankrupting the studio.  It was a huge risk in producing such a large scale epic that fortunately paid off and became one of the studio’s cornerstone successes.  The story of Judah Ben-Hur and his fall from being a prince, to becoming a slave, to eventually becoming a hero to the people in the arena is such a familiar story it’s hard to not feel you’ve seen this before without even entering the theater.  In some parts I look at Gladiator and see somewhat the same film, only being set in a separate time and place.  But really the story of betrayal at the highest levels, and seeing great figures fall only to pull themselves up again is a theme Hollywood seems to relish, and it seems to attract many viewers in the process.  Now it seems Hollywood is desperate for remakes, and I figure someone felt it was time to once again dust off the story of Ben-Hur, only this time throw in all the CGI gimmicks at the director’s disposal; after all, $100 million isn’t the investment it used to be for a film.  But to paraphrase the great Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park, perhaps the producers were so preoccupied with thinking if they could remake the film they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Taylor Sheridan is an actor. Let’s change that. Taylor Sheridan was an actor, and now he’s a writer. He’s a terrific writer. He’s the kind of writer that actors are going to be seeking out and critics are going to love. But he’s also made hard-boiled genre action pieces. He’s coming out of nowhere and getting everything right. He was a series regular on Sons of Anarchy and Veronica Mars, but he’s going to be in much greater demand as a screenwriter. His first film, Sicario, was one of the top ten films of last year, due in large part to his brilliant script (and also to everyone else involved with the movie, like director Dennis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins). His new film as a writer is Hell or High Water. Both films demonstrate a clear of understanding of the hardcore action film but also show the deceptively sure undercurrents and perceptive intellectual understanding of the grand scheme that creates the violence in our society.

Two brothers in Texas have had a hard time in life. One, Tanner Howard (Ben Foster, Warcraft, The Finest Hours), has been away in jail for robbing banks. The other, Toby Howard (Chris Pine, The Finest Hours, Star Trek I, II and III) had been taking care of their dying mother. That task is done, because the mother has died, and the family farm is going to be foreclosed on in the coming months. Tanner is the bad brother, but they love each other, and they are both tired of life. Toby joins Tanner in robbing banks because it might be a way to save the banks. Anyone who has seen movies in the last 100 years knows that banks are often the villains in these kinds of movies. They are the giant vultures of society waiting for weakness to take from the poor and struggling. Movies like the Grapes of Wrath and Bonnie and Clyde are famous examples. Does that make bank robbers good people? No, they are criminals, but there is a clear dynamic of muddied morality. This is a cruel, brutal world, and time and time again the only people who survive are those who fight for their lives. Toby is doing it with a clear goal in his mind. He will save the farm for his two sons that he never sees. His ex-wife hates him, but he has nothing else in his life but his kids. He also believes there is oil on the land, and his sons will have the life he never had if he can find it. So they go on a bank-robbing spree.

In the days leading up to the release of Suicide Squad, over the internet there has been one of the most vicious attacks on a film before its release that I can remember.  Sure, we had all the negative talk about Ghostbusters,but that was before anyone had ever seen the film, and as screenings came along, opinions seemed to sway.  Now I was lucky enough to attend a screening Monday for Suicide Squad, and there were up to 150 people turned away at the door because the auditorium was filled to capacity. I mean, the buzz for this was high, and we DC fans were giddy, because this film was our hope that WB would be turning things around.  I mention all this because now this has managed to become one of the worst-reviewed films of the year, and I’m just sitting here like WTF happened, did they see some other cut of the film?  I’ve held off on writing this, because I’ve struggled with the direction I wished to write this.  There’s the comic fan in me that has so much to say, then there is the more critical side, and usually I fall somewhere in between. Then I decided the hell with it, I’m just going to come at this full film geek.  My reasoning, it seems 90% of critics out there have forgotten how to have fun at the movies, and it’s a shame, because I know at some point all of them were film lovers, but at some point they decided to turn their noses up at the trashy and the cool popcorn flicks.  So strap yourself in, and let me give you the real rundown on the film.

After the events of Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice, a government official, Amanda Waller, (Viola Davis) has a plan to get a team of the world’s most dangerous villains to fight the battles the government may find too dangerous to openly confront.  Among these villains are “meta-humans” who have special gifts that can be used as weapons against the “Supermans” of the world.  It’s a dangerous prospect, but as she is pitching this idea, you can’t help but agree with where she is coming from.  This leads us to our roll call to our soon-to-be anti-heroes.

Moviegoers tend to have better memories than amnesiac assassins, but I think it’s fair to say we’ve mostly put The Bourne Legacy out of our minds. Universal’s underwhelming, half-hearted attempt to spin off one of its more lucrative franchises all but guaranteed the eventual return of original star Matt Damon and two-time director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum). The duo has re-teamed for the entertaining yet inessential Jason Bourne, which — for better and worse — will feel extremely familiar for fans of the trilogy.

“I remember…I remember everything.”

“Everyone is afraid of the dark…and that’s what she feeds on.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, I am a full-grown adult. That means I can’t in good conscience admit to being afraid of the dark. The most I’ll concede is a sense of uneasiness if I’m in a dark space because I might bump into something. And if I hear a strange noise in the middle of the night, my mind might start creating sinister shapes out of shadows. (Hold on…am I afraid of the dark?!) Either way, that primal and unshakable fear of what could be hiding just out of sight is what powers Lights Out, one of the leaner, nimbler, and flat-out most enjoyable low-budget horror flicks in recent years.

"Space... The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before."

Every Star Trek fan knows the words by heart. For 50 years they've heralded the promise of something special. From the television show that couldn't but did anyway to 12 feature films. Would #13 be the lucky one? The trailers left many of us worried that it would more than likely be unlucky. And we needed so much for this one to be great. Since the last film we lost Leonard Nimoy, who was most certainly the heart of the franchise on the screen. He was also the gateway between the two incarnations. That loss was eventually expected. Then we tragically lost Anton Yelchin, who was one of the industry’s rising stars. It's the 50th anniversary, and with all this we really needed something good. Trailers said we were out of luck. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I'm here to tell you that you can't judge a film by its trailers. Star Trek Beyond turns out to be not only what the fans wanted... but what we desperately needed.

Captain Fantastic has nothing to do with Elton John. (It turns out that’s not entirely true, because director/writer/actor Matt Ross (Big Love, Silicon Valley) found out his mother played Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy all the time, and it must have imbedded itself in his subconscious). The story in the movie starts in a very Lord of the Flies way, with camouflaged faces hidden amongst the leaves of the woods. They are children, and one of them leaps from the bush with a knife and cuts a deer’s neck. There are seven children and they all belong to Ben (Viggo Mortensen, Lord of the Rings). The oldest boy has killed the deer, and Ben baptizes him in blood and says he is now a man. This would lead one to think this is some kind of radical cult. Anything dangerous and deranged is soon dispelled. It is simply a father teaching his children survival skills. It is a father holding his family together and bonding with them and loving them and passing on knowledge. Ben’s form of home schooling is extremely rigorous and intellectual. This has been a lifestyle for a very long time. His wife has recently gotten very ill and is not with them anymore, living in the woods. Then she dies. Her father, Jack (Frank Langella, The Americans) hates Ben and says he will have Ben arrested if he comes to the funeral, but Jack’s wife, Abigail (Ann Dowd, The Leftovers, The Masters of Sex), hopes a compromise can be formed. Ben decides he won’t go to the funeral, but the children are furious and sad about this. Eventually Ben relents, and they take an old converted bus and hit the road.

The movie is absolutely beautiful. It is a celebration of both nature and a way of life that has almost disappeared. The family is like no family you are likely to know. This becomes especially apparent when they visit family members on the way. Harper (Kathryn Hahn, Transparent, Parks and Recreation), Dave (Steve Zahn, Treme, Modern Family) and their two boys are a typical American family, and they couldn’t be more different than Ben’s brood. In fact, Ben’s philosophies and methods might be considered controversial, so I won’t reveal much about them and let you discover for yourself. If you go see this film, you can decide if it’s a good family or not. Ben is mostly a very reasonable and civilized person, but it is not to say he compromises his principles in any way.

Café Society looks absolutely gorgeous. Every camera setup finds a new authentic location that suggests a time and place long ago. The lighting and cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Last Tango in Paris, Reds, Apocalypse Now) are sumptuous and delicious. The story is novelistic like an F. Scott Fitzgerald magnum opus. Woody Allen has had a long and very productive career. He is definitely at a stage when he should have slowed down, but he doesn’t. Café Society is not Woody’s magnum opus, but it certainly feels like he is reaching for it. It has depth and complexity. It is funny at times but is generally filled with ache and regret. The film is crammed with story and beautiful moments. When one thread seems resolved, it moves on yet again to another. All of Allen’s themes drift through the conversations of the characters, but they seem to have less conviction than they ever had. There seems to be a consistent lack of solidity to these lives. It seems like things matter, but then you come to accept that they don’t. There are so many characters I can hardly begin to list them.

The main character is Bobby Dorfman (Jessie Eisenberg), and his family is central to the story. Bobby’s mother, Rose (Jeannie Berlin) tries to get him to go to Hollywood to work for Phil Stern (Steve Carell), her brother and a big-shot Hollywood agent. Another important thread to the story is that of Jessie’s brother, Ben (Corey Stoll), who is a gangster who eventually becomes the owner of a fancy night club. Café Society winds its way from New York to Hollywood and back again. The other central thread is the story of Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), who is a sweet and unpretentious girl who becomes an object of desire for more than one man. Stewart, by the way, has never been better. She radiates warmth and charisma, her smoky eyes and shy smile recalling famous Hollywood movie stars of the past. She does not play a movie star here, but a secretary without great ambitions.

Growing up one of coolest jobs I thought was out there was undercover work. Not to diminish all the threats to one’s well-being associated with that profession, but come on, who didn’t want the opportunity to reinvent themselves as someone else entirely. Undercover affords that opportunity. That said, it does not come without a cost, and that cost is explored thoroughly in The Infiltrator, a based on a true story tale about a U.S. Customs agent who infiltrates the most successful and equally dangerous drug cartel led by the one and only Pablo Escobar. An interesting little tidbit that I was unaware of before the opening credits was that this film was shot right here in the Tampa area, which provided recognizable environment and a chance to pick out familiar territory.  

The Infiltrator follows Robert Mazur (Bryan Cranston) a seasoned agent with the United States Customs Service with a talent for undercover work. After successfully completing operation, he finds himself thrown back into the mix for possibly the biggest operation he has ever every undertaken: infiltrating the money laundering operation used to clean the proceeds for the Medellin Cartel, led by Pablo Escobar.

I am somewhat angry right now. I am increasingly stunned at what is being praised in this culture. We are trapped in an era that is supposed to be enlightened but is ladled on top with layers of rotting organic material (which is a euphemism for a rather rude word). There seem to be no interest in certain things that are very important and increasingly relevant to us. There are subtleties and complexities about ourselves that we don’t understand and that is why the world is still enmeshed in violence and madness. I am talking about people who should know better. People who pontificate and tell us what we are supposed to think. Critics. Pundits. Prognosticators. I am one and I try to stand apart and formulate my own thoughts but it is difficult when you feel alone sometimes. The Free State of Jones has been called boring. It is not. It is one of the best historical films I have seen for a while. It is the best film of the year so far. 12 Years a Slave was a magnificent film and I would say The Free State of Jones is better. All sorts of modern entertainment is paraded before us, and it is all somewhat repetitive and pointless. It is mindless entertainment. I will try not to get too specific because I don’t really object to mindless entertainment. What I do object to is that when all this mindless, jaded and scattered opinion then turns its back on anything academic and well researched. Many historical films are somewhat staid and a little boring. The Free State of Jones is not one of those films. It is a war film and a film of constant conflict and battle that takes many forms. It is complex and unexpected in its story telling. It is brilliantly acted by everyone from the smallest part to the man who plays Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughy).

Knight is the central character of the film. His story is true and part of forgotten history. Forgotten history is all that history that they deliberately don’t tell us. It is an amazing, vital and important story. Knight was a fearsome fighter and a man of unbreakable will and keen intellect. He was also a poor farmer in Mississippi during the Civil War. His journey was to organize a rebellion against the confederacy. Years before Communism he created a pocket in the South that existed to band all the poor and disenfranchised together to share in a common goal. The story takes remarkable turns and I was honestly surprised how much depth, complexity and relevance was brought to the story. I will not even try to summarize it. If you like history, I cannot recommend the film highly enough. If history bores you, then you are likely a boring person. True history is full of guideposts to learn from. Our world is in turmoil because too many leaders have not learned the lessons of history.