Tag: movies

Movie: Call of the Wild (2020)

computer-generated dog

Call of the WildI’ve never read Jack London’s Call of the Wild. As far as I can remember, I’ve not seen any movie or television adaptations.

What drew me to the nearby Madison Theatre a few days before everything went into lockdown were two things: Harrison Ford’s presence and the $5 ticket price all day on Tuesdays.

An overly large pooch, a St. Bernard/Scotch Collie mix, seemed to have the run of a California home. Then he was dognapped and shipped north to Alaska.

He was purchased as part of a sled dog team operated by Perrault (Omar Sy) and Françoise (Cara Gee). Eventually, he crosses paths, for the third time, with John Thornton (Ford). Thornton protects Buck against the cruel Hal (Dan Stevens), who had stolen and beaten Buck.

Thornton and Buck go on an expedition further north practically to the Arctic Circle. In this environment, the once pampered Buck gets in touch with his primitive roots when interacting with a pack of wolves. The story was OK.

NOt a real dog

I was more curious whether I would buy the computer-generated dog in Call of the Wild as real. The answer is, “Sometimes.” The technique was less effective in the early narrative. Or maybe the storyline was just too goofy. But in his relationship with Perrault and Françoise, and later with Thornton, “he” usually resonated as a dog more believably.

I credit the fact that those performers were interacting with actor/stuntman Terry Notary, who modeled all of Buck’s actions. Those actors all expressed admiration for Notary’s work, giving them someone credible and emotive to perform with, rather than a blue screen.

There was a small audience for the 1 p.m. show. I ordered a burger, slightly overpriced but good.

It took SO long for the Madison Theatre to reopen. I hope it can withstand the current disruption. Good news is that it’s still selling food, pickup/delivery only. I’m inclined to order from them when I can.

Movie review: Just Mercy (2019)

tangle of conspiracy and political machination

Just Mercy
Michael B. Jordan, Bryan Stevenson, Jamie Foxx
Before Just Mercy was a major motion picture, it was a book by Bryan Stevenson. The young Harvard-trained lawyer from Delaware “founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system.”

I have not yet read the book. But my wife has, and she feels that the movie treatment is a fair representation of the narrative. “One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian (Jaime Foxx in the movie), a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder” of an 18-year-old white female “he insisted he didn’t commit.”

“The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.” There was a great deal of evidence proving McMillian’s innocence. “The only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie.”

That story was the basis of the movie. Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) meets with Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), a local white activist, and he starts the EJI. Seemingly simple acts such as getting office space, is a challenge.

Anger?

I found Just Mercy to be a compelling story about fighting injustice in a dangerous situation. It’s interesting that 99% of the Rotten Tomatoes audience found it compelling but only 84% of the critics. Most of the latter use terms such as: “There’s too little anger and dirt and fear in this story.” Another: “calibrated… with an eye to not offending White viewers with anything remotely resembling Black anger.”

These people have totally missed the point. The black folks are angry, but generally resigned to an unjust system that requires an unnecessary strip search. Or the fear of death when Driving While Black. A courtroom protest, shown in the trailer, will land you in jail. When the deck is so stacked against you, anger tends to be modulated.

A.O. Scott writes in the New York Times: “Just Mercy is saved from being an earnest, inert courtroom drama when it spends time on death row, where it is opened up and given depth by two strong, subtle performances, from Foxx and Rob Morgan.”

I was moved by Just Mercy. It wasn’t a showy cinematic experience. But it told an important story well.

Movie review: Marriage Story

ScarJo with two acting noms

Marriage StoryThe movie Marriage Story was included in the Vanity Fair article Divorce Stories: Why the Oscars Love Miserable Couples. I realized how true the observation was. And I’m one of those folks who had been attracted to these.

Ordinary People (1980), Kramer v. Kramer (1979), the early oeuvre of Woody Allen. These are among the films I related to heavily at the time.

The beginning of Marriage Story was quite lovely. Charlie (Adam Driver), a theater director, and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) are putting together lists. They are to write down the traits they like in each other. Alas, this is in anticipation of their inevitable divorce.

Still, they both agree to try to work out the arrangement without dragging lawyers into the mix. They want to protect their son Henry (Azhy Robertson) from too much drama.

Yet the arrangement becomes a transcontinental affair. Charlie has a theater gig in Manhattan. Nicole, whose family is from SoCal, has an acting gig in LA.

Send lawyers…

So Nicole gets a fiercely strong attorney, Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern, NOTHING like Marmie in Little Women). Charlie is forced to respond, with the avuncular Bert Spitz (Alan Alda). High-powered lawyer Jay Marotta (Ray Liotta) may not be available.

Charlie and Henry are visited by a social worker, which was difficult. Charlie, back in NYC, sings to his cast. There is a rather emotionally brutal scene between the principals; THAT was exhausting. At the end, do they find the balance they sought?

Marriage Story was written by Noah Baumbach. He wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale (2005), which also touched on the themes of divorce and children. I haven’t seen it since I first viewed it at the time. But I recall enjoying it far more than Marriage Story. He also penned the screenplay to The Fantastic Mr. Fox. So he can write about happy families.

This was a very well-written, -paced, and -acted movie. The nominations for Johansson, Driver and especially Dern are warranted. I don’t imagine me seeing Marriage Story again, though.

Movie review: 1917 (Mendes)

My first film at the new Madison Theatre

The movie 1917 was the first film my wife and I saw at the newly refurbished Madison Theatre. It’s only three blocks from our house. We walked there on a rainy Saturday afternoon in January.

When we entered the room, there were some animated short films already running. One was the 2015 offering Ear Fear. They were followed by previews of three movies, including The Turning, which was playing on another of the Madison’s four screens.

In April 1917, two British soldiers – Dean-Charles Chapman as Blake and George MacKay as Schofield – are “sent to deliver an urgent message to an isolated regiment. If the message is not received in time, the regiment will walk into a trap and be massacred.” Blake has a brother at that imperiled regiment.

As one spoiler-laced review notes, “When done well, [the long take] immerses the audience in the scene. If the action is literally unfolding all around the camera, it’s easy to convince viewers that they, too, are in the thick of it. It’s a gimmick, to be sure, but Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins make it work for 1917.”

I agree with that assessment. It may have the best chance of the nine films nominated for Best Picture to take home the Oscar. Yet about 10% of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a thumbs down.

Sentimentality?

What’s the general complaint? Often that the film is style over substance. Richard Brody’s review in the New Yorker is informative.

“The character’s death would have been as wrenching for viewers if the soldier’s appearance remained unaltered and he merely fell limp. Instead, the director, Sam Mendes, chose to render the moment picturesque—to adorn it with an anecdotal detail of the sort that might have cropped up in a war story, a tale told at years’ remove…”

I suppose there is something to this criticism. Interestingly, Mendes gives credit to his grandfather for telling these stories. Yet it is the sentimentality that makes the penultimate scene feel so touching.

“‘1917’ is a film of patriotic bombast and heroic duty, The script is filled with melodramatic coincidences that grossly trivialize the life-and-death action by reducing it to sentiment.” There are coincidences, to be sure. They did not take away from our appreciation of the film. But 1917, in the end, was less gruesome than those horror film trailers.

The Madison Theatre has table service. I was wary that this would be distracting, but it was not, in large part because the seats and tables alternate.

Even the waitstaff aiding people to our right was not that distracting. It’s hardly as bad as the chuckleheads talking in front of us when we saw Richard Jewell at the Spectrum about a month earlier.

Movie review: Knives Out

not The Last Jedi

knives outI went to see the movie Knives Out alone at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany in January 2020. There might have been a bit of trepidation that there would be a lot of stabbings or the like. It is a murder mystery, but the violence is brief.

It is much more the comedic murder mystery, though the humor is earned one you’ve gotten to know the parties involved. The victim of the murder or the suicide was Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), who the audience gets to know better in various flashback scenes.

Members of the household questioned by the police. They include Harlan’s daughter Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis); her husband Richard (Don Johnson); and their son Hugh Ransom (Chris Evans). Also Harlan’s son Walt (Michael Shannon), in charge of the publishing, and Harlan’s widowed daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette), with a new-age line of products, plus others.

Certainly, one couldn’t suspect Harlan’s trusted caretaker, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), an immigrant from Paraguay or Brazil or ONE of those countries. The family couldn’t keep track.

WB

Some guy sitting in on the interviews remained mostly quiet at first. Soon enough, he made himself known. He is famed detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who has his own interest in the case. At one point, a family member says that Blanc sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. That’s a bit true, and note the detective’s surname.

I enjoyed Frank Oz as the put-upon probate lawyer, though I couldn’t place him until the end credits. “Of course,” I said aloud. A woman leaving in the row behind me whispered to me, “I love Frank Oz too.”

Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, has created a much different film here. It was funnier and more wacky as the dysfunctional family reveals itself. The movie even received a smattering of applause at the end. Agatha Christie might have been pleased.

I recommended Knives Out to my wife as the film I’d seen that was the most fun. My daughter was annoyed that I didn’t take her. I went on a school day and didn’t know if it’d be appropriate. It’s more like a sophisticated version of Murder, She Wrote, which is specifically referenced.

Ramblin' with Roger
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