Monday at the Movies - June 4, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, more pudding than I was expecting.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) – Voluntarily watching an Adam Sandler movie is quite low on my list of priorities, and yet Punch-Drunk Love is just a film that happens to have Adam Sandler in it. Guided by the masterful script and direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, a true Cinema King favorite ever since There Will Be Blood, Sandler proves himself quite competent when he puts forth the effort. Sandler stars as Barry Egan, a plunger salesman with seven sisters, an anxiety problem, and a temper to match; contemporaneous with meeting the besotted Lena Leonard (Emily Watson), Barry’s life falls headlong into a number of implausible schemes, ranging from identity theft to exchanging pudding cups for airline miles. It’s the sort of oddball plot that might fit in a Coen Brothers movie (think Burn After Reading), only Anderson is more deadly serious than I suspect the Coens would ever attempt, aided by a tense and clattering score from Jon Brion that seems to anticipate Anderson’s later work with Jonny Greenwood. That Anderson gets as good a performance from Sandler as he does a score from Brion is one of the film’s greatest pleasures, as Sandler funnels his nervous energy into a compelling character who bears none of the lame humor pervasive in the rest of his career. Among the surprises of the film, aside from the pudding, is a captivating appearance by the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman as a shouty mattress salesman slash phone sex pimp; Hoffman is as commanding as he ever was, an apt reminder of his unsettled performance as Anderson’s eponymous Master. Punch-Drunk Love is a brisk forerunner of Anderson’s longer epics, but it displays his consistent manipulation of tension, even in the screwiest of circumstances.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has been compared to The Empire Strikes Back, particularly along the lines of being a solid and just-different-enough second entry in a trilogy (though Hunger Games is going the cashgrab route by splitting Mockingjay into two).  The positive reviews are fantastic news for fans of the franchise – and, I suspect, newcomers – even if the movie doesn’t quite stick the landing.

After she and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) defied the Capitol to win the 74^th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) learns that the evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) has arranged for her to enter the arena once more in the 75^th “Quarter Quell” Hunger Games.  While facing off against other returning winners of Hunger Games past, Katniss and Peeta struggle to form new alliances while convincing the spectators they’re still in love.

Though Gary Ross did a fine job with the first outing, director Francis Lawrence (no relation, apparently) outshines his predecessor by eliminating some of Ross’s arthouse excesses – especially the shaky-cam and what I called “decadence by Lady Gaga” – and opting for a steadier approach to the story which lets the narrative instability – that is, the internal conflicts and burgeoning rebellions – carry through nonetheless.  Lawrence is equally at home directing ballroom dances, political scheming, and stealth-based action, a versatile hand at the till.

Perhaps more remarkable is the unbelievably talented cast, elevating this from the “teenybopper” genre into something with a little more gravitas.  Jennifer Lawrence, despite being an Oscar winner, never feels like she’s slumming it, instead giving it her all as the steely archer Katniss.  The rest of the returning cast are all still quite good; Sutherland is deliciously smarmy, Woody Harrelson is still stalwart as the drunken mentor Haymitch, and Elizabeth Banks steps up her game as Effie Trinket, the PR shadow who grows a conscience.  For my own philosophical reasons, I wasn’t wholly convinced by the love triangle plotline (something I didn’t dig in the books, either), but Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth are capable – the former more so, since he’s given more to do.

As with Thor: The Dark World, in which the supremely talented Idris Elba gets a solid bit part as Heimdall, god of light, Catching Fire is littered with resplendently talented thespians fleshing out the side characters.  Ostensibly the most significant such example is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s appearance as shifty new gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee; though he doesn’t go in for all the zany beards and spangly outfits, Hoffman’s Plutarch fits in with the sinister Capitol crowd, shiftily untrustworthy with an innocuous glint in his eye.  Also joining the cast:  Geoffrey Wright as a tech-savvy Tribute, bringing his usual class and impeccable diction; Amanda Plummer, his schizo opposite number; and Jena Malone as Johanna Mason, compellingly managing the character’s manic oscillations between sultry and shouty.  (Spoilers?  I’m especially glad she’ll be back for the sequel, since she has perfect love/hate chemistry with Lawrence.)

This sequel manages to achieve that different-but-familiar sensation, preserving the basic dystopia/decadence/arena formula of the first film without feeling repetitive (a claim, oddly enough, I can’t say holds true for the source material).  There’s just enough difference – difference done well, too – that the film manages to step into what feels like a new place, giving it that Empire Strikes Back feel:  doing the right stuff again, adding in new and better stuff (in this analogy, I suppose Hoffman is our Lando Calrissian), and ditching the parts that didn’t work.  Unfortunately, also like Empire, Catching Fire doesn’t really end; instead, the movie cuts to black just when things were getting really interesting, inviting moviegoers back for what’s already a cashgrab in two pieces.  

After Prometheus, I have a little less patience for this kind of thing, but I suppose that the biggest compliment I can pay Catching Fire is that the preceding two hours are so successful that the last-minute “To Be Continued” ends up being entirely inoffensive.  If this is fire, I’m happy to catch it.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is rated PG-13 “for intense sequences of violence and action, some frightening images, thematic elements, a suggestive situation and language.”  The combat scenes are shorter than in the first Hunger Games, though there are several explosions that toss bodies around.  In one scene, howling monkeys torment our heroes; in another, demonic mockingbirds.  Throughout, the specter of death haunts each character, and in one scene a woman undresses in front of three others, with no nudity shown.

Tuesday at the Movies - April 30, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies,” coming at you via Tuesday due to unavoidable circumstances (or, to be more precise, circumstances I chose not to avoid).  Before our summer blockbuster coverage begins, we take a moment for one of the strangest Oscar-nominated films from last year.

The Master (2012) – After crafting There Will Be Blood, an unexpectedly riveting drama about an oil man and his tense relations with his adopted son and a flimflam preacher, Paul Thomas Anderson (PT to his admirers, a nod to the Barnum Circus of attractions) is on my shortlist of directors to watch no matter what.  The Master is a baffling film, cryptic even when it’s not trying, but it’s a captivating watch that doesn’t fail to enthrall.  Joaquin Phoenix stars as drifter Freddie Quell, whose latest bender leads him into the path of mysterious cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  Captivated by Freddie, Dodd begins to alter the practices of “The Cause,” a thinly-veiled Scientology allegory whose promises of enlightenment are never quite clear.  What is clear is that Dodd’s wife Peggy (Amy Adams as the not-so-sweet matriarch) is growing weary of Freddie’s company.  That’s all quite upfront, but much of the movie raises questions – How much of this is real?  What does it mean?  What is “The Cause”?  Much of the fun of the movie comes not from discovering the answers but from thinking through the questions with the movie.  And while the script is aloof in a David Lynch sort of way, the performances are compelling beyond requirement, more than earning those Oscar nods; Phoenix disappears behind Freddie Quell, down to the posture and squint of a damaged man.  And Hoffman is stellar as always; indeed, I’m not convinced Christoph Waltz was better in Django Unchained, especially after Hoffman’s eerie incantation of “Slow Boat to China” or his stubborn insistence on the rectitude of The Cause.  But don’t let the comparison to Lynch put you off; The Master is a film that will leave sighing breathlessly – not for perplexity at the disconnects but for exhaustion from probing those lacunae.  In fact, I’m certain The Master requires multiple viewings for full comprehension, but you need only one to know that Anderson is as much the master as Lancaster Dodd.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week for Iron Man 3!

Monday at the Movies - June 4, 2012

Welcome to Week Twenty-One of “Monday at the Movies,” another lackluster week in the domain of the Cinema King.

The Beaver (2011) – The Beaver is a cautionary tale, but the warning it carries bears no relationship to the movie you may have seen.  Rather, it’s an advisory not to trust the marketing campaign of a film.  If you’re expecting a kooky comedy in which Mel Gibson sorts through his psychological problems and reunites with his family thanks to the help of a lovable British beaver puppet, you’re out of luck.  The Beaver is extremely depressing, albeit with good performances all around.  Gibson communicates his character’s illness effectively, leading the viewer to feel on edge as he falls further from sanity, while Jodie Foster as his wife (and the film’s director) is appropriately earnest.  Cinema King favorite Anton Yelchin’s hatred of his father seethes off the screen, and his chemistry with valedictorian Jennifer Lawrence is perceptible and plausible (after an initial clichéd first encounter).  And perhaps there’s a very good movie in here somewhere, an honest depiction of mental illness led by an allegedly troubled actor, and perhaps this is merely a case of expectation misaligned with reality; that is, maybe my preconception of the movie got in the way of my appreciation for the film.  What I can say, though, is that The Beaver was a very unpleasant and uncomfortable viewing experience, making me squirm in more than a few places and grimace in others.  If this is what Foster was intending, job well done, because this is a very depressing movie.  But if we’re meant to be inspired by the film, mission not accomplished.

Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012) – Ordinarily TV movies aren’t quite under the purview of the Cinema King, but we have a bit of a Hemingway thing going on here lately.  After being disappointed by the (mis)use of Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, I was gratified to see that HBO was working on a biopic about Hemingway’s tempestuous marriage to Martha Gellhorn.  Even better news:  Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman – a talented cast, mind you – were headlining.  (Recall, I was clamoring loudly for Clive Owen to succeed Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.)  So much for the good news.  The bad news?  The result, Hemingway & Gellhorn, is unorganized and meandering, focusing more on character than on plot.  Ordinarily this would be fine, but the characters here are too static to be interesting.  Owen and Kidman are very compelling and capture the essences of their characters, but they neither do anything very interesting nor evolve in any significant way.  The same is true for other big names who appear briefly – Tony Shalhoub, Robert Duvall, David Strathairn, etc.  Consequently, we have a novelty act that wears off once you realize it’s careening around the globe without purpose.  Worse, the film muddles history by implying that Gellhorn’s divorce from Hemingway caused his suicide years later, a move which seems to contradict the film’s attempts to canonize Gellhorn.  Ironically, the film finds many characters telling Hemingway that a film adaptation of A Farewell to Arms failed to capture his work accurately; similarly, our great Hemingway film, it seems, is yet to be.

The Ides of March (2011) – Continuing the trend of people who should be doing better work, George Clooney (who did so well with Good Night and Good Luck) directs Ryan Gosling (whose work was a surprise gem in Lars and the Real Girl) in this fable about American politics.  Gosling plays an idealistic campaign worker who falls for the American dream pitched by Clooney’s candidate, but Gosling is jaded by a series of revelations about the way the political scene really operates and drops his idealism for cynical throat-cutting and backstabbing.  Again, a fantastic supporting cast – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, even President Logan – turns in good performances all around (Hoffman especially is, as always, engaging) but is criminally underused in yet another story that goes nowhere.  Literally.  The film ends just as it’s picking up steam, and all we’re left with is yet another film that offers up the trite moral “American politics is a dirty game.”  With so many interesting characters assembled, one wishes the writers had pushed the material at least one step beyond what we already know.  It’s not that The Ides of March is a bad movie; what we have is entertaining enough, but there’s no “pay off.”  It’s a lot of sound and fury, but it signifies nothing, ending as only a tale told by an idiot can.  If I can channel my inner Gene Shalit for a moment, “Beware The Ides of March.”

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!  (And hopefully things turn around before July 20, because that’d be a heck of a dry spell otherwise.)

The Big Lebowski (1998)

To say that I'm a fan of the Coen Brothers is something of an understatement: they're among my favorite filmmakers, abundantly entertaining and deftly profuse. So to say that The Big Lebowski is my favorite Coen flick is probably also an understatement (though Barton Fink kind of muddles that statement).

There are two Jeffrey Lebowskis - The Dude (Jeff Bridges), amiable stoner hero extraordinaire prone to swilling White Russians, and The Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), a prime mover in the L.A. region. When the two are confused by a pair of nitwit goons - and one micturates on The Dude's rug - looking for The Big Lebowski's wife Bunny (Tara Reid) and the money she owes to one Jackie Treehorn, that's where the trouble begins. It only gets worse when The Dude tells bowling buddies Walter Sobchak (a perfectly over-the-top John Goodman), a Vietnam vet obsessed with his service and his religion ("Shomer Shabbos!"), and Donny (Steve Buscemi), who can't seem to get a word in edgewise, Walter convinces The Dude to petition The Big Lebowski for rug compensation. After all, "that rug really tied the room together."

That's all in the first ten or so minutes. The rest is a tangled web of mystery, blackmail, kidnapping, Creedence Clearwater Revival, pornography, deceit, and bowling. Eat your heart out, Raymond Chandler. Speaking of Chandler, this is the best adaptation of The Big Sleep since Bogart and Bacall bantered back in the Forties. It's also the most comprehensible, although I'll admit it took me a second viewing to fully understand just what had happened. This is a top-notch screenplay from the Coens, poetically profane and tantalizingly tangled.

Much as Sweeney Todd was for Tim Burton, this is the movie that the Coens have been aiming to make throughout their whole career. It's got all the Coen staples - both plot points and cast members - and it's their pinnacle film. Nothing before or since - not even No Country for Old Men, Oscar-winner though it may be - has matched The Big Lebowski.

The film takes place in a world populated by classic Coen characters, The Dude and Walter not least among them. There's John Turturro as pederast bowler Jesus Quintana, who talks a big game; Philip Seymour Hoffman as bootlicking sycophant butler Brandt; Julianne Moore as feminist artist Maude, who wants The Dude in more ways than one; Ben Gazzara as mysterious smut peddler Jackie Treehorn; Arthur Digby Sellers, a classic TV writer now confined to an iron lung; his son, a sloppy juvenile delinquent; and Sam Elliott as The Stranger, a narrator soothing enough to give Morgan Freeman a run for his money.

It's difficult to say much more about The Big Lebowski beyond "It must be seen." This is a wholly original movie that really escapes description. Relaxed and entertaining, The Big Lebowski is certainly my favorite Coen Bros. picture - and may even land a spot on my irregular-around-the-margins Best Movies of All Time list.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

May you be in heaven half an hour, the old saying goes, before the devil knows you're dead.

The significance of the film's title is just one of the many things about which Sidney Lumet's latest - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - will leave you thinking. Although I had a similar amount of unprocessed thoughts with Brokeback Mountain, I'm more inclined to label this film as "to my liking."

It seems almost a crime to give any sort of plot summary to the film, which jumps back and forth chronologically in order to properly tell the story of a heist gone wrong. (Sensing a trend in my summer movie tastes? I sure am.) Let's put it this way - you find all this out in about the first twenty minutes, anyway. Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) are two brothers, both of whom are hard up for money for reasons that the film will explain as the story progresses. So they decide on a victimless crime: the robbery of an insured mom and pop jewelry store. The catch? The mom and pop store belongs to Andy and Hank's mom and pop (Rosemary Harris [Spidey's Aunt May] and Albert Finney). Naturally, the heist goes horribly askew, and the film becomes a mix of covering the trail and making things right.

Credit Sidney Lumet's impeccable direction for keeping the film at an even pace while meandering to and fro in time. In a way, Lumet is doing the same thing that Lost has been doing for four years, only he's doing it one step better by making the flashbacks and flashforwards a) interesting and b) relevant to the plot.

Another element Lost is missing is strong character acting (of course Lost has its acting athletes like Michael Emerson, but... we're not here to review serialized drama, are we?). Each performance in here is top-notch; P.S. Hoffman deserved an Oscar for this more than he did for Capote (for the definitive Capote film, see Toby Jones in Infamous), Ethan Hawke redeems himself as an actor, and Albert Finney brings an intensity to his role that only a Brit can provide. Even Marisa Tomei, whose basic function here seems to be to stand around and look attractive, has her moments to shine.

I should also commend Kelly Masterson's masterful screenplay, which keeps the plot moving while alternating between moments of high tension and dramatic revelation. My only gripe here is that the fate of one of the main characters is left completely open ended; we last see this character running around a street corner, never to be seen or heard from again. It's as though the film should have gone on for another scene.

But it's good to see that, fifty years after his debut with 1957's Twelve Angry Men, Sidney Lumet hasn't lost his touch.