Zero calories, loads of caffeine

Game Change

(2012)

I find that I have 2 things in common with Sarah Palin: (1) a deep, abiding passion for Diet Dr Pepper and (2) a tendency to freeze and withdraw when exposure of an area of ignorance makes us look stupid. True, the fact that Germany was on the other side in two world wars is not one of my areas of ignorance (and really, seriously, can that have been true of her?), but still, I know that feeling, and it made me much more sympathetic to her plight than I would have imagined myself capable of being.

And it's not just because the portrayer is My Future Wife Julianne Moore. In fact, my one misgiving about watching the film at all was having to see MFWJM as someone in whom I have invested so much animus, but it was not a problem, because the transformation was so complete that the first time she appears, on a TV screen, I thought, "Oh, OK, on TV they're using actual footage of Palin," until I searched the face more carefully and found traces of Julianneness.

The film is based on a book that in notably unsympathetic to Palin, and you can certainly see why McCain's people found her impossible, yet there's a complexity and--dare I say it?--humanity that makes her story of a sincere if loony ideologue in way above her head trainwreck-fascinating.

One cliché at a time

Sherrybaby

(2006)

Maggie Gyllenhaal is convincing as a parolee trying to stay off drugs and be a mother to her daughter, but there is absolutely nothing original or surprising here, least of all the big reveal that is supposed to shock us and explain much about why Sherry is where and who she is.

Worlds collide

In a World . . .

Crit

A smart and almost thoroughly delightful romantic comedy, driven by a mostly subtle feminist agenda. A couple of unfortunate in-case-you-can't-figure-this-out-for-yourself didactic speeches near the end only slightly dim the glow. Lake Bell wrote, directed, and stars, and let's see (in all 3 capacities) lots more of her, and the Jason Schwartzman-esque Demetri Martin provides perfect colleague/would-be-suitor awkwardness. Oh, and Eva Longoria is a damned good sport.

The World's End

Crit

Half of a hilarious film about a case of arrested development (and selective memory) played by Simon Pegg (who cowrote) seducing his boyhood mates into a very bad idea involving alcohol intake. I'm not really sure what is gained, though, when the film lurches into an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like science fiction plot.

Trailers

• All Is Lost--Robert Redford is the old man in the sea.
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty--In the old days I'd have said this is a 5, which is to say I'm in barring disastrous reviews. Ben Stiller directs and stars.
• Getaway--Looks like a video game; what's Ethan Hawke doing in this?

The semisweet hereafter

The Spectacular Now

Crit

Wow--this was way harder-edged than I expected, and way better, though I expected it to be pretty darned good. Among other excellences, it presents perhaps the most real movie teenagers I've ever seen, perhaps the most uncomfortably engaging loss of virginity, and certainly the most devastating portrayal--sans preachiness, the actions of Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) and his ever-present Thirst Master cup (think huge convenience store beverage) showing much more than any well-meaning friend or adult could tell--of teen alcoholism. Shailene Woodley, so good in The Descendants, may be even better here. A spectacularly good film that flirts with but never stoops to easy turns.

But one thing: they're in Georgia, so why does no one have a remotely Georgian accent?

Trailers

• Thanks for Sharing--Oddly, the trailer for this film about sex addiction was shown along with trailers for Don Jon (porn addiction) and The Wolf of Wall Street (money/sex/adrenaline/buzz addiction) before a film in which alcoholism plays a big part.

A spirit, not a ghost

Bulworth

(1998)

Wait, I called Lee Daniels unsubtle?

A good second politics-and-race feature for the day, and it had been long enough since I'd seen it (and let's face it: my memory is deteriorating rapidly enough) that I'd forgotten the key plot point that changes everything.

I'd also forgotten the wonderful performance as a crazy old seer by Amiri Baraka.

Slave quarters

Lee Daniels' The Butler

Crit

But first, a quiz. If you don't already know, match each president to the actor who plays him in this film (answers below):

Eisenhower    John Cusack
Kennedy        James Marsden
Johnson         Alan Rickman
Nixon            Liev Schreiber
Reagan          Robin Williams

This was what a friend calls a "homework" movie: one that you feel like you should see far more than one you actually want to see it. Well, as our teachers told us: not only is homework good for you, but sometimes you discover rewards you didn't expect.

Unsubtle but powerful and surprisingly complex, the film gains strength from a remarkable cast led by Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, but its heart is the beautiful and sometimes brilliant direction by the often suspect Daniels. He's at his best with juxtapositions that are perhaps obvious in retrospect but arresting in the moment: violence against the Greensboro lunch counter protesters played off against the military precision of black servants at a White House state dinner; JFK's greatest civil rights speech segueing into gunshots in Dallas, LBJ's into napalm in Vietnam. The polemics of the film are unarguable at this point, but the emotional impact is the result of great filmmaking.

And to get back to the quiz, Daniels's casting choices for the most important white people in the film are--with the exception of pretty boy Marsden as pretty boy Kennedy--stunningly counterintuitive but uniformly perfect: wacky Williams as Wonder Bread Ike, the eternal innocent Cusack as Tricky Dick, the restrained Jew Schreiber as the volcanic redneck Johnson, and the plummily British Rickman as Cowboy Ronnie. Williams, Schreiber, and Rickman are heavily made up to look the respective parts, though still readily identifiable by their voices, but the only obvious prosthetic for Cusack is the trademark ski nose. What fun!

Trailers

• August: Osage County--Looks stagily unpromising, but a great cast.
• The Best Man Holiday--Oh, dear.
• Saving Mr. Banks--Who knows how the film will be, but the trailer is a brilliant piece of misdirection, making your shoulders slump at the thought that Disney is remaking Mary Poppins. But no: it's the story of Walt Disney (Tom Hanks, in the latest installment of his "Saving" series) wooing author P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson) for the film rights, and of Travers educating Disney on the book's meaning. Could still be terrible, but the premise and the casting make for a strong start.

Lost appeal

Bananas

(1971)

Huh! It had been years since I'd seen this, but I watched it tonight not as a serious deaccession candidate but as a sure-fire laugh fest to buoy me after the director's latest downer this afternoon. Had you told me that I just wouldn't find it funny anymore, I'd have . . . well, I'd have told you that if you turned out to be right, you could have the disc, and so you can.

A cable car named despair

Blue Jasmine

Crit

I never saw Cate Blanchett's acclaimed performance in A Streetcar Named Desire, but I never doubted she could be a devastating Blanche DuBois, and if I had ever doubted it, I'd have dismissed that doubt this evening. But who could ever have imagined that 98 minutes in her company could be so excruciating? Another thing I've never seen is Woody Allen's most Bergmanesque film, Interiors, but it's hard to imagine its being any more unremittingly grim than this. Wait, I take that back: the grimness does occasionally remit here--but it is so plainly in remission that the metastatic recurrence is inevitable, making the seeming lightness all the more brutal.

The acting is remarkable across the board; we already knew what to expect from the likes of Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, and Bobby Cannavale, but who ever expected to be so moved by Andrew Dice Clay?

An amazing film, and the Woody Renaissance continues.

Trailers

• Salinger--The long-awaited documentary; I'm open to it, but the trailer suggested a bit too much intent to find some REALLY INCREDIBLE SECRET.
• Prisoners--Another children-in-peril drama, seemingly convoluted.

Lethal smile

Jaws

(1975)

Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of a novel about a mad sea captain's monomaniacal quest for a malevolently intelligent monster of the deep. Wonder whether that will turn out as happily as this one?

To have and have not

Elysium

Crit

In a distant future, one political faction wants liberal immigration policy and universal health care, while another faction wants neither. This is a nearly brilliant superhero-supervillains video comic book with a socialist subtext.

Trailers

• Captain Phillips--Yes, I've blurbed a trailer for this already, commenting that it looked as if the film was going to be hard-pressed to avoid seeming racist. Apparently I'm not the only one to have noticed that problem, because in this version of the trailer, the lead pirate is humanized, becoming not just a scary African but a man pushed by circumstances to do something he doesn't want to do, not unlike Max in today's feature.
• Ender's Game--Superhero kids; I have the sense there's a sizable market to be drawn from lovers of the source novel.
• Escape Plan--Gosh I thought we'd never see Sly and Arnold together again.
• Last Vegas--I hope I'm wrong in thinking this looks like a criminal waste of a great cast.
• The Monuments Men--This, on the other hand, looks extremely promising, a sort of anti-Inglourious Basterds wherein the WWII good guys try to prevent destruction.

Dead bee

To Have and Have Not

(1944)

How many people have ever had a debut like Bacall's?

Dying animals

Elegy

(2008)

Disliked this film even before I disliked the novel it's based on, but a friend who was shedding objects preparatory to leaving town gave me this, which obliged me to have another look before passing it along to . . . why, to you if you want it!

I shortchanged director Isabel Coixet in my previous review: not only did she supervise the (excellent) music in the film, she was also the lead camera operator, though how challenging can it have been to make Penélope Cruz look good, clothed and naked?

Water Wizz

The Way, Way Back

Crit

A nice entry in the I'm-14-and-no-one-understands-me subgenre, with Liam James as convincingly awkward and helpless as anyone we've seen (notwithstanding the source, his mother's asswipe boyfriend [and isn't it fun to see Steve Carell not be the nice guy for a change?], he really is pretty much a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 at the start), the wonderfully named AnnaSophia Robb as the older girl next door who does understand, and Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney as over-the-top scene thieves.

Trailers

• Baggage Claim--This has an excellent chance to be the worst film of the year.
• Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters--Looks like a cute kids' pic I have no interest in
• About Time--Plus: Bill Nighy; minus: from the people who brought us Love Actually.

Not very tall, but cute

The Big Sleep

(1946)

No, now I think Eddie Mars was behind the chauffeur's killing, perhaps via Canino. And another possibility (though I don't think do) is Geiger's assistant (lover?) Lundgren. But really: what difference does it make?

Orca dreams

Blackfish

Crit

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only viewer who has thought, "Golly, I never thought I'd see an orca jerked off!"

Nor the only one to hope that my grandchildren's generation is the last even to remember the existence of marine parks and zoos and aquariums and circuses. Yes, yes, I know: some of them serve educational functions. But we have lots of means of educating our children that would never be used in the same sentence with "abuse" or "torture" or "genocide." This shit is just wrong, it's just wrong. Stop it all.

Trailers

• The Butler--Great cast, looks more earnest than good. Directed by Lee Daniels. Frankly, the most premovie excitement came from a J. C. Penney commercial that uses the Magnetic Fields' "Chicken with Its Head Cut Off."

Even in a perfect world . . .

Ruby Sparks

(2012)

Wow! I sure wasn't wrong about that the first time. If anything, the romcom misdirection of the first act is an even crueler joke when you know what is to come. And the puppet-on-strings scene . . . just brutal. It will forever remain a mystery to me how the Academy could have overlooked/snubbed this for screenwriting, direction, and acting nominations. This is a great film that has joined In Her Shoes as one about which I am infinitely righter than was the Acad.

Faces in the mountain

Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus and 2012

Crit

Michael Cera plays a marginally less assholish character here than in This Is the End, an ugly American narcotourist--well, mescalinotourist--but the cooked contents of the San Pedro cactus and the raw and natural contents of a loopy neohippie who calls herself Crystal Fairy (Gaby Hoffmann) combine to make him more like the sweet Michael Cera character we're familiar with. Not sure whether this is a good film, but it's engagingly weird and unlike any I've ever seen. Sebastián Silva directed those two and his brothers Juan Andrés, José Miguel, and Agustín as their fellow travelers, a trio of innocent nearly angelic brothers.