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walterbruno37
Reviews
Hail, Caesar! (2016)
Deep entry necessary, but well worth it
The Coens usually combine wit and accessibility in a formula that works for many audiences. Here, the wit is sly, scattered, and arcane, like a foreign delicacy. Slow to bind into one set of meanings, it requires patience; however, in the end, it's worth the effort. The Coens are depicting the dream factory of mid-century Hollywood ("Pictchas"); how it drew marginals into its mainstream; and the competing missions and claims on that industry. Their main observation is about actors and movies, not about ideology; for that reason, the character played by Clooney is a vessel for anybody's ideas. The ideological polarities of 2015 will drive some informed viewers into opposition because the Coens offend almost everyone and tend to use caricature. Woody Allen would have had less trouble making this essay, and the Coens might have looked for a unifying context -- perhaps, with everyone working on a single film, not several. However, Hail Caesar works for those who stay and pay attention, and its final scenes are brilliant and insightful.
Mommy (2014)
If you're fond of ADD and histrionics go see it
A brave acting effort that entertains in moments, but tends to miss its target. This film will please some and frustrate others, hence my rating of 5/10. In general, the film is too schematic and too brief in the quiet moments, opting instead for highly theatrical poses. This is more about a mom and mental health than it is about the characters of Diane and Steve. There is little character development, and, when it does develop, it's due to external circumstances. The transitions in Steve, from calm to manic, are disconnected and ungrounded, making for random slice-of-life, not drama. There are too many nice-but-dysfunctional people in this film and they don't say interesting things or embark on any story arc, but merely prattle their dysfunctions. They're wildly improbable and ornamented and often ring hollow, e.g., Steve's mother, a potty-mouth pole-dancer, but who suddenly becomes a literary translator; ???? She may be a decent mom, but still bristles at being called Madame by the authorities, a psychological nonsense: is she a peasant, a hippie, or a grad student? Here and there, there are bits of anti-English bias, all gratuitous and juvenile. Gratuitous too, is the Steve-Kyla interaction. Instead of anchoring the story of the homeschooling within a thematic subplot, Kyla's part merely throws us off the track, as she suffers, giggles, and then explodes in Steve's face, a moment that's as histrionic and arch as everything else in the film. The character of Steve is a type, not a person; he's an enigma who presented too few reasons for me to care about him. By film's end, this (overlong) journey is sketchy. The main plot device does work well, but is ruined by a ludicrous and self-indulgent last scene.
Gone Girl (2014)
Good effort destroyed by another Hollywood cop-out
A valiant attempt at film noir, on the usual trope of male naiveté and female cunning. The satirical cameo critiquing reality t.v. and CNN is effective. There was other interesting stuff for about 100 minutes, then the film spiraled into absurdity. (spoiler alert- basic plot) This is the tale of a perverse and sociopathic woman who has spent years manipulating men. Dangerously -- for Hollywood -- her key manipulations involve deploying feminist tropes against men, the better to get away with the crime. Well, that couldn't be tolerated for long, so 30 ludicrous minutes are tacked onto the film, to make us feel neutral about her and less sorry for the male victims. Secondary plots are silly and generally pointless, and some of the action is pure varnish. Enough grandiose discourse on Gender is offered to fill a dozen college courses, which is why this will never be a classic film.
Boyhood (2014)
Creaky 1980s feminism
This item looks like a made-for-TV moral fable and might have been a 1983 plot about single moms. "Mom" is the all-suffering, nice, blond, articulate and heroically single mom. She's a lady raising two kids who howls at how meaningless it all is. Although real people don't talk in pat and formulaic sentences, Mom does: "I want to know who I am," she intones; "I went from being 'somebody's daughter' to 'somebody's wife'." Cue the flutter from Betty Friedan.
Mom is what we'd we'd expect in a moral fable: wise and thoughtful and unbreakable. So is her daughter, Samantha, a girl whose name can be masculinized to de-emphasize her original girlishness. So the film calls her Sam. This adds a soupçon of transgendering, very trendy.
The boy – ostensibly the topic of this movie – is just a kid. In fact, in this film, he's nothing at all, just a foil for feminist ruminations.
Mom has made the mistake of walking out on her first husband. Well, he's artistic, smokes dope, and doesn't have a steady job. For that, breadwinner Mom cuts him out. When hubby comes to call, she tries hard to not let him in.
Next, she goes back to school in order to "know who I am." There, she falls for the next available male caricature, the Power Abuser. This predictable item comes as a psychology professor who isn't so much a professor as a predator looking to hook up with co-eds.
Despite being preternaturally wise, Mom marries him. Well, we know how that's gonna end. Not only is the prof a sexual predator, he's also a drunk and a wife-beater.
At that point they were still focused on the all-wise Mom and I walked out. Friends told me later it got worse and went nowhere. The film has a deceptive title; a more accurate one would be Momhood, Whatever.
Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (2011)
Quietly brilliant
This deserved a fistful of Oscars. Canny, cunning, and telegraphs nothing; nice homage to the Italian neo-realists and perhaps to authors such as Milos Forman. A film with superb control, powerful plotting, discreet handling of emotion, very fine art direction, and also something of cultural interest, namely the contrast it shows between Eastern ideas of justice (i.e., systems) and ours. The actors are superb and seem to have had excellent direction. Only two hesitations, first, the relatively one-dimensional qualities of the female lead (but that was thematically logical) and secondly, the mystery which Westerners will be pondering, whether this film sweetens the view of life under the mullahs. But that's only marginally relevant, because this film is about the agony of growing old and apart and about the utility of truth; and it ploughs a field familiar to all of us. Bravo Iran for giving us this.
The Iron Lady (2011)
Unalloyed Pleasure
Forget the pettifogging criticisms, the politics, the sham academic theories, the personal agendas, the axes all ground up, or any other obtuse objection. This is a major event in the history of film, and the best bio-picture in perhaps 50 years. Mostly, for the performance by Meryl Streep, but also for the overall effect. The film does a fabulous job of weaving the two dimensions of Thatcher, political force and private, middle-class woman, into a dreamy and explosive quilt. The shifting from timeframe to timeframe and from period to period mirrors the film's thematic centre: loss of memory function by a quick-witted and successful woman at the end of her life. I found it jarring but entirely appropriate. Streep has never been better and this may be the summit of her career. I doubt there has ever been a more subtle, versatile, challenging, and affecting screen biography of a celebrity as this film. The on-air Thatcher of the political wars is a bit of a satire, perhaps even a parody. But that's justifiable -- Mrs Thatcher was never in search of appearing "natural," but only of embodying great ideas and useful principles, according to her world view. Get to see this; and get used to seeing it over and over again. This one will endure.