This is better than I expected, much better. It doesn't really sound promising, does it? Beginning with the title, "All The Way." Already we're expecting Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds.
And then there was an el cheapo movie, "Lyndon Johnson: The Early Years," overdone to a turn.
I expected a dozen stereotypes to be flung in my face. Heroic President Lyndon Baines Johnson, fighting to bring tolerance and law to the redneck South -- but not TOO redneck because there are television ratings in the land of nine-fingered men too. An even more heroic -- a flawless -- Martin Luther King, Jr., full of quiet rectitude. Some Southern dumbass sheriff sayin' we don't know nothing' about them missin' boys.
Instead, the movie is alive with people of solid flesh. Everybody has two sides. LBJ does pass the Civil Rights Act and that' what this story is all about, but he does it with cunning and subterfuge. The Martin Luther King, Jr., character is given the best line in the movie: "Lyndon Johnson is no second coming. He'll do what he has to do to get elected. But he's right." The prize for worst line goes to Johnson: "People think I want power, but that's not it. All I ever wanted was love and solace." The story covers the period from Johnson's ascendancy to his victory in 1964 and it focuses on the pressures brought to bear on everyone -- for it or against it. Several lives were lost in the conflict between the traditional South and the virtuous North. It cost the Democratic party every state of the Confederacy, states that used to be called "the solid South." It's kind of ironic that two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act because racial politics had changed so dramatically since 1964. On the same day that that decision was reached -- the SAME DAY -- Texas and a handful of other states moved to restrict voting rights. Plus ça change.
But that comment is editorial. That's not the shape the movie takes. The most honest and loyal figure is probably the melancholic Senator Russell of Georgia, who isn't angered by his friend Johnson's pursuit of justice so much as filled with sadness as he sees both their bond and an entire way of life fading before his eyes.
Stokely Carmichael, now almost a figure forgotten, is a firebrand who is ready for a revolution. He represents the spirit of the black population that King feels is slipping away from under him and his non-violent resistance position. One of King's advisers muses that the Freedom Summer of 1964 might get some added publicity if a couple of young white volunteers got slapped around. (At least three were murdered.) Politically correct, it ain't.
The acting is generally fine. Bryan Cranston takes hold of LBJ and boots him around. LBJ is no gentleman. His language is industrial strength. He holds consultations with Hubert Humphrey while taking a dump. (He did it deliberately with Robert Kennedy just to humiliate him, but that's not in the movie.) He fires his secretary because she reminds him of an appointment -- twice -- and demands that she be replaced with someone with a nicer ass. When LBJ throws up his hands in anger and says, "Nobody's WITH me on this!," Humphrey says proudly, "I'm with you." And LBJ says, "I mean somebody who MATTERS." Johnson had several nasty habits. He was a tall man and stood too close to the person he was speaking to. If the other didn't look up at Johnson, Johnson would lean down close and peer UPWARD into the other's face while speaking. LBJ's crack comparing his dingle to a rattlesnake isn't included either.
Frank Langella as Senator Russell is splendid, as usual. Everybody from Bayonne, New Jersey, is splendid, including the Greeks. If the casting has a soft spot it's in Anthony Mackie's portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. He looks and sounds cosmic enough but Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of flesh and blood. Mackie isn't the presence that King was. His philandering is brought up but not his consumption of vodka. Not that I'm making a value judgment: I doubt he'd consumed more vodka than some of the rest of us but he sure enough guzzled it.
The film describes events that took place in 1964, more than half a century ago. It ought to be shown in every high school civics class if only because it's as informative as it is. These events can't possibly slip down the old "memory hole" if they don't exist in the first place. A Gallup poll in 2002 revealed that a majority of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 didn't know what Watergate was. I doubt the number has decreased in the 15 years that followed. Many of us no longer know just how bad it can get.
And then there was an el cheapo movie, "Lyndon Johnson: The Early Years," overdone to a turn.
I expected a dozen stereotypes to be flung in my face. Heroic President Lyndon Baines Johnson, fighting to bring tolerance and law to the redneck South -- but not TOO redneck because there are television ratings in the land of nine-fingered men too. An even more heroic -- a flawless -- Martin Luther King, Jr., full of quiet rectitude. Some Southern dumbass sheriff sayin' we don't know nothing' about them missin' boys.
Instead, the movie is alive with people of solid flesh. Everybody has two sides. LBJ does pass the Civil Rights Act and that' what this story is all about, but he does it with cunning and subterfuge. The Martin Luther King, Jr., character is given the best line in the movie: "Lyndon Johnson is no second coming. He'll do what he has to do to get elected. But he's right." The prize for worst line goes to Johnson: "People think I want power, but that's not it. All I ever wanted was love and solace." The story covers the period from Johnson's ascendancy to his victory in 1964 and it focuses on the pressures brought to bear on everyone -- for it or against it. Several lives were lost in the conflict between the traditional South and the virtuous North. It cost the Democratic party every state of the Confederacy, states that used to be called "the solid South." It's kind of ironic that two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act because racial politics had changed so dramatically since 1964. On the same day that that decision was reached -- the SAME DAY -- Texas and a handful of other states moved to restrict voting rights. Plus ça change.
But that comment is editorial. That's not the shape the movie takes. The most honest and loyal figure is probably the melancholic Senator Russell of Georgia, who isn't angered by his friend Johnson's pursuit of justice so much as filled with sadness as he sees both their bond and an entire way of life fading before his eyes.
Stokely Carmichael, now almost a figure forgotten, is a firebrand who is ready for a revolution. He represents the spirit of the black population that King feels is slipping away from under him and his non-violent resistance position. One of King's advisers muses that the Freedom Summer of 1964 might get some added publicity if a couple of young white volunteers got slapped around. (At least three were murdered.) Politically correct, it ain't.
The acting is generally fine. Bryan Cranston takes hold of LBJ and boots him around. LBJ is no gentleman. His language is industrial strength. He holds consultations with Hubert Humphrey while taking a dump. (He did it deliberately with Robert Kennedy just to humiliate him, but that's not in the movie.) He fires his secretary because she reminds him of an appointment -- twice -- and demands that she be replaced with someone with a nicer ass. When LBJ throws up his hands in anger and says, "Nobody's WITH me on this!," Humphrey says proudly, "I'm with you." And LBJ says, "I mean somebody who MATTERS." Johnson had several nasty habits. He was a tall man and stood too close to the person he was speaking to. If the other didn't look up at Johnson, Johnson would lean down close and peer UPWARD into the other's face while speaking. LBJ's crack comparing his dingle to a rattlesnake isn't included either.
Frank Langella as Senator Russell is splendid, as usual. Everybody from Bayonne, New Jersey, is splendid, including the Greeks. If the casting has a soft spot it's in Anthony Mackie's portrayal of Martin Luther King, Jr. He looks and sounds cosmic enough but Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of flesh and blood. Mackie isn't the presence that King was. His philandering is brought up but not his consumption of vodka. Not that I'm making a value judgment: I doubt he'd consumed more vodka than some of the rest of us but he sure enough guzzled it.
The film describes events that took place in 1964, more than half a century ago. It ought to be shown in every high school civics class if only because it's as informative as it is. These events can't possibly slip down the old "memory hole" if they don't exist in the first place. A Gallup poll in 2002 revealed that a majority of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 didn't know what Watergate was. I doubt the number has decreased in the 15 years that followed. Many of us no longer know just how bad it can get.