Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Benedict Cumberbatch
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Year: 2011
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every now and then, I will find it necessary to break protocol to tend to my extremely large Netflix queue. This is one of those times.

There are times when I feel that sometimes a story is too involved to be interesting or, at the very least, accessible. At times, I have found films with a myriad of characters and twists too complex to follow and, in turn, lose interest in any sort of conclusion because it will not be satisfying. Perhaps that’s just me and I should pay more attention to these kinds of stories so a masterpiece is not lost on me.

With this film, the story is certainly complex and, yes, I did get lost in it but was able to catch up  at several points. The search for a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service had its share of characters, motives, opportunities, twists, turns, and shifts, and it was all cobbled together by a director who fancied himself the second-coming of Stanley Kubrick. While enjoyable, I felt that there were issues with the film trying to do too much in the time allotted and that kept me from becoming fully invested in the development or the outcome. What I did enjoy was the character development and the splendid portrayals of these flawed people by every member of the cast. I may have to watch this one again to get a real sense of the film and maybe discover something the second time around.

Most Valuable Actor: It would be too easy to put Oldman in here, especially since he received an Oscar nomination for his role as George Smiley, but I have to tip my cap to Mark Strong here, an agent whose actions and seemingly innocuous backstory made him the most interesting character in the film. His role may have been small but he truly was the one who was the common thread through it all. A powerful role that was obviously overlooked.

Trailer:

Skyfall

Starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, and Judi Dench
Directed by Sam Mendes
Year: 2012
IMDB / Wikipedia / Official Song

During the summer months you may have the opportunity to see a movie in the park. If it’s as good as this one, I suggest you do not pass up on the opportunity. 

Whenever James Bond returns to the big screen we are witnessing both a cinematic landmark as well as a bit of a resurrection. The epitome of the static character has found a new dimension with Craig that hasn’t been seen since George Lazenby‘s turn as the British super-spy and I am in the vocal minority of people who is glad to see its return. An emotional Bond, with flaws and the ability to be hurt or even killed, is infinitely more interesting from a character development standpoint and makes for a better film. However, with top-shelf writers and Sam Mendes at the helm, the world of a new, raw, and gritty Bond can mesh seamlessly with the archetype that has been developed over the last 50 years.

And with a new Bond we get a new breed of villain that still casts the traditional large shadow, but is also more devious and has more than just a single motive. With Skyfall, Bardem fills the role with the first Bond villain that is truly terrifying and a bit twisted to boot. His character is to the Bond universe as Heath Ledger‘s Joker was to the Batman universe and that was to push the protagonist to his mental limits, testing boundaries, and even dredging up the past to make a point. Bardem’s role raises him to the upper-eschelon of Bond villains but he is not the …

Most Valuable Actor: which goes to Judi Dench as M. Before she took the role during the Pierce Brosnan era, M was much like Charlie on Charlie’s Angels–appearing at the beginning to give Bond his assignment and at the end telling him good job right before the credits rolled. Dench made M something more and that is a major reason the character had a much larger role in this film. Only a terrific actor can shift a paradigm like this in a franchise that seems afraid of change.

Trailer:

The Art of War

Starring Wesley Snipes, Marie Matiko, and Anne Archer
Directed by Christian Duguay
Year: 2000
IMDB / Wikipedia

Like on my other blog, I am looking to make these write-ups more concise and worthwhile so they do not loom in my mind as a major undertaking. So, starting with this  post, I will be limiting myself to two paragraphs (because word counts suck) and that’s it. Enjoy!

There are many who give Wesley Snipes for being a bad Steven Seagal-esque actor with limited acting chops and only some serious martial arts abilities to fall back on. Though he will probably never win an Oscar for his work, Snipes does have a tendency to go for meatier roles that show ambition. In The Art of War, Snipes builds upon his ability to play a covert government operative that started in 1998’s U.S. Marshals opposite Tommy Lee Jones. The Art of War follows Snipes as a covert UN operative who is caught in the middle of an international incident that leads major global superpower to the brink of disaster. Not the most cerebral of plots, but it works.

This film seems like another pop-action flick with some roundhouse kicks and cheesy dialogue. While it delivers on both of those fronts it also provides some of the better character development and plot twists that seem to be missing from the contemporary cyber-thriller. Also, while the movie strives to be more than what it is it does a few things right, namely character development. In a film that could have made two-dimensional characters all-around the screenwriters put in enough into each character to make them realistic even if the events surrounding them lacked the realism. This movie holds up well under the weight of its ambition and, while not a classic, it is certainly not a waste of time.

Most Valuable Actor: Snipes is one of those actors who fizzled out before he reached his potential. Trouble outside of the box office didn’t help anything but I saw this as a step in the right direction for Snipes as he carried the movie in several parts.

Trailer:

Arlington Road

Starring Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins, and Joan Cusack
Directed by Mark Pellington
Year: 1999
IMDB / Wikipedia

Watching this film almost 14 years after its release it stands more relevant today than it did back then. In 1999, domestic terrorism was something we had experienced, especially in Oklahoma City, but it didn’t shake us to our core because it always happened sporadically and in places that seemed so far away from us. This film reminded us that a domestic terrorist could be as close as across the street.

The movie is the story of an American Terrorism professor (Bridges) who befriends his new neighbors (Robbins and Cusack) after saving their son’s life one day. However, the more he gets to know his new neighbors the more questions pop up and the mor suspicious he grows. Are they up to something or has the recent death of his wife got his mind seeing things that aren’t really there?

The reason I find this film to be so engrossing now is because it can be used by either side of the contentious gun control debate. Those for arming the populous would point out that domestic terrorists wouldn’t be so quick to pull off a bombing or mass shooting if they knew there were armed, vigilant citizens out there ready to take them out. On the flip-side, and I keep thinking back to Oklahoma City, would one, five, 10, or even 100 armed citizens be able to stop Timothy McVeigh? Would any number of guns have kept that bomb from going off? If there were citizens who were suspicious of McVeigh and his intentions and did take action, wouldn’t they be guilty of killing a man driving around with a truck full of fertilizer?

Watching this film I kept thinking, “What is Jeff Bridges’ character was armed? What if he just started opening fire on the people he suspected of terrorism?” I come back to the fact that it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. the story centers around his madness and his paranoia to the point where he knows the truth but cannot prove anything. Adding a gun to this story would result in a hasty choice–the dangerous and fool-hearty choice I foresee too many novice gun enthusiasts would take if put in the same situation.

Most Valuable Actor: Tim Robbins is hard to beat as Oliver Lang, Bridges’ neighbor that seems a bit too perfect and seems to have too many perfect answers about his past. Robbins plays a dynamic and complex character the only way he knows how. This is a role that could only have been played by him.

Trailer:

Antitrust

Starring Ryan Phillippe, Claire Forlani, and Tim Robbins
Directed by Peter Howitt
Year: 2001
IMDB / Wikipedia

This was supposed to be the movie that opened everyone’s eyes to how inherently evil major companies, especially tech companies, really can be in the cutthroat and ever-changing world of business. In the tech sector, advances and achievements keep getting faster and faster while the market share of customers seems to get smaller and smaller. To keep up companies are willing to do almost anything to keep on the cutting edge and, in some cases, a virtual stranglehold on the market.

Those of you old enough to remember when Microsoft had major issues with the US department of Justice and the Antitrust laws that forced Microsoft to divide itself into two virtual companies can see the parallels that this film makes. In here, eccentric and ambitious tech CEO Gary Johnson (Robbins who sports a Bill Gates-esque coif) is planning on launching a stupendous global communications system that will catapult his buisness into something more than it already is but needs the help of tech whiz kid Milo (Phillippe in a role someone better was born to play) to help him cross the finish line.

Along the way, Milo notices strange things about his new employer and discovers that he and his team of goons have been murdering small-time programmers and stealing their code to cobble together their own project. The tale devolves into a web of conspiracy that stretches the bounds of rational thought and leaves so many plot holes open that it’s hard to stave off disbelief to the end.

The problem with this kind of movie is that it horribly dates itself by relying on the viewer to draw the parallels between the fictional screenplay and the real-life Microsoft scandal. Without it, everything here seems too far-fetched to take seriously even though methods similar to these (the espionage, not the murders) are probably closer to real-life than anyone is willing to admit. There’s just too much that needed to fall into place to make the plot work and all of those things are improbable at best. There’s just too much crap to shovel.

Most Valuable Actor: Tim Robbins as the antagonist is one of the only redeeming parts of the film. He plays the role of a scary nerd on a power-trip so well that he becomes the most believable thing on screen. He has a way to make himself so approachable one moment and so frightening the second that it’s astonishing that someone with his range got wrangled itno making this piece of crap movie. You’re better than this, Tim!

Trailer:

Full Movie:

American Psycho

Starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto
Directed by Mary Harron
Year: 2000
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every morning I wake up and watch the news and, somewhere in that broadcast I inevitably ask, “What the hell is wrong with Americans?” I don’t mean the world, I don’t mean the country-for-which-it-stands, I’m talking about the people. When did we become a country of self-absorbed, narcissistic, patronizing, centralized egomaniacs? Then it dawns on me just as it does the same time every morning: we have always been this way.

Bret Easton Ellis‘ book, on which this movie is based, really focuses on the go-go-80s and their obsession with the self and how we truly were an Ayn Rand-ian society of self-absorbed assholes. But, when I watched this film again I found myself realizing that this movie could take place at any time. There are cultural references that are directly mentioned to tie the story to a specific time in history, but this could easily be re-imagined as something that happened in the 90s or even today, thus proving it is truly a timeless story. It is because of that, however, I find myself asking myself again: what is wrong with Americans?

Patrick Bateman is a character who is so perfect that perfection is a flaw. He has isolated and sterilized his persona so well to fit in with the rest of the Wall Street yuppie elite that not only is he constantly confused for others in his own firm (which his father owns, so that’s saying something) but he has whittled away his own personality to only two genuine emotions: greed and disgust. He is so blatant about it that no one really looks sideways at him when he says very horrific and brutal things to people; they just think it is part of his personality.

That is why, though Bale’s portrayal of Bateman give him automatic MVA honors, it is the supporting cast that truly make up his character. How other people perceive him is the key to understanding the character. He’s forgettable or a perceived doormat; he’s likable or thought of as a dork; he’s condescending or he’s desirable; it’s all pieces that make up the whole of this person that seems to have no personality and no drive except to kill those he finds to be either beneath him or those he admires so much he ends up despising them.

I would go into the whole “what makes a psychopath” but I don’t know that much about it. I will say this, Ellis was correct in his discontent with the film and his assertion that film is a medium where answers are an essential part of the craft wherein novels can afford to be open-ended to add to the mystique. But the world that director Mary Harron creates is so frighteningly plausible that the internal conflict within Bateman is palpable and his need for punishment and resolution is so sincere that it does give an answer even if the source material doesn’t.

But, the most frightening part about the film is, after repeated viewings, you begin to either empathize with Bateman or you at least understand why he committed the depraved acts he did. Plus, there is a lingering question at the end as to either the validity of his experiences or whether or not the world around him is such that they would rather turn an eye from atrocity rather than deal with it. Sadly, the latter is as true now as it was then.

Most Valuable Actor: Christian Bale is Patrick Bateman. Known as a splendid method actor, it is easy to see that he truly lost himself inside the character creating such a rich flavor that it can almost be tasted. Truly, this was a stroke of casting genius.

Trailer:

8MM

Starring Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, and Peter Stormare       
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Year: 1999
IMDB / Wikipedia

One of the reasons I enjoy going to the movies is because it entertains me; it is a way to escape the monotony of real life for a couple of hours and escape into another world. Because I have this view of movies, I never understood why I am drawn to movies like 8MM, why I’m drawn to worlds I would rather not visit inhabited with people I don’t really like. But I go and I subject myself for a couple of hours coming out the other side in need of a thorough scrubbing.

Say what you will about this movie, its star, Nicolas Cage, and its director Joel Schumacher, and their collective film making sins–this is a damn fine movie. It haunts me and deals with topics I would rather keep out of my life, but it’s so well done and so hanting that I have to tip my hat to it. Cage is well-cast and his part, while not terribly well-written, is suited to his strengths. Schumacher is one of the best shot designer since the days of Hitchcock, but his score choices made it seem like this movie was laid over a rejected Disney movie soundtrack. Nevertheless, the two of them brought all the darkness needed t really mke this movie standout.

Not too many films or scenes get to me in a negative way, but when it happens it is usually a testament to the authenticity of the scene or the haunting realization that this could (and, in all likelihood, does) exist in our world, in our towns, and behind closed doors. That makes it all the more terrifying and haunting. Writing this has also allowed me to realize why I never liked or sought out horror movies: they don’t seemed to be set in reality. But you should know, just as anyone would, the scariest things are not the ones that go bump in the night: they’re the ones that can get you in broad daylight without thought of remorse or retribution.

Most Valuable Actor: Joaquin Phoenix as Max California, the intellectual porn store cashier that introduces Cage’s character to the world of underground porno and the all-too-real world of ultra-hardcore pornography and the people who desire it.