BIRDMAN

 

A comet flames toward earth on its way to burnout.  Or maybe it will crash in a fiery explosion.  But what a stunning cinematic opening to foreshadow the unpredictable and exhilarating trajectory of BIRDMAN.

Director Alejandro Inarritu and his screenwriting team craft a riotous black comedy about a stale but fondly remembered flying movie star-superhero, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton).  He is determined to relight his career.  Hey, why not move from film to theater? 

Using his own money he brings a play to Broadway.  It’s title?  “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”.  Riggan casts himself as the leading man and becomes his own director.  Ouch.  Is it possible a madcap farce based upon desperation is about to unfold?

Indeed. The high jinks and self-sabotage that foils Riggan’s comeback is not only wacky but also hallucinogenic.  The latter is inspired by an inner monologue coming from his fictional Birdman character.  That character hungers to reappear on screen.  Riggan resists.  However, he can’t prevent imagining he has telekinetic power to move objects in his dressing room.  And he can surely use his superhero power to fly high and wide above New York City.  After all, his star still soars brightly.  Right? 

But reality sinks in.  The celebrity whore within Riggan presses prematurely for previews to begin.  However, tickets are not selling.  A bankable stage actor, Mike Shiner (Ed Norton) is hired which excites theater gossips.  Ticket sales surge.  Narcissistic Mike manages to argue, demand rewrites and challenge director/star Riggan at every turn.  Sometimes even during a performance.  Backstage tensions build.

Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki gives us seemingly unedited long shots that yank us into backstage hallways and dressing rooms and pull us deeper into the painful drama which is slammed against explosive comedy. 

Emma Stone plays Sam, Riggan’s young daughter fresh out of rehab who is hired to be his production assistant.  She is spot on – addled yet sexy.  Lindsay Duncan nails her role as the salty New York Times theater critic who vows to destroy Riggan’s vanity production sight unseen because she hates Hollywood entitled actors. 

Unnerved, Riggan inadvertently locks himself out of the theater and marches with blind determination through a gawking crowd to get back on stage through the front door.  He seems oblivious to the fact that he is naked except for his underpants.  It is a tour de force of comic chagrin and character revelation flawlessly edited to appear to occur in a single take.  Breathless reality is the result. 

Resolved to dominate his Broadway opening night, Riggan puts a real gun to his head and pulls the trigger.  At least he will end his career with a bang (sorry).  Alas, Riggan’s flameout death eludes him. 

He shoots his nose off. 

Samantha comes into Riggan’s private hospital room.  The bed is empty.  She goes to the window.  It is wide open.  Has her father jumped out?  Or did Birdman leap upward and fly high?  

We are left smiling.    
  
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SELMA

 

The uplift that SELMA delivers is preceded by the real and painful memories of what happened to sear this southern city into our easily trampled Pledge of Allegiance which concludes “. . . with liberty and justice for all.”

Director Ava DuVernay brilliantly faced numerous challenges to recreate the polarizing battle between whites vs. blacks 50 years ago.

What gives her film its contemporary impact is that it documents a high risk protest, Martin Luther King’s involvement and the brutality of local police.  These are powerful emotional and political punches that yank us into the present.

It also reminds us that we are still stuck.

The push-pull of our own racial DNA remains alive and unwell.  DuVernay’s film distills our 200 plus years of black/white disharmony by focusing on a 3-month regional uprising in 1965.  The results are clearly viewed as a reminder that there was not just a single hero or villain who fueled Selma which ultimately caused President Johnson and Congress to enact new voting rights legislation.

DuVernay skillfully allows us to alternately identify with the oppressed rioters and infuriated  suppressors. We are put on edge.  Can order be restored or will civil disgust lead to civil war?

Today, consider those not charged with the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson or the chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York.

Should we take to the streets?  Or not?  The Times They Aren’t a-Changin’.

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THE IMITATION GAME

An eccentric Cambridge mathematician, Alan Turing, played by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, struggled to break the Enigma Code.  Before and during WW II the Nazi’s used this secret code to plan their devastating invasion plans in hopes of winning the war. 

Turing’s efforts were constantly challenged by the military as an expensive waste of time and money while citizens and military personnel were dying by the thousands. British ships and planes were also succumbing to the German onslaught.

The Universal Turing Machine endlessly spun code-breaking solutions that numbered into the quadrillions. Nothing worked. Nerves were frayed. But Turing held firm. Suddenly, in a riveting sequence, the spinning wheels froze. A solution was imminent. Turing’s calculations broke the code. The war ended 2 years latter (1945) with a welcome Nazi defeat. It is claimed that the victory saved as many as 20 million lives. Turing and his Universal machine, a precursor to the modern computer, were given substantial credit. 

In 1952 Turing reported a robbery. Police investigated and stumbled upon evidence that he was homosexual. Under questioning Turing pleaded guilty to ‘gross indecency’ and was given the choice of a prison sentence or the requirement that he receive hormone estrogen treatments which decreased libido and was known to cause impotency. The side effects were little understood. He chose the latter punishment. Turing grew despondent. In 1954 he was found dead, a likely suicide, at age 41. 

Because of a signed governmental confidentiality agreement, Turing’s work was suppressed for over 50 years. He lived a brilliant but haunted existence. Benedict Cumberbatch brings Turing to life with such authenticity that he gives us an indelible and lasting impression of an enigmatic genius. That Cumberbatch’s fans also think of him as enigmatic surely validates Norwegian director Morten Tyldum casting choice in this, his first English-language film. 

That goes for his selection of Keira Knightley as well, who inhabits Joan Clarke, another math genius whose deep admiration of Turing provokes a romance that painfully could not bloom. 

A note about Turing’s death. The Guardian reported that “he was found dead by his housekeeper, a half-eaten apple by his bedside . . . a postmortem concluded that cyanide poisoning was the cause of his death, though the apple was not tested.” 

Director Tyldum suggests that Turing was early for a meeting and went to a village cinema that was screening Disney’s SNOW WHITE. “So he popped in, fell in love with the movie and almost became obsessed with it. I think this gave Turing the idea of the suicide apple, and perhaps led him to actually kill himself”. 

Then again, Turing’s mother had cautioned her son to be more careful with how he stored chemicals – she didn’t want him to accidentally poison himself. 

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BOYHOOD

Director Richard Linklater became intrigued by the idea of filming a real 6-year-old boy growing up over a 12 year period. But not as a documentary. 

Linklater's spin was to select a real boy and surround him with Hollywood leading players who would act as if they were his true parents during those years. The actors would age with him as he moved through childhood, puberty, and into his teens. 

Linklater felt he would film for just a couple of weeks every year. He shared his idea with John Sloss, his attorney, and good friend Johathan Sehring, President of IFC Films. The more they talked the more excited they became. Deal!

The resulting film, as improbable as it may sound, is a  tour de force on every level.

Even without savoring the risk, hiccups and massive good luck surrounding the final film (edited from 5 hours to 3), the boyhood of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is a riveting fiction/reality story that offers a memorable film going experience.

This is truly one of the best films of the year.

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UNBROKEN

Difficult to watch?  You bet.  But if you are a lover of film this is a must-see cinema event of 2014.

The torture endured by a 1936 Italian-American Olympic runner in a WW II Japanese internment camp is staggering to behold.  Personal rage from the camp Corporal is focused on his defiant prisoner with chilling sociopathic intensity.

This is Louie Zamperini’s true story, shaped and directed with astonishing skill by Angelina Jolie.  Her accomplishment is a stunning slap in the face to a biased industry that gives evidence that only a man can master complex technology and compassionate storytelling.

What Jolie’s film does is lay bare the cruel and hopelessly held belief that human torture, both physical and verbal, are ever justified. 

Consider that the timing of the film’s American release, Christmas Day, is an unwitting wakeup gift that should question the effectiveness of our verbally abusive politicians, our out-of-control police tactics and our newly revealed horrific torture of foreign-born war prisoners.  No nation is innocent.  But from America, shouldn’t we expect better?      

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Two recent comedies generate warm laughter as they approach love from 2 different angles.  Neither rates a 5-star rave but both are worth seeing.

FADING GIGOLO

Spending movie time with Woody Allen always makes for smiles, even if we sometimes grumble at his creative indulgences.  In Gigolo he hits the mark as Murray, an aging Jewish Brooklyn bookshop owner forced out of business by ‘the big guys.’

Fioravante, his florist buddy (John Turturro), sympathizes that money is tight.  Murray has a brilliant solution.  His dermatologist (Sharon Stone!) has expressed her longing for a threesome – her girlfriend (Sofia Vergara!!) and a man unknown to her husband.  Whaa?

Murray suggests Fioravante for the job and proposes they share the fee. What’s the harm in pimping for his friend so they can make a bundle together?

Does this sound like a lame plot for a 1970’s film?  Writer-director-star Turturro makes it work in unexpectedly funny ways.   Not only does business boom but he also introduces to the list of Fioravante’s clients the restless widow of an orthodox Rabbi who bore him 6 children yet never has ever been kissed!  Double Whaa??  You get the idea.

This improbable farce happily unfolds yet manages to shed witty light onto love and lust, avoiding a minefield of moral and orthodox religious issues. Turturro’s professional skills bring welcome forgiving insight and humor to summer moviegoing.

CHEF 

A brilliant Chef, Carl Casper, (director-star Jon Favreau) divorced from foxy wife Inez (Sofia Vergara), is challenged by grumpy restaurant boss Dustin Hoffman and alienated from his appealing 11-year son Percy (Emjay Anthony). 

A crisis looms.  Does he cook a WOW dinner for a major and cranky food critic or does he succumb to the demand of his boss to cook the house favorites that have kept the restaurant open for 10 years?

Every film has to have a compelling conflict and this one offers a great catalyst. Chef Casper quits! The Sous-chef cooks all the house specialties and the critic, assuming Casper is in the kitchen, writes a career destroying review. Our chef sends a hilarious but vitriolic response by email which goes viral. His fury is so wild that he becomes unemployable.

Solution? Inez is sympathetic and gets her other ex-husband (Robert Downey Jr.) to give Casper a tired old food truck that he has to pick up in Miami. It’s a chance for him to try his hand at independent cooking without a boss. The catch? Casper agrees to take his son on a promised trip to New Orleans for new taste treats if the boy will help dad cook Miami inspired Cuban food.

With the help of his former Grill Chef (John Leguizamo) the trio begin a road trip whose success is propelled by young Percy tweeting in advance the funny viral video coupled with word of mouth raves to each town they visit. Crowds greet their arrival and success is assured.

The musical soundtrack supervised by Mathieu Schreyer features a lively Latin and jazz based score that propels the film and generates viewer excitement.

The bonding that occurs between Percy and his dad comes from their intense hard work, cooking, and their efforts to sell great food to ever hungry throngs. This irresistible father/son bonding is the cinematic salsa that makes this film a winner. 

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DIVERGENT

Hot, Hotter, Hottest!  Move over HUNGER GAMES.  This is a female AND male survival of the fittest epic that encapsulates self-reliance and free will – a compelling premise.

After a Great War, cities have been leveled.  A new political order, set in futuristic Chicago, is established to eliminate further devastation.  For this to happen all youth must face Choosing Day when they hit age 16 and declare acceptance in 1of 5 seemingly enlightened categories.  These will define how they must peacefully live for the rest of their lives.  God forbid if you think outside the box.

Since we all are currently living in a polarized U.S. political system, the film resonates.  Speak out and disagree with a commonly held belief?  Duck!

In this film, being labeled Divergent (a free thinking spirit), puts one at serious risk.  Of course.  Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior (Shailene Woodley) wants to fit in with her perception of family and friends so she goes through a rigorous training program to prove how she can overcome almost unimaginable physical challenges to fit in and make her loved ones proud.  Her assigned State-sanctioned Monitor, named Four, (Theo James) is a steely and sizzling athletic judge who pushes her to the max. 

When Tris falters, you recognize the compelling look that Four suddenly gives her now compromises his detached objectivity.  She is revealed as Divergent.  The tension that precedes their first kiss -- and how their compromised lives subsequently unravel --  drives the rest of the film. 

Sure, it may seem overly long for the plot to develop, as did Veronica Roth’s trilogy aimed at young adults.  But this adaption is geared for a broad audience and delivers nicely.  Kate Winslet certainly adds luster to villainy, stirring welcome pepper into the stew!

                 

BAD WORD

Laugh-out-loud funny doesn’t begin to capture the perverse humor that director/leading man Jason Bateman plops onto the screen.

Personally, I love to spend time with really smart kids.  However, Bateman, playing Guy Trilby, pulls the rug out from under his version of Spelling Bee brainiacs in ways that border on child abuse.  But no harm is done except to send up obnoxious and pushy parents plus the competition director, Dr. Deagan, played by Alison Janney, who brings new meaning to phrase ‘prune face.”

Bateman, acting since a kid, knows his way around a set and particularly how to work with actors.  He sails through his feature film debut with zany wit and assurance and expands his sardonic comic chops in the process. 

Screenwriter Andrew Dodge delivers a well-crafted black comedy that is a welcome addition to contemporary film humor for grownups.  My other gold star goes to the recent AMERICAN HUSTLE.

Playing opposite Bateman is a 10-year-old ball of sunshine, New York born Indian actor Rohan Chand.  This kid can’t stop sparkling, even under the most adversarial situations tossed at him by Bateman.  I wanted to love him and smack him at the same time.  An example?  As the lad leans over the top of his airplane seat and endlessly pesters Guy, the audience exploded with laughter when Trilby blurts, “ Hey kid, shut up, turn your curry hole around and sit.”

The burning question is why does 40 year-old Guy Trilby enter a nationally televised competition limited to kids who have not yet graduated from the 5^th grade? All unravels in the final frames, and, while seemingly an author derived dénouement, the ‘get-even’ revelation works just fine in this high-spirited comedy.

Take a break and look forward to some delightfully spiteful giggles.  

OSCARS HIGHLIGHTS 2014

The cheers that arose when 12 YEARS A SLAVE won Best Picture were well deserved.  I am proud the Academy seemed to rally around this film in spite of its weak box office and deeply distressing illumination of our nation’s embarrassing exploitation of Blacks.

The Academy membership is 94% Caucasian so this was also a concern.   Because it is a difficult film to watch I worried whether it would even find an audience.  These thoughts shaped my early January thinking as I tried to balance my personal opinions with what seemed likely to be manifest in the minds of industry voters. 

Perhaps a palette cleansing comedy like AMERICAN HUSTLE would snare the gold.  I was wrong.

The evening’s consensus represented a spot-on collection of winners that, in my opinion, has seldom happened in Oscar’s past.  Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o and Jared Leto deserved their honors. 

The Directors Guild awarded Alfonso Cuarón  (GRAVITY) its top prize, which is usually an indication of what film will win the Oscar.  I nevertheless applauded the Best Director gold going to Steve McQueen (12 YEARS A SLAVE).  I had been plugging for David O. Russell (AMERICAN HUSTLE) because directing great comedy is really really difficult. Nevertheless the fact that social, emotional and political issues dominated story lines was welcome. 

HIGHS & LOWS:  What they wore

1. Julia Roberts in a sad black Givenchy gown with a matronly peplum and ill-fitting black lace that covered her plunging décolletage with Victorian modesty.  No tits. Yawn.

2.  Will Smith wearing a tux and open neck white shirt with scarf peaking out that seemed to suggest -- ‘I’m just too cool and too important to be bothered with all this dress up shit.’

3. Kevin Spacey in a smart blue Burberry tux, a nice relief from tuxedo black, black, black.

4.  Sally Field looked matronly in a net embroidered long dress with short sleeves that looked positively dowdy on camera. Alas.

5.  Lupita Nyong’o floated in pale blue Prada with a neckline that plunged to her navel.  Here’s a young woman, flat chested as a boy, who looked sexy and lady-like at the same time.

6. Anne Hathaway’s Gucci designed gown featured her chest completely neutered with what looked like sparkling armor plating. That and her closely cropped hair completed a decidedly butch look.  Dull.

7.  Bette Midler showed up in a red floral Reem Acra gown that blended amusingly with the floral red Oscar carpet.  Remember her singing “Gonna lay down on my bed of roses”?  No, not tonight, Bette, we’ll “walk all over you.”

 

8.  Bradley Cooper and Brad Pitt vied for wearing perfectly tailored tuxes. At last Brad wore pants hemmed so they didn’t tumble 6 inches over his shoes.

9.  Charlize Theron in knockout Dior that parted as it swept over her left and right breast and hung deliciously suspended just below each shoulder.  This offered tension then release as the gown descended into a sheer floating train that delicately offered an elegant finale.

Enough with the frivolity.  Except for one note.  Plastic surgery victims included Goldie Hawn, Kim Novak and John Travolta.  And one billion viewers wondered if maybe it was just the lighting.

HIGHS & LOWS:  The show

1.  Ellen DeGeneres delivered a funny and free flowing opening monologue that was scripted yet came off spontaneous and even zany. It seemed to promise a great evening.

2.  Jared Leto gave a very moving acceptance speech upon receiving Best Supporting Actor for his stunning performance as a transgendered prostitute in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB.  He exceeded his 45 seconds but effectively urged compassion for everyone to be allowed to love whomever they choose without fear or prejudice.  He was graciously allowed to finish without being played off by the orchestra.

3.  Pharrell Williams sang a knockout HAPPY from Despicable Me 2 which brought the house down.  Kids on stage and celebs in the front row danced with him to create an opening number that will be remembered.

4.  Boredom set in during the next two hours until Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actress for her wrenching performance in 12 YEARS A SLAVE.  What radiance she brought to thank-you.  The audience loved her.

5.  DeGeneres asked the audience if they were hungry and ordered pizza.  Sure enough a chap delivered 3 boxes and Ellen passed out slices much to everyone’s delight.  Later she canvassed the audience to tip the delivery boy.  She conned $200 from Harvey Weinstein.  All Lupita could offer was her lip gloss, which Ellen immediately applied to her own lips!

 6.  Pink sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow in a distinctively phrased version in honor of the 75^th anniversary of the WIZARD OF OZ.  Liza Minnelli, draped in an off-the-shoulder electric blue schmatta and blue streak in her hair, seemed pleased but miffed when Ellen said she made a convincing drag queen, then topped it off with ‘great job, sir’.  It was funny to everyone except Liza.

7.  At 11:00 p.m. (EST), it was 2.5 hours into the show and best Actress, Actor and Film had not yet been awarded.

8.  To add to the tedium Bette Midler sang a sappy and draggy rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings that seemed endless.

9.  At last, Cate and Matthew won Best Actor Awards and 12 YEARS A SLAVE received a thunderous applause when it was announced as Best Picture.  Amen!

 

Bottom line?  The show was only fair.  We needed more of Ellen and a tighter evening where the awards of lesser interest to one billion viewers are moved to an off-camera ceremony.  If the goal is to increase movie attendance, give us 2 zippy hours of genuine broadcast entertainment rather than 3.5 hours of drawn out of narrowcast self congratulations.