Why does Goodreads not do half stars? This was a solid three and a half stars, verging on four, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. For my purposes on this blog it's a B either way. I loved all the characters, I despised all the characters, I rooted for them, I rooted against them. Though the Moby Dick allusions and references made more sense due to my reading of Moby Dick earlier this year, the novel is also clearly no Moby Dick, and repeatedly touching it only highlights the gap in profundity between the two. Baseball still can be--maybe the only sport that can be--mythic, but most of the mythological elements here are too self-consciously literary to have the full impact. In other words, though it's an ode to baseball and ballplayers, I'm not sure this is a book many ballplayers would actually love. Though what do I know?
Harbach handles all four of his "focus" characters well, though he struggles more with Pella, and I wonder if it was the character that challenged him or the mere development of a female character. At the very least he tries to give everyone depth, demons, and dignity, and I think he's overall successful. I wish we had gotten into Owen's head, but he remains somehow ineffable and unknowable, which is how everyone else saw him as well. (Another literary reference perhaps? Is our Owen here a nod to Owen Meany of John Irving's novel?) Still, Henry and Schwartz . . . these are characters to know and to love, despite and because of their many shortcomings.
I'm not sure why it took me so long to finish--I feel like I've been reading two or three pages at a time forever--because until the end I was continuously engaged and entertained. The final chapters of the book, however, seem ill-befitting, a wrap up too tidy and too deliberately novelistic (is that even a word) to work for me. The four protagonists went from being fleshed out figures to being characters in a novel in search of a tidy ending. It was disappointing and not quite authentic to me.
Still, on the whole, I enjoyed it, and if this is what Harbach can do with his first novel, I'm interested to see what comes next.
Grade: B
Director: Adrian LyneGenre: ThrillerSource: USA (1987)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: B
Though the twists and turns of this movie had been spoiled long ago, and though I have never and will never cheat on my wife, it still managed to be a fairly taut little thriller. Glenn Close portrays increasingly psychotic desperation effectively--it's clear that she sees the tragedy and finds the empathy in her Alex Forrest rather than playing her as a villain. It's a surprisingly unself-conscious performance as well, as Alex is unrestrained and free with her body in a way that both highlights her need for attention as well as her matter-of-fact physicality. Douglas is also pretty good. He is increasingly becoming the consummate 80s man in my mind, between this and Wall Street--and that hair. Still, he's not as stiff as he sometimes seems to me, and he vacillates nicely between guilt and angst and anger. The fact that I don't really have much sympathy for him doesn't change the awfulness of the position he finds himself in.
Though I often have trouble seeing past the 80s-ness of 80s movies, there were a few nice moments that really stood out. Of course there are the well known boiling bunny and knife-wielding maniac scenes, but even more effective was a motif of shifting light that Lyne develops. Early on, during the affair, Alex and Dan lie in bed together, a ceiling fan spinning over head, the light seeming to rotate with it as a shaft of light spills across the bed, then leaves them in shadow, then spills across them once again. The moment is echoed late in the film, as Dan attacks Alex, the light behind him swinging wildly, leaving them first in shadow, then illuminating them, then losing them in shadow again before rotating back the other way. The light and dark really reflect Dan's psyche, alternating between pleasure and guilt, honesty and deceit. Similarly, their fight takes place in the kitchen of her apartment, the water running in the sink--the same place they consummated their lust the first time. These little parallels elevate the film and bring a little bit of art to what could otherwise just be basic thriller fare.
One last thing: I would be remiss if I didn't call out the adorable Ellen (though with her cropped hair, it took me several minutes to realize it wasn't Alan). I'm not sure what the director did to make her cry when her parents were fighting, but she was genuine and genuinely cute.
Too bad about her bunny though.
Alternate Film Title: "Monogamy: Not So Bad!"
Director: Jonathan GlazerGenre: Crime DramaSource: UK (2001)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: B-
Stone and water go head to head throughout Sexy Beast, from the boulder that lands in a swimming pool at the film's opening to the big heist late in the film. Perhaps that could stand as a metaphor for Ben Kingsley's Don Logan, the immovable object and concrete wall that forces himself into the middle of the life of Gal, a retired thief trying to just enjoy life in Spain. Or is Don the water--enveloping, consuming, always finding another way into a crack, nearly drowning everyone and everything around him.
Clearly this is Kingsley's film. He doesn't show up for the first 20 to 30 minutes of the film, but his arrival is foreshadowed, talked about, and feared by the other Gal and his girlfriend (maybe wife?) Deedee, as well as their friends Aitch and Jackie. The anxiety and despair with which the other characters discuss him sets the stage for his explosive arrival, trying to recruit Gal for one last job. As the two couples become suddenly and seriously uncomfortable in what should be their retirement paradise, Don glares around the pool, ill fitting in this Mediterranean setting, evoking the violence and grime of the life they left behind in his every growled statement. Kinglsey is terrifying, coiled fury just waiting to be unleashed, and the escalating tension between the five ultimately has to go somewhere. The boulder may force itself into the pool, but the displaced water has to go somewhere.
Other than Kingsley's intense performance (and Ray Winstone's miserable desperation as Gal), I have to admit the film did not do much for me. Gal's vision (or is it a filmmaker's metaphor? or both?) of the raging beast that is Don was less effective than Kingsley himself, and the chaotic editing of the film's climactic revelations was more off-putting than mind blowing.
But Kinglsey's performance is still worth it. He is dynamite, both explosive and fantastic. I can understand where the Oscar nomination came from.
Alternate Film Title: "Ray Winstone in Speedos"
Director: Bart LaytonGenre: DocumentarySource: UK (2012)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: B
If The Imposter were a fictional film or an episode of Law & Order: SVU (and it probably was the basis of one), you would laugh it off as silly Hollywood writing. The fact that it is instead a documentary makes it both more fascinating and more bizarre than anything fictional.
In 1994, 13-year-old disappears from his Texas home, seemingly without a trace. Three years later, his family receives a phone call from law enforcement officers in Spain saying that they have found Nicholas Barclay, now 16. He tells a tale of kidnapping, abuse, psychological torture, and medical experimentation. His skin and hair are darker, his eye color has changed, and he speaks with a French accent. Yet remarkably the family takes him home and claims to be overjoyed to have found Nicholas.
But Nicholas is not Nicholas.
None of this is really spoiler territory. The story, which briefly made headlines in the 90s, brings us into the "truth" of the situation immediately, both through its title and through extended interviews with Frederic Bourdin, the (at the time) 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed to be a sixteen year old Texan. Filmmakers reenact Bourdin's actions as he finds himself deeper and deeper in a lie, and what results is a case in which we feel oddly attached to and sympathetic for this strange man. He clearly enjoys being on camera, the center of attention, and though the filmmakers allude to the own psychological damage that would cause him to delve into this lie, I don't know that we ever fully come to understand him. Instead, the story expands and we begin to question whether more people are deceiving themselves, the authorities, and the filmmakers than originally expected. Director Bart Layton shoots the reenactments--and the interviews--in often shadowy and atmospheric settings, giving the story the feel of a noirish mystery. And yet I'm not sure what real answers we actually get as to why and how this happened.
And maybe that's kind of the point. Much of what we see is not "true"--it is actors recreating a moment. It is individuals telling their perspective, and often those perspectives contradict one another. We leave with the truth itself still enmeshed in shadow, and without a clear understanding of what really happened--both before and after Nicholas's disappearance--and that seems to be intentional. How well can we ever understand another person's motivations? How do lies define us? And is truth inherently subjective?
A thought provoking documentary, and one I can imagine showing my high school students as an interesting example of the form, of the power of the camera, and of the role of editing and music in telling a story.
Alternate Film Title: Nah, The Imposter pretty much sums it up.
Director: J.J. AbramsGenre: Sci-Fi ActionSource: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinemas
Grade: B
There is nothing particularly wrong about Star Trek Into Darkness, and in fact as far as summer movie sci-fi goes, there's a lot that's right about it. Like April's Oblivion, it engages some interesting ideas and looks good doing it, and it has the added bonus of a cast and characters who are engaging, well-beloved (both from the original series and from the reboot of a few years ago), and a lot of fun. That it didn't hugely grab me is no real fault of the film, and I suspect on a different day I would have enjoyed it even more. For whatever else it may be, it's fun, it's stylish, and it's a good way to spend two hours at the movies.
That said, I do feel the film retread a lot of unnecessary ground from the first film (particularly the do-nothing "Kirk may lose command of the Enterprise" subplot and the "Scotty separated from the rest of the crew" plotline) for no necessary reason, particularly when they could have spent a little more time fleshing out Cumberpatch even more or given more supporting players something to do. I love Cumberpatch from the BBC series Sherlock, and he's thriving here: menacing, interesting, intelligent. I could watch him all day.
Other than some great scenes for Spock, Kirk, and Scotty, however, the main Enterprise crew seems to have little to do, since there is so much time spent setting up the main plot. It's unfortunate, because I really do like all these characters from the first film, and I'd like to see more of them have opportunities to grow. Without question Spock and Kirk are center stage, and they should be, but Sulu and Chekhov in particular seemed relatively pointless here, and Uhura has little to do but pout. I understand the challenge of juggling all those character balls, I just don't think it was fully accomplished.
Still, this movie is fun. It really does move relatively quickly, and it starts to raise some interesting questions about the morality of how wars are fought, though it doesn't follow through as well as it could. J.J. Abrams does one-liners and little moments well (the space-jump crouch stands out in my mind), and he treats the material with a lot of respect. I won't delve into all the Star Trek II nods throughout the film (The Wrath of Khan is generally acknowledged to be the best of the OG Trek movies, and Abrams handles it skillfully), but suffice it to say I am satisfied enough that I will happily line up for #3 of the rebooted franchise. I just hope they come up with a better title.
Alternate Film Title: "Spock + Kirk: Best Friends 4Ever"
Director: Justin LinGenre: ActionSource: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinemas
Grade: F
I feel like I deserve a "friend of the year" award for sitting through this movie with a buddy who didn't want to go alone. The writing, the plot, the character development: none of them have anything interesting to say or do. While there was some good fight choreography (mostly attributable to the presence of Gina Carano, who continues to put up a strong argument for being cast as Wonder Woman), nothing in this movie surprised me, made me care, or had any effect other than to serve as an advertisement for HGH. The franchise has now pretty successfully turned into the XXX dead-on-arrival franchise that Diesel was hoping for way back when, but that doesn't make it good. And at this point, the attempt to make the street racing scene appear to be still hip and cool just feels about a decade off.
Ugh, seriously. And they didn't even have the courtesy to make it a ninety minute movie! They stretched it out to two hours and ten minutes. I could have been home cleaning out the lint trap or going through the junk mail. What a waste of time.
Alternate Film Title: "Male Power Fantasy for the Worst Kind of Dudebros"
Director: Peter GlenvilleGenre: DramaSource: USA (1964)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Streaming
Grade: A-
The joy of "discovering" old films continues to be the joy of recognizing the complexity, dynamism, and sophistication of a bygone era--eras that as a child I had written off as somehow inferior to my own. Movie studios may have controlled the reins in a different way back then (as far as I know the independent scene was not thriving as it is now), cultural taboos may have prevented the type of explicit content on screens that is common now, and the technology may not have nearly as sophisticated as what I could buy now for just a few thousand dollars, but artists, directors, writers, and actors were still working at the height of their craft and producing some impressive results. In the same year that gave us great new works by Hemingway, Kesey, Miller, and more, is it any wonder that the film world was alive and thriving and producing some incredible works? The fact that I had never heard of Becket made me assume it was a minor work by some well-known actors--and perhaps it is--but there are other reasons I may not have discovered it until now as well. Looking at the Academy Awards in 1965, Becket was up for Best Picture--and thirteen other academy awards--against some heavy hitters: Zorba the Greek, Mary Poppins, Dr. Strangelove, and winner My Fair Lady.
That's some stiff competition, and it makes sense that at least one of those films would fall off the radar as time goes by.
But I'm disappointed it was this one! This was my first Richard Burton film, and one of only a handful of Peter O'Toole films I've seen, but the dynamic and opposing acting styles of the two drew me in to the fractured friendship at the heart of the film. It's a good thing, too. Stylistically, the film reminded me of Camelot, which, though a few years later, shares Becket's slightly stale and soundstagey look. I'm not sure if that's wholly a result of the film stock being used, the art direction, or just the stylistic choices going into making a somewhat generic looking twelfth century England, but visually the film did not stand out for me.
But those actors. O'Toole is a raging inferno of emotion. He would play an older Henry II a few years later in The Lion in Winter, but his lusty and id-driven King here is both frightening and dynamic in a way that really electrified me. I have to wonder if he and Richard Burton split the vote for Best Actor, because while I haven't seen My Fair Lady in years, I don't remember Rex Harrison being nearly this fascinating to watch. At times it might verge on scenery chewing, but overall it's a stimulating and moving performance as Henry II pushes his need for obedience--and love--until he's locked himself into a corner. It's tragic, and if he doesn't get the outcome he had expected, he may get the outcome he deserves.
Burton on the other hand is playing the slow burn, as his Becket is everything the loud, boisterous, and unrestrained Henry is not. I would have liked to see a little more of a transition from him as he moved from faithful adviser to determined adversary, but Burton does a discovery of faith convincingly enough that I won't push him on it. It didn't match O'Toole's in intensity for me, but I can't help but feeling that was a deliberate choice on the actor's part.
At any rate, the film plays a nice contrast between the two, and it sets up some thought-provoking questions regarding loyalty, friendship, and morality. And perhaps my understanding of censorship rules in the early 60s is weak (probably the case), but I was surprised how the film pushed a few boundaries regarding Henry's sexual appetites as well--including a scene with a mostly nude woman in his bed. It was tame by today's standards, but still a surprise to me in a film from this era, and O'Toole's ecstatic throwing-back of the covers was effectively shocking.
In all this is the kind of discovery that's fun to make, and hot on the heels of Rosemary's Baby and Manhattan, I feel like I'm really lucking out in my older movie picks lately. Let's hope it keeps up, but at least I know that I'm interested in finding more O'Toole and Burton movies in the future.
Alternate Film Title: "Don't Let the Inconsistent Accents Get You Down"
