Movie Review: Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine

2013

Drama

3.5 Stars out of 5

Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine was both a disappointment and a pleasure. The story line lacks any sense of subtlety or depth, but the bravura performance by Cate Blanchett in the title role of Jasmine is more than reason enough to watch this movie. Writer/director Allen has created a story to mirror “A Streetcar Named Desire” by exploring the aftereffects of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. He creates a parallel to Blanche DuBois’ mental problems by imagining the fiscal and mental disintegration of a Madoff-like wife in the form of Jasmine. Additionally he contrasts the glamorous rise and disastrous fall of Jasmine to her far more pedestrian, adopted sister, Ginger. As noted, there are strong parallels to the 1947 play by Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”, though Blue Jasmine stands on its own.

The movie is essentially a character study, with little story arc to propel it. Jasmine channels the high society Blanche DuBois from “Streetcar” as Sally Hawkins plays her blue collar sister Ginger/Stella to great effect. Ginger’s boyfriend Chili/Stanley (well sort of a Stanley) is played by Bobby Cannavale. As in “Streetcar”, the two sisters come from very different worlds: high society for Jasmine, blue collar for Ginger. In a similar manner Jasmine and Chili are immediately at odds with one another, though the Chili character lacks much of the animal-like sexual magnetism of Stanley. In both cases, the Jasmine/Blanche character is devolving into a state of serious mental disarray. And in a similar fashion, the Ginger/Stella character does her best (and despite the endless criticism from Jasmine) to defend and support her big sister.

The key similarity though is the mental disintegration going on with Jasmine/Blanche. Blanchett plays her flawlessly as she moves from talking to herself in public, to haranguing her younger sister for her lack of self-respect, to trying to destroy Ginger’s one vague hope that exists in the form of Chili, to finding a new husband for herself, and back to talking to herself in public. Jasmine appears to be living constantly on the edge of a complete and perhaps irreversible mental breakdown. The final camera shots of her on a park bench gives the impression she has finally moved past that edge; Jasmine is now doomed to a life on the streets as one more homeless, crazed and hopeless street person.

The story is based on various contrasts: the fabulously rich Jasmine married to the schemer Hal (Alec Baldwin) vs. the delusional homeless person; the carefully dressed (at least at the movie’s beginning, much less so by the end) Jasmine vs. her plain Jane sister, Ginger; the crafty scheming Jasmine as she closes in a new beau, Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) vs. the shortly thereafter scene of her in a state of complete disassociation on the park bench. So many moods and motivations make for a rich playing field by Blanchett, and she makes great work of it; a well-earned Oscar award for best actress.

There is great acting by Blanchett,  good acting by Hawkins, even fairly good acting by Andrew Dice Clay as Gingers ex-husband, Augie and some unusual casting with Louis CK as Ginger’s back-up boyfriend. But the story itself lacks the emotional crescendo and impact of “Streetcar” even as it seems to take so much of its early storyline. This is a fairly good story with great acting, worth seeing for Blanchett’s acting alone.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas

2012

Drama/Science Fiction

5 Stars out of 5

I watched this movie, read the book, viewed the movie a second time (with close captioning this time) and still have several points that remain unclear to me. To say that either the book or the movie is complicated is quite an understatement. Yet, I find both to be as compelling and artistic an endeavor as I have experienced in the past decade.

The book (2004, David Mitchell) and movie are both structured in six parts just like the symphony that plays a central role in the second part of the six part story. However, the book tells the first half of each of the six parts moving forward in time from the Chatham Islands in the mid-19^th century to the early part of the 20^th century in England and Belgium for part two, to the Bay Area during the 1970’s, on to the early 21^st century England for part four, to mid-22nd century neo-Seoul, and finally to the mid-23rd century Hawaiian Islands. The book then turns around and finishes the second half of each story working back in time to mid-19^th century San Francisco.

The movie in stark contrast takes each of the six parts and very cleverly uses editing to correlate the various key points in each story arc with the other six arcs. This is a brilliant editing decision by writer/directors Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, but it certainly requires the viewer to pay close attention to each story. The Wachowskis and Tykwer have two central themes to their version of the Mitchell story: the oppression by the strong of the weak, and the multi-century, enduring linkage of love between two souls. The writer/directors amplify this last point by using a comet-like (i.e. a shooting star) tattoo on the lovers even as they change race, sexual orientation and gender over the centuries in their various incarnations. In short, the movie really boils down to a love story between two star-crossed souls. It is beautifully told and acted.

The manner in which it is acted is another tool the writers/directors use to reinforce the multi-generational link between the two principle characters: Tom Hanks sometimes as the villain, but by the 70’s only as one of the two lovers; Halle Berry in minor roles in the first two stories, but again by the 70’s, only in the role of hero; Hugo Weaving is always a villain, but most effectively as Ole Georgie on the Big Island. There are very notable appearances by Doona Bae as Sonmi-451 in neo-Seoul, as well as Jim Sturgess as her lover Hae-Joo Chang. Several other actors play various forms of good, bad (Hugh Grant is notable), or minor. In general, you witness Hanks, Berry, Sturgess and Bae as one of the two lovers, and in these roles, always fighting the good fight for the weak and oppressed. Conversely, you see Weaving and Grant only in the role of the oppressor.

Thus, the editing, the use of the comet and star metaphors (consider also a Cloud Atlas is a map of the stars - once thought to be unchanging), and the casting meld brilliantly to evoke the image of constants through human history: the good and often weak vs. the always strong, bullying type of bad character. Others have tried to find some character growth across the story lines (e.g. Hanks’ evil Dr. Henry Goose next appearing as the noble Isaac Sachs), but I think this an artificial outcome of the casting decision, and not only not the point, actually contrary to the point. I think rather, the authors believe good is good, and most definitely, bad is bad.

A final note with respect to the book vs. movie: not only are the two structured differently, but also their main themes are quite different. The movie goes for the everlasting love theme coupled with the bully problem, but the book delves far more deeply and with a much more pessimistic view into the destruction of the Earth by Man. The movie has Meronym (Berry) refer to the fact that her group of people known as the Prescients are doomed if they do not receive rescue from the Stars (that is to say off-world colonies), but it is hardly more than a plot point in the movie. In the book, there are no off-world colonies, no rescue for Meronym, no salvation for Man or the Earth. It is a far more dark view of the consequences of climate change and “bully”- originated war and corporate rapacity.

This movie stands with very few others for me as 5 Star movie. It is indeed complicated and requires very careful attention (and cc), but it is one of very few worth the effort.

Man of Steel

Man of Steel

2013

Science Fiction

3.5 stars out of 5

Man of Steel is an interesting re-boot of the Superman franchise. Co-written by Christopher Nolan (Memento and the recent Batman/Dark Knight trilogy), one can both appreciate Nolan’s expertise at writing and also his darker vision of the various comic book heroes making their way onto the big screen. I like his dark vision and find his angst-ridden heroes much more interesting to watch in the movie format than the more comic book-like versions envisioned by others.

Nolan writes his characters as if they were real people that just happen to also be super heroes. Without taking anything away from the 1978 Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve version of Superman (which I also liked), Nolan, co-writer David Goyer and director Zach Snyder have created a tale that makes far more sense (as if that were necessary) of Superman’s origins, his lost world of Krypton, and both sets of his parents and their foe/ally General Zod.

Act one opens with the young Superman-to-be, Clark Kent being parented by Jonathan and  Martha Kent (David Costner and Diane Lane). Told in flashback mode during significant events in his future, we learn of the upbringing by a remarkably wise and prescient  Jonathan. In the movie’s most moving and significant scene, we watch Jonathan stop young Clark with an upraised hand – saving the secret of Clark’s super powers , but at the cost of Jonathan’s life. And tragically this occurs just after a family quarrel between Clark and Jonathan. Clark takes this heritage of love and sacrifice into adulthood: still wondering who his natural parents were/are, why did they send him away, and having learned of the space craft he arived in as a baby, wondering whether he is even human or not - pretty heavy baggage for your average teen.

Clark (Henry Cavill) struggles for awhile as a young adult. He continues as an adult the various acts of heroism he started as a child, saving those in need of saving; and doing this despite the risk of revealing to the world his existence. This remains a secret he carries with some difficulty. He eventually finds another Kryptonian spaceship and via its on-board computer and a special artifact that orignally arrived with him as a baby, he learns of his natural parents (Russel Crowe plays his father, Jor-el), their devotion to and love for him, and significantly their world view of hope; hope despite the desperate peril of their times. They place both this boon of love and knowledge on Clark/Superman, but also a very heavy burden of responsibility towards the people of Earth, and to the heritage of the kinder, gentler souls of lost Krypton.

The above must seem like a good case of over-anaylsis of a comic book story, but it was genuinely the way the first two thirds of the movie affected and informed me. Of course, there’s always that final third of such a movie. That final third is why I give this movie three and half stars instead of the five I contemplated watching the early parts of the movie. A General Zod on a mission shows up, and in a profoundingly unsettling way, we watch Zod and Superman literally destroy New York City/Metropolis in a very disconerting, building collapsing manner. It goes on forever. I get it – it’s a comic book story and the movie-makers had a gigantic FX budget.  Still such a disappointing conclusion to what was in the beginning a very intelligently written and acted (Crowe in particular) story.

As just noted, Russel Crowe brings some significant acting to his protrayal as Jor-El, Michael Shannon does quite good job at making Zod a real person with a real motivation for what he does. Amy Adams plays Lois Lane in a fairly throw-away fashion for someone of her acting caliber. This is in the final act a very violent movie. Adults that like comic book science fiction will enjoy the end, adults that like believable people with real emotions and motivations will enjoy the first two thirds.

Captain Phillips

Captain Philips

2013

Drama

3.5 stars out of 5

As the news of the actual Captain Phillips’ rescue by the US Navy and their team of Seals reached America, like most of America, I rejoiced. The bad guys were beaten, and the good guy rescued. And all done with the expert precision we all hope for from our most elite team of warriors. I later read a little more about the pirate problem in Somalia and had to some small degree, a slight variation of thought on the issue. That is to say, I learned of the over-fishing of the seas adjacent to Somalia, and the few choices left to their former fishermen.

In Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) we see Captain Phillips and his wife (Catherine Keener) living their life in New England, their concerns about their son, their anxiety over the long separations due to his job, the long drive to airport: modern middle-class America. The movie then quickly and somewhat jarringly switches to the life in Somalia of Muse (Barkhad Abdi).  Muse lives in a former fishing village, now an armed camp that is under the rule of a local warlord that according to the movie forces the former fishermen, now pirates into the ship hijacking trade in order to enrich the warlord’s coffers. The comparison could not be less subtle.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, the movie quickly moves to sea. Captain Phillips’ ship the Maersk Alabama leaves the Horn of Africa to deliver food for refugees in Kenya. To get there they must traverse the Somali coast and Muse’s village. He commands a small team of four, and is determined to get a big cargo ship, enrich himself, and somewhat ironically move to America. We learn most of this after Muse and his team do capture the Maersk Alabama only to quickly abandon it with Captain Phillips in tow as a hostage.

Greengrass depicts the capture, and the machinations of Captain Phillips as a very clever cat and mouse game played almost exclusively by Captain Phillips. Due to the circumstances of his capture, he must delude Muse and his team in such a deceptive manner that they never know they are being manipulated. He manages to set the stage where they must abandon the ship in one of the lifeboats, but they do so with Captain Phillips as a prisoner. Shortly thereafter, the US Navy arrives on the scene, and the real psycho-drama between Phillips, Muse and his team starts. We are able to watch through Acts 2 and 3 Captain Phillips’ progress from a strong leader to a clever prisoner to a shrunken and temporarily broken husk of his former self.

Greengrass impressed me considerably with his previous movie United 93 (another hostage movie where the hostages do not let the terrorists stay in charge), and he does so again with this story. The only source of trouble for this movie is that there is not too much to tell beyond the actual facts of the story. Other than the rescue of Captain Phillips and the horrific state of his mind at that point, there was only the more nuanced discussion between Muse and Captain Phillips, wherein after learning from Muse that he and his team were all former fisherman, Captain Phillips states there must be some other options besides fisherman and pirate, Muse replys, “maybe in America, but not in Somalia”. A pretty sobering situation, and while I am the last person to paint terrorists or criminals as “victims” in any particular crime, there is still some room for further thought on the condition of the Somali pirates/fishermen. Also sobering is the near poverty of the actual Somalis used in the movie as they live their lives after the movie.

The movie is a brisk action movie with some social commentary, fine acting by Hanks and suprisingly also by newcomer Abdi; a pretty good movie for the adult viewer.

Gravity

Gravity

2013

Science Fiction/Drama

4.5 stars out of 5

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity can like much of fine fiction be enjoyed on multiple levels. The first and most striking is of course the amazing cinematography and technical/artistic skills (editing, sound editing, lighting, special effects, and score) that went into this production. From the opening shot in low Earth orbit, the camera glides toward a bright spot on the horizon that slowly resolves into close-ups of two astronauts working alongside a space shuttle, and then even closer to the faces of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. We’ll be seeing more of Bullock’s face as the movie progesses. The artistry in writing and directing such a long pan have been seen before, even from Cuarón (see "Children of Men", 2006), but in this case, the pan is achieved with a remarkable degree of brilliance.

The movie can also be watched for the play of emotions across Bullock’s face as she portrays Dr. Ryan Stone. Not just the terror and fear that infect her, but also the remembered pain of a lost child. The inner turmoil in the Stone character is subtle at times during the various quiet moments of the movie, but glaringingly obvious during her most desparate moments of despair.

The story line is a simple and oft repeated one: a team of individuals is lost in space (or at sea, or in the desert, or jungle), and has to fight their way to salvation, both physical and spiritual. Bullock as the neophyte astronaut, Stone is joined in this journey by George Clooney as Matt Kowalski, a experienced and mature astronaut. After the destruction of their space shuttle and loss of all other life, the movie follows Stone and Kowalski through their heroic attempts to save themselves.

The story can also be watched as an allegory about Man in Nature vs. Technological Man. For all but the final beautiful shots along a shoreline, we see Bullock and Clooney surrounded by much of  the technology that Man can muster in the early twenty-first century, but also by the yawning and uncaring void of space. They are in a place where it requires all of man’s ingenuity to surive, and where at any given moment they are seconds away from death. When our hero does reach that shoreline, and we hear the birds singing, see the grass growing and the previously black, but now blue sky, you can strongly sense an argument that this is where Man is supposed to be; at home on the planet on which he has evolved.

That last scene plus one earlier on during Stone’s self-rescue are pivotal, in terms of gaining an appreciation of what the writer/director Cuarón and his writer son Jonás Cuarón have as an overall message: the “delivery” or rescue of Man as viewed via the allegory of birth. There are multiple birthing images as Stone moves down tunnel-like parts of the various space vehicles she enters, viewed alongside panoramic  views of Mother Earth. The most clear images are those where the Cuaróns use a scene of Stone in a fetal-like position with a single umbilical-like hose floating around her, followed later with her emersion from a watery environment, to crawl, to stumble, and then walk on dry land.

To me then, the story can be used in these somewhat more subtle interpretations as a revisit to the old Luddite argument against technology or the pride of Man (i.e. if God had wanted Man to fly, he would have given us wings); that is to say Man is not evolved for Space, thus he does not belong there, and by going there, he is an affront to the normal functioning of the universe. Or and I favor this interpretation more, that the birthing images are clever metaphorical tools for describing a deliverance of/to our stricken hero.

A final note: as a scientist I always watch such movies with a skeptical eye for mistakes. Many have commented already on the massive differences in orbital height for the ISS (International Space Station) and the Hubble telescope, and consequent need for a rather large change in velocity to get from one to the other. And I have to agree, this part bothers me, as well as the apparent fact that the offending satellite whose destruction causes all the havoc is apparently in the same orbit as the Hubble, the space shuttle, the ISS, and the Chinese space station. Rather convenient for the story, but considering the overall artistry of the movie, these are objections that I will pocket. This movie is a must see for every adult.